Es Dhammo Sanantano #110

The river is a symbol, and in the Buddha’s lineage it is a very important symbol, because Buddha said: the world is a flux. As Heraclitus in Greece said, life is a river—such a river that no one can enter twice.
There is no way to step into the same river again, because by the time you return, much water has flowed by. That’s what Heraclitus said. Buddha went one step further.
Buddha said: you cannot step into the same river again, because not only has the river’s water flowed on, your water has flowed on too. When you return to enter again, neither is the river what it was, nor are you who you were. Every moment all is flowing.
This is the truth Vasudeva is pointing to. Vasudeva is a ferryman. He takes people from one bank to the other. He has done this for years. He has lived with the river. When no one is there, he sits alone on the bank. When someone comes, he ferries them across.
He has seen all the moods and colors of the river: its stormy form in the rains, when great floods come and it spreads out like the sea—and the same river’s parched body in the heat, slender, just a thin trickle.
He has watched countless gestures in this river—of flow, of movement, of dynamism. Sitting by the quiet bank he has heard the river’s murmuring sound. Seeing the stream passing by he has discovered that life is slipping away. He has understood life’s transience. Watching bubbles rise, form, and disappear, he has seen himself too as a bubble. Here everything forms and everything dissolves. Nothing is still.
In such satsang with the river, gradually understanding dawned. This is what Vasudeva tells Siddhartha—that there is no need to go to any guru, nor to read any scripture. Simply by staying with this river, coming and going, I have known, learned, understood.
The river symbolizes a few things. First—flow.
Most of life’s suffering is because you have not seen life as a river. I mean: whatever is in your life, you want to hold on to it. But here, nothing can be held. Nothing stops, nothing stands still. You will lose. You will be filled with melancholy. Failure will become part of your life.
And you have wanted to clutch at everything. Whatever came, you tried to hold it. A son is born in your house and you want to hold on to him. But this son will go. The wide world awaits him; he has much to explore, long journeys to make. If you try to hold him, you will suffer. You should be ready to let go. Just as one day the child leaves the mother’s womb, so one day he will leave the mother’s shadow. He will go far—seeking himself. And to be oneself, one must leave one’s parents. If the parents insist on holding, suffering will arise—for them and for the son.
You fall in love with someone, and you want to seize it quickly. How quickly we rush to turn love into marriage! Love scarcely dawns and we are already thinking of marriage.
Love is a current, a flow. Marriage is an institution, a stoppage. Love is natural; marriage is social. Love belongs to the divine; marriage is man-made. Love is a unique mystery; marriage is an arrangement—there is nothing unique there. And wherever marriage becomes heavy, love dies, because marriage is an attempt to freeze what can never be frozen.
And we do the same with everything. A happiness arrives; we clench our fist around it and say, Now never leave. We lock the bird of joy in our fist. In that very closing, the bird of joy dies.
Whatever comes will go.
So Vasudeva is saying: from the river I learned that nothing is permanent. All is flowing. Don’t clutch. Don’t chain.
This is the message of all Buddhas—non-possession. Aparigraha means simply this: things come, things go; don’t grasp. When they are present, be delighted. When they depart, be delighted still.
The moment you start holding, the moment you block the stream and build a dam, there arises filth and stench. Turning a river into a stagnant pond is hell. And we all become ponds. We are terrified of change.
The young person doesn’t want to grow old. This wish cannot be fulfilled; hence he will be unhappy. Suffering is not brought by life; suffering is brought by your demands. The living don’t want to die. How can that be?
What is born will also die. What is young will also grow old. See this truth, understand it, and consent to it; don’t hold. When youth starts turning into old age, grow old naturally. When life begins to melt into death, step into death naturally. This is the flow of life.
Whatever comes, welcome it. Whatever goes, bid it farewell. Such a person will not be unhappy. How could he be? He has broken the root formula of misery. He has burned the foundation. He has cut the root.
When love comes, dance. And when love goes, don’t weep. What came was bound to go. The flower that opened in the morning will wither by evening. If you wish the flower never to fade, then you will buy plastic flowers; then real flowers will no longer remain in your life. Go then, buy plastic flowers—they will never die, because they were never born. They will never die, because they are not alive.
There is the same distance between water flowing in the river and water corked in your bottle as there is between a real flower and a fake one. What is the beauty of a real flower? Its very beauty is that it is flowing from moment to moment. The flower that blossomed in the morning has flowed away by evening.
Buddha said: everything is a continuous flux. There is no rest here. There is no halt here.
Modern science agrees. The great Western thinker Eddington wrote that among the world’s languages there is one utterly false word: “rest.” Such a thing does not exist. There is no halt. There is no repose. Everything is moving—every single moment.
You think that when a man dies, everything stops! Nothing stops. The flow continues even then.
Do you know? Even after a man dies, his beard and hair keep growing, his nails keep growing! Do you know? The man may have died, but inside him there are thousands upon thousands of organisms—all in motion.
The man dies; you bury his corpse in the earth; still the flow goes on. Bones decay; it takes years. Dust returns to dust. Everything falls back into its source. The flow continues.
And what today is your bone will tomorrow become someone else’s bone. What now flows as blood in you will tomorrow flow as blood in someone else. What is green in the trees today will tomorrow be your blood. And the blood you carry today will tomorrow be manure at the roots of trees.
Everything moves; nothing is stationary. One thing keeps turning into another—transformation. Nothing is ever truly born, and nothing ever truly ends. It is a journey. There is no beginning, no end.
Where does a river begin—can you tell? You’ll say, yes: the Ganga begins at Gangotri.
It does not begin at Gangotri. Clouds gather in the sky; rain falls from them; water comes to Gangotri. How can it begin at Gangotri?
Then perhaps you’ll say it begins in the clouds. Not there either. Until clouds rise from the sea, until vapor lifts from the ocean on the rays of the sun, clouds are empty. What are clouds without the sea?
So does the Ganga begin in the sea? But the Ganga flows into the sea. It is circular.
Where does it begin? The sea is made by the Ganga—by the rivers. Then clouds form. From clouds, sources like Gangotri arise. From those, the Ganga forms. From the Ganga, the seas form. From the seas, the clouds form—such is the circle.
That is why we have called the world samsara. The word samsara means “wheel.” That wheel on India’s flag is a Buddhist symbol, discussed first by Buddha. It is taken from Ashoka’s pillar.
As a wheel keeps turning, turning—so life goes on, goes on; it has not begun anywhere, and it will not end anywhere.
Hence Buddha says: no one created the world; there is no creator. It is beginningless. Like the river’s current. It has always been and will always be. Yet even though it has always been and will always be, not for a single moment is anything at rest—everything is change. Everything changes except change itself.
So, first, in the river there is the sense of flow, of change, of journey. And if you understand that everything is flowing, your fist opens, dispassion blooms. You no longer clutch.
The wealth that has come to you has come because it left someone else. It cannot stay long with you either, because it has to go to someone else. The English word “currency” is exactly right; it comes from “current,” like a river’s stream. Money flows from one hand to another—that is its “currency.”
But you have gripped your money, dug a pit, sealed it in a pot, and buried it. That money is no longer money; it has become dirt. Money is money only as long as it moves from one hand to another.
So the miser kills money. In his hands money turns to dust. It has no meaning left. You have filled your safe with pebbles—with notes, but what difference? Until notes move out of the safe—from one hand to another—they are not money at all.
Therefore in India, as much money as exists is not really money. And in America, the amount of money is a thousand times more than it appears, because money circulates, moves. The American knows how to make money multiply a thousandfold; hence, he is wealthy.
People come and ask me—especially those from America—why is India poor? Because India is foolish. Poverty is not fundamental; folly is fundamental. At the root is stupidity. Here there is a habit of holding money, not of letting it live. Here there is a habit of clutching everything. Whatever you get, seize it, close your fist, sit guarding it.
America throws it into play: use what is there. In fact, America even uses what is not yet there. He will buy a car now and pay over ten years. The money isn’t there now; it will be in ten years. He will earn and then pay. He buys on installment—meaning he spends the money he does not yet have.
Here in India, even the money you do have, you do not spend. Just yesterday you read in Buddha’s story about that man—the city’s chief merchant—who died childless. And when he died they hauled his wealth away in bullock carts for seven days. And he himself had never eaten properly, never drunk properly. He never wore decent clothes. He wore tattered garments, rode in broken old carts, ate coarse food. He was a pure Indian!
That Indian is the cause behind India’s poverty.
Let things flow. Let things move, be dynamic. The way to live in the world is the same as the way to live the divine: don’t hold.
But even when you leave off grasping, often grasping does not leave you, because your inertia is deep. A man says: Fine, I won’t grasp. He drops money and runs to the forest. Now he clutches renunciation! First he held money; now he holds renunciation!
You know such sadhus and saints who won’t touch money. Folly has stood on its head! Earlier money was their very life’s breath; now they tremble to touch it, as if it were a snake or scorpion. They won’t stay in the middle.
To stay in the middle means: let money come, let it go. Only don’t block it. Let it arrive; let it depart. Let the journey continue.
So either people love and turn it into marriage—or they get so frightened they say, We’ll become sannyasins. We won’t get into the hassles of love. There’s trouble in it. We’ll be celibates. We will never love anyone.
But in every case you remain rigid. Either rigid as marriage, or rigid as celibacy. You are frightened of love coming and going, flowing. It puts your very breath at risk.
This is what Vasudeva is saying. He says: the formula of aparigraha is that things come and go. Don’t interfere in between. When they come, let them come. When they go, let them go. Don’t tug them to come. Don’t push them to go.
The river flows of its own accord; there is no need to shove it along. Whoever clenches his fist at the river will be left with an empty fist. Drink the water, bathe in it—but don’t clench.
Second: the river is seeking the unknown ocean—unknowingly. The river doesn’t know where it is going, or why; yet it feels its way toward the sea. It has set out in search of the vast. No map in hand. No scripture in hand. No Veda, Quran, or Bible. It has begun the search for the infinite without maps. No guru; not a follower of anyone. It probes on its own—and arrives.
All rivers arrive—you have seen this. Small rivers arrive, big rivers arrive. Brooks and streams arrive. All reach the sea. If they cannot reach by their own strength, small streams fall into bigger streams, bigger streams into rivers, rivers into greater rivers—but they reach the ocean.
Vasudeva is saying: if you keep seeking, you will reach the divine. Maps are not needed—Hindu, Muslim, Christian—no maps needed. What is needed is urgency, intensity, density of search. Maps do not work; the fire of seeking works.
Understand this difference. Hand a river a map—what use? The river needs a water-current, energy. That is enough. On the strength of that energy, the river finds.
Those who have found truth did not find it with the help of maps, because in a changing world maps cannot be made. By the time you draw the map, the world has changed. Maps cannot exist here. Life is change—how will maps be?
I have heard: In a village a drunkard bought laddus at a sweet shop. He paid a rupee; eight annas were due in change. The shopkeeper said, Forgive me; I have no small coins. Come tomorrow morning!
The drunkard, drunk as he was, thought, This is a bother. By morning he’ll change the signboard! Change his name! A thousand suspicions arose—my eight annas are gone. He thought he must make some mark that could not change. He looked around and saw a bull sitting there—right in front of the shop. He said, Fine—where the bull is…!
In the morning when he returned—the bull had no compulsion to sit before the sweet shop. Bulls are not like people who sit where they sit. Bulls are free; that’s why Shiva chose them. It had moved on, and was now sitting in front of the barber’s shop!
The man ran straight into the barber’s, grabbed him by the neck: This is the limit! For eight annas you changed your signboard? Changed your trade? Changed your caste? For eight annas! But you cannot fool me. The bull is sitting there!
Your maps of life are just like this. Life changes daily; your maps lag behind; they have no meaning. Your scriptures are like that too: when they are composed, life is one thing; by the time they are ready, life has become another.
Now you sit reading the Vedas today, or you sit reading the Gita today—life has changed immensely; much water has flowed down the Ganga.
That is why when I interpret Buddha, take note: I am not so concerned with Buddha, because in two and a half millennia life has changed greatly. I am concerned with you. When I interpret Buddha, my loyalty is less to Buddha than to this present moment. I change the map in accord with this moment.
Other commentators have their heavy loyalty to the map. They say: let life go to hell, whatever be the current of time; we hold fast to what is printed in the book—even if the book has become utterly wrong now.
All stated truths are time-bound. And the eternal truth—there is no way to put it into words. No one has ever said that. Whatever has been said is temporal. And all truths, when temporal, must change as time changes.
Your truths do not change; they are stone-like, inert. And life flows like flowers. The two fall out of harmony.
Thus your so-called truths become obstacles to truth itself. Your scriptures become hindrances. Nothing misleads man as much as blind worship of the past.
Be like the river. There is no need to carry maps. And when even rivers reach the sea, why would you not reach? You too are a stream of consciousness. You have set out to find the ocean of consciousness. In a world where even rivers find their way, will your stream of awareness not find its way? Have a little trust. This trust is called shraddha.
Shraddha does not mean pounding your chest and declaring: I believe in God. Or: I believe in the Quran; whoever says the Quran is wrong, I’ll cut off his head; I’ll die or kill. That is not shraddha. Those are names of follies.
Shraddha means simply this: the life that has given me birth, from which I have come, sustains me—and if I search rightly and intensely, I will surely find the source.
Shraddha does not mean belief. It is not trust in a doctrine. It means: in this vast existence that surrounds you without and within, you have trust. You trust yourself and you trust existence. However much you may wander, you will arrive.
How much a river meanders! It takes zigzag paths, sometimes going away from the sea, then coming closer. Yet wandering and wandering, it arrives.
And there is a third thing about the river that Vasudeva wants to say: the river’s total acceptance. If a virtuous person bathes, the river accepts. If a sinner bathes, the river accepts. A dirty drain flows in—the river accepts. A pure stream of the Ganga flows in—the river accepts. The river does not discriminate. If a living person enters the river—fine. If someone throws in a corpse—fine. The river accepts all. Its acceptance is total.
When the flood comes and the river becomes vast, still it goes singing and dancing. When everything dries and the fire of summer blazes, the river accepts that too. Its parched body is just as accepted. Whether the sun shines or clouds gather—everything is accepted by the river. Its acceptance is total.
Buddha called this suchness—tathata. Total acceptance. Whatever is, is right. However it is, is right. Wherever life leads, that is the destination. In one whose heart this acceptance arises, discontent departs. The clouds of sorrow will no longer gather in his life. He has learned the art of turning clouds of sorrow into clouds of joy.
One who accepts everything—you cannot send him to hell, because he will accept even hell. And one who accepts hell transforms hell into heaven. One who does not know the art of acceptance—even if you send him to heaven, he will find reasons to complain; he will make even heaven into hell.
And finally: you have seen that sometimes the river drowns a living man and kills him—but it floats a corpse; the dead body rises to the surface. This fits deeply with Buddha’s way of seeing.
Notice this paradox: the living man—who wants to survive—sometimes drowns. The corpse—who has no desire to survive, who is already dead, so where is the desire—floats. The living man sinks to the riverbed; the dead man rises to the surface.
The corpse knows an art the living man does not: surrender. The dead do not strive to save themselves; therefore the river saves them.
The one who does not strive to save himself, existence saves him. The one who does not fight, existence grants him victory. But the one who fights existence—existence breaks him.
If you fight nature, you will lose. Align with nature. Move with nature. Let there be a harmony, a music, between you and nature—then your victory is certain. You win only when you are with nature, for only nature can win; you cannot. You will lose if you struggle against it. How could the part defeat the whole? How could a fragment defeat that of which it is a fragment?
So the way to survive in the river is to let go of yourself. Don’t struggle. Trust the river and let yourself go—surrender.
These are the kinds of sutras Vasudeva learned sitting by the river. These are the kinds of sutras Buddha learned sitting by the river of life. If you know how to learn, you can learn anywhere. And if you do not, even sitting by Buddhas you will remain a fool.
Therefore Vasudeva says: Why search for a guru? Wherever you are, there is guru. Learn from trees. Learn from birds. Learn from the moon and stars. Learn from rivers and mountains. For one who wants to learn, instruction comes from all sides. And for one who does not, who sits with eyes and ears closed, even satsang with Buddhas will do nothing. He will go from there empty-handed and return empty-handed.
The real thing is your capacity to learn—your skill.
What is the basic ground of this skill? Only one ground: humility—bowing down—openness.
Wherever there is learning to be done, open your doors and windows. Do not go there full of bias. Do not go burdened with doctrines. Do not go as a knower; otherwise you will not know. Whoever goes as a knower will be deprived of knowing.
Go like one who does not know, like the ignorant. Go in that inner state that says, How could I know? Go open, and you will learn much. Then not only from Buddhas—you can learn from anyone.
The lives of ordinary people are like deep scriptures. Open the life of a simple man—you have opened a Veda. And the Veda has grown old; this man is fresh, new. Here the sap of life is flowing.
Understand the life of a simple man—you have understood all the scriptures. And why worry about others? Become the observer, the witness, of your own life—and from there you will get all that is worth attaining. Surely you will. And what is not worth attaining, there is no need for it.

It isn’t only your condition—this is everyone’s condition. The good news is that you have become aware of it. Now something can happen.

Most people think they cannot bear suffering. For happiness they stand with hands outstretched, begging bowl in hand. But the truth is, people can bear neither suffering nor happiness. Happiness is an excitation, so is suffering. Both shake you; both break you. Often happiness breaks you more than suffering ever did.

There is a story: A man used to buy a lottery ticket for one rupee every month, just a habit. He was poor, a tailor. He never thought he would win, never built hopes, never dreamed. Years went by—never won, and it didn’t look as if he ever would. He didn’t consider himself that fortunate.

But one day he won. A big car stopped at his door. Bundles of currency were unloaded. He had won one million rupees. He couldn’t believe it. His eyes went dim; a haze came over him. He grew dizzy. A million rupees! He had never managed to gather ten rupees together with ease.

A million rupees! His heart pounded; blood raced. He had always slept well, but that night he could not sleep. Churning and churning—what shall I do? What shall I not do? What do I do with one million rupees?

The next day he locked his shop and threw the key into the well—What’s the need now? That chapter is over. Why remain a tailor! He bought cars. He bought liquor. He bought a big house. He began frequenting the parlors of courtesans. Now what else was there to do!

He had always been healthy. Within a year he became decrepit and worn. A year later those who saw him did not recognize him. They said: What has become of you!

Now liquor, prostitutes, dance, music; wandering till past midnight; sleeping till past noon; eating whatever, drinking whatever. He thought he was enjoying great pleasure. But within a year he was in a terrible state. In a year he burned through the million—and the million burned through him.

When he was poor, such tumults never entered his life. Even trouble requires resources! Not everyone has the capacity for mischief.

The poor endure one kind of suffering, the rich another. The poor suffer from not having money; the rich suffer from having it. Both suffer! And if you observe carefully and dispassionately, you will find the rich more miserable than the poor.

The poor still have hope; the rich no longer have even that—that they can ever get out of the tangle.

A net of anxieties. A year later, when all was ruined and the man stood exhausted, the doors that had always been open in the courtesans’ houses closed. Friends who used to throng around him all departed. Now only those pursued him to whom he was in debt. The million was gone and he had piled on another two or four hundred thousand in debt.

He thought of suicide, but could not gather the courage. He was afraid. He climbed down into the well, intending to die—but he found his key and climbed back out. He opened his shop again and started stitching clothes. Now the misery was worse, unbearable. Because once you have tasted wealth, poverty pricks the chest even more harshly.

But old habits! He still bought that one-rupee ticket every month. And he prayed to God daily, “O Lord, please don’t let me win again.” That is man—riven by contradiction! He bought the ticket and prayed, “Lord! What happened once was more than enough. Never again. My health is improving a little; the shop is running again; work is getting orderly again. I am saved; you saved me. Had that money lasted another year, I would have been finished. In one year I’ve grown at least twenty years older. Never let it happen again.”

But man is like that. On one side he says, never again; and every month he buys a ticket. And he tells himself, it’s not going to happen again anyway. Such coincidences—once is already too much.

But coincidence! A year later he won again. When misfortunes come, they come crashing through the roof. When God gives, He tears through the roof, doesn’t He!

He beat his chest. When the same car pulled up and the bundles began to be unloaded, he said, “O Lord, again! Now I will have to get into that mess again?”

And he did. He threw the key into the well again. This time he didn’t get the chance to retrieve it. Because this time he didn’t survive; he died. Even if he had retrieved the key and reopened the shop, he would still have bought the lottery ticket—and prayed even more fervently, “Lord! Not again!”

Man is so divided, so fragmented within himself.

It is good that you see you cannot endure either sorrow or joy. This is important. Most people are under the illusion that they cannot bear sorrow.

To say you cannot bear happiness sounds strange. We want happiness. But even happiness cannot be endured, because happiness and sorrow look different on the surface, yet inwardly they are one. They collude. They conspire.

Happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin. The one who wants to be free of sorrow and to cling to happiness will never be free of sorrow. Keep one side of the coin and the other stays too. The one who wants to be free of sorrow must know he will have to be free of happiness as well. The whole coin has to be thrown away.

Happiness and sorrow are names for excitations of the mind. The excitation you find pleasant, you call happiness. The excitation you find unpleasant, you call sorrow.

Have you noticed? What you call happiness today, you may call sorrow four days later. What one day felt like joy, four days later can feel like misery. The woman you thought, “If I get her, I have everything, I want nothing else”—as soon as you have her you begin to think, “If only I could get rid of her, I would have everything; I want nothing else. O Lord, save me from her now.”

It is the same woman you once prayed for!

Why does what you thought pleasant become unpleasant? The other side emerges—if not today, then tomorrow. What you took to be beauty also has elements of ugliness. Today you are delighted by a beautiful face; tomorrow its ugly aspects will appear.

Often it happens that in beautiful people there are repressed uglinesses—hungers, hatreds, frustrations, angers, jealousies—lying within. Often the ugly person carries a kind of inner beauty, and the beautiful person a kind of inner ugliness. It must be so; they are each other’s complements. Beauty and ugliness are also two sides of one coin. Success and failure are two sides of one coin. Poverty and wealth are two sides of one coin.

At times have you noticed that within poverty there is a kind of wealth? And within wealth, a kind of poverty? If you see this entanglement of life, a great untangling happens.

Have you seen the poor man walking with abandon? Have you seen his richness? Have you seen the rich, bowed under burdens, anxious? He can neither sleep well, nor eat well, nor live well. Have you seen his poverty?

I want to tell you: where there is wealth, there will be poverty; where there is poverty, there will be wealth.

It is not without reason that Buddha and Mahavira left palaces and became mendicants. They must have seen a secret. They must have seen the richness of the poor. They must have seen that the less you have, the more carefree you are. And what greater wealth is there than being carefree! They must have seen that the more you have, the more fear you have of losing. The more you have, the more security is in danger.

How can the rich sleep? And how can the poor invite insomnia? For what would he invite it? The rich has every reason to stay awake, so he lies awake nights, surrounded by a thousand anxieties.

The poor has no worry. What came in the day he ate and finished. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Look at the lilies of the field. Even King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” And these lilies neither toil nor take thought for the morrow.

It is just like the saying of Maluk Das:
“The python does no service, the birds do no work.
Servant Maluka has said, the Giver of all is Ram.”

Have you ever seen such a Maluk Das among the truly poor? If not, you have not yet seen the poor—you have only met some petty middle-class rich.

Truly poor—the one who has nothing—will naturally be carefree: no worry about the past, none about the future. Today is enough. In him you will see a flower bloom—the flower of carefreeness. In his non-acquisitiveness, in his having nothing, lies the secret of his joy.

As the rich grow richer, naturally the webs grow, the problems multiply. “Guard this much, do that much. What will happen to this? What about that? Taxes rise! May the government not take it! May thieves not take it! May communism not come!” Who knows how many nets of anxiety arise. And in the midst of them he is trapped—like a spider caught in its own web.

This is what Buddha said: as a spider gets caught in the web it wove, so does the rich get trapped.

A great truth has appeared to you. Use it.

You have seen: “I can bear neither sorrow nor joy.” Let this go deep.

“I am frightened of everything.”

Here everything is futile; there is nothing surprising in being afraid. Everything here is full of death. Understand this fear. Everyone is trembling. See this trembling. But if in this trembling you understand that trembling is natural, fear will dissolve.

Fear is arising because you don’t want to tremble. Fear is arising because death is approaching and you say it should not. The legs wobble; I am growing old—and this should not happen. “Should not”—that demand creates fear.

If you accept death… And even if you don’t accept, what will you do? Death will be. What is to be will be. There is no use trying to save yourself, no use running.

You have heard the Sufi tale.

A king’s beloved servant went to the market. In the crowd he stood watching a juggler beating a drum when someone touched his shoulder. He turned and was stunned—death stood there! He was terrified. He asked, “Why did you put your hand on my shoulder?” Death said, “To inform you that tonight you die. I came to give you notice.”

He ran to his king. Poor man, he was shaking. He thought, The king has everything; I will find protection there. He said, “I am terrified. I met death on the road. She touched my shoulder and said, ‘You will die this evening.’ What shall I do?”

The king said, “What can I do! I can only do this: take my fastest horse and flee. Go as far as you can. This place is not right. For you to be in this town this evening is not good—death is roaming here. Your death is near; run away from here.”

What else do people do! All their lives people run—in many ways. Where there is danger, run! There is danger in the world, flee to the Himalayas! Danger in the market, flee to the temple. Wherever there is danger—run. Other than escapism no path seems visible.

Naturally, the logic seems straight: death is near, go far away. The king had a very fast horse, and this was his dear servant. He gave him the horse and said, “Don’t worry. Do not stop today. When the sun sets, be hundreds of miles away.”

He fled. That day he did not stop to eat; he did not stop to drink water. When death is coming, who cares for water or food! He just kept riding.

The horse was remarkable; it carried him hundreds of miles. He reached the other capital—Damascus. Only then did he relax. The sun was setting. He tied the horse to a tree in a garden, patted its back, put his head on its shoulder and thanked it, “You are an amazing horse; you brought me hundreds of miles in a day. You did not tire; you did not stop. I cannot thank you enough.”

Just then he felt a hand on his shoulder again—the same hand as in the morning. He turned—death stood there!

And death said, “I too should thank your horse, because your death was scheduled in Damascus this evening, and I was afraid you might not reach in time. But your horse is fast—it brought you to the right place at the right time; the sun is just setting. In the morning I touched your shoulder because I was astonished—how will this happen now? How will you reach Damascus? But your horse is swift. It brought you right on time.”

Where will you go? Wherever you run, you will arrive in Damascus. You will reach where your death is to be. The poor reach; the rich reach. Those who walk on foot reach; those who ride horses reach; those who fly in airplanes reach.

Death is certain; then why fear? Inside fear is the desire that it should not be. Let it happen to everyone else, but not to me at least! Make me an exception. Let me be saved—and there is fear. Understand fear.

It is not death that causes fear. Fear is born from your desire to be immortal. And here nothing is permanent. It is a river in flow—everything is moving. Birth happened; death will happen. What has come today will be taken tomorrow. Everything here is on loan; nothing is yours. See this truth and fear dissolves by itself.

“I am afraid of death—and afraid of life too. What is the path for me?”

When fear is understood rightly, you will see that people are not only afraid of death; those who are afraid of death will inevitably be afraid of life. Why? Because it is life that brings death.

Where does death come from? Death arrives riding on the shoulders of life. So the one afraid of death will be afraid of life too. He cannot live fully, because he knows that becoming too friendly with life is not safe—it leads to death. Riding this horse is not safe—it will throw you into a ditch. And death always comes through the door of life. That’s why people are afraid of life as well.

Who is living? People are dragging themselves along—lukewarm lives. Who is living? They cannot live wholeheartedly, because whenever they begin to live wholeheartedly, it seems death comes closer. Wherever you try to live with your whole heart, danger appears—and there is only one danger: death. That’s why people become shopkeepers, traders; they collect pennies. They never stake anything. And without staking, life is not life.

Only the gambler knows what life is. Only one who can stake knows what life is—because life’s flowers bloom under danger. When death is very near, the flowers of life open.

Therefore there is a certain attraction in danger—have you noticed? Have you ever felt that attraction inside? If you drive a car, when it goes beyond eighty miles an hour, a thrill arises. The chest expands; it feels good. The danger increases: ninety, ninety-five, a hundred. And Indian roads! And a car at a hundred! And the car is a Birla Ambassador, in which everything rattles except the horn! Danger! Your life will tremble—and yet there will be a thrill, a tingling, a surge. You will feel alive, as if the dust has been shaken off.

People climb mountains, taking risks. No reason! They could have stayed home comfortably. But they go to climb. If you fall from a mountain, you die. The higher you climb, the more ecstatic you feel—because death is that much nearer.

When life and death come very close, life has a freshness, a youthfulness. Thus, those who are truly alive seek danger.

Friedrich Nietzsche said: If you want to live, there is only one way—live dangerously.

You have recognized rightly that you fear death and you fear life. Because whenever the torch of life burns bright, death seems close from all sides. So people grow old while still young; they never live. With a thousand protections, a thousand fears, a thousand arrangements, they become corpses.

Be alert. Life will go—so live it. Life will go—so taste it, know it. Life will go; it will not stop. Even if you do not live it, it is going. Don’t forget this.

Even if you do not live life, death is coming. But then your death will be in vain. Live—and let death come. Live life totally. Squeeze out all its juice. Then you will be amazed—you will be able to squeeze the juice of death too. One who has lived life in fullness lives death in fullness as well. Where is fear then! He who has come to know life’s mysteries comes to know death’s mysteries too.

When Socrates was given poison he was very joyous. His disciples were sad and in pain, weeping. He said, “Be quiet. You can weep after I die. Is this a time to cry!”

A disciple asked, “Your death is approaching and you seem so jubilant! We have never seen you so happy.” Socrates said, “I have lived life and known it. Now I am getting a chance to know something new—death is coming. I am familiar with life’s secrets; now death will lift its veil. I am entering a new truth. Life is known; the chance to know death is near. Why should I not be joyous! Why should I not be delighted!”

The man preparing the poison—Socrates kept getting up and going out to ask him, “Brother, you are taking so long! When will it be ready?”

The executioner, moved to pity, said, “What kind of man are you? I am delaying so you can live a little longer. Why are you in such a hurry? You are more impatient than I am! I am delaying so that a lovely man like you may live a little more, breathe a little more. Why do you keep asking!”

Socrates is like a small child. A child asks about everything. “Will I die?” If you say, “Yes,” he asks, “When? Today? Tomorrow? When will it happen?”

This old Socrates is fresh like a child. No dust has gathered on his mirror. He has not grown old. The body is old, but his life-force is young. He is going to know death too. He has known life; he will know death as well.

And one who knows both life and death knows the divine. These are the two doors to the divine. In life is God; in death is God. Life is God’s day; death is God’s night. Whoever knows only the day and not the night—his knowing is incomplete. Night has its own delights, its own rest. Night has its own grace, its own depth and stillness.

The profound darkness of night brings a peace that sunlight cannot. In sunlight things become shallow; in night’s darkness they become deep.

And just as a man tired from the day longs to sleep so that he may rise in the morning and welcome the sun again, so does the one tired of life long to sleep in death. The one who has lived rightly will die rightly. Right living brings right dying.

Do not be afraid. What is the point of fear! If you fear, you will miss life and you will miss death. You will live as if not at all—and you will die likewise, empty.

But something has begun to be seen by you—use it.

Do not give me so much pain.
Do not give me so much love.
This life like a south wind,
this body bright as worship,
these monsoon-cloud eyes—
so many joys, so much grief—
how will the mind endure?
Do not give me so much love.
Do not give me so much pain.

Hopes are wanderers,
pains are bangle-sellers,
desires the water-bearers.
Is what has come not enough?
The season is a quick-change artist.
Do not give me so much love.
Do not give me so much pain.

Days yellowed like mustard bloom,
moments heavy as a mango tree in fruit,
breaths stepping, counting step by step.
The roads are rutted and rough,
only dreams are cheap.
Do not give me so much love.
Do not give me so much pain.

Man can bear neither love nor pain. One has to be free of both. And how to be free of both?

Whatever comes, live it. Live whatever comes in totality. If pain comes, live the pain; if love comes, live the love. If morning comes, the morning; if evening comes, the evening. Live whatever comes completely—not half-heartedly, not grudgingly.

You will be surprised. You say, “We want to live happiness with our whole heart, but it is rare; and who would want to live sorrow wholeheartedly! Why would one? And it is plentiful.”

Try living sorrow wholeheartedly too. What do I mean?

Suppose you have a headache. The usual concern is: how to get rid of it? If it doesn’t go, at least forget it. Take an Aspro or an Anacin. If it won’t go, may I at least not feel it.

Try an experiment: Sit quietly; accept that there is a headache today. Acknowledge it. Drop the tension. Drop the ill will toward the headache. Drop the notion that it should go. It is—accept it. Relax and observe the headache peacefully. You will be amazed: as acceptance deepens, the pain diminishes.

Try it; it’s experimental. These are the ordinary processes of yoga—this is real yoga. Physical calisthenics and standing on your head—fake yoga; they have no real value.

You will be astonished with wonder: as acceptance increases, pain decreases. The more acceptance, the less pain. As you watch calmly, become a witness, you will find both the intensity and the territory of pain shrinking.

At first it seemed the whole head hurt. Now it seems confined to a corner. Wake up more. Acknowledge more. Be more of a witness. You will find it is not even in that corner now; it has concentrated to a point, like a needle prick.

Wake up more; accept more. The little pain that remains like a needle is telling you that a needle’s-worth of non-acceptance still remains. It is telling you there remains a needle’s-worth of refusal. A needle’s-worth lack of witnessing remains—nothing more.

Then suddenly you will find a moment comes when the pain vanishes. Then it returns, then it vanishes; then it returns, then it vanishes. What does this mean?

It means when your acceptance is lost, the pain returns. When your acceptance returns, the pain vanishes. They cannot coexist. Bring a lamp into a room and darkness disappears; extinguish the lamp and darkness returns. When the lamp of witnessing is lit, pain disappears. All suffering disappears. All fear disappears. All anxiety disappears.

Then the key is in your hands. Use it when you wish—or not. But the key has come into your hands.

If one becomes a perfect witness, all pains vanish. If one is perfectly un-witnessing, life is hell, and life is nothing but pain.

I am not saying that with witnessing you will get happiness. I am saying that sorrow will fade—and happiness will fade too. Because happiness is only another form of sorrow.

What remains is perfect silence. The name of that silence is bliss. Dictionaries translate “ananda” as “great happiness.” That is wrong. What has bliss to do with dictionaries! What do lexicographers know of bliss?

Bliss is not great pleasure. Bliss is the absence of both pleasure and pain. No excitation remains—neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Excitation itself is gone. Bliss is a non-excited state. All fever is gone. Everywhere coolness. That cool state is what is called moksha—liberation.

When this state becomes your normal state, you abide in liberation while living on earth.

Here is hell; here is heaven; here is liberation. The one who is free here will be free after death. The one who is bound here will return after death. He is bound to the potter’s wheel—and the wheel keeps turning.

You ask, “What is the path for me?”

Witnessing. And not only for you—for all. The path is one. The walkers will be many, but the path is one.

Drop the word “God.” The very word creates the tangle.
You have never seen God—how can love arise? There has been no meeting—how can love be? It isn’t even certain that God is—so how can love be?
Loving God is like a blind man shooting arrows in the dark and thinking he will bring down the game!
How could you love God? I don’t even expect it of you. My expectation is different.
Jesus said, “God is love.” I say to you, love is God. You love—leave God aside for now. As your love grows deeper and denser, the sense of the Divine will begin to dawn. In the intensity of love you will have glimpses and visions of the Divine.
You are asking things upside down. You want, first, to love God. And where is God’s address? How will that be? With trees it can be. With flowers it can be. With the moon and stars it can be. With human beings it can be. With those you are aware of, love can happen. How with God?
And those who say they love God don’t know what they are saying. They are only deceiving. Ninety-nine out of a hundred who claim to love God have no idea what they’re talking about.
The truth is: far from loving God, in God’s name they’ve even stopped loving people. They’ve found a trick—“We love God. What have we to do with people?” They’ve devised this: “Give up loving people; then love for God will come.”
A man once came to the great devotee Ramanuja and said, “Show me the path to attain God. I am mad to attain God. I must have God. I am ready to stake everything.”
Ramanuja looked at him and said, “Let me ask you something. Have you ever loved anyone?” The man said, “Don’t ask frivolous things. I’ve never fallen into such entanglements. I have never loved anyone. I love only God. Just show me the way to God. I am ready to risk all.”
Ramanuja’s eyes grew moist. He said, “I’ll ask you once more—search within carefully. Surely you have loved someone—your mother, father, brother, sister, a woman, a friend—have you never loved anyone?” He said, “I never get into such worldly entanglements. They are all insubstantial. Who is whose mother? Who is whose father? Who is whose brother? Who is whose wife? All this is illusion. And you, a saintly man, ask such questions! I love only God.”
Ramanuja’s words are very significant. He said, “Then I cannot accompany you. I cannot support you. I am helpless. Had you loved someone, from love itself a path to God could have opened. But since you have not loved anyone, you have broken the very road.”
So, drop God for now. If you have no love for God and no thirst for God, there’s no way to manufacture it. And if it is manufactured, it will be false, artificial.
If a man is not thirsty, what can you do? Persuade him to “get thirsty”? Quote scriptures that thirst is exalted and should be cultivated? His throat is not parched. Thirst has not come—what will you do? However loudly you shout…
If you pressure him, frighten him with hell—“If you don’t feel thirst you’ll rot in hell, and if you do you’ll enjoy heaven”—he’ll think, “All right then, let me feel thirst.”
What will “let me feel thirst” mean? He’ll start lying: “Yes, I am thirsty—terribly thirsty. My throat is burning!” And he knows his throat is not burning and he is not thirsty.
Thus people stand in temples with folded hands—“O Lord, grant us your vision.” Nowhere in their throat is any fire aflame. Then they complain: “Our prayers are not heard.” The thirst itself is false. Whose responsibility is it? It lies with your so-called saints who keep telling you, “Arouse the thirst for God.”
Can thirst be aroused? Then what is the way? Start with what you truly thirst for.
If you love me, good—let that be the beginning. Dive totally into this love. From this very plunge perhaps the thirst for a greater love will awaken. You need experience. You thirst for a drop, not for the ocean. I say: drink the one drop. From that drop some quenching will come. It won’t be a great, ultimate fulfillment—but your throat will be cooled, a taste will be awakened. You’ll think, “If only I could get two drops…ten drops…”
It is from the experience of love that one goes to the experience of God. God is supreme love. God is not a person; God is the ultimate possibility of love, the final consummation. So love. Love anyone.
That is why I say: don’t run away from the world. If you run from the world you run from the very door of the temple. Bang your head wherever you like—there is no other door. This world is the doorway. From here alone is the entrance to the temple of the Divine.
Love—your wife, your children, your friends. And love with fullness, not with miserliness.
People are very stingy—so stingy it’s hard to say! You heard yesterday in the story of Buddha: a miser died; for seven days bullock carts hauled his hoarded wealth. Another miser dragged that wealth along! The second miser saw clearly: “That man kept hoarding and died, getting nothing—and here I am hauling his wealth! I too will die, someone else will haul mine.” He went to Buddha and said, “What a poor miser! All his life… He was so close to you, Lord—never gave, never listened to the dharma, never came for your darshan! What a miser!” And yet for those seven days the king was hauling the wealth to his palace; for seven days even he forgot to come to Buddha, though he used to come daily.
When wealth is being gained, who remembers religion!
Mulla Nasruddin once forgot his wallet in a taxi. The driver must have been from the golden age, a simple, straightforward fellow; he published a notice in the newspaper: “I found a wallet. It contains ten thousand rupees. Whoever’s it is, come and claim it with proper details.”
Mulla went, gave every detail. Everything checked out. The man returned the wallet. Mulla quickly opened it and counted the money—once, twice, thrice. The poor driver became a little anxious. He said, “Nasruddin, is the money short? You’ve counted three times!”
Mulla said, “No, the money is all there. But it stayed with you so many days—where’s the interest?”
Such are people! Such ingratitude! Forget thanks—he asks for the interest!
Another story: Mulla’s little boy went to bathe in the river and nearly drowned. A man ran, saved the boy, carried him to Mulla’s house and said, “He was drowning—I barely managed to save him. Take care of your child.”
Mulla looked his boy over and said, “He’s fine. But where’s the loincloth? The one he was wearing must have floated away!”
As if it were that man’s fault about the loincloth! No joy that the boy was saved; grief over the lost rag.
Man is miserly—in every dimension. In love too he is miserly. People love as if fearing it may become too much—lest they lose their treasure! Yet love is such a treasure that the more you give, the more it grows. The more you love, the more your heart becomes love-filled. The higher you fly in the sky of love, the larger and stronger your wings grow. The more you soar in that sky, the deeper your roots sink into the earth, and you connect with the sources of life.
But there is great miserliness in love. And often people hide this miserliness behind the name of God.
This is my own experience. I know hundreds of monks and renunciates. My experience is that they could not love human beings; therefore they talk of love for God. They are misers, stingy.
Among Jain monks in their temples, I know many. I know Hindu sannyasins too—your most famous monks and renunciates. Looking within them all, what I see is this: they could not love people. They did not have the capacity to love. So the name “God” became a cover. Behind that cover they stand. Now they cannot love, and they don’t even feel the sting of it! “How can we love the world? We love God!”
And you have seen, these people who “love God” have proved very dangerous. Be a little cautious. If a man says, “I love humanity,” beware—he’s dangerous. The one who loves a human being is a good man. Where is this thing called “humanity” that you’re going to love?
The man who proclaims, “I love humanity,” will become a killer. Joseph Stalin killed ten million people in Russia—out of love for humanity! To save “humanity” you have to kill humans. Mao Tse-tung too “loved humanity”! Hundreds of thousands were imprisoned and killed. Hitler also “loved the future of man,” longed to breed the superman. In that passion he cleared away the “garbage”—killed human beings!
Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jains—have all fought one another, all the while declaring they seek God. What’s going on? Somewhere a basic mistake has been made.
Love human beings. “God” is a theory; man is a fact. Love the human being, not “humanity.” Love the person, not “democracy.” Love the person, not “socialism.”
These are dangerous words: socialism, democracy, humanity, God. Behind them hard hearts hide—as if someone hid a stone behind a screen of flowers. These are craftinesses, cunning ploys, political arts.
So I will not tell you to “create thirst for God.” Such stupidity I cannot utter. Can anyone manufacture thirst? If it comes, it comes. If it doesn’t—can thirst be produced?
Yes, if thirst is there, you can seek water. But even if water stands before you, without thirst no thirst will arise. And if something “arises,” it will be false. With false thirst there is never any connection with the Divine.
You have become habituated to manufacturing false thirsts. A child is born. The mother says, “Love me. I am your mother.” From the fact of motherhood must love necessarily arise? What is the child to do? He depends on her—for milk, for care. If the mother is pleased, he is safe; if she is angry, he is endangered.
So the child manufactures a lie. He smiles at the mother. This is the beginning of politics. The child is becoming a politician. Today or tomorrow he will turn into Morarjibhai Desai! The journey to Delhi has begun—however many years it takes to arrive.
He smiles at the mother—false smiles on his lips—because he knows milk comes from her; if he smiles, she comes quickly, thrilled; if he smiles, she offers the breast quickly; if he smiles, she hugs him to her chest.
The child doesn’t know what love is. But the mother is trying to force love to appear.
Then the father says, “I am your father—love me.” “These are your brothers—love them.” “This is your sister—love her.” “These are your so-and-so—love them.” As if love were something to be learned! And the child goes on learning: “All right; if everyone says so, it must be done.”
What will he do? He will merely pretend. Hypocrisy is born. Because of this hypocrisy, real love will never happen. Once you get involved with the counterfeit, the real is blocked.
That is why there is such endless talk of love in the world, yet no love at all. Conversation, yes; everyone is talking of love, everyone is a “lover,” and love is nowhere to be found. What is seen is pure unlove. What is the reason?
The real flower could not bloom. Before it could, we hung artificial flowers on the plant. They blocked the very space for the real blossom. And once you get used to the artificial, who will bother with the trouble of the real? The real has its challenges; the fake is convenient, marketable, achievable by effort.
This contrived love is false.
So I will not tell you, “Love God.” You are teaching the same falsehood to your children. You take them to the temple—“Here sits God.” The child looks and sees: there is no God here. He looks around—there is a stone statue. You cannot deceive a child; his eyes are still clear, unclouded. The deception takes time.
The child says, “Father! God? This God? If I push, he’ll topple over! And look—a mouse is climbing on him. Laddus have been offered, and the mouse has come too! He cannot even protect himself from a mouse—and you say he is protector of the world? What kind of protector? What kind of God?”
But the father says, “Be quiet! You will understand when you grow up. Bow now.”
When this child bows before these “gods,” he is not bowing to God. He is bowing to the father’s coercion. The father is powerful. Might is right! He is bowing “to God,” but in truth this has nothing to do with God. He keeps glancing around even as he bows.
People bring their children to me and, by force, try to make them touch my feet—grabbing their necks. A few days ago a woman brought her child and was forcing his head down. The poor child kept lifting his head. He did not want to bow.
What are you doing? You are teaching him something dangerous. Later in his life, real bowing will never happen. He will bow only when someone grabs his neck. Later his wife will grab his neck and make him bow. Then his office boss will force him to bow. Then the policeman, the magistrate will make him bow.
He will bow wherever someone seizes his neck. And whoever’s neck he can seize, he will force them to bow. This game will go on. He will be slapped by those stronger than him and he will slap those weaker. His life will be ruined.
And when people who listen to me do such things—what to say of others!
They force their son to bow in the temple and say, “When you grow up, you’ll understand”—as if they themselves understood! They have understood nothing.
But their fathers had made them bow and said, “You’ll understand when you grow up.” Now to admit that they have understood nothing would be humiliating. What’s the use of exposing oneself? One’s tail has already been cut!
You’ve heard the story of a man whose nose was cut off. He was in love with a woman; her husband caught him and cut off his nose. Now what to do with a cut nose! He became a renunciate, put on ochre, sat under a bush, sat there like a Buddha. People were amazed. Even the husband who cut his nose was astonished—what happened? Such a sudden revolution!
People came asking, “What happened?” He said, “A marvel! This man did me a great favor—he cut off my nose. And the moment my nose was cut, I had the vision of God! The nose was the obstacle. Once it fell, my eyes opened, the third eye opened! I can hardly believe it, but it happened. He changed my life.”
Many felt the itch—“This is cheap! If God is attained by cutting off the nose, how many won’t get theirs cut?”
People are cutting off their noses like this even now—someone by fasting, someone standing on his head, someone lying on thorns, someone in puja, someone in prayer—because God will be attained “like this.” What haven’t people cut off to attain God!
Two or four got their noses cut by him. It became his profession. He kept his razor honed—this was his bhajan-kirtan. He would take them behind the bush, slice off the nose, then ask, “Did you see God?” They’d look and say, “We didn’t.” He’d say, “But now your nose is gone. If you say you didn’t, people will laugh at you. What’s done is done. From now on you say—‘The moment my nose was cut, the third eye opened!’”
So those whose noses were cut also declared, “The third eye…!” His disciples grew. A crowd formed. And when disciples grow, others are impressed: “There must be something to it. One man can be wrong; so many cannot be.”
Word reached even the king. Hearing it, he thought, “If God is attained so, I too should do it. What is a nose worth? Let it go! So many have lost theirs.” When he heard that even the man who had cut the first nose became his disciple and had his own nose cut, the king couldn’t hold back.
The king came. The minister was shrewd. When the king agreed and the nose-cutter began sharpening his razor, the minister said, “Wait two or three days. Let me investigate.” The king said, “What is there to investigate? Don’t you see? So many have lost their noses, and all say they have the vision. Look how delighted they seem—such ecstasy! All are swaying, saying it’s great bliss. With so many rapturous people sitting here—what’s there to think?”
The minister said, “Wait a few days. What’s the harm?” He caught two or three nose-less fellows and had them well thrashed. “Speak the truth,” he said. Under heavy beating they confessed, “What can we hide? But our noses are gone! That man tricked us. He cut them first and then said, ‘If you say you saw nothing, people will laugh at you.’ We thought, ‘Now that it’s done, saving face is all that’s left.’”
Your fathers tell you when you’re small: “When you grow up you will know.” That is what their fathers told them. Neither did they know, nor will you.
What will bowing before stone idols reveal? The very means of knowing is blocked. What will worship of dead scriptures reveal? It is foolishness.
In Punjab I once stayed in a home. In the morning I was going out to bathe. Passing a room I saw they had placed the Guru Granth Sahib there. I was startled. Right before the scripture was a filled brass lota and a toothbrush twig. I asked, “What are these for?” They said, “For the Guru Granth Sahib’s morning brushing.”
Guru Granth Sahib—“sahib,” indeed! All right, at least with a Krishna statue one could understand if someone kept a toothbrush there—there is at least a statue. But this is just a book! But the end of folly is nowhere. The Guru Granth Sahib is being made to brush!
I said, “Have some mercy! At least spare the Guru Granth. Don’t drown the scripture with yourselves. You do the brushing—that’s enough.”
And when you grow up, you will likewise make your children bow before the same idols, be crushed under the same foolishness, and say, “When you are grown, you too will understand.” But by then the nose is cut. Then who can tell whom?
Nose-less people are worshiping in temples—monks, sannyasins—and sharpening their razors to cut others’ noses.
I will not tell you to love God. How will you love one unknown, unrecognized, with whom there has never been a meeting, whose hand has never touched yours? And how will the thirst for such love arise?
I say to you: wherever love happens for you, with whomever it happens—don’t be stingy. Pour yourself wholly into that love. From that self-offering further thirst will be born.
Whoever has truly loved a human being will, sooner or later, set out into the love of God. If there is so much juice in loving the transient, how much will there be in loving the eternal!
And whoever goes deep into the human will find that outwardly man is transient, but within he is eternal. All are forms of the Divine—you just have to dig a bit deeper.
If love for a human being happens to you… Even leave human beings aside—if you truly love a tree, your depth with the tree will grow, and one day you will find the same soul presiding there, the same Divine dwelling there.
The depth of love will bring you to the Divine everywhere.
Let the word “God” be. The word “love” is enough. From love, God comes. Love becomes prayer. And prayer becomes God.

Such is everyone’s condition. Waiting—waiting! But for whom are you waiting? You don’t really know.

To wait simply means you feel a lack. Something is missing. Something should have been that is not. Some space is empty. To wait means: I am not where I ought to be, not as I ought to be.

You are not waiting for someone else; you are waiting for your own flowering. You are waiting for your flower to blossom. This event will not come from the outside. No one is going to come. If you keep waiting for another, you will keep on waiting. No one has ever come, and no one ever will.

You have to become; no one has to come. There is no one to come. You have to become. Understand this distinction—everything turns on it.

If you are waiting, there is nothing to do. You sit at your door, watching the road! Do nothing, and nothing will happen. Waiting is a passive state. The one who waits, slowly, slowly, becomes utterly inert. In waiting, laziness grows thick.

It is not a matter of waiting. That is why the sages never said God is outside; they said: God is within.

What will waiting accomplish? What is outside comes by waiting. You have to dig within yourself. Descend the stairs of your inner being. Go down into the inner well; the water is there. It won’t happen by passivity. It won’t happen by fixing your eyes on the road. The sooner you close your eyes, the better... Because if you keep looking out with open eyes, you will find nothing. There is nothing outside. What is to be found is within. The treasure is within.

Close your eyes—and then wait. Close your eyes—and then see. Close your eyes and set about recognizing yourself. Close your eyes, and grope within your own inner darkness.

At first there will be much anxiety, because there will seem to be only darkness. You have never gone inward, so obstructions will be felt. You will bump into many things. But slowly the collisions decrease, a path forms, and even the darkness... When the eyes consent, even in the dark a little becomes visible.

Haven’t you noticed? Thieves who steal at night move through your house in the dark with more ease than you do in daylight. Even in the light you bump into a door or a table—this falls, that falls. And the thief comes at night into a stranger’s house, cannot switch on the light, cannot turn on a torch, and the house is not even his—perhaps it is his first time there—and still he finds his way! He even reaches your safe, opens it, and carries off the money. You yourself, wanting to open your safe in the dark—even though you know where it is—might not even reach it. What is the matter?

The thief has learned to see in the dark. One must practice seeing in the dark.

When you come home at noon from the bright sun, the house seems dark. Sit a little, rest, and your eyes adjust; then you begin to see light again.

Sit at night and look into the darkness. Slowly, your eyes will be trained. When the eye’s focus settles rightly, even in the dark a little vision begins.

Inside, you will first meet darkness, because for lifetimes you have not gone within. The inner eye has lost its capacity, like legs that have grown lame from years of not walking. If such a person walks again, he will stumble. But if he keeps walking, the legs find their rhythm again, the blood flows, the muscles strengthen. It is the same with the eyes.

Do not wait. From outside, no one has ever come, nor will they. Waiting for the outside leads to great delusion.

The Beloved will come.
The mind thrills,
the twin eyes unblinking,
lamps of tender memories burning
in the empty twilight—
I sit and watch the path, O friend:
The Beloved will come.

The sky is filled with night,
the courtyard dimmed,
each moment the eyes
fill and overfill.
In life’s dense obscurity—
each day I light a new flame, O friend:
The Beloved will come.

The forest’s waterfall keeps falling,
every direction on my path resounds;
upon the broken veena of the heart—
silently I string the wires, O friend:
The Beloved will come.

And those beloveds who come like this are not truly beloved. They do not prove the Beloved. It is only the net of desires and cravings that proves itself. The One for whom there is truly waiting, the real Beloved, does not come by outer paths, not as an object to be seen. He sits within you as the seer. He has been within you from the very first day. He throbs within you. He is your breath, your heartbeat. In truth, you are that for which you wait.

But you do not go within—and so the meeting does not happen. Gazing outward, one day you will realize: no one came, no one comes. Despair thickens.

Now there is no one with me.
I hear, in the sobbing of the dark,
that story which even the sky
pours down as water when it remembers.
In the nest of my night the birds no longer take shelter!
Now there is no one with me.

Going far and farther, suddenly
the mind returns here again;
on the desolate path
dense storm-clouds mass—
in the sky’s shade your dreams sleep, O painter!
Now there is no one with me.

Ask not the sorrowful history
of a dying lamp;
the joy of moonlight knows not
the heart of the black new-moon night.
Morning gathers the night’s tears as the smile of dawn!
Now there is no one with me.

If not today, then tomorrow, whoever keeps his eyes turned outward will experience it: I was left alone. Alone I remained.

Go within. Descend into yourself. And there you will find the One you seek.

You ask: “I don’t even know what I’m waiting for. I only know that I am waiting. But nothing ever happens!”

You are looking outside—that is your hindrance. This gaze must be turned inward.

Close your eyes and begin to see. And let me warn you: at first there will be only darkness. At first the eyes will fill with smoke. But if you steadily keep looking within, the smoke will disperse, the darkness will be cut through. And one day you will find an incomparable radiance, an incomparable aura.

You will find a lamp burning—without wick, without oil—that never goes out. Call it God, call it the Self, call it Truth—give it whatever name you wish. But that is it—the Nameless—for which the search has been going on.

You have searched much outside; now come within.

Rabia—a Muslim fakir—was sitting in her little hut. A fakir named Hassan had come to stay with her. He rose early. The morning sun was rising, beautiful. Birds were singing. Sunbeams filtered through the trees. White clouds floated in the sky. The morning was very still, fresh, dear, and lovely.

Hassan called out loudly: Rabia! What are you doing sitting inside! Come out and see how lovely a morning God has given birth to!

He spoke casually, wanting to call Rabia outside. But the reply Rabia gave has become one of the timeless answers; from such answers scriptures are born.

Rabia said: Hassan! You too have gone mad! Come in, instead of calling me out. I know the morning outside is very lovely. Everything made by God is lovely. But within I am seeing the One who made it. Come inside. The creation is beautiful, but what is it compared to the Creator!

Hassan had spoken casually—Come out, Rabia!—thinking she might step outside the hut. But the statement Rabia made in that moment is a great utterance.

She said: Hassan, the morning outside is lovely—true. I too have seen it. But I am seeing the Lovely One who made that morning, who made all mornings. Come, see the Painter. Come inside.

This is what I say to you.

Enough waiting for the outside. Close your eyes. By closing the eyes, the eyes open. By keeping them open, they remain closed.

That is all for today.