Jin Sutra #6

The divine is not attained by mere chanting. If repetition alone could do it, it would be very easy. Even parrots can repeat. Awareness is needed. Repetition by itself will not suffice. It is fine, useful, precious—but only when conjoined with awareness; otherwise it becomes mechanical. Someone goes on with “Shyam–Shyam–Shyam,” while a thousand other thoughts continue behind it. Slowly the repetition turns into habit. To keep it going, no awareness is needed at all; it goes on like a machine. Even if you don’t wish it, it keeps happening—while, deep within, countless thoughts and desires surge. Until those thoughts and desires dissolve at the inner depths, until repetition stands alone—so that when a call rises for Shyam there is only the call and nothing else within—then even the call will not be needed: uncalled, the divine draws near.

The divine has never gone far. What goes far is not God. He is forever right by you; he encircles you on all sides—outside and inside, only he.

The one you chant is God; and the one who is chanting is God too. So do not get tangled in repetition. Beware that the mind is not overly possessed by reiteration. Don’t place too much trust in it. It is useful, but something more is needed: awareness—meditation.

“Chanting ‘Shyam, Shyam,’ life’s dusk has set in. My Shyam has not yet come.”
No: recognition is lacking in you. Shyam has come many times; he keeps coming. Apart from him, who else is there to come? Whoever has come—he has come in that. All are his forms, his ways, his hues. In the flower—he. In the leaf—he. In mountains and stones—he. In animals and birds—he. In women and men—he. Wherever there is “something,” it is he; and where there is nothing, there too—he. So the language of coming and going belongs to our mind.

God is. He neither comes nor goes. That which “is” is the divine—the ever-is, with no movement, no process, pure being. Even in this moment you are surrounded by that. Whose arrival do you await? Perhaps you are missing in the very waiting. For when the eyes look down the road for someone, everything else is missed. If you sit at the door watching for your beloved, then no one else is seen. People pass by, the road flows on—but you turn blind to all else, for your mind is concentrated in a craving, a desire, an aspiration—you are one-pointed. You wait for a particular face.

So, yes, you have called Shyam—but you have been waiting for a particular face: he must come holding a flute, with a peacock-feather in his crown. Thus you miss. In that expectation, in that fixed notion, lies the veil. A definite mental posture dictates, “It must be like this.”

They say Tulsidas was once taken into a temple of Krishna; he did not bow. Even a man as wise as Tulsidas fell into folly. He would not bow, because he was a devotee of Rama. How could he bow before Krishna’s image? He stood stubbornly. He recognized only one—the bow-bearing Rama. This flute-player, this Murari—he did not recognize or accept. How could he bow?

The story is sweet: he said, “Only when you take up the bow and arrow will I bow. I am the devotee of one alone.” The tale says that for Tulsidas the Krishna idol took bow and arrow; the flute disappeared, the peacock-crown was gone, the archer-Rama appeared—and then Tulsidas bowed. I do not believe the image changed; Tulsidas must have dreamed it so.

Does God bend to our biases? Are you commanding God? You say, “If you want my praise, come in this manner—wear such-and-such yellow garment, have a blue complexion, stand in this posture.” You have decided the gesture, the manner, the look—and thus you miss the divine. People miss religion in the very name of being religious, because religiosity turns sectarian; they take a fixed stance.

My whole effort here is to dissolve your partialities. Make no demands. Say: however you come, we will recognize you. You will not be able to deceive us. Come with bow and arrow—no harm; we will know you. Come with a flute—we will know you. Stand naked like Mahavira—neither bow nor flute—we will know you. Hang upon the cross like Jesus—we will not be deceived.

I call that person religious who has challenged the divine: “Now you cannot deceive me; I will recognize you—come in any form, for I have understood that all forms are yours.”

Then how can you miss? Then life will never be evening; it will ever be morning.

In Shankaracharya’s life there is an anecdote. Yesterday at dusk I told a story about him. He was instructing his disciples; a tangled question arose. He lifted a pen and sketched upon the wall: a tree of awakening—and beneath it a young sannyasin seated as the guru. Around him sat aged disciples, dilapidated, very ancient. A disciple stood and said, “What are you doing? Perhaps you have erred. You have made a youth the guru and these old rishis the disciples. Surely this is a mistake.”

Shankara said, “No mistake—I drew it knowingly. The disciple is always old, because ‘disciple’ means mind. Mind is ancient, the past. Mind means what has happened—the dust of it, its track-marks, the footprints of what has gone by. Mind is the lines of the bygone. Very old is the mind. The disciple has a mind; the guru’s mind has vanished—so the past is gone. The guru is ever fresh, youthful, adolescent.”

Have you seen an old image of Rama? Surely he must have grown old sometime—nature’s law changes for no one. Have you seen an old image of Krishna? Surely he aged—at eighty an arrow struck him down. Have you seen an old image of Buddha? Of Mahavira? We never make them old—not because they did not age, but because we recognized that what blossomed within them is ever new—just bathed, born this very moment. The mind is old; its notions are old. The divine is new each instant—like a fresh-sprouted shoot, a newly unfolding bud.

Drop the mind’s notions, and you will find him coming from all sides. In every footfall you will hear his footfall. Not only in the cuckoo’s sweetness, but in the crow’s cawing—he. And until you can recognize him in the crow, know that your recognition is not yet certain. Not only in Rama, in Ravana too—he. If you say he is not in Ravana, you will not recognize him in Rama either.

Tulsidas carried folly to the limit—he could not see Rama in Krishna; then how would he see him in Ravana? He may have been a great poet, but not an awakened man. His glory is poetry; something is missing—realization is missing.

If the divine is recognized, life will never be evening. Dusk and dawn, change, birth and death—these remain because we do not recognize the eternal.

“Chanting ‘Shyam, Shyam,’ life’s dusk has set in. My Shyam has not yet come—please bring me to him.”
Chanting “Shyam, Shyam,” life has turned to dusk—now wake up! Repetition will not do. See! What is needed is vision—eyes. Because of your chanting, Shyam came many times and returned. He said, “Ah, still she is chanting; still not empty; her mind has not yet become free or quiet; still she is chanting Shyam–Shyam.”

Your chanting itself has become the curtain. So absorbed are you in it that you have no leisure to open your eyes and see who has come. When repetition is truly heartfelt, it ceases to be repetition; no voice arises, no words arise—everything falls away into silence.

Seekers who go in search of God lose themselves before they find him. Those who lose themselves—only they find him.

Drop the bookkeeping of chanting. Forget how many rosaries you have turned, how many times you have taken his name.

I once stayed with a family where the house was full of books. “So many scriptures!” I said. “What is this?” They replied, “Nothing—every page just has ‘Ram, Ram’ written on it.” They were devotees of Rama; their work, all day, was to write “Ram, Ram, Ram.” They had spoiled thousands of books. I said, “You could have given these to schoolchildren. Why spoil them? You have wasted your time too. And look—you write with spectacles on, eyes failing, grown old—Rama comes many times and goes back; he never finds you free. How can he, when you are busy writing ‘Ram’? Let Ram move aside so Ram can come! Let Shyam move aside so Shyam can come! You dissolve—and union happens.”

Exhausted, at every stop a few of us fell behind—
If we cannot find your address, helpless, what can we do!

This is the language of Sufis, of love. In seeking the divine, a moment comes—you tire; you are lost. “Exhausted, at every stop a few of us fell behind. If we cannot find your address, what can we do?” We are helpless; seeking you, we lose even our own address. But the moment your own address is lost, from all directions his benediction begins to shower. It always was—but we were filled up, weighed down by notions.

If you want God, drop all notions of God. If you want to recognize truth, set scripture aside. If you want to see the one who stands before you now—who caressed you in a gust of wind, who calls in the birdsong, who stretches out a hand in a ray of sunlight and touches you—if you want to see that thousand-armed, the infinite—drop all concepts. Become naked—utterly unclothed of notions. That is the meaning of being a Mahavira—niggantha, naked, sky-clad.

The Jains got it backward. They thought dropping outer garments suffices. Mahavira’s nakedness is complete when the mind’s garments fall away.

You have read Krishna’s tale: the gopis were bathing; he stole their clothes and climbed a tree. It seems obscene; do that now and the police will arrest you. It passed then; it wouldn’t pass today. But the meaning is deep: Krishna says, “If you fall in love with me, I will snatch away your garments.” Gopi means: one in love with him. “I will strip you bare. So long as you have anything with which to hide, union cannot be.” Garment means that in which you conceal yourself. Unclothed means: nothing left to hide behind; the heart is open; all words and doctrines set aside. When you say, “I am a Hindu,” you have a garment on your mind; your consciousness is not naked. When you say, “I am a Jain,” you are not open to truth. You say, “I have a notion of truth; only if truth matches it will I accept it.” Then you will wander. One evening will not do—thousands of evenings will pass in chanting, and you will not arrive.

Prepare to lose! Prepare to dissolve! Melt yourself away inch by inch. The seeker must be lost—this is the condition for finding.

And again: God does not come and go. Coming and going is the world. Ever-being is the divine. That which comes and goes—we call that mind. That which neither comes nor goes, which ever is—that is consciousness. Clouds come, gather, swirl, dance, lightnings flash—and they depart. Soon monsoon comes; clouds will mass, drum the sky, make a great uproar—and be gone. What remains is the sky. How many times clouds gathered and dispersed! That is the world. What remains, untouched, unstained—like a lotus leaf on a pond—on which even the shadow of a cloud leaves no trace, which clouds cannot defile, which holds not even the memory of clouds—this is the sky. Look at the sky today: would you think that for billions of years clouds have crowded it? Spotless, pristine, virginal, forever virgin—its virginity never marred. Clouds came and went; the sky keeps no memory.

So it is with the divine. We come and go; God is. We have come and gone many times—monsoon clouds. Sometimes with great noise—Napoleon, Genghis, Tamerlane. Sometimes quietly—cottony clouds—no noise, no rain, ordinary. Sometimes lightning flashed, a great tumult; sometimes we drifted like dreams—no clamor, no stir, no one even knew. Sometimes we wrote a history of havoc; sometimes we slipped past without a whisper. In every case, we came and went.

Know the one who neither came nor went.

There was a Zen master, Tozan Osho—very precious. When Tozan attained samadhi, supreme knowledge, nirvana—when all was lost and that alone remained which ever is—the gods in heaven grew eager to see his face. As it should be: however beautiful gods may be, they are still clouds; however gilded, still clouds; however blissful, still dream. They came to Tozan’s monastery, eager for a glimpse. They tried from every side to see him, to recognize him—but no face could be seen. Where is the sky’s face? Clouds have shape and color; the sky is formless. Tozan had become the sky. They searched inside and out—found nothing: silence, infinite silence, void. They were troubled: would they have no darshan? Passing right through him, circling around him—and yet not recognizing. The temple remained; the idol was gone—whom to behold? Rama remained, the bow-and-arrow lost; Krishna remained, the flute gone; even the Gita with flute laid upon it—both gone.

At last the cleverest among the gods said, “Wait. We must contrive something; otherwise, no darshan.” It was morning; the newborn sun, birds singing; Tozan was returning from a walk. The crafty god took a handful of rice and a handful of wheat from the kitchen and scattered them on Tozan’s path.

In a Zen monastery great care is taken; every thing is given boundless respect. Food is Brahman. So no Zen monk will throw rice or wheat on the path. This is not economics or thrift; it is spiritual—a reverence for every thing. Before eating one bows to the food, offers it to the divine, and only then eats—“Once again he has given an opportunity, another day, his grace abounds.” Such is the feeling.

So who had thrown these grains? Such a thing had never happened in the monastery. Seeing them, a thought arose in Tozan: “Who scattered this rice and wheat?” They say, in that very moment the gods had his darshan. For when thought arose, a cloud gathered. With the cloud, a form appeared. They caught him in that moment. A single ripple rose—density formed, a slight tension: who did this, why this carelessness, who lives without mindfulness? A question arose, a problem, a worry—clouds condensed; for a moment darkness. In that instant, the gods saw. Then the clouds cleared.

Tozan laughed. “Ah—so it’s a prank!” he said to the gods. For when his face appeared and the gods saw him, he saw them too. “So this is your mischief!”

A tiny thought—and tension arises; no-thought—and the sky arises.

Therefore, chanting “Shyam–Shyam” will not do. Repetition itself will become tension, a cloud. Draping yourself in the “Ram-blanket” will not do. All blankets must be dropped.

When you do not even remember what God’s image is like, when even the name slips away—what is his name, where is his abode—when you stand mute, awestruck, in the formless—then there is no more evening; then it is morning, only morning.

In God’s world it is morning only; in man’s world it is evening only. In man’s world morning comes only to bring evening; birth happens only to move toward death. Here even birth is one step toward death; even pleasure is only a preparation for pain. In God’s world there is no evening—he is ever-present.

There, the veil is lifted; here, the curtains fall—
The radiance of his unveiling makes our eyes close.

Whom do you await? It is his splendor everywhere. Whom do you seek? Perhaps his very radiance has made you close your eyes.

There, the veil is lifted; here, the curtains fall—
The radiance of his vision makes the eyes shut.

You cannot bear his light—you close your eyes. The day you can bear it, you will spot him hidden in pebbles and stones. Taking them as mere stones, you have shut your eyes. Open them again. Open your eyes; come to vision.

Those who have found him say: there are two sorrows in life—one before finding him, one after. The former is negative; the latter is creative, sweet with flavor. Thus Narada says: the devotee prays, “Do not erase my separation.” This is the pain after knowing. A play begins: he loses and finds again; closes his eyes, then opens again.

Have you noticed? When a wondrous moment dawns—a deep morning, the sun rises, the atmosphere is sweet—you look, then close your eyes a moment and open again. You close them so that it be lost and the eyes be fresh, and then you look again.

Those who have found the divine say: two sorrows. The one before finding was barren, like a desert. The one after—because with finding arises an insatiable thirst. This is not something that ever completes. God is not such that you say “Got it, finished.” No: the ocean is endless; there is no far shore.

A lack has come upon me that the outward world cannot even sense—
Such is the sense of you I miss.

But that is after knowing. Before knowing, we have no idea what we are losing. We don’t know we are emperors wandering like beggars. After knowing—

A lack has come upon me that the outward world cannot even sense.
Without you, the color of the rose has gone pale;
The jasmine buds have turned dusky without you.
Where yesterday every particle was an embracing Sinai,
Today this house holds no light without you.
Even the heart no longer bows in prayer as it once did—
The play of worship stays incomplete without you.

So much so that even prayer no longer absorbs the mind. One who has had a glimpse of the divine—then even in prayer his absence aches.

Even the heart no longer bows in prayer as it once did—
The play of worship stays incomplete without you.

No one outside may see it. Finding God is not like acquiring something in the world—a house built and done, a marriage arranged and done. With God, only the beginning happens; it never ends. That is why I say: morning only, no evening. The journey begins but never ends. You wade into the ocean, but no shore is found. On one side, a pain pricks—more, deeper; a divine discontent arises. On the other, glimpses come from all sides: again and again a breeze blows with his scent.

Whenever spring lights lamps in the garden,
From the throng of flowers, your warmth reaches me.

Life everywhere begins to give the warmth of him. Every breath is his breath; the blood coursing in the heart—his. So on one side, news of him arrives from everywhere; on the other, you yearn for more, and more—no far shore appears.

The devotee, on finding God, falls into an even deeper longing. This is the paradox of devotion. Those who have not found sometimes cry for him; those who have found—you cannot imagine their weeping. They weep unceasingly. Not sometimes, but always. Not that they chant, yet the chant continues; deep in the heart a call goes on.

God is an infinite journey, a pilgrimage toward which we move but never arrive. He is not a “destination.” We move toward him, but never comes a day when we say, “Now there is no farther.” If it were otherwise, calling him “infinite” would be meaningless. If there is no farther, then God too is finished. No—there is always more. This is the dilemma and the good fortune. Otherwise, think: once found, what would you do—sit bored and weary? “Now what? Where shall I go? What shall I become? Whom shall I seek?”

He is infinite. New peaks call daily; fresh challenges arise. He keeps calling; you keep drawing near—and yet you never quite touch.

“You say: I have come to your refuge; accept me! Lest I miss!”
There is no way to miss. Yes, you can go on believing that you have missed. The day you know, you will laugh—laugh at your own folly: how did I ever believe I was missing the divine? How was it possible that I did not see he is always, everywhere, present?

Kabir says: I laugh to see the fish thirsty in the ocean. The fish thirsty in the ocean—searching the sea: where is it? The divine is so near that there is no room left to “seek.” The fish is made of the ocean, born in it. The ocean surges as waves within and without the fish; at last she dissolves back into it. A fish is a wave of the sea—somewhat denser, lasting a little longer; more frolicsome than the waves perhaps—but still a wave of the sea.

So don’t be anxious. There is no way to miss. What I am explaining is not a method to attain God; I am only showing you how to drop the devices by which you go on missing. People usually say, “Give us a method to attain God.” I say: the method I give is not for attaining him—because he has never been lost. Don’t bring me such nonsense. If a fish asked me, “Where is the sea?” I wouldn’t answer—why enter a foolish discussion? She is already ignorant; she is trying to make me ignorant too. I would rather inquire: how did this fish forget? How did she remain unacquainted? Her unfamiliarity is to be broken.

We need not “make acquaintance” with God; we need to break the habits that keep us unfamiliar. Lift the veils we have thrown over our eyes. The divine’s face has no veil; our eyes are veiled. Roam to Kashi or to Kaba—no difference. Your eye’s veil will remain around you birth after birth.

So do not even ask, “What if I miss?” There is no way to miss. No one has ever missed. Yes, if you insist on believing you have missed, what can even the ocean do? How is the sea to convince the fish, “I am here”? If the fish’s whim is to miss, let her miss.

And you say, “I have come to your refuge; accept me.” If rejection were possible, then acceptance would be meaningful. People ask me, “You give sannyas to anyone who comes.” What should I do? There is no way to reject. Whom should I reject? I would give it even to those who have not come—but what to do? If someone comes, how can refusal arise? Even before your coming, you were accepted. It isn’t that I think case-by-case whom to accept; acceptance is my very disposition. How could I judge one by one? Acceptance is my state. I have no way to reject. The decision is yours, one-sided. Accept me or reject me—that is your affair. From my side you are accepted, whether you accept or reject.

And don’t worry. If thirst has arisen, water will come. Knowers say, the water must have come first—hence the thirst. They say: before God sends a child, he fills the mother’s breasts with milk. It is a daily miracle we do not see. The mother conceives, the child begins to grow; he has not yet arrived, not yet ready to drink—but the milk is ready, the breasts fill. When he comes, he comes; but the divine makes preparations beforehand.

So it is in all of life. You run around needlessly, making noise. A clever fetus would worry endlessly: “What happens after birth? No bank balance, no acquaintances. A strange world—what language, what people?” If he were “sensible” like some, he would prefer to stay put: “All is fine here; why the trouble? When hungry, who will give milk? When thirsty, who will give water?” In the womb even breath is taken by the mother; oxygen reaches him through her; he feeds on her food.

But he does not know: the One who made him has arranged everything. Before he comes, milk is ready.

Psychologists ask: why the male’s strong attraction to a woman’s breasts? Poetry is full of it; stories circle around it. Why? It is the divine’s arrangement: before becoming a father, the man unconsciously seeks the mother with “right” breasts for his child. Nature’s design. For if the breasts are not healthy and full, the child will starve. So the man seeks the woman with full, well-formed breasts; she appears beautiful. Behind the scene, nature is arranging that this woman can mother your child; it is ensuring the child’s survival, while you imagine you are arranging beauty. Those women whose breasts are not proper will gradually be selected out; they will not find husbands, will not bear children; they will slowly disappear.

If you grasp life’s secret, you’ll see: before the thirst, the water is prepared; before the breath, the air is ready. One who understands this—a trust dawns in his life.

It cannot be that the goblet arrives and the wine does not;
The wine will also come, O ‘Adam,’ now that the crystal has come.

Once the cups have arrived, the wine must come. So if the longing to seek the divine has arisen—do not fear; you are on the path, facing the right direction. Now don’t be afraid; let the thirst seize you like a storm, a whirlwind. Let the thirst become your wings. Let it churn into fire and burn your ego to ash.

It cannot be that the goblet arrives and the wine does not;
The wine will also come, O ‘Adam,’ now that the crystal has come.

Look—do you or do you not see that my nose is intact? For that story to apply, I would have to be noseless first! I neither wear ochre robes nor have a mala hanging from my neck. I haven’t had my own nose cut; why would I cut yours?
So the story doesn’t apply here.
Yes, the friend who has asked should first feel his nose and check. Perhaps there is no nose left now to have cut! Perhaps you already had it cut earlier! Because I hardly come near a man who isn’t already noseless. If you are a Hindu, you’ve already had your nose cut! The Hindus have even had their hands cut off. If you are a Muslim, you’ve had it cut too—if not in the temple, then in the mosque. If you are a Jain, you’re sitting there with it cut as well.
This question must be from someone noseless, who has had it cut somewhere and is all in a flutter about it. Or else it must be from a person whose ego sits on his nose.

Have you seen the nose of an egotist! An egotist speaks the language of the nose. His whole ego sits on the nose. If the ego is perched on your nose and that’s what’s making you restless, then cut it off. No bamboo, no flute! If there is no nose, there will be no place left for the ego to sit. Just cut it off, dear!

There must be some deep snag for the questioner. I know, such a snag happens. There are so many people here in saffron robes. So many here in the garb of sannyas—when you come like a non-sannyasin, you feel inferior. Just yesterday, Lakshmi was telling me that in the office people come to her and say, “In white clothes we feel like strangers here—outsiders, left out.” Naturally. This is a family. This is my family. It’s not merely a question of clothes; clothes are only an indication, a gesture. Those who have accepted the saffron robes have simply said, by this gesture, that now we are in accord with you. It is just a feeling-gesture. They have said, “Now we drop our argument, our debate—wherever you lead, we will go; if you lead us into a ditch, we will go into the ditch; if you lead us astray, we will wander, but we will wander with you.” Those who have chosen me have chosen not because I will surely deliver them to the right place—how could one know that until one arrives! There is no way to know it beforehand. Those who have chosen me have chosen with the understanding that even if reaching the right place were possible without this man, still, we will not go without this man. If he leads into a ditch, then into the ditch with him. They have dropped their habit of private thinking, that personal pride of “I think.” Clothes are secondary. What is there in clothes? Has anyone ever become a sannyasin through clothes! But they are a pointer, and pointers should be understood.

It so happened that one evening there was a gathering of Ramakrishna’s. People were sitting. Some gentleman of just this type—like the one who has asked this question—turned up there. Such people turn up everywhere. It’s a wonder why such people keep wandering about! Stay at home! If you want to save your nose, stay at home; wandering here and there, you might get it cut! Some fervor may seize you, some craze may catch you; in some emotional surge you may get it cut—and then you’ll repent!

A “knower” arrived at Ramakrishna’s gathering. He was a pandit, learned in the scriptures. Ramakrishna was saying that great realization happens through the sound of Om. The learned man got stuck. He said, “Wait!” Because the learned man knew that Ramakrishna is uneducated, has no idea of the scriptures, is just blabbering; he doesn’t know Sanskrit, he just keeps saying anything! He wanted to show off his knowledge. He said, “What is there in words! Om is only a word—what can be in it? How will self-knowledge happen through it?”

He was saying something that, on the face of it, had a point, but the man himself had no substance. Ramakrishna looked at him and sat silently. He began quoting the scriptures even more loudly, piling on citations. About half an hour passed. Then all at once Ramakrishna shouted, “Silence, you son of an owl! Absolutely silent! If you utter one more word, it won’t be good for you.”

“Son of an owl” is what I am saying—Ramakrishna used an even weightier abuse. Ramakrishna was not one for small, petty talk; when he abused, it was solid cash! The man was startled; he flared up at once! Anger filled his eyes! Heat surged. It was a cold winter evening, and he was drenched in sweat. But he didn’t dare move, because Ramakrishna had shouted so forcefully, and if he made a fuss there would be fisticuffs; everyone there was a devotee of Ramakrishna. Then Ramakrishna resumed explaining about Om... Five to seven minutes later he looked at the man and said, “Great sir! Forgive me. I said that only to see whether words have any effect or not! You are absolutely aflame. If ‘son of an owl’ has such an effect, just think of Om! You are sweating all over, ready to kill or be killed. Say thank you that people are present, otherwise you would have jumped at my throat. Your hands and feet are trembling. A mere phrase—‘son of an owl’—worked like a mantra. Just think! Your scriptures didn’t help you. At least remember what you yourself were saying—‘What is there in words!’”

You ask, “What is there in clothes?” You ask, “What is there in the mala?” Son of an owl! Think a little, reflect a little!

As man is, he lives by small things. Your personality is a composite of tiny, petty details. The one who has accepted the saffron robe knows, better than you, that clothes by themselves will do nothing; but he has taken a step; he has mustered some courage in the direction of being; he has dared to be a little mad. To walk with me is to dare to be mad. Because to walk with me means there will be difficulty in society, difficulty in the family. If you are a husband, the wife will make trouble. If you are a wife, the husband will make trouble. If you are a father, the children will make trouble.

Sannyasins come to me and say, “Our sons tell us: ‘Father, wear these clothes only at home, that’s fine, because at school other children laugh at us—what has happened to your father? He used to be normal; what craze has seized him!’” Wives come to me and say, “We have to live in society; at least do this much, that on occasions like weddings the husband does not turn up in saffron—otherwise the bridegroom is pushed to one side and he looks like the bridegroom! And the women laugh: What has happened to him!”

Standing with me is not going to give you any relief! I will put you into difficulty. This is only the beginning of putting you into difficulty. As soon as I find that your finger is in my hand, I will catch hold of your wrist. This is just the beginning. Wait and watch what happens next!

No, there is no reason at all to worry. Yes, there is a crowd of thoughts. Getting free is not easy. But because it is not easy, do not conclude that the crowd of thoughts is very powerful. No! It feels difficult because you have started fighting the crowd of thoughts—there is the mistake. The power is not in the thoughts; it is in your wrong approach.

As if a room were filled with darkness and you tried to shove it out by pushing. Darkness will not leave that way; so you will feel the darkness is very strong, very powerful. It is true: push at it for lifetimes and it will not go. But that does not mean darkness is powerful. It only shows that pushing is not the right method. Put the same energy you use for pushing into lighting a lamp. Look for a lamp. A small lamp, a small wick—and the darkness will be gone. Darkness does not go by pushing, because darkness is not a thing. How will you push what is not? It has no power. Its “strength” lies precisely in its nonexistence. If it were a chair or a piece of furniture, you could drag it out. If it were husband or wife, you could even push them out! But how will you push out darkness? Light the lamp! Arrange rightly! Find the proper means!

Thoughts are like darkness. You will not be able to push them out. The more you push, the more powerful they will seem, and the weaker you will feel. You will lose every time; confidence will evaporate. Then you will cry, scream, shout. What will that do? Nothing. Darkness does not listen to crying or shouting. Darkness understands only one language—the language of light. Thoughts too understand only one language—the language of witnessing.

Be a witness! However often it is said, it is still too little: be a witness! There can be no exaggeration here. Witnessing is the one key. Do not fight thoughts—watch them. Let them move; what harm do they do? Let them pass as the road carries on—cars pass, buses pass, bullock carts pass, good and bad people pass, devils and sages pass—the road goes on; you sit by the roadside and watch it flowing by. Just as a road moves outside, so the caravan of thoughts moves within; but it too is outside you. It is within the body, but outside you. You are the consciousness that sees thoughts moving.

Drop identification! Stand a little apart and keep watching, watching, watching—do not take even so much interest as to want to separate them. Even that much interest becomes a snag; a relationship forms.

Relationships are formed not only with friends but with enemies as well. You relate with whom you are for; you also relate with whom you are against—opposition is also a bond. Do not relate. This is the very meaning of witnessing: non-relationship, non-attachment. Stand apart and keep watching. As if you sit on a mountaintop and down in the valleys caravans of people pass by; let them pass—what have they to do with you? Outside a cuckoo calls, a dog will bark, a crow will caw—this does not obstruct you. You do not beat your head, “What to do, this dog is barking!” You do not lament, “This crow is caw-cawing!” Your mind too is caw-cawing, barking—let it bark! Step a little away from it. Step a little further back. And there is no difficulty in stepping back, because your nature is beyond the mind.

So arriving can happen this very moment; why talk of a whole life, why worry about future births! And remember, my help is fully available to you—there is not the slightest lack in it. But what will my help do by itself? I can indicate, but you will have to walk. I can prescribe the medicine, but you will have to drink it. I can diagnose, but nothing will happen from my diagnosis alone. I can even give you the medicine, but even that will do nothing by itself. You will have to use it; only then will the disease be cut at the root. I am speaking of witnessing; that is the remedy. Use it.

And remember—
Behind every lamp,
darkness is indispensable.
Without density the slight and tenuous
cannot expand;
Without the ambience of emptiness,
no form can be set.
Behind every lamp
darkness is indispensable.

Darkness is not your enemy. Light a small lamp and even darkness will become a delight. The velvet blanket of darkness makes light blaze a thousandfold. That is why stars are not visible in the day—they are in their places; they have not gone anywhere; they have neither slept nor been lost; they are where they always are. The entire sky is full of stars, just as at night, but you cannot see them; they need the background of darkness. When darkness gathers, stars shine forth. They never shine as they do on the night of the new moon.

So look at life with a creative vision. Do not fight by saying, “There is something bad here.” Take what is bad as a background; and light the lamp of what is auspicious—and then you will find even the inauspicious is supporting the auspicious, darkness is making the lamp luminous.

Then thoughts too become the background for meditation. Then sin becomes the background for virtue. And then the world becomes a means for the search for the divine. Then the body becomes a temple of the soul.

My entire approach is non-condemnatory. To condemn anything only means you have not learned how to use it; you have not understood what to do with it. The stone you took as an obstacle on the path could have been carved into a deity. The stone you took as a stumbling block could have become a step. You sat down, called it a stone, and began to weep. I say, see a step—climb! I say, do not be angry at a rough, uncut stone; pick up the chisel and shape it!

There is nothing in life that is useless. Even sin has a use, because from it the fragrance of virtue arises. Thought has a use; otherwise how would you become thought-free? The world is needed; otherwise how would you seek truth? Wandering is necessary; otherwise how would you arrive? Once a creative spirit enters your life and you see the creative value in everything, you will find you have begun to use everything.

Even garbage is not to be thrown away; it too can be used. But you have been taught for centuries—this is wrong, that is wrong, this is wrong; right and wrong have been set up as opposites, as enemies; Rama and Ravana have been made to fight; God and the devil split apart; sin and virtue, day and night as enemies—and it is from this feeling of enmity that your trouble arises.

I tell you, day and night are not enemies; they are parts of the same play. Rama and Ravana are not enemies; otherwise the story of Rama could not be.

You have seen in the Ram Lila! Onstage they stand with bow and arrows, fighting; behind the curtain Rama and Ravana sit gossiping, sipping tea. Behind the curtain of life I have seen the same. Those who appear to enact enmity on the front stage are sitting embracing behind. And it should be so; otherwise life would fracture and scatter.

Who holds it together? With what cement are the bricks of life joined? How do the auspicious and inauspicious stand together? The saint and the sinner—how are they bound together? They are united. And once you understand this, tension subsides. Then you will see that if there is some obstacle, the deficiency is in my understanding.

I have heard: a woman became obsessed with learning the sitar. On the very first day she wanted Megh Malhar to happen. On the first day she wanted the birds and beasts to gather. Again and again she went to the window to see—none had come yet! No crowd gathered. On the contrary, the husband sitting at home went out. The children making a racket at home vanished; even the neighbors shut their doors. She concluded there must be something wrong with the sitar. She phoned the shop she bought it from: “Send someone, there is some fault in the sitar.” A man came, tapped and checked everything and said, “It is perfectly fine.” He had barely reached back when she phoned again: “How did it go bad so quickly?” He said, “If you do not play it, everything remains fine; it is when you play that everything goes wrong!” Then he understood. He asked, “Devi! Do you know how to play?”

It is not the sitar’s fault—do you know how to play?

It is said that supreme musicians—those who master the art—can make even utensils sing like a sitar; rubbles and pebbles struck together produce ascending and descending notes. The sitar is not at fault. Nowhere is life at fault. You have not learned to play. Give some care to learning to play. And the first principle of playing is: acceptance. Everything that existence—God—has given has some use; in existence nothing can be useless. Why would it be there otherwise? If it were, existence would not be existence; it would be chaos. Everything is useful. Do not rush to cut and hammer away, “This is wrong, throw it out; that is wrong, separate it.”

Take anger, for instance: if you cut anger out—today science has ways of cutting certain glands in the body so a person’s anger is finished. Some glands can be cut and sexual desire ends. You see how a bull becomes an ox! Cut a gland—so simple. Then why make such a fuss about celibacy? It happens so easily that a bull becomes an ox before your eyes. Cut a few glands. Anger too has glands; it has hormones—cut them! If not today, then tomorrow, there is the danger that governments will cut out people’s glands for anger and rebellion. Then there will be no noise. No strikes. No revolt, no uprising, no revolution.

But consider: when the gland of anger is removed from a person’s life, compassion does not arise—only the absence of anger happens. That person’s life becomes worse than before. Now there is no anger either. Dry, arid—nothing stirs him anymore, but compassion is not born. Because compassion is born when you learn to play the veena of anger.

If you smash the veena of anger, anger will not be there, true—but neither will music. If you throw the veena away, discord will not be created, but music will not be created either. If you break anger, anger will not arise—but compassion will not arise either, because compassion is the music of that very veena. Trained hands, disciplined hands play compassion on the same veena—Buddha, Mahavira—on which you play anger. Trained hands play thoughtlessness with the same life-energy in which you get entangled in thoughts. Trained hands find the bodiless within this very body in which you only encounter bones, flesh, and marrow. Remember, the fault is not in the instrument.

There is no reason to miss; you only need to tune the instrument a little.

“Bedar”—He displays hundreds upon hundreds of splendors at every moment;
Even then, if you do not see, the fault is yours.

The divine is dancing around you in countless ways!

“Bedar”—He displays hundreds upon hundreds of splendors at every moment.
Even then, if you do not see, the fault is yours.
And as I see it, this is not just one person’s question—‘Ishwar Babu’ has asked it—but it belongs to everyone. As I see it, everyone is sitting right in front of the goal, weeping: “Where is the destination? Which path should we take?”
Lament for that helpless traveler
who, exhausted, sits down at the very threshold of the destination.

Looking at you, laughter comes—and tears too. Tears, because you are so troubled. Laughter, because the trouble is unnecessary. The door is right before you. You have sat down, tired, on the very threshold of the goal. There is nowhere to go by walking, nowhere even to get up and go—because the destination is not outside you; it is within you. It is your nature, your very being.

Practice a little witnessing! The veena will begin to sound melodious. The strings will come into harmony. Practice a little witnessing, and music will arise! As you refine it, the music will become ever more sweet, more subtle. And a moment comes when even the music of emptiness is heard. That moment will come, because I see you sitting right in front of the goal.

I cannot be indulgent. If I am, I won’t be able to bring you to the path. Many times one has to be strict. Many times one has to give you a deep jolt.
Zen masters keep a staff. They strike their disciples on the head with it.
I too have a staff—subtle, not so gross. When it seems you are drifting into sleep, a blow has to be given. So “unsentimental” is perfectly right: because there is love for you, I must be unsentimental. Because there is love, I must awaken you. And grant that at times when I wake you, you are seeing a sweet dream—then of course you get upset.

“Unfaithful, heartless”—right. The closer you come to me, the more I will step back, because I have to draw you further on. Hence many times I will appear unfaithful. I will call you near and then move away. I will call—and when you start walking, you will find I am no longer standing where the call came from.
So many friends feel troubled with me. They say, “By the time we agree to one thing, you have moved on; you are saying something else!”

I will have to do this every day. Because I have to take you there—to that no-destination—that place beyond which there is no further goal. And even at the final moment I will have to step out from between you and That, because I am your door, your doorway; not your destination.
Guru means the doorway—the guru-dwara. The guru’s only meaning is that he points you toward the Divine and then withdraws. In the last hour I too will withdraw. When you are on the verge of arriving, I must step aside. Otherwise I become a wall for you, not a door. Then I would block you from God. So I must be “unfaithful.”

“Believe it or not: my killer is you”—I accept it. This trade itself is the trade of being a killer.

He who halted me at love’s destination—
Who knows—was he a guide or a bandit?

He who halted me at love’s destination—
Who knows—was he a guide or a bandit?

It’s hard to decide. For only the one who can rob you can bring you to love’s destination. There the guide and the robber are one and the same.

My whole effort is to erase you—so that you may be! To break your ego—so your egolessness may be freed, may arise! Only when the chain of ego breaks can the freedom of egolessness appear. But if for lives on end you have lived in chains, you have come to regard chains as ornaments. So when I break your ornaments—I understand them as chains, you take them as jewels—you feel, “We came to a master, and he turned out to be a killer. We were looking for someone to console us; he snatched away every consolation. We were seeking someone to add a little more embellishment to our finery.” But what you call ornaments are not ornaments. And what you now take to be “you” is not you at all—that must be slain—unsentimentally! No pity can be shown to it! It has to be erased. That alone has shackled your feet.

“When I breathe I feel it within me:
I know you alone are worthy to be kept in the heart.
I have no sorrow though I clash with a hundred storms—
I am that boat whose very shore is you.”

What sorrow is there in clashing with storms? Only by striking the storm does one reach the shore. Around the shore are storms; around storms is the shore. In truth the shore is hidden within the storm.

Ask the reason I drowned:
My skiff had struck the shore.

Ask the reason I drowned—
My skiff had struck the shore!

What kind of shore is it that does not break your boat? What kind of shore is it that does not free you from your boat? The boat is for the river. The shore will free you from the boat; it will break the boat. What kind of goal is that which, once attained, does not make the road disappear! What has been traveled must vanish; otherwise the possibility remains of turning back upon it.

So the further you advance, the more I will break your boat. When I see the shore is near, the boat must be shattered completely. Otherwise there is the fear you will once again board the boat of desires.

And remember: the very boat that brought you from that shore to this can carry you from this shore back to that. The boat is the same; only the direction changes. The ladder that takes you up can also take you down. Therefore the wise, on reaching above, break the ladder.

“When I breathe I feel it within me:
I know you alone are worthy to be kept in the heart.”

How long will you go on merely knowing this, Taru? Keep me! How long will you waste time in the business of knowing? Let it not happen that the matter remains only at the level of “knowing.” Turn it into “being”! When something feels worthy to be kept in the heart, do not think. Do not lose a moment in thought—keep it!

“Once, with a sudden thud, breath entered the heart and never came out again—
What a hunter’s art this soundless arrow is!”

When something is entering the heart, let it go in like an arrow. Do not think. In thinking, the arrow will go astray. Everything has its ripe moment, its season. What can happen now can happen only now; tomorrow it may not. And what could not ripen now—how will it ripen tomorrow? It will go stale. So whatever feels fit to be kept in the heart, keep it! If there is no room, throw the heart out! Make space!

Being with me has only one meaning: learn the art of dissolving. It is not that I intend to dwell in your heart; that is only a means for the in-between. Just a pretext. I am enticing you: let it be by this excuse if you must, but let your heart be dropped, let it be broken! For my sake, fine—make room! And when there is space, I will not sit there. When space opens, it is there that the Divine takes His seat. Kabir says:

“Guru and Govind stand before me—whose feet shall I touch?”

Whose feet should I hold! Both are standing together; whose feet should I touch first? Let there not be any disrespect, any breach of courtesy.

“Guru and Govind stand before me—whose feet shall I touch?”

He must have been in a real quandary. It ordinarily doesn’t happen. When the Guru is there, Govind is not; when Govind is there, the Guru is not. Yet there is one moment when both stand together. It happens once. First the Guru is given a place. Slowly the Guru sits in the heart, deeper and deeper; then one day the Guru withdraws—that day Govind arrives. As the Guru is leaving, Govind is coming. There is one instant when the Guru is going and God is arriving—then both stand together.

“Guru and Govind stand before me—whose feet shall I touch?”

Then Kabir says, “I touched the Guru’s feet.

“Blessed is the Guru—he showed me Govind.”

This has two meanings, both important. One simple meaning: when Kabir fell into perplexity, the Guru pointed to Govind, “Touch Govind’s feet.”

“Blessed is the Guru—he freed me from this worry. He said, don’t bother about me—bow to Govind.”

The second, deeper meaning: “Blessed are you, O Guru—you showed me Govind.” Kabir says, “I will touch your feet, for blessed are you who revealed Govind to me. As for Govind’s feet—now I shall remain there forever, forever; but your feet I shall not meet again.”

The Guru is going; Govind is coming. The Guru takes leave.

The true Master is the one who erases you, who sits upon the throne of your heart—only until you are ready, until the throne is ready—and then withdraws. The false master is the one who pushes you aside, sits on your throne and never moves; who says, “Forget this talk of God!” Then you are freed from one entanglement only to fall into another. You left your own tangle to land in someone else’s. Better the first snare at least—it was yours.

“I have no sorrow though I clash with a hundred storms—
I am that boat whose very shore is you.”

There is only one storm—and that storm is unconsciousness. There is only one gale, one whirlwind—and that gale, that whirlwind is stupor, heedlessness, the sleep-like state. Clash with it directly! It is by colliding with sleep that awakening happens. In that very collision, that very friction, awakening is born. That awakening is the shore.

I say, whatever there is—share it. If there is dance, then dance. If there is song, then song. If there is ecstasy, then ecstasy. And if silence is growing dense, then share silence! Share your silence too.

Silence is a great wealth. There is a bliss greater than bliss: the bliss of silence! There is a dance deeper than dance: the dance of silence. There is a song beyond song, a song deeper than any song: the song of silence—share it!

Silence does not mean you sit hoarding it. That would be miserliness with silence.

Remember, even the auspicious can be done in such a way that it turns inauspicious, and the inauspicious can be done in such a way that it turns auspicious—this is the whole art. The one who has learned this art has known religion.

One kind of silence is the silence of miserliness. One kind of silence is shutting yourself off: “Get away from everyone”—a silence that breaks connection with all. Become a monad, a Leibnizian monad. Close all doors, shut all windows. Let no air come in, no light come in; let your voice reach nobody and nobody’s voice reach you. That silence will be the silence of the cremation ground. Its quality is different; it is not wholesome. It is a death-like silence, and it will give off the stench of a decaying corpse.

That is why when you go to many renouncers, ascetics, “silence-keepers,” monks, you find only the rot of a corpse. Silence did not flower there; it did not become a blossom. Silence remained only an absence. There silence meant merely that they do not speak. What kind of silence is it that cannot speak? Silence speaks—silence speaks even through silence.

So beware: let silence not become merely “not speaking.” Otherwise the same will happen as when you cut anger off or suppress the knot of lust. If the knot of lust is cut, then the very possibility of true celibacy also disappears. If anger is cut off, compassion does not arrive. Do not make such a silence that you are merely adamant about not speaking. Then life in you will begin to rot; its flow will stop. You will become a stagnant pond, no longer a river. Very soon it will turn to sludge; very soon you will decay in your own repression. Because life is in relationship.

No worry—there are a thousand ways to speak. Speaking is not everything! If you just take someone’s hand, have you not spoken? If you look at someone with brimming eyes, have you not spoken? If you sit by someone in silence—but not closed; open, flowing—have you not spoken? In truth, whatever is essential in life is spoken in just this way. When two lovers are in deep love, they fall silent. When lovers start chatting, understand that they have become husband and wife. Husband and wife cannot sit silent, because if they sit silent both become closed; then both feel heavy. So the wife begins: “Why are you so quiet? What do you mean by this?”—say anything! Keep talking, so that their deadness and their boredom do not get exposed. They talk by effort. Even when they do not want to, they talk. They bring in anything—news, gossip—and set it going. The wife has no taste for it; the husband has no taste for it; neither is listening, neither is truly speaking—only the tongue moves. They weave a net of words around them so that the illusion does not break, the delusion does not dissolve, so that it does not become obvious that they are broken and separate.

A friend of mine used to go to the Himalayas. He said to me, “Come along.” I said, “You go to the Himalayas—good. But you are going as husband and wife; why drag me in between? My being there will be a hindrance.” He said, “What are you saying! It’s been thirty years since we married—what hindrance now? The state now is that if there is no third person present, we don’t know what to do! That’s why we’re requesting you to come—then there will be some flavor. One or another person we have to take along.”

Husband and wife always take someone else along; between the two, a bridge is needed so that conversation can flow. Is this speaking any real speaking? But two lovers simply sit. They watch the moon in the sky, or listen to the whisper of the wind, or silently gaze at the stars. They say nothing. Yet they are open; they flow into each other, their energies mingle. There is union—a profound lovemaking on a deep plane—and yet, silence.

Words get in the way. When a lover keeps saying to his beloved again and again, “I love you,” understand that love has gone—only talk remains. Now, because love is absent, he has to compensate with speech. If love is there, it is enough; there is no need to say it.

So I tell you: let silence come—but alive, flowing. Let your current not be cut off. Do not close; open. Then even silence can be shared.

What I am saying to you now—do you think I am speaking? I am sharing my silence. Because you cannot directly understand my silence, I share it riding on words. What comes mounted upon the words is silence. Look at the rider—do not keep looking only at the horse. See what rides upon the words! What I want to give you is not the words; what I want to give you is my silence.

So share silence. Can anything that is alive be hidden? If the silence is living, it starts becoming visible; it condenses. Wherever you pass, another will startle and begin to listen to the silence from up close.

“Bedar! Can anything you hide truly be hidden?
The signs of love are evident upon your face.”

Can love ever be concealed? Hide it as much as you will—the glint of the eye, the hue and demeanor of the face, the smile upon the lips; how will you hide it? The rhythm of your walk, the grace of your movements—around a lover it is as if subtle anklets are always chiming!

“Bedar! Can anything you hide truly be hidden?
The signs of love are evident upon your face.”

Silence cannot be hidden either. Nor can the Divine be hidden. Even if you sit silently, it begins to reveal itself.

“We were silent—but now, in the hands of the morning breeze,
the fragrance of your beauty spreads everywhere.”

When one becomes available to God—to that supreme peace, that utter stillness—then even if he sits silently, what difference does it make?

“We were silent—but now, in the hands of the morning breeze…”
—we were just sitting quietly, but the cool winds of dawn arrived; what can we do?

“…the fragrance of your beauty spreads everywhere.”
—and the breeze carried the perfume of your beauty, spreading it far and wide.

When Buddha attained the ultimate, they say he sat silent for seven days. But the gods rushed down from the heavens. Word had somehow reached: something has happened on earth! Existence has taken on a new color! Existence has danced a new dance! A peak has arisen in existence—a Gaurishankar! The gods came running. He remained silent. They bowed, placed their heads at his feet, and said, “Please speak!” Buddha said, “But how did you come to know? I am absolutely silent. I haven’t spoken for seven days. And I have decided not to speak. What is the use of speaking? Those who are to understand will understand without speech; those who are not to understand—will they understand even if I speak? But tell me—how did news reach you?” The gods said, “What are you saying! This is a kind of event that, when it happens, word spreads by itself. You sit quietly; soon you will see paths forming towards you, people coming to you. They will make you speak; your compassion will have to speak. How can you be that hard? We ourselves have come—from so far, from the heavens! Someone has fallen silent; something has happened!”

Have you ever experienced silence? Silence is a dense presence. A train roars past; have you noticed how thick the silence becomes after it is gone? A storm comes with a great clamor; when the storm passes, what a dense calm remains! When a person like Buddha becomes still—when a storm of centuries, the gale of births upon births that kept blowing suddenly ceases—will the gods not get the news? Merely by his becoming silent, the news spreads.

Share whatever is there. If silence is forming, it is auspicious. Do not close; keep silence in relationship. Sometimes invite your friends: “Come, we’ll sit together in silence.” Whoever is ready for silent sitting will come. Take a hand in your hand; together have a good cry, or a good laugh. Do not speak. Then you will discover a new doorway of relatedness. You will have touched another’s consciousness in a different way, and you will have given the other a chance to relate in a new way—beyond words.

“A deep silence is encircling. I sit in a corner and watch the play of existence.”

Share your watching. In the very way you gaze, invite someone: “Come, partake of my vision.” That is why I have been calling you here. I keep calling—people come from far-off lands; there is no corner of the earth from which they have not come. I want to make you participants in my vision. I want you to peek through my eyes for a while. What I have seen, let a little of it be seen by you. Then you can find your own eyes. Once you have had the taste, you will find the way.

“And when the time comes, I will dissolve into it.”

The time will come—it has already come. Share! Sharing itself is the process of dissolving.

“What is left with me?” When nothing is left, then what remains is the treasure. A Zen mendicant was walking down a road. He was a strong man, very powerful. Two bandits attacked him—scrawny, wretched fellows; otherwise what would they be—bandits are the wretched who become bandits. He seized both by the neck, lifted them up, and was just about to knock their heads together when a thought occurred: “Poor fellows! They have nothing.” He put them down. They stood there, startled, on their guard, not knowing what would happen next. Then he gave them everything he had. They ran off with it. And the fakir burst into laughter. They turned back and came to him. “Master, why are you laughing? You are a strange man! We thought we were dead when you brought our heads close—we thought we were finished! Yet you let us go. We didn’t even ask—you were about to let us run, and then you gave us whatever you had. Now why are you laughing?”

The fakir said, “Today for the first time I came to know what is truly mine, what none can take. What was fit to be taken, fit to be given, I gave to you. Today I stand naked. Today only that remains which no one can take and no one can give. Today only pure existence remains.”

Mahavira gave that pure existence the name atman—the soul.

Lose! What is going to be lost anyway—lose it with your own hands. What death will snatch, give it away yourself, so that when death comes it has nothing left to snatch. Let there be nothing with you that can be taken away. Before death, whatever can be taken, distribute it.

Do not cling! Let go! Then you will see: death will come, but it will not be able to kill you. Death happens only because you are clutching what can be seized. When death snatches that, you think you have died. The one who has already let go—death comes and goes empty-handed. There is nothing to take. What remains is that which cannot be snatched—your nature, your dharma, the God within you.

Enough for today.