Maha Geeta #62

The intellect’s understanding is not understanding at all. The intellect’s understanding is a counterfeit of understanding. The intellect’s understanding is a device to keep yourself unenlightened. Intellect means the collection of all that you already know. If you listen through the known, you will not truly hear. Listening through the known is like trying to look at the sun with your eyes shut.

What you sit there already knowing—your biases, your assumptions, your doctrines, your scriptures, your sect—if you listen through them, how will you hear? Your ears are deafened. They’re stuffed with words. You’ll hear something else entirely, and only that which you already want to hear.

By intellect I mean your past—what you have known, understood, calculated up to now.

Understanding has nothing to do with the past. Understanding is born in one who sets the past aside and looks straight into the present moment—not through the past, but directly, immediately, with no medium in between.

If you are a Hindu and remain a Hindu while listening to me, what you hear comes through the intellect. If you remain a Muslim and listen, it is through the intellect. If the Gita keeps resounding inside, if the Quran keeps humming within as you listen, it is the intellect listening. When the Gita falls silent, the Quran goes quiet, Hindu and Muslim drop away, and you are empty like a stainless mirror, with no trace of thought, no ash of the past—then you look at me with open eyes, with no curtain, and if you listen, a different kind of understanding is born.

That understanding is called prajna, vivek—wisdom, discernment. Only that understanding brings transformation. Through the intellect you will agree or disagree. Without the intellect, you are transformed; the question of agreement or disagreement does not arise.

Who agrees with or disagrees with truth? How will you “agree” with truth? To agree with truth would mean you already knew it. You heard it and said, “Yes, that’s right; that’s the truth.” That is mere recognition. You were already holding it as true, already knowing it. You see a rose and say, “It’s a rose.” You knew it beforehand—otherwise how would you recognize a rose?

Do you already know the truth? If you did, you could agree. If you did and someone called a marigold a rose, you could disagree. But you do not know. Not knowing is why you are seeking. Understand this truth: you do not know. You have not yet seen the rose. So how will you agree or disagree? Do not nod your head in agreement; do not shake it in disagreement. Do not move your head at all. Listen without movement.

And what’s the hurry? We are in such a rush to grab—what’s right, what’s wrong—that we keep missing. Don’t be hasty to conclude. Don’t treat truth with such impatience. Just listen. There is no hurry to agree or disagree.

And when I say “just listen,” don’t misunderstand me to mean “agree with me.” Many fear that if they listen and set their intellect aside, they will end up agreeing. How could you agree if the intellect is set aside? Only the intellect agrees or disagrees. Set the intellect aside and there is only listening.

Birdsong in the morning—do you agree with it? Disagree with it? The murmur of a spring, the passing of a gust through the branches—do you agree? Disagree? Agreement and disagreement do not arise. You simply hear. Clouds rumble across the sky—you hear. Listen to truth like that, for truth is like clouds rumbling in the sky. Listen to truth like that, for truth is like the roar of waterfalls. Listen to truth like that, for truth is not like human language; it is like the chorus of birds.

Truth is music, not words.
Truth is wordless, not a doctrine.
Truth is emptiness, not scripture.

Therefore, learn the rare art of listening. In one who learns to listen rightly, understanding arises. You do not listen rightly.

Mulla Nasruddin was asked one day, “You hoard like a madman. You don’t throw away even junk. You collect trash. You sit on piles of old newspapers. Nothing ever leaves your house. Where did you learn this crazy habit of ‘saving’?” He said, “From a holy man’s teaching.” I was startled, because Mulla is not the type to learn from anyone. I said, “Tell me the whole story in detail. From which holy man’s teaching?” He said, “I was sitting by the river. An old man fell in and started shouting loudly, ‘Save me! Save me!’ From that day I started saving everything.”

You hear only what you want to hear.

“The poet yawned, saying, ‘Hey, Ma!’
Hearing this, the poet’s wife flared up:
‘Father of three—and you’re chanting Hema’s name?
Curse these movies!’”

We hear what we want to hear—not what is said. Our listening is not pure; it is distorted.

If listened to through the intellect, it is not really heard. It is the illusion of listening, an appearance. It seems as if you heard, but your thoughts came in between. Your intellect arrived and transformed everything—poured its own color over it. It turned black into yellow and yellow into black. What reaches you is not what was given. It reaches you ruined, distorted.

So first: the intellect’s understanding is no understanding. There is another kind—and only that brings transformation. Call it the understanding of meditation. Not of intellect, not of thought, but of no-thought. Not of argument, but of quietude; not of debate, but of communion.

If you listen to me through the intellect, an inner debate goes on continuously: right or wrong, consistent with my scripture or contrary to it, should I agree or not, does it weigh on the scale of my beliefs or not—this incessant weighing within.

That is debate. Even if you end up agreeing, it’s worth two pennies. Has any true agreement ever come out of debate? The agreement born of debate is petty, without value.—Communion! Communion means: while I am speaking, you become one with me. You don’t stand far off to listen; you come close. Your heart beats near mine. You beat as my heart. You set aside your own bookkeeping and say, “For a while we’ll keep the window empty. For a while we’ll be a mirror.”

Only one who listens as a mirror truly listens. And in one who listens as a mirror, understanding arises of its own accord. The one who listens as a mirror is a disciple; only he is capable of learning. He does not listen on the basis of knowledge. He listens in the supreme attitude: “I know nothing. I am ignorant. I don’t even know my A, B, C. So what is there to argue?”

A pundit never truly listens. The pundit’s own inner clamor is so loud—how will he hear? He nitpicks, remains absorbed in criticism within. Even when he agrees, it is out of compulsion. And when he agrees, he agrees only with himself. He does not agree with what was said.

If I say something that matches the Quran, the Muslim agrees. But he hasn’t agreed with me! He was already in agreement with the Quran, and remains so. He remains a Muslim. He merely concludes: “This man is also saying what the Quran says. Then fine—the Quran is right, so this man must be right too.”

One who truly listens to me will move in precisely the opposite way. He will listen to me. While listening he will not think. He will only drink it in, assimilate it. And here is the wonder of assimilation: when a truth is assimilated, if it is right, it becomes your very flesh and marrow. You don’t have to agree; it becomes the life of your life. You don’t have to nod; it settles into your every breath.

And if it is not truth—here is the miracle, the special quality of truth: if it is truth and you listen, it lodges in your very life. If it is not truth and you listen in silence and awareness, it slips out of you by itself. The false cannot be digested in silence. Silence will release the false. It is not that silence “disagrees”—note this well—silence knows nothing of agreeing or disagreeing. With silence, truth finds affinity; a bond happens; a marriage is sealed. With restlessness, untruth gets married.

Between restlessness and truth, a marriage is difficult; between silence and untruth, a marriage is impossible. So the real point is: listen in silence. What is true will be wedded to you. What is false will fall away. You will not even need to think, “What’s right? What’s wrong?” What is exactly right will resound within your life-breath.

And remember, when truth resounds within you, it is no longer mine. If you allow it to resound, it becomes yours. Truth belongs to no one in particular; it belongs to whoever embodies it. Untruths belong to individuals; truth does not belong to anyone. No one holds a title deed to truth. No one can claim it.

Untruths are many. Your untruth is yours; mine is mine. Lies are private. Each person’s lie is different. Hence every sect is a lie. Dharma has no sect, because truth cannot have a sect. Truth is one, ineffable. Truth is neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Sikh nor Parsi. Truth is neither male nor female. Truth is neither of the Vedas nor of the Quran. Truth belongs only to truth.

When you are silent, you too belong to truth. In that moment the wedding happens. In that wedding is revolution. Right listening—listening in peace, without the haste for conclusions—and the understanding I speak of will arise within you.

There is no substance in sharpening your intellect. However keen your logic becomes, however razor-edged your argument, nothing real will happen. You will become skilled at debating, adept at displaying a little scholarship; in quarrels you might overpower someone, learn the art of silencing others—but you will gain nothing.

The one who gains is the one who falls silent and drinks.

It is natural. It will be so. Everyone will feel the same. Because the transformation we are striving for has something unique about it—understand this. Here the effort is to make you what you already are. The attempt here is not to make you into something else. The method is to bring you to your natural state. To give you exactly what is already yours.

So when it is found, on the one hand it will feel like an extraordinary meeting, a revolution has occurred—wonder! And on the other hand it will also seem that what has been found is not something new. It feels familiar. It feels one’s own. As if it was always within, and only the remembrance had been lost.

When Buddha became enlightened and the gods asked him, “What have you attained?” the story says Buddha laughed and said, “Nothing has been attained. I have only come to know that which was already there. That which was already obtained, but had been forgotten.”

Like a man who is wearing his spectacles and begins to look for them—with those very spectacles. The glasses are on his eyes, and he searches, “Where have my glasses gone?” Forgetfulness! Memory is lost. Truth is not lost—only remembrance is lost.

So when remembrance awakens, it will seem that something has been found—something unprecedented; because previously there was no remembrance. You were roaming as a beggar. You were an emperor and took yourself to be a beggar. And it will also seem that nothing has been found. You were an emperor already; only the remembrance has returned.

There is no contradiction. If it seems to you that something entirely new has been gained, know that something false has been gained. Only when it feels like something new that is also utterly ancient can you know the real has been found. If it feels eternal and ever-fresh—has always been and has just now happened—only when both are felt together can you know you have come close to truth; you have entered the doorway of truth.

Much effort has been made to make you into something else. No one wants you to become exactly what you are. Some want you to become Krishna, some Christ, some Mahavira, some Buddha. But have you noticed? Has anyone ever become a Buddha a second time? Once, one person became a Buddha, that’s all. Once, one person became Krishna, that’s all. Infinite time has passed; no Krishna has happened again.

Does this not tell you something? Does it not make you aware? However many means you try to become a Krishna—if it is for the rasa-lila play, that is another matter—you will not become the real Krishna. However much you try to become Rama—carry bow and arrows, set off for the forest, take Sita along and Lakshmana too—there will be a Ram-lila; you will not become the real Rama.

In truth there is only one thing you can become—the one thing you have not yet become—and no one else has ever become. You can become only that which lies within you: your destiny, your innermost fate, hidden like a seed and eager to blossom like a tree. And you have no idea what that is. How could you know until you become it? Of those whose stories you have heard, you are not going to become any of them.

Buddha became Buddha. Buddha knew of Rama; he did not become Rama. He knew of Krishna; he did not become Krishna. Buddha became Buddha. You will become you. You can only become yourself, that’s all. If you try to become anything else, it will be false; it will be a distortion, an imposition. Then hypocrisy will arise. God will recede, farther and farther. You will become a hypocrite.

My whole effort is just this: to remind you that you can only become yourself.

So here I am not trying to make you into something else. I have no endeavor to turn you into something other. My only effort is to remind you not to get entangled in trying to become something else; otherwise you will miss. Time will be lost. Energy will be wasted. And your life will remain filled with crisis, sorrow, and poverty.

There is a flower hidden within you. And no one knows what kind of flower it will be. Only when it blooms can it be known. Until Buddha happened, no one knew what kind of flower this Gautam Siddhartha would become. Yes, Krishna’s flower was known, Rama’s flower was known. But Buddha’s flower had not yet happened. Now we know. But your flower is still unknown—what kind of lotus will blossom within you, how many petals it will have, what its color will be, what its fragrance will be—no, no one knows.

Your future lies in deep darkness. Your future is hidden in the seed. Let the seed break, its slumber end; let it awaken, sprout, bloom—then you will know and the world will know. Knowing is possible only in that knowing; before that there is no way to know.

Therefore I cannot even tell you what you will become. No prophecy can be made. And this is the glory of man: that about him no prophecy can be made. A man is not a machine that can be predicted. A machine can be predicted; everything is fixed. A machine is dead. Man is supreme freedom; spontaneity.

And each person is alone in his own way, unique. No other like him has ever been, will ever be, or can ever be. Attend to this glory. Consider yourself blessed for this glory. God has never made anyone like you. God does not repeat. You are a unique creation.

But when the flower within you begins to bloom, you will know this seeming paradox. You have asked: “After finding you, a great transformation has happened within me; and yet it also feels as if nothing has happened.”

It is happening exactly right; that is why it feels so. Transformation will happen. A great revolution will take place. You will become entirely new. And in that newness, suddenly you will find, “Ah! This is what I have always been. This treasure is my own.” This sitar was lying within you; you had not plucked its strings. I am teaching you how to touch the strings. When you pluck them you will find a new music is happening. But you will also find that the sitar was inside you. The music was asleep within you. It only needed to be touched; it could awaken.

And perhaps in some unknown moments, dimly, you had even heard this music before. Sometimes, even in the dark, unknowingly, you bumped into these strings and music arose. Even without effort, spontaneously, your hands wandered over these strings. A gust of wind came, the strings quivered, and an echo of music resounded within you.

Now, when the strings sound, you will suddenly recognize: across births many times—sometimes in dreams, sometimes in a moment of love, sometimes watching the sun rise, sometimes gazing at the moon at night, sometimes looking into someone’s eyes, sometimes in the peal of temple bells, sometimes while arranging the plate for worship—you had heard something like this music. Not so full, but something of this sort. All memories will be refreshed. All remembrances gathered.

Suddenly you will find: no, nothing new has happened. What has always been happening used to happen faintly. I was not deliberate; I was not awake. Like someone who has heard music in sleep—someone sleeping while, in the room, someone sings or plays the strings—there is a hint in sleep, a sound reaches the ear; nothing is clear. Then you wake and listen, and you recognize: yes, this is exactly what I had heard in sleep. Then there was no recognition; now recognition is complete.

It will be so. When the inner remembrance awakens, fragrance will spread; your nostrils will fill with your own scent. Then you will surely recognize: it is both new and the most ancient—ever-new and eternal. The timeless has happened in a moment.

There is not the slightest contradiction.

Contradictions appear because you do not see. They seem like contradictions because your eyes are not yet open. You grope in the dark; therefore contradictions appear. Otherwise, there is no contradiction. Understand.

Certainly desire is insatiable; this is the dictum of the Buddha, of all the awakened ones. Desire is insatiable means it cannot be filled—do whatever you may. If you have ten rupees, you want twenty. If you have ten thousand, you want twenty thousand; a million, you want two. The gap between ten and twenty remains the same. Desire is insatiable means the ratio of your discontent remains constant. It makes no difference how much you acquire; desire will move just that much ahead. Desire is like the horizon: it appears to meet the earth ten or twelve miles away. You run and think you will reach in an hour or two. Run for lifetimes—you will never arrive. The faster you run, the more the horizon recedes. The distance between you and the horizon remains the same.

Desire being insatiable means there is no way to fill it.

This is true. Now you feel a contradiction because I also say that as long as relish remains, there is difficulty—let it be lived out in full. I tell you desire is insatiable; I did not say the relish will not end. The relish will turn tasteless. Desire is insatiable; your taste will dry up.

In fact, it is precisely upon realizing that desire is insatiable that the relish goes flat. There is no contradiction. The day you know desire cannot be filled, you will run and grow weary, try every device, and still desire remains unfilled. No way appears—impossible. It simply cannot be done. Then slowly you will see that to relish that which cannot be is madness.

Like a man who wants to make two plus two equal three and says, “I get great relish from this; I want two and two to make three.” We will say, “Go ahead.” But two and two will not make three. Try as you will, they won’t. One day you yourself will awaken and your relish will be proved foolish. You will say, “This isn’t going to happen, because it cannot happen. The stupidity is in my relish.” Your relish will be shattered.

Even when your relish is shattered, do not imagine that then two and two will become three. Even then they won’t—but now your relish is gone. Relish means you still hope that perhaps there is some method, some trick, some magic, some miracle by which two and two could become three. Others may not have known. Granted, Alexander failed, Napoleon failed—but is it certain that I too will fail? Perhaps there is some trick left unused. True, Buddha and Mahavira failed—but how do we know they tried every single means and discovered every technique? If a thousand methods were explored and one still remains—who knows, perhaps that one opens the door! Perhaps the key is hidden in that one.

Relish means hope remains. Relish means “maybe it will happen.” It has never happened—true—but must it be that it will never happen? Things that had never happened before happen today. What has never happened could someday happen. It did not happen in the past, but is it certain it will not in the future? Man may discover still more potent methods—new techniques, new skills, new devices; or forge a new key, or find a way to break the lock.

Hope! Relish means hope. Relish means: I am not yet tired; I will try a little more; it seems some path may open from somewhere.

Desire is insatiable—this is certain. And relish also turns flat—this too is certain. But relish turns flat only when you go into it totally; otherwise, it does not. If someone leaves halfway, runs off to the forest, then trouble begins. Again and again the mind will say, “Perhaps if I had contested one more election—who knows, I might have won!”

There are stories: Ghauri lost eighteen times and won the nineteenth. And how did he win? He had run away, hiding in a cave in the forest, worn out and worried—“What now? I have lost everything.” He saw a spider weaving its web. The spider kept weaving, fell seventeen times, and on the eighteenth the web was complete. Ghauri stood up and said, “What is possible for a spider—why not for me? Let me try once more.” He tried—and won.

If you flee half-cooked, you will see some spider fall and rise weaving its web, and you will return. Who knows! “I lost because the effort was incomplete; let me complete it.”

And even if you do not return, your mind will. Your body may sit in a cave, but your mind will wander the marketplaces, worry over money and coffers, dream of women and men, be absorbed in the relish of position and prestige. What difference does it make to sit in a cave? Seating the mind in a cave is not so easy; seating the body is easy. Put chains on it and it will sit anywhere.

I have heard: people used to travel from far away to see a Christian ascetic who lived in a cave in a desert near Egypt. They were amazed at his austerity and renunciation. One day another fakir came to see him—and began to laugh. The ascetic asked, “I don’t understand—why are you laughing?” The fakir said, “I am laughing because why have you put chains on your hands and fetters on your feet?” The cave-dweller had chained his feet to the cave and had chains on his hands. “I laugh because you wear these chains.” The ascetic said, “Sometimes moments of weakness come and I feel like running away. The desire to return to the world grows strong. Then these chains hold me back. That weakness lasts only a short while; then I collect myself again. For that time the chains help, because they are not easy to undo. I have had them locked permanently, so in moments of weakness I get support.”

But is that any way? If you remain in a cave supported by chains… And it is not that all renunciants bind such gross chains—there are subtle chains. A Jain monk receives prestige for twenty or thirty years—honor, people touching his feet, worship, reverence. If today he suddenly wishes to return, all that decades-long honor becomes a chain. He lacks the courage to go back to the world: “What will people say?” Ego becomes the obstacle—a very subtle chain.

That is why renunciants are given honor: it is the worldly person’s device to keep them in the cave, so they cannot escape. “Kid, once you have come into the cave, we won’t let you out.” Such subtle chains: so much fanfare, bands playing, processions, hundreds of thousands spent—they stamp the seal on you. Now you will not be allowed to run away. Remember, the insult will be in the same measure as the honor given. Insult is in proportion to honor. Therefore a Jain monk finds it very difficult to run away. A Hindu sannyasi does not find it as difficult, because he never received that much honor—so insult in that measure will not be there. My sannyasin has no difficulty at all—he can drop sannyas any day. Because no one gave him any honor; no one will insult him. There is no reason for insult. One receives insult in the very measure one has accepted honor. Honor becomes a chain.

If you are truly intelligent, never accept any kind of honor for your meditation or your sannyas. The one who honors you will become your jailer. Tell him, “No honor—excuse me, thank you.” Because if tomorrow I wish to return, I do not want any chains upon me. I want to remain as free when leaving sannyas as I was when I came into it.

So some bind gross chains in caves, some subtle chains—but chains all the same. And these chains hold you back. Is that any kind of staying? To be held by chains—is that staying?

Stay out of joy, not chains. Stay out of awe, not out of fear of disgrace. Not from a craving for respect, but for the relish of samadhi.

But this is possible only when the relish of the world has run out. Hence my emphasis: do not run away unripe. Do not leave halfway. Do not get up from the gathering in the middle. Let the gathering be complete. Listen to this song to its end. There is nothing substantial in it; there is nothing to panic about. Let this dance finish. Otherwise you may go home and start thinking: who knows… Let the story complete; let the final curtain fall. Do not get up midway and later let the mind regret, “Who knows—perhaps the real scene remained to be seen. The story had only just begun; who knows what comes at the end.”

Therefore I say: live life. Live it to the full. There is nothing to fear, because desire is insatiable. Understand me rightly: because desire is insatiable, live as much as you will; if not today, then tomorrow you will become a sannyasin. There is no way to avoid sannyas.

Sannyas is the name of the experience of the world.
One who has truly experienced the world—what else is there for him to do? Sannyas is the fruition, the essence of worldly experience. I do not consider sannyas opposed to the world; it is the distilled essence of the experiences of that very life. Having lived, one sees there is nothing there. Having lived, one sees desire never fills. Having lived, one sees desire keeps one hungry, never lets one be fulfilled. Having lived, one sees it is suffering upon suffering, hell upon hell. From this very experience one rises above; from this very experience the will-to-live dissolves; the craving to go on living falls away.

The falling away of the will-to-live is called mumuksha: the longing for liberation. What does moksha mean? “I do not wish to live any longer. I have lived enough. No, I do not wish to continue. I have seen all there is to see. All the plays are over; all the stories have been read. The lesson of life has reached its final conclusion.”

Sannyas is the name of the profound experience of the world.

Therefore I say: do not flee unripe from experience. If you run from the world unripe, your sannyas too will remain unripe. And unripe sannyas is worth two pennies. Let your pot be baked in the fire of the world; come out fully baked.

You ask, “You say desire is by nature insatiable. And then you also say: enjoy the relish fully—these appear contradictory.”
They appear so because you do not see. They are two sides of the same coin. Because desire is insatiable, one can be free of the relish.

And when one can be free of the relish, and desire never fills anyway—what is the hurry? Why panic? Why such impatience? Go as deep as you like into this world—nothing will come into your hands. Therefore I say: go with your heart’s content.

Those who tell you, “Don’t go—there is danger in going into the world,” to me it seems they are not yet certain. They are afraid you might get deluded. They fear: what if your desire gets satisfied; what if then you never long for liberation? They fear: what if you actually reach the horizon? If you reach, you will not return.

Do you understand their fear? Their fear is their ignorance. I say to you: go. Go wherever you wish to go. Enjoy. Wander. You will return. Do not be stingy in your wandering—then when you return, you will return complete. You will not even look back. Then the world slips away as a snake sheds its old skin—leaves the old skin behind, slides out, and does not even look back.

Exactly so, when sannyas happens naturally, it has an incomparable glory.

First thing: You can lose only what you have. How will you lose what you don’t have? Understand this.
It often happens like this. There’s a saying: the naked man won’t bathe because he says, “If I bathe, where will I wring my clothes? There’s nothing to wring.” The beggar stays awake all night lest something be stolen—there is nothing to steal!

You ask, “Does surrender to a particular person mean losing one’s personal existence and freedom?”
If you already have freedom, then there is no need to surrender to anyone. What would be the point? You have attained freedom; your personal being is yours—that is what the soul is. What need is there for surrender now?

But usually it is neither freedom nor any personal being that you possess—and yet you are afraid that surrender will make you lose them. The naked man is afraid, “If I bathe, where will I wring? Where will I dry my clothes?”

First look clearly: Do you have freedom? Do you have your own being? Have you experienced the soul? Have you known the total freedom Ashtavakra speaks of? If you have known it, then what need is there to surrender? To whom would you surrender, and for what? One surrenders only in search of precisely that freedom.

And if you do not have this freedom, then surrender is a helper. In surrender you will lose only what you actually have—the ego; the soul you do not yet have. And surrender does not lose the soul; it loses only the ego.

It is the ego that invents strategies to escape. It says, “Hey, what are you doing—surrendering? Your privacy will be lost.” This “privacy” is another name for the ego. Understand this clearly. If you had known yourself, there would be no need. You would not even ask this question. If freedom is already yours—if you have become the master of your freedom, if you have attained this treasure—why ask such a question?
I do not ask it. I don’t go to anyone and say, “If I surrender will I lose my freedom?” Why surrender at all? There is no purpose left.

You ask it. Clearly, you have not even the fragrance of freedom yet—you have only learned the word. And what is there in learning a word? You know nothing of the soul. The friend who has asked is new. His name is “Daulatrām Khoji.” You are still seeking. You have not found yet. And you are not “Daulat-rām” either—there is neither wealth nor Ram in you; a seeker you are: that much is true. You have no wealth. And where is wealth without Ram within? You don’t yet know the inner Ram.

But you fear that if you surrender, something will be lost. What will be lost? There is no wealth, Daulatrām! Only the smoke of ego. Let it be lost. By its loss you will profit. When it dissipates, the treasure hidden within that smoke will begin to be seen.

Surrender gives you freedom from the ego. What does freedom mean? We are not bound by someone else; we are bound by our own sense of “I.” We are bound by our own ego. No one else has bound us. Our own vanity has shackled us. Surrender means: place this vanity at the feet of someone in whose presence love has arisen. If with someone you have had even a small glimpse of the divine, don’t miss the chance. Lay your vanity at those feet. Use that person as a pretext to drop the ego. The moment you put this ego down, what is hidden within you will be revealed. The covering is removed. You will become naked. In that nakedness you will have your first glimpse of the soul.

And the very nature of the soul is freedom. The nature of the ego is not freedom. Therefore through surrender one becomes soulful, free. Surrender does not make anyone lose freedom—one thing.

Second thing: Any freedom that can be lost by surrender is worth two pennies. It is not worth preserving. The freedom that remains even after surrender is the freedom worth keeping. Understand this.

Freedom is not such a weak, flimsy thing that you touch someone’s feet and—gone! And if it were so cheap, what would you even do preserving it? If it disappears by touching feet, if it vanishes by bowing your head somewhere, what is its value? It is weak, impotent.

Freedom is such an extraordinary phenomenon that even if you touch the feet of the whole world it will not go. Bow your head to pebbles and stones, tree after tree, rock after rock—still it will not go. It cannot go. Freedom means your innate nature. How can one lose what is one’s own? Your head will bow, you will bow, and you will find within you freedom burning deeper, like a lamp. Its flame is unwavering; its light is unwavering. The more you bow, the more you will discover that freedom is not opposed to humility. Freedom is nourished in humility; it is nurtured, grows, and bears fruit. Humility is manure for freedom.

Surrender is the doorway to freedom.

But I understand what you mean. Your trouble, I think, is the ego’s. Having assumed yourself to be something, how can you bow at someone’s feet? Even if God himself were to be found, you would still find a way to save yourself.

There are many ways to save yourself. First, you won’t agree that this is God. “Does God show up like this? Those were earlier times when God walked the earth. Now he doesn’t come.” You will find some fault or other in God so you can avoid surrender. You found faults in Rama, in Krishna, in Buddha. You will always find something. You will save yourself.

Saving yourself, you have been coming from birth to birth. This knot you keep saving is your disease. Drop this knot. It is a cancerous knot. Because of it you are afflicted.

Surrender means nothing else. Surrender is a device. Under the pretext of someone you drop the knot. You cannot seem to drop it yourself—old habit has formed of carrying it. Under the pretext, with someone’s support, you put it down. The moment you put it down, you will see: “Ah! What madness. I was carrying it for nothing. I could have put it down without surrender too.” But you will discover this only after surrender.

Surrender is a device. The guru is a device. It is not that without a guru you cannot drop it. If you wish, you can drop it without a guru too—but the likelihood is small. You are even trying to escape the guru. Alone you will certainly escape. Alone you will forget all about dropping it.

It’s like this: you have to get up at five in the morning to catch a train. Two options: trust yourself to get up at five, or set an alarm clock. You can get up by yourself too; a little willpower is needed. If you have a little courage, you can tell yourself at night, “Daulatrām, not a minute beyond five!” Say it with force, listen to it with attention, hold it—and you will not sleep even a wink past five. Exactly at five your eyes will open.

If you can keep your own word, excellent. If you don’t trust Daulatrām, and even as you say it you know, “This isn’t going to happen! I’ve said it many times—did it ever happen?” then set an alarm.

Vivekananda was giving a talk in America. He quoted the Bible, where Jesus says: if you have faith, even mountains will move. If you say with faith, “Move,” the mountains will move.

An old woman was sitting in front; she ran home. Behind her house there was a little hill that troubled her a lot. She said, “Ah! Such a simple trick! And I didn’t know it till now. And the Bible is in my house. And I’m a Christian—and I do have faith in Jesus. I’ll finish off this hill right now.” She opened the window to look at the hill one last time—“Let me see it once more; then it will be gone.” Closing the window she said, “Move, hill! I say it with faith.” She repeated it three times. Then she opened the window, looked—and laughed. “I knew it! It doesn’t move like that. I knew it.” Is this some joke—that you say it and the hill moves?

But if you already know it won’t happen, then it won’t. Then set an alarm clock. Or tell a neighbor to wake you at five. Do something.

Going to a guru and surrendering means only this much: if you can’t do it yourself, set an alarm. The guru is the alarm—he will wake you. If you can’t manage, he’ll wake you.

Immanuel Kant was a great German thinker; he remained single all his life. But he kept a servant. Slowly the servant became the master—because Kant had to depend on him. And Kant was utterly crazy about time. Minute by minute, second by second, he kept account. If lunch was at eleven, it had to be at eleven. Two minutes late, and there was trouble. If bed was at ten, then at ten he must sleep. Sometimes it happened that someone was visiting and talking, and he would suddenly pull up his blanket and go to sleep—because it was ten. He looked at the clock. He could not even say, “Now it is my bedtime,” because that would take time too. He just went to sleep. The servant would come and say, “Now please leave. The master has gone to sleep.”

He woke at three in the morning, and waking at three was hard for him. But he was stubborn. He did wake, and yet it was a struggle. So much so that he would get into fights with his servant. The servant would wake him—and there would be a scuffle. Servants wouldn’t last. They said, “This is strange. You tell us to wake you at three. We wake you, and you abuse us. You raise your hand to hit.” But Kant said, “That is your job! Whether I abuse you or hit you, you must wake me. Don’t stop—whatever happens.”

Only one servant stuck with him. He became Kant’s master. He even used to give him a beating.

The guru is only a device. When needed he will even give you a beating. He will drag you out of sleep.

Surrender means only this: you tell the guru, “I know for sure I cannot get up at three. And I also know that at three I will turn over and go back to sleep. I also know that even if you wake me, I will be annoyed. Still, please be gracious—wake me.”

What else does surrender mean? Surrender has this simple meaning: “At your feet I submit that I cannot get up by myself. And I also know perfectly well that when you wake me, I will put up resistance. I’m not even promising that I won’t resist. I cannot guarantee I’ll cooperate. But this is my prayer: don’t pay attention to my obstacles. Don’t keep account of my foolishness. If I abuse you sometime, forgive me. I pray to you—still, wake me. I have to wake up. And without your support I will not be able to.”

Surrender means you put your ego at someone’s feet and entreat him to pull you, lift you, wake you. Your sleep is deep—of many lifetimes.

If you can wake up by yourself, wonderful. No need. There is no need to trouble any guru. No guru is eager—because waking someone at three in the morning is not an easy matter; it causes upheaval. No one thanks you for it!

Then you ask, “How proper is it to worship the person rather than the personality?”
Surrender has nothing to do with worship. Once you have surrendered, you have become one with the other. What worship then? Who is the worshipped and who the worshipper? Between the guru and disciple there is no feeling of worship. The disciple has left himself with the guru; he has become one with the guru. There is nothing like worship left in it. If worship still remains, know that surrender is not complete.

Surrender means: I have tied my boat to your boat. I wipe myself out; you are my master now. Now who is there to worship, and whom? This is not personality-worship.

Man is very dishonest. His dishonesty is such that he keeps finding tricks. If you tell him, Love man, he says, Why not love humanity? Now where will you find “humanity”? Whenever you go to love, you will meet a man; you will never meet “humanity.” You say, We will love humanity. But where will you find humanity—where will you encounter humanness?

“Humanity” is only a word, a bare word. What is solid is the man. But the trick will work: you will hate people and worship humanity. It may even happen that for the love of “humanity” you feel you must kill human beings—so you do it. That is exactly what people are doing. Devotees of God—Hindus kill Muslims, Muslims kill Hindus. They say they are serving God. God is a mere word. And what is concrete you destroy—for the sake of a verbal notion, a mere abstraction. Man is very dishonest.

Now you say, instead of worshiping the person, worship the personality. What does “personality” mean? Where will you find personality? Does it exist anywhere apart from the person?

You say, We don’t care for the dancer; we will worship the dance. But without the dancer, does the dance exist anywhere? And whenever you go to worship the dance you will encounter the dancer. The expressions of the dance are the dancer’s expressions.

What could worship of “personality” possibly mean? But I am not telling you to worship the person either. I am only telling you: avoid words, take hold of the concrete. The concrete is the real, the actual. Do not get caught in verbal nets.

If you happen to meet Buddha, don’t say, We will worship Buddhahood. Where will you find Buddhahood? Whenever you find it, you will find Buddha. And if Buddhahood is found anywhere, it will be like the shadow of Buddha. You say you will worship the shadow, not the original. You say, We will worship Jina-hood; what have we to do with Mahavira!

But look closely—might the ego be deceiving you? Isn’t the ego searching for arguments? Isn’t it making arrangements so that—see—you are spared worship, spared surrender, spared humility? Now you can go on searching for Buddhahood, for Jina-hood. You will never find it—so the question of bowing down will never arise.

It’s a strange thing: on the ordinary plane of life you don’t do this. When you fall in love with a woman you don’t love femininity; you fall in love with the woman. You don’t play this trick then. You don’t say, We will love femininity; what have we to do with the woman! Do you say that? You don’t say that then. Then you fall in love with the woman. Then you don’t talk of the word; you grasp the truth.

Where you want to grasp, there you grasp the truth; where you don’t want to grasp, where you want to avoid, there you spread nets of words.

When you love, you will have to love the woman; femininity is not loved. When you have to love, you will have to love the guru; “guruness” is not loved. And when surrender has to happen, you will have to surrender to Buddha; surrender is not made to Buddhahood.

These are verbal nets. And the ego is very skillful at hiding itself in these nets. Be alert to this ego.

Broken continuity—
On the twig-tip a flower bloomed;
Falling, it sank deeper
And found its very root.

That flower which has blossomed on the twig-tip—if it falls, if it sheds—it will find its own roots. If you bow down, you will find your own source.

Broken continuity—
On the twig-tip a flower bloomed;
Falling, it sank deeper
And found its very root.

Bow down, surrender, and you will find yourself. There will be a medium, but what you will find is your own self—through someone’s doorway. The guru is a doorway—guru-dwara. Through his door you will return to your own self.

The search for truth, or love of truth, or curiosity about truth, is a search for that which we do not know. It is a call toward that which we do not recognize.
Whatever you recognize has already become false. Whatever you know has given you nothing. You came to know it—what did you gain? It is a quest for the unknown, a search for the unfamiliar, a journey into the unknown.
It is exactly so. Remember: each day, whatever you come to know, drop it, so that the journey is not tainted and remains purely toward the unknown, the unfamiliar, the unknowable. Shake off whatever you have come to know—it has turned to rubbish. Do not accumulate the known. The intellect is made out of the known. Do not accumulate it; do not let the dust of the known settle, so that the mirror of your consciousness can go on reflecting the unknown, go on calling the unknown; so that the invocation and the challenge of the unknown keep arriving.
It is just so. And also remember, this search for the divine begins, but it is never completed. It cannot be completed, because the divine is infinite. How will you finish it? How will you bring it to an end? Keep trying to weigh it—you will never weigh it. It is immeasurable.
Therefore, day after day it will feel as if you are coming closer, closer—and yet you will find it remains far away. Day after day you will feel, “The goal is here, it is here,” and still the waiting continues. But there is great joy in waiting—more than in meeting.
This ceaseless seeking, this constant pull and attraction, this continual call—taste its joy; experience its flavor. If God were simply to be found, what then would you do? Let him go on calling, making you run, hiding. Let this hide-and-seek continue; let the waiting go on.
But we are very limited. We say, “Now, quickly, let there be meeting. No more waiting.” We do not know what we are asking. If the journey were completed, nothing would remain except death. Completion is death. Therefore the journey will remain incomplete—because in truth there is no death in existence. Existence is deathless. This journey is eternal.
God is not a destination; he is the journey. Begin to think in this way. Do not think of him as a goal; otherwise confusion arises. Think of him as the journey. Then a new—altogether new—form appears. Then the flavor is not in tomorrow; it is in today, now, here. Not that someday you will arrive and then enjoy, drown in God and taste the nectar. At every moment on the path, on the road—in the songs of birds, in the gusts of wind, in the moon and stars, in the dust of the road—God is infused everywhere. He is present everywhere.
God is the journey, not the destination.
Waiting is very sweet. And this waiting is endless. Our mind demands, “Let it happen quickly.” Our mind is very impatient.

Do not stay so far that the fragrance may be lost.
Let the flame come near, lest the light grow dim.
I saw you after so many births—
like a champa-cloud, sun and shade all around.
The world whirled; even that I forgot.
Time flowed away carrying all my flame-of-the-forest.
Take these words—lest the song somewhere fall asleep.
Let the flame come near, lest the light grow dim.

From the festival, enticing arches were adorned upon the body;
but why did you raise glass walls against the sweetness?
The boats of my desires crashed and sank;
again and again my resonances returned.
Let not the tender blossom of love cease to bloom.
Let the flame come near, lest the light grow dim.

Was there some lack in my bountiful giving?
Or did your glance miss in recognition?
Or was everything only play in your estimation?
Or did I err within your smile?
Open the bonds of the body; let the mind become an ocean of samadhi.
Let the flame come near, lest the light grow dim.

We are very afraid, very frightened. We want to clench our fist quickly. Our mind is eager, restless—“Let it happen quickly.”
And we fear: perhaps we will go on searching and never meet, and this life will be lost. Perhaps we will remain buried in the dust of the road and never reach your door. Perhaps we will wander among the moon and stars and never find your home.
Our basic way of seeing the divine is mistaken. The very idea that God is somewhere else and we have to get there—that is the error. God is here, now, right here; nowhere else. This fixation on “somewhere else” makes us miss. God is here, now, here—dense on every side. It is his light, his shadow. His green trees. His rivers and streams. His mountains and hills. He peers through your eyes. He speaks in me and listens in you. Not far, not across, not elsewhere—here and now.
Wake up. Immerse yourself in this nectar. Celebrate this festival. And moment to moment, see him even in the small. When you eat, remember: annam brahma—food is Brahman. When you drink water, remember: the springs and streams are his. When there is satisfaction in the throat, remember: he is the one who is satisfied. When you embrace your beloved, remember: he is the one embracing. If you look at it as a far-off goal, you will be miserable, anxious—and in that anxiety you will go on missing what is present all around.
I repeat again—God is not the destination but the path; not the goal but the movement; not the last stop—every stop is his. There is no final stop at all. Only journey upon journey. An infinite journey.

The door of every mystery opens into another mystery;
the end of each present is in an inexhaustible future.

And whenever you open the door of a mystery and go down deep, you will find yet another door. You will cross the lofty peak of a mountain and think, “I have come home; no more walking now.” Reach that peak—and you will find a still higher summit waiting. The call of a greater peak will have arrived.
And so it will always be. Good! It is our good fortune that the journey does not tire, does not run out, does not end. This play is eternal, unbroken.

Storm and gale could not stop us;
those were other travelers who turned back from the path.
Once we resolved, we ourselves became the resolve;
all our intentions to die came in service of living.
We wove some imaginings, we broke some feelings—
in our madness, what blossoms did we not make bloom!
Assemblies of sorrow and pain have prospered;
by one instrument’s grace a hundred strings have trembled.
Who knows where we will settle, who knows where we’ll be plundered?
The clouds watered the garden, lightning burned the house.
Contentment is finding contentment in the journey;
we too are yours—yet they began to call us strangers.
Contentment is finding contentment in the journey;
we too are yours—yet they began to call us strangers.

The day you take the journey itself as the destination, on that day no one is alien, no one other; all are one without a second. The day each step begins to feel like arrival, that day you are blessed; that day the Lord showered upon you; that day recognition dawned.

First thing: If there is a real question, whether you ask it or not, I give the answer. If there is no real question, you may ask as much as you like, I will not answer. Merely asking does not mean there is a question. Some people have the disease of asking. They cannot remain without asking. Like an itch that demands scratching, so is their ailment. They go on asking. They don’t even have the leisure to hear what answer is given. While I am answering, they are making up the next question. They are thinking what to ask tomorrow. They get busy with what they will ask next.
There are some for whom asking has become a profession. They have no use for the answer. Their whole relish is in the asking.
There are some who are thirsty for the answer and do not ask. For them too I give the answer. In truth, they are the more worthy vessels to receive it: those who do not ask and yet wait. They long for an answer but have no itch to question. They wait by the road. They trust that when the time comes, when the season arrives, when the exact moment is ripe, I will answer.
Therefore, sometimes I answer even those who have not asked. And every day I do not answer the many who go on asking.
The real issue is not asking; the real issue is the capacity to receive the answer—the courage to accept it.
Hamma did not ask; I gave the answer. Hamma has no insistence on asking. He listens. He has listened for years—silently. He keeps listening. I have seen him sometimes with eyes full of tears, sometimes laughing; sometimes exhilarated, sometimes blissful. But he listens deeply.
Anyone who listens in this way—if a question arises in them—whether they ask or not, I will answer. Let their question be; that is enough. At the right time they will receive their answer.
Jasu said she was very happy to hear it. Jasu knows—Hamma is her husband. Jasu recognizes him. She must have been startled when she heard the answer I gave—because she knows what Hamma needs. She has known him up close, is familiar with his shadow, has a long life-bond with him.
So she must have been surprised when I answered, for he had not asked—and yet I did. And the answer I gave was exactly what he needed. And let me also tell you: Hamma did not ask, nor did Jasu ask—but Jasu wanted to ask. She wanted me to say something to Hamma. It was there in her very life-breath; therefore she rejoiced.
Of course it is hard to put into words. She said, “Your blessing is showering.”
When you become able to receive my answer, you will suddenly find that blessing has poured. I am not giving answers—I am bestowing blessings. Those who take these as answers miss. What is happening here is not a matter of verbal doctrines or scriptures. There is no word-web here. No doctrines are being constructed, nor are sects being forged. No intellectual answers are being sought here.
If you receive my answer, if you allow it into your heart, let it pierce like an arrow, you will experience a rain of blessings. It depends on you.
Rain falls—you can be like an upturned pot. The pot sits in the open courtyard, rain falls, yet no water collects. You can be like a cracked pot. Even set upright, even when rain is falling and water is filling, still nothing remains.
When you receive like a pot that is upright and uncracked—when the holes of your mind and its thoughts do not drain away what I give you; when you listen to me without thought, you listen without holes; then there are no leaks in your vessel. And when you listen with love, with surrender, with trust, your pot is upright. Then the rain will fill. You will experience blessing.
These are not answers—they are blessings.

The drum resounds for the sulking heart;
come, sit close by the estranged Beloved—
the clouds pour.
The clouds pour, the drenched earth grows fragrant—
the clouds pour.
Streams of nectar fall, the day turns sweet;
the pied cuckoo may thirst—let not the Beloved thirst—
the clouds pour.
The clouds pour, the drenched earth grows fragrant—
the clouds pour.

And the clouds are pouring. The stream of essence is flowing. It is in your hands—how much you drink.
You will not be able to hold me guilty. If you do not drink, you alone are responsible. You cannot hold me accountable. You cannot say the clouds did not pour, that the stream did not flow. This excuse will not do for you. You cannot say, “We were not in Buddha’s time, nor in Christ’s time; we did not hear Krishna’s flute—what could we do?” You cannot say this. The flute is playing. If you do not listen, you alone are responsible. If you do listen, the rain of blessings will certainly fall. And blessing is liberation. In blessing is nirvana.

There is a power in prayer such
that it does not go in vain.
The unseen Hands that move the world—
prayer moves those Hands in silence.
Listen through prayer. Be prayerful as you listen.
The unseen Hands that move the world—
prayer moves those Hands in silence.
If you listen prayerfully, then whatever rises from your very life-breath begins to move the Divine. That is the meaning of blessing. From His side, blessings begin to shower.
There is a power in prayer such
that it does not go in vain.
The unseen Hands that move the world—
prayer moves those Hands in silence.
Often nothing needs to be said. Even unsaid, prayer reaches. Let the heart be full of prayer, surrendered, brimming with trust; let a flood of love arise, and the rain of infinite blessings will be available. Blessings are already showering; if your heart opens, you will become able to receive them.
Remember this. No intellectual exegesis is going on here. Here we speak of the ineffable. To attain it, feeling alone gives worthiness, not thought. If you understand through feeling, only then will you understand. If you try to understand through thought, missing is certain.
That is all for today.