Harboring no hatred toward any being, friendly and compassionate indeed।
Free of possessiveness and ego, even-minded in sorrow and joy, forgiving।। 13।।
Ever content, ever a yogi, self-mastered, firm in resolve।
Whose mind and intellect are offered to me—my devotee—such a one is dear to me।। 14।।
Geeta Darshan #7
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च।
निर्ममो निरहंकारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी।। 13।।
संतुष्टः सततं योगी यतात्मा दृढनिश्चयः।
मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धिर्यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः।। 14।।
निर्ममो निरहंकारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी।। 13।।
संतुष्टः सततं योगी यतात्मा दृढनिश्चयः।
मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धिर्यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः।। 14।।
Transliteration:
adveṣṭā sarvabhūtānāṃ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca|
nirmamo nirahaṃkāraḥ samaduḥkhasukhaḥ kṣamī|| 13||
saṃtuṣṭaḥ satataṃ yogī yatātmā dṛḍhaniścayaḥ|
mayyarpitamanobuddhiryo madbhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ|| 14||
adveṣṭā sarvabhūtānāṃ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca|
nirmamo nirahaṃkāraḥ samaduḥkhasukhaḥ kṣamī|| 13||
saṃtuṣṭaḥ satataṃ yogī yatātmā dṛḍhaniścayaḥ|
mayyarpitamanobuddhiryo madbhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ|| 14||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked, Osho, why is the practice of the formless so difficult?
Even the word “formless” does not really make sense to us. The very word “formless” still evokes a sense of form in the mind. Even when we say “infinite,” it feels as if it must have a boundary—very far, very far, but somewhere it must end. The mind cannot grasp the infinite. The doorway of the mind is so small, so limited, that the endless sky cannot pass through it. That is why the sadhana of the formless is difficult: because it means you will have to drop the mind this very moment—only then does movement toward the formless begin.
Whatever appears through the mind will have form. And wherever the mind can reach, it will be within limits and qualities. There is no way to weigh the formless on the scales of the mind. What can be weighed is formed. And we are full of mind. In fact, we are the mind. We have no direct knowledge of anything in us other than mind. People talk of the soul; we hear about it; but you have no real acquaintance with it. Your acquaintance is with the mind—and even that is not complete.
Psychologists say that of the mind’s ten parts we know only one, and that only a little; the other nine are unknown. The mind itself is still not known. If we have not known even the limited, then of course knowing the unlimited will be difficult.
The word “formless” may enter the imagination, but its meaning does not. If someone tells you the sky is infinite, the mind still keeps the notion that somewhere it must end. However distant that boundary, there must be an end. The statement “It does not end at all” throws the mind into confusion; it panics. If there is no boundary, the mind begins to go mad. That is the mind’s problem. The mind is set up to understand limits. Therefore grasping the formless becomes difficult.
I have heard: An emperor gave his rival—his competitor for a beloved—permission to enter into a duel. The time was fixed as well: tomorrow morning at six, outside the village in a deserted place, both would arrive with their pistols. Only one of them would return alive; then the quarrel over the beloved would be finished.
The emperor arrived before time—exactly on time. The rival did not. Six struck. Six-ten, six-fifteen, six-twenty—he waited anxiously. Then a horseman arrived, carrying a telegram from the rival.
There were only a few words in it: “Unavoidably delayed, but it would be a sin to disappoint you—so please don’t wait for me. Shoot.”
But at whom should he shoot? The emperor’s situation is exactly that of the seeker of the formless. Whom? Whom to worship? Whom to adore? At whose feet to bow the head? Whom to call to? On whom to meditate? On what to contemplate? There is no one there! That king must also have returned without firing a shot.
Formless means: there is no other there with whom you can relate. And the human mind longs for relationship. You are alone. Formless means you are utterly alone; there is no one before you.
That is why it is extremely difficult. Even if only in imagination there is an “other,” we can relate. Even if there is no other in reality, if we merely believe there is, we can still talk; we can still weep; we can still dance.
This mind moves only when there is an other; it becomes related and dynamic. If there is no other, it gets blocked. There is no movement. Therefore the formless is difficult.
But the difficulty of the formless is not the formless’s difficulty; it is your mind’s difficulty. If you are willing to drop the mind, the formless is no longer difficult. Then the formed becomes difficult. Without mind, form cannot arise.
This means the whole question is about your mind. So don’t think in terms of “Should I choose the formless or the formed?” That very question is wrong. Think only this: Can I drop the mind, or can I not? If you cannot, then don’t fall into the illusion of the formless; your formless will be false. Then it is appropriate to begin with form. If you can drop the mind, then there is no need for form at all—you are already standing in the formless.
Form, too, falls away—but gradually. The process of form means: slowly, slowly, it will dissolve your mind. A moment will come when the mind has melted completely and you are free of it. The day the mind drops, that same day form also drops. As long as the mind is, form will remain.
So the path of form is a gradual process, a step-by-step growth. And the formless is a leap—sudden, instantaneous. If you are prepared for an abrupt leap—put the mind down and jump—then the formless is not difficult. But will you be able to put the mind down? It is not like a garment you take off and lay aside; it is like your skin—there will be great pain. More than skin: it hurts even more to lay down the mind than to peel off your skin, because the mind lies deeper than the skin; it is connected to every bone, to every cell. And we have taken ourselves to be the mind. To take off the mind is to take off oneself; to become empty of oneself; it is a kind of self-slaughter.
Therefore, seekers of the formless have said: until the state of amani, no-mind, arises, talk of the formless will not be understood.
With saguna (with qualities) the apparent obstacle is the ego. With form the intellect argues and quarrels. So a person says, “No, for me it is the formless.” This is only a device to avoid the formed: “For me it is the formless.”
But remember: the first condition of the formless is that you drop your mind. Taking the mind as your authority you are discarding the formed and talking of the formless. And the moment someone says to you that the formless means shutting down the mind’s alchemy that manufactures forms—remove this mind—then your real obstruction will begin.
There are many who have left form in favor of the formless; yet they find no doorway into the formless. Whenever you leave something, first consider whether you can truly enter the opposite for which you are leaving it. If you cannot, don’t be in a hurry to leave.
But we are very clever. Our condition is like that of Sheikh Chilli who went into a sweet shop. He asked the price of one sweet. The shopkeeper said, “Five rupees a seer.” “All right, give me a seer.” When it had been weighed, wrapped, and was being handed to him, he said, “Leave that. I’ve changed my mind. What is the price of that other sweet?” “Two and a half rupees a seer.” “Good. Give me two seers of that instead.” He took two seers of the cheaper sweet and started to go. The shopkeeper asked for the money. He said, “I took this in exchange for that sweet—so why pay?” The shopkeeper said, “And the money for that first sweet?” He replied, “How can you ask for money for what I never took?”
Between the formed and the formless we bob about exactly like this. When the question of the formless arises, we say, “No, that is beyond me; form will be fine.” And when form is proposed, we say, “How can we believe that the divine can have a form?” Then the intellect begins to raise arguments: How can God have a body? How can we accept Krishna, how can we accept Buddha as God?
No, the mind is not for believing. They have bones, flesh, marrow like ours; bodies like ours. They live as we do; they die as we do. How can we accept that they are God? No—we cannot. God must be formless.
So when it is time to enter the formed, we argue for the formless. And when it is time to enter the formless, we lack the courage; then we start thinking of the formed. I call this dishonesty. One who does not recognize this wastes life and energy in vain.
Decide clearly what your capacity is, and proceed accordingly. Drop the worry about what God is like. Who is asking you? God is not waiting for your verdict. And whatever you decide will not change God. Whether you accept the divine as formless or formed, what difference does it make to the divine? Your belief will make a difference only to you.
So think on your side: If I believe this way, what will it do to me?
A friend came to me some fifteen days ago. He said, “I cannot accept you as God.” I said, “Excellent—then that’s settled. Now what do you intend?” He said, “At most I can accept you as a friend.” I said, “That too is a great favor! It isn’t easy to find someone who will accept anyone even as a friend. That also is settled.” Then he said, “Help me. I want peace, bliss, and a vision of God. By your grace, all this can happen.”
I asked him, “None of that can happen by a friend’s grace. What grace does a friend have? You are asking of me what only God can do—give you peace, give you bliss, give you the knowledge of truth. Your demands are fit only for God. But you have no willingness to accept anyone as God. So from a friend I will do what a friend can do. And the day you want what can be had only from God, come prepared to accept that I am God—only then ask.”
Whether I am God or not is not the big question. The big question is: what do you want in your life? What transformation do you seek? Keep that in mind. I have many questions here saying, “We cannot accept Krishna as God. We cannot accept Buddha as God.”
Who is asking you to? You are needlessly troubled. Neither Krishna nor Buddha is asking you. And their being does not depend on your declaration. This is not a matter of votes—that with your vote Krishna might qualify as God!
You are worried without cause. Think of yourself: how much benefit do you wish to take from Krishna? If you want the benefit that comes from God, then accept him as God; if you do not, the matter is finished. It is your gain and your loss and your life. Krishna has nothing to do with it.
Yet people are greatly troubled—troubled about others: who is what! There is no concern at all to worry about oneself; and life is very short.
An old gentleman came to me and said, “I have only one question: Are you truly God? Did you create the world?”
I said, “Please come closer. This is a confidential matter; I can only tell you in your ear—and only on one condition: do not tell anyone.”
He came very happily. Old people are just like children; the intellect does not grow. He put his ear near me. I said, “I did indeed make this world. But look how bad its condition is! I cannot tell anyone I made it. And you must not tell anyone either. The one who made it would be the one to get into trouble—the condition is so bad.”
It is for this reason that God hides: if anywhere he said, “I am,” you would grab his collar: “So it’s you? You made this world?” Who would be the culprit for such a world!
“So I’m telling you—but don’t tell anyone. If you do, I’ll change my story.” Then I asked that old gentleman, “What difference will it make to you who created the world or who did not? If I say yes or no, what will you gain? Death is close; not a moment is certain; your hands and feet have begun to tremble—and you are still entangled in children’s questions? Care for yourself a little!”
A wise person is one who takes care of himself; the foolish is caught in the futile. And often we think futile things are very precious—very precious! What value is there in such talk?
Keep one thing always in mind: whatever you wish to believe, to do, to conceive—what will it do for you? Will you be able to change? Will a new life begin? Will your old rubbish flow away, burn away? Will you receive a new flame? Think of this.
If it comes through the formless, then walk toward the formless. If it comes through the formed, then walk toward the formed. Wherever a ray of joy appears, walk in that direction. By walking, the journey completes; by sitting and thinking, it never does.
Some people keep thinking all their lives: form or formless; saguna or nirguna; Krishna, or Rama, or Christ! How long will you keep thinking? No journey happens by thinking. Walk. And I say, even if you set out on the wrong path, it does not matter—because even from the wrong, you will learn. And if you set out on the wrong path, at least you have set out. The knack of walking will be yours; then one day you can also walk on the right path. But there is no courage at all to walk; we just keep walking inside the skull. From that walking, nothing will happen.
Whatever appears through the mind will have form. And wherever the mind can reach, it will be within limits and qualities. There is no way to weigh the formless on the scales of the mind. What can be weighed is formed. And we are full of mind. In fact, we are the mind. We have no direct knowledge of anything in us other than mind. People talk of the soul; we hear about it; but you have no real acquaintance with it. Your acquaintance is with the mind—and even that is not complete.
Psychologists say that of the mind’s ten parts we know only one, and that only a little; the other nine are unknown. The mind itself is still not known. If we have not known even the limited, then of course knowing the unlimited will be difficult.
The word “formless” may enter the imagination, but its meaning does not. If someone tells you the sky is infinite, the mind still keeps the notion that somewhere it must end. However distant that boundary, there must be an end. The statement “It does not end at all” throws the mind into confusion; it panics. If there is no boundary, the mind begins to go mad. That is the mind’s problem. The mind is set up to understand limits. Therefore grasping the formless becomes difficult.
I have heard: An emperor gave his rival—his competitor for a beloved—permission to enter into a duel. The time was fixed as well: tomorrow morning at six, outside the village in a deserted place, both would arrive with their pistols. Only one of them would return alive; then the quarrel over the beloved would be finished.
The emperor arrived before time—exactly on time. The rival did not. Six struck. Six-ten, six-fifteen, six-twenty—he waited anxiously. Then a horseman arrived, carrying a telegram from the rival.
There were only a few words in it: “Unavoidably delayed, but it would be a sin to disappoint you—so please don’t wait for me. Shoot.”
But at whom should he shoot? The emperor’s situation is exactly that of the seeker of the formless. Whom? Whom to worship? Whom to adore? At whose feet to bow the head? Whom to call to? On whom to meditate? On what to contemplate? There is no one there! That king must also have returned without firing a shot.
Formless means: there is no other there with whom you can relate. And the human mind longs for relationship. You are alone. Formless means you are utterly alone; there is no one before you.
That is why it is extremely difficult. Even if only in imagination there is an “other,” we can relate. Even if there is no other in reality, if we merely believe there is, we can still talk; we can still weep; we can still dance.
This mind moves only when there is an other; it becomes related and dynamic. If there is no other, it gets blocked. There is no movement. Therefore the formless is difficult.
But the difficulty of the formless is not the formless’s difficulty; it is your mind’s difficulty. If you are willing to drop the mind, the formless is no longer difficult. Then the formed becomes difficult. Without mind, form cannot arise.
This means the whole question is about your mind. So don’t think in terms of “Should I choose the formless or the formed?” That very question is wrong. Think only this: Can I drop the mind, or can I not? If you cannot, then don’t fall into the illusion of the formless; your formless will be false. Then it is appropriate to begin with form. If you can drop the mind, then there is no need for form at all—you are already standing in the formless.
Form, too, falls away—but gradually. The process of form means: slowly, slowly, it will dissolve your mind. A moment will come when the mind has melted completely and you are free of it. The day the mind drops, that same day form also drops. As long as the mind is, form will remain.
So the path of form is a gradual process, a step-by-step growth. And the formless is a leap—sudden, instantaneous. If you are prepared for an abrupt leap—put the mind down and jump—then the formless is not difficult. But will you be able to put the mind down? It is not like a garment you take off and lay aside; it is like your skin—there will be great pain. More than skin: it hurts even more to lay down the mind than to peel off your skin, because the mind lies deeper than the skin; it is connected to every bone, to every cell. And we have taken ourselves to be the mind. To take off the mind is to take off oneself; to become empty of oneself; it is a kind of self-slaughter.
Therefore, seekers of the formless have said: until the state of amani, no-mind, arises, talk of the formless will not be understood.
With saguna (with qualities) the apparent obstacle is the ego. With form the intellect argues and quarrels. So a person says, “No, for me it is the formless.” This is only a device to avoid the formed: “For me it is the formless.”
But remember: the first condition of the formless is that you drop your mind. Taking the mind as your authority you are discarding the formed and talking of the formless. And the moment someone says to you that the formless means shutting down the mind’s alchemy that manufactures forms—remove this mind—then your real obstruction will begin.
There are many who have left form in favor of the formless; yet they find no doorway into the formless. Whenever you leave something, first consider whether you can truly enter the opposite for which you are leaving it. If you cannot, don’t be in a hurry to leave.
But we are very clever. Our condition is like that of Sheikh Chilli who went into a sweet shop. He asked the price of one sweet. The shopkeeper said, “Five rupees a seer.” “All right, give me a seer.” When it had been weighed, wrapped, and was being handed to him, he said, “Leave that. I’ve changed my mind. What is the price of that other sweet?” “Two and a half rupees a seer.” “Good. Give me two seers of that instead.” He took two seers of the cheaper sweet and started to go. The shopkeeper asked for the money. He said, “I took this in exchange for that sweet—so why pay?” The shopkeeper said, “And the money for that first sweet?” He replied, “How can you ask for money for what I never took?”
Between the formed and the formless we bob about exactly like this. When the question of the formless arises, we say, “No, that is beyond me; form will be fine.” And when form is proposed, we say, “How can we believe that the divine can have a form?” Then the intellect begins to raise arguments: How can God have a body? How can we accept Krishna, how can we accept Buddha as God?
No, the mind is not for believing. They have bones, flesh, marrow like ours; bodies like ours. They live as we do; they die as we do. How can we accept that they are God? No—we cannot. God must be formless.
So when it is time to enter the formed, we argue for the formless. And when it is time to enter the formless, we lack the courage; then we start thinking of the formed. I call this dishonesty. One who does not recognize this wastes life and energy in vain.
Decide clearly what your capacity is, and proceed accordingly. Drop the worry about what God is like. Who is asking you? God is not waiting for your verdict. And whatever you decide will not change God. Whether you accept the divine as formless or formed, what difference does it make to the divine? Your belief will make a difference only to you.
So think on your side: If I believe this way, what will it do to me?
A friend came to me some fifteen days ago. He said, “I cannot accept you as God.” I said, “Excellent—then that’s settled. Now what do you intend?” He said, “At most I can accept you as a friend.” I said, “That too is a great favor! It isn’t easy to find someone who will accept anyone even as a friend. That also is settled.” Then he said, “Help me. I want peace, bliss, and a vision of God. By your grace, all this can happen.”
I asked him, “None of that can happen by a friend’s grace. What grace does a friend have? You are asking of me what only God can do—give you peace, give you bliss, give you the knowledge of truth. Your demands are fit only for God. But you have no willingness to accept anyone as God. So from a friend I will do what a friend can do. And the day you want what can be had only from God, come prepared to accept that I am God—only then ask.”
Whether I am God or not is not the big question. The big question is: what do you want in your life? What transformation do you seek? Keep that in mind. I have many questions here saying, “We cannot accept Krishna as God. We cannot accept Buddha as God.”
Who is asking you to? You are needlessly troubled. Neither Krishna nor Buddha is asking you. And their being does not depend on your declaration. This is not a matter of votes—that with your vote Krishna might qualify as God!
You are worried without cause. Think of yourself: how much benefit do you wish to take from Krishna? If you want the benefit that comes from God, then accept him as God; if you do not, the matter is finished. It is your gain and your loss and your life. Krishna has nothing to do with it.
Yet people are greatly troubled—troubled about others: who is what! There is no concern at all to worry about oneself; and life is very short.
An old gentleman came to me and said, “I have only one question: Are you truly God? Did you create the world?”
I said, “Please come closer. This is a confidential matter; I can only tell you in your ear—and only on one condition: do not tell anyone.”
He came very happily. Old people are just like children; the intellect does not grow. He put his ear near me. I said, “I did indeed make this world. But look how bad its condition is! I cannot tell anyone I made it. And you must not tell anyone either. The one who made it would be the one to get into trouble—the condition is so bad.”
It is for this reason that God hides: if anywhere he said, “I am,” you would grab his collar: “So it’s you? You made this world?” Who would be the culprit for such a world!
“So I’m telling you—but don’t tell anyone. If you do, I’ll change my story.” Then I asked that old gentleman, “What difference will it make to you who created the world or who did not? If I say yes or no, what will you gain? Death is close; not a moment is certain; your hands and feet have begun to tremble—and you are still entangled in children’s questions? Care for yourself a little!”
A wise person is one who takes care of himself; the foolish is caught in the futile. And often we think futile things are very precious—very precious! What value is there in such talk?
Keep one thing always in mind: whatever you wish to believe, to do, to conceive—what will it do for you? Will you be able to change? Will a new life begin? Will your old rubbish flow away, burn away? Will you receive a new flame? Think of this.
If it comes through the formless, then walk toward the formless. If it comes through the formed, then walk toward the formed. Wherever a ray of joy appears, walk in that direction. By walking, the journey completes; by sitting and thinking, it never does.
Some people keep thinking all their lives: form or formless; saguna or nirguna; Krishna, or Rama, or Christ! How long will you keep thinking? No journey happens by thinking. Walk. And I say, even if you set out on the wrong path, it does not matter—because even from the wrong, you will learn. And if you set out on the wrong path, at least you have set out. The knack of walking will be yours; then one day you can also walk on the right path. But there is no courage at all to walk; we just keep walking inside the skull. From that walking, nothing will happen.
A friend has asked, Osho, there have been many rare devotees—Chaitanya, Meera, Kabir, Raidas, Tulsidas, Narsi—and they spread devotion throughout the land on a vast scale. Yet despite all this, today the country seems empty of devotional feeling. What is the reason?
What Narsi, or Raidas, or Dadu, or Kabir attained cannot be given to you through their preaching. Religion is not obtained by propaganda. Religion is not politics that can be spread by campaigning.
Kabir didn’t even preach. Kabir was merely giving the news that what happened to him can happen to you too. But it won’t happen just because Kabir says so. You will have to do what Kabir did; only then will it be yours.
Devotion cannot be given. Knowledge cannot be transferred. No one can hand it over—“Here, take it; here is knowledge.” The father dies and gives it to the son; the master dies and gives it to the disciple—no, it is not transferable.
The experience will die with Kabir. Those who heard Kabir and then did it themselves, within them it will be born again. But that is not Kabir’s knowledge; it is their own knowledge that will be born.
If you light your lamp from Kabir’s lamp, then yes! But not through Kabir’s propaganda, not by Kabir’s saying, not by carefully reading Kabir’s books. None of that will do. You are missing the very crux.
In this country—not just in this country, on the whole earth, in every land—there have been devotees and knowers. They said what they had found. They even spoke what cannot be spoken, made tireless efforts to bind into words that which is utterly impossible to say. They banged their heads before you. You heard as well; at first you never trusted that what they were saying could be right.
Who trusts Kabir? In your heart you keep feeling: who knows whether this man is in his senses or out of them? Is what he says true or false? Is it a dream or an experience? This doubt remains.
You keep trying in a thousand ways to find that somewhere Kabir has made a mistake. Because what has not happened to us—how could it happen to him? And if it hasn’t happened to an intelligent person like me, how could it happen to this uneducated Kabir!
The scholars of Kashi were very suspicious that this could not have happened to Kabir. How could it? We know so many scriptures and it hasn’t happened to us! Someone who has wealth thinks, “I have so much wealth and it hasn’t happened to me, and it happened to him? Surely something is fishy. This weaver is either deluded or his mind has gone bad!”
But people like Kabir do not listen to such people. They go on speaking and speaking. First people laugh, first people disbelieve. Then, if they still don’t accept, a few who do accept also turn up. And as Kabir keeps speaking, some begin to say, “It must have happened! A man speaks for so long…”
But no one is ready to experiment—to do what he says and see. For to experiment means to change one’s life. That is hard. It requires toil. So we listen to Kabir, collect his utterances, and then in the university we make it a topic for research and hand out doctorates. That is about all the use we make of it!
A strange thing: the very pundits who could not go to listen to Kabir, these same pundits take doctorates on Kabir in the universities and sit on high chairs. No university would be prepared to award a doctorate to Kabir himself. But hundreds become “Doctors” by researching Kabir. And not one of these doctors would be ready, were Kabir present, to go and sit with him. Because these educated, cultured people—and this Kabir, illiterate, a weaver—how could they go to him!
We feel: so many saints have been—yet why is the world empty of saintliness?
Saints cannot fill the world with saintliness. A saint can only give the news that this event is possible. And by his very presence he can attest that in his life that which is called God has happened. But with the saint it will disappear. Kabir’s lamp will break and the flame will merge into the divine. Where will you store it? Your own lamp must be lit; the flame must ignite in you.
But around saints we build sects. We raise temples, build mosques, erect gurudwaras—and then we bury the saints in them. The matter is finished. We are rid of them!
There are two ways to get rid of saints: either crucify them, or start worshiping them. Only these two strategies free you of them. The crucifier says, “The nuisance is over.” The worshiper says, “Well, we offered flowers; the nuisance is over—we are done with you. Now let us get back to our business.”
Indeed, so many saints have been, yet nowhere is any effect visible. The reason is not that what happened to the saints was untrue. The reason is that we are incurable patients. However many saints there are, we cling to our illness so tenaciously that we will ensure they fail. What you see is the result of our success—our success at defeating them. We are succeeding; and we are many, and powerful.
And the fun is that to live in ignorance requires no effort. So we live in it comfortably. To live in knowledge requires effort. Knowledge is a climb up the mountain peak. We sit at ease on level ground. Even “level” is not right—we keep rolling toward the ditch. Does it take any effort to fall into a pit?
We shirk effort. And spirituality is the greatest effort. Hence there are Buddhas, Mahaviras, Christs, Mohammeds—they get lost. We are strong; they cannot shake us. We remain immovable where we are.
Then there are a few reasons peculiar to spirituality. First: spirituality is not an outer property that can be stored. If your father dies, the house he built will be left to you; the wealth he amassed will be left in your name; any credit in the market you can use. But if your father had some experience of prayer, where will that be left! If he had a glimpse of knowledge, how will that be left! It leaves no trace on matter. It dissolves with the father. And after the father is gone it is hard even to believe that it was.
Therefore we all doubt whether a Buddha ever really happened. Did Christ truly exist or is it a story? For the happening is so outlandish, and it doesn’t appear anywhere visibly, so doubt arises; it seems it must be just a story.
That is why it is harder for us to accept a living saint than a dead one. With a dead saint there is no obstacle because we have no evidence at hand to say, “No, this did not happen.”
To accept a living saint is very difficult. We can produce twenty-five reasons for doubt: for this reason there is suspicion, for that reason there is suspicion. “You also feel hunger—then what is the difference between you and me? You also feel cold; you also get a fever—then what is the difference between you and me? Then you have no knowledge,” as if fever were afraid of knowledge! As if death did not happen to the knower!
Death happens to the knower as well. The difference is not in death; the difference is in the knower. Death comes to you, death comes to the knower; when death comes to you, you are afraid; when death comes to the knower, he is not afraid. The difference is not in death; the difference is in the knower.
Yes, if death did not come, we would accept that this man has attained supreme knowledge. But death comes even to Buddha. Krishna too dies. The body is lost in just the same way as ours. And our eyes do not penetrate deeper than the body to see that there is something more within.
So the Buddha disappears from the earth; the story remains. And gradually we even begin to doubt the story. But who will argue with a story two thousand years old!
But you will have noticed that a living master is always opposed! While the Buddha is alive there is opposition; once he dies, no one opposes.
Another curious thing: people accept dead masters. No one marries a dead wife! If you are to marry, you’ll want a living wife. Some woman two thousand years ago—no matter how beautiful she was, even if she were Amrapali, the great beauty of the world—if she lived two thousand years ago and is dead, you would not agree to marry her. Would you? You would prefer to marry a living woman today, even if she is not as beautiful. Why?
But if the master is alive, you cannot accept him. A guru dead two thousand years ago—you accept only him. Something seems amiss.
In fact, you want to be rid of the master. A dead master is good; he cannot pursue you. A living master will put you in difficulty. Therefore a dead master suits you. With a dead master you can do whatever you like. With a living master you cannot do as you please; he will do with you what he wants. Hence with a dead master friendship is possible.
No one wants a dead wife, no one wants a dead husband. Everyone wants a dead master. Because people want to escape from the master; they are engaged in evasion.
Narsi is there, Kabir is there—why worry about them! Even today, people of that very quality are present. But you will talk about them two or three hundred years later, when they are dead.
Seek those who are alive. Even now among you—they are present; the earth is never empty. In every age, in a certain proportion, just so many people attain knowledge. But your eyes are blind; you cannot see them. You can see only when the propaganda of someone’s story has gone on for two thousand years. By the time you accept, the person is long gone. And when he is there, you cannot accept him.
Those who crucified Jesus—these very people, two thousand years later, are worshiping him. That is why there is no result.
Seek a living master. Look for a living devotee. And keep only one thing in mind: it is not your concern whether he is a devotee or not; your only concern is whether, in his presence, devotion descends in you or not. If it does, know that he is. If it does not, look for someone else. But seek a living lamp, so your unlit lamp can be lit.
And the living lamp is always available. But you always hover around dead lamps. Then, when your lamp does not light, you ask, “There were Narsi, Meera, Kabir, Dadu—yet nothing happened?” They are still here; their names will be something else. Find them. And do not merely listen to their words; learn the art of living from them; learn the alchemy of changing yourself. And have a little courage to change.
Even a small change will fill your life with so much flavor that you will be ready for more.
Right now your life has nothing but sorrow and pain, nothing but gloom and despair, nothing but grief and anguish. Right now you are a living hell. If any ray of light can be found from anywhere, make an effort to bring it. If anywhere flowers can bloom, let them bloom.
But whenever you hear news of a flower from somewhere, the first thing you do is suspect that the flower cannot be real. Why? You are so filled with hell that you cannot believe there could be heaven anywhere. Heaven still lives in many hearts, but you need eyes, an open mind, a learning attitude.
Masters are always available in the world, but disciples are not always available. That is where the trouble lies. Narsi, Kabir, Dadu—these go “unsuccessful,” because to become a master is in their hands, but the disciple is in your hands.
So even if there is a master in the world but he cannot find a disciple, then the difficulty arises. No one is ready to learn. Everyone is ready to teach. For learning one has to bow down. You too are ready to teach. You too go on teaching others without caring what you are teaching.
If your son asks you, “Is there a God?” do you have the courage to say, “I don’t know”? You say, “Yes, absolutely.” And if you are an atheist, a communist, you say, “No, absolutely not.” But one thing is certain: you answer with certainty without caring whether you know anything at all. You either say yes or you say no, but you do not say, “No, I don’t know. I am incapable of teaching.”
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was walking in a garden with his son. The son asked, “Father, who made the sun?”
Mulla thought for a moment. Any father finds it difficult to admit, “I don’t know.” But Mulla was an honest man. He said, “No, my mind wants to answer, but today or tomorrow you will find out anyway. So let me be frank: I don’t know.”
They kept walking. Then the child asked, “Who is making these trees grow?” Mulla said, “I don’t know.” Then the boy asked, “When the moon rises at night, we always see the same face—why don’t we see the other side?” Mulla said, “I don’t know.”
Hearing again and again, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” the boy became dejected. Seeing his sad face, Mulla said, “Son, ask. Ask with an open heart. If you don’t ask, how will you learn?
Even if I don’t know anything, if you don’t ask, how will you learn!” We are all busy teaching, without caring whether we know or not.
A religious person begins from this: “I don’t know, and now I set out to learn.” Then he will be humble, he will be bowed down. Then wherever learning is available, he will learn.
It is learners who are lacking; that is why Kabir and Dadu go “unsuccessful.” And what we learn from them are only words—we do not learn knowledge; we memorize their words.
Kabir’s verses are memorized. Tulsidas’s couplets are memorized. People repeat them like parrots. Until the experience hidden in those verses becomes yours, the verses remain parrot-talk. Better not to repeat them. Being a parrot is not good. Until you know, remain silent. And use your energy not in talking, but in seeking. Then Kabir can succeed.
Kabir didn’t even preach. Kabir was merely giving the news that what happened to him can happen to you too. But it won’t happen just because Kabir says so. You will have to do what Kabir did; only then will it be yours.
Devotion cannot be given. Knowledge cannot be transferred. No one can hand it over—“Here, take it; here is knowledge.” The father dies and gives it to the son; the master dies and gives it to the disciple—no, it is not transferable.
The experience will die with Kabir. Those who heard Kabir and then did it themselves, within them it will be born again. But that is not Kabir’s knowledge; it is their own knowledge that will be born.
If you light your lamp from Kabir’s lamp, then yes! But not through Kabir’s propaganda, not by Kabir’s saying, not by carefully reading Kabir’s books. None of that will do. You are missing the very crux.
In this country—not just in this country, on the whole earth, in every land—there have been devotees and knowers. They said what they had found. They even spoke what cannot be spoken, made tireless efforts to bind into words that which is utterly impossible to say. They banged their heads before you. You heard as well; at first you never trusted that what they were saying could be right.
Who trusts Kabir? In your heart you keep feeling: who knows whether this man is in his senses or out of them? Is what he says true or false? Is it a dream or an experience? This doubt remains.
You keep trying in a thousand ways to find that somewhere Kabir has made a mistake. Because what has not happened to us—how could it happen to him? And if it hasn’t happened to an intelligent person like me, how could it happen to this uneducated Kabir!
The scholars of Kashi were very suspicious that this could not have happened to Kabir. How could it? We know so many scriptures and it hasn’t happened to us! Someone who has wealth thinks, “I have so much wealth and it hasn’t happened to me, and it happened to him? Surely something is fishy. This weaver is either deluded or his mind has gone bad!”
But people like Kabir do not listen to such people. They go on speaking and speaking. First people laugh, first people disbelieve. Then, if they still don’t accept, a few who do accept also turn up. And as Kabir keeps speaking, some begin to say, “It must have happened! A man speaks for so long…”
But no one is ready to experiment—to do what he says and see. For to experiment means to change one’s life. That is hard. It requires toil. So we listen to Kabir, collect his utterances, and then in the university we make it a topic for research and hand out doctorates. That is about all the use we make of it!
A strange thing: the very pundits who could not go to listen to Kabir, these same pundits take doctorates on Kabir in the universities and sit on high chairs. No university would be prepared to award a doctorate to Kabir himself. But hundreds become “Doctors” by researching Kabir. And not one of these doctors would be ready, were Kabir present, to go and sit with him. Because these educated, cultured people—and this Kabir, illiterate, a weaver—how could they go to him!
We feel: so many saints have been—yet why is the world empty of saintliness?
Saints cannot fill the world with saintliness. A saint can only give the news that this event is possible. And by his very presence he can attest that in his life that which is called God has happened. But with the saint it will disappear. Kabir’s lamp will break and the flame will merge into the divine. Where will you store it? Your own lamp must be lit; the flame must ignite in you.
But around saints we build sects. We raise temples, build mosques, erect gurudwaras—and then we bury the saints in them. The matter is finished. We are rid of them!
There are two ways to get rid of saints: either crucify them, or start worshiping them. Only these two strategies free you of them. The crucifier says, “The nuisance is over.” The worshiper says, “Well, we offered flowers; the nuisance is over—we are done with you. Now let us get back to our business.”
Indeed, so many saints have been, yet nowhere is any effect visible. The reason is not that what happened to the saints was untrue. The reason is that we are incurable patients. However many saints there are, we cling to our illness so tenaciously that we will ensure they fail. What you see is the result of our success—our success at defeating them. We are succeeding; and we are many, and powerful.
And the fun is that to live in ignorance requires no effort. So we live in it comfortably. To live in knowledge requires effort. Knowledge is a climb up the mountain peak. We sit at ease on level ground. Even “level” is not right—we keep rolling toward the ditch. Does it take any effort to fall into a pit?
We shirk effort. And spirituality is the greatest effort. Hence there are Buddhas, Mahaviras, Christs, Mohammeds—they get lost. We are strong; they cannot shake us. We remain immovable where we are.
Then there are a few reasons peculiar to spirituality. First: spirituality is not an outer property that can be stored. If your father dies, the house he built will be left to you; the wealth he amassed will be left in your name; any credit in the market you can use. But if your father had some experience of prayer, where will that be left! If he had a glimpse of knowledge, how will that be left! It leaves no trace on matter. It dissolves with the father. And after the father is gone it is hard even to believe that it was.
Therefore we all doubt whether a Buddha ever really happened. Did Christ truly exist or is it a story? For the happening is so outlandish, and it doesn’t appear anywhere visibly, so doubt arises; it seems it must be just a story.
That is why it is harder for us to accept a living saint than a dead one. With a dead saint there is no obstacle because we have no evidence at hand to say, “No, this did not happen.”
To accept a living saint is very difficult. We can produce twenty-five reasons for doubt: for this reason there is suspicion, for that reason there is suspicion. “You also feel hunger—then what is the difference between you and me? You also feel cold; you also get a fever—then what is the difference between you and me? Then you have no knowledge,” as if fever were afraid of knowledge! As if death did not happen to the knower!
Death happens to the knower as well. The difference is not in death; the difference is in the knower. Death comes to you, death comes to the knower; when death comes to you, you are afraid; when death comes to the knower, he is not afraid. The difference is not in death; the difference is in the knower.
Yes, if death did not come, we would accept that this man has attained supreme knowledge. But death comes even to Buddha. Krishna too dies. The body is lost in just the same way as ours. And our eyes do not penetrate deeper than the body to see that there is something more within.
So the Buddha disappears from the earth; the story remains. And gradually we even begin to doubt the story. But who will argue with a story two thousand years old!
But you will have noticed that a living master is always opposed! While the Buddha is alive there is opposition; once he dies, no one opposes.
Another curious thing: people accept dead masters. No one marries a dead wife! If you are to marry, you’ll want a living wife. Some woman two thousand years ago—no matter how beautiful she was, even if she were Amrapali, the great beauty of the world—if she lived two thousand years ago and is dead, you would not agree to marry her. Would you? You would prefer to marry a living woman today, even if she is not as beautiful. Why?
But if the master is alive, you cannot accept him. A guru dead two thousand years ago—you accept only him. Something seems amiss.
In fact, you want to be rid of the master. A dead master is good; he cannot pursue you. A living master will put you in difficulty. Therefore a dead master suits you. With a dead master you can do whatever you like. With a living master you cannot do as you please; he will do with you what he wants. Hence with a dead master friendship is possible.
No one wants a dead wife, no one wants a dead husband. Everyone wants a dead master. Because people want to escape from the master; they are engaged in evasion.
Narsi is there, Kabir is there—why worry about them! Even today, people of that very quality are present. But you will talk about them two or three hundred years later, when they are dead.
Seek those who are alive. Even now among you—they are present; the earth is never empty. In every age, in a certain proportion, just so many people attain knowledge. But your eyes are blind; you cannot see them. You can see only when the propaganda of someone’s story has gone on for two thousand years. By the time you accept, the person is long gone. And when he is there, you cannot accept him.
Those who crucified Jesus—these very people, two thousand years later, are worshiping him. That is why there is no result.
Seek a living master. Look for a living devotee. And keep only one thing in mind: it is not your concern whether he is a devotee or not; your only concern is whether, in his presence, devotion descends in you or not. If it does, know that he is. If it does not, look for someone else. But seek a living lamp, so your unlit lamp can be lit.
And the living lamp is always available. But you always hover around dead lamps. Then, when your lamp does not light, you ask, “There were Narsi, Meera, Kabir, Dadu—yet nothing happened?” They are still here; their names will be something else. Find them. And do not merely listen to their words; learn the art of living from them; learn the alchemy of changing yourself. And have a little courage to change.
Even a small change will fill your life with so much flavor that you will be ready for more.
Right now your life has nothing but sorrow and pain, nothing but gloom and despair, nothing but grief and anguish. Right now you are a living hell. If any ray of light can be found from anywhere, make an effort to bring it. If anywhere flowers can bloom, let them bloom.
But whenever you hear news of a flower from somewhere, the first thing you do is suspect that the flower cannot be real. Why? You are so filled with hell that you cannot believe there could be heaven anywhere. Heaven still lives in many hearts, but you need eyes, an open mind, a learning attitude.
Masters are always available in the world, but disciples are not always available. That is where the trouble lies. Narsi, Kabir, Dadu—these go “unsuccessful,” because to become a master is in their hands, but the disciple is in your hands.
So even if there is a master in the world but he cannot find a disciple, then the difficulty arises. No one is ready to learn. Everyone is ready to teach. For learning one has to bow down. You too are ready to teach. You too go on teaching others without caring what you are teaching.
If your son asks you, “Is there a God?” do you have the courage to say, “I don’t know”? You say, “Yes, absolutely.” And if you are an atheist, a communist, you say, “No, absolutely not.” But one thing is certain: you answer with certainty without caring whether you know anything at all. You either say yes or you say no, but you do not say, “No, I don’t know. I am incapable of teaching.”
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was walking in a garden with his son. The son asked, “Father, who made the sun?”
Mulla thought for a moment. Any father finds it difficult to admit, “I don’t know.” But Mulla was an honest man. He said, “No, my mind wants to answer, but today or tomorrow you will find out anyway. So let me be frank: I don’t know.”
They kept walking. Then the child asked, “Who is making these trees grow?” Mulla said, “I don’t know.” Then the boy asked, “When the moon rises at night, we always see the same face—why don’t we see the other side?” Mulla said, “I don’t know.”
Hearing again and again, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” the boy became dejected. Seeing his sad face, Mulla said, “Son, ask. Ask with an open heart. If you don’t ask, how will you learn?
Even if I don’t know anything, if you don’t ask, how will you learn!” We are all busy teaching, without caring whether we know or not.
A religious person begins from this: “I don’t know, and now I set out to learn.” Then he will be humble, he will be bowed down. Then wherever learning is available, he will learn.
It is learners who are lacking; that is why Kabir and Dadu go “unsuccessful.” And what we learn from them are only words—we do not learn knowledge; we memorize their words.
Kabir’s verses are memorized. Tulsidas’s couplets are memorized. People repeat them like parrots. Until the experience hidden in those verses becomes yours, the verses remain parrot-talk. Better not to repeat them. Being a parrot is not good. Until you know, remain silent. And use your energy not in talking, but in seeking. Then Kabir can succeed.
A friend has asked: Osho, a person is born with his destiny; so if the search for God is in one’s destiny, it will happen. If it is not, it won’t!
This view can be meaningful, and it can be dangerous. It is meaningful only if you bring the same outlook to every aspect of life. Then do not seek happiness either; if it is to come, it will come. Then do not try to avoid suffering; if it has to be lived through, you will have to live through it. Then whatever happens in life, accept it; and what does not happen, accept that too as something not meant to happen. Then I would tell you: do not seek God either. God will come seeking you. But then your trust in destiny must be so deep that whatever happens is okay.
If you apply this only to God while continuing to chase after wealth, that is dishonesty. About wealth you say, “Without effort what will happen? If we don’t search, how will we get it? Those who seek are getting it. If we sit with folded hands, we will lose out.” So you keep searching for money—because how will money come without effort? But when it comes to seeking God, you say, “It’s all a matter of fate. If it is to happen, it will happen; if not, it won’t.” Then it is deception, self-delusion.
So I say: if someone accepts destiny totally, he does not need to seek God—God will seek him. But understand what it means to accept destiny totally: then don’t seek anything at all. Drop the very idea that anything is in your hands to do. Then let whatever happens, happen—let whatever happens, happen. Do not do anything from your side.
If a person abandons himself so utterly to destiny, surrender has happened. Even if he has no idea of God, God has already met him—this very moment. No barrier remains.
But let it not be a legalistic trick. Let it not be some legal loophole of ours. We are great lawyers, and we devise endless such stratagems!
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was ill, close to death. Nasruddin called a doctor. Seeing the dangerous illness, the doctor said, “The treatment will be rather expensive.” Nasruddin said, “However expensive, I will pay—I'll sell my whole house if needed. But save her.” The doctor said, “It is also possible she may not survive.” Nasruddin said, “Whether you save her or you kill her, whatever the expense, I will pay.”
The doctor began treatment. After seven days the wife died; a lot had been spent. The doctor sent the bill. Nasruddin said, “Let us do this: let us go to the village priest.” The doctor asked, “What do you mean?” Nasruddin said, “I am a poor man; we will do whatever the priest decides about this bill.”
They went to the priest. Before the priest Nasruddin said, “Doctor, tell him—what was our agreement?” The doctor said, “Our agreement was that whether I save her or kill her, in both cases you will pay the fee.” Nasruddin said, “Did you save my wife?” The doctor said, “No.” “Did you kill my wife?” “No.” Nasruddin said, “Then on what basis are you demanding this money? You neither saved her nor killed her. And I had said: whether you save or you kill—only in those two cases I will pay.”
We do the same thing every day, contriving legal arrangements.
Did this idea of destiny occur to you only when it came to seeking God—or had it occurred to you anywhere else before?
In truth, whatever we want to avoid seeking, we dump onto destiny; and whatever we do want to seek, we keep in our own hands. And then we also manage to look as if, “We do want to seek—but if it is not in our fate, what can we do!”
Consent on one side—consent totally—and stop inventing tricks; then seeking the divine is not even necessary.
Destiny is a profound device for finding the divine—you may not have thought of it this way. Fatalism has nothing to do with fate; it has to do with a method of seeking God. So those who keep asking whether fate really exists or not have not understood. It is a device, a method for the search for the divine, a method for attaining supreme peace in the world.
A person who leaves everything to destiny cannot be disturbed. Whether destiny truly exists or not is not the question; it is irrelevant. It is simply a device: the one who leaves everything to destiny has attained everything. Nothing can be taken away from him. His peace becomes ultimate; his joy becomes unbroken. And if God is, God will be found by him; whatever is, will be available to him—because he has dropped the very language of nonattainment. And even if God does not meet him, there will still be no restlessness. That is the marvel: he has no restlessness at all. He will say, “What is in destiny will happen.”
But this is a very deep matter. Do not think you are a fatalist just because you show your palm to some astrologer sitting at a crossroads. Don’t imagine that makes you a fatalist. If you really were one, you could not possibly trust that crossroads astrologer who reads your fate for a few coins.
The fatalist’s hand is being read by God himself; he needs no middlemen. And what can such a middleman tell you for a few coins? How much can he tell? And you don’t even know that this poor fellow goes to another astrologer to have his own palm read!
I have heard of two astrologers who lived close by. Every morning as they set out for work, they would ask each other, “What do you think about me today? How will business be today?”
Once an astrologer came to me—a friend had brought him. He was very expensive; he would not look at a hand for less than one thousand and one rupees. My friend insisted I must show my hand; he would pay the fee. I said, “If a hand is to be shown, I will pay, not you.”
I showed him my hand. After looking, he said many things. Then he began waiting for the money. I said to him, “You could not even read from my hand that this man is not going to pay you! You have worked so hard! Did you look at your own hand before leaving home? In the morning you should check how much you will receive or not—because you are not going to receive this. It is not in your fate.”
The man began pleading: “Then give at least five hundred.” Then he agreed even to a hundred: “I have come from so far!” I said, “Fate does not change so easily—from a thousand to five hundred, to a hundred! It is simply not in your destiny!”
The person who shows his palm to an astrologer is not a fatalist. A fatalist will not go to priests or tantrics, because he is saying, “What is to happen will happen; there is no way to change it.”
A tantric says, “Complete this mantra, perform this worship, waste these five hundred rupees—do this, and your fate will change.” That which can change is not fate at all. And remember: that which cannot change cannot be known either, because the very act of knowing begins to bring change. Knowing itself is a change.
If you were to come to know that tomorrow morning you will die, then the life that would have been lived until tomorrow morning without that knowledge cannot be lived after knowing it. There will be a difference. The awareness that you will die tomorrow morning will change your whole night. This night can no longer be the same as the sleep you would have had without knowing. Now you cannot sleep.
The fatalist holds that whatever will happen, will happen. There is no means to do anything. The doer has no power. It is the play of the vastness; I am merely a limb of it—just a wave upon the ocean. Nothing is mine to be.
Such an understanding is a method, a device. One who goes deep into it has nothing left to seek—not even God. God himself comes seeking him.
But remember: it will not happen that you seek everything else and God seeks you. If you are to seek everything else, then you will have to seek God too. If you seek nothing at all, he will find you.
If you apply this only to God while continuing to chase after wealth, that is dishonesty. About wealth you say, “Without effort what will happen? If we don’t search, how will we get it? Those who seek are getting it. If we sit with folded hands, we will lose out.” So you keep searching for money—because how will money come without effort? But when it comes to seeking God, you say, “It’s all a matter of fate. If it is to happen, it will happen; if not, it won’t.” Then it is deception, self-delusion.
So I say: if someone accepts destiny totally, he does not need to seek God—God will seek him. But understand what it means to accept destiny totally: then don’t seek anything at all. Drop the very idea that anything is in your hands to do. Then let whatever happens, happen—let whatever happens, happen. Do not do anything from your side.
If a person abandons himself so utterly to destiny, surrender has happened. Even if he has no idea of God, God has already met him—this very moment. No barrier remains.
But let it not be a legalistic trick. Let it not be some legal loophole of ours. We are great lawyers, and we devise endless such stratagems!
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was ill, close to death. Nasruddin called a doctor. Seeing the dangerous illness, the doctor said, “The treatment will be rather expensive.” Nasruddin said, “However expensive, I will pay—I'll sell my whole house if needed. But save her.” The doctor said, “It is also possible she may not survive.” Nasruddin said, “Whether you save her or you kill her, whatever the expense, I will pay.”
The doctor began treatment. After seven days the wife died; a lot had been spent. The doctor sent the bill. Nasruddin said, “Let us do this: let us go to the village priest.” The doctor asked, “What do you mean?” Nasruddin said, “I am a poor man; we will do whatever the priest decides about this bill.”
They went to the priest. Before the priest Nasruddin said, “Doctor, tell him—what was our agreement?” The doctor said, “Our agreement was that whether I save her or kill her, in both cases you will pay the fee.” Nasruddin said, “Did you save my wife?” The doctor said, “No.” “Did you kill my wife?” “No.” Nasruddin said, “Then on what basis are you demanding this money? You neither saved her nor killed her. And I had said: whether you save or you kill—only in those two cases I will pay.”
We do the same thing every day, contriving legal arrangements.
Did this idea of destiny occur to you only when it came to seeking God—or had it occurred to you anywhere else before?
In truth, whatever we want to avoid seeking, we dump onto destiny; and whatever we do want to seek, we keep in our own hands. And then we also manage to look as if, “We do want to seek—but if it is not in our fate, what can we do!”
Consent on one side—consent totally—and stop inventing tricks; then seeking the divine is not even necessary.
Destiny is a profound device for finding the divine—you may not have thought of it this way. Fatalism has nothing to do with fate; it has to do with a method of seeking God. So those who keep asking whether fate really exists or not have not understood. It is a device, a method for the search for the divine, a method for attaining supreme peace in the world.
A person who leaves everything to destiny cannot be disturbed. Whether destiny truly exists or not is not the question; it is irrelevant. It is simply a device: the one who leaves everything to destiny has attained everything. Nothing can be taken away from him. His peace becomes ultimate; his joy becomes unbroken. And if God is, God will be found by him; whatever is, will be available to him—because he has dropped the very language of nonattainment. And even if God does not meet him, there will still be no restlessness. That is the marvel: he has no restlessness at all. He will say, “What is in destiny will happen.”
But this is a very deep matter. Do not think you are a fatalist just because you show your palm to some astrologer sitting at a crossroads. Don’t imagine that makes you a fatalist. If you really were one, you could not possibly trust that crossroads astrologer who reads your fate for a few coins.
The fatalist’s hand is being read by God himself; he needs no middlemen. And what can such a middleman tell you for a few coins? How much can he tell? And you don’t even know that this poor fellow goes to another astrologer to have his own palm read!
I have heard of two astrologers who lived close by. Every morning as they set out for work, they would ask each other, “What do you think about me today? How will business be today?”
Once an astrologer came to me—a friend had brought him. He was very expensive; he would not look at a hand for less than one thousand and one rupees. My friend insisted I must show my hand; he would pay the fee. I said, “If a hand is to be shown, I will pay, not you.”
I showed him my hand. After looking, he said many things. Then he began waiting for the money. I said to him, “You could not even read from my hand that this man is not going to pay you! You have worked so hard! Did you look at your own hand before leaving home? In the morning you should check how much you will receive or not—because you are not going to receive this. It is not in your fate.”
The man began pleading: “Then give at least five hundred.” Then he agreed even to a hundred: “I have come from so far!” I said, “Fate does not change so easily—from a thousand to five hundred, to a hundred! It is simply not in your destiny!”
The person who shows his palm to an astrologer is not a fatalist. A fatalist will not go to priests or tantrics, because he is saying, “What is to happen will happen; there is no way to change it.”
A tantric says, “Complete this mantra, perform this worship, waste these five hundred rupees—do this, and your fate will change.” That which can change is not fate at all. And remember: that which cannot change cannot be known either, because the very act of knowing begins to bring change. Knowing itself is a change.
If you were to come to know that tomorrow morning you will die, then the life that would have been lived until tomorrow morning without that knowledge cannot be lived after knowing it. There will be a difference. The awareness that you will die tomorrow morning will change your whole night. This night can no longer be the same as the sleep you would have had without knowing. Now you cannot sleep.
The fatalist holds that whatever will happen, will happen. There is no means to do anything. The doer has no power. It is the play of the vastness; I am merely a limb of it—just a wave upon the ocean. Nothing is mine to be.
Such an understanding is a method, a device. One who goes deep into it has nothing left to seek—not even God. God himself comes seeking him.
But remember: it will not happen that you seek everything else and God seeks you. If you are to seek everything else, then you will have to seek God too. If you seek nothing at all, he will find you.
But many people ask—one friend even asked today—how to be free of the ego?
You won’t get rid of the ego directly. Grow love. As love grows, the ego will begin to dissolve. For the very energy that becomes ego is the energy that becomes love. In both love and ego, the same force is at work. So if you are very egoistic, don’t be discouraged. A great capacity for love lies hidden within you. Do not be disheartened; you have a vast source. If this same energy is freed, it will turn into love.
But don’t fight the ego head-on. Whatever you do directly against it will not erase it. Begin instead to expand toward love. Start letting love spread from anywhere. Wherever your inclination goes, let love flow in that direction. Keep just one thing in mind: don’t let it stop. Let it go on increasing. Let its boundaries widen as much as they can. In that widening, one day you will suddenly find the wound of ego has vanished. You are filled with love, and no sense of “I” remains.
Equal in the reception of happiness and sorrow…
Happiness comes; sorrow also comes. But you likely haven’t noticed that happiness and sorrow are two faces of the same coin. Hidden behind happiness is sorrow—its inseparable companion. And there is no way to divorce the two. They always come together; their pair never breaks. When sorrow arrives, happiness is concealed behind it. But our eyes are narrow: we notice only what is happening in front, not what stands hidden behind.
Next time you are rejoicing, be alert: when happiness comes, know that sorrow linked to it must follow. And within an hour or two you will find that sorrow has arrived. The quality of that sorrow will be exactly of the same nature as the happiness you enjoyed.
Behind every sorrow is its happiness, and behind every happiness its sorrow—like the two sides of a coin.
We never pay attention. We’ve never observed. Otherwise you would recognize: every happiness has an inevitable sorrow; every sorrow has an inevitable happiness. They come together; you never get one alone. If you want to lessen your sorrow, you will have to lessen your happiness. If you want to increase your happiness, you will have to increase your sorrow.
Thus, an astonishing thing has happened on this earth. As comfort increases, sorrow also increases. Science has devised many means for comfort, and indeed human comfort has grown. But man has never been as miserable as he is today. People think this is a contradiction. If science has increased comfort so much, why is man so unhappy? Precisely for this reason. There is no contradiction. As happiness increases, sorrow increases in the same proportion. They grow together.
A villager suffers less because he is less comfortable. A tribal person is less unhappy; you can see that. But note the other fact too: he is also less happy. A wealthy man is more happy—and more unhappy. A beggar is less happy—and less unhappy.
In the measure that happiness grows, sorrow grows. It is its shadow. You cannot run from it; you cannot avoid it.
The day a person sees that happiness and sorrow are two aspects of the same thing, that day he becomes equanimous. Then he says, “To desire happiness and to avoid sorrow is foolish.”
It is like loving your beloved but not wanting her shadow to come with her—and then being upset at the shadow. You say, “The shadow should not come; only my beloved should come.” But the shadow comes with the beloved; it must. If you do not want the shadow, you will have to reduce your desire for the beloved. And if you insist on the beloved, you will need to accept the shadow as well. There are only these two ways.
In both cases, intelligence becomes even. Either do not desire happiness if you wish to avoid sorrow; or if you insist on happiness, then embrace sorrow on the same basis. The day your wanting and not-wanting of both become equal, you become equanimous.
Krishna says: the one who is even in the reception of happiness and sorrow becomes available to the divine.
Forgiving—the one who grants fearlessness even to the offender.
Forgiveness is very difficult. Why so difficult? You cannot forgive anyone. Why? Because you do not know yourself—therefore you cannot forgive.
Consider this: all the things for which you get angry at others—have you noticed that those very things are hidden in you as well? Someone erupts in anger and you say, “Bad.” But have you considered that anger lives in you too? Someone steals and you say, “Sin!” You raise a big outcry. But have you considered that the thief is present within you as well? Perhaps he is such a skillful thief that even you cannot catch him. The police cannot catch him, and you cannot catch him either. But is the impulse to steal not present within?
Someone commits murder; you are outraged. But have you not wanted to kill many times? That you did not is another matter—there could be a thousand reasons: no opportunity, no courage, no favorable time. But you have wanted to kill. You have wanted to steal.
What sin is there that you have not wanted to commit? Whether you did it or not is secondary. And if every sin occurring on earth is something you too have desired, could have done, are capable of, then why be so enraged at the other?
Psychologists say something paradoxical: if someone vehemently opposes theft, understand that a fairly big thief is hidden within him. If someone rages like a madman against lust, know that lust is hidden within him. Why? Because by opposing that thing outside, he is also trying to suppress it within. He shouts at the other and gets angry so that it becomes easier to push it down in himself.
Whatever you oppose with great intensity—watch closely—somewhere in your unconscious it lies repressed. That is why you oppose it so loudly.
The more a person engages in self-observation, the more forgiving he becomes. He finds there is no sin he is incapable of committing, no mistake he could not make. Then what is the point of being so angry with the other? He is just like you—another form of you. What is hidden in you is hidden in him.
Thus the feeling of forgiveness arises. Forgiveness does not mean you are great and therefore you forgive. That forgiveness is hollow; it is a part of the ego.
True forgiveness means you see that all of humanity is in you, and whatever a human being can do, you are capable of too. That’s the first thing—from which forgiveness comes. The second: just as the lowest is hidden within you, the highest is hidden within the other as well. When these two understandings dawn—“the vilest is in me,” and “the noblest is in the other”—forgiveness is born in your life.
Right now we do the opposite. We assume the best is in us, and the worst always in the other. We look at the other’s bad side and our own good side. From this comes great misery, great chaos. See both.
In the hell where you see the other standing, you too are standing somewhere. And in the heaven you believe you can be—or are—the other can be as well. Then forgiveness will arise in your life. And this forgiveness will be natural. It will not forge any ego that “I forgave.”
And the yogi who is established in yoga, ever content in gain and loss, who has brought body, senses, and mind under control, firm in resolve in me—the devotee who has offered mind and intellect to me—is dear to me.
What is dear to the Divine is the very doorway to reach him. Cultivate these qualities if you wish to seek him. Go deep into these qualities if you desire one day to be united with him. Even if you do not concern yourself with God directly, it will be resolved. If these qualities arise, the Divine will be realized.
But don’t fight the ego head-on. Whatever you do directly against it will not erase it. Begin instead to expand toward love. Start letting love spread from anywhere. Wherever your inclination goes, let love flow in that direction. Keep just one thing in mind: don’t let it stop. Let it go on increasing. Let its boundaries widen as much as they can. In that widening, one day you will suddenly find the wound of ego has vanished. You are filled with love, and no sense of “I” remains.
Equal in the reception of happiness and sorrow…
Happiness comes; sorrow also comes. But you likely haven’t noticed that happiness and sorrow are two faces of the same coin. Hidden behind happiness is sorrow—its inseparable companion. And there is no way to divorce the two. They always come together; their pair never breaks. When sorrow arrives, happiness is concealed behind it. But our eyes are narrow: we notice only what is happening in front, not what stands hidden behind.
Next time you are rejoicing, be alert: when happiness comes, know that sorrow linked to it must follow. And within an hour or two you will find that sorrow has arrived. The quality of that sorrow will be exactly of the same nature as the happiness you enjoyed.
Behind every sorrow is its happiness, and behind every happiness its sorrow—like the two sides of a coin.
We never pay attention. We’ve never observed. Otherwise you would recognize: every happiness has an inevitable sorrow; every sorrow has an inevitable happiness. They come together; you never get one alone. If you want to lessen your sorrow, you will have to lessen your happiness. If you want to increase your happiness, you will have to increase your sorrow.
Thus, an astonishing thing has happened on this earth. As comfort increases, sorrow also increases. Science has devised many means for comfort, and indeed human comfort has grown. But man has never been as miserable as he is today. People think this is a contradiction. If science has increased comfort so much, why is man so unhappy? Precisely for this reason. There is no contradiction. As happiness increases, sorrow increases in the same proportion. They grow together.
A villager suffers less because he is less comfortable. A tribal person is less unhappy; you can see that. But note the other fact too: he is also less happy. A wealthy man is more happy—and more unhappy. A beggar is less happy—and less unhappy.
In the measure that happiness grows, sorrow grows. It is its shadow. You cannot run from it; you cannot avoid it.
The day a person sees that happiness and sorrow are two aspects of the same thing, that day he becomes equanimous. Then he says, “To desire happiness and to avoid sorrow is foolish.”
It is like loving your beloved but not wanting her shadow to come with her—and then being upset at the shadow. You say, “The shadow should not come; only my beloved should come.” But the shadow comes with the beloved; it must. If you do not want the shadow, you will have to reduce your desire for the beloved. And if you insist on the beloved, you will need to accept the shadow as well. There are only these two ways.
In both cases, intelligence becomes even. Either do not desire happiness if you wish to avoid sorrow; or if you insist on happiness, then embrace sorrow on the same basis. The day your wanting and not-wanting of both become equal, you become equanimous.
Krishna says: the one who is even in the reception of happiness and sorrow becomes available to the divine.
Forgiving—the one who grants fearlessness even to the offender.
Forgiveness is very difficult. Why so difficult? You cannot forgive anyone. Why? Because you do not know yourself—therefore you cannot forgive.
Consider this: all the things for which you get angry at others—have you noticed that those very things are hidden in you as well? Someone erupts in anger and you say, “Bad.” But have you considered that anger lives in you too? Someone steals and you say, “Sin!” You raise a big outcry. But have you considered that the thief is present within you as well? Perhaps he is such a skillful thief that even you cannot catch him. The police cannot catch him, and you cannot catch him either. But is the impulse to steal not present within?
Someone commits murder; you are outraged. But have you not wanted to kill many times? That you did not is another matter—there could be a thousand reasons: no opportunity, no courage, no favorable time. But you have wanted to kill. You have wanted to steal.
What sin is there that you have not wanted to commit? Whether you did it or not is secondary. And if every sin occurring on earth is something you too have desired, could have done, are capable of, then why be so enraged at the other?
Psychologists say something paradoxical: if someone vehemently opposes theft, understand that a fairly big thief is hidden within him. If someone rages like a madman against lust, know that lust is hidden within him. Why? Because by opposing that thing outside, he is also trying to suppress it within. He shouts at the other and gets angry so that it becomes easier to push it down in himself.
Whatever you oppose with great intensity—watch closely—somewhere in your unconscious it lies repressed. That is why you oppose it so loudly.
The more a person engages in self-observation, the more forgiving he becomes. He finds there is no sin he is incapable of committing, no mistake he could not make. Then what is the point of being so angry with the other? He is just like you—another form of you. What is hidden in you is hidden in him.
Thus the feeling of forgiveness arises. Forgiveness does not mean you are great and therefore you forgive. That forgiveness is hollow; it is a part of the ego.
True forgiveness means you see that all of humanity is in you, and whatever a human being can do, you are capable of too. That’s the first thing—from which forgiveness comes. The second: just as the lowest is hidden within you, the highest is hidden within the other as well. When these two understandings dawn—“the vilest is in me,” and “the noblest is in the other”—forgiveness is born in your life.
Right now we do the opposite. We assume the best is in us, and the worst always in the other. We look at the other’s bad side and our own good side. From this comes great misery, great chaos. See both.
In the hell where you see the other standing, you too are standing somewhere. And in the heaven you believe you can be—or are—the other can be as well. Then forgiveness will arise in your life. And this forgiveness will be natural. It will not forge any ego that “I forgave.”
And the yogi who is established in yoga, ever content in gain and loss, who has brought body, senses, and mind under control, firm in resolve in me—the devotee who has offered mind and intellect to me—is dear to me.
What is dear to the Divine is the very doorway to reach him. Cultivate these qualities if you wish to seek him. Go deep into these qualities if you desire one day to be united with him. Even if you do not concern yourself with God directly, it will be resolved. If these qualities arise, the Divine will be realized.
A friend has asked: if we simply live a right life, would we not meet the Divine?
Certainly it will happen. But a right life! The very meaning of a right life is dharma. And all these methods being given are precisely for a right life.
A friend has asked: What need is there for religion if we live a right life?
A right life simply does not happen without religion. The very meaning of a right life is a religious life. It is only a matter of words. No harm—call it a right life or call it a religious life. But what does a right life mean?
These virtues that Krishna has spoken of—these are the right life: egolessness; a spontaneous, causeless love for all; forgiveness; a one-pointed mind. If such happenings occur even without God—they have occurred. Mahavira does not believe in God. Buddha does not even believe in the soul. Yet Mahavira attained godliness. Those who do not believe in God—people have called them “God.” Buddha accepts neither soul nor Supreme Soul. And there has not been, on this earth, anyone as pure as Buddha, any flower so fully blossomed.
A right life is sufficient. But this is what it means. A right life is an opening to God. It is the right life that he loves. In a not-right life we stand with our backs turned; in a right life our face turns toward God. To turn toward him—that is the right life. Or, when the right life happens, that turning comes of itself. As we are now, we are turned away.
Wait for five minutes. No one should get up midway. Leave only after completing the kirtan.
These virtues that Krishna has spoken of—these are the right life: egolessness; a spontaneous, causeless love for all; forgiveness; a one-pointed mind. If such happenings occur even without God—they have occurred. Mahavira does not believe in God. Buddha does not even believe in the soul. Yet Mahavira attained godliness. Those who do not believe in God—people have called them “God.” Buddha accepts neither soul nor Supreme Soul. And there has not been, on this earth, anyone as pure as Buddha, any flower so fully blossomed.
A right life is sufficient. But this is what it means. A right life is an opening to God. It is the right life that he loves. In a not-right life we stand with our backs turned; in a right life our face turns toward God. To turn toward him—that is the right life. Or, when the right life happens, that turning comes of itself. As we are now, we are turned away.
Wait for five minutes. No one should get up midway. Leave only after completing the kirtan.
Osho's Commentary
Such a one, established in peace — who holds no hatred toward any being, who is selfless, the lover of all; compassionate without motive; free of possessiveness and free of ego; equal in the meeting of pleasure and pain, and forgiving — giving even the offender fearlessness; the yogi yoked to yoga, ever content in gain and in loss; who has brought body, senses and mind under mastery; who is firm in his resolve in me — such a devotee, with mind and intelligence offered into me, is dear to me.
What is dear to Paramatma? This question has been asked thousands upon thousands of times over thousands of years.
What is dear to Paramatma? Because what is dear to him — that is the path for us. What does he love? Ah, if only we could know this, then we too could become his beloved. How does he want us to be? When will he be able to love us? When will he deem us worthy of his embrace? What is his leaning? What is his taste? What does he delight in? If this is known, the way is known.
What is dear to Paramatma? There is much here to ponder.
It does not mean that toward those who are dear to him he will be partial; and toward those who are not dear, he will discriminate. It does not mean that. Otherwise a doubt arises that the one dear to him — his sins will be forgiven, his transgressions pardoned; and the one not dear to him — even if he does merit, he will not receive any reward.
No; it is not so. Understand the meaning of being dear to Paramatma. Being dear to Paramatma means an eternal law — rit. Lao Tzu called it Tao. The meaning is only this: he is available to us every moment; but when we are in a certain inner posture, then we are open to him, receptive — and he enters within. And when we are not in that particular posture, he remains standing right by us, unable to enter, because we create the obstruction.
Just as the sun has arisen and I am standing with my eyes closed. The sun may rise — I will remain standing in darkness. The rays dance upon my very eyelids, and light is so near; just the blink of an eye, and I would be filled with light. But with closed eyes, I remain in darkness.
To say that the sun loves open eyes — understand its meaning. It simply means: if the eyes are open, the sun can enter; if closed, the sun cannot enter. And the sun is not aggressive — it will not pry your eyes open by force. It is non-aggressive.
Love will, of necessity, be non-aggressive. Your eyes too can be forced open — the sun could strike and wrench them open — but nothing in the arrangements of existence is aggressive. It will wait for you. The sun will wait — open your eyes when you will, and then the light will pour in.
This is the meaning of being dear to Paramatma — a certain mode of being in which we are open, receptive, available, and Paramatma can enter within. And there is another mode of being in which we are closed — all doors and windows padlocked — and Paramatma circles outside; he cannot enter within.
In this sutra Krishna says what that mode is which is dear to Paramatma — how you must become so that he will enter you. Let us understand.
The man who has attained peace!
What happens in a restless mind? A restless mind is engrossed in itself. Look at people walking on the road. The more restless a man, the more he walks as if unconscious. Many go along conversing with themselves. Lips move; hands gesture. With whom are they talking? There is no one there. Only with themselves — waves of inner disturbance are moving.
If you too sit for ten minutes and write down whatever goes on within your mind, you will be frightened yourself: What is this that is running inside me! You will feel, I am mad! You never tell anyone what goes on inside you. Not even to the one you love do you tell what runs within.
Psychologists say: if a person were to tell all that goes on inside him, then it would be difficult to find a friend in this world. You keep everything suppressed; outside you allow only a tiny glimpse. Even that becomes painful enough. So you keep it held in.
This storm of inner unrest — this is a wall. Because of it you cannot be joined with Paramatma. Between you and Paramatma there is a storm — of restlessness, of thought, of distraction, of madness. Let it fall away.
Krishna says: established in peace!
And peace is attained only in two ways — either you move through meditation and become thought-free; or you move through love and become filled with devotion. Either all thought disappears; or all thought, dissolving in love, becomes love — only love remains, thoughts are lost. Either all thoughts melt into love; or all thoughts evaporate like steam, and within remains a void, a quiet state.
The man who harbors no ill will toward any being...
And the moment one is quiet, hatred disappears. Or understand it upside down as well: the moment hatred disappears, one becomes quiet. As long as you hate someone, peace is impossible — for the very one you hate becomes the cause of inner unrest.
Selfless, the lover of all, compassionate without motive...
What is our unrest? Self-interest. Twenty-four hours we think only in the language of our own benefit.
I have heard: on the day Jesus was crucified, in that village a man had a toothache. And the road along which they were taking Jesus to the cross passed by his house. He knew everyone in the village. All were going to see. The whole village was astir — today Jesus is being crucified. Whoever from the village passed by — that man had tears in his eyes, he was groaning in pain, because his tooth ached.
People asked him, Ah, are you also a lover of Jesus? He said, let Jesus go to hell; my tooth aches. The whole village passed that way. And everyone said, We never imagined you had any attachment to Jesus! He said, What Jesus! What are you talking about! My tooth aches; I have not slept all night.
Jesus is being crucified — that bears no value at all. His tooth aches — that is valuable!
Thousands have been dying in Vietnam — that is not the question. A tiny thorn pricks your foot — that is valuable. Whatever goes on upon the whole earth — your pocket is picked, and everything is ruined!
We live centered in self-interest. The stronger the center of self-interest, the more the unrest. The more one thinks in reference to oneself, the more one will be troubled. The less one thinks in reference to oneself, the less the trouble becomes. One who looks at this vast world all around — its pains, its joys, its sorrows — such a one hardly even finds an occasion to think that a thorn is in his foot. The intelligence of self-interest breeds unrest.
Therefore some, like Jesus, emphasized seva, service, greatly. For this very reason. Not because service will benefit the other — it will, but that is secondary. He stressed service so that you might forget yourself. And if concern for yourself begins to be forgotten, that becomes surrender.
So Krishna says: the selfless one is open to Paramatma. He who is full of self-interest is closed.
In the twenty-four hours, learn at least for some time to be selfless. Then slowly its joy will begin to come. Try even a small act without self-interest. Smile at someone for no reason at all.
No one smiles without a reason. Though a smile costs nothing. Yet you smile only when there is some purpose. And when you smile, the other becomes wary: there must be some motive — because no one smiles without motive. No one even says Ram-Ram without motive.
In the villages they used to — slowly even there it is disappearing. In the village, anyone would say Ram-Ram even to a stranger. If a city man goes to a village and someone says Ram-Ram, he is quite frightened: without acquaintance why is he saying Ram-Ram? There must be some motive. Without a motive we do not even say Ram-Ram; we do not even offer a namaskar. Why should we — unless there is some purpose?
I studied in a university. The vice-chancellor was newly arrived. I went to meet him. As soon as I reached, he asked me, What brings you? I said, Then I should go — because I have come for nothing. Only to say Ram-Ram.
He said, What do you mean! He was a little startled — an educated boy, to come merely to say Ram-Ram! I said, You are a stranger here, newly arrived. I am next door — a neighbor. I came only to greet you. And I will not come again. Because I had not thought you would ask, What brings you? This means those who come to you, come only for work; no one comes without business. And you too must go to others only for work; not otherwise. Then your life is futile — only work and work; is there nothing else in it?
I left after saying so. He must have been upset, perhaps annoyed; he must have pondered. The next day he called me: I could not sleep last night. What do you mean? Honestly, it struck me that I did not do well asking, What brings you?
I said, At least you could have let me sit. This could have come later. The greeting first. I have no business with you, and will never have any. No purpose at all. But we simply cannot even conceive of it...
After that he and I had quite a relationship. Yet even now, whenever he meets me, he says, I cannot forget that first day when I asked, What brings you? and you said, I came only to greet you; not for any work. Before that day I had never even thought that anyone would come without business!
Our life has become like a trade. All is work. In it there is no love, no play, no spontaneity — nothing.
Selfless means: participating in the celebration of life — without cause. No why. Rejoicing. And not forever placing yourself at the center. Not viewing the whole world forever from yourself — What will happen to me? What will I gain? What will I lose? Not standing yourself behind every single thing.
If even two or four hours in the day become like this, you will find that religion has begun to enter. From somewhere Paramatma begins to come into your life. Sometimes do something causeless. And do not do it with yourself at the center.
The lover of all — compassionate without motive...
We too show compassion, but there is motive hidden in it. And the motives are very subtle.
You pass through the bazaar and a beggar asks for a couple of coins. If you are alone and no one is looking, you pay him no attention. But if four companions are with you, your prestige is at stake. To refuse two coins now feels as if, What will people think — such a miser! So stingy that he cannot give two coins!
The beggar too observes — he does not bother you when you are alone; it is hard to extract anything then. If people are watching, if there is a crowd, he catches hold of your legs. You have to give. Not to the beggar — because of your ego. There is a motive: people will see and think, Well, he is compassionate; he gives. Or sometimes you give with an eye to accumulating punya, merit. Or you give with an eye to some reward in heaven in the future.
But compassion without any cause — because the other is in pain! Not because you will get something out of it. Because the other is suffering — if you give then, that is dana, true giving. If you are giving with any cause in which your own benefit is involved...
I once went to the Kumbh Mela. There the pundits and priests exhort: give here; what you give here, you will receive a thousandfold there, with God. Many simpletons are trapped by the greed of a thousandfold — give a penny here, receive a thousand there! This is plain business. But if there is any idea of getting in your giving, the gift is destroyed — it becomes a trade, a bargain.
Krishna says: if one is compassionate without motive, Paramatma enters him. He is dear to Paramatma.
The lover of all...
We too love. We love some, not others. To the extent we love, to that extent a door opens toward Paramatma. It is very narrow. The wider our love, the wider the door. If we love all, then everyone has become a door for us — through all, Paramatma can enter us.
But we do not truly love even one — let alone all. Even there a motive lurks; a purpose is at work. The wife loves the husband because he is security, the economic base. The husband loves the wife because she is the gratification of his sexual desire. This is all give-and-take, the market. There is no love in it.
When even in your love your own purpose is being served, that love cannot become a door for Paramatma. Hence we love those from whom we have some self-interest. Those from whom we have no self-interest, we do not love. Those who hurt our interest, we hate. But always at the center is the ‘I’. Whoever benefits me, I love; whoever harms me, I hate. Whoever neither benefits nor harms — toward him I am indifferent, I am neglectful; there is nothing to take or give with him.
To open the door to Paramatma means: toward all. But how can it be toward all? Only when I begin to find joy in love itself — not in self-interest. Understand this a little.
When I begin to find joy in love itself — not in what love fetches. A wife — I get something from her. A son — I get something. A mother, a father, a brother, a friend — from them I get something. I love them because I get something from them. I have not yet come to the joy of love itself. Love is still a means; my joy is in what it brings.
But love is itself a wonder. There is no question of getting anything beyond it. Love is sufficient unto itself. Love is such a great bliss that there is no need to want anything beyond it.
The day this is understood — and becomes your experience — that whenever I love, bliss happens; there is no question of taking anything before or after — then why would I be miserly: love this one and not that one? Then with open hands, with a free heart, whoever comes near — him I shall love. If a tree is near me, I shall love it too — why miss an opportunity for bliss! If a stone is beside me, I shall love it too — why miss an opportunity for bliss!
The day you taste the very sap of love, that day, whatever is and wherever it is, you will love. Love will become your very breath.
You do not breathe in order to get something. Breath is life — there is no question of gain. Love is an even deeper breath — the breath of the soul; it is life. The day you begin to understand this, that day you will remove love from self-interest. Then love will become your natural way.
Krishna says: the lover of all; free of possessiveness.
This may sound inverted to you. For we think the lover is one who is full of possessiveness. Possessiveness is not love. The difference between possessiveness and love is like that between a flowing river and a dammed-up pool. Where love is a flowing spring — it stops nowhere, it keeps flowing. It does not halt anywhere, creates no barricades. It does not say, I shall love only you; I shall love only you. If you are not, I will die. Without you my life is gone. Without you all is meaningless; only you give my life meaning. Where love becomes a stagnant pool like this, it is no longer a stream; staleness begins.
Stale love is possessiveness; halted love is possessiveness. With possessiveness one does not reach Paramatma. With possessiveness a pool is formed. How will the river reach the ocean? It has stopped here; its flow has ended.
Therefore Krishna immediately adds: the lover of all, compassionate without motive, free of possessiveness.
Where love does not get stuck; does not stop anywhere; flows on — whoever comes close, it bathes him, and flows on. It makes no insistence anywhere. It never says, This alone is the base of my love.
One who does so will fall into misery; and such ‘love’ will itself become a barrier. Hence the opposition to possessiveness. It is not opposition to love; it is opposition to diseased love.
Let possessiveness drop and love grow — then you will move toward Paramatma. But it is easy for us only to choose one of the two. If we love, we get entangled in possessiveness. And if we try to avoid possessiveness, we avoid love itself — such is our difficulty. If you tell someone, Do not be possessive, then he no longer loves anyone. He fears that if he loves, possessiveness might develop; so he stops loving.
Avoid possessiveness — and love stops. The door closes even then. Love — and immediately possessiveness arises. The door closes then too. Let love be, and let there be no possessiveness. Let the river flow and no lake be formed. Keep this in mind.
Love your child. Love your son — there is nothing wrong in it. It is auspicious. But why should your love end with your son? Let it flow further. There are sons of neighbors as well — let it touch them too. Why stop at your son? And truly, if you are a real father and have known love for a son, you will wish that the number of sons increase — because that much love will give you that much bliss.
If one son gives such bliss, if all the sons of the earth were your sons, how much bliss would there be! If one friend gives such joy, why be miserly? Let it expand. If the whole earth becomes friendship, there will be deeper bliss — endless bliss.
If loving human beings gives so much joy, why deprive the animals? Let it spread. Why deprive the plants? Let it spread. If love gives such bliss, why stop it? Let it increase, let it expand. Let it encircle the whole earth, the whole of existence. Then you will become dear to Paramatma — for you will open on all sides. Every pore of you will open. From every side the rays of the Lord can enter.
Free of ego; equal in pleasure and pain; forgiving — giving even the offender fearlessness. Free of ego...
The deeper love becomes, the more the ego naturally quiets and dissolves. The less love there is, the more the ego there is. Ego and love are opposites. If love increases, ego melts.