Maha Geeta #88

As long as there are peaks, there will be valleys. As long as there is the longing for the peak, you will have to endure the melancholy of the valleys as well. One who has asked for pleasure has, along with it, asked for pain. And when pleasure comes, pain enters with it like a shadow.

We change the names of our pleasures, but we do not become free of pleasure; and the one who is not free of pleasure will not be free of pain. Ashtavakra’s entire teaching is just this: be free of duality. Only the one who is free of duality arrives. The peak you think you have reached is the illusion of arrival—because there is no peak to arrive at. Arrival is a vast plain—neither height nor depth. Arrival is like a scale that has balanced: both pans exactly equal and the needle at rest. Or like a clock whose pendulum swings left and right and so the clock keeps going; but if it stops in the exact middle—neither left nor right—the clock stops.

Where there is neither pleasure nor pain, where you rest between the two—that is liberation, that is freedom. Otherwise the mind keeps inventing new games: to get wealth, to get meditation; success in the world, success in religion. But as long as the mind seeks success and searches for pleasure, you will go on meeting pain—because every day contains night, and thorns grow with the flowers. The flower is not separate from the thorns, nor night from day.

If you are to drop, drop both. You cannot drop just one. All of us are trying to drop only one: “Let the night end; let there be only day.” It won’t happen. The world is made of duality. Yes—if you slip outside the duality, if you transcend it and become a witness to both… Now understand the difference.

You say, “Sometimes I am on the summit.”
When you are on the summit—some peace arises, some joy, some thrill, an inner celebration—you identify with that celebration. You think, “I am the celebration; I am joy.” Right there is the miss. Remain a witness. Let the peak be, let it rise; let it become Gaurishankar; let the great height come—but you remain standing a little apart, just watching. Do not get joined. Do not say, “I am bliss.” Say only, “Bliss is happening; I am the watcher. I am not bliss.” Then, after a little while, you will find the peak has gone and the valley has come; day has gone, night has come. Even then, keep knowing: “I am not melancholy.” See that there is sadness, there is pain, there is suffering—but I stand apart, merely the seer. Watch pleasure, watch pain. When you become the watcher, what peak, what valley? What victory, what defeat?

Otherwise the mind goes on playing new tricks.

What do they call unhappy, and what happy?
Whom do they call compelled, and whom free?
It is one heart that dons a hundred disguises, Firaq—
Whom do they call ruined, and whom thriving?

It is one heart, appearing in a hundred postures—sometimes on the peak, sometimes in the valley. The one who is on the peak is the same one who is in the valley; it is not something different. When you feel yourself on the peak you become so impressed—“Ah, I have arrived!” The very moment you say, “Ah, I have arrived,” the descent has begun. Don’t say it at all—then you can never miss. Do not grasp, and nothing can be snatched away. Stand aside, impartial, and keep watching.

Now, when this hour of pleasure comes again—and remember: begin with pleasure. Do not begin with pain. You will want to begin with pain. You will say, “All right, when the valley comes, melancholy surrounds me, when the dark night grips me, then I will say, ‘I am the witness; I stand apart.’” In pain, everyone wants to stand apart; there is no great skill in that. Who wants to identify with pain! Even your mind tells you to step aside from pain. No—do not begin with pain. If you begin there, it will be fruitless. When the hour of pleasure comes—lotuses blooming all around, the moon blossoming above, and nectar flowing everywhere—then take a leap out and say, “I am not pleasure; I am only the witness.”

If you win in pleasure, you will also win in pain. If you start your effort from pain, you will never win—because the mind naturally wants to separate from pain. There is no sadhana in that, no real endeavor, no quality to it. Who doesn’t want to be free of the thorn? When the thorn pricks, everyone wants to throw it away. The real feat is to throw away the flower—and for the one who has thrown away the flower, the thorns vanish from life.

Otherwise you will remain entangled. In the valley you will yearn for the peak; on the peak you will be haunted by the fear of the valley: “It must be coming again; the night will return.” The sun has risen, it is noon, evening is approaching—night must be on its way. You cannot be at ease on the peak, because the valley will keep returning to your memory. How can a successful man be truly joyful? He is afraid: “Now failure will come; how long can I remain successful? It may be lost.” And one who fears losing—how can he be happy? That happiness is a deception.

The greed and craving for this perishable life did not depart;
From this heart the desire for triumph did not depart.
Your name still flows upon the stone of the grave—
Even after dying, the hope of life did not depart.

The craving for this passing life does not go.
What is snatched away in a moment, we start asking for again. We never reflect that what was lost in a moment, even if it returns, will be lost again in a moment. Its very nature is momentary.

And how many defeats have you tasted—still the lust to win does not leave. This itch for victory holds the mind fast: “Let me win! If not in the world, then in God’s realm; if I could not make a heaven here, let me attain it there. If I did not accumulate wealth, I will accumulate virtue. If I did not gather money, I will gather meditation. But I will show that I can win.”

This craving for triumph does not go—even up to the last breath.

Now even your name is etched upon the gravestone; you are buried beneath it.
Yet even buried, you still hope for life again—another birth. While alive, you never truly lived; and living, you were seized by the fear of death—at every step, the tremor: “Now it will come, now it will come. Surely it is coming; today one died, tomorrow another. We stand in a queue; the line keeps getting shorter; we move forward; death comes closer day by day.” Alive, you fear death; dead, you long for life again. Such is the circle of duality. Our people have called it the wheel of samsara—the cycle of the world—which means: clinging to the opposite of whatever is. If you begin to simply see what is, then bit by bit that, too, will drop—and the opposite will drop with it.

When a moment of pleasure comes again, be courageous—it requires great courage to be awake in pleasure. In pleasure, one wants to fall asleep; one thinks, “With such difficulty this happiness came—why destroy it by becoming a witness now? Somehow it came; let me enjoy it.” The old habit, the old conditioning of identification will seize you again. Keep courage.

What is there in keeping hope in someone?
What is there in remaining near someone?
Perhaps it has just become a habit, otherwise—
What is there, Firaq, in remaining sad?

A habit, a conditioning—otherwise what is there in remaining sad! And what is there in remaining cheerful! There is nothing in sadness, nothing in elation. In both states you lose yourself; in both, you are emptied out. In every moment—whether pleasure or pain—there is only one thing worth attaining: the state of witnessing. Wake up and watch. Do not link yourself to anything. If you do not link yourself with outer things, you will link with the inner realm—that is called yoga. If you link outwardly, you will break inwardly—that is called separation. To be broken from yourself is separation; to be joined to yourself is yoga.

That which can be defined is not God. Take this as the definition of God. Whatever can be defined—given a definition—is not the divine. For definition means we have drawn a boundary around something. Definition is possible only of the limited; it is not possible of the unlimited. So whatever we say will be smaller than it. Whatever we say will be untrue.

Hence Lao Tzu has said: the moment anything is said about truth, it becomes untruth. The very saying makes it untrue. Words are very limited; truth is vast. It is like being asked to bind the sky in your fist. The sky can be in your fist if the fist is open. If the fist is closed, the sky is lost.

A definition is a closed fist. Therefore there can be no definition—only indications. An indication is an open fist. Nothing is grasped, only pointed to. There can be pointers, but no definitions.

And you ask what God’s image is like? All images are his. Whatever you have ever seen is his image. There is nothing other than him. Infinite, infinite are his images. Yet in no single image is he exhausted. All forms are his. And all forms can be his only because he himself is formless. Only the formless can become all forms. How many waves arise in the ocean! Every wave is of the ocean—the small wave, the big wave, the foamy wave, the foamless wave, the wave that comes like a fierce storm and can drown boats—every wave is his, every form is his, of the one ocean. But the ocean itself is formless.
The one who has asked is also a form of the Divine, also an image. When you stand before a mirror in the morning and look into it, the one you see is God as well. Not only the idols kept in temples are God; the rough, unhewn stones lying by the roadside are God too. For apart from God there is nothing else. The word “Paramatma” has only one meaning: existence. Do not be misled by the word “God”; it does not mean a person. It means this vast, living energy of the universe—this very existence.
I wonder: whence did this world arise?
My stunned intellect can say nothing.
Then the heart whispers: the inference seems this—
if there is a pot, somewhere there must be a potter.

But whoever wrote these lines has no clue of the Divine. God is not an inference. Most of what you have heard is of this kind—childish. People say:

Then the heart whispers: the inference seems this—
if there is a pot, there must be a potter.

But then a bigger tangle begins: if there is a potter, who made the potter? This doesn’t go very far. God has nothing to do with inference; only with experience. Inference is imagined; it is our helplessness—seeing such a vastness we assume there must be someone running it. But that is the mind’s inference. What news can a mere inference bring of the Divine? It is like trying to bail out the ocean with a spoon.

God is not inference, nor logic, nor doctrine—God is experience. Experience means: you melt. And then you do not conclude “If there is a pot, there must be a potter,” you know that pot and potter are not two—they are one. The Creator and the creation are not two.

The notion planted in your mind about God is of someone far away, seated on a heavenly throne. So you seek far and miss the near. You do not see in these trees close by, in the rocks here; you search beyond the moon and stars. But God is near—nearer than near.

You do not see in your wife, your husband, your child. You look to Rama, to Krishna, to Buddha, to Mahavira—far away. In the Vedas, the Quran, the Gita, the Bible—not in your own handwriting; not in the love-letter your wife wrote you; not in the lisping words of your child, but in Krishna’s sayings. You look far, therefore you miss. And God is near. God lisps in your child, tries to walk within your child. He is the green of the trees, the hum in the birds, the invisible in the gusts of wind. All that surrounds you is none other than God. Wherever you bow, your hands touch his feet. Wherever you lift your eyes, you behold him.

So do not ask in this way, or your life will pass like this. Something is amiss in the question itself.

Alas, my life passed in tears,
each day I only washed the heart’s grief.
Never once, even in dreams, did I behold my Joseph—
though all my life passed in sleep.

If you do not see the near, you will sleep through life; Joseph will not appear, the Beloved will not be seen. The Beloved is touching you. When you draw breath in, the Beloved enters you. When you drink water, the Beloved passes through your throat; and the feeling of satisfaction that arises there, that too arises in his throat. There is none other. Do not ask for definitions—ask for pointers. Do not say, “Tell me where God is, what his image is. In the mosque, in the temple, in the gurdwara?” He is everywhere.

Whoever tried to see him in one place missed. Whoever said, “He is only in the temple,” is an atheist. Whoever said, “Only in the mosque,” is an atheist. Whoever said, “Only in the church,” is an atheist. Whoever said, “Only in Jesus,” is an atheist. Whoever said, “Only in Krishna,” is also an atheist. Whoever set a boundary to God is God’s enemy. Free God—at least free him; you may not be free, but do not bind even God.

God is known in the near, and the way to know the near is love—not inference, not logic. When your heart hums a song, when it overflows in the feeling of love, then you experience God. God is not an inference, he is love’s realization.

My beloved calls—
Where are you?
Whose is this shade
and whose are these songs?
My heart trembles—
Where are you?
Whose are these thorns,
whose these leaves?
My being thrills—
Where are you?
My love has paused—
Where are you?

Call like a lover. A definition of God? Definitions belong to mathematics. Ask Euclid—he can reel off all the definitions of geometry. Definitions are man-made. Within you there is something not made by you; seek God through that. Within you is love—not made by you.

Have you noticed? A person can make everything, but cannot make love. Build temples, build mosques, grand ones—yet if someone says “Make love,” you say, “Very difficult; if it happens, it happens.” Tell someone, “Love this person,” and he will say, “But how? If it happens it happens; if not, not.” It happens—if it happens. It is not in our hands.

Ride what is not in your hands, and you will reach God.

Temples you have built—that is in human hands. Beautiful temples, beautiful idols—also in human hands. But through what is man-made, God cannot be known. Seek within what is not of your making. Hold to that thread.

Logic can be taught; love cannot. There are schools and colleges and universities for logic—you can study, you can practice. But there is no university for love; no one can teach it.

A man came to Ramanuja and said, “Show me the path to God. I want but one thing in life: to attain God. I am ready to stake everything.” Ramanuja said, “Brother, let me ask: have you ever loved anyone?” The man said, “I have never got into that tangle; I am a religious man from childhood. I want to attain God first. I never fell into love and such.” Ramanuja grew very sad: “Still, search—perhaps you loved a friend, your mother, your father, your siblings—did love’s thrill ever arise in you?” The man was offended: “I ask about God, and you talk of love. I am a seeker of God—what has love to do with it? It is love’s snare that keeps one from God!” Tears came to Ramanuja’s eyes. “Then I cannot help you. You may have done many things—that does not make you worthy. Worthiness comes only through love. And you say you have never known love; how can I show you the way? Love itself is the way. Had you known even a little, a door would open. Even if it were for a woman—no harm; it is still a hint of the greater love. It rises in the small, but belongs to the vast.”

When you truly love a woman, she is no longer merely a woman; a certain divinity dawns in her. When you love a man, he becomes purushottama—at least in those moments of love. In those moments you do not take him as ordinary; he becomes extraordinary, radiant; a halo appears within him. It is perhaps a distant road to God, but it is the road. This love is not yet prayer, but it is possibility. If there is a diamond, it can be cut and polished; if there is gold, however buried in dirt, it can be purified. When your impure love is purified, it becomes prayer. In prayer, definition is.

I could paint the portrait of your beauty, but—
there is no tongue in the eye, no eye in the tongue.
The secrets of love and loving are revealed by these two—
the eyes are not a tongue, yet they are not dumb.

Understand:
I could paint the portrait of your beauty, but—
there is no tongue in the eye, no eye in the tongue.
I can fashion your image, carve your form, even define you—but your vastness! My eye sees you; my tongue wants to speak—but the eye has no tongue. The eye beholds you, but cannot speak; the tongue wants to speak—but the tongue has not seen. The eye has seen and the tongue would tell—there the difficulty begins. How to say it?

So you ask me for a definition? I say: look into my eyes. The eye has seen; the tongue has not. What the tongue says will be inference.

The secrets of love and loving are revealed by these—
to know a lover, look into his eyes. You will find a certain wine, a certain ecstasy. From that intoxication, you will glimpse his love.

The eyes have no tongue—true. But they are not dumb. If someone can read, the message flows through the eyes.

Definitions are verbal. Many definitions of God have been made; you can memorize them all—nothing will be solved. You must go, you must enter experience. And the day you begin to enter experience, you will find nothing but him everywhere.

Shall I stroll the garden or the desert?
Shall I see the mines, the mountains, the wastes, the rivers?
Everywhere your power displays a thousand splendors—
I am bewildered what to see with only two eyes!

When a little experience dawns, you see thousands of his festivals on every side.

Everywhere your power displays a thousand splendors—
I’m bewildered what to see with only two eyes!

Even a thousand eyes would not be satisfied—for God is so vast. His dance is everywhere. And you ask, “What is the definition of God?”—when God alone is everywhere! You ask, “What is his image?”—when nothing exists but his images. It is one play alone.

But I have understood your question. It is not about the definition or image of God. It says, in truth, that you have no eyes—that you are blind or asleep. If someone standing in sunlight asks, “Define the sun. Where is the sun?”—what will you think? Either his eyes are closed, or he is blind. The sun is an experience, not a definition. Light has no definition. Either you know it, or you do not.

So first, know that God is not yet known to you. Do not clutch at definitions and think you know. If you want to know, you must walk in love. Do not seek definition; seek the whereabouts of love. Definitions make pundits—and they wander forever. I tell you again and again: even sinners arrive, but scholars do not.

A related question:
You call love prayer, you call love God—why?

Because it is so. There is no “why.” It is the truth. If ever in your life some little fragrance of love has arisen, know: from there the temple’s door will open. Do not close that door—whatever the saints may say. If you shut it, you will wander. You will not get a whiff of God.

The first thrill of God is called love. The very first experience—before even the word “God” appears—is love. Then love, purified, becomes prayer; then prayer, purified, becomes God. These are love’s steps. It is one ladder—from kama to Rama. It is the same energy: at the bottom dust-laden as lust, at the top, all dust wiped away—fresh and pure.

Holding on parched lips a sea of sighs—
this desert’s thirst is never quenched.
But once life has drunk that Ganges of love,
it desires no other water.

Seek by the way of love and you are seeking God, call it what you will. That is why ordinary love seldom satisfies; it leaves one unsatisfied. Which husband is fulfilled by his wife? Which wife by her husband? Which mother by her son? Which friend by his friend? Why? All love—and find only dissatisfaction. Because the object of love, in depth, is God; only he can satisfy it.

When you love someone, deep down your longing is that this person be like God. He cannot be—and so dissatisfaction remains. The palate turns bitter. When you love someone you hope there is none more beautiful, none truer, none higher. You have asked for satyam, shivam, sundaram—the Absolute.

No person meets that measure. Slowly the lover despairs: “I asked at the wrong door. Went to drink nectar, and what I drank turns out to be poison.” Then the mind loses taste, grows bitter. Then you run again, somewhere else, another love—thus for lifetimes the bird of the mind flies, perching in new places.

A Sufi fakir was visited by an emperor eager to meet him. Many messages had been sent asking the fakir to come. The fakir replied, “If you are truly eager, you must come. If I come, the essence will be missed; the very coming of the seeker intensifies his seeking. Pay at least that much price.” So at last the emperor came.

The fakir was away; his wife was there. “Please sit, I will call him—he is working in the fields.” The emperor said, “Call him; I’ll stroll here.” She spread a threadbare mat: “Please be seated.” He kept pacing. She went and told her husband, “He is strange: I laid a mat and asked him to sit again and again, but he won’t.” The fakir laughed: “That mat is not worthy of his sitting. He will sit only where a place worthy of him is found.”

You have tried to seat the bird of the mind in many places; it does not settle. The bird of love alights in many places, then flies—its worthy perch is not found. Only God is worthy. Whenever you fall in love, you fall in love with God—but you ask too much of too little. To demand the Ultimate Beauty, Truth, and Goodness from a man or woman is a mistake. Demand the ultimate only of the Ultimate. Demand it elsewhere, and when it is not met, you grow bitter; you keep changing love’s objects. That is why we are never fulfilled in love.

Love is fulfilled; love too sits upon a throne—but upon its own throne.

Holding on parched lips a sea of sighs—
you may drink the sea itself. The sea seems water, but its drinking does not quench—it increases thirst. Do not, by mistake, drink the sea. Without sea-water a man can live; if he drinks it, he dies. Sea-water looks like water—but it is not. It could become drinkable but only after much purification. As it is, it is dangerous.

Holding on parched lips a sea of sighs—
this desert’s thirst is never quenched.
But once life has drunk that Ganges of love,
it desires no other water.

And once you know the real taste of love—once the flavor of prayer is on your tongue—

Once life has drunk that Ganges of love—
then you need no other water.

In the life of Jesus it is told: he came to a well, weary from a long journey. He asked a woman drawing water, “Give me to drink.” She said, “I am of a low caste; perhaps you will regret drinking my water.” Jesus said, “Do not worry—give me water. And I can give you a water—my water—by which your thirst will be quenched forever. Your water quenches for a moment; mine quenches forever.”

The water Jesus spoke of—I call that love.

This flame of life is meant to be lit,
the inner melts by love.
Become poor in self, spread your eyelids as a carpet,
keep your ears intent upon his footfall.
Let every limb thrill in surrender—
O Beloved, speak your sanctifying word to my mind.

Once you step down the stairs of love, learn love’s two-and-a-half letters, steep a little in love; with prayerful steps approach existence; knock on the temple-door with a prayerful heart—you will find what you never found before, though you knocked at many doors.

This world is a school to learn love. Learn what you will here—if you have learned love, it is enough.

What do I mean by love? Know love in three forms. First: kama—love’s lowest form—body’s longing for body; matter meeting matter. Something happens, but nothing vast. Second: we commonly call “love”—mind meeting mind; waves of feeling and thought harmonize; two hearts beat together—bodies two, heart one. Not the last form. The last I call “prayer”: soul meeting soul. Body with body—lust. Mind with mind—love. Soul with soul—prayer.

On the plane of lust there is exploitation; you use the other as a means. On the plane of love you become a means for the other; the other becomes the end. On the plane of soul neither is a means nor an end—distance itself disappears; who is means, who end? There is oneness.

Think of two lamps placed close—that is lust. Mix the oil of the two—that is love. Let the lights of the two merge—that is prayer. Put two lamps as close as you like; distance remains. Their nearness cannot bring oneness. Mix their oils—there is some noise, some mess. But when their lights merge, nothing is heard; two lamps perhaps—but one light.

I have heard: a king had three sons; he wished to choose an heir. He asked a fakir’s advice. The fakir said, “Give each a thousand rupees. Tell them to buy something with which to fill their palace completely, but not spend more than a thousand. The most skillful will inherit the kingdom.”

The first thought, “A palace so big! Only trash can fill it for a thousand. The thousand will be spent just hauling it.” He went and brought the town’s garbage by the cartload and filled the palace. A dreadful stench spread; people stopped passing by. He begged his father to hurry up the test—he too was dying of it.

The second thought, “To fill with garbage shows unfitness. What then? A house should be filled with flowers.” He bought flowers. But how many for a thousand? The palace was grand; he scattered some petals—hardly filled it. Soon they wilted and stank.

The third did nothing until the day his father came. People worried: “He will lose.” The day the king arrived, the son lit lamps everywhere—ghee lamps—by the thousands. The king came with the fakir. The fakir said of the first, “He fulfilled the arithmetic of ‘filling the palace,’ but showed no sense of quality. He has logic without insight, machine-like mind—not fit to rule.” Of the second: “Better—he knows quality—but no foresight; flowers decay; and his arithmetic is weak—the palace is not even full.” Of the third: the king was anxious—“What if all three are unfit?” They entered—and the palace seemed empty. “You did not compete?” “I did,” said the son, “look closely.” The fakir smiled, “I see—perhaps your father does not. He has filled the palace—with light. Not a corner unfilled. The light spills into the garden, into the road. He has arithmetic, sense of quality, foresight; and he knows the time to act—he waited till we arrived to light the lamps. With a thousand rupees he lit a thousand lamps with ghee. Many lamps—one light. He has a sense of nonduality. He is worthy.”

Lust is two bodies colliding—and at the end, garbage, stench. Lust brings melancholy and remorse; soon it stinks. Love is better—flowers instead of trash. But mind’s flowers—how long do they live? The mind itself is transient; it has no link with the eternal. Today flowers—tomorrow they wilt.

Look at the West, where love is valued more than in the East; there marriage withers, divorces multiply. The East values marriage, not love—so marriage endures. Marriage is first-level—two bodies; neither man nor woman is asked—parents decide; priests and astrologers decide; wealth, status, health, education are weighed—love is not questioned. Planets are considered—distant matters, not the near matter of love. The East learned: love is dangerous, marriage will not be stable if love is the basis. Love belongs to the mind; the mind is fickle. The body at least is relatively stable—seventy years it lasts, with small changes. The mind changes in a moment. The one for whom you would die a moment ago—next moment it is over. Hence in the West the family is shaken. In the East it is steady—since Manu to now. In the West, nothing stands; half who marry will divorce in three years. Hard to find one who remains with one spouse. Children multiply; no one knows whose is whose.

I heard of a wife saying to her husband, “Look, intervene—your children and my children together are beating our children!” Some are his from other wives; some are hers from other husbands; some are theirs together. “Stop them!”

Everything is topsy-turvy in the West.

Beyond both is the meeting of souls—that is prayer. Such love was known to Meera, to Chaitanya, to Radha; known to the bhaktas. Love must rise to where the union is like light with light—no clash—quiet, natural. And once you meet even one person at the soul’s plane, you will see: if in meeting one soul there is so much bliss, then in meeting the All—how much more! You yourself will extend the mathematics: “If there is such fragrance in meeting one, why be stingy? Why not meet the trees, the stars, the mountains, the rivers?”

If even with one person love happens rightly, the window to God opens; from there, a leap.

Whose smile is this in the air, O cupbearer?
Whose youth in the swelling clouds?
Who plays that sweet lute
in the rain-drenched breeze?

Filled with love, one hears his anklets everywhere: in clouds, in lightning, everywhere his bells ring.

Whose smile is this in the air, O cupbearer?
Then even a gust of wind brings his news, his letter.

Whose youth in the clouds, O cupbearer?
The gathering clouds are his stretchings and stirrings; all flowers his, all leaves his.

Who plays that sweet lute?
All music resounding in existence is his—his flute, his reed.

In the rain-soaked breeze
even there his touch is felt, his fragrance known. From earth and sky his being is announced. Every moment, waking and sleeping, he surrounds.

But this element cannot be defined. In love, it can be experienced. Do not ask for definitions—ask for love. What will you do with the garbage of definitions? It only loads the mind; you cannot become light. Ask for love—that wings may grow, that you may fly.

O cupbearer, give me the purest wine,
that wipes away the tally of sin.
Whose intoxication never leaves all life long—
give that, and give it in plenty.

Ask for love’s wine.

Whose intoxication never leaves all life long—
ask for that intoxication which, once risen, never subsides.

Give it so, and give it in sufficiency.

Ask for love, not for definition. The day you have love, you have everything. Without love, even having all, you have nothing.

Let midsummer rain down embers,
let autumn strip every flower—
if love is dissolved in the air,
every season is a season of joy.

The more words one has,
the farther he strays from meaning.
Not the veil’s drape, but a form
where the soul’s camphor burns.

What is the world? A mere illusion
that dew-drops are pearls.
And life? As if over brass
were washed a gilding of gold.

But if love walks beside you on the road,
even in this city of death,
the vow of morning binds the evening—
man’s death is a new birth.

Let midsummer rain down embers,
let autumn strip every flower—
if love is dissolved in the air,
every season is a season of joy.

Let love’s vina begin to play—and spring is everywhere. In that spring, God is recognized.

The more words one has—
so do not seek definitions, doctrines, scriptures!
The more words one has,
the farther he strays from meaning.

Do not heap up words; they make pedantry, not awakening.

Not the veil’s drape, but a form
where the soul’s camphor burns.
What is the world? A mere illusion
that dew-drops are pearls.

That is what I have been telling you: wherever you have seen love till now, you have seen pearls in dew. The search is for the Pearl—for God. In the morning sun, dew upon the grass looks like pearls—puts real pearls to shame from afar; go near and the dew is dew, not pearl.

What is the world? A mere illusion
that dew-drops are pearls.
And life? As if over brass
were washed a gilding of gold.

Look closely at life. That gold wash upon brass—let it wear off. Come nearer; look with awareness, and those dew-drops will not seem pearls. Then your search will move, from every side, toward God—toward the Eternal, the Immortal.

What is God? God is the thirst for immortality. What is God? God is your inner quest for the Eternal. What is the image of God? In the seeker who is ardent in inquiry, aflame with longing and yearning—in him is God’s image. Not in stones, not in temple idols—in the worshiper who seeks God, who offers his devotion everywhere; in the striving to recognize God—there lies his image.

Kabir said: in the devotee is God. Mahavira said: appa so paramappa—the self itself is the Supreme Self.

God is not an object that someday you will see. The day a cloud of love rises within you, unconditional love for all existence, the day all conflict with existence ceases and cooperation becomes total; the day a dialog begins between you and existence—that day you will know what God is. You are God, and all the rest is God.

Walk toward this intoxication. Dive into this ocean of love.

Friends, forgive my fault—I am drunk.
There is wine in the sea, wine in my wine—
I am drunk with drunkenness.

The devotee lives in a divine intoxication. For him, God is intoxication. For the pundit, God is a theory—empty prattle. Do not get caught in theist/atheist circles—whether God is or is not. Leave such idle disputes to those with nothing else to do. If you would make right use of your life, descend into love. If you find love difficult, enter meditation. Meditation is another path to the same. Those who can love need worry about nothing else.

Death happened the very day you were born. Now there is no way to escape it. The day you were born, dying began. One step has been taken; the other must follow. Once an arrow has flown from the bowstring, what way is there to call it back? Birth has occurred—there is no way to avoid death.

The day it truly dawns on you that death must be—that it is certain, while everything else is uncertain—that very day fear will disappear. What is inevitable—why fear it? What must happen—why fear it? What cannot be postponed—why fear it? What cannot be made otherwise—why fear it?

The mishap you dread
has already occurred within;
it will merely rise and float
to the surface of the past and the future—
the work is already done.

You died the very day you were born. The day you took your first breath, the condition for the last breath was set. The breath can leave any day. You cannot remain forever. So try to understand this fear; don’t hope to escape. No one has ever escaped. How many remedies people have attempted!

Nadir Shah was such a great warrior, ferocious; he murdered thousands—yet he feared his own death terribly. The death of others was nothing to him. They say one night a courtesan came to dance in his camp; when she was to return it was very late—two in the morning—and she became afraid. “The road is dark, my village is far; how will I go?” Nadir Shah said, “Do not worry. Are you dancing in the court of an ordinary man?” He ordered his soldiers to set fire to every village along the way so she could reach home in the light. Five, seven villages were burned; sleeping villagers perished—but the path was lit.

The deaths of others were a plaything to him, but his own death terrified him. He was so frightened he could not sleep. And in that very fright he died. Returning from India, one night he slept in a tent; a thief crept in, not to kill anyone but to steal. His presence and the stirred panic made the horses neigh and soldiers scatter. In the dark night confusion spread—people thought enemies had surrounded them. Nadir Shah, panic-stricken, ran out; his foot caught in a tent rope, and he thought someone had grabbed him. In that panic his heart stopped; he fell dead. No one had grabbed him, no one had struck him—only his foot was tangled, and he thought, “I’m finished!” He died of his own terror.

How many contrivances man invents to be safe!

Psychologists say the urge to kill others arises in those who are most frantic to save themselves. They think, “We cannot create life, but at least we can inflict death on others.” By killing others it seems as if they have become masters of death: “Look how many we have slain—death is in our control.” From this a delusion arises that perhaps death will spare them. No. Neither wealth, nor office, nor power can buy exemption from death.

You ask, “There is great fear of death—how can I be free of it?”

If you keep trying to get rid of it, the fear will increase. While you are busy with methods of escape, death comes closer every day—because old age comes closer every day. The more devices you employ, the more panicked you will become. If you can understand me, I will say: accept death; drop the very idea of getting rid of it. What must be, must be—accept it. Accept it so deeply, so inwardly, that no resistance remains. Right there, fear will end.

You cannot escape death, but you can be free of the fear of death. Death will happen, but fear is not necessary. Fear is your creation. Trees are not afraid, though they too will die—because they have no calculating mind. Animals are not sitting in worry, dejected that death will come—though they too will die.

Death is natural. Trees, animals, birds, humans—all will die. Only man is afraid, because man keeps thinking, “Somehow there must be a way to escape.” As long as you want to escape, you will be afraid. The very desire to be spared creates fear. Accept it! Death is, and will be. When it is to be, it will be. And what’s the loss? Before birth you were not—was there any trouble? Think of it: before you were born, you were not—was there any problem? After death you will again not be—what problem can there be then? As it was before birth, so it will be after death. Do you remember anything from before your first breath? Any worry, any hassle? Likewise, after the last breath leaves, what hassle, what worry?

Socrates was dying. Someone asked, “Are you not afraid?” He said, “What is there to fear? Either, as the theists say, the soul is immortal—then there is no need to fear. Or, as the atheists say, the soul perishes—then the matter is finished. If all is finished, who will be afraid? If no one remains, there is no flute if there is no bamboo. In either case—only these two are possible—either the theist is right or the atheist is right. If the theist is right, we are immortal—finished; why worry? If the atheist is right, all ends—who is there to worry and for whom?” Socrates said, “Therefore I am at ease. Whatever is, is right.”

Do not try to be spared. Death will be. Yet I want to tell you: death will not be yours. Since you were never born, how can you die? The body was born; the body will die. Your consciousness is unborn and of the nature of the deathless.

Your whole confusion is that you have taken the body to be your self. Death is not the real issue. The real issue is: you have assumed the body is “I.”

Worship of silence through noise;
discourse on life with a corpse—
as if one hoped for peace from a clamor,
speaking of life to a dead body.

You have mistaken this corpse for the living; that is why there is trouble. The body is a corpse. Even now it is dying, dying every day. You don’t notice because you don’t want to notice—you are afraid. Hair grows on your head and beard; you cut it and it doesn’t hurt—dead matter your body is pushing out. You cut your nails; there is no pain—this is not living tissue. Excrement and urine pass daily—dead parts leaving. Every day something in the body dies; you take in food and pour a little new life in. For a while life flows; then daily some dead portion is expelled.

Scientists say within seven years the entire body is replaced; in seventy years the body has died and been renewed ten times. Every particle changes; nothing old remains—everything is constantly new.

The body is dying every day; its very process is death. Beyond this body is a state of consciousness—but you know nothing of it. That is what you are, yet you do not know it. You lack self-remembrance.

Do not ask, “What shall I do about death?” Ask only, “What shall I do to know what is within me beyond the body?” Do not ask how to escape death; ask how to awaken in meditation. If you come to know, “Within I am consciousness,” then the body is fine—your dwelling. Do not mistake the house for yourself. The moment this begins to be understood, an unprecedented revolution will happen within you.

Man—become divine!
Sound—become scripture!

Then suddenly you will find: what you knew as “man” within is Narayan, the divine; what you knew as mere sound is Ramayana, sacred meaning.

The body is dust. Formed of dust, it will return to dust.

Dust in silence,
dust in clamor,
dust that cuts becoming,
dust ever new.

From dust it arises, into dust it falls, and rises again and falls again. This entire creation is dust’s play. Do not mistake this earthen lamp for yourself. In this earthen lamp the oil is your mind—do not take that to be yourself either. In that oil the wick lies; upon the wick the flame burns—that flame is you. Granted, without the lamp and oil the flame disappears; yet the lamp and oil are not the flame. To manifest the flame, lamp and oil are needed. To manifest you, body and mind are needed. They are necessary for expression—not for your existence. Your being is beyond them. As awareness of that “beyond” dawns, fear of death disappears. Then you will know: death never happens.

On the plane of the body, death is certain; on the plane of the soul, death never has been, nor can it be. Only recognize this much: you are the soul.

We saw infancy, we saw youth,
we saw existence—wind without water.
When the eyes closed, the knot opened:
whatever we saw, we saw in a dream.

What you now take for life is nothing more than a dream.

When the eyes closed, the knot opened—
at the moment of dying you will know, when the eyes truly close, this secret opens:
whatever we saw, we saw in a dream.

What we called life proves to be a dream. And within that life the truth was hidden—but we were so entangled in dreaming that we never saw the truth.

A few counsels and sermons built nothing,
nor did we delay in any task of the world.
Day and night we busied ourselves with the gear of here—
we made no plan for where we have to go.

Then you will wander again. Do not fear death. If there is truly a longing to understand, see this much: what you call life—

Day and night we busied ourselves with the gear of here—

is an illusion; death will snatch it away. It will take wealth, position, name, fame. If you have taken name, rank, fame, wealth as your very being, then when you die, panic is natural. Beyond these, you are. Beyond status, prestige, name and renown, riches and goods, there is your being. Recognize it a little, taste it a little; death will not be able to destroy it.

One who knows oneself—death loses before him. And death is coming quickly. You ask if there is some remedy to escape? I am doing everything to make you see that death is hastening toward you, step after step. You ask me to give you some trick, some charm to save you from death.

Before I could say a word of my own, or hear the heart of the world,
the palanquin of farewell reached my door.
The lips had barely opened and the virgin breath,
the one-stringed lute of song slipped and fell, broken.
The eye had scarcely found its friend, the mirror,
when kohl welled into tears and spilled away.

So quickly it all will happen. Not much time will pass.

Before I could say or hear my heart,
the palanquin of farewell reached my door—

You will neither say your heart nor hear it, and you will find the bier has arrived. The funeral litter begins to be tied.

The one-stringed lute hardly began to play
before it fell and broke—
who has managed to say what had to be said?
Who has managed to become what had to be?

The eye had not yet met the mirror—
and kohl became tears and slipped away.

Death comes fast—and any moment it will knock at the door. A moment before, no news will be given: “I am coming.” Death is a guest; she does not announce a date and time—she simply arrives. She will not give you a moment’s leisure. You will say, “Let me pack up, let me ask forgiveness of friends and loved ones, let me meet and embrace”—even that chance will not be given. Hurry—before death arrives, recognize the nectar within.

I want to make you more alert toward death; I want to shake you, uproot you. You want me to lull you to sleep, to hand you some technique to protect you from death. If you escape death, what will you do? What are you doing now while alive—will you not do the same? How long do you intend to keep doing this? Seventy years are not enough? You would do this for seven hundred?

I have heard that on his campaigns Alexander reached a place where he learned there was a spring whose water, if drunk, makes one immortal. He went in search of it. When he reached the spring, he rejoiced; never had he seen water so crystal clear. He was about to cup it in his palms when a crow perched on a branch said, “Stop, Alexander! You will regret it. First hear me.” Alexander was astonished—one marvel: water that grants immortality; another marvel: a speaking crow. “What do you want to say?” The crow said, “I too drank this water. I am no ordinary crow; as you are Alexander among men, I am Alexander among crows. I spent my life searching and found this spring. I drank—and now I writhe. I have been alive for thousands of years; I cannot die. I throw myself from cliffs, dash my head on rocks, drink poison—I do not die. And now life has no savor—how long can I repeat the same? I have seen it all. So I warn you: think first. Once you drink, you will not be able to die. Then do as you wish. I sit here only so that no other fool repeats my mistake.” They say Alexander thought a while, then quietly slipped away. He did not drink.

The story is a story—but the point is utterly true. If you reached that spring, could you drink? Would it not occur to you, “After drinking, what will I do? If death becomes impossible…”

No, the whole play of life is contained in death. Life’s very juice is because of death. Death is necessary. Do not try to dodge it, do not deny it, do not lull your mind—accept death.

Sooner or later, one day,
I must come to your door.
Therefore all my life
I have not barred the doors of home.
It was not right to enter your Gokul
with any debt upon my head—
so, thinking thus, with hundred hands
I shared the moon and stars with the world.
But the fruit of this renunciation
was only this from the world:
even my tears were mortgaged away,
even my bier was auctioned.
I had thought to give you
my whole life—
but the goal was so far,
walking, walking, evening fell.

Here, everything will be looted.
Even the tears were mortgaged,
even the bier auctioned—
here, all will be spent; all will be lost.
Even the bier was auctioned—
nothing will remain.

Therefore I do not console you; I want to shake you. I want to snatch your consolations. I say to you: death is certain. Death will happen—tomorrow, perhaps in the next moment. Do not try to be spared; accept it. And whatever moments remain, invest them in the search for life—the inner life. There lies the ray of the deathless, the eternal—and it is your ray. It can be found; you are its owner. You have not claimed it. Claim it! Declare it! Step a little away from the body; awaken a little in consciousness.

Hari Om Tatsat.
That is all for today.