Maha Geeta #52

It appears to be a contradiction; it is not. And it appears so because the language you understand is not the language of truth, and the language of truth does not yet make sense to you.
Let us begin where you can understand.

They say: in love, defeat is victory. It looks like a contradiction. How can defeat be victory? In victory there is victory. If you have not known love you will say, this is topsy-turvy talk, a riddle. How can victory come through losing? But if even a single drop of love has entered your life, if even a slight breeze has touched you, a wave has risen, you will instantly recognize there is no contradiction.
In love, to be defeated is to be victorious. The one who surrenders, wins. In love, surrender is the path to victory. But only if love is known will the language of love make sense; if you have known only the language of the sword, if your acquaintance is with violence, if you have won by pressing others down, you cannot know that one can win by bowing.

Exactly the same here. Discontent for God is supreme contentment. In the world, even contentment is not contentment; here there is only discontent. The nature of the world is to burn and to set aflame—nothing but flames.

When Buddha left his palace and his charioteer tried to dissuade him—Where are you going? Why are you running away? Look back at the palace—these golden palaces, this peace and comfort, this kingdom of contentment; this beautiful wife, this son, this father—where will you find these again?—Buddha looked back and said: I see nothing there but flames. Everything is burning. There is no golden palace, no wife, no father. All is ablaze—only flames!

“Charioteer,” Buddha said, “you go back. I will not return into those flames.”

The charioteer tried hard. He was old, had known Buddha since childhood, had watched him grow, was attached. He reasoned, pleaded, even challenged. When nothing worked, he struck: This is escape, cowardice. Where are you running? This is not the virtue of a kshatriya.

Buddha laughed: If a house is on fire, would you call the man who comes out a coward? And would you call wise the one who sits in the middle of the fire?

The charioteer said: But only if the house is on fire!

Buddha said: That is the difficulty—I see the fire; you do not. Our languages are different. I say something; you understand something else. You say something; it bears no relation to me.

Where is contentment in the world? All here is false. Someone asks, How are you? You say, All right. Have you ever looked closely? Inside that “all right,” is anything right? You say, All fine. Is anything fine? You say it as a matter of course; but have you ever looked to see whether there is even a glimmer of truth in what you say?

No. In all you have known here there is no contentment. Contentment cannot be here.

So when I said, be content toward the world, I meant: do not give the world much attention; it is not worth attending. Whatever is here—let it be. Because here nothing is truly all right. That is why I say: what is, is okay. Do not run about in it. Even by running you will not set it right. The very nature of the world is not to be “set right.”

I have heard: In an American supermarket a woman was buying a toy. It was a puzzle—pieces to be assembled into a picture. She kept trying to put it together, but it wouldn’t fit. Her husband, a professor of mathematics, tried too; still it wouldn’t go. After racking their brains they asked the shopkeeper, What’s the matter? I’m a mathematics professor—if I can’t assemble it, how will my small son?

The shopkeeper laughed: This toy is made in such a way that it cannot be assembled. It was not made with the intention of being completed. It’s a toy symbolic of the modern world: no matter how hard you try, it will not fit—neither for you nor for your child. It simply cannot be completed, because it was not made to be completed.

The world is not made to fit together. If it did, you would never search for God. Why does the search for the divine arise? Because the world does not fit. If it did, would Buddha search? Would Mahavira? Would Ashtavakra? If the world fit, God would become nonessential!

Understand this: If contentment were possible in the world, religion would be meaningless. Religion has meaning because contentment is not possible here. So we seek contentment elsewhere.

That is why I said: whatever is here—little or much—be at ease with it. Being at ease does not mean you will find contentment in it; it means don’t keep running after it. Don’t try to assemble this toy; it won’t fit. And toward God become discontent. There, discontent itself is contentment. There, thirst itself is the quenching. The more intense the thirst, the nearer the lake comes. The day the thirst is so deep that only thirst remains—you are no more—in that very instant the rain descends. The day you remain only as a single flame, a single thirst...

Sheikh Farid was sitting on a riverbank when a man asked, How do we seek God? Farid looked at him—Farid was a strange fakir. He said: I’m going to bathe; you bathe too. Either I’ll tell you after the bath, or if the occasion arises, I’ll tell you in the bath itself.

The man was a bit afraid: In the bath you’ll tell me? “After the bath” one can understand—bathe first, then inquire—but “in the bath”? He thought: the saints’ way of speaking—there must be some meaning. He went in. Farid was strong. As soon as the man dipped under, Farid caught his neck under water and wouldn’t let go. The man struggled, much weaker than Farid, but a moment came when he exerted such total force that he broke free. He came out blazing with anger: I came to find God, not to commit suicide. You were killing me!

Farid said: That later—first one question. While I held you under, how many desires were in your mind?

He said: How many desires! Only one remained—that somehow I might get a breath of air. Then even that was lost. Then I was not even aware of that. Then there was no difference between me and the urge to breathe—I became that urge. Only then could I break your grip.

Farid said: That is my answer. The day you want God like that—so that no difference remains between the seeker and the seeking—on that day the meeting happens. Now go.

When I said, be discontent for God, I mean: be content with regard to the world—there contentment is not to be found; be discontent for God—there it is found.

Deep thirst is itself contentment;
Contentment never comes from outside.
The question finds its answer only when
You become the very question in your asking,
And music is born only when
You sing by becoming the song.
Sadhana is simply another name for siddhi;
Siddhi never comes from outside.
Deep thirst is itself contentment;
Contentment never comes from outside.

Throw the doors of self-vision wide—
The beloved of attainment comes only thus.
Drop the cloaks you’ve wrapped of ego—
Your liberation will become your own.
You yourself are the temple, the worship as well;
The image never comes from outside.
Deep thirst is itself contentment;
Contentment never comes from outside.

There is no difference between the Full and the Void—
Two revealed forms of a single state.
One ocean abides in the bottomless deep;
From afar alone, they seem two wells.
Between seen and seer stands no mediator;
Vision never comes from outside.
Deep thirst is itself contentment;
Contentment never comes from outside.

So when I tell you: become utterly discontent for God, thirsty—out of that very thirst contentment will well up. That thirst itself will become the seed. From that seed the tree of contentment will grow. It is not that if you are thirsty, contentment will come from outside. The birth of contentment is within your thirst itself. Thirst is the womb. In that womb contentment grows. From the womb of your thirst, contentment is born.

Ramana Maharshi would tell his seekers: keep asking one question—Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? A thinker named Osborne came and asked: Will the answer come by keeping on asking? Will a moment ever come when the answer is given?

Ramana said: The answer? The answer is hidden in the very question! The day you ask it with such intensity that you stake everything on the asking, the question itself becomes the answer. Nothing comes from outside. Whatever you are to receive is concealed within you.

So the meaning of discontent for God is only this: what is outside—you have sought enough—seek it no more. Now seek what is within.

“You said there should be contentment toward the world and discontent toward God. And you also said that no aspiration should remain.”

God is not an aspiration, because God is your nature. Aspiration is always for the other. God is not “other.” That is why some knowers have not used the word “Paramatma” (Supreme Self) at all, only “atma” (Self)—because “paramatma” carries “para,” the other, as if someone else. Aspiration is always for what is not yet yours. God you have already—he is your nature. You cannot lose him; you can only forget or remember. Discontent will remind you. What has always been present within will be recognized and realized. Aspiration means what I do not have.

A young man came and asked me: What will you give me if I take sannyas? I said: I will give you what you already have, and I will take away what you do not have.

There are things you do not have which you think you have; and there are things you do have which you have never even thought you have. I will give you what you have, and I will take from you what you do not have. I will snatch away the non-existent; I will give you the existent.

In this inner discontent you will encounter only your own Self.

Now there are two ways to this realization, as I say again and again. One is the path of love; one is the path of meditation. If you are on the path of love, forget about the witness. The word “witness” does not appear on the path of love; it is not in love’s lexicon. The lover is not a witness; he is an enjoyer. The lover enjoys God, drinks him—he does not witness. “Witness” is not part of love’s language. That is why you stumbled. If you use the language of love, if you walk the path of love, then become discontent like a mad lover—like Majnun. Go mad. Forget it—then witnessing has no purpose. If you cannot walk the path of love, if love is not your natural disposition and you walk the path of meditation, then no discontent—then witnessing. Then awaken. See what is.

Love means: dive into what is. Witnessing means: see what is.
Witnessing means: sit on the shore. Love means: dive into the ocean.

It will be hard to understand at once that the one who has dived into the ocean of love ends up sitting on the shore. It will look like a contradiction. And the one who sits on the shore as a witness finds his dive has happened. Both methods reach the same place. As methods they differ; as final fruition they do not. But do not enter this tangle yet. Either sit on the shore—and one day, sitting, you will suddenly find the dive has happened; sitting, the midstream has arisen right at the bank—then you will understand: Ah, there was no contradiction, only different vocabularies, different ways of saying. Or, diving into the ocean, when you suddenly open your eyes and find yourself sitting on the shore—untouched by water, lotus-like—then you will know those who spoke of witnessing were right too.

Meditation and love meet at the final step—but only at the final step. Before that their roads are very different. The lover weeps—overflowing with rasa, calling, restless. The meditator sits in silence—no call, no separation. The meditator becomes utterly empty—goes nowhere, seeks nothing, becomes void of all aspiration. The lover turns all aspirations into a single aspiration—to attain the Beloved. The meditator becomes the Void; the lover begins to fill himself with the Divine. And in the last state, the Void and the Full prove to be one—two ways of seeing the same thing.

Do not get entangled in this. My listeners can get entangled. Such a tangle did not exist earlier—at least not with other masters. Meera spoke only of love; she would not raise the matter of witnessing. Ashtavakra spoke only of witnessing; he would not speak of love. Listeners had it easy. I sometimes speak of love, sometimes of witnessing—hence the appearance of contradiction.

But I want to tell you: Ashtavakra spoke for half of humanity, and Meera also for half—I am speaking for the whole of humanity, for the whole human being. This brings a difficulty. And there is a purpose behind speaking thus. The purpose is that, until now, every religion born has been partial. Jainism, for example, is a religion of witnessing. In it there is no place for woman, no place for the lover, no place for devotion.
Half the world is women, half men. You will be surprised: Jain scriptures say liberation is not possible in a female body. If a woman is ever to be liberated, she must first be born male. Why? Buddha’s path also is witnessing. For years he refused to initiate women—he kept postponing. Why? Half the world is women. If Jainism were to prevail, only half the world could become religious. And know this: if women remain irreligious, men cannot become religious—half of them will remain irreligious. The journey will not go far. The religion will be broken, fragmentary.

Meera, Chaitanya, Kabir—they speak of love. If only what they say is right, what happens to meditation? If only their way is right, what of those who are not capable of loving, whose hearts are like a desert—still, empty? They too exist. What of them? They too are half.

In my view, there is a deep balance in existence. As there are half women and half men, half day and half night, sun and shade—so in everything. Here half will arrive by meditation, and half by devotion.

Until now, the world’s religions have been incomplete. None has tried to touch man’s wholeness. There was a danger; I am taking that risk. The danger is that if man’s wholeness is kept in view, statements appear very contradictory. The seeker does not feel tidy clarity. He feels: What to do, what not to do? This is right, that is right—what should I choose?

You want someone to say with finality: only this is right, all else is wrong. That is what your gurus have told you: only this is right, only this—and all else is wrong. Not because all else is wrong, but so you may feel certain; so that in your doubt-ridden mind a ray of certainty may arise.

No—but that ray of certainty has proved very costly. Muslims think Muslims are right, Hindus wrong. Hindus think Hindus are right, Muslims wrong. From that ray of certainty religion did not come—wars came. From that ray came conflict, violence, bloodshed.

No, I do not want to give you a ray of certainty. I want to give you a ray of understanding. In my view, the more intelligent a person is, the more generous he is within: “What is opposite to me may also be right.” Only such a one is truly noble-hearted. He will know: not only I am right; what is opposite to me may also be right. Because God is vast. He can hold even what is opposite to me. In God, opposites can dissolve, interpenetrate. God is the music between contraries.

Let knowledge arise through understanding—not through certainty, not through blind faith, not by forcibly closing your eyes. Otherwise it leads to: either you are right or I am right—how can both be right?

I say to you: both are right. This does not mean I am asking you to walk both paths. If you walk both, you will be in trouble. Can anyone ride two boats? Or sit on two horses? I am saying: the other rider will also arrive; I am not saying you ride two horses. I am only saying: keep a generous heart—others will also arrive. Do not condemn the other. Do not say heaven is only ours and for you there is only hell.

Heaven is for all. Heaven belongs to everyone; it is nobody’s private property. And whichever way you find natural, mount that horse. You will have to ride just one. While walking, one path must be chosen. You know that on the mountain all paths go up, and yet no one can walk two paths at once. Knowing that all paths reach the summit, still you must walk one. You cannot walk two. Walk your own; but keep the awareness that those on other paths also arrive. That is why I speak of all the paths together.

You will feel contradiction because the mind finds it hard to be generous. It is narrow. And you will also miss the pleasure of feeling “only we are right and others are wrong.” People care less for truth than for savoring the ego: I am right! They care less for what is right than for the joy that I am right—and you are wrong!

We are very eager to prove the other wrong. I say to you: leave the other to himself. If he wishes to sit in a temple and worship an image, say: May the Lord meet you by your way—surely he will. If I too can reach by my way, we will meet at the summit. For now, my salutations! Travel with my good wishes. And pray for me too—to your Lord, to your temple’s image—that I may also arrive.

If such a generous heart arises on earth, the earth can become religious. I want a world where there are no Hindus, no Muslims, no Sikhs, no Christians, no Parsis—only religious human beings.

These words are from the Sufis—very significant, and very straightforward. The first is tariqat. Tariqat means: the way, the method, the discipline, the means, the yoga. Tariqat means: something has to be done; only then will you attain—without doing, you will not receive. One has to walk a path; find the way; make a footpath. One has to bring some discipline into life, give it an order. Tariqat means learning the way to become worthy of it.

When you go to have an audience with an emperor, you learn the etiquette of his court. You don’t just walk in. If you do, you will not be accepted. You learn how to sit there, how to stand there, how to bow there. If you are going to meet an emperor, you must taste something of the flavor of the emperor’s way of life.

If you are going to meet the Divine, let a little of the Divine’s fragrance settle within you.

When a guest comes to your home, you prepare the house. If you have invited a guest like God, you will prepare, won’t you? You will make some arrangements—you will spread a new sheet on the bed, you will clean the rooms, you will paint and decorate! Etiquette!

Tariqat is a very lovely word. It means: go, sit at the feet of the satguru. Learn from him: how to sit, how to rise?
Arjuna asked Krishna: Tell me, Lord, how does the one of steady wisdom walk? How does he rise? How does he sit? How does he speak? Tell me the manner of the one whose insight has become stable—his way of rising, sitting, walking—so that I too may rise that way, sit that way; so that I may understand something of the order of that path. Discipline.
The second is: Shariat. Shariat means absorption—when the seeker and the seeking become one. In the first, there is still a method. And you handle the method carefully, because you are new. When you first type on a typewriter or learn to drive a car, you have to keep track of many things. Have you ever learned to drive a car? You must handle many things at once: watch the road, keep the steering in hand, keep your foot steady on the accelerator, remember the brake. If you need to change gears, don’t forget to press the clutch—the whole worry! A novice has a hard time. So many things for one person! Focus on one thing and another slips. Look down and you forget the road; look at the road and your foot slips off the brake. You press the accelerator too hard; you forget to engage the clutch—this all happens. But slowly, as you become proficient, skillful, then… then you chat, sing, listen to the radio, and the car keeps going. Now the method is no longer merely a method; it has come into harmony with you. Now you are not separate.

Psychologists say that sometimes a moment comes in the night, between three and four, when the driver even dozes off. For an instant the eyes close, yet the car keeps moving. That’s when most accidents happen—between three and four. If a driver has been driving all night, the most dangerous time is three to four, because that is the deepest-sleep period. Sometimes it happens that the driver thinks his eyes are open and they close. Sometimes the eyes close and the mind deceives him: the road still seems visible. It’s a dream of the road! The road is no longer there, and the vehicle goes on.

Even after drinking, a driver can drive quite well. In fact, if you wanted to test whether someone is truly a driver, give him a drink and have him drive. If he can drive even drunk, he is a proper driver. Now there is no gap between him and his driving.

Shariat means the discipline is no longer separate; it has dissolved into the blood—into bone, flesh, and marrow. It is no longer something you must deliberately do. Now it happens through you. Even if you do not pay attention, it happens as it should.

There is a prayer you have to remember to do. There is waking at brahma-muhurta that happens only if you set an alarm. Then a time comes when the bliss of brahma-muhurta absorbs you so much that even if you want to sleep at that hour, you cannot; you simply wake up. Then tariqat has become shariat.

In tariqat there is a device, a method, and the sense of “I”—self-consciousness. One who is living in tariqat has not yet gone beyond the ego. He is arranging to go beyond it, but remains within it. In shariat, absorption has come: there is no division between seeker and seeking; the ego has begun to dissolve. In shariat the “I” is lost.

Then the third state: marifat. In the first, the “I” remains; in the second, the “I” is lost; and in the third, the glimpse of the Divine begins. In the first there was only method; in the second, practice became an inseparable companion to life—absorption arrived; in the third, the Divine begins to glimmer. For where the “I” dissolves, there the glimmer comes, the window opens. Yet it is still a glimpse as if from afar: as when, on some morning, the sky is clear and, from far away, you glimpse the peak of the Himalayas—gleaming in the sun, visible from thousands of miles. But there is still distance. It is the Divine’s glimpse.

The fourth, which the Sufis call Haqiqat… Haqiqat comes from the word Haq, meaning Truth. You must have heard the famous utterance of Al-Hallaj Mansur: “Ana’l-Haq”—I am the Truth. He had reached Haqiqat, what in India is called Brahma-jnana—Haqiqat. Haqiqat is an even better word than Brahma-jnana, because it is simply about Truth. Even the word God is no longer needed. As long as there is God, you and God remain a little separate; there is distance. A glimpse has appeared; your I-sense has dissolved, but in the Divine there is still a Thou-sense present.

So understand it this way: in tariqat the “I” is present; in shariat the “I” is not; in marifat, “Thou” arises—the Divine manifests. And in Haqiqat neither “Thou” remains nor “I”; only Truth remains—nonduality, One. All the distances between I and Thou fall away.

This is the seeker’s journey: three stages, and the fourth is the destination. Do not stop anywhere among the three. Many people stop at the level of methods. They keep learning forever: press the left nostril and breathe through the right; press the right and breathe through the left; practice nauli and dhauti; do headstands. All good—nothing wrong. But they go on doing only this all their life; they become absorbed in it… There are many such people. Those whom you call yogis are often entangled right here. This alone keeps expanding. They remain engaged only in bodily purifications: sometimes fasting, sometimes living on water, sometimes on fruits—and thus their whole twenty-four hours, the pattern of their life, gets entangled in this.

Tariqat is necessary, but tariqat is not the goal. It is right to decorate the house, but do not go on decorating only. It is right to prepare when a guest comes, but do not forget the guest—do not let him stand at the door while you remain busy with preparations. And your preparations have become such that you no longer care even about him; you tell him too, “Please wait! Let the preparations be finished! Don’t interrupt in between!”

Ramtirtha tells of a young man who went abroad. His beloved waited a long time. Letters kept coming: I will come now, then now—but he wouldn’t come. Finally the beloved grew tired and went abroad herself. She arrived at his door. He was writing something. She sat on the threshold, thinking: let him finish writing. He was writing with great absorption; tears were flowing; he was deeply immersed. He didn’t even notice that she had come and was sitting there. Midnight approached. Then the beloved said, “Now stop too—how long will you go on writing? How long should I sit here?” He started, opened his eyes—he couldn’t believe it. He thought it must be a ghost: Has my beloved died, or what has happened! “How are you here?” He began trembling.

She said, “Don’t be afraid; I’ve been sitting here a long time.”

He said, “Why didn’t you speak earlier?”

She said, “I thought you were writing something.”

He said, “What on earth was I writing? Letters to you! You should have told me first!”

Some people are like that: they keep ledgers. They are writing “Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram.” Even if Ram himself were to come and stand there, they would say, “Wait—let me finish my ledger!” Someone is reciting a mantra; he is so absorbed in the mantra he will not hear—even God he will not hear.

Do not get entangled in tariqat. Many people do. They become ritualists; that’s all they do.

I knew a gentleman with great reputation. Villagers said, “He is very religious.” I would sometimes go to that village. I asked, “What is the matter—what is the secret of his being religious?” They said, “He lives with great purity.” One day I watched him for twenty-four hours to see how he lived, what he did. His purity was astonishing. He would go to fill water at the street tap—he was poor, there was no tap in the house—and if a woman appeared, he would immediately pour the water out. “The water has become impure!” Then he would scrub and cleanse his pitcher. But who can predict women on the road? He would be walking and again some woman would pass; he would overturn it again. Sometimes fifty times! Even if it became evening, he would return only with “pure” water. Then he would cook with his own hands; wash his clothes himself.

I asked him, “Do you get time for anything else?” He said, “Where is the time? Everything goes in purity.” And purity in every matter: churn ghee himself; more than three hours old and the ghee is impure. Grind fresh flour daily; flour kept over from yesterday has become stale.

I asked, “When will you remember God?” He said, “Sometimes I too think: what net have I fallen into! But now I’m caught, and in this lies my prestige. The whole village worships me. People bring wheat, rice, milk—that’s my status. But I have died in purity! My life has been wasted like this. Now I too get afraid: what if a woman passes by… Sometimes I think, just fill it—who is watching? But there is also the fear that someone might see! I am caught in a web; it is difficult to get out.”

Look at your sadhus, your monks—there is a net in which they are caught.

A Jain monk told me, “There is no leisure at all to sit and meditate. I became a monk precisely to meditate. But where is the leisure! The ritual is such that all the time goes in it. Then whatever little time remains, lay followers come; one has to hold satsang with them. The Truth has not yet been realized, yet that Truth has to be shared; satsang has to be done! What I myself have not known I have to explain to others. And the greatest result will be that if any of these lay followers gets caught, his plight will be the same as mine.” This is how the net spreads.

We have a phrase, “Gorakh-dhandha.” If you get tangled in tariqat, it becomes a Gorakh-dhandha—a tangle. Gorakh-dhandha comes from the saint Gorakhnath. He devised so many techniques, so much nauli-dhauti, do this, do that, that the phrase was born: Gorakh-dhandha—whoever gets caught in Gorakh’s tangle cannot get out. The methods are an endless net; you will never get out of it. You will find no way out. From one technique another arises; from the second a third appears.

Tariqat has a limit. Remember the limit. There is a boundary; keep it in view, understand it. Then comes shariat—only then will shariat come. If you rise above tariqat, if you do not get lost in the Gorakh-dhandha, only then will the second moment arrive. The second moment is very necessary—absorption. Get free of methods and rites; let life become a little natural. Now live from awareness, not from methods and rites. Now do not insist, “I must wake at brahma-muhurta”; rather, whenever you wake, regard that as brahma-muhurta. And you will slowly find that you begin to rise at brahma-muhurta anyway. Do not keep entangling yourself in petty matters like: who cooked the food, a Brahmin or a non-Brahmin? Do not remain entangled in such small things. You have to go beyond. Make a little preparation.

You have seen an airplane: it runs a little on the path—on the runway—that is tariqat; it runs a bit, and then takes off. If it just keeps running and never takes off, what kind of airplane is that? It is no air-bus, only a bus. Then it would have been better to sit in a bus; there will be more jolts and more trouble in this one. The airplane is meant to fly. There is a limit to how far it runs; then comes the demarcation line—there it stops running, completes the speed, and using that speed it lifts up.

Tariqat has a limit; you must go beyond it. Only then will shariat be born. Practice becomes fragrant only when you forget the rules and methods.

A Sufi fakir was on pilgrimage. He had sworn to keep a month-long fast, to make the whole journey in a fasting state. Three or four days passed; he came to a village. As he arrived, word came: a devotee of yours lives here—an extraordinary devotee. He is poor; he has sold his hut and land and has arranged a feast in your honor, inviting the entire village.

The fakir’s disciples said, “This can never happen. We have sworn a month’s fast. Our vow cannot waver.”

But when they told the fakir, he said, “Very well then. What of the vow? No harm.”

The disciples were astonished: the one we relied on—he seems a hypocrite. He swore and broke it in four days! It looks like greed for food. But publicly they could say nothing. And when the master himself was eating, they said, “Then why should we abstain? If the master has fallen, we who follow him—what is the point?” All of them ate. At night, after people had left, the disciples caught hold of the master: “Forgive us, but tell us—what is this? This is not right.”

The master said, “What is not right?”

“That we took a month’s vow and you broke it in four days.”

The master said, “Who is stopping you? Forget four days—let’s fast another month ahead. We took a month’s vow, didn’t we? Life is long—why panic? But look at this poor man! To tell him now that we have a month-long vow… He sold his land, his house. He had nothing, and invited the whole village—his guru has come to the village. He doesn’t know of our vow. To bring up the vow here would be violent. See the love of this poor fellow. What of our vow? We’ll do another month ahead. Why are you so agitated?”

This is what I call one who has risen above tariqat. He has understanding now; he lives intelligently. There is no madness of being bound to a method. No method is a jail that it must be so and only so.

Often you will find people transforming their lives into a jail by their own hands—beware of that. Whenever you see a religious person living in deep bondage, know that he has erred—he has mistaken a stop for the destination.

Let absorption deepen so much that the “I” is completely drowned. Then the third moment will come when your “I” becomes utterly zero. Then the ray of the Lord descends into your deep darkness and transforms you. So until the ray of the Lord descends, know that the “I” is still there—hidden somewhere. Somewhere, in some corner, someone is sitting and watching, waiting: “Ah, still he has not come—the Lord has not arrived yet! And I have done so much, so much sadhana, so many fasts, so many prayers. This is injustice now, Lord. Those who started after me have arrived, and I have not yet. Now come!”

No—even so much feeling, and the “I” remains. When the “I” is completely immersed, a person waits—but without expectation. He says, “Come when you will—you will find me ready. I will sit at the door. Even the waiting for you is delightful—because it is your waiting. I watch for you; therefore it is sweet. Granted that there is a deep thirst in me, but I will sit thirsty at this door. I will not close the doors; I will not count day and night. Whenever you come, you will find me ready.”

Jesus said to his disciples: A rich man went on a pilgrimage. He told his servants, “Keep watch—remain at the door day and night, for there is no telling when I may return. Let the door not be found closed.”

So the servants had to keep the door open twenty-four hours and sit there. Two, three, five, seven days passed; they said, “Now this is too much—he hasn’t come yet!” They said, “Forget it. Close the door and sleep peacefully. When he comes, we will see.”

The very night they closed the door and slept, he returned.

Jesus used to say: Do not make the same mistake. Keep the door open and sit waiting. Whenever he comes—when it is his wish—let him come. He will come only when the preparedness is there.

They say, when the disciple is ready, the master appears. When the devotee is ready, God comes. Your preparedness will infallibly bear fruit. If God does not come, do not be angry with God, do not complain. Understand only this much: your absorption has not yet become perfect. Then become more absorbed, dive deeper. Hum more, dance more, forget yourself more. The very moment forgetfulness becomes total, in that very moment, instantly—without a moment’s delay—the ray of the Divine descends. The third state arises: marifat—a blessed state. From afar though it be, the Lord has been seen; the ray has come; it tickled the heart; new flowers bloomed; a taste was known. Now there is no fear. For the first time it becomes clear: God is. Until now there was faith—groping, wandering in darkness. Now faith is fulfilled; now trust is whole. Now even God will be forgotten; even remembering him will not be needed.

We remember only what we fear we may forget—have you ever thought of this?

A lover was departing and said to his beloved, “Do not forget me—remember me.” She said, “Are you crazy? I would need to remember only if I could forget you. How would I ‘remember,’ when I cannot forget?”

We have to “remember” only because we keep forgetting—so we must remember. Understand this. To say “I am remembering God” means you keep forgetting him. What will you remember? When forgetting vanishes, remembrance becomes continuous. It ceases even to be like ‘remembrance’.
Someone asked Kabir, “How should one remember?” Kabir replied: Remember the way a water-bearer walks home from the watering place with pots balanced on her head. She even takes her hands off and chats with her friends, talks, watches the road as she walks; yet deep within she keeps the pots steady. The pots do not fall. She talks, she walks—everything goes on; yet inside she keeps the pots balanced.
Just so, the devotee goes on doing everything. He no longer sits down separately to remember God, yet deep within the remembrance remains. It becomes a continuous current.
There are two kinds of flow. When you pour water from one vessel to another, the stream breaks in between. Pour oil, and its flow is unbroken. Kabir says, remembrance becomes like a stream of oil—it does not break. It isn’t even “remembering” now; there is simply no forgetting. Say it this way: remembrance becomes continuous, woven into every breath, settled in every heartbeat.
Do you “remember” your breath? It keeps going without your remembering it. When do you ever recall it? Yes, if there’s some obstruction you remember—if you cough, catch a cold, if there’s some trouble in the breath, asthma—then you remember. Otherwise you don’t; the breath goes on.
When the remembrance of the Beloved becomes like that, the fourth happening occurs. I am forgotten, you are forgotten. What remains—beyond I and you—alone is the real.

When a devotee speaks of surrender, he says: to God. In the devotee’s surrender there is a “to”—an address. When the knower speaks of surrender, it is not “to” anyone; it is pure surrender. Understand the difference.

The devotee’s surrender is to God; the knower’s surrender is simply surrender, to no one. The knower’s surrender is the absence of struggle. He says, “The fight is over. No more fighting.” The knower has dropped the weapons—not before anyone, just dropped them—tired of the weapons themselves. Tired of struggle, he lets struggle fall away.

The devotee surrenders to the Divine. In the devotee’s surrender, totality is not yet there; someone is still present—the One to whom surrender is offered. In the end there comes a moment when devotee and God both dissolve into one another and only surrender remains—exactly like the surrender of Ashtavakra in the state of witnessing.

There is a surrender born of awakening, and there is a surrender born of love. That is why the knower cannot quite understand the devotee’s surrender. The devotee may set up a stone image...

You see it in this country: under a tree someone has placed a rough stone, smeared it with vermilion, and begun worship there with flowers. The knower laughs. He says, “What are you doing? You made a god yourself and now you’re worshipping him!”

But try to understand the devotee. He is saying: I have to worship—how can I worship without any support? I need an anchorage, a pretext. This stone becomes the pretext. The essential thing is worship—the feeling of worship. The stone is only a device. By means of it, worship becomes easy. It is a support. Like we teach small children: “ga is for Ganesh,” or “ga is for gadha (donkey).” It’s only a device. Once the child has learned “ga is for Ganesh,” we drop it; we don’t go on repeating it forever. It was a support, borrowed for a while; then the matter is forgotten. For “a,” we may say “a is for aam (mango),” but later “a” is no one’s “a.”

In the beginning of worship, for the first steps, some support is needed. The devotee says: without support I won’t be able to go. I need someone on whom I can pour my love. A stone will do! Whatever the devotee pours his love upon becomes God.

The knower sees a stone; the devotee does not, because he has poured his love into it.

You’ve seen this difference in your own life. A friend gifts you a handkerchief worth four annas; bought wholesale, it would be two. Yet you keep it with great care, as if it were a precious jewel. Another person will say, “Why carry on as if that cheap handkerchief were something rare? Why keep it pressed to your chest?” You will say, “It’s not just a handkerchief; it is my friend’s gift.” There is something of feeling attached to it which the other cannot see. Feeling cannot be seen; it is invisible.

So when you see a devotee worshipping before a stone image, you are seeing only the stone; you do not see the cascade of feeling showering upon that stone from the devotee’s heart. That feeling is the real God. But the devotee admits, “I am still learning my ABCs. I am immature. I need a support.” Slowly, with that support—with a crutch—one day he becomes capable, and the crutch is dropped. There comes a moment when both the devotee and the God disappear. But in the path of devotion that comes at the end; in the path of witnessing, it comes at the very first step.

The witness says: there is no God. That is why Buddha and Mahavira say: there is no God. These are religions of witnessing. Hence Hindus and Christians, and Muslims too, find it difficult: “What kind of religion is Buddhism—without God?” They are witness-paths: God is left behind on the very first step. Buddha says: What is to be at the last step, why cling to it now? Drop it now.

For some, that works. If you have the courage to drop the support right now, then drop it now.

Children learn to walk: one walks at two, another at three, another at four—some even later. Children differ.

Those who have the courage can drop it now. Those who feel “I won’t be able to,” or feel that dropping it would be self-deception, or feel that dropping is just an excuse to avoid seeking—don’t be dishonest with yourself. Many will say, “Why take a support? I will walk without it!”—and they don’t walk at all; they just sit. Speak of a support and they say, “Why any support? Why depend on anyone?”

Let it not be that your refusal of support is ego. If out of ego you say, “Why take a support?” you are in great danger. If out of witnessing you say there is no need of support, then it is right. Distinguish the two. If it is the ego making this declaration...

The more egoistic are unwilling to accept God. That is the difference. Mahavira does not accept God; nor does Charvaka. Marx does not accept God; nor does Buddha. But there is a difference among them. The rejection by Marx or Nietzsche or Charvaka is born of ego. They say, “I am—how can God be?” Buddha and Mahavira say, “I am not—then what need of God? When there is no ‘I’...” God is taken as a support to dissolve the ‘I’. If the ‘I’ is not, what need is there of the support of God? If there is no illness, what need of medicine?

So look carefully: if there is illness, medicine is needed.

Both use the same word, “surrender,” but the meanings differ. When the devotee says surrender, he says: at someone’s feet. When the knower says surrender, he says: There is no one here—whom are you fighting? Stop fighting. Drop the fight. Let what is be as it is.

The knower’s surrender means: suchness—tathata. Be in accord with what is. The devotee’s surrender means: efface yourself—melt into That which is. In the final moment, the two meet.

The difference is one of language. The devotee’s language is full of rasa, of flavor.

Come, my eye’s pupil,
Come, the beat of my heart,
Come, treasure of my Vrindavan,
Come, enchantment of Braj-life,
Come, my wealth, my bond of wealth,
Come, my people, their sigh and cry,
Come, my body’s nourishment,
Come, my mind’s longed-for desire!

The devotee speaks the language of love, the language of prayer.

Devotee means: a feminine heart. Witness means: a masculine heart. And when I say feminine heart, do not think only women have it. Many men have the feminine heart. And when I say masculine heart, do not think only men have it. Many women have the masculine heart. The relation of masculine/feminine heart has little to do with the body.

I was looking yesterday at an image. In China, a figure is worshipped: Guanyin. Guanyin is actually a form of Buddha—but a very unique form: the image is feminine. I inquired: How did Buddha’s image become feminine? When news of Buddha first reached China, the emperor asked sculptors to carve his image. They studied Buddha’s life, his conduct, his qualities—otherwise how to carve? Having investigated all, they said: This person cannot be a man! Perhaps he lived in a male body, but he cannot be masculine. Such compassion, such tenderness, such love—he must be feminine. And the image they created remains to this day as Guanyin. It is a profound insight. Even in our images of Buddha, if you look closely, the face is more feminine than masculine. There is a reason—qualities matter; the body less so than the inner qualities.

So remember: when I say feminine, I do not mean woman; when I say masculine, I do not mean man. By masculine mind I mean that which cannot surrender. By feminine I mean that which cannot live without surrender. The feminine is like a vine—she spreads over the tree, encircling it—yet with the tree as support.

Have you ever seen a tree leaning on a vine? Never. The vine leans on the tree. The tree becomes fortunate, for when the vine embraces it, it blossoms and rejoices—someone has wrapped it in her arms, why wouldn’t it rejoice? But the vine needs support; the tree stands on its own.

The trait of the masculine mind is to stand on its own support. Therefore, the religions created by the masculine mind emphasize witnessing—just wake up! The religion Krishnamurti speaks of is the masculine mind’s religion: just awaken. Nothing else. Stand centered within yourself with awareness. Ashtavakra says: Be healthy in yourself, be established in yourself. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to bow. No temple, no idol, no worship, no prayer.

But this will seem quite senseless to the feminine mind. It won’t even feel religious. The feminine would want to dance like Meera. Being a vine, she would want to spread over the tree of Krishna, to drown leaning on someone.

So there is a different language for the feminine mind.

Do not call this ancient love a new thing!
Lotus has waited for the sun’s rays,
The waterlily for the moon through the night—
Do not call this longing madness, my life!
Do not call this ancient love a new thing!
Yes, rain falls in every monsoon,
Yet the pied cuckoo has yearned through the ages—
Do not call love the cry of thirst!
Do not call this ancient love a new thing!
Do not call love the cry of thirst!

From the feminine love arises prayer. From the feminine love arises worship. God is the densest condensation of the feminine heart’s love.

I am not saying: choose this and discard that. I am saying only this: choose what attracts you, what delights your heart, what tastes right to you—then drown in it. If you are in a woman’s body, do not think therefore that you must choose devotion. It is not necessary.

In Kashmir there was a woman, Lalleshwari—Lalla. In Kashmir they revere her deeply. They say Kashmir knows only two names: Allah and Lalla. Lalla was a unique woman. Perhaps in human history, if any woman can stand beside Mahavira, it is Lalla. She lived naked. For a man to live naked is not so hard—many have. In Greece there was Diogenes. In India many men have lived naked; there is a long tradition of naked ascetics. But Lalla is the only woman who lived naked. She must have had a very masculine mind; the feminine quality must not have been there.

A woman is touch-sensitive, shy; she hides, veiled. She does not want to reveal herself. She wishes to remain in the veil—even if the outer veil is gone, even if clothing’s veil is gone, inwardly she longs for the veil. She will not bare herself before everyone—only before the one with whom love happens.

But Lalla stood naked. She must have been extraordinarily courageous—no longer feminine in mind. She should be counted among men.

And the Jains have done likewise. Among the twenty-four Tirthankaras there was a woman, Mallibai. But the Jains changed even her name; they say Mallinath. She lived naked. The Jains are right: now calling her a woman is not accurate; the feminine mind is gone. What “Mallibai!”—Mallinath is right; the feeling is masculine.

Keep such distinctions in mind and measure yourself rightly—your path will become clear. If you feel you cannot surrender without a support, then devotion. If you feel no support is needed and you can stand on your own feet... only take care that this standing is not an announcement of ego. Let the ego not speak. Then everything is fine.

Ego is a cracked pitcher. Fill it as you will—it never fills. Lower it into the well, there will be much splashing; when it returns, it comes up empty.

Cracked everywhere, my pitcher leaks—
Lord, how far can I lug it?
How far, O brother, how far?
I cross the distance to the well,
I go to fill it brim by brim,
But when I reach the threshold of home
I find it utterly empty.
Cracked everywhere, my pitcher leaks—
Lord, how far can I lug it?

Ego is a cracked pitcher; it never fills—no one’s ever has. If out of ego you stand stiff and straight, you will remain empty. If you stand out of witnessing...

What is the difference? In ego there is the sense of being the doer; in witnessing there is no sense of doership. In ego it feels, “I am standing—on my own feet.” In witnessing it feels, “Who am I? Only the Divine stands. I am not. Existence stands.”

Ego always laments:

The song I had to sing—I could not sing.
That unparalleled music I was to voice,
That would have stilled the world’s sobs—
Even my own turbulent heart
I have not yet been able to calm.
The song I had to sing—I could not sing.
I was to fill my breast with the world’s sighs
And give them voice—
Even the meaning of my own sighs
I could not make the world understand.
The song I had to sing—I could not sing.

Ego always feels the courtyard is crooked, and the dance won’t happen. The courtyard is not crooked—the ego is crooked, and cannot dance. The song is possible, but the ego throttles the throat; it hangs there like a noose, not letting the note be born.

The more you feel “I am,” the more bound you are. The more you feel “I am not—only That is,” then call That “God,” call it “Truth,” call it “Reality,” whatever name you like. In such a state of feeling, surrender has happened—without bowing at anyone’s feet, surrender has happened.

The ego cannot make such a decision. Non-choice, “choicelessness,” is the name of the state of consciousness when the ego is not. The ego cannot decide, “All right, from now on we are choiceless.” That itself is a choice. You have chosen again. You remain the chooser.

People come to me and say, “The mind doesn’t become quiet. We try hard to meditate, but the mind won’t settle.” I tell them, “Drop worrying about peace. Just meditate; it will quiet down.” They ask, “Then it will become quiet?” I’m telling you to drop the concern. They say, “We agree to drop even the concern—but will it become quiet or not?” They don’t drop it. Even when they say they agree, they don’t really agree. A fortnight later they come back: “You said drop the concern; we did—but it still hasn’t become quiet.” They don’t even notice what they are saying: “We dropped it.” If you dropped it, who is now saying, “It hasn’t become quiet”? If it’s dropped, it’s dropped—whether it happens or not, the matter is finished. No, they didn’t drop it. It was a strategy: “Perhaps dropping the concern will bring peace.” So they slid it aside, close at hand—but their eyes stayed glued to it.

How will the ego choose non-choice? The ego is what keeps choosing: “This should be, that should not be; here is pleasure, there is pain; this is auspicious, that inauspicious; this is virtue, that sin; do this, don’t do that.” The ego raises divisions every moment.

Now you have heard me, or you have heard Ashtavakra: “Be nirvikalpa, choice-free. Drop choosing. Forget the dualities.” You say, “All right, let’s do this too.” You hear Ashtavakra say that one who is beyond duality attains the supreme bliss—greed arises. You say, “We must have the supreme bliss too. Ashtavakra says one attains Sat-Chit-Ananda Brahman—what are we waiting for? Let’s try this too, let’s do choicelessness.” This is greed—and greed is part of the ego.

Many people become religious out of greed: thinking they’ll get heaven, celestial nymphs, fountains of wine—great fun!

Your heaven is not somewhere outside, not waiting on some road for you to arrive; nor is hell somewhere else.

Dinesh sent a short story—significant. An Arab tradition tells that a true master asked his disciple to bring fire to light his pipe. The disciple tried but could not find fire anywhere. He returned and said, “I can’t find any fire.” The master, pretending to be annoyed, said, “You’ll find it in Jahannum. There at least you’ll get it—go bring it from there!”

And the tale says the disciple reached Jahannum to fetch hellfire. The gatekeeper told him, “Go in and take as much as you like.” When he went inside he was amazed—there was no fire there either! He would have to return empty-handed even from hell! He came back to the gatekeeper and said, “We had heard it’s all fire in there, and here there’s no sign of fire! If even here there’s no fire, what now? Where will we look?” The gatekeeper replied, “Everyone who comes here brings his own fire with him!”

Hell is within, and so is heaven. Hell is not in the future, nor is heaven. Here and now! Your vision... Wherever you go, you carry your heaven with you. Wherever you go, you carry your hell with you. It’s your choice: if you choose to live in hell, wherever you are you will live in hell. Even in heaven you will live in hell. And there are such gentlemen that even if you throw them into hell, they will live in heaven. Their heaven is within.

The happiness you crave, for which you try to become religious, is nowhere else. It is not at the end of greed; it is prior to greed, not after it. Let greed drop—and it is here now.

Choicelessness means: you are not the doer. Who are you? What can you do? How much is your capacity! You did not bring about your birth, nor will you manage your death; life is not yours. Breath comes as long as it comes; if it does not, what will you do? You cannot take even a single breath when it does not come. Is your being in your hands? Are you its controller? Understand this small truth: you are not its controller.

Your being is not your possession. You don’t know why you are; you don’t know what you are. The One who gave you birth and who still sustains your life—who is breathing within you and one day will not breathe—that is the One! Leave everything to That. If you are not the doer, choosing is finished.

The ego cannot decide at all. And even if it does, the ego’s decision cannot be choicelessness. It will decide only because it has heard, “Behind choicelessness there is great juice, great bliss; the nectar of Brahman is flowing—come, grab it. Choose choicelessness.” But that is still a choice. Choosing choicelessness! Yet it remains choice.

Understand this distinction very deeply. This vast existence that is moving—the moon, the stars, the sun, this immense expanse—whatever is running it all, will it not be able to run your little life? What sustains the immeasurable, will it not be able to sustain you? You are toiling needlessly to manage yourself. By whose support everything is upheld, by that same support you too are upheld. But in between you keep thinking and create great anxieties for yourself: “What will happen, what won’t happen? If I die, what will happen? If I am not there, what will become of the world?” There are people who worry like this.

No lack will be felt without you. The world was there when you were not; it will be there when you are no more. Everything will go on as it is. Your being makes not a grain of difference; your not being makes no difference. You are just a wave. If a wave on the ocean begins to think, “If I am not there, what will happen to the ocean?” that wave will go mad. What happens to the ocean when a wave is no more? Even if all waves subside, the ocean remains. And the wave is not other than the ocean—it is the ocean itself. The ocean is waving. All waves belong to the ocean.

Notice one thing: the ocean can be without waves, but waves cannot be without the ocean. This existence was without me; it will be without me. But I cannot be without this existence, not for a single moment. So surely my being is not separate and isolated. I am one with this vastness; I am but a wave of it.

One who knows this—choicelessness arises in him. He becomes a non-doer. Within him the witness is born. And to become a witness is the greatest event in this world, the highest peak of consciousness.

Until such a peak is found, you will remain in sorrow. Until such a lotus blossoms in your sahasrar, you will remain miserable. Misery is precisely this: that which we can be, we are not able to become. And we are not able because of our own—our own mischief. Energy is leaking into worry—how can flowers blossom? Life-breath is stuck in melancholy—how can flowers bloom? In weeping the whole plan is drowning—how can a smile arise? The whole life is being washed away in tears—how can the flowers ripen and fall?

If you drop choosing, if you simply become a witness—just keep watching—and do whatever the Lord makes you do; do not become the doer. Do not say, “I did it”—say, “He made it happen.” Bad is bad, good is good. Do not repent the past, do not plan for the future. Ashtavakra has called this: the crest-jewel of the lazy—the one who has reached the ultimate summit of laziness. This does not mean his actions cease. Only the doer ceases; the vast play of action continues. The dance goes on, the dancer is lost. The song goes on, the singer is lost. The journey goes on, the traveler is lost.

And remember, this is the very meaning of pilgrimage: let the journey continue, let the traveler be lost. Let the traveler not remain, let the journey remain—then pilgrimage has arrived. You have become a pilgrimage yourself. You yourself have become a tirtha. Now it will not be long before you become a Tirthankara.

Hari Om Tat Sat!