Jyoti Se Jyoti Jale #6

My message is brief—so brief that all the scriptures can be contained in it. And not just the scriptures of one tradition; the scriptures of all traditions fit into it. Not only the texts of the spiritualists, the texts of the materialists too.

I want to offer a religion equally available to the theist and the atheist. Until now, religions were only available to believers—those who could take things on faith. But what of the one who cannot believe? Will you abandon him? Is there no way for him to reach the divine? Then this earth can never become wholly religious. A lack will always remain. Some people will be compelled to be “irreligious.”

And for the one who can believe, the revolution in his life remains lukewarm—without great energy. In one sense, his revolution is impotent. He can believe, so he believes. There is no struggle in his believing, no adventure, no inquiry into truth.

The real seeker is the one who cannot believe—whose inner voice says “no.” There the revolution happens. Those who became truly religious in this world were precisely those who passed through atheism. Those who began with theism remained flabby, weak, lame in their faith. If humanity has not become truly religious, it is because of this flaccid theism. Believe—fine, if you can. But if you cannot, how will you? Is belief something you do? If it happens, it happens. If it does not, then what? Is the door to the divine closed? That would be unjust.

I want to give a religion that uses both trust and doubt; that says: you can reach through trust and you can reach through doubt—because all roads lead to That.

You have heard—what Ramakrishna said was revolutionary for his time—that a Hindu arrives, a Muslim arrives, a Christian arrives, a Jain arrives. I want to move a step further—say something even more revolutionary: not only the theist arrives there; the atheist arrives too. Ramakrishna did not say this; there he wavered. The Hindu is a theist, the Muslim is a theist, the Christian is a theist—so, yes, theists arrive. But what about the atheist? What about the Charvakas?

And a large portion of the earth is atheist—the majority is atheist. Say what you like—go to temples and mosques, perform worship and say prayers—but if you probe the inner core you will find that the majority of humankind is atheist. And this is natural, not unnatural. How can one believe in what one has not known? How can one accept that with which there has been no direct meeting, no felt connection? To accept it would be a lie. And can a lie lead to the divine?

If you want to reach truth, the first step too must be in truth. You believed because your ancestors said so; you believed because society says so; you believed because your whole environment says so—but you have not known. Your inner vessel remains empty. The whole world says there is God, so you believe; but such belief is false, untrue, a deception, hypocrisy. Hence hypocrisy has piled up in temples and mosques. Priests and pundits serve hypocrisy, not God. I am not saying there are not a few simple ones whose belief is true. There are—but they are rare. And even they are so because, for births upon births, they have said no; they have burned in the fire of denial, walked upon its thorns; negation has refined them. For long, long stretches they were atheists. That very atheism has brought them to a point where, in this life, they are spontaneously theists.

To be spontaneously theistic means that denial no longer arises at all. Such cases are rare. If we base the earth on these exceptions, the earth will remain irreligious.

So the first aphorism of my message: I want to bring religion to the atheist. And I see no reason why not—trust is given by the divine, and so is doubt. Practiced rightly, trust takes you there; practiced rightly, doubt takes you there. The essential thing is rightness, wholeness. If your trust is total, you will arrive. If your doubt is total, you will not remain stuck either. The essential thing is totality, integrality.

Therefore, whoever comes to me, I put no conditions on them. If he is a theist, I welcome him. If he is an atheist, I welcome him. If he says, “I believe in God,” I say, “Let us move into the inquiry.” If he says, “I do not believe in God,” I say, “Let us move into the inquiry of not-believing.” If God is, then even in denying, denying, denying, He will be encountered. If He is, how long can you go on denying? And I know He is. Therefore I have no quarrel with the atheist. Those who fought the atheist perhaps had doubts themselves; because of their own doubt they were tormented by another’s doubt.

Humanity needs a new beginning for transformation. You as you are, where you are, must be accepted. No prior expectations should be imposed on you. Therefore, I do not tell you to believe; I tell you to inquire. And remember: once you have believed, what will you inquire into? Inquiry happens only when neither belief nor disbelief is there. First thing.

Second thing: until now religion has been otherworldly, eager to condemn this world; it has held that the world and nirvana are opposites. I declare: the world itself is nirvana, and the divine is not separate from His creation. The Creator is immersed in His creation, as the dancer is lost in the dance. This world is that world. I do not want to erect any divide between this world and the next.

And the great marvel is: even those who spoke of non-duality created duality. Search deeply and you will find that even Shankara, the great non-dualist, remained dualistic—maya and Brahman; abandon maya and attain Brahman—duality resurrected!

I say to you: maya itself is Brahman. This is the ultimate declaration of non-duality. Maya is not to be abandoned. Dive deep into maya and you will find only Brahman—because He is hidden there. In all this color and melody, it is His image that plays.

Therefore, total acceptance of life is my message. Not a trace of denial, not a trace of negation. I am not eager to search for some other realm. There is none. The “other world” is a web of imagination. Man suffered in this world and could not discover the ways to bliss here; so the hereafter was invented. The hereafter is a subtle self-deception. You are miserable here—somewhere you must hang hope, or how will you live? Here there are thorns all around; far away, in the other world, lotus flowers bloom! And in that hope man keeps dragging on.

I say to you: thorns can be transformed into flowers. Thorns can be turned into blossoms. It all depends on you—on your way of living. This earth becomes heaven. This very earth becomes hell. By your style of living, by the depth of your meditation, by the height of your love—you bring transformation.

There is no other world. It is this world that must be transformed. There is no heaven elsewhere, no hell elsewhere. Hell is the result of living wrongly, of living in unconsciousness. Heaven is the result of living in awareness. But heaven and hell are nowhere else; they are states of your psychology.

All past religions taught man conflict: drop this, cling to that. Wherever conflict is taught, man is split. To split man is to prepare him for madness. Ask the psychologists: humanity is insane. We have turned the earth into a vast madhouse. Some are a little mad, some very mad. The more mad are in the asylum; the less mad are outside it. But there is no fundamental difference—no qualitative difference. Go to the asylum or go to parliament—what difference will you find? The same type of people, the same type of derangement. Derangement has become the norm. Here, health itself is an offense. Here, the healthy man is not liked. So Mansoor is hanged, Socrates is given poison, stones rain upon Buddha.

Man has been split: “There is something low within you, something sinful, something wrong—cut it off. And there is something lofty within you—uncover it.” To fragment man is the greatest sin. I want to make man whole. I say: there is nothing bad within you and nothing good within you—you are pure energy. Energy can manifest in many forms. Energy is a ladder. The lowest rung is connected to the highest; they are not separate, not opposed. They are colors of a single rainbow.

Your lust and your longing for Rama are not separate, not enemies—they are waves of one energy. Your capacity for sex one day becomes samadhi.

If there are not two anywhere in existence, then there is no need to split man into two. The moment you do not divide man, anxiety dissolves. Tension drops to zero. Celebration arises, the dance appears. The moment you do not divide man, samadhi begins to descend.

So, second point: I accept man as whole—just as he is, utterly whole. Those who cut him into pieces did not know the full art of life; they did not know how to weave all energies together into one music. They lacked the insight to make life an orchestra. Naturally, to make life an orchestra—to include many instruments in one symphony—great sensitivity is needed, deep insight is needed: that your body may dance with your mind, your mind with your soul; that your whole triveni may dance with the whole of existence.

Until now religion has been pruning and chopping; it has been breaking man into fragments. I want to join man together. Love is my formula. Hatred divides; love joins. Religions spoke of love, but under the cover of love they taught hatred: “Hate the body, then you will love the soul.” I say: if you cannot even love your body, how will you love your soul? If you cannot love the visible, abandon hope of any connection with the invisible. Love your body too; in that deepening love you will meet the waves of the mind. Love your mind too; in that depth, the eternal bliss of the soul will overflow. Love your soul; and descending through that, you will come to the vision of the divine.

Until now religions have said to you: cut this, cut that. “This leg is not right—break it. This hand is not right—cut it off. The eyes lead to desire—pluck them out. The tongue hankers for taste—cut it.” To call these “religions” is not right. These were wild experiments in the name of religion—crude, uncultured, uncivilized. Man has moved forward. Man has come of age. Now he needs a more vast aura of religion, a new direction.

Kazantzakis’ Zorba and Gautam Buddha—I want to see both together now. I want your life to be a music in which everything is included—nothing forbidden, nothing taboo, nothing thrown away as “sin.” I want to transform the energy of all your so-called sins into the fragrance of virtue. That is what I call an artist, that is what I call wise—one who turns iron into gold, poison into medicine, who squeezes nectar from death.

Because of duality, religions have been based on repression: “Press it down! If there is anger, repress it. If there is sex, repress it.” Repression has been their cornerstone. And remember, the more you repress, the more entangled you become. Nothing ever disappears by repression. Repression worsens things; it does not set them right.

Once, a man checked into a hotel for a night. Only one room was vacant. The manager said, “Better try another hotel. I can give you this room, but the gentleman below is a bit troublesome. If you walk loudly, speak loudly, if there is any noise, if a utensil falls—there will be a scene. So we generally keep this room empty until he leaves.”

The traveler said, “I’ll be out all day. I’ll return at midnight. I have to sleep only four hours, and catch a 5 a.m. train. There’s little chance of any trouble.”

He got the room. At midnight he returned, exhausted. He sat on the bed, took off one shoe, and dropped it. The moment it hit the floor, he remembered the man below—“Don’t wake him; avoid a midnight quarrel.” He set the other shoe down softly—and fell asleep.

An hour later, someone thumped the door. He woke up. The downstairs man stood there—blazing eyes, furious. “What happened to the other shoe? The first fell—I thought, ‘Ah, now the gentleman is back.’ Then the second never fell! I tried hard to ignore it, to tell myself, ‘What is it to me if someone sleeps wearing a single shoe!’ But the second shoe started dangling in my eyes. I saw a man sleeping with one shoe on! I tossed and turned, tried to sleep, chanted God’s name, repeated mantras—nothing worked. The shoe kept dangling. So I came. Kindly tell me what happened to the other shoe—so I can sleep.”

Whatever you repress will dangle in this way. Hence, those who repress sex become filled with sex. Your so-called celibates are filled with nothing but sex. It is no accident that in your sages’ legends, apsaras arrive—dancing naked around them. What apsaras would be bothered! Do not go sit under a tree for a day hoping they will come. If you want to summon apsaras, first pass through the full course of repression; press sex down so hard that your whole being becomes nothing but that urge; let your insides fill with the smoke of lust. Fight sex so fiercely that nothing remains in your memory but sex. Then hallucination will arise. Then go sit in solitude. Then surely the Urvashis will come; they descend from the sky, they dance and tinkle. They will entice you greatly. And there is no one there—only you. What you see is your dream with open eyes.

Psychologists say: if something is repressed long enough, there is no need to close the eyes to dream; the eyes remain open and the dream stands before you—hallucination arises.

Humanity has been taught repression. My message is: no repression. No struggle against your energies. Understand your energies. Befriend your energies. Enmity solves nothing. Fight—and you lose. The way to win is: wake up, understand. Meditate. If there is lust, meditate on lust. If there is lust, move through its process attentively, wakefully, with a lamp in your hand. Very soon you will be free. Then a brahmacharya arises that is not the celibacy of your so-called celibates. The beauty of that brahmacharya is unique. Nothing is suppressed there—transformed, rather. The level of energy changes; its expression changes.

Imagine someone places a fresh veena in your hands. Do you think you will straightaway sing the raga Deepak so that extinguished lamps burst into flame? The raga is hidden in the veena, yes—but in the hands of a Baiju Bawra the dead lamps could light up. The veena is here—but you must learn skill. Do you think you can pick up a whip and beat the veena, and it will bow and reveal its secrets, and you will sing Deepak? Then you are mad. You will only break the veena. Forget Deepak—no raga will rise from it.

Most people have broken the veena of their life this very way. Those who sit in your temples and ashrams—whom you call saints and sages—are such corpses, their veenas broken. No melody rises from them—gloomy, without celebration, no music, no fragrance. And these sick, deranged people are making others sick and deranged. What they learned, they teach. Thus humanity is caught in a deep disease.

I want to offer you a religion that teaches you the art of placing your fingers upon the veena; that teaches you friendship with the veena; that helps you hear the subtle, subtle notes hidden in its strings; that makes you so skillful that one day the raga Deepak arises—that even extinguished lamps light up, such music is born.

What the divine has given you cannot be useless. If you cannot see its meaning yet, understand this much: as yet you lack the capacity to see. All that He has given you is meaningful. Look—lightning has flashed since the earth began; and man only trembled in fear. When clouds gathered and thunder roared, man fell to his knees and prayed to Indra: “Indra is angry; he has pulled back the bowstring, he has raised his bow!” Today we know: there is no Indra, no anger of Indra, no bowstring, no bow raised. Today we know electricity is a form of energy. Now that we recognize energy, electricity has become your servant—running your fans, lighting your bulbs, cooking your bread. Lord Indra is confined in the fans, lighting bulbs, baking chapatis—Lord Indra! He has forgotten his bowstring; who knows how many chores he must be doing now—cleaning dirt with the vacuum cleaner—Lord Indra!

So it is with the energies within you. Your inner sky too is filled with lightning. Lust is such electricity, such thunder. If you do not know it, you will panic, you will fall to your knees, you will hide, you will run. If you know and recognize it, this very electricity becomes the light along the path to God—by it lamps are lit.

My message is: love the world so deeply that through the world you can find God. There is no God elsewhere. And do not believe in God—know Him, seek Him. Accept yourself. In accepting yourself you have built the bridge between yourself and the divine. Do not reject yourself. As you are, you are good. His signature is upon you. You are His handiwork.

I want to give man this dignity and grandeur. The old religions called you sinners. The old religions condemned you so much that a deep sense of guilt took root within you. I want to free you from guilt. You are not a sinner. Within you lie many seeds of virtue, ready to bloom into flowers. Give them nourishment. Care for them. A great greenness wants to arise within you. If you are a desert, it is only your responsibility. This desert can become a lush garden.

Nirupam! You’ve learned the sadhukkadi tongue!

Sadhukkadi is a very lovely language. Sadhukkadi means: to say it exactly as it is, without ornament or trimming. It means to bring your feelings out raw—without giving them propriety, arrangement, or subjecting them to the rules of mathematics, logic, and grammar. Sadhukkadi means a simple, spontaneous utterance. Let whoever understands, understand; whoever doesn’t, let them not.

Kabir has said: “I saw a wonder—river caught fire!” What will you make of it? “River caught fire!” “I saw a wonder—the fish climbed a tree!” What will you understand? Understanding will be difficult. It is less a matter of understanding than of experiencing. The world has turned upside down; that’s why Kabir spoke like this.

Look: the Divine sits within man, and man searches for Him all over the world—“I saw a wonder—river caught fire!” What is being sought is hidden in the seeker himself, and the irony is that man goes on searching and, by the very search, fails to find.

If Kabir were here today, he’d be in a bit of a bind; he couldn’t say these exact words, because now it actually happens that rivers in America sometimes catch fire—so much oil, petrol, factory effluent has mixed in that they’ve become toxic. Keep in mind, only recently a lake caught fire. If Kabir said it now, it wouldn’t be a wonder anymore. But then it was wondrous. Kabir was pointing.

So, Nirupam! It’s good that such sadhukkadi sayings are arising in you. These are good signs! Clouds are gathering—the early monsoon clouds of Ashadh! Soon it will rain. Prepare yourself.

“This love-mad one burned in the fire,
reduced to ash, now she wanders.”
So it is. Only by burning does life come. These are wondrous things, beyond ordinary logic. The one who saves himself, loses. The one who is ready to lose himself, finds. The one who drowns in midstream finds the shore; the one who clings to the shore drowns in the current. So it is. The laws of life are not your ordinary rules of arithmetic. They are very different.

There is ordinary arithmetic, where two and two make four. And there is the arithmetic of love, where two come together and become one.

“This love-mad one burned in the fire,
reduced to ash, now she wanders.
Crimson clouds pour—
softly they pour, with a tinkling rain;
the more I’m drenched, the more I yearn.”
True. The more you’re drenched, the more you will yearn. The more you drink, the more the thirst grows. To relate with the Divine is to relate with an endless thirst. It’s not something that will be quenched or finished—and the devotee does not even want it to finish; for if thirst ends, how will he drink God? So the devotee prays: torment me! Set my thirst ablaze, increase my thirst. Make me even more mad. Pour Yourself upon me—but do not quench my thirst. If the thirst is quenched, where is life then?

Worldly thirsts can be quenched; the thirst for God never. The more the union, the greater the longing to come nearer—nearer, and nearer still. This journey has no end! With God the journey begins, it does not conclude. There is a first page, but no last.

“The more I’m drenched, the more I yearn.
No awareness of the destination,
no knowledge of the roads.”
No need either. Awareness of destinations and knowledge of roads—these are the mind’s calculations. What do lovers care! Lovers stagger along. Whichever direction they move, if there is love in the heart, meeting happens. And if there is no love in the heart, go to Kashi or go to the Kaaba—meeting will not happen. Meeting does not happen in the compass of directions; it happens in the innermost. We do not reach Him by walking along certain paths. He has already arrived within us, from the very beginning. When all paths drop, His vision dawns.

Hence I call it sadhukkadi: He is not found through paths, but by the falling away of paths. Run, and you will miss. Stop, and you will find.

“Rays have descended into the inner vessel;
the heart’s lotus keeps blooming.”
When roads are lost and destinations drop, then the rays begin to descend—rays before which all outer suns are pale; rays in which each single ray can contain a thousand suns.

“Rays have descended into the inner vessel;
the heart’s lotus keeps blooming.”
And the heart-lotus goes on flowering, goes on flowering. That is why we have called the ultimate flowering of human consciousness the thousand-petaled lotus. “A thousand” is a symbolic number—meaning innumerable. Petal upon petal keeps opening. This opening never stops.

How much man hides within himself—we have no idea. Looking at a tiny seed, can you say how much is concealed in it? Ask a scientist: he’ll say everything is hidden there, every single leaf. If this seed becomes a tree and lives a thousand years, all the leaves that will appear in those thousand years are hidden in it; all the flowers, all the fruits, all the seeds. Scientists say: a tiny seed could cover the whole earth with greenery—such is its vast potential. Then surely the seed of human consciousness must have an even vaster capacity.

The light within a single person can illumine the whole world. It happens at times—when a Buddha is born, when a Mohammed is born. Those who have eyes set out in search of that light. Those who have even a little heart—alert, sensitive—begin to catch a hint within, a tremor.

“But, Lord! A single glance of Yours
takes away all pain.”
And what is pain? Only this: when will union with Him be? Naturally, if a single glance falls, the clouds burst! The earth parched for lifetimes turns green!

What sorrow is there in life? Only one: how to reconnect with our source. We have forgotten our roots, forgotten our home. How to return to that home?

Surely, a single glimpse is enough. If one look of His falls upon you, you can never again be what you were. You are transformed. You are new. One glimpse—and every hair has changed; every pore, every particle, every heartbeat resounds, starts to dance!

“By turning me to ash You make me live—
how much compassion You shower!”
That is why I said, Nirupam: good that sadhukkadi speech is arising in you. Such is His secret: He effaces—and by effacing, He creates.

Jesus has said: only those who die will attain Him.

One dark night a very renowned thinker named Nicodemus came to meet Jesus. He asked, “How can I find God?” Jesus said, “Do you follow the rules of religion?” He replied, “I follow them to the letter, every single rule.” He was not lying—he was a known moralist, a man of character, very famous. No one knew Jesus; Nicodemus was celebrated—one of the chief teachers of the great Jewish temple.

Jesus said, “Then only one lack remains. If you follow all the rules and still have not found God, and have had to come to ask me, then just one thing is missing.”

Nicodemus asked, “Tell me what—I'll fulfill it.”

Jesus said, “Unless you are born again, you cannot attain.”

Nicodemus said, “Born again? Then must I die?”

Jesus said, “You must die—on your side, you must die; you must be effaced. As a seed falls into the earth and dissolves, so the day you dissolve, sprouting will arise from within you.”

Religion is the art of dissolving—and of attaining. Religion is the cross—and also the throne.

There is no suffering in the world. Look at the world—remove man for a moment, set him aside—where is suffering? Listen to the birds singing, see the blossoms on the trees; do you sense even a shadow of sorrow anywhere? Meet the stars in the sky, watch the sun rise in the morning, the dance of the winds through the trees, the rush of rivers toward the ocean—where is suffering?

There is no suffering in the world. If there is, it is in the human mind. Suffering is man’s invention, man’s discovery.

This couch of nectar, this tender, delicate form,
the flutter of lotus-eyes, the magic of desire,
the thick, honeyed shadows of the lashes,
on the firmament the moon and stars scattered,
their gleaming fingers sprinkling nature’s secret songs—
they are about to awaken; you too, awaken!
Are these dream-intoxications, gaudy fish under water,
that in the courtyard’s pool even their sparkles are no more?
Are these downcast hibiscus flowers upon the branch,
as if unblown embers had gone cold?
Is this moonlight, or an upsurging ocean of elixir—
and yet man, the same man, is so miserable in the world.

You see the moonlight! You see the ocean of sweetness pouring from the moon!
Is this moonlight, or an upsurging ocean of elixir—
and yet man, the same man, is so miserable in the world.

There is no sorrow in the world. Not even a little. The world is immersed in a great celebration of joy. Existence is dancing with the divine—it is his dance. Have you seen the lines of deer running through the forest? Have you looked into an animal’s eyes—the vast silence there, the innocent expression? Have you seen the peacock dance? Heard the cuckoo call? Does any of this tell you the world is sorrowful? The world is an ocean of rasa, of essence. Raso vai sah! From that rasa it has descended; it is an ocean of rasa.

God is of the nature of rasa, but man’s mind has broken off from this ocean. In his ego, man has separated himself from existence, made himself a stranger, distanced himself. He has drawn a boundary line of ego all around and will not step beyond it. Inside that, there is suffering. Your belief creates your sorrow. And if your belief is in sorrow, then you will not be able to see joy in the world either.

Have you ever met the kind of person to whom you say, “Look, what a lovely moon!” and he answers, “What’s lovely about it? It’s the moon—always has been, always will be. What’s the big deal?” Or a flower blooms and you say, “Look, a flower!” and he says, “I can see it too—so what?”

O worshiper of nature, tell me at least,
what beauty lies in these gardens?
What loveliness, after all,
in these flowers, in these thorns?
Whether they smolder all the night,
whether they shine all the night,
I too have often seen them—
what is new about the stars?
From the cool rays of this moon
I feel no ease at all,
no ecstasy stirs in me
when I wander through the gardens.
These silent narcissus buds—
who knows what buds they are?
They bloom, they smile,
and yet are counted among the sick.
The river’s tumultuous scene—
well, congratulations to you;
but a broken, battered boat
does crash in the midstream.
We heard the cuckoo’s honeyed song,
but did you ever think
how many tangled melodies there are
in a lute with broken strings?

There are people who hear only the tunes of broken instruments.

We heard the cuckoo’s honeyed song—
but did you ever think
how many tangled melodies there are
in a lute with broken strings?

There are people who don’t see living beings; they count corpses. There are people who don’t see life; they keep the accounts of death. There are people who stand before a rosebush and count the thorns, not the flowers. For them, it is sorrow upon sorrow.

Suffering is in your vision, in your choosing. The world is a blank page: write heaven upon it if you wish, write hell upon it if you wish. The world is a mirror; as you are, so it will appear.

A Christian priest was instructing his disciples. They were ready to set out on distant journeys to convert others. The priest said, “Listen, when you explain things to people, express the feeling as well. Don’t talk like a gramophone record; otherwise it won’t affect them. For example, when you speak of heaven, let a heavenly glow suffuse your face; be ecstatic, as if you’ve drunk wine. Sway in your bliss, roll your eyes upward! Look to the sky, lift your hands, so that people are amazed.”

A young man stood up and asked, “That’s fine, Master—but what should we do when describing hell?” The priest replied, “With the face you already have, that will do. No special expression is needed. Just stand as you are. It’s enough. Looking at you, people will be convinced hell exists.”

A young woman was in love with a young man. Her mother also wished for their marriage. But one day the daughter said, “Everything else is fine, but he has no faith in religion. Is it right to marry a man who does not believe in religion?”

The mother asked, “Explain. What do you mean—doesn’t believe in what?” The girl said, “For example, he doesn’t believe in hell.” The mother said, “Foolish child, don’t worry. Let him once come between the two of us; we’ll make him believe. Once he gets between us, he will surely be convinced hell exists.”

Before marriage, those who don’t believe in hell often do afterward—by experience. They may still doubt heaven, but they cannot doubt hell.

Everything depends on how you live. Don’t ask why there is so much suffering in the world. There isn’t. Your vision selects suffering; you collect sorrows. Naturally then, the world appears to you as nothing but sorrow.

It is said: ask an optimist and he will say, “Between two days there is one night.” Ask a pessimist and he will say, “Between two nights there is one day.”

A great Western thinker, Dean Inge, was very pessimistic. He was speaking somewhere, painting vast canvases of despair. Someone stood up and said, “You are the ultimate pessimist. Listening to you, even I am becoming despondent. I have never seen a greater pessimist.” Inge said, “What did you say? Me—a pessimist? Wrong. Because however pessimistic my expectations of life are, life proves even worse. I am not a pessimist—my pessimism is less bleak than reality. Whatever I imagine, it turns out worse.”

And then there is the optimist. I have heard of an optimist who fell from a fifty-story building in New York. As he fell, people leaned out of the windows and asked, “How are you?” He said, “So far, so good!”

There is an optimism of life. With hope, great flowers bloom. It is up to you. This life can become hell, and it can become heaven. And from this very life, another door opens, which we call moksha, liberation. When a person understands, “I can color life as I wish—if I want hell, hell; if I want heaven, heaven”—then a final understanding dawns: “What if I don’t color it at all—neither with heaven nor with hell—and leave life just empty?” That state is moksha. No color is applied. Day is fine, night is fine. If night comes, night is fine; if day comes, day is fine. Pleasure is fine, pain is fine—everything is fine. Such an all-accepting attitude, where no distinction is made between thorns and flowers, where victory and defeat become the same, where success and failure no longer differ—this state we have called moksha. Moksha means supreme freedom. The mind is utterly gone.

So there are three things. If the mind is pessimistic, the world is nothing but sorrow—and then you can manufacture as much sorrow as you like. The world gives complete freedom. It is a blank canvas. Upon it you can bring forth Michelangelo’s incomparable paintings—or Picasso’s. Picasso’s paintings will persuade you of hell. Even hell won’t be as jumbled as Picasso’s paintings.

I have heard that an American millionaire commissioned his portrait. Picasso said, “It will take six months,” and asked for a huge fee—millions of dollars. The millionaire said, “Don’t worry about the money.” When the painting was finished, he came to collect it. He turned it this way and that, examined it from all sides, and said, “Everything is fine, but I don’t like the nose; it isn’t right.” Picasso said, “That’s a big problem—now it can’t be changed.” “Why not?” the man asked. “I’ll pay more.” Picasso said, “No, it simply can’t be changed. Honest man, I myself don’t know where I painted the nose—where should I make the change?”

At least in hell the nose would be clear—where the ears are, where the nose is, where the eyes are. In Picasso’s paintings everything gets mixed up. Hang a Picasso on your wall and sleep beneath it; at night you will have nightmares, ghosts will trouble you. The canvas is the same.

I have heard this story about Michelangelo: when he was painting his incomparable portrait of Jesus, a man insulted him on the road, abused him. Michelangelo thought, “I am absorbed in Jesus—why get into this mess now? And Jesus has said: if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other; if someone takes your coat, give him your shirt; if someone asks you to walk one mile and carry his load, go two.” “I am painting such a man—let me not get into it.”

He silently endured it and went on. But it is not so easy to listen and walk away. Inside, the fire began to boil. He wanted to break the fellow’s head. “These teachings of Jesus came in the way—later I’ll deal with him; first let me finish the painting.”

That day he tried hard. The painting was almost complete—only the final touches to Jesus’ face remained—but he could not apply them. He tried in every way, but the face would not emerge. At last it occurred to him: “I am so full of anger—how can I bring forth the face of one who is without anger? I am burning with fire; inside me that man is still circling, his abuses resounding. How can I paint the face of one in whom hymns are arising? I am not in tune.”

Such a blockage had not come before. He put down the brush and ran. It was night; the man had gone to sleep. Michelangelo woke him and asked forgiveness. The man said, “There’s nothing to forgive; I should ask forgiveness. You didn’t say a word. I was the one who behaved badly.” Michelangelo said, “No, I must ask forgiveness, because although I said nothing, inside a fire was burning. Forgive me.”

Jesus has a famous saying: “If you go into the temple to pray and you remember that you have not forgiven someone, that you are angry with someone, first go and seek forgiveness; only then pray. Otherwise your prayer will have no wings—it will not reach God.”

When he had sought forgiveness, he became light, unburdened. He returned and in no time the face of Jesus emerged.

Do you understand the point? Until a state like Jesus’ arises within you, you cannot paint even his face without. Picasso lives in an inner hell. All the hell of the twentieth century—the stench, the turmoil, the enmity, two world wars, the thousands cut down in those wars, the rivers of blood, Hiroshima and Nagasaki—all that is filling Picasso within, and it flows into his paintings.

You are painting your life too; life is a canvas. You are coloring it. If hell appears on it, know that hell is within you. If heaven appears, know that heaven is within you. And it is not that you never experience heavenly moments. Sometimes you do. Then look within and see what is happening. Sometimes, despite yourself, a silence descends—a sunrise or a sunset, birds returning to their nests, music, a child’s laughter—and something happens within you. For a moment you are linked to heaven. But such moments are rare. Mostly you live in hell.

But remember: the world is neither hell nor heaven. Right here are people—perhaps sitting next to you—who are living in heaven. And right here are those who have known both truths, that heaven and hell are games of the mind, our psychology—and they are free of them. They have left the canvas empty. That empty canvas, that void, is called samadhi; that void is called moksha. It is the supreme state—there is eternal peace there, and unbroken bliss.

In hell there is sorrow; in heaven there is pleasure. Pleasure and pain are bound together, two sides of one coin. In moksha there is neither pleasure nor pain—both disturbances gone, both excitations ended. Moksha is excitation-free, nondual, a supreme peace where even “you” are not; where there is no duality or conflict; where you have become a single wave in this vast energy, a rhythm, a cadence.

It is to evoke that cadence in you that I speak. To lead you into that rhythm I call you close. That cadence has happened within me. I am not telling you on the authority of scriptures that it will happen—it has happened. I have known all three. I have painted the pictures of hell, I have painted the pictures of heaven, and then I wiped both away. I have known the naked emptiness of the canvas.

The intoxication hasn’t yet come in full. Otherwise, who would care about chains! Who would even remember chains! Yes, a few sips have slipped down your throat—just a few. Drink more!

O moralist! What am I to do with the cupbearer’s half-lidded eyes?
The tavern door has swung open; by the turn of fate the goblet has arrived.
One tyrant—you, whose pain became the cause of a hundred ruins;
One sufferer—me, and at last your pain proved of some use.
Fellow captive, blessings upon the hunter’s custom of sewing up tongues—
Even the speechless have learned a way to speak.
O moralist! What am I to do with the cupbearer’s half-lidded eyes?
The tavern door has swung open; by the turn of fate the goblet has arrived.

This is a wine-house. The door is open. Round after round is being poured. Drink, and do not hesitate to drink. Drink to your heart’s content. And the moment you drink completely, the moment you are totally drunk, you will be astonished—what chains, where are the chains! The chains are in your belief. Who is binding you? Because you believe you are bound, you are bound. Your belief is your chains.

I have heard: a man had been paralyzed for ten years, lying on a bed. Paralysis, more often than not, is ninety-nine percent mental. He had not gotten up, not walked, not even sat up for ten years. One night the house caught fire; at midnight the family ran out. That man too sprang up and ran. He would never get up, never walk, never even sit. But when the house is on fire, who thinks of paralysis! Is this a time to ponder paralysis? Those are luxuries of comfort. He didn’t even remember that he was a paralytic! There was no leisure for that! Half asleep, suddenly awakened at midnight—when one is jolted awake like that, it takes a moment even to remember who you are, where you are. And with the house ablaze, the confusion is greater. He ran. Once outside, the crowd saw him and said: “Hey! What’s this? You’re a paralytic!” He collapsed on the spot—no sooner did the thought arise: “I am a paralytic.”

Chains! What chains! Who has bound you? All chains are false. If you take them to be true, they are true.

Gurdjieff writes in his memoirs that near the Caucasus there is a tribe whose life is a bit harsh and strenuous. Men have to go to the forest—cut wood, hunt; women too must go out. Small children must be left at home. They devised a simple trick, used for thousands of years: they draw a circle around a small child with chalk and tell the child, “You cannot go outside this line; no one can get out!” Said from such an early age, it becomes a conviction—a kind of hypnosis. The child also sees everyone else—each within his own line, each sitting inside his circle. They can come up to the line, play there, but they do not step across. No one can go beyond the line!

When Gurdjieff first went into those mountains, he was astonished. Draw a line around a grown man, a young man, tell him he cannot go beyond it—and he cannot. He simply cannot! If he tries, it is as if an invisible wall at the line shoves him back inside. That invisible wall is nowhere outside; it is in his mind, in his belief.

If you have ever understood anything of hypnosis, you will be amazed. Hypnotizing someone is simple—if they consent and trust you. Ask them to gaze at an electric bulb for five minutes without blinking, and sit beside them saying softly, “Drowsiness is coming, sleep is coming, sleep is coming.” Try it on ten people and you’ll succeed with three, for thirty-three percent are always ready to be hypnotized. They are the foundation stones of the world’s mischiefs; they run the world’s politics; because of them people like Hitler arise. These thirty-three percent are eager to fall under someone’s spell. And they are not bad people—simple, good folk.

After five minutes, when the eyes begin to flutter, you will know; the face will change. In a flash the face will go dull; the little glow of life will dim. When the face is totally slack, like a corpse, tell the person, “Now lie down; you are completely unconscious.” In that state whatever you say he will accept. Place an ordinary pebble on his hand and tell him it is a live ember—he will scream and fling it away. That he screams and throws it is not the wonder; the wonder is that a blister will rise on his hand. The mind accepts so completely that a blister appears.

The reverse process is what those who walk on fire use—nothing different, only a deeper hypnosis. Put a real ember on a deeply hypnotized person’s hand and tell him it is a cool pebble—and the hand will not burn.

What the mind accepts, becomes so. The mind has immense power.

What chains are you talking about? They are the ones your mind has agreed to. You may be thinking: there is a wife, a child. Who belongs to whom! You may be thinking: there is reputation in the town, a name. What will people say if you start dancing like a madman! You were such a decent person—what has happened to you? But prestige, name, fame—all are your beliefs.

Do not despair at the soul-scorching sigh’s lack of effect.
Some way to live will surely arise—do not doubt it.
Other happenings have occurred besides love’s affair—
Yes, look at me, look at me now; do not look at my picture.
The goal is just a little ahead—this radiance, this repose:
Gaze upon the dream; do not rush to its interpretation.
Look beyond the prison at the garden’s colors and the fervor of spring—
If you would dance, then do not look at the chain upon your feet.

If you want to dance, then do not look at the chain upon your feet!
Look beyond the prison at the garden’s colors and the fervor of spring.

I am calling you to lift your eyes toward the prison in which you are confined—open your eyes a little, lift them a little!

Look beyond the prison at the garden’s colors and the fervor of spring.
Spring has come. Flowers are in bloom. Birds are intoxicated. The whole existence is spellbound with nectar.

Look beyond the prison at the garden’s colors and the fervor of spring—
If you would dance, then do not look at the chain upon your feet.

And if you want to dance, then don’t look at the chain on your feet at all. And I tell you, I give you my assurance: if you dance, the chain on your feet will turn into anklets. I have seen chains become anklets—therefore I say it. You are not the first to come here in this way; everyone comes like this, full of chains. And when they begin to dance, they are amazed: the very chain that held them back yesterday begins to keep rhythm in the dance. The very chain that was a chain becomes an anklet; from its jingling, songs begin to arise.

But you have only tasted a little—that is why questions arise. Drink a little more. Come a little closer. Sink a little deeper into ecstasy. I am not here to teach you sadness. I want to teach you the juice of life. I do not want my sannyasins to look gloomy, to look detached. I want my sannyasins to be in love with the Divine, brimming with rasa for the Divine. And this world is also His, His very shadow; therefore be full of rasa toward this world as well.

Dance, and your chains will also dance. Dance, and your wife will someday dance, your children will someday dance. Just start dancing! It is contagious; it spreads.

The magic belongs to God; there is nothing of mine in it. As long as there is “mine and yours,” magic never comes. Where mine-and-yours vanish, from there the magic begins.
That is the one who colors; the color is his.

Understand it like this: you take up a brush and paint a picture. The brush does not paint; it is in someone’s hand. I am in his hand. If there is victory, it is his; if there is defeat, it is his. I am utterly carefree. I have no stake in it. I am not making any effort to color people. You see, I don’t even step out of my room—but people keep coming! I don’t know who summons them!

I had set out alone toward the destination, but—
I had set out alone toward the destination, but—
People kept joining along the way, and a caravan formed.
I would call it fulfillment only when he fills the cup of all, high and low;
As it is, whoever came turned into the tavern’s guide.
Wherever the blistered feet of my longing moved,
Thorns turned to roses, and roses to gardens.
In his presence the commentary of sorrow kept growing shorter;
A word that never left the lips turned into a saga.
I had set out alone toward the destination, but—
People kept joining along the way, and a caravan formed.

I don’t know how all this is happening. I don’t know how you have come here. I don’t know who has brought you.

But those who are thirsty set out to seek. When they hear of a lake, they head that way. A day as unfortunate as when people stop seeking truth has not yet come to this world.

Nietzsche has said: The greatest misfortune will be the day man abandons the aspiration to rise beyond man. The darkest day will be when man’s bow no longer strings the arrow to seek God. No—such a day has not come, and it never will. It cannot.

People have to seek God—sooner or later. Today or tomorrow; tomorrow or the day after. At most you can delay it, but you cannot put it off forever. If you truly understand this search, I call it the search for bliss. How will you escape it? In wealth you seek it—and don’t find it. In status you seek it—and don’t find it. When you have groped everywhere, knocked on every door, stretched out your begging bowl before who knows how many and each time returned empty-handed—how long can that go on? One day you will think, “Let me go within; perhaps the Lord of lords is seated there!” And there he is.

The day the search for God begins within you, the search for the Master begins as well. For God has no other proof. No logic can prove God—only the living presence of a true Master. Looking into his eyes you can receive the proof that God is.

You asked: “You have dyed thousands in your color; what is the magic behind it?”
If you truly want to know the magic—be colored yourself. Without being dyed, you will not know. These things are known only by happening. Surely the questioner is still standing at a distance, has not yet fallen into the dyer’s hands. Perhaps out of fear he is asking, “What’s going on? So many have been dyed—should I go closer or not?” He has not even written his name, because if I learn the name, I start pulling and tugging.

Only the day before yesterday you saw it—Yash Sharma, who came from Rohtak after a long journey. He wanted to meet me, but without sannyas it wasn’t happening. He wrote his name in the question—got caught. By yesterday evening, he was dyed. Because when I call, if there is even a little soul within, how will you turn back? When I challenge, if there is even a little strength and a little self-respect, how will you run? You cannot run.

You too—be colored! Let’s say no name—whose name is it, anyway? All are nameless. Others may not know your name; you do. I am speaking to you.

At each glance of the cupbearer, I arched and drank,
Playing with the waves, swaying, I drank.
Startled by the ecstasy of sobriety, I drank,
Breaking repentance to pieces, trembling, I drank.
O pious one, do not judge the frolic of this reveler;
I coaxed Compassion with small talk and drank.
When the primordial rapture came to mind,
I spurned the world of appearances and drank.
Seeing the tenderness for the cupbearer’s honor,
I felt such modesty that, blushing, I drank.
O all-encompassing Mercy, forgive my every fault—
At the extreme of longing, unstrung, I drank.
Without permission—when had I such audacity to drink?
Catching the Beloved’s secret nod of the eye, I drank.
By the soul of the tavern, I swear again and again, O Jigar—
Over the whole world, overflowing, I drank.

Drink!

At each glance of the cupbearer, I arched and drank,
Playing with the waves, swaying, I drank.

These are waves. Around you rises a storm of waves in ochre robes. Dive! Dance a little with these waves!

Playing with the waves, swaying, I drank,
Startled by the ecstasy of sobriety, I drank,
Breaking repentance to pieces, trembling, I drank.

Even if you have come having vowed repentance—some people come from home having decided, “I will not take sannyas.” Firmly resolved: “I will not take sannyas.” A wife makes her husband swear, “Don’t take sannyas.” A husband makes his wife swear, “Do whatever you like, but don’t take sannyas.”

Breaking repentance to pieces, trembling, I drank—
Let it go; what kind of vows are these?

I felt such modesty that, blushing, I drank—
You saw Yash Sharma’s state! He was “Sharma” and felt sharam—yet he drank!

O all-encompassing Mercy, forgive my every fault—
At the extreme of longing, unstrung, I drank.

Listen—
Without permission—when had I such audacity to drink?
O God! Without your leave, how could I have drunk? Where was my strength?

Without permission—when had I such audacity to drink?
Catching the Beloved’s secret nod of the eye, I drank.

With that glance of your eye I understood that you, too, consent—that I should break all repentance and drink.
It is not I who am calling; God is calling.

Without permission—when had I such audacity to drink?
Catching the Beloved’s secret nod of the eye, I drank.

Dive! This dye is not only an outer color. This rhythm is not merely an outer rhythm. On the surface it is play; within lies the real secret. Do not turn back from the outside; otherwise whatever you know will be false.

People come here as spectators, thinking they will understand by standing outside and watching. They think by seeing others meditate they will grasp what is happening. You have gone mad! Without meditating, no one ever understands what is happening. Without loving, no one understands. The matter is inner.

The magic is God’s. Open your heart and let his magic overtake it. You have lived long in your own way; now live in his way. Say: Thy will be done!
This is sannyas: Thy will be done! This is the definition of sannyas.

Enough for today.