Jin Sutra #22

Love is not a problem—if you want to make it one, it can become one. Love is the solution of life. But there is some mistake in the way you are looking. You have not looked at love impartially. You have looked at love through the eyes of those who have built their lives in opposition to love and to life itself. Your eyes are filled with certain notions; because of those notions, love turns into a problem. In fact, if problem-making is your way, then there is nothing in this world that cannot be made into a problem. One person makes food a problem, another the body, another clothing. If you wish, you can make love a problem too. It depends on you. Somewhere there is an error in your seeing.

So‑called religious people have always condemned love, because a religion that affirms life’s creativity has hardly arisen; and if it did, it flashed for a moment and was lost. Once in a while a Krishna played his flute, but those notes could not resound for long—because man is sick, man is ailing; and such a man cannot attune to Krishna’s flute.

Man is miserable; therefore, because of his misery he cannot see life’s blissful face. He projects his sorrow upon life. So whenever someone tells you that life is futile, meaningless, you instantly understand—because that is how you too feel.

Those who never learned the art of living become angry with life. No one is ready to see, “My way is wrong, my approach to recognizing life is wrong, my method of reaching life is wrong.” No one is ready to see that—because then “I” would be wrong. If we have to choose between ego and life, we choose the ego, not life. “How can I be wrong? Life must be wrong! How can I be wrong? Love must be wrong!”

So whenever we have to choose, we choose “me”—that I am of course right! One thing is certain: I am right. And yet there is suffering in life—so somewhere the mistake must be beginning; somewhere there must be seeds of error. Then we look all around to find those seeds. Someone blames money and runs from wealth. He does not see greed; he sees money—so he runs away from money. He does not look within; he does not see craving. But where will you go leaving money? Money was outside and will remain outside; wherever you run, how will your inner state of greed change? Someone sees turmoil in position and resigns.

But neither unrest resides in position, nor in wealth.

Someone thinks there is entanglement in love. There is no entanglement in love. The entanglement lies in your inability to love. In the name of love, you have done something else; hence the tangle.

Understand a little. I see hundreds of people come to me with their problems about love. The first thing is: they have not loved at all, that’s why there is a problem. In the name of love they have done something else. In the name of love they have been jealous. In the name of love they have tried to own the other. In the name of love they have done politics. In the name of love they have tried to dominate, to torment, to sit on someone’s head. The label says love; underneath, something else is hidden.

You say of some woman, “I loved her.” Did you? You say of some man, “I loved him.” Did you? You say of your son, “I loved him.” Did you? With the son, you have nursed ambition—that what you could not do, the son will complete; what you leave unfinished, the son will finish. Through the son you have sought a kind of immortality. You will die, but your fragment will live in the son. Well then, even if you do not survive whole, at least a part remains. The tree may not remain, but the seed will. So be it. At least arrange that much.

Who really loves their son! Through the son you want to fulfill something else—certain ego‑longings. You could not become prime minister; your son will. You could not become a great magnate; your son will. The name will remain. The name is yours, and the son is yours!

That is why so many parents say they love their children, yet nowhere does love seem visible. All children are born to parents. If indeed parents loved, all children would be born of love and their lives would be fragrant with love. But that fragrance is nowhere to be found. What is apparent is the stench of hatred—war, enmity, murder, violence, anger—and all of it comes from supposed sources of love. Then surely some poison has been mixed at the source called love. The final results testify; the fruit reveals the tree. If love blossoms in your son’s life, only then is it known that you had loved, that you had manured with love. But no child’s life bears witness to that.

Husbands and wives tell each other they love. But have you ever really looked, reflected—Is this love or something else? Under the name of love there is deception. Then the problems arise. If your wife merely looks appreciatively at someone else, the trouble starts. There is beauty in the world besides you. You have not taken out a monopoly on beauty. There is beauty besides you. There is beauty in you too, because there is beauty in existence—otherwise there would not be beauty in you either. So if your wife lets her gaze linger on someone, why are you frightened? Why so upset? Fear sets in.

Does love ever panic? If there is love, you will quietly ask, “Did you find this person beautiful? I too find him beautiful. He is.” Then your wife need not hide that she found someone beautiful, nor need you struggle to repress her, to divert her eyes, to control her. What wrong has happened?

If the husband speaks with a smile to another woman, the wife is restless, disturbed. What sort of love is this? What love is it that cannot bear to see the husband smile? The wife says, “Smile only with me.” That is like saying, “Breathe only with me! For the other twenty‑four hours, don’t breathe anywhere else.”

A smile is also a breath. Love too is a breath. And as a man dies without food—without love, he dies as well. Without food the body dies—without love, the soul dies. Without food, perhaps you can still live a few days; without love, you cannot live a moment—because love is the breath of your soul. As the body needs oxygen every moment, so the life‑energy needs love every moment. Yet you go out of the house afraid: even if you speak kindly to someone, you fear your wife might find out. What sort of love is this, that goes against your joy? What sort of love wants you sad, not happy? What sort of love binds you, and does not set you free? No, this is love in name only. Beneath it is something else—ownership, possessiveness, monopoly. In this there is little love and much economics.

The wife is afraid that if you become interested elsewhere, what will happen to my arrangements, to money, to my children, to our home! There is no real interest in you—it is a question of economic arrangement. It is a matter of financial planning. You too are not interested in your wife; there are other reasons—prestige, social respect. People say, “After Rama, there is none as devoted to one wife as you.” So there is respectability, status. If your eyes wander, reputation will scatter, prestige will be at stake, the shop will suffer—everything will go wrong. A thousand other considerations.

And because of these considerations, obstacles arise; then you say love causes problems.

So far I have not seen a single instance—and I say this from observing the minds of thousands—where love itself created a problem. Something else created the problem. But you make the fundamental mistake of assuming that it was love. Then when problems arise you lay the blame on love. Love has liberated people. Love has given life the taste of the divine. Through love people are drawn, little by little, toward prayer. In prayer they have tasted the infinite, the unknown. Love has given strength, a quest, courage. Love has never given problems.

If love caused problems, how could Jesus say God is love? The entire edifice of devotion would then collapse. Through love the devotees have found God. And you say love is a problem! Think again. Something else must be mixed in with love, and that admixture creates the problem. Drop the admixtures.

Do not make jealousy through love; do not make ambition through love; do not make ownership of anyone through love; do not impose any kind of slavery through love. Love is sufficient. Do not want anything through love. Love is an end in itself; do not make it a means. Then you will see life beginning to unfold in great peace. And not peace alone—because mere peace feels a little dead.

I do not give you the goal of peace‑only; for peace without the thrill of joy is not enough. Only that peace is right in which waves of bliss also arise. Otherwise peace will only mean the absence of disturbance—nothing positive; you will merely emphasize that nothing is happening. Then your peace will be like “non‑violence” defined negatively; your peace will be only an absence of turmoil: no traffic on the road, no trains passing, no planes flying. Or you have gone far into the Himalayas, where there is a kind of silence, a hush. But there is not much value in that hush, because it is only absence.

There is another peace—like music: as if the veena were playing all around you; a dance within and without; peace that sings and dances, full of exuberance and divine ecstasy—that, that alone is right.

So it is not enough merely to grow quiet. Understand this.

Those who turn away from the life of love, thinking there were problems there, may become quiet, but they will not become blissful. The clouds of anxiety may vanish from their eyes, but the showers of blissful tears will not come either. The dust of tension, restlessness, worry may not be in their eyes, but you will not see in their eyes the dance of the infinite. Their eyes will not become windows to the divine. Their eyes will be dry, withered, lifeless.

Do not make peace the sole goal of life. Peace is necessary, not sufficient. Life opens bigger doors—of bliss. Bliss requires peace as a foundation, but peace does not automatically bring bliss. Do not think that if you are not sick you are healthy. Not being ill is necessary for health, but not sufficient. It may be that you are not ill, yet there is no vibrancy of well‑being. Health is something else. When you have been healthy, you know it is not merely the absence of disease—some creative energy waves within. Yes, the absence of illness helps health descend. But whoever thought the absence of illness is health has made a big mistake about life.

Therefore I say: reflect again on love, meditate on it; and do not be afraid of love. There is fear—because of that fear many have fled. What is the fear?

Whenever you descend into love with another, the other becomes a mirror for you, and your face begins to be seen in it. People are afraid of mirrors, because in them those things appear which you do not wish to see. Alone, your anger did not show; in love, anger will be known. The other becomes a mirror and a challenge. Situations arise all around in which your anger surfaces, your deceits are exposed. Sometimes your false faces slip and fall. Situations arise in which you are left naked; your inner nudity peeps out. It is frightening!

In aloneness one sits covered up. Relationships are revealing. Only in relationships do you know who you are. Because you see only the image formed of you in another’s eyes; there is no direct way to see your own image. You cannot see yourself directly. You need a mirror—and the glass mirror is dead; the mirror of relationship is alive. When your image forms in another’s eyes, your truth begins to manifest. Understand this.

When you are alone you cannot be dishonest, nor honest—what dishonesty or honesty can there be alone? The other is needed. Alone, a man can delude himself that he is honest. That is why people ran to forests and hid in caves.

Aloneness is convenient; because if there is no dishonesty, it is clear: “I am honest.” They made absence into a definition. But when alone, you are not honest either—for with whom would you be honest? What kind of honesty is that?

Come back into relationships, close to people. There you will immediately know whether you are honest or dishonest; whether you speak truth or lie. How will you know alone? Who will you speak to? How will you know whether there is compassion in you or hardness? Come close! Let some life approach you intimately.

At once, something will begin to happen within by which it will be clear whether hardness is there or compassion.

Look, for example, at Jain monks: ahimsa and compassion should be the foundation of their life, but they are not—because when you cut yourself off from life, how will compassion be known? By what measure will compassion manifest in you? There is no way. If a Jain monk passes a beggar on the road holding out his hand, he has nothing to give. You would not call him miserly; you would say he is renunciate—he has nothing; if there is nothing to give, where is the question of giving? But is it necessary that he has nothing yet he wanted to give? How will you know he wanted to give? Might it be that in this renunciation there is miserliness hiding?

Often I have seen misers become renunciates. There is no better way to hide miserliness than renunciation; when there is nothing, the question of giving ends. You will not expect a Jain monk to give to the poor, the beggar, the sick. Leave giving—nor do you expect him even to press the feet of a sick man or bring him water, because he says that would be attachment.

Among the Jains there is a sect—Terapanth—of Acharya Tulsi. They go so far as to say that if someone is dying by the roadside, quietly go your way. For who knows—if you give water to that thirsty dying man and he lives to become a murderer tomorrow, then you have participated in that murder. True, had you not given water he would have died; dead, he could not have murdered. You gave him water, he lived, and tomorrow he kills—do not think you are absolved; you lent a hand. Therefore go quietly on your way.

This looks like dispassion, renunciation! But in such hardness a person closes up inside a shell. It becomes difficult even to know who he is, for he has smashed the mirror.

Who fears relationships fears mirrors. And there is no mirror more clear than love. The more loving relationships in your life, the more your truth will reveal itself—while rising, sitting, walking. I tell you: to know your truth is necessary; only then can your being be transformed.

Therefore, do not panic. Do not make love a problem. What is the great fear? Why such anxiety? Enter the experience, pass through it.

If we are willing to live life as it is, and ready to learn the lessons life gives, then in this life there is nothing to renounce. What is to be dropped will drop; what is to be saved will be saved. You will not have to drop anything, nor will you have to save anything.

That is why I say: here there is nothing worth renouncing and nothing worth clinging to. Understand my meaning: pass through life in its depth—what is drop‑worthy will fall away; what is worth carrying will remain; you have nothing to renounce and nothing to hold. Pass along this road—but do not run away from it; do not become a deserter.

There are two kinds of people. One: the clingers, whom we call hedonists. They are crazy: they clutch even what is not worth holding—because their whole emphasis is on grasping: whatever comes, grab it and store it! Even trash they keep: who knows, tomorrow it may come in handy! They have no courage to let go. Opposite them are the renouncers. They are like the hedonists, only standing on their heads. They say, “Give up everything—total renunciation!” The first makes the mistake: “Hold everything.” The second: “Drop everything.” I say to you: in life, what is to be dropped drops by itself; what is to be kept remains by itself. Both are extremes, and dangerous.

Something is going on under the name of love that should be dropped—but it will drop only by experiencing love. Passing through the pain of love, you will understand where the thorns are, and you will discard them. And there is something in love that must be preserved, for in love there is a glimpse of the divine. Do not throw away love entirely, otherwise you will have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. With the dross you will have thrown the gold. With the non‑essential, the essential too. That is not intelligence or discernment.

There are two kinds of undiscerning people—hedonist and renunciate. The hedonist’s indiscrimination is to clutch even the non‑essential; he saves the baby, but he also saves the dirty water. The renunciate’s indiscrimination is to throw away the dirty water and the baby along with it. Both are immoderations.

As I see it, true restraint is a state of awareness in which what should remain, remains; what should fall away, falls away. This is what we have called the state of the paramhansa—the swan who can separate milk from water.

I tell you: here there is much water, and there is much milk too. In this world there is matter and there is God. There is disease and there is health. There are problems and there are solutions. Beware of the two mistakes: in holding everything, the false remains too; in dropping everything, the true is lost as well. Let the swan pick pearls! Leave the pebbles; choose the pearls. In love there are great pearls.

Therefore I say again and again: do not make it a problem. Yes, there are pebbles mixed in—remove them.

As the experience of love deepens, love’s very quality changes.

Your beauty still enchants, but what can I do—
There are other griefs in the world besides love,
Other consolations besides the solace of union;
Do not ask of me, my beloved, that first love again.

When one first enters love, it is like a dream—as if all else becomes futile and only love meaningful. But as the experience deepens, the pain of love grows clear; other sorrows begin to show themselves.

There are other griefs in the world besides love,
Other consolations besides the solace of union;
Your beauty still enchants—but what can I do?
Do not ask of me, my beloved, that first love again.

Love teaches much; there is no greater school than love—because there is no other way to approach another human being so intimately. The closer you come, the more the inner being of the person is revealed. You mirror, and the other mirrors. The nearer you come, you are exposed, the other is exposed.

There is one method of science—standing outside and observing; seeing from the outside. Then there is the poet’s way—diving inward, knowing by loving. If you want to look at a tree or a rock, perhaps you can see from outside. I say “perhaps,” because those who have seen very deeply say even a rock seen from outside is seen incompletely—because rock too has an interior. Circling it from the outside and looking—do not call that seeing. Bertrand Russell said that is mere acquaintance—do not call it knowledge.

Knowledge is when you descend into someone’s interior, when heart knots with heart, when you leave all doors open to each other.

What does love mean? Only this: that for one person you have opened all the doors of your life; and that person has opened all the doors of their life to you. It means there is no secret left to hide; everything is laid bare. Two hearts come out from their coverings; they see each other in nakedness; and two hearts enter into one another. This is possible only through love.

If you stand outside like a scientist and watch, remain a spectator and do not dive into love, you will never know. You will not know the soul. That is why science cannot know the soul. It never will—because the soul is known only through love. You will not discover it by dissecting, by surgery. No instrument inserted will show you the soul. You will find nothing—bones, flesh, marrow. What is outside will be caught; the inside will slip away.

Have you noticed? The one you love ceases to be merely flesh and bone. The one you do not love is only a body. The one you love—there for the first time the presence of soul begins to be felt.

Those who have loved deeply, unbrokenly, began to see soul everywhere. If Mahavira could see it even in stones, the reason is not that he stood afar like a scientist; he related from the depths, intimately; he descended. Then he saw soul even in trees. So Mahavira feels concern even in plucking a leaf.

This is not the Jain monk’s calculative concern. The monk worries, “Do not pluck the leaf if you want heaven; do not kill an animal if you want to avoid hell”—that is shopkeeper’s arithmetic. Mahavira does not injure the tree because he saw it is not just a tree; it is living soul. Not only that: he saw it is exactly like my own soul—on the same path on which I walk, a little behind perhaps; if not today, tomorrow it will become man.

Therefore Mahavira divided life into five levels. One‑sensed beings. He called even earth a one‑sensed being. Earth! Mahavira walks on the ground asking much forgiveness. That too is life; it has only one sense—only body.

What scientists now call amoeba—Mahavira had grasped it. They say the amoeba is the first pulsation of life; it has only body—no bone, no brain, no eyes, no ears—no senses, only body. It brings its body to its food, sits upon it, and the body and the food merge into one. It has no mouth either. When its body grows so large it becomes hard to manage, the body splits into two, and there are two amoebas. In this way its progeny continues. But it is the first form of life.

Mahavira said: the one‑sensed—only body—is the first form. Man is five‑sensed, the most developed. But trees and plants and animals are all in the same line, advancing. We too were once trees; trees will one day become like us.

Thus Mahavira discovered an ocean of life containing all forms. This arose from great love; it is not a logical analysis. It was Mahavira’s experience, life’s radiance perceived. Only in great love can this happen.

Therefore I say: the fundamental meaning of ahimsa is love.

Do not panic! Love will teach you much. Love will show you the hell of your ego—drop it. Love will show you the heaven of your heart—hold it.

I learned humility, learned to stand with the poor;
I learned the meanings of the grief of the broken‑hearted;
I learned to understand the trials of the oppressed;
I learned what cold sighs inscribe on pale, withered faces.

Love will teach you much; nothing else can. So if you feel some obstacle in love, do not call it love’s obstacle. You have not yet learned love’s lessons; therefore obstacles arise. When a person first learns to swim, he thrashes about, panics, gets restless. This is not the form of swimming; it is because he does not yet know.

If you ask me, I will say: the problem you feel “in love” arises out of lovelessness. When the person learns to swim, a grace comes—then no effort is needed. The skilled swimmer entrusts himself to the river. He hardly moves his limbs; the river carries him. Such skill arrives that nothing need be done; being is enough, and the river takes care.

Love too is swimming in the ocean of consciousness; it is to dive in another’s ocean. At first the limbs will flail; there will be fear, your breath will choke; it will seem you’ll drown, die; you will cry “Save me!” But do not run away because of that cry. It is only your unskillfulness; it will go. Slowly, gently, with practice it will deepen.

Do not abandon love; add awareness to love. Do not abandon love; join love with religion, with meditation. Love plus meditation—do just this, and the problem will depart. In the place of problem you will find: love is a wondrous mystery—the first mystery from which news of God comes. At the beginning, fear is natural.

Do not fear the unruly storm of youth;
This river will carve its own banks.
Up to that point is self; from there is God—
Where helplessness seeks its refuge.

Do not panic. The storm of youth, the gale of passion that has arisen today—on its own it will subside. Just place your feet carefully and keep walking.

Do not fear the unruly storm of youth;
This river will carve its own banks.

If you run away in haste, you will be in difficulty. Then you will belong neither here nor there.

Whoever runs from love is left with nothing but ego. Although, if you run far enough, you may not even notice the ego—because it becomes apparent only in company, in togetherness.

Have you noticed? A human infant, if he gets no company—no parents, no family, no society—cannot survive; he dies. Can you imagine a human infant surviving without group and companionship? Yes, sometimes wolves have carried off infants; but that was also a group, a companionship—the wolves saved him. Alone, not a single human child has ever survived. What is true of the body, I tell you, is also true of the soul. Its birth too is in community—in companionship, in family. The soul does not take birth in isolation. Yes, you can use aloneness; sometimes there is a flavor in being alone; sometimes there is a relish in moving away from the other. But even that benefit comes from the context of the other. Note this: that benefit too is not because of aloneness per se, but because of temporarily stepping away from the other; its profit is again in relation to the other.

Imagine a pile of a thousand rupees and a pile of ten rupees. Remove the thousand‑rupee pile and remove the ten‑rupee pile—now the absence of ten feels as empty as the absence of a thousand: now there are neither a thousand nor ten. When the thousand was there, it had the worth of a thousand; when ten were there, ten had their worth; but remove both and the zero that remains seems of a single value. The ten‑rupee zero is as large as the thousand‑rupee zero. You are making a mistake if you think life is like that. In life, the one who has lived deeply—when he goes into solitude, the depth of his solitude is equally deep. He who never lived in the group—if he goes to solitude, his solitude has no depth. You can experience this: one who has always lived in the forest finds no beauty in the forest. He who sat in the crowd and the marketplace—when he goes to the forest, what he sees there the forest‑dweller does not see.

There is a remembrance in Van Gogh’s life. On a French seashore he was painting. He was madly in love with the sun—sunrise, sunset; he labored over them. One day on the seashore he was painting a sunset. A fisherwoman watched his painting intently, day after day. On the seventh day, as the sun was about to set, she said, “Please wait, let me bring my husband and children, that they too may see the sunset.” Van Gogh asked, “Why? They live here on this shore—have they never seen the sunset?” The woman said, “No, I too had not seen it until you came. It was such a natural part of our life that we never became aware of it. Your coming made us aware of its beauty.”

Van Gogh comes from where seeing sunrise or sunset is difficult—fog lingers. For him sunrise and sunset are magnificent.

In the West, Sunday—the Sun’s day—is a holiday, for the sun is not seen with the same splendor as in the East; it is veiled, hidden. So the Sun’s day must be a day of celebration: the sun has appeared; it is his day.

Your solitude will have the same quality as the depth of your relationships. The person who has loved richly—when he goes and sits in the Himalayas, the depth of his heart—do not ask! But the one who has never loved, if he too sits on a Himalayan hill, his shallowness will remain shallow.

I am telling you that your solitude has value only when your relationships have depth. If there was the depth of a thousand, your solitude will be worth a thousand; if only ten, then worth ten.

Life’s arithmetic is not a dead arithmetic. With whatever intensity and swiftness you have lived, just such unique experiences will arise in solitude. That is why I say: go into love—because the depth of your meditation will depend on the depth of your love. Live with the other first, so that you learn the secret of living with yourself.

Through the other we come to ourselves. The other is the bridge by which we return to our own being.

The shortest distance between two persons is called love. As the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so the shortest distance between two persons is love. If you go zigzag, that is not love. Straight!

Love will teach simplicity. Love will teach humility. Love will teach egolessness. Love will teach true renunciation.

Keep this in mind: the renunciation of one who has never loved is the miser’s renunciation; it is not renunciation. He is a tight‑fisted man. That is why I hear sadhus preaching: “Give up wealth and property; death will snatch them anyway.” Now ponder this: they say “since death will take it, better to give it up.” Meaning, there is fear of being robbed; so better to relinquish. But the lover says, “Give—because only he who gives enjoys.” Tena tyaktena bhunjithah—by renouncing, enjoy. The lover says, “Give—because without giving you cannot receive.”

Love has a unique alchemy: you truly possess only what you give away. What you hoard is never yours. It appears to be yours, but you are not its master—you are at most its watchman. You sit over the safe with a staff or a gun—but a watchman.

The moment you give, that very moment you know you had it—“I could give; it was mine!” Only that is yours which you have given. And only that have you truly enjoyed which you have shared.

Increase your partnerships! Love means only this: share! Give to someone! Distribute! And give thanks to the one who comes into your life such that you can share with them. Offer thanks!

Love’s great skill is that here the receiver also gives, and the giver also gives. When you give something and the other accepts, they too have given you something—by their acceptance. They made you the owner; they made you the giver. What more do you want? What you gave was nothing; what they gave is far greater. Therefore, in India our custom is: first give charity, then give dakshina—an offering of thanks. Dakshina means: because they accepted your gift, give thanks too. Charity alone is not enough: first give, but they are not obliged to accept. If someone refuses—then? If someone says “I don’t need it”—then?

Love means such trust that the one you go to give your heart will accept and not refuse. Many people are afraid of refusal and therefore fear to give: “What if I go to offer and they say no? What if I open my heart and the other turns his back and does not come? What if I decorate my threshold and no one even looks?” Then there will be great pain. “Better to keep my doors shut,” they think. Because as soon as you invite someone, you empower them—you put your life in their hands; now they can accept or reject.

The first step of love is full of risk. That is why women rarely make the first declaration of love—they do not take such risk. They wait—you should propose; they await how much risk the man will take. The risk is great, because the other may say no, may shut the door—then what? Then there will be great hurt and anguish. “I was not deemed worthy to be accepted!”

Therefore many people place their love in things that cannot refuse. They buy a car and fall in love with it. In America, after a wife, the car is number two. A car has one advantage—it cannot refuse; once you buy it, it is yours. For thousands of years men also brought wives by buying them rather than by loving—because in love there was risk. Thus marriage was invented.

Marriage is cleverness—a device to avoid risk. Parents arrange it, the priest matches horoscopes. You do not have to propose directly. As you are someone’s brother or sister—one day you simply become someone’s husband or wife. Suddenly you find—so it is. You didn’t have to search; you needn’t take the first risk. But when you don’t take the first risk, the whole life goes wrong. That audacity is necessary.

So marriage was devised to escape love. People think marriage is for love; in truth, it is a way to avoid it. People brought wives home by purchase, by dowry—buying and selling.

Now that is becoming difficult, so people turn toward things, or toward animals. They keep a dog—whenever you come home, it wags its tail. It can never say, “Today I won’t wag.” Whenever you come, it honors you.

Dogs are great politicians. They discovered a politics: man is delighted by a wagging tail. There the tail smiles, here you smile. The dog learned the art. Notice too: dogs also watch. If a stranger comes, they bark and wag simultaneously. What diplomacy! They are testing: let us see whether this man is friend or foe. They bark—if he is an enemy they will stop wagging and go on barking; if a friend, they will stop barking and wag with all their might—once it is beyond doubt. At first there is doubt: a new person is coming; who knows whether he is master’s friend or enemy?

In the West people are absorbed in pets—dogs, cats—or in things—cars, houses; a thousand gadgets science has invented—to pour their love into.

This is a way of avoiding love, because the very first risk in love is that when you go to give your heart, it may be refused. And if the other accepts, then not only you but they too give—they, by accepting, give. In love, the receiver is also a giver—and the giver is a giver too.

Love has a marvelous glory: there both become donors. Nowhere else do such laws hold; all arithmetic collapses. Both cannot be givers by arithmetic; if one gives, the other receives; one hand up, the other down. But love brings both hands to the same level; both become givers. What the receiver gives is even greater than what the giver gives.

Therefore love lies beyond the bounds of arithmetic, accounting, economics. It is mysterious.

Do not panic! Do not be miserly! Do not be cowardly! Knock at the door of love—for that door one day proves to be the temple of God.

The path of love is the path of effacing oneself. There, becoming ash is the very attainment. There, losing oneself is the finding. There, the attempt to preserve yourself becomes the obstacle. There, one has to keep gently melting oneself, until a moment arrives when the lover is no more—only the ocean of love goes on waving. In that very instant the Divine descends. Where you are erased, there is the entry of God.

“At the very beginning all friends died—
who ever brought love to its furthest limit?”

People die at the very beginning of love. Who remains to go to the end? No one has ever touched love’s depth.

Ramakrishna used to say: A fair was in full swing, and on the seashore people were debating how deep the sea might be. A salt doll also came by. It said, “Wait! What will come of mere discussion? I’ll dive in and find out.” It dived—yet did not return, did not return, did not return. Evening fell, the next day came, the fair was about to disperse; people kept watching the road, but it never returned. How could it? It was a doll of salt; upon entering the sea it began to dissolve. The deeper it went, the more it melted. It is not that it didn’t go deep—it went very deep. Nor that it didn’t touch the depth—it touched the very bed of the ocean. But by then it had lost itself; there was no one left to return.

Man is just like that salt doll—the doll of love. He is born of love, made of love. Every hair and every particle of you is fashioned from love. So when you dive into the ocean of the Divine, it isn’t that you won’t find out—you will; but in the very finding you will be lost.

“At the very beginning all friends died—
who ever brought love to its furthest limit?”

Therefore, be prepared to become dust. And yes, many times it will feel as if it is taking too long; many times there will be a searing impatience that it happen quickly; many times a complaint will arise—why more pain? Even so—

“What is life without That?
Granted, it breaks the heart a thousand times.”

—It wounds the heart deeply, but without it life has no meaning.

Blessed are those who are sorrowed and afflicted on the path to the Divine. Unfortunate are those who are happy and cheerful on the path away from the Divine. For on the path away from God, even happiness and cheer will turn to ash; and on the path to God, even turning to ash is the device—the arrangement—for becoming gold.

“There is a style of indifference—let that be His, blessed be He.
There is a petition of longing—we shall go on offering it.”

—Let the indifference be the Divine’s; let Him keep at it.
“There is a style of indifference—let that be His, blessed be He.
There is a petition of longing—we shall go on offering it.”

—There is an urge, a prayer—we shall keep at it. There is indifference—You keep doing that!

The devotee says: You be indifferent; I shall go on longing. Let us see who wins!

“There is a style of indifference—let that be His, blessed be He.
There is a petition of longing—we shall go on offering it.”

Do not even think that the Divine is far. That which can be far would not be God. God is that which has surrounded you from all sides, within and without, filling everything. Other than That, there is nothing. The Divine is the All. God is the name of the Whole. God is not a person; God is the totality. So we are not far from That—we are only a little unconscious.

“Oh, such self-forgetfulness that, sitting by Your side,
at times we kept waiting for You Yourself!”

We are unconscious—that is all. And we shall remain unconscious as long as we are. Our very “being” is our unconsciousness. So we will have to become dust. We will have to burn. We will have to become ash. But this is precisely the way to become real.

For now we merely seem to be—we are only nominally there. What substance, what essence is there in our being?

So do not be afraid. And accept this too—

“A sigh needs a lifetime before it takes effect;
who lives until the tangles of your tresses are set right?
We agreed you would not feign indifference, but
we shall turn to dust before the news reaches you.”

Become so!

“We will wait for You our whole life long,
yet the grief will remain that life is too short.”

Do it! Let life prove too short and waiting grow vast. Let many lifetimes be encompassed; let waiting become so dense that birth and life pass like the blink of an eye. Yet let the thread of waiting continue unbroken. Bodies change, lives change, wombs change, forms change, colors change, names change—let everything go on changing—but within, let a single thread of waiting remain strung through all the beads.

The happening can occur in this very moment, but the waiting must be endless. And the happening will be much delayed if there is even a small deficiency in waiting. Do not be in a hurry.

The new age has been in great haste. Hence the deep forms of waiting have been lost. No one is willing to wait. From the West a great fever has spread through the world—speed, hurry, rush! As there is instant coffee, so we want the whole of life—everything now, this very instant, today! Some depths of human life have been lost, because some things unfold only slowly. Some things are like seasonal flowers—plant them today, in three weeks there are saplings, in six weeks flowers—yet no sooner have they come than they are gone. But deodar and pine take years, many years; they grow very slowly. And the search for the Divine is an eternal tree; to plant it in your heart is an infinite process. It cannot happen just now.

Yesterday I was reading a book. In it an American prays: “O Lord! We hear that patience is very much needed—so give me patience, but right now and right here!” Patience is much needed! So give it—patience—but now and here!

In life some things require time—and the more important they are, the more time they take. If with a person you want only a relationship of lust, it can happen now and here; if you want love, it will take time. If you want to cultivate prayer, endless ages may pass. And if you want to “make” God, you need eternity. This does not mean you must wait until eternity, because eternity has already extended its hand to you here and now. The moment you become ready for the Eternal, it can happen here and now. This seems paradoxical; let me make it clear.

If you are willing to wait for eternity, it can happen here and now—because eternal waiting means there is no hurry anymore; you are quiet; you have relaxed; the tension has dropped. You have no demand now—let it happen when it happens. There is no rush left. In such a relaxed and silent mind, it can happen here and now.

But if you demand that it happen here and now, you become so taut, so anxious—what if it doesn’t happen and time is wasted? It will not happen precisely because of your tension. Demand carries tension. This is the beauty of the word abhipsa—heart’s longing.

Vasana means: a demand, tense and driven. Abhipsa means: a longing, free of tension. We do ask, but there is no hurry—give when it is Your time! Your will! If You do not give, we are ready for that too!

Different people will have different reasons. One single reason cannot be given, because there are many kinds of people here. Even so, the question is worth considering.

First, there are some who invariably fall asleep in all religious gatherings. It is a device to escape. It is a subtle strategy of the mind. If you want to avoid something, you draw a curtain of sleep in between. If you didn’t even hear it, you have played a diplomatic game with yourself: you came to listen and took the taste of being religious, yet by sleeping you avoided hearing. So the world sees you as religious, and you’re spared the trouble of being religious. You avoid the burden altogether.
There is one class like this: the moment a religious talk reaches their ears, sleep arrives. This has become almost mechanical in them. You’ll find them dozing in temples and churches.
A priest once asked a devotee—because the priest saw him always asleep in church—“Do you not sleep well at night?” The man said, “At night I simply can’t sleep. There are a thousand worldly worries—but none of that concerns me here. When I hear your sermon I fall into a deep sleep.”
There are worries about the world; there are no worries about God. There are thoughts about the world; there is no thought about God. The hustle of the world disturbs sleep; with God there is no hustle at all. Listening about God, no ambition is kindled to get something, to rise, to wake up. Where no ambition arises, man goes to sleep—what else is there to do?
You have noticed: when you have nothing to do, you fall asleep. What else will you do? As long as there is something to do, you keep doing it. And you have also seen that when you have so much to do that even when you lie down the mind keeps working, sleep won’t come. Where there is work, sleep is obstructed. God is not your work; there is nothing to do there. No inner longing is alive; there is no urge to attain. You hear—and you sleep.
So that is the first kind.

Second, there are those who fall asleep despite having longing. They genuinely thirst for the Divine; they haven’t come to deceive anyone. They aren’t deceiving themselves either, and yet sleep overpowers them. The reason is the mind’s habit formed over many lives. The mind refuses to go where it has never gone. Where you have never led the mind, it is unaccustomed; the path is unfamiliar, and it simply refuses. It sits down. It closes its eyes. It says, “We’ll just go to sleep.” This is the mind’s denial.
This is the second kind: one faithfully wishes to understand, but the mind is saying no.

Then there is a third kind, whose “sleep” arises from a very different cause. If you are listening to me with your heart, a certain trance-like drowsiness will indeed descend. But it is not sleep. Yoga gives it a distinct name—tandra. It is sleep-like, but it is not sleep. It is tandra. Tandra means: when you hear a sweet music, something within falls into rhythm, a note is struck, a hush stretches across; thoughts fall silent. A great “blink”—which you can neither call waking nor sleeping, but something in between—tandra—arrives. Neither outside nor inside; you stand on the threshold, in the middle. You cannot say you were asleep, because you will keep hearing me perfectly. And you cannot say you were fully awake, because there is a profound ease, a relaxation greater than even sleep can give; a deep repose comes to you in that tandra.
So this is the third kind, whose “sleep” is like tandra.

If you belong to the first kind, it is better you stop coming. If you belong to the second, then struggle, because that sleep is the mind’s old habit—you will have to break it. If you belong to the third, consider yourself fortunate and do not fight this tandra; quietly let yourself be taken by it. For whatever I am saying will not miss you in tandra; it will surely reach you. It may be that later you do not remember, because memory is very superficial; it will go even deeper. If you listen in tandra, that listening is very deep. It will penetrate to the very core of your being. If your state is tandra, do not try to break it. Then close your eyes and gently sink into it. Because what I am saying to you is not just words; within these words I am also giving you something. A transmission of energy is taking place. A communion of energy is happening. If you remain merely awake, your mind’s thoughts will keep running. If you fall asleep, you won’t be able to hear. If you remain in tandra, neither the thoughts of waking will run nor will there be sleep. Standing in between, on the threshold, you will come very close to me. Your heart will begin to beat very near to mine.

So consider carefully which state is yours. If it is the third, it is a great good fortune. Tandra is a meditative state. This is what the Sufis have called mastī—an intoxication descends. It is like a divine inebriation. And it seems the questioner’s state is indeed tandra, because my own experience echoes the words: “sweet, deep, and alluring...”
The state of tandra is sweet, deep, and alluring. But it will be new for you; that is why you are mistaking it for sleep. As you become more familiar with it, you will clearly see that waking is one thing, sleep another, and tandra altogether different. Tandra is a state of rapture.

“The prayer of love—if ever sobriety appears,
Then my ecstasy steps forth as the imam.”
—Sometimes, even when the wish to offer the prayer of love arises, at that very instant my self-forgetfulness takes the lead.

“The prayer of love—if ever sobriety appears,
Then my ecstasy steps forth as the imam.”
—In that instant my rapture comes forward and becomes the guide. This tandra is that very rapture which becomes the guide. Then do not worry. If the third kind of tandra is there, do not even think what people will say. Do not think it breaks some rule. Do not think it is bad that I am speaking and you are “sleeping.” No—this is not sleep. This is a deep state of love. My words are bringing a profound music to you. You have not only heard the words; you have begun to drink the music as well.

“In love, what meaning have pious oblations and the charms of coy pride?
I hold this whole code in need of amendment.”
Where there is love, rules may be broken—because love is such a supreme rule that no other rule is needed. So do not sit with forced politeness, holding yourself upright with eyes open just for etiquette. If tandra is happening to you, then—

“In love, what meaning have humility or even the grace of proud aloofness?”
Then even humility and ego lose their value.
“I hold this whole code in need of amendment.”
Then every code is fit for revision. Leave etiquette aside. For the lover, there is no rule. But look very carefully—lest it be the first kind of sleep! If it is the first, then take yourself in hand—or else stop coming.

Once in a church there was an old man, a millionaire, who sat right in front. And when the priest spoke he not only slept, he snored. It disturbed the priest and the congregation. Yet nothing could be said—he was a millionaire, and the church ran on his donations. They couldn’t even tell him he snored.
So the priest found a device. The old man’s little grandson accompanied him. The priest called the boy and said, “Whenever your grandpa starts snoring, shake him. I’ll give you four annas each day.” The boy agreed. For two or three days it worked, but on the fourth day the priest saw the boy didn’t shake him. He called him: “Why? What happened?” The boy said, “Grandpa told me, ‘If you don’t shake me, I’ll give you one rupee.’ Now you decide—one rupee!”
If it is like that first kind, there is no need to come. What is the point of going where sleep comes? You can sleep at home—more easily, more comfortably. Here, sitting on hard stone, even sleeping must be difficult. You will suffer, and a little sin will stick to me as well.

If it is the second kind, then there is nothing to worry—just keep trying to wake yourself. If it is the second—that it comes because of the mind’s old habits—then such habits are to be broken; you will have to struggle with them. And when the first and second kinds of sleep bid farewell, the third becomes possible. And when the third arrives, do not be afraid; then merge into it, dive deep.

“The first few years of sannyas I lived in the illusion that I was a sannyasin. Those were great days of happiness and joy.”
Days of illusion are always days of happiness and joy. But illusion carries one danger: it cannot last forever; one day it is bound to break. And when it breaks there is pain. Yet its breaking is auspicious.

And now when I say sannyas is not just a matter of taking initiation—taking is the beginning, not the end. When you decide to become a sannyasin, when you resolve, when you surrender—that is the first step of the journey. Don’t sit there feeling pleased. Otherwise the destination will never come home to you; you will never reach it. It is good that you took the first step—that too was a blessing. Sing a little for it, dance, rejoice; but the journey must continue. Go on! Go on every day! And the farther you go, the more I will give you indications for the road ahead.

So first I tell you: sannyas is only a gesture. It is to entice you, to win your consent. I say to you, “Stay close by; it’s just two steps.” When you take those two steps, then I say, “Now two more.” In this way, step by step, thousands of steps can be taken. If I were to tell you about a thousand steps in advance, perhaps you wouldn’t even take the first one.

You have lost so much courage, so much self-confidence. You are influenced by very petty things. “A thousand steps”—the very phrase could become a barrier. Therefore I have made sannyas as simple as it can be. I say the mere longing to take sannyas is enough—no other qualification. But once you take that first step of being a sannyasin, the journey has begun. Then I will speak of qualification too. Then I will engage you in the direction where the flowers of life can bloom. And once you have come with me, started walking, I know it will not be easy to turn back. If you muster even that much courage to be dyed in my color, to drown in the ochre robes, then you will not be able to escape. If I have taken your finger, I will later catch your wrist as well. You think, “What’s the harm? It’s only a finger; I can pull it back whenever I want.” From my side, a finger is enough; with that much the work will be done. Not finished—begun.

So naturally, sooner or later, everyone feels, “This is getting difficult. I had thought it was simple; it is becoming hard.” The path begins to climb. You had thought it was level ground. You had thought it was a royal road; instead footpaths appear, and the journey alone through the forest begins.

But to arrive there, much has to be paid. One must offer one’s whole life. So don’t be frightened by obstacles.

And if a sense of unworthiness is arising, take it as auspicious; only those who have a little intelligence feel unworthy. Fools always think themselves worthy. They never come to know unworthiness. The ignorant think themselves knowledgeable; only the wise know they are ignorant. So if a sense of unworthiness is happening, don’t be unhappy. This is the first ray of the sun. This is the first lamp lit. From this very lamp, worthiness will be born. Once unworthiness is seen, becoming free of it is easy. If you never saw it, how would you be free?

“My feet have been pulled up from the ground, but wings have not yet grown.”
Right. You have been pulled away from where you were headed. That direction is finished; the flavor there has ceased. But to set you on the direction where I want to take you, a certain capacity must come within you. You had skills for the old road. The old road has been removed; you have been set on a new one—but the skill for the new road must be learned. The roots have been broken—good; your feet have been uprooted from the ground—good. That is the first step toward flying in the sky. But the wings must be grown. Or, if they are present, they have not been used for lifetimes; you must learn their use. Still, it is auspicious that at least half has happened. Your feet are no longer on the ground. There is no place left to stand. Now you will have to search for your wings.

And remember, until life falls into crisis, it does not search for the new. The search for the new happens in crisis. When the crisis becomes such that something must be done, only then does the search begin; otherwise the mind is very lazy.

So if I have taken away your ground, now you will thrash about, flail your arms and legs. From that very flailing the wings will be born. The wings are there—you have simply forgotten; you no longer remember.

In the beginning, in your flailing you will not be able to fly all at once. Flying requires great skill. That skill will develop gradually. But you will fly. Because the sky, the infinite sky—call it God, moksha, nirvana—is your destiny. And for the bird that does not fly in that sky but remains sitting in the nest—what can one say of his misfortune! He was born to fly in the sky. But birth has to be in a nest; no bird’s egg can be placed in the sky. The egg must be kept in a nest. But if the egg is broken and the bird still sits in the nest and is afraid—and the fear is natural; he has never flown before…

So I have taken away your nest; now there is no place to sit. You will have to fly! And you will fly.

You have seen what those who teach swimming do: they throw the novice into the water. Nothing else. But falling into the water, anyone will flail his arms and legs to save himself. That is the first stage of swimming. Then slowly skill comes—how to move, how to move with less effort. Slowly, slowly he even swims without flailing.

So it is in the inner world. And remember, it will not happen just once; it will happen many times. For you will build yourself a home at one height, and then I will uproot it so that you rise to a new height.

The guru’s very work is to keep pushing you until you reach that place beyond which there is no further height. Until he brings you to God, he keeps at your back; he keeps troubling you—by any means: sometimes giving you pleasure, sometimes pain; sometimes patting your back, sometimes rebuking and reproaching you; sometimes showing anger, sometimes showing love—but he keeps pushing. For your mind will say, “Let’s stop here.” You are ready to stop anywhere, because stopping brings rest; walking brings labor.

But I will keep you moving until the supreme rest arrives. Supreme rest means God. Supreme rest means moksha—after which there is no falling back, and beyond which nothing remains. Before attaining such a supreme truth you will often become angry with me, because you want it cheap. You always want to get it for free, without doing anything. So that you do not run away, I sometimes say: it will be given without doing anything. Then you stay on, hoping that perhaps now it will come. But nothing comes without doing. To keep you from running, I say it will also come as grace, as prasad—but even grace comes only to those who do.

So don’t be frightened, don’t be restless. It is auspicious that unworthiness has become visible. It is auspicious that the cheap happiness that came just by taking sannyas has been lost. Now become a true sannyasin!

Think a little! You were delighted merely by changing your clothes; what will happen on the day the soul changes!

Enough for today.