Geeta Darshan #5

Now let us take the sutra.

Food that increases life, intelligence, strength, health, happiness and love; that is full of rasa, unctuous, sustaining, and by its very nature dear to the mind—such food is loved by the sattvic.

Bitter, sour, salty, excessively hot and pungent, harsh, burning foods that generate suffering, anxiety and disease—such food is loved by the rajasic.

And food that is half-cooked, sapless, foul-smelling, stale, leftover and impure—such food is loved by the tamasic.

Krishna is dividing life in every direction according to the three gunas. That division is immensely useful for a seeker. It gives you a measure by which to examine yourself, to test yourself—a criterion is provided.

What kind of food do you love? Because whatever you love is not loved without a cause. It is dear to you; it carries news about you. The food you eat announces who you are. How you get up, how you sit, how you walk—your inner consciousness is revealed through it. How you behave, how you sleep—everything keeps giving hints about you.

A subtle science has developed in the West: by closely examining a person’s behavior, everything about his inner being can be known. And, unknowingly, many times you do things you yourself are not aware of.

Suppose two people are standing and talking. If you stand at a distance, silently and attentively, many things can become clear to you that may not be clear to those two. The one who is bored and does not want to continue the conversation—you will see the signs of boredom on his face. Outwardly he may be saying, “I am listening to you with great relish,”—because perhaps the one speaking is the boss, is wealthy, is a politician, has power, can cause harm.

Mulla Nasruddin worked in an office. The owner of the office would sometimes gather people and tell the same old worn-out jokes—ones he had told many times. And people would burst into laughter. They had to laugh. When the owner cracks a joke, you must laugh. The owner is the owner; if you don’t laugh, you will land in trouble. Though he has told the same story ten or fifty times, still people laugh. Mulla Nasruddin also always laughed—the most, laughing so heartily as if he had never heard it before.

But one day the owner told a joke he had told many times. Everyone laughed; Mulla Nasruddin sat silent. The owner was startled. He asked, “Didn’t you hear the story?” Mulla said, “I heard it—and many times.” “Then why didn’t you laugh?” Mulla said, “Tomorrow I’m quitting the job. Laugh—what for! I laughed as long as I had the job. Now I’m quitting—why should I laugh?”

If two men are talking, you can closely observe who is only pretending to listen with interest while his face is showing a yawn. Two men are standing—among them, for the one who wants to go, you will find his body is ready to leave. Outwardly he may be showing eagerness—but the body is sending the news that the moment he is free, he will shoot off like an arrow. His arrow is already drawn on the bow. The man who is not interested in talking—his neck will be pulled back. The one who is keen will be leaning forward.

Psychologists say: the woman you are talking to—if she is ready to fall in love with you, she will lean forward while talking. If she is not inclined toward you, you should understand—she will always lean backward. She will look for a wall; she will stand leaning against it. She is saying, “Here is a wall.”

Psychologists say: the woman who is eager to have intercourse with you will always sit with her feet parted while talking with you. The woman herself may not know it. If she is not eager for intercourse, she will sit with her legs crossed, one over the other. She is signaling that she is closed, not open to you. Thousands of experiments have been done on this, and every time it has proved true.

Psychologists say: you enter a hotel; a woman is sitting there, she looks at you. If she looks once, she is not interested. Once is mere formality—when someone enters, anyone looks. But if she looks a second time, she is interested.

And slowly, the Don Juan types—those who keep chasing women—become skilled in understanding this language. The woman does not even know she has invited them herself. If the woman looks a second time, she looks only then. A man can look at a woman twenty-five times; his looking has little value. He can look just like that, even without any reason, just because he is idle. But a woman is very deliberate; she looks a second time only when she has interest. Otherwise she will not look—because there is not much pleasure for a woman in looking.

Women are not eager to look at men’s bodies; that is not a feminine trait. A woman’s delight lies in showing herself, not in looking. A man’s delight lies in looking, not in showing himself. This is perfectly right—only then do the two fit together. They have half-and-half illnesses; together they become a complete illness.

Psychologists say: women are exhibitionists; men are voyeurs—they take pleasure in looking. Therefore when a woman looks a second time, it means she is indicating—she is ready, she is eager, she is willing to move ahead.

If you look at a woman for three seconds, psychologists say, she will not be annoyed. Three seconds! Look longer than that, and she will immediately be annoyed. Three seconds is the limit; till then, formal looking is acceptable. But beyond three seconds, you have begun to stare; loutishness has begun.

Loutishness means: one who stares fixedly. The word luchcha comes from lochan—eyes. One who fixes his eyes is a luchcha. There is no other bad meaning in it—only that his eyes lack a little restraint, that’s all.

The word has the same meaning as ‘critic.’ Luchcha has the same meaning as ‘critic.’ The critic also stares at things fixedly. The poet writes the poem; the critic stares at the poem. He is doing loutishness with the poem.

Small things give news about your inside. Krishna says: food is not a small thing—it is very big. What kind of food do you prefer?

The rajasic person will prefer food that brings excitement into life, creates haste, makes one run, gives a push. Hence his food will be stimulating. The tamasic person will take such food as brings sleep, does not create excitement—stale, leftover, cold—so that no stimulation arises, only a heaviness, and he goes to sleep.

A tamas-filled person is always looking for sleep. If he gets a chance to lie down, he will not sit. If he gets a chance to sit, he will not stand. If he gets a chance to stand, he will not walk. If he gets a chance to walk, he will not run. He will always choose that which offers the greater convenience for sleep—for drowsiness! And for drowsiness, stale food is very useful.

Why is stale food useful for drowsiness? Because the hotter the food, the sooner it digests. The staler the food, the longer it takes to digest. Digestion needs fire. If food is hot, freshly prepared, the heat of the food combines with the heat of the stomach and digests it quickly. That is why we call the stomach’s fire jatharagni.

But if the food is stale, cold, kept for a long time, then it has to be digested solely on the basis of the stomach’s heat. What would have digested in six hours will take twelve. And the longer digestion takes, the longer sleep will come. For until the food is digested, the brain does not get energy—because the brain is a luxury. Understand this a little.

There is an economics of the body, an inner economics. First, basic needs are fulfilled; then, less basic needs; and lastly, the most non-basic needs.

At home, first you worry about food. You won’t, while starving, go and buy a radio; you won’t bring home a television while you are dying of hunger! Who will watch television? “Bhukhe bhajan na hoyi Gopala!” Even bhajan is not possible for the hungry—so who will watch TV! TV will not be visible at all. Rotis will be seen floating across the screen. Nothing else will appear. The hungry man wants bread first, shelter.

When the bodily needs are met, the needs of the mind begin. Then he reads novels, then he reads the Gita, then he listens to bhajans, watches films. And as even these mental needs are met, then the needs of the Atman arise. Then he thinks of meditation; then he considers Samadhi.

So there are three planes: body, mind and Atman. The body comes first, for without it neither mind nor Atman can remain here. It is the base, the root. If a tree faces the danger that either the flowers die or the roots die, the tree will let go of the flowers first—because they are luxuries; one can live without them. And if life remains, they can come again someday. But roots cannot be abandoned. Roots are life. If the roots are gone, flowers can never come again. If roots remain, flowers can come again.

If a tree is asked: shall we cut the trunk or the roots? The tree will say, “Cut the trunk—if that is the only option.” Because the trunk can grow again; branches will sprout again; the roots must be there.

The same economics exists within the body. When you eat, all the energy goes into digesting food. Therefore after a meal, sleep is felt—because the quota of energy that should go to the brain is not available.

The brain is a luxury; one can live without it. Animals and birds are living, plants are living; millions of creatures live without intelligence. There are human beings who live without intelligence too. Intelligence is not something indispensable. Yes—when the body’s needs are fulfilled and energy is left over, then it is given to the brain. And when the brain is also satisfied and there is still energy left, then it is given to the Atman.

So the tamasic man eats in such a way that energy never reaches the brain. Hence the tamasic person becomes unintelligent. Whoever wants to be intelligent must drop tamas.

He ends up living only in the body. Tamasic means: only body. There is a nominal intelligence—just enough to procure food and keep the body going, that’s all. And he has no news of the Atman. He does not even dream of the Atman. Seeing people talk of the Atman, he is astonished: what has happened to these crackpots! Is their brain all right or have they gone mad? What God, what Atman?

He knows only one thing, only one relish—and that is of the belly. He is belly alone. If you were to draw his portrait, you should draw only a belly, and put his face in the belly. He is a huge belly, and everything else attached to it is tiny. The tamasic person is an imbalance, a cripple—nothing else is significant in him.

The rajasic person’s food will be bitter, sour, salty, excessively hot, pungent, harsh, burning. The ambitious man’s diet will be like this. He has to run; he does not want sleep. The one who wants sleep eats cold foods, stale foods. The one who wants to run eats very hot foods.

That too is dangerous. For excessively hot food takes you to the other extreme—it makes you run, makes you rush. Wealth must be gained, position achieved, some ambition fulfilled. One must become an Alexander. It will make you feverish.

Now it is a strange thing: tamasic people sleep deeply—they never need tranquilizers. Rajasic people will always need tranquilizers. Because they run so much that when night comes and it is time to sleep, the inner running does not stop; it goes on and on.

A rajasic person, even when he is sitting on a chair, keeps moving his legs. There is no need to move the legs—yet they keep shaking. The body has stopped, but inside an unrest keeps sliding, keeps running.

A rajasic person even at night will keep turning sides, flailing, throwing his arms and legs. A tamasic person lies like a lump of clay. He does not stir. The tamasic snores terribly.

Once, on a journey, I landed in great trouble. Even today I cannot believe how it happened! In the compartment I was in, there were three other gentlemen. As soon as the four of us lay down at night on our berths, one began to snore. Nothing special. But I was astonished when, after a little while, the second started snoring louder than the first. I thought it was coincidence. But when the third beat both of them, then I was a bit at a loss: how is this happening? One after the other!

It seemed—as I listened to them for a long time, for there was no other way—that sleep was protecting itself. All three were fierce sleepers. And the first one’s snoring was creating a slight obstruction in the second’s sleep, so the second snored even louder, to suppress the first. And then the third! And after a little while I saw the first had also begun to increase his tempo.

This music went on the whole night. Even in sleep they kept trying to defeat one another. Perhaps at home they did not snore so loudly. But having found competitors! Because the competitors were causing a hindrance. And the body protects itself in many ways.

A tamasic person will snore. If he falls ill, it will be with sleep—he will be sick for more sleep.

People come to me and say, “All day I feel drowsy. All day. I sleep well at night, yet it seems there is a lack of sleep.”

If a young man desires more than eight hours of sleep, know it is tamas. If an old man desires more than three or four hours of sleep, know it is tamas.

Remember: with age, the proportion of sleep will go on decreasing. A newborn child sleeps twenty-two hours. He is not in tamas—that is his need. If he sleeps twenty-four hours, that is tamas; twenty-two is needed. Then as he grows, twenty hours, eighteen hours—it will go on decreasing. By the age of seven, his sleep should come down to eight hours—that is balanced. Then it will remain around eight hours for the major portion of life. But seven years before death, it will again start decreasing—six hours, five hours, four hours.

The day your sleep begins to be less than eight hours, that day you should understand the first footsteps of death have begun to be heard. Because sleep comes for the rebuilding of the body.

In the mother’s womb the child sleeps twenty-four hours—except for a few rajasic babies who kick about in the mother’s belly. Otherwise he sleeps twenty-four hours. It is needed—the body is being built; great work is going on inside. Sleep assists; breaking of sleep hinders.

Then you work twenty-four hours; eight hours are enough. In that time the body reconstructs itself. Dead cells are replenished. The blood is purified. Energy is rejuvenated. In the morning you are fresh again.

But in the old man’s body the work of building stops. Now the dead cells die and are not replaced. The moment of departure is approaching; sleep grows less.

Old men come to me—sometimes seventy years old—and say, “Please suggest something for sleep. Only two or three hours come.”

What do you want? There is no need for sleep now. Sleep is not your personal need; it is nature’s arrangement. For an old man, three hours is much—enough, sufficient. There is no need for more. The day before death, sleep will disappear completely. For death is now near. The day of dissolution has come. Now nothing is to be built—so how can sleep come? Sleep comes for building.

Therefore the tamasic person will accumulate terrible weight in the body. Because he will keep sleeping and sleeping, and the body will keep building. And he will never use the body. So the body’s weight will increase, fat will accumulate. He becomes nothing but a burden.

The one filled with rajas will always seek running, stimulation in whatever he does. Because only on the strength of stimulation can he live. Such an excited person cannot even sleep at night. The excitement is such that even lying on the bed, it keeps running in the brain.

The one filled with tamas lives in the body; he is only body. Other things are merely nominal. The one filled with rajas lives in the mind; he is only mind. Other things are merely nominal. He sacrifices the body for the ambitions of the mind. He even sacrifices the Atman for the ambitions of the mind. He lives only in the mind. He is a conqueror of the mind. The whole empire must be spread over the world.

The one filled with sattva is different from both. He is balanced. He neither eats excessively cold foods nor excessively hot foods. He eats only that warmth of food which is in tune with the jatharagni. He will take food of the same temperature as the belly’s fire. Slightly warm—not piping hot, not ice-cold—such food, by which his body finds attunement. He eats according to the body’s temperature.

His life-span will naturally be greater, because he lives according to nature, in consonance with nature. His intelligence will naturally be pure, sharp, clear—like a spotless mirror—because he eats pure food; he will usually be vegetarian. He will take such food that, while taking it, does not arouse excitement but gives peace, a certain softness. And it increases love.

The rajasic person’s food increases anger. The tamasic person’s food increases laziness. The sattvic person’s food increases love. Near him you will find the fragrance of love. Near him it is always springtime. With him there will be a sweetness. In his speaking, in his rising and sitting there will be a music, a rhythm—because within, his body is in rhythm with his food.

The body is made of food. Much depends on food. If you do not eat, the body will depart in three months. The body is food. The body is a transformation of food. Therefore whatever food you take will build the body.

In his life there will be love. The lazy cannot love. The lazy ask for love. Understand this difference well.

The lazy demand love—“Love me.” He sits in front of the whole world with an advertisement: “All of you love me.” He is lying on his back, all four corners of the bed occupied, and the whole world should love him. And his complaint is that no one loves him.

The rajasic neither loves nor asks for love. He has no leisure for such a business. For him there are many works other than love. Love is not everything; love is secondary.

An Alexander cannot find time to love. How can he? There are great wars yet to be won. One must build sovereignty over the whole earth.

Napoleon, though he writes letters daily to his wife from the battlefield, writes them from the battlefield—he never comes home. He writes every day; not a day does he skip. It seems to me he does this out of a sense of guilt.

Slowly the wife falls in love with someone else. He keeps writing letters. She stops even reading them. It is said of Josephine that gradually she stopped opening Napoleon’s letters—she tossed them into the trash. For how long can a woman wait! She fell in love with another soldier.

Napoleon is always at war. He writes every day from there: “Today I conquered one more city; I dedicate it at your feet, Josephine!” But by dedicating cities, Josephine gets no joy. She wants Napoleon to come. What will she do with cities? The map keeps getting bigger—what will that do? Nowhere in her heart does it bring fulfillment.

Ambitious people neither want love nor give love. They have no leisure. Great things are yet to be done. The election has to be fought—the election is near. They must fight the election, reach the post, go to Delhi. Wife is secondary, children are secondary. Therefore the children of politicians—even the greatest politicians—become wayward and ruined. It will happen.

The children of the wealthy cannot move toward sattva; the father has no leisure. He is amassing wealth. Though he says he is doing it for them, he never meets them. When he returns home, the children are already asleep. In the morning when he rushes to the market, the children have not yet risen. He is in a rush. If he meets them on the stairs in passing, he gives a little pat on the back. Even that seems to him a useless act. If that much energy were saved, he could earn more money! If he patted someone else in the market that much, the safe would fill. This came in the way unnecessarily.

The children of the rich never really meet their father. And many children of the very rich do not meet their mother either. For where does the mother have leisure! Clubs, society—twenty-five webs. She must go with her husband to banquets—because his business depends on it. She must go, smile, talk to people—because it is necessary for business.

Whenever a country sends someone as an ambassador, first they look closely at his wife—does she have some beauty? Because the ambassador’s entire work depends on the wife’s beauty. With the wife’s help, the ambassador gets his work done.

On the strength of wives, people become presidents. On the strength of wives, people become very wealthy. They travel upon the wife. Can this be love! The wife is also a means!

In the house of the very rich, neither the wife is to be found nor the husband. The children wander astray. They are raised by servants. The result is obvious.

Even the children of the greatest—of a person like Mahatma Gandhi—turn out to be of no use. Not one child proves worthy.

That is why I cannot place Mahatma Gandhi above the second category. He is not a person of sattva. He may talk as much as he likes of sattva, but he is a rajasic person. Ambition weighs heavy—even if it is not connected with his own person. Remember this.

To free the nation does not directly appear to be a personal ambition. To uplift the poor, to uplift the Harijans—no personal desire seems to be involved. But this too is ambition. From this also I will feel fulfilled. When the nation is uplifted, I will say, “Look—I uplifted it! I awakened the Harijans! I brought independence!” But this too is ambition. Where is the leisure with such ambition?

Gandhi has no leisure at all—not even to bathe. He sits in a tub to bathe, and the secretary stands outside and reads the newspaper to him. He goes inside to the toilet, and the secretary stands at the door and reads the news from the paper—because there is no leisure! He reads letters aloud; Gandhi answers from inside, “Write this-and-this reply.”

In such a life of hustle and bustle, where is the space for love! Kasturba died unhappy. No one says this, but Kasturba died unhappy. She was not happy—could not be. Because Gandhi had no leisure. He had no time to look toward Kasturba. A great net of work.

The ambitious man lives in the race of the mind. He neither loves nor asks for love.

The one who attains to sattva lives in the donation of love. He does not ask—he only gives.

Tamas asks. Sattva gives. Rajas has no leisure. Sattva fills your life-energy with so much love, such contentment, such deep fulfillment that you become eager to share. You share because you have so much—what will you do with it! And the more you share, the more it grows.

Food that increases life, intelligence, strength, health, happiness and love; that is full of rasa, unctuous, sustaining, and by its very nature dear to the mind—is dear to the sattvic.

That which is naturally dear! The sattvic does not eat for taste—though he relishes taste as no one else does. But taste is not the determinant. The determining factor is the body’s nature, suitability to one’s constitution, attunement, music. Though the sattvic attains the supreme taste.

If you give the food of the sattvic to a tamasic person, he will say, “Grass and leaves! There is nothing in this; is this food?” If you give it to a rajasic, he will say, “There is no taste, no sharpness, no stimulation—no chili, not enough salt.”

Remember, those who live on chili and spices should not think they are savouring taste. The need for chili and spices arises because their taste has died. Their tongue has become so dead that unless they place poison on it, it feels nothing—hence chili must be added. With chili there is a slight stinging on the tongue; the dying tongue trembles a little—they feel taste has come!

But one whose tongue is alive has no need for chili. He will not be able to tolerate chili. One whose taste is alive will derive such unique flavor from ordinary fruits and vegetables that he cannot conceive why you are destroying the taste of vegetables by adding chili! It is the destruction of taste. Spices are a means of destruction, not enhancement. Taste does not increase with spices.

But you will feel difficulty. If today you suddenly leave spices, everything will seem tasteless—because you will have to practice taste anew.

It is the same as with a friend of mine who is a traveling agent. Twenty or twenty-four days of the month he is away; he returns home for five or seven days. He came to me and said, “It is a great problem. In the train I get sleep; at home I don’t.”

Having been a traveling agent for so long, he sleeps in the train—uproar, noise, sounds, the coming and going of stations, crowds—and he sleeps. At home, he says, such silence seems to prevail that sleep does not come! A habit has formed. Now he will have to practice silence again.

If you become habituated to the marketplace, the Himalayas will seem empty. If you become habituated to quarrel and uproar, then the day you sit in silence, it will seem time does not pass.

If your tongue has been filled with spices, you have lost taste. The tongue is a very delicate thing. And the taste-buds on the tongue—there is nothing more delicate you possess. If you have given them very strong substances, they have died; their capacity to experience has gone. Now you need stronger and stronger things. Only then there is a little stinging, and you feel some taste is coming.

The sattvic does not eat for taste—but the taste he experiences, no one in the world does. Therefore I tell you: do not think the sattvic is one who does not taste. He relishes the supreme taste. Neither does tamas receive such taste, nor does rajas. Taste comes only to one who moves in accord with nature. He receives the full taste of life in its fullness.

In every direction the sensitivity of the sattvic opens. He hears more, sees more, touches more, tastes more, smells more.

When a sattvic person passes by a rose, he receives its fragrance. The rajasic—he has applied the trashy perfumes of the bazaar; in the intensity of those scents, the fragrance of the rose does not even reach him. He needs cheap perfumes sold in the market, worth two pennies. From them alone he receives a little scent. His nostrils are dead. If somewhere classical music is being played, he gets no enjoyment. He says, “What is this going on?”

Mulla Nasruddin had gone to a classical concert. When the musician began the alap, tears began to fall from Mulla’s eyes. A neighbor asked, “Nasruddin! We never thought you were such a lover of classical music. Tears are dropping from your eyes!”

He said, “Yes, they are. Because this man is in danger. My goat was in just this condition when he died. He too would fill such an alap. He will die. Do something to save him. Crying like this—my goat died.”

For classical music you need an inner harmony. You will enjoy some filmi hullabaloo—where Premnath is cavorting like a monkey. There your spine will grow erect; your attention will become absorbed—you will say, “Now something is happening.”

All your sensitivities have become attenuated—either they have gone to sleep in tamas or, in the excitement of rajas, they have died. The one who attains sattva is supremely sensitive.

Therefore I tell you: the buddha lives with an intensity you cannot. You only pretend to live. The awakened one lives with depth. Flowers give him greater fragrance. Breezes give him greater coolness. The babbling of the river fills him with the resonance of Omkar. He becomes capable of hearing silence. Even simple food gives him supreme taste. And ordinary human beings appear to him as images of the Beautiful. The whole world becomes beautiful to him. He attains Satyam, Shivam and Sundaram.

Enough for today.

There are two kinds of people who remain deprived of the Divine. First, those whose thirst is genuine, but whose direction of search is wrong. Second, those in whom there is no thirst at all; for them the question of direction does not arise.

Narad did have thirst, but he was traveling in the wrong direction. Whoever goes outward to search for Krishna will go astray. If you want to find Krishna, you must go within. Krishna is not an external entity; Krishna is an inner state.

Narad missed because he understood Krishna to be outside. Whoever takes the Divine to be outside will keep missing. You will arrive and find that the Divine has already moved on. This will happen every time—because the Divine was never there. From afar it appears so; when you reach near you discover it has receded. It was a mirage. In the desert, from afar, a lake seems to appear.

And when a lake appears in the desert, your certainty grows. There are two reasons for this certainty. First: your inner thirst. A thirsty person wants to trust in water; he doesn’t want to doubt it—because doubt would mean death. The thirsty become believers: the greater the thirst, the greater the trust.

So the thirsty one does not want to accept that the lake seen in the distance might not be real. To admit that would mean death. The throat is parched here; the intellect drops all doubt, even drops its cleverness.

The thirsty trust; only on the strength of trust can they live. The thirsty are filled with hope; without hope, life itself would collapse. So they are ready to believe even in what is not.

A frightened person, out of fear, also loses his intelligence. What is not there begins to appear. Have you ever crossed a dark night in fear? Suddenly ghosts and spirits seem to be everywhere. Thieves and murderers slide along the edges. A rustling leaf feels like someone approaching. A gust of wind hits the trees and you feel someone has come. In a deserted night you hear your own footsteps and feel someone is following you. Your own heartbeat sounds loud. Inside there is agitation; you project its cause outside. A frightened person creates ghosts and goblins. Just as the frightened conjure spirits, the thirsty conjure water.

When thirsty in the desert and you see a lake, you won’t easily muster the courage to think, “This is a mirage, a dream.” It’s hard. Sitting at home, in the shade, sipping cool water, perhaps you might think twice: “Could that shimmering be a mirage? The desert’s deception?”

A mirage arises from a law of light. When sunrays strike the heated sand, they reflect back, warmed and trembling. Because of their vibration you can sometimes even see, without going to a desert, on a blazing afternoon over a thatched roof, rippling waves of light.

They are nothing—because the desert is a fierce fire; there is only sand; yet the waves of light appear as if water were rippling. And then the conviction deepens. The shadows of nearby trees seem to fall upon those quivering waves. That seals it: “There must be water—otherwise how could there be reflections?” Can a tree’s shadow appear on sand? But in those vibrating waves of light, a tree’s shadow seems to form.

Then inner thirst joins with the outer web of light and faith is born. But as you move closer—as you keep moving closer—you are amazed: as you approach, the lake recedes. The distance between you and the lake remains the same, no matter how far you walk. Now water appears farther along the shimmering field of rays. Yet the thirsty still keep faith. Thirst makes one blind.

So wherever Narad went, Krishna had “moved on”—a very charming story. Whether it happened or not is secondary; this event does visit a seeker’s life.

Because of your thirst, you see the Divine outside. Everything you have ever thirsted for you have found outside. Thirst for water—you found water outside. Hunger—you found food outside. Love arose—your lover was not found inside; you found them outside. Ambition arose—you found position and wealth outside. Whatever arose within, you always found its satisfaction outside.

So when the thirst for the Divine is born, your entire life’s experience says, “It must be out there.” Whenever thirst arose, its quenching came from the outside; whenever dissatisfaction arose, consolation came from the outside. The mathematics distilled from lifetimes says: thirst is inside, water is outside. When the thirst for the Divine arises, you too will search outside—in temples, mosques, gurdwaras. You will search the sky and the underworld—everywhere except where your thirst actually is.

In the world, thirst is inside and water is outside. In the search for the Divine, where the thirst is, there is the lake. It is a different dimension; it is unrelated to your past experience.

So wherever Narad heard news—wherever a mirage formed, wherever deception stood—there Narad ran. News came: Krishna is in Poona, Narad went to Poona. News came: Krishna is in Calcutta, Narad went to Calcutta. But by the time he reached Calcutta, Krishna had gone elsewhere. And so he kept wandering.

It is worth pondering: how did a wise man like Narad wander his whole life and not find? Everyone else met Krishna; why not Narad?

Narad was thirsty, deeply thirsty. Thirst blinds. And he was searching outside. He went wherever he found a clue, but Krishna had shifted. The whole life went like this.

So too many of your lives have gone. Neither did Narad understand then, nor have you yet understood, that in the Divine there are not two: the thirst for the Divine and the Divine. There is no duality there. There thirst itself is the lake. There hunger itself is the food. There is nonduality. The seeker and the sought are not two; the one who searches and that which is searched are one.

There, you and your God are not two. There devotee and God are not separate; there is oneness, indivisibility. There is only one—your very self. If you wish, you can be a devotee; if you wish, you can be God. If you choose to be a devotee, you will go on searching for God outside.

That is Narad’s difficulty. Narad is a bhakta, a devotee. The devotee keeps searching outside and keeps wandering. Those who have known have said, “Become God.”

What does it mean to become God? It means simply this: thirst and the lake are one. That which I seek—I am. The seeker is the goal. Path and goal are not separate; means and end are not two. They are one. And whoever looks for the One must search within.

If only Narad had closed his eyes and looked inside, the Krishna he kept missing outside he would have found laughing within. He is enthroned there, waiting within. He is calling, “Narad, why do you wander outside? I am within you!”

But the one who wanders outside does not hear the inner call. Narad was thirsty, but thirst suggested a mirage.

So one kind of person is thirsty and yet misses. The other kind has no thirst at all; for them meeting is not even a question. Narad will meet—if not in this life, then in the next, or the next. There is no hurry. Infinity is. There is ample time. The story goes on. Nothing ends with one life. A single life is only a drop; time is a vast ocean. There is no rush. Narad will meet somewhere, sometime. But the one in whom thirst has not arisen—how will he meet?

The first step of awakening thirst is to search outside. And when you fail outside—again and again—then remembrance dawns: now let me search within.

So be a Narad. Sitting idle will not do. You must search outside; only then will the idea of searching within arise. When you lose outside, you awaken inside. When you fall outside again and again, you will rise within. After repeated collisions and failures, one day you too will remember: “I have searched so much outside; now let me turn a little within—let me look inside too. Who knows, perhaps it is hidden there!”

When the outside fails every time—just at the point of finding, you miss; just as you arrive, it slips—how long will you keep searching outside? Even the dullest person someday understands: there are only two directions—outward and inward. Having searched outside, now look within.

So the first stage of the search is Narad. If thirst has not arisen at all, then certainly you will not be deceived by mirages. Even if Krishna passes by you, you won’t raise your eyes. And even if you look, you will not see. And even if you see, you will take it for something else.

Krishna is present; very few can see. Even Arjuna takes a long time to see. Arjuna keeps asking; he is probing Krishna, testing him. He does not have complete trust. That is why the Gita is so long. Otherwise Krishna could have simply said, “Fight.” If trust were complete, he would have fought.

There was doubt, skepticism—and it seems quite natural. Krishna was his friend. To see God in a friend is difficult. It is easy to see God in someone far away; very hard to see in someone close. He is just like you. You know his mistakes and slips. How can you accept him as the Supreme? You have seen him thirsty, hungry, tired; sleeping and waking; sweating in heat, shivering in cold—just like you. Someone abused him and he grew angry; someone loved him and he was delighted—just like you. How will you accept that he is God?

How could Arjuna accept that Krishna is God? Duryodhan also does not accept—but his rejection is adamant; his irreverence is complete. Arjuna’s trust is not whole, nor his distrust whole; he wavers.

“Arjun” is an important word; it derives from “riju,” which means straight, steady—like a lamp’s flame that does not flicker. “A-riju” means wavering, tremulous, fickle: a moment of trust, a moment of doubt.

He looks and sees the friend; then looks more deeply and the friend vanishes, a glimpse of the Divine shines. Confidence comes—and doesn’t. Hence the Gita is so long. It is a search for trust, a search for faith.

Arjuna is probing: “Truly, truly—are you the Cosmic Person? Are you really what you claim? Are you the one who has made all? Are you the one hidden in all?” Trust does not come easily. “You sit as my charioteer! You drive my chariot! You water and curry my horses! Your body seems just like mine; your words sound like mine. And yet sometimes something beyond peeks through—some vastness. Even in this small courtyard, there is sky; that too glimmers.”

Duryodhan is firm, resolute: his irreverence is complete. Not even by mistake does he ever think there is Divinity in this man. Arjuna runs between faith and doubt.

The one without thirst does not search at all. For him the Divine is not visible even from afar, not even outside. For him the word “God” is empty, meaningless, merely convenient.

Even when such a person uses the word “God,” do not think there is any substance in it. There is none. Sometimes he says, “God knows!” when asked something he doesn’t know. Do not imagine he means “God knows.” He means, “Nobody knows.” For him “God” means “nobody.” He uses it that way.

Mulla Nasruddin is an atheist—believes neither in God nor in prayer. Never went to a mosque; never opened the Quran.

On a journey he happened to be with a Maulvi. It was a bitterly cold morning; at five the Maulvi rose for prayer, teeth chattering, hands shaking. Mulla snuggled in his quilt. Seeing the Maulvi rise, he peeked out and said, “Thank God we are not believers!”

What could “God” mean in his sentence—“Thank God we are not believers!”? Otherwise, he too would have to get up at five in such cold to pray. He too uses the word “God,” but it is empty of meaning.

A word like “God” acquires meaning only when a little glimpse, a small opening begins for you. Its meaning is not in dictionaries; it is in lived experience.

The one without thirst will not run outside like Narad; he will not wander. But don’t be happy that you are not wandering. Because he who wanders will someday also come upon the right path. He who never wanders never arrives. He who makes mistakes can someday correct them. He who never errs—how will he correct?

So do not fear making mistakes, and do not be afraid of wandering. All who have arrived have arrived after wandering. And those who have found have found after many mistakes. To fear mistakes is a sign of cowardice; to fear wandering is the definition of weakness.

A courageous person is willing to err—willing to make a thousand mistakes. Only one thing he is not willing to do: repeat the same mistake. He makes new mistakes. For unless you err, how will you know? Unless you grope, how will you recognize the door?

Do not avoid groping along the wall. Where we stand is darkness; you can only grope—nothing else is possible. But those who have groped have slowly found the door. Do not fear that people will laugh, make fun: “What—groping along a wall? Are you blind?”

Don’t sit stiff in the dark thinking groping will reveal your blindness. Look at Narad, how he gropes: wherever he hears, he goes. But he finds walls, not doors. He seeks Krishna; wherever there is news, he rushes. He finds they have gone on. There is no meeting. “We are better,” you think: “at least we sit in our place! We neither go nor wander. At least no one can call us ignorant. If we make no mistakes, who can call us ignorant?”

This is weakness. Such people rot sitting down.

In my view there is only one mistake in the world: that you never rise, never grope, never move. That alone is the mistake. For if you grope, someday you will find a door. There is a door. However long the groping, there is a door. Narad must have found somewhere, sometime.

Arouse thirst, inflame it. At most I can give you thirst. No one can give you the Divine. Thirst can be given, provoked.

Once thirst seizes you—once its fever takes hold—an uneasiness arises in you, a discontent surrounds you. You start walking, groping, wandering. No harm if you first search outside—go to temples and mosques, knock on many doors. This has to be done.

In Egypt the fakirs have an old saying: “To come to your own home, you must knock at many other doors.” Even to return home, you must wander through countless paths.

Oscar Wilde, a thoughtful Western writer, wrote: “Only after roaming the whole world did I recognize my own country. When I came back to my village, it was altogether new—because I was new, returned after seeing the world. The village trees looked magnificent; and the village birds—for the first time I heard their songs. The world had opened my eyes. When I lived here before, I slept through it all.”

Until you have wandered a great deal, you cannot recognize that the temple was within. That recognition is the fruit of long wandering; the price must be paid. Do not fear paying it.

I cannot give you the Divine—no one can; no one ever has. What have the awakened ones given? What did Mahavira give to people? A kind of divine madness, a thirst. They awakened the sleeping thirst.

Even “giving” is not the right word. It is already within you—buried. Or you are misinterpreting it. Someone seeks wealth, but in truth he longs for the Divine. Someone seeks a wife or a husband, but truly he longs for the Divine. Hence the pain in your life. If wealth is not found, there is pain. If wealth is found, there is still pain—because even after gaining wealth, that which you really sought is not found. You are seeking the Divine.

As I see it, every person is seeking the Divine. The names are different. One says, “I seek position, I want to be president!” Become president and suddenly you discover: nothing is found. You will still die. What is the value of a post that can be snatched away tomorrow? True prestige means that which cannot be taken away—once gained, always yours; eternal. But a post? Today you are elevated; tomorrow you are removed—that is humiliation. You become president, then must become “former president”—a living ghost.

What is the worth of what can be taken? The wise do not seek it. They seek only that which, once attained, cannot be lost. That is the Divine—once found, never lost. That is what you are seeking.

You too seek a wealth that cannot be stolen. So you arrange so much—lock it in safes, in bank lockers, deposit it in Swiss banks—protect it from every side so that no mischief befalls it.

Here a safe can be stolen. Governments are unreliable; nothing is certain. Indira Gandhi’s guru lives in Russia—who knows when the guru will command and the country will turn communist? Safes will be seized, lockers will be worthless; so you stash it in Switzerland.

But wherever you stash it, external wealth cannot be secured; it will go. And even if the wealth remains, you will go. What will you do with it? You cannot take it along.

What you seek is that treasure which no one can take, which is forever—the Supreme Wealth, the Divine.

In all your searching there is the fragrance of that one search. I can only awaken you and tell you what your thirst really is. You are running—but where? For what? What goal do you truly desire?

If anyone sits quietly and reflects a little, he will find: without the Divine, there is no fulfillment. No matter how much a woman sees God in her husband, it makes no difference—the man keeps showing through. She may say, “You are my God,” even touch his feet now and then, but God does not appear. Until God himself is your beloved, fulfillment is not possible.

No matter how much a husband loves his wife, love is never complete—because only with the Complete can love be complete. How can there be completion with the incomplete? How can you demand wholeness from what is partial?

And here, all are incomplete. Desire for the incomplete will remain incomplete. A dissatisfaction smolders. That is why, missing with one person, you look to another, and then another—hoping fullness might appear somewhere.

That fullness is found only in the Divine. Less than that will not quench human thirst. And it is your good fortune that it does not quench. If it did, who knows on what heap of rubbish you’d have settled; your journey would have ended there. The Divine will not allow your thirst to be quenched elsewhere; he will draw you toward himself.

Run! Become thirsty! And in every thirst, seek that one thirst. As your thirst grows dense, first you will become a Narad.

Narad is the supreme devotee. The devotee first searches for God outside; and searching outside, he still does not find. He weeps, cries, sings, dances—but the lack remains, the distance remains. And the closer he comes, the more even the smallest gap hurts—intolerable—and yet the distance does not vanish. He keeps missing. Then one day the devotee turns his eyes within.

First, the devotee prays. Prayer means: God is outside. Then the devotee descends into meditation. Meditation means: God is within. Prayer is the first stage of thirst; meditation is the second.

Meditation means: now we go within. No more words; no more worship; no more waving of lamps in arati. There is no one outside. Now we begin the inner journey. The inward journey is meditation.

Surely Narad found, at last.

Arouse thirst. Become a Narad. Then the second step rises on its own. If thirst deepens, how long can you wander in mirages? One day understanding dawns, a lamp is lit. One day the eyes open, sleep breaks. You awaken and find that the Divine sits within, waiting for you.

It depends on what you mean by theism. What do you mean by being a theist? Do you mean someone who trusts, who believes in some God somewhere? Or do you mean one who becomes divine in himself, who becomes God himself?

There are two kinds of theism. One is the theism of the devotee, of Narada, who is seeking God outside. That theism is rather flimsy. It is not the ultimate theism. The other is the theism of Mahavira and Buddha, who found the divine within.

So Buddha said, “There is no God.” When Buddha said there is no God, he was really saying that all is God; therefore there can be no separate entity called God.

It is meaningful to say “Rama is God” only so long as Lakshmana is not God—at least so long as Ravana is not God. Only then does it make any sense to say Rama is God. But if Lakshmana too is God, and Ravana too is God, what meaning remains in calling Rama God? None at all.

Mahavira and Buddha are supreme theists; their theism goes far deeper than ordinary theism. They say everything is godliness. Here even trees and plants are God—they are just asleep a little more deeply than you. Here even rocks and mountains are God—perhaps sunk in an even deeper stupor, sleeping in a coma. But they are God all the same, however deep the sleep.

The rock is sleeping very deeply—midnight sleep. Plants are not so deep; the Brahma-muhurta is approaching. Among animals and birds—dawn has broken. In man—it is morning. Buddha and Mahavira live at high noon—the sun stands at the zenith. But all these are gradations of sleeping and waking. The difference between a Mahavira or a Buddha and the rocks of the Himalayas is not of kind but of degree—of the amount of awareness.

Therefore Mahavira called the mountains one-sensed beings. They have only one sense—the body. No eyes, no hands, no feet. They cannot walk, cannot get up, cannot see, cannot hear; but they have a body. They can experience touch. They are in very deep sleep.

Mahavira gave a profound classification: mountains are one-sensed; then from there the scale rises—two-sensed, three-sensed; animals and birds are of three senses; there are also four-sensed animals; man is five-sensed. And when one begins to rise beyond man, the sixth sense starts awakening. When one goes altogether beyond the human, one awakens into the suprasensory. But the whole difference is of degree.

So what do you mean by God? What do you mean by theism? Do you mean that some person sits in the sky running the whole world?

Then your theism is childish—a story for children. As an illustration it is fine. Your theism is like “ga is for Ganesh.” The letter ga has nothing to do with Ganesh; ga is just as much for gadhaa, the donkey.

We used to teach the child, “ga is for Ganesh.” Now they don’t teach that. In the new primers it is “ga is for gadhaa, donkey.” Because the state is now secular; religious words cannot be used. When I was in school it was “ga is for Ganesh.” The other day I saw a children’s primer—now it’s “ga is for gadhaa”! And people call this progress. Doubt has arisen about Ganesh; faith has shifted to the donkey.

But when we say, “God is running the whole world,” we are similarly explaining things to a child, spinning a story. Those who have known have known that God is the world itself; the runner and the run are not two—they are one.

That is why Hindus called God Nataraj—the Dancer. A dancer has one great peculiarity: you cannot separate the dance from the dancer.

A painter’s painting can be separated—the painter is one thing, the painting another. A sculptor’s statue is separate from the sculptor. The sculptor may die, but the statue may remain for thousands of years. Burn the painter’s canvas, and the painter does not burn.

Therefore Hindus did not call God a painter or a sculptor; they called him Nataraj. Nataraj means the Dancer: you cannot separate His nature from Him, just as you cannot separate the dance from the dancer. If the dancer dies, the dance dies. And if the dance stops, what meaning is left in calling that man a dancer? He was a dancer only so long as he danced.

Between creation and creator there is the relation of the dance and the dancer. You cannot separate them. So it is not that some God is “running” things. When a dancer dances—leave aside the clumsy amateurs; you can hardly call them dancers—when a skilled dancer dances, the dancer and the dance are not two.

In the West there was a great dancer at the beginning of this century—Nijinsky. In the whole history of humankind there have been very few dancers like Nijinsky. There was a big problem with him. He would begin the dance, but then there was no way to control it—so that the theater manager might say, “When the bell rings, stop.” He would say, “Who is there to stop? Once it begins, it will stop when it stops.”

Sometimes he would dance three hours, four hours; sometimes it would be over in fifteen minutes. The managers were very troubled—the theater people who had to arrange things: how could they sell tickets to the public? Sometimes he would just stand there and not dance at all; sometimes he would dance the whole night.

And no one like him has danced. Even scientists were astonished by his dancing, because while dancing there would come a moment—and scientists concluded that, for those moments, gravitation ceased to affect him. The pull of the earth that binds us—throw a stone and it falls back—Nijinsky, in those moments where yogis arrive, would begin to leap to heights no man could leap to, given the earth’s pull. He became so light—as if wings had sprouted.

Many studies were made of Nijinsky—what was happening? In yoga this is called levitation—sometimes a yogi rises above the ground. You may have heard such stories. Sometimes it does happen.

Even now, in Czechoslovakia there is a woman who rises four feet off the ground in meditation. Many studies have been made of her; photographs taken; films shot. They removed the boards below, men crawled underneath to see whether there was any trick. But she rises four feet. As soon as she meditates, after fifteen minutes she lifts four feet. This is now a scientifically authenticated fact.

The same happened with Nijinsky. After about fifteen minutes, a transformation would occur, a transfiguration. Nijinsky was no longer there; some presence would descend upon his face—he became a pure energy, a sheer force that danced. And as he danced, he would take such high leaps, and float in the air, that it seemed for a while he had come to a halt—not rising, not falling—so light!

When Nijinsky was asked, “How do you do this?” he would say, “There is no doer at all. It just happens. Only when the distinction between the act and the actor disappears does this happen.”

We have called God Nataraj because this is His dance. In the throats of the birds the song you hear is His. In the winds passing through the trees—He is what passes. In the flowers of the trees—He is what blooms. In the waterfalls—His gurgling voice. Through me He speaks; through you He listens. He is the thief somewhere, and He is the saint somewhere. He is the cheat somewhere, and the supreme saint somewhere. He is Ravana somewhere, Rama somewhere. The whole play belongs to the One. And whatever that One is doing, it is all within Him, not outside.

So what will be the meaning of theist? There will be two meanings. One is the theism taught to children, in which we say, “God is above.” It looks as if there is a great engineer who is managing everything—or a great judge, ruling the world from there; punishing people; protecting the good, destroying the bad. Or it seems there is some dictator—the colossal figure of a Stalin or a Hitler—who does as he pleases. When He wants the leaves to tremble, He makes them tremble; when He doesn’t, they do not. The law is in His hands; He may save or He may kill. Everything is in His hands. All you can do is praise Him.

This is children’s God. Children need it too. And don’t think only little children are children. Ninety percent of people remain childish until they die; their intelligence never matures.

Then there is a mature theism. That theism has no relationship with such notions. Note this well: in the theism of children there is “God”—God as a person, a personal noun. In the language of mature people there is no God; there is godliness—a quality, an expansion of consciousness; God is not a person you will meet. He is the ultimate state of your own being. Existence itself is God.

Therefore supreme theists like Buddha and Mahavira did not use the word “God” at all. Those who belong to children’s theism called them atheists—“They are atheists, because they do not accept God.”

Now the question can be understood.

Can an atheist become enlightened without becoming a theist?

If by theism you mean the childish kind, then yes—an atheist can become enlightened without becoming that kind of theist. That kind of theism has no value. But if you mean the theism of Buddha—the theism I speak of—then how can any atheist become enlightened without becoming a theist?

To be enlightened and to be a theist are two names for the same happening. To be a Buddha and to be God are two sides of the same coin.

No, there is no way without becoming a theist. One has to become a theist. Theism is a revolution—the greatest revolution in this world. It is that moment of samadhi in which you come to know your immortality, your eternity; where you discover that you are not separate from existence—you are its wave. You are the vast. Many times you have died—and you did not die. Many times you have been born—and you were not born. You have always been and you will always be.

Your identity as a wave dissolves, and you experience yourself as the ocean. Without attaining such theism, how can any atheist become enlightened!

The mistake is absolutely clear. The very urge to arrive somewhere is the mistake. This ambition that you have to reach somewhere—“I, me, mine”—that the ego has to gain something. That is where the mistake is happening. The ego has to dissolve, not attain. The ego has to go, not be. The ego has to be lost. And there the mistake is.

You listen to me and, listening to me, you want to burnish your ego. You want samadhi to be achieved. You want to tack the wealth of samadhi onto your ego. You want God to come into your fist. You want to remain just as you are and yet have something bestowed. There the mistake is happening.

There is one thing you will have to do: you will have to vanish. So long as you are there, no attainment is going to happen. You are the obstacle. The moment you are gone, everything is available. It was never lost. There is no way to lose it.

As long as you clutch yourself, you keep missing That. Then you may meditate by the thousands, worship and pray, “enter samadhi,” close your eyes, open them, sit in postures, stand on your head—nothing will happen. You are there. As long as you are, the Divine cannot be. Because “you” are a delusion. You are not, and yet it appears that you are. And what is within you cannot manifest because of this delusion.

Who are you? Are you your name? You were not born carrying any name. Today if someone abuses that name, swords are drawn. That name is not yours. It was given—borrowed. Others stuck a label on you. And you are so astonishing that you have clung to that label so hard! It no longer seems the label is stuck to you; now you are stuck to the label. You say, “This is my name. You have abused me!”

Buddha had a disciple named Purna Kashyapa. He was passing through a village. People hurled abuses, insulted him. He kept walking exactly as he had been— as if nothing had happened, as if not even a gust of wind had passed that could ruffle a hair.

A monk walking with him got angry: “This is too much. They keep abusing. You are hearing it, and they keep abusing! It’s getting beyond my tolerance—though they’re not abusing me.”

Purna said, “Think about this. They’re not abusing you, and yet it’s beyond your tolerance! Why are you coming in between? Just as they’re not abusing you, they’re not abusing me either. They’re abusing ‘Purna Kashyapa.’ What have I to do with that? My parents named me Purna, so I became Purna; had they named me Apurna, I would have been Apurna. What has that to do with me?”

Born in a Hindu home, you get a Hindu name; born in a Muslim home, you get a Muslim name. In a Hindu house you become Ram; in a Muslim house you become Rahim. Both names even mean the same. Yet Ram and Rahim draw swords and fight because a Hindu–Muslim riot has broken out; there Ram kills Rahim and Rahim kills Ram. And both were only names. The quarrel is over names.

Are you a name? Or are you a form?

Two words are very important in India: nama and rupa—name and form. Nama is everything others have made you believe you are. By nama I don’t mean only your personal name. Whatever others have made you believe—“Your name is Ram, Rahim; you are a Hindu, you are a Muslim; you are a Jain; you are a shudra; you are a brahmin”—all that falls under nama. If others had not told you, you would never have come to know it; all that borrowed stuff is nama.

Think for a moment: if you had not been born in a Hindu home—or, having been born there, had been left in a Muslim home—could you in any way discover on your own that you are a Hindu? And who knows—perhaps that is exactly what happened with you! Are you absolutely certain your father is indeed your father? It’s only an idea; nothing is certain.

Are you Hindu or Muslim? If you were left to yourself and no one ever told you that you are Hindu or Muslim, would you ever come to know who you are in that sense? How would you know?

All that is nama—taught by others, drilled into you. It is conditioning, imprinting.

Under nama comes everything taught by others. Under rupa comes your own natural delusions—like thinking, “I am a man.” Certainly no one had to tell you that you are a man. You are a man because the shape and form of your body are male; the organs are male. You are a woman because the organs are female. No one had to teach you this. Even if no one told you you are a man, one day you would discover it on your own. This is rupa—form. It is something you can discover by yourself.

But have you ever closed your eyes and looked within to see: can consciousness be male or female? Is your awareness a woman or a man? Sometimes you are a child, sometimes young, sometimes old. Have you ever noticed within that your consciousness turns from young to old? When does that happen? From child to youth—when does that happen?

On the body we can draw boundaries: this is a child, this is young, this is old. On consciousness no boundary can be drawn. If an old man were not allowed to learn that he is old—kept in darkness, and no one told him when he changed from young to old; if nothing were allowed by which he could find out; no work required of him, lying at ease, food served on time, resting in peace—he would grow old from youth in darkness. Would his consciousness ever come to know, “I have become old from being young”?

The truth is, whenever you close your eyes you become unsure: are you young, old, a child—what are you? Yes, when you look in the mirror at your form, it seems you have become old—hair has turned white, limbs have weakened.

Nama is the delusion given by society, and rupa is the delusion given by nature. You are beyond both. You are neither name nor form.

As long as the complex of name-and-form keeps trying to get something, you will go on missing. Drop these two—nama and rupa—and search within for That which is neither name nor form. Instantly you will find that what you have been seeking forever is already found.

Chaitanya—pure consciousness—is your nature, neither name nor form. That consciousness is the Divine.

So the mistake is only this: that in hearing me you are filling yourself with ambition. You have made it into a race—“I will attain samadhi.” But samadhi is not something to be obtained. Samadhi is not an object you can buy somewhere, or snatch, or seize by assault and carry off. Samadhi is the name of a state of consciousness in which name-and-form dissolve. And if name-and-form go searching for samadhi, then there will be a mistake.

Therefore drop name and drop form. Recognize that you are neither body nor mind. The body is given by nature; the mind is given by society. Mind is nama, body is rupa, and you are beyond both. You have always been beyond. That which stands behind as the witness, seeing both—that is you. Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu!

The deeper you awaken into that witnessing, the nearer the goal comes. You do not have to go by walking; the goal itself comes near. As you awaken, the goal comes near. One day you are filled with total awareness—and you find the goal is you.

You are the destination, you are the movement; you are the traveler, you are the halt; you are the journey and you are the shrine. Other than you, there is nothing.

But name-and-form are obstacles. And you have gripped them tight. You do not let them go. Because of them you live in a dream. The whole thing can be said in one sutra: nama-rupa is maya; freedom from nama-rupa is Brahman.