Lagan Mahurat Jhooth Sab #4

Chidananda, the sutra is indeed precious—but when it falls into ignorant hands, even the most precious thing is made worthless. The Kohinoor becomes just a pebble. These immortal Upanishadic utterances, once grasped by certain hands, were turned to poison. The whole message was inverted; what was meant became its opposite. The entire country is rotting in that pain.

The Upanishads are voices arising from the very life-breath of awakened beings. When the unstruck veena sounds, such incomparable music is born. But when pundits begin to “comment,” they drag the lotus back into the mud. True, the lotus arises from mud—but the lotus is not mud; it is a transcendence of mud, an expression of that within the mud which is not mud. To smear it with mud again is to turn the beautiful into the ugly, truth into untruth. Commentary has not honed truth; it has layered it with dust and rust.

So too with this sutra. Its original meaning is simple and straight; it hardly needs commentary. Even the word “manuṣya” points toward mind: manushya comes from man—mind. In other languages there are other words—Urdu’s aadmi, for instance, a dear word, but it points to clay, not to the lotus. Aadmi—made of earth.

In the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, there is the tale that God fashioned a figure from clay and breathed life into it—thus Adam was born. Adam means “made of earth.” True—but partial. That describes only the outer form. Certainly we are earth, but we are more than earth. Our word manushya hints at that “more.” Earth, yes—but not only earth. Earthly, and yet beyond earth: human means mind.

The English “man” is also from “mind.” Both spring from the same root: manas.

Mind means the process of manan—reflection, the capacity to think, to contemplate. What would earth think? Even if it wished, how could clay think? Who is it within you who thinks and contemplates? That is consciousness. Therefore mind is already more than earth; it points to that which is beyond earth, and beyond even that beyond.

The capacity to reflect is the possibility of consciousness. Only if there is consciousness can there be reflection. Hence a person in a deep coma should not be called “human” in the full sense—there is no reflective activity; the link between clay and sky is broken, the middle rung has fallen away.

Mind is that middle rung, a ladder. One end leans on the earth, the other touches the immortal. It is the same ladder by which you can go down or up. You don’t need two ladders—only the direction differs. You may be halfway on the ladder: one person stands on a rung climbing up, another on the same rung climbing down; they are at the same place, yet worlds apart—one ascending, one descending.

Mind is the ladder. If it becomes attached to objects, descent begins—objects meaning the earth, matter. If it becomes nonattached, ascent begins. Same ladder. One life grows laden with burdens; one grows light. One accumulates objects; one lets them drop. One spreads nets of thought; in the other those nets grow thin.

Hence the sutra rightly says: mind is the cause of the world, and mind is the cause of liberation. Mind binds; mind frees. If one is wise, one uses mind as the path to no-mind.

No-mind is a lovely word; Nanak used it much, and Kabir too. Samadhi is the amani state—the state beyond mind. In Urdu and related tongues, aman means peace—apt! As you pass beyond mind into no-mind, showers of peace descend, flowers of silence bloom, melodies of bliss arise, life’s springs begin to flow.

Now understand the sutra:
man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ—
“Mind alone is the cause of human bondage and liberation.”

Yet see what madness came upon those who held such wondrous sutras: they did not drop the mind; they dropped the house, the shop, the children, their wives—and fled to the forest! But wherever you go, mind goes with you. Mind is within. It is the cause of bondage—and it was never dropped. The seed of poison was carried along. The vast expanse of “world” grows from that seed; you ran away from its branches, but you kept the seed. Where the seed is, the tree will grow again. “My house” becomes “my hut,” “my empire” becomes “my loincloth,” “my temple,” “my scripture,” “my religion.”

How astonishingly blind we can be! Even the “religious” man declares, “My religion. I am Hindu, I am Jain, I am Muslim, I am Christian.” Can a religious man still have a “mine”? Where there is mine-and-thine, how can there be religion? That is irreligion. “My scripture!” People drop everything...

I once met a Jain muni, Deshbhushan Maharaj, a naked Digambara, who had left all. He said, “You have spoken on the Gita, on the Upanishads, on the Dhammapada—but why not on Kundakunda’s Samaysar? Why not on Umāsvāti’s Tattvārtha-sūtra? Why not on our own scriptures?” I asked him, “Own and others? You have dropped even clothing—yet ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ still abide? The Gita is ‘other,’ the Dhammapada is ‘other,’ Kundakunda’s Samaysar is ‘ours,’ Umāsvāti’s Tattvārtha is ‘ours’?”

The same mine-and-thine. Formerly divided in shops and ledgers, now divided in temples and scriptures. But in such hands scriptures are nothing but ledgers.

Man astonishes when you think of him. He keeps pruning leaves and never cuts the root. No revolution comes from pruning leaves. The root must be cut. The root is mind.

man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ.

Don’t leave anything, don’t run anywhere. That is why I tell my sannyasins: awaken where you are. Runners never awaken; they are afraid, they are cowards. But we even give cowards sweet names: Ranachhodasji—“the Lord who left the battlefield.”

In my village there was a temple to Ranachhodasji. I told the priest, “Change this name.” He said, “Why? It’s a lovely name.” I said, “Have you ever thought what it means? A deserter! One who shows life his back.” He was startled—“All my life I’ve worshiped here; I never thought of it like that. You are right—but now the name is famous; it cannot be changed.” Yet the seed of doubt had been planted.

If a man shows his back on the battlefield, we call him a coward; if he shows his back to life’s struggle, we call him a mahatma. What dishonest arithmetic!

People ask me, “What kind of sannyasins are yours? They don’t leave home, shop, or marketplace.” I tell them, “Only my sannyasins are truly sannyasins, because what is to be dropped is the mind—nothing else. Cut the root.”

man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ.

Why keep banging your head on the Upanishads if you learn nothing? The Upanishad clearly says mind is the cause—your wife is not the cause. Leave your wife and nothing changes; you will find another, or call her disciple or sevika—change the label, the mind remains.

What tricks have been invented! Nowhere else have priests tried to control man so utterly as Hindu pundits have. Jews, Muslims, Christians too, but they move more slowly; Hindus are unmatched—understandably, the priestly tradition is very old. They catch you from the very beginning, and don’t release you even after death. From womb to tomb—and beyond. There is a samskara for every turn. Even after you die they will trouble your descendants: during Pitru Paksha they will make them offer oblations in your name. Exploitation continues in the name of the dead.

And when does this chain of samskaras begin? In Hinduism, with conception. They outdid all others! The first rite: garbhādhāna—the conception ritual.

If you read it fully, you’ll be shocked by the duplicity. When husband and wife make love, four Brahmins are to stand at the four directions. See the fraud? They condemn obscenity—“don’t even look at a picture of a naked woman; don’t remember women!”—and what are these “holy men” doing? Behind the curtain of religion, what play is this? In some Western hotels now there are peep-windows with one-way glass; people buy tickets to watch couples make love. You will call that obscene and materialistic—but your mahatmas outdid even that: husband and wife make love while four mahatmas stand around, chanting mantras, touching the woman’s body part by part, directing the act by mantra!

This is fraud. If you wanted to see a naked woman, just see—who forbade you? Why this religious charade? You fled the world, became a saint—and now bring the world in through the backdoor. At least be honest: accept your life as it is.

Dayananda added even more: a fire sacrifice in the bedroom—offerings into the fire, smoke rising, ghee, wheat, rice thrown in, mantras chanted—while the poor woman lies naked, and the husband stands naked. What a spectacle! They left the world—but the world has not left them; it creeps back.

I am not in favor of leaving the world. Transform the mind. Your sutra says clearly: the mind is the cause. If only we had understood this and transformed mind, our country would not have fallen into such ruin and hypocrisy. Perhaps nowhere on earth does hypocrisy match ours. We denounce wealth—and our scriptures teach that giving wealth is the highest virtue. If wealth is sin, how does sin become virtue by giving it? Strange arithmetic! And then, “Give to Brahmins,” say Hindus; “Give to Jain monks,” say Jains; “Give to Buddhist bhikkhus,” say Buddhists. All three call wealth sin, yet they beg for it and forbid giving it to others. If wealth is sin, do not make Brahmins sin—don’t corrupt them! But we are blind: we call wealth sin, then call its donation virtue, pulling virtue out of sin—sheer fraud.

Hence we are the most money-obsessed, sex-obsessed. We built temples like Khajuraho and Konark; no other people did. Our pundits wrote obscenities no film has matched—yet in the name of religion it is all accepted. We ran prostitution under the name of devadasis—temples turned into brothels, and the trade became “merit.” We are adept at turning sins into virtues.

Behind all this web is one cause: we did not understand rightly. The seers said one thing; the interpreters another. Even in the translation of this sutra, Chidananda, notice where delusion enters.

The translation you quoted: “Mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation. The mind attached to objects is bondage, and the mind that turns its back on objects is liberation.” Where did “turning away” come from? The original says:
man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ—
“The mind is the cause of bondage and liberation.”
bandhāya viṣayāsaktam—
“Attachment to objects is bondage.”
muktyai nirviṣayaṁ smṛtam—
“When remembrance becomes free of objects—empty—there is liberation.”

Where is “turning one’s back” in this? Parāṅmukha introduces cowardice—your Ranachhodasji again: turn your back, run away, avert your face. This wrong reading has made millions of wives widows while their husbands still lived—because the husbands turned their backs. The women could not even protest—it was all in the name of religion. They even touched the husbands’ feet, now “mahatmas,” though the price was paid by their wives and children—beggary, grinding labor, prostitution—what not. Crores of lives have been poisoned by this parāṅmukhatā. The sutra says nothing of it; it is utterly simple.

Nirviṣaya chitta—mind in which ripples of objects no longer arise. And we have also misunderstood viṣayāsakti—attachment to objects. It does not mean: flee from objects. Fleeing will not end attachment. If it did, the poor would have no attachment to palaces. If it did, poverty would be a blessing, and the rich the most wretched. But the truth is the reverse: through experiencing wealth, attachment drops; through experiencing objects, one is freed of them. By living, one learns there is nothing substantial to grasp; the hands remain empty. Through experience one becomes object-free—provided there is awareness. Add only awareness to experience, and you will become nirviṣaya; through one thread of awareness, you will pass from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind.

“I hid the secret of love and tried it—
I burned my heart and tried it;
What else remains to see?
I gave my heart to you and tried it.
They were mine—and yet never mine;
I made them my own and tried it.
Even we could not be ‘complete,’ Faiz,
We tested love and tried it.”

No one is ever complete here.
“Even we could not be complete, Faiz...
We tested love and tried it.”
Has anyone in this world ever been fully satisfied? Ever complete?

“Ask me not, beloved, for that love again—
I had thought that if you were, life would be radiant;
If your grief were mine, what then of the world’s grief?
It is your face that brings spring and youth to the world;
What is there in the world besides your eyes?
If I could have you, my fate would find a soul.
It was not so; I had merely wished it so.
Ask me not, beloved, for that love again.

Countless centuries’ dark, inhuman sorcery
Woven in brocades of silk and satin and gold—
Bodies sold, lane to lane, market to market,
Smeared with dust, bathed in blood.
My gaze still strays that way—what can I do?
Your beauty still enchants—but what can I do?
There are other griefs in the world than love,
Other solaces than the solace of union—
Ask me not, beloved, for that love again.”

Live life—its flowers and its thorns, its days and nights, its joys and sorrows. You cannot choose. If someone says, “I will experience only flowers, not thorns; only days, not nights; only success, not failure,” such a person will miss life’s knowing. Here, every hope ripens into disappointment; every morning becomes evening; every pleasure turns bitter and becomes pain. This is the essential experience; it cooks you. In that fire the mind ripens—and a ripe mind is free.

man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ.
Mind is the cause of bondage and liberation. An unripe mind binds; a ripe mind liberates. How to ripen the mind? There is no kiln other than the world’s fire. That is why the world is. Consider it a challenge from the divine, a test. We all set out with great hopes—nothing wrong—but sooner or later we fall into the pits of failure.

“Ask me not, beloved, for that love again...”
Yet love must be known, recognized, lived, and exhausted.

Therefore I do not tell my sannyasins to run from enjoyment; I tell them to ripen within it. In bhog, the fruit of yoga ripens—yes, a paradox. But life’s secrets live in paradox. He who makes no mistakes never learns; if you avoid mistakes, you avoid learning. If you wish to learn, err—only, don’t repeat the same error.

bandhāya viṣayāsaktam—
“Attachment to objects is bondage.”
How will attachment drop? Not by force. If you run away, attachment will return; it is inside, not outside. If you see a diamond and flee, it will come in dreams and call you back. Better to test it yourself. Do not believe others; nothing is known except by your own experience. Pick up the diamond, wear it, make a necklace—when it becomes just a stone to you, it will fall away like a dry leaf from a tree. The tree does not have to drop it; it drops of itself. And when the futile falls like dry leaves, new shoots of the essential sprout within you.

Our bondage is ignorance. How does knowing arise? Only through experience. You will have to stumble at many doors—fall often, rise often. Children learn to walk by falling. If the mahatmas told a child, “Don’t fall!” and the child decided never to fall, he would crawl all his life. Fortunately children do not listen! The storm of nature surges within, and they want to stand. Once a child takes two steps, he goes mad for walking—falls, skins his knees, bleeds, and stands again. If he were “wise,” he would lie there. To grow old in childhood is misfortune—just as it is misfortune to be childish in old age. Let life unfold naturally. Maintain balance. Learn—and the way to learn is: do not fear mistakes. Experience attachment. The thorns will prick—let them. Their sting is needed to ripen you.

bandhāya viṣayāsaktam—
Those who remain bound to objects are precisely those who never truly experienced them. Those who have, are freed.

muktyai nirviṣayaṁ smṛtam—
Who is liberated? One whose inner remembrance is no longer tugged by objects. He who has tasted wealth is freed of wealth; he who has tasted sex is freed of sex. The only way to be free is: live it through—sweet and bitter—while time still allows, else the regret is great: “When there was time, I got lost in borrowed wisdom.” Borrowed knowledge remains borrowed.

Whoever translated this sutra into Hindi, Chidananda, did not understand; he said, “He who turns his back on objects attains liberation.” He who turns his back remains bound, more tightly bound, distorted. Not liberation. Liberation comes by transcending objects—by knowing and recognizing them so thoroughly that your inner vision becomes clear: there is nothing of substance there. Such a one does not go about shouting, “Objects are futile.” Those who are still shouting—“Beware of wealth and power; beware of women—woman is the door to hell”—know for certain: they are not yet free. Otherwise, how would a woman appear to them as a door to hell?

There is a story: when Meera reached Vrindavan, the chief priest at Krishna’s main temple had not seen a woman for thirty years. He never left the temple; women were forbidden to enter. Guards stopped them at the door. How strange! A devotee of Krishna who bars women from Krishna’s temple! Krishna’s life is not that of a world-renouncing monk; it is the life of my sannyasin—his dance amid sixteen thousand women! If there is a hell, Krishna descended to its deepest depth—you cannot match him. One or two “hell-gates” are enough to grind a lifetime to dust—he had sixteen thousand! Yet this priest was honored as a mahatma, simply because he had not looked at a woman in thirty years. We honor oddities, sicknesses, derangements—we have never honored creative values.

Meera arrived, carefree, and danced at the door. The guards, warned in advance, stood with naked swords to stop her. But her dance was so full of rasa that they forgot everything—even the swords in their hands—and Meera danced in. Seeing her, the priest dropped his puja tray with a clatter and shouted, “Woman! How did you enter? Get out!”

Meera’s reply was beautiful: “I had heard there is only one male—Krishna—and we are all his sakhis. Today I learn there are two males: you as well! Then you are no sakhi—why these ornaments? Get out! You have no right to be priest here. Good that your tray fell; it should not have been in your hands. After thirty years of not seeing women, how did you still recognize me as a woman?” If not by eyes, then in dreams! Those who avoid by day see by night.

She pointed to the murti: “Here next to Krishna stands Radha—is she not a woman? And if you say, ‘She is only a statue,’ then your Krishna is also only a statue—why all this worship? If Krishna is not mere stone, is Radha then a man? What obstacle is my coming? I’ll take care of this temple; you go set your life right.” Meera was right.

If you flee from life, the results will be harmful. Do not become parāṅmukha—turning your back. Live life; by living, the door of liberation opens of itself.

man eva manuṣyāṇāṁ kāraṇaṁ bandha-mokṣayoḥ.
bandhāya viṣayāsaktam, muktyai nirviṣayaṁ smṛtam.

Chidananda, the sutra is lovely, wondrous, full of juice—but beware of commentaries. Even this translation is wrong. I do not know Sanskrit—remember that! But I know the Upanishad. I know my own experience. Therefore language is secondary to me: if a wording accords with my experience, good; if not, it is wrong. I have no other criterion.

Each person must test on the touchstone of his own lived experience; only then can you separate the essential from the inessential, milk from water.

This sutra is lovely—beware of commentators.

Chaitanya Sagar, a.k.a. Laharu! Taru is saying very deep things. But do you want to make Chowpatty even more choupat—more of a shambles? Won’t Indian culture be ruined if you take me to Chowpatty? Chowpatty is a symbol of Indian culture. All the rishis and munis are enthroned there. Men are worshipping women, devotion is overflowing, film songs are being sung, ghazals are being recited. And only a few days ago we were saying: yatra yatra naryah pujyante, tatra tatra devatah ramante—wherever women are worshipped, there the gods revel. Revel and revel! And the gods aren’t few—three hundred and thirty million! They’ll start a free-for-all. And the poor fellows have no other work anyway.

And where else is woman worshipped the way she is on Chowpatty! So all the gods are sporting there. Some Ramanlal, some Chamanlal, some Chiku-bhai, some Chipku-bhai—everyone is present. The moment they see me they’ll raise such a racket that Chowpatty will become truly choupat. Everything is already going on there—religion, culture, civilization; bhel-puri chaloo aahe! Indian culture chaloo aahe! Laharu, if you take me there, do you want total ruin? I’ll come—what obstacle is there for me? My work is to make things choupat wherever I am! In fact I am already on Chowpatty; wherever I am, a Chowpatty springs up. Take me anywhere you like!

I chose the desert of Kutch—the Rann of Kutch, thanks to which Ranchhod-dasji was born. The ran of Kutch, from which everyone ran away—everyone became Ranchhod-das! I chose it thinking, “There will be no hassle there,” but even there, with my arrival, Indian culture is in danger—though no one is there at all! And on Chowpatty everything is there. I’ll come; I have no obstacle. And if you treat me to ice cream, I’ll certainly eat it—no obstacle there either. But you throw such words into the mix that I end up in a fix.

Now look what uproar Dongreji Maharaj has caused! He distributes lassi and boondi as prasad—and I have to answer the questions! Someone else does the mischief, and I have to provide the answers! Still, one has to protect the sadhus and saints. So I had to explain: from lassi comes shakti, from boondi comes bhakti. And where shakti and bhakti meet, there meditation plays—ramante. They do nothing else.

But there are atheists around, like Sharad Joshi types, who say: kayakoo ramante—why do they “revel”? If someone is worshipping his own womenfolk—his mother and sister—don’t you have your own mother and sister? The gods “revel”! Hey, go to your own house; revel there! If a husband is worshipping his wife, adoring her, let him! Why crowd there? What need to stick your oar in? That’s the atheistic spirit talking!

Now the gods keep quiet; the poor ones don’t answer. But to Sharad Joshi I say: however silent the gods are, I am here! You ask, “Why do they ramante?” They’re making arrangements—bandobast karante! That’s why they ramante. One has to protect; arrangements have to be made.

As for this Dongre Maharaj—if he must distribute prasad, let him distribute Dongre’s Balamrit! Why lassi and boondi! But I had to supply the commentary. From that, Subhash lifted out “rasmalai.” And a very serious question arose: rasmalai. Not an ordinary matter. Among our sannyasins the most serious, Pandit Swami Yog Chinmaya, even he asked, “Bhagwan, you said lassi brings shakti and boondi brings bhakti—explain the meaning of rasmalai!” Swami Yog Chinmaya! He’s a man established in samadhi—yet even he wavered. Such is rasmalai!

The untellable tale of taste—hard to put in words.
The mute, after drinking lassi and eating boondi, smiles.
Eating and eating, O friend, Kabir got portly.
Once a drop merges in the belly, how can it be retrieved?
The world died doing push-ups and squats—no sannyasi came of it;
He who eats lassi, boondi, rasmalai—that one is the swami!
It’s not about argument—it’s about eating and drinking.
No sweet could best rasmalai.
From lassi, strength-and-devotion; from boondi, sweetness;
With rasmalai, in a blink, a glimpse of Brahman!
Paltu: auspicious day, auspicious hour—blessed is Sohan-mai;
Once you’ve eaten rasmalai, lassi and boondi turn bland!

You should be asking Sohan what rasmalai means—why ask me? Am I to keep on interpreting all this? And the meaning of rasmalai is perfectly clear: raso vai sah. That is the very definition of the Divine: the one who is of the nature of rasa. Now Laharu is creating further mischief—he has brought the word “ice cream” into it! Today, or tomorrow, someone will ask: what is the meaning of “ice cream”?

Somehow I became free of the mind—with great difficulty I got free—and now because of you I have to bring the mind back: “Find out what ice cream means. What is its spiritual secret?”

No, Laharu—don’t raise such difficult questions! If you do, there will be a melee!

And Chowpatty is coming here; where are you taking me! Wherever I am, there is Chowpatty; there the gods ramante. So many women have come here that the gods have followed right behind them. I said, “What work do we have with the gods—since they’ve come, seat them.” You can see them—sitting by every pillar; bandobast karante! “Come on, boys, make the arrangements! Do something—now that you’ve come…!”

Prem Pragya! Oh, that’s nothing—only half the truth, less than half. That Veena is Chittaranjan’s wife is nothing; why, Chittaranjan is also Veena’s husband! That’s the real secret. That is the difficult thing to grasp.

I’ve heard Veena once hired a maid. Now Veena is sturdy and strong, so she chose a maid like herself. The very first day Veena went to a wedding in the evening and told the maid, “Put the children properly to sleep. After nine, don’t let anyone be awake.” When she returned around eleven or twelve at night she asked, “Did you put everyone to sleep?” The maid said, “Everyone’s asleep—only the big boy gave a lot of trouble.” Veena asked, “Big boy? I have only two or three little ones—who’s the big boy?” The maid said, “This mustachioed fellow! Wouldn’t sleep! So I threw him down, tucked him into the quilt and sat on top to see if he would sleep or not. And sister, this big boy is tough! Jabbering nonsense, getting up again and again, making excuses. I gave him a couple of smacks too—only after the smacks did he agree.” Then Veena realized that Chittaranjan had been given a beating.

Poor Chittaranjan is a simple, straightforward man. But this is the kind of mess love creates; that’s why the wise have said: don’t fall in love—marry first, love later. And Chittaranjan did the reverse: love first, marriage later. Hence the trouble. Love is blind; he didn’t even look to see whom he was falling in love with, brother! Do a little measuring, a little accounting! Love is called blind and marriage is called an institution—so I say marriage is the institution of the blind. Love caused this commotion.

So you, Pragya, say you found the truth since I told you Veena is Chittaranjan’s wife. That’s still only half the truth. Now find the other half! But once you’ve found half, the other half will also be found. You’ve come very close. But the real secret is still left: Chittaranjan is a husband too. Tough business—being the husband of someone like Veena! People can hardly believe it.

Even now, poor fellow, Sohan is the one giving him a shove: “Listen!” And Chittaranjan can’t shove Sohan, so he shoves Veena: “Listen!” Seeing them reminded me: once, in a fit of anger, Akbar slapped Birbal. Birbal too felt like slapping back, but slapping the emperor could be costly. So he slapped the man standing next to him. That man thought, “This is tricky—if I slap Birbal, the emperor’s favorite, I’ll be in trouble,” so he slapped the man next to him. The one who got slapped protested, “This is too much! Why don’t you slap the one who slapped you?” He replied, “Don’t get into arguments—just slap whomever you can!” And so it went on, slap after slap, until someone landed a slap on the empress. She got angry and gave Akbar a slap. The circle was complete.

Now Sohan shoves Chittaranjan, Chittaranjan shoves Veena, and Veena is looking around—if only Vinod weren’t so far, she’d shove him! This is the very meaning of satsang: keep moving the truth along! Share it, share it! Veena, slide over carefree and give Vinod a shove! Never just take anyone’s shove—give an answer back. Whoever can, should!

You’ve understood right, Pragya—you’ve got half the truth. As much as you’ve got is already quite something.

Chandulal’s son, Tillu Guru, came back from school carrying a big trophy. “What happened?” Chandulal asked. “How did you win a trophy?” Tillu said, “There was a test at school today. The headmaster asked a question and I answered. Mine was the most correct, so I got the trophy.” Chandulal said, “Amazing! I studied a lot too, never brought a trophy! But tell me, what was the question?” Tillu said, “The headmaster asked, ‘How many legs does an elephant have?’ I said, ‘Five.’” Chandulal cried, “You fool—an elephant has five legs, and you still got a trophy?” He said, “Yes, because the other good-for-nothings were saying six and seven. I was closest to the truth. So the headmaster said, ‘Brother, you’re the closest—take the trophy!’”

You’ve only come close, Pragya—you’re still saying the elephant has five legs. But you’re closer than the others. Half the truth has been found; how long can the other half hide? “Those who seek, find—by diving into deep waters.” Keep diving deep; the search will find it.

But Veena and Chittaranjan, truly speaking, are not husband and wife—they are lovers, even now they are lovers. And that is why I feel such affection for them. My affection is for lovers. Husband and wife is a misfortune. They married—that’s formal, social. I have come into contact with thousands upon thousands of people, and only a handful of couples are like that—like Chittaranjan and Veena, like Manik Babu and Sohan. A few couples who, being husband and wife, are yet not husband and wife—who are still lovers.

This is a difficult matter: to be husband and wife and yet not be husband and wife. People become husband and wife without even being husband and wife: live with someone two days and it’s “possession,” “ownership.” But with the very person you’ve lived with for years, with whom you’re socially bound in marriage, to have no insistence, no pressure—that is fortune! Chittaranjan and Veena are fortunate. Their love is still as fresh as that of new lovers, as if it happened today. And love is love only if it stays fresh; if it goes stale, it was never love.

So don’t just think of them as husband and wife; more importantly, understand that they are lovers. And love is the closest thing to the divine. If you have loved even one person rightly, you have tasted a little of God. And even a single drop is enough to fulfill a life. To know even a little of love is the only proof of God.

Kailashnath Shastri, even guidance won’t make sense to you. Guidance is exactly what I am giving! And the obstacle is your being a “Shastri”—a man of the scriptures. It’s not my fault; your being a Shastri is the danger. Remove the scriptures and what I say is utterly plain and simple—simple enough for small children to understand. I’m not saying anything difficult. I’m not talking of the skies. What I say is as clear as two plus two equals four. But the obstruction is yours. You must be carrying your own notions. Your head is stuffed with scripture. They won’t let my words reach you at all.

Until you drop your prejudices, until you drop your assumptions—and I am not saying you must drop them; if your assumptions are giving you contentment, then may God protect you! God knows, you know! If your beliefs are becoming a light for you, that is great good fortune! But if your scriptures and your doctrines are only increasing your darkness, if your moonless night keeps growing longer, then drop them! If you listen to me through that jungle, everything will get turned into something else.

Two flies came out of the theater after watching a movie. One said to the other, “Shall we walk, or shall we take a dog?” Flies after all! What an astonishing thing to say: “Shall we walk, or take a dog?” You will have your own language.

Chandulal met a hakim… Must have been some Hakim Birumal type who treats “secret diseases.” If the partition of India and Pakistan brought any benefit to India, it was Hakim Birumal! Before Hakim Birumal arrived, India didn’t even know there were such things as “secret diseases”! Hakim Birumal spread those secret diseases far and wide!

And the fun of a “secret disease” is that the patient tells no one he has it; and whether he got cured or not, he doesn’t tell that either; the medicines sell, and whether they work or not, no one ever finds out. Because he can’t tell anyone the medicine didn’t work—the disease itself is secret! Hakim Birumal, a Sindhi—an accomplished hakim. Who can compete with the Sindhis? He left everyone behind. He floored the Marwaris. All the doctors were defeated by the very name of Hakim Birumal.

To such a hakim, Chandulal asked, “What should I do to gain my wife’s love?” The hakim said, “Run ten kilometers every day for fifteen days.” I asked Chandulal, “So what happened then? Did you get your wife’s love after fifteen days?” Chandulal said, “How would I know? After fifteen days I was a hundred and fifty kilometers away from her.”

Now, if you try to understand through your own notions, a hitch is bound to arise. Everything will become something else.

Kailashnath Shastri, try to understand exactly what I am saying; don’t bring yourself in between!

Chandulal’s wife was very fat. She was sleeping on the bed when suddenly there was an earthquake and she fell off the bed. Chandulal, who was sitting in the veranda, rushed in and said to his wife, “Hey, did you fall because there was an earthquake, or did the earthquake happen because you fell?”

An editorial note printed in a magazine—
The mistakes printed in this magazine are not printing errors; they are kept intentionally. Actually, we publish material to suit everyone’s interest. And some people’s only interest is in misprints.

So who knows what you have come here looking for, that my words don’t make sense to you! Otherwise my words are very straightforward. If you have come here to learn all those useless things about spirituality and philosophy and ghosts and spirits and heaven and hell and what happens after death and what doesn’t—then you’ve come to the wrong place.

Funds were being raised to put barbed wire around the cemetery. The collectors also came to Mulla Nasruddin. Mulla said, “What is the need to put up a fence? Those who are inside the cemetery can’t come out; and of those who are outside, no one wants to go in. What do you need a fence for?” People think in their own way. And there is weight in his words. Those inside—are they going to come out now? They don’t need to be stopped. And those outside don’t want to go in of their own accord; they are running away from it. For whom are you putting up the wire? Useless waste of money!

Mulla Nasruddin went to Delhi for the first time. He stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel. He asked the manager, “What are your meal times?” The manager said, “Breakfast from seven to nine, lunch from ten to one, afternoon tea from two to four, dinner from six to ten.” Mulla Nasruddin became very worried and said in a sorrowful voice, “If I have to keep eating the whole day, when will I see the city?”

Kailashnath Shastri, there is no other obstacle—none from my side; the obstacle is on your side. Just leave your intellect outside the door and come in, and instantly what I’m saying will be understood.

That’s all for today.