Jagat Taraiya Bhor Ki #7

This one too has pained the mind,
that one too has pained the mind.
Not one was found, however,
who would lay balm on a hurting heart.
All the lamps died for want of oil;
no wick can catch fire anywhere.
If there is a light-fairy, she is jailed
in the desolate prison of darkness.
In every house, tamas reigns;
nowhere does a ray smile.
Then where will the aarti be kindled?
Then who will place the tilak of light?
Then who will gift me radiance,
turn my new-moon night to a full moon!

The one who turns your new moon into a full moon—that is the Guru. The one who fills your darkness with light—that is the Guru. The one who gives you the key to know who you are in your own life—that alone is the Guru.

In today’s sutras Daya speaks of the grace of her Guru, and of the experiences born from that grace. The sutras are very unique, for they are the very essence of meditation. If understood, an abundance of light can dawn in your life too. If understood, you too can be immersed in supreme bliss.

As Daya says:

Without lightning, there is vast radiance; without clouds, showers descend.
There, my little mind became drunk, Daya—only beholding, beholding.

You too carry such a seed. Such a possibility is yours as well. Perhaps that seed did not find the right soil; perhaps you did not meet the right gardener; perhaps you sowed it in the wrong season; perhaps it never received the right sunlight. So the seed remained a seed. If it sprouted, infinite light would break forth within you; if it sprouted, you too would become intoxicated. What will be seen—‘Daya, only beholding, beholding’—what will be experienced, the nectar that will rain upon you—only then will you truly know that until now life has delivered nothing but hurt—‘This one pained my mind, that one pained my mind.’

Wherever you went, the mind was wounded. When has the poor mind ever been rapt in joy until now? Whomever you clung to, you received thorns from them. When has the mind ever been truly absorbed? At times wealth hurt you, at times position hurt you; relatives hurt you, beloveds hurt you; one’s own and strangers alike—this one, that one—everyone has hurt the mind. You wander with open wounds upon your chest. This is why you do not look within—because inside there is nothing but wounds. Saints may say a million times, ‘Look within,’ but you don’t. You know there is no light there, no radiance of countless suns, no moon and no stars; there is dense darkness; there is pus from wounds and the oozing sores of pain, gathered life after life.

So long as you think that happiness will come from another, this will go on repeating:

This one too has pained the mind,
that one too has pained the mind.
Not one was found, however,
who would lay balm on a hurting heart.

As long as you think joy can be received from another, sorrow will be your lot. Bliss is your own nature; had it been obtainable from another, you would have gotten it by now. For lifetimes you have stretched your begging bowl before others for alms. And you never even noticed—they too are begging from you! You beg of them; they beg of you. Beggars stand facing beggars. You beg the wife, ‘Give me happiness’; the wife begs you, ‘Give me happiness.’ The blindness is deep. If the wife had happiness to give you, would she be begging it from you? And if you had happiness to give, would you be begging it from your wife? We beg only for what we do not have. What we do have, we share; what we do not have, we ask for.

Look attentively and you will find everyone in the world begging for happiness, begging for love. But neither love is in their hands, nor happiness. The error lies in the very act of asking. And because you keep asking outwardly, you have even forgotten that what you ask for is your very nature. Religion is the name of this revolution. The day you remember, ‘Let me stop asking. Let me look within at least once, fully, to see who I am. It may be that what I could not find outside is there.’ It must be there. Were it not there, you would not be asking at all, for we can only seek that of which some deep, faint experience has brushed us. The whole world is in search of bliss. If you had never known it, never recognized it, had no connection with bliss, how could you set out in search of the unknown? How would you seek what has no hint, no address? Somewhere, deep within the darkness of mind, a tiny lamp is burning; sometimes, unknowingly perhaps, its glimmer touches your eyes. Sometimes, even when you think it is coming from the other, you are misled by that inner glimmer. Listening to music, you feel joy arises—but no, how can music give joy? While listening, something else happened. You were drenched in your own rasa; music became a pretext. Because of the music, worldly worries were forgotten; the home and marketplace were forgotten; the daily scramble was forgotten. Because of the music, there was only this much: the world was forgotten—and as soon as the world is forgotten, remembrance of oneself begins. From that remembrance you feel joy has come.

No one has ever received joy from music. Joy arises from within. Music is but a pretext. Likewise, sometimes there is joy in sexual union. That joy too rises from within; sex is a pretext. Whenever a ray of joy has come, a glimpse that flashed and went, it has always arisen from within. But your eyes are fixed without. So even when the ray comes from within, you think it came from outside. Even then you are deceived.

Have you seen a dog chewing a dry bone? There is nothing in a dry bone, no juice, yet the dog chews it with great absorption. Try to snatch it away and he will be enraged, he will leap, he will attack. There is no juice in the bone—then what juice is he relishing? As he chews, his mouth is wounded by the bone; it injures. The soft inner skin of the mouth is torn; blood begins to flow. He sucks his own blood and believes it is coming from the bone. Naturally—until he took the bone, the taste was not there. The logic is simple—and it is your logic too. If the dog could explain, he would say, ‘Until I took the bone in my mouth, there was no juice; when I took it, the juice appeared. Surely it comes from the bone—so I refuse to let it go.’ But from the bone only wounds are arising; his own blood flows, and he gulps his own blood down.

Precisely this is your condition. When joy seems to come from music, it still comes from within—you drink your own essence. When it seems to come from sex, it too springs from within—you drink your own rasa.

Whenever you have felt happiness anywhere—say you went to the Himalayas and beheld snow-covered peaks, and for a moment you were stunned, speechless, a single ‘Ah!’ rising in the heart—what flowed in that moment flowed from within you. The Himalayas served as a condition. The silence of the Himalayas, their vast presence, for a moment broke you from your habitual bustle; the transactions of mind ceased for an instant—and rasa flowed.

Mind holds back the flow of rasa. Mind means: curiosity about the other. Wherever mind falls still, curiosity about the other drops; you fall into your own source. And there a stream of rasa is. Raso vai sah!

The Upanishads say: the Paramatma is of the nature of rasa. You are made of the Paramatma. The whole existence is made of the Paramatma—from stones and pebbles to the moon and stars of the sky, from the body to the Atman, all is of the Paramatma.

The Upanishads say: the Paramatma is rasa. So we too are made of rasa. Rasa is our nature. Once we begin to know ourselves, there is only joy, only joy. Religion is the recognition of oneself. The world is the search for happiness in another. Religion is the search for happiness in oneself. In the world, no one ever found happiness. Whoever did find, found by going within—some Buddha, some Kabir, some Krishna, some Christ. Whenever anyone has known bliss on this earth, unfailingly it has been because he went within. The methods differ: one went dancing; one through music; one through mantra; one through tantra; one through devotion; one through meditation—but whatever the device, it is only a device.

You have come here by many conveyances: someone by train, someone by airplane, someone by car, someone walking, someone on horseback, someone by bullock cart. It makes no difference how you came—once you have arrived, the means loses all value. Whether you rode devotion and journeyed through feeling, or rode knowledge and journeyed through meditation, it matters not. These are but pretexts, devices to kindle self-remembrance within.

Dry branches, dry leaves—what kind of tree is this?
The heart thirsts; it cannot find the teasing of love-winds!

Such is your life—

Dry branches, dry leaves—what kind of tree is this!

All is parched because you keep lifting your eyes elsewhere for rasa. Rasa comes through your roots; it flows from your own source. Forgetful of your own source, you have become dry.

Seek anything here and nothing will be found. Here, once one is found, all is found—the recognition of one’s own source.

Daya says:

The Master told me, take the vow of the turtle.
Restrain all the senses, and place your surati in the breath.

A unique mantra of meditation—understand it.

‘The Master told me, take the vow of the turtle.’ The Guru said, Daya, become like the tortoise. A turtle has a singular gift: it can draw all its senses within. The senses are doors opening outwards. Through them you go outside. Raise the eyes, and you will see outside; open the ears, and you will hear outside; stretch forth the hands, and you will touch outside. The senses go out. The hand cannot go inside; these eyes cannot see within. The eye that sees within is another eye altogether. These eyes have nothing to do with that eye. Hence the wise speak of the third eye—an altogether different eye, for it is unrelated to these two.

Note this too: the eyes that look out are two, and the sages say the eye that looks in is one. This is symbolic. Outside is duality, division; within is nonduality, the One. To see within, two eyes are not needed—two would create duality, conflict, the world. Outward-looking eyes are two; the inward-looking eye is one. Two ears to hear outside; the ear that hears within is one.

Just as the third eye is spoken of, so too the third ear should be spoken of—though it has not been; it should have been. As two hands reach outward, one hand reaches within. Zen masters speak of the One Hand. They say to their disciples: clap with one hand. Sit and listen to the sound that arises when one hand claps. Where can one hand clap? Two hands clap. They say: seek the sound of one hand clapping. That one hand is the inner hand.

The gate to the inner is one; the gates to the outer are two. And there are many senses going out—eyes, ears, nose, hands: the five senses. Going within, the two eyes become a single eye; eye and ear merge into one; hand and nose merge; all become one.

Kabir says that upon going within, great wonder arose: I began to hear with the eye, and see with the ear! With the hand came fragrance; with the nose came touch! People think these are the strange sayings of mystics—they are not strange. It is so. Within, only the One remains. All the senses dissolve into the One. This sutra points toward that One.

The Guru said: ‘Daya, take the vow of the turtle.’ This must have been their symbol. Charandas, who was Daya’s Master, used this symbol: take the turtle’s vow. In brief, begin to draw the senses in. Draw them fully in. Turn the outward-going senses back home. So long as the senses go outward, energy keeps flowing out. How will the inner union happen then? If you go east, how will you meet the one who lives to the south? If you go west, how will you meet the one who is in the east? If you go outward, how will you meet the one who abides within? Slowly, the habit of going out becomes so ingrained that we forget there is an inner realm.

You hear people say there are ten directions—actually there are eleven, but the eleventh is never counted. The ten—above and below, and the eight around. The eleventh, the real direction, is never counted: the direction inward. We have forgotten it.

‘Take the vow of the turtle’ means: move in the eleventh direction. Do not let your energy diffuse into the ten directions; let it gather within now.

In this the turtle is unique. No other creature has such a capacity. Hence the turtle became significant. Even one of God’s avatars is Kurma, the turtle. Hindus fashioned sweet stories: the whole earth rests upon a turtle. If you take these literally, they sound childish—‘upon a turtle’! But if you take them inwardly, deep meanings open. The Hindu says: the earth rests upon the few who have become like turtles; otherwise it would have perished long ago. Sometimes a Buddha appears, sometimes a Mahavira—upon them the world rests. Because of that One, you too live. Even if you have no relation to him, even if you never bowed at his feet, it is due to that One’s presence that the earth lives. You drag along, yet somehow live.

Reflect: if we removed a mere handful of names from human history—Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Kabir—what would remain of you? What would you be? Whatever traces of humanity shine within you are their gifts. Whatever gleam and light appear within you is their grace. Because of these few, man is man; otherwise man would be an animal.

So when Hindus say the earth rests upon a turtle, it is symbolic. Two kinds of fools exist in the world: one says, ‘Then prove it—where is the turtle?’ and another, even more foolish, tries to prove, ‘Yes, there is a turtle.’ Both are stupid. It is not about a turtle. The earth rests upon those who have become like turtles. Those few have carried the whole burden of your life. If there is any possibility of flowers flowering in your life, it is because of those few who have withdrawn their senses and become trans-sensual.

So the Master told Daya: become a turtle too, Daya.

Restrain all the senses, and place your surati in the breath.

Restrain all the senses. This does not mean sit with your ears plugged. It does not mean cut off your hands or put out your eyes. It means: even if the eyes see, let the relish for seeing be gone. The eyes will see; that is their nature. Daya too will move about, will stand and sit—will distinguish door from wall. She will eat—she must discern what to eat and what not. The plate and the cup she will not swallow! The eyes will see, but the relish for form must vanish. When the rasa of form is gone, the eye has turned inward. The relish for form is the real eye.

These visible eyes have their utilitarian role—fine, use them. Rising, sitting, walking, eating—their use is there. But behind these eyes lurks a craving—the craving to look. Be free of that craving. What has been gained by looking and looking? Even if you behold the most beautiful—what is gained? It is no more than a dream. Whether you dream or you actually behold a beautiful person, what difference is there? Within you only an image is formed. Whether the most beautiful woman stands before you or the most handsome man, what is within? The eye functions like a camera—it makes an image. You do not see the beautiful woman; she is outside. How will you go outside? You are within; she is without. The eye carries a picture from outside to inside—a small image is formed. That image spreads upon the screen of your mind, as on the screen in a cinema hall. And you become absorbed in that image. There is nothing in the image.

It is the same madness as with films. How do you become so absorbed watching pictures? Nothing is there. Leave the film; people are aroused even by nude pictures on paper. Ask them, ‘What are you doing? Are you in your senses? There is nothing on this paper—only colors placed in a certain arrangement, that’s all.’ On the screen there is nothing, only patterns of light and shadow; the screen is empty. No one is there. Yet how agitated you become! This agitation too has a secret: all your life you have been watching the same kind of pictures upon the inner screen—the eye playing a movie on the mind’s screen. What else have you seen? Film is an invention of the human mind—a projection of its own process. Hence films impact man so deeply—their resonance with the mind is intimate.

It never occurs to you in the theatre that what you are seeing is not. You become eager, moved—sometimes you weep, sometimes you laugh, sometimes you suffer, sometimes you rejoice. Pictures make you dance. This happens because you have always been entangled with the same kind of pictures within. The cinema is an extension of that.

To turn the eye inward means: the eye remains merely an instrument of seeing, but the lust for seeing dissolves. The ears hear, but the relish for hearing is gone. The hands touch, but the madness for touching is gone. If this frenzy dissolves, you will gradually find the energy that used to flow outward through the senses begins to pool into a Mansarovar within.

Right now you are empty inside. Your state is like this:

We spin away our days like cotton,
with a notebook of slanders in hand,
its binding stitched with depressions.
Severed from all around,
we whirl like spindles,
we resound like tambourines;
we laugh—but are sad within.
Friends have done us favors:
they have given us love like cactus.
We are all empty bottles, empty glasses.

Within, nothing—‘All empty bottles and glasses.’ You are utterly hollow inside. Where an ocean of rasa should surge, there is desert. Because the energy that brews that ocean flows out through your senses. The senses are your holes; through them your pitcher never fills. Only yesterday we spoke: if the vessel is perforated, it will never fill. Your senses are those holes. If you allow energy to drain out through them, you will remain empty, vacant.

Restrain all the senses, and place your surati in the breath.

When you free your senses from their outward pilgrimage, your attention is freed, for your attention is caught in the senses. Suppose you sit to meditate and a beautiful woman passes by—your meditation is broken. Or nearby someone jingles coins—broken. Or someone begins to sing—a song that carries your interest—the shop, the business, the market; someone says, ‘Prices are rising fast’—that sound hits you and the meditation is broken. Why does it break? Because the desire is still within; the stimulus pricks it and it awakens.

Remember: you have only one energy. Either pour it into desire or pour it into meditation. If it pours into desire, meditation shatters; if it pours into meditation, desire shatters. You do not have two energies. Your estate is one. Everything depends on where you invest it.

The worldly man channels his entire energy into desires. The religious man turns the current against desire; Ganga begins returning to Gangotri, back toward the source. This alone is meditation’s meaning.

Meditation means: the energy that went into desire returns home.

When your senses are slack and withdrawn, as the turtle withdraws his limbs, the meditator becomes turtle-like. Look at Buddha sitting—what a way he sits! Like a stone statue. Hand upon hand, foot upon foot—doors shut on every side, eyes closed—absorbed within. What is he doing there?

This is your difficulty. People come to me; I say, ‘Sit silently sometimes.’ They say, ‘If we sit silently, what should we do? Give us some mantra.’ Mantra means: they will keep themselves busy—Ram, Ram, Ram. The inner babble goes on, only now in a new way. If I say, ‘Do nothing for a little while; drop all doing and rest’—meditation means rest.

Meditation means: for a while, do nothing; let all energy simply be. The first step on that path is: ‘Place your surati in the breath.’ Buddha called it Vipassana, anapanasati-yoga. The greatest alchemy discovered in human history. When, from all the senses, the energy of desire has returned—desire meaning energy; the eyes are no longer eager to see, the ears not eager to hear, the hands not eager to touch; all eagerness has turned back and you sit like a turtle—now place this energy upon the breath.

Place your surati in the breath.

Surati means remembrance, attention, awareness. Fix this awareness on the breath. Breath goes out, breath comes in—on this mala of breath, place your awareness. No need to hold a rosary in your hand. When such a lovely mala is already turning naturally, what will you do with another in the hand? The natural mala of breath is going—bead moving bead—out-in, out-in, out-in. Watch this breath going out and in; do nothing. When breath goes out, remain aware that breath has gone out. When breath comes in, remain aware that breath has come in. Do not miss. Do not forget. You will forget at first; again and again bring awareness back, and place it upon the breath.

Remember: do not make the breath deeper or slower; do not tamper with it. Let it flow as it flows and place your whole attention upon it. This is not pranayama. There is no speeding up or deepening, no filling the lungs and emptying them. If you start doing that, then you have started doing—and rest is lost. You have created a new bustle—pranayama! You will count: how long to keep breath out, how long in, how long to hold outside, how long inside—the shop begins, accounts begin; mind is entangled, mind gets work. Mind wants work. Beware! Mind says: give me any work and I will survive—because without work the mind dies. And when mind dies, you live. When mind disappears, you are born; your true birth happens.

Mind says: give me any task, and I will live through it. You deny me the cinema—fine. The bazaar—fine. But let me do pranayama—this is respectable! Patanjali praised it; yogis have done it—let me do it. Or let me chant; I won’t hurl abuses or idle thoughts; let me repeat Ram—the beloved Name!

Mind says: give me any work and I will live, because mind means the doer. You are the witness. Witness arises only when the doer dissolves. So do not even do so much as breathe in a certain technique—fast, slow—no tricks. All tricks are madness. Backed by tradition, the madness looks respectable. A man sits with a rosary, rolling beads—we don’t call him mad. In Russia, if someone did that, he would be sent to the asylum: ‘Are you insane? What are you doing?’

A woman was seated next to Mulla Nasruddin on a bus—unknown to each other. She began to feel uneasy; Mulla was wagging his head left-right. The hill road was nauseating already; and this man right beside her kept swinging his head. However she tried not to look, she could not help it. At last she could not resist. ‘Sir, what are you doing? Some religious practice—swinging your head like this?’

Mulla said, ‘No, no religious practice at all’—and kept on wagging even as he spoke.

She asked, ‘Then what are you doing?’

Mulla said, ‘This is how I keep time—one second this side, one second that side—no need to carry a watch.’ And he wagged harder. Cheap, convenient—no need to ask anyone.

The woman got curious: ‘Then tell me, what time is it now?’ ‘Half past four,’ said Mulla, still wagging. She looked at her watch: ‘Wrong—quarter to five.’ Mulla shook his head faster: ‘Seems your watch is running slow.’

You will call this man crazy. But had he said, ‘I am chanting Ram—one Ram this side, one Ram that side,’ then it would not be madness. In the name of religion, many madnesses find shelter. Hence in religious countries fewer people are labeled mad, because they have the facility of being religious. No need to be mad—why such an expensive business? In nonreligious lands more people are called mad, simply because if they do such things they are deemed insane. In religious countries there are devices; you can adopt some process that appears religious, and no one will call you mad.

This sutra is precious. Attention on breath, without doing anything—let the breath be as it is.

The utility of attention to breath is immense. First: by breath alone you are tied to the body. Breath is the bridge. The thread of breath binds you to the body. If you become aware of the breath, instantly it is clear: you are not the body. As soon as awareness of breath dawns, you see you are separate from the body. One.

Second: ordinarily we take breath to be life itself. Hence when someone’s breath stops we say, ‘He is dead.’ The doctor knows no more than this: test if the breath has stopped—finished.

What do you accept as the sign of death? Only this: life is gone because the breath is gone. With breath life began; as breath went, life went. Breath and life have become synonymous—and ordinarily they are. When you become aware of the breath you find: I am not the breath either. The one who is aware is utterly distinct from the breath. The breath runs before him; for him breath is an object, and the seer is other than the seen.

So the first revolution with this sutra: it becomes clear ‘I am not the body.’ The second, still deeper: ‘I am not even the breath.’ Beyond breath and body, ‘I’ connects with its source.

This tiny sutra is of immense value:

Restrain all the senses, and place your surati in the breath.

But before placing surati on the breath, become a turtle. Otherwise surati will not settle on the breath—for you will have no surati available. Surati is a subtle power. Either it flows out through the senses—in which case it is not in your hands; the senses have scattered the bird of surati to far distances, each sense dragging it in a different direction. Your surati is not in your hands; through the senses it has flown. And whatever each sense tells you about the world, that you believe to be life, to be truth. But the senses have no means to know Truth—they are blind. The means to know Truth lives with your inner witness, with no one else. If you listen to the senses and do not become a turtle, they will keep you wandering.

Have you not seen—as in the dark of night, a rope upon the path appears to be a snake? You ran; your heart pounded; you panicked. Your eyes saw it. You say, ‘With my own eyes I saw—a snake!’ Bring a light, and it is a rope. The eye is easily deceived—even a little dimness and it is deceived.

At night, in your own house, you see your own shirt hanging and think some thief is standing! You switch on the light—it is your shirt. Trust the eye? Even outside, light is needed—how will you trust it within? There too a light is needed. The inner lamp is lit by surati, by witnessing.

What the senses tell you is only their habit. What you have trained the eye to see, that it shows you.

If a woodcutter enters this garden, he will not see flowers—he will see wood. He will think what tree to cut and sell. If a gardener, a connoisseur of flowers, comes, he will not see wood—he will see blossoms. ‘Ah! What beautiful flowers!’ If a poet comes, he will not even see flowers directly; he will see their beauty—the aesthetics will catch his eye. If a painter arrives, he will see colors—subtle tonalities that you do not notice. Ordinarily you assume that you and your companion see the same garden—do not fall into that error. If your companion has trained his eyes differently, he will see something else; you, something else.

The senses are conditioning. Through them we see what we habitually train them to see. The ear too is conditioning. We hear what we train ourselves to hear. Taste is conditioning. Have you noticed? Coffee does not taste good the first time; one has to train for coffee. Nor does alcohol taste good at first.

Nasruddin’s wife kept pestering him: ‘Stop drinking, stop drinking.’ He would not listen. One day she followed him to the bar. Nasruddin grew a little nervous; she had never come before—and it was unseemly for a respectable lady to enter a tavern. But there she was; nothing he could do. She sat beside him: ‘Today I will drink too. If you won’t listen, there must be something in it—I will drink too.’ Nasruddin could not say, ‘Don’t—alcohol is not good.’ He knew it wasn’t—and that was what she had always said! Too much. So he said, ‘Fine.’ He poured for her into a cup. She sipped and spat it out—bitter, foul. ‘You drink such rotten stuff!’ Nasruddin said, ‘Listen—and you thought we were having fun here?’

It takes training. With practice, the bitter begins to taste sweet. It is all habit.

Nasruddin once told me: ‘I was on a train; a girl sat opposite me. She was a radio announcer.’

‘How do you know? Did you ask her?’

‘No, I did not ask.’

‘Then how did you know?’

‘When I asked her the time, she said, “It is nine fifteen; always lock with a Godrej and sleep in peace.” I understood—radio announcer.’

Habits form.

If you observe closely, what you see, hear, understand, is habit—not truth. And once a habit forms, coming out of its circle is difficult.

Children see the world one way—you all know this; you too were children once. There are children in your homes—their way of seeing is peculiar. The young see differently. The old, differently. If you are old, you will surely remember—if you are not dishonest you will not have forgotten—that when you were a child you saw the world one way; when young, another. The world is the same. Grow old, and a third way appears.

So trust in the senses is poor. According to desire, so is vision. As children, women or men’s beauty did not interest you; wealth did not interest you; you were absorbed in toys—that was your world. You grew up; toys were dropped; beauty, the body, wealth, status became your interests. Old age came; these toys too were dropped. Hence it is hard for the old and young to talk; father and son cannot talk—they speak different languages, their ways of seeing differ. The mother and son—same difficulty. The son cannot understand the father, the father cannot understand the son. How could they? The father looks from a standpoint the son cannot yet reach, and where the son stands, the father once stood and found it false. How can he look that way again?

If you watch carefully, your experience changes daily—and as experience changes, the eyes tell you a different story. When young, bodies appear; in old age, when your own body grows decrepit, you see death in every body—even in the youngest, a shadow of death. In the most beautiful body you see the grave, the pyre’s flames.

A woman took her two children to visit a friend. The friend said of the younger: ‘His eyes are exactly like his mother’s, like you.’ Mother said, ‘And the forehead is his father’s.’ The elder brother said, ‘And the pajama is mine.’ Since everything was being apportioned—eyes like mother, forehead like father—why should he remain silent? ‘The pajama is mine which this little brother is wearing!’ Each viewpoint is right in its own place. He is not yet interested in foreheads or eyes; right now, his pajama is being worn—and that does not feel right!

If daily you keep a little remembrance of this, you will find you can become free of conditioning. Your soul is neither child, nor youth, nor old age—for the Atman has no age. And the Atman has no habit—its nature is pure awareness.

To draw in the senses like a turtle means: shut down the whole net of old habits; then see. If you look through old habits, you will see falsely. What you have practiced, that alone you will see. Vision will not be pure. There will be colored glasses over your eyes; the world will seem tinted.

Restrain all the senses, and place your surati in the breath.

Gradually withdraw your energy from the senses. If not twenty-four hours a day, at least for an hour—be a turtle. I even advise you: sit physically like a turtle—it helps. Spread a mat, sit like a tortoise—limbs drawn in. As the child sits in the mother’s womb—garbhasana—sit exactly so. Feel, ‘I am a turtle,’ draw in all the senses, tuck the head too. If you wish, throw a shawl over you—closed. Now place your surati on the breath. You will taste much rasa, much awareness will awaken. Deep consciousness will arise. Do not expect it all on day one—be patient.

I call this Kurmasana. Create this posture. Because the state you create in the body supports the creation of the inner state. If you sit with the body exactly like a turtle, a shawl overhead makes the turtle’s shell, and you shrink within, eyes closed, watching the breath as it softly moves—do nothing. Breath goes out—watch; breath comes in—watch. Not even saying within, ‘Breath is going out, breath is coming in’—just watch. Sometimes you will miss; sometimes, out of old habit, you will forget. When you remember, no need to cry or panic—‘I am a sinner; my mind wandered.’ When you remember, bring the mind back—without regret. No need to repent. It wandered—so it wandered; accept that too. Then quietly return to your attention. Otherwise, what happens? First the mind wanders, then you begin to repent—and you are lost in repentance. Double trouble. In the beginning it will wander; this is not going to happen quickly. You are moving against the habits of lifetimes—it will take time. Take it as natural. When you notice wandering, gently return attention to the breath—without guilt, without the idea of sin. Nothing has happened—it is natural.

Without the tongue, without the rosary, inner remembrance happens.
It is the Master’s grace, Daya—rare is the one who knows it.

Without the tongue, without the rosary…

Daya says: no need to take a mala in the hand; and no need to move the tongue in uttered words.

Without the tongue, without the rosary, inner remembrance happens.

Just keep awareness within. Do not misunderstand the word ‘remembrance’—you tend to think it means chanting ‘Ram, Ram.’ That would be the tongue’s doing. Here is what Nanak called ajapa-japa.

Without the tongue, without the rosary, inner remembrance happens.

Let remembrance remain—awareness remain. Words bring tangles. When we say, ‘Let remembrance remain,’ the mind asks, ‘Remembrance of what?’ Of oneself—one’s own awareness. If remembrance of another remains, mind continues. Let the simple sense ‘I am’ be there. Let it not be veiled. Let no other word cover it.

It is the Master’s grace, Daya—rare is the one who knows it.

Daya says: in such a state, what is experienced—rare few ever come to it. True. It is very near—within your reach. Extend your hand a little and it is yours. But you have never extended your hand. The treasure is yours; you have never proclaimed your ownership.

It is the Master’s grace, Daya…

One more point: by my doing this could not have happened; by the Master’s prasad it happened—by the Guru’s grace. Keep this in mind. For your doerhood has to be dropped in every way. If you keep the idea ‘I am meditating,’ then the doer has returned—by the back door. You sit in Kurmasana, and a certain stiffness remains within—‘See, I am meditating; let someone see how I am absorbed!’ And when you rise, you look around—‘Did anyone see? Do people know I meditated?’

If even in meditation the doer arises within, you miss—ego returns, mind returns. Hence the disciple says: whatever will happen will be by the Master’s grace; what can I do? By my doing nothing can happen; by my doing only the world came to be. By my doing, the web of sorrow spread. This ray of bliss cannot be by my doing.

So he says: by the Master’s doing—Guru-prasad!

It is the Master’s grace, Daya…

Note: this does not mean it happens only by the Guru’s grace. It is the disciple’s bhava—and it helps him. The Guru’s grace is alike upon all. On whom it has happened and on whom it hasn’t—it is upon both. If it were only grace, it would happen to all equally. The feeling of Guru-kirpa is a device upon the disciple’s path. It prevents the formation of ego; when ego does not arise, obstacles do not arise—then the happening happens. Saying ‘by the Master’s grace’ means only this: not by my doing. Nothing has happened by my doings. By my doing the ‘I’ is manufactured. That ‘I’ is to be dropped, dissolved.

Without that, it is difficult. If you proceed without a Master and something begins to happen, the natural feeling will arise, ‘I did it’—no one else is there—and pride will come. If you work at the Master’s feet, whenever anything happens you remember, ‘His grace’—your ego will not stiffen; it will receive no water and will dry out and dissolve.

Placing surati upon the lotus of the heart, if one enters ajapa,
there arises immaculate knowing, and all stains fall away.

Placing surati upon the lotus of the heart…

First, place surati upon the breath. When surati is established upon the breath—when you watch, in witnessing, the breath going and coming, the mala of breath turning before you—then remove surati even from the breath and settle it in the heart-lotus.

You have seen a lotus? Closed, if you open it you find a tiny empty space at its center. So too the heart-lotus. If you open the heart, there is a void within. As in the lotus, in the rose too, a small emptiness lies at the center; the bee is sometimes trapped there when the lotus closes at night—he had been drinking its rasa all day, unwilling to leave; night comes, the lotus closes, and he remains within that little void. Precisely such a void is in your heart; and in that void you must lock the bee of awareness. First, keep attention on the breath; through breath two perceptions arise—‘I am not the body, and I am not the breath.’ This is a negative knowing: what I am not becomes clear. Now the second task: to know what I am. So far, that I am not the body—that is great; and that I am not even breath—even greater. The negative work is done. Now I must know who I am.

Then take the heart as a lotus—only a symbol to help you understand. Move your entire awareness into the heart where the throb is; where breath touches and sets the heart beating; where the thread of breath is hitched. You have seen the breath; now step behind breath—deeper; slip into the throb of the heart.

See the heart as a lotus. As in the lotus, at the core a small space exists where sometimes the bee is trapped—sit in that empty space. Place your awareness—your surati—there.

Placing surati upon the lotus of the heart, if one enters ajapa…

This is what Nanak called ajapa-japa. Now there is no chanting and no chanter; only then does true chanting happen—ajapa. Now, for the first time, you hear the sound of existence itself. This is Omkar—the Om resounding. It is heard—not done. And this resonance is not entering from outside, for the ears were already dropped when you assumed the turtle posture—far away left behind. This sound is arising within, as it has been arising always, but the outer hubbub veiled it.

As if a veena were playing softly in the house and outside there was uproar—you would not hear the veena. Or someone plays a flute quietly in the market’s clamor—you don’t hear. So it is with the inner sound—the yogis call it anahata-nada, the unstruck sound. It resounds within you even now. It is the music of your heart. It begins to be heard. This is the ajapa-japa. You are not doing it; you are only the witness. You only hear; you only experience.

What a free accusation the pious have taken upon themselves!
Counting beads they have wasted their labor.
This is the Name to be taken beyond counting—
what joy is there in taking Your Name by counting?

Even God’s Name people take by counting—such misers!

I was a guest in a home; they brought out a ledger. ‘What for?’ I asked. ‘Please look—this is no ledger—it is filled with “Ram-ram.” I have written it ten million times by now.’

Such a man is dangerous. If he ever were to meet God—it will not happen, for God too would fear—he would arrive with his ledger. I told him a story: a devotee died one day, and that day his sinful neighbor also died. Angels began to carry the devotee toward hell, and the sinner toward heaven. The devotee was furious: ‘There has been a mistake! Go, check—what goes on in the government offices here must be going on there too! What mess is this? All my life I chanted, morning and night—what did I leave undone? I chanted day and night “Ram-ram.” See my Ram-Name shawl—worn about me! And you drag me to hell! This sinner I never saw take the Name.’

The angels said, ‘No mistake. But if you insist, you may go and complain.’ He went, haughtily: ‘What sort of justice is this? It is injustice! I rose at three every morning—my whole village is witness; I used a loudspeaker! Not in secret alone—my whole village heard. And you send me to hell! This man never sang bhajans; rather, he would come and say, “Let us sleep—don’t create a nuisance at three. If you must do it, do it inside your home—don’t use the mike.” He obstructed! He is being sent to heaven!’

God said, ‘Precisely because he was on my side. You chewed my head day and night! I cannot house you in heaven—if you come, I must go to hell! You will eat my brain. You never let me rest a moment. I too sleep at three in the night—and you created a racket with the mike!’

A man who has written the Name ten million times is dangerous. Even with God, he will keep accounts.

What a free accusation the pious have taken upon themselves!
Counting beads they have wasted their labor.
This is the Name to be taken beyond counting—
what joy is there in taking Your Name by counting?

Truly, this is the Name which, if you ‘take,’ you will miss. Do not take it. When the stream within begins to flow of itself—naturally, day and night the Omkar rises—then, and only then, has the real japa begun. Ajapa is the true japa.

Placing surati upon the lotus of the heart, if one enters ajapa,
there arises immaculate knowing, and all stains fall away.

There arises vimal gyan—stainless knowing. Not from scriptures or punditry; it arises when you slip from the senses, the body, the breath, and enthrone your awareness upon the heart-lotus. There arises pure knowing—call it experience, Samadhi, satori, whatever you wish. There, in that pure knowing, all bonds are cut, all sins fall away.

All stains drop and are lost.

All grime is washed there—hence it is called vimal gyan, immaculate knowing—where all defilements are dissolved.

People ask me, ‘How to wash off the grime of our karma?’ Very hard. You will not be able to. If you try to scrub it, you will only smear it deeper. It is by your doing that the karmic filth gathered. It will not wash by your washing. It will go only when you become a non-doer—akartā. Karmic grime goes when you sink into non-action, akarma. The Paramatma washes; you cannot. Your work was to spoil—done already. Do not spoil in the name of improving.

Please do not try to straighten the web of karmas; you will tangle it further. Sink into awareness. In that shower of awareness all grime flows away. In a single instant you are as pure as you truly are—and which you could never become through lifetimes of effort. Your effort can never be greater than you; your effort carries your signature. Here I do not teach you a doing—only meditation. Bathe in meditation.

Meditation means: stand before the Paramatma as you are—soiled, tattered—as a little child returns from mud and dust, clothes torn, and stands before his mother. Stand so. You will be washed the moment you stand. Rain will fall as you stop.

There arises immaculate knowing, and all stains fall away.

Do not get into calculations—as many do: ‘Karmas were done through many births—how can knowledge arise in a day, in an instant? It will take as many births to wash as it took to accumulate.’ Then you will never be free. Then liberation is impossible. For if it takes so many births to wash, you cannot remain idle in those births—you will act again; karmas will only increase.

No—liberation has nothing to do with your doings; it relates to your surrender. Bow and say to the Divine: ‘If You wish to wash me—wash; if You wish to keep me soiled—keep me; as You will!’ But you can say this only when you reach the heart-lotus. Before that, you cannot. Before that you will speak before temple idols—your own makings, your doings, your karmas. Where will you find God? He abides in the heart-lotus. That empty space is His throne.

Where there is neither time nor flame, no heat nor cold nor heroics.

Daya says: O brother, in that heart-lotus the happening is such—where there is no time, no burning; there is no death, no pain, no time.

No cold and no heat!

There, no cold and no hot. All dualities are silent there. Duality has fallen. The two eyes have become one.

Touching her own abode, Daya found the profound secret.

Seeing that supreme state of oneself, the secret of life was in hand: until now we were troubled in vain—should we abandon the bad, avoid sin, become virtuous, become sadhus, do this, do that—go to this temple or that, follow this scripture or that religion? We wandered fruitlessly.

Touching her own abode, Daya found the profound secret.

The scripture of scriptures, the Ved of Veds—the deepest secret—was found. What is it? That man is bound by his own doing and by doing is not freed. Become a non-doer, become the witness—and you are free, here and now.

Beholding the Beloved’s incomparable form, light of a million suns!

When in that heart-lotus void the form of the Beloved was seen—

Beholding the Beloved’s incomparable form—

the peerless form of the Beloved.

—light of a million suns!

As if thousands upon thousands of suns rose at once.

All sorrow vanished, Daya; the very essence of bliss stood revealed.

All sorrow ended and the key to bliss was revealed—the key that bliss is our nature. We kept begging from others; hence we remained poor. We became beggars; therefore beggars we remained. Being emperor was our nature. We never looked within; hence we wandered astray.

All sorrow vanished, Daya; the very essence of bliss stood revealed.

There, the light of endless suns; a wondrous radiance appears.
Dazzling to the eyes; yet the mind grows cool.

There—the light of endless suns—so many suns rise at once! Lifetimes there was only darkness, darkness. A thousand lamps we lit—each went out. A thousand lamps we trusted—none served. Many we called our own—all proved others. All boats turned out to be of paper.

There—the light of endless suns—

and now suddenly the radiance of endless suns.

—a wondrous radiance appears.

What is wondrous in this light?

Dazzling to the eyes; yet the mind grows cool.

It is wondrous: it is flame and yet cool. The eyes are bedazzled by so much light, and the mind becomes cool—cool fire; hence wondrous. The Paramatma is a cool fire.

The Jews hold the sweetest tale of this. When Moses beheld God upon Sinai, he could not understand what was happening. God appeared as a flame in a green bush; the bush did not burn—and the flame rose skyward. The bush remained green; leaves did not wilt; flowers did not dry; nothing burned. Moses could not fathom it: fire—and cool! Where has cool fire been seen?

The Jews, however, have no inner grasp of this tale. It happened in Moses’ life, but they did not inquire into its meaning. Sinai is nowhere else; it is the name of the highest peak of human consciousness. That is why all religions have placed their holy places upon high mountains—symbols for the heights of the soul. On the lofty Himalayas are Badrinath and Kedarnath; Kailash is conceived as Shiva’s abode—the home of God on Kailash. These are symbols; they point to the heights of your own consciousness. When your awareness reaches its supreme height—its Everest—that is Kailash, and there Shiva abides. You will not find it on the external Himalayas; it is within. Sinai too is the inner mountain. And the bush Moses speaks of—that bush is you. The fire of God will rise within you, and you will be astonished—‘There—the light of endless suns’—as if thousands of suns had entered within.

—a wondrous radiance appears.

Dazzling to the eyes; yet the mind grows cool.

And the marvel is: while the eyes blink at so much light, the mind cools, becomes serene.

Without the lightning, still vast radiance—

More wonder: no lightning shimmers anywhere, yet the radiance is immense. No sun is seen anywhere, yet it seems a thousand suns have risen.

Without the lightning, still vast radiance—

No source is seen, yet light abounds. Light without a source. First wonder: the light is cool. Second: there is no source. Whatever has a source is exhaustible. This light is inexhaustible. You fill a lamp with oil; it burns—but the oil will finish and the light will die. If it takes a night for the oil to run out, it will burn the night; if a month, then a month.

Scientists say the sun has been burning for millions of years, but it will not burn forever—four or five billion years more. Daily it cools; its light is being spent; its oil is running out; its energy is thinning. The sun too will one day be spent, go cold.

The Paramatma is the only light that never exhausts—eternal. Because there is no source, no fuel upon which it depends—uncaused.

Without lightning, vast radiance; without clouds, soft showers fall.

Daya says: it is happening—no clouds are seen, and showers descend. From where is this rain of delight falling? No clouds are seen! No lightning flashes, yet there is great light.

A highly symbolic utterance.

My little mind was thrilled there, Daya—only beholding and beholding.

Daya says: now I am enraptured! The mind has begun to dance. Only beholding and beholding—this that is seen within, this that is experienced, this realization and witnessing—that alone is enough to behold forever. Its joy never ends; its rasa never exhausts.

Without lightning, vast radiance; without clouds, soft showers fall.
My little mind was thrilled there, Daya—only beholding and beholding.

The world is a flux—illusory; the body a well of delusion.
You are consciousness itself—astonishing bliss-form.

The world is a flux—illusory…

In this world, whatever is seen is changeful, momentary—now here, now gone—like a dewdrop.

The world is a flux—illusory…

It is like a mirage to the thirsty in the desert—because of his thirst he sees water. There is no water, yet thirst projects it. So intense is the longing that one assumes there must be water. When you are very thirsty, you accept assumptions as facts. Your innermost craving takes form on the outer screen. Daya says: the world is illusory—everything here changes; nothing can be grasped. And what you see are your dreams; in truth they have no existence—like a mirage. ‘The body a well of delusion’: within this well of flesh, the water you see is only your assumption. There is no water in it that will quench you. In this body there is no water that will still your thirst.

In the life of Jesus it is told: they came to a well, weary from the road; a woman was drawing water—perhaps of a low caste. Jesus asked, ‘I am thirsty; give me water.’ She said, ‘Forgive me; you seem of a noble family. I am untouchable, poor—no one drinks my water. Wait; someone else will come—take water from him.’ Jesus said, ‘Do not worry. If you give me water, remember—I can give you a water that, if you drink it, your thirst will be quenched forever. The water you give will still my thirst for a little while; this thirst cannot be stilled forever. But I too have a water. If I give it to you, the inner thirst is quenched.’

The world is a flux—illusory; the body a well of delusion.
You are consciousness itself—astonishing bliss-form.

Daya says: and you are of the nature of consciousness—astonishing bliss-form! Chaitanya is your nature; the Paramatma is your nature—astonishing bliss-form! Raso vai sah. Satchidananda!

But go within—and you will know. There is only one pilgrimage worth undertaking, only one temple worth entering, only one peak worth touching, only one depth worth reaching—you yourself.

The Upanishads say: Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu—Shvetaketu, That Thou Art.

But I understand your difficulty—everyone’s difficulty: until it is experienced, these words seem far away. The only sure experience we have is of sorrow, pain, hell. The language of heaven we have forgotten; the knack of celebration is lost.

And in the name of religion, what runs in the world is pure hypocrisy—a net of pundits and priests. In the world, nothing is found; and temples have fallen into hypocritical hands. Neither is anything found in the world nor in the temples—a great crucifixion for man.

I am not here to point you to any outer temple—outer temples do not serve. Nor to any outer scripture—outer scriptures do not help. Here there is only one thing to do: dig within. Only one thing to learn: learn yourself. Clear the rubbish and go in. Obstacles will come; habits of lifetimes will stand in the way—but all can be broken, for all are contrary to your nature. What is according to nature, though hard, is not impossible to attain. What is against nature, though hard, is not impossible to break. If you truly wish, you will reach—because the holy place is not far; it is nearer than the nearest—abides in your heart.

Placing surati upon the lotus of the heart, if one enters ajapa,
there arises immaculate knowing, and all stains fall away.

Let me repeat three points, so you remember. First: learn to be a turtle. There is great alchemy in becoming a turtle. For at least one hour each day, become a turtle. In becoming turtle-like, you will find the descent of the Divine begins within you. That is the meaning of God’s Kurma-avatar.

Second: become a turtle and place all your surati, all your awareness, on the breath. Then, slowly, gently, you will begin to experience: you are not the body; you are not the breath. And remember, do not repeat this by yourself—‘I am not the body, I am not the breath’—else you will create a false conviction. Wait; let it happen. There is no hurry.

The danger is that we are parrots of repetition. You will sit turtle-like, attend to the breath for half an hour—and begin to repeat, ‘I am not the body, I am not the breath.’ You will falsify the whole thing. Do not repeat. Simply sit. Let it happen; let it come into experience. The day it dawns—doors will open. The day it is experienced—‘I am not the body, I am not the breath’—that day enthrone your awareness in the void of the heart-lotus. That day think, ‘I am a lotus; in the center, I seat my surati as a bee.’ Then everything happens by itself.

Beholding the Beloved’s incomparable form, light of a million suns!
All sorrow vanished, Daya; the very essence of bliss stood revealed.

Without the lightning, vast radiance; without clouds, soft showers fall.
My little mind was thrilled there, Daya—only beholding, beholding.

Enough for today.