Karuna Aur Kranti #1

My beloved Atman!

On a mountain path, from early morning, there is a great crowd. The sun rose later; people were already on the way. The crowd is vast — the whole village, and the small hamlets around it, are running toward the hill. Yet the crowd is deeply sad. Surely no fair is being held; it is no festival of joy. Eyes are downcast, and it seems as if heavy stones have been placed upon their very life-breath. In that crowd there are three others, carrying their crosses upon their shoulders. The crowd has reached the top.

It is a bitter irony — to have to carry one’s own cross. They themselves had to plant those crosses as well. The three have fixed their crosses in the ground. And then, before that mournful crowd, all three are hung upon them. One among them is familiar — Mary’s son, Jesus. The other two are utterly nameless; no one seems to know who they are. They say the two were thieves. Two thieves — and between them Jesus — all three are crucified. Nails have been driven through their hands. A crown of thorns has been placed upon Jesus’ head. And whoever looks into Jesus’ eyes finds that sorrow, pain, and desolation have taken form.

This event happened long ago. Yet it feels strangely timely — utterly contemporary. To imagine Krishna playing the flute, dancing — even to think it has become difficult. Such a being seems as if he never was. Perhaps he may come in the future, because human lips have forgotten how to sing; what to say of playing the flute. So Krishna appears dream-like, a fantasy. Buddha’s serene image too seems like our aspiration. But Jesus seems very contemporary. It does not feel as though this man was crucified two thousand years ago; it feels as though, next door, this man is still hanging upon the cross.

There are reasons for this nearness to Jesus. The great reason is this: that day, one man hung upon a cross; today, gradually, all of humanity has been hung upon its crosses. Some crosses are visible; some are unseen. The visible crosses one may even avoid; the invisible, it is very hard to escape.

What happened that morning brings other things to mind. First of all: Jesus carried his own cross up that hill. Each of us is carrying his own cross. We ourselves fashion them, then bear them our whole life — and in the end, hanging upon our own cross, we die. If this happened to one or two, one might understand; but if it has happened to the whole of humanity, it is a great question.

Never has man been as sad and as miserable as he is now. The birds, seeing us, must wonder: Man seems to have lost his way. They must fly in the sky and feel pity for us, feel compassion. Surely, among plants too there must be talk about man having gone astray, become distorted.

Across the earth — from moon and stars down to the tiny pebbles lying along a stream — a current of joy seems to flow. Only in the human heart has a desert arisen. No stream reaches there; or if it does, it dries up. Man stands alone as an unhinged creature. We alone are mad! And it is not that a few are mad — no; all of us are mad.

We have made two forms of our madness. One kind that can still somehow adjust, make an arrangement with life. And another kind that can no longer adjust to life at all.

There are two kinds of mad. One who wedges himself into society’s madness and gets along. And the other who cannot fit into society’s madness, and for him we must build a separate asylum.

The ground has been divided into two madhouses: one small, within walls; one large, outside walls — spread over the whole earth.

If we peep into each person, we will realize the difficulty, the anxiety with which we live. It is not that we do not smile — from morning to evening we do, many times. But most of our smiles are nothing but attempts to conceal our tears. Nor is it that we do not sing — yet in every song we smother the echo of our sobbing. Nor is it that we do not appear cheerful outwardly — our cheer is only on the surface; deep within, a very forlorn soul sits.

If a person looks within, he will be filled with compassion for himself. And until we are filled with compassion for ourselves, we cannot be filled with compassion for our neighbor. Until our own cross becomes visible, we cannot see that all around everyone is hanging on theirs. To the one who sees his own cross, the neighbor’s too becomes visible.

But we refuse to look at our own cross; and so there is no way to see the neighbor’s. We are able to be hard toward others because we have not yet become compassionate toward ourselves. We cannot be moved to compassion for others, because we have not yet been moved to compassion for ourselves. We have not yet gathered the courage to look at our own state — as we are, what we are. Perhaps we are afraid — that if we see ourselves, living may become even more difficult. So we keep trying to forget ourselves.

Many have adorned their crosses with gold and silver ornaments. Many have pasted colored flowers upon their crosses. Many have sprinkled perfume upon their crosses — so that even the cross may seem sweet. We are busy trying to forget that crosses are crosses! We take chains to be ornaments. We have mistaken the cross for life. And, slowly deceiving ourselves, we have turned our tears into something that looks like smiles. We have arranged many devices to forget our cross. And the stronger, heavier the cross becomes, the deeper the nails are driven into our hands — the more intense become our efforts to forget it.

As man becomes civilized, he seeks means of entertainment. As he becomes civilized, he seeks new intoxicants. As he becomes civilized, he devises new arrangements to forget himself — new ways to be absent to himself. So every day the means of entertainment, of forgetting, of drinking multiply — so that we do not come to know of our cross. But whether or not we know it, whether we forget or not — even if a man hanging on a cross drinks wine while hanging — the cross remains a cross. The cross is there, and we are upon it.

As we grow civilized, it seems our madness approaches its boiling point. And it would not be surprising if the whole human race one day felt: let us finish ourselves. Many, many times individuals have felt so. Some have committed suicide. Gradually the number of suicides has spread, has increased. It may be that one day humanity takes a collective decision: let us end ourselves. The arrangements… we have made them. Whenever we decide, they can be brought to practical use. We possess the means to annihilate all of humanity.

Why is man so eager — so impatient — to move toward self-destruction? Have you ever considered: surely somewhere our relationship with life has been broken. Our ties with life have been severed. We are cut off from life. Our link with the source has snapped. We live dead lives — sad, dry — like a plant whose roots have lost contact with the soil. The plant remains, but its leaves wither, its flowers droop, its buds stop flowering. Such is man’s condition. Our roots have been shaken from somewhere.

Who shook these roots? Who is responsible?

If we do not search out the causes, it may be that the hour grows too late and it becomes difficult to save man.

In these three or four days I wish to speak with you about those roots, those basic reasons that have brought man to such a state — impoverished, defeated, vanquished, meaningless. That is why friends have asked me to speak on Compassion and Revolution.

Compassion and Revolution — to my ear, such a pairing of words does not sound right. I feel: Compassion is Revolution. Compassion means Revolution. Not Compassion and Revolution — Compassion means Revolution. Not that there will be compassion — and then revolution. Where compassion arises, revolution is inevitable. Revolution is nothing more than the shadow cast by compassion. And the revolution that comes without compassion will be very dangerous. Many such revolutions have already come. The diseases they remove are replaced by even greater ones.

All the revolutions till now have failed.

Man has made great efforts to create a society of joy. Many efforts — that man may be happy. Many efforts — that flowers may blossom in life. Yet until now they have not succeeded, because the revolutions were born of anger, not of compassion.

Any revolution born of anger can break, but cannot build. Anger can lead to destruction, but not to creation. And anger cannot enter very deep — where the roots of man’s illness lie. It can lop off leaves, shake the tree, break some branches — but it cannot reach the roots. Even before such revolutions end, new leaves sprout, new branches appear; in fact, each revolution becomes a cutting, and the old tree grows denser, larger, because its roots within the earth remain intact.

From anger, we can distribute wealth. Wealth may indeed be distributed. But why did people get possessed by the madness to accumulate? If we do not go to that deep root, then perhaps the wealth will be divided — but man will remain the same man who was the accumulator. He will begin hoarding the same thing he hoarded in money, now in other forms. In Russia it happened so. In China it will. Wherever, across the world, events have taken place in the name of revolution, so it is happening.

The man who gathered money to acquire ego — his basic disease was not money; his basic disease was ego. If he had money, he could say, I am somebody. That man found new routes. Now he does not accumulate wealth; he seizes the state. And still his old illness stands, where it stood: the same stiffness, the same assertion — I am somebody. Now he does not seize wealth, but he seizes power. Now he does not make the other poor, but he makes him powerless. And the matter remains the same — the gulf between poor and rich becomes the gulf between weak and strong. And nothing truly changes.

In the last five thousand years, many revolutions have occurred — but all were born of anger, and so they failed. In truth, anger cannot go very deep, because, in the state of anger, depth itself is impossible. Only compassion can go deep. Anger sees from above. It breaks the causes on the surface, but it neither sees the inner causes nor has the power to descend that deep.

To me, compassion is revolution. If compassion arises, revolution follows of its own accord.

And the great wonder is this: where compassion is, there will be compassion not only for the poor but also for the rich — because rich and poor are two forms of the same illness. Where compassion is, it is not only for the bad; it is also for the good — because good and bad are two forms of the same illness. Compassion will descend into the very depths of man’s entire history, his entire culture, his entire unconscious, and will inquire: from where do the roots of all disease arise? Its vision will be to transform those roots. Compassion will not cut from above; it will seek to change from below, at the roots. Therefore I do not prefer to think in the language of Compassion and Revolution. Compassion is revolution.

Once compassion is born, we cannot remain who we were yesterday. Nor can we allow life to remain what it was yesterday. If I see your foot moving toward a pit, I will do everything I can to prevent it. And if I also come to know that when you fall, I too shall fall with you — because life is together, in communion — then all the more.

Here, when one man falls into a pit, in some sense we all fall with him. When one man goes blind, in some sense we all become blind. When one grows ugly, we all become ugly. When one becomes destitute, the whole of humanity becomes destitute. Life on this earth is a single cooperation. Here we hold hands. Here we do not stand alone — nor, even if we wish, can we stand alone. Life is cooperation. Whatever happens here, happens for all.

So if I understand where life’s diseases arise from, how life has become a great disease, how man himself has become a great disease — then this seeing, this understanding, brings a deep compassion. And behind that compassion, revolution comes as a shadow follows a man. One need not bring the shadow; it comes.

Any revolution that must be brought will be wrong — because a brought revolution is forced, imposed. Behind such a revolution, inevitably, there will be violence. And who will bring it — and upon whom? Revolution should come. Enough revolutions have been brought. They do nothing. Revolution should come; it should be a happening. It should unfold within life.

How will it?

It can unfold through compassion. Where compassion comes, revolution comes by itself. So first it is necessary to consider compassion — then we will be able to think about revolution too.

Why has man become a disease?

Surely somewhere a mistake has been made. The mistake lies in the very organization of man — not of society, but of man. The foundations upon which we have raised man are wrong. Each person has gone wrong, and thus the whole sum has gone wrong. And as long as each person remains wrong, it is impossible to set right the whole sum. Man has gone wrong. Society and culture are consequences of the wrong man.

Where has man gone wrong?

Today, upon the first sutra, I would like to speak — where has man gone wrong?

The first sutra I would tell you is this: man did not dare to be natural. That became his fundamental mistake. Man has tried to become something other than what he is. Animals are animals, birds are birds, plants are plants. If a rose has thorns, it does not fret about becoming thornless. It accepts its thorns, and it accepts its flower. In its acceptance there is neither enmity toward the thorns nor special love for the flower. Its acceptance contains both — thorns and flowers. Therefore the rose is content — nothing needs be cut off. No bird denies one wing and accepts the other. No animal breaks its life in half — it accepts it whole.

Man has not accepted life in its entirety — the life that has been given. He imposes conditions and says: life should be such, then I will accept. Man is afflicted with the mad craving to be otherwise. What he can be, he is unwilling to be; he wants to be something else. He says: these thorns should not be within me. He says: this evil should not be within me. Anger should not be, lust should not be, sex should not be — all these parts should not be. Only love should be, forgiveness should be, faith should be. The rest, which we have declared wrong, should not be.

But man is an aggregate, a totality. He contains thorns and flowers. If we decide that thorns should not be, our entire energy will be spent in breaking thorns. The person busy breaking thorns cannot eliminate them — for they arise afresh, from his very being, from his existence. He will break them from above; they will appear from within. And the consciousness entangled with thorns may be unable to bear flowers at all.

Man has tried to be unnatural. We are unwilling to be natural. Our whole culture and civilization is an attempt to be unnatural: not as we are — we must be something else! This race to become other has destroyed our nature, our spontaneity. We have all become sick.

To recognize this sickness, first ask: can we ever be peaceful and blissful without being natural? Can anyone be blissful until he becomes natural — until he becomes what all of life wants him to be?

A woman came to me. Now, to call her young is difficult — she is grown, perhaps forty. She never married. She did not, because her belief is that love should be soul to soul; the body must not come in between. The body is sin. For forty years she has restrained herself, has not allowed the body to come between. She kept the body out — so love too never came to her door. Because if love comes, it will knock at the body’s door.

If a guest comes to your house and you say to him: do not climb the steps, do not pass the walls. You are invited within, but do not touch the outer walls and do not enter by the door. How will the guest come? He will not come.

For forty years the guest did not come. But now, by misfortune — or good fortune — she has fallen in love. And she is in great difficulty. She came to me and said: I am in deep trouble; I will commit suicide. For I believe love should be spiritual, body must not come in. Now love has come — and the body comes in between. I want to touch my lover — and that is a sin beyond measure.

I asked her: do you eat spiritually or physically?

She said: eating has to be physical.

I said: then begin spiritual eating, and stop physical food — since the body is sin. And your clothes — do you wear them on the body, or on the soul?

She said: clothes must be worn on the body.

I said: unnecessarily you bring the body in — you should wear them upon the soul.

She said: but clothes must be worn upon the body.

Food will be eaten by the body, breath will be taken by the body, blood will be made by the body; life will stand on the body’s foundation. But filled with foolish doctrines, she says: do not accept the body in love.

Her life has become a torment, because she has divided herself in two — one part to be denied, one part to be accepted. And the two parts she names as two are parts of the same person. Body and soul are not two enemies.

Truth is: that portion of the soul which falls within the reach of our senses is the body. And that portion of the soul which does not fall within the reach of our senses is soul. One may say the portion of the soul that becomes visible is body; and the portion of the body that is invisible is soul. They are the two poles of a single existence.

Yet her trouble was great. She said: I cannot accept this. I cannot take the body in between; the body is sin. I said: then living itself is sin, for one cannot live a single moment without the body. I explained a long time and said: both are joined, both together.

And when one touches someone’s body lovingly, he does not touch merely the body. When one takes someone’s body close in love, the body is not found — and if the body is found, then there is a sickness in that person’s mind; he has split himself in two.

She began to understand. Then she said: I can also see that body and soul are one. But the upper portion of the body is pure, and the lower portion is impure. I asked: where is that boundary line from which the upper begins and the lower ends? Where is it? At what place does the body split — pure body here, impure there? The body is a whole. Blood does not care; it runs everywhere. Breath does not care; it flows everywhere. Hands, feet, head — all are equal for the body. There is no sacred and no profane, no pure and impure.

But she made a new division: the lower is unholy. If at most I can accept, I will accept the upper body. Now she created another split. One division was body and soul — accept the soul, reject the body. These are the signs of sickness — of becoming schizophrenic. Such a person will slowly go mad, split in two.

Barely persuaded to accept body and soul as one, she divides the body into two — lower and upper! If she does not go mad, what else will happen?

We have done the same with our whole being. We have not accepted man as he naturally is. This does not mean we have changed by rejecting. By rejecting we have only driven the natural man within, and brought a false man to the surface — the one we accept. We have all become hypocrites. Upon our faces we wear what we have imposed, and into the dark corners of the unconscious we have pushed who we are. From within, he keeps pushing — at every moment he insists upon himself. From within, what we have repressed keeps working. It is hard to be rid of it. It finds new ways and continues its work — for the natural cannot be cut off forever.

What is natural cannot be destroyed. It remains — inevitably. It remains hidden. And hidden, it splits you in two. One becomes your conscious world; the other, your unconscious. Between them stands a great wall. Going across it ends. We never look back to see how much of ourselves we have locked behind. And if I have pinned one hand behind and left the other outside, do you think I can ever be free of the trapped hand? With the trapped hand, my free hand too is bound. I become a prisoner, and to get out becomes very difficult. That is why all the sparkle of life, the bliss, is lost — because man has broken himself into pieces.

Whole, man can be blissful. In pieces, man becomes sad. In fragments, man becomes anxious.

What does anxiety mean?

Anxiety means this alone: inside you have split yourself into parts that oppose each other. Nothing else. The anxious man is one divided into warring parts — fighting himself. If a man begins to fight himself, divides himself into fragments and makes them enemies — if I make my two hands fight, who wins, who loses? Only I will go on breaking and be destroyed.

We are all anxious, full of tension, because we have not accepted the whole man. As Nature made man, as the Divine gave him birth, we have not accepted him. We have denied some parts, opposed some, repressed some, raised some — and within us a great restlessness has arisen. Hence our sadness, our derangement, our madness. Our own inner world stands against us — and we stand against our inner world. From rising to sleeping, we are fighting ourselves.

A man speaks lofty words — give him wine, he begins to hurl abuse. Does wine contain such chemicals as to produce abuse in a man? There is no power in wine to produce abuse. But the man was speaking nicely, singing hymns — we gave him wine, he began to swear. Inside, he is full of abuse. With hymns he was suppressing them. The wine relaxed the mind that sang hymns; lulled it to sleep. The mind that was abusive surfaced — and began its ranting.

Therefore the so-called decent man fears to drink; one reason is this. Within him sits the rogue — he could appear. The decent man is very frightened. He never relaxes — for if he relaxes even a little, the inner man emerges. So he remains taut, on guard — lest a moment come when the repressed may slip out.

Thus the decent man invents other devices. If he must abuse, he invents Holi. He creates the festival of Holi, sanctifies abuse — then he can abuse; now even abuse is holy. He will shout at your door, and you will say: it is Holi, do not mind. The decent man invented Holi — the rogue had no need for it.

Then the decent man devises more ways to express his inner sickness. He will joke, he will be sarcastic. If you survey the world’s jokes, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be about sex. The decent man will joke — and apart from sex there will be nothing to joke about. But since it is a joke, none will take it seriously.

To raise sex in jest is the sign of an inner disease. Then the decent man will watch films full of sex, full of murder — read novels, detective stories. No difficulty arises, because it does not appear as an obstacle. But what is he seeing in the film? Exactly what he wants to see. It appears on the screen — he finds great relief. He searches for new paths to that relief. That is why the literature of the decent is filled with sensuality; all poems circle back to what the decent have fled; all songs return to what the decent have denied.

And the decent man seeks new ways to fight — he will set Hindus and Muslims to fight. He cannot fight directly; he will not say: come, I feel like fighting, let’s settle it. No. He will seek a device: the holy cow has been insulted; then he can fight. Someone has injured the Quran; someone’s foot touched the Ramayana; a temple idol has broken. For the decent man even to fight requires a noble reason — then he will come out to fight. Now he can fight with gusto, for he has taken a religious cover. He will search for respectable covers to express his inner ailments — and if he cannot express them, he will go mad.

Madness means this: what could not be expressed demanded so strongly that no path remained except madness. Then a man goes mad and we pity him. We do not say he is bad. If a madman abuses in the street, we say: poor fellow, he is mad. But how did he go mad? Are we not all traveling the same road — to arrive at the same place? Are not the same diseases being nursed in all of us?

For five thousand years of known history, man has been taught to be good. Has man become good? What goodness has come? Prisons are full of prisoners. Asylums are full of the mad. Hospitals are full of the sick. Every home is full of quarrel and disturbance. And our whole life has been hidden behind many veils — it is hard to see it plainly. If for one day we decided that everyone would behave exactly as he feels, we would see that life is very different from how it appears. We have all concealed ourselves.

But the hidden man continues his work from within. Therefore every ten or fifteen years there must be a war; every two, three, five years, there must be riots; every day some small turbulence — so that the inner, hidden man gets some satisfaction too.

If we look at human history, we can say: man is a fighting animal. No animal fights as much. Animals do fight, but not like man. Nor do they keep on fighting. And they never prepare in advance. Man either fights, or prepares to fight.

There are only two periods in history: war, and preparation for war. No period of peace. When the preparation runs, we say: this is a time of peace. It is not. The last war has drained our strength; we prepare anew. During so-called peace, we prepare for the next war.

In the morning the husband left in anger; at noon he is very calm. Be careful — it is no calm. He is preparing for evening rage. In the morning the mother scolded the son; at noon she shows great love. It is the morning’s repentance, and she is returning to her place. All repentance are measures to wipe out our mistakes, so that we can stand again on the old ground and repeat what was done before the repentance. If I have abused you, I will come to ask forgiveness. It means: keep the friendship going, so I can abuse you again tomorrow. If the friendship breaks, how will I abuse? So I will ask forgiveness, and tomorrow I will do the same. I will repent, and tomorrow there will be the same anger, the same hatred. Tomorrow all will be the same.

It is necessary to reflect on man’s condition. Why is man so sick, so diseased? Behind his love stands hatred. He hates whom he loves. He even thinks of killing the one he loves; he wishes for his death.

A woman’s husband died some years ago. She came to me and wept. I said: do not weep, because I know your husband, and I know you. And I must ask something that may sound harsh, yet I must ask: when your husband was alive, were you happy that he lived? If you were not happy that he lived, what is the reason to weep now that he is dead?

Her tears dried at once, as if shocked — and it was a shock. Her husband has died, and I say such a thing — she had not come expecting this. She had come expecting consolation: I would soothe and comfort her, say it is very bad. She never thought I would ask: when he was alive, were you happy for his living? And if you were not, what connection has weeping with his dying?

Her tears dried. At first she looked at me in anger; then she softened, and began to weep again — a different weeping. She said: I had no idea; but you have touched the wound. While he lived, I was not at all happy. And you are right — many times I must have thought it would be better if he died, or I. Then why am I weeping? I ask you — why am I weeping? If I was not happy in his living, why do I weep at his dying?

Why is she weeping? Is it sorrow for his death? That could be only if there had been joy in his living — but there was not. Then what is it? What is making her weep?

A space has opened within. Even an enemy fills a space within us; when an enemy dies, a little space opens. When a friend dies, it does — and when an enemy dies, your world is not what it was yesterday. All is reshuffled.

With the husband’s death, all changed. The life of yesterday will not be tomorrow; yesterday’s sorrows will not be tomorrow — there were no joys anyway — even yesterday’s sorrows will not be; yesterday’s anxieties will not be. Yesterday has collapsed. With the husband, a world fell. And our courage to create a new world is so little — thus we weep. But these are not tears for a lost joy — there was no joy.

You come to know for the first time that someone’s life gave you joy only when he dies. Before that, you do not know. While the person is with you, you look elsewhere. While the wife is with you, she is not endearing; tomorrow she may die, and you may weep all your life. While the husband is with you, he is meaningless; later, you worship his picture.

What is man? The one he loves, he hates too! The one he wants to save, he kills too! And there are tricks for killing as well as for saving. A mother wants to save her son, works and labors for him — and simultaneously she kills him. She cannot tolerate his freedom. She feeds and serves him — and she kills his freedom completely. All her life she will wish that he remain dependent; whenever he suffers he should lay his head in her lap — never grow so big that her lap seems useless. This desire runs alongside.

These two desires are contradictory. She wants him to grow — and an essential part of growth is that he become independent. Yet she wants to keep him small, dependent. She kills him and gives him life together. And she does not know. And the son will take his revenge — for he senses she is trying to erase him. Hence, twofold feelings arise toward the mother — he loves and he hates. He loves her because she gives life, milk, growth; he hates her because she snatches away freedom, wipes out his person, will not let him stand separate. Both grow together. He will love, and he will hate. Later, hatred may manifest; today there is love; in old age the hatred may come up.

A father raises his son — and fears him. In the son he sees his potential enemy, his basic foe — for tomorrow this son will own all the safes and keys. So deep within, he is afraid. He wants to ensure the son moves exactly as he wishes. That the keys may be in the son’s hand, but the desires within may be the father’s — so that the safes open and close by the father’s will. Hence the father strives to make the son obedient. Before the keys pass to the son, the son must become totally obedient. Then the keys may be in his hands, but the hands will move at our command. He tries to arrange everything. He fears: if the son becomes rebellious, the whole power will slip into his hands. So the father fears and loves at once — both together.

How can love and fear exist together? The son also sees both — that the father loves, and that he fears. And because of fear, the father frightens the son — to keep him fearful. Before the father can be frightened, he wishes to frighten the son — that he remain afraid for life and never frighten the father. So he frightens the son; the son hates — for whom we fear, we hate.

We have woven a net over life. The one we love, we want to hold in the fist — to possess, to be master of. Husband means master. Hence the wife calls him swami; and when she writes swami, he delights. She signs beneath: your slave.

The ones we love, we want to turn into slaves. And in slavery, can love be? If one becomes our slave, can he love us? If I press a neck, and say: give me love, I can give everything — life itself — but love becomes impossible, for love cannot be taken by force. Yet husbands are extorting love from wives; wives from husbands; mothers from sons; sons from mothers; fathers from sons; friends from friends.

We are all extorting love. And because of this, each is clutching the other — lest someone else snatch him away, let me squeeze out the last drop. When we possess each other so harshly, become owners — know this: the one we would own stops being a person and becomes a thing. Only things can be possessed. I can own a chair, not a person. I can own a house, not a woman.

But if I try to own a woman, know well: the woman will become property. She will no longer be a person. Thus women have become property. In our land, we even say: stri-sampatti — woman-property. We have made her part of property. Whatever we seize becomes property — its soul is lost. Where there is soul, there is freedom. What madness is this! If we want love, we must drop possession. If we want love, never be anyone’s owner. If we want love, never turn a person into a thing. Give the person soul.

Yet we first make the arrangements to seize — and only afterward love. Therefore love comes later, marriage first. Marriage is the prior arrangement to seize completely — then love. Marriage announces: now escape is impossible. Possession is total, legal. If anyone runs, law and society will bear witness. Hence so much noise — bands and drums — so the whole village knows. So many invitations — to inform: now we are bound; the whole village knows; you cannot run. The whole world knows; you cannot run. It must be written in the register; or the priest makes a loud hullabaloo, so the village is informed. Relatives and friends gather, so all may know: these two are bound — now they cannot flee.

In a good world, this noise will seem madness. In a good world, love is between two; society need not make noise. Bands and drums are absurd — meaningless. Why are they needed? They have been needed because bondage must be made a social contract — society must witness: this is done; now you cannot run, you two are bound. The oath must be taken before society.

We are more eager for marriage than for love — because in marriage we become owners; in love, no one owns anyone.

In love, two persons are free.

Only in freedom can love’s flowers bloom.

Society has become poor and thin in love because we tried to wrest it by force — it could not arise. Without the flowering of love in life, man cannot be healthy, cannot be blissful, cannot be cheerful. Hence a little cheer is seen in small children — but as life advances, it fades. Slowly, by old age, man has died long before dying. Much of our existence is postmortem; we are dead, and the corpse goes on walking.

Behind this sickly state of mind stands one cause I wish to tell you today: we have rejected the ease, the naturalness of life; we have not given acceptance to the natural man. I take the first mark of a theist to be this: whatever Nature has given, he accepts totally. Acceptance is his first sign — total acceptability; a full yes to all that is within me.

This does not mean I am saying: if you feel like murder, murder; if you want to set fire to a house, do it. In truth, because you have rejected parts of yourself, therefore you do murder and set fires. Had you not rejected any part, you would have come upon that harmony, that music, in which murder and arson are impossible. You could have attained the harmony that you have not attained.

A man setting fire is news that he is deranged. A man killing another is news that he is not in his senses. Some part of him is doing it of which he himself is unaware — over which he has lost ownership. He has driven parts so deep that one day they overpower him — and make him burn, make him kill.

In courts, many murderers say: we do not know how we did it; we do not remember doing it. Magistrates once thought this was falsehood; psychologists now say it is not. Some murderers, after murdering, forget they have done it — for that part within them did it with which they had long ago severed their ties. Their identity with the inner killer had broken. They do not recall: we did this. Somehow it happened. We did not do it. When they come to their senses… If you kill someone in a dream at night, you do not say in the morning, I have killed. You say: it was a dream. It happened in a dream.

If you have pressed such parts within, they can surface anytime.

In Ahmedabad, such parts surfaced. Names and excuses can be anything. A friend told me he saw with his own eyes five or six people burned alive together; there was a small child among them. The child half burned, tried to run; the crowd shoved him back into the flames. Those five or six were burned alive. The crowd watched to see that none escaped, none half-burned slipped out. Then the crowd dispersed; the half-burned bodies lay there, writhing, screaming, beating limbs — and no one remained to look.

Do not think those who did it are other than you or me. As long as we think in that language — these are some other people, hoodlums, scoundrels — we will reach wrong conclusions. This is us — and a part within us can do this. Look within and see: could the urge to do such a thing arise within you sometime? In some situation, it may surge. You may even say: I could never do such a thing. Those who did — before doing, they too said so; and afterward, if asked today, they will say: we do not understand how, in the mob-frenzy, we joined; we do not understand. But we were only with them; we ourselves did nothing.

I too could be with them; you too. We could do it. Within us sits a raw, broken man — utterly unrefined, primitive, wild — and we have raised thick walls and left him behind. No way has come to transform him, to polish him, to shape him — because we denied he is ours.

When you say: anger came to me, forgive me, I erred — you speak as if anger were something outside that entered you. You say: anger came to me. But has anger ever come from outside? It is not something that drops from the sky; you stumbled upon it. We talk as though it came to us. No — when anger comes, it comes from within. Look deeper, and even this sentence is wrong: anger comes to me — whether from within or without. When you are angry, the truth is: you are anger. It is not that you do anger — you become anger. A part within expands and envelops you — and you are anger. When hatred seizes, you are hatred. When murder seizes, you are murder. This can be any of us.

All humanity suffers from the man broken into fragments.

Therefore the first sutra — we shall speak on it continually — how man may become whole.

Fragmented, man is sick. Whole, he can be healthy. In pieces, he will remain anxious. When all the pieces gather, become integrated, man can be beyond anxiety. Divided, man will remain sad, ill, troubled. Undivided, integrated, whole — man can be blissful, blossoming, cheerful. And remember: only the whole man can knock at the door of the Divine. Only the whole can meet the Whole. The incomplete cannot even set out on the journey to meet the Whole. This is the first sutra.

Whatever questions you have regarding this, write and give them.

And two or three notes about tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, from eight to nine, at the Birla Krida Kendra, friends will gather for meditation. There we will do some experiments so that meditation may happen. Only those should come who are not eager to listen, but eager to go — to move somewhere. There will be little talk there; it will be experiment.

Those who only wish to listen should not come there. Only those come whose restlessness is to go. Do not come without bathing; come bathed, fresh. Wear fresh clothes. And as you leave home, take up near-silence. If you must, speak a little; otherwise, remain quiet — so that by the time you arrive, a mood of silence has formed. Do not use the eyes much. While coming from home, keep the eyes closed as far as possible; if not, keep them only half-open; do not open fully. And do not read all the posters along the way. Dim the eyes. Best, keep them closed; or slightly open. Lips closed, no talking. Come quietly. On arriving, speak nothing; sit silently. According to the instructions I give, we shall experiment in the morning.

Write down whatever questions you have. Questions about meditation can be given in the morning; regarding the evening talks, in the evening.

I am obliged by the love and peace with which you have listened. Finally, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.