Es Dhammo Sanantano #53

Many things will have to be understood. First of all—sir, love is; don’t turn love into a question!
There is an attraction to the buddhas. For attraction there is no answer. If you happen to like a woman, if your mind is charmed, you may say, “She is beautiful, very beautiful,” but you won’t be able to prove it.
Love is deeper than logic. If someone asks, “Why do you love?” you won’t be able to answer. It is beyond the reach of questions and answers.
I have an affinity for the buddhas. When attachment to the world falls away, attachment itself does not vanish. How would it vanish? Attachment is the energy of life. When it withdraws from the world, it flowers toward the buddhas. When it withdraws from the marketplace, it blooms in the temple. Freed from lust, it becomes compassion. Attachment is not going anywhere; it is the very nature of your life. Think of it like this: if the tap on the lower floor is closed, the water rises to the upper floor; open the lower tap, and the upper runs dry.
Your attachment to objects shows that consciousness has not yet been glimpsed. Your attraction still wanders outside; the inner journey has not begun. When it does, you will understand. Then you live in love with the buddhas—the buddhas who have been, the buddhas who are, and the buddhas who will be.
It is hard to explain this to those whose eyes are still fixed on wealth, status, and fame; hard to explain it to those whose gaze still wanders outward, entangled in things. But once you catch even a glimpse of the buddhas—from anywhere, through anyone—such a one is what we call a guru: the medium through which the chain of buddhas opens for you. The guru does not bind you to himself; he connects you to the buddhas—to that great lineage of the awakened. To that garland of lamps where the lamp of Buddha burns—of Mahavira, of Krishna, of Christ, of Zarathustra, of Lao Tzu. This line of lamps is very lovely.
In all these lamps the flame is one, but the lamps differ. Each lamp has its own color, its own style, its own flavor—and those flavors are very dear. Understand Lao Tzu: such a sweet style! No one else could find that very flavor again. If I confine you to myself, I will make you impoverished. I have my own style—while the light is the same, mine is one lamp. But there are other lamps too.
There are many other fine poets as well.
I do not want to stop you at me. I want to be a door for you, not a wall. Enter through me, but don’t stop at me. Use me as a springboard—fly into the sky. I want to give you wings, not bind you. That is why I give you the sky of all the buddhas.
You say you feel confused—I know. For those accustomed to cages, the open sky is terrifying. Where to go? Until now there was a home, a fixed perch, a little reed fence of limits. The open sky will frighten you. So many directions—how to choose? If you go north, you’ll regret not going south—who knows, perhaps the gold mines are to the south. If you go south, the mind repents, “Why not east, where the sun rises—perhaps everything is hidden there.” Go east, and the mind will murmur, “Why not west, where the sun goes every day—it cannot be for nothing.”
A bird in a cage has none of these troubles. A man in prison has none of these confusions. No decisions to make, no courage to gather, no steps to take. He paces in his cage, flailing about in all the “directions”—where in truth there are no directions at all.
You may wish me to keep you confined to myself, but I will not. I want you to be free because of me. Others have spoken on other awakened ones, yes—but not as I am speaking.
If Mahavira spoke, he did not speak on Krishna; he spoke on Parshva, on Nemi, on Rishabha—the Jain tirthankaras. He spoke only in one direction, not in the other. Granted, he did not stop you at himself, but he confined you to his direction. He broke the prison, but did not give you the whole sky; he did not go beyond the Jain stream.
Buddha also spoke of the awakened ones before him, yet did not move an inch outside the Buddhist stream. Then there is no “problem”—things are neat and tidy, no confusion arises. Krishna also spoke, but did not step outside the Hindu stream.
Jesus too said, “I have come to fulfill the old prophets. I have not come to break the ordinances given before, but to fulfill them.” But those ordinances are of Moses, of Ezekiel—of the Jewish tradition. Jesus did not move an inch outside that tradition. They offered directions. I give you the sky.
So I can understand your confusion. It’s not that I don’t understand your difficulty—I do, thoroughly. And with full understanding I offer you the whole sky. Because I see that cages have bound you, and even directions have bound you. Jains have again been bound by Jainism. In my view, humanity has become poor this way; its glory has diminished because it could not assimilate others.
The Jain missed Krishna; the Hindu missed Mahavira. The lane grew narrow. It still leads somewhere, yes. But I say to you: why not make even the path vast? Sometimes I feel: if your lane is that narrow, then wherever you arrive cannot be very vast—because the means determine the end. The path fashions the goal. If you become habituated to the narrow—and you will live on the path for who knows how many lives—won’t your eyes themselves grow narrow? Won’t your very soul take on a direction? It does.
Jains lived right here, with Krishna’s temple next door, yet the bells of Krishna’s temple never resonated in their ears—could not. Their ears were closed that way. Krishna’s flute kept playing, but to them it seemed only a disturbance to sleep, a clamor. They never went to listen to its notes. They were afraid: this flute might lead them astray, might cause them to stray from Mahavira’s path.
I am breaking all your bonds. So you will walk with me only if you have great courage. If you are weak, cling to some prison; do not come to me. But for your sake I will not give the narrow; I will give the vast. I will give it only to those who can take it. I will make you capable—I will break you open, make you fluid—so that you can spread in all directions, so that you can fly in the open sky.
In truth I don’t want to take you anywhere; I want to teach you to fly. The very idea of “taking” you is petty. I tell you: you are already arrived. Test your wings a little, rise into the storms, play with the gales, relish the open sky. I do not say that fulfillment is somewhere in the future. If you can fly, it is now, here.
I want that, in the peal of bells rising from the temple, you also hear the mosque’s call to prayer. How impoverished man has become! He divided mosque and temple. How poor he became! He divided his own inheritance. There was no need. All are yours, and you belong to all.
The distinction between disbelief and faith has fallen from the heart’s heights; forever the peal of the bell comes to the ears as the call to prayer.
Now who is a kafir and who a Muslim—this distinction has dropped.
Forever the bell’s peal comes to the ears as the adhan.
From the temple the conch sounds—and one hears the call to prayer.
I want to melt you. I want to make you rich. Of course, a poor man is not so confused—I know that. There’s nothing worth being confused about. He sits in his hut. He begs food for a day; there is a begging bowl. The same thing is the blanket at night and the garment by day; the same is the bed and the covering—what confusion is there? As you become wealthy, confusion increases. Where to sleep? What to wear? There is so much—now the question of choice arises.
And the same is true of the inner life. A man finds it convenient to remain poor. I tell you: you wish to remain impoverished because then confusion does not arise. There is a kind of peace—no way to choose, no confusion. What is, is; only that much. But as you grow rich, great difficulty comes.
Yet I say to you: only by meeting difficulty does a human being get forged. The more the blows, the greater the awakening. The more your strings are plucked, the more the music refines. The more the chisel strikes you, the more the form reveals itself.
You want to remain poor, for the sake of easy resolution. You say, “Tell us one thing; we’ll hold to that—don’t complicate it.” Clinging to one thing is always easy. If there is no choice, there is no need for awareness. Even the stupefied can cling to one thing. That is why those who cling to a single thing have remained in stupor.
The Hindu is unconscious, the Muslim is unconscious, the Jain is unconscious. They go along, swept by the current; the crowd shoves them and they go where it goes. To walk alone, in solitude, is frightening—because then at every step there is choice, at every step a decision, at every step you must remain aware.
That is why people follow others—so their own hassle is avoided. They grab anyone’s tail and assume, “He must be going right,” and set off. They feel at ease.
Remember: those you call leaders are at ease because many are clutching their coattails. They feel assured: “When so many are walking behind me, surely I must be on the right path—why else would they follow?” Those behind think, “When the leader walks so confidently, he must surely know where he is going.” This is the deal. You fear walking alone; your leader fears it too. That is why attaining individuality seems so difficult.
To attain individuality means not a beaten footpath, not a broad highway. And I am not even giving you a footpath, because in the sky there are no footpaths. Birds fly, and no footprints remain. There is no way left for anyone to follow behind. The sky remains utterly blank. Here, paths are not made at all.

Otherwise, how could I speak at all! I say only what I have to say. It would be more accurate to think that I say what is being said through me. “I say” is not quite right—because that sounds as if I have decided in advance: I must say what I want to say. No. I say what is being said; I say what the Divine is having me say.

The work you had me do, I did;
whatever you had me say, I said.
The plot was yours,
and you had chosen all the characters too—
but among them were many
who hummed stubbornly to their own tune.
So I offered myself:
make me whatever you will.
The work you had me do, I did;
whatever you had me say, I said.

It is not even that I want to say something. I am saying what the Divine is making me say. I have moved myself out of the way—that is my very being. And I have moved so completely that now this flute can be placed on anyone’s lips. Put it on Krishna’s lips and the tones of the Gita will arise. Put it on Buddha’s lips and it will be Esa dhammo sanantano—“this is the eternal law.” This flute has no insistence of its own. It is just a hollow reed. It is simply empty. Therefore any note that wishes to descend through it is free to do so. And I want that, while this flute remains, you hear as many notes as possible. You will become that much richer.

You say, “Just say whatever you wish to say.”
So be it. The notes will still be those of a flute. The sound will carry the fluteness of a flute. From a flute, the notes of a veena will not arise. But when the flute rests on Krishna’s lips, even its fluteness gains something more; when it is on Buddha’s lips, something else is added. I want to make you rich. I am not an advocate of poverty. I am for poverty only when poverty too is your wealth.

I have heard of a Sufi fakir, Ibrahim. He was once the king of Balkh. Then he renounced the throne and became a fakir. On the very first night he stayed in a dargah; another fakir was there. At dusk both sat to pray. The other fakir began to cry out loudly, “O God! How many days have I prayed—how long will you keep me poor? How long this misery and destitution? How long this poverty?” Ibrahim began to laugh.

The fakir asked, “You are laughing—what is the matter?” Ibrahim said, “It seems you got your poverty cheap. It must have come to you for free. Looks like you paid nothing for it. O madman, I took poverty in exchange for a whole empire; I bought it at a great price. And I pray, ‘Keep it just like this.’”

Now understand. I favor poverty only when you have earned it; then poverty is great wealth. I favor your emptiness, but only when, on the path of fullness, emptiness has descended. I do not wish to see your life impoverished. Poverty too can be wealth—but only when poverty becomes your supreme good fortune. I want to see you brimming. If I speak of emptiness, it is only because nothing fills as emptiness fills. It is the great fullness, the final fullness. Beyond it, there remains nothing more to add.

Look closely at an empty cup: it is more full than a cup filled with water. Pour in water—however much—and still some emptiness remains. There must be a little space between the water and the cup; otherwise the water would become the cup and the cup water. There has to be a little opening, a gap. And however full it is, one more drop can still be added.

I have heard: Nanak was a guest outside a village. The village was of fakirs, of Sufis. They became anxious. Had they been true fakirs, they would have rejoiced—what was there to worry about! The head among them sent a symbolic message. He sent his disciple with a cup filled to the brim with water—so full there was no room for even a drop.

Nanak was sitting at dawn outside the village on the well’s parapet. Mardana was playing a tune. Nanak said, “Mardana, go pluck a flower.” He brought a flower, not understanding why. The attendant stood there holding the brimming cup. Nanak floated the flower on the water and said, “Take it back.” Mardana asked, “What just happened? I don’t understand—a big exchange took place. What is going on? The fakir’s visit, this full cup—what does it mean? And then your floating a flower!”

Nanak said, “The head fakir of the village has become anxious. He thinks a competitor has arrived. He is not a fakir but a shopkeeper. So he sent a full cup, saying, ‘There are many fakirs here; there is absolutely no space. Please go elsewhere, pitch your camp elsewhere.’ I dropped this wildflower into it. I said, ‘We will float here like a flower—do not be afraid. And even in a full cup there is room for a flower to float.’”

I am telling you this: however full a cup is, there is room enough for a flower to float. Things that are full remain empty still. And when a cup is utterly empty—then emptiness is completely full. Because you do not recognize emptiness, because you do not perceive the empty, you say the cup is empty. If you knew, you would say, “Now the cup is filled with sky—filled with shunya.”

This state is what Buddha called anatta. Buddha said: “Self, self, self; I, I, I—you will never be able to fill yourself that way. You will remain empty. Let the ‘I’ go. Remain empty—anatta, anatman. Fill yourself with emptiness. Then the fullness is such that even a flower cannot be floated; the fullness is complete. Nothing can be added to it. It is perfect.”

So I am just a hollow reed of bamboo. I place it on many lips. Listen. I want to pour into you the whole past with all its treasure. And I want to place the whole future in your lap as well.

But you are such paupers that you say, “Why complicate things! Please just say it simply.” You seem to be in a great hurry. You want to get something, pounce on it, and rush home. As if the situation is such that you must seize it quickly and lock it in a safe.

I want to give you a blessing that no safe can contain. You have come to make a little stream of life—I want to make you an ocean. You are not used to living without boundaries—I want to take you into the boundless. I know: you have come for one thing, and I am taking you somewhere else. This is the very tussle, the struggle, the war between master and disciple. The disciple comes with one idea; the master leads him elsewhere. You came to get something—here I begin to take away. You came to get one thing—here I begin to give you something else.

You ask for a shore; I start teaching you the storm. You are greedy for the shore—“let me reach quickly”—and I tell you there is no shore here. Take the midstream to be the shore. There isn’t any—what can I do?

This very longing to reach a shore has made your life restless. Understand the cause of your restlessness. The desire for a shore creates the unrest. Because there is no shore, you will remain restless. Now you say, “Make me peaceful quickly.” You don’t want to remove the root cause; you want a cheap remedy. The day you can be peaceful is the day the cause of unrest is removed. You want peace, but you don’t want to remove the cause of unpeace. In fact, your desire for peace is arising from the same fuel as your unrest. This smoke of restlessness and this longing for peace are both rising from the same fuel; there is no difference between them.

A disciple once asked Confucius to show him the path to peace. Confucius said, “Stop this nonsense—when you die you’ll be peaceful; what’s the hurry? Live now, and you’ll be peaceful in the grave. What’s the rush? Live rightly now, otherwise you won’t even be peaceful in the grave—because there the unrest will remain that you never lived, that life slipped through your hands. Now, while you’re alive, you want peace; then, when peace comes, you’ll want to live. Don’t create such knots—live now. Now wrestle with the storms. Now fight the gales.”

There is one kind of peace that comes by hiding from the storms, and another kind that is attained by grappling with them. There is a peace that comes after the tempests—through the very tempests. And there is an ostrich-like peace—head buried in the sand—the peace of a deserter, an escapist.

A disciple comes for reasons you can’t guess. But the master is not there to fulfill the disciple’s reasons. The master sees where you have no news at all. There is a light in the master’s eyes from a sun whose dawn has not yet happened in your life. He leads you in his light. He keeps saying to you, “You’ve come to the right place—soon you’ll be peaceful, soon bliss will be yours, soon all will be well”—and all the while he is pulling the ground out from under your feet.

But the day you understand the master’s vision, you will feel blessed. You will say, “Good that you didn’t fulfill the prayer I brought. Good that you changed my prayer altogether.”

I am not here to fulfill your prayers; I am here to change them. Naturally, many times you will feel troubled—“he is increasing my entanglement.” But if you understand me, I am saying only one thing every day. If you understand me, my tone is like a one‑stringed instrument: only one string in it. Whether I hum Buddha or Krishna, it makes no difference—these are pretexts. And very lovely pretexts.

“Then why take the support of the pegs of other Buddhas?” Because these are very lovely pegs. They are pegs that set you free. They are pegs that open you up. And those about whom I speak are not strangers to me. I have a oneness with them. The day my relation with “me” dropped, my relation with them came to be. The boat slipped off from the bank here, and there it belonged to the ocean.

So when I speak “on Buddhas,” it is not so; I speak on myself. Within me there is no difference. Therefore you will get into even more trouble.

If a Buddhist hears me here, he will be in difficulty—“I never heard Buddha spoken of like this.” Jains are troubled by what I say on Mahavira. Christians get entangled by what I say about Jesus—“No one ever said such a thing.” Those who said and wrote had no vision of their own. Scholars write, scholars speak. I am starting a new stream—and this is the only way to free you from scholars.

If you are attached to Buddha—fine, we’ll ferry you across from that very ghat. If you say, “We will go only from Buddha’s ghat—buddham sharanam gacchami,” I say, “All right—what’s the harm? Let the boat push off from this ghat.” I am ready to launch the boat from any ghat—because I know, once the boat leaves, the ghat is left behind.

These pegs are lovely. If scholars speak using these pegs, you get bound. If an awakened one speaks from these same pegs, you get freed. It depends on who is speaking, and from where within the words are spoken.

That’s why I don’t worry much about what is in Buddha’s recorded words. Often I have to decide in favor of Buddha even against the words. I see: these are the words, but Buddha could not have said this—then I don’t care for the words; I care for the Buddha. Because those who compiled the words inevitably got mixed into them. Thousands of years have passed—much has been added, much has been lost. A single syllable, a single vowel, a single pause brings great differences. Move a bit here or there and everything changes. I don’t worry. If I have to choose between the Dhammapada and Buddha, I choose Buddha.

There is a great Buddhist scholar and monk, Bhaddant Anand Kausalyayan. He came to see me when I was in Nagpur. He said, “Your talks feel very good, but many things you say are not in the scriptures—and you say them so forcefully. Where did you get them?” I said, “From the same place where Buddha got them.” He became a little uneasy: “Still, some scripture?” I am no scholastic. If something I say appeals to you, add it to the scriptures. If something I say goes against the scriptures and appeals to you, then change the scriptures. I am not here to walk bound to lines of words. This freedom I have is rare.

That’s why I drop many verses. I am not speaking on the entire Dhammapada—many sutras I have left out as rubbish. Someone else must have inserted them; they cannot be Buddha’s. And if someday there must be a settlement, it will be between me and Buddha—what has Bhaddant Anand Kausalyayan to do with it? We’ll sort it out.

Scholars will have difficulty. The scholar has no lamp of his own. He cannot test what Buddha might have said; to do that one must be a Buddha. He can only search in the scriptures. But how did it get into the scriptures? Came through Buddha—or someone else put it in, someone else added?

The words were compiled—written down years later—some five hundred years after Buddha’s death. Think a little. They stayed in people’s memories. Hence there are many versions, textual variants. One who kept it in memory added a bit, another let something slip. Not that it was done knowingly. People must have preserved it with great devotion and love. But human nature—human limits, the limits of memory, the slips of memory.

So the Vedas have many recensions. One version says one thing, another says something else. Now how to decide which is right? There is only one way: reach that place from where the Vedas arise; seek in that Gangotri from which the Veda is born.

That’s why I thought such an opportunity may or may not come again: let me freshen Buddha again, give freshness again to Mahavira. These flowers have withered a lot. They are very lovely, but they have begun to dry. Their roots have not been watered. They could have been used; they were only worshiped. From them a great revolution could have been born—nothing happened. They need to be given flame again. These lamps are beginning to go out; the wick must be tended. Before the wick sinks and dies, if someone tends it, it will flare again—and from all lamps the light is the same. Therefore I don’t find difficulty.

Many ask me, “How is it possible that you can speak on the Bible, on the Dhammapada, on the Gita? Is there no difficulty, no confusion?” There is none. I have my own touchstone. Where it matches my touchstone, there I know Jesus said it. Where it doesn’t match, there I know Jesus did not say it.

Someone asked Jesus, “By what authority do you speak?” Do you know what he answered? Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

Abraham is the oldest prophet of the Jews, as Ram is for the Hindus. And there is a strong possibility these two are not two persons, because Abraham is a transformation of Abram; it may be they are the same person. The original Hebrew is Abram. Abram means “Shri Ram.” “Ab” is an honorific—how to say merely “Ram”? “Shri Ram”—so Abram. Then in the course of time it became Abraham.

And there are only two basic root religions in the world—Hindu and Jewish. The rest are their branches. Branches of the Hindus are Jain, Buddhist, Sikh. Branches of the Jews are Muslim, Christian. These two are the roots. And it may be that behind both is the same source—Ram. It should be so. The source of religion should be one. Then its branches spread out.

So Jesus said, “Even before Abraham, I am.” He is saying, “I come from the same original source from which all come. Even before him, I am.” It is not a matter of time.

I tell you: even when Buddha was not, I am. You will have difficulty. Or, say it this way: I come from the same house, the same Gangotri from which Buddha comes. I know what Buddha would have said. What I cannot say, Buddha cannot say. And if you ask, “By what authority?” I speak by my own authority. There is no other authority. There can be no other.

“Why don’t you tell us your own thing straight—why do you entangle us?” You are entangled already. I don’t entangle you; I only bring your entanglement to the surface. I float your knots to the top; the tangles are already there. If you were not tangled, there would be no need. Try to entangle me—you are so skilled in entanglement, go ahead, try. You cannot entangle me.

One who is untangled is untangled. One who is awake cannot be put to sleep by those who sleep. How will you put him to sleep? Think a bit: if millions are sleeping and one man is awake, even the power of a million cannot put him to sleep. But one awake man can awaken a million.

You are so many; I am alone. You are all tangled—entangle me if you can. There is no way. I am trying to untangle you. Though I understand what your question means.

When you came to me, you had the notion you were sorted out. Since you came, knots have begun to show. You have come before a mirror; your face has begun to appear. Earlier you thought you were very beautiful. Now, standing before the mirror, trouble begins. Sometimes you even get angry at the mirror. “What is this? I was so beautiful!”

A woman had gone mad. Wherever she went, if there was a mirror, she would smash it. People asked, “What’s the matter?” She said, “These mirrors make me ugly.” The woman was ugly—but she got angry at the mirrors. What mirror can make anyone ugly?

Come to me and your entanglements will begin to show. My effort is that your knots not remain suppressed—that there be a catharsis. Let them rise, let them come up. Only when they come up can you be free of them. Let them not remain hidden, not lie in the nooks and corners of your mind. Let them not stay in the dark, let them come into the light. In the light they will die. Once in the light you will begin to drop them, because you will see that they survive only if you feed and nurse them. They have not gripped you; you have been gripping them. Before awakening, one is freed from false resolutions and the true entanglement becomes manifest.

Ordinarily a man thinks he is sorted out. He is so unconscious he doesn’t even understand that he is entangled. You go on giving advice to others. You don’t even know that those advices never worked for you. You can’t live them in your own life, and you go on offering them to others. Because of your advices a very great disaster happens in the world.

Have you ever noticed? As a child grows—age increases, experience comes—his trust begins to wane. Strange, isn’t it? Earlier he trusted his parents. Whatever they said felt like Vedic utterance, divine voice. Slowly doubt arises. Because when the child becomes capable of seeing, he finds they themselves don’t live what they say. Until awareness came he believed they were right; now he begins to catch the contradiction. They say one thing, do another. Their being is one thing; their show is something else. Hypocrisy becomes visible.

And when a child’s trust in his parents falls—because that was his first faith, his first love—the edifice of faith begins to collapse. Now he will not be able to trust anyone. When even his own parents proved unreliable, who will prove reliable? Still, he tries; because faith is very delightful and faithlessness very painful. He leaves faith with great reluctance. He trusts his schoolteachers—but that too breaks. In their lives he does not see what they say; he sees the opposite.

As he grows and gains life experience, from all sides blows fall upon faith; from all sides faith is broken; non‑trust fills him. This non‑trust arises because you give such advice as you should not give. You say such things as you should not say. How long can you deceive? You can deceive a few people for a few days, but you cannot deceive everyone forever.

If people become even this aware—that they do not give advice which is not their own lived experience—then the saplings of trust will begin to grow in the world. If a father says, “I don’t know whether God is or not; I too am searching. You search too, son. If you find, tell me; if I find, I’ll tell you. I am also feeling my way”—then trust in such a father will never be lost.

But ask any father—“Is there a God?” He says, “There is. He created the world. Pray every day.” But today or tomorrow the son will find that his father’s prayer is false—he himself doesn’t do it every day. Day after day he will see that his father’s life proclaims something else while he says something else. He does exactly what proves there is no God—and says there is a God. Hatred, enmity, jealousy, competition—all live in him. Attachment, envy, pride—all live in him. All kinds of poisons are harbored—how can prayer arise out of these poisons?

Remember, before you came to me, your advices seemed valuable; after coming to me, your advices will be worth two pennies. Before you came to me, you felt everything was fine—because you had no idea what “fine” is. How could you compare, weigh? Where was the scale? Listen to me, and everything will begin to look not‑right. Before you came to me, you were very sorted out.

There are great confusions. Knots of confusion—confusions upon confusions, threads tangled with threads. Somehow, on the surface, we keep ourselves convinced; otherwise living would become difficult. If you carried your whole tangle to the marketplace, running your shop would become difficult. If you brought your whole tangle home, relating to your wife would become difficult. So you keep the tangles aside. You say, push them away, hide them. You keep one corner neat and clean—like the sitting room in your house. That one you keep tidy. There you meet and mingle with guests. The rest of the house is dirty. You don’t even cast a glance there. You feel there is no need to pay attention there. When you come to me, the tangle will surface. Therefore the question is absolutely meaningful.

And what else should I do? You are entangled; if I speak of untangling, your entanglement will be revealed. Like a sunbeam flashing on a dark wall; like lightning flaring in black clouds. Have you noticed—after lightning flashes, the night seems even darker? You’re walking on the road, a car passes—its bright lights. It was dark, but after the car goes by it feels darker still. The car didn’t make it darker; it gave you a glimpse of light. Once the eyes have seen light, they recognize darkness—more deeply.

I am only trying to untangle. But the more I try to untangle, the more light I pour into your eyes, the more your own darkness will become visible to you. And there is no other way. Look at the darkness; don’t hide it—expose it. Liberation comes only by bringing it into the open. Bring it out. Sever your connection with it, drop your ties with it; free yourself from all the vested interests you have knotted to it. Because nothing false can ever fulfill any interest. Try as you may, anger will never give birth to peace. Try as you may, enmity will never yield friendship.

Buddha has said: Enmity does not cease by enmity. Hostility is not lessened by hostility. Anger only feeds the fire of anger.

See this. The day it becomes crystal clear to you that you are trying to turn poison into nectar—that this very attempt is your entanglement—that very day you will be free. But it won’t be that easy, because for lives upon lives you have been bound to the false; the false has sent roots deep into you.

I have heard: A fakir was sitting on a riverbank with his disciples. It was bitterly cold and he was shivering. He saw a blanket floating down the river. The disciples said, “Look, a blanket! Why don’t you jump in and fetch it? You’re freezing.” The fakir jumped. But it wasn’t a blanket; it was a bear drifting along with its head tucked under the water. It looked like a blanket.
Now, when he grabbed the bear, he found it wasn’t that he had caught it; instantly the bear had caught him. He began to be swept away with it. The disciples shouted, “What’s the matter? If the blanket is too heavy and you can’t drag it in, let it go.” He replied, “Letting go is very difficult now—the blanket has grabbed me too. I’m not holding on; I’m trying to let go, but now the blanket has got hold of me.”

The entanglements you have seized are not dead. You have given them plenty of life, watered them well. They are not like blankets; they have become like bears. You have breathed life into them—your own life. If you pull slowly, slowly, they will come off; they will lose their life. But it won’t happen all at once. It will take time. Therefore, only one who has the courage to persist in the struggle can be free of entanglements.

Understanding is essential; then, after understanding, a little waiting is essential. Continue the struggle; keep patience and perseverance. What has been made can be unmade. What we have made, we can also dissolve.

“After all, you say whatever you want to say. Then why take support of the pegs of other Buddhas? Why not tell us your own thing directly?”

If I speak directly, you won’t understand at all. The words of the Buddhas have become familiar to you. It took twenty-five hundred years for Buddha’s words to slowly sink into your every fiber. It took five thousand years before the Gita settled in your throat. It still hasn’t reached your heart, but at least it has reached your throat—you have memorized it. It took two thousand years before Jesus’ words spread across people’s tongues. They still haven’t reached their very life-breath, but they have pervaded their speech. They are familiar.

If I speak straight—yes, I have thought that before I go I will speak straight; get yourselves a little ready—but I doubt you will understand. Then it will take another twenty-five hundred years. You will again need another enlightened one to explain it to you. Because if I speak directly, that cadence will be utterly unfamiliar to you. Those words will seem opaque. You will not see any coherence in them.

That is why I look for pegs—for your support. I have no need of them. In fact, the pegs make speaking a little troublesome for me, because I have to harmonize with a language twenty-five hundred years old. Needless obstacles arise. What I have to say is precisely what I am saying. I can say it directly. After all, there is not a single saying in the Dhammapada that I could not state straight. Have you heard even one saying so far that I could not speak directly? Where is the difficulty? Which statement in the Gita is there that I could not say outright? What is there that cannot be said plainly?

But when I speak plainly, it will be utterly unfamiliar to you—as if descending from a blank sky. If I take the support of Buddha’s framework, it is a framework twenty-five hundred years old; you have slowly come to accept it, to recognize it. If I speak on the Vedas, on the Upanishads, that has entered your very blood—I am making use of that.

This is to make it easy for you, not to make it hard. But you are so difficult that even what is made easy appears difficult to you.

I will speak someday; that is my thought. But let me prepare you first. Even now you think I am contradictory; then you will think I have gone mad. Because then I will speak and stop worrying about you. If I have to consider you, I must use the old language. Then I will speak as if I am speaking into empty space, as if you are not there. Become a little empty and open, and then I will speak in sutras. Then I will not explain. Who will do the explaining then? For the explanation you will have to wait twenty-five hundred years. If fortune favors, someday someone will awaken and will explain it—fine!

Keep in mind: whatever I am doing is only so that you may have some support, somehow. That no remedy be left untried. So you cannot say that I left any means unused. If you go astray, I will leave you astray only in such a condition that you keep knowing you are wandering because of yourself, not because of me. You will not be able to say, you will not be able to complain, that I left out any medicine. You will not be able to say that I kept treating you only with allopathy, while you could have been cured by homeopathy. So I am using every treatment—homeopathy, naturopathy, Ayurveda, Unani, acupuncture—whichever treatment you wish your illness to be cured by, that one.

And even then, if you are not cured, you will have to say, you will have to admit, that you were clinging to the illness, that you did not want to let go. You will not be able to blame me.

If you have understood me, then drop your worry. You go—I will come with you. Your insistence on staying here only shows that you are afraid: if you go to Indore, what you have found might slip away.
Is there something wrong with Indore? It is not worse than Poona. The people there are as people are here; the trees there are as the trees here. The same sky that surrounds Poona surrounds Indore. The same earth that holds Poona holds Indore. I want the distance between Indore and Poona to disappear. I want you to find Poona even in Indore.
If you insist on staying, that insistence only reveals fear. I want to free you of that fear too. If you can be happy only when you are close to me, then that happiness is not of great value; it is not deep. It is very shallow, superficial. Hidden within it is fear—of losing it, of being deprived of it.
Why be afraid of the green flag? The green flag is as dear as the red flag. Recognize my hand: the hand that waved the red flag is the same hand that waves the green. If you say, “We will see only the red flag, not the green,” then you are not seeing my hand—you are clinging to your stubbornness.
You have heard the old story: a supremely wise one was explaining to his disciples that the Divine is everywhere, pervading all forms, present in every color. One disciple left, full of that feeling. On the road, a king’s elephant had gone mad. The mahout shouted, “Move aside!” People around him stopped him: “Don’t go that way—the elephant is mad.” But he said, “Let me be! I have just come from the master’s house, and the master has said the One resides in all. The same One is in this elephant—what is there to fear? The same in me, the same in it.”
Granted, he had heard Vedanta—the elephant had not. That is where the trouble arose. Do elephants concern themselves with the Upanishads? The elephant picked him up in its trunk, twisted him, and threw him. He crashed into a nearby wall; his head split, he was bloodied. He said, “But the guru said Brahman is in all!” “Take me to the guru—this seems doubtful.”
They carried him to the master. The master said, “I said Brahman is in all—but did I say it is not in the mahout? And when the mahout was shouting ‘Stop!,’ who was shouting, you fool? Brahman itself was shouting. It was your choice: you listened to the elephant’s Brahman and not to the mahout’s Brahman. When the question arises between the mahout and the elephant, the mahout’s Brahman is the more evolved Brahman. Listen to that. You were stubborn for nothing.”
You think you stayed because I showed the red flag. No—you want to stay; you stay for your own reasons. That is why the green flag obstructs you. But I say, look at my hand. I call you near and I also send you far, so that you learn a way of nearness where “near” and “far” no longer apply.
Whatever you have found, keep it safe—tie it into a knot; go home. Try there too to find the same peace, the same joy, the same bliss, the same meditation that you found here. If you cannot—I know there are difficulties—then come back. But keep going there again and again. The day you begin to see Brahman in Indore, know that on that very day you have truly come to me. That is why I tell you: go—I am coming right behind you.
Which do you think is better: your staying here, or my coming with you? I do not want you to start taking life as a burden. I want to teach you the art of living. I want you to live life in joy, in a spirit of wonder and gratitude. I do not want to create any duality or any gulf between you and your life. Otherwise, as has so often happened in the name of religion, you become escapists.

No, I don’t want to turn you into a runaway. I want to save you from running away. Nor do I want you to stay at home half‑heartedly. I say: regard the home as a temple. Don’t let such feelings arise in you that you start thinking,
“Now I live along with the turmoil of the times,
paying off an unpleasant duty.”
This “unpleasant duty”! Religion has made people do just this mischief so far. The day religion begins to appeal, everything else turns distasteful. People drag themselves along out of compulsion—got trapped, entangled in the net, had children—what to do? Got married—what to do?
No: if life becomes an unpleasant duty, a burden carried by force, you have not understood religion at all. Religion gives dance to your feet; it makes you weightless. That is why I will keep fighting your tendencies. I will not let you become an escapist. And one day, when you understand, you will thank me.
For now it may feel strange: you want to stay here; I say, go. You are ready to renounce everything; I say, don’t renounce. You’ll ask, what kind of talk is this! You want me to say “yes,” so that the guilt you feel about leaving can be laid at my door. “What can I do—my guru told me to leave everything.” There are plenty of such gurus. If you want to leave, you will find one who will help you drop it all. Great simpletons!
A Sindhi woman came to me—she had some guru, some “Dada.” She said, “I’m in a big dilemma.” Now, a guru—and then a Sindhi’s guru!
“What dilemma?” I asked. She said, “My guru explained that this business of love with a husband—and we’ve been married only two years—this love and so on is all a deception, an illusion, Maya. I asked, ‘How to test it?’ The guru said, ‘Do this: for fifteen days, be indifferent. Whatever the husband does, show indifference. Whatever he says, show anger and displeasure. You will see—if there is love it will remain; if not, it will end.’”
That fool actually tried it at home. Fifteen days of indifference and anger. Finally… the husband is, after all, a husband. He beat her. Then she went back to the guru: “Now what should I do?” The guru said, “Leave him—what kind of love is that!” So she left house and home and sat down somewhere. Someone brought her to me.
I said, “All right—your husband beat you, and at the first beating you ran away? Did it not occur to you that perhaps your husband too is following some other guru’s instructions and running his own experiment? Think a little! Maybe he found some other ‘Dada.’ There’s no shortage of dadas. And your love ended in a single stroke—while for fifteen days you kept testing your husband, he gave you just one thrashing! Go back home. Think a bit!” She said, “That never occurred to me—that he might be testing too.” “If you are testing, give him a chance too.”
We fill life with useless commotion. Such people abound around us. Why are they there? Because you do not know the art of living. So when obstacles come, you rush to these simpletons. And it’s a wonder: if you are sick, you go to a doctor who has treated thousands. But if you are troubled by marriage, you go to some lifelong celibate.
What fun! Use a little intelligence. You have a mind! If someone has never married even once, that is a sure certificate he is useless for your case; he has no experience. Go to someone who has conducted many marriages—perhaps he can hand you a key to hold. You’re asking advice about shopkeeping from someone who has never kept a shop. Where is the sense in that?
You want to run. So you will seek out a runaway and shift the responsibility onto him. Then you are relieved: “We are not quitters—we are religious.” People drape themselves in fine words and keep committing all kinds of misdeeds.
You put on the robe of sannyas, but think a little about what you are doing behind that robe! How much sorrow you leave behind. All the awakened ones say: by giving suffering to another, you will not find happiness. You could not give joy to your own wife and children—you plunged them into misery—whom else will you make happy? Those who are very close to you—give to them at least. Then think of those farther away. Widen your love; but do not snatch it away from the ones nearby.
Often, those who are incapable of loving a person claim they love “humanity.” But where does one encounter “humanity”? Wherever you go, you will meet a human being, a person; you don’t meet “humanity” anywhere.
Those who want to avoid love say, “We love humanity.” They are deceivers. They refuse to admit the truth: “We are incapable of love; therefore we have contrived a grand pretense, chosen a lofty word—the love of humanity.”
If you could not love the world, will you be able to love nirvana? Knowledge climbs step by step. Wherever you are, be at peace there—and immediately you will find you have risen. Be at peace where you are and you will see a step crossed. Being in the home is a schooling; the world is a university. No experience comes cheap; a price must be paid. Hence there is quarrel, mischief, obstacles, anxiety—this is the price.
As for me, I come with you. Whenever you are alone, you will find me with you. So go back home. Keep up the practice of being alone for a while each day. For a while, close the doors; forget wife and children.
The wife and children will also be happy, because your sitting on their chest twenty‑four hours a day gives no one any joy. They too will be glad to have a little breathing space: “Good—he’s meditating!” No one will be unhappy at this, because for a while they will get a respite from you. They’ll get a little leisure and space. Be alone for a while; in that aloneness you will find me. Companionship with me will begin.
Yesterday I was reading a song, a very lovely song:
Mother, I don’t want to go to fetch water.
Wherever I set my foot to walk,
a shadow‑like companion follows me;
seeing a crowd he hides behind a screen,
the moment I’m alone he joins me.
Weaving images of many kinds,
he makes my mind dance like this.
Mother, I don’t want to go to fetch water.
Without a string the puppet dances,
without a wire the ektara sings;
from pot to bank, from land to water,
from leaf‑hut to royal palace,
there is no path at all where
this bee does not play his tricks.
Mother, I don’t want to go to fetch water.
It is sung for Krishna. Very sweet! If you have really come to me, you will not be able to go far, whether you go to fetch water or not.
Wherever I set my foot to walk,
a shadow‑like companion follows me;
seeing a crowd he hides behind a screen,
the moment I’m alone he joins me.
Just keep being alone a little.
Weaving images of many kinds,
he makes my mind dance like this.
Mother, I don’t want to go to fetch water.
Without a string the puppet dances,
without a wire the ektara sings.
Sit alone a little, and my ektara will begin to sing. If you have desired me, if you have loved me, then whenever you are alone you will find me. I need do nothing; your love does everything.
Whom you love is the one who comes to mind when you are alone; no one else. The test of love is this: when you are alone, you remember. Lost in the world, in the marketplace, you forget; but when alone again, again the remembrance returns. That is the mark of love. I need do nothing; I won’t have to pay for a ticket to Indore. If you have desired me, your very desire will do it all.
Without a string the puppet dances,
without a wire the ektara sings.
From pot to bank, from land to water,
from leaf‑hut to royal palace,
there is no path at all where
this bee does not play his tricks.
Mother, I don’t want to go to fetch water.
Whether you go for water or not, wherever you go—this bee will be circling. It is your own feeling, your own devotion.
Why are you so afraid of your devotion? Why so distrustful of it? All right—wave the green flag; a green flag it is! Recognize the hand that waves it, and do what I am telling you. Because by doing what I tell you, you will come closer to me. Out of stubbornness you can stay here; what can I do if you insist? But then you have not listened to me. Do not blame me if you get lost. You will get lost even while staying here—because you stayed without listening.
And I tell you: go. Come now and then. At most, take me as a bath—come, take a dip, and go. Don’t remain submerged in the river twenty‑four hours a day. There is no point. Now and then is enough. Even that, if you can hold it, is a lot; it will carry you. Sometimes it also happens that if you stay too close to me, little by little you forget me. Closeness breeds oversight; forgetting begins. Distance keeps remembrance alive.
Do not think of distance as the enemy of love; distance is a great friend of love. Distance provokes and kindles love; it awakens longing. What is right at hand is already possessed; slowly we forget it. Because He is so near, you have forgotten God. Because the Self is so near, you have forgotten it. He is not far; He is nearer than near—that is precisely why He is not remembered.
Last question:
You spoke about recognizing the thread of the mala. I have been listening to you for quite some time. In my understanding, the thread of your mala is witnessing. Kindly throw light on this.

Well recognized. Witnessing is not only the thread of my mala; it is the thread of everyone’s mala—Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. Witnessing is the final word—the first and the last. One begins with it and one ends with it. The first step is the last step.
“Let me gather myself, O Despair—why such catastrophe,
that the hem of the Beloved is slipping from my hand?”
A lover calls it love, the hem of love—“may it not slip from my hand.” The knower calls it meditation. The devotee calls it remembrance of the Lord, naam‑smaran. The sage calls it mindfulness, self‑knowing. But the point is the same: may the awareness of the Lord—or of one’s own Self—not be lost. That which is eternal within you—that is it.
The body too will decay, be gone. The mind also will go. The body is an assemblage of the five elements, and the mind an assemblage of borrowed thoughts and desires. Both will melt and disappear. Your being is neither in body nor in mind; your being is in that which stands beyond both, which sees both—the witness of the body, the witness of the mind.
There is such a song on the singer’s lips
that even in silence is sung through the ages;
even in silence, sung through the ages.
There is such a flower in a withering garden
that the touch of autumn cannot reach.
Within the house of breath there is one breath
that even the emptiness of the cremation ground cannot fill.
In a doll of clay there is such a dream
that because of it man cannot die.
Seek within you that which you cannot go beyond, behind which you cannot retreat. Whatever you can step back from is not you; that from which you cannot step back—there you are. Close your eyes: you can see your body. Move your hand: you can see the hand moving. There is pain in the head: you can see the pain happening within. You are separate, standing behind. Thoughts move—subtlest waves, good or bad—you can see them too. You are the seer. You are the witness. From this witness you cannot retreat, because even if you see the witness, you remain the witness. See the witness of the witness—you remain the witness. Step back from the body and the body is not. Step back from the mind and the mind is not. You cannot step back from witnessing—you remain the witness. The supreme key is found. This is that song.
There is such a song on the singer’s lips
that even in silence is sung through the ages.
There is such a flower in a withering garden
that the touch of autumn cannot reach.
That is your witnessing. That is the thread of the garland of all the awakened ones. In witnessing, all opposites fall silent. In witnessing, both darkness and light fall away—because you step back from both. You are the seer of darkness and the seer of light. Auspicious and inauspicious both become still—you are the seer of both. The world and nirvana both become still—you are the seer of both. All is immersed in it.
Love is lament and it is melody;
it is silence and it is sound.
Love is sometimes silent, sometimes it speaks. Witnessing is beyond both—neither silent nor speaking. That is why it is so hard to say what witnessing is. If it were silence, we could say silence. If it were speech, we could say speech. But it is neither; it is beyond both.
Whose nearness, what distance—you are heedless of yourself.
If you ask for the secret of attainment: to lose yourself is to attain.
Whose proximity—whose nearness? Whom are you trying to approach? What God are you searching for?
Whose nearness, what distance—you are heedless of yourself.
There is no distance, nor is God far, nor is His nearness to be sought; you are simply unconscious of yourself—not a witness, not awake.
If you ask for the secret of attainment: to lose yourself is to attain.
In witnessing, even “you” will not remain. For you will become the witness of both “you” and “I.”
Look: I am speaking, you are listening. If you become a witness, you go beyond both speaking and listening. You will be the witness of your own listening, just as you are the witness of my speaking. You will say, “You are speaking; I am listening.” But there is someone beyond both. Catch hold of that far shore. Catch hold of this key of transcendence. This is the hem of the Beloved’s robe.
Witnessing is the essence of all scriptures—the essence of all spoken and unspoken teachings. Different words have been used for it, but grasp the flavor: keep freeing yourself from the seen, and keep sinking into the Seer. Whatever is seen—know it as distinct, other, separate. The One who sees—know: that is what I am. And gradually come to that point beyond which there is no going—where only the Seer remains and there is nothing left to see; where only the Witness remains; where within you a single taste remains—the taste of witnessing, as the ocean’s water is salty everywhere, wherever you taste it.
Whether you get up, sit, walk, sleep, speak or don’t speak; whether at home, in temple, mosque, marketplace, on the Himalayas—wherever you are—let your flavor become that of witnessing. Then the Beloved’s hem is in your hand. The path is held. The first step is taken. And in this world, the first step is also the last.
That’s all for today.