Es Dhammo Sanantano #57

The difference is subtle. You will understand it only if you want to understand; only if you listen with sympathy. It isn’t a gross or obvious difference.

That is why Hindus also called Buddha an atheist. Yet even while calling him atheist, it was hard to deny his greatness—so they also called him an avatar. The difference is very fine. They could neither fully accept nor fully reject him. They could not accept Buddha because, on the face of it, his statement seems atheistic. But how to deny his stature, his genius, his majesty, his light? Hindus were not that blind. So they accepted him as an avatar as well.

It must have been a great quandary for the Hindu genius. It is always easy to wholly accept or completely reject. But when something comes in between—where you can neither dismiss nor endorse—that means something extremely subtle is at stake. It was difficult to decide whether Buddha was saying yes or saying no—and this difficulty arose for a people like the Hindus who have labored for centuries to grasp the subtle.

When the atheist says, “There is no God,” he has no real concern with man. His concern is only that God should not be. Because the existence of God creates a certain restraint—on lust, on craving, on the blind race of life. Freedom to do as you please seems to disappear. When the atheist says, “There is no God,” he is really saying, “Man is free to do whatever he wants. There is no sin, no virtue. There is no controller, no one before whom you will one day have to answer. The question of being responsible does not arise. After death, all vanish.”

Charvaka said: “Even if you must borrow, drink ghee. Don’t miss out on pleasure. What is there to repay? Repay whom? After death, is there anyone’s account at all? All merge into dust.” And religion? “Only a priestly fraud—to trap fools, to squeeze them, to exploit them.”

Atheists have kept repeating Charvaka’s language. Later Karl Marx spoke in the same tongue—religion is the opium of the people. “There is no God.” But the emphasis here is on the not-being of God.

And if there is no God, then man is an animal. Cut off the divine, and man is reduced to the animal. Then what difference will you make between man and beast? The only difference is: animals live in their instincts; man rises beyond his instincts.

But if there is no beyond, no sky to fly into—then there is only the earth to crawl upon like insects. What difference remains then between a man and a dog? A dog is a dog, a man is a man—there is still a difference if God is. If God is, the difference is that the dog will remain a dog; the man can become divine. There is a possibility of growth.

So when the atheist says, “There is no God,” he is also saying: “Enough of this nonsense about growth and possibility. Let us live in peace. Let us do what we want. Remove this obstacle of sin and virtue. Don’t put conditions on us. Let our animality run free.”

That is why when Nietzsche said, “God is dead,” he immediately added: “Now man is free to do whatsoever he likes.” God is dead—and now man is free. There is no eye watching from above, no one before whom you must one day stand and answer, no final judge. You are alone. The sky is empty. The house has no master—do whatever you want.

The atheist insists: let God not be—so that man can be an animal without hindrance.

Buddha also said, “There is no God,” but his emphasis is not on the not-being of God. His emphasis is on man’s being God. He says: How can there be a God separate from you? Man himself is God. Atta hi attano natho—oneself is one’s own master. The divine is not elsewhere; you are searching in the wrong direction. Buddha says: to seek outside is a trick to avoid. Don’t put God up in the sky. He is in your inner sky, hidden within your very being.

Buddha denies God lest the idea of an external God become a denial of your own godliness. And that is exactly what happened. People go to worship and feel relieved. Worship becomes a way to get off the hook: “We bowed our heads, now we are free to do as we please.” They go before God and ask precisely for what they already want to do—seeking God’s sanction. If they want violence, they ask a blessing for violence.

Even Hitler had churches that blessed him; his generals prayed there. Churchill, too, was being blessed by the Church of England. If India and Pakistan go to war, India’s sadhus and sannyasins start blessing the state.

You pray to your God even for war and violence. Your God is false; your prayer is false. You even enlist “God” as a support in becoming your own devil.

When Buddha said, “There is no God,” he took away prayer from you, not divinity. Understand this well.

Buddha stole prayer from you, saying: Enough of this chatter—you are putting “God” to work for your own ends. The atheist wants to remove God so he can be unrestrained. You are using God as the very basis for your unrestrainedness.

Think what man has not done in the name of God! What is there that theists have not done? If you look closely, the stories of sins in the name of atheists are very few. They may have borrowed ghee to drink—what great sin is that! They did not burn people alive. They may have made merry, danced drunk; but now reckon the theists’ sins!

How many Christians did Muslims kill, how many Hindus? How many Muslims did Christians kill? How do Hindus fill with fire when the tide of killing rises—how blind they become! Temples and mosques have made men fight. Where did temples and mosques ever unite anyone? All great wars have been in the name of temples and mosques. The earth was strewn with corpses, flooded with blood. All in the name of religion—and done by theists.

If you tally the sins of atheists and theists, the atheist’s scale is lighter—very light. Yes, personally he might have borrowed ghee—what of it! Will you keep accounts of that too? Personally he may have fallen in love, danced drunk—fine. Whom did he hurt? In whose chest did he thrust a knife? And if he enjoyed a few pleasures, if there is a God somewhere, he will forgive him. But he will not be able to forgive the theist.

The atheist, by denying God, sought a little license. The theist is more cunning, more clever. The atheist is honest; the theist is dishonest. He says: “Why discard God? Let us pray and enlist him.” No answer ever comes from there; so you make your own answer. No one is speaking from there; you go to the temple, say your prayer, then nod your own head at your own prayer. You light incense yourself. You offer the sacrificial goat yourself. You even sacrificed humans—but in the name of yajna, so the act became religious. You murdered, shed blood—but in the name of sacrifice, so the deed turned holy.

The theist has been more crafty. He says: Why remove God? Use God as a crutch. In your sinful journey, rest on his shoulder; climb upon it. The theist has done exactly what suited him.

Buddha saw both. He agreed with neither atheistic Charvaka nor sacrifice-obsessed priesthood.

But he saw that under the name of God, license goes on. So he denied God—not to stress denial, but to stress that man’s glory is immeasurable. There is no need to posit a God above man; the divine is hidden within man and must be brought to expression.

Buddha gave the world a new language of theism. Understand it. God is nowhere ready-made, sitting there for you to seize. God is not an object. You must create him, bring him into being—within your own inner house, in your inmost core—by lighting the lamp of awareness, illumination, wakefulness, mindfulness, meditation. You must give birth to God. You must become God’s mother. You must become the womb.

This is the meaning when Buddha says: there is none above man. He says: everything is within man, not above. And if man is to go “up,” he must go within. Only by going within does man rise above. Only by knowing oneself does one know truth. Only by recognizing one’s ultimate suchness is there union with the divine—and this union is not to happen at some temple gate outside, nor in some heaven, some geography. It will happen as an inner state, in the inner sky.

Buddha denied God outside in order to install him within. There has never been a greater theist than Buddha; doubtful there ever will be. His theism is so deep, so courageous, that he even denied “God.” This was not a step against God, but a step born of love for God—seeing that what was being done in God’s name would not stop unless “God” is removed. Remove that notion, and the whole web of mischief collapses. And he gave man the method to create God—God is your creation.

Taste this subtlety a little. Each person has to create his own God. You are the sculptor, you are the statue, you are the stone to be carved, and you are the chisel with which to carve. There is no one apart from you. Man is everything: the sitar, the musician, and the tone. Everything is within you; you have to orchestrate it, set it in the right order. Gather the broken fragments, make them whole. The statue is hidden in the crude stone; cut away the rough, remove the useless. Distinguish the essential from the nonessential—and the divine will be revealed, an epiphany.

And when your God is revealed, he will be yours. And what is not one’s own—what is that worth? He will throb in your breath. He will be the beat of your heart. He will be the flame of your very life. What is yours alone abides.

If you find God as an other, he will slip away—everything other slips away. Only one’s own being does not. Hence Buddha says: to find oneself is the only finding. Wealth you may gain—it will be lost. Temples, houses you may build—they will be left behind. Fame and prestige will pass. In the same way, if you find God as something other, someone else, he too will be lost. What is other cannot be your nature. Buddha called God your very nature.

Now understand: the atheist wants there to be no God, so that you may be unrestrained. Buddha wants the notion of God removed so that you may become religious—so that you may be truly free, so that your glory has no limit and no barrier remains. All stones removed—your liberation complete.

Thus Buddha made thousands into true theists, without “God.” While you cling to “God” and have not become theists. Buddha taught a very deep art.

And when Buddha says, “There is no God,” he is not stating a doctrine. He is not saying, “My theory is that there is no God.” He says only this: when truth was known, the self was seen—God was not.

“Neither unbelief nor faith are anything; Neither Magian nor Muslim are anything. When the veil was lifted from the King of Reality, Both began to wail in shame.”

Neither the religious man’s claim is true, nor the irreligious man’s. Neither Hindu’s nor Muslim’s. When the veil lifts from truth, both begin to weep—for what is seen is utterly other. It was never even imagined, not even glimpsed in dreams.

When Buddha said, “There is no God,” he meant only this: the God you talk about is your projection. You have made him.

If horses were to make a God, they would fashion him in the image of a horse, never of a man. And if they were to imagine a man, they would imagine a devil—for what have men done to horses but torment them? If horses make a God, they will make the most beautiful horse—some Chetak, Rana Pratap’s steed. They cannot accept a human form; even Rana Pratap rode Chetak, and it was Chetak’s chest that was trampled—men cannot accept a horse.

That is why there are so many notions of God—because there are so many kinds of people. Tell a Black man to make a white God—how will he? A white man might be a devil, how can he be God? The white man has only oppressed him, stood on his chest. The Black man will make a Black God. Tell a white man to make a Black God—he cannot even conceive it. He won’t let a Black man sit beside him; will he touch the feet of a Black God? The white man’s God will be white; the Black man’s God will be black.

That is why the dusky Shyam took root in India’s heart. Shyam is India’s color. So his flute charmed India as none other’s did. He matches us, harmonizes with us. Each people makes their God in their own image. Tell a Chinese to make a God with a long nose—he cannot. The nose will be flat, the cheekbones high. The Chinese God will be Chinese.

If you look closely, you will see: our God is an extension of our own imagination. We make him in our own color and form—our most ideal self-image, the way we wish we were.

Buddha says: when the veil of truth lifts, none of the Gods you conceived are found. And if your own kind of God appears there, know that the veil has not lifted—you have fallen into self-hypnosis. You are dreaming in sleep. If Rama remains, if Krishna remains, know you are dreaming. These are your own notions, your own web. The veil has not lifted. When it lifts, whatever man has thought is of no use. How could it be? What you have not known—how will you think it beforehand? And once known, you cannot think it—for it is far too vast for thought; thought is too small.

Consider the story of the frog in the well. A frog from the ocean arrives. The well-frog naturally asks, “Where are you from, friend?” “From the ocean,” says the other. “Ocean? How big is that?” The sea-frog looks around—how to explain? This well-frog was born and raised in the well. “It will be hard,” he says. “Have you always lived here?” “Always.” “Then the ocean must be smaller than this?” “No,” says the sea-frog.

So the well-frog leaps a third of the well. “This big?” The sea-frog laughs: “No.” He leaps two-thirds: “This big?” “No, even that won’t do.” He leaps the full diameter: “This big?” “No, not even this is enough. It is far bigger. We cannot use this well as a measure.”

Then the well-frog says, “Out, liar! Nothing bigger than this well has ever been, nor can it be!”

Man’s thought is a well. We are born in it, live in it. Buddha comes from the ocean, returns to our well. We ask him, “Is truth like our God?” Buddha says “No—that won’t do.” That is all he means when he denies God. He says: You cannot make a measure out of this well. Whatever you say, whatever your language says, I will have to say “No.” No, no, no—neti, neti.

The Upanishads praised neti-neti, “not this, not that.” But even the lovers of the Upanishads got frightened when someone truly said neti-neti. The Upanishads said it and stopped at words; Buddha said it in actuality: “No. Not this form. Not that form. Whatever you have said about God—no.”

Naturally man felt shocked: “Don’t deny us so completely. Say something. Say it’s a thousand times bigger, a million times bigger—but give us something. Accept our measure. If you say a million times bigger, we feel at ease—our yardstick is still in hand. One step at a time we can complete a thousand-mile journey.”

But Buddha says: “With this step you cannot reach at all—this very step is wrong. The step of imagination is wrong—whether you call it prayer or devotion, worship or adoration, it’s the same. The imaginative step is wrong.”

You must wake up from imagination. To pray imaginatively is to fall asleep in imagination. You will dream beautiful, pleasing, juicy dreams—but when your eyes open—

“Neither unbelief nor faith are anything; Magian and Muslim alike are nothing.”

When the veil is lifted from the King of Reality, Both begin to wail in shame.

Buddha’s followers do not weep. He who walks behind Buddha does not weep—because he carries no expectation, no demand. He has gone to behold the void. He has made no shape.

No one has been a greater advocate of the formless than Buddha. Theists say, “God is,” and “He is formless.” They speak wrongly. If He is, form has already entered. Only “not” can be truly formless.

So I say the matter is subtle. Buddha said, “God is not.” If we put it in the language of theists, it would mean: God is formless. But he would not say “formless,” “is,” “God.” Because if you say “God is formless,” and you keep saying “God,” then “formless” and “God” do not match. “God” implies form, as soon as you say “is.”

Say “the tree is”—and form has come. Say “the sun is”—form has come. Wherever there is “is,” there is form and quality. Then if you say, “God is and He is beyond qualities,” you are speaking contradiction—saying yes and no together. Why so much confusion?

Buddha’s integrity is crystal clear. Where others would say “God is formless,” he says, “God is not.” Now you can understand: his “not” means formless.

Buddha’s “no” and the atheist’s “no” are vastly different. In the atheist’s “no” there is rejection. In Buddha’s “no” there is the formless. Of the two, only one can be kept intact. If you say, “God is formless,” Buddha feels if you keep “God,” you lose the formless; if you keep the formless, you must drop “God.” He preferred to drop “God,” not the formless—because the formless is the ultimate nature of divinity. Thus, paradoxically, he saved God.

Now it may sound tangled—because you live in a world where two and two make four. If only truth were so neat. It isn’t. Buddha announced the formless. Neither his followers nor his opponents understood clearly what he was saying. He spoke only the language of neti-neti.

Buddha wanted prayer to stop. If “God” remains, prayer remains. If “God” is removed, prayer can stop. Buddha wanted meditation. If “God” remains, meditation becomes difficult; if “God” is removed, only then can meditation happen.

The difference between prayer and meditation: prayer is always before someone; meditation is always in aloneness. In prayer the hands are folded at someone’s feet; in meditation no one is there—only you, utterly alone. Pure solitude. No “other,” no thought, no ripple. If the thought of God is there, Buddha says, meditation is broken.

People come to me and ask, “You say meditate—on what?” They are asking about prayer; they haven’t understood meditation. “On what?” If I were teaching prayer, I should tell you before whom to pray, whom to pray to. Meditation means something utterly different.

Meditation means: be simply alone—let no one be there. And here is the miracle: when no one else is there, even you are not. At first meditation seems like being alone. But for “I” to survive, “Thou” must survive. They are two sides of one coin. You can say “I” only so long as some “Thou” stands at the edge. When no “Thou” remains, how will you say “I”? “I” becomes meaningless. “I” means “that which is not thou.” If there is no thou, how can there be I? First “thou” goes; then “I” disappears.

The path of meditation is: first drop the Thou—drop God. Then the I will drop of its own. The path of prayer is: first drop the I—cling to the Thou, to God. But if the I drops, how will Thou remain?

They are different paths. Buddha’s path is that of meditation.

“Your majesty is getting defamed; Worship has become an accusation against you. O you who ask in prayer! Your ceaseless supplication has turned into a slander against God.”

People go on praying and worshipping. But it is man’s worship and prayer—and that means, in truth, it is man he worships and prays to. You say you went to worship God. But it is you who went, so the worship will be yours, from you, about you. Your temperament will spread over it. The germs of your illness will be in your worship. You carried your germs to the temple. Look at your prayer: what do you ask for? Worldly things. Your hands are worldly hands. Your prayer becomes flattery. That is why prayer is called “praise”: “You are great, you are savior of the fallen.” Upon whom are you smearing butter?

You learned buttering in the world. You saw people whose egos, if massaged a bit, would do whatever you wanted. Call donkeys horses and they are pleased. Riding a bicycle without a light, you get caught—call the constable “Inspector,” and he lets you go.

The same person flatters God, thinking, “All right, we’ll talk him around.” But the real intention surfaces in a moment: “I’m not getting a job.” What he is really saying is: “After all this prayer to you, no job? Doubt arises about your prayer now. Your honor is at stake—save your honor, get me a job.” Or: “My son is ill, not improving, and I worship you so much—what are you doing?”

There is complaint in your prayer. Without complaint, prayer cannot exist. Otherwise, why pray?

“Your majesty is getting defamed; Worship has become an accusation against you. O you who ask in prayer! Your ceaseless supplication has turned into a slander against God.”

Whenever you pray, somewhere there is an accusation. You cover it with nice words, but if you look closely, you are saying: “We have praised you, now you must do your part. We did ours, now you do yours. If you cannot, how are you omnipotent? How omniscient? How omnipresent?”

Buddha said: Remove prayer. Enough of it—nothing happens by it. God is far; even man cannot become man through it. God is difficult to find; man does not even find man. “God” was supposed to unite; it has not united—it has stood in-between like a stone, splitting man.

What real difference is there between Hindu and Muslim? Hindu and Christian? Only a difference of ideas about God—nothing else. One folds hands to the east, another to the west. For such petty things heads are broken. Religion has taught pettiness. Under the shadow of “God,” diseases have grown.

Buddha said: Remove this shadow. Let man be clear and open. Under religion’s cover, irreligion has thrived. If man had no concept of God, what distance would there be between you and the other? Have you ever seen two kinds of atheists? Buddha saw this clearly. Have you seen sects among atheists? Why are there no atheist sects?

Because no sect can be built on “no.” There aren’t two kinds of “no.” You cannot say, “Our no is Hindu, yours is Muslim.” Madness! Yes can differ—in form and shape—but the formless cannot differ.

That is why atheists are one the world over. Theists ought to have been one—but they fight. The atheist, wandering in godless darkness, you might expect to fight; he doesn’t. The theist fights—and one theist stabs another theist in the back.

Buddha saw this. He said: In the name of God there has been no good—only harm. Remove it. Man cannot even meet man.

“It is only this, O preacher who climbs the heavens: What God will he find who has not found man?”

How will God be found when man cannot be met? It is as simple as that. So Buddha removed “God.” He said: removing this concept will be beneficial. There is no loss. And then he enthroned God within. If your temple is inside you, there will be no quarrels. If your temple is outside, it will stand apart from the mosque and the fights will begin.

Buddha said: the time has come for the temple to be within man. The time has come for man to be the temple. Now bricks-and-mortar temples will not do.

“You said yesterday that by denying God, Buddha adorned man with the highest dignity.”

Certainly. He made man God—gave man the possibility of being God. He said: God is nowhere else; he is hidden in your seed. He is to be brought to bloom. Prepare the soil, water it, protect it, let the sun’s rays fall, when the clouds shower don’t hide—stay open. In the right season, at the right time, your flower will open. You will disappear—God will be.

That is why Buddha kept saying there is no God—yet those who loved him called him Bhagwan, God. And Buddha never once said, “Don’t call me God.”

Worth pondering: here is a man who says, “There is no God,” yet his disciples call him God—and he never says, “Don’t call me that.” Buddha made “God” the final possibility of man—the full flowering of man, man’s blossoming. Don’t hide behind screens.

“Such storms swept this garden that earth rose to the sky; I am that ill-fated speck of dust that hid in a doorway.”

When storms come—and such storms do come; Buddha is such a storm—when earth touches the sky—

“Such storms swept this garden that earth rose to the sky.”

Such a whirlwind that the dust of earth touched the heavens.

“I am that ill-fated speck of dust that hid in a doorway.”

I hid in a doorway—a tiny bit of dust, sheltering behind a threshold. Saved myself from the storm.

When a being like Buddha comes to earth, he comes like a storm. You could have risen into the sky with him. But very few allow themselves to be open to that storm. And when the storm comes, it shatters all your notions. Does a storm care for your sand-castles? It wipes them clean. What kind of storm would it be that could not level your sand-houses! Hindu, Muslim, Christian—all are wiped away. When the storm comes, Vedas, Koran, Bible—are all blown off. Only a few courageous ones ride the storm and touch the sky.

Buddha denied God—so that you can be God. He did not talk about God. What is there to talk about? It is a matter of being, not of saying. Become and see. Buddha opened the door and said: Come, be God! Come, be the sky! How long will you go on talking? Enough talk.

That is what I say to you: neither worship God nor sing his praises. How much longer? When will you understand? I open the door: come, be God! Why settle for less? Why go on begging? Rise—claim your dignity! Rise—express it! Rise—let it blossom!

Fear is natural. The questioner asks: “But atheists present the same argument against God.”

The words may be the same; the argument is not. Don’t be misled by words. The same words can be said in love or said in anger. The same words can praise or condemn; can be truthful or sardonic.

Don’t go by words. Fools are called “great pundits,” too—the same words, with sarcasm. Don’t go by the words; peek within and find the meaning. Charvaka spoke the same words. Buddha, too, spoke them. Marx, too. But the differences are vast.

Rahul Sankrityayan—a Buddhist scholar who was also a Communist—labored his whole life to show harmony between Buddha and Marx: that Buddha says what Marx says; Buddha as a kind of prophecy of dialectical materialism. But Rahul’s view is fundamentally wrong—worse than wrong, dangerous and misleading.

Buddha does not say what Marx says. Marx’s statement is ordinary atheism; Buddha’s is supreme theism—such a theism that even the being of a separate God becomes an obstacle; such a theism where trust itself is enough, where trust needs no ladder.

Keep this in mind. If you bow because there is a God, your bowing is not total. If there were no God, you would not bow. If you bow because God is, your bowing is unreal. It is like this: You see there is no policeman, so you drive wherever you want; if there were a policeman, you would keep to the left.

A friend of mine, a poet, was doing research in England. One night at two in the morning, in snow and freezing cold, he was returning in a taxi. The roads were deserted. Yet the driver stopped at a red light.

My friend said, “Why stop? We’re freezing. Let’s go—no policeman, no traffic.” The driver said, “Then please find another taxi. This is not about a policeman; it is about integrity. Not about who is watching; it is about the rule.”

If you are moral because of God, your morality is weak and flimsy. If you are moral whether God is or not, your morality is precious.

“We are Majnun, yet we make no demands of Layla; We love, but we do not desire.”

Buddha gave trust—and no place to put it. He gave the pure feel of trust—reverence without any object. Groundless trust. He said: bow, by all means—but there is no one to bow to. The bowing itself is blissful. Bowing is such a rejoicing that you bow—don’t ask for whom. If you bow for someone, you have not known the taste of bowing. Bowing in itself is enough; it needs no support. Why seek a prop? Dance.

Understand this rightly: Buddha made the means the end. He said: the path is the goal. The journey itself is the destination. In the seeker lies the last point of the search—nowhere else. This very moment is the eternal.

Buddha called himself a momentarist. He said: the moment is all. Don’t ask for the next moment. This moment is enough—its dance, its music. Live it, savor it.

It is hard—because you feel: without support, how will we walk? Yet you have always walked without support. The support is only a misunderstanding. Buddha removed only the misunderstanding. And once that delusion falls, you trust your own feet. And trusting yourself, you trust the divine.

Think: he who has no trust in himself—how will he trust God? If you do not trust yourself, whatever you trust will be infected with doubt. The doubt is in you.

People come and say, “We have complete faith in you.” I say, “Wait—don’t be hasty. Do you have faith in yourself?” They say, “No.” Then I say, “How will you have faith in me? It is you who must have it. If you don’t trust yourself, how will you trust your own trust? It is your trust, after all. You are wobbling within, full of doubt. In panic you say, ‘We have complete faith in you.’ It won’t last. You’ll fall into a wrong reassurance and needless entanglement.”

See truth. First end the wobble at its roots. The day you stand—steadfast—out of that firmness another kind of trust is born. Its roots are in your life—there is strength in it, force, assurance. Something becomes possible.

Right now you trust and say, “I leave everything to you.” Tomorrow you will blame me: “We left everything—nothing happened. You did nothing.” How can you leave everything? To leave totally, total trust is needed. And the irony is: the one who has total trust in himself needs leave nothing; where there is trust, flowers of truth already begin to bloom.

Buddha removed all that is accidental in religion and saved only the essential. Whatever was unnecessary he threw away. He said: an unnecessary jungle has grown and you are lost in it. Cut the inessential, keep the essential. Keep only that which cannot be removed; keep that which, even if you try to cut, cannot be cut. Keep only your nature. If your nature remains, everything remains.

It can happen. It depends on man. It depends on you. You can turn God’s existence into ego, so of course you can turn God’s nonexistence into ego as well. People strut about because “we trust in God, we are believers.” Watch a man going to the temple—he looks at others as if everyone else is headed for hell, while he is going to the temple!

It is said that the Prophet Muhammad once took a young man to the mosque. After the prayer, as they started back—people were still asleep, it was hot, they had been up late, many were lying out along the road—the young man said, “Look, Prophet, these sinners are still sleeping!”

It was his first time going with the Prophet himself! Muhammad stopped right there. He said, “I made a mistake bringing you to the mosque. Your prayer was wasted, my prayer is spoiled; I must go back.”

The young man asked, “What do you mean?” The Prophet said, “I mean that had you been asleep as you always are, at least you wouldn’t have judged these people as sinners. Today you offered one prayer and the whole world became sinful! Leave me—hands folded, I beg you. From tomorrow, don’t get up for prayer. At least then other people did not appear to you as sinners. This is great ego.”

It is said the Prophet went back, wept, prayed again and said, “Forgive me—by mistake I woke the wrong man. I had thought he would drown in prayer; he drowned in ego.”

So if you drown in ego with God—yes, the question is absolutely right—then when there is no God, you may well drown in ego somewhere else. It depends on you. If you wish, you can turn medicine into poison; if you wish, you can turn poison into medicine. It all depends on you.

I have heard: A man wanted to die. At night he bought poison, drank it, and left a note on the table: “I am dying; please forgive me. Whatever I may have said, good or bad, forgive me.” In the morning the family gathered, saw the letter, and began to wail and beat their chests. Hearing their cries, the man woke up.

First they scolded him soundly: “What were you thinking?” Then they were relieved—“Well, it must have been adulterated poison. Where can you get pure poison these days! The days of purity are gone. Even dying has become difficult.” Anyway, the wife ran to the neighborhood shop and bought sweets—overjoyed that her husband was saved—and fed them to him. He died. There was poison in the sweets—adulteration. His wish was fulfilled. What the poison could not do, the sweets did.

What will you do? Man adulterates everything. He turns medicine into poison and poison into medicine—what will you do?

Your question is valid. There is a fear. But the fear is not because of the Buddha’s words; the fear is because of man’s dishonesty. What can Buddha do about that? Buddha’s whole teaching is a device to drop the ego. He says: If there is no God, then what on earth are you? He says: I even deny God—now where will you survive? In what shelter will you hide? There is no God up there; drop the dream of being someone in here. What is this “you” anyway?

That is why the Buddha refrained even from using the word “self.” Anatta—no-self. He says, you too are not. No God up there, no you in here. Let God go there; let you go here. And whatever remains, the Buddha does not theorize about it. He says: taste it. Where neither you remain nor God; where neither I remain nor the devotee—where this whole I–Thou tangle is gone—what remains is nirvana. That ultimate emptiness in which no word arises, no wave stirs, that utterly unmodified state—that is samadhi.

Buddha spoke only to free you from ego. He said: If your ego gets hitched to God, it is like coupling your little wagon to a locomotive. The wagon might not move by itself; now it moves in God’s name. It is like when your car breaks down and you hitch it to a bus. Your ego gets hooked here and there; it breaks, it is small—very small. And then you couple it to a “mega-ego”—to God—and you start running on his fuel.

Buddha said: Drop it. He is not either, and you are not either. Here, “being” is untrue; here, “non-being” is true. Here, the “is” is false; the “is-not” is true. Here, form is illusion; the formless is reality. Hence Buddha is called a proponent of emptiness.

No—if you understand Buddha, there is no way for the ego to survive.

The sense of being worthy is unworthiness. The sense of being unworthy is worthiness. Whoever thinks, “I am worthy,” will have a thickened ego. Whoever understands, “I am unworthy,” will have an ego that melts and flows. That’s why sometimes sinners arrive, and the virtuous do not. Even virtue becomes worse than sin if it starts adorning the ego—and it often does.

Just last night I told a story. An old woman died. Angels came. She was very frightened, trembling after death. Her soul was shrinking. She was sure they would take her to hell. She had never done anything that could possibly qualify her for heaven—she was certain of her sins, aware of her unworthiness.

The angels said, “Since you hold yourself so unworthy, we must take you to heaven. Just tell us if you ever did even one small good deed.” She said, “I don’t remember ever doing anything good. Many bad things—my whole life is full of them. Yes, there is one thing: once I offered a carrot to a beggar.” They said, “No problem.”

That carrot appeared. The angels said, “Hold the carrot. It will take you to heaven. That’s enough. God’s grace is infinite; this is enough.” The old woman began to rise toward heaven, the carrot lifting her up. Others—souls hiding here and there, ghosts—grabbed her feet too, and they began to rise as well. But the carrot had such power that the old woman didn’t even feel the weight. The line grew long. She was nearing heaven, and the queue stretched all the way down to the earth.

When she reached the gate of heaven, stiffness came over her—an idea of worthiness. She said, “Ah, so I’ve reached heaven too!” She looked down and saw the long line. She said, “Let go! That carrot is mine.” The moment she said it, her hand slipped. Crash! She fell—and so did all the satsangis.

So choose a guru with a little care: when the guru falls, all the disciples fall with him. “The carrot is mine!” The sense of unworthiness had brought her toward heaven; the sense of worthiness turned her back even from the gate. This is how man lives.

People come to me and say, “Since we have come to you, we must have done many good deeds for many lifetimes.” Even after coming, they try to move away—saying, “The carrot is mine.” They inflate the ego even in coming here. It all happens unconsciously. This is not happening in awareness—otherwise who would do it? It is happening in a stupor. You’ve drunk wine; the ego is the wine.

Naturally, when someone first comes to me, they come thinking, “I am worthy, I am qualified. I have done this, I have done that.” And when I accept you as a sannyasin, then your ego starts leaping.

Don’t fall into this delusion. I accept everyone. I do not reject anyone. So don’t make distinctions of worthy and unworthy. Don’t think you have been specially accepted. Whoever comes, I accept. Don’t get into this accounting. Yes, there are gurus who say you must first be worthy. I accept you without keeping accounts of worthiness or unworthiness. I have no arithmetic; I am not a businessman; there is no bargain. You have come—that’s enough.

If you are unworthy and have come, even better—because unworthiness means the ego is not dense. Much can happen. The “worthy” are the danger.

Sometimes people come and say, “We’ve been doing hatha yoga for twenty years.” Someone says, “We are fasting, practicing pranayama.” In their eyes I see a very dense sense of worthiness. A relationship will not be possible. Their carrot is big, and their self-importance heavy. They will go away empty from this door.

There is only one way to come to me: begin to understand that you are not. Only then will you truly come to yourself. What is the purpose of being with me? That you may come to yourself. I am just a pretext. The journey is to yourself. The stronger the “I,” the farther you are from yourself. I am not you. So long as the “I” persists, you are astray—to that extent you have mistaken someone else for your own being. The moment this “I” falls, you meet your reality. For the first time you will come face to face—with yourself. For the first time you will look into your own eyes.

So yes, “When I first came, it felt as if I had reached you because of some special worthiness.” That was an illusion. I must break it—and it is good that it has begun to break.

“But now, day by day, I am becoming aware of my unworthiness.” Good. But listening to me say that unworthiness is worthiness, don’t become arrogant about this insight.

The human mind is very cunning. I’ve just said that unworthiness is worthiness—now don’t sit up stiff, straighten your spine and awaken your kundalini in pride, “Ah, so I am worthy! Good that I understood myself as unworthy; now I am worthy.” And right there at the gate of heaven, the carrot slips.

Now move carefully and consciously. Even if I tell you a thousand times that you are worthy, keep deepening your understanding of your unworthiness.

As the awareness of unworthiness deepens, the awareness of my love and compassion will deepen as well—because you will begin to be filled. Where you empty, there you are filled. Stay “full” and you remain empty; become empty and you are filled.

It rains. The clouds pour—over the mountains and over the ravines and hollows. The mountains remain empty: all the water falls and runs off. The ravines and gullies fill up. Those that were empty become full. The mountains were already “full,” stiff with pride, packed with stones. Look at their grandeur! Arrogant, they stand in the sky—yet they remain empty, unsoaked. The ravines and hollows, which have no stiffness, become full; they turn into lakes.

So if you stay near me like a hollow, you will surely be filled. But if you stand stiff like the mountains, thinking you are already full, you will remain empty.

I will go on raining. I worry neither about the ravines nor the mountains. I shower upon both. I keep no accounts. Since when has a cloud ever kept accounts?

So be careful—don’t now go and straighten your spine. You have been sitting bowed; remain bowed. Bow until your head touches the earth. Then you will experience more and more—ever more—of compassion, of love, of grace.

At least hold out your bowl. You ask, yet you don’t hold out your bowl. You stand on the riverbank, but do not even cup your hands; you do not bend. You remain thirsty. The river will not leap and pour itself down your throat. Bend a little. Come near the stream, make a cup of your hands. The more you bend, the more you receive. If you bow completely, you will drown in the river—so deeply that the river will flow over you. But all depends on your emptiness. Therefore, do not cultivate any attitude that destroys your emptiness.

I want to tell you: the music that arises when you are gone can never arise while you are.

Breaking my heart, he said in the tongue of mystery: “Where are the melodies in the intact instrument compared to those in the shattered one?”

Where are those notes in the intact veena that appear when the veena is broken! Of course, the notes that arise when the veena shatters cannot be heard with the ears; they are not so gross. They can only be experienced. Zen mystics have called it the clap of one hand. You have heard the clap of two hands; have you heard the clap of one hand?

When a disciple goes to a Zen master and asks, “What should I do?” the master says, “Listen to the clap of one hand.” The unstruck sound.

The clap of two hands is a struck sound. Struck means born of collision. What is born of collision is born of violence. That which arises from collision was not there a moment before and will not be there a moment later; it cannot be eternal. Listen to the clap of one hand. Once you have heard the one-hand clap, it goes on sounding—without beginning and without end. It is eternal. We have called it the unstruck sound—anahat naad.

Give me the chance to break your veena completely. Give me the chance to pull out every string. Give me the chance to reduce your veena to fragments, to dust—so that you cannot put it together again. Let your ego fall.

Breaking my heart, he said in the tongue of mystery: “Where are the melodies in the intact instrument compared to those in the shattered one?”

And what you take to be your “being” will drown in non-being. Do not try to save it. Whoever tried to save it, lost; whoever lost it—he alone saved it. This “being” of yours—if not today, then tomorrow—death will take it away. The flood is coming. In fact, it has already come; it is only a matter of moments.

What you call life is slipping from your hands. I am telling you of another life. Until now you have taken being to be life; I am telling you that non-being is life. Learn to die before you die. Before death erases you, erase yourself—willingly. Then death will not be able to erase you.

He who dies before death arrives—how can death destroy him? Death will come and stand there, helpless. This instrument is already broken; you have broken it with your own hands. And what you break with your own hands—you survive beyond that breaking. The breaker remains. All of sadhana is the sadhana of becoming no-one.

Life is this: the very sand that once burned your feet now becomes a bed of rest.

Life is this: the traveler slept, exhausted— he wakes, and already evening has come.

What you call life passes just like this. The very sand that burned your feet—where there was panic and restlessness, the earth you avoided, the dust from which you guarded yourself, the mud you feared might soil your feet—upon that very mud a bed will be made. You will have to merge into dust.

Life is this: the very sand that once burned your feet now becomes a bed of rest.

Life is this: the traveler slept, exhausted— he wakes, and already evening has come.

Fatigue is the whole story of your life. Exhausted and exhausted, you are spent. Wake up from this.

There is another way of being: non-being. A very deep way. As the Divine is, become in that way. As Buddha says the Divine is not, so become not in that way. The “not” is the Divine’s way of being.

People come to me and ask, “Where is God?” I say: absence is his way of being present. With great wisdom he has chosen something supremely meaningful. If he were present as an object, then someday he would have to be absent. Whatever is, must pass. He kept the account from the very start; he chose non-being. He is—and he is as if he were not. His presence is a non-presence. He surrounds you on all sides, and still you do not feel his touch. So skillful! He has touched you on every side, has threaded you through and through, is moving within and without you, entering and leaving with every breath—and still you do not notice. How lovely his footsteps—without a sound! The unstruck sound. The clap of one hand. Be like that.

If, with me, you learn how to dissolve, you will gain everything. If, with me, you die, you will attain infinite life. He who mounts the cross—the throne is his.

It is a question of your intrinsic nature. “I do not know aarti or veneration, nor the ways of worship.” There is no need to know. Those who “know” get into great trouble. Then only the ritual comes into their hands. Only the method remains. Only the technique remains. The knowers go astray badly.

There is a mention in the life of Moses. He was passing along a mountain path. He saw a poor man praying—tattered clothes, dusty, drenched in sweat—a shepherd. He was saying to God: “O Lord, if You give me a chance, if You keep me near You, I will scrub You well and bathe You every day. I’ll pick out Your lice too. Fleas and such must get onto Your body; I won’t let a single one remain. Look at my sheep—how clean I keep them! Just give me a chance. If You get tired, at night I will press Your feet—so well that You will fall into deep sleep. I’ll cook Your bread too. If You go out of the house, I’ll keep the house neat and clean… just give me a chance.”

When Moses heard, he was alarmed. He had heard many prayers, but what was this wretch saying? He went to him, shook him and said, “Fool! What are you babbling? Is this prayer? Take these words back. You are insulting God. Lice—on God! Have you taken Him for a sheep? You will bathe Him, wash Him? Do you think God is dirty? You will press His feet? Does God ever get tired?” The shepherd was terrified. He said, “Forgive me. I did not know. ‘I do not know aarti or veneration, nor the ways of worship.’ I will never pray again. Forgive me; I know nothing. This is all I have ever done. A great sin has occurred.”

He had hardly gone when the voice of God resounded: “Moses, I sent you to unite those who are lost with Me; you have separated the one who was united with Me. Look at his love! Look at his feeling! Recognize his heart! You have gotten lost in rites and rules. Go, ask his forgiveness—and learn prayer from him. Many are dear to Me, but none like him.”

Moses searched for him in the wilderness, fell at his feet: “Forgive me. Continue your prayer. Pick as many lice as you like. Bathe Me as much as you wish. If he is happy, who am I to interfere? You’ve got me nicely trapped!”

Remember: the ultimate truths of life are not found through rites and rules. They are not formal. The realm of religion is the realm of feeling. How you prayed has no relevance. That you prayed—that is the point. If there was feeling, and it was deep, if you were immersed—then it is right. If you are merely repeating words, mouthing a memorized prayer—grammar perfect, language pure—what will come of it? Does God need to learn grammar? Or language? By reciting the Vedas, Upanishads and the Gita, will you tell God something new? No. God asks for your heart. He asks for you—not for rituals.

Drop the worry. Not knowing is auspicious. Let what arises be spontaneous and natural; let it express the truth of your life—your absorption, your rapture, your joy; let it reveal your dance, your tears, your song—and it is done. You need not even take God’s name; it will still do. But your dance must be from the heart. And your tears must be real—not fake. You have become very skillful at producing fake tears.

I was a guest at a house. Someone had died there. The lady of the house—while I sat outside in the sun—said to me, “When someone comes to sit with the family, please signal me.” I asked, “What will you do?” She would instantly pull down her veil, beat her chest, and begin to wail. I was amazed. She would be sitting perfectly fine; when I signaled that someone was coming, she would at once… One day I lifted her veil and saw streams of tears. I said, “You’ve outdone yourself. Just now you were laughing and talking—these tears?” She said, “Hard won. Learned through much practice.”

Man even becomes skilled at false tears. Just avoid the false. Your authenticity is your prayer. And there is never any reason to be hopeless. Hopelessness grips you again and again because you search in the wrong direction; because you search full of ego; because you have not yet effaced yourself in the search. You search with expectation—hence melancholy catches you. You search in order to get something. When it does not come, restlessness arises. Or whatever comes does not seem as much as you thought it should be. Much has come, but your expectations are greater.

I was going to someone’s home in Calcutta. From the airport the gentleman driving me was very downcast. I had never seen him sad. His wife was with us. I asked her, “What’s the matter?” She said, “Ask him.” I asked. He said, “A big loss—five lakhs down.” I said, “Reason enough to be sad.” His wife laughed: “Don’t go by his words. It isn’t a loss of five lakhs; it’s a profit of five lakhs. But he was thinking ten. So in his accounting there’s a five-lakh loss. I keep telling him: it’s a profit of five lakhs—where’s the loss? But he’s fixed on ‘It should have been ten—some deal I made—only five came.’” Sadness, gloom, dejection are born of expectations.

Pray—do not expect. Then you will never be sad. Then whatever comes, you will feel blessed by it. And much comes. Much is coming. Much has already been given. It has been raining upon you. And the more you are joyful, the more you brim with amazement and gratitude, the more doors open to receive even more. And the more you are full of melancholy, the more you shrink; the more doors and windows close. What was to come is missed as well.

Granted, the night is dark—just look at the stars, how radiant they are. It is not only the sun that gives light; the stars too have light. And the stars’ light has its own beauty; the sun’s light has its own beauty. In the sun’s light there is great heat; in the light of the moon and stars there is great coolness. After heat, coolness is necessary. Why see only the darkness of night? Look at the moon and stars.

Then, even in the darkness, why see only darkness? See the concealed morning, the morning drawing near. Darkness is a womb. Night is the mother; she is close to birthing the dawn.

And even this—there is not so much need to look only for the coming morning. Look closely at darkness itself: its silence, its velvety spread, its boundless expanse. Touch it a little. Where you are, you will find so much has been given—so much! And where you are, you will find that even more, still more, is approaching. There is such a downpour upon man, and yet he does not get wet. It is our own foolishness.

If today there are thorns in your fate, so what? Tomorrow your hem will be filled with flowers—do not grieve. The iron chain in which you seem imprisoned is about to break—do not grieve. The garden you see today in the pause of autumn— how fresh, how fresher it will be—do not grieve. If one flower is a candle that the world’s winds can snuff, hundreds will be lit in its place—do not grieve.

A single lamp does not go out—thousands are lit. A single sun does not go out—thousands of lamps are lit. We see it every day, yet we do not understand. The arithmetic is perfectly clear: the sun of the day is one; the suns of the night are millions. One sun does not set but that millions light up. One flower does not fall but that millions bloom. One door has not closed—do not sit stuck at the closed door. Do not keep staring only at that—do not entangle your eyes in it. Look around—somewhere ten doors have opened. Here someone has died; there, a birth has happened. Do not go on beating your head over death alone. Celebrate the joy of birth. Someone has departed; somewhere, someone new has arrived.

Once your vision is corrected—once you learn to look in the right direction—there is not the least reason to be sad. Then remember: do not take such an oath as “Now I will not be hopeless.” An oath will not do—understanding will. If you take oaths, a double despair will come—when despair comes, despair will come, and along with it the despair that “Ah, I became despairing again!” Do not take oaths. The unwise live by oaths. Understanding.

Listen to me; understand what I am saying. Do not take vows. Do not swear oaths. Do not say, “Now I will never be depressed.” Do you know tomorrow? Do you know the next moment? Right now you are in a flow, the mind is cheerful; a moment later it may not be. Right now you are humming a song; a moment later tears may come to your eyes. What will you do then?

Then this promise—“I will never be depressed again”—may become a bondage. Then you may hide your tears: “How can I show them now?” Once you have said, “I will never be sad,” you will start displaying false cheerfulness. Better true sadness than false cheerfulness; at least it is true.

So I want to tell you very clearly: with me there is never any need to take oaths. I am not one who administers oaths. I give you no vow. I give only awareness. Be happy in this moment—enough. From this very moment the next moment will arrive. It is tied to this one, drawn by it. If this moment is full of joy, the next will arise from it. Morning will be born from this night. If you have spent the night dancing, the morning sun will fill you with even more dance. But do not swear oaths, because in oaths there is fear.

You are saying, “I am happy now; let me swear now—who knows, a moment later the chance may pass and I won’t be able to swear.” I am against those temples and mosques, those gurus, who make people take oaths. They exploit. You go to the temple: incense and lamps are lit, trays of worship arranged, bells ringing, prayer and kirtan going on, people dancing, ecstatic—you too are swept away. Then you swear, “Now I will pray every day.”

Wait a bit! In one emotional state, are you binding your whole life? Tomorrow you will repent, won’t you? Tomorrow you may say, “What have I gotten myself into!” Then you will have to break it.

If you break it, there will be self-reproach, a sense of guilt. If you break it, your courage will drop; you will lose trust in yourself—“Nothing can be done by me. I could not manage even a small thing—couldn’t even do puja or prayer.” Then you will avoid the temple; you will fear going; fear will grip you.

No—I give you no vows. Do not take any vow before me either. I do not bind you; I free you. I say: drop worry about what you will do later. If you are happy now—be totally happy now. That’s enough. The next moment is born of this moment; it is this moment’s offspring. If you are happy, it too will be happy.

But you are still afraid. Even in this moment you are nervous. Joy has come, but you do not trust that it will stay. You say, “Now I will never be hopeless.” You say, “Before this moment slips away, let me swear; let me bind myself; let there be a commitment—then I will be bound and won’t be able to run away.”

But if bondage becomes religion, it is no longer religion. Religion is freedom—from the first step to the last, freedom. I free you from all vows and oaths.

Swabhav has said, “Now Swabhav will not be hopeless—cannot be.” No, Swabhav! Do not trust Swabhav so much. Do not lay down any rule. Understand. Understanding is sufficient. Become discerning. Awaken awareness. Let the lamp within you be lit—now. As for the next moment, we will see in the next moment.

Jesus has said: Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry for itself. And Jesus said: look at the lilies of the field. Even King Solomon, after all his arrangements and contrivances, was not so beautiful. Why? Because the lilies made no arrangements. They simply bloomed. They gathered no provisions, made no plans—neither five-day nor five-year. They simply bloomed—spontaneous, natural. Seeing their beauty, even Solomon would be embarrassed. And Jesus is right—Solomon would be abashed.

No—do not organize tomorrow; otherwise you will become a Solomon. I want you to be lilies. Bloom. From blooming, more blooming will unfold—it will go on unfolding. The One who has given today will give tomorrow too. The One who has made you laugh today will make you laugh tomorrow too. The One who has given you breath today will fill you with breath tomorrow too. Trust.

Trust life, not vows. Have reverence for life, not for rules. Esa dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal dharma: trust in life.

That is all for today.