Maha Geeta #16

First thing: enlightenment is neither compulsory nor a need. Such language is fundamentally wrong in relation to enlightenment. When there is hunger, bread is needed. When there is a body, breath is needed. Without these you cannot live. But without enlightenment a person lives quite well. Water is needed, bread is needed, a shelter is needed—these are needs. Without them you cannot live even a moment. Without enlightenment, most people live; in fact, most live only without it.

So first, enlightenment is not a need. And certainly it is not compulsory. Once in a while a Buddha, an Ashtavakra, a Christ, a Mohammed attains that state. The happening is so unique that it cannot be called compulsory; otherwise it would happen to everyone, to each and every person.

Spirituality, in one sense, is purposeless—meaningless. That is why in this land we call it sat-chit-ananda. What is the “meaning” of bliss? What necessity does bliss fulfill? What compulsion does bliss answer? The world runs quite happily without God. That is why God is nowhere visible. His presence does not appear necessary—neither in the shop, nor in the office, nor in the home. Enlightenment is the ultimate aristocracy, the ultimate elitism.

Bread is needed; but there is no “need” for Michelangelo’s statues. Without them one can live quite well. A roof is needed; but what “need” is there for Kalidasa? If Kalidasa’s works were not there, what obstacle would arise? The petty is needed; where is the need for the vast? And if the vast became your need, it too would become petty. The vast is sheer joy, a sense of wonder. Do not drag the vast into the language of necessity. Do not turn God into economics.

That is why socialists say: bread, employment, and housing. There is no place in that for God. Therefore in communism there is no place for God. Think a little: Marx, such an economist—if God were a need, if enlightenment were a need, he would have kept some space for it. He kept none. In pure economics, there is no such need.

The truth is: if a ray of God descends into your life, many hindrances will arise. That is why many people do not dare. If a ray of God descends, you will not be able to continue as you were. Obstacles will begin. The structure of your life will start changing. Your style will change. Your very mode of being will change. Your direction will change. You will be thoroughly disarranged. The settled shape of you will be uprooted. Your roots will be pulled up. You will have to find new ground; the old ground will not do. You will not be able to stand on the earth; you will have to take support from the sky.

The deeper you understand this, the more useful it will be.

God is absolutely unnecessary. Therefore only a few people feel a thirst for God—those who have understood that there is no joy in the necessary. In the necessary, at most, the need gets met.

You were hungry; you ate. If you remain hungry, there is suffering; but by eating, what happiness arrives? The sun was blazing, sweat was flowing, you were troubled and restless; you came under a roof and the restlessness subsided. But by coming under a roof, no joy arises.

In the realm of necessity there is suffering and relief from suffering; there is no bliss at all. This is the rub: a poor man, who has no wealth, thinks that when wealth comes, bliss will come. When wealth comes, he finds poverty is gone, wealth has come—and bliss has not.

Where is bliss in the satisfaction of needs? By satisfying needs, suffering decreases. And another unique thing happens: as suffering decreases, you begin to feel that even if all suffering ends and bliss does not come, what is the point? A man has no illness, no pain, no financial problem, all comforts—house, car, prestige—what more is needed? All needs are fulfilled; what more? Yet that man too says, “Something feels empty, something seems to be slipping away; nothing has truly been found.”

Until you relate to the purposeless, until you rise above need and look, until something that had no necessity happens in your life—bliss will not happen.

By the ending and fulfillment of needs, suffering declines, convenience arrives; but bliss does not. Bliss happens when you rise beyond need—into the purposeless: into flowers, music, poetry. There is no need there. Whether Wagner exists or not, Shakespeare or not, Rabindranath or not—what difference does it make? Will you eat poems, drink them, wear them? I take these names so you may understand. Even in them there may be a little utility. In God there is not even that much. Enlightenment is utterly non-utilitarian. There is the savor of its being, but no utility. You cannot make it a “commodity,” something to be sold in the marketplace.

The day a person becomes capable of understanding this truth—that as long as I seek the fulfillment of needs I will keep revolving in a circle. Each day hunger arises, I earn food, I eat, hunger is gone; tomorrow hunger returns. Then food, then hunger, then food. Food brings no bliss; it only removes the suffering hunger brought.

This is the definition of a worldly man—one who seeks only convenience, the absence of inconvenience. The meaning of a spiritual man is that he has understood this truth: even if all conveniences are attained, flowers do not bloom in life, no fragrance rises, no music plays. No—the veena of life lies silent.

Therefore I call religion aristocratic. Aristocratic means: it has no purpose. It is purposeless, beyond purpose—purpose-transcending. And whenever anything purpose-transcending descends into your life, there you get a little glimpse of bliss—like in love. What is the “meaning” of love, what utility? Will you eat it, drink it, wear it? What will you do with love? If someone starts asking you, “Are you going crazy? What profit is there in love? Your bank balance won’t grow. Your house won’t get bigger. What’s the gain in love? Why waste time?”

That is why the politician does not get into the love-business; he puts all his energy into position, not into love. The money-mad, the wealth-aspirant, puts all his energy into earning. Love, he says, not now—where is the leisure?

Then love appears to have no purpose at all—it looks like a kind of madness.

Ask practical people; they will say love means madness. But in love there is a little glimpse of that which is purposeless, which has no meaning and yet is supremely flavorful, supremely luminous—sat-chit-ananda.

Someone sits and plays his sitar. You ask him, “What will you get from this?” He may not be able to answer. “What is the sense in striking and pulling and beating a string? Stop it. Do some work, something useful. Produce something! Build a factory, go to the fields! What’s the point of twanging strings?” But one who has come to relish the strings sometimes prefers even to remain hungry and not leave the strings.

Vincent van Gogh died hungry. He had just that much money—his brother gave him just enough—that he could buy bread for seven days. He would eat three days and stay hungry four; with the money saved he bought colors and canvas and painted. Not a single painting of his sold then, because what he painted was at least a hundred years ahead of its time. All genius is ahead of time—in fact, that is what genius means: to be ahead of time. There was no buyer. Now each painting sells for vast sums. Then no one was ready to buy even for a few pennies. He lived hungry and died hungry. His family was astonished: “Are you mad?”

Hunger is a man’s first need, but van Gogh must have been receiving something that no one could see—some stream of savor must have been flowing. Otherwise why? What purpose? No prestige, no name, no money—hunger, pain, poverty—yet he goes on painting. When he began to paint, hunger vanished, the body vanished—he became bodiless. When all the paintings he had to create were done, he committed suicide. In the letter he left he wrote: “Now there is no meaning left in living.”

This is most intriguing. He wrote: “What I had to paint, I have painted; what I had to hum, I have hummed; what I had to pour into colors, I have poured; what I had to say, I have said; what was hidden within me has been expressed; now there is no meaning in staying.”

Those “meaningless” paintings were his very meaning. When that work was finished, he left. As if there was no other meaning in life at all.

What is the use—eat bread every day and get hungry again; eat bread again and get hungry again? Every bread brings new hunger; every hunger demands new bread. This is a circle in which we keep revolving. What is the essence of this—you ever thought?

If a man lives eighty years, what has he done? The processes you call meaningful—bread, livelihood, house—what has he done? Just consider. How many tons of food he turned into excreta—that is all. Just think: in eighty years, how many heaps of excreta; if he kept piling them up, what mountains would arise. That is all his work. You will leave behind a mountain of excreta and depart. And you call this meaning? Yet this alone appears meaningful. This is economics.

That is why I do not call God “meaning,” because calling it meaning would make it part of economics. I call it “beyond meaning.” It is no need. And as long as you are entangled in needs, you will not be able to lift your eyes that way. That is why I say: only when a society becomes very affluent does religion gain momentum; otherwise it does not.

This puts people in great difficulty with me. They begin to ask, “Then can the poor not be religious?” I do not say that. A poor person too can be religious, but a poor society can never be a religious society. Individually, a poor person can be so gifted that he becomes religious; he can understand the futility of what we call meaning. Then that which is beyond meaning becomes the meaning. But that is a great transformation, a great revolution. Yet a prosperous society definitely becomes religious.

In my view, that society alone is truly prosperous which becomes religious. When India stood upon its golden peak—needs were fulfilled, granaries were full, fields ripened, people were not hungry, not afflicted, not harried—then religion touched high summits: then the Bhagavad Gita descended, then Ashtavakra’s Mahagita descended, then the Upanishads resounded, then Buddhas and Mahaviras awakened this land. That was the golden peak.

Now that golden peak has moved to the West. If there is any possibility of religion now, it is in the West, not in the East. The East has religion’s past; the West has religion’s future. You lost it from your hands—you lost it thinking, “What is there in wealth, in property?” There is nothing in it—this too is true. But only when wealth and property are there does it become evident that there is nothing in them. They have at least this much utility—to show this. And when everything is there in your life and you find that nothing has happened, for the first time a pang arises: now seek that which is not a need.

And God is certainly not compulsory. Compulsory would mean: whether you do or do not, it will happen. Death is compulsory; samadhi is not. Compulsory is death; meditation is not. Compulsory is old age; religion is not. Only this much is compulsory: the ephemeral will pass. Whether the eternal comes is not compulsory. The eternal will come if you seek it. Seek, wander; again and again you will find it and lose it; it will come with great difficulty. It is not at all compulsory. Compulsory would mean you sit doing nothing and it will happen by itself. God would then be like death: as all men die, so all men would attain enlightenment. No—neither is it compulsory, nor is it a need. Enlightenment happens through seeking, through deep sadhana, through great urgency; when you stake yourself, it happens. Enlightenment is not fate, that it will happen because it is written. What is written in fate is petty; that will go on happening.

At fourteen, sexual desire arises. At eighty, death arrives. After fifty, old age sets in. Sexual desire is compulsory: at fourteen it arises in every child; if it does not arise, something is wrong and medical attention is needed. It must arise; it is compulsory, it is natural. But spirituality is neither compulsory nor natural. If it happens, it is a miracle. When it happens to someone, it is a wonder: what should not happen has happened.

That is why we remember a Buddha for centuries: that which was not to happen happened; that which was not expected happened; that which seemed to have no possibility happened. Thousands of years pass—we cannot forget the Buddhas. Their memory haunts us; some string in our heart keeps vibrating: the impossible has happened.

The most impossible event on this earth is enlightenment. When I say “impossible,” I am not saying it will not happen; it happens, it can happen—but it is not compulsory. It is not that you will do nothing and it will occur by itself. It is not natural; it is supernatural.

Neither is the case. If it were obligatory, then you wouldn’t have to do anything. You will have to do a great deal; even then, if it happens, it is a miracle. Even then it is not certain—no assurance that it will happen, no guarantee. It is an unprecedented event: to bring the infinite down into the finite; to bring the divine into the body; to pour the void into the mind; to make room for the great void. It is certainly not compulsory. Only that is compulsory which has already happened. Lust has already happened, the house is already settled, the race for wealth is on, the race for position is on. Politics is compulsory; religion is not.

That is why, in this country, we honored the religious person. We did not honor emperors—because what is there in that? Everyone wants to be an emperor. They don’t manage it, that is another matter; but everyone wants it, everyone aspires to it. To become that is nothing special. To attain office is nothing special.

Once the Buddha came to a village. The vizier of that village said to his king, “Buddha is coming; let us go outside the village to welcome him.” The king was stiff-necked. He said, “Why should I go? And what is this Buddha? A beggar, that’s all. He will come by himself! What need is there for me to go or not go?”

That old vizier, on hearing this, began to weep. He wrote out his resignation. He said, “Please accept my resignation, my renunciation! Forgive me, I am leaving. Now it is not proper for me even to sit in your shadow.”

The king said, “What is the matter? Why are you so angry? I didn’t say anything bad. I am an emperor; he is a beggar. Why should I go to receive him?”

The vizier said, “That finishes it. I can no longer sit by you. Find another vizier for yourself. What is the point of sitting with a man who doesn’t have even this much understanding: politics is ordinary; being a king is ordinary. But this becoming a beggar like Buddha is extraordinary, unprecedented, unique. Here something has happened. Go, fall at his feet! It is your good fortune that he comes to this village. And I am going. To sit with you is bad company.”

The vizier is right. That old man has eyes. He has some understanding, some discernment.

We have not honored wealth. We have honored something else altogether—awakening, sannyas, renunciation. Those who left, those who raised their eyes upward and looked to the sky—we honored them.

In the West they wrote history; in the East we did not write history—we wrote the Puranas. Western thinkers are greatly puzzled: Why was history not written in India? They think the Puranas are stories, fantasies...!

But we did not write history knowingly, because history is of ordinary events; the Purana is of extraordinary events. That is why the Purana seems like imagination—because one cannot quite trust that such a thing could have happened. Purana means that which happens once in a while. History means that which happens every day, the repetitive. Whether Napoleon, Nadir Shah, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao—these are everyday occurrences; history is made of them. They are like clippings from newspapers, out of which history is compiled.

The happening of a Buddha is an un-happening, an improbability. It was not supposed to happen—and it happened. As if suddenly, at midnight, the sun were to rise; as if a ray were to descend into the darkness and we could not even catch it before it is gone, before it slips from our hands. We remain cheated and speechless—it comes and goes. A song resounds; we cannot even hear it properly, because we are filled with our own noise, and the song departs. Only a memory remains, and we ourselves begin to doubt whether we had actually heard that song, whether we had seen such a man. We ourselves cannot quite believe it. As the memory fades and recedes, we ourselves begin to doubt: Did it really happen?

Purana means: that which happens only sometimes; once in thousands of years. A collection of such unique events is called Purana. Trust does not easily arise in a Purana. History is trash, history is refuse—a heap of garbage, what happens every day.

In earlier days people would wake in the morning and read the Gita, or the Dhammapada, or the Quran; now they wake and read the newspaper. That which happens every day...

Have you ever noticed, in the newspaper you read what happens every day, and yet you read the same thing every day. Do you ever see anything new in a newspaper? Has anyone ever seen anything new in a newspaper? You call it a “newspaper”! Let it be two days old and you won’t read it.

I lived for a while in a place where a madman lived near me. He had a great fondness for newspapers. He would collect all the neighborhood’s papers. Perhaps he went mad because of newspapers—who knows? But when I arrived, he was already mad. He would come to me too and carry off whatever papers there were. Once I said to him, “You take papers that are seven or eight days old—what will you do with them?” He said, “What’s old and what’s new about a newspaper? Whenever you read it—that’s when it’s new! If I haven’t read it, it’s new for me.”

That madman said something very wise: What new, what old!

You read the newspaper—have you ever noticed that it is the same thing you read every day? Does anything new ever happen? The new has happened in the Quran, in the Dhammapada, in Ashtavakra. The people of old were wiser. They read what is un-happenable, ineffable, beyond grasp. It was not supposed to be—and yet it happens. They sought rare flowers; you seek garbage. In seeking rare flowers, they themselves slowly became rare. In seeking the un-happenable, the possibility of the un-happenable happening began to form within them.

Therefore I want to tell you: neither obligatory nor necessary. Religion is the most non-compulsory, the most unnecessary thing in this world. That is why there is Russia—two hundred million people living without religion. What obstacle is there? The truth is, they are living quite comfortably. Worries and anxieties are gone. They live with all the amenities. Perhaps a very few people feel a difficulty, but for ninety-nine out of a hundred there is no problem at all. There may be one in a hundred—some Solzhenitsyn or someone else—one here or there who has difficulty. But how does one count? Democracy lives for the crowd. The ninety-nine have no concern. Give them alcohol, a beautiful wife, a house, a car, a place to eat and drink—that is sufficient. How petty a thing you are satisfied with! You are satisfied with nothingness. Look at your wretchedness! Ashtavakra says: look at your defilement! How stained you are, how quickly you are satisfied with the paltry!

If religion were to disappear completely from the world, very few people would be troubled. Some Gautam Buddha would be born—and he would be troubled. But the rest would have no trouble at all. Religion is the out-of-the-ordinary. It is a flower that blooms only sometimes, not every day. A flower that blooms only sometimes!

For a while I had a gardener. He brought a plant. He said to me, “I paid five hundred rupees for it from the one I bought it.” I said, “Are you mad—five hundred rupees for a single plant? Is it worth that much? What’s the matter—what’s special about it?”

He said, “It bears a flower, but it blooms once every twelve years.”

So I said, “Then it’s worth it. Then don’t pay five hundred—pay a thousand. Bring it. For a flower that blooms once in twelve years is unique. Those seasonal flowers that bloom in two weeks or four weeks are one thing. Twelve years—this is a bit like the flower of religion. Plant it. It must be in my garden. We will wait for it to bloom.”

And when it bloomed—it blooms only at night—on a full-moon night it bloomed, and the whole neighborhood, people from far and wide, came to see it. It blooms only once in a while; its darshan is not for every day.

Buddha-like beings bloom only once in a while. That lotus of the sahasrar blooms only occasionally. Do not long for that which blooms every day, which is available every day. There is nothing in the petty. Long for that which is unprecedented, unique, ineffable, beyond grasp. Desire that which is impossible. The day you desired the impossible, that very day you became religious. The longing for the impossible—this is my definition of religion.

Tertullian’s famous saying is: “I trust in God because God is impossible.” Impossible! Therefore I trust. What wisdom does it take to trust in the possible—what great talent? Even the most foolish can trust in the possible. For trust in the impossible, mountains of faith must rise within you—Gaurishankar must be formed—then faith in the impossible is born. The longing for the impossible is religion: “A passion for the impossible!”

No, not in the least. Those appellations are deeply meaningful. Dharma means: intrinsic nature. It is a very suggestive word. Dharma does not mean religion or creed. Religion or creed we call sampradaya. The meaning of dharma is far deeper. That by virtue of which Islam is called a dharma, Christianity is called a dharma, Jainism is called a dharma, Hinduism is called a dharma—because of which all these are called “dharmas”—that which is the essence of all, that is named dharma. These are all paths that lead to that dharma; therefore they are sampradayas.

Christianity is a sampradaya, Hinduism is a sampradaya, Jainism is a sampradaya, Buddhism is a sampradaya, Islam is a sampradaya. Dharma is that which these sampradayas lead up to. So it is not proper to call Islam a dharma, nor Hinduism a dharma—sampradaya! The word sampradaya is good. It means: a path by which we arrive. That upon which we arrive is dharma.

“Dharma” is a unique word. Its profound meaning is: nature—our ultimate nature; that which is hidden like a seed at the innermost center within us, becoming manifest.

We are carrying the divine like a seed. For lifetimes we have wandered carrying the divine as a seed. Until we give that seed soil—of meditation—the tree of dharma will not arise. If you would become acquainted with dharma, you must go deep into meditation. Meditation becomes the soil, and the seed of dharma sprouts in the soil of meditation.

There are no “dharmas” in the world. Yes, once in a while there are religious individuals. What you see are all sampradayas. So the word dharma is not useless; it has not been forcibly imposed upon self-realization.

And adhyatma—spirituality—is also a most precious word. Its meaning too is this: that which is your innermost privacy. Try to understand.

You have two kinds of things. First, that which others have given you, which is not your own: like language. When you were born you did not come with any language. Language was given to you. Silence you brought with you. Language was given to you. Silence is spirituality; language is social. That which you brought with you, which is yours, intimate—that is spirituality. What is borrowed, secondhand, is not spirituality. Whatever others have handed to you is not spirituality.

You may have a great deal of knowledge learned from universities, from scriptures, from gurus—that is not spirituality. The day your inner consciousness awakens, your eyes open, and your own knowing emerges—that is called spirituality.

Spirituality has no scripture and no book, and there is no way to obtain it on loan. Spirituality is not an object that can be transferred. Spirituality is your ultimate own nature, your very ownness. The day you sift out all that is borrowed, going on saying, “This too I am not, this too I am not”—neti, neti—denying and denying, and there comes a moment when you can deny no more, to which you must say, “This indeed am I”—on that day, spirituality! The state of witnessing itself is spirituality; all the rest is non-spiritual.

These words are very dear. If you understand their meaning, then simply by listening and understanding, something will begin to happen within you. A tiny spark can burn a great forest. These are not small words; they are little sparks.

The master sees you in three forms—what you were; what you are; what you can be. He has to free you from what you were. He has to liberate you from your past. Your past has to be wiped off, cleaned; it is the rubbish that has gathered on your mirror. He must sever you from the past—this is the first task.

Then he has to awaken you to what you are—because you have no idea at all who you are. Your past has become so heavy that it presses you down in such a way that your present is not visible to you. And the present is a very tiny moment, very atomic—so small that you cannot even grasp it. The moment you notice, ‘Here is the present,’ it is gone. In the very time it takes to say, ‘Here is the present,’ the present has become past. Even to gather words to say ‘present,’ by then it has already gone. The present is a very thin stream, very subtle! Only if you are a silent witness will you be able to catch it.

So you have to be freed from the past; you have to be awakened to the present; and the future... If you remain shackled to the past, then the past itself becomes the decider of your future; it manufactures your future. The dead goes on destroying your future too. For from where will you bring the plans you make for the future? From your past. On the basis of past experience you will erect the buildings of tomorrow. They will be repetitions, the same old again and again. You may tweak it a little, change the colors, alter the form a bit; but it will still be the past, decorated and polished—a corpse adorned in fine clothes. Whatever blueprint you make for the future will come out of the past; it will be a projection of the past.

So the master’s effort will be that he does not allow your past to be projected into your future. Otherwise, even if your past is destroyed, your future will be destroyed as well. He will strive to free you from the past, and he will also strive to free you from worry and brooding about the future. For all thinking about the future is to destroy the future. How can there be a thought of the future? The future is precisely that which has not yet arrived; that of which you know nothing. The future is a blank slate, a clean sheet of paper on which nothing has yet been written.

If you start writing on it now, you will spoil the future. Its purity will be stained even before it comes home.

So he has to awaken you to the present; liberate you from the past; block the dreams of the future. For these three tasks the master makes all his efforts. He awakens you; then he also creates tests to see whether you have awakened or not. Because your sleep is so deep that many times you dream in your sleep that you have awakened. You must remember such dreams in which, while asleep, in a dream you felt you had woken up—only in the morning to find the dream was false, and the waking inside the dream was false too. There is great fear that by hearing so much about awakening you may start dreaming of awakening. That will not be reality.

That is why Ashtavakra puts Janaka to such a sharp test. I too have to see that you do not fall into some new dream—that you do not start dreaming of spirituality. A dream is a dream—worldly or spiritual. Freedom from dream is spirituality. And you grasp things very quickly—especially whatever gratifies the ego, you catch hold of instantly. Someone says, ‘You are of the nature of Brahman’—caught! There is no hurdle in swallowing that. That is why so many millions believe, ‘We are Brahman.’ It doesn’t take time to latch on. Even the greatest sinner, when he hears the proclamations of the Upanishads and Ashtavakra—the lion’s roar—‘You are God,’ feels, ‘Absolutely right; we already knew this. We didn’t say it lest no one would accept it, but of course we knew it all along. Sin and all that is only a dream!’

Even though you go on committing sins. Now you discover a new trick: ‘All this is maya.’ You keep on stealing, you keep on cheating—and then you say, ‘It’s all illusion.’

You will often find that where such pure Vedanta talk is going on, you will see great sinners sitting there—and cheerful! Only there do they find a little joy; nowhere else can they. Anywhere else they go, someone says, ‘There goes a black-marketeer’; someone says, ‘He is a thief’; someone, ‘He is dishonest, a great sinner.’ Only where pure spirituality is flowing do they get a little peace. There they feel, ‘This is exactly right—sin and all that is false!’

You will see sinners gathered around saints. Their words gratify their ego immensely: ‘At least there is some place where we can sit elated—there is no sin and the like; it is all maya. Nothing was done, nothing can be done. We are not doers, nor enjoyers—we are merely witnesses!’

So the master has to watch that this notion of ‘witness’ does not become suicidal for you. Declarations come too quickly. Just listening to Janaka and Ashtavakra, many people wrote to me: ‘You really awakened us! We have attained knowledge!’ One friend wrote, ‘Now I am leaving awakened; I am the Supreme Brahman myself.’ He left indeed! He wrote the letter and left. He did not give us even a chance to test him—he only made a proclamation and went!

Swabhav wrote a letter: ‘I have awakened! Thank you, Lord, for letting me know that I am God.’ Not only that—he went and had his head shaved in the same excitement! Lakshmi told me that Usha (his wife) came crying. I told Lakshmi, ‘Tell Usha not to worry at all. People don’t awaken like this… Swabhav won’t either. What happens by shaving the head? Look—he has kept the tuft (shikha)! In that everything is preserved! Why did Swabhav keep the tuft? A Hindu will of course keep the shikha!’

I sent word to his wife: ‘Don’t be anxious at all, Usha. Until I myself say he has awakened, don’t worry. Like this he will toss and turn many times, and again and again fall asleep.’ I had not yet answered his question; I said, ‘First listen a little to how Ashtavakra tests Janaka, then I will answer you.’ Now Ashtavakra’s examination is going on for Janaka. Reflect on all that, ponder it well.

The mind is very dishonest! It is very skilled at deception. It deceives others, and it can deceive itself too. You will awaken—certainly! Awakening has to happen; awakening is your nature, it is latent within you. But if you believe too soon—far too soon—then the master will have to pull your leg. Then you will be knocked flat…! If you are not made to fall, you may fall into some real danger.

Awakening certainly happens—and it should happen. Sometimes it happens with great intensity; sometimes instantaneously. Yet the master still has to take care that he does not become an accomplice in anyone’s delusive state. You may feel hurt at times, because you were assuming something and I say, ‘No, that has not happened.’ You will be hurt—that is unavoidable. Forgive me for that. But I must deliver the shock. If I don’t, and let you go on in some delusion, then I am not your master, not your companion; then I am your enemy. Then I have shown you no compassion or love. If for any reason I feed your ego, I am your foe. Your ego has to be erased—so erased that even its seed is utterly burnt.

Now be careful that Swabhav doesn’t go and shave off the tuft as well! There is no point in shaving now. I have said it—now it has no meaning. Even if you shave it off now, it makes no difference.

The effort to understand is there—Swabhav’s. A deep effort; a very intense longing. He wants to awaken. Precisely because he wants to awaken, sometimes he even dreams in his sleep that he has awakened. The longing is auspicious; it should be there. In one sense, such a person is fortunate—at least better than those who don’t even dream of awakening in their sleep. At least the dream of awakening is there. Only if there is a longing to awaken will you dream of awakening. Even if the ego gets inflated by sannyas, in one sense that too is good—for at least there is the longing for sannyas! Now one has to go a little further—purify this longing completely. One has to awaken; why dream of awakening? The dream of awakening will be of no use.

On this journey toward the Divine there will be many halting places where you will feel like going back to sleep. Powers will awaken—and then you will feel like going to sleep, thinking, ‘I have arrived, it is done! Look, a power has arisen!’

A Muslim youth used to practice near me—he was engaged in practice with deep longing, with an unwavering devotion. One day he came to me and said, ‘It has happened; it seems self-knowledge has occurred.’

I asked, ‘What happened?’

He said, ‘I was sitting in a bus. As the bus turned along the hillside I felt that the man sitting in front of me might fall—and the moment I felt it, he fell. I wondered whether my thought had toppled him. But I told myself it could be coincidence. The next time the bus turned, I focused on another man and thought, “This man will fall”—and he fell! Then I was a little alarmed—what is this? Still I thought I should test it once more. The third time the bus turned I chose a very fat man, who had no chance of falling, wedged in so tightly that even if the whole bus toppled he might not—“let him fall,” I thought, and he fell!’

‘Then I became quite nervous—nervous, and also delighted. I said to myself, “It seems a power is coming into my hands.”’

In fact something was happening to him; yet I had to say, ‘This is madness.’

This is the capacity of concentration. If through meditation you become highly concentrated, and in that concentration you think a thought, it can materialize at once. That is why all the yogic scriptures say: before you descend into the concentration of meditation, you should be filled with auspicious thoughts. Because if, after attaining concentrative meditation, inauspicious thoughts go on within you, their consequences will begin to manifest.

Therefore Patanjali, before asking you to practice dharana, dhyana, samadhi, speaks of practicing yama, niyama, pranayama, pratyahara. Become so purified that when the energy of meditation rises you have no wrong thoughts at all.

Thus Mahavira said: before meditation, deepen the feeling of nonviolence. Buddha said: before meditation, deepen the feeling of compassion.

Buddha even said: after every meditation, before you rise, spread compassion toward the whole world. Complete every meditation with compassion, begin with compassion—otherwise there is danger. If even a slightly wrong thought circles in the state of meditation, it will become effective. That thought acquires a certain force; it will enter into another person.

When power starts awakening, the master has to check that too. When fantasies begin to look like truths, the master has to check that as well.

Delusion is of many lifetimes; it has a vast spread. Think of it this way: in this garden, for lifetimes, rubbish and weeds have been growing. Now you have planted roses, but there is a great possibility that the weeds will overrun them and smother them—perhaps the roses will not even be visible. For lifetimes, the soil of your mind has been invaded by the futile, the nonessential. So when even a little capacity for the essential is born, instantly the nonessential will crush it. The master must keep striving that the nonessential does not overwhelm the essential, that dream does not dominate truth. Hence he has to put you through many tests.

The very presence of the master is an examination. When the master looks into your eyes, the test is already on. To be near the master means you are being tempered twenty-four hours a day. Do not be afraid of this tempering—be ready for it. And thank the master: ‘Don’t leave me like this; keep tempering me.’ For the journey is long, unknown, unfamiliar! I know nothing of it; I might go astray! The possibility of wandering is greater than of arriving—because wandering is our old habit.

Third question:

That is the very formula for your sannyas. The name I write for you in the corner—forget it today or tomorrow; erase it. Let only a blank page remain! You become blank! Let it not be known to you who you are, what you are! Let there be no identification. Let all your boundaries fall; become a blank page!

That’s why, quite deliberately, I write your name in one corner—down below. Above: the empty sky!

Have you ever seen the paintings made by Chinese Zen sages? Their paintings are the real paintings. In them you’ll find a large, long canvas, and in the lower corner just a tiny bit of painting. The vast, limitless sky—and in one corner a little…! They are giving a precise indication. They are saying: all that man has known is just like that—something small in a corner! All that man has made is just like that—something small in a corner! Beyond that is the vast sky.

In Western painting there is almost no sky. Everything is filled; the whole canvas is crowded. All the colors are poured in; nothing is left blank. When the West first began to recognize Zen painting, it was astonished: on such a large sheet, such a small painting! Such a small painting could fit on a small piece of paper! Why leave so much paper empty? That emptiness is the great secret; it is the mystery; it is the pointer. That emptiness itself is the truth; the rest are just little ripples. The ocean is the truth.

This earth of ours is very small. That great sky!

Do not forget this proportion. That’s why, in the lower corner, I put my signature and write your name. And I leave the whole paper empty, so that again and again you remember that your name is only something in a little corner. That too is to be forgotten one day. To become nameless—only then is sannyas complete. To become like a blank page.

Among the Sufis there is a book that is absolutely blank. There is no better book than that. Nothing is written in it. It is some seven or eight hundred years old. It has been passed from one master to another. One master gave it to a disciple, then he gave it to his disciple; hand to hand it has continued. It is still preserved. Even now, after seven hundred years, disciples open it and read it. Nothing is written in it. It is blank pages. The Sufis wanted to publish that book; no publisher was willing. Then someone gathered courage and printed it. But even then he had some twenty–twenty-five pages of introduction written… The book was spoiled! In the introduction they gave the entire history—who began this book, in whose hands it remained, then in whose hands it went. But that spoiled everything. That book should have been blank. But who will agree to print a blank book! People will say, if there is something to print, then print it. There is nothing here.

In Rajasthan there is a woman: Bhuribai—an astonishing woman! Whenever I went to Rajasthan, she would certainly come to meet me. There will be very few women in India of her caliber. She is completely rustic; she knows nothing—and yet she knows everything. She once said to me, “Bapji, please come to my village! I have written a book; you inaugurate it.”

I said, “Go and fool someone else. I’ve understood your book—what it will be. Bring it here; I’ll inaugurate it right here.”

So one day she brought it, carrying it on her head, decorated in a beautiful casket! Her devotees… she has devotees! That woman is worthy! Her devotees came along. I inaugurated her book. There was nothing in it; inside was a small booklet—empty! Nothing was written in it. She doesn’t even know how to read and write.

When she first came to my camp, those who had come with her—devotees—began to meditate; she got up and went to her room. Her devotees went and said, “We came here precisely to meditate—why didn’t you meditate?” She said, “Go and ask Bapji.” They came to me and said, “What is the matter? Bhuribai says to ask Bapji.”

“Bapji” I should not call myself, because she must be seventy or eighty years old. I said, “She is right. Because she did exactly what I said. I had said: Do nothing; become a silent witness!”

They went back to her. They said, “He said so.” She said, “Then it is fine. There it was a great crowd, a lot of commotion. Many people were doing this and that. I came to this room, sat down; I did nothing—great meditation happened.”

When she returned to her village, the villagers asked, “What did you bring back from there?” So she had “Silence” written on her room. She said, “That is all I understood. He said many things, but not much fits into my head; I am illiterate. ‘Silence’—that much I understood. I’ve had that written on my room. Of all that he said, that much I could grasp. That is what I can tell you.”

That blank page says “Silence.” That blank page is the Qur’an, it is the Dhammapada, it is the Ashtavakra Samhita. For that blank page all the scriptures have made the effort—to bring you to the understanding of how to read the blank page. To make emptiness understood, they have taken the help of words; but not to explain words—to point to emptiness. The purpose of language is to lead you into silence.

Become a witness! Become a witness to the blank inner emptiness! There, nirvana happens; samadhi happens!

He is still wandering. Knowledge is still wandering.
Knowledge is a very stiff, stuck-up thing. Where will you find anyone more egoistic than a pandit? Even the rich are not as egoistic as the so‑called “knowers” become. Once a man feels “I know,” what to say of his stiffness!
So Knowledge would not agree to step down into the Ganges of the parable. The Ganges had called to both—Knowledge and Moha stood together on the bank. Understand Knowledge and Moha as heart and head, surrender and will, feeling and thought—give them any names you like. Both were standing there. The Ganges said, “Come, beloved! Bathe in me! Become pure! I will bathe you! I will purify you! I will make you new! You will be reborn!”
Moha stepped down; because Moha is feeling, heart; there is no argument there. He accepted the invitation. He said, “Come, let’s see.” He went down. He took the plunge. When he came out, the old was gone, the new had arrived. Moha became love. The heart became samadhi. Feeling was dissolved in rasa.
Knowledge stood there stiff. He said, “Who will purify me? What kind of talk is this? Purify me more? I am pure! Will this ordinary water of the Ganges purify me? I am a knower of the scriptures! Who will purify me? I will purify others!”
He stood there, rigid. He even laughed at Moha: “What madness he’s falling for!” He is still wandering. He is still standing there, even now laughing. The pandit always laughs at the lover. But only lovers attain.
Let me tell you another story.
A king had two sons. The king had great wealth. One son was named Knowledge, the other was named Love. The king was very worried to whom he should entrust his kingdom. He asked a fakir, “How should I decide?” The two were twins, born together. There was no elder or younger; otherwise we would have decided by age. Both were brilliant, both intelligent, both skilled. How to decide?
The father’s heart was very hesitant, lest some injustice be done! He asked the fakir. The fakir said, “Do this. Tell both sons that this will be the deciding test: Go and build mansions in all the great cities of the world. Whoever succeeds in building them within five years will be the heir to my kingdom.”
Knowledge set out. He began to build mansions. But in five years how will you build mansions all over the earth? There are thousands of great cities! He built some, then his wealth ran out, his strength ran out, he grew tired, he grew troubled. And the task began to look foolish—what’s the essence of it anyway?
After five years when both returned, Knowledge came back exhausted, in the condition of a beggar. All the treasure he had, he used it up. Sure, a few mansions did get built, but what was the point? He returned defeated, dejected.
Love returned dancing. The father asked, “Did you build the mansions?” Love said, “I did—across the whole world. Not only in the big cities, even in the small towns.” Time was plenty.
The father was a little startled. He asked, “Your elder brother, your other brother, returned worn out after building in a few cities; how did you manage?” Love said, “I made friends—friends everywhere. All my friends’ mansions are open to me. In whichever village I go, there—one, two, even three mansions for me. I didn’t build houses; I built friends. This man got busy building houses—so he missed. Houses stand open for me; mansions are ready for me, ready everywhere. Wherever you say—there is my mansion. In every city—my mansion!”
There is one way of Love, and another way of Knowledge. From knowledge, ultimately, science is born. Knowledge’s last offspring is science. From science, ultimately, technology is born. Science’s offspring is technology.
From love, devotion is born. Devotion is love’s daughter. From devotion, God is born. The two directions are vastly different.
Whoever walks the path of knowledge will wander off somewhere into science. That is why the West wandered into science. The whole Western lineage was born of Greek thinkers. They had a great hold of knowledge—Aristotle, Plato! Logic and thought and knowing! “We must know! We will know!” The final outcome of that knowing was that man reached the atomic bomb. He discovered death—and nothing of essence came.
The East set out from love. So we discovered samadhi. We discovered a unique sky—where everything fills, everything is fulfilled. Now the West is troubled—troubled by its own knowledge.
Albert Einstein, before dying, said, “If I were given another birth, I would not want to be a scientist—not at all! I would prefer to be a plumber, not a scientist.” He died in great pain: what is the essence? What is the point of knowing? The essence is in being.
Even love does not become devotion until it bows. Knowledge too, if it bows, becomes meditation. But knowledge is not willing to bow. Love is very ready to bow.
Had Knowledge also stepped into the Ganges—understand, he didn’t, but if he had—had he accepted the invitation, had he taken the plunge, then just as Moha came out transformed into love, Knowledge could have come out transformed into meditation. But he remained stiff on the bank—and so became science, and then became technology. And then everything began to go wrong.
It is not that there is no path for one of knowledge‑temperament; if he bows, there is a path for him too. When the lover bows, prayer is born; when the knower bows, meditation is born. Prayer also leads to the Divine; meditation also leads to the Divine. The language will differ. When the meditator reaches the Divine, he says “Atma” (Self); because in meditation there is no way for the Other. When the lover reaches the Divine, he does not say “Self”; he says, “You alone are—where am I!”
These are only differences of language. Both arrive at the same Great Void. One calls it Atman, the other calls it Paramatman. These are differences of language. If your grip on thought is very strong, then take the path of meditation; but take the plunge. The Ganges is right here! I say: come, take the plunge! I will make you new.
If your grip on thought is strong—no harm. The Ganges that transformed even Moha into love—will it not be able to transform thought? If even Moha could be transformed into love, what power does thought have? Thought is instantly transformed into meditation. But you must bow. Without bowing, nothing happens! Without surrender, nothing happens!

Neither opposed nor complementary. When one is, the other simply is not. Consider: are light and darkness opposed to each other or complementary? Neither complementary nor opposed; because when there is light, there is no darkness; when there is darkness, there is no light. For things to be complementary, both must be present together. Even to be opposed, both must be present together. But only one is; the other doesn’t remain at all.

When the experience of the sky begins to arise in your life, the earth is lost. That is why those who attained the ultimate state said that this earth is maya. Maya means it turned out to be a delusion, it vanished, it became dreamlike. When the dream of the earth seizes you strongly, then soul, Brahman, God—all become dreamlike.

For whom the earth is real, for that person the soul is maya. For whom the soul is real, the earth becomes maya. But they never exist together; only one is.

Consider that you saw a snake in a rope. As long as the snake is seen, the rope is not seen. Then you bring a lamp and the rope is seen—now the snake is not seen. So what will you say—are they complementary to each other or opposed to each other? Neither complementary nor opposed, because they are never together. There is only one. In a single mistake, the other seems to appear.

Only the sky is, only the Divine is—there is a slight error in your way of seeing! You get entangled in form and cannot see the formless. You get caught in shape and cannot see the shapeless. You grasp attributes, and the attributeless slips by. When your understanding deepens, becomes profound, and you begin to see the formless, form is lost. When you begin to see the shapeless, shape is lost. And hence astonishment arises.

Janaka is astonished because, when for the first time the sky became visible, the earth suddenly disappeared. The ground you had always stood upon slipped out from under your feet. So he is filled with wonder! He says, “Wonder, wonder! What has happened! How did this happen!”

Ashtavakra too is filled with wonder. Looking from the side of the sky, the earth is nowhere to be found. So he says: it is a wonder! You are astonished on seeing the sky; I am astonished hearing you talk about the earth.

Both their astonishments are perfectly right. The one who had seen a snake in a rope—when he comes to know it is a rope—will be astonished. And the one who has always known that a rope is a rope will also be astonished that someone managed to see a snake in it. Both will be astonished.

Only one can be. God and matter are not two things. Truth and the world are not two things. When we see truth in a wrong way and our interpretation is wrong—that is the world. When we see the world rightly and the interpretation becomes right—that is truth. We are always seeing only God, in every case. Whatever you see, you are seeing only the Divine. There is nothing else to see. Yes, if there is a slight error in your seeing, a little defect in your eye, then what you see becomes different from what is. But that which is seen is in itself the same—the eternal, the everlasting! It undergoes no transformation.

The world is man’s mistake. The world is man’s wrong interpretation. In the night, in the dark, you see—your own loincloth is hanging there—and in its folds it looks as if there are two hands. A loincloth is hanging, so it seems someone is standing there. You yourself hung it there in the daytime, and at night you yourself are afraid to go out, feeling there is a man standing there! The loincloth is still a loincloth. It has done nothing to frighten you. But you can panic.

Walking alone on a dark path you have perhaps noticed—your own shoe’s footsteps sound as if someone is following you! Anxiety begins to grip you. Little things create illusions. The sum total of all those illusions is the world. When the illusions drop and that which is becomes visible—that is God. God means what is; the world means how we have seen it.

Man dreams all kinds of dreams; he never dreams of sannyas. Because sannyas is not a dream—it is awakening from dreams. You dreamt many dreams; when those dreams grew tired, were defeated, and failed—when you could squeeze nothing out of them—then sannyas bore fruit.

Sannyas comes to fruition out of the defeat of worldly ambition. If wealth is gained, it is futile; if it is not gained, it is painful. If position is gained, it is futile; if it is not gained, it is painful. Running and running, sometimes gaining, sometimes not—in every case, one finds sorrow.

This is Maitreya’s question. When Maitreya met me, he was a Member of Parliament—an MP. His run was in politics. Had he remained there, today he would be a chief minister somewhere; there was great possibility. He was among Jawaharlal’s favored ones. If he had not fallen into my net, he would be either in jail or a chief minister—one of the two. He was also dear to Jayaprakash. I saved him from both!

But I understand his question well. He would never even have dreamt of being a sannyasin—that’s true. Does a politician ever dream of becoming a sannyasin!

Politics and religion are diametrically opposite dimensions—nothing could be more opposite. Politics is ambition; religion is becoming empty of ambition. Politics is the race for position and prestige, the race to control others; religion is the longing to be the master of oneself. These are very different things. The desire to be master over others is politics; the desire to be master of oneself is religion.

That is why we call sannyasins “Swami.” Don’t take it to mean that I am making you a master over others. A misunderstanding is possible: “He has made us Swami—now we are everyone’s master!” Don’t think like that. If you come into mastery even over yourself, that is enough. If a man becomes master of himself, that is sufficient. And one who is not master of himself and is trying to be master of others—his journey is bound to fail. One who has not yet become his own master, whose master can he become?

That is why those you call politicians are followers of their followers, slaves of their slaves. Don’t be too impressed by their photos in the newspapers. They are under the thumb of petty crooks and hoodlums. Those men stand behind; their pictures don’t appear in the papers, but the politicians move at their signals. They have to. If you want to make people walk behind you, you will have to walk at their signal.

You may have only one kind of experience, because you are not all politicians. If you want your wife to walk behind you, you know you must fulfill her every desire—only then will she walk behind you. She says, “You are the master, I the maid!” But do you understand what “maid” means? Until you become her servant, she is not a maid. She writes, “Your maid,” but the meaning is clear. She walks behind you at the wedding rounds; but if you want her to walk behind you all her life, in a very subtle way you will have to walk behind her. Otherwise she won’t walk behind you. It is a partnership: you walk behind us and we will walk behind you. It is a bargain.

A politician who is making others walk behind him is himself walking behind them. He keeps turning back to see where people are going, and starts going that way. This is the very meaning of a skillful politician.

And when some are unskillful politicians, what is the reason for their lack of skill? Just this: the unskillful politician is one who starts thinking that the world is following him. Then he gets into trouble. Ask Morarji Desai! The unskillful politician’s unskillfulness is precisely this: he thinks everyone is following him; wherever I go, the world will go. He is mistaken. The skillful politician is the one who sees where the people are going and starts walking ahead of them in that very direction. Socialism? Socialism is right! That’s exactly what we too want!

Mulla Nasruddin was galloping on his donkey. In a bazaar people stopped him and asked, “Where are you going?” He said, “Don’t ask me, ask my donkey! Because I am a politician. First I tried hard to make this donkey go, but he is a donkey. I pull left, he goes right. In the middle of the market I became a laughingstock! A crowd gathered: ‘Arrey, Nasruddin, you can’t even control your donkey!’ What to do? Then I understood one must do politics with a donkey. Now wherever the donkey goes, I go. The world thinks I am leading the donkey, but the donkey is leading me.”

Maitreya-ji was in politics. He would never have dreamt of becoming a sannyasin—that is true. But remaining in politics he gained nothing. From that not-gaining, the bent toward sannyas arose. From that not-gaining he began to lean in the other direction. He was a politician, but he did not have a politician’s talent—he did not have dishonesty. He is a very simple man. Sannyas suited him naturally. In politics he was greatly entangled, greatly restless. There was a mismatch; it did not suit him. He was not that petty or small a man.

There success belongs to those who are as petty as they are, as small as they are. There success belongs to those who can descend as low as possible. If a man there is simple, straightforward, there is no success for him. He had fallen into a wrong direction; that direction was not for him.

Perhaps he kept mocking sannyasins for this very reason, because we do not mock without cause. Often it happens that we make fun precisely of those we are envious of. You will see: jokes about Sardars are cracked all over the country. There is a reason in it: there is envy of the Sardars. The reasons for the envy are clear: the Sardars are stronger than you. If they press your neck, you will squeal! So anywhere in India, if a Sardar is standing nearby, you feel uneasy: this man is more powerful—how to take revenge on him! There is no point in quarrels and fights with him, so we make fun; we mock. That mockery is false; it is born of envy.

In the West, jokes are made about the Jews. Most jokes are against Jews. There too are reasons. There is great envy of the Jewish genius. Wherever a Jew sets his foot, others have to move aside. As many Nobel Prizes as Jews win, no one else in the world does. On one side the whole world, on the other the Jews alone. Their numbers are not large, but they carry off so many Nobels that one is astonished: what is the matter!

The three people who have influenced this century were all three Jews—Marx, Freud, Einstein. This entire twentieth century is influenced by Jews; it is running on foundations laid by Jews. Hitler was against communism for this very reason—he said that too is a Jewish conspiracy. This man Marx has invented a new device to take over the world. And half the world has been taken over. Then there is Freud—he took over all of psychology; he became master regarding the human mind. And over there is Albert Einstein—he took over all of science.

Wherever a Jew puts his foot—if in politics, then in politics; if in the market, in the race for wealth, then in wealth—he defeats people everywhere. He has genius. That genius creates uneasiness, creates envy. So we take revenge in jokes.

Mind this about mockery: you make fun of precisely that which you envy.

So, Maitreya-ji, I say to you: you must have mocked sannyasins because deep within you there was great envy of the sannyasin—that this is what you were meant to be and you did not become it.

Not because of any sannyasin’s benedictory curse—but because within you there was an attraction for the sannyasin, a flavor, a juice. You could not ignore the sannyasin. And you could not accept that the sannyasin is right either—because if the sannyasin is right, you are wrong. So you mocked. But somewhere, in the unconscious, you must have felt that the sannyasin is right, his direction is right. That mockery was your self-defense.

Had you met me—any time you had met me—you would have been in a fix. Because I am a kind of sannyasin who is not like a sannyasin. That’s why many people get caught in my circle. Those who were always against sannyas come and take sannyas with me. Those who were always against religion come and start meditating with me. Atheists come to me and say, “We can argue with theists, but with you we can’t manage.” I am an atheist, a great atheist—how will you fight me? You make one atheistic move, I make two. My theism is not opposed to atheism—it is beyond atheism. I make atheism into a ladder. I say, Come, let us play this game too for a while. If you are an atheist, come, let us play the game of atheism. For me, atheism became the steps to theism. I made the world a ladder to sannyas. Therefore those who would never be affected by any ancient, traditional sannyasin were waiting only for me. Whenever they come into contact with me, they have to dive.

I plucked a few flowers,
I wove a few songs
to adorn my gathering,
to spend my life.

I swallowed many a deceit
to distract my mind.
With raw threads I wove many nets—
I plucked a few flowers.

Around me I wove the cool shade of dreams,
lovely forms kept enticing the mind,
and yet this illusion of hope—
why did I never find rest day and night!

I wove some songs, I listened to songs—
the ones I heard made my head sway.
Losing myself in the rhythm of these sweet songs,
smiling, my innocent mind
I kept appeasing;
I swallowed the delusion of savoring beauty and form.

The flowers I plucked,
the songs I wove—
those flowers,
those songs warmed my heart.
The fair dreams of youth,
in a few nights, in a few meetings,
kept me amused.
But in the glamour of form,
where did my mind ever find joy!

So, Maitreya-ji, all your dreams—yes, you wove them well—were only dreams; they were meant to break. In them you found no peace, no joy, no shade. You found fever, illness, tension, torment—but not peace. For one exhausted by the world, for one tired of ambition—what refuge is there apart from sannyas! For the defeated, the Name of Hari.

“I am worthy of Your tavern—
this I never said.”
Precisely for that, you are worthy of my tavern. The one who says, “I am worthy,” is unworthy. The one who says, “I have no merit,” I enlist into my wine-house. There is no place here for the “worthy.” For the egoists, there is no remedy here.

“I am worthy of Your tavern—
this I never said.”
Exactly so—exactly for that—my doors are open to you. This wine-house is your temple. There is no need here for the knowledgeable, nor for the scholars. No need here for the virtuous or the so-called holy men. What is needed are those who are humble and ready to bow.

“Are there more tests still left?
What is there that I have not endured?”
No test remains—provided what you have endured was not endured in stupor. If you have borne it in awareness, then no test remains. You have come to the very shore of witnessing; the happening is near, it can occur any moment. But if it was endured in unconsciousness, then one test remains—and that is awakening. Whatever was borne in stupor, now bear it awake. Whatever you endure wakefully will set you free.

“Since Your longing seized me,
I remain out of my senses.
If the heart’s distance were not a barrier,
I would dwell right by Your side as Your servant.”
Since Your longing seized me,
I remain out of my senses.
From then on, the wits of my intellect have flown! Those whose wits have flown—that is, whose calculating mind has fallen away—are the ones who can work with me.

“Since Your longing seized me,
I remain out of my senses.
If the heart’s distance were not a barrier,
I would dwell right by Your side as Your servant.”
Only a small distance remains—the distance created by your stupefied heart. Let a small lamp of wakefulness be lit there, and then there is no distance at all. That very stupor is the cause of all suffering.

“A numb desolation has spread,
the blithe desires have sulked away;
with what mercilessness the intellect
has plundered the settlement of the heart!”
The intellect has robbed you. You have been looted by the mind.

“A numb desolation has spread,
the blithe desires have sulked away;
with what mercilessness the intellect
has plundered the settlement of the heart!”
“We sit silent, suffering sorrow—
to whom could we tell the state of the heart?
We have lost our very self;
was it only Your lane we lost?”
That lane of the Divine—the love-lane so narrow that two cannot pass—it was lost the very day you came into being as an ego.

“We sit silent, suffering sorrow—
to whom could we tell the state of the heart?
We have lost our very self;
was it only Your lane we lost?”
If you would re-enter that lane—those alleys of Vrindavan—then drop yourself. Only that much distance remains. The sole distance is the distance of “I.” Just one step—from “I” to “not-I,” from ego to egolessness—and the rest happens on its own. The doors of the wine-house stand open. If you can leave the “I” outside and come in, this tavern is yours.

Hari Om Tat Sat!