Kahe Kabir Main Pura Paya #8

Love is the supreme yoga; there is nothing above it. And yet the question arises because love is also the supreme delusion—and nothing is below it.

When love falls, it is hell; when love rises, it is heaven.

Love pervades the whole of existence—from the lowest to the highest. It is love that brings—sorrow, anxiety, anguish. It is love that brings—jealousy, envy, enmity. It is love that brings—hatred, violence, anger. It is love that brings—madness, derangement. And love is liberation too—nirvana—because love alone brings bliss, the great bliss.

Since both opposites come out of love, understanding love becomes very perplexing. If only one thing came from love, everything would be clear; there would be no obstacle. But these opposites are joined in love.

In truth, wherever there is truth, duality will be conjoined. Wherever there is truth, the opposite poles will meet—because truth is a bridge.

There is a love that becomes lust; and there is a love that becomes prayer. There is a love that remains mud; and there is a love that becomes the lotus. Do not condemn the lotus because it is born in the mud—and do not keep wallowing in mud just because the lotus arises from it.

On the path of love great care is needed. Hence the saints have called love the razor’s edge—the walking of a sword’s thin blade. Fall to this side, there is a well; fall to that side, there is an abyss. Keep your balance—and you arrive.

So the way of love is fine, subtle. And the word “love” itself is loaded with meanings. When the lustful uses the word, love means: sex. When the devotee uses the same word, love means: Ram. From Kama to Ram—everything is connected with love.

Your question is meaningful. You must have felt troubled that I give love the supreme place, while your life-experience says the opposite. The pains you have known, the worries you have borne, the anguish you have suffered—they have all come through love. Hence many have decided: we will not love; whatever happens, we will not love; we will avoid love. Because whoever avoids love, avoids sorrow. But beware: whoever avoids sorrow, avoids joy as well.

Why did fugitive renunciates arise in this world? Because of this dilemma of love. This whole world is an expansion of love. The man who sits in a shop and trades does so because of love. The shop is not the real thing; if you look closely, look within, you will find love. He has loved a woman. He has loved a child. He has loved a family—mother, father. Now there is responsibility; it must be fulfilled. So he takes the knocks of the market; he breaks stones by the roadside; he sweats; he endures a thousand kinds of abuse; he suffers a thousand insults.

But because he has loved, there is the responsibility of love; it must be carried—so he sacrifices everything. If a man flees—this marketplace, this hassle, this uproar of love—he will surely become free of sorrow, because there will be no cause for sorrow. But do not conclude from this that he will attain happiness. Where there is no cause for sorrow, there is no cause for happiness either.

If you flee from noise, it is not certain you will become peaceful. The outer noise will stop. But very often, when the outer noise stops, the inner noise will be heard more deeply and intensely.

Sit in the silence of night, alone in some mountain cave, and you will see how thoughts attack more than ever before. In that solitude thoughts surround you fiercely. Solitude becomes a background. And because of the outer quiet, even the slightest inner clamor becomes very apparent.

Sitting in the market, the inner clamor continues—but the outer clamor is so great, who listens to the inner?

So your fugitive sannyasin flees sorrow, but does not attain bliss. In your monks’ lives you will not find sorrow perhaps; they have withdrawn from the entire arrangement that produces sorrow. But have you found happiness in them? Have you seen streams of peace flowing in their eyes? Have you seen ecstasy in their hearts? Have you heard songs of joy upon their lips? Have you seen them dance?

And until a renunciate can dance, there remains something lacking in his renunciation.

He left the world, but did not find the divine. Those who live in the world sometimes dance; but your renunciate never dances.

Those in the world sometimes get a fleeting glimpse of happiness; if they did not, they would never remain in the world. It comes for a moment—true. But it does come. Your renunciate does not get even that fleeting moment.

Sometimes a little light spreads over the worldly man’s mind; there is a dawn; some lamp glows—though it lasts only a short while. In the world nothing can last too long. Time is the expanse of the ephemeral.

A soap bubble it may be—but when the bubble is, it is. Do not think it is not. It will not be later—true; but while it is, it is completely. When a soap bubble floats upon water, it has the same is-ness, the same ego, that you have. Sunlight weaves a seven-colored rainbow upon it. The color will last only a moment, that being will last only a moment.

But in the world, happiness is had for a moment. If it were not so, people would not endure so much suffering. For that one moment out of a hundred, they bear the ninety-nine failures. The desert is vast, granted; yet sometimes there are oases. Sometimes there is the cool shadow of trees. Sometimes a spring of water. Thirst even seems to be quenched—whether it truly is or not.

But in your renunciate’s life there are no oases at all. For fear of the desert, he has fled even the oases.

So yes, love brings complications. As many “diseases” as there are in the world, all are diseases of love. Still I say to you: do not run from love; understand love. Transform love.

The path that goes down is the same path that goes up. The staircase that leads downward is the very stair that leads upward. It is simple arithmetic. The difference is only of direction. Going down, your eyes are fixed below. Going up, your eyes are fixed above. Eyes fixed below I call lust; eyes lifted above I call prayer.

That is the only difference—the difference between prayer and lust. Otherwise the ladder is the same. Step downward: sex; climb upward: samadhi. And it can—and often does—happen that two people stand on the very same rung: one is going down, one is going up. As far as standing on a rung is concerned, they seem to be at the same point. But the one going up is not really on that same rung; he only appears to be. And the one going down is not on that same rung either; he only appears to be. One more step, and the difference is obvious. The one going up will be on the upper step; the one going down on the lower. Two steps more, and the gap will widen. And by the end of life, one holds hell in his hands, the other heaven.

But do not run away from the ladder. The ladder is love. That is why I have sung love’s supreme glory.

My words, however, can create confusion. All truths are dangerous. Only falsehoods are not dangerous—because falsehoods are impotent.

What danger is there in the untrue? The untrue does not really exist—how can it endanger? But truths are all dangerous. Whatever dangers have befallen this world have come because of truth. Never because of falsehood. Falsehoods are a world of toys.

Read a novel—no danger will come. But read the words of Buddha—there is danger. Understand a novel correctly, nothing happens. Understand it wrongly, still nothing happens. A novel is only a novel: a moment’s entertainment; you forget it. But if the words of Buddha fall upon your ears, something will happen—what depends on how you interpret. Those who interpreted wrongly wandered into deep darkness. Those who understood rightly found the door of light.

So when I speak to you of love, do not, even by mistake, take it to mean your kind of love—as the mind is eager to do. The mind says, “All right! This is exactly what I’m doing. You speak of love—good. That’s what I am doing.”

But I am not speaking of your love. I am speaking of my love. And if you take it as an endorsement of your love, you will go badly astray.

The love I speak of is exactly the opposite of your love. Where is love in your so-called love? What is there of love in it? When you say, “I love someone,” look closely: do you not have some use for the other? Your love turns into hate in a moment—what trust is there in it? The woman you loved and for whom you said you would give your life—if today you suspect she has fallen in love with another, you will slice off her head. What kind of love was that? You were ready to give your life; now you are ready to take hers. In a moment! The one for whom you would have died, you are prepared to kill. What kind of love is this?

No—the love was not for the woman. Your love was for your ego. The woman was merely an ornament. If she wishes to be someone else’s ornament, you will break her, destroy her.

The Upanishads say: the husband does not love the wife; the husband loves himself through the wife. The father does not love the son; he loves himself.

All your life you loved your son. You made every sacrifice. You fed and educated him, raised him. Perhaps you yourself stayed hungry; perhaps you could not procure fine clothes for yourself, but you did everything for the boy. And today, while cleaning before Diwali, you find a letter in the household rubbish that makes you suspect your wife loved someone else and the boy is not yours—your love is gone.

Did you love the boy—or did you love “my” boy? If he is mine, there is love. So the love was of me; the “boy” was only a pretext. The “mine” must be affixed somewhere—so you affixed it to the boy. Today you come to know he is not mine, he is someone else’s—finished.

What love did you have for this person? He is just the same as before. Nothing has changed in him. Only a notion in you has changed. The boy does not even know. He is as he was yesterday. But you have changed. Now it may be you will feed him poison; now it may be you will cease to be a support in his life and become an obstacle.

What kind of love is this—that can become hate? And your love is ready, at every moment, to become hate. And it is precisely this potential for hate that gives birth to jealousy.

So your love is filled with the smoke of jealousy. In that smoke it is very hard to find the flame of love. There is only smoke everywhere.

How much jealousy is there because of “love”! Your wife must not smile looking at someone. Your husband must not sit near someone and become cheerful.

What are lovers? They are one another’s enemies! Guarding each other! Spying on each other! Keeping watch 24 hours a day!

Is this love? Where there is not even that much trust; where there is not even that much reverence; where there is no regard for the other’s freedom. Is this love? I am not speaking of this love. This is poison. This is what keeps you bound in the world. Understand this.

Love that can become hate; love filled with jealousy; love that is only another name for possession—an announcement of the ego—I am not speaking of that love.

I am speaking of the love in which the sense of possession does not arise at all. Love does not know mine and thine. The words mine and thine are petty, low. Kabir has said: Do you feel no shame saying “mine” and “thine”? Are you not embarrassed? What here is mine, what is yours? All belongs to the divine.

Love that can become hate cannot be love at all. It is only a counterfeit of love, a delusion; awaken from it. And wherever jealousy sits enthroned—be alert—there is no love.

These are the enemies of love sitting in the house while “Love” is written on the door. This temple is a deception. There are no deities within; inside you will find snakes and scorpions.

Frightened by these very snakes and scorpions, many people have renounced love. Many, if they did not renounce the world, hardened their hearts—resolved never to fall in love again. Hence there is so little love visible in the world.

Those who are “in love” look harassed. Those not in love are less harassed; they have found other pathways. They do not fall in love; they avoid the hassle. That is why people invented marriage.

Marriage is a device to escape love. One need not enter love’s entanglements—who knows where it will lead? Marriage is more orderly, safer, more convenient.

Hence, in old days, we arranged child marriages—and still do. Child marriage means: before the understanding of love arises, marry them—so that love does not take them into danger. Before love’s thirst arises, arrange the water. Make them drink beforehand, so that no thirst ever arises. If they are kept drinking, hunger will not arise, thirst will not arise—no danger.

Thus some rescued themselves from love by organizing marriage. Some saved themselves by fleeing the world. And those who remained—the majority—hardened their hearts, made them stony. Keep a hard heart; there will be no hassle of love and such. Do not love, and you will not fall into any turmoil.

Such people earn money, rank, reputation—keeping far from love. Such people “love” the country! They “love” humanity! But they never love.

What love of country? What could love of country mean? Have you ever met a country? People sit with pictures of Mother India!

To avoid the risk of loving a real mother, the picture of Mother India serves well. The real mother is present—there is risk and trouble in loving her. Mother India is perfect—she lives only on the calendar. You have no dealings with her.

To love human beings is difficult; to love “humanity” is very easy. When have you ever met “humanity”? When has anyone greeted “humanity”? Whenever anyone meets anyone, it is a human being you meet. But you love “humanity”—so there is no need to love human beings. In fact, the great irony is that for the sake of “humanity,” you are ready to sacrifice human beings. For Mother India you are ready to have thousands cut down. What kind of love is this?

Who is this Mother India? What is this “humanity”?

People love Islam. They love Hinduism. If Hinduism is in danger, they are ready to die.

These are devices—ways to avoid the upheaval of personal love. But whoever avoids the storm, avoids the challenge.

I say to you: there is no need to flee; no need to harden the heart. What is needed is to understand the profound secret of love: what is love? What are we seeking through love?

When beauty appears to you in a woman or a man, or in a rose—what is it that you have seen? If you sit quietly, meditative, attentive, you will find: the beauty you see in the rose is not of matter; it is a glimpse of the divine through matter.

That is why if you take the rose to a scientist, he will analyze it and tell you there is no such thing as beauty in it. Yes, there are chemicals, minerals; water, earth. He will separate all the constituents into bottles, label them. If you ask, “And in which bottle is beauty?” he will say, “Beauty was not found. These are the things we found, whose sum was the flower.”

And perhaps there is no logical way to prove him wrong. Yet you know, I know, he also knows—there was beauty. Even if it were only a dream—still, it was. It was seen. It cannot be denied outright. Where did it go? It got lost in the analysis of matter.

It is like taking a little child who is dancing, gurgling, laughing—to a scientist who cuts and probes to find where the gurgle is, where the smile is, where the joy is. You will find bones, flesh, marrow—everything else—but not the gurgle, not the smile, not the vitality.

It is like taking a beautiful poem to a mathematician or logician. He will analyze every word, trace every root, explain every rule of grammar; he will open before you the whole science of meter and prosody—but something is lost. The beauty of the poem is gone.

Poetry is not meter. Poetry is not the arrangement of syllables. The truth is: poetry is not in the words at all. It gleams through words—but it does not arise from words.

Just as rubbing sticks brings forth fire. It arises through the rubbing of wood—but fire is not wood. It comes through wood, but it is not wood. And the wonder is: if the fire keeps burning, it will consume the wood; it will eat it, digest it.

Without wood there can be no fire—and yet fire is other than wood. In the same way, without words there is no poetry—and yet poetry is other than words. Poetry is like fire.

If you go by the rules of grammar, mathematics, logic—you will catch the words; the poetry will be lost.

Poetry is not a part of language. Likewise beauty is not a part of matter; likewise beauty is not a part of the body.

So when you saw beauty in a woman, if your eyes are clear and the lamp of understanding is lit within, you will see: a glimpse of the divine has flashed. You will not fall in love with the woman; through the woman you will fall in love with God.

Whenever love happens, seek the divine; do not get stuck on matter. Stuck on matter—there is lust. If the sense of the divine begins to dawn—there is prayer. Stuck on matter, you go downward into the mud; remembering the divine, you grow wings and fly toward the sky, on the journey to the infinite.

The love I speak of is the name of this vision.

What beauty can matter have? What essence can words have? Essence comes from beyond the words. Yes, it gleams in words, as an image gleams in a mirror. As the moon and stars shine in a lake at night—do not dive into the lake to find them. When the travelers went to the moon, they did not drive their rocket into a lake. Had they done so, they would have found nothing. The moon is not there; only its reflection.

That is why the wise have called the world maya. The Real is not here; only its reflection. The Real here is dream-like. The Real casts its shadow here; its image is formed; its echo is heard.

The music you hear in the world—the veena, the flute—these are echoes of the real music.

That real music the saints have called the unstruck sound—anahat nad. Hence an old Chinese saying: when a musician truly becomes a musician, he breaks his veena. What is the need then? Music is arising within. Then the inner awakens. Then there is no need for the veena, nor the veena-player. Music arises without an instrument.

They say: when a painter becomes perfect in his art, he throws away his brush. What is the need then? Now the supreme beauty is experienced within—moment to moment.

This world is a shadow—maya. The love you have in this world is also a shadow.

I speak of the love that is like the moon in the sky, not like its reflection in the lake.

Do not mistake my love for your love. And by saying this I am not condemning your love. I am saying: love is right, only the direction is wrong. Make this love upward-flowing.

You asked: “More or less all saints have praised love. But you have enthroned love upon Gaurishankar!”

There is a difference. And between what the saints have said about love and what I am saying, there is a fundamental difference.

The saints have spoken very fearfully, very cautiously. They had to speak, because they realized the truth. But having looked at you, and seen the tangle of your love, they spoke very carefully, with much trembling.

They had to speak, because it is truth. And having seen you—and your love—having seen how your love drags you daily into hell, they set many conditions and safeguards around their statements. Why? Because they were always afraid you would misunderstand.

But as for me, I have no fear at all that you will misunderstand. I must tell you the whole thing as it is seen by me. Then it is your freedom—understand it rightly, or wrongly.

I hand you a medicine; whether you use it to cure your illness or keep swallowing it to create a new illness—that is your freedom.

And all those carefully hedged statements—what result did they produce? Those who were to misunderstand, misunderstood anyway. Then why worry so much? Why be so concerned about the mistaken?

If they do not misunderstand me, they will misunderstand someone else. If they are determined to misunderstand, no one can bring them to the right. For their sake I will not give half-baked, half-hearted statements to those who can understand rightly.

If I speak timidly, my fear is that the one in a hundred who could have understood, will also miss—because the statement will be incomplete.

If, while speaking, I hedge and qualify and wrap everything in safeguards so that no one misunderstands—the one who wants to misunderstand will misunderstand anyway; but the one who could have understood will not be able to penetrate so much hedging.

The old saints were very worried—lest they be misunderstood. My only concern is that the few who can understand—let them understand. The rest do not concern me. Those who are determined to misunderstand will misunderstand anyway. That is their fun. Their life is theirs. They may use it as they wish.

Therefore I place love on the supreme throne. For me, love is God.

Jesus said: God is love. I say: love is God. You may drop “God”—that will do; do not drop love. Because without love no one has ever found God. And whoever has found love has found God.

Therefore God can be left aside—prayer, love cannot be left.

God is the final sum of all experiences of love. And I want to tell you: the day you find God, you will also find that the sum of all your rights and wrongs, of all the descending and ascending loves you have had through infinite time—their sum is God. Even the sum of your mistaken loves.

Because however wrong love may be, some ray of love is there. However much gold is mixed with earth, some part of it is still gold. Even if ninety-nine percent is earth, there is still one percent gold.

Even in ninety-nine percent jealousy, the one percent that is love is gold. Slowly reduce the ninety-nine percent; slowly increase the gold.

I give love an unconditional welcome.

It is love that runs this cosmos. The moon and stars move bound by love.

It’s a logical question. Such doubt is natural in the mind—that on the one hand the Upanishads say it cannot be seen, it is invisible; and devotees always say: we long for your darshan; we want to see you.
The Upanishads say: it is inaudible, it cannot be heard. And devotees say: we must hear it, hear its nada.
The Upanishads say one thing; the devotees seem to say just the opposite. So doubt naturally arises—perhaps there is some confusion here, a contradiction. But there is not the slightest contradiction.

In truth, without paradox no statement about the divine can be made—not even by the Upanishads. The Upanishads themselves say: the divine is farther than the far and nearer than the near. What can that mean? We would say: if it is near, it is near; if it is far, it is far. What nonsense is this—farther than the far and nearer than the near!

On the road you ask someone, “Where is the station?” He says, “Farther than the far and nearer than the near.” You will say, “I’ve met a madman! I asked where it is, and you pose riddles. It must be either near or far—how can it be both?”

About the world, whatever we say does not come out contradictory. But about the divine, whatever we say will be paradoxical. There is a reason.

The reason is this: the divine is farther than the far—if you are hard. And the divine is nearer than the near—if you are fluid. It depends on you; that is why such a statement has been given.

The divine is farther than the far if your ego is very rocky and strong—then the divine is very far indeed. You can search the whole world and you will not find it. Your ego will become a barrier everywhere.

And it is nearer than the near. If there is no ego, then whatever stands before your eyes is the divine. Whatever lies close to your hand is the divine. Then there is nothing but the divine—if there is no ego. And if there is ego, then there is nothing but ego; there is no divine. Therefore, farther than the far and nearer than the near.

When the Upanishads say: God cannot be seen, they are saying that God cannot be seen as an object. Not as you see me and I see you. Not as you see a tree, or a mountain, or the moon and stars, the sun—God cannot be seen in that way.

If the divine were other than you, then it could be seen like these trees. But the divine is hidden within you. It is the life of your life. Outside it is that, inside it is that. You cannot make it into an object.

God cannot be seen as an object. That is all the Upanishads mean when they say the divine is invisible; you will not be able to turn it into something seen.

But that does not mean the saints are wrong. When saints say, “We long for your vision; we yearn for your darshan,” they are saying that God can be known when all objects are dissolved; when the eye is emptied of every object; when nothing remains in the field of vision; when consciousness abides in a perfect void—nothing to look at—then the seer sees himself; the witness beholds itself.

As long as there is something to see, the mind remains entangled there. When there is nothing to see, where will we go? The mind returns to itself. This returning, which Patanjali called pratyahara, and Mahavira called pratikraman—this turning back upon oneself… Returning to oneself, the experience that happens—this the saints call darshan.

The Upanishads say: the divine is inaudible, it cannot be heard. What does this mean? It means that you will not understand it from someone’s telling. It will not come into statements. It is not something heard. I may tell you what God is in a thousand ways—this way and that—but you will not understand it from my saying so. It is not a matter for hearing.

Whatever I say, you will not understand by my words alone. You will understand the day you experience it. Not by hearing—but by knowing, by diving in. Thus the divine is “inaudible.”

You may read the scriptures, and still it is not understood. You may listen to the saints, and still it is not understood. But this does not mean that there is no nada in the divine. The divine is the supreme nada, the ultimate music, the consummation of rhythm. It has sweetness; it has a wave of sound; it has intoxication.

When your ears become empty of all sounds, when you hear nothing outside; when your ears no longer function outwardly; when the entire outer clamor becomes quiet, a void in your life—then even if you are sitting in the marketplace, nothing outer will be heard. When nothing outer is heard, something will be heard within; a wave of sound will arise within, a nada will well up. A flower will blossom in your innermost; it will not enter through the ear. The divine is not outside to enter you—not through the eye, not through the ear. If eye and ear remain caught outside, you will not come to know what is within. The divine is within.

When you close all the doors and windows of ear and eye… Therefore the fakirs, saints, and devotees say: when you close all the doors, when the eyes turn inward, when the ears turn inward; when the senses are no longer active but go passive—then, for the first time, because the outer racket has been silenced, those subtle tones within begin to be heard.

The divine is a song your very life-breaths have been singing—continuously, forever, eternally.

Meri tarikiyon ke daman mein ek maah-e-tamam hota hai
Meri khamoshiyon ke pardon mein ek shor-e-kalam hota hai.
Meri aql-o-khirad ke haathon mein ek bharpoor jaam hota hai
Dil ki betaabiyon mein chup-chup kar koi mast-e-khiram hota hai.
Band hoti hain jab meri aankhen tera didar aam hota hai
Main bajahir khamosh hota hoon lab pe tera hi naam hota hai.
Khilvaton mein jo gungunata hoon bas tujhi se kalam hota hai
Dekhna hai magar abhi baaqi kab tera jalwa aam hota hai.

Understand—
Meri tarikiyon ke daman mein ek maah-e-tamam hota hai
Even in the deep darkness of my life, it is not utterly dark; there is a full moon within it.

Meri tarikiyon ke daman mein ek maah-e-tamam hota hai
A night dark as new moon, darkness everywhere—but within, a lamp is lit. A light remains there. That very light is your being, your breath, your life. There a full moon abides forever. And the saints have always called it the moon—not the sun—because the moon is cool; luminous and yet cool. It is not scorching; not hot.
Passion is hot—prayer is cool. Passion excites; prayer brings peace. So the moon is cool…

Meri tarikiyon ke daman mein ek maah-e-tamam hota hai
This seems upside down. On the dark night of new moon—where is the moon? But those who have gone within have found that though it is dark all around, within there is a moon.

Indeed, only in the dark night is the moon seen truly; in the day the moon hides because there is light everywhere. The moon still hangs in the sky; it will be visible at night.

When one closes all the doors of eyes, ears, and senses; when it becomes dark on every side—then that gentle inner light, that cool lamp, reveals itself.

Meri khamoshiyon ke pardon mein ek shor-e-kalam hota hai
And when one becomes utterly silent, then a poetry is born within. Not that you create it; you merely witness it being born.
Just as you watch a lotus blossom, or a bird wheel across the sky—you do nothing. In the same way a song is born within, a kalam arises. A resonance begins to sound that is not of your doing—note this well. It is not that you sit muttering, “Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram.” So long as you are chanting, your Ram-Ram is worth two pennies.

When the chanting happens within… Nanak called it ajapa-japa; Kabir too called it ajapa-japa—the chant that chants itself. When something arises within without your chanting, when the nada happens on its own, only then has something happened. Then you have connected with the source.

Meri khamoshiyon ke pardon mein ek shor-e-kalam hota hai
Meri aql-o-khirad ke haathon mein ek bharpoor jaam hota hai.
And when you go within, only then do you find—the real wine. Outside there are only shadows.

Shri Morarji Desai wants to close the taverns of outer wine; I want to open the tavern within. In truth, the outer taverns will continue so long as the inner tavern is unopened. When the inner ecstasy is found, who goes begging outside? When you can pour the wine of the soul, who will bother with the wine of grapes?

Outer wine brings unconsciousness; inner wine brings wakefulness. The outer slowly ruins your life; the inner makes you more alive—one day it unveils the divine within you.

And to this day outer wine has never been eradicated, because man is searching for wine—for the wine of God. Without a clue to it, he buys the god that comes bottled.

This is a deception. But mind you: you are deceived by counterfeit coins only when you are searching for the real. Otherwise, why be deceived? One who cares nothing for coins—if there were a silver coin on the road, he would pick up neither the real nor the fake. But the one searching for the real coin will quickly pocket it—who knows, it might be real.

The reason alcohol has had such sway in the world since time immemorial is that we are searching for the divine.
There is no God in alcohol; but one gets a glimpse—of egolessness, of forgetting oneself for a while. And this “I” is so heavy, so thorny, so poisonous that to forget it even for a moment seems worth any price.

Yes, alcohol harms health; shortens life; brings illness. Still people… Those who drink know all this. It’s not that they await Morarji Desai to explain it. Knowing all the harms, something still attracts. What is it?

Man is burdened by his ego. He wants to set it down for a while. He wants respite; to forget his anxieties for a bit. And you would snatch even that from him!
I want to give him the real coin. When the real is found, the counterfeit falls from the hand on its own.

The day you know what the real is, the false becomes false. Without knowing the real, the false cannot be seen as false. You snatch the false from someone who has not known the real.

Just yesterday Morarji Desai said, “Either alcohol will remain, or I will go.” I would say to him: many Morarji Desais have come and gone; alcohol has remained—and will remain.

For endless ages people have tried prohibition. Politicians against it; religious leaders against it; social reformers against it—all the respectable folk against it—and yet it does not end. And the irony is that those respectable folk are not against it in their private lives; only in public. And if there are some who are against it in public and in private, watch them closely—you will find they are possessed by some other wine. Morarji Desai, for example—his whole life he was drunk on one wine: the wine of position. Somehow to be in office—that is a wine; that is an intoxication. That is why we call it pad-mad, the drunkenness of power.
Some are drunk on wealth—dhan-mad. These are all intoxications. One drunkard wants to reform the other drunkards! This is the wine of office.

And let me tell you: the damage done by drinkers of alcohol is not even a fraction of the harm done by drinkers of power. So many wars, so much violence, so much turmoil, so much deceit!
The poor drunkard is innocent by comparison. Yes, sometimes he falls into the gutter, makes a racket, disturbs someone’s sleep; he may abuse someone, beat someone, or get beaten. But no great crimes—no world wars; no massive frauds; no trampling on people’s chests. Politicians do all that—and they are against alcohol! They carry a wine and do not know it. A madness rides them, and they live in that delirium. Their wine is more costly.

Yet I am no advocate of alcohol. I too want the world to be free of it. But politicians will not be able to stop it; nor will religious authorities. Only saints can—when they open the doors of the inner tavern.

The day inner ecstasy begins to touch you, when you begin to dive into it—then what remains to be done? Anxiety goes—and goes forever. Ego drops—and drops forever; it will not rise again.
And the special virtue of the inner wine is that it increases awareness.

Meri aql-o-khirad ke haathon mein ek bharpoor jaam hota hai
Dil ki betaabiyon mein chup-chup kar koi mast-e-khiram hota hai.
Band hoti hain jab meri aankhen tera didar aam hota hai
When my eyes close…
Seeing the divine is not an act of the eyes. It is not the perception of open eyes. It is the seeing of closed eyes.

When you open the eyes, the world opens; when you close the eyes, the world closes. With open eyes your gaze falls on the world—not on yourself. With closed eyes, the gaze turns upon oneself.

But I am not saying that whenever you close your eyes your gaze necessarily turns on yourself. Most people, even with eyes closed, continue to see only the world—the same entanglements, the same worries, the same restlessness, the same desires and cravings and pursuits. With eyes closed you are still at your shop, with your relations; the outer world keeps playing within.

Closing the eyes does not mean only shutting the lids. It means withdrawing the gaze completely from the outer. This is what meditation means—no gaze remains outside.

Withdraw yourself from the outer in every way, like the turtle withdraws its limbs; so does the meditator. He sits within himself; he does not go out—not even into thought, not into dealings. He does not let a single ripple arise in the mind, for every ripple carries you outward. He becomes without ripples. This moment is what I call—the eyes becoming closed.

Band hoti hain jab meri aankhen tera didar aam hota hai
And then You become visible. With closed eyes the divine is seen; with open eyes the world is seen.

Main bajahir khamosh hota hoon lab pe tera hi naam hota hai.
And when I fall utterly silent, then for the first time Your Name begins to arise within me and spreads through my life like the dawn.

But this is not about your saying it. Do not become parrots. Many people have become parrots! At the places of pilgrimage you will find flocks of parrots—some muttering Ram-Ram, some Krishna-Krishna, some Allah-Allah. People busy in rote! Nothing will come of this. This repetition is useless.

This labored repetition cannot take you deep. It is false. And if you watch carefully you will find some desire hidden behind it—always a desire lurks there.
Even prayer hides desire! Thus you drag even prayer into the mud. Let at least one thing in life remain untainted!

Your twenty-four hours are filled with the mud of desire—fine. I don’t ask you to change everything today. I ask only this: take out a few moments not smeared with mud. Save a few innocent, virgin moments. A few moments in which you ask for nothing, in which you are a sovereign.

Prayer is pure only when it arises by itself; causeless; without asking. The one way to such prayer is—silence. Become quiet, so that the nada already arising within can begin to be heard.

Main bajahir khamosh hota hoon lab pe tera hi naam hota hai
Khilvaton mein jo gungunata hoon bas tujhi se kalam hota hai.
In seclusion, the humming that arises is the divine discourse itself. That poetry descends from That. Hence we have called the Vedas apaurusheya—not of human authorship. The rishis who sang the Vedas did not compose them; they sat silent—in their solitude, in their aloneness, within themselves, with all doors and windows shut—and then it descended; there was ilham, revelation. The nada descended; these unparalleled utterances came down.

That is why the beauty in the words of the Vedas sometimes shines forth; the innocence and simplicity of the Upanishads at times glow forth; or the song in the Quran…

Have you heard the Quran recited in melody? You may not understand a word of Arabic, yet you begin to be intoxicated. You may not grasp the meaning, but the verses stir your heart. You are transported.

When the verses descended to Muhammad, he had no idea such a thing could happen. He was sitting in a mountain cave in meditation; it happened suddenly. Verses began to descend; revelation began. Words began to float in his consciousness—words not his own; words he had never heard, never read. He was not a learned man; he had nothing to do with scholarship. Had he been, perhaps the revelation could not have happened. It happens to a simple man like Muhammad.

If the intellect is stuffed with scriptures, there is such a crowd in the mind that the words of the divine, if they descend, would be distorted; their meaning altered; their color and flavor changed, twisted and crooked; their beauty and music surely lost.

But Muhammad was straightforward and simple. He was shaken. “What is happening?” He was frightened; he began to tremble; fever came on. He ran home. And the verses kept descending—as if raining within from the sky, from the empty sky.

At home he lay under quilts. He said to his wife, “Pile every quilt you have on me. This trembling won’t leave me; every hair is shaking.”

His wife said, “But what happened? You were fine when you left!”
He said, “Press me down first. I am not in my senses. When I steady down, I will tell you.”

Later Muhammad said, “I fear greatly…” And he said something strange to his wife: “Either I have gone mad—or I have become a poet!”
A wondrous statement: either mad, or a poet!
“Madness is more likely,” he said, “for I know nothing of poetry. Yet something is descending—bound in music. Fully formed. And with it a voice: Go, sing; chant; tell—tell the people! And I am very afraid.”
His wife consoled him: “Do not fear. I have heard that when God descends, He descends just like this. Keep patience. You are blessed.”
Muhammad’s wife was his first disciple—the first Muslim. She steadied him. For three days she comforted him; only then did he regain some balance. So deep was the shaking, so great the staggering…!

Khilvaton mein jo gungunata hoon bas tujhi se kalam hota hai
Dekhna hai magar abhi baaqi kab tera jalwa aam hota hai.
The divine is invisible—and yet it is seen. It is inaudible—and yet it is heard. It is far—and yet it is near. It is lost, though you never really lost it. How could you lose it? You have only forgotten. In the divine all contradictions are resolved.

Only in the Unfathomable can one drown. What you have fathomed—how will you drown in that? Once fathomed, it becomes a handful of water; how will you drown in a palmful?

Whatever you have fathomed becomes smaller than you. What you have understood is no longer greater than you. Only the Unfathomable is greater than you. It is great; therefore it is unfathomable. You want to close your fist around it—but it won’t be held. As if someone tried to gather the ocean in his arms, or to pack the sky into his courtyard. Just so...

Listen to Kabir and you will feel exactly this: it is great, vast, inaccessible, unfathomable. Certainly unfathomable. What does “unfathomable” mean? It means your capacity to fathom is small, while what Kabir is pointing to and revealing is very great.

Your capacity to fathom is like a spoon—a teaspoon! And what Kabir has brought before you is like the ocean. Yes, if it could fit into your spoon, you would say, “I’ve understood—I’ve fathomed it.” You would be pleased then, because whatever you fathom, you become master of. What you fathom becomes part of your intellect—your ornament, your decoration. It does not change you! It only increases the wealth of your knowledge a little. Your swagger grows a little more.

Whatever you have fathomed strengthens your ego. The Unfathomable unsettles you. The Unfathomable breaks you. The very thought of the Unfathomable is: my ego proves too small.

Only in the Unfathomable will you drown. Only in the Unfathomable can you drown.

This is an invitation to drown. This call of Kabir, and what sages in every age have said, is all unfathomable; it does not fit into the human mind. So the arrogant declare, “It’s wrong.” They declare in advance: “It’s wrong.” God cannot be—because to them He seems unfathomable. The soul cannot be—because to them it seems unfathomable. Liberation cannot be—because to them it seems unfathomable.

Whatever seems unfathomable to them, they say, “We refuse to accept that it can be.” Because it hurts their ego that there could be something in this world which I do not understand, which does not come within my grasp. How dare anything be beyond my understanding? Everything falls within my understanding; my understanding is final. Therefore the arrogant becomes an atheist.

The atheist is saying only this: I am not willing to accept anything greater than me, vaster than me, more expansive than me. Only that which can come into my fist and be locked in my strongbox will I accept. I will accept nothing beyond that.

Theist means: whatever falls within my understanding is worth two pennies. It has fallen within me; what value can it have? I will go in the direction where the perennial Unfathomable abides; where the unfathomable dwells.

The egoist stops at the known. The egoless sets out on a journey toward the unknown. Therefore I call the theist courageous—and the atheist a coward.

Commonly people think the opposite: that the atheist is very brave, and the theist is cowardly. That is not the truth. Yet what people commonly think has its reason.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred theists are not theists at all; they are concealed atheists. They say outwardly that they believe in God, but whatever they do makes it clear there is no God for them.

They say, “We go to the temple; we worship and pray,” but it is all formal, show, hypocrisy.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred theists are inwardly atheists. And ninety-nine out of a hundred atheists are inwardly theists.

The person who denies God, who denies with intensity, is doing just this: “I am afraid of God. I am trembling. I feel fear. I do not want to look. I don’t want to look in that direction at all.”

Have you noticed? If you stand on a mountain and look into the abyss, trembling comes; your very life quivers. And God is an infinite abyss. We are all standing on the mountain’s edge—on the very brink of that depth. So we devised a trick: turn your back to that side. If it doesn’t appear, it won’t trouble you.

Most atheists deny God for the very reason that God feels too near, and fear seizes them. And most theists return from temple and prayer because they never saw God’s depth at all; they have made God a part of their social arrangement.

It serves them well: if a man goes to the temple and prays, the shop runs smoothly. People think, “He is religious; he won’t cheat.” Which only makes cheating more convenient! People think, “He sits wrapped in Ram’s shawl—he’s a good man; he won’t pick my pocket.” With Ram on the lips and a knife tucked under the arm! They sit draped in the shawl of Ram with a knife hidden. This makes it easier. It lulls the other into carelessness and unconsciousness.

So commonly people say something not entirely wrong: the atheist seems to have a bit of courage—at least he denies God! And this theist looks utterly impotent. He has not even denied; and one who has not denied—what acceptance will he ever have?

In my view too, only when an atheist becomes a theist does a theist take birth in the world. One who has never been an atheist—how can he be a theist? One who has not said “no”—what value can his “yes” have? His yes will be impotent.

You have a son at home. Whatever you say, he says yes. Whatever you say, he says yes. He has never said no at all. Will there be any life in his yes? His yes cannot have a spine. It will be lifeless, limp. He says yes because he is weak.

Jesus told a story. A father had two sons. He called the first and said, “Go to the orchard; there is a lot of work today, few laborers, and the fruit must be plucked or it will rot.” The son said, “I will not go. I have other work.” He left. But afterward he repented: “I refused my father for no good reason.” In his remorse he went to the orchard and worked the whole day.

There was a second son. When the first refused, the father called the second: “You go to the orchard; the work is urgent.” He said, “I’m going right now,” and never went. He said yes so quickly that he had no reason even to repent. The matter ended there.

Jesus would ask his disciples: Who obeyed the father? The one who said yes—though the father was pleased with him for saying yes? Or the one who said no, then repented, and went—though the father had been annoyed with him?

It is not a question of your saying yes or no. What is within you? Within is “no,” on the surface “yes”—this is the condition of your theists. They have never learned to say no. So even in the common view there is some sense. And yet I still say to you: in the final reckoning the true theist is courageous, and the true atheist is a coward.

Atheist means he panicked before the Unfathomable; in panic he is denying.

A gentleman was brought to me by his wife. She said, “Perhaps he will listen to you. He does not listen to us. He is ill, and he won’t go to the doctor. He says, ‘I am not ill—why should I go?’”

I looked at the gentleman. Sweat on his face; anxiety. I asked him, “Why not go? It will give this poor woman some relief. Go for her sake. You are absolutely healthy—you look like Gama to me! Just go. Have mercy on her. She is worried. Let them do the tests—an X-ray and all. Give her a certificate to keep safe. Set her mind at rest. Have pity on her!”

That argument appealed to him. Everyone else had been saying, “You are sick—why don’t you go?”

He was ill. He had blood pressure, heart weakness, and even a possibility of cancer. He was ill in every way. But as soon as I saw him, I understood why he would not go: he was afraid that the illness might indeed be found. There was a sense of sickness—surrounded by symptoms. How could a sick man not sense it?

He would walk four steps and be out of breath. He could not climb stairs. Sleep had ceased to come. The body was wasting away. Weight was dropping day by day. The glow had left his face; it had gone yellow. He had become like a yellowed leaf. Anyone could see he was ill. But he was not ready to admit it. “I am perfectly fine. Why should I go to a doctor?”

So I used his own logic. “You look so well that the doctor will be amazed that you came at all! Just go. What is there to fear? A sick man might fear going—lest the illness be discovered. But you are so healthy!”

He did not really trust my words—how could he, though I alone was agreeing with him? No one else had agreed. Yet he could not refuse me.

I said, “If you are not ill, why this anxiety? Yes, sick people are anxious about going. You just go.”

He went. All kinds of illnesses came to light.

I asked him afterward, “Tell me honestly—didn’t you suspect these illnesses?”

He said, “I did; you trapped me. I did, and that’s why I wasn’t going to the doctor. I felt everything was wrong; better to let it go as long as it goes. Now look—I’m in the hospital!”

I said, “Now at least there is treatment. The hospital is fine; treatment is possible. You may live a little longer. You were summoning death with your own hands!”

Such is the condition of the atheist. He says: “God is not.” The louder he says “God is not,” know that he has sensed God. The infinite emptiness seems very near to him; if he so much as consents to look that way, the Unfathomable will show itself—and then it will be hard to keep his arrangements intact. Somehow he has set up his life; made everything neat and tidy.

As when we make a garden: all neat and clean; a lawn, trimmed and organized. And just beyond it stands the great wild forest. In the same way, a man weaves a net of arguments and lays out a small garden. And right beside that web of arguments lies the vast forest of the Divine. To dare to enter that forest—that is what I call theism.

Kabir calls to your courage. I too call to your courage. This is a challenge to your daring: come and set yourself to fathoming the Unfathomable.

I do not say you will be able to fathom the Unfathomable. But if you set out to fathom it, you will be lost; you will drown. And in that drowning is the supreme nectar, the supreme bliss. For in that drowning you meet yourself.

Jesus has said: Whoever loses himself shall find himself; and whoever saves himself shall be badly lost.

Come, accept the invitation of the Unfathomable. Let us move into the Unfathomable, into the unknown, into the unknowable—into that Infinite whose beginning is, and whose end is none.

Remember these lines—
You are unaware of your own selfhood; that alone is your helplessness.
Become acquainted with yourself; then what will not be within your power?
It is the fault of your seeing; remove the veil of duality.
This world abides in you; there is no other besides you.
If you are the servant, then I am God indeed; just come a little closer.
Look at me, then turn your gaze upon yourself—there is no servant, no God.
You cannot live without me; nor can I remain without you.
This is but the tale of love and beauty; otherwise you are not separate from me.
Your love is the essence of life; your fidelity is the foundation of living.
Whatever pain you choose, is the remedy not already in your own keeping?
What you call sin and fault is but a mere slip of the foot.
If you steady yourself, there is no sin—no other fault at all.
You are my very passion for seeking; you are the mirror of my beauty.
There is none other than you; there is none other than me.

Understand—
“You are unaware of your own selfhood...”
This is my message: to remind you that you are God.
“You are unaware of your own selfhood...”
You do not know who you are. Let me hold up a mirror so that your face becomes visible—your own face. This is my essential message: that you have the vision of your original image, your own suchness. Recognize it—your nature, your inner form. Who am I?—that you receive its answer; not verbal—existential. Not scriptural—from experience.

“You are unaware of your own selfhood; that alone is your helplessness.”
And the one sorrow of your life is that you do not know yourself. The one anguish is that you are a stranger to yourself. And the anguish will remain. One who is not acquainted with oneself—whatever one does will go wrong. To put things right, the first requirement is to become acquainted with oneself—self-knowledge.

“Become acquainted with yourself; then what will not be within your power.”
Once you recognize yourself, your authority is infinite—because you are a part of the divine. Your capacity is boundless.

“It is the fault of your seeing; remove the veil of duality...”
There is only one illusion: we think there are two. I separate, the world separate; the body separate, the soul separate; matter separate, God separate. This duality... life separate, death separate; day separate, night separate—this duality. Remove the duality and the whole curtain falls.

“It is the fault of your seeing; remove the veil of duality...
This world abides in you; there is no other besides you.”
This entire existence abides within you; and you abide in this entire existence. Here only the One dwells. There is no second.

“...there is no other besides you.
If you are the servant, then I am God indeed; just come a little closer.
Look at me, then turn your gaze upon yourself—there is no servant, no God.”
This is what all the true masters have said. This is what Kabir is saying. Kabir says: “Says Kabir, I have found the Whole.” I have found the complete, the total—because God began to be seen everywhere—in me, in you; in the sky, in the earth. “The Beloved I have seen in every vessel.” The One I love appears in every form, therefore I have found the Whole.

“If you are the servant, then I am God indeed; just come a little closer...”
This is the essential message: come close to me.

“Look at me, then turn your gaze upon yourself—there is no servant, no God.”
Here there is only One. Who is servant, who is God? Who is devotee, who is the Divine?

“You cannot live without me; nor can I remain without you.
This is but the tale of love and beauty; otherwise you are not separate from me.”
This is only a play of love—that there is “you” there and “I” here, that “you cannot live without me and I cannot live without you”—this is all a play of love, just a teasing game. We have only divided our own self into two. Hence the Hindus call it leela—a play.

“Your love is the essence of life; your fidelity is the foundation of living.
Whatever pain you choose, is the remedy not already in your own keeping?”
I am reminding you of just this: you have the nectar, the cure for all diseases. Why do you go around begging? Before whom do you hold out your begging bowl? You are the emperor of emperors, the shahenshah.

“Whatever pain you choose, is the remedy not already in your own keeping.
What you call sin and fault is but a mere slip of the foot.
If you steady yourself, there is no sin—no other fault at all.”
In this world there is no sin other than living in unconsciousness. If you steady yourself, if you are no longer in a swoon; if you begin to live awake; if you are filled with awareness, with meditation...

“If you steady yourself, there is no sin—no other fault at all.”
This is my essential message—wake up! I do not tell you to perform virtue. I do not tell you to abandon sin. I only tell you to awaken. Because in awakening, sin drops on its own and virtue reveals itself of its own accord. And what arises from your own being—that alone is virtue.

“You are my very passion for seeking; you are the mirror of my beauty.
There is none other than you; there is none other than me.”
This whole world is the manifestation of the One. These countless images, these countless forms—within all of them the one formless abides.

Fifth question:

Perhaps he has fallen into the illusion that because I never mention his name, I do not accept him as a disciple. Do not be so attached to a name. A name is only a convenience.

Whoever has joined with me, I remember them—whether I take their name or not. A name is a formality. Do not let it come in the way.

And you ask, “Whether you love me or not—it doesn’t affect me in the least.” It does affect you—otherwise you wouldn’t ask. You’re explaining it to yourself, consoling yourself: that no, nothing bothers you. But it will burn a little; there will be a hitch. And there should be.

You have surrendered to me; you have accepted me; you are entitled to receive my love. There should be a tremor. And love is showering on you.

But it often happens that we recognize love only when it is put into words. Until someone says to you, “I love you,” you don’t understand.

Do you not see my eyes? I look into your eyes—do you not see? I have nothing to give you except love.

Now if I start taking each person’s hand and tell them “I love you,” nothing much will be solved by that. And you have been with me so long—slowly learn the wordless. Let there be no need to say it.

To how many will I say it! And what is the need to say it? And do you think love happens by saying it? So many people tell you “I love you”—the wife says it; the son says it; the father says it; the mother says it; friends say it—everyone says it: “I love you.” But that love is not of much use. It is all self-interest. They have interests in you.

I have no interest in you. There is nothing you have that you could give me. And there is nothing I need that I would want from you. Love can happen only where there is nothing to take or give—where I am not eager to get anything from you; where you simply have nothing to give me.

What I needed, I have found. What I needed, I have found in abundance. “Kabir says, ‘I have found the Perfect.’” And beyond that there is nothing to get. And when God is giving, from whom else would one ask?

Wherever there is self-interest, where is love there? The wife says: I love you—she has an interest. The son says: I love you—he has an interest. The father says: I love you—he has an interest. All these are ties of self-interest.

Have you heard the story of Balya Bhil? Later that same Balya Bhil became Valmiki. He was a robber. He had seized Narad and was about to rob him when Narad said, “Let me ask you one thing. Rob me, fine, but let me ask one thing—why do you do all this looting?”

He said, “Why? I have a wife, children, an old mother and father; I serve them. I earn money for them.”

Narad said, “Do one thing—go and ask them which of them will share the sin. When you rot in hell, will your wife go with you? Your father, your mother, your sons...?”

He said, “I never thought of that!” Balya was a simple man. Often it happens that your so-called respectable people are not as simple as your criminals—because your so-called respectable ones are hypocrites.

He was guileless. He said, “This never crossed my mind. And you’ve raised quite a question. But look, don’t trick me—don’t send me home on this pretext—‘Go and ask’—and then you vanish!”

So Narad said, “Tie me with a rope to this tree.”

He said, “That makes sense.”

He tied him and went home. He asked his wife, “I commit so many sins; sometimes I even kill someone—one has to, while looting. I cause suffering to many people; I torment them. When I die and suffer in hell, will you go with me?”

The wife said, “What has that to do with me? You brought me as your wife—on that day you decided you would provide for me; so you provide. How you do it has nothing to do with me. Whether you do it through a shop, through virtue, or through sin—that is your business. You have to support me. Why would I be a partner? I know nothing of it. I have nothing to do with it. How you bring money—that you decide.”

He asked his old father. The father said, “I am old. If you don’t serve me, who will? But how you bring it is no concern of mine. You decide.”

No one agreed. Balya returned transformed. He untied Narad, fell at his feet, and said, “Give me a mantra. I have seen it for myself—those whom I thought loved me—each of them had self-interest.”

I have no self-interest in you. If you are here, it is for your joy; if you are not here, it is for your joy. I have nothing to take from you.

And I have nothing to give except love. Whether you take it or not; whether you accept it or not. When a flower blooms, its fragrance spreads; someone may pass holding a handkerchief to their nose. The light comes—morning the sun rises—yet you may sit with your eyes closed, refusing it. A gust of wind comes—you may shut your doors.

My love comes to you like that—a gust of wind; the fragrance of a flower; the light of the sun. And yet it is in your hands—whether you accept it or not.

And don’t worry about words. What is there in words! Even if you repeat a thousand times “I love you”—what will come of it?

Usually it happens that you begin repeating “I love you” when love is no longer there. While love is there, love itself is enough; there is no need of words.

When two lovers are newly in love, they don’t repeat “I love you” much. Their eyes say it; their vibrations say it; their very presence says it. Seeing each other they blossom; they are filled with exuberance—that says everything.

Then they marry. After marriage they begin to say “I love you.” Because now there is fear that if it is not said—now the eyes have changed. No waves arise now. Now on seeing the wife, the chest sinks.

The wife, seeing the husband, becomes sad. Whenever you see a man and woman going along sadly, understand: they are husband and wife. Dull, inert—no glimmer of love left. Now it has to be repeated.

Dale Carnegie—who, in America, should be counted a prophet; a kind of American prophet! After the Bible, Dale Carnegie’s books have sold the most in America—has written in his books that whether love is there or not, the husband should, at least four to six times a day, find the occasion to repeat before his wife: “I love you.” And sometimes he should bring flowers from the market. And when love is absolutely gone, then it is absolutely necessary—because then only with this crutch can it go on.

Do not be concerned with words.

This is hypocrisy that Dale Carnegie teaches. And if the American family has been destroyed, it has been by such teachings.

If it is there, fine. If it is not there, say clearly that it is not.

But the love that is mine has no way of not being.

There are two kinds of states of love. One is love as relationship—you fall in love with someone; it is a relationship. Then there is a state where you become loveful. Then it is not a relationship. You are simply loving. Whoever you meet, you meet in lovingness.

Those who are with me, near me, in my love—I have love toward them. Those who are not with me, not near me, not in my love—even those who are opposite to me, in opposition—I have love toward them too. There is no alternative. That alone is what there is to give. There is nothing else.

There is a story about Rabiya: she had made corrections in her Koran. She was a Sufi fakir woman—a woman of great courage. The very qualities that are in Mohammed were in her too. So I hold that she was worthy to correct the Koran. Though Muslims did not tolerate it at all—who can correct the Koran?

There is a verse in the Koran: hate Satan. She cut that out. A fakir was her guest. He saw the Koran and noticed many corrections. He was astonished.

A greater blasphemy a Muslim cannot imagine—corrections in the Koran? As if you corrected the Gita—“We’ve fixed the mistakes here and there”—or you corrected the Vedas; Hindus too would not tolerate it. And Muslims absolutely cannot.

That fakir became enraged: “Who has spoiled the Koran? This Koran has been defiled—Rabiya!”

Rabiya said, “It was impure; I have purified it. There is a mistaken thing in it. Somehow this slipped in. Mohammed did not say this. Mohammed could not say this.” Though she had no historical proof—she had the inner evidence.

She said, “What I cannot say, Mohammed cannot say. I want to say this: since the love of the Lord entered my heart, since I became filled with his love, I have been incapable of hating anyone. Even if Satan himself stands before me, I can only love. So I cut out that verse. I can no longer follow it; how can I keep that sentence in my Koran? Then it would no longer be my book. Where I am, from there—even Satan cannot be hated. Hatred cannot be. Love is my nature.”

So, Achyut Bodhisattva, do not worry. Even if I have never said it to you—I did not see any need to say it.

Do not focus on words. Attend to that which, wordlessly, I am giving you.

And the question of my accepting or not accepting you as a disciple does not arise. The day you accepted me as master, that very day you were accepted. To be a disciple is your state of feeling; it is not a matter of my acceptance or rejection.

Whoever sits here wanting to learn from me is a disciple. And if you learn from the trees, you become disciples of the trees. Learn from the moon and stars—you become disciples of the moon and stars.

When the Sufi fakir Hasan died, someone asked him, “How many gurus did you have?” He said, “Counting them would be very difficult—there were so many. How can I count them for you! My gurus are spread across villages. From whomever I learned, that one is my guru. Wherever my head bowed, there is my guru.”

Still they insisted: “Say at least a few.” He said, “You won’t accept it? Then listen. My first guru was—a thief.” People were shocked: “A thief! What are you saying? Are you in your senses? At the moment of death has your mind gone astray? A thief—a guru!”

He said, “Yes—a thief, and a guru. I reached a village at midnight. I had lost my way. People were asleep. Only a thief was awake. He was preparing to go and was just leaving the house. I said, ‘Brother, where can I go now? It is midnight. Every door is closed. The inns are closed too. Whom shall I wake from sleep? Will you let me stay the night?’

“He said, ‘You are welcome. But let me declare one thing—I am a thief. I am not a good man. You seem a stranger. In this village no one would want to enter my house. I go into others’ houses, but they don’t let me in; who would come into mine? I have to go to their houses at night, when people are asleep. People avoid even passing near my house. I am an open thief. The nawab of this village trembles before me. The policemen shake. You are walking into my hands! I give you no guarantee. In the dead of night I might rob you—then it’s your problem.’

“Hasan said, ‘I had never seen such a truthful, honest man—one who himself says “I am a thief,” and warns you. That is the mark of a saint.’ I stayed. Hasan said, ‘I will stay. If you rob me, I will be happy.’”

In the morning the thief returned. Hasan opened the door. “Did you find anything?”

He said, “Not today—but we’ll try again tonight.”

Like this, Hasan said, “I stayed in his house for a month, and for a month he never found anything.

“Every evening he went out with the same enthusiasm, the same zest—and every morning he returned. But I never saw him sad, never discouraged, never in despair. In the morning when I asked, ‘Did you find anything, brother?’ he would say, ‘Not yet. But what of it? I will find. If not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then the day after. The effort must continue.’”

Hasan said, “When I wandered from village to village, forest to forest in search of God, and was defeated every day—and every day I wondered whether God even exists—then I would remember that thief: he had gone to steal ordinary property; I had gone to steal God. I had gone to become the heir to the supreme treasure. If no despair arose in that thief’s mind, I had no reason to despair either. So I kept at it. That thief saved me; otherwise I would have run away many times, abandoning the entire search. The day I found God, the first thanks I offered was to that thief-guru of mine.”

Then people became eager. They said, “Tell us more, before you depart. What you’ve said is astonishing—and meaningful.”

He said, “In another village this happened: I entered the village. A small child, carrying a lamp, was going to offer it at a tomb. I asked him, ‘Son, did you light that lamp yourself?’ He said, ‘Yes, I lit it.’ So I said, ‘Tell me—where does this light come from? You lit it. Did you see the light arrive? From where does it come?’

“I was only joking,” Hasan said. “A small child, a sweet child—I wanted to put him into a little puzzle. But he created a real puzzle. He blew out the lamp and said, ‘Listen—you saw: the flame went. Where did it go?’ I had to bow and touch his feet. I thought he was a child—that was my ego. I thought I would entangle him—that was my ego. He entangled me. He placed a question mark before me.”

In this way Hasan told of his gurus.

“The third guru,” Hasan said, “was a dog. I was sitting on the bank of a river,” Hasan said, “and a dog came, tormented by thirst. The sun was fierce; a desert. He came to the riverbank, but as soon as he peered in, he saw another dog in the water, and became afraid. He stepped back. Thirst pulled him to the water; fear pulled him away. Whenever he went near the river, his reflection appeared, he panicked and turned back. But he could not remain away either, because thirst tormented him. He was drenched in sweat. You could see his throat drying. And I sat watching.

“Then he gathered courage, closed his eyes, and leapt—he jumped into the water. Then he drank to his heart’s content, and bathed to his heart’s content. The moment he jumped, the image in the water vanished.

“Hasan said, ‘Just so was my condition. I would peer into God and become frightened. My own ego appeared there; that is what frightened me. I kept turning back. But the thirst was deep. I remembered that dog; I remembered that dog; I pondered. One day I leapt—I jumped. Everything disappeared. I too disappeared; the shadow that was the ego dissolved. I drank my fill. “Kabir says, ‘I have found the Perfect.’”’”

Last question:

By Your radiance the whole universe is aglow;
come to our house as well—there is great darkness.
You have vanished from the eye; the shadows have deepened—
do not hide, come before us; there is great darkness.
The firmament has lit all its lamps;
show Your face—there is great darkness.
Burning and burning, they have become rivals to the sun’s splendor;
ignite the heart of hearts—there is great darkness.
Thousands of lamps have been lit by Your flame—
light yet more and more; there is great darkness.

The devotee’s prayer is only this: “Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya”—lead me from darkness to light. “Mrityor ma amritam gamaya”—lead me from death to immortality. “Asato ma sad gamaya”—lead me from the unreal to the real. Lord, shower light.

By Your radiance the whole universe is aglow;
come to our house as well—there is great darkness.
Prayer is an invitation to the Divine.
You have vanished from the eye; the shadows have deepened—
do not hide, come before us; there is great darkness.
The firmament has lit all its lamps;
show Your face—there is great darkness.
Burning and burning, they have become rivals to the sun’s splendor;
ignite the heart of hearts—there is great darkness.
The devotee says: Illuminate my heart. Become the flame of my heart; set my heart ablaze.
Set the very core of my being aflame—there is great darkness.
Thousands of lamps have been lit by Your flame.
The devotee says: How many lamps have been kindled by Your light—some a Buddha, some a Christ, some a Krishna, some a Kabir, some a Nanak... so many lamps have burned with Your light!
Thousands of lamps have been lit by Your flame—
light yet more and more; there is great darkness.
Light this little lamp of mine as well. All existence is filled with Your radiance; are You displeased only with my house? Here in my home there is great darkness—come here too.
Prayer is an invitation. Prayer is a call. Prayer is love.
That is all for today.