Geeta Darshan #5

There is a notion in circulation that a worldly person cannot realize the Divine. There could be no greater misconception, because to be means to be in the world. In what way you are in the world does not matter. If you exist, you have to be in the world; to be means to be in the world. Then whether you sit in a house or in an ashram makes no difference.

Home is as much in the world as the ashram. Whether you live with wife and children or run away from them, where you live is the world, and where you flee to is also the world. One has to be in the world.

And when even the Divine is not afraid of the world, why are you so frightened? And when we accept that God permeates every particle—that in this world too it is He; the world itself is He—

He cannot be found by running away from the world. Because deep down, the one who is running cannot find Him. He is found by the one who has stopped. God is not for escapees; He is for those who are settled, still.

It does not matter where you are. If you are calm and settled, the meeting with God will happen right there. Even if you are sitting in your shop, if you are quiet and in your mind there is no hesitation, no blockage, no conflict, no struggle, no tension, then God will descend right there into that shop. And you may be sitting in an ashram, but if the mind is full of conflict, doubt and trouble, there too no contact with God will be possible.

Neither wife nor children prevent it. It is the conflict-ridden state of your mind that prevents it. The world does not obstruct; your own distractedness does.

Running from the world will achieve nothing. To begin with, it is impossible. Wherever you go, you will find the world. And then, wherever you run, you will take yourself along. House can be left, wife can be left, children can be left, but where will you run leaving yourself behind?

And the wife was there because of you, and the children were because of you. Wherever you go, you will create a wife there too. You cannot escape. That house was built by you, and the one who built it goes along with you; he will build again. You are taking along the real craftsman: you.

If here you were clinging to wealth, there too you will cling to something; the clinger is inside. If here you fought court cases for your house, there you will fight for the ashram. Here you said, “This is my house”; there you will say, “This is my ashram.” But that “mine” will go with you.

You cannot run away. How will you run from yourself? And you yourself are the disease. It is as if a TB patient runs away thinking that by running he will be free of TB. But the TB is running along with you, and in the running the condition will only worsen.

Escaping is childish. It is not to run but to awaken. Neither by running from the world is God found, nor by merely staying in it. He is found by awakening in the world. The world is a situation. If in that situation you are asleep, you will go on missing God. If in that situation you awaken, God will be found.

Understand it like this: a man is asleep in a garden in the morning. The sun has risen, birds are singing, flowers have bloomed, the breezes are filled with fragrance—and he is asleep. He knows nothing of what is present. When he opens his eyes and awakens, he becomes aware of what is there. As long as he sleeps, he is in his own dreams.

It may be that—for him—this flower-filled garden, this sky, these breezes, this sun, these birdsongs do not exist; he may be seeing a nightmare, lying in a hell. In the midst of this garden, this beauty, he may be dreaming, “I am rotting in hell, burning in flames.”

What we are calling “the world” is not the world; it is our dream, our sleep. God is all around, but we are asleep. He is here and now—your closest neighbor. He is in your heartbeat; he is within you; he is you. Nothing is nearer than that. There is no need to go anywhere to find Him. He is here, now. But we are asleep.

Break this sleep. Running will do nothing. Remove this sleep. Let this mind be filled with awareness; let the dreams depart; let the waves of thought subside; let this mind become quiet and silent—then His touch will begin immediately. His flowers will start blooming, His fragrance will begin to waft, His song will be heard; His sun will just now cut through your darkness and you will be filled with light.

Therefore in my view, the one who is running knows nothing. It may be that you have been hurt by the world and therefore you run. But the suffering of the world is also your own creation. So wherever you run, you will prepare new sources of suffering.

If this is not visible on the surface, go and see. Look at people sitting in ashrams, at renunciates. If they have not awakened, you will find them entangled in a household of just the same kind as yours. Their entanglements are the same as yours; their troubles are the same; they are just as anxious and miserable.

It is not so easy to attain God that you step out of your home into a temple and God is found; or that you go into the forest and God is found. To attain God you must come out of the mental state you are in and enter a new state of consciousness.

Meditation and prayer are the paths for that transformation—for how you can change. Commonly the mind argues: change the circumstances and everything will be fine. All our life we think this way. But the circumstances are of our own making; the state of mind is the real thing, not the situation.

When a man abuses you, you think that his abuse causes hurt, pain, anger. You think: if I move away from this man, there will be no anger, no pain, no insult, no distress in the mind.

But the one who abuses does not create anger; anger is within you—he only shakes it. You may run away, but you are carrying the anger inside. If there is no person, you will start getting angry at things.

People slam doors as if pushing an enemy! People curse their shoes and throw them. People bang a writing pen on the floor. In anger at things—how can a pen create anger? How can a door create anger?

But anger is filled within. You will bring it out; you will find some excuse. And excuses will be found—there is no shortage of them. Then again you think, “If I get away from this situation, perhaps someday I will be peaceful.” For lives upon lives you have been doing just that: change the circumstances and keep yourself as you are!

As long as you remain the same, you will go on creating the same kind of world. You are the creator of your world. Change the mind; change that inner consciousness. If someone abuses you, it does not mean his abuse creates anger in you. It only means anger was already filled within; the abuse strikes and it comes out—just as when someone lowers a bucket into a well and it returns filled with water. The bucket does not create the water; it was in the well. Lower the bucket into an empty well and it will come up empty.

Drop abuse into Buddha or Mahavira, and it will come back empty. There will be no response; there is no anger there.

And if someone abuses you, if you have understanding you should thank him, for he brought out and revealed what was hidden within you. It is a great kindness. Had he not come, you might have gone on thinking you were non-angry, a very peaceful person. By meeting you he revealed your real state: inside you are angry; on the outside a coat of paint. All whitewash—inside a fire is burning. This man is a friend, for he informed you of your illness. He is a doctor—he has diagnosed you. From his diagnosis it is clear what was hidden in you. Thank him, and set about changing yourself.

Your wife is not binding you; your attraction toward woman is what binds. What trouble is there in the wife—or in the husband? You can run away, but the attraction is filled within. Some other woman will touch it and that attraction will flare up again. Then you will build the world again.

That son of yours is not binding you. You are bound to the son because you want to continue yourself even after death. You want to live on the shoulders of the son. You know you will die, this body will fall—so now you want to remain in the world by means of the son. “At least my name will remain with my son!” That is what binds you.

Leave the son and run away; you will find a disciple. Then you will try to survive in the world through him. The rest of the effort will be the same, because within you are the same. Names will change, colors will change, labels will change—but you do not change so easily.

So remember: a petty religion tries to change circumstances; true religion tries to change the state of mind. Change yourself, wherever you are—and you will find the world has vanished. You change, and the world disappears; what remains is God. Here, behind every layer of the world, He is hidden.

You see the world because you carry a mind that sees the world. What appears to you appears because of you. The moment you change—your vision changes, your way of seeing changes—the world vanishes, and you discover that all around is only Him. Then you see Him in the tree, and you see Him in the stone. You see Him in the friend and also in the enemy. Then the entire expanse of life is His expanse.

The world exists nowhere other than in your vision. And God too will descend only into your vision—into the transformation of your seeing.

What is needed is an inner revolution, a change within oneself. There is no need to waste time in running, no need to be entangled in it. The world is an opportunity to realize God, a chance—you must learn how to use that chance.

I have heard: in one house there was a very old instrument, but for generations the family had forgotten the art of playing it. It lay in a corner. It was a big instrument, it took up space. The house had also become crowded. Finally one day the family decided to remove this nuisance.

It had become a nuisance. Since they did not know how to bring forth music or how to pluck its strings—sometimes the children would twang them and there would be a racket in the house. Sometimes a mouse would jump on it, sometimes a cat. It would make noises, disturb the night’s sleep. It had become a nuisance.

So one day they took it out and threw it on the rubbish heap. But they had not even returned when an exquisite music began to arise from near the garbage. They saw that a passing beggar had picked it up and was playing it. They ran back and said, “Return it. This instrument is ours.” But the beggar said, “You threw it into the garbage. If it was truly an instrument, why did you throw it away? And an instrument belongs to the one who knows how to play it—how is it yours?”

Life is an opportunity. Music can arise from it; that music is God. But one must know the art of playing. Right now only a nuisance is being created, a madness is being produced. You get angry and want to run away from the instrument because it is a nuisance.

This instrument is not a nuisance. The existence of the world is one and the same: when you know how to play it, it appears as God; when you do not know, it appears as the world.

Change yourself. Learn the art by which music arises from this very instrument—how these stones become alive, how each flower becomes the smile of the Lord. Religion is precisely that art.

So any religion that teaches escape—know that it is not religion at all; somewhere a mistake is being made. The religion that teaches transformation, inner revolution—that alone is the true science.

There is a big difference between one unconsciousness and another. One kind happens in sleep—then you know nothing. Another comes from drinking—again, you know nothing. A third kind comes from bhav, the devotional mood: you are utterly absorbed, yet fully aware. When you dance, lost in song, the dance is there, the total immersion is there; and within, like a lamp, awareness is aglow—knowing, seeing, witnessing.

If in your bhav an unconsciousness like drunkenness appears, understand that you have missed. Then know that your bhav has turned into mere wine.

In prayer, “unconsciousness” only means this: you are so absorbed that “I am” does not arise; no word is formed that says “I am.” Yet whatever is happening, you are the witness of it. In that witnessing there is no sense of I. And that witness is not the old “you”; you have dissolved. After your dissolving, your real inner nature simply sees. In that seeing, in the presence of that seer, there isn’t the slightest unconsciousness.

In the “unconsciousness” of bhav, your ailments fall asleep, and the pure consciousness within awakens.

When Chaitanya dances in the streets, don’t think he is unconscious—though he says, “I am intoxicated,” and “I have drunk the wine of God.” He says it only because you understand such symbols.

Omar Khayyam has said, “We have drunk such wine that its intoxication will never wear off. There will be no need to drink again and again. Having drunk, we are lost forever.”

Wine is used as a symbol—because you know only one kind of being lost: the kind in which your consciousness goes blank.

In bhav, there is a small element that resembles wine: your diseases fall asleep, your ego falls asleep, your mind falls asleep, your thoughts fall asleep. But you? You are utterly awake within, full of awareness. This will be clear only by experience—how else will it occur to you? It is subtle. How will it occur to you merely in thought? Dive into bhav and see.

But we are afraid. The fear is this: If I sink wholly into bhav and all that I have repressed comes out, what will people say? We are afraid because we have hidden so much. We have bound ourselves round with control. What if the control loosens, a little crack appears, and what we have held back spills out? Out of that fear we never let go, never surrender.

We never relax anywhere. We are on guard twenty‑four hours a day. Life becomes like hell—nothing remains but torment and poison. It is a proliferation of disease.

Open—blossom like a flower. Granted, many illnesses lie within you. But the more you keep them suppressed, the more they grow inside. Let them drop. Lay them, too, at the feet of the Divine. Soon you will find the illnesses gone, and the flowering within you has begun. The lotus within has started to bloom.

The day this inner lotus begins to bloom, you see that there is both “unconsciousness” and awareness. On one plane you are completely unconscious, and on another you are fully alert. These events happen together.

In alcohol we only become unconscious; there is no awareness. That is why some seekers, after attaining the awareness of bhav, have even drunk wine to test whether alcohol can drown their awareness.

Whether you know it or not, there have been yogic and tantric traditions where wine is also given. When the full state of bhav arises and the seeker says, “Now outwardly I may become entirely dazed, but inwardly my awareness remains intact,” then the master will give him wine, even opium. Gradually the doses of stupor and intoxication are increased, and he is told: “Even as outer unconsciousness closes in and the body goes numb, do not lose your inner awareness.”

This has been taken so far in experiment that when, after all kinds of wines and intoxicants, the seeker still remains inwardly aware, then they even have a snake bite his tongue—so that when the venom spreads through the whole body, the inner awareness does not waver even a bit. Only then do they say: “Now you have attained that awareness which even death cannot shake.”

But without experience, no understanding will dawn. Learn to sink a little into bhav. The one who dives into bhav is saved; the one who avoids bhav drowns and is lost.

There are things that cannot be explained by understanding. There is no way. The deeper the matter, the more you must rely on experience.

If my leg aches, you have to accept that it aches—what else can be done? And if I try to explain it to you and you have never had such pain, there will be great difficulty. I may say endlessly, “My leg hurts,” but if you have no experience of pain, only the word will reach you; no meaning will be grasped. Only when you, too, have pain—then. There is no easy way to transfer experience through words.

Someone came to Buddha and said, “What has happened to you, please explain a little to me.” Buddha said, “I cannot explain. Stay, and for one year do whatever I say—it will become clear.”

Until there is an inner realization that everything on one plane has gone unconscious and yet within someone is awake, the lamp is lit—until then how? From the outside you will only see. So you will see Meera dancing and conclude, “She is unconscious, she has no awareness. Her garment has slipped. The end of her sari has fallen. If she had awareness, she would hold her pallu, fix her clothes. She is not aware; she is unconscious.”

Certainly—on the bodily plane there is unconsciousness. From the standpoint of clothing, awareness has receded. Meera is no longer there in the clothes or the body; she has slipped within somewhere else. But there, there is awareness.

But this will occur to you only when you, too, become Meera—otherwise how will it occur? There is no window or door through which we can look inside Meera. If you want to look within Meera, you must look within yourself; there is no other way. If you want to understand Buddha, there is no path but to become a Buddha.

That is why, until the disciple becomes the master, he cannot understand the master. How could he? They stand on different planes, speak different languages, speak of different experiences. There will be more misunderstanding than understanding. If you truly want to understand, you must gather the courage to experiment.

Science depends on experiment, and so does religion. Both are experimental. Science says: go to the laboratory and experiment; accept only when you yourself find it so—otherwise, do not accept. Religion also says: go to the laboratory and experiment—though the laboratories differ. Science’s laboratory is outside; religion’s laboratory is within. You yourself are the laboratory of religion.

So the laboratory of science must be built, but you are already carrying your laboratory with you. You are hauling this weight needlessly. You have been given a wondrous instrument—conduct your experiments in it, and you will immediately see what is possible.

The “unconsciousness” of bhav is the name of very deep awareness. It is awareness on another plane, another level.

Then there is no need to stop them—if you have truly surrendered at God’s feet. If you still feel the need to stop them, your surrender is not complete. You are keeping your own arrangements running in the background!

We are not aware of how we think, and in what way we think. If you have surrendered yourself into God’s hands, then leave even this—whether pleasure and pain arise or not—to God. Are you going to decide everything first and only then surrender? Then the surrender becomes false, conditional. Will you say to God, “I surrender, but remember—now no feelings of pleasure or pain should arise. If they do, I’ll take back my surrender; I’ll cancel the contract”?

This is not a bargain where you can impose conditions. Surrender means unconditional. You say, “I leave myself in your hands. If you give pain, let there be pain; I will consent. If you give pleasure, let there be pleasure; I will consent. Take both away, I will consent. Keep both going, I will consent. On my side, whatever you do, there will be consent.” This is the meaning of surrender: “What you do, I will no longer think about. I will only remain consenting.”

This consenting yes-ness: I will accept that it is your will; surely there is some meaning, some gain in it. How could pleasure and pain survive? In one who has let go of himself, can his pleasure and pain survive?

What are pleasure and pain? At the root they are your grip on yourself. And in surrender you drop your grip. The one who says, “If there is pleasure, I consent; if there is pain, I consent”—can pleasure and pain happen to him? How could they? Because pleasure means “I want.” Pain means “I don’t want.” Pleasure means the fear “it might be taken away.” Pain means the fear “it might stick around.”

Surrender means: if pleasure—yes; if pain—yes. If pleasure is taken away—yes; if pain remains—yes. How will pleasure and pain survive? The foundation on which they stand is gone.

What is pleasure? That which you want. What is pain? That which you don’t want. And have you noticed the miracle—that what you want today is pleasure, and if tomorrow you no longer want it, the same thing becomes pain; and what you didn’t want today is pain, and if tomorrow you begin to want it, it becomes pleasure.

A lover says, “Without this woman I cannot live—that is my happiness.” It feels to him he cannot live without her. Then marriage happens; the day after, he is running around the courts asking how to get a divorce! The woman is the same. Earlier he said, “I cannot live without her.” Now he says, “I cannot live with her.” What was happiness yesterday has become misery today. Don’t be surprised; such things happen.

I have an acquaintance who lives in Spain. He divorced his wife and, two years later, married the same woman again! First he found happiness, then misery. He lived two years without her and then felt she was happiness again. When he sent me the news I said, “It seems you have learned nothing from your first experience. This woman was once happiness, then became misery. Now she has become happiness again! How long will it last? Not long—because the persons are the same. It will become misery again.”

No need to go so far. Your wife goes to her parents’ home for a few days and she begins to feel sweet; she returns, and at the very sight of her your heart sinks—“Back again!”

Distance gives birth to feelings of sweetness; nearness bores. Whatever we have, we get bored with. So it is not that some thing is happiness and some thing is misery. It is your inner stance. If your stance is of wanting, it is happiness; if it turns into not-wanting, it is misery. The thing remaining the same makes no difference.

But the one who has surrendered has dropped his wanting, dropped his stance. Now it is difficult to give him misery. Now it is difficult to give him pleasure too. And the person to whom it becomes difficult to give either pleasure or pain—that person attains bliss.

Bliss is not pleasure. Dictionaries and language make it seem that bliss is “super-pleasure.” Don’t think that even by mistake. Bliss is related to pleasure exactly as it is to pain—or not related at all. Bliss means the state of consciousness where both pleasure and pain have become meaningless.

After surrender there is bliss. If there isn’t, understand that there is no surrender. Do not conclude that there is no bliss after surrender; if there is no bliss after surrender, understand that surrender has not happened. After surrender, bliss is. Surrender is the body and bliss its soul. But the surrender must be total.

Total surrender means: now I have no choice. I no longer say, “Let this happen,” and I no longer say, “Let that not happen.” Now I am not. Now I have no decision. I have put the reins into his hands. If he leads to the East—good; to the West—good; nowhere—good. Whatever he does—good. My yes is unconditional. Whatever he says, I will say, “Yes.”

Then you will no longer worry, “If feelings of pleasure and pain arise, how will I stop them?” You will not remain; there will be no need to stop them. They too will not remain; they will end along with you. They are companions of the “you.”

Pleasure and pain are two aspects of the ego. What pleases the ego is pleasure; what displeases it is pain. When the ego disappears, both disappear. What remains does not need to be controlled.

And one who has left his boat in the hands of the Divine need not carry with him the cleverness of control. That cleverness will no longer be of any use.

Certainly, if you want to understand my words, you have to use the intellect. But if you want to experience what I am saying, you will have to use the heart. For understanding, intellect is necessary. But understanding is not experience. If you stop at understanding, if you become satisfied with being “understanding,” then you are very unwise.

To grasp what I am saying, you need the intellect. But to experience what I am saying, you need feeling. So understand with the intellect—and then move into doing with the heart. If you stop at the intellect and never reach the heart, that understanding becomes useless, and I turn out to be your enemy. You were already burdened enough; I just added a little more load. Your mind has already collected so much rubbish; I have added a bit more disturbance to it.

The intellect’s work is to understand. But to stop there is not the mark of an intelligent person. Understand—and then bring it into practice, let it sink into feeling, let it become experience.

Until something becomes experience, it is as if you have gulped something down but cannot digest it. It will create illness, it will remain alien to you, it will become poison, and you will need a way to expel it from the body. But if you chew and digest properly, it becomes blood, flesh, and marrow. It does not create illness; it gives rise to health.

The intellect’s work is to take something within you; the heart’s work is to digest it. And until you can digest with the heart, all knowledge turns to poison. Better then to close your ears. If you are not going to translate something into feeling, it is better not to hear it. What’s the point?

In eating, we only take in what we intend to digest. What we cannot digest, we do not eat—or should not. Eating what you cannot digest is to burden the stomach needlessly and to disrupt the body’s system. If you keep eating such things, you will ruin the body entirely. Food will cease to be life and will become death.

Words too are food. Do not think that you merely hear them. What you hear goes inside you. Now you cannot escape it. Something will have to be done: either digest it—or it will create illness within.

Many people are sick from knowledge. They have indigestion of knowledge. They have heard a lot, read a lot, gathered from everywhere, and have no awareness about digesting any of it. They have even forgotten that it must be digested. Now all that sits on their chest like a stone. Better than that would be: don’t listen, don’t read. Wait until you feel prepared to digest.

The intellect is the door for taking things in. Feeling is the system that digests. So listen, understand with the intellect, and then let it reach the heart.

Certainly, the intellect can do two kinds of work. Either it can allow things to reach the heart, or it can try to push them out, not letting them in. If you rely only on logic, your intellect will begin to push things away. Whatever does not fit the grip of logic, the intellect will say, “Don’t bring this inside.” And the most precious things do not fall into the grip of logic. What fits into logic is only logic itself. Nothing of experience fits wholly into logic. Logic and experience do not coincide.

A blind man cannot see light. No matter how much you argue with him, he will not understand. He will keep denying, he will produce arguments, he will prove you wrong—if his intellect runs only on logic.

We do the same about the divine. We proceed with logic and keep denying. A barricade of denial arises. Then nothing can enter within. Logic says in advance, “It is useless. It does not fit into mathematics.” Matters of experience seem like mystery. “This is not my domain,” says logic. “Leave it outside.”

The intellect can also do another work: it can become a door. What is worthy of experience—even if it does not yet fit your logic—right intelligence dares to experiment with it. Otherwise intellect becomes wrong-headed; logic becomes sophistry. “I don’t yet have the experience, but I will experiment and see.”

There are a thousand things that are not in your experience. If you experiment, your experience can grow, and things can come within it. And if, even after experiment, something does not become your experience, then don’t accept it. But to deny before experience is ignorance.

So to deny God, the soul, liberation, bliss, nonduality without experience is ignorance. Give yourself a chance for experience. Whoever has experienced has not been able to deny. Those who have denied have not experienced; they have only carried the matter by logic.

Arguments can be very dangerous; they can be offered in favor of what is false and against what is true.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin wanted to marry off his son. There was a rich girl—ugly, misshapen, ill-featured. Mulla was after the money. He told his son, “I have spoken about your marriage with Sultana.”

The boy said, “Sultana! You mean the moneylender’s daughter? Her? But she can hardly see!”

Mulla said, “Unlucky boy? Consider yourself fortunate! What could be better for a husband than a wife who sees little? You will be forever free. Do whatever you like—she won’t even notice.”

The boy was startled. “But I’ve heard she also lisps and stammers!”

Mulla said, “If I were to marry again, I would marry just such a woman. Consider it a blessing of God. A woman who lisps and stammers doesn’t dare to talk much. The husband lives in peace!”

His son said, “But I’ve also heard she is deaf! She can’t hear properly either!”

Nasruddin said, “You fool, I thought you had some intelligence! What could be better than a wife who is deaf? You can swear, shout, be angry—she won’t understand a thing.”

The boy made one last effort. “All right, even if that is so—but she is twenty years older than I am!”

Mulla said, “For a tiny fault—that she was born twenty years earlier—you would miss such a great opportunity! For such a small matter you make such a fuss! I’m finding such a beautiful woman for you, and you quibble that she is twenty years older! There is no perfection anywhere in the world.”

For what things won’t a man find arguments! Is there anything you have heard for which no counter-argument can be found? Or anything for which no argument can be found? Logic has no party and no opposition of its own. Logic is a naked sword. With it you can cut a friend, you can cut an enemy—and if you like, you can cut yourself. The sword has no insistence about whom to cut.

So take that sword in hand carefully. Think a little about what you are cutting with it. Many people cut themselves with their own logic.

Use logic when it leads toward experience. Use logic when it leads toward the depths of life. Use logic when it gives you a glimpse of the peaks. Use logic when it lets you descend into the profundities. If logic prevents you from descending into the depths, then take such logic to be sophistry; drop it, because it is suicide.

Understand my words with the intellect. But what I am saying is not only of the intellect. We are using the intellect as a medium, a means. The matter concerns the heart. Until it reaches your feeling, the journey is incomplete. And if you are to begin the journey, then make the effort to reach the goal—only then does the mystery open.

The last question.

Understand a little. First, can a person be egoless and successful in a world full of ego? Egolessness does not demand success. Ego demands success. Egolessness simply does not ask for success.

Success—what does it mean? It means: I ahead of others. It means: can I make others fail? Can I push others behind and stand in front of them? Success is ambition. All this is the symptom of ego. The ego says, I must stand in front, be number one. Number two hurts. If I am standing at the back of the line, in the queue, there is great misery. The further back, the greater the pain. I must be number one.

The quest of ego is the quest of ambition. And when I must be number one, I will have to push others aside; I will have to trample others; I will have to use others’ heads as steps; I will have to climb over people’s chests to go ahead. The roads that lead to thrones are paved with corpses.

So the very search of the ego is to be successful. And you do not notice: when you ask, “If I become egoless, will I be successful?” it means you want to be egoless in order to be successful! Then you have missed the whole point.

To be egoless means that success has no value for me anymore. Where I stand makes no difference. Even if I stand at the very end of the line, I am as delighted as if I were to stand first.

Jesus said: in this world, those who stand last will be the first in my Father’s kingdom. Yet here, they stand last!

Egolessness means I enjoy standing at the back just the same. My joy does not change. It is in my standing itself—in my being.

Lao Tzu said: No one could ever defeat me, because I am defeated even before the fight. No one could ever insult me, because I have made no attempt to uphold my honor. And where people take off their shoes before entering an assembly, I sit right there, so that no one ever has to make me get up. Therefore, said Lao Tzu, my victory is indisputable. No one can defeat me, because I have already accepted defeat. I am already defeated.

Egolessness says: I have understood well your foolishness in fighting, your obsession with victory, your struggles, your ambitions—the madness of it all—and I am no longer participating. Egolessness does not want to be successful.

This does not mean he will not be successful. The distinctions are subtle. Egolessness does not want success; yet that does not mean it will not be successful. In fact, only that one succeeds. But the path of that success is entirely different.

People gather wealth on the outside. The egoless comes upon the inner treasure. People pile up outer victories. The egoless reaches within to that place where defeat is impossible. People amass provisions for living; the egoless attains life itself. People waste time collecting trifles, fighting and quarrelling; the egoless is joined with the vast.

The success of egolessness is wondrous—but it is of a different dimension. You cannot weigh it in shells, in rupees, in dollars. It has no direct relation to worldly success. Yet even in this world you will not find anyone more serene and joyous than the egoless.

So if you want success, kindly continue on the path of ego. But if the stupidity of success has become visible to you—who has ever been truly successful even after “succeeding”? Where is Napoleon, where is Alexander? What has anyone actually gained?—if this you have understood, then drop the very word “success.” It is ignorance; it suits children. Drop talking of success.

What does it even mean to be ahead of someone? And once ahead—what will you do there? Those who reach the front of the queue fall into great difficulty: now what?

Someone once said to Alexander: If you conquer the whole world, have you ever thought what you will do then? Alexander suddenly became sad and said, No, I hadn’t thought of that. But don’t talk like that—it makes the mind very depressed. For if I do conquer the whole world, there will be no other world left. Then what will I do?

Ask presidents and prime ministers: when they reach the head of the queue, there isn’t even a bus there to board. There is nothing there at all—just standing at the front while people from behind keep pushing, trying to come forward.

And the one who has come to the front is in such a state that he cannot even say, “I lost my tail for nothing; on coming here there is nothing to be had.” Nor can he easily step back—now to stand anywhere else in the line feels unbearably painful. So he tries to stay put.

But he is not alone—everyone is trying to get there. So there are pushes from behind; people are pulling at his legs. Everyone is trying to pull him down. Even friends are enemies there, because those standing nearby also want the same spot.

Therefore a politician has no friends—not really. All “friends” are enemies within. Friendship is on the surface; inside there is enmity, because they too are striving to be number one in the queue.

Hence the politician has to be more cautious of his friends than his enemies. Enemies stay far; it will take them time to arrive—meanwhile preparations can be made. Friends stand very close; with just a slight push they can climb onto your chest. So they must be kept in place twenty-four hours a day.

So the prime minister’s constant work is to keep his cabinet “friends” in line: let no one become a little too big, show too much swagger, or pick up speed. If someone gains momentum, at once he must be corrected—because he is doing exactly what this gentleman himself previously did!

So when this stupidity becomes visible—whether of wealth, position or fame—when one sees the insanity of it, this being crazed, “and once you reach first, what then?”—then a person sets out on the journey of egolessness.

Egolessness is the insight into the futility of success and failure. And then success happens—but it is inner. It may well have no valuation in this world. How shall we measure the success of a Buddha? There is no bank balance. Did Buddha get anything? How shall we recognize it? History has no way to evaluate it, for what has been attained belongs to another dimension. There is no recognition for it in this world.

Yet its fragrance reaches us. In the way Buddha rises and sits we feel that something has been found. In his eyes there is a sense that something has been attained—his silence, his peace, his joy; his fearlessness in life, his profound trust in life; not the slightest hesitation before death; always ready to be lost—as if he has found that which can never be lost. He has tasted the nectar of immortality. We get the scent of it, a glimpse, a hint, from his touch, from his presence. But there is no way in the language of the world to weigh it—no scale, no measure by which to test what has been attained.

Success belongs to egolessness. In truth, only egolessness succeeds. But the fruits that ripen from the success of egolessness are inner, interior. Worldly success is not the success of egolessness. And worldly “success” is not success at all.

So do not ask this. And do not ask either: when so many are filled with ego, if we begin to flow the other way, will there be great hindrance? You are mistaken. Ego itself means to go against the current. Ego means to swim upstream against the river. If the river is flowing westward, you are heading eastward. Ego means going the other way, because the ego relishes fighting; only when it goes against the current does it feel “I am.” If you flow with the current, how will you know you are? When you fight the current, then you feel “I am.”

So ego is against the current of life. Egolessness is with the current. Granted, others may be struggling upstream, while you will go downstream. But do not think this will make them unhappy—on the contrary, they will be pleased: one competitor less, one rival removed.

Notice: even the egoist pays respect to the egoless. Even the politician comes and sits at a saint’s feet—this person has stepped out of the arena; one enemy less; he has left the fight; he has begun to flow with the current.

So if you think that by becoming egoless you will flow against the current, you are mistaken. As an egoist you are already against life’s current. In egolessness you flow with life’s stream. Yes, you will go opposite to the egoists—but that will create no obstacle. Hindrance only comes if, even through egolessness, you still want wealth, prestige and position in the world. Then there can be trouble.

It is said: An emperor was praying in a temple on New Year’s Day. He used to come on the first day of the year to pray. He was saying to God, What am I! The dust of your feet—worse than dust. I am a sinner; there is no end to my sins. I am wicked, cruel, hard. I am nothing. I am just a nobody, a nothing—saying it with great feeling.

And just then a fakir sitting nearby was also praying, and he too was saying, I am nothing. I am nobody, nothing. The emperor got angry and said, Listen, who is claiming that he is nothing? And before me! When I am saying I am nothing, who is competing?

The man who says, I am nothing, is still concerned lest someone else say, I am nothing. Let there be no competition! If you are truly nothing, what difficulty remains? What is there to fear? But the worry is: someone else may get ahead even in this!

The games of ego are very subtle. Tell a so-called egoless person, I have found someone even more egoless than you, and he too will be hurt: What, greater than me? Someone humbler than me? You are mistaken—I am the last; no one is more humble than I am. He too feels pain, lest someone pass ahead of him. Then it is the same journey of ego; this egolessness is false, hollow.

Egolessness means we have stepped out of the competition. Now whoever is ahead or behind us—it has no relevance. We are content in our being. There is no rivalry with anyone.

Egolessness means: I am as I am. I no longer think of myself as ahead of or behind anyone. I do not compare. I do not assess my worth by comparison.

The day a person stops valuing himself by comparison, he has stepped off the scales of the world. Yet such a person becomes valuable in the eyes of the divine. Whoever is willing to lose his value in the eyes of the neighbors becomes valuable in God’s eyes. And whoever is busy fixing his value in the eyes of the neighbors cannot have any value in the eyes of God.

Whoever withdraws from competition, at that very moment his glory is in God’s hands. Hence Jesus said: those who are the last here will be the first in my Father’s kingdom.

But do not try to be the last for the sake of becoming first in the kingdom! Otherwise you are not being last at all.

The day Jesus was arrested, and the next day he was to die, that night when his disciples began to leave him, one disciple asked, Before you go, tell us this much: Granted that in your Father’s kingdom we shall be first—but we are twelve; who among us will be the very first? Granted that you, the Son, will sit right next to the throne; but who will sit next to you?

The twelve disciples too were worried about positions there among the twelve—who will sit where? The point was missed; Jesus was lost to them; they did not understand him.

To be first in the kingdom is a consequence if you are willing to be last. But if that is your desire, it will never happen—because then you are not willing to be last; you still want to be first, whether in this world or that. You remain entangled in competition.

Egolessness means: as I am in the eyes of the divine, I am delighted. I no longer compare. I drop competition. When this understanding dawns, then one no longer worries about difficulties. No difficulty remains; all difficulties belong to ego. The egoless person has no hurt. The thorn pricks only in the wound of the ego.

Someone passes by and doesn’t greet you—he used to every day—and the trouble begins! Nothing really happened. When he folded his hands, what did you get? And if he didn’t today, what have you lost? Someone abuses you—and you are hurt. Someone doesn’t look at you properly—you are hurt. You’re walking along and someone laughs—you are hurt. Where is this wound?

It is your ego that is wounded. You think if someone is laughing, he must be laughing at me. If someone swears, he is dragging me down. Why are you up there in the first place? How far down can an abuse pull you? Step down beforehand.

When honor is not forthcoming, pain arises because there is a demand for honor. Others are not giving you the pain—you have already made the wound; others only touch it.

As soon as ego drops, suffering dissolves—the wound itself disappears.

Have you noticed: if your foot gets hurt one day, then the whole day everything bumps exactly there. You may wonder how the whole world is so concerned about your wound! As you go through the door, the door hits it; you go near the chair, the chair hits it; you talk to a child, the child steps right on it. What is this—that the whole world somehow knows you hurt your foot, and everyone is striking that same spot?

No one knows. But today it hurts because there is a wound. Yesterday it also got bumped—but you didn’t notice because there was no wound. Yesterday this child also stepped right there, and the chair brushed there too, but you didn’t feel it because there was no wound.

Ego is a wound. Then everything touches it. You stand prepared: “Come, hit me!” And until something hits, you feel restless—“What is wrong today? Nothing is hitting me!” And everyone moves around cautiously, as if someone is sure to come and strike.

In such a crowded world, who has time for you? No one is eager to hurt you. And even if someone does, it hurts only because the wound is ready; otherwise you wouldn’t notice. Someone hurls an abuse and you go your way.

People abused Buddha. Buddha said: When you abuse, I consider: whom are you abusing? This body? It is going to perish—what has abuse to do with what is perishable? Are you abusing “me”? How would you know me—you don’t even know yourself. So I ponder and I laugh: what has happened here!

Swami Ram used to say that if someone abused him, he would come back laughing and say, “There was great fun in the bazaar today—people started abusing Ram, and I stood aside and laughed: Good, Ram is caught! If you crave a name, there will be trouble.”

When he first went to America, people did not understand whom he meant by “Ram.” He used to refer to himself—his body—as “Ram.” He would say, “Ram is very hungry today,” and we would laugh; or, “People abused Ram today, and I laughed.” People asked, Whom are you talking about? He would say, This Ram. When this one is abused, I stand behind and watch and laugh: Now let’s see what happens! What does this Ram do now? What does this ego do now?

If you stand back and begin to laugh, then it can do nothing; it collapses. It functions only so long as you believe, “This is me.” While the identification lasts, so does its pain.

Step aside from the ego. The moment you step aside from ego, you step out of hell; the gates of heaven open. In this world you then have no struggle, no competition. The world accepts you as you are. And in the eyes of the divine you rise high.