Jeevan Darshan #6

A very right question. It is necessary to ask and to understand this. But it stands on a misunderstanding. When did I ever say that books are useless? I have said that scriptures are useless.
There is a difference between a book and a scripture.
We call that book a scripture which is not to be thought over but to be believed. Faith and belief are blind. And because of the blindness of belief, books become scriptures, they become authoritative pronouncements, they become Authority. Then they are no longer to be reflected upon, only accepted. No thinking, no discrimination—only blind imitation.
I am in favor of books; I am not in favor of scriptures.
Scriptures make a person blind; a scripture comes with an authority attached. Whatever is said there is deemed right. There is no scope for reflection and contemplation. There is no room for change. And if anything goes against it, that is necessarily wrong.
A Muslim caliph once went to Alexandria. In Alexandria there was the world’s largest library—hundreds of thousands of handwritten texts gathered there. It is said that the destruction of that collection deprived us of the entire knowledge of the ancient world; we were left bereft of it. That library was set on fire by that Muslim caliph. It was so vast that the fire could not be put out for six months.
Why did he set it on fire? What reasoning did he give?
He went there holding a torch in one hand and the Quran in the other. He said to the chief scholar of that library: “These hundreds of thousands of volumes in your library—do they contain only what is written in the Quran? If they contain the same, they are unnecessary; the Quran is enough. And if they contain things that are not in the Quran, then they are absolutely unnecessary—because whatever is not in the Quran is not true. In either case I will burn this library.”
And he set it ablaze. It burned for six months. A great treasure of the world was destroyed by that man.
For him the Quran was not a book; it was a scripture. The scripture proved dangerous. Had the Quran remained just a book, it would have found its place among that great collection of books. But it was not a book.
The Bible says the world was created four thousand years before Jesus. When scientists investigated, they found the earth to be billions of years old. Those who said the earth is billions of years old were opposed by the Christian world. “This can never be,” they said. “What is in our scripture cannot be wrong.” Scientists were killed, punished, burned. They were forced to write apologies: “What we wrote is wrong. Our research is wrong. Our science is wrong. Our scripture can never be wrong. These are authoritative words—God’s words.”
If the Bible is a book, it is welcome. But if the Bible is a scripture, no thoughtful person can welcome it. Because the authoritativeness of scripture becomes an obstacle to the mental growth of human beings.
I am against scriptures, not against books.
So, the books of mine you see—none of them are scriptures. They can be wrong. They will have many mistakes. They make no claim to be the final proof of truth. They are not given to you to be believed; they are given to you to be considered. Think for yourself, and if you find rubbish, throw them away. There is no need to keep them in your house for even a moment. And if something seems right to you through your own thought and reflection, it has become yours. It has nothing to do with me then; it is the fruit of your own inquiry. So these books are not scriptures. There is no insistence that they be accepted.
The insistence of scripture is dangerous. The insistence of scripture is: “I alone am the truth—and whatever differs from me is untrue.” This tendency, in the end, leads to extremely dangerous consequences. Persecution arises. Then the “opponent” must be eliminated, separated, because he is false. Then his books are burned, his temples are demolished, his people are killed—because he is false. In the name of truth these sins have continued. And behind these sins there is one cause: we have bestowed the status of scripture upon certain books.
All books are just books; no book is a scripture.
No book is made by God. No book is final. Man is continuously evolving. And all books are made by man. As human understanding advances, books cannot become obstacles to it. When understanding moves ahead, books must step back.
But scriptures refuse to step back, because their claim is that they are the complete and perfect truth—no change before or after is possible.
I am not against books. Otherwise, how could my books be before you? If you can see this mistake, could I not see it? I am against scripture. We need a world in which there are many books, many thoughts—but no blind people, no scriptures, no authorities. Then the strife, the struggle, the conflict in the world will disappear.
I was a guest at a friend’s home. He told me his mother was very religious. I said, “I will certainly study your mother while I am here for a couple of days—because truly religious people are rare to find.” The next morning I was reading a book. It was winter, and I was sitting outside in their garden. His mother came and asked, “What are you reading?” I was reading something else, but I said I was reading the Quran. She was a staunch Hindu. She snatched the book from my hand and threw it away. She said, “Do we not have books in our own religion that you should be reading the Quran?”
I said to her son, “Your mother may be a Hindu, but she is not religious.”
Would a religious person snatch someone’s book and throw it away? But a Hindu can throw it, a Muslim can throw it, a Jain can throw it. They have been doing so. There are such books in this country—of Hindus, of Jains—which say: A Hindu book says that if a mad elephant is running after you, it is better to be crushed under its feet than to take refuge in a Jain temple. Better to die than to enter a Jain temple. And in response there are Jain books that say the same: it is better to be crushed under a mad elephant’s feet than to take refuge in a Hindu Shiva temple. That is a great sin; death is better than that.
I am against this mentality. This mentality has caused great harm.
How could I be opposed to books, to ideas, to the experiences of those who have enriched life? But I am opposed to deadness, and to the insistence that whatever we are clinging to is the only truth. This is the sign of a violent mind. A nonviolent, loving heart does not make such insistences. It is always open to think and to inquire. Always impartial. I spoke to you about this the day before yesterday, so I will not go further into it now. Let me simply repeat: I am in favor of books; I am not in favor of scriptures. Understand my distinction.
The moment we deck a book with absolute sacredness, it becomes a scripture. And the moment it becomes a scripture, it becomes extremely dangerous.
We must strip away this halo from all books—the Quran, the Bible, the Gita, the Vedas, the words of Mahavira and Buddha as well. Take away that halo. Give them the dignity of books, not of scriptures. Then religion too will develop.
Science is developing, because in science there are no scriptures—only books.
Religion is stuck, because religion has scriptures, not books.
Books are willing to change; scriptures are not willing to change.
The law of life is change. Whatever insists on being unchanging dies itself, and the people who gather around it also become dead. Because of scriptures, society has become a house of the dead. Books can set things in motion; scriptures bring them to a halt.
I believe my distinction has become clear to you. It is not a fine or subtle difference; it is very clear, very plain.

We usually see only two options: either we will obtain it through our own effort, or else through someone’s grace. We know nothing of a third option. I would like to say a few things about that third option.

One alternative is: we will attain truth through our own effort. The day before yesterday I told you, truth cannot be attained through your effort. Human intelligence is extremely limited; his capacity is very small—like trying to pour the ocean into a teacup. So God cannot be found through human effort. The Divine is vast, truth is immense and infinite, and man is tiny. It is only man’s ego that imagines, “I will attain God.” Not through human effort. And then, quite naturally, we jump to the opposite conclusion: “Then it must be attained by His grace.”

No, not by His grace either. Because grace can only be shown by one who is also capable of withholding it. Mercy can only be shown by one who could equally be cruel and hard. God’s grace, in that sense, has no meaning, because God is incapable of withholding. His “grace” has no opposite; therefore the very word loses its meaning.

The sun is pouring out its rays. If your door is open, the light comes in; if it is not, the light remains outside. The sun is not being gracious to some and ungracious to others. It does not consider anyone an enemy or a friend. God is available to all like the sun. For those whose doors are open, He is available; those whose doors are closed remain deprived. There is no question of God’s grace or lack of grace; the question is whether our door is open.

And I told you, it will not happen through your effort, because your very effort closes the door. Your effort itself becomes the wall in between.

Let me tell a small story; perhaps it will bring my point home.

In Europe there was a great magician, Houdini. He was extraordinarily skilled and world-famous. His special fame came from his ability to open any lock in moments. He was shut into the toughest prisons in Europe and America, and within three minutes he would be outside the wall. All kinds of handcuffs and chains were put on him, yet no prison official could keep him inside for more than three minutes. He demonstrated in all the great prisons.

It was astonishing. And if it was possible, then any prisoner could have escaped by learning that craft. All kinds of measures were tried, but no cell could hold him longer than three minutes. He opened every lock and every chain and came out.

But one day, on a small island, he failed. Three hours passed and he could not get out of the cell. He exhausted himself; he tried every trick, but the lock would not open. Finally, worn out, he collapsed. As he fell, his body hit the door—and it swung open. The door had never been locked. If it had been locked, he would have opened it. It was only resting against the frame; the lock was sham. He had been busy trying to open a lock that had never been fastened. Had it been fastened, he would have opened it—but it wasn’t. The door was merely stuck. Three hours passed. A crowd outside was stunned. The man who had never taken longer than three minutes—what had happened?

The jailer there must have been extraordinarily clever; he performed an even greater trick. He left the door unlocked. Now, how can you open a lock that isn’t locked? How can the unfastened be unfastened?

He was drenched in sweat, his life’s reputation turning to dust. He fell, and with that jolt the door opened. He was aghast.

Why am I telling this? What kept him for three hours? The lock? The lock wasn’t fastened.

His effort did. His attempt to open kept him stuck.

What brought him out?
His fatigue, his collapse, his failure. His efforts achieved nothing.

At the door of the Divine there is no lock that you can try to open with a key. God’s door is open. How could love’s door be locked? Locks are for doors that are not of love. The Divine’s door is open; there is no lock. Therefore, whoever tries to open it goes astray.

Then what should you do?

See your own incapacity, your limitation, your smallness. The very moment you truly see your power and your limits, all effort drops. And in that dropping of effort—in that let-go, where I am doing nothing—suddenly His rays begin to enter. The door opens.

This is neither the result of my effort nor of His grace. It is the fruit of my non-effort. It is the outcome of effortlessness. I let go of myself; I stopped trying.

Try it. In the span of a day, drop everything for a moment and see. Do nothing—be as if you are not. And watch whether, slowly, a revolution begins to arise from that non-being. Does something become available from total relinquishment, from doing nothing? See. This cannot be grasped by understanding alone; you will have to see it; you will have to pass through it.

A man may read any number of treatises on swimming, but if he has never entered a river, then even if he gives lectures on swimming or writes books on it, the moment he is pushed into water his knowledge will prove worthless. In the water, it is not a matter of having read about swimming—you must be able to swim. And the experience of one who swims cannot be had by a non-swimmer no matter how many scriptures he studies.

Meditation is the experience of plunging into the ocean of the Divine.

Without jumping, it cannot happen. Pointers can be given, signals toward that direction. But do not cling to the pointer; it is not of much value. If I take you out at night and point with my finger—“Look, the moon!”—and you grab my finger, everything is lost. Forget the finger; look at the moon.

Yet this is what often happens—we grasp the indication and forget that to which it points.

Do not think too much about what I am saying; do not clutch at it. Lift your eyes slightly toward where I am pointing.

I am saying: try a little to see what the state of non-doing is. What is a state of no action? For a little while, what does it mean simply to be, without doing? Let go a little, and see. Then you will find: neither does it come through your effort, nor through His grace. It comes through your non-effort. It comes through your disappearing, through your not-being.

There is a Sufi song. A lover went to his beloved’s door. He knocked. From within came the question: “Who is it?”
He said, “It is I, your lover!”
Silence fell inside. He knocked harder, as lovers, frantic, will knock. His life grew restless; the voice inside had fallen silent. He cried out, “What has happened to you? Why don’t you speak?”
His beloved said, “Go back. Two cannot fit in the house of love. You say, ‘It is I.’ As long as you are, how can there be two in love’s house? Go. Come back the day you are not.”

He returned. Years came and went. After many years he returned. He knocked again. The same question: “Who are you?”
This time he said, “Only you are—no one else.”
The Sufi song says the doors opened.

I would not yet have the doors open. If I were writing that song, I would have it go a little further. I would send him back once more. The beloved inside would say, “If you still know ‘you,’ then you also still know ‘I’—otherwise you could not know ‘you.’ Go back. Two cannot be in love’s house.” And in my song it goes further: the lover went back—and never came again. Because neither I remained nor you. And then the beloved came in search of him.

Ego cannot enter love’s door. And all our effort is our ego. “I am doing”—I am doing worship, I am doing prayer, I turn the rosary, I go to the temple, I read the scriptures, I fast. I am doing all this. And by all this doing, my “I” only grows stronger.

The stronger this “I” becomes, the more the doors of the Divine close. The sun of God stands every moment outside every house. For those who are in non-effort, their doors will open. Many times it is our very effort that creates all the misunderstanding.

Have you noticed, there are other things in life that cannot come through effort? Suppose someone suffers from insomnia; can sleep be brought by effort? Does trying ever bring sleep? The more you try to bring sleep—tossing, turning, getting up, doing this and that—the more difficult sleep becomes. Trying is the opposite of sleep. Sleep is relaxation; trying is labor. So the more you try to bring sleep, the more it eludes you.

There was a great psychologist. A patient with insomnia came to him. The psychologist asked, “What business are you in?”
The man said, “I raise sheep. I sell their wool and the sheep themselves. My whole work is sheep.”
The psychologist said, “Then do one thing. At night, to bring sleep, close your eyes and imagine a line of sheep. Count them—one, two, three—go on counting: a thousand, two thousand… In the counting itself, sleep will come.”

The man went away. Next day he returned and grabbed the psychologist by the neck: “You have put me in great trouble! The sheep never ended, and morning came. Sometimes I used to doze a little; last night sleep became impossible.”

He kept trying to count sheep. The psychologist must have thought, “The mind will become concentrated, and sleep will come.” But wherever there is effort, there is tension—and tension is the enemy of sleep. Sleep cannot come out of tension. Have you ever brought sleep by your labor? No. Rather, when you are exhausted, spent, when no further effort is possible, you find sleep descends.

Exactly so is the advent of the Divine. When all your efforts are exhausted, when all your running proves futile—and you stop, you become still, you drop everything—at that very moment an extraordinary happening occurs. Something descends from above and surrounds your whole being. Examine this a little, do it. Talking about it will not help much.

A friend asks: Should one be continuously aware, continuously conscious, continuously alert?

If you strain too hard to be alert, you cannot remain alert continuously. Every effort tires and, at its limit, collapses. If you make great effort to be aware, you will not be able to remain aware twenty-four hours. Every labor fatigues; rest is then required. But if you hold the intent to be aware very simply and naturally, you can remain aware twenty-four hours, continuously. And only when you are continuously awake can that happening occur.

Let me tell a small incident; perhaps it will make it clear.

These matters are subtle; incidents are a bit more concrete and can serve as pointers.

In a small village, outside the village there was an ancient temple. Many priests served there. One morning, early, a priest rose and told the others, “Last night I had a dream, and in the dream I saw that God is going to come to our temple today.”

This was a most unusual event. God has never gone to any temple! All the priests were thrilled. Perhaps the dream would prove true and God would come.

They washed and cleaned the temple. They decorated and adorned it. They sprinkled fragrances, lit incense and lamps. They prepared the whole temple to receive the Guest—the King of the universe was to come. But noon came, and there was no sign of the King. Evening came—still no sign. Night fell, the sun set, darkness gathered, and there was no trace of that King. They grew tired. “The dream must have been false. When did dreams ever come true?” They shut the doors and slept. The lamps soon went out, the oil spent. The incense burned away, the fragrance dissolved. The temple sank into darkness.

At midnight a chariot turned off the highway and onto the temple’s path. The wheels clattered loudly; the horses’ hooves beat the ground. Out of his sleep one priest stirred and said, “Friends, get up! Perhaps the King we were waiting for has arrived! I hear a chariot.” Another priest muttered, “Sleep. Don’t create a fuss. It’s thunder. In this dark night, what chariot, what King? All dreams and lies. Go to sleep.” They slept again.

The chariot stopped at the door. The King, awaited since eternity, alighted. He knocked; footsteps sounded on the steps. He shook the door; it rattled. Another priest half-woke. “It seems He has come, the One we were waiting for. Someone is knocking at the door!” Another sleepy voice said, “Be quiet. Don’t keep breaking our sleep. It’s only the wind. Dreams are dreams—what King ever comes?” They slept again. The King went back.

In the morning, when they awoke and opened the door, their hearts sank. The chariot had indeed come to the threshold—there were wheel marks in the soft earth, and on the dust of the steps were the footprints of the King. They sat on the steps and wept.

I was passing that way early in the morning. Seeing the priests weeping, I asked, “What has happened? Why do you cry?”
They said, “We missed the opportunity. The One we waited for did come, but our doors were closed.”

I told them, “Whoever is not awake twenty-four hours will always be found with closed doors whenever He comes. There is no fixed hour or auspicious moment for His arrival. He can come at any moment. A mind must be ever in waiting—silent and pure—so that whenever He comes, He does not find the door shut. If the time of His coming were fixed—if some roadside astrologer could foretell it—it would be easy. But no, the time of His advent is not determined. In loving expectancy, He can come at any moment.”

So the mind must be continuously expectant, continuously lamp-lit, continuously ready for the Guest. And only the one who is continuously ready is truly ready. How can a man be unconscious for twenty-three hours and conscious for one? How can one be mad for twenty-three hours and sane for one? How can one be ill for twenty-three hours and healthy for just an hour each day? It cannot be.

Consciousness is an unbroken stream, a continuity.

It cannot be that the Ganges rises in the Himalayas, is impure behind, then becomes pure only at the ghats of Kashi, and then becomes impure again beyond Kashi. Impossible. The Ganges is a continuous flow. If she is pure at Kashi, she must have been pure before; only then can she be pure there—and she will remain pure ahead. It cannot be that the stream is pure for a while and then impure again.

It cannot be that I live twenty-three hours in anger, anxiety, sorrow, and darkness, and then for one hour I go to the temple and become peaceful and awakened. Impossible. The one who climbs the temple steps is the one who enters within. The same Ganges flows into the sanctum. If I am impure outside, how will I become pure inside? No temple can perform such magic. My consciousness will be the same inside as outside. If I change, I must change continuously. If the stream of my consciousness flows steadily and becomes pure, then I change. Otherwise, there is no transformation.

I have heard of a wealthy man who was close to death. The rich never quite believe that death can come—but it does. The poor man waits day and night for death; the rich hide it behind their wealth. But one day she breaks through the wall and stands in front. Then it is seen that wealth was no friend. So it was with him. Everything was his; he had all the money—but there was no way to escape death. The money he had valued more than life itself would not, today, stand by him at all. He lay on his cot waiting for death. The doctors said he would not survive.

Evening approached, the sun set, darkness filled the house. Who lights a lamp in a dying man’s home? The house was dark. The family sat around his bed. He opened his eyes and asked his wife, “Where is my eldest son?”
She thought, “For the first time in life perhaps he feels love for his children.” For one who loves money, love never comes for anyone else. Perhaps now, at last, love had arisen. She was pleased, touched his feet, and said, “Rest easy; your eldest is sitting right by your head.”
The man asked, “And the next one?” He too was there. “And the next?” He too. He had five sons. “And the youngest?”
His wife said, “He too is here. Be carefree; be at peace. All are present.”
The rich man sat up, dying as he was, and said, “Then what does this mean—who is at the shop?”

It had been a mistake to think he remembered anyone out of love. A mind that has revolved around money all its life cannot revolve around love at the moment of death.

Consciousness is a continuous stream, uninterrupted.

So if you are to awaken, awaken continuously. If you are to be peaceful, be peaceful continuously. If you are to be filled with love, be filled with love continuously. This is not something done in fragments. It is not that for a little while I will be filled with love and then see how the world goes. It cannot be so. When life changes, it changes from the roots. Life does not change in bits, because life has no bits. Life is one whole, a totality, integrated—without separate compartments or rooms. Life is cohesive and continuous.

Certainly. If any experience in the direction of truth and the divine is to happen, only the one who is continuously awake, continuously filled with love, continuously egoless—only such a one can be worthy of attaining it.

There are many questions. I cannot answer them all—not because they have no answers. Every question, along with its birth, gives birth to its answer too. There is no question without an answer; such a question cannot exist. But whether another person’s answer can become the answer to your question—that cannot be said. The question is yours; the answer is mine. That creates a long distance, a wide gap. It is not necessary that this distance will be crossed, that a bridge can be built across it. The question is yours, the answer mine—this very thing becomes the distance. So it is not necessary that my answer will become your answer. It cannot. It is very difficult. You are you; I am I. How will a bridge be joined?

Then why do I make this seemingly futile effort, answering your questions? Not so that my answers become your answers, but so that the sense awakens in you that no question is without an answer—and you may set out in search of your own. If just this much occurs to you from my words, it is enough: there is no need at all to accept my answers. None whatsoever. If only a sense of direction arises in you, only a little nudge—that if there are questions, there can be answers—then my labor is fulfilled.

I do not want to give you answers. I want you to discover your own. But perhaps, in asking and asking, you have become discouraged and stopped seeking your answers—hence I have spoken this much.

There is no reason to be discouraged. Dig within. The same consciousness that gave birth to the question is capable of giving birth to its answer.

You will be surprised: the question is difficult; the answer is always simple. The real thing is to ask the question. The answer is very easy. But we neither ask nor seek—and the questions we do ask are almost always borrowed, secondhand, heard from others, learned from books. They are not our own. And therefore, when the question is not ours, how can the answer be ours?

So my final submission is this: find your own question. It is a great attainment if you can discover the questions that truly arise in your life. Do not ask prefabricated, rote, secondhand questions. They have no value, because they are not yours. Therefore, whatever answer is given, whatever answer you obtain, it will not satisfy you. It is like giving water to someone who is not thirsty—it only creates more discomfort. It brings no benefit. Thirst must be your own, and real.

First, find the question. Then, in stillness and silence, drop that question into your consciousness and become quiet. Do not try to answer it quickly. If you try to answer quickly, the answer will be something learned from elsewhere; it will not come from within you. Memory will answer.

If I ask you, “Is there God?” look within: at once an answer will arise—“Yes, there is.” Or for someone else—“No, there isn’t.” These are false answers—learned, secondhand.

If no answer arises within, understand: now the situation has come where your own answer can be found. Always keep this discernment inside: is this a learned answer? “There is God”—this was taught to me since childhood; I do not know. If today the answer arises, “There is God,” it is a false answer—utterly false. Nothing will come of it.

So, first, bid farewell to false answers. First point: never ask borrowed questions in life; they have no worth. Second point: do not be content with secondhand answers; there is no solution in them—send them away. Let all answers be dismissed. Let your own question remain alone inside, like a burning ember. Accept no answer given by memory or by what you have learned. Then, like an ember, the question will begin to sear your life-breath; like an arrow, it will start to pierce within. And a moment will come when your very soul will answer. Only that answer will be meaningful in your life. Only that answer will transform your life.

To live with a question is an art.
To give a quick answer is no art.
What is needed is to live with the question. The one who quietly hides his question in his heart like a seed and goes on living—surely, surely one day he attains the answer.

One last thing, and I will complete this discussion. Perhaps the most necessary and important question in a human life is nothing other than this: “Who am I?” Yet so many questions have come, and no one has asked this. I travel all over the country; I have not yet met the person who asks, “Who am I?” Someone asks, “What is God? Please give a definition.” What do you mean by God? Someone asks, “Do heaven and hell exist or not?” Someone asks, “What is matter?” This and that—but the fundamental question that should be within a person, no one asks. Perhaps we have assumed that we already know ourselves—so why ask? And the great wonder is that a person does not know himself.

These past three days my talks have been in this direction, that perhaps within you this question might arise: “Who am I?” Perhaps someone will ask.

So I will end with one incident. Perhaps, from that incident, the question will go on resounding within you, and someday your life-breath may be capable of attaining its answer. That moment is the moment of blessedness.

An old beggar woman was returning from a fair after begging. She was tired, an old woman. Under a tree, in thick shade, she fell asleep. It was afternoon. A prankster passing by cut all her clothes with scissors. He smeared some ink on her face. By evening she awoke. She was almost half-naked. Her hands and feet were blackened. Her clothes were unrecognizable. Her bundle, her begging bowl—everything had vanished. She was bewildered. She asked herself, “Who am I?” Because the one who went to sleep had different clothes. The beggar woman had a bundle, she had some coins. None of that was there; her hands and feet were bare. “I wasn’t naked—was I?” She was astonished: then who am I? It had been easy to recognize herself in her usual clothes; today, without them, how to recognize?

We too recognize ourselves by our garments. Without them, recognition becomes difficult. We wear the garments of name, of position, of wealth, of prestige. What is our identity? Our garments and our face! The outer manner by which others recognize us—and by that same thing we recognize ourselves. That others recognize us is fine; but we too recognize ourselves by that.

If tomorrow morning you stand before a mirror and see—that face, oh! it has changed; it has become another—you too will panic, and the question will arise within: Who am I? The face changes every day, but so slowly that your eyes don’t notice. But if suddenly some magician comes and moves your face ten years forward, then in the morning you will find it hard not to ask, “Who am I?” You will compare with your photo and find—this is not me!

That old beggar woman was also in difficulty. She had never seen herself naked. Who ever sees themselves naked? Today she was naked, so she was frightened. She thought, “Let me go look in a mirror.” But her bundle was missing; her mirror had been in it. You might say, why does a beggar need a mirror? You are mistaken. It is not only emperors who delight in seeing themselves; beggars too are pleased to see themselves. Who is not pleased to see themselves? The mirror was in that bundle—but it was gone. Recognition became very difficult.

What to do? How to know who she was? Then she thought, let me go toward my home. She had a dog; each day he would recognize her and come running, wagging his tail around her. So she went toward her hut. If the dog recognized her, it would be certain that I am I. If the dog did not recognize her, it would be a great problem.

She ran homeward. Night had fallen. The dog had always seen her clothed; he had never seen her naked. The dog panicked and began to bark. The old beggar woman was in deep trouble. Standing at the door she thought, “This is a great difficulty—if I am not I, then where am I?”

If a person were to stand before his own house and ask himself, he would fall into the same quandary: Who am I, and where am I? With this question I end our discussion.

You have listened to my words with such love and peace—my deep thanks for that. May it be that with the same peace and silence you can listen to that which is within you. In the end, I bow once again to the divine seated within everyone. Please accept my salutations.