Jeevan Sangeet #2

One who is in a prison can be unshackled; he can be set free. One who is asleep can be awakened. But the one who is awake and falls into the illusion, “I have gone to sleep,” is very difficult to awaken. And the one who is free and imagines, “I am bound,” is very hard to unbind. And one around whom there are no chains at all, who closes his eyes and dreams, “I am fettered,” and asks, “How do I break these chains? How do I become free, how do I get released?”—with him the difficulty is great.

Last night, with the first sutra, I said something to you in this regard.

The Atman is not dependent, not enslaved—yet we continue to assume it is. The Atman is not to be made free; it is only to be known as freedom itself.

Today, with the second sutra, from another direction I must point to the same truth again. There is one moon; many fingers can point. There is one truth; many doors can be entered. In this second sutra it is essential to understand: what are we seeking?

Everyone seeks something—someone seeks wealth, someone fame. And those who turn away from wealth and fame begin to seek religion, Moksha, Paramatma. But seeking they do, they do not stop seeking.

Ordinarily it is believed that the one who seeks wealth is irreligious and the one who seeks dharma is religious. I want to tell you: whoever seeks is irreligious, and whoever does not seek is religious. What you seek is irrelevant. So long as you are seeking, you will go far away from yourself. The seeker goes away from himself. Only the non-seeker can come home to himself. Seeking means—going far.

What does seeking mean? It means: “I must go where I am not; I must obtain what I do not have; I must find what has not been found.” But what I am is already received—ever available. That I am already. How can that be sought? And the more I get involved in seeking, the more I lose that which I am.

Entangled in seeking, we all have lost ourselves. Then one seeks wealth, another seeks fame, another seeks Moksha—it makes no difference. These are different names for one and the same disease. The disease is seeking. The basic illness is not what is sought; the basic illness is the urge to seek. We cannot remain without seeking—we must seek! Seeking pushes the gaze outward. And seeking, we lose ourselves.

By its very nature, only what is distant can be sought. The alien can be sought. That for which there is distance between me and it can be sought. But that for which there is not even a needle’s breadth of distance—that which and I are one, from which I cannot be separated, which accompanies me wherever I go—how can that be sought?

Seeking is the greatest delusion. The seeker inevitably goes astray. And the root of this delusion is that when we get bored with one search we quickly grab another as a substitute—but the seeking continues.

A man, seeking wealth, becomes weary. He piles up riches and then declares, “There is no juice left in wealth; now I will seek religion!” That is why it happens that those who become rich then set out to seek religion. Do you know why the wealthy turn to religion? The twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains—all are sons of kings. Buddha is a king’s son. Rama and Krishna are kings’ sons. All the Tirthankaras of India, all Buddhas, all Avatars—kings’ sons. Why do the sons of the wealthy set out to seek religion?

Wealth has been gathered; now there is no flavor left in the search. Once you get something, the search for it loses its appeal. Now the mind wants to search for what has not yet been attained. So the one bored with wealth starts seeking religion; the one bored with the world starts seeking Moksha.

The search changes, the seeking continues. And the mind of the seeker remains the same, no matter what is sought.

A shopkeeper sits all morning at his shop, anxious to acquire money. A seeker of God sits in the temple all morning, anxious to attain God with the same intensity with which the shopkeeper longs to gain wealth. The worldly man runs around, collects, accumulates; look at the sannyasin—he too is running. Their backs are turned to each other, but there is no difference in the running: both are running. The race goes on. The worldly man dies troubled that what he wanted he did not get; and the sannyasin dies equally troubled that the vision he sought did not happen. The race goes on.

I want you to understand: the real question is to be free of the race, to be released from the run. Running means my gaze is fixed on some “other.” And as long as my eyes are on the other, how can they be on myself? Whether the gaze is on Paramatma or on the throne of Delhi—it makes no difference. My gaze is elsewhere, not where I am.

This is the structure of the running mind. Now one object is replaced by another; one goal of the race is exchanged for a different goal—but the runner keeps running.

An ox turns the oil-press. What oil is being pressed—does it matter to the ox? The ox must keep circling; some oil will be extracted. Whatever the oil, the ox goes on. The running mind runs—what it runs after is irrelevant.

But we make distinctions. We say, “This man is worldly—he is dying for money! That one is very spiritual—he is seeking God!” But they are the same type; there is no real difference. Both are running, both are mad to obtain something, both minds are craving. Both are tormented for something outside themselves. Both are eager to reach somewhere else. Both are thirsty. Both say, “If that is attained there will be bliss; otherwise bliss is impossible.” There is some “other thing” which, if gained, will bring joy; otherwise I remain miserable. The name of that thing may be anything; a change of name makes no difference.

The running mind—the seeking mind—is the greatest obstacle in the search for truth.

And what is the way? You will say, “If we do not seek, then what? Will we remain as we are?” No. If you go on seeking, you will remain exactly as you are. If you drop seeking even for a single instant, you will become what you have never yet been. But to drop seeking even for a moment is very difficult.

Dropping seeking means: for one instant the mind is not seeking anything. We have declared: neither do we want to acquire, nor to go anywhere, nor to become anything; no becoming, no destination—we are enough. As we are, we are enough. For a single instant we stand still. All races stop, all winds cease—not a leaf stirs, no ripple arises; we go nowhere, we call no one, we do not pray, we do not fold our hands, we do not lock any safe, we do not consult any scripture. We remain—standing, silent, unmoving, not seeking. In this quiet instant that reveals itself which has always been available, which never needed to be sought—what we forgot in all our running.

In China there was a wondrous sage—Lao Tzu. He said: “As long as I sought, I did not find; when I dropped seeking, I discovered that what I was seeking was the seeker himself.” If someone set out to search for himself—however far he goes, how will he find himself?

I have heard: a man, drunk at night, reached his house. The feet know the way; you don’t have to teach them every day. When you go home, you don’t think, “Now turn left, now right—now this is my house.” The habits are mechanical. You may think of anything; the feet turn left by themselves, bring you to the door, climb the steps, you enter, take off your clothes, begin to eat. You hardly notice that you have arrived home.

This man had drunk, yet he reached home. But in his intoxication, as he came near his door, a doubt arose: “Perhaps I have come to someone else’s house.” He asked the neighbors, “Brothers, I am a little senseless—please take me to my home.” He sat on his own steps. The neighbors began to joke and laugh. He begged, “Do not joke—take me to my house; my mother must be waiting for me.” They shook him, “You are having great fun—sitting in your own house!” He said, “Do not talk nonsense. Where is my home? Take me to my house.”

His mother awoke—it was midnight. She came out, placed her hand on his head: “Son, this is your home. What has happened to you?” He clutched her feet, “Mother, take me to my home. My mother must be waiting for me!”

A “wise” man from the neighborhood arrived. There is no shortage of wise men; they are a great nuisance. The fool at least knows he is a fool; the wise do not even know that. The wise man said, “Wait! I will yoke a bullock cart and take you home.” The neighbors protested, “What madness—he is sitting at his own door! If you bring a cart and take him anywhere in the world, you will only carry him farther from home.” But the wise would not listen. He brought the cart: “Wherever one has to go, a cart is needed.” To go to one’s own home—already there—no cart is needed. The logic sounds neat: wherever there is going, a vehicle is required.

They began to seat the drunk on the cart. His mother cried, “What madness are you doing! He is already at home—wherever you take him, you will only take him farther away!” But who listens?

We too are in just such a state. That which we are seeking—there we stand. The one we call to—that is the caller himself.

It is a strange situation—and because of its strangeness there is great difficulty. The more we call, the more we seek, the more difficult it becomes. And the thought does not even arise to look within once—to see who is it that is seeking.

Therefore I tell you: the religious man is not the one who asks, “What should I seek?” The religious man asks, “Who is this that seeks?” The question is not whether we should seek. The irreligious asks, “What shall I seek?” The religious asks, “Who is it that is seeking?” Let me first find this. Then we may seek something else. First let me find myself—then we will seek Paramatma. First know oneself—then we will know wealth, then we will know the world. And the one who does not know himself—what else can he know?

The religious man does not come asking, “Where is God?” Whoever asks, “Where is God?”—he has nothing to do with religion. The religious man does not ask, “Where is Moksha?” Whoever asks such has no relation with dharma. The religious man asks, “Whose longing is this to be free? Who is it that wants liberation? Whose thirst is this for Paramatma? Who is it that demands the divine? Whose yearning is this for bliss? Who is it that cries, that aches, that calls for bliss? Who am I? Who is this seeker? Let me know this one, let me recognize this one.”

But in the name of religion, only useless things have been taught and explained. The entire direction of religion has been set wrong. Religion has nothing to do with seeking, nor with the object of seeking. It has to do with the seeker—the one who seeks. Who is he? And if one is to seek him, where must one go? To the Himalayas? To Badrinath–Kedarnath? To Kashi—where?

In a village there was a great crowd. A fakir came out of his hut and asked, “Where are all these people going?” They said, “Don’t you know? A man from our village has returned after pilgrimage to Mecca–Medina. These hundreds of thousands are going for his darshan.” The fakir said, “Nonsense! I thought Mecca–Medina had come to visit some man—then the crowd would be meaningful. That a man went to Mecca–Medina—what meaning is there?” He went back into his hut.

The religious man is not the one who reaches God; the religious man is the one who reaches himself. Because reaching oneself, God arrives. You cannot seek God; only God can seek you. How will you seek God? You cannot even find yourself, cannot know yourself—yet you raise the ambition to know God! It is man’s ego that says, “I will attain God.” This is the greatest ego. The ego of the wealthy is not so great. Hence, more arrogant than sannyasins you will hardly find. What is their arrogance? The delusion of having attained God. But no one ever attains God. Let someone attain himself—and God is attained. No one can ever go to God. Let someone come to himself—and God comes to him.

Therefore the second sutra is this: do not seek—be still. Do not run—stop. Withdraw the gaze from the other—not to fix it on another “other,” but to remove it from all others so that the gaze falls back upon itself. And note this too: you cannot aim your gaze at yourself; you cannot “put” attention upon yourself. Attention can only be placed on the other. For attention at least two are needed: I, who attend; and that, upon which attention falls. So when I say, remove attention from everywhere, I do not say, “Put it on yourself.” When attention withdraws from all sides, it simply remains where we are. There is no need to place it there, and no one can place it there. Therefore the whole process of meditation is negative—neti, neti: not this, not this. Withdraw from this, withdraw from that, withdraw from that too. Do not fasten attention anywhere. Leave attention empty. As soon as it is withdrawn from all sides, it settles upon itself.

To understand the second sutra, it is necessary to see the illusions of the worldly and the illusions of the sannyasin. An Alexander, a Genghis—they set out to conquer the whole world: “I will conquer everything!” The ego says, “I will hold the world in my fist!” Another man says, “I will seek God.” The ego declares, “I will hold God in my fist! I will find God!” Is there any difference between the two? Yes, a small one: the worldly search is small—the world is small. God means the Total, the Whole. The sannyasin says, “I will grasp the Whole in my fist!” Neither is religious.

The religious says, “I will seek whose fist this is. I am not going to grip anything—I am going to find out: whose fist is this? Who closes this fist, who opens it?” I do not care what is inside the fist; I care who is in the fist! Who is within who closes and opens? The issue is not what the eye should see—a beautiful woman, a lovely flower, a fine mansion, or God. The question is not about the object; the question is: who is it that sees through these eyes? The difference between these two must become clear: that which is seen, and the one who sees.

What is seen can change. Someone looking at money may start looking at God; someone gazing at the marketplace may begin to imagine heaven; someone counting rupees at the shop may suddenly hear Krishna’s flute. But these are all experiences separate from us—they are scenes. What is not known is: who am I? Whether you behold Krishna playing the flute or watch a play—you are seeing something outside yourself in both cases. Nothing is known about the one who sees.

The religious search is for the one who sees—the drashta. Not the seen, but the seer. And obviously for this, running will not help; fleeing will not help; searching will not help. Stopping will help! Halting will help! Sitting down will help!

But we know how to run, how to flee, how to search. So if someone gives us a substitute—“Drop this search, take up that search”—it seems easy. “All right, we won’t seek wealth; we will seek religion.” The mind that sought wealth easily shifts to seeking religion. So do not be surprised when some tycoon becomes a sannyasin. Nothing has changed. The same seeking mind says, “We need a search; if not wealth, then religion.” The one who sought wealth says, “Why seek wealth? Because wealth brings respect.” Then the same mind says, “Fine, we will seek religion; it brings even more respect. How many honor the wealthy? But let that same man become a monk—those very fools who never honored him, or honored him falsely—bow to him in the street and touch his feet.”

The search for wealth is for respect; the search for religion can also be for respect. But a search is needed! The mind says, “I must seek. Without seeking I cannot be.” Why? Because without seeking, mind dies. The moment seeking stops, mind ceases. No seeking—no mind. As long as there is search, there is mind. If you understand rightly, the mind is only a device for seeking. As long as there is search, mind lives; when search ends, mind ends.

We commonly say, “The mind is seeking.” This is wrong. Our language contains many such errors. In the night lightning flashes, and someone says, “Lightning is flashing.” Think a little: it sounds as if lightning is one thing and flashing another. In truth, that which flashes is called lightning. “Lightning is flashing” is inaccurate; lightning and flashing are the same. You cannot separate the flash from the lightning. So too when we say, “The mind is seeking,” it is false. The process of seeking is what we call mind. To say “mind seeks” is meaningless. Mind means seeking. As long as you seek, mind remains—whatever you seek. Stop seeking, and mind vanishes. And where mind disappears, that which is—reveals itself.

That which is does not need to be sought—it is. We have only to stop seeking.

There is a garden in bloom. You fly past it in a jet. You circle a thousand times—but you do not see the flowers. The flowers are there, but you are in such a rush—how can they be seen? You must stop—then that which is becomes visible. Keep running, and that which is cannot be seen. The faster you pass by, the more quickly you miss that which is. Hence, the faster the mind runs, the farther it goes from truth. The more still and motionless the mind, the nearer it comes to truth. In fact, a stilled mind is no-mind. When mind is still, it is gone.

Understand this well, because we speak wrongly every day. We say, “That man has a very quiet mind.” This is wrong. There is no such thing as a quiet mind. The name of mind is restlessness. If restlessness is gone, mind is gone. Consider a river in a storm—waves are turbulent, the wind is wild; we say, “The waves are restless.” Then all becomes calm. What will we say now—“the waves are quiet”? That means: there are no waves. There is no thing as a quiet wave. Wave means disturbance. If there is a wave, there is unrest. “Quiet wave” means the wave has died. Likewise the mind is always restless. Why? Because the seeker cannot be at rest. Seeking means tension: I am here, what I want is there. Between the two there is strain. Until I obtain it I cannot be at peace. And by the time I reach it, my seeking will have moved further on, because the mind lives only by saying, “Further, further.” As long as it says, “Seek more, go further,” it survives. Therefore it daily pushes you ahead—into the future. You are in the present; mind drives you into the future.

Seeking throws us into tomorrow; being is in the present. Seeking says: tomorrow. “Tomorrow I will have wealth, tomorrow position, tomorrow God”—tomorrow. Seeking says tomorrow; what is, is today—here and now.

Some fakirs were traveling together—a Sufi, a yogi, a devotee among them. They halted in a village, begged for alms, then said to the Sufi, “Go to the market and bring food.” He brought halwa. But there was little halwa and many men. All began to stake claims. The bhakta said, “First right is mine—I am the greatest devotee of God. I often see him playing the flute. The halwa should come to me first.” The yogi said, “What nonsense! My life has passed in headstands. No one has stood upside down as long as I have. I have siddhi in yoga. I will take the halwa.” They argued and argued; the sun set. No one agreed who should have the first right.

Finally the Sufi said, “Do this: we shall sleep. At dawn whoever has seen the best dream—we will tell our dreams—the best dreamer gets the halwa.” They slept. Of course they dreamed fine dreams—no one can control dreams—but they composed them well. In the morning, the bhakta said, “God appeared and said, ‘You are my greatest devotee; none greater than you.’ I deserve the halwa.” The yogi said, “I entered Samadhi, attained Moksha, experienced the supreme bliss. I deserve the halwa.” Each presented his claim. They asked the Sufi, “What about you?” He said, “I am in difficulty. I saw a dream: God said, ‘Get up and eat the halwa!’ I got up and ate it—how could I disobey the command?” The Sufi who recorded this tale said: only those who get up now—and eat—arrive. Those who say “tomorrow,” those who postpone even for a single instant—miss. Seeking always postpones. Seeking is postponement. Seeking cannot be fulfilled here and now; it says, “We must strive—tomorrow we will arrive; there will be attainment.” But by the time you get there, the seeking mind has already shifted the focus—“further, further.”

Like the horizon—step outside and the sky appears to touch the earth. “There it is, touching.” Perhaps beyond the hills near Udaipur the sky touches. Go there. The further you go, the further the horizon recedes. It never touches. The sky never touches the earth anywhere. Circle the whole planet; it will always seem to touch, beckoning—and as you proceed, it moves on.

The sky of desire is just like that—it never touches the earth of the human soul. You advance, it recedes. Running and running, seeking and seeking, life ends—again and again, birth upon birth—and the madness of seeking does not cease. Yes, one thing does occur: you get bored with one search and start another. But the “seeking” continues.

And I am telling you: the religious man is one who is bored with seeking—not with a particular search, but with seeking itself. He says, “No more seeking. Now I will sit and see—without seeking—what is.” To sit and see without seeking is meditation—a non-seeking mind. A mind that is not seeking descends into meditation; that very state is meditation.

We have not known even for a single instant what it is to be without seeking. We are always seeking something. This continual seeking is a symptom of our inner restlessness. Leave a man alone in an empty room and watch through a peephole: he will seek something to do. He will not sit still. If he finds a scrap of newspaper, he will read it—once, twice, ten times. He will open the window, close it. He must be occupied. If he lies down, he turns and tosses. If he gets up, he moves his hands and feet.

One day a man sat before Buddha, twitching his big toe. Buddha stopped speaking and asked, “My friend, why is your toe moving?” At once the toe stopped. The man said, “Please continue—why bother about my toe?” Buddha said, “You may not care about your toe—I do. Why was it moving?” He said, “Just like that—I didn’t even know.” Buddha said, “It is your toe and you don’t even know! Then the trouble is great. Are you conscious or unconscious? Why was the toe moving?” The man said, “Why get lost in such trifles? What has the toe to do with anything?” Buddha said, “It is not the toe—it shows the mind within is agitated.”

Notice: a man sits on a chair, going nowhere, but his legs are shaking. Ask him, “Why?” If you were going somewhere, leg-movement makes sense; you aren’t going anywhere—why shake? Within, the mind shakes. It says, “Do something. If not something meaningful, do something useless.”

A man smokes a cigarette—drawing smoke in, pushing it out. If you ask, “What are you doing?”—he has no answer. If a man draws water into his mouth and gurgles it back out, we would call him mad. But if it becomes a fashion, if society accepts it as a pastime, you would see people everywhere drawing water in and gurgling it out. If it goes on for a couple of thousand years, religious teachers will warn, “Gurgling water is bad,” and people will reply, “What to do, sir—we cannot stop. We feel the urge. Four or six times a day we must gurgle.” In our country no one chews a wad under the teeth; in America many do—keeping a tobacco quid tucked under the gums and chewing away. It doesn’t let go. It would never occur to us to sit and chew a wad four or six times a day. Why? There it has become a fashion—so it goes on.

People puff on cigarettes—drawing smoke in and out. What are they doing? It isn’t about smoking or not smoking at root—it is that the restless man wants to do something. He is idle; what shall he do? So he moves smoke in and out. He has found an occupation. Cigarettes are an occupation—a way for the empty man to busy himself. Slowly, women too began to smoke. Notice: in countries where women started smoking, their chatter decreased—because a new occupation was found. In a country like ours, where women cannot smoke, they chatter. What one accomplishes by moving the lips around a cigarette, they must accomplish by moving their lips in talk. It is the same issue. And I think smoking is simpler than eating someone else’s head—if you must do something, do it to yourself rather than harass others.

The mind searches for empty occupations. A man wakes and at once opens the newspaper. You think he is eager to know about the world—do not be deceived. He is not concerned even for his own knowing—how will he be eager for the world’s? He just needs an entanglement. For a while he will be caught there; then quickly turns on the radio—to be caught again. Entanglement is needed. Man is restless within—he needs some search. Without seeking he feels in trouble.

We are fleeing from ourselves—an escape from the self—and to this escape we give ever-new names. This will not do. One has to stop. One has to stop fleeing oneself. For a little while, stop inside—go nowhere, do nothing, seek nothing, take up no occupation: do not shake the leg or the hand, do not smoke, do not read the newspaper, do not chant Ram-Ram. It is one and the same—whether you draw smoke in and out or chant Ram-Ram. Both are occupations—beads sliding up and down. If the world becomes intelligent, children will wonder: “How mad were people—sitting for half an hour, forty-five minutes, sliding beads!” We do not see it because it feels perfectly right: “A religious person slides beads.” What does bead-rolling have to do with being religious? It is the same thing—the method differs. The smoker draws smoke in and out, the bead-roller moves the beads up and down. The mind is caught in doing; it cannot remain without doing.

To remain without doing is meditation. To remain—without doing anything—is meditation.

This is the second sutra: for a little while, remain without doing—absolutely without doing. People come to me and ask, “All right—then what shall we do at that time? Should we chant Om, Ram-Ram? Whom should we meditate upon? Which mantra shall we recite—Namo-kar? What shall we do?” I tell them: do not do anything. They say, “But one must do something. Please tell us something to do.” If I tell them something, they become relieved—another thing to do. They are ready to do anything—just tell them—and they will keep doing, continuing the same pattern. I say: for a while—no action. For a while—no doing. If even for a second the state of non-doing arises, from that very second the door opens which is the door to the divine.

Tonight we will sit for this experiment of meditation. Then remember only this: when we say we are “doing” meditation, it means we are not doing anything. It is only a fault of language that one has to say “doing meditation.” Meditation means non-doing. Language is difficult; it has been made by the unknowing. The knowing have not made language; when they try, the unknowing do not allow it. If the knowing crafted language, it would be very different.

One last small story and I will complete. Then tonight we will enter this non-doing. Think about non-doing through the day—polish the understanding. What I have said—ponder it. My speaking alone is not enough. You too must contribute through contemplation; then something will happen.

I have heard: in Japan there was an ashram. The emperor went to see it. A large monastery—hundreds of monks’ cells. The master showed the emperor every place: bathrooms and latrines, the exercise yard, the study hall. The emperor kept asking, “You show small things—what about that large building in the middle—what do you do there?” Whenever he asked, the monk became deaf—as if he had not heard—yet he heard all else. The emperor grew angry: he had come to see that hall, and they showed him cattle sheds. At the gate he said, “I leave disappointed—either you are mad or I am. What do you do in that central hall? Why don’t you speak?” The monk said, “You ask the wrong question. A wrong question can never receive a right answer.” The emperor said, “What is wrong? I ask, ‘What do you do in that hall?’” He replied, “Exactly. You understand only the language of doing; hence I told you: here we bathe, here we study, here we exercise. That building is our meditation hall—there we do nothing. Now you ask, ‘What do you do there?’—so I keep silent, for you will not understand. You only understand the tongue of doing. So I tell you where we tie the cows and buffaloes. And that hall—when someone has nothing to do, he goes there. That is our meditation hall. There we do nothing, Majesty—we simply are. We do not do—there we only be.”

Think a little. Reflect through the day—then the night will be useful. My saying is not enough; your thinking refines it—you, too, must contribute.

I have heard: a king invited a friend as a guest. They went hunting. To tease his friend—who was a wise man—the king gave him the worst horse, so slow that reaching the hunt was impossible. All reached the forest; the friend had not even left the village. The horse was so sluggish that had he been on foot he might have gone farther. Often the instrument becomes the obstacle. Then fate intervened: it poured with rain. The friend turned back at the village edge. He took off his clothes, placed them beneath him on the saddle, and sat atop the horse. When he reached home, he wore dry clothes. The king and the others returned drenched to the bone. They found the friend in clean, dry clothes—not wet at all. “What happened?” The friend said, “This horse is remarkable—it brought me in such a way that my clothes did not get wet.” The next day they went again. The king said, “Today I will ride this horse.” The friend said, “As you wish.” The king took the slow horse; the friend a fast one. Again it rained. The friend took off his clothes, placed them on the horse’s back, sat atop them, and came home swiftly—drier than before, for today the horse was fast. The king got wetter than yesterday—for the slow horse barely moved; the whole downpour fell upon him. At home he said, “You lied—this horse soaked me even more.” The friend said, “Majesty, the horse alone is not enough. You have to contribute something. What will the horse do by itself? Did you do anything other than sit and let it happen?” The king said, “I only sat on it—and all went wrong.” The friend said, “I did something—and the horse cooperated. Today again I did something—and the horse cooperated.” The king asked, “What did you do?” He said, “Do not ask—that is the secret. But one thing is certain: one must always contribute. If you do nothing, even a swift horse is useless; if you do something, even the slowest horse becomes a helper and friend.”

What I have said is no more than a horse. If you contribute something, something will happen; otherwise you will hear—and it will be lost.

So think and come tonight. Understand what non-doing is. Then we will sit. If you come with understanding, you can enter non-doing. It can happen now—this very moment. It can happen anytime. But if a preparation of thought stands behind, one can leap in an instant. And that leap is so wondrous—it takes you where you have always been. It takes you where you have always been.

Tonight, for that leap, we will meet again.

You have listened to my words with such peace and love—I am blessed. In the end I bow down to the Paramatma dwelling within all. Please accept my pranam.