Hansa To Moti Chuge #9

Dharmarakshit! Universities do not give education; they give conditioning. Conditioning that becomes a prison. Education should liberate. Knowledge is that which sets one free. And what we today call education—what has it to do with liberation? It creates many bonds; it brings you not even a step closer to freedom.

Universities give you thoughts, while freedom comes from no-thought. You can collect many degrees from universities, but they are upadhi only in the other sense of upadhi—affliction. They do not bring health. They do confer ego. The ego gets decorated, garlanded; but the inner hollowness, the inner emptiness does not go—cannot go. There is only one art that can dissolve it. And there is no way to teach that art from the outside. That art flowers spontaneously in satsang—in the living company of the true.

What you call university education has no satsang in it. There, fixed doctrines, concepts, words, scriptures are imposed upon blank minds. A student arrives like a blank sheet of paper; when he returns from the university he is pulped paper. A blank sheet still has some value; pulped paper has none—sell it off as scrap; whatever you get is generous.

In satsang the paper becomes blank again. The true master does not teach; he erases. The true master does not give; he takes away. He does not hand you doctrines; rather, he loosens your grip on doctrines, words, scriptures. And it all happens not through instruction—just by sitting near the master, being dyed in his color, soaking in his flavor, listening to his song. Some day, in a moment of grace, a window simply opens.

You say: “I acquired many university degrees, was active in politics...”
Universities teach politics. The very foundation of politics is ambition—to become somebody, to be on a great seat, to be in front.

Jesus has said: Blessed are they who are last, for they shall be first in my Father’s kingdom; and unfortunate are they who are first, for in my Father’s kingdom they shall be last.

There is another arithmetic—a supreme arithmetic—of the divine, where the measures are different, where the scales are other. There, the one who can be last is counted first. The world’s arithmetic is different. Here, the one who can be first is counted first—the meaningful one; his life is called successful.

But look at the lives of the so-called successful all around you—where will you find lives more unsuccessful than these? Wealth accumulates, but within there is poverty. Outside there are positions, and inside sits a beggar. Hands glitter with diamonds; the soul is filled with trash.

All our education leads to politics, because its basic premise is ambition—the race to be ahead of the other. If you fall behind you are worth two pennies; if you get ahead you will be weighed in jewels. And how you got ahead—nobody inquires. By rules, by breaking rules, with honesty, with dishonesty—no one cares. If you succeed, garlands will cover whatever you did to succeed. Here only the unsuccessful are caught for having done something wrong; the successful are never caught. That is why you see: as long as a person holds office, whatever he does is “right”; and the moment he falls from office, everything he did is “wrong.” And the blindness is such that the one who sits on the seat after him also thinks, while seated, that whatever he is doing is right.

You saw Indira before the Shah Commission! Some day, if the chance comes and Morarji Desai has to stand before some “Badshah Commission,” then you will know! For now you won’t know. How could you know now? At present all is “right.” Power makes everything right. The scripture of politics is: might makes right.

That your university education led you into politics was natural. And where does the race of politics run—to Delhi! Whether it is Delhi or London or Peking or Washington or Moscow—these are all names for the same Delhi. There you must have tired, been defeated, seen the futility, tasted the insipidness. You were intelligent; otherwise it takes lifetimes upon lifetimes to see. You were alert. Some flame was burning within you; it was not completely smothered under the ash. Therefore you set out in search of gurus. Only one in whom the thirst for God has arisen sets out in search of a master. And your thirst was truly genuine; otherwise you would have gotten entangled with any random guru.

One with true thirst cannot get entangled with just anyone. The thirst itself gives him direction. That thirst is the touchstone. He will test everything against his thirst: does it quench or not? If not, move on; step aside; seek elsewhere.

So you wandered among many gurus—naturally. Where there is a real coin there will be counterfeits too. The real coin is one; the counterfeits are a thousand. And since there are also counterfeit thirsts, there is a need for counterfeit coins as well. They are not there entirely without function; they too serve a purpose. Most people want a false guru, because a false guru is convenient. The false guru does not change you, does not cut and prune you. He only strengthens your beliefs, your ego. He gives new wings to your ego. He teaches you conduct—and conduct only further embellishes the ego. He tells you: heaven is yours if you fulfill these rules. He teaches you a new politics—the politics of heaven. Only the arena changes. Delhi is replaced by heaven; the race remains the same. He tells you: if you perform this much conduct, you will be first in heaven. He pours ghee on the diseased longing to be first. He frightens you that if you lapse in conduct, you will fall into hell. He makes you afraid.

That is the false guru—who frightens you and fills you with greed. For greed and fear both prevent man from experiencing his purest conscious energy. Fear holds you back; greed holds you back. Fear and greed are two sides of the same coin. The true master does not talk of fear and greed at all. He does not tell you to kindle a new ambition in the name of religion. He does not talk to you of tomorrow. He says: today is enough; this very moment is enough. Nor does he tell you that God will be attained tomorrow. He says: God is available now. Open your eyes and have him! Wake up and have him! If you miss, the reason is within you.

God is not far; nearer than the nearest—closer than your breath, closer than your heartbeat. Not even for a single instant has God been away from you, because God means life itself. God means your heartbeat, your breathing. God means your consciousness, your witnessing.

The false guru teaches that God is watching you. Please hear this carefully, and keep this sutra guarded within you. The false guru teaches: God is watching you—be afraid. He is watching you twenty-four hours a day! Think before you do anything. If you do even a little wrong you will rot in hell! Do a little wrong and you will suffer much, repent much. You will not be forgiven. A small mistake, a small slip—and it will be noted. On the Day of Judgment there will be an accounting. And if you behave correctly, sing his praises, glorify him, flatter him, then in heaven great rewards await you.

The false guru teaches: God is watching you. The true master teaches: the one within you who sees—that is God. God is not watching you. Why would God watch you? You are God! The one within you who watches—that is the name of God. You are not the seen of God; you are the seer. Let this sink very deep within you. It will serve as a touchstone. Test upon it.

The true master will always teach: be a witness. Not a doer; neither of the good nor of the bad. Rise above doership. The false guru will teach: be a doer. Conduct, character—this, that. Do good deeds, serve, earn merit, give alms, build dharmashalas, build temples, arrange Satyanarayana rites. Do something! For him religion is doing. Irreligion is also doing and religion is also doing.

The true master says: religion is witnessing. It is consciousness, not action. All action is maya—good as well as bad; merit as well as sin. Yes, the chains of sin are of iron and the chains of merit are of gold; but remember, chains are chains. Iron binds and gold binds. And remember also: golden chains are stronger than iron chains. Because iron chains are visible to anyone as chains, and the desire to break them naturally arises out of the humiliation and shame. But golden chains look like ornaments. Who wants to drop them? On the contrary, one clings to them. Who wants to break them? One preserves them. If someone comes to break them, one will quarrel, fight, defend.

Sin binds, merit binds. Liberation is in consciousness. Liberation is in awareness. Liberation lies in seeing both sin and merit.

Become capable of seeing both from a neutral shore, Dharmarakshit! And do not worry that you are old, because this can happen in a single instant. It is a matter of awakening. No yogasanas need to be practiced for this.

The body is becoming feeble—do not worry. The body is meant to become feeble. Death is drawing near—good! For perhaps against the backdrop of death, from death’s shock and clang, the witness may awaken. What did not happen in life may happen in death. It will! When I look into your eyes I feel it will. It is to happen.

Certainly, when I gave you sannyas you hesitated a little. Many friends feel hesitation while taking sannyas, because my understanding of sannyas does not fit with any of your notions. It differs from all your notions. Hence hesitation arises, a certain shyness.

And what I am telling you is not of the past; it is of the future—of the immediate. Had it been of the past, harmony would have been easy; you would have agreed quickly. It is of the future. Only those who have the far-seeing eye will agree. But you are fortunate that though you wavered, you did not run away. You fell into thinking, but you did not drown in it; you gathered yourself, you rescued yourself. You consented to take this risk.

To be with me is full of risk. Society will dishonor you. The government will be your enemy. The contractors of religion will be after your life; they will make your living difficult. All this will happen. But all this is the challenge. This is the fire through which the gold of sannyas is purified, becomes purest gold. And I know that now you also feel pain and regret that seventy years have passed in vain. But do not waste time in that. What is gone is gone. The moments now in your hand are enough; the thing can happen in these. And this “thing” has nothing to do with time—whether in seventy years or seven hundred years or seven moments, in a fraction of a moment, in the blink of an eye. It has nothing to do with time, because it itself is beyond time, timeless. So do not waste time. Do not waste these tears over the seventy years gone by; otherwise the moments you are spending in weeping will also be gone. Give these tears a new turn now, a new color, a new music. Let these tears become celebration. Let these tears become prayer. Let these tears dance now.

See it like this: even at seventy awareness has dawned—is that not enough? Look for a moment at those who have not awakened even at seventy. Seventy aside—some have reached eighty, some eighty-four, and they are still camped in Delhi. They are eighty-four and still consulting astrologers: “Will I live to a hundred?” Some astrologer just told Morarji Desai that he will live to a hundred and twenty. As if he will never leave this country alone! A hundred and twenty! Before dying himself he must kill everyone else? But he must have been delighted with the astrologer who promised a hundred and twenty. Earlier an astrologer had told him he would live to a hundred. This new astrologer has proved that no, it will be one-twenty—the earlier account was wrong.

A person may be very old and still not become wise with age. Most people only bleach their hair in the sun.

Dharmarakshit, that you have become alert at seventy—that too is much! That too is much. Do not weep; rejoice, be blissful. Learn the creative way of seeing.

Yesterday I was reading: Dhabbu-ji’s son Pappu failed. He came last in his class. The next day when he reached school he was very cheerful. The children gathered and asked, “Pappu, did you show the report to Dhabbu-ji or not? What happened then? You must have been beaten.”

Pappu said, “No. My father saw the report and said only a brave person could have the courage to show such a report to his father. He praised me, patted my back and said, ‘Son, you are very courageous—to show such a report to your dad!’”

There are ways of seeing. You are weeping over seventy years; be happy for seventy years—that at least the thing was settled in seventy; for many it does not settle in seven hundred, nor in seven thousand. People have been wandering for millions upon millions of years. It settled for you in seventy. Let tears fall, but of joy, of delight, of gratitude. The tears will be the same, but their taste will change, their fragrance will change.

And Dharmarakshit, you say you come again and again thinking you will ask something, but as soon as you come near me the questions are lost.

That is how it should be. That is auspicious. That is good. That is the mark of a disciple. A student asks. A disciple sets out to ask, but cannot ask. The moment the disciple comes near the master he becomes so overwhelmed that he wonders, What to ask? Why waste time in words? Why interrupt with questions the music that is arising between master and disciple? Why shake the string of reverence that is being tuned by raising questions?

So a disciple may weep, may laugh, may dance, may sing—but he cannot ask; it becomes difficult. As soon as he is with the master, silence descends; a void pervades his being. That is how it should be. That is the meaning of being with the master. That is nearness. That is intimacy. In just such intimacy the Upanishads were born.

Upanishad means: to be near the master. Upasana has the same meaning—sitting near, “upa-asan.” And upvas (fasting) also has this meaning—upa-vas, to dwell near. Sit so near the master that the very thought of food is forgotten—then it is upvas. Sit so near that the whole world is forgotten—then it is upasana. Sit so near that no distance remains—then an Upanishad is born. Answers you never wanted, questions you never asked—those questions get asked in that silence; those answers are received in that silence. No one speaks, no one moves—and the thing happens. Without saying, it happens.

Dharmarakshit, such a happening has begun. Whenever you have come near me I have felt it—this unsayable, unspoken happening. You do not ask, I do not answer; yet what has to happen is happening. Later, your intellect must create a bit of trouble—“I went to ask and came away without asking!” Because when you come near, the heart beats and the intellect falls silent; when you go far, you again go far from the heart and the intellect begins to speak again. Slowly understand this secret, and even while far away, let the heart beat. Then the intellect will not even raise the question of why you could not ask.

The intellect is a disease. The intellect is the itch of scabies: scratch as much as you like—no problem is solved; harm is done. The disease increases; it does not decrease. Yes, while scratching there is a little sweetness, but then you are left bleeding. You know that scratching scabies brings no benefit, but when the itch comes, one is compelled to scratch. Intellect is scabies, and the scripture of intellect—philosophy—is only scratching. It makes man sick; it does not make him whole.

Dharmarakshit, it is going well. You come in silence and go in silence—after letting fall two drops of tears, with head bowed, holding out the silent begging bowl. But you do not go away with an empty bowl—this I tell you. Whoever comes to me with so much silence goes back filled.

The path has begun to reveal itself. You have already taken hold of the way.
Keep three things in mind. One: break your connection with thought. Consider that the mind is not yours at all. Enter into feeling. Thin out thoughts; deepen feeling. Second: when thoughts have thinned and feeling begins to deepen, start becoming free of feeling as well. Only existence! Only empty silence! Where there is neither thought nor feeling, where no ripple remains—sink into that empty silence. And third: as you dive into this empty silence, great fear will arise, great restlessness will come. It will feel like death. Do not panic! This is not death; it is the seed dying—the beginning of becoming a tree. It is the river entering the ocean. It is the beginning of becoming the ocean.

Ajit Saraswati! “Darshan” is a Bhairavi, an old tantrika. The Vaishnavi whom Sharatchandra speaks of in his novels—Darshan’s inner state is like that. Or the Vaishnavi whom Ramakrishna honored from his heart—Darshan bears the same signs. A wandering, nomadic woman! Dancing, brimming with delight! Soaked in love for the whole existence! The Vaishnavi whom even Ramakrishna honored—Darshan has those very qualities.

Darshan has certain virtues. She is simple, innocent. For her, love is not like lust; it is like prayer. She must have understood your trouble, your obstacle. So she invited you to become embraced. And she understood rightly. And you too recognized rightly that this has been your hindrance. You have lived bound in great notions. Certainly society considers such a bound life an ornament. It will, because through that bound life a person behaves like a slave, and society wants slaves—it does not want free, spontaneous individuals. Society cannot tolerate freedom. Society is against freedom. Society wants to erase the individual—and has erased him. There are sheep in the world; where are the persons!

From every side your meditation is deepening, but the Hindu sanskaras laid upon you from childhood till now are the one great obstacle. Darshan showed compassion by giving you a chance to break those conditionings. You must have been afraid. So afraid that from the day you asked this question, I have not seen you. For three or four days I have come intending to answer your question, but when you are not to be seen, I think: if you are not here, to whom shall I answer? Perhaps you even told your wife, and a commotion arose, an uproar. You are straightforward, simple-hearted, guileless. Surely you spoke of it—you would not be able to hide it. And trouble would have come, because we have turned love into property, into a right.

Love is no one’s right. Love is no one’s property. Love does not know how to be bound. And the love that is bound dies. If you dam a river’s current, it is no longer a river; it becomes a pond. Soon there will be sludge. Soon filth will rise. Where there was a clear stream, there will be only a dirty pond.

So it is with love. If it flows, it remains pure; if it is dammed, it becomes a dirty pond, it begins to dry up. And for centuries man has done exactly this—bound love. And we give great honor to bound love.

The freer love is, the more vast, the more people it can touch, the larger your soul becomes—the more your soul expands. The expansion of your love is the expansion of your soul; the contraction of your love is the contraction of your soul. For love and the soul are synonymous.

It is good that it happened. Do not be afraid. In a better world—more natural, more aware and meditative, a world where the breeze and fragrance of prayer flow—people will embrace each other spontaneously, as naturally as they fold hands in greeting. There should be no question of any obstruction in this. Souls want to meet. Bodies become the expression of that meeting. But we have placed heavy prohibitions upon these simple feelings—we have set up bayonets, fastened heavy chains. And the result is that love has dried up.

And everyone fears that if love spreads, the love I receive will diminish. A wife fears that if her husband’s love also spreads to others, what will become of me! She does not know there is another economics of life whose laws are entirely different. She knows one kind of economics: when you divide, things lessen. If I have ten rupees and I distribute them to ten people, each will get one rupee, and if I give them to one person, he will get all ten. This is the ordinary economics of life. But there is another economics—of the divine: if I distribute to ten people, tenfold will accrue to you; and if I share with no one, perhaps nothing will remain with you.

Understand it like this: the husband leaves home in the morning and the wife says, “Look, don’t breathe anywhere else; take your breaths only with me. Because we are bound in the bond of love; we took vows—before the smoke-plume and flame of the sacred fire, before priests and pundits, amidst mantra-chanting—that we would live for each other and die for each other. So don’t breathe anywhere else—in the office, in the market, anywhere. When you return home we will sit together, then breathe freely, to your heart’s content.” Then that man will never return home again. He will step out and collapse in a heap. The truth is the opposite. If he breathes deeply outside—his lungs filled with life-breath—if under the sun, in open air, beneath the trees, he breathes deeply all day, then in the evening he will return vibrant, dancing, delighted, every pore brimming with joy! And he will pour all that joy, all that enthusiasm, all that life upon his wife.

Exactly this is the law of love. But we have confined love into a smallness—sexuality. We have given love a very low meaning—sex-desire.

Love has many dimensions. Love is an entire staircase with many steps. Someone loves music—what lust is there in that? And a person can love music so much that he leaves his wife but not music. Someone can love painting so much that he leaves the family but not painting. Someone can love literature so much that he will not marry at all, lest jealousy arise between literature and the wife.

A great musician was asked why he never married. He said, “Keeping two women in the house is trouble.” The questioner did not understand. He asked, “Two women? Then there is already one?” The musician said, “Music. That is my one marriage—and it is so vast that bringing another woman would mean causing it pain. For there will be many days when I shall be so immersed in my music that I will not even remember my wife. Then she will be hurt. An ordinary woman would be unhappy, upset, angry. She would become hostile to music.”

Even the wife of a great man like Socrates was displeased with him, very displeased. Why? Because he would become so absorbed in philosophical inquiry that he would forget he even had a wife. One day he was so absorbed in discussion that he forgot to drink his morning tea. His wife grew so angry—she had prepared the tea and he was sitting outside discussing with his disciples—her anger knew no bounds. She brought the full kettle and poured it over his head. Half his face was burned. All his life that side remained scarred and dark.

But Socrates only laughed. His disciples asked, “You laugh in this pain!” He said, “No, I laugh because we have made the feminine mind so small! For her, even philosophy—this philosophical inquiry—seems like a co-wife. She did not pour this tea on me—I am only the instrument. If she could get hold of philosophy, she would cut its throat. Philosophy cannot be caught, so I am merely the excuse.”

Someone asked Socrates—a young man—“I am thinking of marriage. Who could be more experienced than you? In thought you are the ultimate peak, and in life you have all the sweet and bitter experiences. What do you advise?”

You will be amazed to hear Socrates’ advice. Socrates said, “Marry.” The young man said, “You too say ‘Marry!’ And I know all the stories. I have heard everything that happens daily between you and your wife Xanthippe. If even one percent of those rumors is true, it is enough not to marry.”

Socrates said, “A hundred percent of it is true, but even then I say to you: marry. Marriage has only benefits!”

The young man said, “Let me hear—what benefits?” Socrates said, “If you get a good wife, an understanding wife, love will expand. And the expansion of love is the greatest benefit in this world. And if you get a wife like mine, dispassion will arise—and dispassion is even higher than attachment; it is the ultimate of love, love of God. In both cases you will only profit.”

We have made love very narrow and very petty.

If “Darshan” said to “Ajit,” “Come, let us be bound in an embrace,” Ajit hesitated—he would have hesitated—because the very word “embrace” has had sexuality inserted into it. We cannot even imagine that two people can embrace without any sexual desire. And certainly there is a height of embracing where not even a trace or shadow of sexuality forms. It is the meeting of two souls. For a moment two souls become eager to drown into each other. And this meeting is utterly sacred, innocent, virgin. This meeting is like a plate of worship, like songs of adoration. But because we have no experience of this—our experiences are all petty, of mud; we have no recognition of the lotus—the mind hesitates. You hesitated, because you say: “I have never embraced even my mother, daughter, or sister. And my male-feeling remained.”

Because that male-feeling remained, the window that “Darshan” opened—you could not look through it clearly. The window opened—that much you recognized. Something happened—that much you felt. But it would not have become clear. As if the window opened in the twilight of dawn, before the sun had risen—that is how it would have been; the dimness remained. If only the male-feeling had also dissolved, you would have seen the sun rise! If such a moment comes again, if someone gives such an invitation, then receive that invitation with all your heart. And what man, what woman? Rise above these pettinesses now! The time has come—let these pettinesses go! All are made of the same earth, and all are made of the same God—who is man, who is woman? What is the difference? A slight difference of limbs.

If you make clay dolls—some male, some female—how great a difference will there be? Then let God place soul within them—will there be a vast, absolute difference? Have you ever looked within? Consciousness is neither male nor female. Anyone can close his eyes and look within and ask: this awareness—who is it, female or male? Awareness is neither. There is neither woman nor man there.

When in an embrace you are so bound that two consciousnesses sink into each other—there is neither man nor woman—then the window will open; in the full noon the sun will be seen, the open sky. And from that, revolution will begin to happen in life.

But even through this window opened in half-light, something significant has happened within you.

You say: “I have been deprived of this deep touch, but yesterday ‘Darshan’ and today you have opened a window! Now these self-made walls are not easy to bring down, but it does seem possible.”

What is possible is easy. Once it begins to be seen that it is possible, how long does it take to become easy? In fact we are taught that it is impossible: a woman will remain a woman, a man will remain a man; how can the male–female sense fall? It is impossible. And when you embrace, lust will certainly be there; how can there be an embrace without lust? Impossible. And your priests and pundits, your sadhus and saints, your so-called mahatmas, have been repeating this nonsense for centuries. It has been repeated so often that it has settled very deep within you.

But now you say: “It seems possible, though not easy.”

I say to you: what is possible—just in its becoming possible, it has already become easy. Do not close the door again. Obstacles will come, difficulties will come. I am not saying your victory procession will be taken out, that the whole town will gather and garland you, that your wife will celebrate Diwali at home because the godlike husband is arriving! No—there will be hassles, there will be obstacles. But those obstacles, those hassles are worth taking on.

And if truly you rise above the body and body-sense, then if not today, tomorrow your wife will also recognize. If not today, tomorrow she too will get the opportunity to rise through you. If not today, tomorrow your friends and acquaintances will also recognize. But whether they recognize or not—you have not taken a contract for their liberation. That you yourself become free—this much is your responsibility. This at least you must do, at any cost.

But you’ve been completely missing for four days! “Because it feels like death.” I know Ajit. Of course it feels like death. The habit of living within a certain decorum, the lifelong arrangement of living inside a particular framework—when that suddenly breaks, it is bound to feel like death; as if someone snatches away your house and leaves you under the open sky; or suddenly, in a crowded marketplace, someone tears off your clothes and leaves you naked! Harder still: as if your skin were flayed, your hide peeled—there will be pain. It will feel like death, because that sacred ego of yours—“I am virtuous, I am a one-woman man, I am this, I am that”—all those notions will collapse.

I am teaching you the ultimate pinnacle of character—where both character and depravity take their leave; where good and bad both depart; where only a witness remains.

If ever Darshan again feels such a stirring and invites you into an embrace, then, with the attitude of witnessing, sink into the embrace. Stay awake, aware! But neither the male-stance nor the female-stance. You will get hold of a key. This is the foundational basis of Tantra, the root-sutra of the entire Tantric science.

Rohit! I can give you blessings—why be stingy with blessings! But you are asking for the wrong blessing.

If you proceed believing celibacy is the goal of life, you will never attain brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is not a goal. It is the essence distilled from life’s totality—its joys and sorrows, successes and failures, sex and love. It is not a target; it is a result.

A goal means you march off having decided, “I will achieve celibacy; I won’t look left or right—like a rhinoceros, I’ll go straight.” But you have not yet lived anything. You’ve tasted neither the sweetness nor the bitterness of desire. Without any experience, you decide for celibacy—because a book fell into your hands, “Brahmacharya is life!” You read it; or you met some mahatma and heard his chatter. Or you saw at home—where else are we born but into homes?—father and mother quarreling morning to night, bickering and battling.

It’s astonishing that, seeing their parents, sons still end up marrying one day. That’s the real miracle! If there were even a pinch of intelligence, the boy would bolt at once: “Enough—I’ve seen all I needed to.”

But there is a natural hallucination, a mesh of delusion within: “This was my parents’ fault. I will find such a woman that such mistakes won’t happen.” Your parents thought the same. Their parents too. Since Adam’s day people have been thinking like this—and your children will think so as well. “I’ll be the exception! I won’t make those mistakes!”

Look into any home and you’ll find the parents’ lives riddled with quarrels. Children watch this; their minds begin to be contaminated. An ill will arises—if a boy, toward women; if a girl, toward men. The mind gets tainted. From that tainted mind the mahatmas’ verdict—“Only brahmacharya is life”—sounds right. And then such miracles are ascribed to brahmacharya that the impression falls hard upon unripe minds. People are told: “Man dies because he loses celibacy.” Then where are your celibates—why did they die? What happened to them? They were not supposed to die at all.

All this is nonsense. There is no scientific basis. Everyone dies—celibate or not. Sometimes libertines even live longer, because they carry less tension.

Mulla Nasruddin turned a hundred; reporters came home. A hundred! They asked, “What’s the secret?” He said, “Secret? I never drank, never married, never chased women. Not just liquor—I never even smoked. Slept on time, rose on time. Yoga, walks, work. Simple food and lofty thoughts. That’s why I lived so long.” While he was saying this and the reporters were impressed, a tremendous clatter came from the next room—an armoire fell, someone seemed to run. The reporters asked, “What’s going on?” Mulla said, “Nothing—my father again. He came home drunk and tried to grab the maid.” The reporters were shocked: “Your father is alive?” “Yes,” Mulla said, “he is a hundred and twenty. But he just won’t give up his habits. I’m tired of explaining—still drinking and still creating a rumpus...”

You’ve been told: “Celibacy brings this benefit and that—your intelligence will sharpen, you’ll become brilliant.” Then what is the accounting of your celibates? If it were true, all the Nobel Prizes would come to India. But Indians hardly see Nobel Prizes. The largest share goes to Jews—and Jews do not believe in celibacy. The Jewish rabbi is married; he is not celibate. They oppose celibacy. One charge they level against Jesus is that he did not marry, because in their view marriage is natural. Jews receive the most Nobels, and they are few in number. This country of six hundred million—how many Nobels do you get? Count on your fingers—one, two, three. And none of those were celibates—neither Rabindranath, nor C. V. Raman, nor Jagadish Chandra Bose. The Nobel ought to go to the Shankaracharya of Puri and the like, but they get nothing. It should go to your celibates sitting in Himalayan caves—but nothing is visible in their intelligence.

I say this from observation, not idly. I know your monks and renunciates—Hindu, Jain, Buddhist. I have not seen minds as dull as those of your sadhus; even among householders one occasionally finds a glint in someone’s eyes. In your ashrams, a total lackluster gloom prevails. They are dead.

Listening to idle talk about brahmacharya, Rohit, you concluded: “Brahmacharya is the goal!” Having made it the goal, now bear its consequences. You say, “No thrill, no enthusiasm, no celebration. What should I do?” This is your own arrangement. You ask, “Why does life feel so empty?” If not empty, would it feel full?

First live life naturally. Brahmacharya is the final peak, the distillation—the perfume of many, many flowers! It is not attained by swearing oaths and tightening your loincloth. Don’t be so foolish. Use a little intelligence. The tighter you cinch the loincloth, the emptier life will feel: no thrill, no enthusiasm, no celebration. And then you come to question me! Ask your mahatmas. Ask Karpatri Maharaj, the ones teaching you this nonsense.

I tell you to live life naturally. Whatever is natural within you—give it expression, full expression. Only through expression do you ripen. That maturity brings brahmacharya one day. Brahmacharya does blossom—it is an incomparable flower! But brahmacharya does not mean merely the inhibition of sex. The meaning lies in the word itself: conduct in the manner of Brahman—divine comportment. It is not something small like repressing sex. Its meaning is not negative—it is creative.

Look closely at the word brahmacharya. There is no exact English word for it. The English “celibacy” does not translate it, because celibacy is negative: merely “unmarried.” Not marrying is a negative—doing nothing, not marrying. But brahmacharya is affirmative: realizing Brahman. Not marrying is a small matter. If by not marrying you could realize Brahman—if only it were so cheap—then Brahman’s price would be no more than that of a wife! If Brahman comes by not marrying, put Brahman on one pan of the scale and a wife on the other—the scale would say, “Choose either.”

Don’t make Brahman so small. Don’t make the Absolute so petty. Brahman is an immense experience—beyond it there is nothing. Brahmacharya means: the way of life that flows from realizing Brahman; the aura that spreads; the brilliance that is polished; the bliss and celebration that arise; an inner Holi and Diwali running day and night—lamps lit and colors flying! Spring everywhere, other seasons forgotten, only spring.

But do you think such vastness can be had so cheaply? You won’t marry some poor woman and you will get Brahman? If it were that easy, I would tell you too: “Make brahmacharya your goal!”

Forget brahmacharya for now. For now, live life! Live the life God has given in its wholeness, its completeness. Do not deny even a little. Do not shrink in fear. Take the plunge into life. The pearls you bring up from that dive—those will be pearls of brahmacharya.

Brahmacharya is not against life—it is life’s essence.

As we had wished,
so it did not happen!
A crowd of words—and us,
burning relationships and delusions.
Why is the glass cracked?
We did not even touch it.
Life pulled and tugged.
Self-respecting, so we say.
So much heat, and yet
no smoke around.
This emptiness is our own,
all else is only a dream.
What we are drowning in
perhaps is not a well at all.

If you try to live unnaturally, what else will you feel but emptiness—

This emptiness is our own,
all else is only a dream.
What we are drowning in,
perhaps is not a well at all.

Dive into life—into life’s well. Don’t be afraid! No one reaches God by trembling. Only the courageous, the daring, reach. And don’t delay.

You say, “I am only twenty-five. I don’t want to get into the hassles of marriage and a household.”

Then will you get into them at seventy? If you step in now, you’ll be out by seventy. If you enter at seventy, when will you get out? It’s simple.

In this country we once laid out a whole science. Up to twenty-five we called the student period “brahmacharya,” because to plunge totally into study, reflection, music, scripture, art—brahmacharya flowers by itself. After twenty-five, marriage, family, householder—so that what you learned in the gurukul can be put to use. Where will you sculpt the statues you learned to sculpt? Where will you test the meditation you learned? Where will you examine the art of remaining a witness even while entering into desire?

So: twenty-five years of learning; then twenty-five years of experiment and testing; as you approach fifty, turn toward the forest. Only turn—don’t rush off. That is why the third stage is called vanaprastha: a turning toward the forest, preparing to depart, packing your bundle. For twenty-five years remain at home, but face the forest. And at seventy-five, go—leave everything. To say “leave” is not quite right—everything simply drops. One who lives so simply—twenty-five years learning life’s arts with those who know; twenty-five years practicing and finding they were right; twenty-five years remaining in the home while mastering the art of being outside it—walking in water without letting it touch the body, lotus-like—such a one, at seventy-five, slips away quietly: nothing to leave; it has already left.

These are symbols—don’t fixate on the numbers, otherwise many will never reach sannyas: how many live to seventy-five? Very few.

Mulla Nasruddin once went to his insurance agent: “Insure me for millions.” The agent said, “Nasruddin, you are a hundred—what company will insure you now?” Nasruddin said, “If companies had any sense, they would insure me. Statistics show very few people die after a hundred.” That’s true—if they don’t live to a hundred, how will they die after? “So insuring me is safest. The ones who die, die earlier. The ones who aren’t going to die live this long.”

After seventy-five, where will you be? The average life here is thirty-four, thirty-six. Here even a household may not get built. So take these numbers as symbolic. The meaning is: divide life in four parts—one of study and reflection; one of experiment; one of preparation; one of drowning into the divine. Otherwise you will merely suppress...

Understand a crucial point: for a young man to keep celibacy is “easy,” because he has the strength to suppress. As age advances, the strength to suppress declines and difficulty increases. The real trouble for so-called celibates begins after forty: the power to press down decreases, and what has been pressed down remains fresh, seared by desire, glowing inside like embers—while your power to suppress diminishes daily. Then desire takes revenge. Then the world laughs. Better now—enter life.

A single gust
swept through.
The mind still shivers,
a wound
clean through.
The grass laughs
all around,
and laugh
the blood-red,
brazen kachnaar blossoms!

In old age if you dress as a groom, the grass will laugh, the kachnaar will laugh. Even the horse you mount will neigh at you.

Now is the time—this is the time to live! Then joy will come, enthusiasm will come, celebration will come. Yes, they are all transient—soon they come and soon they go. They don’t stay. But one must pass through this experience.

Only one who goes through the fleeting becomes thirsty for the eternal. Your thirst for the eternal right now is false. You haven’t even sipped a drop and you talk of drinking the ocean. You haven’t tasted even a spoonful of life and you talk of brahmacharya.

No, Rohit—open the doors of love now.

Today is the human being’s golden dawn;
today the gentle knock of the long-forgotten.
Today this body, slack
with languor and sweet intoxication
from pleasant dreams.
O proud one, smile and open your heart!
At least today, say something with love!

Today each breath is filled with fragrance;
today the breeze trembles, a little lost.
Today, on the hundred-petalled lotus, swaying in delight,
the smile of dew plays at hide-and-seek.
Beloved, break the boundaries of your modesty!
Meet me today; give up sulking today!

Today the honeybee is drinking honey;
today the bud offers its nectar.
Today, on the boughs, the crazed cuckoo,
crazed, sings its song of love.
This is the heart’s offering—let it be received!
Fair-faced one, let there be a tryst of youth today!

Today the eyes brim with eagerness;
today the heart thrills with a tender longing.
Today, surging through our breath,
flows a free, unbound stream of love.
Let us drown, goddess—let us become one!
Let this be love’s first anointing today!

For now, make your plea to love. Knock at a door. Seek a lover, a beloved. Live this world. And live it swiftly! The more urgently you live, the sooner the hour of freedom arrives. The more totally and wholeheartedly you live, the sooner the flower of brahmacharya will bloom—not because you forced it open, but of itself. One day you will find: it has blossomed. Brahmacharya is not a goal—it is a consequence.

Narottam! If it were otherwise, that would be the surprise. You speak; the listener carries his past, his memory, his vested interests. The words are yours, but the meanings will be his. You cannot claim ownership over the meanings. Say what you have to say, but he will hear what he wants to hear—and even from that hearing, he will extract only the meaning he wants to extract.

So don’t be annoyed. Present your point; then let him understand whatever he understands. What will you do? What can you do? If you say something more, he will take that too to mean something else. There is no end to it.

Often it happens that you want to say something—with goodwill, with love, with compassion—and when you see the other has understood it all wrong, it hurts deeply. It feels as if he is being dishonest knowingly, as if he is deceiving you deliberately.

No, no one is deceiving you knowingly, no one is being deliberately dishonest. People are so unconscious that they don’t even have the awareness required to be consciously dishonest. Yes, dishonesties happen, deceptions happen; but all in unconsciousness.

A wife complained to her husband, “You can’t stand the sight of my relatives.”
“What are you saying!” the husband replied. “I like your relatives more than my own. Look, I even prefer your in-laws to my in-laws—your mother-in-law and father-in-law more than my mother-in-law and father-in-law.”
The meanings will be his own.

After the wedding, the son-in-law visited his in-laws’ house for the first time. He and his wife were sitting in a room. From the clock in the next room came the chimes: first nine, then ten, then twelve. The husband kept staring at his wife. As the twelfth strike sounded he exclaimed, “Oh darling, when I’m with you, time flies so fast!”
“Don’t be silly,” the wife said calmly. “Father is resetting the clock.”

Different minds, different experiences, different understandings.

A politician was giving a campaign speech. He declared, “I was born in this constituency, and serving this constituency I will die.”
A man stood up and asked, “But when?”

Narottam, say what you have to say. Do whatever you can to help the other understand—speak as clearly as you can—but don’t be unhappy if he understands something else. It is perfectly natural. Here we may speak the same language and yet we don’t speak the same language.

Two friends were chatting. One asked, “What is a yawn?”
The other replied, “A silent scream! Or the only moment when married men get to open their mouths.”

But only a married man would say that. That is the voice of experience. And everyone’s experiences differ; everyone’s sense of life is different.

Remember one thing: the word is yours; the meaning will be the listener’s.

An art critic said to his wife, praising an artist, “He painted such a realistic cobweb on his ceiling that his maid spent three days trying to sweep it away.”
The wife replied, “Artists like that you might still find, dear, but it’s very hard these days to find a maid like that.”
The art critic has his world. He is praising the realism of the cobweb; but the wife has another experience. She knows maids. They don’t touch real cobwebs… For three days! Completely impossible!

You will run into this obstacle often—and more so when you speak of deep experiences of life. If you talk of money, it won’t be so difficult, because money is everyone’s experience. Meditation is not everyone’s experience. People will prick up their ears with suspicion. They will think your mind has gone haywire. If you say thoughts become absolutely silent, they will look at you as if to ask, “Are you sober or have you had too much to drink?” For their thoughts have never stopped—how could yours? And what hasn’t happened to them, how could it happen to anyone else! If you say there is great bliss within, they will be a bit astonished and think you’ve imagined it—or maybe you had a little bhang? Some intoxicant? Because in intoxication sometimes such causeless joy arises; even a hemp-smoker laughs for no reason. And the more he feels there is no reason and yet laughter is coming, the more it comes. Then he is in trouble. These inner things do happen in intoxications and such; outer things happen in sobriety.

If you speak to someone about meditation, about prayer, do it thoughtfully. Go in knowing that the other will take you to be mad, a drunkard, an opium-eater. He will think you are boasting in a stupor, blowing a long horn. Don’t mind it when he says you’re talking tall—by his measure it is tall. Have compassion.

Narottam, I understand your question. You are experiencing something within; you want to speak of it, but people take it all wrong. Leave others aside—even your own won’t listen. If you begin to speak of meditation sitting next to your wife, she will say, “Enough, stop it. Nothing else to talk about? Is it only meditation with you? Talk about some work!”

Whoever you talk to, remember that the possibility of being understood is very small. So be selective. Speak only to those in whom you feel there is some taste for it, some curiosity. Speak to seekers. Then perhaps a little hint will reach them.

And I know this: when something happens within you, an inevitability to speak arises—you simply have to speak. That is precisely why I am creating this commune of sannyasins. You may not be able to speak to others, but with sannyasins you can open your heart; they will understand. They will understand your tears, your dance, your silence. No one will distrust what you say, no one will argue. No one will raise useless chatter and disputes.

Such a sangha is needed so that you have support, so that you can trust that what is happening to you is not a personal fancy, not a dream—that it is happening to others too.

That is why, age after age, sanghas have arisen—of Buddha, of Mahavira, of Kabir, of Nanak. Age after age, around the true master, a circle of lovers has gathered—a satsang. There, the drinkers speak to one another and understand that everyone is drunk. But when you go outside, speak thoughtfully. Don’t sit showing this diamond to everyone. If you find a connoisseur, by all means show it. But if you show it to just anyone, he will say, “Why are you carrying this stone? Throw it away! Go do something else!”

If you sit quietly at home, the people of the house will start saying, “What are you doing sitting like that? Why are you so quiet? Get up—do something—be seen moving about!”

This world is utterly contrary to meditation. No one here will understand your sitting silently. People will laugh. And if you say that fountains of bliss are gushing within, even if they don’t laugh to your face, they will laugh behind your back: “This gentleman is finished!”

The last question:

Ramswaroop! By “pandit-priest” I mean one who is not awakened himself, yet trades in the words of those who are. One who has not known, but has coiled himself like a cobra over the treasure the experiencers left behind, claiming it as his own. He himself does not even understand what that treasure is, yet he maintains the illusion among people that he understands. He knows the words, not the essence. He knows the scriptures, not the truth. And the realm of truth is the realm of experience, not of thought.

The pandit-priest is very full of thought; but truth is realized not by thought, by meditation. While a Buddha lives, lovers gather around him—drunkards of love. But once the Buddha is gone, trouble begins. As soon as he departs, the pundits collect. Naturally, in that crowd those who are most vocal, who can speak and explain, become the leaders—whether they have experience or not. Because they can speak, they seize leadership. Gradually they push out the experiencers, because those with firsthand knowing become an obstacle to them. And the realized ones neither care to lead, nor to dominate the people, nor to exploit them. But these pundits won’t miss the opportunity. For centuries their gang will exploit people. The name in the window is Buddha’s; behind the signboard, the pundit’s shop runs. How will such a pundit be happy if another Buddha comes to awaken people? If people wake up, his customers dwindle; his shop collapses.

In a hotel two waiters were talking.
First waiter: This man got drunk and fell asleep right at the table. I’ve woken him twice already; now I’m going to wake him a third time.
Second waiter: Why don’t you just throw him out?
First waiter: I can’t do that—every time I wake him, he pays the bill and then goes back to sleep.

How can you throw out such a man! It’s a crowd of sleepers, and in it the pundit is doing a fine job of exploitation. If an awakener arrives, the pundit sees an enemy. If Buddha himself were to return, Buddha’s own monks and pundits would oppose him. If Jesus came back, the popes and priests would oppose him. Naturally—because whoever awakens people will free them from the pundit’s net.

The pandit wants: bring more opium, more opium! Keep pouring opium! Karl Marx was right to say religion is the opium of the masses. Ninety-nine percent true; only one percent wrong. Wrong in relation to Buddha-Mahavira, Krishna-Christ; but for the remaining ninety-nine percent—Shankaracharyas, popes of the Vatican, imams of the Jama Masjid—absolutely right.

Why does the pandit have such a grip on the public mind? You ask, “Why do the masses fall into his nets?” Because he has beautiful words, polished language, webs of logic.

A judge asked a thief, “Why did you break into that house?” The thief wasn’t ordinary—he knew Sanskrit. He had failed his exams, so he couldn’t become a pundit and became a thief instead. He answered simply, “What could I do? The door said ‘Welcome’—so I entered.”

Some people understand only words. Words are their boat, their all-in-all. And the masses too understand words. If words are repeated long enough, they start to feel like truth. If something has been said for centuries, you accept, “It must be right—otherwise how could so many people have believed it for so long?”

Someone once said to George Bernard Shaw—who wrote sharp, important satires and was one of the few truly intelligent men of this century—“You say many things nobody in the world agrees with. How can so many people be wrong?” Do you know what Shaw replied? “How can so many people be right? Right is at best one or two. The awakened are always rare.” There is force in what Shaw said: how can so many be right?

Shaw was giving a lecture series in America. True to his habit of jolting people with upside-down statements, he began a talk by standing on the stage, looking around, and saying, “I see that at least fifty percent of the people here are colossal fools.” America being America, people were instantly furious. Uproar! “What kind of joke is this? Take your words back!” For a while he stood listening to the din. When the shouting grew so loud that chairs were about to fly, he said, “All right, I take my words back. Here, fifty percent are very intelligent.” And people were pleased and sat down. This is the level of people’s understanding. Not much more can be expected. People live by tradition.

A child is born—either Hindus will grab him, or Muslims, or Christians, or Jains. Whoever gets hold of his neck first. Whichever group he happens to fall among will seize him. They start feeding him their brew. Along with mother’s milk, come the Ramayana, the Gita, the Quran. He has no awareness, but you keep pouring it in. By the time awareness arrives, your babble has seeped into his bone, flesh, and marrow. You worship Hanuman, he starts worshipping too. You recite the Hanuman Chalisa, he recites it. You believe the Hanuman Chalisa has great power; he believes it has great power.

What power can there be in the Hanuman Chalisa? How did Hanuman’s worship become a thing? If you look inside it, you’ll be amazed. It’s like this: if you want access to Morarji-bhai in Delhi, first catch hold of some chamcha—some toady. Call it a Sycophant-Chalisa! Hanumanji is the servant of Lord Rama; direct access to Rama is a bit difficult, so catch Hanuman! And here is a monkey—so flatter him a little, pat his back, oil and massage his tail; he is pleased. He hoists you on his shoulders and off you go: “Come, I’ll take you to Lord Rama!” For him all doors are open—Rama’s or Mother Sita’s—he can slip in anywhere. He even entered the Ashoka grove. Who will stop him, and where! So, read the Hanuman Chalisa! And you start reading, too. You find a Hanuman idol by the roadside and you don’t even notice when your head bows.

A gentleman used to go for a morning walk with me. At every temple we passed, he would quickly bow his head. I watched for a few days, then asked, “Do you do this consciously, or has it become a mechanical habit?” He said, “No, no—consciously.” I said, “Then do one thing: tomorrow keep awareness not to do it. If you do it consciously, then prove it for one day—don’t do it.” Next day I took him along again. The first Hanuman temple came up and I said, “Well, say it…” He said, “I forgot.” Then he added, “I also felt afraid. I kept thinking at night: for an experiment of one day, should I throw away the tapasya of a lifetime? What if Hanumanji gets angry?” So there is fear!

The masses are frightened, greedy, dull, and asleep. Exploiting them is very easy. You can exploit them in any way.

I went to Surat. A friend said, “Listening to you felt refreshing. I was born in a sect where there is a strange arrangement. You donate a lakh rupees to the sect’s chief mullah now, and he writes a letter in God’s name—an official certificate—detailing everything that will be arranged for you in heaven for that lakh. And when you die, that letter is placed on your chest in the grave. People are doing this. The money doesn’t reach God. Nor does the letter—because it stays right there in the grave! Who is going to carry it?” I said, “Dig up a few graves and see—you’ll find the letters lying right there.” He said, “They are still there; they haven’t gone anywhere!” Yet people keep giving. Greed! Man is so weak he is easy to exploit. It is easy to frighten him, to unnerve him. And the whole art of the pandits is: alarm, frighten, terrorize—and then claim, ‘We are the intermediaries. If you listen to us now, we will arrange your protection—especially after death.’ And the greatest fear is death. As long as the fear of death remains, the pundit will sit heavy on your chest.

The true Master dissolves the fear of death, because he gives you the experience of that which never dies—he lets you taste the deathless nectar: “Ami jharat, bigsat kanwal!” He opens within you the realm where amrit showers and lotuses blossom—lotuses that never wither. He connects you with the eternal and the timeless. Whoever connects you with the eternal, whoever gives you a vision beyond death, is the one who can lead you out of the pandit-priest’s net. Therefore, naturally, the pundits and priests are enemies of whoever awakens. They crucified Jesus, gave hemlock to Socrates, cut off Mansoor’s head. That has been their work—and will continue to be. Beware of them! Enough for today.