Mare He Jogi Maro #18

Bhole Baba! For the atheist there is more possibility of attaining the divine than for the theist. Because the theist begins with a lie. God is not yet known, and yet he has already believed—this is dishonesty. And once you have believed, what search will there be? The meaning of search is: I do not yet know; I have to find out. If you already believe—falsely at that—the search has ended. It is the abortion of the search.

The theist starts from falsehood. That’s why there are so many believers in the world, but where are the truly religious? Belief that is born of blind faith is not genuine theism; only the theism that comes out of experience is real.

But for experience the first condition is: until you know, do not believe. And knowing is a costly affair; believing is cheap. Belief costs you nothing. Belief is borrowed—family says so, society says so, culture says so—you accept it. You neither think nor inquire nor meditate. Belief asks nothing of you. “Without turmeric or alum and the dye comes out fast!” Without spending a thing you become a believer—an ornament of religiosity hung upon the ego.

You were an atheist; you hated religions—and that is precisely why you could come to me. Only one who seeks true religion feels repulsion toward the religions of the marketplace. One who yearns for the real cannot be satisfied with temples and mosques. They cannot quench his thirst. Priests and pundits will not appeal to him. If you are truly thirsty, you will seek a living lake. How will pictures of water satisfy you? And in the scriptures there are only theories about God—God’s pictures! The priests have nothing but words, no personal experience.

Good that you could hate the religions; that was the beginning of rebellion. Only the rebellious one becomes truly religious one day. The true atheist alone can become a true theist. Atheism means: How can I believe when I have not seen, not known? How can I accept a lie?

There is honesty in atheism, a certain authenticity—and such authenticity is essential. One who cannot say “no” from his very heart—how will he ever say “yes” from his heart? When the “no” is alive, one day the “yes” too becomes alive. Those who have doubted to the brim are the very ones who attain to trust one day.

This will surprise you, because you have been taught: drop doubt and have faith. That is wrong. If you drop doubt, the “faith” you will adopt will not be faith—only a limp, impotent belief. Doubt to the full. Doubt as much as you possibly can—till the last breath. Doubt until doubting becomes impossible, until it collapses under its own weight; when you can no longer prop it up. When doubt dies at its peak, what remains behind is the fragrance called trust.

Trust is not the opposite of doubt; it is the absence of doubt. And only those who journey through doubt arrive at trust. Doubt means: I will invest my whole intelligence in knowing; wherever I see untruth, I will say so. The Upanishads call this the process of neti-neti—“not this, not this.” Examine, test, say: not this, not this—keep negating until that moment comes when, even if you would deny, you must say: It is. When your own eyes become the witness, when your very soul stands as testimony. To reach that moment many doors must be refused. To arrive at the true gate, many gates must be left behind.

Edison, the great scientist, was conducting an experiment. His colleagues and students were exhausted—three years of trying, no result. Seven hundred attempts, all failures. But Edison was stubborn; only such stubborn ones reach truth! Every morning he would begin again. After three years and seven hundred failures his companions said, “Now we will go mad. Let’s all pray and give up.” They pleaded: “You come every morning full of zeal; three years wasted, seven hundred failures. How long? All your life? Try something else. This will not succeed.”

Edison was startled, as if they had said something foolish: “What are you saying? We have not failed seven hundred times—we are getting closer to success! If success is to come on the thousandth try, then only three hundred remain. With every failure we come nearer the truth. A day will come when all the wrong ways are exhausted; what remains will be the truth.”

This is neti-neti—the way of negation. Know the nonessential as nonessential and one day only the essential will remain. Do not rush to believe that God exists. The sooner you believe, the cheaper your faith will be—without fire, it will neither burn you nor refine you; without water, it will never quench your thirst. Where is the nectar in that? Nectar is never so cheap, never on credit.

People have lost the habit of inquiry; they believe anything. A few days ago I heard that in the mosques speeches were being given against me. When copies reached me I was astonished. I am here—those who spoke could have come and asked what I had said. At first I could not even make out what they were opposing. After much digging, it turned out I had spoken about Mahmud Ghaznavi, but Muslims were made to think I had spoken against the Prophet Muhammad. Mahmud Ghaznavi—and the Prophet Muhammad! Yet no one cared to come to the ashram and ask whether I had even said such a thing. But sermons were delivered—big sermons! Reading them amused me: “an attack on Islam,” “Osho has insulted Muhammad,” a religious war! Clerics and politician-types rousing people.

You cannot tell the difference between Mahmud and Muhammad? People have no will to inquire. I am here, a few steps away—they could have asked before preaching. But who cares! People are blind—this is the result of your so-called beliefs. And the listeners, too, would have believed. Naturally, three thousand gathered to march, went to the police commissioner. When his office read my talk, they said, “There is nothing against Muhammad. Osho opposed Mahmud Ghaznavi’s breaking of idols.” This is simple, accepted history—Somnath temple bears witness. No one can deny that Mahmud smashed idols and destroyed temples. But that is hardly a statement about the Prophet.

People have been made blind; poison of blindness is served to you. Then it becomes a habit. Anyone says anything and you believe it. Rumors fly and riots erupt; bullets fly, knives plunge—over rumors, with no truth behind them, or the truth inverted. How will such a person ever know the divine? Whether you go to temple, mosque, or church—what difference does it make? To know God, hone your intelligence a little; keep a sharp edge alive. Kindle doubt. Doubt is the instrument for discovering trust. Walking the razor’s edge of doubt, one arrives at the destination of trust.

So, Bhole Baba, good that you were an atheist, that you hated the religions—you refused to accept anyone’s word. You went to pilgrim places, to priests and pundits, but your heart was not filled. How could it be? Whose is? Your thirst was genuine—you sought a living lake; you wanted real transformation of life. That is why you came here and became a lover, a madman.

And here I am not telling you to believe; I am asking you to experiment, to experience. That is why my words struck root in you—this is what you wanted. You wanted to try, and people kept saying, “Believe.” You wanted to experience, they said, “Just have faith. Why do you need to know? Krishna knew, Muhammad knew, Mahavira knew—why should you know? They have known; you merely trust.”

But truth is not such a thing that if someone knows, you have known. You must know for yourself. If I drink water, my thirst is quenched—not yours, however much you trust me. If I eat, I am nourished, not you. If you want nourishment, you must eat.

By believing in Mahavira you may become a Jain, but you will not become a Jina. And that is the essential thing. Jina means the one who has conquered—the one who has arrived, who is fulfilled. By believing in Muhammad you may become a Muslim, but nothing will happen until you become Muhammad—until his very intoxication and song arise in you, until God deems you worthy that the Quran hum within you, until then nothing happens.

One must connect directly with the divine. No intermediary can connect you. Even the true master does not “connect” you to God; he only points the way.

Buddha said: the enlightened ones only point the finger; you must walk. You must arrive. You became a lover because you glimpsed what you had been seeking; you could take sannyas.

And this has happened not only with you—it has happened with many. Those who have been atheists, seekers, doubters, they relate to me quickly. Those who have been believers, devoted to priests and pundits—my connection with them does not form. Their minds are full of junk, a wall of debris between us. But one who has believed no one, who has said, “I will know for myself,” comes empty—there is no junk between us; the connection is immediate.

You became a lover and a sannyasin—sannyas is divine madness. This is a wine—not distilled from grapes but from the soul; not brought from outside—its stream flows within. It is like the sweetness a mute cannot describe. Even if you wish to tell another, you cannot. When one is drunk in this way, one draws near to the divine. It is not beliefs that join you; it is ecstasy. Not your hollow outer rituals, but the dance that rises from your heart. Not external ceremonies, but the love that wells up from within.

A honeyed love has fallen, song by song, word by word,
the first time you came.
On every particle your beauty spread its silken charm,
in every note your flute began to sing,
petals laughed, veiled in rays of light,
my feet found the rhythm of your path
the first time you came.
On the clouds bloomed the rainbow’s forms,
to the monsoon came the dreams of laughing lightning.
Since you dwelt within me, all lack dissolved,
on every flower surged a tide of colors
the first time you came.
Breath met the age-old restless death,
a path appeared to the lost, tired feet,
a lamp to night’s vast darkness,
a starry adornment to the widow-like empty night
the first time you came.
A honeyed love has fallen, song by song, word by word,
the first time you came.

The divine descends like a dance, like a song—but only into a heart in ecstasy.

I am teaching you ecstasy. I am not giving you doctrines; I am not telling you to believe in God. I say: trust the flowers and belief in God will come on its own. Trust the moon and the stars; if there is God, he will descend into you through moon and stars. Trust the beauty of this world. This boundless festivity in trees, plants, animals, human beings—this infinite play—know this, trust this.

And to trust all this you need not believe anyone; your eyes give you enough proof. The wonder is that you have not yet seen the greenery, the colors of flowers, the cuckoo’s call! From this the divine descends—not from scriptures. Nature is his scripture. Dance a little.

I teach you song and dance. For this song and dance it is not a prerequisite to believe in God; yet within this song and dance, belief in God happens inevitably.

Sometimes an atheist asks me, “Can I meditate? I don’t believe in God.” I tell him, what has your belief or disbelief to do with meditation? You go to a physician and say, “I don’t believe in allopathy.” He will say, “Don’t worry; let me treat you. Your belief or disbelief has nothing to do with whether the medicine works. If the diagnosis is right, the illness will be cured, whether you believe or not. When you are cured, then believe if you wish. Don’t be in a hurry.”

Wherever someone is selling you ash and saying, “This is sacred vibhuti; take it and you will be cured”—there belief is required. If you don’t believe, nothing will happen, because it is a lie. If you say, “It’s just ash, what can it do?” then indeed nothing will happen. If you take the lie as truth and believe, and if your illness is also a lie, it will be cured. Remember: many of people’s illnesses are false, existing only in belief. Your ghosts are false, your amulets false—so false amulets work on false ghosts.

A man became convinced that as he slept with his mouth open a snake entered his stomach. He went to doctors, had X-rays taken; no snake appeared. He said, “How can I believe you? I feel it moving.” His belief grew so strong his life became miserable—twenty-four hours in distress. No physician could cure him, for there was no snake. A magician cured him. He said, “We’ll remove it. Sleep.” He covered him with a sheet and drew out from the sheet a snake the street-performer had brought. When the man saw the snake wriggling away, he sprang up: “Now what do you say? Show those doctors!” From that day his trouble vanished. He had seen with his own eyes the snake leaving. The illness was false; it needed a false cure.

Seventy percent of your illnesses are false; so seventy percent of false cures “work.” Sacred ash works, sugar pills work, amulets, mantras, spells, folk remedies—all work on that seventy percent. For the remaining thirty percent—the real illnesses—only true medicine works.

Where the divine is to be experienced through experiment, there is no condition to believe. All that is asked is a willingness to experiment. So when an atheist asks, “May I meditate?” I say, “By all means. In fact you can meditate better, because the theist’s head is crowded with a thousand doctrines—yours is not. You are empty, and emptiness is a great, essential help for meditation. No dogma, no creed, no scripture—this whole nuisance is cut away. You are in a good state, a blank sheet; something can happen quickly.”

But he has heard, “Without believing in God meditation is impossible,” so he asks again and again, “Are you sure?” I tell him, what has God to do with it? Meditation is simply sitting in silence. Can a person not sit silently without believing in God? Meditation means becoming quiet; it depends on nothing—not on Quran or Veda or Upanishad. Quietness is a skill.

You don’t ask, “Can I learn to swim if I don’t believe in God?” What has God to do with swimming? Swimming is a skill. You don’t ask, “Can I learn to paint if I believe or don’t believe?” Or, “I’m an atheist—will the veena still play?” If a veena can be played, if a painting can be made, if a song can be composed, then meditation too is a skill—the art of stillness, of silence, of thoughtlessness.

God himself is only a thought; what help will that be!

An atheist can be thought-free. And one who becomes thought-free knows that the divine is. God is the experience of thoughtlessness. Then a different kind of theism arises—ablaze, radiant, a garland of a thousand lamps descending within! Flowers bloom inside and lamps are lit—flowers within which lamps are aflame, lamps as delicate as flowers. Fragrance and taste spread without limit. Life becomes full of juice; rhythm is born in life. That rhythm is what we call God.

The earth’s breast flared,
the sky’s heart overflowed;
such a mad union,
for hours the rain fell, streaming.
Unconscious showers, unconscious gusts,
unconscious, lovely clouds—
lovely clouds massed in the sky!
The peahen cried, the peacock began to dance,
a rainbow swelled in his feathers,
the portrait of Swati brightened
in the thirsty eyes of the chatak bird.
On the river’s waters, like a flock of swans,
floated the lovely clouds—
lovely clouds massed in the sky!
Night came, and in the pavilion of darkness
lightning-dancer rose to dance.
Anklets of drops began to ring,
goblet after goblet overflowed.
Drunk, rising again and again,
to earth fell the lovely clouds—
lovely clouds massed in the sky!

When you become silent, clouds of nectar gather within; lightning of the supreme light flashes; showers of rasa descend. The collective name of all this is God.

God is not a person—no Ganesha sitting with an elephant trunk to be seen; not someone with three faces. Some stage-play? Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh—look from here, Brahma; from there, Vishnu; from here, Mahesh, masks on! God is not a person. God is the intuition of the eternal, the experience of the beginningless, the endless; the realization of that consciousness which neither is born nor dies.

And you ask: “What I was seeking is being found, but the outer body has become almost dead. Master, what is this?”

The outer will die; now the inner is awakening. The periphery will pass; the center is forming. That’s why you say that even in old age you feel young—the stream of life is changing its channel. Until now it flowed toward the body; now it will rest in the soul. The body will become as if not there; the soul will grow dense. The body will be lost, forgotten, fade from memory. That is the meaning of Gorakh:

Die, O yogi, die—for this death is sweet.
Die the death by which Gorakh attained the vision.

On the surface there will be a kind of death; within, the experience of the supreme life. The outer will gradually become meaningless; the inner will become meaningful. Until now you lived at the periphery; now life is beginning at the center. Auspicious is this hour. Lovely clouds are gathering; a great rain is near. Keep going—more in ecstasy, more in song and dance.

The body will fall anyway; it is its nature to fall. Blessed are those who know before death that the body has fallen—who die before they die; for them there is no death. When death comes and the body drops, nothing of theirs is harmed—they already know it has happened.

Alexander threatened a fakir, “Come with me to Greece, or I will cut off your head.” The fakir burst into laughter: “Now you will cut my head? I myself cut it off long ago! Go ahead, cut—let your wish be fulfilled.” Alexander’s hand stopped, sword drawn. He had seen many men, but not one who said, “Cut, brother, cut. As for me, I cut it long ago. When the head falls now, you will see it fall, and I will also see it fall. I already know I am separate. But do not fall into the illusion that you killed me. No one can cut me.”

Nainam chindanti shastrani, nainam dahati pavakah—no weapon can cleave me, no fire can burn me.

Maitreya! First, this: why should there have to be a difference between animal and human at all—why this ego? Why this language of division? Why should there be a difference between human and plants? Between human and mountains? There is non-difference. The One has manifested in different forms. The same essence is stone, the same is the Divine.

To proclaim precisely this we made stone idols. Those images are not images “of God”; they are a declaration of an eternal truth—that the same Divine is present even in stone. The stone is the most unconscious; and within that most unconscious stone, the most awakened is hidden. That is why we made Buddha’s image: Buddha means the most aware! And marble, the stone, is most asleep.

In the utterly dormant stone, the supreme form of awakening lies concealed. Stone is the Divine in sleep, and the Divine is stone awakened. To announce this equation, we made stone idols. They are not idols of God—remember! They are pointers to this deep equation. A way to display this mathematics. A symbol.

So first: even the notion that man must be “special” compared to animals is born of ego. That human must be different—distinctive—is the delusion.

And the truth is: in the race to be “different,” man has not risen above animals, he has fallen below them. No animal is as dangerous as man! Animals are violent too, but only when hungry; man commits violence without hunger. He makes a sport of it—hunting! He enjoys tormenting. Animals may kill, but no animal makes atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. Man has made enough H-bombs to incinerate the whole earth in moments! No animal attacks its own species—except man! No lion attacks a lion. Only man kills man. Not only that, man has even eaten man. Even today—still, in the twentieth century—some tribes, if given a chance, will eat a human being.

No animal can eat its own kind. These are your “excellences”! No animal becomes as perverted as man. In the wild, animals do not go mad. No mad lion has ever been found in the jungle, no mad deer, no mad parrot—out there. Yes, in zoos they go mad. A zoo is man’s world; there madness is inevitable! A lion who ruled miles of terrain, leaping cliffs, is locked in a cage. He paces back and forth. You’ve seen it in circuses and zoos—lions pacing constantly in cages. A creature built to run hundreds of miles imprisoned in a small enclosure—if he doesn’t go mad, what should he do? Living with man, even animals go insane, become deranged.

One day there was a newspaper item: a statement by Morarji Desai against sex—against sexual desire. He always gives such statements. But that day there was a delicious twist! In the same paper on another page was a report from the Pune zoo: a lion couldn’t get a lioness. Not knowing what to do, he chewed his own tail! No lioness, sexual energy suppressed—he was so enraged he chewed his tail! In the same paper these two news items… One, Morarji saying “suppress sex,” and a lion chewing his tail!

Anything unnatural becomes suicidal. Man has no tail, so he can’t chew it; but he chews his soul! All inner dignity, splendor, dies. Only man has thought of being unnatural. No other animal is unnatural.

So why carry this delusion that man must be special? Different—yes, that’s true; but special—no. Understand the distinction. Different, certainly. A parrot is different from a crow; but don’t say a parrot is superior to a crow. Don’t say higher or lower. A crow is a crow, a parrot a parrot. Both are different, yet in their difference they are equal.

Likewise, man is different. But don’t call him special. And it is man himself who calls himself special—reflect on that!

One day Mulla Nasruddin went to the village market and declared, “My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world.” Someone asked, “Big man, that’s news indeed—but who told you?” “Who told me? My wife herself said so. Why would she lie!”

Man himself is saying it! Do you have an animal’s signature on this? Did you ask a lion, “Brother, sign here on a certificate that man is special”? The lion would swipe you instead!

You’ve heard the story: a lion was seized with the notion to ask around once again, “I am the king, am I not?” He asked a rabbit. “Master, of course you are; who else?” The rabbit, terrified, was let go. He grabbed a deer. “You are the emperor—always have been!” He kept asking. Then he came to an elephant: “What do you think—who is the emperor?” The elephant picked him up with his trunk and flung him fifty feet. He fell, bones shattered. Dusting himself off, he said to the elephant, “Brother, if you didn’t know the right answer, you could have simply said so! Why get so angry? You could have said, ‘I don’t know,’ and that would have been the end of it!”

Ask any animal! Ask a parrot: “Where do you have such verdant green as I do? This parrot-feather hue!” Ask a heron: “Where do you have this whiteness? Wear the purest khadi you like—you’ll never match the heron’s white! Even if you invent polyester khadi, you won’t attain this purity, this meditative poise—standing on one leg. Yogis struggle to master that posture—bagulasana. They barely learn to stand on one leg. The heron is born a siddha—perfect from birth!”

Ask anyone. Ask the rose: “Where do you have such flowers? Such fragrance?” Ask the lion—ask whom you will, and they will laugh at your claim: “Just look—look in the mirror! Can you fly the sky like me?” But man has simply assumed he is supreme. It’s mere ego.

And often those you call “religious” harbor this conceit most—that man is the crown of creation. And it is men who write the books; no animal or bird gets into such fuss. In their own books they write, “God made man in His own image.” No one asked God, He gave no certificate, nor did anyone ask the animals. If donkeys wrote books, they too would write, “God made donkeys in His own image.” In whose image else?

This is every being’s self-assertion. A religious person should not have this ego; yet it is found there in greatest measure—that we are superior to animals. This feeling of superiority is found everywhere. Ego is in all. Some say it aloud, some don’t. There’s nothing special about it. True uniqueness arises only when all ego disappears. In that moment you are neither human, nor animal, nor bird—you remain only pure consciousness. That moment is unique. These outer shells are mere differences—parrot, crow, heron, man, horse, lion. They are just different houses; the indweller is one—the same consciousness! The coverings differ: a rose, a jasmine, a juhi; but the life-sap flowing within is one. Some flowers are white, some red, some yellow; but what is blooming within them is one and the same flowering.

So first: let go of the notion that man is “special.” Otherwise this stiffness leads to great harm. And it doesn’t stop with “man.” Once this disease begins, the next question arises: among humans, are the whites special or the blacks? It doesn’t end with man. Then, are long noses special or flat ones? Who will decide?

When the English first reached China, they were astonished to see the Chinese! They wrote in their diaries: “What strange people! Never seen such men. Four or six hairs for a beard! Odd faces. Flat noses. Pronounced cheekbones.” And do you know what the Chinese wrote? “Are they men or monkeys? Never seen such ‘men.’ They babble nonsense. Not a word makes sense. They don’t even know how to speak.”
Just yesterday I read of someone who delivered a lecture in Bangalore. He prepared well. After the talk, someone stood up to give a vote of thanks—also in Hindi—lavishing praise: “So tasteful, so principled, so logical, so dignified a discourse is rare!” And in the end he said, “We are very grateful that you gave such an anargal (unimpeded) lecture.”
The speaker was startled: “An ‘anargal’ lecture! After so much praise you call it anargal!” Later he asked another, who also said, “Amazing lecture—absolutely anargal!”
Then he inquired, “May I understand why you say ‘anargal’?” In the South, the Sanskrit root “argala” means an obstacle or latch; “an-argal” means without obstacle—torrential, flowing. In Bangalore, that’s the meaning. Here in the North “anargal” often means “nonsense”—without order, without sequence, jumping from one thing to another. There, it means just the opposite.
When Europeans first reached China, who understood whose language? They wrote, “They speak such a strange tongue—is this even a language?” The English called those whose language they didn’t understand “barbarians.” Barbarian—bar-bar—those who blabber. Later it came to mean “savage.”
Everyone’s views of others will be like this. Then how will you decide who among humans is superior? And then quarrels ensue! Adolf Hitler declares, “Only Nordics are superior—of the German race.” The Japanese believe they are superior because they are born of the sun—sons of the Sun! We too had our Suryavanshi and Chandravanshi lineages. Then who will decide whether women are superior or men? If men write the books, they write, “Man is divine; woman is the gateway to hell.” Now in the West, women have begun to write books, and they write, “Men aren’t worth two pennies. They have no value. We can do without them. Their job can be done with an injection! What special work do they have? The real work is the woman’s, who keeps a child nine months in her womb.”

Who will decide? And if you go about deciding in this way, you’ll find yourself in great difficulty. In the end you will arrive at the conclusion that you alone are superior—and no one else. The final deduction of ego is: I am superior, all others inferior. This won’t stop at animals. If you follow ego’s chain of logic, in the end only you will remain superior. And that is madness.

A religious person’s mark is different. His vision is that all existence is so suffused with the Divine, so merged in God—who is special? Only the One is. Who can be special, how special? Differences abound, diversity abounds, but within all, the same note is sounding! The instruments differ, but the raga is one!

Second, you asked:
“You and Shri Krishnamurti seem to oppose ideals in life. It is also true that because of ideals a lot of hypocrisy is created in life.”

It is precisely because of ideals that hypocrisy is born; otherwise there is no way for hypocrisy to exist. Hypocrisy is the shadow of ideals. Until man is free of ideals, he cannot be free of hypocrisy. The loftier the ideals, the greater the hypocrites in the world! But you don’t see that whenever we make rules, we simultaneously create the arrangements to break them.

For example: fifty years ago, was there such a creature as a smuggler? If someone said, “So-and-so is into smuggling,” you’d ask: “Meaning?” The word itself was unknown. Smuggling—for what? Movement was free. Whatever you wanted to bring from China to India, you could. From Japan—you could. Whatever you wanted to sell to Japan—you could. Free movement. No rules, no restrictions. How would smuggling be born? You’ll say smugglers do smuggling; I say rule-makers cause smuggling. And it will continue until the world lets go of such needless regulation. There’s no necessity for it. The whole earth should be one home. Leave aside the whole earth—bring something from Gujarat to Maharashtra; it’s difficult. Take something from Maharashtra to Gujarat; difficult. Restrictions district by district; checkpoints everywhere.

The more rules you make, the more you arrange for rules to be broken. Then when rules are broken, the breakers appear sinful. But the truth is elsewhere. Sin begins with making the rule. Reduce rules and sins reduce. There should be only the minimum rules—those absolutely unavoidable; with that alone the sins will diminish. If rules are minimal, their violation will be minimal. The fewer your ideals, the less the hypocrisy. The more ideals, the more hypocrisy. That’s why the more idealistic a country, the more hypocritical it is. This paradox is inevitable. It’s hard to find a country as hypocritical as India—because it’s hard to find one as idealistic. People are shocked that both appear together—but they must.

If you create extreme ideals that tear apart the ease of life, that become a strain upon living, people will find back doors. One has to live! Will you not let anyone live? If you pile on so many tax rules that a man can’t survive, he will naturally keep two sets of books. He must live; so the “number two” account is born.

When Westerners come here whose countries don’t have such “number two” accounts, it’s hard to explain what that means. “Why a number two? What does that mean?” A second set of books arises only when the first eats life alive, makes living impossible. It arises inevitably.

I don’t blame those who keep a second set of books. My view is: you have made the first so difficult that anyone who wishes to live must keep the second. Those who don’t wish to live—who want to die—why would they keep any books at all? Even the first? There are mountains and rivers—many places to die! Why bang your head on accounts! And if you don’t have the courage for suicide, at least you can sit as a sadhu-saint! Then no accounts, no accounting hassles. No bamboo, no flute. But even if you sit in temple or mosque as a sadhu-saint—who will feed you? The “number two” account will! Because the “number one” can’t feed people as it is—where will it feed saints from?

Understand this a little: if you make ideals extreme, if you make them impossible, perhaps one or two eccentrics, fanatics, will struggle to fulfill them; but the other ninety-nine percent simple folk will be stuck. They will have only one recourse: put on masks; show one thing, do another; say one thing, be another.

I want a world where ideals are minimal—the barest minimum—only those absolutely unavoidable. Which compulsion? Only enough ideals and rules so that we do not harm another—that’s all. So that we don’t obstruct another’s life—those rules are enough. Beyond that, there is no need. And such rules man can fulfill. Who wants to obstruct another’s life? Why would one? If everyone has the freedom, ease, and peace to live their own life, who wants to interfere? If you hinder another’s life, your own life is hindered. It’s no cheap bargain. You trouble another—you’ll be troubled.

By “ideal” you mean: distant stars in the sky… to become this, to become that. In that race of becoming you forget how you are. What is, gets forgotten; what should be, fixes your gaze. But what is—that alone is real. A man has tuberculosis—that is the reality. He “should” be healthy, he should be a wrestler like Muhammad Ali or Gama—that is an ideal. So he hangs Gama’s picture at home, does a daily arati to it. And he has TB—rotting within—while his eyes are fixed on Gama’s picture! What will come of it? Will TB vanish? The truth is: because of it, the very means of release from TB is lost. Your eye is not on TB; it is stuck on Gama’s picture. Your eye should have been on TB—then something could be done, treatment could happen.

A man is burning with anger and sits with the ideal of non-anger. Keep your gaze on anger; bring attention to anger. Drop ideals like “non-anger.” They do nothing. Fix your gaze on anger. The way you are—that very reality is the path. One who becomes aware of his anger will, slowly, be free of anger. And once free of anger, non-anger blossoms—not as an ideal. It flowers as the fruit of understanding the fact and becoming free of it. Within you there is hatred, yet you hold up the ideal of love—talk of love, brotherhood, universal fraternity. Inside is hatred, venom. You hide it behind the screen of love. What will that do? Outwardly love-talk will go on; inwardly hatred will grow and spread, encircling your soul like a cancer.

No—I say: drop the ideal of love. If hatred is the reality, fix your eyes on it. Witness it. Recognize it. Peel it layer by layer. Descend its stairs. You must become acquainted with it: why is this hatred, what is it? From where does it come? Why does it arise? What is its secret? Where does its power hide? This very inquiry will astonish you. The day you know all the pathways of hatred, all its triggers; the day you understand hatred’s whole grip—that very day you will be outside it. Understanding is liberation. One who has seen all hatred’s ways cannot, even by mistake, hate. Not even in sleep. Not even in dreams. Why? Because hatred is self-destructive—destroying one’s own joy with one’s own hands. And one who cannot hate—within him, love arises.

Do not think I don’t want love in your life. Love must come—but not as an ideal. It is precisely because of ideals that it’s not coming. Let go of ideals. Live in facts. However bitter, however thorny the facts may be—we must become acquainted with our actuality. Then a revolution happens—an unprecedented revolution. From intimacy with fact, truth is born. The energy that had become anger, when freed from anger becomes compassion. The energy that had become lust, freed from lust becomes the search for Rama—the same kama becomes Rama. The energy that had become hatred—when freed—showers as love.

Hatred and love are two modes of the same energy: hatred the wrong mode, love the right. But without recognizing the wrong, no one attains the right. And to attain the right, nothing needs to be done—only the wrong needs to be seen. The day you understand that “this is a wall; you cannot pass through it; you break your head”—that very day you stop walking into the wall. Now you will look for a door. And the door exists. As the wall exists, so does the door. Your life is born with the mechanism to transform energy. You can die as gravel and stone; you can become diamonds and jewels. But because of ideals you are not becoming—that is the hindrance.

Talk of ideals sounds lofty. But ideals don’t let man be transformed. Your heart is full of violence; “Ahimsa paramo dharmah”—“Nonviolence is the supreme virtue”—hangs on your wall. No feeling of the Divine inside; yet you place a God’s idol in the house. You hire a priest, and he comes ringing bells to coax God to sleep, and leaves. He doesn’t have to put only your household deity to bed; there are many homes to go to. He rings the bell, does hocus-pocus—no one even watches what he does. He’s in a hurry—many to “finish.” It’s not just one case.

What are you doing? You have no experience of the Divine in your life, and you set up a statue in a corner. You’ve even kept a hired servant for it! You yourself never go to that temple. You never sit there and shed a couple of tears. There is no love in your life, no prayer. But the temple deceives you. It creates the feeling that “What else is there to do? I’ve done what needed doing: built a temple, installed an idol, appointed a priest. What more do you want? What other ideal?” Those with more means build more temples—village after village. “So many temples of God have been made—what more remains?” This way a man hides his reality behind the screen of ideals.

My opposition to ideals is not because I don’t want love in the world. I want love—therefore the opposition. I want ahimsa in the world—therefore get free of the ideal “ahimsa paramo dharmah.” For now, violence is your reality. Recognize your illness. Become alert to it. From that alertness, healing begins.

You ask: if ideals are dropped, there will be no challenge in life; then how will growth happen? Life itself provides enough challenge. Do ideals give challenge? Ideals give a false challenge; the real challenge comes from life. Whenever you become angry, don’t you suffer? When you burn with anger, do you feel joy? Truly—joy? Do flowers shower? Or do thorns pierce your chest? Don’t you repent? Don’t you feel defeated and exhausted afterward? Don’t you think, “When will this stupidity end?” Every time you get angry, aren’t you proved foolish? In your own eyes doesn’t your esteem fall? For this you need no ideal of non-anger; anger itself is challenge enough. And if anger is not challenge enough, what challenge will some doctrine of non-anger from a book ever provide? Anger gives you daily opportunities. Whenever anger happens, it informs you: “Again…you behaved foolishly—unconsciously. Unconsciousness brings misery; awareness brings bliss.”

Whenever you love, nectar flows, joy arises. Whenever you reach a hand to support someone, have you not seen the thrill that spreads within, across your life-breath? The glow that floats? What greater challenge do you need? Life is sufficient. Everything is here. If you want happiness, deepen those experiences that bring joy. If you want sorrow, deepen those that bring pain. Ideals cause obstruction, confusion. Simple things don’t remain visible. Life is perfectly clear—standing right in front of you. Beyond life, nothing else is needed.

When someone insults you, you feel pain. There lies the whole challenge! It is clear: do not insult anyone—otherwise they will feel pain. And the fruit of causing pain will not be good. He whom you insult will seek revenge. Buddha said: hatred is not appeased by hatred. This is not a doctrine or an ideal; it is a direct experience of life. It is your experience too. Love begets love; hatred begets hatred. If you want roses in your garden, don’t sow thorns—don’t sow babul.

But ideals are convenient: you sow babul while hoping for roses. You think, “Tomorrow there will be roses—if not tomorrow, the day after. If not this life, the next—one day there will be roses!” Your eyes remain fixed on roses, and in your stupor your hands keep sowing babul. Today you sow babul; tomorrow you will reap babul; the day after too! What you have not sown today—how will you harvest it? I say: bring your eyes to the ground. Come back to earth. Be a realist, not an idealist.

In Greece it happened: an astrologer was walking at night studying the stars and fell into a well—the well had no curb. His eyes were fixed on the sky—on moon and stars. He fell and shouted. An old poor woman from a nearby hut managed to pull him out. He was Greece’s greatest astrologer; emperors came to his door.

He thanked the old woman profusely and said, “Look, you don’t know what fortune you’ve had—to save me! I am Greece’s greatest astrologer. On the movements of stars and constellations, and their relation to human destiny, there is no greater authority on earth. The greatest emperors come to me. My fees are very high. But since you saved me, I will see your destiny without fee. Come tomorrow.”

The old woman laughed. He asked, “Why do you laugh?” She said, “I laugh because one who can’t see the well in front of him—what will he know of the moon and stars, constellations and future? Your own feet aren’t steady; you will tell my future? Come to your senses!”

They say this incident became the turning point of that astrologer’s life. He left astrology. The blow was heavy—and the point so true! There was a well before his feet—and he didn’t see it! Why didn’t he? Not because he lacked eyes; he had eyes—but fixed on distant stars.

This is the idealist’s mistake: his eyes are stuck on distant stars. The idealist says, “We will attain moksha!” Yet this rotten anger—he cannot be free of it. This rotten lust—he cannot be free of it. “We will attain heaven! Nirvana will happen!” His eyes are fixed on far skies—and because of that he falls daily into the pits: of anger, lust, enmity, jealousy, hatred.

I say: bring your eyes back to the ground. Keep your eyes where you must walk—on this very moment—because the pits are here. And if you avoid all the pits, the very avoiding is called moksha. Moksha is not somewhere in the distant sky. One whose life no longer holds the possibility of falling—that one is free.

Sitaram! Immerse yourself in these tears. These are tears of supreme blessedness! And the remembrance of me that now lives in your heart—take support of that remembrance again and again, and slowly awaken the remembrance of the Divine.

The relationship that has arisen between you and me is not the ultimate. It should not be the ultimate. Use the relationship you have with me; transform it into remembrance of God. Now that my remembrance has begun to arise in you, one thing is certain: you have learned the art of remembrance. Now the object of remembrance has to be changed. Half the work is already done. You have learned to swim; whether you swim east or west is not so difficult now. Where is the difficulty? The real difficulty is remembrance.

You say, “What magic has pulled me here?”
The magic has worked! The essential thing has happened!

“Wherever I am—at home or in the marketplace—I keep remembering you. Even in meditation your remembrance comes, and tears begin to flow.”
Now slowly transform this remembrance of me into remembrance of the Divine. That is why the guru has been called God—because the guru has to be slowly, slowly transformed into God. The guru is God only for the disciple, not for everyone. And there is a great secret in considering him God: only if he is God for you will you be able to take the leap to God; otherwise the leap will not be possible.

Gurur brahma... With the guru, the beginning is made. He is the seed. The guru has taken your hand; now soon that hand of the guru should be transformed into the hand of the Divine. Remembrance has begun—an auspicious hour has arrived. Tears are flowing—what a sweet moment! Now this very remembrance has to be changed into remembrance of the Divine. One more step is needed. If so much nectar arises in remembering me, how much will arise in remembering Him! And if my remembrance seems so magical, will not His remembrance be the great magic? It is certain!

Even if the night forgets the stars,
the stars do not forget the night.
A river may forget its banks,
but the banks do not forget the river.
In the tear-drenched moment of parting
I make only one request of you—
Doubt laughter if you must,
but trust the stream of tears!
Beloved! Trust my love!

People say the bumblebee hums,
but I say he is sighing.
What do the painted buds know—that upon them
a bee dies a hundred times in one life!
In the arrow-sharp hour of separation
I make only one request of you—
Doubt victory if you must,
but trust the heart’s defeat!
Beloved! Trust my love!

My tears are going, melting me away;
my fire is going, burning me away.
Let no duality remain between you and me—
therefore I go to erase my separate self!
In the twilight-dim hour of parting
I make only one request of you—
Do not trust life if you must not,
but have faith in the festival of death!
Beloved! Trust my love!

What is the lesson between disciple and guru? It is the lesson of love. The lesson of tears. The lesson of prayer. The lesson of the soul. What great journey is underway between guru and disciple? Others will not see it. Only those who have set out on the path will see it. Only those who have turned their eyes toward the guru will see it.

Your bond with me has happened. With this bond the first glimpse of bliss has begun to come. That is why you are amazed—you wonder what magic has happened! This is nothing; much more is yet to happen. Compared to what is to be, this is nothing. This is not even a drop; the ocean is yet to be! But the direction is right. Now refine this direction more and more. When remembrance of me arises, now join it with remembrance of the Divine. Gradually both remembrances will begin to come together. Then, when both begin to come together, let go of the remembrance of me. Hold only the remembrance of the Divine. And do not even by mistake think that in leaving me you have left me. If you cling to me, you may miss me; if you hold to the Divine, you will never be able to leave me—because that is the true destination.

I pointed a finger toward the moon; if you clutch my finger, you will miss. The finger was not shown to be held. It was shown so that you might see the moon. If you understand, you will forget the finger and look at the moon. And the moment you have seen the moon, you have fulfilled my effort—because my effort was only that you should see the moon. Do not think, “How can I leave this lovely finger that showed me the moon? I will hold fast to the finger.” The moment you clutch the finger, the mistake is made.

In the same way people are holding on to fingers. Someone clings to Mahavira’s finger, someone to Muhammad’s, someone to Moses’, someone to Buddha’s, someone to Krishna’s, someone to Christ’s—fingers have been grabbed! And if you try to loosen their grip, they become angry. They say, “What are you doing? This finger is very dear to us! We have held it for centuries. We will never let it go. Our very life may go, but we will not release this finger.”

When will you see the moon to which the finger was raised? It is that very moon the Quran points to; that very moon the Vedas point to; that very moon the Gita and the Dhammapada point to. But someone clutches the Dhammapada to his chest; someone carries the Vedas on his head. You are being crushed; you are dying beneath the load. And if someone even tries to lift the burden off you, you take him to be an enemy—because you think this is not a burden, it is a treasure.

I do not want to become your burden. I do not want you to hold on to my finger. Yes, in the beginning I let you hold my finger, because once the finger is in your grasp, the journey toward the moon can be undertaken. So there are two parts to the guru’s work. First, to come within the disciple’s grasp; and second, to slip out of the disciple’s grasp. When the work is complete, he should step aside. Otherwise the guru can become a great obstacle.

No true guru wants to become an obstacle, but the disciple, in his foolishness, can make him into one. False gurus certainly wish to be obstacles. They will never want to step out from between you and the goal. If you begin to move away, if you try to set them aside, they will be very angry. They will say it is betrayal! “I have done you so much good, brought you so far, and now you leave me!” They are like a boat that will take you to the other shore but will not let you disembark—“Sit in the boat; we brought you so far, and now you leave us!”

A true guru will say, “I am a boat. When you have reached the other shore, leave me. Step onto the far bank—the matter is complete. I, too, am happy that I was of use to you. My joy is that you were in darkness and came into light—that you were dead and have become alive!”

First people ask, “What is the need of a guru? Can’t one manage without a guru?” The very same people, one day, will raise the second question: “Now that I’ve found a guru, now that I’m holding on to him—why is it necessary to let go?” The same people! Not different people—the same ones. First they’ll create obstacles to taking hold; then they’ll create obstacles to letting go.

My own experience is this: the one who holds on simply, lets go simply. The one who clutches with difficulty, releases with difficulty.

I have heard of some people setting out on a journey. A train was standing at Amritsar station—great rush and bustle. They were going to Haridwar. A crowd, and then Punjabis—so the train had the atmosphere of a battlefield! Things were being tossed about, people were climbing in through the windows, pushing and pulling, scuffles breaking out. One philosophical sort among them said, “Brothers, it’s terribly hard to get into this train. We won’t have to get off it later, will we?” His companions said, “Of course you’ll have to get off—once we reach Haridwar, you get off.” He said, “If we have to get off, why get on? Why all this hassle? Fight and get beaten, get into a mess—and in the end you have to get off anyway. If we must get down, then why get in?”

The train was about to leave. There wasn’t even time for his companions to explain things. They grabbed him—he kept yelling, “Why are you forcing me?” They dragged him in—Punjabis are Punjabis! They hauled him inside and said, “Keep quiet. This is no time for philosophical principles; we’ll discuss them in Haridwar.”

Haridwar came; the same hassle again. Now he wouldn’t get down. He said, “Since we got on, why get off now? And now it’s fun—everyone else is leaving; we’ll stay and relax. We’ll spread our legs and sleep. We’re tired from standing, exhausted, suffocated!” Now his friends were pulling him again. Punjabis are Punjabis! “Save that nonsense for later—get down now.” And he clung to the bench, “I’m not going. We boarded with such difficulty!”

Don’t laugh—this is exactly our condition! First it’s so hard to get on; once you’re on, it’s terribly hard to get off. First it’s hard to bow before the guru. First the ego takes a great hit in taking the guru’s hand. The one who takes the hand simply also, one day, lets it go simply. And letting go is no insult to the guru—it is respect, reverence; it is the fulfillment of the guru’s longing. And in letting go you are not abandoning the guru; in letting go you are meeting the Divine. First you found the Divine in the guru; now you will find the guru in the Divine. Nothing is being lost.

Let me repeat: first you saw the ocean in a drop; now you will see the drop in the ocean. If the ocean could be seen in a mere drop, what obstacle could there be to seeing the drop in the ocean? The difficult thing was the first: to see the ocean in the drop. In the ocean, the drop will be seen very easily.

Seeing the Divine in the guru is a very difficult thing; but seeing the guru in the Divine will not be difficult at all. That will happen simply. So there is no insult, no betrayal, no ingratitude. With joy, with awe, with gratitude, bow your head and one day let the remembrance of the guru become the remembrance of the Divine.

What is more beautiful than the Kaaba?
I am bowing to offer my salaam.

The first time you meet a guru, all temples and mosques fade. For in temples and mosques there are only images—of clay. With the guru, there is the presence of consciousness, of living awareness. For the first time you touch living truth.

What is more beautiful than the Kaaba?
I am bowing to offer my salaam.

But don’t stop—go on, go on! Until you find the vast, boundless expanse of existence, do not stop.

Only now the long-desired image is complete—
Everyone has begun to think I’ve gone mad.

When the guru arrives in your life, people will think you are mad. It has never been otherwise and never will be. When the guru happens, the whole world will think you’re crazy—because they don’t see what you’ve begun to scent, what light has begun to dawn, what clues you’ve begun to receive of which they have no inkling. No one will agree that what you’ve seen is true. They’ll say you’re deluded. They’ll say you’ve gone mad. When the guru comes, the whole world calls you mad. And the day you let go of the guru’s hand, that day your own mind will call you mad. Beware of both. Let the world call you mad—tell them, “Yes, this madness is better than the old non-madness.” And when your own mind says, “Are you crazy—to let go of the one who brought you this far?”—but if the guru himself is releasing your hand, then even if your mind cries that this is madness—don’t worry. You’ve renounced everything for the guru; renounce this too. The day you take both these steps, your journey is complete.

But the egoistic first ask, “Why—what’s the need of a guru?” Why ask at all? You ask because you cannot find the answer on your own. That very question means the search for the guru has begun. Otherwise, what need to ask? As yet you cannot save yourself.

Would you save another’s vessel,
while you sink your own little boat?

For now, you can only sink your own boat. For lives upon lives you have learned only the ways of sinking. For now, bind yourself to the company of one who knows how to ferry across. In his company your boat too will learn to float. What else is the meaning of the guru’s company? Someone knows how to swim—you go with him so that you too may learn. When it comes, it will arise from within you; swimming is not something the guru can hand over. But seeing the guru’s strings resound, the vina within you will begin to vibrate. Watching the guru’s hands and feet move, you’ll find the courage to move your own. Seeing the guru float in the water, you’ll feel: if the guru can float, I too can float. I’m human too. If water can support the guru’s weight, why not mine? If the Divine has lifted the guru up, why would it not lift me? Seeing the guru, trust will arise: just as the water holds him, so will the Divine hold me. The capacity for surrender will come.

At first, everyone learning to swim thrashes about. Sometimes a little water even goes into the mouth. Sometimes you panic a bit, even go under—it’s completely natural. It is through these dunkings that you learn to swim. By flailing arms and legs wrongly, you learn to move them rightly. Even these wrong strokes are being thrown in the right direction.

So don’t be alarmed. Don’t be afraid. But if you go to learn swimming alone, there is danger. And I am not saying someone else can give you the skill of swimming; it will arise from within you. Yet if you try to learn alone, there is danger—that you might go too deep. The danger is: how will you trust that water can hold you, that it will support you? How will faith arise in you? Without faith you will remain timid and fearful. Your fear itself will drown you.

The difference between one who can swim and one who cannot is only this: self-trust. Remember this well. Only self-trust—nothing else. The swimmer has not received some extra thing the non-swimmer lacks. Everything is the same, except one new thing: the swimmer has confidence. He knows that water does not drown; water is not an enemy.

You see it, don’t you? A living person drowns, and a dead body floats. What art does a corpse possess? Why does the living drown while the dead floats? The water was willing to buoy him up, but the living man drowned in his own fear—he drowned in his lack of self-trust. The dead have no fear. What is there to fear now? Once dead, who is left to fear? So the corpse floats. The dead are fearless; so is the swimmer. He no longer fears the water; he is friendly with it. He knows water is no enemy. Water never drowns anyone; it bears you up—its very capacity is to lift you against gravity. But you must trust it. You do not yet trust.

Recently in Japan a psychologist experimented with infants: at what age can a child learn to swim? You’ll be amazed—a six-month-old can learn to swim! He taught six-month-old babies to swim. Now a six-month-old cannot talk, nor can you explain anything to him; yet he taught them! How? He would sit the infant beside a tub. Other children swam; the infant watched, kept watching. He saw the other children swimming, enjoying the water. His own heart stirred—he wanted to slide in, to go into the water. When he wanted to, they let him. Once or twice he went under, even got frightened. But since the other children were swimming, trust came quickly. Once trust arose, without language, without instruction, he began to move his arms and legs. Gradually he learned.

That psychologist did astonishing experiments. He says a six-month-old is sufficiently capable of learning to swim. The greatest essential is this: confidence must become contagious. He must get the feel that this can happen. If he experiments further, he might teach even younger babies—after all, in the mother’s womb they float in water. They come with nine months’ experience. No one has to give us anything from outside, nor is there any need. But who will awaken trust?

A guru does not give knowledge; he awakens trust. He shakes awake the sleeping faith. And it is not necessary that you understand what the guru says in order to arrive. What is necessary is that love arises for the guru, that a drenched, tender bond of resonance and affection is formed.

When silence had to come to our aid,
that moment arrived even in our talk.

Truth is not a matter of talk. It is a matter of relating in quiet, wordless silence. The real thing is said only in silence. Everything is within you already—but someone needs to remind you. You have forgotten yourself.

No prison would remain for you,
if only you freed yourself from your own snare.
You lack awareness of your own greatness—
had you served your own being, you would have become divine.

Everything was within you.
You yourself are oblivious to your own majesty, your own dignity.
O unconscious one! You have no inkling of your glory!

Had you served your own being, you would have become divine.
All is possible. It can happen without a guru—indeed, in truth, it only happens without a guru. Yet still it does not happen without a guru, because trust does not arise in you. The need for a guru is the need for a catalyst in whose presence trust awakens; in whose presence the sense of your own sleeping glory and dignity stirs; in whose presence a call rises in you: “I too can.” That’s all. If it has happened to a flesh-and-blood human being, it can happen to me as well.

And that is why I tell you again and again: if you cling to Krishna, perhaps it will never happen to you—because around Krishna you have spun stories that he is an incarnation of God, divine from birth. There is danger in such stories. They create a vast distance between you and Krishna: he is divine; you are human. If it happened to him, of course it should—but how could it happen to you? It happened to Mahavira because he is a Tirthankara—only twenty-four Tirthankaras come into the world; how could you be the twenty-fifth? It happened to Muhammad—he was a prophet. Jesus was the son of God—so it happened. But you are ordinary—son of a shopkeeper, a tailor, a station-master. You are not the son of God—there is only one son of God, Jesus. How could it happen to you? As time passes, people weave such tales around true gurus that, because of them, hardly any human kinship remains. A great distance appears. That distance is fatal.

Therefore I say: find a living guru—someone now, in a body of flesh and bone; with feet on the ground; who catches the same illnesses as you, feels the same hunger and thirst, sleeps at night—just like you. If you see that something has happened in one such as you, then trust will arise; otherwise it will not. After he is gone, people will weave stories around him too. Story-weavers are always present; weaving is what they do.

Today I am here; if, right now, trust arises in me, something can happen in you—because I am exactly like you. There is no difference—or perhaps only a tiny one. So tiny that if you are just a little shaken awake, it will happen within you too. You are asleep; I am awake. I can shake you. If you are willing—if you say, “Yes, shake me; I won’t be offended; shake me”—then what sleeps within you will awaken. That’s the only difference—next to nothing.

But tomorrow, when I am gone, stories will be spun. Those stories will begin to create distance between you and me. Stories are spun precisely so that every disciple can present his guru as unique, unlike any other. So Christians say Jesus was born of a virgin mother—no one else ever was. To assert uniqueness, this became necessary: “Our guru is no ordinary guru!” Then they can say to the Jains, “Was your Mahavira born of a virgin?” If not, he was ordinary—but Jesus is the son of God!

The Jains are no less. It didn’t occur to them then; they thought up other things. They say perspiration did not emerge from Mahavira’s body. Think of the hot land of Bihar—dust everywhere, even today; imagine then! And poor Mahavira wandered naked—the dust! And they did not bathe, since bathing was seen as bodily adornment. If he sweated, it would be trouble—the smell spreading village to village! So they say: he did not sweat at all. Nor did Mahavira excrete. Then they can ask a follower of Jesus, “Tell us—does your guru have this excellence?”

These are disciples’ quarrels. I say to you: Mahavira too perspired, and Jesus was born just as you were born—nothing special. But say this and quarrels ignite; disciples are inflamed: “Our guru not special?” If others’ gurus are not special, ours is! It becomes an ornament for the ego. Do you want to attain the Divine through the guru—or turn the guru into an adornment for your ego? Do you want to arrive through the guru—or get stuck clinging to his name? Find a living guru. Blessed are those who find one. Sitaram, you are blessed!

Gathering the scattered fragments of my troubled heart,
you gave my broken, dispersed being a shape again.
Where had the courage to live remained in me?
You gave me once more the strength to live.
Whether sorrow or joy, whether dying or living,
you made yourself my need in every state.

This is what the guru does—he gathers your scattered pieces.

Gathering the scattered fragments of my troubled heart—
that heart fractured into anxieties and worries—he brings it together.

Gathering the scattered fragments of my troubled heart,
you gave my shattered existence a face again.
Where had the courage to live remained in me?
You gave me once more the strength to live.
Whether sorrow or joy, whether dying or living,
you made yourself my need in every state.

A guru simply awakens you to your possibilities—to your infinitudes. He makes you aware that you are not only what you have taken yourself to be. You are the ocean. You are sitting as a drop. Being a drop is not your destiny; being the ocean is your destiny.

Be delighted, dance, be enraptured. Let this magic that is descending on you descend fully.

The clouds have surged and come,
have spread across the sky.
As the sky’s heart swells
and comes near the earth,
on the tingling grass they have
scattered flowers—the clouds have come surging!
The clouds have surged and come!

A rich earth-scent rises
from the cheeks of the soil;
the clouds have kindled
the flame of earth’s beauty and youth.
The clouds have surged and come!

Can thirst be quenched by drops
when it is ocean-deep?
For the pied-cuckoo’s thirst
the clouds have only fanned the flames.
The clouds have surged and come!

Over there some rain has fallen,
here love has rained from the eyes;
green sprouts—the clouds
have teased awake your remembrance.
The clouds have surged and come!

In the steam of pain a lightning
of joy flashes but for a moment—
with rain-wet eyes the clouds
have taught me this secret.
The clouds have surged and come!

Clouds have begun to gather over you—magic will rain, the monsoon will fall, samadhi will shower! Deepen this remembrance. And slowly, let the remembrance of the guru become the remembrance of the Divine.

Thread one pearl at a time and a mala is made; one drop at a time and an ocean is formed.
So too, one remembrance at a time, made dense and dense, transforms into that Great Remembrance—call it moksha, call it nirvana, call it samadhi. Buddha called it the “Cloud of Samadhi”—megha-samadhi.

That’s all for today.