Diya Tale Andhera #18

The search for truth is not an outward search. The search for truth is a preparation for inner receptivity. Truth is not lying somewhere for you to pick up; the moment you are ready, truth enters you.

Truth is an experience, not an object. Therefore no one else can give it to you. Objects can be given; experiences cannot. Objects do not care about the fitness of the receiver. The Kohinoor doesn’t worry about who possesses it—whether it lies with a beggar or with Queen Victoria. The Kohinoor does not concern itself with persons. It is inert matter.

Truth is not inert. Truth depends on your sensitivity. Truth cannot be with everyone. It cannot be passed from one hand to another. Truth will only be where there is the capacity to bear it. So the real seeker prepares himself. He does not worry about where truth is. He asks, “Am I worthy?” He does not worry about who will give him truth. He worries, “If truth comes to my door, will my door be open? If truth knocks, will my ears be able to hear it?”

You cannot attack truth. You can only receive it. For truth, it is not necessary to be masculine; it is necessary to be feminine. Truth will enter you, but you need the capacity to conceive.

This Sufi story is very delightful. It contains much within it. Let us try to understand it point by point.

Sufis are seekers of truth—of that truth which is the knowledge of objective reality.

There can be two kinds of search for truth. One: you keep thinking, brooding about truth. You may gather big philosophies, great theories, many scriptures—yet truth will not be attained. Rows upon rows of words will accumulate. In the crowd of words, you may even forget that you set out in search of truth. Many have wandered lost in the jungle of words. From a forest of trees a man will find a way out in a day or two; the jungle of words is endless. If you get lost there, returning becomes almost impossible.

The pundit is just such a lost man—he wanted to go into the forest of truth, but lost himself in the forest of words. In both you may be lost, but in the forest of words you merely wander; in the forest of truth you disappear. You do not remain. That losing is ultimate. Those who keep busy thinking, whatever truth they will attain will be intellectual. But those who seek it not in words, not in thought and logic, but in meditation...

What is the meaning of meditation? Meditation means preparing a clear, silent, serene mind. As you are, you are so agitated that you will not be able to see truth. Your agitation becomes the obstruction. You are so full of tensions that truth will slip from your grasp. Your tension becomes a stone at the door. You are so restless—like a lake full of waves—that even if a full moon arises, the lake will not be able to mirror it. If your mind is full of thoughts, you are like a restless lake. The moon will be present, yet it won’t descend into you; a reflection will not form. Or the reflection will be in many fragments—nothing like the moon at all. It may even happen that silver seems to be spread over the whole lake, because the moon will be fragmented—cut to pieces by the waves. Yet the lake will remain deprived of the moon. Meditation means becoming a lake upon whose surface not a single ripple arises. Truth is already present. Become a mirror, and it will be seen.

Sufis are seekers of truth—of that truth which is the knowledge of objective reality.

One kind of truth is intellectual, where you have no direct experience of truth—only words. Like a man who has heard about fire but has never seen fire. He understands everything that has been said about fire, has read everything written about it—but he has never seen it. His knowledge is not objective; it is intellectual, verbal.

And it may be that another man has not learned anything about fire, has read no scriptures, yet knows fire. His knowledge is real. He has seen fire and known it by experience. Sufis seek experiential truth. How can truth become an experience?

So this first thing must be kept in mind: all religions seek experience; all philosophies seek doctrines. And the more doctrines there are, the more difficult realization becomes. The day there is no doctrine, that very day realization blossoms.

You cannot recognize Sufis easily—because the search for experience is very inner. A Sufi may live in your neighborhood for fifty years and you won’t get an inkling of it. Sufis say, hide yourself outwardly. If people come to know, they are themselves lost and will make you lost too. If they start asking you, “What is truth?” and you get entangled in the fascination of words... and the ego is very quickly tempted. The ego is very eager to explain; it is far more eager to explain than to understand. If people come to know you are seeking truth, they will gather behind you. And if they come before time—before your guruness has ripened, before that experience which shatters the ego is attained—and if you begin to explain, you will be lost in the jungle of words instead of truth.

Disciples wander off anyway; a guru who comes too soon gets lost even worse—more than the disciples. Until you have known the reality of realities, until the flower of your experience has blossomed, it is right that nobody should even know.

So Sufis hide. A Sufi might be a cobbler, stitching shoes all day; he meditates at night in solitude. The customers who come by day to buy shoes could never guess who this man is.

And you do not have eyes to see. You could not recognize Buddha under the Bodhi tree—if Buddha were selling shoes in your village, how would you recognize him? You cannot recognize, because even recognition needs a little taste. You can only recognize that of which you have at least a little taste. Without any taste, how could you recognize? A Sufi might be making pots, selling them, weaving cloth—lost in ordinary life—yet his inner search goes on. The search is inner; the outer has nothing to do with it.

Ultimately, the day you are ready, the day your vessel is utterly empty, that very day the rain comes. Kabir has said, “The sky thunders and nectar pours.” On that day, when you are ready, the sky thunders on its own and ambrosia rains down. Only your receptivity is awaited—nothing else is needed.

And this receptivity is not like worldly qualification. Religious receptivity is not like worldly worth—that you have many degrees, many university certificates, your social standing, your wealth, your success in some particular field. None of that is relevant. Religious receptivity depends on your emptiness, not on your merit. Hence a beggar can arrive, and an emperor may remain deprived. An illiterate can arrive, and the educated can wander lost. A nobody can realize, and one who was everything, enthroned on a throne, can miss.

Often this is exactly what happens: the enthroned miss, and those who have nothing attain. Because when there is nothing, the ego has no place to stand. When there is no support outside, there is no facility to strengthen the ego within either. And when the ego disappears, when you begin to feel “I am a nothing,” the vessel starts to be ready. The day the vessel is totally empty, and there is nobody within—you have become a vacant house—that very day God knocks at your door.

Sufis are seekers of the objective reality of truth.

An ignorant, greedy, and oppressive king decided, “I will bring truth under my control.”

Every word here is worth understanding, because many times you also make decisions of the same sort.

An ignorant, greedy, oppressive king decided...

He is ignorant—yet he is not concerned about removing ignorance. He longs to attain truth. You too are not ready to cut ignorance; you are eager to gain truth.

In fact you are not even ready to admit that you are ignorant. And a disease you don’t accept—how will you cure it?

An ignorant man gets very angry if you tell him he is ignorant. The wise may smile if you call them ignorant; the ignorant will be ready to quarrel. The wise have themselves declared, “We are ignorant.” But the ignorant never, even by mistake, admit “I am ignorant.” Still, he seeks truth. He protects his ignorance and looks for truth. How can both be?

It is as if someone wants to save the darkness inside his house and also bring in light. If you want to protect darkness, you will not bring a lamp, you will talk about it. Because you know well: the moment light comes, darkness is gone. So you will talk extensively—about lamps, about light—gather theories, scriptures; but you will never actually bring the lamp. You will bring formulas about light, but never light the flame at home—because darkness must be saved. The irony is that if someone says, “Your house is dark,” you get angry.

People come to me and say, “We want to seek truth.” I tell them, “Don’t talk about truth. First tell me: Are you ignorant or knowledgeable?” They are startled. They say, “We don’t know much—have read a few scriptures—but we are not completely ignorant either. We’ve read the Gita, the Upanishads, we understand. We do understand; we just want truth.”

And where understanding is, would you need to want truth? Where there is understanding, truth happens. Understanding is another name for truth. You delude yourself that you understand everything; now it’s only a matter of bringing truth—as if there were some truth apart from understanding! If you understand, the matter is finished. And do you think knowledge can be more or less, so you say you have a little knowledge? Can knowledge have degrees?

To speak of more or less knowledge is like saying something is “a little circular.” A circle cannot be partial; the very meaning of circle is total. A partial circle doesn’t exist. If it is a circle, it is complete; otherwise it is something else. Can zero be partial? Half? Can you say, “I am half zero”? To be half zero means you are filled—otherwise what would “half” mean?

There are things that have no fragments. Zero has no parts. It is either wholly present or wholly absent. The circle has no parts. Truth also has no parts—because parts would imply that truth must coexist with untruth. How can truth coexist with untruth? Parts would imply that the divine must coexist with your pettiness. How can the divine coexist with your pettiness? Only when your pettiness is entirely gone does He come.

People think they have a little knowledge. There is no such thing as a little knowledge. When knowing happens, it happens whole. Hence there is no small or great among the wise—though followers may insist. Buddhists will say Buddha is the supreme enlightened one; Mahavira too is enlightened, but not to that height. Jains will say Mahavira is enlightened. Buddha too? Yes, enlightened—but not fully enlightened.

Is there such a thing as incomplete enlightenment? If Buddha and Mahavira are enlightened, there is no higher or lower. All the enlightened arrive at the same place; all the unenlightened are at the same place too.

So do not think you are partly wise and partly ignorant; it doesn’t happen that way. This is the delusion. And if you remain in this delusion, you will not try to remove ignorance. You will try to acquire truth. With ignorance within, and truth in your hand—this is impossible. Drop your concern for truth; remove your inner ignorance. Remove the inner darkness—suddenly you will find suns arriving from all sides. From every dimension truth will begin to descend.

This man was ignorant, greedy, an oppressor of his people. Many go toward God out of greed. The search for truth too becomes a form of greed. He had gained everything else—this king must have thought—kingdom, wealth, resources, power, prestige. One thing still rankles: truth has not yet been obtained. That too should be in the treasury.

An emperor once went to Mahavira and said, “I have heard much about truth. And your monks these days are teaching meditation from village to village. I also want meditation.” Seeing Mahavira silent, he thought perhaps Mahavira didn’t recognize who he was. He said, “Rest assured—whatever the price, I’ll pay. I have more money than needed. Don’t worry about the cost; I’m ready to pay cash—but I want meditation.”

Mahavira said, “Do this: In your village there is a very poor man—utterly destitute—he is in dire need of money. And he has attained meditation. He is my disciple. Go to him and persuade him to sell it to you.”

The emperor returned delighted. He’d had some suspicion about Mahavira: This man has renounced all wealth—will he sell meditation for money? But this poor man—the village beggar—whose very name the emperor had never heard! He went and piled heaps of gold coins before the beggar’s hut. The man came out and asked, “What are you doing?” The emperor said, “Need more? Ask for whatever you wish. Say the word; I’ll give it. But I want meditation.”

The man both laughed and wept. He said, “Mahavira has played a deep joke—you didn’t understand. Meditation cannot be sold. If you wish, you can buy me; but how can I give you my meditation? It isn’t that I’m unwilling to give; it isn’t that I wouldn’t want to. Even if I want to, I cannot.” The emperor asked, “What is the obstacle? Tell me.” The poor man said, “The obstacle isn’t on my side; it is the very nature of meditation. How can one give it to another!”

Many go toward truth out of greed. When they feel they have earned everything, they think: One thing remains—bring God home and imprison Him too. How can great men like you be without meditation! Add this meditation to your possessions. Line up even God among your assets, so you can say, “There is nothing that I don’t have.”

Most people do not go as true seekers of truth; they go as the greedy. That is why people usually become eager in old age. When the days of death draw near, they think, “Now that we have earned everything, let us also earn God; it will be useful in the next world.” When they have everything, they think, “Let us give some charity too, so arrangements are made for the other world. May we enter heaven with honor and get some place near God.” Filled with such hopes, the greedy go in search of truth.

The idea of heaven is born of the greedy. If you look closely at heaven, it appears purely a greedy man’s fantasy—trees of gold and silver, roads paved with gems and diamonds, wish-fulfilling trees beneath which all desires are satisfied. Heaven does not seem like the imagination of a wise man—because the wise do not imagine at all. Heaven seems the imagination of the greedy. Hell is for the enemies; heaven for oneself and one’s friends. Hell for those opposed to us; heaven for those on our side.

That is why each country’s idea of heaven differs, because each country’s conditions differ. Hindus’ heaven is almost air-conditioned—because the land is hot, and here the greedy man cannot even conceive of heat in heaven! Hell: a place of terrible fire, where fuel never runs out, where the fire burns continuously. People are boiled in cauldrons. This is the Hindu’s suffering; the heat of this land is the witness.

But Tibetan heaven? It is not cool and soothing with gentle breezes. Tibet suffers from cold. There the sun always shines. And hell is filled with ice and terrible frost. In Tibetan hell there is no fire—because fire in Tibet would feel like heaven.

Certainly these notions have nothing to do with heaven and hell. They have to do with man’s greed and fear.

This man is greedy, oppressive, violent. And the sign of a violent mind is the belief that everything can be obtained by force. This is violence’s basic character: everything can be obtained by force. Such a man, having built such a vast empire—having forced countless people to bend—if he thinks truth too can be brought home by force, it’s no surprise. It is logical. If you have made everyone bow, why not truth? Such a man goes to seize truth by the sword. He behaves violently even toward truth. He is a violator. He wants to force truth too—by coercion. But remember: in this life, whatever is highest, whatever is truly good, is not attained by force.

You can rape a woman, but you will not gain her love. You may possess her body—flesh, bone, marrow—but you will not obtain love. Is there any way to coerce love? The body will bend; but if you were seeking love, even if you force a thousand bodies to bow at sword-point, you will not receive the love of a single woman.

You can place a sword on someone’s neck and force him to prostrate; his body will bend, but devotion will not be attained. Is there any way to coerce reverence? He will bow from fear of losing his head. The irony: if there was a little reverence before, even that will be lost. The day you force a woman, if a little stream of love was flowing, it will dry up forever. Love or reverence or truth—none can be forced.

But our worldly experience is that here all petty things can be gotten by force. The arithmetic of the petty is not the arithmetic of the vast. Do not try to attain the infinite by the same means with which you acquired the trivial; otherwise you will wander and be distressed in vain.

The arithmetic of attaining the infinite is the exact opposite of the arithmetic of attaining the petty. Here, by force, things are obtained; there, if you force, things are lost. Here, by making others bend, people bend; there, if you bend, truth bends. Here, by resolve, everything is obtained; there, by surrender, everything is obtained. Hence the emphasis on nonviolence—because without nonviolence there is no way to truth.

Mahavira placed nonviolence even above truth—because if there is no nonviolence, truth will not be found at all. Nonviolence means the understanding that whatever is vast, great, supreme—truth, goodness, beauty—if you try to force it, it will be lost. It is very delicate; it cannot bear violence. It comes only to a nonviolent heart—to one who is ready to bow.

This emperor was ignorant, greedy, violent, and he decided, “I will bring under my control that truth which Sufis talk about.”

He must have heard talk of Sufis. Emperors are often unoccupied—time on their hands, nothing to do. The talk may have reached the court.

“I will bring truth under my control...”

This very thought is wrong. Truth will never come under your control. You must go under truth’s control. If you think you will bring truth under your control, you have closed the door. Only untruth can be brought under control. To attain truth, you must come under its authority. To conquer the false, you must fight; to “conquer” truth, you must surrender.

Thus we can say: Blessed are those who are ready to lose—for truth will be theirs. But in this life, by losing you get nothing; whatever you have is lost. Here, for every inch of thing, you must fight. This very experience becomes a barrier to entering that realm. So the more experienced you are in this world, the more trouble you’ll have.

And this emperor would have been very experienced.

He was the ruler of Murcia in Spain; his name was Roderick. He also decided that the Sufi of Tarragona, Umar-al-Alawi, should be compelled to reveal truth.

Even the language is foolish. But it is hard to find a more foolish breed than emperors—because the structure of their whole life is violence, greed, ignorance. Umar-al-Alawi became a very renowned fakir—of the same caliber as Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna.

The emperor thought: Seize Alawi and force him to tell me truth.

So Umar was arrested and brought to the royal court. Roderick said to him, “I have decided that you will tell me the truth you know, in words I can understand. If not, you will have to forfeit your life.”

The violent man understands only one language—the language of death. He thinks: Put death before a man and he will give everything. He has no idea about Sufis, about the religious, the saints—that for them death has already died. You cannot frighten them with death. You cannot threaten them by taking away life. What you can snatch, they have already discarded. What you call life, they have already dropped as if it were death; and what you call death, they have embraced as the deepest experience of the heart. Through that death they have known the supreme life, the supreme nectar. But a man speaks in his own language.

Roderick said, “I have decided you will tell me the truth you know, in words I can understand...”

This too is always the insistence of the ignorant: “Tell me in words I can understand.” The ignorant insists that truth should come down to his level. Truth’s condition is that you go up to truth’s level. Truth does not descend to your level. If you insist too much, priests and pundits are produced—because the saint will speak only the language of truth. But you demand a language you can grasp!

Then you find priests and preachers—those who have brought truth down to your language. Now it is no longer truth, because only one who has no real knowing will try to bring truth into your language. One who knows will transform you into the language of truth, not truth into your language. His effort will be to change you.

I have heard: In a school, a Sunday Bible class was in session. The pastor explained many religious things—in the children’s language, naturally, since only children were gathered. At the end he said, “God is everywhere. He abides everywhere; He is omnipresent.” A small child stood up and said, “A question. Is He also in my pant pocket?”

The question is logical. The pastor hesitated; because however logical, it is very childish. And to ask such a thing about God seems a bit impure, irreverent...

But it was not proper to scold the child either. So he said, “Look, it’s not proper to ask such a question; still, I’ll say: God is everywhere.”

The child said, “Answer exactly. I don’t mean ‘everywhere’ in general. I’m asking: Is He in my pant pocket?” Pressed, the pastor said, “Yes, there too.” The child said, “Caught you! My pants don’t even have a pocket.”

And those we call grown-ups are not more than children. They want answers in their language. And when answers are given in their language, you’ll see they are still not satisfied—because their pants don’t have a pocket. First you bring truth into their language; once you bring it down, it becomes untruth. Then they will demand proof. Proofs become impossible.

Therefore the wise either remain silent, or if they speak, they speak in their own language. They do not bring truth to your tongue; they pull you up to truth’s plane. There is no way to pull truth down to yours.

This emperor played it clever—the very thing children do: foolish cleverness! He thought, “This Sufi may speak in a way I cannot understand. How will I be sure whether what he says is truth or untruth?” So he laid down the condition in advance: “Mind you, say it only in words I can understand.”

“I have decided,” he said, “to bring truth under my control. And you will say it in a language I understand.”

All the emphasis is on “I.” The “I” has a language—the language of ego. There is no way to bring truth into your language. You must go into language-lessness. You must forget all language. You must drop thought, drop words. When you become silent, His language begins. Man’s language is in words; God’s language is silence. When you are silent, you connect with His language. Then dialogue begins. That is why silence is so valuable.

“And if you don’t,” said the emperor, “you will have to forfeit your life.”

Umar replied...

Sufis are very simple people—not solemn, not stubborn; lighthearted, dancing, laughing. The emperor’s foolishness is obvious.

So Umar said, “In this generous court...”

He began to speak in the emperor’s tongue—because the emperor can understand only this language. What is that language? It is the language of ego.

Umar said, “In this generous court...”

The word “generous” is utterly false.

“In this generous court, do you accept the worldly convention that if a man tells the truth in answer to a question, and that truth does not prove him a criminal, then he should be set free?”

Roderick said, “So it is.”

An emperor cannot deny that his court is generous.

Umar said, “Let all present here be my witnesses. Now I will tell you not one but three truths.”

Truth is one. There aren’t three. Umar is now joking. He has cast the emperor into a net. Umar caught his pulse. As soon as he said “this generous court,” the king must have swelled up. His posture would have changed; the color of his eyes would have changed. “So the Sufi too admits the court is generous.” The Sufi had placed his hand on the pulse.

Note this: Sufis do not believe in pointless martyrdom. There is no point in dying at the hands of fools. And this man is so childish, greedy, violent. It is utter childishness to say, “I want to control truth. And tell me truth in my language.” He is a child. And one should deal with him as one deals with a child—no more than that.

Umar said, “Not one, I will tell you three truths.”

Here the satire is clear: truth is one. Three must be untruths. But the emperor became even happier: “I wanted only one. See the power of the throne! I asked for one; this man is ready to give three. Who does not fear death? Whom does the sword not bend? Ask for one truth, and three appear. Call one God, and three knock at the door.”

Roderick said, “We must also have assurance that what you call truths are indeed truths.”

The ignorant wants to decide on his own what is truth—“We must be assured it is true.” As if you are the examiner, as if you are the touchstone, the judge! How will you decide what is truth? What measure do you have? What scales? How will you weigh truth? All your scales belong to the false world; all your weights and measures belong to the false world. You will weigh with those. Will you weigh the invisible with the visible? Will you weigh God with matter? All your instruments are for weighing objects. You have no means to weigh consciousness. How will you know whether truth is truth?

But the emperor is clever, cunning. The ignorant is often very cunning; the wise become guileless.

He said, “All right, you say you will tell three. But we must be assured that what you call truths are really truths.”

“Therefore whatever you say must be accompanied by proof.”

This is precisely every ignoramus’s demand: “Provide evidence for whatever is said.” But God has no proof—what proof could there be? The kind of proof you ask for cannot exist. Either everything is His proof, or nothing is. Denying God is very easy, because what proof is there? No one has ever been able to prove. Reason can prove only what is smaller than reason. How will reason prove what is greater than reason? It is like trying to measure the ocean with a spoon—even if the spoon were of gold.

I have heard that Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, was walking along the seashore—lost in deep thought, tangled in the puzzles of truth, seeking a way out of the mystery of life. He was very rational—the father of logic. He saw a man who had dug a small pit, and kept going to the sea, filling a small pot, and pouring water into the pit.

Seeing this many times, Aristotle’s curiosity arose: What is he doing? He asked, “Brother, I’ve been watching—what are you up to?” The man said, “I’ve decided to empty the sea.” Aristotle laughed: “I’ve seen many madmen, but you have no equal. With this little pot into that small pit you plan to empty the whole ocean?”

The man burst into laughter and said, “Think about yourself—what are you doing? With a skull no bigger than this pot, you set out to measure the whole of God. And if I am mad, what is your condition? The ocean, however vast, is still finite. If I keep bailing, however long it takes, one day it will be emptied. But what you are trying to empty is infinite—eternity will pass and it will not be emptied.”

That is the philosopher’s occupation. Everyone wants proof. You are not authentic, yet you demand proof of truth.

So Roderick said, “We must be sure—whatever you say, how shall we accept it as truth? It must be accompanied by proof.”

Umar said, “For a master like you...”

Umar is making a deep joke. It would be hard to find a greater slave than this man—who wants to bring truth into bondage, to enslave even truth. He is utterly blind—dull-witted.

So Umar said, “For a master like you—since we are about to give you not one but three truths—we will give only such truths as are self-evident.”

No proof will be needed. “Self-evident” means that which is its own proof—requiring no external evidence.

Roderick puffed up with praise—he spread wide.

The ego wants flattery, not truth. If he had a little understanding, he would have seen the joke—first, that truth cannot be three; second, that truth cannot be asked to provide proof. You must be transformed—then truth proves itself. No argument can prove truth, no argument can disprove it. Truth is beyond logic. But even if he couldn’t see that, at least he might have noticed that a knower like Umar was addressing him as “master.” Yet the ego never understands.

That is why flattery succeeds in the world. Even if you tell a donkey of a man, “I’ve never seen such a wise person,” he is pleased. No one thinks flattery may be false. Speak the biggest lie in praise—he will accept it. Only a very discerning person sees the false in praise.

An English poet, Yeats, once received the Nobel Prize. A felicitation ceremony was held in Dublin—he was Irish. He was a very humble, truthful man. People began saying great things in his praise. The hall was jammed—wealthy, powerful, high officials. One after another, people rose—mayor, ministers, officers, rich men—and praised him. He seemed to sink into his chair—full of embarrassment. His head dropped. People thought perhaps he fell asleep. Who falls asleep amid so much praise? Sleepers wake up!

Finally, the chairman announced, “On behalf of us all, please accept this small gift—some twenty-five thousand pounds.” Yeats raised his head, took the cheque, looked at it standing, let it fall, and said, “For just twenty-five pounds I had to listen to so many lies.”

The chairman said, “Forgive me—you misread: twenty-five thousand pounds!” He said, “What difference is there between twenty-five pounds and twenty-five thousand? I’ve had to hear so many untruths. For an hour and a half I’ve been sitting listening to lies about myself.”

It is very difficult, when someone lies in your praise, to see that it is a lie. Just as difficult, when someone tells a truth in your criticism, to see that it is true. Truth in criticism feels false; falsehood in praise feels true. Such is the nature of the ego.

Sainthood blossoms when you can find truth even in criticism, and find falsehood even in praise. If you keep your eye on these two, the ego won’t survive; it will have to disappear—because these two are its supports.

No, the king could not even see that a real master was calling this slave “master,” calling his court “generous,” calling them “just.” He understood nothing. The ego is utterly blind—almost unconscious, intoxicated. Roderick, puffed up with flattery, spread out.

Remember: whatever makes you swell—be alert. Whatever makes you shrink—be alert. Criticism makes you shrink; praise makes you swell. Both are dangerous. Gradually try neither to swell nor to shrink. If swelling and shrinking cease, you begin to be still in your own nature.

Umar said, “The first truth is: I am he whom people call Umar, the Sufi of Tarragona.”

Now the joke is at its peak. When you ask for self-evident truths, proofs—only trivial things can be proven; the vast has no proofs. Who will testify for the vast? One who existed before the vast? Who will bring proof? We are all part of That; not apart from It. Trivialities can have testimony. Trivial things can be proven.

Umar set up the whole structure, and then said some very humorous things. “I am he whom people call Umar, the Sufi of Tarragona.” Even the king won’t deny this—because if he does, the matter ends: “Fine—let me go. I’m not Umar.” The king himself acknowledges: this is Umar. The whole town acknowledges: this is Umar, this Sufi fakir.

“And second: you gave your word to release me if I spoke the truth.”

The king cannot deny this either—he had gathered so many witnesses in the court.

“And third: you want the truth of your own notion.”

All three are trivialities, yet highly significant. The trivial is what can be “proved”; the vast cannot. Which things count as proof depends on your height or lowness. If you accept only matter as proof, then it is not even proper to speak of God before you—otherwise whoever speaks won’t be able to “prove.” God is certainly self-evident—but you must rise to His height.

The third point is a joke, yet important: you want the truth of your own notion. Everyone wants this. As long as you want truth according to your notion, truth will not be found. Why should truth bow to your notions? What is the value of your notions—made in ignorance?

I have heard: When Tulsidas went into a Krishna temple, he said, “I will not bow until you pick up bow and arrows, because I am a devotee of Rama.” Will you bow according to your notion? A Hindu will not bow before a mosque, though he says God dwells in every particle. Not in the mosque? Is the mosque a strange thing? A Muslim won’t bow before a temple, though he says all is His play. Then in the idol he smashes, is He not present? If He is, then whom are you smashing? Everyone wants truth to fit his notion. This means you are greater than truth, and truth must fit your mold. You are above truth; if truth needs you, it should dance in your color, your style, take the form of your doctrine. This is the utmost ambition of ego.

Therefore, until you drop all notions, you will not meet truth. If you have decided God’s image must be with a bow, or playing a flute, or sitting like Buddha, or standing naked like Mahavira—then you will have no relation with God. For your childish notion, God should appear in that form! The day you drop all notions—become notionless—He will manifest. He has no form or color. All your notions arise from ignorance. Do not carry them. What you fabricated in darkness, don’t take it into the light. It cannot be taken—and if you insist, it will obstruct the light from entering.

Say to Him: “In whatever form You are, we are content. However You appear, we are content.” Remove your notion from between. A notion means your mind and intellect are standing in the way. You want to paint God with the color of your eyes. God is not a projection. You will have to become utterly notionless, empty of notions, stripped naked of the garments of doctrine. Because of your notions you ask: Explain it in our language. Use our symbols.

People come to me: Sikhs say, “If you speak on Guru Granth Sahib, we will understand.” Muslims say, “You speak on the Bible and Gita; speak on the Quran, then we will understand.” As if they have already understood! If I merely confirm what they already believe, they will be pleased—swollen. If I reject what they believe, they will shrink—angry. As if they have already attained truth—there is nothing left to gain; only to get agreement. There is no more foolish attitude.

You have not attained truth. If you had, the matter would be finished. You would not need to come to me; you would not need to search the Quran, Bible, Gita. But you want truth to be exactly as you believe—why? So your ego will be gratified. The ego plays great games. If you are a Hindu you say, “There is no scripture greater than the Gita.” Why? Is the Gita truly the greatest? Perhaps you haven’t even read it fully. Behind the Gita’s greatness you are trying to prove your own greatness: I am a Hindu; my book is great.

If someone criticizes the guru you accept, you get ready to fight—why? All gurus say: be equal in praise and blame. Why do you get ready to fight? Because if your guru is made small, you too shrink accordingly. Small guru, small disciples; great guru, great disciples. If your guru is the greatest in the world, you are the greatest disciple. You are feeding your ego with your religion, your book, your temple, your guru—turning them into ornaments to inflate the ego. That is the obstacle.

See this clearly and drop these obstacles. Keep no notions. Your biases will not help. You must be transformed wholly—patchwork won’t do. A little whitewash won’t cleanse you. You must change so wholly that the past is utterly dead and you are utterly new. All relations between you and your past must end—as if it was somebody else’s past. Someone else read those books; someone else formed those notions. You have nothing to do with it.

But Roderick was pleased.

These statements had an effect.

No truth was attained by these words, no realization happened. But there was an effect. What effect? “Even Sufi Umar calls me ‘master.’ Even Sufi Umar calls my court ‘generous.’ And certainly Umar stated three points which cannot be called false—self-evident points. I had asked for one truth; the Sufi gave three.” Roderick’s ego was greatly satisfied. The oppressive king was deeply impressed.

And he released Umar.

But Sufis have laughed and said: Umar played a fine joke, and Roderick was made a fine fool. Sufis have been laughing ever since when they read this story. And they say: When you get entangled with fools, remember this story. There is no point in arguing with them; no truth will be resolved in debate. Nor is there any point in telling them they are wrong; they are so wrong they won’t accept hearing it. Nor is there any purpose in becoming a martyr in the hands of fools.

Sufis say: even if you must give your life, let it be for someone worthy! Umar would have been ready to die if Roderick would have gained anything from it. What is death to Sufis? A play. He would have agreed, if he felt that his crucifixion would turn into truth in Roderick’s life. But Sufis say: evaluate everything objectively. This man is not worthy of even a thorn in the foot—why give your life? Umar was proved right, because even his trivial statements satisfied the emperor.

Day after day my experience is the same: people come, ask great questions—but there is no inner longing. Something else is sought. This emperor Roderick was not a seeker of truth at all—because this is not the way a seeker behaves. There is a saying in the Quran: It is always the king who should go to the fakir’s door; the fakir should never go to the king’s door.

A Sufi fakir, Jalaluddin Rumi, often went to the king’s court too. People doubted and said, “This is against the Quran. Muslims are sticklers for the line. If it is written in the book, the matter is finished.” One day a crowd surrounded Rumi and said, “You are returning from the palace, and it’s clearly written—Muhammad’s words—that the fakir should never go to the palace. If anyone must go, the king should come to the fakir.” Jalaluddin laughed and said, “I tell you: whether the fakir goes to the king or the king comes to the fakir, it is always the king who comes to the fakir.”

Who knows whether that crowd understood or not!

My grandfather was an uneducated villager—wholly illiterate. But sometimes he would say things of great value—as villagers often do, because all the wealth they have is a little experience. He ran a small shop. If a customer haggled too much, he would say, “Look—whether the watermelon falls on the knife or the knife on the watermelon, in every case the watermelon gets cut.”

That is exactly what Rumi said: whether the fakir goes to the king or the king to the fakir, in every case it is the king who comes to the fakir. There is no question of the knife getting cut. Whenever there is cutting, it is the watermelon that is cut. If it pleases you more, drop the watermelon on the knife—it makes no real difference.

This meeting between the Sufi Umar and Roderick was wasted—because the emperor was not ready to be cut. If he had been ready, there would have been no need to summon Umar at all; it would have been proper to go to his hut.

A question asked with surrender and reverence can carry a hint of answer. A prayer made with humility can be fulfilled. Given the kind of insistence he made, Umar simply used irony—played like a grownup plays with children.

Keep this in mind too. If you go in search of truth out of greed, you will not reach the temple. If you want to attack the temple—if your mind is that of a soldier—you will miss. A lover reaches there, not a soldier. And if you want to guard your ignorance and yet know truth, you will never know truth—because there is no way to light a lamp while protecting darkness.

That’s all for today.