Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #11

A saint’s words and life do not move on the rails of logic. There is no mathematics to their lives. They are not fakirs who walk a ready-made line. A saint’s life is a spontaneous pulsation. In that pulsation we can taste something, we can savor its mystery—but it cannot be explained by logic or the intellect.

So first understand: a saint’s life does not belong to any rule, scripture, tradition, or mold. It is not a canal; it is a flowing river. It is not organized. The saint lives out, to their completion, the vibrations that arise moment to moment from consciousness.

We call a person “evil” when there is a structure to their life—but a structure of wrongdoing. They live by a pattern, but a pattern of theft, dishonesty, calculation—a chosen style of evil.

We call a person “good” when they have built a structure around goodness—charity, kindness, virtue—calculated and adopted as a way of life.

The lives of both the good and the bad are patterned lives. There is a third life: the life of the saint, which is free of structure. Hence no two saints will live the same way. Only products stamped from a mold are identical. Millions of Fiat cars can be alike because they come out of a single die. But two plants cannot be identical, not even two leaves on a plant. On this vast earth no two pebbles are exactly the same, because each arises from the infinite, not from a mold.

Existence never repeats itself; nothing is a repetition. Everything is unique and incomparable.

A saint does not organize himself—neither toward evil nor toward good. He gives no system to his life. He lives with awareness in what you might call chaos. This must be understood deeply. You can live in “chaos” unconsciously—that breeds the wicked. Or you can live by rule and discipline without awareness—that breeds the merely “good.” But “chaos” with awareness—no rule, no scripture, no mold—and awareness itself as the only scripture, wakefulness as the only rule, the supreme rule—that is the saint’s way. Even calling it a “way” is not right, because that implies a considered code of conduct. Whatever happens through awakened living, that is the saint’s conduct—an unpremeditated conduct. Therefore, no two saints’ lives will be the same. To understand any saint, begin to look at his life as a mystery.

There are two ways of understanding. A flower has bloomed. The scientist’s way is: pluck it, separate the petals, analyze it, identify its elements—how many chemicals, how many minerals, how it is composed—arrange it all in order. That is the scientific approach. It necessarily breaks and analyzes.

You will lose the flower, and understand only its structure. You will know exactly which chemical elements combined—but in that knowing the beauty will have vanished, because the flower was something only in its wholeness. Separated petals, reagents bottled in flasks, formulae written on paper—but the flower is gone: its freshness, its fragrance, its radiance. That flower which was like a fragment of God’s song, a gesture from the divine, is lost. A formula is in your hand. That is science’s way.

Science can never grasp the soul, because the soul cannot be broken apart. It can grasp the body, which can be dissected, its components isolated—how much water, how much oxygen, hydrogen, minerals. The soul is indivisible; it isn’t made of components, so it cannot be analyzed. What cannot be analyzed, science says, doesn’t exist—because there is no way to know it; not even a way to establish that it is.

So science will never accept the soul unless the soul agrees to be fragmented—which is not its nature. Therefore science accepts the world, the creation, but not the Creator—because creation can be explained; the Creator cannot.

There is another way—the way of the mystic, not the scientist. Ask a saint what a flower is, and he will not break it, because the moment you break it its nature changes. Whatever you then know will not be what you set out to know. He will not even separate it from the tree, because a flower cut from the tree is one thing, and a flower on the tree quite another. On the tree it is alive; cut off, it is dead. The difference is that between a living person and a corpse. If you pluck it, its quality changes; whatever you will then know concerns death, whereas you asked about a living flower. What will the saint do?

He will not touch the flower, for touch is from the outside. You can know a surface by touch—soft or rough—but how will you touch its inner being? There is no way. And the saint is not interested in the flower’s body; for when beauty is seen in a flower, it is not the body—it is rays from the inner soul. What will the saint do?

He will sit near the flower in meditation. He will change nothing in the flower; he will transform himself. He will fall utterly silent. He will not touch the flower at all; he will transform himself so that his heart becomes completely still, so the flower can enter him totally. He will drop inner boundaries so the flower need no longer keep its guardedness.

When you are guarded, the other also takes guard. When you build walls around yourself, the other does the same. When you drop your walls, the other becomes unafraid.

The saint will sit lovingly in meditation by the flower. In that meditative communion, he will let himself dissolve into the flower and the flower dissolve into him. A moment comes when neither the saint nor the flower remains; the streams of life blend and attune to each other. Then the saint knows what a flower is. Then he can say, “Whoever knows one flower has known God.” That is the mystic’s way.

This is an incident from the life of Hotei. Hotei was a very unique saint. If you weigh him on the scales of previous saints, you’ll get into trouble—there is no comparison; there has never been another like him. Hotei walked from village to village all his life, never staying anywhere; stopping was not his habit. Someone once asked him, “What is the essence of meditation?” Hotei said, “Walk on! Keep going; do not stop. Stop—and meditation is lost. Wherever we stop, the mind is created. Where a river stops, it becomes a pond and begins to rot.” Hotei says, “Keep moving; don’t stop. There is no destination; the walking itself is the destination. There is nowhere to arrive; flowing itself is arriving—flow.”

This depends on a very deep inner insight of Buddha’s. Buddha said, in this world there are not “things,” there are processes. You too are not a fixed person; you are a process. Language makes us turn everything into “things.” We say, “There is a river.” Ask Buddha. He says, there is no such thing as “is”; the river is “happening.” The word “is” suggests stillness, but a river is never in the state of “is”; it is always “being.” We say, “There is a tree.” Language makes everything seem static. In truth the tree is becoming every moment: when I say “there is a tree,” an old leaf has fallen, a new leaf is sprouting; a flower has dropped into the wind, a bud is becoming a flower. A tree is not a fixed thing; it is a flow, a process.

You too are a flow. Therefore Buddha says: there is no “soul” in man—because the very word suggests a fixed entity, a stationary thing. Man is a current, a continuous stream. Light a lamp and you see a flame, but the flame is not still; it is changing every instant. Except for change, says Buddha, nothing is eternal. The only constant is change. And what we call things are processes.

So Hotei’s “Walk on” is the very essence of meditation: keep moving. The mind always wants to stop; it looks for destinations and settles there. One mind stops at wealth, another at fame, another somewhere else—but stopping is the mind’s desire: “Stop.” The day you are free of this urge to stop, the day you stop asking for a destination, that day your destination has arrived. Then there is no tension in your being—because if there is nowhere to get to, what tension can there be?

Notice: in the morning you go out for a walk—there is no tension. The path is the same, the direction is the same. At noon you go again, this time to office or shop, and there is tension. Same path, same person, same direction. But now you are “going somewhere,” you must arrive. If you don’t, if you get delayed, there is obstruction; there is tension. In the morning you walked that very path, but there was a carefree lilt in your step, your heart was light—because there was nowhere to reach, no hurry. If you didn’t arrive, it was fine; if you arrived, it was fine; you were not going anywhere—turning back from anywhere was fine. The joy in a stroll does not come in going somewhere.

You play a game and you feel a certain delight. Play the same game as a professional and the delight is gone. You play cards, or chess—just playing. If you lose, fine; if you win, fine. The juice is not in winning; it is in playing. But if someone employs you to play chess, the whole thing changes—play turns into business.

Wherever an end appears, business appears. Wherever a destination appears, trade appears. This is a little hard to grasp, because we think a man who leaves his shop and goes to the Himalayas has left “business.” He may still be in business if he has an end in mind. If he sits in the Himalayas thinking, “By sitting here I shall attain God,” the trade continues. If his eyes are on “The End,” then the business goes on.

But if he sits in the Himalayas in joy—if God comes, good; if not, equally good—then his sitting is a religious act. Where the means themselves are the end. Being here is being at the goal. In other words, this is what we call supreme contentment, santosh. Santosh means the means are the end. Discontent means means and end are separate—and we use the means only to somehow get the end; our mind lives in the end. As long as you have any end—liberation, God, peace, joy—you remain a shopkeeper. You cannot have that lightness which comes to the meditator.

Hotei says meditation means: walk on. Don’t stop; just keep flowing—not “in some direction,” just don’t stop; don’t let your flow congeal.

A pond gets stale; a river never does. Throw all the filth you like into a river; even the filth is washed clean—the river stays pure. A pond becomes foul even if you don’t throw filth into it—because it is closed, there is no flow; it rots and dries. A river cannot rot.

When life is a business, it becomes a pond. When life is meditation, it is a river.

Hotei never stayed in any village—not because of a rule. That is the point. Mahavira told his monks not to stay more than three days in one village. Thought out well: three days is the mind’s limit; on the fourth day attachment begins. Move house: for three days it feels strange; on the fourth it feels “mine.”

That’s why Hindus observe the third day after a death. In truth after the third day the one who has gone is really gone. For three days his absence hurts; on the fourth, acceptance begins.

Psychologists say three days is the mind’s threshold. To form an attachment you need at least three days. Mahavira said: do not stay beyond three days—so that a village does not become a stop, so that the river does not become a pond. After three days loves and hates will sprout; someone will seem good, someone bad; you will want someone near, want someone far—the household begins.

But if you take this as a rule, you miss the essence. It is not a rule. You can form an attachment in three moments—if attachment is what you want. And if nonattachment is your flavor, you can remain unattached for three lifetimes. Rules are superficial, provisional—made for the unripe. The intelligent catches the essence.

Hotei never stayed. He always carried a sack on his shoulder. Neither Buddha nor Krishna nor Christ is seen with a sack. His sack always hung from his shoulder. In it were sweets, toys, sparklers, firecrackers—children’s things. What a wondrous man he must have been.

Before saints we are nothing but children—and our entire social setup is childish. Even when old, we play only with toys. The toys are painted differently. Little children marry dolls; we don’t marry dolls, we marry living dolls—sons and daughters. But watch little children playing marriage—how excited they get, what delight! Ours is no less. What children do as children, we do grown up: the scale expands; the seed remains the same. Not only do we marry boys and girls, we marry Sita and Ram. We cast Sitas and Rams, take out processions, perform Ram Lila. The elders join with the same relish. The wedding goes, we savor it like children. If a child’s toy breaks, he cries; if a statue in your temple breaks, you are pained. We tell the child, “Don’t be childish; it’s only a toy—no one’s life is lost!” But how is your statue more than a toy?

You say, “We have installed God in this statue.” The child too has installed someone in his toy. If it’s a question of installation, the child’s installation is deeper—he is innocent; you are cunning. You buy the idol, hire priests, blow bands and trumpets and “install God.” Inside you know this God was bought; a better one could have been bought if you had more money. You bargained hard. You know the priests who made all that noise were hired hands. Neither they nor you had heart in it; it was all a money game. Now God stands there; you bow, you pray: “O savior of the fallen!”

Childhood is wondrous. The child at least has simplicity; his feeling is deep—his toy becomes alive. But your God has not become alive to you. Yet if a hand breaks off, if a foe smashes it, murders happen. A Muslim breaks an idol—some Hindu burns a mosque; hundreds die, knives flash.

Man is childish. The toys in Hotei’s sack are a comment on your childishness. He is saying: what else can I give you? What else will you accept? Sweets, sparklers, firecrackers—this is your taste.

Hotei can give you God too; he has that in his sack. But you will not ask for it; you do not want it. What you have not asked or desired cannot be given. You ask for strange things. Hotei’s sack is news of your mind. Otherwise he would not carry that burden.

People come to me; I am amazed at what they ask. One comes—he has no job. Another—his illness won’t leave. Another—husband and wife don’t get along.

When have husband and wife ever “got along”? Who has ever been “fully healthy” and content? And what job has ever been exactly “what was needed”?

What you ask for is exactly what Hotei had in his sack. He moves from village to village, handing out little things. Children surround him; he hands out sweets and toys.

To keep moving and to keep giving—that is the foundation of saintliness.

Understand this a little: the one who stops is afraid to give. The one who keeps moving alone can give. The one who stops must set up possessions around himself; otherwise where will he stop? To build a house and settle, you cannot keep giving; you must save. Only a nomad can give.

Hence you see nomadic peoples—the tribes, the Abyssinians, the Baluchis—can never be rich. No Abyssinian can become rich—there is no way. No Baluchi, however hard he tries, can become a Ford. How could he? To become a Ford you must stop. The Baluchi keeps moving. He can carry only what fits on his shoulder—no more.

This Urdu word “khanabadosh” is lovely. It means: one whose house is on his shoulders. Khana means house; badosh, on the shoulder. If your house must be on your shoulders, you cannot build a palace. Hotei’s sack remains—and even in that sack are things for others, to be given away.

The one who flows, gives; the one who stops, hoards.

That is why Jains and Buddhists forbade their monks to live in ashrams. They did not build ashrams, because the condition of Hindu ashrams showed that when an ashram arises, possessions accumulate. So both Jains and Buddhists told their monks to keep moving, to be wanderers.

There are gains and losses. It makes sense that a monk should keep moving—then he cannot accumulate. But Jainas and Buddhists had to see the loss: if a seeker keeps moving, he never becomes accomplished. Hotei is a siddha—accomplished; for him it makes no difference whether he stops or moves—the inner flow continues. But for a seeker, constant wandering becomes such a disturbance that he has no opportunity to sit. And for meditation, sitting is as necessary as walking. The siddha is one who, walking, is also sitting; and sitting, is also walking—who has joined opposites.

Thus among Jains and Buddhists meditation almost disappeared. There were no ashrams; there was no accumulation. But the depth of meditation that could come in the shelter of an ashram—in a place to sit at ease and dive within—never got the chance. A Jain monk’s daily routine, from morning to evening, is sheer busyness. Work upon work—no provision for rest. Before rest arrives, the village must be left; the monk must move on. One gain: he did not accumulate. One loss: he did not become meditative.

Hindus built ashrams so that people could attain meditation. And once meditation is attained, for a siddha it makes no difference whether he stops or moves—whatever is natural to him.

Hotei keeps moving and keeps giving—whatever is in his sack. Children gather around him. Don’t take this to mean only little children; there are two ages of children: small and big. Some are five-year-old children; some are fifty-year-old children. Wherever Hotei goes, children surround him. He hands them sweets from his sack. He has brought God too—but no one comes asking. And whoever comes, he says, “Give me one coin.”

One coin—the smallest unit. He never asked for more his whole life. He asked for one coin—the smallest unit—for many reasons. Even giving one coin is painful to you. Giving itself is painful. Taking feels pleasant; giving feels painful. Though in truth it is just the opposite: the joy of giving is never found in taking. Whenever you have given, you have known joy; whenever you have taken, you have been deprived of it.

Understand: when Hotei asks for one coin, you may think he needs it—you misunderstand. He asks for one coin so that you may taste a little joy—the joy that comes only from giving.

Once a rich man came to a fakir, bringing five thousand gold coins as an offering. He threw the bag at the fakir’s door; the coins clanged. It was not accidental—though he thought it was.

The mind is cunning. A wife thinks a utensil slipped accidentally from her hand—not so. Today she is angry with her husband. She herself believes it was accidental; he too. But it is not. On days when the couple are not getting along, six times as many utensils fall, six times as many things break, six times the noise. Every door closes with a bang; every object is put down with a thud. Ask the wife and she will say, “The wind was high.” It was high yesterday and will be high tomorrow; wind does not bang doors—repressed anger does.

The rich man threw the coins; he may not have thought he was doing it deliberately—but whenever someone gives, he also announces it.

We don’t enjoy giving; we enjoy the ego we derive from “having given.”

But the fakir paid no attention. The rich man said, “I have brought five thousand gold coins.” The fakir said, “Fine, leave them.” No particular interest. The rich man thought: perhaps the fakir didn’t understand—five thousand! He may never have seen that many. He said, “Did you hear? Five thousand.” The fakir said, “No need to repeat; my ears are fine. I heard.” The rich man grew restless: not even a thank you! He said, “However wealthy I am, five thousand is still a lot for me.” The fakir said, “Say what you mean—do you want thanks? Why prolong this? If what you want is my thanks—listen: if you found no joy in giving, how will my thanks give it to you? You missed the moment of joy—that was in the giving.”

Hotei, had he met you on the road, would have asked for one coin. You too would think he needed it. He wanted to give you the fragrance of joy.

If buddhas have begged at your door, it was to give you a taste of giving.

That fakir told the rich man, “If we must be exact, then you thank me—for I have given you the opportunity to experience the joy of giving. If we must do it properly, then you should thank me. There is no question of my thanking you.”

So Hotei would ask for a coin. And if a monk, renunciate, seeker asked him, “What is Zen? What is meditation? What is the secret of religion?” Hotei would still say, “Give me one coin.” He was saying: giving is the secret of meditation. Become able to give—and you will become able to meditate.

The more we love taking, the more the mind is filled with thoughts. The wealthy cannot sleep at night—the more intense the lust for taking, the more the inner wheel of thought spins. Desire is the mind; it plans how to have everything.

A psychologist told an insomniac to count sheep at night. Counting bores the mind; sleep comes. Count from one to a hundred, then back—99, 98, 97—back to one. Climb and descend; in a while you’ll sleep. The man was a sheep and wool trader, so he was told: count sheep—one sheep, two sheep…

After seven days he returned in terrible shape—greatly reduced, eyes sunken as if he hadn’t slept in seven days. The psychologist asked, “What happened? Didn’t the trick work?” He said, “It worked too well; I’m in trouble. I started counting and counted all night—three hundred thousand sheep. The mind wouldn’t stop—‘Just a little more.’ Then so much relish came—shearing the wool, taking it to market, making so much money. I haven’t slept in seven days. Earlier I slept a little!”

That mind of ours goes mad when it sees gain. It instantly starts calculating what it will do when it gets what it doesn’t have. People say they want peace of mind. Peace is impossible until the relish for taking declines.

Rightly seen, greed is the mind—and non-greed is meditation. The bigger the greed, the more the mind calculates, the more waves of thought accumulate, the more deranged you become inside. The less the greed, the less work the mind has to do. You give the mind its jobs—and then tell it to be quiet. The mind is a computer; give it a task and it works. Tell it, “Earn a million,” and it sets to work. Tell it, “There’s nothing to earn; give it all away,” and its work is over; it goes to rest. That is why scriptures call greed the greatest sin, and giving the greatest virtue. Understand this rightly: the generous heart becomes meditative.

So when someone asked, “What is meditation?” Hotei said, “Give me one coin.” Giving is the meaning of meditation. And the day you are ready to give all, there will be nothing left to get—because everything will be yours.

One night a young man came to Jesus in the dark. His name was Nicodemus—the richest man in that region. He woke Jesus and said, “I fear to come in the day because I have a reputation. If my name gets linked to yours, it may harm me,” because Jesus was a vagabond monk—he would sit with drunkards, stay in the homes of prostitutes. No respectability. So the respectable were afraid; he came at night.

Jesus asked, “What do you want?”
Nicodemus said, “I want to know how to have peace, how to have bliss. See, I am virtuous; I do not cast my eyes on any woman but my wife. Whatever religion prescribes, I follow. I go to the temple on prescribed days. I give alms as scripture requires. I fast when fasting is ordained. I read scriptures as prescribed. There is no lack in my morality and character. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble. I go to bed early; I rise before dawn. No deficiency. Still there is no joy.”

Jesus said, “None of this will do. Do one thing: whatever you have, give it away—and come back.”

Nicodemus said, “That is difficult.”

He is virtuous—but that is difficult. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke—but that is difficult.

Jesus said, “Then your virtue has no value. You have so much that you give a few coins and think you are generous. You have so much time that you would waste it in cards or chess; instead you go to the temple—and think you are religious. Your religion is mere convenience, nothing else. Leave everything and come.”

Nicodemus said, “Then I will go; I cannot do this.”

Letting go cannot happen to a clinging mind. Clinging is its very nature.

Hotei’s “Give me one coin” is the essence of meditation. It is not a question of a coin—or of a kingdom. It is about tasting the joy and celebration of giving; about feeling blessed in giving. Even if you have nothing to give, keep the flavor of giving in your heart.

Even if there is nothing to receive, the flavor of receiving remains in you. Remember this, and Hotei’s essence will be clear.

Hotei is certainly a siddha—always flowing, always giving, always offering others the fragrance of the joy of giving.

And when a saint asked him for the whole secret, the very key to the attainment that religion brings, Hotei dropped his sack. “Is that all, or more?” asked the seeker. Hotei lifted the sack back onto his shoulder and walked on.

Understand this. It is a very significant pointer.

There is a Zen saying: Before practice, rivers are rivers and mountains are mountains. In the midst of practice, neither rivers are rivers nor mountains mountains. At the end of practice, again rivers are rivers and mountains mountains.

Strange. You wouldn’t catch the meaning at once. Before and after practice, the situation is the same—but you have changed. In the middle everything is topsy-turvy. Now you stand in the world; then you will stand in God. But in-between, while you are between the two, everything is disordered. Before you, rivers are rivers; after you are established in the divine, rivers again are rivers; mountains, mountains. But in the middle, everything is lost—rivers are not rivers, mountains not mountains.

The worldly person is settled in one way. The renunciate has arrived. The seeker is in difficulty, crossing the middle. One foot out of the world, one still in; one reaching for God—suspended like Trishanku.

Hotei dropping his sack is news of the seeker’s first step: drop the world. Drop all burdens, drop the mind. That sack was all he had to demonstrate—so he dropped his whole sack: the seeker’s first work is total dropping.

And the siddha’s whole work is to take the sack up again—but now it is not a burden. Earlier it was. The seeker goes out of the world; the siddha returns. The siddha becomes “worldly” again—but now he is in the world, and the world is not in him. Before, he was in the world and the world was in him.

Mahavira went to the forest; twelve years of silence. Language is society; we always speak to another. Even alone you speak by imagining the other.

As long as speech remains, society remains. Silence is the leap out of society. You can go to the forest easily—but society follows you through language.

Even alone, a man splits himself and talks to himself—recreates society within; the chatter goes on.

Mahavira became silent and remained in solitude for twelve years. When the supreme silence came—when, like Hotei, he had dropped the sack of society completely—Mahavira returned. Now there was no fear of society. Hotei lifted his sack back onto his shoulder and moved on.

The seeker must leave society; the siddha returns. The seeker must put down the burden; the siddha can pick it up again. If the seeker keeps carrying the burden, he will never be accomplished. And if the accomplished one fears to take up the burden, know that he is not yet accomplished. The seeker is troubled by the burden—it crushes him. The siddha has no trouble—burden is no burden to him. All saints return to the world. One day they go out; one day they come back. Siddhahood has two movements: dropping the sack, and shouldering it again.

Hotei, in subtle signals, is saying the whole thing. But if you met him on the road, you wouldn’t recognize him—he is tangled with toys, it would seem; though in truth he is tangled only because of you. And he is not tangled at all—his very pointing is: you are all children, wanting sweets, toys, sparklers, crackers. You will think: he begs a coin; still begging! You will be mistaken: he is teaching you to give.

Buddha begged—and this land, India, saw a unique event never seen elsewhere: the beggar was given the highest honor. Elsewhere the beggar is despised. When a beggar asks you on the road, you too despise him. You find “rational” reasons: beggars are increasing; the whole society will be ruined; giving to beggars encourages begging. This is not true; it is your argument to save you from giving. You don’t really care about reducing begging. Your whole social order creates thousands of beggars. You are producing beggars. But the mind shies from giving—fears it, trembles. It hesitates to give even a single coin; at the word “give,” something like death happens inside.

India made a unique experiment. Buddha even named his monks “bhikshu”—beggars. Hindus call their renunciates “swami”—master. Jains call theirs “muni”—silent one. There are reasons: muni—one who is silent, or vows silence, or prepares for silence. Swami—one who is master of himself, who has left the slavery of the senses. But Buddha called his renunciates bhikshu—beggar.

Think about it. Buddha’s insight is precious. He said: become askers, so that through you everyone can learn to give. And when Buddha himself begged, imagine this: Buddha standing at your door begging—if you had even a little understanding, that very moment would be the great moment of meditation for you. If even in giving to Buddha your heart did not fill with giving—if you still counted your coins, schemed to avoid him—then when will the moment of charity and meditation come? We gave the beggar the supreme place.

Buddha came to a town. The king asked his prime minister, “Is it proper that I go outside the town to welcome him?” The old minister looked at the king and said, “Accept my resignation.” He was old, experienced, indispensable. The king said, “What is this? I only asked if it is proper to go.”

The minister said, “That you can ask this is enough to show I should not sit here anymore. If Buddha comes—even if he is a beggar—and the king thinks whether to go or not, that king is irreligious, ignorant. Buddha is a beggar—he was once a king; what you have, he has left. And the value lies in what is left, not in what is grasped. Value belongs to the consciousness that leaves, not to the one that clings. Clinging is the most ordinary mind; everyone has it. The mind that can let go is extraordinary.”

Hotei asks; you would think, “He is a beggar.” And seeing God in a beggar is very hard; seeing a siddha in a beggar is very hard. You might see a siddha in a king—but in a beggar? And Hotei dropping and lifting his sack breaks your whole notion of renunciation. We think sannyas means leaving the world—full stop. Hotei says: that is only half. Renunciation is leaving the world, certainly—and then returning to it, equally certainly.

Siddhahood is complete the day you have both: the art of leaving—and the art of living amidst what you have left. You go far—and you come near again; now the world cannot touch you.

Certainly: as meditation deepens, sensitivity will also deepen. And with heightened sensitivity, problems grow too. Sensitivity means you will experience everything—every event—in its full velocity, with full intensity. If someone insults you, the way that hurt reverberates inside a meditator will not be the same for a non-meditator. If a thorn pricks, the meditator’s awareness of that sting will be much clearer than that of the non-meditator—because the non-meditator lives in a kind of stupor, a haze of unawareness. The duller the awareness, the less the pain is consciously felt.

Perhaps that is exactly why we reduce our awareness—so we can feel less pain. Ask a psychologist and he will say: every child learns early how to numb their awareness.

All children are born sensitive. Then they begin to kill their sensitivity—because living with raw sensitivity is very difficult. A certain blunting of feeling becomes “necessary.” That is why, at the slightest anger, a small child can go almost mad—jumping, stamping, flaming with fire through the whole being—over a tiny thing. And we dismiss it: “They’re just children; never mind.” We teach them, “Control yourself, restrain yourself; this is not right.”

I was once a guest at a friend’s house. We went to visit someone in his car; his little boy sat beside him. We got out to go in, and the child stayed in the car. When we returned, I felt something was wrong—the child seemed to be holding something in, as if preventing an eruption. It showed in his face, his hands, his legs.

As soon as we reached home and he got out of the car, he screamed and cried so loudly that I asked, “What happened?” He said, “When you went inside, I dozed off and my head hit the steering wheel hard. It hurts a lot. But Papa has said if I make any noise or cry outside the house, he will never take me with him again. So I held it in.” It had happened an hour earlier. The moment he reached home, he began to weep and wail. The injury was an hour old—but he had contained it.

We train children to “hold it”—to suppress. The more we hold our hurts, the more our sensitivity gets blunted. Then we invent strategies so we don’t feel too much pain—because there is a lot of pain, and if you felt it fully, you might think you could not go on living.

A young man gets hurt on the hockey field. While playing, he doesn’t even notice; only after the game does it register—because all his attention was in the game, not on his foot. Similarly, life hits you twenty-four hours a day, but you keep your mind occupied—in business, work, busyness—and you don’t notice. Slowly, your personality hides inside a shell. Then, when you begin to meditate, childhood returns; sensitivity becomes fresh again; perceptions deepen. Whatever happens will happen very deeply. This creates difficulties.

So the meditator faces trouble—and even more so do the family and friends around him. They cannot understand. They think a meditator should be calmer. “Before meditation he wasn’t so angry; now, after meditation, he seems more angry.” They imagine a meditator will become corpse-like: even if you strike him, he will just sit and watch.

That too is true—but that moment does not come at the beginning. That is the ultimate flowering of meditation. In the beginning, the dams break. More anger will be felt, more greed will be seen—everything will be felt more. Whatever you have been holding back since childhood will overflow. There will be more restlessness. If you fall ill, the unease will feel more. If there is joy, there will be great excitement; a small thing will make you want to dance. A small thing will sadden you and you will feel like dying. In the beginning of meditation, this is how it will be.

What should a seeker do? If you repress this phase, you will obstruct meditation—because it is an essential part of its growth that you learn to experience each thing in its completeness. Pain as pain—only then will you be able to experience bliss in its completeness. If you cannot experience the world in its completeness, how will you experience the divine in its completeness? For now the world surrounds you; its impacts will come first.

So first, remember: do not kill sensitivity. Deepen it, expand it. Difficulty will arise—don’t reinforce your shell because of that difficulty. And when the difficulty becomes too much, what then?

As a primary, practical step: whenever you feel any sensation becoming very intense, go alone into your room, close the door, and let that sensation express itself totally. Do not throw it on others—because taking it out on others starts a long chain. If anger has arisen, instead of unloading it on a person, take a pillow into the room and unload it there.

At first it will feel odd: “How can I be angry at a pillow?” But I say this from hundreds of experiments—the anger comes out just as satisfyingly on a pillow as on a wife or a husband. And the pillow does not retaliate. With a pillow there is no karmic chain: it won’t torment you in a next birth, nor take revenge in the evening because you beat it in the morning. The pillow is a perfect sage. What matters is: don’t suppress anger—fall upon the pillow with your whole energy. The first two or three blows will feel like a joke; but by the fourth you will find it has come alive—your full energy is there. Hit the pillow, shout, stamp, do whatever wants to happen—do not hold anything back. In a few days you will become skillful. And you will be amazed. In the West, psychologists are using such methods.

In Japan, a very wealthy industrialist put his own statue outside his factory. A very clever man—and psychologists advised him to install a statue in front of his office. Whoever feels angry may do what they like to that statue. Workers naturally feel anger; no special reason is needed—being a servant is reason enough. Ten thousand people work in his factory. So he put up the statue and gave permission: anyone may mistreat it. Often workers—and sometimes even managers—go out, thrash the statue, and return to work. The results have been significant: a harmony has developed between owner and workers.

We already do such things collectively. We still burn the effigy of Ravana. Burning Ravana brings a certain lightness. The first time it was done, it must have brought great relief. Even today, when anger builds up, people take an effigy—of Indira, of Bhutto, of someone—parade it, beat it with shoes, and burn it. The mind feels lighter, satisfied.

What you do collectively, do privately. In your meditation room, keep a pillow there. If you are angry at your husband, first install him in the pillow—as a devotee installs the deity in an image—then pour out the whole anger. And do not come out of the room until the anger is finished.

You will be surprised: if the anger is completely spent, when the wife looks at the husband afterward, she will feel great compassion, great tenderness, great love—like the gentle calm that follows a storm.

If your foot is hurt and there is pain, go into the room and weep. Become light like a small child. If a thorn has gone into your foot, don’t say, “A man like me—how can I cry?” There is no man in the world who cannot cry. A man who cannot cry is already dead.

But we have been taught from childhood: “You’re a man; don’t cry.” It is strange: only women are granted the freedom to weep; men are not—even though both have the same tear glands. Nature made no distinction in tears; otherwise men would have fewer glands—or none. Nature, too, wants you to weep. Your being a man makes no difference.

Crying is a unique experiment. It carries out of you unknown surges and fevers; it expels them. That is why women commit fewer murders; men commit them. Women cry and release their sorrow each day; men go on accumulating. When too much sorrow gathers, the explosion is dangerous. Women are less prone to madness. A man who can weep will not go mad either. If you cannot cry, everything clogs inside; and when a thousand tears accumulate, poison is produced.

So do not think: “I am a man,” or “I am old now,” or “I have grandchildren—how can I cry?” None of that matters. If you have grandchildren, you can cry with even more joy! And if life has taught you anything, learn at least this: do not suppress anything inside—let it out. And secondly, do not dump it on any person; there is no reason to hurt someone else. This can be released only in solitude. I call it purgation—catharsis. Every meditator has to pass through catharsis. It is not enough to become still; the stored moments of unquiet within you must also be released.

When a moment comes that there is no anger left to be released, no unrest left to be released, your meditation will be effortless. Then take that pillow and immerse it in the Ganges—offer it thanks, take it out in a little procession, and bid it farewell. Until then, it is needed.

Sensitivity will grow, experiences will deepen; joy and sorrow will both cut to the quick, like arrows to the heart. If you repress, meditation will not grow. If you dump on others, you will create obstacles, turmoil, a web. Go into solitude and pour the sensations out.

With meditation, catharsis is a necessary process. Only when catharsis is complete will your meditation be purest. Pure meditation is samadhi. While meditation is growing, catharsis will continue; only when meditation flowers into samadhi can catharsis cease.

The perfected one has no catharsis—because nothing is accumulated. But in the seeker’s life, catharsis is indispensable.

Enough for today.