Kano Suni So Juth Sab #8

It depends on you. If you only hear with the ears—only with the ears—then it has no meaning at all. But there is also a way to hear with the eyes. Do not merely listen to the Satguru; see him.

Satsang means this: experience the nearness of the Satguru. Taste the Satguru. What is spoken is nothing—like waves rising on the surface of the sea. What is unspoken, what cannot be spoken, is the real pearl in the ocean’s depth. If you hear only the words, you miss. If you see that which is present behind the words, you have found. Put a ladder to the source from which the words arise. Descend into the Master’s emptiness. Play with his speech—at the beginning, fine; they are like toys. Then slowly, drop the toys. The real thing is the Master’s presence. The real thing is his very being, his is-ness. Dye yourself in the color of his being. The real thing is his music. What is spoken is far-away news, a reflection of reflections. Where nothing is said, there truth is enthroned.

Satsang does not mean listening; satsang means being-with, in company. Walk with the Master. Sway with the Master. Open your heart to the Master so that his rays can enter your darkness.

That is what I mean when I say: hear with your eyes. It will sound absurd. Can one hear with the eyes? One can; one does. Drink the Master. Let his formlessness descend within you. Let his shapelessness resound within you. Give him a chance to place his hand upon the strings of your veena. Do not hesitate. Do not doubt. Do not be shy. Do not defend. We are all busy defending—and the joke is, there is nothing to defend, yet we are constantly defending.

Yesterday Dariya said: the elephant smashes the gate of the fort. As a fort has its gate bristling with spikes and spears so no one can break it—so none can even come near it—just so a person surrounds himself with invisible spears. Let no one come near you. Let no one open your door. You are frightened. You are guarding yourself twenty-four hours a day. Leave this guarding with the Master, and revolution will happen.

Satguru means this: in some person you have seen something such that you do not want to protect yourself there. In some person you have seen something that makes you want to pour yourself out. In some person you have seen something that if he robs you, blessed are you; if you save yourself, unlucky are you.

The question is meaningful. It must have arisen in many minds. Dariya says: what is heard by the ears is all false; what is seen by the eyes is true. Then what is the meaning of the Satguru’s teaching? Then what meaning is there even in Dariya’s own saying—after all, you must have heard it some day? No—there is meaning. It is a call to awaken you. The distance between truth and untruth is not great; it cannot be very great.

Someone asked Emerson, “How much distance is there between truth and falsehood?” He said, “About four inches—the distance between the eyes and the ears.” That’s all. What the ear takes in is a reflection. What the eye sees and takes in is a direct meeting.

The difference between truth and falsehood is not much—that is why the false can deceive. If it were too different, everyone would catch it. The gap is about four inches. Falsehood is very close to truth—like your shadow when you walk in the sun. It is not that your shadow is wandering miles away while you are walking here. Your shadow is utterly false—what existence does a shadow have?—but it clings to your feet without leaving even an inch. Just so falsehood walks with truth.

Falsehood is truth’s shadow. Understand it rightly: falsehood is the shadow of truth. That is why it can deceive; otherwise how could it? If falsehood were nothing like truth—not even a little—who would be fooled? A counterfeit coin deceives because it looks at least like a real coin—whether it is or not, it looks like it. Falsehood looks like truth—only looks. The outline of falsehood is exactly like the outline of truth. Only one thing is missing: in truth there is life; in falsehood there is no life. Your shadow has your shape, your outline. Your photograph is called yours for this very reason—everything looks like you. But a photograph is a photograph; you are you. What is the difference? Only this much: in you there is life; a photograph has none. It looks like you—how can it be you?

Falsehood is truth’s photograph. You often think falsehood is the opposite of truth. If it were the opposite, it could never deceive. Falsehood is not the opposite; it is the image. Its figure matches truth. Think of it this way: at night you see the moon reflected in the lake. The moon in the lake is false. It looks like the real moon. Sometimes it even seems more beautiful than the real moon. Falsehood adorns itself. Falsehood wears ornaments. Falsehood hides in diamonds and jewels. Falsehood gathers proofs around itself. Falsehood does everything so that it won’t be found out as false. The moon in the sky—that is true. The reflection in the lake is false—but it is the reflection of truth.

What you have heard with the ear is also a reflection of truth. Someone saw; someone awakened; someone experienced—then hummed his experience into words. You heard those words through the ear. That became the reflection of the moon. But if you saw directly in a saint—not through his words, if you set aside the words—if you did not build a wall of words between you and the saint, did not keep them as a screen, did not make them a bridge but removed them—if you saw directly, in wordlessness—then you will see the moon itself.

Therefore I say: Dariya speaks true—what is heard by the ears is all false; what is seen by the eyes is true. There is a way to listen with the eyes; that is what we call satsang.

You sit here with me. Some will carry away my words, carefully. Sometimes someone comes and even brings a notebook, writing as I speak. His emphasis is on words. He is a student, not a disciple. He still belongs to the schoolroom. As if somewhere some examination is going to be held. Does life conduct any exam somewhere? Life itself is the examination. Here, teaching and testing are not separate. Every moment is the test. Every moment is the teaching. In every teaching there is testing; in every testing there is teaching. It is all mixed together. It is not that when you are eighty you will sit an exam: now the examination of life begins, and you will give answers—memorized answers will do—and you will buy printed keys from the market. The Koran, the Vedas, the Guru Granth, the Bible—these are keys; they will not help. If you repeat Nanak’s words, you become false. If you become Nanak, you become true. If you repeat Kabir’s words, even letter-perfect, you become false. If you become Kabir, you become true. Then words like Kabir’s will arise from you too—but with a great difference: now they flow from your own experience. Your own spring has opened. They will be yours. Your life will throb within them. They will not be dead.

One person comes here like a student; he carries away words. His memory grows a little. His information increases a little. He becomes a bit more of a pundit. He will become a little more skillful at explaining to others. Explaining to others—remember it well—he himself has missed.

And often it happens that when you become skillful in explaining to others you begin to think you have understood. It is just the opposite of the truth. Your understanding is another matter. If you want to understand, come as a disciple, not as a student. No notes to be taken. Do not memorize my words. Whether you remember my words or not has no purpose. If a drop of the juice I am pouring into the words slips down your throat—let the words be forgotten. Words are just husks; the kernel is within. Throw away the husk; absorb the essence.

When you eat, what is essential you digest; what is inessential exits as waste. Words are inessential; they have no value. When you go about explaining them to others, then they go out like waste; you will feel lighter.

Understand this. You heard me and collected words; the mind became heavy. Now you will be eager to find someone ignorant into whom you can pour it all. You will be on the lookout: any excuse will do. Someone mentions something and you are ready—what you have been carrying as a burden, you pour into him. You will feel good—but not because you succeeded in making the other understand. You yourself have not understood; how will you make another understand? Those who have understood find it hard enough to make others understand—how will you? You have not understood. Yet you will feel good.

You will feel good for two reasons. One: the burden has been lightened. That is why people cannot keep a secret. To keep a secret is a great weight. Someone tells you, “I am telling you this, please do not tell anyone else.” Now trouble begins. It bubbles up to your tongue again and again. You push it down, then hold it inside; the weight increases. So people cannot keep secrets; it is difficult. The mind wants to throw it out. These are the tricks of throwing. When you talk to another, you feel lighter; some rubbish of the mind is reduced. The other’s increases—his problem. He will throw it on someone else. Yours has lessened; you feel unburdened.

Second: the ego’s pleasure of being knowledgeable—“See, I know; you do not.” Whenever you manage to prove someone ignorant by any cleverness, your ego feels gratified. So with any topic you keep trying to prove: I am the knower, the other is ignorant. For these two reasons it feels pleasant. Do not mistake that pleasure for understanding. And from that pleasure no revolution will happen in your life; no gates of bliss will open.

The student comes and gathers trash; he leaves the essence and grabs the inessential. Words are inessential; the unspoken is the essence. Emptiness is essence; silence is essence. What is not said, what cannot be said—that is essence. How will you bind the Vast in words? Words are tiny. It is like trying to ladle the ocean with spoons. The ocean does not fit into spoons. Even if what fits in a spoon tastes of the ocean—salty—do not be deceived by the taste. The ocean has many qualities besides taste; none of those are there. And the greatest of all: where you can drown—that is truth, that is the ocean.

How will you drown in words? That is like drowning in a palmful of water. No one ever drowned in words. Words are so small—try as you will, you cannot drown in them. In the wordless, one can drown.

So one person leaves here with his memory slightly swollen, his knowledge a little increased, some extra weight on the scale of scholarship; he has missed. Profit turned into loss. He has increased disturbance in his life, not reduced it.

Another comes as a disciple: the taste for words is gone; he has come to see, to experience; he is ready to travel with me into the unknown; he is not joining me through the ears, he is joining through the eyes. Only he will gain—only he.

Therefore I say: listening with the ear is mere listening. Listening with the eye is the real thing. Drink the Master. Fix your eyes upon the Master. Let the Master’s light become the light of your eyes. Let the Master’s love descend through your eyes and fill your heart. Then Dariya speaks rightly: what is heard by the ears is all false; what is seen by the eyes is true.

The day you begin to see the Master rightly, you will know two things:
I have learned how to live and I have learned how to die;
I am beginning to recognize now the glance in your eyes.

To be with the Master means: I have learned to live, and I have learned to die. On the plane of the ego, the art of dissolving; on the plane of the soul, the art of living. The formula for living the real has been found, and the formula for dying to the false has been found. The pyre of the false has been built; the false has been burned to ash, crucified. The real has been enthroned.

I have learned how to live and I have learned how to die;
I am beginning to recognize now the glance in your eyes.

Recognize the glance. Recognize the eye. Join yourself to the Master’s being. Drown in the Master’s presence.

First, do not mistake “being able to explain to others” for understanding. That is not enough—don’t be satisfied with it. Explaining to others is like a postman delivering letters. You hear me, and you turn into a postman—collect the letters and deliver them to others. But nothing ever falls into the postman’s hands. He lugs priceless letters, money orders, treasures of love, from here to there—yet none of it becomes his. Whether you become a postman or a professor, it makes little difference. Listening to me and then explaining to others will not solve anything. You have needlessly become a postman. Forget that. The essential thing is to understand yourself. And what is the proof of self-understanding? The arising of authenticity is the proof.

If you have truly listened to me—with your eyes, with total attention—revolution will happen within you while listening. If afterwards you still need to “do something” to bring it about, understand that you did not hear; you missed. Such is the glory of truth: if you truly understand it, in the very understanding you are free. Jesus said, “The truth sets you free.” Merely hearing the truth, freedom happens.

All this while you were adding two and two and making five. I tell you: two and two are not five, two and two are four. You hear this. Now will you ask, “What should I do so that two and two become four?” You won’t. The moment you see that two and two are four, they are four. They always were. Even while you were making five, they were four. Your doing never made them five. So now there is nothing to do—only the mistake to be seen.

The world is merely a mistake in arithmetic, a mistake in understanding. Consider: you call someone “wife.” Hearing a true master, you understand—who is wife, who is husband? Who belongs to whom here? If you have seen this, will you then come asking, “How do I leave my wife?” If you ask how to leave the wife, or how to bring this into life, you have not understood. The master only said two and two are four, not five. You may insist this is your wife, your husband; what difference does that make? Your insisting does not change reality. In existence there is no husband, no wife. Don’t you immediately see it? “Wife” and “husband” are notions. Seven rounds around a fire, and you become husband and wife? Yesterday you were not; today you are? Tomorrow a divorce, and again you are not! This is an agreement, a contract, a legal arrangement—no meaning in existence itself. In existence there is no husband, no wife.

If after seeing this you still come and say, “I understand; now how do I get rid of my wife?”—then you have not understood. From whom are you asking freedom? From one who never was yours? In the seeing itself, freedom is. There is no need to run: “She is not my wife, so I must flee!”

It is told that Swami Rama Tirtha returned from America. His disciple was Sardar Puran Singh. They went to spend some days in the Himalayas. The ruler of Tehri Garhwal, a devotee, arranged a place for them high in the hills. Puran Singh also served as secretary—meeting visitors, writing letters. Many people came—men and women. One day Rama Tirtha’s wife arrived from distant Punjab. He had left years before. She had suffered greatly—children to raise, an illiterate woman—grinding grain, washing utensils to feed the children. She heard that Rama Tirtha had returned; people brought glorious news of his influence in America. She borrowed money in her village to make the pilgrimage to see him. When Rama Tirtha saw from his cottage that his wife was coming, he told Puran Singh, “My wife is coming—close the door. Explain somehow and send her away. I do not wish to meet her.”

Puran Singh was deeply hurt. He said, “Then let it be decided. If you will not meet your wife, release me too; I will leave. End of the matter. So many women come, so many men come; you have never said you do not wish to meet them. What is her fault? Do you still take her to be your wife?”

Then understanding dawned on Rama Tirtha. He was a professor of mathematics. He saw: if two and two are four, how am I still counting five? Once you have understood there is no wife, no husband, no son, no mother—that all relationships are chance meetings on the road—how can you act otherwise? On a journey you meet, and later you part. For two hours you walk together; a crossroads comes; you bow to each other—one goes to the station, one to the market. Finished. So is this endless journey of life. When Puran Singh spoke, Rama Tirtha was pierced and awakened: “True; if I have understood there is no wife, then to forbid her entry now is my delusion. It means I have not truly understood.” He felt such pain that, Puran Singh writes, he wept much. He called his wife in and met her with great feeling. From that day he laid aside the ochre robe. When Puran Singh asked, “What have you done? Why wear white?” Rama Tirtha said, “Perhaps I am not yet a true sannyasin. Perhaps I am not yet worthy of ochre. You have warned me well—you have struck my pride. I had thought I had attained; this small incident exposed me.” He was a simple man. Had he been vain, he would have expelled Puran Singh: “You, a disciple, to correct your guru?” Or he would have spun arguments to justify himself. He did not. He acknowledged it, and from that day wore white. Why? “I am not yet worthy. These robes are the color of fire—fitting only when all foolishness is burnt.” Such humility is the mark of a sage.

So the question is not whether you can explain to others; the question is whether you yourself can understand. And if you truly understand, the question “How do I become authentic?” does not arise. When understanding settles rightly, authenticity happens as its fruit.

You say, “I can lovingly understand you.” There are two kinds of people who come here. Some are intelligent but have no love. They try to understand, but lacking love they miss. Matters like these can be understood only when steeped in love—great sympathy, great trust are needed; only a rare reverence can receive this treasure. Others listen with love but lack understanding; they are absorbed, they drown, but there is no witnessing of what they are drowning in. Their lives are transformed by that drowning; their own work is done—they become perfect disciples—but they will never be able to be gurus.

To be a guru two things are essential: when you were a disciple, you listened with love and with awareness. You listened with the heart, and you kept your intelligence awake. Then what happens in the heart does not remain only in the heart; its resonance is also etched in the intellect. Only then can you succeed in making others understand. Many attain to knowing, but not all become true masters. To attain knowing is one thing—you have known, you have experienced, you took the plunge. But then you fall silent; the heart does not speak. The heart understands but cannot explain. The intellect can explain even without understanding.

Keep this difference in mind: the intellect may not understand, yet it can explain; the heart may understand, yet it cannot explain. Only one whose heart and head come into balance, into a synthesis—whose intelligence and love are in equipoise—can be a true master.

You say, “I lovingly understand you.” If your understanding is not serving your life, it is not understanding. And your love too is likely a notion. If your love were real, at the very least it would transform you. What is helping you explain to others is your skill in logic and language. But what will explaining to others do? How will you explain that which has not caught fire in your own life? How will you talk about the fragrance of a flower that has not bloomed in you? Words will beget more words; there was no fragrance with you, none will reach the listener. Then the listener will explain to someone else—and for centuries the germs of the disease go on spreading. We pass our illnesses to one another like this. Stop it. Do not attempt to explain to others until it has become clear in you.

And what is the sign that it has become clear? While listening, a word should strike like a blow—lightning flashes and you see: “Ah, so it is—this is how it is.” In that “this is how it is,” your life is different from the very next moment—why next, from this very moment. From now on, two and two are four; never again five.

You ask, “I can lovingly understand you and make others understand; then why does that understanding not help bring authenticity into life?” Because this is not understanding; it is the illusion of understanding. It is cleverness, not insight; information, not wisdom. There is intellect, perhaps scholarship, but no awakening, no Buddhahood.

My words will sting you. You may feel restless. I am telling you that the “love” in you is a mental notion, and what you call “understanding” is only a play of words. Your mind may become sad and disheartened; I say it knowingly. You need this jolt. Otherwise, flowing on as you are, you will miss me. First let this diamond sink within you; first let this ray enter you. Don’t be in a hurry. Whom are you to explain? What have you to transact with anyone? When your flower blooms, its fragrance will reach others on its own. If it reaches—good; if not—also good. It is not your duty that it must.

Have you not heard? The mystic Dariya says: what is the point of explaining to this mad world? The more you explain, the more tangled it gets. Don’t break your head explaining to lunatics. Do only this: step out of your own madness. That very stepping out is the greatest service you can render. Then whoever comes near you, whoever happens to pass by you, will receive your fragrance, your music. The inner veena will vibrate in them; their nostrils will be filled with an inexpressible scent; perhaps they too will become seekers on the journey to the infinite.

So do not do the racket of explaining. First attain it yourself. If from that attainment something overflows to others, fine. But first make sure: I have received. Put your whole energy into understanding.

Authenticity is not born by hearing with the ears. It means being one within and without. As Dariya said, a sage is one inside-out: as within, so without. No layers inside, no many minds; a single stream, not split into fragments. No crowd of voices. No masks on the face—only the original face, the one given by the divine; trusting only one’s own nature. That is authenticity.

But how does authenticity arise? If you tie it to “how,” you will be stuck—because authenticity is not something you can produce. Whatever you produce will be inauthentic. Keep this well in your heart: whatever you manufacture will be false. How can what you put on be authentic? The authentic has already been created by the divine. You ask, “How do I wear my original face?” The original face is not worn; it is. Only masks are worn. Anything you can put on will be false. Don’t say, “Fine, I won’t wear the false; I will wear the true.” Can the true be worn? The true is that which is on you without your putting it on—which even if you tried, you could not remove. That which you never miss, never lose, from which you are never separate—that is authentic. So what to do? Only see the false as false. Then the hands will stop reaching for masks.

Krishnamurti says: one who sees the false as false comes upon the true. To recognize the insubstantial as insubstantial is to arrive at the substantial. To recognize darkness as darkness is enough to move toward light.

So do not strive to be authentic; striving only leads to inauthenticity. Authenticity is not cultivated. When all cultivation is dropped, what remains—that is it. Authenticity happens; it is not engineered. It has no technique, no ritual. It is already so. You were born with your original face. No school is needed for that. What you have learned, allow it to be unlearned. Suddenly you will find what is yours emerges. Your attachment to the false breaks. How does it break? Because you see it as false. You cling to the false only because you take it to be true. The day glass is seen as glass, attachment is finished.

You mistook a piece of glass for a diamond and locked it in your safe. You had no way to assay; you were no jeweler. You found it on the road; it shone; you thought it a diamond and hid it, telling no one. Then you befriended a jeweler, sat in his shop, watched how he tests gems. Slowly you learned: what is true, what is false, what is glass. As Dariya says: “Glass is glass, truth is truth.” One day you open your safe and see: this is a piece of glass. Do you need a ceremony to renounce it? A procession? Newspaper announcements? Nothing is needed. If you still ask, “How shall I renounce the diamond?” then keep it back in the safe—you still believe it is a diamond. When it is seen as glass, the matter is over. You might hand it to children to play with and wonder how long you kept junk in the strongbox. The day glass appears as glass, the matter ends.

Listening here, never ask, “How do I practice this?” There you miss. Listen rightly—with your eyes. Assay what is being said and why. Grasp its gestures and nuances. This is a jeweler’s shop. Sitting here, coming and going in satsang, you will learn what is true and what is imitation; then you will throw away the fakes. When all the counterfeit gems are discarded, the real within you—which has always been—stands revealed. The real is buried under the heap of the false. The real is not to be brought; it cannot be brought. The real is you. You yourself are the diamond you seek. The seeker contains the sought; in the aspirant the accomplished already sits. The divine dwells within you. But you have piled so much rubbish in your vault—whatever you found, you picked up and brought home.

I lived for some years in a gentleman’s house. His habit was to pick up anything he found anywhere. At first I only observed. One day I saw he was bringing home a broken bicycle handle from a trash heap, cleaning it as he walked. I asked, “What will you do with this?” He said, “Don’t ask! I already have the pedal. The handle has come too. Slowly the whole bicycle will come together.” Later, when I finally entered his house, I was astonished—a junkyard. Such things piled everywhere that no one would believe why a man would keep them. He lived and died in that trash. After his death, when his wife cleaned, a cartful of junk had to be thrown; nothing worth keeping remained.

Look closely at your own life—you have collected heaps of junk inside. Because of this junk the real is not visible. The real is buried. It is not to be attained; it is already given. Only let the false drop. And how will it drop? See it as false—that is enough. This much understanding is what satsang with a true master gives.

So do not ask, “How do I bring authenticity?” If you truly see that inauthenticity brings sorrow—that it leads to derangement, that when the outside is one thing and the inside another you become two people and they constantly clash—then you will stop manufacturing that hell. With truth there is a convenience: you do not need to remember it. You speak and the matter is finished. Ask again ten years later, and you will speak the same—it is truth. But with lies you must remember. One lie demands ten more to cover it; ten demand a hundred, a hundred a thousand, till a mountain of lies is built. In Russia they say, “A liar needs an excellent memory.” True—truth needs none. I see a Himalaya of lies on your chest. Under that mountain the small spring of consciousness in you has been blocked.

To be authentic is simply to see the misery of being inauthentic. See its pain, confusion, anxiety, tension, madness; see that it is hell being built. That is enough. Why would you build hell once you see it as hell? You only build it hoping it is heaven. See it is hell, and you stop at once. This I call sannyas.

My definition of sannyas is only this: you have seen how you create hell, and you decide, “No more.” And for what has already been built, declare, “Forgive me; all that was said and done was false. I’m out of that tangle now.” From today, live a straight, simple, aligned life. From today say only what is true, and live only what is true—whatever the consequences, because you have seen the consequences of lies.

Lies are great salesmen and politicians; they promise marvels: “Give me your vote once; come with me once; we will make heaven.” Not a single promise is ever fulfilled. Lies are like bait on a fishhook: the hook is falsehood, the bait is promise. They show gardens of paradise, but what comes is hell—sorrow, desolation. If you awaken to this—if you become thoroughly disillusioned with inauthenticity—nothing more needs to be done. Slowly, inauthenticity slips out of your hands; its net becomes inactive. What remains is the living stream—that is authenticity.

When the Buddha first awakened, his first words were priceless. He lifted his head to the sky and said, “O house-builder! You are seen. You will not build this house again.” To whom did he speak? To that builder of bodies and prisons, of births and hells—desire and ignorance. “You will not build for me again. I am free.” Buddha also said, “Blessed are those whose hope has died.” Strange—but true. The utterly disillusioned cannot be deceived by false promise. No salesman can sell to him. Call it dispassion, despair, indifference—no matter; the essence is one: he has seen that here nothing is ever delivered—only talk.

A story: A man worshipped Shiva for years. Shiva appeared: “What do you want?” The man said, “Grant me this: whatever I ask from this conch of mine, I receive.” “So be it,” said Shiva. And it happened—ask a hundred thousand rupees, and the roof would burst, money would fall; ask for a mansion, and by morning it stood. Fame spread. A sannyasin came to stay. At night the sannyasin took from his bag a greater conch and said, “A hundred thousand rupees.” The conch replied, “What is a hundred? Shall I bring two?” The householder was shocked: “My conch gives only what I ask; this one offers double!” In the morning he begged the sannyasin, “You are detached; give me your conch. I will give you mine in exchange.” The sannyasin agreed and vanished with the small conch. That night the man said to his great conch, “A hundred thousand.” It replied, “What is a hundred? Take two hundred.” “All right—two hundred.” “Why not four?” “All right—four.” “Eight?” It kept doubling, giving nothing. Panicked, he cried, “Will you ever give?” The conch said, “Who cares about giving or taking? Just ask—I will keep doubling!” He beat his chest.

Falsehood is this great conch—endless promises, nothing delivered. Let this be clear to you; be disillusioned with inauthenticity. Then there is nothing to do. The net falls away, and the living spring that remains is authenticity.

First, life is far more than you know. Life is far greater than you recognize. So if you have taken only this much that you know as real, then whenever something new happens you will feel it is a dream. You have made a very narrow definition of life. If you have assumed that life consists only of pebbles and stones, then if one day a Kohinoor turns up you will say, “It’s a dream. How can it be?” If you have taken life to be nothing but suffering, then when a single ray of happiness descends you will feel, “It’s a dream. How can it be?”

This happens here every day. People have great faith in suffering; they have almost no trust in happiness. And it is understandable: joy has never been known, so how can there be trust? When, through meditation, through ripening, a taste begins to arise in someone here, a whole net of questions starts stirring within. People come to me and ask, “I am feeling great joy. Is it a dream?” These are the very people who have suffered greatly and never asked, “I am in great misery—could this be a dream?”

You have immense faith in suffering; you never doubt it in the least. You have almost no faith in happiness. Naturally, whatever you have faith in is what you keep meeting—again and again because of that very faith. The guest who comes to your house is the one you keep calling. Even if happiness arrives, you shut the door. You say, “Maybe this is a dream? Happiness—and at my door?” Pushpa has asked: what is the obstacle in accepting happiness?

I have heard: a neurotic had been undergoing analysis with his psychiatrist for years. Every day he would bring some new misery: “This hurts, that hurts.” Today this sorrow, tomorrow that. The analyst was worn out, bored with listening to his babble—and there seemed to be no end to it. Madness never really ends; it is very investigative. Every day it discovers something new. Madness is a great inventor; it doesn’t tire. The psychologist got tired; the patient did not. Finally, just to get rid of him, the psychologist said, “Why don’t you go to the mountains for two or three weeks? It will do you a lot of good.” Whether it would help him or not was beside the point; at least the psychologist would be free for a couple of weeks. Somehow he persuaded him and sent him off to the hills. The man went to Switzerland. He had money! After all, one needs to be rich to maintain so much madness—one needs the facilities, the wealth. The poor cannot afford to be mad; only the rich can.

That is why the richer a country becomes, the more it is afflicted with neurosis. A psychologist cannot even find a poor man to analyze—it’s an expensive business. In the West people even brag, “I go to such-and-such analyst. Whom do you go to?” A poor man cannot go to a psychoanalyst; the fee is very high. It becomes a kind of status ornament.

He went to Switzerland. The very next day a telegram arrived for the psychologist. The psychologist had just begun to relax, relieved that the nuisance would not turn up today. But the wire came. It said: “Feeling very happy. Why?” He demanded an answer: “Why? Reply at once.”

If happiness happens in life, why ask “why”? You never ask that of misery. When anger arises, why don’t you ask, “Is this a dream?” Have you ever asked? I have yet to meet a person who asked, “This anger that is rising—could it be a dream? This hatred moving in me—could it be a dream? This urge to kill someone—could this be a dream?” All that is taken as real. You never doubt it. Your faith is very strange—your head seems upside down. The moment a ray of joy comes, doubt stands up. Embrace the ray of joy. Whatever you embrace will grow. Whatever you accept will come again and again. Whatever you welcome with a trusting, open heart as a guest will have an increasing possibility of coming.

Doubt misery. The world is the dream, not the divine. Yet people take the world to be real and the divine to be a dream. God is supreme bliss—nothing but bliss—sat-chit-ananda. That is why people say, “Where is God?” They have never known bliss. Bliss is far; they have not even known happiness. Happiness is far; they have not even known peace. How to believe in God then? They can believe in stones, not in the divine. Stones feel real.

Change this. This change is urgently needed. When a ray of joy comes, trust it. When love wells up, trust it. When peace ripples, trust it. This is what shraddha—faith—means. Faith does not mean becoming a Hindu or a Muslim. It does not mean banging your head in a temple or repeating Quranic verses in a mosque. Faith means: when the divine knocks at the door, receive it. God comes in unusual ways—not along your fixed lines. The ways of the divine’s coming are very mysterious.

Then let it happen. Nothing wrong is happening—only something good. Why at night? Because in the daytime your mind, full of doubt, is too present. In the day you won’t give me a chance. Only at night can entry happen on the sly. In the day you stand on guard, very alert—gun in hand. Forget others; you won’t even let me enter you in the daytime. You say, “Where are you going? Don’t go inside—sit outside. Here is the drawing room.” Everyone has made a drawing room and won’t let anyone go beyond it. From the drawing room you don’t allow entry within. Your skull is your drawing room. It’s only for seating, not for lodging—remember. It’s for sitting someone a couple of minutes and then bidding them goodbye...

One day Mulla Nasruddin opened his door. A gentleman entered—an old friend, visiting after many days—so Mulla quickly turned around. The friend asked, “Were you going out?” Mulla had a cane in his hand and a hat on. He said, “No, this is my trick.” The friend said, “What do you mean?” Mulla said, “This is my trick. Whenever anyone comes, I quickly put on my hat, take my cane, and open the door.” The friend said, “I don’t understand. What does it mean?” Mulla said, “It means that if I see it’s someone I don’t want to meet, I say, ‘I’m just going out.’ And if it’s someone I do want to meet, I say, ‘I’ve just come in.’ And the cane and hat are the proof in both cases. They work either way.”

And those whom we don’t want to keep forever—we seat them in the drawing room. The very meaning of a drawing room is: you came, many thanks; now, kindly be quick and go as well. We were very happy you came; we’ll be even happier when you leave. The drawing room means merely “sit”—and not even properly; just sit.

Your head is your drawing room. In the day you don’t let me go deeper than your head. At night, once in a while, when you go unconscious, when your guard falls asleep, when your alertness, your caution, your watchfulness no longer function, then there is a chance to come close to your heart.

So Pushpa, meetings likely happen at night. If they keep happening at night, they will begin to happen in the day as well. For now they happen at night—that too is a blessing. At night you are more simple.

That’s why if you go to a psychologist, he asks about your dreams, not your day. He doesn’t ask what you did or thought in the day. In the day you are so false, so hypocritical, that there’s no need to keep account of it. The psychologist asks, “What dreams did you see at night?”

Why? Because the psychologist has concluded that your dreams are truer than your waking. Why? Because in dreams you don’t deceive—you cannot. How could you deceive in a dream? You are asleep, and then the dream happens. The dream reveals your reality more. It can happen that in the day you are a great saint and in your dreams a thief. The dream is more real. In the day you are a renunciant, and in dreams a great indulger. In the day you fasted, and at night you go sit in a hotel and eat everything you’ve craved for years—and keep on eating. The day’s fast was false; the night’s dream is true. The night’s dream gives news of your real condition, your actuality—that in truth you are hungry. The fake part is that you’re fasting because the Paryushan days have come, everyone is doing it, the neighbors are doing it. A religious time has arrived; if you don’t do it, you’ll be disreputed. If you do, you gain status, respect, reverence, your ego is worshiped: “See, this gentleman fasted.” So you fast—but you don’t want to.

A dream rings truer. Hence the psychologist doesn’t ask what you thought in the day. Your thinking is so false it’s useless. He asks, “What did you dream at night?” He has you keep a dream diary. Slowly, peering into your dreams, he looks for your illness. By descending into dreams, interpreting them, opening up their symbols, he brings news of your heart—the thoughts lying in your unconscious, which are your reality.

Exactly such a phenomenon happens here as well. At first, your connection with me will be at night—at first, in your dreams. Because your dreams are truer than your so-called waking. And in your dreams you are more innocent, more guileless. So don’t be frightened. And don’t dismiss it by calling it a “dream.” The world is the dream; the divine is the truth. But for now the divine seems like a dream and the world seems true. You are doing a headstand.

I have heard: when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister, a donkey came to meet him. As it is, only donkeys go to meet prime ministers—who else would? A donkey arrived. The sentry was dozing—early morning—tired from the night’s duty, waiting to be relieved. And even if it had been a man, he might have stopped him; but who stops a donkey? What harm can a donkey do? Donkeys don’t carry weapons, guns, or swords. They can’t fire bullets. And what do donkeys have to do with anything? Let him pass. The sentry kept dozing; the donkey entered. Pandit Nehru was doing a headstand in his garden. Seeing the donkey, he said, “Brother, I’ve seen many donkeys, but why are you standing upside down?” The donkey said, “Sir, you are doing a headstand. I’m not upside down. I’m perfectly straight.”

Man is doing a headstand. You have inverted everything. So the dream appears true and truth appears like a dream. Give these sweet dreams a chance. Even if for now they seem like dreams—let them be dreams. But these dreams are more valuable than your so-called realities, and ultimately they will lead you toward the great truth.

“And sometimes such a taste is experienced as was never known before!”

And still you ask me? If a taste is experienced, then go in—take the plunge. Drop the worry about what it is. Let go of analysis. Don’t put a label on it—whether dream or truth, false or real, night or day. Drop it. Let taste decide. Let taste be the only criterion.

“And sometimes such a taste is experienced as was never known before—what is it?”

Don’t bring the intellect in between. The moment you ask “what is it,” intellect has stepped in. And intellect will put obstacles. What doesn’t fit its understanding, intellect denies. It says, “Only what I understand is true.” Don’t mistake the limits of intellect for the limits of truth. Many have done exactly that—that has been the greatest misfortune of their lives. Intellect’s boundary is very small.

It is as if you walk with a flashlight in the dark night. The small circle of light falls ahead. That small circle is not the whole truth. Truth is vast. How much light does your intellectual torch have? This flickering glow, this tiny circle—within it a few things are seen; not everything fits in it! If you want to know the whole, it isn’t known by intellect. To know the whole, you have to go beyond intellect. To recognize the vast, the petty spectacles must be taken off.

So don’t even ask, “What is this?” When you get a taste, you never ask about other tastes. You sit drinking the juice of a fruit—delicious. Do you ask, “What is this?” Have you ever? No one has yet asked me. And people have asked me more questions than perhaps anyone else in the world. You eat ice cream—such a nice taste. Have you ever asked, “What is this?” Taste needs no question. Taste is sufficient. It is its own proof. But why do you ask only about the taste of the divine?

There is a reason. There you feel fear. You feel you have gone beyond your limits. It seems a bit senseless to the mind—outside your grasp, beyond your control. Your ownership will slip. This taste is bigger than you—that is the danger. You are small. Ice cream, fruit juice, sweets, liquor—those tastes are within your hands, in your fist. This taste is bigger than you. In this taste you will drown, you will be lost. In those tastes you neither drown nor disappear; they come for a moment and go. Your ownership remains. Your ego doesn’t tremble; it stays enthroned. They don’t hurt your ego. This taste is greater than ego—hence the question, “What is it? Be prudent, calculate, find out for sure, and only then enter it.” But if you try to make it sure first, you will never be able to enter. And without entering, no one has ever found out for sure.

So decide now. If you want certainty, then step in—don’t ask. If you want to keep asking and inquiring, one thing is certain: you will never know for sure. Because you will never be able to enter. Intellect obstructs mightily. Wherever there is an opportunity to meet the divine, intellect blocks the way. Wherever there is a chance to meet the trivial, intellect is very helpful. Intellect is the servant, the maid, of the trivial. Recognize this truth.

When a rasa arises in meditation, people come to me saying, “What is happening?” They come frightened, not delighted. The rasa is there, but worry shows on their faces. What worry has seized them? What has disturbed them? They had come for meditation, to taste its rasa—that’s why they came to me—and when it begins, they become very restless. The reason? It is such an unknown rasa that it doesn’t match your old knowing. It is so novel, so unknown, that you have neither a scale to weigh it nor a touchstone to test it. All that you’ve known till now becomes irrelevant. And that is what you use to measure and judge—what you have known so far. You have known many tastes, but not the taste of meditation. Now that this taste has come, you have neither a scale nor a language. Where will you place it? In which category? What label will you put? Which box will you seat it in? Your categories fall short. Your boxes prove too small. And this creates a restlessness.

Man becomes very uneasy when he cannot put a label. The moment he pastes a label, he relaxes—he feels he has known it. You see a flower—you begin to feel uneasy. Someone says it’s a rose, or champa, or jasmine—you are at ease, as if you’ve known it. What did you know by the word “rose”? If someone says “champa,” what did you really learn?

You travel by train; a man is seated next to you, a stranger. You quickly begin to feel uneasy. Leaving him a stranger doesn’t feel safe. He could be a thief, a hoodlum, who knows what kind of man. You ask, “Where are you going?” You start the chain. He too is waiting to ask, “Where are you headed? From where? What’s your work? Your name?” In this way you try to find out in detail what sort of man he is, what he does. If he says, “I am a shopkeeper,” you feel a bit at ease. If he says, “I’m a thief,” you slide a little away—even though it’s only a word. And who knows—a thief can say “I’m a shopkeeper”; often he will. If he says, “I’m a Brahmin,” you move closer—maybe you are a Brahmin too. If he says, “I’m a Shudra,” the connection snaps. Conversation ends. A label has been fixed. You feel you know, and that’s that.

Once it happened, I boarded a train in Bombay. Many friends had come to see me off. In the air-conditioned coach there was another gentleman. He saw so many people at the platform and must have thought “a holy man.” As soon as I entered, he prostrated full length and touched my feet. I said, “Brother, you’re making a big mistake. First ask who I am.” He was a bit nonplussed—who says such a thing? He asked, “Who are you?” I said, “I am a Muslim.” My beard gave him a little reason to believe me. That was bad—he had touched a Muslim’s feet. He was a Brahmin. He sat down, somewhat dejected. Then he tried to reassure himself, “No, no—you are joking. You can’t be a Muslim. Among those who came to see you off, none looked Muslim. No, no—you’re joking.” So I said, “I am joking.” He quickly came and sat beside me, began asking about knowledge. A little later I said, “Will you have some liquor and such?” He said, “What do you mean? Being a holy man...!” I said, “Who is watching here? Have a drink.” He had come over to my seat; he quickly got up, went back to his own seat, and said, “What kind of man are you?” He stopped talking of Brahman-knowledge and started reading his newspaper—a paper he had already read many times. He used the paper merely to shield himself so he wouldn’t have to see me. I said, “Brother, let it be. I’m only joking. What liquor! I was speaking of the rasa of the divine. I was asking, will you drink some of God’s wine?” He said, “Now I understand. You also give quite a shove and scare one.” He came and sat with me again.

Such a man lives by labels—as if words are everything, everything is contained in them. Once a label is stuck, done—relax. When I joked again, he got frightened. At Igatpuri, when the ticket collector came, he went out and said, “Give me another compartment. This man seems peculiar—he keeps changing. I cannot sleep here at night. I feel a little uneasy.” He changed compartments.

From then I learned a trick. Whenever I wanted to be alone—because I used to travel a lot, twenty days a month—the train was my only respite from crowds. That day I learned the trick. Thereafter, if I needed someone to vacate the coach—very easy. They would move of their own. I didn’t need to say a word.

You have a past—your stock of information. You have a chain of words. Whenever something new happens, you want to fit it somewhere in your past knowledge. If it fits, you feel settled, no restlessness. If it doesn’t, trouble begins.

So when the taste of meditation comes, you will land in trouble. It is not the taste of ice cream, nor of liquor, nor of love, nor of beauty. It is not any taste you have known. It is a very unique rasa. And it doesn’t happen on your tongue; it happens in your whole being. From the head to the toes it vibrates. It is something else altogether. It can drive you mad. You will be very alarmed.

This vision, this experience, this mood-state is so new that your mind begins to raise a thousand questions. Mind says: doubt, suspect, put question marks; don’t go further. Aren’t you going mad? Aren’t you dreaming? Aren’t you being deluded? Has someone hypnotized you? Let’s return to the old world. It was known—painful, yes, but at least familiar. Man doesn’t want to go beyond the bounds of the familiar.

So Pushpa, if a taste arises such as you have never known, then don’t raise questions. In a questionless state, savor it. Drop the past. Grasp the future. Take the hand of the unknown. A seeker has to walk the unfamiliar path. Life is not railway tracks—running bound, from one station to another, getting shunted. Life is a quest for the vast unknown. Life is like a river born in the Himalayas—who knows where it will go? What path it will take? Into what ravines will it fall? Across what plains will it pass? With which rivers will it merge? Which springs will it absorb? Which ghats will it cross? Through what people will it flow? Into which ocean will it enter? Nothing is known. There are no railway tracks to run upon with a timetable. The search and growth of life are unknown. Keep leaving the known; keep stepping into the unknown.

Darkness cannot come at all, because darkness is not. To come, it would first have to be. Darkness neither comes nor goes. Darkness does not even exist. Darkness is only the absence of light. The presence or absence of darkness depends upon the presence or absence of light.

When you say “darkness,” you are not really saying that there is some thing like darkness; you are only saying that light is not. Understand this correctly. Language creates the difficulty. Language raises great delusions. You say “there is darkness”—it then sounds as if, just as there is a chair, a house, a temple, so too there is darkness. The language is the same: there is a chair, there is a house, there is a temple, there is darkness. Then you begin to ask: Where is darkness? What is darkness like? How much does darkness weigh? From where does it come, where does it go? Language has created the whole confusion.

When you say “there is darkness,” it only means this much: there is no light—nothing more. There can be no other meaning. There is no substance to darkness, no being to it. Darkness has no existence. That is why you cannot drive darkness out. Your room is full of darkness—bring a sword and fall upon the darkness—Wah Guruji ka Khalsa!—and start hacking at it, start shoving it to push it out. You will achieve nothing. The darkness will remain where it is; you will not be able to push it out, nor cut it with a sword. It is not. How will you cut what is not? How will you shove it? You can call in Dara Singh, or even Muhammad Ali—force will not do here. Whoever uses force will be defeated. Whoever pushes will be beaten, will break down, will slacken, grow tired, and fall. And when Dara Singh has fallen from pushing and pushing, he too will think, “This darkness is very strong. It has beaten me. It won’t go. It is more powerful than I am.”

No—there is no strength in darkness, no force in it. No condition is more impotent than darkness. Darkness simply is not. So what to do? Just bring a lamp, bring light, and the darkness goes. Darkness cannot be expelled. Or suppose you want to throw darkness into an enemy’s house—you cannot. You cannot fill a basket with darkness and dump it into your neighbor’s house: “Here, son, now suffer!” You cannot bring darkness in a basket, nor can you put it into anyone’s house.

If you want to do anything with darkness, you will have to do something with light. Keep this in mind. Nothing can be done directly with darkness. If you want darkness, put out the light. If you want to remove darkness, light the lamp. Light is; darkness is not. Darkness is only absence.

Exactly the same is the case with truth and untruth. Truth is; untruth is an absence. Untruth does not exist. That is precisely why it is called untruth—because it is not, a-sat. We call it untruth because it is not. It is not there in itself, it is only the absence of truth. Therefore those who fight with untruth will be defeated—badly defeated. Do not fight untruth; light the lamp of truth. Do not fight evil; light the lamp of goodness. Do not fight sin; light the lamp of virtue. Do not fight the world; call upon the divine.

This is my fundamental basis. Do not fight the world at all, because the world does not exist; it is only the absence of the divine. Do not fight the shop; seek the temple. Do not fight with your wife, do not fight with your children; seek meditation. Do not run away from the world; seek sannyas. When sannyas arrives, the world is not. And you may remain in the shop, remain in the house—it makes no difference. That is why Dariya has said that whether one is a householder or a sannyasin, it makes no difference. Let the inner lamp be lit.

Be affirmative. Do not go on grappling with the negative. That struggle is wrong; in it there is only loss, only defeat. One becomes a victor only with the affirmative.

“What is, is. That alone is truth; then where has untruth come from, which is not?”
Untruth has neither come nor gone. Untruth is not. When truth is hidden, there appears to be untruth. When truth is revealed, untruth is no more.

Enough for today.