Ka Sovai Din Rain #11

Yesterday too the worldly mind was torn, wounded by superstition and conjecture;
The world of man lies slain by delusion even today.

Yesterday too the eye of insight was veiled by the pride of respectability;
The soul of freedom still stands pledged to the living today.

Yesterday too the noose and gallows were set for the fervor of passion and ego;
For the lovers of Truth, the flashing sword still awaits today.

From the breast of the earth yesterday as well a smoke kept rising;
The surgeons of time are still flames in human guise today.

Yesterday it was so — the same sorrow, the same pain, the same anguish. It is the same today. And if you do nothing, it will be the same tomorrow. Yesterday there were blind beliefs, and man was chained by them — today too he is bound. And unless you become alert and break the chains, tomorrow you will remain bound.

Yesterday too those who walked the path of Truth met the cross; today too they do. Yet blessed are those who, walking the path of Truth, ascend the cross — for that is their true throne.

Those who know how to be effaced on the path of the Lord become the possessors of life’s real wealth. Those who try to save themselves destroy themselves. He who is busy protecting himself goes farther and farther away from Paramatma. Only the one who dares, who takes the mad risk, who leaps — only he arrives at Paramatma.

Religion is not for cowards. And a strange misfortune has happened: religion has become the talk of cowards. Whom do you find in temples and mosques? — the timid, the frightened, the afraid. But religion is not the business of cowards. It is the quest of the audacious, of the one ready to stake all.

Yesterday too the intellect was wounded by blind beliefs;
The human soul was scarred by doubts, suspicions, negations — yesterday as well.

And today too, humanity is being ruined by superstition.

What you have taken to be religion is not religion; it is only blind belief. Blind belief means: not to know, and yet to assume; not to see, and yet to accept. Seeing demands labor. The eyes must be cleansed, the dust removed, a fresh kohl of clarity applied. But who will take the trouble to open the eyes? Who will suffer the inconvenience of cleaning the eyes? So people, keeping their eyes shut, simply assume that there is light. Their believing is only an escape from trouble. Who will go in search of light? There a price has to be paid.

Hence people are drawn to those who say: Nothing needs to be done, just repeat Ram-Ram and all will happen; bow your head at the temple each day and everything will happen; in the morning mechanically parrot a prayer and all will happen. Such talk appeals to people. It matches humanity’s sloth.

And such talk can even be dressed up in logic — so neatly logical that you do not recognize its kinship with the old. Reason can argue: ‘What will sadhana do? There is no need of sadhana, no need of method, no need to give life a discipline.’ Reason can further argue: ‘There is no need of a Sadguru.’ Man’s ego longs to hear such things. And when you want to hear them, preachers will appear. Whatever you demand, you will find.

A simple law of economics: wherever there is demand, supply will arise. Just demand — someone will produce it. For every product the market is ready. Create a demand, the producer will be found.

Man’s greatest demand is this: that nothing be required of us — that Paramatma be free of cost. Let liberation be granted without doing anything. Not an inch we need to move, not a step we need take, not tread the thorn-strewn path of life — and Truth should be given. Truth, for free.

When you say, ‘Let Truth be free,’ those who hand out free Truth will find you. The pundits and priests have cheated you only because of you. Otherwise, who could cheat you? You want to see light with closed eyes, and so those who ‘show’ it appear. Then what you see is only a dream, a web of imagination. The ‘God’ you have seen, the ‘soul’ you have seen — all imagined. To see the Real, all the circles of blind belief must be broken, all beliefs relinquished. Tireless labor is needed so that the sleeping consciousness within you awakens.

‘Why sleep day and night? O lover, awake!’... You have slept enough. To awaken demands labor. For the habits of sleep are ancient, very ancient — your past for births upon births. Sleep is weighty, and the ray of waking is very slight. Sleep is like a storm, and awakening is like a little lamp. Unless you support the awakening, the lamp will go out — perhaps never even be lit.

And man’s ego is such that he does not wish to admit that his lamp is unlit. So tricksters arise who tell you: Your lamp is already lit. You have nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to become. Just cling to this life-view, this scripture, this doctrine — and all else will follow.

You do not wish to do — hence you do not change. Yesterday you were bound, today you are bound, tomorrow you will be bound. The price of Truth has to be paid. Nothing in this world is free. Keep this in mind; then today’s concluding sutras will open to you.

Maya’s color is like the dye upon fresh blossoms — very pleasing to the eye.

Whatever you have attained in this world, whatever you hope to attain — it is all like the raw dye on a flower. From afar it looks lovely. Drums heard from a distance sound sweet. As you come near, all turns futile. You sought wealth, attained it — and the moment you held it, it turned meaningless. You sought position, attained it; love, attained it; a home, built it. What did you gain? The essence, the extract — what is it? Your hands remain empty. One deception after another. You keep changing the deceptions, but your hands stay empty. And do not think you are empty-handed because you failed. Those who ‘succeed’ — even they are empty. The hands of Alexanders are empty too.

Maya’s color is like the dye upon fresh blossoms — very pleasing to the eye.

Like a rainbow — charming, seven-hued, as though a bridge in the sky. But go near, try to grasp — nothing comes to hand. No color sticks to your palm. It is only appearance, like dreams in the night — their reality is only while seeing. Whatever is true only in seeing is maya. And whatever is true beyond your seeing — whether you see or not, it is; whether you accept or deny, it is; whether you know or do not know, it is — whose reality does not depend on your knowing — that is Truth.

Keep the definitions of maya and truth in your awareness. Maya is that which is only as much as it appears to you; when the appearance ceases, it is not. Outside your seeing there is no parallel reality. It exists only in your assumption, in your projection — created by your mind.

You find beauty in something; another finds none there. The woman you fell in love with — others laugh. They cannot believe how you fell in love! But you ‘see’ something. It is your seeing, your projection. In the cinema at night, what appears is not actually happening on the screen, yet it seems so. And even while knowing it is only a play of shadows, you are moved — you weep. Have you not shed real tears for a false screen? No one is dying there, no one living. A bare screen, with shadows whirling upon it. Yet how many times you have wept, laughed, felt aroused, felt compassion — knowing full well nothing is there.

Maya means we have constructed a mind-made world — endearing, yet unreal. And with the unreal, all the time spent is lost.

Seek the Real. Seek Truth. Seek that which is.

Maya’s color is like the dye upon fresh blossoms — very pleasing to the eye.
Sweet for two or four days; in the end it turns insipid.

How many times you have known this! This needs no wealthy Dharamdas to tell you; it is your experience, the experience of the whole of humanity. No experience is greater — and yet man is a wondrous deceiver. He keeps falsifying even this experience. From afar it looked beautiful; up close it turned bland. When it was not yours, it looked enchanting; once it became ‘yours,’ it faded. Before it was attained, many dreams arose; on attainment, all dreams died.

Sweet for two or four days; in the end it turns insipid.

And what tastes insipid in the end was insipid from the beginning. The end only reveals what always was. In the beginning you had believed otherwise. The sweetness was your imposition, your imagination. And imagination cannot defeat reality. Today or tomorrow it must lose. However much energy you pour into it, imagination must break. How long can you keep falsifying?

And when imagination breaks, melancholy seizes you. From that melancholy two possibilities arise. One: as a web of hope collapses, you hurry to weave another. That is what the common man does. In truth, before one has even fallen, he begins spinning the next — lest he be left roofless; before the old shack collapses, he builds the new. Thus one desire does not end before you are caught in another. From desire to desire, from dream to dream, you keep changing — and under this pretext you ‘live.’ This living is utterly false; for however many dreams you change, all will fade in the end.

There is another way of life — rarely available to the fortunate. Again and again watching dreams break, a man resolves: no more, enough. ‘Why sleep day and night? Awake, O lover!’ We have slept long, dreamed long; now is the hour to awaken. Now we will not weave dreams. Not weaving new desire is religion. This is initiation into Dharma — to live without dreaming.

Hard it is to live without dreams; very hard. This is the price to be paid for Truth. Now we will live without hope, without future, not thinking of tomorrow — living today, now. What He makes us do, we will do; what He shows, we will see. We shall keep no personal agenda, no hidden longing that ‘it be so.’ As it is, so will we know and live. We will make no projections. We will remove the film. We will look at the bare screen, the white screen. The white screen — with no colored shadows running upon it.

The taste of that white screen is called Samadhi.

He who removes from his mind the films of vasanas and dreams, and breaks the source that produces them — who says, ‘Now no more; I will live without dreams. My eyes will be empty of dream; I will not house them, not play host to them. Namaskar!’ — the one who salutes his dreams goodbye, whose eyes become empty, whose mind empties — for mind is filled only with dreams. What else is its wealth? Dreams, imaginations, cravings, vasanas, thirsts — in one word, dream.

As soon as mind empties, the screen goes white, the pictures vanish. Then there is neither weeping nor laughter, neither pleasure nor pain, for they were born of the pictures. Neither attachment nor aversion — the dualities dissolve. Only the white screen remains. And with it, peace begins — a peace unprecedented, dense within. Now there is only the white screen; nothing moves. In truth, nothing moved even before.

Have you noticed? When a film shows a storm — great trees falling, mountains trembling, earthquakes, boats sinking, ships wrecked, palaces collapsing — do you think the screen trembles? Not a tremor. The storm is entirely within your imagination. For the screen, it never happened.

Within you is a screen like that — the Jnanis called it the witness, sakshi. White, untouched. Nothing ever happens there, nor can it. There is always peace. The void is enthroned there. To experience it is to experience Truth, to know Brahman. The knower of it becomes a Brahmin. Lost in dreams — shudra. Awakened to Truth — Brahmin. Those lost in dreams are shudras, even if born in a Brahmin house; and those awakened are Brahmins, even if born in a shudra home.

Maya’s color is like the dye upon fresh blossoms — very pleasing to the eye.
Sweet for two or four days; in the end it turns insipid.

A million endeavors — nothing stays. Not a single limb can be fixed to its source.

Make a thousand arrangements — in this maya nothing can be made to stay. All is a flow — comes and goes. You cannot hold anything even for a moment. Heraclitus is right: you cannot step into the same river twice. There is no time to know the same thing again; it has flowed on. Everything flows away.

Yet our whole effort is to grasp, to stop. When youth is there, we try not to let it go, lest old age arrive. How many ways we try to stop it — does youth stop? When life is there, we cling to it lest death arrive — does life stay? Death keeps coming; our devices fail. We seek to hold everything, not realizing that its nature is not to be held. Maya does not rest; dream does not rest. The nature of dream is flow.

Truth is stillness, eternal. No flow there — ever the same essence. Dream must flow; in flowing is its life.

Imagine you watch a film and are moved, happy-sad; but if the screen holds only a single frame, will you remain affected? How long will you believe it true? Soon you will tire, want to leave. Only the change keeps you entangled. If the world were to stop for a moment, you would be free of it. But it keeps changing — new dances, new colors, new styles, new costumes.

You see how fashions change. Clothes, ornaments, houses, jobs, wives, husbands — change, change. The mind says change, for it is afraid that if anything stays too long, the illusion may break. Mind survives in change — and maya too.

Maya is the expansion of mind. Mind is the inner maya; maya is the outer mind — two sides of one coin. The whole game is in change.

This land made a unique experiment for centuries: to keep life in such a way that there would be minimal change. Hence one wife for life; one husband for life. People wore the same kind of clothes for centuries. People lived in their village, and remained there.

Lao Tzu wrote: When I was a child there was a village across the river. The dogs there barked and we could hear; in the evenings when cooking was done, smoke rose above their houses and we could see — but no one felt an urge to go and see who lived there. We were content in our village; they in theirs. People were born, lived, died there.

It was a unique experiment. The reason? If there are fewer changes in the world, you quickly become filled with the urge to be free of the world. If you must live with the same wife for life, how long can you miss understanding ‘sweet for two or four days; in the end, insipid’? In America it is hard to discover this — wives change in four days. Before the blandness arrives, the wife is changed; the honeymoon continues from one to another. Change so rapid that the illusion does not break.

On average Americans do not remain more than three years in a job; the same job becomes boring. Boredom is natural. And when boredom arises, it begins to be seen that all is insipid. So change the job every three years; the average for changing house is three years; for changing spouse also three years. Something about three years — by then boredom thickens, the dream nears collapse. Before it collapses, change — start a new dream.

The same film every day — how many days will you weep? First day, second day, third day — how long? After a few days you will say, enough. The same novel — how long can curiosity last?

We conducted the experiment in every aspect. For centuries the same ‘Ramlila’ — the same Ram, Sita, Ravana, year after year. There was purpose: to make things a little still, so that in stillness the illusion be seen through.

Sometimes in a cinema the engine fails, the projector stops — your emotional state stops exactly then. With change alone the mind lives.

It is not accidental that Buddha, Mahavira, many Jnanis went to forests and mountains. The reason: man makes changes; forests and mountains remain the same — one-toned. Mahavira went further: Jain tirthas are not in lush forests but on bare mountains, without trees — for trees bring change: autumn, spring. Bare rock — nothing changes. How long can you keep an outer interest? Watching the same rock, the same rock — nothing has ever changed, nor will. Soon the interest drops; the eyes turn inward; boredom arises.

Sweet for two or four days… and quickly they bid farewell… in the end it grows insipid.

When this world tastes bland, the search for Paramatma begins. Why seek God if this world does not taste bland? If enough ‘juice’ is coming from here, why seek? From the fading taste of the world, a man begins to walk toward where the real rasa is — ‘Raso vai sah’.

A million endeavors — nothing stays. Not a single limb can be fixed to its source.

Maya keeps changing; in change it lives. You may try a million ways, you cannot preserve it. Your love happened — you want it to remain forever; it cannot. Here nothing remains. Here all becomes — to perish. Here all settles — to be desolate. Even stone palaces fall to dust.

A million endeavors — nothing stays. Not a single limb can be fixed to its source.

It cannot be otherwise because at the root of maya there is not one, there are many. If you wish the still, the eternal, you must seek the One, the Source. Only there is rest. That which never changes — in that is liberation, certainty, shelter — home.

As the moth flies away, so does maya vanish like camphor.

Camphor was chosen in worship as symbol of maya. It flares for a moment — fragrance spreads; a moment of flame — then silence. Smoke gone, flame gone, scent gone. See the symbol? A stone image remains while camphor flares and dies; whether camphor is or not, the stone remains. So with Truth and maya. Maya is camphor-like.

As the moth flies away, so does maya vanish like camphor.
The dye of the Name is madder-red — once it takes, it never fades, brother.

There is one thing in this world — the Name of the Lord. His color — fast. Once it takes, it does not leave. Until it takes, you do not even know; only when it takes do you know.

The dye of the Name is madder-red — once it takes, it never fades, brother.
Wherever that remembrance arises in satsang, do not be stingy…

Soaking, steeping, let yourself be permeated.

If ever this feeling arises, dive. Do not stand on the shore. If the Ganga flows here, do not miss. It is rare that somewhere the Ganga of His Name flows. If you stand hesitating on the bank, you can miss — and you may miss.

Soaking, steeping, be absorbed…

Dhani Dharamdas says: then do not miss. Leap. Become of one taste. Wherever there is talk of His love, where His Name is sung, where in His remembrance there is dance, where people are lost in prayer, where the Supreme is being uttered, where praise of the Lord is being sung — there, be steeped. Do not stand afar, guarded. Do not stand like an untouchable. Join the dance. Drown in the music.

But it is hard. People find a thousand excuses to remain distant. Those who are soaked are thought mad: What has happened to him? Such a sensible man — what has taken him? He could have earned more, gained position; opportunity was at hand; the market was about to turn in his favor — where is he running? It was time for a deal — what is this talk of Ram? What remembrance of God has seized him? All delusion — protect yourself. People avoid satsang as they would not even plague.

About George Gurdjieff, an opponent spread in France: Avoid Gurdjieff as one avoids plague. There is truth in it — the plague’s victim may survive; Gurdjieff’s victim will not. The one who is struck in satsang is struck forever — he cannot return as he was. Hence people avoid. Or if they come, they go deaf and stone-like; or, if they join, they join half — never whole. And until you are one hundred percent, you are not joined — for less than a hundred, no union happens.

Have you seen? Water becomes steam at a hundred degrees. Do not think that at ninety-eight some steam should appear — not even one percent. Even at ninety-nine it does not. Let there be the slightest lack — water will not turn to vapor. At exactly a hundred it does.

So it is with His color. Sometimes man avoids — does not come; if he comes, he goes deaf — for fear of seeing Jesus. ‘He who has ears, let him hear; he who has eyes, let him see.’ They had ears like yours, eyes like yours; Jesus was not speaking to the blind and deaf. Why then? Because though they had eyes, they kept them shut — afraid to see Jesus. If this man is seen, our life will not remain as it was; an earthquake will come, a revolution; his color will dye us. They block their ears — seeming to listen, but not listening. And if they hear, the mind debates in a thousand ways; if they understand, they do not descend fully — they proceed cleverly. This is not for the clever.

There are people here — all kinds. Some have taken sannyas and are still clever. If you are still scheming after sannyas, you have not taken sannyas. They keep accounts, still try to deceive me — and then seek to hide the deceit. If caught, they apologize — and repeat it again. Such tricks! Then do not stay here. Go wherever you like — but wherever you go, drown there one hundred percent.

The essence is in drowning — not where. Which satsang dyes you is less important — the dyer is One, though His hands be many. But will you allow the dye? You stand afar with an umbrella, lest the color touch you…

Your condition is like people on Holi. They go out to throw color — then protect themselves. They save old clothes for Holi; washed and starched, looking clean — but if ruined, no loss. Then why go for color at all? Whom do you deceive?

As a child, I would only go in new clothes or not at all. Why cheat others? They have prepared colors, filled pichkaris. These washed clothes look clean, but I know — and they likely know too, for they wear the same.

Even after sannyas, you do not allow yourself to be dyed. Your calculations continue. If you must keep your arithmetic, then you have no relationship with me. One seeks relationship only because one’s own thinking has failed; then one takes a hand and walks toward the unknown. But it must be one hundred percent.

Soaking, steeping, be absorbed — that is the meaning of a hundred percent. Not merely on the surface. Be dyed through and through — body and soul. Then there is nowhere to go. The one who is dyed is dyed. If you keep wandering here and there, remember: in the measure you have deceived me, in that measure you will miss me. Do not later say otherwise. The responsibility is yours. If you are not whole with me, how will you find me whole with you? I can be with you only to the extent you are with me. And your attainment will be of that very measure.

Company transforms only at a hundred percent; otherwise, wasted effort.

Soaking, steeping, be absorbed — in that lies great essence.

Wash as many times as you will, scour hard as you will — if you have entered wholly…

The more the cloth is put to the fire, the more luminous the color becomes.

Life’s challenges do not destroy satsang; they deepen it. Life becomes a kiln in which every event enriches the dye. The world cannot separate you from Paramatma once you are linked; before the link, the world can separate you. Once a single ray descends, a single glimpse happens, then the world begins to join you to Him. Every thorn reminds you of the flower. The world’s happiness reminds you of the great bliss; its sorrow too reminds you of that bliss. Then all joys and sorrows bring only His remembrance. The very methodology of life becomes remembrance. Whatever happens, He is remembered — white clouds wheel in the sky — He is remembered. The sun rises — He is remembered. Rain falls — He is remembered. Birds fly — He is remembered. A child laughs — He is remembered.

What wind is this that has perfumed the air with such a strange fragrance?
What paradise of love has spread over each palm and tree?
Why have the fairies of spring brought messages of joy today?
Perhaps today these intoxicated winds touched you in passing.

Then news of Him comes from every side. Why is heaven descending today? From where do these tidings of bliss arrive?

Earlier too you saw beauty — and thought it belonged to the flower. Now the flower has gone; beauty is His. Earlier you thought beauty belonged to woman or man; now they are gone — all beauty is His.

Upon the world a new color is cast; the cosmos has changed its robes.
By whose special grace have the sun and moon unveiled their faces again?
With one languid stretch, every motion seems to spill pearls —
Perhaps today these intoxicated winds touched you in passing.

A certain ache is in the hearts of lovers, a burning in the tales;
The feeling of the pain of deprivation wakes in the mad ones.
A constant stumbling begins in the shining halls of thought —
Perhaps today these intoxicated winds touched you in passing.

Every particle of existence is dancing; the spectacle of nature is in ecstasy.
A world of wakefulness trembles in the heart of this bewildered being;
What was desired for ages seems now to be within the embrace —
Perhaps today these intoxicated winds touched you in passing.

The buds and blossoms have torn their collars, the garden laughs on one side;
Under the sky, priest and Brahmin stand outside an Eden of bananas on one side;
And in this intoxication, modesty herself sings ghazals on one side —
Perhaps today these intoxicated winds touched you in passing.

Then all songs are His; all beauty His; all fragrance His; all forms His. The Formless in every form, the Formless in every form’s heart. In every eye, He peers. He is the seeker, the seeing, and the seen. He is the goal, the journey, and the goer.

Once the dye takes, the world dissolves in God. Once you are soaked in Him, you will find Him soaked in the world. But until this is your own recognition, it is of no use.

Soaking, steeping, be absorbed — in that lies great essence.
Wash as many times as you will, scour hard as you will —
The more the cloth is put to the fire, the more luminous the color becomes.

In what sleep are you lost — O dull, foolish, ignorant one?

Why sleep now? For what? This pain haunts those who have known. They cannot understand what need there is to sleep any longer. You have slept enough; in sleep you have seen painful dreams, suffered hells. You found no essence in sleep, and yet you sleep.

And if Dharamdas must use such harsh words — dull, foolish, ignorant — it is only out of compassion. Understand the three.

In what sleep are you lost — O dull, foolish, ignorant one?

‘Ignorant’ means simply: absence of knowing. ‘Foolish’ means: habits of ignorance. ‘Dull’ means: the obstinacy of ignorance. The ignorant is childlike — naive, simple; if the fact be seen, he will move into the journey. For the ignorant, it takes little time to be soaked — no entrenched habits. He has no inner bias that he will not see the light.

Sometimes the ignorant is closer to knowing than your pundits. The pundit belongs among the foolish. He thinks he knows — and does not. And when he thinks he knows, he has the insistence that his knowing must be right. He clings to his habits; seeks to justify them.

The dull is the peak of ignorance. He will never accept that he is ignorant; he insists he is knowledgeable. The fool wavers a bit — perhaps I know, perhaps not. The ignorant is clear — I do not know. The dull says: I know, and what I know alone is right. He is stubborn, insistent. He may even call his insistence ‘satyagraha’, but all insistence belongs to untruth; Truth is un-insistent. There is no obstinacy in it — only submission.

In what sleep are you lost — O dull, foolish, ignorant one?

Find where you are among these three. Search honestly; it will help greatly.

When anyone went to Gurdjieff, he would say: First, discover the structure of your character. What is your chief weakness? Your central obstinacy? Your fundamental mistake around which all mistakes revolve? Think on this for a month or two; work begins afterwards.

Often people report illnesses that bring them praise. People are such! A woman went for an operation; whether tonsils, appendix — anything — so she too would have something to say at the club. Another asked the surgeon to cut a long scar — her husband had one and boasted of it; she could not bear his pride.

Egos are strange.

People come and say: Help me be free of anger. I ask: Is anger your real disease or a symptom? They say: This is the disease. It brings suffering and humiliation. Then I say: you are not troubled by anger — anger arises out of ego; and your request to be rid of anger also arises out of ego, so that others will respect you as gentle, saintly. The same ego lies behind both. How will the disease be cured?

One man said: I am full of worry; cannot sleep; get me rid of worry. I said: Worry is never the real issue — what is it about? He confessed: I have been minister for ten years; I want to be chief minister; others have surpassed me. My worry is that. Relieve me of worry so I can defeat them. I said: Go elsewhere; you will not bear what I say. Unless you drop ambition, worry cannot drop. Worry is part of ambition. And deeper still, ambition itself rests on ego.

Catch your diseases; search. You will be amazed: your disease is not what it seems. There are diseases behind diseases, and deeper roots beyond. Until the root is found, no transformation.

Think well — are you dull, foolish, ignorant? If dull, at least become foolish; if foolish, at least become ignorant. If ignorant — then why delay? Become knowing. Awake!

In what sleep are you lost…

Dawn has broken, morning has arrived — make ready for the journey now.

Which journey? The very journey of which I speak to you each day. And morning has always been. Night never truly is. Because of your sleep, there is night. If you sleep, night is; for the awakened, it is day. One beside you is awake — for him, day; for you, night. The sun of Paramatma neither rises nor sets. There is no sunrise or sunset for Him. Awake — morning. Asleep — night.

In worldly life it is one way; in the spiritual it is the reverse. In worldly life: when night comes, you sleep; when morning comes, you awake. In the spiritual: when you sleep, night happens; when you awake, morning happens.

Dawn has broken, morning has arrived — make ready for the journey now.

Now is the time to set out — the tirtha-yatra, the pilgrimage to Paramatma. You have wasted much; waste no more. The sooner you awaken and begin, the sooner the ocean of bliss is found.

People have become puddles; there is no journey in their life.

Now I speak the plain truth: spread your wings and fly.

You hear? Spread your wings and fly! Your wings are there; you have simply forgotten them. For births upon births you have not flown in the open sky. You have become used to prisons — Hindu, Muslim, Christian; Indian, Pakistani; shudra, Brahmin — a thousand cages. There is not even room to flutter your wings. Gradually you forgot; forgetting was necessary, otherwise the ego would be hurt that you are in a prison. For the ego it is convenient to say: I have no wings — how can I fly?

You talk of flying — of liberation. That too is a trick, merely talk, a way to avoid the real.

Hence Dharamdas says: ‘Now I speak the plain truth.’

Whether you like it or not, I tell you the truth: you have wings. Do not ask how wings will grow — they are there. The sky exists; your feet are here; morning has come. Your eyes are there — open them, and there is light. Paramatma is not far even for a moment; you yourself are turned away.

Now I speak the plain truth…

Truth is unpleasant. Man wants words that allow him to think his mistake was inevitable, unavoidable. ‘To err is human’ — a proverb to soothe. If someone speaks truth, it burns; truth carries heat. It will ignite a fire within. Liars are pleasant; they reassure you to remain as you are. They sing lullabies around you, deepen your sleep. They say: turn on your side, we will pull the blanket; it is still very dark — sleep well.

You go to those who teach you methods of sleeping — how to dream nice dreams. Thousands of books are written. Dale Carnegie’s famous book: ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. You have not won yourself, and you would win others! People read it. They say: after the Bible it is the most sold book — which means it has sold more, for Bibles are mostly given free, kept in homes but seldom read. Who reads?

A pastor asked a child: Have you read the Bible? What is in it? The child said: I know everything in it — my father’s lottery ticket, my brother’s lock of hair, mother’s amulet. Who reads the Bible! Such books sell: how to be successful, gain respect, get rich — Napoleon Hill’s ‘How to Grow Rich’ — millions sold.

All these teach you how to sleep more comfortably, how to make your bed of flowers, how to color your dreams — to move from black-and-white into technicolor. Lullaby singers.

Hence Dharamdas says: Now I speak the plain truth. Whether pleasant or not — this very moment, spread your wings and fly. The cage is not made by another; it is your own making. There is no guard — you are the prisoner and the guard. As long as you wish to remain a slave, you will. The day you decide otherwise, revolution begins. Only your decision is awaited — the rising of your resolve. Nothing else is lacking.

Now I speak the plain truth: spread your wings and fly.
Be free of these sorrows — cross beyond the body’s lake.

And if you can fly, spread your wings, accept His sky, be soaked in His color — one hundred percent — then you will be free of all sorrow; beyond body, beyond limits, beyond clay — the conscious will be attained.

Having rigged the little boat of the Name, the merchant sits ready;
A weight of stones is loaded — I fear the burden is heavy.

Why so afraid? Why not sit in the boat? The boat has come to shore.

Whenever a Sadguru — a Kabir, a Nanak, a Dadu, a Dharamdas — stands on your shore, he says: Why do you delay? Why fear? The boat is at the bank.

Having rigged the little boat of the Name…

The boat of the Name is at the shore. Nanak said: Nanak, the Name is a boat. It is ready, decked.

Tie up your bundle quickly and sit.

But fear arises: the bundle is only stones; perhaps the boat will sink; yet you are unwilling to drop the stones. You want both: to cross, and to carry stones!

People ask: If I meditate an hour each day, will all be well? I tell them: everything will be messed up. For one hour meditation, twenty-three hours the contrary — roots will be torn. If meditation be done, it is not done in hours, not weighed on scales. Its rasa must spread into twenty-four hours — at the shop, in the market, eating, sleeping, waking — meditation should become your breath.

Man wants to keep meditation and also keep the world’s goodies — position, money, prestige — so nothing is missed. Then comes trouble.

A weight of stones is loaded — I fear the burden is heavy.

Fear because the burden is heavy. With these stones you will drown, and the boat too. These stones must be dropped.

Why do you clutch stones? You still see diamonds in them — so you cling. No one clutches a stone as a stone; he mistakes it for a diamond.

In the midstream of the ocean of becoming, a crowd will gather.
Make the Name your boatman — only He can take you to the other shore.

Drop the bundle of stones. Make His Name the boatman. That alone suffices. His Name becomes food for the journey, the boat, and the ferryman. In truth, the one who holds His Name in totality need go nowhere — the other shore arrives at this shore. These are symbols. Where you sit, liberation descends; amidst the marketplace, a great silence.

A hundred brothers’ arms, yet Duryodhana burned;
Even with Narayan intervening, he would not give land.

War was raised on Kurukshetra; arrows rained like monsoon.
So great was their pride that even vultures would not eat their bodies.

Look back. Duryodhana would not give even five villages though Narayan stood between. Such is attachment to stones that even with God standing before you, people choose stones, not God.

What are you doing? Whose land? Whence did you bring it? Where will you take it? Why fight?

These stories are not history — their foundation is psychological. This is what we are doing — adding land, money, bank balances. And if Ram himself stands and says: Do not do so much; do not suck so much; do not be so full of ego; there is no essence in this position and prestige; all will be left when the caravan moves on — who listens? Buddha came and said; Mahavira came and said. Who listens? We continue collecting stones — and they drown us.

For a speck of land a terrible war was fought; arrows rained like water from the sky. And those who walked with such arrogance — when they fell, so many corpses lay that even vultures lost appetite.

Collect no more stones.

Now I speak the plain truth: spread your wings and fly.
Be free of these sorrows — cross beyond the body’s lake.

This world is like the water-wheel’s buckets.

Have you seen the wheel at a well? A bucket empties, another rises full; then that empties, another fills.

So is this world — one desire spent, another arrives. One birth gone, another comes. One bondage escaped, another arises.

Arising and perishing again and again, morsels fall into the mouth of death.

How many times have you risen, how many times fallen. How many births and deaths — count if you can. Think back.

Seeing this spectacle, the mind grew weary.

Dharamdas says: Seeing this spectacle, we grew weary of life — and began to seek the nectar where there is no birth or death, beyond coming and going.

Like a fly, flirting and flirting, becomes the fly of jaggery;
It sits to taste — and its wings are stuck fast.

Seeing the taste, the fly sits on the jaggery; the wings are glued — no flight. Captured, trapped. Greed becomes the snare; taste the prison; vasana the bondage.

Wings stuck, it beats its head; repents in its heart:
Leaving Mount Malaya’s breezes, how did I come here?

What foolishness! Leaving the breezes of Malaya — purity, peace, joy, sunlight, flowers, fragrance — to be caught by a lump of jaggery.

So too you have come from another country; this is not your land — a foreign shore. You have come from a far sky. Earth is a halt, not the destination. You must move on.

He who awakens before going will not return; he who does not awaken will return again and again — to fall on the lump of jaggery, to have wings stuck, to be bound again.

Seeing a strange field, a deer takes to a grove;
Each day it eats the fruit — and one day is pierced by an arrow.
It tries to leap free, struggling; repenting in its heart:
Now I cannot leap — the owner of the field has arrived.

Death comes like the owner of the field. On this earth, death is the owner; it is his field. For two or four days you may enjoy. In the end only the flavor of death remains on the tongue; all other tastes fade. Earth is the field of death; he is lord here. However many devices, none can escape him.

Awaken before this owner arrives. Awaken — to the great Owner, the Lord of life, the eternal, the Sanatan. From Him we have come; to Him we must return. The Source is the destination.

In what sleep are you lost — O dull, foolish, ignorant one?
Dawn has broken, morning has arrived — make ready for the journey now.

Now I speak the plain truth: spread your wings and fly.
Be free of these sorrows — cross beyond the body’s lake.

Your potential is infinite. It can be made true. Resolve! Let this longing arise! Pour everything upon it — and it will not take long. Once the fragrance of Malaya’s breezes is tasted, you will be astonished: How did I remain entangled so long? How did I play with such small toys? How did I keep gathering stones? You will be astonished at yourself, at your past. And seeing people all around entangled, you will be astonished that they remain caught. Jnanis have been most astonished by this: their own past becomes senseless — how could they miss so long? And seeing others missing, they cannot believe it: the very thing all seek, they miss — by their own doing.

Who in this world does not want bliss? And who attains it? Rarely one, in millions. What happens? Everyone wants bliss — but what they do is the opposite of bliss. They want the West — and go East. They want day — and create night.

Who does not want nectar? Yet they brew poison. Who does not want to drown in eternal peace? Yet all effort produces unrest.

Look at the contradiction of your life — is what you do the same as what you desire? Or its opposite? This ‘opposite’ is maya. The day you begin to do what you truly want, that day Dharma enters your life; you become a sannyasin; you are initiated. Think.

Dhani Dharamdas’s verses are very sweet. And sweet not like a lullaby that lulls you to sleep — sweet like thorns that prick and awaken.

‘Why sleep day and night? Awake, O lover!’

Enough for today.