Ek Omkar Satnam #16

Before we enter the sutra, let a few things be understood.

In the search for the Divine, thousands upon thousands of devices have been employed. Yet whenever someone has found, he has also found this: it does not come through devices, it comes as prasad. It comes by His anukampa—His grace.

But the matter becomes very intricate, because His anukampa does not descend without effort. Understand this a little more carefully. Whoever wishes to walk this path will not be able to without first understanding this paradox and its tangle.

Take a few examples. You have forgotten a word, someone’s name. You try every possible trick to remember. It seems to sit right on the tip of your tongue—now it’s coming, now it’s coming—and yet it does not. You pound your head on all sides. You try a thousand stratagems to find it. And inside there is a great restlessness, because it truly feels as if it is right there on your tongue. So close—and yet it seems so far. At last you get tired. What can one do? You try, you become restless, then you get exhausted. You turn to something else—read the newspaper, go for a walk around the house, chat with a friend, drink tea. And suddenly, without warning, when you are making no effort at all, the name rises up into memory.

When we strive too hard, our very striving becomes a barrier. For excessive striving brings great tension into the mind. When we seek with intense insistence, our insistence itself obstructs—because with such insistence we are no longer open, we become closed. And when the mind is very concentrated, that very concentration produces narrowness. The sky of consciousness shrinks. And the narrowness can become so narrow that even a small word cannot pass through it.

Concentration means constriction. When you concentrate the mind, you close it on all sides and leave it open only in one direction. A single slit remains through which you look; everything else you shut off. Only then can there be concentration.

If a man’s house has caught fire, his mind becomes concentrated on the fire. In that moment he will not sense that the shoe is chafing his foot. If someone slips a hand into his pocket and takes his money, he will not know. He will know nothing else. He is engaged in extinguishing the fire. Even if his hand gets burnt, he will only notice later. The mind is one-pointed. All energy is poured upon the fire. Everything else is forgotten.

Concentration is constriction. When you strive to obtain one thing—even when a mere name won’t come—your consciousness becomes one-pointed. And the moment it narrows, trouble begins.

The complexity is this: Paramatma is boundless. He cannot be found with a constricted mind. If even a small word will not come, how will the Name of Paramatma come? And it is not kept on the tongue, it is kept upon the heart; and it does not come into remembrance. Then suddenly—when you are doing nothing at all—your consciousness relaxes, the doors and windows open. The narrowness of concentration dissolves. You become open. In that very moment, Paramatma enters.

But here is the delight: only if you have first made effort will this second event happen. If there has been no effort beforehand, the second event will not occur. The struggle you went through to recall the name—the sudden remembering is the last link in that chain. You tried so hard that you failed; then, exhausted, you dropped trying. But that vigorous effort you had made slipped down into the unconscious. The effort is still going on within. On the surface you have ceased, but inside the effort continues. That is why, while drinking tea, reading the newspaper, the name suddenly appears.

So there are two kinds of effort. One is what you do consciously—and by that effort Paramatma will not be attained. Then you fail, tire, and let go. But the effort you made has entered your every pore. It has saturated your every heartbeat. It has become the very style of your being. Now even if you wish to drop it, you cannot. Whatever you do, it continues within—an undercurrent flows. It is in that undercurrent that the dawn of Paramatma will happen. Because now the effort is of the unconscious—what psychologists call the unconscious.

The conscious is very small. The conscious mind is only a portion. The unconscious is nine times greater. As with a piece of ice floating in water: one part is visible above, nine parts are submerged below.

When you try from the conscious, there is no immediate gain. The indirect gain is this: when the conscious effort reaches its utmost limit and you are exhausted, you drop trying on the surface, but it continues in the unconscious. You will let go—the unconscious will not.

Which means: the effort of the conscious slowly becomes the effort of the unconscious. And when it does, then japa becomes ajapa. You no longer have to repeat; it is happening by itself. It is flowing within. You go to the market, sit in your shop, do your work, you sleep—yet the japa continues. Because it has entered the unconscious. Now, in every grain of your being that same music plays. You may not even hear it—but it is there.

The only function of the conscious is to deliver the effort to the unconscious. One day there will be an explosion—and suddenly Paramatma will be before you. Then you will feel it came by His anukampa. For you had even left the search. You were no longer trying. You had failed and given up long ago. You had stopped the journey—and the destination arrived. It did not come because you were walking; as long as you walked, it did not come. You stopped, and suddenly the shrine appeared! The very moment the journey ceased, it stood before you. Naturally you will feel that it happened by His grace. All who have reached have felt: it is by His anukampa. This is one reason.

But first, make the total effort with the conscious. Do not think: if it is by His anukampa, why should I do anything? If it must happen by grace, it will happen when it must—why get into the hassle?

Then it will never happen. And if you think: it is by my striving alone that it will happen, so I will never cease to try—I will go on striving—then too it will not happen. The meeting-place of your striving and His anukampa is where your striving has already fallen silent, and only His grace remains.

You are confined to your conscious; He is hidden in the unconscious. You are limited within the boundaries of mind and thought; deeper than that, He is seated. He is already united with you. But to break the door between the conscious and the unconscious—that will happen through your effort. And the sense of meeting will be by His anukampa.

Whoever would seek must seek totally—and must also drop the search. But only after completing it; to drop it midway is futile. When your seeking has become complete, when you have staked yourself utterly, held nothing back—then, in that very moment, the conscious seeking enters the unconscious. That is the boundary. There your waking world ends. There you end; your ahankar dissolves.

Do you have any ego in sleep? In sleep, none of your stiffness remains. In sleep there is not even anyone left to say ‘I am’—I am an emperor, I am wealthy. In sleep the I is utterly lost. Exactly so, in the unconscious there remains no voice of I. The I is a phenomenon spun in the conscious mind. Through effort the I will break—because when you are exhausted the ego is relinquished. Once the ego dissolves, the doors of the unconscious open. And the doors of the unconscious are the doors of Paramatma. Only from there has anyone ever reached. But then there is no one left there to say ‘I’. Therefore whenever realization happens, you say: His grace, His anukampa.

This gives rise to another confusion. People think: does He shower more grace on some and less on others? For if it is by His grace, why does one attain and so many do not? Then is this not great injustice? Remember: through your effort you make yourself worthy of His grace. His grace is ever showering—but you are not worthy. That is why you cannot even receive what is being given. There is no difference in His grace.

Nanak says: before Him there is neither high nor low; neither worthy nor unworthy. He keeps distributing. But if you are not ready to receive, you will go on missing. It is not that He withholds because of your preparedness; He is always giving. By your preparedness you become capable of receiving.

As when a jeweler comes upon a diamond—he picks it up. You too passed by it. The diamond was equally available to you. The diamond did not make the slightest distinction—‘I will go to the jeweler’s hand, not to yours.’ Had you picked it up, the diamond would not have refused. It was as available to you. But you did not have the eye to recognize it, nor the discernment to take it. The jeweler had discernment, had the eye; he was prepared.

Paramatma is lying right before you. Wherever you look, He is. But you have no eyes to see. Your eyes cannot perceive Him. Your hands cannot touch Him. Your ears do not hear Him. You are deaf, blind, lame. Even when He calls, you cannot run—indeed you cannot even hear. And He is present all around. In His availability there is no difference—none at all. Before Him all are equal—and must be. For all arise from Him and all dissolve into Him. Where can there be distinction?

Do you distinguish between your right hand and your left? If the right hand is hurt does it pain more, and less if it is the left? Both are yours. The difference between left and right is superficial; within, you are one.

So would Paramatma discriminate between rich and poor? Between the learned and the ignorant? Between the good and the bad? Between the sinner and the virtuous? If His gift were conditional, then He would say, ‘Be like this, then I will give.’ Then He would not be giving to you—only to His conditions. That would be a bargain.

No. Paramatma gives unconditionally—His rain is without conditions. If you are not able to receive, then somewhere you are missing. He knocks at the door, and you think, ‘Perhaps a gust of wind.’ His footprints appear, and you explain them away. In the very explanation you go astray. You explain in such a way that it only increases your blindness.

From every side Paramatma approaches you. There is not a trace of deficiency in His coming. As much as He came to Buddha, as much as to Nanak, He comes to you. For Him there is no difference between you and Nanak. But Nanak recognizes—he is a jeweler. Buddha seizes His hem. You go on missing.

By your effort you will become worthy; you will become capable of discernment. By your effort your blindness will break. By your effort your ahankar will fall—you will lose, tire, collapse. And the moment you are not, you will find He was always before you—right in the line of your nose, wherever your nose turned, there He was. He was always available. If you were missing Him, you were missing because of yourself.

Engrave this well upon the heart: if you miss, you miss because of yourself. If you attain, you will not attain because of yourself—you will attain by His prasad. This sounds senseless to those who have not known. Because we think: if I am missing because of myself, then I will attain also because of myself. That appears the clearer logic—that the thing I am missing because of me, I will gain also because of me. Right there the fallacy enters. You miss because of yourself; you attain by His grace.

What does this mean? It means: as long as you are, you cannot attain Him. So how will you attain because of yourself? You are the barrier. You are the very reason for missing. It is because you are that you miss. Then by that same cause how will you attain? That is the very cause of missing. The more you believe ‘I am,’ the thicker the wall. Let this wall be removed—He is present. Through conscious effort the wall will break, the door will open. But the light of Paramatma is always outside.

When you attain, many things will become clear. One: I missed by my own doing—and I found by Your doing. Two: You were near, and I sought You far. I was searching where You were not, instead of where You were. Hence I wandered. I was seeking on a vehicle by which that journey cannot be made.

For every dimension of life there are vehicles. With a boat you can cross the ocean; but with a boat you cannot travel the land. However skilled a sailor you may be, however many oceans you have crossed, however experienced you are—do not place your boat upon the road. On that vessel you cannot travel the earth. Because of it you will not be able to walk either—what you could have done on foot will also become impossible. The boat will hang from your neck—and because of your experience. ‘Having crossed such terrible seas, shall I not cross this small patch of land?’ But on land the boat is not a conveyance.

This is exactly what happens. The boat of ahankar is a vehicle in the world. There, none can move without it. There, whoever tries without it will fall. There the whole competition is of the I. The entire struggle is the madness of the ego. And the larger the ego with which you move, the more you will succeed there. Granted, that success proves in the end to be failure—that’s another matter. But there, swagger wins—the mania of the ego wins. Because the world is a world of the insane.

But if with this same ego you set out toward Paramatma, then there will be a mistake. However successful you have been—an Alexander, a Napoleon, however much success you have gathered in the world—do not carry this same boat toward the Divine. It will become the obstacle. It will bind you. You will remain seated in the boat; the journey will be impossible.

The day one has a glimpse of Him, one sees: I was losing because of myself; by Your prasad I found. And one also understands: what efforts I had made were so little, while what is given is so vast that there can be no proportion between the two. As if someone were traveling with a needle, clinging to a needle—and the oceans become available to him. You could never think how a needle and the attainment of the ocean could be related.

All human efforts are like needles—small, so very small. Until you have found, you cannot weigh what you are doing. Someone says, ‘I am worshiping in the temple.’ What are you doing in worship? Ringing a bell, offering a few flowers. Granted it is a beautiful act—but what accord has it with finding Paramatma? Or, ‘Every day for an hour I repeat Your Name.’ You have gone mad! You utter the Name for an hour and you think it has proportion with the meeting of the Infinite? What have you done? You say, ‘I shouted, I called.’ Your throat and your voice—what is their value? How far can your shouting reach?

And when you do find, you will surely feel that all your efforts were childish—without any value. Whether you go to temples, to sacred places, to Kaaba or Kashi, whether you perform worship, prayer, japa-tapa, stand on your head, twist into all kinds of postures, cry and call and chant—whatever you are doing, it is you who are doing it. What is the worth of your doing? For that which is priceless you are offering these petty efforts that have a market price. If you go and work in the market for an hour, you earn a rupee. You worship for an hour and want to obtain God? A rupee is understandable—you worked for an hour, so you earn something—there is a proportion. But how will you earn the Infinite by meditation—what proportion can there be?

What is given is immeasurable. What we did was nothing. The moment you attain, this disparity becomes visible—you went with a spoon, and the ocean descended. In that moment you will certainly say: it is Your grace, Your anukampa.

Thus all the saints have made efforts—and all have given their final utterance against effort. And yet they have told their devotees to go on making effort. Do not drop effort. That is why the speech of the saints seems illogical, paradoxical. Our tidy arithmetic says—if it is attained by effort, then keep doing.

I sometimes say: no, it is not attained by effort. That very evening people come to me. They say, ‘Then why make effort? Should we drop everything? Why labor at meditation if it is received without effort? And you yourself said it is not attained by effort—so what is the point of effort?’

These madmen... They want their logic to fit the ultimate arrangement of life. Life in its ultimate does not run by your logic. You must fit your logic to it. It does not worry about you. Truth does not adjust to your notions; you must adjust your notions to it.

So it happened: at the beginning of this century, physicists made a discovery—utterly beyond logic. The behavior of the ultimate particle of matter, the electron, is incomprehensible. It harmonizes more with the speech of saints than with the testing and laboratories of science. Nothing more puzzling had ever appeared to the scientist. The electron behaves in a double way at once—absolutely beyond arithmetic. Simultaneously it behaves like a particle and like a wave. Impossible!

If you have read geometry—a line is a line, a point is a point. A point can never be like a line, and a line can never be like a point. A point is a point; a line is an aggregate of points—an infinite sum of points. If you could draw a point in your notebook which, when you looked at it, sometimes became a line and sometimes a point—you would be frightened: either you have gone mad, or someone is joking, some magic is happening. A point is a point, or it is a line—but both at once it cannot be.

So with particle and wave. A particle is a point; a wave is a ripple. But physicists reached the conclusion that the electron is both—at the same time. Great trouble! Entire logic is shaken.

And science is logic-bound. It is not the game of mystics; not poetry. It is mathematics. What to do? The more they researched, the bigger the difficulty grew. Finally they had to accept that both are its simultaneous behaviors.

People asked the researchers, ‘Are you not ashamed to say this? How can both be at once? This is against mathematics. Euclid’s geometry collapses.’ The scientists answered, ‘What can we do? If the particle refuses to obey geometry and Euclid, what shall we do? We have explored from all sides. What it does, we must say. If it is beyond logic, it is beyond logic. Change the logic. But who will go to the particle and persuade it to behave logically?’

Thus a new geometry was born—non-Euclidean geometry. Geometry had to change. The particle will not listen; the electron will not heed anyone. It goes on as it goes on. You adjust your mathematics, alter your logic.

For the first time, through the study of the electron, Euclid became irrelevant; his definitions failed. And Aristotle’s principles of logic proved inadequate.

This is the saints’ difficulty. They knocked on the door before the scientists did—and there they found: without effort it is not attained, and by effort it is not attained. This is how it is. Nothing can be done. Effort must be made, and yet it is received without effort. But if you understand, there is a deep harmony within—let the sense of it dawn.

So, from your side, stake yourself totally. If it happens, it will be by His anukampa. But you become worthy of His anukampa only when you have staked yourself utterly. This is the essence of the sutra. Now let us try to understand it.

Ikadū jībhau lakh hohi lakh hovahi lakh bīs.
Lakhu lakhu geṛā akhīahi ek nāmu Jagdīs.

If one tongue were to become a hundred thousand, and from a hundred thousand become twenty hundred thousand, then with each tongue I would repeat a hundred thousand times the One Name of the Lord of the world.

Only then will you tire; before that you will not. What have you chanted yet? How much meditation have you truly done?

What have you cried out? Where have you shouted? You have not yet poured your total energy into it. If your house were on fire, you would run faster than you have ever run toward Paramatma. If your wife were to die, the way you weep, heartbroken, you have not yet wept for His separation. If your child were lost, the madness with which you would rush to search—you have not searched for Him like that yet. Your search is lukewarm. You have not yet boiled.

Nanak speaks of that boiling. He says: if one tongue became a hundred thousand, and from a hundred thousand twenty hundred thousand, then with each tongue I would repeat a hundred thousand times the One Name of Jagdīśa.

Let every pore be filled with His Name. Let every hair experience the thirst for Him. Let one call resound in every fiber: He must be attained. Let everything else become futile in life; let only the meaningfulness of Paramatma remain. Let all become secondary. Be ready to drop all. Let only one goal remain—to attain Him. Then you will be one-pointed.

These are the steps to the Master’s Name: one tongue becoming a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand becoming twenty hundred thousand—and then each and every tongue repeating His Name hundreds of thousands of times. These are the steps of the Name upon which the seeker becomes the twenty-first—meaning, attains the God-form.

The word ‘twenty-one’ comes from the counting of the Sankhyas. For Sankhya says there are two ways to become twenty-one. Sankhya—whose very name means counting, number—was the first to count the constituents of human existence; hence the name of that philosophy.

Sankhya says: five mahabhutas arise from the One—earth, water, fire, air, space. But these are gross; subtler are the five tanmatras that give rise to them—unseen by the eye. Scientists too agree: what you see as a wall is only its gross form. The tanmatra—the suchness of the wall—you have never seen. The scientist glimpses a little, for the wall appears still to you, but it is not still. There is great movement, abundant life. Each particle is moving at the speed of light. The motion is so vast you cannot catch it—it is too subtle, too swift.

Light travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in a second. The electron—the wall’s most subtle particle—spins with the speed of light. Its motion is so intense you cannot see it; hence the wall appears still. Yet the wall is passing through immense activity. Everything—stone too—is active and alive. A great commerce is on. Therefore one day the wall will fall and crumble. If it were absolutely motionless, how could it become ruins? If a thing were utterly still, it could not be destroyed. Without inner activity there is no friction; without friction no decay; without decay no destruction.

Hence scientists think: if one wished to preserve a person for a long time, freeze him below zero—ice him. Then he could be preserved almost indefinitely. Because motion slows down. For the same reason we keep fruit in the fridge; it does not rot so quickly. The colder, the slower the motion. That is why people in colder countries live longer than those in hotter ones. Heat increases motion; motion accelerates depletion. In heat you feel restless; in cold you feel well. In winter you feel more healthy; in summer, a little unwell.

This wall is absorbed in extreme motion; thus it will fall. Within it there is friction; in that friction energy will be exhausted; it will scatter, it will become ruins.

Sankhya says there are five tanmatras—the subtle—and their five gross counterparts, the five mahabhutas—ten. Then there are five jnanendriyas, subtle senses of knowing, and five karmendriyas, the gross organs of doing. The eye is your karmendriya; the capacity to see is the subtle sense. If the capacity is not there, the eye will be lost—even if the eye remains. Sometimes it happens that though the eyes are there, you become blind—because your attention has gone elsewhere. When attention goes elsewhere, the capacity to see goes elsewhere. The ear is the gross organ—the karmendriya; the capacity to hear is the subtle sense.

Therefore Nanak again and again says: sunīai—listen. He is not addressing your outer ear, which hears anyway. The eye at least blinks; the ear does not even blink. Why say again and again, ‘Listen’? He is pointing to the inner subtle sense. When he says ‘listen,’ he is saying: come to the ear—do not wander. Otherwise the ear will hear, but you will be deprived of hearing.

So there are five subtle senses called jnanendriyas, and five gross senses called karmendriyas—thus twenty.

Nanak says: he who stakes everything upon the Name becomes twenty-one. The twenty-first is Paramatma. If you do not stake and do not seek, you also become twenty-one—but then your twenty-first is ahankar.

Thus there are two ways of being twenty-one. The twenty are the situation; the twenty-first comes in two ways. Either you realize Paramatma—that is, the real Self, your own swarup—then you are twenty-one. Or you imagine a false self—‘I am this; I am rich, I am learned, I am powerful, I am a renunciate, I am a king’—some puffing up—then too you become twenty-one. But this twenty-first is false.

So either add a lie to the twenty—twenty plus falsehood—or add truth to the twenty—twenty plus truth. You will be twenty-one. We all are twenty-one, and Nanak is twenty-one. No one can be more. But we have added the false. We have added without seeking. It is quite amusing.

You have never sought yourself—and you believe you know yourself. There is no greater falsehood. You have never searched yourself; you have never had even a glimpse of yourself. Yet you say, ‘I am.’ And you do not know who you are. You know only what the mirror says. What will the mirror tell? It reflects the outer skin. It shows your clothes, your body—not you. Your Atman does not flash in a mirror; your swarup does not appear there. What the mirror says, you take as ‘I am.’

And you take this twenty-first ‘I’ as yourself. That is sorrow—that is hell. If you add the false twenty-first, you will fall into suffering. The twenty—the constitution—remain the same; what matters is the twenty-first. If it is false, pain comes. If the twenty-first becomes true, you experience supreme liberation. The disturbance is not in the twenty; they are the order of life. The disturbance is the twenty-first. If it is false, it brings misery.

Hence nothing causes suffering like ahankar. There is no other source of pain. However much suffering you desire—inflate the ego accordingly. as the ego grows, hell will be in your fist; invoke it whenever you wish.

Whatever delight you desire—diminish the ego accordingly. The day ego is not, heaven will be in your fist. It will become your shadow. Wherever you go, there will be heaven. Then you cannot be sent to hell. Even if you are thrown into hell, you will find heaven there—because where there is no ego, everywhere is heaven. And where there is ego, even if someone forces you into heaven, you will find only suffering—because pain or joy do not depend on circumstances; they depend on whether your twenty-first is truth or falsehood.

Nanak says: whoever stakes everything—these are the steps of the Name—keep staking, keep staking, until there is nothing left to stake—everything has been put on the line…

Upon these steps the seeker becomes twenty-one, that is, attains the God-form. Hearing of the skies, of the high station, even those as petty as insects begin to compete.

Here he says something crucial—how religion becomes corrupted.

Nanak says: only by His glance of grace does anyone attain Him. The false only boast falsely.

When His light dawns in someone’s life, he cannot refrain from speaking of it. As when a flower blossoms—how can it refrain from giving fragrance? As when a lamp is lit—how can it refrain from giving light? When divinity descends into anyone’s life, he will speak of it. He will sing of its glory. What he has found will reveal itself through his every pore—like fragrance, like light. If he speaks, it will speak through him; if he is silent, he will be silent in it. His whole being will announce it.

Nanak says: seeing this, hearing the talk of the high heavens, even those petty as insects become competitive.

The very small—most petty—are filled with great rivalry and envy: ‘Ah, you attained? First we will deny it—he has attained nothing, it is all talk.’

Therefore whenever anyone experiences God, the first event is that people around will deny: ‘This person has attained nothing. It is all talk. In the dark age, who can attain? Such things belonged to the golden age.’ They will look for holes. They will find a thousand ways to prove that nothing has been attained.

If they fail—and they will fail—if attainment is real, there is no way to disprove it—not by conduct, not by behavior, not by clothing, not by food—no way. One who has attained will radiate from every side.

What will they do then? Then those most filled with ego and rivalry will declare: ‘We too have attained.’ Ego will first deny: ‘How can you attain before me—when I am present?’ When it sees there is no way to disprove, ego takes the second step: ‘I too have attained.’

So Nanak says: even the small—the smallness that is ego—like insects, become competitive. Then they begin to boast falsely.

Thus if there is one true Master in the world, there will be at least ninety-nine false ones. And the irony is: the false master can attract you more easily than the true. Because the false speaks your language. He knows you well—and does what you desire, what your inner craving seeks. If you want ash to appear from his hands, he produces ash. If you want a talisman to drop from the sky, he produces a talisman.

The same trade you see a street juggler perform—and you are not impressed. But when a sadhu-saint performs it, you go mad—‘At last, a true Master!’ You want your illness cured—he blesses. You want a son—he blesses. You want to win a lawsuit—he blesses. He tries to gratify your desires. Therefore you gather around the false in tens of thousands—because he belongs to your world.

Recognizing a true Master is difficult, because recognition means transformation in life—you must change. The false will give to you; the true will take everything away. The false will seek to fulfill your desires.

And the oddity of life—its mathematics is important—if you sit by a sacred fire and keep blessing everyone who comes, at least fifty percent of your blessings will come true. This is simple arithmetic. You need do nothing. Whoever comes with a lawsuit—say, ‘You will win.’ Fifty percent win anyway. They would have won without your blessing; but now they will attribute it to you. The other fifty who lose will go to another baba, another guru—this one is not useful to them. But the fifty who win will keep coming. Their crowd will gather around you. When a new client arrives, this crowd will impress him—so many have had results: someone won a case, someone’s lost wife returned, someone’s love succeeded, someone’s illness disappeared, someone’s child was saved. You will find such crowds. Because those who lost have gone elsewhere—they will stay where they win. Somewhere, someday, their desire will be fulfilled—they too will settle. Desire chooses the guru—then you must go astray. For what has a guru to do with desire? The guru is not to fulfill desires, but to awaken you. And awakening means: the more your desires shatter, the better. His concern is not your illness, your litigation, your wife or your children. His concern is you and your Paramatma. And that path is not of desire—it is of desirelessness. He will not be able to attract you easily.

Hence you will often find crowds—beware where you find crowds. Crowds are usually at the wrong place. At the right place you will find very few—because even a few is difficult there. There you will find the chosen—those whose longing is for Paramatma. There you will not find crowds, for crowds are desire-ridden.

Nanak says: then the false begin to blow false trumpets.

And the irony is that their boasts seem to be proven—because life is structured so. Fifty percent will always be ‘right.’ Those for whom things go wrong will leave—you won’t see them. The one for whom it went wrong with Sai Baba will be at some other Sai Baba’s place. The one for whom it went right will stay—and you will meet him; he will tell you, ‘I gained this, I gained that.’ The crowd grows. By an inner arithmetic such things spread. And when you see thousands gaining—and you too have come driven by desire—you believe. And very often your belief also creates results. Scientists say that seventy out of a hundred illnesses are psychosomatic. If you trust completely, healing happens.

Many hospitals have conducted experiments—placebo: false medicine. If there are ten patients with the same disease, five are given real medicine, five only water. Strangely, three among the medicated get well, and three among the water-drinkers too. What to do? That is why so many ‘pathies’ exist—allopathy, ayurveda, unani, naturopathy—thousands of methods work; otherwise, how would they continue?

It seems fewer people are cured by medicine than by faith. The same medicine given by a small doctor you do not trust will not work; given by a renowned doctor—who charges a large fee—will work. The larger the fee, the greater the trust—‘He is a big doctor; I must get well now.’ Half the cure lies in trust. The doctor you trust—his treatment works; the one you don’t—doesn’t.

That is why doctors hang their certificates on the office wall—for patients, those certificates are medicine. The more the certificates—especially one from London—the better! Seeing them, much of the patient’s illness vanishes.

Have you noticed—during examination itself you feel half-cured? He hasn’t given a drug yet—he checked your pulse, placed the stethoscope, measured blood pressure—and if you observe, you’ll find you’re already better: pain lessens, fever recedes.

Crowds create trust. Results come from trust. And the liar sitting in the middle takes free advantage. You are caught in your own mind’s play.

Nanak says: the false go on blowing false trumpets.

Sun gala ākās kī kīṭā āī rīs.

Hearing talk of the skies, even insects become envious.

‘Insect’ means ego. The egoist is filled with wrath: ‘How can this be? This Nanak—“Nanak” means small, little—this small fellow has reached, and we have not? We, who are far ahead in life—and this fellow nowhere in the line—he has reached? Uneducated, without wealth, without position, without prestige, without lineage—who knows who were the great men in his family? None! What nobility? What house? What status? He has reached—and we have not! Impossible.’ So Nanak says—

Sun gala ākās kī kīṭā āī rīs.

Even the insects are filled with jealousy.

Nanak nadarī pāīai kūṛī kūṛai ṭhīs.

He is attained by His grace; not by your swagger. Not by who you are; not by what you are. Paramatma is attained by anukampa, by His grace. And the more swagger you carry—‘I am this’—the harder it becomes.

Yet the false go on boasting. And in religion it is easiest to boast. That is why nowhere does hypocrisy thrive like in religion. In no other sphere can such falsehood last. Because the talk is of the sky—so vast, so far, so supernatural, so mysterious—that the false can pass. In the marketplace, if you sell cloth that cannot be seen, how long will you last? Even the first customer will be hard to find. Without goods, how long can you keep a shop? Marketplace goods must be visible—how many can you fool, how?

I have heard that in America they invented a hairpin for women—think of the future—an invisible hairpin. Women would love it that the pin does not show. Invisible hairpin! A lady went to a shop and asked for a box of invisible pins. She was given a box. She asked, ‘Are these selling?’ The shopkeeper said, ‘Don’t even ask—our stock has been out for three days; thousands have bought them.’ If the pin is invisible, it can sell—whether it exists or not—because its defining feature is that it cannot be seen. You open the box—nothing will be visible. Whether it exists or not…

The Divine trade is the trade of invisible hairpins. Nothing can be seen—thus great hypocrisy arises. Hence you will be astonished—the more religious a country, the more hypocritical it becomes.

Our country is proof. There is no land more hypocritical. The reason: this land has thought so much about religion, and produced so many true Masters, that with every Master ninety-nine false ones are born. The true die; the false continue. Their troops grow. And deciding becomes impossible. And in making people atheists, no one helps as much as the false gurus. You become so tired—of deceit, of fraud—that slowly you conclude: the God-trade itself is a fraud. Slowly you think: better to stay out of this mess.

Nanak says: the false keep boasting. And the more your faith grows, the more their boasting grows.

Mulla Nasruddin was telling his nephew a memoir: ‘I was coming out of a jungle—ten hyenas surrounded me. I killed five then and there.’ The nephew interrupted: ‘Uncle, three months ago you said five surrounded you—and now you say ten.’ Nasruddin replied, ‘Back then you were very small; you were not qualified to hear such dangerous tales—you would not have understood and would have been frightened.’

As your capacity to hear falsehood increases, the liar’s claims also increase. He keeps watching how much your faith is growing—and grows his claims accordingly. Your faith nourishes countless false gurus. And when you trust, you become blind—you will believe anything.

Just last night I read a book—the words of a Christian pastor. In the preface he writes a blatant falsehood—yet many accept it. The pastor is famous; thousands in the West are his devotees. In the very preface: ‘Soon Jesus will return. The date, the day—everything is fixed. Any day, any night—Jesus will descend. He will take away his millions of devotees—suddenly millions of Christians will vanish. The world will stand astonished. Then calamities will begin; great hell will come. So don’t delay—bring faith to Jesus and join him now. And there are only two options for those who read this book: if you are a sinner, you will not believe what is said here. If you are virtuous, quickly—do not delay—become a follower of Jesus.’

Two options only: either you are a great sinner—then the book won’t appeal; or if there is even a little virtue in you, you will like it and stand with Jesus.

To stand with Jesus is no evil. But this man is exploiting Jesus’ name. Jesus is beloved—but this man! And what he says is sheer falsehood. How to disprove it? Thousands of such episodes have happened.

In 1930 a Christian pastor announced: on January 1 the world will be destroyed. The final day has come. His followers—some fifty thousand—sold everything. The last day is here—what will you do with things? They sold houses and belongings, distributed money. On the morning of January 1, at sunrise, the world would be destroyed; they would be praying on a mountain—God would lift them up. January 1 came; the sun rose; nothing happened. Thousands from villages around went up the mountain to ask: ‘Well, has wisdom dawned?’ They were descending. People asked: ‘Now, do you understand?’ They said, ‘Understand? Because of our prayer the day was changed. As we prayed on the mountain, He heard us.’

That sect still continues. Strange blindness! You cannot even prove them wrong. People thought: now they will learn. They went up, expecting them to be weeping: ‘We made a mistake, we are ruined.’ They were joyous. Their pastor had explained: ‘See the result of our prayer!’

Nasruddin sprinkles salt every day outside his house. Someone asked: ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘To ward off wild animals.’ People said, ‘What wild animals in town?’ He said, ‘That is the effect of the salt.’

What will you do with such a man? He leaves you no handle—‘See the proof: not only my house, even the town is free!’

Man is ready to be deceived—because deception has its arguments. Deception too advertises itself; deception argues; deception entices your desires—it persuades.

Nanak says: the false go on boasting.

Nanak nadarī pāīai, kūṛī kūṛai ṭhīs.

And He is found by the one who has dropped all boasting—by the one whose sense of I has also gone—by the one upon whom His anukampa descends.

There is no power in speaking, none in silence; no power in asking, none in giving; no power in life, nor in death. Not in kingdom or wealth; not in the mind’s resolutions and alternatives; not in memory, not in knowledge, not in thought; not in any method to get free of the world. Real power is in the hands of that Paramatma who creates the creation and beholds it. Nanak says: there, none is high, none low.

These words are very deep—

Ākhaṇi jor, chupai nah jorū.
Jor na mangaṇi, deṇi na jorū.
Jor na jīvaṇi, maraṇi nah jorū.
Jor na rāji, māli, mani sorū.
Jor na surati, giān, vīchār.
Jor na jugatī chuṭai sansārū.
Jisu hath jor, kari vekhai soi.
Nanak, utamu nīcu na koi.

They are revolutionary words. For throughout the Japuji Nanak puts emphasis on one thing: remembrance of His Name—surati. And here he says: even in surati there is no power. This is the last stretch approaching. Here Nanak wants to take everything from your hands. For if you feel that even in some small thing there is power, you will save yourself, you will remain strong. All power ends up being the ego’s power.

Nanak says: there is no power in speaking—you cannot obtain Him by talk. So many thought: if not by speaking, then by silence. Nanak says: there is no power in silence either. He is taking everything out of your hands. You may think—‘Speaking is nonsense, I will be silent, sit in meditation.’ Nanak says: there is no power there either. It is still you who will be silent—the same one who was talking. The quality will remain. If you were a sinner in speaking, how will you become a saint by being silent? Understand a little your quality…

An evil man sits quiet—he remains evil. How will silence change it? A good man sits quiet—he remains good. The evil will find ways, even from silence, to harm others. A devil will invent devilry even in silence. How will your quality change? You think only by becoming silent everything will happen—tremendous power will descend. It is you who will be silent. What will change? Your silence, your words—whether speaking or silent, you are present. You will say, ‘Now I am silent. I am meditative. I am a meditator.’ This is the same pride as before—‘I am a great orator.’ Pride is blind—whether in speaking or silence.

I have heard: seeing the flowing Ganges, Mulla Nasruddin thought, ‘Let me wash my hands too.’ He rose in politics and became a minister—he felt from the beginning he was a great speaker, hence leadership was easy. But he delivered such long speeches that people were bored. Police had to be posted around—like in all political meetings—to prevent people from leaving. He imposed strict guards. Yet people still got bored; they yawned in his face. He told his P.A., ‘Write shorter speeches; these long ones make people bored—my prestige is suffering.’ The P.A. wrote a short speech. Nasruddin, delighted, delivered it—but people still got bored. Returning, he said, ‘I’ve told you a thousand times—write a short speech. People are bored, weary—yet you wrote long again!’ The P.A. said, ‘Sir, I did write it short. You read all three copies.’

Intelligence cannot be borrowed. Speeches can. The quality of being cannot be borrowed. There are no cheap methods to acquire the quality of consciousness; no one else can give it.

If you are devilish and you sit silently, within you remain devilish. Your pride which clutched at words yesterday will now clutch at emptiness—at silence.

Zen monk Bokuju went to his Master: ‘Now I am utterly silent—śūnya has come—now speak.’ The Master said, ‘First go out and throw away this emptiness, then come in.’ Bokuju said, ‘Throw away śūnya? And until now you have been telling me to become empty!’ The Master said, ‘That was the first step—now the second: first become silent, then throw away the silence—otherwise you will become proud of silence. Who is this saying “I have become empty”? This too has to be dropped.’

Thus Nanak says: Ākhaṇi jor, chupai nah jorū—no power in speaking, none in silence. Jor na mangaṇi, deṇi na jorū—no power in asking, none in giving. What will you give? What have you? One asks, one gives—but both are upon the same object. One asks for wealth from God; another distributes wealth, builds temples—both have eyes on wealth. The beggar may still be humble—but how will the giver be humble? He will say, ‘I am the donor.’ There is only one real Donor. How can you be the giver? What will you give? You will give only what you possess—pebbles and stones, bits of silver and gold, scraps of paper, notes—all human conventions. What will you give?

Nanak says: no power in asking, no power in giving. No power in living, no power in dying.

You have not attained Him by living—some think, ‘Then let me die.’ And you will find them sitting in ashrams everywhere—those who cannot gather the courage to die at once, they die slowly. They call slow dying sannyas—a gradual suicide. First they flee the world—so ninety percent of life is gone, for ninety percent was there. Then they sit in an ashram—do not eat twice, eat once—another fifty percent gone. Daily they cut themselves down. They cripple themselves—and live a life near death.

Nanak says: there is no power in your living, nor in your dying. If you cannot attain by living, how will you by dying? It is you who will die—you will be born again. You shift place, you remain you.

Nanak speaks very vital truths. Let them resound in your heart.

No power in life, nor in death.

Jor na jīvaṇi, maraṇi nah jorū. Jor na rāji, māli, mani sorū.

No power in kingdom and property; no power in the mind’s resolutions and alternatives.

Some pile up wealth; some pile up yoga—they sit with resolves, concentrate the mind, practice great austerities. Nanak says: there is no power in wealth and property, nor in the mind’s resolves and alternatives. And most importantly: not in memory, not in knowledge, not in thought.

Jor na surati, giān, vīchār.

Many have said there is no power in thought—thought is surface rippling. Many have said there is no power in knowledge—scripture-learned, heard from the world, from a guru—what power can there be? It is all borrowed, stale. But Nanak strikes the final blow: ‘Jor na surati’—not even in your memory, your capacity to remember. You will be the one remembering—what power can there be in that?

Here lies the delight—the paradox reveals itself. All along Nanak has said: surati—remembrance of His Name. And now he says: even in remembrance there is no power. One step is remembrance; the next step is the insight: what can remembrance do? I am the one who remembers; the remembrance is mine; my quality saturates it—what power can it have?

This is the second moment approaching—where the seeker drops everything—having done everything. Beware of dropping early. If a trace remains undone, no fruit. This is the finality. When nothing remains to be done. Truly speaking, you do not even drop—it drops by itself. Because if you drop, something still remains of you. You do, you do, you do—get exhausted, exhausted. The last moment comes—you fall. You do not even fall by your own decision—you simply find yourself fallen—no way to move. This is what he calls ‘there is no power in anything.’ For if even a little force remains, you will continue. Nanak says—

Jor na surati, giān, vīchār. Jor na jugatī chuṭai sansārū.

And in all the methods, the devices, the means of renouncing the world—no power.

Real power is in the hands of that Paramatma who creates and beholds.

Jisu hath jor, kari vekhai soi. Nanak, utamu nīcu na koi.

It is in His hands. All force, all power is in Paramatma’s hands. Become powerless—and His support will be received. If you remain powerful, there is no need for His support. ‘Strength to the strengthless’—become weak here, and there Rama becomes available to you.

But He is for the weak, not for the strong. The strong feels no need—‘Sit quietly; don’t interfere; I will do it myself.’ He dismisses Rama; he lives by his own pride. He does not want even God’s support—his stiffness has not gone. He does not feel he needs Him—‘I will do it myself.’

It happened—there was a Christian mystic, Saint Teresa—a most precious woman. One day, in the village church, she announced: ‘I want to build a great temple of God.’ The village was small; the church tiny. People said, ‘Where will we raise the money? Who will give? Where will it come from?’ Someone asked, ‘Teresa, how much money do you have?’ She put her hand in her pocket—two coins. ‘Two I have; they will do to begin.’ People laughed: ‘We suspected your mind was a little off. With two coins you plan a great temple? Millions will be needed!’

Teresa said, ‘You see two—that is true. I have two. But He—He is with me. Two coins plus God—how much is that? And two coins are only to begin; in the end it is He who must do. What can we do? Our power?—only two coins. The rest is His. We will go as far as the two carry us; then we will say to Him: now Your will.’

And the temple was built. It still stands—a vast temple. It is not built by your strength. You have only two coins—by them you cannot even imagine. What will be built? What are you? What can you accomplish? You set out to build a mighty temple—with two coins! But two coins plus God—then immeasurable wealth is with you. Then there is no obstacle. Whatever you choose to build—will be built. But you remain the two coins.

The moment you become powerless, the source of supreme power becomes available. As long as you are powerful, your power is no more than two coins.

Therefore Nanak keeps repeating: not here, not there—he is taking power away from you. That is why I say: the true Master does not give—he takes. He makes you powerless, helpless. He leaves you in the condition of a man lying in a desert, thirsty, with no source of water near. In that moment the thirst that rises becomes prayer—and there you find: ‘Strength to the strengthless—Ram!’ There you find Paramatma is available. When the thirst that rises from the desert rises from your life—that very moment. When you are utterly helpless—only then does the support of the Supreme arrive.

Therefore Nanak says—remember—there, none is high, none low.

Nanak, utamu nīcu na koi.

So do not worry. There all are equal. Do not be afraid that the powerful will reach first, the learned will reach first, the doers of good will reach first, the donors will reach first—do not worry. Or that the meditators will reach first—do not worry. There is no high and low.

If there is high and low, it is because of you—not because of Him, not because of His eyes. If you lose yourself utterly, you become high. If you save yourself, you become low.

The word of Jesus: he who loses himself shall gain; he who saves himself shall lose forever.

Do not save yourself—that is the only mistake one can make. Then only two coins remain—life becomes poverty. Do not save yourself—then you find, the two coins vanish—and the whole energy of Paramatma is yours. Then life is imperial. Beggar you are by your doing; emperor you become by His grace.

Enough for today.