Jagat Taraiya Bhor Ki #10

If there is jealousy in love, then love is not love at all; something else is operating in love’s name. Jealousy indicates the absence of love.
It is like this: the lamp is lit and yet there is darkness. If the lamp is lit, there should be no darkness. The disappearance of darkness is the proof that the lamp is burning. The disappearance of jealousy is the proof of love. Jealousy is like darkness; love is like light. Take this as the touchstone.
As long as jealousy remains, understand that love is not yet love. Some other game is going on in the name of love; the ego is on a new trip—the pleasure of possessing the other in love’s name, exploiting the other in love’s name, using another person as a means.
And to use another person as a means is the greatest injustice in the world. Because each person is the Divine. Each person is an end, not a means. So do not use anyone—even by mistake. If you can be of use to someone, good; but do not drag someone into your own use. There is no greater insult than to make someone serve your ends. It means you have made the Divine your servant. If you can become a servant, become one; but do not make another a servant.
Real love dawns the day you understand this truth: the Divine abides everywhere. Then nothing remains but service.
So love is service, not jealousy. Love is surrender, not possessiveness.

But I can understand the pain of the one who has asked. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the love we know is simply another name for jealousy. We are very clever. We are adept at spraying fragrance on filth to make it forgettable. We are accomplished at placing flowers over wounds. We are great artists at turning lies into truth. So in fact it is jealousy; we call it love. Under the name of such love, jealousy goes on. In fact it is hatred; yet we say it is love. Something else is happening altogether.

Even with someone we don’t get along with, we go on calling it love. With someone we never truly desired, we keep proclaiming love. Our “love” has become something else entirely—security, economics, convenience in life. If the husband were to be lost, there is panic. By holding on to the husband, one has got a house, money—life has found a framework. If you are satisfied with this framework, that is your choice. But it is precisely because of this framework that you are missing the Divine, because the Divine is found through love. There is no door to the Divine other than love. Whoever misses love will also miss the Divine.

How can fear and love exist together? So much fear that the husband might look into some woman’s eyes! Then love has not happened at all. Your husband has not looked into your eyes, nor have you looked into his. You have not seen the Divine in your husband, nor has he seen the Divine in you. And this relationship—you would call it love?

If love happens, fear dissolves. Then even if the husband looks into the eyes of every woman in the world, nothing will be affected. In every woman’s eyes he will find you. In every woman’s eyes he will meet your very eyes, because every woman will become your reflection. Seeing any woman, you will come to his mind.

But love does not happen; somehow we simply hold things together.

I have heard: In a twenty-seven-story building, Mulla Nasruddin was going up in the lift. It was very crowded. When, on the second floor, Mulla Nasruddin and his wife entered, it became even more crowded. On the fourth floor, a very beautiful young woman got in and there was absolutely no space left. She somehow squeezed herself in between Mulla and his wife. The lift began to rise, and by the time they were nearing the twenty-seventh floor Mulla’s wife had become extremely restless. Mulla was standing so tightly pressed against the young woman, and the young woman against him, and there was no way to say anything—there simply wasn’t space. Her restlessness increased even more because Mulla was utterly enraptured. Mulla’s bliss! He was as if in heaven! And again and again, with drooling lips, he would glance at the young woman. All at once the young woman screamed and landed a resounding slap on Mulla’s face. She shouted, “Dirty old man! How dare you—how dare you pinch me!”

There was silence in the lift. On the next floor, Mulla, rubbing his cheek, got out with his wife. Outside the lift his speech returned. He said, “I don’t understand what happened! I didn’t even pinch her.”

“I know,” his wife said with great delight. “I was the one who pinched her.”

Such are all your so-called love relationships. You keep watch over one another. There is enmity between you—where is love? Where is surveillance in love? In love there is trust. In love there is a faith. In love there is an unparalleled reverence. These are all flowers of love—reverence, trust, faith. If lovers cannot trust, cannot have reverence, cannot have faith, then the flowers of love do not bloom. Jealousy, envy, antagonism, hatred, rivalry—these are the flowers of hate. Your blossoms belong to hatred, and you think you have planted a tree of love. The bitter fruit of the neem is growing in you, and you think you planted a mango tree. Break this delusion.

Therefore when I say to you that love can become the path to the Divine, you hear me but you cannot trust it—because you know “love” all too well. It is precisely because of this “love” that your life is a hell. If I were speaking of that same love, I would indeed be speaking wrongly. I am speaking of another love—the love you are seeking, but which you have not yet known. It can be known; it is your potential. And until it happens, you will cry, you will writhe, you will be troubled. Until the flower of your life blossoms and the fragrance of love rises from it, you will remain restless, unfulfilled. Do whatever you may, you will find no relief, no peace. Without flowering you cannot be fulfilled.

Love is a flower.

Love is a profoundly religious phenomenon. Love is the very opposite of jealousy. Love is close to prayer. When love happens, the next step is prayer. And when prayer happens, the next step is God. Love, prayer, God—three steps of the same temple.

You are asking me? Good man, do you not know who you are? And even if you get an answer by asking another, what use will it be? It will be borrowed. Whatever answer I give you will not become your answer. You will have to find your own answer. The question is yours, and only your own answer will solve it.

I can tell you, “Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu”—Shvetaketu, you are Brahman itself—but what will come of it? I can tell you, “You are the soul, eternal, immortal!” What will that do? You have heard such answers many times. You even have them by heart. You give them to others too. Your son will ask you and you will explain to him, “You are the soul, the witness, sat-chit-ananda.”

Other people’s answers do not work—at least not in relation to the question “Who am I?” Here you must climb down the steps of your own “I.” This “I” is a deep well. Only if you descend into it will you reach the source of water. And it is a deep well. Here you must go alone. No one else can go with you. Who, other than you, can enter your within? No one! This journey is solitary. A flight of the alone to the alone.

That is why all religions say: taste the flavor of aloneness. Because until you have savored aloneness, how will you go within? You will have to go there alone. That is why all religions say: light the lamp of meditation. Only that lamp can go with you; nothing else will—neither wealth nor position nor prestige. Only the lamp of meditation and you. Then you can descend into your deepest well. It is certainly deep. Your depth is infinite—no less than that of the Divine. How could it be less, how could it be small? If you peer from above you may not even see the water below—the depth is vast! The journey is long. The journey to oneself is the longest journey.

This sounds very paradoxical, because we think, “The self—there it is! Close your eyes and you’ve arrived!” If only it were that simple! Certainly people close their eyes—but by closing the eyes do the eyes truly close? The lids shut, but the dreams remain of the outside; the business remains of the outside. The eyes close, but images of others keep arising—friends, loved ones, relatives! The eyes close, but where are you alone? If you truly become alone, even with open eyes you can go within. This crowd must be cleared away. All your scriptures, all your doctrines—set them aside, for carrying that burden you will not be able to go in. The journey must be weightless.

And remember: no one can go with you, nor any answer. Most often answers are the obstacle. Because you have accepted borrowed answers, you do not go within, you do not search. Since you have assumed that “inside is the soul,” why would you go in to find out? These borrowed answers—these beliefs—do not allow your life to become an experience.

So the first thing I will say is: you ask, “Who am I?”—you certainly are, otherwise how could you ask? Something is there. And whatever that “something” is—A, B, C, whatever its name—one thing is sure: it is conscious, otherwise how would the question arise? Stones do not ask. You are conscious. I am drawing these conclusions from your question. I am not giving you an answer; I am only clarifying your question, analyzing it. For if the diagnosis of the question is exact, the treatment is not difficult. Diagnosis is the great thing. If the diagnosis of the illness is right, finding the medicine is not hard. If the diagnosis is wrong, you may swallow a thousand medicines and there will be no benefit—harm may well occur. A medicine not meant for you will harm you.

I am diagnosing your question, analyzing it—feeling its pulse.

First point: you are not a stone. Stones do not ask. I have met stones too—stones never ask, “Who am I?” You are conscious; hence the question arises. Plants do not ask; trees do not ask. They are more alive than stones, but still the question has not arisen. So life alone is not enough for the question. You are something more than life. Birds and animals do not ask. They are more evolved than plants—they can fly, they can come and go; if attacked they defend themselves. They fear death, but they know nothing of life.

You are asking about life—“What am I? Who am I? What is the goal of my life?”

So you are more than animals. You are alive, conscious, and within your consciousness there is the power of reflection. You are turning back to ask, “Who am I?”

This question is important.

But do not ask me. Make this question your meditation. Every day, in aloneness, close your eyes and let this question resound within: Who am I? And beware: do not let answers come in between. Borrowed answers will come in, stale answers will come in, second-hand answers you have heard from others will come in. Do not let them intrude. Whatever answers come in are your mind; they are not you. They are your information, not your knowing. If you already knew, why would you ask? You do not know—that much is certain. So put your information aside. It is worth two pennies; it has no value. It does not give birth to knowing. You read the Upanishads, the Gita, the Koran, the Bible—nothing was resolved, otherwise you would already have the answer. Ask: Who am I? And whatever answers come from others—whether from Krishna, from Mohammed, from Mahavira—or from me—set them aside. Keep stripping the question. Refine the question. Pour your whole life-breath into it: Who am I? No answer will come. Silence will descend. As you ask more and more deeply, silence will deepen. A kind of panic may arise—“There is no answer anywhere!”—because you are in a hurry for an answer. It does not come so quickly. First your sword-like question must behead all the borrowed answers.

Zen masters say: if on the path of meditation you meet even the Buddha, draw your sword and cut him in two. They worship the Buddha every day, and yet they tell their disciples: if on the path of meditation you meet the Buddha, do not hesitate for a moment—raise your sword and cut him in two.

Because on the path of meditation it is essential to be free of the Other. Only when you are free of the Other will your eyes fall upon yourself. Otherwise they stay entangled with the Other. Who the “other” is makes no difference—your brother, your sister, your wife, your husband—or Buddha, or Mahavira, or Krishna. Other is other.

In this inquiry a moment will come when only the question remains—“Who am I?”—and silence. In your every bone, flesh, and marrow one question will throb: Who am I? In your very life-force a single arrow will keep piercing, deeper and deeper: Who am I? Who am I? And the panic will grow, the restlessness will grow, because no answer appears anywhere—ocean on all sides, and no shore in sight. That is the hour of courage. If you pass through that hour, you will arrive at the answer. When does one reach the answer? When such a moment arrives that no answer remains; you become utterly ignorant. No answer remains means you have become utterly innocent—childlike. You know nothing. All scholarship gone. All cleverness gone. Mind gone. Only the question remains now: Who am I? Who am I? A single obsession remains.

In the end even the words of the question will not remain; only a pure awareness of “Who am I” will remain. Not that you will go on repeating, “Who am I?” At the beginning you will repeat. First it will be on the lips, then on the tongue, then in the throat, then it will sink into the heart. Then you will not need to repeat. You will feel “Who am I” without words. A question mark will stand in your very being—not words but a state. And there will come a moment when you are nothing but thirst—Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? If you can endure that thirst, then when all answers fall away, finally the question also drops. If no answer ever comes, how long will you keep asking?

Be careful—do not be in a hurry. Do not drop the question on your own; otherwise the whole thing is wasted. Do not force it to fall. Do not say, “Enough now, let’s stop.” It may take years. Keep asking every day. Give it an hour. One day, suddenly, you will find everything has stopped: the answers are gone, and the question too is gone. You remain—only you, pure you. No words form; no ripple of intellect arises. In that very instant you will find the answer has come. Not an answer written on paper; not that someone will say, “Listen, my son—here is the answer!” It will not come as an answer but as an experience. You will know—like a lightning flash. You have seen. That is why this moment is called darshan—seeing. Your eyes have fallen upon yourself. You have met yourself, face to face.

And the moment you know who you are, in that very moment you know what the goal of life is. Knowing life, you know its goal. Knowing the source, you know the destination. Knowing yourself, you know the Divine—because you are a ray of That. Know a ray, and the secret of the whole sun is understood. Recognize one drop, and the secret of all oceans is revealed. The whole ocean is contained in a single drop. The whole Divine is contained in you.

Not questions of existential knowing—
we are to evade them;
no alternative remains for us,
so we forge a fresh armor.

“Who are we, from where did we come,
what are we to become?”—
seeking the gist of such questions
is only to waste time;

for whatever answer is obtained
will be mere illusion,
and the pain of emptiness and futility
will never lessen.

We are only that which we must become.
Understand—
we are only that which we must become;
we must carry others’ burdens.

Did the butterfly ever ask,
“From where did I get these wings?”
Did the thorn ever ask,
“How came this sting in me?”

Why should we be the riddle
to puzzle out the self’s truth?
Why should we alone
wrestle day and night with ourselves?

We are not expression,
only the medium;
not the hero,
but events in the tale.

These man-eating questions
are tearing at our flesh;
we wear away by just that much
as we go on thinking.

“Which path, and where to go?”—
drop the dilemma!
A fierce, cruel beast is at your heels—
run!

Different processes, but the same conclusion:
the end, friend, is where the origin is.
The end, friend, is where the origin is.

You ask: “What is the goal of life?”
The end, friend, is where the origin is.
We are only that which we must become.

These things may sound a little paradoxical.
We are that which we must become—
and even now you are that which you must become.
The seed is the flower—only a difference of expression.
Today the doors are closed; tomorrow they will open.
Today the petals sleep; tomorrow they will awaken.
The seed already is that which it is to be.

Therefore you cannot produce every flower from any seed. On the lotus plant will bloom the lotus; on the rosebush, the rose. Try a thousand tricks, a lotus plant will not bear a rose. Because we are that which we must become.

Your future lies within you. Your possibility is seated in your seed. And the end, friend, is where the origin is. We return to where we came from. This is a supreme truth of life.

See: the Ganges sets out from Gangotri in the Himalayas and falls into the ocean. You may say, “Where did it reach its origin? It began at Gangotri and fell into the Bay of Bengal.” No—you have not seen the whole. You have not seen the complete circle. From the ocean the Ganges rises again as vapor into the sky, becomes clouds, and rains once more upon the Himalayas to descend at Gangotri. Then the circle is complete. When the Ganges returns to Gangotri, the circle is complete, the journey fulfilled.

The end, friend, is where the origin is.

Therefore all the sages say: when you attain to perfection, you become like a small child.

The end, friend, is where the origin is.

When you attain saintliness you become simple—as if ignorant. The highest wisdom looks exactly like ignorance.

The Upanishads say: he who says “I know,” know that he does not know. He who says “I do not know,” know that he has known.

Socrates said: when I was young I thought I knew everything. As age increased, my steps faltered and I felt, “I do not know everything—if I can know a little, that is much.” And when I became truly old I realized: I know nothing. I am ignorant.

The supreme realization of ignorance is also the supreme moment of knowing. Why?

The end, friend, is where the origin is.

But do not repeat others’ answers. You will have to find your own Gangotri—your own source.

Why this strange sadness spread?
Life has become a slave.
If there is no freshness in your thoughts,
your life has gone stale.

Open the window—the morning has come;
let the light spill in.
The heart is eager to sing—
let it sing a new song.

Why do you repeat others’ words?
Why not sing your own song?
Why live on borrowings?
Why not express your own uniqueness?

Do not ask me who you are. Go within. That you are—this much is certain. Even if you doubt yourself, still you are—this much is certain.

The great Western thinker Descartes said: in the whole world only one thing is indubitable—that you are. Why indubitable? Because even if you doubt, to doubt you must be. Who will doubt? The self cannot be doubted away. At least to doubt, one must accept: I am—the one who doubts, who does not trust. But who is this to whom trust does not come? Who is this in whom doubt arises?

So in this world one truth alone is indubitable: your being. Descend a little into this indubitable truth. Go down its steps a little.

And the inquiry “Who am I?” is wondrous. If you can, descend into your own well. And there, sipping the clear, crystal-like water, you can be quenched forever.

Great grace! Grace upon the guru! The intent is good. Do exactly that. But then why have you come here? And why do you even feel the need to ask? The moment you ask, the search for a guru has begun. If you are asking me, it means you feel the need to ask someone.

A young man once came to me and said, “Should I marry or not?” I said, “Then go ahead and marry.” He said, “Then? What do you mean ‘then’?” I said, “If you have to ask, then do it.” He asked, “You didn’t?” I told him, “I never asked anyone.”

If you have to ask, the meaning is clear enough. If you cannot find the answer to even this small question on your own, how will you find the Divine on your own? Even for such a small thing you have to depend on another—how will you walk alone on that vast journey? And it is true that the journey is solitary. If you can go, wonderful. But you won’t be able to. And do you think the guru accompanies you on that journey? No one can go with anyone—not even a guru. Then what is the use of a guru? Only to reassure you, to give you courage.

When I was a child, they took me in my village to the man who taught people to swim. I wanted to learn. I must have been six or seven. He was a marvelous man, deeply in love with the river. He’s eighty now, but even today he is probably at the river: from four in the morning till ten, and again from five in the evening till nine at night—the river is his all in all. And he has one passion: whoever comes, he must teach them to swim.

When they took me to him, I asked, “Will I have to learn swimming, or will you teach me?” He said, “No one has ever asked me that. But since you do—truth is, no one really teaches swimming. I will simply drop you into the water. You’ll panic and flail your arms and legs—that’s the beginning of swimming. I will stand on the bank. That way you’ll have the courage that you won’t drown. If needed, I’ll rescue you—but it’s rarely needed.”

So I said, “Then you just stand on the bank; I’ll jump in. No need for you to throw me in. And if it’s rarely needed, even if I start to drown, don’t rescue me, because I want to learn by myself.” He sat down. I stepped into the water. Naturally I went under a few times; water went into my mouth; I thrashed about. But one thing was clear: when he says there’s nothing to learn in swimming—you just have to be left in the water—then keep flailing. At first it was messy, then it found a rhythm. In three days I could swim. And I never took his helping hand.

Truth is, entering religion is just like learning to swim. You already know how to swim; you only have to step into the water. You will thrash a little. At first it will be disordered, tense, full of panic. Then slowly trust arises. Why? Because it has to—rivers don’t drown you; rivers lift you.

Have you not seen: the living sometimes drown, and the dead float? What a marvel! The living must know some art that makes them drown. The dead float while the living go under. So the living must drown because of themselves; it cannot be because of the river, for the river does not drown even a corpse—the dead rise to the surface. There is a natural buoyancy in water. Water is astonishing; it hides a secret scientists have been seeking and haven’t yet fully found. And within that secret, many more are hidden. The whole secret of religion is tucked in there. That’s why I did not choose the symbol of swimming casually. I am speaking of it with care.

Three hundred years ago scientists discovered—Newton discovered—that the earth has gravitation. You’ve heard the tale: Newton sat in a garden; an apple fell; and he wondered, “Why does anything that falls, fall downward? Why not upward? Why only down? Throw a stone—it comes down. Everything falls down. What is the secret?” He pondered, researched, and arrived at gravitation: the earth has attraction; a force pulls everything downward.

That idea grew vast, and today’s science stands largely on Newton’s discovery; without it, it could hardly stand. The theory of gravitation became a foundation of science. But the theory is incomplete. Nothing in life exists without its polar opposite.

In Newton’s time there was another man—a poet, thinker, sage—named Ruskin. In jest he said something against Newton, which no one took seriously. He said, “Sir Newton, it is true that an apple fell from the tree and came down. But I want to ask—how did it go up in the first place? Find out that first: how did it get up there?” You see daily that a tree rises upward. Hidden in the seed was this apple, and one day it appeared above, on the tree. How did it go up first? Find that out; how it came down is secondary. And it isn’t a small event. In Lebanon there are cedars five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred feet tall. Even to the leaf seven hundred feet up, the sap reaches. The current climbs. Something must be drawing things upward even seven hundred feet.

No one paid much attention to Ruskin—who listens to saints! People dismiss poets: “He’s a poet—let it pass.” But I tell you, Ruskin said something more important than Newton, and future science will have to meet Ruskin halfway. Work has begun. A new principle is being discussed in scientific circles—levity. Gravitation: the force that pulls down; and levitation: the force that pulls up. And surely it must be so, for life is always balanced. Birth is balanced by death; day by night; summer by winter; love by hate. Have you ever seen anything that exists without its opposite? Nothing. Male is balanced by female; childhood by old age; knowledge by ignorance; saint by sinner. If there is positive electricity, there is negative; they exist together. Separate them and both vanish. Then can the theory of gravitation be the lone exception? It cannot. There are no exceptions. There must be a principle that draws things upward as well.

What Ruskin hinted has a reason: saints have always named that principle. In their language it is “grace.” Gravitation and grace. The pull of weight, and the lift of grace. What draws upward is grace. Water has that grace—it lifts. Water does not drown.

There is no difficulty in the art of swimming; you only need trust in water. After a couple of days of splashing about you discover there’s no need to panic; water does not drown. Your doubt goes, and you float. Faith arises, and you float. Faith and floating happen together. Now you only need a little familiarity with water—an acquaintance with its capacity.

You’ve seen, when you lower a pitcher into a well: when it is filled and submerged, your hand feels almost no weight. As soon as you pull it above the water, the weight begins. In water you can lift a person twice your weight; not outside it. Water is contrary to weight; it cancels it; it creates weightlessness.

So there is really no art to swimming.

And note one more thing about swimming: once you learn it, you cannot forget it, no matter what you do. Have you seen anything else that you can never forget? Everything learned can be forgotten. But swimming does not go. Which means: swimming is not a learned skill; it is a truth of life. Once recognized, it is recognized. How will you forget? It is not some trivial matter that slips from memory. You won’t ever enter a river and cry, “Brother, I’ve forgotten how to swim!” Impossible.

That is why, once the remembrance of the Divine dawns, it never leaves. Once meditation settles, it does not vanish. Once the taste of love comes, it does not go. Once a ray of prayer descends, it does not disappear. It cannot, because the Divine is not a taught lesson—it is our nature.

While floating, when your nature and the nature of water attune, the swimmer can lie without moving a finger; the water holds him up. No need to move at all. The attunement is set; the music has come right.

Exactly so with the guru when entering the Divine. The guru does nothing. His presence is catalytic. His very presence gives you courage. If your courage is sufficient, you need no guru. People have known the Divine without a guru—very few, but it has happened. So don’t be anxious: if you want to know without a guru, it is possible.

But beware—it may be only the ego saying, “I’ll do it without a guru.” If it is ego, you will not know; you will drown badly, take a hard plunge. So inquire within carefully.

Understand it this way: a guru does very little for you except remove your ego, cut it away. As you are, you are utterly beautiful, good, true, auspicious—Shivam! Only the ego sits atop you; he pulls it off. And ego is not a thing; it is only a misunderstanding, a notion. In the guru’s company, that notion drops, the delusion falls away. When delusion falls, you are wholly beautiful. If you can do it alone, by all means—there is no obstacle.

And I know the question is not entirely baseless. What goes on in the name of gurus can trouble any thoughtful person—the hypocrisies, the deceptions, the lies. Seeing the kinds of people who claim to be gurus, naturally such a question arises.

All are patients—
patients indeed—
even the doctors;
therefore they cannot help
one another.
Helpless,
everyone ill:
someone of the eyes, someone of the ears,
someone of the body, someone of the mind—
such a vast hospital,
and not a single caretaker—
everyone ill.

Sometimes it seems that those you call gurus are in the same boat as you. No difference. They haven’t found—so how will they give it to you? No glimmer of the Divine in their eyes, no peace of the Divine in their lives, no fragrance from their being, no authenticity in their utterances. Their song is stale, borrowed from someone else. If they have not yet sung their own song, how will they awaken the song asleep in you?

Guru means: finding one whose life-flower has blossomed. Difficult—rare. It is not easy to find a guru. You are trying to avoid a guru; I tell you, even if you try to find one, it is not easy. And even if you meet a guru, don’t assume he will accept you; just as you seek a guru, a guru seeks a disciple.

Disciple means: the humility to learn; the surrender to learn; the capacity to bow to learn. If you stand stiff with pride, even if you find a guru, he will not be able to accept you. Not that he doesn’t want to—he does—but there is no way. You stand rigid; you cannot be transformed without your cooperation.

And what does guru mean? Only this: the Divine is invisible; how to recognize It? If somewhere there is a little reflection, trust can arise. The moon in the sky is far away.

Have you seen a small child cry to have the moon? What does the mother do? She fills a plate with water and places it before the child. The moon reflects in the water. The child is delighted—“I’ve got the moon, right here in my plate!”

Guru is like that: the moon in the bowl. The moon is far; perhaps our eyes are not yet capable of looking that high. Perhaps a direct encounter with truth is not yet possible for us. Perhaps truth is so vast, so dazzling. Have you not read? Daya keeps saying: “A thousand thousand suns have risen—such dazzling brilliance!” If you are not prepared, you will panic. The Divine is vast; it will not fit your little courtyard. If you haven’t broken down your walls beforehand, you will be shaken to the core: an earthquake.

The guru reflects the Infinite within the finite. The guru is like you—and not like you. Therefore you can take the guru’s hand; God’s hand you cannot hold, because He has none. You will grope, but His hand will not come into your grasp. The Divine is formless, without qualities. The guru has form and qualities.

A mere piece of bamboo am I,
so small—
yet my full identity
I found in the touch of Your lips;
then from my hollow throat
burst forth song.
It is Your breath alone
that fills me with melody;
it is Your song I sing,
resounding with Your very note.

What is a guru? A piece of bamboo—ready to become a flute. A piece that has consented to let the Divine’s music resound through it.

A mere piece of bamboo am I,
so small—
yet my full identity
I found in the touch of Your lips;
then from my hollow throat
burst forth song.
It is Your breath alone
that fills me with melody;
it is Your song I sing,
resounding with Your very note.

With a guru you receive the primer—the ABCs—of God. Guru means: a small glimpse of the Divine in human language, within human limits.

The guru is a doorway. You can also go without a door—no obstacle. Your choice. Some come as honored guests by the main door; some come as thieves. The guest comes through the front entrance; the host stands there welcoming: “Come, please.” But a thief slips in through a breach in the wall in the dark of night. Even in the realm of the Divine, thieves reach—there is no problem. And there is no harm in stealing from Him. If you won’t steal from Him, from whom will you? He Himself is a thief; that is why Hindus have given Him the name Hari—meaning, “one who takes away, who steals.” He keeps stealing hearts. So if you choose to be a thief with Him and pick His pocket, there is no harm. Your delight! If you wish to jump the fence, do so; climb through a window, do so. But you can also enter by the main door—the easy way. The guru is the main door. You can go directly too; you can also take the smooth path.

And remember one more thing—

The generous ocean sent me back thirsty;
then where in this miserly world
shall I find water?
I thought, “The sea cannot be stingy;
wherever there is water,
it is the sea’s gift.”
Yet such neglect I received from the sea—
and so I turned to rivers
whenever I needed water.

I had heard from the sky:
the world is very dear,
the love here is balm
for wounds of a hundred births—
but the world’s love
shocked me so deeply
that any show of kindness here
no longer appeals.

I know your trouble. You have made many relationships in life and been deceived everywhere. So you are afraid: should I enter this relation with a guru or not?

But the world’s love
shocked me so deeply
that any show of kindness here
no longer appeals.

You are afraid now. And with a guru there can be no other bond—only his kindness, his grace. You have seen much so-called kindness and been cheated. You knocked on many doors and found only walls. You tasted much love and found poison; a hell was forged. So you are wary even of a guru’s love.

Any show of kindness here
no longer appeals.

And think: if you go to the ocean—it is so vast—but can you drink its water? You cannot.

The generous ocean sent me back thirsty;
then where in this miserly world
shall I find water?

I thought, if even the ocean sent me away empty and I found no water to drink, where will I find it?

I thought, “The sea cannot be stingy;
wherever there is water,
it is the sea’s gift.”
Yet such neglect I received from the sea—
and so I turned to rivers
whenever I needed water.

Remember, it is the river’s water that can be drunk; though the river holds the sea’s water, it is the river you can drink from.

God is like the ocean; the guru is like the river, the small lake. Whatever the guru has received, has come from the Divine. But you cannot drink the Divine directly. Who can drink the sea straight? What comes through the guru becomes water fit for you to drink.

The guru is an alchemy. You cannot eat soil—can you? Apart from small children, no one tries. Yet whatever you eat grows from soil—wheat, rice, grapes, apples, pears—everything comes from earth. But you cannot eat earth directly. The tree performs a great task: it transforms the soil so that it becomes digestible for you; the tree is the intermediary. The tree makes the earth fit for your stomach. So is the guru.

You cannot digest the Divine directly; through the guru it becomes digestible. But if you have decided to go without a guru—go, by all means. Where will you go? In which direction? What will you seek? Whatever you set out to seek will be something some guru has spoken of. Seek “God”? Then you have already accepted some guru’s word—an Upanishad, the Vedas, the Quran. Seek “soul”? You have accepted some guru—Mahavira or Krishna. Seek moksha, nirvana? Again, you have accepted some guru’s word. What will you seek that is not already said by some guru? And if you must accept a guru’s word, accept that of a living guru. Dead gurus are good to worship, but they cannot help much.

People are clever: they want to worship, not to be transformed. Then fine—find a dead guru. If you look into a living guru’s eyes, you will begin to test truth directly. If you throb a little in a living guru’s heart—that is satsang: to sit near the guru, to tune your melody to his, to drown your wave in his wave, to walk a little with him, to flow in his current, to take a dip in his stream.

What does “guru” mean? Only that a telescope is made available.

Come close to my eyes. See a little through my eyes. Join my celebration for a while—and you will glimpse what a celebration your life can be. What else does it mean to make someone your guru?

A little joke—
A very shy young man is sitting with his beloved in the moonlight. It must be the autumn full-moon night. They’re alone, sitting under a tree. He’s bashful, full of modesty and hesitation. The silence grows heavy; he says nothing. At last, mustering great courage, stammering and stumbling, he says, “May I… may I… may I kiss you?” The girl looks up at him—there is invitation in her eyes, gratitude in her eyes. But the young man has his eyes fixed on the ground. Then again, silence. The quiet becomes even heavier. After half an hour he asks again, “May I… may I… may I kiss you?” Again the girl looks up at him, but now he is gazing at the moon and stars—to avoid it! Silence again. Finally, after another half hour—now it’s become very awkward—the young man says, “Have you suddenly gone deaf? Or dumb?” The girl says, “No, neither deaf nor dumb; but have you become paralyzed?”

That much I can say to you. For three years you’ve wanted to take sannyas—have you become paralyzed? What are you waiting for now? And your name is Govardhandas. Such a fine name! Are you going to turn it into Gobardas (Mr. Cow-dung)? Three years! Will you go on thinking, go on pondering? Life will slip out of your hands. The name is so sweet: Govardhandas! Take courage; otherwise, at the time of death—let me tell you again—you’ll remain Gobardas.

Now you ask me: For three years I’ve wanted to take sannyas but haven’t been able to—what could be the reason? There’s no reason at all—only a lack of courage, a lack of guts.

Sannyas means courage, daring. It’s a kind of divine madness. Daya keeps saying again and again: sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, sometimes singing—such is the devotee! His foot lands here, he tumbles there—such is the devotee! Very odd indeed!

Sannyas is a different style of life. One style is the worldly style: shop and office, wife and children, wealth, position and prestige. To bring the ray of sannyas into this worldly style means you’ve begun to change its very foundations. Now meditation has become more valuable than money. Now God has become more valuable than wife or husband. Now liberation has become more valuable than position and prestige. The cornerstone of your whole life has changed. Everything will be upset; a kind of chaos will spread. You’ll have to re-set everything anew.

So sannyas is no small incident; it’s a great event. That’s why fear arises. Then you think, let things go on as they are—just keep going. Keep going. Death will come and snatch everything away.

Sannyas means: earn such a wealth that death cannot steal it. Sannyas means: earn with death in mind. The world means: forget death and earn. Death will snatch it all; whether you earned or squandered, it all comes to the same. Death will make your Diwali and your bankruptcy equal. No difference remains.

The person who lives with death in view is a sannyasin. And the one who lives by putting death aside, forgetting it, is worldly. Now, to live with death in front of you is difficult. Even to think, “I must die,” makes the mind panic. The mind says: “Others die; I’m not going to die! This happens to others—somehow I’ll find a trick and slip through.” To keep postponing death is what is called the world. And to take death into account, to make it your direct witness and shape your way of living around it, is sannyas. The moment you bring death into the middle, all values change.

It happened that a young man used to visit Eknath and repeatedly asked, “How is it that you remain so tranquil, so joyful, so absorbed all the time? How can this be?” Eknath would listen and keep quiet. One day the youth came and again asked the same thing: “I can’t believe it. Sometimes at home I think: perhaps when you’re with people you smile a lot, but alone you don’t. Maybe at night, when you sleep, you’re just like the rest of us. Maybe it’s just a show—who knows! Because how can this be? It isn’t happening to me, it isn’t happening to anyone else; then how is this shower of bliss happening to you? And we don’t see anything you might have that could cause such joy—no wealth, no position, no prestige, no fame. What do you have—you’re a naked fakir! On this loincloth you’re so delighted!”

That day Eknath saw the right moment had come. He said to the youth, “Let me see your hand.” He took his hand, and became sad. The youth was alarmed. “Why have you become sad? What is it? What did you see in my hand?” Eknath said, “I saw your lifeline is cut. Seven days more, dear one! No more than seven days. On the seventh day, as the Sunday evening sun sets, you too will set.”

The young man jumped to his feet. Eknath said, “Hey, where are you going? I still have to answer your question, the one you’ve been asking all along.”

The youth said, “To hell with the question and its answer. For God’s sake! Is this any time for a discourse on essentials?”

He was drenched in sweat. Just now he had climbed the steps with a certain swagger, strength in his step. Now, going down, he had to take support from the wall. He became old in a moment. Because when the remembrance of death arrived, everything started shaking. All the plans—what to do, what not to do—gone. It was like a house of cards and a gust of wind came and it collapsed.

He went home and took to bed. He told his wife; she began to weep. The children cried. The neighbors gathered, and the whole town came to know. And if Eknath said it, it must be true. Now Eknath wouldn’t lie; death is certain.

By the third or fourth day he was half dead. He stayed glued to the bed. No strength remained. No taste in food. If anyone spoke of food, he said, “What’s the point?” He went and asked forgiveness from those he had enmity with. To those with whom he had court cases he said, “Brother, forgive me, mistakes were made.” All quarrels ended. Death has come—what’s the point of squabbling now? With whom? These are all the amusements of life. Who is mine and who is other! Even when his wife sat near him he looked as if someone was sitting there. When his own son came close he looked as if someone had come. Mine and thine dissolved. All relationships broke. With death arriving everything scattered. Only one thing kept agitating him: the seventh day is approaching, death is coming—what to do, what not to do? On the seventh day he was completely stuck to the cot, his voice wouldn’t come, his eyes had sunk into their sockets. He kept asking, “How much of the sun is left to set?”

And when the sun was just about to set, Eknath arrived at his door. The wife began to weep and fell at his feet. The children cried. Eknath said, “Don’t be afraid; there’s nothing to fear. Take me inside.” He went in and asked the young man, “My brother, in these seven days did you commit any sin?”

With great difficulty he opened his eyes. He said, “Sin? Are you in your senses? With death standing right in front, where is the space to commit sin?”

Eknath said, “Your death hasn’t come; this was my answer to your question. In the same way death stands pressed against me too, right before my eyes. Where is there leisure to sin! And when there is no sin, there is no sorrow. When there is no sin, there is no worry. When there is no sin, there is no restlessness. When there is no sin, the fragrance of virtue arises by itself. Get up—your death has not yet arrived.”

He sat up at once. Quickly his eyes changed. He stroked his son’s back and said, “You’ve landed me in quite a mess! I even went and asked forgiveness from those I was fighting with. Now what do I do… I’ll see tomorrow! I even told them I’d withdraw the case: ‘It’s over—take the land if you want; take possession of the field if you like. What’s the point now!’ You’ve really put me in a fix. Is this any way to answer? My simple, straightforward question—and you made everyone cry for seven days, and I almost died!”

And the next day he was back to being the same man again.

When death descends into your life—sannyas. If you embrace death—sannyas.

So, probably it’s lack of courage. But take courage. Whether you accept death or not, death will come. Seven days later, or seven years later, or seventy years later—what difference does it make! Death is going to come; one thing is certain. Other than death, nothing is certain. If you can see death, take heart.

Sannyas is the search for such a treasure that death cannot snatch.

If you think with the intellect, it will indeed seem like a dream. Just look—Radha is talking to Krishna! Not only talking, she even raises quarrels and complaints. She coaxes and consoles, and she also sulks.

So if you look with the intellect, it will all appear like a web of dreams. Thought through the intellect, devotion will certainly look like a dream-web. But thought through the intellect, love too is a dream-web. And through the intellect, whatever in life is juicy and alive is all a dream-web. Through the intellect, your life will become dry, stony, a desert; no oasis will remain. Because every oasis, according to the intellect, is a dream, an imagination.

All over the world thoughtful people have constantly raised the question: What is the meaning of life? And they find no answer—because whatever meaning life has comes from the heart, not from the head. And the heart understands the language of dreams, not the language of mathematics. The heart understands poetry, it understands love, it understands beauty. The heart has a different way altogether; its world is different.

So devotion belongs to the world of the heart. If you ask the devotee, the story is different. The devotee will say—

There are no paths, the horizon is blurred
Whatever goals there were
All have become futile
What fault is it of words,
All meanings are lost
Perhaps dreams might have led us home
Truths have led us astray.
Perhaps dreams might have led us home
Truths have led us astray.

Doctrines, logic, mathematics—if you ask the devotee, he will say these are what have led man astray. Otherwise man would be a spring of nectar; otherwise man would be a fountain of song; otherwise man would dance, be exhilarated; his life would be a celebration—God would be there.

After all the clamor has fallen asleep
The word that awakens—
If you would listen, listen to that.
A gentle music rises, slowly, slowly,
Spreads over the whole silence
As in the clear mirror of a lake
A magical blueness trembles.
After all the truths are lost
The dream that awakens—
If you would weave, weave that.

Every procession follows a few slogans
Crowds have no individuality
Rumors are what are most heard
In the majority, truth has no existence
After all the tides have ebbed
What remains upon the shore—
If you would choose, choose that.

Sculptor, do not chisel the idol so much
Refinement kills the natural form
This formless, wistful, unfinishedness
Makes a creation’s youth eternal
The future belongs only to what is incomplete
Its every moment is a new sensitivity—
If you would ponder, ponder that.

After all the truths are lost
The dream that awakens—
If you would weave, weave that.

Devotion, in the language of the intellect, is a dream; in the language of the heart, that very thing is truth—truer, truest. Nothing is more true than that.

Now you must decide what kind of person you are. If you are a person of the intellect, devotion will not appeal to you. Leave it. Don’t worry about what does not attract you. There is another path for you: walk by the way of knowledge and meditation. Proceed by refining the intellect.

But if the path of devotion suits you, draws you; if your heart blossoms hearing the talk of devotees; if hearing of devotion your heart is stirred—then forget what the intellect says. Stop listening to the intellect.

After all the truths are lost
The dream that awakens—
If you would weave, then weave that.

Then leave aside all this talk of doctrines and truths and the rest; weave the nectar of devotion. And you will find that even through a dream one reaches God. But you will have to learn to dream of God.

Dream is also a power. Just as logic is a power, so is dream a power. Logic is the basis of science; dream is the basis of devotion. Logic is the basis of yoga; dream is the basis of love. These are the two means. Either expand imagination so greatly that it becomes capable of seeing God. Or dissolve imagination in such a way that it disappears utterly, and what is—stands nakedly revealed before you.

If you walk by the intellect you will experience Truth; and if you walk by devotion you will experience the Lord, the Beloved. It is one and the same; the knower calls it Truth, the devotee calls it the Lord. Now it is your choice. And it seems to me the devotee savors more rasa, because he makes Truth his beloved. Truth then is no longer a mathematical account; not a two-plus-two-equals-four. Truth becomes like your son. Truth becomes like your beloved. Truth becomes like your lover. Truth is drenched in love.

If your heart is stirred and ripples arise when you hear the devotees’ songs in praise of the Lord, do not be afraid.

A face settled again into my gaze
Lost horizons surfaced again
The setting sun rose again
Silk spread again on thorny paths
Ever since I have seen those eyes
Wings have sprouted on my shoulders
Dreams took flight again into unseen longings
Wherever I have been touched
There, I have become new
Someone clasped me again in magical arms
A face settled again into my gaze.

If the face of God settles into your gaze and feels right to you, do not be afraid. You will have to choose—either the heart or the head.

Slide the stony memories aside
Here and there, for a moment, a hair’s breadth—
Ah, it has sprouted,
A dream has sprouted,
After days and days it has sprouted—
The moon has risen.

Let it rise. If the dream of the Lord arises, do not condemn it by calling it a dream. Dreams are lovely too.

Know this: dreams, too, become true if you pour your whole life-breath into them. And truths remain false if they are borrowed and stale—if they belong to another—if you have not poured your whole being into them.

It may have seemed so to you; it is not a negation. “Jagat taraiya bhor ki.” There is no opposition to the world in it. Nor is there any instruction to renounce the world. It is only a statement of fact about the world. Neither an injunction nor a prohibition. In “jagat-taraiya bhor ki” there is no condemnation. These sweet words cannot even be words of condemnation. It simply says this much: the world is like the morning star—here now, gone now. That is the truth—where is the denunciation in that? If someone says of a water bubble that it is a bubble—now it is, and in a moment it will vanish—would you call that negation? If someone says to a man, “You are here now, and soon death will come,” has anything been negated? Is there any negation in calling the transient transient? It is simply the acceptance of a fact. The world is just so.
But people understand in their own ways.

But no, Daya is not saying that. Daya is only saying: it is so.

One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin carrying a basket full of fish, coming from the river side. I asked, “Mulla, where did you catch them?” He said, “I’ve found a marvelous spot, and some gentleman, out of consideration for guiding people, has even put signboards all along the way so one can’t miss it. Just walk a mile down along the riverbank and there’s a board that says, in both English and Hindi: Private—Entry Prohibited. Walk a little farther and there’s another: Trespassers will be prosecuted. Then a little farther still, and the third board appears: Fishing not allowed. And that is the place.”

And he’s saying some gentleman has put up the signs as a public service to guide people!

A man draws meanings to suit himself. We hear only what we want to hear. The world indeed is morning dew. There is nothing of prohibition in this. It is only a statement: this is how it is. Do not take it to be eternal, because it is not. Even if you assume it is, it won’t become eternal. It comes and goes. It is a line drawn on water. Therefore, if you stop here by deeming it eternal, you will find only sorrow upon sorrow. If you long for the eternal, do not seek it in this. The eternal is elsewhere—hidden somewhere, beyond this. Only when your eyes lift away from this will they fall upon the eternal.

So when we say, “The world is morning dew,” it means only this much: somewhere there is also the North Star. But don’t get entangled only here, otherwise you will be deprived of the North Star. If your eyes remain fixed on this, with what eyes will you see the North Star? Knowing just this—that this is not eternal—your mind will suddenly begin to rise from it, to withdraw, to go beyond. For the longing of life is for the eternal, the everlasting—for that which remains forever. We are seeking that which abides. What is here now and gone tomorrow—seeking it is only a waste of time and a squandering of energy.

The path of devotion is a path of sweetness and intoxication. Where is denial there! But if we say to someone—someone squeezing oil out of sand—“Fool, there is no oil in sand. If you want to press oil, find sesame,” we are not forbidding the pressing of oil, mind you. If I were to meet you squeezing oil from sand, turning sand in an oil-press, I would say: “Sir, the desire to press oil is perfectly right—do press it—but find sesame first. This is sand; no oil will come from it, and the press may get ruined.” I am not laying down a prohibition; I am only saying there is no oil in sand. Oil surely exists—find the sesame. There is sweetness and intoxication, but with God, not with the world.

The world is sand. For lifetimes you have been turning the press—nothing has come out, yet you keep on pressing. It has become a habit. Now nothing else occurs to you to do, so you go on pressing.

There is intoxication, yes—but in the words themselves there is nothing, only a slight glimmer of it. If you are frightened by the words, you will miss the real intoxication, because the real intoxication is in the experience. If my words carry some intoxication, it is only because they come drenched in the inner wine; they bring a little news, they leave you a bit unsteady.

I am a celebrant of wine. A wine merchant!

And I understand your fear, because you suspect that this wine is such that your ego will drown in it—you will be lost in it. And you are afraid of losing yourself.

"There is no other refuge left for me now in this world;
My boat, burdened with the weight of sin, is drifting into a whirlpool.
Lord, run to me, save me now—she is about to sink."

You have come to the wrong man; here the very trade is to drown you. If it’s taking you a little too long to sink, we’ll hurry it along and drown you quickly. Because the one who drowned is the one who was saved. The one who drowned arrived. Only by drowning in midstream does one reach the shore. Here we talk of drowning, and here the effort is to coax you into becoming a drunkard.

Mulla Nasruddin was praising wine to me one day—the other wine, the counterfeit wine. He was saying, “Not only people, sir; even animals are great admirers of liquor.” I asked, “What do you mean?” He said, “One day I went fishing and forgot to take flour for the hook. I looked for worms to put on it, but couldn’t find any. Just then I came upon a snake with a frog clenched in its mouth. I quickly snatched the frog from the snake, cut it into pieces, and used those to catch fish. But then I felt a little pity for the snake—poor fellow, I had stolen its meal. Seeing no other way, and by way of compensation, I pulled my bottle from my bag and poured four drops of liquor into its mouth. The bliss on its face was worth seeing! The way it nodded its head, lifted its eyes in ecstasy, and swayed...
“Then I forgot all about it and went on fishing. About an hour later I felt something gently tapping my shoe. I looked down with a start: the same snake, two frogs clenched in its mouth, was butting my shoe—as if to say, ‘Let’s have some more now.’”

So that is talk of the fake wine; here we are speaking of the real wine.

It is natural to be afraid, because you are living in one particular way and I will upset it all. You have built a certain kind of world and I will throw it into disorder. But I want to tell you: what you think you have built—the world’s raft lasts only till dawn! You are merely entertaining the idea of building; nothing has actually been built. And the direction I point to is the Pole Star. If a ray of that star enters your life, your link with the eternal can be forged.

Until your connection with the eternal is made, do not be content. Do not settle for anything less than God. Until the wine of liberation is poured, let the search continue—it must continue. Those who stop before that have halted without reaching the goal; they have made some wayside camp into a home. They will be unhappy and troubled. They are the worldly ones.

Here the effort is to make you all sannyasins—to make you all drunkards. The day you too begin to sway and stumble, set your foot in one place and it falls in another; laugh, weep, sing, and sing the praises of the Lord—that day the flower of your life, which has not yet opened, will bloom. Your lotus will unfold all its petals, and your fragrance will be released into the winds. That is liberation. And that liberation is bliss. Apart from that, all is sorrow, all pain, all anguish.

Take heart, be courageous. This is not a wine one can miss.

That is all for today.