Es Dhammo Sanantano #68

First thing, the attempt to get rid of the negative mind cannot succeed, because alongside it goes the attempt to preserve the affirmative mind. And the affirmative and the negative can exist only together, not separately. It is like wanting to keep one side of a coin and throw away the other. The mind either goes in its entirety or survives in its entirety; you cannot divide it. The negative and the affirmative are linked, conjoined, together. They are opposites—do not therefore think they are separate. Though opposed, they are complementary. As night and day are linked, so are the negative and the affirmative mind.

So first understand that if you seek freedom only from the negative, you will never be free. Think of freedom from mind itself. Mind means both the negative and the affirmative.

We spend our whole lives in such attempts and we fail. When we fail we think perhaps our effort was not total, our resolve not complete, we did it half-heartedly, some error remained. No—the mistake is not the cause. What you set out to do cannot be done. There is no possibility of it. It is not in accord with the law of nature; therefore it does not happen.

Hence, before you do anything, look well to see whether what you are going to do is in tune with the dharma of existence, with the truth of the world. A man who wants freedom from sorrow but not from happiness will never succeed. Pleasure and pain are together. If sorrow goes, happiness goes; if you keep happiness, you keep sorrow.

Your confusion and dilemma is that you want to save one and discard the other. That is what people have been doing for lifetimes: keep success, throw away failure; keep respect, banish insult; keep victory, never taste defeat; preserve life and abolish death. This cannot be. It is impossible. Life and death are together. Whoever chose life unknowingly placed a garland also around the neck of death. So it is with the affirmative and the negative mind.

The affirmative mind means yes; the negative mind means no. How will you separate yes and no? And if no were to end completely, what meaning would be left in yes? Whatever meaning yes has, it derives from no.

Therefore I say: if you are a theist, you will also be an atheist—perhaps you have repressed the atheism within, sat upon it, forgotten it completely, thrown it into the darkness of the unconscious; but if you are a theist you will still remain an atheist too. And if you are an atheist, somewhere your theism is also lying—whether you know it or not, recognize it or not. Theist and atheist are together.

Hence I call religious the person who has gone beyond both theism and atheism. I do not call a religious person a theist, nor do I call him affirmative; I call him one who is beyond duality.

So first, you ask, “How will I be free of the negative mind?” Think of freedom from mind. Do not even think of freedom from the negative mind; otherwise it will never happen. And when the question of freedom from mind arises, the affirmative mind is included in it to the same extent as the negative mind. They are both aspects of mind. When you say yes, it comes from mind; when you say no, it comes from mind.

That is why the ultimate truth cannot be spoken—how to say it? Either you will say yes, or you will say no. If you say yes, no enters; if you say no, yes enters. Therefore the ultimate truth can be conveyed only through silence, through emptiness. Where there is emptiness, there is no mind. Understand it thus: where both yes and no have fallen, what remains is what is called emptiness.

Buddha’s path is the path of shunya, the void. Understand this. We did not understand it; in this land Buddha has not been rightly understood. It seemed that emptiness is negative. That is wrong; it was a mistake. Emptiness merely indicates that both yes and no have gone.

Buddha says again and again: people say, “I believe in God”; others say, “I do not believe in God”; some say, “I believe in the soul”; others say, “I do not believe in the soul”—but I am beyond beliefs. I neither say “it is thus,” nor do I say “it is otherwise.” I say nothing at all. I have dropped belief. I have dropped mind. I abide in the state of emptiness.

Do not take this emptiness to be negative. It only means that duality has gone, division has fallen. The two no longer remain—where then is the question of choice? And where nothing is left to choose, there is truth. Truth is not your choosing. When the whole habit of choosing has fallen away, what remains is truth.

I understand—you want to be free of thorns and save the flowers. And the teaching of all the awakened ones is this: if you would be free of thorns, bid farewell to the flowers as well. That is where the snag is.

Your attachment is to the flower; the flower seems painless. The pain is in the thorns. So you have become curious about getting rid of the thorns. The day you also see that flower and thorns come together, that day the thorn’s pain will be seen as inseparable from the flower—it already is. The day it becomes clear that there is pain in the flower too, there will not be a moment’s delay in letting go.

This is our difficulty. We hold the coin of the mind in our hand: one side seems pleasant and we want to save it, the other side seems unpleasant. So we can neither drop it nor keep it. In the dilemma both are lost—Maya is not gained, nor Ram. We get stuck in the middle. Thus great tension and anxiety arise. We become stretched and strained. Great restlessness is born, and life begins to feel like a disease.

You have also asked, “How to be free of the critical outlook and of ego?”

The mind can never be free of a critical outlook, because the very meaning of mind is that it chooses in everything. Mind means the capacity to choose. That is why Krishnamurti keeps emphasizing one thing—choicelessness: do not choose. The mind says, choose. The moment you choose, a judging intelligence will arise—otherwise how will you choose? When you choose you will say, “This is right and that is wrong.” Only by calling the wrong “wrong” can you call the right “right.” Only by calling the bad “bad” can you call the good “good.” Only by calling the sinner a sinner can you call the saint a saint—otherwise how will you? If you do not condemn Ravana, how will you praise Rama? So criticism will come; the critical outlook will come. Where there is choice, the critic arrives. If you want to lose the critic, you will have to lose choice itself.

Therefore the supreme knowers have said: do not even discriminate between good and bad. Do not discriminate between sinner and virtuous. Do not discriminate between saint and non-saint. Live in non-division. An inch of division, and all divisions enter. A tiny split, and every split rushes in. Do not divide at all. Let what is be as it is; do not be concerned—and the critical outlook will depart on its own.

All these things are interconnected. It is in the judging, critical vision that the ego is manufactured. “This is useful to me; this is not.” What seems useful, I accumulate; what does not, I discard. The sum total that forms from gathering what serves “me”—that very accumulation is the ego. I pile up wealth, gather knowledge, collect respect, accumulate success; I collect the ‘good-good’ and drop the ‘bad-bad’—thus the ego is created. The ego is simply the aggregate, the heap, of the items selected by the mind.

When the mind does not choose at all—when there is no choosing—nothing is accumulated. Then one lives utterly empty, lives as a void. The slate remains clean; there is no writing upon it. And when the inner paper is blank, the ego does not arise. The very moment something is written on that inner paper, the ego is born. Anything written—and the ego is there.

A disciple once came to a Zen master and said, “That happening you waited for years has occurred. You always said, ‘Come as emptiness.’ Today I have come as emptiness.” The master said, “Throw even the emptiness out and then come. Because if even this much is written on your mind—that today you have come as emptiness—you are not yet empty.”

That is why the Buddhists have distinguished eighteen kinds of emptiness. You will be astonished—eighteen kinds of emptiness! They have spoken of eighteen types of shunyata. And the final emptiness, which they call Mahashunyata—the Great Emptiness—includes the renunciation of emptiness itself, the dissolution of even the void. Then even the awareness does not remain that “I have become empty,” that “samadhi has happened to me,” that “I have attained the truth.” Even that writing disappears. Where the paper of consciousness becomes absolutely blank, there the Vedas are born, there the Quran is born, there the Bible is born; from there God begins to speak. That which blossoms in that emptiness, the stream that flows from that emptiness—that alone is the eternal truth.

So it is all linked: the negative mind, the critical gaze, and the ego—different forms of one and the same process.

Who is asking this? Even this is the work of the intellect. From hearing the words of the wise, the intellect too begins to think, “When will the intellect be burned to ashes?” Because greed arises. For supreme knowledge, for supreme nirvana, greed is stirred: “When will that shower of nectar, that bliss, descend within me? When will the Buddhas’ heaven become my heaven? When will the fragrance dwelling within awaken and spread? When will a lamp be lit in the darkness within, when will the light of awareness dawn?” Greed arises. And when greed arises, the intellect even begins to consider suicide. The intellect says, “When will the intellect be destroyed?” But it is the intellect itself that is saying this. Who is speaking? Whatever you can think is of the intellect. About that which is beyond the intellect you cannot think at all.

Understand this. Be watchful: understanding is born only when you do not allow any kind of greed to come in between. When you are listening to me, be alert—does greed intrude? Are you beginning to think, “May this happen to me; when will it happen, how will it happen, let it happen soon, lest life pass me by? It must happen.” If such greed arises, whatever you hear will be distorted. You will interpret it into something else.

Do not be greedy while listening. While listening, just listen—pure listening. Shravanamatrena (by mere listening). Simply keep listening. From that listening a spontaneous spark will arise—a sphurana—and suddenly you will see that in that spark there is no intellect at all. Then you will not ask how the intellect is to be turned to ashes. If you have heard me rightly, there will come such moments upon your inner ground, such hours, when you will suddenly be startled to find that the intellect is not there—what is there to reduce to ashes! The intellect comes only along with greed.

That is why we rouse greed in a child, because if you want to develop his intellect you must arouse greed. We say to him, “Study and you will become a lord; play and you will be ruined.” We are stirring greed. When the child goes to school we hound him: “Come first, don’t fall behind. Don’t bring us a bad name—you are our son; whose son are you! Remember what family you come from. Do nothing wrong. Do nothing that brings dishonor. Gain respect, position, prestige; increase the glory of the lineage.” We awaken such greed. Going round and round in these circles of greed, slowly the child’s intellect develops. Intellect means the skill to fulfill greed. That is why the one who achieves nothing in life we call a fool; we say, “He has no intellect.”

Lao Tzu has said, “Everyone else seems to have intellect; I alone am a fool. Everyone else seems to have keen talent; I have none.” He said it playfully—it is a deep satire. By saying this he says only this much: what you call intellect is nothing but greed. I have lost the intellect and found the real thing. Now within you the question arises: how to lose this intellect? Every day I tell you, “Drop the intellect,” and greed arises to drop the intellect; an urge arises.

Somewhere a mistake is being made. When I say “Drop the intellect,” I am not saying that by some effort of yours the intellect will be lost. I am only saying that if you listen rightly—in stillness, in silence, without greed—suddenly you will find moments spreading over you where there is no intellect, no thought, where there is supreme stillness. In that stillness, for the first time, you will taste the emptiness of the intellect. From that taste you will slowly begin to dive deeper—by taste you will dive! Then you will want more of that taste. Sometimes while listening to me it will happen; then sometimes, sitting quietly at home doing nothing, it will happen.

Yesterday a young man came. He said, “I’m in great difficulty. When I sit, I suddenly become empty.” He is frightened: “What will happen now?” He has to return to the West, to his home; then there is even more anxiety: “If people at home see that I have become empty, they will think I’ve gone mad.” You can understand his anxiety. You ask, “When will the intellect become ashes?” As it comes close to becoming ashes, he is trying to hold himself together; he is getting scared!

I asked him, “What is the anxiety—doesn’t it feel good?” He said, “It feels very good, but a thousand other issues arise—home, parents, work. Then the thought comes: What is happening? This never happened before. And when there is absolute silence, a kind of restlessness appears. This never used to be; what is happening to me? Is my brain getting damaged?”

When for the first time trans-intellect moments descend in you, you too will feel as if the brain is going out of order. Because until now you were entangled in a thousand knots; suddenly all the knots fall away. You sit and just remain sitting; you become silent and just remain silent; within, there is utter stillness. That stillness will feel like the edge of a knife—it will cut down to the inner center, pierce right through; panic will arise.

But if, while listening here in satsang, even such small moments come, these moments will begin to grow—because their taste is such. They will not grow through greed; they will grow through taste. Understand the difference.

Greed means: you have not tasted; someone else said, “I have tasted greatly,” and hearing him greed arose. Taste means: you sat near one to whom it happens, and in his satsang you savored a little of the juice. Keep in mind the difference between greed and taste. If I speak of sweets and greed arises in you to eat sweets—that is one thing. If you sit by me and actually taste the sweet—that is far greater.

If, sitting here, you have received the taste—this is why I speak every day. It is not that there is something to explain. What is there to explain? What is there to understand? There is nothing to explain, nothing to understand. I speak day after day so that you may have a chance to sit near me and take a dip for a little while. Then, if the taste of that dip comes, sometimes sitting quietly at home a dip will happen. In spite of you, it will happen. Perhaps you were not even thinking to take a dip; just sitting, it will happen. Sometimes while listening to music it will happen. Sometimes looking at the moon and stars it will happen. Sometimes hearing a baby’s peal of laughter it will happen. Sometimes seeing a blooming rose it will happen.

Then it will begin to happen in more and more situations. Slowly it will begin to happen in such situations where you would never have thought it could. Sipping tea it will happen. While bathing it will happen. Lying in bed at night it will happen. In the morning, as the eyes open, lying on the bed it will happen. Then it will begin to happen without cause.

When taste begins to come, it will grow. Then you will not ask, “When will the intellect burn to ashes?” There is no need for the intellect to be burned to ashes—it is ashes already. You have been taking ashes to be a live ember. There is nothing to make into ashes. Once the real taste comes into your hand, you will see it is ashes.

You have been taking a piece of stone to be a diamond, and now you ask me, “When will this piece of stone become a piece of stone?” It is a piece of stone. It does not have to become a piece of stone. If it really were a diamond, what question would there be of making it a stone? It would be precious; the question would be how to preserve it. It is ashes. Yes, if you come to know the real diamond, in comparison this will instantly be seen to be a stone. Instantly! Then no delay will be there. You will not even have to think. The real diamond appears, and clearly, in its presence, it will shine forth that this is only a stone.

So I am not telling you to turn the intellect to ashes—the intellect is ashes; rubbish, garbage, borrowed from others. Whatever is not your own is all garbage. Let there be some taste that is truly your own.

Now you ask, how will this taste happen?

You sit here every day; in this very sitting, awaken the taste. Let this sitting not remain an ordinary sitting. This is a darbar, a royal court, not a mere gathering; from here you can walk away as emperors. What is happening here is not only what is audible on the surface; inner strings are being joined.

Listen to me in such a way that no greed is there. Listen by taking a dive. And drop even the idea that after listening something must be done—let that go too. I keep telling you again and again: by mere listening this can happen. Because it has already happened. It is not to be attained. The direction toward which I point is present within you. The sovereignty I speak of is not to be arranged or constructed; there is only a thin veil—remove that veil.

And I say: give me a chance, and I will remove it. You do not need to take even that much trouble. I will remove it. Just allow me to come a little closer! It is a very thin veil. It will take no time to remove it. As the veil lifts you will find that what you were seeking is present within you.

If attachment endures, one thing is clear: somewhere a glimpse of pleasure is connected with it; otherwise attachment would not persist. You must be taking some enjoyment in it somewhere.

For example, when you criticize, you probably enjoy it. You enjoy the sharpness of your intellect—“See how keen a blade my intellect is!” When you refute someone, you enjoy, “Look, I am more intelligent, you less.” When you display your knowledge before someone, there is a savor: “You know nothing; see how much I know! Where am I, where are you!” Surely somewhere there is a relish in it. Without relish you could not do it. Without relish, no attachment happens. You are also getting suffering... now understand what the matter is!

When does suffering arise? When your intellect loses, then there is suffering. And when it wins, there is pleasure. When someone defeats you in argument, there is pain. When you win in argument, there is pleasure. So you are in quite a tangle. Because this very intellect brings pleasure and this very intellect brings pain; it seems to be the boat that both drowns you and carries you to shore—so how to drop it! In moments of defeat you want to let it go; in moments of victory you want to hold on. And this will go on every day. This losing and winning keeps swinging like a clock’s pendulum. Moment to moment defeat and victory are happening. Defeat and victory are two wings; both are moving together.

See this. If in the intellect you are getting pain, it means that in the intellect you are still getting pleasure as well. Listen to me—a moment comes when the intellect cannot even give pain, because if it gives no pleasure, how can it give pain? Only when the intellect cannot even give pain, understand that attachment has dropped. Now what is there left to give pain! From that which gives pleasure, pain comes. From that which gives pain, pleasure must also be coming. The day you find that the intellect cannot even give pain, that very day the matter is finished; that day pleasure too is gone.

Have you noticed—has anyone ever given you pain who didn’t also give you pleasure? That is why only those who are close to us hurt us; distant people do not. Hence the wife hurts, the husband hurts, the son hurts, the mother hurts, the father hurts, friends hurt; those who are far away do not hurt. The closer someone is, the more they can hurt. Why? Because the closer one is, the more pleasure comes from them. Whether it actually comes or not, at least the impression is there. From whomever that impression arises, from them the pain will come. If your wife passes by without noticing you, you feel hurt. If a stranger woman passes by without noticing you, there is no hurt. If your son does not show you respect, you are hurt; if someone else’s son doesn’t respect you, there is no hurt—there is no reason for hurt.

Remember: from whom you hope for pleasure, from that very one comes pain.

It means your happiness is still tied to them; that is why there is attachment. What suffering can they really give! What power do they have!
Understand me: what suffering can the intellect even give! What is there in the intellect to give suffering! It is a crowd of hollow thoughts—what suffering can that be? A crowd of impotent thoughts—what suffering can that be? Waves of coming-and-going thoughts—what suffering can that be? Know the intellect as neither a giver of suffering nor of pleasure—neither. Then you will find that your distance from it begins to grow. One day you will find your upeksha has become deep.

Buddha used the word upeksha a great deal. Upeksha means: neither does one receive suffering nor pleasure; neither taking nor giving. To become steady in such a state is called upeksha. Upeksha is a very important word: the state in which no expectation remains. The feeling that nothing is to be gotten from it has settled.

One who begins to live in such upeksha is no longer given happiness or sorrow by anything. Success comes, knocks at the door, and passes by; failure comes, knocks at the door, and passes by; honor comes and flowers shower; insult comes and thorns rain down—he remains seated, he remains seated in the attitude of a witness. He sees both in the same way. His vision is even.

There is no need anymore. Birth is not without cause; birth is schooling. Life is an examination, a school. You come here because something is needed. We send a child to school to read and write, to understand; once he has passed all the exams, we don’t send him again. He has come home. There is no more need to send him.

The Divine is home—call it Truth, Nirvana, Moksha—this world is the school. We are sent here so that we may test and assay ourselves on the touchstone, in the heat of pleasure and pain; so that we may pass through all kinds of bitter and sweet experiences and attain dispassion. To lose everything, to wander everywhere, to slip into far-off darknesses, into dark ravines—go as far from Truth as possible—and then return through awakening.

A child is quiet, innocent; a saint too is quiet, innocent. But the saint’s innocence has great value; the child’s innocence has no special value. The child’s innocence is free, not earned. It is here today, gone tomorrow. Life will take it away. The saint’s innocence—no one can take it now. The saint has passed through every event that could have snatched it away. Therefore, losing God is essential in order to know God rightly. That is why we are sent.

There is no need to send an enlightened one. When the fruit ripens, it no longer hangs on the branch. Why would it hang? For what? It was clinging to the tree to ripen. Sun came, cold came, rain came, the fruit ripened—now why would it remain hanging on the tree? Unripe fruits hang on. Buddha means a ripe fruit.

The branch lets go
its hold on the juice-laden fruit,
so that another astringent fruit
may be made sweet.

One has to let go. The tree will release the ripe fruit—what need remains now? The fruit is ripe, complete, fulfillment has happened. Buddhahood means: one who has become complete. There is no reason to return again.

Sometimes the question arises in our minds because to us life seems very valuable. It seems upside down that one who has attained Buddhahood does not get life again. To us, life appears very precious. But the one who has attained Buddhahood has come to know the greater Life, the vast Life.

Think of it this way: you used to go to the tavern daily; then one day the wine of devotion took hold, you began to dance in the temple, to sway; you drank the Lord’s wine—now you don’t go to the tavern. The drunkards must wonder, “What happened? Leaving such intoxicating wine, where has this man gone? Why doesn’t he come now?”

He has found a greater wine—why would he come? He has found the real wine—why would he go to the fake? He has found a wine after drinking which there is no need ever to come back to one’s senses. And he has found a wine in which even unconsciousness is awareness. Why would he come to drink this petty brew?

One who has attained Buddhahood has drowned in the supreme Ocean. The very bliss you were seeking, he has found. Why would he come here? This life is for the unripe fruits—so that they may ripen, become mature. The pleasures and pains of this life, its sorrows and its joys—whatever is here—is to buffet us, to strike us.

Have you seen a potter making a pot? He strikes the pot—one hand inside, one hand outside—the wheel spins and he strikes! When the pot is formed, he stops striking; then he puts it into the fire. When the pot is fired, there is no need either for blows or for the fire.

In the world there are blows, and there is being put into the fire. When you are cooked, then the Supreme nectar of the Divine will fill you. You will become a vessel, a pot—then no need remains.

Speaking of first and last is not right, because that which is, has always been. It is not that there was ever some first day. It is not that there was ever some moment before which there was nothing and then suddenly everything came to be.
Existence is eternal, timeless. It has always been and will always be. There is no first here, no last here. It is the limitation of our intellect that we cannot see the eternal. However far we try to stretch this eternity, we still feel that somewhere, sometime, something must have begun. However far back we go, we still feel there must have been some day when everything began. How could everything be without a beginning! It seems impossible to us that all has always been.
And because of this we accept another impossibility: that one day there was nothing at all and then suddenly everything happened! The second notion is even more impossible. The first is not so impossible. For that which is today could be tomorrow and the day after too. Life, existence, has always been. It never “happened”; it has no beginning and no end. It is a continuous stream. Understand this continuity, and then the question will not arise as to when the first Buddha happened. How could there be a first Buddha! How could such a thing be! Think: that would be a great accident.
If there was a first Buddha—suppose ten thousand years ago—then before him the whole of existence remained devoid of Buddhahood? Before him was there never any Buddha? For infinite ages no flower blossomed in existence? That would be a very drab affair. That is why the Buddhas say: infinite Buddhas have been before me, infinite Buddhas will be after me; Buddhas have always been.
Existence has never been empty of Buddhahood. All this change, this great stream, this great order—sometimes it seems to us as if maybe it had never happened before. Think: when a person falls in love for the first time, he feels, such a love has never been! But do you think it is the first moment? Innumerable people have loved, and all have felt the same—that such a thing has never happened. And yet love has always been happening. Just as love has always been happening, so has meditation. Nothing is new in this world. Nothing can be new. The very meaning of “new” would be that for infinite ages it never was, and today it suddenly is. Then all those infinite ages went in vain—barren! Nothing was born!
The Buddha or Mahavira have discussed this truth at length. They have shared it, tried to explain it from different angles. One angle worth understanding is that the existence of the world is circular. Like a cart wheel turning. Draw a circle and draw a line. In a line there is a beginning and an end. You can point out: here the line started, here it ended. But how will you point it out in a circle—where the line begins, where it ends? A circle simply is. No beginning, no end. Existence is circular.
On India’s national flag the wheel that appears is Buddhist. And that wheel is a symbol of existence. As the wheel turns, as the chakra turns, so existence is circular. Again and again the same spokes come to the top. The Jains have said that in every kalpa there are twenty-four tirthankaras, as if a cart wheel had twenty-four spokes. Then there will be a kalpa, then twenty-four tirthankaras; then a kalpa again, and again twenty-four tirthankaras. And countless kalpas have been, and countless kalpas will go on being—the cart wheel keeps turning.
The difference between the Eastern and the Western conception of time is just this. The Western conception of time goes like a line. The Eastern conception of time is circular. And the Eastern conception is more in accord with truth, because lines don’t actually exist. Have you seen anything in a straight line?
A child is born, he becomes young, he grows old. When he came, he was without teeth; when he has grown old, again he is without teeth. It is a circular process. The old become stubborn like children, again innocent like children, again quarrelsome like children; their mode, their behavior becomes childlike again.
Seasons turn the same way—summer comes, then the rains, then winter, then summer again. The moon and stars move in cycles. The earth turns so. The sun turns so. The whole of existence is revolving in circles.
So the East says, time too must be circular; it cannot be linear. That is why the East did not write history. For history has meaning only when an event happens once and does not recur. Only then is there any point in writing history, because each event is unique—once it happens it will not happen again, therefore it is worth recording. But if it is going to happen again and again, what is there to record! It will be again; it has always been. So the East did not write history; the East wrote puranas. A purana is a very different thing.
Hence there are great differences between the understandings of West and East. When a Westerner reads the story of Rama, he asks whether it is historical or not—did it happen or not? We have no answer, because we have no interest in history. We say: whenever, through endless ages, Rama has happened, this is the essence of all their stories.
Understand this difference.
One thing is to record the affair of one man falling in love with one woman: how he fell in love, where he fell in love—did they meet on the road, on a bus, in a train—we wrote the details, every bit: which hour, which place, which date they met, when they married, when their child was born—all the details. That is history.
Then we took all the people who have ever fallen in love, and wrote down what is essential in all their love, the very quintessence of love. That is purana. In it there is no dossier of one particular person. It is the distilled essence of the love of all persons. Where they met is no longer important. That they met is certainly true—how can there be love without meeting? That love happened is true; so we wrote what is original and fundamental in love.
The story of Rama is not some story that happened only in this aeon; it has happened many times. And from all those happenings we have extracted the essence and recorded it. Similarly, the life of Jesus is historical; there the emphasis is on facts. The life of Mahavira is not historical. And the life of Buddha too is not historical.
History is worth two pennies, because our grasp goes much deeper. We say: whenever and however many Buddhas there have been, the distilled essence of them all we read again in Gautam Buddha, and then we wrote it in the name of Gautam Buddha. Then, when another Buddha comes in the future, by then Gautam Buddha will have been forgotten, lost along the old byways of history; a new Buddha will re-enliven what happens in all Buddhas. But the story is the same. Names change, colors and styles change, but the story is the same. The song is the same, the tune is the same, the refrain is the same.
Therefore, do not think that everything written in the life of the Buddha is true in the historical sense. Many things are such as may have happened in the lives of other Buddhas. And many things are such as will happen in the lives of Buddhas yet to come. In the life of Buddha we have kept the essence of all. It is the quintessence.
A rose flower is one bloom—that is history. And when we take the perfume distilled from many roses, that is purana. In that perfume the fragrance of all roses is present. But now you cannot say from which rose this perfume was made; now it is difficult—impossible—to tell. Was it made from the rose that bloomed in your garden, or from the one in your neighbor’s, from a yellow rose, a red rose, a white rose? Now it is very hard to say. Now this perfume is the distillation, the essence of all.
We have written the perfume; the West writes the profiles of individual roses, keeps accounts of each one. We say: what is the point of keeping accounts of each rose? In their fundamental being all roses are the same; hence our truths are universal, all-inclusive, eternal.

No, there has never been a first. Even before the “first,” many had already been. So calling anyone the first has no meaning. Nor will there be a last. Even “after the last,” they would go on happening.

The question is: “By what path did they go? Who was their master?”

Before them, just as much time had already passed as has passed before us—because time is infinite. It cannot be calculated.

I have heard: In a museum, the guide was showing a group of visitors around. He pointed to a skeleton and said, “This is ten million years, three years, and seven days old.” The visitors were startled. Ten million years is fine, they said, but these extra three years and seven days—how do you keep such accounts? He said, “Of course! How do I know it’s three years and seven days? Three years and seven days ago the museum director told me it was ten million years old. So I keep adding, because three years and seven days have passed since then.”

The past is infinite. What do you think—that we came twenty-five hundred years after Buddha, and that in the infinitude of the past twenty-five hundred years have been added? What can you add to or subtract from the infinity of the past? From the standpoint of the infinite past, nothing has passed at all; twenty-five hundred years are as nothing—nothing has passed. Add to the infinite and it does not increase; subtract from the infinite and it does not diminish. Remember the saying of the Upanishads: Add the Whole to the Whole and the Whole is not enlarged; take the Whole from the Whole and the Whole is not reduced. The very meaning of the Whole is that nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken away—add as much as you like.

Think of the infinite: before us, an infinite time has already elapsed. The very meaning of infinite is that which never had a beginning. Now, what difference would adding twenty-five hundred years make to it? As much time had already passed before Buddha as has passed before us—exactly that much. And twenty-five hundred years hence, when someone comes and discusses these things, just that much time will have passed then too; nothing will have changed.

Therefore: By what path did the Buddhas before Buddha go? Infinite, infinite Buddhas! Naturally, within that vastness they discovered their own way. In the light of the innumerable beacons that came before them, they made their search.

Here there is no first and there is no last. We are all interconnected.

Consider it this way: you were born of your father; your father was born of his father; his father was born of someone. Have you ever wondered, “Of whom was the first man born?” It is the same kind of question. There cannot be a first man, because whenever a man is born, a father is needed, a mother is needed—one is born of someone. A first man is impossible. Nor can there be a last man, because that which is remains; it does not vanish. That which is, was, and will be.

If this becomes your understanding—if even a little remembrance of this vastness dawns on you...

It is difficult to remember, because the intellect has a very narrow limit. Stretch it as you may, the mind keeps asking, “There must have been someone first! There must someday be an end!”

Look at it another way. We say the universe is boundless. Imagine going on and on, traveling at the speed of light—light moves very, very fast, 186,000 miles per second. Your airplane goes at the speed of light, or find an even greater speed. Will you ever arrive at a moment when you reach the boundary of the universe?

Understand: philosophers have pondered long on whether there could be such a place where a signboard says, “Here the world ends—don’t go farther or you will fall off.” But if there is a place to fall off into, then the world is still remaining, isn’t it? If a boundary can be drawn that says, “Here the world ends,” a boundary is always between two, which means from there something else begins. Every ending is a beginning. Every gate closes somewhere and opens somewhere.

Suppose you reach a place—yes, it happens that you reach a point where Maharashtra ends and Gujarat begins; that happens here. But Gujarat must be there, otherwise how could Maharashtra end? Maharashtra ends and Gujarat begins; India ends and Pakistan begins. Wherever something ends, at that very instant something begins. If this universe were to end somewhere and there were a line, a customs post with a board: “Do not proceed—world ends here,” it would mean there is something beyond it.

No, you will never arrive at such a customs post. There is no such checkpoint; it cannot be. Wherever you try to draw a line, a line is drawn between two. And if the “second” is present, the end has not yet come. So the line cannot be drawn; it is impossible.

When we say the world is limitless, we mean space is limitless. And when we say the world is infinite, we mean the stream of time is infinite.

Time and space are both infinite. Here there has never been a first, and there will never be a last.

First thing, are you planning to put me on trial? The Master’s responsibility is for the Master to know! What will you do by knowing it? If the responsibility isn’t fulfilled, will you raise some fuss? The Master’s responsibility is for the Master to know. If you must ask, ask about the disciple’s responsibility—because that is yours to do. Ask about your own side.

You haven’t asked about yourself; you’re concerned with what the Master’s responsibility is—as if your work is now finished just because you have put your head at the feet and the matter is closed. In truth, you haven’t yet placed it—otherwise you wouldn’t ask about responsibilities. If you have really laid your head at the feet, what is left? The matter is finished. Now do as you will. If it pleases you to cut this neck, cut it. There is nothing left to ask.

But you’ve put your head at the feet as if you have done a favor to the Master: “Now speak! I have done what I had to; now what will you do? I have placed my head!” What is in that head anyway? If you were to cut it off and try to sell it, how much would it fetch?

It happened that Farid would sometimes come to Akbar, and sometimes Akbar would go to Farid. Farid was a rare fakir. When Akbar went to him, or when Farid came to Akbar, Akbar would bow his head at Farid’s feet. Akbar’s viziers didn’t like it; it grated on them that the emperor should bow at a fakir’s feet. At last they could not restrain themselves and said, “It doesn’t befit you to bow to a fakir’s feet. There’s no need. An ordinary man—what have you taken him to be? Why humble yourself so much?” Akbar said, “Do one thing; I’ll answer you soon—wait.”

A fortnight later a man was executed; Akbar had his head severed and said to his viziers, “Go sell this in the market.” The man had been handsome, with lovely eyes. They cleaned the head, set it on a golden platter, and went to sell it. The first shopkeeper they approached shouted, “Out! Out! Are you mad? What would I do with that? Of what use is a man’s head! If it were an elephant’s head, it might be useful; a deer’s head could serve as decoration. But this? It will stink and make a mess—go away!” No one was willing to give even two coins for it. The viziers were bewildered.

They returned and said to Akbar, “We are sorry, but no one would give even a couple of pennies. People got angry; wherever we went they said we were crazy—what would they do with it?”

Akbar said, “That was my answer. What is a man’s head worth? Not even two coppers. You imagine that someday you’ll cut off my head and sell it? Who will buy? So if I bow something that isn’t worth two cowries at a fakir’s feet, why does it trouble you—when it has no value at all?”

This is what bowing is. The head has no value; to know this is to bow. You may have bowed your head, but with the idea that you are doing something tremendous, some unique act—“Look, I am bowing my head!” In your mind is the notion that the head has great worth. I know you bowed with great difficulty, after much pondering. But all that thinking doesn’t add any value to the head. To bow the head means you have said, “There’s nothing in the head; now let a journey beyond the head begin.” Nothing was found through the head; bowing expresses the longing to go beyond it.

That is why, in the East, we bow our head at the Master’s feet. We are saying, “The head yielded nothing. We ran and chased with it, struggled and fretted—and got only pain, dissatisfaction, unfulfillment, fever dreams. So we lay this head at your feet: now show us how to go above the head.” Bowing declares: the head has no value.

You say, “I have placed my head at your feet—now tell me, what is the Master’s responsibility?” You think your work is finished. Your work has just begun. There was nothing in the head; you have dumped the trash at the feet—now forget the head. If you don’t forget and keep remembering it, then you haven’t offered it. Now ask, “What is the disciple’s responsibility? What should I do?” That laying down was nothing to do; it was only the beginning of doing. It isn’t some great achievement. No revolution happens from that alone. Ask, “What shall I do now? I have dropped the futile—how do I seek the meaningful?”

But you ask, “What is the Master’s responsibility?” You mean: “I have done my part—now you, tell us, what is yours?” This very thing is the mark of not being a disciple. I understand my responsibility. You cannot understand it yet. You have not even become a disciple—how will you understand the Master’s responsibility? You will understand it only when you go so deep into discipleship that the Master begins to be born within you. For now you need eyes, you need humility, simplicity, meditation, love, devotion—you still have much to do. What has happened so far is only your declaration, your pledge: “I bow. I am ready to act. Whatever you say, I will do.”

The question is important, because most people feel, “I have done what was to be done; now you do whatever has to be done.” I will do, but by my doing alone nothing will happen, because your freedom is ultimate. Only if you cooperate will anything happen. I will do, but if you oppose, nothing can be done. If you keep your doors and windows shut, the sun’s ray will wait outside and cannot enter. The sun’s ray cannot force its way in. You will have to cooperate; you will have to open the doors.

Now you ask, “How can I trust that I have found the Master?” This is not a question of trusting that you have found the Master. You need only this much trust: that you have become a disciple. If just this much trust arises, the matter is finished. Do your part. Complete this one thing—that you have become a disciple. In your very becoming a disciple the trust will arise that the Master is found. There is no other way. I cannot furnish any other proof. Whatever proof I produce will be useless—how will it bring trust? I may say a thousand times, “You have found,” but how will that create trust?

Become a disciple; in that very becoming, a stream of sweetness will begin to flow, a humming will arise in your life, a certain ecstasy will awaken. In that ecstasy will come the evidence: the Master is found; I am no longer alone. Even in your aloneness, when you sit silently, you will feel someone present. Look within and you will find someone there. Your hand will feel held by another hand. As, step by step, you become a disciple, you will feel the Master is with you. A moment comes when you are dissolved and only the Master abides within.

For now you have bowed the head; now you must enthrone him in the heart. With that, the proof appears.

The disciple’s feeling is like this—Swami Yog Pritam has written a song:

When you pour your sweetness upon me,
the blue lotuses of my life begin to bloom.
The moment my heart-veena feels the embrace
of your wave of melody,
the tune of your ecstasy starts playing in me,
and the petals of my body and mind open.
What raga is it that bursts from your throat?
In the inner courtyard a million lamps are lit.
When you pour your sweetness upon me,
the blue lotuses of my life begin to bloom.

What strange magic there is in your glance—
all the windows and doors of the mind swing open.
All the hardness of the mind melts in an instant;
the sins and curses of lifetimes are washed away.
When you shower your compassion-water upon me,
hundreds upon hundreds of springs gush within.
When you pour your sweetness upon me,
the blue lotuses of my life begin to bloom.

From within you a nectar of love is raining
which the thirsty chatak birds, the blessed ones, drink.
You are a charming flower in the garden of the world;
blessed are the bees who plunder your pollen.
When you lavish your blessing upon me,
a hundred suns rise in my sky.
When you pour your sweetness upon me,
the blue lotuses of my life begin to bloom.

Such is the disciple’s mood. He gazes at the Master as the chatak bird gazes, eyes wide, at the moon. He does not ask for proof. Little by little your very eyes will begin to give you proof: as they open and light descends within, evidence appears. He sits with his heart thrown open. He drops every armor, every defense. He removes all the gatekeepers from the door of the heart and says, “Come—whenever you come, day or night, sleeping or waking—you will find my heart open.” Slowly, the footfall of the Master begins to be heard near the heart.

To be filled with wonder is an auspicious sign; in such a moment one bows. But don’t stop there. There is much farther to go. This is only the first step. Many are so unfortunate that they never feel wonder at all, never get astonished. You are fortunate that you were astonished, you were startled, awe arose, the knock of mystery was heard, a slight push was felt. But don’t just sit with that push, otherwise it will slowly fade and you will remain as you were. Use this little push and set out. The journey is vast and much remains to be done.

Perhaps in that very amazement you came and bowed your head. In your bowing I don’t sense surrender; I sense astonishment. Sometimes, in bewilderment, one does something, but that cannot become lasting nourishment for the path. You must bow a little deeper.

Not bowing at any other threshold,
I bowed at your door, in your refuge.
Nowhere did I find even a grain of fulfillment—
Where is water here? Every well is fire.
Rainbows are strung, but airy, insubstantial;
Where are the moist clouds? All is smoke.
The fruits tasted here are bitter, astringent;
Sweet peace I found in the memory of you.
Wherever you taste, the world-ocean is brine;
Abundant the cascades here, but all are poison.
The mesh of rays enchants, but all is illusion;
Every wave bears a venom-laden sting.
There is no cool shade; this world is a desert.
Defeated, exhausted, I fell at your feet.
Not bowing at any other threshold,
I bowed at your door, in your refuge.

All right—you bowed, at least somewhere you bowed! But don’t stop at that. Bowing is only the beginning of effacement. Without dissolving, it won’t do. And the moment you bowed, you already began arranging against dissolving.

You ask, “How can I be assured that I have found my Master?” You ask, “What are the duties of the Master? What is the Master’s responsibility?”
You have begun keeping accounts of the Master. You have picked up the wrong thread from the very start. Then you will not be able to walk with me for long—that I tell you. Whoever kept accounts with me did not stay long. He cannot, because he is too clever, too calculating. He moves tallying every grain. My companionship is with gamblers—those who keep no accounts. Those who, once they stake themselves on a throw, never look back. Then they say, “Now it’s fine. Now whatever you do is right, whatever you say is right.” If you save your own cleverness, your head will keep rising; again and again your steps will go astray.

So forget this whole business. I know my duty; I know my responsibility. Your knowing it will be of no use. Ask about your duty; ask about your responsibility.

Your responsibility now is that the head which has bowed—cut it off. Your responsibility is: having bowed, now disappear completely. Only by dissolving will you be; only by losing will you find. Only when you go can the divine arrive.

Look, if a faith of twenty-five years could break so quickly, it was not faith. And if a faith of twenty-five years collapsed so fast, how long do you think the faith that has arisen in me will take to collapse? The faith is yours. The twenty-five-year one did not last. And this one too is yours—how long will it last?

I understand your logic. Perhaps you feel: that faith was in Christianity, this faith is in you; so that is a difference. But you are the same. Whether your faith is in Jesus, or in Buddha, or in Mahavira—that is not where the difference lies. The real difference comes only when the believer is transformed.

You were born in a Sikh family; in childhood there would have been faith in Nanak. That went and faith moved to Jesus. You read me, and that too went. Tomorrow you will read someone else, listen to someone else, and this too will go. Examine your faith. Your “faith” is not faith.

Now understand the difference.
One who truly has faith in Nanak does not abandon Nanak on hearing me; faith in me arises, and faith in Nanak deepens. One who truly had faith in Jesus does not leave Jesus on hearing me; faith in me arises, and faith in Jesus becomes deeper. Because what I am saying is not against Jesus or Nanak. What I am saying is exactly what they have said. Naturally, what Jesus said he said in the language of two thousand years ago; your resonance with that cannot be as immediate as with what I say, because I am speaking your language.
Nanak spoke—five hundred years ago. There is a span of five hundred years between Nanak and me. Five hundred years is not a small gap. The language has changed; the way of expressing truth has changed; the process of understanding truth has changed. People have changed, minds have changed, the whole climate has changed.
In the midst of all this change, what I am saying will naturally fit your mind more easily—because I am speaking your language. Nanak spoke in the language of his listeners. Jesus spoke in the language of his listeners. I am speaking to you. I speak from the twentieth century; I speak to the ultra-modern mind. Naturally, you will grasp me more readily.
But if you have understood me, you will understand Nanak as well. You will be filled with a grateful “aha!”—that there was faith in Nanak, but it had not yet become clear; now it is clear. Mahavira’s message will fall into place for you, Buddha’s too. That is precisely why I speak on Buddha, Nanak, Mahavira, Krishna, and Christ. I am not here to shatter your faith; I am here to strengthen it.
If ever I speak against someone, it is only because they are not truly religious and have been mistakenly taken to be so. Only then. If I know someone is religious, I will not speak a single word against him. Yes, if some irreligious person has, through confusion, been accepted as religious, I will certainly refute him—firmly—because that is dangerous.
For example, when someone asked about Maharshi Dayanand, I said, “No, I cannot speak a single word in favor of Maharshi Dayanand.” To me he is a “mahatma” in the same sense as Mahatma Gandhi: both are social and political activists; religion is only a pretext.
But Nanak, Kabir, Krishna, Zarathustra, Mohammed, Jesus—what they have said is what I am saying. There is nothing else to say. Truth is one. Those who have known have spoken that one truth—expressed in different ways, but the same truth.
The Vedas say: that one truth the wise declare in many ways.

So first, test your faith; there is some flaw in it. It rose for Nanak, it settled on Jesus, now it has settled on me! I am not happy with your faith. You probably think I will be delighted to hear that someone broke from Jesus and became “mine.” No one becomes mine so quickly! If you could not be Jesus’s, how could you be mine? And if you truly become mine, then you will gain the eyes to recognize Jesus—and for the first time you will be able to belong to Jesus. The same eyes will make you belong to Nanak as well.

It seems you have taken faith to mean a set of logical conclusions—whatever pleases your reasoning. Then you will miss, because religion is not a matter of logic.
Yes, I use logic; I ride on logic. That is why sometimes logicians find my words very appealing. But let them not remain under that illusion; I will soon startle them. It won’t be long before I say something that is totally beyond logic—even contrary to it.
Perhaps my words have felt right to you because they are logical. But I use logic as a means—to take you beyond logic. Jesus did not use logic; he simply said what he had to say. I also use logic—because this age understands no language other than the language of reason. But the aim is to take you beyond reason. Soon you will find yourself in a bind.

Therefore I tell you: reconsider your faith. Your faith has been deluded, muddled. It has been based on logic. That is why Christianity impressed you—Christianity marshals much reasoning. Jesus himself did not offer arguments, but Christianity collects a great deal of them. It came from the West; the West is the world of reason. For Christianity to stand on its feet, it has to gather arguments. So Christianity would have appealed to you.
But I have at my disposal not only Western logic, but Eastern logic as well—and also that which is beyond logic. So my reasoning would have appealed to you: in it is all the skillfulness of Western logic, the sweetness and subtlety of Eastern logic, and the color of a trans-rational experience. Hence you were charmed.
But now the moment has come to recognize your faith rightly. Throw away this stale, rotten faith. That is why you feel stuck.

You say, “I have complete faith in you.”
Did you not have complete faith in Christianity? It lasted twenty-five years. What guarantee is there of “complete” faith? Today it is complete; tomorrow it slips. This is your habit: whichever direction you turn your faith, you feel it is complete. Then when it falls, it falls completely. And your difficulty is obvious.

You say, “Yet my mind is still restless.”
Faith alone does not quiet the mind. Otherwise your mind would have become quiet long ago. You were born in a Sikh home—there must have been faith in Sikh Dharma; the mind did not become quiet. Then Christianity for twenty-five long years; the mind did not become quiet. With me it is perhaps a friendship of two or four months—how will the mind become quiet so soon? Understand one thing: merely believing does not still the mind. To quiet the mind, the causes of restlessness must be broken.

You have come to trust a doctor—does that itself cure you? Trust in the doctor is helpful, but you still have to start on the prescription! You say, “I now trust the doctor completely, but the illness is not going—what is the matter?” Even complete trust is not sufficient; the medicine must be taken; the regimen must be accepted. Some things must be dropped, some adopted; transformations must be undertaken.

Before this faith too is lost, do something. Use this faith. What has happened in the past has happened; days wasted are gone. Now do not let this time go to waste. Under the influence of this faith, do something by which the inner arrangement of the mind changes.

You are restless: that means there are causes of restlessness within the mind. Have you ever meditated? Without meditation there will be no peace. Have you ever worshiped, loved, devoted yourself? Without devotion and love there will be no peace. Have you ever analyzed the root of your restlessness? Why can you not sleep at night? Your mind must be racing—“let me earn more money, reach a higher post, achieve this, accomplish that.” The mind keeps running; therefore you cannot sleep.
So bid farewell to the ambitions that drive the mind’s race. What will happen by getting money? What will happen by getting position? Death comes—listen to the footfalls of death. It will take away your wealth, your status. Wake up and change the arrangement of the mind.

Now that you have come under my influence, then also listen to me. Do a little accordingly. Meditate, dance, sing, hum; drown a little in intoxication, in ecstasy. Suddenly you will find—restlessness has gone. And when restlessness has gone, the faith that arises then will be real faith. Because that by which restlessness has departed—how can you leave it? When even a small taste of bliss has come through something, how will you abandon it?

You did not get any taste of bliss from Jesus because you never did anything Jesus said. You must have been reading the Bible. What will come from merely reading the Bible? It is like someone sitting and reading a cookbook, reading and reading—while starving—and crying out, “What to do? I am reading a cookbook, yet my hunger does not go!”

Now you are beginning to use my books the same way.
You say, “When sleep does not come at night, I read your literature and somehow sleep comes.”
So this is how you use the literature? As a sleeping pill? Use it to change your life, to ignite a revolution in your life.

It is in a way fortunate, because Nanak is no longer here—had you kept faith in him, still not much could have happened. Jesus is no longer here—had you kept faith in him, not much could have happened. You are fortunate that you have come close to a living man. It is a rare coincidence. Use this fortunate moment rightly. Then perhaps your faith will not need to go anywhere else.
May this very faith become your final destination—this is my blessing.
Enough for today.