Es Dhammo Sanantano #45

It is in your hands. If you go on writing it, it will remain written. No one else is giving you melancholy; it is your choice. You have chosen it. No one else will give you bliss either—if you choose it, you will have it. What you find, what you choose—that is your destiny.
Let us understand a little.
The old notion of fate says: it is written—and written by someone else, not by you. I want to tell you: destiny is not already written; it has to be written day by day. And not by someone else—your own hands write it. It may be that you write in such unconsciousness that your own hands seem alien. It may be you write in such unawareness that only after it is written do you realize something got written. You cannot catch yourself red-handed. Your awareness is lacking. But no one else writes your fate.
If someone else writes your destiny, then all religion is meaningless. What would you do then? You would be like a helpless fish: if thrown into the desert, you will writhe in the desert; if someone puts you into a lake, then it is fine. Then you are a toy in others’ hands, a puppet. Then even if you wish to be free, how could you be? If freedom is in your fate, it will be; if not, it will not be.
And would a fated liberation be liberation at all? If one has to be liberated under compulsion, then even liberation becomes dependence. And if someone, by his own choice, goes even to hell, if he chooses a prison, then even the prison he has chosen carries the fragrance of freedom.
Liberation is not a place. Prison is not a place. Freedom lies in the capacity to choose. If there is no capacity to choose and man is merely a toy in the hands of fate, then there is no freedom. And if there is no freedom, what meaning has religion! Then what is the point of telling you: do this, earn virtue, awaken. If awakening is in your fate you will awaken; if not, you will sleep. Someone else will wake you, someone else will put you to sleep. You are powerless.
But man has believed in this notion of fate because it offers great convenience. The convenience is that all responsibility is removed. You put the entire burden on someone else’s shoulders. Even your God is your deep strategy. Through your God, too, you save yourself. You say, “Whatever God is making happen is happening.” Yet it is you who act; what happens is what you are doing; it is you who choose; you sow the seeds, you reap the harvest; but in between you bring in God and feel lighter. Nothing remains in your hands—no responsibility, no guilt; no sin, no virtue.
By making yourself so helpless you only deceive yourself. The greatest trick of the mind is to shove responsibility elsewhere. And the trick runs so deep: the theist shifts it onto God; the atheist shifts it onto nature; the communist onto history; Freud onto the unconscious. Some dump it onto economics, some onto politics—these are all strands of the same web of your strategy. Some put it onto the doctrine of karma. But on the matter of shifting, everyone agrees: the responsibility is not ours.
But think a little: the moment you drop responsibility, you lose the soul as well. It is within your responsibility that the possibility of your soul exists. Only if you can choose and be the master will any dignity arise in your life, any light be kindled, any lamp be lit; otherwise you will remain darkness.
Beware of fate! Fate is not a notion for a religious mind. You will be surprised, because you find so-called religious people to be fatalists. Let me remind you again: religious and irreligious alike are fatalists—their explanations of fate merely differ. Marx says society is the determinant, not the individual; the economic structure is determinant, not the person. The person’s soul is lost. And Marx is an atheist, not a theist; not religious but irreligious.
For me there is one hallmark of the irreligious mind: it does not acknowledge its own soul. It wants to escape from itself, to hide from itself; it lacks the courage to take responsibility—weak, without vigor.
Do not push it onto fate. You yourself write it. Fate is your own signature. Granted, you have forgotten what you wrote yesterday—your awareness is weak. What you wrote the day before yesterday is not in memory. Today you cannot even recognize your own script. But I tell you, look carefully: you will recognize your signature. A little has changed, perhaps, but not much. And the day it dawns on you that “This suffering too I am creating,” that day you become the master—that day the real beginning of your life happens.
Now it is your choice. If you want to be miserable, then choose it. Then I say to you: choose it properly. Why a little suffering? Why drop by drop? Then choose an ocean of suffering. Then place the Himalayas of sorrow upon your chest. Then drown in hell. But once this point is settled—that it is you—then go on and reap the harvest of sorrow. If that is the decision you have made, if in that you have found your happiness, so be it. But understand one thing: do not ever say, even by mistake, that someone else has fixed your destiny.
But knowingly no one will choose suffering—that is the beauty of it. As long as you can shift it onto another, only then will you go on choosing suffering. The day you see, “It is my own choice,” who will choose misery? Who has ever, knowing it, chosen pain? Unknowingly one may choose it—taking them for diamonds and jewels you may gather snakes and scorpions into your strongbox—but who gathers them knowing they are snakes and scorpions?
Once you understand that I myself am the decider; I myself am my fate; my destiny is my choice—from that very moment sorrow will begin to take leave. From that very moment the dawn of joy will begin in your life; the sun of happiness will rise. And when it is in your own hands, why choose happiness in drops? Then let the clouds of joy pour down.
And I tell you: it depends on your decision. And this is a very fundamental decision.

Who would write a long chain of melancholy into your life? Who has the time? Who is eager to make you suffer? If there is God at all, one thing is certain: he is not eager to make you suffer. God—eager to inflict pain? Then what difference would there be between God and the devil? And remember, if God were eager to give you suffering, he himself would be a lover of suffering—and would reap only suffering. The one who writes sorrow into others’ lives writes sorrow into his own as well. The one who showers misery all around cannot escape being splashed by it. The one who snuffs out everyone’s lamps and spreads darkness will have to live in the new-moon night himself. If there is God, he will not make such a blunder.

If God is, he will want bliss for your life; he cannot want your pain—because only then is bliss possible in his own being. Remove the word “God”; say “existence.” Existence too will want joy for you, because you are part of existence. Your sorrow ultimately settles on the shoulders of existence itself. If the individuals are miserable—if the parts are in pain—the whole too becomes pained.

When your foot aches, it is not only the foot that hurts—you hurt. When your head aches, it does not stay confined to the head—it spreads through your whole body-breath. You experience it with your whole being. We are connected. If anyone here is unhappy, the whole existence fills and trembles with that sorrow.

Existence has no desire to make you unhappy. If it has any desire for you, it is to make you supremely joyful. And still you are miserable. There can be only one meaning: you are fighting existence; you are going against the current; you are struggling against the river’s flow. For me, sorrow means only one thing: you have not understood life; you are walking counter to it; you are banging your head against a wall, and the door is not yet visible to you. You have mistaken the wall for the door. You are taking pebbles and stones to be bread.

In a river, you can either swim against the current—then it will seem the river is fighting you, is your adversary—or you can go with it.

Ramakrishna used to say: when a devotee takes a boat out on the river, he does not keep an oar—he unfurls the sail. Wherever the winds take him, he goes. The devotee opens the sail, not the oar.

You have picked up oars—and you are wrestling with the river. You will lose. Who has ever defeated the whole? You will lose, and then melancholy will come. Then, as melancholy comes, you will struggle even harder. The more you lose, the more a mad craving for victory arises. The madder the craving, the more you lose. You have fallen into a vicious circle.

Then it will seem to you that all you get is sorrow upon sorrow. And the irony is, your ego begins to relish even this. You start saying, “I am no ordinary man; in my life there is nothing but sorrow. I am a long saga of woe.” You start humming songs about it. You adorn your suffering; you exhibit it. You attract people’s attention by means of your pain. You will weep and wail and scream so that people gather around you and say, “Yes, we have never seen sorrow like yours. Your misery is unique.” And you remain filled with anguish and torment.

I have heard: at a modern poetry meet, contemporary poets gathered—full of anguish, tormented, sorrowful, melancholy; as if they carried heavy loads, as if the whole world had collapsed upon them—whining, weeping. The organizers had arranged to take their photographs. The photographer came, seated them, and said, “Please, for a moment kindly remove this sorrow, anguish, and torment from your faces; after a moment you may return to your natural state.”

Some people have made that their “natural” state. They go about inscribing grief. They wear a signboard of sorrow on their faces. They must be getting some benefit from it—sympathy. But that is very cheap sympathy.

Attract attention in another way. Attract it by smiling. What do you achieve by crying? If what you want is people’s sympathy… desire love. Is sympathy something worth begging for?

Understand this a little.

Sympathy is sickly; love is healthy. When love does not flow in your life, then you start demanding sympathy—and you mistake sympathy for love. You pass off counterfeit coins as real. When you cannot attract people through your beauty, then you begin to attract attention through your ugliness; attention must be had. If people do not join you in your health, you fall ill and collapse in the middle of the road so that a crowd gathers. The thrill of gathering a crowd is such! Let it be for any reason—but you want eyes upon you, to be considered special. One is willing to do anything for that.

Here I see a thousand kinds of people. Among them I have seen: those who are ordinarily healthy, beautiful, natural—yes, they attract attention too, but without pathology. Those who have become miserable, have made themselves so; who have become ugly; who have lost all sources of love—they too attract attention, but their way of attracting it is a great nuisance and an ugliness. On every festival day there will be a couple of such unattractive women who will create a scene and collapse! Not a single beautiful woman behaves like that.

I was a bit puzzled: why do the unattractive women do this? Because no other form of attraction remains available to them. They cannot dance, cannot sing, do not know another way to call love—but they can create a ruckus, beat their chests, wail, fling themselves to the ground. Perhaps they are not doing it knowingly. But it is happening. Consciously or unconsciously, there is some hidden relish in it. In this crude way, there is a craving to draw attention.

Those whose lives contain some art will attract attention through art. Those whose lives contain nothing will attract attention through crime.

Psychologists say that between great artists and criminals, between creative people and politicians, there is not much difference. The difference is only this: one writes a great song and people are drawn. The one who cannot write a song kills someone—his name too comes in the newspapers, on the front page.

An American killer murdered seven people in a single day—without cause. He killed people he did not even know, people he did not even see—neither before nor after—he came from behind and shot them. A stranger sat on the seashore looking at the ocean; the man came from behind and shot him. In court he was asked, “Why did you do this?” He said, “I wanted to see my name on the front page of the newspaper.”

Just think of this craving! The politician—he cannot write a song, cannot sculpt, cannot sing, cannot play the sitar, cannot dance—so he organizes strikes, processions, fasts. He can do something—he can create a disturbance. Disturbance is easy. Riding a wave of chaos he becomes prominent, important.

Remember: if you can attract love in a creative way, it is virtue. If you attract people’s attention in a destructive way, it is sin. If by harming others, by ugly and crude methods you turn people’s eyes toward you, you do yourself no good. You will grow even more miserable, and each day you will have to smear more of sorrow’s soot upon your face. Your sorrow will acquire a vested interest.

A seeker on the path of religion should understand a basic sutra: ask for what is healthy, not what is unhealthy. If you ask for the unhealthy, you will become more unhealthy. Desire the beautiful, not the ugly. If you once ask for the ugly, you will get entangled; your trade will be tied to it. Ask for love, not for sympathy. To receive love, you must become worthy of love.

Understand the distinction.

Love is not free; it requires worthiness. But sympathy is free; it needs no qualification. If you want a beautiful husband, you must be worthy. But to become a widow—does that require any qualification? To get a divorce—does that require any qualification? But if your husband divorces you, everyone will come to offer sympathy. No one will ask whether sympathy is called for. A divorced woman—anyone offers sympathy. If you are ill, people will show sympathy. Does illness ask whether sympathy should be given? But if you are healthy, only then will someone speak a word in praise of your health, sing a song, hum when they see you. Only when supreme health blossoms within you will a tune arise in someone’s heart.

To attain love, worthiness is needed—creativity is needed. Sympathy comes free; you need do nothing to get it.

You must have heard an old story. A woman had gold bangles made. She talked to everyone, waved her hands loudly, shook her bangles—but no one asked, “Where did you have them made? How much did they cost?”

Finally she set her hut on fire. As she beat her chest and wailed, a woman asked, “Oh! We never even noticed your bangles!” She said, “Fool! If only you had asked earlier, I would not have had to set the house on fire. Why is my hut burning today?”

Do not laugh. You too have set many huts on fire for the same reason—because no one was asking about your bangles. You do not know how many times you have produced headaches, fallen ill, become morbid, became sad—burned down houses—because no one was speaking of your beauty, no one talking of your cleverness, no one singing of your worth. No appreciation was coming your way. No one was paying attention.

These are not trivial tales. They are the distilled essence of humanity’s experience through thousands of years. No single author composed them—they have been pressed out of long human experience. Keep this in mind.

You ask, “Is only a long chain of melancholy written in my destiny?”

It seems even in melancholy you are taking a little delight. “A long chain,” “melancholy”—how precious the words sound, as if you are engaged in some special work. Do not relish this filth. Otherwise it will cling to you. Things cling where there is taste; then breaking free becomes difficult.

And if you make melancholy your very face and, on its basis, demand sympathy, people’s hearts, love—how will you ever drop it? You will fear that if melancholy goes, all this “love” will go too—the attention, the sympathy, people’s eyes on you. Then you will cling to it; you will exaggerate it; you will inflate it like a balloon and make a great commotion that you are very unhappy, very unhappy.

But watch sometime: when people talk of their sorrows, observe them. Do not pay so much attention to what they say; pay attention to how they say it. You will find they are savoring it. You will see a sparkle in their eyes. You will find they are getting a base, degraded pleasure within.

When people begin to describe their miseries, watch how a certain shine comes into their faces. They become very skillful in narration; they revel in the telling. And if you do not take an interest in their stories, they are hurt. If you do not take interest, they get angry—you will never be forgiven.

Forget others; at least watch yourself. When you speak of your sorrow, do not, even by mistake, allow any taste to arise—otherwise you will remain bound to it. Then you will shout for freedom, but you will not want it. You will remain in the prison and make much noise, but if the gates are opened you will not run out. Even if you are dragged out, you will slip back in through the rear door. Your prison has become too valuable to you; now it cannot be given up. Do not invest in any property of sorrow. Life contains both—thorns and flowers. It is up to you which you choose.

Shall I watch snow-diamonds laughing
On swaying blue lotuses,
Or through withered lashes watch
Tear-drops falling?

Sipping fragrance as it flows,
Shall I watch this gentle breeze
Drinking draughts of sadness,
Or shall I watch cool sighs?

Last night I was reading about the German poet Heinrich Heine—one of those rare, creative poets who sang wondrous songs of life’s beauty. He went to meet Germany’s great philosopher—greatest of the great—Hegel. It was a dark new-moon night and the sky was strewn with stars like beautiful flowers. They both stood at the window. Heinrich Heine, overwhelmed, sang a hymn in praise of the stars. His notes resonated in the silence, and he spoke many words in their praise.

Hegel stood quietly listening. When the song ended, he said, “Stop this nonsense. Whenever I look at the stars, I am reminded of white leprosy—heaven’s white leprosy. Have you ever thought?” White leprosy!

Heine writes: I was stunned. Such a symbol had never occurred to me.

But the stars can also be seen as white leprosy. It depends on the seer. And if you understand this, then even white leprosy can be seen as moonlit blossoms—it too depends on the seer.

There is no interpretation written on the world; the world is uninterpreted. You provide the interpretation. The sky is filled with stars. Say “white leprosy,” and the world will not object. No hand of God will be raised to say you made a mistake. No one will come to correct you. But remember: the stars will not become leprosy because of your statement—but you will become surrounded by leprosy. One who sees leprosy in the stars will not find leprosy all around him? His way of seeing will make his life ugly. One who sees leprosy in the moon and stars—where will he see beauty? Impossible. His life will be filled only with ugliness, and he will shout that melancholy is written in his destiny. You have written it yourself. This is your interpretation. The moon and stars did not ask you to interpret them so. There is no commentary written upon them. The unspeakable stands at your door—you provide the commentary.

There stood Heinrich Heine, singing their praise—his songs as beautiful as Vedic hymns, bearing the majesty sometimes found in the utterances of a few rishis. Yet even Heine’s presence could not shake Hegel. He stood and listened—must have listened with great unease, with great displeasure, with great opposition—tolerated it out of politeness. For one who sees leprosy, such songs must taste false.

Therefore I say to you: if melancholy appears, think a little—perhaps you have made a mistake in interpretation.

Shall I watch snow-diamonds laughing
On swaying blue lotuses,
Or through withered lashes watch
Tear-drops falling?

Sipping fragrance as it flows,
Shall I watch this gentle breeze
Drinking draughts of sadness,
Or shall I watch cool sighs?

And the wonder is: what you see does not only change you—it changes your future, it changes your past. It does not only transform you; it transforms your whole being, your whole world. And once the art of seeing comes, you find that from the very place where sorrow used to come, springs of joy begin to flow.

Look at the world through sorrow, and the whole world will seem desolate. Death will seem written everywhere. Cremation grounds will appear spread on all sides. Then startle yourself awake; open your eyes again; look singing, smiling, dancing—and you will find the cremation ground has vanished. Here you danced—and there the cremation ground was no more. The whole world began dancing with you. Weep, and the whole world will seem to weep with you. Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you. Because your viewpoint is your world—and you live in the world you create. No one hands you a world; you create it moment to moment.

Kissing the dead to life again—
Life blooms flowers in cremation grounds.
It is a matter of seeing. Otherwise life seems a cremation ground!
And then, by a shift of vision, even the cremation ground appears as life.

Kissing the dead to life again—
Life blooms flowers in cremation grounds.

And whenever you feel that melancholy is coming, understand: you are bringing it; it is not coming. Then shake yourself, stand up, run, take a bath, dance—but brush melancholy off like dust. You are bringing it; some old habit is activating. Break it off in the middle. Do not repeat that melody which fills you with sorrow. Otherwise that melody may become your nature. Here there is neither success nor failure, neither joy nor melancholy; all are ways of seeing, tricks of the eyes—reflections formed in your vision.

There is no single path to success;
Victory nestles in failure’s lap.
The one who, though defeated, never is lost—
Success sings in that heart.

So do not make this destiny. From your question it seems you want a divine seal put on it—“It is fate, destiny.” Do not throw the responsibility for your sorrow onto God. God will not protest, but you will rot, pointlessly crushed by grief—and you will not be able to be free, because your belief is that it is destiny, fate.

I say to you: this very moment—now; there is not even need of tomorrow—you can step out of it. If you want to, you can. If you do not want to, there is no way. Nothing can be done in your life against you. Your cooperation is needed.

People come to me and say, “We want to be happy. Show us the path.” I tell them: the path is easy. First be certain you truly want it. If you have decided to be happy, you will be—without any path. Who has ever been stopped from being happy? The path will not be an obstacle; even the path will not be needed.

But if you do not truly want it, and your inquiry about the path is only another way to talk about your suffering—only a device to narrate your woes—if your inquiry is for my sympathy—then nothing can be done. Then do not waste time discussing the path. Say what you want to say; I will listen. If you want sympathy, tell your tale of sorrow and be done. But if sorrow is to be transformed, there is no obstacle—except that I can do nothing against your will. No one can. In your depths you are your own master. Therefore I will not say melancholy is written in your destiny. You are writing it. Stop your hand.

One last thing: life is such that it is like writing on water—you have not finished writing before it is gone. Another writes on sand—he writes, it does not vanish at once; a gust will come, time will pass, it will fade. Another writes on stone—even with passing centuries it does not erase. I say to you, life is like water. Only if you keep writing, writing, writing, do the letters remain. Stop for a moment and they are gone. It is like riding a bicycle: keep pedaling and it moves. Stop pedaling and it will roll a little on its momentum—if you have been riding for years, there is some speed; a slight downhill and it goes—but how far? Soon it will fall.

Moment to moment you are making your life—moment to moment. This business is of every instant. The day you agree to stop—if you are sated with melancholy, if its relish is spent, if the urge to attract sympathy and attention through it has disappeared—then I say, today is the day; the moment has come—step out.

Do not ask, “How do I step out?” Because “how” is not the question. Step out laughing. Step out humming a song. Dust off this old habit from your face and say, “Enough—no more.” And from this moment on, whatever you have been demanding on the basis of melancholy—do not demand it. It is not worthy; it is demeaning. To beg sympathy on the basis of sorrow is degrading. To demand someone’s love on the strength of tears and wailing is degrading—unworthy of human dignity.

Become beautiful, become music, become dance, become creative—then if someone comes and offers flowers of love at your feet, it is auspicious. Accept it. Do not, by crying and screaming and rolling about in misery, coerce others into showing sympathy.

Remember: whoever demands sympathy—people may give it, but they never forgive it. Because such a person feels like a exploiter. The man who tells his tale of woe and forces you to show sympathy—if you spot him on the road, you take a side lane to avoid him: “Here he comes again!” People avoid him because he exploits. And if you do not give sympathy, you feel you are committing a sin; if you do, it feels extorted, unnecessary. Withhold it and you feel guilty.

No—no one forgives the one who begs for sympathy. People avoid the sympathy-seeker. He is tedious. Do not learn such wrong ways. It is essential to be alert to them.

Many things have to be understood. First—never, even by mistake, bend and act because of someone’s sadness and misery. In doing so you increase the possibility of their sadness and misery; you do not lessen it.

Just think: a young woman says to you, “I am depressed; if you don’t marry me I will remain unhappy.” You yielded because of her unhappiness and married her. Now, how can she drop the very sadness through which she got you? Think a bit. That would feel like renouncing the very “sacrifice” that brought a husband. She will preserve that sadness like a treasure. And the ego-pleasure you tasted by bending to her sorrow—you too will not like it if she suddenly becomes happy. Where would your “reward” be then?

This is not a marriage of love. It is a marriage of ego. The girl was unhappy; she handed you the chance to be a redeemer, a social benefactor, a great soul—“I’m not marrying for body, skin or looks, I’m rescuing her!” It gave you great enjoyment, validated your ego. It wasn’t love—you did service; you bowed to sorrow; you showed sympathy. That is not love. And you relished, “See, what a sacrifice I’m making!”

There are people who marry widows—as if for their marriage to happen, someone must first be widowed. A man once came to me and said, “I’m marrying a widow.” I said, “Marriage is trouble enough—why fixate on a widow?” He said, “No, I’m a social reformer.” Two virtues in one stroke—marriage and the widow’s uplift! I said, “You just marry; she’ll become a widow on her own—why worry? You do one job, she’ll do the other.”

What’s the relish in marrying a widow? If someone is in love with a particular widow—that’s different. But one is not in love with widowhood; one is in love with a woman. Whether she is a widow or not is secondary. What has that to do with love? As if being a doctor, a nurse, a teacher—what has that to do with love? Likewise, whether she’s a widow is secondary.

But the man who insists on marrying a widow is not marrying a woman—remember this. And then the trouble begins: the moment the wedding is done, the widow is no longer a widow. The “flavor” is gone. The thing you loved has vanished. The love was for widowhood, for the drama of rescuing; after marriage she is no longer a widow—the very cause of your relish disappears.

Never get caught in the foolishness of social reformers. The nonsense they have taught and proclaimed is beyond measure. They have wasted so many lives. Someone marries a Harijan. Let marriage happen for love—love may happen with a Harijan; that is secondary—but to marry because “we will only wed a Shudra!” It seems his Shudra-ness is more important than your love. It seems some social notion is more important than love.

You married a sad girl because you thought you would lift her out of sorrow. But with marriage your relish also ends, because the “rescuing” job is over. Now there’s no fun; you can’t be rescuing her daily. The wedding is one event—done. Soon you will want to rescue some other sad girl. There are plenty of the unhappy.

Women have understood this arithmetic well—that men harbor a strong savior-complex. Foolish, but there it is, because man’s basic nature is egoic. So women weep, act miserable, fall at the feet: “I will die without you”—no one dies—but “I can’t live without you.” The man enjoys it: “Look, a woman can’t live without me; she’ll poison herself.” Your ego tastes sweetness. She exploited your ego; you exploited her sorrow. This is not a love-bond; it’s a marketplace bargain. No flowers will bloom in this bond.

And if now the woman stops being unhappy, danger arises. She must remain unhappy—her sadness served her well at a critical time; it became lifelong capital. And you too will not be pleased if she becomes pleased—I tell you this. Your satisfaction also lies in her remaining unhappy so you can keep rescuing her—daily.

Certainly, you say you want her to be happy. But your desire need not be your inner desire. You want to see her happy—but think again: if she truly becomes happy, you might grow gloomy. Your savior-ego will not be gratified by her happiness. Wanting is one thing; the actuality of what is wanted is another.

You say, “Even after marriage she remains unhappy; she is still not joyful.” What has happiness to do with marriage? One who knows how to be joyful is joyful in marriage and after marriage. One who does not know—what has marriage to do with it? What is the connection between marriage and bliss?

Think how childish our expectations are. You make seven rounds, there’s band and shehnai, mantras chanted, the altar decorated, rituals performed—what chemical or alchemical connection do these have with joy? There is no logical link to happiness in any of this.

But society assumes that once people marry, they live happily ever after. That happens only in stories—which is why stories never go beyond the wedding. Prince, princess… big drama, the wedding—and the film ends with the shehnai, the circling of the fire, “and they lived happily ever after.” The story ends precisely where the real trouble begins. Beyond that, it’s best to keep quiet.

No one becomes happy because of marriage. Happy people may marry—that’s another matter. If the happy marry, they remain happy; if they don’t marry, they remain happy. Happiness is a quality, a way of seeing life. A joyful person discovers joy in every moment—even where you see none. In the darkest night he lights a small lamp of his own joy. If you are unhappy, even in bright noon you can close your eyes and live in darkness.

Happiness has no relationship to outer circumstances. Marriage is an outer circumstance, a social arrangement; it has nothing to do with your inner consciousness. So your expectation was a mistake.

And the woman used a Gandhian method. Women are ancient Gandhians. By being miserable they find a way to harass you. Gandhi discovered nothing new; his non-violence is an old feminine route. Women have always fasted. When there’s a quarrel with the husband, they fast, take to bed as if ill—the husband has to yield. “We won’t trouble you; we’ll trouble ourselves.” And troubling oneself is the most convenient way to torment another. If you hurt the other, he can defend himself, escape, take up shield and sword—do something. But you don’t hurt him; you say, “I’ll starve, I’ll fast.” If a woman wants to beat her husband, she beats herself. If she beats him, he can defend; if she beats herself, he cannot. She makes him feel guilty.

The husband feels a sting: “Why did I do this?” Right and wrong vanish; the only feeling left is, “I’d better not have done it. She’s unnecessarily suffering. Now she’ll starve, won’t eat, beat the children, break things—what’s the point?” And women can stretch a small incident for many days. The husband concludes that for peace of soul it’s best just to agree with whatever she says, otherwise the matter drags on far beyond proportion.

Gandhi fasted against Ambedkar. Ambedkar did not accept that Gandhi’s fast was right. But pressure from the whole country mounted—if Gandhi dies… then the question of who is right or wrong evaporates; the issue changes to “save Gandhi’s life.” Ambedkar kept shouting, “This is not the point; the point is whether what I say is right or what Gandhi says is right.” People said, “We’ll think of that later; right now it’s a matter of life.” In the end Ambedkar lost sleep: “If this old man dies, I’ll be blamed forever for stubbornness.” He began to feel guilty.

This is a very old feminine strategy. There is nothing glorious in it. It is worse than violence. In violence at least you give the other the chance to protect himself, to fight back. Here you give no chance; you render the other utterly helpless, strip him of his power, make yourself so pitiable that the other is flooded with guilt and bends.

So the woman who made you bend through her sorrow—“I’ll be miserable if you don’t marry”—you bowed before violence. It looks non-violent; it is not. It is worse than violence, because it subjugates the other through subtle, crafty means.

Now you hope she will be happy after marriage. She cannot. She made you bend; her technique worked; her satyagraha worked. It will not be dropped now. You can plead all you like—she has learned a way to wield power over you. You didn’t want to marry—she made it happen. Now anything you don’t want to do can be forced, because otherwise she will be unhappy. Sorrow has become an investment, a vested interest. It will bring her no real benefit; it will ruin her life in sadness. And by bending to her sadness you have not redeemed her—you have condemned her to a lifetime in hell.

Therefore I say: don’t be a savior. And never bend before any form of violence; otherwise you encourage the other to take a wrong direction in life.

You ask, “It feels unbearable to live with a depressed person. What should I do to make my wife happy?”

Your last question shows you still haven’t understood. You’re still asking, “What should I do to make my wife happy?” That’s why you married in the first place. You’re standing in the same spot; no growth in intelligence. You married to make her happy; now again you ask how to make her happy. This way you will keep making her more unhappy.

Try to be happy yourself. No one has ever made anyone else happy. Yes, if you are happy, a climate forms around you in which those who wish can also become happy. You cannot make anyone happy—that’s where your arithmetic went wrong. Before the wedding she was unhappy—you married “to make her happy.” Now you ask, “What next?”

Whatever you do to make her happy will make her more unhappy, because you’ll only become more enslaved. Kindly become happy yourself. Tell her, “If you enjoy sadness, have your fill; we’ll enjoy happiness.” When your wife cries, you sing and dance. Let her realize on her own that there’s no juice left in sadness: “This man dances on his own! He’s becoming happy by himself!”

If you truly want to end her sorrow—be happy. Your happiness will open the possibility for her to think, “Enough of this game of sorrow; it yields nothing. The husband I thought I had trapped through my sadness is no longer captive—he has begun to rejoice. If I want to stay with him, I have no option but to rejoice.”

Keep in mind: you too must be an unhappy person; otherwise who is attracted to an unhappy woman? Sorrow is drawn to sorrow, darkness to darkness, light to light. Wrong people gather around wrong people. We see the other’s fault, not our own. You too are unhappy—otherwise who would be keen on an unhappy woman? Like attracts like. Start being happy—that’s all you can do. If even one of the two becomes happy, a fifty percent revolution has occurred. And I tell you, the other fifty happens on its own.

Decide this: from now on you will be happy by your own decision, not unhappy because of anyone else. Understand: no one has ever succeeded in making another happy. The more you try, the more you look like a slave; the more you look like a slave, the more the other enjoys it—your reins are in their hands.

Tell your wife: “If sorrow is your delight, go your way; I have decided to be happy. I break with sorrow. Come along—good; if not, I will walk alone, but I will be happy. If you can be a link in the song—good. If I sing and you play the tambourine—good. If not, I’ll sing without a tambourine; but I have decided to sing.”

Through such a revolution you’ll find that today or tomorrow your wife will reconsider. The business of sorrow has failed; you have cut its roots. There’s no meaning left in being unhappy. Either she will change herself, or she will take interest in some other unhappy man—that too is a kind of good fortune; she’ll find another savior. Why be so worried? There is no shortage of redeemers. Either she will change—if she truly has any affection for you, any love, she will change. Lovers are always ready to change.

If there is no love at all, then this vile, sickly bond of sorrow will snap. Perhaps she will find someone else with whom to be unhappy. Have you taken a monopoly on sorrow? There are many more who are even more miserable than you—she will find someone.

In my experience—after work with many people—if even one of two starts becoming happy, the idea of becoming happy arises in the other. It seems insane not to.

Cut the roots of sorrow. The first step is: become happy. If you say, “First my wife must be happy, then I will be,” then forget happiness. She too will think, “When my husband is happy, then I will be.” Then it will never happen.

The second is very subtle. There is no way to enter another’s innermost core. In the final depths the other remains other. You can circle outside. It’s hard even to know what will make another happy; it’s hard even to know who the other is.

“I lived in the world and even gave my life,
yet I could never learn what your happiness was.”

Lovers keep thinking, “What is the other’s happiness?” It never quite becomes clear. Many times it happens that you think, “I’ve found the key!” But when you do that very thing, you find the other just as unhappy. Perhaps the other too doesn’t really know what will make them happy.

Ask yourself: do you know, exactly, what would make you happy? If you think honestly, you will find yourself in perplexity: “I don’t really know what will make me happy.” Neither you know, nor does the other. People keep inventing excuses: “If I have a better house, I’ll be happy.” It’s postponement, self-deception. Then the better house comes—and the unhappiness remains. You were unhappy in a small house; now you are unhappy in a big one. You were unhappy without money; with money you remain unhappy. Life slips by like this.

As I see it, there is no cause for happiness. Hard to digest—but true. No one becomes happy for a reason; one who wants to be happy is happy without reason. He says, “I have decided to be happy.” Then in a hut he is happy; in a palace he is happy. It’s a decision. Happiness is a decision: “I have decided to be happy.” You ask, “But the reason?” There is none.

Happiness is our nature. Decision is enough. Unhappiness is your decision; happiness is your decision. Try my suggestion.

Decide to be happy for three months; then we’ll see. Make an experiment: “For three months I will be happy by decision.” Whatever happens, I will not lose my happiness. I will catch it again and again. It will slip; I will find it again; I will hold it again. For three months, I will be happy without cause. Then you will never again be able to be unhappy, because even for a moment if you discover that you can be happy without cause…!

Happiness is your nature; no cause is needed. The veena is already sounding within—you have only closed your eyes and ears with tricks. You have set useless conditions: “When these are fulfilled, then I will be happy.” They get fulfilled—and still you aren’t. The mind makes new conditions.

So only he is happy in this world who is happy without cause. Second, there is no facility for making another happy. How will you do it?

Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were arguing. I was present, listening. It dragged on. When she went inside I said to Mulla, “Why waste time? Just agree—‘All right.’” He saw the point—time was being wasted. She came out. He said, “I wholly agree—whatever you say is right.” She said, “But I have changed my mind.”

What will you do? By the time you agree, the other changes their view. What is in your hands? When the other is arguing, don’t imagine it’s about principles. It’s a clash of egos. No one tolerates your becoming so much the master of them that you make them happy. People prefer to be unhappy by their own will rather than be made happy by another. The ego is hurt.

So if you try to make someone happy, they will defeat you. They will convince you in a thousand ways: “See—nothing changed; your efforts made me more unhappy.” Drop this idea. Tell the other, “As you wish. If you have decided to be happy—be happy; if to be unhappy—be unhappy. I accept you as you are. I have made my decision.”

And if even one person decides firmly to be happy, a climate forms around them in which others too begin to catch the contagious disease of joy.

You say, “It feels unbearable to live with a depressed person.” Then become happy. In the end we are with ourselves, not with another. Ultimately, who is with whom? Everyone is alone. If you are unhappy, you are with an unhappy person—yourself. If you are happy, you are with a happy person—yourself.

So many unhappy people come to me. Don’t think that means I am “with” unhappy people. I attract them, I call them—but it makes no difference to me. If they remain unhappy, that is their will. Between me and them is my joy; beyond that their sorrow cannot enter.

I understand your sorrow—but I am not sorrowful because of it. I understand your tears; I wish your eyes to dry; but I do not weep for your tears. What will my weeping solve? It will double the tears. I do whatever I can so that your tears vanish—but that doing comes out of my joy, not my sorrow. I am not unhappy because of you—remember that. My happiness is mine, unbroken; your presence does not affect it.

Precisely because of my happiness I work to remove your sorrow. But if you persist in being unhappy, if you cannot be happy, I still do not become unhappy. That is your freedom. It is my joy that I delight in seeing your tears fly away and songs bloom. That is my joy. It is your joy to relish your tears. Who am I to obstruct? I go on doing my work; you go on doing yours. You cannot defeat me, because my victory does not depend on you.

Let this be your attitude in all relationships, and you will find that life enters a new dimension—of happiness, of great bliss.

Only life itself is the eternal value—life itself; all other values are temporal. Life is the supreme value. There is no value above it. All the rest are life’s adornments. Truth, nonviolence, compassion, non-stealing (asteya, a-chaurya), celibacy (brahmacharya)—they are the beauty, the ornamentation of life.

But there is no value higher than life. Life is the Divine. Life is God. So whatever makes you more alive, more intense, more radiant, more full of light—that alone is the eternal value. Hence no specific word can be given to the eternal value; it cannot be named. Times change, conditions change, values keep changing. Only remember one thing: that by which life grows, unfolds, expands, rises higher.

The longing for life is the deepest longing. From that very longing, moksha arises, nirvana arises. From that longing, the search for God, the search for truth arises. That is why it also happens at times that even those who speak against life—who speak in opposition to life—do so, still, for the sake of life.

In Greece there was a great thinker, Pyrrho. He said there will be no peace in life until life ends. He preached suicide. He himself lived to eighty-four. It is said some people followed him and killed themselves. At the time of his death someone asked him, “Pyrrho, you taught others that supreme peace in life is only when life itself is renounced, and many committed suicide following your words—but you lived so long.” He said, “I had to go on living—to explain it to people.”

Germany had a great thinker, Schopenhauer. He too favored suicide. He himself did not commit it. Far from it—when the plague broke out and the whole town was fleeing, he fled as well. On the way people asked, “We thought you would not run away, because you believe in suicide.” He said, “Talking is one thing! I completely forgot my philosophy when death stood right before me.”

Buddha spoke of nirvana, where everything is extinguished. But that too is life’s longing—the longing for utterly pure life, where not even the causes of life become a hindrance, where no limit remains upon life itself: such purest existence.

Life’s value is the supreme, the eternal value. But no system of ethics can give words to that supreme value of life or make doctrines for it, because it is spontaneous, self-arising. All moral values are temporal. At times, one value becomes important due to circumstances; at other times, another value becomes important. This shifting of values will continue. If the value of life dawns on you, the temporal values will begin to fall into place on their own in your life. If you understand the value of your own life, the value of another’s life will also be established in your heart by itself.

Consider: nonviolence is a moral value. But its very life-breath is the eternal value—the value of life. You don’t want anyone to destroy your life; nor will you want to destroy anyone else’s life. Therefore nonviolence. Nonviolence is simply a way of stating that far-reaching truth: when you do not want your life to be destroyed, then do not destroy anyone else’s life. The one who has understood the value of life can drop the word “nonviolence”—no harm in it; the word becomes superfluous. Then life itself will act from within, spontaneously.

Life is truth. So do not say what is not, because that would go against life. Hence truth has value. But for one who has held the value of life to his heart, talk of truth can be dropped; there is no need—life is enough. Love, mercy, compassion are values; but in one who has recognized life, the shadow of love begins to move of its own accord. The one who has tasted the juice of life will overflow with love—but it will be spontaneous.

What I want to say is this: the eternal value is spontaneous; social values are imposed, taught by society. Understand it like this—

This is not the prayer of the mosque’s sacred courtyard;
This is the salat of love’s alley.
No awareness of petition in prostration, no conditions of etiquette in prayer.
Those who are standing, are standing in the realm of awe;
Those who have bowed, remain bowed in prayer.
This is not the prayer of the mosque’s sacred courtyard.

The value of the supreme life I speak of is not the namaz recited in the mosque, not the worship performed in the temple.

This is the salat of love’s alley—
the prayer of the lane of love.

There is a namaz recited in the mosque: it has its manners, its method, order, rules and regulations. And there is a namaz recited in love’s alley: it has no scripture. It is free. It is spontaneous.

No awareness of petition in prostration, no condition of etiquette in prayer—
that formula of prayer offered in love’s alley, that worship and adoration done there—one doesn’t remember which prayer to say or not to say; one even forgets whether to pray at all. No etiquette remains to be observed.

No awareness of petition in prostration, no condition of etiquette in prayer.
Those who are standing, are standing in the realm of awe—
someone remains simply standing, drowned in the nectar of the Divine.
Those who are standing, are standing in the realm of awe;
those who have bowed, remain bowed in prayer—
someone bows and remains bowed. There is no decorum, no etiquette, no ritual rule.

But that is the final state. Until that happens, one has to move by accepting the temporal rules and forms. Until such namaz comes into your life—that whether you stand you no longer know you stand, whether you bow you no longer know you bow; until such prayer happens in your life—that wherever prayer resounds, there the temple of the Lord appears—until then you will have to seek some temple, find some mosque. Until the supreme, eternal value of life pours down in your life, you must go on walking by such rules as nonviolence, compassion, love. These are outer coverings. They prepare you for the supreme happening. When it happens, then throw this trash away. When it happens, no ritual is needed any more.

Do not quench the burning of your own heart like this;
Do not speak of hell in this way.
Watch your speech, O preacher—
its scorching has begun to touch even God.

If you listen to the language of the preacher, you’ll find it is not the language of religion at all. He describes hell in such detail that hearing him you feel he is savoring it. It seems he is most eager to send people there—keen to dispatch them. There will be a gleam in his eyes, an excitement on his face.

Do not quench the burning of your own heart like this;
Do not speak of hell in this way—
it seems he is soothing his own heart’s burning; what he himself wanted to do but could not, he now relishes consigning those who did do it to hell—roasting them in the fire.

Do not speak of hell in this way—
he describes hell taking relish, smacking his lips, as if cooling his own fever.

Watch your speech, O preacher—
mind your discourse a little!
for the blaze of your hell is beginning now to reach even God—
let alone human beings—your flames of hellfire have begun to scorch life’s supreme truth itself.

Keep one thing in mind: heaven and hell are imaginations of reward and punishment for those who do not understand. Sin and virtue are explanations devised for those who do not understand. One who is awake, who understands—then there is no sin and no virtue, no heaven and no hell. Life alone is all.

And for the one who understands, understanding is enough. No scripture stands above understanding. Understanding is the ultimate principle. Yes, until you have understood, you will have to move on the basis of what others indicate. If the eyes are not yet open, you will have to grope. If the eyes are closed, you must take a stick and feel out the road.

All rituals and rules are like the groping of a blind man. When the eyes open, no rule is needed. Then one becomes free of all limits. Consciousness is unbounded; and out of that unbounded consciousness, all boundaries arise of themselves. Freedom is supreme—but it is not license.

Remember: rules and rituals are necessary until your meditation awakens. Only when meditation awakens will you come to know the eternal value. Call it life, call it existence, call it God, call it prajna, call it samadhi—these are only names. The essence is simply this: let the lamp of your awareness be lit. Then no code can bind you, because you will not be able to be immoral even if you try. Even if you wanted to, you could not be unethical. Ethicalness will be included in your very being.

But until that happens, follow—gropingly—the ways shown by the awakened ones, the way they lived and walked. Ethics is following the awakened; religion is the advent of awakening within you.

Enough for today.