Maha Geeta #80

Do not deceive your mind like this. Man continually discovers new tricks to avoid. If you plan to go to the gate of the Divine only after you have known yourself—then what need will remain to go to that gate at all? And drop this arrogance that you will arrive only after knowing yourself, with some worthiness, with some qualification.

It is precisely your obsession with merit and worthiness that has led you astray. “I will become something first, then go.” How can I go naked, just as I am? I will go equipped. Will you not go to God’s court as you are? Will you stage a production there too? Once there were thrones of one kind; now you have invented a new throne—“I will go only as a self-realized one.”

“Only then will it be fun.”

Will you not be able to stand before God helpless, destitute? Will you not be able to stand before God as ignorant? Will you carry the ego there too—“I will go only after I know myself”?

You have said something that sounds lofty, but in lofty words we hide very low things. Man’s cleverness is immense. He sprays fragrance over his diseases; he gives beautiful names to his delusions. This “self-knowledge” can also be a subtle proclamation of the ego.

There, go just as you are. Do not prepare. Do not adorn. The delight is precisely in going as you are. As you are, you are accepted there. There is no need to be otherwise even a little. God lays no condition on you—“Be like this, only then you may come.” If anyone has laid down conditions, it is not God but your so-called saints. “First become a sadhu, an ascetic; renounce; be virtuous”—so many conditions that even in lifetimes you will not manage.

I tell you, as you are—full of wounds, dust-smeared, dirty, ugly, ignorant—call out just like that. Set out just like that. You are embraced. He has already embraced you. Even if you are a thief, you are embraced. Even if you are dishonest, you are embraced. Because how you are is not the condition; that you are is enough. In truth, had He not embraced you, you could not even be. Without His support you could be nothing—not even a thief.

I tell you, when you go to steal, it is He who is breathing within you. When you go to commit a sin, it is with His support that you go. On your own you can go nowhere. You are lame. You are always an arrow mounted on His bow. Whatever targets you have struck, in every target the energy was His.

The day you know this, you will stop talking like this. Then comes man’s logic! He thinks, “First make some arrangements. Get everything in order. Become worthy in every way.” That is why you say “court.” You have brought into yourself talk of kings and emperors. There, preparation is required. There, you are not given a place; your preparation is given a place.

In Mirza Ghalib’s life it is mentioned: Bahadur Shah had sent an invitation. Other dignitaries of the city were invited. Ghalib too was invited. But Ghalib was poor, weighed down by debt, without proper clothes. He was full of embarrassment. Then he thought to himself, “Since I have been invited, I will go as I am.” Friends said, “No, don’t go like that.” A friend borrowed a coat and shirt, brought shoes—gathered everything: “Wear these and go.” Ghalib was torn: “Should I wear these clothes or not? My own clothes are mine; another’s are another’s. However beautiful, they are borrowed. Why should I impose this lie?”

He gathered courage, wore his own shabby old clothes, and went. What his friends had said happened. The gatekeeper did not let him enter at all. “Get away from here!” He even tried to snatch away the invitation from Ghalib’s hand. “You must have stolen it from someone. Do people like you get an emperor’s invitation? Whose invitation have you stolen? Get away! Don’t return here again.”

Ghalib was very troubled and humiliated, but he understood well too. He laughed to himself. He went home, put on the borrowed clothes, decked himself in finery, and returned. The same gatekeeper bowed again and again, “Mir-sahib, please come.” Ghalib was astonished: could this man not even see that I am the same person? But people look at masks; they do not see souls. People fare worse than animals.

Aesop has a fable: a fox found a mask—perhaps from some theater troupe. It turned it over and over, examined it thoroughly. It couldn’t make sense: there was nothing behind it! Turning it this way and that, at last it said, “What a wonder! Such a big face—and absolutely no brains!” Even Aesop’s fox was wiser than Bahadur Shah’s gatekeeper.

When Ghalib went in, Bahadur Shah seated him with great respect near himself. There were other guests too. The emperor had great regard for poetry; he himself was a poet—not a great one perhaps, yet a poet—and he honored poetry. But he was startled when, as the food was served, Ghalib began to lift malpuas and barfis and touch them to his coat and his turban. The emperor was taken aback. Poets are eccentric, but what was this? And not only that: Ghalib began saying, “Here, coat, eat! Here, turban, eat! Eat to your heart’s content!”

Bahadur Shah said, “What are you saying? Have you drunk too much?” Ghalib was indeed a drinker, so he wondered if Ghalib was drunk. “What are you doing?” Ghalib said, “No, I haven’t drunk at all. But I didn’t come at all. Only these clothes came. Let them eat the meal. You may have sent the invitation to me, but the gatekeeper did not let me enter. Only these clothes got in. I never arrived; I was insulted and sent home.”

These are the courts of men. Do you take God’s court to be the court of men? There, however you go, you will be accepted. Drop this arrogance. The notion itself is futile: “First I will know myself; then there will be joy.”

And keep another thing in mind: without meeting Him, you will not be able to know yourself. Now a little difficulty appears—for what does it mean to meet Him? It means to meet your own ultimate being. God is not sitting somewhere else. He is within. When you go into yourself, you go into Him. That is where His court is—in your very nature.

So “first know yourself, then go to God” cannot be. To know yourself is to know God. To know God is to know yourself. Knowing yourself and knowing God are not two things; they are one event, two ways of speaking about the same happening.

Therefore do not harbor this thought: “First I will know myself, then I will go.” You will neither know yourself nor go. And what you currently take yourself to be—this body, this mind; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist; Brahmin, Shudra; white, black; young, old—you are none of these. These are all aggregates of mind and body. Beyond these, you are. You are the witness. Entry into that witnessing is entry into God.

And another thing: the inner world’s laws are the very opposite of the outer world’s. Here, if you want to gain wealth, position, prestige, you must fight, struggle, snatch and grab. It is a throat-cutting competition. Others are grabbing; you must grab too—because the outer world’s wealth is such that if you get it, someone else is deprived; if the other gets it, you are deprived. There are only two ways: either you snatch, or let the other snatch.

The inner world’s rules are entirely different. If you become wise, the other need not become ignorant. If the other becomes wise, nothing is taken from you. There is no competition there. There, the one who snatches will miss. There, it is received without snatching. There, it is given without effort. Outside, the one who sits will miss; inside, the one who keeps moving will miss. Outside, the one who moves will attain; inside, the one who sits will attain.

What is meditation? To sit down. To take such a seat within—that is the meaning of asana—that you do not even tremble. Movement is far away; not even a quiver remains. Sitting unshakably within—that is where the meeting happens.

Any outer destination—if you want to go to Delhi, you must travel. If you want to come to yourself, you must drop all travel. To search outside, the eyes must be opened. To search within, the eyes must be absolutely closed. To do anything outside, you need the body as a medium. To do anything inside, you must let go of the body as a medium. Dismount the horse. To go outward is to ride the horse; you must go mounted on the body—there is no other way. To go inward, the body is of no use. Do not carry this horse inside; otherwise you will not be able to go in. Outside is thinking; inside is no-thought. These are opposites.

Let me offer you a formula. Outside, science says: the law of cause and effect. First the cause, then the effect. First the mother, then the son. First the seed, then the tree. Cause precedes effect; nothing else happens outside.

In the inner world, it is the reverse. There, the effect comes first, the cause later. First the son, then the mother. That is why Kabir wrote paradoxes—ulatbansis:

“Water caught fire; the fish climbed the tree.”

Have you ever seen fish climb trees? “The fish climbed the tree.” Have you ever seen water catch fire? Water puts out fire. “Water caught fire.”

Kabir is speaking an ulatbansi, an inverted saying. These are inner formulas. Inside, things happen opposite to outside. So do not spread the mathematics of the outside into the inside. Outside it will seem perfectly logical to say, “When we do not even know ourselves, how can we know God? Fully reasonable! We do not know who we are—how on earth will we search for God? Where to search? If we have not found ourselves, how will we find the Other? We do not even have our own wits, and we set out on a journey to God! First come to your senses.”

If a drunkard staggers along and asks someone, “I want to seek God—where is He?” what will you say? “Good sir, first come to your senses! Your hands and feet are landing all over the place. You put them somewhere, they go elsewhere. And you set out to seek God in this condition? He isn’t found even in a normal state; how will you find Him like this? First collect yourself a bit; then seek God.”

In the outer world, that answer is perfectly right. But in the inner world, those who stagger, who walk like drunkards, are the ones who arrive. Water caught fire!

One foot lands here, the other there. They go north and arrive east. Such people arrive. The intoxicated arrive, the mad, the ecstatic arrive.

I have heard: a man used to walk every morning at brahma-muhurta along the riverbank. Seeing him day after day, the queen of the fishes came to recognize him. But the fish was in the water, and the man walked on the bank. In water, the reflection is inverted.

When you stand before a mirror you forget, but the image is inverted. You are not seen as you are; you are reversed. If you don’t believe it, hold a page of a book to the mirror; you will understand—the letters are all reversed. Because you stand there every day you have become accustomed and do not notice that left appears as right and right as left. Put a page before the mirror and you will immediately see that everything turns upside down.

So the fish saw only a reflection from within the water. It saw the man’s head below, feet above. Naturally, with a fish’s wits and experience—and never having come up above the water to see—this was the nature of man: head down, feet up. Their scriptures—written by fishes—said the same. That is how they had seen man.

One day the man took a fancy to yoga and began to do a headstand right there on the riverbank. When he did the headstand, the fish grew very anxious—what had happened to this man? From below, in the water, she saw head up and feet down. This was all wrong. Was the man doing a headstand? For the first time she saw man as he actually is. But according to their system everything was going haywire. “What has happened to the man? Has he lost his mind? Always the head was below and the feet above; today the feet are below and the head above!”

Out of curiosity the fish surfaced. When she saw, she was in great difficulty. From that day there is news among the fishes: men are not to be trusted. Nothing certain can be decided about their nature. They are something, and they show something else. Their reality is one thing, the news they spread another.

Whatever world we have seen, we have seen from man’s viewpoint—a viewpoint bound like the fishes’. We have not yet seen God directly, only reflections. The search for reflections is science. Religion is the search for truth. There, the effect precedes the cause. Water caught fire! That is the meaning of ulatbansi: the truth is opposite to how it appears to you.

You say, logically, “First let me know myself; then I will go to know God.” I say to you: only by knowing God will you know yourself. You say, “If the goal is found, the source will be found.” I say, “If the source is found, the goal is found.” Even to seek God you go outward. Man’s whole grip is outward.

And now you have set up such a tangle for your mind: “Until I know myself…”—a condition you will never fulfill. The condition will never be met, and you will never set out in search of God. You have done it in such a way that there is neither flute nor reed—you have torn out the very root of the question. Your search will be blocked.

I say, don’t get into such things. Seek God. By seeking God you will come to know yourself. Here, self-knowledge does not come first; it comes afterwards—like a shadow. Why? Because God is your real being. Your being is only a shadow. Your being is an illusion; God’s being is real, eternal. Your being is momentary.

Always remember: do not, by clever tricks, ruin your journey or cripple your feet. Go, as you are. That is why Jesus says: only those who are like little children will enter my Father’s kingdom. Naked, as they were, they arrived. They did not bother with grooming or adornment.

What is there to hide from Him? And even with adornment—what will you hide? From the One who made you, what can you hide? From the One from whom you came, what can you hide? If there is sin, it is sin; if there is bad, it is bad; if there is good, it is good. As you are, set out—only then will you be able to arrive. And once you arrive, there is revolution. Do not hope for revolution before arriving. Those who arrive are transformed. Those who keep waiting for transformation first are never transformed, and they do not even arrive. They miss the arrival too.

The very question does not sound like a devotee’s. You are abusing devotion—insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion. This is not a devotee’s question. It sounds like a knower’s question.

A devotee knows only one kind of devotion. The analyses of devotion have been done by the knowledgeable, not by devotees. Even the idea that there are many kinds of devotion is an intellectual construction, not a devotee’s. What would a devotee know of such things? He knows nothing of divisions, of categories. He knows only the One; he does not know the two. His arithmetic never goes beyond one.

They say Jesus was seated in a school to study. Among Christians this story has been lost, but the Sufis have preserved it. They have a few wondrous stories of Jesus that Christians no longer have. In one of them, Jesus was sent to school. The teacher tried to teach numbers, and he kept stopping at one. He said, “Until you make me understand what one is, how can I go to two? You say two means one plus one; but I don’t yet know the one.”

The teacher could not explain the one. To explain the one you would need a Buddha, a Krishna. Explaining one is the most difficult. Two is absolutely simple; three, even simpler; four, simpler still. The larger the number, the easier it is to explain. But how do you explain one?

You have seen it: in this world the simplest things are the hardest to explain. If someone asks, “What is two?” you can say, “One plus one is two—1+1=2.” That is at least some answer. But what is one? Without division there is no answer.

If someone asks, “What is yellow?” What will you say? “Yellow is yellow.” What else is there to say? If someone asks, “What is a rainbow?” you can say, “Seven colors,” and name them in order. But if someone asks, “What is yellow?”—yellow is the simplest, and the simplest proves the most difficult. The complex can be analyzed because it is composite; something can be said. The simple, being single, evades analysis.

Jesus kept insisting, “First make me understand the one, then we can go to two. You say two means one plus one—and I don’t yet know the one.” The teacher grew very annoyed. He complained to Jesus’ parents, “Take this child away. He will neither study himself nor let others study. What nonsense is this—‘What does one mean?’ Who knows what one means! Whatever we know is merely workable, that’s all.”

Poor teacher! Jesus had asked a question that is the last question. He asked it on the first day of school. Even after universities are finished, it is not finished. Only at the final stage of life does its mystery open: what does the One mean!

A devotee is one who begins to live in the One. For him there is no two. He has recognized the One.

So your question carries a whiff of knowledge—and knowledge is an obstacle in devotion. For devotion means love. That is why the knowledgeable call the devotee blind; they feel love is blind. And from their standpoint, love is blind. But who are the knowledgeable to pass judgment on love? Only those who know love may say something—I will listen only to them.

The knower has no right to speak about love. He does not know love; what will he say about it? About knowledge, let him speak—fine. But the intellectual wants to say something about everything. He turns everything into an object of analysis. So the intellectuals have analyzed how many kinds of devotion, how many kinds of love—this kind, that kind—while knowing nothing of devotion. Devotion is of only one kind—one taste. There is no second flavor in it. Where there is no second, how can there be a second flavor? “Love’s lane is very narrow; two cannot pass within it.”

So drop this worry—whether insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion, or deranged devotion. Drop it; devotion is enough. And in devotion all these labels will take care of themselves. Become a devotee once, and “blind” you will automatically be—meaning: the whole world will call you blind. You will not become blind; rather, you will gain eyes. You will begin to see what ordinary eyes cannot see. The invisible will become visible; the imperceptible will come within perception. That which no one has ever touched will be felt as touch. But the world will call you blind. The world will not be able to accept it—because the world is blind, and the blind call you blind.

H. G. Wells has a story: somewhere in Mexico there is a valley where children go blind within three months of birth. The story is based on fact. The climate, the food—something there ruins the eyes. Into a tribe in that valley, a one-eyed man arrived from the outer world. High in the distant mountains live these small settlements of the blind. No one there had ever seen an eye; all were blind. A three-month-old infant cannot say anything—till the child learns to speak, the eyes are already gone. So no one ever says, “There are eyes.”

This man with eyes arrived from outside, somehow crossing those rugged mountains. The people of that tribe would not accept what he said. They laughed, “Have you lost your mind? Who ever heard of such a thing? Whom are you trying to fool? Eyes do not exist.”

And it was hard for him to bring proof, because all of them were blind. The majority was theirs. The whole village laughed and said, “Where is that blind fellow?”—about this man. They named him “the blind one.”

A girl of that village fell in love with him. But the village put a condition. “If you want to love this girl,” they said, “there is one condition. You say you have eyes. We cannot be sure whether you do or not. But one thing is certain: in our land, in our society, no girl has ever married someone with eyes. There is no mention of it in our scriptures, nor in our tradition. It is against our belief. If you say you have eyes, you must agree to an operation. We will remove your eyes. Only if you become blind can you marry.”

It is like this everywhere. If you want to marry a Brahmin, he asks, “Are you a Brahmin?” If a Hindu, “Are you Hindu?” If a Christian, “Become a Christian first, then we will marry.” They too were consistent: “Become blind. Become like us. We do not accept whether you are blind or sighted, but only if you become like us can you marry our girl.”

The man was in great difficulty. He said, “Give me one night.” Love pulled from one side, the insistence of his eyes from the other. By morning he fled. “Love can happen somewhere again,” he thought, “but once these eyes are gone, they are gone. I have begun to understand the sun, and colors and forms and the beauty of the whole world—shall I lose all this?” He ran, fearing they might catch him and force the operation.

When you become a devotee, people will call you blind—this is true. Because people are blind; they do not have the eyes of devotion.

Love has its own eye. There are things that only love can see; nothing else sees them. That is why I say love has its own way of seeing—its own mode, its own style, its own path. Some things are visible only to love; nothing else perceives them. For certain things, logic is utterly blind.

Do you want to see the Divine? Logic is blind. It can be seen only through love. Do you want to see beauty? Logic is blind. It can be seen only through love. Whatever in life is satyam–shivam–sundaram is seen by love, not by logic. Logic throttles all three.
If you have even a little taste for devotion—it must be, since you have asked—yet the so‑called knowers have poured much poison into your mind; separate that poison out. Free yourself from it. Devotion is of only one kind. Where is the question of two types in devotion? In devotion there is no place for two-ness.
And then you ask, “Having crossed the ocean of becoming...”
That too is not a devotee’s question. Crossing the ocean of becoming is the question of the so‑called knowers. Bhav-sagar! Even that word belongs to the knowers. The devotee says, O Lord, bind me in thousands upon thousands of bonds. He does not even talk about crossing some “ocean of becoming” and all that. He says, Yours... yours is this very world; what is there to cross? Your very form, your beauty, your color, your rasa, your dance. Where is there to go? The devotee says, keep me thoroughly entangled; do not let me go.
The language of the devotee is not yet yours—whoever has asked. Bhavasagar means: how to get free of it? And if you want to be rid of this world, then your bond with the maker of the world cannot be very deep.
Have you ever seen such a thing? You love the poet but hate his poetry—how is that possible? You love a painter yet say, “As a man you are fine, but I feel like setting fire to your paintings.” If you told Picasso, “You are good, we feel a great affinity with you, but your paintings make me want to burn them,” what would that mean? If you want to burn all his paintings, you have already killed the painter, because the painter is in his paintings. When the paintings are burnt, the painter is just an ordinary man, no longer a creator. If you destroy the singer’s songs, the singer is gone. If you take away the dancer’s dance, he becomes ordinary; he is no longer a dancer.

If you take creation away from God, God is no longer God. You have insulted him deeply. A devotee never speaks such language. A devotee says, “Make me worthy that you bind me again and again, that you hide again and again and we play hide-and-seek. Call me again and again so I seek you, and you do not appear. I glimpse your shadow far away, I run—and again I do not find you. And again I run, and again I do not find you. Let this game continue for eternity.”

The devotee’s language is different. In the devotee’s language there is no place for moksha—liberation. For the devotee, this very play is moksha. This is the devotee’s revolutionary vision; this is his eye. The jnani’s moksha lies elsewhere. He says, “Freedom from this ocean of becoming—then moksha.” His moksha is life-denying. He asks, “How can life be destroyed? How can the cycle of birth and death end? Then there is moksha.”

The jnani’s moksha is somewhat weak; he cannot bear the world. The devotee’s moksha is powerful. He says, “Let this world be, let a thousand worlds be—my freedom suffers no hindrance. My liberation is such that it remains alive even in bondage.”

Freedom is total only when, even if someone throws you in prison, your freedom is not destroyed; when chains are on your hands yet your freedom remains untouched; when your very breath is scented with freedom. If, even in adverse circumstances, freedom abides—then you are free. If you are free only in favorable conditions, that is not freedom. Understand this.

If, when life is comfortable, you appear cheerful, that cheer has little worth. When life is full of suffering and yet there is a smile on your lips, then the smile has worth. When thorns pierce your feet and still you smile, when a noose is at your throat and still you smile—then that smile is yours. Otherwise, who does not smile amid comforts? That smile has no value. If you dance when life is easy—what kind of dance is that? But if death arrives and you depart dancing, then you have learned to dance, then you know dance. To be pleased in favorable conditions is natural; to be in accord in unfavorable conditions is revolution.

And the greatest adversity possible is the world itself. If sitting on the Himalayas your mind becomes still, that has no great merit. If in the marketplace, while at your shop, with the scales in your hand, your mind becomes still—that is something.

The scriptures tell the story of Tuladhar the merchant. A learned ascetic meditated for years in the mountains. He meditated so much, practiced such austerities, stood so long like a stone statue, that birds built nests in his matted hair. They laid eggs there. He felt very pleased. His fame spread far and wide. He would tell people, “I am the one in whose matted locks birds have nested; such is my meditation.”

But a wandering monk passing by asked, “Where are those birds now?” He said, “They flew away when I moved a little.” “Then call them back.” He said, “They don’t come when I call. Even when I go near them— they live around here—they at once fly off.”

The monk said, “That won’t do. Go to Tuladhar the merchant.” “Who is that?” The word “merchant” itself shocked him—he was a Brahmin, a learned ascetic. “A mere trader! Tuladhar! Where does he live? What does he do?” The monk said, “He does nothing special—he weighs with a balance all day; hence the name Tuladhar. He sits in his shop and weighs. But if you wish to know true peace, go to him. And the birds that do not come at your call will come at Tuladhar’s mere gesture—from thousands of miles.”

“Where does Tuladhar live?” “In Kashi,” he said.

The ascetic traveled and reached Kashi. He was bewildered—such crowd and clamor! The lanes of Kashi—hard to pass, hard to walk; jostling at every step, feet trodden on feet—narrow alleys and heavy throng. He thought, “What kind of place is this to attain knowledge? Even a sage would become ignorant here. Even I feel anger rising. How could Tuladhar here have attained wisdom? Still, since I’ve come, let me see him.”

He went, and many customers were gathered. He was amazed: on Tuladhar’s shoulder sat the very bird that had flown from his head when he moved. He thought, “This is a great wonder—there must be something here.” He asked Tuladhar, “What is your secret?”

Tuladhar said, “I have no great secret. I am no pandit, no sage. Sitting here with the balance, I learned to weigh within as well. As I weigh on the outer scale, I weigh within. When the two pans balance and the pointer stands at the center, I bring my inner pointer to the center too. I make both pans equal: joy and sorrow equal, success and failure equal, samsara and moksha equal, peace and unrest equal, meeting and not-meeting equal, union and separation equal. I weigh all the dualities. I am a baniya; I know not much else. I have not practiced meditation and such. You are the great ascetic. How have you come? Let me touch your feet.”

Then the ascetic’s eyes were opened. To become calm standing in the forest has no great significance. The one who does not become calm in the forest—that would be remarkable! In the forest, anyone becomes calm. Have you ever gone to the Himalayas? The coolness of the mountains begins to enter you, to touch you—everything grows quiet. But in that quiet, what is yours? As you descend, the quiet descends; it is left behind with the mountains. Real peace is where there is no external means for peace.

The devotee says, “This world is yours. It bears the imprint of your hand. I have no quarrel with the mark of your hand. In that very imprint I will seek you. Where your hand’s impression is, surely you are hiding nearby. Somewhere I will catch you, I will find you. And there is no hurry—the search itself is so full of juice.”

The devotee’s language is different. He never uses a soiled word like bhavasagar for the world. Bhavasagar is the opponent’s term—there is condemnation hidden in it: “How to be rid of it? How to break the net and tangle? How to drop this prapanch—this worldly contrivance?”

“To cross the ocean of becoming and be merged in the Supreme Self...”—even this “merging into the Supreme Self” is not the devotee’s language. The devotee longs to merge into the Supreme Lord, not into the self. The self is one’s own; the Supreme is the Vast. The devotee wants his drop to be dipped in that ocean. His quest is not so petty. He does not ask, “Who am I?” He says only, “Drown me—let me become yours; that is enough.”

So you have asked, but the jnanis have stuffed much rubbish into your mind. I am not telling you to become a devotee; I answer only because you asked. If you wish to be a devotee, put aside the jnani’s trash. If you feel that trash is valuable, then drop the mood of devotion.

I am not saying that one cannot arrive by the path of knowledge—one can. But then forget about devotion. Do not stand with a foot in two boats, or you will drown and reach nowhere. One boat is enough.

And when I say one can arrive by the path of knowledge, remember: my “jnani” and your “jnani” are very different. You call “jnani” the one who knows the scriptures, the pundit skilled in doctrine, the one rich in information. I call “jnani” the one who has thrown away all information, put aside all scriptures; who gradually withdrew his attention from information and turned it toward the source of knowing; who has begun to awaken—that one is a jnani. Knowledge is not in knowledge; knowledge is in meditation.

Thus there are two paths: meditation and love. Love is the path of devotion; meditation is the path of knowledge. Better, instead of “jnani,” say “the meditator.” So there are the meditator and the lover—two ways. The difference is slight. The meditator inquires into the self: “Who am I?”—and sinks into that single, ceaseless question. The lover does not bother with this. He says, “Whoever I am—A, B, C, whatever I am—Lord, take it to your feet. Whatever I am, drown it in yourself. Good or bad as I am. A dirty drain if need be—take it into your ocean. You are the ocean; even a foul stream that enters will become clean. You are the ocean; even a dirty drain that merges will be drowned in your form. My smallness cannot defile your vastness; your vastness will sanctify my smallness. Why then should I sit trying to purify myself? What will come of my efforts?”

The devotee says, “I want to dive into you.” The jnani says, “I want to dive into myself.” Both arrive at the same place, because ultimately your innermost center is God. The difference is of language and method; the direction of travel differs, the destination is one.

So choose one of the two. If you want to be a devotee, then be a devotee—and drop the chatter of the jnanis. Whatever the jnani says—forget it. And if you want to walk the jnani’s path, then don’t dabble in devotional talk, or you will get greatly entangled. The jnani says “moksha”; the devotee says, “Lord, your bonds are most beloved.” The jnani says, “I want to be free”; the devotee says, “I want to be bound to you!”

Understand these differences. The jnani, in a way, seeks a divorce from existence; the devotee, in a way, celebrates a marriage. “We go to wed the Imperishable!” The devotee says, “This is the wedding preparation. Now we are to be wed.” He says:

May I become fragrance of love in the blossom of your mind;
May I fall, a bashful bee, into the ponds of your cupped hands;
Today let me drown my sense of ‘mine’ in perfumed, murmuring streams.
May I drift as a dream in the firmament of your eyes,
Fragrance as love.

Let me hum the seven notes with color and glide,
Now trilling in ascent, now in the notes of descent;
In the forest of your metres let me chirp as song,
Fragrance as love.

Let me break the vows of reserve, of the heart’s inner silence,
So that at a mere hint of touch your anklets start to ring;
In the vow of your love let me blaze as life,
Fragrance as love.

May I become fragrance of love in the blossom of your mind.

The devotee says, “Let me be drowned in the Beloved! Let me float as a dream in your eyes.” There is no talk of emancipation here. Liberation is not the devotee’s language. Bind me with thousands upon thousands of ever-new bonds. Keep binding me. Do not leave me neglected at some roadside. Do not forget me. Do not let me slip from your remembrance. Spread ever-new meshes of melody over me. Arouse ever-new upsurgings of love within me. Let it not happen that you forget me on the way. You have many; for me you are the only one. Let me remain included, a participant, in your festival of bliss.

For the devotee, this world is not an enemy, and life is not opposed. With life, the devotee has no quarrel—he has oneness. Life belongs to the Lord. Whatever is his is auspicious, is beautiful. He made it—his signature is upon it—so it must be right. Then he has no complaint.

The devotee longs for the birth of new songs, new dances—he wants to celebrate a new marriage.

Come, let us again contemplate moon-faced evenings, O sun-faced dawns!
Secret dealings are not to be spoken—
And yet, without speaking, one cannot bear it.
Come, let us compose again the hymns of signal and gesture,
O seven circumambulations, O sun-faced dawns!

In glances dyed with melody let the ends be tied,
Let mountain-sized intents be fulfilled without effort;
Come, let us melt again the rocks of separation,
O stranger darkness, O seven circumambulations!

Into embraced breaths let us pour the primal scent again,
Into Dushyant’s melodies let us set Shakuntala’s metres;
Come, let us wake again the sleeping notes, coax their strength,
O, become dense as song—O seven circumambulations!

Let us take the seven rounds once more. Let us awaken the sleeping energy again. Let us blow life-breath into dead hearts again. Let us dance again. Dance again and again. Let there be repeated comings, repeated seekings. A devotee does not tire. The lover never tires. The jnani is already tired: “When will I be free? Let me sit now; I have walked enough.”

Make it clear in your mind. Recognize your own mood rightly. If heart is strong in you, devotion is your way. If the heart has fallen asleep, or never awakened, and no voice rises in the heart, then meditation is your path. Either become thought-free, or prayerful. Do not attempt to hold both at once; otherwise there will be great wandering. You will do much and nothing will come of it—what one hand builds, the other will erase.

Therefore, the first thing for the traveler—remember this first thing in the search for the inner difference—is to know oneself rightly: Am I full of feeling? Or does feeling not connect with me at all?

Understand the distinction within nature. Trees, animals, birds—yes, they are in nature, but they are in a swoon, unconscious. Buddhas, Krishna, Ashtavakra, Meera, Kabir—they too are in nature, but unbenumbed, awake. The birds who are singing—those songs are sung in sleep; they know nothing of them. Meera danced, but she danced awake. The flowers blooming on trees bloom in unconsciousness; the lotus that blossomed in Buddha blossomed in awareness.

So there is a nature below man, and there is a nature above man. Both are the same nature, yet with one decisive difference—unconsciousness versus awareness, sleep versus wakefulness. And man stands between the two. On one side are the worlds of animals and birds, plants and stones, mountains, moon and stars; there too is a great hush, nature is at work; everything is happening as it must—indeed, nothing else can happen. There is not even the freedom to go otherwise. If a bird were to wish to go against nature, it could not, because to go against requires awareness. To say they are “in harmony with nature” is not quite right; they are in conformity out of compulsion, because they cannot be otherwise. They have no remembrance, no knowing, no awareness. What happens, happens.

Imagine we lay a man on a stretcher—chloroformed, unconscious—and wheel him through a garden. As he passes through, the fragrance of flowers will touch his nostrils, the sun’s rays will play upon his face, cool gusts of wind will caress him. Perhaps some benefit will come—the kind of benefit that can accrue to the unconscious merely by being near nature. When he comes to, he may say, “I saw a beautiful dream. It felt so good. I don’t know what it was—vague, blurry.”

Bring the same man, now fully conscious, into that same garden: the garden is the same, the man is the same; the only difference is a little one—now he is aware, before he was not. Now these very flowers, these very trees, these very sunbeams will give birth to an incomparable bliss.

Animals and birds live in a chloroformed state; the awakened ones live in wakefulness; and we humans are in between—neither properly awake nor properly asleep. Hence man’s anxiety. Anxiety means only one thing: tension. A pull backward, a pull forward. From behind, animals and birds call: “Come back. You left your home—there was great comfort there. Go back to sleep.” That is why man drinks—to fall asleep again.

Alcohol is attractive for this very reason: it is man’s only readily available means to become animal again. Otherwise, how to become unconscious? So we invent many devices for benumbing ourselves—alcohol, sex, cinema—wherever we can forget ourselves for a little while, there we feel great “entertainment”—in oblivion. But all of it is one kind of alcohol.

From behind, nature tugs: “Why hassle yourself? Man, you are needlessly troubled—return. All is beautiful here.” That is why the seashore feels lovely, the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas enchant, the green of trees draws you near, the life of animals holds a deep fascination. But you cannot go back. Even if you drink, how long can you forget? Awareness has already dawned.

And there is another pull: the awakened ones appear. Mahavira, Krishna, Kabir, Christ pass among you. Their presence awakens in you a strange thirst: “When shall I become like that?” This too is the call of nature, but now not from the side of stupor, from the side of awareness.

As long as man is in the middle he is in crisis—like Trishanku, neither on earth nor in sky, suspended in between. Pulled from both sides, torn and twisted, fragmented, deranged, divided. Either fall back—which cannot be—or rise ahead—which can be. To rise ahead is difficult, not impossible; to fall back is easy, but impossible. Understand the paradox. To become animal again is simple, but impossible. Simple, because we have been animals; it is part of our old habits lodged in the unconscious.

When you flare up in rage you become animal. It is easy to be angry—but how long can you remain that way? No one can stay in anger continuously. To slip into sex is easy; but the oblivion that sex brings for a moment—how long does it last? Ephemeral. It comes like a bubble—appears, bursts, is gone. Then you stand where you stood before—more worn, more broken, more depressed. Is there anyone who does not feel remorse after sexual indulgence? Is there anyone who, having been angry, does not regret, “What have I done!” Is there anyone who, after angering, does not try to explain, “I wasn’t really angry”?

Why this attempt to explain? Because anger means you became animal. The ego is hurt by the idea, “I behaved like an animal?” So we whitewash, we rationalize: “I wasn’t angry—just put on a show; I did it playfully; I did it for his own good. He’s my son—if I hadn’t slapped him, he would have been spoiled.” Your father slapped you; neither were you saved from “going wrong,” nor will your son be saved, nor were your fathers saved. No one is saved this way.

Mulla Nasruddin gave his son a heavy slap. The boy stood there; tears ran from his eyes. He asked, “Father, may I ask something? Did your father also hit you like this?” “Yes,” said Nasruddin, “he did.” “And did his father hit him like this?” “Yes, he did.” “And his father?” Nasruddin said, “I don’t know for sure—but I suppose they kept on hitting.”

“And his father?” The father snapped, “What do you mean? All fathers have been hitting their sons!”

The boy said, “Father, for centuries this cruel behavior has continued—now the time has come to stop it. And what has been the essence of it all? For ages fathers have hit, sons have been hit, and those sons then hit their sons—it goes on, and nothing changes. Everything remains the same. So the time has come to break the stream that has flowed forever.”

The boy is right. Your father could not stop you, nor will you be able to stop your son. Your father did not hit you to stop you, and you are not hitting your son to stop him either. “I hit to stop him”—that is only a commentary to hide a bestial act that you cannot help doing. To cover that animality you put a mask over it. You say something pretty to hide something ugly—you place flowers over thorns so the thorns won’t be seen. It is bandage and balm; it has little real value.

Anger fills everyone with remorse; something needs to be done after anger to patch it up. Sexual craving fills with remorse too. The drunkard, day after day, after drinking swears again and again, “I will not drink.” He has to drink—another matter—but he swears. He makes resolutions many times; they break many times—another matter—but don’t think he never resolves. Even the worst of men often resolve to come out of it.

Why? Because falling backward does not befit anyone. It pains the ego. It is easy yet impossible. We can delude ourselves for a moment, but the delusion breaks. We cannot return forever.

So I say: one nature lies behind you, one lies ahead; you are stuck in the middle. What is ahead is difficult but possible. To become a Buddha is difficult; the path is arduous, like walking on the razor’s edge—but it is possible. It happened to Buddha, to Mahavira, to Krishna and Christ, to Muhammad and Moses; it can happen to you. Then you will enter nature—enter the true nisarga.

Man alone is the creature not yet in nature; he is in the middle, stuck, half-and-half, unfinished. Think of a dog; if you say, “This dog is incomplete,” does it make any sense? All dogs are complete. You cannot tell any dog, “You are incomplete.” Every dog is fully a dog. But you can say to a person, “You are a very incomplete man”—and it makes sense. All dogs are complete, all cats complete, all lions complete; man is incomplete. Man has to become complete. We call Buddha “complete,” we call Krishna “complete,” we call Ashtavakra “complete.” Man has to become complete. He is not yet what he is meant to be.

Your question is: “At the root of desire is natural sex.” True. At the root of desire is natural sex—but natural sex is in animals too. And that very natural sex, in the awakened ones, has become Ram. It has taken a new form, a new gesture. The same energy is transformed; it has passed through an alchemy.

A diamond lies in the trash, caked in earth; and a diamond cut by a jeweler, with all flaws removed—is something else. When the Kohinoor was found, it weighed three times what it weighs now; then it was a misshapen stone, beset with a thousand faults. Cutting and cutting, trimming and polishing—only one-third remains. But now it is another story; now it has a unique presence. Now it is a perfect diamond. Whatever was wrong, waste, not to be—has been cut away. If that old stone lay before you today beside the Kohinoor, you would not even recognize that the two are related.

Right now you are a rough stone. Let the polish come. If this very sexual energy falls into the hands of a connoisseur, a jeweler, it reveals such wondrous form and beauty, such glory. That glory we call Buddhahood. A person has arrived—complete. That very glory we call godliness.

Godliness means only this: the nature within you that was benumbed becomes unbenumbed; the sleeping nature awakens and stands. When Ram is asleep it is kama; when kama awakens it becomes Ram. That is the only difference.

See: at night when you sleep you lie on the ground; in the morning, when you stand, your angle to the earth has changed—now you make a right angle. At night you lie parallel to the ground. You are the same—sleeping at night, standing in the morning—yet what a difference! In stupor you become like stone and soil; in wakefulness you are alive.

And a still greater awakening is yet to be. So far you have known only the first rays of dawn; the full sun has not yet risen. When the full sun of Buddhahood rises within, then you will truly know what nature is.

Animals and birds are natural, but without awareness. The awakened ones are natural, with awareness. Man is tangled in between—neither here nor there. Hence his restlessness. As long as you are merely human, restlessness will remain—call it fate, or misfortune. You must go beyond it. Falling back is easy but impossible. Going forward is difficult but possible; therefore choose the forward path.

What you have so far called life is fleeting. What you have so far called the play of sex-desire is dream-like, almost indistinguishable from falsity—mere semblance.

The four blossoms of this fleeting life:

In the courtyard the sun was stirred, the moon chattered on and on,
The little imp purchased, at a price, the priceless accents of sound,
In a pinch went by the costly moments of childhood—
The four blossoms of life.

Offered up to Cupid, riding in the chariot of youth,
Arm in arm we strode along love’s broad avenue,
Swaying, we kissed the intoxicating vows of young passion—
The four blossoms of life.

A handful of spent moments—Ganga-water in the eyes,
In the arms of flames, the dream-palaces melted,
Cloud-castles of gold dissolved into dust—
The four blossoms of life.

The four blossoms of this fleeting life.

This, which you now call sex and desire—“let me do this, let me have that, let me become this, let me enjoy that, lest I miss it”—these are but four flowers that bloom in the morning and wither by evening. There are flowers that do not wither; to attain those is the aim of life.

Those flowers are available only in unbenumbed awareness. For the benumbed, it is a marvel that even a moment of pleasure occurs. It should not be—and yet it seems to occur; that too is mysterious. The awakened person does not experience even a moment of sorrow. The unconscious person seems to have moments of joy—but do they happen? They do not arrive before they are gone. Have you ever been able to clench your fist around a moment of happiness? To hold it even for a little while? It no sooner arrives than it has vanished. A line drawn on water—such are these moments of delight.

Do not trust these moments too much. If you do, the energy that could become awareness, meditation, samadhi will be spent in them. And when death approaches, you will find around you only toys—nothing else. Broken toys that must be left behind. Your eyes will be filled with tears.

A handful of spent moments—Ganga-water in the eyes,
In the arms of flames, the dream-palaces melted,
Cloud-castles of gold dissolved into dust.

Awaken! Let what can happen, happen. Rouse yourself. Do not squander your energy. The moment that has gone has gone—it will not return. The energy that has slipped from your hand has slipped—you will not get it back. Be a little intelligent. You have lived long enough like a dullard; now live with a little brilliance, with insight. Gather a little awareness. Gathering and gathering, one day it is gathered.

Where are a man’s hands in his own hands? Even a man’s hands are in God’s hands. Man is not something separate and isolated! Not even for a single moment can you be apart. This breath goes out and comes in—then you are. A sunray falls upon your body and warms it—then you are. You eat today and energy is made in the body—then you are.

Can you stop this give-and-take with the outside even for a moment? Can you break this bridge, spread in a thousand ways, even for a moment? Can you be separate even for a moment? Can you say for a single instant, I stand totally apart, cut off from the whole? Not even for one moment.

Your hands are not in your own hands either; your hands too are in God’s hands. Those who have known have known one thing: that we never were at all, and needlessly we were making a commotion. We weren’t even a little—and what a noise we made! Like waves making a great uproar upon the ocean—and they are not, not even a bit. There is the ocean; where is the wave? Does a wave have any being of its own? Can you separate the wave from the ocean? If you cannot separate it, then it does not exist in itself.

If we cannot be apart, then our separate being is not. For the knowers a deep realization grows day by day: I am not—God is. One day the moment comes when the “I” becomes utterly empty. That is what Ashtavakra said: “Of an indescribable nature and totally void by nature.” One experiences a nature that cannot be described—and along with it one also experiences: now I am no more.

Consciously leave it in God’s hands and miracles begin to happen. If you keep yourself clutched in your own hands you will remain petty. Because of yourself you remain needlessly small. When God’s whole hands could have been your hands, you trusted your own little hands. When you could have been an instrument, you sat as the doer—and right there you shrank.

As it is, my body is clay; if you wish, let it become gold.
These thirsty lips are so parched; the craving grows with every moment.
Even the shade is slipping away; the noon of separation climbs higher.
From every pore leap the sparks of burning sighs.
As it is, my mind is fire; if you wish, let it become sandalwood.

The branch of my life has fallen under the bitter spell of thorns.
Today suddenly the autumn of the whole world has fallen upon my longings.
Such an untimely wind has blown, the buds of desire have yellowed.
As it is, the garden of the mind is dry; if you wish, let it become Nandan, the celestial grove.

Now even the melody of breath feels lost.
I have made countless efforts, yet no raga awakens.
Even with practice and gliding notes, the pitch will not align.
As it is, the mind’s veena is broken; if you wish, let it begin to tremble with resonance.

What is mine on this earth? Only your shadow.
Moon and stars, blade of grass and leaf—all only your maya.
Words are yours, meanings are yours; the speech is under your dominion.
As it is, every syllable of mine decays; if you wish, let it become worship.

By the Lord’s touch everything becomes gold—even clay. The sleeping veena awakes; music appears. Where there was only heat, everything becomes sandalwood. But you must place it in his hands.

Man is harassed by himself. No one is harassing you. Needlessly you are carrying the whole burden on your own head. The burden that is on his head—that too you carry on yours. Because of that, how broken and battered you have become! How withered, how worn-out, how tired and weary! Your feet hardly lift, so tired you are. Yet still you go on dragging the load.

Put it down. Set the burden down. The burden is his, and you are his too. The individual is not separate from the whole; he is a limb of the total. Let such a recognition keep deepening—that is sannyas. Let such a feeling grow more and more profound every day.

As it is, my body is clay; if you wish, let it become gold.
As it is, my mind is fire; if you wish, let it become sandalwood.
As it is, the garden of the mind is dry; if you wish, let it become Nandan, the celestial grove.
Even with practice and gliding notes, the pitch will not align—
by pulling and straining, by trying and trying, where does true tuning ever happen?
As it is, the mind’s veena is broken; if you wish, let it begin to tremble with resonance.
Words are yours, meanings are yours; the speech is under your dominion.
As it is, every syllable of mine decays; if you wish, let it become worship.

If you speak from emptiness, the Vedas are born. If you speak from ego, even if you read the Vedas, it becomes parrot recitation. If you let him speak, every word of yours is an Upanishad. And if you cram the Upanishads into “you,” even the Upanishads become worth two pennies.

Everything hinges on one thing—are you, or is He? Step aside. Give Him the way. Empty the throne so that He may be enthroned.

That is Rabia’s meaning.

Someone said to Rabia, “If I change my life—turn sin into virtue, irreligion into religion, vice into character—if I become a Muslim, hold to iman, will God incline toward me?” Rabia said, “No, the matter is exactly the reverse. If God inclines toward you, then you can become a Muslim; then you can bring faith. Without His inclining toward you, nothing will happen. By your bowing, nothing will happen; only when He inclines does something happen. Whatever happens, happens by Him.”

Rabia’s meaning is: You are not the doer; He alone is the doer. Therefore when someone truly enters the life of religion, he does not say, “Look, I am becoming religious.” He says, “Thy will, Lord, that you have made me religious. By my doing, nothing would happen. By my doing, whatever happened, went wrong. I tried and tried—everything I did became undone. You called. Your will. You kindled the thirst. You drew me.”

Therefore even when someone attains God, he does not boast or pat his own back: “Bravo! I did it.” When someone attains God, he bows at His feet and gives thanks: that in spite of me You drew me. Thank you! “In spite of me”—remember this.

The devotee, the lover, the seeker can only call, can only pray, and can only wait—and nothing else is in his hands. That is why Ashtavakra insists so strongly that “duty,” the sense of doing, is the very root of anxiety. You thought, “I must do something; it will have to be done; by my doing it will happen”—and you became anxious. Anxious, you became agitated. Agitated, you became feverish. Feverish, you became deranged, lost. You wandered; you went farther and farther astray. Therefore Ashtavakra says the essential thing is that one thing drop: “I am the doer.” I am only an instrument, a witness.

Descend as the full moon.
Upon the tender tablet of feelings,
pour the eternal hues.
Descend as the full moon.

Let the body, scorched by the sun’s glare, be cooled like a lake.
Still the cataracts of falling flames.
Set the lips of contentment upon our lips,
and quench the thirst of the age.
Descend as the full moon.

Free the breath from lifeless rule and restraint;
release the bewilderment of fragrance-bereft pranas;
let the labors of thorns prove fruitless;
make the seeker fulfilled.
Descend as the full moon.

Let all the clusters of virtues blossom,
let the layers of fragrance unfold,
let life be bright with moon-white breath;
move about luminous with light.
Descend as the full moon.

It is the seeker who calls: Descend as the full moon. There is thirst—You, shower down. At most, this much is in my power: that I do not obstruct You; that I keep the door open; that if You come I do not refuse; that if You come I accept; that if You come You find me waiting at the door. That much is all that is in my hands.

Descend as the full moon.

But You come. Without Your coming it cannot be.

Among the Jews there is a very important insight of the Hasidic mystics: God cannot be found by man’s seeking. Only when God seeks man does the meeting happen. This is significant. What will come of man’s seeking? A drop sets out to find the ocean—it will be lost somewhere along the way, buried in dust and debris. And perhaps even a drop might reach the ocean, because the distance between a drop and the ocean is small. But man setting out to find God—where will he search? In which direction? Where will he go? Which moons and stars? And the ratio between a drop and the ocean: the drop is very small compared to the ocean, but not as small as man is small before this Vast. This proportion… God is very far, immeasurably great—and we are so tiny. Where will we search? How will we search?

Khalil Gibran tells a story: A man is asleep and three ants are walking on his face. One ant says to another, “What a strange mountain we’ve come upon! No grass grows—must be a clean shave!—no grasses, no trees in sight, no lakes or waterfalls. What mountain is this! Completely barren. And do you see that peak of Gaurishankar?—it would be the nose—rising and rising, seems to touch the sky.” They spoke so and felt blessed that they had climbed the mountain, and all three slowly climbed the nose. Before they could plant their flag, as Hillary did, the sleeping man felt a slight tickle. He ran his hand across, and the three ants were crushed to death upon his nose.

Gibran’s story is very important. Man is like that—perhaps even smaller. There is, of course, a distance between an ant and a man, but think of the distance between man and the Vast! It is immense. How will we search? These tiny feet of ours will not reach. Only if the temple itself comes walking to us shall we be able to enter. And the temple does come walking. You just call. He comes bound by the fragile threads of your call. Bound in that frail string He comes, the sovereign.

Descend as the full moon.
Upon the tender tablet of feelings,
pour the eternal hues.
Descend as the full moon.

Keep calling. Keep declaring your thirst. Weep. Sing. Dance. Make your statement plain—that we are eager in Your waiting; that we are calling You here. Let your whole bearing, your every gesture, begin to announce your call and your thirst. The day your call and thirst reach a hundred degrees, that very instant…

No one can say when a hundred degrees comes. And for each person the degrees differ. Therefore keep calling. Call tirelessly. Let your calling be such that only the call remains and you disappear. Let only the question remain; let the questioner be lost. Let only the thirst remain; let there be no one inside set apart as “the thirsty one.” Immerse and dissolve in the thirst itself. In that very instant the doors open. The doors are not far; the doors are within you. But they open only for those who call with life and soul.

No, in truth the initiative too is in His hands. But do not take this to mean—as is very likely—that then we have nothing to do. This is the strange thing: man is such a trickster, so cunning. Tell him, “You must do something to attain God,” and he becomes the doer. Because of being the doer, the ego becomes dense; the journey stops. Tell him, “You have nothing to do,” and he becomes lazy. Then he does not even call. He says, “The calling too will be called by Him—then it will happen. What can I do now? There is nothing to be done.” And he pulls his blanket over his head and goes to sleep.

Whereas the path lies somewhere between the two. You have to act, and yet not become the doer. You have to call, and keep in mind that in your call it is He who is calling. You have to bow, and know that He must have made you bow; otherwise would we bow? Stones like us—would we bend? Mountains like us—would we lower ourselves? If you weep, know that He has come in your tears. Otherwise, would tears flow from such stones as we are?

Remember: you have to do, and yet not be the doer. You have to take the initiative, and remember that even the initiative He takes. You have to go toward Him, you have to seek Him—and always remember that He is seeking you. In your seeking, it is He who has stretched out His hands. He who has spread His longing. Only when your prayer becomes the prayer prayed by Him does…

And keep both together—beware, for on both sides are ditches and chasms, and the path is in the middle. Either you are ready to be the doer: “Then we will do everything. We are the doer and sustainer.” Then you become egoistic. Or you say, “We will do nothing.” And even if He calls, you will not lend your voice to His call. You will say, “Now since You are calling, why should we create any obstacle in between? You call. If You are to sing, then sing. Why should we place our flute upon Your lips? When the song is Yours, the flute is nothing—hollow. What need is there of us?”

But I tell you: the happening takes place by the meeting of your hollow flute and His lips. The happening takes place by the union of your instrumentality and His doership.

That is all for today.