Jyun Tha Tyun Thaharaya #8

Sahajanand! Not in the least. This formula is a recipe for self-hypnosis, not self-awakening. There is nothing to “become.” What you are has to be revealed. The Kohinoor doesn’t have to become the Kohinoor; it only has to be uncovered. The Kohinoor already is. The jeweler’s entire effort is to polish the Kohinoor—to refine it, not to make it. Layers of mud may have collected on it; they need to be washed off. The Kohinoor must be given luster, given facets.

When the Kohinoor was first found, it weighed three times what it weighs today. In giving it facets—cutting and trimming, discarding what was useless and preserving what was essential—only one-third remained. But its value today is millions of times greater than when it was found. The weight decreased—its value increased.

What you are has to be discovered. But this aphorism says something else. It is a formula of self-hypnosis, auto-hypnosis. It says: “As a man constantly strives, as he imagines with total absorption, and as he wishes to be, so he becomes; not otherwise.”

If you keep imagining becoming something, if you sustain that imagining, you will become covered by it. The covering can grow so dense that the delusion arises: “I have become this.”

A Sufi fakir was once brought to me. Thirty years of continuous practice! His disciples told me he saw God everywhere—in trees, in stones, in rocks—God alone appeared to him.

I said: Bring him. Leave him with me for three days.

When he had been with me for three days, I asked him, “May I ask: this God you see—do you see him, or have you imagined him?”

He said, “What difference does it make?”

I said, “The difference is immense. When the sun rises, you see it—you don’t have to imagine that it is the sun. When the moon appears, you see it—you don’t have to imagine it is the moon. If there is beauty, it is seen; you don’t have to imagine beauty. Imagination is needed only when it is not seen.”

Imagination breeds delusion. Sustain any imagination for thirty years and naturally the imagination will become an overlay.

So I told him, “Do one thing, and the difference will be clear: for three days, stop imagining.”

He understood. For three days he did not imagine. On the fourth day he was furious with me. He said, “You have destroyed my thirty years of sadhana.”

I said, “If what is achieved in thirty years is destroyed in three days, what is its worth? You reached nowhere. You were living in fantasy. You had constructed a dream around yourself. Now you see trees—but no God. What happened to that God? If he had really appeared, how could he vanish in three days?

“Learn something. Don’t be angry. The lesson is: thirty years were wasted. Even now it’s not too late; life still remains. Stop imagining.

“Refine your eyes—don’t burden them with imagination. Do not wear the spectacles of imagination. Imagination can give you spectacles. Put on red spectacles—the whole world looks red! It hasn’t turned red; it isn’t red, but you put on the spectacles of imagination. Take off the spectacles and the world will appear as it is. All the redness will be gone.”

This formula is for falsifying one’s personality. Yet on such formulas all the world’s religions are superimposed. It is not only the Yoga Vasistha’s delusion; this delusion lies at the foundation of all religions.

You go to a temple. You see a stone statue—but you imagine it is Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira. You bow before your own imagination. You actually see nothing.

Take a Buddhist into a Jain temple—he will feel no urge to bow. He sees no Mahavira; he sees stone. Bring a Muslim—when you bow he laughs: “What foolishness! Bowing before a stone idol—what idolatry! What blindness!” You are not bowing before stone; you have superimposed your imagination. For you it is a Tirthankara, it is Mahavira.

Take a Jain to a mosque—he will feel no reverence. But a Muslim is moved to tears there.

What does this point toward?

One who is not Hindu will laugh upon seeing Ganesha. One who is Hindu will be filled with reverence. One who is not Hindu, on seeing Hanuman, will think, “What madness is this! Worshiping a monkey—and humans bowing before a monkey! No shame, no embarrassment!” But a Hindu has superimposed an imagination. He is wearing a lens. Reflect on the various religions of the world and you will understand.

Jesus was crucified. A Jain monk once told me, “Don’t mention Jesus’ name alongside Mahavira; where is Mahavira and where is Jesus! What comparison! Jesus was crucified! For Jains a Tirthankara is not even pricked by a thorn; crucifixion is far off. In Jain reckoning, when a Tirthankara walks, the thorns on the path immediately turn upside down, lest they pierce his feet. Because no sin remains—how can a thorn pierce? Suffering is due to sin. A thorn pierces because of sin. Nothing happens without cause. That is the whole theory of karma.

“And if Jesus was crucified, he must have committed some great sin in a past life—otherwise how could he be crucified!”

A Jain finds it difficult to place Jesus beside Mahavira. “This man was crucified; obviously a crucifixion cannot be without cause—there must be some great past sin behind it.”

And the Christian wears the cross around his neck. He bows before the very cross. For him nothing is more sacred than the cross. The cross is his symbol of Jesus.

If you ask a Christian about Mahavira, he will say, “No comparison with Jesus, because Jesus sacrificed his life for the good of mankind. What did Mahavira do? Mahavira was entirely self-centered. Did he open hospitals? Feed the poor? Serve the sick? Wash the feet of lepers? Give sight to the blind? Legs to the lame? What did he do?”

You see, Mother Teresa received a Nobel Prize. If Mahavira were alive, could he get a Nobel Prize? For what? He did not open orphanages, nor widows’ homes! Entirely self-concerned! Absorbed in his own meditation and bliss! What is the point of worshiping such a self-centered person? What did he renounce? And if he renounced wealth, he did it for his own sake, because wealth obstructs self-bliss, obstructs brahmananda. But the bliss is his own. Did he care about anyone else?

To Christians, then, Mahavira and Buddha do not seem venerable.

Hindus call Krishna the full avatar, while Jains consign him to hell—because Krishna caused a war, a great violence. Arjuna was close to being a monk; he was ready to renounce and walk away. Krishna dragged him back. One who was near to becoming a Jain—he corrupted him! Krishna must be punished.

Now look: Hindus say “full avatar.” That is their lens. Full avatar because life’s totality flowered in Krishna. Even Rama is not called a full avatar by Hindus, because Rama has maryada—limits. Krishna is amaryad—without limits.

Mahavira is an ascetic, a vow-taker; but his renunciation is out of fear of the world. He became enlightened by leaving the world. Krishna became enlightened while living in the world. That is the real touchstone: he sat in the fire and experienced supreme peace.

To flee the fire—that is to be a deserter. One who reveres Krishna will call Mahavira and Buddha deserters. Struggle in life; life is a challenge. If you flee the challenge, you waste the opportunity. It is cowardice. It is turning your back.

Krishna did not turn his back on life. Hence he stopped Arjuna too: “Why are you fleeing? Why this talk of cowardice? Why this talk of impotence? Have you become a eunuch? Pick up your Gandiva. Drop this ego—that you are the doer of violence. Remove yourself from between; become only a vehicle of the Divine. Do not bring your ego in.”

For the Hindu, Krishna is the full avatar. It is his lens. For the Jain, Krishna deserves hell. Leave alone avatar—he is worse than ordinary men. Not even all ordinary men go to hell. Only great sinners go. Krishna caused a great sin. For the Jain’s lens, killing even an ant is sin; and this man caused the killing of perhaps a hundred millions! Because of him the slaughter happened. Who else is responsible for such a great violence? Everyone has their own lenses.

And I say: truth is seen by one who removes all lenses—who is neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian, nor Jain, nor Buddhist. These are all matters of imagination. You superimpose your imagination. What you superimpose is bound to appear—but it appears as a dream appears. It appears as things appear when drunk.

Mulla Nasruddin went to the tavern every day. People were puzzled that whenever he sat to drink he would take a frog from his pocket and place it on the table! He had kept a frog. Many times people asked the secret.

He would keep drinking. Then suddenly he would stop, put the frog back in his pocket, and go home.

One day the tavern owner said, “Drink on me today—but now tell us the secret. Our curiosity is mounting. What is the matter? You keep bringing this frog and set it there!”

Mulla said, “It’s nothing—a small secret. It’s arithmetic. When this frog starts appearing double to me, then I know—enough, stop now. The danger line has come! I quickly pick him up—both of them—and head home, because now I should reach home fast, or I may fall on the way. As long as there is one frog, I keep drinking. When there are two—that’s it.”

Mulla was training his son how to drink. A father teaches what he knows—what else can he teach! A drunkard teaches drinking. A Hindu makes a Hindu. A Jain makes a Jain. A Buddhist makes a Buddhist—each his own imagination. He took his son to the tavern and said, “Always remember one thing: start drinking, and you see those two men at that table? When they become four, stop!” The son said, “Father, there is only one man sitting there! You already see two!”

Mulla is already drunk—he sees double! Now he says, when they become four, stop! He is intoxicated.

What is seen in intoxication is not truth. Yes, by sustained effort you can create intoxication. By sustained imagination you can change your inner chemistry. These are straightforward psychological facts.

If you keep thinking the same thought again and again, naturally a layer of emotion will form inside you as a result.

A great hypnotist arose in France. He helped many patients. He would tell them, “Think only one thing: every day, in every way, I am getting better and better. Upon waking, make this your first thought. And keep it your last thought before sleep.”

A patient returned after three months. The doctor asked, “Any benefit?” He said, “There is. My days are perfectly fine now—but the nights are terrible!” He kept count of the “days”—“Every day I am getting better”—so his days went fine. “But nights! All the day’s ailments gather and erupt at night. My sleep is ruined. What a formula you gave!”

The psychologist had not thought that the man would literally count only the day and exclude the night!

Once a young man was brought to me. His parents were in tears. “We are exhausted! The university had to remove him. He has a delusion that a fly has entered his body. He sleeps with his mouth open and believes that a fly went in. Perhaps one did—and went out too. We’ve done X-rays, consulted doctors. But he won’t believe. He says it’s buzzing inside. All day he chants this: it went into my leg! Now my hand! Look—here it is… now it moved there! He has nothing else left; he neither sleeps nor lets anyone sleep. He neither eats nor lets anyone eat! The fly is buzzing! It enters my head! Runs from head to toe! The doctors say it’s delusion; they can’t do anything. Someone mentioned your name, so we’ve brought him.”

I said, “Let us try.”

I said, “If he says so, he must be right. Surely a fly has gone in.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “You are the first person who understands. No one believes me. Everyone says I’m mad. How am I mad? I hear the buzzing. It moves—sometimes it enters my chest, sometimes my leg, sometimes my head. No one understands my plight. If it doesn’t show up on your X-rays, what can I do! But I have my own experience. How can I deny my experience? Tell me anything—you can’t convince me.”

“They’ve eaten my head trying to explain. The fly tortures me, and these explainers torture me. My parents lecture me; the neighbors lecture me; doctors lecture me; everywhere people say, ‘Drop it—what fly?’ Even if it went in, it must have died. How can anything buzz inside? But what can I do? It buzzes. The fly won’t accept your explanations—even if I do!”

I said, “You are absolutely right. A fly has gone in. Until it is taken out, nothing will help. Lie down.”

I tied a blindfold over his eyes and ran through the house to catch a fly—by great effort I caught one. I took off his blindfold and showed him the fly. He said, “Now this is something! Look, Father—where did this come from? What happened to your X-rays?”

I had told his parents, “Stay absolutely silent. Don’t say I caught the fly—say it was taken out of him.” They said, “Forgive us. We were wrong. You were right.”

He said, “Give me the fly. I’ll show it to all of them.” Now there was total silence within him; the buzzing was gone. He himself began to say, “When the fly is no longer inside—here it is—then the matter is finished.”

From that day he recovered. He became healthy.

When a feeling grows intense, results surely follow. The results can be real: he was becoming sickly, low, depressed. The idea was false—but the results were real.

Like seeing a snake in a rope and running. You fall, slip, break a bone. The fracture is real—but the snake was false. You may even have a heart attack—run hard with a heavy body, fall, panic—one can die seeing a snake that wasn’t there at all.

But it was seen. And for the one who saw, that is sufficient. Though it was a delusion, self-imposed.

This kind of formula has corrupted all religions. Such formulas set people on the wrong path: “Just imagine!”

With imagination you will certainly start producing results. If your imagination is strong, results will come. But because imagination is false it can slip away at any time. You are building a house without any foundation. You are erecting a palace on sand; it will fall—and when it falls it will shatter you too.

I do not tell you to imagine, Sahajanand. I say: become thoughtless, emotionless, free of alternatives. Let all imagination go. Let all thought go. Become a zero. Emptiness is meditation. Thoughtlessness is meditation. Then what is—appears. As long as thought is there, you will keep seeing something else. Thought distorts. It keeps coming in between.

Because of thought you begin to see what is not, and what is you cannot see. Fast for two days and then go to the market—you will see only hotels, restaurants, tea stalls, the smell of fritters—things that never stood out before. Two days of fasting will change your inner mood; now only food will stand out.

Heinrich Heine, the famous German poet, wrote that once he wandered for three days in a forest, went for hunting and lost the way. Separated from his companions, he stayed hungry for three days. On the third night when the full moon rose, he was astonished: in the moon where he always saw his beloved’s face, he saw nothing of the sort. He saw a white loaf floating in the sky! He saw bread in the moon! Has anyone seen bread in the moon? The hungry can. After three days of hunger the moon will appear like a floating white loaf. What use is a beautiful woman to a hungry man! That is why fasting became so influential. Fasting is a device to suppress desire. If you remain hungry—for twenty-one days—you will forget women and men. To see a woman a healthy body is needed; to see a man a healthy body is needed.

This trick fell into the hands of the religious: keep yourself absolutely hungry, exhaust your energy—so depleted that only enough remains to survive. If there is a little extra, there is danger—desire may surge. But no one becomes free of desire by this. It is mere repression—violent repression.

Fasting is a device of repression. The hungry forget—he sees only bread. The well-fed see many things the hungry cannot. And when all your needs are fulfilled, then you begin to see something else—something that cannot be seen while needs press upon you.

As long as needs are there, they stand in the way. Keep this in mind, Sahajanand. I have given you the name Sahajanand. Sahaja means: that which already is, to know it. Not to imagine it, not to fabricate it, not even to strive for it. It is natural, spontaneous.

Religion is natural, because it is your intrinsic nature. The Divine dwells within you. Just set your thoughts aside a little.

You have been told: believe. I tell you: drop belief—because belief is a thought. And if you persist in a thought, things begin to appear accordingly. But they do not become so; only they appear so. It is your delusion, your imagination.

And imagination can be beautiful, sweet, charming. You must have had sweet dreams, delectable dreams. But a dream is a dream. You will wake—and it will break.

To dream, people fled to the forests; they fasted. Because it is now a scientific fact that if a person is left alone, within three weeks his imagination becomes very intense. Why? Because when one lives among others, their presence does not allow the imagination to run wild. Put him in a Himalayan cave—what will he do sitting there? He will only imagine. There is nothing else left to do. His ties with reality are cut; he ran from reality. Now, sitting alone, he will keep imagining. Slowly he will start talking to himself.

In madhouses you have seen it—lunatics talk to themselves. You call them mad, and you call religious the man who talks to God! What God? Imagined! He talks to God—he himself speaks, he himself replies. In solitude, this is possible.

Solitude plus hunger—if you arrange these two, any imagination will start feeling true. But this is a way of deceiving oneself. It is not religion; it is self-delusion.

This aphorism is important because within it lies the basic deception of religion as it is commonly practiced.

“As a person constantly strives, as he imagines with total absorption, so he becomes.
As he wishes to become—so he becomes; not otherwise.”

The mind’s imagination has great influence on certain things—on the body, very much so. Try a small experiment. Clasp your hands tightly, interlock the fingers. Ten people can do it together. Keep repeating: “No matter what we do, we will not be able to open our hands.” It’s a small experiment anyone can do any time. “However much we try, we will not be able to open our hands.” Repeat this for ten minutes. After ten minutes, try with full force to open your hands. You will be amazed: in at least three out of ten, the hands will remain locked. The more they try, the more difficult it becomes. They will sweat—but the hands won’t open.

About thirty to thirty-three percent of people are highly susceptible to hypnosis. They are easily hypnotized. These very people become your so-called religious people—your saints, your fakirs. For them, anything is easy. Having bound their own hands by imagination, they now try to open them and cannot. And there is a twist: the more they try and fail, the deeper their conviction that it is now impossible; their hands are bound and won’t open. They panic; they have no way to open them—except to reverse the process.

They should stop struggling. Again for ten minutes they should think the opposite of what they thought before: “When I open my hands after ten minutes, they will surely open; certainly they will open. No doubt.” After ten minutes, their hands will open. You can test this with ten friends. You may not have suspected that you are among that thirty-three percent.

Such a person can get caught in all kinds of illnesses.

In medical colleges it is well known that the disease being studied begins to appear among the students. When they study stomach pain, see patients, examine abdomens—many students develop stomach trouble. They begin to imagine: “Perhaps I have the same pain!” They start pressing their own stomachs—and if you press, somewhere it will hurt. You will feel pain and begin to panic.

Among Sufis there is a story: Junaid—the famous master of Mansoor—lived in a hut outside Baghdad. The story is charming—psychologically insightful, though not historical.

One day he saw a black shadow rushing toward Baghdad. His hut was at the city gate. He said, “Stop! Who are you?” The black shadow said, “I am Death. Forgive me, I have to kill five hundred people in Baghdad.” The fakir said, “As He wills.” Death went in.

Within fifteen days not five hundred but five thousand had died. The fakir was astonished: “You said five hundred, but five thousand died!”

When Death returned, he said, “Stop—cheat! Why did you lie to me? You said five hundred and killed five thousand!”

Death said, “Forgive me. I killed only five hundred. The remaining four and a half thousand died on their own. They saw others die and died themselves.”

When an epidemic spreads, not all die of the disease. Some die just from seeing others die: “So many are dying—how can I be saved? So many are falling ill—how can I remain well?”

You must have noticed: a doctor is among patients all day—and does not die. He lives amid diseases—and does not catch them. You catch them in a moment! Contagion! It touches you at once. The doctor presses abdomens, takes pulses, gives injections—and does not catch it. You catch it. Your imagination makes you vulnerable.

You may also notice that doctors seem hard. You may weep—your wife is ill—and the doctor seems indifferent. He has to be, or he would have died long ago. He must learn indifference; it’s part of his profession, essential. He must wear a layer of detachment.

Here, someone dies every day. Yours is not the only wife! If he were shaken by everyone’s illness, he would die himself. So he slowly becomes hard. A shell forms around him—a shell even germs cannot penetrate.

Doctors seem hard; nurses too. You think, “This isn’t right—shouldn’t doctors be compassionate? Nurses should be compassionate.” They should—but they won’t survive. Their only way to survive is to maintain some hardness, to remain unaffected—who died, who lived—just as if watching a film. Keep the witness stance; only then can they live. Otherwise it’s impossible. They too have to live, and to live they must wear the armor of a certain hardness.

This formula is significant because it has led all religions astray. My effort here is to lift you above this formula. Understand my declaration.

I am saying your nature is sufficient. You have nothing else to become. So why strive? Why imagine? You are. What you ought to be, you already are. You have to awaken within and see: who am I? Not become anything—recognize what you are. Self-recognition, self-knowledge.

For self-knowledge, imagination is not needed; reasoning is not needed; effort is not needed. For self-knowledge, become thought-free; become effort-free. Don’t run—sit. Don’t flee—be still. Let there be no activity in the body, none in the mind. Both become inactive—then the scale of meditation will begin to play.

No thought in the mind, no action in the body—in that inaction, the diamond within you will shine. The hidden sun will be revealed. It is veiled by clouds; it will appear, rise above the horizon. You will be filled with light. And this is no outer attainment. It is your intimacy, your nature, your spontaneity. In this spontaneity alone is bliss, Sahajanand.

Purushottam! If you go on searching, your hands will remain empty. And if you search “here and there,” they will surely remain empty. “Here and there” means searching outside—at Kashi, at Kaaba, at Kailash; in the Gita, in the Quran, in the Bible.
You say, “Where haven’t I searched!”
That is exactly why you are empty. You have to look within—stop searching “everywhere.” Drop all seeking. Just sit. Come to rest inside yourself. As it is, stay as it is. In that stillness, in that state of the sthitaprajna—steady wisdom—in that supreme health…
“Health” means to be settled in oneself. Swasth—established in the Self—and you will find.
And the wonder is this: what has to be attained is what is already attained. What you are to seek is what is already found. You have brought it with you. It came with your birth. It was yours even before birth; it is yours now; it will be yours after death. But if you run around the whole world, naturally you will miss—because you will never get the chance to look within.
Now you ask, “What is this life?”
This question arises because you have not lived life from within. You are only turning it over in the intellect, thinking, “What is life?”—as if an answer will do!
Life is not something the intellect can answer. Life is in living. Life is not an object; you cannot analyze it—put it on a table and dissect it, put it in a test tube and examine it, weigh it on scales, measure it with a yardstick!
This life is within you. You are alive and you ask, “What is life?” You are fragrant and you ask, “What is fragrance?” You are conscious and you ask, “What is life?” This—what you are—is life.
You ask, “What is the truth of life? I’ve searched everywhere.”
Keep searching—through birth after birth you have been searching. With all that seeking you have only lost yourself. Now drop the search.
Here I teach dropping the search. Just sit. Become silent. Do not look in words. Do not look in the scriptures. There you will find only words—and words are hollow. Abide in your emptiness. In that very emptiness, it will reveal itself.
And what you did not find anywhere, you will find at home. He is already your guest there! Why even call him guest—he is the host. He is the very master for whom you have gone out in search. The one who has gone to seek is the very one to be found.

That heart we were destined for did not even give us a scar.
We found a house of fragrance where we could not find even a lamp.
She went saying, “I’ll bring the scent of my beloved’s tresses.”
She returned, and we could not find even the mind of the morning breeze.
Why did the hunter imprison us only to set us free?
We lost even our fellow traveler; that garden we never found.
Why should our eyes not brim in the cupbearer’s assembly?
So ill-fated—could not find even an empty goblet.
We took a lamp, resolved to search for the right moment.
It was a night of separation—no lamp could be found.
We sent word to the friend; it was lost on the way.
Of our scattered senses there is not a trace till today.
In the world’s great garden we are nightingales called Jalal—
The garden got its flowers; we did not get even a stain.

If you wander outside, this will be your fate.

Why should our eyes not brim in the cupbearer’s assembly?
So ill-fated—could not find even an empty goblet.

You won’t find even an empty cup. A cup filled with wine is far away—no, not even an empty cup will be found.

We took a lamp, resolved to search for the right moment.
It was a night of separation—no lamp could be found.

Purushottam, this is not a matter of searching with a lamp! People are busy searching; they are harried in searching; they are missing in searching.
Rabi’a, a Sufi fakira, used to pass daily by a certain road. There, outside a mosque, a fakir named Hasan always sat—hands raised to the sky, his robe spread, shouting, “O Lord, open the door!” Many times Rabi’a had seen Hasan praying like this. One day she could not contain herself. She was a brave woman. She went and shook Hasan and said, “Be quiet. Stop this nonsense. I tell you: the door is open. You are crying out needlessly—‘Open the door! Open the door!’ You are lost in your mantra of ‘Open the door.’ The door is open! Open your eyes. Stop this babble. The door was never closed.”
A king’s vizier died. He needed a vizier. How to choose one? A search was made throughout the land. Three intelligent men were brought to the capital. Now the king had to choose one of the three.
He asked a free-spirited fakir, “You show me a way. How should I choose? All three are supremely intelligent, very brilliant. It’s hard to decide who is greater. Each outshines the other. I’m in a dilemma—whom to choose, whom to drop? All three seem worthy. But I need only one man.”
The fakir gave him a trick—and it worked.
The three were shut inside a room. The emperor himself went in and said, “I am closing this door and going outside. There is no lock on this door. Look—where the lock would be, numbers are written. It is a puzzle. Whoever solves this riddle will be able to open the door. Whoever comes out first after solving it will become vizier.”
He left them and closed the door. Two of them immediately began calculating, writing figures, absorbed in mathematics. The third went to a corner, closed his eyes, and sat.
The other two looked at him: “What is this fool doing? Is this a time to sit with closed eyes? How will the riddle be solved?” Then they thought, “Good—one competitor is out of the race. He’s lost in his own tune…” The riddle was such that it could not be solved; it was not meant to be solved. They remained entangled—the more they tried, the more the net tightened.
And the third man sat quietly… sat quietly. Suddenly he got up. The other two did not even notice when he went out. The door had never been locked—it was merely latched. The man sat in silence, set aside all thoughts—he meditated.
And meditation has a wondrous quality: the vision becomes clear, transparent; inner sight opens.
Suddenly an inner understanding arose in him: the door is only latched; the riddle is a prank, a device to entangle. He stood up. “First, let me see whether the door is even closed. Then I’ll bother with the riddle.”
He rose, touched the door—it opened! He went out. The other two remained tangled in a puzzle that was never going to be solved. They woke up only when the emperor entered with that man and said, “Brothers, stop your calculations. The one who had to come out has come out. He has been chosen vizier. What are you doing now? Go home.”
They said, “But how did he get out? He was only sitting with eyes closed!” The emperor said, “The fakir told me: among the three, the one capable of meditation will come out. Those who sit down to do mathematics will get stuck. Those who apply logic will go astray. For this door is like life.
Life is not mathematics; it is not logic. Life is a great open secret. Live it—in silence, in serenity, in fullness—and it is an open secret. But you can tangle yourself in it.
There is one way to know love—dive into love. But naturally the clever, calculating person says, “First let me know what love is. Then I’ll dive.” He will miss. Whoever thought, “First I’ll know what love is…”—how will he know love? Love is known only by loving; there is no other way. Is there any other?
Sweetness is known by tasting—there is no other means. Light is known by opening the eyes. Someone keeps his eyes shut and says, “I will open them when I know what light is—whether it is or not. Then I’ll open my eyes.” He will sit forever with eyes closed. He will remain blind.
Come, open your eyes! You say, “What is life?”—and you are alive! Just open your eyes within. Life is throbbing. Who is it that beats within your heart? Whose are these breaths? Who is asking this question? Who is it that has been searching?

A riddle—neither to explain nor to understand.
What is life? A madman’s dream.
Beauty is my essence; love is my attribute.
I am the flame, yet I wear the moth’s disguise.
Life itself is ashamed to have brought me here—
It is seeking some excuse for my death.
Take me to the gallows now and lay me down, O cupbearer—
Such staggering does not befit your intoxicated one.
We have combed the lanes of temple and mosque,
But found nowhere a dwelling for your mad lover.
Whose eyes come to mind at the last breath?
This heart is a crystal goblet brimming over with wine.
Every breath of life just past is a corpse, O Fani—
Life is the name of dying and dying, yet going on living.

“Life is the name of dying and dying, yet going on living.” If you want to know life, then moment to moment die to the past. Don’t carry the past; let it die. And take no relish in the future at all. Between the millstones of these two—past and future—life is being crushed.
Life is the present. Life is here and now. And you are wandering “here and there”—in memories of the past, in fantasies of the future: “Such was life; such should life be!”—and you miss what life is.
We have combed the lanes of temple and mosque—
Go on combing the alleys of temples and mosques—you will get dust.
We found nowhere a dwelling for your mad lover.
You will not find. You will find nothing.

Beauty is my essence; love is my attribute.
I am the flame, yet I wear the moth’s disguise.

Do not get lost in the disguise. This body is only a garment. Even the mind is an inner garment. Within—beneath body and mind—the witness sits. That!
“I am the flame”—that light is infinite, eternal, beyond time—“yet I wear the moth’s disguise.” If you look only at the disguise, you will be deceived. The disguise is one thing; that which is hidden within is another. You are neither body nor mind. You are consciousness. You are sat-chit-ananda—being, awareness, bliss.
Your name is beautiful, Purushottam! Do you understand the meaning? Pur is city; purusha is the indweller of that city. It has nothing to do with male or female; woman is purusha, man is purusha. It refers to the inner city of the mind—and the mind’s city is vast! This body too is no small thing. It is a great metropolis. Bombay’s population is small compared to it. In your body there are around seventy million living microorganisms. Bombay has not yet reached ten million. Tokyo has about ten million. Your body has seven times Tokyo’s population.
This body is a vast city of seventy million living cells. In this small body a great secret is hidden.
And as for the mind—its expanse is beyond asking. It joins earth to sky. How vast is its spread!
Psychologists say a single mind has the capacity to remember all the scriptures, all the texts, all the books, all the libraries on earth—one person could remember them all; such is the capacity. And these are not just a few books.
In the British Museum Library there are so many books that if we placed them one after another, they would circle the earth seven times. There are as many in Moscow’s library. And there are many great libraries in the world.
Even all these libraries one person could memorize—such capacity; such could be the expansion of your brain. And hidden within this brain and body sits life—consciousness.
Purusha means the one who dwells in this city, who is seated at its center. And when you know this, you become Purushottam. Then you are no ordinary indweller—you are the best, the peak is touched.
Do not search elsewhere. What is within—if you search for it outside—you will miss. It is not there; how will you find it?
Keep combing the alleys of temple and mosque—you will get dust. Look within.
To know oneself is to know everything. And the one who does not know himself—whatever else he knows, he knows nothing.
Ik sadhe sab sadhai, sab sadhe sab jaye.
Attain the One, and all is attained; chase the all, and all is lost.
Attain this one within you—the purusha; recognize this—and that is enough. Your life will become luminous, will begin to sparkle. There will be Diwali. Lamps that never go out. A light that never dims—only grows deeper and deeper. This supreme light is what we call the Supreme Self, Paramatma. The supreme form of the self is the Supreme Self.

Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal! First, this: a true master is not bondage—he is freedom. If you become bound even to the sadguru, you have forged chains out of liberation.

I am here today. Learn from me whatever you can learn. Know whatever you can know. And if through me you learn and know something and it remains incomplete, don’t stop there. Seek again tomorrow. When I am no more, then seek a living master again.

If you have once recognized a living master—if you have even caught a little of his shadow, if even a single ray has flashed from him—then this dilemma will not arise. For two true masters are not different. A thousand true masters are not different. Bring a thousand zeros close together and there is still only one zero.

No—you have not really recognized him. Nor do you recognize me. You think you recognized him. If you had, this dilemma would not have arisen. You would have recognized me instantly—there would have been no delay.

But our notions are strange. We have erected bonds even with true masters. Someone is bound to Mahavira—and for twenty-five hundred years, generation after generation, the bondage continues! Now there is no trace left of the living Mahavira. Those who were with Mahavira surely attained something. But what of those who, for twenty-five hundred years, have been following him merely by tradition—what do they have?

Truth has no tradition.

And the message of all true masters is one. Therefore there can never be any insult.

When I am no more, and something remains incomplete in you, by all means search for a true master. That is not an insult to me. In truth, that will be my honor. That will be my honor—because you had gained enough to be eager to complete it.

But in the name of true masters many fake gurus operate. They teach you that the relationship to the guru is like that of husband and wife—once you choose one, you must be only with that one! These false gurus become your bondage. Their insistence is the same as that of husbands and wives. They make you their property. They sit as your owners.

And they are afraid you might leave. So they create guilt in you: “Never choose anyone else. If you choose another, you will insult me!” And if you do choose another, they leave a wound of guilt in you.

No—the true master does not do that. It is not his work. His only work is that you be liberated—that auspiciousness dawn in your life. Will he get stuck on how it happens, by what pretext it happens? Whether it happens through a Sufi kalam, or through meditation, whether it happens near me or near someone else—what difference does it make! If I love you, if I have given you my love, I will only want you to be free—by any pretext whatsoever! All are pretexts. The point is to cross over—what boat you sit in, whose boat it is, who the boatman is—what does it matter!

You have to cross to the other shore. And if you are still on this shore while your master has gone across, you will have to sit in some other boat. That boat will no longer serve. That Sufi kalam will no longer serve you now.

If that Sufi kalam did at least this much—that you could then recognize another master—then it is enough. It is much. The work is done. Offer thanks—that he gave you such vision, such awareness, that now you can recognize a boatman, that you can recognize a boat. He gave you that much of an eye.

In this, there is no possibility of dilemma, Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal!

You ask: “For some time I have been very much influenced by you. But I think, if I take sannyas from you…!”

And is sannyas taken from me? Or from anyone in particular? These are all pretexts.

Like hanging a coat on a peg. On which peg you hang it—what difference does it make? The coat has to be hung. If there is no peg, you hang it on a nail. If there is no nail, you hang it on the door. If nothing is available, you put it on the chair. The point is to hang the coat!

Sannyas means only this: surrender of the ego. By any pretext, do it.

The ego is a lie, but it does not leave you. So the true master says, “Bring it—give it to me. It doesn’t leave you—give it to me! Come, offer me this gift. Give me this disease.”

“It doesn’t leave you. You think it is diamonds and jewels. So fine, I will take it.” In truth, it is nothing—just empty air, a balloon puffed by air.

Sannyas means only this—the surrender of the ego. What is mine and what is yours in this! I am only an instrument. Leave it here or leave it elsewhere. Wherever the mood rises, leave it there. But keep one thing in mind…

You surely say that “your inner being believes he was an enlightened saint.” But you don’t know—you only believe. Had you known, this dilemma would not arise. You would recognize me instantly. One who has seen a lamp burning—will he not recognize another burning lamp when he sees one?

But the one who has believed that an extinguished lamp was lit—he will have difficulty. How will he decide whether this one too is lit or not! He has not seen the flame. Whether it was or was not—he believed it was. Even if it was, he only believed. If it wasn’t, he still believed. It was his belief.

Whether Kammu Baba was a realized one or not has nothing to do with your believing. If you believe he was, that is only your belief. If you believe he wasn’t, that too is only your belief. It gives no news about Kammu Baba—only reveals your notions. And because of your notions, the obstacle is arising. You are clinging to your past notion. And what is the obstacle?

The obstacle is not that Kammu Baba will be insulted. Understand, Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal! The obstacle is that you are not ready to admit that you may have made a mistake in the past. Could my past be full of mistakes? Could I have recognized the false? Never! The ego says that cannot be. If you believed then, you must have believed rightly.

This is not a matter of leaving or not leaving Kammu Baba. This is about leaving or not leaving the ego of your past. That is where the difficulty lies.

But the ego is very cunning. It does not stand in front of you plainly—otherwise you would recognize it. It comes from behind. It grabs you from behind—by strategy, very cleverly. It fires its gun from another’s shoulder. Now it is firing from Kammu Baba’s shoulder! Kammu Baba is no longer here, so he cannot even protest, “Brother, don’t rest your gun on my shoulder.” Now it is up to you—use anyone’s shoulder.

Your ego is firing from Kammu Baba’s shoulder. It says, “Don’t take sannyas. It will insult Kammu Baba!” The real thing it is saying is, “Don’t take sannyas—otherwise you will have to discard me!”

What has this to do with Kammu Baba! And if you had truly recognized Kammu Baba, there is no need for even a moment’s delay in taking sannyas; no need at all. Two flames are never different. They cannot be. The nature of flame is one.

You missed then too—with Kammu Baba—because of belief. Do not miss this time. Then you believed and failed to know.

For centuries we have been taught “Believe.” We are told, “Believe—and you will know.” No bigger lie has ever been told.

Just think: “Believe—and you will know”—this became the foundation of all our religions. But once someone believes, what is left to know! He has already concluded.

To know, a free mind is needed. No conclusions. No notion. No belief, no disbelief. To know, you must journey with an open mind—“I don’t know.”

One who already knows what is right and what is wrong—he will never know. His “right and wrong” will always come in the way. He will commit the same mistake that the Yoga Vashistha warns of.

You believed—so you missed knowing him. Do not believe me—otherwise you will miss me too. Here it is a matter of knowing, not believing. Know—and then believe. Belief comes later—knowing is first.

And don’t use Kammu Baba as a cover.

Lakhanpal, the fears are something else. But we dress our fears in beautiful clothes. You have dressed them beautifully!

The fear might be that your mother will be unhappy. But you will not say that. Another fear might be, “What will people say! That I have gone mad!”

Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal is an industrialist—a big industrialist. He owns the factory that makes Murphy Radios. So you must be afraid, “What will people say? Ajaykrishna, you too have gone mad! You too have become crazy! Walking around in ochre robes!”

There is your mother. She will create difficulties. You are divorced from your wife—that’s good! Very good! One obstacle is removed. But your mother—she will be a problem. Those are not the questions you have raised. Those are the real questions. Why drag poor Kammu Baba into it! Don’t bring the dead and their shrines into this. Look within and examine.

And it is the ego that is telling you, “You had accepted Kammu Baba. Now you are changing? You are being dishonest! Betraying! Treacherous!” This is the language of politics, not of religion.

If you had known Kammu Baba, and that flame has departed—merged into the great flame—then look at me attentively. The same flame is present again.

The flame is always the same—whether of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Kabir, or Nanak. The flame is ever the same—because truth is one.

So what insult? Whose insult? In the realm of flame, insult is impossible. But the ego will not accept that what it had clung to was a delusion—that it can ever make a mistake—that it has erred in the past. The ego lives on the past; the past is its food, its nourishment. And I tell you—be utterly free of the past. Kammu Baba too will be included in that.

And I am not saying Kammu Baba was not a realized man. That has nothing to do with you. If he was, what will you do? If he was not, what will you do? Whatever he was—he has gone across. On this shore now there is no boat.

My boat is on this shore right now. If you wish to sit, sit. Tomorrow it will go—and then you will repent, you will weep. Then this dilemma will arise again: What did I do! Why did I not sit in this boat? I was so influenced! Then you will go and ask someone else, “Now, another difficulty has come. I was influenced by two men—by Kammu Baba and by you. Now how can I choose a third! I didn’t choose either of the two—how can I choose the third?” This way you will keep wandering all your life. Boatmen will keep ferrying their boats across, and you will remain stuck on this shore.

This much I can tell you: sannyas is a unique alchemy—of dissolving the ego, of dissolving the past, of a new birth. If you have courage, then dive. Don’t look for excuses.

Surely the kalam that Kammu Baba gave you is what has brought you to me.

Every true master makes arrangements for his disciples. If they cannot sit in his boat, if they miss, wander, do not reach in time—he makes sure that some means remains for them. He gives them enough insight, enough awareness that they will recognize another—that they will recognize another boatman.

Drop the dilemma. But yes, the fear will be something else. In my view your fear is this—that you are afraid of your mother. That she will be hurt!…

Look—three days I have been speaking about Sant Maharaj. Yesterday his sister, Pinky, decided to take sannyas. Her father was sitting here before me, weeping—tears streaming. And he even said to Sant, “Now there is no desire to go back to Amritsar. There is only sorrow there. Now I feel like staying right here.”

So Sant said, “Who is asking you to go? Stay. You have lived your life there. And what is in Amritsar now? The amrit is here—the sar is there! What will you do staying in Amritsar? Stay here.”

Up to that point, all was fine. Just then the daughter, Pinky, came and asked, “May I take sannyas?” And everything vanished in a flash. He grabbed her hand, dragged her, forced her into a rickshaw. A crowd gathered. People tried to explain, “What are you doing!” Sant also said, “She is twenty-four. What are you doing?”

But in that anger he forgot everything and said, “This is my thing!”… Is a girl your “thing”? A thing? We don’t even feel ashamed to call a person a “thing.” We make a soul into a thing! But we have said this for centuries. We perform “kanyadan”—as if she were some object. “Kanyadan”! We call her “stridhan”—as if a woman were wealth.

How deeply we have insulted women! A twenty-four-year-old girl—when will you give her the freedom to think in her own way? But he dragged her away.

Sant said too, “If she wants to take sannyas, let her. And just now you yourself were saying you didn’t feel like going. And she is saying the same, ‘I too don’t feel like going now. If you want to go, go. I want to stay here.’”

He exploded. He did not delay. Poona seemed dangerous to him—that his “thing,” his daughter, might slip from his hands! He went straight from here, checked out of the hotel, and fled! By the time Sant reached the hotel, they were loading their bags into a taxi!

Sant said, “Why such haste!” He replied, “Enough—don’t talk. I cannot stay here a minute. This is dangerous!”

He rushed to Amritsar at once—where there is only sorrow, by his own account! And the girl does not want to go, and he himself doesn’t want to go.

But when the girl said, “I want to take sannyas,” then his ego was hurt. And when she insisted, “I want to stay right here; I do not want to go with you,” then the blow became heavy. He himself wanted to stay here! And later he will repent in Amritsar: What have I done! He will be miserable. He was a simple man. But however simple—still a Sardar! So he forgot his simplicity. In a moment the Sardar returned! The past attacks like this: like a storm, it comes and sweeps you away.

He dragged the girl away by force. Now Sant fears they may not have gone to Srinagar instead of Amritsar. They have a boy in mind there. Perhaps from here they will go straight to Srinagar and marry the girl off at once, so that their trouble is over—so that the “thing” becomes someone else’s! Then let them worry! And I too feel they will do just that. And they will make the girl miserable all her life—and themselves miserable too.

Now they won’t even be able to gather the courage to come here again. With what face would they come! The misbehavior they showed toward their own daughter! And they told Sant, “If you want to bring your sister there, come to Amritsar. I’ll teach you a lesson!”

He is a Sardar! And he deals in swords! So he will pull out a kirpan if Sant goes there. Had Sant been the old kind of “saint,” a kirpan would have flashed right here!

When Sant first came here, he used to do little meditation and brandish the kirpan more—in meditation! He would suddenly swing a sword! When Sant first used to meditate, space would clear around him. Ten or fifteen people would quickly move away—because he would wield his sword like that! People told me many times, “What kind of meditation is this! He might kill someone!” What to do—he was a Sardar too. Now he has become a “Sant”; the “Sardar,” etc., has fallen away. Otherwise he too could pull a kirpan!

I was conducting a camp in Balsad. Some five hundred people were in the camp. And one Sardarji was also there. When I led Dynamic Meditation and said, “Now whatever is in your heart, throw it out!” that Sardar threw punches in such a way that all five hundred meditators scattered to the sides. The Sardar alone! He cleared out all five hundred! The field was empty—because he injured quite a few! He was throwing blows!

When the meditation ended, the Sardar looked around—what happened! He was alone! Everyone else stood at a distance wondering what to do now! Then he felt ashamed. He fell at my feet and said, “Forgive me. You said, ‘Open your heart and throw it out,’ so I threw out what was inside. If anyone was hurt, forgive me, because I didn’t want to hit anyone. But whatever was filled inside… When you said ‘Throw it out—and totally,’ then I thought, why be miserly! The first time such an opportunity has come—throw it out!”

Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal, the dilemma lies elsewhere: between the ego and your consciousness; between the past and the present. Kammu Baba has become only a symbol of your past. I am your present. And I tell you: always be devoted to the present, because the present is God. The past is gone. The snake has passed; only its track remains on the sand! You can go on worshipping if you wish—keep offering flowers. But what has gone, has gone. Now no matter how much you recite Kammu Baba’s kalam, nothing will happen.

Nothing happens through a kalam; the magic is in the true master. That is why it has often happened—in fact, always—that the sutras which, in Mahavira’s living presence, lit lamps in people’s lives, could not light a single lamp in twenty-five hundred years. The same sutras! The very same words! The magic was in Mahavira—whichever sutra he spoke became magical. The magic was in Mahavira, within him. From that inner emptiness, from that samadhi, whatever words arose were filled with the same sweetness; a little nectar flowed through them. Whoever those drops touched came alive. But now for twenty-five hundred years people parrot those words—and there is nothing in them. The words have nothing.

Have you noticed that medicine works less, the physician more. There is no magic in the medicine; the magic is in the physician. And if a right physician, with whom your trust harmonizes, hands you even a lump of clay, it becomes medicine. And if your trust does not harmonize, even if he gives you nectar, it becomes poison.

If you are truly influenced by me, then stop thinking now. If you are truly influenced, then take the leap. Don’t ask, “If I take sannyas from you, will it be an insult to Kammu Baba and his Sufi kalam?”

It will be honor—how could it be insult! A true master cannot be insulted. Even if you try, it cannot be done. And this is not a matter of insult at all. It will be honor. It will be moving forward from the point where your journey stalled. Wherever Kammu Baba’s soul may be, he will be delighted. He will shower flowers on you. There is no dilemma in this at all.

But yes, if there are other hidden dilemmas inside—“What will people say!”—you cannot even tell me that; you cannot even ask, “What will people say? What will my mother say? What will the family say? What will my partners say!” When you return to Baroda, people will say, “Hey, what happened to you!”

Leave others aside. When my sannyasins go home, their own children ask them, “Daddy! Have you gone crazy too? What happened to you!”

One of my friends took sannyas and went to Varanasi, where his home is. Fifteen days later I got a letter from the hospital: “I am writing from the hospital, because my family has had me admitted. The reason is this: I was a lifelong sad, depressed man. When I returned, I returned dancing. When I got down from the tonga at home, I entered dancing, singing! My wife said, ‘Have you gone mad!’ The whole family gathered. The whole neighborhood came. ‘What has happened to you! You left fine—and returned…’”

He laughed and said, “I left fine! If I had been fine, why would I have gone! I left weeping! I have come back laughing. Fools! When I was weeping, none of you came. And now that I am laughing, you think I have gone mad!”

They concluded absolutely that he was mad—completely gone! They caught him and laid him on the bed!

He wrote to me, “I began to laugh! A bubbling laughter arose—this is too much! What a joke! Life went by in misery—no one even came to sympathize. Today I return laughing, and they force me to lie down on the bed!

“The neighbors said, ‘Lie down. Call the doctor!’ I said, ‘Have you gone mad! I have found the doctor!’

“But they said, ‘You be quiet. Don’t speak. Close your eyes and rest. Relax a little!’”

They called the doctor. Seeing the doctor, he laughed even more. The doctor took his pulse, put the stethoscope—so he laughed… The doctor said, “Stop laughing. Let me examine first.”

He said, “I am laughing for precisely this reason—there is nothing to examine. When there was so much to examine, where were you then? No one came then!”

The doctor told the wife, “It’s dangerous. There is nothing physical—something is wrong mentally. It would be best to admit him to the hospital!” So he has written from the hospital: “I am lying in the hospital. I am laughing! I am taking the medicines!”

This world is strange. Here, laughter cannot be forgiven. Joy cannot be tolerated. Sorrow is acceptable to all—because all are sorrowful.

Ajaykrishna Lakhanpal, the opportunity is here—don’t miss it. Otherwise you will repent later. What’s the use of lamenting when the birds have eaten the field!

Enough for today.