The Individual and the Whole If You Choose To Be With Me You Must Risk Finding Yourself #2

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]

The universe is always leading you, guiding you towards the ultimate expression of your being, the ultimate flowering of your being.

If you can surrender to existence, if you can allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it, then the transformation happens so easily, without any bloodshed and without any damage. One changes so silently, so noiselessly, as if nothing has happened.

On the outside everything remains the same, and on the inside nothing is the same.

Sufis have one hundred names for God. Ninety-nine are utterable, one, the hundredth, is silent; it cannot be spoken. In India we have one thousand names for God. We have a whole scripture, VISHNU SHASTRANAM, one thousand names of God, devoted only to the names. In that scripture nothing else is written, just the names. But each name has its beauty and each name denotes something about God, some aspect.

Hari is one of the most beautiful of all those one thousand names. My choice, if I have to choose one out of that one thousand, will be Hari because Hari means the thief. God steals the heart, hence he is called the thief, the greatest thief, the master thief. He does not steal small things from you, he steals your very heart, he steals your very being. He leaves nothing behind, he absorbs you totally. That's what actually happens, it is not only a name.

When one moves closer to God, slowly slowly one disappears, not even a trace is left behind... because God means the whole, the vast existence. We are just dewdrops and the whole is like an infinite ocean. When the dewdrop comes closer to the ocean it is bound to disappear. But that disappearance is not a loss, it is a gain, because certainly the dewdrop disappears as a dewdrop, but it becomes the ocean. It is a death and a resurrection.

One dies as an individual and then one is born as the universal. One dies as Jesus and is born as Christ.

We are suffering from separation, separation from God. And unless we become one with God again the suffering cannot disappear. Bliss is not possible in a state of separation. Bliss happens only when you merge and meet and disappear into the whole. It is good to long, to be thirsty for the reunion.

That's what sannyas is: a thirst for reunion with God, a tremendous longing to be one with the whole again.

God is always ready to come in, but we are not ready to welcome him. In fact it is not we who are searching for him, but he who is searching for us. But we are so non-receptive, so deaf, so unfeeling, so insensitive, that we can't see, we can't hear -- and he is surrounding us in every possible way. He comes to you in the sunrays, he comes in the songs of the birds, he comes in the colours of a rainbow, he comes in the air that you breathe. He comes in a thousand and one ways, but we cannot recognise him because we have not yet learned how to welcome the ultimate guest.

Sannyas teaches you only one thing: how to be a host, how to open your doors and pray for God to come in, how to empty your heart so that there is enough space for the guest to be inside you, how to become a womb so that God can be part of your being. And the moment you allow God in, you disappear. Then only God is. Then you speak, but in fact he speaks; then you create, but in fact he creates. You become only a vehicle. And the great ecstasy of being a vehicle of God is inexpressible. One knows it only by experiencing it.

Man has to be absolutely empty, only then is the space created for God to descend in him. And we are so full of rubbish, so full of junk; even if God wants to enter he will not find any place inside. There is no place inside. Our cups are full. Not even a single drop can be contained any more. We have to empty the cup completely.

This is the whole process of sannyas: emptying yourself of yourself, emptying yourself of all thoughts, desires, memories, hopes, expectations -- just a process of emptying.

The moment you are absolutely empty and you don't see anything inside you, suddenly all becomes light. Suddenly thousands of flowers open in your being. You become full of fragrance and music, a music that has not been heard before, a fragrance that is not of the earth. And you are liberated in that experience, liberated from life, liberated from death, liberated from time itself. You become part of the eternal flow of existence.

That is the ultimate goal of sannyas: to become part of the eternal flower, to become part of tao, of dhamma, of the universe, of God or whatsoever name one wants to choose. But one has to disappear totally for God to be.

God is our victory, in God is our victory. Without God we are failures. We may have all the possessions and the wealth of the world, we may be great kings and queens and emperors, but still we are failures. Without God nobody is ever a success. It can't happen in the nature of things. It is only with God that victory is possible.

When you become one with God, when you exist in harmony with God, your life has the taste of victory. You may not have anything, you may not have much money -- that does not matter: you will sit like a king and you will walk like a king and you will live like a king. You will be a god, a goddess.

The moment that one becomes harmonious with God one has become a god. Jesus says: I and my father in heaven are one. He is crucified because of this great statement. The small minds cannot tolerate it; it looks sacrilegious to claim "I am God." But what can Jesus do? What can poor Jesus do? The moment that you are in harmony with God are you God. If Jesus says anything else he will be lying.

Mansoor Al Hillaj declares "Ana'l Haq" -- I am the truth -- and he is killed for that. Truth has suffered so much for the simple reason that people are so mediocre, so mean that they can only understand lies. They cannot rise a little higher to see the truth.

Before one can understand truth one needs to go through a radical change, one needs a new vision. But this much is absolute certainty, that with God we are victorious because we become gods. Without God we are failures, because without God we are very tiny, very small, struggling against such a huge universe. Our failure is absolutely certain, it is inevitable.

Sannyas means deciding: "Now I will get more and more in tune with the whole. I will not try to remain separate, aloof, I will not try to be an island. I will dissolve, melt and merge into the ocean and become one with it"

Existence is like an ocean and we are waves dancing in the sun, disappearing again and again and appearing again and again. There is no birth, no death -- we are eternal.

Only superficially does it appear that a wave is born and then dies, but it is only superficial, because it always remains the same. Sometimes it is manifest, sometimes unmanifest, sometimes it is rising towards the sun with a deep longing to touch the sky, to reach the stars, and the next moment, it is relaxing deep into the ocean, resting. Death is rest. And when rest is over the wave rises again. It is eternal recurrence, we go on coming again and again and again. There is no need to be afraid of death, because death is false. The most false thing in existence is death. And if death is false, naturally, birth is false too. We existed before birth and we will exist after death.

Once you start feeling this, not believing but experiencing this, all fear disappears. And the energy that is involved in fear is released and becomes love. It is the same energy that becomes fear. Once fear is no more there tremendous energy is released, and that energy becomes love. It starts radiating through you, reaching to other people. You start overflowing with love.
Sannyas is an effort to know oneself as a wave of the ocean that God is.

Tanmaya means one who is utterly dissolved, utterly lost. It is a space without ego. One is, but one has no idea of the I. It happens sometimes in listening to music: you are, but there is no sense of I, you are just an open space. That is tanmaya. That space is needed for a sannyasin, because only in that space can God be contacted. If you are then God is not, if you are not then God is.

So learn how to disappear, how to evaporate. Learn how not to be. That is the greatest art in life because the ego is so cunning. It always finds some way to come in from the back door. It can become humble, it can become pious, it can become saintly, it can become holy. It can play all kinds of games.

A sannyasin has to be constantly alert not to allow the ego to play any more games.

Be watchful. And the more you know the ways of the ego, the more you are free of it, because it cannot play. whatsoever strategy you have come to know upon you any longer. Slowly slowly all doors are closed. One day, when the last strategy has collapsed, you are freed from yourself.

That is liberation. And that is the ultimate goal of all religious effort. Only in that liberated state can one know what truth is. They are not really two separate things but two aspects of the same coin. Jesus says: Truth liberates. We can also say: Liberation is truth.

God is always willing. He waits for us to be willing. He is ready to give but we are not ready to receive. He is just standing at the door but we don't open the door. Even if he knocks on the door we don't listen. The blame is totally ours.

His grace knows no limits, but we are so miserly that not only in giving are we miserly, in receiving too we have become miserly. And God asks nothing in return; still we go on missing. It seems that to receive hurts our ego.

So the problem is not on God's side -- God is love, God is compassion, God is help. But the problem is on our side: how to open up, how to receive his gifts, how to be more grateful, thankful -- because in gratefulness one becomes more open, in thankfulness one becomes more receptive.

The whole process of sannyas is of becoming feminine so that you can be pregnant with God. He is ready to enter your spiritual womb. But we don't allow him, we go on reflecting him. And the irony is that on the one hand we go to the churches and to the mosques and the temples to pray, and on the other hand we reject every effort of God to help us. We are split. Our heart wants the help, our head rejects the help.

Unless we start rejecting our head we will never be able to receive the help, we will go on missing it. My whole teaching here is: Reject the head, it is not worth anything. Sooner or later it is going to fall into dust and disappears, so why bother so much about it?

Listen to the heart, because the heart is eternal. Listen to love not to logic, because love is deathless and love is the door to God.

Man's power is ugly. It is violent. Only God's power is beautiful because it is love-power. Man's power means egolessness. Be egoless so that God can flow through you. Let God pass through you as the wind passes through the pine trees. Don't hinder God's ways. Give him your total acceptance. Just become a hollow bamboo so that he can change you into a flute, a bamboo flute, so that he can sing through you. And when God sings through you there is great power; but it is not yours, it is God's.

It is glorious, it has great splendour. It is tremendously beautiful. It will make you ecstatic. It will also make others ecstatic; whomsoever comes in contact with you will have a little taste of it, will feel it, will be overwhelmed by it. But you have to disappear for it.

Sannyas means committing a metaphysical suicide, allowing the ego to evaporate. Then all glory is God's and all power is God's.

One can fight for oneself or one can fight for God. To fight for oneself is foolish, to fight for God is wise, because to fight for oneself is bound to be a failure. One cannot win against the whole. One cannot win as a separate entity. Victory is with God -- it is not possible without him. Without him there is only defeat, failure, frustration. Life is with God because God is life. Without him there is only death. He is our breath, he breathes in our heart.

Once this is understood one becomes a vehicle for God. Then one can say with one's totality "Thy will be done." That's what I mean by becoming a divine warrior: fighting for God's victory.

First many things within you have to be conquered because they go against God: your anger, your greed, your jealousy. Once you have become full of light inside you have to help others to fight with their darkness. It is an eternal struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
By becoming a sannyasin your are being recruited for God.

Man can live in two ways: either as an ego or as an egolessness. To live as an ego is to live the ordinary, mundane life. To live as an egolessness is to live the sacred life, the holy life. On the outside everything remains the same, but at the deepest core of your being something radically changes.

If you think of yourself as separate from existence you are bound to live as an ego. Then the ego creates its problems. You are constantly afraid because the vast whole, the vast universe, is against you -- you are against it. You are in a kind of struggle, and there is no hope that you can win. How can a small particle win against the whole universe? The very idea is idiotic. But that is the idea that we are carrying; hence the fear that we may be defeated; hence the constant trembling, anxiety, anguish.

And we will be defeated again and again; nobody can win against the whole. So one's life becomes a long series of failures and ultimately there is death. Death is a by-product of the ego. If you think you are separate from existence, then only is there death. If you think you are one with existence, how can there be death? The egoless person knows nothing of death, he knows only eternal life.

Samarpito means: surrender the ego. If anything has to be surrendered it is the ego. If anything has to be renounced, it is not the world, it is the ego. Live in the world but live egolessly, and then you are a sannyasin. And you will be surprised that as the ego is dropped all anxieties, all fears disappear as if they never existed, just as dreams disappear in the morning when you wake up.

This is real awakening. Moving from ego to egolessness is the most radical change possible. There is no other revolution greater than that because it brings you to the ultimate peak of awareness, awakening. It makes you a Buddha, an awakened one.

Ramana Maharshi was dying, and somebody asked "Where will you go after death?" He opened his eyes and he said: "Where can I go? I have always been here and I will still be here." He laughed at the very question.

We can't go anywhere, we are part of the whole. There is nowhere to go. There is no death, no birth, and if there is no death, no birth, where can fear exist, where can anxiety arise? We have cut the very root of all misery.

Religion begins the moment you drop the ego. So this is going to be your work here: drop the ego, forget that you are. Then God is and only God is.

Buddha says: "This very body is the lotus paradise, this very body the Buddha." This ordinary body has the capacity to invite God into it. It can become a host, it can become a home for God -- it all depends on us. If we prepare our mind and body, God is immediately ready to come in. And the moment God enters the body, the dust is transformed into gold. Then the body is no longer material, it itself becomes spiritual. Even matter is transformed.
Every man is an empty country without God.
Only with God do we become populated.

Only with God entering us do we start feeling contented, fulfilled for the first time.

All that is great always descends from above. It falls over you, it rains and showers over you. It is a waterfall. It does not grow from below, upwards; it showers from upwards, downwards.

In India we have the symbol of God as a tree upside-down: roots in the sky, and branches and flowers towards the earth. And that's beautiful, that's how it is. The roots of truth are in the ultimate -- that is above, symbolically -- but the fragrance can fall on us, the flowers can shower on us, we just have to be receptive. All that is needed on our part is a deep receptivity, a total receptivity.

That's what sannyas is all about: learning to be surrendered, learning to be receptive, learning how to let the ego disappear so that you are just a pure space, empty, ready, welcoming, open, so that God can fall into your being like a fragrance, a waterfall of fragrance, a waterfall of joy, a waterfall of truth.

We are not strangers, outsiders. We are part of existence. This is our home. We are not here accidentally, we are here because we are needed. We are here because God wanted us to be here in the first place. It is his will. Hence nobody need feel alienated. That is one of the most fundamental problems that humanity is facing today. All over the world intelligent people are very worried, disturbed, anxious -- why are we here?

According to science it seems accidental. And if we are accidental then we are useless; then whether we are nor are not makes no difference. And if it makes no difference then our life loses all meaning; hence all over the world there is a climate of meaninglessness. It all started a hundred years ago with the declaration by Nietzsche that God is dead. He became the mouthpiece of the whole contemporary mind.

If God is dead then life is meaningless because God is the only possibility of there being any meaning, any significance. God simply means nothing but meaning. Life is meaningful -- that's the whole meaning of God.

A man was talking to an old rabbi and the man said: "Do you know what Friedrich Nietzsche says? He says 'God is dead'." The old rabbi looked at the man and said " Do you know what God says? God says "Friedrich Nietzsche is dead!'"(laughter)

And the old rabbi is far truer. God is not dead, God is as alive as ever. But the idea that God is dead has made us feel very meaningless.

Sannyas means creating meaning in your life again, bringing God into your life again. The moment that God enters your life, life is a blessing, otherwise it is a curse and a heavy burden.

And unnecessarily too. If there is no God then suicide seems to be the most intelligent way to get out of this whole mess. If there is God then life has to be lived more deeply, more joyously, more prayerfully so that we can know the ultimate mystery of existence. Then death is not going to destroy us. We were before birth and we will be after death. But this is possible only if the whole of existence is full of meaning, otherwise it would not be possible.

To me God is not a person. It is the meaningfulness of existence. It is a presence rather than a person.

So there is no need to conceive of God, of how he looks, how tall he is, how old... There is no need for all these childish stories.

Godliness is eternal. All that is needed is that you create emptiness in yourself -- not that you seek God. The moment you are empty something from the beyond penetrates you, fills your emptiness. You start overflowing with something absolutely new which you have never tasted, never known before. It is such a blessing, such a benediction. It is such an ecstasy that from that very moment you know that there is no birth, no death; you are also eternal. From that very moment you are part of a tremendous energy called godliness. Godliness is like an oceanic energy; we are just waves in it.

We are making every effort here to help you, through different devices, so that you can feel the presence of something which escapes ordinary intellect, which needs extraordinary intelligence to be grasped, which really needs less logic and more love, less head and more heart.

Bliss immediately starts happening if you remember that God loves, that he needs you, that you are not superficial, that you are not accidental, that you are fulfilling a certain purpose in existence, that you are working for God in your own small way.

The moment we realise this great rejoicing arises in the heart. Then life is no more meaningless, it starts having great significance. We are messengers, messages, and we are doing something greater than ourselves.

And God's love is showering on us, otherwise we could not live a single moment. His love is our very breath. Without him there is no life.

Remember it more and more, remind yourself of it more and more, so that it becomes a constant undercurrent in your consciousness. You will start blooming, flowering, and the darkness will start disappearing. Just to know that God loves you kindles a light in you which cannot be extinguished by any external force.

God never becomes old. Although all the religions depict him as a very old man, that's utterly wrong. People conceive of God as a very very ancient, old man with a long white beard touching the floor. That is not true. God is young, as young as one can be. He is the very essence of youth. He is as new as fresh dewdrops early in the morning, as new as a bud just opening; not even completely open, just opening, becoming a flower.

Man's mind becomes old, and because his mind has been creating God, God is depicted as old. Man's mind is accumulative. It is nothing but the whole past. It knows nothing of newness; hence mind knows nothing of God If one wants to know about God one has to drop the mind.

Sannyas means dropping the mind, entering into the world of no-mind, changing your gestalt from thought to no-thought, from words to wordless silence, from the past to the present. When you are utterly in the present you are in tune with God. Then you know, then you feel, then you understand, because then you are it. There is no separation, you are bridged with the whole.

Jan means God's gracious gift.

It is the most fundamental thing to understand, because without it there is no possibility of religion. Deep down in the heart it has to be understood that life is a gift of tremendous value, that each moment is precious, that it has not to be wasted. It is a great opportunity to grow. One should not go on collecting coloured stones and seashells on the sea-beach. Something more important has to be done, something more significant.

One has to look inwards. One should not remain concerned just about outside things because that's how people waste their lives. One should start searching within -- "Who am I?" One should go deeper and deeper into one's consciousness to feel one's centre. The moment that you fell your centre all questions are answered, all puzzles disappear. There is no confusion any more. Everything is a clarity, a tremendous clarity. You can see through and through. And that is the moment when one understands how much the universe has given to us, and how ungrateful we have been to the universe.

Gratitude is the basic requirement for a religious life. It is out of gratitude that prayer arises, it is out of gratitude that love arises, it is out of gratitude that grace arises. But one can feel gratitude only if one feels the value, the immense value of life, the inestimable value of existence.

Go beyond knowledge if you want really to know, go beyond all information if you really want to see. Information functions as dust in your eyes. It does not allow you to see that which is.

One has to unburden oneself of knowledge, information, scripture, systems of thought, ideologies: political, social and religious. No word is sacred, only silence is sacred. No thought is original, only silence is original. And when you move into silence, into a wordless world, you are moving into God, into bliss, into freedom, into the ultimate.

Stefano means voice -- divine voice.

It is always there, at the innermost core of our being, we just have to be a little more silent to hear it. It is a still, small voice. God is constantly trying to communicate with you. It is not only that man is seeking God, far more true is that God is seeking man.

In the Bible the story is that when Adam and Eve became aware that they had disobeyed, they became frightened: sooner or later they will be found. When God called them they were hiding behind some bushes. God was calling the, "Adam, Eve, where are you?" And they went on hiding from one place to another place until they were found and thrown out of paradise.

But my feeling is that the story still continues, it has not come to a full stop. God is still asking: Where are you...? And we are still hiding.

The best way would have been for Adam and Eve to have come the God, to have asked for his forgiveness. But rather than asking to be forgiven they were trying to hide. The moment you start hiding something you become false, you become inauthentic. The moment you open yourself up totally without hiding anything, the moment you are utterly naked before God you are forgiven, immediately forgiven, all is forgiven.

God is still calling us from every heart, but we have to prepare first -- how to listen? We have forgotten the art of listening. Our heads are so noisy -- so much turmoil, so much traffic, thoughts, desires, memories, imagination. It is always rush hour, day in, day out.

Sannyas means that now you will make every possible effort to make this noisy mind a little more quiet, a little more silent, so that you can hear your own heart and its message.

(To Spider): Who has given you such a spiritual name? (laughter)
-- My parents.
-- That's really something! (more laughter)

It is a beautiful name; particularly in Indian mythology it is very significant because the spider is the only being which creates its world out of itself. It creates its web out of itself and when it wants to move it swallows the web again and it will move, and again it can produce it.

In Indian mythology it is said God functions exactly like the spider. He creates the whole world out of himself, and when he feels tired, exhausted, he swallows it up, everything disappears. But then he start feeling lonely again and he creates it again.

In every mythology of the world there are stories about the creation of the world, but only in Indian mythology ares those stories balanced by the dissolution -- stories of how the world disappears. Otherwise they are half stories: God created the world, so it is finished once and forever. But in Indian mythology millions of times he has created the world and millions of times he has withdrawn it into himself.

The problem is -- it is the same problem as every human being comes across -- one cannot live alone, one cannot live with somebody either. If you live with somebody it is tiring; it creates clashes, conflicts, one wants to be finished with it. But when you are alone you start feeling lonely, bored. This whole human dilemma has been projected onto God.

Other mythologies project only half part. In that way Indian mythologies are more logical, they project the whole thing. The Indian god is very human, just a magnified form, a bigger human being, an infinite human being, but he is human. He creates the world, then he starts feeling lonely. And then he becomes tired of the relationship with the world and of all the people praying and asking him "Do this, do that," and of everybody complaining and nobody being satisfied. Then, enough is enough; he says "Withdraw. It will never commit the same crime again." But after few days he forgets (laughter)... then he is lonely, he creates again. The spider is the symbol of this very process.

So tell your parents that they must have been Hindus in some past life! (laughter)
This is your name: Swami Deva Spider -- divine spider. Good!

God happens only to those who are of humble heart. But it is a humility which is not practised.

One can practise humility. The society teaches us to practise being humble: Be humble because you will be respected if you are humble. Now what kind of nonsense is this? Telling people "You will be respected if you are humble" is simply giving new nourishment to the ego. Now in the name of humbleness there will be a subtle ego hiding, because humbleness brings respect, respectability. And the more you see that people respect you, the more humble you will become. But deep down the ego is becoming stronger and stronger.

The so-called humble people have the strongest egos in the world. The saints, the mahatmas and the so-called religious people are the most egoistic, they are pious egoists. That is not real humility.

Real humbleness, real humility comes by understanding the ego, the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it goes on creating itself, how it goes on coming back in subtle ways. You close one door, it opens another; you don't allow it from the front door, it comes from the back door. One has to be very watchful, alert about the ways of the ego, that's all.

Slowly slowly you know all its diplomatic strategies: how it survives, how it perpetuates itself. It is a false entity, it is a parasite. It lives on your blood, It kills your soul. When you see it and the whole nuisance that it goes on doing to you and your life, when you see the calamity that comes through it, in its utter nudity, in that very moment you are freed from it. Now it cannot deceive you.

The first words of the Buddha when he became enlightened were... He looked at the sky and said: Listen, now there will be no need of you to make another house for me, another shelter, another security. I am utterly free of you. I will not be coming back again because I am no more trapped within your net.

To whom was he talking? He was saying goodbye to his ego, he was saying: I am finished. I have seen you -- you are false, I have seen that you are just a shadow. I have believed enough in you and through that belief I have suffered long.

In that moment of understanding one becomes humble. That humbleness opens the door for God to come in. The moment ego goes out, God comes in. The moment you are not, God is.

Courage is like bliss, like truth, like love: it is not something that you can manage; otherwise there would be nobody who is a coward. Every coward wants to be courageous; he tries in every possible way, he pretends, he creates a facade of courage. It hurts to feel that one is cowardly. One wants to hide it, not only from others but from oneself too. One does not want to recognise the fact that one is cowardly. One pretends to be brave. One goes to extremes to prove that one is brave, sometimes to foolish extremes, sometimes on tries to overcompensate. But these are not the right ways; the coward remains the coward. On the surface he may look brave, but scratch him just a little and all his cowardliness starts rising up. In a real situation he will escape, In an unreal situation he will remain very courageous.

Aman and his wife were passing through a forest and suddenly they encountered a dangerous tiger. The husband completely forgot all his manliness, all his bravery, and all his pretensions. He went behind the woman, behind his wife.

The wife cried, "What are you doing? You are supposed to face the danger, you have to protect me. You have always been saying that you could even face death for me -- now it is time to prove it!"

He said "Yes, I can face death, but this tiger is alive, he is not dead!" (laughter)

Just scratch a little; pretensions never go deeper than the skin, they remain something painted just on the skin.

Real courage is a gift of God. One can pray for it, one cannot do anything else. One can surrender to God totally, and say to him "Make of me whatsoever you want to make. Let thy will be done. If you want me to be a coward it's perfectly okay, I will be a coward. If that's what your will is I will follow it joyously. If you want me to be miserable. I will not complain. Even if you send death I will welcome it. So whatsoever your will is, is going to be my will." That is surrender and that is sannyas.

Sannyas is essentially surrender to the whole. Then a great courage arises. Then one cannot be cowardly, there is nothing to be afraid of. When one has surrendered the ego why should one be full of fear? All fear exists as a shadow of the ego. The ego is the root cause of cowardliness. The ego gone, all cowardliness disappears. And then there is a courage which is not yours but which is God's.
Remember it, all that is great is always God's.

Rudi literally means a wolf; it is s short form of Rudolf. Symbolically it means two things; loyalty and courage.

Mythologically the wolf has been thought to be very courageous and very loyal. In fact to be loyal one needs to be courageous. To trust in somebody needs guts, it is not for the cowardly person. The cowardly always doubts, he is always suspicious because he is always afraid. Out of his fear he suspects, doubts; he is always defending himself, protecting himself, guarding. He remains closed. He cannot be loyal, he cannot be trusting, he cannot be surrendered.

Sannyas is a surrender, surrender to existence. Ordinarily we are fighting with existence, that's how we have been brought up. We have been brought up with the idea of fighting, of being aggressive, because that is the way to succeed.

Sannyas means that we are no more concerned with success at all. We are concerned with peace, silence, bliss, truth, freedom, god. We are not concerned with success at all. Even if you succeed death is going to destroy everything, so it has been a sheer wastage of your life. You may have money, power, prestige, but all will be taken away. But if you have known love it will go with you. If you have known freedom it will go with you. If you have known truth even death cannot take it away.

These are real treasures. But they can be attained only if one surrenders to the whole. You cannot snatch them away from reality. You have to love so deeply that you can surrender. You have to love so totally that you can trust the whole. You have to disappear as a separate entity, you have to become part of the infinity, just a wave in the infinite ocean of god.

Martin means a loyal spirit. It means one who is capable of trusting, one who is capable of love -- so much so that he disappears in his love.

The ego only knows how to say no, but when the ego disappears there arises a total yes: yes to life, yes to all that is. That is the meaning of being loyal, loyal to existence: being in a deep love affair with existence, not feeling oneself separate, feeling one with the whole, with no fear, holding nothing back, going totally and whole-heartedly.

The moment one can do it, one is transformed. The moment one can do it, the ego dies and one is born. The real birth, the birth of the soul comes through a total yes.

The traditional sense of being holy is egoistic. It is a new form of egoism. Somebody is bragging about his money, somebody is bragging out his birth, blood, nobility, aristocracy, somebody is bragging about his political power. And somebody is bragging about his virtues, his prayers, his fasts, his austerities. But it is the same bragging -- no difference at all. The ego is the ego. By what it is nourished is of no consequence, it makes no difference. It can be supported by anything.

You can support it with a rock, you can support it with gold, you can support it with diamonds, but it is the same ego. Only the support changes, the ego remains the same.

When I use the word "holy" I use it in the sense of wholeness, in the sense of being total. To be whole is to be holy. And whenever you are whole the ego disappears. It can exist only when you are fragmentary, when you are divided, split. The more you are divided, the better for the ego. It rules you by dividing you. Once you are one, integrated, crystallised, the ego evaporates just like dewdrops in the early morning sun.

Living a holy life means living each moment totally, without holding anything back. If you are dancing then become the dance, and that is the moment of holiness. If you are singing, become the song. If you are loving, become love. Whatsoever you are doing, do it with such joy, with such totality, with such involvement, commitment that you are no more separate from it. And soon you will see that this continuous experience of being totally involved integrates all your fragments into oneness. It moulds you into an individual, into something indivisible. That is being holy.

It has nothing to do with being Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan, but it absolutely has something to do with the ultimate, because when you are total you become available to the ultimate. When you are total you are silent; all those fighting fragments are no more there, no noise is there. There is great stillness, and in that stillness God can descend.

God is whole, and unless we are also whole in our own small way we cannot know anything of God And one thing is beautiful about being whole: even if you are whole in your small way... The bigger whole and the smaller whole are not really different. It is like a small circle and a bigger circle; both are circles. As far as their being circles is concerned, both are perfect circles. Quantitatively they may be different but qualitatively they are not.

And that's the beauty of being whole. You will be a small circle and God is the infinite circle, but that makes no difference. The moment you are a circle, entire, one, you know the quality of being a god, you become divine.

By purity I don't mean anything moral. By purity I mean innocence, a childlike innocence -- that's what purity is.

A moralist is not pure, he cannot be. His every step is calculated. Even his virtue is a bargaining. He is doing all kings of things, destroying all kind of desires in order to attain paradise and heavenly pleasures. It is all bargaining. Any calculated move is bound to be impure.

Only small children move spontaneously, without any calculation. Their action is without motive. It is simply a response to the present situation. So is the case with the real sage. He lives spontaneously, moment to moment, he is not worried about the future. He does not care about paradise, he is not afraid of hell or greedy for heaven. He simply joyously lives the moment that is available. In a way his life is just like a small child's life.

The child is innocent because he is ignorant of the world and worldly ways and all kinds of cunningnesses and deceptions. He has not yet entered into the mud; hence he is clean. But sooner or later he will have to enter into the mud, into the muddy waters and then he will lose his innocence. Every child is bound to lose his innocence. That innocence is temporary and is inevitably lost.

To grow, it is necessary to lose it. But then one can attain to a new kind of innocence. Living in the world, seeing its futility, seeing its utter ridiculousness, one becomes detached, cool. One is no more involved in it. One passes through it but just as a witness, just like a mirror: reflecting everything and yet not affected by anything.

That is the second kind of innocence, the innocence of the sage. It cannot be destroyed; you cannot lose it. Once it is gained it is yours forever. Hence the sage is like the child in one sense only, they are both innocent. But the child is bound to lose his gift because he has not earned it, it is a natural gift. And the sage has earned it, it is not a gift; it is the reward of his maturity. The child is innocent because he is ignorant, and the sage is innocent because he is wise. The second innocence is called divine innocence.
Keep on reminding yourself: that is the goal.

Beauty is the most divine phenomenon in life. It is through the beautiful that man has become aware of god, through a beautiful sunset, a beautiful night full of stars, beautiful showers, mountains, clouds, people. It is impossible to think that there is no god. If life is so beautiful there must be somebody behind all this beauty, some great artist.

The beauty of the world is enough proof of a great painter, of a poet, of a lover. God is nothing but a presence that one feels when one becomes overwhelmed by beauty. Hence I don't suggest you go to the temple or the mosque or the church. But I certainly suggest you go to the mountains, to the forest, to the rivers, to the ocean, because it is there that you will have your first glimpse of God's presence.

There is beauty which is only of the body. It does not go very deep, it is not even skin deep. It is superficial, it is only an appearance. But there is a totally different kind of beauty which belongs to the center and not to the circumference, which arises from your innermost core and spreads towards the circumference. The circumference also becomes luminous because of it, but it is not on the circumference, it comes from the center. That is divine beauty, and divine beauty is eternal.

Physical beauty is there today and tomorrow it is gone. Anything bodily is momentary. And I am not against the body -- remember it. It is a beautiful mechanism, it is a beautiful house. Take every care of it but don't become obsessed with it. Human beings have become too obsessed with the body. Their whole effort is how to keep it beautiful and they have completely forgotten that something more needs to be beautiful, not just the body and its proportions. Some inner grace is needed. That grace arises out of meditation and prayer. That grace arises only when you are bridged with God and God starts filtering through you.

When you are in deep communion with existence then something radical happens to your being. Then you know beauty for the first time, a beauty that transcends time, space, a beauty that cannot be taken away from you by illness by old age, a beauty that is really yours forever. Seek and search for that because that is your true being.

In the East we have defined God as satyam, shivam, sundram. Satyam means truth, shivam means good, sundram means beauty, beautiful. These are the three qualities of God -- he is true, he is good, he is beautiful. And these are the three doors also to enter into hi. Either one can enter into him as a seeker of truth or as a seeker of good or as a seeker of beauty.

Let the third door be for you: enter into God searching for inner beauty, for divine beauty.

[There follows and interview with Swami Bhakta, which is not included here.]