Jin Sutra #59

Such is the nature of the mind: it doesn’t settle here, it doesn’t settle there. The nature of the mind is duality. Whatever you do soon feels tiresome. Wherever you are, you feel like running away; where you are not, the juice begins to arise. What is attained turns worthless; what is unattained—distant drums—sound most sweet.

Understand this nature of the mind. Neither meditation helps, nor bhajan; understanding the nature of the mind helps.

This is the mind’s mechanism: if rank is gained—dissatisfaction; if rank is not gained—dissatisfaction. If not gained—pain; if gained—a sense of futility. The poor cry that they are not rich; the rich cry that they are rich—now what?

Whatever you possess becomes cheap simply because it is yours. Whatever is far away calls to you simply because it is far.

Understand this fundamental snare of the mind. Recognize it. It’s not only a matter of meditation and bhajan. When you eat, the flavor of fasting stirs in the mind—who knows what deep peace and bliss the fasting ones are attaining? When you fast, food haunts you.

You will find it so at every step of life.

In the garden he cannot settle; the desert frightens him.
Now where shall we seat such a mad one down?

Seat him in a garden—he can’t settle. Take him into the desert—he panics.

In the garden he cannot settle; the desert frightens him.
Now where shall we seat such a mad one down?

Mind is a kind of madness, a derangement. To be free of mind is liberation. To go beyond mind is to be whole. So the first thing: try to understand the mind’s nature. People usually make little effort to understand and a big effort to get rid. But without understanding there is never any getting rid. Your longing is, “How can I end this hassle?” But without understanding, the hassle never ends. In unawareness lies the hassle.

You want to be rid of this mind? First recognize it. Befriend it. Get acquainted. Explore its nooks and corners. Light a lamp so you can see its entire nature clearly. In that seeing, that insight, that witnessing, you will find the journey of victory has begun.

The day one understands the mind totally, that very day the mind dissolves. As dewdrops vanish when the sun rises, so when awareness dawns the mind disappears. As darkness cannot be found when a lamp is lit, so when the lamp of understanding, of prajna, is lit, the mind is not found.

So do not fight the mind—first thing. Fighting is ignorance. Have you ever known anyone win by fighting? You have heard that fighters win; I tell you, no one ever won by fighting. Victory happens through understanding. Fighters are unwise. And whom will you fight? You are fighting shadows.

Like someone who draws his sword to fight his own shadow—what will happen? Will the shadow be cut? He will only tire himself out. Worse, in agitation he may cut his own hands and feet. In rage he may go mad and harm himself.

Those who fight with the mind usually fall into just such a state. The mind is yours; your shadow. It is not—only shadow-like.

Increase the light.

Wake up a little and understand the mind.

When you sit for meditation and the mind says, “Do bhajan instead,” just wakefully stand aside and watch what the mind is saying. When you do bhajan and the mind says, “Meditate,” watch what the mind is saying. Recognize its tricks. Recognize its diplomacy. The mind is a great politician. It keeps you wandering. It keeps running you.

And you have tried meditation—there also it didn’t stick. You have tried bhajan—there too it didn’t stick. So now understand: the mind will not stick anywhere. The mind’s sticking is not religion. Not-sticking is the habit of the mind. It does not stick anywhere. That which doesn’t stick—that is mind.

So now when the mind says, “Meditate—why are you wasting time in bhajans?” watch: it is the same mind that didn’t stick to bhajans and had then said, “Meditate.” Now it says, “Sing bhajans.” First it said, “Remain entangled in the world.” Then it said, “Take sannyas.” Now even sannyas doesn’t stick; it says, “Return to the world.”

Look at this mind a bit. There is nothing to do—only to look quietly. In your seeing, you will find the mind begins to fall. Its grip on you loosens. Its hold slips off you. You begin to move out of it.

Neither meditation nor bhajan does the work; understanding does. Therefore the essence of all religions is awareness.

The questioner says concentration doesn’t happen. The very search for concentration is wrong. Seek awareness. The search for concentration keeps you trapped in the coins of the mind. It is the mind that says, “Be concentrated.” It hands you impossible tasks; when they don’t happen, you end up defeated, tired, and troubled.

There is no need at all for concentration. Learn a few basic formulas of life’s arithmetic.

First formula: whenever the mind is not, then you are concentrated.

Sometimes you are wholly absorbed in your work—sweeping the house, but wholly engaged. Suddenly you find: there is no mind. Listening to music—absorbed, no mind. Painting—at any moment you find the mind isn’t there—only you—then concentration happens by itself.

Concentration cannot be manufactured. Concentration is the result of the mind’s immersion. When the mind is drowned, you are concentrated. When the mind surfaces, you become many-focused. The mind divides you into many, fragments you.

Now you make an effort to be concentrated. That effort will bring trouble because with what will you make the effort? With the mind, of course. All effort is only through the mind.

You are engaged in a task like trying to lift yourself by your own shoelaces. How will you lift yourself by pulling on your shoes? You may hop a little, and again and again fall to the ground. It is an impossible effort.

The mind is never concentrated. When concentration happens, the mind is not. So drop trying to be concentrated by means of the mind. Instead, take delight in small acts. Concentration is the outcome of rasa. Sweep as if you were sweeping God’s temple. Even if it is your own house—it is God’s temple.

Eat as if you were offering to God. You are eating, but ultimately the offering is to God. It is He who has come within as hunger. He has stirred your hunger. He is the one hungry within. You are feeding Him. Awaken rasa. Do not raise the issue of concentration. Concentration is the natural result of rasa. Whatever you do, do it in a way full of juice and delight. Dive into it. There are no small and big tasks in this world. Whatever you dive into becomes great. Dive into sweeping, and sweeping becomes great.

Kabir says: “What I eat and drink—that is service; my getting up and sitting down—that is circumambulation.” My getting up and sitting down itself is the circumambulation of the Divine. And what I eat and drink—this is His service. Rasa!

In my view most people’s suffering is just this: they do not take rasa anywhere in life. Whatever they do, they do half-heartedly. They do it because it must be done. They pull the load—like oxen yoked to a cart they drag life along; not dancing, not brimming with ecstasy.

If you are engaged in work in which you simply cannot take delight, then change that work. No work is more valuable than life. Often it happens that people are entangled in work that does not evoke rasa in them. One was meant to be a poet but is selling shoes at a Bata shop; and the one who was meant to sit in a Bata shop is writing poetry—so his poetry will smell of shoe polish. It will.

People are where they were not meant to be. This distortion happens because you have never searched your own natural bent. Someone’s father said, “Run the shop—more profit in it.” Another’s father said, “Become a doctor.” Some mother wished her son to be an engineer. The family’s obsession was that the boy become a leader.

So everybody is pushing everybody else—be this, be that. No one asks: what was this child born to become? Ask him too. Feel into his heart a little. Then people wouldn’t land in the wrong places.

A world-famous surgeon, renowned everywhere, turned sixty. At his sixtieth birthday a celebration was held. Friends and patients gathered from all over the world to honor him. But he was very sad. A dance was arranged in his honor. As people danced, the surgeon watched—and tears began to roll from his eyes.

His friend sitting beside him asked, “What is the matter? We’re all gathered joyfully for your birthday. This dance is in your honor—why are you crying? What grief has soaked your eyes?”

He wiped his tears: “No, it’s nothing.” But the friend insisted. “Did you fail in some way? There is no one as successful as you. Your operations succeed. There is no surgeon as skillful as you. Then what?”

He said, “I never wanted to be a surgeon. My heart was that of a dancer. Seeing the dance today, I wept. I would have been content to be a small-time dancer—no one need have known my name—and still I would have been fulfilled. Today I am the world’s greatest surgeon, and yet I have no contentment. My destiny never reached me. When I see someone dance, I remember.”

Look closely at your own life. First thing: try to take delight in what you are doing. It may be you’ve never practiced rasa; no one taught you how.

The first principle of rasa-practice: whatever you are doing does not derive its value from the result. You were taught that the result is valuable: do it to get ten rupees, a thousand rupees, a lakh. Value lies in the result.

The principle of rasa is: what you are doing has intrinsic value. The value is inherent. Whether you get a thousand or ten thousand is secondary. The immersion in doing is what matters. If you dive, you have gained millions. If you do not dive and yet gain millions—nothing is gained. The time without diving was wasted. The days without rasa were lived in vain. Only in rapture is life. So first, in what you are doing…

I am not telling you to rush to change. You might change your work and still not find rasa—because you haven’t cultivated the capacity for it.

So first try to take delight in what you are doing. Out of a hundred, fifty times you will be able to. As soon as rasa arises, concentration will happen.

You’ve seen it: small children in school—outside a bird starts to sing. The child becomes utterly absorbed listening. The teacher raps the table with a stick: “Pay attention! Concentrate.” The child is already concentrating—but not on the teacher, true; not on the blackboard, true. He is concentrated. He is listening to the bird’s song. The teacher says, “Concentrate. Don’t let your mind wander.”

The teacher is saying something entirely wrong. He is trying to disturb the child’s mind. The child is concentrated. If no one interfered, for a few moments the whole world would dissolve: there would be the bird’s humming, its song, and the child’s feeling-state—and the child would learn one thing: rasa.

Because the song brings him rasa, he becomes concentrated. In that same class there will be children for whom rasa arises in a math problem; they will be concentrated there.

We should not teach people concentration. We should see their rasa and guide them accordingly. The child who becomes absorbed on hearing mathematics—outside barking dogs, fighting cats, the snake-charmer’s reed, singing birds—nothing is heard; this child is born to be an Einstein. His concentration itself tells the story.

Now tell this child: “The birds are singing—concentrate on them.” He will not be able to. It won’t be possible.

We should see where our concentration happens—there is our life. But today you do not even have a way to recognize where your concentration happens. You have forgotten. Your life’s entire arrangement has become topsy-turvy. Others have driven you, given you directions, ideals. They have completely deluded you.

First arouse the longing to take delight in what you are doing. Do it with such feeling, such absorption, that no extra energy remains to create hindrances.

What else does concentration mean? It is not something forced. Concentration is a very natural happening.

Now you are listening to me here. Those who feel rasa in my words are concentrated. You are not “doing” concentration—concentration is happening. Understand this. It is not something you do. You are not sitting with all your muscles taut, eyes fixed on me, trying to concentrate. If you try concentration like that, you won’t even hear what I’m saying. Concentration is effortless. You feel rasa. Because of that rasa you have come. Because of that rasa you have kept coming. That rasa has been bringing you.

Where there is rasa, there is concentration.

So awaken rasa; drop the talk of concentration. If rasa does not arise, then understand—and be courageous: change the arrangement in which rasa does not arise. Perhaps that arrangement is not for you.

Better to become poor than to be rich—if rasa arises. Better a beggar on the road than an emperor—if rasa blossoms. Because it is rasa that makes one an emperor.

Sometimes you will see such a radiance on a beggar’s face as you will not see on emperors’ faces. He is enraptured in rasa—absorbed in his work.

Rothschild, in his autobiography, writes: a beggar came and knocked at his door at five in the morning. He was very annoyed—woken from sleep. He liked to give—giving was his rasa—but is this any time?

He said to the beggar, “Listen! Is this a time?” The beggar said, “You listen too. You do banking—I never give you advice. This is my trade. I don’t take advice in it.”

Rothschild lit the lamp to see the man who could say to the world’s greatest millionaire: “Listen—you do banking; we never advise you—our advice would be meaningless, we have no experience. So don’t advise us. We are beggars by birth.”

He looked at the man’s face—it was a very happy face. Rothschild writes, “I was spellbound. This courage belongs not to a beggar, but to an emperor—to say to Rothschild, at whose door you are begging: ‘Silence! Don’t advise me. I know my trade well.’”

Rothschild gave him generously, and said, “I am happy that someone holds even his begging with such dignity.”

You may find a beggar on the road who is happy. Happiness has nothing to do with what you have. Whatever you have—if there is rasa in it—there is joy. If you carry even your begging bowl humming a song, there is bliss. And if golden chariots follow you and you are dead within, extinguished—what is the point?

Do not ask for concentration—although this is what you have been taught from school to university. And your so-called religious teachers teach you the same: concentration. I tell you: rapture. Drop that word; it is not directly useful.

Concentration surely comes—but as a result. Concentration is not a means. Wherever you take rasa, it appears. It trails behind rasa. It is the shadow of rasa.

So take delight anywhere. If you do not find rasa in the temple—forget it. Then the Divine will not happen for you there. Where there is no rasa, there will be no concentration; without concentration, where will the Divine be found?

If the flute’s song brings you rasa, there you will find your God. If the dancer’s anklets delight you, your God will dance there.

Your search for the Divine will be determined by your rasa. Raso vai sah—the nature of the Divine is rasa. No scripture has said that God’s nature is concentration. Sat-chit-ananda—being-consciousness-bliss—that is talk of rasa. Wherever rasa arises, wherever joy wells up, wherever you blossom—then no matter what it is—even play becomes prayer. And if you sit and pray and sing bhajans and meditate without rasa—mechanically, because it “should be done,” as a duty, because people say, “By doing this you will find rasa”—no. God comes where rasa is.

Therefore I say to you: I have no discipline to give you. Any discipline I give will be alien, someone else’s. You must find your own discipline. Each person has to find his own path. I give hints. From those hints, try to understand your path.

Kabir attained knowledge and yet kept weaving cloth. He did not leave the weaver’s craft. Someone asked, “Now you should stop. Never heard of an enlightened person who kept weaving and selling cloth in the market. Now leave it.”

Kabir said, “It is this very weaving that brought me to God. How can I leave it? This is my prayer. This is my worship. This is my adoration.

‘Finely, finely I have woven the mantle.’”

That is the weaver’s song. No one else can sing it. How would Buddha sing it? He never wove a mantle. He knows nothing of it. How would Mahavira sing it? He had a mantle and left even that; ask him how he left the mantle—he can tell you.

But Kabir attained by weaving with rasa. He saw Ram in every customer. When he had woven his cloth and took it to sell in the market of Kashi, if someone met him on the way and asked, “Where are you going?” he would say, “Ram must have come. He needs it. I have woven a very fine cloth. I am going to give it to Ram.”

When a customer bought his cloth, he would say, “Handle it carefully, Ram. I have woven it with great love. It’s not just cloth. It is woven with such strength it will last generations. I have poured my life into it.”

For one who sees Ram in the customer, there is no need to go and sit under the bodhi tree. Not everyone can go under the bodhi tree. And it is good they do not—otherwise great trouble would arise. One or two Buddhas sit under the bodhi tree—that works. One or two Mahaviras stand silent—that works. But if everyone did that, life would become very insipid.

Most will have to be like Kabir. Most will have to be like Gora the potter—he just kept making pots; and making pots, he shaped himself. Raidas stitched shoes—stitching shoes, he arrived.

So, in whatever you are doing, pour in rasa. Pour yourself in. That is your bhajan; that is your meditation.

If all your attempts fail—then be courageous. Then you are in the wrong place. You are trying to flow where there is an uphill slope. A river does not flow uphill; the stream of rasa also flows only down the gradient.

Then change. That is why courage is needed. First, make every effort. And if you feel that in this way the meeting with the Divine will not be possible for you—then change. I call that change sannyas—the courage to change.

A man worked forty years as a broker in the London market. Very successful. Earned a lot. All comforts. No one could have imagined it—one night he vanished from home. Wife could not believe it, nor sons, nor friends, nor business associates. He had never been seen with any other woman that the wife might think he ran away with someone. Nor had he any religious leanings that he might have gone to an ashram and become a sannyasin. Nor any sorrow that he might have committed suicide. In every way a prosperous, “happy” man—so we say. Everything fine.

About three years later he was found in Paris learning painting. Reduced to a beggar’s state. His friends rushed there. “What have you done? You had everything—everything was fine.” He said, “That was the obstacle—everything was fine. But there was no exhilaration. Nowhere any surge. Everything ran fine, and I ran it fine—but no stream of rasa was flowing.

“All my life I longed to be a painter. I never wanted to be a broker. That success was accidental. Now I am happy. I have nothing. I paint; if paintings sell, I manage food and clothes. I have not even a roof of my own. I live in a friend’s room. But I am not going back. I am happy.” And the friends saw that the man was filled with a strange energy, a strange aura. His body had thinned, but there was a light. He said, “Tell my wife I am not angry with anyone. Everything was fine—just fine. But does anything come of ‘fine’? You need something more than fine. Otherwise: fine-fine-fine—and you die. Lived comfortably and died. The dance never arose. Flowers never bloomed.”

He did not return. He became a great painter.

This is what I call sannyas. He neither wore saffron robes nor went to an ashram—but this is sannyas: the courage to change your path if you see your life is being lost in a desert—no matter what the price.

Man is weak. He lives by convenience. Even if nothing is gained—still, there is convenience, there is security. Even if nothing is gained!

That is why questions like “How to cultivate concentration?” arise. First try. If it happens—good. By trying there is a fifty percent chance it happens. If it doesn’t—be brave. Do not delay, because life slips from your hands every day. Life belongs to those who are ready, with courage, to change it. Otherwise life runs off—like rainwater on a slick pot—flowing, never filling. Or like rain falling on an upturned pot—tap-tap—a lot of noise, much commotion, but the pot remains empty: it is upside down.

Look carefully: if your pot is not filling—might it be upside down?

So the fundamental matter is neither of meditation nor bhajan; it is of understanding. Understand the nature of the mind.

Do not raise the issue of concentration; raise the issue of rasa. Following rasa, you will find concentration coming along with the bells of her anklets ringing.

Sometimes it happens that those who have listened to me for long go away empty-handed. And sometimes a newcomer suddenly becomes brimful. It depends on thirst.

Triveni is not a schooled, literate woman—she is from the countryside, unschooled. But her heart seems very well-educated—“the two and a half letters of love.” The intellect has had no schooling, but the heart is alive.

So the happening has occurred very simply. Husband and wife are both here. Lakshmi told me they sit all day, intoxicated with the rasa. They don’t leave the ashram at all. Absorbed, as if something has been found—a treasure. They can hardly believe it has been found. It came so suddenly that they don’t quite trust it. They won’t budge, won’t go anywhere. Stunned, spellbound.

Triveni came to meet me. She said nothing. She had nothing to say. Even this question she must have had someone else write; someone else likely prepared it. But she remained present, sat there—and sitting, she said all she had to say without speaking. Through her presence she offered her feeling, placed her flower of devotion.

People come, talk a lot, and go without saying anything. They come and babble. Triveni came and sat quietly to one side. She neither spoke nor came near to touch my feet. Yet she touched them. It is a matter of deep feeling.

This question invites reflection in many ways. First thing: “Without any purpose I came here with my husband.”

What we call a purpose on the surface, what we call a deliberate search, is very shallow. Deep within an aimless search has been going on—across lifetimes. We never know at which door the gate will open for us! We never know in which moment life will find refuge. Perhaps we were not even trying to search for it. It happens suddenly. Often, those who strive are left deprived—because striving carries the ego.

Two kinds of people come to me. One: those who have deliberately set out to search for religion. There is a big hitch with them. They have been to all the ashrams, to all the gurus; they have read all the scriptures. Nothing happens anywhere. When such a person comes to me, I know it will be very difficult. His very eager striving is the obstacle. Because of his desire he is closed.

Then there are those who come aimlessly. Without any reason! They are more open. There is no quest to gain anything, no expectations to obtain something. The mind is more open. Things happen with simplicity.

Try to understand this. Whatever you have searched for with a set purpose, you will never attain. Whatever is truly important in life is not found through purposeful seeking. Joy, truth, God—none is found by a straight, direct hunt. They happen by grace, uncaused, as a gift.

A friend tells you, “I go swimming in the river; it is such a joy.” You say, “Then I will come too. I too am searching for joy.” There the trouble begins. You will not find it—because you won’t really swim. You’ll stroke a little and keep thinking, “The joy hasn’t come yet. When will it come? Half the river is crossed and still no joy?” You’ll start getting dejected.

Joy comes when you are totally absorbed in swimming—when you forget yourself. You forget all this talk of joy, and suddenly you find it has arrived. Because joy lies in your losing yourself. There is no other joy. You cross the river, you do swim—and you tell your friend, “We got nothing. You said there is great joy.”

Sometimes you bring someone here to me saying, “Come, there is great joy in listening.” You put him into trouble. Don’t ever say that joy comes in listening. Everyone hankers for joy. He too will think, “We too are seeking joy. If it’s available just by listening, so cheap, let’s go. What’s the harm? Let’s listen.”

But he will sit the whole time watching from the bank. Like a cat watching a mouse’s path. From above it looks as if the cat is sitting utterly still, meditating. From the outside it seems as if she has become a great Mahavira, absorbed in meditation—but her gaze is pinned on the mouse hole: “When will it come out? Not yet? It’s getting late; my hunger is growing.”

So the man who has come to listen in order to get joy sits with his eyes fixed on the mouse of joy. Remember, the mouse is afraid of the cat’s gaze; it simply won’t come out. From inside it also senses: “Is someone sitting there in meditation?” If so, it’s dangerous. Mice don’t approach a cat—meditate as you may! For the mice say, “After eating a hundred mice, the cat sets off on pilgrimage.” Having eaten so many mice, why would the mice trust that she’s in meditation?

Joy is a very delicate event. It enters you when you are utterly unselfconscious, carefree. It never comes in through the front door; it slips in through the back. It does not arrive with drums and trumpets. It comes quietly, without even the sound of footsteps.

So often it happens to those who have come accidentally.

Don’t tell your friends, “There is great joy there; come.” Otherwise you will become the obstacle. They will come, and when joy does not happen they will say, “You deceived us. And what do you ever get anyway, if we didn’t? We heard the same, you heard the same. We got nothing. You talk nonsense.”

No—what happened to Triveni did happen. She had not come for this. Husband and wife were going on a tour of the South; Pune fell on the way. They must have thought, “Let’s look in here too.” But there was no search, no effort. No expectation that bliss would come, that streams of nectar would flow, that clouds would gather and lightning flash. No such idea at all. When someone comes with such simplicity, the happening happens.

To come simply is difficult. For why would the simple come? The complicated come. It is hard for the complicated to receive. The one who is searching comes; the one who is not searching does not come. The one who is searching does not find.

So sometimes when a non-seeker comes to satsang, the event happens.

“Without any purpose I came with my husband.” That is precisely why something happened. Where there is no expectation, great events occur in life. Whatever you bind with expectation—that very thing will not happen. It is expectation that blocks the happening.

You have seen it. You fall in love with someone, the flow of rasa is abundant—but it lasts only a little while. It is doubtful whether it will even survive the end of the honeymoon; often it ends on the wedding night. From the same woman, the same man, there was such nectar—what happens?

There was no expectation when you first met. You had not thought it would happen. You were not consciously searching or asking; it happened. Then you began to demand consciously. Now you say, “It should happen every day.” Now, “It didn’t happen today—what’s the matter? Some deception going on?”

You stake a claim. You are ready to file a lawsuit. You quarrel with your wife: “Today you did not give me joy.” Or you suspect: “Has my wife begun to deceive me?” Or sometimes: “Did she deceive me in the beginning? Was I lost in some dream?”

Nothing has happened—only a small truth of life you are not seeing. The first time you met a woman or a man, there was no expectation—purely open. The event happened. Now there is expectation.

It happens everywhere. Sometimes people get a glimpse in meditation the very first time. Then it becomes difficult. For the next day they don’t meditate; they fidget a little and sit prepared inside: “Now… now… now.” It does not happen—because when it happened the first time there was no inner voice saying, “Now, now!” You have added a new element that has become the obstacle.

From the results of my experiments in meditation on thousands of people, one finding is this: the first glimpse that comes easily is followed by great difficulty. Until that first glimpse is forgotten, the second does not come. Sometimes it takes months to forget. When a person, thoroughly frustrated, thinks, “Ah, that must not have happened either; I must have imagined it,” when the first glimpse is forgotten, then the second appears. After the second, the third, the fourth, it begins to dawn that what I was demanding was the very obstacle.

Because you came without purpose, something happened. Now keep that purposelessness alive. Now there is danger. Triveni asks: “Will this meditation remain when I go home?” Now there is danger. What has happened has happened without asking. Why ask now? If it happened unasked, it will continue unasked.

The danger now is that the rasa she has tasted—she will want it to continue at home. She will want to taste it again and again. That very wanting will kill it. Now Triveni is no longer purposeless; she has found a purpose. Even if she comes again to Pune, there is danger. She will surely come; she will have to—because the taste has awakened a desire. She will come again and again. Now even I am a little afraid—because if she keeps coming and it doesn’t happen, she will be angry with me.

So I warn you now. Drop the matter. Go back home the way you came—purposeless. Just as you loved me here with a purposeless heart, love me at home in the same way. Don’t ask for joy, don’t ask for meditation. Don’t ask for anything. It will happen—and abundantly. What has happened is only a beginning, a first sprinkling. The cloudburst is yet to come. But do not ask. This is only a beginning. And when you come again, don’t come carrying expectation. Come just like that. It will be difficult—because the first time purposelessness was natural. The second time it will be hard. But if you understand that it happened because the first time you came purposelessly, why go now with a purpose?

Come when it is convenient to come. Do not come thinking, “There I will have so much bliss, so much meditativeness; I will drown.” Do not come with that thought. Come again like a stranger. Then it will happen—far more than before. And if you grasp this key, it will keep happening.

God begins—never ends. Our vessels fill, yet the shower continues. The vessels overflow, yet the shower continues. A flood comes, yet the shower continues. The hitch is this: as soon as we expect, we contract. Our vessel closes. We become unfit.

“Without any purpose I came here. My plan was something else—to tour South India. But listening to your discourses I was so crazed that I even took sannyas.”

She speaks rightly. Sannyas is a kind of madness. Sannyas is a kind of ecstasy. It lies outside the world of accounts. Beyond the world of arguments and debate. The one who can set thinking aside is eligible for sannyas. One who says, “I have lost concern for reputation. I no longer care what people will say. Others’ opinions no longer affect me. I will live in my own way. Life is mine; I will live it my way, dance my dance. I will not force anyone to be like me, nor will I allow anyone to force me to be like them. I will neither dominate, nor will I be dominated.”

Sannyas is a deep double proclamation. I will not impose my insistence on anyone that they become like me; and I will not allow anyone to try to make me like them. I will not become anyone’s master, nor will I let anyone become my master. I will not snatch anyone’s freedom, nor will I allow anyone to snatch mine.

And this does not mean that, in your whim, you cause others pain. For to give pain means your proclamation has become one-sided—you are imposing yourself on another.

One of life’s supreme secrets is: neither obstruct another’s life nor give anyone the chance to obstruct yours. It is difficult. The easy ways are two: either sit on another’s chest and grind your pulses—this is easy. Or let someone sit on your chest and grind—this is also easy. And this is what usually happens. Either you grind on someone’s chest, or someone grinds on yours. So Machiavelli said: the only way to protect yourself is to attack. Before the other grinds on your chest, don’t delay; leap, pounce, sit on the other’s chest and start grinding. Otherwise someone or other will sit on yours.

Machiavelli says: the only defense is offense. Before someone attacks, attack. Do not wait and think, “If he attacks, then I will defend.” Because whoever waits falls behind.

Thus the world goes on. The big fish eat the small. Either be a big fish, or you will be a small fish. What else will you do?

Both are ordinary choices. This is the strife, the conflict—between countries, castes, individuals, all relationships. The husband wants to dominate the wife—she should live his way.

A wife comes to me. She says, “Somehow stop my husband’s drinking. Let him do anything, but he shouldn’t drink.” I asked her, “Are you truly opposed to alcohol, or is it your insistence to have your way? Because I know your husband. He’s a good man.”

And drunkards are often good men. The real danger is from those who sit counting their rosaries. It’s very hard to find a good man among them; they are often of malicious nature. Drunkards are often kind.

“I know your husband; he’s a decent man. He doesn’t mess up in any way.” She said, “He doesn’t do anything wrong even when he drinks; he only gives your discourse—two, two and a half, three hours! He doesn’t even say anything bad. He speaks of wisdom.” So I said, “What’s the harm? He is delivering my discourse. He says exactly what I say. When he drinks, he repeats word for word, repeats the expressions. So what’s the loss? Think of it as turning on a tape recorder. Just listen.”

“No,” she said, “this isn’t right.” I said, “Do one thing. How long has he been drinking?” She said, “About twenty years.” I said, “A habit of twenty years—quitting will take time. But you do one thing: stop saying anything for three months. You yourself don’t drink; you only say, ‘Don’t drink.’ And you have twenty years of experience that he doesn’t listen. There’s no sense in saying it. For three months, stop saying it.”

After five or seven days she returned and said, “Impossible. I too have a twenty-year habit. I can’t do it. I get so restless if I don’t say it. Please give me leave from this.”

So I said, “Now think. Your husband’s habit of twenty years—how will it go? You only have to stop saying something, and even that you cannot quit. That too has become your ‘intoxication.’

“And know this: if I persuade your husband and he stops drinking, you will be unhappy. Because all your juice is in this. You have made him abject; your ownership is maintained because he drinks. Such husbands are fine in every way. If he quits, your ownership will end. You are ‘above,’ you’ve made him ‘below.’ He is afraid of you; you intimidate him. If he gives up drinking, he will intimidate you. Prepare for that.”

In life we either fear or we frighten. We find respectable excuses to frighten. And if we are frightened, we find good reasons why we are afraid—we say the matter is right, that is why we fear. Sannyas means to go beyond both these states. Sannyas means we will neither frighten anyone—who are we to do so?—nor will we be frightened by anyone. We will neither deflect another from his path, nor will we be deflected from ours.

This is what it means to drop relationship with the world. Not to leave your wife, not to leave your shop, not to leave your home. The essence of leaving the world is this: fear no one and frighten no one. Then you are outside the world. For the world is divided into these two. Then you are neither a big fish nor a small fish. You are no fish at all. You are no longer worldly.

Great courage is needed. The path will be hard because suddenly you will find yourself alone. Your whole prestige will be at stake; those who gave you prestige will take it back. They had bestowed it with conditions. They used to say, “You are very intelligent”—they will say it no more. They used to say, “You are very clever”—they will say it no more. Now they will say, “You have gone mad, you have been hypnotized. In whose net have you fallen? You have lost your mind.” Your prestige will be in trouble. Sannyas is a costly bargain. Only the mad can do it.

Triveni is right: “Coming here I took sannyas. I became so mad I took sannyas. And now you have become my Krishna.”

Where love happens, Krishna appears. One does not love Krishna; wherever love happens, Krishna manifests. This is the difficult thing.

If you try to prove to someone that you have had a vision of Krishna, he will laugh. He is right to laugh. He will say, “We don’t see Krishna; how did you? Some delusion, perhaps.”

He too is right—because Krishna is seen in love; if the eye of love opens, he is seen. And when the eye of love opens, something else begins to happen that does not happen in this visible world.

The moment I stepped into love, I had to lose myself;
From a single milestone, a thousand destinations unfolded.

If the eye of love opens, another realm opens. A thousand destinations unfold. If the eye of love closes, everything closes.

Krishna can be seen wherever your love is awakened. Love creates Krishna. Love discovers Krishna.

So your love has awakened—remember this. And do not stop this love on me alone. Expand it so that gradually Krishna is seen everywhere. What has happened in relation to me has happened because of your loving eye. With that same eye look at a tree—you will find Krishna standing there, green and fresh. With that same eye look at a mountain—you will find Krishna standing there, peaks touching the sky, snow-crowned. Krishna stands there.

Keep looking through this eye of love and Krishna will be seen everywhere. Let this eye that has opened grow wider. Do not stop it on me. If it stops, danger arises. If it expands, it is religion; if it stops, it becomes sectarian.

If you insist, “Only this man is Krishna, no one else,” then very soon this love will die. Love lives by expanding. Love lives by growing. If love contracts, it begins to die. Do not tighten love the way one tightens a noose around the neck; otherwise it will die. Then one day you will find that even in me Krishna is no longer visible.

So this opportunity that has come, this eyelid that has slightly opened—keep opening it wider.

“Now I go with the faith that the meditation I found here will remain.” Leave that thought here. Do not take it with you. It will remain—but you leave this very thought behind. Don’t raise the matter at all. This “faith” is dangerous; it announces that disbelief has already begun. A fear has started in the mind: now I must go home—who knows whether what happened here will happen there. Your home is as close to God as this place. All homes are his. He is everywhere.

Carrying this faith means that, deep down, disbelief has begun: “Now I go home—who knows whether what happened will go with me?” Drop the worry. No need of faith.

Go back ecstatic, dancing, humming a song. Bound within your songs, what has happened here will go with you. Without expectation. Just as you came here purposelessly, not knowing what would happen, go back in the same way—not knowing. Much is waiting to happen. I will reach your home before you do.

“…that the meditation I found here will remain, and upon calling you will always keep coming?”

Do not worry. Sometimes I will come even without being called. If I knock at your door, don’t be alarmed. If I suddenly appear before you, don’t be frightened.

Love knows neither time nor place. It is beyond space and time.

Day and night the pathways of the heart remain open;
Whom is it that the heart’s eyes await each day?
Whose image is this, whose thought is this,
These sighs the heart breathes that none can restrain?

Day and night the pathways of the heart remain open—love’s roads are always open. Expectations shut them; the door closes tight. Do not carry expectation. Go with gaiety, with a bright, absorbed heart.

Day and night the pathways of the heart remain open;
Whom is it that the heart’s eyes await each day?

For the heart’s gaze, physical presence is not necessary. The heart’s eye can see from afar. And without the heart’s eye, one cannot see even from near. Without it, a person comes like a blind man and leaves like a blind man.

Whose image is this, whose thought is this…
I come with you—but if you carry expectation, I cannot come. Drop expectation. Renounce it. I come with you like a reverie, like a feeling, like devotion.

Whose image is this, whose thought is this,
These sighs the heart breathes that none can restrain…

Do not carry expectation with tears. Do not carry expectation with laughter. Sing, dance, sit silently—but do not carry expectation. Be simple, spontaneous. Then the connection does not break.

You are the true flame; I am the moth.
You are the flower-tinted wine; I am the goblet.
You are the soul; I am the body.
You are the original; I am the copy—
The tale in which your praise is told—that tale I am.

The devotee wipes himself away, erases himself. If you carry expectation, you remain—because expectation belongs to you, to your ego, your identity. Drop expectations, and with them your ego will fall.

You are the soul; I the body.
You are the original; I the copy.
Then the devotee becomes a copy, an imitation. He says, “I am your shadow, your reflection, your image in the mirror.”

You are the original; I the copy—
The tale in which your praise is told—that tale I am.

At most, I am the story, the song in which you are described. Wipe yourself away. Remove yourself. Only thus is space made for the divine.

So I say, Triveni, go home—empty, void. No expectation, no memory of past experience. No craving that what happened should happen again—emptiness. Only in that emptiness will his lamp descend; his light will fill you.

You are the flower-tinted wine; I am the goblet.
This emptiness will make you the vessel. The wine of God, the divine intoxication, will pour into it and fill it. When you dissolve, God can be.

The secret is perfectly clear; there’s hardly any need to explain. It’s straightforward. The others were afraid. They still carried a sense of identity, an ego.

Now, here’s the real fun: it is the ego that goes mad to be humble. It is the ego that gets the idea of humility. So the others must have said, “The dust of our feet—for God? Never. Where are we, and where are you, O Lord! We are petty; you are the vast. We are nothing; you are everything.” But even in that “we are nothing” there’s a declaration: we are—small, yes, but we are. “The dust of our feet on your head? We’ll incur sin; we’ll fall into hell.”

But the gopis, who truly are nothing, said, “Our feet—where? We—where? Even the dust of our feet is your dust. And this dust—what is it but you? And if your command has come, who are we to stand in the way? Who are we to say no?”

The humility of love is utterly different. The humility of knowledge is hollow, full of deception. When the learned man tells you, “I am but the dust of your feet,” don’t take it at face value. Look into his eyes—he’s saying, “Got it, haven’t you? I am supremely humble!”

Don’t tell him, “You’re right; perfectly said.” He’ll be offended and never look your way again. He wants to hear you protest, “You—and dust of the feet? No, no! You are venerable; you are great. Your humility is great!” He wants you to declare his greatness.

The others refused. What did Krishna’s headache matter to them! They were worried about their own hell: “If we give the dust of our feet, we’ll be trapped. This fellow has found a fine way to trap us! You’ll be rid of your headache and we’ll roast in hell. No, we can’t commit such a sin.” They cared for themselves. The gopis had no sense of self at all. So they said, “Dust of the feet is dust of the feet.” Understand this a little.

Apart from love there is no real humility. The gopis understand: all is his lila. This headache is his lila; these feet, this foot-dust, his lila. He himself is asking. What obstacle can there be in offering what is his?

Takhleeq-e-kainaat ke dilchasp jurm par
Hansta to hoga aap bhi, Yazdan, kabhi-kabhi.

At the interesting “crime” of creating the cosmos
You too must laugh sometimes, O Yazdan (the Creator).

This God who made the world—Yazdan, the Creator—must sometimes laugh: what an amusing crime! What a delightful “sin,” this making of the world!

Takhleeq-e-kainaat ke dilchasp jurm par
Hansta to hoga aap bhi, Yazdan, kabhi-kabhi.

The devotees say—he too must laugh: what a grand joke!

Krishna must have laughed heartily when the learned refused the dust and the gopis gave it. Laughed heartily—such a simple joke, and they couldn’t even get that!

It’s hard to find bigger fools than the learned. They’ve understood the scriptures, the very ocean of scripture, and yet can’t understand a small joke, a little thing. They couldn’t do even this much for the Divine. The gopis must have rejoiced: “Well then, if you yourself are making us commit the offense, we’ll do it. Now the offense becomes interesting—because it happens by your command.”

Khataon pe jo mujh ko mail kare phir
Saza—aur aisi saza—chaahta hoon.

He who inclines me toward “faults,”
Let the punishment be such—I want more of that punishment.

They must have thought, “Good! Now give us such a punishment that we commit more ‘faults.’ Give such a penalty that we do still more, so that you punish us more—so the relationship stays alive, the friendship remains, the bond endures.”

Khataon pe jo mujh ko mail kare phir
Saza—aur aisi saza—chaahta hoon.

The gopis would happily go to hell if by their going Krishna’s headache were cured. The thought that this might be a sin would not have arisen in them even for a moment.

Love does not abide by the rules of etiquette. Where the rules of etiquette reign, somewhere deep down ego is hiding. All etiquette is the ego’s rulebook. Love follows no rule; love is the great rule. All rules surrender in its presence. Love is sufficient; no other rule is needed.

There is a great difference between the learned and the devotee. Their visions are different; they are two different worlds, two distinct dimensions of seeing. The so-called wise calculates grain by grain: karma, karmaphal—what should I do, what not, what will bring sin, what will bring merit.

The devotee lives in divine madness. He says, “Whatever you make me do, I shall do. Sin is yours; merit is yours.” The devotee puts everything at the feet of the Divine. He says, “If it is your will that I commit sin, I will joyfully commit sin.” The devotee’s surrender is absolute. Intoxication! Blessed unconsciousness! Placing one’s hand wholly in God’s hand—without conditions.

Vaiz-o-sheikh ne sar jod kar badnaam kiya,
Warna badnaam na hoti may-e-gulfaam abhi.

The preacher and the sheikh together defamed it;
Otherwise the rose-colored wine would not be infamous even now.

The religious preachers, the so-called knowers, the gurus—banded together and slandered it; only then did they succeed in defaming ecstasy, intoxication, the wine the color of flowers. Otherwise it would never have been defamed.

Vaiz-o-sheikh ne sar jod kar badnaam kiya,
Warna badnaam na hoti may-e-gulfaam abhi.

The devotee is like a drunkard; the learned man is a bookkeeper. Their mathematics are different. The devotee doesn’t even know what is bad and what is good. He says, “Whatever God does is good. What I want to do is bad; what God does is good.”

So the gopis must have thought: “God asks for the dust of our feet? Then quickly, give it.” If God makes you do it, it must be good. Their surrender is total.

Death is one and the same—whether through meditation or through love. But the processes, the paths, the methods that lead to that death are different. Through meditation, the same thing happens: you disappear. Through love, the same thing happens: you disappear. The dissolving happens in both cases, but the ways are very different.

In the first stages of meditation, you do not vanish. At that stage, what is false in you is burned away and what is true is preserved. The inauspicious is removed; the auspicious is kept. Impurity is burned; purity is protected.

Thus on the path of knowledge or meditation one begins to be purified. One does not disappear; one becomes refined, yet one remains. In the final leap, the refinement reaches a point where even purity appears impure. Where mere being appears impure, there, in the last jump, the meditator snuffs himself out. The devotee snuffs himself out on the first step. He does not calculate—good and bad.

So devotion is a leap, and meditation is gradual evolution. Meditation walks step by step, slowly, gently. Devotion is outright madness—it takes a sudden leap. The meditator is like one who climbs down from the rooftop by the staircase—one step at a time, carefully. Carefulness is the key of meditation—alertness.

The devotee is such that he jumps from the roof. He drops all concern about whether his limbs will break, whether he will live or die—whatever happens. He jumps. His trust is absolute. He says, if He wishes to save me, He will save me—“Jako rakhe Saiyan.” If He does not wish to save you, then even if you tread carefully on the stairs you will die, you will be gone.

So the devotee takes a leap—one single step. After that one step, he has nothing more to do; the earth’s gravity pulls him in. It isn’t that you take the leap and then ask, “Now what should I do after leaping?” There is no chance to ask—you’re gone! The moment you lift one foot, the earth begins to pull. If you had not taken that one step, you would not have been available to gravity. The moment you do, gravity begins to work.

Thus the scripture of devotion says: you jump, and then the pull of the divine does the rest. You let go; He will do it.

The meditator says: we cannot abandon ourselves like that. We will drop only what is wrong. Who knows whether the divine even is?

So you must look within and see what suits you. If you have the courage to be mad, then devotion. If your logic is intense, your thinking well-honed, your intellect strong, then devotion is not for you.

There is no need to be anxious. You will reach the same place. Even when you descend the stairs, it is the same pull that is drawing you. You are simply going slowly—that’s all. The devotee goes swiftly, like an arrow. You go gently, one step at a time. Even when you step down a stair, it is the same pull that draws you. Only, you take one step, then another. It depends on you.

And don’t, in haste, decide: “Well, devotion is the direct path; let me jump.” If it doesn’t resonate in your heart, the leap will not happen.

So know your own mind. What feels right to you is what is right for you. And always remember: what is right for you is not necessarily right for all. What is right for another may be wrong for you. What is nectar for someone else may be poison for you.

Death is one. There are not two deaths. The final result is the same, but there are two kinds of travelers. Some walk with awareness, cautiously. You see on the road someone walking mindfully; and you see a drunk, staggering.

The devotee is like the drunkard—he has drunk the wine of devotion. He staggers now. If he falls, he doesn’t worry; if he doesn’t reach, he doesn’t worry.

Have you seen this curious thing? A drunk falls on the road and his bones don’t break. You try falling!

There were two men in an ox-cart—one drunk and one perfectly sober. The cart overturned. The sober one broke his arms and legs. The drunk didn’t even notice. When he opened his eyes in the morning he said, “Hey! What happened to the cart?”

Have you noticed, sometimes little children fall from a roof and are not hurt, while an adult surely is. What is the reason? When a drunk falls, he doesn’t know he is falling. If one knows he is falling, he tries to stop it. In trying to stop, resistance arises. When a conscious man falls, he tries in every way to hold himself from falling. The earth is pulling downward; he is pulling the other way, bracing himself against the earth. In that conflict of two forces the bones break.

Seeing drunkards fall without being injured, a special art developed in China and Japan: judo, jujutsu—observing that the drunk falls every day, lies in the gutter, then gets up in the morning, goes home, bathes, and heads to the office. No bones broken, nothing. In the morning you can’t even tell he lay on the street all night—he looks perfectly fine. You try falling that much! A child falls all day long at home; let the parents fall like that and their bones will break at once.

Recently in America, at Harvard University, they did an experiment: they asked a big wrestler, a very strong man, to imitate a small child—whatever the child does, you do it for eight hours. The man thought, I am strong, I’ll manage; there was a handsome sum, thousands of dollars. In four hours he was flat out, finished—because if the child suddenly drops to the floor, you must drop; and that is troublesome indeed.

The child felt delighted: “He is imitating me!” So he did everything even more vigorously. In four hours the wrestler said, “Forgive me—keep your thousands of dollars. This will kill me. In eight hours I’ll be dead.” Because the child hops, jumps, shouts, screams—and whatever he does, the man had to do.

Psychologists were experimenting to see how much energy a small child has, and yet he doesn’t tire. What is the reason? The small child does not yet brace himself. He goes along with whatever is happening. If the child falls, he cooperates with the fall. You, when you fall, you resist. It is because of your resistance that the bone breaks. Bones don’t break because of falling; they break because of your resistance.

If you go along with the fall—if when you begin to fall you have no desire to save yourself from it, if you cooperate with the falling, even fall a step ahead of the fall, and say, “All right, I agree”—you will not be hurt. You will fall without any resistance. You will fall into the lap of the earth, and you will not be injured.

The drunk is not hurt; similarly, the devotee is not hurt. He falls, his is a very high leap. But he is drunk—he has drunk the wine of love, the nectar of love.

But if you are not a drunk and your nature is not like that, then don’t do it. Come down your stairs—make small steps and descend. There is no hurry, because people reach by both ways.

So I am not saying you should choose one of these without seeing whether it suits your temperament and nature. That is why I speak of devotion and I speak of meditation. I speak of both, because among you there are both kinds of people. The ultimate event is one, but the ways of reaching it are very different.

If you have a strong hold of thought, then go by meditation. If your heart is open, if you can be a small child, or you have the feminine in you, if you can pour love and be carried by love without laying down conditions, then descend by the path of love.

You will dissolve in both cases, because until you disappear, the divine cannot be. And the day you dissolve—even if you do not know that you have dissolved—the whole world will know. Whoever has eyes will know you have vanished. Your emptiness is very eloquent!

Emptiness is very musical. The silence of emptiness begins to be heard. To those who have disappeared, people run, they are drawn. One does not even understand what the attraction is. It is only this: where someone has vanished, a void has been created.

Ask the scientists: why does the wind blow? The wind is blowing now, the gulmohar tree is trembling—why does the wind blow? They say there is one reason: where there is intense heat, the air becomes rarefied; a vacuum is created. To fill that emptiness, the surrounding air rushes in, because nature does not tolerate a vacuum—it must be filled. The surrounding air runs to fill it; hence the wind blows. That is why in the heat whirlwinds and storms arise—because a void is created. Because of the sun’s heat, the air becomes thin, expands; a space opens up. To fill it, the wind comes.

Exactly the same happens in the ultimate realm of the divine. When a person disappears, becomes empty, existence or God does not tolerate the void. Waves of consciousness begin to move to fill that emptiness.

You have come here like waves of consciousness. Wherever someone has vanished, consciousnesses begin to glide in that direction. Even if such a person sits in the Himalayas, people find paths and make trails to reach there. They must go. The divine does not tolerate the void—it must be filled.

Where a master is born, disciples keep coming. The very meaning of a master’s being is: a void has happened there.

Love becomes known to the world in such a way
that it seems as if it is not known.

When love happens in your life, you may not even know it; perhaps no one else will know either—and yet everyone will somehow know. And it keeps being known in such a way that it seems not to be known. No one seems to know, yet quietly, secretly, from heart to heart the news travels.

Love becomes known to the world in such a way
that it seems as if it is not known.

And death is the last hour of love—the climax, the final peak, the ultimate state. Where a person becomes absolutely empty, from all sides the divine rushes, in countless forms, to fill him.

This is what the Hindus call avatarana—descent. The divine rushing to fill someone is the descent—coming down. Someone has become empty; God runs to fill him. He fills the meditator as well as the lover—but only when you disappear.

Do not try to save yourself. Choose any path—but find the path that dissolves you. The world is the effort to save oneself; religion is the courage to efface oneself.

Enough for today.