Dhyan Ke Kamal #7

Certainly you will keep feeling that you are lying on the ground if you have not put your total effort into the first two stages. If in the first stage you held yourself back during the kirtan—if you did not drown in it completely; if after the kirtan, in those fifteen minutes when you were told to ride the rhythm of the kirtan, you did not mount it, did not flow with that wave—then in the third stage you will find that you are still on the ground.

But it is not the ground’s fault. It is yours. If in the first two stages you did not show the courage to drop the body, then lying on the ground simply means you are not experiencing yourself as anything more than the body. Nothing else. If you are the body, you will experience the ground; if you become anything different from the body, the ground will be immediately forgotten. Because the gravitation, the pull, the attraction of the ground does not go beyond the body. As long as your experience is “I am the body,” you will experience the ground. The moment you experience “I am not the body,” even if the slightest part within you becomes free of the body, that part will sink into the ocean of light.

I understand your difficulty. But it means only this: bring more courage to the first and second stages. The ground will disappear the moment the body disappears. As long as there is the remembrance of the body, there is the remembrance of the ground—because the body is a part of the ground. It is just a piece of the earth. Till yesterday it was in the earth; tomorrow it will merge back into it. As long as you are the body, the earth is very important. And the moment you are not the body, the divine becomes important. Just as the earth’s pull—its gravitation, its attraction—draws the body, so the grace of the divine, its attraction, draws the soul. Who you are will determine which pull works upon you. If you are the body, the earth works. If you are the soul, the divine begins to work. The first two stages exist precisely so that you can forget the body.

But you do not forget. A friend came and said to me, “What if we get tired? If we work too hard and get tired?” Even if you get tired, what is spoiled? Rest for an hour or two. If you do get tired, what is going to be lost? Sleep a couple of hours more today. If you keep protecting the body, the ground will remain protected. In the end you will find you are lying on the ground. You will not be able to know the ocean—the ocean of light I am speaking of.

Without the experience of light, the experience of bliss cannot happen. There is a sequential movement in the inner journey; it has its stages. Without the experience of light...

That cannot be told. And if I tell, it will become a symbol—and what happens there must not be a symbol-experience. The experience of a symbol should not occur there.

When someone drinks water, is there any experience of the word “water”? When someone drinks water, is there any experience of the word “water”? Is there an experience like what you saw in the dictionary under “water”? When someone rides fast on horseback, is the experience like what was written in the dictionary under “horse”? When someone goes into a stable and looks at a horse, is it like seeing the word “horse” in the dictionary? It is not. There is no connection. And yet the word “horse” can help you find the stable. The word can even help you recognize a horse.

To say how the presence of the Divine is experienced in that moment is difficult. It has not been said so far and it will never be said.

We can understand the experience of light a little, because we have seen light outside; something like that, though very different, will be experienced within. We can understand the word “bliss” a little, because we have seen suffering; something opposite to it will happen. But the word “God” we cannot understand at all; it is the most unfathomable word in human language. We have seen nothing similar to God, and nothing opposite to God. Nothing can be opposite to God, because he is hidden in all. And nothing can be like God, because he is one and alone. Therefore he must be known only through experience.

And it is good that we say nothing about it. Understand light—and make it dense. Understand bliss—and make it dense. Leave God aside. And the moment bliss becomes dense, you will suddenly arrive at the place where its ultimate manifestation is. There will be no idol there, no form there. There will be only a felt presence. It is more accurate to say that we do not experience the presence of God there; we experience a presence, and we give it the name “God.”

It is a little subtle. It is not that we feel the divine presence; rather, it is a presence which we call divine. Someone is present, whom we call God. Something! Even to say “someone” may not be quite right. Something is present, which we later, looking back, call “God.” It is not “God’s presence,” because to say “God’s presence” is incorrect. For that which can never be absent, the word “presence” has no meaning—what is always present, what has never been not-present.

You can say that I am present here, because a moment ago I was not present, and a moment later I will no longer be present. But for that which simply is here, to call it “presence” has no meaning.

But one has to go to that. One has to enter it.

Take care of the first steps; forget the final destination. It is not for remembering; it is for knowing. If you have completed the first steps, the final happening happens by itself. You can drop concern about it.

Friends who have come only to watch, please move to the chairs—quietly, quickly. And any friends...