Nam Sumir Man Bavre #8

Narendra! Albert Camus is a thinker, not a seer. And thinking is, in the end, always disappointing. The outcome of thought is negative. If you carry thought to its logical conclusion, you end up with nothing but nihilism. The very shape of thought is “no.” The entire process of thinking is contained in the word “no.” Thought knows nothing of “yes.”

Hence the thinker is doomed to grow more and more desolate the more he thinks. For the more he thinks, the more life’s illusions break. Only illusions break—he gains no access to life’s truths. When illusions shatter, what one touches is emptiness. And that emptiness is not the shunya the knowers have spoken of. Shunya is richly full, brimming with nectar, soaked in essence. Emptiness is a hollow void—what was there has also gone. Your hands let go of the old and the new is not attained.

Imagine someone holding pebbles and stones, believing them to be diamonds. In believing, at least there was some joy. For him they were diamonds: he guarded them carefully, hid them in his safe, confident they would be useful in need. His “tomorrow” was not dark; the future was bright, lit by the sparkle of diamonds—though they were only stones and would never be of use. Still, his hope was alive! There was reassurance; the dream—for him—was still true.

Thought will reveal: these are pebbles. Imagine the plight of the man who comes to know his vault holds only stones—comes to know fully that they are stones; the dream breaks. With it, hope goes. With it, enthusiasm goes; the future turns dark.

Such is the situation with thought. Without meditation the diamonds are never found. Thought negates; it breaks your delusions. Thought can be used, but in the service of meditation—as meditation’s servant. If someone makes thought the master, he will regret it, and regret it deeply.

That is why Camus says truth is dangerous: beware of truths. For when a person’s illusions collapse, living becomes difficult.

Consider a man who worships in a temple, believing his worship reaches God. So long as he believes, he is fine. Then thought stirs: what God, where? Have I ever seen him? Who has seen him? This is a stone idol I’m praying before—bought by me in the marketplace. A man-made idol—while God is supposed to be the one who made man. And what sort of God is this, made by man? This cannot be God.

The offering plate slips from his hands; flowers scatter; the prayer is broken. New moon darkness enters his life. The moon was never there—there was only the dark—but he believed in the moon; even belief has its sweetness. That too is gone.

The breaking of illusion is only half the work. Here the process of thought comes to an end; from here the process of meditation begins. There is no God outside, not in temples, not in idols. The offering plate was in vain. These were stones, not diamonds; mere beliefs. All beliefs get uprooted.

If one stops here, nothing remains but self-destruction. Even if he lives, he will live half-dead. Meditation begins exactly here: now turn within. The outer temples have proved futile; now search in the inner temple. Thought has done its job; now let no-thought do its work.

Camus does not move toward no-mind—that is the West’s limitation. The West does not go beyond thinking. Meditation is the glory of the East. We too have thought profoundly—so far that thought was drained of all value. But we did not stop there; we did not take that as the conclusion. From there we began the real journey. The pilgrimage starts there. We peered into no-thought. We became silent, still. We closed our eyes—and with closed eyes we saw. We dropped reasoning and simply saw. We looked within as a witness. We did not think; we beheld. What is within? Who am I? What is this existence that I am? What is this consciousness of mine? From that seeing, flowers of hope bloom again. From that seeing, a mine of diamonds is found. From that seeing, one’s own kingdom is regained. Thought only breaks illusion; meditation bestows truth.

Camus is not alone in saying this. Nietzsche too said: the day all of man’s illusions break, man will not be able to live. Do not break man’s illusions; he will go mad. Let him live in his illusions. Let him perform his rituals, chant his mantras, turn his rosary. Let him believe in some God in the sky. Keep him frightened of hell, greedy for heaven. Let him yearn for nymphs and streams of wine in paradise. He will have zest for life. All this may be nonsense—but what of it? He will remain merry, swaying through life, and die that way. Dust will return to dust; there is no heaven, no liberation, no God, no life beyond. But do not say it. Do not pull the ground out from under his feet.

Nietzsche did not say this idly—his own ground gave way. He thought too much. Among the greatest thinkers ever, Nietzsche stands in the front rank. Camus and the rest follow after him—small streams of his flow. Nietzsche himself went mad. When all illusions have gone, how will you live? If you do not go insane, what will you do? Wealth is vain; love is vain; even God has become vain. Position, prestige—everything is vain. Now how will you live? Either kill yourself...

Camus, therefore, said: there is only one truly serious philosophical problem—why should man not commit suicide? Why live at all? If we accept Camus’ logic, this indeed becomes the central question. There is no God, no liberation. Then the most important question is: why live? When all is futile, there is more sense in quietly dying. Why this turmoil? Why this frenzy? Why this anxiety, this restlessness? Why this web of nightmare-sorrows? Why not quietly fall into the earth and sleep forever? Why not be at peace? Why carry the mind’s tensions and cares?

Either commit suicide—or, if suicide frightens you, madness is what remains. That is what befell Nietzsche: he died insane. From his own experience he speaks: don’t break people’s illusions. I broke mine, and found nothing but madness. Let man live in his illusions; he cannot live without them. Illusion is his foundation.

But this is only a half-truth. And remember: half-truths—true but incomplete—are more dangerous than untruths. They snatch something from you and give you nothing. The thorn in your foot is removed, but no flower appears. Granted, the thorn caused pain—yet at least there was something! Pain perhaps, but you were not utterly alone; there was something to keep you occupied. Now even that is gone. Even sickness...

Know this: man prefers sickness to emptiness. At least sickness fills him. He prefers entanglements to emptiness. At least he is engaged. Emptiness is terrifying; it unnerves. Whoever has peered into emptiness has gone mad—he has glimpsed a world where nothing has any meaning.

Camus and thinkers like him were born in the West after two world wars. The first shattered many illusions; the second broke them all. It ripped human bestiality open, flayed it bare. It showed man to be not human at all, but a wild beast. Humanity turned out to be only a covering, a cloak. A wolf wearing a sheep’s skin.

What the West saw in the Second World War was so horrific, so tragic—how men were cut down, how women were raped, how children were burned! And then Hiroshima brought the final offering: the atom bomb was the full stop of war. Such monstrous violence had never been—not even imagined. And man—whom the scriptures say stands but one step below the gods! The Second World War proved that man is one step below the animals. Even animals are not so atrocious. You know: no animal kills its own kind. Dogs are not seen murdering dogs; nor wolves wolves; nor lions lions. Only man kills man. And when animals kill others, it is for food, out of hunger. They do not go hunting for sport. Only man hunts for sport. No lion goes on a sporting hunt.

I’ve heard a story: a lion and a rabbit entered a restaurant. The rabbit ordered breakfast. The waiter asked, “And for your friend?” The rabbit said, “If my friend needed breakfast, I couldn’t possibly be sitting with him. He would already have eaten. He’s with me precisely because his stomach is full.”

A lion kills only when hungry. Man alone takes delight even in killing; there is a perverse relish in destruction.

The Second World War exposed human bestiality so starkly that all his gods, his temples, his churches became false. And it became clear that behind fine words man only hides his vices. He speaks of church and arranges crusades and jihads. He talks of peace and then declares, “To defend peace we must wage war.” Look at the absurdity! He talks of love—but if you look closely, his love is worse than violence, worse than hate. The noose of his love, once around your neck, becomes your gallows. Love appears only to build prisons.

Man speaks beautifully—he has become skillful in saying things. Inside there is nakedness—terrible nakedness. On the surface he looks composed; within he is utterly crazy.

That is why Camus, Sartre, and thinkers like them gave the West a philosophy of despair: existentialism—a scripture of total hopelessness. Don’t break man’s illusions.

So Camus says: man is always the victim of his truths. Do not tell him truths. Let him live quietly in his dreams. Illusion is sweet; dream is pleasing. Let him dream—do not break his dream. Wake him and you will repent: it will be hard to put him back to sleep. Once the sleep is broken there is no way to lull him again.

So let him sleep, quietly. Let him dream his dreams, live his illusions. Let him worship stone; let him go to Kaaba; let him believe in ghosts—whatever he wants. Amulets, rituals, prayers—let him do whatever he wants. Do not tell him the truth, for truth, as they experienced it, is dreadful—because the “truth” revealed in wars was dreadful.

Ahriman burst into laughter at this manner of world‑building;
The battlements bent low, the palace doors began to shake.
How helpless, how paltry it all now appears—
What once had worth is now confined and diminished.
This so precisely fashioned “masterpiece” of human thought
Turns into the very pronouncement of civilization’s ruin.
These very hands of ours throttled our own throat;
The caravaners themselves plundered the caravan.
We had wanted that, with this boundless power,
We would turn our self‑made hell into paradise—
Not that even what little hope we had would be erased.
In a world of sacrifice, what value remained of the offered ones?
Even the split atoms perished—could accomplish nothing;
We emptied the very hem of life, and could not fill it.

We split the atom—“even the split atoms perished”—we created such power. What came of it?

Even the split atoms perished—could accomplish nothing;
We emptied the very hem of life, and could not fill it.

Man’s pocket of life became emptier, not fuller. We had dreamt otherwise.

We had wanted that with this boundless power—
the power given by science, this great power—
We had wanted that with this boundless power
we would turn our self-made hell into paradise. Instead, the few dreams of heaven we still had were destroyed. Earth became even more hellish.

Ahriman laughed at man’s way of building the world;
The battlements bent, the palace doors trembled.
Everything shook. Temples shook, palaces shook.

This shadow cast over the Western mind after the Second World War is what resulted in existentialism. It says: do not tell man his truths. Once he knows, you will repent. Let man remain childish; do not make him mature.

But this is incomplete. We have searched further. Where Camus and Sartre stop, the Buddhas enter. They looked beyond thought into meditation. Emptiness dissolves; the Whole descends. Meditation fills with the supreme light; the intuition of eternal life arises. Not belief—Buddha too is against belief, and so am I. Belief must be broken. Camus fears: if belief breaks, what then? There is nothing to fear. When belief breaks, we shall lead man toward knowing.

As I see it, the despair spread in the world is only the night growing darker before dawn—nothing more. Just before sunrise the night is at its blackest—only that. There is no need to despair over this despair; it will give birth to a great hope.

That is why, in the West, the search for meditation has begun. Thought has brought man to the last cliff. There is no way back. All of life’s toys are broken, all beliefs uprooted. Now man has no trust in books. Now he has set out in search of meditation.

People ask me, “Why are Indians not as eager for meditation?”

India is not yet disillusioned. India has seen nothing. India escaped the First World War and the Second. Since the Mahabharata, India has seen no war. And who knows if the Mahabharata ever happened at all? Even if it did, it must have been a small skirmish. Kurukshetra does not have land enough for a great war. Eighteen divisions of armies could not even stand there, let alone fight. You need some space to fight—room to run, room for elephants and horses, room for chariots. There isn’t that much space. Kurukshetra is a small area.

India has not seen the nakedness of man that the West has seen. And India is so poor it has not even been able to think—how will it meditate? It is still drowning in beliefs, still dreaming. Its saints keep repeating the same stale things, keeping people busy with havans and yagnas. Even now crores are spent—“A yagna for world peace!” Create peace between a husband and wife first through a yagna, then talk of world peace. Have at least some limit to your foolishness.

So many yagnas, yet no world peace. Still it doesn’t occur to you that your yagnas cannot create world peace. India remains entangled in such things. It pours grain and ghee into fire, imagining world peace will come. And not only the uneducated—even the educated concoct nonsense: “The smoke rising from a yagna forms clouds of peace and an atmosphere of serenity spreads across the globe.” The irony: the very priests who perform the yagna quarrel afterward about who got more and who got less—the clouds have no effect even on them! In this scientific age such talk might suit children’s books or fairy tales. If your yagna produces such a smoke, the matter is simple: find two men fighting and release your smoke there—watch the fight grow fiercer, and both will pounce on you for bringing smoke! Try the experiment. Can any war be stopped by the smoke of burning ghee and your chanting? And those who chant are themselves mired in endless quarrel. Their whole business is fighting. India is caught in such things. It lacks even the capacity to think clearly—how will it meditate?

Indian friends come here. Most only come to see what others are doing. The contrast is clear: those who come from the West want to participate; they say, “We want to partake, to experience.” Among Indian friends, only a few—those who have attained some capacity for thought and begun to see the need to go beyond thought—actually join in. The rest are spectators. They stand apart and think they have understood what meditation is. They think it is clear to them just by looking.

Meditation is an inner event; there is no way to see it from outside.

So India has little eagerness for meditation; its eagerness is for wealth. Say what you will that India is a religious country—perhaps it once was; now it is not. Even that “once” is doubtful—because you keep repeating, as you always have, that we are religious. You have reduced being religious to belief, to faith. But being religious is not a matter of belief; it is a living transformation. Until all your beliefs melt away and your assumptions fall to the ground, you cannot take a step on the path of knowing.

Therefore I say to you: Camus is right—go that far, but do not stop there. If you stop there, you err. You must go beyond. Camus will take away from you whatever is worthless; only then will your search for meaning begin. The stones are now stones; where are the diamonds? Diamonds exist—and they are within you. The stones are outside. All that is outside is irreligion—your pilgrimages, your temples and mosques, your pundits and priests, your mantras, yagnas, and havans. All that is outside is hypocrisy. If you want to find God, search within. Walk alone—ekla chalo re. Go within yourself, where no one remains, where not even another’s shadow remains; where not even a ripple of thought remains; where all is thought-free—there, in that thought-free consciousness, you will know that God is. God alone is. And then that God is not the God of Hindus, nor of Muslims, nor of Christians—he is simply God.

Then trust is born. Trust arises out of knowing. Belief arises out of ignorance. Do not mistake belief for trust. Belief is a counterfeit coin, resembling trust. I do not wish to create belief in you; I wish to give you trust and take away your beliefs. A counterfeit coin must look like the real one, or it cannot circulate. Belief looks like trust.

Belief has deluded and misled man greatly. And Camus is right: if you snatch people’s beliefs, they will panic. Therefore only those who can give trust should dare to take beliefs away. Only a true master should snatch belief—because he is confident that once you are empty he will also teach you the art of shunya.

And emptiness and shunya are not synonyms. They may be in the dictionary; they are not in the treasury of life. Emptiness means: nothing is there. Shunya means: the source of all is there. Shunya is an affirmative word. In shunya, the Whole is contained—sleeping, latent, veiled. Emptiness is merely hollow. How can anyone live in emptiness?

So Camus is right: if man becomes empty, how will he live? Then a man’s “truth” will kill him; he will not be able to escape it. I am telling you what lies beyond. What you are calling “truth” is not truth—it is merely the falling away of untruth. The removal of a thorn from your foot is not the arrival of a flower in your hand. The thorn removed—good; while it pricked, searching for the flower was hard. With the thorn out, you can walk. Now the search for the flower can begin. When the thorn of thought is removed, the flower of meditation can be sought. Hence all meditators have called no-thought samadhi.

Truth does liberate. What you have taken to be truth is not truth; when you awaken a little and think a little, at first there will indeed be panic.

Many wish to come to me but fear prevents them. I receive letters constantly: “We want to come, but we are afraid you may take away our beliefs.”

Beliefs must be taken away. Space must be cleared. The throne must be emptied of junk—only then will God come to sit within you.

What I am doing contains both processes. Therefore I do not hesitate about thinking. I am willing to think, to go as far as thought can go. That is why many see in my thought the same danger as in Nietzsche—and they are right, up to that point. But then go a little further. My understanding is: had Nietzsche been born in the East, he would have become a Buddha. He had the capacity—the same depth and sharpness of mind, the same edge. But he stopped at thought; thought did not become meditation. There the blockage occurred. Up to where Nietzsche goes, I agree; but I go beyond.

So Camus, Nietzsche, Freud are right that man lives in illusions. Do not simply snatch his illusions—how will he live? It is like snatching a child’s toys—how will the child live? But do you think a maturity never comes when the child himself puts away his toys? You, after all, live without toys. Once it seemed the child could not live without them; he slept with them at his chest and in the morning searched for them first. But we know: when he matures, the toy that is so precious today will lie in a corner, be thrown into the trash; he will not even remember it.

So it is with your beliefs: toys of childhood. They must be dropped. Painful—yes. Even removing a thorn hurts. When pus has accumulated and must be drained, that too hurts. All surgery is painful—and this is not bodily surgery; it is surgery of the soul. But once all the pus is out and all illusions are gone, you will be ready to take flight. Yes—if you stop in between, Camus’ word will become true. Do not stop there; go further. Until shunya is found, until samadhi is attained, do not stop. Samadhi is—and it is your birthright.

Vedant! If they don’t have a problem with me, with whom would they have a problem? It’s natural. I am cutting their roots. Their annoyance is perfectly natural. I am undoing their whole trade, knocking down the foundational pillars of their business.

I am not merely attacking on the surface; my attack is deep. If all I said was to make superficial distinctions—“You dress God this way; I will dress God that way. You make him stand so; I’ll make him stand otherwise. You keep his eyes open; I’ll keep God’s eyes closed. You say he has three faces; I’ll say he has four”—then it would have been a surface quarrel, not something to stumble over. Such quarrels never create any real difference.

After twenty-five hundred years, once again something is happening that last happened in Buddha’s time. In Buddha’s time, all the pundits and priests, all the monks and sadhus, all the so-called great men and mahatmas turned against him. All of them! They agreed on one point: that Buddha was wrong.

It is happening again. On one point, your sadhus, saints, great men, mahatmas, pundits and priests are coming to agree—completely agreed in opposing me. However many quarrels and disputes they may have among themselves… Vedantins and Arya Samajis are at great odds with each other, yet on at least one count they agree—on opposing me. Even this makes me happy that at least some unity has come—however it comes! If I am the pretext for that, so be it; that too is fortunate. Let them unite for this reason.

You say: one gentleman said, “Everything of his is nonsense.”

That is exactly what they said about Buddha. Exactly what they said about Mahavira. There’s nothing new in what they are saying. Whatever they do not understand looks like nonsense to them.

Atheists say the same thing about theists—that God and all that is nonsense. “It doesn’t exist; it’s all rubbish.” What did the Charvakas say? Exactly this, that it is the rubbish of pundits and priests—nonsense. There is no God anywhere. No one returns after death. “Fools, don’t get caught in their talk! Borrow and drink ghee. Don’t be afraid—if you must borrow, borrow and drink, because who comes back? Who will repay? Who will collect? All are dead and merged in dust. Don’t get trapped in the babble of pundits and priests. There is no virtue, no sin—it’s all nonsense.”

That is what the Charvakas said. The hereafter did not enter their understanding. That is exactly what Marx said about the religious. Exactly what Freud said about the religious.

Whatever does not fit someone’s understanding, he concludes it should not exist. For no one is ready to admit that something may be beyond his understanding. The ego won’t admit that one’s understanding could be too small for a certain truth. So the only alternative is to declare that the thing itself must be wrong. “Whatever is beyond my understanding—how could it be right? My understanding is the criterion.”

Now you say Swami Manohardas Vedanti came to your village. When your name came up he said, “Everything of his is nonsense.” He is saying just what follows for him to say. For the samadhi I speak of, the emptiness I speak of, the trust I speak of—those likely did not enter his understanding. Had they entered, would he still call himself a Vedantin? Would he still be bound to books? Would he still carry labels?

When one truly understands, all labels drop. If one understands shunya, how will you put adjectives on emptiness? Will emptiness be Vedantin or Arya Samaji? Emptiness is simply emptiness. There is no division in emptiness. Will emptiness be Jain or Hindu? Emptiness is simply emptiness.

There are so many of you sitting here. As long as you are thinking, you are all different. A Hindu thinks in a Hindu way; a Muslim thinks in a Muslim way; a Christian thinks in a Christian way. But if you all sit here without thought—no Hindu thinking, no Christian thinking, no Jain thinking—if all come to a quiet state of no-thought, then what difference remains? Will the Hindu’s emptiness be different from the Muslim’s emptiness? Emptiness is of one kind only.

Differences are in thought; in thoughtlessness there are no differences. Differences are in mind; how can there be differences in no-mind? In the unmani state, how can there be differences? Where the mind itself is gone, all differences are gone.

To them, it must look like nonsense. It must be going beyond their reach. They may not have such wings. And very likely, they don’t even know what I am saying. There are people who don’t read me and yet deliver statements about me. They don’t even know what’s happening here.

It is very easy to make pronouncements in ignorance. One who speaks after knowing will hesitate, will think, reflect, experience. If they were honest, they should come here and experience. And only then call it nonsense. At least come and take a sip, taste a little. But they are afraid of the taste. They are afraid even to come near.

Even your sadhus read my books secretly. They hide while reading, lest anyone find out they are reading me. So much fear? So much impotence? So much weakness? And you call yourself a sadhu? You set out on life’s great quest with a mind so weak that you worry someone may find out! And even if they do read, they won’t admit they have read me. And what I am asking them to do—they cannot do, because that would create real trouble.

A Jain muni wrote me a letter: “What you say makes sense. I want to meditate too, but if I breathe loudly, everyone will know. And everyone knows whose meditation that is. I can’t even claim I read Patanjali. The moment I breathe strongly, they’ll say, ‘This man has gone astray.’”

I told him, “I hear you come to Bombay—come and do it here.” He came to Bombay as well. Poor fellow had to steal his way in. He told others he was going somewhere else and came to see me. He told me, “Let no one find out. We just slipped over. We announced we were going elsewhere.”

If a Jain muni has to lie to meet me, what a pitiable state! He said, “What you say feels right. We have tried for years and failed at meditation. Now only in you we have hope—maybe meditation will happen; elsewhere it hasn’t. We’ll come every morning for a walk and meditate here. For fifteen days we’ll meditate with you. But no one should know. We must do it secretly.”

I said, “You can do it secretly for fifteen days, but nothing happens fully in fifteen days. You’ll get the taste, and then you’ll have to continue. How will you? Where will you? It cannot be hidden.”

He did it for fifteen days and left very delighted. Perhaps he had never jumped or danced in his life—he jumped, danced, rejoiced. Then he wrote me a letter: “It was very sweet, but we cannot continue. Now we are in trouble. We know the direction of the journey, but we cannot walk it.”

You should have asked Manohardas Vedanti: “Have you ever come here? Have you taken even a sip from this lake? Have you ever joined this tavern? Have a few drops touched your throat? Have you seen what unfolds here?”

But whatever we don’t understand—or refuse to understand—calling it nonsense is very easy. It only reveals their intelligence, nothing more. Their intelligence must be confined within a very small circle. The sky, the vast—these seem like nonsense to them.

And if what I say seems like nonsense to him, then Vedanta, too, should seem like nonsense—if he is honest. Because what I am saying is pure Vedanta. So pure that even the adjective “Vedanta” can’t be put on it. Even Brahman should sound like nonsense to him. Perhaps unknowingly, his soul spoke through his mouth. What he goes on talking about as Vedanta, he probably considers nonsense too—but it’s his business; he has to do it. That is his livelihood.

So he talks, but the real voice slipped out, using me as a pretext. If my words are nonsense, then all the Upanishads are false. What truth would remain of the Upanishads? Because what I am saying is their fragrance, their essence, their attar. All the Vedas would become pointless. For whatever is of value in the Vedas, that is exactly what I am saying. All awakened ones would be labeled nonsense.

If you meet your Vedantin again, tell him: reconsider. Open a few doors and windows of your intelligence. Recognize a little, understand a little. But he will be filled with junk—with so‑called knowledge. So‑called knowledge is a great calamity.

I was in Amritsar, invited to speak at a Vedanta conference. Before me, a Vedantin, Swami Harigiri, spoke. I spoke after him; he got into great difficulty. He stood up mid-talk and said, “These things are wrong.” And what I was saying was simply this: no one can give you God from the outside; you have to know from within, by yourself.

So he told a very famous story. He didn’t know whom he was tangling with. It’s best that no one tangles with me on stories. He told the famous Vedantin tale: Ten men crossed a flooded river. On reaching the other side, each forgot to count himself. The count always came to nine. They sat down weeping that one had been lost. A wise man came by—perhaps a Vedantin—saw their state and asked, “Why do you weep?” They said, “We ten crossed; now we are nine. One must have drowned. We weep for him.” He looked—they were all ten. He said, “Count again.” Their mistake came to light—each was leaving himself out. So he said, “Listen, count like this: I will slap the first one and you say, ‘One’; I’ll slap the second and you say, ‘Two’…” He slapped them one by one, and when he slapped the tenth, the man said, “Ten.” They were amazed: “You have worked a miracle!”

Harigiriji told people: “See, only when someone else told them did they gain understanding. Had no Vedantin passed by, they would have remained nine and gone on weeping.”

He thought the matter ended. I asked him, “Tell me this: when they decided to cross, how did they count before entering the river? Let’s take the story a step back. Did they count before crossing?” He had to say yes—they had counted ten. “How did they count then? Did crossing the river make them forget how to count?

“They must have accepted someone else’s say-so. Someone else must have told them, ‘You are ten.’ Had they counted themselves, how would they forget later? They would have counted even after crossing. They moved on borrowed belief—‘we are ten’—and that created the mess. When the time came to know, they missed. That’s why they missed. It was by another’s telling that the mistake arose,” I said. “A Vedantin must have met them on the first bank as well. Vedantins live on both banks. And very likely it was the same gentleman who told them at first that they were ten. Because it was second-hand information, it got washed away in the flood. Had it been their own knowing, how could it wash away?

“Only one’s own knowing is knowledge. What another gives is information. Information is borrowed. And people filled with borrowings are terrified that they may run into someone who truly knows—for then their light fades and they are in difficulty.”

If you meet Manohardas Vedanti somewhere, tell him: “Come along. Let there be a face-to-face. Let it be seen what is ‘nonsense’.” If I am nonsense, then everything important ever said in this world becomes nonsense. If I sink, the Vedas, the Quran, the Upanishads all sink with me. If I am true, they are true. I am a witness for them. And what I am telling you, I say from my own experience. I did not learn this counting from someone else. No one told me, “You are ten.” I have known. There is no way to take that from me. It is self-experience.

Tell him: “Come. Bring him.” Here we will jump and dance a bit; sing a little; a little sleep will break. And the dye of “Vedantin” that has stained him will wash away. And if it washes away—good! Then the inner color begins to show.

And you say: “The other gentleman is an Arya Samaj preacher, Arya Bhikkhu. On seeing your mala, he said: ‘His sannyas is leading young people toward frustration.’”

If my sannyas leads the young toward dejection, then what sannyas could lead them toward bliss? Must I provide proof for even this? Has there ever been a more joyous sannyasi on earth than my sannyasi? Has any vision of sannyas more free than mine ever been born on earth? My sannyasi has no reason at all to be sad—because I don’t take the world away from him. I take nothing away. I only awaken him; or say I take away his sleep. Old sannyas can bring gloom. Old sannyas is born of gloom and leads into gloom.

The old-style sannyasi is a sad man—defeated, tired, anxious, fearful, scared of every little thing. My sannyasi is afraid of nothing. The old sannyasi is full of guilt: “If I do this, it will be a mistake; if I do that, it will be a mistake.”

I have given my sannyasi no means to manufacture guilt. I have told him only this: live each moment simply, from your awareness. And whatever your awareness says to do, do it—even if the whole world stands on the other side; don’t worry.

The life God has given you—he has given you to live. Old sannyas is frightened of life—trembling, agitated. If a beautiful woman appears, the old sannyasi begins to shiver, to sweat. My sannyasi has no reason for fear because I say: see God’s beauty in a beautiful woman. Bow there too; let there too be the feeling of worship. There too is his glory, his color, his form, his flavor. If you can see God in a beautiful flower, what fault is it of a human? Why not see him in a beautiful man, a beautiful woman?

If my sannyas spreads—and it will, because it is creative and affirmative, founded on the acceptance of life—then just as you appreciate the beauty of a flower, you will someday be able to appreciate the beauty of men and women too. And in that appreciation there will be no guilt or fear—because it is the divine you are praising. Whomever we praise, it is his praise. However the river flows, it reaches the ocean. All praise reaches him. Praise belongs to him alone.

I have not cut you off from food—“Don’t eat this, don’t drink that; if you do you’ll sin and fall into hell.”

What kinds of people there are! Someone says if you eat potatoes you go to hell. Someone is frightened of a blameless tomato. Have you seen anything more innocent than a tomato? Poor tomato! Utterly guileless. How will you go to hell by eating it? But some are afraid to eat tomatoes. Its color is like meat—just the color—and they panic.

Don’t even ask what all people fear. If you gathered all their fears, you would have to die right now—you couldn’t live. Quaker Christians are afraid to drink milk. You’ll say, “This is the limit.” They won’t eat curd or touch butter because it is violence.

There is a logic to it. The milk in a cow’s udder is for her calf, not for you. Who gave you the right to snatch a calf’s milk? Think a moment: if the same were done with your women—that the baby gets no milk and anyone comes and drinks the mother’s milk—would you call it violence or not? You drink cow’s milk with great relish, boast of your milk diet—what about the calf?

People kill the calves and set up a fake calf made of straw or grass to deceive the cow—because if the real calf remains, it will drink some milk. To keep it alive, at least a little must be given. So a false calf is propped up. What a height of dishonesty! Deceive people if you like; now you deceive the cow? And on the other hand, you call her “Gau Mata,” mother cow. You deceive the mother herself, pick her pocket. And you run big campaigns that cows must not be slaughtered—and then you suck them dry. Look at the condition of your cows—skin and bones—and you keep tugging at their milk, as much as you can, in any way you can.

Quakers say: milk is part of blood. That’s why drinking milk increases blood. So milk is blood. Drinking milk is drinking blood. That is a sin. Now you’re trapped! What will you do? You can’t take curd, milk, ghee, butter. Gone are the rasgullas! Gone are the sandesh! All sweets become sin.

Just tally up all religions’ food rules—nothing would be left to eat. Over there, a Terapanthi Jain sits with a cloth over his nose lest he commit violence. Even his breath causes violence—warm breath kills tiny creatures in the air. But your very living causes violence. Within your body, countless microorganisms die every moment. Those very dead microbes emerge as your hair and nails. That’s why cutting hair doesn’t hurt—they are dead cells. Cutting nails doesn’t hurt, no blood flows—they are the corpses of dead cells; they are bones. Within you, millions of microbes die every moment. And that’s why you need food daily—to supply new material for new cells.

Each body houses some seven crores of microorganisms. You are a whole settlement. The old scriptures called you purusha: one who is “settled in a city.” A whole city surrounds you. Seven crores! Bombay is smaller. Among them, every moment, there is dying and living, all of it going on. When you move, stand, sit—violence is happening. When you turn in your sleep—violence is happening. When you breathe—violence is happening. How will you live? If you live by calculating all religions’ rules, you cannot live at all. And this is what religions have been teaching. They have poured poison into human life.

I am giving life its freedom. I tell you: enjoy what God has given. I tell you: no one dies—atma is immortal. What violence, which violence? Drop the worry. Live peacefully, simply, naturally. Consider this life a gift of God and be grateful. Seek God in this very gift. If you wish to find the musician, you must find him in his music. If you want to find the Creator, you must find him in his creation. If you wish to find the poet, find him in his poetry—where else? From there you will get clues; from there, the bridge will form.

To my sannyasi I give the spirit of wonder toward life, the supreme acceptance of life, the joy of life, the celebration of life. That my sannyasis are falling into frustration and gloom—can there be anything more foolish? Yes, but seeing my sannyasis, the old sannyasis are indeed falling into frustration; that is certainly true. Their very life-breath is in difficulty. They are very disturbed: “What sort of sannyas is this? We will renounce so much to reach liberation, and these will reach without renouncing! They’ll have fun here and there too!”

And I tell you: only the one who rejoices here will rejoice there. Because even enjoyment needs practice. One who doesn’t rejoice here won’t rejoice there either. If he has practiced non-enjoyment here, he’ll be in trouble there too.

The old-style sannyasis will find more peace in hell. It suits them better. Here they have to arrange thorns for themselves; there the devil’s disciples will take good care of them. Here they have to light fires themselves and smear ash; there the devil’s disciples will give them a good massage—with ash, such that it never comes off; with live coals they will massage them. They will put them through rugged austerities.

For them, hell will be suitable; heaven cannot suit them. What will they do in heaven? They’ll be in great difficulty. There are apsaras in heaven and streams of wine. And wish-fulfilling trees. Under a kalpavriksha, what will your old-style sannyasi do? “O Lord, rain stones! Make me do a little more penance!” What use is a wish-fulfilling tree? If old sannyasis have reached heaven, they must have arrived with axes and chopped all the kalpavrikshas down by now. The forest must be cleared. We will have to do reforestation again!

I am giving a sannyas that is simple—natural; whose discipline is joy. To say my sannyas leads to frustration—or that my sannyasi falls into frustration—what could be more baseless and absurd? Yes, but the Arya Samajis will be put in a bind. They are in a bind.

A Shankaracharya of some monastery was once brought to my door by a friend to meet me. He left him sitting in the car and came inside to ask when a meeting would be possible. In the meantime, everything went “wrong.” A foreign sannyasi entered at the door, hand-in-hand with his wife. Both cheerful! Humming a song! The Shankaracharya caught fire. By the time his disciple returned with arrangements, he said, “We are leaving this very moment. Move away from this place! What kind of sannyas is this—sannyasi and a woman’s hand in his hand?”

Imagine these Shankaracharyas reaching heaven and seeing Rama standing with Sita. They will pounce and separate them at once: “Move! Aren’t you ashamed? Being Rama and holding Sita’s hand? Do you know who she is—mother of the world! Leave her hand!”

Such sannyasis will create big trouble in Vaikuntha. They will snatch Krishna’s peacock-feather and flute: “Leave these! This won’t do. Whose women are dancing around you? Do you know that of Krishna’s sixteen thousand women, how many were his wives? Except for Rukmini, none were married to him. Those thousands danced around him out of love, lost in bliss.”

I am returning Krishna. I am putting the flute back on the lips of sannyas. Sannyas should be singing. If you can reach God singing, why go weeping? If you can reach dancing, why go trudging? And if God himself is dancing—and I say he is. Look at nature all around—it is God’s symbol—dancing nature, brimming with joy. Streams flow everywhere, flowers bloom; fragrance spreads; clouds gather; the sky is full of moon and stars. From all this, do you not see that God is not some grim mahatma? God is full of color, raso vai sah—he is the very essence of rasa, the source of flavor, satchidananda.

But an Arya Samaji will not like this. He won’t be able to accept it. Yes—seeing this, frustration will arise in him. Seeing my sannyasi, he will feel jealousy and envy. He cannot tolerate it. He wants people to be unhappy. He honors sorrow. These are the people who honor suffering. The more someone suffers, the more respect he gives: “He is that great a tapasvi.” The more one torments oneself—mind and body—the more respect. Austerity is his aim. Renunciation is his aim.

My sannyas aims at supreme enjoyment. I am speaking plainly, hiding nothing: supreme enjoyment. If I lead you toward God, it is not because enjoyment is bad but because what you know as enjoyment is not enjoyment at all. In this very life, supreme enjoyment can happen. I don’t want to snatch pleasure from your life; I want to deepen it, thicken it.

So this is entirely out of place. Vedant, if you meet that Arya Samaji gentleman, Arya Bhikkhu, again, request him. And you—being my sannyasi—should have answered right there. You should have stood at once and begun the Nataraj! Taken his hand and said, “Come, let’s dance.” Right there it would have become clear who is in frustration. You should have burst into laughter, rejoiced, and invited him: “Come, let’s dance.” You need not have brought the question here; the answer should have been given there. And the answer should be living.

Exactly for that reason—because it has so much glory. And your conditionings keep you from rising to such glory. Love is vast, and your conditioning has made you petty, small, mean. Love is celebration and your conditioning has taught you renunciation. Love is bliss and your conditioning says, “Become indifferent.” Love is nectar—rasa—and your conditioning is anti-rasa. That is why you are afraid.

And you are afraid also because on the path of love the ego must be sacrificed. You have to cut off your head and offer it. You have to lose yourself. As a drop falls into the ocean, so must you fall into the ocean of love.

Then fear arises: love is so immense, such a great sky! And you have become accustomed to living in a cage. Have you seen? Even if you open the door of a caged bird, it does not fly out.

I have heard: in an inn a man—a poet—stayed one night. All day from morning he heard a very lovely parrot, caged and hanging at the inn’s doorway, crying, “Freedom, freedom, freedom!” The poet was charmed. He too valued freedom in his heart. He thought, This is too much! I have seen many parrots—some say “Ram-Ram,” some chant this or that—but a parrot who remembers freedom, this I see for the first time.

So moved was he that when all were asleep he got up, opened the parrot’s cage and said, “Beloved, fly away now. Don’t stay.” But the parrot did not fly. He clutched the bars and stayed put. Great compassion arose in the poet’s heart—for such a lover of freedom! He put his hand in to lift the parrot out; the parrot pecked him, made him bleed. He did not want to come out.

But poets are poets. The mad are mad! He took the parrot out anyway, though the parrot kept pecking and screaming. And the strange thing was: he was striking blows, he would not come out, he clutched the bars, and he kept shouting, “Freedom, freedom, freedom!” The poet paid no heed—“Freedom, freedom, freedom”—he took him out and set him free. Relieved, he went to his room to sleep; a weight lifted from his heart. But in the morning, when he opened his eyes, the parrot was sitting in the cage. In the night he had forgotten to close the door. The parrot had returned, and from morning was again chanting—with the door wide open—“Freedom, freedom, freedom.”

Such is your state. You ask for love, yet you are habituated to the cage. You ask for prayer too, but you only parrot it. If it were truly the thirst of your very life-breath, the happening would be now.

Love is a dangerous path. One has to lose oneself; only then does one attain love. The price is high. It is no cheap bargain. One must be ready to be lost. When such readiness is there—
I will cry my heart and mind out; I will heave my sighs—
in your love I will lay everything to ruin—
when such readiness is there, the taste of love and its glory begins to be felt.

And then love also makes one weep a lot. Because if you love today, you do not find the beloved today. Only after the long night of separation does the dawn of meeting come. Separation’s night is frightening too. So people shrink from love: who will bear the pangs of separation? The sensible avoid such things—because there is pain in it.

Let someone see, O Shakeel—if this is not madness, what is it:
that we became his who could never be ours.

Who knows in how many nights you will have to weep the same—“We became his who could never be ours.” You longed, and yet love does not happen the very moment you wish. Love demands trials, touchstones. One has to pass through the fire of separation; only then do you become worthy, refined, pure gold. When you are refined through and through, only then do you become a vessel; only then are you entitled to receive love.

Let someone see, O Shakeel—if this is not madness, what is it:
that we became his who could never be ours.
If this is not madness, what else is? Love seems madness.

The sensible save themselves; they do not go toward this madness. The sensible earn money, not love. The sensible travel to Delhi, not into love. The sensible do everything else and avoid love—because love is madness. And it is: it surges up breaking all the limits and arrangements of the mind. That is why you are afraid—you must be a thinking man.

Whom should I tell what the night of sorrow is—what an evil affliction;
what was so bad about dying, if only it happened once?

Do you know how many times a lover has to die? Again and again, every time. Each time separation envelops him, death happens. One dies inch by inch.

Whom should I tell what the night of sorrow is—what a terrible scourge;
what was so bad about dying, if only it happened once?

If one could die once, even that would be something. But you die and die; you can neither live nor die. The lover is put to a great hanging. Love is a gallows. But after the gallows comes the throne. Remember the story of Jesus: crucifixion—and only after the cross, resurrection. Love is a crucifixion.

And one who has not known love—how will he ever find devotion? Love is the seed of devotion; devotion is the flower of love. Love, deepening and deepening, one day becomes devotion. Whoever is deprived of love will be deprived of devotion. And if he practices devotion, that devotion will be hollow—formal, ritualistic, hypocrisy, display, deception.

The wealth of beauty is raining in the sanctuary of lust;
in the beggar-bowl of the mendicant of love, not even a glance.
I do not know for what I sit here as a hopeful applicant,
upon such a path that is not even your thoroughfare.

Many times it will seem: Where am I sitting? Whose road am I watching? No one comes, no one goes. Perhaps I am sitting on a path from which the Divine will never pass—from which the beloved will never pass.

I do not know for what I sit here as a hopeful applicant,
upon such a path that is not even your thoroughfare.

Never have I seen you pass. I have never heard your footfall. Will I sit here vainly, and become vain myself?

Love asks for great waiting, great patience. Those who lack patience cannot walk the path of love. And here everyone is in a hurry: let something happen now, this very moment; let it be for free; let it be on credit. No one is willing to pay the price, no one is willing to wait, no one is willing to shed the tears of separation.

We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance;
indifference may be your habit—so be it.

A lover has to say: If your unconcern is your habit, let it remain your habit—keep it.

We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance;
we too will cultivate the habit of patience.

We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance;
indifference may be your habit—so be it.

You keep your habit of unconcern. Do not worry about me, do not inquire, do not look toward me. Be as indifferent as you can. We will, with our patience, conquer your indifference.

It is a long journey—of separation, of tears. But the one who takes heart completes it. And one who once gets even a small taste of love never returns. Then, if he has to lose his head, he loses it. Whatever there is to lose, he is ready to lose.

While living I could neither come nor go from the beloved’s lane;
the shadow of his wall never lifted from over my head.

Once even the shadow of his wall falls upon you, then whether life remains or goes, you cannot leave that shadow.

You go to temples and then you return. Your temple is false. Has anyone ever returned from his temple? Whoever went—went. Whoever went became a part of his temple.

While living I could neither come nor go from the beloved’s lane—
does anyone return alive from the lover’s alley?
the shadow of his wall never lifted from over my head.

Lacking such courage, you listen to the glory of love, you even understand it intellectually, yet within you remain afraid.

Such was my state on the night of the tryst: up to the threshold
a thousand times I went, a thousand times I came back.

How many times must one go to look at the door—has the beloved come? In the night of separation, even a leaf rustles and it seems he is arriving; a gust of wind comes and it seems he is arriving; a stranger passes on the road and it seems—he has come.

Such was my state on the night of the tryst: up to the threshold
a thousand times I went, a thousand times I came back.

Sleep knows no rest again. One who falls in love is awakened.

Therefore I say to you: there are two paths to the Divine. One path is meditation. Meditation means: awaken. One who awakens begins to love. A wakeful person cannot hate, because he sees: all is one. It is I alone. To hurt anyone here is to slap your own cheek. To give pain to anyone here is to give pain to yourself. The awakened sees: it is the expansion of the One; the One Divine pervades all. Love arises of its own accord.

The second path is love. Love—and you will awaken, because a lover cannot sleep. How can the eyelids close in his waiting? One has to keep watch—when he might come, from which door, from which direction. Love is a matter of courage, of audacity.

You ask, “If love has so much glory, then why am I afraid to love?”
Precisely for that reason you are afraid. You have begun to have a slight sense of its glory. A pull is arising, an attraction is arising. Love is calling—and now fear is taking hold. These are good signs. Do not stop by obeying fear. In spite of fear, listen to love’s call, and, catching hold of love’s note, set out.

Love is a dimension of the Divine. If there is any nearest path to God, it is love. The path of meditation is long and dry, like a desert. The path of love is very green and lush. Along the path of love the Ganga flows; it is not a desert. Leave your boat upon the Ganga. Fear does arise. Whenever one sets out on a new journey, a new venture into the unknown, fear is natural. But the fact that fear is natural does not mean you should stop because of it.

Taru! I know what is happening to you. Slowly, others will begin to know too.

“The entire city is acquainted with love’s fervor,
and yet we know that no one truly knows.”

Love does begin to show itself. Love starts to be revealed. The lover’s gait changes, the manner changes, the sitting and standing change, the expressions change. When love happens, it begins to be noticed. There is no way to hide love.

The sitar of the heart lay silent;
suddenly it awakened because of you.
The life that had become a disease
has today become a raga through you.
Is this the raga of my life?
Is this the sweet flute of love?
This gift you have given, beloved:
this melody the mind has received from you.

Give thanks to the Divine. Bow into its grace. And the more you bow, the more the rain of love will fall.

“What rose-hued wine of rapture lies upon His lips—
let us see when that moment comes that it reaches us.”
The Divine is wine.

“What rose-hued wine of rapture lies upon His lips—”
His lips are filled with nectar.
“Let us see when that moment comes that it reaches us.”

The more you bow, the sooner that moment arrives. The one who bows completely—his moment has come. Bow even a little and the drizzle will begin. If you bow utterly, He too bends toward you. The monsoon cloud stoops low!

“In a single goblet he has mixed intoxication and alertness:
for the head, forgetfulness; for the heart, awakening.”

And as this ecstasy spreads, a wonder becomes clear—“for the head, forgetfulness.” The head begins to grow unconscious. “For the heart, awakening”—and the heart starts to fill with awareness. The brain begins to sleep, to be lost; the heart begins to wake.

Ordinarily the skull is awake and the heart asleep. Thought and logic are awake; love sleeps. As one is immersed in the Divine grace, the intellect begins to sleep and the heart begins to awaken. I call the awakening of the heart shraddha. The intellect can give you belief, not shraddha. Shraddha is the heart’s taste.

“In a single goblet he has mixed intoxication and alertness,”
and in the same cup he has blended both.
“In a single goblet he has mixed intoxication and alertness:
for the head, forgetfulness; for the heart, awakening,”
by which the head will fall asleep,
and the heart will awaken forever. The awakening of the heart is the experience of God in this world.

Taru, you say rightly: what can be said of that moment! In the drowning, bliss thickened and spread, and you were drenched. About that moment nothing can really be said. Or a few things like these can be said—

“A dream-laden melody; a silent apocalypse;
within the coquettish pace, the Ganga’s grave calm.
The awakening of feelings is plain in vein and pore,
like a lotus that, though still, seems to drift upon the pond.”

“A dream-laden melody”—a dreamlike music. So subtle it seems like a dream; it does not feel like solid reality. The unstruck sound is just so.

“A silent apocalypse”—the whole existence is so quiet as if the Day of Judgment had come; as if creation had ended; as if dissolution had occurred.

“Within the coquettish pace, the Ganga’s grave calm”—and yet there is a joy in life, a dance; like the Ganga dancing her way toward the ocean.

“The awakening of feelings is plain”—and feelings have awakened; thoughts have fallen asleep.

“The awakening of feelings is plain in vein and pore”—nor is it only inside the heart; it is in every pore, in every vein, in every limb.

“The awakening of feelings is plain in vein and pore”—each hair reports it.

“Like a lotus that, though still, seems to drift upon the pond”—as though a lotus were steady upon the pond’s water and yet flowing.

No, about that moment nothing at all can be said.

“Like a lotus that, though still, seems to drift upon the pond”—
and even that says nothing. All our symbols fall short. All our symbols are petty. Language becomes lame. Grammar goes bankrupt. That moment is known only by the one who knows it. But when that moment begins to come into one’s life, the Divine has begun to enter. Single rays slowly become a dense sun. Single drops become the ocean.

And onto His terrace we are indeed climbing. “In a flash may I spring up to the terrace!” This thought arises only when the feet start touching the steps. Then one feels like leaping two steps at a time. “In a flash may I spring up to the terrace!” In elation, in enthusiasm, in bliss. Is there any sober calculation left in the climbing? Leaps happen. Sequence breaks; there are only leaps.

Jagjeevan’s line—“In a flash may I spring up to the terrace!”—is very lovely. The sannyas I have given you is just such: spring up to the terrace in a flash! Dancing, singing, absorbed in supreme bliss.

That is all for today.