Jin Sutra #14

Tradition has its tradition, and iconoclasm has its tradition too. Tradition is ancient—but revolution is nothing new either. Revolution is just as ancient as tradition.

On this earth everything has happened so many times—how can anything be new? What you call new is very old; what you call old is, of course, old. From the moment there were traditionalists, there were revolutionaries too. From the day there were conservatives, there were breakers of convention as well. When image-makers appeared, image-breakers were born alongside. They go together, like day and night.

Revolution and tradition are two sides of the same coin. Neither can live without the other. The day tradition dies, revolution dies that very day.

Understand this a little, because ordinarily wherever we see opposition in life we conclude the two must be enemies. That is an incomplete way of seeing. Wherever there is opposition, if you look deeply you will find the two are complementary. Enmity too is a kind of friendship, and hostility a kind of love. Between men and women there is love—and there is opposition. It is precisely because of opposition that love exists, because opposition creates difference. It creates the urge to seek the other. Man and woman go on fighting—and loving. Fighting and loving are not as opposite as you think.

Where a husband and wife have stopped fighting, know that love has died too. So long as a spark of love remains, there will be a little quarrel, a little friction. Fighting does not kill love; it is an intrinsic part of it.

The Jaina tradition is as ancient as the Hindu tradition. The name of Rishabha, the first Tirthankara of the Jainas, appears in the Vedas—mentioned with great respect. People of that era must have been courageous: they remembered even their opponents with respect.

When the world becomes truly intelligent, this is how it will be: you will remember your opponent respectfully, because without the opponent you cannot be. The opponent defines you. His presence gives you urgency, intensity, momentum. His opposition challenges you. On the basis of his opposition you refine yourself, gather yourself, strengthen yourself.

Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography: A nation that wishes to remain strong should find itself strong enemies. If the enemy is weak, you will become weak. You become like those you contend with. If the enemy is powerful, in fighting him you become powerful. Choose friends as you will—but choose enemies carefully. For in the end friends are not as decisive as enemies. The enemy defines you, gives you an interpretation of life, gives you a challenge, a summons, a chance to compete.

So the Rig Veda remembers Rishabha with great honor. Rishabha is the first Tirthankara of the Jainas.

The Jaina opposition—their revolution—is as old as the Hindu tradition. The Jainas are Veda-opposed, yet the Veda gives them respect. The Jainas oppose image-worship and sacrifice; they do not even accept God; they acknowledge no path of devotion. Essentially they are individualists, even anarchic—no trust in the group, trust in the person. And each person is unique and incomparable, each must find his own path. What Krishnamurti says today is the ancient Jaina tradition; it is nothing new. Though even the Jainas would disagree—because they too have forgotten that once the breath in their being was revolutionary; that fire has gone out, only ash remains. They too have become traditionalists.

To understand the Jainas you must understand their revolutionary bent. What greater revolution can there be than this: there is no God, no prayer, worship is futile, temples are meaningless! Do not sit waiting for anyone’s grace; you must rise yourself. No one can carry you. Mahavira does not even say, I can take you anywhere; at the most I can point the way—walking you must do yourself, on your own feet.

Mahavira will not even command you to go. He says, even in a command there is violence. Who am I to tell you: get up and go? I can give updesh—teaching, counsel—not aadesh, an order.

That is why a Tirthankara gives updesh, not orders. Updesh means: mere advice. Accept it or not—as you wish. If you do not accept, there will be no pronouncement that you have sinned; if you accept, there is no claim that you have earned great merit. If you accept, it is intelligence; if you do not, it is your lack of understanding. But there is no sin or virtue in it.

Tirthankaras do not command. To command implies you have become another’s master. You say, Do this; if he does not, a sense of guilt will be born in him—and then his responsibility becomes yours. If he obeys, he will feel enslaved—he moved by your order. The Jainas say, even if, by obeying someone’s command, you reach heaven, that heaven will prove a hell—because you were forced there by another.

Can anyone be forced into bliss? Bliss arises only out of free choice. Even if you choose hell by yourself, there will be bliss; and even if you are pushed into heaven—someone chasing you with a gun—you will not find happiness there.

In one’s own freedom is heaven. In dependence is hell.

Therefore Mahavira does not even order. His revolution is very profound. He says, you are responsible—no one else. He places a great weight on the individual, with no relief anywhere. Mahavira has no consolation. He will diagnose you straight: this is your disease; if you want consolation, go elsewhere.

Thus Mahavira belongs to that image-breaking tradition which is as ancient as tradition itself. Naturally, that anti-tradition tradition declared him its twenty-fourth Tirthankara. In truth, among the previous twenty-three Tirthankaras none matched his stature. They were great, but Mahavira’s depth is far greater. So gradually it came to be that people forgot the twenty-three. When Westerners first came East to study Jainism they assumed Mahavira was the founder. Hence older English, German, French books call Mahavira the founder of Jainism. He is not the founder—he is the last, not the first. But the other twenty-three faded. Such was Mahavira’s brilliance, so blazing, that it began to seem the religion was born with him. The twenty-three became almost Puranic tales; they ceased to be history. This happens when a person of great genius appears—whether born in the middle, at the beginning, or the end—everything begins to revolve around him.

The Jainism you know today need not be what it was in Rishabha’s time, or Parshvanatha’s, or Neminatha’s. Today, the entire framework you know as Jainism was shaped by Mahavira. That framework became so deep that you now read the same meaning into Rishabha, because you have understood Mahavira.

Understand, what I am saying about Mahavira—he himself need not agree with it! But if you have understood me rightly, I will not leave you; whenever you read Mahavira, you will be reading me. Once meaning enters you, you begin to see that meaning in outer words.

Within this revolutionary tradition, Mahavira is the most glorious, the most brilliant. Therefore his words are worth understanding and contemplating. He must have been uniquely revolutionary; for the Jainas have two sects—Digambara and Shvetambara. The Digambaras hold that not a single word of Mahavira remains, no scripture remains. That too is part of the revolution. They say, no scripture is Mahavira’s word. The words we have are from the Shvetambara compilations. The Digambaras have no compilations. It is astonishing that the Digambaras did not preserve! But that too belongs to their deep revolt: if you preserve words, today or tomorrow they become scripture; preserve them, and soon they become Veda. Hence the Digambaras did not preserve Mahavira’s words. It is an extraordinary rebellion against scripture. They revere Mahavira, but preserved no texts—only what was passed personally from master to disciple; they did not write it down.

Therefore, for the Digambaras, no scripture regarding Mahavira is authoritative. They did not preserve scripture lest clinging arise to it; nor did they offer assurances like: worship Mahavira and you will attain liberation. Know yourself and you will be liberated—not by Mahavira’s worship. Awaken yourself and you will be liberated—not by Mahavira’s grace. There is no place for “guru’s grace” in Jainism, because they say: if truth could be received as someone’s favor, it becomes cheap, a commodity lent. Melt your own life; only by smelting your life can truth be cast. Truth is not somewhere outside for someone to hand over.

So understand: when Mahavira was accepted as the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, it was because there was no one more rebellious in that time. There were others—other claimants—for revolution is no one’s private property. When Mahavira lived, India was in storm: a time of great intellectual awakening; people like peaks, roaming the sky. As today, to understand science one must seek in the West, then to understand any form of religion one sought in India. India had awakened men of all religious streams, and the disciples of each aspired that their master be declared the twenty-fourth Tirthankara. There was Prabuddha Katyayana, Makkhali Gosala, Sanjaya Belatthiputta, Ajita Kesakambali—majestic figures. Among them, the most revolutionary, Mahavira, became the twenty-fourth in the Shramana tradition. The Buddha lived then too.

Buddha’s own distinct tradition arose; a separate religion was born. But note this: even in Buddha’s presence, the current of revolutionaries chose Mahavira. Mahavira’s revolution is deeper than Buddha’s. In many places Buddha seems to compromise a little; he is more practical. Mahavira is utterly impractical. The revolutionary is always impractical—his feet are not on earth, but in the sky. He flies.

Take a few examples. Women came to Buddha for initiation. Buddha refused. That was a compromise, a fear: it had never happened that men and women be monks together and live together. Buddha feared religion might be destroyed; that the proximity of men and women might arouse waves of sex; that women might corrupt men. That ancient male fear of woman cast its shadow in Buddha’s mind. He refused for years to initiate women, saying: to do so is dangerous.

The same question arose before Mahavira. He initiated immediately. Not once did he raise the question whether it would be dangerous. A revolutionary does not acknowledge danger; in fact he knowingly goes where danger is. He accepted the risk and said: whatever happens is fine. Later, under great pressure, after years, even when Buddha did ordain women, he immediately declared: now my dharma will not live more than five hundred years; I myself have sown the seed of its destruction. And Buddhism did disappear from India within five hundred years. The same reason proved true: the fear proved right. Because when men and women lived close, dispassion receded; color and attachment arose. Attachment found new ways and logics; Tantra was born. Buddhism in India ended.

But Mahavira’s religion still lives—alive even now. He included women, and the religion did not perish. There must have been a profoundly revolutionary spirit. Mahavira stood naked. There had been no such Jaina tradition of nudity before. Today if you visit Digambara Jaina temples, the images of all twenty-four Tirthankaras are nude. That is Mahavira’s redefinition. The earlier twenty-three were not nude; only Mahavira was. The rest were clothed. So if you decide the dispute between Shvetambaras and Digambaras by majority, the Shvetambaras would win: of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, twenty-three were clothed, one nude. By democratic arithmetic, attend to the twenty-three. But Mahavira’s influence was so majestic that even those with garments had their images stripped—because if Mahavira is nude and Parshvanatha is clothed, Parshvanatha seems lesser, smaller: he could not renounce that much. Nudity became the touchstone.

It is always so: the most glorious becomes the standard, and history changes behind him. The past itself changes—because our perspective toward the past changes. To stand nude was a very revolutionary matter; nudity is not mere nudity. Understand its meaning.

To be nude means total rejection of society, total disregard of social notions. If you stand naked at a crossroads, it means you give not two coins’ worth of value to what people think—good or bad—what they will say of you. In our language, to abuse someone we say “nanga-luchcha”—that arose from Mahavira. Nanga—naked; luchcha—from lonchna, to pluck hair. First people hurled at Mahavira “nanga-luchcha,” because he stood naked and did not cut his hair; when it grew, he plucked it out by hand.

You never asked why a naked person is called luchcha. What has luchcha to do with it? Later the word took on a separate use—“that fellow is a real luchcha”—but you never ask what he plucked! The word arose with Mahavira—as an insult. Society must have been enraged, furious: this man has broken all accounts.

Clothes are not mere cloth; in them is hidden all social conditioning—ritual, etiquette, civility, culture. We call the naked “uncivilized.” Tribals live naked; we call them uncivilized, primitive. Why? Because they do not even know to cover the body—animal-like. One of the great differences between man and animals is that man wears clothes; he is the only animal that does. All others are naked. When Mahavira became nude, he said: I choose nature over culture, the primal over the civilized; and whatever be at stake—respect, rank, prestige—I stake it all. Twenty-five hundred years ago such courage was difficult; even today it is. Even today, stand naked and trouble will arise—police will take you at once; you will face trial.

If a Digambara Jaina monk must pass through a village, the police are to be informed. And when the nude monk passes, his disciples must walk encircling him, so that his nudity is somewhat veiled.

Digambara Jaina monks have dwindled—no more than a dozen remain. It is an arduous matter; nudity itself is a provocation. To deny the entire social order at the roots—the society retaliates, becomes hostile.

The first Tirthankara is mentioned in the Rig Veda; but Mahavira is not mentioned in any Hindu scripture. He must have been too revolutionary—so revolutionary that Hindu texts did not dare even to name him. To take this man’s name seemed dangerous.

So the tradition of revolutionaries—if it accepted Mahavira as the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, it was natural.

Understand also: before Mahavira, Jainism was not a separate religion. It was a stream of thinkers, not a distinct religion. With Mahavira, the stream condensed; it took form, organization, became a sangha, and began to walk apart from the Hindu current.

In one sense Parshvanatha or Rishabhadeva were Hindu—just as Jesus was a Jew. Even Mahavira, while alive, was nearly Hindu. But the intensity with which he shaped revolt became so powerful, so clear, that it could no longer be kept within the Hindu flow; it broke away.

Think of this: Buddha was Mahavira’s contemporary. The Shramana tradition did not accept Buddha as its twenty-fourth Tirthankara; it accepted Mahavira. The Hindus accepted Buddha as the tenth avatar; they did not even mention Mahavira. Why? Because Buddha could still be accommodated. He was somewhat rebellious, but he did not cut the cord entirely; a tether remained. Mahavira severed it completely, pulled up the peg, and stood outside under the open sky.

Mahavira wanted to expand man in every way.

Vision will be granted vastness
when imagination breaks its bounds.
Even the sanctuary, O Shaikh, listen—
it is a house, not the boundless un-housed.

Only then does vastness become available to the soul—when every chain, even over imagination, is removed; when your thinking becomes free, then your soul expands.

Vision will be granted vastness—your sight becomes vast when no bonds remain upon it—not of scripture, nor of the past, nor of revered teachers.

Even these temples, these mosques, these houses of worship—listen!—they too are narrow: they are houses, not the houseless, the boundless.

And we need a space where there is no limit—la-makan—where no boundary obstructs. Vision will be granted vastness—and then your sight will be vast.

Mahavira has given an extremely vast vision. But the more vast a vision is, the more it runs contrary to everyone’s limited visions. Narrow visions find companions; vast vision finds none. If I sing only Krishna’s glory, Hindus will gather around me—but their condition will be: do not bring up Mahavira. If I hum only Mahavira’s songs, Jainas will gather—but their condition is: do not bring Krishna in.

If you are narrow, you will always find company, for narrow people abound. The Jainas get upset with me because I speak of Krishna; the Hindus get upset because I speak of Mahavira; the Buddhists are upset because I discuss Mahavira; the Jainas are upset because I bring up Buddha.

Only one whose vision is not narrow can keep me company. And I want to tell you: I stand for tradition and for revolution—both. Then trouble doubles. The traditionalist is upset that I speak of revolution; the revolutionary is upset that I speak of tradition. But in truth I want all limits on your vision to fall away; that you become vast, stand under the open sky, with no circle around you. The largest circle is still a circle. The soul is born only when your seeing is freed of all viewpoints. Mahavira called that state samyak drishti—right vision—when one clings to no vision at all.

Therefore Mahavira called his philosophy anekant—non-absolutism. Anekant means: one who has not seized any single, exclusive viewpoint. The doctrine Mahavira gave is Syadvada. Ask Mahavira anything and he replies in seven modes. Ask him, Is there a God? He says, There is—and immediately, There is not. Then he says, Both is and is not; then, neither is nor is not—and so on. He proceeds with seven perspectives. They are the sevenfold predications regarding God; he uses all seven at once. He refuses to give you any foothold. You asked, Is there a God? He says, There is. Before you can rise, thinking the matter is settled, he says, Wait—there is not. You think, Well, that too is clear—if not, then not. As you get up, he says, Sit—both is and is not. Now you are in a fix. But he still does not stop; he goes on: both are—and fourth, neither are. Thus in seven modes—saptabhangi.

Who will agree with such a man? You want a straight line to hold. But Mahavira says: all fixed lines, all narrownesses fail to reveal the Supreme Truth. In one sense It is, and in one sense It is not.

If someone asks, Is zero? What will you say? In one sense it is—deny it and mathematics collapses. In another sense it is not—zero means that which is not. If both are true, then a third is also true: both are. But how can both be true at once? Either a thing is or is not. Mahavira says: both statements are also untrue. Thus he proceeds. And with each predication he places syat—perhaps. This is remarkable. He says syat.

You come to hear a doctrine. You are uncertain; you do not know what is. You want someone to pound the table and say, Yes, God is—and say it so loudly you get frightened and believe. But Mahavira says, Perhaps. He gives you no consolation. He says, It may be so, and it may not. There is no hesitancy in this.

Many will think: perhaps Mahavira does not know—he says “perhaps.” But precisely because he knows he says syat. What is known is so vast that any single statement becomes one-sided. Regarding it, all statements can be meaningful together—then one statement cancels another. You are left with no doctrine; in the end only you remain. Your intellect retains no viewpoint—only the capacity to see.

No greater revolution has ever happened. So if the revolutionaries accepted Mahavira as their twenty-fourth Tirthankara, there is nothing surprising. Your difficulty in thinking arises because you have assumed revolution to be something new. Revolution and tradition are like your two legs. Every revolution finally becomes tradition, and every tradition was once a revolution. Revolution is tradition’s first step; tradition is revolution’s last phase.

Krishnamurti says something—his words are revolutionary—and they begin to become tradition. A Krishnamurtian appears. Krishnamurti says, No guru. His follower says, No guru. Yet his followers come to me and say, No guru. I ask, Where did you learn that? They say, at his feet. Then he has become your guru. Are you repeating No guru from your own seeing? Even that you learned. And where learning happens, guru has happened. The Krishnamurtian argues for his side, reasons, gives proofs, debates. It is hard to escape.

Revolution is like birth—and where there is birth, there will be death. However much you try to avoid death—if you wanted to avoid it, you should not have been born. The mistake happened there. Now nothing can be done. Death will come.

Be wise henceforth: do not be born. Therefore, if one wishes to avoid death, he must avoid birth.

They say Diogenes was asked, What is the best thing in the world? He said, The best is not to be born. The man said, Well, that cannot be—we are born; what is number two? He said, Number two—die as soon as you can. Had you not been born, no trouble; if you die, the trouble ends.

Revolution is birth. Once there is revolution, there will be death. Revolution will become tradition. This is what you see. These religions you see on earth—do you think they were tradition from the first moment? In the first moment they rose like revolution. Then they settled, organized, systematized; the anarchy was lost, the flame died. Then everything stops; slowly, everything ends.

Jainism is now a tradition. Buddhism is a tradition. Sikhism too is now a tradition. With Nanak there was revolution, great rebellion. Then it was lost. Ash gathers over everything; that is the rule of life. Therefore revolution must be done again and again, and religion must be born anew and anew. But let no one, while birthing a religion, imagine his will be an exception. Impossible. Nothing can be an exception. Whatever is born will die. Then new religions will be needed.

Consider one more thing. When a religion is revolutionary it attracts a certain kind of people—the revolutionaries, rebels, dissenters. Slowly, as it becomes established, instead of attracting revolutionaries it expels them—because they become dangerous.

This is a great paradox. If Mahavira were born again within Jainism, the Jainas would cast him out; they would not tolerate him. If Jesus were born again in a Christian home, he would be crucified again—this time by Christians. Last time the Jews crucified him, because he made the mistake of being born in a Jewish home. No one else, only the Jews crucified him.

And the Jews themselves were great revolutionaries in their first phase. Moses is a great revolutionary—the exodus, liberation from Egypt, the search for a new life and world, the inner rethinking of a new society, and laying its foundations—Moses did that.

But in that same house, clan, tradition, Jesus comes and wishes to do what Moses did, and Moses’ followers will not tolerate it, for he will uproot everything again.

Wherever you are born, if you conceive a new religion—and religion is always new, its beginning is revolution—you will be cast out. Around you, a new religion will arise; soon enough, your children will not let revolution live there either. When a revolutionary appears there, he too will be expelled. Such is the rebel’s fate—to hang on a cross. And such is the destiny of every religion—to be born as revolution and to decay as tradition.

First thing—Mahavira is a Tirthankara, not a Sadguru. “Sadguru” is a word of the devotees; don’t use it for Mahavira. And “Tirthankara” has a very different meaning. “Sadguru” has a very different meaning.

Sadguru means: someone who takes your hand—like a father takes a child’s hand and leads him. The child gives all his trust to the father; he knows they are going right—even if the father is entering danger, walking through a wild forest. The father may be afraid, the child walks in bliss. His hand is in his father’s hand—what more is needed! The child delights in looking at the jungle. He asks a thousand questions. The father says, Keep quiet! The father is nervous, he is alone; what has the child to worry about! When the father is there, everything is settled.

Sadguru means: surrender to someone—put your hand in his, that’s all. Then the devotee says, Now I have become like a small child; wherever you want to take me, take me; I am the disciple.

Tirthankara is very different. A Tirthankara does not take your hand in his. A Tirthankara does not give you support. The word Tirthankara means: maker of a tirtha, a ford, a landing on the riverbank. He builds a ghat; then whoever wishes may descend from that ghat. But he does not sit you in a boat and ferry you across. He is not a boatman. He does not seat you in a boat to carry you to the other shore, nor does he catch your hand and teach you to swim. He only builds the landing.

“Tirtha” means a ford, a ghat. “Tirthankara” means: those who made the fords. They make the descent easy, but they do not take you down holding your hand. In a rough jungle or mountainous terrain the descent is difficult; he builds the steps, arranges everything: the right spot—where the opposite bank is nearest; where the current is not too dangerous; where the water is shallow enough that you could even wade across; where there is the least risk of drowning—he builds the ghat. He places all the charts at the landing: whether to go left or right, after how many steps the water deepens, after how many steps the far bank comes closer. He describes the other shore. He explains everything, constructs the landing, provides all the equipment for the journey—and there he leaves you. Now you go; the journey you must do.

A Tirthankara is not a Sadguru. With a Tirthankara you have no personal relationship. Your relationship with a Tirthankara is profoundly impersonal. If you go to Mahavira, the love you feel for him is one-sided—it is yours. Mahavira says, drop even that, because it too will become a bondage. As for Mahavira, there is absolutely none. You may, out of your imagination, think, We are mad in love with Mahavira—but Mahavira is not mad about you. If you leave, he will not sit and weep, “Where has he gone?”

The devotee and the Sadguru is a different matter. Jesus has said—this is the prophet’s, the Sadguru’s idea: if one sheep strays, evening falls, all the sheep return, but one is lost in the forest, then the shepherd leaves the flock at risk and goes in search of the one. He enters the forest in the dark night, calls and cries out. When he finds her, he lifts her onto his shoulders and carries her back—leaving the rest at risk; wild beasts might attack meanwhile! This is the Christian conception of the Messiah, the Sadguru. His bond is personal. He thinks and cares about you in a personal way.

The Tirthankara is impersonal. He simply states the principle. He says, Two and two make four—now you add. He teaches the mathematics, the rule; now you solve the problem. Beyond that, he has no relation. If you leave, get lost, he does not sit and cry for you, nor does he come shouting after you into the wilderness. Because the Tirthankara’s vision is like this: he says, the one who has to wander will wander. Until he gets tired of his own wandering, he will wander. And if someone wants to wander, then stopping him from wandering is not right; it is an obstruction of his freedom. And this has its value.

Jesus’ view also makes sense: he who is awake should support the one who sleeps. Mahavira’s view also makes sense: to offer support is one thing; but to impose support on one who does not want it is quite another. Therefore they give instruction, not orders. They show the path, but they don’t even say, Come, get up. They don’t scold you, don’t wake you from sleep, don’t break your dream. They say, If that is your wish, it is your personal freedom. They honor your personal freedom. If you have decided to wander, then that is your destiny—wander some more; when you understand, come back. Which means: they do not take you for sheep and goats, they take you for human beings. Then you will understand the strength of their position. They say, You are not sheep that we should hoist you on our shoulders; you are human! God is hidden within you. And if your God has decided that he must still taste a little more suffering, live a little more hell—who can stop you! There is no one above you; you are ultimate. What I have received, I say; use it if you will, if not, don’t. Such is the impersonal relationship.

So first—Tirthankara is not Sadguru. Second—a Tirthankara gives diksha (initiation), not ashirvad (blessing). Blessing is given by the Sadguru. Blessing means: my good wishes are with you. No—Mahavira is wholly impersonal. He says, What will my good wishes do? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Your awareness will help, not my good wishes! And he says, lest you get the lazy man’s confidence—“By someone’s blessing all will happen”—then they die as they were dying anyway. Already drowning, they would stop even struggling, thinking, Now I have received a blessing—now all is well.

Mahavira says, Don’t come to me for such falsehoods. He gives diksha. Diksha means initiation. It means: he tells you what has happened to him. He says, Here is the path. He throws light on the way. Diksha means he opens a door. The door by which he entered, he points it out to you: There it is. Blessing means he prays on your behalf, he wishes your welfare, he joins your journey. No—a Tirthankara does not give blessings. These are words from different traditions; their meanings must be understood, otherwise great confusion arises.

The first time I was invited to Bombay, many years ago—on a Mahavira Jayanti—before me a Jain muni spoke, and I was astonished, because what he said was utterly un-Jain. He said, “Mahavira was born for the welfare of the world.” A Jain muni saying that—and many Jains say it. They don’t know what they are saying. That is Hindu language. “Krishna was born for the welfare of the world”—that can be understood. Yada yada hi dharmasya—whenever there is an obstruction to dharma, I will come, age after age. That language of the avatar is perfectly apt: when I am needed I will come; don’t worry. When darkness falls, I will come with a lamp. When nets of hatred and violence are spread, I will come to lift you up. Always—you can rely on it.

But a Tirthankara does not speak that language. The Tirthankara’s language is different. The Tirthankara says, Who can bring about anyone else’s welfare? Mahavira was born because of the fruits of his past actions. Birth is a compulsion. There is no personal will in Mahavira’s birth. He was born because the web of karma woven in the past life pulled him. And what effort he made was not for the welfare of the world—because Mahavira’s very position is that no one can do anyone else’s ultimate good. Welfare is always self-welfare.

When I spoke and said this, the muni was very upset. There was quite a stir. Guna is here—she was present in that gathering. She told me years later that she said to Ishwarbhai, “Let’s leave now—there will be a fracas, there will be a beating here.” All the Jains were angry because I said Mahavira was not born for anyone’s welfare. But what does anger do? Your scriptures, your whole vision, are different—and that vision has its own value. Its purity must be preserved; otherwise everything becomes a mishmash.

Mahavira says, welfare is self-welfare. Therefore he cannot give blessings. From that day those Jains who got angry have remained angry. They felt I robbed their Mahavira of some prestige. I gave their Mahavira his exact prestige. I said precisely what Mahavira says.

But the ordinary man is ordinary. He does not want to do it himself. He wants it to happen by someone’s blessings—free of cost. You earn money yourself; religion you want by blessing. Have you seen the dishonesty? To build a house—you build it yourself; liberation should come by blessing! What you don’t want to do—what you would take only if it were free—even then you would ask for time to think. If someone truly came offering, “Here is moksha, will you take it?” you would say, “Not so fast—let me think a little, let me go home; there is a wife, children, let me at least ask!” What you want to postpone, you postpone with great skill. You say, “When the Lord’s grace descends!” But for other things you don’t say that. For other things you run helter-skelter. So say it plainly: “I don’t want it yet.” Don’t be dishonest. Say at least this much: “No longing has arisen in me yet.” But saying that feels a bit uncouth. You believe in etiquette, in civility. You say, “Saying it bluntly isn’t right.” So you say it slyly, furtively, dressed up, ornamented: “When the Lord’s grace comes, when the Sadguru’s blessing comes...”

People come to me. I ask them, “You haven’t been seen for many years.” They say, “You never called us.” How amusing! I say, “Then how did you come now? I still haven’t called.” They say, “We had some business in Poona.” When there is business, they come on their own. Since I happen to be in Poona, “Let’s drop in there too.” But for coming to me they put the responsibility on me: “You didn’t call.” They think they are saying something very loving; they are saying something very dishonest. If you want to come, you come; if you don’t, you say, “When you call.” As if it were my fault! When you say, “When the Lord’s grace comes,” it means the Lord’s grace is not coming. Do you think there can be such a thing as the Lord’s grace not coming? Do you think the Lord puts obstacles—pouring grace on others, not on you? If there is such a thing as grace, it is showering on all. But you will take it only when you want to take it.

Therefore Mahavira says, drop this whole talk of blessing. I point the way; the walking is yours. And he forges no personal bond. His greatest disciple, Gautama, could not attain samadhi, could not attain kevala-jnana, during Mahavira’s lifetime. The day Mahavira died, Gautama had gone to teach in a neighboring village. As he was returning, on the way he heard that Mahavira had left the body, attained mahaparinirvana. He began to weep. He asked the travelers, “This is too much. I lived with him all my life—by what misfortune did I go to another village at the last moment! At least I would have seen him once at the end! And now what will become of me? While he lived I could not be liberated—what will happen now? Now there is deep darkness and even the lamp has gone out. Did he leave any message for me?” The travelers said, “Yes. At the last moment he opened his eyes and said, ‘Gautama is not here. When he returns, tell him only this much: you have crossed the whole river—why are you clinging to the bank now?’”

It is said that in that very moment Gautama attained knowledge. What did Mahavira say to him? What message? “You crossed the whole river—you left the world, left wealth, wife, home—you dropped everything, removed attachment from all sides—and now you have piled your attachment on me! You have seized the bank. Now you say, ‘Guru...’ Let this go as well. Otherwise, though you have crossed the river, you are stuck holding the bank—how will you get out? If you have left everything, leave everything—don’t keep even this exception.”

In that instant Gautama realized, “Ah, I am stuck because of clinging to Mahavira! This attachment won’t drop—that is why I am halted.”

Jain language is the language of non-attachment. There is no blessing there.

Whether my boat should sink or stay afloat,
never stretch out your hand toward Khidr’s hem.
—Even if the boat sinks or is saved; Mahavira says, do not stretch your hand toward anyone else. Do not reach for the garment of any Sadguru. Do not ask for blessings. If you drown, fine; if you cross, fine—but do not beg.

Mahavira’s path is the path of emperors, not of beggars.

My nature is the storm, and I am the turmoil of nature.
I will not even moisten imagination’s hem with the shore.
—My very nature is of storm.
My nature is the storm, and I am the free gaze of nature.
I will not even let imagination’s hem be wetted by the shore—not to speak of actually reaching the shore. I won’t even corrupt my imagination by thoughts of the shore.

Even the talk of support is wrong. Supportless! Until you become so utterly without supports that you feel: now I must stand on my own feet—there are no other feet; now I must awaken my own intelligence—there is no other prop; now I must heighten my own life-force—there is no other blessing, no other consolation. Have you ever thought?

Oscar Wilde has written: when someone’s boat sinks and he flounders in the sea—what his state is; until your state becomes like that, you will not do anything. The boat has sunk. Towering waves, no sign of shore—then what is the state? Do you then think, “Someone’s blessing will come,” or do you have to save yourself? No—you throw yourself, with your total energy, into the effort to survive; you start wrestling with the sea. In that moment there are no thoughts—what room for thought? What leisure? Who has time to think then? Life is at stake. There are no thoughts left. How many times you tried to meditate and it didn’t happen—on that day it happens. No thoughts arise, no desires arise—no wealth, no woman, no world—everything disappears. Only one state remains: to save oneself—pure feeling, not thought. And you struggle with the sea.

Mahavira says, such should be your condition. It is such already, but you have built boats of imagination and propped yourself on imaginary supports. Because of those supports you cannot make the effort you could have made. Therefore he says, remove all consolations.

Mahavira stripped all props from those who walked with him. He made them supportless so that the sleeping energy within them, challenged, would rise and blaze.

In your confrontation it has made countless gods,
worshiped them and sung hymns of devotion to them.
Man, in place of the real God, has made who knows how many gods—worshiped them, sung their praises. Mahavira says, the real God is hidden within you. Neither worship nor hymns nor trays of ritual will do anything. Understand the fact of life. Understand this truth: you are in the ocean of becoming and you are drowning. See the situation clearly and you will set about saving yourself. And apart from you, no one can save you. Therefore Mahavira says: avoid the feeling of refuge; meditate in the feeling of non-refuge. Do not think of taking shelter anywhere. Not surrender—resolve.

I am in love with love. I know no word more precious than that. A thousand distortions may have happened, yet the word still holds magic. Ahimsa feels like a dead word. It gives off the smell of medicine. Ahimsa—like the odor you find in a hospital. It says, “Don’t do.” It is about restraint, prohibition—no blossoms like the flowers of love. The word love brings another kind of resonance into the heart: lotuses bloom, doors open. Ahimsa suggests compulsion, duty—no creativity, no positivity. There cannot be any “yes” within a “no.”

In love there is “yes,” acceptance. In love there is a sense of wonder, there is song, there is dance. So even if love has been distorted in a thousand ways, I choose love. Because love is alive, and it has the power to shed its distortions. The word ahimsa has no life in it. Perhaps when Mahavira used it there were no distortions, but by now there are thousands. And the trouble is: ahimsa is a dead word. It cannot shake off its distortions. Love can. Love is alive.

Think of it this way: a dead man lies there in spotless clothes—clean, washed, immaculate; not a speck of dust. And a living man is sitting there—drenched in sweat, dust clinging to him; he has worked all day; he needs a bath. If you ask me whom I choose, I will say I choose the living one. The sweat will wash away. Dust on the clothes—soap is available. But the man is alive! As for that corpse—granted it doesn’t sweat, no dust gathers on it, it can lie in a glass coffin and remain ever so clean—but what will you do with it? What will come of it?

Ahimsa is a dead word. Love is living. Of course, with love there is sweat. Sometimes sweat smells. Dust does settle on it. One can get dirty—but these are the signs of life. Where there can be dirt, cleanliness can be brought. Remember: where dirt cannot even arise, how will you bring cleanliness? Death has already arrived there. Would you prefer the child who sits in a corner like a corpse? Parents often like that—less trouble. A “Gobar-Ganesh”—a Ganesha idol of cow-dung—sits there. You can worship him now and then; otherwise he just sits. Parents may like it, but later they will regret it. He will go on sitting just like that. And there is the other child—mischievous, a rascal—he runs, he even breaks an arm or a leg, he bleeds, he dirties his clothes, he comes home smeared with mud. I will choose this one. At least he is alive! Something may come of him.

Ahimsa tries to ensure that nothing happens. Love endeavors that something happens. I am on the side of life, even if death looks ever so clean. And death is very tidy indeed. The mess belongs to life; what trouble is there in death? It’s the end of all trouble. Even so, I will not choose death; I will choose life.

“In the domain of color and fragrance, what place have the prudent?
Whenever the message of spring arrives, it is addressed to the mad.”

—Those who are very clever, who live by calculation, whose lives are all “good sense” with no madness at all, who have destroyed every capacity to go crazy—spring’s message never reaches them.

“In the domain of color and fragrance, what place have the prudent?
Whenever the message of spring arrives, it is addressed to the mad.”

And whenever the wave of spring comes, whenever the message of life arrives, it comes addressed to the lovers-mad.

Ahimsa may make you clever—but where will you get divine madness? Ahimsa may prevent you from doing wrong; but from where will you get the color and form of doing right? Ahimsa may stop you from uttering abuse; but from where will songs be born?

Is merely refraining from abuse enough? Is a man sufficient simply because he doesn’t use foul language?

This is what has become of Jain monks. They don’t abuse; but songs do not arise from them. They sit there—Gobar-Ganesh—go and worship them! The Jainas go to serve them. They have cut off what is bad—but somewhere a big mistake has happened, a fundamental error. They aspired to leave the wrong, to avoid the wrong; but they made no effort to give birth to the right. Their idea is: if the wrong is removed, the right will come on its own. My understanding is the opposite: if the right is born, the wrong will fall away on its own. And I tell you their idea is wrong. It is as if a man, finding his room full of darkness, starts trying to push the darkness out. No one can shove darkness out—he will tire, he will die, his life will be wasted. Light a lamp! Ignite something creative! Darkness disappears of itself.

So I do not say to you: drop anger. I say: give birth to compassion. I do not say: renounce the world. I say: awaken the soul. I do not say: give up wealth. I say: there is a treasure within—seek that. My approach is affirmative. And I know this: the day you find the inner treasure, will you cling to outer wealth? You will neither cling nor renounce it, because it will no longer be “wealth.” Not even worth renouncing—let alone grabbing. What is there to keep? When the inner diamonds begin to shine, all outside turns to pebbles and stones. When you begin to live in inner beauty, the outer no longer even appears beautiful. But if your style of life becomes one of negation—denial, “neti, neti”—and you run from outer beauty, you will get into trouble. You will put the noose around your own neck. And what you have fled from will haunt you. It will.

That is why those who run away—thoughts about women continue; thoughts about wealth continue. They sprinkle and shake off such thoughts, they push them away. Whenever the remembrance of a woman arises, they start chanting Ram-Ram-Ram loudly somehow. But what does your chanting accomplish? The “Ram-Ram” remains on the surface; inside it goes on “kam-kam”—lust-lust. Between every two “Ram”s, the news of lust slips in.

Do not run! Do not panic. Do not be afraid. God is not a denial of life; God is the fulfilled experience of life. And religion is not escape; it is the fulfilled savoring of life.

Mahavira chose the word ahimsa for love; there a mistake occurred. But there were reasons. For the Upanishads and the Vedas had spoken of love. There was a web of love everywhere. And in the name of love, corruption was everywhere. So Mahavira felt that using the word “love” was no longer without danger. He used “ahimsa” in the hope that he would make you understand that ahimsa means love. But he could not make people understand. The fault is not his. The fault lies with those who listened. Instead of drawing love out of ahimsa, they drew out negativity. So Mahavira’s religion gradually became a religion of “what not to do.”

“The pious man remained captive within the limits of sense and reason;
The simpleton turned life itself into a dungeon.”

He who lives only by intellect—

“The pious man remained captive within the bounds of sense and reason”—
ever confined to the boundaries of renouncing and giving up—

“The simpleton turned life itself into a dungeon.”

“Give up, give up”—shrink and shrink—and you will find you have slipped your own neck into a noose. But you will not realize it, because the tighter your noose, the more people will lay flowers at your feet. They will say, “What a great renunciate!” So you will start savoring your noose. For the more you tighten it, the more respect you receive. The more you fast, the more you break yourself, the more acclaim you get. The more you efface yourself, the more you perform violence against yourself, the more honor you receive. Thus the monk who renounces more gets more respect. They call him “great sage.” People place their heads at his feet. The ego enjoys it!

So all who have traveled the path of negation have only fattened the ego. The soul did not open or blossom in their lives.

So I choose love. I am in love with love. I say to you: there may be a thousand flaws in this word—learn something from Mahavira. Seeing the flaws clinging to the word “love,” he chose ahimsa; but the results turned out even worse. The disease was disease—but the medicine too became a disease.

I say to you: choose love. And love is so strong it can cross its own mistakes. It is alive—so even if it gets dirty, it can bathe. Ahimsa is a corpse—it will not get dirty, but what is the value of its cleanliness? In its cleanliness there is no fragrance of life. Its cleanliness is clinical.

For me there is nectar in the word love. Because as I see it, this whole existence is moved by love. Every breath here moves by love. Every flower blooms by love. Even scientists have begun to think: when everything is bound by love—woman with man, man with woman, parents with children, children with parents, friend with friend—when everything is bound by love, then we must admit we live in an ocean of love.

When the atom was first investigated and split, Rutherford, who did the first deep research on the atom, faced a question: the atomic particles—electrons, neutrons, protons—how are they bound together? What power binds them? Why don’t they just scatter?

Have you ever wondered: a stone lies there for centuries—why doesn’t it fall apart? You strike it with a hammer; it shatters. Then you try to join it again—place the pieces together—but now it won’t rejoin. What happened? What was it that held it together all this time? If something held it together all those years, then when you put the pieces back side by side, why doesn’t it bind them again? You broke something. You didn’t break the stone; you broke something subtler. The stone is still the same; its weight is the same; the pieces are all there—yet before they were joined, now they are apart. You can seat them together, you can implore them to reunite, perform rituals, sacrifices—it will not listen. You broke something—something very subtle.

Rutherford began to wonder: what is it that binds them? Many theories have been proposed. Among them is a theory of love—surprising, isn’t it? Scientists speaking of love! But there’s no need to be astonished. If life everywhere is bound by love—if a tree is joined to its fruit by love, if it is joined to its flowers by love, if human beings are joined to one another by love—then surely the units, the bricks of life, must also be bound by love. Call it magnetism, call it electricity—these are differences of name. But there is some magnetic power that binds all life together. Devotees have called that magnetic power God, love, the Divine. Mahavira calls it truth.

But Mahavira’s “truth” is very neutral. No stream of rasa flows from it. Truth is dry, like a desert. Love is an oasis; a great stream of nectar flows there. The Upanishads say, raso vai sah—That is rasa.

I too take rasa to be the truth of life. And there is rasa in your life only when there is love. Wherever there is love, there is rasa. Wherever love is lost, rasa dries up. Bathe in rasa. Let the body bathe, the mind bathe—let all bathe in rasa! Then a different scene will begin to appear in your vision.

“Why should ‘Jamil’ not be proud of his captivity?
Is it a small honor that the Huntsman chose him!”

“Why should ‘Jamil’ not be proud of his captivity?” Jamil says: why should I not glory in the fact that the Beloved considered me worthy to be bound, to be held? “Is it a small honor that the Huntsman chose me!”—that He chose me, sent me, made me!

The devotee hears a song of joy even in his sorrow. He finds nectar even in his chains. He says, it is God who has bound me. The devotee is in no hurry to be free. He says, “These are Your bonds—I consent!” And such a devotee becomes free. Because a bond binds only so long as you want to be free of it. It feels like bondage only because you are moving opposite to what is. When you accept, when you agree, when you say “Yes...”

“Why should ‘Jamil’ not be proud of his captivity?
Is it a small honor that the Huntsman chose him!”

Is it a small glory that God chose! He made us—made us as we are. He finds His love everywhere.

And if your life begins to seek love everywhere—even in places where it seems most difficult—then the day you see love everywhere, that day you have seen God.

Jesus said: God is love. And I say: love is God.

But the paths are different. Mahavira’s path is not the path of the devotee—it is of awareness. The devotee’s path is of intoxication. The devotee’s path is the tavern. He says: this so-called sobriety is our pain.

“I lay upon You every unawareness of my heart.
Come! Come to me through this very station where awareness is forgotten.”

O Lord! the devotee says, I lay upon You every unawareness of my heart—I have nothing else, only unknowing. This is the madness of my heart, my divine foolishness. I offer it to You. I give it to You. I have nothing else.

“I lay upon You every unawareness of my heart.
Come! Come to me through this very station where awareness is forgotten.”

Even to remember You is not within my power. Come through the doorway of my forgetfulness!

“Come! Come to me through this very station where awareness is forgotten.” Come through the path of my unawareness!

The devotee’s way is different. Devotees arrive. Seekers, too, arrive. Mahavira’s way is the seeker’s. Narada’s way is the devotee’s. But if you ask me, in my view, more people can arrive by the devotee’s path. Yes, for those to whom devotion seems impossible, there is the seeker’s path. That is a compulsion. If your love has died to such a degree, become so inert, that you cannot reveal God through it—then leave it; go by the seeker’s path.

But the seeker’s path is second best. It is for those in whom the inner soul has become somewhat dead and in whom the springs of love have dried up, in whom no song rises, no dance arises, whose flute is lost. For them it is. If your flute is still with you and you can hum a tune, you are fortunate. If not—if somewhere along life’s road you lost your flute; somewhere love suffered a blow; your heart became hard, no thrill rises there—then the seeker’s path is for you. The seeker’s path is for those few in whom all possibilities of love have ended. But if there is even a little possibility of love, if it can sprout, then do not worry. When you can go to His home singing and dancing, why go with long faces and gloom? If you can go to Him healthy and rejoicing, why impose needless sadness and needless renunciation?

People have reached by Mahavira’s path; you too can reach. But Mahavira’s path is very narrow; very few arrive; very few can go.

The path of devotion is vast. As many as want to go can go upon it. But some people relish difficulty. What comes easily doesn’t appeal to them. The more obstacles and hardships they pass through, the more they feel they are accomplishing something. For them, Mahavira’s path is perfectly right.

It is Taru’s question.
“Whenever I write anything to you, you get angry.” Many times it will seem as if I have become angry, but in my anger there is only this much longing: perhaps if I speak in anger you will listen; perhaps if I speak in anger your dream will break; perhaps if I speak with a shock you will wince a little and wake up.

Zen masters keep a staff in their hands, Taru! They have seen that the moment a disciple starts nodding off, they can crack his head—and many times it has happened that the Zen master’s stick has struck, and in that very instant the seeker has attained samadhi.

Your sleep is deep; a blow is necessary. You need to be pushed. If I keep singing you lullabies, you will sleep even more. Of course, you like lullabies. But should I cater to what you like? You like sleep. You must be awakened! You must be shaken!

And slowly you have come to take your illnesses as part of your life. Little by little you have even fallen in love with your diseases.

A small boy came to his grandparents’ home. At night, when his grandmother put him to bed in a room and turned off the light, he sat up and began to cry. “What happened to you?” she asked. He said, “I’m very afraid of the dark.” She replied, “Silly! At your own house you sleep in the dark too, and in a separate room; then what is there to fear?” He said, “Grandma, that’s different. That is my darkness.”

One gets attached even to one’s own darkness: my darkness, my illness, my worry, my sorrow—“my.” The “mine” attaches even to that. That is why we cling even to our suffering. We are afraid to drop suffering, lest it happen that the suffering too slips away and our hands are left empty, and nothing is gained. At least there is something—if only pain! It gives a feeling that one is.

So at times I must appear angry with you—only because I love you; there is no other reason.

“And afterwards I feel very nervous about whether to open my heart to you or not!”
Will your opening or not opening make any difference? It is already open. The day one knows oneself, from that day the hearts of all are open. When one’s own heart opens, everyone’s heart is open. There is no way now to hide from me. Whether you tell or not, it will make no difference. Because the pain of human beings is one. There will be differences in detail, in color and style; but the essential human pain is one: we have become separated from That from which we are born; we are lost from our original source. Therefore all search, but there is no fulfillment. We run a lot, but we do not arrive, because we have forgotten the address of our own home. Details are different; they differ for each person. There is no real point in going into them.

Whether you open your heart or not, it makes no difference. I know your fundamental pain.
It is this: how to be united with the Divine! Call it God or not. How to be united with That on attaining which nothing remains to be attained.

“And is it that I cannot do anything?”
You do a great deal, but by doing it is not attained. It is attained by being defeated through your doings. As long as doing continues, some sense of I-ness remains. “I am doing”—then the I remains. Action never kills the ego. Yes, through action the ego becomes beautiful, refined; it gets decorated and ornamented—but it does not dissolve. It dissolves only when it becomes clear that nothing will happen through what I do. When, utterly and finally, it is seen that nothing will happen through my doing. Right where its doing yields nothing, there the “I” falls.

So you do much; but I keep telling you: this is nothing, this too is nothing—do more, do more. And the more someone is doing, the more I say to them, this is nothing—do more. Because the more someone is doing, the more hope there is that they are nearing that boundary at which all doing will be seen as futile. So I make them run more. Those who have fallen behind I may not even urge, because even if they run, not much is going to happen. But those who are far ahead in the race and running with great vigor—for them even a slight slackening would be dangerous and costly.

It is said that Rabindranath had an uncle, Avanindranath. He was a great painter. In this century India has produced only one or two painters of that caliber. The other great painter born in India was Nandalal, his disciple. One day Rabindranath was sitting with Avanindranath when Nandalal, as a young student, brought a painting of Krishna. Rabindranath has written that he had never before seen such a beautiful painting; no one had captured such an image of Krishna. He was overwhelmed, enraptured; he felt like dancing—but he kept quiet because Avanindranath was present, and he was looking at the painting very intently. There was a long silence.

Rabindranath writes that he became anxious—what is the matter? Say something! Break this silence—say something. Nandalal too was trembling. At last Avanindranath lifted his eyes, picked up the painting, and threw it out of the room. He said to Nandalal, “You think this is great art? It is not even fit for the Bengali patuas who paint Krishna on wooden plaques and sell them for a couple of paisa. Go and learn from the patuas how Krishna is painted!”

Nandalal bowed, touched his feet, and left. Rabindranath was greatly astonished, and even angry. But what could he say between guru and disciple? So he kept quiet. When Nandalal had gone, he said, “This is beyond me. I have seen your paintings too, but I can say that none of them pleased me as much as this Krishna did. And you threw it out!”

Avanindranath was silent. When he lifted his eyes, tears were flowing. He said, “You did not understand. This gives me great confidence—he can be drawn further; he can touch higher peaks yet. I also know that I myself have never painted such a picture. But he still has more possibility. If I say, ‘Enough, it is great,’ if my hand of praise comes to rest on his head, that will become his obstacle. I am not his enemy.”

For three years no one knew where Nandalal had gone. He wandered village to village in Bengal; wherever he heard of the patuas, the folk painters, he went and learned from them how to paint Krishna. He returned after three years. He told Rabindranath, “His great compassion! I have learned so much that I could never have learned sitting here. Those simple-hearted rural people have no formal technique, they have had no technical training—but their feeling is very deep. And the real thing is feeling—what is technique?”

So those here who are working with intensity, I do not pat their backs. To them I say, What is this? The patuas of Bengal do better than this. To them I will keep saying, This too is nothing—more, more, more—until that moment when the utmost limit of doing is reached. Because where the peak of doing comes, there too the peak of ego comes. And when doing-as-such collapses, when you feel there is nothing more to do and you sit down— in that very sitting, for the first time, there is contact with the divine. You are not there; in that sitting you are not. In that sitting, within you there is only God.

“Is it that I cannot do anything? I try in every way to understand your words. A devotee knows nothing of ego. What should I do? My courage is breaking now.”
Very auspicious signs. Keep doing.
Courage has to break. On the path of devotion, your very courage is the obstacle. On the path of surrender, your strength and your power are the obstacle. The strength of the weak is Ram! There, when you become utterly weak—everything breaks—at that very instant, that very moment, the inexpressible union happens.

Ensnared in your love,
we became free of every sorrow and grief.

Let his love encircle you; let it tighten. In the noose of his love your ego will die.

Ensnared in your love,
we became free of every sorrow and grief.

Now leave even your sorrow, your grief; whatever you have, lay it at his feet! There is nothing else—where will you bring flowers from? What you do have—tears will do. Lay them at his feet! And say to him:

Ensnared in your love,
we became free of every sorrow and grief.

Now it is yours to do!

How many lovers have perished in love, Seemab—
gather their ashes and a wilderness would be formed.

So many lovers have been annihilated in his love! Gather their ashes and a desert would be made. Mix your own ashes into that desert of ashes.

If love is the wager,
stake whatever you will—what fear?
If you win, what is there to say;
even if you lose, the game is not lost.

If you win—what is there to say! A man becomes a Mahavira if he wins.
Even if you lose, the game is not lost! If you lose, a Meera is born. There is no impediment, no obstacle.

If love is the wager,
stake whatever you will—what fear?
If you win, what is there to say;
even if you lose, the game is not lost.

This path of the Divine is such that those who arrive, arrive—and those who wander also arrive. On the worldly path the story is reversed: those who arrive still do not arrive; as for those who wander—what to say! On the path of God, those who arrive arrive; those who wander also arrive. Is it not enough that we wandered seeking him? Is it not enough that we desired to seek him? Is it not enough that, in the dark night, we cherished hopes and dreams of that lamp?

Ask us the account of his grace—
whomever he is pleased with, he turns into a mad lover.

When God’s love showers upon you, your madness will increase, tears will flow even more, the heart will break and scatter. You will become ash in that great desert—where Meera is lost, Chaitanya is lost, where Rabia is lost, where Kabir, Nanak, Raidas are lost. In that vast desert you too will be lost. But before losing yourself, one condition must be fulfilled: do whatever you can do; otherwise you will be left feeling that something or other could still have been done. You will remain stuck. The ego will keep back a small corner.

Whoever has desired love and chosen the path of devotion has desired the impossible.

That is why Mahavira is as clear as mathematics. There is clean, tidy science there. Therefore in Jainism the language is scientific. Meera and Chaitanya, Narada and Kabir—their language is quirky, the cant of mendicants, upside-down speech. There the Ganga flows back toward Gangotri. Full of mystery—because they have aspired to the great impossible. Mahavira’s words, however harsh they may seem, are understandable like mathematics. And the lovers’ words, however simple they may seem, feel supremely intractable.

I asked for that pain—see my courage—
a pain that seemed beyond all remedy.

The pain of love is such that it is incurable; there is no remedy.

I asked for that pain—see my courage—
a pain that seemed beyond all remedy.

Love is a pain for which there is no cure. But whoever accepts that pain finds that gradually the pain becomes sweet; sweeter and sweeter. And one day it is seen that what we took in the first moment to be pain was not pain; it was the news of his coming, the sound of his footsteps, a hint. We were unfamiliar, therefore it felt like pain; or the Divine came so intensely near that we could not bear it; we lacked the capacity—like the sun suddenly falling into the eyes, dazzling them, and it feels like pain.

When one walks toward God, one has asked for a kind of madness that seems impossible.
Here in the world you do not obtain wealth; here you do not find a worthy beloved; here you obtain nothing—and in such a world we have asked for God! Where nothing is obtained, where even the visible things do not come into our grasp—we have asked to grasp the Invisible! The visible does not come to hand, the finite cannot be held—there we have desired the Infinite!

I asked for that pain—see my courage—
a pain that seemed beyond all remedy.

The road is full of pain, but the pain is very sweet. Even the thorns on his path ultimately turn into flowers.

Enough for today.