Maha Geeta #24

An ideal is wrong; it makes no difference what you make an ideal of. “Ideal” means: it will happen in the future. “Ideal” means: tomorrow. “Ideal” means: it is not available today. An ideal is postponement—for the future.

What is your destiny does not need to be made into an ideal; it is bound to happen—it has, in a way, already happened.

Destiny means your intrinsic nature. That which is wholly available to you in this moment is your destiny. All ideals are anti-destiny.

The very meaning of an ideal is that you want to be what, in your heart of hearts, you know you cannot be. A rose becomes a rose; a lotus becomes a lotus. Nowhere in the lotus’s heart is there an ideal, “I must become a lotus.” If the lotus tried to become a lotus, it would go mad—and fail.

What you are, you already are—from the seed onward. There is no way to be otherwise.

So to yoke ideals to destiny, to nature, is a contradiction. But the mind is in the powerful grip of ideals. For centuries we have been taught: be something, become something, get something. We have been trained to run, to compete, to desire—in endless forms.

Astavakra’s proclamation is precisely this: what you have to be, you already are. There is nothing to become—there is only living. Everything is available to you now. There is no need to postpone even for a single moment. Postpone even a moment and you fall into illusion. Begin to live—you are complete.

The fundamental declaration of all spirituality is that you are perfect as you are. God has left nothing unfinished for you to complete. And whatever God has left undone, you will not be able to do. Drop the ego that says, “What God couldn’t do, I will do.” Whatever could happen has happened. Whatever was possible for the divine has already taken place. Begin to live—do not postpone.

The ultimate spiritual announcement is: the hour of celebration is here; do not prepare. The mind that keeps preparing never joins the celebration. It is always getting ready—let me arrange this, let me fix that; forever consulting the timetable, never boarding the train. Even if the train stands right there, he is entangled in the timetable. Always packing the bags, but never setting out. Always building a house, but never living in it. Earning money, but never tasting it—only preparing.

You will see millions of such preparers all around you—that crowd is everywhere. They are all preparing. They say, “We will enjoy tomorrow, the day after.” Among them are the worldly and the so-called spiritual alike—your so-called sadhus, saints, and mahatmas. They say, “What is here? We will enjoy in heaven!” Their tomorrow is even farther away: “After death we will enjoy. What is here? Here everything is momentary! Here there is only suffering, anxiety—and preparation for tomorrow.”

But have you noticed? Tomorrow never comes! It has never come. That is why I say to you: heaven never comes, it has never come. Heaven is only an extension of “tomorrow.” If tomorrow never comes, how will heaven come?

The man who locates his heaven in tomorrow—his today will be hell. That much is certain. Tomorrow will never arrive. And whenever tomorrow does arrive, it arrives as today. If you have learned the wrong habit of fixing your eyes on tomorrow, you will go on missing today. And whenever anything arrives, it arrives as today, in the form of today. Yet your eyes will remain fixed on tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. Thus you become deprived. You will not enjoy what comes to your hand. You will not see what is present. The dance and the song already happening—you will not be able to join.

The ultimate declaration of spirituality is: do not get caught in the net of time. Time is the mind’s net.

Existence is present—enter, take the leap! Preparation has always been complete; only you are awaited. Dance! Do not say, “We will dance tomorrow.” Do not say, “The courtyard is uneven—how can we dance?” One who knows how to dance dances even in a crooked courtyard. One who does not know how to dance cannot dance even if the courtyard is perfectly straight and square.

Mulla Nasruddin’s eyesight had failed, so he went for treatment. He asked the doctor, “After my eye operation, will I be able to read?” The doctor said, “Certainly. This film on your eye—we’ll remove it; you will be able to read.” Mulla said, “Thank God—because I never learned to read or write.”

If you never learned to read, the removal of a film will not make you able to read. If you do not know how to dance, you will weep even in heaven. You know only how to weep. You will sit in heaven, open the scriptures, and think, “What next?” You will say even in heaven, “What is there here?” For you have learned only one arithmetic and one logic: here, there is nothing; life is always pouring somewhere else—there, somewhere else; here there is only death!

With the logic you clutch, even if by some chance you reach heaven, you will transform it into hell. You know the art of turning everything into hell. And the most important formula of that art is: do not look at today; place your hope in tomorrow—everything will be there tomorrow! Bear with today, weep today; we will laugh tomorrow! Today is sobbing, tears; tomorrow there will be smiles.

But remember: by the time tomorrow comes, your practice of weeping will have become very strong. Moment to moment you are weeping; today you weep. By daily weeping you are mastering the art; the eyes swell; apart from tears you have no other skill. Tomorrow will arrive at your door, but you will not be able to drop the practice in a flash. Tomorrow too will come as today. Then your old logic will start again: “Tomorrow!” And weep again! Thus you have been weeping life after life; thus you are still weeping. If you intend to keep weeping, then by all means make ideals!

I say to you: be free of ideals. You get frightened, because your mind says, “Free of ideals?” Your ego says, “Free of ideals? Then I will never become perfect.” I tell you: you are perfect. Perfection is already given to you—a gift, a benediction of the divine! If God is perfect, what can be born of Him but the perfect? And if the imperfect is born of the perfect, then accept one certain thing: from the imperfect there is no possibility of reaching the perfect.

Think a little: what kind of arithmetic is this? The perfect gives birth to the imperfect—first, that is false. From the perfect, only the perfect is born. The Upanishads say: take the whole away from the whole, and the whole still remains. You cannot pull the imperfect out of the perfect—where will you even find imperfection? Yet you have already accepted the delusion that the imperfect can be born of the perfect. Then a second delusion is born from the first: now this imperfect must become perfect. Now the imperfect will strive to become the perfect.

Think a little: all the efforts of the imperfect will remain imperfect! And there is no way to extract perfection from imperfection.

If you are right, then hell is the only truth. If I am right, then heaven is possible. The choice is yours. It is your life and you must choose. I say to you: relish life this very moment! Dance, hum! Let joy become your deepening practice; then tomorrow too will arrive in this same deepening of joy. If you learn to savor today, you will savor tomorrow, and a stream of nectar will flow. The day after tomorrow will also come; by then your practice of savoring will be even deeper. You will be more brimming with rasa. You will be more enchanted, more intoxicated—wine will have spread into every pore. The day after tomorrow will come; you will dance even more, you will hum even more. Slowly you will find: now you know how to dance. Whether the courtyard is crooked or square, whether there is a courtyard or not—you can dance. Even sitting still, the inner dance continues. Even if you do not speak, songs arise. Even if you do nothing, lotuses go on blooming.

Destiny, nature, means only this: that which happens by itself—and that which will happen by itself.

Whatever needs effort is not your destiny. Effort means you are attempting something contrary to destiny; you have made your own plan. God gave you a blueprint, the direction of life, the destination—and you made another plan. Therefore your plan never completes; it is always shattered, defeated.

You cannot win against God. There is only one way to win—lose to Him. In love, losing is victory. In prayer, the same: in prayer, losing is victory. Lose!

How long will you cling to your ideals? And do you not even see what you actually gain after a lifetime of striving?

I see people who have made celibacy an ideal. They tighten themselves in every way. They build walls, erect barriers, strap stones to their chest so that somehow lust will not arise. But the more they strive, the more they are filled with lust. Lust seems to belong to God; celibacy belongs to you. Lust is given to you—natural, spontaneous; celibacy is an ideal you bring.

I am not saying celibacy never bears fruit; it does—but in the same way that lust has borne fruit. Leave it to God—let yourself flow in spontaneity. Wherever He takes you—sometimes into darkness, sometimes into light; sometimes into tears, sometimes into smiles—keep walking. Keep trust. Even in lust, remember this: “Thy will be done!” What He wants is happening. You did not create lust.

A mahatma came to me and said, “Just free me from lust.” I asked, “Did you create it?” He said, “No, I did not create it.” I said, “What you did not create, you cannot erase. What you created, you can erase. You can leave your wife and run away, because you chose and created that relationship. But where will you run from lust? Wherever you go, lust will be there. You can shut your eyes to women—you can even blind yourself. Whether you see women or not makes no difference. How will you erase lust? Even a blind man keeps ‘seeing’ lust.”

Have you heard the story of Surdas? I do not think it is true; it does not ring true. Because the story is so silly it destroys Surdas’s worth. Could such a thing happen in the life of so precious a man as Surdas? I am not willing to believe it. If it did, Surdas is not worth a penny. If it did not, then Surdas has value.

The tale says Surdas saw a beautiful young woman and followed her. He begged at her door, and then went daily to beg. A fakir—with his ek-tara, humming songs—but all songs now dedicated to that woman. Panic arose. So, they say, he gouged out his eyes. That day he became Surdas—he put out his eyes and became blind, thinking, “The eyes that lead me astray—what company can I keep with such eyes!”

Surely this story was fabricated by fools. Does blinding yourself free you from lust? If you blind yourself, lust that used to appear outside will now appear inside.

Think of it: a beautiful woman passes by; you panic and shut your eyes, become a saint—does the woman’s form disappear when you close your eyes? It appears more beautiful. More perfumed. That ordinary woman—if you had looked with open eyes, perhaps you would have been freed; who is so beautiful that, if you really see, you cannot be free? If you had looked attentively, you might have been free. But with closed eyes you have created a bigger trouble—the woman turns into an apsara, a celestial nymph, a dream.

Notice: the women in your dreams are far more beautiful than women in the world! That is why poets are so unsatisfied: the women they imagine do not exist. Painters are unsatisfied, sculptors are unsatisfied. No one satisfies them.

The sculptor’s imagination of form is intense—the proportions of features so exacting—that only the supremely beautiful could be beautiful; such a face exists nowhere. Dreams are so beautiful that reality pales beside them.

So whoever’s imagination is intense, he is never satisfied in life. His imagination keeps saying, “What is there in this? What is there in this?” Imagination remains his criterion of comparison.

Closing the eyes will not erase imagination; dreams will not disappear. Closing the eyes, the little energy that used to move outward and not become dream will also become dream. All your energy will turn into dreaming.

Thus the person who makes celibacy an ideal against lust does not attain celibacy; he attains a mental debauchery. Inside him, lust begins to race.

I am not saying celibacy does not happen—but it never happens as an ideal. By understanding lust, by living it, by experiencing it—dipping into its juice—through realization, through direct seeing, slowly you recognize that nothing is to be gotten from lust. And slowly, within lust itself, the first glimpses of desirelessness begin to flash.

The first glimmers of celibacy appear only in the depths of lust. In the ultimate depth of sexual union, for the first time a ray of samadhi descends. When such a ray descends, the event has happened. Move with that ray, and you will reach the sun. No one can stop you then. But that happening is as natural as lust is natural, as desire is natural; celibacy too is natural. Imposed, forced, organized celibacy is worthless.

You are violent, you make nonviolence your ideal. In truth, tell me a person’s ideal and I will tell you the person—take the opposite. If a man’s ideal is celibacy, know he is lustful. Who except the lustful would make celibacy an ideal? If a man considers charity an ideal, know he is greedy. If he upholds compassion as an ideal, know he is angry. If he says peace is the ideal of life, know he is disturbed, deranged.

Tell me a man’s ideal and I will tell you his reality. Reality will be exactly the opposite. In this arithmetic you will never be wrong. Ask a man, “What is your ideal, sir?”—and you will have the key to his life. If he says, “Non-stealing is my ideal,” guard your pocket; he is a thief. Only a thief needs the ideal of non-stealing. One who is not a thief would never even think non-stealing is an ideal. If he says, “Honesty is my ideal,” he is dishonest.

Do not look at ideals. Instantly look for the opposite—and suddenly you will have the key to that person’s life.

Where honesty is present in a life, the person forgets honesty—what is, is forgotten. A healthy person never has an ideal of health; a sick person does. You will find the sick reading books on naturopathy, allopathy, homeopathy, biochemistry—hunting from here and there. The sick will always be reading health scriptures. A healthy person is amazed: “Is there nothing else to read? What are you reading—naturopathy? Tie mud on your belly; a wet cloth on your head; soak in a tub; fast; take an enema…what are you doing? Is this…?”

That man says, “Health is my ideal.” But he is sick—badly sick. His disease is grave. He is possessed by illness.

And the making of ideals comes from nowhere else—it comes from your disease. A healthy person does not notice health. In fact, the definition of health is: when you have no awareness of the body, you are healthy. If the body is noticed anywhere, you are ill. What does illness mean? When there is a headache, you notice the head. If there is no headache, you do not notice the head. Think, observe: when do you remember your head? When it hurts. If a man thinks of his head twenty-four hours a day, know his head is diseased. A thorn in the foot—then the foot is noticed. If the shoe bites, the shoe is noticed. If it does not, is the shoe noticed?

We notice that which gives pain. When we notice it, we make its opposite into an ideal.

Ideals are symptoms of a sick mind. A healthy person does not make ideals; he tries to understand the state that is, and to live it—attentively, consciously. From that very awareness, health bears fruit. From that very awareness, celibacy bears fruit; compassion bears fruit.

Understand your anger, live it—and compassion will come on its own. Do not make it an ideal. Recognize your sexual desire—light the lamp of awareness. Enter your desire with awareness. Do not go into it afraid, embarrassed, troubled, tense; do not go because you “have to,” submerged in guilt. That will be futile. Go naturally. What the divine has given will have meaning. What arises in the Whole will have meaning.

You would not be here if there were no lust; nor would your mahatmas exist, nor those who preach celibacy. They too are fruits of lust.

So will you abuse the lust from which Buddhas are born? Will you insult the lust from which fruits like Mahavira ripen? From which Ashtavakra is born—do you feel no hesitation in abusing it?

If celibacy has flowered in this world, it has flowered out of lust. You honor the fruit but deny the tree? Then you are mistaken; your life’s arithmetic lacks clarity; there is confusion, delusion.

Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ—they all arise. These waves rise in the ocean of lust and reach the heights of celibacy. Thank the ocean; do not oppose it.

When I say all ideals are dangerous, I mean only this: life is sufficient; do not impose ideals on it. Go deep into life. In its depths you will find the jewels you seek.

By descending into lust, celibacy is found. I am not saying that all who are full of lust have found celibacy or will find it. Remember my condition: it is found by descending—but only by the one who descends with awareness; only the one who enters as a witness finds it.

In the world there are generally two kinds of people: those who descend into lust in unconsciousness—and they find nothing; then, frightened of lust, they flee toward celibacy also in unconsciousness—and they too find nothing. It is found by the one who, alert and awake, is willing to see whatever life shows; who says, “I have no private will. I will see what God shows—but I will keep the witness awake, I will see fully, minutely—missing nothing, not rushing to drop anything.”

In such alert awakening, all ideals begin to bear fruit on their own.

When I say to you, “Drop ideals,” I am not against ideals. If you understand me, I alone am in favor of ideals. Because what I say is what makes ideals flower. What you have heard till now has never made ideals flower.

Chase ideals and you will never get them. I say: stop; enter what is. Ideals will blossom by themselves.

Nature means, destiny means: there is nothing to do. Live awake. And awakening is not a “doing.” It is your capacity. There is nothing to be done in it.

But the ego feeds on ideals. You will be surprised: the ego is very frightened by what I am saying. Because if you accept it, the ego dies this very moment. Then there is no way left to decorate the ego. The ego adorns itself with ideals. Ideals are never achieved, but the ego gets a race to run. In the running, the ego is. Ideals provide tracks for the race. Someone wants to earn wealth—convenient for the ego. Someone wants position—convenient for the ego. Someone wants liberation—convenient for the ego. Someone wants to be a renunciate—convenient for the ego. I say: do not become anything—you are! Then the race ends. The race drops; the ego drops.

The ego is a very subtle process. If you make egolessness an ideal, the ego will remain. The ego says, “I must become egoless.” The journey starts again; the mind’s business resumes.

Make no ideal at all. Then see what happens! Simply say, “I am as I am.” Open your book—do not cover it. Declare, “I am bad; I am a sinner; I am angry; I am lustful—this is what I am. And I am not self-made, for I never wanted to become this. I have found myself thus—what can I do? I will see what is. I will sit and watch this play. What the Lord wants to show—surely there will be a secret.”

And there is a secret. It is this: become the one who sees; become the witness.

Ideals make you a doer; they give you something to do.

I am taking ideals away from you. Ashtavakra is taking ideals away, only so that there remains no place for the doer. When ideals go, all avenues of doing go. Then what will you do? Then only being remains—pure being!

Beware of ideals! Because of ideals your life has become empty. Because of ideals, ideals did not bear fruit and flower. If, in truth, you want ideals to fill your life, then forget ideals completely and become a witness to life. As it is, it is. What is, is. Abide in suchness. Do not desire even a grain of tampering. Who are you? How will you tamper?

Just look at the irony of the religious! On the one hand they say, “Not a leaf moves without His will,” and on the other hand they are becoming mahatmas—moving without His will! Ask them a little: if not a leaf moves without Him, how will this sinner move? When He moves you, you will move. Until He moves you, surely there is some secret—accept it. If He gives sorrow, He must be giving it to polish you. If He has given desire, He must have given it to burn you. Passing through this fire, form will be refined. So we will accept.

If not a leaf moves without His command, and you are trying to change your whole life—who are you? And when did anything ever happen because you did it?

And look more closely at this web. Whatever you do—you will do it, won’t you? The lustful will try to bring celibacy—but the lustful will try. The effort of the lustful will be of lust. The angry will try for compassion—but the angry will try; therefore his whole attempt will carry anger. Even compassion will be poisoned by anger.

The egoist tries to become humble—but the egoist tries. Look at the “humble”! Nowhere will you find such well-groomed egoists. Someone comes and says, “I am the dust of your feet!” He is not saying, “I am dust.” He is saying, “See how humble I am.” He is saying, “Now say to me, ‘No, no—how can you be dust? You are the very crown!’” He is standing to hear, “Say it now!” He is saying, “Touch my feet—see, I have shown such humility that I said I am the dust of your feet!”

And if you agree and say, “Yes, you are exactly right. I have always believed you are indeed the dust of the feet,” that man will never forgive you for life. Though he said it himself—you added nothing—you merely said, “You are exactly right; everyone knows it; every person in this village knows you are the dust of the feet—worse than the dust.” Then see the fire that blazes in his eyes! Then you will know for certain that behind humility too the ego is thriving. Naturally—because it is the ego itself trying to be humble; how else could it be?

So I do not want to impose some opposite ideals upon you. For you yourself would impose them—and a new obstruction would arise. I want you to understand life as it is, the reality of your life. From the understanding of that very reality, flowers will bloom; songs will arise. From the awareness of that reality, revolution will take place in your life. It happens—it does not happen by your doing. Simply awaken and begin to see what is—and it happens!

Revolution is God’s grace.

The dream is important and useful for everyone. And it is connected with what I was just saying in answer to the first question. Try to understand it in that context.
“I am driving a car; it is a mountain road, and the journey is uphill.”
Everyone is trying to drag life uphill—up the mountain! The ideal means the mountain: higher! All are trying to reach Gangotri by swimming up the Ganga. No one is ready to go with the Ganga; they go the opposite way, flowing against the current.
The ego enjoys only going against the current. What fun is there in going with the flow? If you go with the flow, you do not remain; only the current remains. What is yours in it? If you let go, the Ganga will carry you to the ocean and drop you in the Bay of Bengal. But then what is yours? You won’t even be able to say, “I traveled so far.” People will laugh. They’ll say, “You traveled? That was the Ganga’s journey. Where were you saved? You disappeared the day you surrendered to the current. There was only one way you could have ‘saved’ yourself: by fighting the current, going upstream—flowing in reverse, doing the opposite.”
So watch: your renunciate, your “mahatma,” becomes supremely egotistical. He is swimming against the current. He tells you: “What are you, petty human! Sinner! Drowning in lust! Look at me—I practice brahmacharya. And you? Worm of the earth—caught in greed, anger! Lost in the mean and momentary; look at me—I seek the vast!”
Go and observe your “great men” closely. In their eyes is your condemnation. In their behavior, in the very way they sit and rise, is your belittling. They go against the flow. They have tried to drop the ego: they dropped desire, anger, wealth, family; dropped everything. And what are you doing? You ordinary indulger! You are flowing in the Ganga. You too feel, “It’s true—what are we really doing?” So you touch the feet of the “great ones.” In touching their feet you are merely confessing: “We too should do what you are doing; we simply can’t—compulsions, a thousand entanglements—house, home, children—we’ve adopted attachments. We can’t do it, but seeing you makes us happy that at least someone is doing it.”
If someone stands in a headstand you stop to look. Who looks at a person standing on his feet! He is doing something inverted. If someone sleeps on a bed of thorns, people offer flowers. But if you spread a fine bed and lie down, no one offers flowers. On the contrary, they’ll throw stones: “What is this—lying here in the marketplace and creating a nuisance! Take your bed home!” But let someone lie on thorns—people shower flowers. Lie on a luxurious bed and they’ll pelt you with stones.
What’s going on? It seems man takes delight in the inverted, because in the inverted it seems someone is “doing” something.
“I am driving a car; it is a mountain road and the journey is upward.”
This is what everyone is doing; this is everyone’s dream—and it is everyone’s life. Your life is no different from this dream.
“Suddenly the car starts going backward—in reverse. And I try to stop it.”
Such moments come many times in life: you want to reach the mountain peak, but life’s events start taking you backward. Then panic arises. You want to go to Gangotri, but the Ganga is going to the ocean and begins to take you toward the ocean. Many times you tire. Many times you are defeated. How long can you fight what is natural? If you want to take the car uphill, it needs petrol. To come down, you need no petrol—turn it off and the car will roll by itself, because coming down is natural; gravitation, the earth’s pull, draws it. Going up is unnatural; it requires great power.
So a thousand occasions will come in life when you suddenly find the car slipping backward. And whenever such moments come, you will try to stop it—because it goes exactly against your ego, against your resolve. It feels like failure, defeat, a collapse.
“I try to stop it, but I can manage neither the gear, nor the brake, nor the steering.”
This is the result of being with me, Ajit Saraswati! Now it will not be “managed.” Now you will manage neither the gear, nor the brake, nor the steering. Because my whole effort is simply to help you become one with life. Wherever life takes you, go—there is the destination.
So now, even in your dream, you cannot stop it—this is auspicious. Had you stopped it, that would have been the accident. It is good that even in the dream you cannot stop it. Your control is slipping. Your control is slipping—that is, your ego is slipping, because the ego is the controller. The moment you drop the ego, the Divine is the controller; then you are not. As long as the ego is, you are the controller; you may talk as much as you like about God, but there can be no relationship with God. If you are, God is not.
It is good that now neither the gear holds, nor the brake, nor the grip on the steering.
“Helpless, I reach the edge of an accident.”
It appears like an accident because you wanted to go up. Note carefully: what is an accident? It does not depend on the event; it depends on your interpretation. If the opposite of what you wanted happens, it is an accident. If what you wanted happens, it is good fortune, not an accident. It depends on you. So that little remnant of ego—some hope hidden in a corner—immediately says, “This is heading for a crash! We are losing control! The car is slipping out of our hands.”
“Helpless, I reach the edge of an accident.”
You don’t want it and yet you arrive there—therefore it feels like helplessness. If you begin to want it, what you call helplessness will not remain helplessness. In that very state, where you drop all supports, where you become groundless, there you will find the support of the Divine. Suddenly you will discover—for the first time—you have a refuge. Until now you were helpless, because besides yourself you had no support. And was that any support? Holding to straws and imagining you can cross the ocean! Sitting in a paper boat! For the first time you will find: by becoming supportless, support has come. Hare ko Harinam! (To the defeated, the Name of Hari!)
The moment a person is totally defeated, the Name of Hari resounds. Nirbal ke bal Ram! (The strength of the weak is Ram!) When you are proved utterly powerless, totally helpless, that very moment the Lord’s support begins to arrive. It was only because of you that the obstacle was there; now there is no obstacle left.
“Helpless, I reach the edge of an accident—and then I wake up with a start.”
Awakening happens exactly where the ego falls utterly helpless. This is a beautiful dream, deeply meaningful—every symbol of it is precious. That is why it must be repeating again and again. Because it is not just a dream—it is what is happening in Ajit’s life. The dream is its reflection. The dream is only the shadow in the unconscious—of the event that is happening all around in his life.
“And then I wake up with a start.”
If you want to awaken, become supportless; become helpless. As long as you have the stiffness, “I can do something,” you will remain asleep. As long as the stiffness remains, “I am the doer,” you will remain asleep. The moment your stiffness begins to break—neither the gear holds, nor the brake, nor the steering—suddenly the car begins to move beyond your control, and in that very moment you will awaken.
Ego is stupor, sleep. Egolessness is awakening, the end of stupor.
“Sometimes, even when the car is on a downhill, all my control goes.”
It is the downhill that we fear. The very word “downhill” creates panic. The uphill delights the ego; the downhill brings restlessness.
That is why youth is sweet and old age brings unease. No one wants to become old. One has to—that’s another matter. No one wants it. Even when people do become old, they keep claiming they are young; and people are delighted to hear it.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru kept saying into old age, “I am young!” And the entire nation would be delighted: “Exactly right!”
What is this? Only the uphill is tasty—even the courage to accept the downhill is missing? But the nation loved to hear that their Prime Minister said in old age, “I am young; I am a sixty-year-old youth; I am a sixty-five-year-old youth!” We were delighted. That delight reveals our own longing. None of us wants to grow old. We all want to remain young; we want to stay forever on the ascent.
But think: how can there be an ascent without a descent? If you keep climbing with no coming down, you will go mad. Every mountain has its ravine, its gorge. Behind every great wave there is a trough. Old age is paired with youth. And if someone remains only young, stuck there, staleness will set in; the flow will stop. Growing old is perfectly natural. As you accepted youth, accept old age. The one who gets stuck in youth—his flow has stopped.
We all are afraid of old age. When a person sees the first gray hair, he is shaken. The first time he sees his legs wobble in walking, his hands tremble—he panics! The descent has begun! And we had thought we would be forever young; we had thought we would live forever. But the descent has arrived, and death cannot be far. The messenger of death has come.
We deny old age because we want to deny death. Old age is the staircase toward death. But remember: the one who denies old age, who denies death, cannot accept life either—because it is in life that these events occur: old age and death. They are life’s final stages, life’s ultimate expression—the final proclamation of life is death. The last note life plays on its string is death. Then you cannot love life either.
“I see the car coming down, and even then, the control goes.”
In fact, whenever anything goes downward, only then do you realize that not everything is in your control. As long as things are going well—the wife doesn’t quarrel, the children do well in school, business is profitable—everything seems fine. Then you don’t see that you are helpless. Suddenly the shop collapses—bankruptcy. As long as it was Diwali, all was well; when it’s divala (bankruptcy), you panic: “It is slipping beyond my control. I thought everything was in my hands; that it would be Diwali forever.”
This word “divala”—bankruptcy—is marvelous. How can there be Diwali without divala? Diwali is like the wife; divala is the husband—together they make the pair. You thought you could get by with only Diwali. But if the wife has arrived, the husband will follow—sooner or later he will come.
The wife is fine—no quarrel, everything going smoothly—so you think, “The wave is rising; life is full of delight; the ego is strong.” Let the wife stir up a little quarrel, a small commotion, and in a moment your entire music is lost, the rhythm is broken. In an instant you feel, “Ah! This boat is going to sink!”
Have you noticed? A small spat with the wife and you think, “What have I gotten into! Why did I marry! Better she die—or that I somehow escape!” A moment earlier, all was fine; then the ego was riding high.
The ego is terrified of defeat, of the descent. But it is the descent that brings man to God. Bankruptcy brings you to the Divine. If you keep on winning, you will never become religious. In your personal victories lies your ultimate defeat; and when you are defeated, for the first time you see your real situation: in this vastness we are but a small ripple, a drop in the ocean. What is our victory, what is our defeat! Victory is His; defeat is His.
“But one thing I always feel is that although I am the driver, my foot is never on the accelerator.”
That is right. In truth, no one’s foot is on the accelerator—except the Divine’s.
Your condition is like a small child who says to his father, seated in the car, “Let me drive.” The father keeps his foot on the accelerator and on the brake, and holds the steering, but he lets the boy “hold” the wheel. The boy, full of swagger and delight—though it is the father who is really turning the wheel—beams with pride, “I am driving!” Look at his face then—his joy! He looks around so people can see who is driving.
This vehicle of life—your foot is not on its accelerator; never was. Nor is the steering in your hands. You are like the small child deluded by a misunderstanding. The car moves by itself; it is moving by itself. There is no need of your “driving.” You are needlessly worried, drenched in sweat. The child is unnecessarily anxious, thinking he is driving, that if he doesn’t, there will be trouble. He starts honking wildly, imagining that without him all will fall into chaos, an accident will happen, a collision somewhere. He is sweating profusely. He does not know: your honking does nothing; you are not managing the car. Someone else is managing it. All is held in vast hands. We need only be witnesses. We are not the doers. Become a witness, and a great laughter will arise—a laughter at the irony of life, what a cosmic joke!
“The car moves on its own. I try to stop it and cannot keep control.”
Dropping control—that is my message. I say: leave all control! Your hands are too small to control anything. Leave it to the Lord. Let Him control. When you were not, the world was still moving. Flowers bloomed, the moon rose, the rains came, the sun shone. When you were not, all was in motion—the moon and stars circled, the sun rose. When you are no more, it will still go on. So vast a process is unfolding. You are needlessly troubled within it.
I have heard: a lizard lived in a king’s palace. Naturally, living in a royal palace, she considered herself no less than an empress. She was no ordinary lizard. Among the village lizards she was greatly honored. Invitations poured in: “Please come inaugurate our new home; a lizard has set up house”; “A lizard’s wedding is happening”; “A lizard has given birth”—but she never went. She would smile and beg off: “Take someone else. If I go, who will hold up this palace roof? The palace will collapse.”
The lizard thinks she is holding the roof! No one is holding anything. Nothing is held up by us. But because of our ego we refuse to accept that the palace can remain without us. Impossible!
Werner Erhard tells a little story: In the mountains of America there was a tribe whose guru had a magical blanket. Every evening he would lift and whirl that blanket, and at once the stars would begin to appear in the sky. This had been going on for centuries. The tribe believed the guru’s blanket had magic—because whenever he whirled it, you could go outside and soon the stars would become visible. People feared the guru: a dangerous matter—what if one day he refused to whirl the blanket and said, “No stars today”? What would happen then?
One day a thief from another tribe stole the guru’s blanket. The guru was in great difficulty. In truth, he too believed that his whirling brought out the stars. The whole tribe was disconsolate: “What now? What will happen tonight?” But nothing was disturbed. The stars came out at the right time. They say the guru committed suicide—there was no way left to save face. People began to laugh. “We too were so foolish. The stars were always coming out. There was no causal link between the blanket and the stars. He simply whirled the blanket at the right time. The sun set—there was a fixed time—and he would whirl the blanket. Whirl or not, the stars appear.”
Whether you do or don’t, what happens, happens. Nothing is happening because of your doing. The day this is understood—the day your blanket gets stolen… And that is what is happening: Ajit Saraswati’s blanket is being stolen; I am slowly pulling it away. Most of it has gone; a little still clings in the hand. The day that, too, slips away, this dream will stop. That day you will suddenly see: “We were worried for nothing. Life is moving—moving in the most beautiful way. There could be no more glorious way—so much dignity and grace. We were needlessly making a racket—shouting and screaming.”
We shout because our ego cannot accept that the world will go on without us. Without us—and the world will still go on? Impossible! If we go, the palace roof will fall.
No—the roof is not held up by you. Nor does life run because you whirl your blanket. Dropping this delusion—that is religion. Whether you “believe in God” or not is beside the point. Drop the delusion that “everything is running because I run it”—and you are religious. You have already known the Lord; the Divine has already descended; you stand face to face. Then there is no delay in the direct encounter—not even for a moment.

I am here; I am your discipline. When I am not, then you will need rules, order, discipline. When the Master is, governance is unnecessary. When the Master is not, governance is a substitute. You must have seen this in dead ashrams.

This ashram is alive. For now it is alive. It will die someday—and then be sure: there will be rules and discipline. The moment I go, there will be rules and discipline, because you cannot live without them—you are such slaves! Even though I try in every way, again and again you start asking: some rules, some discipline! My whole effort is to make you understand that nothing is in your hands. What discipline? What rules?

If you get up at five in the morning, will you attain knowing? What foolishness are you clinging to? Whether you get up at five or at four or at three, you will remain a fool. A fool rising at five or at three—what difference does it make? Your self-realization has nothing to do with the clock. But fools get a taste out of such things. At least they feel some support. I give them no support. If I tell them, “Rise in brahma-muhurta and Brahma-knowledge will happen...” Yes, they will find it hard to get up at five, there will be obstacles, but the very difficulty will feel sweet—like the car is climbing uphill. If I tell them, “Every morning do shirshasana, stand on your head...” They will look like fools doing headstands. Who looks beautiful standing on his head! The neck will ache too; and yet they will enjoy it. They will say, “At least we are doing something, moving toward liberation!”

I am telling you: you are free. Yes, if you enjoy getting up at five, by all means get up; but do not fall into the delusion that rising at five will bring liberation. If standing on your head gives you a kick, stand on your head; I do not stop you. But I cannot tell you that by standing on your head the event of enlightenment will happen. You want cheap tricks; I give you no trick.

As long as I am here, there will be no rules or discipline in this ashram. While I am here, this ashram will remain anarchic, because anarchy is a sign of life. I give you total freedom to be whatever you want to be and however you want to be—relish being that, with awareness.

I give you freedom. I don’t want to declare you guilty for any reason whatsoever. Because the moment I give rules, guilt follows in their wake. If one day you fail to get up at five in the morning, behind you comes the feeling, “Today I disobeyed the order”—I have made you a culprit. And getting up at five was not going to give you anything anyway. Liberation is not so cheap. It is healthful to rise at five, but it has nothing to do with moksha. The air is fresh, the morning is beautiful; it’s aesthetic. Those who have a sense for beauty will rise at five; but it has nothing to do with religion. Those who have even a little taste for poetry won’t miss it, because the world at five in the morning is as beautiful, as untouched, as if everyone—fools and the wise alike—is still asleep; the world is yet untouched, somewhat as God must have made it! So whoever has even a little juice for life will certainly get up at five.

Understand me well. I am not saying don’t get up at five. I am saying: those who have even a little understanding will surely get up. But this is not discipline. If you rise, it’s your joy. If you rise, you have already taken the benefit; the fruit is yours. I’m not going to hand you a certificate that you are a great knower because you get up at five. You rose, so you took the gain—no further praise is needed. If you did not rise, you missed. A beautiful morning was present; it knocked at your door; you lay there asleep, snoring. Music was spreading outside, the morning sun had risen, but with eyes closed, sunk in your stupor, you missed it! Your punishment is already enough. On top of that, should I now brand you a sinner, a criminal, for disobeying an order? That would be wrong.

One day Mulla Nasruddin was driving his car, going fast. A policeman stopped him. The moment he was stopped—his wife was sitting in the back—she began scolding Mulla: “I’ve told you a thousand times—are you blind? Can’t you see? Don’t drive so fast! Don’t you see the meter? And I’m shouting the whole time, ‘Turn left, turn right,’ but you keep going. Don’t you see the light—whether the car should go or not? Are you in your senses?” The policeman listened to all this, then finally said to Mulla, “You may go now. You’ve already been punished enough. What more punishment is needed? This wife is enough.”

The person who didn’t get up in the morning—he has been punished enough. Why burden the poor fellow further by declaring him a sinner, a criminal, a violator of orders!

No, I don’t give you any discipline. I give you only a single thing: a bare awareness. Whatever you do, do it wakefully.

One day Mulla came home and found his friend kissing his wife. He was stunned, stood there in shock. The friend panicked, the wife panicked, and no one said a word. The friend stammered, “Say something!” Mulla said, “What should I say! I have to do this—but why are you doing it? I pity your intelligence. Well, she is my wife, so I have to do it—that’s one thing… but what’s happened to you?”

Whatever you have to do, its savor drains away—even if it is a wife’s kiss. Caresses, love, embraces begin to feel burdensome if they are to be performed out of compulsion. Compulsory…!

I once taught in a Sanskrit college. When I first went there it was a Sanskrit mahavidyalaya—so naturally it was the realm of pundits. I arrived like an uproar. Some mistake in the government transferred me there. They soon corrected it and removed me within six months, because a great commotion started. They were all pundits, and they had created strange conditions there.

I had no place to stay so I lived in the hostel. Seventy or eighty students were in that hostel. They had to get up at three in the morning—compulsory. Sanskrit college! Not of this modern age, an old-style gurukul! Up at three a.m.—whether cold or heat or rain, three o’clock you had to rise. And then all had to go to the well to bathe. I went too. When the whole hostel got up at three, I got up as well and went to the well. No one knew me yet; it was my first day, so nobody paid me any mind. They were bathing, and they were hurling curses—at the principal and all the way up to God—filthy abuses. I thought, this is rich! After the torrent of abuse, they then had to stand for prayer, and somehow they mumbled through it.

I told the principal, “Look, you will rot in hell.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “These seventy boys, every morning, compulsorily, are cursing from the principal up to God. It’s fine if they curse you, but God is being abused too—and you are the cause.”

“This compulsion is dangerous,” I said.

He replied, “No, it’s not compulsory; as people always say. They do it of their own free will, for their own joy.” I said, “Then put it in my hands. I’ll put up a notice, and tomorrow at three a.m. you be at the well and I will be there too.”

I posted the notice: “Only those who wish to bathe at three may get up; only those who wish to join the prayer may get up. From today nothing is compulsory.”

Except for me and the principal, no one was at the well. I said, “Well, sir! If you have the courage now, jump into the well!”

Within six months they told me, “No, you must go from here—you’ve messed everything up! Everything was running fine.”

You call that “running fine”? Compulsion? Can prayer be compulsory? Can love be compulsory? Can worship be compulsory? Only in prisons are things compulsory. In life, nothing is compulsory. Do not, even by mistake, make anything compulsory; otherwise, in that very instant, the value of that thing will be destroyed.

Life is very delicate—delicate like a flower! Do not place the stones of compulsion upon it, or the flower will die. Even here, when a resident asks me, “Shall we come to listen to you in the morning as a matter of obligation?” I say, “Don’t come by mistake.” Compulsory—and to listen to me? You’ll start abusing me. Come if you feel to come; don’t come if you don’t feel to come. And don’t, even by mistake, feel guilty that “we live in the ashram and didn’t go to listen, and people come from far away.” Drop this worry. When your heart is in it, then come. If you come even once in a month, you will receive more than you could by coming every day out of compulsion; because receiving happens only through love.

So here, nothing is compulsory. And any discipline imposed from the outside is a chain. For me to say to you, “Meditate”—what kind of thing would that be? Every morning I explain the juice of meditation; every morning I pour a stream of it, I place the Ganges before you—and then should I also say, “Bathe in the Ganges every day, drink from it every day”? Now it is your choice. Is it not enough that I have brought the Ganges before you? Must I do that part too? I have sung the Ganges’ glory; now it’s your joy. If you wish to meditate, meditate; if you don’t wish to, don’t. But I will not tell you that you must meditate. The moment anything becomes compulsory, it begins to prick like a thorn. Do not spoil something as sublime as meditation.

You ask, “In ashrams there is set, compulsory sadhana which must be practiced regularly.”

No. Here with me there are no rules at all, and I have no “practice” to give you. All practices belong to the ego. Spirituality has no practice. I say only: Wake up! Iti jñānam! That is knowledge! Iti dhyānam! That is meditation! Iti mokṣaḥ! That is liberation!

Awaken and begin to live awake; meditation will spread over your twenty-four hours. Meditation is not something you do upon rising and then forget. Meditation is a current that should flow within you. Meditation is a thread that should remain within you, stringing together all your actions into one garland. As when we make a garland, we string flowers upon a thread: the flowers are visible, the thread is not—even so should meditation be, invisible. All the acts of life—getting up, sitting down, eating, drinking, walking, speaking, listening, everything—should be threaded like flowers on meditation; the thread of meditation should run through all.

For me, meditation is the name of awakening and witnessing.

And when I am no longer here, then certainly the mischief will happen. Because some “Yog Chinmay” or other will sit on this chair. Such is the difficulty—this chair will not remain empty. Someone or other will start running a discipline. The day discipline starts running here, understand that my connection with this place is broken. The day rules arise here, compulsion arises, practices are instituted—know that it is no longer my ashram; it has become a dead ashram, joined to other dead ashrams.

While I am alive, that will not be allowed. I myself am living, and I want to see you alive too—not dead. I do not regard you as seekers; I regard you as accomplished. And I want you to accept your accomplished state. I want you to be able to say: Aho, my salutations to myself!

What happened to Hema at Abu was certainly unique. What the Zen mystics call satori—the first glimpse of samadhi—befell Hema at Abu. It was so sudden that she herself could not believe it. She laughed for three days; her laughter was a sight to behold. You cannot hear such laughter anywhere else. Such laughter comes only after satori.
I did not tell her then that it was satori; I say it today. Because saying it at that time could have strengthened her ego. Now there is no fear.
She laughed for three days. Her laughter was very otherworldly. She simply could not stop; causeless, continuous laughter kept flowing.
There is such a mention in the life of Bodhidharma: when samadhi first became available to him, he kept laughing for three days. He laughed because he could not quite believe what had happened—and such sweetness, such a tickle, as if someone within kept tickling. He could not remain within his bounds.
Her family became worried too—“she has gone mad.” Naturally, even a minute or two of laughter begins to feel difficult. We are so accustomed to crying that if a person were to weep for three days, no one would call him mad. See the irony: that we accept. But if someone keeps laughing continuously for three days, he is certainly mad. Here, to be blissful is a great danger. People have lived in such sorrow that they accept sorrow; they have assumed that joy is simply not possible—at most it can happen to madmen.
Sigmund Freud, after a lifetime of experience, wrote that man cannot be happy. Forty years of continuous psychoanalysis, the treatment of thousands upon thousands of patients, and his conclusion was that man cannot be happy. It is impossible. Suffering is man’s destiny.
So when a thoughtful person like Sigmund Freud says this, one has to wonder that misery surely has become man’s destiny. Krishna seems an exception, not the rule. The flute does not seem as if it can be played in life. And even when sometimes we are lost in the flute, it is only so that the misery of life may be forgotten—nothing more. We have no real relish for the flute; it is a device for forgetting, a mechanism of oblivion.
When Hema laughed, it was the same laughter that was Bodhidharma’s laughter. She laughed for three days. Among her family and loved ones a great panic spread. Those among her family and loved ones who used to come to listen to me all stopped coming… “Hema has gone mad!” But a very unique event had taken place.
(Meanwhile someone began to sob loudly and people ran to restrain them. Addressing a sannyasin, Osho said: “Saint, let go. Let them be. Let go. Let them be. They will quiet down—let go. Completely let go; step aside. Move away from them.”)
Each one has to find their own way, their own arrangement. Expression cannot be the same for everyone. And there is a great difference between men and women as well. That is why you see so few women as satgurus—not because women have not attained liberation. In my view, women can come to liberation more easily than men, because a man’s ego takes a long time to fall; a woman’s ego drops with great ease. And yet you see a whole procession of men—Buddha, Mahavira, Parshva, Krishna, Christ, Shankara, Nagarjuna. If you go to name women, they cannot even be counted on your fingers. Now and then a Sahajo, a Meera, Rabia, Teresa—just three or four names. Do not fall into the wrong logic that therefore women did not attain, or do not attain, or cannot attain.

Women have attained—as much as men, perhaps a little more. But women cannot put it into words; that is the difficulty. And without words you would never have known of Buddha. Had he sat silently beneath the bodhi tree, no one would have heard. If I do not speak, you will not be able to come here. I will remain what I am even without speaking—what difference would it make to me? None. But you would not be able to come.

You have come to hear; hearing, perhaps you will get caught; hearing, perhaps you will become entangled with me; hearing, perhaps you will slowly step into me. But you came to listen. Listening, perhaps you will begin to ponder; pondering, perhaps you will begin to hum. Sitting near me, it may be that this madness touches you too—you become intoxicated. But you came to listen.

In the world, word has momentum. Other than word, no means of communion appears. Therefore women did become satgurus, but it could not be known. They attained knowledge, but they could not become gurus. Disciples come to hear words. Meera sang such wondrous songs; yet Meera could not produce disciples. Meera’s state is not that of a guru. She sang marvelously; those who heard also tasted the nectar. But the stature of guru did not arise. For guru means: what came to Meera, she becomes a companion to bring to others as well. That did not happen.

The feminine consciousness has its own arrangement.

So I would say to Hema: if feeling overflows in you, if the urge to share arises and words do not come, begin to press someone’s feet—that will be your way. Begin to massage someone’s head, give someone love, dance, sing, hum! Find some device. Words will not be your device. But one has to share; one cannot remain without sharing. When fragrance has come to the flower, the petals must open; the fragrance must be released. It will ride on the wings of the wind and travel to far-off realms; then destiny is fulfilled.

O mirror of imagination!
Body and mind offered to you,
when your vision appears,
my heartbeat will be everywhere.

Like the cuckoo, my
restless heart will thrill,
when on the mango trees
there will be cooing everywhere.

When the first glimpse of samadhi comes, it is just like this.

O mirror of imagination!
Body and mind offered to you,
when your vision appears,
my heartbeat will be everywhere.

Then not only your heart beats when samadhi ripens—you discover for the first time that along with your heart the whole cosmos is beating. Stones are beating; there is heart there too. Trees are beating, the moon and stars are beating. With your heartbeat the whole universe comes into a single rhythm, a single meter—one song, one music—in which you are not separate; you have become a part of a vast orchestra!

Like the cuckoo, my
restless heart will thrill,
when on the mango trees
there will be cooing everywhere.

This is not about some cuckoo outside, nor about mango trees outside. Spring comes within as well. The inner cuckoo too calls coo-coo.

Hema is close to that happening. If she keeps moving, and on hearing that the first intimation of samadhi has come, does not become stiff with pride… because in that stiffness everything dies. That is why the first time, years ago when it happened to her at Abu, I said nothing; I kept silent. I speak now, but still the danger is always there. Do not make this into a piece of the ego. Otherwise what has happened will get stuck right there. Wherever ego enters, the movement is blocked.

If such has happened, do not think it has happened because of me. Think: it is the Lord’s prasad—his grace! Think with gratitude to him: it is his blessing! Think: I am unworthy—how could this happen! Wonder! Aho!

The meaning of that “Aho!” is simply this: that within, the feeling of Aho keeps arising—Aho, it was not to be mine, and yet it happened! I was not worthy, and yet it happened! I was unfit, and yet it happened!

His compassion is boundless!

Hans has the heart of a poet; and exactly what is happening in his heart, he has bound into these words.
What is now happening in the heart, of which there is just a slight glimpse, will, given time, at the right moment, in the right season, ripen into fruit. You will dance! You will dance, intoxicated!

And one who, in ecstasy, has agreed to drink poison—for him even poison becomes nectar. One who has agreed to walk with the Divine—in all situations, whether He makes you drink poison or throws you into hell—his hell is finished; now for him there is only heaven.

“If there is no goblet in my hands,
give me to drink from your eyes—enough.
Who cares now for living?
Erase me—enough.
Now the reins are in your hands;
make me dance to your heart’s content—enough.
Let no trace of sense remain—
make me mad—enough.
Who longs for nectar now?
Give me poison—enough.”

This will happen. I will make you drink. This event will happen. Stay filled with hope, with waiting, with acceptance—be ready: this event will happen. It has already begun to happen. The feeling you have bound into your song is the first ray of that morning. The east has begun to blush, a rosy glow is appearing on the horizon—the sun will rise!

The sun does rise; we need only become a little willing. Even if we are not willing, the sun still rises, but we do not open our eyes to see it. So we keep remaining in darkness. With eyes closed, our night continues. When we become willing, we show the readiness to open our eyes and see! The sun has been rising all along. After every night comes the morning. After every wandering, a resting place. After every worldliness, liberation. We need only be ready to open our eyes and see!

Hari Om Tatsat!