Maha Geeta #86

Song is inevitable. Dance is inevitable. Because in the ultimate consummation there is bound to be celebration. If there is no celebration at the end, then when will it be? Song and dance are only indicators of celebration. When spring arrives and the tree is in full surge, flowers will bloom. Fragrance will spread. And when the lamp is lit, light will pour.

Song is inevitable. The only question is: who sings how? The devotee sings in his way, the knower in his way. The devotee’s song is manifest; the knower’s song is unmanifest. The devotee dances at the circumference, the knower at the center. The devotee’s song and celebration are like unrestrained laughter—someone bursts out laughing and the juhi (jasmine) blossoms shower down. The knower’s song is a delicate, gentle smile. You will recognize it only if you look very closely. With a coarse eye you will miss. The differences are fine, subtle.

The devotee too reaches the very destination the knower reaches, but their paths differ. The devotee links himself to the Divine “Thou,” links and links until the devotee is no more. He offers his “I” at the feet of the “Thou.” The devotee’s eyes are on the Thou; his gaze is outward. He looks outside. He does not worry about looking within; the inner seeing happens as the ultimate fruition of looking without. So the devotee looks at trees, moon and stars, rivers and mountains—because in all there is the Divine’s glimpse. Hence the devotee can worship even a stone, for the whole existence is His. The devotee drowns the “I” and magnifies the “Thou.” A moment comes when the “I” becomes zero and only “Thou” remains. Then the devotee dances. But in that very moment a revolutionary event takes place—the supreme event: when the “I” becomes utterly nothing, the “Thou” also cannot remain. Even for the Thou to be, some presence, however slight, of the I is needed. Without an I, what Thou? Without the devotee, what God!

Bayazid said, “I need You—true. You also need me.” Eckhart said, “I cannot be without You, nor can You be without me.” Well said, because without the I the Thou cannot be, and without the Thou the I cannot be. The devotee lets the I dissolve. He was once one hundred percent; decreasing, decreasing, he becomes zero percent. Every day the Divine increases—one percent, fifty percent, seventy percent, ninety, ninety-nine percent. Up to ninety-nine percent, both remain: ninety-nine percent God, one percent devotee. The instant the devotee becomes zero and God becomes full, the devotee goes—and God goes too. Love’s lane is so narrow, two cannot enter! Kabir is right: the street of love is so narrow, two do not fit. And I tell you, love’s lane is so narrow that not even one fits. For if one could fit, then two could fit as well. Only when even one cannot fit is it certain that two cannot. What meaning would “one” have if “two” did not remain? Without two, one cannot be. If there is duality, then nonduality has meaning.

But the devotee’s eye is outward. He worships, offers, lights lamps, dances, sings, adorns images. His God is outside, and he goes on drowning himself. Therefore when the great festival happens in the devotee’s life, he dances. “Tying bells to her feet, Meera danced!” She dances ecstatically, in abandon, forgetting all, intoxicated.

In the knower’s life the same event happens—of zero, or of fullness—but in another way. The knower frees himself from the Thou. That is why Mahavira says, “What God? There is no God. Appa so paramappa—the self itself is the Supreme Self. In my pure perfection, I am God.” Therefore the knower says: “Aham Brahmasmi.” “Ana’l-Haqq.” Other than me, who? So the knower diminishes the Thou, diminishes and diminishes, until a moment comes when the Thou becomes zero and only the I remains. But then the I cannot remain either. To keep the I, a little Thou is needed. The day the I alone remains and the Thou becomes zero, in that very moment the I also disappears. They go together. And when the I disappears, a unique celebration is born. But the knower will not dance; the celebration happens so deeply within, and the knower is inward-turned.

These are the only two types of human consciousness: extroversion and introversion. Either go within or go without. Whichever direction you go, go so totally that you are no more—you will arrive. If you keep going outward and go on losing yourself, you will arrive. If you keep going inward until a moment comes when you have lost yourself, you will arrive. Which direction you take makes no difference, for the Divine is in all directions. He is outside as well, He is inside as well. “Outside” and “inside” are provisional words. He is; it is better to say that the outside is in Him and the inside is in Him. Outside and inside are two facets of the same.

The devotee’s dance happens at the circumference; the knower’s dance at the center. So you may not see the knower’s dance. Buddha sits under the bodhi tree—no one saw him dance. I tell you, he is dancing. Trust it—he is dancing. He is singing. Though this song is such that unless you too have sung in this way, you will not recognize it; this language is otherworldly. Yes, if Meera dances, you will see it—even though you have not danced as Meera. But Meera’s dance happens on the body; you know the body’s language. Even then you will not understand it. Meera’s own family did not. They said, “What is this—have you lost all sense of propriety? Is this proper? Courtesans dance like this, loose women dance like this; and a queen of a royal house dances in the streets!” They too did not understand. But they understood at least this much—that Meera is dancing. They did not grasp the meaning of the dance; they saw the dance. They interpreted it through their own lens, the kind of dance they had seen. These were people of a royal household; they must have had courtesans dance in their courts—that they understood. They said, “What is this—Meera dances like a courtesan!” They sent poison. The dance was seen; the meaning was missed. But the dance was seen.

The knower’s dance you will not even see—the question of meaning does not arise! Even the meaning of the devotee’s dance is not seen.

So Buddha appears to you as simply sitting. The day you become utterly still, absorbed in meditation, you will hear the humming of Buddha. The anahat naad—the unstruck sound—is happening there. A sound that requires no instrument or act, it arises of itself. Omkar is resounding. Zen masters say, “The clap of one hand is sounding.” Usually it takes two hands to clap; the Zen masters say, “Now the clap of one hand is sounding”—a clap that need not be clapped; it happens by itself. It is simply happening. Better to say it this way: existence is dance, existence is song, existence is celebration. Celebration is already happening; only you are blind. A bandage covers your eyes—you do not see. And thus you miss.

The devotee opens the eyes of love; the knower opens the eyes of meditation. These two words seem different because they belong to different paths, but the final result is always one.

I used to laugh when I was told
“Even the earth laughs.”
But seeing the family of flowers,
now I have come to believe.

In how many buds’ eyes
the Gita of fragrance is resounding;
on how many flowers’ lips
poems written in color.

Butterfly-maidens sway,
signing the signatures of scent;
into the golden jasmine’s ears
garlands of bees whisper.

Within spring’s veiling veil
cups of nectar lie hidden;
as if in a township of silk
wine-houses stand open.

I used to laugh when I was told
“Even the earth laughs.”
But seeing the family of flowers,
now I have come to believe.

Just look—a festival is going on. Existence is absorbed in a deep rasa, a deep play. Raso vai sah: the Divine is nothing but essence of delight. There is no suffering in existence. Suffering is man’s creation—man’s misstep. In existence there is no death at all; there is the vast expanse of life. In existence death never occurs. Death is man’s invention. Man invented the ego; now the egoist dies—because whatever man invents will perish. What man makes cannot be immortal. What is made is mortal. Whatever is fabricated will pass. What is unmade will not pass. That which has never been born will never die. What is born will die.

Look—you build a house; it will fall. However strong you make it, it makes no difference. Two days later, four days later, or a thousand years later—it will fall. But you see: a tiny grain of sand—there is no way to annihilate it. Scientists say it cannot be destroyed. Try all you like, you cannot destroy even a tiny grain of sand. What is the matter? We build palaces—they perish. A grain of sand does not. Because the grain of sand was not made. Whatever is made will perish. That which is from the beginning will always be. The constructed is destroyed; the unborn is eternal.

Man makes some things—and they perish. Their perishing makes him panic. The fear of perishing makes the mind anxious. Whatever is compounded will go. Buddha said: all compounds shall disperse. But existence never perishes.

So find within you that which never perishes—then you are a meditator, a knower. Find without, outside, that which never perishes—then you are a devotee. And let it be according to your temperament. People have reached by both paths—Meera and Mahavira. Do not worry too much about which path to take. Beware lest you stand there worrying which path to take and take none at all. Walk—take the path that appeals to you and walk it.

And remember one thing: once you walk on one path, forget completely the language of the other. Otherwise you will be very disordered. For their languages are very different—indeed opposite. If you carry both languages together, you will become disoriented. Great clouds will gather within you. The open sky will end. Instead of arriving, you will become deranged. Not liberated, but deranged. Do not make such a mistake.

If the devotee’s discourse delights you, if Narada’s Sutras sink into the heart and choke you with joy, the matter is settled. Leave the knowers; let them go where they will. You set out—board Narada’s boat.

If that does not appeal, and the words of Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali, Ashtavakra set you trembling with awe within—as if a window opens inside and a gust of wind enters, the sun’s rays come in, and you feel, “Yes—this is it, it fits,” the heart leaps—then leave Narada and Meera; go with Ashtavakra.

By walking someone arrives; by thinking no one arrives. Do not go on thinking—walk.

The matter is straightforward and simple. But because it is paradoxical, it doesn’t fall within the grasp of the intellect. The intellect cannot hold paradox, for it has accepted a rule: wherever there is contradiction, there cannot be truth. This is Aristotle’s logic, the world’s entire logic: contradiction cannot be true. Naturally, if someone says, “In the room there is a chair, and there is not a chair,” you will say, “Something’s wrong. Either there is a chair or there isn’t—how can both be true?” It appears self-contradictory.

So a basic axiom of logic is that where there is self-contradiction, there cannot be truth. Either a person is young or old; either alive or dead. If you say, “He is alive and he is dead,” logic will insist there’s a mistake—one of the statements must be false. How can both be right simultaneously? If you say, “A man is both a thief and a saint,” logic protests: impossible. Hence the logical rule: where there is self-contradiction, the statement is false.

A case was once being tried in court. The magistrate was fresh from law school, a new expert in law and logic. A murder had occurred. One witness testified that the murder happened inside the house, within the walls. A second witness immediately stood and said, “No, it happened under the open sky.” The magistrate said, “You both cannot be right; one of you must be lying.” But a third man stood up and said, “No one is lying. The murder happened inside the house and under the open sky, because the roof had not yet been put on. It was a new house; only the walls had been raised.”

What appears contradictory from above may still be possible. Life is larger than logic. Such is Ashtavakra’s aphorism: the enlightened one both is not, and is not not.

Understand.

The enlightened one is not, because only the Divine is. He has emptied himself. Existence is; but his notion of “I” has fallen away. In this sense, the enlightened one is not. No idea of “I” remains; he cannot announce, “I am.” Only the Absolute is. Remember the Upanishadic utterance: “Aham Brahmasmi.” When you translate and interpret it, a small shift happens—but the difference is vast, as vast as earth and sky. When you read, “I am Brahman,” you stress the “I.” Brahman becomes your shadow, your loincloth. You stand adorned. When the enlightened one says, “I am Brahman,” he is saying: “Brahman is—where am I? I am not; only Brahman is.” And because That alone is, therefore “I too am That”—but he puts the “I” behind and places Brahman in front.

When Ashtavakra says, “The enlightened one is not,” it means: he has no asmita, no ego-sense. But that is only half the statement. He immediately adds the other half, because there is danger. Man is a dangerous creature; in matters of understanding he is more likely to misunderstand. If you say, “The enlightened one is not—so humble, so egoless,” our egos are so big that we will say, “Fine, then we too are enlightened—we also say, ‘I am not.’” You can say, “I am nothing,” and in your eyes there can still be the claim of being. When you say, “I am nothing,” you are still saying, “I am.” You have found a new trick.

A disciple of the Zen master Bokuju was meditating. Every day he would practice, then come to the master in the morning and report his experiences. The master would drive him away at once: “Drop this—don’t bring rubbish here.” Sometimes the disciple said, “Kundalini has awakened,” and the master barked, “Out! Don’t bring useless talk here. Until emptiness happens, bring nothing.” Again he came: “Today the lotus of the heart opened,” and the master raised his staff. Another time: “The sahasrar has opened,” and the master pushed him out: “Until emptiness opens, don’t come at all.” Months passed. One day he returned, overjoyed, fell at his feet and said, “Today I have brought what you have long expected from me. Today you will surely be pleased. Today I have come as emptiness.” The master lifted his staff and struck him on the head: “Throw the emptiness out and come in!” The disciple protested, “But I have become empty—and still you reject me!” The master said, “When you claim, ‘I have become empty,’ who is the claimer? This is a new claim, a new shape of the ego, a new mask. One is truly empty only when one has thrown away even emptiness. Then nothing remains to be said. The supreme emptiness is that which cannot even say, ‘I am empty.’ Where is the space for saying? The very utterance is wrong. It is a claim.”

This is the meaning of Ashtavakra’s saying—the enlightened one is not. The ego is gone; therefore it is not right to say that he is. And he is also not not. For the enlightened one cannot even say, “I have become empty; I am egoless.” He cannot say anything, because in saying, he would be again. All proclamations belong to the ego—the announcements of humility as well, the announcements of emptiness too.

Therefore the matter is very simple: the enlightened one neither is, nor is not. He cannot even proclaim “not”; therefore he is not not. This seems a contradiction to practical logic, but in the ultimate logic of life there is no contradiction.

First thing: if it were truly futile for you, the habit would have dropped. For you, it isn’t futile. For those for whom it is futile, the habit falls away. Imagine you carefully putting garbage into a safe, and I catch you and ask, “What are you doing?” You reply, “I know it’s garbage, but the habit doesn’t go.” Would that happen? Knowing it is garbage, would you still store it in a safe? If you really knew it was garbage, would you guard it? You’re making a small mistake.

The awakened ones say, “It’s garbage.” You’ve heard them and, out of deference, you don’t deny them. “The enlightened say so, the scriptures say so—so it must be right; it’s garbage.” But deep down you don’t really see it that way; for you it’s a diamond, a jewel! Now an inner conflict arises. One is your own knowing; the other is what you’ve heard from the awakened. Naturally, in the end you will win, not the awakened ones—because you are the one inside; they are only on the surface. On the surface you parrot, “It’s all garbage.” Inside you know, “What do these saints know? Don’t get trapped in all this ‘Buddha-talk’—don’t go and make a fool of yourself! Guard it carefully.”

Your dilemma is that you don’t even have the courage to deny the enlightened—you lack even that much boldness. Perhaps at some deep level you also sense they are right—because they are right. Even if your mind is submerged in desires and you don’t yet see it, the peace, the joy, the fragrance of the awakened stirs a hunch: if they were wrong, their lives would show the results of wrongness. The results appear right. And a tree is known by its fruit, isn’t it? Seeing the fruit of joy and the streams of sat-chit-ananda in the awakened, you feel, “They must be right. How can we be right? For us, everything turns to poison; we keep landing in hell. If our diamonds and jewels were real, we would be in heaven—yet we are in hell. They must be right.” That too rings true to you.

And yet this is not your experience—it is their experience. How will you accept it as your own? You believe it. And it is belief that creates the obstacle. It has to become your experience.

Don’t be in a hurry to agree. If it doesn’t appear to you as garbage, say so: “It doesn’t appear that way to me yet. You say it is so—you must be right; I have no reason to call you wrong, because you know what I don’t. You must be right. But as far as my understanding goes, these still look like diamonds and jewels to me.” If you could be that honest, a revolution would come quickly into your life. Don’t mistake borrowed knowledge for your own. Don’t take stale talk as yours.

You say, “I keep looking back to the past. It is futile, and yet the habit doesn’t leave.” If it were truly futile for you, it would drop. I say it is futile—indeed it is. For me, it dropped. The seeing of futility and the dropping of the habit happen together. Seeing it as futile while the habit doesn’t drop—that has never happened. It’s like my telling you, “There’s the door; go out,” and you say, “I know where the door is, but I will go through the wall—old habit! Though my head bangs, it hurts, it bleeds, I fall flat—but what to do? I know it’s a wall and I know it causes pain, I can’t get out that way—but old habit!” Would you say that? If you did, only one of two things can be true: either you don’t actually see where the door is, or you imagine a door in the wall itself. Let a thousand Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Christs keep shouting, “The door is here!”—you will still stand before the wall. You will try to go out through the wall. The whole crowd is there too. At the door, you see a rare few passing; people are banging into walls.

So first remember: this is not your own understanding. And if you try to live by someone else’s understanding, you’ll be in trouble. It’s like trying to see through someone else’s eyes.

A man went blind. Doctors urged, “Get treated; your eyes can still be cured.” He said, “I’m eighty; what will I do with eyes now? A year or two at most. And it’s not as if there is any shortage of eyes in my house! My wife’s eyes; my eight sons—their sixteen eyes; my eight daughters-in-law—their sixteen eyes. Sixteen plus sixteen—thirty-two—and two more: thirty-four eyes in my house. If I don’t have two eyes, what difference does it make!” The old man was speaking in a grand way—but that very night trouble struck. The house caught fire. Those thirty-four eyes ran out in a flash. The two blind eyes stayed inside. Then he remembered: only your own eyes serve you at the right time.

Outside, the wife did cry, “Save my husband—he’s inside!” But when the flames rose, she ran. In such crisis, one only remembers oneself. The daughters-in-law wept, the sons shouted, a crowd gathered outside—but no one had the courage to go in. The old man, groping, banging into doors and walls, burned. Trying to find his way out, he died.

Only your own eyes are of use. My eyes won’t serve you. Yes, for conversation, for thinking, they’ll do. But when life catches fire, when the need arises, suddenly you will find they don’t work. You must correct your own eyes. Buddha’s last words at the time of his departure were: “Appo Deepo Bhava—be a light unto yourself.” When Buddha was dying and the disciples wept, he asked, “Why do you cry?” They said, “If you go, what will become of us?” Buddha said, “What became of you while I was here? I was here—what happened? I leave—what is lost? Just keep in mind what I have said your whole life long: find your own eyes. Until now you haven’t listened—now listen! I am going; the one who keeps saying it is going. I will not keep returning to tell you, ‘Find your own eyes.’ Now you will know for sure. As long as I was here and you moved by leaning on me, you had the illusion that you had eyes. When I’m gone, you’ll know the truth. Life’s walls will block you at every step; you will fall in pits again and again. Now find your own eyes.”

So first: you’ve read scriptures, listened to teachers, memorized beautiful sayings—but this is not your experience.

Second: there are important reasons why a person looks at the past. Children look to the future; the young look to the present; the old look to the past. The day you begin to look back, understand—you are turning old. A child has no past—what would he look back at? There’s nothing behind; all is ahead. Life is yet to be. There’s no story yet. Ask a child to write his autobiography—what can he write? “Autobiography—what is that? Nothing has happened yet; what story?” A young person looks to the present. Youth so intoxicates that where else can he look? “Enjoy now—who knows about tomorrow.” An old person begins to look back, because ahead there is only death, nothing else—darkness. Behind, much has happened: love and color, pleasure and pain, a long journey. He keeps turning back down that road.

So first I say to you: if you keep turning back to the past, you are growing old. Old age is not of the body; old age is of the mind. And a mind that is growing old looks backward. Old people sit sunk in memories—what they did, what happened. And they magnify what they did—not that they see it exactly as it was. If you’re going to watch, and alone, with your own film, your own screen, and you yourself the audience—why be stingy! You swell it greatly—and sink into it.

As death draws near, what remains to you in the name of life is only a heap of old memories. And you know only one way to feel still alive: clutch what has gone by—cling to what is gone.

The creeper has twined
round a lifeless tree—
how much the past
coddles the unborn

Even to a dry tree the vine clings. Support! No other support seems visible. Ahead, only darkness; within, only darkness. The one bright thing seems to be the line of the past along which you have come—this path that is over, that will never be again, that has already happened. You sit arranging these preserved blossoms, these dried flowers. You cling to them.

The creeper has twined
round a lifeless tree—
how much the past
coddles the unborn

It’s all dead, a corpse. Sometimes it happens: a she-monkey goes on carrying her baby pressed to her chest. Even when the baby dies, she keeps carrying it. It takes days—only when it rots and starts to stink does she drop it in a fright. Otherwise she goes on clutching the corpse—old habit.

The past is a corpse—gone, done. Dust. Ash; the ember is out. Don’t keep lying on this ash, don’t decorate it. If you remain entangled in ash, you will lack the eyes you need to look ahead—and that is now crucial, because death is approaching. A great darkness is about to fall; you will need great eyes. Don’t waste this time in old memories. Now, look ahead—only now does looking ahead have meaning. Children look ahead—that is natural; it has no special value. The young look at the present—natural; no special value. The old look back—natural; no special value.

Now understand: if a child begins to look back, a revolution has happened. That’s why the story says Lao Tzu was born old—because he was born looking back. Some children are born looking back. Such children have given the world the insight of many, many past lives. The children who are born looking back bring news to this world: there have been other births before. We are not new, not visitors; we are ancient. Those who retain the memory of past lives are born looking back. A youth who can look both backward and forward is extraordinary—because ordinarily youth sees only the moment: “What is here now—do it, pass through it; what will be, will be.” Youth is blind to everything but the present. When a youth can see both behind and ahead, discrimination is born. And when an old person begins to look ahead, he goes beyond death; he attains the nectar of immortality.

The capacity to see is the same—change the direction. In old age, become like a child. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Those who are like children will attain the kingdom.” This is what Ashtavakra says: become childlike. What does that mean? The word “childlike” has countless meanings. Among them is this: become like a child. If an old person becomes childlike, it means he has begun to look ahead. What’s gone is gone. Forgotten is forgotten—what is there to gather? He looks ahead. If an old person looks ahead like a child, he will see beyond death; he will attain the immortal. If a child looks back like an old man, he will see beyond birth; he will remember previous births. If a youth looks both ways, he becomes free of craving; he becomes a sannyasin. Seeing both behind and ahead, he realizes: what’s there in it? In the past—when you were a small child—what value did craving have? What value had ambition, wealth, status, prestige? If a youth looks back and looks ahead—one day again nothing will have value; death will come and wipe it all away—then how can it have value now? Then you see the deception.

Revolution happens when you succeed in doing something non-ordinary.

Form melts,
juice drains,
companionship fades—
color lingers

All melts, all perishes—but the color clings. You pass through a garden; the garden is left behind, but a little fragrance lingers in your clothes. Such are memories.

“Toys break; they do not die,”
mother said—
but the child kept crying.

A child weeps as if a death has happened when a toy breaks. For him, the breaking of a toy feels like death. But a knower—even when actual death happens, even when he himself dies—does not weep; tears do not come to his eyes. For a child, even a toy’s breaking feels like death; for the wise, even real death does not. “How can death happen!”

Rati—
the sensual urge;
the sensualist’s mind;
the yogi’s movement—

it is the same energy; not different ones. Rati—the sexual urge, the mind’s craving. In that craving the sensualist’s mind keeps drowning, taking dips. Now you are immersed in imagining even what you cannot do; you plan what cannot be. Give up this Sheikh Chilli-ism—daydreaming.

Rati—
the sensualist’s mind,
the yogi’s movement—

and the yogi, understanding that what happened was futile—like a dream that came and went—asks, “What is there in it?” When it was there, it was a dream even then to the wise; to the foolish, even when it is gone, it still seems real. In that very rati in which the sensualist drowns and is bound, the yogi, understanding, becomes mobile, moves beyond.

Let rati become virati (dispassion)—
this is the aim.
Let repetition become visible—
that is desire.

“I’ll do again what I did before”—this longing for repetition is what is called desire. What you have done once, done rightly, seen and understood, should free you forever. But if you want to do it again and again, it means you did not do it rightly.

So I say to you: perhaps you have grown old, but you were never truly young. You did not live what you lived rightly; you lived half-heartedly, incompletely, stuck midway. The mind is eager to complete it—so now it completes it in imagination. Whatever you are doing—do it rightly, totally. This is one of my basic understandings: do what you are doing totally; there is no hurry. When the fruit ripens, it falls. Don’t try to pluck it unripe.
Now it seems the one who has asked is a religious person. When he was young, the mistakes and missteps that needed to be made—because only by making them does one go beyond them—he could not make. In youth he must have been reading scriptures, sitting in temples. Now in old age, when energy has ebbed, life has begun to wane, and a panic has set in as the footsteps of death are heard, again and again the thought must be arising: what I couldn’t do, I should have done. Who knows whether anything remains after death or not. Now the accounting is running in imagination.
Man goes on weeping. He cries when he is doing, and when the days for doing are gone, he cries again. Psychologists say the ways people deceive themselves are astonishing.

You have noticed: everyone says childhood was so beautiful—those childhood days! But childhood, beautiful? Ask the children; they are in a hurry to grow up. They want to be free of childhood. They experience childhood as repression and dependence. A little child says to his mother, “May I go outside for a bit?” The mother says, “No, don’t go out.” Nothing big was being asked—there’s sunlight outside, butterflies are flying, children are playing—he just wants to go out, and the mother says no. Not even that much freedom! The child isn’t sleepy yet, but the mother says, “Go to bed; guests are here.” He’s forced into bed. In the morning, when he doesn’t want to get up and is still sleepy, he’s pulled out. What child wants to go to school? Yet he is sent. And you call those beautiful childhood days! Ask the children—they can’t wait to grow up.

A little child is being fed spinach by his mother. He’s crying, tears streaming down, and he says, “Why did God put all the vitamins in spinach? If He had put them in ice cream, what harm would there be? If vitamins had to be put somewhere, He could have put them in ice cream.” The mother says, “Eat, son—then you’ll become strong.” He says, “All right, I’ll eat—so that I can become strong enough that nobody can ever make me eat spinach again.” Strong enough that spinach can never be forced on me again.

Children want to escape somehow—how to get out of this prison? But when they grow up, the same children start saying childhood was beautiful. What happens? Man deceives himself. What is, is not beautiful; so he seeks consolation.

There are only two kinds of consolations: either you say the past was beautiful, or you say the future will be beautiful. Today is always un-beautiful. Right now there is only suffering. So you need happiness somewhere. False or not, at least let the thought be there that we too had happiness. So: happiness was in the past—childhood; or, happiness lies ahead.

There are only two kinds of people, and two kinds of religions, and two kinds of social ideologies. Hindus, Jains, Buddhists—they all say the Golden Age has passed, Sat Yuga has gone; it happened before, it won’t happen now—now there is only suffering. Communism, fascism, such ideologies say the Golden Age is coming; it is going to happen; it has not happened yet. Hindus say Ram Rajya has already been. Communists say Ram Rajya will be. The good world is coming; utopia is ahead. Just these two notions.

Hindus, Jains, Buddhists are old—ancient doctrines; they have grown old; they look back. Communism is still a child; it looks to the future. But both are equally deluded. Wherever you place your happiness—in the past or in the future—you are deceiving yourself. Do not escape the bitterness in life; live it, awaken to it. Look fully at what is today. Do not bewitch your mind with the past, nor with the future. Do not bewitch the mind at all. Do not seek consolations. See the truth. Only truth can give birth to bliss, not consolations.

Gone—
those dear, jewel-bright days are gone.
Spent—
the salty moments of the eyes are spent.

Rosy lips,
by a velvet kiss the sail was turned.
Tethered with a string of kohl,
the fish slipped the pond.

At the door,
deaf messengers passed without a song.

Gone—
those dear, jewel-bright days are gone.
Spent—
the salty moments of the eyes are spent.

People are weeping: everything is gone. Joy is gone, peace gone, beauty gone, health gone—everything gone. Do not remain entangled in this. You say it is futile; I say, know that it is futile. Don’t waste your energy. The same energy can become meditation. The same energy you spend with closed eyes on dreams of the past can become no-mind. The same energy can become prayer and worship. Either make it prayer or make it meditation; only through prayer and meditation will you attain that which is happiness, the great bliss. No one has ever attained it in any other way, nor can one. But whatever you do, energy is being spent, power is being wasted—and this is a great waste. Sitting and brooding—it is futile; you don’t yet see it, so the habit doesn’t drop. Don’t accept it on my word; see for yourself, reflect yourself, inquire yourself. It is futile—what substance is there in it? Why sit clinging to what once was? Why keep adding it up? It cannot be repeated; what is gone is gone. In this world nothing repeats. Time does not turn back. Why sit with it now? Stop this accounting. Burn these ledgers.

A right person, if he lives rightly, becomes free of his past day by day. Do not let the dust of the past settle on the mirror of the mind; otherwise the mirror will lose its very mirror-ness—only dust will remain. Wipe away the dust so the mirror becomes clear; in that clear mirror the reflection of truth will appear.

You say the habit doesn’t break. Understand the habit instead of trying to break it. No habit breaks by trying to break it; it breaks through understanding. Someone smokes and says, “I must quit.” The point is not to quit; understand that it is futile. Recognize it. Bring awareness to it.

Someone comes to me, a smoker, and says, “I must quit. I’ve tried so much—twenty years. I quit many times; I can force it for a day or two, and then it won’t hold. Those two days pass in such misery that it seems there is no point in living like this—better to smoke. All right—TB will happen, cancer will happen; when it happens, it happens; right now nothing is happening.”

I say to him, “Don’t try to quit. No habit drops by quitting. Understand the habit. When you smoke, smoke with great awareness. Don’t hurry. Very slowly take the cigarette from the pack. If you tap it once on the matchbox, tap it seven times—slowly, with relish—make it a ritual. Don’t rush. Then slowly put it to your lips. Keep a mirror before you; watch what you are doing. Then light the match. Draw the smoke in slowly. Then look within—what is happening? The smoke went in—did bliss arise? Is there a shower of sat-chit-ananda? Try to discern. Where exactly is the pleasure? When does it come? When the smoke is at the lips? When it goes in? At what point does kundalini awaken, when does the thousand-petalled lotus bloom, where in the heart’s doorway is there a tickle? Just keep watching. Then exhale, watch in the mirror, and reflect. If you smoke three times a day, smoke six—and each time do the whole process.”

Slowly you will find your stupidity becoming visible. You will feel very dull-witted: What am I doing? And you will be surprised to see that there is no joy anywhere—not at the lips, not in taking the smoke in. Sometimes a cough comes, sometimes tears come to the eyes, sometimes phlegm is produced—and that’s all. See it.

Your trouble? You want to quit because someone says TB will happen, someone says cancer will happen. From fear of cancer and TB you will not quit. In America they began printing on the packet that the government declares smoking is hazardous to health. People first thought printing it on the box would stop sales. For three or four weeks sales dropped. Then they went back to normal. People got used even to that. All right—print clearly that smoking will lead to death—and even then it will make no special difference. In fact, some who are eager to die may smoke more: “Fine. What’s the juice in living anyway? What festival is happening in life that you can scare someone with death?”

Mulla Nasruddin drinks. A doctor told him, “Now stop, old man, otherwise you will die!” Nasruddin said, “Can you say for sure that if I stop drinking, I will never die?” “We can’t say that.” “Then,” he said, “if drinkers die and non-drinkers also die, what’s the difference? And I’ll tell you one more thing: I have seen more old drunkards than old doctors.” This too is true. Go look. You will hardly find hundred-year-old doctors. A hundred-year-old drunkard you may find. “So if we must die anyway, then we’ll die drinking. What’s the point—everyone’s going to die, the good and the bad.”

No—no one drops a habit because of such talk. Habits don’t change that way. All that is false. Look at the habit itself. Don’t listen to the world. Enter the habit and look: Why am I drinking? If you find no reason at all, your stupidity will begin to show.

A young man who smoked asked me. I told him, “Do this meditation—and come tell me what you find, why it is in you.” He did exactly as I said for five or six weeks. Then he even got frightened, because it seems sheer madness. When you do it unconsciously, everything goes on; but when you do it with awareness…

He told me, “It seems this habit came from childhood, because I used to suck my thumb. I did it for a long time, and then they forced me to stop. And I feel I need something in my mouth—the thumb keeps coming to mind when I watch in the mirror as you say. From the unconscious this arises: thumb-sucking.”

I said, “Good. Now you have the thread. From today, suck your thumb.” He said, “What are you saying—what will people say!” Forget people. What have people to do with it? The decision is between you and God, not between you and people. He asked, “Will that make the cigarette drop?” I said, “I won’t promise anything; first start sucking your thumb.”

He sucked his thumb for a week—and the cigarette dropped. Then he said, “Now you’ve given me another problem—this thumb! The cigarette was at least somewhat normal; this thumb—if I start sucking it here and there in front of people, at my age, it will not look right.”

The cigarette is a substitute. Many had the habit of thumb-sucking, or the mother’s breast was taken away too soon—before they wanted to leave it. The connection with the mother’s breast is very deep in the cigarette. The warm smoke triggers the memory of warm milk. The cigarette in the mouth is like the breast in the mouth. Thumb-sucking too is a substitute for the breast. What can the child do? He wants the breast; the mother won’t give it—so he gives himself the thumb. One must find some substitute.

When this person began to meditate on the smoking habit, these things began to appear. I told him, “Don’t worry—fill your heart with the thumb. Now bring awareness to the thumb.” Cigarettes are harder to leave because nicotine goes into the blood and the body becomes habituated. The thumb was easy to drop. Once the cigarette was gone and the thumb took its place—there is no poison in the thumb, no nicotine. Truly, if someone sucks his thumb, never disrespect him. The cigarette deserves disrepute; the thumb is entirely innocent. And it’s your own thumb—not someone else’s. That much freedom a man should have.

He went—and the thumb went. Because there is no inertia in it. Once awareness happened, the matter ended.

Do not be as eager to drop the habit as to understand it. It is through understanding that the habit drops.

What is the difference between mind and thought? Thought is a wave; mind is the sum of all the waves. Thought is a component; mind is the collected current of all thoughts. It is like someone asking, what is the difference between a forest and trees? We would say, the sum total of all the trees is the forest. If you separate every tree one by one, it isn’t that when you have removed all the trees some forest will still remain behind. Nothing remains.

There is an old Buddhist story. The Greek general Milinda invited the Buddhist monk Nagasena to the royal court and waited eagerly for him. Nagasena arrived; a chariot had been sent for him, and he came seated in it. As he stepped down—Nagasena’s greatest teaching was precisely this, that the “person” is not, only an aggregate—Milinda welcomed him, saying, “Bhikshu Nagasena, we welcome you, please enter the palace.” Nagasena said, “I have come, yes—but let me say at the outset, I am not. ‘Nagasena’ is only a name, like ‘forest’—a sum of certain things: body, thoughts, habits, conditionings. I am not.”

Milinda was a Greek—his Greek name is Menander, Milinda is the Indian form—one of the generals Alexander left behind in India. The Greeks are followers of Aristotle; they rely greatly on logic. He said, “What nonsense is this—that you have come and yet you are not? If you are not, how did you come? If you are not, who came?” But Nagasena was a remarkable man. He said, “Let us settle this first, before we go inside. Is this a chariot?” Milinda said, “Yes, a chariot.” Nagasena said, “Instruct the servants to unhitch the horses.” The horses were unyoked. He asked, “Now, is it still a chariot?” Milinda said, “It is still a chariot.” Nagasena said, “Now remove the wheels.” The wheels were taken off. Milinda grew a little uneasy. He asked, “Is it still a chariot?” Nagasena said, “It is—for the moment—but the chariot’s condition is deteriorating! Now it is a chariot in name only. If we remove a few more things, everything will be in a mess.” Nagasena said, “When I remove everything, will any chariot be left behind?” Milinda understood. The chariot is only an aggregate. And Nagasena said, “Tell me: did the chariot come or not? And is there a chariot or not? I tell you: the chariot came, and there is no chariot. ‘Chariot’ is only a designation, a mere name.”

Mind is only an aggregate. Mind, as such, is nothing—like the chariot—remove the wheels, remove the horses, remove the axle, dismantle the frame into pieces, and nothing remains behind.

You ask, what is the difference between mind and thought?
Exactly the difference between forest and trees. Thoughts are like trees; the collected crowd of trees we call ‘forest’. That is why we say: as a person gradually lets go of thoughts, becomes thought-free, in the final moment he attains the state of no-mind.

“And yesterday you said that actions are formed from thought.”
Certainly. Thought is a seed. Thought is half an act. A thought arises within you—the impulse to do is itself a thought. You think, “Let’s build a big house.” For now it is only a thought, but if you pursue it, the house will be built. You think, “Let’s kill this man.” For now it is a thought, but if it keeps recurring, taking root inside you, one day it will sprout; you will kill the man.

Dostoevsky’s famous novel is Crime and Punishment. In it a young man lives across from an old woman. She is very old—the richest in the town—and has sucked the blood of everyone. She is a pawnbroker, almost blind, around eighty. The young man lives opposite; many times, sitting idly, he thinks, “Why doesn’t this old woman just die! What need is there for her to be? What is the point of her existence? She has no one before or after her. Why is she tormenting the whole town? Everyone is distressed by her.” So the thought is quite natural. Many times it arises in him: “Students are starving, they have no money for fees, and this old woman keeps hoarding wealth—for whom? The whole town could prosper if she were to die. Why doesn’t someone kill her?” These are only thoughts.

Then exam time draws near, he must pay his fees, and he has no money. He has to go to this old woman to pawn his watch. For two years he had kept thinking again and again that someone should kill her. He had never thought, “I should kill her.” Never. But two years of unbroken continuity—as the saying goes, the rope, by going to and fro, wears a groove into the stone—he thought and thought; the thought grew stronger. He went, at dusk, gave her the watch. She, very old, with great difficulty, stood up, went to the window—weak eyes—to see in the light whether the watch was fit to pawn or not. And then, who knows what happened to the young man—Raskolnikov is his name—he suddenly lunged and pressed her neck from behind. As he pressed her neck, he himself did not understand what he was doing—he simply did it. And the woman died at once—she was very old—at his pressing she died; she did not even scream. He panicked. She fell. He was utterly frightened; he had never wanted this. He had not wished to kill. But if a thought has pursued you for long, it slowly enters your body; mechanically, the thought killed the woman.

She made no sound; he quietly went down to his room, to his home. No one knew through the night. In the morning people found the old woman dead. The police began to investigate. There was no clue; no one could imagine this young man would kill. He was a simple student; there was no question of him. But he began to panic.

Another fear seized him: “I will be caught. I will be punished. I will be jailed. My life is ruined.” A month passed, two months passed—he just lay in his room thinking. Someone walks by in the street; he hears the creak of a policeman’s boots and thinks, “They’ve come!” Someone knocks at the door—it’s the postman—and he thinks, “They’ve come!” He gets ready, “Now I’m finished!” Three months passed; nothing happened. But the thought now kept revolving within: “Caught, caught, caught.”

One day, suddenly—his condition became so distorted—that he went to the police station and surrendered: “I have committed murder. Why don’t you arrest me? How long can I endure this? I am going mad!” The inspector tried to persuade him: “Your mind is disturbed. Why would you commit a murder? We know you. Go away. Your brain is deranged! You’ve studied too much, stayed up too many nights; your eyes... You haven’t slept properly. Go sleep!” He sent him home, but the young man kept returning: “I killed her. Why won’t you accept it?” Now he longed for punishment so he could be freed from the crime. Such a person gets entangled. Thoughts become acts.

Therefore thinkers like Mahavira and Buddha have said: even if you commit a bad deed in thought, be alert! Do not think, “It’s only a thought.” There is no such thing as “only a thought,” because every thought leaves a groove. The thought you think today will come tomorrow, and the day after. Gradually it will arise more easily. One day, suddenly, you will find it has become an act. The line of thought deepens and becomes deed—karma.

Therefore, whoever seeks freedom from the realm of action must be freed from the realm of thought. Only a thoughtless person is free from the net of karma. That is why we have taken thoughtlessness as the basis for release from karma. You will not be free of action until you go so deep in meditation that thoughts cease to arise.

Krishna says in the Gita: if you are inwardly empty and you act, no sin accrues; and even if you do not act, yet thoughts keep running within, then sin has happened.

Action does not carry as much weight as thought, because action follows thought; it is secondary, a shadow, a result.

“You also say that everything happens; then what is the difference between this happening and a thought-born act—an act that happens out of thought?”
Only this much: as long as you make something happen through thinking, you become the doer: “I did it.” The day you do not think—you drop thought, you become empty, a hollow bamboo reed—then whatever happens is being done by Existence; you are not doing it. Your action still happens, but it does not happen because of you. You are merely a conduit, an instrument.

This state of being a mere instrument is the state of the liberated-in-life. Ashtavakra says: the knower acts, and acting, does not act; sees, and does not see; speaks, and does not speak. What does it mean? Only this: the wise one makes no effort from his own side; whatever Existence wishes, he lets it happen. The wise does not become an obstacle in the path of Existence. His surrender is total. He neither does from his side, nor does he resist from his side. Whatever happens, he allows it to happen—the Lord’s will. If he is a devotee, he will say, “The Lord’s will.” If he is a meditator, he will say, “the flow of the Whole, the Tao, suchness.” These are only differences of name.

Search within the mind. Old age may have come to the body, but the mind is still entangled in pleasures. The body may have grown worn out; the mind still has not awakened. The mind is still asleep.

Abhavatulya
O, the enchantments and attainments of love—
Here I am;
Find me here again,
In my singing resolves.
Appease,
Appease my hopes,
That they do not sulk yet—
There is still so much
In life’s promises.

Till the very end man goes on thinking: let me enjoy a little more, a little more.
There is still so much
In life’s promises.
Why be sad already? Why be disheartened already? I have not died yet! I am still alive—so if I am alive, let me enjoy a little more. Pleasure still has meaning; there is still taste in it. That is why you say, “I am growing old, yet I cannot gather the courage to take sannyas.”

This is not a question of courage. Your body is growing old; the mind—the mind is not old yet.

Mulla Nasruddin was walking along a road, and seeing a beautiful young woman he changed direction and began following her. In the jostling crowd he pushed her. The woman said, “Have a little care—your hair is all white!” Mulla said, “My hair may have turned white, but my heart is still black!”

By growing old on the plane of the body, nothing essential happens. These are just hairs cooked in the sun; there is no wealth of experience in them. When there is the wealth of experience, one becomes “mature.” Merely becoming old is of no use—mature! That is why in the East we used to greatly honor the elder. But that honor was not for every old person; it was for the “buzurg,” the venerable. The very word “buzurg” became respectful. The “mature” became worshipful. Why? He has seen life, and seeing it, has found that there is nothing there. He has seen it as futile; the dream of life has broken. Now there are no dreams in his eyes. Now he has no relationship left with life as such. He knows—everything is futile.

You are growing old, yet you cannot gather the courage to take sannyas, because within you the world still has its abode. Life is slipping from your hands, but you are not yet eager to let go; you still want to grasp. Death will come and snatch it away, but you are not willing to release it with your own hand.

What does sannyas mean? Sannyas means recognizing death. Sannyas means becoming familiar with death’s truth. Its sole meaning is: what death will snatch from me, why should I let death do that work? Let me do it myself. Let me drop it myself. If death is going to snatch, why this wrestling and snatching? Why commit that ungraceful act? Why not do it in a graceful, prasad-like way—let me offer it myself. Sannyas means only this: you drop all that death will take from you, and you save only that which death cannot touch. Then death stands before you poor and powerless. Then it can take nothing from you.

Therefore the worldly man dies; the sannyasin does not. The sannyasin moves from this petty life into the vast. Only the worldly dies, not the sannyasin. That is why in this country we call a sannyasin’s tomb a samadhi—we do not call it a grave. An ordinary man’s grave we do not call a samadhi. He is still carrying on with the world—somewhere else he will be doing it. He died here and was born somewhere else. The sannyasin’s death is samadhi, because he died willingly—he dropped everything. And when I say to you “drop,” I do not mean run away. I mean: the inner clinging should fall away. Remain where you are, as you are—only, let there be no inner grip.

I have not yet forgotten the last reverberation,
I have not forgotten the love of the earlier days;
Take me in your lap, anoint me with joy,
Beloved, tune the veena of my heart once again today.

The mind does not forget. It keeps becoming young again and again. Waves keep returning. Again and again the desire arises to revisit the old pleasures.

Even now the fertile fragrance keeps searching in the flowers;
Timid, broken, the half-said tale of the past still flickers in the ears;
Even now the eyes keep stealing—like moonlight from the earth;
Even now there is the same hiding behind the balconies of the stars;
The footprints of beauty have not yet gone stale in the bowers;
Across the winds are drawn the drooping shadows of enchanted eyelids;
On the cheek of Time the drops of trust have not yet dried;
Even now the breast of emptiness throbs with breath.

Again and again the heart throbs with desire. Again the juice seems juicy. Dreams become alive again. You have grown old, but your dreams have not. Your body has entered autumn, but the mind is still celebrating spring. The body’s death has begun to draw near—what does old age mean? The body’s death is approaching. And what does sannyas mean? It means you also call near the death of the mind. The body’s death comes by itself; the mind’s death does not come by itself. Sannyas, in the precise sense, is suicide—of the ego. When you say someone committed “suicide,” you do not speak accurately, because he kills only the body—how will he kill the soul! The sannyasin commits self-slaughter: he kills the “I,” the sense of “me,” he kills the mind. This death of the mind—that is sannyas.

And yes, courage is needed. To move toward your own death—how will you go without courage? But courage arises naturally, once it is seen that there is nothing here.

There was an emperor named Ibrahim. One night he heard someone walking on his roof and called out loudly, “Who is it?” The man said, “Sleep peacefully; don’t make a fuss. My camel is lost; I am looking for it.” Ibrahim thought: some madman has climbed onto the roof—to look for a camel! Do camels get lost on rooftops? He got up, sent his soldiers, but the man had fled. Yet his words kept echoing in Ibrahim’s mind.

In the morning he rose; still he remembered again and again: what kind of man is this! He climbed the royal roof to look for a camel. And yet his voice had a certain grace and strength—something that is not in a madman’s voice, something that is sometimes in the voice of a realized one. So there was a flavor to it, and curiosity arose. He wished to find that man—but could not.

The next day, when court assembled, a man came and began quarreling with the gatekeeper. Hearing the voice, Ibrahim recognized it—the same voice. He ran out and said, “Let this man come in.” The dispute was about this: the man—a beggar, a fakir, utterly carefree—was saying, “Let me stay in this inn.” And the guard was saying, “This is not an inn; this is the king’s palace, the king’s residence. Have you gone mad?” The fakir kept saying, “I tell you, it is an inn—let me stay. Stop this nonsense. What king? Whose palace? Two days of lodging—today arrived, tomorrow gone—these are all inns. Let me stay.” Ibrahim heard the voice; it was the same! He ran and said, “Let him in. I have been looking for him.”

Ibrahim said, “Tell me—what are you saying! You call this an inn. This is an insult to the emperor. This is my palace.” The man laughed and said, “I came here earlier too. Then there was another man who said this was his palace.” Ibrahim said, “He was my father.” The fakir said, “But I came before that as well, and there was a third man then who said this was his palace. And I have always said, this is an inn.” Ibrahim said, “He was my father’s father.” The fakir said, “Now do you understand? One man claimed, ‘my palace’—he went. Another claimed, ‘my palace’—he went. Now you have come. How long will you stay? I will come again and find a fourth. How long will this nonsense continue? That’s why I say it is an inn—people halt and go; a night’s lodging, and in the morning the birds fly away. Let me halt too. You also are halting—why pretend to be the owner?”

They say Ibrahim was struck—by the man’s voice, his power, his blow—and he said to him, “You stay; I will go. If it is an inn, then stay at your ease—but I am leaving.” Ibrahim left the palace! And whenever anyone later asked him, “What did you do?” he would say, “I understood the point. It is true. How many have halted in this palace, come and gone—it will be the same with me. If I must go, why the claim! I dropped it.” And Ibrahim said, “From the day I left that inn, I found my home. I came to know my true dwelling.”

Sannyas is courage, yes—but not as difficult as you imagine. Once understood, it is very simple. I say only this to you: this world is an inn. And I do not even say you must leave it and go. Ashtavakra would not say that either. If I had been in that fakir’s place—or Ashtavakra—we would have said to Ibrahim, “Enough—where are you going now? If it is an inn, why go anywhere? Stay joyfully; only know it is an inn—the matter is finished.” Where is there to go? That which is not yours—how can you leave it? Even in leaving, the sense of “mine” persists. The matter ends when you see: this is not my home, it is an inn—that is sannyas. She is not “my” wife, he is not “my” son. There is no need to tell anyone, no need for band and parade, no procession that you have taken initiation. The moment you understand, it is done.

That is why I give sannyas with such simplicity. I don’t even ask, “Will you be able to manage it?” Manage what? There is nothing here to manage. I don’t ask, “Will you be able to keep discipline?” What discipline—what discipline in a world of dreams? I don’t ask, “What will you do with wife and children?” Only this: let there be the awareness that here there is no mine or thine. It belongs to the One to whom it belongs. We too are his; all is his. If this much happens, sannyas has happened.

And if you cannot gather courage even to take my sannyas, how will you take any other kind? Those are full of trouble. This is very easy and natural. In fact, I tell you people easily gather the courage to take the old-style sannyas, because in that the ego gets prestige, convenience. You become a renunciate, a Jain monk; there is a chariot, a procession, initiation; people touch your feet—there the ego enjoys, there is a sense of doership. Here there is nothing. Here people will think you have gone crazy; they will laugh; they will say your brain has gone bad—you also got into these things. “We didn’t expect this of you—that someone as intelligent as you would get into such ideas!” If you take the old sannyas, though you be a fool, you will be taken for wise. If you take my sannyas, though you be intelligent, you will be taken for a fool. Hence the difficulty. My point is utterly simple.

What courage is required? No one is asking you to do something great. You don’t have to climb the Himalayas or go to the moon and stars. Just a little awareness—a small key that turns and the lock opens. There is no need to pound hammers on the lock—the old sannyasins are pounding hammers. I say: there is a key; no need for hammers.

And be quick—there is no guarantee of tomorrow. Who can say whether the moment after this one will come or not!

The evening hour is passing by.
The redness, shrinking each moment into a single line,
Says: the fair of seven-hued clouds is ending.
The evening hour is passing by.
In the sky, restless, eager,
Now flying here, now there,
A laggard bird, alone, seeks the path to its nest.
The evening hour is passing by.
It says: the fair of seven-hued clouds is ending.
It seeks the path to the nest,
A laggard bird, alone.
The evening hour is passing by.

Moment by moment the evening draws nearer; the sun goes on setting. The longer you delay, the harder it will be, the darker it will become. Finding the path to the nest will become difficult. While a little light remains, make provision. While a little strength remains, make provision. While a little life remains, seek the temple. Do a little worship, a little meditation.

And if you cannot muster courage—then I say to you: step in without mustering it. Let it not become an excuse, “When the courage gathers, then.” “When full courage gathers, then.” Just step in—even despite all your fears. All kinds of fears—granted. Step in anyway. In life you have done a thousand things without first summoning courage. When you married, had you gathered courage? You jumped in, “All right, we’ll see what happens.” And what you saw—now you wouldn’t dare do it a second time! For what did you ever “gather courage”? Here everything is unknown, unfamiliar. One has to step into the unfamiliar. Nothing is known. Where are the maps? Where are the guidebooks?

Life is not a set of beaten tracks. At every moment you must move into the unknown, the unfamiliar. In just that way, go into sannyas too. When you were born, did you first consider whether to come or not? When you die, will anyone ask you whether to die or not? Birth happened, death will happen; love happened, marriage happened; you lost, you won, you succeeded and failed—you did it all. Where was courage?

Let meditation and prayer happen in the same way. Let sannyas happen in the same way. Do not let “courage” be a pretext that creates an obstacle for you: “When courage is there, then.”

The day before yesterday a young woman took sannyas. She had been here a month, kept coming and saying, “I want to take it, but my mind is not fully settled.” I said, “No one’s mind ever becomes ‘fully’ settled. It will be fully settled only when you are fully awakened. For now it cannot be complete. If it is even fifty-one percent ‘yes’ and forty-nine percent ‘no,’ then take it. Even if only a one- or two-percent edge is there—if fifty-one says take it and forty-nine says don’t—take it. If you don’t, you are siding with the forty-nine. You must decide something.”

Think a little!
When you say, “How can I take sannyas now—my decision is not complete,” you are deciding not to take sannyas. You are deciding anyway. Is the decision not to take it complete? At most it is a matter of percentages. If more than half your mind is ready to take it, then take it. If less than half is ready, then leave it—drop the worry. But settle one of the two. Don’t hang in between—neither here nor there. Otherwise your mind will neither be in the world nor in sannyas. You will live in the world while thinking of sannyas; not entering sannyas, the double-mindedness will remain. You will be wobbly.

Be single-pointed. Either decide not to take it—but decide that too with awareness, and then drop the topic—or decide to take it. Don’t think too much about courage and such. Put aside all notions of courage, fear, security, insecurity.

And remember: there are some things that are known only by taking the plunge; they are not known without it. I told that young woman, “If you want to learn swimming, you will have to enter the water, because there is no other way to learn. With cushions and pillows you will not learn. Yes—enter first into shallow water, then a little deeper, then deeper.”

The conception of sannyas I have given you—what could be more “on the bank” than this! What could be shallower than this! Just wade in up to your neck. Learn to move your arms and legs there. Once you can move freely, then deeper, and deeper. She thought for a moment and said, “All right, I’ll take it. I am afraid—but despite the fear, I’ll take it.”

That is how it happens. And this is the mark of intelligence. Only the dull-witted never worry. Tell the dull, “Take sannyas,” and they say, “All right.” But these are precisely the people in whose lives there is no consciousness. It is not a high quality. Tell them to drop it, and they say, “All right.” For them, neither taking nor dropping has any meaning. There is no value in their life that they determine.

So don’t treat it as some grave worry that great thoughts and doubts arise—this is natural. Doubts arise for the intelligent. But the intelligent person, despite all that, sets out on the journey.

Now don’t bang your head against theories about whether we ever met before or not. If the meeting is happening now, then taste this meeting fully. Don’t try to untie these knots of whether we met before or not. Don’t waste time on it. What value has the past? But the mind thinks just this way: Did we meet before, or not? And it also worries: Might we be separated in the future? The mind wobbles only in the future and the past. Right now I am here, you are here—let us, for a little while, drown in that ecstasy which is the ecstasy of existence, which I want to share with you. For a little while forget past and future. For a little while let this very moment become everything.

Choose the rainbow-hued draught of ecstasy
Tear to shreds the old robe of reason
Estranged friends have met with warmth
For this lovely season give thanks to the Creator
Choose the rainbow-hued draught of ecstasy

Choose the rainbow-hued draught of ecstasy—
the intoxicated, jubilant, color-drenched way of living that is life’s own style.

Choose the rainbow-hued draught of ecstasy
Tear to shreds the old robe of reason

Break the babble of the intellect; rip it up and cast it aside.

Tear to shreds the old robe of reason
Estranged friends have met with warmth

As when two long-separated friends meet—then they hardly worry about past or future.

Estranged friends have met with warmth
For this lovely season give thanks to the Creator

So for this wondrous season, for this moment, give thanks to the Divine.

Drop this anxiety. Again and again your questions come: Were we together before? You are not able to be together now, and you are busy worrying whether we were together then! Even if we were, what use is it? If we were not, what difference does it make? Be together now. For these two moments that are in our hands, walk together. Let oneness happen in this very moment.

Choose the rainbow-hued draught of ecstasy
Tear to shreds the old robe of reason

Do not bring the intellect’s talk in between.

Only in rapture does the heart find the knowing of Being—
as in a dream one goes to meet the unseen God.
Where there is rapture, there is a temple. And rapture is always here and now, never in past or future.
Wherever you drown in some ecstasy, there the messages of existence begin to arrive.
And in rapture, for the first time, the unseen becomes seen, the invisible becomes visible.

The fragrance of our ecstatic meeting settled in my heart
Your magic lay over my every sense
I wandered swaying in your sweet remembrance
A state of drunkenness seized me, without cup or goblet

If you give me just a little chance—let me enter your heart—then without drinking, wine will overtake you.

I wandered swaying in your sweet remembrance
A state of drunkenness seized me, without cup or goblet

Without drinking, a wine will overtake you.

The fragrance of our ecstatic meeting settled in my heart
Your magic lay over my every sense

Do not fall into thinking; do not bring doctrines in between. Let there be no doctrines, no scriptures between you and me; no concept, no argument between us. Let there be nothing between us—let there be a bridge of emptiness—then rhythm will rise, song will awaken. And in that very rapture perhaps, for the first time, you will taste the supreme truth of life.

Life is a celebration, and only in celebration do we come to know what life is.

That is all for today.