Es Dhammo Sanantano #114

To believe in the soul or God—in fact, to believe in anything—is a sign of weakness and ignorance. Belief itself is the symptom of ignorance. The one who knows does not believe. He knows; there is no need to believe. The believer does not know—he believes precisely because he does not know.

Understand deeply the difference between believing and knowing. Belief creates the illusion of knowing. It is a cheap device, a counterfeit medicine.

You believe—“There is God.” In this believing the mind plays a clever trick: now there is no need to know. By believing, you erect the false appearance of knowing. Repeat for years, again and again—“God is, God is”—in temples and mosques, churches and gurudwaras—and slowly you will even forget that you do not know. Through constant repetition a feeling arises: Yes, God is.

But it is your own repetition. It is only your mood thickened. It is self-hypnosis, auto-hypnosis—mere conditioning. You have gone nowhere, you have not changed, no revolution has happened in your life. You remain as you were—only you have put on a covering. You have wrapped yourself in the shawl of God’s name. Inside you are exactly the same as before; you have only donned the garment of belief.

Whom are you deceiving? In essence you have bound yourself to illusion and lies.

The very first day you said, “God is,” it was a lie—because you said it without knowing. You pushed dishonesty to its limit!

You used to cheat in the world—fine. You cheated in the marketplace—fine. But you brought your lies into the temple as well! You didn’t change on entering the temple; you changed the temple’s very form. The temple too became distorted and corrupt with you. You could not save yourself by boarding the boat; you sank the boat! A drowning priest, you dragged your patrons down with you.

And if it was a lie on the first day, how will it become truth by repetition on the last day? Does repeating a lie make it true? Repeat it a million times, a lie is a lie. Yes, by repetition it may appear to be true.

Adolf Hitler wrote exactly this in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: keep repeating a lie and one day it becomes the truth. Don’t listen to anyone—just go on repeating it.

Hearing the same thing again and again, people begin to trust that it must be true—when it is repeated everywhere, by so many people, so many temples and mosques, so many priests and pundits, so many mullahs; parents, schools, society, culture—all repeating: “God is.” And you join this chorus. Slowly it will seem to you that it has become true. But a lie never becomes truth.

How can anything become true by repetition! You may go on repeating, “This stone is a rose.” A stone is a stone; it will not become a rose. Yes, it may happen that after much repetition you begin to see a rose in the stone—but that rose will be false. It will be a dream you have projected onto the stone. Stop repeating for a few days and the stone will again be a stone. The stone never became anything else; only your repetition put you in delusion.

You have turned everything into falsehood. You have turned religion into falsehood.

Therefore Buddha says: there is no need to believe in God; there is no need to believe in the soul. There is no need to believe. To cut the very root of belief he said: there is no God, there is no soul.

It is not that there is no God. It is not that there is no soul. How would Buddha say that! Buddha knows.

But your delusions have gone too far; their root must be cut. And there is only one way to cut the root: for a man like Buddha to declare, “There is no God, there is no soul,” so that you are shaken awake, so that you step out of your illusions, so that the lies you have manufactured, and the edifices you have built upon those lies, may collapse. Buddha blew down your house of cards. He sank your paper boats before your very eyes—ruthlessly.

That is why this country has never forgiven Buddha. This country uprooted Buddha from its own soil.

If someone brings down your palaces of playing cards, you will be angry. If someone breaks your dreams and wakes you from sleep, you will make him your enemy. And no one has labored so tirelessly as Buddha.

Buddha’s blow is devastating. Those who had courage and took it upon their chest were made new; they were reborn. The weak were enraged. The weak took revenge. They couldn’t do it while Buddha was alive; but after he left they did.

In the very land where a Buddha was born, barely a trace of Buddhists remains! How could this happen? Surely the mind of this country reacted: “Our God is false? Our soul is false? Our scriptures are false? Our Vedas are false! We are false! All false! And only this one man, Gautam Buddha, is true!”

Buddha never said, “Only I am true.” He said only this: belief is false; knowing is true. Faith is false; awakening is true. This is the essence of the dharma of Buddhahood.

Awakening is truth. Wake up. See by waking, not by believing—for believing puts spectacles upon your eyes: the spectacles of belief! You decide the world is red and keep on believing—and you keep trying to see red, straining to maintain it. That strained seeing is what people call spiritual practice—trying to see red! Then one day you begin to see red: green trees look red, the blue sky looks red. And you think, “Now I have arrived.”

You have not arrived anywhere. You have strayed further; you have fallen behind even where you were.

Open your eyes and brush off the dust of beliefs. Buddha’s message is direct and clear: have eyes free of belief; consciousness free of conditioning; awareness free of thought. Then what is, is revealed.

Buddha did not even give a name to what is—because naming is dangerous. You are so dangerous that the moment a name is given, you clutch at the name and forget the nameless. So Buddha said—“that which is.”

The very nature of that “which is” is dharma. Seeing the world without thought is to know dharma. Experiencing existence in a thought-free state is the realization of dharma.

Buddha said “No God, no soul” only so that, if you say “They are,” your old false notions will gain strength.

I do the same every day. I try to break your old notions. And it isn’t necessary that the content of your old notion be wrong; it is the holding of a notion that is wrong. It may be that God is; but because of your belief in God you cannot see. Belief in God has to be taken away, so that what is can reveal itself.

Let me repeat: the weak man believes. Cowards believe. Those with a little courage set out on the journey of knowing.

The journey of knowing requires great courage. The greatest courage of all is to drop all your beliefs. The moment you drop them you will feel you have become ignorant, for it was because of your beliefs that you appeared knowledgeable. You will be suddenly naked, ignorant. All the wealth of your so-called knowledge will slip from your hands. Hence courage is needed.

It does not require as much courage to leave wealth, because wealth is outside. To leave “knowledge” requires the greatest courage, because knowledge sits inside you. Wealth is like clothes—you can take them off and be naked. But “knowledge” is like bone, flesh, marrow, skin; to tear it out is painful.

That is why people renounce wealth and go to the forest, but they carry their “knowledge” with them. A Hindu sitting in the forest remains a Hindu. A Jain in the forest remains a Jain. A Muslim in the forest remains a Muslim. What is the point then? The conditioning has been carried along.

You say, “I have left society.” What nonsense! The society that gave you those conditionings—you brought that very society with you. That is the real society, which sits inside you. Society is not outside. Society is clever and skillful; it has seated itself within your innermost core. Wherever you run, it runs with you. Until you awaken, society will pursue you.

Buddha said—Wake up. What is seen by waking, he called dharma. That dharma is eternal, sanantano. Es dhammo sanantano.

Dharma is your nature—the nature of existence, your nature, the nature of all. Dharma is what is breathing within you. Dharma is what has become green leaves in trees; what leaps in the deer; what dances in the peacock; what gathers as cloud; what shines as sun; what glimmers in the moon and stars; what swells in the oceans. Dharma is spread everywhere.

By dharma I mean intrinsic nature. The inner core of all this is one. Aliveness is dharma. Consciousness is dharma. The eternality of being is dharma.

This being never ceases. You were before—of some other shape, some other color, some other mode. You will be again—of some other color, some other shape, some other mode. You have always been and you will always be—but not as you. You are only a form. Look within this form; dig a little deeper. Enter this body, enter this mind, and search where the wave becomes the ocean—where the wave is the ocean. Whenever you enter into any wave risen in the ocean, sooner or later you will find the ocean.

So too you are a wave. Waves arise and subside; the ocean neither arises nor subsides. The ocean is eternal, sanatan. But you have clutched the wave tightly. You say, “I am this wave,” and you are busy worrying how to make this wave eternal.

That has never happened and never will. How can waves be eternal! A wave means: what surged and went. Came and went—that is a wave. How can a wave be eternal? In its very arising it begins to subside. You had not even been born and death had begun. With birth, death starts.

The wave begins to subside even as it forms. The wave cannot be eternal. The obsession to make the wave eternal—that is what is called samsara. This insistence: “As I am, so I must remain.” How miserly you are! “Let me remain exactly as I am!” And as you are, you find no essence in it—that’s the irony. As you are, there is no beauty, no truth, no bliss—and still, “Let me remain as I am!”

Have you ever thought that if your prayer were granted, nothing worse could happen? If you were to remain exactly as you are—forever fixed as you are—you would be horrified. You would say, “No, Lord! I made a mistake. I take this prayer back. To remain as I am—stagnant, blocked—would be suffering. No; let me flow, let the new come.”

Samsara is the longing to remain as you are. Sannyas is the readiness to be as it happens. As it happens! Today a man—then tomorrow you will lie in a grave and sprout as grass. The green grass on a grave is supremely beautiful.

Are you not tired of being a human? Do you not want to be grass? A blade of grass flowering?

Today you are a man; tomorrow hover as cloud in the sky. Today a man; tomorrow shine as a star. Today a man; tomorrow sing as a sparrow in the morning, welcoming the sun. Today a man; tomorrow be a rose—float as a lotus upon some lake.

Will you remain only a human? Cling to this one wave? Grip this rigidity?

Today male, tomorrow female; today female, tomorrow male. Let form flow; let the current flow. Do not dam this stream, do not obstruct it.

Acceptance of what is—tathata—is sannyas. The rigid insistence—“As I am, let me remain forever”—that obstinacy is samsara.

If there is suffering in samsara, it is because you demand what cannot be. And if a sannyasin is happy, radiant, blissful, it is because he has found a treasure. What is that treasure? Only this: he is content with what happens. However it happens, he desires not a jot of difference. The longing for the different has gone. He has no cravings. He asks for nothing. He lives each moment in joy. Young—he delights in youth; as a child, he delighted in childhood; when old, he will savor old age. While living, he saw the song and dance of life; and when dying, he will watch the dance of death and die. Wherever he is, as he is, he has no longing to be otherwise or elsewhere.

When such a state arrives, the knowing that happens to you is called dharma. Then you come to know the ocean. You are free of waves, free of ripples. And certainly the ocean is eternal.

Buddha called dharma that which others have called God. Buddha called dharma that which others have called the soul. But there is more danger with “God” and “soul”; with “dharma” there is less danger.

“God” comes to mean: someone sitting in the sky, running the whole world. Then off you go to flatter him, praise him. If you can please him somehow, special arrangements will be made for you. His compassion will fall upon you. If you get his grace, you will stride ahead of others—in wealth, in meditation. You will have your demands fulfilled by him. “Come, let’s massage his feet. Let’s tell him we are the dust of your feet.”

The direction turns wrong—the direction of desire. The moment you believe God is a person in the sky, naturally human weaknesses will be projected onto God.

If a human can be placated by flattery, then God too can be placated by flattery. If a human can be bribed, then God too can be bribed—only with a little more finesse; then we call it “offering.” And if a human can be made to fulfill our demands—even unjust ones—then God too can be made to fulfill them.

You will be surprised: in the scriptures of the world there are prayers that ought not to be there—irreligious prayers. But they indicate this much: if you conceive God as a human, this mischief is bound to happen.

There are hundreds of hymns in the Vedas where the rishis pray, “Kill our enemies!” Not only that—“May the udders of our cows overflow with milk, and may the udders of our enemies’ cows dry up completely.” What kind of prayers are these! “May our field yield an abundant harvest this year, and may the neighbor’s field be utterly scorched.” What kind of prayers are these!—and in the Vedas!

But they reveal this: if you take God to be humanlike, then your prayers to him will be human too. This is the naked truth of man! Even in the temple, what does he ask? The Quran also contains such words, and so does the Bible. They are not beautiful.

In this sense Buddha gave a most revolutionary vision. He said: remove this God. Because of it, such crude hymns arise in the Vedas. Because of it, the vulgar cravings within man find support. Remove God.

Buddha established law in the place of God—dharma as law. Now you cannot pray to a law. Have you seen anyone praying to gravity?—“I am going out today, O gravity, don’t trip me on the road; don’t break my leg. Others have had fractures; spare me. See, I am your devotee!”

No one prays to gravity. If someone did, he would look foolish—even to himself. But if you personify gravity—make it a deity who watches who walks straight and who walks crooked; whoever staggers he trips, breaks his bones, sends him to the hospital; whoever walks straight and steady he protects—then the old story returns.

Clouds thunder in the sky—you imagine the god Indra is angry: we must have offended him.

There was a terrible famine in Bihar, and do you know what Mahatma Gandhi said? He said, “It is the fruit of our sins. The deity is punishing us.” What sin? “The sin we have committed against the Harijans.” But that “sin” is happening all over the country, not just in Bihar! Then why torment only the people of Bihar? What wrong have the poor Biharis done?

When we conceive God as a person, such tangles arise.

Buddha wiped away God’s personality; he removed the person. He dropped the form; he made it formless.

The Vedas say: the Supreme is formless. But even so, their prayers proceed as if he had form. Buddha in truth made “God” formless—there is no God; there is no deity. Then what is there? A great law—mahaniyam. A timeless principle of life by which all proceeds.

You cannot pray to a law; you cannot flatter a law; you cannot bribe a law. A law can only be followed. Follow it—you will be blessed. Don’t follow it—you will suffer. And it is not that some lawgiver sits there with a stick to crack your head if you disobey. No one is sitting there. By going against the law you punish yourself.

When you drink and stagger, you fall. It isn’t that gravity is sitting there, saying, “Ah, this man has drunk! Now break his leg!” There is no one there. When you lose balance, by losing balance you fall.

You punish yourself; you reward yourself. Buddha has handed all power to you. Buddha has given you sovereign power.

When Buddha said, “There is no God,” he proclaimed godliness in your very life.

So it is. The truth of life is deeply paradoxical. If one prepares to die, one begins to experience life. If one has the capacity to embrace sorrow, clouds of joy break open. And if no craving remains in life, life lifts all its veils. The one who wants nothing receives everything, and the one who keeps demanding everything receives nothing.
Life’s arithmetic is bewildering, mysterious. So it is.
Manju and Gulab said: “By initiating us into sannyas you have given us the supreme beauty of the world.”
Only a sannyasi can know the world’s beauty; the worldly cannot. The worldly is so entangled, so drowned in the mire, he lacks the capacity to stand at a distance. He cannot stand apart and see—and the real relish is in witnessing from a little distance.
When you are very busy in the world, where is the leisure to see its beauty? Flowers bloom, but you do not see them. The moon and stars appear, but you do not notice. Your head is bent over your shop’s ledger. Where is the time, the ease, the space to befriend the flowers; to bow to the mountains; to sit with the rivers; to talk with the trees? Where is your leisure? Where is your time away from your strongbox?
If your conversation with your strongbox stops, only then will your eyes lift toward the moon and stars. If you are entangled in the petty, how will you remember the vast? How will the awareness of it arise, how will its remembrance awaken?
Thus this paradox occurs: it is the sannyasi who comes to know the world’s beauty. And the capacity to know the world’s beauty is born only when you have nothing to take from the world. When you stand in detachment; when you say, “What is, is right. As it is, it is auspicious. What a blessing that I am breathing right now. What a blessing that I have eyes and can see forms and colors. What a blessing that I have ears and can hear the birds’ songs. If someone plays the veena, my very life fills with music. What a blessing!”
Then you will hear the veena everywhere. Nature is dancing everywhere with the drum in her hands. The dance is happening here—an immeasurable dance. Everything is dancing. A great dance... But the viewer needs a little capacity.
And another thing: you can know only as deep as you are. As your meditation deepens, your vision descends more deeply into nature. Then the gross begins to dissolve and the subtle is revealed.
What is the meaning of sannyas? Sannyas means: I am content with what is. And when you are content with what is, the running stops, the ragged haste ends. Then there is nowhere to go, nothing to get, nothing to become.
A sannyasi does not mean someone busy trying to gain heaven. That would still be a shopkeeper. Still worldly. Nor does sannyas mean, “Now I must attain God, at any cost.” That is only a new account book you have opened—an otherworldly bank balance—but the trouble has begun again. First you were hoarding wealth; now you hoard merit. First you collected coins of money; now you collect coins of virtue. What difference is that? The disease has only changed its name. The poison remains—perhaps now even thicker, even more dreadful.
Sannyas means: one who has dropped the search. One who says, “What is there to seek? It is already given.” One who says, “Where is there to go? All is here.” One who says, “I will go neither to Kailash nor to Kaba. This very spot where I sit—Kailash. This very spot where I sit—Kaba. I will no longer search in books; I will close my eyes and search within. I will open my eyes and search in nature. I will look into people’s eyes. What will I find in dead books? The living books are present. These walking Qurans! These walking Bibles! These walking Guru Granths! These walking Vedas! I will look into them. I will befriend them. I will dance with them.”
Sannyas means: for whom this very moment is all in all.
Then how long can beauty hide from you? When you become so still; when no craving can ruffle the flame of your life; when you become unshakable. As when a lamp is lit and gusts make it flicker, so the gusts of desire make the lamp of your awareness flicker. When no desire remains, the lamp’s flame becomes steady. In that steadiness lies the key.
Manju and Gulab have said it well: “By initiating us into sannyas you have given us the supreme beauty of the world.”
I am not anti-world; I am not anti-life. My sannyas is the art of knowing life. Not the renunciation of life, but the art of life’s supreme enjoyment. I do not want to make you escapees. Escapism is cowardice. Those who flee the world are cowards. They are afraid. They say, “If we stay here, we will get trapped. If a hundred-rupee note appears, an upheaval starts within; we won’t be able to restrain ourselves. This hundred-rupee note will drown us!”
A beautiful woman passes by; “Run from here, otherwise we will be caught in her wake!” But the man who drools at the sight of a banknote, the man who loses his senses when a beautiful woman passes—if he sits on a mountain, what then? He will remain the same man. Even sitting on a mountain, what will he think? Close his eyes—hundred-rupee notes will begin to float! Close his eyes—beautiful women will stand before him.
And remember: no woman is as beautiful as the one you see when your eyes are closed, because she is imagined. A real woman comes with tangles; the more beautiful, the more tangles. A price must be paid. The greater the beauty, the higher the price she will ask. But the woman of imagination is only beauty—because she is woven of dreams. And they are your dreams; you can make her as you like. If the nose is a little long—lengthen it. If short—shorten it. Or if it is short, make it a bit longer.
I have heard: a woman dreamt at night that the long-awaited prince arrived, riding a horse. He dismounted. The horse, of course, would not be ordinary. It must have been Chetak. From a splendid horse stepped a splendid prince. When you are dreaming, why put him on a nag? Since it is your dream, mount him on Chetak! And the prince, too, would be supremely handsome. If it is a dream, why be stingy? There is no cost—your own dream!
The prince dismounts. A beautiful body, dark-blue in hue—perhaps like Krishna. He lifts the maiden and seats her on the horse. As Prithviraj carried Sanyogita away—she must have read that tale somewhere. The horse begins to run. Its hoofbeats resound for miles. It runs, racing. Far, far from the world.
Lovers always want to go far from the world, because the world brings great obstruction. There are many who will put hurdles in the way. All are ready. Since they themselves could not love, how can they allow others to love? Having missed, they will make others miss too. They will take their revenge. Here, all are enemies of love.
So, since it is a dream, they go far from the world. The young woman is radiant with joy, blossoming. For the first time the bud of her heart has opened. The prince for whom she had waited through births has come. Riding the very horse on which kings and gods arrive.
Then she asked, very shyly, very timidly—since it is your own dream, be as shy as you like—she asked, “O Prince! Where are you taking me?” And the prince began to laugh. He said, “This dream is yours; wherever you say! What control do I have here? Where do I come into it? The dream is yours.”
So those rishis and munis who go sit on mountains... If here a woman beguiled them, there the dreams of women will haunt them. Whatever you run from will chase you. Whatever you fear will defeat you.
Therefore I do not tell you to run. I say: here and now, understand, recognize, refine your consciousness.
I am not anti-life. My love for life is boundless. And I want your sannyas to be such that it polishes your world; that it makes your world so radiant that God begins to shine through it.
And Manju and Gulab said: “While teaching death you gave us the loving ecstasy of life!”
That is the second paradox. Only one who knows how to die knows how to live. One who fears death never lives. How will a coward live? One who fears death cannot live, because to live always brings death along. Live—and death!
You have seen: the more intensely one lives, the sooner death comes. A rock lies for centuries; it does not die. A rose blooms in the morning and by evening it is gone. Have you ever wondered why the rose dies so soon? Because it lives so swiftly; so intensely; with such density, such passion, that the span which takes a rock centuries to traverse, the rose traverses in a single day. In a single day it lives as much as the dull-witted rock lives in centuries. And perhaps the rock does not live at all!
Do you want to be a rose, or a rock? The rock’s life is long. The rose’s life is very short, very momentary. Would you choose to be a rock? Most people have thought so—“Let life be long; let death not come.”
If even the rose thought, “Let death not come,” the tempo of its life would fall. It would live slowly. The slower it lives, the longer it takes for death to arrive. The more lukewarm the living, the farther death recedes. The less you live, the more death is postponed. If you do not live at all, death can be postponed forever.
But one who does not live is already dead! What will you gain by postponing death then?
You have seen: a dead man does not die again. And if you want never to die, it only means this: become a corpse right now. A dead man never dies again. Once in the grave, then gone—no more death.
Some people, out of this very fear, do not live; they sit in their graves while still alive. They start living in their own tombs.
I teach you life. And the only way to teach life is to teach you death. The day the capacity to embrace death arises, that day you will live like the rose—and that is life. You will live as if someone had lit a torch from both ends at once. One deep blaze...
And remember: there is no essence in living long. If even a single moment is lived deeply—not long, but deep; not spread out in time, but sunk deep into the instant—if even one moment you live with depth, then in that one moment you come to know esa dhammo sanantano, the eternal law. But if for centuries you drift like a piece of wood upon the current—buffeted by the waves from this shore to that—you will not find pearls. For pearls you must go deep; you must dive.
And Manju and Gulab have tried to listen to me, to understand. They have set out. More and more beauty will reveal itself. This is not all; more and more beauty will blossom. Each day beauty will grow denser.
The sutras that have come to your hands—that life comes through death, and that through sannyas the world’s beauty is revealed—if you go on using these sutras, day by day, then one day the Vast will pour down. That moment is the moment of samadhi.

Again you ask: why! Show a little restraint even here, a little polish! What is the point of asking even this? That too is a question.

If questions arise within, whether you voice them or not, they will keep arising. Yes, in asking there is one possibility: they may drop because of understanding.

Remember: the answers given here are not the kind that will solve your questions; they are the kind that will make your questions fall away forever. A question that is solved may stand up again tomorrow. What you somehow felt was solved today will appear again tomorrow.

So I have no faith in answers. My trust is in your consciousness becoming questionless. And that will happen by asking and asking. Today you will ask, tomorrow you will ask; from this side, from that side. And each time I throw you back onto yourself. Every answer of mine returns you to yourself.

You will ask many times; the more you ask, the fewer questions will remain. New ones will arise. The end is not coming soon. The mind does not tire so quickly; it will produce new ones. But it is good that new questions arise: they bring new freshness; new blood flows.

And when you ask, it signals the state of your consciousness. It is good that you keep informing me of the state of your consciousness.

Perhaps you are afraid to ask. You may feel that if you ask you will appear ignorant. So you pacify yourself: What is the point! The ignorant ask. I am knowledgeable. I already know—what should I ask!

But there are certainly questions within you. Otherwise even this question—What is the essence of asking?—would not arise. By asking this you are only doing one thing: hiding your inner ignorance.

Here there are many kinds of people.
1) First, those who do not ask because the depth of meditation has become dense and nothing is left to ask.
2) Second, those who do not ask because they are afraid their ignorance might be exposed.
3) Third, those who ask in such a way that their knowledge will be displayed—pedantic questions.
4) And fourth, those who ask so they can open their heart before me as it is, good or bad.

Remember: if questions have stopped arising within you, that is auspicious—the highest. Then the matter of asking does not arise. If there are none, what will you ask! If that has not happened, then the next best is to ask only what truly arises within you—not to show off knowledge, but as a petition from your heart.

Everything carries news about you: your walking, your rising, your asking. It is good that you keep revealing yourself. It is good that you come to my mirror and look at your face again and again, so it remains clear where you are, what you are, how you are.

Ask. There is much substance. The essence is that you keep seeing your own face again and again. When it is seen, transformation becomes possible.

Every morning, standing before the mirror, you don’t ask, “What’s the point? I saw myself yesterday, the day before; I’m the same—what has changed?” Yet you look in the mirror. In truth you are changing every day. You are not the same as yesterday, not the same as the day before. The child is becoming young; the young are becoming old; life is being poured into death. Everything is changing.

In the same way, by asking day after day you stand yourself before the mirror. Every question of yours, if filled with honesty, has great substance. Yes, pedantic questions have no substance; that is why I don’t answer them. Even if you ask them, I don’t answer.

A young doctor said to his beloved in a romantic tone: “There is a tonic of life in your eyes. When I am sad, your nearness feels like oxygen to a patient counting his last breaths. In your thick black hair there is a chloroform-like sweet intoxication! Your…”
“Stop this nonsense,” the woman said. “Am I your beloved or a dispensary?”
But the poor doctor is making his declaration!

It is good if you are present in what you say and what you ask. Things become clear.

A pickpocket was looking through a book of the latest fashions. His apprentice asked, “Master! Planning to become a tailor now?”
“No, I’m seeing where the pockets are being placed in the new fashions.”

A businessman had put up a board outside his new shop: This shop has been opened for your needs. Now you need not go far to get yourself cheated.
You can be cheated right here! His meaning is clear—though he likely had no idea what he’d written. Now there is no need to go far to be cheated!

“Master! If you would kindly clarify the difference between reality and illusion,” a devotee requested.
“Your being present here and my giving a discourse—that is reality. But my thinking that you are paying attention to what I am saying—that is my illusion,” the saint replied.

If you are present in what you ask, there is substance in it; otherwise it is futile. Do not ask other people’s questions. Do not ask borrowed questions. Do not ask bookish questions. Ask something living. In your life there will be problems; in your life there will be tangles. If they get resolved, wonderful—good fortune. If a solution is found… And a solution is found only when samadhi happens. In Hindi, samadhan (solution) and samadhi share the same root. When samadhi comes, then there is solution. Before that there are only problems, and a complicated web of problems.

You are like someone lost in a forest. You ask: what is the point of asking someone the way? Lost in the woods and you won’t ask for directions? Sometimes, out of vanity, a man will not ask.

A man drank, got into his car and drove toward home. In his drunkenness he could not see where the road home was, or even where home was. But if he asked anyone, people would say: What a limit! He’s a respected man of the town—perhaps the mayor. Now if he asks, “Where is my house, which road do I take?” people will laugh! The whole village knows him. They’ll say, “Ah, had a bit too much? So much you forgot your own house?”

So he asked no one because he felt embarrassed; his ego would be hurt. He thought, “What to do?” Then he saw a car ahead and decided to just follow it.

He tailed it. The man ahead drove into his own garage and parked. When he parked in his garage, our drunk promptly rammed into the back of his car! Sticking his head out the window he yelled, “This is outrageous! Why didn’t you signal that you were parking?” The other man said, “Outrageous indeed! I’m parking in my own garage—whom should I signal? And how did you end up coming in here?”

How long will you hide?

People often do just this. They won’t ask; they quietly contrive some method, latch on behind someone; believe somebody; read a book and set off using whatever path they pick from it.

You will crash into someone’s garage. Better to ask. The intoxication is deep. You too have drunk heavily. And you too have forgotten your way home. Do not be embarrassed. With ease and simplicity, ask the questions that are truly yours.

And I am not saying that my answer will give you the answer. I am saying that through my answer you will gain more capacity to look at your question. You will gain the capacity to understand the question. You will gain the intelligence to be awake toward the question.

I am not saying: hold on to my answer. I am saying: through my answer, some transformation may happen within you. If you clutch the answer, there will be no essence in it. It would be as if you were going to Delhi and came upon a milestone. On it was written “Delhi,” with an arrow pointing ahead. You grabbed the stone and sat down. You said, “Good! I have found Delhi!”

If you clutch an answer, you just grab the milestone and sit. Then sit there. An answer is an arrow—it points forward. It says: Move! Do something! Become such as it indicates—then there is solution.

These are questions,
questions sprinting toward answers.
Will they complete the journey,
or die gasping on the road—
these questions that seem to leave one alone.

Questions—sometimes philosophy,
sometimes poetry,
sometimes religion,
witnesses to history,
and births of futurity.
Sometimes conjecture,
sometimes inquiry,
sometimes the seasonal law,
sometimes the recognition of the whole—
they are rasa,
questions that turn the course of life.
These questions that seem to leave one alone.

The greatest of questions within questions:
Who are you?
In the middle something appears,
at the beginning all is silence.
What lies beyond the end—
Radhika or Krishna?
Is there fulfillment,
or will we all remain thirsty?
These are questions,
questions sprinting toward answers.

Questions have still more
colors and dimensions.
When crisis-flames bar the path to truth,
what will be of use?
Will we, grown supremely numb,
become cadavers?
Or will we hold upon our palm
our own warm breath?
These are questions,
questions sprinting toward answers.

These questions—mines
that excavate the secret.
They have filled thinkers’ homes
with melody, splendor, celebration.
From the knowable to the unknowable
questions are bridge and beacon,
questions that link the earth
to horizon after horizon.
These are questions,
questions sprinting toward answers.
Will they complete the journey,
or die gasping on the road—
these questions that seem to leave one alone.

A question is the sign of a journey. A question is the bridge between solution and you. But let the question be true. And if it is true, then today or tomorrow you will ask the real question: Who am I? All questions submerge into that one question—Who am I?

And the one who knows—Who am I?—receives all answers. From that single knowing, all answers shower.

First thing: meeting a true master is not a river-boat encounter; it is a river-ocean union. A river-boat encounter lasts only a moment: husband-wife, brother-brother, friend-friend. All the relationships of this world are river-boat encounters; they arise and they dissolve. Whatever is formed and then dissolves is a worldly relationship. Whatever, once formed, does not dissolve, transcends the world.

That is why there has always been a yearning in the human heart for a love that never ends. If such a love happens, one that never dies, it becomes the path to the Divine. The loves that form and fade, form and fade, are river-boat encounters.

There is no inevitability there; the river can part from the boat, the boat from the river. You can drag the boat up onto the shore. There is no compulsion. But once the Ganga has fallen into the ocean, you cannot pull the Ganga back out. Then there is no way. You cannot even search for where the Ganga has gone. There is no possibility of bringing her back again.

When love reaches that height, it becomes a river-ocean union. And if around the enlightened ones love does not rise to this height, then where will it?

Those who were with Buddha, or with Mahavira; or with Nanak, with Kabir—those who were truly near... I am not speaking of those who merely gathered as a crowd. Standing in a crowd does not guarantee nearness. Near is only the one in whom such love has arisen that now has no end. Near is the one in whose being the flame of eternal love has been lit—one that will never go out, that cannot go out. That is the relationship of guru and disciple. It is an unprecedented relationship in this world. It occurs in the world, and yet it is not of the world. It happens within the world, and it is beyond the world.

So the meeting of guru and disciple is a river-ocean union. That is the first point.

The second thing you have asked: “But is it not true that the river goes to the ocean; the ocean does not come to the river?”

No. On the surface it appears that the river goes to the ocean. Inside, the story is entirely different: the ocean comes to the river.

On the surface it seems the disciple goes to the master. Within, it is the master who goes to the disciple. Until the master has gone to the disciple, the disciple cannot come to the master. How will the poor disciple come—blind, groping in the dark? Only the one who stands in the light... The one who is lost—how will he find the master? The one who has arrived is the one who can seek out the lost.

And in truth, that is how it is. On the subtle plane it is the ocean that enters the river. Do you not see: every day the ocean rises as vapor into clouds in the sky, and falls upon the mountains, and descends into the rivers. This happens daily, yet you pay it no mind! Day after day the ocean rises, taking support of the sun’s rays, climbing the ladder of light. It becomes cloud—rain-cloud. Then the clouds fly toward the mountains.

You do not perceive the ocean in the cloud because the cloud is subtle. Hence your mistake. Hence it did not occur to you that if the ocean did not go to the river, the river could never reach the ocean. The river would not even have the water with which to reach the ocean.

Each day the ocean comes as cloud, falls at Gangotri, the Ganga is born, the Ganga flows, and the Ganga reaches the ocean.

The Ganga reaches the ocean only because the ocean first reaches the Ganga. Otherwise, the Ganga could not even be. Without the coming of the clouds, what would the Ganga be? A dry path of sand with no stream upon it.

Such is the relationship of guru and disciple. The guru comes as a cloud—therefore he is not seen; he comes on the subtle plane; he comes into your innermost—therefore he is not seen.

When you move toward the guru, that is visible—it looks as if you walked. When the Ganga goes toward the ocean, even a blind man can see that the Ganga is moving toward the ocean. Only a very deep eye can see this: when vapor begins to rise toward the clouds, then the ocean has set out toward the Ganga; the master has set out toward the disciple.

I knew about this method. But it is a very dangerous method, and that is why I left it out. With the methods I mentioned, there could be failure. With this method there is an even greater danger.

A silly joke. Tun Tun was troubled by her fat body and jumped from the third floor of the building where she lived. In the morning when she opened her eyes in the hospital, she asked the doctor, “Doctor! Am I still alive?” The doctor said, “Devi! You are alive; but the three people you fell on died!”

That is why I left this method out. Don’t do this at all. And she fell from the third floor—three dead; you live on the thirteenth—you could kill thirteen! Please don’t do this.

Why such relish for suicide? Put this much thought into living; put that much strength and attention into the search for life—then you won’t have to jump from the thirteenth floor, fall on the street, and be annihilated. Wings will grow on you; you will fly in the sky.

Such a vast opportunity life is, and you go on thinking only of suicide? What is the hurry? Death will happen by itself; even if you don’t want it, it will happen.

Life is not in your hands; death is in your hands. If you want, you can die today. But life is not in your hands. Life is bigger than you. Death is smaller than you, hence it is in your hands. You cannot create life, though you can commit suicide.

Have you reflected on this! What does it mean? It means that death can fit into our fist. But life is so much greater than us that we cannot bind it in our fist.

Immerse yourself in that which is great, which is vast; swim in it; cross over in it.

And death will come on its own. Why does this morbid idea run inside you? It is running because in some way you are missing life, and have missed it.

A person thinks of suicide only when he sees no flowers blooming in his life; when he is defeated in life. Have you ever seen a happy person thinking of suicide? Have you ever seen a lover, in the moment of love, thinking of suicide? Have you ever seen a musician, while playing the veena, thinking of suicide?

When there is some music in life, flowers bloom, creation happens, love happens—no one thinks of suicide. Your life must have remained unblossomed. There must be no creativity in your life. Love has not made its entry into your life. The bud of bliss has not flowered in your life. You must have remained like a desert; hence the idea of suicide arises.

And by committing suicide no bud will bloom. Let the bud bloom, and the thought of suicide will bid farewell.

But there are many people in the world who keep thinking of suicide. In truth, psychologists say it is hard to find a person who has not, once or twice in life, thought of suicide. Sooner or later, in a moment of sorrow, of pain, of melancholy, everyone has thought about it. Not doing it is another matter. And you too will not do it—that is certain. Because those who think so much do not do it. Haven’t you heard: barking dogs don’t bite.

What is the need to think about suicide! If you have to do it, just do it. You have been thinking for so many days, looking for the proper method! You are searching for a method and going on living! This becomes a slightly diseased way of living—that you are living in order to look for a method to die! That you are having to live because you are thinking of dying—what to do!—the right method has not yet turned up.

This is a very morbid condition. Come out of this morbid state. That is why I suggested to you that later I would tell you how to commit suicide exactly. First become a sannyasin! Do at least that much. Show at least that much courage. You do not even have that much courage. What suicide will you commit!

At least have the courage that, if people laugh that you have become a sannyasin, let them laugh. If people think you have gone mad, let them think so. If you can muster that much courage, then I will tell you the exact method.

The truth is, the right method of suicide can be found only with a true master. All other suicides are false. The body will die, and then you will have to be born again. I will tell you a method by which you will die, and then there will never again be any need to be born. That very “I-sense” will die. You will be freed from the round of birth and death.

I can give you such a death that afterwards there will never again be birth or death.

When it begins to appear so, the auspicious hour has arrived. When the feeling arises that there is no longer any complaint, the first ray of prayer has descended. I call prayer precisely that—the state of consciousness in which there is no complaint.
And often you go to the temple to pray, and you go only to make complaints; the name given is “prayer.” That my wife is ill; that my child is not getting a job; that I have no house to live in. And you call this prayer! These are all complaints; all grievances. This is not a feeling of reverence toward God. You are raising doubt about God’s very being—“That while You are there, I still don’t have a house! If You exist, then I should have a house. And if a house doesn’t happen, then take it for sure: You don’t exist either.” Hidden within is this attitude: “I will believe in You if You fulfill my demands. If You don’t fulfill my demands, then mind it! You have lost one devotee! Then I will become Your enemy.”

And deep down you know—where is He! Who is where! You are just giving it a try to see if perhaps you might get it. Your real interest is in the house, not in the Divine.

Your prayers are disguised forms of complaint—painted-and-polished complaints. Inside there is the filth of grievance; on top you’ve applied pretty colors, trimmings, made it look new! Whom are you deceiving?

But when complaint dissolves, when grievance dissolves, prayer is born. And the birth of prayer in this world is an extraordinary thing. Prayer means ah, awe. Prayer means thankfulness, gratitude. Prayer means: what is, is more than I deserve.

“Without You, there is no complaint with life—no complaint at all.”

Even if the Divine is not found, life is still lovable, incomparable. And as you go on entering life itself, the Divine too will come closer. He is hidden within life itself. This life is His veil. Lift the veil of life and within you will find God smiling.

“Without You, life is not life, not life.”

This too is true. Love life without complaint, and remember as well that until You are—everything is, and yet something is missing. Everything is there; in every way You have made it full, but without You, without Your presence, something is still a little short.

This is not a complaint; this is prayer.

If prayer must ask, let it ask one thing—ask for God. Let prayer ask for nothing else. The moment you ask for anything else, prayer has gone wrong.

So, well said, Manu and Hansa! The grievance has gone, the complaint has gone, prayer is taking shape. And in that prayer, surely this feeling will become dense: “Without You, life is not life.” There is much; everything is there; yet still something is missing.

Only when the Divine is present within and without is there perfect fulfillment, true contentment. Beyond that, there is neither complaint nor prayer. First complaint goes; then one day even prayer goes. Complaint goes, prayer comes. One day prayer too will go; on that very day, the Divine descends.

It is natural. The real Brahmins stood with Buddha. For the true Brahmin, Brahman was seen in Buddha. A Brahmin is one who knows the art of seeing Brahman; a Brahmin is one who is filled with Brahman. How could they miss Buddha? Those who were Brahmins in truth—not by caste and lineage but existentially...

As Uddalaka said to his son Shvetaketu. When Shvetaketu returned from the guru’s ashram, he came back puffed up. He had mastered all the scriptures, so the pride was natural—the arrogance of youth. Like someone returning from a university thinking, “I know it all.”

Uddalaka saw him from the window as he came into the garden; he saw that swagger and grew sad, for pride does not befit a Brahmin.

The son came in. Uddalaka asked, “What have you learned?” The boy listed all the scriptures: the Vedas, the Upanishads, grammar, language, poetry—everything. Philosophy, religion, astrology, geography, history, the Puranas—whatever subjects existed then. “I have mastered them all; I have returned with top marks in every one. Here are my certificates!”

But the father listened as if none of it interested him. He said, “I ask you only this: have you come back as a Brahmin or not?”

Shvetaketu said, “I am a Brahmin already—I am your son!”

The father said, “No. In our family we do not accept Brahminhood by birth. Your fathers and grandfathers, my fathers and grandfathers, have always proven Brahminhood through experience. We never take ourselves to be Brahmins by being born. In our lineage we do not recognize the ‘born Brahmin.’ Go back—return as a Brahmin.”

The son asked, “What deficiency do you see?” The father said, “Your swagger, your ego. It is clear from your ego that you have come without knowing yourself. You have learned everything else, but you have not known yourself; there is no self-knowledge. Go—come back as a Brahmin.”

See the definition of a Brahmin! To be a Brahmin means: know Brahman. Know the Brahman hidden within, so that the Brahman hidden without is revealed too—that is a Brahmin.

Therefore those who were truly Brahmins—not by birth but by experience, knowing, awakening—came to Buddha; they became dear to him. All of Buddha’s great disciples were Brahmins. They did not worry that Buddha was a Kshatriya and how a Brahmin could bow before a Kshatriya!

A Brahmin is precisely one who knows the art of bowing. Why should he worry who is Kshatriya and who is Shudra? Wherever Brahman has descended, where the flower of Brahman has blossomed—where that thousand-petaled lotus has opened and its fragrance has spread—there he will bow.

The real Brahmins came and bowed at Buddha’s feet; they became bearers of his banner. But the fake Brahmins...

And fakes are naturally more. Out of a hundred, one may be genuine; ninety-nine are counterfeit. Those who thought themselves Brahmins merely because they were born in a certain house—by the sheer accident of birth: “My father was a Brahmin, therefore I am a Brahmin.”

Is becoming a Brahmin that easy—that your father was a Brahmin, so you are one? If your father is a doctor, that doesn’t make you a doctor. How then will you become a Brahmin—which is far deeper? If your father was an engineer, that doesn’t make you an engineer. Even information does not transmit through birth; how will wisdom? Your father’s information is that he was a great doctor. If you are born in a doctor’s house, you don’t start writing “doctor” after your name—though in India it is common that a doctor’s wife is called “doctorni”! It’s quite a joke.

So being a doctor’s son, you don’t start calling yourself a doctor. You know: how could I be a doctor? My father had information; I will have to earn that information.

If even information does not come with birth, does not come in the blood, how will knowing come? Knowing means self-experience. Memory does not descend; how will awakening descend? Awakening is far deeper than memory.

Therefore those who thought, “We are Brahmins because we were born in a Brahmin’s house,” or, “We are Brahmins because the Vedas are on our tongue,” or, “We are Brahmins because we know the shastras”—they became enemies of Buddha. Because whenever a Buddha-like being is born he always comes into conflict with the scriptures. He collides with tradition. He goes against every ossified state. So these ninety-nine Brahmins felt: this man is our enemy; he has come to destroy our religion. Uproot him.

So Brahmins were both for him and against him. This has always been so.

Even here there are a few Brahmins; but they will be one in a hundred. Ninety-nine will be opposed. The false are always opposed; the true come close—and then they do not fuss.

It happened in Kashi. True Brahmins gathered. Kashi has many fake Brahmins, but once the real ones from all over the country assembled—for the darshan of Kabir—fifteen hundred Brahmins. It is a unique tale. One doubts whether it happened—fifteen hundred Brahmins?—yet it could be true. Around a Kabir such episodes do happen.

Fifteen hundred Brahmins from across the land gathered for Kabir’s satsang. Kabir was a weaver; by birth a Muslim. His status was no higher than a Shudra—less than that. Even his guru, Ramananda, who was a courageous man, refused to initiate Kabir: “You will land me in trouble!” Kabir took initiation by a great device, great skill. Such initiation had never happened. Ramananda refused him many times: “Don’t come here—you will get me into trouble. Kashi is the fortress of the Brahmins; if I give initiation to a weaver here, there will be difficulty.” He must not have been brave then; he was weak.

So Kabir lay down wrapped in a sheet on the steps by the Ganga where Ramananda went to bathe every morning at four. In the dark Ramananda’s foot fell on Kabir. His foot touched him and he said, “Ram! Ram!” Kabir said, “That’s it—the mantra has been given. I have become your disciple; you are my guru. Now I will repeat Ram-Ram and attain.” And Kabir, repeating Ram-Ram, attained.

If the seeking is that intense, then whether it is “Ram-Ram” or anything—you will arrive. With such deep longing even Ramananda could no longer refuse such a lovely man.

By this stratagem he took initiation! He said, “You have blown into my ear. At brahmamuhurta you said, ‘Ram-Ram.’ What more is needed? I will never come again; I will never trouble you; I will not bother you. But I am yours.”

The very one Ramananda had feared to make his disciple—fifteen hundred Brahmins came for his darshan. They must have been true Brahmins; only they could be eager for Kabir. They gathered and invited Kabir: “Come and explain dharma to us.”

Kabir came, saw fifteen hundred men, and turned back. The Brahmins were surprised. They said, “Why are you leaving? What is the matter?”
He said, “Where is Meera?”

Those who had come to listen to Kabir—to a weaver—did not have the courage to invite a woman! The condition of women had been worse than that of Shudras.

That is why Tulsidas counted her among the Shudras: “Shudra, drum, animal, woman—fit to be beaten.” There has been no man more dangerous and sick in this land than Tulsidas. And until this country is rid of Tulsidas, there is a great obstacle.

Many knew of Meera; she was nearby—her fragrance was in the air. But for a man to go to a woman! Man is God; and woman is fit for chastisement! For a man to honor a woman! He might still grant respect to a Shudra—after all, a Shudra is at least a man. But with Meera there were too many complications: she was a woman. This was difficult.

Kabir stood and said, “Until Meera comes, I will not come.” They were forced to invite Meera. And when Meera came and danced, then Kabir came. He said, “Meera’s dance has purified everything. Now the flame of true Brahminhood is lit here. Now there is neither Shudra nor woman. Now all distinctions have fallen.”

Where differences drop, there is the experience of Brahman. Non-division is the experience of Brahman.

So the true Brahmins stood with Buddha. They have always stood with the knowers—Buddha, Mahavira, Kabir, Nanak, Mohammed, Jesus. Wherever, in any age, there have been people who have known—the real Brahmin has been with them. The fake Brahmin has always been against them.

The counterfeit are a crowd, a herd. These counterfeits together uprooted Buddha’s dharma from this land. The greatest treasure of this country they corrupted. The greatest man of this country they made alien.

Today the whole of Asia sings Buddha’s praise—except his own land. This unfortunate country is not filled with the praise of Buddha.

This too is the path of the sannyasin—the moth’s path: the one ready to burn, willing to be effaced, who has the courage to lose.
“In the lamp’s radiance there is fire as well,
the world said to the moth.”

The world has always said to the moth—“Mad one! Where are you going? In that lamp there isn’t only a glow; there is fire too.”
People have said the same to you about me: “Don’t come near him; there isn’t only radiance there—there is fire as well.”

But do moths ever heed the world? If moths listened to the world, they wouldn’t be moths. Those who listen to the world cannot be moths. Moths listen to what is within.
The lamp has called. The candle has called. The burning flame has called. One must go—whatever the price.

“In the lamp’s radiance there is fire as well,
the world said to the moths.
But the moths began saying,
‘We mad ones will see only by burning.’”

There is no other way of seeing in this world; one has to see by burning. One reaches only by walking, and one sees only by burning. Without experience there is no knowing.

“We have burned in your remembrance and looked;
now we will burn in the fire itself and see.
On this path our own death—so be it;
we will walk this road and see.”

Death is certain; where is the doubt? Death is certain. The moth sees it: other moths too have burned, those who reached close and fell. Their wings were singed; their life-breath flew away. But this is what others see—“Poor moth! Burned to death!” While the moths who are still flying in see that he was blessed; he became free of the body, out of the cage. The bondage fell away; the body was shed.

It is those who want to save themselves who think, “Poor fellow! Burned and died—foolish, ignorant—he should have kept his distance.”

But the moths who are coming, flying in, see that he was fortunate—he reached before us. They do not see only the body lying below, burned and fallen; they also see the soul that has flown, the soul that is freed. They see something more.

One person sees that the seed rotted and was finished—“Poor thing!” Another sees that the plant has sprouted—“Blessed!”

Only when the seed dies does the plant arise. Only when the moth dies is it freed from dependence; it attains the supreme state.

“On this path our own death—so be it...”
Not “so be it”—it is bound to be. Without death nothing ever happens. Without death there is no life. The greater the death, the greater the life. The deeper the death, the greater the life.
You live exactly to the extent you dare to die.

That alone is life in which there is an unbroken sense of the eternal;
if there is a constant fear of death, that life is no life.

That alone is true lordship which appears as friendship with human beings;
what sits enthroned on the highest seat is no lordship at all.

That alone is true knowing which makes no divisions between striving and transgression;
that which keeps the measure of good and bad is not knowing.

That alone is brotherhood in which there is no difference between human and human;
the community that maintains such differences is not truly the community of Ahmad.

That alone is a man who lives always for others;
he who lives only for himself is no man.

That alone is poetry which translates the secret of nature’s beauty;
that which remains trapped in mere color and fragrance is not poetry.

That alone is life in which there is an unbroken sense of the eternal;
if there is a constant fear of death, that life is no life.

That’s all for today.