Es Dhammo Sanantano #93

As you wish! If one doesn’t want to meditate, any excuse will do. If you don’t want to meditate you can convince yourself by any logic that meditation is wrong. But you haven’t even yet understood what meditation is. Nor have you understood that all this suffering, pain, and turmoil in the world is precisely because there is no meditation.

A suffering person spreads suffering. Even if he wanted to give something else, he couldn’t. You can only give what you have. If you don’t have it, how will you give it? The unhappy give unhappiness; the fulfilled give fulfillment. If you want joy in the world, inner peace and inner awareness are essential conditions.

Don’t stumble over the word “meditation.” It simply means you begin to sink into the juice of your own being. When you are full of inner nectar, it flows through your actions. Then whatever you do carries a fragrance. A person filled with meditation cannot be harsh; compassion will flow of itself. He cannot exploit; it is impossible. He cannot be violent; nonviolence and love are the shadows of meditation. Compassion follows meditation as inevitably as the wheel-ruts follow a bullock cart—inevitable.

So many are unhappy, and so many are making each other unhappy—suffering is certain. But what is its cause? Only this: people are not fulfilled within. From whatever state you are in, that very vibration radiates from you. In their very chase for personal happiness, people make others miserable. No one torments another for its own sake. Everyone seeks happiness, and all are running after it. Naturally this race breeds great conflict. And everyone seeks happiness outside; everyone wants to get to Delhi, to sit on the seats of power. So there is struggle, grabbing, pushing, a mad scramble.

Who has the leisure to worry whether they reach rightly or wrongly? It appears that those who ponder too much on the right never arrive. Here the ones who don’t bother about right seem to be the ones who get there. Gradually, the means become valueless; only the goal—to get happiness—remains. Even if it means snatching away everyone else’s happiness, still “my” happiness must be attained. And the other is attempting the same. Billions on the earth are driven by the same urge. All run outward. Meditation means: happiness is not outside. Meditation means: happiness is within.

Whoever runs outward falls into ever-deeper misery. And the more miserable he becomes, the thirstier he grows to somehow obtain happiness. Then, by hook or by crook: if it comes the good way, fine; if the bad way, fine; if it comes through someone’s murder, through someone’s blood, fine—“but let me have happiness.” The farther you go from yourself, the more blind and raging the thirst becomes. In that blind thirst you will do anything—and still happiness won’t come. It did not come to Alexander; it does not come to the ultra-rich. It has come to those who turned inward. The inward turning is called meditation—the inner journey.

He who dives within finds joy. Competition ends for him. There is no rivalry left, because my happiness is mine—no one can take it, not even death. Then with whom would I compete? And when there is no competition, there is no enmity. A friendliness is born.

No one can steal anyone else’s inner joy. Every person can be happy by arriving within; and every person becomes unhappy by running away from himself. Outside means misery; inside means bliss. Run outward and there is struggle, violence, hostility, exploitation. Come inward and there is no violence, no exploitation, no hostility. The one settled in his own joy radiates waves of joy. Whoever comes near will be bathed in that music.

Suffering will end on this earth only on the day meditation descends in a great measure; before that, it cannot end.

You ask, “How can I meditate while there is so much suffering, poverty, and wretchedness in the world?”

It is precisely because there is no meditation that this suffering exists. And you say, “Till then how can I meditate!” This is like a patient saying to a doctor, “As long as I am ill, how can I take the medicine? First let me get well; then I’ll take it.” You are ill—and therefore the medicine is needed. Once you are well, there will be no need. Meditation is the medicine that removes the illness.

You say, “There is so much suffering, pain, exploitation, injustice—how can I meditate?”

Precisely therefore meditate! At least let one person meditate—let it be you! A few waves will arise around you; a little joy will happen at least somewhere. Granted, what difference will a single flower make in a vast forest? But let a single flower bloom, and other flowers remember they too can bloom. Buds gather courage, buried seeds may sprout, dreams may awaken in the seeds. One flower blooming can send a tremor of life through every seed.

And even apart from that—so what? You blossom; a little fragrance spreads; a few stars and the moon are gladdened; in the little corner you occupy, there is a gentle rain of joy. Is this not what you want—that joy should rain upon the world? Then at least make joyful the portion of the world you occupy. You are a part of the world, a small corner of it. The world is made of people like you. There is no “society” somewhere separate; wherever you go you meet a person—“society” exists only in the dictionary. The person is real. At least let one person blossom—extend at least that much grace to the world!

By this grace at least your own stench will stop rising. If you truly feel compassion for people, at minimum stop the foul odor emanating from you. You have no control over others; at least offer a little fragrance yourself. Do what you can—at least that much!

And you say you won’t even do that, because the world is very unhappy.

Suppose the whole village is sick, and you too are sick. At least if medicine is available to you, take it. If one person gets well, he can do something to help heal others. If the whole village sleeps, and you too sleep, at least you wake up. One awakened person can devise ways to wake others. How can a sleeping man awaken anyone? Only the awake can awaken. That—no more and no less—is the meaning of meditation.

Still, it’s your choice! If you feel you will not meditate until the whole world is happy, you will never meditate—eternity will pass and you will not meditate, because this world will never be happy in that way. Your meditation at least turns one brick in this vast edifice into gold; one brick comes alive. So much of the world has changed—let that be enough! Drop by drop the ocean fills. You are one drop—small, yes, but not as small as you think.

After all, the Buddha was one person, a single drop. Yet when one lamp is lit, thousands can be lit from it. If meditation arises in one consciousness, that flame catches many. All are seeking happiness; seeing someone awakened, seeing that happiness has descended there, they run in that direction. Right now they are running wherever they imagine it to be—even though there is no proof. What else to do? Nothing else occurs to them.

Everyone runs toward wealth. You are unhappy; you too run toward wealth. You can see that the wealthy are not happy, yet what to do? Better to do something than nothing—perhaps it will work. So you join the crowd.

But when in some Buddha, some Christ, some Krishna you see a lamp of joy lit, then you have a real proof. Whether others go or not is irrelevant—you can go.

If you decide that you will meditate only when the whole world is happy, meditation will never happen.

And you ask, “Isn’t meditation in such a situation sheer selfishness?”

Do you understand the word “selfishness”? It’s a lovely word that fell into the wrong hands. Swarth—self-interest—means interest of the Self. One’s own good, of the Self. I see nothing wrong in it. I am entirely in favor. In fact, religion means self-interest—swabhava, one’s own nature.

And understand this: when self-interest is fulfilled, the welfare of others is served through it. If one has not realized his own good, how will he serve others? One who is not his own—how will he be anyone else’s? One who cannot give himself joy—how will he give joy to anyone? Before you love others, I tell you: love yourself. Before you can bring a breeze of happiness into someone else’s life, first bring it into your own. Before you bring a ray of light to another’s darkness, at least invite light into your own darkness. If you call this selfishness—so be it; what does a word matter? But this “selfishness” is absolutely necessary. The world would be much happier if people became selfish in the right sense.

And the person who has not known his own happiness, when he sets out to make others happy, great danger arises. He doesn’t even know what happiness is. He imposes on others the very “happiness” he himself has never known. What will he do? He will do only what was done to him.

Your parents brought you up in a certain way—born in a Muslim home, a Hindu home, a Jain home—they hastened to make you Muslim, Hindu, Jain. They never even asked whether their being Hindu, Muslim, Jain brought them happiness. No—they immediately set about giving you “happiness.” They made you Hindu, Muslim. They hurled you into the race for wealth. Did they ever once ask, “We ran all our lives—did wealth bring us joy?” No. They taught you what they themselves had done. They too were helpless; we can only teach what we have learned. They passed their diseases to you; their parents passed theirs to them; you will hand yours to your children.

Claim a little “self-interest,” find a little joy—so at least that much you can give your children, your neighbors. Here everyone is busy making others happy, and no one is happy. If you have never tasted a flavor, how will you serve it to another? It’s impossible.

I am entirely in favor of “self-interest.” Religion is a matter of meaning and purpose. There is no greater purpose than this. Religion means self-interest. And yet a wondrous thing happens: on the foundation of self-interest, the temple of altruism is raised.

As glimpses of peace, joy, and bliss begin to dawn in you, your very life becomes a teaching for others. From your life, clues and hints flow to others. You will teach your children that which gave you peace. You will not teach competition, rivalry, conflict, hostility. You will not pour poison into their minds.

If people became a little “selfish” in this sense, there would be great altruism in the world.

Again you ask, “In such a situation, isn’t meditation pure selfishness?”

Pure self-interest it is. But there is nothing wrong in self-interest. What you have so far called “self-interest” isn’t even in your interest. You say, “We’ll earn money—that’s self-interest; we’ll get position—that’s self-interest; we’ll build a grand house—that’s self-interest.” I tell you, there is no self-interest in this at all. You can build the house, get the post, amass money—go mad and you can achieve all you are after—yet your true interest will remain unmet. Because happiness won’t be found there. Nor will you find yourself. Your life will remain empty, barren—where no rain ever fell, no sprouts ever broke forth, no green, no flowers. Your veena will lie silent forever, with strings no one ever touched. Where is meaning then? Where is the Self?

What you called “self-interest” is mere foolishness. And what you dismiss as selfish—“How can I do it?”—that is your true self-interest and the highest intelligence. Do this “self-interest.”

Make this the fundamental arithmetic of life: if you want the world to be good, begin with yourself—be good.

And then you say, “Even if I were to meet God, instead of asking for my own peace I would rather ask for punishment for those because of whom there is exploitation, suffering, and injustice in the world.”

Do you think you are not among them? Do you think those people are “others”? Go ask them; they’ll say the same—“because of others.” Who is this “other”? Whom will you have punished? Have you not exploited? Have you not harassed others? Have you not sat upon someone’s chest, become the boss, crushed someone? You have done the same—perhaps on a smaller scale—but you’ve done it. You cannot live otherwise. You torment the one below you the way the one above torments you. This whole web of life is a web of exploitation; you are not outside it. For whom will you ask punishment?

And reflect: punishment will inflict suffering on others. Then you want others to suffer! Even if God appears, you will ask for punishment! For ways to hurt others! You are even ready to forgo your own peace for that!

I have heard an old Arabic tale. Two friends, one blind and one lame, lived together and begged together. They had to, for the blind man couldn’t see, and the lame couldn’t walk. So the blind carried the lame on his shoulders. Even begging separately was impossible; together they had a partnership.

As in all partnerships, quarrels arose. Sometimes the lame grabbed more of the money, sometimes the blind. Sometimes the blind refused to walk; sometimes the lame said, “I need rest; my eyes won’t work now.” One day the fight got so heated they thrashed each other soundly. God felt pity—so the old story goes; in those days God didn’t understand man too well. Now even pity doesn’t come easily, for man’s stupidity is such that pity seems pointless. Many such incidents happened and slowly God understood man’s foolishness. Now he doesn’t pity so quickly.

God thought, “If I grant the blind man eyes and the lame man legs, neither will depend on the other; they’ll be free and peaceful.” God appeared and asked them to ask a boon. Naturally he assumed the blind would ask for eyes, the lame for legs. But no—don’t ask about man!

He appeared first to the lame man: “Ask—what do you want?” The lame said, “Lord, make that blind man lame too.” God must have been startled! Then he appeared to the blind man: “Ask what you want.” The blind said, “Lord, make that lame man blind too.”

Each was eager to punish the other. The world didn’t become better. The blind became lame as well; the lame became blind—things grew worse. Perhaps this is why God doesn’t appear so readily now to say, “Ask your boon.” He tried often enough and discovered how deep man’s stupidity goes.

And you say—in the twentieth century—“Even if God were to appear before me, I would ask not for my peace but for punishment of those who cause the world’s suffering.”

First, suffering is because of you. You conveniently think it is because of others. What will punishment solve? Maybe your office boss harasses you, and you must submit. But in your home your wife sits and you harass her; she must submit. You preach, “Husband is God.” For centuries you’ve preached this. And she knows you well enough to say, “If you are God, then God is worth two pennies.” You have dragged down even God’s dignity with your claim; you have not raised your own. You exploit her in every way. If God were to ask your wife, she would arrange punishment for you.

The wife can do nothing, so she torments the children. She has no other outlet. With any excuse she vents on them—always in the name of their good. The children too know it has nothing to do with their good. “Today father and mother are not getting along—so beware! Either this side we get beaten or that side.” If God asked the children? They would want their mother punished. Which child hasn’t? If you ask one by one, you will find we are all implicated. For whom will you seek punishment? And what will punishment achieve? Everyone will be punished—blinds will become lame, lames will become blind—the world will be worse. Perhaps God doesn’t appear for fear that things are bad enough already—why make them worse?

You won’t ask for your peace? In this place, people find no relish in their own joy; they relish only the thought of others’ suffering.

And still you ask, “Why is there suffering?”

You may feel that to ask for your own peace would be selfish! I tell you, kindly let it be selfish. Ask for your peace! There is no harm in this selfishness. Ask for yours; seeing you, others will ask for theirs—this world could become peaceful.

And what is meditation? Since God is not appearing before you, kindly appear before God. That is all meditation means. God does not appear—perhaps he fears you, avoids you; wherever you go he slips away. But you can become so silent that you appear before God. To reveal yourself before the divine—that is meditation. Then benedictions shower on their own. Your entire angle of life changes; your very way of seeing changes.

I heard: a Zen seeker returned late to the monastery. The Master asked the cause of delay. The disciple apologized: “Forgive me, Master, a polo match was on the way and I got caught watching.” The Master asked, “Were the players tired?” “Yes,” the disciple said, “by the end they were very tired.” “Were the horses tired?” The disciple hesitated, “Yes, the horses too were tired.” “Were the goalposts tired?” Now the disciple thought, “What madness is this?” He could not answer, and that night he couldn’t sleep. It was impossible to think the Master mad; the mistake must be his. “If he asked, it must have meaning.”

He stayed awake thinking, thinking. At dawn, as the sun rose, the answer rose within him—suddenly, from the depths, clear. He ran to the Master: “Please repeat your question—lest I misheard.” The Master asked again, “Were the posts tired?” The disciple said, “Yes, the posts were tired too.” The Master rejoiced, embraced him: “See, if posts could not tire, then none could tire; today your meditation ripened. When I asked about men, you said ‘yes’ easily. About horses you hesitated—you did not say it with the same simplicity. When I asked about posts, you were stuck—showing your meditation was not yet whole. When meditation is complete, compassion becomes total. Not only men tire—horses tire, posts tire. All existence is alive; therefore all existence tires. The whole existence needs compassion.”

But that is the fruition of meditation—the very culmination of the “self-interest” you are trying to avoid. At that supreme “self-interest,” even posts that appear dead become alive. Stones and rocks also tire. The whole existence is experienced as living. You feel a deep oneness with all that is.

Yesterday I was reading a poem by Bhavani Prasad Mishra. I have often told the story; he has cast it in verse. It is lovely—listen.

With half-closed eyes the Buddha sat in lotus pose.
Disciple Purna said, “As breath pervades the three worlds,
as the wind moves free in the cloudless sky,
so, Master, I would wander the three realms—
on mountain peaks, along river streams,
in ocean’s vastness, under trees—
wherever your words can reach,
let me reach; let me also die there.
Let the minds of the anguished awaken in a peace-light
as lotuses awaken with the sunrise.”

Purna said: “Let me die spreading the fragrance of your words—that is my only longing. As when the sun rises, thousands of lotuses bloom, so may I carry your light and see heart-lotuses open.”

With half-closed eyes the Buddha sat in lotus pose.
Purna said, “As life pervades the three worlds,
as wind moves free in the cloudless sky,
so, Master, would I roam,
on peaks, by streams, in the vastness of trees:
wherever your word may go, let me arrive, and there let me die;
let restless minds awaken in a peace-light
as lotuses awaken with the dawn.”

“Child, but if people do not understand, if they insult you?”

Purna said, “Master, I will not deem them wrong.
I will thank them: they threw only dust, not stones—
only a few harsh words, some opposition, spoken and heard.”

“Good people they are,” he says, “I’ll be grateful. They could have hurled stones; they only spoke rude words. Words neither wound nor scar.”

“But if they raise their hands and hurl clods at you?”

“I will thank them, and take it as playful teasing!
They did not draw the sword from its sheath;
they did not kill me.”

Buddha said, “They may throw stones, beat you, break your head—then what, Purna?”

“I will be happy, Master; good people! They did not pull arrows from the quiver. They did not take my life; they only threw stones. I will take it as sport—they struck me, but did not slay me. Is that not enough?”

“And child, if they do slay you?”

“Master, if such a death be mine, I will count it fortune.
If life ends on the path of Dharma, I will call it nirvana.”

The Buddha opened his half-closed eyes and looked at Purna.
A gentle line of love blossomed on his lips.
Placing his hand on Purna’s head he said, “Child, go now.
Fearlessly reveal the light of peace in anguished hearts.”

Let there be so much peace within that even death does not hurt; so much meditation that insult does not insult you; that stones raining on you seem like play; that even if someone takes your life, gratitude does not falter. Only then can one truly give happiness to the world. Therefore Buddha said, “Now you may go. Go and distribute—now you have something to give.” Only one who has can give.

What is meditation? To uncover the treasure you have brought into this world—to draw back the veil and experience your own innermostness. To recognize the ever-resounding music of joy within. Then you will not seek happiness outside. All outer pleasures and pains look alike in its light. One glimpse of the inner bliss and outer life seems like death by comparison—everything goes pale. Then there is no hectic chase, no struggle, no war, no strife.

Only those who have attained meditation can bring a little river of bliss down into this world. Such people can call the Ganga of joy down like Bhagirath. You will not be able to. You are not even willing to meditate. You don’t even know what it means, and how could you know without doing it? You refuse to open the door through which the divine is found. And you say, “As long as there is suffering, I will not knock at this door—that would be selfish; people are suffering.” People are suffering precisely because they are saying the same: “We will not knock while others suffer.”

It is a vicious circle. At least you knock! Peek inside! And if joy comes to you, then run out—like Purna—to awaken the light of peace in people. Then whatever you do will be auspicious.

Meditation means: living with awareness. Without meditation, man lives in unconsciousness.

One last point. For centuries you have heard and thought—and been told—that the world suffers because there are bad people. Sinners cause suffering. You are not saying anything new when you declare, “If I meet God I will ask for punishment of the wicked.” Your sages have always done the same. Hence hell—to have God punish sinners.

But look: just as you have made prisons on earth. Those you judge guilty you throw into jail. Have you ever seen anyone return from prison improved? Has anyone come back reformed? Yes, your urge to punish is satisfied—your own wickedness has had its fun. The man committed a murder, and society took revenge: the judge—a representative of society—had him hanged. But what changed? Where one man had died, now two are dead. One wrong is not erased by another; it doubles. Where there was a smudge of soot, there is twice as much.

Someone erred; you sentenced him to five years in jail. Did you ever see anyone return better? He returns worse, because the old gang leaders are there. Master criminals teach him: “How did you get caught? You made this mistake. Don’t repeat it next time.” What is condemned there is not wrongdoing; being caught is the mistake.

I had a teacher, a lovely man—Muslim—who often served as superintendent during exams. The first time I sat an exam under him, what he said struck me. He came in and said, “Cheat, copy—do what you like. I don’t care—just don’t get caught. If you’re caught, you’ll be punished. If you’re caught, no one will be harder than me. Now think for yourself. I have no objection to cheating. Until you’re caught, enjoy. If you fear being caught, those who brought notes, please hand them over.” Many students handed over their notes. The arithmetic was simple and clear.

In this world the penalty is not for stealing, but for being caught. So when a thief is jailed, what pains him is being caught. He resolves not to be caught again—nothing more. And there are dons in jail ready to teach. You send them to a school—prison is a school. No one comes out reformed.

Psychologists now say: change prisons entirely. Don’t call them jails or houses of punishment; at most call them reform centers, or better, hospitals. Treat people—don’t punish them.

But your saints still haven’t learned; they still have hell where punishment is given. The arithmetic is the same. Have you read of anyone who went to hell and then returned improved? In any Purana? I have searched—I haven’t found a single story. Whoever went to hell stayed there, growing worse. Punishment doesn’t reform; it only lets you enjoy being wicked too.

The fundamental mistake all along has been to believe that suffering is caused by bad people. I say: suffering is caused by unconscious people. And because they are unconscious, they become “bad.” The root is not in “badness,” it is in unconsciousness. Meditation means awareness.

Until now we have tried to make bad men good—through punishment, temptation, fear, bribery. Show the fear of hell, the bribe of heaven: “You’ll get honor, respect, awards—Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri. Do good! Do bad and you’ll be punished, jailed, lose your reputation, be thrown into hell.” On the basis of fear and greed we tried to elevate man. It has not succeeded. The world has grown worse and worse. There is a mistake at the root.

My analysis is different. Suffering is not because there are bad men, but because there are unconscious men. Only the unconscious can inflict suffering. Why? Because one who is aware knows that two pains return for every pain given. Who wants to hurt himself? Only an unconscious person can hurt another—for he does not see how that pain returns amplified.

Like little children: bump into a chair and, angry, they slap the chair. Whether the chair is hurt is unknown—but their hand is. They are delighted: “We punished it.”

Whenever you hurt another, you are behaving childishly. The reply will come.

I heard a small, sweet story. Emperor Akbar, his queen Jodhabai, and Birbal were walking by the river. Jodha walked ahead, Birbal in the middle, Akbar at the back. Akbar felt mischievous and pinched Birbal’s waist. Birbal was angry but quiet, thinking what to do. A few steps later Birbal pinched Jodhabai’s waist. Jodha, enraged, slapped Birbal’s face. Birbal immediately gave a resounding slap to Akbar behind him. Akbar flared up, “BIRBAL! How dare you?” “Pardon me, Your Majesty,” said Birbal, “but the reply to the letter you sent has arrived.”

Replies do come. Nothing sent out remains unanswered. Existence responds, echoes. What you do returns—many times over. A small pinch goes out and returns as a stinging slap. You may not be able to trace the connection, but it is there. This is the whole principle of karma. Give pain and you will get pain. Then, getting pain, you will feel eager to give more. Give more and you will get more. The web will never break. Suffering thickens in the world for this reason.

Not because of bad men, but because of unconscious men. Ethics tries to make bad men good; religion awakens the unconscious. That is the difference between ethics and religion. An ethical man need not be religious, but a religious man is necessarily ethical. An ethical person may not believe in God or meditation—Russia and China have ethical people; an atheist can be ethical. To be ethical you need not be religious. But a religious person cannot be unethical. Religion’s grip is deeper. With religion, ethics follows by itself; with ethics, religion does not necessarily follow.

Moreover, ethics involves suppression. You try to be good by holding yourself in, and you may succeed outwardly, but inwardly the fire of evil burns on. The pus keeps accumulating. You too want to steal but you don’t dare. You want to cheat but you are afraid. Out of a hundred “honest” men, ninety-nine are honest only because of the fear of being caught. They are not honest. Assure them there is no risk and they will be ready at once.

That is why a person is honest while not in power—because he fears being caught. When he gets power, the fear fades—who will catch him? Become Prime Minister or President—who will catch you then? You sit on the chest of law; everything falls beneath you. As it dawns on him that everything is now in his hands, all the repressed diseases begin to surface. Every power-holder becomes corrupt and deceitful.

You are puzzled: “Why does this happen? We elect good people, give them votes for their goodness—then what goes wrong? As soon as they reach office they change. When? How?”

The secret is simple: his goodness was ethical. He was good because being bad was costly, because being bad was frightening, because being good was profitable. Now he has power; he sees being bad is profitable. His fundamental criterion was profit. When profit lies in being bad, being bad becomes logical. Hence all rulers turn bad.

And people wonder: “What happens? We send social workers, servants of the poor—they forget, and begin to exploit—the very thing they fought against.” Power makes everyone alike.

Why? Because most people are not religious; they are merely ethical. And there is no relying on an ethical man.

I heard: Mulla Nasruddin was in a lift with a beautiful woman. He said, “If you spend tonight with me, I’ll give you five thousand rupees.” The woman flared up: “I’ll call the police. How dare you!” Nasruddin said, “No problem—take ten thousand.” At ten thousand she softened a little. “Don’t worry,” said Nasruddin, “money is no issue—fifteen thousand.” She quickly took his hand. Nasruddin said, “And if I give fifteen rupees, will you come?” The woman exploded: “What do you take me for?” Nasruddin said, “That we both now understand; you too understand and so do I. Now we are only haggling over the price. If fifteen thousand settles it, who you are is no longer in question; it’s just bargaining.”

Reflect: your ethics, your goodness, has a limit. You may not steal five rupees—you pass by like a saint. Fifteen—perhaps you still pass. Fifteen thousand—you hesitate. One and a half million—will you leave it? You will say, “Forget sainthood for now! This saintliness is costly; what lies here is worth more. I’ll pick sainthood back up later. Once this money is in hand, we’ll build temples, give donations—we’ll be saints again. What’s so hard about being a saint?” You won’t be able to pass it by.

The ethical man has a limit; the religious man has none. The ethical man is ethical for reasons; the religious man is ethical only because of awareness. And without meditation, there is no awareness.
So, the one who has asked the question must be something of a moral thinker, giving some thought to ethics—but they have no real sense of religion yet. And by being moral, no one truly becomes moral; only by being religious is one genuinely moral. Ethics is a deception, a counterfeit coin. It circulates in the name of religion, but it isn’t the real thing.
I want you to wake up, to be filled with awareness. The moment one is filled with awareness, one no longer remains bad—because a person full of awareness simply cannot be bad. It is just like this: the light comes on and the darkness is gone; now you will go out through the door, you won’t try to go through the wall. In the dark you had sometimes tried to go through the wall—you bumped into it, you fell, you got tangled in the furniture, you were hurt, and you hurt others too. But now the light is on: now you won’t bump, you won’t fall over the furniture, things won’t break, the utensils won’t crash, the mirror won’t shatter, your head won’t strike the wall; now you will go straight out—now there is light.

Unconsciousness must go. Ordinarily, man is unconscious. We are moving under a kind of intoxication. Listen to this little incident—

Two clerks in the Planning Department were very fond of opium. So even at the office they were often pleasantly high. One day an order came from above to construct a well in a tribal area. The responsibility for the site inspection was given to them. They set out for the inspection. On the way they came upon a well. They had walked a long way, so to ease their fatigue they stopped for a while, drank some water, and took opium. When the opium had taken full effect, one clerk said to the other, “Look, friend, if we take this well to the tribal area, we can pocket the money for digging a new one.” Both were on opium; to both the idea seemed perfectly straightforward. “What’s the need to make a new well? There’s no one around, the well is lying here in solitude—let’s just take this one along.”

The other, delighted, said, “Man, your brain is something else! Come on, let’s try.” Just then a gust of wind came, the opium rose even higher, and both toppled over right there. They were pushing at the well when, as they gave it a shove, they themselves rolled over and fell. They were trying to push it along and take it away.

After quite some time, seeing them unconscious, the villagers gathered. When one of the clerks came to a little, he saw the villagers and said to his friend, “Enough, man, we’ve reached the tribal area. If we push any harder, we’ll overshoot.” He thought they had reached the village—that by pushing they had brought the well this far. And now if they pushed more, they might go beyond. “Stop now.”

We are sunk in just such a stupor: a torpor of thought, an unconsciousness of mind. Inside it is all darkness; the light does not burn—it is all smoke. In this state we keep doing things. Whatever we do—even if we try to do good—in such a condition it turns out ill. From a sleeping man, good does not happen. From a sleeping man, virtue does not happen. And from an awakened man, sin does not happen.

So I do not want to turn a sinner into a saint; I only want to awaken the sleeping. The day meditation happens within you—meditation meaning thought-free consciousness, no smoke of thought, only awareness—in the radiance of that awareness everything begins to appear clear: where to go, what to do. What you have done till now and what results have come—all the past becomes clear. Not only that, the whole future becomes clear. Everything becomes as clear as when the sun rises in the day and all the paths become visible—and in the darkness of night everything is lost.

Do not look for excuses to evade meditation. In this world, meditation is the one thing worth doing. If the rest is not done, it will do. If meditation is not done, you miss—you miss life. Still, it is your choice!

First, what is desire? Desire means: as I am, I am not okay; where I am, I am not content; may I be somewhere else, be something else, be otherwise. Desire means: this place is not my place; some other place is my place. This life that is mine is not my life; some other life is my life. Desire means dissatisfaction with what is, and longing for what is not.

The fundamental note of desire is discontent. And whoever wants to be free of desire must learn the lesson of contentment: being at ease with what is, content with where one is. When consent is total—when one says, All right, whatever comes, is that not enough? That it comes at all—is that not enough?—then an inner music of contentment begins to play, and desire dissolves.

Desire is the clamor of discontent.

You have a house, and the mind is not content. A bigger house is needed. One who has a big house is not content with the big; he wants even bigger. There has never been a house so big that someone was content with it. The beautiful are not content with their beauty. The healthy are not content with their health. We are not content with anything. Being out of sorts has become our nature. Everything pricks us. We feel, It could be better. From this idea that it could be better, desire is born. Desire is born out of imagination.

Animals and birds are happy because they have no imagination. Trees are delighted—these cypresses swaying in the wind are delighted; they have no purpose; what they are is enough. They do not want leaves like some other tree. The ashoka trees standing nearby are no rivals; it never occurs to the cypress, Why don’t I have leaves like the ashoka? The marigold is in no competition with the rose. The rock has nothing to do with the tree—Why am I not like a tree? There is no imagination. Without imagination, there is no desire. What is, as it is, is utterly fulfilling. That is why nature appears so heavenly to you.

That is why sometimes you run away to the Himalayas; you sit and watch the moon at night, or you watch the waves of the ocean, the rising sun, the lush greenness of dense forests—then a kind of satisfaction comes to you. That satisfaction is a faint shadow of nature’s own contentment arising in you.

Here everything is quiet; no one is going anywhere. Nature abides where it is—no haste, no running about, no competition. Each is content in its own being. Even a small blade of grass is utterly happy in its being; it has no envy of the sky-touching deodars. It does not even say, You are big, I am small. In nature there is no small and big.

Man’s trouble is that man can imagine. If you understand this trouble rightly, man can be more blissful than these trees and flowers—because the happiness of trees, rocks, and mountains is unconscious; man’s happiness can be conscious. But the same condition is needed. The day, while remaining a man, you become as contented as a tree, you will find heaven descending.

Remember, no one goes to heaven; heaven descends into you. It follows upon contentment.

So first, what is desire? Desire means: this is not right; that is right. The distance between this and that is desire. And that distance never disappears; it is like the distance between you and the horizon. It looks near—not very far, perhaps fifteen or twenty miles; the sky seems to be meeting the earth. You think, If I run, I will reach it within an hour. Keep running—lifetimes keep running—you have been running for lifetimes—and nowhere does the sky touch the earth; it only appears so. Because the earth is round, it looks as if they meet. After you walk twenty miles, you find the sky has retreated twenty miles. You can circle the whole earth and never see the sky touching the earth anywhere. It simply doesn’t.

Such is desire. The distance between this and that remains, just as it is. You have ten thousand rupees; the mind says, If only I had one hundred thousand, then nothing else would be needed. The mind says it again and again: just one hundred thousand! As soon as you have one hundred thousand, you find that the same mind now says, Not until there is a million will there be peace. Why? When you had ten thousand, one hundred thousand—ten times more—promised peace. Now with one hundred thousand, it is one million—again ten times more. The gap remains the same.

Desire is the same for the poor and the rich. Between a beggar and an emperor, desire is equally the same; there is no difference. Do you think that when a beggar stands and an emperor stands, the horizon that appears to touch the sky would seem at a different distance to each? To the emperor, too, it appears twenty miles ahead; to the beggar, too, twenty miles ahead. The illusion is the same. Wherever one is, it always seems that the source of satisfaction is somewhere ahead. Here is the desert; somewhere ahead is the oasis.

One who has known that the oasis is here, and in this very moment closes his eyes and dives within—who has dropped desire, dropped imagination—heaven descends. You drop desire, and heaven comes near. But dropping desire must not be for the sake of desiring heaven; otherwise desire has not been dropped. Then you will go wrong—and this mistake happens every day.

The religious man makes exactly this mistake. He says, All right—if you say that by dropping desire bliss will come, I will drop desire; but bliss will come, won’t it? For sure? But this is only a new form of desire. Bliss does not come as a result of dropping desire; it comes like a shadow. You dropped desire: inherent in that very dropping was bliss; desire was not letting it be seen. When desire goes, bliss reveals itself. It is like a curtain was hanging. Removing the curtain does not produce bliss; bliss was already there—you had hung the curtain of desire. But if you think, Let me drop desire so that bliss will come, then you are still adorning desire within. You still want bliss, and that is why you are even willing to drop desire.

This is the greatest entanglement of the religious life. People say, If leaving the world will bring heaven, we will leave the world—but in the hope of obtaining heaven! And the hope of obtaining is the very name of the world. The lust to get something—this is what the world is.

“Why does every desire have its opposite?”
It must, because desire divides. It divides into this and that, here and there—world and heaven. Desire lives by division; if there were no division, desire would die. If there are not two, how will you desire? Two are indispensable. What I am, and what I could be—these two notions are necessary. Between the two, a bridge of desire will be built; a wire of desire will be stretched, a rope of desire will be flung. If there is only one, what desire can there be?

That is why the wise have said: see the One, and desire will die. There is only the One—Brahman, or Truth. Then desire cannot remain. What is, is; other than this, nothing has been, nothing can be—how will you then desire? No way will remain for desire.

I have heard: a Sufi fakir, Hasan, used to pray every day, beating his chest and saying to God, O Lord, open the door! For so long I have been calling! He was once staying at the house of another Sufi fakir, the woman Rabia—Rabia was an extraordinary woman, like Meera, like Sahajo, like Teresa; as Buddha, Krishna, and Mahavira are among men, so was Rabia. She had been listening: for two or three days Hasan had been her guest—every day he prayed, every day beat his chest and said, O Lord, open the door! I have been calling so long; when will you hear my plea?
On the third day Rabia could bear it no more. She was sitting nearby; she went over and shook Hasan. She said, Listen, sir—the door is standing open! What is this racket every day—Open the door! Open the door! The door is open; it has never been closed! Hasan was taken aback. He had great respect for Rabia; if she says so, it must be true. So Hasan asked, Then why does it not appear open to me? Rabia said, Because you are too anxious, too full of wanting—Open the door! O Lord, open the door! Open the door, call me into heaven, into the realm of bliss! Your desire itself is becoming the curtain. God’s door is open—your desire is the curtain. Your eyes are closed; God’s door is not.

That is why Buddha went so far as to say: drop even talk of God—because even that creates two: I and God. Therefore Buddha said: drop even talk of liberation—because that too creates two: I and liberation. Buddha said: what is, is—do not give it two names. The moment you give it two, the obstruction begins, the tension begins. Then how will you stay still? The search for the other starts, the thirst starts.

Existence is one. Desire splits it into two.

You ask, “Is its dividedness inevitable?”
Absolutely inevitable. Because without division desire cannot survive. As two are needed to fight, two are needed to love, two are needed for conflict—so two are needed for desire. And don’t speak only of two—we have made many. That is why the horses of our desires are galloping in all directions.

“And is an integral, undivided desire possible?”
No. An integral and undivided desire is not possible. Because where you become integral and undivided, there desire no longer remains. Where desire comes, you become fragmented and divided.

I have heard of an extraordinary sage of South India—Sadashiva Swami. A few days ago I told you a story about him: how, seeing a learned pandit arrive at his master’s ashram, he got entangled in debate with him, shattered all his arguments, tore him to pieces, devastated him. The pandit was very renowned. Sadashiva thought the master would pat his back and say, Well done, you set him straight. But when the pandit left, the master only said this much: Sadashiva, when will you bring your speech under restraint? Why this useless, useless talking? What came of it all? All this was babble! When will you be silent? Sadashiva looked at the master, touched his feet, and said, If you say, When?—it is happening now. And he fell silent. He remained silent the rest of his life.

This is an incident from his life. He undertook the discipline of lifelong silence; he was silent and naked. Naked and silent—there were many troubles. Silent—he did not speak—and wandering naked! His samadhi was continuous. He remained intoxicated in his own ecstasy.

One day, by mistake, he wandered into the camp of a Muslim chieftain. He was going along in ecstasy, dancing; the camp happened to be in the way—that was all. The women, frightened, screamed. A naked man, dancing in ecstasy, had walked in—they thought he was mad. Seeing a naked sadhu intrude, the chieftain, too, grew angry. He drew his sword and struck. One of Sadashiva’s hands was cut off and fell to the ground. But Sadashiva’s joy suffered no interruption. The hand fell, blood began to flow, yet the dance continued. Just as he had been dancing, he turned and kept dancing as he walked away.
The chieftain was astonished, and also pained—he had never seen such ecstasy. And that a hand could be cut off and he would not even notice—such ecstasy! The man was in some other realm. Looking into his eyes, it was as if he was not in this world at all—somewhere else. His consciousness seemed not to be in the body. The chieftain was stricken, fell at his feet, and begged forgiveness. Sadashiva laughed. The chieftain said, Give me a teaching. He was silent—he could not speak—so he wrote a short sentence with his finger on the sand: Do not do what you want; then you will be able to do whatever you want. Do not do what you want; then you will be able to do whatever you want. He wrote something very strange. Whatever desires you are nurturing, do not follow them—then whatever you desire will come to pass. It turned into something very odd!

But so it is. As long as you keep asking, you will not get it. The day you drop asking, that very day it arrives. You chase happiness and it keeps deceiving you. You stop—and happiness begins to roll at your feet.

I have heard: a young man was mad after wealth. He tried every means; nothing worked. He went to a fakir. He said, I have tried many ways—I want to gain wealth, but wealth doesn’t come. What should I do? And when he went to the fakir, the wealthiest man of the village was kneading the fakir’s feet. He said, What is this? I am crazy after wealth, yet wealth doesn’t come to me. You have left everything and sit here—why is this rich man pressing your feet? The fakir said, That is how it is. If you don’t bother about wealth, wealth will press your feet. The young man said, No one has told me this before; all right, I will do just that.
He came back after two or three years, in a worse state. He was very upset. He said, What kind of thing did you tell me? I dropped my concern with wealth, and what I had also went away. As for any more coming—that is out of the question. I keep looking again and again—Now some rich man will come and press my feet; now Lakshmi will come and press my feet—but there is no sign. The fakir said, It is precisely because you keep looking again and again that Lakshmi is not coming. And if you have dropped it, why keep checking again and again? Which means you haven’t dropped it. You keep looking back—so you haven’t dropped it.

This is a fundamental law of this world: what you want, you will not get. It is your wanting that creates the obstacle. The moment you drop the wanting, everything begins to shower. But it does not mean that you should drop wanting in order that it may shower. Otherwise you have not dropped it—you will keep peeking back.

In desire there is duality; therefore in desire there is restlessness. In desire there is pain, torment. Desire breaks you into fragments, shatters you into pieces. Desire deranges you; desire is the root of madness. When desire goes, madness goes. When desire goes, the fragments go—you become whole. When you become whole, you are Brahman. When you become whole, nirvana showers. When you become whole, you are one—then there is no sorrow. In twoness there is sorrow; in advaita there is sat-chit-ananda.

Buddha had a disciple—Vimalakirti. One of the most unique disciples. People were afraid to go to him, because from every matter he would pull out some point, erect some argument—he was very logical, a philosopher—so that when Vimalakirti once fell ill, Buddha said to a few of his disciples, Go and ask how Vimalakirti’s health is. No one agreed to go—not even to ask how he was—because even out of that he would draw something, and they were afraid he would entangle them in debate right there.
At last Manjushri, another of Buddha’s chief disciples, agreed to go. Manjushri went. He asked Vimalakirti, You are ill—how is your health? The Blessed One has remembered you and sent me to ask. Vimalakirti said, I am ill—that statement is wrong. How can I, who am the witness, be ill? I am the seer—I am seeing that the body is ill. And you ask whether I am ill. Everyone is ill. Whoever is in the body is ill. More or less—the whole existence is ill, Vimalakirti said. Life is ill—afflicted with the disease of desire—and what greater disease do you need? Here, desire is eating you up, and there, death is drawing near. Here, desire is cutting you to pieces before you die; there, death is coming—whatever remains will be finished by death.
So Vimalakirti said: first, I am not ill; I am merely watching. Second, not only I—existence itself is ill; existence-as-such is ill. To be here is an illness.

Vimalakirti is right: desire cuts you down. See how much you are cutting yourself with the sword of desire, how much misery you are gathering. Desire never brings happiness—because desire is never fulfilled so that happiness could come; it always remains incomplete and keeps on cutting, keeps the wound fresh; it does not allow it to heal; it repeatedly tears it open. One desire somehow drops, and ten are born. This fever of desire is the sickness.

Life is sick with desire; the final consummation of desire is in death. But then you have missed. If, before dying, you kill desire, you will attain the deathless. Desire leads to death; a desireless mind attains the immortal.

Mystery means: a riddle for which no solution is possible. You can live it, but you can never know it. You can never turn it into knowledge. It can become experience, but it will never become knowledge. You will never be able to imprison it in your fist.

Understand it like this: you can enter the ocean, but you cannot hold the ocean in your fist. The ocean is vast, infinite; your fist is small. Life is immense; the brain with which we try to understand it is very small. This brain can dive into the ocean of life, be overwhelmed with its nectar, but it will never solve life.

That is the difference between philosophy and religion—just as there is a difference between morality and religion. Morality makes a man good; religion awakens him. Likewise, philosophy asks: What is the answer to life? How can life’s mystery be solved? How to unravel life’s riddle? Religion says: It cannot be unraveled. First consider how small the one who wants to fathom it is, and how vast is that which is to be fathomed! You set out to empty the ocean with a spoon! Or to color the ocean, spoonful by spoonful! Be a little wise. Religion says: you can dive, you can live life in its supreme blessedness, but you cannot know it. It is a riddle with no answer.

I have read a reminiscence from Rabindranath’s life. Rabindranath was a guest at a friend’s house. Early one morning the friend’s little daughter came and asked, as children do, “If you were locked in a room and the door bolted, what would you do?” Rabindranath said, “I would call out for the neighbors’ help.” The girl said, “No, don’t say that—imagine there are no neighbors at all. Then what would you do?” Rabindranath thought and said, “Then I would try to break down the doors.” The girl laughed: “That won’t work either—the doors are made of iron.” Rabindranath reflected and said, “Then this has become life’s riddle—that whatever I do, arrangements have already been made to make it fail.”

Life is such a riddle.

I have heard of a couple in America buying a toy for their child. There was a toy made of pieces—a puzzle to be assembled. The wife tried hard to put it together; it wouldn’t fit. She looked to her husband, a professor of mathematics. He said, “Let me do it.” He too tried and failed. “This is the limit,” he said, and asked the shopkeeper, “My wife is educated and can’t assemble it; I’m a professor of mathematics and can’t assemble it—how will my little child do it?” The shopkeeper said, “Why didn’t you ask earlier? This toy is designed so that it never fits together. It teaches the child that life is like that. It points toward life. Its name is Life—you can see it written on the box. It is made in such a way that it won’t assemble. It is meant to give the experience that there are things here that will never be solved. Wisdom is to not try to solve what cannot be solved.”

For thousands of years man has kept thinking, “What is life?” There is no answer. Zen mystics give just the right kind of answer.

A Zen mystic was drinking his tea when a visitor asked, “What is life?” He said, “A teacup.” The visitor was a big thinker. He said, “A teacup! I’ve seen great answers, read great books—what kind of answer is that? I cannot accept it.” The mystic said, “As you wish! Then life is not a teacup—what more is there to do!”

But the mystic spoke rightly: all answers are like that—futile. Call the cup of life a teacup, or refuse to call it a teacup—what difference does it make? All human answers are useless. Man has not found the answer. Man will not find the answer. Intelligence is small; existence is vast. The part cannot comprehend the whole—but it can live the whole, it can dive into it, it can become one with it, in oneness.

Meditation simply means: do not get entangled in the futile effort to solve life; engage yourself in the endeavor to live it.

Do not lose even a single moment. The moment that is gone is gone forever; it will not return. Let every moment merge into the celebration of life. Let every moment be absorbed in the prayer of life. Let each moment be immersed in life’s plunge. Dive, live—do not search for answers. There are no answers.

You ask, “Is life a question or a riddle?”
It is certainly not a question—otherwise philosophy would have found the answer. It is a riddle, and one with no solution. And if you truly long to know this life, then live it and share it. Take as much juice as you can—and give as much as you can. For the more you give, the more you receive. Do not look at this life with a miser’s eyes. Do not try to lock it away in a safe—share it.

I have heard that once a continually flowing river and a pond confined within a closed boundary had a conversation. The pond said to the river, “You are throwing your wealth of water into the sea for no reason. In this way you will one day certainly be exhausted, finished. Guard yourself, hold back your water, store it.” The pond’s advice was that of a practical man. But the river was a Vedantin. She said, “You are mistaken; you have forgotten life’s very formula: there is great joy in giving, a joy that is not in withholding. Whenever I have held back, I have been unhappy. And when I have given, bliss has flowed. The more I have flowed, the more joy has flowed. And do not think I am giving to the ocean—I give for the joy of it, for the bliss of my own being. In giving I have known life. You are dead—and even if you remain for ages, what of it? If someone lives fully even for a moment, he has known, he has experienced. If someone merely persists for centuries, decaying, what of it? He has neither lived nor experienced.”

Their views did not agree, tempers rose, and they stopped speaking. Not many days passed: the river kept flowing as before; the pond shrank into a puddle. Then came the sun, blazing heat, and only a muddy, filthy pit remained. Then even that began to dry. When the heat reached its peak, the pond was finished. The river still flowed. To the dying pond the river said, “Look: I give, and my sources give to me. You do not give, so your sources do not give to you. To the giver, more is given. Giving is the law of life. If, at every point, there is refusal and hoarding, life ends.”

Do not set yourself to solve life as a puzzle or a question. Life is in living—and living is in giving. That is why all religions have said that charity is the fundamental formula of dharma. Charity simply means: share.

Whatever you have, share it, pour it out. As you begin to give, from unknown sources a stream will begin to flow within you. Consider a well: the more water you draw, the more water fills it. Fresh water comes, new springs burst forth. If, out of fear, you stop drawing from the well, cover it, close it, thinking, “The water may run out; I may need it someday,” the well will rot. And slowly, when the springs do not flow, they dry up; silt gathers over them, stones settle in, the springs are blocked.

If you want to know life, live it. Life is in life itself. Life is in living. Do not take life to be a noun; take it to be a verb. And give, share.

Do not treat it as a question and try to solve it with closed eyes. Dance, sing, hum. Join in. This vast celebration of the divine that is going on—be a participant in it. The more you participate, the more you will receive, the more you will understand, the more you will experience.

Still, let me repeat: this will never become knowledge. There will never come a day when you can say, “I have known.” That never happens. It is so vast that we go on knowing, and knowing, and knowing—yet it never gets exhausted. It remains inexhaustible, the remainder that always remains.

That is all for today.