A Man of Love and Meditation

This is what I mean by true contentment. And if one can be in such a space, nothing else is needed. Meditation arrives on its own, because mind dies. You need not do anything to destroy it, it disappears of its own accord. Mind is like darkness and contentment is like light. Bring contentment in and the darkness disappears. And then you can see. For the first time you can see and for the first time you can hear and for the first time you can feel. Because mind is hindering everything, it does not allow you to see, it does not allow you to hear. It is standing between you and existence. Once it is not there you are available to god and god is available to you. That is liberation, nirvana, enlightenment. This is your name: Swami Anugito. It means a song.

A wise man is not necessarily a man of knowledge; he may be, he may not be. A man of knowledge is not necessarily wise; he may be, he may not be. More is the possibility that he is not going to be, because when the mind is too full of knowledge the heart starts non-functioning. The mind possesses so much of you that it does not allow any space for the heart to function. Knowledge is of the head, wisdom is of the heart. There are schools, colleges, universities, to give you knowledge; but nobody can give you wisdom, it is untransferrable. You have to achieve it on your own, jumping into the madness of love. It needs guts, because it is going to be a love affair with existence itself. Prem Dhyano. Prem means love; dhyano means meditation. These are the two most important things in life.

As this love grows in you, you start feeling a new experience: that is prayer. Prayer is the highest form of love, the peak. And once prayer has entered your life, then love is not something that you do or you don't do, it becomes your very presence; you are simply loving. Then it is just like breathing. A man of prayer even while asleep is loving. He is love. Love is not an act for him but his being. When love becomes being it is prayer. And at that point great fragrance is released. Your flower has blossomed. In the East we call it a one-thousand-petalled lotus. One-thousand-petalled because in the East we have given god one thousand names. Each petal of the lotus represents one quality of god. The opening of the one-thousand-petalled lotus means you have attained to all the qualities of god.

And people are doing transcendental meditations in all kinds of places -- in bathrooms, sitting on their toilets because they can find no other place in the home. At least in the bathroom you are left alone for ten minutes, nobody will disturb you. It may give you a certain consolation, a certain happiness that you are doing something for the other world too. But it cannot transform you. Transformation is possible only when the twenty-four hours of your day become a constant meditation, a continuum. So whatsoever you are doing -- walking you are meditating, eating you are meditating, listening, talking you are meditating... because to me meditation simply means awareness, not repeating a mantra. Because how can you repeat a mantra? -- if you are doing some work and you repeat a mantra your work will be disturbed.

You can dance, you can sing, you can play on a guitar -- that may be far better than using language because that will be more existential. You can laugh, you can weep... yes, that may be closer to the truth, but only closer; even that cannot contain the truth as it is. One has to enter into love utterly mindless, wordless. Hence love has become a rarity, because people have forgotten how to be still, how to be silent, how to put the constantly chattering mind aside. They have completely forgotten. The mind has possessed them absolutely, the mind has become the master. Day in, day out, awake or asleep it continues; it goes on secreting thoughts. In the day you call them thoughts, in the night, dreams, but they are the same phenomenon.