Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #13

There is no way to be against nature, because there is nothing that is not nature. Whatever is, is nature. There is no path to fight with nature—who would fight? There is none other than nature. But the feeling, the idea, the vision that “I am fighting nature” can be adopted, it can be cultivated.

When you swim in the river, you still are not going against nature, because swimming too is natural. Even when you “fight” the river, the river is not fighting you. So there is no way to be an enemy of nature. But in your mind the notion can arise that you are fighting, that you must win, must not lose—and you can fall into the madness of winning and losing. You will suffer from that. Nature suffers nothing. Nor will nature obstruct you or demand you change. Nature will go on as it is, endlessly. Not even for a moment will it pause to ask you, “What are you doing?” Your struggle is unknown to nature; even that you ever fought is unknown to it.

But if the belief settles in your mind that you are fighting—“I must win, I must not lose”—you will be needlessly troubled. That trouble too is natural. It is also in your nature that you will fight, lose, win, think, be unhappy—this too is nature.

In this world, everything is nature—sorrow, happiness, and supreme bliss. It is in your hands: if you cling to delusive notions, you will be miserable. If you hold simple, natural notions, you will be happy. If you drop all notions, you will be blissful. All this is happening within you.

Remember: when a thorn pricks your foot and there is pain, the pain is natural, the thorn is natural, your body is natural. Then when you pull the thorn out with your hand, the hand that removes it is natural. The sense of relief when the thorn is gone—the pain ended—is natural. There is nothing unnatural. There cannot be. Natural simply means: what can happen, what is happening. Humanity’s wandering is natural; falling into ignorance is natural.

Therefore, the question is not to choose between natural and unnatural—everything is natural. But in nature there is sorrow, there is happiness, and there is bliss. You are unhappy; hence I say to you that there is a way to be happy—don’t swim, float. And there is also a way to be blissful—neither swim nor float; become one with the river. All three are natural.

Understand it like this: when you are healthy, you are natural; and when you are ill? Do you think illness is unnatural? Otherwise, from where would illness come? Illness is as much a part of nature as health. Only, in illness you suffer; in health you feel well.

Now you must decide which journey in nature you will take—the journey of sorrow, of happiness, or of bliss. All three gates are always open. And from nature’s side there is no burden upon you, no weight, no insistence. You will neither be punished nor rewarded. Nature is utterly impartial, neutral in this regard. It does not push you. As you please.

That is why I say: when you suffer, you suffer by your own choice. And if you are getting a taste for suffering, no one is telling you not to suffer. Suffer to your heart’s content; as much as you can, do. The difficulty is: you are both suffering and unaware that it is by your own doing.

So first understand this: nature is an impartial flow; it has no favoritism. But if you want to be unhappy, you will have to live in a certain way—the way of struggle, of fighting, of the ambition to win. And whoever aspires to win will lose. How can a limb, a small part, defeat the whole? If a drop fights the ocean, what chance is there of victory? In being a drop, defeat is already written. What device could make the drop triumph over the sea? If your hand fights against you, is there any possibility of its winning? Even for your hand to fight you, it requires your very power.

It is like a father wrestling with his small son. If it is the father’s play, he can make the son “win”—he can fall flat, lie down, and seat the son on his chest. But even that the father must do. The son may be under the illusion that he is winning, but the father knows well that there is no way the son can truly win.

When you “win,” it is the Divine playing with you, as a father plays with his child. Your victory is not possible. It is impossible—because how can the part win against the whole? There is no way.

Sometimes it seems to you that victory is happening, but it is the father losing to the son. It is his play. If you get entangled in this play, you will be very unhappy, because the play will not go on forever. Many times you will have to lose. And the day you truly realize that loss is inevitable, you will drop the urge to win.

Renouncing the urge to win is sannyas. And the one who has renounced the urge to win alone understands “nahin Ram bin thav”—there is no resting place without Ram. Only he recognizes that Ram is the final rest. There is simply no way to go by fighting him. It is like Ravana losing to Rama. In between there are many wins. Along the way, many times Ravana appears to be winning. Many times Ravana himself feels, “I am winning.” From that hope arises the belief that the final victory will be his. But the final victory can never be his. However long the game lasts, the ultimate victory will be Rama’s. Ravana may win many times; Rama will win only once, but that will be the last.

The part can often win in small skirmishes, but in the final decisive game it will lose. Whoever understands, knows, recognizes this—sees himself as the part—stops fighting. And the wonder is that the moment you stop fighting, victory happens. Because the moment you drop the fight, you are no more—only Ram remains. It is by fighting that you protect your ego. When you do not fight and accept, “Defeat is welcome,” you are gone. The drop is lost—the ocean remains. Now Rama’s victory is your victory. Now you cannot lose; now no one can defeat you. Earlier you could not win—winning was impossible; now losing is impossible. Because now you are one with the Whole. You are no longer a wave; you are the ocean. Who can defeat you now?

Lao Tzu has said: he who sets out to win will lose; and he who has already lost—there is no way to defeat him. Lao Tzu keeps saying, “You will not be able to defeat me, because I am already defeated. There is no way to fight me—so how will you defeat me? I am already defeated.”

The one who is already defeated—that one is the sannyasin. And this defeated sannyasin we have called the victor. Among the names of Mahavira and the Buddha is the name Jin. Jin means “the one who has conquered.” On that very basis the followers of Mahavira are called Jains—those who have conquered.

But when does Mahavira conquer? In which moment does victory happen? In the very moment when there is no Mahavira. As long as you are, there will be defeat. You are the very ground and source of defeat. When you are not, victory is. With you, defeat is already present. What remains without you is always victorious.

That is why we changed Mahavira’s name. His birth name was Vardhaman. This name too is worth contemplating. Vardhaman means “always increasing, ever growing, ever winning.” But as long as he was Vardhaman, he lost. Vardhaman is the name of our ambitions—ever increasing without end. Wherever we reach, still further, still further. Desire keeps growing, like the ever-receding horizon.

So Vardhaman was the name given by his father. A father gives his son ambition. The wish is that the son will grow, flourish, prosper. So he was named Vardhaman. As long as he remained Vardhaman, defeat continued. Then, the day Vardhaman vanished, the inner ego collapsed, that day he became Mahavira. Mahavira means: now no one can defeat him. Valor has reached the ultimate peak where no one can defeat. But this hero was born when Vardhaman stepped aside.

When Vardhaman dissolves, Mahavira is born. Once, long ago, in connection with this statement, a delightful incident occurred. I reached a Mahavira temple. After a Jain monk had spoken, I said: Vardhaman and Mahavira are two different persons; I said that upon Vardhaman’s death Mahavira was born; I said that as long as Vardhaman is, there is no way for Mahavira to be, and that those who take Vardhaman’s life to be Mahavira’s life are in a great illusion. The Jain monk became very agitated and upset. He thought someone who does not know the Jain scriptures had come to speak.

He became so restless he stood up in the middle and said, “What you are saying is totally wrong. Vardhaman and Mahavira are names of the same person. You seem to know nothing of Jain scriptures.” I said, “Whether I know Jain scriptures or not, I know the state of Jin-hood. And as far as that is concerned, Mahavira and Vardhaman are two persons. You can keep to what is written in the books. Vardhaman’s life is not Mahavira’s life. It was to erase Vardhaman that Mahavira went to the forest. The day Vardhaman fell, the day the outer shell dropped, the seedling of Mahavira was born.”

Still, he could not understand. A mind filled with fixed notions loses its capacity to understand. He grew so angry at what he felt were upside-down statements that he lost his composure. Some presence of mind is needed to understand. Those who are heavy with scriptures—the scriptures often settle over the eyes like dust, and then it becomes difficult to see life.

Of course I know Mahavira and Vardhaman are two names of one person. Outwardly that is so. The one who was born as Vardhaman dies as Mahavira. On the surface, there is continuity. But within? Within, one chain of being ended and a new chain was born. Within, that which was born came to an end; and that which is never born and never dies—its remembrance, its experience, arose. That is Mahavira.

Understand this: as long as you are, defeat will be your fate, because the very idea of fighting is foolish. As if someone were fighting himself—he will only lose. As if someone were fighting his shadow—he will only lose. The day the remembrance dawns, “Whom am I fighting? There is no other besides me. It is I alone spread all around, and in you, too, I am contained. There is nowhere that I and you are cut apart”—on that very day defeat ends, but on that same day you too end.

People often say of doctors, critically, “The patient may die, but this doctor’s treatment will never end the disease.” But in religion precisely the opposite is true. Here, until the patient dies, the disease will not end—because here the patient and the disease are two names for the same event. Only if you die will the disease end—because you are the disease.

The quest of all religions—though they may differ greatly in breadth and detail—has one essence: how the individual may dissolve and the Whole may be. Then there is supreme bliss. When you are not, how can sorrow be? The stronger you are, the deeper your sorrow.

Keep this in mind: everything is nature—sorrow, happiness, bliss. If you fight, sorrow comes from nature. Not that nature gives you sorrow; you fight, therefore you experience sorrow. It is the shadow of your fighting. Just as there is gravity in the earth. You walk and do not even notice gravity. Walk crookedly, drunkenly, and you will fall; your leg will break. The leg breaks in the context of gravity. The earth is pulling—whether you are upright or tilted. The earth’s pull goes on; it has nothing to do with you. If you lean sideways, you will break your leg. If the leg breaks, you will suffer. You cannot say gravity broke your leg. Gravity has no knowledge of you. Gravity is a law.

Likewise: if you try to pass through a wall and hurt your head, will you say the wall broke your head? People often say so. In truth, you broke your head. The wall was standing; had you used the door, the wall would not have come to smash your head. Through the door, you pass; through the wall, you break your head.

Whoever takes up the idea of fighting with nature will smash his head and suffer. Whoever does not fight nature, who surrenders, passes through the door—his head does not break. And then even the thought “I am” is forgotten. Neither struggle nor surrender—because even in surrender there lingers the sense “I am.” Neither resolve nor surrender. I do not fight, I do not struggle, I do not even give up—because who is there to give up? When I am not, what struggle? What surrender?

From this, supreme bliss happens. It is showering even now. The door is open even now, but you are banging against the wall. And people almost always live by precisely this rule.

Have you ever seen a bird fly into your room through a window? Then it tries everything—banging against all the walls—but not the very window through which it entered. What will be this bird’s logic?

One thing is certain: since it came in, the way out is the same as the way in. There can be no other. And if it could come in, it can go out—otherwise how could it come in? Yet except for that window, it flutters and pecks and beats against every place. The more it crashes into the walls, the more it panics. In that panic even the window disappears from sight. And if you try to help, it could cost it its life. Often you feel like helping, guiding it to the window. But if you try to guide it to the window, it will avoid the window all the more.

Many disciples come to the same plight in the hands of gurus. The guru shoves them toward the window—“Go out from here”—and because of the push they crash into the wall even worse.

The Supreme Guru will not push you. The Supreme Guru’s way is to be in the room as if he were not. Only in his non-presence will you become light.

The presence of another only heightens your panic. “I can’t find the way out; I am doing foolish things”—this increases your anxiety. In that anxiety your eyes grow duller. In that fever, in that urgency, nothing is seen. A man becomes like the blind.

Why does the bird not fly out by the very window through which it came in, when the logic is so straightforward? Because in some fundamental way our logic and the bird’s are the same.

The logic is: “How can I go out by the way I came in? Inside and outside appear opposite. Where is inside and where is outside? It’s the reverse—so how can the way in be the way out? There must be some other way out.”

Inside and outside are not two things. They are two poles of one existence. Whoever understands will find that the way you came in is the way you will go out. There can be no other. The very road by which you came here from your home to me is the road you will use to return. The intellect might object: “How can the very road that took me away from home bring me back to it?”

There is only a small difference to note. When you came toward me, your face was turned toward me and your back toward your home. When you return, your back will be toward me and your face toward your home. That is all. You the same, the home the same, the road the same. The way a person enters existence is the way he returns.

Yesterday you asked about sex-desire. In this context, it is useful to understand that too. When the child is in the mother’s womb, there is non-eroticness, no-sex. There is no sexual drive. He knows nothing. When one does not even know oneself, how can there be thoughts of enjoyment? When there is ego, it longs for pleasure. When there is ego and pleasure is denied, it suffers. For the fetus there is no question of pleasure, because the child is not yet separate. In the mother’s womb the child is one with the mother.

The state of the womb is the state of moksha. The womb is a small, embodied form of the bliss of liberation.

The child is one with the mother, one with his original source. The mother breathes—those breaths are the child’s breaths. The mother’s blood circulates—that is the child’s circulation. The mother’s heart beats—that is the child’s heartbeat. If the mother dies, the child dies. The mother’s life is the child’s life. Separateness has not yet arisen. The ego has not yet been born. This is the bliss of moksha.

In the supreme state of sainthood, the same event happens again. Then the entire existence becomes the mother’s womb. Hence, the sanctum in the temple where we place the deity is called the garbha-griha, the “womb chamber.” The day this whole world becomes like a temple, that day you re-enter the sanctum. Then your separate existence remains no more; only the Whole is—“you” are not.

Those who have envisioned the Divine as feminine rather than as masculine have shown greater wisdom. Conceiving God as male is not quite apt—how will he be the womb? The feminine conception is more fitting. But due to the ego of men we commonly make God male. Setting ego aside, if we look to the fact: the Divine should be feminine—there must be space in him. Moksha needs space, the possibility of a womb—so we can return into it.

Therefore, the conceptions of Kali, of the Divine Mother, are closer to the truth. In the male there is no “space”—where will you enter? In the male there is no place. For the saint, the Divine becomes the womb again.

When a child is born, the first stage is non-eroticness, no-sex. Understand its development well—for the saint’s return journey is the same. The second stage is self-eroticism: the child loves himself. He plays with his own hands and feet. He is happy without reason. No companion, no playmate—lying by himself, he enjoys. He smiles. Mothers think perhaps he is remembering some past life and is pleased. No—he is absorbed in self-erotic delight. He is both lover and beloved unto himself.

Then the third stage arrives—then the child becomes homosexual in the developmental sense: same-sex attraction arises. Boys are keen about boys, girls about girls.

There is an age when boys bond with boys, girls with girls. Boys fall in love with boys; girls with girls.

That is why the kind of friendship formed in childhood never forms again. The taste of such friendship never returns in a lifetime. The friendship children make with one another is like lovers’ friendship—it often lasts for life. Later you will meet many people, even very good people, relationships will form—but they will be acquaintances, not friendships. Because that stage of same-sex love will not come again. Many remain fixed at homosexuality; that means their development has not proceeded.

In the West today this is a very widespread issue. Many men can love only men, and many women only women. They have large organizations, magazines, books; they struggle with governments for legal rights. Some countries—Denmark, Sweden—have even permitted marriage: a man may marry a man.

In childhood, this stage is natural. But if it becomes fixed, remains, it means arrested development—one has stopped on the ladder and not gone further.

The third stage is homosexuality. The fourth stage is heterosexuality—love with the opposite sex: woman with man, man with woman. These are the four stages.

Now there are two approaches. One is to fight through the entire journey of sex and flee to the forest—repress, restrain—what we call the ascetic, the self-denying. Then one is not returning; the circle is not completed. A certain dispassion appears—the kind we commonly see in so-called monks—but I call this dispassion crippled, paralyzed. It is not real. Because you have only gone ahead on the path, you have not come back; the circle is incomplete. And until the circle is complete, the journey is not complete.

In existence everything moves in circles—the moon, stars, sun, earth, life—everything is cyclical. Existence does not acknowledge the straight line; it acknowledges the circle. Everything must return to the point from which it began.

Here lies the unique discovery and glory of Tantra. Tantra says: dispassion is fine, but it must be the dispassion that comes by returning.

So the fourth stage is heterosexuality, love and sex with the other. From here, the return begins. Just behind it lies the same-sex stage.

That is why all religions that have psychological insight have made provision for this stage. In Buddhism, the bhikkhu-sangha (monks) and the bhikkhuni-sangha (nuns) are separate—so that ties with the opposite sex wane. Monks live together; nuns live together. In Catholic Christianity there are monasteries where men and women are separate—monks and nuns apart.

Some Catholic monasteries are such that a person who enters never comes out. The door opens only to go in, never to go out. He has left the world of the opposite sex. Now he will live only among men. His friendship will be as in childhood. He is returning.

Then one returns further—becoming like the small child who loves only himself. Man and woman are gone. The sannyasin sits in his cave, immersed in himself. The state of meditation is self-erotic delight. It is just like the baby lying in his cradle, enjoying. No other is needed for bliss. His own being is enough joy. That is the state of meditation.

Then one returns even further—so that even the sense of oneself disappears. He has re-entered the womb. This state is samadhi. The child—now the whole existence is the womb, and he has no sense of self—becomes unknowing, one with the All. The circle is complete. Non-eroticness arises again. I call this final state brahmacharya.

If, after the fourth stage, you jump directly to brahmacharya as the fifth, it will be repression. It will be distorted, and it cannot have beauty. It will not have the glory that appears in the child returning to the mother’s womb.

Non-eroticness; then self-eroticness; then same-sex love; then other-sex love; and then the return journey. The day your circle is complete, supreme peace will manifest in you. Blessings will shower from all around. “This person has come home.” The Zen mystics say: coming back home. From where he set out, there he has returned—he has attained the source.

If you fight nature, that too is natural; if you surrender, that too is natural. If you drop yourself utterly—no struggle, no surrender—that too is natural. Everything is natural, for how could there be anything unnatural? Therefore, the question is not to choose between nature and the unnatural; the question is to choose among sorrow, happiness, and bliss. All three doors are open. Whichever way you go, go consciously.

If you want to suffer, suffer consciously; no one is stopping you. There is no bondage at all. Whoever wants sorrow has ample means to get it. Only remember: you yourself are arranging it with your own hands—blame no one. If you want happiness, choose happiness. And if your readiness is for bliss, choose bliss. But here there is no one to blame for your sorrow or to thank for your joy. You are living alone.

We have called this very understanding the doctrine of karma. It means only this: whatever you receive is your own doing. Neither nature gives anything, nor does God give anything. You earn your own life. The seeds you sow—those are the crops you harvest. This is what you have always been doing.

All you need see is this much: if your doing breaks your bones, it means you are moving against the grain of nature. If your doing fills you with well-being, it means you are moving in accord. Against the current—sorrow; with the current—happiness. But if you become blissful, then you are neither against nor with; you have become one.

Oneness is bliss.

As a person becomes more silent, the feeling of enmity begins to drop. It’s not a question of toward whom; the very vibration of hostility starts falling from within. A blissful person can feel only friendliness. As your meditation deepens, you will feel you have become friendly with everyone. Those who were yours remain yours; those who were strangers also become yours.

The ignorant, however identified they may be with the body, still regard it as other. And however much they live in the body, they live with an inner enmity toward it. You may adorn the body as much as you like, yet inside there is a kind of hostility. You may not recognize it, but you are an enemy of the body. And that enmity can be fulfilled in two ways.

One way is to make the body a means of indulgence. Then you will only destroy it. Many kinds of pain and illnesses will arise.

So one path for venting hostility toward the body is that of the hedonist. He rots the body. The other path is that of the renunciate. He does not rot the body by indulgence; he tortures it: sleeps on thorns, fasts, whips himself—he tortures the body directly. The hedonist tortures it indirectly. But both torment the body, and both are its enemies. Neither is a friend.

There was a monk of Buddha’s named Shron. He had been a prince. He left home and renounced his palace. He had been utterly given to pleasure—he had arranged every kind of indulgence in his palace. He had never walked on the ground. Even while climbing his palace stairs, naked maidens stood at the sides so he could place his hands on their shoulders as he ascended. Music, dance, entertainment—that was his life. He slept all day, and all night he drank and reveled.

Suddenly Buddha came to his town, and Shron became a monk. Buddha’s companions were amazed. They said, “We could never have imagined that Shron would become a monk. You have worked a miracle.” Buddha said, “There is no miracle of mine in this. Shron had to become a monk, because the mind runs from one extreme to the other. And now watch Shron’s behavior—you are nothing compared to what he will do.”

Soon they saw it: in austerity Shron was foremost. Buddha’s monks ate once a day; Shron ate once in two days. The monks walked along the roads; Shron took thorny paths through the forest. The monks kept one robe; Shron went naked. The monks rested in the shade at noon; Shron stood in the sun.

Buddha said, “Look—before, he was torturing the body, and now he is torturing it again. Before he tortured it through indulgence; now he tortures it through ‘yoga.’ But the tormenting continues. The enmity remains.”

In six months Shron’s beautiful form had withered; his skin had darkened; his feet had wounds and blisters. His eyes had sunk inward. No one could have recognized that this was the same Prince Shron.

One night Buddha went to his hut and said, “I have heard, Shron, that when you were a prince you were skilled at playing the veena. I have a question. If the strings of the veena are very tight, will music arise?” Shron said, “It will, but it will be harsh. And if they are too tight, the strings will break and there will be no music.” Buddha asked, “And if the strings are too loose?” Shron said, “Then too there will be no music; or if anything is produced, it will be lifeless, without vitality or movement. If the strings are very loose, there will be no music at all.” Buddha asked, “Then what is the rule for music?” Shron said, “The strings must be in the middle—neither too tight nor too loose.”

“There is a state of the strings in which you cannot say they are tight, and you cannot say they are loose. Finding that middle point is the musician’s art. Many can strike a veena, but discovering the middle point is the mastery of a great musician. When a master begins his work, he spends long hours just tuning—tapping, adjusting, settling the strings. He brings them to the middle, to that place, as I said, where they are neither tight nor loose. Then music is born.”

Buddha stood and said, “Shron, I came only to say that the rule of music is also the rule of life. The music of samadhi arises when the strings of life are exactly in the middle. Beware of extremes! To move from indulgence to renunciation is easy. Stop in the middle between indulgence and renunciation—there lies balance.”

As meditation grows, the mind begins to come to the middle. All hostilities fall—on both sides—and a feeling of friendliness arises. This friendliness is not toward someone; it dawns within you. Therefore wherever you look, you will perceive friendliness. Looking at trees, at birds, at friends—you will see friendliness all around, as if everything is your companion; as if no one is against you. And in truth, there is no one against you.

You were opposed to yourself, hence the whole world seemed opposed to you. Even if someone opposes you, because of your meditation you will see that this opposition too is in your service.

Kabir says, “Keep the critic close; give him a cottage in your courtyard.” The one who criticizes you—invite him to live right beside you. Because his criticism will support you. Now even in the critic you will see a friend.

You will also see friendship toward this body, and then you will be able to thank it. And that is a true sannyasin, who can thank his own body. For the body has done you no harm—nothing but accompany you. If you wanted to go to a prostitute’s house, the body took you there—you wanted to go.

But we are strange people. We say, “This body is the enemy; it took me to the prostitute.” If you want to go to the temple, the body takes you to the temple. The body has always followed you like a shadow. Whatever you desired, the body fulfilled—yet you abuse it. If you commit a sin, you say, “The body made me sin.” If you are angry, you say, “The body made me angry.” If lust shakes you, you say, “The body is dragging me into lust.”

Our habit of blaming someone else is so old that when we can find no one else, we pile the blame onto the helpless body. Therefore, understand that any so-called monk who condemns the body has not yet caught even the fragrance of sannyas.

Otherwise, the body is a temple; the body is a unique benediction of nature. Nature has given you so much in this body—if only you could use it! Not only lust is hidden there; above lust are higher chakras in which other dimensions are concealed. In your body is that supreme sahasrar from which the door of samadhi opens.

Your lowest chakra is sex, from which the door of nature opens. Your seventh chakra is meditation, from which the door of the divine opens. Everything is hidden in the body. So do not blame the body. Whichever door you knock at, the body opens that door.

But our habit is never to blame ourselves. We need someone—anyone—to be guilty. When no one else can be found, the helpless body is there. And the so-called religions have taught great wickedness, making you an enemy of the body and filling you with the notion that only by torturing the body can you become self-realized.

Nothing more foolish can be imagined. A self-realized person will not torture anyone—how could he torture the body? And how can a torturer become self-realized? Tormenting is violence, wickedness, hardness. Tormenting is the nature of a diseased mind.

Do not torment. Recognize this body.

Therefore, as meditation comes, a new recognition, a new acquaintance with the body will arise. For the first time you will see that the body is extraordinary, deeply mysterious. How many doors it has! What a wondrous world of secrets is hidden within! You have not explored the treasure. What you sought, you obtained—only that much.

You are like a madman to whom someone gifted a palace, yet who sits outside on the steps all his life, abusing the sun and rain: “What kind of house is this, that I must sit on the steps and suffer? Dust blows from the road; passersby hurl insults.” He sits at the threshold; he has not even opened the door. He has not seen the inner chambers, not known the palace’s rest, not discovered its treasures. He only sits at the door, hurling abuses. His back is turned to the palace. And the more he abuses, the harder it becomes to turn his face toward it. Because whomever we abuse, our back grows rigid toward them. If your enemy comes, you cannot look him in the eye; you avert your gaze, you turn your back. If the body is your enemy, you will sit with your back to the palace.

Granted, through this very body people go to hell. But through this same body people go to heaven. The same ladder can be leaned toward hell, or the same ladder can be leaned toward heaven. The ladder does not say, “Go down” or “Go up.” It depends on the one who climbs.

Let even a slight glimpse of meditation arise, and a great friendliness toward the body will be born—because you will see that even meditation is possible only because of the body. And on the day samadhi happens, you will see that samadhi too became possible through the body. A liberated person dies with a great feeling of grace and gratitude toward the body.

When Saint Francis died, in his last moments he opened his eyes and said, “Thank you—thank you so much. You have accompanied me as no one else could. Whether I went to hell or to heaven, whether I did good or bad—you were always with me. Your compassion is great. And now that I am leaving you forever, accept my final thanks.”

The disciples nearby did not understand to whom he was speaking. One asked, “Has your mind wavered because of death? To whom are you speaking? You are not looking at any of us, nor have you addressed any of us. None of us has been ‘always with you,’ so the address makes no sense. To whom are you speaking—into the void?”

Saint Francis said, “I am speaking to my body. Many times I condemned it and abused it—that was my ignorance. Today I am thanking it, because I will not get another chance. This is the final moment to offer thanks, for soon I will be gone forever. This body has borne great hardships for me.”

This will be the meditator’s feeling. Hostility will fall; friendship will deepen; and grace will begin to be felt from every side. It is his grace in all forms. Therefore the wise have said, “The body is a temple.” The ignorant have said, “The body is an enemy.” Even if the ignorant have written scriptures, it makes no difference. The wise have always said, “The body is God’s prasad, his gift.” The ignorant have always set the body and God in opposition, as if until you destroy the body you cannot attain the divine.

If God wanted only the body destroyed, there would have been no need to give it. And God too is not without a body; this entire nature is his body.

This entire nature is his body. Therefore in your body the five elements of nature are gathered in subtle form. Your body is a miniature of nature. And in this small form, your soul is a small form of the divine. There, a sun burns vast—about sixty thousand times larger than the earth—an immense flame. In your home a small lamp burns, tiny—no comparison with the sun—yet there too a flame burns. In that flame is the same sun, the same ray, the same light.

You are a lamp—the lamp’s vessel is your body. You are a flame—God is the supreme flame. This nature is his lamp. Therefore, when you die, your flame will merge into the supreme flame; your lamp will merge into the supreme nature.

This play is unique; this lila is full of juice. Do not move through it with a feeling of enmity. The one who becomes an enemy will go astray. The one who becomes a friend—nature quickly pours all her secrets before him. As a friend, you will come to know, to recognize what you truly possess. Your eyes will turn toward the door; you will open it; you will enter the palace within.

It looks contradictory, yet it is true. And remember, words are always contradictory. Speaking can be of many kinds. One kind is where there is no real relationship with the listener at all. Speaking is your illness, because you cannot remain without speaking. There is a mesh and a turmoil going on inside your skull; by speaking you feel relieved. Speaking becomes purgation, catharsis.

We all speak like this, because without speaking we feel restless. When we speak, our restlessness is released. That’s why after a good round of gossip you feel light and go home and sleep peacefully. On a day you don’t get to talk, you won’t sleep well. If you can’t talk to someone else, you will have to talk to yourself. So at night, lying in bed, you chatter with yourself. For you, talking is a disease.

And in such talking there is no purpose as to what you are saying. Whether it benefits anyone or harms anyone isn’t even a question. You cannot stop speaking—so you speak. Sometimes just listen to people’s conversations, standing quietly at a distance. What are they talking about? What is the point of this talking?

No, the point of talking is not the point for them. They keep pulling one thread of talk out of another endlessly. It brings an inner lightness. There is a restlessness within, and by talking it flows out. If it doesn’t find an outlet, it will spin inside as thoughts and turn into dreams. And if it is completely blocked, you will go mad.

Psychologists say if a person is prevented entirely from speaking of every kind for three months, he will go insane.

What is the madman doing? What’s the difference between you and the madman? Not much—a matter of degree. An inch here, an inch there, and everything can go awry. What is the difference? Go to an asylum sometime and see: someone sits alone and talks. You don’t talk aloud when alone—that’s the only difference. But do you really not talk alone? You just don’t do it loudly; you do it under your breath—only that much difference. You too talk to yourself alone. Walking on the road, your hands move, you make gestures, lips move. If no one is present, you may even talk out loud. In the bathroom, there’s no one to hear; you stand before the mirror and talk, you make faces. That’s why you feel a freedom in the bathroom you don’t feel anywhere else.

What is the difference between the madman and you? You still worry what people will say; the madman has dropped even that. He doesn’t bother. He answers from both sides. The person who isn’t there sits beside him; he talks to him and answers too. Inside you also split into two and hold question-and-answer sessions.

For you, conversation—talking—is a kind of catharsis through which your insanity is vented. Like lifting the lid of a kettle so the steam escapes, by talking you lift the lid of your mind and the steam goes out. You feel lighter.

Buddha is not speaking in this way. For Buddha, speaking is not a catharsis. Therefore, if your speaking is speaking, then Buddha’s speaking is not speaking—because the two are of different natures. Buddha does not speak because he cannot remain without speaking. For Buddha, remaining silent is easy; speaking is the greater effort. For you, silence is difficult and speaking is effortless. For Buddha, silence is his nature and speech is arduous. He has to make an effort to speak. And when you are not there, Buddha does not talk to himself alone. He is silent, there is complete stillness, no one is there.

So in this sense Buddha spoke for forty years and yet did not speak, because his speaking is not the disease your speaking is. It is essential to see the difference.

Second: words that arise from emptiness and words that arise from the inner crowd and commotion are of different qualities. When words emerge from emptiness, their very fragrance, their music, is of the soundless and the silent.

Therefore, if you listen to Buddha attentively, you will become silent. If you keep listening to Buddha attentively, you will slip into meditation. What he is saying is not the real question; the very quality of his saying is emptiness. With the word, that emptiness enters your heart. Listening to Buddha, meditation dawns.

But listen to an ordinary person and you grow more restless the more you listen. And the ordinary person goes on talking; you want to avoid him, to run away. You say, “This fellow is boring, he is a drag. How to escape!”

You know how you make excuses to get away from people: “I have urgent work in the market; please excuse me.” And remember, people escape from you in the same way. Whenever you say that someone bores you, it only means that he is stronger than you—you cannot bore him, he overpowers you. There are people weaker than you too, whom you torment.

If you listen to ordinary conversations, along with their words their stench will also enter you. It is inevitable, because words are material vehicles. Words carry the person’s vibrations, his fragrance or stench, his nature wrapped around them toward you.

Therefore, if you are intelligent, you will not go to listen to the wrong people. If you are intelligent, you will not keep the company of such madmen, for it is a dangerous friendship. They are not just mad themselves; they are hurling their madness into you.

It once happened: In Arabia an emperor went insane. He was obsessed with chess; twenty-four hours a day the game rode on his head. And in that chess-chess he went mad—knight-bishop, knight-bishop—completely deranged. Physicians were called. They said there is only one remedy: find a chess player even greater than he, and let him play chess with the emperor for a whole year.

He was an emperor—no shortage of money. They brought the world’s greatest chess player, the Bobby Fischer of that time. He was set to the task. It was the emperor’s command; he could not refuse. And what is it to play chess with a madman? A madman is mad—no count of moves, no respect for rules. He might overturn the board at any time, spread it out at midnight and demand a game.

After a year the king was cured; the chess player went mad. It was bound to happen.

Go to a madhouse sometime, and the doctor there may seem crazier than the inmates—because they are carefree madmen, while that poor man bears the madness of so many. Psychologists, treating the insane, often reach the state of the patient themselves.

Qualities travel by way of words. Therefore a truly intelligent person listens only to those words that come from emptiness, that arise from peace, that are born in the depths within. If words arise from inner disease, shut your ears. Better to be deaf—that will protect you. Do not look at the wrong, because by seeing it enters you. Do not touch the futile, because touch conveys its impressions. But we lack this awareness.

Buddha’s words are like wordless speech, because they come from emptiness. Hence people rightly say that speaking for forty years, Buddha still did not speak.

And one last point to take to heart: Even while speaking, Buddha keeps saying, “What I want to say, I cannot say.” That’s precisely why he had to speak for forty years—it is a continual attempt. Like a painter trying to paint a picture and failing; he tries again and again, right up to his last breath, never satisfied—because what he wanted to paint does not get painted. Either it is formless and won’t be captured, or it is shapeless and, the moment you give it shape, it is lost. It is like the sky: you clench your fist, and it is outside your fist.

So Buddha says, “I speak, and yet I cannot say it. What I wanted to say, I could not say. And whatever I have said, don’t cling to it, for it is not truth. Truth cannot be said.” In this sense too, Buddha’s speaking is like not speaking. All the lines he drew on paper—he himself tore them up and threw them away.

In the West there was a great Christian thinker-philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. He wrote the Christians’ remarkable compendium, the Summa Theologiae—an encyclopedic work. Christians have no other book like it in which Christian thought and practice are so fully expounded. On his deathbed Aquinas told his disciples one last thing: “These volumes of the Summa Theologiae—some fifty volumes—are worthless. For what I wanted to say, I could not say. Do not rely on them, or you will cling to them. The truth has not entered into them. Truth is going with me; the words are left behind.”

Aquinas’s words are very precious—each word a gem. Yet Aquinas himself, dying, said, “All junk.”

Buddha says every day: whatever I am saying is useless. Since truth cannot be said, the attributeless cannot be expressed; the sky cannot be clenched in a fist. Freedom, as soon as it is put into words, looks like bondage; words become prisons.

Yet Buddha speaks. And he speaks so that your talking mind may be satisfied and, in listening, become quiet. You will not get truth from the words, but you will get the presence of Buddha—satsang. With Buddha’s speaking, truth won’t come to you; but if Buddha were to sit silently, you would not come to him. He speaks, so you come.

So speaking is only an invitation to you—because that you understand. But the reasons differ: your reason for going to him is one thing, his reason for calling you is another.

By speaking, Buddha attracts you—but the purpose is entirely different. Have you seen flowers? They spread fragrance. But do you know why? Botanists say flowers spread fragrance to attract butterflies. Butterflies, drawn by the fragrance, come and alight on the flower; the flower’s pollen clings to their feet and wings. They fly off and sit on another flower. Plants, too, have male and female. The male calls through fragrance, and the butterflies, bound by that aroma, carry the pollen to the females. Then seed is born.

The flower is not sending fragrance to give you perfume; it is sending its pollen. By speaking, Buddha calls you to himself. His speaking is only the flower’s fragrance. But if you come near, Buddhahood will cling to your feet and wings. You will not be able to escape it. And once you have tasted Buddhahood, you will throw away all words. One day you yourself will say, “Buddha never spoke at all—it was a great trick.”

And exactly the same is my situation. I speak to you, and I do not speak at all. I use words, yet I have no relationship with words. But since you have been lured, Buddhahood will stick to your feet and wings—without your knowing. You may have come for other reasons: perhaps to listen, perhaps my words entertain you, perhaps your intellect is satisfied, your logic feels pleased, your store of information increases, your ego enjoys it. Perhaps you have come to become a greater pundit.

That may be your purpose; I have nothing to do with it. My conspiracy is different, my purpose is different. As for me, I want to give you a taste of a life that has no way of being said in speech—but in moments of togetherness, sometimes its fragrance is caught.

Therefore this is not a discourse; this is satsang. Here I am not speaking; here I am. And if, through my being, you connect—even for a little while, for a single moment—you will never again be what you were before. Your life cannot turn back. A new world is born, a new human being begins.

Vardhaman can die; Mahavira can be born—that is why I have called you. This web of words is only because without it you would not come. But it is not the purpose. And this is true of all—whether Jesus, the Christ, whether Buddha, whether Mahavira.

There is a sweet story about Mahavira. The Jains, in their rigidity, clung to the letter and missed the essence. The story is that Mahavira never spoke, and yet people heard. This is a difficult matter: Mahavira did not speak, yet people heard. Mahavira did not speak in any language that the ears can hear. The Jains say his speech is soundless—nishabd. There are no words in it. Yet people heard—those who could. If they too became wordless, sat near Mahavira in silence, they heard.

Therefore there is another story in Mahavira’s life, important to note: wild animals heard him, gods of the sky came to listen, birds and beasts came, ghosts and spirits were present.

The Jains have great difficulty explaining how birds and beasts can hear. Certainly, if Mahavira spoke in a language, then even among humans only those who knew that tongue could understand. If I am speaking Hindi, only those who understand Hindi can comprehend—there are thousands of languages on earth. How would animals understand? They have no human language.

But if Mahavira spoke in silence, then it is clear. What difference does it make then—whether you are a plant, a spirit, a god, a dog? It makes no difference. Silence is the language of the whole existence.

Even so, I say Mahavira spoke—otherwise you would not agree to come sit silently before him.

You are intoxicated with words. Wherever words are heard, you rush there. And certainly, the words of a person like Mahavira have great sweetness. You feel as if you are being fed, nourished; some emptiness within is filling up. In that attraction you go.

But on arriving, your ears and mind get entangled in his words, while your soul is engaged in satsang. And if Jinahood, Buddhahood, sticks to your feet and wings, the revolution has happened. That revolution is the purpose.

That’s all for today.