Chapter #20 Even Bein Gawd Ain T A Bed Of Roses #20

(To Victoria):The real victory is not something outward, itis inner; it is victory over one's own self. Then one may be a beggar and yet one can be a emperor. Otherwise our so- called emperors are nothing but beggars. It is not poverty that makes a beggar, but misery, and it is not money that makes one rich, but bliss.

A blissful person is never without grace -- it is impossible. If the heart is dancing with joy a certain graceful vibe will surround you. If the heart is singing, the song must pulsate around you. You will have a climate of joy -- that is grace -- and that makes one beautiful.

Any other kind of beauty is only skin-deep. Only beauty that arises out of bliss is real beauty because it comes from your very depths. It is not skin-deep; it has no superficial show, it is not showy. And it can be seen only by those who have real eyes to see. Not everybody may be able to see it, not everybody may be able to feel it, but those who have eyes, some intuitive capacities, some poetic vision, they will be able to see the beauty.

It is said that Jesus was an ugly man, but nobody -- particularly those who came close to him, who became his disciples -- was ever of his ugliness, he looked so beautiful. Hence the contradictory stories about Jesus. One legend says he was very beautiful, immensely beautiful; another legend says that he was a very ugly man. Down the ages there has been a controversy going on because he couldn't be both, but I say he could be both. He may have had an ugly face and still the inner dance, the inner song, the inner joy was making his whole being, even his body, luminous. So those who were really intimate with him would have become aware of his beauty, and to those who werefar away, observers, spectators, he may have looked ugly.

Bliss brings both a beauty to your being and a certain climate of grace around you.

(To Sahajo): If you practice it you miss it, because the practiced bliss is only a false thing, it is pseudo. It is a performance, it is not authentic because if we do something, it becomes practiced. And practice leads to a false phenomenon, a pseudo kind of bliss -- like the smile of Jimmy Carter. All the politicians know how to smile but their smile is political, diplomatic. It is not coming from their being, it is just a painted smile on the lips.

Nothing can be done about bringing bliss into your life directly, positively but something can be done negatively; the hindrances can be removed, the obstructions can be removed, the rocks can be removed. And that is the real work. The work that a sannyasin enters into is that of removing all that prevents the spontaneity of your being, and there are many things that prevent it. The mind that constantly moves in the past and the future is a hindrance; it has to be removed. One has to learn not to live in memories and one has to learn not to live in dreams because the spontaneous is possible only in the present.

The spontaneous is possible only if we don't carry a priori ideas about it, otherwise it will not be spontaneous; our idea will be imposed on it. One has to be ready to be surprised by it, one has to be innocent, not knowledgeable. Knowledge has to be removed. One has to function from a state of not knowing; one has to know only one thing, that "I am ignorant." One has to know only one thing, that "I don't know anything." Knowing that, the spontaneity arises and the spring starts flowing. You are just a witness to it, you are not the creator of it. And when such bliss arises in you god has arisen in you, god is resurrected in you. Otherwise he is dead in you.

(To Yoganando): Meeting with god does not require you to renounce anything except the ego. The ego represents all that is false in you, represents all that is ugly in you, it represents all that is miserable in you - so it is not really a renunciation. Renouncing misery is not a ascetic, renouncing misery is really moving towards more joy.

Real sannyas is always hedonistic because there cannot be any greater bliss than meeting God. Buddha, Christ, these are the real hedonists because they have tasted the nectar of existence. In fact they can say, "Eat, drink and be merry". But when Buddha or Jesus say "Eat, drink and be merry", they mean "Eatgod, drink god, and be merry!"

(To Roland): Because we become confined to the mind we become very small. It is as if by looking through a keyhole you become a key hole. You forget that you can't be the keyhole; you are looking through it. We are looking through our eyes and our eyes are not more than key holes; we are hearing through our ears and our ears are not more than key holes.

The mind through which we approach reality is itself just a keyhole; but we are transcendental to all these keyholes, to all these mechanisms. We are transcendental to the biology, to the physiology, tothe chemistry. Our real land, our real country, can be known only when we become unidentified with everything that we are not.

Let this be your meditation: "I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not even the heart -- these are the contents of my awareness, I am pure awareness, I am just awareness." This becomes the key: you can unlock the door, you can come out. There is no need to go on looking through the keyhole -- the whole sky with all the stars belongs to you. That is our real country, our divine country. We are citizens of a divine existence but are unconscious, asleep. We have forgotten who we are.

Sannyas has to be the beginning of a remembrance. It is an effort to remember yourself. Sannyas can be defined as a quest of "Who am I?"

(To Stans): It is moving from the head to the heart. It is dropping logic and entering into the world of love. It is forgetting the ways of thinking and learning the ways of feeling.

Ordinarily we live in the head. We have been taught to live there; from the very childhood everybody is taught to live in the head. The heady people are thought to be very significant, and the people who live in the heart are thought to be not only simple but simpletons.
This society condemns the heart and the heart people. And because this society condemns the heart and the heart people it is a heartless society, it is a dead society. By becoming a sannyasin you are entering into a living commune, into a totally different kind of society -- the heart society -- with people who are not concerned with logic at all, whose whole concern is love.

Only such a person can know God. It is in total devotion and trust that God is experienced. There is no other way -- there has never been, there will never be.

(To Enrico): Man is capable of becoming a host to God, a home to God. And unless one becomes a host and a home to God one remains unfulfilled. Without allowing God in, one remains in a deep frustration, because the moment God enters into our being we become God. That is our ultimate destiny. Only with its fulfillment is there contenment and the joy of arriving.

(To Nadia): Love is the only hope, the only possibility of salvation, the only ray of light in the dark night of the soul, because love is the only phenomenon that is in the world and yet is not of the world. If you can catch hold of this small thread of love it leads you to God.

It is as if you go on following a ray of the sun and one day you reach the sun by following the ray. Just as the sunray originates in the sun, love originates in God. Love is God's ray, and if you make your heart open to be available to it, immediate transformation starts happening: you are no more the same.

Love brings such a new energy into your being that you were not even aware of. You had never dreamed about it, you could not have conceived it. It is so mysterious, so thrilling, so ecstatic, that it almost drives one mad; that's why people say "Love is mad, love is blind". But the madness that love brings is really a higher form of sanity. And the blindness that love brings is real insight because the blindness of love can see God and the madness of love can take the ultimate plunge into God.

Swami Sannyas Rene!

Sannyas in my approach means a life-affirmative, a life-enchancing, life-affirming, attitude. In the old days sannyas was negative; it was life-denying, it was against life. The old meaning of sannyas is renunciation of the world: my meaning of sannyas is renunciation of the mind.

If you renounce the world you remain the same wherever you are. You can be in the caves, in the Himalayas, but you will be the same person. Just by leaving the home and the family and the market-place you can't change. Transformation is not so easy. You have to change your mind and that can be done anywhere; it can be done in a Himalayan cave, it can be done in your own house. And my observation is that it can be done more easily in the market place than in the Himalayas because in the Himalayas there will be no challenge. Life will become dull; it will lose sharpness, it will lose intelligence. Dropping the mind in the world is of great importance. It is not easy, not cheap; it is ardous, difficult, but once it is achieved it is forever yours. then nobody can take it away from you.

So my meaning of sannyas is dropping the mind and rejoicing in existence; not renunciation but rejoicing. To me life is God -- there is no other God.

And Rene means reborn, a new birth. Sannyas is a new birth because it is a new way of life, a new approach -- more artistic, more poetic, more loving, more compassionate. If you worship life, if you love and respect life, if you feel grateful to life, of course you will live differently. Then each small pebble on the seashore is a diamond because it is full of God. Then each leaf on every tree is divine. Then each drop of water is nectar. Then the people by whom one is surrounded are nothing but many gods and goddesses in different forms, in different garments but it is the same universal life energy, the same elan vital.

Sannyas is a rebirth. It changes your values: mind things become valueless. Mind is to obsessed with money, power, prestige because all those things give the mind a great strength: ego. Dropping the mind is dropping the ego. Dropping the ego means money is no more relevant: one can use it if one has it, if one does not have it one need not worry.

One can live in poverty beautifully and one can live in richness beautifully if one is alert enough; then poverty is richness. And if one is unconscious then even richness is poverty. It all depends on you, on your consciousness and on how you approach life.

Approach life with great love and you will be surprised: love starts returning to you from every nook and corner of existence. It not only responds, it responds a thousandfold; you start feeling showered by love.

And the moment you start feeling showered by love great gratitude is bound to arise in you. That gratitude is religion. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam -- these are not religions but creeds created by cunning priests. Real religion knows only one thing: gratitude -- gratitude to existence, gratitude to all, gratitude to the whole.
Unless you have experienced meditation, your potential remains in embryo.

Unless one is spiritually born, life is not what it should be; it goes on missing something significant. It remains superficial, it has no depth -- it can't have depth. It is just a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. Only when one is spiritually born does life have significance, and with significance arises joy; with significance one starts feeling that life is a gift, a great gift. With the feeling of significance one also feels great gratitude arising towards the whole.

That gratitude is prayer.
Meditation means getting out of the mind, becoming a cool observer of the mind. Just as a child is born out of the womb of the mother -- that is physical birth -- the spiritual birth is getting out of the mind; that is the womb for the spiritual birth. Getting out of the mind, becoming aware that "I am not my mind", that "Mind is a machine, beautiful, useful, but I am not it; I am the consciousness, the witness -- this is the birth I am talking about. One really becomes well-born.

Jesus says : Unless you are born again you shall not enter into the kingdom of God. He is talking about the same rebirth.