Ka Sovai Din Rain #4

Go in and out of taverns. Sit among drunkards. Where wine is being poured, don’t move away. Keep satsang. That is one device.

You have no acquaintance with the Divine. Truly, how will you remember? Whom will you remember? And even if you do, it will be false. It will not surge from the heart; it will be imposed by the intellect. You will do it because you think you should. Your very life-breath will have no dialogue with it. The melody of your life will not play in it. It will be borrowed—worth two pennies. By such remembrance the Divine is not found.

So the first, the most effortless and nearest path is: look into the eyes of one who has known the Divine. For the one who has known the Divine carries in the eyes a drunkenness that remains forever. If the moon is not visible, look into the lake; you will see the reflection. Granted, the reflection is not the moon, but it is of the moon. Then the journey from the reflection to the moon can become easy. Some recognition will happen. If you have not seen the person, at least look at his picture—some recognition will happen. See a glimpse in the mirror, and from that very glimpse a song begins to arise on the heart-strings.

In one sense this is easy; in another sense, difficult too. Where are you to find such a person? And then, accepting that the glimpse of the Divine has appeared in someone is very hard for our ego. Those who can give a glimpse of the Divine have always existed, and they exist now. The earth is never empty of them. They may be few, but they are. And the one who seeks finds them. A thirsty one who goes searching finds water. A hungry one who goes searching finds food, sooner or later. But that it is not found—this is not so. Whoever has ever sought has found.

But the difficulty comes from your side. Your ego is not willing to accept that in some person a glimpse of the Divine has appeared. Your ego is not willing to bow anywhere. Your ego raises a thousand obstacles. Your ego stands like a mountain in between. And it need not even be a mountain; if a tiny speck of grit gets into the eye, the eye still closes. And we go about carrying a mountain of ego. Because of this mountain you cannot see. Set this mountain down.

Whoever sets the ego down will not take long to find that person from whom the glimpse begins, where longing is born, where yearning arises. The truth is, if you set the ego down, you will not need to go searching for such a person; such people will come searching for you. The Sadguru will knock at your door. Perhaps he has knocked many times already, but you were fast asleep. Ego is a very deep sleep. Who hears the knocking! And the knock of the true Masters is very soft, very subtle; not like a shout, but like a whisper. It is filled with great sweetness! Delicate. Feminine!

Set the ego down. Let go of worrying about the Divine.
I have understood you, your question, the logic of your question. You have asked well; you have asked meaningfully. This is everyone’s question: If we are to remember Him, how should we remember? Even if we wish to call out, in which direction should we call? In whose name should we call? Is He even there? We cannot find trust. Without experience, how can trust arise? How to break this vicious circle? If there is experience, trust comes; and those who have experienced say that if trust happens, experience comes. Now a great obstacle stands in the way: without experience, there is no trust; without trust, there is no experience. What should we do? One falls into a great dilemma.
I understand your inner conflict; your dilemma is clear to me. Don’t worry about God at all. Just put down your ego. This much you can do! You know your ego well; you have lived by its ways. And from the ego you have gained nothing but suffering. It is your ego that has manufactured hells. In dropping it, nothing will be lost—sorrows will be lost, hells will vanish.

Have you ever known any joy through the ego? The ego aches like a wound; the smallest things hurt. The greater the ego, the greater the pain in life. Remove the source of this pain. Then some true Master will knock at your door. Or, unawares, you will recognize a Master in one in whom you had never seen one before. Sometimes he was living right next door and you did not hear; you met daily on the road, exchanged greetings—and still you never saw.

You need the eye to see; the ego does not allow such an eye to be born. Ego is a great curtain.

One way is this. If this too feels hard—if letting the ego drop is not easy, if recognizing the Master is not easy—then there is another way: search in nature. In waterfalls, trees, winds, the moon and the stars. Do not search for God, for you do not know what God is—just search. If He is, you will find.

Man has built a world of his own. If you seek God in what man has made, you will not find Him. Do not seek in temples. If you truly want to find, do not seek in temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras—they are man-made. What is man-made bears no signature of the Divine. Those idols were sculpted by men—men like you who themselves have no clue of God. Those who know cannot fashion an image of the Divine, for He is formless. Those who know cannot build His temple, for this whole existence is His temple. What other temple is there to make? Those who know do not create pilgrimage places; every particle is a place of pilgrimage. Wherever you are is sacred, for on every side the Divine surrounds you. You are encircled by Him.

As the fish is surrounded by the ocean, so you are surrounded by God. A fish may, by accident, be caught in a net and taken out of water; but you cannot step outside His waters. There is nowhere to go outside of Him. He alone is—everywhere, in all directions: below and above, ahead and behind. Other than Him, nothing is.

God is another name for existence.

I am not telling you to look for God in the trees—then you will go astray. What will you look for in a tree? If you were born in a Krishna-devotee’s home, you would want to find His flute in the tree—you will not. You would want a vision of Krishna with a peacock-feathered crown in the tree—that will not happen. For that you must go to a temple. And temples are false. Every temple is false, except the temple of existence. And except the Veda of nature, all scriptures are human-made.

Search in nature. I am not saying, search for God—just search. If there are embers in the ash, and you go simply to sift the ash, you will find a live coal. And there is a coal. This whole world is alive; its very aliveness is God. Look attentively—peer deep.

The air was like this, the night the same, the scene the same;
I don’t know what bewitched me in the stars’ shimmering.

Look at the starry shimmer of the night—shimmer with it. Move with it. Become a star among the stars. Gaze into the ripples of water—become a ripple. A gust of wind comes—be the wind. Stand by a green tree—become green. Stand by a flower—be a flower. Lose yourself in nature like this, and you will find the Divine, because He is present everywhere. Then remembrance will begin to arise on its own; recognition will deepen.

I sighed and drifted into my reveries—
there was some mention of spring and a moonlit night.

Then someone will speak of the moon and you will remember the Master; someone will speak of the sun and you will remember the Lord. A child will laugh—and you will hear His laughter. Tears of love and joy will flow in someone’s eyes—and in those tears you will find a mirror, a glimpse of Him will be caught.

When birds chirp in dawn’s dim light,
when morning’s scenes sing their honeyed songs,
when springtime’s charms shower enchanting melodies,
when smiling buds in the garden open at daybreak—
why is it that in such moments you come to me unbidden?

When the rosy glow peeks from the skirts of the mountains,
when the songs of waterfalls tremble in the air,
when the patterns of running streams float upon the breeze,
when the wilderness changes into robes of fresh green—
why is it that in such moments you come to me unbidden?

When the rainbow adorns the sky
and with a beloved’s grace melts into molds of color,
when from the musk-scented morning breeze fragrance overflows,
when spring arrives and fills the garden’s lap with blossoms—
why is it that in such moments you come to me unbidden?

When the waterside scene grows intoxicating,
when the gleaming sand-plain is overlaid with gold,
when the lotus lies in the jeweled embrace of the running stream,
when in the lovely waves a fervent ardor stirs—
why is it that in such moments you come to me unbidden?

When on cool nights a delicate fragrance breathes,
when the gaze of the stars grows intimate with mysteries,
when a poet’s soul-eye awakens,
when the strings of my imagining begin to hum—
why is it that in such moments you come to me unbidden?

And inevitably His remembrance will come. You will be filled with His memory—spontaneously, irresistibly. Even if you wish not to remember, remembrance will come.

Man is cut off from nature; therefore he is cut off from God. Slowly, man has erected a world of his own making—our cement-and-stone houses, sky-scraping towers, tar and concrete roads, giant factories, machines. We have built a false world—man’s own. We have pushed nature out; we have stepped outside nature. Hence the obstruction.

It is not the atheists who have snatched God from you—what power has any atheist to take God from anyone? You yourself severed your ties with nature. In the measure that your bonds with nature have broken, in that measure you have broken from God. Your roots have been uprooted.

I have understood you; I understand your pain. The ache of your question is in my heart. There are two ways. The simplest, I say, is this: for peering into trees there will again be a difficulty—trees do not speak; trees are silent; to look into them great sensitivity is needed. The Master speaks—every pore of him speaks. If you put aside just a little of the ego, flame is lit from flame; his lamp will light your extinguished lamp.

Therefore first I suggested: seek the true Master. If that is simply not possible—as for many it has not been—then for them there is the other way: search in nature.

But I am not asking you to seek in temples and mosques; those who sought there came back empty-handed. Nor am I asking you to seek in scriptures, for scriptures are words, and with words you will play—you will become a scholar, not arrive at wisdom. Scriptures will fill you with knowledge, not with love. And God is found through love, not through knowledge.

Desire is natural. It is nature’s gift. It is a donation from the divine. In itself desire is perfectly healthy. Without desire you could not live—not even for a single moment.

In fact, the ancient scriptures say one thing: God was alone. A desire arose in him to become two—and the world was born. A desire arose in God to be two, to be many, to expand, to spread—and the world came into being. We are parts of that very desire of the divine; we are rays of that desire.

So the first thing: desire is natural. It is of nature; it is innate. Desire is not bad; it is not sin.

Those who told you desire is sin—avoid desire, escape from it, repress it, cut it down, kill it—they are the ones who made desire sick. Repressed desire becomes diseased. Whatever is pushed down turns poisonous. It does not vanish by being pressed; it goes underground. Its spontaneous flow stops, because you do not allow it to express. Then it begins to express itself in unnatural ways. And when desire expresses unnaturally, there is distortion, disease. You have made something beautiful ugly.

Desire is given by God. The distortion is a donation from your mahatmas. Beware of mahatmas! Protect your God from your mahatmas. Your mahatmas seem to be diametrically opposed to God. If you can see that what God has given is simple, natural—the very basis of life—and that your mahatmas are busy destroying it, your morbidity will disappear, the disease of desire will dissolve, the distortion will bid you farewell.

Understand this. Sexual desire is natural. You did not create it. It came with birth. It is part of life—an indispensable part. If your father and mother had not had sexual desire, you would not be here. That is why the scriptures are right to say that a desire must have arisen in God; only then could the world arise. If desire had not arisen in your parents, you would not be. Desire will arise in you, and your children will be.

This chain of life, this continuity, this river that flows—its water is desire.

Desire cannot be bad, because life is not bad. Life is dear, supremely beautiful. But start repressing desire—and distortion begins. Sit on desire, on its chest, do not allow it to manifest; carve it down, trim it—and then distortion begins. Then hindrance starts. Then desire begins to show itself in ways that are not natural.

For example, to feel a sense of “ah!” on seeing a beautiful woman is not at all unseemly. When you see a beautiful flower and the feeling arises, “How beautiful!”—is that a sin? You look at the moon and feel its beauty—is that a sin? Why make an exception only for human beings? On seeing a beautiful woman or a handsome man, the perception of beauty will arise—it should arise. If you have even a little intelligence, it will arise. If you are utterly dull, it won’t.

There is nothing wrong in the perception of beauty, but instantly anxiety arises in you: a sin is happening; I found this woman beautiful, I have committed a sin, I have done something criminal. Now you suppress the feeling. You want to look at the woman and you don’t look. Now distortion is being born. Now you look obliquely, under a pretext, pretending to look at something else. Whom are you deceiving? Or in a crowd you “accidentally” jostle that woman—this is distortion. Or you buy dirty magazines and look at pictures of naked women—this is distortion.

And this distortion is not very different from what your rishis and seers have been experiencing. You have read the stories: a rishi practiced great austerities and, at the end, apsaras—celestial nymphs—came down from the sky. Urvashi arrived and danced around him. Pornography is not new; the rishis have tasted it. Those apsaras performed every kind of obscene gesture before the sages.

Now, what apsara would be bothered about chasing a rishi? What do the poor rishis even have that apsaras would seek them out in the forest and dance naked around them? The truth is, had the rishis gone to the apsaras’ homes and stood at their doors, they would not even have found a place in the queue. Kings and emperors would already be standing there. Who would let the rishis in? Yet the stories say the sages sit in the forest—eyes closed, bodies scorched by austerities, hungry and thirsty, fasting and abstaining—and apsaras come looking for them.

These apsaras are mental. They are their repressed desires. They exist nowhere outside. It is projection. It is dream. They have suppressed desire so badly, so deeply, that it has become so intense that they begin to dream with eyes open, that’s all. It is hallucination, delusion.

Psychologists say that if a person is kept hungry long enough, he begins to see food. Keep a person away from sex long enough and the objects of his sex-desire begin to appear. Illusion starts arising. They are not outside; he projects them outward from within. These are events coming from inside the rishis; they have no relation to the outside. No Indra is sending them. There is no Indra anywhere, nor any Urvashi. All Indras and all Urvashis are the web within the human mind.

So if you ever think that by sitting in a forest Urvashi will come, do not go there by mistake—no Urvashi comes. Otherwise many rishis would have been sitting there just for that—“Now Urvashi will come, now Urvashi will come!” You create Urvashi; she is born of repression. This is distortion. I call this a mental disorder. It is not an attainment. It is derangement. This is the diseased state of desire.

Whatever is natural within you, accept it with ease. And through easy acceptance a revolution happens. Very soon you will go beyond desire. I am not saying remain in desire forever. But the only way to go beyond is to accept it simply. Do not repress it; otherwise you will never go beyond. Urvashis will keep coming.

You have also seen that because men wrote the scriptures, therefore Urvashis come. Had women written the scriptures and done austerities in forests and mountains, do you think Urvashi would have come? Indra himself would have come. In their stories, Urvashi would send Indra, because Urvashi would not suffice. Whatever is the object of your desire—that is what will come. Women would not have seen apsaras; they would have seen, “Here comes a wrestling champion, here comes the world champion Muhammad Ali.” Women would have seen such dreams: “Here comes some film star.” It is your imagination.

A human being can certainly go beyond desire—people do, and one should. But no one ever goes beyond by fighting with desire. With whatever you fight, you get entangled. Be very alert about enmity, because with whom you make enmity, you become like him. Understand this secret. Friendship—make it with anyone and it’s okay. But enmity—choose with great care, because you have to fight the enemy; and to fight him you must adopt his techniques, his methods.

While fighting Hitler, Churchill had to become very much like Hitler—there was no other way. The same deceits that Hitler practiced, Churchill had to practice. Hitler was defeated, but Hitlerism was not. Hitlerism continues. Those who fought Hitler became like him. They won, but until they won, Hitler sat on their chest.

Whom you fight, by nature you have to become like. If you want to fight, you must learn his customs, his ways, his keys, his tricks. In doing so, you become like him.

Choose your enemy very thoughtfully. If you make desire your enemy, gradually you will sink into desire’s mire; you will rot in it.

Desire is not the enemy. Desire is God’s gift. Begin from there. Accept it. Embrace it with a sense of awe and joy. And make it as beautiful as you can. Do not fight it. Adorn it. Give it grace. Make it beautiful. Make it more sensitive. Right now a woman seems beautiful to you—make your desire so sensitive that one day, in the beauty of a woman, you glimpse the beauty of the divine. If it appears in the moon and stars, it will appear in a woman too—it must. If it is there in moon and stars, why not in a woman? Woman and man are the highest expressions of this existence. If it is there in flowers—the wordless flowers—will it not be in speaking human beings? If it is there in stones and mountains—the inert stones and mountains—will it not be in conscious human beings? Make your sensitivity keener.

Do not run from desire; do not be afraid of desire. Refine desire. Purify it. This is my whole process that I offer you here. Purify desire; refine it. Make desire prayerful. Make desire into meditation. And slowly you will be astonished: desire itself brings you where you wanted to go—where you could never have reached by fighting with it.

Love. Do not avoid love. Love deeply. Love so deeply that the one you love becomes your God. Love so deeply! If your love cannot make your beloved divine, it is not love; somewhere something is lacking. Your mahatmas say that because of love you do not attain the divine. I tell you: because of the lack of love you do not attain the divine. Understand this difference. Therefore, if your mahatmas are annoyed with me, it is absolutely natural. If I am right, they ought to be annoyed.

I say: there is too little love in you, therefore God does not become visible to you. Your desire is very incomplete, crippled. Your desire has no wings. Give it wings! Teach your desire to fly! Your desire is crawling on the ground. I say: teach desire to fly in the sky.

If the divine has descended into the world through desire, then by the very ladder of desire you will ascend to the divine, because the stair by which one comes down is the one by which one goes up. Let me say it again. The old scriptures say: a desire arose in God to become many. He must have been tired of aloneness. You are tired of the crowd; he was tired of being alone. He descended into the world. You are tired of the crowd; now you want to regain solitude, to attain liberation, aloneness, meditation, samadhi. Climb the same stair by which the divine descended.

That is why I say sex and samadhi are two ends of the same ladder; the difference is only of direction, nothing else. The divine has moved from samadhi toward sex—thus the world arose; otherwise it could not have arisen. You move from sex toward samadhi—and you will be free of the world. You will have to walk on the same stair; there is no other.

The road by which you came to me—when you go home you will return by the same road, won’t you? You will not say, “But by this road I came away from my home; how can I move toward home on the same road? That seems logically absurd.” No; you know it is not absurd. The road that brought you here will take you back home; only the direction changes, the face changes. While coming here, your face was toward me; while going, your back will be toward me. While coming, your back was toward home; while going, your face will be toward home. Just this much transformation. No opposition, no hostility, no repression, no coercion, no violence.

Look at them—analyze them. See clearly which desires are sick. If you inquire, you will also come to know in your own experience. You will find they are exactly those desires you have suppressed, or were taught to suppress. They became morbid because they were never allowed expression; the energy lay inside and rotted. Let the energy flow.

If springs were to stop, they would stagnate; a river that stands still becomes filthy. For purity, water must keep moving. Be flowing water! Let the current run. Do not dam it up. Otherwise you will be surrounded by diseased desires—and with diseased desires the soul cannot be healthy. They will hang around the neck of the soul like rocks; the soul cannot rise into the sky. They will be like wounds, forever oozing pus.

You asked: “So are desires also healthy and sick?” Certainly. A desire accepted—embraced with gratitude—is healthy. A desire rejected, denied, becomes unhealthy. And that which you deny demands revenge; it resists and seeks retaliation. The more you push it down, the more it crowds and pounds, insisting, “I will manifest.”

Thus it often happens that your so‑called monks and renunciates become nothing but bundles of morbid desires. If you examine their minds you will be astonished: there are only diseased desires. If you peep into their dreams, you will be frightened; you dream better than they do. Perhaps you do not know that ordinary people rarely see filthy dreams, while those you call holy men have nothing but dirty dreams. Of course: what they suppress all day takes revenge at night. This is why monks begin to fear sleep. They reduce sleep—five hours, four, three. The less he sleeps, the more people say, “Ah, a true saint—he sleeps only two hours.” But why is he afraid of sleep? What is the panic? Sleep is such a pleasant, peaceful process. Patanjali has even said: samadhi and sushupti (deep sleep) are alike. Deep sleep is like samadhi. The difference is small: in samadhi one is awake; in sleep one is asleep. But in both, the mind is quiet, thoughts have dissolved, a state beyond thought has arrived.

Even in deep sleep you fall into God. Daily you fall. That is why after deep sleep the morning feels fresh, rejuvenated. As if you have bathed in a source of energy and returned. You do not know where you went or how—but you went. There was no awareness, but you went.

Sushupti is: entering the Divine while asleep. Samadhi is: entering the Divine while awake. The entry is the same; the door is the same. The only difference is sleep and wakefulness. Yet your monks are terrified of sleep. They keep devising ways not to sleep. What are they afraid of? Of their thoughts—of precisely this. They are pitiable. If a man cannot even sleep peacefully, what can one feel but pity? Their difficulty is simple: whatever they have suppressed all day—understand it this way: as if they have fasted all day—then they dread the night, because when they sleep, an invitation to a royal banquet is sure to arrive. They won’t be able to escape. The king will give a feast in the dream—with all kinds of sweets and foods. All day long they think about the very thing they are fighting.

You try it too. On the day you fast, that day you end up “eating” all day—again and again thoughts of food arise. Passing through the bazaar, that day you do not notice shoe or cloth shops—only restaurants and hotels. Smells of food waft from everywhere—pakoras are coming this way, fritters that way! The entire world becomes food. Whoever you look at reminds you of food. You pass down that same street every day, yet it did not happen then—because on all those days you had eaten; nothing was suppressed; nothing had turned sick.

If all day you have struggled that no woman’s influence may touch you—and monks struggle in countless ways!—if a woman comes into view, drop your gaze. Where a woman sits, do not sit. Even if she has gone, do not sit in that place; the spot itself has become dangerous. So monks carry their own seat, in case they must sit somewhere—who knows if a woman sat there before; you might catch a “disease”! They carry their seat. They carry their whisk; wherever they sit, they first sweep and purify, then sit—assured that there is no danger now. Such frightened people are pitiable. This is no life. Psychologists call it paranoia—fear‑stricken! Trembling all twenty‑four hours that something may go wrong.

And that which you fear keeps appearing before you. A hippie passes by—long hair; your holy man will see a woman, he cannot see a man. I say this from experience.

I was once sitting with a monk on the bank of the Ganga. He was a childhood friend. I turned non‑monk; he turned monk. We were talking. His eyes kept straying toward someone who had come to bathe. I looked too. I saw a woman bathing. I said to him, “This conversation cannot go on; your attention keeps going toward the woman. Go and see.” The back was toward us. He went and came back, striking his head: “It isn’t a woman at all—just long hair; it’s a man.” But from behind, long hair… When desire is repressed, even small things become symbols.

Freud has made a great discovery here: those who repress their sexuality—if not the woman herself, even a sari hanging on a peg excites them. One who represses desire toward men finds “interest” in every masculine object. This is perversion; a morbid state of mind.

Then you will fear sleeping at night. The moment you sleep, trouble arises; the moment you sleep, panic comes. While awake you somehow manage to control yourself; but who will manage you in sleep? In sleep all managing stops, and what you have suppressed all day suddenly appears.

That is why psychologists say: to know you, one must analyze your dreams. You are so false that your wakefulness is not reliable. Your waking is pure pretense. You go to a psychologist; he says, “Bring your dreams.” Day after day he says, “Bring your dreams; write them; tell them; keep a dream diary.” You think, “Ask me whatever you want; why look at dreams?” The psychologist says, “Only from dreams will it be known who you really are. In waking you can deceive.” You have become so skilled at deception that you can deceive not only others but yourself. Some are so skilled that they smuggle a little deception even into their dreams. For example, you want to kill your father. You feel: father tormented me, is tormenting me; the old man still won’t go—when will he go? Such thoughts churn within. But he is father, and culture and civilization say, “Honor him.” All civilizations insist the son should honor the father—because otherwise there is danger: father and son will quarrel; sons will kill fathers. To prevent this, every culture…

This is quite interesting. If you study the rules of civilizations you find the secret of what’s at stake. So many cultures—different ways, foods, dress—yet on one point all agree: the son must respect the father. Experience has taught all that if respect is not hammered in, one day insult will come—from the son. So they hammer it in. The conditioning settles so deep that psychologists say: even in dreams you do not kill the father—you kill the uncle, because he seems like the father. The poor uncle has no hand in anything. No one wants to kill an uncle. One is friendly with the uncle. The uncle does not command you, doesn’t force you to school; sometimes he even gives you money, gets you a day off. He is a different kind of person. Who wants to kill the uncle!

But in dreams, psychologists say, even the urge to kill the father is blocked: “This cannot be.” So you kill the uncle—he resembles the father; he becomes the symbol.

Take note. Psychologists say deception begins even in dreams. Deceit has gone so deep! Yet even in dreams your authenticity can be found. If for three months you laid out all your dreams, your autobiography would be there—the real autobiography. The real story is not what you think while awake, but what you think while asleep—because that shows where you actually are. And it will be quite the opposite: on the surface you were one thing; inside, something else. On the surface you were so calm; inside you committed murders. On the surface you looked so good; inside, what is there that you did not do? Whatever the greatest criminals do, every person does in his dreams. Dreams give a kind of satisfaction.

Do not make your desires diseased; otherwise you will get into trouble. Accept them. Whatever God has given has a purpose behind it—a hidden treasure. Do not deny. Whatever of God you deny, through that you deny God Himself. Therefore the devotees say: accept everything—and accept with gratitude, not with gloom, not out of helplessness or compulsion. And after accepting, simply deepen what you have been given. As you deepen it, you will find that where there seemed only stones and dust, as you keep digging, springs appear—wells come into being.

From every desire there is a way to prayer—if the digging is right. I am giving you a religion of life‑acceptance. In it there is no denial—not a trace. I am teaching you the art of being an authentic human being. Until now you have been taught to be inauthentic, to forcibly make yourself into something. I say to you: in naturalness you will become what you long to become. Naturalness should be the religion; sahaja‑yoga, the yoga of spontaneity, should be the only yoga.

And if you do not accept this world, how will you accept the maker of this world? The denial of desire is atheism. The acceptance of desire is theism.

How could we make life a perpetual spring,
when the heart itself was in mourning?
It is only about your sorrow—otherwise,
why would I make myself so restless?
When did I ever trust You,
that I would wait for You?
What hope had I from spring—
why would I keep hoping for spring?
When did I ever trust life—
how then could I trust You?
He who does not cherish the thorny garden,
how could he ever love the rose?
“Shamiyah,” when the night itself did not please,
why would one wait for the morning?

Understand a little.
When did I ever trust You,
that I would wait for You?
If you do not accept life itself, how will you accept that which is hidden behind life? If you run away from the veil, how will you unveil the face behind it—the beloved hidden there? This nature is His veil. Desire is the veil of prayer. All these forms and colors are the veil of the Formless and Colorless. All shapes are veils over the Shapeless. And they are very lovely—the veil is lovely because it lies upon His face. Because it is upon His face, everything is lovely. There is nothing in this world that is not lovable. And if something appears unlovely, think again and again; you will find your own mistake. It must be yours—you cannot be wiser than God.

From whom the flow of this world arises—you are thinking to improve upon Him? You want to advise God how it should have been? “There should have been no desire.” Just think: a child is born without desire—what will he be? Will he even have a spine? He will be a eunuch. Will he have life‑energy, zest? Will he flower? Will he even live? Why would he breathe? Push him and no anger will arise. He will be a lump—whatever you mold him into, he will become. No intelligence, no brilliance. No rebellion, no revolution, no fire. No ray—only darkness. Completely dead, a lump of clay. No soul. Without desire there is no soul. He will never love any woman; he cannot even love his mother—remember this.

A child’s love for the mother is the first love for a woman in the world. Psychologists say that a man does not become free of the mother’s love even into old age; he seeks his mother in his wife. Deep within, the search for the mother goes on. That is why men are so fascinated by women’s breasts—it is the search for the mother, nothing else. The breast is the symbol of the mother. The child first knew the feminine through the breast. First he knew breasts; the woman he knew later. His first recognition of the world was through the breast: the breast was food, love, consolation; when he cried, the breast was comfort. The breast was his whole longing, the sum of his desire—the entire essence of everything for him.

Therefore a man never becomes free of the breast. Painters paint breasts. Sculptors carve great breasts—bigger than exist. Khajuraho and Konark are temples of breasts—breasts everywhere. Poets write poems to breasts. Whether in novels, films, or the Puranas, the talk is of breasts. Separate the breasts from woman and something is lost—utterly lost. For she is no longer capable of becoming a mother; no man feels interest. Women know this secret, so they try to accentuate the breasts. Around the world, blouses are devised so that breasts look larger; the effort continues. False breasts are made; breasts must look youthful.

Why does all this go on? Look deeply. Because the child’s first experience was the breast—the most primary and precious experience. Then he recognized the mother; from the mother his first recognition of woman arose. This lodged deep within. Psychologists say: therefore no husband is ever fully satisfied with his wife, because no wife can become a perfect replica of his mother—something is always lacking. And no wife has come to be his mother either. The husband cannot even say, “I am seeking my mother in you”—it goes against his ego. He is the master—how can he say he is looking for a mother? But he is. Even the oldest man is searching for the mother.

And the exact opposite with woman: she is searching for a son. The Upanishads contain a marvelous blessing. When a newly wedded couple came, the rishi would bless them: “May you have ten sons, and ultimately may your husband become your eleventh son.” This is astonishing. The marriage is truly fulfilled the day the woman becomes a mother and the husband becomes a son; that day the circle is complete.

A child without desire will have no life‑energy. He will not be able to love his mother, nor any woman, nor any man. He will form no friendships. He will see no beauty in flowers, no light in the moon and stars. He will see no poetry in the world—for all poetry surges from desire.

Do you think flowers grow on trees for you to pluck and offer in temples? They do not grow for you or your temples. Flowers are part of the tree’s desire. Through flowers the tree lures butterflies and bees. In the flowers the tree has placed its pollen; clinging to wings and feet, they will reach the female. Flowers are a device—a snare.

You think when the cuckoo coos “koo‑hoo” it is singing a hymn or the call to prayer? It is calling its beloved. And note: the cuckoo that coos is the male, not the female. The female sits quietly—as women sit. It is the male who makes the display.

You have seen: the peacock that dances is the male; the one who spreads his plumes is the male. Nature has not given the female beautiful plumes—no need; her femininity is enough. When the world was more natural, women did not wear ornaments; men did. That is fitting; that is how it should be. Those hippies you see with bells and trinkets—this is closer to nature. The whole of nature supports it: the male peacock is beautiful; flowers are beautiful; the male cuckoo’s voice is sweet. Why? To entice the female.

The female is sufficient by being female—nothing more is needed. The male is not sufficient; he must entice. Watch how the cock walks, chest thrust out, crest held high! And when you too fall in love, even if there is no chest you stuff cotton into your coat; if there is no crest you tie a turban and stick in a plume—become a cock and strut!

This whole world is the wondrous play of desire. If a child is born without desire, he will not live; he will die. And one in whom love for the world does not arise—of woman for man, man for woman—God will not even come to his memory. Only when we love and are defeated in this world does the remembrance of God arise.

Understand: no love in this world can be finally won, because no love here can fulfill your longing for love. The longing is vast—enough to drink the oceans—and here you receive drops by begging, if at all. Every drop that falls in your throat here only inflames the thirst further; it does not quench it. Here you will fall in love and be defeated.

I tell you: do fall in love. If you do not get defeated, you will never remember God. The defeated one takes the Name. When you are badly beaten—search everywhere and find nothing, return empty‑handed from everywhere—then one day, helpless, you will lift your eyes to the sky and cry, “Enough now. Now, if only You come, something may happen.”

When satisfaction does not come from the love between man and woman and dissatisfaction keeps growing, only then does the search for God begin. The child without desire will not go in search of God. Without desire, he has not yet separated from God—where is the question of seeking? Desire arose in the Divine, and He expanded into many.

When did I ever trust You,
that I would wait for You?
What hope had I from spring—
why would I keep hoping for spring?
When did I ever trust life—
how then could I trust You?

One who does not trust life cannot trust the maker of life.

When did I ever trust life—
how then could I trust You?
He who does not cherish the thorny garden,
how could he ever love the rose?
“Shamiyah,” when the night itself did not please,
why would one wait for the morning?

Those to whom the night itself did not appeal—what waiting for the morning could there be? If the night pleases—if the night is dear—then the hope of dawn arises: if the night is so beautiful, what will the morning be like! Dhani Dharamdas has said: when I looked into my master, when I peered into Kabir and saw such a lovely vision, then I understood: if the guru is so beautiful, what will union with the Supreme be like! Then speech cannot say it; words become inadequate; only silence can speak.

Whatever God has given—I say unconditionally, whatever He has given—accept it. Embrace it. Move with it. Then your desires will remain healthy. Healthy desire leads to prayer—inevitably.

Perverted desire—strays. Neither of the house nor of the ghat. People become the washerman’s donkey—neither here nor there. The world is lost, and there is no sign of nirvana. I see your monks trapped in exactly this trouble. They are truly worthy of compassion. Everything slipped from their hands: maya is gone and Ram is not found. Neither maya nor Ram—caught in a dilemma. A split arises in the mind: this to choose, that to drop; this to grasp, that to push away. Duality is born.

Duality makes desire sick. Live nondual! Live fearless! God is your protector—what is there to fear? Why such panic? If He has given it, it must be right. Live with this trust. And it is this very trust that leads you there.

First thing: either there is knowing or there isn’t—there is no such thing as “khichdi knowledge.” That is only a way of hiding ignorance. People say, “We know a little, here and there.” A little cannot be. Either it is whole, or it is not.

Just a few days ago an elderly gentleman came—he has been a sannyasin for some thirty years. He said, “I’ve wanted to come for a long time. I lived in the Himalayas for thirty years. I have known a little, and I want to go further.”

I said to him, “Tell me what this ‘little’ is, because I have never heard that God can be known bit by bit—that now one ounce is known, then two ounces, then a pound; or, in the new measure, a kilo. If the Divine is known, it is known in its wholeness; it has no fragments.”

But man’s ego is very clever. It doesn’t want to admit, “I am ignorant.” It says, “A little, at least give me that much leeway.”

I said to him, “If you know a little, tell me exactly what you know. Then we won’t talk about that; we’ll leave it aside and move further.”

He sat with his eyes closed. He must have thought a little. He must have understood. He was an honest man. Opening his eyes he said, “Forgive me! No, I have not known anything. These thirty years have gone just like that.”

On the journey of knowing, the first step is to see clearly whether you know or not. If you do not know, let it sink deep that “I do not know.” From precisely that feeling, the journey can begin. If you think you know even a little—that there is a little khichdi knowledge—then that is not knowledge; it is rubbish.

There is no khichdi of knowledge; there is only a khichdi of ignorance. Khichdi means ignorance. Do not call it knowledge. Otherwise you will preserve it. You will say, “Granted it’s khichdi, but it is still knowledge—we’ll sift it. We’ll separate the wheat, separate the lentils. It can be sorted.”

No—there is no knowledge there. Knowledge—and khichdi! In the moment of knowing, all dualities, all multiplicity, all thoughts disappear. Neither lentil remains nor wheat. What khichdi will you make? When even the two are not left, what will you mix?

It’s good that you have at least seen that it is khichdi knowledge. That too is good—something has happened. Now take one step more: khichdi knowledge is not knowledge. Otherwise there is danger. What I am saying to you will fall into your khichdi, and that too will be spoiled. Your khichdi will win.

Always remember: in what is higher there is a certain delicacy. If you collide a stone and a flower, the flower will die; the stone will not. And the stone is inferior, the flower superior. The superior has a delicacy; the inferior has no delicacy, it has hardness. Therefore, empty your vessel of this khichdi.

You say: “khichdi knowledge.” I say: “khichdi of ignorance.” But empty your vessel of this khichdi, so that what I want to pour into it does not get mixed into your khichdi. Otherwise that too will be distorted. It will be colored by you. You will mold it into your own language, make it fit your own ideas. You will dress it in your clothes—and it will lose its entire form, its entire beauty will be destroyed.

That has never happened. You cannot be an exception. Why would anyone come to harm you without your fault? Who would bother? Maybe the fault was not today—it could be from yesterday, the day before, from this life or some other life—but a fault there will have been. Without it, who would bother? Who has so much interest in you that they would harass you and themselves be harassed?

A man once spat on Buddha. Buddha wiped his face with his robe and said, “Brother, do you have anything more to say?” The man was stunned, because he had expected a quarrel, a fight. He had come prepared, had even posted thugs outside to call in if things went wrong.

But Buddha said again, “Brother, anything more to say?” He replied, “Nothing more.” Then Buddha said, “Namaskar.”

Buddha’s disciple Ananda asked, “What is this? You didn’t say anything.” Buddha said, “I had been waiting for him. I must have insulted him in some birth. I was waiting. If this meeting didn’t happen, I would have to come again. Today he came by himself; the account is settled. I do not wish to keep this business going any further. That’s why I said, ‘Brother, anything more to say? If not, namaskar.’ I have nothing to say. I don’t want any further transaction in this. If I react in any way—good or bad—in both cases a relationship will be created.”

Here, understand the difference. Jesus says: if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other. Buddha does not say: if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other. Buddha says: if someone slaps you, give thanks. Do not offer the other cheek, because in offering the other cheek you are again doing something. Even the good binds—exactly as the bad binds. Do nothing. Silently accept what the other is doing. The reply to your doing has come; the matter is complete; the transaction is closed; the ledger is finished. You are freed of one nuisance.

You say: “If it is without our fault...” That never happens. And even if it did—even if your mind won’t agree with me and you still think you were troubled without any fault—then know that he will bear the result of his fault; do not worry. Do not get into the idea of answering back, because in answering you become entangled, woven together with him. This is the net of karma.

Understand—whether through your fault or not. I say it cannot be without your fault, but if you don’t see that—because great inner insight is needed—then even if it is without your fault, leave it to God. Whatever His will! Take it as a test: you’ve been given an opportunity to be calm; a challenge to see whether, in adverse circumstances, you can remain silent; when someone agitates you, can you remain unagitated? When someone abuses you, can you remain quiet? You have been given an opportunity. Thank this person. He gave you an opportunity. He abused you or harmed you and you remained untouched. You gave no reply—as if nothing happened. Your consciousness remained as if nothing had happened, as if it occurred in a dream, or you saw it in a film, or read it in a story. But in you, nothing happened. You stayed distant. You remained a witness.

This witnessing alone is the formula of liberation. Then whether it happened because of your fault or without your fault makes no difference. In both cases the same thing is to be done—remain a witness.

“If someone comes to harm us without our fault, what is the right thing to do at that time?” Whatever you do will be wrong. The very doing will be wrong. Only witnessing will be right. Just keep watching—as if you are the seer; as if this is happening to someone else. You are only the spectator, not the experiencer. One—this is the highest. If possible, be a witness. If this is not possible—and I know it is not simple to remain a witness—you will only be able to remain a witness if you cultivate it throughout your life. Do not sit waiting for that day, thinking, “When someone abuses me, then I will be a witness.” That day you will not succeed. Be a witness even when someone praises you; when someone garlands you; only then will you be able to be a witness when someone abuses you. When eating, when bathing—be a witness. Let witnessing be created, digested, absorbed within. Only then, on some ill-fated day, in some accident, in such a moment when a person is shaken in an instant and forgets—only then will you be saved. That is the final goal. If that is possible, there is nothing beyond it.

If that is not possible, then comes number two. I speak of number two only so you may become free of it later; by doing number two, number one will be helped. Number two is this: do not decide in advance what you will do. In that moment, let it happen by leaving it to God. Pre-deciding creates great confusion—it becomes part of the ego. You have already decided: if someone abuses me, I will do this; if someone throws a brick, I will reply with a stone; or if someone slaps one cheek, I will offer the other. In both cases you have arranged it beforehand; you have already thought; you have become the doer. You did not allow the moment to arrive; you did not allow a spontaneous flowering in time.

Let the moment come. When someone abuses you, live by spontaneous illumination. Whatever in that moment feels to be done, let it be done. And do not make the act yours—leave it to God. This is what Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita again and again: leave the fruits to Him. Know that He is the doer; you are merely a nimitta—an instrument.

This is number two. Through it, the first will be helped to mature. For now, become a nimitta—just an instrument. Let God do what He wants to do through you. You only remain consenting. Then do not repent later, do not feel proud. You are not the doer—who is there to repent, who to be proud? Do not look back. What happened has happened. Slowly, in becoming an instrument, you will also become a witness. Becoming an instrument is the process, the method, to become a witness. And that is why I say: do not run away from the world. Remain in the world, because there lies the means, the challenge to become an instrument. And there too lies the possibility of becoming a witness.

Pain, too, has a song, and tears have their own dance. The truth is, no song rises like the song that rises out of pain, and no dance is as alive as the dance of tears. So there is no contradiction.

Go dancing and singing. In dancing and singing everything is included—pain comes, weeping comes, tears come. When I say, “Go dancing and singing,” I am saying: go filled with trust; the union will happen. The meeting is certain. There is not a grain of doubt in it. Of course there is pain. Until the union happens, there is sorrow, there is anguish.

“Someone should ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow:
whence this lingering sting, if it had pierced all the way through?”

The arrow has struck, but it has not gone clean through. Therefore the ache is great.

To attain the Divine—this fact has lodged in the heart like an arrow. The dull cannot sense it; the sensitive feel it, as if a thorn has pricked the heart. There is the experience of separation. We wander, we search; we are thirsty, hungry; we long for shelter, for a place where we might rest utterly at ease, for a sky in which we may dissolve.

“Someone should ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow:
whence this lingering sting, if it had pierced all the way through?”

But the devotee even thanks God for this separation. “Someone should ask my heart...” He says: someone should ask my heart. “You did well to shoot the arrow and not let it pass through; it remained lodged and stinging. Otherwise, from where would this ache arise? How would the fire of longing burn? How would this thirst awaken? How would I set out in search of you? Well done that you set me aflame—for how else would prayer be born? Well done that you made me ache, because there are joys even in waiting.”

The devotee does not panic before pain; he sings it.

“The ecstasy of the drop is to be annihilated in the sea;
for pain to pass beyond its limit is to become the cure.”

He knows this secret; slowly he begins to experience that as pain increases, its sweetness increases. The devotee’s pain is a very sweet pain. It is not mere pain; it is filled with deep rasa.

“The ecstasy of the drop is to be annihilated in the sea;
for pain to pass beyond its limit is to become the cure.”

When anguish goes beyond a certain limit—so vast that the devotee is utterly drowned in it—it is like a drop falling into the ocean and losing itself.

“What can I say of love’s miracle?
The pain grew—and, growing, turned into the remedy.”

One day you will know that anguish becomes the very cause of release from anguish—simply because it grows so total.

“What can I say of love’s miracle?
The majesty of love cannot be said; it is hard to speak.

What can I say of love’s miracle?
The pain grew—and, growing, turned into the remedy.”

Let the pain grow! But this pain is a song—singing, dancing. The pain is not gloomy. The anguish is sweet, honeyed. And this anguish does not hide. It will show itself in the devotee’s tears, in the devotee’s dance, in the devotee’s song, in the devotee’s silence.

“Love cannot be hidden; it manifests in the very body.
Though the mouth may not speak, the eyes begin to weep.”

Even if no word is spoken, the eyes will say it by their tears. That too is a way of speaking.

You have asked: “You say that only those who go dancing and singing gain entry into the temple of the Divine. But the devotee-saints advise going there with an offering of pain and tears.”

It is the same thing. I have not told you straightaway to go with tears and pain, because there is a possibility of misunderstanding—and such misunderstanding has happened through the words of the saints. People began to think that going toward God means to go very gloomy, to go dead, to go like a corpse.

There is a difference in tears, a difference in pain. One kind of weeping arises from sorrow, from despondency. Another kind of weeping arises from ecstasy. But you have known only one kind of weeping—the weeping of grief. Someone died and you wept. When a child was born in your home, did you weep then? If you have wept when a child was born, then you will be able to understand me. And one who learns to weep at birth also gains the other art: that if someone dies, he can even laugh.

Death here is something to laugh about—because no one ever truly dies. Nothing is more false than death. Birth here is something to weep about—because life has descended, a great adventure begins. Yet in that weeping there is ecstasy, there is celebration.

Have you ever wept tears of joy? Then my point will be clear to you. Your beloved meets you, and the eyes begin to pour, like clouds in the monsoon. If you take a scientist both kinds of tears—of sorrow and of joy—then under his chemical analysis they will be of one kind; no difference will appear. Both will have salt, in equal proportion; both will have water, in equal proportion; all the other elements too, in equal proportion. The scientist will not be able to tell which tears fell in joy and which in grief. This is precisely the point to grasp: there is something that science cannot weigh, something that lies beyond the scales of science, beyond the reach of scientific analysis.

And you know from experience: at times you have wept in love, at times you have wept in anger; at times you have wept in joy, at times in sorrow. And there is a difference between these two kinds of weeping. In one there is song; in the other only despair. One is dancing; the other is paralysis, as if struck by a stroke.

My emphasis is on dancing and singing, because I know that in dancing and singing, sorrow will come by itself—but it will be a dancing sorrow, not of the cremation ground, but of the temple. And tears too will join of their own accord—but they will be the very cadence of the song, its rhythm, its meter. They will keep time for the song, not oppose it.

That is why I have not told you to go weeping—because I know you know only one kind of weeping, and you might mistake that for the whole. Many have. Go and look at those sitting in temples and mosques: sitting there—gloomy, inert, like corpses. Everything has dried up; it has become a desert.

No—this is not the right way to live. This is suicide, a slow suicide. I am opposed to suicide.

Now it’s too late. The time to run away has passed.

I have heard: A woman was singing on her birthday. Because it was her birthday, she kept singing late into the night—“Veenavadini, grant me a boon! Veenavadini, grant me a boon!” Mulla Nasruddin lived next door. It went beyond his capacity to endure. He knocked on her door and said, “Madam! Singing won’t do—give an advertisement in the newspaper!”
He was very annoyed—what is this nonsense, “grant me a boon, grant me a boon!” But the woman didn’t hear him; she was lost in her ecstasy. She sang on and on. It was two in the morning; Mulla kept tossing and turning, but sleep would not come. At last he went again. This time he banged loudly on the door and said, “Open up! If you say ‘Veenavadini, grant me a boon’ one more time, I’ll go mad.”
Someone got up from bed and opened the door. The woman stood there, her eyes heavy with sleep. She said, “What are you saying?” Nasruddin said, “If you say ‘Veenavadini, grant me a boon’ one more time, I’ll go mad.” The woman said, “You’re too late. I stopped singing an hour ago.”

That is exactly what I’m telling you: it’s too late. You’re already mad now. Where will you run? There’s no place left to run.

Love leaves no room. For love, “place” itself has no meaning. Wherever you go now, I will follow. There is no remedy. Wherever you go, you will find me already there. You will go sit in a cave in the Himalayas and you will find me sitting in that cave. You will hear my words there. You will see my eyes there. It’s too late.

You say, “I want to go very, very far away from you.”
Come very, very close instead. If you truly want to be free of me, come very, very close—you will be freed of me. That is the only way to be free. There is just one way to be free of the master: come so close that you pass through him and enter the Divine.

The master is a doorway. One must pass through the door. Once you pass, the matter is finished. If you keep your distance, you will remember even more. Distance increases remembrance; it does not decrease it. When has distance ever erased remembrance? Distance has always made remembrance grow.

And you are right when you say, “If I stay close, you will erase me.” I cannot deny that. That is exactly my work here. That is my occupation: to erase you—so that you can truly be.

What do you prefer:
fear or fearlessness?
There is dissolution in both;
but these days
I am thinking of the great dissolution—
and that too in meter,
in melody, in fragrance!

The great dissolution! That is what it means to come to the master. All will be destroyed. The way you have known yourself up to now will not remain. The identity you have recognized up to now will not remain. All your identifications—your name, your address, your whereabouts—will be lost. But only then, for the first time, will you discover your real address; only then will you remember your true home.

Right now you are taking an inn for your home. I want to give you your home. But your inn will be taken away.

Right now you are piling up counterfeit coins and calling it wealth. I want to give you true wealth. But you will have to drop your pebbles and stones—only then will there be room in your pouch to fill it with diamonds and jewels.

So you feel afraid—this I understand. And the closer you come, the greater the fear will grow. The more love grows, the more fear grows—because in the final moment love becomes death. But only after death is there resurrection.

God knows what calamities may befall—
and yet today I behold them gracious.

As the grace of the Divine descends upon you, your agitation will increase.

God knows what calamities may befall—
and yet today I behold them gracious.

People are afraid of love, have always been afraid. That is why the earth has become loveless. That is why master and disciple have been lost; only the names remain, only the words remain. In place of masters there are teachers; in place of disciples there are students. Between student and teacher there is no dying, no love—it is a matter of transaction. The student buys something from the teacher, gives something in return—the matter is finished. There is no exchange of life-breath.

O heart, do not revive the tale of worn-out love;
do not entangle the people of the gathering in this thorn-thicket.

People have begun to fear. They think love is a thorn, a thicket in which, if you get caught, you won’t be able to free yourself. People walk around it. Ordinary love entangles so much—what then to say of extraordinary love!

When the thought arises in you to run away, it means the time to run has already passed. This thought arises only when the time has gone by. This understanding comes only when no means remain. Only when the danger becomes this great does the idea arise, “Now I should run away.” But then—where will you go?

Love knows no distances of time and space. In love, both time and space vanish. The nearness of love is not physical nearness. If it were physical, you could go far away; but the nearness of love is the nearness of the soul—so how will you go far? Sitting near does not make one near, nor does going far make one far. The nearness of love is an intimacy of the heart.

Fear has arisen in your mind—natural. You may even run away; you may swear oaths never to remember me, swear never to return here again—but these oaths will not work. They will break. And even if you do not come, it makes no difference—I have taken no oath. I can still come.

Despite this extreme renunciation of love,
we have taken your name now and then.

You may abandon it, swear never to utter the name—but still the name will come. Still the remembrance will return. Now the remembrance has taken a home within you. Only when it makes a home does the question of running arise—but by then, it is always too late.

“I will go very far away from your sorrow,” a beloved has sung:
I will go very far away from your sorrow,
I will make you the title of a desolation.

By the oath of soft, moon-drenched nights,
by the oath of dew-soaked monsoon nights,
by the oath of ash-grey nights, frozen like ice,
by the oath of wedding processions of glittering stars—

I will go very far away from your sorrow,
I will make you the title of a desolation.

By the oath of stars that sparkle on cold nights,
by the oath of exuberant springtimes that shower flowers,
by the oath of the fresh vistas of awakening dawns,
by the oath of the green banks of the River Banas—

I will go very far away from your sorrow,
I will make you the title of a desolation.

By the oath of every radiant sheen of Beauty’s splendor,
by the oath of the exemplary restraint that love can keep,
by the oath of every graceful mode of serene indifference,
by the oath of the spell-casting perfection of the Highest Throne—

I will go very far away from your sorrow,
I will make you the title of a desolation.

But perhaps a beloved might manage to go far, because those bonds are of the body. Even though, in truth, even beloveds do not go far; lovers too cannot go far—however far they go, their hearts keep beating close by. Still, in bodily love it is at least possible that someone goes away, swears an oath, steps aside, sees the danger of love and saves himself; but in spiritual love this is not possible at all.

Your connection with my body is not the point. My connection with your body is not the point. This bond belongs to another realm altogether. It is of another world. Once it is formed, it is formed. This bond will remain in life; it will remain in death. Even if you leave the body, this bond will not break.

Therefore, instead of going far—since you will spend so much energy trying—better to use that strength to come close. Come close! Come so close that there is no twoness left, no duality.

And if even once in your life with anyone you feel such intimacy that duality dissolves, then the first glimpse of the Divine has entered your life—because the Divine is beyond two. A window has opened.

Make me a window.

That is all for today.