Es Dhammo Sanantano #28

If you drop greed because you have understood that profit brought sorrow, that greed poured poison into life, that greed brought calamities and anxieties—then you have not dropped greed. For that very understanding belongs to greed.

Where you longed for nectar, you found poison—there was loss, not gain. Where you sought happiness, you found misery—loss, not gain. You imagined a life of ease, joy, and peace; it became carpeted with worry—loss, not gain.

To try to be free of greed because you found loss in it is to fall right back into greed’s hands. It is greed’s vision that sees “loss.”

Try to grasp this; it is subtle. Who is it that perceives there has been a loss? Who whispers to you, “You lost”? Greed—greed’s very tendency shows you the loss. If now you seek to be safe, you are not seeking freedom from greed; you are seeking to escape the loss that greed’s vision has shown you.

If greed had not brought loss? If greed had produced peace and happiness? If greed had brought calm instead of worry? Would you have dropped it? You would say, “Then why drop it?” It is through greed itself that you become eager to drop greed. On the surface greed seems to leave; within, it seizes you—more subtly than before.

If the seeing is right—and right seeing means: do not view life through the eyes of greed—then it will not seem to you that greed gave poison. From that which cannot give nectar, how could poison come? From that which cannot bring profit, how could loss arise? Look closely at greed and you will find: nothing comes of it—not even loss. Even if loss had come, at least you would have had something in your hand to say, “I got this.” Not even poison came.

Greed is impotent; it cannot produce even poison. Then you will not see the harm of greed, but its futility. And there is a difference.

The experience of greed’s futility is greed’s death—the sense of its hollowness. I am not speaking of loss, because in loss greed survives in hiding. And this is what goes on. Those we call “religious people” are simply afflicted by a new greed—nothing else. They did not find the world futile; they found it harmful, and so they look toward heaven for profit. Their hands remained empty here; now they try to fill them in heaven. Life they have already wasted and are now ready to waste the beyond as well.

What do you want to obtain in the hereafter? Think a little: you want exactly what you could not obtain here. Tell me about your heaven and I will know precisely what you failed to get in this world—because the beyond is its complement. If you did not find a beautiful woman here—which, in truth, is impossible, because beauty has nothing to do with the body; if you did not find a beautiful husband here—which is impossible, because beauty is an inner fragrance—

Those who have no soul—how can they be beautiful? They can appear so, but not be so. From afar they look beautiful; come close and thorns prick. What looked like beauty from afar becomes ugliness when you approach. Where you sensed fragrance, stench begins to be experienced. Keep a little distance from “beautiful” people—if you wish to go on seeing them as beautiful. Go near, and beauty will quickly vanish.

So you imagine celestial nymphs in heaven; you imagine divine men—with bodies of gold! Here you found the body mean and worn, mere bones, flesh, marrow; so there you imagine bodies of gold. Whatever you did not get here, you begin to crave there. Greed has changed its place, its direction. It has not gone.

A Jain monk once came to see me. He said, “Everything in this world is momentary. If one must obtain, one should obtain some permanent wealth.” Understand his language: it is the shopkeeper’s language, not the monk’s. He searched for permanent property in the world and did not find it—found it momentary; now he is searching for permanent property. You call him a renunciate; the search for property continues.

The only difference is: you are a bit innocent; he is a bit clever. You innocently run after property that is transient; he cleverly runs after property that is permanent. You wander after a mirage; he wanders after “real” property—but the race for property continues.

I tell you: property as such is transient—whether of heaven or of earth, it makes no difference. Whatever is outside cannot remain with you eternally; only what is within is eternally with you. But even to speak of that in the language of property is not right, because that language is of greed. When you drop every longing for property—property as such, both earthly and heavenly—suddenly you find what you were seeking is already present within you.

But be alert: do not drop desire in order to get this; otherwise you will not get it. Then greed is still at work: you dropped only on the surface, not from within.

People come to me. They meditate. I tell them: keep no expectation from meditation—of bliss, of peace, of experience. Keep no expectation; just meditate. As a result, much happens, but do not be fruit-seeking. Results come on their own; your desire for fruit is not needed. Your desire for fruit will become an obstacle. One who meditates in order to obtain peace does not meditate at all; he keeps watching, “When will peace come? When will peace come?”—and that itself becomes restlessness. Drop that worry. Meditate; do not keep your eyes on the fruit. Peace comes on the heels of meditation, by itself. You do not need to keep track of it.

Then they say, “Good. So if we meditate having dropped the desire for peace, then peace will come?” They do not realize what they are saying. Mind has tricked them again. Now mind says, “All right, we will fulfill this condition too—if peace is obtained.” Then what condition has been fulfilled?

Some days later they come again: “You said it— we even dropped the desire; but peace has not come yet.” If desire had been dropped, who is it now that says, “Peace has not come”? Desire remained within, standing in a corner, watching whether it comes or not: “See, we even dropped desire.” Try to understand this subtle net of the mind; otherwise you will go on constructing the world in newer and newer ways. The world remains the same; only colors and forms change. Build it on the moon and stars or on the earth—what difference does it make? This too is a moon and stars.

The wealth of the mind, once in hand, never departs.
The wealth of the body is a shadow: wealth comes, wealth goes.

But the language of wealth is the language of greed. Hearing such lines, the greedy becomes eager—

The wealth of the mind, once in hand, never departs.
The wealth of the body is a shadow: wealth comes, wealth goes.

You too want wealth of the kind that, once in hand, never leaves—no one can steal it, the government cannot seize it, no bankruptcy can take it away, no fall of the market can reduce its value. That is the kind of wealth you want. And when someone teases your mind with
“The wealth of the mind, once in hand, never departs,”
your greed awakens. You say, “Let’s seek this too.”

You already know the rest:
“The wealth of the body is a shadow: wealth comes, wealth goes.”
This you have seen in your life.

So the greedy begins to covet the beyond, covet the within. But the greedy cannot attain that which is within; greed’s gaze goes only outward.

Therefore, if you have seen that greed brought suffering, pain, made a hell—and thus you try to flee greed—you have not fled greed; you have fled the harms, the losses.

What to do? Look closely again: greed cannot give poison. Will greed give poison? Greed can give only dreams—only falsity. Poison is real; it is not produced by greed. Greed can only weave dreams around you. When your eyes open, you will not find trash in your hands—not even trash. You will not find poison in your hand. How can dreams give poison? And if dreams were to give poison, they would not be dreams; they would be real. And then there would be no need to run. Where poison can appear, nectar can appear too.

You have read the story of the churning of the ocean. When the churning happened, from the very place where poison emerged, nectar emerged as well. In truth, when poison comes out, the possibility of nectar begins—so real! From where death can arise, life can arise too. From where a thorn has appeared, a flower can bloom. One has to search a little more.

If you have seen poison emerging from greed, your search will not stop. You will say, “If even poison has emerged, nectar cannot be far; let me walk a little further. Let me drink this draught too and move on.” You will awaken the day you see that greed is impotent—nothing comes of it. It is empty bustle, a futile running around, the dreams of a drunkard walking. When awakening happens, there is nothing in the hands. Then greed shatters.

“That the road of greed and gain is strewn with envy, hatred, fear, and anxiety”—this is greed speaking. It is greed that is afraid; greed wanted something else and it did not happen.

“It poisons life—such is the experience of my long life.” Such is the experience of your long greed. That is greed’s recognition, not the recognition of awakening. And it is easy to be misled here. If for this reason you try to leave the world of greed, you will implant greed elsewhere. You will donate here, but demand in heaven. You will demand a return. You will serve and then wait: “When will showers of nectar fall upon me?” Greed is very skillful—it survives; it hides within.

And now the shade it has made for itself will last longer. The journey of greed in the world is so gross that even fools can understand it. But the journey of greed in the name of the beyond is very subtle. Your so‑called intelligent ones do not grasp it either. Once in thousands, someone awakens and sees.

A hundred times your beloved’s hem seemed to be in your hands;
when the eyes opened, you saw it was your own collar.

In dreams you can think anything! You clutch your own garment and think you hold the beloved’s hem. When the eyes open, you find it is your own cloth.

What you have called greed is your swoon—your unconsciousness. Break the swoon. Do not think of “dropping” greed, for you will drop only when you expect to obtain something. So drop the very talk of dropping. Do not use the language of renunciation; it is the language of the indulgent. The enjoyer has merely stood on his head: earlier he stood on his feet, now he stands on his head—but he remains the enjoyer. Earlier he counted how many rupees lay in the safe; now he keeps count of how much he has renounced. He counted then, he counts now. The counting has not changed: earlier the coins were gross; now they have become very subtle.

Go and look at the sadhus and renunciates sitting in your temples: they keep accounts, they fill diaries—how many fasts they undertook; how many this year. They are minting coins, accumulating bank balances. They will go before God and present their entire list: “See, I fasted so much, I prayed so much, I took so many vows.” This is greed—now standing on a new footing.

I tell you: do not even talk of dropping greed. You drop something only after you have first arranged to get something. You ask, “Why should I drop it?” Because you ask, “Why drop it?” tricksters appear to tell you, “Drop it so that you will get heaven; drop it to gain merit; drop it to gain bliss, Brahman, liberation.” You ask, “Why drop it?” They supply the “therefore.” And as long as there is a “therefore,” greed remains.

Break the swoon; do not drop greed. Let greed lie where it is. Try to look—awake. As you awaken, you will not need to drop greed; it departs on its own, just as when a lamp is lit, darkness departs.

Does anyone “drop” darkness? After lighting a lamp, do you go out to throw darkness away? Do you “renounce” darkness? The lamp is lit: the matter is finished; darkness is not. Awareness dawns: the matter is finished; greed is not.

Do not drop greed; see greed with awareness. In that very seeing, greed dissolves, vanishes. Seek that eye before which darkness cannot stand—seek that eye.

So far you have seen this: at times greed seems full of juice; at other times there is no juice at all—only loss. At times there are great gains; then great harms. But there is “something” in greed. And so long as there is “something” in greed, you cannot be free of it.

As long as you believe there is something in darkness, you cannot be free. There is nothing in darkness—utter emptiness. Darkness has no existence. Properly understood, darkness is only the absence of light; it is not in itself, it is only in the not-being of light.

Greed too is the absence of awareness. Greed is nothing in itself. When awareness comes here, greed goes there. What you have experienced of greed—this is greed’s very essence.

How can that light be a benediction that brings harsh glare along?
How can that shade sustain life that was itself born of darkness?

A shadow whose birth is in darkness cannot support life. And that light will not open and illumine your path if with it comes scorching heat as well.

Such a light cannot become grace—
if it drags with it the burning sun.

So look closely at your experiences. In greed there was pain; in greed you found sorrow. Because of the sorrow, you want to drop greed—you have not yet dropped greed, nor have you known it. You want to drop it because of its failure.

This failure is like Aesop’s tale: the fox leaped and leaped to reach the grapes and could not. Lest anyone discover the failure, she looked around; a rabbit was hiding in a bush. He said, “Aunt, what’s the matter?” She had thought she was alone—no fuss, no witness; now this one had seen and might spread the news through the forest. She said, “Nothing at all—the grapes are sour.”

She had not even reached the grapes. But the ego refuses to admit failure. It says, “The grapes are sour. Had we wanted, they were in our hands; but they were sour, so we left them.”

Be mindful: do not mistake your helplessness for renunciation. Do not make your powerlessness into religion. Do not cover your weakness with fine words. Look straight at greed—do not view it through the lens of failure. Through the lens of failure you have not seen greed at all; you have seen the defeat of ego.

Wherever ego’s defeat is seen, there ego tries to shift the blame onto another—now onto greed. It says, “Greed is poisonous; because of greed we were anxious all our life.” You were anxious because of yourself. Because you were anxious, you became greedy.

If you ask me: it is not that greed makes you anxious; it is because you are anxious that you are greedy. Greed did not defeat you; your desire to win defeated you. The desire to win brings defeat. The defeat of ego is certain, because ego is a lie. How can a lie win? Real grapes can never reach the hands of ego. It will always say, “They are sour”—not because the grapes were sour, but because ego is a lie: it cannot reach the real; it can live only in falsity.

Hence ego lives only in hope—in tomorrow, not today. “Tomorrow something will happen; day after tomorrow something will happen. No harm—if not today, then tomorrow.” Postponing from day to day, a moment comes when no tomorrow remains; death stands in the middle. What can ego do then? It says, “Greed killed me.” Ego declares, “Greed is the father of sin.”

A sadhu told me a story. A poor man was returning from work in his field; from a bush he heard the clink of coins. He peered in and saw a sannyasi counting them. He stood quietly and listened. The sannyasi tied a hundred coins in his turban, set it on his head. The poor man approached, touched his feet, and said, “Maharaj! By good fortune, I have your darshan. Please come home and accept food.” The sannyasi said, “Son, we usually do not accept food in householders’ homes; but since you have invited with such love, we cannot refuse—let’s go.” The poor man said, “Your great kindness. I will feed you, and I will also give you a rupee as dakshina—poor as I am, I have no more.”

He brought him home and fed him. Then he told his wife, “Bring the rupee kept on the ledge.” She called out from inside, “What rupee? There is no rupee here. Someone has stolen it.” He too went inside, then rushed out and said, “Where has the rupee gone?” The Maharaj was in a fix: a single rupee, and the man poor!

Neighbors gathered. Someone asked, “Did anyone come here in the meantime?” The poor man said, “No one else—only the Maharaj… but there is no question of him. Not a shadow of suspicion.” The people said, “Oh, come off it! Nowadays sadhus can be all kinds— cheats and layabouts. We will have to search him.” So they searched him. They looked everywhere. No one thought of the turban.

The poor man finally said, “Enough now; no need to remove the turban.” At that, one fellow gave it a jerk and pulled it off. The hundred coins fell out. They asked the poor man, “How many coins did you have—any count?” He said, “Exactly a hundred.” They counted—exactly a hundred. There was nothing left to say. They pushed the Maharaj out the door.

That sadhu told me the story and concluded, “Greed is the father of sin.”

I asked him, “That the sannyasi was greedy—I understand. But who was that poor man who brought him home?” This story proves only that one man’s greed lost, but another’s greed won. It does not prove that greed lost; nor does it prove that greed is bad. It may even be that the sannyasi had collected those coins one by one with difficulty, and this poor man cleverly snatched them.

As the sannyasi was leaving, the poor man said, “Maharaj! When will you come again?” He replied, “When there are a hundred coins again!”

I asked that sadhu, “By telling this story, what did you want to say?” I often listen carefully to the stories told by sadhus, because their intent becomes clear—and their stupidity as well. In their stories, foolishness is often on display. This is sheer foolishness: one greed lost; one greed won.

Think a little: if your greed lost, surely someone’s greed won—otherwise how could yours lose? If all your life your greed ended in defeat, then undoubtedly other greeds won. If you lost, someone won. If you lost a throne, someone sat upon it. If grapes did not reach your hand, they reached someone else’s.

Is this defeat of greed, or of ego? Is this melancholy greed’s—or ego’s?

Alexander’s greed does not seem to be losing; it keeps winning. Rockefeller’s or Birla’s greed does not seem to be losing; it keeps winning. Perhaps yours lost. That does not prove greed has lost; it only proves that you could not muster what greed requires to win. And you know this well. But even saying it pains the mind—that I could not reach the grapes. So you say, “The grapes are sour; my whole life filled with sourness.” You never even tasted the grapes. Greed never even won. How did untasted grapes fill your life with sourness?

And remember: if grapes are sour today, tomorrow they ripen and become sweet. Where there is sourness, sweetness can arise; sourness is the first step of sweetness. If you have a taste for flavor, you will know: sweetness without a touch of sour, or sourness without a hint of sweet, is somehow incomplete. When something is both sweet and sour together, its depth of flavor becomes great.

No—this is not an experience of greed; it is an experience of defeat. Greed still sits alive within. And greed itself whispers, “Come, since we lost here, let us pitch our tent elsewhere and win. If we could not make a victory march in this world, let us undertake a victory march of the beyond.” But remember: if you are defeated in the world, you will not win in nirvana. If you could not reach even these small, petty grapes, do you think the grapes of nirvana are weaker, lower than these? If you could not manage the small arrangements here, will you be able to perform the vast undertaking there?

Understand clearly: one who could not be an Alexander will not be a Buddha. Buddhahood is to pluck grapes from an even higher sky; it is the final leap.

That is why it often happens that people tired and defeated by life become “religious.” Because of them, religion becomes dead. Religion does not make them alive; they make religion dead. Their tired, defeated souls, crushed under gloom, make the temples gloomy; celebrations vanish. Look carefully: temples, churches, gurdwaras—you will find defeated, vanquished people there.

They are like what you see in a junkyard—piles of broken-down cars and bicycles. Or go to a hospital: someone’s leg is bandaged, someone’s arm, someone’s ear, someone’s eye. The lame, the limping, the blind, the half-deaf—all gathered.

An even worse plight is that of your temples, mosques, churches: there you will find broken, ruined people. They are junkyards of human beings, where no buyer ever comes. You will not find life dancing there; you will not find life singing. What song can rise from defeat? What dance from ego’s gloom? One thing you will surely find: they slander all those who are winning. They abuse all those whose hands are reaching for grapes or are close to reaching them. Their only relish is the relish of slander.

Aestheticians counted nine rasas—why they left out slander, I do not know! The rasa of sadhus and renunciates is precisely that—slander. “The whole world is wrong, sinful; the whole world is going to hell.” This is their revenge on you. You defeated them, erased them, did not allow their reach to reach; you did not let their hands reach the grapes. Now they have secured their ego anew: “The grapes are sour; and you, fools, are running after grapes. We do not seek this impermanent wealth; we seek the eternal. We seek the everlasting wealth. We do not seek pebbles and stones.”

But you were defeated even in getting pebbles and stones. These diamonds and jewels you talk of—might they not be merely the mind’s consolation? Nowhere is there any sign that a ray is descending into your life.

So I say: do not mistake the defeat of greed for an understanding of greed. Do not cloak greed’s defeat in the garb of renunciation. Great deception is possible; and the subtler the realm you enter, the subtler the deceptions become. Let not the defeat of indulgence return wearing the cloak of renunciation. Look rightly at indulgence; stop worrying about defeat. I tell you: even if you had won, the win would have brought nothing.

Ask the winners—ask Buddha, ask Mahavira. They had everything; their greed was not defeated—remember—it was victorious. They had empires, wealth, homes, beautiful wives, beautiful children—everything, abundance. The grapes were in their hands, and they left them. Not that the grapes were sour—they were sweet.

Even if Buddha were to seek, could he find a wife more beautiful than Yashodhara? I say, the grapes were sweet. Even if Mahavira were to seek, what more beautiful world could he build than the one that was ready-made for him? The grapes were in hand—and sweet.

They did not leave because greed was defeated; greed was in a winning state. They left because they saw greed. Greed’s defeat is futile—and greed’s victory is futile too; greed’s poison is futile—and greed’s nectar is futile as well. Both are dreams. Upon awakening you see both are empty. The real thing is awakening.

We have not worshiped the Alexanders, because they missed the next step. We have worshiped the Buddhas, because they took the step beyond Alexander. Remember: sometimes situations look similar—do not be deceived.

One man begs by the roadside; Buddha too begged by the roadside. Both are beggars—will you distinguish? Both hold a begging bowl—granted—but their inner states are vastly different. One is a beggar—just a beggar. The other is a beggar who was an emperor; a beggar who has known the futility of all. One is a beggar still collecting penny by penny, striving to become an emperor. They look the same.

It is like this: you are climbing a staircase of twenty steps and have reached the tenth. Someone else is coming down the same twenty steps and has also reached the tenth. You both stand upon the same step, but one is going up and the other coming down. Do not be deluded, standing on the same step, that you are in the same place. One is descending; one is ascending.

Buddha has descended from the throne; the beggar is trying to climb it. Births may pass; perhaps he will climb someday. Both stand holding the begging bowl at the same place—but their conditions are very different. Buddha has awakened; the futility of the throne is seen. This beggar still sleeps; he dreams of building a throne.

Do not run away because you were defeated. For if this beggar, out of defeat, tags along with Buddha—which is likely, because he feels, “What’s the point? When Buddha left everything, what’s the point?”—his going along will not be very meaningful. His inner state is different. He will go on telling himself, “In greed there is anxiety, in greed there is harm, in greed there is no essence—greed is this, greed is that.” He will keep persuading himself; he remains unconscious. Greed still holds meaning for him; to suppress that meaning he will repeat, “Greed is poisonous, greed is sin.” He will frighten himself: “If I fall into greed, I shall go to hell. If I avoid greed, I shall go to heaven.” He will create new greeds and raise fears against the old.

But within Buddha, the state is different. There is no opposition to greed now. Greed is not even worthy of opposition. That is why I say: the world is not even worthy of being “renounced.” Do not give it that much value. Even to say “renounce” accords it too much worth. It is a mere dream. Open your eyes—there is nowhere to go. Otherwise one entanglement after another keeps arising.

All our emphasis is this: do not hurry into renunciation; let renunciation arrive of itself. When it comes by itself, it is supremely beautiful. When you impose it, it becomes ugly. When it is spontaneous, its charm is incomparable; it is not of this earth—some ray from another realm descends into your darkness. You become illumined. When you “leave” by effort, you remain you; your abandonment does not take you far.

Let it ripen. Do not be in haste. Fruits, when ripe, fall of themselves. Accept where you are, as you are. If there is greed, there is greed; if there is fear, there is fear. Accept. Just keep this much in mind: slowly, slowly, look with awakening. Keep running in the world of greed—but little by little, begin to run awake. One day, suddenly, you will find you have come to a halt. Not that you had to force yourself to stop; rather, as if the petrol has run out and the car has simply come to a standstill. No brakes had to be applied. The swoon is over; the fuel is spent; suddenly you are standing. The beauty of that standing, the glory of that standing—that alone can be called renunciation.

Where you applied brakes and forced a stop—somehow stood while the engine sputtered and burned and belched smoke—your renunciate monks stand like that, held by forced brakes. Life then becomes an obstruction—both to indulgence and to renunciation. Life should be a natural flow—without obstruction.

Do not grasp, do not drop; awaken. See and understand—and trust understanding. The maturity of understanding brings revolution by itself—and it does.

There is no greater courage than to stand in existence without conclusions. By “without conclusions” I mean: no belief, no superstition. It means: we will see existence as it is, without bringing our notions in between. We will neither say “God is” nor “God is not.” We will neither say “the soul is” nor “the soul is not.” We will inquire.

But inquiry is hard. Inquiry means you must pay a price. Who wants that bother? So we borrow beliefs on credit. We say, Mahavira knew, Buddha knew, Krishna knew—why should we get into the mess? We’ll cling to them, hold their feet, and pass through.

That is not faith; it is only weakness. And the weak do not move. It is not trust to think we can walk to freedom by holding Buddha’s feet. If you have no trust in yourself, how will you trust Buddha? No real trust can be born out of self‑distrust. If you have not yet come to trust yourself, how will you trust the trust you place?

Think a little! You are only increasing your own confusion. If you wobble, you will wobble even walking behind Buddha. Wobbling is not caused by following Buddha; it belongs to your inner state. If you are full of doubt, you may hide it, but you won’t erase it. You may distract yourself, but you won’t end it. You will walk behind Buddha, and inside doubt will keep surging. You will both go and not go.

And if this were an outer journey, it would be easy; it is a profoundly inner journey. To walk behind Buddha means: to go within. There you will be alone; even Buddha will not be with you. The nearer you come to Buddha, the farther you will be from Buddha. The more you understand Buddha, the more you begin to come close to yourself.

Ultimately the use of the Buddhas is only this: they leave you utterly to yourself. They make you such that you need no belief, no creed, no reliance.

Man wants to believe quickly. Why? To avoid the search. The search feels arduous. So we accept any assertion. Someone says, “There is God,” and we accept. Someone says, “There is no God,” and we accept that too. Therefore your mind is a paradox.

You have accepted many people’s sayings. They are opposite, antagonistic, contradictory. Inside, they keep quarreling. A Mahabharat rages within you. One voice says, “There is God”; another, “There is not.” One says, “This is right”; another, “Utterly wrong.” In such a Kurukshetra, in such conflict, how will you arrive anywhere?

Those who know have said: drop all concepts. Be without beliefs. Come to the empty state. Remove all of it. It is junk. When you hold no concept within, your eyes become clear. No waves of thought ripple on them. Like a lake utterly still, not a single wave arises—so will your eye be when no idea or belief moves within you. In that wave‑less eye the glimpse of truth appears.

Beliefs are not needed. When truth stands before you, when you can look directly, face to face, why be troubled with beliefs? Beliefs never help you to see; they prevent seeing.

The moment you form a belief, you drop a curtain. Then you see only what your belief can show you. You do not see what is; you see what is in your belief. You’ll recognize your belief everywhere and keep strengthening it. And what goes against your belief you won’t see at all; toward it you become blind and deaf.

Then you are shut inside yourself, walled in. You are imprisoned. This prison must be broken. Granted, it gives consolation. Without doing anything, without seeking, without effort, sitting at home you become a “knower.” If only wisdom were so free! If only truth were so cheap!

Truth is self‑revolution. You must pass through fire; only then does gold brighten—only then will you be refined.

And the greatest fire is this: to stand without beliefs. Then the vast void surrounds you. No support anywhere. No ground remains beneath the feet.

Where have you come from? You don’t know. Where are you going? You don’t know. Who are you? You don’t know. In such a deeply helpless state—knowing nothing: why I am, for what I am, who I am—panic arises, restlessness surges. Every hair trembles.

All around spreads the great void—endless! In this void we feel so small, like nothing—less than a straw. And these fierce gales of the void! These tremendous storms! This immense play of life and death! And we know nothing. And we are a tiny straw—not even that.

Great panic comes. The mind wants to find support quickly. Accept that God made the world—and relief comes. So there is God! He made us, and he made man in his own image—how delightful! We aren’t small; we aren’t straw; God made us. God’s stamp is on us. God is our creator.

By believing in God, we have created ground under our feet; now there is no fear. If he made us, he will care; if he made us, he will bring us to the goal. If he made us in his own image, we are no longer ordinary—we are the image of God. Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman.

Now great comfort. Now no difficulty. Over the immensity a curtain has fallen, and man has seated himself on a peak—the peak of belief.

This is why the believers live so frightened. Touch their belief, pull it from under their feet, and they are ready to kill and be killed. You do not even realize what you are doing. You are pulling down their whole house. It wasn’t merely a notion; it was their home. Not merely a belief; their nest. Not merely an idea; their support. You have flung them back into darkness, back into chaos. You have reawakened their doubts.

I have heard: A man was traveling, a thin, timid fellow. He entered a train and asked a man reading a newspaper, “Is this train going to London?” The man, absorbed in his paper, said, “Yes, to London.” But he said it in such a way that the timid fellow felt no reassurance. He sat for a while, then asked again, “Brother, truly, is this train going to London?”

The reader, irritated, said, “I’ve told you once: it’s going to London. Don’t you see it’s written? It’s on the coach, and inside too. Sit quietly. Can’t you read?”

The poor man shrank into his seat and sat quiet. At the next station another man got in and asked the timid fellow, “Is this train going to London?” He said, “Oh God! You’ve sown doubt again. Somehow I’d settled myself that it is going to London; and now you come asking, ‘Is it going to London?’ Inside, my mind was asking the same: Is it really going? Where is it going?”

Think a little: where is this whole caravan of life going? If you accept God, then it is going somewhere. If you accept liberation, then it is going somewhere. But if there is no liberation, no God, if you hold no belief, no scripture—then where is it going?

Then each moment you live in emptiness. And to live in emptiness takes great courage. I call that one a sannyasin who dares to live in the void.

It is a bold daring—but from that very daring the soul is born. From that very challenge, slowly your feet find their ground. The day you learn to stand in the void, no one will be able to pull it away. God—anyone can pull away.

That is why Buddha did not speak of God. What is the use? Only words remain. Buddha spoke of emptiness—shunya. No belief is needed. Live this moment; do not ask about the next. Why ask? Live this one rightly. From this living the next will be born. Stand quietly. In this emptiness, look with an empty eye.

When the empty eye meets the sky’s emptiness, between the two, the experience of truth arises.

Carry no idea—go naked. Belief‑less. Free of the garments of doctrine. Take no theory, no scripture, no creed—stand straight in stark emptiness—un‑knowing; nothing known. Until it is known, how can you believe? Whoever believed has gone astray.

I am not telling you to adopt the opposite beliefs. Some say, “God is”: they are believers. Some say, “God is not”: they are believers too. Both are beliefs. Both are weak. One seeks support in God’s being; one seeks support in God’s non‑being. Even God’s nonexistence becomes a great support.

If you frequent prostitutes, then God’s nonexistence is a support: you can go freely. There is no God. If you are a thief, dishonest, God’s nonexistence is a great support. No God, no sin or virtue. All becomes dust; the game is over. Saint and sinner are equal in the grave. No value anywhere. No meaning to life anywhere.

Support found! Now you can cheat, steal, pick pockets at ease. No voice of conscience will arise: “Don’t.”

So people seek supports both in atheism and in theism. Religious is the one who seeks not a support, but truth; who seeks not consolation, but truth; who seeks not comfort, but truth.

But the search for truth is a little long, because you must search yourself. What another has found will not work for you. You must begin again from A, B, C. The journey Buddha made, you will also have to make. It is not that, since he has done it, you can borrow his map and travel.

Truth is such a living thing that it has no fixed roads; a map cannot be made. Truth is so alive, so dynamic, that it has no fixed address.

Where Buddha found it, it is not necessary that you will find it there. You are different; your way of being is different. You will find it elsewhere. In the form and face in which Buddha knew, you will not know. Your God, your truth, will be different. Truth is one.

The moon rises in the sky—there is one moon. Rivers and streams are thousands, ponds and lakes are thousands; in all there will be reflections; in each, a different reflection. Some rivers will be clear, some muddy. Some will have waves, some be still. Some lakes will sleep silently, some will be in storm and gale. Reflections will appear everywhere—the moon is one. The news is of the one moon, yet the reflections everywhere are different.

God has peeped into you as well, but your lake will make the reflection. He peeped into Buddha too, yet the reflection came out different. Mirrors differ; reflections will differ. That which is reflected is one.

Therefore never load yourself with others’ borrowed beliefs. If you clutch those beliefs, you will be in great difficulty. First, because of those beliefs you will not journey at all. You “know” already—where is there to go? What is there to seek? You will sit at home. And remember, the truth is:

In this world, only movement brings blessing.
Whoever has searched has found something.
Whoever has searched has found something.

You want it free. What comes to Buddha through endless hardship, what comes to Jesus on the cross—you want for free. What comes to Mahavira through great austerity—you want to get merely by reading scriptures.

Were there no scriptures in Mahavira’s time? He could have read and attained. Were there no scriptures in Buddha’s time? He too could have read and attained. What madness seized Jesus? Why the cross? He could have found it by praying in a corner of his home.

No. Truth is not cheap; you must pay its price. And there is only one way to pay: by the total surrender of yourself.

Beliefs hold you back. They console you; they support you. They are wine. Drinking them, you forget. Fear lessens.

I have heard: A circus was traveling by train. One carriage opened and a tiger escaped. The train halted somewhere—in the forest at night. The manager gathered ten or fifteen strong men and gave them liquor. They had to go into the dark forest and catch the tiger. Without drink, why would anyone go?

One man refused to drink. They told him, “It’s night, the forest is dark—drink. It will keep you warm.” He said, “I have no objection to drinking otherwise, but never in a moment like this. Night, darkness, forest, a tiger—and we should be unconscious! That is precisely why we don’t drink.”

Life is a dark night; the roads are unknown; death lurks everywhere—do not walk in a stupor. The mind says, “Get intoxicated, then you won’t worry.” That is the danger. In intoxication a man will even wrestle with a tiger, with death.

So thousands of wines are poured into man so he forgets life’s fears—death, danger, the void.

Suppose you send men to war! You must first give them the liquor of nationalism: “Better than the whole world is our Hindustan.” What madness is this? First pour the wine—then the man will be ready to kill and be killed. “May our flag fly high!” When nothing else remains to be crazy about, we raise flags. And why should flags be high? Raising flags, how many people have been butchered!

If someone came from Mars, he would be shocked: “What has happened to these people? They raise flags and cut one another down!” If so much trouble is about flags, lower them to begin with. Why hang rags on poles and make such a clamor?

But first the poison must be poured. The wine must be given. So the wine of nationality is given. Then send men to be slaughtered in war; they go in a kind of ecstasy, to the tune of bands. They are going to die—yet they go as if to a festival.

And if you want to make Hindu and Muslim fight, first pour the wine that “Hindu Dharma alone is true,” or “Islam alone is true.” When they are drunk, make them fight.

The whole earth is almost mad. The wines of beliefs are everywhere—some are communists, some fascists, some Hindus, some Muslims, some Jains, some Christians, some Indians, some Chinese. Thousands of wines have been poured.

Night is dark; around spreads the terrifying void. You do not know yourself—who you are. You do not know where you are going. You do not know that death surrounds you on all sides.

But consolation remains. Drink the wine and “courage” remains. Such courage is dangerous; it makes you stupid.

If you walk without beliefs, you will have to walk carefully. Every inch is risky; every breath is risk. If you hold no belief, you must walk with care. You cannot walk carelessly.

This is why Buddha insisted so much on non‑belief. Because non‑belief teaches you the art of carefulness. And slowly, in that carefulness, you become alert, attentive, watchful. And that is the sutra for going toward truth. The way to know truth is not belief—it is awareness.

The mind has certain laws, certain tricks; one of them is that whatever becomes available, the mind begins to forget it. What is attained starts slipping into oblivion. The nearer something is, the greater the likelihood of forgetting it. The mind remembers what is far away; it cries for what has not been attained. What is attained it slowly begins to forget. The mind’s habit is to be in the future, not in the present.

So if you are close to me—you have come with thousands of desires, with so many dreams, with such feeling—but if you stay here near me for long, slowly you will begin to forget me. You will be quite surprised: when you were far away, at home, thousands of miles away, there you remembered so much, you pined so much; now you are close, and a distance starts growing.

It is necessary to understand and break this law of the mind. Break it; that very breaking is meditation. Meditation means: wake up to what is, and drop worrying about what is not. The mind’s law is the opposite: sleep toward what is, and stay awake toward what is not. The whole game of the mind is to relate itself to the lack.

If you have a hundred thousand rupees, the mind does not look at them; it keeps calculating how to get the million you don’t have. When you didn’t have a hundred thousand, only ten thousand, it used to think of a hundred thousand. Now you have a hundred thousand, it thinks of a million. When you had ten thousand you thought, “When I have a hundred thousand, I will be so delighted.” Now you are not delighted at all. You have a hundred thousand, and you say, “When I have a million, then I will be delighted.” Even with a million you will not be delighted—because you have not caught hold of the very formula of the mind. It will say, “It should be a hundred million.” It keeps pushing the target ahead.

The mind is like the horizon touching the earth. It is nowhere in fact; it only appears to be. You move forward and it also moves forward.

Wherever you arrive, the mind moves away from there. The mind starts running ahead, going somewhere else. It always runs ahead of you. Wherever you are, it is never there. You are in the temple, it is in the shop. You are in the shop, it is in the temple. You are in the marketplace, it thinks of the Himalayas. You reach the Himalayas, it starts thinking of the marketplace.

Understand this game of the mind. If you don’t, gradually you will find that while living near me you have gone very far. This has nothing to do with me; it is related only to the stupor of your mind.

Many times I even send people away from me. Only for this reason: when I see that their minds are gathering too much dust—now they only appear to be near me but they are not—then I send them away. They feel very hurt. They think I am removing them, driving them away, leaving them.

No, I am neither leaving them nor removing them. Sending them far is necessary so that they remember me again. And once they go far, remembrance begins to arise.

Just four days ago, a sannyasin from San Francisco, Amitabh, had a great wish to come. For a year he had wanted to come. He wound up his work there and came to live here near me forever. In two or three months the dust settled. For the last two or three months he has been constantly thinking of going back. He was afraid I might refuse. He came to ask me. I said, “By all means, go happily. I myself was thinking that now the time has come.”

He was a little startled. He said, “What are you saying?”
“I myself was thinking that now I must send you. Go now. And don’t be in a hurry to return.”
He said, “How did you know? Because I too was thinking that now I will stay there a little longer. But you are spoiling everything. The moment I heard you say, ‘Don’t hurry back,’ a hurry has arisen within me. I will return in three weeks.”
I said, “What is the hurry? And if you feel like settling there forever, then settle there forever.”
I am afraid he won’t even last three weeks! The moment he reaches San Francisco, Poona will begin to be remembered. In Poona, San Francisco is remembered.

Understand this setup of the mind, and do not let it keep playing this game. Otherwise, very often—indeed, always—it has happened that those who were with Buddha missed. And for thousands of years they have been remembering him. Now they weep, now they shed tears, now they build temples, now they worship. Yet there was a time when this man was alive, and even then such moments came that Buddha passed through your village while you sat in your shop, busy with work, and you did not even go to see him.

It happened. When Buddha was about to die, a man came running. He said, “For thirty years I have been thinking, ‘I will go…I will go….’ You passed by my village perhaps ten times, but sometimes there was a wedding at home, sometimes my wife was ill, sometimes there were customers at the shop, sometimes guests arrived. I thought, ‘Some other time…some other time…some other time….’ But now I have heard that you are leaving this world, so I came running.” Buddha said, “Even so, you have hurried. There are some who will come only after I have gone. Late or early, you have at least come—thirty years late, but you have come. Yet some will come only when I am no more.”

Now people will remember Buddha for thousands of years. But not much happens out of that remembrance.

Drop this tendency of the mind. Understand it and drop it. Learn to live in the present. Wherever you are, learn to be there. This is not only about me—if you are sitting by a tree, then be with the tree; don’t run far, far away. The world is vast, the expanse is great; don’t run far away. Be with this little plant. Stay with it a while. When you are, be wholly there. Whatever you do, be totally present in the act. When you eat, just eat—do nothing else. When you bathe, just bathe—do nothing else. And you will be suddenly astonished: even bathing becomes prayer; bathing becomes worship. Eating becomes an offering to God.

Kabir has said, “Whether I rise or sit, it is circumambulation.”
So rising and sitting too become circumambulation of the Divine. It is so; because wherever you rise, wherever you sit, it is His circumambulation. There is none other; so the circumambulation is of Him alone. Wherever you sit is His temple.

Things become very simple if we learn to live in the present. But we make them difficult.
“Love is easy, but we are the ones fond of difficulty;
we turn even an easy task into a hard one.”
What is very simple, we make difficult.

You are with me—what could be simpler than that? Yet you are making even this difficult. If you must go far, then go far; but then be there. Then the flowers of meditation will bloom there. If you are here, then be here; and the flowers of meditation will bloom here.

The flowers of meditation bloom wherever your connection is joined to the present.

God’s way of being is the present; the mind’s way of being is the future. Hence the mind and God never meet. They are like parallel tracks: they run side by side, but never meet. The lines of the soul and of the mind are parallel. The soul is in the present, the mind is in the future; they run alongside.

Have you seen railway tracks? They run together for thousands of miles, but they never meet. If you want to meet yourself, let this habit of the mind go. If you want to meet me, let this habit go as well. Because to meet me has no other meaning; it is just another name for meeting yourself.

What we have just completed is the other side of the same question. You can be near me and yet far if the mind comes in between. You can be far and yet near if the mind steps aside. If you truly meditate, if you become absorbed, the distances of time and space dissolve. The body knows the distance of time and space, the mind knows it; the soul does not.

Your body may be far away there in Balsar—the question is from friends in Balsar—but the moment you meditate, the moment the mind falls silent, its waves subside, you are freed—freed from Balsar. Then you are nowhere bound. The bird has flown into the sky—into that same open sky where I am; you too are there. What for me is a natural state twenty‑four hours a day, you too can sometimes manage for a moment; then your leap will be into that very state.

What is the meaning of meditation? Meditation means: to descend into samadhi for a moment. And what is the meaning of samadhi? Samadhi means: meditation becoming continuous.

So what is my constant state—where I am twenty‑four hours a day—if in meditation even for a single instant you arrive there, union happens. For a moment you are no longer where you are; you are where I am.

And this question arises only when you come back into the mind; then the mind asks, How is this possible? You are in Balsar, here you were just sitting with eyes closed. No, it cannot be right. Somewhere there must have been a mistake. Perhaps the mind imagined something.

But remember, as long as you can imagine, meditation is not. And even if you imagine me, you will not get that taste from it. It will be your imagination only—just a picture rising upon the mind. It has no value.

But when you become empty—even for a moment, even in the small interval between two thoughts—then there is a difference. You will find me, not as you had imagined, but as if I have surrounded you from all sides. As if you have merged into me and I have merged into you. How to explain the difference between the two? It is the difference of experience.

It is like this: you eat a sweet, and you sit and imagine eating a sweet. What is the difference between the two? Try it; there is no other way to convey it. Do both. Sit and imagine eating sweets, and then eat a sweet; you will know the difference.

Do the same experiment here as well. Do not sit down to meditate—just sit, close your eyes, remember me and imagine. Then it will be your imagination. And then meditate; and when in meditation you are lost and you experience my presence, you will come to know how different the two tastes are. And that taste cannot be explained.

One thing is certain: whoever is ready, anywhere, I am available to them.

It is time to call out love at every door;
it is time to light a new flame in the dark.

Now whichever door is open, I will knock upon it. Whoever descends into meditation, I will be available to them.

Take this experience as deep as you can. Because through this experience the doors within you will begin to open—the doors of your own innermost being, with which you have been unfamiliar. I want to give you only what is already yours, but which you do not remember. I want to awaken in you only that which cannot be given, but can be provoked within.

Just as someone teases the wick of a lamp and it catches fire. The lamp is about to go out, someone stirs the wick. Nothing special is done—the flame is with the lamp, the light is with the lamp, the oil is with the lamp, the lamp belongs to itself—we merely give a slight nudge. I can do no more than this: whenever the flame within you begins to flicker out, I nudge it a little. Soon you will learn the art of kindling yourself. Soon you will begin to kindle your own light.

Value these moments. Be filled with the majesty of these moments. Do not doubt them. The more deeply you can experiment with them and the more you can drown in them, the greater is your good fortune.

That’s all for today.