Es Dhammo Sanantano #4

Talk is useless. Experience is not. Words like soul, God, liberation—as words, as ideas—are worth two pennies. Only as experience do they have life. Buddha did not call liberation useless; he called talk about liberation useless. He did not call God useless; he called useless the web of doctrines and scriptures woven about God.

Man is such a deceiver he can fool himself with his own talk. By discussing God endlessly you begin to feel you have known God. You know so much about God that it seems you know God. But knowing about God is not knowing God. It is as if a thirsty man, after hearing about water again and again, decides he knows water—yet his thirst won’t be quenched. Has anyone’s thirst ever been quenched by talking about water? Nor will God-talk quench your thirst. And if someone’s thirst does seem to be quenched by it, know that real thirst was never there.

So Buddha says: if you must know, do not think about God—think about yourself. For fundamentally, if you change, if your eyes change, if your way of seeing changes, if your closed windows open, if the darkness of your innermost core fills with light, you will know God. Then there will be no need to talk.

Knowing is silence. It is a deep hush. Then if someone asks you, you will smile. If someone asks, you will fall silent. It is not that you don’t know—now you do. But how to say it? Like a mute tasting sugar—he knows, but cannot tell. Even if you want to speak, the tongue will not move. If you try to speak, silence will seize you. The knowing is so vast it will not fit into words. Before, word-talk was easy. Nothing had been known, so you had no idea what you were saying. When you used the word God, you had no sense of how immense a word you were using. The word “God” was blank, empty. Now experience has happened; the great sky has entered that small word. To bring that little word to your lips now is to make it false. Now there is nothing to say. Now your whole life will speak; you will not.

Therefore Buddha said: don’t talk. This is not a matter for discussion. It must be drunk. It must be lived. It must be experienced. Those who do not know—their talk is useless. Those who know—do not speak of it. Not that they never speak. Buddha spoke a great deal—but not about God. He spoke about man. Man is the disease; God is health. Recognize the disease clearly, find the cause, make the diagnosis, let the treatment happen; what remains when the disease is gone—what remains within you when the “man” in you has vanished—that is God. So long as you are, God is not. You can pound your head, you can assemble a thousand words, you can believe with all your might—your belief will still be yours.

Understand this a little.

You say, “I have faith.” But where is there faith belonging to the “I”? The “I,” at root, is faithless. The “I” is doubt. It is more accurate to say: as long as you are, there is no faith. When you are not, a profound silence will descend, no boundary of yours will be found, you will be so quiet it will seem you have never spoken at all, not even a leaf stirs—such a deep hush will take over within; you will not be—and suddenly you will find the lotus of trust has blossomed. The music of trust has begun. Trust is dancing within you. Your presence is the obstacle.

So Buddha says: it is not a matter of your talking, it is a matter of your falling silent. Therefore Buddha talks about the mind. Mind is the illness, meditation is the medicine, God is the attainment. What is there to say about attainment? Erase the sickness of mind with the medicine of meditation—God is already there. Whether you talk or not, it makes no difference. Those who do not know—if they speak, what will they say? And those who do know—even if they wish to speak, how will they?

It is not that Buddha did not know how to talk. Has there ever been a more skillful speaker? He could play with words—he was masterful. But his inner knowing restrains him.

Pandits go on chattering; they have no idea what they are saying. The enlightened fall silent, because they know. How can the most sacred be said? Bring it to the lips and it becomes false. Words are too small. Can they contain the vast? They cannot. It is like trying to bind the sky in your fist—the fist will close, the sky will remain outside. In the same way words get bound, and God remains outside. The word “God” is not God. Your rote of “God, God” has nothing to do with God; it is a disease of your mind.

We do know the truth of Paradise, but
to console the heart, Ghalib, this fancy is pleasing.

You know it well. Your heaven, your liberation, your God—you know very well the truth of them: this “God” of yours is nothing. It is overheard talk. A rumor. You heard it from others, hummed it within, read it in the scriptures. The word entered the mind, became a conditioning.

We do know the truth of Paradise, but
to console the heart, Ghalib, this fancy is pleasing.

And you also know what your heaven really means: an extension of your own dream. You know what your “God” is: the sentinel of your own desires. You know why you clutch at these words, these doctrines: because you are frightened, lonely, afraid; you need a prop—even a false one.

We do know the truth of Paradise, but
to console the heart, Ghalib, this fancy is pleasing.

In your loneliness you entertain the heart, you fill it with someone. Your God is not true—because you are still too real. You are too substantial. You will not give Him room. You are the obstacle. Other than you, there is no one standing between you and God.

Therefore Buddha says: understand the mind. Mind means you. Mind means man. Where mind disappears, there is meditation. And where meditation is, there is God.

There are two modes of your being: mind and meditation. Notice: when you are sick, it is still you; when you are healthy, it is still you. Illness and health are two modes of your being. Illness is restlessness, pain, suffering. Health is peace: as if a lost wanderer has found his way home, as if the weary have found the tree’s shade. Health is ease. That too is a mode of your being.

So one mode of your being is man—the illness, mind. And one mode is meditation—health, God. When you are healthy, you are divine. When you are ill, you are human.

The wave is quiet. The full moon is in the sky. No ripples rise on the lake. The lake becomes a mirror; the moon is seen whole. Then a gust of wind. A wave rises. The lake trembles, the mirror shatters. The moon breaks into a thousand pieces. The lake is the same. The moon is the same. But the trembling lake is a sick lake. You are the same. God is the same. Truth is the same. Only you are trembling. This trembling consciousness is called mind. Unshaken consciousness is called meditation. When the lake falls still, no ripples rise—you are at peace.

Do not carry away the mind’s way of talking that “in the quiet state there is a meeting with God.” Do not take this along.

Therefore Buddha says: do not start this discussion. No benefit comes; much harm is done. No one understands; misunderstanding multiplies. Do not start it. Say only this, briefly: how can this mind fall silent? How can these waves go to sleep? How can the lake become healthy? How can the reflection of God be formed in it?

“Reflection”—this too is only talk. But the difficulty is: however you point, you must bring words. Yet the reality is: when the lake is utterly still, it becomes the moon. How to say that? When you are completely silent, there is no meeting with God—you become God. In agitation you take yourself to be human; you cannot accept you are divine. How could you? So much pain—and you are God? So much poverty—and you are God? Man is poor. He can accept he is God only when supreme majesty manifests in life—when inner splendor arises—when such a moment comes within that you feel everything is yours, all is you, the moon and stars move within you, and at the gesture of your hand the world moves; you are the consecrating life of this world; you are at its center. You are not a stranger here, not an uninvited guest. You are the owner of the house. You are not the guest—you are the host.

Zen fakirs say man has two states. One: he takes himself to be the guest. Two: he takes himself to be the host. That is the only difference. Right now in the world you are as if here by force. As if you were not invited, yet you came. As if you are an enemy—fighting. The other mode is calm: you are not fighting. You are not a guest; you yourself are the host. No one invited you; you are the master. Then lordliness arises within. The divine manifests.

Buddha says: your God is like a rumor you have heard.

There is a noise of existence—but what trust in it?
It seems like some false news someone has let loose.

We hear so much talk of God.

There is a noise of existence—but what trust in it?

How can trust arise? How can faith be?

It seems like some false news someone has let loose.

This “God” seems like false news someone floated, and it spread. It passes from one hand to another, from one generation to the next. How to have trust, how to have faith in it?

So Buddha says: do not get into this. Faith is not to be brought toward God. How would you bring it? What you have never known, never seen, never heard, never recognized, never touched, never felt in the heart, whose shadow has never fallen across your life—how will you trust that?

It seems like some false news someone has let loose.

Even with all your striving, faith will not take root. Even if you somehow make it stick, it will remain loose, uprooted. There will be no foundation beneath it. Living on such baseless faith, will you become religious, will you become a theist?

If that were so, the whole earth is already theist. Everyone is a theist: some Christian, some Hindu, some Muslim, some Jain. There are very few atheists on earth. And those you call atheists—if you look closely—you will find them believers too. They may not accept the Bible, the Quran, the Gita; they accept Das Kapital—Marx’s book. They may not worship Krishna or Mahavira; they worship Lenin. If they don’t walk around with the Bible tucked under their arm, they carry Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. What difference does it make? Whether it is Mahavira or Mao, Muhammad or Marx—what difference?

Even those you call atheists have faith—false. They too are believers. They stand opposite, with their backs turned, but their faith is also somewhere. Yet that faith is hollow. Apart from experience there is no foundation.

So Buddha said: base it on experience. Do not start metaphysical debates. When there is a way to know the essence, why this idle chatter? When we can know, when we have eyes, and the moment the eyes open the sun will be seen, why, with eyes closed, discuss the sun? And if the eyes remain closed, then however much talk there is about the sun, it will always seem—

It seems like some false news someone has let loose.

When the eyes open, the sun is true. Then even if the whole world says there is no sun, it makes no difference.

When truth comes into experience, it is self-evident. Then even if the whole world denies it, it makes no difference. No one can unsteady you. And within you now there is no steadiness; your steadiness is false—propped up.

Buddha gave experience, not doctrine. Buddha wanted to give truth, not scripture. Buddha gave wordless knowing, not a net of theories. And there is only one way: to lay your mind out before you, fully analyzed. Recognize your own mind; know your illness; the medicine exists. If the diagnosis is right and the medicine right, you become that which you have been discussing for centuries.

Buddha is not a philosopher. Buddha is a scientist.

Buddha gave rules. Rules have to be given because you lack awareness. If there is awareness, rules become pointless. And behind all of Buddha’s rules the real insistence was on awareness.

Ananda asked, “If a woman comes into view, what should we do?” Buddha said, “Look down. Don’t look.” Ananda asked, “And if a situation arises where one has to look—then what?” Buddha said, “Look, but don’t touch.” Ananda said, “And if a moment comes when one has to touch—then what?” Buddha said, “Keep awareness.”

In the end, it is awareness. “Don’t look” and “don’t touch” are only on the surface. The final moment belongs to awareness. If the real discipline were “Don’t look,” then the blind would attain ultimate knowledge. If it were “Don’t touch,” then cut off your hands—would the maimed become enlightened?

No, Buddha’s ultimate sutra is awareness. And if there is no awareness, what difference does it make if you lower your eyes? With closed eyes the woman keeps appearing. At night she appears in dreams—then what will you do? Your eyes are already closed. In a dream there is no way to close your eyes further; the scene is inside the eyes. Then what will you do? Had I been in Ananda’s place I would have asked, “And what about dreams? If a woman appears in a dream—then what?” And this, too, is a great dream. Buddha understands. If a woman appears in a dream, how will you lower your eyes? They are already lowered. The eyes are closed—there is no further way to close them.

But Buddha’s point is clear. In saying what he did, he spoke for all levels. To the extremely dull-minded he said, “Lower your eyes.” That was for the dullest. To those not so dull he said, “Even if you look, don’t touch.” They too are dull—less so, but still dull. The final sutra is the real sutra, for beyond it there is nothing more. The last discipline is: remember—be aware.

I have dropped the first two sutras. Because two and a half thousand years of experience says they bore no fruit. I am two and a half thousand years after Buddha; some experience comes with that. What has happened in these twenty-five centuries is plain. What happened? The outward rules were broken, of course. Those who got entangled in the outer rules were unnecessarily troubled and wasted. Those who held the last sutra are the ones who survived.

Let me give you an example of how such things happen.

Buddha was staying in a village. A monk was returning with his alms bowl. A kite dropped a piece of meat from its beak; it fell into his alms bowl. Now a great difficulty arose. Buddha says, “Do not eat meat.” And Buddha also says, “Do not refuse whatever is placed in your bowl.” What to do now? A dilemma.

The monk came and asked Buddha, “What shall I do? Two rules are in conflict. You say: whatever anyone puts into your bowl, do not refuse it.”

This had to be said because monks become clever. Look at Jain monks: they signal what to put in. A gesture here: don’t put that. A gesture there: put this. They won’t speak, but they will signal—because Mahavira forbade asking, “Do not ask!” So they signal, “Put this… and a little more.” But they won’t use the mouth. What rules can you make for the dishonest mind? How many laws are there in the world—yet the thief always finds a way through them. What are lawyers for, after all? To find a way through. To tell the thief, “Let them make the rules—we are here. Why worry?” The human mind is argumentative; it is a lawyer. It finds a way.

The monk said, “What is this situation? What to do? You said: do not refuse what is put into the bowl…”

Buddha said that so that monks would not start asking. It is ugly if a Buddhist monk becomes a beggar. A monk is not a beggar. He is not asking for anything. If you give—good; if you don’t—good. He will only bless you. And if he starts asking, he becomes a burden. Suppose he stands before a poor man’s house and demands kheer; if the poor man cannot give, he suffers; if he does give, he is strained. Whatever dry bread the poor can offer—accept that. If he gives nothing, do not harbor ill will or complaint. That is why it was said. Buddha could not know that life is such that a kite might drop a piece of meat. That is an exception. No kite is going to drop meat every day.

But now this Buddhist monk asked, “What shall I do? And you say: do not eat meat.” So the two rules clash.

Rules will always clash, because life is complex. Life does not run by your rules. The monk may keep rules; the kite does not. The kite is not a Buddhist monk to listen to Buddha’s words. The kite, in its own play, let go. Nor did it know it would fall into a monk’s bowl. It didn’t drop it into the bowl on purpose.

Life is made of contingencies. Principles don’t run; they break. Contingencies change every day; principles fall short. Principles are like a suit made for a little child: the child grows, the suit becomes small. Then there are only two options: either enlarge the suit—or press the child down and keep him small. Enlarging the suit seems difficult. Who will do it? Buddha is gone. So let the rule remain—even if man has to remain small, never mind. But the rule cannot be changed. Who will change it? And if you allow changes once, where will you stop?

Buddha pondered. Usually Buddha does not ponder; he closed his eyes. He considered: “This is a knotty matter.” If he said, “You may choose from the bowl and leave what is not appropriate,” he knew the danger: people would throw away what they didn’t like and keep what they did. And a monk should not choose; whatever comes by fate is right. If he said, “Whatever comes, eat,” then what about this piece of meat? Buddha thought: “Kites don’t drop meat every day—perhaps never again. It happened once; it was a coincidence. It is not right to make a rule for a single exception.” So Buddha said, “Don’t worry. Whatever falls into your bowl, eat it. If meat has fallen, it is your fate.”

Buddha thought kites would not be dropping meat daily. But now meat falls into Buddhist monks’ bowls every day—Japan, China, Burma—every day. Now lay followers drop it. And since once Buddha had permitted, “Eat whatever falls into the bowl,” now lay followers put in meat, fish—and the monk eats, because it is the rule. Thus, in the tradition of the world’s greatest apostle of nonviolence, meat-eating became prevalent. The kite started it.

Ultimately, only awareness will help. No other rule will. That is why I have dropped all the elaborate details. Because I know: if you want to break rules you will find a trick. Why put you to the labor of breaking them? And why create the guilt that arises from breaking them?

I give you no rules—so you cannot break them. I give you only awareness. If you can manage it—good; if you cannot—still good. But there will be no dishonesty, no hypocrisy.

“Will you stop me, O boatman, from drowning?
Those who are to drown, drown even in boats.”

The poet is telling the boatman, “You will not be able to save me from drowning; because those who are going to drown, drown even in boats. If it were a matter of drowning in the river, you could save me. But those who must drown, drown in the boat itself—then what will you do?”

“Will you stop me, O boatman, from drowning?
Those who are to drown, drown even in boats.”

All religions drowned—in boats. They drowned in the boat. A rule was made, and they drowned in it. Enough of that. I do not give you a boat. If you must drown, drown in the river; why drown in the boat! At least it can be said you drowned in the river. What kind of thing is this—drowning in the boat? A boat is meant to save. Those who drown in boats—we call them hypocrites.

So I say to you: keep at least one thing crystal clear. Either hold awareness—and you are religious. Or you cannot—then you are irreligious. I leave no place in between. I leave no place for the hypocrite.

Who is a hypocrite? One who is inwardly irreligious but outwardly conforms to religious rules. He goes to the temple daily. How will you call him irreligious? Yet perhaps he never prays there. For one who knows how to pray, his very home becomes a temple; he has no need to go to any temple. He eats by rule: he eats by day, not at night. But his violence does not go—perhaps it increases.

Psychologists say meat-eaters are less prone to anger. You will often find the hunter less hot-tempered—his violence is discharged. He goes to the jungle and kills a lion. Having killed a lion, he is not eager to kill you—what are you in comparison? But someone sitting in a shop chanting on his rosary, who has never gone anywhere, never fought, never killed—he is sitting ready. He will pounce even on an ant—let alone a lion! He only needs a pretext. His violence has found no outlet.

The single result of rules in this world has been this: people fulfill the rule and lose awareness.

In Jesus’ life there is mention of a man—Nicodemus. He was very wealthy. He asked Jesus, “Tell me too—how can revolution happen in my life, and how may I find God?” Jesus said, “Keep the rules Moses gave—ten rules, the Ten Commandments. You are educated; you know them.” He said, “I follow them to the letter, yet no revolution has happened. I do not steal. I do not look at a woman with evil intent. I give in charity. I pray. I worship. I live as a religious man should—but no revolution happens.”

Jesus said, “All right, then do one thing. Whatever you have, go home, distribute it, and come follow me.”

The man said, “That is a little difficult—follow you after giving everything away?” He became sad. He was very rich. He said, “No—tell me something I can do.”

Jesus said, “If it is what you can do, it will not change you—you are already doing what you can. Now I tell you what you cannot do. If you do it, you will be transformed. If you don’t, you will remain as you are. Go, give it all away.” He said, “I have great wealth. Do not be so hard. Besides, many affairs are pending; I cannot immediately follow you.” Jesus looked at his disciples and spoke that famous saying you have heard so often: “A camel may pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man will not enter the kingdom of God.”

The rich man can keep rules—but he cannot become religious. The rich has the convenience for rules: he can go to the temple three times a day, or say the namaz five times. The poor cannot even say the namaz five times—where is the leisure, the time? Should he go to the office, the factory, the field—or to the temple? He cannot read the Gita daily—where is the time? He cannot do bhajans—his belly is empty. The rich can do bhajans and worship. If he does not feel like doing it himself, he can hire someone to do it. He can hire labor to worship. People have hired servants for it—they are called priests. They say to them, “You do the worship.” They get a salary; the fruit of worship goes to the master. You can hire it out.

What absurdity! Even for love and worship you employ a servant! You have someone else do it for money. If you pay a priest a hundred rupees a month, and he comes daily to worship God three times, then understood rightly, the account is this: you gave God a hundred rupees. What else did you give? You had the money, so you could give. And perhaps by giving this hundred you hope to receive millions. Perhaps this too is a bribe.

Rules can be completed. By completing rules, no one becomes religious. One becomes a hypocrite.

That is why I have given you no rules. Either be religious, or be irreligious. I have left you no convenience in-between. Therefore I tell you the very last thing Buddha told Ananda: cultivate awareness. Whether you close your eyes or not—what difference does it make? In my view, if you have cultivated awareness—keep your eyes open, touch a woman, earn money, live in a house, sit in the marketplace—it makes no difference. If awareness is not cultivated—keep your eyes closed, run to the forest, do not touch money, stand naked, renounce everything—still it makes no difference. Only awareness brings revolution.

Therefore awareness is the only rule, the one rule. Esa dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal law. The one eternal religion is: live awake. And I ask nothing else of you. In details you have deceived again and again. I do not give you the chance of details. I give you one small word: awareness. So you remain clear: if it is there, you are clear; if it is not, you are clear. I do not give you the facility of cheating in-between.

Therefore I have given no rules. Do not think I have given no rule. I have given a rule. I have not given rules. And the rule is enough. There is a saying: a hundred taps of the goldsmith, one blow of the blacksmith. My rule is the blacksmith’s blow. I have not entered into details and elaborations—because you have become quite skilled in them.

People come to me and say, “Meditation is fine—but tell us something more: what should we do, what should we eat, drink, wear, when should we sleep, when wake?” These trivialities—you figure them out. You simply meditate. If your mind grows calm and aware, you will find that other rules begin to follow on their own.

An aware person will by himself not drink alcohol—because alcohol is the opposite of awareness; it destroys it. He needs no rule that says, “Do not drink.” An aware person will drop meat-eating by himself. If even a little awareness has dawned, it is clear enough: to take another’s life merely to fill one’s belly! If even that much is not seen in awareness, that awareness is worth two pennies—what is its value? Will an aware person steal? Pick someone’s pocket? An aware person needs no anuvratas—do not steal, do not be violent, do not be dishonest. These elaborations have to be given only because awareness is not there, has been lost. And all these you can do—there is no difficulty. You can give charity, be honest, serve—only in one thing the difficulty arises: you cannot cultivate awareness.

And if I give you a thousand and one elaborations, you will say, “Of the thousand and one, I keep a thousand. If I don’t keep even one—the meditation—what’s the harm?”

I give you only one, so that the situation of life remains clear, so that there is no means for hypocrisy to arise. I do not give you rules so that you cannot break them. I do not give you rules so that you cannot keep rules and cheat. I do not give you scriptures—I give you only a sutra: awareness.
Someone asked Mahavira: Who is a sadhu, and who is not? Mahavira did not say what the Jain monks keep saying—that whoever eats in the daytime is a sadhu, and whoever eats at night is not; that whoever drinks water after filtering it is a sadhu, and whoever does not filter it is not. No, Mahavira did not go into such elaborations. He put it like a blacksmith. Mahavira said: “asutta muni; sutta amuni.” One who goes on living asleep is un-saintly; one who lives awake—“asutta”—he is the sadhu, the muni.
This is exactly what I am telling you. This is what Buddha also said. But I have twenty-five centuries of experience that they did not. If Buddha were here today, he would not say, “First, don’t look; don’t touch.” Today he would say it straight away: Ananda, don’t get lost in useless prattle—you ask so many questions, shall I then tell you the real thing? Let me say it first: keep awareness.

Who told you to reconcile them? If Buddha feels right to you, follow Buddha. If I feel right to you, follow me. Who told you to reconcile? Don’t try to reconcile allopathy with homeopathy either. This itch to reconcile is deep in your mind: “Somehow let me make a synthesis.” What have you got to do with synthesis? Take the medicine that works for you. You don’t have to synthesize all the medical systems in the world.

Buddha says, live on the minimum—one pole. Because the jump is always from an extreme. You cannot leap from the middle; you must come to an edge. If you are to jump from this roof, you will have to come to some edge; from there the leap happens. Everything has two poles.

Buddha says: come to the minimum, the least—then a leap will happen. I say: come to excess, to the utmost—then a leap will happen. Buddha says: be poor, a mendicant, destitute. I say: become an emperor. But both are poles. Buddha says: step back to this side. I say: go all the way to the other.

Don’t reconcile. Otherwise you’ll end up stuck in the middle. You’ll say, “He says: drop everything.” I say: “There’s nothing to drop.” You’ll decide, “Let me half-hold, half-drop,” and you’ll stand there in the middle. This coordination, this compromise, will kill you. There is no need to reconcile. Buddha is complete. Adding my words to him will not help; it will harm.

Every system is complete. What Buddha has given is a complete system. There isn’t a grain missing. That mechanism is self-sufficient. Don’t add my words into it. What I’m giving you is complete. There is no need to add Buddha to it.

Every religion is a complete unit in itself. Trouble begins when someone comes along to preach and starts singing, “Allah Ishwar Tere Naam, sabko sanmati de Bhagwan.” That’s where “coordination” begins—and mischief begins. Allah is sufficient; there is no need to add Ram. Ram is sufficient; no need to add Allah.

Even Mahatma Gandhi could not really join them, though he kept saying so. They do not join. At the moment of death when the bullet struck, “Allah” did not come out—“Ram” came out. If they were joined, both would have come out together—“Allah-ram!” It didn’t happen. They don’t join; they are separate unities. At the moment of death he forgot “Allah Ishwar Tere Naam.” Only “Ram” emerged—what was near and dear. “Allah” had been politics; “Ram” was heart. “Allah” was said to persuade Jinnah; inside there was only the resonance of Ram. And Jinnah could see the trickery; it had no effect on him.

With me, drop the very idea of reconciliation. I am not a syncretist. I don’t want to make a khichdi of all religions. Each religion’s meal is complete in itself; it can fully satisfy you. When I speak on Buddha, or on Jesus, or on Mahavira, my intention is not that you should mix them. I speak on them separately so that—who knows—Buddha may fit someone, Mahavira may fit another, Krishna may fit yet another. Whichever fits you, take that. We are not here to count the pits; we are here to eat the mangoes. Why would you reconcile?

If Buddha’s approach clicks for you, forget about me. Then you have nothing more to do with me. Walk on that path. You will meet the divine there. That way is complete; there is not a grain to add.

If Buddha doesn’t click and my words do, then forget all Buddhas. Even their memory will become a hindrance.

The greatest mischief of the mind is that it never dedicates itself wholly to one direction. One step left, one step right; sometimes forward, sometimes back. At life’s end you will find you’ve been scuffing the ground where you were born.

Movement doesn’t happen like that. Movement is in one direction. Choose west—then west it is. Forget that the other three directions even exist. Granted, they exist. Granted, some people are walking there. But you have left those directions. Now you go west. Don’t let one hand go east, the other west, and one leg south. That “coordination” won’t set; in attempting it, you will be badly fragmented. This has become humanity’s condition.

Earlier, when the world was not so close-knit—before the earth became a small village, before religions were mutually familiar—many realized the ultimate. As the earth shrank and people became acquainted with one another’s religions, religiosity declined. Why? Because all directions entered everyone’s mind. You read the Quran and you read the Gita. You drown in neither. When you read the Quran you remember the Gita; when you read the Gita you remember the Quran—and you keep trying to reconcile.

No. Each religion is total in itself. Nothing to subtract, nothing to add. It is a complete system. If it suits you, enter it—and forget the rest. This is the very meaning of choosing a master: you looked, recognized; you searched, reflected, contemplated—and found, “With this one my resonance sits right.”

Don’t seek to reconcile two systems. Seek to let your resonance align with one: “Yes—this person I enjoy; with this one my heart finds its juice.” And each person will find juice in a different one.

Try putting Meera into Buddha—you won’t be able to. And if you succeed, it will be Meera’s misfortune; she will be lost. Her heart could resonate only with Krishna. Dance was woven into every pore of her being. Buddha could not have liberated that dance. In Buddha’s discipline there is no provision for dance. His way is for those who relish leaving dance, leaving movement. Meera would not fit. Buddha has no flute. To dance before Buddha would feel strange, discordant. His image is not for dancing—before it, one sits silently. There, you become stone, unmoving, still as marble—that is how you can walk Buddha’s path.

If even a little mood for dance is in you, look to Krishna. The peacock-crowned one may work for you. He exists just for that. His flute will liberate the dance hidden in you. And liberation means nothing else: what is hidden within you blossoms and is revealed. If a lotus is hidden in you, it blooms into a thousand petals and its fragrance pours into the winds. If dance is hidden, let it be revealed. If some song lies unsung, let it be sung. If some silence waits to be realized, let it ripen. Your destiny must become fully available.

Each person’s destiny is unique. Each has a different way. Each is incomparable. So find with whom your resonance can sit—what master, what path, what discipline is apt for you. If you err even a little here, you’ll be in a great tangle. You’ll become a khichdi. Many things will be inside you, but all in fragments. No single image will be sculpted within.

Just think: Buddha’s neck, Krishna’s legs, Mahavira’s heart, Jesus’ hands, Mohammed’s voice—what a mess! You will go mad—mad outright. You won’t be liberated; you’ll be deranged.

Therefore all the world’s religions have emphasized one thing: if this feels right, then total surrender. If not, go look elsewhere. The essential matter is total surrender—wherever you go, go all in.

People come to me and say, “We go to all the gurus. All gurus are the same. What you say, they say.” They understand neither me nor anyone else. They have not understood at all. That is the final truth—but only at the destination.

At the destination all gurus are one; on the paths they are not one. For the one who must walk, the question is not the destination but the path. At the end, Krishna’s flute will bring you to the same that Buddha’s silence brings you to. But that is the language of the destination. You are not there. Don’t mistake yourself to be there. Where you are, you need a path, not the goal. Here, Allah is different and Ram is different.

Yes, at the destination all is one. But there no one is singing “Allah Ishwar Tere Naam.” At the destination, all is lost: Allah is lost, Ram is lost. When the divine itself is realized, who remains—Ram? Allah? There all scriptures vanish. But that pertains to attainment.

Do not reconcile. My vision is: live fully. Live like a river in flood. Live with the velocity of life. Live as if a torch were lit at both ends. Don’t be stingy with living.

I do not ask you to renounce. I ask you to go so deep into enjoyment that the very experience of enjoyment becomes renunciation. Tena tyaktena bhunjithaḥ—by renouncing, enjoy. Enjoy in such a way that you come to know enjoyment is futile—and then nothing needs to be dropped. Your knowing itself becomes the dropping of enjoyment. Do not run from life; don’t be a deserter. Stand firmly in life so you can meet it eye to eye and see it utterly—see that it is a dream. Then you don’t have to drop a dream; it drops. What is useless falls away the moment you truly see it as useless. If the question of dropping still remains, understand: its futility has not yet been seen. Some shred of meaning remains; hence the question of dropping. You must drop what still seems meaningful; the meaningless drops by itself.

So I say: know life in its completeness. Many times you have fallen under the influence of others and fled from life half-cooked. This is not the first time. You are not new to this earth—very ancient. Many times you have fallen under many Buddhas. But the one who became Buddha had departed only after the fullness of life. Understand this.

Buddha was a monarch. The most beautiful women were with him. If, amidst such beauty, he saw that beauty is a dream, it is no wonder. Now a beggar who has only seen women from afar, or, if any came to him, it was an ordinary woman who scarcely embodied his fantasy—his heart unfulfilled, his being unquenched, his enjoyment shallow, his longing circling, wandering through thousands of faces in dream—if such a man hears Buddha, Buddha will be impressive, no doubt. In that state of knowing there is a magic: whom he looks at, that one is drawn; whom he touches, a new dimension opens within.

You hear Buddha say: “All is vain.” Buddha says this knowing it. He knew wealth and found it vain. You have only desired wealth; you have not known it vain. To know it, you must first have it. You don’t. Bowl in hand you stand. Buddha was an emperor; he left the palace and went to the road. You were already on the road, you heard Buddha’s voice and were impressed—and you will be in trouble. Your renunciation cannot be Buddha’s renunciation. In your renunciation enjoyment will be hiding. What will happen then? You will renounce and imagine, “After renunciation, heaven will be mine—there I will enjoy celestial women and palaces.”

This is what your rishis keep doing. If Indra grows afraid of them in the Puranas, it isn’t without reason. They do not seek freedom; they seek Indra’s throne. In the Puranas Indra’s throne trembles—this is symbolic. It says: these rishis are not truly rishis; they too covet the heavenly throne. Where there is desire, there is competition. And the one seated already must tremble. If you want to be president, the president will fear: “Look, these gentlemen are coming—beware!” If you start craving Apsaras—“I must enjoy Urvashi”—Indra will be alarmed. You are bent upon stealing his Urvashi. He will tempt you, trip you, come to unseat you.

The Puranic tales are meaningful. They say only this: the rishi is not yet a rishi. Otherwise, what competition would Indra have with him? The rishi did not want freedom; he was making a bargain—what he couldn’t obtain here, he tries to obtain by leaving the world. But the desire is the same.

Desire does not die unripe. When it ripens, only then it dies—and leaves no stain behind. Then you come out innocent and fresh, like a flower newly opened at dawn.

So I say: do not run. Life must be known—lived. I am no Charvaka. I am not saying there is nothing beyond life. I am saying: there is, but first cross life. What is beyond will be seen only when you have gone beyond life. If you run away halfway, before reaching the limit, you will keep wandering in life itself. Only at the limit is transcendence possible.

Thus my vision is to go through enjoyment to renunciation. No other means is so effective. Hence there is Buddha—but how many become Buddhas by following him? Almost none. Because their starting points are utterly different. Buddha leaves a palace to become a beggar; the follower was a beggar already and tags along. Their experiences are different. In Buddha’s renunciation the experience of enjoyment is hidden; in the beggar’s renunciation nothing is hidden—he is giving up a begging bowl. He had nothing to renounce. His renunciation is a deception.

Therefore I say: live in excess. While life is, live it utterly. By living it, you will be free of it.

“Take it as the renunciation of wine, O shaikh:
I have drunk so much that it can no longer be drunk.
Take it as the renunciation of wine, O shaikh.
O religious teacher, take it as renunciation:
I have drunk so much that it can no longer be drunk.”

Drink life so deeply that there remains no way to drink any more. Be free by drinking. But if Buddha’s way truly fits you, by all means walk that path. Only, watch your own state: do you have the kind of experience of life that Buddha had? Do you have such deep experience of enjoyment?

Do you know Buddha’s story? Astrologers said: “He will renounce and become a sannyasin.” The father became anxious. Suddhodana consulted the great wise men: “What shall we do?”

Surely those “wise men” were escapees. The scriptures don’t say this; it’s my seeing. They were runaway wise men—for often the “wise” are fugitives. He must have invited renunciate saints. He asked them. They were not emperors who had known the world and then left it. They had left life helplessly, out of inability—couldn’t obtain it, so they left it; the grapes were sour because they couldn’t reach them. Had they reached them, they too would have tried hard!

They advised: “Arrange all pleasures for him. He will drown in them and won’t become a sannyasin.”

From this I say: they were renouncers by impotence. Had Buddha’s father asked me, I would have said: “Keep him away from pleasures. Don’t let women come near. Yes, show him films if you must—on the screen only, where he cannot touch. Because the screen does not end the dream; it creates it. Don’t let women near. Don’t put him in comfort. Set him to break stones, pound roads, do hard labor. Don’t keep him in a palace. His longing for the palace will never die. What is unknown is longed for and does not die. He will never become a sannyasin.”

But the renunciate saints spoke from their experience. What they had not received, they thought, “If we had had it—beautiful women, palaces—would we have become sannyasins?” Their logic is clear: they became sannyasins because they got neither. “Heap all that on him—he will be lost in it.” They were reporting their own minds: “If someone arranged all this for us now, we too would go astray; inside, the same craving would be there.” I don’t know who those men were—their names aren’t recorded—but obviously they were people who had fled from the middle, without experience of life.

Suddhodana accepted their advice—and lost his son. He built four palaces, one for each season. He gathered the most beautiful maidens of the realm. Buddha grew up among girls. He got bored. The most beautiful women were with him—and they shattered all his dreams.

Even the most beautiful woman, if she is yours, does she seem beautiful beyond two days? After two days every woman becomes ordinary. A woman’s beauty can survive only if she is kept at a distance. Beauty is in longing, not in experience. However beautiful—what will you do? After two days she is ordinary. Does a husband even see his wife? However beautiful, he is sometimes puzzled why others on the road stop to look at her—because he sees nothing. Others see. The other man’s wife always seems more beautiful. Sometimes it happens that your beautiful wife doesn’t seem beautiful to you; the simple maid at home seems beautiful—because there is distance.

Keep things far and they remain beautiful. Distant drums sound sweet. Come close and dreams break; reality is revealed. Seeing all those beautiful women, Buddha grew bored, vexed. He felt like running away. One night he rose and saw them all around him: one with drool running from her mouth, one with grit in the eye, one with mouth open, snoring. He fled. “For this I was mad!”

Anyone would become a rishi in such a situation! There was wealth, women, splendor; he became bored. He saw: there is nothing in it. One thing became clear: death comes closer every day, and all this is futile. Truth must be sought. Nectar must be sought.

Thus Buddha became a sannyasin. He is my kind of sannyasin. But those who became sannyasins under Buddha’s influence are not mine. They saw his radiance, his splendor, his brilliance, his peace; envy arose, greed arose: “Let us also become so peaceful.” But they don’t know that behind this peace lies a vast experience of enjoyment—he has crossed a great desert—there is a huge expanse of experience behind it. You cannot be in a hurry.

If you understand me rightly, what I am telling you is the essence of Buddha’s life. I am not telling you what Buddha said; I am telling you what Buddha is.

Therefore I say: don’t run away. Where you are, whatever the moment, live it with such urgency that you can see through it. Let life become transparent. From there, the fragrance of sannyas begins to rise—and then there is no need even to “leave.”

There is a song by Rabindranath in which Buddha returns and Yashodhara asks, “I have waited twelve years to ask just one question: what you found by running to the forest, can you now say it could not have been found right here? Now that you have it, tell me: could it not have been found here?” And in the poem Tagore keeps Buddha silent. What could he say? Yashodhara speaks rightly: it could have been found right here.

Truth is everywhere. What is needed is understanding—and understanding is the essence of experience. Therefore I do not want to tear you away from experience. I want you to enter experience quickly, deeply—so that the moment of transcendence comes nearer. Sannyas is very close. Your experience of the world must be complete. Sannyas is not the opposite of the world; it is beyond it. Not against—beyond. Where the world ends, where the milestone says “Here ends the limit,” there sannyas begins. But the world must be completed. If you don’t complete it now, you will return.

Perhaps you have heard Buddha too: twenty-five centuries have passed. You have returned twenty-five times. You are hearing me too. If you do not digest what I say, you will keep returning. The divine will send you back to this school till you pass. Therefore I say: make haste—not in fleeing but in drinking, in waking, in attending to experience. If an experience is lived with full awareness even once, you are free of it—because repetition is the same old, the same old.

Man and woman have essentially different paths. The man’s path is meditation; the woman’s path is love. The man’s path is knowledge; the woman’s path is devotion. Their inner climates are very different, even opposite. To man, love seems a bondage; to woman, love seems a liberation. So even when a man loves, he does it while running, fearful that he may get bound. And when a woman loves, she wants to be bound wholly, because in bondage she has known freedom. Therefore the man’s language is: How to get free? How to be liberated from the world? And the woman’s search is: How to drown totally so that nothing remains behind?

So sannyas is fundamentally masculine. That is why even Buddha hesitated. Women were moved—women are moved easily, for their hearts are more sensitive—and they began to ask: Give us sannyas too. Buddha was afraid. Mahavira even told them bluntly that even if he gave it, your liberation would not happen in this very life—until you become men. Liberation will happen only through a male birth.

The reason is clear. Mahavira’s path is not of devotion, nor is Buddha’s. Hence the difficulty. And whenever a woman has attained liberation, it has been like Meera—dancing, utterly drowned in love. Not by running away from the world, not by slipping out of relationship, but by plunging so totally into relationship that she disappeared.

There are two ways to disappear. Either you go inward, to your center, and reach the space where only you remain. When only you remain and no “other” is left, then you too will dissolve, because for the “I” to survive, a “thou” is needed. Without the “thou,” the “I” cannot survive. If the “thou” drops utterly—this is sannyas, Buddha’s and Mahavira’s; not mine—if the “thou” is wiped out from your consciousness, the “I” will collapse by itself; they are two sides of the same coin. Without the “thou,” the “I” has no meaning; the “I” falls and you attain the void.

The woman’s path is different. She says: Let the “I” fall so completely that only the “thou” remains—only the lover, only the Beloved. And when the “I” has utterly fallen and only the “thou” remains, then the “thou” too will disappear; for the “thou” also cannot remain alone. At the goal both arrive—into the void, or into the whole—but the roads differ. The woman reaches by losing the “I”; the man reaches by losing the “thou.” Both arrive where neither “I” remains nor “thou” remains.

The one who lost the heart is the one who gained;
In this very loss the profit was seen.
This is the woman’s way—
The one who lost the heart is the one who gained;
In this very loss the profit was seen.

Therefore Buddha and Mahavira were hesitant, doubtful—Should we bring women in? And their fear was natural. Because if woman comes, love comes. And if love comes, their male monks are in trouble. That fear was natural. Their fear was that if women were given the path and included in the sangha, then the male monks, if not today then tomorrow, would begin to fall into the net of love. And this is what happened. Buddha said that if I had not given initiation to women, my religion would have lasted five thousand years; now it will last five hundred. Even five hundred lasted only with difficulty. To say it “ran” is not right; it limped, dragged. And soon the men forgot their meditation.

It is easy to knock a man off his meditation. It is difficult to knock a woman off her love.

If you ask me, I say that Buddha and Mahavira thereby accepted that woman is strong and man is weak. If women were allowed in, they did not trust their male sannyasins—they would be lost. A woman’s love is profound; it would drown them. Their meditation would not last long; soon waves of love would begin to arise in their meditation.

Woman is strong—and she should be. She is more in tune with nature. Man, in his ego, has gone a little away from nature. Woman, in her love, is still close. Hence we call man purusha, woman prakriti—nature. Mahavira and Buddha both were afraid of nature. That their sannyasins would be shaken was certain.

But I am not afraid; because I say, let women go by the path of love. And if someone’s meditation wavers, so much the better that it wavers; for a meditation that can be shaken is worth two pennies. Let it wobble—that is good. If drowning is to happen anyway, why drown in the boat? Better to drown in the river. I hold that if a woman’s love surrounds you and your meditation does not waver, it has passed the test. Only that meditation which does not waver before love will lead to samadhi. The one whose meditation wavers before love is not yet ready for samadhi. He must have run away—avoiding love, avoiding love’s pain—he must have fled out of fear.

Therefore for me there is no difficulty. I gave the first sannyas to a woman. This is to say to Mahavira and Buddha: listen, you were frightened; we will keep the man second.

Let the man meditate, let the woman love—what is the obstacle? Even if the woman creates around you the whole ambience of love, the flame of your meditation can remain unwavering; there is no need to tremble. In truth, when the breeze of love is all around you, meditation should deepen even more. But if you have come half-baked, running away from the world, you will wobble. For such people I have no place. I tell them, go back.

I make love the touchstone of meditation, and I make meditation the touchstone of love. If the man is in meditation, however much the woman loves, he will not waver. From his unwavering meditation what will descend toward the woman is compassion, not lust. And only compassion satisfies. Lust never satisfies any woman.

That is why, however much lust she may get, a woman remains restless; something seems missing.

As I know it, a woman is not fulfilled until God himself meets her as the Beloved. And when you fall in love with a meditative person, then God has been found.

So meditation will enhance love, because meditation makes your lover divine. And love will enhance meditation, because the milieu that love creates around you is the very milieu in which the seed of meditation can sprout.

Therefore I see no opposition between meditation and love. I see a deep harmony. It has to be so. When man and woman are related so deeply, then meditation and love too must be related that deeply. And when from man and woman a new life, a child, is born, then in my understanding it is from the meeting of meditation and love that rebirth is attained—your new birth.

Enough for today.