Es Dhammo Sanantano #30

If there is awareness, the other is neither beneficial nor harmful; if there is awareness, you draw your well-being from everywhere. Without awareness, you draw your ill-being from everywhere. If there is awakening, wherever you are, heaven begins to be created—because of your awakening. If there is no awakening, wherever you are, the stench of hell begins to rise—because of you.

Understand it this way: to live in stupor builds hell; to live awake builds heaven. No one has ever suffered while awake. No one has ever known happiness while asleep. In sleep, at most you can hope for happiness; happiness never arrives. In the hope of happiness you can bear a great deal of suffering, but happiness never arrives. What comes with wakefulness—that alone is happiness.

There is no relation to the other at all. If you understand rightly, there is no other; it is you. Your idea about the other is your own idea. Take someone to be a friend and he becomes a friend; take someone to be an enemy and he becomes an enemy. Your assumption itself...

And when your assumptions fall, when you are free of your assumptions, that is freedom from the world. The world is not outside; it is in the way you look.

I have heard—

One day I sat at the ocean’s edge,
listening to the tale a bubble told.
Just then a paper boat came into view,
standing there with the sorrow of the mountains.
With such a burden set upon it, I wondered,
how is it moving in the current?
It laughed and said, “Desire drives it.
Man does not walk in the world at all.”

Desire drags you along. You are in pain, you live in pain; desire says, “Tomorrow the sun will rise. It’s just a little more night, see it through.” Then tomorrow repeats the same. Again you live in darkness; desire says, “Tomorrow the sun will rise. It’s only a short while—pass it in the hope of the sun while still in the dark.”

Desire gives dreams, and you go on denying the truth of life. Your longing for heaven is a device to forget your present hell. And your coming dawn will never come—because your coming dawn has nothing to do with truth. With a mind full of desire, denser nights are certain to come; desire will build new hells.

What is to be done? See, with wakefulness, what is present. If only you would become present! Then sorrow dissolves by itself. Whoever has awakened has not found suffering. Whoever has awakened has understood that suffering was only the shadow of my own desires.

Imagine you are standing in the sun, and your shadow forms; now run from this shadow as you will, you will not escape it. In the sun, the shadow will keep forming. Rest in some shade and the shadow is gone. Sit beneath a tree and the shadow disappears. In the sun you could not escape it even by running; the shadow pursued you. But by sitting in the shade you are free of the shadow. In stupor you cannot escape sorrow by running; by sitting down in wakefulness, you are free of sorrow.

The Buddha sits under the bodhi tree; the question of fleeing sorrow does not arise—there is no sorrow. In that shade, sorrow’s shadow is lost. You go on running—under the scorching sun, drenched in sweat, sweating blood your whole life; what do you finally get in your hands? What comes into your hands? In the end, after a lifetime of running around, death is what you get.

You see this every day. Every moment someone is dying. Every moment some flower is withering. Every moment some tree is drying up. Death surrounds you on all sides. A funeral bier passes before you; you even shed a few tears in sympathy, but it doesn’t occur to you that this is news of your own bier. This death is not someone else’s; this death has come to your address. The postman has not knocked at anyone else’s door; the postman has knocked at your door.

In every dying state, in every event of death, if you look a little more awake you will find the distilled essence of your life. Only this: that sooner or later you will die. That, step by step, crawling and hobbling, you will reach death’s destination.

Is that any kind of arrival? Is that anything at all? Such a life is pointless. Such a life is colorless. This cannot be true life. Somewhere you have missed it. Perhaps you have had no eyes to see rightly. You have seen wrongly, and that wrong seeing has led you into death. Those who have seen rightly have awakened into the deathless.

Right seeing means: becoming present to what is. The art of being present is called meditation.

And you make a thousand efforts to forget yourself. Your whole endeavor is how to forget yourself. However long you forget yourself, that long is wasted. In that time the sources of the deathless could have been found. In that time further layers of the earth could have been broken. In that time life’s energy could have come closer. Water-sources could have been brought near.

But man’s whole net is of forgetting. Sometimes he forgets in wrong ways, sometimes in “right” ways. But what is wrong and right in forgetting? Sometimes he forgets by drinking wine, sometimes by listening to music. Sometimes he forgets in a brothel, sometimes in the temple, in ritual and worship.

This unbroken process of forgetting—this has to be broken. This chain will build your grave; it will erase you. Do not forget; awake.

And it is most astonishing that if you get this one idea, what more convenience do you want than suffering to awaken you? Suffering can awaken you. Those who made suffering the key to awakening called it tapas, the purifying fire. The sting of suffering is gone. They even made suffering into a staircase. They climbed on suffering. They journeyed upon suffering. They rode suffering. Right now suffering is riding you. You have forgotten that suffering perches on your chest, on your shoulders, on your head; you are being crushed by its weight.

The awakened made even suffering their mount. They rode upon it. What do I mean? I mean they used suffering on the path of awakening.

And remember, when what you call happiness happens, waking up is difficult. In happiness a man drowns in the wine of pleasure. In happiness he easily forgets everything—even himself. But in pain a thorn pricks. If a thorn pierces your foot, how will you forget? If your head aches, how will you forget? If there is pain, how will you forget? If there is pain, you must take great measures to forget; only then will you succeed. In happiness you forget without any measure.

Perhaps you seek happiness precisely because it offers the convenience of forgetting without any effort. When you cannot find happiness, you look for other ways to forget. But is the distilled essence of life merely this—that you forget yourself? Then whether you exist or not, it amounts to the same.

Awaken. Stop the attempts to forget. When suffering comes, look at it. When suffering comes, sit and observe it. When a thorn pricks your foot and pain begins to ripple through your being, do not run—keep company with it. Say, “Pain has come; wait! Let me gaze at you full in the eyes.” Circumambulate it, as you do in a temple. Take it in your hands and examine it, as you would examine jewels.

Become a connoisseur of suffering. Analyze it—how did it come? From where did it come? Why did it come? As you analyze suffering, merely by seeing it you will find a distance has come between you and the pain. The suffering lies somewhere far away—at a great remove. An unbridgeable gulf lies between you and the pain.

Desire... you were linked by the bridge of desire. When you look closely, the bridge of desire collapses. Because when you are looking in total presence, no desire arises in you. The energy that becomes wakefulness is that same energy which becomes desire. Either make it desire, or make it wakefulness. The two never happen together. In a man filled with desire there is no awakening; in a moment filled with awakening there is no desire. They simply do not co-exist. This is the intrinsic science of life.

So whenever you awaken, you will suddenly find you are free of desire. For a moment you too were a buddha. For a moment you too touched Jinahood. For a moment you too flew in the sky. For a moment the earth slipped from you. For a moment gravity lost its pull. For a moment a rain of grace fell upon you.

Even if it happens for a single moment, the key is in your hand. Then it is up to you. Then test and measure as much as you like. Then climb to whatever heights, fly as far as you wish. Once you get the knack...

As it is now...

Literature, art, worship, prayer,
charms and spells, chanting, yoga and indulgence—
they were only excuses by which
we might not come to be mindful of ourselves.

Literature too, art too, worship too, prayer too!
Charms and spells, chanting, yoga and indulgence—
they were only excuses by which
we might not come to be mindful of ourselves.

Somehow keep forgetting ourselves. Somehow keep it from occurring to us that “I am.” Somehow remain busy, entangled. Emptiness frightens. Rather than emptiness you would prefer a life filled with thorns. At least there is some stuffing. Rather than emptiness you prefer to be miserable. At least you have something in your hands—even if it is sorrow! Rather than emptiness you will choose tears. At least the eyes are full, brimming; they are not empty.

Man is very afraid of emptiness. And becoming empty is the house of the divine.

Therefore the Buddha called emptiness meditation. Call meditation emptiness, or emptiness meditation—they are two faces of the same coin.

Wake up and you will discover many things. One: no one has ever given you any suffering. Suddenly there will be a feeling of liberation. No one has ever given you any happiness either. You are free. It was your own net. It was your own play.

In the night’s darkness you yourself sowed the thorns; by day you walked on them and writhed. You longed for happiness; the more intensely you longed, the deeper the thorns of pain went in. The deeper the pain grew, the more you had to deepen the longing for happiness—because to forget this pain you had to imagine even greater happiness, build greater heavens.

The day you look with wakefulness, the whole game becomes transparently clear. Nothing needs to be done. A smile spreads through your body and breath. You only laugh—to see what madness this was! What a game you played with yourself!

The state is almost like waking up in the morning after a dream. In the dream you were so restless, so miserable; in the dream you felt a mountain had fallen upon your chest. Your eyes open and you find—it was your own hand.

As your dream is, so is your life. You are asleep even in the daytime. Your waking is not to be trusted. At night you admit you sleep—of course. The day you also admit that by day you are asleep, that day the real morning will begin for you. With eyes open you are still dreaming. Because your eyes are full of desires. Eyes filled with desires can only dream, they cannot see truth. Your eyes are open, but you are not seeing what is. You are seeing what should be.

Just understand this distinction a little. You have to see what is. You have to drop what should be. The “should-be” is not there at all. And in dropping that non-thing which does not even exist, what obstacles you create!

I have heard: in a village a case came to court. Two friends—old friends—had a brawl. The judge asked what the cause of the quarrel was. They fidgeted a bit. Then one said, “The cause was that he let his buffaloes into my field.”

“Where is the field?” asked the judge.
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Where are the buffaloes?”
The other man said, “Listen, first hear the whole story. We both were sitting on the river sand—old friends—talking. I said to him I was thinking of buying buffaloes. He said, ‘Don’t buy them; better not. Because I am thinking of planting a field of sugarcane. And if you buy buffaloes, some day there will be needless trouble. If they get into the field, what will you do? I won’t be able to tolerate it.’ That second fellow said, ‘So—you’ve planted your field, have you! Because I’m going to buy buffaloes. Don’t plant the field. What can you trust buffaloes for? They are buffaloes; some day they’ll get in. I’m not going to spend day and night running around holding the buffaloes by the tail.’
“The talk heated up and he said, ‘So you’ve bought your buffaloes too! The sugarcane will be planted.’ He drew a line in the sand with his stick and said, ‘Here’s the field.’ And the other said, ‘Then I drove two buffaloes into it with my stick—drew lines that they’d gone in.’ Then we had a head-butting brawl. There is no field, and there are no buffaloes.”

Have you ever noticed how many such head-bashings go on inside you! Don’t laugh; the story is yours. And some day you will be caught by the court. People call that court God. Someday you will stand in God’s court, and you will get into such a fix that you won’t be able to say which were the fields and which were the buffaloes. Even Alexander will have to shrug his shoulders. Because all the fields were imaginary and all the buffaloes imaginary. All the friends imaginary, all the enemies imaginary. Nothing had happened. Desires had collided. Passions had clashed. Future plans had fallen into conflict. In the present there was nothing at all—your hands were empty.

But man lives filled with longings—until he looks a little with wakefulness. With just a little glance from the corner of your eye, look at your life. Just a little! You won’t be able to keep from laughing. Life will seem a mockery to you, a joke—as if someone has made a satire.

The awakened person’s first experience is that here there is no cause for sorrow and no cause for happiness; it is all a web of imagination. And as soon as this is understood, a new sky opens its doors within. Then only I am; there is no happiness, no sorrow. In the realization of this “I,” in this awareness of the self, there is bliss, there is peace.

Bliss is neither happiness nor sorrow. Do not mistake bliss for your happiness. Bliss is not the sum of your pleasures, not the accumulation of your enjoyments; bliss has no relation to your pleasure. Pleasure and pain are tied to each other. Behind every pleasure, pain is tied; behind every pain, pleasure is tied. Bliss is without duality; there is no pair there. Neither pleasure nor pain. There is a peace like that felt after a storm. There is an emptiness like that experienced in death.

And in that awakening you will come to know neither that others have benefited you nor that they have harmed you. Others have done nothing at all. There were no fields for them to let their buffaloes into. Others have done nothing. And if you go deeper into this awakening you will find that the “other” is not there either. He too was only a part of your imagination. He too was only what you had assumed.

We are not separate, not different; we are parts of a single vast consciousness.

I have heard: a worm was slithering in the mud when it met another worm. It said, “I’ve been searching for a long time. I’m bored being alone. I desire marriage.”
The other worm said, “Fool! I am your other half.” A worm has a mouth at both ends. The two mouths had met. It was a single worm, not two.

Whenever you have wanted to marry someone, you have wanted to marry yourself. Whenever you have wanted to befriend someone, you have wanted to befriend yourself. And when you have harbored enmity toward someone, you have harbored it toward yourself. Consciousness is invisible; but in the other is our own end. We are the other’s end. Life is interwoven. Life is one, not many. Wakefulness reveals this.

So what well-being! What ill-being! Who will do well-being! Who will do ill-being! Do not think that the awakened say, “If there is awareness, the other is always beneficial.” The awakened say: if there is awareness, there is only well-being—no ill-being. Because of your awareness, not because of the other; the other is not there at all. In wakefulness, where is the other? These are all the talk of unconsciousness.

There is the candle, the rose, the nightingale, and the moth—
through the whole of the night all this is there; of the dawn, nothing at all.

It is all talk of the night; of the morning, nothing at all. These are the words of unconsciousness.

There is the candle, the rose, the nightingale, and the moth—
through the whole of the night all this is there; of the dawn, nothing at all.

In the morning of awakening, the dreams of night all vanish; none of them remains. It is not that on waking you find fifty percent of the dream was false and fifty percent true. It is not that you find ten percent was true and ninety percent false. It is not even that at least one percent was true and ninety-nine percent false. In the morning you find the dream was one hundred percent false. “Dream” means that which is one hundred percent false.

With awakening it does not seem that anything that went on in stupor was true; with awakening you see it is all gone; it was all false. In stupor, truth cannot be known—not even one percent.

If your eyes are closed, if a fog hangs over awareness, if you do not even know yourself—then how will you know the other? If there is no meeting with the one present within, what kind of meeting will there be with what is present without? If even the nearest is beyond your grasp, how will you catch what is far, stretched to the infinite?

At least take yourself into your fist. And the day you have yourself in your fist, the whole God comes into your hand. Because you are God. You are His very expanse. If even a single wave comes into your grasp, the ocean is in your hand.

Good; it is auspicious, beneficent.

As meditation deepens, you will find that even at night someone within remains awake. The upper layers go to sleep; inside, some corner is lit, illumined. The body sinks into darkness, the mind is lost, yet a ray of consciousness keeps burning on. Within, a witness keeps watch.

Even now, even while you sleep, that witness is present—whether you know it or not. In the morning who says, “I saw dreams at night”? Who remembers the dream? Certainly, alongside the dream someone else was present—standing at a distant shore, watching.

It is like when you go to the cinema and see a web of images. There is nothing on the screen—only a play of light and shadow. You watch; you may get utterly absorbed—so absorbed you forget the screen is blank, you forget it is only light and shadow, all deception, maya. But after three hours when you rise, it all comes back. Outside you discuss whether the film was good, whether it touched your heart. Surely someone remained standing behind. You watched the film, and you also watched the one who was watching.

For the moment it is very faint, very gentle. The light is not intense like the sun; it flickers like a small earthen lamp—but it is. And the earthen lamp is the sun’s own descent. In that little lamp is everything that in the sun is present in vastness.

Kabir says, “When I awakened it seemed as if a thousand, thousand suns had descended at once.” If a thousand suns were to descend, the lamp’s flame would be lost. But for now it is noticed—there is much darkness.

Sometimes in the morning you say, “The night passed in great bliss. No dreams came. There was no tangle of dreams. I slept in deep peace, a very deep sleep.” Who says this? If you were utterly asleep, who remembers it now? Surely you did not sleep completely—someone remained awake. Perhaps you don’t even know who it is that stayed awake! But somewhere deep within, a lamp kept burning.

It burns twenty-four hours. That is your real being. The day you recognize that lamp, you will attain samadhi. The day the flame of that lamp becomes known and familiar, your very own. It is yours, but you have not recognized it. It is yours, but you have forgotten.

Often you have seen: while writing you tuck the pen behind your ear and then start searching for it. Sometimes you wear your spectacles, look through them, and still search for them. Something like that has happened. There is a loss of memory.

So when the first glimmer of meditation begins, when the first anklet of meditation tinkles, this “obstacle” appears. It feels like an obstacle because something new and unprecedented is happening. You will sleep and it will not feel like sleep. If something were going wrong you would feel tired in the morning—that would be the proof. If it is going right, there will be no tiredness. The body will be rested, and along with it there will remain a continuous current, a chain-like state of wakefulness.

Good. In the Gita Krishna says to Arjuna: “When for all beings it is night—ya nisha sarva-bhutanam—then the disciplined one keeps awake—tasyaam jagarti samyami.”

This does not mean the disciplined one sits up all night or stands all night—he would go mad. The disciplined one also rests, but only the body rests. Within, the disciplined one remains awake as a witness.

Ananda stayed with Buddha for years. One day he asked, “I am amazed. Last night I watched you the whole time! Many times when I’ve had to rise in the night I’ve seen that you remain in exactly the same posture in which you lay down. The hand stays where it was; the hand you made into a pillow you do not change all night. The leg rests just so, and remains so. What is this? Do you keep account all night? That would make sleep impossible.” Buddha said, “There is no need to keep account; someone inside remains awake. What is there to change? Once something is placed carefully, it is placed.”

Good, auspicious; do not be afraid. Dreams will slowly disappear. When the witness is awake, dreams cannot be. If there is dreaming, there cannot be witnessing. Good. The dream has fallen away; a sense of wakefulness remains through the night. Gradually it will deepen and grow denser; swiftness and intensity will come. The witness becomes keen—like the edge of a sword.

But in the beginning there will be difficulty. We believe that eight hours of sleep are necessary—this is a notion—and then what is this that is happening? The whole night seems to pass as if awake. And if you remain “as if awake” for eight hours, the night feels very long, as if it will never end. If you sleep, you forget; you do not know when the night began or ended. You sleep and it is morning. But now it feels as if all night it remained morning; all night some inner music kept playing. At first it will seem like an obstacle.

Beloved, first you stole my heart,
and now you’ve snatched the sleep from my eyes.
Wings tire, breath tires, the night grows weary,
but the longing to seek does not tire the mind.
You have snatched the sleep from my eyes.
Patience too has an end somewhere, my dear,
and endurance too has some limit—
you have snatched the sleep from my eyes.

The complaint is natural; fear is natural—I grant it. But do not, out of fear, break this new sequence that has begun within. Receive it with a sense of wonder and gratitude.

Do not complain about it. This is precisely what we are seeking; for this we have set out; this is what we are sowing and shaping, so that the bridge of meditation remains unbroken for twenty-four hours—never slipping from us even for a moment; threaded through. Like the thread in a garland—hidden within each flower and passing into the next. So with every event—night or day, eating or bathing, market or home, solitude or crowd, pleasure or pain, success or failure, life or death—let there be no difference. Let meditation remain like the thread running through all the flowers.

This is what we are cultivating; this is our aspiration. But often when such happenings begin for the first time, restlessness is natural. And in such moments a friend-in-good—a kalyan-mitra—is needed, someone who can say to you, “Do not be afraid.” Someone to give you courage. Someone to say, “The path is not unknown; we have walked here. Here are our footprints. Once we too passed this way. You will pass too. It is a wayside halt.”

Soon the old habit will drop. The body will sleep; you will remain awake. And this is the very distinction that will be established—only then will you know the body is separate and you are separate. Right now you are so mixed that when the body sleeps, you sleep. There is no distinction, no distance, no gap. Gradually a gap will appear. And since you are practicing meditation, the first gap will occur in sleep; keep this in mind.

Different paths have made different experiments, so the gaps appear in different places. Since here we lay the whole emphasis on meditation, the first gap will occur in your sleep. Because waking and sleep are great opposites. When meditation becomes steady, the body will sleep, you will not. Instantly it will be seen that you are separate. How can you be one with this body that sleeps while you remain awake? The difference has appeared, the bridge has broken.

Those who practice fasting find their first separation with food. The body will feel hunger, and inwardly they will find themselves utterly satisfied—the connection broken, the bridge fallen. They know: hunger belongs to the body; fasting belongs to consciousness.

That is why the word upavas is so valuable. Upavas means: to dwell near oneself; to come close to oneself. It has nothing to do with mere not-eating.

It is not a hunger strike. Hunger strikes are done by political leaders; what do they know of upavas? Upavas can be undertaken only by one with a truly saintly mind. Political leaders call their hunger strike “upavas”; they should not. Their hunger strike is violent. They do it to coerce the other, to force the other. It is as if you placed a knife on someone’s chest—only you did not put it on the other’s chest, you put it on your own.

Women have always done exactly this—politicians have only just learned it—they beat their own heads. The one to be struck was the husband, but it isn’t convenient; it isn’t permitted; the scriptures do not approve; the husband is God! The head to bang against the wall was the husband’s—that cannot be—so women have always done this. No one called them satyagrahis; they have always been so. They banged their own heads. But they created such a commotion that the husband had to yield.

A hunger strike is one thing—women have done it since long; politicians have learned it only lately. It is a feminine psychology. Upavas is a far greater thing. A hunger strike means you want to force the other. The one you could not persuade by reason, the one you failed to bring to your way—you now adopt a method that is not right; it is great trickery, great dishonesty.

You are now imposing such coercion that the other cannot even refuse. You want to take advantage of his helplessness.

Upavas means: coming close to oneself. As soon as one comes close to oneself in upavas, one thing becomes clear: hunger is of the body; the soul is always in upavas.

There is a very sweet story. In Krishna’s city, across the Yamuna, a renunciate monk arrived. It was the season of floods, the rains. Krishna told his wife Rukmini, “Go and feed the monk.” She said, “The river is in great flood; there is no way across. Not even boats are running—how can I go?” The story is very sweet. Krishna said, “Go and say to the river: ‘If the monk has been in perpetual upavas, then give way.’”

She did not quite believe it, but when Krishna says it, it must be right. The monk must be a lifelong upavasi. She went and said to the Yamuna, “If the monk is a lifelong upavasi, give way.” It is said the Yamuna parted. She crossed and fed the monk. Then she became anxious: What will she say on the way back? The river is flowing again. The earlier mantra won’t work now—the monk has just eaten. She grew restless and stood there.

The monk asked, “What is the matter?”

She said, “We used a formula to come here; now it is useless. We don’t know how to ask the Yamuna for a path.”

The monk said, “The same formula will work. Say again, ‘If the monk is a lifelong upavasi, let the river give way.’”

She said, “But now I myself cannot believe it. You have just eaten before our eyes—food we brought.”

The monk said, “That makes no difference. This meal does not contradict my upavas; say it.”

It is said she spoke, trembling and hesitant. The monk insisted, so she had to say it. And the Yamuna gave way.

A story is a story, but it is very indicative. The soul is ever fasting; it needs no food. It needs no fuel. The body needs fuel because the body is mortal. The soul is immortal—ever is, always is. Its being requires no other energy. Its own energy is eternal—esa dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal law. It has always been, and will always be. Its energy is everlasting. It does not need daily replenishment. The body has no energy of its own—it is a patchwork, a borrowing. The soul has its own energy—no patchwork, no borrowing. If you do not feed the body it begins to die; keep feeding it and it will live, drag along; it needs fuel day by day.

Through upavas one first comes to know the distinction: hunger is of the body; satiety is of the body. The soul has no hunger; where then is the question of satiety?

One who practices meditation will know: sleep is of the body; wakefulness is of the soul. Wakefulness is its nature; it has never known sleep.

Different paths will know this distinction in different ways. It makes no difference how they know it. From anywhere that this truth is understood, from anywhere one’s hand touches this formula, revolution happens.

Auspicious, beneficent. With very deep gratitude, with a very deep sense of thanks, with thankfulness—silently keep moving ahead.

It is exactly so; it is fifty-fifty. Try a thousand ways to get only happiness—impossible. Try a thousand ways to have only suffering—impossible. Because every pain brings with it an equal measure of pleasure.

Understand: someone praises you—you feel good. But along with that pleasure, your ego swells by the same measure. That very increase in ego will bring you equivalent suffering—if not today, then tomorrow. Now even a small thing will hurt more. Had this person not praised you, and someone else insulted you, the sting would not have been so sharp. This man inflated your vanity. He told you that saints like you are rare in the world. Now if someone comes and calls you un-saintly, the hurt will cut deeper; it wouldn’t have before. To the degree praise gave you pleasure, to that degree your vulnerability to hurt has also increased.

You gain success; now failure will torment you more. Naturally, the higher you climb, the farther you fall. And nothing in life can remain fixed. Climb you will, and fall you will. Succeed you will, and lose you will. Every victory brings defeat in its wake, just as every day brings along its night. They are bound together in a love-knot. Every praise calls its own blame.

And the reverse is equally true: when suffering comes, it increases your capacity for pleasure by the same measure.

Consider: a poor man gets more joy from a meal than a rich man. If a beggar finds food by the roadside, the satiation he experiences is something a wealthy person never knows. The rich have a platter always before them; they have no hunger—so how could there be satiation? Hunger brings satiation. The degree of hunger determines the degree of fulfillment.

So at times a poor man, with dry, coarse bread, tastes a happiness that a wealthy man does not find even in royal delicacies. Have you ever watched a beggar? He sleeps under a tree by the road. Traffic passes, it is midday, and he sleeps with gusto, snoring away. The affluent, the well-appointed, toss and turn at night even in their most lavish bedrooms. All comforts are there, no obstruction—and yet sleep does not come. Because for sleep, labor is needed. Labor brings sleep. If you have rested all day, how will sleep arrive? Rest does not bring sleep!

Life’s logic is deeply paradoxical. That is the difference between the logic of man and the logic of life. A man’s logic says: if you practiced resting all day, then at night you should sleep better. All day you lounged on pillows, barely rose or sat; servants did the work, machines did the work—so with so much practice in resting all day, the night should bring deep sleep. But they won’t sleep; the need is gone.

The man breaking stones on the roadside, the one swinging a hoe in the field, sweating through and through—he is preparing for deep sleep at night. You would think: this man will not be able to sleep. He has made such a disturbance in his body, such restlessness, that it will spread through the night; he won’t sleep. But he will sleep deeply—and you will not.

This is the difference between man’s logic and life’s logic. Life moves through opposites, and the ratio remains equal. Therefore, if you tally accounts at death, the poor and the rich have received an equal measure of happiness and suffering. Beggar and emperor, equal shares of joy and sorrow. In the final accounting—wondrously—there is no difference. Death is a great egalitarian, a communist; it makes all equal. However great your deeds, or if you did nothing at all—it makes no difference. Idle and industrious, rich and poor, successful and unsuccessful, brilliant and dull—death equalizes all. At the moment of dying it suddenly becomes clear that all the ledgers have balanced. It is a fifty-fifty affair.

The earth set up a marketplace of breath,
Day and night bartered the life-force.
But a lifetime of such trading
Could give a human being only a shroud.

The earth set up a marketplace of breath,
Day and night bartered the life-force.
But a lifetime of such trading
Could give a human being only a shroud.

In the end, emperor or fakir—both get equal ground in the earth. The soil absorbs them both. The whole life’s running about seems futile. This does not look like a way to truly earn.

Then is there ever any difference at all?

There is. When a buddha dies, there is a difference. In life he recognized, knew, realized that gain and loss are equal, so he dropped worrying about gain and loss altogether. He stopped this trading. He did not wait for death to stop it; before death arrived he shut the doors of this marketplace. He understood in advance that it all ends up equal, and running in it is futile. He turned his gaze inward. He let his eyelids close.

He began to search for the one he is. Neither gain nor loss—for both gain and loss are outside. Wealth is outside, poverty is outside. So he began to inquire: Who am I to whom gain happens and loss happens? Who am I who succeeds and fails? Who am I who is sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy? He dropped the accounting of pleasure and pain; he took up the concern for the one that I am.

Before death comes, it is essential to know oneself. For those who know themselves before death, death never comes again. Death happens only to the unknowing; buddhas do not die.

Why? Because what you have taken to be life—death will snatch that away. What you have called life, death will take away. And the real life—you never came to know it.

Remember: the enlightened do not die, because what you call life, they have already renounced before death reaches them. In that sense, in your sense of the word, they die before dying; they become as if dead to the outer. And as they become as if dead here—to the outer world, the outward journey—within, the sun rises. Outwardly there may be a crucifix; inwardly a throne is found.

A seed falls into the soil—
Its meaning is simple:
Behold, its destiny has opened.
What royal secret it kept in its heart,
Now it has permission to unfold—
Bud, sprout, leaf, and blossom—
To speak in the language it longs for.
With just one shove of time
That iron chain of helplessness,
Solid and strong, cracks apart.

When a seed falls into the earth, in one sense it dies. To fall into the soil is to die, to make a grave. The seed decays, dissolves; its shell breaks. On one side, death happens. And one day, the very day that death completes, that same day germination happens, the thread of new life begins.

Behold, its destiny has opened.
Now life has emerged.
Now it has permission to unfold
Bud, sprout, leaf, and blossom—
To speak in the language it longs for.

The seed was closed—how could it speak? The seed was closed—how could the song sprout? The seed was in a prison, asleep in deep slumber—how could it rise into open sky? The seed was like a pebble—how could flowers bloom in it?

The seed hung upon a cross; when death completed, there was rebirth. Because in truth nothing dies here. The world does not really know death. Here only false notions die—those that are not part of existence. Existence does not recognize death. Just as sunlight has never known darkness, so existence has never encountered death. We die here because we do not know ourselves; and what we take ourselves to be, we are not. Here, what dies are deluded assumptions.

Sannyas, sadhana, saintliness—the search for truth—is a search to be freed from false life. One who has seen that gain and loss are equal here will not enter this madness again. One who has seen that in the end the ledger balances, that you are left holding a zero—such a one becomes willing to die to this life. That is the step of sannyas; that is the beginning of being a renunciate.

Sannyas means: death in the outer life, and birth in the inner life. Sannyas means: now we will walk within. We walked outside and saw that this journey leads nowhere; it makes you wander much, walk much, tire much—and at the end there is, again and again, the grave. Again and again the same pit appears, and again and again you sleep in it. Now we will seek that which is eternal.

For that, preparation for death is necessary. That is why in this land we chose the word samadhi. We call a tomb a samadhi, and we also call the consummation of meditation samadhi. Because that too is a tomb; that too is death. You are killed by force; the sannyasin dies by his own will. You are killed by force—and you miss a precious opportunity. The sannyasin dies willingly—and attains a precious opportunity. He has discovered one thing:

A seed falls into the soil—
Its meaning is simple:
Behold, its destiny has opened.

But think a little from the seed’s side. The seed must be afraid—naturally. Terrified—naturally. As it falls from the tree, how it must ache—naturally. How frightened, trembling within: What has happened? I am dying!

When it falls into the soil, is pressed under the earth, would it not be in the same state that you will be in when you die and are buried? How you scream and cry! What an ugly scene you create at the time of death! How hard you try to cling: just a little longer, a little longer—let me hold to the peg a little more. Even when there is no meaning in remaining, you want to stay in the hospital, limbs bound to machines, an oxygen tube in your nose—but somehow remain. The clinging to life is astonishing. You will lie in gutters and rot, but you will not prepare to die.

Think from the seed’s side; it must also panic. How would it know that after dying there will be germination? How would it know it will be permitted to open buds, sprouts, leaves, blossoms? How would it know that this death is not death, but a new beginning? That this death is a new invitation to renew life? How would it know that from the silence of this death a song is about to rise? How could it know? The seed must perish; only then can this happen. The seed will never be able to see it with its own eyes.

Therefore when people come to me and say, “We want to see God,” I say, “You will not be able to.” The seeing will happen, but you will not be there. Have you come prepared to offer even yourself into this oblation? In this yajna, are you ready to make yourself the offering? The seeing will happen, but you will not be. You will not see God—only God sees God. God alone sees Himself. That will happen, but you will have vanished.

You are the seed; without your dissolving there is no way. The moment you dissolve, God happens. You are God already; when you declare your willingness to disappear, you become the vessel. The moment you say, “Now there is no need for me to be; now, You be!”

A seed falls into the soil—
Its meaning is simple:
Behold, its destiny has opened.

Until one renounces this outer life, destiny remains closed. Until one understands the futility of life here—that gain and loss are equal-equal, that there is no way to make even a one percent difference—until then you remain stuck to the shore. And until then, what you have brought within you begins to rot. What you came with remains closed. That is human anguish; that is the torment. What else is suffering?

What is your pain? What is your trouble? Only this: you are not becoming what you came to become. Your destiny is not opening. You are not becoming a tree under whose shade the birds of the sky make their nests. Your flowers are not opening to spread their fragrance into the infinite and dissolve into the boundless. The energy of your life longs to play with the sun’s rays, to rise into the sky; it is not happening. Your lute longs to sing—that is your pain.

In the world there is only one pain: that the seed does not become a tree; that what you were born to bring forth is not coming forth from you; that the seed keeps lying like a knot, like a stone. What you are hiding cannot find expression.

A seed falls into the soil—
Its meaning is simple:
Behold, its destiny has opened.
What royal secret it kept in its heart,
Now it has permission to unfold
Bud, sprout, leaf, and blossom—
To speak in the language it longs for.
With just one shove of time
That iron chain of helplessness,
Solid and strong, cracks apart.

But what time does for a seed, you must do for yourself; time will not do it for you.

With just one shove of time
That iron chain of helplessness,
Solid and strong, cracks apart.

What time does for the seed, you must do yourself. Because the seed is unconscious; the responsibility is not its own. If it happens, it happens; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Responsibility is not upon it.

Do not take this to apply to you. It will not. You must take the step voluntarily. No push of time will topple you. Only if you fall, will you be able to fall.

Man has attained consciousness. With consciousness come freedom and responsibility. A great responsibility. And that responsibility is this: now your death and your life are in your hands. Your heaven and your hell are in your hands. What you will become is in your hands. If you choose not to be, you can remain lying like a seed. It is in your will now. Your destiny no longer depends on anyone else. Your fate is in your hands.

This alone is the difference between you and the seed; otherwise you too are a seed—and within you too God is aching to be revealed.

Fall willingly. Die willingly. Disappear willingly.

In your disappearance lies the sunrise of your destiny.

There are some basic difficulties. Only gradually will you become aware of them. You cannot rush; it takes time. Many times you will interpret, many times you will miss me through your interpretations; only then, slowly, will you realize that because of your interpretations you cannot come close to me at all. You are enclosed in the web of your interpretations. You do not truly hear me. You insert your own meanings into my words.

This is natural. The words come from me, but the meanings—you will put those into them. I can only give the words; it is you who will listen, you who will savor, you who will walk.

So the mistake happens already at the very moment of listening. Slowly you will understand.

While listening, do not think—just listen. Listening is a great art, the greatest art. So great that the awakened ones have said: if one truly listens, liberation happens. Mahavira said: if you become a shravaka—one skilled in listening—then you are liberated. Nothing more need be done, for you are already free. You need only a small recognition of yourself from a Buddha—a slight recognition of your face in the mirror of an awakened one.

Vivekananda used to tell a story: A lioness was pregnant. Leaping from one hillock to another, she gave birth mid-jump. Below, a flock of sheep and goats was passing; the cub fell among them and set off with them. He grew up among sheep. He forgot he was a lion. There was no way for him to know. He bleated, cried, ran like sheep, pushed and jostled in their crowd. He grew up and, because they were vegetarians, he too remained vegetarian.

One day an old lion attacked that flock. He was astonished: the sheep were running—fine, they always run—but how is a lion cub running among them? By now he was grown, taller than the sheep, different in bearing and dignity—yet he was running helter-skelter with the flock. And the sheep were not even disturbed by him. Normally, at a lion’s presence, they would flee as if their life depended on it; but here he too was running, frightened of me!

The old lion was amazed. He chased and with difficulty caught him. Caught, the youngster began to bleat and cry, “Let me go, let me go!” The old lion said, “Wait.” Dragging him, the old lion pulled him to the riverbank. The youngster kept crying and resisting, but the old one brought him to the water. “Now look—just look!”

Both their reflections appeared in the water. In a single instant a revolution happened—perhaps in the thousandth part of a second. The young lion saw: the two faces were the same. “I too am a lion, not a sheep.” A lion’s roar burst forth. The mountain trembled. The forest bristled. The old lion said, “Now go—wherever you wish. The matter is finished.”

This is all a Master can do: catch hold of you. You will bleat—a certainty; you will try to run back—a certainty; you have become used to living among the sheep—the crowd, which is to say the herd—you will dive back into the crowd again and again; to pull you out will be hard. But once you fall into the hands of an old lion, your tricks will not work; he will show you, one way or another, what you truly are.

That’s all there is to it: tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu—That thou art. There is nothing more to say. If you listen rightly, it is done.

So while listening, don’t think. While listening, don’t even ponder; pondering brings in your meanings. While listening, just listen—enough. Later, reflect as much as you like. Because if you have really listened, you will not be able to plant your own meanings. Once my meaning has entered you, you won’t be able to change it. But you don’t let it enter. My word knocks at your mind, and you immediately impose your own meaning. If, while I am speaking, you think alongside me, you will miss.

I notice it often. New people come—if a point seems right, they nod; if it doesn’t, they shake their heads: “No, this doesn’t fit.” I am speaking here; there they are thinking in parallel. Impossible! Then we will run forever like parallel rails—never meeting. Parallel lines never meet.

If you think—while I speak here and you think there—then you will hear only what you have always heard. You will not hear me at all. This doesn’t mean that while I speak you should accept what I say. Acceptance is not the point now—because both acceptance and rejection belong to thinking.

I tell you: don’t think—neither accept nor reject. Be like an open door—let me enter as sunlight enters; do not decide yet. Don’t be in a hurry to judge right or wrong; later, sit and think it through. If it seems not right, close the door. But once sunlight has entered, who has ever bothered about when the door was closed?

So I am not asking you to accept me—that isn’t the concern. What I say is not an opinion, not a thought, not a doctrine; it is a simple fact of life. It is like sunlight. If your door opens even once—if, without your knowing, I enter—you will not be able to close that door again. It is like a fresh breeze.

Yes, you may refuse to open the door at all and continue to live in your stale, fetid air. If you keep reasoning “right or wrong” even before opening, there is the hindrance. For “right” to you will be the stench you are accustomed to. “Right” will be what you have always lived with.

This is utterly new, utterly unfamiliar—unknown. It will not feel “right” to you. You can hammer and chisel it into a shape that seems to fit you, but your hammering will make it wrong. It is very delicate.

As you’ve seen: when glassware is shipped, the box says, “Handle carefully.” What I am telling you is very delicate: Handle carefully! A little care, please. If you hammer it to fit your own meanings, it will shatter right there. Don’t be in a hurry. Just allow me to enter; later, think and decide all you want. If you don’t wish to keep it, close the door again. The sunlight will depart at once—you won’t have to remove it separately. If some fresh air did come in, don’t worry; your stale air is strong enough to distort it. So, don’t be hasty.

Language is a hindrance. And if you think in parallel, language becomes an even greater hindrance. What I want to say—I cannot fully say; if I can convey even a thousandth, that is much. What I want to say is oceanic; if I can place even a drop on your tongue, it is much. What I want to say is like infinite sky; if I can show you even a corner of the courtyard, it is much.

And there you stand, thinking alongside. First, I cannot say it fully because language limits.

Speech—how helplessly it stands
imprisoned in rigid meanings.
Every decision drifts, helpless,
in the stream of ancient doubt.
Truly, like roots in stone
are life’s convictions.
The innocence of wings
tries to define the skies.
Where have words ever defined the sky!

The innocence of wings
tries to define the skies.
Wings do fly in the sky—granted; perhaps they even know a little. But they cannot define the sky. To define, one would have to know the whole sky. To define, one would have to touch the boundary of the sky. Only then could there be a definition—when the perimeter is touched. But the sky has no perimeter—so how define it?

Words fly in the sky of silence, but they cannot define silence. It is enough if a far-flying bird brings back a faint fragrance of the sky in its wings—not a definition. It is enough if the far-flying bird brings a little news; enough if it stirs the bird within you so that it too begins to spread its wings. A definition is not possible.

So what I am saying is not philosophy. You are not to “understand” it—you are to listen. Just that. Listen to me the way you listen to a bird’s song.

The cuckoo sings—do you extract a meaning? There is no meaning there. A flower blooms—do you extract a meaning? There is no meaning there. They are pointers to the Vast, gestures, not meanings.

When I speak to you, treat me the same way—with the same courtesy you offer the cuckoo or a waterfall. Listen. Give me a little space—hesitantly if you must; if not fully, then at least a little. Open the door a crack, give me even a small aperture.

I have brought news from afar—of such a kind that you have no words with which to understand it. And I have none with which to explain it. What I am saying is like a mute making gestures. And the difficulty increases if you are deaf and blind. I am mute; you deaf and blind—the difficulty grows.

All awakened ones experience this muteness: the sweetness a mute tastes. They savor it, but the taste is so great, so vast, that no word can work. No word can contain it.

We dip words again and again into that vastness and offer them to you—don’t spoil them by hurrying to think. It is delicate; it needs care. Hear the invitation; don’t be in a rush to think. No one is asking you to do anything.

People ask me, “You go on speaking so much!” What else can I do? Until you listen, I must speak. At least the complaint will not remain that I did not speak. If you miss, you will miss because of yourself—not because of me.

Wings open of themselves
on receiving the summons of the void.
The nest is forgotten, easily,
in that very instant.

Just listen to my invitation. I have brought a call from very far away. A song you have not heard. A tone unfamiliar. A rhythm unknown to you.

Listen! While listening, do not think. If thoughts arise, set them aside. Say to them, “Forgive me—come a little later.” If you can set them aside even a little, if a tiny space opens, if a single ray slips in anywhere, it will transform you.

My great emphasis is that you listen rightly. Not that you do something.

I do tell you to do small things here and there, because if you feel there is nothing to do, the mind feels lost; it slips further from your grasp. You think something has to be done; I know nothing has to be done—only awakening. And awakening can happen just by listening.

Someone is asleep—what is there to do to awaken him? You shake him gently, you call to him. I am calling you; I am shaking you.

Wings open of themselves
on receiving the summons of the void.
The nest is forgotten, easily,
in that very instant.

The moment the invitation of the vast sky reaches you—even a little—when the sky peeks through your window, your wings will begin to flutter. In that instant you will forget the little house you built, the nest you mistook for life. Under the magic and pull of the Vast, you will forget it. You will fly.

You already have wings. You have only forgotten that you have wings. You have wings; the sky too surrounds you on all sides. But without the memory of wings, how will you know the sky?

Listen. Become a shravaka. Right listening is a great revolution.

Jahid, ask not about the potency of the pure wine;
it is an elixir—if it slips below the throat.

Do not even ask about that sacred wine.
Jahid, ask not about the potency of the pure wine—
that is what I am pouring.

It is an elixir—if it slips below the throat.
The question is whether it passes beneath your throat—whether it descends into your heart. Give it a little passage. Hear my knock; let me in a little.

Who is fortunate to gain the company of the rag-clad drunkards?
Even the puritan, sitting among us, became human.

Who is blessed with the company of the simple-hearted drunkards? If you find it and sit among them, revolution happens by and by.

In the East we have called this satsang—the company of the truth. It means: sitting near those who are intoxicated. The presence of the drunk-on-Truth is wine. The sky around them is wine. The atmosphere around them is wine.

Give a little passage, so that what I am pouring may slip below the throat—down past the gullet into the heart.

The danger is it gets stuck in the throat. If it sticks in the throat, you will start explaining it to others—without knowing it yourself. What sticks in the throat tries to come out; then there is regurgitation, vomiting. What passes below the throat becomes your flesh and marrow—it becomes a living organ of you.

The last question:
Of the questions asked in discourses or darshans, about eighty percent feel like they are mine; for fifteen percent I feel a twinge of envy—if only they were mine; and for the rest I feel relieved they are not mine. Why is this so?

Look a little more carefully, a little more awake, and the matter won’t stop at eighty percent. Look more closely and you will find that even the five percent you think are not yours—those too are yours. Go a little deeper and the fifteen percent that make you envious—“if only they were mine”—those too are yours.

What is the difference from one person to another? The manner of asking differs; the questions are the same. The shapes differ; the substance does not. Every person is seeking the Divine—every person! Whether he has asked or not, whether he knows it or not. As every seed is a seeking for the tree—wants to become a tree—so every person wants to become God.

If you ask me about your questions, I find their manners different, their colors different, their wrappings different. But as soon as you enter within the question, they are all one. That is why I do not need to hear your questions in order to answer; I go on answering. I know them.

If you have looked into one person, you have looked into all. If you have recognized the questions of one, you have recognized the questions of all humanity.

And if you go a little deeper still, you won’t only find that the questions others ask are yours; you will also find that the answers I give are yours.

You yourself are your question,
and you yourself your answer.
What inquiry remains now?
Do not let your lips be tangled in language.
You yourself are the priest,
you yourself the stone of the idol.
Milk circling, searching for butter—
does this foolish effort not offend?
Every hair of the ocean whispers,
“Churn, churn.”
The butter is hidden within you.
Churn, churn.

Enough for today.