Jyun Macchali Bin Neer #10

Chaitanya Kirti! This is one of those few sutras that has almost always been interpreted wrongly. Nectar becomes poison in the wrong hands; in the right hands even poison turns into medicine. The issue is less the rightness or wrongness of the sutra and more the hands into which it falls. In the right hands a sword protects life; in the wrong, it becomes violence.

A sutra is a pointer, an essence, a distillation. It is brief by design—and in great brevity lies a danger: there is much room left for the listener’s own understanding, and you will read into it your own mind.

The way the ignorant have explained this sutra has done enormous harm. First, let me sketch their interpretation so you can turn your eyes toward a true understanding. What else can we expect from those who have not known, whose knowledge is borrowed and stale, in whose being no lamp of their own meditation is lit? They are bound to err.

They read: “Nāsti kāmasamo vyādhiḥ”—and took kāma to mean sex, because in their own lives nothing is more present to their mind than sex. But “kāma” is a vast word; it is not limited to sexuality. To confine it to sex alone is a serious mistake, and it breeds dire consequences. If kāma equals sex and kāma is a disease, the “treatment” becomes repression: push it down, destroy it. A disease must be uprooted! The result has been that almost all of humanity has sunk even deeper into that very disease. Repression never liberates; only transformation does. Suppress a disease and it burrows inward—what was on the periphery moves to the center, from body to mind, from mind down into the very soul as festering pus.

Hence the lives of the so-called religious are full of pus—putrefying wounds covered with a cloak of God’s name. Inside, only stench; hypocrisy upon hypocrisy. They say one thing and do another; wear mask upon mask.

This wrong reading of the sutra has been a major source of hypocrisy.

Kāma means the demand for more-and-more. Not merely sex—sex is only one branch of a vast banyan. Wealth is kāma. Watch a miser: he gazes at money the way a lustful man gazes at a beautiful body; he caresses banknotes as if stroking his beloved. Position is kāma. The power-hungry are as possessed by desire as the sexually obsessed. Then you will also see: the man crazed for power can give up his sexual indulgence easily, because all his energy flows into the chase for position. The money-chaser can divert his entire libido into greed. Such a person can repress sex without much trouble—he has only given kāma a new channel, a new mask.

Politicians are not much troubled by sex. On the contrary, they can preach celibacy, and you might even find them convincing because their lives show a certain external resemblance to celibacy. Think of Morarji Desai—mad for office even at eighty-five. All desire has taken one direction; no branches are left. But that is no celibacy.

We deliberately block soldiers from natural sexual life because a sexually satisfied man has little zeal to fight; his energy is spent sexually. So we keep soldiers away from their wives and surround them with barriers so their sexual energy cannot find an outlet—so it boils. In that boiling we can drive them to kill. Sexuality turns into violence.

Those greedy for heaven can also practice celibacy easily: their longing flows in one direction—heaven, liberation. No other branches can grow.

If you love gardening and have entered a flower show, you know a trick: to grow a prize-winning rose, the gardener removes most buds and lets only one bloom. Then all the plant’s capacity pours into that one flower; it grows large and wins the medal—though the rosebush is impoverished. Humanity has been treated like that.

Every kind of craving is kāma. Kāma means wanting. Sex is a craving, money is, power is, prestige is; even heaven, liberation, God are cravings. Whenever you want to get something, that is kāma. Understand this and there will be revolution in your life. “Nāsti kāmasamo vyādhiḥ”—then its secret opens: whoever lives in craving is diseased. Whoever longs for something more is unwell.

Who is healthy? One who is delighted with the here-and-now, just-as-it-is. If death comes this moment, he will not ask for a minute more—nothing is unfinished. He lives so totally, so rejoicingly, that means and ends are not two. For the healthy, the means are the end; there is no other end. The destination is the path; every step is the destination. If the road ends now, it is enough—today suffices.

Jesus was walking with his disciples past a field. On the edge bloomed white lilies. Around Jerusalem, lilies abound; they are so common that no one values them—rarity fetches price. The lily is a proletarian flower. But Jesus stopped and said, “Look at the lilies, look at these poor flowers! I tell you, even King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Among the Jews, Solomon is the supreme king—wealth without limit, unmatched beauty and great wisdom, a rare conjunction. The proverb even in India says, “So you think you are a Suleman!”—Suleman being Solomon.

Jesus said, “Solomon in all his splendor was not so beautiful as these lilies. Do you know their secret? They live here and now; they worry not for tomorrow.” And he said, “Do likewise—live here and now, and you too will be beautiful; fragrance will arise, life will be a celebration, a dance, a song.”

Kāma means the race for more. Nishkāma means the end of racing. As the mystic Rajjab sings: ‘As it was, so it abides.’ He says, I know the knack by which things come to rest as they are. Racing is kāma; racing is disease.

You are all running. You are never where you are—always elsewhere. What is, is not enough; you want more, and more. It never ends. It is like chasing the horizon: it looks just a few miles ahead; run an hour and you will reach. But no matter how far you run—even circle the earth—you never arrive. The distance remains the same. Why? Because the horizon does not exist.

Kāma means a phantom horizon always ahead. “I have this much; let it double.” When it doubles, the same inner horizon whispers, “Now double again.” You may succeed; the arithmetic will not leave you. The more you succeed, the more it grips you: “It doubled before, it can double again—do it!”

If you fail, you are miserable; if you win, you are miserable. Here, losers lose—and winners also lose. In every case, sorrow remains. Lose—there is sorrow of defeat. Win—there is sorrow too, for now you plot a bigger palace. You will remain beggarly.

Disease means: you will remain poor within. This cannot be about sex alone; sex is only one aspect among countless. In sex, the “more” says: not this woman, another; not him, someone else. You run and run. Fulfillment never comes—not from woman, not from man. You are throwing fuel into the fire of non-fulfillment. What difference then whether you chase houses, money, positions? All are branches of the same tree.

Do not equate kāma with sex alone, otherwise you will fight sex and close one door. Energy will find other doors, as a stream blocked at one place seeps out elsewhere. The stream will flow.

Kāma is disease because the race for more never lets you settle into yourself; it never lets you rest in your own being—and there is where bliss is. In resting is joy; in running, sorrow. Running is unconsciousness. One who awakens laughs at the runners—they chase golden deer. And in the chase, like Rama, you lose your Sita. What was yours is lost in pursuit of what never exists. Everyone’s life is a Ramayana: you go after the golden deer and lose your Sita.

Kāma means unconsciousness. As long as man is unconscious, he is not truly human; he is animal. Animals can be forgiven—they lack the capacity to awaken. Man cannot be forgiven, for he has the capacity and does not use it. No animal is a sinner; only man can be. Sin means: neglecting the opportunity you have. Virtue means: using it well. Human life offers the capacity to awaken.

Kāma is unconsciousness. It breaks only through meditation. Meditation is the method to end the trance. Kāma is animality, craving, the race for more. Meditation is coming to rest, being free of more; content, delighted, grateful as things are. Even for what we already have we feel no gratitude; only complaints and thorns of grievance we sow. Even prayer is complaint: “Why not this? It should have been so!” Have you ever gone just to say, “Thank you; as it should be, so it is”? The day you can say, even in pain, “As it should be, so it is,” when your gratitude is unconditional—you will know what prayer is.

Without awakening it cannot happen. Where the race for more continues, complaint persists—not only “Why did I get less?” but also “Why did the other get more?”

People come to me: “We are honest, moral, virtuous—yet the dishonest thrive, gain wealth and status; we get nothing.” Such people are neither honest nor moral. The truly moral finds such fulfillment in virtue that he cannot chase status. The truly honest drinks such nectar in honesty that wealth has no pull. The truly religious cannot compete with the irreligious; he feels compassion for those rotting in money and power. But these complainants are envious—sign they are of the same mind. Perhaps they lack the courage to be dishonest, so they pretend to be honest. They want the benefits of dishonesty and the rewards of honesty—both worlds! Clever people indeed; without awakening, neither ethics nor religion is understood.

I accept the sutra: “Nāsti kāmasamo vyādhiḥ.” It is precious—but must be understood as I have shown. Truly, there is no illness like the race for more. All other diseases someone else can treat; only you can treat this. Here the patient and the physician must be the same person. Hence it is the great disease.

“Nāsti mohasamo ripuḥ”—and there is no enemy like moha. Understand moha too; it is also misunderstood. People take moha to mean wife, children, home—so leave them and run away. That is a crude reading. Leaving wife and children is not so hard. In fact, husbands and wives torment each other so much that one wonders why more do not run away! It should be easy to become Shankara’s disciple and declare the world is illusion.

A few jokes. Chandulal’s boy asked, “Papa, why did you marry Mommy?” Chandulal looked at him: “So you’ve begun to wonder too?” His wife asked, “If a thief breaks in, what will you do?” Chandulal: “Whatever you say.” Wife: “Why me?” Chandulal: “Because in this house I’ve never done anything by my own wish. When the thief comes, I’ll ask you.”

In the hospital, seeing a beautiful nurse as he emerged from chloroform, Chandulal murmured, “Where am I? It feels like heaven.” His wife standing nearby said, “No, dear, I’m with you.” At once he came to his senses!

Who wouldn’t like to flee husbands and wives? So the notion that “leave the house and you are free of moha” easily appeals.

Don’t make moha so small. What is there in your house but trouble? Running away is simple arithmetic. The old sannyas, based on this, was of two pennies’ worth.

Moha means the sense of “mine.” Freedom from moha means freedom from “mine.” You left home—did the “mine” leave? No. It shifts: my temple, my mosque, my scripture, my religion. A man leaves society to become a monk, but he doesn’t leave the religion society gave him. He still says, “I am Jain, I am Hindu, I am Muslim.” The same society you left taught you this garbage—you left the parents but carried their trash in your head. “My nation, my caste, my lineage!” This stiffness remains. The ego won’t go; it grabs harder. Before, “mine” was spread out—wife, son, daughter, relatives, money, house; now all that is gone, so what is left to clutch? “My Gita, my Quran, my temple, my creed.” This “mine” has become subtler, interior; harder to drop. Coarse things are easier to leave; the subtle clutch requires keen eyes to see.

A monk who calls himself a Jain is no monk. What kind of silence is that if the old babble still runs? A sannyasi who still calls himself a Hindu is no sannyasi. If you’ve left the very system, how can you still cling to its labels? A sannyasi who still keeps the Brahmin-Shudra divide—what kind of sannyasi is that? He left society but social hierarchies live in his skull. Will he eat with a Shudra?

Digambara Jain monks, when they travel, accept food only from Jain households. What a renunciation! Having renounced society, yet they take food only from their own. On long pilgrimages there are many villages with no Jains. So a farce develops: ten or fifteen kitchen-tents travel with the monk. Why so many? Because Mahavira taught: take a vow in the morning and accept food where that symbol appears. Today the monks use fifteen fixed “vows” everyone knows—“Where two bananas hang,” “where mango leaves hang,” “where a woman invites with a rose”—so the fifteen kitchens hang the fifteen symbols and one is sure to match! Food is thus guaranteed.

Mahavira’s own vows were never repeated and often impossible—sometimes he did not eat for six months. One day he vowed: “I will accept food only if a princess, with shackles on her feet, one foot inside the threshold and one foot outside, and handcuffs on her hands, invites me.” Where would such a princess come from? Yet he would walk the village and return in the same joy, the same gratitude. His hidden key was: I have no will to live left; if Existence wishes to keep this body for its work, it will arrange it. If not, so be it. No personal lust-to-live—this is moha-mukti. Even the wish to survive has dropped.

Mahavira was not “Jain” in the sectarian sense; Krishna not “Hindu,” Mohammed not “Muslim,” Jesus not “Christian,” Buddha not “Buddhist.” They cannot be. Where the “I” is gone, how can “mine” remain? If “mine” persists while “I” is intact, any renunciation will be hollow. Yes, you can leave money, but the same “I” that clutched wealth will clutch renunciation: yesterday, “I have millions”; today, “I kicked millions”—with even greater pride. Jains keep diaries of fasts, publish annual tallies of vows—account-books continue even in monkhood.

Mahavira stood at many doors; if the vow was not met, he moved on. The modern monk imitates—he is a copyist. He takes fixed vows already known to his entourage; food is assured. And they think they have dropped moha, the lust to live.

Mahavira slept naked. Digambaras too sleep naked—but in winter disciples lay thick straw under them and heap straw over them; straw insulates well. I asked a monk, “I never read that Mahavira slept on straw.” He said, “What can I do? I lie on the ground; people put it there.” I said, “If they spread thorns, will you lie? If they put an ice slab on your chest, will you accept?” He jumped up: “What are you saying?” I said, “Your disciples are fools to lay straw.”

Hindu ascetics sit naked, but smear ash all over. Do you know why? Not for austerity. The skin breathes; in cold, you wear wool, but ash smeared into every pore is warmer than wool—the pores get sealed, air cannot enter. Cloth still admits some air; ash blocks it completely. You think it is renunciation; it is technique. Techniques will sprout when the root disease is untouched.

By moha I mean the extension of the “I” into “mine.” Then it makes no difference whether you have an empire or not. With understanding, one can live in a palace without “mine.” Without understanding, one can stand naked under a tree and be full of “mine.”

Once in Manali, I sat under a tree where a sadhu had sat for twenty years. He was out begging; when he returned I closed my eyes. He said, “Get up; this tree is mine. I have sat here twenty years.” I said, “A tree belongs to no one. Sit here twenty thousand years—what difference? Right now I am sitting. When I rise, sit down. I am not going to rise now.” He grew furious: “Everyone knows this is my tree!” I teased him further to watch his anger. Then I told him, “I provoked you to see: you left wife and home, but you have made this tree your property. A new house!”

Without insight, you will repeat the same mistake in new forms.

Truly there is no enemy like moha, because it is ego itself. Wherever the ego spreads and sticks, there is moha. So do not say “my religion, my scripture, my Quran, my Bible, my Gita; my country, my caste, my lineage.” These are moha—very subtle moha.

Kāma is the craving for more—also the ego’s expansion. Moha is the urge to hold what you have as “mine,” to keep it from slipping away—the clinging branch of the same tree.

“There is no disease like desire; no enemy like delusion; no fire like anger.”

Understand: kāma is the race for more; moha is holding on to what that race acquired; krodha is the flame that rises when anyone obstructs this craving or your claim to “mine.” That sadhu’s ego was injured when I sat under “his” tree; anger flared. Where ego is gratified, there is moha; where it is pricked, there is anger. Moha and krodha are two faces of one coin; their root is kāma. Whoever aids your craving you call friend; whoever hinders you is enemy. People even define friendship as “one who is useful in time of need”—that is, one who serves my climb; and enemy as one who blocks it.

Anger arises whenever a desire is thwarted. Almost all sectarian heads are angry with me. Why? Those who agree on nothing unite against me because they feel I threaten their trade. If people understand me, temples and mosques will be empty; who will go to Kashi or to Kaaba? So behind their anxiety is great anger—because I do not collude with their ambitions.

Jain monks told me, “We will support you in every way if you always support Jainism.” I said, “I support only truth. If Jainism aligns with truth, I support it; if not, I cannot.” Hindu leaders said, “Preach Hinduism in the world and we are with you.” I said, “I will preach only truth.” Thus, befriending truth, I made enemies of those living by untruth; linking with God, I drew the ire of those trading in his name.

Surely there is no fire like anger. Other fires burn objects; anger burns the soul. Other flames char the gross; anger scorches the subtlest—consciousness itself. Yet your scriptures call hot-tempered Durvasa a rishi—ready to curse at the slightest slip. A rishi and he curses? A rishi can only bless; only benediction rains from him.

I call Rabi‘a a rishi, not Durvasa. Rabi‘a, the Sufi woman. The Quran says, “Hate Satan.” She crossed it out. No one can amend the Quran—it is God’s word! But Rabi‘a did. Hasan, a fakir visiting her, saw her Quran and found a verse struck through. “Someone has profaned your Quran,” he said. “No one, and not profaned—purified. I did it,” she replied. “Since I have known God, I cannot see Satan. Whom shall I hate? If Satan himself stands before me, I see only God. Since knowing God, my whole life has become love; there is no hate left in me. Whether Satan or God, prayer rises from me; there is only fragrance.” I call Rabi‘a a rishi—and say she was right to correct the Quran. Durvasa I cannot call a rishi. The state of the seer is where neither kāma, nor moha, nor krodha remain; where these three end, knowledge is born.

Thus the sutra is right: “There is no joy higher than knowledge.”

Knowledge is the great bliss. But only when these three are gone. This triad—kāma, krodha, moha—is the barrier. India called God “Trimurti,” but a deeper insight is Patanjali’s: the real state is turiya, the fourth. Go beyond the three to the fourth. Gurdjieff’s disciple Ouspensky wrote The Fourth Way—turiya means the fourth. Beyond kāma, moha, krodha lies the fourth. Then knowledge.

See the trimurti afresh. Kāma is Brahma—because creation sprouts from desire. Read the myths: Brahma creates earth and becomes attached to his “daughter,” chases her; she flees, taking many animal forms, and he follows, taking the corresponding male forms. In this chase, the myriad species are born—Brahma’s desire proliferating. Brahma is the symbol of kāma.

Vishnu is moha—the preserver, the keeper, the maintenance of what is. Moha’s very nature is to hold, protect, arrange. Hence innumerable temples for Vishnu and his avatars—Rama, Krishna. Brahma has only one temple; the world is already made—who needs a creator now? But as long as there is something to preserve, Vishnu is relevant; the stick is in his hand, so all the buffaloes obey. A thousand names we sing for Vishnu.

Mahesh (Shiva) is krodha—the destroyer, the one who ends the play. Read the tales: in a flash he lops off Ganesh’s head; he opens the third eye and burns Kama to ash; he dances the tandava of dissolution. The end requires the energy of destruction—anger.

These three are not God’s ultimate forms; they are distortions. The one who goes beyond all three attains the Divine—the fourth, turiya. That is knowledge, bodhi, Buddha-hood. No wonder the Buddhists tell that when Siddhartha became Buddha, all the gods—even Brahma—came to bow at his feet. They should! Buddha-hood is far beyond divinity as imagined in the trimurti. In Brahma you will find your own lust; in Vishnu your own attachment; in Mahesh your own anger in densest form. Beyond all three—where neither desire nor delusion nor anger remain—there is knowledge. Your original nature unfolds like a thousand-petaled lotus; music and poetry arise for the first time in your life.

Surely knowledge is the great bliss. But do not take “knowledge” to mean book learning. This knowing comes only through meditation, because meditation burns the triad. It is a fire in which these three turn to ash; what remains—pure gold—cannot be burned. Through the fire of meditation, all dross is gone; only the gold remains. That is knowledge. Whoever attains it has attained all; whoever misses it loses all—and we are all missing it.

What madness—that you worship Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh while within you dwells the very Brahman, the Fourth! Within you is the Supreme, and you chant Hanuman Chalisa. Have a little shame! You, the Brahman, playing with toys! But in trance, this is how it is.

Awaken. Let meditation awaken you and this sutra’s true meaning will be revealed.

This sutra is precious:
Nāsti kāmasamo vyādhiḥ, nāsti mohasamo ripuḥ.
Nāsti krodhasamo vahniḥ, nāsti jñānāt paraṁ sukham.

Rajaram! Raja-bhaiya, it’s your good fortune she’s attending the sadhus’ satsangs—otherwise you wouldn’t be able to come here at all. Let her go. At least it gives you the chance to come here. Don’t obstruct her. And don’t try to explain things to her. Otherwise even that convenience won’t remain—if she starts doing your satsang. Let her go wherever she wants. The moment you hear some sadhu has come, immediately tell her, “Bai, go.”

Chandulal was telling his friend Dhabboo-ji, “These days in town there’s Swami Muktananda’s satsang—simply magnificent, amazing, extraordinary! My heart felt bagh-bagh—meaning garden-garden! Last night I felt such bliss as never before in my life.”
Dhabboo-ji said, “I’m surprised—I never thought you were such a connoisseur of saints and spirituality! Forgive me, friend; truth is, I took you for just a Marwari businessman and didn’t recognize your spiritual heart. But one thing I don’t get: last night at the satsang I saw your good lady and the children, but I didn’t see you. Where were you sitting?”
Chandulal said, “Me? I was at home relaxing. After years I got such a chance—no disturbance from wife and kids, peace reigning in the house. That’s the joy I’m describing. O God, may this satsang go on forever!”

Why are you, Rajaram, getting yourself into trouble? I’ve told you—keep track of the sadhus. If some Muktananda comes or some Akhandananda comes, tell your wife, “Go, bai, there’s an amazing satsang!” At least for that while you’ll have some peace. You can meditate. Do you really want to create obstacles for yourself?

And tell me, has any husband ever managed to make his wife understand? Have you heard of it in history? You’re out to make the impossible possible? Don’t get into this tangle. The real danger is that she may be the one to make you understand. Women have a different way of understanding. Their thinking process is different. And every wife considers her husband worth two cowries—cheap. Will she learn from him? And she has her reasons: she always shows herself a notch above you. She keeps religious vows and fasts.

There are several things here. Women can fast easily. There’s a scientific basis. Men can’t do it as easily, because a woman’s body stores more fat than a man’s. The reason is that when a child grows in her womb, it occupies so much space that she can’t eat properly; if she does, she may vomit. So for those nine months nature has made arrangements—her body stores fat so she can metabolize her own reserves. It’s an emergency provision for nine months. In men there’s no such arrangement; their bodies don’t store fat the way women’s bodies do. So if a woman decides to fast, she can do it quite easily; she has no hurdle. For a man, fasting feels like life itself is leaving. So women fast—and then they say, “See, you sinner of the whole wide world!” It’s easier for them, that’s all.

Then, by nature, a woman doesn’t usually show eagerness in sexual desire from her side. That’s just her nature—no special virtue in it. She waits; the man proposes. And the one who proposes gets caught, because she’ll keep telling you, “Always you—nothing but sex ever occurs to you! At least cultivate some religion, do something meaningful; life is only a few days long—later you’ll regret it!” And the man too is compelled—he has to propose; it’s his nature. Just as it’s a woman’s nature to wait, it’s a man’s to take the initiative. So a woman naturally proceeds on the assumption that she is the religious one.

What man can convince his wife that her religiosity is wrong, that she is wrong? She’ll say, “First go look at your face in the mirror!” And their thinking process is entirely different.

Women, generally, are traditionalists. There is a natural reason behind it. A woman has to move with caution. For centuries we have expected her to walk carefully. One who moves cautiously clings to the past, because the past is known. He or she can’t take risks. To grasp the new is dangerous—who knows what the result will be!

And we’ve frightened and cowed women for centuries. The scriptures say: when a woman is a child the father should protect her; when she’s young, the husband; and when she’s old, the son. Meaning you’ll never let her stand on her own feet—always “protect,” protect, protect! Never let her act on her own. So you’ve kept her nervous, scared, fearful. The result of that fear is that she always clings to the past, to the familiar.

My words are new. New in the sense that no traditional sadhu, mahant, pundit, or priest will endorse them. In truth they are both ancient and ever-new, because what I’m saying is eternal and timeless. But the pundit-priest clings to the past, and the woman is pleased with him. Women are won over by pundits very quickly. It fits her, because that’s what she has always heard.

For centuries you didn’t allow women the right to read the Vedas, the Upanishads. You kept them wandering in stories. A woman may read the Puranas, but not the Vedas. Let her read Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas—enough. That much knowledge is plenty for her; she needs no more. For centuries you blocked women from knowledge. And I am igniting the fire of knowing—so how will your wife be pleased?

And if you try to drag her here, she will never come, because then it becomes an ego issue: who listens to whom! My experience is that if men try to bring their wives here, the wives never come. If wives try to bring their husbands, the husbands never come. Still, I maintain that if a woman insists, the husband will have to come—because she knows how to create an uproar. She’ll cry and wail, beat her head, refuse to cook, break things—drop the radio, smash the watch. The husband already comes home battered by the world all day, and then he has no capacity left to be battered at home. He wants a little peace at home. For the sake of peace he compromises. And why should the woman compromise? All day she’s preparing: “Any moment now, Pappu’s father will be home.” There’s no one else for her. You haven’t allowed her a world; you’ve tied everything to a single husband. Naturally, whatever she has to do, she has to do with this one husband. You’ve closed all other doors for her. So she keeps boiling all day—and the moment you arrive, she bursts.

Then too, men and women have different thought processes. Your logic is of no use to her. A woman doesn’t live by logic; she lives by love. That’s why the women who are with me aren’t here because my words seemed right; they are here because they fell in love with me. And the men who are here are here because my words seemed right. The reasons differ. Men are here because they grasped the rationale, they saw the vision. Women are here because they felt the rasa, the flavor, in me. For them it’s personal.

That’s why I’ve always observed: if I speak against a man’s mental positions, he runs away. Why? Because he agreed on the basis of his concepts. His logic found the talk fitting, so he agreed. If I say something contrary to his logic, he’s gone. But no woman drops sannyas. Because my words matter less to her; I matter. Whatever I say, she likes—because I am saying it. A man likes me because he likes my words; if the words don’t appeal, then I’m in the wrong. The thought processes are different.

A lady brought her car in for repair and said to the garage owner, “Fix the horn. The brakes are bad.”
A hotel kept losing two spoons every day. Everyone was worried. Finally one day the waiter caught a lady and asked, “Devi-ji, why do you take two spoons every day?”
The lady said, “What can I do? The doctor told me to take two tablespoons after meals.”
A very obese woman went to the doctor and complained about her weight. The doctor said, “Sister, medicines won’t do. Have boiled vegetables, carrots, radishes, lots of fruit, milk, and yogurt.”
The obese woman asked, “Should I eat all that before meals or after?”
See—the woman’s grip is different! Her arithmetic is different.

“Sister-ji, when will the Janakpuri bus leave?” a man asked a woman sitting on a nearby bench.
“In an hour.”
“Hey Ram,” the gentleman said, “by then, in this cold, the kulfi will be frozen solid.”
Even after an hour, when the bus hadn’t come, the woman said, “Brother, if the kulfi has frozen, give me a little too.”

A husband told his wife, “Before doing anything, at least ask me.”
A little later the wife came and said, “Nannhe’s papa, I saw through the window that a cat is drinking milk in the kitchen—if you say so, I’ll chase it away.”

Rajaram, you ask: “You explain so much, yet why does nothing get through to my wife?”

For wives, this isn’t a matter of understanding; it’s a matter of love. Don’t worry. If your wife simply comes here, that’s enough. You understand—understanding is for you. For your wife it’s enough that she comes here, sits here—she’ll be immersed, and before you. But don’t insist that she must understand. Your insistence will create an obstacle. Don’t stand between me and her. If she comes, good; if she listens, good. If she doesn’t come, don’t fret, don’t worry, don’t drag her here. If the transformation in your life one day brings her, good; otherwise there is no other way to bring her. Nor is there any need.

Anil Bharti! In whose life is there no melancholy? Until there is self-realization, there will be melancholy. Until the Divine is found, there will be melancholy. It is natural.

So don’t get into analyzing melancholy. Put that energy into meditation. This is the difference between psychology and religion. Psychology analyzes why melancholy is there, what its causes are; religion doesn’t bother about why or what the causes are—it directly suggests meditation.

Consider: there is darkness in your house. Should you first figure out why it’s dark, what the cause is—or light a lamp? I say, even if you want to understand darkness, how will you do it without lighting a lamp? First light the lamp, then try to find where the darkness is—you won’t find it.

Don’t ask for an analysis of melancholy. Light the lamp. Melancholy is like darkness.

When, in your separation, we panic,
we bang our heads against the walls.
O Death, for God’s sake, now come—
we are frightened of life itself.
We had said we would never come again;
uninvited, today we turn up once more.
Who promised to come home?
We are going out of our minds.
When, in your separation, we panic,
we bang our heads against the walls.

For now, what else will you do—bang your head against the walls! Until the Divine is found, life is a pain, a wound. With the Divine, there is wholeness. And it is not difficult to find him; finding is simple.

Wake up. Draw your energy back from the mind and gather it in meditation. Let the lamp of meditation be lit so that the fish returns to the ocean. And then there is only bliss upon bliss.

That’s all for today.