Es Dhammo Sanantano #62

If you are not ready to participate in me, I am also not ready to participate in you. Slowly, gather courage. Only when you open the door of your heart to me can the door of my heart open to you. It is not that it is closed to you, but it will not be able to open. The key to my heart’s opening is hidden in the opening of your heart.

So gradually I will remain only for those who are ready to dive. Only if you dive can you walk with me. I have no taste for crowds. I am not a politician to be excited by crowds. My interest is in those few who are truly eager to seek—and who have the courage to put something at stake.

What does “sannyasin” mean? One who has staked something. You want to risk nothing and yet receive everything. Such cleverness will not do.

So little by little, in other ways too, my interest will remain only in the sannyasin. Because a sannyasin simply means one who is ready to dive with me; if I take him into darkness, he is ready to go into darkness. Sannyasin means he has come to trust me.

A non-sannyasin brings a slight disturbance into the wavelength of the sannyasins. That is why I forbade them to dance. A non-sannyasin, among dancing sannyasins, becomes an obstruction to their ecstatic absorption, because he is not that open—he is closed. One who has not had the courage to take sannyas—will he even be able to dance? And one who can dance—what obstacle can there be to taking sannyas? Both are acts of the same blessed madness.

So there is a whole rationale behind it. I would like a single wave here. Only those who are ready to live in that wave should dive into it. For those who are not ready, I will go on speaking, so that if not today then tomorrow they may become ready. So I am prepared to speak even to the non-sannyasin. But gradually, for the things of the deeper layers, for what happens within, there will be no way except through the sannyasin.

I will have to make distinctions. Otherwise you gain nothing, and the sannyasin is harmed. You think—the questioner has asked as if he suffered some loss. Nothing of his is going to be lost. You have nothing—what loss could there be! The only trouble you must have felt is that there was something into which you were not given the right of entry. Your ego was hurt. And if, carrying this ego, you had been allowed to join, you would only have created a disturbance. You would have been out of tune. You would have been the sensible man among madmen. You would have been like a stone in the stream; because of you the current would not be helped to flow, it would be obstructed.

You have lost nothing. Yes, had you been included, something would have been lost for the sannyasins who were dancing. By dancing they were falling into a deep cadence with me. You cannot even know that. Only those to whom it happened know it. To those to whom it did not happen, from the outside it simply looked as if the sannyasins were allowed to dance and we were not. Your urge to dance is not strong; otherwise you would find the courage to become a sannyasin—you would say, “All right, if it takes that to dance, we accept the condition.” If you feel you have lost something, then gather courage for sannyas, because you would not want to miss in the same way again.

But no, your hitch is another: you feel some partiality has been shown; your ego has been obstructed. “Why was I not allowed to dance? What deficiency is there in my worthiness?” There is a deficiency—of courage. You want truth for free. You want to attain truth just as you are. You are not ready to change anything. You are not ready to take even two steps. And I tell you, if you take one step, the divine takes a thousand steps towards you. But you are not willing to take even one. In fact, it is even more upside down: if the divine were to move towards you, you would start stepping back.

A man was brought before a magistrate because he was driving at sixty or seventy miles an hour in a place where the limit was twenty. The man said, “The constable is wrong; at the most I was going thirty-five or forty.” The magistrate said, “That too is too much—double. You will be fined even for that, because the limit is twenty and you were doing forty.”

But the second man, who had been sitting next to him in the car, said, “Forgive me, as far as I understand, the speed was no more than twenty or twenty-five.” And his wife, who was sitting in the back, said, “I know very well that my husband never drives faster than ten or fifteen.”

Before the fourth man, who was on the back seat, could speak, the magistrate said, “Stop! Otherwise you will end up saying that this man was actually driving in reverse. Enough now! You have slowly brought it down from forty-five, to forty, to twenty-five, to fifteen—don’t go so far as to claim he was taking the car backwards.”
If the Divine were to come toward you, have you ever asked yourself: would you put your car into reverse? Will you stand your ground with courage? Will you open your arms for an embrace? I say this because I know. I know many to whom I have gone—and they stepped back. That is why I say it.
So now, please allow me to work with those who will not step back, those I can trust. And if I go toward them, they will step forward two steps to welcome me. Only in them can I enter.

What happened yesterday has an outward, visible side: I am sitting here with my eyes closed and people are dancing. Anyone can see that. To see that, you hardly need eyes— even a blind person could make it out, could infer it. Even a small child would see it. No great intelligence is required for that. But if you have even a little inner eye, you will see something more—that something else is happening. I am moving into a certain wave, and on that wavelength some people are slowly taking the plunge. I do not want to interfere with that.

Therefore, the privileges of non-sannyasins will now gradually diminish. As the number of sannyasins around me grows, the privileges for non-sannyasins will shrink. Before your privileges are completely lost, hurry up!

Vows have no value at all; only awareness has value. A vow itself means there is a lack of awareness, and you are trying to compensate for that lack with a vow.

You have seen it: the more untruthful a person is, the more he swears oaths. He is always ready to swear in every matter. The liar walks leaning on oaths; he wants to pass off his lies as truth by taking an oath.

In the West there is a small Christian mystical sect, the Quakers. They even refuse to swear oaths in court. Hundreds of times they have suffered punishment because the court insists they must take an oath, Bible in hand: “I will tell the truth.” But the Quakers’ point is right: is “I will tell the truth” something to swear about? And if I am one to lie, I’ll swear falsely as well. The whole thing is absurd, foolish. Tell a liar to take the Quran or the Bible or the Gita in hand and swear to speak the truth. If he is truly a liar, he will say, “Give it here, I’ll swear.” What prevents a liar from taking a false oath? And a truthful person will certainly say, “Why should I swear? Whatever I say is true.” To take an oath would imply that without an oath whatever I say is false.

So Quakers do not swear oaths. They say that to swear is to imply that words spoken without oath are lies. We speak the truth; there is no question of oath or no oath.

Vrat means a vow, an oath—an oath before society. You go to the temple, to the sadhu, the sannyasin, the muni-maharaj, into the crowd, and you swear. You swear among the crowd. Why? Because you do not trust yourself. You know that if you swear publicly, “I will not smoke now,” then it becomes a question of prestige. If someone later catches you smoking in society, you will be disgraced. So you have set your ego against smoking. That is what a vow means.

A vow means that now your ego will be hurt if you falter. People will say, “Hey, you swore you wouldn’t smoke, and now you are smoking! Have you no shame? With what face will you go before the muni-maharaj? How will you enter the temple? How will you walk the market?” You have staked your prestige. A vow means you have told everyone, “From today I will not smoke; I will not touch a cigarette.” Now everyone has become your guard; that’s what a vow does. Whoever sees you—from small to great—will say, “Brother, what are you doing?” Till yesterday no one could say anything; you were your own master. You have handed your ownership over to others. Yesterday you might have hidden it from your wife or father; now you must hide it from everyone. That is a hard business! Where will you smoke? How will you hide it?

A vow means there is no inner awareness, you do not want to drop smoking from within. If you did, why would you need witnesses? You would have dropped it—the matter finished. You understood that smoking is pointless—the matter ended that very moment. What is left to drop? What is there in smoking that has to be “given up”? First you committed the foolishness of smoking; now you are committing the foolishness of “giving up.” Earlier, smoking, you fancied you were doing something great...

It often happens: people sit very stiff-backed while smoking, as if doing something significant. Little children want to grow up quickly so they can smoke. They sit pretending to smoke because smoking is associated with being grown-up. It feels as if one has become “special.”

I lived in a village. One morning on a walk I saw a small boy under a bush, puffing a cigarette with a two-anna stick-on mustache. Seeing me he tried to hide. I ran after him; he fled into his house. I followed him in. He was the postmaster’s son. He was flustered, quickly hid his mustache, threw away the cigarette. His father came out, “Why are you after my boy? Why did you frighten him?” I said, “I didn’t frighten him. I came to ask him something. Your boy is remarkable—please call him out.”

The boy came out, trembling. I asked, “What were you doing? I only want to ask, not to scold you. This mustache-and-cigarette business?” Then I looked closely at the father’s face: the same style of mustache! The father felt a little embarrassed. He said, “He does this sometimes. He bought a two-anna mustache and trimmed it just like mine. And he smokes my cigarettes!”

Seeing his father’s swagger, the boy must also want to strut. Little children smoke only for the prestige. There is some prestige in a cigarette.

So when you smoked, you smoked with a swagger. Now you have “given it up”! The whole thing is foolish. I do not call it sin—note this—foolishness. I do not call the smoker a sinner; calling him a sinner would be too much honor—as if he is doing something big. At least something—so big that even God must keep his accounts! Sin means that in the ledger above your name will be entered: “So-and-so gentleman smokes; so many a day.” Something special indeed. Sin becomes a distinction. I only say: foolishness. Nowhere in God’s ledger will it be written how many cigarettes you smoked or didn’t. What brand you smoked! If God did that, he would be worse off than you. Are these the accounts worth keeping? You act foolishly and God keeps accounts?

No. I only say: foolishness. A sort of stupor. What Buddha called pramād—heedlessness. In pramād there is the sense of stupor and of ego, both. That’s why we call a proud man “pramādi,” and we also call the stupefied “pramādi.” It’s a precious word: stupor-plus-ego, or egotistical stupor.

So smoking you were in pramād. That did not satisfy your mind; now you went to the temple to “give it up.” Your monks are worse than you if they feel overjoyed: “You’ve given up smoking—what a great deed!” As if the world’s great welfare were being accomplished. All you were doing was taking smoke in and pushing smoke out. By pushing smoke in and out you were not harming the world, nor will stopping it create any great good. What has smoke to do with welfare and ill? It only announced that you were a bit of a fool.

But muni-maharaj says, “You have done a great thing: you took a vow. Blessed are you! The beginning of merit in your life!”

First, taking smoke in and out was no sin; then ceasing to move smoke in and out cannot be merit. What childish ideas of merit you have! Those who don’t smoke think the heavenly ledger must be filling up: “This man does not smoke; he does not chew betel; he does not take tobacco; he does not do this, he does not do that.” Just think how many merits you are collecting by not-doing! You don’t visit prostitutes, you don’t drink, you don’t chew betel, you don’t smoke, you don’t gamble—merit upon merit! What could be lacking now? You are a great saint! Count all the things you do not do, and see how meritorious you are.

The day you stop smoking, have you done any merit? You have only shown a little compassion toward yourself, nothing more; perhaps a little intelligence—nothing more. No merit at all.

Yesterday I spoke of Buddha’s monk who swept the monastery. Do you think that to stop sweeping would have produced merit? Would God say, “Blessed one! Great fortune—he stopped sweeping!” Would it count as virtue?

If you look closely, what you call sin is simply foolishness, and what you call virtue is the erasing of that foolishness. What is virtue? You stole, amassed wealth; then you donate and call it virtue. First the pleasure of being rich; then the pleasure of being generous. Both depend on money—and money has no intrinsic value. It is dust. First you gathered dust and enjoyed that the newspapers reported, “See how much dust he has amassed!” Then you donated dust and enjoyed that the newspapers reported, “He has become virtuous.”

Vows are dishonest. In the life of the intelligent there is revolution, not vows.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s wife had gone to her mother’s. He invited his beloved to the house. When the wife goes to her mother’s, who would miss such a chance! That is why wives threaten to go, but rarely do. Say “go,” and they get offended. But she had to go; some urgent matter must have arisen. Even as she left she extracted an oath: “Mulla, swear one thing: you will not go out with any other woman.” As soon as she left, Mulla phoned his beloved: “Come, my wife is away for fifteen days—a month—no hassle.”

The beloved wanted Mulla to come to her place. But Mulla was adamant. Finally she asked, exasperated, “Nasruddin, what’s the matter? Why this insistence that I come to your house? Why can’t you come to mine?”

Mulla said, “There is a reason. I promised my wife that as long as she is at her mother’s, I would not go out with any woman. And not just a promise—she made me swear with the Quran in my hand. So I cannot go out. You must come in. The oath said nothing about not letting an outside woman come in!”

All oaths are like this—lies. You didn’t even want to take them; you had to. You swallowed them on the basis of prestige and ego. If the wife says, “Swear you won’t go out with any woman,” and you refuse—trouble! It would mean you are planning to go. If you refuse, it is clear you are waiting for her to leave. So the oath must be taken. Then you must find a loophole. People always find loopholes.

Mulla Nasruddin had given up drinking. But one day a friend saw him with a glass. “Hey! I heard you’d quit!” He said, “I quit buying it. My wife was after me, so I swore I would never buy liquor again. If someone treats me, that’s another matter.”

I have even heard that when one of Mulla’s friends was on his deathbed—both had drunk together all their lives; wherever they went, two glasses would be ordered—his friend said, “Mulla, now you’ll drink alone. Will you remember me or not?” Mulla said, “I will surely remember.” The friend said, “Remember me like this: I am going; the doctors say there is no hope. Do this much: whenever you drink, as we always ordered two glasses, order two. Drink both—the one for you and one for me. My soul will be greatly at peace.” Mulla said, “Is that all? Of course I’ll do it. What could be better?” He was almost happy that the friend was dying.

The friend died; Mulla began ordering two glasses and downing both. When anyone asked, “Why two? You are alone,” he would say, “One is for my friend—he has died.” The whole town heard he always ordered two. Then one day he came into the bar and ordered just one. The owner asked, “Nasruddin, what happened? Have you forgotten your friend?” “No,” he said, “that’s not it. The doctor told me to give up drinking. So I’m giving up my glass. But the loyalty to my friend, that I must keep.”

Man is such a trickster. Your vows, your rules, are all legalistic moves. If awareness is not with them, you will find some workaround. Man is very skillful—not only at deceiving others but at deceiving himself. You will find a way. Therefore I am not in favor of vows; I am in favor of awareness. I say: try to understand. Understanding itself will become your vow. Do not take vows separately.

If it becomes clear to you that drinking is useless, that clarity should be enough. On the basis of that understanding, drinking should fall away. If it does not fall away just from understanding, then do not force it yet. Because with a vow you will only do some dishonesty. Why take a vow when it is not yet in tune with understanding? If it is not in tune, a vow taken against understanding will create inner conflict, a split. One part will want to drink, another will say, “How can we? We took a vow publicly!” Tension will arise within you, restlessness, anxiety.

And religion does not create restlessness; it brings rest. Religion does not breed disturbance; it brings peace. So wherever religion gives rise to disturbance, know that it is not religion.

I have heard—

Where shall I sow the fragrant dreams of life?
Half is death, and half is religion.

Listen carefully!

Where shall I sow the fragrant dreams of life?
Half is death, and half is religion.

There is no act at all
that is not labeled merit or sin,
none that I can do with simple ease,
bearing only and entirely my own imprint.
If I heed the mind, the soul reproaches me—
it is itself immortal, yet it kills me every day.
Outwardly patient, inwardly afraid,
I always forget life’s single truth:
it is blood and flesh and skin.
Half is death, and half is religion.

My freedom is a false assurance;
each pride of mine only makes my wretchedness speak.
I too am “free” like fire in damp wood,
like love in a reasoning mind.
I am some diplomatic prisoner:
all conveniences as if intact,
only under house arrest.
How can I enact freedom when
thought is bought and action under contract?
Half is death, and half is religion.

On the flowers lies death’s seal,
all the fruits are under death’s gaze—
how shall I taste these fruits,
how shall I lay these flowers on the table?
It is not religion I fear, but its propaganda;
not death I fear, but thoughts of death.
How can I enjoy form and taste and fragrance
when restraint is the essence of every sermon?
Half is death, and half is religion.

Where shall I sow the fragrant dreams of life?

Do you see? On one side death frightens, on the other religion. Death says, “All will be gone—hurry, enjoy.” And religion says, “Don’t enjoy—otherwise you’ll be burned in the flames of hell. You’ll become worms and insects. You’ll wander womb to womb. Great suffering will be the result. A little pleasure now will lead to immense pain. This fleeting happiness will fling you into eternal hell.” Death says, “Why delay? Youth is slipping away—drink, make merry; there is no coming back. Death will snatch it all. This life of a moment—don’t let it pass uselessly.”

Half is death, and half is religion.

And man stands torn between the two. Death pulls here, the mahatmas pull there. Your plight is great.

Have you understood this truth? Your plight is great. If you heed death, it says, “Enjoy; do not waste a moment—who knows about tomorrow?” And the saint says, “Act with foresight; don’t do anything today that will ruin tomorrow. Think of after death. You sow now; who will reap?” Thus a man stands between both—of neither house nor ghat, like the washerman’s donkey.

Have you heard of that donkey? It’s Aesop’s tale. Its master placed it between two bundles of grass. The donkey was hungry. When it looked at this bundle, it remembered that one; when it looked at that, it remembered this. It died standing in the middle—no choice made, no decision: “This is right; that is right.” Life ebbed away in indecision.

Look: on one side stands the saint, on the other death. Death says, “Quick—enjoy.” The saint says, “Wait—mere enjoyment will lead to endless suffering. Enjoy, and then be prepared to pay.” If you go to enjoy, the saint stands in the way; if you refrain, death stands there.

Half is death, and half is religion.
Where shall I sow the fragrant dreams of life?

No—but what is called religion here is not true religion. It is the religion of vows.

True religion does not frighten you with hell. True religion does not frighten at all. True religion gives you the sutras for how to live life’s joy in fullness. True religion does not liberate you from the world’s joys; it moves you in the direction of seeing how, in the midst of this world, the taste of the divine is possible. True religion does not create conflict within you. True religion says: your life as it is is a ladder—there is no opposition. The shop is a step to the temple. Wealth is a step to meditation. The body is the doorway to the soul. This world is God’s world. Live it rightly, live it with awareness, and in this very happiness you will discover heaven. And remember: if you cannot find heaven in this happiness, it is nowhere to be found.

The religion I speak of is not the religion of vows but of awareness. I do not want to break you off from anything. I do want to join you with the divine—but without breaking you anywhere. I want to teach you to use precisely the place where you are.

A friend came to me. For many years he has been addicted to cigarettes. “How to quit?” he asked. I said, “You have been quitting for thirty years. Has it not dawned on you that you’ve spent thirty years quitting? Neither able to smoke nor to stop. Drop the committee meeting!” He said, “Then should I just keep smoking?” He was saddened—he has been smoking for thirty years—and seemed annoyed with me: as if I was at fault! He must have heard from saints, “Quit! Quit right now! Swear you will never smoke again. Awaken your inner power! Be strong! How can you be defeated by a cigarette? Generate resolve!” That is what saints say. People who go to saints go with such petty matters—someone wants to quit cigarettes, someone tobacco. It’s a strange trade: some sell tobacco; others sell the quitting of tobacco. Same business, really—partners in the same shop.

I told him, “Do one small thing: make your smoking a mantra. When you draw the smoke in, say ‘Om.’ When you breathe it out, say ‘Om.’” He said, “What is this?” I said, “It will become a garland. Chant the sound of Om.” He laughed. “What are you saying? Where is Om and where is smoking—how can you connect them?” I said, “You have not read my book From Sex to Superconsciousness. I connect anything with anything—don’t worry. Just begin the chanting of Om; we will see.”

Fifteen days later he returned, amazed: “Something strange is happening. For fifteen days I have been chanting Om. Smoking is becoming secondary; the chant is becoming deeper. Now, when the thought of a cigarette arises, sometimes I skip the cigarette and simply chant Om. And the joy is such as the cigarette never gave!” I said, “As you will. I never asked you to quit.”

If even a cigarette can be made a support, why not use it? If the body can be turned into a doorway, why not? If relationships and bonds can become supports toward the ultimate, why not? If God can be found without abandoning the family, would that not be more fitting—more humane, more truly religious, more compassionate?

No, I do not want to break you anywhere. That is why I am not in favor of vows, for vows are an imposition by force. I am in favor of awareness.

If truth had been found, why are you asking? And does being a poet bring truth? A poet is an extension of imagination. Yes, sometimes those who have attained truth are also poets. But don’t take that to mean that all poets have attained truth.

That is why, in this land, we have given two names—rishi and kavi. Etymologically they may mean the same, but the difference is profound.

A rishi is one who has found truth and has sung it; who has seen truth and turned it into richa, into hymn and song. Those who composed the Upanishads, who gave voice to the mantras of the Vedas—Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, Meera, Sahajo, Daya—these are rishis. Do not fall into the confusion of calling them merely poets. There are thousands of poets, but they are not Nanak, nor Kabir. It may even be that some are better poets than Nanak and Kabir, because poetry is another matter. Nanak is not some great poet! If you go in search of poetry alone, there is not much “great poetry” in Nanak or Kabir. Their glory is not because of poetry. Their glory is of a different order: what they saw, they poured into song; they sang what they realized.

The ordinary poet has seen nothing—at most he has seen dreams. Perhaps after drinking wine, perhaps smoking ganja. That is why you will often find poets drinking, smoking, doing such things. If you happen to like a poet’s poem, do not go to meet the poet—otherwise you may receive a shock. The poem was so lofty, and the poet you find lying in a gutter, or sitting in a teahouse hurling abuses! Better not go to see the poet. If the poem pleases you, don’t go—otherwise you may lose your taste even for the poem.

A rishi is a different matter. If a line of a rishi touches you and the rishi is available, don’t miss him. For what is a line? The line is nothing. When you meet the rishi, the whole vision is revealed. The line is just a ray, a sample, a tiny taste. Go to the rishi and you will find the whole ocean heaving.

The poet is finished in his poetry. Meet the poet and you will find him empty, blank. The rishi is not finished in his poem. The poem is like a few drops that overflowed from the rishi’s inner ecstasy.

You say, “I am a poet.”

Good that you are a poet—but would you not want to become a rishi? If sannyas is joined to your poetry, you will become a rishi. If meditation is joined to your poetry, you will become a rishi. Do not stop at being a poet. Being a poet is not some great attainment.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin proposed marriage to a young woman. The proposal was accepted. Overjoyed, he took a dip and asked, “Do your parents know that I am a poet, a shayar?” The girl said, “No, not yet. I have certainly told them about your trip to jail for theft, and that you have a gambling habit, and a taste for liquor. But that you are a poet—I didn’t say that. I thought it wouldn’t be wise to tell everything at once. We will tell it gradually.”

Being a poet is not necessarily a virtue. Often you will find that those who turn to poetry are people who have failed in life. What they could not bring into action, they pour into imagination. Those in whose lives love has not happened write poems about love—consoling themselves, soothing themselves. It is a kind of comfort.

So do not form your notion of love from the poems of poets, because they do not know love. Those who know love may perhaps not write at all. Often it happens that where love has not been experienced, people fabricate dreams to compensate. This is precisely the use of dreams.

If you go hungry in the day, if you fast, at night you will dream that you are eating, a guest in a king’s palace, with the most delicious foods and sweets before you. The hungry man dreams such dreams. Those who fast—during Paryushan or whatever vow arises—see such dreams at night. When you sleep on a full stomach, you never dream of food.

A poor man dreams that he has become an emperor; an emperor does not see such dreams. The man in a hut dreams that he is in a palace; the man in a palace does not dream that. You will be surprised: the palace-dweller often dreams he has become a sannyasin, a monk. The wealthy often dream: “When will I get free of this wealth, when will I be out of this trap, when will I become a carefree fakir—no worries, no accounts?” Dreams are the opposite, I am saying. Whatever is lacking, we fulfill it through dreams.

Poetry is a kind of dream. What is lacking in your life, you weave into beautiful lines and persuade yourself, “Well, at least I have written a poem.” Thus the mind is amused. Poetry is not a deep experience of life. If you want a deep experience of life, become a rishi. The difference between a poet and a rishi is this: a poet is a dreamer; a rishi is a seer of truth. The songs you hum after dreaming will carry the fragrance of dreams. The songs you hum after seeing truth will carry the fragrance of truth. Where is fragrance in dreams? There is only stench. Fragrance belongs to truth alone.

Therefore I say to you: you are a poet—beautiful. Now go a little further; this is no destination. Nothing will come of stopping here. Move on a little. Become a rishi. Then a new kind of poetry will descend from within you. Then the verses of your song will not be yours—they will be God’s. Then you will become a hollow bamboo reed. The song will be his, the lips will be his; you will become the flute. The flute will play, but the music will be the divine’s. Then a very unique flute plays.

Right now, you are the one who plays. What do you have to put into the flute? What is your wealth? What is inside you? What has happened to you? Nothing at all. You are just as ordinary as any other ordinary person. Where have you even had a glimpse of the divine? Then what will you say in your poem?

You have nothing to pour in; your poetry will be empty, barren, dead. You will pile up heaps of words; but until truth stands behind the words, the edifice is without foundation. You can float as many paper boats as you like, but with them you will not cross the ocean of existence.

Where do you see a difference? Choice arises only when there is a difference. If Nanak were saying one thing and I another, then the question of choosing would arise.

If you have loved Nanak, you will see Nanak in me. If you have loved me, you will see me in Nanak—where is the difference?

An unprecedented happening is taking place here. There are people here who love Jesus; they have seen Jesus in me. Because of their love, they have loved me too. Their love became a bridge, and Jesus and I became one. There are people here who love Kabir. Those who love Mahavira. Those who love Buddha. Those who love Zarathustra. Those who love Mohammed. People of all religions are here. Nowhere else on earth will you find a place where people of all religions are present. And the delight is, no lesson in “synthesis of all religions” is being taught here. I am not even saying that all religions are one. All religions are very different, very distinct, very unique.

Then what is the link? This: when one who loves Nanak falls in love with me, that very love becomes the bridge between me and Nanak. Then he will understand Nanak’s words in such a way, in such a hue, that they will become my words. And he will understand my words in such a way and color that he will begin to hear Nanak’s tone in them. Love has never known division; love knows non-division.

Do not fall into this anxiety. There is no opposition here. There is no difference here. If you are immersed in love for me, Nanak will not be offended—that much assurance I give you. And if you remain in love with Nanak, I am not offended—this assurance too I give you. The truth is, if you look closely you will understand. You loved Nanak, and you could love me too; in that very love came the news that what I am saying is not different from Nanak—non-different. Not other, but one and the same. That is why you slipped into love with me. And into my love many kinds of people have slipped—people of all sorts, people whose lives had no possibility of ever meeting one another.