I once heard that on a full-moon night a few friends gathered in a tavern. They drank late into the night. When the wine took over and they began to dance, someone looked up and saw the full moon sailing across the sky. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to go boating on the river?” he said. Off they went to the riverbank. The boatmen had already moored their boats and gone. The friends clambered into one boat, lifted the oars, and began to row. They rowed and rowed, they toiled and toiled, all through the night.
When the chill breeze of dawn rose and the intoxication thinned, someone said, “Who knows how far we’ve come, and in what direction? Someone get down and have a look.” One man stepped ashore, burst out laughing, and called, “All of you come down too! We haven’t gone anywhere. We stood right here all night!”
The boat was exactly where they had found it. Astonished, they wondered what had become of their night-long labor. On stepping down they discovered the chains were still fastened to the stake on the bank. They had forgotten to untie them.
They were drunk—such a mistake can happen. But the same mistake is made by those who are not drunk. In truth, intoxications are many. Some are visible; some are not. Those who make this mistake without wine are also in some invisible inebriation. There is the intoxication of caste, of society, of nation, of religion. Many are the stupors that leave a person unconscious—and then he blunders in ways that halt life, that rob it of movement. The boats we board never arrive anywhere.
Commonly, the day we are born, we sit in the boat of life. By the time of death most people find themselves where they were at birth. No journey happens. Between birth and death we pull hard at the oars; we labor, we bustle and run—but we get nowhere. At the hour of dying it is not as if we can say we have arrived. Perhaps, disembarking then and looking, one finds what the friends found—that the stake, the chains, remained tied.
Today I want to speak of some of those chains because of which the soul’s boat cannot reach the ocean of the divine, but stalls, stands still. Despite effort, despite rowing, no growth comes.
What are the things that arrest a person’s boat?
The first, a great chain for the boat, is this: without knowing, people accept that God exists—or, without knowing, they accept that God does not exist. Without knowing, they believe He is; without knowing, they believe He is not. Both are the same foolishness. To believe without knowing is wrong; to deny without knowing is also wrong. Yet we are divided between these two unawarenesses. And what we accept without knowing—our search for that ends; what we deny without knowing—our search for that also ends. The search can only be for that which we do not wish to believe, but wish to know. Belief is death; knowing is life. Belief is a halt; knowing is a journey, a movement. All believers come to a stop. All kinds of believers, all kinds of devotees come to a stop.
Faiths are of two kinds. The theist’s faith is a belief in “yes”; the atheist’s faith is a belief in “no.” But both are believers. And the religious person has nothing to do with being a believer. The religious person is not a believer—he is a seeker. He is not faithful; he is an inquirer. He refuses to stop with a belief until he knows. Until he reaches the ocean of knowing, he will not tie his boat to the stake of belief on the shore. He will go on. But so far we have thought the believers are the religious.
A believer is not religious, cannot be. Belief means we have accepted as true that which we do not know. This is the beginning of blindness. This is the way we make ourselves blind.
Yet we have been continually taught: believe—if you want to find God. So many believed, and so few found God! Everyone believes—one way or the other—then why is God not available to more? For thousands of years the earth has believed, yet no clear glimpse of the divine descends into life. How many temples! How many mosques! How many gurudwaras! So much worship, so much recitation, so much prayer, so much belief! And yet why is the earth not religious? The life of the earth is irreligious. What has happened? What is the reason?
There is one reason: life moves by knowing; belief remains a dream, it never becomes truth. Beliefs cannot be converted into truth. If you want to know the truth, beliefs must be dropped.
I do not say “be disbelievers,” because disbelief is belief inverted. Neither belief nor disbelief—whoever is willing to stand in between, in that person’s life the ray of knowing descends. Tie your boat neither to the stake of belief nor to the stake of disbelief; neither to the Hindu’s stake, nor the Muslim’s, nor the Jain’s, nor the Christian’s, nor the Sikh’s. Tie it to none. Say: we will push our boat out onto the infinite ocean; we will not moor to anyone’s stake. Such a person succeeds in reaching the divine.
And the irony is this: those whom the Hindus sing of are precisely those who reached the divine without being tied to any stake. Those whom the Muslims praise are precisely those who reached the divine without bondage to any stake. Those whom the Sikhs honor—again, those who were not bound to any stake. While they sailed into the open sea, we sit on the shore and pound stakes in their names.
Kabir has said:
“Those who sought found, diving into deep water. I, the witless one, went to seek and stayed sitting on the shore.”
Someone asked, “Why stay seated on the shore?” Kabir said:
“Those who sought found, diving into deep water. I, poor fool, was afraid to drown—and stayed sitting on the shore.”
Whoever fears to drown will clutch at stakes, will grasp supports. And whoever fears to drown cannot reach the divine. For only the one who sinks, rises; only the one who sinks, arrives; only the one who sinks, attains. Here, if you want to be saved, you must drown. In religion, salvation lies in drowning; if you want to be saved from religion, then sitting on the shore holding onto stakes is very useful.
The stakes may be very old—but age does not make a stake any less a stake. The stake may be brand new—but being new does not stop it from being a stake. Old or new, a stake only binds. Religion is not a stake; religion is freedom. Therefore a religious person is neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Sikh. A religious person is simply religious.
I went to see the Golden Temple; some friends took me. They told me, “Here the doors are open for Christians, Hindus, Muslims—all.”
I said, “Don’t say that. In saying it you affirm Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian as separate. Just say, ‘The doors are open for human beings.’ That is enough.” Even such recognition—that it is open to Hindus and Muslims and Christians—is the same old story. Closed or open—so long as the divisions are affirmed, it is the same.
When will we raise temples on this earth where being human is enough, where no labels apply? We haven’t yet. A thousand times the attempt is made—by a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ, a Nanak—to build such a temple. But we are such madmen that we pound stakes even into that temple. We occupy it. We make it “someone’s.” And once it becomes someone’s, it ceases to be God’s. To be God’s, it must belong to no one; only then can it belong to all. When it becomes someone’s, it no longer belongs to all. The very moment we grant recognition to divisions, the mistake is made.
Recently in Ahmedabad some Harijan friends came to meet me. They said, “When Gandhi-ji came he would stay in Harijan homes. Why don’t you stay with us Harijans?”
I said, “I can stay in your home, but not in a ‘Harijan’ home. Even to grant you that recognition—that you are Harijan and I will stay with you because you are Harijan—is injustice, irreligion, wrong. One says, ‘You are Harijan; I will not touch you’—he recognizes you as Harijan. Another says, ‘You are Harijan; I will stay with you’—he too recognizes you as Harijan. I can stay at your home, but not as at a Harijan’s. Being human is enough.”
We don’t see this. If Hindu and Muslim fight, they are two—enemies, yet two. Another says, “No, no—Hindu and Muslim are brothers.” Still two. The one who says “brothers” also doesn’t see one; the one who incites doesn’t see one. Only one who says, “How are you a Hindu? How are you a Muslim? You are none of these,” can see one. To be human is the truth; all else is teaching imposed from outside. These teachings have erected stakes, and the birth of a religious person has become difficult.
How to bring a religious person into being—let me offer a few pointers.
First, understand well that religion is not a subject like other subjects. There are many kinds of learning in the world; religion is not one of them. For anything else you want to learn, you will have to learn from someone. Religion alone is the kind of knowing that, if you want to learn, you must avoid learning from another—otherwise you will be in difficulty. In truth, religion does not admit the other. Religion alone is learned only by oneself; there is no scope for learning it from someone else. There are reasons. Truth is not transferable; it cannot be passed from one hand to another. In this world, everything else can be handed over; only the knowing of religion cannot. If handed over, it becomes stale and borrowed. And once borrowed, it becomes worse than ignorance.
Ignorance has one grace: ignorance is humble. Borrowed knowledge carries a danger: it fills with ego. And the marvel is that the moment knowledge arises from within, ego departs as darkness departs at sunrise. When knowing blossoms from within, ego is nowhere to be found; but borrowed knowledge strengthens the ego, hardens it, creates a heavy, rigid thing inside. That hardened ego becomes the barrier to meeting the divine.
Religion is never obtained from another. This does not mean the other is useless. When a Buddha walks among us, he cannot give us knowledge; when a Nanak passes singing among us, he cannot give us knowledge—but the presence of a Buddha or a Nanak can awaken our thirst. Knowledge cannot be given; thirst can be awakened. Seeing them, we may remember that what happened to them could happen to us.
Thus, in the realm of religion the knower is not a giver of knowledge—he is an awakener of thirst. But once thirst is awakened, the well must be dug within, and the water must be found within—no one else can give it. If it could be given, one enlightened one would have given it to all. And they would have, for they are full of compassion. But it cannot be given.
All knowers die with a sweet ache—not for themselves, but for others—because what has happened to them they long to share; yet it will not transmit. They try to give—but it changes in the giving. The experience remains within; only words reach the other. And the meaning of words? Meaning is not decided by the speaker; it is decided by the one who hears.
That is why there are a thousand commentaries on the Gita. Surely Krishna wasn’t out of his mind to mean a thousand different things. A man like Krishna means something precise. But there are a thousand commentaries. From where did these meanings come? Not from Krishna. They are the meanings of the thousand commentators. When we read the Gita, it is not Krishna’s Gita we read—we pour our own meaning into it. It is we who are in it. To this day, there is no way to read Krishna’s Gita without becoming like Krishna. Otherwise we will project ourselves.
Therefore I say: do not cling to scripture forgetting this. In scripture your own image will be reflected, and nothing else. In scripture we only read ourselves. Hence two people read one scripture and draw two meanings.
One night it so happened: Buddha gave a discourse in an assembly. Afterward, as he did daily, he said to his monks, “Now go—attend to the last work of the night.” A thief happened to be present. When Buddha said, “Go, attend to your night’s work,” the thief rose and said, “It’s late—time for work.” A courtesan was also there. Hearing the same words, she said, “How much time I’ve wasted—customers may have gone back!” And the monks rose and went to meditate, for their last task of the night was to meditate and then sleep. The courtesan went to open her shop, the thief to his trade, the monks to meditation—each having heard the same words: “Go, attend to your night’s work.”
Who gives meaning? We do. Reading scripture, truth will not be found; you will meet only yourself. Truth comes by another journey—by losing yourself. Scriptures become mirrors, and we only see ourselves. Thus the Muslim reading the Quran draws one meaning; the Hindu reading it, another. The Vedas—when read by a believer, one meaning; by a non-believer, another. The meanings are ours. And if our meanings were the truth, what need for the Vedas at all? We would already be the truth.
No, things will not do as we are—we must dissolve. No scripture can dissolve us. We make scriptures our ornaments. Learn ten scriptures and your ego is stronger. It is hard to find anyone more arrogant than the pundit. Whoever imagines he knows, falls into great trouble. The arrogance of knowing is the deepest arrogance in this world. That is why pundits forever lead people into conflict. The wars on this earth have not been because of simple ignorants; behind them are always false knowers. The ignorant get caught in their swirl and fight. All the fighting is sown by false knowledge, because it is stuffed with ego.
No, religion is not a knowledge won from books. Religion is known by losing oneself. To learn mathematics you need not erase yourself; to study history you need not erase yourself; to study science, to be an engineer or a doctor, you need not erase yourself. But to enter the realm of religion you must be ready to lose yourself.
I heard a story. In Greece there was once a great sculptor. His fame reached distant lands. People said, “If his statue stands beside the living person he has sculpted, if the man holds his breath, it is hard to tell who is original and who is stone.” When death neared, the sculptor thought, “Why not deceive death?” He crafted eleven perfect statues of himself and hid among them. Death entered, saw twelve identical figures, and was in a fix: she had come for one; there were twelve—whom to take? Which was real? She returned to God and said, “I’m in difficulty—there are twelve just the same. How to find the real one?”
God whispered a single clue into her ear. “Remember this always. Whenever you must find the real one, use it. It is the trick.”
Death returned, entered the room, looked over the statues, and said, “The statues are exquisitely made—only one mistake remains.”
The sculptor blurted, “What mistake?”
Death said, “Only this: you cannot forget yourself. Step out! God told me: he who cannot forget himself must die; he who forgets himself cannot be slain—he attains immortality.”
Religion is forgetting oneself, because religion is the attainment of the immortal. But how shall we forget ourselves? We remember ourselves twenty-four hours a day. We adorn and arrange ourselves from every side. We build high stone walls to secure ourselves, so no blow may strike, so we may not be diminished even a little. Our whole life’s arrangements are arrangements to save this “me.” And when we go to God’s door, it is to seek service for this “me.” Someone wants a job, he goes; someone wants wealth, he goes; someone wants a child, he goes; someone wants a disease cured, he goes; someone wants to win the lottery, he goes. We go to God’s door to save the “me.” We intend to employ even God in our service. Our ego is astonishing—we would put God Himself to work. We even say, “Do this for us and we will believe in You,” as if He were so hungry for our belief that He would serve us a little.
We go to God’s door to make ourselves—and thus we never arrive at His door. We end up at false doors—man-made doors—and take them for God’s, and return. The true door of the divine stands where it is written: You cannot enter with yourself. Leave yourself outside and then come in.
In Bengal I saw a little village play. A fakir goes on pilgrimage to Vrindavan. He has nothing—only a small bag with a change of clothes and a few utensils. When he reaches the temple gate, the guard says, “Stop—nothing may be carried inside.” So he leaves his bag outside. “Now I can enter,” he says. The gatekeeper replies, “Bring your bag if you like—it’s no problem. Leave yourself outside. You cannot enter with yourself.”
In truth, His door has one condition—and it is the condition of losing yourself. Knowledge taken from others strengthens the self; it does not dissolve it. Even renunciation and austerity can fortify the ego rather than undo it. Someone fasts; someone stands on his head; someone lies on thorns—their egos toughen. The seeker, the ascetic, the sannyasin—their egos become dense. They live under that dense shadow and think God should come to them. They are not ready to go to God. They even impose conditions on God: “Appear in this form!” The Hindu imposes his form; the Muslim his; the Jain his; the Christian his. We are not willing to accept God in His own form. We are very extraordinary people—there is no limit to our extraordinary ways. And we call all this “religion,” thinking that through these things we will someday attain truth or God. We are mistaken.
A second point: religion will not come from the scriptures; it will come from oneself. Though once it comes from oneself, scriptures may be born. But by going through scriptures, truth will not be found; by finding truth, scriptures may be created. Whoever finds truth wants to tell others what happened to him—even while knowing words cannot say it.
A dumb man, too, if he tastes a sweet, wants to shout with joy. But if you catch hold of his incoherent sounds and go home and make the same sounds, expecting sweets—you are in error.
Scriptures are the uproar of those who tasted the sweetness and fell dumb. They tried mightily to speak, but could not. Not because they were weak in speech, but because speech itself is powerless to reveal truth.
Lao Tzu wrote a little book. His first sentence is astonishing: “First of all, let me say: what I am going to say, I will not be able to say. Second, do not cling to what I do say—what I wished to say was one thing; what I have managed to say is another.”
Tagore lay dying. A friend came and said, “You must be leaving satisfied—you have attained all a man can attain. You are a great poet; you wrote six thousand songs. In Europe they call Shelley a great poet—he wrote only two thousand. You wrote six thousand! All can be set to music! Perhaps no greater poet has walked the earth. You must be fulfilled.”
But tears rolled from Tagore’s eyes. He said, “No, what I wanted to sing I have not yet sung. These six thousand are attempts that failed. I tried and could not succeed. What I wanted to sing remains within—and the time to go has come! With closed eyes I am telling God: I had only tuned the instrument; I had not yet sung—and the time to go has come! And then I think—even if I were to have infinite births, I would only tune the instrument; I would never be able to sing. For that which is worthy of song always eludes capture. It will not be seized by word or note or color; not by any line. It is infinite, boundless—how can it be contained?”
No, books cannot capture it. No one ever has. I am not saying, “Throw away the books.” I am only saying: even the books reveal that what was trying to be said could not be said. All scriptures point to one thing: the unsaid remains; it was not expressed. All hints say: the unexpressed has yet to be revealed. Human speech is too small. That vastness will not fit. We cry aloud; we try to manifest it—yet it remains unmanifest.
Therefore I tell you: the Lord can be known, not said. No religious scripture can ever truly be written, nor has one been, nor will one be. There is no scripture such that, by knowing it, you would know religion. But if you know religion, you will understand all scriptures. If you know religion, the secret of all scriptures will open: you will see that those who attained became dumb; they shouted and shouted, but only sounds came—the saying did not happen. What they wanted to say escaped.
Know religion—and you will understand scripture; understand scripture—and you will not understand religion. Keep this well in mind; otherwise scripture becomes a stake.
Another stake to beware of: if you imagine that just as you attained wealth, status, fame, you will similarly attain the Lord—you fall into error. Wealth is an achievement of ego; so is status, so is fame. God cannot be reached by that path. He is not an achievement of ego—He is the loss of ego. The two are opposed.
Therefore, the way we get things in the world is not the way we can get the truth. But naturally, we try to apply our worldly habits to God. We think: “How did I attain in life? I will attain God the same way.” There a great mistake is made. Beware of it.
If you wish to find Him, decide at least one thing: you will have to lose yourself. Without losing yourself there is no path. When the river loses itself, it becomes the ocean; when the seed loses itself, it becomes a tree; when a man loses himself, he becomes divine. Losing does not destroy; losing only dissolves smallness. Losing erases limits. Losing removes meanness. Losing does not annihilate; through losing, one truly becomes.
But this is our difficulty. Suppose a seed decides, “I will rot rather than risk.” The seed can save itself—but then the tree cannot be. And if the tree never is, the life of the seed will weep forever. We too are such seeds saving ourselves. Nanak, Kabir, Farid—these are seeds who consented to lose themselves; they became trees. Now thousands can rest in their shade. We are seeds under whose shade nothing can be, who can only rot. A seed that does not become a tree can only decay—what else? For the seed there are only two paths: become a tree—or rot.
We rot. What we call life is a long process of rotting. A child only grows old—nothing else happens. Day by day he grows old and we keep saying, “Life! Life!” Day by day we die, and nothing else occurs. From yesterday to today, what did you do? You died twenty-four hours more. From birth to death we do not live—we only die. But because the span is long, we do not realize that what we call life is a slow death, a gradual dying. The one-day-old infant has died one day; the two-day-old, two days. A seventy-year-old has died seventy years. The sand has run out. Finished.
I heard of a king who one night dreamed. In the darkness a shadow stood with a hand on his shoulder. He turned, terrified. “Who are you?”
The shadow said, “You do not recognize me yet? Since you are afraid, I know you do—I have come many times, but you keep forgetting! In truth, we try to forget what frightens us—but nothing is erased by forgetting. I am your death. I came to tell you: tonight, at sunset, meet me at the place and at the exact time. Do not make me search for you here and there.”
The king wanted to ask, “Which place?”—not to go there, but to be sure he wouldn’t go there by mistake. But he asked it so loudly that he woke up, and the dream vanished. Now he was in trouble. It was midnight. He summoned his ministers and sent word throughout the town: “Bring anyone who can interpret dreams—quickly!”
They came running. The pundits gathered—with their scriptures. A pundit has nothing but scriptures. Not intelligence—scriptures. They opened their books and busied themselves in interpretation.
Morning came; the sun rose. The king said, “How long will this take? The sun is up! And how long does it take a risen sun to set? In one sense, once it rises it has begun to set. Hurry—what does the dream mean?”
The pundits said, “Such haste is not possible. First we must conduct a debate, parse every word. This is not easy.”
The arguments grew. By midday the confusion was worse. When he first awoke, the dream had seemed somewhat clear. Listening to the pundits, everything became muddled. “When I woke I saw something clearly; after hearing you I am more confused.”
His old servant whispered in his ear, “It is noon; the sun is already descending, and these men’s talking has never ended in a thousand years—how will it end by evening? Remember: pundits never reach a conclusion. Experience reaches conclusions. They never will. Evening will come and you will be in trouble. My advice, if you will take it: you have a fast horse—mount and leave this palace as swiftly as you can. This palace is not safe. Here the dream came. Danger is that death will come here.”
The king liked the advice. “Let me flee anywhere. The earth is vast. I will hardly arrive at the very spot where death awaits. At least I will leave this house where the dream came.”
He mounted and fled on his swift horse. Many times he had told his wife, “I cannot live a single day without you.” But as he galloped, he did not even remember her. Death makes us forget all promises. He had told his friends, “You are everything.” No trace of them now. When death approaches, all is lost. He raced on. That day he felt neither hunger nor thirst—these are luxuries of life. With death before you, what hunger? what thirst? He thought, “If I pause even a moment, I will be that much closer to the palace. Today I will not eat—what harm?”
By evening he was hundreds of miles away. He had a fast horse. He entered a garden and stopped under a mango tree. The sun was setting. He patted his horse. “Bravo! Today you alone proved my friend. You brought me so far. In so little time such a journey—how to thank you?” A hand fell on his shoulder—the same dark shadow. “Give thanks for the horse to me as well,” it said. “I was very worried whether you would reach this tree by sunset. This is the very place you must die. Your swift horse brought you exactly on time. Such a fine horse—how shall I thank it?”
Where does a man reach after running all his life—except death? What does he build—except a grave? What does he accumulate—except a tomb? What is the final accounting of a lifetime’s cunning? We cannot call this “life.” Religion does not. Religion calls it only a long process of dying. The poor man’s horse arrives at the same tree; the rich man’s horse arrives there too. Some ride in style; some ride poor nags; some go on foot; some fly in aeroplanes. But all find their tree—and all arrive exactly on time.
Where do we arrive after walking a lifetime?
No—religion says what we call life is not life. What we call life is only the occasion for life to be born, an opportunity. What we call life is a seed out of which life can grow—but it has not yet. Who will grow it? Only the seed that consents to die. But we are all busy trying to save ourselves. We save and save—and death catches us at last.
Religion says the path is the reverse: prepare to die; prepare to dissolve—and death will never catch you. You will attain the nectar of immortality. The tree of life can grow outside this seed.
Therefore the essence of religion is the killing of the ego. This has nothing to do with Hindu or Muslim or Sikh or Jain or Christian. The fundamental formula of religion is the death of “I.” How can I be erased? How can I come to an end? How can I lose myself?
It is difficult—what could be more difficult than losing oneself? But it is also simple—for in losing oneself there is such bliss, and in saving oneself such misery.
The night before Jesus was crucified, he knew. A friend said, “Why don’t you run? You know they will crucify you in the morning. Time still remains—flee!”
Jesus said, “Without the cross, how will the gate of the divine open? Only on the cross will I find Him. Only if I die will I reach. I will not flee the cross—I await it.”
Then he hung on the cross. Now his priests wear golden crosses around their necks. What a joke! Crosses are not of gold. And on crosses, the neck is hung; crosses are not hung on the neck. But man is such a trickster—he will deceive Jesus, Nanak, Buddha, Krishna—he deceives everyone. “A cross?” he says. “Of course! One should hang on a cross? Fine—we will hang a golden cross on our neck.”
A golden cross is not a cross—it is an ornament. With the golden cross he struts, “I am not an ordinary man. I am a priest of Jesus.” Poor Jesus had to carry a wooden cross on his shoulder. One must carry one’s own cross. He had to set it up and hang upon it. And as he was dying, he who had ordered his crucifixion, Pilate, asked Jesus one question—a question you too may ask yourself when you die. Blessed are those who ask it while living, for after that there is no time to work. Pilate asked, “Tell me before you die—what is truth?” Jesus remained silent and lifted his eyes to the cross. Pilate did not understand. Jesus had said: hang on the cross and you will know. There is no other way to know truth. But Pilate didn’t get it. “Won’t you answer?” he said. “It seems you don’t know.” In fact, to understand an answer given in silence requires great capacity. Jesus smiled and again looked to the cross. Pilate said, “Very well—give him the cross. Perhaps he does not know what truth is.”
Jesus could have quoted the Vedas; he could have cited scripture. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what had been said about truth. But saying is not the point. Truth is a matter of experience—and experience comes only when you stake yourself. Before that, it does not come. Thus the religious person is the greatest adventurer in this world—none more daring.
But whom do we call religious? Those who look weak, kneeling, hands folded. That is not the face of the religious—that is the face of one trying to get something from God. A cunning, calculating mind: “Please settle our business—and we’ll offer a coconut worth a few cents.”
Such madness! We intend to bribe even God. If there is so much bribery in our land, one reason is that we have long been in the habit of bribing God. We thought: if a coconut of a few cents can get a job of a million done with God, why not give a small note to a man and get our way? Bribery has entered our blood because we have not hesitated to bribe even God.
Vivekananda was in great poverty. When his father died he left debts. Vivekananda would often wander hungry. At home there was food enough for either his mother or him. He would tell his mother, “I’m invited to a friend’s house today,” so she would eat. He would roam the streets hungry, drink water, and sleep.
Ramakrishna found out. He said, “Fool! In such trouble, why don’t you ask God? Come tomorrow—go into the temple and ask the Mother, ask Kali, with folded hands. All sorrow will vanish.”
Vivekananda said, “If you say so, I will go.”
He went into the temple. He stood with folded hands for an hour; tears flowed. He came out. Ramakrishna asked on the steps, “Did you ask?”
“Ah!” said Vivekananda. “I forgot!”
“Go again,” said Ramakrishna.
He went again, stood, wept, returned. “Did you ask?”
“That—I forgot again.”
“Go a third time,” said Ramakrishna.
“I will forget the third time as well,” Vivekananda replied. “I cannot even imagine going to God to ask for bread. I cannot think it.”
“What do you do there?” Ramakrishna asked. “What do you ask if not bread?”
“I ask nothing,” Vivekananda said. “Asking itself is wrong. I go and say: Take me. Accept me. Efface me. Hold me. There I do not ask—I offer: Take me somehow, dissolve me somehow, let only You remain.”
“Then why do you weep?” Ramakrishna asked.
“I weep because perhaps the prayer is not rising from my whole depth; otherwise it would be received. Perhaps some defense remains in me, so it is not accepted.”
There is no complaint—even here he only feels: perhaps the voice is not total; otherwise it would be accepted.
We must die. We must pray to be erased. We must fall at His gate, end ourselves. Stop saving this “I.” Stop making this “I.” Bring to heart the meditation of dissolving this “I.” Then religion can explode in your life. And when I say it will happen only with your dissolving—not before—I am saying nothing new, nothing old. I am stating what is eternal.
Eternal does not mean “old.” Eternal means that to which “old” and “new” do not apply—what always is. Old means “once was.” New means “never was before.” Eternal means “always is.” Neither new nor old. Religion is eternal. There is no such thing as “Sanatan Dharma” as a sect. Remember: religion is eternal—there is no “Eternal Religion” as a particular creed. For that phrase would imply there are temporal religions. It would imply some are momentary. It would imply some are non-eternal.
No—there is no thing called “Sanatan Dharma” as one among many. Religion itself is eternal. Its being is eternal. It is forever.
This eternal law—the one life-rule seated in the breath of existence—that whoever effaces himself attains the Whole—this is eternal. Not new. Yet it feels new every time. Why? Because each time people try their best to make it old. They carve it in stone; they write it in books; they proclaim, “It is written in our ancient book.”
Their book may be old; this truth is never old. It is ever, ever fresh—neither old nor new. It does not collect dust. But when they claim, “It is in our book—and our book is ancient,” they vainly labor to make the truth old.
Remember: what becomes old, dies. Religion cannot die—so it can never be old. Whatever becomes old will perish. Do not insist on the “old” with religion.
Yet religious people everywhere compete to prove theirs is the oldest—as if age were a value. God is neither old nor new. He is always the same—never old, never new. But by manufacturing scriptures, we make religion “old.” Then when the truth is told again, it feels like a new thing—and we become frightened of the new. We are terrified of the new. Why such fear? If you fear the new, you will be terrified of God—when He meets you, what could be newer, fresher, more dewy than that? Like morning dew, like the first sun—ever new, never stale. Dust never gathers on it.
Religion does not grow stale; religious texts do. They are man-written; they will age.
I heard this: a salesman came to a home selling a dictionary. The housewife tried to dismiss him. “We already have a dictionary. Take yours away.”
“Where is it?” he asked.
She pointed to a thick volume on the table. “There.”
“Forgive me, madam,” he said, “that is not a dictionary.”
“Are you mad? How can you know from here?”
“I can say it is some religious text,” he said, “not a dictionary.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?”
“It is a scripture. I can tell because so much dust has gathered on it. Children open a dictionary every day. But a scripture—kept shut—collects dust. Who opens it? It lies there and dust mounts.”
“I can say by the layer of dust—it must be a scripture, not a dictionary.”
Dust will gather on scriptures. Whatever man creates will age. Nothing man-made can be eternal. All things humanly made come and go.
But there is something that neither comes nor goes—that simply is. It is not man’s making; it is beyond our making. It is where man himself is made—there dwell the eternal laws.
Among those laws, one formula I find precious for you: If you want to be religious, prepare to erase yourself. And if you do not want to be religious—at least do not be falsely religious. It is better to be truly irreligious. Why? Because if you see clearly, “I am not religious—I am not yet ready to erase myself,” then sooner or later your life will fill with a deep ache. Irreligion will become painful to you. One day you will have to decide: Now I choose to be religious.
Our trouble is this: while irreligious, we consider ourselves religious. Then the opportunity to become religious never comes. A sick man who believes he is healthy will neither seek treatment nor try to be well. He is already well.
The greatest misfortune in human life is to be irreligious while imagining oneself religious. And we have devised such easy tricks! A man goes to the temple every morning—or to the mosque, or the gurudwara, it makes no difference—and thinks himself religious. Watch the swagger as he exits! He walks differently, glancing at the others: “Fine—rot in hell, you who didn’t go.” He keeps a tally of who will go to hell, who didn’t visit the temple.
I heard that one day Mohammed took a boy to the mosque. He had often told him, “Come for the morning prayer.” “I can’t wake so early,” the boy said. One day, Mohammed insisted; he rose. Mohammed took him to the mosque. He stood in the morning prayer. On the way back his gait had changed. It was hot; some people still lay sleeping on their cots. The boy said, “Look, Master—these sinful ones still sleeping! Tell me—what will be their fate in hell?”
Mohammed stopped. “Forgive me, brother—I made a big mistake bringing you to the mosque. I erred in asking you to stand in prayer. Yesterday you were a good lad—you at least didn’t think these others sinners. Go back. Forgive me. I must return to the mosque.”
“For what?” the boy asked.
“My prayer was ruined. I spoiled a man. I must pray again and beg God’s forgiveness—I made a good man bad. He is now calling others sinners.”
A man steps in and out of a temple and becomes religious. Another buys a rosary and turns a few beads, and becomes religious. Someone reads a page each morning and becomes religious.
Is religion so cheap? If it were, what place would there be for irreligion? Would irreligion survive?
No, religion this cheap is impossible. These are tricks to save irreligion—safety measures to protect our inner irreligion. Inside we remain what we are. We remain. If a man was one kind in the shop, how will he become another in the temple? The same man who sits in the shop goes to the temple; the same man who is in the temple comes back to the shop.
Life is not a game where you reach the temple door and instantly become another person. Inside, one person; outside, another; at the shop, yet another. No—life is continuity. The man at the shop is the man who goes to the temple. Therefore the likelihood that a wrong man at the shop will become right in the temple is small. More likely, the wrong man will make the temple wrong. And they have. The irreligious crowding into temples have made even temples irreligious. There is little possibility of religion there. Naturally, people do not change so easily. They remain the same.
One last small story, and I will conclude.
A man lay dying. His wife sat by, her hand on his brow—afraid, weeping. The family gathered. Evening had fallen; no lamp was lit. Suddenly the man asked, “Where is my eldest son?”
“At your side,” she said.
She was amazed—this was the first time in life he had asked so tenderly, “Where is my eldest?” He always asked, “Where’s the key to the safe? Where are the account books?” He had never asked for his son. For a man mad for money, where is the space to ask after love? She was happy—under the shadow of death, a glimmer of joy.
“And the next one—where is he?” he asked.
“Also here.”
“And the third?”
“He too is here.”
The man tried to rise.
“Lie down,” she said. “We are all here. Even the youngest is here.”
“What does this mean?” he cried. “Then who is at the shop? Everyone is here!”
The wife had misunderstood. The man was the same. He still wasn’t asking about his sons—he was asking about the safe. Even at death he asked, “Who is at the shop?” He was not concerned that he was dying—he was concerned whether the shop was running.
Life is a continuity. If he asked about the shop till yesterday, how would he suddenly ask about love today? Such a jump does not happen by itself. You must leap; break the continuity.
Therefore beware of thinking: life can go on as it is—just do a little religious business on the side. Give a little charity, donate a room to a temple and have your name on a stone, go on a pilgrimage now and then, visit a temple, host a Satyanarayan katha, read the Quran a little, the Gita a little, bow to the Guru Granth. Do not deceive yourself. In this way you will not become religious. Religion demands that when you come, you come whole. It asks for totality. In truth, no love accepts halves. Love says—come whole! Religion says the same—come whole! Be ready for your whole life to change.
Where will it begin? The key is this: if the “I” shatters, the whole life changes at once. Our life stands around the “I.” Break the center, and all spokes fly apart. Like a bicycle wheel—spokes connect to a hub; break the hub and the spokes scatter. The center of our life is ego. The center of a religious life is egolessness. Where the “I” is not, everything changes.
But we are filled with “I, I, I” twenty-four hours a day. In every breath—“I.” In every pore—“I.” Waking, sleeping, sitting, standing—“I.” Our entire personality is “I.” You cannot add religion to this “I” like an Edison bulb screwed on. You cannot think: this same “I” will finger a rosary and manage it; this same “I” will read the scriptures and manage it; this same “I” will practice renunciation and manage it.
No. It will happen only when this “I” breaks. And it can break. No one but you stands in the way. It can break this very moment. If only you remember to ask: Is this “I” even there? For this “I” by which I live and die—does it have any reality? any existence? If that is seen, it can collapse at once.
I heard this: near a palace lay a heap of stones. A small boy picked up a stone and threw it toward the palace. As the stone flew, it said to the stones below, “Listen, friends—I am going on a journey into the sky.”
It was thrown; but it said, “I am going.” Just that little twist. Understand the difference well. That is the difference between a religious and an irreligious life. We are thrown into life—but we say, “My birth. I came into life.”
The stone said, “I am going to tour the sky.” The stones below grumbled and burned with envy. “Lucky one!” they thought. “We too want to go—but where are wings? where is strength? God’s grace is upon him.”
The stone flew and struck the palace window. When stone strikes glass, glass shatters. The stone doesn’t have to do anything; it is just a happening. Such is the nature of stone and glass.
But when the glass shattered, the stone said, “Foolish glass! How many times did I warn you—not to come in my way? I smash anything that blocks me!”
He had done nothing. It was just a happening. No doing at all—it just happened that the nature of stone and glass is such that glass shatters.
What could the shards of glass say? Broken, defeated, they lay scattered. “You are right,” they said. “We made a mistake. We’ll be careful next time.”
The stone swelled with pride. It fell inside, onto an expensive Persian carpet. “Such good people,” it thought. “They must have heard I was coming. They spread carpets to welcome me. Let me rest a while.”
A servant came running at the sound of breaking glass. He picked up the stone. “Many thanks!” said the stone. “Many, many thanks! The owner himself has lifted me in welcome.”
But the servant did not understand stones; he threw it back through the window.
As it flew out the stone said, “Well then, I will go. Your palace may be fine, but there is nothing like the open sky among stones! I am going home. Homesickness has taken me; I miss my home.”
It fell back upon the heap. “I have traveled far,” it said. “I lived in palaces, was welcomed by kings, rested on carpets, destroyed my enemies—but my heart desired to return. I have come back.”
You will laugh at the stone. If, some day, you laugh at yourself the same way—that day religion begins. Understand carefully: we are no different from the stone. Where things happen by themselves we say, “I did.” Where life happens by itself we claim doership. That claim is our “I.” That “I” is the wall between us and the divine. There is no other wall.
Be willing to lose the “I,” and the divine is always ready to meet you. Leap once beyond the “I,” and He is already there. Religion is the search for the Lord. Religion is the losing of “I.” Religion is the seed dissolving, the tree becoming. Religion is the drop dissolving, the ocean becoming. It is in your hands—remain a drop if you wish; become the ocean if you wish. But grant yourself this kindness: while you remain a drop, do not mistake yourself for the ocean. Then one day your drop will tremble in thirst, fill with prayer, and set out for the ocean.
On the day you set out for the ocean, look carefully all around—make sure no stake still ties your boat. No Hindu stake, no Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Christian stake. No Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, American stake. No stake of black or white, rich or poor, woman or man. Check the stakes well. Take up the oars later; first pull out the stake, break the chain. And for the voyage into the Unknown, if you leave the stakes, let me end with Ramakrishna’s one saying:
“Untie your boat; His winds are always ready to carry you. Untie your boat; His winds are always ready to carry you.”
The boat is moored to the shore. How long will you keep it tied? How long? How long maintain this wall?
With that question, I complete what I have to say.
Osho's Commentary
I once heard that on a full-moon night a few friends gathered in a tavern. They drank late into the night. When the wine took over and they began to dance, someone looked up and saw the full moon sailing across the sky. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to go boating on the river?” he said. Off they went to the riverbank. The boatmen had already moored their boats and gone. The friends clambered into one boat, lifted the oars, and began to row. They rowed and rowed, they toiled and toiled, all through the night.
When the chill breeze of dawn rose and the intoxication thinned, someone said, “Who knows how far we’ve come, and in what direction? Someone get down and have a look.” One man stepped ashore, burst out laughing, and called, “All of you come down too! We haven’t gone anywhere. We stood right here all night!”
The boat was exactly where they had found it. Astonished, they wondered what had become of their night-long labor. On stepping down they discovered the chains were still fastened to the stake on the bank. They had forgotten to untie them.
They were drunk—such a mistake can happen. But the same mistake is made by those who are not drunk. In truth, intoxications are many. Some are visible; some are not. Those who make this mistake without wine are also in some invisible inebriation. There is the intoxication of caste, of society, of nation, of religion. Many are the stupors that leave a person unconscious—and then he blunders in ways that halt life, that rob it of movement. The boats we board never arrive anywhere.
Commonly, the day we are born, we sit in the boat of life. By the time of death most people find themselves where they were at birth. No journey happens. Between birth and death we pull hard at the oars; we labor, we bustle and run—but we get nowhere. At the hour of dying it is not as if we can say we have arrived. Perhaps, disembarking then and looking, one finds what the friends found—that the stake, the chains, remained tied.
Today I want to speak of some of those chains because of which the soul’s boat cannot reach the ocean of the divine, but stalls, stands still. Despite effort, despite rowing, no growth comes.
What are the things that arrest a person’s boat?
The first, a great chain for the boat, is this: without knowing, people accept that God exists—or, without knowing, they accept that God does not exist. Without knowing, they believe He is; without knowing, they believe He is not. Both are the same foolishness. To believe without knowing is wrong; to deny without knowing is also wrong. Yet we are divided between these two unawarenesses. And what we accept without knowing—our search for that ends; what we deny without knowing—our search for that also ends. The search can only be for that which we do not wish to believe, but wish to know. Belief is death; knowing is life. Belief is a halt; knowing is a journey, a movement. All believers come to a stop. All kinds of believers, all kinds of devotees come to a stop.
Faiths are of two kinds. The theist’s faith is a belief in “yes”; the atheist’s faith is a belief in “no.” But both are believers. And the religious person has nothing to do with being a believer. The religious person is not a believer—he is a seeker. He is not faithful; he is an inquirer. He refuses to stop with a belief until he knows. Until he reaches the ocean of knowing, he will not tie his boat to the stake of belief on the shore. He will go on. But so far we have thought the believers are the religious.
A believer is not religious, cannot be. Belief means we have accepted as true that which we do not know. This is the beginning of blindness. This is the way we make ourselves blind.
Yet we have been continually taught: believe—if you want to find God. So many believed, and so few found God! Everyone believes—one way or the other—then why is God not available to more? For thousands of years the earth has believed, yet no clear glimpse of the divine descends into life. How many temples! How many mosques! How many gurudwaras! So much worship, so much recitation, so much prayer, so much belief! And yet why is the earth not religious? The life of the earth is irreligious. What has happened? What is the reason?
There is one reason: life moves by knowing; belief remains a dream, it never becomes truth. Beliefs cannot be converted into truth. If you want to know the truth, beliefs must be dropped.
I do not say “be disbelievers,” because disbelief is belief inverted. Neither belief nor disbelief—whoever is willing to stand in between, in that person’s life the ray of knowing descends. Tie your boat neither to the stake of belief nor to the stake of disbelief; neither to the Hindu’s stake, nor the Muslim’s, nor the Jain’s, nor the Christian’s, nor the Sikh’s. Tie it to none. Say: we will push our boat out onto the infinite ocean; we will not moor to anyone’s stake. Such a person succeeds in reaching the divine.
And the irony is this: those whom the Hindus sing of are precisely those who reached the divine without being tied to any stake. Those whom the Muslims praise are precisely those who reached the divine without bondage to any stake. Those whom the Sikhs honor—again, those who were not bound to any stake. While they sailed into the open sea, we sit on the shore and pound stakes in their names.
Kabir has said:
“Those who sought found, diving into deep water.
I, the witless one, went to seek and stayed sitting on the shore.”
Someone asked, “Why stay seated on the shore?” Kabir said:
“Those who sought found, diving into deep water.
I, poor fool, was afraid to drown—and stayed sitting on the shore.”
Whoever fears to drown will clutch at stakes, will grasp supports. And whoever fears to drown cannot reach the divine. For only the one who sinks, rises; only the one who sinks, arrives; only the one who sinks, attains. Here, if you want to be saved, you must drown. In religion, salvation lies in drowning; if you want to be saved from religion, then sitting on the shore holding onto stakes is very useful.
The stakes may be very old—but age does not make a stake any less a stake. The stake may be brand new—but being new does not stop it from being a stake. Old or new, a stake only binds. Religion is not a stake; religion is freedom. Therefore a religious person is neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Sikh. A religious person is simply religious.
I went to see the Golden Temple; some friends took me. They told me, “Here the doors are open for Christians, Hindus, Muslims—all.”
I said, “Don’t say that. In saying it you affirm Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian as separate. Just say, ‘The doors are open for human beings.’ That is enough.” Even such recognition—that it is open to Hindus and Muslims and Christians—is the same old story. Closed or open—so long as the divisions are affirmed, it is the same.
When will we raise temples on this earth where being human is enough, where no labels apply? We haven’t yet. A thousand times the attempt is made—by a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ, a Nanak—to build such a temple. But we are such madmen that we pound stakes even into that temple. We occupy it. We make it “someone’s.” And once it becomes someone’s, it ceases to be God’s. To be God’s, it must belong to no one; only then can it belong to all. When it becomes someone’s, it no longer belongs to all. The very moment we grant recognition to divisions, the mistake is made.
Recently in Ahmedabad some Harijan friends came to meet me. They said, “When Gandhi-ji came he would stay in Harijan homes. Why don’t you stay with us Harijans?”
I said, “I can stay in your home, but not in a ‘Harijan’ home. Even to grant you that recognition—that you are Harijan and I will stay with you because you are Harijan—is injustice, irreligion, wrong. One says, ‘You are Harijan; I will not touch you’—he recognizes you as Harijan. Another says, ‘You are Harijan; I will stay with you’—he too recognizes you as Harijan. I can stay at your home, but not as at a Harijan’s. Being human is enough.”
We don’t see this. If Hindu and Muslim fight, they are two—enemies, yet two. Another says, “No, no—Hindu and Muslim are brothers.” Still two. The one who says “brothers” also doesn’t see one; the one who incites doesn’t see one. Only one who says, “How are you a Hindu? How are you a Muslim? You are none of these,” can see one. To be human is the truth; all else is teaching imposed from outside. These teachings have erected stakes, and the birth of a religious person has become difficult.
How to bring a religious person into being—let me offer a few pointers.
First, understand well that religion is not a subject like other subjects. There are many kinds of learning in the world; religion is not one of them. For anything else you want to learn, you will have to learn from someone. Religion alone is the kind of knowing that, if you want to learn, you must avoid learning from another—otherwise you will be in difficulty. In truth, religion does not admit the other. Religion alone is learned only by oneself; there is no scope for learning it from someone else. There are reasons. Truth is not transferable; it cannot be passed from one hand to another. In this world, everything else can be handed over; only the knowing of religion cannot. If handed over, it becomes stale and borrowed. And once borrowed, it becomes worse than ignorance.
Ignorance has one grace: ignorance is humble. Borrowed knowledge carries a danger: it fills with ego. And the marvel is that the moment knowledge arises from within, ego departs as darkness departs at sunrise. When knowing blossoms from within, ego is nowhere to be found; but borrowed knowledge strengthens the ego, hardens it, creates a heavy, rigid thing inside. That hardened ego becomes the barrier to meeting the divine.
Religion is never obtained from another. This does not mean the other is useless. When a Buddha walks among us, he cannot give us knowledge; when a Nanak passes singing among us, he cannot give us knowledge—but the presence of a Buddha or a Nanak can awaken our thirst. Knowledge cannot be given; thirst can be awakened. Seeing them, we may remember that what happened to them could happen to us.
Thus, in the realm of religion the knower is not a giver of knowledge—he is an awakener of thirst. But once thirst is awakened, the well must be dug within, and the water must be found within—no one else can give it. If it could be given, one enlightened one would have given it to all. And they would have, for they are full of compassion. But it cannot be given.
All knowers die with a sweet ache—not for themselves, but for others—because what has happened to them they long to share; yet it will not transmit. They try to give—but it changes in the giving. The experience remains within; only words reach the other. And the meaning of words? Meaning is not decided by the speaker; it is decided by the one who hears.
That is why there are a thousand commentaries on the Gita. Surely Krishna wasn’t out of his mind to mean a thousand different things. A man like Krishna means something precise. But there are a thousand commentaries. From where did these meanings come? Not from Krishna. They are the meanings of the thousand commentators. When we read the Gita, it is not Krishna’s Gita we read—we pour our own meaning into it. It is we who are in it. To this day, there is no way to read Krishna’s Gita without becoming like Krishna. Otherwise we will project ourselves.
Therefore I say: do not cling to scripture forgetting this. In scripture your own image will be reflected, and nothing else. In scripture we only read ourselves. Hence two people read one scripture and draw two meanings.
One night it so happened: Buddha gave a discourse in an assembly. Afterward, as he did daily, he said to his monks, “Now go—attend to the last work of the night.” A thief happened to be present. When Buddha said, “Go, attend to your night’s work,” the thief rose and said, “It’s late—time for work.” A courtesan was also there. Hearing the same words, she said, “How much time I’ve wasted—customers may have gone back!” And the monks rose and went to meditate, for their last task of the night was to meditate and then sleep. The courtesan went to open her shop, the thief to his trade, the monks to meditation—each having heard the same words: “Go, attend to your night’s work.”
Who gives meaning? We do. Reading scripture, truth will not be found; you will meet only yourself. Truth comes by another journey—by losing yourself. Scriptures become mirrors, and we only see ourselves. Thus the Muslim reading the Quran draws one meaning; the Hindu reading it, another. The Vedas—when read by a believer, one meaning; by a non-believer, another. The meanings are ours. And if our meanings were the truth, what need for the Vedas at all? We would already be the truth.
No, things will not do as we are—we must dissolve. No scripture can dissolve us. We make scriptures our ornaments. Learn ten scriptures and your ego is stronger. It is hard to find anyone more arrogant than the pundit. Whoever imagines he knows, falls into great trouble. The arrogance of knowing is the deepest arrogance in this world. That is why pundits forever lead people into conflict. The wars on this earth have not been because of simple ignorants; behind them are always false knowers. The ignorant get caught in their swirl and fight. All the fighting is sown by false knowledge, because it is stuffed with ego.
No, religion is not a knowledge won from books. Religion is known by losing oneself. To learn mathematics you need not erase yourself; to study history you need not erase yourself; to study science, to be an engineer or a doctor, you need not erase yourself. But to enter the realm of religion you must be ready to lose yourself.
I heard a story. In Greece there was once a great sculptor. His fame reached distant lands. People said, “If his statue stands beside the living person he has sculpted, if the man holds his breath, it is hard to tell who is original and who is stone.” When death neared, the sculptor thought, “Why not deceive death?” He crafted eleven perfect statues of himself and hid among them. Death entered, saw twelve identical figures, and was in a fix: she had come for one; there were twelve—whom to take? Which was real? She returned to God and said, “I’m in difficulty—there are twelve just the same. How to find the real one?”
God whispered a single clue into her ear. “Remember this always. Whenever you must find the real one, use it. It is the trick.”
Death returned, entered the room, looked over the statues, and said, “The statues are exquisitely made—only one mistake remains.”
The sculptor blurted, “What mistake?”
Death said, “Only this: you cannot forget yourself. Step out! God told me: he who cannot forget himself must die; he who forgets himself cannot be slain—he attains immortality.”
Religion is forgetting oneself, because religion is the attainment of the immortal. But how shall we forget ourselves? We remember ourselves twenty-four hours a day. We adorn and arrange ourselves from every side. We build high stone walls to secure ourselves, so no blow may strike, so we may not be diminished even a little. Our whole life’s arrangements are arrangements to save this “me.” And when we go to God’s door, it is to seek service for this “me.” Someone wants a job, he goes; someone wants wealth, he goes; someone wants a child, he goes; someone wants a disease cured, he goes; someone wants to win the lottery, he goes. We go to God’s door to save the “me.” We intend to employ even God in our service. Our ego is astonishing—we would put God Himself to work. We even say, “Do this for us and we will believe in You,” as if He were so hungry for our belief that He would serve us a little.
We go to God’s door to make ourselves—and thus we never arrive at His door. We end up at false doors—man-made doors—and take them for God’s, and return. The true door of the divine stands where it is written: You cannot enter with yourself. Leave yourself outside and then come in.
In Bengal I saw a little village play. A fakir goes on pilgrimage to Vrindavan. He has nothing—only a small bag with a change of clothes and a few utensils. When he reaches the temple gate, the guard says, “Stop—nothing may be carried inside.” So he leaves his bag outside. “Now I can enter,” he says. The gatekeeper replies, “Bring your bag if you like—it’s no problem. Leave yourself outside. You cannot enter with yourself.”
In truth, His door has one condition—and it is the condition of losing yourself. Knowledge taken from others strengthens the self; it does not dissolve it. Even renunciation and austerity can fortify the ego rather than undo it. Someone fasts; someone stands on his head; someone lies on thorns—their egos toughen. The seeker, the ascetic, the sannyasin—their egos become dense. They live under that dense shadow and think God should come to them. They are not ready to go to God. They even impose conditions on God: “Appear in this form!” The Hindu imposes his form; the Muslim his; the Jain his; the Christian his. We are not willing to accept God in His own form. We are very extraordinary people—there is no limit to our extraordinary ways. And we call all this “religion,” thinking that through these things we will someday attain truth or God. We are mistaken.
A second point: religion will not come from the scriptures; it will come from oneself. Though once it comes from oneself, scriptures may be born. But by going through scriptures, truth will not be found; by finding truth, scriptures may be created. Whoever finds truth wants to tell others what happened to him—even while knowing words cannot say it.
A dumb man, too, if he tastes a sweet, wants to shout with joy. But if you catch hold of his incoherent sounds and go home and make the same sounds, expecting sweets—you are in error.
Scriptures are the uproar of those who tasted the sweetness and fell dumb. They tried mightily to speak, but could not. Not because they were weak in speech, but because speech itself is powerless to reveal truth.
Lao Tzu wrote a little book. His first sentence is astonishing: “First of all, let me say: what I am going to say, I will not be able to say. Second, do not cling to what I do say—what I wished to say was one thing; what I have managed to say is another.”
Tagore lay dying. A friend came and said, “You must be leaving satisfied—you have attained all a man can attain. You are a great poet; you wrote six thousand songs. In Europe they call Shelley a great poet—he wrote only two thousand. You wrote six thousand! All can be set to music! Perhaps no greater poet has walked the earth. You must be fulfilled.”
But tears rolled from Tagore’s eyes. He said, “No, what I wanted to sing I have not yet sung. These six thousand are attempts that failed. I tried and could not succeed. What I wanted to sing remains within—and the time to go has come! With closed eyes I am telling God: I had only tuned the instrument; I had not yet sung—and the time to go has come! And then I think—even if I were to have infinite births, I would only tune the instrument; I would never be able to sing. For that which is worthy of song always eludes capture. It will not be seized by word or note or color; not by any line. It is infinite, boundless—how can it be contained?”
No, books cannot capture it. No one ever has. I am not saying, “Throw away the books.” I am only saying: even the books reveal that what was trying to be said could not be said. All scriptures point to one thing: the unsaid remains; it was not expressed. All hints say: the unexpressed has yet to be revealed. Human speech is too small. That vastness will not fit. We cry aloud; we try to manifest it—yet it remains unmanifest.
Therefore I tell you: the Lord can be known, not said. No religious scripture can ever truly be written, nor has one been, nor will one be. There is no scripture such that, by knowing it, you would know religion. But if you know religion, you will understand all scriptures. If you know religion, the secret of all scriptures will open: you will see that those who attained became dumb; they shouted and shouted, but only sounds came—the saying did not happen. What they wanted to say escaped.
Know religion—and you will understand scripture; understand scripture—and you will not understand religion. Keep this well in mind; otherwise scripture becomes a stake.
Another stake to beware of: if you imagine that just as you attained wealth, status, fame, you will similarly attain the Lord—you fall into error. Wealth is an achievement of ego; so is status, so is fame. God cannot be reached by that path. He is not an achievement of ego—He is the loss of ego. The two are opposed.
Therefore, the way we get things in the world is not the way we can get the truth. But naturally, we try to apply our worldly habits to God. We think: “How did I attain in life? I will attain God the same way.” There a great mistake is made. Beware of it.
If you wish to find Him, decide at least one thing: you will have to lose yourself. Without losing yourself there is no path. When the river loses itself, it becomes the ocean; when the seed loses itself, it becomes a tree; when a man loses himself, he becomes divine. Losing does not destroy; losing only dissolves smallness. Losing erases limits. Losing removes meanness. Losing does not annihilate; through losing, one truly becomes.
But this is our difficulty. Suppose a seed decides, “I will rot rather than risk.” The seed can save itself—but then the tree cannot be. And if the tree never is, the life of the seed will weep forever. We too are such seeds saving ourselves. Nanak, Kabir, Farid—these are seeds who consented to lose themselves; they became trees. Now thousands can rest in their shade. We are seeds under whose shade nothing can be, who can only rot. A seed that does not become a tree can only decay—what else? For the seed there are only two paths: become a tree—or rot.
We rot. What we call life is a long process of rotting. A child only grows old—nothing else happens. Day by day he grows old and we keep saying, “Life! Life!” Day by day we die, and nothing else occurs. From yesterday to today, what did you do? You died twenty-four hours more. From birth to death we do not live—we only die. But because the span is long, we do not realize that what we call life is a slow death, a gradual dying. The one-day-old infant has died one day; the two-day-old, two days. A seventy-year-old has died seventy years. The sand has run out. Finished.
I heard of a king who one night dreamed. In the darkness a shadow stood with a hand on his shoulder. He turned, terrified. “Who are you?”
The shadow said, “You do not recognize me yet? Since you are afraid, I know you do—I have come many times, but you keep forgetting! In truth, we try to forget what frightens us—but nothing is erased by forgetting. I am your death. I came to tell you: tonight, at sunset, meet me at the place and at the exact time. Do not make me search for you here and there.”
The king wanted to ask, “Which place?”—not to go there, but to be sure he wouldn’t go there by mistake. But he asked it so loudly that he woke up, and the dream vanished. Now he was in trouble. It was midnight. He summoned his ministers and sent word throughout the town: “Bring anyone who can interpret dreams—quickly!”
They came running. The pundits gathered—with their scriptures. A pundit has nothing but scriptures. Not intelligence—scriptures. They opened their books and busied themselves in interpretation.
Morning came; the sun rose. The king said, “How long will this take? The sun is up! And how long does it take a risen sun to set? In one sense, once it rises it has begun to set. Hurry—what does the dream mean?”
The pundits said, “Such haste is not possible. First we must conduct a debate, parse every word. This is not easy.”
The arguments grew. By midday the confusion was worse. When he first awoke, the dream had seemed somewhat clear. Listening to the pundits, everything became muddled. “When I woke I saw something clearly; after hearing you I am more confused.”
His old servant whispered in his ear, “It is noon; the sun is already descending, and these men’s talking has never ended in a thousand years—how will it end by evening? Remember: pundits never reach a conclusion. Experience reaches conclusions. They never will. Evening will come and you will be in trouble. My advice, if you will take it: you have a fast horse—mount and leave this palace as swiftly as you can. This palace is not safe. Here the dream came. Danger is that death will come here.”
The king liked the advice. “Let me flee anywhere. The earth is vast. I will hardly arrive at the very spot where death awaits. At least I will leave this house where the dream came.”
He mounted and fled on his swift horse. Many times he had told his wife, “I cannot live a single day without you.” But as he galloped, he did not even remember her. Death makes us forget all promises. He had told his friends, “You are everything.” No trace of them now. When death approaches, all is lost. He raced on. That day he felt neither hunger nor thirst—these are luxuries of life. With death before you, what hunger? what thirst? He thought, “If I pause even a moment, I will be that much closer to the palace. Today I will not eat—what harm?”
By evening he was hundreds of miles away. He had a fast horse. He entered a garden and stopped under a mango tree. The sun was setting. He patted his horse. “Bravo! Today you alone proved my friend. You brought me so far. In so little time such a journey—how to thank you?” A hand fell on his shoulder—the same dark shadow. “Give thanks for the horse to me as well,” it said. “I was very worried whether you would reach this tree by sunset. This is the very place you must die. Your swift horse brought you exactly on time. Such a fine horse—how shall I thank it?”
Where does a man reach after running all his life—except death? What does he build—except a grave? What does he accumulate—except a tomb? What is the final accounting of a lifetime’s cunning? We cannot call this “life.” Religion does not. Religion calls it only a long process of dying. The poor man’s horse arrives at the same tree; the rich man’s horse arrives there too. Some ride in style; some ride poor nags; some go on foot; some fly in aeroplanes. But all find their tree—and all arrive exactly on time.
Where do we arrive after walking a lifetime?
No—religion says what we call life is not life. What we call life is only the occasion for life to be born, an opportunity. What we call life is a seed out of which life can grow—but it has not yet. Who will grow it? Only the seed that consents to die. But we are all busy trying to save ourselves. We save and save—and death catches us at last.
Religion says the path is the reverse: prepare to die; prepare to dissolve—and death will never catch you. You will attain the nectar of immortality. The tree of life can grow outside this seed.
Therefore the essence of religion is the killing of the ego. This has nothing to do with Hindu or Muslim or Sikh or Jain or Christian. The fundamental formula of religion is the death of “I.” How can I be erased? How can I come to an end? How can I lose myself?
It is difficult—what could be more difficult than losing oneself? But it is also simple—for in losing oneself there is such bliss, and in saving oneself such misery.
The night before Jesus was crucified, he knew. A friend said, “Why don’t you run? You know they will crucify you in the morning. Time still remains—flee!”
Jesus said, “Without the cross, how will the gate of the divine open? Only on the cross will I find Him. Only if I die will I reach. I will not flee the cross—I await it.”
Then he hung on the cross. Now his priests wear golden crosses around their necks. What a joke! Crosses are not of gold. And on crosses, the neck is hung; crosses are not hung on the neck. But man is such a trickster—he will deceive Jesus, Nanak, Buddha, Krishna—he deceives everyone. “A cross?” he says. “Of course! One should hang on a cross? Fine—we will hang a golden cross on our neck.”
A golden cross is not a cross—it is an ornament. With the golden cross he struts, “I am not an ordinary man. I am a priest of Jesus.” Poor Jesus had to carry a wooden cross on his shoulder. One must carry one’s own cross. He had to set it up and hang upon it. And as he was dying, he who had ordered his crucifixion, Pilate, asked Jesus one question—a question you too may ask yourself when you die. Blessed are those who ask it while living, for after that there is no time to work. Pilate asked, “Tell me before you die—what is truth?” Jesus remained silent and lifted his eyes to the cross. Pilate did not understand. Jesus had said: hang on the cross and you will know. There is no other way to know truth. But Pilate didn’t get it. “Won’t you answer?” he said. “It seems you don’t know.” In fact, to understand an answer given in silence requires great capacity. Jesus smiled and again looked to the cross. Pilate said, “Very well—give him the cross. Perhaps he does not know what truth is.”
Jesus could have quoted the Vedas; he could have cited scripture. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what had been said about truth. But saying is not the point. Truth is a matter of experience—and experience comes only when you stake yourself. Before that, it does not come. Thus the religious person is the greatest adventurer in this world—none more daring.
But whom do we call religious? Those who look weak, kneeling, hands folded. That is not the face of the religious—that is the face of one trying to get something from God. A cunning, calculating mind: “Please settle our business—and we’ll offer a coconut worth a few cents.”
Such madness! We intend to bribe even God. If there is so much bribery in our land, one reason is that we have long been in the habit of bribing God. We thought: if a coconut of a few cents can get a job of a million done with God, why not give a small note to a man and get our way? Bribery has entered our blood because we have not hesitated to bribe even God.
Vivekananda was in great poverty. When his father died he left debts. Vivekananda would often wander hungry. At home there was food enough for either his mother or him. He would tell his mother, “I’m invited to a friend’s house today,” so she would eat. He would roam the streets hungry, drink water, and sleep.
Ramakrishna found out. He said, “Fool! In such trouble, why don’t you ask God? Come tomorrow—go into the temple and ask the Mother, ask Kali, with folded hands. All sorrow will vanish.”
Vivekananda said, “If you say so, I will go.”
He went into the temple. He stood with folded hands for an hour; tears flowed. He came out. Ramakrishna asked on the steps, “Did you ask?”
“Ah!” said Vivekananda. “I forgot!”
“Go again,” said Ramakrishna.
He went again, stood, wept, returned. “Did you ask?”
“That—I forgot again.”
“Go a third time,” said Ramakrishna.
“I will forget the third time as well,” Vivekananda replied. “I cannot even imagine going to God to ask for bread. I cannot think it.”
“What do you do there?” Ramakrishna asked. “What do you ask if not bread?”
“I ask nothing,” Vivekananda said. “Asking itself is wrong. I go and say: Take me. Accept me. Efface me. Hold me. There I do not ask—I offer: Take me somehow, dissolve me somehow, let only You remain.”
“Then why do you weep?” Ramakrishna asked.
“I weep because perhaps the prayer is not rising from my whole depth; otherwise it would be received. Perhaps some defense remains in me, so it is not accepted.”
There is no complaint—even here he only feels: perhaps the voice is not total; otherwise it would be accepted.
We must die. We must pray to be erased. We must fall at His gate, end ourselves. Stop saving this “I.” Stop making this “I.” Bring to heart the meditation of dissolving this “I.” Then religion can explode in your life. And when I say it will happen only with your dissolving—not before—I am saying nothing new, nothing old. I am stating what is eternal.
Eternal does not mean “old.” Eternal means that to which “old” and “new” do not apply—what always is. Old means “once was.” New means “never was before.” Eternal means “always is.” Neither new nor old. Religion is eternal. There is no such thing as “Sanatan Dharma” as a sect. Remember: religion is eternal—there is no “Eternal Religion” as a particular creed. For that phrase would imply there are temporal religions. It would imply some are momentary. It would imply some are non-eternal.
No—there is no thing called “Sanatan Dharma” as one among many. Religion itself is eternal. Its being is eternal. It is forever.
This eternal law—the one life-rule seated in the breath of existence—that whoever effaces himself attains the Whole—this is eternal. Not new. Yet it feels new every time. Why? Because each time people try their best to make it old. They carve it in stone; they write it in books; they proclaim, “It is written in our ancient book.”
Their book may be old; this truth is never old. It is ever, ever fresh—neither old nor new. It does not collect dust. But when they claim, “It is in our book—and our book is ancient,” they vainly labor to make the truth old.
Remember: what becomes old, dies. Religion cannot die—so it can never be old. Whatever becomes old will perish. Do not insist on the “old” with religion.
Yet religious people everywhere compete to prove theirs is the oldest—as if age were a value. God is neither old nor new. He is always the same—never old, never new. But by manufacturing scriptures, we make religion “old.” Then when the truth is told again, it feels like a new thing—and we become frightened of the new. We are terrified of the new. Why such fear? If you fear the new, you will be terrified of God—when He meets you, what could be newer, fresher, more dewy than that? Like morning dew, like the first sun—ever new, never stale. Dust never gathers on it.
Religion does not grow stale; religious texts do. They are man-written; they will age.
I heard this: a salesman came to a home selling a dictionary. The housewife tried to dismiss him. “We already have a dictionary. Take yours away.”
“Where is it?” he asked.
She pointed to a thick volume on the table. “There.”
“Forgive me, madam,” he said, “that is not a dictionary.”
“Are you mad? How can you know from here?”
“I can say it is some religious text,” he said, “not a dictionary.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?”
“It is a scripture. I can tell because so much dust has gathered on it. Children open a dictionary every day. But a scripture—kept shut—collects dust. Who opens it? It lies there and dust mounts.”
“I can say by the layer of dust—it must be a scripture, not a dictionary.”
Dust will gather on scriptures. Whatever man creates will age. Nothing man-made can be eternal. All things humanly made come and go.
But there is something that neither comes nor goes—that simply is. It is not man’s making; it is beyond our making. It is where man himself is made—there dwell the eternal laws.
Among those laws, one formula I find precious for you: If you want to be religious, prepare to erase yourself. And if you do not want to be religious—at least do not be falsely religious. It is better to be truly irreligious. Why? Because if you see clearly, “I am not religious—I am not yet ready to erase myself,” then sooner or later your life will fill with a deep ache. Irreligion will become painful to you. One day you will have to decide: Now I choose to be religious.
Our trouble is this: while irreligious, we consider ourselves religious. Then the opportunity to become religious never comes. A sick man who believes he is healthy will neither seek treatment nor try to be well. He is already well.
The greatest misfortune in human life is to be irreligious while imagining oneself religious. And we have devised such easy tricks! A man goes to the temple every morning—or to the mosque, or the gurudwara, it makes no difference—and thinks himself religious. Watch the swagger as he exits! He walks differently, glancing at the others: “Fine—rot in hell, you who didn’t go.” He keeps a tally of who will go to hell, who didn’t visit the temple.
I heard that one day Mohammed took a boy to the mosque. He had often told him, “Come for the morning prayer.” “I can’t wake so early,” the boy said. One day, Mohammed insisted; he rose. Mohammed took him to the mosque. He stood in the morning prayer. On the way back his gait had changed. It was hot; some people still lay sleeping on their cots. The boy said, “Look, Master—these sinful ones still sleeping! Tell me—what will be their fate in hell?”
Mohammed stopped. “Forgive me, brother—I made a big mistake bringing you to the mosque. I erred in asking you to stand in prayer. Yesterday you were a good lad—you at least didn’t think these others sinners. Go back. Forgive me. I must return to the mosque.”
“For what?” the boy asked.
“My prayer was ruined. I spoiled a man. I must pray again and beg God’s forgiveness—I made a good man bad. He is now calling others sinners.”
A man steps in and out of a temple and becomes religious. Another buys a rosary and turns a few beads, and becomes religious. Someone reads a page each morning and becomes religious.
Is religion so cheap? If it were, what place would there be for irreligion? Would irreligion survive?
No, religion this cheap is impossible. These are tricks to save irreligion—safety measures to protect our inner irreligion. Inside we remain what we are. We remain. If a man was one kind in the shop, how will he become another in the temple? The same man who sits in the shop goes to the temple; the same man who is in the temple comes back to the shop.
Life is not a game where you reach the temple door and instantly become another person. Inside, one person; outside, another; at the shop, yet another. No—life is continuity. The man at the shop is the man who goes to the temple. Therefore the likelihood that a wrong man at the shop will become right in the temple is small. More likely, the wrong man will make the temple wrong. And they have. The irreligious crowding into temples have made even temples irreligious. There is little possibility of religion there. Naturally, people do not change so easily. They remain the same.
One last small story, and I will conclude.
A man lay dying. His wife sat by, her hand on his brow—afraid, weeping. The family gathered. Evening had fallen; no lamp was lit. Suddenly the man asked, “Where is my eldest son?”
“At your side,” she said.
She was amazed—this was the first time in life he had asked so tenderly, “Where is my eldest?” He always asked, “Where’s the key to the safe? Where are the account books?” He had never asked for his son. For a man mad for money, where is the space to ask after love? She was happy—under the shadow of death, a glimmer of joy.
“And the next one—where is he?” he asked.
“Also here.”
“And the third?”
“He too is here.”
The man tried to rise.
“Lie down,” she said. “We are all here. Even the youngest is here.”
“What does this mean?” he cried. “Then who is at the shop? Everyone is here!”
The wife had misunderstood. The man was the same. He still wasn’t asking about his sons—he was asking about the safe. Even at death he asked, “Who is at the shop?” He was not concerned that he was dying—he was concerned whether the shop was running.
Life is a continuity. If he asked about the shop till yesterday, how would he suddenly ask about love today? Such a jump does not happen by itself. You must leap; break the continuity.
Therefore beware of thinking: life can go on as it is—just do a little religious business on the side. Give a little charity, donate a room to a temple and have your name on a stone, go on a pilgrimage now and then, visit a temple, host a Satyanarayan katha, read the Quran a little, the Gita a little, bow to the Guru Granth. Do not deceive yourself. In this way you will not become religious. Religion demands that when you come, you come whole. It asks for totality. In truth, no love accepts halves. Love says—come whole! Religion says the same—come whole! Be ready for your whole life to change.
Where will it begin? The key is this: if the “I” shatters, the whole life changes at once. Our life stands around the “I.” Break the center, and all spokes fly apart. Like a bicycle wheel—spokes connect to a hub; break the hub and the spokes scatter. The center of our life is ego. The center of a religious life is egolessness. Where the “I” is not, everything changes.
But we are filled with “I, I, I” twenty-four hours a day. In every breath—“I.” In every pore—“I.” Waking, sleeping, sitting, standing—“I.” Our entire personality is “I.” You cannot add religion to this “I” like an Edison bulb screwed on. You cannot think: this same “I” will finger a rosary and manage it; this same “I” will read the scriptures and manage it; this same “I” will practice renunciation and manage it.
No. It will happen only when this “I” breaks. And it can break. No one but you stands in the way. It can break this very moment. If only you remember to ask: Is this “I” even there? For this “I” by which I live and die—does it have any reality? any existence? If that is seen, it can collapse at once.
I heard this: near a palace lay a heap of stones. A small boy picked up a stone and threw it toward the palace. As the stone flew, it said to the stones below, “Listen, friends—I am going on a journey into the sky.”
It was thrown; but it said, “I am going.” Just that little twist. Understand the difference well. That is the difference between a religious and an irreligious life. We are thrown into life—but we say, “My birth. I came into life.”
The stone said, “I am going to tour the sky.” The stones below grumbled and burned with envy. “Lucky one!” they thought. “We too want to go—but where are wings? where is strength? God’s grace is upon him.”
The stone flew and struck the palace window. When stone strikes glass, glass shatters. The stone doesn’t have to do anything; it is just a happening. Such is the nature of stone and glass.
But when the glass shattered, the stone said, “Foolish glass! How many times did I warn you—not to come in my way? I smash anything that blocks me!”
He had done nothing. It was just a happening. No doing at all—it just happened that the nature of stone and glass is such that glass shatters.
What could the shards of glass say? Broken, defeated, they lay scattered. “You are right,” they said. “We made a mistake. We’ll be careful next time.”
The stone swelled with pride. It fell inside, onto an expensive Persian carpet. “Such good people,” it thought. “They must have heard I was coming. They spread carpets to welcome me. Let me rest a while.”
A servant came running at the sound of breaking glass. He picked up the stone. “Many thanks!” said the stone. “Many, many thanks! The owner himself has lifted me in welcome.”
But the servant did not understand stones; he threw it back through the window.
As it flew out the stone said, “Well then, I will go. Your palace may be fine, but there is nothing like the open sky among stones! I am going home. Homesickness has taken me; I miss my home.”
It fell back upon the heap. “I have traveled far,” it said. “I lived in palaces, was welcomed by kings, rested on carpets, destroyed my enemies—but my heart desired to return. I have come back.”
You will laugh at the stone. If, some day, you laugh at yourself the same way—that day religion begins. Understand carefully: we are no different from the stone. Where things happen by themselves we say, “I did.” Where life happens by itself we claim doership. That claim is our “I.” That “I” is the wall between us and the divine. There is no other wall.
Be willing to lose the “I,” and the divine is always ready to meet you. Leap once beyond the “I,” and He is already there. Religion is the search for the Lord. Religion is the losing of “I.” Religion is the seed dissolving, the tree becoming. Religion is the drop dissolving, the ocean becoming. It is in your hands—remain a drop if you wish; become the ocean if you wish. But grant yourself this kindness: while you remain a drop, do not mistake yourself for the ocean. Then one day your drop will tremble in thirst, fill with prayer, and set out for the ocean.
On the day you set out for the ocean, look carefully all around—make sure no stake still ties your boat. No Hindu stake, no Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Christian stake. No Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, American stake. No stake of black or white, rich or poor, woman or man. Check the stakes well. Take up the oars later; first pull out the stake, break the chain. And for the voyage into the Unknown, if you leave the stakes, let me end with Ramakrishna’s one saying:
“Untie your boat; His winds are always ready to carry you. Untie your boat; His winds are always ready to carry you.”
The boat is moored to the shore. How long will you keep it tied? How long? How long maintain this wall?
With that question, I complete what I have to say.