Kya Sove Tu Bavri #3

My view is quite strange. If you understand it, a new vision can open. When a person is seeking wealth, we usually think he is seeking something opposite to God. I don’t think so. I think he is seeking God. When a person seeks status, people think he is searching against God. I don’t think so. I think he is searching for God. And I see it this way…

Let us take a person—let me take you. If I ask you, “With how much money will you be satisfied?” your mind will immediately set a figure—and move beyond it, saying, “That won’t do.” Whatever number I suggest, your mind will say, “That won’t do.” What does this mean? It means: unless one gets infinite wealth, it will not do.

If I offer you the highest possible position and say, “Take this position; after this, ask for nothing more—make this your final ask,” you probably won’t be able to decide. In truth, without the supreme position it won’t do. In the search for position there is the search for the supreme station. In the search for wealth there is the search for infinite riches. In the search to inflate the ego there is the longing to be the Lord. No one’s ego will be satisfied without becoming God. These searches are going on. All of them are Godward. They lead toward the Infinite. Because from any of these…

People say desire is endless. I say, in truth, it is the desire for the Infinite. That desire is endless—yes; because within us is the longing for the Infinite. Without attaining the Infinite, we are not going to be fulfilled. We will stumble many times. We will try to satisfy ourselves with small, petty things. But the mind will say, “I am not satisfied.”

People say the mind is very lustful, greedy. I say: in truth, it will not be satisfied without the Supreme. That is why whenever we try to satisfy it at some small, petty stop, it says, “I am not satisfied.” This restlessness of the mind is quite wondrous. It is what leads into spiritual life.

Religious people condemn the mind’s restlessness; I take it as grace. Otherwise, no one would ever become religious. You would have settled down, satisfied, on any garbage heap. If money came, you would have felt content. But the mind is restless; it does not get satisfied. It keeps saying: “More, more.” Give it even the infinite, and it will still say: “More.” When, after running and running for lifetimes, you are exhausted—when, after being bruised on all sides, you return—when nothing finite can satisfy you, then you will see: in truth, my thirst has been to attain the Infinite Lord. I was searching for little things.

Before that thirst becomes clear, many knocks are necessary so that it can be seen. And the moment it is seen, the matter is complete.

Even now we are searching for That—searching for That very One. But we want to pacify ourselves with very little, to persuade our own mind. Our mind does not accept it.

That is why only the prosperous, prosperous nations, become religious. Impoverished nations do not. When India was affluent, it was religious. When it became impoverished and destitute, it ceased to be religious. In truth, when every kind of prosperity is present—as with Mahavira or Buddha—they had every kind of abundance. Surrounded by all prosperity, they discover, “I am unfulfilled.” Then the illusion breaks that prosperity can bring fulfillment—because prosperity is there; if it could, it would have. When, even in the presence of wealth, the mind is unfulfilled, at least this much is settled: wealth does not give fulfillment. Prosperity itself becomes the cause of breaking the illusion about prosperity, and then the thirst begins to search in a new realm.

The poor remain under the illusion that a little prosperity will bring fulfillment. Therefore the poor keep chasing contentment in small measures. But anyone who can understand—whether poor or rich—can grasp at least this much: without attaining the Infinite, the Supreme, the Ultimate, the mind will not be satisfied; therefore, let me attain the Ultimate itself. This wandering you speak of continues because we labor under the delusion that “perhaps this will satisfy, perhaps that will satisfy.” But each time, experience tells us: not from this.

To integrate this experience takes lifetimes. It is in our hands how long we prolong it. If we wish, we can awaken this very moment; if we wish, we can sleep on. It is in our hands.

So these desires do not appear to me as anti-God. They are all Godward, because within each is hidden the longing for That very One.

As I see it, mind is not an object—it is only a function. This fan is running. There is the fan’s moving state and there is its still state. When the fan stops, we do not ask where the “movement” went, because movement was not an object. Movement was simply an activity of the fan. The fan that was moving has become still. The being within us—its moving state is the mind, and its still state is the soul.

Yes, the two are opposites. Its moving condition, its dynamic state, is the mind; and its settled, vibrationless stillness is the soul. The mind is not a thing; the mind is activity. So as long as the consciousness within us is active, that accumulated stream of activities is called the mind. And when consciousness has become inactive and activities have dropped to zero, that inactive consciousness is called the soul. Active consciousness is mind; perfectly stilled, steady consciousness is the soul.

The soul neither deceives nor does it do anything opposite to deception, because it is inactive. Both are actions. The soul is neither trustworthy nor treacherous—both are actions. There, there is nothing. Both of these are functions of the mind. They are limbs of activity—truth and untruth; honesty and dishonesty; deception and non-deception. They all belong to the flowing condition of the mind...

In fact, when we use words, our words tend to be thing-indicating. For example, we say, “Fever.” This man has a fever. The word “fever” makes it seem as though there is some thing in him called fever. In reality, fever is not a thing; it is a specific function—a specific process of the body. A particular process has heated his body; we are calling that heat “fever.” We are naming the whole process “fever.” Fever is not an object.

Therefore, when this man gets well and the heat subsides, we cannot ask, “Where did the fever go?” because fever was never a thing. Fever was the name of a specific heated activity of the body, the activity of imbalance. When the fever becomes zero, the disharmony dissolves. The name of the activity that remains when that disharmony dissolves is “health.”

Within a human being one condition is called health, another condition is called fever—and they are two pulsations of the same thing. When it vibrates in a distorted way, it is fever; when it vibrates in its true form, it is health. The consciousness within us—if it strays along distorted, anti-nature, or other pathways and becomes distracted—then it is mind. And if it abides in its nature, abides perfectly in its nature, it is soul.

Our very nature, in a vibrating, restless state, is called mind. Our very nature, in a vibrationless, silent state, is called soul. Therefore I say meditation is freedom from the mind. It is not a process of the mind, because if it were a process of the mind, it could not lead to the soul; it is liberation from the mind.

In China there was a monk. He was on his deathbed, and he wished to appoint someone as head of the monastery after him. There were five hundred monks. I love this incident; nothing like it has ever happened in the world. He announced that whoever among these five hundred had realized the Dharma should write, in four lines, the perfect meaning of Dharma and bring it to him. If those lines conveyed that he had experienced the Dharma, the master would seat him in his place. “But remember,” he said, “you will not be able to deceive me. Scriptural knowledge will not work. I can tell when the scriptures are speaking through you, and when you are speaking yourself.” And people knew that old man well; deceiving him was impossible.

Hundreds thought about it, but did not dare, because they knew what they had was scriptural knowledge, not personal experience. There was only one person about whom people felt confident—very renowned in the monastery. Everyone already believed that after the master he would become the head. People thought he would write, and he would be chosen. But he too did not have the courage to hand it to the master. At night he wrote it on the wall near the master’s door. He wrote four lines—very beautiful lines. But in the morning the master said, “This is all rubbish.”

He had written on the whole of human life. He wrote: “The mind is a mirror upon which the dust of defilement gathers. Dust it off, and truth is attained. That is the whole of religion.” But in the morning the master said, “This is all trash. Nonsense! Who wrote this?” He ran away and hid. He had not signed, fearing the master...

The news spread through the monastery that even such precious lines were called trash by the master. And everyone knew who had written them.

Twelve years earlier a young man had come to the monastery. He had gone to the master. The master asked, “Do you want to be, or to appear?” He said, “I want to be.” The master said, “Then do this: there is the work of pounding rice in the monastery—do that. Pound rice, and you have no other duty. From morning till evening pound rice. Think of nothing but rice. If a day comes when it is needed, I will call you, or I will come to you. Do not come to me now.”

Twelve years passed. The young man never again went to the master; the master never sent for him. He just kept pounding rice. People came to know him only as the rice-pounder. But pounding rice, something happened in him. The master had said: pound rice; do not read scriptures; do not talk to anyone.

He kept pounding rice—from morning to evening rice; from evening to morning the same one work—rice, rice. Slowly all thoughts dissolved, the mind became empty. He just pounded rice, pounded rice. No one spoke to him; no one regarded him as a wise man. He was just a servant of the monastery who pounded rice.

A young monk passing by mentioned to him, “Have you heard? The old man called even such valuable lines trash.” The rice-pounder, still pounding, said, “Trash indeed.” The young monk said, “You’ve gone mad! Your life has been wasted pounding rice. You will pass judgment too?” He replied, “It is trash.” He went on pounding. The youth said, “All right, then you write. If so, you write what is right.” He said, “I don’t know how to write. If you write, I will say it.”

He went and dictated four lines, and the other wrote them down. He had him write: “There is no mirror of mind at all—where can dust collect? One who knows this truth knows the Dharma.”

The first had written: “The mind is a mirror on which the dust of defilement gathers. Dust it off and truth is attained.” This one dictated: “There is no mirror of mind at all—where can dust collect? One who knows this truth knows the Dharma.” And the rice-pounder was given the seat.

This is a wondrous point. “There is no mirror of mind.” In truth, the mind is not a thing. Mind is only the name of an active, agitated process. The fever of excitation within us—that is our mind. If the excitation dissolves, there is no mind. Restlessness is the mind.

Ordinarily we say, “The mind is restless.” That sentence is incorrect, to my way of thinking. To say “the mind is restless” is wrong, because restlessness is the mind. To say “the mind is excited” is wrong; excitation is the mind. If you see that the possibility of excitation, restlessness, agitation—that is precisely what mind means, and that their total flow is continuous—from morning to evening, from birth to death, an unbroken stream of excitation—then from that accumulated flow arises the illusion of a mental entity, as if the mind were a thing.

If I take a burning ember and whirl it fast, you will see a circular ring, as if there were a round thing. In fact there is no round thing there. My firebrand is spinning swiftly; the ring appears, but it is not there. In the same way, excitations whirl so intensely that the empty gaps between them are not seen. Excitation, excitation, excitation—so fast that the entire flow of excitation seems like a substance, as though there were a thing.

One who becomes silent will laugh in amazement and say, “It was never there.” There were only scattered excitations which, when seen together, looked like a mind. Excitation is the mind; becoming unexcited is to go beyond the mind. Because we can be unexcited, we can be excited. Consciousness can become excited because consciousness can become unexcited. In fact, both actions can coexist. Only one who can run can also stop; only one who can stop can run.

If the soul can be perfectly silent, it is implied in that very statement that the soul can be perfectly restless. Those who say the soul is perfectly peaceful hesitate to say “restless,” because that seems opposite. But to call it peaceful means it has the capacity to be restless. They are opposite words, yet each carries the other within it. Those who say the soul is full of knowledge—by saying “the soul is full of knowledge,” its capacity to descend into ignorance is indicated. Otherwise there would be no reason to call it “full of knowledge.”

According to me, I would divide it a little differently. There is a “something” within us. I do not give it a name. There is something within us—call it X, Y, any name you like. There is something within us which, if excited, we call mind; and if silent, we call soul. There is something within us that holds both possibilities. If it becomes excited, it becomes mind; as mind it becomes the creator of the world. If it becomes silent, it becomes soul; as soul it becomes the path to liberation. That “something,” excited, is mind; that “something,” unexcited, is soul. That “something” has both capacities. And in whom the capacity to be silent exists, Tarachandra-bhai, in that very one the capacity to be restless will also exist—otherwise we could not call it a capacity to be silent. Opposite qualities will be present together; they are two sides of the same coin.

In my view, it isn’t. When we call what-is “without corruption,” “unstained,” at that very moment we are implying that corruption is possible in it; otherwise there would be no reason to call it incorruptible. “Soul” is the name of one state of that something. In fact, there is no point in calling that something “soul” at all. For this very reason Buddha does not call it a soul; there is no reason to call it a soul. Seen in this way, the knot of the mind opens; otherwise the mind just stands there as a knot for which there is no answer—no answer.

Some foods are stimulating; they create excitement. All of them are obstacles in spiritual life. Some foods are non-stimulating; they do not arouse excitement. They support spiritual life. Some foods are intoxicating, giving a kind of inebriation; some are non-intoxicating. Intoxicating and stimulating foods are obstacles in spiritual life. But our craving for intoxicating, stimulating foods—the taste for them, the urge within to take them—will dissolve through meditation. As the mind begins to grow quiet, the diet will begin to change accordingly.

Recently such incidents have occurred around me. Some friends were meat-eaters. When they first came to me they immediately asked, “We eat meat; you won’t make it a condition of meditation that we must give it up? We can’t give it up.” I told them, I don’t talk about diet at all. Eat whatever you like, enjoy it; I have nothing to do with it. But begin meditation.

They began to meditate. After a month or two they came and said, “Now it has become very difficult—eating meat is no longer possible. And we are amazed: how did we do it for so long?” I said, That is a different matter. If it drops now, it has dropped naturally; that is different. There is no question here of forcing a renunciation.

It is because of the mind’s restlessness that stimulating foods seem agreeable. If the mind becomes quiet, stimulating foods will no longer appeal. We have taken the situation in reverse. We think that if stimulating foods are dropped first, then the mind will become quiet. Stimulating foods cannot be dropped first. We think a person should first give up fine, ornamental dress, and then the mind will become quiet. This is wrong. Let the mind become quiet, and clothing will naturally and simply become plain. The fundamental thing is the mind.

Certainly, it can help. Are you doing anything?
Questioner:
Yes.
Go ahead and learn it; there’s no harm in that. But there’s no need. What I told you this morning as an experiment—if for one month...

No, it will happen even in my absence. There’s nothing to it. Put in a little effort—within a month it will happen without me as well; no difficulty at all.

That mood begins to take shape in us—the mood forms. In truth, it is happening to you; even when it happens in my presence, it is still happening to you. Something is happening within you, isn’t it!
(The audio recording of the question is not clear.)
Yes, we should do a little of that here. Arrange a small gathering once a month, or once in fifteen days, set up a recorder, and experiment in it. By the way, if you experiment, it will happen even without me. For instance, if you come tonight, we can do the experiment tonight too.
There’s really no need to go anywhere. Start doing this experiment at home, at night and in the morning; within just fifteen days you’ll feel the mind is beginning to grow quiet.

Questioner:
I’m doing name-repetition.
You repeat the Name. That’s why thoughts come. Now they won’t. Try this as an experiment. In fact, in name-repetition… How long do you do it?
Questioner:
Half an hour.
No, do this. It may go on for hours—no problem.

Just recently something happened. An acquaintance of mine was experimenting. His son came to tell me that he had been sitting for six hours, so they were all nervous: should we shake him, make him get up, what should we do? I said, let him sit; there’s no harm. He got up after seven hours. The family said, “This is strange—if you sit that long, it’s difficult!” He said, “I didn’t even notice. It felt as if I just got up.”

If the chitta becomes completely quiet, you won’t notice time. Because of restlessness you notice time. I would even say: the restlessness of the chitta is time. You will experience that when the chitta is utterly still and blissful, time will seem short: an hour will pass and it will feel like five minutes. If the chitta is unhappy and restless, an hour will feel like years.

The duration of time, the way we experience it, comes from sorrow and joy. If the chitta is in perfect peace, in bliss, there will be no sense of time. So one can remain for as long as one wishes.

And don’t keep the notion that it has to happen in front of me. If you plant that idea in the mind beforehand, it will be difficult. Don’t keep that idea at all. Do the experiment patiently for a month. And in this experiment don’t take the Name. What you already do, keep that separate. Do this for fifteen minutes without the Name. In this there is to be no name-taking, no remembering; no mantra, no image—nothing to do. In this, just…

(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)

It will be very beneficial. Or, if you like, stay somewhere and learn a few yogic kriyas; they give some benefit to calming the chitta—pranayamas and other such things.

(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)

“They are asking that somewhere they read that love, sorrow, and death are one and the same.”

That sorrow and death are one, we can understand. But linking love with sorrow and death feels strange. Yet it is true. Our longing for love is there because we are frightened of sorrow and death. We are so shaken by sorrow and death that love is the only support we seek, through which we somehow live. The person who rises above death and sorrow will rise above love as well—instantly. In that very moment the question of loving does not remain. The desire to love or to be loved will not remain.

The very longing to be loved is an escape from death and sorrow. In that way we forget ourselves; death is forgotten, sorrow is forgotten. Two lovers, in each other’s love, forget their sorrow and their death. In mutual support, in closeness, in attachment, they drown each other in themselves; in that intoxication they forget their pain and suffering. If sorrow and pain dissolve, if it becomes clear that death is not, you will suddenly find you have risen above attachment and what is commonly called love.

That does not mean you will become indifferent or filled with hatred toward others. In that state there will be no attachment, no delusion, no longing for anyone’s love. There will be a natural, gentle, spontaneous regard for others. We have given that different names—karuna, ahimsa, maitri—so that we can distinguish it from what is commonly called love. A Mahavira or a Buddha is not harsh toward anyone.

If we look closely, being harsh or filled with hatred toward another is the other side of the same coin of love. That’s why the one we love—if the situation changes a little—we immediately begin to hate. Beneath love, hatred is hidden. Very scientifically speaking, the one we love, we also hate within—we also hate. Give it a small chance and the wheel turns: where there was love, there will be hatred.

The one we do not love, we cannot hate either. Such a person becomes free of both love and hatred. Therefore love, death, and pain can be placed together. They seem very odd as a trio, but they can be kept together.

As for what I just explained about the mind, there is nothing different here. These are only differences of name. All are functions—only names. Whether we say chitta and buddhi, or mind, or give some other name—these are different names for the same thing. There isn’t much meaning in the distinctions.

Yes, that very essence is God. That very essence is God. In truth, from childhood we are given certain notions: we are told there is a God sitting up in the sky who runs everything. There is no such God sitting anywhere.
The whole universe is not only matter; within matter, consciousness is also hidden. The name of that totality—the total consciousness hidden throughout the whole cosmos—is God. God is not a person. God is the name of the entire flow of the total consciousness. And the name of the entire flow of insentience is the world.
Here we are so many people sitting together. Two kinds of happenings are taking place here: so many bodies are sitting here, and so many consciousnesses are sitting here...

If we say there is no matter and that all is consciousness, then there remains no reason to call it “consciousness.” We call it consciousness only in contrast to matter. If there is only one thing in existence, we can call it neither matter nor consciousness—then any word becomes meaningless. We call it consciousness precisely because there is also something non-conscious in the world. Do you follow?

If one insists on speaking that way, then we cannot call it consciousness. We cannot call it anything at all. In truth, the moment we say anything, duality arises. If we say there is consciousness in this world, we must accept that there is something non-conscious in which that consciousness is. And if we say this world is only unconscious, then we must also accept that there is something conscious; otherwise there would be no reason to call it non-conscious.

The conscious and the unconscious are not matter; rather, they are two functions of one and the same reality. That total consciousness has been given the name “God.” And the totality of matter has been given the name “world.” And the totality of both together has been called “Brahman.” The totality of all consciousness is God; the totality of all matter is the world; and the complete totality of both is Brahman. These are just matters of naming. By giving names no experience happens; it makes no difference.

All are avatars. Every person is an avatar. We begin to worship special avatars and forget the rest. Every person is an avatar. Either God is in everyone, or He is in no one. There cannot be any exclusive monopoly of Rama or Krishna or anyone—that they are avatars while A, B, C are not. Nor is that their claim; it is we who make that claim.

If someone thinks—if someone thinks—that I myself am an avatar and at the same time does not see that others too are avatars, then they are in delusion. And if they see that I too am an avatar and all the rest are also avatars, then they are in wisdom.

No, no, I don’t call things right or wrong. I am saying what I have to say. If that seems right to you, then whatever is opposite to it will, of course, appear wrong. Do you understand what I’m saying? I have no reason to call anyone wrong. I simply say what seems right to me.

What seems right to me is this: either the Divine has descended into the whole, or not at all. It cannot be that God incarnates in one person and not in the rest. And when we say the total consciousness is God, how can that total consciousness incarnate in just one man?

(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)

These beliefs of ours, these popular notions, have very little to do with real experience. They are tied to publicity, propaganda, and twenty-five other things. Then it goes the same way everywhere... Hindus will list their own avatars: these are the incarnations. Jesus will not be included there, nor Mahavira, nor Mohammed. They are not in it. Ask the Christians, and apart from Jesus there is no Son of God; the rest are thinkers, perhaps. The Son of God is Jesus alone. Ask the Jains, and besides their twenty-four tirthankaras there are no other tirthankaras; the rest are just that. All this is propaganda—sectarian propaganda. It has nothing to do with truth. And if you add up all the avatars from around the world, the number would be very large.

Even right now there are about three hundred people alive who claim they are God. Recently I was in Allahabad—there were three such men right there. I went to a conference, a yajna. At that gathering one man had taken the name “Shri Bhagwan.” He actually calls himself Shri Bhagwan. That is his very name—there is nothing else to him; he is “Shri Bhagwan”! I learned that at that yajna there were three men claiming they were incarnations of God.

This claim is ego-ridden. In fact, it is a kind of final form of the mind’s ego—when a person begins to make ultimate claims.

Who?
Questioner:
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
Talking about names is not very meaningful. Talking about names is not meaningful. Who has arrived and who has not—we cannot decide. All we can decide is whether we ourselves have arrived or not. Because there is no point in deciding. You understand my point, don’t you? There is no point in deciding whether Ramakrishna has arrived or not. It has no meaning. It has no use either. What is useful is whether I am in solution or not. But most of our concerns go on in this way: who has arrived, who has not.
I was just reading a book, and in it I noticed a very strange thing,...

Yes, that is the ultimate, extreme form of ego. Otherwise, there is no reason for it. The moment a person attains perfect samadhi, he will not even know “I am,” let alone that I am separate from you. He will not even know that he is separate from you. But things are like this. Claims are very strange.

Rama Tirtha went to America—a sadhu from Punjab. He became very renowned; his writings became very renowned; his lectures were quite remarkable, and he spoke on Vedanta there with great passion. He returned to India and stayed in Kashi. There, a pandit remarked, “He keeps harping on Vedanta, and he can’t even speak two words of Sanskrit!” He certainly did not know Sanskrit; he had been educated in Persian. At just this remark he became so enraged...! For fifteen years no one had seen anger in Rama Tirtha. People believed he had attained God-realization. He became so angry that he left the meeting in the middle. People were astonished. He went to a village near Kashi and began to learn Sanskrit, to master it.

I understand that if he had truly become peaceful, he would have simply said, “If Vedanta comes by knowing Sanskrit, then I do not know.” The matter would have ended there. But this insistence on learning Sanskrit is a symptom of intense anger.

Then he went to the Himalayas. He had a disciple, Sardar Puran Singh. He has written that Rama Tirtha’s wife and children came to see him, to have darshan. Rama Tirtha refused to see them—refused to grant them darshan. Puran Singh was shocked. He went and said to him: “What is this? All over the world you keep saying that the same Brahman dwells in everyone. So does it dwell in everyone except this wife? You have never refused darshan to anyone anywhere. What fault does this wife have? Perhaps Brahman does not abide in her! This hurts me so much that I am leaving. Either give her darshan, or I too will go; then I have no need to stay with you.”

Puran Singh has written in his autobiography that he was deeply shaken that day. Rama Tirtha later committed suicide. People began to say he took water-samadhi.

But the difficulty is that we become so infatuated with names that they cannot be discussed. That is why I never discuss names. Because we are attached—attached to sects, to our own bookkeeping. Once we declare someone to be great, our ego gets invested in them. If anyone says anything about them, it becomes a problem. So there is no benefit in discussing persons. The benefit is in understanding the principle.

This much I know: in one in whom samadhi arises, the “I-sense” dissolves. For such a one to say, “I am God,” is very difficult. And if he says, “I am God,” with the implication that others are not, I would call that ego. If he says, “I am God because you too are God,” I would say there is some meaning in that. But if, over and against you, he claims to be God, these are simply gradations of ego. There is not much difference among them. They are symptoms of certain deranged states of mind.

There in Arabia, after Mohammed, countless madmen have been seized by the obsession, “I am Mohammed.” I read a very fine incident.

In a madhouse in Damascus the king had confined some people. For there, they had even killed several—for the reason that someone might claim, “I am a prophet.” Because there is only one prophet, Mohammed, and only one Koran; after that there can be no revision, no modification, and no prophet can come.

One man had made such a claim, so he was confined. The king went to see him in prison and said, “Well, are you better now? You no longer have the delusion that you are Mohammed, a prophet?” He said, “But I am. God has sent me with a message.” A madman sitting in a corner with his back turned said, “He is speaking absolutely falsely. I never sent him with any message. He is speaking completely falsely. I never sent him with any message!” Then the king was astonished. So this one was Mohammed? No—he was God the Father Himself! He said, “I never sent him at all.”

These are, in fact, maniacal states, deranged states—the final explosion of ego. In the state of supreme samadhi there is the vision of what is within.

There is an incident from the life of Buddha. He spoke of his past lives, just as Mahavira did. In a previous birth, when there was a Buddha named Dipankara, Gautam went to meet him; at that time he himself was not enlightened—he was an ordinary being. When he bowed to Dipankara, Dipankara too bowed to him. Gautam was amazed. He said, “You are a Buddha, and you bow to me—it does not seem fitting. I am an ignorant being; it is proper for me to bow.” Dipankara said, “You see that you are ignorant. What I see within me, I see within you. You see something different within me and within yourself because you are ignorant. But to me, what is within me is the same within you. Therefore I will bow to you, because you have bowed to me.”

To one in whom samadhi has arisen, what is seen within himself is seen within you as well. If he makes claims—“I am God, I am an avatar,” and all such things—these claims are not meaningful. My view is that they are the final explosions of ego—very sattvic explosions—and even if he feels he is not making a claim, the explosions are of ego all the same.

No—no one says it. It gets attributed afterward. It isn’t necessary that they say it; later it is attributed—heavily attributed. Because we cannot live without God, without an avatar. We pick someone and instantly install him as an avatar. We want security, safety, support—a crutch.

So if my words are right, that alone won’t do. For my words to be completely right, it is necessary that I become God! Even if I don’t claim it, four people will get together and claim that I am God. Then my words are right. For when have a man’s words ever been right in this world? Only God’s words are right! So to make the words right, you must declare a God. Very few people in the world have been so honest as to be free even of this “sattvic” ego. In fact, even being a guru gratifies a great ego. To claim that I am someone’s guru is an ego’s gratification. One who has truly attained the spiritual life neither considers himself anyone’s guru nor anyone his disciple. He will not even indulge the ego of saying, “I am your guru, your master.” “Do as I say”—he has no reason left to say even that.

I do not see that there are avatars anywhere, or any true gurus. In the world there are awakened people and sleeping people. In the world there are awakened gods and sleeping gods. Do you get my point? I see only two things: awakened gods in the world, and sleeping gods in the world—those who have experienced their divinity, and those who have not. But those who have experienced it cannot make such claims, because they can see that the same essence abides in the other as well. Only the sleeping can make these claims—or the sleeping can make claims about the awakened. The names of individuals are of little use.

First tell me: what will happen by knowing this? Whether you became a man from a monkey or a man from God—what difference does it make! What is certain is that you are a human being. And now it is for you to decide whether you will become a monkey or become God.

There are two paths: either we go on debating whether we came from the monkey or from God. The ancients said we became human from God; the moderns say we became human from the monkey. To me, both are idle talks. The real question is that you are human—and right now both doors are open before you. If you wish, you can become a monkey; if you wish, you can become God. What matters is what we choose to become. We can be animal; we can be divine. Give your thinking a direction that slowly leads toward liberation, that is beneficial to you. Thinking that is only thinking, that decides nothing in the end…

Recently I was in a place—Multai. I arrived after speaking at a meeting at night, and around eleven o’clock two elderly men came to me: one Jain and one Brahmin. They said, “We have been friends since childhood—forty or fifty years. But we’ve had many disputes that still aren’t resolved. For example, we still haven’t settled whether God created the world or not! We’ve been troubled by this again and again. Today your words appealed to both of us—which rarely happens, because we are opponents and never agree with each other’s views. Since both of us felt drawn to what you said, we thought perhaps we might find a solution, so we came to you. It must be decided whether God created the world or not.”

I said to them, “If it is decided that God created the world, then what will you do?” They said, “What will we do!” I said, “And if it is decided that God did not create it, then what will you do?” Whichever option is decided, you will remain exactly as you are. So if you have wasted forty years trying to decide this, you have thrown them away. Decide upon that option which will bring a revolution into life. Decide upon that by which there will be transformation.

In life there are a few small questions that are worth deciding—and if they are decided, we are changed. Most questions are mere delusion—empty argument and speculation from which no decision comes; whatever is decided, nothing changes.

First we should determine those points whose answers will change our lives. You will find they are very few—perhaps only one or two: questions that lead toward liberation, toward peace, toward self-knowledge. Otherwise, our curiosity can fetch us any answer: suppose this, suppose that. Whether it is settled that Darwin is right or Darwin is wrong, it makes no difference to you—you will remain where you are. If questions are of that sort, they are irrelevant, unrelated to life.

For the realization of truth, right inquiry is essential. Much of our curiosity is not right—we ask just to be asking; we don’t even know whether asking will be of any use. So I have decided that I will answer only those questions of yours from which you will gain something; otherwise, I will not. There is no joy for me merely in giving answers. Those who enjoy giving answers—that is another matter. I don’t get any special pleasure in answering for its own sake. If I feel, “Yes, from this you will gain something, some movement will happen,” then I feel like making the effort, working on it. Think a little in that way.