Geeta Darshan #7

Who told you I’m addressing a group! Does a group have any life with which to understand? Any ears with which to hear? Any heart to beat, any wisdom that can be awakened? “Group” is only a word. A group is not a person.

Whenever a dialogue happens, it happens between persons, one to one. A group never meets a person. Have you ever met a group? Wherever you look, you meet individuals.

You are here, and others are here with you. But that is only a togetherness. A group is not present; you are present individually. And if people leave one by one, will a group be left behind? The moment persons depart, the group also departs.

I am not speaking to your crowd; I am speaking to your person. This is one-to-one. It is direct.

And remember: what you understand is what you understand; the person sitting beside you may be understanding something altogether different. The meaning you give to my words is your own; your neighbor will make a different meaning. Don’t assume that because he sits next to you, he hears what you hear.

We hear only what we are able to hear. The meaning that arises within us is what already lies dormant within. If I speak of flowers you have never seen, words may strike your ears, but no resonance will stir the heart. But one who has seen those flowers will not only hear the words; meaning will bloom in the heart. He has tasted, he has known. And when I am absorbed in speaking of flowers, he too will be absorbed in the experience of flowers. A dialogue will happen between him and me.

You may hear only words; he will hear the sense beyond words.

So who told you I speak to a group! Krishna spoke to Arjuna, and I too am speaking only to Arjuna.

“Arjuna” is a very sweet word; it means something. You have heard the word riju—straight. Riju means direct, straightforward; rijuta is simplicity. A-riju means crooked, oblique, tangled, not simple—complex.

Krishna speaks to Arjuna because there is a mind there—knotted, complex, unsolved; problems abound, solutions are absent. Were there only solutions, both sides would be Krishna; there would be no Arjuna left.

A master speaks to a disciple; the solution speaks to the problem. If you have a problem, you are present. I speak to your problem, to your Arjuna. The mind is Arjuna, for it creates problems, tangles. Beyond the mind, hidden within you, is the divine—Krishna.

The purpose of my speaking, or Krishna’s speaking, is less to say something and more to awaken something. Your mind is awake; you are asleep. All the effort is to awaken you. When you awaken, the mind vanishes. As with sunrise the night disappears, so the moment you awaken, the mind is gone; when Krishna rises, Arjuna is gone.

Do not fall into the illusion that Krishna is merely speaking. Speech is only a device. He is not speaking for the sake of speaking. Through speaking, something is being done, some alchemy arranged, a great experiment attempted around him.

If you come to me only to listen, you will go back having only listened; your hands will be empty. But if you truly come with a problem—less curiosity to hear, more the urgency to resolve; if religion has become a question of life and death for you, not an intellectual itch—then you will carry a measure of awakening from me.

And I am speaking personally. I am speaking to each of you, one by one. Nothing can be said to a group. Where the group begins, religion ends. The journey of religion is private, personal, supremely personal. It is more intimate than love, for in love at least the other remains; in religion even the other disappears.

There are three journeys in the world. One is the journey of status—of wealth, of ambition. I call the worldly journey the journey of status (pad). There, the connection is with the group; individuals don’t matter.

A politician comes to ask you for your vote. He does not come for you. Anyone in your place will do. You are a statistic. If A were replaced by B, B by C, it would make no difference. The point is the vote, not you. You don’t exist. You are a number, a figure.

As in the military—numbers. The notice board reads: “Today Number Ten fell; ten numbers died.” Do numbers die? In the military there are no men, only numbers. If Private Twelve dies, the tag “Twelve” will be pinned on another soldier. Twelve does not die; Twelve lives on.

Individuals don’t matter. In the world of the group the person has no value. The state runs on the group; the market runs on the group. The journey of status is a group journey. There the question is of the crowd; not whether you are true, but how many stand with you.

If you are true and alone, you will lose. If you are false and have the crowd, you will win. Victory there belongs to numbers. Inner worth is not weighed; heads and hands are counted. That world is not the world of the person; there the dignity and poetry of the individual has no value.

Then there is the second journey—the journey of love—between two. That is why lovers want to withdraw from the crowd. To talk of love in the marketplace feels incongruous. To meet one’s beloved in the middle of the road feels pointless. Lovers seek solitude, aloneness. Let there be no third! The moment a third appears, the group begins. Up to two there is no group; with three the journey turns back into the journey of status.

Then there is another journey—the journey of God, of prayer. There even the second is left behind. There remains utter privacy. Even if lover and beloved sit to meditate, each will be alone, not together. If both enter samadhi, they will not enter together hand in hand. There one must go alone. That is kaivalya—absolute aloneness. The presence of the other is a disturbance; the other is a hindrance there.

So these three: status—the world of the crowd; love—the world of two; prayer, the divine—the world of one. Status: many. Love: two. The Lord: one.

As long as we talk about God, we are still in the world of love. Because there is one who speaks and one who listens. When I speak to you, this speaking is a kind of love. Through speech I touch you; through speech I enter you; through speech I call you near; through speech I enter your privacy and you enter mine. Speech does not go beyond love. Understand this a little.

In the crowd even speaking doesn’t happen. There is much talking in the crowd, but no speaking at all. People go on talking their own talk; no one listens to anyone. Who has any real concern for another? People use others; they do not speak to them. There is no dialogue, no communication—only dispute.

If you go to the market and listen closely, you will find everyone is talking their own talk; no one is listening. Each is absorbed in himself.

You too will notice—if you have a little awareness—that when you are talking to someone, you do not listen. You say your piece; he says his. You are not mad, so you maintain a little order: when he talks, you keep silent. Even then your inner stream goes on; you are not silently listening.

How will anyone listen without becoming silent! To listen, your inner dialogue must stop. The inside chatter must cease. Otherwise how will you hear? The outer talk will recede; your inner churning will encircle you, a wall.

When you talk with another, you continue thinking your own thoughts. You only wait for him to stop so you can begin. It is true you begin where he stops, but that is just an excuse. If you watch carefully, your real beginning is tied to your inside, not to the man outside.

That is the world of the crowd—no one speaks to anyone; there is no dialogue, there is dispute.

Then there is the world of love—there is dialogue. One speaks, the other listens. One uses words, the other becomes a void and drinks them in. But two are still present.

Hence we say: even words do not reach God. Only the wordless goes there; silence and emptiness go. Words become a hindrance there.

But by means of words we at least step out of the crowd. The disciple’s joining with the master is the breaking with the world.

Therefore whenever you come to a master, the world will stand against you. Unknowingly you are breaking away. You have chosen a new path where two are enough; the third is not needed. And the world exists with the third.

The moment you choose a master, you begin to neglect the world. The world will create all kinds of obstacles. It will tug at you, persuade you: “This man is wrong. Why are you getting into this madness? What spell are you caught in? Come back—everything will be upset. Things were fine—you had work, a shop, order. What are you doing? What new current is this in your life? You’ll regret it.” Thus they will counsel you.

As soon as you relate to a master, you will find the whole world trying to pull you back. Naturally—the world of the many pulls when you choose the two.

It is a great joke that the world is not even on the side of love. If your son falls in love with a girl, you do all you can to stop him. You are ready for a marriage, but not for love.

The father is eager to arrange a marriage: “I will find a good girl.” And the funny thing is: the girl the boy loves is never a “good” girl; and whoever the father finds is always a good girl!

What does good girl or good boy mean? It means: we won’t let you step outside the many.

Love means: now the two of you find yourselves sufficient; you talk of leaving the world; you want to become a world unto yourselves; you become competitors of the world.

No, society is against love. Neither father nor mother is on love’s side. They say, “We seek your good—this girl is not right, this boy is not right. We think for your good. You are inexperienced; we speak from experience.”

Everyone begins to explain to the lover, “You are going mad.” Something about love threatens society. Society has never been on the side of love.

The point is: the lover feels the two are complete, enough. He becomes a world within himself. Then there is indifference to this world; he turns his back.

If you go to the home of two lovers, they will not be eager to receive you. But visit a husband and wife—they give you a grand welcome. They are always waiting for a third to come, because between the two there is mostly quarrel. Husband and wife always look for a third to stand between them; thanks to the third, there is some ease.

I have a friend, very capable, who earned a lot of money. I said to him, “You have earned enough; there is no need now. Stop this race. You are fifty. Leave it.” He said, “If you say so, I won’t refuse. I’ll stop.” And that very day he stopped everything. “Enough,” he said. “Now we will live in peace.” Then he added, “But a problem has arisen; please solve it. Now only my wife and I are left. The children are grown and gone—three daughters, all married. Now only we two remain. We need a third constantly. Will you stay? Because if there isn’t a third, nothing happens except quarrel. If a third is there, we smile at each other a little—even if only formally, for the third to see—we speak nicely. When we are left alone, it grows heavy.”

Marriage needs society. The lover says, “We don’t need you; we are enough.” Thus society will never be on love’s side. The day it is, society will start collapsing.

In the West society is breaking. The reason is that love has become free. Western society cannot last long now. And if society is to last, love will have to be suppressed—because their paths diverge.

Even ordinary love between a man and a woman is not too dangerous—its intoxication wears off quickly. The beloved becomes a burden after some days; the lover becomes tiresome after some days. Once you have mapped each other’s geography, recognized each other’s life-patterns, the strangeness fades, the charm is lost.

Lovers soon become familiar and then it ends. Therefore love ultimately falls into marriage. If society waits a year or two, lovers themselves get married; there is no cause for anxiety. No need to be so worried.

But if someone falls in love with a master, the danger is great. Because this journey does not finish quickly. It is vast. And if one truly finds a master who can lead into the infinite, then there is no end at all. Once the back is turned to society, it stays turned.

Here is the great joke: society is against love; lovers are against masters!

Every day people come to me. If the wife comes, the husband becomes hostile; if the husband comes, the wife becomes hostile. Sometimes—rarely—both come together. When that happens, there is dialogue.

Otherwise, if one comes, the other pulls at his leg. If the husband turns toward a master, the wife is frightened: “That means someone more important than me has entered his life, for whose sake even I can be neglected! I lie at home sick with a headache and you go for spiritual talk! Is there anything more important than my headache?”

Competition begins. The wife thinks, “This master is a dangerous rival.” The husband thinks the same.

A woman from Poona comes to me; her husband is strongly opposed. So opposed he throws my books out of the house, tears photographs. I asked her, “What is his objection?” She said, “There is no real objection. He says, ‘What question is there that I cannot solve? Why do you need to go anywhere?’ That’s what he says. And I know there is no one more foolish than he is. But he is the husband and thinks himself God. If I tell him the truth—‘Solve your own problem first’—the quarrel grows.” The quarrel is this: there is someone more important than me! It feels as if the husband is being removed from his pedestal; as if the wife is being displaced.

The world is against love; love is against religion. The third journey is to God. Society will obstruct, family will obstruct, love will obstruct.

What the master speaks begins in love and ends in the divine. It begins with two and ends in one. All true speaking is between two, personal.

So first is dispute—the journeyer of the many. Then dialogue—an affectionate, sympathetic, reverential state in which two persons meet, eager to understand one another. And then a third state, where the two vanish entirely—there is a void, a profound silence.

First stage: dispute. Second stage: dialogue. Third stage: truth—union. There not even so much duality remains that anything could be said. Without speaking, understanding happens.

India’s sages have said: Nayam atma pravachanena labhyo, na medhaya, na bahudha shrutena. This Self is not attained by discourse, nor by intellect, nor by much hearing. Not by much listening, not by great understanding, not by much reading—for duality still remains. Only when you dissolve is it attained. When you are no more, it is. When words vanish and only emptiness remains—only in that temple of emptiness is the meeting with the divine.

The master begins with two, striving to bring you to one.

Only one who is weary of the world can come to a master. Only one who is weary even of love can go on with a master. Understand this well. Weariness of the world brings you to the master; but if you are not yet weary of love, you will stop at the master and go no further. One who is weary even of love can then go on with the master to where master and disciple both dissolve into that ocean which is God.

Always Krishna has spoken only to Arjuna—there is no other way to speak. I too am speaking only to Arjuna. Who told you I speak to a group! There is no way, no path, to speak to a group.

Begin somewhere—acting will do. But this acting is unique.
Imagine the real Rama got lost in the world and forgot that he is Rama. Wandering about for many days, he forgot. Then one day a Ramlila began in town, and someone said to the real Rama, “Why don’t you play the part of Rama in the Ramlila? You look exactly like Rama—your face, features, the way you carry yourself, these long arms, this chest. You should play Rama’s role.”
So the Rama who had forgotten that he was Rama agreed to act Rama. But as he kept acting, the layers of unconsciousness began to crack, and a remembrance started surfacing: what I am saying, what I am doing—it feels as if it has been said before, done before; as if I have seen this sometime. It no longer feels like acting; some ancient memory has been revived. Acting and acting, Rama remembered: I am Rama. That is the situation.
When I say to you, Be a mere instrument; you say, If I begin now, it will only be acting. All right—begin with acting. Better to begin with acting than not to begin at all. But the truth is: you are an instrument.
God gives you birth—you did not bring yourself into being by your own hand. Existence gives rise to you; existence nurtures and grows you. The longings of existence are the ones alive in your innermost heart. The urges of existence are what push you, move you. It is existence that runs you, that breathes within you. And one day existence calls you back home: you fall, death arrives, and you are lost again in existence.
You were never there as an independent doer; you were only a conduit. Some unseen hand worked by means of you; some invisible one walked with your feet.
Dadu has said: There are no hands, yet the bow is drawn. There is no bow, yet the arrow is set. There is no arrow, yet the wound is deep. The aim is true.
This is said of the Divine. He has no hands; He works through your hands. He has no feet; He finds the path with your feet. He has no eyes; He sees through your thousands upon thousands of eyes.
You are an instrument, but you have forgotten it. So let acting be your start—be Rama in the Ramlila. Who knows—acting and acting, remembrance may dawn! It will. For what is your inner existence—however much you forget it—you cannot erase it.
It happened like this. I have heard: a man committed murder. The state went after him; the emperor’s soldiers began to close in. He was terrified, saw no way out. He came to a riverbank—no boat, no bridge. Monsoon floods. To cross to the other side was dangerous; better to fall into the hands of the police—one or two years’ sentence, some way to wriggle out; lawyers are always available. Some path might be found. This river would take his life; the flood was fierce. He could think of nothing.
Suddenly an idea struck him. He saw a man on the bank, smeared with ash, sitting like a sadhu. He too quickly took a dip, smeared himself with ash, and sat under a tree with eyes closed.
When the mounted police arrived, they saw this sadhu sitting there. He was sitting perfectly the part. A thief, a murderer, all sorts of crimes upon him—but when one sits in the Buddha’s posture, some remembrance begins. Such is that posture. It is a posture within you. It appears on the body, but it doesn’t belong to the body; it is the body’s link with your inner state of quiet mind.
If you have ever tried to act anger, in a little while you will find anger has arrived. Start abusing, stamp your feet, bang the wall—soon you will find anger has taken you over. The opposite happens as well.
The man was only pretending to be a sadhu, only acting—but saintliness is your nature. As he sat quietly, a great sweetness began to be felt—such sweetness he had never known. And he also knew: this is only acting. But then from where is this nectar coming?
Just then the horsemen came; they halted. They saw this divine figure sitting there. They bowed and placed their heads at his feet. As their heads touched his feet, something began to awaken within the man. He was astonished: I am only a fake sadhu, a phony sitting here—became one only moments ago. No one even ordained me; I made myself one. Only smeared on a little ash; I haven’t really done anything. What are they seeing in this falsehood that they touch my feet? And if falseness can be so powerful, who knows how powerful truth might be!
The soldiers touched his feet and left; the man was changed, transformed. A revolution happened in his life. For he saw: if such honor is accorded to false saintliness, what then must true saintliness mean! A glimpse came. The doors had been shut for long; the windows unopened—there came a tiny crack. Fresh air from outside flowed in; that fresh air thrilled his very life-breath. The eyes had been closed for lifetimes; they opened just a little, in a flash, and there was recognition in a ray of sunlight. A call had come. The journey changed. Everything changed.
I say to you: act the mere instrument. For now, that is all you can do. How will truth happen all at once? You have acted many roles—act this one too. This acting is special, because it harmonizes with the truth within you.
Whereas the other roles you have played will remain only acting, for they have no accord with your inner truth. They remain on the surface; they never become your very life; their vibration never goes deep.
Try acting the instrument for a while. Let it be acting for a month. Live for a month as if He is living from within you. When you rise, let it be He who raises you; when you sit, let it be He who sits; if hunger comes, let it come to Him; when you give food, give it to Him. Let all the ordinary acts of life remain as they are—only an inner vision change: the doer is He, I am only the tool. My strings are in His hands; I am only a puppet, a marionette that dances.
Perhaps, if the nature of this outer acting and the inner truth is one, then one day the alignment will happen. One day, suddenly, the event happens. Suddenly the inner note begins to sound. Everything changes. In a single instant, all becomes different—darkness gives way to light, blindness to eyes, stupor to awareness.
Come, begin with acting.

Why does worry about the future seize you? Who has given you the contract for the future? Why does the desire arise that the future should also suit you? Leave the future to the future.

I am saying something; if it is meaningful, use it. Out of fear that one day it might become useless, will you refuse to use it now? When you build a house, you don’t ask, “Great palaces have turned into ruins—won’t this house also become a ruin? If it’s going to be a ruin, how will we live in it?” No, you don’t ask that. Because you know it will indeed one day be a ruin, but it’s quite enough for living in now. You are not going to live forever. What is built will dissolve—but it is sufficient for your stay. You have to live seventy or eighty years; it will take this house thousands of years to crumble—why worry? And if old palaces were never to fall into ruin, where would new palaces be raised? If all the old ones remained standing, the world would be in great trouble.

If all the people who have ever been born were still alive, do you know what the situation would be? Today the world’s population is about four billion. If everyone ever born were alive, it would be around one hundred and twenty billion. There wouldn’t even be space to wave a hand. Sleeping would be out of the question; even sitting would be difficult. Sit—and you’d be done for! A crowd on every side!

Those who have died have bestowed great kindness upon you. Thank them. And remember, if you do not die, you will be unkind to the future. How will future children be born then? Here the old departs, there the child arrives. Here great trees fall, small shoots sprout. And each shoot will one day become a great tree—and fall. This is the way of things. What is there to be troubled about?

What Mahavira said, those who were intelligent made use of. The foolish must have asked him the very same question: “What you are saying may be fine, but what will happen in the future? Religion will become a sect, words will harden into scripture, people will turn superstitious. People will think themselves Jain merely by birth—without any inner process or transformation!” Crazies like you were surely around; they must have asked that too. The intelligent opened locks with Mahavira’s key. The unintelligent kept fretting, “What if someday rust sets in?”

Rust does gather on every key. And it is fitting that it does—because when locks change, keys must change too.

Just as today the old religions have grown decrepit, what I am saying will also one day grow decrepit. But when it happens, it happens. And it should happen, otherwise how will new religions be born? How will new inspiration arise? If only old songs keep echoing, no space will remain to sing a new song.

Today someone is born in a Jain household and becomes a Jain without becoming a Jina. Becoming a Jina is arduous. To be a Jina means to be the complete victor of oneself. That is a great peak, Gauri Shankar. Rarely does anyone reach that height. But you were born in a Jain home, learned a few words of Jina-vani in childhood—and you’re a Jain. Born in a Hindu home, read or heard the Gita—and you’re a Hindu. This is not real being. Yet it is natural.

What I say today will become old tomorrow; it will. What is said cannot remain forever fresh. Nor can what is said remain forever relevant. Time will change, circumstances will change; what has been said will become out of place. And this is right; otherwise there would be no room left for new Buddhas to arrive. How would new satgurus descend? If the old Krishna does not take his leave, how will a new Krishna be born?

One who understands knows that the said religion will be made and unmade. The unsaid religion is eternal. What Mahavira did not say will not change. What Mahavira said will change; dust will settle upon it. What I am saying—dust will settle upon it. What I am not saying will not change. What I am not saying is the same as what Mahavira did not say, what Krishna did not say, what Buddha did not say.

Only when you can hear the unsaid will you recognize the eternal. As long as you can hear only what is said—and even that is difficult; you don’t even hear that properly—as long as you only hear the statement, everything will grow stale.

This is natural. There is nothing to cry over or be troubled about; nor is there any need to make arrangements against it. No arrangement will work; all arrangements will fail. Nature bows to no one and accepts no exceptions.

Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha, Zarathustra, Muhammad, Moses—all have gone stale. So how is it possible that what I say will remain forever fresh? It too will go stale. It should. There is meaning even in its going stale. Because only when it becomes stale and falls away will there be space for a fresh note to arise.

That fresh note is my very note. That fresh note is Krishna’s very note. But that note arises from emptiness. You are not acquainted with that.

Dharma is eternal; all sects are temporal—made and unmade. Dharma is never made, nor does it perish.

Therefore Hinduism should not be called a religion, Jainism should not be called a religion, Islam should not be called a religion. These are all sects. They are ways of reaching Dharma. They are paths to religion. They are not religion. Religion is hidden in your innermost dense emptiness, in deep silence.

They are; they should. There is no need for a question. Don’t ask. Taste it, drink it, drown in it. The moment you ask, you start trying to come back into the world of listening, the world of words.

Silence alone is meaningful. Words are too small; truth does not fit into them. They are like the courtyard of your house—how can the vast sky be contained there? Though the vast sky is there too—only a tiny fragment.

If, for a moment, you are freed from the courtyard and there is the feel of silence, don’t spoil it by asking why. The moment you ask, you are back in the world of words. This disease of asking has become such that you can no longer enjoy anything quietly.

I have heard: a psychologist was treating Mulla Nasruddin. He sent him to the mountains for a change of air. Nasruddin was worried, restless day and night, turning up each day with a new illness. So he was sent to the hills. Three days later a telegram arrived: “Feeling very happy—why?” Even happiness now cannot go on without a “why”!

Drop this disease of “why.” Yes, if you are ill, unhappy, in misery—ask why. Because misery has to be removed, the why is needed. You search for the causes of that which is to be eliminated. But for that which is to be attained, why hunt for reasons? Why, why? Don’t ask.

And if, in the flow of my speaking, a moment comes, an interval appears—live it, taste it. I am speaking precisely so that the interval becomes visible to you. If I were not speaking, you would not notice it.

When I become silent between two words, it is as if a river appears between two banks. On both sides there are words; in the middle, for a little while, the current of the interval flows—the river of silence. You were eager to listen, you were waiting for words, and I fell silent. For a moment your mind does not know what to do.

It is just in that small moment that silence touches you. Don’t raise the why; otherwise the mind will spoil it, contaminate it. The moment you bring in “why,” even your silence is no longer virginal—you have destroyed its virginity.

Live the virginal silence. Slowly, let questions arise only about that which has to be removed. Diagnosis is for disease, not for health.

If you are healthy, the doctor says, “There is no disease.” All the tests come back negative. When there is disease, then inquiry begins—what disease is it? Then the search begins: ask why, go into causes, diagnose, find the therapy, the medicine. Health is simply health; about it, no questions need be raised.

So understand a little. The wise have said: do not raise questions about the divine—not because there are no answers, but because the divine is ultimate health; what is there to discuss? Why, why? Enjoy, dance, drown.

One who questions the divine is questioning health itself. He is like Mulla Nasruddin: “I am in joy—why?” As if one cannot trust being joyful. That must be your condition too.

Sometimes, when I pause while speaking, your inner current, flowing along with mine, also stops—despite yourself, it stops. If it were up to you, you would keep it going. But your note has become attuned to mine in the speaking; you are absorbed in listening. When I fall silent for a moment, for a moment you cannot get back on track at once; it takes a little time—start the engine again, put it in gear, then thoughts begin. That moment which comes to you in spite of yourself—do not waste it by asking why. Do not bring a new restlessness and questions into it. Accept it without questions.

Join silence with reverence, join health with reverence, join the divine with reverence—and keep doubt for disease. Disease is to be removed; health is to be nourished. Health does not grow by questioning. By questioning, disease begins.

So when this happens, take a plunge—dip your head beneath that current of silence. You will come out new. And then, slowly, it will happen that even while I am speaking, many times a hush will descend within you. You will leave from here and find the silence walking with you. Little by little, a music settles within.

If silence is mastered, everything is accomplished. If silence is lost, everything is lost. For in that silence the inner world begins to be revealed, and in that silence the divine image begins to appear outside as well. Silence is the door. Silence is the temple.

It happens. Let us understand why it happens.

When a child is born, his life-energy flows evenly throughout the whole body; the current is unbroken. That is why children look so beautiful. Have you ever seen an ugly child? Even the ugliest child looks beautiful. And even the most handsome man seems to carry some deep ugliness. All children are born beautiful; later, at most a tiny percentage remain beautiful—everyone else loses that beauty. What is the matter?

The child’s beauty is because the chain of life within him, the inner stream of energy, is still flowing evenly. There is no obstruction anywhere in the body. The energy is not blocked. There are no stones in the waterfall. But as the child grows, with education, initiation, and imposed conditioning, the energy begins to be bound and blocked.

A small child plays with his genitals; children all over the world do it—there is something natural about it. But the mother sees and shouts, “Stop! Take your hands away!” The child takes his hand away, but the energy is split. For the first time the energy is frightened. Fear is born. It becomes necessary to divide one’s own body into two parts. Gradually people come to understand that the lower body is dirty.

It is truly astonishing. The body is one; one stream of blood flows within it; one system of bones, flesh, and marrow; nowhere is there any compartment, any division. Yet all societies have created such guilt around sex that the lower body is dirty—somewhere down below there is sin, some evil.

Sex is bad. And along with it, those parts of the body associated with sex become dirty, to be rejected, to be hidden. They are not to be accepted; not to be touched.

Because of this belief imposed on the child from the beginning, exactly at the belly—where sexual energy starts, two inches below the navel—a crack appears. The body is split into two parts: lower and higher. A crack appears in your consciousness too. Slowly you cease to identify with the lower body and identify only with the upper body.

In fact, a time comes when you feel you live only in the skull; the rest of the body is secondary. If you observe, you will recall that you “are” inside the skull. The skull seems accepted.

We have covered the whole body and left only the face open. If your head were cut off, your mother, your wife, your father would not recognize the rest of your body as you. You yourself would not recognize it. If there were a way to ask the severed head, “Is that body yours?” you would say, “I don’t know if it’s mine or not.”

The whole body has been rejected. Because of that rejection, the flow of energy is fragmented. And there are two or three special places where the fragmentation happens. The first split is just below the navel.

So when meditation restarts the flow of energy, when a seeker’s meditation goes deep, there will be a “blow” at the navel; the energy will rise again. The current that stopped in childhood because of repressive ideas will begin to flow once more. A stream blocked for years will move again; you will feel pain, you will feel ache.

If a hand has been tied for a very long time and suddenly freedom is given, the hand may not even move. It’s as if paralyzed. It will be difficult. The nerves have gone numb, the bones stiff. There will be pain.

Thus a seeker often begins to feel pain in the belly. Sometimes it begins right at initiation, at sannyas. If the seeker’s inner state is very receptive, as soon as he bows down to me the work starts. There can be much pain.

Do nothing for that pain. Accept it. Accept it with a sense of awe: good that the gate of blocked energy is opening. Accept it with gratitude and thank the Divine that your life-stream is flowing again.

The more you are filled with gratitude, the sooner the work will complete. If you make any effort against the pain, you can close the door again. So it is best not to take any treatment, because any treatment can only, at best, help you forget the pain.

And this pain is not physical. It is the pain of your inner energy. It must be liberated, brought out, set into motion again. You have to become like a small child again. Only then will you be accepted into the kingdom of God.

Jesus is right: “Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of my Father.”

You have to become alive again. Life must flow once more through your limbs that have gone numb. Your inner waterfall has to become mobile again.

So, first, the blow comes near the navel. It can remain for years if you keep fighting it, if you try to prevent it. Then the chasm that has been created still won’t be allowed to close. Relax; accept it. Whenever the pain becomes intense, lie down, close your eyes. And feel that right there at the navel, where the pain is, the energy is rising upward; and you are not obstructing it. You offer no hindrance; you are accepting; you are welcoming it—“Come.” You invite the energy.

One day, suddenly, you will feel a rustling, as if a long-compressed spring had a stone removed and sprang up at once; as if a long-suppressed fountain had its slab removed and burst forth like a tremendous storm. So too, from near your navel the energy will erupt.

With that upsurge, a revolution will happen in your life. You will become a different person. Then you are no longer the socially repressed person. Yoga has freed you.

That is one difficulty. The second area of difficulty is the heart. Society has repressed sex, so there is a block there. Society has repressed love too, so there is a block there.

No one accepts love. Love seems dangerous. So you talk about the heart, but you have no acquaintance with it. The heart seems risky. People say the heart is blind. People say love is blind. Whereas in truth, love is the only eye. And whoever’s heart is not alive has nothing alive at all. He is merely a dead body made of bone, flesh, and marrow—a corpse.

What you think is the heartbeat is only the lungs and the pumping of blood; not the heart. Behind that pump is a very poignant center of feeling.

Society has blocked that too. It has taught you thought, taught you logic, protected you from love. Because a loving person can be deceived, and one who loves can neither exploit nor plunder. And this society runs on exploitation and plunder. Here the rule is: the big fish eats the small fish.

So if you don’t live by argument and doubt, you’ll be looted and erased from the world. You won’t make a big shop, won’t become a great leader, won’t reach high office; ambition will wither. Therefore the heart has been suppressed.

So the second pain is in the heart. If love awakens, there will be a deep ache in the heart—just like a heart attack. But that is a blessing; do not be frightened. There is no need for any treatment. If it comes through meditation, there is no cause for worry. Lie down, place your hand on the heart and give it support: “It’s all right. Wake, rise, expand, beat again.” Thank the Divine.

Soon the pain will pass. When it passes, you’ll find yourself bathed in love. You’ll find your way of seeing has changed; the dignity and quality of your being have changed. You have become someone else. Where dry logic used to run, flowers of love will bloom. Where there were only deserts of doubt, oases of love will arise. Greenness will spread in your life. You will become green.

That is one place of pain. The third place is the throat. These are the three common sites, though there can be others for some individuals.

The throat is also blocked. Because what you wanted to say, you were not allowed to say. You wanted to laugh, you were not allowed. You wanted to cry, you were not allowed. When you cried, you were told, “Be quiet.” If you laughed loudly, it was “bad manners.” What you wanted to say, you did not; what you did not want to say, was made to be said. So there is a blockage in the throat.

These three areas bring pain. After meditation, after sannyas, if pain arises in these three, do not be alarmed. No medical treatment is needed. This is not illness. This is health returning. But you have been ill so long that even health now appears like illness to you. You have become tied to the bed and taken it to be life. When the life-stream returns, it frightens you—“What is happening?”

Do not be afraid. That is why a master is needed continuously—wherever you are frightened, he can support you; wherever fear grips, he can make you fearless. Beyond these, there can be pain in other places too. There can be pain in the head as well—and there is a reason. There are major repressions in the head.

The brain has two halves—left and right—with a small bridge connecting them. Society is peculiar: it has suppressed whatever is “left.” So your right hemisphere has been suppressed.

If a child writes with the left hand, we don’t allow him. Ten percent of children should naturally write with the left hand—born that way; their left hand is active. But teachers insist, mothers stand with sticks, fathers insist, “Write with the right!”

Now a child who was born to write with the left will write with the right, but you cripple his life-energy. His left hand is suppressed. The left hand connects to the right brain, and the right hand connects to the left brain—they cross. If you don’t let him write with the left, you suppress his right hemisphere. And that might be his real brain. The child becomes stupid for life—and you hold him responsible.

In the West today, a large group of psychologists and scientists advocate letting left-handed children write with the left. Otherwise you make them brainless for life. Their real brain is blocked, and they are made to manage with the one that neither wants to nor can do the job. You force crutches on them for no reason. They could have run on their own legs.

So those ten percent must rebel. The right-handed ninety percent have throttled the ten percent.

If your writing began with the left—you may have forgotten—and when life-energy flows again, your right brain will be activated; pain will begin there.

Wherever there is pain after meditation, consult a physician. If the doctor says there is no bodily defect, no pathology, then don’t worry. If he says there is a bodily issue, take the medicine. If there is no bodily defect, then what meditation is doing has no medical treatment. It needs no treatment. It is health returning.

You are like a river whose channel held only sand and stones; a few puddles remained here and there. It has rained—meditation has rained—and water is back in the river. The current is trying to flow again. In many places stones will have to be broken; there will be noise, there will be pain. In many places the path will have to be made; there will be pain.

But all this pain is auspicious. If you accept it with gratitude and keep a feeling of grace toward the Divine, you will find it passes quickly. Be a witness and let the Divine do the work.

Surrender yourself into His hands; this is the meaning of becoming a mere instrument. Let what He does, happen; what He does not do, do not desire.