Nam Sumir Man Bavre #5

It is a meaningful question. And it has been asked many times before, not just today—down the centuries. Jesus too was a shepherd. And no one on earth has spoken as Jesus did. His way of speaking was uniquely his; it has no comparison—he can only be compared with himself. Many great epics have been written, yet the poetry condensed in Jesus’ brief sayings outshines Shakespeare, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti.

Kabir was a weaver, yet such speech burst forth from him, such a Ganga flowed, that even the great were humbled. Scholars faded beside him; those who knew the scriptures looked dark next to this weaver. Kabir himself said: “I have not touched ink or paper.” He never touched ink, never touched paper—but he came to know something else: “He who reads the two-and-a-half letters of prem (love) is the true pandit.” In those two-and-a-half letters of love, everything was fulfilled—the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Quran, the Bible, all were encompassed.

This question is not only true with reference to Jagjivan; it is true of countless saints. How does it happen? How does such a miracle occur? There is a vital key behind it: when there is truly something to say, when the life-breath is filled with saying, eager to flow, when the goblet of rasa overflows, the words are found by themselves.

Notice: when you are angry, how rapidly you begin to speak! Often even people who stutter do not stutter in anger—they forget to. Anger has a heat; there’s no time to remember the stutter—no leisure for it. And abuses flow as if you had rehearsed them forever. I cite anger because you are familiar with it. In anger the mute become eloquent.

I do not cite love because you are not familiar with it. Just as dark, foul words begin to pour in anger, so in the moment of love, songs begin to flow. Words join themselves. When a flower blooms, the breezes arrive for it to ride upon and send its fragrance to the ten directions. When the song grows so dense that it is hard to contain, doors appear.

There are two kinds of speakers in the world. First: those who have nothing to say. They may know beautiful words, but their words are lifeless—no breath in them. Their words are beautiful, like the corpse of a beautiful woman—like Cleopatra, dead. The essence has flown; only the cage remains. The bird is gone—or perhaps there never was a bird.

The scholar speaks beautiful words. His words have ornament, skill, language, grammar—everything but life. Only a skeleton, no soul.

Saints also speak; perhaps their words are not precisely right, perhaps they do not know grammar. Grammar is dropped, language is scattered—but the honey that flows, the wine that pours, can drown anyone, forever. Words are like bottles. If the bottle is beautiful but empty of wine, what will you do? And if the bottle is ugly but holds wine, it will intoxicate you; it will make you dance. Words filled with soul strike your soul into resonance.

The power in the speech of unlettered saints like Jagjivan is not the power of words, but the power of their emptiness. The wealth of words is not great; it’s everyday speech. Yet into that ordinary speech they pour amrit. A scholar’s words are costly, but crack them open and there is nothing inside—spent cartridges. A seer’s words, costly or not, once you open them, reveal the supreme treasure: a depth, a concentrated prayer, a consciousness enraptured with rasa.

Jagjivan speaks in simple, straightforward words. Nothing complex. The language of the people—like everyone spoke then. Not one technical term that would send you to a lexicon. If any seem difficult, it’s only because they have fallen out of current usage; they belong to the folk speech of that time. Otherwise they are perfectly ordinary—the carter, the shopkeeper, the shepherd, the woodcutter, the weaver, the potter—these are their words. But luminous.

A scholar’s words—mere scholarship—are like a lamp with oil and wick but no flame. A saint’s words are like a clay lamp, crooked, roughly molded; the oil perhaps is poor, the wick so-so—yet it is aflame. The value lies in the light, not the lamp. You could have a lamp of gold studded with jewels—what use is it? A clay lamp that burns is enough.

So, though it seems a miracle, it is not; it is one of life’s basic laws. If you have ever fallen in love, poetry begins to flow from within you. You yourself will be surprised—such juicy words you never spoke before. The very words you use daily—yet today something new rides upon them.

The feet are the same with which you go from office to home and back, but when those same feet dance, they are not the same. Commuting is one thing; when the rhythm of ecstasy descends, when there is reunion with the beloved, those same feet dance—are they indeed the same feet that trudged to the office? Everything is transformed: the sheen of the feet, the color, the blood that flows through them, the energy—today they carry an aura. Today they danced in ecstasy. Going to the office—what dance was there? Even walking was a drag—compulsion, helplessness. But when the mridang of love beats and you tie the anklets of joy and dance—yes, they appear the same feet, yet they are not. Today something else has descended upon them. The garment is the same; the life within is new. The inner has changed.

Jagjivan’s words are ordinary, but the extraordinary is housed within them. Because of that, the ordinary words appear precious—like a simple rose in Buddha’s hand. Do you think the same flower in another’s hand would have the same worth? It wouldn’t. The context has changed. In Buddha’s hand, everything is different. Hand to hand, everything changes. In Buddha’s hand, a simple flower becomes extraordinary—its dignity and radiance reveal the beauty of existence itself.

Stories say that the tree under which Buddha sits will turn green even if dry. These stories are meaningful, not historical—remember this. Buddhist tales say that if Buddha sits beneath a tree, even a dry one becomes green at once; thick shade gathers; flowers blossom. It must be so—if Buddha sits, shade must come.

In Islam they say that wherever Mohammed walks—in the desert—the clouds gather above him like a canopy. Not history—something more valuable than history. History is only an aggregate of facts—made from newspaper clippings. This is not mere fact; it is truth.

History is momentary—now present, now past. And once it is past, certainty is impossible. At best we say, “Possibly it happened.” Ram existed? History has no conclusive proof. Krishna? No certainty. Buddha walked? Mahavira occurred? It’s a possibility. Even regarding Jesus—same.

These are distant matters. Edmund Burke, a great English historian, spent thirty years writing a world history. One day he threw all his life’s work into the fire because of a small incident. A murder took place just behind his house. He was writing; hearing the commotion, he went out. A crowd had gathered; the murderer had been caught red-handed. Blood was still warm. Burke asked different eyewitnesses what had happened—each gave a different, even contradictory account. He went inside and burned his thirty years of labor. “If behind my house a fresh event occurs with eyewitnesses, and I cannot ascertain what really happened—how will I write the history of five thousand years ago!” He saw the futility.

History is made of petty events, with scant authenticity—and the further back, the harder to decide whether it happened or not.

These tales are not historical; they are puranic—mythic. Purana is a larger thing. History depends on fleeting facts; Purana expresses eternal essence. Whether the tree turned green is not the point; it should turn green. If not, existence is meaningless. Whether Buddha existed is not the question in Purana. The puranic sense is that words on the lips of one like Buddha, even if dry, will turn green; a dead bird in his hands will flap its wings, while in your hands even living birds die.

You know this. Daily you see it: in your hands, the most living words become worthless. Even a beautiful word like “God” on your lips—what meaning has it? Empty. For the God of such people Nietzsche said, “God is dead.” If I met Nietzsche, I’d tell him: “Not dead—he was never alive. Only those die who have lived.” The God about whom most speak cannot die—he has always been dead, plastic. And where God is alive, there is no way he can die—he is the symbol of all life.

If Buddha sits, the tree must turn green. If Mohammed walks, the cloud must shade him. If Mahavira walks, a thorn lying upright must turn aside. This is Purana, not history—signs that existence responds to those who honor existence; love evokes love; song answers song; one flower blooming in you calls forth a thousand to bloom in chorus.

The words are ordinary—shepherd’s words—but they become extraordinary because the shepherd has become a Buddha. Whether Buddha is born a prince or a shepherd is immaterial; the glory is of Buddhahood. Then each word flows with nectar.

“O fool, do not depart wearing the garment.”
Jagjivan says: O madman, take care of one thing—don’t die believing “I am the body.” The body is only a garment, a robe. If you die clinging to “I am the body,” you will have to return into a body—because what you think becomes your future.

Thoughts are the seeds of future trees. If at the moment of death you think “I am the body,” you will not be able to die—you will slip into a new womb. Thought gives direction.

O fool, do not depart wearing the garment.
By the time you go, be prepared enough to know: I am not the body; the body is simply a garment. I am not the house; I am the owner of the house. When the body starts breaking, don’t think you are breaking. When the body starts dying, do not think “I am dying.” You have no death; you are amrit—amritasya putrah. Only the covering dies. This very body is born, this very body dies. You are never born, you never die.

One who departs knowing this does not return. He need not descend again into this pain and hell. He is free. All limits fall. The body is a limit; he becomes limitless. The drop becomes the ocean—the boundless sky is his.

O fool, do not depart wearing the garment.
Where did you come from? Who are you?
…You have neither seen nor understood nor awakened; still you think you are knowledgeable? Your knowledge is worth two pennies. You may have memorized the Vedas—of no real use. At death, quotes whether from Veda or Quran won’t help. The throat itself won’t go—how will the learnt-by-heart go? The head will be left behind; what is filled in the head will be left behind. Don’t trust the head’s contents—straw.

You need an experience beyond intellect—something not borrowed. Whatever is in the intellect came from outside—books read, people heard, conversations, school and university. The intellect is a computer into which external data is fed; a tape recorder, a gramophone disc repeating what was put in.

And we foolishly value just this. The better the gramophone, the more “intelligent” we call it; the university hands it a gold medal. And what has it proved? Only that what teachers stuffed in for a year, it vomited onto the exam paper—without digesting. Had it digested, how could it vomit? It hoarded, hoarded, then soiled the paper—was given a gold medal and great respect.

What skill is this? At best, good memory. But memory and intelligence are very different. What psychologists measure as IQ is not intelligence, it is memory. Good memory and good intelligence are not synonymous. Often those with extraordinary memory lack the thing called intelligence—and those with intelligence seldom have remarkable memory.

You’ve heard stories: great intellects with poor memories. Immanuel Kant’s memory was so weak that one evening he came home, knocked at the door, the servant peeped out and said, “The master has gone for a walk; come later.” Kant turned back. After a mile he remembered: “This is too much! I am the master.”

Another tale: one night, old Kant returned from a walk. The cane he had taken was put to bed, and Kant stood in the corner where he would normally stand the cane, eyes closed. When the servant saw the light still on beyond the usual hour, he peeked in and found the cane tucked under a blanket and Kant standing. A mix-up—who is who! Yet Kant is among the few with true brilliance.

Memory proves nothing. Lord Curzon mentions a man in Rajasthan with astonishing memory, yet a first-class fool. His memory was like a line carved on stone—once he heard, he never forgot. Imagine the trash that piles up if you cannot forget! Forgetting is a blessing. Think of the noise you hear daily—traffic, horns, engines. If all that sticks, how will you think? Where is the inner space?

Curzon summoned that man to the Viceroy’s court. A test was arranged: thirty people, each fluent in a different language, sat in a circle. Each would speak one word of a sentence in his language when the man reached him; a bell would ring; then the man moved to the next. After cycles of first words, second words, etc., the man reproduced each sentence perfectly. He knew none of those languages—only Marwari—yet whatever entered his head stayed. But he was a dull man, with no spark.

If memory were intelligence, he would be a Buddha. But it isn’t. Recently one of the originators of IQ testing publicly admitted: our paradigm was mistaken; we measured memory, not intelligence.

Where did you come from? Who are you? You neither saw nor recognized—and you think you are a knower because you recite Veda, Quran, Gita. This is trivial knowledge. Becoming a gramophone won’t liberate you. You must seek that knowledge whose spring bubbles from within—spontaneous awareness. Until you find spontaneous consciousness, you will live and die as a body.

“Others gathered the blossoms of desire; we remained with our hem outstretched.”
Let it not happen that at death you feel: “Others plucked the flowers, we kept holding out our skirts.” Most die like that—hem outstretched. Few gather flowers, though truth is: everyone had the right; everyone could.

You are born to be a Buddha. Settle for nothing less. Your garment too can be filled with flowers, but walk with awareness; reduce futile bustle; free some energy from aimless running; give a few moments to inner search.

O fool, do not depart wearing the garment.
How ashamed we return from this helpless heart;
We had come for his darshan from so far.
You have come from afar. Will you return without buying what you came to buy? Take care—no one else will take care of you here.

This is a tavern; drink with understanding, O reveler—
no one will catch your arm if you fall.
Here everyone is drunk—on power, on wealth—not the intoxication I speak of or Jagjivan speaks of. When someone attains office, look at the swagger, the ego. When wealth accumulates, his feet don’t touch the ground. These are intoxications—worse than wine. Wine harms the body; these rot the soul.

Thus, a drunkard is a thousand times better than a politician. The drunkard may die a year sooner; the body weakens—so what? The politician becomes hollow; sells his soul. To climb the ladder of power he must—trickery, dishonesty, hypocrisy, false promises, deception. The more skilled in deception, the more success. The intoxication of position never leaves; it possesses him.

This is a tavern; drink with understanding, O reveler—
no one will catch your arm if you fall.
Only you can steady yourself—no one else will. Hence: O fool, do not depart wearing the garment!

Which is that home where you stayed? And from there, why did you set out?
From where do you come? In how many homes have you lived? This body is not your first house. Who knows how many bodies you have lived in, how many wombs you have wandered. Your soul carries the dust of a long journey—and you have forgotten how to bathe. You wash the body; you never cleanse the soul.

The art of polishing the soul is called dhyana—meditation. To fragrance the soul is called love. To wipe the dust from the mirror of the soul—this is devotion, remembrance of the divine.

Here too you will stay only two or four days…
In this house too, just a few days—as in many others before.
…and then you must go. You will wander from house to house. When will you recognize yourself? When will you peek at the owner? And the day you see the owner, you will be amazed—the Lord of the whole universe sits within you. You lack nothing. You are full, complete. The pot is brimming, yet you roam as a beggar. Your wretchedness is only because you think you are a beggar. That will continue until you break identification with the body.

We heard the tale of existence only from the middle;
we know neither the beginning nor the end.
You know neither the beginning nor the end. Your life’s story starts in the middle—as if you open a novel halfway, or enter a film at the interval. Without knowing the first and the last, how will you find meaning? If the beginning and end are known, the middle is revealed. But you are entangled in the middle and have inflated the trivial—making mountains of molehills.

Who in this great assembly will remember you, O unbeliever?
Travelers forget the talk of the road.
In the end, all will be forgotten. Death will come and devastate your carefully built structures. You will see you built houses in sand, floated paper boats—fought to keep your boat ahead, your sand house higher than others. A gust of wind and the card-houses collapse—small and big alike.

This bazaar sells sin and merit; bargain as your heart decides.
Both sin and virtue are on sale. Everything is available—choose with understanding. Blame no one. You have full freedom. From here some purchase God and return; others lose even themselves and return. The same world, the same market: some buy diamonds, others gather pebbles; some fill their bag with flowers, others dither until time runs out.

A friend has been coming to me—he is here today. For three years he has been thinking, “Should I take sannyas or not?” He writes, “You say whether I should.” This is strange—asking me. And if you were to follow what I say, you’ve been listening for three years—what else have I been saying but, “Take the plunge, be dyed in the color of consciousness”? If I tell you directly, again you will ask another whether to listen to me! What will you do?

This bazaar sells sin and merit; bargain as your heart decides.
You will have to move on; you won’t know high or low when you go;
do not err, O simpleton.
From here you must go. That is certain—the only certainty in life. And then there will be no high or low, no ahead or behind.

All these fairs of the world are for show;
in a crowded assembly I have remained alone.
No matter how many companions you imagine you have, you are alone—even in a crowd. Alone you came, alone you will go.

In a full gathering the breath chokes—oh, the pain of loneliness;
all are my own, yet truly, whose is anyone?
Words for saying—stuff of dreams.

Whoever has come has gone; everyone must move on.
Know this: each one who was born has died. You are no exception. A peculiar illusion haunts each mind—that only others die. The reason seems obvious: every funeral you see is another’s; you never see your own. Others will see yours. Today A died, tomorrow B, the next day C—and you grow complacent.

Mulla Nasruddin, a hundred years old, went to an insurance office. They said, “At a hundred, who will insure you?” Nasruddin replied, “You are naive. Check the figures: who dies after a hundred? Those who have to die die before. I have a hundred years’ experience—always others die; I never do. I have escorted countless people to the cremation ground, each time thinking: amazing—everyone dies, except me!”

Deep down this illusion persists—that death is always for others. Wake up! Another’s death is a sign of your own. Each death brings your queue closer; each one moves the line forward.

Whoever has come has gone;
some shattered and were ruined in clay, some reached the place supreme.
Even in dying there is an art—just as there is an art of living. Those who know the art of living create a festival; this is heaven—here and now. Hell too is here for those who do not know how to live. Hell is the result of living un-understandingly; heaven is the fruit of living with awareness.

If someone hands you a veena, and you don’t know how to play, the fault is not of the veena—your strumming will create noise, not music. That is what you are doing in life: you have the veena but not the art. Hell is born. In skilled hands, the same veena sings—nirvana, samadhi, God.

So too, there is an art of dying—and only those who have lived rightly learn it. Dying is the culmination, the Everest.

Whom does Jagjivan call the ones who know the art of dying?
Some merely break and are reduced to dust,
others reach the Supreme Abode.
Some simply fall back into earth, get bound to earth—one body dropped, another assumed; one earthen pot broken, another fashioned. They wander in the mud.

But there are a few whose pot breaks, and they do not confine themselves again—they become one with the sky. Within the pot is sky; when the pot breaks, the wall vanishes—space within and space without are one. That supreme union is moksha.

Now, put yourself in order, gather yourself, consider—if you miss, you will regret.
Jagjivan says: Now, hold fast to a strong cord; fix your mind at the Guru’s feet.
Enough of disorder—wake up now! If you miss, you will regret greatly.

People hear but do not understand; they err in living, err even in dying. They strive to be ahead in life; after death they arrange for grand tombs—marble, golden letters. They commission the gravestone in advance. You are gone—how long will the grave remain?

Beloveds, leave the tombstone plain:
if we are not, what use these carvings and flowers?
Ornaments—what for? If we are not, what use?

We were disgraced even in death—why didn’t we drown at sea?
No funeral to carry, no mausoleum to build.
Better to have drowned—no trace left—because our traces are only proofs of our ignorance; our footprints, of our delusions.

Jagjivan says: tie a firm thread now—cling to the divine with a cord of love; fix your mind at his feet—so that reaching that shore becomes assured. Join your cord to God—the cord of meditation, of awareness, of love. Make it strong.

If someone falls into a well, you throw a rope. If he is philosophical, he asks: who made this rope—Hindu or Muslim, Brahmin or Shudra? Why was it made? Why thrown? While he seeks answers, he will drown. The drowning man does not ask—he grabs.

So do not ask whose rope—if it comes from a mosque, a temple, a gurdwara—Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Kabir, Nanak—wherever the rope appears, grab it. Do not remain stuck in futile doubt.

In Amritsar a learned Sikh would come to me. His work was to produce a corroborating line from the Guru Granth Sahib for whatever I said. I told him: whether it is in the Granth is not the point. Do you understand? It may be in the Granth, in the Quran, in the Vedas—what then? He said, “When I find support in the Granth, it becomes easier to accept.” People care who made the rope—if Nanak’s seal is on it, they will grab. They may not even know they are drowning. And what Nanak said—how will they understand? Only those who have awakened and crossed can understand.

People keep matching with their books—if it matches, it’s right; if not, wrong. Do you want to be saved, or to match texts? I am throwing you a rope. Forget the rope—just come out. No one carries the rope on the head after crossing. You don’t carry the boat after crossing the river—nor bother who built it. Know only: there is a boat.

“I will grasp his feet and cajole him.”
Wherever you glimpse his feet, his indication—wherever you sense a little of his aura, feel a trust in that voice—cling there. The matter is trust, shraddha. You don’t know that realm; at most, someone who lives in it, who is joined to it, will carry its fragrance in his eyes.

One who walks through a garden carries the scent in his clothes. So too, some fragrance will be in him. From that indirect sign, you may be convinced. Where that much is given, grasp the feet. Jagjivan found such proof in Bulleshah; these utterances are for his guru.

“I will grasp his feet and cajole him.”
I have had a glimpse; now I will not let go. I will coax you until you take me across; I will follow like a shadow.

“I will grasp his feet and cajole him.”
Much time has been wasted. Let this life not be lost too.

This season—let it not pass again without meeting. Every moment is precious.

Do not lament why you ruined your heart;
grieve that you ruined it so late.
“I tell you—whom else do I know? I have come to your refuge now.”
Now I tell you, Master: besides you I know no one; I have come to your refuge. You may reject me, drive me away—but you will not be able to.

What is the compulsion of the heart? From your door,
you raised me a hundred times; I came back a hundred.
The guru will push you away too—these are the tests that strengthen the cord. Passing through them, you become worthy.

“I tell you—whom else do I know? I have come to your refuge now.
The love I have joined I will never break; this image I will never forget.”
I have joined this love—I will not break it; I will not let your image fade. I sit before you with my begging bowl; my tears fall on your feet; I call you.

Just one gentle smile, one gracious glance—
and this patient of sorrow can recover.
Just look once—this patient can be healed; flowers can bloom here too.

“The love I have joined I will never break; this image I will never forget.”
From behind the veil he gave a fleeting glimpse—
and the eager-for-vision became even more tempted.
When the first glimpses come, the droplets begin to fall, light drizzle—then a fiercer thirst, a burning flame arises.

“I will keep gazing day and night,
let my eyes drink their fill of the nectar of your sight.”
Then day and night I will gaze, let my eyes drink fully the rasa of your darshan.

The guru has seen the Divine—his eyes are drunk with that vision. The disciple has not seen, but in the guru’s eyes he can see—like seeing the moon in a lake, so can you see God in the guru’s eyes.

“You are the capable one, Jagjivan; leaving this satsang, there is nowhere else to go.”
I will not leave this satsang now. I know your power—you are joined to him. Having recognized this, there is nowhere else to go. When eyes meet the guru’s, an extraordinary love is born—one that never breaks. If it breaks, know it never was.

We nurtured it for ages by our side—and we were nothing.
You saw once—and our heart became yours.
As long as your remembrance and sorrow remain,
no matter how hard the path, steps do not feel heavy.
With the guru’s remembrance, the journey begins. The goal is far; seeing with your own eyes may take time—but you can draw near a lit lamp. Satsang means: moving closer and closer to the lit one.

“O pain, how long these pinpricks?
Rise—and pass through the heart.”
Closer! Let the ache deepen, the thirst intensify, the prayer thicken.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.”
What a marvelous line! Jagjivan says: when closeness ripens, what happens? In a single leap, I am on the terrace—no stairs—just one jump.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.
O friend, ask the Beloved: by what device?”
Tell me the way by which it happens in one leap. Show me such a method, such a path.

“How shall I remain always with him? I will sacrifice myself.”
Show me a way by which I remain with you no matter what—by which I reach where you are.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.”
Do you see? Simple, rustic, rural words—yet enough to make even Buddha envious.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.”
No difficult words, no commentary needed—clear and direct.

I think the cup-bearer’s glance is the real wine;
eyes do the work—the cup’s only a name.
The wine at the guru’s place flows from the eye. To be joined to the guru is to be joined to his seeing, his vision.

Once the heart lifted, the foot could not be raised—
I could not tear myself away from the lane of the Beloved.
Once satsang happens—listen to this cuckoo!—if ever you hear a voice rising from someone’s heart, where else would you go?

“I will keep gazing without blinking; I will make truth my bridal bed.”
I will gaze; I won’t even blink. I will make truth my couch; I will drown in you, become one.

“I will live with him, drenched in color and rasa; I will drop all else.”
I will sink in your rasa, your company; forget all else—only you remain.

“Jagjivan, friend, clutching his feet, I will beg my years from him.”
I know nothing else; I hold your feet and beg—show me the way.

One who has looked fully into the guru has begun to look into God. The guru is a window; from that window you see the sky. To come near the window and see the sky—that is satsang.

Your intoxicated glance was the tavern’s benediction, cup-bearer;
the whole assembly turned into goblets of wine.
When a guru’s satsang ripens and drinkers gather, it is not that he runs dry—because he is no longer there; the infinite pours through him.

Your intoxicated glance was the tavern’s benediction, cup-bearer;
the whole assembly turned into goblets of wine.
Let the whole world drink from one guru—drinkers are needed.

O drinkers, don’t get worked up about more or less wine;
the cup-bearer alone knows how much awareness each has.
Each receives as per his capacity. The cup-bearer knows.

“O seekers, keep your flame tied to the Name; do not proclaim it to anyone.”
This remembrance of the divine—do it quietly. When your wedding with the Infinite happens, perform the circling silently.

“Keep your flame to the Name;
do not proclaim it to anyone.”
Do not broadcast your remembrance, your kirtan, your meditation. Keep it secret. The more secret, the deeper. We hide the most precious diamond deepest.

“The false shout their practice aloud;
thus their remembrance is spoiled.”
Those who have neither prayer nor kirtan nor bhajan—advertise themselves. Even if a little remembrance begins, it gets spoiled—do not say it; guard it.

Do you know one of the hardest things? If someone tells you, “Keep this secret,” it becomes hardest to keep. The tongue longs to tell; in the end you will tell.

Mulla Nasruddin told his wife something: “Don’t tell anyone.” Next day the whole town knew. He said, “You must have told someone.” She replied, “I told, but I also told them not to tell anyone. If you couldn’t keep it and told me, how do you expect me to keep it?”

Keeping anything inside is hard. But if you can, it sinks deep. The more you keep within, the deeper it goes. Those who can keep secrets have a depth others lack.

That is why for centuries, when a guru gives a mantra, he says, “Keep it secret.” The mantra itself may be simple—“Rama, Rama”—the whole world knows. But he whispers in your ear: “Keep it secret.” An American wrote recently that a Himalayan guru told him “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama”—what is there to hide when people chant it in the streets? He concluded it was foolish. He missed the point. The secret is not in the syllables; it is in the art of secrecy. When you prevent a thing from going out through the tongue, it turns inward. If all doors are shut to the outside, it must go somewhere—either out or in, either upward or downward. Close the outer, it will go to your depth.

So remember: “mantra” has nothing inherently hidden; the hiding is the alchemy.

“O seekers, keep your flame to the Name; do not proclaim it to anyone.
The false proclaim and shout; thus their remembrance is spoiled.
The vine of bhajan wilts—by what device will devotion be made firm?
Learning, reading, piling up knowledge—this is no proof at all.”
Guard it; bury it deep; keep digging inward. One day the spark of mantra reaches your very source of prana—then a blaze erupts; the futile becomes ash; the essential appears.

“Learning, reading, piling up knowledge—this is no proof.”
No one becomes a knower by collecting knowledge. Until the spark of awareness ignites your inner flame, there is no knowing.

“And let love’s mode keep singing on the tongue—
such a one is very dear to Rama.”
Do you hear how juicy this is? Collecting and arguing is no proof. But when love’s mode arises within, when you are so drenched that the inner rasa becomes an outer song, such a one is dear to the Divine.

“This is the way of my devotee; I dwell always near such as these.”
The Divine lives near them. Then the devotee need not seek God; God seeks the devotee.

“He who has died to the ‘I’ and has been defeated by the mind,
his inner light blazes—its radiance illumines him.”
He who dies to his ego, surrenders the mind—within him the lamp is lit.

“Jagjivan-Dasa: the one who becomes a true devotee,
for him there is no more coming and going.”
Only such a one is a bhakta; his coming and going ceases. His flame merges into the Great Flame. He lived as a festival; he died as a festival. When life becomes God’s praise and death too becomes God’s praise—know then your life was not wasted; it was fulfilled.

O fool, do not depart wearing the garment.
So many times you have gone drowned in these clothes; this time go awake, recognizing consciousness.

Others gathered the blossoms of desire;
we remained with our hem outstretched.
Do not delay. Do not wait for tomorrow—tomorrow never comes.

The sutra is simple and clear: God is not found through knowledge, but through love. Knowledge stiffens with ego; love bows at his feet.

“I will grasp his feet and cajole him.”
Only love can coax by clutching at the feet. Knowledge makes claims: “I know; I deserve a reward.” Love makes no claim; it is humble: “What merit have I? I am unworthy. I rely on your compassion, not on my worthiness.”

Once you surrender at his feet, you will be amazed—his hand comes to your head; his hand slips into your hand.

There is moisture in the breeze from his hands—
and slowly, slowly, the heart becomes convinced.
Those hands seek in the assembly—
“Where are the stains of the heart, where is the seat of pain?”
They search for wounds to heal, for sores to soothe.

Your beauty fills my gaze as I rise—
the whole atmosphere shines like your raiment.
The dawn breeze has passed through your bedchamber—
my morning is fragrant with your very body.
Then everywhere is his feel. The breeze becomes his touch; the sun, his spread; the rainbow, his bow; the waves, his resonance; the mountains, his uplifted head. Recognize once—and the path to recognition is love, not knowledge. Those lost in knowledge remained ignorant. Those who acknowledged their ignorance bowed at his feet and said:

“I will grasp his feet and cajole him.
I tell you: whom else do I know? I have come to your refuge.
The love I have joined I will never break; this image I will not forget.
I will grasp his feet and cajole him.”
One who can say this—not on the surface but from the whole being—does not take long. He leaps onto the terrace.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.”
The path is clear. Become simple. Gather yourself. Walk with awareness. You too can climb his terrace—and one who climbs it attains amrit. Sat-Chit-Ananda is another name for that terrace.

“In a flash I will leap onto the rooftop terrace.”
Let this feeling rise deep within. Let it soak every pore. Don’t go about telling it—keep it secret.

“O seekers, keep your flame to the Name; do not proclaim it to anyone.
The false proclaim and shout; thus their remembrance is spoiled.
The vine of bhajan wilts…”
Do not uproot your vine to show its roots; it will wither. Roots must remain hidden in the dark. So too, let the roots of your bhajan remain sunk in your innermost.

“Learning, reading, piling up knowledge—this is no proof.”
Proof comes from one who has loved—not from one who has collected information. Someone asked Ramakrishna, “What is the proof of God?” Ramakrishna said, “I am the proof. Look at me. Look into my eyes. Hold my hand—I am the proof.”

Call that day a day when you too can say, “I am the proof.” Until then, all is night—night like the night of the new moon.

Enough for today.