Jharat Dashahun Dis Moti #20

Yog Radha! Tears that flow in love are auspicious, but they are not meditation. They prepare the path of meditation, they open its doors, they polish the mirror of meditation—but the tears themselves are not meditation. Tears do not only cleanse the outer eyes; they cleanse the inner eyes too. The tear-gland exists so the eye remains moist, dust does not settle, the eye does not dry out. The eye is the most delicate organ of the body; if it dries, it is ruined. The ordinary function of tears is to keep the eyes clean.

But tears that flow in love are not ordinary. And those that flow in longing for the Supreme Beloved are most extraordinary—signs of great good fortune. It is as if spring is about to arrive; the first hints begin to show on the trees—one or two blossoms open here and there. Such tears in love of God are also symbols, indicators: his chariot must be on its way. The tears say the rumble of the wheels can already be heard. But the tears are not the chariot wheels themselves; and one or two blossoms are not the fullness of spring. Those few early blossoms may even wither—spring might not come! Do not rely on the stray flower; sometimes they bloom out of season for other reasons.

Right now a total solar eclipse is near; on that day many kinds of disturbances occur. Flowers that open at night will open by day. Flowers can be deceived. When totality comes and darkness falls at once, what can the poor flowers do? The tuberose, which blooms at night and fills the air with fragrance, will be deceived and open during the day; not only that, its fragrance glands will instantly become active. Birds that fly back to their nests at dusk, the moment the eclipse occurs they will rush home, bewildered—how has evening come so soon? It never comes this early, yet it has; they will dash to their nests and a great confusion will arise.

Scientific teams will hide in forests to study: what effect on wild animals, on plants, on birds? There will be effects on all—but only for a short while. Then the sun will appear again; and then there will be even more amazement and difficulty. The tuberose will close again, will have to pull back its fragrance—“A mistake, a lapse, an accident!” Birds will come out of their nests again, a little frightened, a little alarmed. Flowers that bloom at night will close once more.

Sometimes such accidents happen in the inner life too, when through confusion it seems to you that tears are flowing in love for God—yet the cause may be something else. If the cause is something else and God’s love is merely a pretext—and man is very skilled at inventing pretexts—then, for example, your husband is harassing you, the children are troubling you, life is becoming unbearable, life seems nothing but sorrow—so one sits before Krishna Kanhaiya and weeps: “Oh Lord, now take me! Delay no more! Free me from this snare!” And one cries—and perhaps thinks these are tears of divine love. They are not tears of love; they are tears of life’s misery. But even here the ego does not want to admit, “I have been defeated, I have failed; I could not make life beautiful or fragrant; my life was not life—only futility, only anguish.” We do not want to accept this; our ego refuses. It finds new arguments upon arguments. He cries from sorrow and says he is crying from love. If so, such tears have no value.

But I know Radha; she is not mistaken—her tears have begun to rise from love of the Lord. Her life is full; what is needed is there; there is no sorrow. A husband such as one hardly finds, she has found—so gentle, so simple, so natural! Therefore these tears are not of suffering, nor of world-weariness; they are of attachment to the Divine. This much assurance I give; I put my seal on this. But even so, these tears are not meditation. They will cleanse the inner eyes, wash away the dust of lifetimes; there will be a bathing. This is the real Ganges-bath. How can the outer Ganges wash the within? Only the inner Ganges can wash.

Honor these tears! Do not hold them back! In this, women are more fortunate than men, because women have not been taught the stupidity of “don’t cry.” Men have been taught this stupidity a lot. To small boys we say, “You are a manly child; don’t cry! Don’t do girlish things!” As if crying had anything to do with girls! The right to cry belongs to men exactly as it does to women. Crying is an extraordinary alchemy. One who has not passed through it will be deprived of certain experiences; some depths of life will never be known to him; some music of life will never be heard; some songs will never arise within. One who has not known tears will not know compassion, will not know love, will not know sympathy, will not know kindness. Without tears, life becomes arid—a desert—without oases. In this desert-like life, tears are little oases—green, where springs flow.

But for centuries we have been hardening men into stone. Our effort everywhere—in all societies and nations—has been to make man a hard rock, because we used man for one purpose: as soldier. He must fight, he must kill—he must kill! If he starts crying, then with a gun in hand, before pulling the trigger, he will cry: “I am killing this poor fellow—he has a wife, he has children; his children will be orphans, will beg; he too has a wife, as I do; as my wife waits at home and writes letters, his wife waits too; now letters will not arrive, now he will never reach home; he has an old mother whose eyes yearn to see him; an old father for whom he is the last staff and support—this man I am killing!” If he starts to cry, the bullet will not be fired, the sword will not be raised.

We had to make man steel. We had to turn him into material for war, shells for cannons. We did not let man remain human. In this one respect women are fortunate. They have suffered many misfortunes, but in this they were not deprived like men; their capacity to cry remains.

What a strange thing! If a woman behaves like a man, we respect her—men and women both. I knew a poetess, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan; her famous line is: “Khoob ladi mardani, woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi.” I said, “Why ‘like a man’ (mardani)? Why give such value to man? Why not write: ‘She fought well like a woman; she was the Queen of Jhansi’—which is the truth?” But if you write it that way, it won’t appeal to anyone. It must be “like a man!”

If a woman behaves like a man, she is honored; if a man behaves like a woman, he is insulted. Our values are double; they are not honest. If a girl behaves like a man, we say she is brave—Joan of Arc, the Queen of Jhansi—we honor them. But if a man is tender, graceful, like a petal of a flower, we insult him.

Nietzsche abused Buddha and Jesus. Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy became the foundation of Adolf Hitler; on that basis the Second World War happened. Nietzsche hurled abuse at two persons—Buddha and Jesus, Jesus more because he knew him more. Why? Because both were womanly—effeminate! He expressed great anger: “They have made the whole world effeminate!” What kind of teaching is it that if someone slaps your cheek, you offer the other? This is to make people womanly! If it goes on like this, man’s most precious asset will be destroyed. Jesus says: “Blessed are the last.” And man’s whole game is to prove himself first! Jesus says: “Blessed are the meek.” And man’s business is to be first, to sit on the throne—wager his life but come first.

Yesterday I spoke of a young woman who studied with me at the university twenty-five years ago. My professor then, Dr. S. K. Saxena—now “gone to heaven.” I say “gone to heaven” only as a formality; I am not sure. If he has indeed gone there, may God’s soul find peace—because he will create a commotion there too! He was a good man, but a bit of a mischief-maker.

I would have forgotten this girl; after twenty-five years there was no reason to remember her. I remember only because of Dr. Saxena. In his subject there were only two students—myself and this girl. She was Punjabi, a bit manly, a bit moustachioed—she had small moustaches. Because of that, I did not forget. And whenever she was absent, Dr. Saxena would not fail to ask me, “Where is the moustachioed lady?” When she was present, he said nothing. I told him a trick: “You enjoy calling her moustachioed, but you cannot say it to her face. Most days she is there; only when she is absent do you take this pleasure. I will give you a way to say it even when she’s present. You and I will understand; she will not.” He asked, “What trick?” I said, “You know there is a Jain temple in Rajasthan called ‘Muchhala Mahavir’—the only temple in all India where Mahavir’s idol has a moustache. Hence ‘Muchhala Mahavir’—the Moustached Mahavir! And she is indeed a Mahavir—strong, sturdy Punjabi lady! And moustaches don’t just grow on anyone; they need some robustness. So give her the name ‘Muchhala Mahavir.’ You’ll say it, I’ll understand; I’ll say it, you’ll understand; she will not know it refers to her.” From that day it was our code. Whenever we wished, we would bring up “Muchhala”—and the lady would sit and listen. How could she know what “Muchhala Mahavir” was about!

I had never imagined then that “Muchhala Mahavir,” said as a joke, would become the first site of my work. My first meditation camp was at Muchhala Mahavir! I said, “Well done, Muchhala Mahavir!” When I went there for the first time and saw the idol, I remembered that moustachioed lady.

But I told Dr. Saxena: “You call her ‘Muchhala’ and ‘moustachioed lady’—if a woman has a moustache we have objections, but if a man shaves off his moustache we have none! That is double standards.” He himself was clean-shaven. I had no fear, so I said, “You should answer why you are clean-shaven. If a moustache on a woman looks crude and unbecoming, then how can a man without a moustache look beautiful? If a moustache seems unnatural on a woman, then a man’s shaved-off moustache is equally unnatural.”

From that day he stopped saying it. He dropped all talk of Muchhala Mahavir. If I brought it up, he would say, “Let it be! To hell with it! What have I to do with it! You will make me grow a moustache. I understand your conspiracy—you are after me! When I see you, I feel afraid you will raise that topic! And I cannot grow a moustache; I’m telling you.” I said, “Know that you have double standards; remember it. You are a professor of ethics and you have double standards!”

But double standards continue; they go on.

If a man cries, we say it is bad, not good—even if he is in sorrow we don’t let him cry, because we say he must be strong, so strong that nothing can shake him.

If a woman cries, we say, “If she doesn’t cry, what else will she do? She is weak—let her cry!” But you will be surprised—psychologists have found that women go mad less often simply because they can cry, and men go mad more often simply because they cannot. They have lost the capacity to weep—and the capacity to weep keeps a person healthy. Otherwise the wounds of sorrow remain suppressed inside; they do not flow out. It is like pus remaining inside and not draining; then it becomes a sore; it can even become cancer. How much pus people carry within! When people come to me and, slowly, as they enter meditation, when tears begin to flow even for men, they are very surprised: “What has happened? All our lives tears never came. Father died—we didn’t cry; mother died—we didn’t cry; wife died—we didn’t cry; mountains of sorrow fell—we didn’t cry; and here, without cause, tears are flowing. What is this?”

You were acting unnaturally. Cry—cry to your heart’s content!

Crying in sorrow lightens sorrow; this is a rule. And crying in joy deepens joy; this too is a rule. Keep this in mind: tears lighten pain and deepen bliss—opposites! Bliss and sorrow are opposites; therefore tears have opposite effects.

Radha, the tears that are flowing for you are auspicious. Rejoice! Do not be embarrassed. But I must also tell you: do not mistake them for meditation. Through them the road to meditation is being laid; through them the first bricks of the temple are being set. But even if the bricks and walls and building of the temple are complete, still an image must be installed. The temple is not the image; when the image arrives, meditation arrives.

So you ask: “Then what is meditation? Is it something else?”

Meditation is witnessing. Let the tears flow, and remain a witness to the tears. Watch. Do not identify with them. Watch with alertness that tears are flowing; as if they belong to someone else; as if someone else is crying and you are far away, only the observer. In that state of the seer, meditation is born. The state of the seer is meditation. Let every act be suffused with witnessing. Then whether it is tears, or song, or dance, or the ordinary work of life—earning one’s bread, walking, getting up, sitting—toward all, let there be witnessing. Keep watching and keep breaking identification. Do not think, “These are my tears,” Radha. Do not think, “I am hungry.” You have never been hungry. How can the soul be hungry? The body feels hunger. The soul only sees that hunger has arisen; it only reflects—it is a mirror.

Nothing happens in the mirror.

When clouds appear in the mirror, do you think the clouds have entered the mirror? When you stand before a mirror, do you think your face has gone inside it? The moment you move, the face is gone. Nothing ever happens in the mirror. The mirror is a mirror—ever blank, ever empty. So is your consciousness—ever blank, ever empty. The experience of that consciousness is meditation, and the method is witnessing.

Become a witness to every act! Awaken witnessing! Watch—do not be the doer!

Remember Gulal: yesterday Gulal said two things drop from the accomplished one—the siddha—karma and dharma. Karma is the means to attain the world; dharma is the means to attain liberation, the other world. But as long as there is a desire to attain, one is desire-ridden—whether for this world or the next. So Gulal spoke truly, and deeply: one drops both karma and dharma. There have been those who said only karma is dropped. Krishna said that in the state of the seer one is freed of karma. But Gulal leapt higher: he said one is freed of dharma too, because what is dharma? Subtle karma. One wants wealth and does karma; one wants liberation and does dharma—both are acts: one outer, one inner. If you must be free of the outer, you must be free of the inner, because you must be free of duality—both inner and outer should go; both world and liberation should go. What remains then? Only consciousness, like a mirror reflecting the whole existence. That consciousness is meditation; its culmination is samadhi.

Tears are auspicious; they will wash the path of meditation, they will prepare it. But the path is not the goal. You must walk and reach the destination. Meditation—awaken witnessing toward the tears—and then the difference will become clear. Tears are delightful, but not the destination. They are not the target; that you become so skilled in crying that you are a meditator. That you outdo everyone in crying—crying such that no one can match you—this will not make meditation happen.

But let me repeat: the tears that are coming are not bad; they are not inauspicious. Do not stop them. They will dissolve of their own accord when their work is done. When the seed’s work is complete, the seed ends and the sprout appears. When the flower’s work is complete, the flower falls and the fruit appears. These tears have their work—let it be completed. Do not stop them, otherwise the work will not complete. You only watch. Watch in a mood of celebration, in a mood of joy. An auspicious hour has arrived at your door—so watch with great welcome. But do not cling to the tears. Do not try to arrange that now you must cry every day, whether tears come or not. Otherwise man can even produce false tears. There is no limit to his falsity.

You know false tears can be produced. Someone dies in a house; you go there and you begin to cry. You have no grief at all, and outside on the road you were not crying. But you enter, see others weeping, feel modesty, feel the fear of death—“One day I too must die”—everyone is crying; if you do not, it won’t look good—so you also cry. Tears will fall in a stream.

A person can fabricate such deep falsity that we cannot even imagine. He need not lie only with the mouth; he can lie with the body; even the body can be conscripted into the lie. So if you conclude that tears are a great thing in meditation, then on days they do not come you will have to bring them—because meditation must be done! You will try to induce them.

So neither suppress—because suppression halts the work—nor try to bring them—because induced tears will be false. Let them come spontaneously as long as they come; the day they depart, understand their work is done—thank them and forget them. Until then, practice witnessing.

And the beauty of witnessing is that we can practice it with any act. For this you need not sit in a temple, mosque, or cave. You can practice at the shop, while walking, while sitting. If nothing else, the breath is moving—practice with that. Buddha called this Vipassana—watching the breath: the incoming breath, the outgoing breath. Let witnessing settle on that. Wherever witnessing settles, there the springs of meditation burst forth.

Asha Satyarthi! When sannyas happens, of course everything changes. Sannyas is not just changing clothes. Sannyas is an inner transformation. It is a new way, a new method of seeing life. It is a new dimension of living.

The old sannyas was anti-life. So it brought no benefit to the world. It harmed the world—certainly harmed it. Who knows how many homes were ruined, how many families destroyed. Who knows how many women became widows while their husbands were still alive. Who knows how many children became orphaned while their fathers still lived—fatherless. Surely, millions of children must have begged. And who knows how many women became prostitutes. The burden of all this lies on old sannyas. On the head of old sannyas is a large bundle of sins.

And the irony is: in return for so much sin, what did old sannyas gain? Dry, shriveled people, devoid of the juice of life—dead! Yet we worship the dead. We have great pleasure in worshiping the dead. For centuries we have been worshipers of the dead. When a man dies, everyone praises him. “Why criticize or find fault with the dead!” people say. While he was alive, all criticized him—that too is quite a joke! While he was alive, no one could be found to praise him—perhaps people think, “Why praise the living?” Just as they think, “Why criticize the dead?” Well, even if you criticize the dead, what harm is there? He isn’t there anyway; it will do. Now no wound will reach the dead through your criticism. Don’t criticize the living! We hurl abuses at the living, we honor the dead.

One day Mulla Nasruddin heard in the village, wherever he went, everyone was praising Chandulal—“Brother, such a wonderful man!” He began to be suspicious, anxious. Finally he asked someone, “Brother, what’s the matter—has Chandulal passed away? So many people are praising him, this can only mean one thing: Chandulal is no longer in the world. Because no one can praise a living man, and one must praise the dead.” For centuries we respect the old, because the old are closer to death—just one more step. He has already achieved enough of death, a little life remains, so we respect him.

Respect for age arose from respect for death. And the moment someone dies, he instantly becomes “heavenly.” Then who goes to hell? Hell must be empty! Because whoever dies becomes “the late, of blessed memory.” So who is infernal?

No, we do not say this.

I have heard: In one village a man died—a politician. The custom of that village was that when someone dies, two words of praise must be spoken. People racked their brains to find two words, but there were none worthy of saying in his praise. He was such a wicked man. He had harassed each and every person. He had made life unbearable for one and all. He had troubled people so much that they were rejoicing in their hearts, flowers were blooming in their souls—“He’s gone, the nuisance is over.” But the corpse lay there; the pyre would be lit only after someone gave a talk, a speech, and spoke two words of respect about the deceased—that was the village tradition. At last people kept looking at each other: Who will speak? What will he say? Then the villagers said to the pundit, “Brother, you say something. Search the scriptures! You know the scriptures, you’re master of words—say two words somehow, bring this to an end. How long are we to sit here? He harassed us while living; now even in death he harasses us. He’s dead, and we’re sitting pointlessly in the cremation ground. Let us go home, get on with our work. All our lives he tormented us, and to the very end we must taste his flavor! Say something, anything! We’ll close our eyes and ears and accept it—we’ll clap—just end the bother! Whether you lie or tell the truth, we don’t care.”

But he had tormented the pundit so much that the pundit’s scriptural knowledge was of no use; he searched within, but nothing… Finally he stood up—being a pundit, he found a way. He said, “Brothers, the gentleman who has died had five brothers who are still alive. Compared to those five, this one was a saint!”

What a device! Those five are even more accomplished—don’t be too relieved; those five remain to take care of you. Compared to them, this one was a god.

Then the corpse could be placed on the pyre.

Why did respect for the dead arise? Scientists say it arose out of fear. When, in the beginning, respect for the dead began—ten thousand years ago—it came from the fear, “Brother, this man has died; now honor him, or else he may trouble us—become a ghost or spirit! So honor him, give charity, immerse his ashes in the Ganges. What’s done is done—somehow get rid of him. If he must go, then go and see him off. And every year during the fortnight for the ancestors, offer them something—a bribe! Spirits don’t come; crows eat. But whatever it is, give them some bribe so that they stay quiet. If they forget us—that’s great compassion! Let them show kindness and not come near this side, not pay attention here!”

Out of the fear that man would become a ghost and then harass us, we began to bribe him. From that, praise of the dead started. That praise then spread over all our affairs—over everything. The more dead a person is—even while living—the more we began to honor him. A man who is healthy, who eats properly, dresses properly, lives properly, is not worthy of our respect. Let him starve, fast, stand naked, become skin and bone, dry up, turn sallow, remain half-dead—somehow his breath continues—then we begin to respect him.

Our respects are strange indeed. We are of a perverse nature. Our honors reveal our perversity. The more someone tortures himself, the more we honor him. What does that mean? It means we encourage and reward those who torture themselves. We give prizes to the apostles of suffering and we promote them.

The old sannyas was suffering-oriented. It was anti-life, anti-love, anti-family, anti-world. It said, “Do not live.” Its fundamental principle was: Live the least, the minimum. If you must live, then somehow keep living. There have been religions—like Jainism—that have sanctioned suicide. Jainism is the culmination of the religions; other religions also devised ways of self-destruction—slowly, gradually: do this daily, slowly-slowly, you will die; but Jainism explicitly sanctioned self-killing—santhara, the fast unto death. “Take a vow of fasting till death”—it takes two months, sometimes three months to die, because a man can live up to three months without food. Those three months are months of great suffering, because you are torturing your body, killing it inch by inch. It would be easier to jump off a cliff, to drink poison—the matter would be over in an hour, in a moment—shoot yourself! But you won’t be honored for that. Die inch by inch over three months, die grain by grain, and there is honor—because you endured so much suffering. Hang on the cross for three months, then you are worthy of respect.

This the Jains call santhara.

But the whole Jain arrangement is to dry a man out, melt him away; do as much cruelty to his body as you can. It’s quite a marvel: on one hand they say, “Ahimsa paramo dharmah—nonviolence is the highest religion; do not harm anyone”—but you are not included in that “anyone.” Do not hurt anyone—everyone else is included, except you. As for yourself—torture yourself to your heart’s content. In fact, when you don’t harm anyone else, all your energy and your desire to harm will turn back upon yourself. Then whom will you torment? Kill yourself, harass yourself, hassling yourself. What songs will arise from this? What glimpse of bliss will arise from this? No fountain of life can spring from it.

Old sannyas took the side of death.

The sannyas I speak of is the song of life, the music of life. So, Asha, what has happened to you, what is happening, is auspicious.

You say, “After sannyas it is as if everything has changed.”

It should change! To take sannyas means we have decided in favor of life. We have said we will live to the full; we will live each moment, and live it totally. We have said we consider life synonymous with the divine. We have said life is moksha; life is nirvana.

What is the meaning of sannyas?

As I see it, sannyas is the declaration: I drop my opposition to life; I drop my condemnation of life. Now I will seek within life itself. In the greenness of trees I will see the greenness of God; in the colors of the trees, the colors of God. And when the rainbow is in the sky, I will see how the divine is joining earth and sky—how the divine is building a bridge between them. In the songs of the birds I will hear the Gita; in the gurgling of streams, my Quran will be. When winds hum through the trees, for me that is Upanishad, that is Veda.

The vision of sannyas I give you is of wonder, of joy, of celebration. Did not Gulal say, “I play Holi with God; I spray my syringes of color”? To play the spring festival with the divine, to fling gulal—that is sannyas.

The old sannyas chose ochre robes for different reasons; I too have chosen ochre robes, but my reasons are different. The old sannyas chose ochre because it is the color of fire—of the funeral pyre. Their initiation was done in that way. A mock pyre would be made, and just as we place the dead upon the pyre, the head of the initiate would be shaved; after bathing him and dressing him in new clothes, he would be laid on the pyre; then the pyre would be lit. It was all a ritual, a rite. The initiator would chant and declare, “You are dead; what you were till now is dead; it is finished. You have climbed the pyre. Now you have no family, no wife, no father, no mother, no brother, no kin.” Then, before the fire caught strongly and the man actually burned, he would be lifted off. He would be given a new name. Now he had no caste, no stage of life, no old name. Therefore, the old-style sannyasin would not tell his age, would not reveal his former name, his former address, the names of his parents. He would say, “All that is over.” He would wipe out his history. He would be given ochre robes—the color of the pyre, of fire.

I too give ochre robes—but for me, this is not the color of the pyre. It is indeed the color of fire. And fire, for me, is not necessarily a symbol of the funeral pyre. Fire is the symbol of life. You are alive only so long as the fire burns within you. Science agrees. Just as a lamp burns—how does it burn? Only because of oxygen. And because of oxygen you too burn, you live. Remove oxygen, the lamp goes out. Cover a lamp with a glass and see how long it lasts—it will last only a short while. As soon as the oxygen within that glass is used up, the lamp will go out. Pinch your nose shut, hold it tight—very soon you will begin to go out; oxygen stops reaching within.

We put dying men on oxygen. Put them on oxygen and they can be kept alive for quite some time; even if they are dying, they can be sustained—because oxygen keeps the inner fire burning. Our life is fire; all life is fire. If the sun were to go out, trees would wither this very moment, birds would die, people would perish—no one would remain. The earth would become utterly desolate. The sun’s fire keeps us alive.

So fire is not only of the pyre; it is also of life. I chose ochre for the fire of life. And ochre has many other symbols: the color of flowers, the vernal hue, the color of spring—when flowers blossom in such profusion they cannot be counted. This ochre is the color of your blood—your life-stream, your sap. As trees cannot live without water, you cannot live without blood. These ochre robes are symbols of the sun—source of our life. They are symbols of revolution—for revolution is a new birth; and when a child is born, naturally there is blood, the mother bleeds, and the child arrives wrapped in blood. In my view they have nothing to do with the pyre. They are related to flowers, to life, to revolution, to spring. For me they are symbols of celebration.

But changing clothes will not do; the whole inner climate must change.

And Asha, I can see that your inner climate has changed. Yesterday you saw—the young woman who suddenly stood up—that was Asha Satyarthi. She couldn’t restrain herself, she was so full of feeling. She wanted to come closer, and still closer. Later she wept all day, “I created a disturbance; because of me there was an interruption.” All day she cried, “I didn’t want to stand; I tried in every way to stop myself, but I couldn’t! Something took me. As if someone else lifted me. As if I was not in my own control. As if a drunkenness, a rapture, a swoon!”

Asha, there is no need to cry. Now and then a little disturbance—such things happen. Now and then! But don’t start doing it every day. And others should not start doing it because Asha did. What happened to her was spontaneous—people are such that they will imitate! Asha could not help it—that’s why it happened. What could she do? She was helpless. She repented much, wept much, “It was not right that I interrupted the satsang.”

But there are things beyond right and wrong. Your rising was beyond right and wrong. I saw that you had not stood up—something else had stood up in you. It was not your volition, not your decision, not your desire. Both expressions were on your face—you were restraining yourself. But a storm came and carried you off like a dry leaf. What could you do? You wanted to come near—coming near is what satsang means. To sit close to the master is what upanishad means. Even a little distance pricks.

Now it is a compulsion that some must sit far. All cannot sit in front. So you had to sit a little far. And the guards have their compulsion too—they must maintain some order. So they stopped you. For if they allow everyone to rise, satsang becomes impossible—the talk cannot happen. People will start crying, screaming, shouting. And ninety percent of them would be doing it by imitation, artificially.

What is happening to you is auspicious.

You say, “I have changed, the world has changed. The birds’ voices have turned into music. The drops rising and falling in the fountain appear to dance. When I sit in Sufi meditation, it seems as if everything is happening to please me.”

So it is. This entire existence is to delight you, to gladden you. These flowers have blossomed for you. These stars dance for you. This sky sparkles for you. Every night this Diwali that is celebrated—for whom? This music of streams, this sound of the oceans—all for you, all for you.

You are afraid, “Is this some new direction of madness? Or am I moving toward the light, taking tiny steps toward light?”

It is both. It is a new dimension of madness, and it is tiny steps toward the light. It is divine intoxication! It is masti!

To become a moth is to be a sannyasin. The divine becomes a flame, and we fly like moths—ready to die, to be annihilated—so that we may become one with it. Let not even this much distance remain—that I am. Even the gap of “I am” begins to jar. So yes, it is madness—but such madness is far above your cleverness and far more valuable than cleverness. Therefore these are tiny steps too—steps toward the divine. Yesterday when you rose and began to walk, you were not walking toward me—you were walking toward God. I was only an excuse.

I carry the burden of the world’s life as I roam,
and yet I roam with love alive within my life.
By someone’s touch, my strings were set a‑ringing—
I wander bearing two taut strings of breath.

I drink the wine of tenderness,
I never heed the world.
The world asks favors of those who sing its songs—
I sing the song that rises from my heart.

I roam with the outpourings of my own heart,
I roam with the gifts my heart bestows.
This imperfect world does not delight me—
I wander carrying a world of dreams.

I kindle fire within my heart and burn,
I remain immersed alike in joy and sorrow.
While the world builds boats to cross the sea of becoming,
I drift, bliss-intoxicated, on the waves of my own moods.

I roam with youth’s delirium within me,
and in my frenzies I also carry gloom.
What makes me laugh without makes me weep within—
alas, I wander bearing someone’s memory.

Despite all striving, has anyone erased it all and known the Truth?
Alas, the naive one stands exactly where the clever one stands!
Is the world not foolish, that even seeing this it does not learn?
I am learning to unlearn the knowledge I have learned.

I am one thing, the world another—what bond is there?
Daily I make and unmake a thousand worlds.
Upon the very earth where the world amasses splendor,
I, with each step, reject that earth.

I roam with melody within my weeping,
with fire within my cooling speech.
For which kings would lavish their palaces in devotion—
I wander bearing the lot of a ruined place.

I wept—and you call it singing.
I burst open—and you call it metered verse.
Why should the world embrace me as “poet”?
I am the world’s new madman!

I roam in the garb of madmen,
I carry an exhaustionless intoxication.
Hearing which the world sways, bows, and billows—
I wander bearing the message of ecstasy!

My sannyasin is indeed mad, a moth! But from this very madness his songs will arise, his music will sing upon the veena of his heart. This madness will tie anklets to his feet. This madness is far above your so-called intelligence.

And what is your so-called intelligence? Gather a few pennies—how clever! Climb to some position—how clever! But all this will lie there—position and money.

The world will call you mad—when you have nothing the world values, and yet you are intoxicated, and there is a swoon in your eyes, and it seems you are forever drunk—having drunk a wine that never wears off—then people will call you mad. Let them. Naturally, to them your state will seem like madness. The crowd is with them; their words will seem to carry weight. But who cares! Whoever has tasted even a single drop of the inner has no concern left for the whole world. If the whole world stands on one side, still the lover of God stands alone on the other—ecstatic, sufficient unto himself.

Asha, much more is yet to happen. These are only tiny steps. Even more madness will come. But it is precisely such madness that ultimately makes one a paramhansa. There are two kinds of mad in the world: those who fall below ordinary intelligence—they are sick; and those who rise above ordinary intelligence—they are the paramhansas, the buddhas, the prophets. What I am attempting here is just this: how to raise you beyond your ordinary mind; how you can transcend this mind.

Mind is the disease; to be free of it is supreme bliss. One need not renounce the world; one must renounce the mind. Where the mind no longer remains, the sense of “I” is gone. The “I” lives only in the mind. And when within there is no mind and no ego-sense, what wall remains between you and the divine? All walls have fallen. That union is the quest. For births upon births we have sought only that. And until that moment arrives, keep the search alive! It must be kept alive, for until then fulfillment is impossible.

Nagendra! That day, whatever I said—blame it all on the gulal. In the Holi revelry, a little of anything can happen. The gulal flew so wildly, the bhang was served so heartily, that everything turned topsy-turvy. And in Holi’s hullabaloo! Hanumanji must have climbed onto the mouse. Who worries, in that racket, about who rides whose vehicle! Take a day’s holiday from it! And it’s Hanumanji, after all! Watching Ganeshji seated on the mouse day in and day out, he must have thought, “Let me sit on it for a day too.” And the mouse must have liked it as well—Hanumanji surely weighs a bit less than Ganeshji! If an elephant has been sitting on the mouse and now a monkey sits—well, the mouse must have thought, “Good for me, this is better!”

But don’t take anything said that day too seriously. Many true things slipped out that day!

And why worry about the scriptures? Scriptures are in our hands. Write in your scripture that the times have changed, the Kali Yuga has arrived, and people have changed their vehicles! People change their vehicles every year; are you still riding the mouse? And I’m no scholar of scripture, so I don’t really know whose vehicle is whose. You asked me, so I asked the mouse—why run to scripture? Ask the mouse! Hanumanji is nowhere to be found—who knows where he’s hiding. Ganeshji doesn’t show up either. But the mouse is available—superabundantly available. Is there any shortage of mice in India! I asked the mouse, “Brother, you tell me.” The mouse said, “I’m nobody’s vehicle. Sometimes I ride on Hanumanji, sometimes on Ganeshji. Me—the vehicle!”

And it rang true, because many times I’ve seen the mouse climb onto Ganeshji. A real mouse, I mean. You can seat Ganeshji on a fake, rubber mouse—that’s one thing. But a real mouse will climb onto Ganeshji. Forget Ganeshji—even onto Ganeshji’s father, Shankarji. He doesn’t care for anyone. A mouse is a mouse; do they follow rules, scriptures, and all that? They do whatever their mood dictates.

Whatever is written in the scriptures—well, men wrote the scriptures. So write whatever you like in your own scriptures! But at least ask the poor mice and suchlike! And this is the age of socialism, of the proletariat. Ganeshji and Hanumanji have sat on vehicles long enough. Now the mice will sit. The mice are no longer willing to accept it. The mice too are forming parties—Dalit Panthers. How long will you keep crushing them? You’ve crushed them enough! And no shame? You seated Ganeshji on a mouse!

But in one sense, it is true. This is what has been happening: big-bellied people sitting on the chests of the poor. So the symbol makes sense. Ganesh riding on the chests of the mice! But now the mice won’t let Ganesh and the rest ride for very long. In many countries they’ve been made to dismount. Here too they will. They’ll have to. In socialist countries like Russia, personal vehicles have been abolished. And you’re talking scriptures—personal vehicles are gone! Public transport has begun. Now that old monarchy won’t do—Ganeshji with his own vehicle, Shankarji with his. It’ll be public transport now. Let both of them sit in the bus. Where is the place for personal vehicles! But you must have felt a hitch. Scholars of scripture run into many hitches. With me—well, there are many hitches!

But what have scriptures to do here? This is a fraternity of revelers. Drinkers sit here.

One day Mulla Nasruddin said, “When I drink too much, I start seeing snakes and scorpions, elephants and horses, crocodiles—such things.” The owner of the tavern asked, “Have you ever seen a psychologist? Ever met one?” Nasruddin said, “No, brother, no matter how much I drink, I only see elephants and horses and so on—I never see a psychologist!”

Drinkers have their own world. Their own visions. And the Divine is for the drinkers. Scriptural knowledge won’t work there.

Why are you worrying, Nagendra? What have you to do with such useless worries? You are neither a mouse, nor Ganeshji, nor Hanumanji—why be anxious? But people get caught in such anxieties: “What if something goes against scripture!” I have nothing to do with scripture. These are fanciful tales. And even tales—why should they stop? They should move with time, change with time. They should be dynamic, flowing. They are lovely tales, if they keep moving and evolving. If they stagnate, they become filthy drains. Then they begin to stink.

Those who created these tales had great imagination, great poetry! They have nothing to do with religion and such. To call the mouse Ganeshji’s vehicle has nothing to do with the mouse itself. It was taken so for a specific reason. Ganeshji is very logical, and the mouse keeps gnawing—just as logic keeps gnawing and nibbling away. So the mouse is the symbol of logic. Ganeshji is mounted upon logic. To convey this, he is shown riding the mouse. Otherwise, the mouse’s life would have been long gone—how would you seat Ganeshji on a mouse? The mouse is merely the symbol of logic. It only knows how to cut. The mouse can’t join anything. If you want cutting done—cut as much as you like—call the mouse. Tell him to join, and he’ll be made to squeal; he cannot join.

Sheikh Farid was a carefree fakir. Emperor Akbar once went to meet him. Someone had gifted Akbar a golden pair of scissors—very artistic, studded with diamonds and jewels. As he was leaving to meet Farid, he thought, “I’ll take this and present it to Farid.” It was precious, unique, unmatched. He took it and offered it to Farid. Farid looked at the scissors and said, “Ah, you brought a gift—thank you—but scissors are of no use to me. Send me a needle and thread; take the scissors back.”

Akbar asked, “Needle and thread? I don’t understand.” Farid said, “The thing is—cutting is not my work; joining is. With a needle and thread we join; with scissors you cut. Scissors are for your work. Cutting is your trade—politics! Cut this one down, cut that one down—keep cutting. You cut others, and others cut you. Keep cutting each other. Scissors are for you, brother! Send me a needle and thread, because my trade is joining.”

About Ganeshji, you should know: the common notion nowadays was not the original one. Notions take on strange forms, and what amazing transformations occur! In the beginning, Ganeshji’s image was that of a mischief-maker. He would go anywhere and create a ruckus, cause disturbance—that was his work. A causer of obstacles. In the Vedas he is remembered as a bringer of obstacles. And since he causes obstacles, it is good to remember him before beginning any work, so he won’t come and mess it up. In this way, slowly he became the symbol of auspicious beginnings, because you always start with him—Shri Ganeshaya Namah. The idea being: “Brother, please don’t show up. Be gracious. We are starting this work; please don’t come.”

I was mischievous from childhood. So I had one advantage: whichever class I was in, I would be made the class captain—immediately. The teacher could find no other way out. And once I became captain, how could I then create mischief? I had to set the other mischief-makers straight. After I had been captain in several classes, the headmaster asked me, “What’s the matter? Wherever you go, you become captain!” I said, “The matter is this: if I am not made captain, I will create so much trouble that the teacher won’t be able to handle it. This is a bribe.”

This is exactly the case with Ganeshji. He was a trouble-maker; to bribe him, a way was found—to remember him first. Though there were deities greater than he, but think yourself! Great gods were there—Mahadev, his very father. Not just a deva, but Mahadeva! Yet no one offers praise to him first. Not to Rama, not to Krishna. Great avatars—Krishna the complete avatar—and where is Ganeshji in comparison? What is his stature? But mischief! Imagine an elephant barging in here with nothing to do and starting to wreak havoc! You would have to pray. So Ganesh’s form changed. Slowly people forgot.

When we took over this building, the Maharaja who owned it brought me to enter it. Right at the door there is a statue of Ganeshji—still there. I asked him, “Why is this statue here?” He said, “Ganeshji is a sign of auspiciousness.” I said, “You don’t know. He is not a sign of auspiciousness. He is placed at the door so that we can say, ‘Look, we are your devotees—spare us! Go wherever else you like and create trouble—in the neighborhood perhaps.’” He said, “What are you saying! We never thought like that. We have always believed Ganesh is auspicious, so every work should begin by remembering him.”

He is not the sign of auspiciousness; he is the sign of mischief.

But these are lovely stories. Enter these stories not as scriptural knowledge, but as poetry. Enter them as you would literature. Then you will find great jewels. But if you go as if they are religious truths, as established doctrines, you will get into trouble. They are as much “true doctrines” as novels and stories are. There is no difference between them.

I have a friend—a scholar of the scriptures; he reads them constantly. Someone told him that Krishnamurti reads detective novels. He was deeply shocked. “Krishnamurti and detective novels!” He came rushing to me. He said, “Krishnamurti—who knows where he is—but you are here. I want to ask you, does Krishnamurti read detective novels? Is that fitting for a supreme knower?”

I said, “And what do you think—you, what do you read? You are reading old-style detective novels—the ones you call the Puranas. He reads the newer kind. He is modern—that’s all the difference. What has that to do with religion or irreligion? And modern novels even have a touch of scientific method—even detective novels have a little scientificity—but the old novels are utterly unscientific. Still, they are old novels. Read them as novels—then it’s fine. Then no quarrel arises. Then we try to understand the symbols and enjoy them. Then you read neither as a Hindu, nor as a Muslim, nor as a Christian. Then these stories will delight you. Then Hanuman and Ganesh and all these symbols will become meaningful; from them the springs of poetry will burst forth; meanings will be felt within you.

But don’t grab them like a dead weight, Nagendra! And that is just how you must have grabbed them. You must have been hurt a lot—that I called the mouse Hanumanji’s vehicle! But don’t take any notice of what was said that day. It was all the gulal’s fault. If you find the gulal somewhere, settle it with him. He played the festival, stirred up Holi. And when I speak on someone, I become one with him. So I too forgot that it wasn’t Holi yet. If anyone felt hurt, forgive me! Remember—it’s Holi; don’t take it amiss!