Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #6

A seeker can undertake two kinds of journeys. One is the journey toward power, and the other is the journey toward peace. The journey toward power is not a journey toward truth; it is a journey of the ego. Whether power comes through wealth, position, or a mantra—if you want power, you do not want truth. The power you acquire—of the body, of the mind, or of the so‑called spiritual—will only make you stronger.

The stronger you are, the farther you are from the divine. Your power is your ego’s proclamation before the divine. Your power will be your obstacle. In the real sense, your power is your weakness before the divine. So the more powerful you become in your own eyes, the more powerless you become at God’s door. That is why the quest for power is not the true seeker’s quest.

Yet seekers do go that way—because what we seek in the world, that same thing we try to seek in the divine. What we could not get here, we want to obtain there. Our world and our liberation form a single continuity. What we looked for in the marketplace and did not find, we search for in the temple—but the search remains the same. What we sought in money and could not find, we seek in religion—but the search remains the same. The searcher has not changed at all: failing in one place, he collects hopes of success in another.

But why do you want to be powerful? You want to be—this very wanting-to-be is your misery. When you are gone, bliss will happen; in your absence, the rain of nectar will fall. While you remain, it cannot happen.

A mantra bestows power—yes, certainly it does.

Understand what a mantra does. A mantra focuses the mind. The scattered rays of your mind are brought together. Then it does not matter which mantra—whether the name of Rama, the Namokar, Om Mani Padme Hum, Allahu Akbar—there is no difference. You can make your own mantra. The words in a mantra have no inherent meaning. The purpose of a mantra is not in its words or their meaning. Its purpose is to concentrate the mind. Even gibberish, meaningless syllables can serve as a mantra.

When you chant a mantra, the energy that was fueling your myriad thoughts withdraws from them and flows into the mantra. The mantra alone remains in the field of consciousness. Then, of all your inner energy-gates, no other direction for outflow remains. When you are thinking, your energy runs in countless streams—one thought toward the west, another to the east, one to the south, another to the north. In thinking, you are flowing in many directions—scattered, divided, fragmented. When you are repeating a mantra, all the energy begins to flow in one direction.

Like gathering the sun’s rays through a glass lens—fire is created. Fire is hidden in the sun’s rays, but separately they can give only warmth; gathered, they ignite. So too, there is a great fire hidden in your mind; separately it only warms, gathered it blazes. The mantra is a device to gather them. As soon as they gather, great heat, great energy is generated.

And if you use a mantra continuously, many events of power will begin to happen in your life—events that give great flavor to the ego. What you say will begin to come true; whatever you utter will happen; you will curse and it will bear fruit; you will bless and it will be fulfilled. Because your energy has become so concentrated, your words begin to have efficacy.

Their efficacy lies in this: when someone speaks from gathered energy, his arrow goes straight into the other’s heart; it penetrates the other’s unconscious. And once something reaches the heart of another, its consequences begin to unfold.

If you tell someone, “Tomorrow morning you will fall ill,” and at the moment of saying this the sentence remains in you like a mantra—nothing else there, no second thought intruding—if “tomorrow morning you will fall ill” is your Namokar mantra and your whole consciousness pours into it, you have instantly wounded the other’s heart.

Now that person will not sleep the whole night. He saw your eyes, heard your statement, noticed your manner, and a deep imprint formed in his mind that what you have said will be hard to escape. His mind will now circle around this mantra. He will see you even in his dreams; he will hear the same words in his sleep. He will tell himself again and again, “Nothing will happen; don’t be afraid.” Yet from within something will keep frightening him. Whether he says “don’t be afraid” or he trembles, in both cases he is repeating the mantra—your mantra. By morning, he will fall ill.

Half that illness was created by you, half by him. And exactly this way you can do many things in life. Once your words begin to prove true, your self-confidence increases; you grow more powerful. The more your words come true, the more you begin to feel you are filled with some divine power, some siddhi. That belief makes your mantra stronger. Every success strengthens your belief. Gradually you begin to experience many powers.

These experiences of power are what yoga calls siddhis—psychic powers. These siddhis are the greatest obstacles on the path to the divine. Patanjali mentions them in the Yoga Sutras so that you may beware. Do not go toward them; if you have gone, return. The sooner you return, the better—because the time lost there is utterly wasted. And the further you go in those directions, the harder it becomes to come back.

If someone asks me, I will say: the world is a search for power, for siddhi; the divine is a search for peace, for emptiness. There you vanish; there you gradually dissolve. In the search for siddhi, in the end you will remain and the divine will not. In the search for peace, you will not remain; in the end, only the divine remains. One of the two must disappear. They cannot be together. God and you cannot co-exist; your co-existence is impossible. As long as you are, God is not; when God is, you are not.

Siddhi and power will strengthen you. That is why the practitioners of mantras appear filled with supreme ego. The ego of the wealthy is nothing before theirs; the ego of the political leader is nothing before theirs. Their ego is subtle and inward. And it has a reason: wealth can be seized, stolen—what is its worth? Office today, gone tomorrow—how trustworthy is politics? But faith in a mantra feels more potent. Thieves cannot steal it, public opinion cannot overturn it. And a mantra depends only on your mind, not on anyone else. Hence you seem more robust, self-reliant, standing on your own feet.

If a seeker moves toward siddhi, he is astray. Great relish will come—because the ego savors such things. A mere ant coming your way—if by mind-power alone you change its path, though the act has no substance at all, you will still enjoy it.

There is a woman in Russia on whom major scientific experiments are being conducted. She moves objects with her mind. A table is placed; she stands six feet away, concentrates for fifteen minutes, and the table begins to move. It can glide toward her or away. All sorts of scientific controls have been applied; there is no trickery.

What does this woman gain? She loses two pounds of body weight in a fifteen-minute demonstration. And she is weak for a week—cannot get out of bed. Two pounds vanish instantly. Because when you concentrate the mind and project your power outward, your bodily energy is depleted in it.

Yet she greatly enjoys it. Her whole life has been thrown into disorder by this uproar. The family is shaken; caring for the child is difficult, for the husband difficult. The home is in disarray. And it has all become a game. But the ego feels very gratified. Her photos appear in newspapers, scientists come to study, and some “miracle” is happening.

But what does miracle mean? What has it solved? You could have moved the table with your hand, using not even a grain of strength. You moved it with the mind, spent two pounds of bodily energy, and were unwell for seven days!

One day someone came to Ramakrishna and said, “People call you a Paramhansa, but no siddhi is visible. My guru walks on water.” Ramakrishna said, “I cross the river for two paisa.” What takes two paisa to do—how many years did your guru spend to learn that? The disciple said, “At least twenty years in mantra practice.” Ramakrishna said, “It is colossal foolishness to waste twenty years on what two paisa can do! After all, it is only crossing the river. What is the point? If there is a boat, pay two paisa; if not, swim across.”

A man who walks on water can certainly practice for twenty years. You too can learn. But crossing the river is not the purpose. Crossing on your feet, striding upon the surface—what stands up is your ego. In a boat the ego cannot stand up; in swimming it cannot stand up. You spend two paisa. The river is crossed. The man walking on the surface—his purpose is not crossing the river; he is fortifying his ego.

Mantras are sources of power. And every religion has discovered mantras—because every religion decays from the search for peace into the pursuit of power. Mahavira seeks peace—but what have Jains to do with peace? Buddha seeks emptiness, dissolves himself—but Buddhists do not want to dissolve; they want to become, to endure, to be secured. Those around whom religions are born—they are the ones who have become empty. But the people who gather around them do not gather to become empty. Their taste is different—opposite. Hence those from whom religion is born and those into whose hands it falls are always at odds; their aspirations are utterly different. Therefore all religions degenerate.

The pursuit of power makes religion a part of the world. Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim—no difference. You take great delight in miracles. And as long as you relish miracles, know that your religious inquiry has not yet arisen. If some sadhu, some sannyasin, some baba produces even ash from his hand, you are thrilled.

What will you do with ash? The streets are piled with ash. You could light a fire at home and make ash—without spending two paisa. But if someone produces it from his hand, you are agitated, delighted; you follow that man—you go crazy.

What is the relish? Understand this. You, too, know ash will do nothing. But you are seeing something else in it. You are nourished by the hope that if a man can produce ash from his hand, why not diamonds? By producing ash he has kindled your craving. And if he can produce ash, why can he not cure your illness? If he can produce ash, why can he not get you elected?

That is why in Delhi every politician has a guru—a mahatma, a baba who produces ash, who gives amulets. Whether president or prime minister, they rely on a baba. Whoever has craving will rely on miracles. The country has millionaires, yet every millionaire bows at the feet of some baba. Let him have crores; still, he longs for billions.

You bow to miracle because you crave; you want something. A miracle-worker gives you confidence; a hope arises that something will happen. You are ill, jobless, business is not going well, there is a court case—thousands of hassles. You are troubled, burdened. Seeing ash fall from a hand, you hope: if the baba is pleased, my miseries can be dissolved. As ash is produced, showers of happiness can also fall.

But never yet has joy showered from another’s grace. Never yet has anyone given you bliss. The history of centuries testifies: none but you can bring you joy. But the mind lives in delusions. It seeks cheap and easy paths.

It is a miracle that you have come to listen to me. I call this a miracle. For here no ash will fall, no amulets will be tied, there is no promise of removing your illness; you will win neither position nor wealth; none of your ambitions will be fulfilled. Yet you have come—that I call a miracle. There is no reason to come to me. For whatever you want, I will give you none of it. On the contrary, what you do have may be taken away by coming to me; and in the end, you too will disappear.

Yet you have come—so I accept that some religious inquiry has arisen in you. You are not in search of ash, nor do you have a craze for walking on rivers. You are truly bored with the world. Your weariness is real. Your suffering has reached the limit where you want to enter a different dimension—the spiritual. You want to break the continuity that has run till now. You want to take a leap. You are not eager to continue the same old series.

Therefore I give you no mantra. I have no mantra to give you. Mantras are given where the quest is for attainment, for siddhi. I will not strengthen your mind. I will erase it, cut it down. And I will wait for that hour when you peel the mind as one peels an onion—layer by layer the layers of thought fall away. A day will come when all the layers are gone and nothing remains in the hand—only emptiness.

Buddha has said: the mind is like an onion bulb. Keep stripping the layers of thought; in the end no mind remains, just as the onion does not remain. And when the mind is altogether absent, then you appear in your perfect nature.

How you disappear—that is the great mantra. Through concentration you become dense; through meditation you disappear. Concentration gathers your energies at one point; meditation surrenders your energies into the divine. So do not make God the point of your concentration; dissolve into God. Do not concentrate the mind; lose the mind in the divine.

These are very different things. To be dissolved, to be absorbed, to be lost—let such a moment come when you cannot find yourself. Let such a moment come when, even if you search, you cannot locate yourself. You go within and find the house empty. You stand before a mirror, look into your eyes, and see that there is no one inside. Where you are dissolved, there is nirvana.

In truth, religions have not given mantras; priests have. Tirthankaras do not give mantras, nor do avatars; priests give mantras. And priests have nothing to do with religion. The priest destroys religion—because he turns it into a business. He serves your desires. He says, “What you want can be done.” He keeps you assured, keeps your hopes alive.

Religion begins only when all your hope falls away—when your despair is absolute, when not even a single ray of hope remains. Because if even one ray remains, you will continue in the world. If you feel even a little that something may happen tomorrow, you will wait for tomorrow. Your sorrow must be so dense that your trust in tomorrow drops. Your anguish so deep that no hope springs.

Where there is no hope, no tomorrow, there is no room for craving. Craving stands on hope; craving stands in tomorrow. Today there is no space. Tomorrow—the coming tomorrow, the next birth—there craving stands. The stretch of time creates room for craving.

Therefore you live in tomorrow, not today. Whether you chant mantras or perform worship in temples and mosques—your prayers are all offspring of craving. Hence, all false.

Any “prayer” that is a tail of desire is false. You pray because you want something. The very notion of prarthana is asking. You go to the temple, but you ask for the world. While your asking remains, how will you pray? As long as you ask something from God, one thing is certain: you are not asking for God. There is something greater than God for you.

It is astonishing that even standing before the divine you can ask for petty things. This means those petty things are greater than God.

It happened that when Vivekananda came to Ramakrishna, his household was in dire straits. His father had died—and, being a worldly, whimsical man, had left many debts. There was not even food enough. If somehow there was food, it was not enough for both mother and son. Vivekananda would tell his mother, “A friend has invited me today,” so that she would eat; otherwise she would feed him and remain hungry. Saying so, he would wander the lanes, then return home cheerful, belching, as if well-fed—no friend had invited him—but to make his mother feel at peace that he had eaten well so she could eat without worry.

Ramakrishna came to know and said, “You are a great fool. You come daily to Mother Kali’s court—why don’t you ask? Such a small matter—why suffer needlessly?” At Ramakrishna’s insistence, Vivekananda said, “If you say so, I will ask.”

Ramakrishna sat outside the temple; Vivekananda went in. After a long time he returned. Ramakrishna asked, “Did you ask? Did you tell Mother your difficulty?” Vivekananda said, “I forgot.” Ramakrishna said, “Is this something to forget? You are hungry, your mother hungry, the house in misery, debts unpaid. Just say the word—everything will be done. Go again.” After a while Vivekananda returned, tears of joy in his eyes. Ramakrishna said, “Surely you asked this time, that’s why you are happy.” Vivekananda said, “I forgot again.”

This happened three times. Then Vivekananda said, “No, it cannot happen. Because when I go before the Mother, only the Mother is seen—and everything else is forgotten. I forget myself—how can my troubles and difficulties remain? How can the memory of them persist? It seems impossible.” Ramakrishna said, “That is why I sent you again and again—it was your test. For if you could stand before the Mother and agree to ask for something, it would mean there is no possibility of prayer yet. Then prayer cannot happen.”

The mind that asks is the mind of a beggar—how will it pray? And before him are things greater than God—these are what he is asking for. One who wants only God cannot ask for anything before God. He cannot even ask for God.

Understand this well. Often the opposite thought arises: “We will not ask for things—we will ask only for God.” But even there you will remain—and God will be smaller, you bigger. Because you will obtain him—he too will become your possession; you will take him in your fist; he will become one more extension of your holdings. In the kingdom you have built, you will seat him too—but you will remain the master.

So remember: no one can ask for objects, for the world, before God—if he is asking, he is not standing before God at all; the trivial is still greater than the vast; the worthless is still meaningful; his prayer is false. And no one can ask even for God. Standing before the divine, asking itself ceases; asking becomes pointless; the asker is no longer there.

Prayer is not an act. You cannot “do” prayer; the doer is not there. Prayer is a state of feeling, a state of dissolution, where the doer is lost. What you always are is absent. That is prayer.

Therefore I will not give you any mantra. And as long as I do not give a mantra, no religion can collect around me. If I give a mantra, a religion can arise. With a mantra comes the temple; with the temple come the priests. Then the whole net spreads. And at the seed of it all is the mantra. If I give a mantra, I have accepted that your search is legitimate—that you may seek power. I will give you no mantra: neither Namokar, nor Omkar, nor Mani Padme Hum. Because you are dangerous—and with every mantra you have only validated your ego.

If you come to me and you are carrying a mantra, leave it behind. Do not stuff yourself with mantras, for a mantra is only a play of the mind. Think: without the mind, how will you recite a mantra? If there is no mind, who will chant the Namokar? So the Namokar is only a process of thought. One person sings a film song because his craving is entangled in women, in sex. With the same energy, the same mind with which he sings a film song, he can recite a mantra—if his craving gets entangled in “religion.”

Whether mantra or song, both are forms of thought. And for me it makes no difference which is “pure” and which “impure.” All thought is impure; thought as such is impurity. There is no such thing as a pure thought. A pure thought cannot exist—just as a healthy disease cannot exist. Disease is the very name of ill-health—how can there be a healthy disease? How can there be pure filth? Or do you think there can be? Thought itself is impurity; the presence of the wave of thought defiles consciousness. Whether that thought is lust or “prayer,” whether mantra or shopkeeping—fundamentally it makes no difference. The presence of thought in consciousness is impurity. There is no such thing as pure thought—because purity means thoughtlessness; purity means the absence of thought.

Consider this: you mix water in milk. The water is absolutely pure, and the milk is absolutely pure—so together there should be double purity. But milk does not become purer by adding water—it becomes adulterated. Because water has its own nature and milk has its own nature. However pure the water, purity makes no difference; mixed with milk it adulterates. And don’t think only the milk is adulterated—the water too loses its purity. Your eye is on the milk, so it seems the milk is spoiled; otherwise, the water has lost its purity and the milk has lost its purity. Two pure things met—and both became impure.

Thought has its nature; consciousness has its nature. Their natures are different. When they mix, impurity results. Thought is pure in itself; consciousness is pure in itself. To be in one’s own nature is purity; to be in contrariness is impurity.

So no “pure thoughts” can purify consciousness. No pure water can purify milk. When the inner sky is thought-free—when there are no clouds, not even the clouds of mantra—then the divine is evident. Then you are one with the formless.

Certainly there is no middle state; there cannot be. Understand this a little—it’s difficult. And nothing disappoints the mind more than the fact that there is no middle. The mind manufactures the middle. It gains comfort from it: “We may not be Rama, but at least we’re not Ravana either. We’ve come halfway—traveled a fair distance. We may not be liberated, but we’re already free of the world. We may not have the supreme knowledge yet, but we do have quite a bit; only a little remains.”

But can knowledge be divided? Is it possible to have half-knowledge? Is half-buddhahood possible? And if a man has become half a buddha, why would he continue to carry the remaining half of non-wisdom? If half of him is illumined, does that light not have even the power to dispel the other half of darkness? If lust has gone halfway, how will you preserve the other half?

One of the mind’s deep tricks is to keep telling you that “progress is happening.” It keeps hope alive. The mind says, “We are climbing step by step; only a few steps remain. No hurry, don’t be alarmed, don’t worry. Look—so many steps already climbed; those few will also be crossed.” The mind manufactures steps where there are none. The mind fabricates degrees where degrees do not and cannot exist.

Either a person is in knowledge—in which case ignorance cannot remain, not even a grain, forget the half—or he is in ignorance, and then he cannot claim even a grain of knowledge, because a single grain of knowledge would destroy ignorance.

Your whole house may be filled with darkness; if a small lamp is lit, the darkness is gone. You don’t have to set the whole house on fire for there to be light! Does light come only if the whole house burns? No—a small lamp is lit and there is light, and darkness is finished. The presence of light is the end of darkness.

And if the whole house is dark and there is supposedly a small place where a lamp is burning, giving a faint light, then know this: that lamp is imagined. You are thinking it is there—it is not. You are dreaming. Or it isn’t a lamp at all; it is a painting of a lamp. A painter can paint a lamp so that it looks as if a lamp is placed there, its flame alight, even the glow around the flame can be painted. But the darkness won’t go. That lamp is false.

Our knowledge is like that painted lamp—collected from scriptures, pictures we’ve gathered and stored in a corner of the mind. The darkness remains where it is, and “knowledge” sits amidst it. Any knowledge that does not uproot darkness entirely—know it is borrowed, fictitious, false.

Either you can be Ravana or Rama; there is no way to be in the middle. Our trouble is: we too can see that we are not Rama, but the ego is hurt by the idea that the only alternative left is Ravana, and it won’t agree. The mind says, “Granted, we are not Rama”—because even making that claim is a bit difficult, and people all around know we are not Rama; whom would we convince? People would only laugh. So we cannot call ourselves Rama; we wish we could, but we cannot—real obstacles exist. Yet the mind also refuses to accept, “Then we must be Ravana.” So we invent a middle path: “We are as yet neither Rama nor Ravana; we are in between. Supreme knowledge hasn’t happened, buddhahood hasn’t occurred, but we are not fools and ignoramuses either.”

This idea of the middle is very dangerous; it will never let you see your actual condition. It is better that you understand: you are Ravana. And what is so bad about Ravana that you are afraid of it? If you truly examine Ravana’s character, you will find you simply cannot be “in the middle”; you can only be a small or a big Ravana. You may be a drop rather than the ocean—but what difference does that make to the quality? A single drop of the sea is salty; the whole ocean is salty. The Buddha used to say, taste a drop of the ocean and you have tasted the whole ocean. Scientists say, analyze a drop and you have analyzed the entire ocean. What is in the drop is in the whole; the ocean is only magnified, expanded; the drop is the same in essence, only contracted. So it may be you are a drop, not the ocean, but your basic nature is the same.

What is Ravana’s difficulty? What is there in Ravana that you do not find in yourself when you look? Let us see. Ravana is mad for wealth; he craves the expansion of empire. He is lustful for women—other men’s women too; if one pleases him, she must be in his palace. He is highly learned, a scholar of the scriptures.

Which of these qualities would you not find in yourself if you really looked? Women attract—and to be honest, one’s own woman attracts less; it is always the other’s who attracts. You get habituated to your own, and the mind tires of what is one’s own. Is one’s own wife ever truly attractive? The attractiveness fades. In fact whatever becomes available to us ceases to be attractive; attraction remains with what is unavailable. The harder the attainment, the greater the lure.

Ravana’s relish for Rama’s wife was because of the difficulty. The difficulty was real and deep. What was the difficulty? Stealing Rama’s wife was not so difficult; Ravana did that. But to bend Rama’s wife—that Ravana could not do. That was the challenge. Sita’s love for Rama was so complete that there was not the slightest gap in her heart through which Ravana could enter—this was the challenge.

There is little attraction in a prostitute; attraction lies in a chaste woman. What attraction is there in a prostitute? Lighten your pocket a little and she is available—she can be bought. What juice is there? The juice was in Sita; she could not be bought. There was no way to purchase her, no way to enter her heart.

That is why the women of the East carry a certain allure that Western women do not. Westerners themselves feel it: the East’s ordinary woman has a charm the West’s may not, even if the Western woman is more beautiful, more proportioned in body. Yet the allure is missing. Because entry into the Eastern woman’s heart is impossible—the challenge is great.

Ravana had no lack of beautiful women, perhaps more beautiful than Sita. But Sita’s unparalleled devotion to Rama became a challenge to him.

It is the same challenge for you too. There is always relish in another’s woman. That is the trait of Ravana’s consciousness. There is interest in what belongs to the other; in what is one’s own, none.

Rama has no interest in any other woman, as if the whole of womanhood is fulfilled in Sita. This is the quality of Rama’s consciousness: what is with me is all; what is with me is complete; there is contentment, deep satisfaction—no demand for more. Nothing beyond even appears; all is contained in this. As if the femininity of the entire world has been gathered into Sita. Sita is found, and all women are found.

Ravana’s mind cannot be satisfied until all women are possessed—and even then, will he be satisfied? Hard to say. For Ravana the person has no value; only his own ego and sensations have value.

With those we live with, our sensitivity becomes dulled. Seeing them daily, nothing remains worth seeing; searching daily, nothing remains worth seeking. When we become familiar with the whole personality, everything grows stale. This is the way of the senses. Today you get a food; tomorrow the same—today you say, “Excellent,” but tomorrow you cannot say it with the same freshness. The third day the same dish—boredom arises; the fourth day you push the plate away. The very dish that was so good the first day bores you within four days.

The senses tire of the old. Their way is a daily hunt for the new—because the senses seek stimulation, and stimulation comes from novelty. Hence the more sensory a society is, the more “new” becomes its mantra. The more spiritual a society is, the more contentment with the “old” becomes its nature. Consciousness seeks the eternal; the senses seek the novel.

Rama found the eternal in Sita—the imperishable that never becomes old and never needs to be made new, from which boredom never arises.

Love never bores; lust does. Love is of the heart; lust is of the senses. If lust is your center, you need a new woman, a new man, new food every day—because the body can live only on the ever-new; it gets stimulation and challenge from it. But consciousness lives in the eternal, the timeless. Hence love can be timeless.

Between Rama and Sita, love happened; between Ravana and his wives there are relationships of lust. Ravana’s eagerness for Sita only betrays that his eagerness for his own wives has died.

This is our plight too; our consciousness flows the same way. What we have is worthless; what others have is heaven. Until we get it, we are restless; and the moment we get it, it becomes worthless—because once attained, it becomes mine, and the gaze moves elsewhere again. This roaming eye forever brings misery; there is no dimension of contentment that can open through it.

Ravana is mad for wealth; hence the story says his city is a city of gold—Lanka is made of gold. Yet even then, the wealth of others and the kingdoms of others attract him. Ravana’s Lanka is of gold; Rama’s Ayodhya is not. Still, Rama has no relish for another’s kingdom.

Even if you get a kingdom of gold, you will still be attracted to what belongs to the other. Even if you have a palace, another’s hut will allure you.

A person of Rama’s consciousness may live in a hut, but a palace will not attract him. Wherever such a person lives is a palace. A Ravana-like person, wherever he lives, there is suffering; there is no palace there. The palace is always somewhere else, with someone else—to be conquered.

We say Ravana had ten heads. If you ask psychologists, they will say every person has ten heads—because you have to keep many faces ready, changing them many times between morning and evening. You are not aware, because you do not analyze your mind rightly. Before your servant, you wear one face; before your boss, another.

Watch a little and you will see: instantly you change faces, as if several spares are ready. If you need something from someone, you use one face; if someone needs something from you, see what face appears then. When you are going to borrow money, look at your face in the mirror; and when someone comes to borrow from you, then look again. You will find these are different people’s faces—they are not one person’s. Don’t take “ten” literally; ten is the terminal number—there is no end to faces. There are thousands; “ten” just marks the limit; beyond ten, numbers repeat.

Among all numbers, the series ends at ten. Eleven is one again, with one; twelve is one with two; the work was completed at ten. And it ended at ten because man has ten fingers; he first counted on them, and at ten the count completed. Then he only multiplied tens.

So Ravana’s ten heads only indicate the end of counting; faces themselves have no end. From morning till night you keep changing thousands of them.

Rama has only one face—whether in joy or in sorrow, in a palace or in the forest. There is no difference in his face.

And the one who has found a single face has become Rama. Meaning: his face has become authentic. His face is now inner. He no longer adjusts it by looking outwards. Circumstance no longer determines it. His face is now an inner state. You abuse him, his face is the same; you praise him, it is the same. No circumstance can wobble his face now. His being has become steady. Rama is the name of this steadiness.

It was hard to kill Ravana in battle because cutting one neck made no difference—you could not locate the real neck whose severing would end him. A false face falls and another sprouts. Cutting false faces solves nothing; they are not real faces at all. Thus Ravana’s heads kept falling and new ones kept growing.

Even if someone cuts down one of your false faces, what difference does it make? There is no blood, no flesh—it was only an idea, a mood; you will produce another instantly.

The difficulty in killing Ravana was to find his real face. Likewise, you cannot annihilate yourself before God. Ravana stood before Rama exactly as you stand before the Divine. You yourself do not know which is your real face; which, if severed, would end you. Many times you shave off your false face in the temple and return home with it intact. They are false faces; cutting them changes nothing.

Watch in a temple: a man goes, bows, places his head at God’s feet—but if you observe carefully, his stiffness remains standing there. The real face stands proud; the false face is bowed. And the real face is looking around: “See—there is no devotee in this village like me!”

I have heard: an emperor was praying in a church early one morning. It was a festival day, and because he was the emperor, he had first rights. Just as in Haridwar or at the Ganges during bathing, there are claims to who goes first.

Even in religion there are people who claim precedence! They are the egoists. Riots break out at the Kumbh Mela—because if someone bathes before those with “rights,” fights begin on the spot. You won’t easily enter God’s doorway; men with sticks stand there: “Our right is first—how dare you go ahead?”

He was the emperor; on the festival day, he had the first right in the church. So at five in the dark morning he would pray—before people arrived—his first meeting had to be with God. He was praying in the dark, saying, “O Father, I am nothing, poor and destitute, a sinner; take me into your feet.” Suddenly he felt someone else was present. In the darkness he could not see; he sharpened his ears. Someone near the altar was bowed, repeating the same words: “O God, I am nothing, poor and destitute, dust at your feet; receive me into your feet.”

The emperor thought, “Who is this man daring to say in my presence that he is nothing? No one can be more ‘nothing’ than me. Who is this claiming poverty and destitution? Once I have said it, none can be more poor and destitute than I. Take back your words!”

If an emperor is saying “I am egoless,” you cannot also say you are egoless—his ego will rise and say, “Do you claim to be more than I—whether in wealth or in egolessness? It makes no difference; you cannot be more than me. I am first in poverty, I am first in nothingness—but my firstness remains.”

So you bow in the temple, but your ego stands. It is your head that bows—the false one; it has no value.

If you understand Ravana’s mind, you will discover him fully enthroned within you. And it is this inner Ravana who keeps persuading you: “You may not be Rama, but you are not Ravana either.”

Do not listen to him. You have listened enough; it is because you have listened that you are in this plight. If you feel, “I am not Rama,” then know for certain: you are Ravana. Knowing this for certain is the first step toward Rama. To know oneself as bad is the first revolutionary event of becoming good. “I am in darkness”—this deep realization turns into the search for light. “I am ignorant”—and the inquiry for knowledge begins.

Do not think in terms of middle or halves. Either this shore or that. And whoever drops this shore arrives immediately at that—because there is not the slightest space between where you could stand. Between knowledge and ignorance there is not the smallest gap to stand upon. The moment ignorance goes, knowledge arrives—simultaneously. When water reaches a hundred degrees, there is no little space between water and steam where some part could stop and say, “We are no longer water, but not yet steam—we are in between.” No—either water or steam; there is no space between the two.

There is this bank and the other bank—between them there is no river flowing where you could anchor your boat midstream. There is no river there at all—only two banks. Let go of this one, and the other is found. And until the other is found, know well you are on this bank. Do not be deceived by the mind. Either darkness or light; either life or death. Even a half-dead person is not half-dead—we only say so. He is alive—fully alive. How can anyone be half alive? A man lying completely unconscious is still alive, fully, a hundred percent alive. You cannot say he is half-dead. And if a man is dead, you cannot say he is half alive. Dead is dead; alive is alive. There is no space between these two shores.

Examine yourself rightly, and you will find Ravana hiding. Experience precisely: “I am Ravana.” That was Ravana’s very mistake—he did not think himself Ravana; he thought himself a great scholar, a knower. He might even have defeated Rama in a scriptural debate; he had the scriptures by heart. He was not lacking in power either—because the ignorant always chase power. He had amassed great siddhis. For the sake of powers, the ignorant are ready to do anything.

Hence the story says he would cut off his own heads and offer them to Shiva. To this extent the ignorant can go—ready to give up everything, provided the ego grows stronger. Ready even to die if the ego can be preserved. He sought siddhi, practiced mantras; he was a great “sadhak.”

In Rama’s life we hear nothing of sadhana or of siddhis attained. In Ravana’s life we hear of great austerity and great powers attained: he pleased Shiva and became master of immense power. He had knowledge too, learning too—he had everything. Naturally he would think, “I am Rama.”

If we measure only by power, by empire, by gold, by learning, Rama appears utterly helpless. Look at the picture: Rama going to the forest—utterly helpless. What he had has been snatched; he has nothing. He stands in the forest like a nobody. Ravana has everything. He would have thought, “I am Rama.”

If the yardstick is power alone, this logic is natural.

Until the realization dawns clearly that you are Ravana, the real step of life’s revolution does not happen. And the moment it dawns—“I am Ravana”—Ravana’s palace begins to crumble. Because no one can remain Ravana consciously. Knowing “I am Ravana,” no one can be Ravana. Knowing “I am bad,” badness cannot persist. This knowing is a fire in which badness burns to ash.

If you want to preserve badness, it is necessary to believe, “I am not bad.” If saying “I am good” is difficult, then at least say, “I am less bad than others; I am moving toward goodness.”

A man died. The custom in that village was that when someone died, something in his praise had to be said; until then, he could not be cremated. But the man was so bad that the whole village thought hard and could find nothing to praise! A scoundrel like him was difficult to find—he created trouble without cause. The entire village was tormented by him, and all were happy at his death. Not only the villagers—even his family members were delighted and relieved: the nuisance was gone. He was a nuisance-maker; from morning till night he entangled someone somewhere. He had dragged the whole village through the courts. Even greeting him on the road was dangerous; any relation with him could mean trouble, for he would weave some net out of it.

At the cremation ground his body lay, and no one would stand to speak a word of praise. The old custom insisted: until someone spoke in praise, the pyre could not be lit. Evening approached; the village was upset. People thought, “Even in death he keeps harassing us! How do we cremate him? Until we do, how do we go back to the village? Night is falling—what to do?”

Finally a man stood and said, “Compared to his four brothers, this man was an angel. His four brothers are also in the village; they are even more troublesome and wicked than he. Compared to them, this man was a god!” The cremation was done and people went home.

You too keep consoling yourself: “Compared to others, I am a god! There are so many bad people in the world; I am not that bad. Not as good as Buddha, not as virtuous as Rama—but not as bad as Ravana either. The earth is full of Ravanas; I am in the middle.”

No one is in the middle; no one can be. Drop the delusion of the middle, and revolution can begin.

Enough for today.