Jeevan Darshan #2

It is an important question. Many people wonder, what is the need to attain truth? The question arises because they do not yet know that truth and bliss are not two different things. Only when truth is realized does bliss become available in life. Only when the divine is realized does bliss become available. Bliss, the divine, and truth are different ways of pointing to the same reality.

So don’t think, What need is there for truth? Rather ask, What need is there for bliss?

Even the friend who asks the question knows there is a need for bliss; he sees it in music and cinema. But one more thing must be understood: forgetting sorrow is not bliss. Music, cinema, and similar arrangements only make you forget sorrow; they do not give bliss. Alcohol makes you forget sorrow, music does, cinema does, sex does. Forgetting sorrow is one thing; attaining bliss is quite another.

A man is poor; if he forgets his poverty, that is one thing. If he becomes rich, that is entirely different. Forgetting sorrow produces a sense of pleasure. That is why pleasure and bliss are different. Pleasure is merely the forgetfulness of pain. Bliss is the attainment of something, a remembrance of something real. Bliss is positive; pleasure is negative.

A man is unhappy; there are two ways to move away from this unhappiness. One is to forget it so completely that he no longer remembers it—he goes and listens to music, becomes so absorbed that his mind doesn’t go toward his sorrow. For that time, he forgets. But this does not dissolve sorrow. As soon as the mind returns from the music, sorrow will stand before him with full force. In fact, while he was lost in the music, the sorrow within was continuing to flow and grow. The moment his mind moves away from the music, the sorrow will confront him with doubled momentum. Then he will again need to forget. So there is alcohol, and there are other ways by which we make our minds unconscious. This unconsciousness is not bliss.

The truth is: the more a person suffers, the more he seeks ways to forget himself. Escape is born from suffering. The urge to run away, to drown somewhere, to go numb, arises from sorrow.

Have you ever seen anyone run away from pleasure? People run from suffering. If you say, “When I sit in the cinema I feel great pleasure,” then what do you feel when you are not in the cinema? Certainly, suffering. And how will sitting in the cinema remove suffering? The stream of sorrow keeps flowing within. The more miserable you are, the more pleasure the cinema will seem to give. One who is truly blissful may not find any pleasure there at all.

This idea—that we might spend our whole life in stupor, in forgetfulness—if that is right, then why bother with cinema at all? Let a man sleep his whole life. If lifelong sleep is difficult, why live at all? Let a man die and sleep in the grave; all sorrows will be forgotten. From this very tendency, the urge toward suicide is born. The same person who drinks, watches films, drowns in music—if he pushes his logic to its final conclusion, he will say, “Why live? Living brings suffering; I will die.” And then there is no need to return. These are suicidal tendencies. Whenever we want to forget life, we become self-destructive.

Life’s bliss is not in forgetting it, but in knowing it in its fullness.

There was a great musician, with unusual conditions for performing. He came to play in a royal palace and said, “I will play my veena on one condition: while I play, not a single head among the listeners should move. If any head nods, I will stop playing.” The king, being his kind of man, replied, “No need for you to stop. We will have that head removed. Do not stop your veena. My men will stand ready; the head that nods will be cut off.”

By evening, the whole city was informed: if anyone’s head moved during the concert, it would be severed. Thousands were eager to come that night—millions are eager, because everyone suffers. A great musician had come; there was a chance to forget sorrow—who would want to miss it? But no one was ready to pursue pleasure at the price of losing his head.

A head might move by mistake. It might move not for the music at all—a fly could land and one might jerk. But the king was mad; no explanation would be heard. A moving head would be enough. So people did not come. Still, two or three hundred did—those who wanted pleasure at the price of life itself.

The veena began. For an hour they sat like statues, hardly breathing, terrified. Soldiers stood around with naked swords; any head could be severed in a moment. The doors were shut so no one could flee. An hour passed, then two; it was near midnight, and even the king and his soldiers were astonished when ten, fifteen heads slowly began to nod. The number grew. By dawn, forty or fifty heads had moved. Those fifty were seized and brought forward. The king asked the musician, “Shall we have their heads cut off?”

The musician said, “No. I made this condition for many reasons. These are the very people truly qualified to hear my music. Tomorrow only they may come.”

The king said to them, “Even if that is the musician’s meaning, you did not know it. Fools, why did you nod your heads?”

They replied, “As long as we were present, our heads did not move. But when we became absent—unconscious—then we know nothing. We did not move our heads; the heads must have moved. While we had understanding, while we were aware, we held our heads steady. Then a moment must have come when we became unconscious; after that we know nothing. You may cut off our heads if you wish, but we are not at fault—we were not present. In our own awareness, we did not move.”

Can such unconsciousness be produced by music? Certainly. There are many pathways to unconsciousness in human life. As many senses as we have, so many paths to become unconscious. Each sense has its own route to stupor. Through the ear—by sound—unconsciousness can be induced, and it will spread through the whole psyche. If sounds are thrown upon the ear in such a way that the ear’s awareness loosens, the ear will become numb, and along with it the entire mind. Because when you listen, the whole mind gathers at the ear. Numb the ear and you numb the mind. The eyes can numb you; in the presence of beauty the eyes can go into a trance, and the mind behind them will follow. There are as many roads to numb the mind as there are senses.

And if we become unconscious in this way, then upon returning to awareness we feel, “How good it was!”—because in the meantime there was no sign of sorrow: no worry, no anxiety; no pain, no distress; no problem. There wasn’t—because you weren’t. If you had been, then all these would have been. You were absent; therefore no worry, no sorrow, no problem. It is not that sorrow had ceased; rather, the awareness by which sorrow is known was absent, so you had no report of it. Those who take this for pleasure fall into delusion. Their lives pass in unconsciousness, and they remain forever strangers to bliss.

So you ask: “What need is there to seek truth?”

The need to seek truth is that without it no one has ever attained bliss, nor can anyone. If someone were to ask, “What need is there to seek bliss?” that would be difficult. In ten thousand years humanity has asked many questions, but no one has asked this one—because to ask it would mean we are satisfied with suffering. No one is. If you were satisfied with suffering, why go to the cinema, why listen to music? That too is a search for bliss—but in the wrong direction.

By forgetting sorrow one does not attain bliss. Yes, if bliss is attained, sorrow certainly dissolves.

By forgetting darkness one does not get light. If this room is full of darkness and I sit with closed eyes and forget the darkness, the room remains dark. But if I light a lamp, the darkness vanishes. Forgetting sorrow does not bring bliss; attaining bliss makes sorrow vanish.

So I don’t think you will ask, What need is there to seek bliss? You can ask only because you imagine truth and bliss to be two different things. No—truth, bliss, the divine are not different. They are different names for one experience. When one attains it, call it bliss if you wish, call it truth if you wish. One thing is certain: as we are, we are not fulfilled. Therefore there is a need to seek. One who is fulfilled has no need to search. We are not content with what we are, nor with where we are. There is a restlessness inside, a pain that keeps saying something is wrong, something is off. That very restlessness says, Seek. Call it truth or call it something else.

Even in music and in alcohol the search is for that—only in a mistaken direction. When one turns that search toward the soul, it begins in the right, the appropriate direction. No one has ever attained bliss by forgetting sorrow, but by knowing the soul one certainly attains bliss.

Those who have caught even a glimpse of that truth undergo a total revolution. Their whole life becomes a rain of bliss, of benediction. Then they no longer go out to forget themselves in music, because a music begins to play on the veena of their own heart. Then their eyes stop wandering outward in search of pleasure, because a spring bursts forth within.

He who is unhappy within looks for happiness outside.
And if one is unhappy within, how will he find happiness? But one who becomes full of bliss within ceases to seek happiness outside, because that which he sought is now found within.

A beggar died in a great city. For thirty years he had sat in one place begging, pleading for every single coin. After he died, the municipal workers dragged his body to the cremation ground. They burned his rags. The neighbors said, “For thirty years this beggar has defiled this spot. Let us dig and replace the soil.” And they were astonished: when they changed the soil, just beneath where the beggar had sat they found a buried treasure. For thirty years he had sat on that treasure, begging for pennies, and knew nothing of what lay beneath.

This is not one beggar’s story; it is everyone’s story. Each of us sits where we are, begging for small pleasures, hands outstretched—while just beneath, on that very spot, vast treasures of bliss lie buried. If you have no wish to dig, no one can force you. Beg on.

If I had gone to that beggar and said, “Friend, search for the buried treasure,” and he replied, “What need is there to search? I get plenty of enjoyment. I beg, I have my fun. Why should I spend my life digging for treasure? I will live like this,” what could I say? I would say, “Fine—beg.”

But if a man is begging and claims he has no need of treasure, he is mad. Otherwise, why is he begging? One who seeks pleasure in cinema and music and says, “What need is there to seek bliss?” is mad. Otherwise, for what are you begging there? What are you seeking?

There is no more to be said on this. I trust my meaning has reached you.

We are beggars. And when someone brings news of a treasure, we do not believe it—because we have begged for pennies so long. The begging mind cannot believe in treasure. Even if it is given treasure, it thinks, “Am I dreaming?” It cannot believe that a beggar like me could find a treasure. To hide this fact from himself, he begins to say, “What need is there to seek treasure? I am content in my begging. Why get disturbed? Life is short—why waste it searching for bliss?” Then what else will you do with life? If life is “wasted” in the search for bliss, in what search will your earnings be spent?

Ordinarily, the very word “renunciation” makes us think we must give something up. To drop something is renunciation—that is the echo in the word, the meaning that seems to be hidden there. But let me tell you: on this earth no one is ever ready to give up anything unless, behind that giving up, something has already been found.

If a man’s hands are full of pebbles and we open a pouch and place diamonds before him, he will drop the pebbles. He must empty his hands in order to hold the diamonds. When the diamonds are about to come into his hands, the pebbles are dropped. The world will say—those still clutching their pebbles—“What a great renunciate he is! He has given up what we are still gathering.” But those who have found the diamonds will say, “How intelligent he is! It’s common sense—what ‘renunciation’ is there in it? Diamonds came before him, so he let go of stones.”

People say Mahavira left wealth, family, palaces, kingdom. People say Buddha left riches and empire. But I say to you: before they left anything, an immense glimpse of attainment had filled their life-breath. Attainment happened first; the leaving came afterward.

We can leave only when the higher begins to be glimpsed—only then. Otherwise, no one ever leaves.

So from a very high, outer view, renunciation looks like leaving; from a deep, inner view, it is gaining. Gaining is the real thing there. But we all see only the leaving—because what is left is gross and visible, while what is gained is subtle and invisible. So we think Mahavira is leaving wealth, leaving his wife. But that Mahavira is attaining the divine is nowhere visible to us. We are people who look at wives, measure houses, keep accounts of money. What we can tally is what we see: “Oh! What a great renunciation Mahavira is making!” And all he is doing is what everyone does every day—throwing out the garbage from the house.

But if there happens to be a madman who loves garbage, he will be shocked on the street to see someone tossing his refuse outside: “Oh! What a tremendous renunciation he has made!” If he is even madder, he will build a statue of that man and a temple around it and begin worshipping him as a great renunciate.

Whenever we see someone drop something we ourselves are clinging to, we are astonished. For our inner yardstick is always ourselves. We measure others by our own cravings. If someone leaves the money for which we are mad, we are amazed. Meanwhile, what has been attained within that person is not visible to us at all—it is very subtle, and we lack the eyes to see it.

Hence those who have attained the most have always appeared to us as those who have renounced the most. We have seen only half of their reality. We saw the renunciation, not the attainment. And the result has been that the world has fallen into a strange fix and society into a deep difficulty. Those who saw only the renunciation, not the inner attainment, began to imitate: they too set out to renounce. They gave up the outer while having no clue about the inner. Like Trishanku, they were left hanging in midair: what was, they left; what was to be found, they had no knowledge of. Then if their hearts fill with utter anguish, it is no wonder.

Our so-called sadhus and sannyasins are filled with just such anguish. No peace is seen in their eyes, no music in their life-breath; rather, their whole life turns to anger. Anger—because the pain of what was left remains inside, and the absence of what was not obtained also remains inside. They have become deprived on every side. Then if they are filled with rage, is it surprising?

The anger of the monks is of this very kind; it is not accidental. I have even heard that in one of the southern languages the very word for “muni” means “angry one.” So much anger have the “munis” displayed that in that language muni came to mean wrathful.

Anger will arise naturally where life has failed—become full of lack, with nothing left in one’s hands. The pebbles too have been dropped, and the diamonds have not arrived—the fist is empty. The world is gone, and truth has not been found. Then what will happen if the life-breath does not fill with anger? Such fury, such burning and such fire will be born that everything will be scorched—the whole of life.

That is why, even among ordinary people, you sometimes see eyes that smile and faces with a hint of blossoms, but among ascetics you do not—absolutely not, never.

And yet Mahavira was filled with supreme bliss; Buddha was filled with supreme bliss. There must be a difference. We have misunderstood renunciation. We have seen only the incomplete part—the part of leaving—and we have no inkling of the direction of gaining.

Therefore I say to you: understand renunciation as attainment; leaving is only a by-product—it happens by itself. Do not get busy trying to leave; otherwise, life will become a void, a desert. Strive to gain—let something vast descend into life, let light descend. Let life attain something deeper. One who walks in that direction attains; and on the day of attainment, much does indeed fall away. But that falling away is not pain—it comes as a weightlessness, as if a burden has been taken off. As when ripe leaves fall from a tree, the tree feels no pain; but if unripe leaves are torn away, wounds and hurt remain.

The mind that has gained nothing toward the soul and begins to abandon on the side of matter is tearing green leaves from the tree of life. Wounds will follow, sorrow will arise. And he will take revenge on everyone for that sorrow. Hence sadhus and sannyasins appear to be abusive toward the world—filled with anger—eager to send everyone to hell. Having arranged their own passage to heaven, they relish consigning all “sinners” to hell.

This is anger within: a desire to avenge the wounds carved upon their life-breath. Otherwise, could any sadhu deem someone a sinner? Could any sadhu devise schemes to send people to hell? Could any sadhu write scriptures imagining the torments of hell, with people burned and writhing like worms? What savor could a saintly mind find in such things? A saintly heart would be filled with the aspiration to take everyone to heaven. No plan of hell could arise in such a heart. Then who invented all the torments of hell?

Those very people whose hands became empty of the world. Hence they are filled with anger toward those whose hands are still full. How to take revenge? By calling them sinners, condemning them, sending them to hell. If revenge cannot be had in this life, they plan to have it in the next. But when a ray of joy has descended into someone’s heart, that heart overflows with goodwill for all. In that heart there remains no possibility of seeing anyone as bad.

It is because our idea of renunciation has been based solely on leaving that all this has arisen. And the communities that took renunciation to mean giving up became pitiable, impoverished. A sadness filled them; they lost all savor for life. We ourselves are one such unfortunate people, from whom all joy and elation have been snatched away.

So I do not say: leave the world. I say: realize the divine. And in that realization the useless will drop of itself; you will not have to leave it. Whatever has to be forcibly left is painful; whatever falls away is joyous.

Let me tell a small story—perhaps my point will become clear. It is very dear to me—very old, very meaningful.

A husband is returning from the forest; his wife walks behind him. They are woodcutters. They have been hungry for five or seven days. Their rule is to cut wood and sell it, and from whatever they get, they eat. But for five or seven days the rain fell and they could not go to the forest—they had to fast. The husband, tired, broken, carries a bundle of wood on his head; the wife drags along behind, also carrying a load. The husband sees a purse full of gold coins lying on the footpath by the roadside; some coins have spilled out. The thought flashes: “I have conquered gold—I have renounced it—but who knows about my wife? She has been hungry for seven days—greed may arise. Even if she does not pick them up, the very thought would be a needless sin.” So he pushes the coins into a nearby hole and covers them with earth.

Before he can rise or wipe the dirt from his hands, the wife comes up and asks, “What are you doing? What are you up to?”

He had a rule never to lie, so he had to speak the truth. He said, “I saw some gold coins here. I thought: I have renounced gold—but lest greed arise in your mind, I covered them with earth so you wouldn’t see them.”

The wife laughed and said, “What are you like! Does gold still appear to you? What are you like, that you feel no shame piling dirt upon dirt?”

There are two people here. The first is a renunciate; he has renounced gold. And because he has renounced, gold will continue to appear to him—indeed, even more so, because he has wrenched it from himself by force. If some pleasure-seeker had passed that way, perhaps the coins would not even have caught his eye. But the one who has “left” gold and has built walls around his mind in opposition to it—gold will be glaringly visible to him.

Everywhere in the world, ascetics vehemently oppose “obscene” pictures. You walk down the street and do not even notice the erotic posters on the walls; they see them instantly. Whatever the mind has forcibly given up pulls all the more strongly: “Look at me!”

An American friend of mine once came to see Khajuraho. In those days the state had an education minister who was also my friend. He took that American youngster—a painter—to show him the temples and sculptures of Khajuraho. But the minister was frightened the whole time: “There are nude, erotic sculptures—what will this American youth think? Will he say how filthy Indian culture is, about which we make such lofty claims, and these are the temples we build! And we condemn our films and pictures, which are nothing compared to these. What will he think?” So the minister worried inwardly all along.

After showing all the temples and sculptures, on the way back he apologized: “Forgive us. This is not the main current of our culture, only peripheral influences. This is not the central conception of our land, that all our temples be like this. In every country some wrong people arise—perhaps they built these for their own indulgence. These obscene sculptures are not our symbols, not our representatives.”

The American youth said, “What did you say—obscene? Then I must go back and look again. I saw no obscenity at all. I have never seen sculptures so beautiful, so majestic.” He went back again: “Let me look once more—you have said something new; my attention had not gone there.”

But the minister’s mind? Frightened, apologetic—he must have been disturbed the entire time.

This is the mind of our renunciate, our moralist—who gives things up by force. Then he begins to see only those very things, and everything else disappears from view. In those sculptures he perceived neither beauty nor art; he did not see their proportions, nor the labor invested in them, nor the emotions expressed there. He saw only sexuality and obscenity.

But that painter was stunned—he went mad with wonder, he became ecstatic. Each sculpture was unique—so full of beauty, of feeling, of meaning—that who had the leisure to see “sexuality,” to see “obscenity”? He said, “Let me go again. You have said something new—I had not noticed it. I will go and look once more.”

Take a sadhu to that very temple and he will close his eyes. What will he see there that frightens him? Only what he has hidden within—nothing else.

That husband was a renunciate—therefore gold appeared to him. The wife’s life had attained a maturity, a ripeness. She had known some vast truth, the gold beyond gold. In its presence, gold had become dust. Then there remains no question of seeing gold, nor of leaving it. She said, “How are you, madman! Do you feel no shame piling dust upon dust?”

There are greater and deeper values in life before which gold turns into dust. And when it becomes dust, there is no question of leaving it—it simply falls away. Who renounces dust? It drops by itself. Who carries it? No one. As long as it remains “gold,” only then does the question of leaving arise.

Therefore, in my view renunciation is not giving up; it is gaining. Leaving happens as a consequence. But it is secondary and not worth excessive consideration. Our overemphasis on leaving has distorted our whole understanding of renunciation. Our entire religion has become nothing but “give up, give up.” And where it is only giving up, all of life becomes empty—empty!

This outlook of leaving has rendered our lives barren and hollow. Religion appears like a desert, not like a garden in bloom. There is no thrill of joy in it, no savor of beauty, no strings of the inner veena sounding. Everything is to be broken, everything to be abandoned.

No—the outlook of leaving is mistaken, deluded. One has to gain—gain it all. One has to realize the deepest of the deep that life contains.

Certainly, the deeper one realizes, the more the outer is left behind. One who must climb a mountain has to lighten his load. The higher the peak to be climbed, the more burden must be left. The man who reached Everest had nothing with him at that moment—he had to drop everything. On level ground you can carry loads; going downhill, you can carry even more. But when the ascent begins, the burden keeps lessening. You do not have to make it happen—the summit itself begins to call, and the load begins to fall. The peaks beckon, and the burden slips away. The two cannot go together.

One who has accepted the invitation of the summit must let go of attachment to baggage. Nothing breaks in this—there is no pain. Each burden set down makes the feet lighter and stronger, capable of rising. On one side the load lessens; on the other, the capacity to fly appears. As the burden drops, the steps begin to reach new mountains.

So for one who longs to climb the mountain of the divine, the dark valleys fall away of themselves. One who sets out toward the sun, the paths of darkness drop away on their own. One who wishes to move toward truth, untruth falls from him like dry leaves from trees.

But whoever engages in the reverse process—going to no mountain, living on the plain and yet throwing away his loads—he begins to tear off green leaves. So much pain and sorrow arise that his life becomes a hell. And then he takes revenge on everyone for it. He will. He will vent his rage and retribution upon all.

Know renunciation as true when within it a flame of joy is burning. Know it as false when the fire of anger burns around it. Know renunciation as real when from within it the notes of some infinite music are heard. Know it as unreal when all around it you find speech heated by rage.

I believe my point has become clear.

I will discuss one more and final question. A few more will remain; I will speak to you about them tomorrow morning and the morning after.

I am certainly opposed to all religions, because I am in favor of Religion. To be for Religion, one has to be against religions. Religion is one. Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—these cannot be “religions.” Wherever there is multiplicity, there cannot be Religion. I am against religions because I am for Religion.

Religion is the science of the consciousness within life. The science of matter is one. Do Hindus have one chemistry and Muslims another? Is physics in India different from physics in England? Is mathematics Indian here and Chinese there? No. The laws of nature are one; they do not discriminate between Chinese and Indians, between Pakistanis and Hindustanis. Nature’s language is one; it does not distinguish between Hindi, English, and Urdu.

If the laws of nature and matter are one, can the laws of the divine be many? Can the laws of the soul be many? Those laws too are one; they are universal. We have not yet discovered them because our excessive attachment to religions has not allowed Religion to be born. One is Hindu, one Jain, one Muslim, one Christian—and all are so tightly bound to some sect, some path, some scripture, some word, that they are no longer able to see the universal truth. Because universal truth might, here and there, show their scriptures to be mistaken. They are so much on the side of their scriptures that they cannot be on the side of truth. Thus the world’s sects have not allowed a universal Religion to arise in the world.

I am against denominationalism, against sectarianism. I am not against Religion. No one can be against Religion, because what is one cannot be opposed—opposition would make it two. No one can be against truth; one can be against doctrines. No one can be against truth; one can be against scriptures. I am speaking to you of that truth, that Religion, which is one and can only be one. Therefore the mind that is fettered to the many must be set free.

And who told you that I am against great masters? Who told you? Who told you that I am opposed to great ones?

No; but I am certainly opposed to one thing. So long as we keep manufacturing “great men,” small men will also continue to be produced—they cannot cease. When we call one person great, we implicitly call everyone else petty and low. We fail to see that in honoring one, the insult of all others is hidden. When we make one person worthy of worship, then all the rest… When we install one in a temple, then all the rest…

These greatnesses stand upon littlenesses. If we wish to eradicate pettiness from the world, remember, we will also have to bid farewell to these greatnesses; otherwise both will continue to survive together. I am not on the side of great men, but on the side of the greatness within man. And in every human being the great is hidden—manifest in some, unmanifest in others. But even when it is unmanifest, there is no reason to call that person low.

Buddha told a story of one of his past lives—he told many. He said that in one life he heard that a very great awakened one, a man named Dipankara Buddha, was coming to the city. I went to him. I touched Dipankara’s feet. And before I could even stand up, I was filled with astonishment—I could not understand what had happened—before I could stand, Dipankara bent down and touched my feet! Buddha said: I was bewildered. I said to him, “It is all right that I touch your feet; but you touch mine? That makes no sense.”

Dipankara said, “You see that I am awakened and you are ignorant. But from the day I became enlightened, I have not seen a single ignorant person. In you I see the same flame burning that burns in me. I am bowing to that. You are not what I see; I see that flame. A day will come when you, too, will not see ‘yourself’—you will see only that flame. But essentially there is no difference.”

A tree stands, and beside it lies a small seed. Is there any difference between the seed and the tree? Is the tree great and the seed petty? Who says so? And if the seed is petty, how will the tree ever become great? It will be born of this very seed, grow, and become great—born of the petty and become great?

No. If the seed is petty, the tree can never be great. And if the tree is great, then the seed already carries all that greatness within it. The only difference is in expression, not in greatness.

So there are no small and big people in the world—there are seeds and trees. But is being a seed something bad? And if the seed were bad, then the tree could not be good either.

Therefore I am against such categories, such classifications as “this person is great and that person is small and petty.” The only difference is this: one is a tree, one is a seed. The seed is filled with full dignity. If not today, tomorrow the tree will be born.

We do not need a class division of great men and small men in society. We have not only divided property; we have divided God as well. We have not only created rich and poor; we have created small and big people.

No one is great, because no one is small. Until we carry this truth into every breath, a few great men will keep appearing here and there, but great humanity will not be born. The question is not of a few exceptional great men. If an entire town is filled with filth and a single flower blooms in it, what will you do with that flower? What difference does it make?

So far this is what has happened. Society has produced great men, but great humanity has not yet come into being. And as long as we keep offering reverence and devotion to a few great men, and do not honor the great element hidden within all humanity, a different kind of humanity cannot be born.

I do not want anyone to worship anyone. Because I can see that the one you worship sits within you. This is not disrespect to any great one; it is an affirmation of the greatness hidden within all. In this there is no insult or disrespect to anyone.

Mahavira and Buddha would not be distressed that you too become Mahavira and Buddha; they would rejoice, they would be delighted. This is what they strove for all their lives, running from village to village, city to city—that what has awakened in them should awaken in you. And what are you doing? You worship them. You say, “You are great; we are petty. We are nothing; you are everything. We are fit only to remain at your feet.”

These are our strategies—ways to avoid awakening the greatness asleep within us.

So we seize upon a great man, worship him, and feel finished. And we forget that when a great man is born among us, he does not come to be worshiped by us. Every great master comes, in a sense, to kindle in us inspiration, recognition, and aspiration—that what has flowered in him can flower in us too.

Why would I be against any great man? I am not even against any “small” man. But the way of thinking is wrong. We need a world where what is best in each person can develop. We do not need a world where one or two superior persons are born and everyone else only worships, prays, sings their praises, calls them great and calls them God. We do not need such a world. We have lived in such a world for ten thousand years, and it has done no good. Now we must give honor and respect to that which is hidden within everyone, so that it may grow.

Many questions remain; I will take them up tomorrow morning, or the day after.

I am deeply obliged for your loving and peaceful listening. I bow to the divinity hidden within all. Please accept my salutations.