Es Dhammo Sanantano #32

It isn’t so much about understanding. If you keep getting tangled up in understanding, you will remain uncomprehending.

Life is something to be lived, to be tasted. “Understanding” usually means we are trying to grasp without tasting, to know without living. Hunger won’t be satisfied without eating. When did anyone’s hunger ever vanish by understanding? And once hunger is gone, who bothers about understanding!

Man has learned a basic mistake—to try to fill life with understanding. Life is never filled by understanding; it only breeds an illusion.

Love, and you will know love. Pray, and you will know prayer.
Climb down a few steps of the ego, and you will know egolessness.
Dive and dissolve, and a little awakening to the divine will arise.

But you say, “First we will understand.” You say, “We won’t enter the water until we understand swimming.” If someone waits to understand swimming before stepping into the water, he will never enter. Swimming is understood by swimming. So the first time, it is necessary to enter the water without knowing how to swim. There is risk. But only those who risk bring up the pearls of understanding. You are trying to understand without risk. You want everything to be understood, and not get your hands burned. You want to stand at a distance and have the treasure of understanding come to you, without your taking a single step.

You want to stuff yourself with words—that’s where the miss is. Hence you also fear asking questions, because to ask a question means you will have to set out in search of the answer. Answers are not free; if they were, everyone would have them. Answers aren’t locked away in books for you to open and take. Answers arise in the tussle of life, in the struggle of living. They are not ready‑made. No one else can give them to you—you will have to discover them. At most, another can awaken in you the sense that without seeking you won’t find—that is enough. From another you may catch a thirst so that you must seek, must stake yourself—that is enough...

From the awakened you receive thirst. From the awakened you do not receive answers but the capacity to question. From the awakened your questions are not solved; you receive the courage to stake your life to resolve them.

If only this much becomes clear to you—that nothing will happen by mere understanding—then understanding has done its job. Otherwise, when you think to ask, you will find nothing comes to mind: “What is there to ask?” The intellect says, “Everything is fine.” Don’t make do with “everything is fine.” What has ever been fine about “everything is fine”? “Everything is fine” is the mood of a dimmed heart. Nothing is fine. You say “everything is fine” only when nothing is fine and you don’t want to see it—you whitewash it, cover it up.

When someone asks you, “How are you?” you say, “All right.” Have you noticed how much not‑all‑right is buried under that “all right”? It’s formal. So when you rise to ask, you’ll find nothing seems worth asking—“all is well.” But nothing is well. Thousands of questions are growing inside you. It is natural that questions grow; without them, who ever launched out upon the ocean of life! It is natural that inquiry makes a home within you, that the pain of inquiry is born, that the inquiry drives you half‑mad—until you find truth, do not settle.

Again I tell you: you fear asking because you will have to move. You know this well enough. But you are astoundingly clever at deceiving yourself! So you neither ask, nor do the questions inside you dissolve. How would they dissolve? Who will dissolve them? It is your life; they are your questions. The answers too will be yours; the resolution will be yours. Your throat is thirsty; what will my answers do! You will have to find the lake. At most, I can say this much: I too walked this path; don’t be frightened. However great the thirst grows, do not despair—there is a lake. I can give you that much trust.

What answers I give you are not answers to the questions; they are only so that your courage does not fail, so that you do not lose heart. The road is long, the lake is far; it isn’t free; the path is thorn‑strewn; there is more likelihood of going astray than of arriving. People who came very near have gone astray; just as they were arriving, they took a wrong turn; they had practically arrived and then pitched camp. Two steps more and the lake was there—but they grew tired and thought the goal had come; they closed their eyes and began to dream. I can only tell you this much: the lake exists, and attaining it is your birthright. But it will not happen without seeking.

And why so much fear of seeking? Because seeking means traveling on unknown paths. Seeking means: there are no maps in your hand—otherwise you could follow them; there are no milestones on the way—otherwise you could rely on them. Seeking is difficult because as you walk, the path is made by your walking. The road is not prepared beforehand. It is not a royal highway along which the crowd moves.

That is why I say to you: religion is individual.
A sect deceives you with the promise of a highway. Hindus are going, Muslims are going—you join the procession, such a great crowd is going! But whoever has arrived has arrived alone; remember, crowds never arrive. Whoever has arrived has arrived in utter solitude. Whoever has arrived has arrived so alone that even he himself was not with himself in those moments of arriving. In such a state of empty aloneness someone has arrived that he himself was not present—let alone another. There was no place for another; there wasn’t even room for oneself.

When, seeking and seeking, you are lost, the search is complete. When, seeking and seeking, you forget even that you are, then in some moment—some vast moment—in which even you are not with you, in that very moment God pours down. Then you may call it by names—God, liberation, nirvana, kaivalya—or say nothing at all. One thing is certain and solid: you are not.

The whole work is to disappear. The whole art is the art of effacement.

The lamp’s burning is the home’s shining;
the moth’s dying is the emblem of love.

Only two things are necessary to remember:

The lamp’s burning is the home’s shining.
As the lamp burns, the house fills with light. As you burn—in pain, in longing, in the search—so your inner house will begin to illumine. In your burning the flame is hidden.

Sitting comfortably, cushioned on every side, without taking a single step, and the goal should arrive—you are asking a bit too much; you are asking without deserving. The goal does come; the whole sky surrounds you. The divine does descend into you—but you must seek. At least fulfill the first condition.

The lamp’s burning is the home’s shining.
When the lamp burns, the house is lit; when you burn, the home within is illumined. You must burn the ego just as the wick burns in the lamp.

The moth’s dying is the emblem of love.
And when the moth dies, love is born. When the lamp burns, there is light; when the ego burns—when you burn—there is illumination. And when you are utterly gone, effaced, lost—there is love, the Lord, the divine!

There are no answers to questions; there is samadhan. And samadhan means: when you arrive at samadhi.

I give you so many answers—don’t for a moment think any answer will do your work. You ask, I respond; if I did not, you would feel hurt; if I did not, you would find no reason to be here with me. If I sat here silent, you would depart.

The answers I give are only to keep you lingering a little while longer; to keep you near for a little while; to let you play a little longer with these toys of question and answer. Perhaps the mere passing of time will become the cause of the birth of your awakening. Perhaps, playing with these toys—asking questions, receiving answers—you will come to see: so many questions asked, so many answers received, yet the question stands where it stood; no answer has truly been found. Then perhaps, in the slow ripening of awareness, a moment will come when you drop these toys of questions and answers, open your eyes, and set out in the direction of life—not with intellect alone, but with your totality.

I give you answers knowing they will not serve you. The day you too understand that another’s answers cannot serve anyone else, that very day the journey will begin. These questions and answers are only the talk before the journey. They are to keep you engaged; to ensure you do not grow desolate, that your trust does not fade. When the night is dark, we tell stories to get through it.

I know the dawn is near; I tell stories so you don’t fall asleep. If you stay awake, the morning will flood your eyes. If, staying awake, you glimpse the morning once, you yourself will become morning. The night is long. There is the danger of sleep. I am trying to keep you awake.

All these questions and answers are not really questions and answers. From your side, you ask questions; what I give you you also think must be answers. From my side: because you are not yet ready to set out on the living journey, because you are still entangled in the intellect, I talk a little to the intellect.

People come to me and say, “When you speak, we feel great joy, but in meditation we don’t.” I tell them, “Forget about meditation for now; just keep listening.” And all my effort is that some day you will meditate. But listen a little more; perhaps, in the listening, a day will come when a feeling arises: “Let’s try meditation too.”

People come to me and say, “We listen to you, we read you, but the feeling for sannyas doesn’t arise.” I say, “Forget about sannyas—no worry.” Though all this listening and understanding is so that someday you set out so intensely on the journey that you are ready to dye your whole life.

This ochre color is not only of the clothes. It is a symbol that you have become ready to dye your whole being; that you are ready to go mad; that now, if the world laughs, you are ready to endure it; that if people think your mind has gone a bit off, you are ready to laugh at that too. It only indicates that you will no longer worry about public opinion, about what people say. Because only the one who has dropped the worry of what people say has set out on the path. And the one who cares what people say goes on walking according to people. If truth’s road were laid out by people’s opinions, all would have arrived by now.

The crowd is not decisive; the individual is decisive.

But I tell them, “No worry—leave sannyas aside; keep listening. By staying close, perhaps the ‘illness’ will catch. Truth is contagious.”

All those who have known, all who have awakened, have said one thing with certainty: truth is outside the stream of time—timeless, beyond time. The world is within time—or say, whatever is within time is the world; whatever is outside time is liberation.

You can gather a few glimpses of this in your own life now and then. Consider: when you are unhappy, time seems long. When pain becomes intense and your very life writhes in suffering, time grows lengthy. The clock’s pace remains the same; the clock does not see your pleasure and pain, it knows nothing of them. It moves at its own rhythm, yet an hour passes as if centuries are passing. Whoever has known sorrow has known the long stretch of time; time becomes longer and longer. A loved one is dying, and you sit by their cot through the night; the night becomes so long that many times the mind wonders: will this night ever end? Will morning ever come?

Then you have known moments of happiness too. Happy moments race by, they grow wings and fly. Moments of pain drag their feet like a lame man. In joy, wings sprout; they run, they soar; the clock seems to run fast. A beloved has come home, and the hours pass as if only moments.

In pleasure, time becomes short; in pain, it grows long; in bliss it becomes zero—simply does not exist. If ever you have known a moment of bliss, or if one day you do, you will find that time stops, the clock halts. Everything comes to a standstill. Suddenly the whole existence pauses. The moment your mind stops, time stops there too.

Mind and time are two names for the same thing.

In sorrow the mind drags; therefore time seems to drag. In sorrow the mind moves unwillingly; it does not wish to go. As when a butcher ties a cow and drags her to the slaughterhouse—the cow resists, will not go, digs in her feet, has to be pulled by force—so in sorrow the mind does not want to go, wants to escape suffering, to run away. Sorrow feels like a slaughterhouse. A hidden death is felt in sorrow; time becomes long. The mind balks, hesitates, refuses to move, limps—and time begins to limp; for time is but another name for the mind.

When you are happy, you walk dancing, you sing as you go, you hum along. You run, and time starts to run too; time grows wings. Time means: your mind. And when you are in bliss the mind becomes empty. Only when the mind is not, are you in bliss. No ripple of thought remains; the lake grows utterly silent; no wave comes or goes; the mind is still—as if Buddha is sitting beneath the bodhi tree—everything is arrested. In that stillness suddenly you discover, time too has stopped.

And this stopped state of time is samadhi. This stopped state of time is rightness, samyaktva. This stopped state of time is the birth of true intelligence. In this stilled state of time, the eternal approaches you; you go nowhere—you are still; the sky peers into you; the divine knocks at your door.

What does muhurta mean? Muhurta means: the interval between two moments. A muhurta is no part of the stream of time. One moment has gone, another is arriving; between the two there is a very thin, narrow passage—that is muhurta.

The word got distorted. Now people use it only when they want to travel, to marry, to perform a wedding; then they say, an auspicious muhurta. They go to the astrologer to ask: which muhurta is auspicious? But the word is wondrous.

Auspicious muhurta means: begin any journey—whether of marriage, of love, of work—in a state where the mind stops. Do not begin from the mind, otherwise you will suffer and wander. Begin in a state of no-mind, from emptiness; then only auspiciousness will happen, only benediction. Because when you begin from emptiness, you do not begin—God begins within you.

The meaning of auspicious muhurta is marvelously profound! There is no need to ask an astrologer. It has nothing to do with astrology. It is linked to the inner state, to inner meditation. Whatever you do, let it not arise from craving; let it arise out of utter peace and silence, out of meditation.

Think a little: if your love for a woman or a man begins from a meditative state, then such flowers will bloom in your life, your companionship will become so deep that two will not remain—you will become one. If your love journey begins in the turmoil of lust, seeds are sown in hell—and from that a great hell will arise.

If the journey of love begins from meditation, it began in an auspicious muhurta. If friendship happens in a muhurta, in an auspicious muhurta, in a moment of meditation, that friendship will endure; it will be transcendent; it will go beyond this world. It will not break. The tempests of the world will not be able to erase it; storms will come and make it stronger, for its depth is such, its roots so deep—it has arisen from meditation.

Thus the people of the East slowly discovered this mysterious secret: if you begin anything in a thought-free state, only blessings accrue. That was lost. Even the meaning of muhurta was lost.

Muhurta is a very unique word. Between two moments of time, the little glimpse of the timeless—that is muhurta. Muhurta is not a measure of time; it is a glimpse from outside time. As if for a brief instant the clouds were gone and the moon became visible, then the clouds gathered again—so for a brief instant your thoughts fell away and you saw yourself, experienced the inner light. If the first step is taken in that light, the journey is auspicious—whatever the journey—then there will be no accidents within it. Even if accidents happen, they will prove fortunate. Even curses on that journey will turn into blessings; you moved at the precisely right moment!

Farmers sow seeds awaiting an auspicious muhurta. Even scientists now say that seeds are influenced by your state of feeling. If you sow carelessly, your carelessness leaves its imprint. If you sow with great love, your love leaves its trace. Scientists now say that seeds sown with love sprout more quickly. Seeds sown with neglect do not sprout promptly: what’s the hurry? whom to please? Seeds sown with hatred remain crippled; the plants are withered. Seeds sown with reverence feel your love. And sown in an auspicious muhurta—that is, sown in a moment of meditation—then even the grain that grows from them will be Brahman.

Slowly, very ancient intuitions are gaining scientific grounding. Scientists now say the quality of food is determined by the mental state of the one who prepares it. In this country we used to have only a brahmin cook the food. Brahmin means: one who has tasted the juice of meditation, who has seen muhurta. It does not mean one born in a brahmin household; it means a certain purity, a sanctity. That a brahmin cook the food means: let food be linked with meditation somehow; then you will gain a different kind of satisfaction from it. It will not only nourish the body; it will give strength to your soul as well. If someone cooks with love, with reverence, with joy, as a celebration; if the housewife hums songs, sings hymns while cooking, then a thousand things are added to the food that are not of food, that have no direct connection to food. It will nourish you in a deep way. It will bring a deep peace into life, a contentment.

But now this does not happen. The housewife curses, mutters in anger, bangs utensils in fury, plates break—and amid all that the food is prepared. If such food satisfies the body at all, that is much; even that hope is not quite appropriate. Along with this food, disease is traveling. Along with this food, anger is traveling. Wrong, sick energy is wrapped in this food. This food is poison. It has lost the quality of nectar.

Then, mutual disturbances keep increasing. The husband eats this food; the son eats this food, and these diseases will breed in them, and they will throw these illnesses back upon wife and mother. And the mother will grow more angry, more troubled; the wife more unhappy, more afflicted—and the sequence becomes a vicious circle.

Let every beginning be in an auspicious muhurta. When you rise in the morning, do not hurry. First catch hold of the thread of meditation, then place your feet outside the bed; because to set your feet outside the bed is to begin a great journey. Now for twenty-four hours a new day has begun: new relationships, meetings with people, a thousand things, a thousand events—take a dip in meditation for a moment.

Therefore all religions have said: on rising in the morning, pray—the first act should be prayer, so that the muhurta is set right—then set out on your journey, and nothing will hinder you.

Religions also said: create a few halting places during the day; as Islam says, five times—again and again, catch hold of the auspicious muhurta. If someone truly offers namaz five times a day—not as mere ritual—he will be amazed to find that, while living in the world, he is not of the world. Because again and again, before the dust of the world settles upon him, he bathes; before the world’s disturbance surrounds and sickens him, he is fresh again; he draws strength from the divine; he slips within and dips once more; he returns to the world haloed, suffused with bliss.

At night, fall asleep again only in a moment of meditation. For a moment catch the thread; during the day it will have been lost many times—entanglements, anxieties, thousands of troubles—many times the thread slipped. Catch it again. For night begins a new journey: of dreams and sleep. Catch the thread of meditation again; fall asleep in an auspicious muhurta, so that even in dreams meditation hovers like a shadow; so that through the night a current of continuity flows within you—the current of meditation.

Thus we wove day and night through with meditation.

Muhurta means: before beginning anything, remember yourself, so that every act becomes a cornerstone for self-remembering. Building this edifice happens brick by brick. It does not happen accidentally. One brick of God-remembrance, one brick of self-remembering will have to be placed, then somewhere this house is built. Let every brick be dipped in love and baked in the nature of meditation.

Certainly, what Buddha calls muhurta is what I call the present. You will not be able to catch muhurta if you cannot catch the present. To be in the present is to be without thought, because thoughts cannot exist in the present. To think means: either you think of what is past or of what is to come. How can you think here and now? In this very instant, what will you think? If you become present in this very instant, only presence will remain, thinking will not. Thought-waves move either backward or forward. There is no wave for here and now.

Therefore the meaning of the present is: meditation.

As many times as possible in twenty-four hours, return and touch your own presence. And this can happen anywhere—even while walking on the road. While walking, catch your sense of being; shake off thinking like dust, give the mind a jerk for a little while. Even for a single moment is enough—but in that single moment, ever-new and ever-eternal energy will manifest within you. It is always there; you simply do not peer within.

Your lamp is your own heart;
you yourself are your own illumination.

You keep crying out, “It is very dark,” and I can see that your lamp burns within you. I see your light present within you, healthy and whole, and you keep crying, “Darkness!” You do not look within, because you do not fulfill the first condition of looking within. That condition is: be in the present—the interval between two moments. One moment has gone—it is past; one moment has not yet come—it is future; and the interval between the two is the present. And the interval is very narrow. If you do not look with great subtlety you will miss it; as if you must turn your consciousness into a microscope; as under a microscope minute things become visible which the naked eye cannot see.

All the experiments of meditation are methods to make your consciousness a microscope, so you can see with care and even the tiniest thing is revealed. Scientists have reached the atom. Just as science has explored matter and arrived at the atom, so the saints, yogis, seekers of the mystery—those who have explored the innermost, who have sought consciousness—they have arrived at muhurta, the tiny interval between two moments.

Understand this. The whole quest of science is the quest of matter. Matter means space—expansion, extension, field. The religious have made the whole search in time. Time is not outside; time is within. What is outside is field. They are one. Therefore Albert Einstein made one word for both: spacetime. He did not consider them two. They are not two. Whoever tried to grasp from the side of space is science; and whoever tried to grasp from the side of time is yoga, is religion. As science searches, it becomes subtler and subtler and arrives at the atom. As religion searches, it becomes subtler and subtler and arrives at the interval between two moments—muhurta.

The muhurta is the aspect of the atom; the atom is the aspect of the muhurta. And meditation is the inner microscope. Just as science has been crafting and magnifying the microscope to create the capacity to see the subtler and subtlest, so meditation, yoga, too, have been absorbed in the search for the subtlest.

“The stream of the timeless Lord Buddha called muhurta, and you call the same the present. This makes sense to me, and yet it remains beyond understanding.”

You say it rightly. It will be so. Because this is not something that can be grasped all at once. It becomes understandable, and it also becomes clear that much remains beyond understanding. This is larger than your understanding. If even a corner touches your understanding, that is enough. If your understanding can merely touch it—a mere touch—that is enough. Because the intellect is very small, tiny; truth is vast. It is great good fortune that even this much comes within your reach.

If even this much is grasped—that it somehow seems to make sense—then the step has been taken. Do not worry about what does not make sense; that too will come, slowly. Now expand your understanding. Make your understanding larger. The sky has descended into your courtyard too; now pull down the walls around the courtyard. A little has descended—the courtyard is small; what fault is it of the sky? Nor is it the courtyard’s fault. That so much has descended is itself no small miracle. A vast event like the sky has touched your little courtyard. Now begin to pull down the courtyard walls.

One who is intelligent, once he sees that a little has come within his understanding, holds onto it; with that very support, the long journey happens.

Lao Tzu has said: with single steps a journey of ten thousand miles is completed. What more is needed? A man walks one step at a time.

A tiny lamp throws light for four steps; with that much a man crosses the world’s darkness—move forward, and four steps ahead light begins to fall. If four steps are visible, it is enough.

“This makes sense to me, and yet it remains beyond understanding.”

Whenever something makes sense, it will also be understood that something remains beyond. This is an essential aspect of understanding: a few facets, a glimpse, become clear—and much remains beyond it. A small child holds his father’s hand; the hand is but a little in his own—his entire father is not in his hand—yet it is enough.

If even a little of my hand comes into your hand, it is enough. If even a little of what I tell you comes into your hand, it is enough. With that support you will slowly expand your understanding.

Here is where travelers differ. Some say, “Until we understand fully, we will not step.” Slowly they discover that what once they had understood is also lost—they no longer understand even that.

Others say, “What we have understood we will use; we will make it a ladder, we will fashion a boat of it, we will travel in it. If this much has been understood, the rest will come.” Such travelers set out. What did not make sense yesterday slowly begins to make sense. As your understanding grows, more becomes clear. And in the end, the day your understanding has no boundary, that very day the boundless will be understood—the day you have demolished all the walls of your courtyard.

Be careful: do not focus on the wrong. Be careful: do not focus on lack. Be careful: do not focus on negation. Rejoice in what you do understand. For what you do not yet understand, wait. Do not do the reverse—do not make what you do not understand into a burden and set aside what you do; otherwise you will go nowhere. Slowly you will find that what once had seemed understandable has rusted; it is no longer of use. Keep your attention in the right direction.

This autumn is the pathway to springs;
this season, of doubt or of trust;
this earth—the chariot of the skies.

When you see autumn, see also the springs—because spring is coming.

This autumn is the pathway to springs.

One who sees rightly, to whom right vision—samyak drishti—has become available, is not troubled even by autumn. He says, spring must be on its way.

This autumn is the pathway to springs.

When one door closes, he knows another is opening.

This season, of doubt or of trust.

He catches the search for trust hidden within doubt. Wrong vision generates doubt even out of trust. Right vision catches the edge of trust even within doubt.

Try to understand this a little. It depends on you. You can stand by a rosebush and count thorns—the thorns are there. If you get entangled in thorns, your hands and feet bleeding, you will not be able to see the flower. For in that painful state, what flower? The flower will appear only a colored blotch. Perhaps even in that rosy bloom you will see only blood, because your hands are steeped in blood, your eyes filled with anger, and your mind will be resentful: what was the need to make so many thorns? And when there are so many thorns, how can you trust there will be flowers? Flowers are in flowers; how can they be among thorns? And the one who made so many thorns would not have made flowers at all.

Another person sees the flower, touches it; fills his nostrils with its fragrance. In the flower he has a glimpse of the invisible—something one can scarcely grasp. A unique beauty has descended into the flower! For such a person it will be hard to believe that on a rosebush bearing such wondrous flowers, thorns could exist. And if they do, he will think: surely they must be for the protection of this flower; they must serve its good—there must be some need. Even his enmity with the thorns dissolves when he looks at the flower; for one who looks at the thorns, even his friendship with the flower disappears. Much depends on seeing—everything depends on seeing. Drishti creates srishti: as you see, so is your world.

This autumn is the pathway to springs.

In autumn, see the spring. In autumn, hear the approaching footsteps of the spring. If you listen carefully, you will hear them—because spring is coming. Autumn is preparation—the shedding of old dust and debris; the returning of dead, decayed leaves to the earth; the making of space for new leaves.

Where an old leaf is falling, if you look intently you will find a new one sprouting. Trees are readying to be new again, to be green again. As a snake slips out of its old skin, so do trees shed theirs—that is what you call autumn. It is the prelude to becoming new.

But there are such unwise ones who hear the footsteps of autumn even in spring. Then spring’s beauty is lost. Then even in spring they weep, thinking autumn will come. Flowers cannot make them laugh; they are filled with tears.

This season, of doubt or of trust.

What you have thus far called faith—have you ever looked closely to see whether you have hidden doubt beneath it? You say you believe in God—is it truly believed, or have you simply covered a doubt and concealed it?

Doubt gives pain, it pricks, it rubs raw. Doubt creates unrest. Living with doubt is hard. Sleeping beside doubt in the same bed is difficult. Doubt will wobble you, steal your night’s sleep. So you say, God is. But beneath your “God is,” is there not hidden doubt?

As far as I can see, beneath the faith of most believers there are mounds of doubt’s ash—nothing but heaps of doubt. They have hidden it under a veneer of faith because they lack the courage to confront it and the courage to live doubt—to dare it.

Thus a young person does not believe; he has a little courage. An old person begins to believe. Death draws near; now is the time to cover doubt; now one must accept that God is—for death approaches. Whether he is or not, believing is expedient, profitable. The old start calculating.

So temples and mosques are filled with the old. No one goes there until he has grown old. If you find a young person there, look closely: for some reason he has grown old, and therefore he has come. Otherwise, why would the young be there?

We use faith to cover doubt. But a person of right vision seeks the germ of trust even in his doubt.

If doubt arises in you that there is no God—that itself is proof that you are interested in God. It is proof that you want to know whether God is or is not. It is proof that the sprouts of search are breaking ground within you.

Your doubt is your search for faith. You are seeking trust. So an intelligent person hears, even in his doubt, the first footfalls of trust; he experiences the arrival of spring even in autumn. The foolish one sits hiding doubt beneath his faith. In his temple there is deception; within his namaz, his prayer, his worship, there is nothing but fear. He says to people: “Without fear there is no love.” He explains that all this is happening because of fear. Even his God is the embodiment of fear.

This earth—the chariot of the skies.

One who learns the art of seeing rightly is not opposed to the world—cannot be. In the world he finds the signature of God here and there. A flower blooms here; the fragrance of God arises within him there. A child is born here; within him, a certain consciousness takes birth there. A person dies here; a recognition arises within that all you see outside is fleeting. An emperor falls here; his ambition falls there. He makes this earth the chariot of the heavens.

This earth—the chariot of the skies.

Toward the earth he does not feel condemnation, sin, hell, hatred. Even upon this earth he experiences that the journey to the sky is underway. Certainly the earth moves in the sky. It is a great vehicle. We have not yet made a faster craft; perhaps we never will. Day and night, ceaselessly, unbrokenly, this vehicle runs, circling the sky.

The world is the search for nirvana. The earth is in quest of the heavens. Matter too is on the journey to become consciousness. Bow even to the rock. Once you were a rock; one day the rock will become like you. There will be a gap of time. The path is the same. The rock stands in the same queue where you stand—just far behind.

Life is continuous evolution. Here, nothing is opposed to anything. A shop too lies along the road to the temple. In lust dwell the seeds of love. In love lie the seeds of prayer. In prayer lie the seeds of God.

Remember to see life as a chain of unfoldment. If you are understanding something, in that something lies the possibility of understanding much more. Do not worry about what you do not understand, because it is very vast. If you worry over it, you will be frightened. The road is ten thousand miles long; you have taken one step—if you keep accounts of ten thousand miles, the accounting itself will terrify you. You will waver. Ten thousand miles—and these little steps, and this slight, feeble energy! Such immense darkness—and this tiny lamp of meditation! You will be scared. In your fright, even this little lamp will go out; you will sit where you are. You will not rise again. This is inertia.

If you fixate on the wrong, you become inert. If you keep your eyes on the right and take one step, then in that step you have already crossed the ten thousand miles.

Mahavira has said: whoever has set out has already arrived.

Now this was a very important statement, but a logical disputant stood up against Mahavira. He said, this is wrong. Some things are beyond logic—beyond right and wrong. The one who argued was Mahavira’s own son-in-law. He took away five hundred of Mahavira’s sannyasins with him. To separate five hundred, he must have had some talent for argument. He could break them away from Mahavira! And if you think about it, you too will feel the son-in-law seems correct. He said: “You say, whoever has set out has arrived—this doesn’t fit, because even after setting out, someone can stop. He might set out and then sit down. That a seed is sown—does that make a tree certain? It may not happen.”

But Mahavira was saying something else; he was making a poetic statement; he was not stating a factual report; he was pointing toward a far-reaching direction. He was saying: whoever has set out has already arrived. He meant: the one who has taken one step—where is the difficulty in covering ten thousand miles now? If he does not, that is his choice; but do not say the goal is unattainable. It has been attained in essence. You have taken one step—step by step great distances are covered. Now it is your choice—do not step, sit down, mistake a wayside inn for the destination—that is your whim. But do not say you are incapable of arriving.

In a single tiny drop the whole ocean is hidden. In a single step the whole journey is concealed.

Insecurity simply means: do not let where you are become your destiny. Do not be satisfied with what you are. There is far to go. There is much to be. Much to become. Do not conclude that what you have become is the end of becoming.

This is the mind’s habit. The mind keeps saying, “We’ve arrived!” It takes a few steps and already longs to sit down. The mind is very lazy.

Insecurity means: keep taking new risks; don’t let the mind sit. The sky is vast. Don’t mistake the little nests you’ve made for the last word. There is a long way ahead. If you truly understand, you will see there is no final destination to this journey—journeying itself is the destination. This continual movement is life; stopping is death.

Security means the grave. Can you find any place more secure than a grave? People build their graves while still alive—secure on all sides: no ray of sun, no breeze, no pain of life, no challenge, no struggle—dead! What remains for death to do? When death comes she will regret coming in vain—this one died long ago.

To be alive is to keep the challenge fresh, to keep seeking the new each day. Only in the search for the new will you release the hidden notes within you. Only in the search for the new will you become new. The moment the search for the new stops, you have become old, decrepit, a ruin. Let a river pause for a moment and it begins to foul. Purity is the name of continual flow. A current remains pure and clear only so long as it flows. Be a flowing current.

But in the flowing current there is insecurity. New banks—who knows what they will be like? New places—who knows if there will be shade of trees? New people, new situations—unfamiliar, strange; who knows whether we’ll be able to prevail? “Better to keep fighting the old enemies—we are used to defeating them. Better to endure the old pains—we’ve made friends with them; they hardly hurt now. Better to remain imprisoned in the old place—everything familiar, nothing to fear.”

The unknown frightens. The unfamiliar terrifies. Yet all movement is into the unfamiliar. All movement is into the unknown. The very name of the Unknown is God—That which will forever remain unknown; which, the more you know, the more you see you have not known at all—that is God.

God is not a person sitting somewhere. By now he would have died—how long can one sit? If God were a person he would have died long ago. Persons die; they grow tired; they get bored. Think a little about his “troubles.” You imagine a Person in the sky running the world. You get bored running a small shop! He would have gone mad—so much commotion, endlessly, and he alone responsible for all of it?

No—God is not a person. God is the name of the inexhaustible possibility that never runs out. God is the name of the journey itself. Therefore, whoever stops becomes irreligious; whoever keeps moving is religious.

Buddha said: Charaveti! Charaveti! Keep moving! Keep moving! Do not stop.

Beyond the stars there are still more worlds,
Love still has more tests to come.
Do not be content with this world of color and scent;
There are other gardens, other nests.

Do not be satisfied with a little fragrance you have found in flowers. Do not make do with the little aroma this world has offered—that is only a message that more fragrances are hidden. It is only the first news, the first gate; the whole palace is still ahead, and this palace never runs out.

There are other gardens, other nests;
If one home is lost, why grieve?
There are other stations for sighs and laments.

If one house is gone, don’t panic—there are many more. If one nest falls, don’t be distressed.

These skies are not empty of life—
They are filled with other lives.

These wide expanses are not barren;
Here, hundreds of caravans still pass.

Do not take this one path, this one caravan, as all. There are countless processions, infinite journeys unfolding.

You are a falcon; your work is to fly;
Before you lie still more skies.

You are a bird meant to soar far—do not settle, building nests.

Do not get entangled only in this day and night,
For other times and spaces await you.

More remains to be discovered.

Beyond the stars there are still more worlds,
Love still has more tests to come.

When I call you toward insecurity, I mean only this: the mind makes a tomb of security and hides in the same nest, the same house. It fears the new, is scared of the unfamiliar, avoids the unknown. So if you are a Hindu who goes daily to a temple—go sometimes to a mosque too. Something happens there as well—another caravan! If you are a Muslim, don’t stick only to the mosque; something happens in the temple too—another caravan!

As life opens many doors, don’t insist on just one. Why narrow yourself with your own hands? Why say, “I am a Hindu,” “I am a Muslim,” “I am a Christian,” “I am a Jain”? Why keep building houses? Does the open sky not suit you? Does the open sky make you nervous? If you cannot live without drawing boundaries around you, then slavery has become your habit; the prison has become your addiction.

The journey is long; make no house anywhere. I am not saying don’t stop anywhere for the night to rest. For the night, an inn is fine. But remember: all houses are inns. When morning comes, get up and move on. Let no belief of the mind, no scripture, no sect become your house. Remain forever free to go, feet always ready to travel—be a nomad!

This is a beautiful word. It means: one whose home is upon his shoulder. Khana means house; dosh means shoulder—khānābadōsh: whose house is on his shoulder. The authentic being of a human depends on this nomadhood. Those who have not bound themselves anywhere are the ones who have known, recognized, explored, and lived this world most deeply.

This does not mean they never stopped to rest in the shade of a tree. It does not mean they never built homes or families. It means they remembered always: all are inns, dharamshalas—stop, and then move on. There is no destination anywhere; there are only halts. Pitch the tent for the night; at dawn, pull it up. Only then will you find that, gradually, those realms beyond the stars begin to be available to you.

You are pressing your own neck down to the ground—you were made to fly, yet you do not use your wings.

Insecurity means nothing more than this: a constant readiness to risk the new.

Even those who walk with me create a new kind of security. Sometimes they come and say, “Yesterday you said something else; today you say something different….” Let yesterday go—it was an inn. I didn’t stop at yesterday; why did you? If you walk with me, stopping is not possible. That is why it is difficult.

While Buddha lived, people found it difficult to walk with him, because he was like quicksilver—clench your fist and it slips away. Once he died, a sect was born; no more trouble—the matter is finished; full stop. Now Buddha won’t create “mischief.” Now we have him in our fist. Now a scripture can be made.

Buddhahood is a journey. As soon as the Buddha dies, you make a scripture, a sect. To walk with Buddhas is hard; to worship them is easy. To be with them is difficult; to match your step with theirs is difficult—because your habit is to build houses, and theirs is to demolish houses.

You are nest-lovers; you build homes and then fear to leave them. You say, “Yesterday you said this.” Yesterday is gone—so much water has flowed in the Ganges! You don’t say to the Ganges, “Yesterday you were different; today you are different.” You don’t say to the sun, “Yesterday you had one kind of clouds; today another.” You don’t say to the moon, “Yesterday your glow was one way; today another.”

One who truly lives moment to moment you will always find changing. Stones remain where they are; trees at least stand; animals and birds—do they remain in one place?

I have heard of a simpleton, Sheikh Chilli. He bought sweets at a shop at night. He paid a rupee; eight annas were to be returned, but there was no small change. The shopkeeper said, “Come in the morning and take it.” Sheikh Chilli looked around and said, “We should fix something, lest things change. I’d better find a marker.” He found one. Next morning he came and said, “I knew it! You’ve done a dirty trick with my eight annas.”

“What do you mean?” the man asked.

“Return my eight annas. I bought sweets here last night.”

“Are you in your senses? This is a barber’s shop—what sweets?”

“I suspected it last night. But I never imagined that, for eight annas, you’d change your whole business! But I am clever too—see, the bull is sitting in the very same place! I had picked a thing you couldn’t cheat me with. The bull was here and is still here.”

In the night the bull moved—the bull is alive.

Those who have stopped—becoming Jains, Buddhists, Christians—do not see that the shop where sweets once were is no longer there; now it’s a barber’s. They are stuck with dead words. Where once the living Buddha stood, now only his ashes remain; there is nothing there. Worship the ashes if you like.

I know your difficulty: you are nest-lovers. You want me to give you some fixed doctrine, to free you from the bother so you can build a house and live comfortably in it.

In the old stories—though life is never like this—you read: the prince married the princess, and then they lived happily ever after. Life never goes that way; that is why the story ends there—beyond that is danger. Films end at the wedding too—music, drums, and then darkness. Real life starts from there.

You want to build a house and then “live happily ever after.” In life, that means: die. In life there will be daily struggles, daily challenges. Life is a daily victory-march. Every day is a Kurukshetra. One who understands this cannot be made miserable; he turns every sorrow into his joy and every stone on the path into a step.

Remember always: become new each day. Remember always: do not let rust gather on you, or the dust of thoughts settle on you; don’t let scriptures weigh you down—remain free.

Only the free can attain moksha. And to be free means free in all directions. If you think liberation will come by arranging life neatly, you are mistaken. Your arrangement will be your prison; you will be safe—but you will be dead.

So the choice is not between security and insecurity; the choice is between security and life. If you choose security, you choose death. If you choose life, you must choose insecurity.

Insecurity means: we are ready every day. We don’t know what will happen, where we will be, how we will be—and why worry now? When that moment comes, we will be there, and with our total life we will meet it; with total awareness we will attempt to resolve it, pass through it, transcend it. One day you will find that this continuity of becoming new is eternal life itself. Eso dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal law.

When the sky is deep blue and the air is ecstatic,
Birds do not linger in their nests.

Leave the hospitals—unless your home is a hospital. Leave the prisons—unless your home is a prison.

Birds do not linger in their nests—
Whoever has wings weighs them against the sky.

Between wings and sky there is a great attraction. And remember: not only are you delighted when you spread your wings—the sky also rejoices. On days when no bird flies, see the sky’s sadness. On days when lines of herons cleave the heavens like silver streams, see the sky’s joy. When birds do not sing, feel the sky’s pain; when they sing, see the sky’s dance.

There is a dialogue—between the individual and the whole, the atom and the vast, the drop and the ocean. A continual dialogue.

You gave wings—would you not give the sky?
Then the line of life ending in death is vain,
The ledger of bitter and sweet meaningless,
Mere deceit if, giving the cuckoo a voice,
You would not also give the spring.
You gave wings—would you not give the sky?

From where the wings come, from there the sky also comes. They come as a pair.

You gave wings—would you not give the sky?
Then what would the wings be for? Such thirst has been given to you—for ever-new peaks; such a deep urge to cross the Kailash—surely, somewhere, some Kailash longs for your feet, thirsts for them, calls to them.
You gave wings—would you not give the sky?
Otherwise things would be terribly wrong.

This is the meaning of God: in existence there is a dialogue; nothing is futile here. Before wings, the sky is. Before hunger, food is. Before thirst, water is.

You gave wings—would you not give the sky?
Then the line of life ending in death is vain,
The ledger of bitter and sweet meaningless,
Mere deceit—
Mere deceit, if, giving the cuckoo a voice,
You would not give the spring.

So do not be afraid. Recognize your deep longing. If your longing is to go far, to rise into the sky, then drop the infatuation with all securities. Don’t be frightened—take the risk. Risk is life.

Wings understand the sky’s
Silent-lipped language.
Not only the throat is thirsty;
The water is just as thirsty for you.

Your throat is not the only one thirsty for water; water is equally thirsty for your throat. The name of this dialogue is God. Between the atom and the vast, a conversation goes on; between the drop and the ocean, a dialogue.

Therefore recognize your longing. Don’t listen to the mind; the mind is dead. Listen to the life-breath within—what does it say? It tells you each day that the life you have built is filled with boredom, hollowness, hypocrisy. You do not sing freely because you are afraid; you do not fly freely because you are nervous; you do not live freely because you fear losing what is in your hand.

If you want the Vast, what is in your hand will have to be released. Hands must be emptied; your life must be emptied. If you want to go ahead, the ground you stand on must be left—otherwise how will you move forward? To climb a step, you must lift your foot from the one beneath you. Yes, the step you were on felt more secure—you knew it—but who knows whether the next step is there?

Trust your longing. If there is an urge in the foot to rise, the step will be there. The urge in the foot and the existence of the step are certain; otherwise the foot would not wish to rise. The name of this certainty is religion. One who understands this does not fear. And when you try it two, four, ten times you will see: “Ah! I sat bound for nothing—there were more and more steps.”

Beyond the stars there are still more worlds,
Love still has more tests to come.
Wings understand the sky’s
Silent-lipped language.
Not only the throat is thirsty;
The water is just as thirsty.

It is true that so long as a person is incomplete, the colors and melodies of life will not stop pursuing him. And it is also true—now this will be a little difficult to grasp—that until those colors and melodies stop pursuing you, you will not be complete. It sounds contradictory. But the fact is just so.

It is like asking whether the egg comes first or the chicken. If I say the egg, that is wrong, because how could the egg come without a chicken to lay it? If I say the chicken, that too is wrong, because how would the chicken appear unless an egg first hatched?

Philosophers have been debating for centuries: the egg or the chicken? They still debate. Some prove the chicken; some prove the egg. I want to tell you that the very assumption that egg and chicken are two is the mistake. That is why such a tangled question arises. The error lies in the way the question is being seen. The egg and the chicken are not two—they are two steps of one process. The egg is the chicken on its way to becoming. The chicken is the egg fulfilled. They are two stations of the same life-energy. So when you split them and ask which is first, you create the difficulty. Which is first?

If the rhythms and melodies of life do not drop, you will not be complete. If you are not complete, the rhythms and melodies will not drop. Then what to do? Understand the rhythms and melodies. Do not get caught in the futile worry of egg and chicken—understand the rhythms and melodies of life. As your understanding of life’s rhythms and melodies, of enjoyment, deepens, the rhythms will begin to fall away; and simultaneously, your completeness will arise. On one side the rhythms drop; on the other, completeness emerges. They are two aspects of a single event.

When you heat water, on one side the water grows hot; on the other, it begins to turn into steam. Does the water first heat to a hundred degrees and only then become steam? Or does steam come first and then the water reach a hundred degrees? No—at the boiling point, both events happen together: here the water is hot, there the steam appears.

As your understanding of life’s hues and tunes deepens—understanding alone, nothing else needs to be done. Whatever you are doing is right for your present state. Do not fall into condemnation. Condemnation arises because people of a higher state call it futile.

It is like this: a small child is playing with toys. You arrive and say, “What foolishness! Stop it! What substance is there in toys?” But you are not speaking rightly. In your stage, toys have no substance; in the child’s stage, they do. And if you snatch the toys away by force, he may never mature enough for toys to become meaningless. If the toys are taken too soon, the longing for them will remain inside; it will keep appearing in new forms.

Think! A little child plays with a toy car; he will grow up and still keep playing with cars. He will get a larger car perhaps, but the game will continue. The same obsession for the car will remain that the child had for his toy car—no real difference.

Little children are conducting weddings of dolls—don’t stop them, let them. Otherwise they will take out a wedding procession of Rama and Sita; they won’t relent. Rama and Sita are just dolls of a bigger size. The game continues. Now it has become more dangerous.

Whatever one is doing in one’s present state is right in that state. Comparison arises when you listen to people of another state; then the trouble begins. Buddha said, “All the colors and melodies are vain.” You are thrown into difficulty! You are not Buddha yet. For you, the colors and melodies were meaningful—hence you were in them. Now Buddha has placed an obstacle. A question arises for you: should you renounce? I say to you, do not be in a hurry to renounce. That is where the renunciate goes wrong. Try to understand.

If Buddha says it, it must be right. But don’t accept it as your belief. If Buddha says it, it must be right—there is no reason he would be wrong. He has passed through your state, gone beyond you; he too played with these games and toys. So whatever he says is likely to be right. But that is Buddha’s statement; do not make it your creed. You try to understand this play. In the very understanding of the play you will slowly see for yourself that Buddha is right. His rightness will become your experience. Suddenly you will find: the toys are slipping away, lying in a corner. One day every child’s toys lie in a corner; then they go to the trash heap; then they are not even remembered. Years pass, and you don’t even remember what happened to those toys without which even sleep was impossible.

Surely you too will move ahead. But do not hurry. In life there can be no haste. Life ripens slowly. The colors and melodies are there—fine. In your state, what is necessary has been given to you. Each person receives what is necessary for his stage. That is the music of life.

Increase understanding. As your understanding rises higher, you will find that what was unnecessary starts dropping, and what is now necessary begins to arrive. Life is always eager to fulfill your need. Not only the throat is thirsty; water too is thirsty.

Keep one thing in mind: wherever you are, live that state as consciously as you can. Completeness will come, and the colors and melodies will fall away. They will fall away, and completeness will come. It will happen together. Do not worry about it. Do not keep accounts of it. Do only this much: wherever you are, as you are, whatever you are doing—without condemnation, without judgment, without becoming a judge, without haste—quietly go on trying to understand. Let every experience deepen your understanding. Every experience—of sorrow and joy, loss and victory, wealth and poverty, palace and begging—let each deepen your understanding, that’s all. Do not let it happen that the experience passes but understanding remains where it was; then you are stuck.

There is only one thing I call sin—and that is: an experience comes and goes, and understanding remains where it was. From this one sin all other sins arise. One mistake—the only mistake!

Anger—you will be angry; I do not deny it. What else can you do? Where you are, it is necessary. But let every anger make you more intelligent; after each anger let your alertness increase; while passing through anger, become filled with the recognition of anger. Slowly you will find that through anger itself you have extracted the fragrance of understanding; that very fragrance frees you from anger. In anger itself lie the foundations for freedom from anger.

Sexual desire is there—don’t worry; but enter sexual desire knowingly, with awareness. From sexual desire itself, slowly, the fragrance of celibacy is distilled—just as the lotus arises from the mud, so from life’s impurities and darkness the beauty of life is born.

Just walk a little awake.

Enough for today.