Es Dhammo Sanantano #14

It isn’t necessary to talk about power. When power arises, share it as love, shape it into joy. Pour it out with both hands.

If, after the upsurge of power, you do not pour it out, do not share it, do not make others partners in it—if you do not sing love’s songs and bring celebration into life—then power will become a burden. It will sit on your chest like a stone. Then power will create problems.

The world’s problems are not only of poverty; the rich have great problems too. The richest person’s biggest problem is: now that wealth has come, what to do with it? But is that really a problem? Share it, squander it. There are many who have none—give to them.

The difficulty arises because we have learned only the art of asking. And when we become emperors, a snag appears. After long practicing the art of asking, when by the grace of the divine we suddenly become emperors and an immeasurable energy descends, we still know only how to ask; we do not know how to give. Our whole way of living has trained us to beg. Then, when grace showers, we have no art of sharing, no habit, no practice—hence the snag. That is the crux.

Many very rich people come to me. They say, “It’s a problem; we have wealth—what should we do?” The problem is simply this: the habit is of poverty, the habit is of a beggar. One has spent a lifetime asking, earning, collecting, hoarding; the hands have learned to gather. Then when abundance arrives, the hands do not open to give—this is the snag. See it, and it is solved. There is nothing else to do.

If power has come, if energy has arisen—this is what all meditation endeavors are about.

And you ask, “You speak of trust, love, and joy—why don’t you explain power?” But that is exactly what I am explaining about power: when it rises, make it into joy—otherwise trouble will arise. When power rises, dance. Then ordinary walking won’t do—run! Then mere sitting and standing won’t suffice—until there is an unprecedented dance in your life, it will feel like a weight. The greater the energy, the greater the responsibility that descends. The more you have, if you cannot spread it, it will become a burden.

Power is not the problem; learn to spread it. That is why I talk of love, not of power. To those who don’t have power, what is there to explain about it? To those who do have it, what is there to explain about it? Those without it need to learn how it is generated—how, through meditation, discipline, tapas, practice, yoga, tantra, energy is cultivated. Then, when power arrives—when the divine’s gate opens and energy begins to rain—what is there to say about power then? With power standing right before you, what more is there to discuss? They need to be taught love, joy, celebration. Hence my insistence that every meditation be completed in celebration. Let it not happen that you become skilled at meditating but never learn to share.

Many have died in poverty; many have died as emperors. Many are unhappy because they don’t have; many become unhappy because they do have and don’t know what to do. And the connoisseur of life looks only at how you used your energy. If you merely stored it—were miserly, gathered and hoarded—then what could have borne supreme bliss will construct only hell.

Have you noticed? Meera never spoke of kundalini. Where would kundalini remain? It flows away in dance. Yogis speak of it because they do not know how to share. What is kundalini? Energy that has risen but cannot flow; thus it feels piled up within. But where would it remain in Meera? She squanders it before it fills. No sooner does it come than she shares it—turns it into song, pours it into dance, transforms it into celebration. That is why Meera did not speak of kundalini; Chaitanya did not speak of kundalini. You’ll be surprised—devotees did not talk of kundalini at all.

Did devotees never experience kundalini? It’s an important question. They did—but they did not hoard it; hence it never became a problem. For the miser, wealth becomes a problem; for the giver, it is a delight. The moral inspector kept counting on his rosary:
How many drank, how many did not, and before whom was the goblet set?

Power means the goblet is before you—now drink. Don’t ask, “What should I do with the goblet?” The cup is brimming—drink, and offer others to drink. Become a celebration.

The Talmud, that wondrous Jewish book, says: God will not ask you which mistakes you made. God will ask you which opportunities for joy you missed. He will not ask what sins you committed.

This strikes me as so fitting. It is not in the right spirit to think God keeps an account of your sins—what is God then, your private secretary? A police inspector? A magistrate in a courtroom? A critic? Will your sins show up in those vast eyes? Your petty blunders?

No—the Talmud is right. God will ask: I gave you so many chances to be happy—why did you waste them? So many moments to dance—why did you just sit there? Why were you so miserly? I gave you so much—why didn’t you share it, let it flow? Why did you live like a closed pond instead of a flowing river? Why like a stingy tree that would not let its flowers bloom lest the fragrance be spread? Why like a mine that hid its diamonds, lest sunlight touch them?

The divine has set the goblet of life brimming before you. Understand this too: the more you invite others to it, the more it refills. If you do not pour it, it becomes a burden; and how is the divine to refill it then? It’s already full. Empty it—decant it. It will not burden you, and you give the divine a chance to fill it again. One hour of bliss well used opens ten more.

But this is difficult. You say you want bliss, yet you know nothing of its nature. Even if bliss came, you would suffer from it—you have become so habituated to sorrow. The nature of sorrow is contraction; the nature of bliss is expansion. Hence in sorrow one seeks solitude—closes the door, pulls a blanket over the head, wants to see no one, talk to no one, sometimes even commits suicide, feeling there’s nothing left to live for.

But when you are blissful, you want to call your friends. You want to meet people. You want to share—sing your song to someone; let someone be delighted by your flower’s fragrance. You invite guests; you throw a feast.

One of my professors was very fond of me, but he hesitated to invite me home because he drank, and he feared I would find out and his regard in my eyes would fall. He was a very good man. Once I fell ill and he had to take me from the hostel to his home; I stayed there two months. It became a big problem—how was he to drink? After five or ten days the matter grew heavy. I asked if something was troubling him. If my being there was a hindrance, I would return to the hostel. He said, “No. But I must tell you my problem: I have the habit of drinking.” I said, “What of it? You could drink on the sly; it’s a big house.” He replied, “That is just the difficulty—one who truly drinks cannot drink alone. Unless I call four or ten friends, I cannot drink. What is drinking in solitude? Drinking is not a sorrow, it is a celebration.”

That stayed with me. If even with ordinary wine people drink by sharing, then when the divine fills your cup, how can you not share? If even drunkards know there’s no fun in drinking alone—without a few companions—what to say of the truly aware!

Share. If power has arisen, squander it. And do not ask, “To whom should I give?”—for that too is the language of misers. Only misers worry about the worthiness of the recipient. They ask, “To whom should I give? Is he worthy?” They give two coins and wonder, “What will he do with them?” This is not giving at all—this is arranging beforehand not to give. You have not given to the person—you have given to your own calculation.

A friend of mine, an eminent Hindi litterateur, long-time president of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and the oldest member of the Indian Parliament—an MP for fifty years—was close to Jugal Kishore Birla. He was interested in my work and said, “If Birla becomes interested, great help is possible.” He arranged a meeting. Birla spoke with me, became interested, and said, “I will give you as much as you need, whenever you need it. Only one thing I must know for sure: what use will it be put to?” I said, “Then let’s end the matter here. This won’t do; such a deal is not possible. If you must ask what I will do with what you give, keep it. That isn’t giving. If you can give unconditionally so that, in front of you, I could squander it on the street and you would not be able to ask, ‘What are you doing?’—only then have you given. If, after giving, you can still ask, you haven’t given. And if you arrange to ask beforehand—if you bind conditions first—then give to someone else. This conditional business won’t work with me.”

The matter broke there; there was no way forward. People give—even a magnate like Birla gives—but with conditions: “What will it be used for?” Then he is not giving to me; he is underwriting his own program, enlisting me into his service. That is not giving; that is buying me for free.

I said, “Watch me, understand me, and give. Then leave the rest to me. After that, no further question must arise.”

Why worry about worthy and unworthy? When a flower blooms it doesn’t worry whether the passerby is a connoisseur of fragrance, rich or poor, a worshipper of beauty or not. It simply lavishes its scent upon the winds. Even if no one passes by—even on a deserted path—it gives. When clouds fill, they don’t fret about where to rain. Out of fullness they rain—upon mountains where water is not needed, upon lakes already brimming. The question is not where to rain—but to rain.

Look at life and you’ll find it unconditional. The celebration there is unconditional. The dance is going on night and day—not for someone, just because there is too much. The divine is so superabundant, so overflowing—what else can happen but a raining, a scattering?

When power begins to arise in you—when you feel the cloud is full within, the monsoon has gathered—if you do not dance and sing like a madman in celebration, it will become a problem. Pour it into celebration and the energy will dissolve. And it is not that you will be left depleted. Only by sharing does one become truly powerful, for then one discovers the springs are infinite: the more you give, the more it grows.

Remember—the connoisseur of life is seated, turning the rosary, counting on its beads:
How many drank, how many did not, and before whom was the goblet set?

There is only one sin in life: to depart without celebration—to leave without dancing, without singing. If your song remained unsung, your seed unsprouted—if the fragrance you brought never spread to the ten directions—the divine will surely ask.

So when energy rises and you ask, “What should I do?”—don’t calculate. Give without measure. All are worthy, for in all the same One is hidden. Through every eye He will behold the dance; through every ear He will hear the song; through every nostril it is He who will receive the fragrance.

There was a Buddhist nun who had a small golden Buddha. She loved it so much that, like a typical miserly mind, even when she lit incense she would not let the smoke spread into the air—she would push it back toward her little Buddha. Even when she offered flowers she feared the fragrance would drift away. One night she halted at a great temple in China—the Temple of a Thousand Buddhas, with a thousand Buddha images. She was frightened: “If I light incense and offer flowers here, the smoke will not stay with my Buddha—it will drift everywhere—to other Buddhas!” As if those were different Buddhas. The ponds, the lakes, the oceans may reflect differently, but the moon reflected is one. So she made a bamboo funnel and lit incense, channeling the smoke directly to her Buddha’s nose. The golden Buddha’s face turned black.

She was distraught. In the morning she went to the head monk: “A mishap has occurred—how can I clean it?” He laughed: “Foolish one! In your company even your Buddha’s face has turned black.”

This is what wrong company does. Such miserliness! All those images are Buddhas too. Why such stinginess? If a little smoke had reached the others, what harm? But “my Buddha!”

All these images are Buddha’s. Through every eye the same One peers; in every stone the same One sleeps. Do not worry. Let your life fill with joy—give love, give song, give music, dance; share. This is what life has been waiting for—that moment when we could share. Drop the distinction of worthy and unworthy; such distinctions are born of ignorance.

That is why I do not speak about power—because if you understand what I am saying, power will never become a problem. I also avoid the word because it is dangerous. I speak of peace, not of power, because power is the ego’s ambition. The very word “power” makes your ego stretch and yawn. The ego says, “Good—power is what I want.” That is why you seek wealth—so you’ll have power. You seek position—so you’ll be powerful. You seek fame, merit—but behind everything you seek power. Even in yoga and tantra you chase power.

Power-worship is already prevalent in the world. If, in the name of religion, you chase power, it is still the ego’s quest. And while the ego remains, true power never comes. This is the eternal law—“esa dhammo sanantano.”

When you drop the very concern for power and seek peace, you must dissolve the ego, for it is the source of unrest. And when the ego dissolves, the stone is removed from the doorway. Peace is found—the principal—and power comes as interest. Seek peace, and power comes of its own. Seek power, and you will get neither power nor peace.

Hence the seeker of power is always restless and troubled. It is the same race of ego; the names and costumes have changed—nothing else. Who wants power? The ego. It wants some miracle, some siddhi, some power, so it can show the world, “See who I am!”

So wherever you chase power, know that it is not the direction of religion but of irreligion. Your miracle-mongers, your siddhi-exhibitors, belong to your marketplace; they have nothing to do with religion. They impress you because they seem to have attained what you desire: trinket-miracles. But even if you produce watches—what have you produced in the very place where God could have appeared? Where eternal bliss could have descended, you conjure ash. Call it “vibhuti” if you like—what difference does the name make? Where the divine’s true vibhuti could have manifested, you produce ashes. It is showmanship—the ego’s showmanship—and the same old ambition.

I don’t speak of power because you would at once become eager: “Tell us how to get it.” In that, the ego doesn’t dissolve—it swells. Then I would not be dissolving you; I would be decorating you.

This is my difficulty: I am not eager to decorate you; I am eager to dissolve you. Until you die, the divine cannot be born in you. Vacate the seat. You are sitting on the throne—step aside; let it be empty, and only then can the descent happen. As soon as you become silent, the ego steps down from the throne, and you will find power beginning to descend—and the power that descends into a silent heart is of a different order, for there is no longer anyone left to misuse it.

Therefore I deliberately avoid words that might give even a slight itch to your ego. You are ready to scratch—just give you a hint and you will scratch yourself raw. You are old sufferers of that itch. A tiny signal and your horses of ambition bolt; you drop all reins.

No—I speak of peace. I speak of death, of nirvana, of becoming a zero—because I know that when you become nothing, fullness arrives by itself. Leave that fullness outside the discussion. It does not come by talking; it comes by becoming empty.

Do not speak of power at all. It comes of itself to the one who is at peace—it is his right.

And when it comes—what will you do with it? That is why I speak of joy, celebration, and love. As you are, you cannot yet love; your love is a deception. As you are, you cannot yet be blissful; your bliss is only a false color painted on your face. As you are, you cannot even laugh; your laughter is pasted on from above—a mask.

It cannot be so. Don’t be in a hurry to decide. Just ask the elders.
This is asked by Mukti. She is still circling outside the house of love. Ask the elders; they say—
“Before we met, separation was my ache;
now the ache is that longing itself has gone.”

Until you met, there was the pain of distance. Now that you have met, even the urge to be close has ebbed. Now the sorrow is: how to move away, how to escape?

Do not be in a hurry. What you’re calling love, bliss, awe—these are only heard-of words. You have not known love yet. As you are, love cannot blossom. Love is not something that flowers regardless of how you are. It is not given by birth. It is earned. It is an attainment. It is a discipline. It is a realization.

And here is the trouble: all over the world everyone believes we were born already qualified to love. You make some effort to earn money, but no one makes any effort to earn love—because everyone assumes, “Love is already there; just find a lover and start.” The one you call your lover has no clue about love either—not even a far-off echo. Nor do you.

What you take to be love is only the mind’s lust. What you call love—the delight of being with another—arises because you find no delight in being with yourself. Alone, you get irritated, bored; with the other, for a little while you forget yourself. You call that the joy of being with someone. Your being-with-the-other is only a strategy for not being-with-yourself. It’s a drug, nothing more. For that little while you forget yourself, and the other forgets themselves. It is self-forgetfulness, not bliss. It is a swoon, not awe or ecstasy. Listening to me you may memorize fine words; do not paste them everywhere.

“You said yesterday that no one can make anyone else happy.”
Yes, I did. And no one ever has. But it is hard to make any youth understand this. A young person who truly understands has ripened before time. Sometimes a Shankaracharya, sometimes a Buddha, understands early; most never do—even as youth passes, old age sets in, death waits at the door—still they do not understand.

Understanding is connected to the intensity of your awareness. You think you will drown in love with a lover—but you have not yet drowned in yourself; how will you drown in another? One who cannot dive into oneself, how will they dive into another? You do not even know how to enter your own depths; how will you enter someone else’s? It’s talk. Fancy words. The young hide and mislead themselves with beautiful phrases. Tell a young person, “There is nothing like this so-called love,” and it will not even be heard. If heard, it won’t be grasped, because everyone harbors the delusion: “Maybe others failed, but it will happen to me; it is happening to me.”

This is only the first step of the journey. Let the story unfold. Wait. Do not decide in haste. Ask those who have known this phase of life, who have passed through it.

“A smoldering fire, searing thoughts, a fevered body—
where did the caravan of spring abandon me?”

What you took to be spring, to be blossoming—where did it leave you?

A smoldering fire, searing thoughts, a fevered body—
an ailing state, a fever. Everything turned to dust. Rainbows shattered. Dream-castles collapsed. And within, a smoldering fire that life has been wasted. But when you are lost in dreams, it is very hard to tell you, “This is a dream.” For that, awakening is needed.

Love is to be earned. And one who has not prayed has never been able to love. That is why I make prayer the first condition of love. One who has not meditated can never love—for one who has not gone within cannot possibly go into another. And one who has gone within has already arrived in the other, because in going within it is revealed: the other is not. The very notion of “the other” is born of ignorance.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was sitting with a friend. He told his son, “Go to the cellar and bring the bottle of wine.” The boy went and returned. He had poor eyesight and a condition in which one thing appears as two. He said, “Shall I bring both bottles, or just one?”
Nasruddin was troubled: there was only one bottle. If he said in front of the guest, “Bring just one,” the guest might think him stingy. If he said, “Bring both,” where would the boy find a second—there was only one. And if he told the guest, “My son sees double,” it would be needless disgrace; he still had to marry the boy off. So he said, “Do this—bring one and break the other. Smash the one on the left and bring the one on the right; the left one is useless anyway.”
The boy went and smashed the left one—but there was nothing on the right! There had been only one bottle; it broke, the wine spilled, and he was distraught. He came back and said, “I made a big mistake. There was only one bottle; it’s broken.”

I say to you: where you see two, there is only one. You see two because you have not learned the art of seeing the One. Love is the art of seeing the One. But to enter that art, first descend the steps within—because that is nearest to you.

Go within; know yourself. Through self-knowledge you will see that “I” and “Thou” were false bottles—an unclear vision, darkness, haze, a disease in which one appears as two. It was a delusion. Go within and you will find that the one you took to be “the other” is you yourself. When you touch the other, you are touching your own ear with a roundabout reach, that’s all. It is you. The day this becomes visible, that day is love. Before that, please do not call it love.

The word love is very precious; do not spoil it. The word love is sacred; do not make it a part of ignorance. The word love is luminous; it is a lamp burning in the dark. The word love is a temple. Until you know how to enter the temple, do not call every place a temple. If you call every place a temple, you will gradually forget how to recognize the real—and then you will take even the temple to be just any place.

What you now call love is only sexual desire. There is nothing of you in it. The body’s hormones are at work; you are not. Remove certain hormones from a woman’s body and the man’s desire vanishes. Remove certain hormones from a man’s body and the woman’s longing ceases. What have you to do with it? It is chemistry, a bit of biochemistry. Increase hormones in a man and he goes wild, mad. Majnun must have had a few extra hormones—nothing more. What you call love’s madness can be corrected by chemistry. What you call love’s sluggishness can be heightened by injections; urgency can be induced, and you can go crazy.

Do not call this love; this is only lust. And when you lace it with talk of love, awe, and bliss—be alert, or you will suffer greatly because of those very notions. When no inner note of awe arises, deep frustration and sorrow set in. Lust is not to blame for that; your expectations are. You held a single coin in your fist and imagined it was a rupee. When you opened your hand and found only a coin, the coin is not hurting you—the coin was a coin before and after. Your imagining it a rupee is what pains you—you cry, “I was deceived.”

What you have taken for love is not even a coin—it is pebbles. The love I speak of is a diamond from another realm altogether. For that you must be prepared. As you are, it will not happen. You must refine yourself deeply. You must discipline yourself. Only then can that note arise within you.

Every person passes through a phase of intoxication in life—a phase of lust. In that time, lust itself seems like God. The day the vision shifts and lust is seen as lust, that very day your search for God begins.

Blessed are those who have come to know that this so-called love is futile. Blessed are those who have seen that this “awe” was only the mind’s fancy, nowhere real—only dreamed. Blessed are those whose dreams have shattered, whose hopes have collapsed—for in their life a new search begins. It is on that path that someday you will find love. Love is another name for the divine. Nothing less can define love.

Why get into so much accounting? Where will all this bookkeeping take you? Will you go on calculating forever, or will you also walk? Will you keep thinking about what the goal is and what the path is?

One thing is certain: however much you think, thinking does not determine a path; and by not thinking, no goal comes any closer. The thinker, slowly, becomes incapable of walking. Walking comes from walking; being comes from being.

Don’t get overly worried about names. Both statements can be made. Love is the path; love is the goal. It can also be said: love is the path, God is the goal. But there is no real difference between these ways of speaking. Accept whatever helps your mind consent to move—because my concern is simply that you move. If you find comfort and peace in saying: love is the path, God is the goal; yoga is the path, liberation the goal; effort and method are the path, tathata is the goal—then take it that way. No problem. But please, move.

For the logically minded, it is appropriate to keep them separate, because logic says path and goal are different. Those who are not so concerned with logic—those rare few who can look at life without logic—will see that the path and the goal are one. A path can lead to the goal only if it is connected to the goal; otherwise, how will it lead? If they are two, how will the path deliver you? There would be a gap, an unbridgeable distance.

Only that path can take you which is connected to the goal. And if it is connected, then why make a distinction? Where will you mark the boundary—where the path ended and the goal began?

That’s why Mahavira’s saying is so wondrous: “He who has set out has arrived.” Of course, if you are the kind who walks like you do, you’ll sit down midway to prove Mahavira wrong! But there is deep substance in what he says: he who sets out has already arrived. The very first step touches the goal. However far it may seem, it becomes one step nearer.

Lao Tzu has said, by walking one step at a time, a journey of a thousand miles is completed. It is not that the journey happens only when it is complete; it begins to be completed the moment you begin. Inch by inch, step by step, drop by drop. The ocean is exhausted by single drops.

It depends on you. If your mind is very rational and you want to keep path and goal separate, keep them separate. If your vision is clearer, if you can look beyond logic and paradoxes do not obstruct you, then accept that the path itself is the goal. Both statements are right; they are two ways of looking at the same truth.

The path is different from the goal—because the path is when you are walking, the goal is when you have arrived and there is no need to walk. They are also one—because the moment the first step is taken, the goal begins to come nearer. Touch the path and you have touched the goal, however distant it seems. When you touch a ray, you have touched the sun; the ray is the sun’s extended hand. If you touch my hand, have you not touched me? Whether my hand is two feet long or two thousand feet long or ten million miles long—what difference does it make? The ray is the hand of the sun. Touch the ray, and you touch the sun. The journey has begun.

My emphasis is only this: don’t sit. Thinking has a great harm: the thinker sits with his head in his hands and broods. Do something. By doing, the path is covered; by walking.

I see many people who only think. Time is slipping away. Sometimes old people come to me, still thinking, “Did God create the world or not?” How long will you go on thinking this? Whether he did or did not—do something to know life. Whether God is or is not—do something to be, to be yourself. All these worries, all these problems are meaningless. However meaningful they may appear, they are not. However wise they may seem, they are not wisdom.

“In self-forgetfulness, we bowed, taking it to be your door—
Now God knows whether it was the Kaaba or a temple of idols.”
Whether it was a temple or a mosque, we leave that to God. We bowed.

“In self-forgetfulness, we bowed, taking it to be your door.”
In our humility, our egolessness, we bowed our heads.

“Now God knows whether it was the Kaaba or a temple of idols.”
Let God decide whether it was the mosque, the temple, Kashi or Kaaba. That is not the seeker’s concern—that is the pundit’s worry: “Where did you bow?”

See the subtle difference; it is fine and delicate. If understood, it is revolutionary.

The pundit asks, “Where did you bow?” The seeker asks, “Did you bow?” The pundit’s emphasis is on where; the pundit asks, “Before what did you bow? Kaaba or Kashi? Before whom did you bow?” The seeker asks, “Did you bow?” The seeker’s concern is: did the bending happen? Did humility arise? Did the art of bowing come? What does it matter where you bowed! Bowing happened. One who bows has attained. It has nothing to do with where he bowed. In a mosque, he bows and attains; in a temple, he bows and attains. Attainment is through bowing, not through temple or mosque. Who ever attained by temples and mosques! One attains by bowing.

And the one who bows after thinking, “Where am I bowing?”—he never really bows. Has anyone ever bowed by thinking? By calculation one avoids bowing. If you bow only after deciding, “Yes, this is God; now I must bow; every argument settled”—then you have not bowed. You have bowed to your own decision. You have not bowed before God; you bowed before your conclusion.

The seeker bows. Bowing means dropping decision. The seeker says, “Who am I? How will I know? What is my stature, my capacity?” The seeker says, “I am nothing.” From the awareness of this nothingness, the flower of bowing blossoms. From this non-being, surrender arises. From this non-being, bowing happens. It is not even right to say “the seeker bows.” More true is: the seeker finds that bowing is happening. He sees there is no room for stiffness, no convenience for pride, no device to sustain it—so bowing begins to happen. If even in bowing, you remain, then what bowing is that? If you are the one who bows, bowing has not happened.

“In self-forgetfulness, we bowed, taking it to be your door—
Now God knows whether it was the Kaaba or a temple of idols.”

Are path and goal one or separate? God knows. You walk. And whichever pretext helps you to walk, adopt that pretext. All pretexts are equal. That is why I speak of all the religions. None is lesser or greater. They are all pegs in a house—hang your clothes on any of them. Please, hang them. Don’t keep accounting for the pegs: “Shall I hang on the red one or the green one?” The green peg may be Islam’s, the red peg the Hindu’s. You hang your clothes. For the religious, what matters is the hanging, not the peg.

Whether it was Kaaba or a temple—leave that to God. Leave the big accounts to him. You do the small thing: you walk. But people get stuck in big accounts, big deliberations, big thinking. Great cleverness: “Once everything is settled intellectually, and we are completely assured, then…”

Then you will never move. You will dream of life your whole life. You will think about living, but never live. You will prepare and prepare, but never set out. You will pack your bedding, then unpack it, pack it again, unpack again; you will go to the station to check where the trains go; you will study the timetable—your Vedas and Qurans are timetables, nothing more. Sit and study them if you wish—but has anyone ever traveled by a timetable? On my journeys I saw people sitting and studying timetables—Veda-readers, so to speak. Scholars, pundits, studying the timetable, turning its pages.

You will sit with maps. Has anyone ever journeyed using maps alone? I tell you, if you don’t intend to travel, then studying the map is very necessary. If you want to avoid the journey, cling to the maps. The mind stays entangled in maps. And maps are of many kinds, in many colors and forms.

Don’t worry about what Buddha said, what Mahavira said, what Krishna said. Glance a little at what Buddha is, what Mahavira is, what Krishna is—and begin to be. All this is hair-splitting: which method and which attainment, which path and which goal. Do not split hairs. There are many logicians; leave them aside. In the end you will find that those who walked arrived, and those who kept thinking got lost. The seeker is concerned with one step. He takes one step; then he concerns himself with the next.

There is a Chinese story. A man lived in a valley beneath a mountain that had a pilgrimage shrine upon it. It was only a three- or four-hour walk, ten or fifteen miles away. For years he thought, “I must go.” He lived right there; thousands of pilgrims passed by; he thought, “It is so near; I can go anytime.”

He grew old. One day a traveler asked, “Brother, have you ever gone?” He said, “I kept thinking—so near, I can go anytime. But now it is late; I must go.” He shut his shop. It was evening. His wife asked, “Where are you going?” He said, “I’m at the time of dying, and I have only thought: it’s so near, I can go anytime. My life has passed selling provisions to pilgrims who came and went. They brought news, they spoke of the temple spires, of peace, of the mountain’s beauty—and I kept thinking, anytime. People from faraway completed the pilgrimage; I, who was near, remained behind. I am going.”

He had never traveled. He had only heard talk of travel. He packed through the night—he knew one should leave at 3 a.m. to arrive in the cool of morning. He lit a lantern. He had seen that pilgrims carry bedding and a lantern. He reached the edge of the village and a thought struck him: the lantern’s light falls no farther than four steps. The distance is fifteen miles. With light for four steps, how will fifteen miles be covered? He panicked and sat down. He did the arithmetic—he was a shopkeeper, he knew figures. “Four steps of light; fifteen miles of darkness. How can one go with such little light?” He was frightened. Arithmetic frightens many.

If you start doing arithmetic with God, you will panic. What a distance! Where are you, and where is God! Where are you, and where is liberation! Where is your prison, and where the sky of freedom! Too far. You will tremble; your legs will give way. You will sit down; confidence will be lost, trust will break. The very idea that you can reach will not settle in your mind.

His legs wobbled; he sat. He had never gone, never walked. He was only imitating those he had seen; so he had brought a lantern and bedding. A traveler passed by and asked, “What are you doing here?” He said, “I am in trouble. Such a little light for such a long road! Fifteen miles of darkness; light for four steps only—do the math!” The traveler said, “No math is needed. Get up and walk. I don’t know arithmetic, but I have been on this path many times. And your lantern is bigger than mine.” He showed his very small lantern, which barely lit one step. “Even with this, the journey gets done. Because when you take one step, the next step becomes illumined; take that step, and another step is illumined.”

Those who intend to walk have no use for arithmetic. Those who don’t intend to walk use arithmetic as a trick. Those who want to walk, walk. A small light is enough to take you there. Those who don’t want to walk, calculate the vastness of the darkness; that darkness then terrifies them, their legs give way.

Be a seeker, not a knower. Knowledge that comes without becoming a seeker is rubbish. The knowledge that comes by being a seeker is another matter entirely. Mahavira is right: “He who has set out has arrived.” That is the statement of one who knows—one who has walked and arrived.

Mahavira’s own son-in-law became his disciple. But he was troubled. In India, the father-in-law touches the son-in-law’s feet; so, Mahavira should touch his feet. After initiation, as a disciple, he had to touch Mahavira’s feet. He suffered. He was a very proud Rajput. He also found many inconsistencies in Mahavira’s words—this was one of them. He raised a flag of opposition and incited five hundred of Mahavira’s disciples. He said, “It is nonsense to say that the one who walks has arrived. Mahavira says, if you begin unrolling a mat, it is as good as unrolled. I can prove this wrong.” He brought a rolled mat, unrolled it a little, then stopped. “See, it hasn’t opened. Mahavira says: begin to open, and it is open.” He misled five hundred disciples with this.

Sometimes pundits incite the disciples of the wise, because the pundit’s argument is more logical; it appeals to the mind. It will seem persuasive: “Does opening necessarily open? It can be stopped midway. Does walking necessarily arrive? One can stop midway.”

Mahavira must have shed tears of compassion—but what could he do? He could not prove it by logic. He knew: one who takes even a single step toward truth never stops—but how to explain? Because the attraction of truth is such. Those who have not yet walked are being pulled; can one who has begun to walk ever stop? One who has tasted even a drop of truth finds all other tastes insipid. One who has inclined even slightly toward truth is drawn like iron to a magnet by truth’s energy, its pull. It is like dropping a stone from the roof toward the ground. Mahavira is saying: once the stone is released, it has arrived.

If I had been there, I would have taken Mahavira’s son-in-law to the roof. I wouldn’t talk of mats—I too know mats can complicate things. I would drop a stone and say, “Released—arrived.” How will it stop midway? Gravity is at work. Yes, as long as it sits on the roof, gravity can do nothing. Nudge it a little. That’s why I say truth is like leaping from a roof. Lift one foot; the rest of the steps will be taken for you. You won’t have to take the second; the earth’s gravity will do the rest.

Mahavira was right. But Mahavira is no logician. He appears to have lost. He must have wept in compassion: “This madman is mad himself and is carrying five hundred others into madness.”

Mahavira knows that one who takes the first step has reached the goal. Krishnamurti’s first book is titled The First and Last Freedom—because on the first step, the last happens. Mahavira was saying the same: take the first step, and the goal has come. Whoever has taken the first step, for them the goal has arrived.

And you ask what is the goal and what is the path?

If you like, make them two; if you like, make them one. Essentially, the path is the goal—because with the first step, arriving begins. If you have not arrived, don’t think, “We have taken many steps; the goal is far, that’s why we haven’t reached.” You have not taken the first step—that is why you are stuck.

But the ego hurts to admit, “I haven’t taken the first step.” It feels better to say, “I have taken many steps; the path is long, the goal far.” The ego finds comfort in blaming distance.

I tell you: you haven’t taken the first step. Otherwise, who could stop you? The one who has taken the first step has arrived. On the very first step, arriving happens. Just take the step—and the goal appears. But don’t sit and do accounts. You have done enough accounting.

Tathata is both the path and the goal. What does tathata mean? It means the spirit of total acceptance. Ego is conflict. Ego says, “This should be, that should not be.” Ego says, “This is right, that is wrong.” Ego chooses, divides, fragments. Tathata means total acceptance: as it is, whatever is, we are in accord. Ego is total opposition. Tathata is total consent. Ego is resistance. Tathata is yes. Whatever existence says—yes.

Then the goal happens on the very first step. In such a moment, revolution happens; transformation happens. What remains to be attained when you have accepted everything? Where is the fight then? You no longer have to swim; existence’s current carries you to the ocean.

Ramakrishna said there are two ways to travel. One is to row with oars—that is the way of the ego. It tires you and doesn’t take you very far. The other is to drop the oars, hoist the sails, and let the winds carry you. Set out supported by the winds.

“Let the boatman bear the burden—what is that to me?
I leave the boat to God and cut the anchor.”
Who worries about the oarsman?
“Let the boatman bear the burden—what is that to me?
I leave the boat to God and cut the anchor.”

I break the anchor and leave the boat to him. This is tathata. Now wherever he takes me. If he sinks me midstream, that too is the shore. Drowning is crossing. In acceptance, where is the distance? Not arriving is also arriving. In acceptance, where is the gap? Being and non-being are equal. Path and goal are one. Seed and tree are one. Creation and dissolution are one. All those distinctions were erected by the ego. Non-division belongs to egolessness.

“Let the boatman bear the burden—what is that to me?
I leave the boat to God and cut the anchor.”

Such a state of mind is the supreme state. In such a state, there is no difference between means and end; no difference between creation and creator; no difference between life and death. They are but different faces of the one.

Then wherever you are, there is the goal. There is nowhere else to go. The very idea of going is the ego’s thought. The urge to arrive is the ego’s race—it is also ambition.

Certainly! As you awaken and see that, except for this one moment, you have no other in your hand—no one has two moments together. One moment comes and goes; then another comes—only one moment is in your hand.

The whole art of life is how to live this one moment. How this single moment can become your whole life. How to descend so deeply into this one moment that it feels eternal and timeless. Moving from one moment to the next is the ordinary way of living. Diving into the depth of a moment is the extraordinary way.

The worldly way means: sacrifice this moment for the next, and then sacrifice that for yet another. Offer today to tomorrow, and tomorrow again to the day after. Worldly life is a continual postponement. The life of sannyas is: live this moment totally, with a sense of supreme grace. The Divine has given this moment—drink it to the lees. Let not a single drop remain undrunk in the cup of this moment; gulp it whole—then you are getting ready to drink the next moment. The more you drink, the more prepared you become. This thirst is such that drinking makes it grow. This nectar is such that the more you drown in it, the greater your capacity to drown becomes.

If the awareness of impermanence dawns on you—that only this moment is with you, no other; that this very moment may be the last—then you will not be able to leave anything for tomorrow. You will live today, here and now. You will not say, “Leave it for tomorrow, we’ll live then. We’ll love tomorrow, we’ll celebrate tomorrow, we’ll rejoice tomorrow.” That convenience will be gone. Today is the celebration, today is the worship, today is love. Beyond today there is nothing.

If the sense of the fleeting becomes so clear that life is slipping away moment by moment, you will become capable of descending into the eternity of the moment. Even a single moment, in its depth, is timeless and eternal.

Understand it this way: one person swims in a lake—on the surface, from one wave to another. Another is a diver, who pierces a single wave and goes deep. The worldly person keeps moving from wave to wave. On the surface, one touches only the surface. The one who goes deep finds the treasures of depth. Has anyone ever found pearls upon the waves? Pearls lie in the depths.

The real meaning of life is hidden in the depth of the moment. So yes, consider life impermanent—it is; this is not a matter of belief but of knowing. It is also true that you are never given more than one moment. But don’t sit sad because of this. It is said only so that the false race may stop; only so you don’t move in the wrong dimension; it is said to call you down into depth.

When Buddha says life is impermanent, he is not telling you to abandon it and sit dejected. He is saying: the way you have been so far is wrong. Drop it; I will show you another way of being.

The ordinary person lives on the surface of impermanent life. On this very surface he also longs for his heavens and hells, imagines his future births—right here, in the same dimension. He never looks beneath to see how much infinity is hidden under the surface.

In each single moment the Infinite abides. And in each particle, the Vast. But he sees the particle as a mere particle, the moment as a mere moment. And because of the moment—“so small; how will we ever live?”—he makes plans for later: “We’ll live tomorrow,” forgetting that tomorrow too will be only a moment in hand. Whenever it comes, it will still be just a moment; never more. When this life is missed, he imagines the next: “After rebirth, life will be.” But you can only imagine what you have known; you will long for only what you have tasted.

Ghalib’s famous lines—
Why not, O Lord, merge paradise into hell as well—
just a little more space for a stroll!

Ghalib is saying: we have known only hell; heaven we have not known. And those we have known have known only hell.

Why not, O Lord, merge paradise into hell as well—
just a little more space for a stroll!

Even if heaven were given to you, you would add it to your hell—and what else would you do? I have seen: if wealth comes to you, you add it to your poverty—and what else would you do? If an opportunity for joy comes, you add it to your misery—what else would you do? If you were given four more days of life, you would add them to the same old life—what else would you do? Man lives seventy years; if he lived seven hundred, do you think a revolution would occur? He would live in the same way—only more sluggishly. If he hasn’t lived in seventy, in seven hundred he will postpone even more: “What’s the hurry?”

Why not, O Lord, merge paradise into hell as well—
just a little more space for a stroll!

You will add the future to what you already are. You will add religion to your irreligion. You will attach a temple to your shop. You will add your health to your illness. You will add talk of no-delusion to your delusion. You will add your meditation to your restlessness. Transformation does not happen.

Do not add heaven to hell. Erase hell, so that heaven can be. Drop hell, so that heaven can be.

Life is impermanent—true. You can take three meanings from this. One: it is fleeting, so hurry up—indulge, lest enjoyment be missed. The worldly person says: eat, drink, be merry; life is passing. Then the religious person says: life is passing—don’t waste it in eating, drinking, merrymaking; earn some merit for later, for heaven, for liberation. Both are wrong. Then there is a third, whom I call the awakened one, the buddha. He says: life is impermanent; therefore nothing can be left for tomorrow. Imaginations of heaven and future are foolish—that is why Buddha did not talk of heavens. He also says: since life is impermanent, squandering it on the surface in eating, drinking, merrymaking is futile. So let us turn inward a little; let us open the moment—who knows, the moment may be just a doorway, outside of which we are wasting life. To open the moment is meditation.

Mahavira called meditation samayik, because samayik means the art of opening time—opening the moment and entering. The door is small; the palace is vast. Do not judge the palace as small because the door is small. The door need not be large. It is enough that you can pass through.

I say this to you: the door of the moment is large enough for you to pass through with ease. Nothing more is needed. Beyond the moment, the Eternal awaits you. You are running from one door to another. Some go door to door begging—these are the worldly. Some sit dejected outside the door, their heads hung, saying life is futile. Avoid these two.

There is also a third person who has found the key to the moment—that is sobriety, that is heedfulness—and has opened the door of the moment. The instant the door of the moment opens, the door of the Eternal opens. The infinite is hidden in the moment; the vast is hidden in the particle.

The question is a little difficult. Difficult because on the path of bliss there are neither flowers nor thorns. Thorns are in your seeing. Flowers are in your seeing. Thorns and flowers are not outside. You don’t find them out there; they are born of your way of seeing. With wrong seeing, thorns appear. With right seeing, flowers appear. You see exactly what your vision is. Vision is creation—remember this.

There is an ancient tale: Ramdas was narrating the story of Ram. The tale was so enchanting, Ram’s story so delightful, that even Hanuman began to come and listen. Hanuman had seen it all with his own eyes. Yet Ramdas told it so beautifully that even Hanuman felt compelled to come. He would slip into the crowd and sit, listening unnoticed.

One day he stood up—forgot entirely that he had to listen in hiding—because Ramdas said something that did not sit right with him, something incorrect, for Hanuman had been present; and this man was speaking thousands of years later. So Hanuman said, “Look, correct this.”

Ramdas had said that when Hanuman went to Lanka, to the Ashok Vatika, and saw Sita kept there in captivity, white flowers were blooming all around. Hanuman said, “That is wrong; please correct it. The flowers were red, not white.” Ramdas said, “You sit down; no need to interrupt. Who are you, anyway? The flowers were white.”

Then Hanuman had to reveal himself. He forgot all decorum. He said, “I am Hanuman myself!” He manifested and said, “Now will you correct it? You are telling the story thousands of years later—you were not there. I am the eyewitness. I am the Hanuman whose story you narrate. I saw red flowers. Correct it.”

But Ramdas was obstinate. “You may be Hanuman,” he said, “but the flowers were white. There can be no difference about it.” Matters escalated to the point that both were taken to Ram’s court so that Ram could decide what this was all about and how to resolve it. Because Hanuman, an eyewitness, was insisting the flowers were red, while Ramdas kept insisting they were white.

Ram said to Hanuman, “You must apologize. Ramdas is right. The flowers were white.” Hanuman was astonished. “This is too much; this goes beyond all limits. I saw them myself. You too were not there, nor was this Ramdas. It was a mistake to ask for your judgment. I alone was present there. Ask Sita—she was there.”

Sita was asked. Sita said, “Hanuman, you should ask forgiveness; the flowers were white. Saints cannot lie. Whether someone was present or not is not the point. Now that Ramdas has said it, it is right. The flowers were white. It pains me that you have to be in the wrong; you were not the only witness—I too was there. The flowers were white.” Splendid!

Hanuman said, “This looks like a conspiracy. Some sort of plot. I remember it perfectly.”

Ram said, “You are right—you saw them red because you were filled with anger. Your eyes were bloodshot. When there is blood in the eyes, when there is rage, how can white flowers appear?”

When I read this story, I felt like adding a little more. Because the flowers were not there at all. If Hanuman’s eyes were bloodshot so they appeared red, then in Ramdas’s mind there was a certain whiteness by which they appeared white. The flowers were not there. I tell you, Ram was wrong, Sita was wrong, Ramdas was wrong. Flowers are not outside; they bloom in your eyes. Thorns are not outside; they are formed, fabricated, in your eyes. You see exactly what you are able to see.

Now you ask, “In the state of bliss are there only flowers everywhere?”
You know neither the state of bliss, nor have you ever seen flowers.

“Not even a single thorn?”
You don’t even know what you are asking. In one within whom bliss has dawned, outside there is only bliss, only flowers. Because what is within you spreads and covers the without. Your inside expands and becomes the outside. As you are, so the whole existence becomes.

With Buddha, the whole existence becomes Buddha. With Meera, the whole existence becomes Meera. When Meera dances, the whole existence dances. When Buddha is silent, the whole existence falls silent. If you are filled with sorrow, the whole existence is filled with sorrow. You may have noticed: you are troubled, unhappy, you look at the moon and it appears melancholy. That very night your neighbor is joyful, blissful; he looks at the same moon and it seems bliss is raining down.

Your vision is your world. And moksha—liberation—means the disappearance of all vision. Neither white nor red. When no vision of yours remains, then you see that which is. Call it God, call it nirvana.

Even what the ascetic sees is not; even what the non-ascetic sees is not; what the devil sees is not; what the saint sees is not. What is, is seen only when none of your visions remain—when you add nothing.

Therefore Buddha did not say that in that supreme state there is bliss—because that too is a vision. He did not say there are flowers; he did not say there are thorns. For thorns were born of your vision of sorrow; bliss is born of your vision of bliss. You were present in the thorns, and you are present in the flowers too. There is also a moment of nirvana when you are not at all; then there is an absolute void. Therefore Buddha said: nirvana, the ultimate emptiness—where there is nothing. Where that which is, is seen. And now there is no way to say it, because to call it a thorn would be wrong, to call it a flower would be wrong, to call it sorrow would be wrong.

So there are three states. One is the state of suffering: then you see thorns everywhere. Flowers exist only in your dreams. The thorn truly pricks; the flower exists only in hope. This is one state. Then there is a second state of bliss, when there are flowers all around; all thorns seem to have disappeared, no thorn is seen anywhere. But the thorn lies hidden as a possibility—for if there is a flower, somewhere as possibility a thorn will be hidden. Then there is a third, supreme state: neither thorns nor flowers. Call that supreme state bliss. It is beyond pleasure and beyond pain, beyond thorn and beyond flower.

That’s all for today.