Mare He Jogi Maro #4

Chaitanya Kirti! The mind has two states. One—agitated, wavelike, restless; that is thought. The other—still, wave-less, silent, unmoving; that is the feeling-samadhi. Just as when a lake is full of waves there is thought; and when the lake is quiet, rippleless, there is feeling. The mind can be in either state.

Ordinarily the mind is in the state of thought because the winds of desire are blowing. A lake is ruffled by winds; gusts set it rocking. So too the mind is stirred into waves by the winds of craving—let me get this, let me get that; let me become this, let me become that. The inner, incessant blaze to become and to obtain—that is what makes the waves. The moment desire leaves, the winds stop, the lake grows still, feeling settles.

Hence all the wise have said: understand desire, and everything will be understood. Whoever understands desire understands the root cause of inner derangement. And when the root is seen, you no longer support it. Who wants to be insane? Who wants to remain caught in the turmoil and hustle of thought? Who wants to suffer the disease of thought?

Thought is a disease because it breeds continual restlessness, disquiet, tension. Thought is affliction. It is because of thought that bliss is not being experienced. Bliss is known the very moment thought bids farewell. And thought will not depart so long as the winds of desire keep blowing.

You ask: How does the energy of thought transform into feeling?

Understand desire. Be content with what you are; desire vanishes. Be satisfied as you are. Do not demand more. What is, is supremely delightful. There is no need to be other than you are. Then, in this very moment, look—where have thoughts gone? Feeling has settled... Gradually you will taste the nectar of feeling. And once its flavor is known, who will want to return to thought? One who has begun to relate with flowers no longer goes searching for thorns.

But this whole society, this crowd, these people, excite desire within you. From childhood the initiation into desire is given; ambition is taught. Even a father wants the son to “become something”—to acquire wealth, position, fame, prestige; to bring honor to the family name—and you are caught by desire. The small children we send to school, we are sending to be initiated into desire. For twenty-five years—one third of life—we train people in ambition! How to come first, how to leave others behind. Whatever the price, even if life is lost in the race, you must forge ahead... If you must die, die ahead, but do not be left behind.

Reflect on Jesus’ words: Blessed are those who are last, for they shall be first in my Father’s kingdom; and those who are first shall become the last.

How will an ambitious person be linked with the kingdom of God? He has already tied himself to hell. Then, after a lifetime of scramble—after drinking who knows how many ghats’ dirty waters, after being caked with the dust of who knows how many roads—when the sun of life begins to set and it seems that nothing was gained, that the hands are empty, that we ran much but arrived nowhere—then remorse surrounds one. Then the mind thinks: Now how to attain samadhi? Now how to attain God? And again the mind deceives you: the same language of getting... Now a new ambition will clutch you. The form of this ambition is merely draped in religion; only its manner is religious—its soul is the same old one. Whether you seek wealth or seek religion, position or God, as long as there is seeking, the winds will keep blowing and the mind will keep rippling. The one who wants money has thoughts of money; the one who wants God has thoughts of God—but thoughts will continue. What difference does it make whose thoughts they are—of wealth or of holiness? Whether thoughts are religious or irreligious, thought is thought. And where there is thought, there is unrest.

Therefore I am not teaching you religious thoughts. I am initiating you into no-thought. Generally, what goes on in temples and mosques is just this: people full of worldly thoughts are stuffed instead with spiritual thoughts—nothing more. But what difference does it make? You have given the disease a pious, pretty name; what changes?

So long as you want to be anything, so long as you harbor the ambition to become something in the future, so long as you are eager for tomorrow, you will remain unquiet. The stream of thought will keep flowing. And as long as the stream of thought flows, you will remain cut off from God.

I am telling you that religious thoughts are just as great an obstacle between you and God as worldly thoughts. Thought is the barrier; no-thought is union.

Gorakh has said:
See the Unseen, ponder what is seen, seat the Invisible in the heart.
Hoist the Ganges of the netherworld to the cosmos, and there drink the utterly pure water.

If the goal is to see that which does not appear, ordinary eyes will not suffice. If the aim is to experience that which does not come within thought, then the process of thinking will not support you.

See the Unseen!
If what is invisible must be seen, you will have to see with eyes closed. With open eyes, what appears is the world.

See the Unseen, and ponder what is seen!
And then, do not stop at merely seeing it—let it penetrate your innermost core. Let it dawn, be understood. It is not enough that a glimpse be had. Whatever glimpse is received must be integrated into our state of being. The glimpse should not be like a flash of lightning—appearing and gone—but like a lamp ever-lit within, whose light remains, remains.

Seat the Invisible in the heart!
Immerse your mind in that which is unseen. And sustain the unseen within your consciousness.

Hoist the Ganges of the netherworld to the cosmos!
That river of energy which is flowing downward—into desire, craving, ambition; which is streaming toward the world...

Hoist the Ganges of the netherworld to the cosmos!
That which is going downward—toward the nether regions, toward hell—must be taken upward; it must be given an ascent.

There drink the utterly pure water!
And once you begin to rise, to become upward-bound, to become urdhvaretas, then drink deeply of the pristine nectar. Let God be seated in your heart; sit yourself in God’s heart—then drink abundantly of the nectar!

God enters the heart only when the mind is rippleless.

Understand it like this: there is a lake; it is the night of the full moon; a lovely moon in the sky, the ambiance exquisitely beautiful. But if the lake is ruffled, the moon’s reflection cannot settle in it—it breaks, scatters; it forms and disperses. Across the lake the fragments of the moon are strewn. Silver spreads over the waters, but the reflection does not form. Then the lake becomes still; the winds no longer blow; now there is hush; the lake has become meditative, the lake has entered samadhi—now the reflection is formed. Now the whole moon sits in the lake.

This is precisely the happening. God surrounds you on all sides. It is full-moon always, for God is never absent even for a single moment. The full moon is out; only your inner lake is wavy. Then God’s reflection cannot be formed within you; you cannot hold him within. He cannot enter your womb; he keeps breaking, scattering; like quicksilver he slips away. The tighter you clench your fist, the more difficult it becomes.

The state of feeling means: the mind becomes pure, tranquil. Now the waves of desire no longer flow. Now there is nothing to gain, nothing to become. Sitting, silent, still... In this state of repose, that which is ever-present begins at once to glimmer within. Then the moon is not only outside; the moon comes within. And then drink deeply... drink the utterly pure nectar!

Here itself it is, and here itself it is hidden. Here itself the three worlds are woven.
It abides with you, plays beside you. For this reason countless siddhas became lords of yoga.

Gorakh says that infinite seekers attained in just this way, and thus became accomplished yogeshwars. How? Here it is, here it is hidden! That which you are seeking is hidden right here. Where are you going?

Here it is, here it is hidden!
That for which you travel far and wide—Kashi and Kailash, Quran and Purana—that which you worship in stones and seek in words, is utterly present right here, now, in your every breath, before your very eyes. Turn your gaze anywhere and it is there. Here it is, here it is hidden. It is present here, and hidden here. And hidden—not because it is trying to hide from you. Hidden because your eyes are veiled by thought. You are so full of your own thoughts—how will you be able to see? You are wavy.

Here the three worlds are woven!
Why all this talk that somewhere ahead there is some other realm? The three worlds are right here. Hell is here, earth is here, heaven is here. It all depends on your vision. Change the vision here, and the creation there changes.

One who lives in thought lives in hell. One who lives in feeling lives in heaven. One who is caught between the two lives on earth.

On this earth most people are living in hell. Do not think hell is somewhere in the lower regions. Forget old, pointless tales. If you keep digging into the earth you will find America in the netherworld, not hell. And the people of America think the same—that “down below” is you! “This holy land India!” If America were to dig straight through, they would emerge here, in Poona. They would be very surprised to find you. “Where are the devils, where is the fire roaring, where are the cauldrons?”

The earth is round. Down below is simply this same earth. So understand the language of “below” and “above” as symbolic. “Below” does not mean under the ground. And “above” does not mean you should start peering into the sky. “Below” means thought. “Above” means feeling. “Below” means derangement. “Above” means liberation. And between the two is earth.

Those who live in hell suffer—much suffering; right now, at this very moment! Get angry, and you have entered hell... the fire has ignited. What fire are you thinking of, and what kettles do you need? What can burn you more than anger—which scorches and incinerates? You start being seared, sinking in poison; bitterness begins to spread through your life-energy. And cultivate love, compassion—and you begin to rise; the ascent starts; the gates of heaven open!

Heaven is not in the sky! We say “above” because it is an upper state—the highest state of your consciousness. Feeling is your most exalted state—your inner Kailash! But people think there is something on Mount Kailash; so Kailash has become a place of pilgrimage. The pilgrimage is within you; within you is Kailash. When your consciousness becomes utterly still it becomes Kailash. The highest Himalaya becomes lower than you. You begin to fly in the sky; you become the sky! And when you fall down, you become hell. Between the two is earth.

Most people live in hell, a few live on earth, and very rare ones experience heaven. And all of it is here, now.

Gorakh’s saying is very wondrous:
Here itself the three worlds are woven!
Fashion it here—whatever you wish to do, whatever you wish to make, wherever you wish to live. It depends on your style of living.

It abides with you, plays beside you!
Here within you, in your inner emptiness, all is hidden. In your sahasrar all is hidden. Here is hidden the Light of lights, the Radiance of radiances! In this very emptiness God is enthroned. Whoever dives into it becomes accomplished, becomes a yogeshwar.

It abides with you, plays beside you!
Make a relationship with your own inner void.

For this reason countless siddhas became lords of yoga.
And for precisely this reason—simply by relating to their own inner emptiness—innumerable ones attained the supreme state of yoga: nirvikalpa samadhi. Devotees call it bhava-samadhi, the samadhi of feeling.

Asking does not befit you. Do not go to the Divine’s door as a beggar. Unasked, pearls are given; when you ask, you don’t even get husk-dust. And it isn’t that nothing is given—much is given—but it is given to the one who does not ask. Those who ask are turned away. Who welcomes beggars? The gatekeepers at God’s door say: Move along! People are tired of those who beg.

A Jew died—he had spent his whole life in prayer. He would go to the synagogue and pray, shouting at the top of his voice. Even when he went to sleep, he prayed loudly. If he woke in the middle of the night, again he shouted in prayer: “Listen, God!” Opposite him lived an atheist who had never prayed and never went to a temple. The Jew, religious as he was, would think in his heart: “All right, enjoy yourself for a few days more, then you’ll fall into hell and suffer. And I’ll be in heaven; I’ve prayed so much, earned so much merit. You’ll be in hell. Play your flute for these few days, but it’s a brief moonlit night—darkness follows.”

Thinking thus, he would pray even more loudly. For himself he asked heaven; for the atheist across the way he also asked for hell. As fate would have it, both died on the same day. Angels came: they led the religious man toward hell. He shouted, “What are you doing?” And they took the irreligious man toward heaven. He said, “This is injustice. All my life I’ve suffered injustice, and now again! I was troubled then too, but I kept patience—never mind, I thought, I’ll bear a few days of trouble; then heaven. And this pleasure-seeker you take to heaven! You must have made some mistake. You must have brought the order to take me to heaven—show me your letter! You’re making an error.”

They said, “We are making no mistake. If you are too disturbed, we can take both of you to the Divine.”

He said, “Certainly, take us—there the decision will be made.” Before God, he again shouted—old habit. God said, “I’m right here before you—why are you shouting now? What do you want?”

He said, “Some mistake has been made. I’m to be taken to heaven, and this wicked man you are taking there! He is a sensualist, he did wrong all his life. He never prayed; I prayed always. Why am I being taken to hell?”

God said, “Because of your prayers. You wore my head out. Should I settle you in heaven and invite that trouble upon myself? This is the fruit of your prayers. I am settling the other man there because he plays the flute, he lives in melody and color; he will bring a little festivity to heaven. With you there would be no festivity; whatever little there is would fade.”

If you ask the Divine for something—what will you ask? Only something petty. Better not to ask at all. If you can gather the capacity not to ask, that is the very best. If you must ask, then ask only for the Divine—nothing else. That is second best. If the mind simply will not agree, if it is addicted to asking, if it won’t be at ease without it, a thorn keeps pricking—then ask only for the Divine.

Rahim has said:
“What shall I do with Vaikuntha,
or with the shade of the wish-fulfilling tree?
Rahim says, even the humble dhaak is lovely—
if only the Beloved’s arm is around my neck.”

What will I do with your heaven? What will I do with the shade of the wish-fulfilling tree? Rahim says: even this uncomely dhaak tree is beautiful—if only one thing happens: let the Beloved’s arm be around my neck! If your arm is around my neck and mine around yours, then beneath this very dhaak tree heaven has arrived. What need then of the wish-fulfilling tree and Vaikuntha? This here is heaven!

So if you must ask, ask for Him—and nothing beyond. If you must ask, ask only this: that I, unworthy as I am, be accepted. Ask only for refuge, that my surrender be accepted, not refused. As a lover asks of the beloved or a beloved of the lover—go to the Divine’s door like a lover, not like a beggar.

Beloved, I lay everything at your feet—
accept it, for this is the most blessed moment!
Open the petals of your eyes,
the heart’s lake moistened through the ages;
let pain become a Yamuna—
melted by a single breath of remembrance.
Melody, note, and rhythm I lay before your song—
let them resound; this is the most blessed moment!
Accept it, for this is the most blessed moment!

Today the voice of my heartbeats,
a prisoner of sighs,
the music of my lips lost—
the wave is like a lament.
Beloved, upon the anklet-jingle
of my mind and life at your feet—
let a ray descend; this is the most blessed moment!
Accept it, for this is the most blessed moment!

Today something ancient and dreamlike,
yet sweet and utterly new,
bearing all that’s gone and all that’s to come—
your delicate wrists a-tremble;
O color-drenched One, tender love offered
at your union—let creation happen;
this is the most blessed moment!
Beloved, I lay everything at your feet—
accept it, for this is the most blessed moment!

As a lover lays everything at his beloved’s feet, as a beloved lays everything at her lover’s feet—forge such a relationship with the Divine! Not one of give-and-take, not of cunning and bargains, not of cravings and ambitions.

Do not ask—asking soils prayer. Let prayer remain free. Free of asking, only then can prayer take flight into the sky; otherwise the stones of asking weigh it down, pull it to the earth; it cannot rise to the heights. And what will you ask? It is only your mind that asks. You have to be free of the mind. If you seek to fulfill its demands, how will you become free of it? And asking itself is a thought, isn’t it? You have to go beyond thought—if you ask for thought’s fulfillment, how will you go beyond?

Do not ask—be silent. Before him, silent offering is enough. Flow at his feet like the waters of the Ganges. Wash his feet with your life—that is enough. And much is given—unasked it is given. I am not saying you won’t receive; you will—but only the one who does not ask receives. The one who asks creates the very obstacle through his asking.

Still, if you cannot manage, then I say: ask for something—ask for the Divine. Or else… if even the longing to ask for the Divine does not arise—because it is rare for such a longing to arise; only one in whom love has awakened can ask for the Divine—but in most, love has not awakened. They can ask for wealth, position, prestige—such things. They can ask for long life, for health—such things.

If there is love in you, ask for the Divine. If there is meditation, ask for nothing at all. Meditation is the highest peak: ask nothing. Fall silent—wordless, dumb before him, wonderstruck, absorbed in the mystery, dissolved, lost… Much will be given; the whole of the Divine will shower upon you. His blessings, like flowers, will fill you to overflowing. But if you do not yet have the capacity for silence and waves keep arising, then ask for the Divine; that is the lover’s wave. That is second best. And if love has not yet arisen, then a third suggestion:

May I become a smiling lamp—
fill my heart with so much love today!
Let these eyes not be emptied of pearls,
let the melody in my throat not be lost.
In the dense shadow of darkness I fear
the flame itself may grow dim.
Around life is drawn the circle of death,
each step staggering as it goes.
For a moment’s human smile here,
every eye brims with tears.
Let me scatter a moonlight-soft smile—
Beloved! fill me with such delight today!
May I become a smiling lamp—
fill my heart with so much love today!

Some flowers are falling to the earth—ah!
do not lift the veil of the new bud yet.
Let it smile too, turning as we turn;
let the branch’s flowers smile like this now.
Cast a mantle of rays upon the flower
so the new bud’s eyes may also smile.
Let a new melody be born for a few moments,
that free of mind the lips may hum.
That I may drink the poison and yet sing here—
place a drop of honey on my tongue today!
May I become a smiling lamp—
fill my heart with so much love today!

So first: do not ask for anything—that is meditation, that feeling, that thought-free state.
Second: if you must ask, ask for the Divine; ask for the grace to be accepted.
And if such love has not yet awakened, then ask at least this: let my heart be filled with love.

May I become a smiling lamp—
fill my heart with so much love today!
That I may drink the poison and yet sing here—
place a drop of honey on my tongue today!

Do not fall below this. If you go below this, prayer becomes utterly corrupt; it is no longer prayer.

What else can one do? Pandit means: a well-read parrot. A parrot may chant the name of Ram, but that doesn’t place Ram in its heart. It can recite the Gita, read the Gayatri, memorize verses from the Quran; but its life-breath is not soaked by any of it. A stone may lie in the river, yet it does not truly get soaked through. If a parrot chants “Ram, Ram,” do you think the name permeates its being?

Such is the condition of the pandit. He is deceived himself and deceives others. There has been no experience. No flavor has descended into his life-breath, no drop of honey has filled him, no flower has blossomed; he has memorized borrowed words and goes on repeating them—and by repeating them he becomes puffed up.

It isn’t only Gorakhnath who has opposed this; all the knowers have—because pedantry is the enemy of knowing; it is its fraud, its travesty. No one becomes a knower through pedantry; ignorance is only covered, not erased. As talking about a lamp doesn’t dispel darkness, so discussing Brahman does not ignite the inner light. Talking about food does not end hunger; food does. But the pandit is absorbed in discussion—and has forgotten that food has to be cooked. The pandit lugs around cookbooks. Even if you have a thousand cookbooks, they are worth less than a single dry, coarse roti—because that roti will fill the belly, turn into flesh and bone. The speech of saints may not be so ornamented; it isn’t—Gorakh’s speech is not very embellished either: it is simple, plain, clean, not laden with jewelry. Perhaps the pandit’s language is more polished, more refined. The very word “Sanskrit” means refined.

You will be surprised to know that Buddha spoke in the people’s tongue. Mahavira spoke in the vernacular. Gorakh, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu—all spoke in the vernacular. None used Sanskrit. Why? The reason is clear: Sanskrit had by then become only the language of pandits. It was no longer related to people’s lives. The pandit used Sanskrit as a trick. What is the trick? Use a language people don’t understand. When you use such a language, people will never know whether you yourself know or not. You can blurt out gobbledygook, indulge in futile babble, and people will listen with great reverence—because they don’t understand a thing. And when people don’t understand, they think, “Surely something very deep and profound is being said; that’s why we can’t understand.”

Truth is plain and clear—utterly straightforward; it is grasped at once. You don’t have to deploy many maneuvers to understand truth. Untruth is complicated. You see it when you go to a doctor for a prescription: he doesn’t write in Hindi or Marathi or English; he writes the names of medicines in Latin and Greek. The reason is that you won’t understand. And have you seen a doctor’s handwriting? He writes in such a way that if he himself has to read it again, he will stumble.

Mulla Nasruddin is the only literate man in his village. A villager came to have a letter written. Mulla said, “I can’t write—today I can’t write; for at least eight days I can’t write. There’s a lot of pain in my big toe—on my foot.”
The man said, “Mulla, be sensible. What does a toe have to do with it? A letter is written with the hand.”
Mulla said, “You don’t understand, so don’t interrupt. I’ll write it—then who will go to read it? Only I can read what I write, and even I sometimes get stuck. It even happened once that a man came to get a letter written...”
Now see the fun: first he will write the letter, it will be sent, and then he will go to the next village to read it—because no one else can read it. One man was dictating a letter to his beloved. After a long letter he said, “Nasruddin, now read the whole thing once so that my heart is satisfied that what I wanted has been written.”
Nasruddin said, “That’s a problem.”
He asked, “Why—what’s the harm in reading it?”
Nasruddin said, “First of all, the letter isn’t addressed to me—so how can I read it?”
The villager said, “Ah, that’s a matter of law. That makes sense. Yes, you’re right—since it isn’t addressed to you, how can you read it?”
Nasruddin said, “You see! First, the letter isn’t to me. And why should we worry anyway? It’s the concern of the person to whom it’s addressed. Let him figure it out; if he can read, let him; if he can’t, let him not.”

A doctor writes in Latin and Greek, and writes in such a way that it cannot be read. I’ve heard: a doctor sent an invitation to one of his patients—“My daughter’s wedding is tomorrow evening; please come for dinner.” The man saw the note and thought the doctor had sent a prescription. He went to the chemist’s shop and the chemist quickly made up a mixture and gave it. The man drank the mixture for two days—then the doctor called: “Brother, you didn’t come; the girl’s wedding is over—I’d sent a note.” Then the whole secret came out. As for the chemist—whether he reads it or not—he quickly prepares a mixture all the same. The reason for Latin and Greek is this: otherwise you wouldn’t pay fifteen rupees at the chemist. Suppose it were written there “ajwain extract”—then you couldn’t pay fifteen rupees. You’d say, “Charging fifteen rupees for ajwain extract? It costs four paisa!” But if some big unfamiliar word is written in Latin, even if he asks fifty, you’ll pay—you don’t even know it’s ajwain extract.

Sanskrit was used by pandits so that people could be kept dull. This has not happened only in this country; popes and priests have used Latin and Greek—old languages that have died, in which there is no longer any life, that people no longer know. Saints speak plain and simple, in the people’s tongue. They speak the language you understand. If one wants to convey one’s experience to people, one should speak the language people understand. But those who have no experience, who have nothing to convey—for them it is best to speak in such a language that nobody understands. If people understand, you’ll be caught.

The pandit is borrowed, stale. He has not seen God himself. Yes, he has read scriptures that discuss God. He has argued, reasoned, thought; he has not meditated, he has not experienced. That is why there is opposition. The opposition is not out of enmity toward the pandit; there is compassion for him. He too has to be warned, he too has to be awakened.

Gorakh says:
Having read and seen, O pandit—now live and see the essence.
Only by your own doing will you cross to the other shore.

He is speaking to a pandit: You have seen by reading; now try by doing. Now see the essence by living. Let me tell you one thing: only by your own doing will you cross. Only by your own doing will you cross.

These books will drown. They are paper boats; do not set out upon the ocean with them. Don’t say, “I have built this boat from the Vedas.” It will not serve. It is a paper boat; it will sink. It will drown itself and drown you too. And the danger is that since you are persuading others, it will drown all of them as well. You are blind yourself and think you are showing the way to other blind people. A blind man pushing a blind man—both fall into the well.

You have read and seen, O pandit! Having read and read, what did you gain—what essence did you find? Now see the essence by living. Now listen to me. Now let life be entered. Now let yourself be joined to life. Don’t just think and think about samadhi—for what will thinking do about samadhi? Now become thought-free; let samadhi descend. Now live and see the essence!

Only by your own doing will you cross to the other shore!
Only by doing will you cross. Only by knowing will you cross. The boat that will carry you across will be your own. Other people’s boats don’t work. In this world no borrowed knowledge serves; borrowed knowledge only covers ignorance.

Gorakh says:
Neither Vedas nor scriptural books, nor any speech at all,
could render That precisely; they only brought a covering over it.
In the sky-like void the inner Sound shines;
there it is grasped by the tireless seeker.

Neither the Vedas nor the textual religions—neither the Quran nor the Bible nor any other—could give an exact definition of Truth, of Brahman. No human speech has managed it. All of them have, on the contrary, dragged it under a covering; they have hidden it. Truth has drowned and been lost in these very books. They have become its wrappings. Through these, Truth is not discovered; through these, Truth is obstructed. It can be known only in the void of samadhi. Understand it there!
There it is understood by the un-lazy, the true seeker—only there.

Gorakh says:
Speaking is easy; living is hard.
Speech without living is hollow.
The educated, trained parrot was eaten by the cat;
in the pandit’s hand only the book remained.

Speaking is very easy. Living is very difficult. And what you say without living, without having lived it, without experience, is mere hollow prattle. Do you think the cat will spare a learned parrot because it is chanting “Ram Ram”? “Let him go—he’s a devotee; see how he chants; look at the shawl woven with ‘Ram Ram’ he wears!” No—the cat won’t spare him. The cat knows: keep chanting, keep wearing the shawl—what difference does it make? You are still a parrot. The cat will not spare you.

The cat eats even the learned parrot. In the same way death will devour you. Death will come like a cat, and you are a well-read parrot—nothing more. You will be eaten; death will not spare you.
In the pandit’s hand only the book remains!
And when the cat attacks—when death clamps your throat—then only the book will remain in your hand. Utterly hollow; in the pandit’s hand only the book remains. Nothing else will remain; everything will be forgotten; all your schooling will prove useless. When death attacks, only what has been truly known comes in handy. He who has known will laugh on seeing death.

Mansoor laughed loudly. People asked, “We are killing you—why do you laugh?” Mansoor said, “I laugh because what you are killing is not me; and I—who I am—you cannot even touch; killing is far off.”
“Nainam chindanti shastrani,” says Krishna: weapons do not cut It.
“Nainam dahati pavakah”—nor does fire burn It.
Mansoor said, “That’s why I laugh—this is delightful! You used to say, ‘Mansoor, we will kill you.’ Now you are killing someone else—that isn’t me. You are cutting off my hand; I am not the hand. You have cut off my legs; I am not the legs. Now you will cut off my head; I keep telling you I am not the head. I am the witness seated within—how will you cut this? No weapon can pierce it, no fire can burn it.”

This is the language of experience. A well-read parrot cannot speak like this. The well-read parrot begins to whimper; he forgets the name of Ram and starts praising the cat—“Mother, spare me! I made a mistake. From today I’ll worship and pray only to you—why was I lost in Ram-ram!”

Gorakh says:
The one who merely mouths doctrine, call him a student;
the one who reads the Vedas is but a grandson.
The one who lives the way is our master;
we are companions of the one who lives.

The one who only repeats hearsay is a student; not a knower—at best a student: all right, he is studying. And even this—only if what he repeats has been heard from a living master—then he is a disciple; that is his status. But if he has dug it up from the graves of dead gurus, dragged out of the Vedas and books, then he isn’t even a disciple; worse—place him lower.
A disciple is like a son. Disciple means: one who repeats what he has heard sitting near the true master. Granted, he has not yet known himself, but he is near a knowing source; not far from the source. Like someone sitting near Gorakh—listening and repeating—Gorakh says: this is a student; he is my son. Today or tomorrow he will merge into me. He is near the source; he won’t be able to slip away. For now let him repeat—gradually he will be caught. His intellect has already come within reach; soon his feeling will too; my hands will reach his heart.

But one who is repeating from the Vedas, who has read from books and is not even near a living master—he is worse off. He is not even a son; call him a grandson—farther away; the relation has become distant.

And:
Call the one who lives our guru;
we are the disciple of the one who lives.
If the heart agrees, stay in his company;
otherwise, roam alone.

Gorakh champions freedom. He says: Do only that which happens naturally and with ease. If it brings spontaneous joy to stay with the guru, then stay; and if it brings joy to roam alone, then roam alone—because the Divine is everywhere. But do not lose your natural ease; keep that as the touchstone. Where you can be natural, there lies the essence.

Let this feeling remain in you: the one who is living the truth is our guru—not a pandit but an awakened being; not someone with grand degrees, but one with deep samadhi. Let this feeling remain: that we drown at his feet—the one who lives the truth.

If it pleases the heart, stay with him. The flavor you receive from the guru will not leave you. If not, then wander alone—no worry. Roam alone in the world; it makes no difference. But at least once come near a blazing lamp, so that your extinguished flame may be lit; let a few drops of truth fall into your throat, let a faint hint of samadhi touch you, let a note of that flute reach your ear. Then all is well: whether you stay close or far, whether you do satsang or live alone—everything is the same. Once lit, you need not remain forever near.

Knowledge is freedom. Knowledge is independence. Knowledge is a living experience. Pedantry is hollow talk.

Gorakh—and the knowers—oppose the pandits not out of enmity, but because the pandits are deceived themselves and are deceiving others. The opposition is out of compassion—so that others may awaken, and the pandit may awaken too.

Anand Maitreya! There is no contradiction. Reflect a little on the word “totality.” Think of some related words—santulan (balance), samadhi, samnvay (harmony), samyaktva (rightness), samata (equanimity), sambodhi (awakening), samvet (togetherness), samagrata (wholeness). All of them are born from a small root—sam. Sam means even, tranquil. From it come samata, samnvay, sambodhi, samadhi. The same sam is present in samagrata, totality.

Totality is not at the extreme; totality is never excess—because the state of sam is in the middle. So when I say, “Do it totally,” I am not saying, “Do it excessively.” Such a notion may occur to you. You may feel that if you do something totally, you will overdo it. If excess happens, you have missed totality. There are two ways to miss totality—go left or go right. In both cases you miss it.

For example, I say, “Eat with totality,” and I also say, “Do not be excessive.” There is no contradiction in this. One who eats totally will stop exactly at the moment the body says, “Enough.” And the body always says “enough” at the middle point. If you are still hungry the body will not say “enough,” and if you go on overfilling yourself the body will not remain silent—it will say, “Stop now, no more.” If you are hungry, the body will say, “A little more.” If you begin to eat too much, the body will say, “That’s it—no more.”

The body never goes to excess; it is the mind that does. Understand this. That is why no animal overdoes—otherwise what would become of animals! They have no one to instruct them—no Mahatma Gandhi or other “mahatmas” to say, “Don’t eat too much grass,” or “Fast today, it’s Ekadashi.” Have you ever seen an animal overeating? Go into the forest and look carefully—do you find any animal of whom you can say, “He has eaten too much”? Do you see any animal who is fasting?

Where there is no mind, there is no excess. An animal takes only as much as the body requires; only what is needed. Let your cow loose in a field full of grass—she will choose precisely the grasses that suit her body and leave the rest. Let a goat loose in the jungle—she will pick only what is useful to her, the leaves that are for her, and leave the rest. Who tells her, “Don’t eat this leaf”? That too is green; it too may be tasty—and it is. But no: she chooses what suits her body, what is in accord with her nature, what keeps her nature in an even state. It happens spontaneously. There is no mind there.

The mind creates mischief. It is the mind that makes you overeat, because the mind says, “One more kachori—it’s delicious.” If you listen to the body, the belly is saying, “Enough now, have mercy; it will be too much.” But the mind does not let you hear the body. You have been taught often that the body is your enemy. The body is not your enemy; the mind is your enemy. Those who taught you that the body is your enemy have misled you badly. Because of them you have made the mind your friend and the body your foe. The body is simple and natural; in the mind are all the impurities, all the disturbances. The mind does not listen. It says, “Let us have a little more taste. What difference does it make? If the stomach suffers a bit, let it.” The stomach is saying, “Enough,” but you do not listen. And your so‑called sadhus abuse the stomach.

Understand the mind! The mind pushes you into excess. The body always gives the right signal at the right time; it will allow neither an inch above nor an inch below. But man’s mind is very deceptive. I just heard: there was a flood in the Ganges, and the chief minister of a state went to a village. He asked the engineers about the situation—the water was touching the danger mark. So the chief minister said, “Brother, why don’t you raise the danger mark a little? At least then the water won’t touch it.” As if by raising the danger mark you could deceive the Ganges! Whom are you deceiving? Yet this is exactly what goes on. The mind does this; the mind talks in just such foolish ways.

And the mind makes you overdo. It says, “Raise the danger mark a bit. Don’t listen to the body—what is there in the body? The body is blind; what intelligence does it have?” One day the mind makes you eat too much; then, when there is discomfort the next day, the mind says, “Now fast—one day a month you must fast; one day a week is very good for health. Now fast.” Even then the body says, “Brother, I am hungry; eat.” The mind says, “Fast.” Gradually these perverse activities of the mind destroy the body’s subtle sensitivity. Then the body stops speaking. When it is not heard, it slowly becomes mute. With this mute body you commit excesses.

Psychologists have conducted experiments and very surprising conclusions have come to hand. They have shown that if small children are seated near food, you think they will overeat. You are mistaken; they do not. It is the parents who make them overeat—“Eat more, eat; you must become strong and sturdy; at least look a bit robust—what is this condition? Eat a little more!” The mother is on his chest, insisting, “Eat more, a little more.” The child is somehow crying and eating. You will see many children crying; their body is saying “No.” The body is saying, “Let’s go outside—jump, run, climb trees.” And he is being fed. Doctors even prescribe, “Feed the child milk every three hours.” The child does not want to drink; he keeps turning his face away. But the mother continues, because three hours have passed. These average rules are useless. When the child is hungry, he will cry; he will give the news himself. There is no need to look at the clock; the child has the body’s clock within. But you are ruining his clock. And different children will be hungry at different intervals—some in four hours, some in three, some even in two. A great difficulty arises when you make one rule—the average rule.

Beware of average rules. An average rule is like this: suppose five hundred people are sitting here. We measure everyone’s height and count the number. We add up all their heights and divide by five hundred. Suppose the average comes to four feet three and a half inches. Now almost no one here will be exactly four feet three and a half. There are small children of two feet and some gentlemen of six feet. Blend them and the average becomes four feet something—yet no one is four feet; neither the six‑foot man nor the two‑foot child. Add one six‑foot man and one two‑foot child—eight feet; divide by two—four feet average. Now the trouble begins: pull the child to make him four feet so he matches the average! Cut the six‑foot man down—or tell him to draw up his legs a bit, tuck his head in—like a tortoise, pull your limbs inside; you are a little too much.

In Greece there is a story of Procrustes. He was a king, a terrifying king, with his own calculations. Procrustes was a great mathematician; he lived by mathematics. People were afraid to be his guests; no one wanted to stay at his house. He had a bed of gold, studded with precious jewels; that is where he laid his guests. The danger was this: if a guest was longer than the bed, he cut off his hands and feet—because the bed was precious. The bed could not be lengthened or shortened so quickly; but the guest could be made shorter or longer. And if someone was shorter than the bed, two wrestlers would come and pull him to stretch him to fit. No one stayed at his house.

This story is meaningful; it is the story of all the mathematicians. You divide up all the children: one gets hungry in four hours, one in three, one in two, one in two and a half, one in two and three quarters. Divide them all and the calculation says, “Everyone gets hungry in three hours.” Now you sit with the three‑hour rule. Procrustes is seated! Now you watch the clock—when three hours are up, give milk. A particular child gets hungry in two hours; he cries in two hours, but three hours have not yet passed—cry on, kid! Slowly you will destroy his body’s natural sensitivity. Slowly he too will look at the clock to know when he is hungry—because hunger, after all, must come by the clock.

This is exactly what has happened to you. If you get your meal every day at twelve, you look at the clock—when it shows twelve, you feel hungry, whether hunger is there or not. It may be that the clock stopped at night and has been showing twelve since then—perhaps it is actually only eleven. But seeing twelve on the clock, suddenly hunger appears. This hunger is false. To eat in response to this false hunger is to commit violence against the body. Hunger will arise—there is no need to look at the clock; the body has its own inner clock.

Scientists have discovered that the body runs by a clock. According to it women menstruate exactly every twenty‑eight days. There is a clock within the body. According to it you feel hunger at the right time; according to it sleep comes at the right time; according to it the signals arise that the stomach is full—“Now stop.” If you follow the body, there will never be excess. You will neither eat too much nor too little. And there will be totality—there will be joy. Whatever you eat, you will enjoy fully; you will be totally immersed in the taste, because taste too is divine. Annam Brahma! The same reverence, the same sacredness, the same worship that happens in a temple should happen with food too—with eating—and with all the processes of life.

So when I say to you, “Live totally,” I am not saying, “Go to excess.” I am saying that if you want to live totally, you must keep sam—the evenness—in mind. And sam is non‑excess; it is the middle.

Therefore, living in totality and not overdoing—there is no contradiction between them. They are two sides of the same coin.

Nothing can really be said about viraha; it can only be experienced. For viraha does not come in words—it comes in tears. Viraha does not speak; it is silence, it is mute. Viraha weeps, viraha keeps vigil; it does not talk. Nothing can be said about viraha, yet whoever has known love will begin to pass through the feeling of viraha. Know love, and separation comes with it. The deeper the love, the deeper the state of viraha.

Viraha means that our true nature—the very core of us—has slipped from our hands; we are not meeting it. Our center has been lost; we spin on the circumference like the bullock tied to the oil press. We experience things, but the Divine is not seen. And that is the master. The master is lost; only the servants are visible. The temple walls are understood, but the deity is not recognized. Yet this recognition dawns only when love is awakened. The first taste of love is viraha; the final taste is union. Love begins as pain and is fulfilled as bliss. When viraha comes, the search begins. When viraha comes, the longing for union is born. Viraha means: we are not as we should be—something has missed, something is hollow.

Look—everyone is hollow. Who here is filled? Once in a while a Gorakh, a Kabir, a Nanak is full; the rest are utterly empty—empty vessels. That’s why there is so much noise. May the empty pot remember fullness! Let the empty pot, seeing a full one, be filled with the longing, “When will I be filled?” And without being filled, how will there be peace, how will there be joy? From the longing for this fullness, viraha is born.

My pain rose up to my lips, yet could not speak!
The wings are cut; the bird has fallen from sky to earth.
The wounds throb, and still nothing was won in the fall.
Tell me, does the pain of dying turn into a boon,
or does an unfinished quest become the pride of guileless love?
The melody opened, laughed in the Malaya breeze—yet could not say.
My pain rose up to my lips, yet could not speak.

The strings have begun to sing, trembling ragas smile from an enraptured heart.
She opens hidden feelings and lays them bare before innocent eyes.
Lifting the veil of modesty, dear dreams peep in—
those once shrouded in forgetfulness, scattered by sobbing.
The cuckoo of my life shivered and fell silent—she could not speak.
My pain rose up to my lips, yet could not speak.

But in the intoxicating sky of eyes, clouds of tears gather.
On the bed of sadhana, nights and days smile through grief and joy.
Dreams have dissolved, yet a sigh could never be heaved.
All has been plundered, yet even the breath could never say it.
The delicate bud of dawn has blossomed—yet could not speak.
My pain rose up to my lips, yet could not speak.

The pain of viraha is a very silent pain. Precisely because it is silent, it can be so deep. Speaking makes things shallow. Unspoken, it is precious; once spoken, it becomes cheap. You know the saying: a clenched fist is worth a fortune; opened, it is worth dust. Viraha weeps quietly, secretly.

Prayer is not to be told. It is not to be displayed, no drum to be beaten. That is why in temples where you begin prayer with bells and clamour, there is no viraha—only an event, a formality being performed. And have you noticed—if spectators are present, the one who prays goes on long and loud: cymbals clash, drums are beaten. If no one is there and he is alone, he rushes through it and runs away.

Is your prayer addressed to God, or to onlookers—for show? Are you dancing before Him, or before people? If there is even a drop of relish in you that people should know how devoutly you are praying, how deep your bhakti is, then you are not praying before God—you are putting on a show, standing in the marketplace, feeding your ego. Viraha weeps quietly, secretly. And the more secret, the deeper and farther its reach.

The moon has come home—and where are you?
One lamp has lit ten others,
from afar the birds have flown back home;
I feel a fair, a festival within myself,
tender dreams wobble in my eyes;
my very life is flustered—and where are you?
The moon has come home—and where are you?

The night-blooming jasmine blows notes of fragrance,
within my breath a distracted cuckoo calls;
what can I say—my heart is a strange thing,
life misses like this every time;
sweetness has bathed me—and where are you?
The moon has come home—and where are you?

Music sits in my throat, murmuring—
it comes to the lips, then turns back;
in the anklets a tremor melts,
in the arati the lamp flickers again and again;
the nectar of beauty has showered—and where are you?
The moon has come home—and where are you?

Such is the search for the Divine when it rises in the heart—like a beloved calling her lover: the monsoon has come, clouds have gathered, cuckoos call, peacocks dance—and where are you? Everywhere flowers have blossomed, swings are hung, song and color have arisen on all sides—and where are you? The moon has come home—and where are you? When the absence of the Divine begins to be felt like this within, viraha is born.

Viraha is a felt experience. It has no explanation. Know it by knowing; live it to know it. Viraha is not a doctrine. There is no way to understand it through explanation. And the difficulty today is that our tears have dried and our hearts are utterly empty of love. We have been taught un-love, initiated into hardness. We have been told life is a struggle; the harder, the more stone-like you become, the more successful you will be. We have been advised on all sides to make stairs out of others’ heads—only then can you reach the peaks of ambition. Harden the heart and move on. If others must be erased, erase them. If you must pave your way with others’ corpses, do it.

This whole society has lived by violence for centuries; all the talk of nonviolence is mere talk. Even the so-called nonviolent are not nonviolent; they are violent, concealed. Behind the banner of nonviolence all kinds of violence are arranged. Even nonviolence is used as a way to fight. Just think—the very nonviolence is made into a way of fighting! Mahatma Gandhi is praised for making nonviolence into a weapon, a means of struggle. There should be no praise for this; rather, condemnation. To have made even nonviolence a weapon! At least leave something that is not turned into a weapon.

You forged even a sword out of love. You turned peace into knives. Nonviolence too became an arm. You made even nonviolence a way to subdue another. But if there is fighting, there is violence; how can nonviolence be a means of fighting? Then nonviolence will be in name only; inside, violence, and violence alone. This is not nonviolence. People think Gandhi went beyond Buddha and Mahavira. Not so. He poured water on their great revolution—by turning nonviolence into a fighting technique, as if the only value in the world is a method of fighting. Everything becomes a tactic for battle—love too a way to win, nonviolence too a way to press the other down.

Now if someone sits fasting at your doorstep and says, “I will die if you don’t accede,” do you think this is nonviolence? “If you don’t do as I say, I will die!” This is violence—a direct threat. It is blackmail. He is clearly threatening: “I will die.” He is trying to shame your humanity: “Remember, you will regret it all your life; you killed me.”

Right here in Poona, this happened. Mahatma Gandhi fasted against Dr. Ambedkar. Dr. Ambedkar wanted separate electorates for the Shudras, for the so-called Harijans. Had Ambedkar prevailed, the indecencies rampant across the country today would not be. Ambedkar was right: Why should those whom the Hindus have treated inhumanly for so long remain with them? What is the point? In whose temples we cannot enter, whose wells we cannot drink from, with whom we cannot sit, on whom our shadow falling makes them “impure”—what meaning is there in our staying with them? They have already rejected us—why should we cling to them?

This is so clear there can be no two opinions. But Gandhi began a fast. Being “nonviolent,” he launched a nonviolent war. He fasted, saying he would die—an indefinite hunger strike. “It will be a great loss to the Hindus. Harijans are Hindus and will remain Hindus.” His long fast, his failing health—Ambedkar had to yield in the end. He agreed to withdraw the demand for separate electorates. Gandhi’s historians write: Victory of nonviolence! Strange—who here is nonviolent? Ambedkar is nonviolent—seeing that Gandhi might die, he relinquishes his stand. Gandhi is violent—he coerced Ambedkar with the threat of violence against himself: “I will die.”

Understand this: If you threaten to kill another, it is violence; and if you threaten to kill yourself, it is nonviolence—where is the difference? One man puts a knife to your chest and says, “Hand over what’s in your pocket”—that is violence. Another puts a knife to his own chest and says, “Hand over what’s in your pocket, otherwise I will stab myself.” You think, “For two rupees should this man die? He is healthy—one life lost for two rupees?” You take out the money: “Brother, take it and go. Don’t give your life for two rupees.”

Who here is nonviolent? I say to you: Dr. Ambedkar is nonviolent; Gandhi is not. But who will see it so—how will it be understood? It appears as if nonviolence has won; in fact nonviolence has lost; violence has won. Gandhi is behaving violently. Whoever cannot give reason resorts to such tactics.

Women have long done this at home. You know it? A woman does not beat her husband; she beats herself—but is that nonviolence? She cannot beat the husband, because the husband is “God.” Husbands have taught this: the husband is God. She cannot beat him—what to do? The urge to beat has arisen; the impulse is there. She beats herself—or the children. The child knows nothing; he was minding his own affairs. Why the beating—he cannot make sense of it. This is “nonviolent” beating! It is a surrogate for the husband. He is being beaten symbolically. If the son is not available, the wife will beat herself.

When a man is enraged, he commits murder; when a woman is enraged, she swallows sleeping pills. The man, in anger, becomes violent, kills; the woman, in anger, commits suicide. Both are violence: one is feminine violence, the other masculine violence.

There is no reason to call Gandhi’s feminine violence “nonviolence.” It is merely feminine violence—the violence of the weak. One is the violence of the strong, the other of the weak; there is no nonviolence in either. The secret of Buddha’s and Mahavira’s nonviolence is something else entirely. But we have turned even nonviolence into a weapon. This society is filled with violence. It teaches everyone to be hard—stone-like. Dry up the heart. If the heart remains moist, you will not win in the world. Dry your tears, for tears are “unmanly”—do men ever cry? Don’t become womanly!

Your tears have dried; your love has dried. Now you live only in the skull; your heart no longer beats. That is why you cannot experience viraha. For viraha you must first experience love. For viraha you must descend into your heart a little. Let your heart resound again. Look again at flowers, leaves, the moon and stars, people. Again—like a small child—let your feeling move, become fluid. Remove the stone of hardness, ambition, violence that blocks the way—and moisten your eyes again. Learn to cry again.

Have you ever wept seeing a rose bloom? If not, it is unfortunate. A rose opened—and you did not even weep? Could you not let a couple of tears of joy fall? The cuckoo calls—did you weep? The papihā cries pi—calling to the beloved—does no call rise within you? Do you pass by deaf? Someone strikes up music—have you wept?

Yesterday a little sannyasin, a young girl, came for shaktipat. She had written again and again, “Place your hand on my head too, awaken my energy.” She had seen others—when I place my hand on their heads, energy begins to flow. She is a small child; she has not even meditated yet. Her parents have taken sannyas, so she too has taken sannyas. But there was a wave of feeling in her, so I said, “Come.” And I too was surprised when her energy began to flow. Manisha was sitting nearby; she became so filled with joy, seeing that child’s energy flow, that she began to weep—she could not restrain her tears. Those are tears of joy. In this little girl, something is happening—a lotus is opening. Seeing this lotus open—will you not weep with joy? Will your eyes not moisten?

Seeing a bird fly in the sky—does a longing to be free not arise within you? Seeing a bird caged—do you not remember your own state? Seeing a dry, withered tree—do you not recognize: I too have become like this? Have you ever wept for yourself? Have you ever wept for others? Have you ever let love flow within you, let it move as a current? Then you will understand viraha.

Awaken love. I know you cannot fall in love with the Divine all at once. You have not yet known earthly love—how will you know heavenly love? That is why I keep saying: my message is of love. First know earthly love; then that very love will lead you toward love of the Divine. As yet you have not known love at all. Not the love of a woman, nor of a man, nor of a friend. Deprived of love—how will you know God’s love? And there is a widespread delusion that if you love in this world, you will be deprived of God. What simpletons taught you this! If you do not love in this world, you will never fall in love with God. One who has not swum in the shallows—how will he swim in the ocean? One who has not plunged into the small ties of human relationships—how will he drown in the ultimate relationship? That ocean is very deep. One learns to swim at the shore, where the water is shallow—so that even if you sink, you will not die, where in fact you cannot drown. Yes—once you can swim—then go, swim far out into the ocean. Then it makes no difference how deep the water is; to a swimmer, it is all the same—one mile or ten, it does not matter. But to one who cannot swim, it matters greatly whether the water is shallow or deep—the deep will drown him. So learn in the shallows.

In my view, the world is the Divine’s shallow form—His shoreline. Swim a little here; love a little here. This love will moisten you, make you supple and wet. This love will give you a taste—though it will not fulfill you completely. That is its beauty: it gives you a glimpse, but does not sate you. It gives you a taste, but does not fill the belly. In fact, because of that glimpse, hunger is born for the first time. You come to experience that “such a thing is possible!”

In the profound love of a man and a woman there is, for a moment, a meeting—but in that moment a window opens. Through that window, time disappears, distance disappears. The I–Thou dissolves—for a moment! But in that very moment a rain of an extraordinary, eternal bliss descends. Then, after that moment—long dark night. Then separation, and great pain—deeper than before. For earlier you did not know; that window had not opened. You had lived in a closed room, knew only the room—no way to compare. Now the open sky has been seen, the stars of the firmament, the vast blue. Birds flying in the sky. The window has shut, but its memory haunts. Now this house cannot hold you long; today or tomorrow, you will spread your wings and fly out through that window.

Human love, earthly love, opens the window to God. And two things happen in ordinary love: moments of joy and hours of sorrow. Joy says, “May this be forever, may this moment become eternal.” But no human relationship can be eternal; it is momentary. Then melancholy follows. That is why one sets out in search of samadhi, in search of the Ultimate Beloved—whose embrace, once happened, is forever; whose union, once happened, is for eternity.

But one who has not drunk even a sip of wine—why would he seek the tavern? Think of earth’s love as a sip of wine—so that you become eager to enter the Divine’s tavern, become madly intent on it. Then you will understand love, understand viraha—and one fine hour, by grace, you will understand union too. But there is no way through words.

Very small, concise—
Laugh, play, live in color. Do not keep company with lust and anger.
Laugh, play, sing songs. Keep your heart-mind steady and firm.

This is my teaching too: Laugh, play, live in color.
Live in color! In delight, in merriment, in joy. So much has the Divine given—dance, hum, sing! A song of gratitude should rise from your heart; that is prayer.
Laugh, play, live in color.

Laugh. If you cannot laugh, understand that you can never be religious.
Your so‑called sadhus and saints have forgotten how to laugh. They simply cannot; to laugh is a sin, a transgression. That’s why you can’t stay long with them. You go, quickly touch their feet, bow, and leave. If you stay a full day, you’ll see the difficulty—your own laughter will be snatched away. People become grave around sadhus and saints. They stiffen up—dry, solemn, ultra‑serious! Laughter will feel like a crime there.

And listen to what this supreme sadhu, Gorakh, says: Laugh and play! Take life not as anything more than acting—see it as play, as lila.
Laugh, play, live in color!
And live that way—live in color. Let merriment be your life, let merriment be your style.

Do not keep company with lust and anger.
Only then will you find lust and anger beginning to drop from you; they leave your company. You won’t even have to drop them. Because your whole energy has moved into laughter, play, singing, prayer, ecstasy, dancing—the very energy that used to feed lust and anger. Now where’s the time for that? One who starts spending his wealth on diamonds will not buy trash! The dimension of your energy has changed.

Laugh, play, live in color. Do not keep company with lust and anger.
Laugh, play, sing songs.
Let songs arise! Let song be in every breath—only then can you become religious. Religion is poetry, a great epic. Religion is not prose; it is verse. Religion is the art of singing life. Religion is music and dance.

Keep your heart-mind steady and firm.
Sing, and in song let your consciousness become steady, settled, seated—and everything else will happen. The rest will happen on its own. The rest the Divine will do; you do just this much.

In the Word is the lock, in the Word the key; by the Word the Word is awakened.
By the Word the Word is recognized; by the Word the Word is merged.

From that Great Music all has arisen. The Divine is the Supreme Sound—Omkar, the One Om, Satnam. The resonance of Om is the Divine. In the Word is the lock, in the Word the key. The lock belongs to music; the key too is music. The lock belongs to rhythm; the key too is rhythm. Let a silent music arise within you, a silent song awaken—wordless, empty of words—pure music: and the key is found!

By the Word the Word is awakened!
And this is what happens in the presence of the master. The master plucks his veena, he strikes his own Word; within you the slumbering Word begins to vibrate. Within you too the Word starts to echo.

By the Word the Word is awakened.
By the Word the Word is recognized,
and by the Word the Word is merged.
Drowning in the master’s music, in the master’s Word, in the primal resonance of the master, you come to know your own. And then the music—the whole music of life—dissolves into that Great Music.

Word is the world. Word means: music manifested. Emptiness is the Divine. Emptiness means: the Word has returned to its source. Yet—dance, sing.

Laugh, play, live in color. Do not keep company with lust and anger.
Laugh, play, sing songs. Keep your heart-mind steady and firm.

There is no proof, or everything is proof. From the standpoint of logic there is no proof, because the Divine is beyond logic. No one can prove him by logic, nor disprove him. And remember, whatever can be proved by logic can also be disproved by logic.

God is neither proved nor disproved; God simply is. Perhaps even saying “God is” is not quite right, because saying “God is” is a tautology. “Is” itself is God. That which is, is God. So when we say “the tree is,” that is fine to say—because one day the tree will not be; and once it was not; its being is only in between. Therefore we say “the tree is,” “the man is,” “the house is”; but to say “God is” is not right in the sense in which we use “is,” because God was never “not,” and never will be “not.” In the sense we use “is,” it cannot be applied to God. God is simply another name for is-ness itself.

The tree is—meaning the tree is in God. The human is—meaning the human is breathing in God. When God withdraws his breath, the human will cease to be. When God withdraws his greenness, the tree will cease to be.

So in one sense there is no proof—in the sense of logic. In the sense of existence, his proof is everywhere. These standing trees, this falling sunlight, the voices of the birds, my speaking to you, your sitting here silent, silent, blissfully listening—there is proof in all of this. Do you hear these birds’ voices? Proof upon proof! But perhaps you want proof in the logical sense; there is no such proof.

Ah, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?
From whose flute is this melody,
to whose every note life
suddenly takes the beat and begins to dance?
From which lips is this song,
from whose spellbound ragas
burst forth countless jubilant cascades?
What untouched blossom is this
whose intoxicating pollen
the swarms of bees have rushed to gather?
Life, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?

What mad thirst is this,
that has never learned to beg,
nor any exultation in gaining?
What strange, unique longing is this,
that seeks by losing, to lose itself,
a faith nourished in despair?
What ravished spring is this,
that came seeking the springtime
and turned into the mind’s revelry?
Ah, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?

The darkness of what life is this
that has come seeking me,
and is effortlessly encircled by the light of love?
Whose deaf dreams are these,
that do not hear another’s word,
yet daily drift across my eyes?
What flame has arisen today,
come to set alight
a hundred Diwalis of love?
Tell me, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?

You ask for proof?
Ah, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?
Who is coloring these colors, who the painter! Who fills the rainbows with hues! Who paints the colors on butterflies’ wings! Who fills the cuckoo’s throat with song! Who is breathing within you! Who is throbbing within you! Who is your very life! And you ask for proof of God? All this is God. God is; other than God there is nothing at all. “That which is”—God is simply another name for it.

I do not split God and existence apart. The old religions made this mistake; and its consequences were grave. The old religions sever the world from God, and then the question naturally arises: where is the proof of him? If the world is not God, then where is God? Then the difficulty begins. Then hands have to be raised toward the sky. Those hands are false.

I tell you: God is existence; he is not beyond it—he is hidden in it, woven through it. Seek here, seek now. You will find his signature on every leaf. You will find him hidden in every stone. Jesus has a saying: Lift the stone and you will find me hidden there. Split the wood and you have split me.

Tell me, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?

And you still ask for proof? There have been people who offered proofs, and all their proofs are futile. No proof works. All the proofs for God so far are not worth a penny. Someone says: everything that is made must have a maker; such a vast world—surely it must have a maker. But that proof commits suicide; the moment it meets an atheist, it goes lame. The atheist says: If every made thing must have a maker, if God is needed to make the world, then who made God? With that he tightens the noose around your neck. Who made God? You protest: No, no one made God. Then the atheist says: If God can be without being made, why can’t the world be without being made? The argument collapses; it falls flat.

You say: just as the potter makes the pot, so that Great Potter made this world. But the potter too is made by someone—or is the potter unmade? Now you are in a fix. So who made your Great Potter?

These proofs are of no use. They are for explaining to children; they bring no revolutions in life. Therefore I do not give proofs, I give experience. I say: come to me; sit quietly, silently. Sing, dance. And one day, suddenly, you will find that his lightning has flashed. When it will flash cannot be said. There can be no prediction of it. The Guest comes unannounced, and all at once stands at the door. The moment you are ready, the moment you are pure, you are still, in that very moment the happening happens. Then no proof is needed; you yourself become the proof. Only your experience can be the proof—nothing else can be.

Tell me, who has strung these thorns, who has strewn these buds?

That’s all for today.