Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #1

Even to call the acquaintance you have on the level of words an acquaintance is not right. In the dimension of religion, there is no deception greater than words.

The word is easily understood; there is no difficulty in that. But what is hidden within the word remains outside understanding. That is where the real difficulty lies.

And when the word is understood while what is hidden in it remains beyond understanding, a great turmoil arises in life: the delusion of being knowledgeable while remaining ignorant begins. There is no greater calamity than this. You do not know, yet it seems you know.

And living can only happen from where knowing is. Life is transformed by knowing. Because of the illusion that having known the word you have therefore known religion, our life moves in one direction and our mind in another. Often those directions are opposite.

Hence hypocrisy becomes the very lifestyle of the so‑called religious man. The so‑called religious man appears utterly hypocritical: he says one thing and lives another. No harmony is visible between his life and his words. This lack of harmony is born from understanding only the words. Let us consider a few points in this regard, then we will take the question.

Words like God, soul, liberation seem to be understood as soon as we hear them, because we know the meanings the dictionary gives. We know the meaning of moksha, we know the meaning of God, we know the meaning of the soul. But meaning is not existence. By saying “God” or hearing “God” no trace of God is found. The word “God” is not God. Even if the one speaking has known, he still cannot transmit his knowing to you. Only words will go; the knowing will remain behind. The words will become part of memory; memory will be filled and thickened; memory will become a burden, will turn into scripture. And you will fall into the illusion that you know God because you have heard and read the word “God” and seen its definition in the lexicon.

But how can anyone know God without going to God? If only it were so simple that by knowing the dictionary we could know God, then by now no ignorant person would remain on the earth; all would have become wise. If the purport of moksha were hidden in the etymology and grammar of the word “moksha,” then all would be liberated; none would remain bound.

How easy it is to know a word!

But the mind wants to avoid the journey, so it creates illusions. It is natural that the mind wants to avoid the journey, because this journey is going to be a journey into death. Whoever sets out to seek God will lose himself. Looking into a dictionary has nothing to do with losing oneself. Committing the scriptures to memory raises no question of the self dissolving. But one who goes to seek liberation will be effaced, because without effacement there is no moksha, no freedom. Fundamentally, my “I” is my bondage; until my “I” is dissolved, what kind of liberation can there be? I myself am the wall between me and the Divine; until this wall falls, how can there be the experience of the Divine?

This journey is a journey into death. The seeker sets out to die.

But only by dying is supreme life attained; only by losing oneself is oneself found.

And therefore the mind is afraid. It creates illusions. It seeks substitutes.

Understand clearly this law of substitution. The mind’s greatest art is to find substitutes. What cannot be had in life, the mind supplies in dreams.

You are thirsty, asleep in deep night. The thirst torments; the sleep will break, you will have to get up, look for water, go to the spring. So the mind manufactures a substitute: a dream begins. The spring is flowing; you reach the spring and quench your thirst to your heart’s content. Sleep continues; there is no need for it to break. Only on waking in the morning do you find that the water you drank at night was false, the lake you went to was a dream, and the thirst that was quenched was not quenched at all—it was an illusion. But this is known only upon awakening. The night’s sleep goes on undisturbed. So that sleep not be broken, the mind produces substitutes.

In life too, so that sleep not be broken, the mind produces substitutes.

If you set out to know God, sleep will break. And we have a great vested interest in sleep, because for lifetimes we have cultivated sleep; it is our own construction. Our family, friends, wife, children, wealth, possessions, status, prestige—all are parts of our sleep. With sleep broken, all this will scatter. The bonds that hold it together will be destroyed. If sleep breaks, this whole world, which until now we have taken to be the world, which we have taken to be ours—all will be lost. On waking in the morning, the friends of the dream cannot be found again; the palaces of the dream cannot be recovered; the riches of the dream cannot be retrieved by any means—they are gone, gone forever.

We have made all this in a dream. Therefore there is fear that the dream may break, that sleep may break, so we live in a stupor.

The mind is the name of this stupor.

And wherever the fear of breaking arises, the mind immediately produces a substitute.

In knowing God, sleep will break. But in knowing the word “God,” there is no reason for sleep to break; on the contrary, sleep becomes stronger, deeper. If you go to seek God, the world will dissolve. But by memorizing the word “God,” God too becomes a part of the world. That is why we build temples, mosques, gurdwaras. Wherever we have built shops and houses, alongside them we also put up temples and mosques; they too become part of our world. We are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains; there are worldly quarrels, and we add religious quarrels to them—as if the quarrels were not enough, as if politics were not sufficient, as if there were not already enough disturbances, we add religious turmoil too and fight for that as well. There is already enough competition—between nations, for wealth, for position—and we add the competitions of religions too. We make religion itself a part of the world; this is the mind’s art.

You may have noticed—many of you must have had dreams in which it seems that you are awake. One can dream of awakening within the dream. In the dream you may see the alarm ring, morning come, you get up, the dream breaks—and that too is a dream. Only when the real morning comes will you know that even in a dream one can dream of awakening. And the most dangerous dream is the one in which you dream of being awake, because then the delusion is complete.

So the person who dreams of being religious within the world—there is no bigger dream than this. Rather than going in search, we manufacture false gods around us. If we go in search of the real God, we will be dissolved; to save ourselves, we invent counterfeit gods.

The scriptures say that God created the world—and they may be right. But if we look at the “gods” that surround man, they are man-made. The idol kept in the temple—you made it. And how skillful, how astonishing is man! He bows before the very image he has made, performs prayer and worship. He fashions the idol himself, it is the work of his own hands; he installs it himself, he lifts a stone and makes it into God, and then he kneels before it. What a wondrous game! He offers prayer and worship—rituals before toys. And happily he returns home thinking, “I have been to the temple of God.”

In truth, nothing is understood through words; they only create the complement of understanding. It seems as if one has understood—and this seeming is harmful.

First, understand this: the understanding that comes from words has no value; it is a device to hide our lack of understanding. As we cover nakedness with clothes and yet remain naked within, so it is here—no nakedness disappears. And if you are clever, you can wear such garments that nakedness stands out even more. A naked man is never so naked, a naked woman is never so naked, as when nakedness is accentuated by clothing.

Your words—your false “understanding”—will not fill your inner poverty, nor remove it; they will only cover it. And sometimes you may use this so-called understanding in such a way that, through your scholarship, your stupidity appears even more deeply and subtly. The foolish have a kind of simplicity, a kind of innocence. The pandit? The scholar’s stupidity is very complex, very subtle. And if you have even a little eye to see, you will find that it is hard to discover anyone more foolish than a pandit. He has covered much—but whatever we cover, by that very covering we also announce it. Every covered thing gives notice that something has been hidden, that it was thought worthy of concealment.

The unlettered, the ignorant who have not covered themselves—their nakedness is like the nakedness of a tribesman: he stands bare, and does not even know what nakedness is.

But the pandit’s stupidity is like a prostitute’s nakedness. He has draped it in many clothes, concealed it from all sides; and yet, by the very act of concealing, it is revealed. It was hidden precisely so it would not be revealed.

To “understand” words is not understanding. If this much dawns, the first step has been taken. Knowledge obtained from scripture is not knowledge—if this becomes a living realization, the first ray of true knowing has descended.

Then it will not be difficult to set scriptures aside. Then it will not be hard to break out of the net of words. It is difficult only because we take them to be understanding. If you hold a stone in your hand and fancy it to be a diamond, dropping it becomes difficult—not because of the stone, but because of the fancy. If the realization comes that it is a stone and the diamonds were a delusion, what difficulty is there in letting it go? You won’t even have to “let go.” With the coming of remembrance, of insight—that it is only a stone—the stone will drop of itself.

Let the stones of words fall; then meaning will arise.

In the dimension of religion, meaning does not arise from words. Meaning arises out of the wordless. Remove words and the current of the wordless is revealed.

In Poona there is a river that gets covered—covered with leaves upon leaves. You cannot see the water; a sheet of greenery spreads across it. Your mind is like that. Remove the leaves and beneath a stream is flowing. Remove words and beneath lies the hidden stream of meaning.

In all other matters, it is different. When I say “tree,” the moment you hear the word the meaning is understood. When I say “river, ocean, house,” the moment you hear the word the meaning is understood. But when I say “God, soul, liberation,” the word is heard, yet the meaning does not arrive.

Say “tree,” and you understand because a tree is also your experience. The word points, and because you have the experience, you understand. Say “ocean,” and you understand because you have experienced it. But tell a man who lives deep in a desert, who has never seen the ocean, not even in a picture—say “ocean” to him and nothing is understood. He hears; he tries intellectually to understand. We can even explain: “As there is an expanse of sand here, so there is an expanse of water”—a perception forms, a concept arises. But still, the experience of one who has stood on the shore, entered and swum in the sea, surfed its waves—that experience cannot be completed by any concept held by a man sitting in the desert.

When I say “the Supreme” (Paramatma), neither have you gone to its shore nor entered and swum in it; you have had no affinity with its waves, no relationship; you have not dissolved in the music of those waves. Your drop has remained far, far away.

The drop fears it will be lost if it goes into the ocean.

This fear is both true and untrue. The drop will certainly be lost; yet nothing is lost in that loss, for in losing itself the drop becomes the ocean. The small dissolves and the great is attained. The nothing is lost and the all is gained. But what will be gained is not yet known to the drop; it only knows what will be lost. Hence the fear, the trembling.

Remove words. The first step in removing them is to see that here words are of no use. The sayings of the saints cannot be explained in schools. What the saints have said can have no connection with universities. What they said was set down in scriptures, but it could not truly be captured: the outer husk was recorded, the inner essence slipped away. The outer lines were grasped; there was no touch with the inner soul.

This utterance—“There is no resting place without Ram”—is unique. In this one utterance all the Vedas, all the Upanishads, all the Gitas are contained. Understand this one line and there is no need to understand the Quran or the Bible. This small utterance is like atomic energy: in a tiny atom, such vast power! And the saints who spoke such small, atomic sayings were not highly educated people.

It is striking that the highly educated rarely arrive at saintliness. There are exceptions, but the rule is that the very learned seldom attain. Because they become so skilled at seeking substitutes, so adept, their capacity to deceive themselves so refined, that they are never caught red-handed in what they are doing.

The uneducated—Kabir, Dadu, Nanak—enter simply. There is not much burden to set down, not many walls to break. A small push and everything collapses.

This utterance is the distilled essence of the life-experience of such unlettered ones.

The words are clear; there is no difficulty in the phrase itself: Without Ram there is no refuge; without Ram there is no shade, no shelter; without Ram there is no way.

In what inner state would such a remembrance arise?

We see refuge in wealth; we see our resting place in wealth. The people around us speak the language of money; they weigh a man by his wealth: “How much do you have?”—that is the weight of your soul. If you have nothing, then you have no soul either.

Affluence, in whatever coin, is outside—and you are within. Whatever you “have” can never enter within. There is no way to take your vaults inside; they remain outside. Even vast empires cannot be taken in; they, too, remain outside. And you are always within, and there is no way to take you outside.

Therefore wealth and the soul never meet. Soul means inwardness; wealth means the outer—forever outer. These two lines never cross; there is no way for them to meet. The dimensions are different, the worlds are different.

Yet we weigh a man by what he has—how much education, what rank, how big a chair, a throne. “What do you have? That is what you are”—this is our measure.

This measure is utterly false. Because of it, if someone were to ask about our inner experience, the essence would be: “Without money there is no haven.” We even weigh saints by wealth.

If Mahavira had been born in a poor house, the Jains would not have accepted him as a Tirthankara. I say this with certainty, because all twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras are sons of kings. Worth pondering: over thousands of years, was there not a single person from a poor home who could become a Tirthankara? Can only princes become Tirthankaras? Then the future is bleak, because there are no kings now—and no Tirthankara can arise. Buddha, the Jinas—though they attained—would not have been accepted by the popular mind had they not been prince-born. Try birthing Ram and Krishna in a poor family and see—they would not be accepted as avatars. We weigh even saints by wealth.

So, in Jain or Buddhist scriptures, Jains recount how vast Mahavira’s empire was. It was not that vast—empires then were small fiefdoms. There were about two thousand “kings” in India at that time; how large could any one empire be? Not bigger than a small district. Mahavira’s father was a minor landlord, not a great king. And had Mahavira not been born, his father’s name would not have entered history. But the Jains list: such a vast kingdom, so many horses, so many elephants. As many horses and elephants as they list could not even be stabled in that tiny state. So many jewels! All this is false.

But within this falsehood a truth is hidden: the Jain mind cannot accept that its Tirthankara might come from a humble home. This truth is worth grasping. “Our Tirthankara must be a universal monarch! How could he come from an ordinary house?” Hence a false expanse of wealth is erected around Mahavira.

When Mahavira speaks, the space for listeners must be imagined as stretching for thousands of miles. The number of listeners must be made immense; for if only ten or five were listening, we would feel Mahavira’s stature was nothing. So we say billions and trillions listened—even though it is impossible. Today it is possible, with microphones, for hundreds of thousands to hear. In Mahavira’s time it was not possible for lakhs to hear. Necessarily, Mahavira spoke to small groups. But the Jain mind does not accept this, because number is our value: “How many?”

Then we do not care for truth and falsehood. Devotee and enemy alike do not care. Lovers lie and exaggerate; haters also lie and exaggerate. In love and in hate we forget everything. Truth and lies—boundaries break and the river just flows.

We do the same for Buddha; we do the same for Ram and Krishna. The numbers we cite do not reveal what they possessed; they reveal our criterion: if they had nothing, we would not accept them. Our acceptance would falter. We magnify their wealth and from that infer the greatness of the soul. We measure renunciation by how much Mahavira left. If Mahavira had nothing, we could not even call him a renunciate—“If nothing was left, how is there renunciation?”

It hardly occurs to us that a beggar can also be a renunciate. Renunciation has nothing to do with how much you leave; it is a feeling of letting go.

Imagine a man with one coin—that is all he owns; and another with a crore. The one with a crore gives up half; the one with one coin gives up all. By your arithmetic, the one who left half a crore is the greater renunciate—you will weigh half a crore against a single coin. But to those who know, the one who left the single coin is greater, for he left all he had; the other left only half.

And still, we demand at least a coin for our measurement. If someone has absolutely nothing and says, “I have renounced,” we will not trust him. “You had nothing; what did you renounce?”

Renunciation does not depend on having; it is an inner mood. But how will we measure a mood? Our yardstick is money. We measure renunciation by “how much.” Strangely, we measure both renunciation and indulgence by money. Money is our measure. Money is our refuge.

And as long as money is our refuge, Ram cannot be our refuge.

“When does ‘There is no refuge but Ram’ arise?” When the illusion of wealth breaks. When it is felt that wealth is futility. When it is seen that however much you acquire, nothing is truly gained.

Wealth is a struggle against Ram; it is a fight. Wealth is a device to avoid surrender. Wealth says, “I have power—why should I surrender? Why should I seek anyone’s shelter? People will come to my shelter.” Wealth is the arrangement by which others are summoned into your refuge.

Hence Jesus insists: whoever is not poor will not be able to come to me. He says: “A camel may pass through the eye of a needle, but a rich man will not pass through the gate of God.”

This does not mean those who possess money are forever excluded. Money itself is not the issue. But for whom money is the value—even if you have nothing and beg your bread, if your valuation is money, your life’s structure is money, you think in money, you measure by money—you may be poor, but you will not enter the divine door.

Why? Trust in money is trust in oneself. Trust in money means trust in “me.”

Trust in Ram means trust in oneself has ended. It is the end of one’s own resolve. What we call will-power—one brimming with that will finds this utterance useless. He feels, “My power is me. My power comes from me. My success comes from me. Wealth, position, fame—these come from me. I am the source. I will create wealth. I will expand my empire. I will increase my strength; I will wrestle with death and fight; and one day I will achieve the ultimate victory.”

A worldly man is one who trusts himself.

This will seem difficult, because we value self-trust so highly. We teach self-confidence. We tell every child: “Stand on your own feet. Trust yourself. Fight, struggle; don’t be afraid. Believe you will win, and you will win.” The formula of competition and conflict is: trust yourself. Lose trust in yourself and your legs will wobble—you will fall. We teach everyone: “You are immensely powerful; don’t fear; fight. If not today, then tomorrow, all will come to your shelter.”

The day this web of delusion breaks—the day it is felt, “How can I have any power, when I am not even there?”—my being is only a notion. I could be only if I were separate from the whole. If breath stops for a moment, I am finished. If the sun fails to rise for a moment, I die. This vast web—if anything shifts anywhere, my bricks tumble, my house is leveled. In this whole cosmos, in this world-order, I am a small limb—and not one that can be separate. The moment it separates, I am not.

Think a little. Imagine yourself apart from this Vast—what are you then? Instantly a void.

The stream of your life flows from the Vast. Breath comes from the Vast and returns to it. Birth arises from the Vast and dissolves back into death. Everything comes from That and returns to That. There is a great circle of the Vast within which you revolve. Your being is not separate.

So, with whom is the struggle? If you are separate, there is struggle. If you are separate, others are rivals, enemies.

Note well: until Ram is experienced as refuge, this world is full of enemies and there is not a single friend. The one we call friend is also a hidden enemy, for he too struggles against us.

We are sitting here; it seems there is no struggle. But if the oxygen in the air decreases, we will become competitors: who will breathe! Scientists say that as technology expands and the air grows more polluted, by the century’s end the air will be so tainted that only those with money will be able to obtain oxygen. Oxygen will not remain free for long; there is only so much.

So, in big cities—New York, Bombay—only the rich will get oxygen. The poor will live on polluted air. Just as the poor drink dirty water, live in filthy houses, wear soiled clothes, so they will breathe dirty air, because they cannot purchase pure air. If this struggle increases, only a few will live—those who can obtain pure air; the rest will perish.

We are sitting here—yet we are struggling even for breath. We sit, we seem calm; there is no quarrel, no competition. But within, the competitor sits. Even friends are hidden enemies. If you are separate, the whole world is an enemy and you must fight it to secure your life.

Thinkers like Darwin could give birth to principles such as “the survival of the fittest”—only the fit, the strong survive—because their root assumption is that each is separate. Then life is a disturbance, an anarchy, and violence is its formula. Only by eliminating the other can one live. Your death is my life; my life is your death.

In such a stream of life, bliss is impossible. Where violence is the formula, bliss cannot be. Where violence is the formula, celebration cannot be. Where violence is the formula, peace cannot be. Where one must fight for each breath and become the cause of another’s death, where is the occasion for joy and wonder, where the truce? If I am separate—as we all believe—enmity surrounds me, and amid such enmity how will you reach fearlessness?

The day the delusion falls that I am separate—the day this feeling drops, identity dissolves, ego is surrendered—at once I feel I am a limb, and all other limbs belong to one living whole. That tree, that cloud wandering in the sky, and I—we are expressions of one source; we arise from the same life-stream. Forms differ; the source is one. Shapes are different, but the soul is not different. Forms differ, but the formless ocean of consciousness running within all is one.

To go to Ram for refuge means: I am not separate. “Ram alone is the refuge” means: I relinquish my separateness. My personal resolve will no longer be my guiding rule; surrender will be the arrangement of my life. I stop struggling and begin to flow.

At once the whole world becomes a friend. Even “friend” is not quite right, for where no enemies remain, what is friendship? Instantly the whole world becomes a family. An inner kinship is born among all forms. Then I am within all, and all are within me.

This is what Hindus have called Advaita—non-duality.

Do not grasp “There is no refuge but the Name” through the word Ram. It has no connection with the Hindu God. Here Ram has nothing to do with Dasharatha’s son. Here Ram means Allah, Paramatma, God. Here Ram points to that principle in which we all live and breathe, with whose being our being is harmonized.

Understand this a little. If it is true—this realization of the saints—that we are limbs, then there can be no death for us. Individuals perish; the Vast remains. It was there when I was not; it will be there when I am not. If I am separate, I am born and I die. Separateness has birth and death. If I am not separate, I existed before birth—my forms would have been different. I will exist after death—whatever forms I take, annihilation is impossible. If I am one with the All, then life is eternal, beginningless, endless—always has been, always will be. Fear dissolves.

Then celebration arises in life. How can frightened hearts dance? Death stands at every moment; from all sides it peers in. Wherever you look, the shadow of death appears. Wherever you go, death follows. The sense of separateness gives birth to death. If I am one with the Vast unity, death is finished. It means: as ego dies, death dies. As resolve falls away, the deathless is born.

Therefore the saints say: surrender is nectar.

People search for nectar. In the West there was an ancient tradition of alchemists. In the East—China, India—people everywhere searched: perhaps through mercury, through metals, through chemical formulas the nectar might be found; some substance which, drunk once, would make a man deathless.

From chemical searches nectar will never be found; nectar is not a chemical. It will not be found through mercury, nor gold ashes, nor pearls.

No—because nectar means something else. It is not the fruit of a chemical process. Nectar means surrender. Nectar means: when death dies, when death no longer remains. Nectar is an inner mood.

Right now your inner mood is death. You may forget it, hide it; but inwardly your mood is death. Each moment you waver with death; it trembles within you. Every moment the body declines, death draws near; it peers from all sides. You see an old man—death peeks. A ruined house—death peeks. A withered flower—death peeks. A dried-up stream—death peeks. Wherever you look, there is death. And you tremble. In this trembling state…

In the West there was a great Danish thinker—Kierkegaard. He says man’s real condition is “trembling.” Trembling is his true state; he trembles at every moment.

Close your eyes sometime and you will find: within there is nothing but fear. Out of this fear you may even pray to God—but that too will be an extension of fear. Out of this fear you may fold your hands, you may kneel—but that too will be fear extended. Those kneeling in mosques and temples are not bowing before any God; they are bowing because of inner fear. God is the excuse; fear is within—they tremble. To kneel is the sign of a soldier defeated on the battlefield. Frightened, with death before him, to save himself he kneels, folds his hands. We have made that the mode of prayer. We stand before God afraid: “Save us! We come to your refuge; death is pursuing us.”

I have heard: there was a Sufi fakir. One morning his servant came rushing and said, “Give me your horse. I have little time. I had gone to the market to buy your vegetables; someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I looked—a black shadow! I asked, ‘Who are you?’ She said, ‘Your Death. Be ready this evening; I am coming.’”

The Sufi laughed. He said, “You may take the horse.”

The servant took the horse and fled. As soon as he left, the fakir went into town. In a corner of the marketplace he saw Death standing and said, “What is this way of behaving? You frightened my servant for nothing; and if you had something to say, you should have said it to me.”

Death said, “I did not frighten your servant. I myself was startled; that is why I suddenly put my hand on his shoulder. Because this evening we are to meet in Bukhara, and here he was loitering in the morning and the distance is long. I was amazed—so I put my hand on his shoulder.”

The fakir laughed again. Death asked, “But why do you laugh?” He said, “I laughed in the morning too, when he asked for the horse. I thought the same: he must reach Bukhara by evening. That is why I gave him the horse as well—poor fellow would be tired on foot. And if he is heading toward Bukhara, then his death there by dusk is certain.”

Run wherever you will, have the swiftest horses you like—there is no way to escape.

All the alchemists died. Great claimants there were who said they had found the nectar. Not one is still alive; only stories remain.

Now scientists are caught in the same stupidity. What we call chemistry was born from alchemy: in seeking nectar, oxygen and hydrogen and all of chemistry’s things were discovered. Now again science says we must do something to save man from death. And scientists say something can be done. This belief has always been there—that something can be done, that man can be saved from death.

Certainly something can be done; but that doing has nothing to do with the laboratory. It pertains to the inner being. As long as there is resolve, will, and “I am,” death is certain. The day “I am” is no more, there is no way for death. The whole never dies; this Vast never dies. Waves come and go; the ocean remains. While I am a wave, I will die; when I am the ocean, there is no way to die.

In this aphorism, Ram points toward that vast ocean. It has nothing to do with Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. Ram is the Hindus’ beloved word for the Divine—and a very sweet word. It has no connection with any person, any historical figure.

To take refuge in Ram means: effacing oneself and taking refuge in the All. “I am not. This expanse, this immensity, this Brahman—this is.” Apart from this there is no refuge. Whoever seeks refuge apart from This will wander astray.

We have been wandering for births upon births only to find a resting place—a shelter, a patch of shade where we may rest. But for births upon births we have searched. One road becomes another, but the refuge does not come. Many halts appear, but the destination does not.

A halt means you stop for a while; then you see this is no destination—there was a little rest, and the journey opens again. Each journey links to a new journey; the end of the journey does not come.

The journey ends only in Ram.

This does not mean that then you do not move, that you do not flow. You still move, you still flow—life’s stream keeps flowing. But you are no more; the traveler is no more, and the journey continues. And on the day the traveler is not, whose anxiety is it then? On the day the traveler is not, who will worry? Then life is a celebration. Then life is a dance in samadhi. Then life is music.

Right now life is anxiety. Right now life is restlessness; right now life is inner strife; right now life is sorrow.

“There is no refuge but Ram.” Certainly—without Ram there is no refuge.

Anything more, Maitreya-ji?

It can be felt—if you truly see. But who is it that sees? To see, a different kind of eyes is needed. At times, in unguarded moments, those eyes come to you unawares. Unknowingly, sometimes you forget yourself. Sometimes you get lost. And when you are not, the curtain over the eyes lifts. In that instant, a glimpse is possible.

To see means that the one who sees is not standing inside. Then vision happens, because the inner seer keeps obstructing the eyes all the time—his biases, his beliefs, his theories. He goes on interfering: “Look this way. Look at this. What you are seeing cannot be.” That inner onlooker does not let seeing happen.

Sometimes he slips aside. Without your knowing, you don’t even notice when he moved. If you became aware, he wouldn’t be able to move—you would hold on to him. Sometimes, while you are listening to me, you forget that you are. For a moment the curtain lifts, and you may see. Sometimes, just sitting silently near me, my peace becomes dense for you as well. Peace is an element, like the coolness of air; it is no mere imagination. You go into a garden, cool breezes touch you, and even your inner nerves are chilled. Peace is such an element—an elemental force. If I am quiet and you can simply sit near me in a mood of acceptance, the peace that is with me will gather around you too; it will touch your nerves within and cool them.

And when the eyes are cool, then seeing happens. Heated eyes see nothing. Heated eyes are full of restlessness, heated eyes are unbalanced.

So whenever you are quiet, vision is possible.

And for this it is not necessary that you come only to me. I am just a pretext. Sitting alone, if you can be silent, be still, the same will happen. Listening to birds, if you forget yourself, the same will happen—because the birds are saying the same thing: there is no shelter without Ram. This is not merely your question; the whole of existence is saying it.

Except for man, all of existence lives with Ram. Man is astray. Man has stepped a little off the path. Therefore, apart from man, there is no anguish anywhere. Apart from man, there is no madness anywhere. Trees are born and they die, but there is no ego there; so trees are always in bliss. Birds too are born and they die, yet they are forever dancing and singing—their celebration is unbroken.

Man is astray; the possibility of going astray is there because man is conscious. Birds are blissful, but they don’t know that they are blissful. Man is miserable because he knows. If man forgets himself, he too will enter the same bliss as birds and trees. One thing will be different, and that is the ultimate: he will also know, “I am blissful.” This capacity to know has taken him into suffering; the same capacity will take him into supreme bliss.

So it can happen anywhere. Sit by a riverbank; watch the current, and forget yourself—just let the stream flow. Do not even think about the stream, because the moment you think, you are back. Simply let the stream flow, and become as if absent. In an instant, as if from the void, bliss will thrill within and without; a thousand upon thousand flowers will bloom inside, and you will see.

Vision is possible, experience is possible; your non-presence is needed. All else is pretext. I have called you here to sit, I am speaking with you—speaking is a pretext. Speaking is only a device: perhaps you will get entangled in the talk, one thing leading to another, and forget yourself; perhaps you will become so absorbed in the words…

Perhaps you cannot yet be absorbed in a river. Perhaps you have never really seen trees, never truly heard birds; you are not familiar with that language. You are familiar with my language, with human speech. Perhaps in this human tongue you will drown, become absorbed; perhaps the poetry of this language will seize you. In that moment, suddenly you will see. Your eyes will open—as if lightning flashed and where all was darkness, there is light.

Even if for a single moment you see, you can never again be the same. What has been seen becomes part of your very soul. What has been seen will call you again and again. What you have seen becomes a challenge. And what you have seen sets your search in motion.

And if you come to understand that this talking was only a pretext to open your eyes, then you can also take the birds as support—they will become your gurus. You can look into the eye of a cow—she will be your guru. You can find a guru anywhere.

If only the disciplehood arises in you, the guru appears everywhere. The real issue is discipleship. That is why Nanak called his followers Sikhs; Sikh, he said, is a form of shishya, a disciple. If you learn to be a disciple, the guru is available everywhere. A stone wall will become your guru, a rock will become your guru. And if you do not know how to be a disciple, even a guru is just a stone wall.

Sometimes such a glimpse will come to you here. Guard it; treasure it within—nothing is more precious. And let that glimpse begin to come even in my absence; keep searching in that direction. Soon, by searching steadily, the knack will fall into your hands. And such a knack cannot be explained; if you keep on experiencing and searching, it will come within your grasp.

It is like someone asking a swimmer, “What is the technique of swimming?” No one can really tell you—not even the greatest swimmer. He will say, “Come, get into the water; thrash your arms and legs.” Slowly, through inner experience, you will sense which movement of the hands begins to become swimming. Little by little the hands will find their rhythm. Swimming is orderly thrashing—nothing more.

Throw an untrained person into water and he too will thrash about, but he does not yet know the rhythm. And if he drowns, it won’t be because he didn’t know swimming—it will be because he knew the wrong kind of swimming. The difference between him and the swimmer is not that one moves arms and legs while the other does not; the difference is order versus disorder. Order comes from experience.

Gradually you will move your hands more skillfully, with less effort. When you become more adept, perhaps you won’t move your hands at all—you will simply float; you will hold yourself still, and the water will hold you. There is no necessity to keep flailing; without effort you will rest upon the water, like a flower, like a lotus. This comes through continual experience.

In just this way I am putting you through an experiment in swimming. Again and again, you will get glimpses—guard them. Carry the glimpse within you. Walk as a pregnant woman walks, carefully, as if a child were within—and she places each foot with care. Let this vision, this moment, become your womb. Slowly it will grow; you will disappear, and this moment will spread.

Surely, near me you will often feel, “There is no shelter without Ram.” But let it begin to be felt without me—that should be the goal of your meditation.

That’s all for today.