Diya Tale Andhera #5

All of human civilization has been repressing two things—sex and death. Sex is one end of life; death is the other. We keep trying to forget both, as if they did not exist. And almost everyone lives as though there were no sex and no death in life. It makes no difference: both surround life, sex surrounds it and death surrounds it. The only difference is this: by using both you could have come to the supreme truth, to the ultimate current of life—you are deprived of that.

What is the reason for repressing both? And it isn’t just one civilization; in almost all civilizations, in all societies, and across all centuries, it has been done. Try to understand.

Sex is linked with death. On this earth only those die who are born through sex. There are two kinds of life on earth. One is asexual life, not born through sex. Take the amoeba: a tiny, single-celled organism. The amoeba is born without sexual desire. Hence it has no ordinary death. Understand how the amoeba lives: it eats, it is unicellular, no other sense organs, only the body. It assimilates food through the body. A point comes when it grows so large that it becomes difficult, impossible, to drag that bulk. Then a crack appears in the middle and the body divides into two. One becomes two. Then both eat again, and whenever they become too full to manage, they divide again. An amoeba never dies. Its mode of birth is not sexual. It will continue to survive unless it is killed or destroyed. And even if you destroy one, its halves will still remain. It has no fixed lifespan. Scientists say an amoeba could live a hundred thousand years, two hundred thousand, a million—death is not natural to it. Kill it and it dies; otherwise nature does not bring death to it.

Humans are sexual. Animals, birds, plants—all are sexual. They have a limit to life. At a certain point they die. Scientists say: with sex, death enters. Sex grants energy. Sex is a force—the life-energy. When a child is born, he comes with a specific energy. That energy will be spent in seventy years, eighty years, fifty years. When it is exhausted, the child must die. This energy the child brings has a limit.

Sex is tied to death. Whoever is born will die. And no one wants to die. No one wants to be annihilated. The very thought of being erased seems tragic. However miserable your life may be, even if it is nothing but hell, still you do not want to die. A beggar sits by the road, limbs missing, leprosy, no hope of the body surviving, and yet there is hope of surviving. He is rotting, lying in the gutter, living like a worm, yet he does not want to die.

Against death we are ready to choose any kind of life—no matter how bad, how painful—but we will not choose death. Why? Because however bad life is, hope remains: tomorrow it will be better. Today I am in the gutter; tomorrow a palace. Today the body is ill; tomorrow it will be healthy. In life there is always a tomorrow, always hope, always a future. With death, tomorrow ends, the future is destroyed, time disappears. There is no way out. The urge is to survive. It is not only in you; it is in plants, birds, animals—wherever there is life, there is the urge to live. If it were not there, you could not live. Why would you even breathe? The urge pushes you on, keeps you alive. You run, earn, take on all kinds of disturbances—and for nothing. In the end nothing is gained.

The result is almost like what I have heard: in a court of law a man was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The incident is from America. They no longer hang you; they seat you in the electric chair. The magistrate was compassionate. Before pronouncing sentence he asked the accused, “Before I pass judgment, I want to make every aspect of this trial just and compassionate. So I will ask you one question, so that no one can say you were not asked your preference: do you prefer AC or DC current?”

What difference does it make, if one is to die, whether it is AC or DC? In both cases death will occur. What difference does it make if you die in the street or in a palace? On a throne or with a begging bowl? AC or DC—what’s the difference? Death happens. The beggar trembles; the emperor trembles. There is the fear of annihilation.

There is only one fear: that I may not be erased. All other fears cluster around this. There is fear of losing wealth, because wealth protects; without wealth how will I survive? There is fear of losing friends, because in crisis a friend will stand by you, save you; alone how will you survive? Wherever you fear, know that behind it death is hiding. Behind every fear is the face of death. Man is so frightened that he wants to forget that he will die.

That is why we build cremation grounds outside the village. Death is in the midst of life; the cremation ground is outside the village. Death is in the marketplace; the cremation ground is outside. Death is before us every moment; we have hidden the cremation ground far away. No one goes there. If forced to go to bid farewell to a friend or loved one, we want to run away quickly. The chest trembles there. It is frightening. No one goes there at night. No one passes alone. It is not fear of ghosts. Seeing the cremation ground reminds you of your own death; it is a symbol that everyone will come here. If not today, tomorrow; sooner or later I too will come here. My loved ones and friends will bring me here and run away quickly. They will not want to stay. As I have done, so will they.

We hide death. When a funeral passes on the road, the mother calls the children inside, shuts the door. Let there be no hint of death. Why? What is the use of hiding what is? And how will you hide it? However much you hide it, death will show itself from somewhere.

So we have made small arrangements and big arrangements too. The bigger arrangement is this: every frightened person believes the soul is immortal. Not because he knows, not because he has any experience, not because he learned it at the feet of a master. No! Only because the heart is afraid and fear seeks consolations. This doctrine gives a great consolation—that the soul is immortal. Only the body will die; the soul is immortal. I will survive; there is no reason for me to be wiped out. So we hide the cremation ground and hide death, and finally we set up this inner belief: I will not die. This is just a house; it will be left behind. I am a traveler, resting, and I will move on.

If you knew this, it would be another matter. You do not know. And those who do know, know only when they have dropped the fear of death. But you cling to this doctrine precisely because you are afraid. The pyre will burn, but not me. Arrows will pierce the body, but not me. Out of fear you repeat this formula. Out of fear you cling to religion. And religion can be found only by those who attain fearlessness. Hence the great difficulty.

There are two kinds of religious people. One becomes religious out of fearlessness—he has peeked into death and found nectar hidden there. The others kneel in temples and mosques out of fear. They too look religious, but their knees bend from fear. They pray to God, “Save us.” They do not know yet that God is hidden within them. The one to whom they pray is concealed in the one who is praying. What is there to pray for? You are the very one before whom you bow your knees.

Nothing will happen by bending knees; something happens by turning within. Nothing happens by folding hands; something happens by uniting your divided life-energy within. Folding hands in greeting is only a symbol. Let your inner fragmented mind join in the same way; as I said yesterday, the left hand symbolizes the right hemisphere of the brain and the right hand the left hemisphere.

We fold hands in namaste. Its deeper meaning is that the right and left brains within you become one. No fragments remain. Division, conflict, duality, disappears. You become integrated within. That integration is called yoga. Yoga does not mean joining with God; it means joining within yourself. As soon as you are joined, you are God.

One person attains the knowledge “the soul is immortal” through fearlessness. Another frightened person clings to this doctrine out of fear. The doctrine provides security, reassurance, consolation, reduces fear.

Because of the fear of death we have hidden death. Because of the fear of death we have put up screens. And once we hide death, we realize sex must also be hidden, for both are the two ends of the same thing. That is why the whole world began the suppression of sex. The logic is straightforward: if you know one end of the stick, you will feel like going to the other end. If you must forget one end, it is appropriate to forget both. If one is remembered, it will remind you of the other. If you cannot forget one, you will not be able to forget the other.

From this you will understand why the whole world is so eager to suppress sex—especially those you call religious. They are most eager to suppress sex. The secret is that those you call religious are timid people. Frightened of death, they talk of celibacy. Frightened of death, they are busy destroying sexual desire. Their logic is clear, their arithmetic simple: if you want to avoid the other end, destroy the first end—then you will be rid of both.

But closing your eyes, like an ostrich burying its head in sand, never saves you from truth. Truth has to be seen with open eyes. And the wonder is, the more you close your eyes, the more trouble you invite; the more you open them, the more you are freed from trouble.

To forget death, we tried to forget sex. We hid death in the cremation ground outside the village. We hid sex in the darkness of night. Walking in the marketplace by day, in college, in politics—you would never think these people have sexual energy in their lives. Everything looks neat and clean; nothing visible. If you looked only at people’s outer lives…

Bertrand Russell wrote: if a traveler came from Mars, studied us for a day, and left, he would not discover that sex exists in human life. He would see people going to the market, doing business, talking, reading books, praying, worshiping, burying the dead—everything—but how life is born would remain unknown. Because we have hidden it completely. We hid sex so that death would not be seen. If you uncover one, the other is exposed.

This happened in this century. Sigmund Freud began to uncover sex. He saw that ninety percent of human illness arises from the repression of sex. Observing mental hospitals, he found that ninety percent of patients suffered from sexual pathology; and even the ten percent who did not appear to be—on the surface—on deeper probing, in their unconscious, the same root illness was there. All derangement arises because the sexual energy has gone into wrong channels.

People were furious with Freud. Perhaps never in human history has there been such anger toward a man. Jesus was crucified—but even then people were not so angry. Socrates was given hemlock—but even then not so angry. The anger toward Freud is unparalleled. He had touched a very deep wound. He exposed sex. Opposition arose worldwide. But facts cannot be killed by opposing them. The more the opposition, the more the facts stood proven. The vehemence of the opposition showed he had touched the wound people wanted to hide. He discovered deep truths: that a human life is suffused with sex—from birth itself…

We used to think that a child has no sexuality, he is innocent, pure. But our assumption was wrong. The newborn is also filled with sexual energy. Naturally so—if you are born of sex, how could you not be full of it? Even Ganga at Gangotri is filled with water. However small, it will not later be filled with water; it carries water from the source. Water is the stream of life. The child, born of sex, is filled with it. Yes, his sexuality is still clean; society has not yet distorted it. That is why I call him pure—not because he has no sex, but because it is not yet perverted. At the source the water is pure; later, rivers and drains join it and it is defiled.

The child’s sexuality is pure and clear. He is as sexual as an old man; the modes differ. It develops gradually, matures slowly. In a child, sexuality is centered in the lips. As he grows, sexuality deepens. It takes fourteen years for the energy to move from lips to genitals. Those who block this journey will remain fixated at the lips: they will overeat, smoke, chew betel—these disturbances arise when sexuality remains at the lips; they remain childish. The current of desire could not travel rightly. At the source all was well, but the river lost its way. Gradually desire deepens and reaches the genitals.

That is why kissing and intercourse have a deep connection—they are two ends: lips at one end, genitals at the other. When desire surges like a wave between these two, the whole organism vibrates. If the whole system vibrates and the discharge is through the genitals, that is sex. If the whole system vibrates but the energy is not discharged downward through the genitals, it moves upward—that is kundalini. If desire wanders in the body and escapes outward through the body’s doors, it is sex.

The same wave, when it rises upward, becomes inward and does not dissipate outward but turns toward the center, reverses its current—then this very sexual energy becomes the search for the divine. With this same energy you procreate children; with this same energy you can be reborn—then a new life dawns. It is all a play of this energy.

But we lie to children. We try to convince them they are innocent and try to make them remain innocent. In this effort, lies are born. When Freud demolished these lies, there was great opposition; it looked as if he were some demon. He will destroy all religion—he is even finding sex in pure, sacred children! Freud said: not only in the child, in everyone. A mother too has sexual energy toward her son. If the mother is not perverted by false conditioning and repression, when the child suckles at her breast she experiences the same kind of pleasure as in intercourse. If her organism has not been spoiled by moralizing and repression, the same ripples of delight will arise. Sometimes this makes the mother anxious; she may push the child away. Christianity has almost severed children from the breast—because Christianity is vehemently anti-sex.

Freud uncovered all this and faced a storm. Even Freud did not know where his search would lead. He began with sex—he called that force Eros. Before his death another intuition arose in him: there is another drive in man, toward death. He called it Thanatos. One drive gives birth; the other longs to die. He reached the other pole too. He said man is a battleground between Eros and Thanatos—sex and death. He did not live long enough to explore the second as deeply as the first.

What I want to say is: whoever becomes conscious about sex will, sooner or later, become conscious about death. But the opposite has happened in human history: out of fear of death we hid death—and hid sex too. You never reach truth by hiding facts of life. However ugly or terrifying they may be, however much they shake the mind and bring storms, you must face them. Only by facing them do you become strong and attain fearlessness.

The world’s real religions have used both. There is a market religion—the temple, mosque, gurdwara religion. And there is a religion that begins and ends with Nanak, Kabir, Buddha, Mahavira: a religion of inquiry where you put your very life at stake.

I speak of that religion, where life must be wagered. In that religion there are two approaches. One is tantric: begin with the fact of sex. If you want to know the truth of life, you must know the source from which life erupts. If a scientist wants to know matter, he analyzes down to the ultimate atom. Whatever you want to know, enter its innermost stream. One kind of religion starts from tantra, to grasp life’s fundamental base—there we find the key to the divine. The other starts from death. Either penetrate the depth of sex, or of death. These are the two doors—birth and death—for entry into God. You are afraid of both, so you reach nowhere. You cling to the middle, fearing both ends.

This Sufi story concerns the method of remembering death. Sufis seek truth from the end called death—just as tantra seeks it from sex. Begin either where life arises, or where it dissolves. Seek that from which life comes, or that into which it goes. The first step of the circle or the last; this end or that end. You are stuck in the middle, afraid of both ends.

Now understand the story. Sufis meditate on death. They say: what will happen by meditating on God? You don’t even know what God is—how will you meditate on what you do not know? You can repeat a name, but you know it is your invention. You can make an image of God, but you know you made it.

No—by chanting names and making images nothing will happen. Seek the two ends of the stream that is flowing in you now, for at both ends God is present—on the first day and on the last. God means the vast truth of life: from that you came, into that you will go. Try to catch it at the ends.

A dervish was on a sea voyage.

A dervish is a Sufi fakir. It is a highly respected word: one who has become a beggar for God. Whose desire asks for nothing but God. Whose begging bowl accepts nothing less than God. In whose life a single note is sounding, like a one-stringed ektara—God. Who wants neither wealth nor position, neither fame nor respect, neither honor nor even life. He wants only one thing: to find that from which he came and into which he will go—the ultimate truth. A dervish is one whose bowl will accept nothing less than God. He has merged all desires into a single longing.

Your desires are innumerable, like tiny straws. The dervish has braided all those straws into a single rope: that rope is longing. He has only one longing: to know what is—to know truth. He is a beggar for truth.

A dervish was on a sea voyage. According to custom, all the passengers came to him, one by one, to ask for good counsel.

According to custom you go to gurus, bow to sadhus, ask sannyasins for good counsel—according to custom! It is not your own longing. Others do it; it is the done thing, so you do. You go to temples and mosques out of custom, not out of your own inner impulse—it too is borrowed.

When you go to a prostitute, you do not go by custom. There the whole tradition is against you. You go by your own desire. But when you go to a temple, you go by custom, because of tradition.

Remember: you will arrive only where you go by your own cause. Wherever you go because of others, that going is false. Save yourself from this falsity. That is why, though you went many times to the temple, you never reached the temple. You bowed to sadhus many times, yet you never bowed; your ego remained standing. The bowing was false. You read the scriptures many times; not a word penetrated you. If there is no thirst, how will you drink? If there is no hunger, how will you eat? And digestion is impossible. If you eat without hunger, you will vomit. No benefit—only harm. Blood will not be made; you will not be nourished. Your burden may increase, but liberation will not come closer.

So, by custom they went to the fakir and asked for counsel.

In Muslim lands, wherever a dervish appears, people bow and ask for guidance for the ignorant.

Understand: if you ask from your own cause, you will receive. If you ask only because of tradition, you will not receive. Not that the dervish will not give—he gives to those who ask and even to those who do not. He has no conditions in his giving. But you will not receive. He may give, but you will not get it. You will only hear on the surface; within you are elsewhere. He will throw the seed at you, but it will not fall into your heart. The heart opens only when you are filled with thirst, with longing. Then your heart, like the chatak bird, opens its beak and looks to the clouds. When you are like a chatak before the master, then the drop of his rain will enter and become a pearl. Otherwise he will go on giving and you will not receive. Because he gives, you may even fall into the illusion that you are receiving.

It is not by the master’s giving that the disciple gets; it is by the disciple’s receiving. Living with a master can create the illusion that you are getting a lot, because he appears to be giving. But you are a vessel without a bottom. He keeps pouring and all flows out. There is a bottom only when you value it as a jewel and resolve to preserve it—when you hide it in the innermost chamber of your chest; then the seed takes root and transforms you.

By custom they went to the fakir and asked for counsel. The dervish gave the same advice to all.

All true masters say the same thing to all. There is nothing else to say. Truth is not many. Whether you go to Mahavira or Buddha, Zarathustra, Krishna, or Muhammad—the message is one. Language will differ, symbols will differ, style will differ, but the message is one.

The dervish gave everyone the same advice: “Keep awareness of death until you have known death.”

This is the formula. Do not forget, even for a moment, that death is. Because you go astray only when you forget death. The moment you forget death, the wrong enters your life. Think: you are fighting someone, abusing him, insulting him, ready to plunge a dagger into his chest, and someone tells you, “In a moment you will die.” What will happen? Your hand will loosen, the dagger will fall. Perhaps you will ask the one you were going to kill for forgiveness: “Forgive me; my time is up.”

You were just madly making money; someone said, “In a moment you will die.” All ambition disappears. Money becomes worse than dust. You will not want to carry it. You were on the journey to office and rank; the news of death arrives—journey over. With the remembrance of death, life becomes totally different.

Your life is wrong because there is no remembrance of death. Then you get entangled in the trivial, spend great time on petty things, gather pebbles and stones and fill your safe. The moment death is remembered, your valuation changes. What has meaning in the light of death remains; what is futile drops away. Forget death and you will keep clutching the futile. It seems you will be here forever; you gather trash. Remember death and you see you will not remain. What is the value of your quarrels? Of your court cases? Of your wife and children? What is the difference between “mine” and “not mine”? With the remembrance of death, the house is no longer a home; it becomes a waiting room.

In a railway station waiting room, or at an airport, you sit. It is not your home. If someone throws trash there, you watch quietly; you do not say, “Pick it up; you have made my home dirty.” You do not quarrel there. If someone’s foot touches yours, you know there is jostling; people come and go. No one’s home. In a moment your time will come and you will go.

As soon as death is remembered, life becomes a waiting room. You are not here to settle down; it is a short rest, a halt—not the destination. And when you must leave, what is the point of getting tangled in the trivialities of a place you must leave?

The dervish said, “Keep awareness of death until you have known death.”

Keep that awareness until you have a direct encounter with death. You do the opposite: you turn your back on death and run, lest you meet it. The dervish says: face it. The moment you see it, you will be free of fear. He who has seen death has no fear. Why?

Because the day death is seen, the seer becomes separate from death. The seen and the seer separate. Then death becomes an event in the world, and you become the witness. When you see death rightly, you become immortal. Encountering death grants immortality.

So I give you a key: if you can see sex clearly, it becomes samadhi. If you can see death clearly, it becomes nectar. If you remain frightened of sex and keep fleeing, you will never have any glimpse of samadhi. If you remain afraid of death, you will never have any clue of the nectar. Death is the ladder to the vision of the deathless; sex is the ladder to the glimpse of samadhi. And once samadhi is glimpsed, sex becomes futile; once the nectar is seen, death disappears. You are no longer a mortal.

Then it is not a doctrine—it is your own realization. Doctrines come from others; realization is your own. Then nothing can annihilate you. Even if an atom bomb falls, you will not die. You cannot die. Life is eternal. Forms change, houses change, garments change, shapes change; but the formless hidden within the forms remains the same.

These will no longer be the ghats of your river; there will be other ghats. These people will not be on your banks; others will be. But the river flows on. Even when it dissolves into the ocean, does it really disappear? It becomes clouds, rains again at the source, flows again—life is a circle without end.

“Keep awareness of death until you have known death,” said that dervish.

This is a dervish’s meditation formula.

It is the formula of all meditation. Either anchor your awareness in sex—you will get the key there. Or anchor it in death—you will get the key there. From these two banks you can leap; there is the shore from which to dive into the ocean.

But none of the travelers liked it.

They had gone for good counsel, and this man started talking nonsense! If you speak of death to anybody, no one likes it. Tell someone he will die—no one likes it. Yet there is no greater truth. Everything in life is uncertain except death; death alone is certain. But no one is ready to hear what is most certain. People show their palms to astrologers, their horoscopes—not to be told, “You will die,” though that alone is certain. You ask, “How long will I live?”—not “When will I die?” The astrologer is clever: he gives you pleasant news—“You will live long.”

Mulla Nasruddin showed his hand to an astrologer. “You will get a beautiful wife,” he was told. “And not only a wife—she will bring a huge dowry!” Nasruddin was delighted. “Wonderful,” he said. “But what about my wife and children?” He was already married! He rejoiced at the prospect, but then remembered, “I’m already married—what about my wife and kids?” Ready to abandon them!

The astrologer knows what pleases you; he tells you what you want to hear. To build credibility he slips in a thing or two you won’t like, so you won’t suspect he is only flattering. But most of it is nice. The astrologer lives on your hopes. He who knows nothing about himself tells you about your life and future.

I have heard of two astrologers in a village. Each morning as they set out for work, they met on the road, showed each other their palms, and asked, “Brother, how will business be today?” Then they went off to ply their trade.

Like you—those who live in darkness go to others in darkness to show their hands. Your desire seems utterly blind. You want someone to assure you that all will be well. Whoever gives you assurance, you touch his feet.

But a dervish, a sannyasin, a true master does not want to reassure you. He wants to break your false assurances—because they are all wrong. You have grasped at straws out of fear of drowning. No one was ever saved by straw. You sail paper boats. Go to a guru and he will sink your boat—you will think him an enemy: he has sunk my boat. But he sinks it to show you it was going to sink anyway. How long will you cling to it? Seek the boat that never sinks. You will seek it only when you are freed from the sinking one.

It befits a child to float paper boats, but you are still floating paper boats even in old age. Your whole life is made of paper boats. If your name appears in the newspaper, you are thrilled—a paper boat. When people say, “You are good,” you are elated—a paper boat. Words are worse than paper. A paper boat at least floats a while; a boat of praise does not float even that long. If someone flatters you outrageously, you are pleased. How strange that man cannot recognize flattery! Someone butters you up—everyone sees it, but you do not. Why? Because everyone has made a huge paper expansion of the ego. However much someone praises you, it is still less than the expansion you have already done within. Hence flattery works; people influence each other with it. Your praise will always fall short of the person’s own inner self-praise. You merely confirm what he has been telling himself quietly. People keep traveling in paper boats.

They were already frightened—sea travel is dangerous. It’s an old tale, when boats often sank rather than arrived. Boarding a boat was not free of risk; only daredevils boarded. The weak did not, because there was no certainty that the boat would reach. The boats were small and flimsy; the sea was fierce, vast. They had asked this man for good counsel—perhaps hoping he would bless them: “You will reach safely, the boat will not sink; do not worry, I am here.” And he did the opposite: he raised a terrifying subject. Already afraid of death, he pressed a finger on the wound: be aware of death! They were happy to see a godly man aboard—he would save them.

Even when you go to a guru, you go to be saved, not to be annihilated. But a guru can only annihilate you; he cannot save you. Because annihilation is the only way to be saved.

He spoke an ill-omened thing: be aware of death until you know it. No traveler liked it; it was inauspicious, not to be said.

And shortly after, a fierce storm arose.

Then they must have become certain this man is bad luck; this is the result of his words. As soon as he arrived, he said the wrong thing.

Man is unbelievably fearful. If a cat crosses your path, you return home—afraid of a bad omen. But now there was no way back; they were on board.

A scientist was addressing a gathering: “As human beings, free yourselves from superstitions. Even animals do not indulge in them.” An old woman stood up and said, “Excuse me—if a cat crosses a mouse’s path, doesn’t the mouse turn back?” She thought even the mouse turns back because of superstition!

The mouse’s fear is real; but why do you, a human, turn back? Fear—perhaps we learned it from the mouse to fear cats.

When the storm came and death seemed everywhere, panic ensued.

Sailors and passengers fell to their knees and prayed to God to save the ship.

We always pray to God to save us. That is why our prayers never reach.

Such prayers are like a seed praying to be saved. And it is God’s great compassion that He does not listen—because if you are saved, you will rot. You are a seed; you are not yet a tree. Your blessedness lies in dying as a seed. If the seed is saved, it will never become a tree. You do not know what you are asking. “Save me,” you say—yet you are the disease, the prison. Other than you, there is no enemy. You are the obstacle. And you pray to be saved.

So, gurus who “save” you attract millions. Someone ties talismans, someone gives ash—they are saving you. But know this: the guru will dissolve you; how can he save you? What is a talisman? If you remain as you are, no greater misfortune is possible.

Think: if you were to remain exactly as you are, forever—what catastrophe! Are you satisfied with this? Has any music arisen within you that, if it played forever, you would be content? You have nothing in your hands. Trash covers your soul. You have known nothing but poverty within. There is nothing but tears. Your smiles are all false. You have never danced. How can you? You have nothing to dance for.

Meera can say, “I tied bells on my feet and danced,” because bells tie only when Krishna is found—when the supreme truth is attained. If you were saved as you are, no greater curse could befall you—and this is what you ask. Khalil Gibran said: God is very compassionate not to listen to human prayers. If He listened and agreed—“So be it”…

The wise do not say to God, “Fulfill my prayer”; they say, “Fulfill Thy will. We do not even know what to ask. We will ask wrongly, because we are wrong. Our prayers will be trouble.” The whole story of your life is this: whatever you asked for, you got—and then suffered because of it. If you did not get it, you suffered; if you did, you suffered. You never look closely.

I have heard a very old Tibetan tale. A man returned from a long journey and stayed at his friend’s house. He said, “On my travels I found a most extraordinary thing. I had thought to give it to you when I returned. But now I am afraid to give it. I have seen terrible results. It is a talisman: ask three wishes of it and they will be granted. I tried three; they were fulfilled—and now I repent having asked. My friends tried too; they beat their chests. I thought to give it to you, but now I’m afraid.”

The friend went wild: “What are you saying—‘not give’? Where is the talisman? We cannot wait—who knows about tomorrow?” His wife was even more insistent: “Bring it out!” The traveler said, “Let me think; all the outcomes were bad.” The friend replied, “You must have asked wrongly.”

Everyone thinks the other asks wrongly; “I will ask rightly.” But until you are right, how will you ask right? The asking arises out of you. He would not be convinced, nor would the wife. After much insistence, the traveler left the talisman reluctantly. The couple could not sleep. They asked: what shall we wish? For a long time they had desired at least a hundred thousand rupees—become “lakpatis.” In Tibet that is huge. “Let’s secure the first wish; then we’ll think.” They wished for a hundred thousand.

The moment you wish, the talisman jerks out of your hand—that means the wish is granted. Fifteen minutes later, a knock at the door. News: their son, serving in the king’s army, was killed; the king sent a reward of a hundred thousand. The wife began beating her chest: “What is this?” She said, “Ask the second wish now—let our son be restored to life.” The father hesitated, remembering the first outcome. But the wife insisted: “Don’t delay, lest they bury him, lest the body rot. Quickly!” They wished the second wish: “Let our son return.” The talisman fell. Fifteen minutes later, a knock. The boy’s footsteps. “Father!”—his voice. They were terrified: so quickly? The father peeped out—no one. From the window—no one. Something seemed to move.

The son had returned as a ghost—the body was already buried. The couple trembled: “What now? Should we open the door?” However much you loved the boy, if he returns as a ghost, your courage will fail. The father said, “Wait, one wish remains.” He asked the talisman, “Kindly free us from this boy; otherwise he will torment us lifelong. If this ghost remains in the house…” And at midnight he returned the talisman to his friend: “Throw it away. Never give it to anyone.”

Your life is the tale of this talisman. What you ask, you get. If you do not get it, you suffer; if you do, you suffer. The poor seem unhappy, the rich more so. The unmarried suffer; the married beat their breasts. Those without children roam to saints for a child; those with children ask how to be rid of them. If you have something, you cry; if not, you cry. The basic reason: you are wrong, so whatever you want, you want wrongly.

The fakir spoke of death to those who wanted to live. The storm arose, panic ensued, knees bent to pray for the ship to be saved. The fakir must have been amazed: he had just given good counsel—remember death—and now, with death standing at the door, you are craving life!

All fakirs are amazed. Whatever they teach you, a moment later you do the opposite. Counsel is not received; people ask out of custom.

But amid this terror the dervish sat unperturbed and calm.

What better occasion than this—with death on all sides! He would have become the witness, simply watching: death everywhere, the storm, the sea. He did not pray to be saved. He must have given thanks for the opportunity—a situation in which he could be utterly awake.

The religious person thanks God; the irreligious prays for favors. The religious person’s prayer is always gratitude; the irreligious person’s prayer is always asking. The religious person says, “You have given so much; I am grateful. What more is there to ask?”

He sat calm and unperturbed in the midst of terror.

When the sea grew calm, a fellow passenger asked, “Didn’t you see that during that dreadful storm there was nothing stronger than a plank between us and death?”

Only the plank of the boat separated us. One slip, the sea a bit more mad, and the plank would flip—we would be gone. Death was that close. A plank’s distance. Extend a hand and it would be there. Didn’t you see?

The dervish said, “Yes, I know it is always so at sea, that there is only a plank between us and death. But when I was on land, I constantly saw in ordinary life that between us and death there is even less protection.”

At sea it is so—a plank. In life, not even that. There is no distance between you and death. You are cheek by jowl with death every moment.

Why? What does this mean? It means you are cheek by jowl with the body. The body is mortal. There is not a hair’s breadth between you and the body. And the body is death; it will die. It can die any moment. Dying is its nature. In fact, death has already happened; it is already dead, and you are pressed against it. At sea at least there was a plank; in life there isn’t even that.

He who awakens to death will awaken to the body, because body and death mean the same. As you awaken to the body, you awaken to death, and a distance begins to appear. And that distance is vast—no greater distance exists.

You are deathless; the body is death. What greater distance could there be? You are eternal; the body is momentary. You have always been and always will be; the body is now and soon will not be. You are consciousness; the body is clay. The body is a clay lamp; you are the flame. The gap is infinite. There is no greater miracle than that these distances have been bridged—how matter and God have met is the greatest miracle. But you stand with eyes closed, in the darkness under the lamp, and there seems to be no gap.

The fakir rightly said: in ordinary life there is not an inch between you and death. Yet you move about as if death were not. Looking at people, one feels there is no death—no one is filled with the thought of dying. Until the very last moment a man is filled with thoughts of living; he tries to save himself to the last grain, clutching even the tiniest of supports. But in life there is nothing worth clutching. Nothing has been gained from it, nor can be. Whatever you gained proved to be suffering. That talisman is dreadful.

One fellow traveler asked; the others did not return. The man is dangerous. Perhaps it was his ill-omened words that raised the storm. They were decent people—they did not throw the fakir overboard. He stood quiet and did not pray. Very respectable people—or perhaps in panic they forgot him. Otherwise they would have said, “You are not praying? You seem an atheist, posing as a fakir! When all are in danger, you are closest to God; your voice will be heard quickly—pray!” They would have forced his knees down or thrown him into the sea as a bad passenger who brought calamity—he spoke of death as soon as he came.

Perhaps in their fear they forgot. They did not return. This man cannot give consolation. They began to avoid him. One fellow traveler only asked, “Did you see how close death was?” The fakir said, “That is what I see everywhere—that death is right next to us. And that is why I say: be aware of death—continuously. On waking in the morning, know this could be your last day. At night, as you go to sleep, know this could be your last night.” If you can just hold this awareness a little, a new nectar will begin to shower in your life.

At night, if you go to sleep with the thought, “This might be my last night,” then give thanks to God for all He has given. In your heart thank your friends and loved ones for what they have done for you—because in the morning you may not rise; there may be no time to thank. Treat this night as your last and go to sleep. If you can sleep with this sense of the last night, the very quality of your sleep will change. If this is the last, there will be no dreams. What is the point of dreams? They are preparations for tomorrow. If this is the last, you will sleep as if in God’s lap. With no thought of morning, where is the tension? Tomorrow is tension. Because of tomorrow the mind is restless. When you have much to do tomorrow, you cannot sleep. Now there will be no tomorrow. And one day there will indeed be a last night. Do not depart without thanking, for later repentance will be useless. So do it every night; for who knows which night is the one.

Before sleep, consider it the last night. Thank everyone. Seek forgiveness from those you were angry with. Thank those who did anything for you. Those who did nothing, at least they did not harm you—thank them too. Those who harmed you, toward whom you carry hatred—drop the connection of hatred, because when the body will not remain, what relationship is there? Be free of “mine” and “not mine,” and go to sleep quietly, as if this is your last night. The nature of your night will change.

The body will sleep; within, something will awaken. The darkness under the lamp will begin to fade. In the morning, on waking, first thank God for giving you one more day. Accept it with joy and gratitude. At night again, sleep as though it were the last night. Receive every moment with gratitude and, taking every moment as your last, be ready to bid farewell. Let this be the formula of your life. Soon you will find you are different, new. Someone within has been born anew.

It was for this that the fakir said, “Keep awareness of death until you have known death.”

The remembrance of death becomes, one day, the vision of the deathless.

Enough for today.