Maha Geeta #40

Then you have not understood what I mean by love. You have taken love to mean something else. Without meditation, love is simply not possible. Love itself is a way of meditation. You have imposed your own meaning on the word love. If truth could be found by the love you know, you would already have found it. You are already loving—your wife, your children, your father, mother, friends. You have loved like this for lives upon lives. If truth came from such love, it would have come by now.

I am speaking of a totally different love. You understand only the language of the body. So when I say something, you translate it into the body’s language; that is where the mistake happens. For me, love means exactly what prayer means.

Let me tell you an old Zen story. In a Zen master’s garden there were pumpkins growing. Early one morning the master came out and saw a great quarrel among the pumpkins. Pumpkins, after all! He said, “Hey pumpkins, what are you doing—fighting with each other?” Two factions had formed, and it was about to come to blows. The Zen master said, “Pumpkins, love one another.” They replied, “That’s impossible. Love the enemy? How could that ever be?” So the master said, “Then do this—meditate.” The pumpkins protested, “We are pumpkins; how can we meditate?” The master said, “Look—inside the temple a row of Buddhist monks is sitting in meditation—so many pumpkins meditating.” Buddhist monks’ heads are shaved; they look like pumpkins. “Sit just like that.” At first the pumpkins laughed, but thought, “The master has never asked us anything before; let’s oblige and sit a while.” As the master instructed, they sat—cross-legged, eyes closed, spine straight. Just by sitting like that, within a little while they began to quiet down.

Simply sitting, a person becomes quiet. That is why Zen masters have even named meditation zazen—just sitting, doing nothing.

Sitting there, the pumpkins began to grow peaceful. They were amazed, astonished—such silence they had never known. All around, an extraordinary joy began to ripple. Then the master came and said, “Now do one more thing—place your hands on the top of your heads.” When they put their hands there, they were even more astonished. A strange experience: they felt themselves connected to a vine. And when they lifted their heads and looked, it was a single vine—there were not two. All the pumpkins were hanging on one vine. The pumpkins said, “How foolish we have been! We are parts of the same one—we are all one; the same sap flows through us, and we were fighting.” The master said, “Now love. Now you have known that you are one—there is no other. It is the expansion of the one.”

The very place on their heads they touched, yogis call the seventh chakra—the sahasrara. Hindus keep a small tuft of hair there. Its meaning is the same: from there we are connected to one vine. There is one God, one being, one existence, one ocean waving. The wave you see near you is not different; it is non-different—deep within it is joined to you. All waves are united.

Have you ever noticed? Have you ever seen in the ocean that a single wave rises while the whole ocean is still? No, that never happens. Have you ever seen a tree with only one leaf trembling while the whole tree stands motionless and there is no wind? When a leaf moves, the whole tree moves. And when waves arise in the sea, infinitely many arise—never just one. Because a single wave cannot be. Can you imagine only one human being existing on earth? Impossible. One alone cannot be. We are waves of one ocean; our many-ness is only how we appear. The day this is experienced, love is born.

Love means: the sense of non-separateness has happened, the sense of non-duality has dawned. Bodies appear separate—the pumpkins are distinct, the waves look separate on the surface—but inwardly the soul is one.

Love means: when you experience oneness between yourself and another. And it is not that you will experience oneness only between you and one person; such is the experience that the moment it happens, you know all are one. Once the illusion breaks, in trees, mountains, rivers, men and women, animals and birds, moon and stars—the same one is vibrating everywhere. To know the vibration of the One is what I call love.

Love is prayer. But what you have taken as love is the hunger of the body; it is a counterfeit of love; the body has tricked you.

Begging, hungry senses
beg alms from hungry senses!
And have you ever noticed from whom you beg?
From the one who is begging from you.
Beggars stand before beggars, bowls in hand—
then if there is no fulfillment, what is surprising?

You beg from your wife; your wife begs from you. You beg from the son; the son begs from you. All are empty, hollow. There is nothing to give; all are asking. A congregation of beggars.

You have mistaken mere release
for the moment of fulfillment.
The crude mind will not let you be freed
from this mirage.
Changing mask after mask,
it swindles the reflections of consciousness.
The moment the curtain falls,
this precious crowd of the five elements
will scatter.

What you have taken to be your “self” is only a crowd of the five elements—air, water, fire, earth, space gathered in you. What you call your body is only a coincidence, a coming together; it will disperse. What remains when this coincidence disperses—know that, dive into that, plunge into that. From there love arises. And the way to dive is meditation. If you understand meditation rightly, love will descend by itself into your life; or if you understand love, meditation will descend—these are two words for the same thing. If “meditation” helps you understand, good; otherwise, “love.” If “love” helps you understand, good; otherwise, “meditation.” But they are not two.

Akbar once went hunting, lost his way in the forest, got separated from his companions. Evening began to fall, the sun was setting, and Akbar became afraid. Where would he spend the night? The jungle was dangerous; he was hurrying along. Then he remembered: it was the hour of evening prayer; he must pray. He spread his cloak and began to offer namaz. While he was praying, a young, headstrong woman came running, stepping on his prayer rug, jostling him—he was bowed and toppled over. She ran past.

Akbar was enraged. The emperor is at prayer, and this ill-mannered girl has no sense! He hastily finished his namaz, mounted his horse, chased and caught her. “Ill-bred! Even if someone were praying, you should not behave so rudely. And I am the emperor! The emperor is praying and you behave like this!”

She said, “Forgive me; I did not know you were there. I did not know anyone was praying. But emperor, I have a question. I was going to my lover—nothing was visible to me. My lover must be waiting; my very life is hanging there. You were praying to God—and still my push was noticed by you! What kind of prayer is that? That is not even love yet—what prayer is it? One who stands before God forgets everything. Even if someone severed your head with a sword, you would not notice—then it is prayer. I remembered nothing. Forgive me.”

Akbar had this incident written in his memoirs and said, “That day I was deeply struck. Truly, was that prayer at all? It was not even love.”

Prayer is love come to its ultimate flowering.

If within someone you begin to experience the divine, and in someone you begin to glimpse your own self, the ray of love has dawned. What you now call love is compulsion. It has no fragrance of prayer. It carries the stench of hungry senses.

A wave is not the ocean’s adornment—
it is its restlessness.
Fragrance is not the bud’s outpouring—
it is its restlessness.
The cuckoo’s call is not enticement—
it is its restlessness.
The singer’s song is no mere trade—
it is his restlessness.
The veena’s melody is not just resonance—
it is its restlessness.

For now, what you call love is restlessness. It is compulsion, pain. You are fevered, hungry; you want a crutch; you want some intoxication. I do not call that love. Love is awakening—not restlessness, not derangement. Love is a supremely wakeful state. Call it meditation.

If you understand my talk on love rightly, the question will not arise: “If truth can be had through love, then why is meditation necessary?” Truth is attained through love only when love is a form of meditation—before that, no.

There are people of the other kind too; they come and ask me: “If truth can be had through meditation, then what need is there of love?” I tell them the same: if you have understood my talk on meditation, you will not ask this question. Where meditation dawns, love will dawn.

Buddha has said: wherever there is samadhi, there is compassion. Compassion is the shadow of samadhi.
Chaitanya has said: wherever there is love, wherever there is prayer, there is meditation. Meditation is the shadow of love. These are only ways of saying. Just as your shadow cannot be separated from you, love and meditation cannot be separated. Which one you call the shadow does not matter. These are approaches.

There are two approaches to the discovery of truth—two ways of knowing what is. Either become a witness in meditation, or be dissolved in love. Either be so dissolved in love that you are no more and only truth remains; or be so awake in meditation that everything else disappears and only you remain. Let the One remain—from either direction. Where only One remains, truth arrives. How you reach that One—by dissolving the “I,” or by dissolving the “Thou”—makes no difference.

But the mind is very cunning. If I tell you to meditate, it asks, “Won’t it happen through love?” because it wants a way to avoid meditating. “If it can happen by love, let me avoid meditation for now—later we’ll see!” Then when I speak of love, you ask, “Won’t it be possible through meditation?”—now you start planning to avoid love. You do not want to die—and without dying there is no way, no movement.

We too are Socrates of the new age—
friends, let us not die with thirsty lips.
Whether it be poison or fiery wine,
let some cup of martyrdom arrive.

Let some chance to die come. A courageous seeker says:
We too are Socrates of the new age.
We too are seekers of truth like Socrates. If truth comes by drinking poison, we are ready; if by drinking a fiery wine, we are ready. Whether by poison or by wine—we are ready.
Let at least a goblet of martyrdom arrive—
let a chance to die, to be sacrificed, to be annihilated, come.

I am a chance for your martyrdom. Do not look for escape. If you must die by meditation, die by meditation; if you must die by love, die by love—but die! Die somewhere, dissolve somewhere! Your very being is the obstacle. Your death is the meeting with God.

Do not think of the search for truth as you think of the search for wealth: you go, find wealth and return and fill your safes. The search for truth is utterly otherwise. You go—and you are gone. You will never return; truth will. It is not that you will fill your fists with truth and bring it home to put in your strongboxes. You can never be the owner of truth. No one can own truth. As long as you are intoxicated with being the owner, truth will not be yours. The day you fall at the feet, are dissolved, and say, “I am not”—in that very instant truth is. You will not find truth; you will disappear and truth will be. Your being is the barrier.

So do not keep dodging like this. If I speak of meditation, you speak of love; if I speak of love, you speak of meditation—do not keep hopping from leaf to leaf. This is how you have wasted lives.

With me there is a small difficulty. If you had been with Buddha, you could have escaped, because Buddha spoke of meditation, not of love—you could have said, “My path is love,” and found a way out. With Chaitanya you could have escaped, because Chaitanya spoke of love; you could have said, “My way is meditation.” With me you will not be able to escape. You say, “We will die through love”—I say, “Come.” You say, “We will die through meditation”—I say, “Die through meditation.” Dying is what is valuable.

Therefore, if you have entangled yourself with me, you will not leave without martyrdom. The opportunity for sacrifice has come. You can delay a little, keep yourself a bit entangled here and there, but not for long. And even in this delay you are not finding any joy. There is nothing but suffering. Without knowing truth, how can there be happiness? Happiness is the fragrance of truth, its perfume. Happiness is the very light of truth.

First thing:
“To abide in oneself, beyond the knower, knowledge, and the known—can one live in that state for a whole lifetime?”

“A whole lifetime” is the stretch of a deluded mind. You never have more than a single moment. There are no two moments—and you are talking of a whole lifetime! When anything is in your hands, it is just a tiny moment—so tiny you don’t even know when it is gone. Never more than a moment is ever in your hand. That is why Buddha called his way the doctrine of momentariness. He said: one moment is in your hand, and you are trying to balance the accounts of a whole lifetime! Two moments never come to you together. If you can be dispassionate and centered even for one moment, you are established forever. Whenever anything comes, it will be this one moment. If you have learned the art of being still in a single moment, you have learned the art of being still for your whole life.

Now don’t create a new worry. These are the mind’s tricks. The mind keeps inventing new entanglements. If you become quiet, the mind says, “What will this do? Will it last forever? Will it last tomorrow? The day after? All right, you are peaceful now, granted; but an hour later you will be restless again—then what?” By raising this question, the mind even snatches away the peace of this very moment. The question scatters and wastes the stillness you had. This is the mind’s cunning.

Bliss arises; sometimes in meditation a great, majestic moment comes—but the mind instantly stamps a question mark on it: “What are you getting so ecstatic about? Is this going to stay? It’s a dream!” The mind never puts a question mark on misery; it always puts it on joy. It says, “It is momentary! Don’t get too excited. Don’t dance too much. Misery is about to come.” And if you listen and accept that question, misery does come. Your question breaks your inner harmony; the oneness that was about to form is lost.

Why ask about “a whole lifetime”? This arises out of greed. The mind is greedy. Is a single moment not enough? If only you could understand that a single moment is all you have, then you would learn to become quiet in the single moment.

Lao Tzu used to tell this story: A man was setting out on a pilgrimage. He had planned it for years, but excuses and obstacles kept arising, and he never set out. One night, gathering courage, he finally left. The shrine was not far—only ten miles away, up a hill. One had to start early so that with the rise of the sun, one could reach before the heat. So he left at three in the night. At the edge of the village, carrying his little lantern, he looked out—there spread an immense darkness! A doubt arose in him: “This tiny lantern, casting light for only three or four steps—can it cut through ten miles of darkness?” He sat down. “This is risky. Ten miles of darkness, the whole mountain filled with it! And I have set out with this small lantern. Impossible.” He started calculating. He was a shopkeeper, good at arithmetic. “Three or four steps of light, ten miles of darkness—how will this ever be solved?”

As he sat there dejected, a man passed by carrying an even smaller light. “Brother, where are you going? You’ll get lost. Your light is smaller than mine. Look how vast the darkness is, stretching for miles—and your light shows barely two steps!” The passerby laughed, “Have you gone crazy? If two steps are visible, walk those two steps; then two more will become visible. In this way you can cross a thousand miles. The arithmetic you are doing is false. Will you walk only after you get a lamp that lights up ten miles? Then walking itself will become impossible. Arranging such a huge light—movement will be impossible. Two steps are enough. Two steps visible—walk them; then two more appear—walk them.”

Lao Tzu has said: By taking one step at a time, the journey of ten thousand miles is completed.

If for one moment your mind becomes quiet, it is enough. It is always only this one moment that comes; then again this same one moment will come. If you learn the art of being still in a moment, in the next moment you can employ the same art. If you learn to hum a song, you can hum it now—and hum it in the next moment as well. In this way, not only in one life but through lives upon lives it makes no difference.

I tell you: one who has learned to be still even for a single moment is still forever. For in that one moment he has caught hold of time; now time cannot defeat him. Time can defeat you only if it can hand you two moments at once. Then you would be in trouble: one moment you could be still, and the other…? But time never gives you two moments at once. Who is given two moments!

Second thing: “Just as a lake is sometimes calm, sometimes playful, and sometimes stormy—likewise does the self-realized one remain unaffected by worldly circumstances?”

We harbor many wrong notions about enlightenment. First, “self-realized” means: the one who is no longer there. So to ask whether he is calm or disturbed is meaningless. It is like asking: “We lit a lamp in a room—what happens to the darkness then? Where does it go? Does it shrink and hide in some timid corner—behind the chair? Wait outside the door? Where does it go? Because when we blow out the lamp, it returns—so it must have gone somewhere and come back!”

All such talk is mistaken. Darkness is not something in itself. Darkness is only the absence of light.

Understand: you are because there is ignorance. The moment there is knowing, you are no more. There is not even anyone left to be calm; disturbance is far away. When you are not, that state is called peace. It is not that you remain and plus peace. If you remain, there is unrest. Your very being is synonymous with disturbance. If you are not, there is peace. Then how could disturbance arise? I am not even saying that “you become peaceful.” I am saying: you become no-more. It is an opportunity for martyrdom—prepare to vanish. Your longing is to remain and remain peacefully: sitting in a palace, serene! If you remain, you cannot remain serene.

You went to the riverbank or the seashore and saw a great storm—huge waves, a mighty gale. Then you saw the storm pass. People say, “The storm calmed down.” But that language is not quite right. It suggests the storm is still there, only calm. People say, “The storm calmed down.” One should say, “The storm is no more.” In truth, “the storm calmed down” only means: the storm is not. “You became peaceful” only means: you are not. Then who will be shaken? For there to be disturbance, someone must be. Let storms come and go—pass if they must—you have become a zero.

Spring will not come from the outside,
O mind, create a spring within!

Spring means harmony between season and mood.

Even when it is scorching heat,
do not weep for flowers.
All the birds have flown—
the branches stand bare;
do not sink into remorse thinking of this.
In every season
stay silent and untroubled,
like a springtime river,
flowing soft and slow.
Spring means harmony between season and mood.

What is the meaning of peace? Peace means harmony between you and existence. Neither “I” remains nor “Thou”; both are joined and are one. Who then can disturb you?

People come to me and say, “Meditation is impossible. At home when we sit, the wife starts banging plates, the children make a racket, the train passes, cars honk on the road—meditation is very difficult; the conditions aren’t right.” You do not know what meditation is. Meditation does not mean the wife should not drop a plate, the children should not cry, no cars pass on the street, no train runs, no airplane flies. If that is your idea, then only if you are utterly alone will meditation be possible… not even animals and birds should remain.

There was a “meditator” who fled his home. He sat under a tree and said, “Now surely meditation will happen.” A crow dropped its droppings on him; he flew into a rage. “This is too much! Somehow I escaped my wife—and now this crow. My wife at least could be blamed for something; what have I done to this crow!” The crow has no idea a meditator is seated below. The crow has nothing to do with it.

If your meditation means everything must stop, your meditation will never happen. This world is movement. That is why it is called jagat—the ever-going, the ever-moving. That which moves is jagat.

Sanskrit words are unique; they carry meaning within themselves. Jagat means: that which is on the go, running, rushing.

So in this world everything is in motion—rivers are running, mountains are crumbling, rains will come, clouds will gather, lightning will flash—everything will go on. Where will you escape from it? You have taken up a wrong notion of meditation. Meditation does not mean plates should not fall. Meditation means: let plates fall, yet within remain so empty that the sound echoes and passes through. Have you ever shouted in an empty house? What happens? In an empty house a sound reverberates a little and then dies away; the empty house becomes empty again; nothing is perturbed.

So make your meditation an acceptance. Your “meditation” is refusal; therefore obstacles arise everywhere. Often when one person in a home becomes “meditative,” the whole house is in mourning—because Father is meditating, the children can’t play, can’t make a sound. Father is meditating—as if his meditation were the world’s calamity! And if there is the slightest interruption, Father bursts out of the shrine and starts shouting, “My meditation has been disturbed!”

A meditation that can be disturbed is not meditation. It is the play of the ego, for it is the ego that gets disturbed. You were sitting there stiff with the posture of a meditator, savoring the ego. A small interruption—and you jump up!

You see! It’s not only you—your celebrated rishis and munis would flare up in the slightest matter, turn into Durvasa, burning with rage. That is no meditation. Meditation simply means: whatever happens is accepted. I am not; what remains, remains; what happens, happens. You sit empty. A pot breaks, a sound comes and reverberates; you hear it—of course you hear it—but you don’t protest within that “this should not have happened.” The moment you say “this should not have happened,” the obstacle arises. The obstacle is not in the breaking of the pot—it is in your opposing vision that says “this should not be.” A child cries, and you say “this should not be,”—there is the obstacle. Someone should quieten the child; no one does—another obstacle! You are meditating, and no one cares about your meditation! You are doing a great work for the welfare of the world, and people go on in their own way—someone even honks a horn.

You are meditating from a wrong standpoint. Your meditation is only a decoration for the ego. True meditation is: whatever is happening is okay. You sit in emptiness. There is no refusal in you.

Meditation is not concentration; meditation is total acceptance. Birds will sing, make their sounds; people will walk on the road, speak; children will laugh—everything will go on, and you will sit there like a void. All will pass through you—it is not that your ears have become deaf; you will hear even more clearly. Never before did you hear like this, because your mind was in a thousand tangles; the ears would hear but things would not reach the mind. Now, without entanglement, your sensitivity will become very deep.

Spring means harmony between season and mood.
Meditation means harmony between you and the whole. You become harmonious. Whatever is, is perfectly okay—accepted. Nowhere any refusal, nowhere any opposition. Whatever is happening is auspicious. That is trust; that is meditation. Such meditation naturally takes you into an altogether new experience. Storms will rise; they will not stop because you meditate. Diseases will not stop coming to the body because you meditate. They will come. A thorn will sometimes pierce the foot. Raman had cancer; so did Ramakrishna—great storms came!

Ramakrishna got cancer of the throat; he could neither eat nor drink. Vivekananda said to him, “What is not in your power! Why don’t you pray to the Lord at least to allow food and water to pass? We suffer watching you writhe.”

Ramakrishna said, “Ah, it never even occurred to me to pray. How could it occur—to one whose prayer has already been fulfilled—to ask God for this or that!”

Vivekananda pressed hard, so Ramakrishna closed his eyes; then he laughed and said, “You won’t relent, so I told Him…” I know—he could not have asked, because one who prays truly cannot ask. Having surrendered everything to the Lord, what complaint remains—to do this or that, to let water go down the throat? Is that even something to say? Would Ramakrishna say such a thing? No. But to console Vivekananda, Ramakrishna said, “I have asked.” Vivekananda, overjoyed, asked, “What did God say?” Ramakrishna replied, “God said, ‘O fool, will you go on drinking through this one throat now? Drink through all throats! Will you go on eating through this one mouth? Eat through all mouths! For this body, the moment of departure has come.’”

So Ramakrishna said, “Now, Vivekananda, I will drink through your throat, I will eat through your mouth. This throat is gone. The Lord has said so.”

This I know: Ramakrishna would not have asked—he could not.

It is not that an awakened person cannot have cancer; he can. Cancer does not run by your awakening or non-awakening; it runs by the nature of the body. The body has its own separate journey. It is not that if you are awake, a thorn will not pierce your foot. Storms will keep coming, winds will keep blowing, roofs will keep falling; but now nothing makes any difference to you. You are in acceptance.

No—the enlightened one is not; therefore “affected” and “unaffected” have no meaning. Whoever says, “I am affected,” is not enlightened. And whoever says, “I remain unaffected,” is also not enlightened. For affected and unaffected both lie in the same direction—both still presume you are there: someone is affected, someone is not affected. But the stiffness remains, the ego remains.

And if you ask me, I will say: the one who is affected is simple, fluid; the one who remains unaffected is hard, rigid, stone-like. Better to be affected than to be unaffected—at least you are liquid. Storms come and you sway; you are not like a rock. But neither of these is the state of self-realization.

In the state of self-knowing you are not; whatever happens, happens. No one remains to be affected, no one remains to be unaffected. Through and through it is empty; you have become transparent. A ray comes and passes through—there is no obstruction anywhere.

Today this will seem impossible. Today it seems utterly out of reach. Today it appears that to be unaffected is the far-off goal. We are affected every moment by the smallest things; we have made unaffectedness our aim. And I am saying: go beyond even that.

I could give up walking—
that could be.
But to walk,
and my feet not touch the ground—
that is unheard of.

I can stay away from water—
that is possible.
But to swim in water
and my clothes not get wet—
who can do such a miracle!

If this is a weakness,
what is its secret?
If this is a disease,
what is its cure?

Even so, Your glory is boundless.
If You so will,
even this incapacity
You can remove.

That is why there are those
who walk upon the earth
without their feet being touched,
and who, standing in fire,
do not burn.

But remember, this miracle—this ultimate miracle—happens only when you are not; only when there is no one to burn does the miracle occur. As long as you are, you will burn—whether you show it or not, say it or not, reveal it or hide it. And as long as you are, if you walk on water, the water will touch your feet. Yet this miracle does happen. His glory is boundless! It does not happen by your doing; it happens by your disappearing.

If You so will,
even this incapacity
You can remove.
That is why there are those
who, without their feet being touched,
walk upon the earth,
and who, standing in fire,
do not burn.

Mind you, I am not actually speaking of those who walk on burning coals, nor of yogis who walk on water. I am speaking of life’s supreme glory, where you are in the midst of life and yet nothing touches you. You stand in the marketplace and you are in the temple. You sit at your shop, talking to a customer, and you are in another realm. Getting up and sitting down, managing house and home, caring for wife and children—and yet you remain carefree. Like the lotus in water! I am speaking of that great miracle. Walking on embers is child’s play—you can learn it, you can do it. Perhaps one day man may even devise a way to walk on water. These things can be arranged. But I am not talking about any of that.

The Zen mystic Bokuju reached a river with his disciples. For a long time they had awaited the chance to cross a river with him, because Bokuju always said, “If I pass through water, it will not touch my feet.” They were eager to see this miracle. But when Bokuju stepped into the water his feet got wet, just as theirs did. They were astonished. They said, “Master, what is this? You always said that if you walked in water your feet wouldn’t get wet.” Bokuju laughed and said, “Then you did not understand. Even now I am not getting wet; and the one who is getting wet is not me. This body is not me—that is what I explain to you from morning to night. You foolish ones, when will you awaken? I am still un-wet, and there is no way for me to get wet. And you too are un-wet; only you do not know it—while I do. That is the only difference.”

When the inner emptiness begins to be realized, storms may come—certainly the body will tremble, vibrations will pass—but within that void nothing happens. How can anything happen to what has disappeared? That is why we call the knower one who died while living; one who lives as if dead; within whom nothing remains now.

Ashtavakra has a sutra: “The talkative become silent; the great doers appear lazy.” To this you may add: the living become as if dead, inert-like. Outside, everything goes on as before. The difference is only this: outside it is now a play, an acting. Within you know that what is happening outwardly is a performance—you are not the doer. There is a part to be completed.

Actors come to me and ask, “Tell us how our art can become more skillful.” I tell them: I have a single key. If you are an actor, act in such a way that you forget it is acting—become the doer—and the acting will become true, alive. And this is what I tell everyone about life: move through life as if it is acting. Then your hands will loosen, relationships will relax. If you want to make acting real, become the doer; if you want to prove so-called reality to be maya, become a non-doer—take it as acting.

Try doing something—as an actor. You will be amazed; a unique nectar will drip, a gentle fragrance will arise. Go home today and decide that for three hours you will be an actor. Embrace your wife, but as an actor embraces. Eat as an actor eats. Pet and dandle the children as an actor does, as if they are not your own children—you are performing a play. Just try it. If even for a moment the feeling of acting arises, you will be astonished. The very sense of acting brings immediate quiet; then there is no disturbance.

Therefore the Hindus say: the world is lila, a divine play. Take it as play; do not become serious.

The truth is: only one who has gone deep into indulgence attains to yoga. The truth is: only one who has dived deep into dreaming wakes up. The truth is: apart from experience, there has never been, is not, and will not be any other way for dispassion to arise in this world. That is why the Divine keeps the world going and keeps pushing you into it—because only by entering the world will you come to know what it means to go beyond; only by taking a plunge in the world will you learn the art of rising above it.

God too is certainly the sum of Charvaka and Ashtavakra. I do not regard Charvaka as anti‑religious; I regard Charvaka as the staircase to religion. I see all atheism as the stairway to theism. You have heard talk of harmonizing religions—Hindu and Muslim as one; Christian and Buddhist as one. Such talk is common. But the real synthesis, if it is to be made anywhere, is between the atheist and the theist.

What kind of synthesis is it to say Hindu and Muslim are one! They are saying the same thing—what is there to synthesize? Their words differ; what difference does that make?

I knew a man whose name was Ramprasad. He became a Muslim, and his name became Khudabakhsh. He came to see me. I said, “Foolish fellow! It means the same thing—Ramprasad. By becoming Khudabakhsh nothing has changed. Khuda means Ram; baksh means prasad.” He said, “That never occurred to me.”

These are differences of language—what are you trying to reconcile there? If any true synthesis is to be made, it is between the atheist and the theist; between matter and God; between Charvaka and Ashtavakra. I am speaking to you of just that genuine synthesis. The day atheism becomes the steps to the temple, that day synthesis happens. That day you see life as one whole; that day duality dissolves.

I speak to you of the ultimate nonduality. Even Shankara did not go this far—he too is opposed to Charvaka. What does that imply? It implies that Charvaka too is a part of God. You say God is in all; then is He not in Charvaka? Then the voice that spoke through Charvaka—was it not God? If yours is true nonduality and yet you refute Charvaka, what are you saying? What are you doing? In true nonduality you will say, “In Charvaka’s voice too, the Lord spoke.” That is what I say to you. And his speech is indeed sweet—hence charu‑vak, Charvaka: the sweet‑speaking one. His other name is Lokayat, meaning “that which is dear to the people,” loved by many. Say what you will on the surface—Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim—this is all superficial chatter; look within carefully and you will find Charvaka. And if you examine the heavens promised by the religions, you will discover that their blueprints must have been drawn by Charvaka. The streams of pleasure flowing in paradise are Charvaka’s imaginings.

“Sukham jivet”—“live happily!” says Charvaka. I will certainly say this: Charvaka is a step. But as Charvaka proposes, no one can truly live happily, because Charvaka gives no key to meditation. Charvaka is only indulgence; there is no sutra of yoga—he is incomplete. Exactly as incomplete as those yogis who have yoga but no sutra for enjoyment. No one in this world seems to have the courage to accept the whole—only halves. I accept both. And I say: use Charvaka, and by using Charvaka you will one day become capable of using Ashtavakra.

Enjoy life’s pleasures. In that very enjoyment you will find—sorrow and only sorrow. The more you indulge, the more the taste of pleasure will change and the perception of sorrow will arise. And when one day all the pleasures of life have turned to sorrow, that day you will be ready to awaken. Who could stop you then? That day you will awaken—no one is stopping you now. You remain because you think: perhaps there is a little more joy; let me sleep a little longer. Who knows… Let me turn one more page of the world. Let me peep from this corner too! Let me meet that woman once more! Let me drink that wine again! Who knows where happiness is hiding—let me search everywhere!

Nor do I tell you to escape halfway. If you flee in the middle, you will not arrive, because the mind will keep pulling you back. Again and again the mind will say: you sit for meditation, but the image will rise in your mind of what you left behind. The mind will keep saying, “What foolishness is this—sitting here! Perhaps joy lay there. You should have checked, searched once!”

Therefore I say: know the world, uncover it! As one peels an onion—do not stop in the middle, peel it completely. Then nothing remains in the hand. Yes, if you have not peeled it fully, the onion remains. Then the suspicion can linger in the mind, the fear can remain: “Perhaps a kohinoor is hidden inside!” So peel it. Strip off all the skins. When emptiness is felt in the hand, and only skins lie fallen—the world is like an onion: only skins; nothing inside. Skin within skin—nothing at the core. When that “nothing” is grasped, nothing remains to hold you back.

Read Charvaka’s book to the very end, because the Quran, the Gita, and the Bible begin only after that. Charvaka is the first half; Ashtavakra the second.

So you felt it rightly. My whole effort is not to drive you away from pleasure, but to reveal to you the real nature of pleasure. Through your own experience you will come to know that where you took them to be diamonds and pearls, there are not even pebbles and stones.

But religious leaders will not be in favor of this. Shankaracharya and the Pope and the priests will not be in favor, because their entire trade stands on convincing you against indulgence. Their shop runs on your immaturity. One who ripens in the world and steps out—he is not going to any Shankaracharya or any Pope; he is going straight to God. Then no agent is needed between. The world has become futile—only God remains; there is nowhere else to go. He does not become Hindu, Muslim, Christian—he is simply religious. His religion will be utterly unique, without adjectives. But these religious leaders live by adjectives. They do not want a direct sprint toward God to begin in you, otherwise what will become of them! These midway halts, these shops along the way, these rest‑houses—what will become of them! No, they want you to keep stopping at their stalls. The truth is, they want that you never go beyond them; that you remain there.

Your religious leaders are opposed to Charvaka. Because one thing is certain: if Charvaka is followed accurately, if you truly live him out, then today or tomorrow, tomorrow or the day after—you will awaken. And whoever awakens, awakens in God. Yes, those who rise while still asleep—sleepwalkers—some of them reach Puri, some become Hajjis and reach the Kaaba, some Jerusalem, some Girnar, some Kashi. These people walking in sleep get entangled somewhere or other.

Therefore no religious leader, no sect grants man complete freedom—they keep him bound. Very few stand for human freedom. Such people call freedom licentiousness. Very few have the courage of Ashtavakra, who says: be spontaneous; live by your inner nature; make no compromises. Only know this—this alone is knowledge—that you are beyond all soot and stain. This alone is meditation, this alone is yoga, this alone is the entire process of religion: recognize that awakening is your nature, consciousness your nature, the thought‑free, unattached is your nature. Know this—and then do whatever you will! Live however you will. Then there is no bondage.

So great a revolution, so much freedom—no religious leader can grant. That is why no sect of Ashtavakra could arise, no temple to Ashtavakra could be built, no priesthood of Ashtavakra—Ashtavakra remained standing alone. Society is not ready for such freedom. Society is of slaves, and it wants someone to adorn its slavery—someone to decorate it and declare that slavery is very good, so they can be reassured and sleep in deeper slumber. Those who awaken us cause pain.

But those who are intent on understanding me should know this: I accept the Divine wholly—even in His Charvaka form! And in the world I reject nothing. Only remember one thing: let nothing become an obstruction. Use everything and move on. Place your foot upon every stone, make it a step, and rise above. The stones lying on the path can be made into steps. Do not turn them into hindrances. Charvaka can become a hindrance if you decide, “This is the end, all ends here.” He is only the foreword—do not take him as the conclusion. One must go beyond him—but by passing through him.

I have heard an old Sufi tale. A woodcutter used to go to the forest daily to cut wood. A Sufi fakir would sit there meditating. He saw this and thought: it seems he has been cutting like this for lifetimes. His body worn and torn, grown old—perhaps he barely manages a meal a day. The fakir said to him, “Look, you come to this forest every day—you know nothing. Go a little farther.” “What is there farther?” he asked. “Go a little farther, you will find a mine.” He went ahead and found a copper mine. He was amazed. “I have always come here but never went a little farther; I just cut wood and left. A few steps more and there was a mine.” He brought copper back. Selling wood brought one day’s bread; selling copper once brought enough to eat for a month. When he returned, the fakir said, “See, don’t get stuck; go a little farther.” “Now what more is there ahead?” “Go! Take my counsel; I know this whole forest.”

He went a little farther and found a silver mine. “I was quite foolish. Had I not listened to the fakir, I would have gotten stuck at copper.” Selling silver brought enough for a year—he was delighted. One day the fakir said, “Don’t be too pleased—go a little farther.” “Now let it be—don’t send me anywhere now. This is enough; I have got plenty.” The fakir said, “It’s your wish—but you will regret it.” The words pricked him. He went a little farther and found a gold mine. Now one haul was enough for a lifetime. He stopped coming to the forest.

One day the fakir came to his house and asked, “Madman, I’m waiting for you—still a little farther.” “Now leave it—don’t delude me; I am enjoying myself.” The fakir said, “Learn something from your past. The farther you went, the more you found. A little farther.” He couldn’t sleep that night. Many times he thought, “What sense is there in going now! What more can there be beyond! Gold—the final thing has come.” But sleep didn’t come. “Perhaps the fakir has something to say; perhaps something lies ahead.” He went ahead—and there was a diamond mine. “My fate would have been bad had I not gone.”

Now one load was enough for many lifetimes. Then for days he could not be found—at home the fakir would come and miss him. Sometimes he was at the hotel, sometimes the cinema. How to find him now! He was rushing about. The fakir searched but could not find him. Once he found him at the door of a brothel. “Madman, are you going to stop here? Still a little farther.” “Now forgive me, I’m having fun. Don’t put me into more trouble.” But the fakir said, “Once more—don’t stop.”

He went farther. Now think—what could be there ahead? Farther ahead he found the fakir, sitting in meditation. The man asked, “There seems to be nothing else here.” “Here the mine is within,” said the fakir. “Now sit by me. Now close your eyes a little. Sit quietly. Now the mine of meditation is here. Now you will find God, madman! Enough of outer things—now dig within!”

In life you must keep going farther—don’t stop anywhere! Beyond wealth lies awareness. Beyond Charvaka lies Ashtavakra. Beyond pleasure lies bliss. Beyond matter lies God. I have no opposition to anything, no denial of anything. Only remember that the river of your life must keep flowing—do not become stuck, do not become a stagnant pond. Become a pond and you rot; you become foul. Become a pond and the journey to the ocean stops; the expedition ends—and you are lost.

Keep flowing! You must move toward the ocean. Pass through the world; arrive at God. And the day you arrive, you will be astonished. Looking back, you will find that everywhere God was hiding. Wherever a glimmer of pleasure appeared, there some ray of meditation was present—hence it appeared. I tell you this as my witness—I am the witness of it. If ever in sexuality you caught a little glimmer of joy, that glimmer was not of sex; in the moment of sex, a breath of meditation had descended, even if only a little, from very far away a resonance had come—but it was meditation. You will realize this only in the end. If ever, by gaining fame, you tasted some savor, that too was a glimmer of meditation. Wherever you found pleasure, it was some ray of the supreme bliss—very distant perhaps, a reflection. The moon is in the sky and you saw its image in the lake—only the reflection—but the reflection was of that very moon. The glimmer you find in lust is the shadow of Rama.

In stone‑flagged floors and parapets,
in hard ranks of bayonets,
in pillars and iron gates,
in wires, in walls,
in bolts and locks and sentries,
in the barks of their night‑watch,
in showers of bullets,
in blows that fall like thunder,
in these shy strains, these virtue‑proud,
these pain‑enduring heroes—
whichever way I look, You, only You, are there,
Beloved, in these myriad bodies!
Whichever way I look, You, only You, are there,
Beloved, in these myriad bodies.

But that is from hindsight. When you have read life’s entire book and look back, you will see—ah, it was one story! Had you got stuck anywhere, this would never be understood. Today much that I say seems upside down to you. I say to you: the pleasure you found in lust is a glimpse of brahmacharya. You will be startled to hear this. Let me try to explain—right now it will come only to the surface of your intellect.

Lust arises, a burning fever seizes you, the mind is tossed about, filled with smoke. Then when you enter into the act, a moment comes when lust is satisfied. In that moment, no sexual agitation remains. In that moment there is the state of brahmacharya—if only for a moment, yet no disturbance remains. The glimmer that brings joy is of brahmacharya; you think it comes from lust. For a minute, half a minute, there remains no lust in the world for you. For that brief interval you are not surrounded by desire. For that half minute you are free from lust.

You eat; hunger had been there, there was torment—you ate, there was satiety. In that moment of satiety there is the flavor of fasting. For that short while, no memory of food remains. And the meaning of fasting is precisely this: that food does not preoccupy you. When the body is utterly healthy, when it is vibrant, then for a little while a glimpse of the bodiless arises.

Ask athletes, runners, swimmers. Sometimes while swimming—in the sunlight, with the waves—there comes a moment when the body begins to throb with such aliveness, such a sense of well‑being showers in the body, that the body is forgotten—you become bodiless. That joy is of the bodiless. Sometimes while running, there comes a moment when the inner climate and the outer weather become harmonious; you are running, drenched in sweat, but the mind becomes silent, thoughts have stopped. Standing beneath a tree in cool shade, in a breath of breeze, for a moment the body is forgotten.

Psychologists say the athlete’s delight is the delight of being free of the body. Otherwise who would be so mad as to run so much, swim so much—why? You think it’s only for prizes? Many run without prizes. Perhaps you too have had such a moment: you went for a walk and for a minute it was as if there were no body—such attunement happened, and precisely then joy arose! You tell others: “Walking is such joy!” But if another follows your advice and, on the way, keeps thinking the whole time, “When will it come, when will it come, now it should come, it still hasn’t come,” he will return empty‑handed! Because joy comes in forgetting the body.

Later, when you look back, you will find that even in sex the joy that was felt came because, for a brief moment, you were free of lust. And the joy in eating came because, for a brief moment, you were free of hunger. The joys known through the body were known only when the body was forgotten and the mind became bodiless. But this will be understood later—when the experience of Rama has happened. Looking back, you will find: ah, the same taste was everywhere!

That which surges in my eyes,
that which rains in the dark cloud,
that which on my lips
blooms as a new rainbow of delight,
it is He who speaks in me,
whom the mute world invokes.
He who, not being, becomes
the boundary called the horizon—
that same empty vastness am I.
Even in detachment,
I have become the love of the Ever‑Detached.
It is He who speaks in me
whom the mute world invokes.

But only when you are silent will you understand that it is God speaking in your silence. No one else can speak—there is no one else. In your love it was He; in your lust He; in your Rama He; in your prayer He. All are His glimmers. In countless forms, He alone is. This is what I call nonduality. My Brahman is not opposed to Maya. My Brahman is playing hide‑and‑seek within Maya. My Brahman is manifest in innumerable forms within Maya.

The taste of love’s spectacle is maligned for nothing;
Beauty itself is restless to display its splendors.

That which peeks through the flowers—God is eager to show His splendor. That which appears as beauty upon a woman’s face—

Beauty itself is restless to display its splendors.

That which gleams in the simple, innocent eyes of a child—God Himself is eager, inviting. You will understand this later. Today the difficulty has grown even greater. What your religious leaders have taught you is so foolish that they have raised the specter of bondage in everything. They have created panic in everything, instilled guilt. If you felt devotion in someone’s love, inside you felt, “I am committing sin.” If some eyes seemed beautiful, attractive, panic arose, “Surely sin is happening.” The seers and monks have forever said: beware!

I say to you: go a little deeper into this eye. Go a little farther. You’ll find copper, yes; silver too, gold too, diamonds and jewels too. And a little farther—beyond wealth—is meditation.

When the heart, sky‑like and unstained,
arises, a rainbow will appear in it.
The cause of creation is the Void itself—
whose ego is free of “I” and “Thou.”

Become free of “I” and “Thou.” The whole arrangement of the world is for this. So much pain is born of “I–Thou,” yet still you do not become free. You suffer so much, are pierced by so many thorns, the chest torn—and still you do not become free. And who will free you? If pain is not your guru, who else can be?

The world is the guru. Keep a little account of whatever you experience. Wherever there is pain, look carefully—you will find your “I” standing there. Wherever there is suffering, you will find your “I” standing there. How long will you sleep? Will you not ever wake and see that this ego is a thorn, the pain of your very life? The day someone puts this ego aside—and it is in your hands to put it aside. Truly, even to say “in your hands” is not quite right. If you simply stop holding it up, it falls immediately. If you do not cooperate, it dissolves at once. It is upheld by your cooperation.

It is a great joke: you yourself are holding up your own sorrow. You are the maker of your hell. It is simply a matter of going beyond this “I–Thou.” Rise beyond “I–Thou,” whether by love or by meditation—both raise you beyond “I–Thou.”

Buried in the soil, I am your root;
you are my flower that blooms in the sky.
The sap I draw up from the earth
spreads as redness in the flower;
and the fragrance you create
wafts down here as well.
The radiance of the bodiless flashes in the body,
and the body’s flame offers arati to the bodiless.
Beyond duality and nonduality—this is my humble refrain:
Lord! You and I are one.

There is no difference between the flower that blooms up there on the summit, and the root that lies hidden deep in the darkness of the earth—they are one. Between Buddha and you, between the ignorant and the enlightened, between the unrighteous and the righteous, there is no essential difference, no fundamental difference. The saint may be like a blossomed flower, manifest in the sky above, and the sinner may be like the root, buried deep in the earth’s darkness…

Buried in the soil, I am your root;
you are my flower that blooms in the sky.
The sap I draw up from the earth
spreads as redness in the flower;
and the fragrance you create
wafts down here as well.
The radiance of the bodiless flashes in the body,
and the body’s flame offers arati to the bodiless.
Beyond duality and nonduality—this is my humble refrain:
Lord! You and I are one.

In this world, begin to forget the two—begin to forget “I–Thou.” And however it happens, from wherever it happens, wherever a small glimpse of the One arises—grasp that glimpse. Those very glimpses, condensed and condensed, one day become samadhi.

The journey of indulgence leads to yoga if you don’t stop anywhere. It’s not guaranteed that you will arrive. If you get stuck at a copper mine, you’ll remain stuck with copper. I don’t say it surely leads you there—I say it can. Keep searching, don’t get stuck, don’t stop—go on, keep moving—and then the journey of indulgence can lead you to yoga. But if you get stuck in yoga—then the questioner has asked rightly—if you get stuck in yoga, you will fall back into indulgence.

That’s why the yogi reaches heaven. Heaven means enjoyment. Having earned merit, you reach heaven and begin to spend it. This is why Jaina-Buddhist stories are so important. They say that when your merit is exhausted in heaven, you are thrown back again into the world. No one is liberated from heaven; liberation happens only from the human state. These points are very significant. It means that if you get stuck in yoga, you will fall into bhoga. How long can yoga last? Life’s movement is circular. So, as I told you: if you don’t get stuck in indulgence, that is yoga. And if you don’t get stuck even in yoga, that is transcendence—then you enter the state of witnessing.

So don’t get stuck in bhoga, because there are many reasons to get stuck there—so many beautiful dreams. And yoga too has beautiful dreams; Patanjali has described them in the Vibhuti Pada—great powers, great siddhis—and you can get stuck in those. The one who gets stuck in yoga, today or tomorrow, will fall into bhoga.

You must have heard the word yogabhrashta. What does it mean? It means: one who went beyond indulgence and reached up to yoga, but then got stuck in yoga. Whoever is stuck will fall; he will be a yogabhrashta, he will come down. No one can remain in yoga. Either you come down or you go beyond. Remaining stationary does not happen; either you move forward, or you will be thrown back. Existence is motion; you cannot stand still in it. If you stop, either you will begin to retreat, or you will have to go on.

Eddington has written that in the universe there is nothing like a state of rest; nothing here is static. These trees—either they are growing or they are withering. A child is growing; youth is already declining; old age is fading—but increase and decrease go on. You cannot say a man has stopped at youth. Stopping does not happen here. Whoever is in youth is becoming old—whether you notice it today or tomorrow. The child is becoming young. The old man is descending toward death. The one descending into death is seeking a new birth. The wheel of life revolves in a circle.

Keep going. From yoga, one has to move further. The name of that state is sakhi, sakshi—transcendence. Beyond that there is nothing, because there is no way to go beyond the witness. Witness means: you have come to the last place. That by which you see everything—there is no way to see that. You have reached the final station, the center.

So there are three states: of the bhogi, of the yogi, and of the one who has transcended—call him a mahayogi or a mahabhogi; either word will do, but he is different from both.

Life is not born with birth,
nor does it die with death.
What it seeks by taking birth,
even after dying it keeps seeking.
And God does not easily fall into our grasp.
His grace is this:
He gives us birth and then causes us to die.
Birth and death are the two wheels of the lathe;
God carves and polishes us again and again.
And when we are completely refined,
God hands Himself over to us.
Our liberations do not remain apart from the center;
either God dissolves into them,
or He absorbs them into Himself.

In that state of transcendence there are two happenings; even to say two is only a manner of speaking—it is one and the same event. For if the drop falls into the ocean, or the ocean falls into the drop—what difference does it make? It is the same thing. Either God dissolves into the witness, or the witness dissolves into God.

Kabir has said:
Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir was lost in the search;
the drop merged in the ocean—how then can it be found?

Later he felt something was missing and he wrote again:
Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir was lost in the search;
the ocean merged into the drop—how then can it be drawn out?

Both statements are true. “The drop merged in the ocean”—this is the first experience, because it is from the side of the drop. We are still the drop. The first time the event happens it will seem that the drop has merged in the ocean. The ocean so vast, we so small—how can the ocean merge into us? Our old habit of smallness stands up to the last. So: the drop merged into the ocean. But once the drop has merged, then it becomes visible: who is small, who is big? There is only One. Then we can also say: the ocean merged into the drop.

When transcendence happens, either you dissolve into the Lord, or the Lord dissolves into you—two ways of saying the same thing.

Just don’t stop. If you stop, you stagnate. Don’t stop anywhere. As far as possible, keep on going. A moment comes when there is nowhere left to go. That place is God—beyond which nothing remains further to move to. Only when there is absolutely no space left to go, then stop. If you can see even the slightest space that there is still a little further to go, keep going. As long as there is room to move, don’t stop. Then the journey will be complete. And the one whose journey is complete—only he comes home. Coming home means: he returns into God.

Then you have not understood the very science of making you laugh. If I tell you something to make you laugh and I laugh myself, you will miss; you won’t be able to laugh. If I am to make you laugh, I have to remain serious. The more serious I become, the easier it is for you to laugh. And when I tell you to laugh, I say it with great seriousness: laugh. It is no laughing matter. Do not take it as something said in jest. I have said it very seriously—because I am turning laughter into a sadhana. Go to the gates of the divine with a smile; you will be accepted sooner.

A man died. The man who lived just opposite him also died. Both died at the same time. Both appeared before God. But the first man was amazed. That he got heaven—fine. But this other fellow—why is he getting heaven? I always prayed; he never even prayed. I always worshipped; he never worshipped. He said to the Lord, “This is a bit unjust. He, an utter sinner, worldly! Why is he getting heaven? I prayed and worshipped without stop. Not for a single day did I forget you. Morning I remembered you, noon I remembered you, evening I remembered you, night I remembered you—remembering, remembering, I died. I spent my whole life in your remembrance!”

God said, “Precisely for that. Because this man never bothered me at all. He never woke me in the morning, nor at noon, nor at night—he never pestered me. You chewed my head all your life. That I am not sending you to hell is already quite something. If you demand perfect justice, I would have to send you to hell—no doubt injustice is being done here. The injustice is that you should have been sent to hell.”

Your gloomy, tearful faces will not be accepted by the divine. Go like a flower! Go dancing. If you go dancing, you will be embraced. If you go dancing, a thousand of your sins will be forgiven. If you go sad, grave, weeping, then a thousand merits will not help you. And what kind of merit is it that makes you sad?

So when I tell you to laugh, I am saying it with great seriousness. Do not take it lightly. And I must remain serious—for your sake. Otherwise you will think it was said jokingly. You may not take it to heart. But if you come to know me, you will find it hard to discover a man more un-serious than I am. If you just look within me a little, you will surely find that there is nothing there but dance and laughter.

What I ask of you—what I ask you to become—I speak from being that. And I also know your trouble. It is hard for you to laugh. You are miserly in laughter. In crying you are lavish. You laugh barely for a moment; then the laughter fades, dries up. But if you start crying, you can cry for hours. Others may try to console you—you won’t listen; they may soothe and pat you, still you won’t agree, and you go on crying. When you laugh, it’s just a little—as if forced; as if with difficulty; as if you had to laugh, so you laughed—and then it vanishes. I know the reason too: in your life there is nothing but sorrow.

I have wept so much for the sorrow of the Friend that after a brief smile
my heart grows afraid of moments that dare to smile.

You have cried so much, suffered so much, that you get nervous. Laughter does not seem to suit you; it doesn’t quite fit—it feels alien, unfamiliar. With crying you have company, a long acquaintance; with laughter you have no relationship. And even when you do laugh, your laughter carries the stamp of weeping—there is some crying in it. Your laughter is not free, not pure, not virgin; it is stained with tears. Watch: your laughter does not rise from the very heart, it does not come out of the void.

If you peer within me, one thing is certain: I do not laugh the way you do. To laugh as you do I would have to be like you. My laughter is on another plane. Come to that plane and you will recognize it.

Ashtavakra says: to know that state, one needs the same state. Christians say Jesus never laughed. That is false. Yet the Christians are also right, because on the plane on which they can understand laughter, Jesus never laughed. On the plane on which I understand laughter, I know Jesus was bubbling with laughter—he was laughing even on the cross.

Have you seen a laughing statue of Buddha? Impossible. Have you heard Mahavira’s titter? Impossible. If you make a laughing statue of Mahavira, the Jains will sue you and drag you into court, saying you have disfigured our Mahavira’s face. Mahavira—and laughing? It cannot be! In one sense they are right too: a Mahavira like you would never laugh. Your laughter bears the imprint of tears. Mahavira’s laughter is very silent, serene—serene like Mahavira himself, without any disturbance. Perhaps there is no giggling in it—there cannot be. It rises from emptiness; it carries the flavor of the void. But laughter there certainly is. You will know it only when you attain those states.

The pain of creation writhes;
God is forever restless to take birth.
Whatever I have to say to others,
the Lord first whispers to me.
When a poem of compassion is written,
the poet weeps afterward,
God weeps first.

If I am to make you weep, I must weep before you. And if I am to make you laugh, my very life-breath must be laughter—otherwise I could not make you laugh. But your way and mine will be different—that is true. Once I was exactly like you. And one day you too will become exactly like me—that is my hope. With this hope I bid you farewell from this camp.

Hari Om Tatsat!