Jharat Dashahun Dis Moti #4

Vimla! God is not a person. So neither can one say who he is, nor where he is. God is an experience—just as love is an experience. If someone asks, “Who is love? Where is love?” the question itself is meaningless. It admits no meaningful answer. Yet for centuries we have kept asking such questions about God—because priests and pundits have been telling us that God is a person.

“God” is just a name for this vast, boundless existence. So either he is here, or he is nowhere. If you can see, he is now; if you cannot see, he is never. Love exists for the one who can experience love. But if someone in whose heart no spring of love has ever burst forth asks, “What is love?” how will you answer him—and would any answer satisfy him? One who has never felt thirst, never sipped water, never known the joy of thirst quenched, asks, “What is thirst, what is the delight of its fulfillment?”—how can you answer?

A true master cannot tell you where God is, who he is; but he can kindle thirst. He can awaken a deep longing in you. A search can begin. And that search, slowly, brings sprouting to the seed already lying in you. God is within you; he is the very name of your capacity to love, the intimation of the fulfillment of your love. When your love becomes unconditional, when it is such that it effaces you—when your love becomes so vast that, like a drop lost in the ocean, you are lost in your love—what you will come to know, the name of that experience is God. It cannot be bound in words, nor in doctrines, nor in scriptures. All efforts to bind it turn vain. It refuses expression—yes, it can be experienced.

Not everything that can be experienced can be expressed. In your life too there are many experiences you cannot express. Try to express them and you get into trouble. You know what time is—yet if someone really pins you down and says, “Today I will know exactly what time is,” you’ll be startled; you won’t be able to answer. Not because you don’t know time—you do, and well enough—but what you know does not have to be translatable into knowing-about.

You have seen beauty in a rose; you have seen beauty in the morning sun; a night sky full of stars—you have seen beauty. You know what beauty is. But can you define it—precisely, like an equation, the way two and two make four? You cannot. No one has, yet. Countless treatises have been written on beauty, but not one has succeeded; no one has managed to say what beauty is. People have known beauty; you too can know it. But to know beauty, one needs sensitivity, not proof—one needs a window of experience in the heart. If you can dance at the sight of the rising sun, be wonderstruck watching a flower open, be moved by a star-sown night—if springs of song begin to flow within you—then you will know what beauty is. And God is the supreme beauty. You have loved—perhaps not love in its ultimate flowering—but is there any human being who has not loved? A wife, a son, a mother, a friend—someone you have cherished so much you could have given your life; but can you say what love is?

These small loves cannot be expressed—and God is the very climax of love.

Vimla! If you truly want to know what God is, learn the art of bowing down; understand the secret of surrender. We stand stiff, bound in our egos—and we want to know what God is! We even want to hold God in our fist: just as you keep money locked in a safe, you would like to get God and lock him up too—so that you can claim, “God is with me, not with you,” so you can tell the neighbors, “What are you people? Nobodies! Where is God with you? God is locked in our safe.” You want to possess God too—make him your property, your asset. But that is no way to know God. There is only one way to know him: bow, dissolve, die!

Gorakh has said it rightly:
Die, O yogi, die; die—for dying is sweet.
Die that death by which Gorakh came to see.

Gorakh says, “I have found such a sweet death.” I say the same to you: die—the same sweet death. Sweet—and death! When the ego dies, no experience is sweeter. When the ego dies, one tastes nectar. And Gorakh says: there is an art of dying in such a way that, dying, I saw. There is a death that connects you to the great life—and there is a life we fritter away in the trivial.

The alert, the wise, make even death a door to God; the foolish, the dull, turn even life into a wall against him. Bow—so that his hand can rest upon your head. Lay your head at his feet. Don’t ask where his feet are! Wherever you place your head, there are his feet. Bow before a tree—there are his feet. Bow before a stone—you transform the stone. By your bowing, even stone becomes God—because in bowing, some door of sensitivity opens within you; you begin to see. The only veil over the eyes is the veil of ego—there is no other.

As long as every forehead bows!
As long as your shadow is over me!!
You are attainment, you are power,
You are renunciation, attachment, too;
You are adoration and the one adored,
Feeling and devotion are you;
You are worship and the worthy of worship,
You are song and you are prose;
I am fearless, upon my head
As long as your hand repose!
You are knowledge and the knowable,
You are life-breath and the beloved;
You are attainment and the practice,
You are knowledge and the known;
You are raga and you are ragini,
You are day and you are night;
Why should I fear dense darkness—
While your grace is dawn and light!
You are meditation and the meditated,
You are action and the duty;
All dissolves in you alone,
Your feet are the destination too;
You are giving and you are asking,
You are fulfillment and you are longing;
I shall live deathless evermore,
As long as your form is guarding!
As long as every forehead bows!
As long as your shadow is over me!!

Learn to bow! And don’t ask before whom to bow. Those are just excuses. Bow in a temple or a mosque, in Kaaba or in Kashi—mere pretexts. Grasp the secret and there is no need to go to Kashi or Kaaba—bow down in your own room.

Patanjali has given a wondrous sutra. In the Yoga Sutras there is no more precious one. With great courage he says: among the methods for realizing truth, one is God. God as a method! We usually think God is the goal of all methods; but Patanjali says God is only an alamban—a support, a mere device by which you can disappear. A pretext. Like a peg on which you hang your coat. If there is no peg, you hang it on a nail. If there’s no nail, you hang it over the door. What difference does it make? The coat hangs. In the same way, surrender can be hung anywhere. Surrender is the real question; where you hang it is not.

Learn the art of surrender, Vimla! Dissolve the ego a little. Don’t ask where God is, who he is. Does he have some address, some location? Do you need to write him a letter?

A man once wrote to God. His wife was ill, and all remedies had failed. When nothing works, a man remembers God. He thought, “Let me write to God.” A simple fellow, he wrote, “Please send fifty rupees at once.” Addressed: “To God, care of the Postmaster General.” What else to do? The Postmaster General received it. He read the letter and felt pity: “This man must be in real trouble.” The letter was written with such pain: “My wife needs medicine; now send fifty rupees—without them it won’t do.” The postmaster shared it with friends in the office; they collected forty rupees and sent a money order. By return mail came another letter: “Dear Lord… (again to God, care of Postmaster General), the money you sent was fine, but next time, please send it directly—don’t send it through this Postmaster General. He deducted ten rupees as his commission.”

Do you need to send God a letter? Yet people’s notion about God is just this: as if he were a person sitting far away in the sky, to be called, prayed to, petitioned. No one is sitting far away in the sky. That which is in every particle of air, in every ray of the sun, in every leaf of every tree, which is in you, which is in me, which is outside and which is inside—the “is-ness” itself—its other name is God. Now if someone asks, “Where is that which is?” the question sounds foolish. If someone asks, “Who is that which is?” the question sounds foolish. But joined to the word “God” the questions seem meaningful, because for us “God” has come to mean a person. And to find that which is, there is nowhere to go. Open the doors of your heart here—and don’t postpone to tomorrow; open them today, open them now. But about God people have curiosity, not longing.

Remember the difference between curiosity and longing.
Curiosity is a kind of itch in the intellect. Like an itch on the head: if you don’t scratch, how long will it last? If you stubbornly decide not to scratch for a day, a few seconds, a few minutes—and the itch will depart on its own. It doesn’t go on forever. Curiosity is like that—momentary; it arises and subsides. Curiosity is childish—mere inquisitiveness. “What is God? Who is he?” What is needed is longing—thirst. A thirst so intense that your very life is at stake—like a man lost in a desert for days without water. Will he ask, “What is water?” Will he ask, “What is the chemical formula of water?” If you tell him, “Don’t worry, water is only H2O—hydrogen and oxygen combining,” he will say, “Sir, forgive me—neither oxygen nor hydrogen concerns me. Water! I am thirsty.” As thirst in a desert—every fiber thirsts! He won’t forget it in a minute or two, nor in an hour or two. The more time passes, the deeper it pierces.

Longing is needed, Vimla—not curiosity.
If there is longing, nothing is simpler than finding God. If there is only curiosity, nothing is more difficult.

Curiosity is childish. People get into the habit of asking fine questions—as if asking profound questions proves we are fine people. “Look, what a terrific question I asked! Where is God, who is he, what is he? A philosophical, metaphysical question!” But is it your thirst—your longing? If I say, “I will introduce you to God; are you ready to disappear?” you will say, “I must ask my husband first, for the scriptures say the husband himself is God.” And you will say, “The children are still small; I must care for them. I will come later.” There is no readiness to dissolve.

If God could be found, are you ready to offer something in return?
People offer rotten coconuts. They pluck flowers from other people’s gardens and “offer” them. They have invented great tricks: they place counterfeit coins on the altar. You may cheat others—but… I lived for a while near a temple in Raipur; I once asked the priest, “Do fake coins ever come in the offerings?” He said, “What else comes but fakes! Coins so worn no one will accept them—those people offer. At least there is one advantage: God cannot say, ‘I won’t take it—it’s fake!’ And the coconut shops are right in front of the temples; the same coconuts have been offered for years—you bring them by day, and at night the priest returns them to the shopkeeper; next morning they’re back for sale. No one bothers whether anything is left inside the coconuts—the insides have rotted.”

But it seems easy to cheat God; he puts up no resistance, raises no objection—and rotten coconuts are cheap. People say, “If you get my boy a job I’ll offer a coconut; if my wife’s illness is cured I’ll distribute so much prasad.” You even think of bribing God. Sometimes I feel bribery will never leave this country—because bribery is religious here, and this is a religion-centered land! When we won’t spare even God, will we spare petty policemen, revenue clerks, deputy collectors, deputy ministers, ministers, chief ministers? And when even God accepts—and accepts rotten coconuts—what chance do these poor fellows have? The great ones are swept along—so you know you can pay these, too. And you feel no qualms.

Perhaps India is the only country where the one who gives a bribe feels no sense of wrongdoing; nor does the one who takes it. No guilt at all.

A friend of mine grew up in England and later came to India. His uncle here asked him—his father lived in England—“What job do you do, son? How much salary do you get? And what do you get on top?”—so casually! Here everyone asks, “And what’s on the side?” What’s the harm? My friend, unacquainted with the religious colors of India, flared up and slapped his uncle. Then he came to me: “Big trouble—there’s a riot at home. Uncle says, ‘I won’t let you stay here a minute—get out!’”
“What happened?” I asked. He said, “He asked me, ‘What do you get on top?’ Does he think so low of me that, beyond my salary, I take money under the table? It’s an insult.” I said, “You didn’t grow up in India—you know nothing of Indian etiquette. It’s a perfectly natural question here. If someone doesn’t ask it, he’s considered ill-mannered. You did badly to slap him.” He said, “I couldn’t help it; the question rankled so much—‘How much do you get on the side?’ How could I ever take something on the side?”

In the rest of the world, ask such a thing and it’s crude. People don’t even ask each other’s salaries—let alone what they get under the table. They don’t ask your pay because it might be small and you might feel embarrassed; to embarrass you is rude. It might be so little you wouldn’t feel proud to say it; you might be driven to lie.

But here there’s no problem. We ask salary—and people inflate that too—and whether or not there is anything “on the side,” they say there is. Lying has become part of our nature. Because we have told such big lies, what are small lies? The first big lie is this: without any recognition of God, without any sensitivity to experience, we have believed in him. Now, Vimla must have believed—otherwise why ask, “Where is God, who is he, what is he?” We believe in God without knowing, without recognizing, without experiencing. What bigger lie? We believe in heaven and hell, sin and virtue—we are ever ready to believe. And remember: those who are so eager to believe are never eager to seek. In fact belief is a way to avoid seeking. Belief says, “All right, we believe—now don’t pester us! What need to search?” Having accepted great lies, what difficulty are little lies?

Mulla Nasruddin was praising his wife’s beauty: “She’s a fairy from heaven, a fairy! Descended straight from the skies! What features! God himself fashioned her with his own hands.” No one had seen his wife except Chandulal. Chandulal was muttering inside; then Mulla said, “Chandulal, why don’t you speak up and confirm I’m telling the truth? You’ve seen my wife—isn’t she straight from heaven? Isn’t her face God-made?”
Chandulal was a thin timid fellow; why invite trouble? Mulla could grab him later and shake him. So he said, “Brother, you’re absolutely right—she’s from heaven and God made her features; only one small mistake—when she fell from heaven, she fell on her face. Everything else is fine; the face is completely ruined.”

People have become accustomed. Accept one lie and twenty sprout from it. Vimla, who told you there is God? Why the need to believe? Yes, certainly: to know—ask, “What is?” Don’t say “God”—just “What?” Then the right journey will begin. What is? Because in this changing world there must be something unchanging—otherwise what could change rest upon? A wheel rotates because there is an axle-pin that remains still. If the pin also turns, the wheel won’t, and the cart will collapse. The pin stays at rest, the wheel turns. On the basis of the unmoving pin, the moving wheel moves. So much is in motion—moon and stars—so much change, season after season, flowers after flowers; some nail must be holding this endless voyage together. What is it that holds all? What is the foundation of all? Do not bring “God” in yet—because with that word things grow entangled. So much mischief has been done behind that word; nothing has been resolved. Necks have been cut, blood has flowed.

For the sake of the name “God,” more havoc has been wrought on this earth than for any other name. The very name of God has been stained with blood. History, because of God’s name, has become inhuman, bestial. Hindus kill Muslims, Muslims kill Hindus; Christians kill Muslims, Muslims kill Christians; Christians kill Jews—slaughter and, all of it, in the name of God!

Ask: What is? Then the journey can begin, and rightly—because the first step is right. If you ask “What is,” then this cawing crow, these birds’ calls, the distant rumble of a train, this silence—all this is included in that “what.” Then totality is included. We are asking: What is this existence? What is its wholeness? And to ask this, you must pass through a preparation. I call that preparation meditation.

Meditation means: whatever you have known, believed, understood, surmised—set it all aside, so that the mirror of consciousness can reflect what is. Be still—then the answer will come from there. I cannot give you the answer. Nor can Gulal. Nor Kabir, nor Farid. No one can give it. These matters are not of question-and-answer. They run very deep. Q&A are like ripples on the ocean’s surface; these matters concern the depth of the ocean. Yes, in meditation you will receive the answer. And the wonder is—mysterious, like a riddle—that only when all your questions fall, the answer arrives. Because as long as the mind raises questions, there is indecision, conflict, smoke. Every moment smoke rises in your consciousness. You are like wet wood: it does not catch fire, it never turns to ash—there is only smoke, smoke, smoke.

Two friends went to the hills for their honeymoon. Morning after the wedding night they met in the hotel garden. The first asked, “All well? Where’s your wife? What’s she doing?” The other said, “If only I had known earlier, I’d never have got into this mess. She just sits and keeps blowing smoke.” He must have thought she had a smoking habit. “Even at night she went to sleep puffing smoke—and at dawn, as soon as she woke up, smoke again.”
The other said, “My wife is hot-tempered too, but at least she doesn’t blow smoke.”

Your mind is very hot—and it blows a lot of smoke. You are overheated. Desires keep you burning. Imaginings, memories, cravings surround you like coils of smoke. On your mirror, smoke all around—you can’t see anything; you can’t see your own hand. That is why such questions arise. If you truly want an answer, Vimla, you must show readiness to do something. The answer cannot be had cheap—ask and I hand it over. If only God were that cheap! Some enlightened one would have handed the answer and finished the matter. For God you must pay something. The greatest payment is this: you must disperse the mind’s smoke. You must lay the mind’s entire turmoil at his feet. Unknown feet—upon them you must surrender all the mind’s mischief. And when consciousness is clear… your name is lovely, Vimla—stainless. When the mind is stainless—when no stain remains. We give such beautiful names, but we don’t care for their meanings. Even the names we give—no one explains what they mean. Such a sweet name! Let all of yoga be contained in it! Become vimala—stainless—and nothing more remains to be done. And once you learn the art of offering—even begin by offering your rubbish—God asks for nothing else, and you have nothing else anyway—and the glimpse will begin. You will find the world around you permeated by him.

There is no God as a person; there is godliness—an energy, a quality. And once the art of giving arrives, the heart longs more and more: “How much can I give? Let me give all!” For the more you give, the clearer it becomes.

The gold of a lifetime—
even after giving, the mind
still says: let me give yet more now!
Accept this body,
accept this mind and wealth;
take greed, attachment, delusion—
make my very breath stainless.
Moment by moment I give,
hour by hour I give—
morning, evening I give;
chant, austerity, worship, appeasement—
even after giving, the mind
still says: let me give yet more now!
Take the mood of devotion,
take the created fruit of practice;
my inmost is offered—
take the dissolution of my ego;
take my birth, take my death,
take my sleeping and my waking;
the long-hoarded labor and striving—
even after giving, the mind
still says: let me give yet more now!
Let this name be yours,
this wealth and abode be yours;
let only deeds be mine,
the fruits and outcomes be yours;
let my fingers be rosaries,
my breaths follow you;
the eternal tone—my soul’s flower—
even after giving, the mind
still says: let me give yet more now!

When the art of giving arrives, God manifests now—right here.

No, I cannot give you the answer. I can give you a hint. The true master gives only indications, not answers. Answers are for priests and pundits. Buddha said, “I am a physician; I give medicine, not answers.” I say the same: I am a physician; I give medicine, not answers. What will you do with an answer? From one answer the same mind will raise twenty new questions. There is no end to questions. As leaves sprout on trees, questions sprout in the mind. You have to be free of questions, not get answers to them. And the day the mind becomes questionless, in that very moment the answer of answers showers upon you—bathes you, makes you new, gives you rebirth.

Swadesh! Do you really think rivers of milk and curd ever flowed? If they had, it would have been quite a mess! Spare a thought for the fish—where would they bathe? Where would people wash their clothes? Spare a thought for the cows and buffaloes—what would you do with them then? Rivers are meant to grace the earth with water; we don’t need rivers of milk and curd. Those are symbols, figures of speech—just a way of saying the land was once prosperous. But even then, it wasn’t as fabulously prosperous as you imagine.

In Rama’s time—the era Mahatma Gandhi called Ram-rajya—I cannot call it that. Even Rama’s kingdom was not Ram-rajya. Human beings were bought and sold in the marketplace; there was slavery. Rivers of milk and curd supposedly flowed, while men were auctioned like greens! Women were sold in markets, and still we say rivers of milk and curd flowed! And it wasn’t only ordinary folk purchasing them. The scriptures say even rishis and munis bought slaves. What kind of rishis and munis were they, if they felt no shame buying human beings? Yet we keep shouting that they were great renunciates and vow-keepers. There were public auctions, bids were called. Kings, nobles, the rich came to bid and buy—that much is understandable—but rishis and munis also came!

In Sanskrit, patni and vadhu are not synonymous. Patni is a wedded woman; vadhu is the woman you brought home from the marketplace—a “number two” wife, purchased. That meaning has faded now because people aren’t sold in markets anymore. But there must have been poverty then—otherwise who would agree to be sold? Think a bit: who would sell their children unless they were starving? Yet we harbor an ego—indeed, everywhere people suffer this madness—that their past was glorious and beautiful. It soothes the heart, props up the ego. The past is in our hands; we can weave it as we like, write the history we prefer.

I don’t accept that rivers of milk and curd ever flowed. Yes, people weren’t as harried. The reason wasn’t Ram-rajya; the reason was numbers. The population was far smaller. In Buddha’s time the whole country had about twenty million people; today it is seven hundred million. The land is the same—and to be precise, it’s not even the same anymore, because we have sucked it so dry. It looks the same, but its living elements have been exhausted. We never returned anything, only kept taking. The earth, too, needs replenishment. When you harvest, you remove many elements from the soil into the crop. And in our land we don’t even return our bodies to the earth. At least bury people so what they ate and drank, what became bone, flesh, marrow, can go back into the soil. Instead we cremate, turning it all to ash. For twenty-five centuries we have been burning the earth’s fertility—after all, you are made of soil, and we have destroyed the very fertile elements of that soil. What will follow if not poverty and hunger?

There was poverty then too. But there was enough land that a person could earn his food. Don’t think there wasn’t a gulf between rich and poor. The gap was vast—perhaps wider than today. The poorest person today wears clothes Rama himself couldn’t obtain. Do you think terrycot and terylene were available to Rama? Don’t soar on fantasies that Rama flew in airplanes! There weren’t even bicycles. Flying in a plane while carrying a bow and arrow—just think, does that make any sense? Try boarding a plane with a bow and arrows—there would be a crowd to gawk: “Brother, what’s happened to you? Going to the Republic Day parade in Delhi? Some tribal display?” Even tribals only polish up their gear for Republic Day and forget it the rest of the year.

Forget airplanes. These are our fantasies. Every culture has them. There are reasons behind them. Since humans first saw birds, they’ve wanted to fly; fantasies give that urge expression.

In one village Ramleela, Rama had conquered Lanka and was waiting for the Pushpak Vimana. It did descend, but before Rama, Lakshmana and Sita could get on, the fellow hidden above who worked the pulley yanked the rope—the craft lifted off. They couldn’t board. So Lakshmana asked, “Elder brother, do you have the timetable? See when the next flight leaves!”

What timetable? What next flight! Rama glared at Lakshmana: “Silence!”

Don’t get trapped in webs of fantasy. There wasn’t even a timetable—leave alone airplanes!

You ask: “What kind of plight is this—that in India where rivers of milk and curd once flowed, even pure milk is no longer available?”

Swadesh, the miracle is that even impure milk is available! A population of seven hundred million—and your “mother cows”! They get no feed, no fodder, no veterinary care. We have the most cows in the world—and the least milk. Our best cows give five hundred liters. The best in Japan give three thousand liters. Israel has surpassed all—three thousand five hundred liters from the best cows. Ask your Shankaracharyas what the matter is! We worship the gau mata so devoutly—why is she angry with us? While with these “wicked, mlechchhas” she seems pleased! Keep worshipping! Nothing happens by worship. Life needs science. In five thousand years India has produced no science. That is the cause of our plight. Perhaps you think it’s because people no longer do rituals properly, no longer recite Hanuman Chalisa correctly—Hanumanji is annoyed, Kali Ma isn’t pleased, Ganeshji is sulking; hence the plight. Not so. Outer prosperity requires science; inner prosperity requires religion.

The West is inwardly poor—it lacks religion. The East is outwardly poor—it lacks science. We have yet to create a synthesis in which science and religion can grow together. That is my vision; that is what I want.

I want my sannyasin to hold both riches—outer and inner—together.

But you have been taught the opposite: that there is some spirituality in outer poverty; unless you are outwardly poor you cannot be spiritual. If such foolishness is taught, its outcome is inevitable: people take pride in poverty. “What plight? This is spirituality!” Earlier people renounced the world; now there is nothing left to renounce—everyone is a renunciate! This is the outcome of five thousand years of wrong teaching and wrong conditioning.

There is no need to reject outer prosperity. Man is body and soul. And God is both world and liberation. The day we see this—that they are two sides of the same coin—science and religion will harmonize. Religion should stop making claims about scientific facts—as it has done—false claims. “If rain fails, perform a yagna!” Rain has nothing to do with yagna. How many yagnas have you performed? What came of them? Yet our stupidity is such that we will burn millions of rupees—and then no one asks whether it rained. We even perform yagnas for world peace! And no one asks why peace doesn’t come. So many yagnas—how long will you go on?

There is no connection.

We even cook up odd arguments in support of stupidities: that the pure smoke rising from burning ghee, wheat and rice generates waves that bring peace to the whole world. At least demonstrate it in a household or two—light a yagna and bring peace between husband and wife! And wherever a yagna is held, afterwards the priests squabble over who took more and who got less—peace doesn’t happen even there! It comes to blows. Sometimes the police have to be called. And you set out to create peace for the whole world!

If there is no rain, there are scientific means to make it fall. Clouds can be steered—to where they are needed and away from where they are not. They can be guided. But who has the time to guide them? We are busy digging our Vedas for secret formulas! Our plight comes from raising a religious commotion in arenas where religion has no place and no need.

The West too is in plight because science there keeps poking its nose into religion: “There is no God, because you can’t catch him in a laboratory. There is no love, because it cannot be proven in a lab. No beauty either.” How will you prove beauty in a lab? Or love? Or God? How will you measure prayer scientifically? If it can’t be measured, then deny it—so the West denies religion and remains inwardly poor. The East denied science and became outwardly poor.

Both live in poverty, though together they could be rich. We have to create a world where East and West meet; where East is no longer East and West no longer West—these distances fall. A world where religion and science dance hand in hand, celebrating together. There is no need for opposition. But both must be sensible. Science must stop making pronouncements that interfere in religion’s realm, and religion must stop making unscientific pronouncements. If we can do just this, this plight, this misfortune can turn into fortune.

Now you say even milk isn’t pure. Do you think water is pure? Water is even more adulterated. If people were only adding water to milk—that would still be something! But the water itself is impure.

When I was a student at the university, the milkman who supplied our hostel was called “Sant-ji”—a very religious man! Always draped in the cloak of God’s name, a rosary ever in hand; whatever he was doing, his lips kept quivering, “Ram Ram, Ram Ram.” What else could we call him but “saint”? When I first arrived and saw his milk, it was water, nothing but water. One day he came; I said, “Come inside.” I bolted the door. In those days I wasn’t slim—I weighed one hundred ninety pounds. I grabbed Sant-ji by the neck. He said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Today you will tell the truth. I hear you even swear oaths in front of people, swearing by your son that you never mix water in milk. But your milk is pure water. Speak the truth, or I won’t let you out.” He said, “Since you won’t believe me and are so angry, why hide it from you? What I say is true. I swear by my only son—do you think I’d swear falsely? I never add water to milk; I always add milk to water.”

See—he found a legal loophole to fool even God! No fear in swearing oaths.

Those days are gone when people added water to milk; now they add milk to water. And what water, from where! Still, you keep the faith that you are drinking milk and getting stronger—at least you have the belief. Whatever little benefit comes from belief, from autosuggestion—let it be. Milk now won’t benefit you much.

In a medical college exam the professor of pediatrics asked: “For infants, is cow’s milk more beneficial or the mother’s milk?”

The student answered, “Sir, for infants the mother’s milk is more beneficial.”

“What are its benefits?” asked the professor.

The reply: “Sir, first, it has a higher proportion of nutrients; second, it is at body temperature; third, it is more digestible for the infant.”

“Name two more benefits,” said the professor.

The examinee couldn’t recall anything; he began scratching his head.

Again the professor said, “You’ve forgotten two important advantages.”

The student was clever. When his book knowledge failed, he finally used common sense: “Sir, compared to cow’s milk, the mother’s milk has two more merits: first, a cat cannot drink it; second, the milkman can’t dilute it.”

Swadesh, but how long will you drink your mother’s milk? And if you insist so much on purity, drink pure water; give up hoping for pure milk. With your Shankaracharyas around, pure milk is not possible in this country. The gau mata must be saved—not you! You may die, for all they care. Go to hell! The mother cow must be saved. Slowly you’ll find: the gau matas survive—humans have vanished! Standing there: His Holiness the Shankaracharya and the mother cows.

Everywhere else there is a system. There is no sentimental worship of the cow, but a scientific view. No one worries about “saving” the cow; they ensure feed, scientific housing, proper nutrition—then milk flows so abundantly—and we have the most cows—that there’s no need to add water. But that’s not our concern. Our strange concern is: the mother cow must be saved! She is nothing but skin and bones, yet must be saved! With such skeletal cows, how will you get milk? Your soil has lost its fertility; your brain too has lost its fertility—your mind has become dull.

With this mental dullness, you have only two options left. One is the conservative’s: get lost in fantasies of the past—“Ah, those days when rivers of milk and curd flowed!” Enjoy it. Close your eyes, daydream, and enjoy. This is Sheikh Chilli stuff—worthless. But it keeps the deception going. The other path is what you call revolutionary, communist: lost in fantasies of the future—“The golden age will come after the revolution.”

Your golden age has either passed or is yet to come. And today? Today somehow drag along. For dragging along, both these drugs work like opium. Marx said religion is the opium of the masses—rightly said. But he couldn’t imagine that communism too would become opium. As religion drugs you with the past, communism drugs you with the future. Neither past nor future exists; only the present exists—the reality of today. But facing today’s reality requires intelligence.

We become habituated. We’ve grown accustomed to wretchedness and plight. If someone tries to break our wretchedness, we won’t allow it—remember that. Your habits have become slavish and weak, and you give them great prestige and respect. If someone throws away everything and stands naked on the road with a begging bowl, you say, “Great renunciate!” When will you stop this veneration? When will you fold your hands and tell your monks, “Enough—now get to work; this worship can go no further.” How long will you tolerate these hordes of idle sadhus and saints? There is little hope any ray of thought is dawning in your minds.

Non-creative, anti-creative gangs of sadhus and saints sit on your chest. And you happily worship and sing their praises. It doesn’t even occur to you that religion should be creative. Make this earth a little more beautiful! Leave it a little lovelier than you found it. That should be the mark of a religious person. Let two more flowers bloom, two more songs be sung, let a flute’s note be heard! A religious person should be measured by his creativity. But your measuring rod is strange—negative. Whoever abandons and runs away, the deserters, you call “great souls.”

So long as you call deserters great, life cannot be enriched. Inside, you too wish for a chance to run away: “If only I could, I’d sit somewhere tending a sacred fire!” And what would you do there? Load a chillum, take a puff, and in a hashish haze imagine you’re having God-experience, the doors of samadhi are opening. Smear ash, sit down, and feel happy as thousands touch your feet and bow.

Stop this worship! Honor the creative—only then will this plight end. Give respect to those who give something to the world, who add to it—not to those who subtract and run away. There is nothing spiritual about wretchedness and poverty. Spirituality is the art of living fragrantly, of turning life into celebration, ceremony, dance, song and music. But habits, once old, are hard to break.

Chandulal had to go to Bombay for fifteen days on government work. On allowance, he stayed in a plush hotel. Within five or six days he was terribly restless. One day he snapped at the waiter, “Listen, mister, quickly bring me two burnt rotis, one plate of dal full of pebbles, a plate of half-cooked rice, and a badly burnt, extra-spicy curry.”

The waiter bowed politely, “Anything else, sir?”

“Yes,” said Chandulal, “after you bring everything, sit on the chair opposite me and start lamenting about household troubles—nag me, harass me—because I’m homesick!”

We get used to it. Unless the wife sits across and chews your head, food doesn’t taste right! You are habituated to plight. That habit has to be broken. Because it’s a long habit, it’s hard. I’m trying to break it—and I’m getting all the abuse possible.

Poverty is a sin—a heinous sin. To be poor is simply proof that you lack intelligence. Every means should be taken to break poverty. But if you think there is some glory in poverty, how will you break it? You will hug it to your chest: “Don’t take away my poverty, or my spirituality will be gone. Don’t make me prosperous; I don’t want prosperity.”

I was introduced to a Jain monk. He recited one of his poems, in which he said, “I have no use for the thrones of emperors; I kick them away. I’m blissful in my dust; I don’t want palaces. For me, dust is enough.” Twenty or twenty-five people had come with him; they wagged their heads, “Wah-wah!” I said, “Stop your applause. He’s talking nonsense and you’re saying ‘bravo’! If you are blissful in your dust, why write a song about it? No emperor writes, ‘I’m blissful on my golden throne; I have no interest in your dust.’ Have you ever seen an emperor write such a song—‘I’m fine on my golden throne; enjoy your dust, I feel no envy’?” Why does it occur only to you? There must be envy—envy and condemnation. And envy and condemnation are signs of deep inner craving, greed, lust.

I said, “I don’t mean any offense. Why do you object to the golden throne?” He didn’t know me or how I think. He said, “What is there in a golden throne? Gold too is dust.” I said, “If gold too is dust, what special virtue is in your dust? If the golden throne is dust, then that fellow too is sitting on dust—let him sit. You too wallow in dust—wallow. Why are you taking pride in it?”

He began looking here and there.

I said, “Looking away won’t do. If both are dust, what’s the difference? Then what makes you a mahatma? Clearly, you don’t really see dust in gold—you say it, but you see gold as gold and dust as dust. And all this is blather to feed your vanity.

“How can there be bliss in destitution? At least the stomach must be full. On an empty belly, O Gopala, no hymns are sung! On an empty stomach only curses come out—and if you are too hungry, even curses won’t come; even to curse you need a little strength. Naked and hungry—but we found a trick: since we couldn’t end our nakedness and begging, we invented a spiritual device, a philosophical route. We wrapped it in argument, built a fine web of logic—the fox’s logic: ‘the grapes are sour.’ What you can’t get, declare it sour. What you can’t attain, declare you’ve renounced it. What lies beyond your reach, declare you never wanted it. Shrink, contract.”

This is our plight: we have shriveled and contracted.

Learn to expand! Take up again the adventure of expansion, and say with your whole being that outer prosperity is as valuable as inner prosperity—and there is no conflict between them. In truth they are companions; they can be lived together; they can grow together. Where does a poor man find leisure to refine his sensitivity? He hardens, becomes stony. Where does a poor man get the chance to understand poetry, music, to pluck the strings of a veena? At night he comes home exhausted; before sunrise he is off to work again—work devours him. He needs some leisure, some repose—moments to listen to song and music; room to reflect on life’s vast questions, to inquire what life is.

Our plight arises because we have embraced a foolish outlook on life. And today if someone calls it foolish, we get angry—because it wounds five thousand years of our beliefs; our ego feels injured. And in a sense, yes, it is an injury—and it is necessary. Unless someone shakes you, you will not wake up.

That’s fine—that I come like a storm, shake you, and go—but your condition is such that I shake you, I leave, and you throw back on your head the dust and debris that had fallen off. An elephant bathes in the river and then, coming out, throws dust over itself with its trunk. So I shake you, I go, and you promptly compose yourselves again; you put on your old clothes, adjust your cap, look around to see whether anyone is watching, and set off again in the old gait! The same gait again, the same habits again, the same ways of seeing.
My work, naturally, is the work of a storm. For centuries the work of the buddhas has been to shake you, because you keep falling asleep; to wake you, because again and again you get lost in dreams.

If you can awaken, this country can be among the most prosperous on earth. There is no reason for us to be impoverished, to be poor. We are poor because of ourselves. We have wrapped poverty around us. And we have become lazy—terribly lazy.

Two men were sleeping under a tree—must have been pure Indians, Arya Samajis. A jamun fell from the jamun tree. Both lay there listening to the sound. Finally one said, “Friend, what kind of friendship is this? A friend is one who helps at the right time. A jamun has fallen, and you can’t even pick it up and put it in my mouth!” The other said, “Only now you remember what friendship is! And when that dog just now was sprinkling ‘life-water’ into my ear, you didn’t even bother to shoo him away.”

A passerby heard all this. He said, “This is the limit! They must be great realized saints.” He picked up two jamuns and put them in both their mouths. “One must serve saints!” He was about to leave when they called out, “Wait, brother—who will take out the pits? Where are you going? At least remove the pits before you go!”

A deep sloth, a torpor, a despair has settled over our soul like a dark night. You need to be shaken. Without a storm you won’t rise. Without a gale you won’t get up.

And slowly you have accepted that life is just like this. When suffering comes you say, “What to do? Life itself is suffering.” You have become very skillful in quoting fine scriptures: “Didn’t the Buddha say life is dukkha? Birth is suffering, youth is suffering, old age is suffering—the whole of life is suffering.” So of course suffering will come. When pain arises you say, “What to do? We are enduring the fruits of deeds from countless births.” You have plenty of theories! As if all the sinners of the world were born only here! No one else did evil in past lives—only you did! God must be displeased with you—and you are the old devotees who have been crying out to him for centuries! Has anyone made as much noise in God’s name as you? Is God angry with you, that he is giving you all this suffering? Then people get clever: “He is testing us. Only if you pass the test will you cross the ocean of becoming.”

We keep hunting for argument after argument. Defeat one argument and we immediately produce another.

At two in the night, waking Mulla
his frightened wife stammered:
“Listen, there’s a clatter,
it seems thieves have entered the house.
What are you lying there for?
Get up,
raise an alarm!”

Nasruddin said:
“Guljaan, let me sleep, don’t be a bore.
It’s nothing; you’re panicking for no reason.
Maybe the cat is eating something in the kitchen.
Thieves don’t make a racket; they come quietly,
understand, O wise one?
They don’t bang pots and pans.
Whatever it is, we’ll see—let it be morning.
Don’t bore me, Guljaan; let me sleep!”

Defeated by logic, the poor wife grew silent,
but suspicion remained in her mind
and fear kept her from sleep.
At three she woke Nasruddin again and said,
“Darling, I’m sorry!
Thieves never make noise—
I now understand your point.
That’s why I say: get up and take a look.
Surely something is wrong, my dear—
for the past hour our house has been absolutely silent.
What’s the matter? There isn’t a sound!”

If not from this side, then from that. Break one argument and we erect another.

Stop the web of arguments! Enough of arguments and doctrines. We have crafted plenty of scriptures; now let us craft life. Let us give the world a new sannyas, a new religion—a new method, a new discipline of seeing life; the art of accepting life in its totality.

God is both within and without. Inside and outside—all is his kingdom. The body is his, and the soul is his. Do not set the soul against the body—that duality has cost us dearly. The world is his, and so is liberation. Liberation is not attained by renouncing the world; it is attained by living the world rightly. Declare—proclaim—that liberation is the reward for living the world rightly. Liberation is not the name of abandoning the world. Let this wretchedness end, this abjection end, this poverty end! Let us live again like human beings—in dignity, in grandeur. Let there be a little radiance in our lives too—a little worth, some meaning.

Right now everything is futile. We are carrying loads. We are not living; we are hauling burdens. We are like the ox at the oil press, dragged along, circling the same path endlessly. No destination ever arrives, no hint of a destination is found.

How long are we going to go on like this?

Wake up! The whole earth is filling with a new dawn. Do not lag behind in it. You can participate in it. A new sun is rising on this earth in which East and West will dissolve, in which national boundaries will melt away, in which the opposition between religion and science will end. Beware that you are not left behind even in this race. What is done is done. What is past is past. Let bygones be bygones! Now let us recreate life in a new way.

What I am attempting here is unique in this sense. That is why it puts the Indian mind in great dilemma, makes it very anxious. It does not even feel to them that what I am saying and doing is religious; it makes them nervous. For “religious” has come to mean: renounce, abandon, run to the forest! And I say: sitting in the marketplace, God can be found. And if he cannot be found there, he cannot be found anywhere.

That’s all for today.