Geeta Darshan #2

Now let us take the sutra.

The other marks of a man endowed with divine wealth are: nonviolence, truth, absence of anger, renunciation, peace, and not reviling anyone; compassion for all beings; noncovetousness; gentleness; modesty in acting against the norms of society and scripture; absence of futile activity; splendor, forgiveness, patience, and purity—outer and inner; absence of malice—no enmity toward anyone; and the absence of pride in one’s own venerability. All these, O Arjuna, are the marks of one endowed with divine wealth.

Let us understand each mark.

Ahimsa—nonviolence.
Ahimsa means giving up the tendency to cause hurt to another. All of us take a certain delight in causing pain to others. Seeing another unhappy gives rise to a secret pleasure in us. This may sound hard, because we say, “No, not so. Seeing another’s pain, we feel sympathy.” But look into your sympathy a little and you will find a flavor of enjoyment.

If someone’s house catches fire, watch yourself. When you go to express sympathy—“Very bad, it shouldn’t have happened”—inspect within: isn’t there a subtle relish that it wasn’t your house but someone else’s? Isn’t there a subtle relish that you are in a position to give sympathy and he has to receive it? “What a good chance that today my hand is above!”

And if that man refuses to accept your sympathy, you will know. If he says, “No harm. In fact, it’s good the house burned; it’s winter and we’re getting some warmth—quite enjoyable,” you will go home upset because he didn’t give you a chance to be “above.” A free opportunity to donate without giving anything, to savor sympathy without sharing anything—he didn’t give it. You’ll return his enemy.

Remember: if you offer sympathy and it is not accepted, you will become that person’s enemy for life; you will never forgive him.

If you want to recognize this, it’s easier from the other end. Everyone insists, “No, this isn’t right; we feel pain at another’s pain.” Leave that aside and ask: do you feel joy at another’s joy?

Only if you can rejoice in another’s joy can you truly feel pain at another’s pain. And if another’s joy causes you hurt, then the arithmetic is clear: another’s pain will give you pleasure, not sorrow. If you burn at another’s happiness, then seeing his misery you will be inwardly delighted—whether you notice it or you deceive yourself, you will enjoy it.

You pick up the morning newspaper. If nothing untoward has happened—no murder, no shooting—you toss it aside saying, “There’s nothing, no news!” What are you looking for? You are searching for misery so that it feels like “news,” something worth reading.

When you see a suffering person, comparatively you feel you are happy. Even moral teachers advise: if you’ve broken one leg, don’t be sad—look at those whose two legs are broken. Seeing them you’ll feel stiff with relief: “Not so bad; there are worse conditions in the world.”

Moralists say: look behind you; look at those worse off than you, and you will always feel happy. Look at those happier than you, and you will always feel unhappy.

But this very advice is bad. It means you get some happiness from seeing another unhappy. That is no great moral teaching, no good message.

Krishna says: the mark of divine wealth is ahimsa.

Ahimsa means: the tendency not to cause hurt. That is possible only when another’s pain does not give us pleasure. And that will be only when another’s joy begins to give us joy.

So where to begin nonviolence? By straining water before drinking? By giving up meat? These are secondary. Good if they happen, but ahimsa does not begin there.

Ahimsa begins when, seeing someone happy, you feel happy. Make another’s happiness your celebration. And when someone is unhappy, feel sorrow; enter into fellow-feeling. Put yourself in the other’s place—whether in joy or in sorrow.

The art of putting yourself in another’s place is ahimsa. If someone is happy, put yourself in his place, feel his joy, rejoice. If someone is unhappy, put yourself in his place; sink into that sorrow as if it had fallen upon you. Then you will find nonviolence beginning to flower in your life.

Straining water and giving up meat are easy things which, after this inner state, will happen by themselves. But one may strain water seven times and still not be nonviolent; one may strictly avoid meat and still not be nonviolent. These become mere habits. Habits have no great value. What matters is to catch the essence of ahimsa with awareness.

I see daily how life is full of contradictions.

There was a Quaker, a pious man. Quakers are a Christian sect who strictly believe in nonviolence—very like the Jains. Don’t kill anyone. They don’t keep guns or weapons, not even at home. Their view is: when one’s time to die comes, God himself will take him; no one needs to kill. If your time comes, God will take you—what need of weapons?

But whenever this pious Quaker went to church—the church was far from his village—he took a pistol with him. He was a professed nonviolent man. His friends asked, “You believe in fate and in nonviolence; you don’t want to kill anyone. You also know that until God wills, no one can kill you—so why carry a pistol?”

What he said is worth hearing: “I am not taking the pistol for my own protection. But if God wants to kill someone, this should be available. If God wants to use me...”

One night a thief entered his house; he picked up his pistol. The thief stood pressed into a dim corner, only a faint five-candle light. The Quaker pointed the pistol toward the corner and said, “Friend, I am not killing you; but where I am going to shoot, that is exactly where you are standing!”

It makes us laugh, but the arguments of the world’s nonviolent people are often of this kind—because the violence remains unchanged and conduct is only imposed from above.

Quakers are staunch nonviolent. They don’t drink milk; they say milk is blood—half blood—so it is sin. They won’t take anything made of milk; it’s animal food.

With such ways of thinking, “techniques” appear. They eat eggs. They say: until the chick comes out, there is no life in an egg; eating eggs is no sin. Drinking milk is sin because it is blood.

We can arrange all of life in such a way that outwardly everything looks nonviolent while inner violence goes on.

The Jains made a great experiment in nonviolence, but their violence got channeled into hoarding wealth. They gave up farming because plants would be cut—violence. They could not be warriors—violence in war.

So all the violence in their personality, which could have been spent in battle or agriculture…

You’ll be surprised: farmers and gardeners are often good people because their violence is spent. A farmer cuts wood all day, uproots plants; his anger is vented in cutting, tearing, destroying—he becomes a simple man. Kshatriyas too are simple; they fight on the battlefield—nothing remains pent up. That’s why a kshatriya can be easily deceived; a shopkeeper, a bania, cannot. You might think it should be the reverse—that the violent, wicked one should be hard to cheat—but it isn’t so; he is easy to fool.

I have heard a Rajasthani story: a proud Rajput in a village would allow no one else to keep an upturned moustache; only his was straight and high. If anyone—even from another village—passed in front of his house, he would say, “Lower your moustache. In this village only one moustache can stand high; two swords cannot stay in one scabbard.” A young bania came to town, fond of wearing his moustache high. Passing the Rajput’s house, he was told, “Not allowed. Lower it.” The bania said, “Why? I won’t.” Swords flashed.

The bania said, “Give me two minutes. Let me go home and kill my wife and children—perhaps I’ll die; I can’t bear that they starve because of me. And I advise you too: go home and finish your wife and children; you might die.” The kshatriya said, “Right!” He went home, cleaned up and came back. The bania went home, returned and said, “I’ve changed my mind: I’ve lowered my moustache.”

The bania is not physically violent; his violence becomes cunning.

So Jain nonviolence remained on the surface; their violence moved into hoarding. And money is the most convenient tool to give pain. There is no easier trick. To stab someone involves risk; you may be stabbed back. But suck his wealth and he dies without your knife. There is no more convenient way to make another suffer than to hoard. You pile up wealth; the other becomes poor and dies slowly. You need not feed him poison; the poison enters drop by drop; everything around him dries up; you exploit his life.

Ahimsa is a mark in the sense that you dissolve the impulse to cause pain. Begin with rejoicing in another’s joy—because taking on another’s sorrow is harder.

Even bearing your own pain is difficult; to bear another’s is harder. You are already burdened; if you begin to take everyone’s sorrow—someone dies in every house; if you sit and weep in every house as if your own has died—that is difficult. You cannot start from there.

Hence begin from another’s joy. When flowers bloom in another’s life, let there be dance in yours. It will feel difficult, because presently another’s happiness causes us pain; it is the hardest peak in practice: to feel joy in another’s joy. Then your life will fill with celebration.

Then the second experiment: feel sorrow in another’s sorrow; then your life will fill with darkness too—both light and dark. But because you are sorrowing with the other’s sorrow and rejoicing with the other’s joy, your witnessing will be created in both. Even while you are immersed in the experiences, you will remain outside.

When your own sorrow comes, you are totally inside it—identified. When you drown in another’s sorrow, however deep you go, an inner part will stand outside and see. When your own joy comes, you get excited; in another’s joy, however deep you go, you will not be overexcited; it will be a slow, gentle celebration, and the witness within will stay awake.

And remember: the one who becomes a witness to another’s joy and sorrow will gradually become a witness to his own. Soon it will be seen that joy and sorrow belong neither to me nor to you; they are events on the periphery, a play of sun and shadow that does not touch the inner center—I remain untouched.

Truth.
Truth does not only mean speaking the factual. Truth means being authentic. Truth means being outside as you are inside. But people take truth to mean only “speaking truth.” That is only a minor part.

And our mind is so clever that we misuse even truth-telling. We tell the truth when it hurts the other. When we can hurt another by telling the truth, we say, “How can I lie? I must tell the truth.” When it hurts us, our logic changes.

I have heard: one morning Mulla Nasruddin sat in his shed. A gust of rain came; the village mullah ran when the drops fell. Nasruddin said, “Stop! You are insulting God.” The mullah was alarmed—Nasruddin was a weighty man, and if news spread… He asked, “What do you mean?” Nasruddin said, “When God is showering rain, running is an insult. Walk slowly.” The mullah understood and, poor fellow, walked slowly home; he got soaked and, being old, fell ill.

Three days later he sat feverish in bed; through the window he saw another shower and Nasruddin running through the market. “Stop, Nasruddin! Have you forgotten?” Nasruddin did not stop; he ran inside and said, “I have not forgotten. I am running precisely so that the dirty soles of my unwashed feet may not fall on God’s water. I’m a filthy man; I haven’t bathed. I’m running so my dirty feet don’t desecrate his water. I have not forgotten.”

This is the logic of all of us. When it hurts us, we make lies into truth; when it hurts others, we use truth like a lie—as a weapon.

Some people take great relish in truth-telling because much hurt can be inflicted by it. So, by lying we harm, and by truth we harm. Our goal remains one: violence.

Therefore truth does not mean only truth-speaking. Truth means authenticity: to be inside and outside the same, without worrying about consequences. Understand this a little.

One who worries about consequences cannot be true—because many times good “results” seem to come from lies, at least as far as we can see.

A man is being hanged; a lie might save him. In your view, as far as human intelligence goes, a lie will save a life. If you worry about results, ninety-nine times out of a hundred it will seem that lies can bring better results and truth worse ones.

Truth means: do not worry about results at all. As it is, let it be revealed, unconditionally, without looking ahead or back. Do not think of the future or the fruit.

Krishna insists: he who thinks of the fruit will go astray. As you are, reveal yourself; make inside and outside one; expose yourself—this is truth. It is an indispensable part of divine wealth.

Akrodha—non-anger.
Ordinarily you think you get angry sometimes. That is false; utterly false. You live in anger twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes it boils; sometimes it stays lukewarm. Lukewarm you don’t notice because you are used to it—you have always lived in it.

If you observe yourself you will see a thin layer of anger present all the time—sometimes toward this, sometimes that; sometimes without any reason at all. Lock you in a room for a day with nothing to provoke you—you will still get angry: at the very fact that nothing is happening, that no one is there, “What am I doing here? Why have I been put here? Why am I left alone?”

Anger is your state; we think anger is an event. So we think it comes only sometimes. But anger is always there; at times a spark falls and your gunpowder flares. Without gunpowder no spark can ignite you.

Akrodha means a constant quiet state. This can be only when you stop blaming the other.

The logic of anger is one: the other is wrong, the other is making mistakes, the other is doing what he should not do. That’s why you flare up.

Non-anger will be born when you see the other is doing only what he can do. He has no way to do otherwise. If someone abuses you, you think he should not. He is doing wrong. That is why anger flares.

If you knew the entire endless past of this man, you would say the abuse is blossoming in him like flowers on a plant; they were hidden in the seed. As the tree grows, it flowers. Whether the flowers are bitter or fragrant, beautiful or ugly, was already contained in the seed.

These abuses are blossoming in this man—it has nothing to do with me. It is his nature, his way of life, his attainment to be abusive. I am only a pretext. If I were not here, someone else would have received his abuse; if not someone, then the empty sky; but he would abuse. It is the expression of his karma.

Non-anger arises when you understand every person is moving in his destiny. It is not about you. Meeting you on the path is a coincidence; don’t get unnecessarily disturbed.

A Zen master, Rinzai, would take his disciples in a boat. He kept a boatman hidden behind a bush near one riverbank. When Rinzai’s boat set off, the boatman would push an empty boat from behind the bush. It would float and collide with Rinzai’s boat. No one complained—how to quarrel with an empty boat? The disciples just adjusted their seats. Later the boatman would sit in the boat and ram them; then the disciples would flare up.

Rinzai said, “It happened once earlier too—the boat struck and you all stayed quiet.” They replied, “Then there was no one inside. You can’t hold an empty boat responsible; it’s accident. But now there is a man—he is responsible; we can quarrel.” Rinzai said, “Man or no man is accidental—the boats collided. If you behave the same in both situations, non-anger will be born.”

Whatever anyone is doing is his destiny. Don’t take it personally. Don’t imagine the whole world is laughing at you, whispering about you, thinking how to ruin you—that everyone is your enemy. No one has that much time for you. Everyone is busy in his own mess. You are unnecessarily standing in between, taking things upon yourself.

As soon as you begin to see rightly that each is going his own way and whatever happens in him is all that can happen, acceptance arises; anger does not arise; tathata is born—the feeling “suchness”: what had to happen happened; this person did what he could. That is non-anger.

Non-anger is precious in divine wealth. And these threads of divine wealth are interlinked: if one is woven, others are woven by themselves. Don’t think you must practice each one separately; if one ripens, the rest follow, because they are joined.

One who attains non-anger will find ahimsa arises by itself. One who attains non-anger becomes fearless. Who can frighten one who does not get angry? If he could be frightened, he would get angry—for anger is a defense measure; by it we arouse our strength and get ready to face. Anger is the security of fear.

And one who has come to non-anger, who says each is moving in his destiny and I in mine—why would he hide anything? From whom to hide? Before God I am naked. Who else is there to hide from? He will become an open book.

These qualities are united; we separate them only for discussion. Don’t think they are separate, or that you will have to practice so many virtues. You will be unnecessarily frightened at the number; with such a short life, impossible! Let one be attained and you will see the rest begin to come.

Tyaga—renunciation.
We know the taste of enjoyment, of taking. There is another taste—the taste of giving, of letting go—which we do not know, or know only in fleeting moments. Have you seen it? When you give something, a joy seizes you. You lend a hand to someone falling on the road—a glow, a throb of delight fills you; a music plays in the heart.

Whenever you drop something, something within expands; you become a little vast. Glimpses of this come to all. If we collect and deepen those glimpses through practice until they become our path, that path is tyaga.

Tyaga means the joy of giving, the joy of letting go. This is not a philosophy; the joy comes immediately upon letting go. But we know only one joy, of grabbing. And we’ve never compared the two.

I have heard of two fakirs who disputed. The dispute was small: one kept some money, the other kept none. The one without money said, “Joy is in letting go; sorrow is in holding.” The other said, “You must hold a little—otherwise it’s very painful.”

They reached a river at dusk. The boatman demanded fare. Staying on this bank was dangerous—wild animals; crossing was necessary. The one with money said, “Well, now show your renunciation! If you can’t, I’ll pay and we’ll cross.”

The renunciate smiled. The other paid and they crossed. Then he said, “Now speak!”

The first replied, “We crossed only because of renunciation. You could let the money go—that is why we crossed. We didn’t cross because there was money; we crossed because money was dropped. If I wasn’t paying, it wasn’t because renunciation was a hindrance, but because I had nothing left to drop; I needed a little more renunciation than I had. You could do it. But I am still right: we came across by letting go.”

We have only one experience—of accumulating. As I see, as people’s wealth increases they become more unhappy. Then they think maybe wealth is sorrow; scriptures support them: wealth gives no happiness.

My view is different. Wealth can give happiness—if there is the capacity to let go. Wealth gives sorrow when you cling. No one suffers from wealth; people suffer from miserliness. Why should wealth give sorrow? But people cannot let go.

And the compulsion is: the more you have, the harder it is to let go. One who has a single coin can donate it; one with ten million cannot donate the whole ten million, though the donations are equal relative to their total holdings. The one-coin man can give all; the ten-million man cannot.

The more wealth, the stronger the clinging; the more you hold, the more you want to hold. Then you suffer. If America is unhappy today, it is not because of wealth but because of clinging.

Understand the difference well. No one is unhappy because of wealth. With a little intelligence, wealth can make one happy. A foolish man is unhappy when poor and unhappy when rich. The poor man’s unhappiness is understandable—but even his unhappiness is not from poverty; it is because there is nothing to hold. The rich man’s unhappiness is that his hands are full and he has not the courage to let go.

Whoever learns the art of letting go—tyaga—finds the doors of life’s bliss opening continuously. The more he can drop, the lighter he becomes. The more he can drop, the more the soul unfolds—because the more we hold, the more matter piles upon us, burying us. A heap of possessions grows and we are lost beneath it.

Tyaga is part of divine wealth.

Shanti—and not reviling anyone.
We also want to be peaceful—but only when we are disturbed!

People come to me saying, “I am very disturbed; give me some way to be peaceful.” These are those who start digging a well when their house is on fire. The house will not be saved; the well must be dug before.

When you are totally disturbed, becoming peaceful is very hard. When you are not disturbed, becoming peaceful is easy. And if you learn to be peaceful when not disturbed, there will be no need to be disturbed later; if there is a well at home, fire may not start at all; even if it does, it can be put out.

So do not look for peace only when you are disturbed. Don’t seek a doctor only after you fall ill. Even medical science now says that’s the wrong way; it’s too late.

In Russia they created a new system: doctors are paid not to treat sick people, but to prevent their patients from falling sick. Each doctor has a panel of patients—not sick, but to be kept well. He must check and care for them, treating before illness begins—because treatment after disease is complicated. The disease troubles you and the treatment troubles you.

Some die of disease; more die of doctoring. If you survive the disease, then surviving the doctor is hard. Medicines are poisons; to counter poison, more poison is required; then two poisons fight inside you and you become only a battlefield. Even if you recover, you will never be truly healthy; the disease may go but leaves a corpse. You will live dead.

When you are disturbed, becoming peaceful is difficult. Why wait so long? Peace can be cultivated as daily nourishment.

Keep in mind: I must remain peaceful. When you reach home, pause a few moments at the door—your wife will say something. She’s been disturbed all day; she will throw her disturbance on you. Pause and prepare: “I will remain peaceful whatever she says; I will take it as a drama. I will be compassionate, for she is troubled.”

Mulla Nasruddin’s daughter was getting married. She was wailing, beating her chest; everyone tried to console her—she wouldn’t listen. Then Mulla went to her: “Daughter, don’t cry; those who are taking you will cry. You are my daughter; don’t be afraid. It’s only a matter of a little while. Have a little patience.”

All around, people are neurotic, unhappy. They keep throwing their misery and madness; that is their only way to live. If you become their victim—disturbed—you will never hear the note of peace in your life.

Because people are disturbed everywhere, you must cultivate peace and remain alert. You must create an armor, a milieu around you so that whatever anyone throws, you remain steady in peace. Only a little awareness is needed. It happens.

Experiment a bit: when your wife is angry, stand and watch as if you are watching a play. She will get even angrier—remember that! Then you watch with even more delight.

If two people quarrel and one watches as a play, the play cannot run long. It will rise and boil and then burst, because fuel is needed from both sides. Intelligent husbands and wives decide that when one creates a scene, the other will remain quiet.

Mulla Nasruddin said to someone, “There is never any quarrel in my house.” The other said, “Unbelievable! How can there be a home without quarrels? A home means quarrels. You are lying.” Mulla said, “No. On the first day we made a rule: all small matters my wife will decide; big matters I will decide. Big matters have never come—and never will—because my wife decides first that everything is a small matter. So she decides all.”

In England a man lived to one hundred and twenty. On his 120th birthday people asked, “How are you so healthy?” He said, “We made a decision at marriage: whenever my wife gets angry, I will go out. Eighty years of outdoor life—that’s the secret of my health. I was mostly out; I only entered the house now and then.”

There is madness in all relationships. If you don’t hold yourself, you cannot remain peaceful in such a world. And don’t blame the other. The other is not responsible; he is troubled by himself. He isn’t trying to trouble you; he is trying to throw out his own burden. He throws it on those near.

One who keeps one thread in mind—“whatever happens I will remain peaceful”—becomes skilled in this art in a short time.

Not reviling anyone.
There is great relish in slander, because slandering another is indirect self-praise. Whenever you say, “So-and-so is bad,” inside you are saying, “I am good.” If you prove someone a thief, you prove yourself a non-thief.

Often thieves try to prove others thieves—this is their best device. If someone has his pocket picked, the pickpocket’s best way to escape is to shout the loudest, “This is terrible! Catch him—who did this? There must be no theft!” Then you won’t suspect him.

The worse people are, the more they are engaged in slander. They make such a hue and cry about others’ faults that no one can imagine they themselves could be bad. Therefore, when a sadhu slanders, know that his saintliness is counterfeit.

Slander has one purpose: to hide one’s own faults. The more we magnify another’s faults, the smaller our own appear. If you come to believe everyone is dishonest, you feel your own dishonesty is acceptable: “I’m doing nothing new; I’m not worse than others; I’m better.”

That is why slander is so tasty. Wherever four people meet, the discussion has one base. If one of the four leaves, the remaining three begin to slander the one who left. And they never think that when one of them goes, the other two will do the same.

Psychologists say: if you were to know what your friends say behind your back, you would not find a single friend in the world! If your friends were to say to your face what they say behind your back, friendship would be impossible.

But it does get known—and friendship has indeed become difficult. One who delights in slander cannot have a friend in this world. One who invests his energy in belittling others, while thinking he is proving himself good, is becoming bad in the very effort.

The mark of a good man is to seek goodness in others. The more goodness you find in others, the more the foundation of your own goodness is laid.

Compassion for all beings, non-greed, gentleness, modesty in acting against the norms of society and scripture, and absence of futile activity.
Whatever the scriptures say, whatever social order is prevalent—so long as it does not touch the question of the soul, so long as it does not wound your inner life—treat the order as the rules of a game and go along with it.

Game rules are not of intrinsic value; they are like “keep to the left” on the road. There is no sin in keeping to the right; in some countries people keep to the right and in those countries keeping left is difficult. Left or right is not a value; it is a rule of convenience—for you and for others. If everyone makes his own rule, the road becomes difficult. No rule is eternal; all are relative, utilitarian.

In this big world where many live and I am not alone, it is right to accept some order quietly. This does not mean the order is an eternal truth; it only means we have agreed upon rules of play and will follow them.

Remember, a game depends on rules; remove them and the game is spoiled. If four play cards, there are rules. If even one plays against them or insists on his own rules, the game collapses.

Society as a whole is a game—not bigger than cards. It has rules: someone is husband, someone wife; someone son, someone father; someone small, someone big; someone venerable; someone disciple, someone guru—all roles in a game. Accepting the rules is a mark of divine wealth because such a person does not get into unnecessary entanglements nor does he entangle others.

Some people get into needless trouble with things that have no essence. If you abandon left and walk on the right, no great revolution happens—you only prove yourself foolish.

A man of asuri (demonic) bent delights in breaking rules, in license, in rebellion. He feels his ego is asserted whenever he breaks something. He finds it difficult to obey, easy to disobey. If you want him to do something, tell him the opposite; if you want him to sit straight, tell him to stand on his head—he will sit straight.

Mulla Nasruddin was instructing his son, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” The boy wouldn’t listen—he was Nasruddin’s son! At last Mulla, exasperated, said, “All right, do whatever you want. Now let me see how you disobey my order! Do whatever you want—that is my order. Now I will see how you break it!”

The asuri personality finds relish in breaking. Say anything and he will break it. If you don’t want him to do something, tell him to do it—he will not.

A man of divine wealth will not get entangled needlessly. He will accept what is workable. He will accept the rules of the game—until a question of his very life arises, of his soul; then rebellion will be there.

Remember, one who says “no” over small things loses the strength to say “no” when it matters. One who says “yes” in little things retains the strength to say “no” when needed; then his “no” cannot be broken.

Therefore, one who truly wants to be revolutionary should not be merely rebellious; he should not waste himself in breaking rules needlessly, if he wants to make a real transcendence in life when it is called for.

And: splendor, forgiveness, patience, and purity—outer and inner; absence of malice—no enmity toward anyone; and the absence of pride in one’s own venerability. These, O Arjuna, are the marks of one endowed with divine wealth.

The deep fragrance in all these marks is egolessness. “I am worthy of worship; others should honor me”—this arises in everyone. It is natural, because ego is built and protected on this support. Me worshiping another is difficult; being a guru is very easy, being a disciple very difficult, because being a disciple means worshiping someone else, surrendering before someone else.

If someone were to ask you from the heart, “Tell the truth: do you want to be a guru or a disciple?”—from within the voice will come: “A guru.” If that voice is within, you can never be a disciple. Even if you bow at someone’s feet, it will be false; you will devise ways to make the guru bow to you someday—somehow, some way.

The ego’s natural mark is that the whole world should worship me. The difficulty is: as long as the ego is, no one will worship you. Worship can happen, but it is always the worship of egolessness. The day ego disappears, the whole world may worship you—but you will have no desire for it. Whether the world worships or not, you will remain equal.

One whose goal is, “Let me be effaced”—that man attains divine wealth. One whose goal is, “Let me be; I must remain; I must be saved—even if the whole world has to be destroyed to save my ‘I’”—such a person attains demonic wealth.

Enough for today.