Es Dhammo Sanantano #22

No—Buddha’s age was neither rationalistic nor skeptical. Buddha was born far ahead of his time. The right time for Buddha is now—twenty-five hundred years later.

People like Buddha are always ahead of their age. It takes the world a very long time to reach the place that becomes visible to the enlightened far in advance. Buddhahood means the heights of seeing. As when one climbs a mountain—one can see hundreds of miles; but standing on the plain, one sees only a little way.

The enlightened are always ahead of their time; and therefore their own time, their own age, invariably refuses and rejects them. What Buddha said—still, even now, its full time has not come. Part of it has arrived; not all.

Try to understand.

Buddha gave birth to a religion in which there is no place for God. He taught a prayer in which there is no place for a deity. That is a stumbling block—even today it is a stumbling block. Even today you ask: How can there be prayer without God? How will you pray? You look for a base in some thing, a prop outside. Even the God you imagine, you place outside.

Even for prayer—which is an inner state of the heart—you want an external cause!

Buddha took away all causes. Buddha said: Prayer is sufficient; God is not needed. Humanity is still not religious enough for prayer to be sufficient without God. That would mean man has become perfectly inward. Even the word “God” turns your eyes outward. Say “God” here—and there a temple is raised. Say “God”—and there a statue is made. The moment the thought of God arises in your mind, your eyes begin to search the sky. You say “God,” and God becomes a person—a creator of the earth and the universe. Then you bow.

You bow before someone. Your bowing is not pure. You bow out of compulsion; your bowing is not your joy. You bow for a reason, not without reason.

Buddha said: Prayer is sufficient. No image is needed. The bowing itself is so blissful—why search for an excuse to bow before someone?

Understand this a little. It is difficult; it is far ahead. Even now, the age does not seem to have arrived. Books are written on Buddha every day. Almost all those who write on him face the same perplexity: Religion without God? Then what is atheism?

Buddha gave a religion in which you can be religious and yet non-theistic. He did not make theism a condition. He gave an unconditional religion. Theism draws a boundary: only the believers are invited. Buddha said: Believing or not believing is irrelevant. Whoever is ready to bow is already invited.

And bowing has nothing to do with bowing before someone. That habit is wrong. That way of thinking is wrong. Can you not bow without a cause? Can bowing not be an end in itself? Not a means, but the goal? As Narada has said, “Devotion is its own fruit”—can bowing itself not be the goal? Not before anyone…

Buddha says: If there is someone before you, how will you bow totally? There will be a hindrance. The presence of the other will obstruct. You will not be wholly free. The presence of the other creates a limit, a courtroom. The other is watching. Buddha said: If God exists, man can never be free. How will liberation be? The Other will remain… will remain. His eyes will remain fixed on you. You will never be able to be open and natural.

Buddha gave a religion that is free of God. He gave a liberation in which God is unnecessary. No religion has ever reached such a height. Think a little! Such a height of religion that even God becomes superfluous. Such a loftiness of prayer that God is not required. Bowing, in itself, is such a complete joy that it needs no support from another. Spontaneous, self-arising, self-sourced!

But had it ended there, Mahavira had already said as much. Then Buddha would have had no uniqueness. And Mahavira was older than Buddha—thirty or forty years senior. Even before Mahavira, in the Jaina lineage, twenty-three tirthankaras had already come. The Godless stream was ancient. It was a small stream; the Jainas never spread widely—could not spread. Their time too had not come. Their word also was ahead of time. It remained a thin current, but it existed. So that was not new.

If Buddha had said only that, he too would have become a branch of the Jaina stream. But Buddha soared even higher. He lifted his wings toward an even greater sky. And he said something which is not merely hard to understand—many will say, “Even to trust this is impossible.”

Buddha said: The soul too is not. God is not—and the one who prays is not. There is only prayer. The one you love is not—the lover too is not. There is no beloved, and no lover. There is no object of meditation, and no meditator. There is only meditation. No banks on either side. No duality at all. No conflict at all. Buddha said: Emptiness—shunya. Neither God nor the supplicant. As God’s presence creates a hindrance, so long as you exist you will not be able to drop God. You too are a hindrance.

Now let us understand this.

As long as you are, you cannot accept that God is not. In the very notion “I am” is planted the seed of “Thou art.” If I am, Thou must be. This vast Thou—its name is God. If Thou is not, how can I be? I and Thou are meaningful together; separately they are meaningless.

So Buddha first said: There is no God. Up to that point, Mahavira walked with him. Hence the Jainas call Buddha a mahātmā, not Bhagwan. A good man, who went some way—great-souled, but not a god. He has not reached the whole. Up to half the journey they walked together; then their paths diverged. “He cut the very root,” they say: “He denied God, and then the soul too! He altered the whole notion of being—he uprooted all the boundaries of being.”

The intellect faces great difficulty. If nothing is, then how is there all this—and beneath it nothing at all? And Buddha says: In this entire “all,” nowhere is there any boundary. It is vast, but nowhere is it divided or cut. Not divided into I and Thou. This stream is unbroken. Nowhere in it is there a soul. There is no place to say “I.” Wherever “I” is said, untruth begins.

And what Buddha said was not the talk of a philosopher—it came from one who has known. When you go deep into meditation, you will find neither God nor yourself. Existence will be—without any distortion—without any boundary, without any limit. Existence—immaculate—like the empty sky! Not even the forms of clouds. Buddha called this supreme emptiness nirvana.

He began the journey with doubt, and completed it in emptiness. Between doubt and emptiness lies all of Buddha’s awakening. Still the time has not come. He made doubt the foundation of religion, and emptiness the attainment of religion. All other religions make faith the foundation and the Full, the Absolute, the attainment. This is the exact reverse. He turned the boat upside down. To understand such an inverted religion demands great intelligence. Even straightforward religion—which begins with faith and ends in the Absolute—fails to be understood. Even that, which does not ask much of you, which says, “Just have faith,” eludes us. We are so unfortunate: even that does not happen. The ordinary religion says: Believe. There is no talk of search.

Buddha says: Believing will not do. A great search will be needed. Even before the first step there is a long journey. Ordinary religion says: The first step is simply a matter of trust—take it. Nothing more is asked of you.

But Buddha’s religion demands a long journey even to reach the first step. He says: You must pass through the intense fire of doubt—because it is you who will believe, isn’t it? The belief will be done by your very mind, won’t it? If your mind is the obstacle, how will a belief born of that mind become a ladder? If the mind itself is diseased, the belief born of it will also be a disease.

That is why there are temples, mosques, gurdwaras all over the world—so much belief everywhere—and yet is there any news of religion? Does any fragrance of religion arise anywhere? Are any lamps of religion lit? There is deep darkness. The temples are dark. Not only dark—they have become shelters for darkness. Darkness has found refuge in mosques. In the name of faith, all kinds of sins are nourished. Under the cover of belief, all sorts of falsehoods thrive. Religion has become hypocrisy, because the mistake is made at the very start. On the first step you become weak; on the first step you do not search with courage. Your belief will be yours; your belief cannot take you beyond yourself.

Therefore Buddha said: Break belief, drop belief. All notions have to be thrown down. Enter the fire of doubt. It needs the audacious, the seekers, the explorers—those capable of going on a quest, those whose hearts have the courage to accept the challenge.

And Buddha says: There is no assurance whatsoever. Who is there to assure you? There is no one here to hold your hand. You must go alone. Even at the time of death Buddha said: appā dīpo bhava—be a light unto yourself. If I die, do not weep. Who am I? At most, I could point. You had to walk. If I am here, you must walk; if I go, you must still walk. Do not bow to me. Do not lean on me. For all supports ultimately make you lame; they make you blind; supports slowly weaken you. Crutches slowly become substitutes for your legs; then you stop caring for your own legs.

Buddha said: Doubt. Buddha’s religion is scientific. Doubt is the primary step of science.

Therefore, as the collective mind of humanity becomes more scientific, time will grow favorable to Buddha. As the scientific consciousness expands, as people go deeply into thinking and contemplation, refuse second-hand and stale beliefs, refuse to accept whatever anyone says—rebellion will grow, people will become brave and defiant—and Buddha’s word will draw near to them.

In the West today, the respect Buddha commands—no one else does. Not even Jesus. Leave aside ordinary people: among thinkers, philosophers, scientists, Buddha’s honor grows day by day. The honor of others wanes day by day. The others are fighting a losing battle; Buddha, without fighting, goes on winning. For the great thing he said is this: We do not ask you to believe; we ask you to inquire. This is the formula of science. When you have discovered, then believe. How can you believe without discovery?

Has anyone ever found truth by what another has said? Truth is not so cheap. It is not a property a father can bequeath to his son. Nor is it a favor a guru can grant out of compassion. It is not a matter of giving and taking; it must be sought. You must walk thorn-strewn paths. Bleeding, exhausted, if you arrive—good fortune! It is not guaranteed you will arrive. There are many delusions, many precipices, many mirages—you can be lost anywhere.

And there are many weaknesses within you. Tired, you can stop anywhere by taking refuge in some belief. In front of any temple, any mosque, with broken courage and weary head you can bow— not because you have found a place truly worthy of bowing, but simply because you are tired: “Enough searching.” Reflect: in your bowing, is there not somewhere a failure of nerve? Is it not that you have simply been defeated? “The defeated take to God’s name”—is it not like that? You were defeated—now what to do?—so you began to chant the name of God. Is your religion your compulsion, an act of helplessness?

Buddha gives you no place like that. There is no room there for your weakness. Buddha says: Knowledge comes through self-purification—not through scriptures. Truth is not a notion; not a doctrine. Truth is the refinement of life. Like gold in fire—burning, melting, writhing—only then does it shine. The dross is burnt, the essence remains. Truth is within you, buried under rubbish. Until you pass through fire, how will you find it?

Do not be in a hurry—Buddha says—to believe. Believe only when there is no room left for doubt.

Note this difference. Other religions say: Believe in spite of doubt. Push doubt out of sight. Ignore it. Yes, doubt is there—but believe anyway. Bury doubt under the ashes of belief. Hide it behind belief. Take shelter in the shadow of belief. Cover your head, like the ostrich that buries its head in the sand when it sees the enemy. You are surrounded by doubt on all sides—bury your head in the sand of faith. Forget. Do not open your eyes, because if you do, doubts will arise.

Religions say: Choose faith against doubt. Buddha says: Doubt—completely. Doubt so totally that doubt collapses and reverence arises. That is a very different thing—utterly different. The faith of other religions stands opposed to doubt; Buddha’s faith is the absence of doubt. When no doubt remains, what remains is faith.

So wrestle with doubt first. If you take up faith while doubt still remains, your faith will be superficial, and underneath doubt will persist. And what is inside is decisive. Whom are you deceiving? Outer garments will do nothing.

What use are varicolored cloaks
if the soul keeps burning, melting, withering within?
What use? What is suppressed within you—that is what you are. Buddha says: Bring it out. There is only one way to be free of it—bring it into the light.

It is not that Buddha is anti-faith. In truth, only Buddha is truly on the side of faith. But his faith belongs to the courageous; not to the weak or the cowardly. His faith is the faith of the brave, the audacious; the faith of the scientist, not of the superstitious.

The time has not yet come. It seems to be approaching—the first footfalls can be heard; the first ray of dawn has broken. His time seems to be coming. The future belongs to Buddha. When the lamps of Rama and Krishna, Christ and Zarathustra, are flickering to go out—when their lamps are counting their last moments—then the sun of Buddha will rise. Buddha is here to stay upon this earth. I can imagine an hour when people forget Jesus—this is possible. It is hard, however, even to imagine an hour when Buddha is forgotten. Because every day people will become more reflective; every day more courageous. Day by day man is growing, maturing; the tales of childhood are fading. If not today, then tomorrow, the day after—the days of Buddha draw nearer. They are drawing near already.

Buddha gave birth to a unique faith—by not talking of faith at all. Why talk of faith? When there is no illness, you are healthy. When there is no doubt, you are a believer. So Buddha says: Do not plant faith; do not practice faith; do not impose the discipline of faith upon yourself. Forget faith altogether. Doubt rightly instead. Because only by doubting does doubt vanish. It is by doubting and doubting that it goes. In the one who does not doubt, doubt remains. The one who doubts to the end, one day reaches the very frontier of doubt.

Reason goes by reason—as thorns are removed by thorns, and poison is cured by poison. Reason removes reason. Reason thoroughly, correctly. Buddha says: Do not be in a hurry. Maturity of reason is needed. Maturity is everything.

Then one day you reach that moment, that boundary, where the skies beyond reason begin to appear. Reason itself brings you there. You do not have to “drop” reason—when the farther skies appear, reason drops away. No one can live in doubt forever—if he doubts rightly. Doubt is negative. How will you live in a negation? Life needs the affirmative. How will you live in illness? Life needs health. Doubt is like death; faith is like life. No one can stay in doubt forever.

But people have stayed—because a miracle has happened: they have donned false faith. And in that false faith, not only have they hidden themselves—their doubts too have become safe.

Have you seen an “orthodox believer”? The markets are full. The cities are filled with them. He prays in temple and church. Have you looked closely at him—how frightened he is? How his faith trembles? Have you ever spoken with him? He is afraid. If you speak of doubt, his breath quickens. If, while he is praying, you ask, “Do you truly have firm trust that God exists?”

I had a teacher. He had grown old. When I went to the village, I used to visit him. The last time I went, he sent word: “Don’t come.” I went anyway. I said, “Then I shall never come again. But I have come to ask why you refused me.” He said, “There is no reason. For years I have waited for you; when you come, I am happy. But now I have begun to fear. Your words give birth to doubt. My mantras begin to falter. Death is close to me now. Let me at least die in faith.”

I said, “This faith which falters so, which is not even alive in life—will it be of use in death? These mantras that falter so, that have no roots, that shake when I shake them—how far will they accompany you in death? Where will they stand by you then?

“Therefore, I must come. Now I shall not heed your refusal; I will keep coming. Because death is near—you must hurry. You wasted life. You could have been free of these doubts. You hid them. You watered them. You fed them. You protected them. Your faith became their nourishment. Your faith wrapped them in a blanket. They would have withered, they would have died—but you did not let them die. And now that death is near, you still protect them. Hurry now; let them surface. There is no harm even if you die doubting. At least that much courage will be with you. At least that much self-trust. Dying while praying to a God you do not trust—your prayer is false, your love is false. Has anyone ever reached truth through falsehood?”

Buddha gave doubt—not because his era was rationalistic; no, Buddha himself was rational. Out of profound doubt he reached reverence. He journeyed the long and difficult road. Only by the long and difficult road can one journey. There is no short cut. What you call “faith” is a short cut. You have believed without going, without arriving, without becoming anything. Your faith is impotent.

You know it well. That is why you keep listening to the kind of people who can give your faith a little push, a little strength. You are afraid. Your scriptures say, “Do not listen to the words of the atheist. If an atheist speaks, put your fingers in your ears.”

Give such scriptures a holiday. They teach weakness. How will such scriptures take you to God? If faith is so frightened that it trembles on merely hearing an atheist—then the atheist is better. At least in his scriptures it is not written anywhere to fear hearing a theist. It seems he has more trust in his atheism than you have in your theism. And when you yourself have no trust in your belief, what can be proved by it?

So remember: Buddha gave doubt. Doubt is the process of attaining faith. Doubting and doubting, you become free of doubt. Walking through doubt, you arrive at the place where the sun of trust rises.

Perhaps it was only a cry of my own helplessness
which, in my simple credulity, I had taken for God…
That which you have taken as God—could it be merely your cry of helplessness?

Perhaps it was only a cry of my own helplessness…
In a helpless state, frightened, afflicted, suffering—man begins to call upon God. Could it be only your cry of helplessness?

Which, in my simple credulity, I had taken for God…
What you, in your naiveté, your childishness, have taken to be God—could it be only your cry of helplessness? What you have taken as bowing—could it be merely the weakness of your trembling, frightened legs? What you have taken as surrender—could it be your cowardice?

Surrender requires resolve. To bow requires the strength of one who can stand upright. To call upon God—there must be not helplessness within, but a supreme contentment, a supreme sense of “aha!” within.

Buddha did not snatch God from you—he snatched your helplessness. You had given your helplessness the name “God.” Buddha did not take away your temples—he removed your shelters of weakness. And he said: You must walk yourself. After centuries, Buddha gave blood back to your legs. He gave you the courage to stand on your own feet.

Buddha is a true master. And Buddha calls that religion “true” which acquaints you with the truth hidden within you—which does not mislead you into false beliefs, notions, scriptures, useless webs of words—but brings you face to face with yourself.

And when you meet yourself, you will find: there is vast emptiness there. There is no one within. Hearing this, it seems: “If there is no one, what is the point of seeking? If there is no one, why self-knowledge? Why talk of attaining the soul?”

Those who know have said: The very nature of the soul is emptiness—without qualities. Buddha gave it exact expression. He saw danger even in the word “soul.” Because it makes you think you are seeking some “thing” inside. When you say, “There is a soul within me,” have you noticed—you are speaking as if, just as a chair is placed in your house, a soul is placed inside you! Is the soul an object, that you go in and fetch it?

Look closely: Who will go inside? If the soul is kept within, then who is this “goer” going within? If the soul is inside, who went outside? Buddha says: Neither outside nor inside. That which journeys in and out—that very consciousness is. And that consciousness is not a thing; it is a flow. Not a stagnant pond; a river rushing toward the ocean.

Buddha avoided the word “soul” because “soul” suggests fixity. You will be surprised, because you are accustomed to using “soul” as the opposite of matter. You say: “This stone is inert, it has no soul. Man has a soul, he is not inert.”

Buddha says: In the very word “soul” there is a hint of inertia. “Soul” means there is something fixed, stopped, present as a thing. Whatever is fixed is inert.

Within you something is happening—continuously. How to call that “soul”? It is a flowing, a becoming—not an “is.” Ever becoming. Consciousness is a journey—a pilgrimage! No halt, no destination. It is the name of ceaseless going, ceaseless becoming. And this becoming is never complete—because whatever becomes “complete” becomes stagnant.

Therefore Buddha is hard to understand. Without becoming a buddha, he is hard to understand. But Buddha says: Do not believe. If you wish to understand, be ready for the journey. If you wish only to believe, go and sleep at some other door. Buddha’s door is not for you.

“Lord Buddha’s path begins with the acceptance of doubt. Was his era as rationalistic as ours?”

No—age has nothing to do with it. Buddha came far ahead of his age. The enlightened are always ahead of their age. They are never truly contemporary. From wherever they stand, they are already beyond. Therefore whenever and wherever they happen, they are not understood. Whatever they say falls on walls, not ears. Whatever they show falls on blind eyes, not on seeing.

Even had it been only that, it would not have been so bad. But what happens is worse: we misunderstand them. If only we could say, “We did not understand,” there would be no harm. We misunderstand them—because we cannot accept that we cannot understand. If we cannot understand rightly, we choose to understand wrongly—while nurturing the assumption that we have understood.

Those who heard Buddha, who followed Buddha, who became Buddhists—they too did not understand. They dropped God and clung to Buddha. They began to worship Buddha. Nothing changed. The old temples went; a new temple came. The old tradition disappeared; a new tradition took its place. The old scriptures—the Vedas, the Gita—went; Buddha’s words became scripture. People did not understand.

Buddha had thrown you back upon yourself. He had said: You yourself are your scripture. You yourself are your guru. You yourself are your teaching—and beyond your consciousness, seek no support anywhere. Awaken consciousness. In that awakening one day you will find: on this side, you are gone; on that side, God is gone. Only an ocean of consciousness remains. Buddha called that nirvana—where the drop becomes one with the ocean; where the drop discovers that only the ocean is.

But Buddha used only negative words—because of you. There was no obstacle to his saying “Fullness” instead of “Emptiness.” None—except you. The moment a positive word is used, you are instantly ready to believe; you are not ready to walk. So Buddha used only negative terms. He did not even use the word moksha (liberation). Because hearing “liberation,” you feel a time will come when “I” will be perfectly free—but I will be. I will remain—free of bonds—but I will be.

Buddha said: You are the bondage. When bondage is not, you too will not be. Something will be—but you have no way to know it. Do not call it “I”—and there is no way to understand it today. Till now you have only known bonds upon bonds. Till now you are the sum of your chains. You are a prison.

Therefore Buddha said: It is not that “I will remain, liberated.” Rather, there will be liberation from “I.”

So Buddha did not use the word moksha. He coined a new word—nirvana. Nirvana means: as when you blow out a lamp—the lamp goes out. We say: The lamp attained nirvana. Where did the flame go? You cannot say it went east or west, rose to the sky or sank into the netherworld. You cannot say where it is. It has merged into the vast. It is not.

Thus Buddha coined a unique word: nirvana. It has two meanings. One: the going out of the lamp. Just as a lamp goes out, so will you go out. Do not ask where you will be—in liberation, in heaven among celestial nymphs, beneath the wish-fulfilling tree, enjoying the pleasures you had renounced—or in hell, punished for sins. Do not ask where. As a lamp goes out, in nirvana you will go out.

The second meaning: vān means desire—nir-vāna: the extinguishing of desire. As a lamp goes out, desire will go out. And you are a bundle of desires. Other religions say: You are separate, and desires surround you. Buddha says: There are desires—their sum is called “you.”

As when we tie ten sticks into a bundle—we call it a bundle. But is the bundle anything other than those ten sticks? Remove one stick after another—will any “bundle” remain? When all ten sticks are removed, nothing remains.

So Buddha says: It is not that you are one thing and desires have surrounded you. You are desire, thirst, craving, the race to become—only that! You are the sum of all desires. Remove desires one by one, and you will be less and less. The day the last desire goes out, that day you will be no more. That day nothing of “you” will remain. Others say: A pure soul will remain. Buddha says: What will remain? The bundle does not remain; all is lost. This “losing” he calls nirvana. He did not call it moksha, or kaivalya, or the supreme abode, or Brahmaloka—because those are affirmative words. Hearing them, your desires are instantly reinvigorated.

Even now, as you listen, somewhere within you a voice is saying: “No, no—how can that be? All desires will become zero, yes—but we will still be. We will be in pure form.” But what does “pure form” mean? You are pure only when you are not. As long as you are, impurity remains. Being is impurity.

Buddha spoke the subtlest word—subtler than any ever spoken. No further refinement was possible. None will be. Buddha is the final statement. To improve it, amend it, revise it—would be difficult.

Certainly, understanding is necessary. In this world nothing is unnecessary; otherwise it would not be. If it is, it must be needed. How could the unnecessary be? Why would it be? From where would the unnecessary come? Whatever is, has a chain, a connection—some current of cause and effect, a linkage.

Understanding is useful—because it is understanding itself that will make you see that understanding is not enough. Only through understanding do you understand that you must go beyond understanding. Understanding itself will wake you from the sleep of understanding. You have dreamt so many dreams of thought; you have lived long in the nets of concepts and beliefs. Now rise—morning has come, dawn has broken.

Who will wake you from greed? Who will wake you from anger? Who will wake you from lust? If a true Master’s words become effective in awakening you, it is because those words establish some connection with your understanding—your sleeping understanding. A bridge forms between your understanding and the Master; otherwise there would be no way. Stones cannot be awakened! They will keep on listening and keep on lying there. There are many stones within you too that will go on listening and lying. If there is understanding in someone, it will turn over, stretch, and awaken.

Seeing the glitter of wealth, your heart begins to covet—
At the sight of money, envy and ambition arise.
Seeing the glitter of wealth, your heart begins to covet;
Smelling the musky fragrance of tresses, a drowsiness comes over you,
As a boat without anchor is beckoned by the waves.
In the whims of the mind your resolve wavers like this.
Weigh yourself—weigh yourself!

But there is only one way to weigh: let the inner understanding begin to see. Until now you have used your understanding in only one way—to side with un-understanding. When you wanted to be angry, you enlisted understanding in support of anger. You do have understanding—exactly as much as any enlightened one has. It is the use that is wrong, the direction that is wrong.

When you have been angry you have found a thousand arguments that anger was necessary. You beat your child, you got angry, and you said, “If I don’t beat him, how will he improve?” As if it were a proven law that anyone ever improved by being beaten. Who has? No—the pretext is false. The real fact was that you were angry. But even you don’t have the courage to say it straight. What will people say? So you look for good reasons: “I’m doing it to reform the child.”

A teacher beats children at school not because he cares for improving them—what personal purpose is served? But whenever the children bruise his authority, hurt his ego, he does not say, “My ego has been hurt, therefore I will beat you.” That would be awkward and hard to hide. He says, “For your improvement, for your good, it is necessary to beat you.”

Have you noticed how many arguments and reasons you hunt for to justify anger! How much you enlist understanding to support greed! You don’t even call jealousy jealousy; you call it competition. That is borrowing the crutch of understanding. You say, “If there is no competition, life will become inert. Without rivalry, how will development happen? How will progress be made?”

People come to me and say, “If competition is lost, progress will be lost.” So to save progress competition seems necessary to them—even though under the fine name of competition only envy is hiding. Someone else has it and they don’t; someone else is ahead and they are behind.

So you have propped up greed, supported anger, buttressed lust. Until now you have misused your understanding.

There is another use of understanding—the right use. That is true religion: use understanding to understand anger. What is anger? What is greed? Whoever understands anger begins to move away from it. Whoever understands greed begins to move away from it—because greed has created nothing for you but hells. And anger has burned others—whether it burned them or not depends on them—but it has certainly burned you. To throw embers at others you first have to generate those embers within yourself.

When you abuse someone, whether the other is hurt or not depends on them, not on your abuse. If you abuse a Buddha, he will not be hurt. Abuse does not hurt in itself; it depends on a fool picking it up—if he grasps it, he will be hurt. Your abuse did not cause the hurt. But to hurl an abuse, you have to produce it inside first. There must be ulcers within—otherwise how will abuse be born? If you want to breed drain-worms, you need a filthy drain. If you want to produce abuses, your heart must have ulcers, festering wounds, pus—otherwise how will abuse be born? Abuses don’t fall from the sky.

Roses blossom on a rosebush; with roots nurtured, roses appear. If abuses blossom on your bush, they must be coming from the roots. Somewhere inside there are ulcers—ulcers of the soul. Somewhere there are terrible wounds. First you nurse and foster them; abuses grow big there. Within you there is a womb where abuses are kept safe and manufactured—a factory. You prepare them there; squandering yourself, effacing yourself, you produce the embers and then fling them at others so they too may burn. But you have already been burned.

You have often been told, “Do not be angry; you will be punished.” I tell you: do not be angry, because you have already been punished before the anger itself. To say that you will be punished after anger is wrong—who will punish you later? There is no overseer sitting somewhere. If there were, you would find a way to evade him too. You would hire lawyers, offer bribes. Many do exactly this: they think prayer is a bribe; worship a bribe; the priest a lawyer—he has connections with God; through him they smuggle their messages across.

No—before you abuse you have already been punished. Before you even indulge greed, in nurturing greed you are already rotting. No further punishment is necessary. It is enough.

The second use of understanding is this: understand anger; don’t prop it up. And the moment you watch anger without giving it support, you will see it is poison—it is self-destruction. What have you been doing till now? Engaged in erasing yourself! You will begin to step away. And the very energy that was entangled in anger and was being wasted and destroyed will turn into compassion.

When anger subsides, compassion arises—because energy must go somewhere. When it is not forging thorns, the energy is freed; it becomes a flower. The energy that had become greed becomes generosity. The energy that had become lust becomes love.

And the inner life has endless steps. Slowly, slowly you keep rising. Gravity ceases to pull you down. A moment comes in true religion when wings sprout; you become a benediction; no obstacle remains.

If one dares, there are spaces even beyond these skies—
If one dares, there are spaces beyond the skies.
I concede that under the sky you live beneath, ease is not available to you.

This I accept: where you are, the way you are living, the sky under which you have made your home is very small. Your courtyard is tiny—unfit to live in. The dark cell you inhabit—the house you have built around yourself out of lust, anger, greed, attachment—is hell.

I concede: beneath this little sky of your life, no ease, no peace, no joy is possible. But there is nothing to be alarmed about!

If one dares, there are spaces beyond the skies—beyond, and beyond. The skies have no end.

This infinite expanse of sky is what Buddha called emptiness—shunyata. That very emptiness is what the Upanishads call Brahman. To become one with these infinite skies, Buddha called nirvana. That nirvana is what other awakened ones have called moksha, liberation.

The intellect is a very small thing. If you try to understand the whole of life with intellect alone, you impose very narrow boundaries on existence. Because of your narrow boundaries, you will be deprived of existence itself.

The intellect is useful; use it. Use it to go beyond it. Make it a ladder; climb it. Use it as a springboard to leap.

What fault had the sanctuary in being surrounded by a wall?
If spaciousness could not be born within limits, what is the fault?

What fault is it of the temple? What fault of the mosque? They are enclosed by walls.
What fault of the Kaaba? What fault of Kashi? They are surrounded by walls.
If vastness could not arise, there is no fault—because there were walls.

Your intellect is enclosed by the wall of thoughts. That wall has to be removed so that spaciousness—vastness—may arise.

Have you ever experienced, even for a single moment, that when thoughts are not, you are? When thoughts are not, “you” too are not—as a separate entity. When thoughts are absent, there is an immense sky. There is no wall in between to divide, to separate. No division remains. You are indivisible, one with existence. That is what devotees have called God.

That is the devotees’ language. It was not Buddha’s preferred language, because he saw its ill effects. For devotees it may have been fine, but those who followed behind them understood something else.

Look a little: the meaning of “God” is vastness. A devotee is one who has known the vastness of life—who has known a life upon which there is no boundary. But then the Hindu is a devotee of the Hindu God—his God is limited. The Christian worships the Christian God—his God too is limited.

The very meaning of God is that which is infinite—and the blind have imposed limits even on God. They have raised walls even around vastness, saying, “This is our vastness; that is yours—they are different.” They have broken each other’s heads, smashed temples, burned mosques. But all these boundaries are fundamentally the mind’s boundaries. Until the intellect within becomes vast, you will keep on building temples and mosques outside; it will make no difference.

Understanding is necessary. There is a small island of understanding upon which there is a little light. Use it. Take that light in your hand; make a torch of it. Around that island lies dense darkness—take the torch and set out. Wherever you stand, there will be no darkness.

If understanding does not remain confined within a small circle, it becomes a torch. Then wherever you go, it guides you. If it remains confined, it becomes a bondage. Then you begin to fear going into the dark. You are like a person who has lit a lamp at home and is afraid to go outside because it is dark there. I tell you: yes, outside it is dark; yes, there is fear of going into the dark; but why not lift the lamp in your hand? Why not take the lamp with you outside? Wherever you are with the lamp, there will be no darkness.

Make understanding into a torch. Do not hammer it down somewhere and fix it; do not make it Hindu or Muslim; do not confine it to temple or mosque—keep it free. Make it a torch. Wherever you go, the light will keep widening. In this endless expanse, make your understanding into a boat. Do not make it a roadside peg to tie yourself to. That is up to you. From the same wood with which a peg is made—by which you bind yourself—a boat can also be made.

It will be hard to understand. Consciousness too attains nirvana. Because consciousness is needed only so long as there is unconsciousness within you. As long as there is darkness in the house, there is a need for light. And as long as there is illness within, there is a need for medicine. When the illness has gone, what will you do with the medicine? And when darkness is no more, what will you do with the light? In the morning you put out the lamp, don’t you? Once the sun has risen, what will you do with a lamp? If, after the sun has risen, you still walk around carrying a torch, people will think you are mad.

A final moment comes when even consciousness is no longer needed. Such an immeasurable consciousness is spread on all sides that what question remains of your own consciousness? To carry even that begins to feel like a burden.

It is about to happen, O heart—the completion of love;
even the very feeling of love is seen to be fading.

On the journey of love there comes a stage where even the feeling of love dissolves. Because all feelings depend upon their opposites.

It is about to happen, O heart—the completion of love…
Now the perfection of love is drawing near—so near, O heart!

…even the very feeling of love is seen to be fading.
Now even the feeling of love itself is seen to be fading—hence perfection is nearing.

Understand this. Need arises because of the opposite. There is anger, therefore we counsel compassion. When there is no anger, what need is there of compassion? This does not mean you will become hard. It only means you will be so one with compassion that you will not even know there is compassion. Only hard people notice compassion.

You give alms to someone on the road, and then you go about saying you have given. That is the sign of a greedy person. Because of greed, charity becomes noticeable. If greed has completely vanished, how will the fact of giving be noticed? You will give just as the breath goes out and comes in. Who notices it? Yes, sometimes one notices the breath—when there is a disorder of breathing. Otherwise, does anyone notice the breath? It goes on, in and out. Health is never noticed; only illness is.

You become aware of love because hatred still exists within you. When hatred is utterly gone, will you be able to tell anyone, “I love you”? How will you say it? You will have become love itself. Who is there then to say, “I love”? Who will stand apart and say it? Even to know “I love,” the capacity to hate must still be there. For the feeling “I love” to be noticed, some residue of hate must remain. When hate becomes absolutely zero, then what kind of love? As hate goes, the feeling of love also goes. This does not mean love does not remain. Only love remains—but how will there be any awareness of it?

So long as there is stupor within, awareness too is noticed. When stupor has completely gone, then even awareness is not noticed. Who will notice? How? For noticing, the presence of the opposite is required.

You are outside a prison; do you notice that you are outside a prison? You do not. Go once and be in jail. Then, when you are released and you stand on the road, you will know freedom. Thousands are passing on the road, and none of them notices. If you tell them, “Dance! You are free! You are outside the jail,” they will say, “Have you gone mad? We are going to the office, to our homes. Why should we dance?” It seems to you they should dance. You were in jail. The chains gave you an awareness of freedom. But how long will this memory remain? A day or two, four days, ten days. As freedom becomes accepted, the awareness of it fades.

You notice the head when there is a headache. When there is no headache, you do not notice the head. One who has never had a headache has no sense of having a head.

Peace is noticed because there is unrest.
Rest is noticed because there is fatigue.
Light is noticed because there is darkness.
Life is noticed because there is death.

Those who have known the deathless life—gradually even the sense of life does not remain. Where there is no death, how can there be an awareness of life?

It is about to happen, O heart—the completion of love;
even the very feeling of love is seen to be fading.

That is all for today.