Naye Samaj Ki Khoj #17

It is true that marriage is a very common, very necessary institution. Ordinarily, if marriage were scientific, then after marriage a person would become simpler, more peaceful, more orderly. But if marriage is wrong—as it is wrong—then troubles, unrest, and mental sicknesses will increase even more than before marriage. As I say, any marriage that has not blossomed out of love, that has been arranged by consulting an astrologer, that has been decided by the parents and not arisen from the love of the two who are to marry—that marriage will deform, not transform. Instead of resolving old problems, it will lead you into new ones.

And so, across the whole world the institution of marriage has become pathological, sick, rotten. Until we change the arrangement of marriage—there are many other things that are rotting society and producing madness, but among the most fundamental is marriage—until we change it, the kind of family that gives a person peace, love, joy, movement, strength—and, most important of all—spirituality, will not be able to manifest.

As it is, the family gives disease, illness, quarrel, conflict, unrest, tension. And even all this a person might be willing to endure if there were a very deep bond of love between the two; all this could be borne. But if there is no love between them and one still has to bear all this, then marriage breaks a person; it does not make him. That is why the number of people running away from family keeps increasing. Whether they flee in the name of sannyas—it is a way to be rid of the family. Whether they flee in the name of crime and rot in jail—that too is a way to escape the family. Whether they roam outside the house twenty-four hours a day in the name of social service—that too is a way to flee the family.

In a thousand ways people are finding means to run away from the family. It should be that the family is so delightful that from everywhere a person seeks refuge in the family. But conditions are such that to avoid the family one devises countless strategies. Many who drink do so to forget the family, to get free of it. People sit in cinema halls to get away from the family. People even go mad—that too is a defense, a way to escape the family.

If we look at the whole structure of the family, it is not scientific—by any measure. That is why I have said the family has to be changed root and branch; a radical revolution in the family is necessary if human beings are to be made healthy, peaceful, and simple. Otherwise the family goes on deforming them. And we don’t even notice it, because the family has become so accepted that we think it is some natural arrangement—which is flatly false. The family is purely a human invention. And whatever is a human invention can be improved—and should be. The family is not something natural; therefore there can be many kinds of families.

For example, up to now we have assumed that children should be raised with their parents. We have also thought that if children are not raised with parents, they will not receive love; that if children are brought up away from their parents, a relationship of love will never develop between them. This is simply wrong and baseless.

In Israel they conducted a new experiment—raising children apart from the family. And the results were the exact opposite of what was expected. Our children, after being brought up with their parents, do not learn love toward their parents; at a very fundamental level they learn hatred, rebellion, anger. And when the dice turns in old age—because in childhood the children are weak and the parents are powerful, and in old age the children become powerful and the parents weak—then the pain the children suffered at the hands of their parents in childhood, they begin to repay in the parents’ old age. Then parents shout and complain: the children are harassing us; we have grown weak and old; we are neither cared for nor looked after. But no one asks why the children are tormenting their parents. Could it be that the parents tormented them in childhood? Could this be retaliation, recompense?

Psychologists will say that it is retaliation, a belated revenge that has accumulated within them. If children are raised with their parents, this is bound to happen, because the parents will also educate them, forbid them from certain things—it will be necessary to forbid—scold them, rebuke them, even beat them, cajole and instruct them. Passing through all this, the child’s “love” remains mere talk, while anger toward the parents becomes the reality.

In Israel they tried a new experiment: as soon as the child is a little grown, say six months, he is taken to a nursery; the mother goes to feed him four to six times a day, but she cannot bring him home more than one day a week. Then as the child grows, he cannot spend even the whole day at home; perhaps once a week or once in two weeks he will come for an hour or two to play and meet. The mother will go to meet; the father will go to meet.

It was first thought that in this way love between parents and child would diminish. But the experience turned out to be the opposite: because the child sees only the pleasant, loving aspect of the mother and never the unpleasant. When a child comes home for an hour, is it possible the mother will hit or scold him? She will only love him. So the child sees only the loving form. By the time he is eighteen or twenty and comes out of the university, for him the mother is nothing but an image of love. Such a child can never torment his mother in her old age; it becomes impossible.

But these are new experiments. I am not saying it is necessary that we do exactly this. I am saying that the family as it exists has become questionable, and many new experiments have become necessary. And if such new experiments are not undertaken, then the family—which we think is the foundation of our society—has become the very basis of its decay.

And we don’t even notice how ugly the family is, what kind of people it produces. The people we see all around us—these are produced by the family. They are not even properly educated, because their “education” inevitably becomes whatever the parents know and understand, which the parents then pour into their minds. Now there are those who say that the most necessary thing today is to save children from their parents.

For example: if children in India could be raised in nurseries, their future would be very different. A child brought up with parents—if the parents are Muslim, they make the child a Muslim, and the affliction associated with being a Muslim remains. If the parents are Hindu, they make the child a Hindu. If we could raise children on a collective level, then in twenty years there would be in India neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Jain—there would simply be human beings. And those children who grow up together, into whose minds no device is operated to implant “Hindu–Muslim,” will create a world with fewer quarrels; there will be no need for Pakistan and India; no need for temple–mosque conflict.

But so long as children are being raised by parents, you cannot prevent it. If the parents are Muslim, the child will be made a Muslim; if Hindu, he’ll be made a Hindu—and from such an early age that the child won’t even know when he became one or the other. All the old quarrels will again be implanted in his mind.

As it is, the family is not worthy of being preserved. But until there is an alternative, we cannot carry out large-scale experiments. So for now I want us to reconsider every situation in life, to think. I am not saying accept what I say as final; it could be wrong. But let us begin to think.

On a matter like the family we have stopped thinking altogether. We have assumed that the family as it is, is right and is the only possibility. We have made the family into a natural thing. It is not natural; it is merely something that has been going on for thousands of years. And there is not even one single kind of family everywhere in the world—there are different kinds, all sorts of families are functioning.

We should think anew and redesign what the family should be. That is why I said what I said. The family is bringing disease, because it has rotted; it is not making us healthy.

It can also happen that all the energies of life are dedicated to a direction from where anger arises, hatred arises, sorrow arises, gloom arises. Life is an opportunity; everything depends on the direction in which we involve it. It will depend on that whether life becomes life—or only living remains. For most people, only living remains.

A monk once went to Buddha; he must have been around seventy. Buddha asked him, “Monk, how old are you?” The monk said, “Only four years.” Buddha said, “Are you mad? Four years your age? You look at least seventy.” The monk said, “Bhagwan, only for the last four years have I known the fragrance of life. Before that, I was merely alive; I do not count that in my age. Time just passed, was stretched out. In these four years I have tasted the juice of life. So I count only these four years. The rest went by like a dream, as if in sleep.” Buddha then told his monks, “Monks, from today count your age in this way. This man keeps the right account of age.”

From the day the fragrance of life is known, your age begins. But many times death comes and age never begins, because the fragrance of life is never known. Many people only when they are dying realize that they were alive; before that, they never even knew what life was.

Yes, we all know the outer sequence of events. But that is not it, not it. Without a connection to the inner source of life, one never truly knows. And the moment someone connects with it, peace begins to grow.

It is like going towards a garden. The garden may be far. Or like moving towards the sea. The sea may be distant, not yet visible. But as you come closer, the air turns cooler, the mind fresher. Nearing the garden, fragrance begins to arrive. The garden has not yet appeared, but the breeze already carries its scent, and you feel you are drawing close.

In life, the more juice you feel, the more bliss you know, the more music you hear, the more fragrance you sense—when breathing itself begins to feel like a delight—then understand that you are nearing the garden of life. These are the signs that you are approaching. And if life feels like a burden, heavy, as if you are lugging it along; if there is gloom, boredom, a weariness; if you feel, “When will I die? God, when will you take me?” If you feel, “When will I get liberation? When will I be freed of life? How to be freed from the circle of birth and death? Why have I been sent into this world; when will I be rid of it?”—then understand that you are moving away from the center of life. These are the symptoms that begin to appear.

So first, ask yourself: where does my life stand? How is it? Can I say that life is a joy? If you can say it, you are moving in the right direction. If honestly you cannot, if you must say that life is suffering, then understand you are traveling in the wrong direction.

And what does success mean? Success means life keeps becoming more and more blissful. Failure means life keeps becoming more and more sorrowful. Then it can happen that the one people call successful is not successful at all; and the one people call a failure may be truly successful.

A man becomes a president and people will say his life is successful. And it may be that his life has become sorrowful, drained of joy. People will call it success; I will not. So many times I feel that instead of “success” we need a new word: suphalata. To be “safal” (successful) is not enough. Merely having “fruit” appear in life is not enough, because the fruit can be bitter. “Safalta” means: life has borne fruit. “Sufalata” means: life has borne those fruits which give joy, which are sweet, which are nectar. So we should lower the value of the word “success” and raise the value of “sufalata” (good fruition, sweet success). One should be sufal, rightly fruitful. Better to have one such fruit than a thousand fruits; better that it may not be visible to anyone else, only to oneself.

But what has happened is that the world values success. For them, success means—build a big house, reach a high post, stand in front—no matter whether anything is actually found there or not.

I have heard a story. There was a hospital. In that hospital there were about fifty patients for whom there was no hope; it was the ward where no one survived. When someone neared death, they were brought there. By the door was bed number one. The rest were away from the door; from them, nothing outside was visible.

The patient on bed number one by the door would sometimes prop himself up against his pillows and say, “Morning has broken, the sun’s rays are pouring in, flowers have opened, birds are singing.” All the fifty patients would fume: why don’t we have bed number one! Why are we lying here! When will that man die! They all thought that if he died, they could get his bed.

Then he had a strong heart attack, and all the patients thought, now he will die and if we try we might get bed number one. They all began flattering the doctor and the nurses, asking when that patient would die.

But that patient was something! The heart attack came and passed; he survived. And as soon as he opened his eyes he said, “Ah! What a moonlit night! Night-blooming jasmine has opened, the fragrance is in the air. Do you hear?” Again everyone’s heart caught fire: bed number one is robbing us of life.

Then he had a second attack, a third. And all the patients wondered, when will he die, when will he die, so we can get his place. They were all crippled; none could get up; none could go to the door. And he alone had his cot by the door. He could see outside. He saw the sun, he saw the flowers open, he heard the birds’ songs.

After the third attack, the man died. There was a great rush; everyone flattered, and one man got his bed. He went and sat there—and there were no flowers, no garden, no moon visible, no sun visible; there was nothing. But he thought, if I say there is nothing, people will call me a fool. I flattered so much to get bed number one with such difficulty. So he too began to say, “Ah, how the flowers have blossomed! What a beautiful garden! Blessed are my fortunes!”

Then the whole ward began to think, when will this one die so we can get his place. And that is how it continues in that hospital! One patient after another dies, and flattering their way, someone reaches bed number one, looks and sees nothing! But the one who reaches it—others say, he is successful. He has succeeded; we have failed.

A man becomes a president. He says, “Ah! What bliss is coming.” Not a penny’s worth of bliss has any president ever known—and cannot know. But he is the patient on bed number one, he is sitting on the cot reached with great pushing and shoving. Now he does not want to look a fool; he will not say there is nothing here—otherwise his life’s race has been in vain. And he arouses the taste in others: you too try in this way. And they too will arrive, and they too will say there, “Ah! So much bliss!” But there is no sleep at night, no ease by day, no peace, no joy. Only the pride of being first—“We have come where others could not.” No one asks what is there, what has been found there that others did not find.

Success is not of great value; it is very external, almost useless. One should be concerned with sufalata—right fruition. Sufalata is very inner; success is very outer. Life becomes sufal when it moves continuously toward joy and peace. Understand one simple sutra: the more joy increases in life, the more we are rightly fruitful; the more sorrow increases, the more we are unfruitful. Those whom we call successful will, in this sense, prove failures; and often those whom we call failures will prove successful.

Alexander came to India. On the way he went to meet a fakir, a very remarkable man: Diogenes. Alexander’s friends told him, “Diogenes lives near here.” Alexander said, “Then I must see him; I have heard much about him. I have heard he is a wondrous man. Many times I’ve thought, if God were to give me birth again, then this time make me Diogenes.” Such were the reports. He kept not even a bowl. The last vessel he had—one day he saw an animal drinking directly from the river—he threw that away too. He said, “Am I weaker than an animal that I should carry a bowl?” He threw it away: “Now I am completely free.”

He had many such tales. Alexander went to meet him. It was morning, a cold day. Diogenes was sunning himself outside, lying naked. There was no hut, just a big round tub—a garbage tub—he had dragged from somewhere. His friends would push that tub from one village to another for him. He would sleep in it. Village dogs also slept in it; whoever wanted could sleep there. He would sit there and eat. If he ate, the dogs could eat from his plate too. Such a man he was.

He was lying naked outside. Alexander went to him and said, “I am very happy, Diogenes. I have heard many stories about you. I don’t know; I think I cannot be an emperor until I conquer the world. But I have heard that you have nothing, and you are an emperor! What can I do for you?” He said, “Just step a little aside. You are stealing my sun. Do only this much—that will be great kindness—stand a little aside.” He kept lying there; he did not even get up.

Alexander said, “Won’t you rise?” He said, “For whom should I rise? If someone has come, then I should rise for him!”

Alexander said, “You fool! I am here—the great Alexander.” He replied, “I do not count you at all, because you are in a race whose end has nothing at all. I don’t even count you among men. You are engaged in a race where, on arriving, nothing is found. You are mad! What are you running for?” Alexander said, “I run to win the whole world.” He asked, “Then what will you do?” Alexander said, “Then I will rest.”

Diogenes burst into laughter. “Madman! After winning the whole world, in the end you only want to rest? Come, there is plenty of ground here—lie down with me and rest; we are resting already.

“I am already at rest! If after all that running the aim is rest, then you are utterly mad. Running has no necessary connection with rest, because I am resting without running. And there is plenty of space; you can see that in my tub too there is enough room. You will fit as well. Come!”

Alexander said, “Your invitation is worth accepting, but I don’t have the courage. I have set out on a journey; how can I turn back midway?” Diogenes said, “Remember! One day you will have to turn back midway; no journey is ever completed.”

And that is what happened. Alexander came, and on his way back from India he died. He never returned to Alexandria. He died on the way. Diogenes had said: all journeys break in the middle; none is ever completed.

And then a delicate tale began to circulate in Greece. By coincidence, Diogenes also died the same day Alexander died. The tale says they met while crossing the Vaitarani. They are dead—going to heaven—they meet on the Vaitarani. Alexander is ahead—he had died an hour earlier. Diogenes comes behind, laughing heartily. Alexander felt very ashamed, for now all his clothes had been stripped away. When he had visited Diogenes he had pomp and paraphernalia; now he was naked. Diogenes still had his poise, for he had always been naked; clothes were no issue to him. Alexander shrank back, thinking, “What will he say!” Then, mustering some courage, Alexander tried to speak casually so he wouldn’t seem afraid: “Ah, ah, you look like Diogenes.”

Diogenes said, “Yes—because we have an identity none can strip. You now look like nothing at all, because all your identities have been stripped. Where are those garments? Where is that armor? Where is that crown? Where are all the things you flaunted? And we had no identity to begin with, so we will be recognized. Death had nothing to strip from us. We had already thrown away everything death could take. We were already only that which stands in front of God. Now you look quite awkward, and you must be feeling very naked indeed. Where are all those things?”

Still trying to gain courage, Alexander said, “All right—how delightful to meet again. It will be remembered in the world that a great emperor like Alexander met a great beggar like Diogenes.”

Diogenes laughed and said, “That will indeed be remembered. Even today, if the gods are watching, they must be thinking: an emperor meets a beggar. But you are making a small mistake in understanding who is emperor and who is beggar. The emperor is behind; the beggar is ahead—because I had nothing that anyone could take, and I found the joy that life is. And you are returning having lost everything, because you did not take a single step in the direction of joy. All the directions you pursued have slipped away; they have proved futile.”

Remember to weigh success by inner joy and fragrance: the day these increase in life, know that one is succeeding.

You ask: how can a social worker move into spiritual life?

This is not a question of social worker or not. The question of moving into spiritual life is the same for everyone, whether one is a social worker or not. Imagine going to a doctor and saying, “I’m a social worker—what’s the treatment for my TB?” He’ll say, TB has a treatment; what has that to do with your being a social worker! Whether you are or are not one makes no difference to the treatment.

First understand: spiritual life has nothing to do with what you do. What you do—teacher, shopkeeper, whoever—has nothing to do with it. Spiritual life concerns what you are. Not your doing, but your being. What you do is secondary; the real question is: what are you? What is it that you are in the midst of all your doings? That is the question.

As I said, if you are a social worker, that is fine. But in the midst of social work, what are you? Joyous? Celebrative? Peaceful? Then fine. Your social work will arise from a joyous heart; it will be pleasant, it will be beneficial to others. But if you are unhappy and have chosen social work merely to forget your misery, whatever you do will be harmful to others. In my understanding, one who is not himself in joy cannot do anything that brings joy to anyone else. It is impossible. We can give only what we have.

Never fall into the illusion: “I am miserable, but I will make others happy.” That is like an unlit lamp thinking it will light another unlit lamp. It may try. But the danger is that it will extinguish even a lit lamp; igniting another is out of the question. All over the world it has happened that those who do social work are themselves so restless and troubled that the final fruits of their work are not beneficial to society; on the contrary, they harm it.

Many times it seems that if the reformers, the uplifters, the improvers would all leave man alone, perhaps man would be better. All of them together make such a mess of things. And they forget to even ask: what we do not have, how are we setting out to give it? It is impossible.

So I say: service of society is impossible until a person has first served himself. Impossible. By serving oneself, someday one may reach service of society; but through serving society no one has ever reached service of oneself. Primarily, one must shape oneself, build and develop oneself. Everything else is secondary. And the curious thing is: if someone truly matures within, then whether he does anything or not, society is served through him. He himself does not even know it then. Service is no longer his profession, not his business. It is a fragrance. Service can never be a business. But it has become one. Social service too has become a business.

For such a person, service is his natural way of living. He rises, walks, moves about; whatever he does—even his breathing—inevitably serves someone in some way. But if such a personality is not there, then whatever “service” we perform will have motives other than we say or even know.

A social worker may say, “I am completely humble.” But if he inquires within, he will find that social service has become a way to nourish his ego: to strengthen his I—“I am something! I am a social worker!” His whole personality will then gleam with that ego. And walking the path of service, when he will become the master of society, no one can say. All over the world social workers very quickly wait for the day when society will serve them. The final ambition of the social worker seems to be: when will society serve me? He circles back to that point.

We have seen this in our own country. Twenty years ago the nation became independent; those we sent to rule were all social workers. Then they all proved to be social exploiters. How did this miracle happen? What happened? Those who served—how did they become masters as soon as they reached power? Somewhere within them the seed of lordship must have been hiding; an opportunity came and that seed sprouted.

Today others are doing social service. Tomorrow you will put them in power, and you will find they have become masters. Social service seems to be the ladder to lord it over society. From such service nothing can come except harm.

But yes, there can be people so drunk on the juice of life, who have reached a space within where their lamp is lit, that the rays of their light fall on many, knowingly or unknowingly. It is not that they will go out to serve deliberately. Deliberate service can often be very dangerous.

I like to tell an incident.

In a church a priest was instructing children: one must do acts of service. Every day at least one small act of service in the direction of God—make this your rule of life! And I will ask you after seven days how much social service you did. The children asked, “What do you mean by social service?” He said, “If someone’s house is on fire, save them; if someone is drowning in a river, rescue them; if someone falls, lift them up; if an old man or woman needs to cross the road, help them cross. Wherever you see help is needed, offer it selflessly. Without this, no one can ever be dear to God. Service is religion.”

After seven days he returned and asked the children whether they had done any service. Three children raised their hands. He was very happy: three out of thirty—still, three. Today three, tomorrow thirty. He asked one, “What did you do?” He said, “I helped an old woman cross the road.” “Very good,” said the priest. “We must be compassionate to the elderly; they are weak; they have done much—now we must serve them.”

He asked the second child. “I too helped an old woman cross the road.” The priest wondered, “This one too?” Still, there are many old women; they must have found different ones. He asked the third. “I too helped an old woman cross the road.” The priest said, “Impossible! All three of you found old women?” They said, “Three? Where three—we found one! We three helped her cross.” He said, “Was she so weak that three of you were needed?” They said, “Weak? We barely managed even with three. She didn’t want to cross at all! She was so strong that even three of us barely got her across. But you told us to do some act of service, so we did.”

Good that they didn’t set someone’s house on fire in order to save them. Good that they didn’t push someone into the river to rescue them. But for those whose profession is service, they set out in the morning hunting for some opportunity to serve.

Such a mentality is not beneficial. Service is not religion; but religion is indeed service. Understand the difference. Service is not religion; doing service does not make one religious—sometimes it can even be irreligious. But whatever a religious person does is service. Therefore being religious is primary; being a servant is secondary.

Vinoba says, “Service is religion.” I do not accept that. I say, he is wrong. I say, religion is service. Whenever a person becomes religious, service flows from his life. But the reverse is not true: that whoever serves will become religious.

Christians serve—but that is not religion. They serve all over the world—but that is not religion. There is self-interest behind it. Seeing them, Arya Samajis also serve, Hindu sects also serve, Muslims also try.

That is not service at all. That is all politics.

Being religious is what matters; all else is secondary. And I hold that a religious person cannot sit inactive. He will live, and service will happen through his life. But those “religious” people who sit inactive are not religious either. For what does being religious mean? It means there is no longer any purpose left in living for oneself. For me, living has been fulfilled; I have attained life. Now what can this life be for others? When a flower has blossomed, the plant’s work is fulfilled—the flower has opened, the plant rejoices. But now the fragrance of this flower will fly on the winds and meet those who pass by.

But the flower did not blossom so that passersby might receive fragrance. The flower blossoms for its own joy; its fragrance spreads naturally. If no one passes, the flower will not weep or cry, “No one passed today—our life is wasted. No photographer came, no newspaperman came—our life is in vain. What shall we do? How long must we keep serving? No one listens, no one takes notice.”

No—the flower is happy. It makes no difference. It does not know whether anyone passed or not. Even upon an empty road its rays, its fragrance, its color will keep spreading—with the same peace, the same joy. Someone may pass and rejoice and receive fragrance. If no one passes, the matter ends there. The flower blossoms for itself, not for anyone else. In blossoming, it waits for no one—its joy is its own.

So I call that person religious who is not doing anything for anyone—who is living in his own joy. From his living in joy, something naturally happens for others; that is quite a different matter. He does not take pride in it, he does not wait for thanks, he does not go around saying, “I am a servant.” He remains unaware of all this.

There is a story about a saint. In Europe there was a fakir—there are many stories about him—Augustine. About him it is said that he prayed so much, loved so much, practiced so much that the gods asked him to ask for a boon. He said, “Fools, I did not do anything for a boon.” But they insisted, “Ask something, because God wishes that you receive.”

When he would not agree, they said, “Ask for something that benefits others.” He said, “I won’t ask even that, because the idea that others are benefitted by me can bring ego. I will not ask that. But if you insist, do something such that, even if something happens through me, I never come to know that it has happened through me.” They asked, “What should we do?” He said, “Arrange it so that wherever I pass, my shadow that falls behind me—if it can benefit someone, let it do so. If my shadow falls on a sick person, let him be healed; if it falls on a withered plant, let it turn green. But let me never know that it happened through me. Because I want nothing through me; I want everything through God.”

So the story says Augustine’s shadow received the boon. Wherever Augustine’s shadow fell, flowers blossomed. If it fell on the sick, they became whole. If it fell on the blind, their sight returned. But Augustine never knew—because he kept walking ahead; the shadow fell behind. And no one even thought that this was happening through his shadow.

It is a story, but Augustine asked rightly: make it so that I do not even know that it is happening through me. And whatever happens through a religious person, he does not know it is by him. The religious person is one who has disappeared. Now whatever happens, happens through God. He is neither a servant nor a saint—he is nobody at all. He is only a doorway through which the rays of life come out and spread to people.

Become such a doorway. Drop the anxiety about serving society. Become a religious doorway. From that, service happens on its own.

If you understand attentively, the things I have been saying will fall into place.
You are the center of the whole world. For you, you yourself are the center; for me, I am the center. So if I go on doing anything while leaving myself aside, that is work on the periphery. It never brings me to the center of life, because the center is me. This is a great wonder—we are each the center of life. Except for me, everything is the periphery for me.
So the very first work of the seeker is to labor on this: What is this “I”? Know it—this is the center. And the day one knows: Who am I? What am I? What is this hidden within me?—on that day the center of life is found. And the day this center is found, all peripheries disappear, all other centers disappear; only I-ness remains. Then this same center begins to be seen within everyone.
By center I mean the “I”—that which says “I” is the center of our entire personality, of the entire world. For each person, one’s own “I.” So it is necessary to break the shell of the “I” and go within to see what is there! And there, I have said, is life; there is the divine—call it what you will—there is liberation. We must break the shell of the “I” and enter within.
But the shell of “I” itself becomes the obstacle. It does not allow us to go within. Like a seed has a husk around it—the husk is not the seed; the seed is inside. The husk encases it on all sides. We put the seed into the earth; if the husk refuses to break, the seed will die. The husk breaks, becomes soil, and the seed emerges. Our “I” is that very central shell, within which the true center is hidden—the seed of life. If this shell of “I” remains strong, it never breaks.
And all our lives we keep strengthening the shell of “I.” I am this, I am that, I am this—that is what all our efforts go into. And the person who succeeds in hardening this shell of “I,” we say of him, “He has succeeded.”
He is dead! Now the shoot—the sprout of life—will never burst forth from within him. His shell has become very strong, has become of iron; now it will not break.
A religious person’s effort should be to continuously melt, break, dissolve this shell of “I,” to let it go. Let a moment come when the “I” falls. And then what is within may emerge. Its name… that is the real center. And after the experience of that center, no periphery remains in the world—nothing outside, nothing inside. Then either it is only “we, we” everywhere, or only “you, you.” Then there is no quarrel of words—“I” or “you,” this or that—everything is finished; only the One remains. The name of that One—call it God, truth, whatever you wish.
So there must be a continuous, alert observation of this shell of “I”—Am I not strengthening it? Because if we are strengthening it, it will never break. And we are strengthening it all the time. If on the road someone so much as bumps into us, we stiffen and say to him, “Don’t you know who I am?” We are strengthening it all the time. We build a big house just so that we can say to those in small houses, “I!” We seek a high post only so that we can look down at those below and say, “I! Do you know who I am?”
There is a story about a sannyasin who went and lived in the Himalayas for thirty years. For thirty years he tried to conquer anger, sex, greed. Now, going to the Himalayas and conquering anger, sex, greed is not difficult—because to provoke anger someone else is needed. Whom will I fight if I am alone? Only if there is another “I” can there be a clash. He was alone, so for thirty years there was no clash. With no clash, he thought, “I am finished with it. Now I have no ego; anger no longer comes to me; there is no hatred, no enmity—I have conquered.” And amidst the peace and silence of the Himalayas, he began to feel, “I have become peaceful.”
Then, gradually, news reached below; people began to climb the mountain to worship and honor him. A fair was being held down below. Friends said from below, “Please come down! We all cannot come up the mountain; everyone wants your darshan—old people, women, children—come to the fair.”
He said, “Fine—what is there to fear now?” He came to the fair. When he entered the fair, he stepped into a crowd for the first time in thirty years. As soon as he went in—many people did not even recognize him; there was a heavy rush—someone’s shoe came down on his foot. He seized the man by the throat and said, “Don’t you know who I am?”
Then it struck him: Alas, those thirty years were wasted! Thirty years earlier such thoughts would arise in him; he was amazed that they rose up again the very moment a shoe touched his foot! And he said, “Don’t you know who I am?” Then it occurred to him: those thirty years were wasted. He wrote in his diary: What did not become visible by living near the Himalayas for thirty years became visible through contact with a single man. That human contact revealed that it had been hiding inside.
So we need to remember, twenty-four hours a day, in human contact, in all our comings and goings, that our “I” is not getting stronger! If one can do only this much—if one can keep only this much awareness, that “I am not strengthening it”—then the “I” will go on thinning out. Because it grows only when we strengthen it; otherwise it has no way to be.
And the more awake we become—the “I” is so subtle that it is not even noticed; one doesn’t even know from where it grabs us. It can be in the gesture of our eyes, in the way our feet move, in our sitting, in our standing. A very alert and subtle analysis and awareness of the “I” is needed. If this awareness remains, we are working at the center. And as awareness grows, the “I” falls—these two happen together. As a lamp’s light increases, darkness diminishes. In the same way, as awareness grows, as wakefulness increases, the “I” lessens. And the day the flame of awareness becomes complete, the “I” dissolves. We have reached the center; the shell has melted, and that which was within has arrived.
The “I” and ego are the shell of life. Only when it breaks is life attained. And that we will call success—and from there the fragrance begins to arise.
Enough. We will sit in the evening and talk.