Geeta Darshan #18

First, a secret is that word which can be spoken only in a moment of deepest intimacy. Without intimacy it cannot be said at all. It is communicated only through intimacy.

Where there is dispute, argument, fixed opinions; where two consciousnesses do not meet in guileless feeling but a subtle hidden conflict persists—there what needs to be said cannot be said; if said, it cannot be understood; if understood, it cannot be accepted; if accepted, it cannot be lived. A message whose journey goes wrong right from the first step—that is secret.

As love is secret, so is truth secret. Lovers will not agree to be immersed in love’s dialogue in the marketplace. Love-talk is out of place in a crowded bazaar. Where money is the theme on every side, love-talk is meaningless. Where there is noise, commerce, a crowd—where there are many and no solitude—the music of love cannot arise. If one begins to play love’s veena there, he has struck it at the wrong time and wrong place. At best he will be ridiculed; love’s sapling will not sprout—perhaps it will wither forever. That is what has happened today in the West.

For a long time, under the influence of Christianity, the West repressed man’s sexual instinct. That repression reached an extreme. And whenever anything reaches an extreme, there is danger of revolt, rebellion, and a swing to the opposite extreme. The mind moves like the pendulum of a clock: from one end to the other. It does not rest in the middle. Those who learn to rest in the middle know the art of dissolving the mind.

So in the West Christianity repressed sex, repressed love, hid it, denied it, condemned it. The natural consequence was that the young broke all limits, all rules. In breaking rules they forgot that among those rules were some without which love cannot live—some that were killing love, and some that were its very foundation. When the revolt against rules began, all rules were smashed—and among them the rule of privacy and secrecy in love.

Today in the West love is enacted in the marketplace. It does not bring fulfillment; the heart does not bloom. People pass through countless experiences of love, yet the thirst is unquenched. They drink at every ghat, but the thirst does not subside; the throat fills more and more with fire.

There was one danger in Christianity—it nearly strangled love. Rules tightened so much that love was hanged. Now there is the opposite danger—so many rules broken that the ground is lost.

Young men and women come to me from the West. Their greatest problem is: they do not experience love in life. Though they have many experiences of “love,” more than are possible in the East—each woman, each man comes into contact with many—yet the word feels hollow. Because love has been dragged into the bazaar; its secrecy has been shredded.

And what has happened to love has also happened to faith.

Krishna spoke these things to Arjuna in utmost secrecy; because although Arjuna was full of doubt, he was a devotee. Understand this too.

Faith does not mean that all doubts vanish from within. Faith means that despite doubt you are eager, willing to trust. It is your inner readiness. If all doubts had already ended, there would be no need for Krishna to speak; the message would arrive without words, be heard without being said. Then the Krishna within you would begin to speak to you—why go to hear the Krishna outside?

Faith means this much: doubts arise in the mind, but there is no faith in doubt. Doubts arise, but they are not supported. They rise on the basis of past conditioning, out of habit. They have gathered a kind of force because through innumerable lives you have nourished them; so they arise. But now there is no desire to prop them up. They arise within, yet the devotee keeps himself separate, detached from them; he holds an indifference toward them. His heart is inclined to trust. If doubts arise, they seem like enemies. He does not water them, does not support them; he is eager to dissolve them. His heart is willing to eradicate them; he seeks the art of how to end them.

Only in such a moment—when, despite doubts, one is ready to open the heart, which is the supremely secret moment—can the supreme secret be said.

The Upanishads were spoken in utmost privacy, in profound closeness between guru and disciple, in heart-deep relationship. For years the disciple would live with the guru, waiting for that moment when the guru would call. He would be patient for that moment when the guru would deem him worthy to hear the secret essence. Till then he would serve: herd the cows in the forest, cut wood, cut grass, draw water. Whatever the gurukula required, he would cooperate—and wait to be summoned.

There is a sweet tale: Shvetaketu stayed long with his guru. He wanted to know life’s secret; but perhaps he was not yet ready. Years passed. Much was said to him, much was taught, but the supreme secret was not told. He waited with patience.

The story is very tender. It says even the fire of the sacrificial altar in the guru’s house was moved to compassion. Fire felt pity! The guru did not relent. But seeing the disciple’s patience—day upon day he tended that fire, fed the fuel, helped with the offering—the fire on the altar, burning day and night, came to feel compassion. Enough! There is a limit even to waiting. While the guru was away, the fire spoke to Shvetaketu: “The guru is hard, and though you are now ready he is still not telling you; so I will tell you.”

Shvetaketu said, “My thanks to you for your grace and compassion. But I must wait for my guru. I will take it only from him. You have felt pity because you do not know what the guru knows; surely some lack remains in my preparedness. Otherwise there would be no reason. The guru is not hard; my vessel is not yet steady. My bowl still trembles; it is not fit to receive the nectar. From a trembling bowl the nectar would spill! Or there are holes in my bowl and the nectar would run out! Or my bowl is upside down so that the guru may pour and nothing reaches me! Surely the fault is in me. Thank you for your love and compassion, but my waiting is only for the guru.”

For years the disciple waits. In that waiting he draws near.

There is no greater means of nearness than patience. Wherever impatience appears, nearness is lost. When you are in a hurry, you cannot be near. Nearness asks for time—endless time. And the more esoteric the element, the more time it demands. To know love takes years; to know faith, lifetimes. If you would learn prayer, it is cast only in the metal of patience; the statue of prayer is carved only on the stone of patience.

If you bypass patience, prayer will never be. Then you will paste prayer onto yourself from the outside, but its roots will not be in your heart. It will have no relation to your life. You can go to temples, mosques, houses of prayer; you can perform worship and ritual—everything will be on the surface. Your inside will remain untouched. And the real thing is within. Whether prayer flowers outside or not is not the point—if it happens within, that is everything.

Faith and surrender are supremely secret; more secret even than love. Because in love a little desire, a little hope, a little lust still lingers.

Understand it this way. First there is the world of lust, where all your relationships are saturated with desire. You make friendship in order to get something. The friendship is secondary, getting is primary; friendship is a means, getting is the end.

Relationships of utility, however deep they appear, cannot be deep. Because you do not connect with the person; you connect to get something from them. Once you have gotten it, it is over. You throw the person away like a spent cartridge tossed into the trash; nothing remains. You have sucked the mango dry; the peel is discarded. Until it was unsucked, you kept it guarded. Until the cartridge was fired, you guarded it as if it were a diamond. Now it is spent—worthless.

You forget people as if they were rubbish. You climb over them, use them as steps, and then forget them.

In politics, in the race for position and money, people are used as means. The politician stands with folded hands for a single vote. In that moment it seems as if he has come to your door with great devotion and reverence. You may think no one is greater than you—look, the prime minister, the president stands with folded hands! The moment he reaches the post he will not even recognize you. Not only that, a sting will remain within him that he once had to stand before you with folded hands; he will take revenge for it. He will never forgive you—because those moments of folded hands will prick his memory like a thorn.

So be thoughtful in your relations with those who run the race of power. When they climb the stairs they set about destroying the stairs. For the very stairs by which they ascended are dangerous—another can climb by them too. Stairs are impartial.

Thus every politician starts eliminating those by whose support he rose to office. He must. Otherwise others will climb by the same steps. No politician lets even his closest associates come too near—there is danger. He maintains distance—enough distance that if they try to come closer he can stop them before they arrive. The distance must be maintained.

This is the world of utility, where the purpose lies elsewhere, but you deceive people as if the purpose is you—as if the bow is to you. No one bows to you; they bow to the unspent cartridge within you, your vote. When that is obtained, they forget you. If they only forgot, fine; the danger is they will never forgive you, and someday they will humiliate you—only to erase the memory of having had to fold their hands before you.

This is the realm of utility. A second kind of relationship stands a little above it—we call it love. In the world of utility there is no secrecy; it is the bazaar, the crowd, the world.

The second is love. Love means the many are no more: there are two. The lover and the beloved; the lover and the love-object; the mother and child; husband and wife; two friends—two remain. Now the relationship is not utilitarian. The other is valuable in their own privacy, not because of what you can get. They are not a step or a means; they are an end unto themselves.

Immanuel Kant, a deeply thoughtful German, based his entire ethics on this rule: ethics reaches only so far as the other is an end in themselves; the moment the other is used as a means, immorality begins. This is significant. To use a person as a means is immoral conduct; to honor the other as an end is the summit of morality.

The other is important in themselves—not because you can make money through them, reach office, use them as a ladder. Their value is not in utility. They are valuable because of their personhood, their privacy, even if there is no utility at all.

Suppose a mother loves her son. Not because tomorrow he will earn money. If that is the reason, the mother–son relationship is finished; it has become a marketplace relation. If she loves because he will bring respect and prestige, then love is over. So long as you can say “because,” love is not.

The mother will simply say, “I don’t know why—there is love.” And if the boy becomes virtuous, there will be love; if he becomes wayward, there will still be love—perhaps more, because he has strayed, and compassion will arise. If he turns out well, love remains; if he is successful, love remains; if he fails, the ache will be deeper and love will rise. If he becomes happy and wealthy, the mother will be pleased. If he becomes unhappy and afflicted, love will bind even more.

No, utility is not the question. This does not mean the boy will not be useful. In utility relations, usefulness is central and the person has no value. In love, the person has value and utility is secondary. If usefulness happens, fine; if not, fine. Often it does happen—yet it is secondary. The one you love serves you in a thousand ways, but that is secondary. You do not love for usefulness. That is a shadow of love, not its aim. It is a by-product, not the fruit for which you loved.

If a friend helps you in a difficult time, it is his grace. If he did not, there would be no complaint. If he proved useful, you are blessed; if not, there would be no diminution in love. Utility is like a shadow.

A third relationship is prayer. In the first, utility is the goal. In the second, utility is a shadow, a by-product, walking along the edges, not on the main road; even if it were absent, it would be all right. And the third is prayer, faith, surrender—here utility has no place whatsoever.

So long as there is utility for you, you cannot come near a guru. If you go to the guru for any gain, you cannot come near. Only when nearness itself is bliss will you be able to draw near. So long as you go to get something, you will not come close, because what you want will stand between you and the guru like a wall. If you go to the guru even to get truth, truth will stand like a wall. If you go for liberation, liberation will be a wall. Then you have not understood.

The relation with the guru is utterly non-utilitarian. It does not belong to this world where utility reigns. It is not a relation of profit and greed. It is an end in itself; being near is joy.

Upanishad is a lovely word with two meanings. One: to be near—to sit near the guru, satsang. Two: secret, esoteric. The meanings are linked. In that supreme nearness where one comes simply to be near the guru, the supremely secret manifests of itself. The guru does not give, the disciple does not take; for if the guru becomes eager to give, purpose enters; if the disciple is eager to take, purpose enters. The guru does not give and the disciple does not take—the happening happens.

The most miraculous event in this world is the relationship of faith, of prayer.

Zen mystic Basho wrote a tiny haiku. He is sitting on the shore of a lake. The lake is still, without a ripple. Morning—sunrise—light slowly increases. A line of white herons flies like arrows across the lake. Their reflection forms upon the water. Basho writes: A line of herons flying over the lake—neither the lake is eager to make a reflection, nor are the herons eager to see theirs—yet the reflection forms. The herons do not bend to look whether the reflection is there; the lake is not eager that they fly so it may make one. Without desire in the herons or the lake, the reflection appears out of nearness.

In the nearness of guru and disciple, that which is supremely secret communicates itself; the exchange happens. Neither the guru wants to give nor the disciple to take—the event occurs.

And that is the supreme event—when the taker was not eager to take. For so long as the taker is eager, tension remains in the mind; he keeps peering into the future—When will it happen? So long already—has it not come yet? Am I deceiving myself? Have I reached the wrong person? Should I go elsewhere? Knock on another door?

No—then you cannot be with the guru, for your mind will be in the future, which does not exist. You can be with the guru only when there is no desire for fruit, nowhere to go, nothing to become—when you simply are. The goal has arrived. In that very moment the guru will begin to flow within you—not because he wants to flow; because there is no obstruction, he flows. A spring does not flow if a stone is on it; remove the stone and it flows—not as a choice, as its nature. One who has realized truth—truth wants to flow from him. It is not his wish that truth flow. It flows as fragrance from a flower, as light from a lamp, as rivers to the ocean. It is just so natural.

Wherever a heart becomes ready to receive—and “ready to receive” means the very urge to receive has dissolved, only receptivity remains—there it happens.

That is why Krishna calls it supremely secret. It happens in a moment more secret than love—the moment of faith.

And second: it is called secret because there is danger in it. If it is given to the unprepared, grave dangers arise. There is no sword more dangerous than truth. It is double-edged. If you are not ready, you will harm yourself with it and harm others.

It may surprise you, but I must say it: untruth is not dangerous at all. It is lifeless—what danger can there be in it? It has no life. It is a corpse. It has no legs to walk. If untruth is to walk, it must borrow the legs of truth. That is why the liar strives to persuade you he is speaking truth; only if you believe it to be truth can his lie work. Untruth is so lifeless, so impotent—you will not find anything more eunuch than untruth. Even to take two steps it must fool you into taking it as truth.

No great dangers come from untruth; so speak untruth to whomever you like. But truth is a profound, radiant energy. Such a sharp blade that, in the wrong hands, it will cut either oneself or others—like a gleaming sword in a child’s hand which he takes for a toy.

Truth is secret. It is to be given only to one who can bear it; to one whose life will not be harmed by it; to one for whom truth is safety, not insecurity; to one who will use truth to gain great life, not self-destruction. For this reason the supreme truths are called secret. They are to be given only when you are ready; before that there is danger.

Everyone wants truth, without asking whether he can hold what he seeks. Will your eyes withstand that great sun? Will they not go blind? If your eyes are only fit to look at a lamp, do not try to stare at the great sun; you will be blinded, and then even the lamp will not be seen.

One must proceed step by step. Practice with the lamp. Travel slowly. One day you too will be ready to meet the great sun eye to eye. And the day one becomes willing to meet the great sun, a great revolution happens—everything within is transformed. But the preparation for that moment is needed.

For this too truth is secret; it is not to be told to everyone.

Even when the wise wrote scriptures, they wrote in such a way that not everyone who reads can understand. They hid the swords. At most you can touch the scabbard; you cannot reach the blade. The scabbard holds no danger. Scriptures are written so you can touch the words—the scabbard—while the meaning hidden within remains occult to you. Truth is concealed so that you may take the scabbard for the sword. That is why you worship scriptures—you worship the scabbard. You know nothing of the blade. Truth is hidden in words, covered so that only one who knows can uncover it.

And he will reveal it only when he sees you are ready. He will test you in a thousand ways, try you on a thousand touchstones. He will examine you at many turns to see if your eyes are prepared, if your gaze has acquired its own radiance, saying, “Yes, now your eyes have become little suns; now you can meet the great sun.” He will give you small truths and see what you do.

It happened that when Vivekananda came to Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna gave him a technique of meditation.

In Ramakrishna’s ashram there was a very simple man named Kalu—innocent-hearted. He had a tiny room, and in it he kept no less than three hundred images of deities. There was scarcely space left for himself. And when you invite so many deities you must vacate space for them! He could barely sleep there. His whole day was spent in their worship. It took six hours at a stretch—so many to propitiate! He worshiped with deep feeling. He was not one to wave a single aarti for all collectively, ring a bell once for all, and shower flowers wholesale. No—he worshiped each one in their own privacy. Days passed like this.

Vivekananda, a rationalist, never liked it. He would say, “What madness is this? Breaking your head before stones and wasting the day!” But Kalu did not listen; he continued, happy and content.

One day for the first time meditation happened to Vivekananda—the sword came to his hand. And the first thought that came is surprising: “Now I have a little power; I can put Kalu on the right path.” Kalu had done nothing—he was in his room, absorbed in his own devotion. But Vivekananda, tasting meditative force, felt that if he now told Kalu, “Tie all your deities in a bundle and throw them into the Ganga,” he would do it. In that moment his word had power. The urge to do it arose. Sitting where he was, he spoke in his mind: “Kalu, get up! What are you doing? Tie all the deities in a bundle and throw them in the Ganga!”

Simple Kalu—this voice reached his innermost being. He tied all the images in a bundle. Tears were falling, but what could he do? It felt to him as if he himself had had the realization that they must be thrown—perhaps the deities themselves had given the order. He did not know what was happening. Weeping, he set off toward the Ganga with the bundle.

Ramakrishna was returning from his bath. He said, “Stop, Kalu; wait a minute or two—do not hurry.” Kalu said, “A call has come from within, Paramahansa-Dev, to throw all the deities into the Ganga!” Ramakrishna said, “Wait—no voice has come from within. Come with me.”

He knocked at a door; Vivekananda had locked himself inside. When the door opened, Ramakrishna said, “The key I gave you, I take back. You have begun misusing meditation on the very first day! You received meditation to deepen others’ meditation, and you have begun disrupting it! You received it to steady others’ faith, and you have begun to unsteady it! You have been given meditation—use it to discover new alchemy within, to lift every meditation to higher peaks. You are using it in vain. And if Kalu were to throw his images into the Ganga, what would you gain? Kalu would lose something; you would gain nothing. Remember, whenever we assist in someone’s loss, one day we shall reap that fruit—something of ours will be lost.”

This is the very foundation of the law of karma: if you want to gain joy in your life, build steps for others’ joy. If you want suffering, sow thorns on others’ paths.

Ramakrishna said, “No—you are not yet worthy. I shall keep this key. I will return it to you exactly three days before you die.”

And Vivekananda yearned all his life; that shower of meditation did not return in the same way. He tried much—every effort; he was powerful, immensely powerful. But meditation is not attained by power. It is no act of violence you can force. It is guru’s grace. It comes unbidden. It comes by your receptivity, not by your strength; by your humility, not by your aggression. You cannot enter God’s house like an attacker; if you go like that, you will arrive at some other door, not God’s. Knock as you will—you will be knocking on a wall, for the door is not there.

I have heard: a salesman came before a house. A child was playing under a tree. He asked, “Son, is your mommy inside?” “Yes,” said the boy. The man went and knocked and knocked. Long time—no sound from inside. He returned and said, “You said your mother is inside—I’m tired of knocking; no one answers.” The boy said, “She is—but this is not my house. It is a ruin; no one lives here.”

Knocking accomplishes nothing if it is the wrong house. How will you find the right house without the guru’s indication?

The key was taken back. Vivekananda exerted hard. He was proud—and a proud man does not easily shed his pride, not even before the guru. He remained so. He was worthy; he tried everything. He reasoned: “Once I had the glimpse—why not again? How can someone keep the key? What does ‘key’ mean?” He was rational. He decided to keep trying; sometime it would happen again. But it had happened as grace; that is why the key was taken back. It never happened again in his lifetime. He suffered and wept much.

But three days before his death, meditation happened again. Ramakrishna had left the body by then; but such ones do not truly go. Precisely three days before, the key returned. What lifelong striving could not do, happened uninvited three days before death.

What an event! Supremely secret. Dangerous. If even a little of that secret knowledge falls into unready hands, harm can result. And the ignorant mind is very curious—if it gets even a little something, it wants to experiment with it.

Surrender and enlightenment are simultaneous events. What you call surrender is only a rehearsal, a preparation beforehand; it is not surrender itself.

How could you surrender all at once! First you will need to prepare. You come and surrender—so easy? You will have to learn surrender too. You will have to move inch by inch. Inch by inch you will have to cut your own ego; only then will surrender happen.

You talk about it, because anyone can use the word “surrender.”

Just four days ago a friend came. He had seen and heard people who had come to me in the evening—someone had some difficulty in meditation, someone felt a certain method suited him, someone felt going deeper, someone was experiencing certain results. Hearing all that, he was startled. He said to me: “But I don’t want to do anything. My surrender is towards you; let it happen by your blessing.”

Now the question is: isn’t that “surrender” actually an escape? “I don’t want to do anything.” Isn’t surrender just a good name for your laziness? Does surrender mean you don’t have to do a thing; if it happens by someone else doing it, fine—we’ll try it on; if it suits, we’ll keep it, if not, we’ll go home? Does surrender mean you are not ready at all, not ready to do anything? Do you want it for free—is that the hope hiding behind your “surrender”—that by your blessing it will be given?

But even blessings have to be received. Even if I want to bless, I cannot do it alone; you will have to take it. For a blessing too, you will have to open your heart.

You say, “I don’t want to do anything else. Please don’t involve me in this business of opening the heart, bringing silence, focusing the mind, entering samadhi. You just bless me.”

You are on a freebie hunt. You are using the wrong word—“surrender.” Better you say it straight: “I don’t want to do anything. If God comes free, I might consider it.” God is the last item on your shopping list.

The same man, when he goes seeking wealth, does not say to me, “I won’t do anything. If it happens by your blessings, fine; otherwise to hell with it.”

No—when he goes seeking wealth, he makes every effort. He may also ask for a blessing, but he doesn’t stop his effort because of the blessing. He uses the blessing as support, yet keeps his effort going.

But when he comes to seek God, he says, “Let it be done by your blessing!”

The words sound very sweet; they seem poetic. It looks like the man is so devotional, so full of feeling—he wants to do nothing.

But he is deceiving himself. Surrender too is a very great happening. That too “has to be done.” Your cooperation is needed—because ultimately the happening has to take place within you. You have to bow down, you have to dissolve.

So the first thing is: what you call surrender is not surrender. This does not mean it is useless. It has its use. By rehearsing it again and again you will come to the real surrender. By erring again and again the right way dawns. Only after doing it wrongly many times will intelligence arise that “this doesn’t work,” and the right way will be glimpsed.

You will “surrender” a thousand times; only then, perhaps on the thousand-and-first time, will it succeed.

So you ask whether surrender and enlightenment are simultaneous events?

Certainly. The day surrender happens, that very day the blessing showers, that very day enlightenment showers. The day surrender is, not even a moment’s delay remains in meeting the Divine. Because there is no reason for delay anymore. The matter is finished. Surrender was the only need; it is complete—delay for what?

And it is not as though God is occupied with some work. You have surrendered and are waiting, but He is a bit busy; when He has time He will come. And it is not as though there is a queue at His door, and your turn will come when it comes—even if you have surrendered. There is no queue there.

Each one’s relationship with the Divine is private. Between you and God there is no one but you. Move yourself out of the way and union happens. Other than you there is no obstacle, no hindrance.

Here surrender—there enlightenment. Not even the gap of a single moment can be. That is what “simultaneous” means. You light the lamp here, and there the darkness is gone. It’s not that you light the lamp and now darkness is deliberating, “Shall I go or not?” Darkness does not say, “It is still a very dark night; where should I go just yet? Let me rest a bit more! I am tired; I won’t leave now—let the lamp burn. We have been here for thousands of years; you light a lamp and we should leave just like that? Is it so easy? We’ll have to go to court, bring goons; only then will we vacate. And after staying here so long we have become the owner.”

No—darkness says none of this. You light the lamp here; there you discover there is no darkness. At the very lighting of the lamp, darkness is not found.

Exactly so with surrender and enlightenment—they are the two faces of the same coin. Here surrender, there enlightenment.

And if a “surrendered” disciple still has to pass through years and years of practice, what does it indicate?

Surrender has not happened yet. And the ego is very subtle. It even plays games in the name of surrender. It says, “I have been a surrendered disciple for years.”

What meaning is there in “years”? In surrender only the moment counts. To speak of years means you are doing something wrong—otherwise it would have happened by now.

Edison was doing an experiment. He made more inventions than anyone else in the world—a thousand inventions. The little things you see all around you—radio, electricity, telephone—most of it is Edison’s doing. He surrounded man from all sides with inventions.

He was working on one invention for twenty years—on the telephone. Then one day it was completed. And the day it was completed, it was completed in half an hour.

One of his students asked, “I have a question. You have been working on this experiment for twenty years. So should we say it took twenty years plus half an hour? Or should we say it was solved in half an hour?”

Edison said, “After me, if anyone wants to prepare this, it will take him half an hour. Therefore, it was made in half an hour. For twenty years I was knocking on the wrong doors.”

This is worth understanding. Ordinarily we would say the discovery took twenty years. But Edison was a very insightful man. He said, “If the discovery took twenty years, then after me whoever makes it should also take twenty years. He will not—because now the door is known. The next man will go straight, knock on the right door, and it will open. The experiment will be completed in half an hour.

“I did not know the door. I was the first. I kept knocking at others’ houses. There was no door there to open. And even the doors that did open were useless; nothing was solved. The experiment itself took half an hour. Twenty years went in finding where to strike.”

Buddha became enlightened. The enlightenment happened in a single instant. Six years were spent striking in the wrong places. Mahavira too attained in a moment; twelve years went in striking in the wrong places.

It’s like you are solving a riddle; the whole day goes by and it doesn’t resolve. Then you drink tea, walk in the garden, and suddenly it clicks. You return and the riddle is solved. It is in the very moment of that “click” that the riddle is solved. The rest of the day you were trying the wrong keys.

Truth is found in a split second; it is simultaneous. Falsehood, however, is a long chain. Time is needed to traverse that chain of the false; no time is needed to attain the true. That is why we have called Truth timeless, that which is not found in time, which is outside time.

What is outside time—how will you get it in twenty years? How in twenty million years? It is not within time at all. But within time there is much you will have to pass through.

Understand it this way: you are wearing many garments. You remove them, remove them, remove them; it takes an hour, and then you are naked. Does being naked take an hour? It depends on how many layers of clothing there are. If a man is wearing only one garment, it comes off in a moment. If another is just wrapped in a sheet, he flicks it away and stands naked. Being naked itself does not take even a moment; the question is how many layers you have to take off.

So too, how many layers of ego are on you—that is the question. Surrender itself happens in a moment.

Therefore, if someone has been thinking for years that he is a surrendered disciple, the mistake is in the thinking. He is a seeker of surrender, a searcher for it; he is not surrendered yet. Otherwise the happening would have happened. And questions of this kind are also worth considering.

“If yes, then what does it indicate when a surrendered disciple must pass through years of practice?” It indicates impatience. It indicates you are not ready to wait at all.

It indicates your small-mindedness. You want to attain Truth because you have been practicing for years!

What practice?

If you sit idle for a few days doing a little meditation, or repeat the Navkar mantra, or chant Om, or Allah-Allah—you begin to feel that you have obliged God! You start making entries in your file: “See, I have taken the Name so many times—ten million times I have said Ram’s name—He still hasn’t come?” Complaint begins to arise within you.

What are you doing? What relation has your “doing” to His coming? His coming happens through your disappearing. This doing of yours is filling you up. Ten million times you have taken the Name—now a hundred million. You have undertaken a thousand fasts. You meditate morning and evening. “So much time wasted in meditation! We pray, we worship—still it hasn’t happened!”

It is precisely this “still it hasn’t happened” that does not let it happen. This very thought—“still it hasn’t happened”—is like a thorn pricking your being.

Drop that too. Say, “As You wish. Thy will be done! Even if it never happens, we are content—because if that is Your will, that is what our being should be. We do not keep ourselves separate from Your will.”

This is Krishna’s entire teaching in the Gita: drop your doership and say to Him, “Let that be which You bring to pass.” If He wants to keep you in the world, then that must be what is most beneficial. If He doesn’t want to let meditation happen, that too must be for the best. If He is putting obstacles—as it seems to you—fine; we are content with Your obstacles. If You give night, then night; if day, then day; if You bring darkness, then darkness; if light, then light. Even the darkness that comes touched by Your hand is light for us.

The day such a mood arises, that day surrender. Then there is no delay.

Until then, you keep peeking from the bank with one eye open—this is not meditation at all. You sit with eyes closed, then open them to check: has God arrived or not? Then you close them again and rotate a few beads of the mala; again you open one eye: neither God has come, nor has the postman brought a message. At least a telegram could have come saying when He is coming! Then you close your eyes again.

You are playing children’s games. No postman is on the way, no telegram is coming. And even if some telegram does arrive, understand someone is playing a joke on you.

Mulla Nasruddin used to pray every day, and he would say, “I will not take less than a hundred. A full hundred rupees, cash. If there is even one rupee less, I’m not going to agree.”

A neighbor got tired of hearing this. A joke occurred to him: he will not take less than a hundred—there is no risk. So he put ninety-nine rupees in a pouch and, while Mulla was praying “I won’t take less than a hundred,” climbed up onto the roof and dropped the pouch through the thatch.

The pouch fell. Mulla said, “Fine. First I’ll count. I never take less than a hundred.” He opened the pouch, counted—there were ninety-nine. He said, “Ah, You are quite the trickster—you deducted one rupee for the pouch. No problem.”

Now the neighbor was worried. He had only intended a prank. But Mulla was saying, “You’ve cut one rupee for the pouch—no harm, it’s business, it makes sense.”

If such a God even comes, wearing a peacock crown and standing at your door, understand an actor has slipped away from a play. Or a circus performer has run out. Or a neighbor has played a prank. Is anyone coming like that? Is anything like that going to happen?

And if you keep peeking like this, you will never become silent. That is why there is such emphasis on waiting—and on the renunciation of hankering for fruit.

Understand: as long as there is hankering for the fruit, you simply cannot wait. The memory of the fruit keeps returning: “When will it come? When? When?” Outwardly you chant Ram, Ram, Ram—but deeper than that, the real chant is “When will it happen? When? When?” Ram-Ram is on the surface; “When will it come?” is underneath. And behind that “When” your ego is hiding: “I will attain Him!” And you yourself are the obstacle.

Drop the illusion of being a seeker-doer. Be still. That will be your great grace. And stop opening your eyes to check. Even if He comes and stands at the door, He Himself will tap you on the head. What’s the hurry? Why are you running the village council?

There is a beloved story in Maharashtra of Vittoba—Krishna by that name. He came to meet a devotee because the devotee had been praying and worshiping for long. But when He came, the devotee’s mother was ill; the man was serving his mother. Vittoba stood behind him, knocked at the door. The door was ajar; He entered and said, “Look, I’m your beloved—your Krishna—whom you have remembered; I have come.”

The devotee said, “You have come at the wrong time. I am serving my mother. I have no leisure right now.” A brick lay nearby—he slid it toward Krishna and said, “Rest on this. When I finish serving my mother, then we will talk.” He did not even look back.

Such people meet God—who can even tell God, “Sit down. Rest.” Who can seat God on a brick and not even look back. Imagine what his waiting must have been like! What the depth of his meditation must have been! What devotion—without even a ripple arising!

You do meditation, and if a gust of wind rattles the door you look back, “Has He come? Not yet?” Then you sit again, annoyed. Then you turn the beads in irritation.

He seated God: “Sit.”

In Vittoba’s temple, Krishna still sits on that very brick. He has to sit—where waiting is such, where would God go!

He is not a thing that comes and goes. He is ever-present; it is only your waiting that is needed. You will find yourself always surrounded by Him, inside and out. Only He is; there is nothing else.

But this peeking mind, tense, restless, afflicted with hankering for results, feverish—cannot meet Him.