My beloved Atman! On the first day I had said a few things to you about a sense of wonder-struck amazement toward life. On the second day I had spoken a little about becoming intoxicated with the rasa of life. And today, in this third talk, I have something to say about a heart immerged in love toward life. Love is the third sutra. Where knowledge cannot reach, love reaches. But we have no real acquaintance with love. What we know in the name of love are counterfeit coins. The counterfeits are so widely in circulation that recognizing the real coins has become difficult. Perhaps no other word in human language is as misunderstood as the word ‘love’. The vast form of our misunderstanding about love becomes the world’s entire uproar, violence, quarrel, duality and conflict. Therefore, love needs to be understood rightly. As we live, each one must have felt that perhaps the very center of life is the longing for love, the thirst for love, the prayer for love. If one seeks the center of life, no other center can be found except love. At the center of all life there is a single thirst, a single prayer, a single deep urge—and that urge is for love. And when that very urge fails, it is no wonder that life starts appearing futile—meaningless, empty, a frustration, a failure, an anxiety. The central thirst of life does not succeed. We neither are able to give love nor to receive it. And when love remains unsuccessful, when the seed of love does not sprout, the whole of life begins to look vain, insubstantial. Life’s insubstantiality is the fruit of love’s failure. When love succeeds, life becomes substantive. When love fails, life appears purposeless. When love succeeds, life turns into meaning, fulfillment and blessedness. But what is this love? What is this urge for love? What is this mad thirst for love? What is it we seek in the name of love and yet do not attain? All life long we strive. All our efforts circle around love. Wars are fought around love. Wealth is amassed around love. The ladders of fame are climbed for love. Sannyas is taken for love. Homes are built for love and abandoned for love. The entire current of life springs from the Gangotri of love. Those who journey through ambition, who travel through ranks and positions, who long for fame—do you know, through fame they try to obtain that which could not be received through love. Those who keep filling safes with money, piling up hoards—do you know, what was not attained through love they try to complete through the collection of money. Those who wage great wars and conquer great kingdoms—do you know, what they could not win in love they try to complete by conquering land. You may not have thought of it like this, but humanity’s entire endeavor, all its labor, its running, its struggle, ultimately centers on love. But what is this urge for love? First, let us understand this, then other things can be understood. As I said yesterday: when a human being is born, the bodily link with the mother breaks. A separate unit begins its own journey. Alone, a small unit begins to travel in this vast cosmos. A tiny drop has leapt out of the ocean and is lost in the infinite sky. A small grain of sand has flown off the shore and is wandering in the winds. The person separates from the mother. A drop has broken off from the sea and is wandering in the endless sky. That drop longs to rejoin the ocean. That which is the individual wants again to be one with the whole. That separation, that otherness, longs to end. The longing of love is the longing to become one—to become one with the total. The longing of love is the longing for advaita. Love has a single thirst—to become one with all; to be united with the whole that is. That very separation, that very apartness of the person from all, is the person’s pain. To stand far from the whole—that is sorrow, that is anxiety. The drop longs to be one with the ocean again. The longing of love is a thirst and a prayer to become one with all life. The fundamental flavor of love is to seek unity. But wherever we seek this unity, there we fail. Wherever unity is sought, there we fail. Perhaps the paths by which we seek unity are precisely the paths of separation, not the paths of union. Therefore counterfeit coins have circulated in the name of love. We humans seek unity on the plane of the body. But perhaps you do not know—on the plane of matter no unity is possible. On the plane of the body no unity is possible. Matter is inherently atomic, molecular, and each atom is separate from another. Two atoms can come close, but they cannot become one. They can be near, but never one. Between two atoms a space will necessarily remain, a gap, a distance. The nature of matter is atomic, molecular. Each atom is separate from the other. Try as we may, two atoms cannot become one. Between them there will remain a gap, a distance. These hands, however close we bring them, appear joined, and yet they are apart. In their very joining a gap is present. Between these two hands a distance remains; that distance cannot vanish. However close two bodies come, the distance between them cannot disappear. In love we hold someone to our heart. Two bodies come close, yet the distance remains, the distance persists. Thus even while holding someone to the heart, one comes to know we are separate; we have not been able to be truly close, to be one. Even bringing the body near, that wish to be one remains unfulfilled. Thus, if all the loves enacted on the bodily plane fail—there is no cause for surprise. The lover finds he has failed. The one with whom he longed to be one came near, but they could not become one. But he does not see that this is the limit of the body: on the bodily plane oneness cannot be. On the plane of matter oneness cannot be. This is the very nature of matter—that there will be otherness, distance, a gap. Yet the lover does not see this. He imagines perhaps the one he loved is not able to love properly; therefore the distance remains. That seeking unity on the plane of the body is foolish—that he does not see. Instead he thinks: the other, the beloved standing opposite, with whom I longed for union—perhaps he or she is not loving; hence unity is not attained. His anger is born toward the beloved; but he does not suspect that the very direction of love was wrong. Therefore throughout the world lovers appear angry with one another. Husbands and wives appear angry with each other. Everywhere lovers are full of anger toward each other, because the longing to be one has failed, has been frustrated—and each thinks, I have failed on account of the other, and so grows angry at the other. But the path itself was wrong. Love cannot be sought on the plane of the body—this does not occur to them. In this race for unity, the one we love we want to possess; we want to become complete masters of the other. Lest our proprietorship be less, lest possession be less and unity thereby be less; therefore lovers want to be each other’s masters. They want to tighten the fist fully. They want to build a wall completely, lest the beloved go far away, turn aside, set off on another path, get involved in someone else’s love. So lovers try to possess one another, to own one another. They do not know that love is never an owner. The more one tries to own, the greater the gap grows, the greater the distance becomes; because love is not violence—ownership is violence, ownership is enmity. Ownership is to clutch somebody’s neck in your fist. Ownership is a chain. But love, frightened that the gap may widen, tries to come closer and closer, to secure on all sides so that the gap of love may be destroyed, the distance may vanish. Yet the more one strives to destroy the distance, the larger it grows. Failure comes to hand; sorrow, anxiety. Then man thinks: perhaps with this person love cannot be fulfilled; let me search for another. Perhaps this person is wrong. The eyes begin to wander in the search for other lovers, but the fundamental mistake remains the same. That on the bodily plane oneness is impossible—this does not occur. It is not a question of this body or that body. On the plane of all bodies, oneness is impossible. To this day humanity has sought unity and love on the plane of the body; therefore, an event like true love has not been able to happen in the world. As I told you, around this effort at possession and ownership, jealousy is bound to be born. Where there is ownership, there is jealousy. Where there is possession, there is jealousy. Therefore around the flower of love many thorns of jealousy, many hedges rise—and if love withers in the fire of jealousy, it is no wonder. It is set to burning even before it is born; before birth it is laid on the funeral pyre. As if a child, the moment it is born, is placed on the pyre—so love is daily placed on the pyre of jealousy. Jealousy is born wherever ownership is—where I have said ‘I’, ‘mine’, there is fear that someone else may become the owner. Jealousy begins, fear begins, anxiety begins, vigilance begins. And all of these together murder love. Love needs no guard. Love has no relation with jealousy. Where jealousy is, love is not possible. Where love is, jealousy is not possible. But love is not there at all. Coming to its shore, man’s boat breaks. The very boat on which we were to voyage breaks, because we began love entirely from the wrong beginning. The first thing I want to say to you: on the plane of matter no love is possible. That is an impossibility. That is not your failure or mine; it is the impossibility for human life itself. On the plane of matter, no oneness can be attained. When this oneness is not attained, and only anxiety and failure are seen all around, then some teachers begin to say: love itself is wrong, the very notion of love is wrong. Drop the feeling of love, become indifferent. Fill life with indifference. Cut off all roots of love from life. This is the second mistake. Love went in a wrong direction, hence it failed. Love did not fail, the direction failed. But some people take it to mean that love has failed. Thus arise the teachings of non-love: shrink your love, close it, do not let it go out of yourself. Outside yourself it will become bondage, attachment, clinging. Shut it inside. Do not let love flow outward. Become indifferent to life. Stop the search for love. This direction is born as a reaction—out of frustration. Those who turn their back on love are in the same mistake as those who sought love on the plane of the body. The direction was wrong; the search for love was not wrong. But that the direction is wrong is not seen. It is concluded instead that the search for love itself is wrong. Thus were born teachers indifferent to love, who condemned love, called love bad, called love bondage, called love sin; and advised the person to close in upon himself. But they did not see that when a person abandons the possibility of love, only the possibility of ego remains, and nothing else. Love alone is the element that breaks and dissolves ego. Love alone is the alchemy in which ego melts and flows away. Those who deprive themselves of love can only be egoists—only egotistical and nothing else. They will have no means left to melt and break the ego. Love leads one outside oneself. Love is the only doorway through which we step out of ourselves and set foot on the journey to the infinite. Love connects us with the other, with the world, with life. But those who shut down the journey of love, they break and are imprisoned only in their ‘I’, in their ego. On one side are failed lovers; on the other, sadhus and sannyasis filled with ego. Ego is the acceptance of this… As I said, love is the search to find unity with all, to become one with the total. Ego is the decision to stop seeking unity. ‘I’ am I. I will remain separate. I have become content with my own existence. I have accepted that ‘I’ am I. The drop has accepted that to meet the ocean is impossible—or that there is no need to meet. This drop that has closed in on itself also cannot attain bliss. It has shrunk, become very small, very petty. Ego makes one petty, shriveled, very small. Bliss is possible with the vast, not with the petty. Bliss is possible with the infinite, not with the limited. Where there is limit, there is sorrow. Where there is no limit, there is bliss. Where there is limit, there is ending, there is death. Where there is no limit, there is the infinite, there is nectar—because where there is no limit there is no end, no death. The egoist links himself with the petty. Considering himself separate, he stops—he refrains from melting, flowing away, dissolving, becoming one with all. I have heard: a river was traveling toward the sea, as all rivers travel toward the sea. She was rushing toward the ocean. What pulled her? Some hope of meeting, of becoming one; some longing to unite with the vast; to break boundaries, to shatter shores; some thirst to become one with the shoreless sea was driving the river. Rivers are running. That river also ran. Some love… just as every human consciousness runs, runs to become one with the ocean of the infinite, so that river too was running. But in between came a desert. It was vast. The river began to get lost in it. She began to run faster, to struggle—she would break through! She had split mountains, carved gorges, made her pathways. She would make her way even through this desert. But months passed, years began to pass; no path appeared. The river kept dissolving in the desert, the sand kept drinking her. No way opened. Then the river grew afraid and began to weep. The sand of that desert said: if you will listen, remember one thing. Only those rivers can cross the desert which become one with the winds, who lose themselves and become one with the winds—who dissolve. The moment they dissolve, the winds lift them upon their shoulders and the desert is crossed. No one ever crosses by fighting the desert. It is crossed by rising above it. Many rivers have come to cross this desert; they were lost. Only those rose who lost themselves, became vapor, climbed upon the shoulders of the winds, and crossed the desert. But the river said: I will vanish? I do not want to vanish. I want to remain. Then the sand said: if you insist on remaining, you will vanish. And if you vanish, you may remain. Who knows whether that river heard the desert’s sand or not. Surely she did, for rivers are not as unintelligent as men. She must have mounted upon the winds, crossed over, become a cloud, risen high, and journeyed in a new direction. But man’s ego fights and breaks, yet will not consent to vanish. He fights and breaks, but will not agree to dissolve. The more he fights, the more he breaks, the more he is destroyed. For whom are we fighting? Against our own roots. Against whom? Our own vast form. Against whom? Our own very being. We will break, vanish, be destroyed; we will be miserable and afflicted. Whoever avoids love—remember, love, I have said, is the longing to become one. And only he can become one who is willing to vanish. Only he who consents to dissolve can become one! He who is not willing to dissolve opens another direction: the direction of ego. Then he becomes eager to make himself, to strengthen himself, to fortify himself, to raise harder walls around himself, to build a fortress. He engages in the journey of strengthening his ‘I’. Lovers fail, because they seek unity on the plane of the body. Sannyasis fail, because they decide, on the plane of the ego, to remain separate. Is there not a third path? It is about this third path I want to speak to you. Ego is no path—it is the direction of sorrow, it is delusion. There is no such thing as ‘I’ within, except as a word. When all words drop and a man becomes silent, he finds there is no ‘I’ there. Be silent sometime. Be quiet, be still—and you will see: there is no ‘I’ there. There is existence, there is being—but no ‘I’. ‘I’ is an invention of man. ‘I’ is man’s contrivance—utterly false. As false as our names. Why? No one is born with any name. But after birth we give a name, so that others can call and address. The name has utility, usefulness, but no being, no existence. Others call one by name; but how shall I call myself? So I call myself ‘I’. ‘I’ is the name given for calling myself. And names are given for calling others. Names are as false as the feeling of ‘I’ is false. Yet precisely this ‘I’ we go on strengthening. ‘I’ wants moksha, ‘I’ wants Paramatma, ‘I’ wants rank, ‘I’ wants mukti, ‘I’ wants bliss, ‘I’ wants happiness. But nothing can be given to the ‘I’, because the ‘I’ is utterly false, untrue. To the untrue, nothing can be given. ‘I’ fails, and love fails as well. And there are only two directions—one is the direction of love, the other of ego. In the world of man there are only these two paths—one of the ‘I’, one of love. Love fails because we seek it on the plane of the body. ‘I’ fails because it is untrue. What could the third be? The third could be this: we find love’s right direction—and we avoid the ‘I’’s wrong direction. Love is not a happening on the plane of the body; love is a happening on the plane of consciousness. When we try to make love happen on the bodily plane, love becomes objective. There is a chosen object of love, toward whom we try to pour our love. From there love returns, because the object is body—visible, tangible. But if love is to become an inner happening, if love is to become consciousness, then love does not remain objective; it becomes subjective. Then love is no longer a relationship—it is a state of the heart, a state of mind. One morning Buddha is sitting and a man arrives. He is full of anger. He abuses Buddha a great deal, and then, filled with so much rage that words seem inadequate, he spits in Buddha’s face. Buddha wipes the spittle with his shawl and says: Friend, is there anything more you wish to say? Buddha’s bhikshu Ananda is sitting nearby. He is filled with anger. And hearing Buddha say, Is there anything more you wish to say?—he is even more astonished. He says: What are you saying? This man spits and you ask if he has anything more to say! Buddha says: I understand—perhaps anger has become so heavy that words seem incapable, so he said something by spitting. I have understood—he said something. Now I ask: anything more to say? The man rises and leaves. He regrets it, cannot sleep all night. Next morning he comes seeking forgiveness. He places his head at Buddha’s feet. He raises his head and Buddha says: Is there anything more you wish to say? The man says: Yesterday also you said the same! Buddha says: Today too I say the same. Perhaps you want to say something. Words are not able, so by placing your head on my feet you have said it. Yesterday you said it by spitting. I ask: anything more to say? The man says: Nothing more—I have come to ask forgiveness. I could not sleep all night. A thought arose in my mind: until now I had received your love; yesterday I spat upon you—now perhaps I will no longer receive that love. Buddha laughs and says: Ananda, listen to the madness of this man! He says that until yesterday he received my love and that having spat yesterday, now love will not be available. So perhaps he thinks I loved him because he did not spit, and that by spitting the love will stop! You are mad. I love because I can only love—I can do nothing else. You may spit, you may abuse, you may put your head on my feet—it makes no difference. I can only love. Within me the lamp of love has been lit. Whoever passes by me will receive love’s light. If no one passes, the lamp will go on burning in solitude. Now it has no relation with anyone. It is no longer a relationship; it has become my nature. As long as love is a relationship with someone, you are still seeking love on the plane of the body—and it will fail. When love becomes a lamp lit within life, within oneself—not a relationship, but a state of mind—when love is not a relationship with someone, but my love becomes my nature—then, then the event of love happens in life. Then the real coin of love comes into the hand. Then the question is not whom to love, then the question is not why to love. Then love is causeless; then love is not for this or that—love simply is. Whoever is there, the light of the lamp will fall upon him. If it is a man, then a man; if a tree, then a tree; if an ocean, then an ocean; if the moon, then the moon; if no one, then in solitude the lamp of love will go on burning. Love is the doorway that leads to Paramatma. But the love we know becomes only a doorway to hell. The love we know becomes a doorway to madhouses. The love we know becomes a doorway to quarrels, dualities, conflicts, violence, anger, hatred. That love is false. The love I am speaking of becomes the path that leads to the Lord—but that love is not a relationship. That love is a state of one’s own consciousness; it has no connection with anyone—it has connection with you. In regard to this love a few things must be rightly understood, and a few memorable things must be understood as directions to awaken it. First: as long as you think of love as a relationship, you will not be able to attain real love. That very definition is wrong. That way of looking at love is mistaken. As long as the mother thinks, love for the son; the friend thinks, love for the friend; the wife thinks, love for the husband; the brother thinks, love for the sister—as long as anyone thinks of love in the language of relationship—love cannot be born in their life. Not in the language of relationship; not whom to love—rather, my being loving. My being loving without cause, unrelated, twenty-four hours—my being loving. Not tied to anyone, not linked to anyone—my being loving in myself. Let love be my nature, my breath. As breath comes and goes, so my love—twenty-four hours, sleeping, waking, rising, in all conditions my life a mood of love, a loving attitude, a fragrance—like the fragrance that falls from a flower. For whom does it fall? For those who pass by? The flower may not even know that someone will pass by. For whom? For those who will pluck it and make a garland and offer at the feet of God? For whom—tell me, for whom does the fragrance of a flower fall? For no one. It falls from the flower’s own joy, from its blooming. The flower blooms—that is its joy. Fragrance spreads. Light pours from a lamp—for whom? So that someone may not go astray in the dark path? So that someone may see the potholes? They may indeed be seen—that is another matter; but the lamp’s light pours for itself, from its joy, from its nature. Let love become your nature—rising, sitting, sleeping, waking; alone, in the crowd—let it rain like a flower’s fragrance, like a lamp’s light; then love becomes prayer, then love becomes the path to Paramatma, then love joins you with the whole, with all, with the infinite. This does not mean that love will not then become relationship. Such love will become relationship twenty-four hours, but it will not be limited by relationships. Its life-breath will come from beyond relationships, from depth. The wife will still be the wife, the husband the husband, the father the father, the mother the mother. Love will still shower on the son; but not because of the son—because of the mother’s own love. The wife’s love will flow, but not because of the husband—because of herself. The causality will be within; it will come and flow from within. It will be an inner feeling, not something pulled from outside. Right now we all live on love that is pulled from outside; therefore that love turns into quarrel. Whatever is dragged by force becomes sorrow and pain. Whatever arises spontaneously from within is quite another matter. Then life becomes very loving—but love is not a relationship. A seeker must remember: only when love becomes his state of consciousness can he travel on the path to the Lord, on the path of truth, and reach His temple. First, forget the notion of love as relationship. That definition is wrong, that way of seeing love is wrong. When a wrong way is seen as wrong, then the right way can be seen. So first understand the futility of false love—that which thinks relationship is love. It will lead nowhere except to failure and anxiety. Then the second thing: can love be born from within you? From within? Even if no one is there? It can. Whenever love has been born, it has been born in just this way. Within us lies the hidden seed which can sprout, but we never paid attention to it. We have struggled all life with relationship-love. We never paid attention that beyond that, there is another possibility of love, another form. We have always tried to draw oil from sand. Oil cannot be extracted from sand; trying to extract it we forgot that there were seeds from which oil could truly be drawn. We all are trying to draw life from relationship-love. It has not come, it will not come. Time is lost, strength is lost. And where it could be drawn from—our attention never goes there. Love is born as a state of consciousness. Whenever it is born, it is born thus. How to make it be born? How will it take birth, how will the seed break and sprout? Three things, three sutras must be remembered. First: when you are alone, then—search within: can I be loving? When no one is there, search: can I be loving? Can I be loving in aloneness? In solitude, can my eyes be as if the beloved is present? In aloneness, in emptiness, in vacancy—can streams of love flow from my being and fill that empty space where there is no one, no object? Can love flow from me there as well? This I call prayer. I do not call those in prayer who sit in temples with folded hands. Whoever, in solitude, succeeds in letting love flow and is attempting it—that one is in prayer, in a prayerful mood. So sit alone and see: can I be loving? You must have tried enough to be loving among people. Now, in aloneness, search a little: can I be loving? First sutra: in solitude, experiment with becoming loving; search, probe within. It will happen—it does happen; it can happen. There is no difficulty at all. Only because you never experimented in this direction has the thought not occurred. In desolation too flowers bloom and spread fragrance. In desolation, in solitude, catch the fragrance of love. Once you catch the fragrance of love in solitude, then you will realize that love is not a relationship. Love is a state of mind, a state of consciousness. Second thing, second sutra: experiment with love in the non-human world. Even when you lift a stone in your hand, do it as if you are loving someone. Look at a mountain as you would at your beloved. In the non-human world—this is the second. First, solitude. Second, the non-human world. Look at stones, at sand, at the sea as you would at your beloved. Let love start flowing; let the eyes be lost. Touch even a chair, lift even a plate of food as if you are touching your beloved. Why the non-human world? Because whenever you love a human being, an answer comes from there; a relationship stands up, a connection arises. If you touch a stone, no answer will come. If you look at the ocean with love, the ocean will not answer—will not put arms around your neck and say, I love you too. No answer will come; love will remain unanswered. From that side no reply is going to arrive. You will love, and love will go on. Because of the expectation of a reply, love does not become free; the relationship remains. I love a person; then I expect—a reply should come. When it does not come, frustration comes, sorrow comes, pain comes, anxiety comes. The possibility of unanswered love must grow. But the first possibility of unanswered love can only be with that which is not human—it is not easy to experiment straight away with humans—with trees, with plants, with stones, with seas it can be. Therefore, send your love into whatever is in nature. There is no expectation there; you cannot wait for a reply. No reply will come; only your love will go. And for the first time you will come to know: love is not for replies. Love is giving, not asking. Love is to give, not to get back. The joy of love is in the giving, not in the getting. When this second sutra becomes clear—that love is giving, not asking; that there is no expectation of answer, no need of response; we have given—and if the sea has accepted, we are grateful to the sea; if the stone has accepted, we are grateful to the stone; there is no question of an answer returning—then this second sutra clarifies within you the possibility that love is a state of consciousness. With no reply, no relationship forms. Then the third thing—first, solitude; second, the non-human world; third: unrelated humanity. Not those with whom you are related, but those with whom you have no relation at all, with whom you have nothing to do—people on the road, people sitting in a train, in a bus—those with whom you have no connection, no tie—love toward them. Toward the passerby seated next to you in the bus—love toward him—the unfamiliar, the unknown, the stranger. In the third sutra: love toward the stranger. For love toward the stranger is altogether another kind of thing. Love toward the familiar is something else. Love toward the familiar is full of expectations, full of relationships. He did something yesterday—therefore there is love; he will do something tomorrow—therefore there is love. Profit and loss are tied behind that love; memories are tied behind it, the past is tied, the future is tied. With the stranger there is no relation of yesterday, and none of tomorrow either. Love toward him is pure love—there is no profit or loss behind it, no means, no strategy. We do not even know him; where he will be lost in the vast world tomorrow, we have no idea. Love toward the stranger—love toward unrelated humanity—is the third sutra. If you want to give birth within yourself to that love which I am calling a state of mind, a state of consciousness—then these three sutras… And when you can love stones, when you can love the sea, when you can love solitude, when you can love a stranger—will you not be able to love those who are near, those who are related? You will certainly be able to love them—then it will flow naturally. With these three preparations, love for the near and dear will surely arise, and in abundance. Yet even in that love there will be a revolutionary difference. One who has loved solitude, who has loved stones, who has loved strangers—his love’s quality will change. The mother will love the son as she loves solitude, as she loves a stone—without any expectation of response. The wife will love the husband as one loves a stranger—who, if he wanders off tomorrow, will leave no pain behind. Then the husband will love the wife, the wife the husband—but the quality, the nature of that love will be transformed. There will be no expectation, no demand, no jealousy, no malice, no quarrel, no snatching and grabbing. That love becomes a simple giving; and the more this simple giving grows, the more a person’s ego is destroyed, dissolved. Love is the death of ego. Love is the death of ego—and where there is no ego, there we become one with the whole; there we are joined with the vast; there union with Paramatma happens. The thirst is for that union, the running is for that union, the longing is for that union. The drop has fallen from the ocean; it longs to become ocean. A grain of sand has flown into the winds; it wants to return to its shore. So too each person’s individuality longs to return to the ocean of the Lord. The means we have used so far have all proved wrong. Either we have used false love, or we have used ego. Both means are futile. What would right love be?—in that direction I have given three sutras. Practice them, so that the love which is yours may be born within you; which is your nature, your very breath. Then whatever you touch, whatever you see, whatever you hear—everything becomes the beloved. And the day the whole of life becomes the beloved, that day man enters the temple of the Lord; not before. Not before! Never before!! The day the whole of life becomes the beloved, the day all news is news of Him—that day. But it is not an event that will drop from the sky. Each one must prepare within himself the vessel, each one must open the doorway within, each one must make the inner flower bloom—then this event can happen. This is the third sutra. Fill the mind with wonder, immerse yourself in the rasa of life, and make the soul loving. Then climb these three steps and see what happens! Infinite treasure is there for man to attain. Infinite bliss can become available. But we live in vain and are wasted. One small story and I will complete my talk. Then we will sit for the morning meditation. In a capital city a beggar sat on the roadside and begged for twenty-five years. Then death came, and he died. All his life he wished to become an emperor. What beggar does not wish to become an emperor? He stood on roads with outstretched hands all his life. But by stretching out hands, by asking for coins, has anyone ever become an emperor? Can a beggar become an emperor by asking? The more the habit of begging grows, the greater a beggar one becomes—how will one become an emperor? So twenty-five years earlier he was a small beggar; after twenty-five years he had become the famous beggar of the whole city—but he had not become an emperor. Then death came. Death does not worry—she comes to emperors and to beggars alike. And perhaps the truth is that emperors are but bigger beggars, beggars are just smaller emperors. What else is the difference? The beggar died. The townspeople had his body lifted and thrown away. Then they felt that for twenty-five years he had sat in one place begging. The whole place had become filthy. He had spread rags and tatters, tins and pots. They had all that thrown away. Then someone thought: for twenty-five years he soiled the very ground; let us dig up some earth and clean the soil a little. This is how everyone behaves with the dead—not only with beggars. The same happens even with those we call beloved. They dug and turned the soil. As they digged, the town was astonished! A crowd gathered; the whole city assembled. In the very spot where the beggar sat were buried great treasures. All began to say: what a madman! He died mad, begging! Under the very ground he sat upon, great pots were buried, filled with precious jewels and diamonds, with gold coins! He could have been an emperor, but he never dug the ground on which he sat! He stretched his hand toward those who themselves were beggars, who were themselves begging from others. They must not have dug their ground either. He did not dig his. Then the townspeople said: he was very unfortunate. I too went to that town. I too stood in that crowd. I said to the people: leave aside that unfortunate one. Run to your homes—dig your own ground! Perhaps there is a treasure there? I do not know if those villagers heard me or not. I say the same to you: dig your own ground—dig where you stand. I say: there is always treasure there! But we are all beggars, asking somewhere or other. Great treasures of love are within, yet we ask others: give us love! The wife asks the husband, the friend asks the friend: give us love! Those who do not have it themselves are asking others to give them love! We ask them! Beggars beg from beggars! Therefore the world has become so ugly. But as for one’s own ground—where one stands—no one cares to dig. How it can be dug, I have said a little. Dig there; there is great treasure. Digging the treasure of love, one day a man reaches the treasure of Paramatma. And there was never any other path, nor is there, nor can there be. This completes the talk on the third sutra. Now we shall all sit for the morning meditation. Before we sit for the morning meditation, one more thing. From three-thirty to four-thirty in the afternoon, for three days we have talked through words. I have said something to you; some may have heard, some may not; some may have understood upon hearing, some may not have understood even after hearing. Words have their limits, their strength. Words are unable to convey what is seen, what is experienced. Only hints can be given. Hints may fail. So this afternoon we shall speak for a while without words. This afternoon we shall sit for a little silence communication—for a little silent communion. At three-thirty I shall come and sit here. You too will quietly come and sit. For an hour there will be no talk. We shall simply sit quietly. No conversation will happen. In this way I shall speak—if you are ready, perhaps something will be heard by you, something will be known. But there will be no talk through words. For one hour we shall sit quietly here. As it pleases you, sit. If someone wishes to lie down, lie down; if someone wants to lean against a tree, lean. If you wish to keep eyes closed, keep them closed; if open, keep them open. Only one thing: there will be no talking. No talk among yourselves. No talk with me. I will sit silently near you. For an hour let us see—perhaps in silence something may be heard, some communion may happen. All the real ties of life happen in silence. Words divide, silence unites. So we shall try this here… Today is the last day, we part today; therefore we shall sit an hour in silence—for a silent communion. A little preparation is needed for silence. So we will arrive here at three-thirty. From two-thirty onward begin a little preparation there. From two-thirty begin to grow a little quiet, because thought has a momentum. If we set a wheel spinning, even after we withdraw the hand it keeps spinning for fifteen or twenty minutes. From two-thirty, relax and drop talking, so that by three-thirty a little silence may arrive. Prepare a little for this. It will be good if you bathe and come—at three-thirty when you arrive here; put on fresh clothes, so a movement into a wholly new direction can happen. From there, come without talking on the way. Do not talk here either. Just understand that you have come alone. Do not bother about who is there and who is not. Sit quietly. I too will come and sit here at three-thirty. We will sit silently for an hour. If tears come to someone, let them flow. If laughter comes, let it arise. Whatever emotion comes, allow it to flow—do not hinder, do not block. If someone feels like it, come and sit near me for a couple of moments, then quietly get up and leave. If someone feels it, surely come—do not hold back. But sit near me only two minutes, not more, so another who may wish to come can come. Then sit quietly again and return. For one hour. If someone feels bored in between, quietly get up and go. Do not force yourself to sit. After one hour I will rise. Then slowly, as one feels, get up and go. We shall sit for an hour; prepare for that. Understanding words requires less preparation. Understanding silence requires great preparation. But my effort is that slowly, slowly, those who come near me should not only understand words, they should begin to understand silence too. Because, if not today then tomorrow, the matters that are more essential cannot be said through words—they will be said through silence. So those who become capable of understanding silence—then for them the door to saying what is more profound will open. So from two-thirty you will prepare… At three-thirty come as one goes to a temple—and there is no temple greater than silence. With that much sacredness, bathed, in fresh clothes, quietly preparing from two-thirty—so that its tune goes within. Then come here and sit quietly. Then, as it pleases you, here. In Indonesia there is a meditation experiment called latihan. If not today, then tomorrow, I wish to bring that experiment to this land also. In latihan, two, four, ten people sit quietly. They sit quietly. Then if someone feels like crying, he cries. If someone feels like dancing, he dances. And after an hour’s sitting of latihan, the experiences they have are beyond measure. They drop all control, completely relaxed, and whatever is to happen, happens. If hands and feet move, they move. If one feels like rising, he rises. If like sitting, he sits. If like lying down, he lies down. They leave everything at the feet of Paramatma. With an attitude of surrender at the Lord’s feet: whatever He wants to do, He will do; if not, He will not. Its results are wondrous, deep—for a revolution in life. So in the hour this afternoon, surrender completely, with a feeling of offering: now I am not. For one hour whatever happens, happens. If tears come, do not stop them. If they flow, let them flow. Whatever happens, let it happen. And if anyone feels like coming near me for a couple of moments, then come and sit near me. Understand that I have called him. Quietly then get up and go. No words will be spoken. Arrive here at three-thirty. Now we will sit for the morning meditation. What you have heard till now must certainly have created a mood. Move a little apart from one another. Let no one be touching anyone. Move quietly away without talking. All right, move apart. Sit in silence. This will be the final sitting of the morning. Who knows whether again the voice of the ocean will be heard here, whether again we will meet these trees, whether this day will come again, whether this morning will return. Therefore, in what is present, you should be wholly absorbed—attain total immersion, total joy, total love. Leave the body loose. Let the eyes close softly. Let the eyes close gently. Leave the body relaxed. Now we enter meditation. Listen in silence to the sound of the winds, the birds’ songs, the roar of the sea… Listen in silence. Simply keep listening… keep listening… This sunlight, these rays, these winds—all together are creating a certain wondrous occasion. Enter into it. Become one with this sunlight, with these winds. Keep listening quietly… with listening alone the mind will become peaceful and silent… with listening the mind will become peaceful and silent… Listen… See, even the birds come to speak… Listen… For ten minutes only keep on listening. Listen… with listening the mind goes on becoming quiet… with listening the mind goes on becoming quiet… the mind will become utterly quiet… keep listening to the winds, to the birds, to the sea… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind will become utterly quiet… the rays of the sun will remain, the swaying shadows of trees will remain, the winds will remain, the roar of the sea will remain—but you, you will be utterly gone. Keep listening… with listening something within will melt, will vanish… all will be quiet… quietly keep listening… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… The winds remain; you—you are no more, you have dissolved, flowed away… the drop is lost in the sea… the mind has become quiet… keep listening… keep listening… keep listening… Let go of yourself… let go completely… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become utterly quiet… the winds remain, the sun’s rays remain, the roar of the sea remains—you have dissolved… let yourself go, dissolve… The mind has become utterly quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become utterly quiet… Now slowly take two or four deep breaths… slowly take two or four deep breaths… then very gently open the eyes… as there is peace within, so it is without. Slowly open the eyes… what is within is also without. Slowly open the eyes… see the trees, see the rays of the sun—what is within, that is also without. The morning sitting is complete.
Osho's Commentary
On the first day I had said a few things to you about a sense of wonder-struck amazement toward life. On the second day I had spoken a little about becoming intoxicated with the rasa of life. And today, in this third talk, I have something to say about a heart immerged in love toward life.
Love is the third sutra.
Where knowledge cannot reach, love reaches.
But we have no real acquaintance with love. What we know in the name of love are counterfeit coins. The counterfeits are so widely in circulation that recognizing the real coins has become difficult.
Perhaps no other word in human language is as misunderstood as the word ‘love’. The vast form of our misunderstanding about love becomes the world’s entire uproar, violence, quarrel, duality and conflict. Therefore, love needs to be understood rightly.
As we live, each one must have felt that perhaps the very center of life is the longing for love, the thirst for love, the prayer for love. If one seeks the center of life, no other center can be found except love.
At the center of all life there is a single thirst, a single prayer, a single deep urge—and that urge is for love.
And when that very urge fails, it is no wonder that life starts appearing futile—meaningless, empty, a frustration, a failure, an anxiety. The central thirst of life does not succeed. We neither are able to give love nor to receive it. And when love remains unsuccessful, when the seed of love does not sprout, the whole of life begins to look vain, insubstantial.
Life’s insubstantiality is the fruit of love’s failure.
When love succeeds, life becomes substantive. When love fails, life appears purposeless. When love succeeds, life turns into meaning, fulfillment and blessedness.
But what is this love? What is this urge for love? What is this mad thirst for love? What is it we seek in the name of love and yet do not attain?
All life long we strive. All our efforts circle around love. Wars are fought around love. Wealth is amassed around love. The ladders of fame are climbed for love. Sannyas is taken for love. Homes are built for love and abandoned for love.
The entire current of life springs from the Gangotri of love.
Those who journey through ambition, who travel through ranks and positions, who long for fame—do you know, through fame they try to obtain that which could not be received through love. Those who keep filling safes with money, piling up hoards—do you know, what was not attained through love they try to complete through the collection of money. Those who wage great wars and conquer great kingdoms—do you know, what they could not win in love they try to complete by conquering land.
You may not have thought of it like this, but humanity’s entire endeavor, all its labor, its running, its struggle, ultimately centers on love. But what is this urge for love? First, let us understand this, then other things can be understood.
As I said yesterday: when a human being is born, the bodily link with the mother breaks. A separate unit begins its own journey. Alone, a small unit begins to travel in this vast cosmos. A tiny drop has leapt out of the ocean and is lost in the infinite sky. A small grain of sand has flown off the shore and is wandering in the winds. The person separates from the mother. A drop has broken off from the sea and is wandering in the endless sky. That drop longs to rejoin the ocean. That which is the individual wants again to be one with the whole. That separation, that otherness, longs to end.
The longing of love is the longing to become one—to become one with the total.
The longing of love is the longing for advaita.
Love has a single thirst—to become one with all; to be united with the whole that is.
That very separation, that very apartness of the person from all, is the person’s pain. To stand far from the whole—that is sorrow, that is anxiety. The drop longs to be one with the ocean again.
The longing of love is a thirst and a prayer to become one with all life. The fundamental flavor of love is to seek unity.
But wherever we seek this unity, there we fail. Wherever unity is sought, there we fail. Perhaps the paths by which we seek unity are precisely the paths of separation, not the paths of union. Therefore counterfeit coins have circulated in the name of love.
We humans seek unity on the plane of the body.
But perhaps you do not know—on the plane of matter no unity is possible. On the plane of the body no unity is possible. Matter is inherently atomic, molecular, and each atom is separate from another. Two atoms can come close, but they cannot become one. They can be near, but never one. Between two atoms a space will necessarily remain, a gap, a distance.
The nature of matter is atomic, molecular. Each atom is separate from the other. Try as we may, two atoms cannot become one. Between them there will remain a gap, a distance. These hands, however close we bring them, appear joined, and yet they are apart. In their very joining a gap is present. Between these two hands a distance remains; that distance cannot vanish. However close two bodies come, the distance between them cannot disappear.
In love we hold someone to our heart. Two bodies come close, yet the distance remains, the distance persists. Thus even while holding someone to the heart, one comes to know we are separate; we have not been able to be truly close, to be one. Even bringing the body near, that wish to be one remains unfulfilled. Thus, if all the loves enacted on the bodily plane fail—there is no cause for surprise. The lover finds he has failed. The one with whom he longed to be one came near, but they could not become one.
But he does not see that this is the limit of the body: on the bodily plane oneness cannot be. On the plane of matter oneness cannot be. This is the very nature of matter—that there will be otherness, distance, a gap.
Yet the lover does not see this. He imagines perhaps the one he loved is not able to love properly; therefore the distance remains. That seeking unity on the plane of the body is foolish—that he does not see. Instead he thinks: the other, the beloved standing opposite, with whom I longed for union—perhaps he or she is not loving; hence unity is not attained. His anger is born toward the beloved; but he does not suspect that the very direction of love was wrong. Therefore throughout the world lovers appear angry with one another. Husbands and wives appear angry with each other.
Everywhere lovers are full of anger toward each other, because the longing to be one has failed, has been frustrated—and each thinks, I have failed on account of the other, and so grows angry at the other. But the path itself was wrong. Love cannot be sought on the plane of the body—this does not occur to them.
In this race for unity, the one we love we want to possess; we want to become complete masters of the other. Lest our proprietorship be less, lest possession be less and unity thereby be less; therefore lovers want to be each other’s masters. They want to tighten the fist fully. They want to build a wall completely, lest the beloved go far away, turn aside, set off on another path, get involved in someone else’s love. So lovers try to possess one another, to own one another.
They do not know that love is never an owner. The more one tries to own, the greater the gap grows, the greater the distance becomes; because love is not violence—ownership is violence, ownership is enmity. Ownership is to clutch somebody’s neck in your fist. Ownership is a chain.
But love, frightened that the gap may widen, tries to come closer and closer, to secure on all sides so that the gap of love may be destroyed, the distance may vanish. Yet the more one strives to destroy the distance, the larger it grows. Failure comes to hand; sorrow, anxiety.
Then man thinks: perhaps with this person love cannot be fulfilled; let me search for another. Perhaps this person is wrong. The eyes begin to wander in the search for other lovers, but the fundamental mistake remains the same. That on the bodily plane oneness is impossible—this does not occur. It is not a question of this body or that body. On the plane of all bodies, oneness is impossible.
To this day humanity has sought unity and love on the plane of the body; therefore, an event like true love has not been able to happen in the world.
As I told you, around this effort at possession and ownership, jealousy is bound to be born.
Where there is ownership, there is jealousy. Where there is possession, there is jealousy.
Therefore around the flower of love many thorns of jealousy, many hedges rise—and if love withers in the fire of jealousy, it is no wonder. It is set to burning even before it is born; before birth it is laid on the funeral pyre.
As if a child, the moment it is born, is placed on the pyre—so love is daily placed on the pyre of jealousy. Jealousy is born wherever ownership is—where I have said ‘I’, ‘mine’, there is fear that someone else may become the owner. Jealousy begins, fear begins, anxiety begins, vigilance begins. And all of these together murder love. Love needs no guard. Love has no relation with jealousy.
Where jealousy is, love is not possible. Where love is, jealousy is not possible.
But love is not there at all. Coming to its shore, man’s boat breaks. The very boat on which we were to voyage breaks, because we began love entirely from the wrong beginning.
The first thing I want to say to you: on the plane of matter no love is possible. That is an impossibility. That is not your failure or mine; it is the impossibility for human life itself. On the plane of matter, no oneness can be attained.
When this oneness is not attained, and only anxiety and failure are seen all around, then some teachers begin to say: love itself is wrong, the very notion of love is wrong. Drop the feeling of love, become indifferent. Fill life with indifference. Cut off all roots of love from life. This is the second mistake.
Love went in a wrong direction, hence it failed. Love did not fail, the direction failed. But some people take it to mean that love has failed.
Thus arise the teachings of non-love: shrink your love, close it, do not let it go out of yourself. Outside yourself it will become bondage, attachment, clinging. Shut it inside. Do not let love flow outward. Become indifferent to life. Stop the search for love. This direction is born as a reaction—out of frustration.
Those who turn their back on love are in the same mistake as those who sought love on the plane of the body.
The direction was wrong; the search for love was not wrong. But that the direction is wrong is not seen. It is concluded instead that the search for love itself is wrong. Thus were born teachers indifferent to love, who condemned love, called love bad, called love bondage, called love sin; and advised the person to close in upon himself. But they did not see that when a person abandons the possibility of love, only the possibility of ego remains, and nothing else.
Love alone is the element that breaks and dissolves ego. Love alone is the alchemy in which ego melts and flows away.
Those who deprive themselves of love can only be egoists—only egotistical and nothing else. They will have no means left to melt and break the ego.
Love leads one outside oneself. Love is the only doorway through which we step out of ourselves and set foot on the journey to the infinite. Love connects us with the other, with the world, with life.
But those who shut down the journey of love, they break and are imprisoned only in their ‘I’, in their ego. On one side are failed lovers; on the other, sadhus and sannyasis filled with ego. Ego is the acceptance of this… As I said, love is the search to find unity with all, to become one with the total. Ego is the decision to stop seeking unity.
‘I’ am I. I will remain separate. I have become content with my own existence. I have accepted that ‘I’ am I. The drop has accepted that to meet the ocean is impossible—or that there is no need to meet. This drop that has closed in on itself also cannot attain bliss. It has shrunk, become very small, very petty.
Ego makes one petty, shriveled, very small.
Bliss is possible with the vast, not with the petty. Bliss is possible with the infinite, not with the limited.
Where there is limit, there is sorrow. Where there is no limit, there is bliss. Where there is limit, there is ending, there is death. Where there is no limit, there is the infinite, there is nectar—because where there is no limit there is no end, no death.
The egoist links himself with the petty. Considering himself separate, he stops—he refrains from melting, flowing away, dissolving, becoming one with all.
I have heard: a river was traveling toward the sea, as all rivers travel toward the sea. She was rushing toward the ocean. What pulled her?
Some hope of meeting, of becoming one; some longing to unite with the vast; to break boundaries, to shatter shores; some thirst to become one with the shoreless sea was driving the river. Rivers are running. That river also ran. Some love… just as every human consciousness runs, runs to become one with the ocean of the infinite, so that river too was running. But in between came a desert. It was vast. The river began to get lost in it. She began to run faster, to struggle—she would break through! She had split mountains, carved gorges, made her pathways. She would make her way even through this desert. But months passed, years began to pass; no path appeared. The river kept dissolving in the desert, the sand kept drinking her. No way opened. Then the river grew afraid and began to weep.
The sand of that desert said: if you will listen, remember one thing. Only those rivers can cross the desert which become one with the winds, who lose themselves and become one with the winds—who dissolve. The moment they dissolve, the winds lift them upon their shoulders and the desert is crossed. No one ever crosses by fighting the desert. It is crossed by rising above it. Many rivers have come to cross this desert; they were lost. Only those rose who lost themselves, became vapor, climbed upon the shoulders of the winds, and crossed the desert.
But the river said: I will vanish? I do not want to vanish. I want to remain.
Then the sand said: if you insist on remaining, you will vanish. And if you vanish, you may remain.
Who knows whether that river heard the desert’s sand or not. Surely she did, for rivers are not as unintelligent as men. She must have mounted upon the winds, crossed over, become a cloud, risen high, and journeyed in a new direction.
But man’s ego fights and breaks, yet will not consent to vanish. He fights and breaks, but will not agree to dissolve. The more he fights, the more he breaks, the more he is destroyed. For whom are we fighting? Against our own roots. Against whom? Our own vast form. Against whom? Our own very being. We will break, vanish, be destroyed; we will be miserable and afflicted.
Whoever avoids love—remember, love, I have said, is the longing to become one. And only he can become one who is willing to vanish. Only he who consents to dissolve can become one!
He who is not willing to dissolve opens another direction: the direction of ego. Then he becomes eager to make himself, to strengthen himself, to fortify himself, to raise harder walls around himself, to build a fortress. He engages in the journey of strengthening his ‘I’.
Lovers fail, because they seek unity on the plane of the body.
Sannyasis fail, because they decide, on the plane of the ego, to remain separate.
Is there not a third path?
It is about this third path I want to speak to you.
Ego is no path—it is the direction of sorrow, it is delusion. There is no such thing as ‘I’ within, except as a word. When all words drop and a man becomes silent, he finds there is no ‘I’ there.
Be silent sometime. Be quiet, be still—and you will see: there is no ‘I’ there. There is existence, there is being—but no ‘I’.
‘I’ is an invention of man. ‘I’ is man’s contrivance—utterly false. As false as our names. Why?
No one is born with any name. But after birth we give a name, so that others can call and address. The name has utility, usefulness, but no being, no existence. Others call one by name; but how shall I call myself? So I call myself ‘I’. ‘I’ is the name given for calling myself. And names are given for calling others.
Names are as false as the feeling of ‘I’ is false.
Yet precisely this ‘I’ we go on strengthening. ‘I’ wants moksha, ‘I’ wants Paramatma, ‘I’ wants rank, ‘I’ wants mukti, ‘I’ wants bliss, ‘I’ wants happiness. But nothing can be given to the ‘I’, because the ‘I’ is utterly false, untrue. To the untrue, nothing can be given.
‘I’ fails, and love fails as well.
And there are only two directions—one is the direction of love, the other of ego. In the world of man there are only these two paths—one of the ‘I’, one of love.
Love fails because we seek it on the plane of the body.
‘I’ fails because it is untrue.
What could the third be?
The third could be this: we find love’s right direction—and we avoid the ‘I’’s wrong direction.
Love is not a happening on the plane of the body; love is a happening on the plane of consciousness.
When we try to make love happen on the bodily plane, love becomes objective. There is a chosen object of love, toward whom we try to pour our love. From there love returns, because the object is body—visible, tangible.
But if love is to become an inner happening, if love is to become consciousness, then love does not remain objective; it becomes subjective. Then love is no longer a relationship—it is a state of the heart, a state of mind.
One morning Buddha is sitting and a man arrives. He is full of anger. He abuses Buddha a great deal, and then, filled with so much rage that words seem inadequate, he spits in Buddha’s face. Buddha wipes the spittle with his shawl and says: Friend, is there anything more you wish to say?
Buddha’s bhikshu Ananda is sitting nearby. He is filled with anger. And hearing Buddha say, Is there anything more you wish to say?—he is even more astonished. He says: What are you saying? This man spits and you ask if he has anything more to say!
Buddha says: I understand—perhaps anger has become so heavy that words seem incapable, so he said something by spitting. I have understood—he said something. Now I ask: anything more to say?
The man rises and leaves. He regrets it, cannot sleep all night. Next morning he comes seeking forgiveness. He places his head at Buddha’s feet. He raises his head and Buddha says: Is there anything more you wish to say?
The man says: Yesterday also you said the same!
Buddha says: Today too I say the same. Perhaps you want to say something. Words are not able, so by placing your head on my feet you have said it. Yesterday you said it by spitting. I ask: anything more to say?
The man says: Nothing more—I have come to ask forgiveness. I could not sleep all night. A thought arose in my mind: until now I had received your love; yesterday I spat upon you—now perhaps I will no longer receive that love.
Buddha laughs and says: Ananda, listen to the madness of this man! He says that until yesterday he received my love and that having spat yesterday, now love will not be available. So perhaps he thinks I loved him because he did not spit, and that by spitting the love will stop!
You are mad. I love because I can only love—I can do nothing else. You may spit, you may abuse, you may put your head on my feet—it makes no difference. I can only love. Within me the lamp of love has been lit. Whoever passes by me will receive love’s light. If no one passes, the lamp will go on burning in solitude. Now it has no relation with anyone. It is no longer a relationship; it has become my nature.
As long as love is a relationship with someone, you are still seeking love on the plane of the body—and it will fail.
When love becomes a lamp lit within life, within oneself—not a relationship, but a state of mind—when love is not a relationship with someone, but my love becomes my nature—then, then the event of love happens in life. Then the real coin of love comes into the hand.
Then the question is not whom to love, then the question is not why to love. Then love is causeless; then love is not for this or that—love simply is. Whoever is there, the light of the lamp will fall upon him. If it is a man, then a man; if a tree, then a tree; if an ocean, then an ocean; if the moon, then the moon; if no one, then in solitude the lamp of love will go on burning.
Love is the doorway that leads to Paramatma. But the love we know becomes only a doorway to hell. The love we know becomes a doorway to madhouses. The love we know becomes a doorway to quarrels, dualities, conflicts, violence, anger, hatred. That love is false.
The love I am speaking of becomes the path that leads to the Lord—but that love is not a relationship. That love is a state of one’s own consciousness; it has no connection with anyone—it has connection with you. In regard to this love a few things must be rightly understood, and a few memorable things must be understood as directions to awaken it.
First: as long as you think of love as a relationship, you will not be able to attain real love. That very definition is wrong. That way of looking at love is mistaken.
As long as the mother thinks, love for the son; the friend thinks, love for the friend; the wife thinks, love for the husband; the brother thinks, love for the sister—as long as anyone thinks of love in the language of relationship—love cannot be born in their life.
Not in the language of relationship; not whom to love—rather, my being loving. My being loving without cause, unrelated, twenty-four hours—my being loving. Not tied to anyone, not linked to anyone—my being loving in myself. Let love be my nature, my breath. As breath comes and goes, so my love—twenty-four hours, sleeping, waking, rising, in all conditions my life a mood of love, a loving attitude, a fragrance—like the fragrance that falls from a flower.
For whom does it fall? For those who pass by? The flower may not even know that someone will pass by. For whom? For those who will pluck it and make a garland and offer at the feet of God? For whom—tell me, for whom does the fragrance of a flower fall?
For no one. It falls from the flower’s own joy, from its blooming. The flower blooms—that is its joy. Fragrance spreads.
Light pours from a lamp—for whom? So that someone may not go astray in the dark path? So that someone may see the potholes? They may indeed be seen—that is another matter; but the lamp’s light pours for itself, from its joy, from its nature.
Let love become your nature—rising, sitting, sleeping, waking; alone, in the crowd—let it rain like a flower’s fragrance, like a lamp’s light; then love becomes prayer, then love becomes the path to Paramatma, then love joins you with the whole, with all, with the infinite.
This does not mean that love will not then become relationship. Such love will become relationship twenty-four hours, but it will not be limited by relationships. Its life-breath will come from beyond relationships, from depth. The wife will still be the wife, the husband the husband, the father the father, the mother the mother. Love will still shower on the son; but not because of the son—because of the mother’s own love. The wife’s love will flow, but not because of the husband—because of herself. The causality will be within; it will come and flow from within. It will be an inner feeling, not something pulled from outside.
Right now we all live on love that is pulled from outside; therefore that love turns into quarrel. Whatever is dragged by force becomes sorrow and pain. Whatever arises spontaneously from within is quite another matter. Then life becomes very loving—but love is not a relationship.
A seeker must remember: only when love becomes his state of consciousness can he travel on the path to the Lord, on the path of truth, and reach His temple.
First, forget the notion of love as relationship. That definition is wrong, that way of seeing love is wrong. When a wrong way is seen as wrong, then the right way can be seen. So first understand the futility of false love—that which thinks relationship is love. It will lead nowhere except to failure and anxiety.
Then the second thing: can love be born from within you? From within? Even if no one is there?
It can. Whenever love has been born, it has been born in just this way.
Within us lies the hidden seed which can sprout, but we never paid attention to it. We have struggled all life with relationship-love. We never paid attention that beyond that, there is another possibility of love, another form. We have always tried to draw oil from sand. Oil cannot be extracted from sand; trying to extract it we forgot that there were seeds from which oil could truly be drawn.
We all are trying to draw life from relationship-love. It has not come, it will not come. Time is lost, strength is lost. And where it could be drawn from—our attention never goes there.
Love is born as a state of consciousness. Whenever it is born, it is born thus. How to make it be born? How will it take birth, how will the seed break and sprout? Three things, three sutras must be remembered.
First: when you are alone, then—search within: can I be loving? When no one is there, search: can I be loving? Can I be loving in aloneness? In solitude, can my eyes be as if the beloved is present? In aloneness, in emptiness, in vacancy—can streams of love flow from my being and fill that empty space where there is no one, no object? Can love flow from me there as well? This I call prayer. I do not call those in prayer who sit in temples with folded hands.
Whoever, in solitude, succeeds in letting love flow and is attempting it—that one is in prayer, in a prayerful mood.
So sit alone and see: can I be loving? You must have tried enough to be loving among people. Now, in aloneness, search a little: can I be loving?
First sutra: in solitude, experiment with becoming loving; search, probe within. It will happen—it does happen; it can happen. There is no difficulty at all. Only because you never experimented in this direction has the thought not occurred.
In desolation too flowers bloom and spread fragrance.
In desolation, in solitude, catch the fragrance of love. Once you catch the fragrance of love in solitude, then you will realize that love is not a relationship.
Love is a state of mind, a state of consciousness.
Second thing, second sutra: experiment with love in the non-human world. Even when you lift a stone in your hand, do it as if you are loving someone. Look at a mountain as you would at your beloved. In the non-human world—this is the second. First, solitude. Second, the non-human world. Look at stones, at sand, at the sea as you would at your beloved. Let love start flowing; let the eyes be lost. Touch even a chair, lift even a plate of food as if you are touching your beloved.
Why the non-human world? Because whenever you love a human being, an answer comes from there; a relationship stands up, a connection arises. If you touch a stone, no answer will come. If you look at the ocean with love, the ocean will not answer—will not put arms around your neck and say, I love you too. No answer will come; love will remain unanswered. From that side no reply is going to arrive. You will love, and love will go on.
Because of the expectation of a reply, love does not become free; the relationship remains. I love a person; then I expect—a reply should come. When it does not come, frustration comes, sorrow comes, pain comes, anxiety comes.
The possibility of unanswered love must grow. But the first possibility of unanswered love can only be with that which is not human—it is not easy to experiment straight away with humans—with trees, with plants, with stones, with seas it can be. Therefore, send your love into whatever is in nature. There is no expectation there; you cannot wait for a reply. No reply will come; only your love will go. And for the first time you will come to know: love is not for replies.
Love is giving, not asking. Love is to give, not to get back.
The joy of love is in the giving, not in the getting.
When this second sutra becomes clear—that love is giving, not asking; that there is no expectation of answer, no need of response; we have given—and if the sea has accepted, we are grateful to the sea; if the stone has accepted, we are grateful to the stone; there is no question of an answer returning—then this second sutra clarifies within you the possibility that love is a state of consciousness. With no reply, no relationship forms.
Then the third thing—first, solitude; second, the non-human world; third: unrelated humanity.
Not those with whom you are related, but those with whom you have no relation at all, with whom you have nothing to do—people on the road, people sitting in a train, in a bus—those with whom you have no connection, no tie—love toward them. Toward the passerby seated next to you in the bus—love toward him—the unfamiliar, the unknown, the stranger.
In the third sutra: love toward the stranger. For love toward the stranger is altogether another kind of thing. Love toward the familiar is something else.
Love toward the familiar is full of expectations, full of relationships. He did something yesterday—therefore there is love; he will do something tomorrow—therefore there is love. Profit and loss are tied behind that love; memories are tied behind it, the past is tied, the future is tied. With the stranger there is no relation of yesterday, and none of tomorrow either. Love toward him is pure love—there is no profit or loss behind it, no means, no strategy. We do not even know him; where he will be lost in the vast world tomorrow, we have no idea.
Love toward the stranger—love toward unrelated humanity—is the third sutra.
If you want to give birth within yourself to that love which I am calling a state of mind, a state of consciousness—then these three sutras…
And when you can love stones, when you can love the sea, when you can love solitude, when you can love a stranger—will you not be able to love those who are near, those who are related? You will certainly be able to love them—then it will flow naturally. With these three preparations, love for the near and dear will surely arise, and in abundance. Yet even in that love there will be a revolutionary difference. One who has loved solitude, who has loved stones, who has loved strangers—his love’s quality will change. The mother will love the son as she loves solitude, as she loves a stone—without any expectation of response. The wife will love the husband as one loves a stranger—who, if he wanders off tomorrow, will leave no pain behind. Then the husband will love the wife, the wife the husband—but the quality, the nature of that love will be transformed. There will be no expectation, no demand, no jealousy, no malice, no quarrel, no snatching and grabbing. That love becomes a simple giving; and the more this simple giving grows, the more a person’s ego is destroyed, dissolved.
Love is the death of ego.
Love is the death of ego—and where there is no ego, there we become one with the whole; there we are joined with the vast; there union with Paramatma happens. The thirst is for that union, the running is for that union, the longing is for that union. The drop has fallen from the ocean; it longs to become ocean. A grain of sand has flown into the winds; it wants to return to its shore. So too each person’s individuality longs to return to the ocean of the Lord.
The means we have used so far have all proved wrong. Either we have used false love, or we have used ego. Both means are futile.
What would right love be?—in that direction I have given three sutras.
Practice them, so that the love which is yours may be born within you; which is your nature, your very breath. Then whatever you touch, whatever you see, whatever you hear—everything becomes the beloved. And the day the whole of life becomes the beloved, that day man enters the temple of the Lord; not before. Not before! Never before!! The day the whole of life becomes the beloved, the day all news is news of Him—that day.
But it is not an event that will drop from the sky. Each one must prepare within himself the vessel, each one must open the doorway within, each one must make the inner flower bloom—then this event can happen. This is the third sutra.
Fill the mind with wonder, immerse yourself in the rasa of life, and make the soul loving. Then climb these three steps and see what happens! Infinite treasure is there for man to attain. Infinite bliss can become available. But we live in vain and are wasted.
One small story and I will complete my talk. Then we will sit for the morning meditation.
In a capital city a beggar sat on the roadside and begged for twenty-five years. Then death came, and he died. All his life he wished to become an emperor. What beggar does not wish to become an emperor? He stood on roads with outstretched hands all his life. But by stretching out hands, by asking for coins, has anyone ever become an emperor? Can a beggar become an emperor by asking? The more the habit of begging grows, the greater a beggar one becomes—how will one become an emperor?
So twenty-five years earlier he was a small beggar; after twenty-five years he had become the famous beggar of the whole city—but he had not become an emperor. Then death came. Death does not worry—she comes to emperors and to beggars alike. And perhaps the truth is that emperors are but bigger beggars, beggars are just smaller emperors. What else is the difference?
The beggar died. The townspeople had his body lifted and thrown away. Then they felt that for twenty-five years he had sat in one place begging. The whole place had become filthy. He had spread rags and tatters, tins and pots. They had all that thrown away. Then someone thought: for twenty-five years he soiled the very ground; let us dig up some earth and clean the soil a little.
This is how everyone behaves with the dead—not only with beggars. The same happens even with those we call beloved.
They dug and turned the soil. As they digged, the town was astonished! A crowd gathered; the whole city assembled. In the very spot where the beggar sat were buried great treasures. All began to say: what a madman! He died mad, begging! Under the very ground he sat upon, great pots were buried, filled with precious jewels and diamonds, with gold coins! He could have been an emperor, but he never dug the ground on which he sat! He stretched his hand toward those who themselves were beggars, who were themselves begging from others. They must not have dug their ground either. He did not dig his. Then the townspeople said: he was very unfortunate.
I too went to that town. I too stood in that crowd. I said to the people: leave aside that unfortunate one. Run to your homes—dig your own ground! Perhaps there is a treasure there? I do not know if those villagers heard me or not. I say the same to you: dig your own ground—dig where you stand. I say: there is always treasure there!
But we are all beggars, asking somewhere or other. Great treasures of love are within, yet we ask others: give us love! The wife asks the husband, the friend asks the friend: give us love! Those who do not have it themselves are asking others to give them love! We ask them! Beggars beg from beggars! Therefore the world has become so ugly. But as for one’s own ground—where one stands—no one cares to dig.
How it can be dug, I have said a little. Dig there; there is great treasure. Digging the treasure of love, one day a man reaches the treasure of Paramatma. And there was never any other path, nor is there, nor can there be.
This completes the talk on the third sutra.
Now we shall all sit for the morning meditation.
Before we sit for the morning meditation, one more thing. From three-thirty to four-thirty in the afternoon, for three days we have talked through words. I have said something to you; some may have heard, some may not; some may have understood upon hearing, some may not have understood even after hearing. Words have their limits, their strength. Words are unable to convey what is seen, what is experienced. Only hints can be given. Hints may fail.
So this afternoon we shall speak for a while without words. This afternoon we shall sit for a little silence communication—for a little silent communion. At three-thirty I shall come and sit here. You too will quietly come and sit. For an hour there will be no talk. We shall simply sit quietly. No conversation will happen.
In this way I shall speak—if you are ready, perhaps something will be heard by you, something will be known. But there will be no talk through words. For one hour we shall sit quietly here. As it pleases you, sit. If someone wishes to lie down, lie down; if someone wants to lean against a tree, lean. If you wish to keep eyes closed, keep them closed; if open, keep them open. Only one thing: there will be no talking. No talk among yourselves. No talk with me. I will sit silently near you. For an hour let us see—perhaps in silence something may be heard, some communion may happen.
All the real ties of life happen in silence.
Words divide, silence unites.
So we shall try this here… Today is the last day, we part today; therefore we shall sit an hour in silence—for a silent communion.
A little preparation is needed for silence. So we will arrive here at three-thirty. From two-thirty onward begin a little preparation there. From two-thirty begin to grow a little quiet, because thought has a momentum. If we set a wheel spinning, even after we withdraw the hand it keeps spinning for fifteen or twenty minutes. From two-thirty, relax and drop talking, so that by three-thirty a little silence may arrive. Prepare a little for this.
It will be good if you bathe and come—at three-thirty when you arrive here; put on fresh clothes, so a movement into a wholly new direction can happen. From there, come without talking on the way. Do not talk here either. Just understand that you have come alone. Do not bother about who is there and who is not. Sit quietly. I too will come and sit here at three-thirty. We will sit silently for an hour.
If tears come to someone, let them flow. If laughter comes, let it arise. Whatever emotion comes, allow it to flow—do not hinder, do not block. If someone feels like it, come and sit near me for a couple of moments, then quietly get up and leave. If someone feels it, surely come—do not hold back. But sit near me only two minutes, not more, so another who may wish to come can come. Then sit quietly again and return. For one hour. If someone feels bored in between, quietly get up and go. Do not force yourself to sit. After one hour I will rise. Then slowly, as one feels, get up and go. We shall sit for an hour; prepare for that.
Understanding words requires less preparation. Understanding silence requires great preparation. But my effort is that slowly, slowly, those who come near me should not only understand words, they should begin to understand silence too. Because, if not today then tomorrow, the matters that are more essential cannot be said through words—they will be said through silence. So those who become capable of understanding silence—then for them the door to saying what is more profound will open.
So from two-thirty you will prepare… At three-thirty come as one goes to a temple—and there is no temple greater than silence. With that much sacredness, bathed, in fresh clothes, quietly preparing from two-thirty—so that its tune goes within. Then come here and sit quietly. Then, as it pleases you, here.
In Indonesia there is a meditation experiment called latihan. If not today, then tomorrow, I wish to bring that experiment to this land also.
In latihan, two, four, ten people sit quietly. They sit quietly. Then if someone feels like crying, he cries. If someone feels like dancing, he dances. And after an hour’s sitting of latihan, the experiences they have are beyond measure. They drop all control, completely relaxed, and whatever is to happen, happens. If hands and feet move, they move. If one feels like rising, he rises. If like sitting, he sits. If like lying down, he lies down. They leave everything at the feet of Paramatma. With an attitude of surrender at the Lord’s feet: whatever He wants to do, He will do; if not, He will not. Its results are wondrous, deep—for a revolution in life.
So in the hour this afternoon, surrender completely, with a feeling of offering: now I am not. For one hour whatever happens, happens. If tears come, do not stop them. If they flow, let them flow. Whatever happens, let it happen. And if anyone feels like coming near me for a couple of moments, then come and sit near me. Understand that I have called him. Quietly then get up and go. No words will be spoken. Arrive here at three-thirty.
Now we will sit for the morning meditation.
What you have heard till now must certainly have created a mood. Move a little apart from one another. Let no one be touching anyone. Move quietly away without talking.
All right, move apart. Sit in silence. This will be the final sitting of the morning. Who knows whether again the voice of the ocean will be heard here, whether again we will meet these trees, whether this day will come again, whether this morning will return. Therefore, in what is present, you should be wholly absorbed—attain total immersion, total joy, total love.
Leave the body loose. Let the eyes close softly. Let the eyes close gently. Leave the body relaxed. Now we enter meditation. Listen in silence to the sound of the winds, the birds’ songs, the roar of the sea…
Listen in silence. Simply keep listening… keep listening… This sunlight, these rays, these winds—all together are creating a certain wondrous occasion. Enter into it. Become one with this sunlight, with these winds.
Keep listening quietly… with listening alone the mind will become peaceful and silent… with listening the mind will become peaceful and silent… Listen… See, even the birds come to speak… Listen… For ten minutes only keep on listening. Listen… with listening the mind goes on becoming quiet… with listening the mind goes on becoming quiet… the mind will become utterly quiet… keep listening to the winds, to the birds, to the sea… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind will become utterly quiet… the rays of the sun will remain, the swaying shadows of trees will remain, the winds will remain, the roar of the sea will remain—but you, you will be utterly gone.
Keep listening… with listening something within will melt, will vanish… all will be quiet… quietly keep listening… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… the mind is becoming quiet… The winds remain; you—you are no more, you have dissolved, flowed away… the drop is lost in the sea… the mind has become quiet… keep listening… keep listening… keep listening…
Let go of yourself… let go completely… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become utterly quiet… the winds remain, the sun’s rays remain, the roar of the sea remains—you have dissolved… let yourself go, dissolve…
The mind has become utterly quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become quiet… the mind has become utterly quiet…
Now slowly take two or four deep breaths… slowly take two or four deep breaths… then very gently open the eyes… as there is peace within, so it is without. Slowly open the eyes… what is within is also without. Slowly open the eyes… see the trees, see the rays of the sun—what is within, that is also without.
The morning sitting is complete.