Jeevan Hi Hain Prabhu #5

In the search for the Divine there is a sutra here too, so it is necessary to understand it. Certainly we see faults in others. What is the reason? There is only one reason—the gratification of our ego. We look for faults in others. It has a small secret.

You may have heard the incident: one day Akbar drew a line in his court and said to his courtiers, “Make it shorter without touching it, without erasing it.” They were baffled. Birbal stood up and drew a longer line beside it. The first line remained as it was—neither touched nor erased—yet it became small.

When we go hunting for faults in others, we are making the other’s line small so that our own line appears large. The easiest way to think ourselves big is to begin seeing others as small. The other way to become big—by truly growing oneself—is very difficult: one has to touch oneself, change, erase, renew. The simple way is: don’t touch yourself at all, make no difference in yourself—remain as you are, and still become big. The shortcut is to see whoever comes near as small.

If one wants to travel far in life and move on the great paths where the sun of greatness rises, then much has to be done—one has to efface oneself, renew oneself, transform oneself. It will take effort, labor, sadhana. Few are eager for such effort.

So the simple trick—the shortcut, the nearest route—by which we become big for free without doing anything is only one: whoever comes close, see them as small. And once we decide to see someone as small, no power on earth can stop us—because it is a matter of our choosing. We can see anyone as small.

But what grows within us in this way is not our soul. What grows by this method is called ego. If we change ourselves, the soul grows—so vast it can become one with the Divine. If we refuse to change and still want to become big, then it is the ego that grows; the soul becomes smaller.

And remember this too: the bigger the ego, the smaller the soul; the smaller the ego, the bigger the soul.

So whoever is engaged in inflating the ego is, knowingly or unknowingly, suffering a deep loss. Yes, on the surface he will see gains: by enlarging his ego he will see others as small and himself as big. But the greater the ego, the more the soul shrinks within; the bigger the ego, the more difficult becomes the path to union with the Divine. For apart from my “I,” nothing else blocks me. As long as I insist on remaining “I,” I cannot merge with the vast. That very “I” will be the obstacle.

That is why we are so eager to see faults in others. This does not mean that others have no faults. It does not mean they do not have faults either. Whether others have faults or not is a secondary question. The important question is: by seeing faults in others, are we attempting to make ourselves big? If we are, then we are being very self-destructive. We are harming ourselves with our own hands, not anyone else. The one whose faults we notice may even benefit—he might be moved to change. But we cannot benefit. If our ego is being gratified, then we are dangerously engaged in cutting our own hands and feet.

There is also a reverse delusion. One delusion is: we will see only faults in all. The opposite delusion is: even if there are faults, we will close our eyes and not see them. That reverse delusion can also be dangerous; it too can inflate the ego. If I decide that I will never see anyone’s faults, then a new kind of ego will begin to grow in me: “I am the sort of person who never sees anyone’s faults.” A thief steals in front of me and I close my eyes; four thugs assault a woman and I turn my back and walk on. “I don’t see anyone’s faults. And because I don’t, I am a very great man.” In the first error the ego is gratified; in the second too it can be gratified. So the real question is not about seeing or not seeing faults, but whether by seeing or not seeing we are feeding our ego.

One who is not feeding the ego simply sees. Faults may be visible; innocence may be visible. He sees what is, and from that seeing he neither inflates nor deflates his ego.

There is a saying that a saint does not see anyone’s faults—this is wrong, quite useless. That an unholy person sees only faults—this too is false. Faults exist. And both things can be in the same person. A person can be a sinner and at the same time very virtuous. There is no contradiction. Life is very complex. In one and the same person you can find all shades of black and white. The same person may reveal great nobility one moment and be utterly petty the next. The same man can love and he can hate. He can be selfish, and in some moment he can give his life for others.

Life is very complex. Man is not so simple that we can decide once and for all that this person is only thorns and that person only flowers. On the same rosebush there are flowers and thorns. The unholy person’s error is to say: “We see only faults.” The saint’s opposite error—and in fact the “saint” we talk about is just the unholy man standing on his head—whatever the unholy does, he does the opposite. If the unholy sees faults, the saint sees none.

But one who is quiet, silent, a witness—he will see faults and he will see faultlessness. He will see what is bad as bad, and what is good as good. The difference is simply this: he is not eager to see the good in another, nor eager to see the bad; he is eager to see what is—he is eager to see truth. He is not eager to impose anything from his side.

The unholy says, “We will impose faults on everyone.” The so-called saint says, “We will declare everyone innocent.” Both impose their wishes upon others. But different from both—the true seer—sees exactly what is. He does not change a jot of what-is. As it is, he sees it. And only when one sees the other as he is does one become capable of seeing oneself as one is.

One who sees faults in others will always see himself as faultless. One who sees others as faultless will always see himself as guilty. They are opposites. If a person decides, “I will see bad in everyone,” then he will see bad in everyone—except himself. Otherwise there would be no fun left in seeing bad in others. He will make himself good and others bad. Conversely, another person says, “I will not see faults in anyone.” He will begin to see faults in himself—even to the extent that you commit the wrong and he punishes himself: you steal, he fasts. But this is an inverted condition, not right vision.

Right vision means: see gold as gold and clay as clay. The man who sees clay as gold is mad, and the man who sees gold as clay is equally mad. He sees clay as clay and gold as gold.

So I do not say to you: do not see faults in anyone. I say: do not look for faults in order to prove yourself faultless—then it is wrong. Nor do I say: see everyone as faultless, because everyone is not faultless. If everyone were faultless, the world would be very beautiful; life would be transformed; there would be no need of saints and sannyasins. We say that a saint sees no one’s faults; then what does a saint teach? Whom is he trying to improve? If all are Divine, to whom are sermons delivered? No—there are mistakes which must be changed. Otherwise there would be no need.

We need right seeing—of ourselves and of others, within and without. Right seeing will reveal astonishing things. It will show this as well: when I see a fault in someone, is the root cause truly the other’s fault, or my own delight in seeing faults? Then I will reflect: when I want to call someone a thief, am I saying it because of his theft, or only so that I can understand within myself that I am not a thief?

Bertrand Russell has said somewhere: if a theft occurs, first catch the man who shouts the loudest, “A theft! Catch him! The thief is running!”—because there is a strong possibility that he himself stole. The simplest trick to save yourself is to shout so loudly against theft that no one could imagine you did it. Who would suspect the one raising the loudest cry? A leader who makes a great din against corruption—“We will wipe it out; we will finish it in a year!”—he should at once be caught and hanged. Such a man is dangerous. There is a psychological reason behind such noise. The reason is that in such uproar one thing becomes certain: this man is not corrupt. As for changing the world—no one has done it yet, that in a year it will be changed! Often even the leader cannot be found a year later. But when someone shouts so loudly, there is a psychological reason. That is why, when one thief is caught, the other thieves immediately engage in condemning him. In a village when one thief is caught, the whole village condemns theft—each shouting loudly so that the neighbors hear, “I too am against theft,” so it becomes known that at least I am not a thief.

One who strives to see rightly will see this too. He will also see: when I am seeing good in another, am I imposing? Is he truly good, or am I imposing goodness? There are people who are adamant that they will see only good; they too are dangerous. In this country, for five thousand years such people have proclaimed, “We will see only the good in all.” Hence today it is hard to find a country worse off than this one. Because when evil is not seen, there remains no way to change it. When the wise of a country decide to see only goodness, evil keeps accumulating—who will change it? If it is not seen, who will change it? So India set its sadhus apart: “We see good in all; we do not see evil.” Then how will evil be changed?

Imagine all doctors decide: “We do not see disease; we see health in everyone.” Then that country will become sick. Not seeing disease will not end it; it will spread further. By seeing it, one could catch it, break it, remove it. But if doctors become “good men” and say, “We do not see illness. Even in the dying we see perfect life. He is utterly healthy.” The patient is rotting with cancer and we say, “How joyfully healthy he is!”—then there will be great trouble.

My insistence is a little difficult, because I want you to look at life precisely as it is. I do not say: impose evil upon anyone—that too will inflate the ego. I do not say: forcibly impose goodness upon anyone—that too will inflate the ego. I say: try to see life as it is. Do not draw lines. See each line exactly as it is; do not try to draw another line.

And understand a second sutra of seeing: whatever you see in another, see in yourself as well. Life does not accept different rules for different people. The rules of life are one. If we can make for ourselves the same rules that we make for others, life rises very high. But we all live with double standards—double measures. One standard for others, another for ourselves.

If I get angry, I say, “It was a mistake due to circumstances.” But if another gets angry, he is a sinner who must go to hell. If I steal, I say, “I was helpless. There was no food at home, my wife was ill, my children were crying—I had to steal.” But if someone else steals, he is a sinner. Double standards! Just as there are two kinds of ledgers in shops, there are two ledgers in the human mind—two sets of rules, one for others and another for ourselves. This is the limit of dishonesty, the limit of immorality. I call this the greatest immorality—using double standards.

We need a single standard. One who sees life rightly uses a single scale. With the same scale by which he weighs himself, he weighs the other. And remember: whenever someone keeps a single scale, he becomes very compassionate; he can never be harsh. If he uses two scales, he becomes harsh—for the other he will weigh with the scale of sin: “This man is a sinner; throw him into hell; drag him to court; punish him; hang him.” But if he keeps one scale, he will understand that if someone is being hanged, it is only because he got caught and I did not. There is no greater difference. When he sees that someone else has sinned, he will understand that the whole reason is that his sin was caught and mine was not. If there is one scale, we will know that with every criminal we too are criminals; with every sinner we too are sinners; a share of our evil stands with him. We stand there too. Then we will not engage in that kind of condemnation—“Shoot him, kill him, burn him, throw him into hell.” Then we will ask: what means can be found, what ways devised, so that human society changes—so that I change and the other changes?

A long stretch of human history has been the age of double standards. Therefore man has not become moral—because the root point of morality, compassion, has not arisen in man. Man has become harsh. And it is a strange thing: the one we call “moral” is very harsh. The “moral” man can commit extreme cruelties; he garbs his cruelty in the clothes of morality. He even declares his harshness to be moral. And because he is harsh with himself, he gets the license to be harsh with others. If you want to torment others, the simplest trick is to begin tormenting yourself. If you want others to fast, to starve, first begin fasting yourself. If you muster the courage to fast, then you can compel anyone to fast. And those who do not will be called sinners and condemned. If you want to make others stand on their head, first practice headstands yourself; then no one will be able to say you are harsh. Instead everyone will say, “I am a great sinner; that is why I cannot do a headstand. You are a great virtuous man.”

What we have called “morality” till now is a deep arrangement for oppressing others. If in a house one person becomes “moral,” the whole house becomes troubled. If someone is possessed by the ghost of morality, he throttles the whole household. The “moral” man descends into deep violence—but it is not visible. And what is the reason? Only this: he never places himself alongside the weakness of all humanity; he sets himself apart, and weighs all humanity on a different scale.

So one who has set out in search of life’s truth should remember this too: we are all weighed together on the same scale. Our saint and our sinner stand together. And one who sees very deeply will also see that our saint and our sinner are not separate; they are joined from within. He will even see that our saint appears saintly because someone has agreed to be a sinner. If Ravana refuses to be Ravana, then the story of Rama vanishes. Because Ravana agrees to be Ravana, Rama’s story appears. And if, at the end of life, there is any judgment, then in that judgment the story of Rama without Ravana will seem meaningless, and Ravana’s contribution to making Rama a mahatma will have to be accepted. Whatever evils Ravana committed, at least he accomplished one great thing: he gave birth to Rama. And however many good deeds Rama did, one thing is certain: he gave birth to Ravana. Therefore I say: in the greatest saint you will find the sinner; in the greatest sinner you will find the saint. These things are not fragmented; they are deeply joined.

You go to see a play. There is a villain who torments and harasses, steals, rapes women, strangles children—he is wicked, creating all sorts of mischief. Your mind fills with anger toward him. Then there is a good character, a sadhu, a saint, a mahatma—he serves to protect people from the evil man, builds ashrams, does everything possible. Your mind fills with reverence for him. Then the play ends, and the one who played the sinner and the one who played the saint come out from behind the curtain with their arms around one another. Then you don’t say about that bad man, “Beat him!” You say to him too, “Excellent performance.” You even say, “Had you not been there, the saint’s role would not have stood out.” In fact the playwright tried to make the villain as dark as possible so that the saint might appear white, clear, pure. But we don’t punish the actor after the play. In life, however, we are very harsh.

But who says life is not a great play? And who says that outside life’s stage, Rama and Ravana are not sitting arm in arm, drinking tea? We see only a short distance. We do not understand life in its entirety because we cannot see it as a great drama.

I have just come from Bombay; a film actor came to see me. He said, “I want to ask you something about acting. How to ask? But someone told me you might say something useful. How can I act rightly?” He said, “It’s a strange thing to ask you—I don’t know if you will even answer.” I said, “You ask rightly. Ask.” I wrote him a sutra: those who wish to live rightly should live as if they are acting; and those who wish to act rightly should act as if it is life. If someone can act as though it is life, he will become a skilled actor. And if someone can live as though it is acting, he will become a knower of truth.

That life is God—that life itself is the Divine—will become known when we can see life as a play. Then even in the bad we will see him, and in the good as well. Then good and bad will not obstruct his vision.

I have heard a wondrous story. A monk once said to an emperor, “Brahman dwells in all.” The emperor was unusual. He said, “We will not debate, but we would like to test it.” The monk said, “Everywhere there is only talk; talk about Brahman. What test can there be of Brahman? I can prove by logic that Brahman is in all.” The king said, “We do not care for logic; we want to experiment in life.” The monk agreed. The king had a mad elephant. He let the mad elephant loose upon the monk. The whole capital climbed to their rooftops; the royal road was emptied. The elephant charged. The monk ran, shouted, was very frightened. But the emperor shouted from his terrace: “Have you forgotten? You said Brahman is in all—then is Brahman not in the mad elephant?” The monk was in great trouble. One’s own arguments sometimes trap one badly.

He thought, “What to do?” He stood still, eyes closed, trembling. The mad elephant picked him up in his trunk. The mahout shouted, “Get away, madman! Drop your ‘knowledge’! Why are you risking your life? Say that Brahman is not in all—at least not in the mad elephant. In the rest, perhaps.” At moments he wanted to run when he heard the mahout; but when the king shouted, he stopped again: the ego hurt—his own statement would be proved wrong. Finally the elephant hurled him; he fell twenty feet away; hands and feet were broken. They carried him up. The king asked, “What happened?” He said, “I was in great difficulty. When your voice reached me I would stop—my ego was hurt that my own words would be proved wrong. When the mahout said, ‘Run!’ I thought, why lose life? Does knowledge require losing life? I was caught between the two.” The mahout said, “But did you not see Brahman in me who was shouting, ‘Move!’? If there was Brahman in the mad elephant, was there not Brahman in me? And leave me aside—leave the elephant and the king aside—was there not Brahman in you? What was he saying? At least you could have listened to him.” The monk said, “Then I made a great mistake. My Brahman was saying the whole time, ‘Run!’”

Life is very complex. There is Brahman in the mad elephant—but know that it is mad Brahman, otherwise mad Brahman will bring great trouble. There is Brahman in the thief—but understand it is Brahman in the form of a thief. There is Brahman in Ravana too—but understand that he is playing the part of Ravana. If life is seen as acting, we will be able to see Brahman even in the bad.

But this does not mean we begin worshiping the bad. It does not mean we become devotees of Ravana and start living like him. It does not mean that for us the difference between good and bad disappears. It only means that life will no longer seem a burden, a grim seriousness. Life will become a play, a lila.

And one who wants to see the Divine in life must make life a lila. Serious and solemn people can never see the Divine.

But our experience, our understanding, is the opposite. We usually think that the more grave the faces, the more they have attained God. We cannot even imagine that a saint can laugh. As though to be a saint, a weeping face is essential. If Mahavira were to be found standing by the roadside laughing, his devotees would run away: “Some wrong man—cannot be Mahavira.” If Buddha were found in a hotel, we could not imagine it, we would not believe he could be Buddha.

We take life so rigidly that its lightness, its weightlessness is lost. Life is no longer a play or a performance; it becomes a heavy seriousness. And seriousness is a disease. A religious person is not serious. He is so light—so buoyant, so joyous—that he can dance and laugh and move with all the forms of life.

But the tradition so far has been religious seriousness. That is why only the weeping, the sad, have been able to appear “religious.” The laughing, the joyous never got the chance to be religious; they were condemned.

That is why, when people approach death, they start going to temples and mosques—by then laughter has been spent. In temples and mosques you see only the old—youth are not seen, children are not seen. And if parents do take children, they make them sit with solemn faces: “Sit completely serious. This is a temple.” If they could, they would first make the children old—and then allow them to enter. Temples are very serious.

Seriousness is pathological. Only with joy—life’s natural ease—will we be able to see the Divine in life. Serious people cannot. They are not light enough to take so great a flight; they become heavy as stones.

As I see it, there is no seriousness in flowers, nor in the winds, nor in trees, nor in the song of birds, nor in the stars of the sky, nor in the sun. Search the whole universe: you will find only some human beings who are grave, sad, heavy. Nowhere else will you find heaviness. The whole existence is dipped in dance, in delight, in rasa.

I want to give you this sutra too: if we can be absorbed in rasa—be light—and move with all the forms of life, perhaps the vision of the Divine will be possible everywhere. For the Divine is dancing, intoxicated with bliss.

But we have decided that only a serious God will be found. And he is nowhere. There is no serious God anywhere. And perhaps for this very reason we have left the real God and put stone idols in temples. What can be more serious and heavy than a stone idol? What can be more dead? In it no bud sprouts, no flower blooms; there is never any change—utterly dead stone. Even if we worshipped a living stone, it would be better; there would be some God in it. But even the living will not do; first we take chisel and hammer to it and cut away all life, and shape it according to ourselves. Perhaps God keeps escaping humans for this very reason: if he were to be found somewhere, who knows—people might take chisel and hammer to cut and shape him and seat him in a temple. We will never accept him as he is. Surely he laughs—if he did not laugh, where would laughter come from? If he does not sing, where do songs arise from? If he does not love, how does such a great river of love flow? If flowers do not interest him, why do they bloom? He seems utterly immersed in joy and rasa. Moment to moment he is soaked in dance. If we were to find him, first we would have to snatch away his dance, bind his hands and feet.

But a living God cannot be relied upon. If we seat him somewhere, he might go elsewhere. So we make stone gods—that is very convenient. They stay where we seat them. We find them every day exactly where we left them. They never go here and there. They never create any trouble. They remain exactly as we believe. They never behave otherwise. With a stone God we can predict, we can declare that he will remain so. With the real God there is no certainty. If we stand him solemnly in a temple and return in the morning, we might find him dancing. He is unpredictable. In fact, all living things are unpredictable. About living things no definitive announcement can be made; no future can be foretold. That is why astrologers can tell nothing regarding the living—only regarding the dead.

Only about the thoroughly dead can an astrologer say something. About a living person astrology can say nothing—a living person can render all the lines on the hand false.

I have heard: Buddha once passed by a village near a river. It was blazing noon. His footprints appeared in the river sand. Behind him came a scholar returning from Kashi after twelve years of studying astrology, carrying big books. He saw the footprints on the sand and was startled, for the feet bore the marks which the astrological scriptures say belong to a chakravarti emperor. But would a world emperor walk barefoot in blazing noon through a small village on the sand of a dirty river? He thought, “Something is wrong. If a chakravarti is wandering like this, I should throw my books into the river—twelve years wasted.” Then he thought, “Let me search—these prints are fresh.” He followed the prints.

Under a tree in the shade Buddha was resting, eyes closed, feet stretched out. The scholar went to the feet and looked: “This is the man.” But there was a begging bowl nearby. He could not be an emperor. He was a monk, wearing tattered clothes. Yet his face looked like that of an emperor. He woke him and said, “You have put me in difficulty. Twelve years of effort are going to waste. Who are you? What are you doing here? Your footprints say you are a chakravarti emperor—then why in this scorching noon, on the sand of this poor village’s river? Where are your companions and courtiers? Why are you alone under this tree? Why tattered clothes? What is this drama? Why a begging bowl?”

Buddha said, “I am a monk.” He said, “Then what of my books? Shall I throw them into the river? Twelve years wasted?” Buddha said, “No—the books will come in handy. Take them. There are plenty of dead people whose signs will match. But on a living man, lines do not form. Life has no bondage. Life is free. That is why there can be no prediction, no prophecy.”

The more alive a person is, the less anything can be said about his tomorrow. What he will say tomorrow, what he will do, how he will rise, how he will live—nothing can be said. Yes, about a dead man it can be said: tomorrow morning he will get up, say this, do that, quarrel with his wife, go to the market, run his shop, return in the evening, scold his son for not studying, create a little nighttime quarrel, go to sleep. In the morning he will rise again—the same. Everything can be told.

That is why we have made stone gods. They are there to help us avoid the real God. Because about the real God there is no certainty; he is not reliable. The real God cannot be relied upon.

I said, “God in everyone!” and immediately they remembered the temple idol: “If we worship that, what objection can you have?”

If it is understood that God is in everyone, then the question of the temple idol doesn’t arise at all. The idol remains a question only so long as God is not seen in all; until then one keeps trying to see God in the temple idol. The day He is seen in everyone, then who is the temple idol and who is outside the temple? Who is an idol and who is not an idol? How will you tell then? How will you be sure that the beggar sitting at the door is not the temple’s idol, and the stone placed inside is God? No—there is then no way. But the temple idol is a substitute, and therefore it is dangerous.

I say, do not worship the temple idol—not because God is not in it. God is everywhere. But the temple idol was invented by those who want to avoid God from every side. They invented it. Irreligious people invented the idol. The enemies of God invented the idol so that one could escape the living God, and sit politely with folded hands and bent knees before a dead, cast-in-a-mold God of one’s own making. If there are beings somewhere beyond the earth and they see us kneeling before images we ourselves have cast and crafted, they must laugh and think the people of earth seem mad.

We get annoyed with little children and call them naive because they marry off their dolls. But when we take out the wedding procession of Lord Ram, we become very wise. We make slightly bigger dolls and then we think we are very intelligent—we are not childish; only the little ones are childish! They are children, so they stage doll weddings; little girls lay their dolls down to sleep, thinking they are babies. We laugh at them: “They are children; in a few days they will grow up and drop these foolishnesses.” But the grown-up children are no less; there isn’t much hope from them either. Big children will make big dolls; small children will make small dolls. The little ones’ dolls are very cheap; the big children’s dolls are very expensive—so expensive that people die for the sake of these dolls. If someone breaks the hand of a Rama idol, then ten or fifty Muslims must be killed. If someone pulls down a mosque wall, then a hundred or a hundred and fifty Hindus must be killed. The bricks of these temples and mosques are very costly—smeared with human blood. And these idols you call God are costly too. Beneath them lie the graves of human beings, the corpses of human beings—and their worship goes on.

I am not saying that God is not there. When God is in everyone, how would He be absent from a mere idol? That is not what I am saying. Understand me rightly. Those who invented the idol did so precisely so that He would not be seen in all. “Here, take hold of the dead-and-done-with; keep worshiping this.” And there are further conveniences: only a dead God can have a priest; a living God can have no priest. With the living God you must relate directly. With the dead God there will be an agent in the middle—because the dead God cannot speak; he will speak through the agent. The dead God can do nothing; the offering will be placed before the dead God, and it will be eaten by the priest. So the dead God gives the priest the chance to stand in between. Therefore the priest is very keen on a dead God; he has no interest in a living God. In fact, for the sake of the dead God they can even have the living God killed—without any qualms.

All the Hindus and Muslims, all the Christians, all the Jains—the whole world is busy with such crudeness, such gross foolishness. It is astonishing to think these are “religious” people. Those who can stab a human being—when they cannot see God in a human being, in so much living life—how can one believe they truly see Him in a stone idol? To those who don’t see Him in a person, the person is a “Muslim,” a “Hindu”; they don’t see God in the human being, but they see God in a stone. In a stone they see God! It may well be that the very “God” was carved by a Muslim artisan—and often it is so, for most stone carvers are Muslims. The Muslim craftsman carved the stone and it became “God”; and yet they can plunge knives into a Muslim’s chest and set him on fire. What has gone on in the name of religion till now need not be preserved any further. Do not look for excuses for it.

I object very much. My objection is strong. And the objection is precisely this: as long as you cling to the idol, He will not be seen in all. And once He is seen in all, then He will be in the idol too. But what need will there be for worship then? Who will worship? Whom will one worship—when He is seen in everyone?

Eknath was returning from Kashi with all his friends. They were carrying water to offer at Rameshwaram. In between there was a desert, and a thirsty donkey lay there. Could God possibly be in a donkey? Never—how could God be in a donkey?

In earlier primers for children, for the letter “ga” they used to write, “ga for Ganesh.” In some books people wrote, “ga for gadha (donkey).” The religious folk protested mightily: “This is very wrong. It should be ‘ga for Ganesh’—how can it be ‘ga for gadha’?” Can there be God in a donkey? The irony is that the Ganeshji there on the page is utterly lifeless, while the donkey is very much alive. If He can be in a dead, lifeless Ganesh there, why not in a donkey?

Eknath’s party is traveling on. The donkey is writhing in thirst. It’s a desert; there’s no water nearby. But these worshippers of God are carrying water from Kashi to Rameshwaram. Great devotees—staunch devotees, it seems. Such a long journey they are undertaking.

Taking pains in foolishness does not make one a devotee; it only proves one mindless. The first madness is this: the water of Kashi is fine in Kashi, and Rameshwaram’s in Rameshwaram. Why take on this trouble of carrying water from Kashi to Rameshwaram? And the God who pours water there is pouring plenty at Rameshwaram too; there is no shortage there. And your one potful poured there is not going to increase anything. Yet mindlessness continues in the name of religion. And they are taking great hardship; in village after village they are being welcomed—because simpletons of the same kind are gathered there too. They say, “They are doing a great work. They are returning from a pilgrimage; they are going on a pilgrimage.”

What pilgrimage has happened? Here lies a donkey, crying out in thirst. Eknath is in that party. He gave the water he had brought in his kamandal, his water-pot, to the donkey to drink. The whole group fell upon him: “You are irreligious—have you gone mad? This was brought for the Lord of Rameshwaram!” Eknath said: “I don’t know whether the Lord of Rameshwaram is thirsty or not. And if He is, we will fill more water there. But this God is very thirsty.” The group set him aside: “Stand apart—you seem to be an atheist, not religious. You give water to a donkey! Is there God in a donkey?”

This life that spreads all around us—there we do not see Him; and in a stone idol we buy in the marketplace, there we do see Him? It does not seem possible. The arithmetic appears reversed. Yes, the day He is seen in all, that day He will be seen in that stone as well. But as of now, He is not seen in all.

My friend asks me that—

One last thing. Let me give you a sutra: whoever accepts on belief that it is in everyone will never come to know. Belief will become a barrier; belief has no meaning. Why believe at all? If it is seen, fine; if it is not seen, fine. At least we should declare the truth: that I do not see it.

There was a fakir, Sarmad. In Islam it is uttered like a sacred mantra: There is only one Allah, and there is no Allah other than Him. There is only one God, and there is no God other than Him. But Sarmad would say only half. He would not say the whole. He would say: There is no God. The first part is: There is only one God; other than Him there is no God. Sarmad would utter only the last fragment. He would say: There is no God. Aurangzeb summoned him and said, “I have heard you speak very irreligious things. We hear you say, ‘There is no God’?”

He said: So far this is all I have known. I will say only as much as I have known; how can I say more? How can I say there is only one God? I have neither seen nor known. So far I have only known that there is no God. I searched a lot; nowhere did God appear. Aurangzeb said: He is an atheist; he should be put to death. Aurangzeb said: What would it cost you to just say it? He said: It would cost me a great deal. Because I have set out in search of God, and if I begin with a lie, how will I reach the truth? I have set out to find whether there is God somewhere. As of now I only know that there is not. The day I know that there is, I will say it. Before that I will not.

In the end, all the persuading came to nothing. He would not agree to say it. He said, How can I lie? If I see, I will say. You may see—so you say it. I do not see it. Finally his neck was cut. It is a very wondrous story, a very wondrous story. Who knows how it happened. His head was severed. As soon as his head fell—they say nearly a hundred thousand had gathered to witness; there were so many eyewitnesses—as soon as his neck was cut, he said: There is one God, and there is no God other than Him. People said: Madman! Why didn’t you say it earlier? He said: Until then it had not appeared to me; how could I have said it? Now I have seen, so I say it.

Whether the severed head spoke or not, who knows—but the voice came from the severed head. Sarmad said: Now it has become visible. His head rolled down onto the mosque where he was beheaded. Blood marks on the steps, and his head comes rolling down. And the crowd asks him, Why has it become visible now? He said: Until then there was Sarmad; therefore it did not appear. Now Sarmad has been cut off, so it has appeared. And I say: There is one God, and there is no God other than Him.

I am not telling you to believe that God is in everyone, that life is God. I am not telling you to believe. If you believe, you will fall into a lie. Never fall into such a lie. We are already caught in enough lies. Even concerning God we have fabricated lies. What I know—beyond that there is nothing; there is no need to believe anything more than that. Who says you should believe more than that? For now, accept only this much: that I do not know. Good. That much truth is enough. That much truth is sufficient provision for the journey; with it the journey will happen. That is plenty. That much honesty is enough: that I do not know; I see the tree, I do not see God. If He is not seen, very good—what is wrong with the tree? The tree too is very good. If God is not yet seen, then for a few days look at the tree. What’s the hurry?

But I say, if you look deeply at the tree, God will be seen—deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Truth can go deep; untruth cannot go deep. All beliefs are false; all beliefs are lies; all belief-systems are false. All the scriptures you clutch—since they do not come from our experience, for us they are utterly false. And because we sit clutching them, no journey toward truth can happen.

I say: whoever wants to be a theist has to become an atheist. Whoever wants to be supremely theistic has to go as far as supreme atheism. Whoever one day wants to say “yes” with his whole being must one day also say “no” with his whole being. But we are so greedy to say yes that we do not gather the courage to say no, and we say yes. Our yes is impotent. The person who cannot say no—his yes has no meaning. Therefore, whoever wants to gather the courage to say yes should first gather the courage to say no. But this much is certain: by our no He does not become a no. If He is, then our no will break; and if He is not, fine—our no will stand. I say at least this much: one who says no with courage makes a place for himself in God’s eyes. The atheist has a place; the false theist has none. The person who says, “I do not see”—even if God stands right in front of him—will say, “If I do not yet see, how can I say yes?”

Can God force anyone to lie? No. In His heart there is a place for atheists, because at least they are true. At least they say, “It does not appear to us.” But the one who says, “It does not appear to me,” sets out on a quest. Because with a “no” one can never come to rest. Can “no” ever be a destination? “No” can never be the goal. The goal can only be “yes.” In “no” the pain remains. So search further—perhaps it is farther on, farther on, farther on. Searching and searching, the no drops and the yes arrives. But this is not a matter of belief; this is a matter of knowing. And there is a method to know; there is a path to know. That is what I call meditation.

Tomorrow morning we will again enter that path—how we can know Him. So those friends who come at eight-thirty in the morning, please come.

The talk of tonight is complete.

I bow down to the God seated within everyone.