Kan Thore Kankar Ghane #8

Let the blow of love leave at least some mark upon the heart.
Whether the pain be little or great—let there be pain.

Pain is a good sign. If you are wounded, you are blessed. The unfortunate are those who cannot be wounded.
There are many who have become so stony that blows don’t even land on them; and even if a blow does fall, it heals quickly. But these are wounds that are useful only if they do not heal.

Do not even think of removing the pain that belongs to love for the Divine. Think of increasing it. That pain is not ordinary; these wounds are not ordinary. They need no balm and bandage. Let them grow—so large that you become small and the wound becomes vast; then union with the Divine happens.

Your pain will become your prayer. Bandages would rob you of your pain. And if longing is taken away, how will union be possible?

For centuries only bandaging has been going on. Man does not really seek truth; he seeks consolation. People do not want to live truth; they want to live convenience. And if convenience comes through untruth, then untruth will do.

All bandages will prove false. This wound is not one that can be dressed; it is inner, of the soul. It will heal only when the Divine is found—never before.

So the master can create the wound, but he will not bandage it. The dressing will come only with union with the Divine. And union will happen only when the wound becomes bigger than you—when the pain of your longing grows so much that you are smaller than it; when your tears become greater than you; your call becomes greater than you; your thirst becomes greater than you—so that you are reduced. No means remain to quench the thirst. In that ultimate moment, when you are utterly helpless and without recourse, the meeting with the Divine happens.

Do not even think of bandaging. I will only open the wounds further. Even if you try to let them heal, I will not let them heal. Keep the wound fresh. Do not forget the pain; let it sting—let it sting twenty-four hours a day; while rising and sitting, sleeping and waking, let it sting. Let the absence of the Divine surround you each moment, and let your heart weep.

Prayers are not something you do by popping into a temple for an hour. Until prayer spreads over all twenty-four hours, moment to moment, it is not effective. Only when the Divine is found will the wounds heal. And who knows whether they will heal or not? But then the desire to have them heal will be gone.

Even after finding you, the heart’s restlessness did not lessen.
When was the grief of your love ever so easy?

Even after meeting, it may not heal—when was the sorrow of your love ever so easy that it would heal upon meeting? The devotee has wept for centuries; even if God is found, it won’t heal all at once. Once he wept in separation; now he will weep in union. There is the pain of separation; there is the pain of union too. Earlier he wept in sorrow; now he will weep in joy. Are there not tears of delight, tears of bliss?

Once the devotee’s eyes have become wet, let them remain wet. They will not dry now, nor should they. Dry eyes are deserts; wet eyes are gardens. In wet eyes flowers bloom; in wet eyes songs are born. In dry eyes—nothing.

But let us get the slightest wound and we start preparing to heal. We fidget and grow restless before pain.

You have asked well. The very work here is that, by any excuse, a dart may pierce your heart. And I know the pain you are feeling.
The world begins to look futile—hearing and hearing, thinking and thinking, reflecting and reflecting—and there is no sign of the Divine anywhere. This is the wound. What is in your hand no longer feels meaningful; and what feels meaningful—where is it, how will it be found—you have no clue.

So the wealth in your hand turns to ash; and the Divine begins to drift like a dream. There is no grasp on its reality—where is it, how to begin, from where to enter? In this dilemma, life writhes.

But consolation will not solve it. Consolation will only lull you to sleep. Consolation is a sedative; and those you ordinarily call saints mostly give you consolation. They pat your back and say, “Son, all will be well.” You do not awaken in their presence; you go there to sleep. They do not set you aflame; they do not raise a storm within you. And without a storm nothing will happen. A gale is needed. Only when your soul becomes a whirlwind will something happen.

So you will often be angry with me: “He has thrown me into such a dilemma—he has given the wound and there is no trace of medicine!” Many times you even write to me: “You gave the pain; you give the cure.” I will not give the cure. Be clear on this. I will give only the pain; the medicine is God.

The medicine will descend out of your very pain. Your pain is the journey toward the medicine; and the medicine is the final distillation of your pain. It is the perfume of your pain.

Just as perfume is pressed from thousands upon thousands of flowers, so from thousands upon thousands of pains and wounds the medicine is squeezed.

Therefore, do not hurry.
I understand your difficulty.
The one who has asked—Krishna Vedant... When Krishna Vedant first came, perhaps he had no sense of God at all. Perhaps he had not even come to seek God; he must have come by coincidence. Many of you have come by coincidence: a friend said something; a book happened to fall into your hands; some interest was stirred, a curiosity arose. Many have come out of mere inquisitiveness.
Coming is in your hands; leaving no longer is. Why a bird walks into a net, the bird may know; but once it is in the net, getting out is not so easy.

When Vedant came, I remember well—he must have come out of curiosity. There was no such yearning. Where is yearning? Where is people’s desire for liberation! And how could it be?

There is a crowd of saints who lull you to sleep. No one wants the hassle of waking people up. Because if you try to awaken them, they get angry. The very one you wake becomes your enemy. Who wants that trouble! Let the disciple sleep—the master too is at ease. He sleeps, the disciple sleeps, both snore and keep time with each other’s notes.

It is easier for the guru to soothe people with consolation. Consolation is very cheap. But consolation has no value. Consolation serves Maya. Because of consolation you remain in the world.

Whenever you were hurt, you quickly applied balm and bandage. The wound never became deep enough for you to slip out of the world, for you to break. The wound never became deep enough for a revolution to enter your life—for you to turn your face and set out on the other journey. Around the places where you might be wounded, you have built whole arrangements so the blow does not land; and even if it does, it stays covered.

But Vedant has begun to be wounded—I see that too. When he came he was a laughing youth.

A pain rose in the heart, tears welled in the eyes.
Sitting there, who knows what it was that came to mind.

Now there is a slight rim of tears visible in his eyes.

A pain rose in the heart, tears welled in the eyes.
Sitting there, who knows what it was that came to mind.

Something has been snatched away. A good beginning. An auspicious hour.

Who took away, snatching, today your patience and composure?
O heart, never was your restlessness like this.

Something has been taken. Something lost. The hands are empty—this understanding has begun. Hence the pain. And the Divine feels far. How will you find it? How to reach? It seems almost impossible. It feels, we will not be able to do it.

We cannot manage the smallest tasks. We cannot climb small hills; how will we climb this Gaurishankar of God? There is neither end nor edge. We cannot swim streams; how will we swim God’s ocean? And alone! Relying only on ourselves?

And now this shore appears to have no substance; the tale of the other shore has been heard.

This alone is the meaning of a true Master: he makes you hear of the other shore. You may resist hearing, yet he keeps telling it. And one day a dream is stirred within you; you begin to dream of that far shore. This shore starts to seem futile. When there appears no substance here, then the trouble begins.

On this shore nothing seems substantial; life here no longer feels meaningful. There is no relish now in earning money. No purpose now in the race for position. Even relationships look like children’s toys—wife, husband, sons, daughters. Now it is a big difficulty.

Until now you managed to distract yourself with your toys; now you see they are toys. The real is across. Long were you bewitched by the counterfeit here. But now how...?

Between lies a vast ocean. The real is over there and between is a great sea. To cross it alone seems arduous; the chance of drowning is greater than arriving. From this, anxiety arises, anguish is born.

All of Vedant’s peace and composure have been snatched. Good. This is the first step. Then will come a moment when the wounds will be so many that even if you drown in the ocean, it won’t matter. For now, this shore has become useless. Another hour will come—an hour of even deeper pain—when you yourself will become useless.

Right now you have not become useless. You still feel: this shore is meaningless, but I have meaning; if I reach the other shore, there will be delight upon delight. Soon that moment too will come—when the wounds are so deep that you feel: this shore is useless, I too am useless, so what is there to fear! Even if I drown in the sea, what will drown? There is nothing in me to drown. That very day you will step in.

And the day you see, “I am nothing,” there will be no delay in meeting the Divine. This is the condition to be fulfilled: I am nothing; I am like a void; I am ready even to let go of myself. Even if God does not come, there is no substance in my being—when this becomes clear, then you will wager without fear.

And now you will have to remain in the difficulty. I will not apply balm and bandages. Nor is it possible that someone else can do the dressing for my patient. It is impossible.

Without you the flowers in the garden can neither bloom nor laugh.
There is nothing of spring in this spring.

Here you will no longer sense any spring. The remembrance of the Lord has begun. For now it is a small ray, a little ray, a child-ray; this will become a flame.

For now there is pain, and it will grow. It will reach such a pitch that you will seem almost deranged.

The world is empty without you—what has become of these eyes?
Once the world would gather; even now the world gathers.

The first task is to snatch from your eyes the dreams of your world. Whatever appears meaningful to you should start to seem futile. I will put you into unbearable pain; I must. Once the insubstantial is seen as insubstantial, you will have to seek the substantial. Then, no matter how many consolations anyone gives you, you will know it is all consolation. Bandages may hide the wound; they do not heal it.

And this wound is not something to erase—this wound is your good fortune. You are blessed. Once in millions, in tens of millions, a wound arises in a heart that can be filled only by God.

And through how many births you have been seeking—knowingly, unknowingly; in awareness, in sleep. Your steps may stumble, but which direction are you moving in? What is the journey; what the destination; whom are you seeking? Even asleep we stretch our hands toward the Divine, groping in the dark. We seek That: call it bliss, call it liberation—give it whatever name you like. But we seek the Vast; the finite does not satisfy. These drop-by-drop pleasures only increase the thirst—they do not lessen it; they scorch the throat.

Now only the ocean will do. Now the whole—this is the search. And this search is not new. But until now it was hazy, unconscious. If by my blows it has begun to become a little conscious, restlessness will arise. Do not be afraid.

Sir, the longing for union has been mine since before time.
Please consider how long I have stood as a candidate.

How long have you been standing in the line? Will you keep standing? Where will you go by consoling yourself? What will bandages achieve? You will settle again on this same shore. You will weave some new dream. Bandage means you want a dream! You want a lie.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said: man is so weak he cannot live without lies. He also said: good people, do not take away a man’s lies, otherwise the man will go mad. I agree. It is true. Man lives by lies. Your father lived for you; he used to say he was living for his son. You will live for your son. Your son will live for his son. No one is living; everyone is being lived for others.

Your father is no more; he left what he had earned. And for what he left, he spent his entire life. He could not take even a scrap. He came empty-handed, he went empty-handed; and he spent his whole life squandering it. He may have amassed property, left money in the bank; but what belonged here remained here. He came just so and went just so. So will you go. So will your sons.

In this world who really gains anything? Here there is only losing and losing. You may reach a position. The meaning of consolation is precisely this; the meaning of bandage is precisely this: earn a little money; get a little prestige; receive honor and respect; gain social approval. What else is needed? If you get respect, you have everything. Money—everything. Position—everything. What more?

But does any of that give you anything? Nothing at all. Sit on the highest seat in the world, you will still remain empty. The chair will be big; you will remain small.

When this begins to be seen, an obstruction comes; an arrow pierces the very breath: What now to do! What can be done here no longer seems worth doing. What can be done does not seem worthy. And God? Even the word hardly makes sense. It seems absurd. Where is he? Is he? Or is it just the imagination of poets and mystics? Who has known; who has seen? The visible has become futile; how to stake everything on the invisible?

Nietzsche is right: man cannot live without lies. And the meaning of your wound is that here I am stripping you of your lies—one after another. With each lie gone, a wound will rise. When all the lies are gone, you will be nothing but wound—naked wound. But the lies must go. No more bandages. The day there is no balm or bandage left upon you, you will be an exposed wound—only wound. From that pain, the prayer that rises; in that helplessness, the cry that rises—that cry has life. That cry is heard. On that very day the Lord comes running.

You become like a pit; you become a wound—God comes running to fill it.

So do not ask for bandages at all. Ask that I strike you more. Ask that the wounds already there do not somehow heal over. Ask for the strength to endure these wounds. And prepare for new wounds. This is only the beginning. If you panic now and run away, how will you walk to the goal? Only the first steps have been taken; much of the path remains.

Clouds have gathered on the far horizon—
why do my eyes brim over?
The marigold-bright sun of autumn
keeps hiding behind the screen of pain.
This life is a game of hide-and-seek,
sun and shade bewilder me by turns.
I set joys before you,
and I received pain unasked.
What ruthless helplessness is this
that the heart writhes and writhes?
Your seven-colored dreams
were defeated by my limits.
If you can hear, then hear it:
again and again your pain sings in me.

When the pain of the Divine begins to sing again and again within you, then you will understand Baba Malukdas’s words. He says: I no longer take with my tongue the Name of Ram; no worship, no rituals, no prayer. I have dropped all that. Now Hari himself does my bhajan. Now he remembers me.

The day you stake everything, holding back nothing, that day the revolution happens: the Divine begins to remember you. To earn that remembrance, one must pass through pains. Pain refines; pain polishes. Without passing through the fire of pain, no one ever becomes gold.

There is neither sadness nor despair in life itself. Sadness and despair are in you. Life is immensely exuberant. Life is full of celebration. Life is everywhere—danceful; it is dancing. Sad…?
Have you ever seen a tree sad? Have you ever seen a bird in despair? Have you seen sadness in the moon and stars? And if you ever have, remember: you were projecting your own sadness onto them.
When you are sad, even the moonlit night looks sad. Your neighbor is not sad, so it doesn’t look sad to him. To him the moon seems to be dancing. If your neighbor’s beloved has arrived, the moon looks delighted. If your beloved has departed—has died—the moon looks as if it is weeping. You are imposing your own notions upon the moon. The day you carry no notions, you will find celebration all around.
Do you not see: these gulmohar blossoms, these trees, this greenery, these birds’ songs—on all sides life is immersed in an incomparable festival. Only man appears sad. What has happened? What accident has befallen human life?
The first accident worth understanding, the reason man has become sad, is this: man alone has cut himself off from the Vast. He thinks, “I am separate.” He has fabricated an identity, an ego.
Nowhere in this existence is there ego—except in man. There are animals and birds, plants and mountains, moon and stars, but there is no ego. They all live in the Divine; they are one with the Vast, absorbed. Only man has slipped out of the music. Only man’s notes and rhythm have gone off-key.
This grand festival of cosmic music is flowing, and man alone plays his little drum apart, trying to be delighted with his own instrument—and that is why there is sadness.
Ego is the cause of sadness and despair.
What does despair mean? It means you had tied a hope to something, and it broke. If you did not tie hope, there would be no despair. Despair is the shadow of hope.
Only man ties hopes; no one else does. Only man thinks of tomorrow, of the day after, of the future. He plans: How shall I conquer? How shall I win? How shall I show the world that I am somebody? How shall I become an Alexander? And when the victory doesn’t come, despair comes to hand. Alexander too dies in despair; he dies weeping.
Whoever lives by hope will be despaired. Hope means living in the future—drawing up plans for the ego, schemes to establish the ego. Those schemes will fail. The ego cannot win. Its victory is impossible. It is as impossible as a wave of the ocean wanting to win against the ocean. How will it win? The ocean wave is part of the ocean.
If my hand tries to win against me, how could it win? The very idea is madness; the energy in my hand is mine. We are waves of the one Divine. Where is the question of our victory or defeat? Either the Divine wins or the Divine loses. There is neither our victory nor our defeat. Because we are eager for victory, defeat depresses us.
This is the meaning of “devotee”: the devotee says, “Let You win; let You lose; use me in whatever way You will.” We are instruments. We are a hollow bamboo flute; whatever song You would sing, sing through us. The song is not ours. We are just an empty reed. If You sing, all is well; if You do not sing, all is well. Your will. Do not sing—fine; sing—fine.
In such a state, how can despair arise? The devotee is not despaired—cannot be. He has dismantled the entire arrangement for despair. If there is no hope, how can there be despair?
Now you ask: Why does the mind become sad? Why is there sadness in life? Sadness simply means you cannot do what you want to do. You are defeated again and again. Again and again you meet bounds and limits. You have no wings and yet you want to fly; you cannot, and the mind becomes sad.
You demand the impossible; it does not happen; gloom settles in consciousness.
Do not demand, and there is no sadness.
That is why the wise say: One who is free of craving has no state of sadness, no despair, no dejection. One free of craving is radiant every moment; he abides in sat-chit-ananda—truth, awareness, bliss. There, only bliss rains.
You ask, “Why is there so much sadness and despair in life?”
There isn’t a trace in life. It may be in your life; but not in life itself. And distinguish clearly between the two.
Life is a vast happening. Life means all—the whole existence, the entire cosmos. Do not mistake your life for all of life. And whatever is happening in your life, look carefully: you are responsible for it. You are reaping the fruits of your own errors.
And we are engaged in such topsy-turvy pursuits. If you look at people, the situation is almost as if the whole earth has gone mad. The one who was meant to be a poet is stitching shoes. The one who was meant to stitch shoes has become a president. The one who was meant to be a president is begging somewhere. Everything is disordered. No one is where they should be. No one even remembers where they ought to be!
You know this, don’t you… If you take a tree and plant it in the desert, and it is not a tree of the desert, it will die; it will dry up; it will be sad; it will be defeated; its leaves will wither. Slowly, the life of the tree will depart. Every tree needs its own soil. Every tree needs its own season. Every tree needs air, water, and sun suited to it.
Man no longer remembers what he is meant to become. And everyone is meant to be something. No one is useless here. You have brought a certain song to sing. But a great obstacle has arisen. Man has been torn so badly from his nature that he no longer remembers that he once knew what he was meant to be.
A great surgeon came to the last hours of his career; he was retiring. His friends organized a grand celebration—dance, banquet. But the surgeon was very sad. No one had ever seen him so sad.
One of his students asked, “Why are you so sad? You should be happy!” He had thousands of students who had learned from him in his lifetime. His surgical skill was unparalleled. He had grown old, yet his hands did not tremble. Even now his students could not compete with him.
“You should be happy. You are renowned in the world. Your students are everywhere. What more does a man need! You are the greatest surgeon in the world.”
He said, “But I never wanted to be a surgeon, to begin with. I wanted to be a dancer. But my father kept after me—‘Will you starve to death as a dancer? Is being a dancer anything at all? Become a surgeon!’ My father insisted; my mother insisted; so I became a surgeon. And I even became successful. But today, while I watch people dance—the very people dancing to welcome me—my heart is filled with deep sadness. I had only one longing: to become a dancer. Whether the world knew me or not, I would have been fulfilled—if only I had danced. Whether anyone recognized me or not—what has that to do with it? What is the gain in that? Today the world knows me, but I have become what I never wanted to be.”
Many of the sadnesses in your life arise because you have become what you never wanted to become. You did not muster that much courage; you never said, with boldness, “I will live by my own natural inspiration. Whatever I am meant to be, that I will be—even if I remain a beggar, no worry.”
You got entangled in others—those who said, “Become this, become that.”
I was a guest in a home. I asked a little boy—he was sitting beside me playing with his toy—“What do you want to become?” He said, “That’s a very difficult question.” I asked, “What is difficult in it? What do you want to become?” He said, “I’m in great trouble. Mother says, become a doctor; father says, become an engineer; my uncle says, become a professor; my aunt says, become a scientist. And I am in a big dilemma. I’m going crazy—because I can’t become all of them together! And in all this confusion, I can’t even understand what I myself want to become!”
The chief cause of human sadness is this: you are not living spontaneously. You are not going where your heart naturally goes. You have made some extraneous goals.

All the schemes of this life have worn thin
climbing and descending office stairs.
The work we did will not serve;
history will not repeat our name.
Since we sold our dreams to buy convenience,
since then, a dilemma has lodged in the mind.
We too could have chiseled our roughness into form,
had we not compromised for a few years.

At first we felt that we too were something—
that existence is not false, that we truly are.
But suddenly that delusion broke,
like crowds that lose restraint when the bus arrives.
We are like those paper roses called immortal:
they never bloom, and they never wither.

We could not become what we were meant to become;
we kept hoarding what was meant to be lost.
This aimless, joyless life-sequence,
this tasteless routine, this futile labor.

Every person needs that much trust in the Divine: wherever He leads, He will lead rightly. Do not listen to people; listen to God. But to listen to God you must be a little meditative, so that His voice can reach you. You must be a little absorbed in prayer, so that you can hear His gentle, gentle voice; so that His soft tone can pervade your inner clamor.
If a man wants to live in joy always, he must take his messages from God, not from men. We have learned everything from people and have forgotten how to learn from God. We no longer hold the key—how to open His door, how to ask Him.
So someone is busy earning money, without having thought—why? Because the neighbors are earning, you too have begun to earn! There is a race in which all are running. And you too are running in the jostling crowd. You have become sheep; that is why there is sorrow in life. Be a human being.
By “be a human being” I mean: seek the tone of your life from within. Listen within; ponder within. Then, if something must be risked, risk it; do not be afraid.
Just think: that man who became such a great surgeon—he could at any time have gathered courage and become a dancer. But he could not gather courage. And now, at the last hour of life, what will his lamentation do? “What use is repenting now? The birds have already eaten the field.”
What are you meant to be? Do your very life-breaths whisper something—that “this is what I am to become”? If I go in that direction, I will be fulfilled.
We deform children. Every child comes with a clear direction within. We bewilder him; we snatch away his direction. We quickly sit on his head. And we hurriedly begin to tell him what he must be, how he must be. We never listen to him; we never consider him; we never ask him what he wants to become, what he wants to be. And we should support that. Whatever he wants to become, support him in that.
Right education will be that in which we support each person to become exactly what he wants to become. If he wants to be a carpenter, wonderful—let him be a carpenter. True, as a carpenter he may not become a very big tycoon. But what of wealth? Perhaps as a carpenter he will be fulfilled.
If he wants to be a woodcutter, let him be a woodcutter.
But we tell children: “Study and you’ll become a nawab.” But what is there in becoming a nawab? What will you do with it? We see the misery of the nawabs! Yet we are intent on making everyone a nawab!
A man should become exactly what he is naturally made to become—then sadness will diminish.
And the irony is: if a man naturally becomes what he is made to be, ego will never arise in his life. Ego arises from distortion. Ego arises in the effort to become something else—and that effort cannot even begin without ego.
We tell the child, “Become very rich; otherwise you are worth two pennies.” “If there is wealth, there is everything; if there is no wealth, there is nothing.” We are seducing his ego. We say, “Prove that you are something—and only wealth will prove it! Until you become the prime minister, you are nothing—worth two pennies.” We are creating madness in him. We are flattering his ego. We are poisoning him. He will plunge into the race.
Children are innocent; it takes no effort to deform them. You were deformed. And now you no longer remember where you are going. You do not even remember who you are. You perhaps do not even remember where you come from.

Which way am I? Which way am I?
On one side lies the dark night,
on one side the rosy dawn;
but today, caught in dreams, I do not even know—
Which way am I? Which way am I?

On one side lies the unfathomable water,
on one side the lovely shore;
but today, seized by the waves, I do not even know—
Which way am I? Which way am I?

Defeat lies strewn on one side,
victory stands on the other;
sunk in life’s struggle, I do not even know—
Which way am I? Which way am I?

Your entire capacity to choose, to understand, to awaken has been destroyed. Therefore you are sad.
Life is not sad. Only you are sad. You must pick up your threads again; you must relive your childhood. You must become free of what has been taught to you. You must come again to the child’s innocence. That is where everything went wrong. You must return to that crossroads, and from there you must take a new direction.
Therefore the fundamental meaning of sannyas is: we show our readiness to be born anew. We say: Now we will think again; we will reconsider. And this time we will not get caught in hollow talk. We will listen to our heart. Wherever it leads, whatever the outcome; whatever direction arises from within—that is where we will go.
This natural, spontaneous movement is called sannyas.
Sannyas is not a desire to acquire something. Sannyas is simply the aspiration to be what we are, what the Divine has made us. The image He carved within us—that alone is to be polished.
Otherwise you will remain despondent; you will remain sad. You may accumulate much rank and reputation, but life will remain empty. In the end only sand will come to your hands; in the end only smoke. You will be deprived of the treasure.
Blessed are those who become what they were made to be. That is why only a few attain to the flowers in this world—some Buddha, some Christ, some Socrates, some Kabir, some Maluk—a few. But notice the courage of these people. They are rebellious people.
Buddha’s father wanted the son to become an emperor; the son became a beggar. Mahavira’s mother wanted the son to stay in the palace; the son wandered naked in the forests.
Have you noticed that all those who have attained to any bliss in this world were rebels and revolutionaries? Rebellion is their fundamental mark.
Shankaracharya wanted to take sannyas—he was nine years old when he wanted it! Naturally the mother was distressed. What parent would want the son to take sannyas?
But these people became exactly what they were meant to become. They did not allow any other obstruction to come in between.
Every person can reach this height, but we do not gather that much courage. We do not stake anything. We are great accountants. We want the bliss of Buddha, but we never stake what Buddha stakes for that bliss.
We want the stainless state of Mahavira—but do we stake what Mahavira staked?
We do not want to stake anything. We want bliss for free. Bliss demands a price. And the greatest price is this: to leave the road where respect comes, wealth comes, position comes, and to walk in the direction where—who knows—respect may not come; position may not come. Insult may come; who knows—a cross; poison.
One who hears his inner nature and sets out with it—there is never sadness and despair in his life.

This happens very often: you yourself do not know exactly; you yourself are not clearly aware why you took sannyas. If you have taken it, then surely some hidden surge must be within. If you have taken it, there must be a suppressed fire inside. Perhaps the ember is buried in ash—layer upon layer of ash—and the coal has sunk deep within. Even when you probe, you may not discover that there is an ember anywhere. But it cannot be without a cause, because sannyas is taking trouble upon yourself. One thinks a thousand times before taking it. And my sannyas is to put yourself into a hassle! No convenience will come from it; thousands of inconveniences will arise. No status or prestige will come from it; whatever position or prestige there is will drop away. What will come are upheavals. By it, you have opened the door to disturbance and storm.
So no one can take it without a cause. If you have taken it, Ajita, then surely there is a reason within. Scrape a little deeper into yourself.

A young man once came to the Zen mystic Rinzai and said, “I search a lot, but I find no trace of the soul within me. And all the true masters say: Know the soul; recognize the soul; abide in the soul. Abide in what? Recognize whom? Know whom? I search within, but I find nothing.”

It was evening—a cold evening—and Rinzai was warming himself at a fire in a brazier. The fire was almost out; there was only ash. He said to the young man, “Sit. First see whether there is any fire left in this brazier or not, because I will have to talk with you; the night is very cold; we must get a fire going. Just look and see if any embers remain.”

The young man picked up a stick lying nearby and poked the ashes: ash and only ash. He said quickly, “No, there’s no fire at all. Only ash is left. And you’re sitting with your hands outstretched before ash! Granted the ash is warm, but there is no fire.”

Then Rinzai carefully stirred the ash and, from deep below, lifted out a small ember and showed him: “Look—there is fire. You were too hasty. You swirled the stick once or twice and said, ‘There is no fire.’ What you did with the brazier here is what you are doing with yourself,” Rinzai said. “You go within, but you return too quickly.”

There is the ash of many, many births; if there is ash, there will be an ember somewhere. Without ember there is no ash. And this outer ember may indeed go out, but the inner ember never goes out. It is an eternal ember. The fire is eternal.

It is hard to find a person in whose mind the feeling for sannyas has not arisen at one time or another—whether he understands it or not. It is hard to find someone in whose mind the thought has never arisen to get out of this entanglement; to drop all this commotion; to drop all limits and bonds; to drop all attachments and colors; to rise higher; to seek That which always is, always was, always will be. Such a person is hard to find.

Western psychologists, after much research, have found that it is hard to find a person who has not, once or twice—or three or four times in life—thought of suicide. Western psychologists as yet know nothing of sannyas. But if we look closely at the human being, it is equally impossible that anyone has never felt, at some point, the urge to renounce. In fact, the one who feels the urge for suicide is the very one who feels the urge for sannyas. Sannyas is a powerful remedy for the urge toward suicide.

There is a deep kinship between suicide and self-discipline. Why does one want to commit suicide? He has become weary of life; life seems futile. He has seen everything and gained nothing. He has wandered everywhere and found no path, no clue, no fragrance. It is repetition—the same thing over and over. Why remain in this reiteration? One day a person thinks: better to end the body. But by ending the body, nothing truly ends. You will return—return in a new body. Then the whole web of turmoil begins again.

The East discovered sannyas, because sannyas is the real suicide. One who truly becomes a sannyasin does not return. That is why I say: sannyas is the real suicide; once gone, gone. If you take poison and die, you will return, because poison kills only the body; your ego does not die, your mind does not die; you will return.

Sannyas is such a poison that the ego dies. And where the ego dies, there the Divine manifests. The soul is hidden just behind the screen of the ego.

So the feeling for sannyas does arise. And for those born in the East, that it should not arise is impossible. In the West perhaps it does not arise, or if it does they may not be able to give it exact words, to define it. They lack even the definition.

Sannyas is an Eastern phenomenon, an Eastern discovery. In the East it is impossible that the feeling for sannyas should not arise.

When Buddha was born, the astrologers told his father, “Guard this son carefully, because either he will become a world emperor—if he stays at home, he will become the sovereign of the whole earth—or, if he renounces the household, he will become a great renunciate.”

The father asked, “How can we keep him from leaving? What should we do? I do not want him to become a renunciate; I want him to become a mighty emperor.” They said four things:
1) When he grows up, make sure that, even by mistake, he never learns of illness, disease, or old age. Keep him so sheltered and hidden that he never discovers that there is sickness, that there is disease, that there is old age.
2) Make sure he never learns that there is death.
3) Make sure he never sees a sannyasin.
4) Keep him constantly engrossed—in as much pleasure and color as possible. Do not leave him a single empty moment, because in empty moments a person begins to think. And this one is very brilliant.

So the father did exactly that. He arranged endless pleasures. He would not let him out of his sight. He gathered the most beautiful women. He built magnificent palaces. There was no need to go outside the palaces. Orders were given to the gardeners that not even a dry leaf should be seen by Buddha in the gardens. No old person was to enter; no hint of sickness should reach him. If any bird or animal died in the palace groves, remove it at once. He must not know; a vast arrangement was made. And it was arranged that no sannyasin should come anywhere near him, not even from a distance. For the astrologers had said that if he sees a sannyasin, the buried, age-old longing for renunciation within him will blaze up at once—turn into a flame.

But how long could this last! How will you hide such things? All life is filled with illness. How will you hide old age? The father himself grew old. How could it be concealed? Flowers wilt; leaves dry up. And how long can you keep him shut in? He would go out someday. When Buddha became a youth and began to go out, a string of events happened in a single day.

He saw an old man walking with a staff and asked his charioteer, “What has happened to him?” Perhaps if he had seen old people with staffs since childhood, he would not have asked. If Buddha’s father had asked my advice, I would never have given the advice the astrologers gave. I would have said: from childhood, let him see as many old and sick people as possible. Keep him in a hospital! He would grow familiar with it; then the question would not arise. Questions do not arise about that with which we are familiar.

But he had reached youth—twenty-five—and had never seen an old person. So when he saw an old one for the first time—just imagine it: to reach twenty-five without seeing old age, and then suddenly to see it—what a great question would arise! He asked, “What has happened to this man?”

The charioteer was about to lie; he knew this must not be told... The story is lovely: it says the gods entered the charioteer and made him speak the truth. It is true: wherever truth arises from, there the gods dwell; wherever truth arises from, there is divinity.

The tale says the gods saw that the charioteer was about to lie; he was about to gloss it over—“Nothing special has happened; this or that has occurred.” But the gods entered his tongue, and he had to say, “This man has grown old; and everyone must grow old this way. You too will grow old. It is impossible to escape old age.”

Buddha became instantly downcast. And right after that, a funeral bier passed by. Buddha asked, “What is this?” The charioteer said, “This is the next moment after that old age—the next step. They are carrying him to the cremation ground.”

And behind them was walking a sannyasin—in ochre robes. Buddha asked, “What has happened to this man? Why is he wearing ochre?” The charioteer said, “This man has understood those two facts: that man grows old and man dies. So why has he donned ochre? He is striving to know the truth of life that never grows old and never dies. He is engaged in that quest.”

Buddha said, “Turn the chariot back home.”

That very night he fled the house.

So, Ajita, you ask: “Why did I take sannyas?”

Something must be hidden—something buried through many lifetimes; the ember covered by ash. Suddenly, on coming here, a gust of wind blew; the ash flew away; the ember showed itself. And it happened so abruptly that you have no intellectual answer for why. You did not take sannyas by calculation. In fact, no one takes sannyas by calculation.

Sannyas is a gamble. It is the work of a gambler, not a shopkeeper. The shopkeeper wastes time thinking—always weighing profit and loss: How much loss will there be? How much gain? If I take it, what will happen; if I don’t take it, what will happen? Can it be managed without taking it? Can I take it only inwardly? Is there any need to tell anyone? If I take it inside, is the outer necessary? The shopkeeper thinks up a thousand such things. He lacks courage. Lacking courage, he offers himself countless arguments: What will changing clothes do? What will wearing a mala do? Oh, this is an inner matter. And inwardly he does nothing. In the name of the inner he earns himself a fine escape: outwardly he is saved, and under the banner of the inner, inwardly he remains exactly as he was.

But if ever a gambler comes to me, then courage arises in him. He takes a leap.

So it is, Ajita—you took such a leap.

“You say you lack faith and devotion, and yet you keep coming to me. Why?”

With me there is a path not only for those who have faith and devotion; there is a path for those who have none at all. In truth, for those who have no faith or devotion, apart from me there is no path.

Those who are surrounded by doubt, steeped in disbelief, whose intellect is trained and tempered in argument—for them, apart from me, there is no path. And I hold that until the transformation happens in the nonbeliever, nothing of consequence has happened at all. For the atheist there is no opposition and no rejection here—there is an invitation.

I do not say, “First become a theist, then I will give you sannyas.” I say, “Take sannyas—and theism and all the rest will follow.” I give sannyas even to the atheist. If someone says, “I do not trust in God,” I say, “Let God be. Do you trust yourself? That will do.”

If someone says, “I have no faith,” I say, “No worry. You have doubt. We can work with that too. We will intensify your doubt so much that it becomes impossible to drag it any further. We will deepen doubt until you begin to doubt doubt itself; on that very day faith is born.”

And in this world, in today’s world, one cannot begin with faith and devotion. If we insist on beginning with faith and devotion, we will have to go back a thousand years. There is no other way.

The religion of the future will not run away frightened of doubt. It will not make faith the first condition. It will say: Doubt is doubt. We will make steps out of the stones of doubt and walk to faith.

Faith is so great that it even conquers doubt. It must be so.

Ajita is a doctor; she is educated; she is familiar with logic and thought. So I do not even expect you to come with faith and devotion. Just keep coming. This “illness” is contagious. Just keep coming—it will catch. If you keep coming here, you will be dyed through and through.

Then something greater than faith and devotion is happening inside. A certain attachment to me is arising. A bond of love is forming with me.

I trust love more than faith and devotion. Faith and devotion are but transformations of love; they will fall in line later. If gold is in your hand, we can fashion any ornament from it; there is no hindrance.

Love is gold—pure gold. Faith is one ornament of it. Devotion is another ornament of it.

If an attachment to me has arisen—if such a pull has come that, even without faith and devotion, you still have to come—then the work is done. Those who come because of faith and devotion may perhaps not truly be coming at all. They may have no real bond with me. They might only be coming because, “Well, let’s go somewhere—any saint will do.”

In this country people think that merely going to saints, whether you hear them or not, just sitting there, you will be liberated. Liberation is not so cheap.

So I do not ask you for cheap faith, nor do I ask for cheap devotion. I do not ask anything cheap of you. I ask only this much: if a bond with me has arisen… Even if you remain in opposition to me, no problem. If the bond has arisen, keep coming, keep going. Slowly, slowly the event will happen.

Even when I weep, the sandiness of the eyes will not moisten.
Even when I smile, no water-flowers bloom upon the lips.
Yet some flame still lives in these solitudes
which no storm is capable of extinguishing.

Surely a flame is burning within which the tempests of many lifetimes could not extinguish; lack of faith could not extinguish; the nets of argument could not extinguish.

Yet some flame still lives in these solitudes
which no storm is capable of extinguishing.

We shall only intensify that flame; we shall awaken it, provoke it. We shall feed it fuel.

This is the meaning of satsang: if some flame within you lies smothered, in satsang it will rise and become manifest; what is inside will come to the surface.

Faith and devotion cannot be demanded from modern man; they should not be demanded either. I don’t tell you to believe in God. I ask only this: you do want bliss, don’t you? That is enough. Set out in the search for bliss. In seeking bliss you will arrive at God—because “God” and “bliss” are two names for the same happening.

Nor do I say, “Believe first, without knowing.” But you will at least accept this much: if you come to know, then you will believe, won’t you? So I put knowing first; I do not put believing first. I do not say, “Believe, then search.” I say: Know.

Meditation requires no prior faith. Meditation is a scientific process. Meditate. Meditation does not say you must believe in God. Buddha meditated without believing in God. Mahavira meditated without believing in God.

For those in whose lives faith and devotion are not spontaneous, the path of meditation is there. Meditation is a scientific experiment. Just as exercising strengthens the body—and as the body grows strong, confidence arises that exercise has effects—so it is with meditation.

Meditation asks for no preconditions. Meditate, and the soul grows strong. As the soul grows in strength and power, you will find yourself becoming ready for shraddha. Shraddha comes like a shadow.

Ordinarily what we call “faith” is found among the weak. That faith is not real; it is the faith of the weak, the faith of the impotent. Because they cannot reason, or they are afraid to reason; or they are not skilled, not educated in reasoning; or they fear that if they reason, their faith may be shattered—so they sit, merely believing. The God of those who “sit believing” is not true. How could a “believed-in” God be true? And deep within, doubt will remain.

Therefore I do not tell you to believe. Yes—if you can believe without a shadow of doubt, if it descends spontaneously—good fortune. If it does not, there is no need to force it. Enter the search. Seek. Enter meditation. Leave talk of devotion aside. Then Malukdas is not for you.

But I do not end with Malukdas. Malukdas may not be for you; I am for you. Leave Malukdas aside. Malukdas says: faith first, devotion first. I do not say that. I say: whatever you have brought, work with that. If you bring faith, we’ll work with faith. If you bring doubt, we’ll work with doubt too.

My God is very strong. He is not in the least frightened by doubt. And if you enjoy reasoning, I too enjoy reasoning enough. There is no hindrance in it—not the least.

No argument proves or disproves my understanding of the divine. Argument is a game. If you want to play the game of argument a while, we can. Nothing real comes of it. But when it becomes your experience that nothing comes of it, argument will drop on its own.

And only when argument drops out of experience does it truly drop. Then a shraddha arises of a very different order. That shraddha cannot be called “belief.” There is a difference between shraddha and belief. Belief means: doubt is inside, and you have plastered faith on top.

Shraddha means: you have become doubtless; doubt is no more; there is nothing to plaster.

Practice is never fruitless—
with this belief I sit.
The world may win; my defeat—
so be it, may Your victory be forever.
My greatest victory is
that my rhythm sounds to Your flute.
Having erased the line of “mine” and “Yours,”
I have taken sannyas and I sit,
“Practice is never fruitless”—
with this belief I sit.

I do not say this. Sitting with belief will not bring anything.

Hope and despair together had made me weep a lot;
slowly, slowly, with a lullaby, I put them to eternal sleep.
Now whether it is day or night,
I sit with the sky in my eyes.
“Practice is never fruitless”—
with this belief I sit.

This belief will not help much. It is persuading the mind. It is self-consolation, that’s all.

Test me through my last breaths
with trials as hard as you wish.
Truth alone forever triumphs—
this alone is my waiting.
Therefore, friend, forgetting tears,
I sit with a honeyed smile,
“Practice is never fruitless”—
with this belief I sit.

However much you smile—forgetting tears—the tears will still brim in your eyes.

Therefore, friend, forgetting tears,
I sit with a honeyed smile.
Forgetting… What is forgotten is not erased.

“Practice is never fruitless”—
with this belief I sit.

This belief will not help much. It is the belief of the weak. I insist on no such belief. I say to you: Know.

When the sun rises in the morning, you don’t “believe” in the morning sun. You don’t say, “I believe the sun has risen.” You say: I see the sun has risen; I know the sun has risen. There is no need for belief. How can you “believe” in what is?

Belief is needed only where there is no experience. Under the sway of desire, of craving, we believe; out of fear we believe; out of greed we believe.

Your God is the embodied form of your fear. Your God is the extension of your greed. I have no faith in that God. Nor do I want to impose that God upon you. It is because such a God has been imposed that humanity has become so irreligious.

Know one thing for sure: an honest atheist is better than a dishonest theist. The one who clearly knows, “I do not have trust,” and admits it—he is at least authentic! True.

If so much truth is there, it can be grown greater. But the man who, deep inside, knows “I have nothing certain about God,” and outwardly keeps repeating “I trust”… Often it happens that the louder you repeat “I trust,” the deeper is your doubt. By shouting it you want to contradict your own inner voice.

You beat your chest declaring, “I trust in God.” That chest-beating shows you do not trust. Otherwise there would be no need to beat your chest.

Sometimes someone comes to me saying, “I have firm belief in God.” I say: Belief would have sufficed; why add “firm”? What does “firm” mean?

When someone says to a person, “I love you completely,” I ask, why add “completely”? Is love not enough? Is there any such thing as incomplete love?—There is. That is why adding “completely” to love is dangerous: it clearly means it is not there; you are only putting on a show. And lest someone suspect otherwise, you keep repeating: “completely, completely; firm belief.”

That poem is just like that: “Practice is never fruitless—holding this belief I sit.” There is a desire within that practice should not be fruitless. Lest it be fruitless, you are deceiving yourself: “No, no; it never is.” Is practice ever fruitless? Never! But the fear is there, deep inside.

The world may win; my defeat—
so be it, may Your victory be forever.
My greatest victory is
that my rhythm sounds to Your flute.
Having erased the line of “mine” and “Yours,”
I have taken sannyas and I sit,
“Practice is never fruitless”—
with this belief I sit.

This belief is not genuine. There is aspiration inside, not realization. And all my emphasis is on realization.

So I would say to Ajita: there is no hurry for faith and devotion. When the time ripens, when the season comes, faith too will come. If there is doubt, good—begin with doubt. If thinking and reflection arise, begin with thinking and reflection.

Do not get entangled in the hassle of devotion. There is a way. For each person there is a way to reach the divine; from exactly where you are, the path will be found. And it can only be found from there; from nowhere else will it be found.

You will set out from where you stand. If you stand in doubt, you must begin from doubt. It’s that simple. Your journey begins from where you are!

How can you stand where Baba Malukdas stands? You must take your first step from your own ground. If you are full of doubt, you must begin from doubt. But I tell you: even with doubt one can reach the divine. And the person who has never said “no” to God—his “yes” will never have strength.

Say “no”; do not be afraid. Why be afraid of God? If He is, we are His—then why fear? And if He is not, there is nothing to fear. Say “no”—say it with courage; say it with force. Through your “no,” slowly, experience will grow. In denying and denying you will find: the denial does not hold. Try a thousand ways to forget, yet deeper than your doubt a certain undertone of faith will begin to be felt.

Because when a child is born, he comes with faith; he learns doubt later. A newborn has no doubt. How could he? Whence would doubt come?

Suckling at the mother’s breast, he does not doubt: “What if it is poison? What if there is disease?” He drinks milk. There is some supreme trust within, that milk will be nourishing. A deep, unknowing feeling is there: milk is food. He has never drunk it before; has never seen breasts before. Yet a wondrous event happens, and the child begins to suck; he draws milk—he has never sucked before. This cannot come from thought, from doubt, from logic. It is happening from a supreme inner trust.

He trusts the mother. He does not doubt the mother will kill him. And it is not as if mothers have never killed their children—they have. Still, every child comes without doubt, with trust.

Trust is natural; later we learn doubt. Trust is our first center. Doubt later forms like a crust around it. Life’s experiences teach us doubt. For self-protection, for safety, we doubt and do not trust—lest someone deceive us, steal our wealth, harm us.

Doubt arises out of our life experiences. Trust we bring with us. Trust is our soul. Doubt arises from living. Then, along with doubt, we learn belief. We learn doubt towards the world; then parents teach: become a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jain. They teach belief. Understand this: the first layer is natural trust; upon it, the layer of experience—doubt; and upon that doubt, yet another layer—belief. So beneath belief lies doubt. And beneath doubt lies trust.

Therefore I do not ask you for belief; nothing will come of it—it is very superficial. It is like when you want someone to swallow a poison pill, you coat it with sugar. The pill is doubt; you have smeared faith on top. Smeared-on faith is belief. When you dig within, break through the layer of doubt, and free the inner spring, that is trust.

Hence I say: meditate. Break the crust of your doubt. It is mere conditioning; it has no intrinsic value; it will break. It is not very deep either. At its breaking, the spring of trust bursts forth. Then you do not say, “I have complete belief in God”—you say: God is; I am not. There is no question of belief at all.

Wait, still your mind—be not fickle!…

So to Ajita I would say only this: you have even become a sannyasin; you have no faith and devotion, and yet you keep rushing here. You come a bit more than those who have faith and devotion!

Wait, still your mind!
Eyes like an ocean of enchantment,
the nectar-bird’s intoxicant wings,
pupil-lakes where grebes alight,
desires rising by the hundred thousand—
yet bashfulness stands upon the path of sight,
modesty digs pitfalls in the weakening feet.
Has not this much already happened, O mad one?
Understand—do not let your vow grow weak!
Do not let the mind be fickle!

So much has happened even with doubt—that sannyas has happened!

Has not this much already happened, O mad one?
Understand—do not let your vow grow weak!
Do not let the mind be fickle!
Pore by pore I sat absorbed,
moment by moment I sat as you,
now let whatever is to happen, happen—
I have taken a firm resolve.
Take my hand and show the way,
stay near, now do not go far.
Age after age, practice has borne fruit—
do not let this life be fruitless!
Do not let the mind be fickle!

Sannyas has happened—perhaps unknowingly. Perhaps you did not even notice when and how it happened! A bond with me has happened too. There was no faith, no devotion, and yet the bond happened. Now this bond cannot be broken.

Had it been made of faith and devotion, a day might have come when lack of faith or devotion arose and it broke. Now how will it break? Even if lack of faith or devotion comes, there is no reason for it to break. What was not made by faith-devotion will not be broken by their absence.

Now enter a little into the search. For the search, I always say, there are two paths. One is the path of love; on the path of love, the first step is faith. The other is the path of meditation; on the path of meditation, faith is not the first step—it is the final stage.

So those for whom faith arises easily may set out through devotion; and those who feel even a slight hitch with faith need not be troubled. Let them dive into meditation. In the final moment both reach the same place. The destination is one; the paths are many.

And now, I will not even let you go.

Someone has washed my feet with moonlight—
how can I set them on a dusty road!

And once you have bathed even a little in my love, if even a few of my rays have touched you, if even a little of my fragrance has touched you—if your nostrils have filled a little with my scent—it will be very difficult for you to go anywhere else.

Someone has washed my feet with moonlight—
how can I set them on a dusty road!

It will become difficult.

Feet bound without any chains,
beneath the rain-laden shade of clouds of affection.

Here no fetters or chains are being put on you. Here you are bound by freedom itself. Had there been shackles, you might have broken them and run; here there are none. Sannyas means freedom.

Feet bound without any chains,
beneath the rain-laden shade of clouds of affection.
Liberation, a nun of renunciation, takes refuge in bonds—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

Perhaps sannyas has happened only by a sudden turn. Perhaps some deep, unconscious longing made you step into sannyas. Even if it was not taken with much thought—still.

Liberation, a nun of renunciation, takes refuge in bonds—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

The world will no longer be able to entice you. A new call has arisen. A new summons has been received.

The blue sky bends, studded with stars;
the smiling moon stands, forbidding me.
If I try to walk, a stubborn ray clings—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

If I try to walk, a stubborn ray clings—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

The night-blooming jasmine keeps vigil, brimming with fragrance;
the tender petal of the ketaki is dewy.
Thorns seize my hem, flowers block the path—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

An ocean is set within my moist pupils;
my restless fingers clutch at my veil;
at the doorway the Lord stands with tearful eyes—
how can I set foot upon the dusty road!

It will be difficult now. There is no way to go back. But if thoughts of going arise in the mind, that very wavering will obstruct the growth that could be. You cannot return; yet if the idea of return keeps arising, your forward movement will stop. You will be stuck.

You have lifted one step; now have the courage to lift the second. You have taken sannyas; now dive into meditation. Only meditation will give you momentum; your direction will become clear. Only through meditation will stillness come. Only through meditation will your roots sink into the earth. And only through meditation will green leaves sprout upon you, and buds appear, and flowers bloom.

The question is from Krishna Priya. That’s why.

One who becomes aware of their foolishness is no longer a fool. The real fools are those who imagine themselves wise, who think they know.

When the remembrance arises, “I am a fool,” a ray begins to enter one’s life; dawn draws near; the night starts breaking.

“I don’t know”—this is the first step toward knowing. “I know”—this creates an obstruction. Hence learned scholars never reach the divine. Simple-hearted people, plain, guileless, who make no claims, who have no support from scriptures, no grip on doctrines, who say, “We don’t know anything”—such people arrive quickly.

You ask: “On what seeing and understanding did you grant even someone as foolish as me a place in the ashram?”

Exactly this—that you are not a scholar.

And if there is awareness of foolishness, foolishness will break. There are things that die through awareness. As when, in darkness, if you bring a lamp, the darkness ends. In the same way, if a little awareness arises in foolishness—if the lamp of awareness is lit that “I am a fool”—foolishness ends.

This awareness is true knowledge. Therefore the experiment underway here is precisely this: it is less your sins we need to take from you, and more your erudition. No one is as led astray by sin as by scholarship.

What you have done is not the great obstacle. Your ego does not stand upon your sins; your ego stands upon your knowledge. Your ego rests upon your Vedas, your Quran, your Bible.

Let all scriptures drop from your life; become again like an innocent child; let the slate of your mind be wiped clean, with no writing left on it—in that very instant, the revolution happens.

The moment you are empty, fullness begins to descend into you. Emptiness is the qualification for attaining fullness.

Enough for today.