Ishavashya Upanishad #12

We have seen streams descending from the mountains.
We are familiar with rivers flowing toward the ocean.
Water always flows downward—and seeks a lower and lower place.
Its journey is into hollows.
Descent is its way.
Its nature is: down, and down, and down.
Wherever a low place is found, there it travels.

Fire is exactly the opposite.
It always moves upward.
Its path is ascensional.
It runs toward the sky.
Light it anywhere, place it any way—hang the lamp even upside down—and still the flame rushes upward.

Even in ancient times the upward surge of fire came to the notice of those whose consciousness was upward-going.
Consciousness can flow in both ways: like water and like fire.
Ordinarily we flow like water.
Ordinarily we too keep searching for hollows and pits.
If our consciousness finds a way to descend, we at once leave the step that leads upward.
Ordinarily we are like water.
We should be like fire: wherever the slightest chance arises to move up, we leave the lower step.
Wherever a small opening appears to spread the wings and fly toward the sky, we are ready.

Therefore fire became a symbol, became a deity.
For those whose longing was ascension, whose intention was to go higher, whose aspiration was to enter ever nobler dimensions—fire became their symbol, their deity.

For yet another reason fire became a symbol and a deity.
As soon as one sets out on the upward journey, that journey upward is at once a journey inward.
And in exactly the same way the downward journey is at once a journey outward.
In a deep sense, outside and downward are synonymous; inside and upward are synonymous.
The deeper you go within, the higher you also rise.
The more you go outside, the more you go down.
Or, the more you go down, the more you go outward; the more you rise up, the more you go within.
From the standpoint of existence, above and within have one meaning—though not in the standpoint of language.
From the standpoint of experience, outside and below have one meaning—though not in language.
They are synonyms.
Whoever has desired to travel upward has had to travel inward.
And as entry happens within, darkness lessens and light increases; darkness thins and radiance grows.
Thus fire became the symbol of the inner pilgrimage as well.

For one more reason fire became a symbol and is remembered with deep reverence.
Fire has another virtue, another nature: it preserves what is pure and burns what is impure.
Throw gold into it: the impurity is burnt away, the pure shines forth.
Thus came the idea of the fire-test—to burn the impure and to save the pure.
Fire-test does not mean that someone once threw Sita into flames.
Fire-test became a symbol: fire will burn that which is impure and will save that which is pure.
It is fire’s very nature—its eagerness to save the pure and to destroy the impure.

Within us there is very much that is impure.
So much that the gold is nowhere to be seen.
Somewhere it must be hidden.
Some Rishi sometimes announces the gold; we know only soil and trash.
Some wise one cries out that there is gold within you—but when we search, we find nothing but pebbles and stones.
So even the gold must be put into fire.

To put gold into fire is the meaning of tapas.
Tapas is born of heat, of agni.
Tapas does not mean someone stands in the sun and is practicing austerity.
Tapas means to pass through such an inner fire that whatever within is impure is burned away, and whatever is pure remains.

A couple more points about fire; then remembering its divine form becomes easy.
Then the Rishi’s utterance—‘O Deity, O Fire, lead me on the right path’—becomes understandable.
Why could such a prayer be addressed to fire?

We have seen fire.
We have also seen water.
No matter how far water descends, it remains present.
It comes down from the mountain into the ravine—yet it is not annihilated.
Fire rises toward the sky, and as soon as it rises a little it is dissolved.
In truth, whatever goes upward will also be dissolving.
Moment to moment it merges; soon its ego-sense is lost; it is no more—it becomes one with the sky.
The path of fire is visible only a little way; then it becomes invisible.
You cannot even see where it has gone—lost in the void.
Water, however far it flows down, remains present.
On the downward journey the ego-sense remains.
And if it descends very far, water becomes ice.
And if ego descends very far, it becomes hard like stone.

Remember: the farther down you go, the stronger, frozen, hard, crystallized the ego becomes.
The higher you rise, the more rarefied, attenuated, dissolved it becomes.
Keep watching the flame; in a short while you will find—it is gone.
Where has it gone?
Someone asked Buddha at the time of his Mahaparinirvana: ‘When you will not be—just a little while from now you say you will not be—then where will you be?’
Buddha said: ‘Look at the lamp. When the flame loses itself in the sky, then ask where the flame has gone. In just the same way, in a little while I too shall be lost. The hour has come when the flame will be absorbed into the great sky.’

With fire there is an even deeper secret.
Fire burns everything.
It burns all—and in the end it burns itself as well.
It burns the fuel; and when the fuel is burnt, fire does not remain by burning the fuel.
The fuel burned—the fire too burned.
Everything is consumed.
Ultimately fire does not remain behind; fire too is lost.

To survive after burning the other—that is violence.
But to dissolve the other and to be dissolved oneself too—that is love.
To burn the other and remain—that is violence.
But to reduce the other to emptiness and oneself too become emptiness—that is love, only then is it love.

Thus fire is not the enemy of the fuel; it is the lover.
Otherwise it would burn the fuel and keep itself safe.
It would burn so as to preserve itself.
But burning the fuel, it burns itself as well and becomes quiet.
The marvel is that even after burning, the fuel remains as ash; fire does not remain even so much.
So pure is it that it leaves no ash behind.
In truth, ash is born of impurity; fire is purest existence itself.
No outline remains behind.

All these insights, all these remembrances came to the Rishis.
They were seeking a symbol.
A very difficult search: to find, for what happens within the seeker, an outer symbol.
But the highest symbol found so far is fire.
Whether it burns perpetually in the Parsi temple, or in the Rishis’ yajna, or in the havan, or in the lamp of the shrine—the nearest symbol to the inner event, to the event of ascension, is fire.
Therefore they could call fire a deity.

Whom do we call a deity?
Not only that which is divine—for in that sense all are divine.
Everything is divine, for all has arisen from the Divine.
If you look in a dictionary, you will find: a deity is ‘one who is divine.’
But all are divine—only some know it and some do not.
Who is there that is not divine?
The stone is divine; the tree is divine; river, mountain, sky are divine.
Particle by particle all is divine.
Then the word deity cannot simply mean that which is divine—since all are divine.
What then is the meaning of calling someone particularly a deity?

It means: not only is it divine, but it leads toward the Divine.
Divine it is—that every thing is; but that which leads you toward the Divine, which turns you toward the Divine—that is a deity.
That which points to the Divine, gestures toward the Divine, turns your face toward the Divine, gives you a movement toward the Divine—that is a deity.

That is why the Rishi could say the guru is a deity.
There is no other reason.
All are divine; therefore wherever there is a pointing toward divinity, that became deity.
If on looking at the sky, remembrance of the formless arises—the sky becomes a deity.

We feel difficulty.
Today, those who read the Veda find it hard: the sky is a deity, Indra is a deity, the sun is a deity! What madness is this!
When Westerners first translated the Vedas, they had great difficulty.
They said: ‘This is pantheism, Sarveshwaravad—the tendency to see God in everything.’

No, it is not so.
Wherever a remembrance of divinity arises, wherever a stroke, a shock is felt—wherever the heart’s veena is struck and the journey toward the Divine begins—that is deity.

Look at the sky for a little while.
Gazing, gazing—form thins, the formless deepens.
The sky has pointed toward the formless.
Shall we be so ungrateful that we do not even give thanks—‘O Deity, thank you! You reminded us of the formless’?

Sit and keep watching fire.
That was the meaning of yajna.
That was the meaning of havan.
What you ‘do’ in havan—what you offer or do not—is not so important.
Rather, sitting near the fire, you are being attuned to its upward-going journey.
The flame rushes upward and loses itself in the vast void.
Sitting beside it, one-pointed, meditative, becoming one with that flame, you too run toward the formless, you too are lost—into the void.
Then fire becomes deity.

Wherever there is a pointing or a call toward divinity; wherever the inner thirst toward the Divine is struck; wherever there is an effort to crack open the seed that sleeps within toward the Divine—there is deity.

Therefore the Rishi says: O Deva, O Agni, lead me on the right path.
I know not what the way is!
I know not what is auspicious and what is inauspicious!
I am ignorant.
You lead me.

One thing to take very deeply to heart here: the one who has cried ‘Lead me to the right path’—that very cry becomes the basic foundation for going toward the right path.
This cry is not ordinary; it is extraordinary.
For every tendency in us, every passion, every desire, carries us toward the wrong path.
For that, no prayer is needed.
Nature has given us ample equipment; it carries us by itself.
To go down, no invocation is required.
To go into darkness, nature takes you—your very actions are taking you; your habits and conditioning are carrying you—everything is carrying you.

It is a strange thing that up to now no one on earth has prayed: ‘O Lord, lead me on the wrong path.’
There the Lord is not needed.
Man is capable enough.
Indeed, to lead even God onto the wrong path, man is capable.
And the most amusing thing is that the wrong path is full of danger—yet no one prays.
He should pray: ‘I am going on the wrong path, O Lord—help me, protect me. The wrong path is perilous—much pain, much sorrow, much derangement, madness. It is an invitation to calamity by one’s own hands. Please help!’ But no one asks, because everyone knows: we are sufficient; we shall manage.

Man is so capable in untruth!
But where the right path is concerned, where the journey toward truth is concerned, there man suddenly finds himself incapable.
There is a reason: all the passions pull him downward; there is no built-in impulse given by nature that easily takes him upward.
If he does nothing and merely stands, he will go down by himself.
On the slope he keeps rolling down.
Nature’s gravitation is enough—it will pull him lower, and lower, and lower.
At every step it will seem, ‘Let me go a little further down; there is more pleasure below. If I am suffering it is because I have not gone quite far enough down.’

So-called honest men come to me and say: ‘Do you see how much pleasure the dishonest are enjoying!’
I call them so-called, for one who sees pleasure in dishonesty cannot remain honest for long.
At most he is frightened—therefore he seems honest.
Even to be dishonest requires courage.
He lacks that courage—he is weak, a coward.
He cannot be dishonest, but his passions keep telling him that he is missing the enjoyment which the dishonest are getting.

The call downward is from all sides.
From within too, the whole apparatus of nature says: ‘Descend.’
Why? Because the more you go down, the more ‘natural’ you become.
The higher you rise, the more you go beyond nature—across nature.
Naturally nature says: ‘Come further down—there is great rest here.
If you become a stone, there is perfect rest.
Come down—drop consciousness. Consciousness is your suffering.’
Instincts and passions say: ‘Drop consciousness; it is your misery. Become unconscious.’
Hence man seeks alcohol and intoxications—thousands of devices to become unconscious, to go down, and down.

For going down there is a full arrangement; for rising up there is no arrangement.
And without rising, there is no bliss, no peace.
This is the dilemma—call it the human paradox.
The human dilemma is that all means are available for going down, and there is no way visible for going up.
And without going up, nothing is fulfilled—no purpose, no meaning.
For going down the facilities abound; for going up, no path.
And without going up, nothing comes into the hand except bewilderment.
Such is man’s helplessness.
From the awareness of this helplessness prayer arises.

Thus the Rishi says: O Deity, lead me toward the right path.

It is not that some deity is going to take you to the right path—understand this too, for greater illusions have spread from this.
It is not that some deity will carry you.
To the right path you have to go yourself.
But this prayer will make you capable of going.
This prayer will break open a door within you.
If this prayer becomes dense within—thick, heavy—if it becomes thirst and a call, if every fiber begins to cry, every breath begins to say: ‘Lead me, Lord, O Divine Fire, lead me upward in ascension, where all is lost and I too am lost; only That remains which was when I was not and will remain when I am no more’—when this prayer becomes dense within you, it becomes the cause that takes you to the right path.
For we go exactly where we create intense longing to go.
Our thoughts become our deeds.

Eddington wrote a most wondrous sentence—and written by such a man, all the more wondrous.
Eddington—among the greatest scientists of the last fifty years, a Nobel laureate—wrote in his late memoirs: when I began scientific research in my youth, I thought the world is a group of things.
But as I went deeper and deeper, and as I witnessed the mysteries of nature, now at the end of my life I bequeath this testament: ‘The universe resembles more a thought than a thing.’
The world is more like a thought than a thing.

Buddha said in the first verse of the Dhammapada: ‘Whatever you think, you become.’
Therefore think with understanding—for tomorrow you will not be able to hold anyone else responsible.
And what you are today is the result of what you thought yesterday.
Our own foolishness bears fruit.
Our wrong feelings thicken and become conduct.
Our thoughts become concentrated and become life.
A subtle wave of thought rises and sets out on a journey; today or tomorrow it will become thing.
All things are condensed thoughts.
We are what we are—the fruit of our own thinking.

If a prayer becomes so condensed that every fiber of your life begins to tremble, every heartbeat is stirred; if your dreams at night are also affected by it, if your reflections by day are immersed in it; if even in sleep it begins to move in your breath; if it becomes the very tune of your life—then the result will come.
No deity will come to your aid; but prayer offered to wherever the Divine touches our vision will prepare us.

This distinction is essential to understand.
If you think: ‘We have prayed and now we can relax, for the deity will manage it. We have considerably obliged the deity by praying—now the rest you do; if you do not, tomorrow we will lodge a complaint. If nothing at all is done, we shall say there is no deity—everything is false’—no, that is not the meaning of prayer.
Prayer does not mean that we are leaving the work to someone else.
Prayer means that, by the device of prayer, we are making every fiber of our being vibrate.
And remember, prayer penetrates more deeply into the fibers than anything else.
If one is wholly absorbed in prayer, every particle of the body begins to call out.
No thought goes as deep as prayer goes.
No passion goes as deep as prayer goes.
But the capacity to pray…

There is no passion outside of which you do not remain.
You remain outside of all of them.
Even of the passion of sex—the deepest passion—the deepest core of consciousness remains outside.
At most the body enters.
Among the very lustful, a small portion of mind enters.
But consciousness and Atman remain wholly outside.
You cannot be total in it.
That is precisely the pain of lust: the lustful mind says, ‘Let me drown completely and drink the juice,’ but it never can drown completely.
It always finds that it has not been able to drown.
It goes up to a certain limit, and then it returns.
At the moment of drowning, the moment of breaking arrives.

Prayer is the single event in which a man can drown completely—completely.
Nothing remains outside—not even the one who prays.
Only then is prayer complete.
If the pray-er is still present and you are doing the prayer, then prayer is an outer act; it will not touch you; you will remain untouched.
But prayer can become so deep—can become—that the pray-er does not remain; only prayer remains.
Then, in the movement of that prayer, in the vibration of that prayer, the event happens and the journey on the right path begins.
The direction changes.
The face turns from the journey downward to the face upward.

We call upon fire for this very reason—that it is upward-going.
We call upon fire for this very reason—that it burns impurity.
We call upon fire for this very reason—that it has no ego-sense; very quickly it merges into the sky.

When someone becomes filled wholly with prayer, he becomes a flame—a flame.
And such a flame in which there is no smoke.
At first there is.
In the beginning when one starts prayer, the fire is not straight—there is much smoke.
Because our fuel is very wet.
The more the passions, the wetter the fuel.
If water is soaked into the wood, then even when it catches fire there arises nothing but smoke.
Therefore do not be frightened.
On the journey of prayer, at first one encounters not fire but only smoke—because our fuel is very wet.

Therefore the Rishi has added a second thing: ‘Burn also my past actions.’

For those past actions are our fuel—and they are very wet.

When is karma dry and when is it wet?
Which action shall we call wet and which dry?

If karma is dry, the upward journey becomes easy, for it becomes proper fuel.
If karma is wet, the upward journey becomes difficult, for wet fuel—how will it burn? Only smoke is produced.
What is dry karma? What is wet karma?

An act that, when done, leaves you entirely outside it—that act is dry.
An act that, even when done, keeps you inwardly tied to it—that act is wet.
An act during which you can be a witness, a sakshi—that act becomes dry.
An act during which you cannot witness and you become the doer—that act becomes wet.
An act during which ego stands up and says, ‘I am doing’—the act becomes wet.
An act during which you live the knowing, ‘The Divine is doing, nature is doing; I am only seeing’—not just saying it, but knowing it, living it—then the act becomes dry.

Those who have the fuel of dry deeds—their life’s flame at once leaps into Brahman.
Those who have the fuel of wet deeds—difficulties arise.
The Rishi knows: many deeds are wet.
For all of us, many deeds are wet.

So first, strive to make karma dry—for prayer alone will not do.
Detach your ego from your past actions—and of course from today’s actions; and for tomorrow’s actions, do not bind yourself at all.
Then karma will become dry.
And if the flame of prayer grips strongly, the fire of prayer will burn them—reduce them to ash.

But always remember this: no one else will come and fulfill your prayer.
In the very doing of prayer you are transformed.
To pray is transformation.
Transformation does not arrive later; it is fulfilled in prayer itself.
Therefore do not look for the fruit of prayer; prayer itself is the fruit.
Pray—and silently forget.
Prayer itself is the fruit.
That you could pray at all—this is the great thing.

But our notions are wrong.
We think: ‘We have prayed; now someone will fulfill the prayer; now we have only to wait. We have said it; now we must wait.’

Prayer is a very living act—just like fire.
Prayer has three aspects; let me tell you, then it will become clear.
First: when you pray, you bid farewell to ego.
For as long as ego is, prayer cannot happen.
When the Rishi says, ‘O Agni, O Deity, show me the right path, for I know nothing,’ he has bid farewell to his ego.
To pray is the full acceptance of one’s humility.
You cannot pray; in praying you will have to be effaced.
You will be effaced—only then can prayer happen.

So the first sutra: no ego.

Second sutra: we have trusted ourselves too much…
A man once went to Meister Eckhart and said, ‘I am a self-made man.’
Eckhart listened, folded his hands to the sky, and said, ‘O God, You are free of much responsibility! This man is self-made—how merciful You are! At least God is spared being the culprit. Otherwise I was wondering, my God, how do You make such men!’

We all trust ourselves greatly.
Most of us consider ourselves self-made.
To consider oneself self-made is like trying to be one’s own father—or like trying to lift oneself by one’s shoe-laces.
We all try it.
We get tired; the laces snap; hands and feet get hurt.
No one can lift oneself by one’s own laces.

To drop this trust in oneself—that is prayer.
Drop the belief: ‘I shall lift myself.’
Drop the belief: ‘I shall find by myself.’
Drop the belief: ‘I shall make the right path; I shall reach.’
Drop the belief: ‘The pilgrimage to the temple can be done by me.’
Still I say, the journey will be by you; there is no one else to travel.
But the moment this trust is dropped, the journey begins.
This trust itself is the obstacle.
It may seem a little complex—but it is not complex at all.
This trust itself is the obstacle.
Drop trust in yourself; and the moment you drop it, your energy is freed.
In dropping trust in yourself, your energy becomes God-centered.
In dropping trust in yourself, you yourself become deity.
There is no other Agni-deity who will carry you.
The fire hidden within you is enough.
The divinity hidden within you is enough—it will begin the journey.
But the greater the ego, the more that divinity is constricted; the more the doors are closed.
However much that divinity may try, with ego it cannot go upward.
For ego hangs like a stone around the neck and drowns you in the river.
Drop that stone tied to your neck and separate it—you will float.
You yourself will float.

Have you seen this strange thing in a river?
We are blind; we do not see.
In the river, the living drown; the dead float.
The corpse is wondrous: the living man is drowned and the dead is on the surface.
The corpse must know a secret the living do not.
Some key to floating upon the breast of the water, to not drowning.
Let the river try to drown a corpse—then we shall know!
No river can drown a corpse; even great oceans cannot drown it; the corpse rises upon the waves.
What is the secret? What does a corpse know that the living do not?
The corpse knows nothing—only, it is not.
That alone is the secret.
And when someone, while alive, becomes like a corpse, then drowning is impossible; going down becomes impossible.
He floats.
No deity makes him float; only the stone of ego is removed, and he becomes light, weightless, free of burden.
Then even if someone wants to drown him—how will he?

We drown by our own hands.
Trust in oneself is what drowns; the insistence of ego is what drowns.
‘I alone shall do everything’—that is the journey to hell.
Only one journey will happen—you will reach hell.

Therefore these prayers are most wondrous.

Remember, I have my difficulty.
When I call this Rishi’s prayer wondrous, I am not speaking of the prayers you perform at home—even if you recite the Ishavasya.
They are utterly bogus.
People sit with fire lit, doing havan and kirtan—utter nonsense.
No meaning, no true intent—because nowhere is there transformation.
That is the only proof.
A man has been doing havan for forty years—he is the same.
No difference has happened.
The havan has not happened at all.
A man goes daily to the temple, to the mosque—prays daily and returns daily.
He is the same.
Perhaps the mosque has suffered a little at his hands—been somewhat harassed by his presence—but he is not at all troubled; he is just the same.

No, prayer is not happening.
Entering the mosque is not happening; entering the temple is not happening.
That entry is not as gross as we think.

The Rishi’s prayer I call meaningful—very humble, very simple, very natural:

‘O Fire, lead me on the right path, for I do not know.’

Just this—utterly, from the heart.

‘O sky, lead me toward the formless, for I do not know.’

And suddenly you will find the way has opened.
One who says, ‘I do not know,’ opens the path of knowing.
One who says, ‘I am ignorant,’ has taken the first step toward wisdom.
One who says, ‘I am a knower,’ has sealed even those little gaps or cracks in the wall through which light might have entered.

Prayer is only the acceptance of one’s ignorance.
Not only ignorance—also the acceptance of helplessness.
There is ignorance—and there is great helplessness.
No shore is seen, no bank is seen, no boat is seen—nothing is seen.
The ocean seems endless; the depth is terrible; there is no strength at all.
With eyes closed we fancy we are in a boat—paper boats!
With eyes shut we imagine all is well; we are standing on the shore.
Utterly helpless—completely helpless.

Prayer is the acceptance of ignorance; along with it, the acceptance that I am helpless.
There is no means—nirupaya.
And one who declares, ‘I am without means’—into his hands comes the means.
This very declaration of being without means is the means.
This full acceptance of helplessness is to attain the Supreme Support.

Whoever has let go of himself—he has found the Lord.
Who says, ‘From now on, if You lead, I shall walk; if You lift, I shall rise; wherever You take me, there I shall go’—who, with such simplicity, such unconditional surrender to the Infinite, gives his notice—within him the inner door opens.

These prayers are keys to open the door.
These small prayers are very deep—they are far-reaching.

Keep this prayer in remembrance.
Rising, sitting, sleeping, walking—whenever a moment is available—say within yourself: ‘I know nothing; I am helpless. Lord, lead me.’

Yet still I say, insistently, that no one will come to lead you.
But this prayer will lead you.
The moment you pray, you become capable.
Prayer is power—a very great power.

If in a tiny atom a vast energy is hidden, in a small prayer there is energy vaster than countless atoms.
Do it and see.
The result is instantaneous—immediate.
All at once you will become light.
Wings will sprout, and the preparation to fly will be there.
The burden has gone.
The burden was only in our asmita, in our ego.
And we are so skillful that we even feed our ego with prayer.

See: a man returns from the temple after prayer and, looking around, walks thinking, ‘Sinners are going their way,’ for he is returning from prayer.

Mohammed once said to a young man: ‘Come with me to prayer.’
Because Mohammed had asked, he could not refuse.
He thought: ‘Let us go; if we do not agree, still we shall go.’
They arrived in the morning.
Mohammed stood in namaz; the young man stood humming something.
Mohammed became restless: ‘I brought the wrong man.’
But there was nothing to be done.

The namaz ended; they returned.
Morning time, hot days—people still sleeping.
The young man said to Mohammed: ‘Do you see, Hazarat—what will happen to these people? Time for namaz, and they are still lying on their beds! What is your opinion? Will these people go to hell?’

Mohammed said: ‘Brother, I do not know where they will go; I must go back to the mosque. What has happened to you?’
He said: ‘My first namaz is wasted. You have harmed me. Before namaz at least you were humble—you did not think others sinners. This has become a greater mischief. Forgive me—and do not come to the mosque again. And let me go and pray again; the first namaz is spoiled. I have harmed you. Your stiffness has become heavier. Prayer should break stiffness; it has become heavier.’

See: with tilak and sandal paste how stiffly a man walks!
With his tuft raised… as if some license has been issued to him by God.
They have become some sort of relatives—counted among God’s kith and kin.
Now they will not rest without sending the whole world to hell.

Even prayer fattens the ego—man is astonishing.
There is no limit to his cleverness.
The very condition of prayer is the dissolution of ego.
A religious man cannot even say from his own mouth, ‘I am religious,’ because he will be aware of such irreligion within himself that he will say, ‘Who is more irreligious than I?’
A religious man cannot say, ‘I am virtuous,’ for even in virtue he will see the line of sin—he will see ego standing up.
He will say, ‘Who is more sinful than I?’

Therefore the Rishi says: who knows how many deeds I have done that will weigh me down—how many sins I have done that will weigh me down.
I am not at all worthy.
I am not at all a fit vessel.
I cannot be a claimant; I cannot make a claim that ‘Give to me.’
I can only pray.

Remember this; therefore I give you the third sutra: prayer is not a claim—not a declaration of worthiness; it is the acceptance of unworthiness.
If even the feeling arises, ‘I have some right,’ prayer is poisoned.
I am not at all deserving.

That is why, when the praying one receives something, he says, ‘It came by Your grace—not by my worthiness.’
Thus those who pray have discovered the word prasad—Divine grace.
They say: whatever is received is the Lord’s prasad, Divine grace.
Where were we worthy?
To find someone more unworthy than us would be difficult.

Even so, I say that it comes through your worthiness—not through your unworthiness.
But the awareness of one’s unworthiness is precisely the worthiness of prayer.
The awareness of one’s nothingness is the very claim of prayer.
Not making a claim is the secret of prayer.
Prayer is sent off; if nothing comes we shall say, ‘Where were we worthy that it should come?’
If it comes we shall say, ‘It is His grace.’

Although it does not come through His favor—because His grace is equal upon all.
If it came by His favor, it would mean there too some nepotism is at work: someone rings the bell in the temple and prays, ‘O God, You are purifier of the fallen; You are great’—just as one says something in a king’s court and the king becomes pleased.
Thus people keep praying in the hope that perhaps God will be pleased.
We have constructed our prayers on the basis of words spoken in royal courts—courtly praises.
Yes, can there be any prayer of flattery?
It is flattery.

No—do not say, ‘God is great’; that will be flattery.
It is enough to say, ‘I am nothing.’
‘You are great’—no.
For however much I declare Your greatness, how can Your greatness be proclaimed by me, the petty one!
And the greatness I speak of—how great will it be!
How shall I measure it!
For Your greatness I can have no measure.
Let me only measure my pettiness—that is enough.
In the moment of prayer, to say ‘I am nothing’—that is enough.

And nothing is received by a special bestowal of grace—let me tell you this.
Yet whenever someone has received, he has known in his heart—dancing, he has announced it—that it came by His grace; it is His prasad.
Although nothing is received by His favor, because His grace showers equally.

Buddha used to say: ‘Nectar is raining—but some have kept their pitchers upside down.’
The day the pitcher is set upright, it is not that nectar will begin to rain then.
Nectar was raining even on the day you kept your pitcher upside down.
It was raining even where there was no pitcher at all.
No special favor will occur upon you—that, ‘His pitcher is upright, so let nectar shower upon him!’
Nectar is already raining.

God’s grace is His nature.
The ambrosia of existence is its nature.
It is raining continually.
We keep our pitcher inverted.

Ego sits with the pitcher inverted—and tries to fill it.
To set the pitcher upright means the declaration: ‘I am nothing.’
When the pitcher is upright, what is revealed is only its emptiness—what else is revealed?
When the pitcher is upside down, the emptiness is hidden—what else is there?

The inverted pitcher creates the illusion of being full—because emptiness is not visible; emptiness is suppressed.
That is why we keep the pitcher inverted.
Upright, the pitcher knows: ‘I am nothing but emptiness—only a space into which something can be poured; in me nothing is filled.’

One who has known ‘I am nothing’—his pitcher has become upright.
He who has uprighted his pitcher and gone into prayer—grace is raining; it will fill.
When it fills, then he will say, ‘It is His grace.’
Although had you not uprighted your pitcher, His grace would not have been possible.
It is your grace upon yourself that you placed the pitcher upright.

To be gracious toward oneself is prayer.
To be compassionate toward oneself is prayer.

To be cruel toward oneself is ego.
To perpetrate violence upon oneself is ego.

Enough for the morning.
In the evening we shall…
Now let us go—be gracious: keep the pitcher upright.