Peevat Ramras Lagi Khumari #6

Prem Sangeeta, wherever there is expectation, there is the possibility of suffering. Where there is no expectation, there is no way for sorrow to arise. From those of whom you expect love and not stones, even if they throw a flower, it wounds. The wound is not because of the flower—how could a poor flower hurt? The hurt is in proportion to your expectation. The greater the expectation, the deeper the wound. And from those of whom you expect nothing, even if they throw stones, there is no sorrow, no pain.

A great truth is hidden in this small saying: if you want life to be sheer joy, if you want every blow to cease being a blow, if even stones hurled at you turn into a shower of flowers, if even poison becomes nectar—there is only one way: drop expectations; live without demands. And freedom from expectation is in your own hands; no one else can give it to you. Leave aside “small” people—even those you call great still have, somewhere, some subtle thread of expectation woven in.

On the cross, at the final moment, Jesus lifted his head toward the sky and said, “Father, have you forsaken me? Have you too betrayed me? What are you showing me?” What does this utterance declare? It declares that Jesus had not yet attained enlightenment; expectation still remained. If not of the world, then of God—what difference does it make from whom the expectation is? In the last hour, even what we try to hide cannot remain hidden; the truth comes out. Secrets hoarded for a lifetime are laid bare. That the words slipped from Jesus’ lips—“Father, have you also left me?”—tells us that somewhere inside there was a hope that a miracle would happen, that flowers would rain down from the sky, that a hand of God would descend and lift him up. Somewhere, in some deep layer, there must have been a dream that the cross would be transformed into a throne. A crowd of ordinary people had gathered—one hundred thousand—to see what miracle would occur. They had heard that this man was miraculous: that he walked on water, that he turned stones into bread, that he gave sight to the blind, that he raised the dead. The supreme moment had come, and they gathered to watch. When nothing happened—when the cross stood, when no hand descended from heaven, when the earth did not split, no earthquake came, no flood, no storm, not even a leaf stirred; nature went on as always, nature made no exception—they returned disappointed. Going home, they must have said, “A day wasted. We climbed the hill under the blazing sun, we stayed hungry all day, and nothing came of it.”

Between them and Jesus there was still not yet a fundamental difference. Jesus was still expecting—if not from men, then from God—that something, something extraordinary, would happen. When nothing did, complaint burst forth. And where there is complaint, what kind of prayer can there be? Complaint is never prayer. How can complaint become prayer? Prayer is gratitude.

But Jesus was a very intelligent man. In a moment he came to his senses: “What have I said?” It had arisen from his own unconscious; it had been repressed there. Perhaps it would not have surfaced without the cross; perhaps the cross itself drew it out. The pain the cross gave, and the humiliation of being mocked before the multitude—people throwing stones, hurling rotten tomatoes, abusing him, shouting “Now show your miracle!” making every kind of jest—in that humiliation, a desire buried deep in the unconscious must have floated up. Only under such pressure was it possible. Had ordinary life gone on, perhaps Jesus would have left this world without becoming enlightened. But the cross worked a miracle. That miracle was profoundly inner; nothing happened outside—it happened within.

The miracle was this: one last desire had remained hidden; that too was seen. Had a hand descended from the heavens, it would not have been so great a miracle. Had the earth split or the sky, even that would not have been so great a miracle. Had the sun sunk at high noon—it would still not have been so great. Had Jesus ascended bodily to heaven—even that would not have equaled it. The true miracle, in my view, was that in his own unconscious the very last chain became manifest. The moment it revealed itself, the hour of awakening struck. Instantly Jesus said, “No, no—forgive me. What have I said? Who am I? Not my will—let thy will be done. Let what you wish come to pass. Let thy will be fulfilled. What will have I? I am content with thy will. Let thy kingdom come upon the earth, and let the flowers of thy will blossom.”

In that very moment Jesus became a buddha—he became awakened while hanging on the cross.

And precisely such an event occurred in the life of Al-Hallaj Mansur. People were striking him, cutting off his hands and feet, stoning him. Blood streamed from his entire body. Neither Socrates nor Jesus nor Sarmad suffered the kind of cruelty that was inflicted upon Al-Hallaj Mansur. No human being on earth had ever been treated as he was.

And, Prem Sangeeta, your proverb unfolded exactly in Mansur’s life:
“The Beloved struck me with a flower—the pain pierced me to my very core;
the people’s stones did not cause me even a speck of pain.”

While the crowd pelted stones and Mansur bled in torrents, the executioners cut off his feet, cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, tore his body limb from limb. They did not kill him straightaway; they inflicted as much torment as they could. Yet Mansur kept laughing. The same sparkle, the same radiance remained in his eyes—nothing was diminished. The same resonance of Ana’l-Haqq—“I am the Truth; I am God!”—the same Upanishadic proclamation, Aham Brahmasmi, continued. In the crowd was Mansur’s master as well, Junayd. While people hurled stones, Junayd threw a flower. He threw a flower so the crowd would not think he stood apart from them—“I too am throwing something.” Amid a hail of stones, who would notice whether he threw a flower or a rock? Junayd was serving two purposes: first, to let the crowd take it that he too opposed Mansur—“He was my disciple, but he did not listen; I had forbidden him to make this proclamation. He didn’t obey, so I too oppose him.” Thus the crowd would believe that Mansur had no support from Junayd. Second—and there was politics in this—that Mansur would also understand: “In your final hour I have come to bid you farewell—see, I am sending you off with a flower.” Politics is a double-edged sword: the crowd would be pleased—“Junayd stands with us”—and Mansur would be pleased—“My master has come to send me off with a flower.”

But Junayd was surprised to find that deceiving Mansur was not so easy. Mansur’s eyes had opened; deceiving him was impossible. His mirror had been polished; in that mirror only truth reflected plainly. Mansur burst into laughter and said, “Let the one who has thrown this flower know: the people’s stones do not hurt me as much as this flower. The people are ignorant; their stones can be understood. But let the one who threw this flower know well: this has wounded me deeply. For this flower has been thrown by one I took to be wise, one whom I believed loved me, one from whom I had never hoped—never expected—such a thing.”

Yet if even so slight an expectation remains in Mansur, then a thin thread of desire still binds him—very fine, very subtle, almost invisible, scarcely graspable. But the thread is there. Expectation brings hurt. He laughed, yes—but the laughter was on the surface; a tear glimmered in his eye. A tear welled up because Junayd threw the flower. Such a thing was not expected of Junayd; at least Junayd would understand! A knower of the scriptures, beside whom he had listened to so much wisdom—he would understand! The people are ignorant—fine, they can be forgiven—but how to forgive Junayd?

But the same thing that happened to Jesus happened to Mansur. He, too, became aware: “It is my expectation that makes the flower hurt.” In his final prayer he said, “O Lord, forgive those who threw stones; forgive the one who threw the flower; and forgive me, too, for I complained.” In that very moment Mansur also attained buddhahood.

The moment of death is a precious moment. If used rightly, death is more significant than life. Life is scattered—seventy, eighty years, spread out; death is concentrated, dense. Death has no length; it has depth. In length, one can miss. In life there are a thousand occupations; one gets entangled—understandably. But at the moment of death, nothing remains to be done; when even tomorrow is not there, what work can remain? When the next moment is gone, what can remain? The full stop has come. In that instant the whole life is gathered; consciousness becomes a single lake. For the one who makes good use of it, there is no greater benediction than death.

Prem Sangeeta, drop expectation. Expectation brings suffering. If you cultivate hope, you will harvest despair. If there is expectation, what you will receive is neglect. If you ask for happiness, you will get misery. Do not ask for happiness; do not maintain expectations; do not weave hopes. Then see—no sooner does hope drop than all hopes are fulfilled. No sooner does expectation go than all sorrow goes, and a rain of bliss begins.

Do not ask for victory—then there is no way to be defeated. Lao Tzu says: “No one can defeat me because I do not seek to win. I do not want to win—how can anyone defeat me?”

One can be defeated who asks for victory. One can be made miserable who asks for happiness. One can be insulted who asks for respect. But for the one to whom honor and insult make no difference, to whom thorns and flowers are the same, to whom life and death are equal—what pain can touch him? There remains no way to hurt him. And this is precisely the moment when one transcends the world. Call it nirvana, samadhi, buddhahood.

Bharat Bhushan, I did not disappoint you. You must have woven hopes. Those very hopes will disappoint you. I gave a sufficient resolution; that it didn’t happen for you is another matter. Because I answered everything you had asked. What you are now asking—this you never asked. You neither raised the question of ochre robes nor of the mala; neither of Ashtavakra nor of Krishnamurti. And if you go on raising new points like this, there will never be a resolution. Come, let us try again today.

You say, “I concede…”
Conceding won’t do. Conceding only brings new arguments and new doubts. Understand—don’t believe. There is resolution in understanding, not in belief. Belief is adopted merely to argue—“Let us grant it for the sake of debate.” But tucked inside such belief is the seed of fresh questions.

If you had understood what I said, none of these questions could have arisen. You have not even tried, a little, to understand.

You say, “I concede that a sannyas like yours has never been on earth before…”
Even here you only “concede”—you don’t want to affirm it. You could not say, “Right, this much is clear to me; at least on this point I am resolved.” Even a partial resolution would have been something. But even that hasn’t happened. You’ve only hypothetically conceded—“let me grant this and then raise further questions”—and the questions start all over again.

Now you ask, “These ochre robes…”
The kind of ochre my sannyasins wear—such ochre has never been worn. When my sannyas itself is different, when it is a new dimension, had you understood that, you would also have understood the distinction of the robes.

For centuries in this land the ochre robe has been the garment of escapists. I am trying to free the color ochre from the escapists. It wasn’t as if I had no choice; I could have chosen blue, yellow, green, black, or white. I chose ochre knowingly, so that the escapist tradition attached to it by name could be shattered.

That is why the Hindu sannyasi is very restless. He is in great difficulty, because the popular image associated with him is being broken by my sannyasins. Soon there will be sannyasins of mine in ochre robes numbering in the hundreds of thousands in India. Already there are two hundred thousand—but outside India their number is very large; even in India there are about fifty thousand. Soon it could be five million. Then the likes of Akhandanand and Swaroopanand will be lost in the crowd. And the rigid notion that has settled for centuries—that ochre is a symbol of escape, renunciation, running away, a negation of life—will be broken.

I am doing a kindness to the color ochre—liberating it. These ochre robes are not a conditioning; they are an attempt to break the conditioning that had grown around ochre. And when you want to break something, it is easier to break it from within rather than from the outside. By putting ochre robes on my sannyasins, giving them the very titles of sannyasis—you will find all kinds here: Swami Akhandanand, Swami Swaroopanand, Saraswati, Bharati, Giri—I have stood up every type of sannyasi. And when Swami Akhandanand walks down the road with his arm around his beloved’s neck, the guardians of Hindu culture writhe; and you say these are symbols of Hindu culture! When Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati sits in a hotel sipping tea, chatting, standing in a queue outside the cinema buying tickets—you think I am strengthening your conditioning? I am breaking it—shattering it.

Yes, my sannyasins do wear a mala with a locket, but they do not finger the beads. For centuries the function of the mala has been to sit and chant “Ram-Ram” on it. My sannyasins do no such bead-rolling. I have put the mala on them and the locket around their neck—only as a deep joke, nothing else. A satire. It is a deep joke to shatter your conditioning about sannyas till now. I have no relish for the mala nor for the locket. But how else to break the worshippers of Mahavira, Krishna, Rama, Buddha? Those who have been turning beads for centuries—how to corrupt their mala? These are not to strengthen any conditioning. And the day I see that those conditionings are broken, that day I’ll tell my sannyasins, “Now happily wear clothes of all colors; our work here is done. Why hang a weight around your neck? Make a bonfire of these lockets—the need is over.”

But it will take a little time. That day will come too, when I will have the ochre robes, the malas, the lockets—all of it—made into a bonfire. Just wait a bit. Don’t tangle yourself in useless doubts. One has to take one step at a time. Slowly, slowly one must strike at these centuries-old conditionings. I have my own ways of striking. This too is a way, a mere device. There is no conditioning here, and no Indian culture.

And you say, “The meditation and samadhi you describe—using slightly different words, from Ashtavakra to Krishnamurti all the enlightened ones have described the same; and speaking on them you too have agreed. This long lineage of enlightened ones is what I call the garland of lamps of Indian culture, in which you are the brilliantly shining lamp.”
Then will you count Rinzai, Bokuju, Baso of Japan in Indian culture or not? For with slight changes of words they too have said what Ashtavakra said, what Krishnamurti says, what I am saying. Then will you count Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus of Jerusalem in Indian culture or not? They too have said the same with minor shifts in expression. Then in Arabia—Al-Hallaj Mansur, Bahauddin, Mohammed—will you count them as Indian or not? Why count only Ashtavakra and Krishnamurti? What attachment is this? And what Indian culture is there in Krishnamurti—only that he was born in India? Nothing else. Krishnamurti says, “I am fortunate that I never read any Indian scripture—neither the Gita nor the Vedas nor the Upanishads. I am blessed to have escaped this stupidity, grateful not to have been caught in that net!”

And why do you call Ashtavakra Indian? He is not in favor of the Vedas, nor of rituals, sacrifices, worship, temple or idol. What do you find in Ashtavakra that you cannot find in Lao Tzu? So either change the definition of India—do not keep it geographical. Then the whole sky of the enlightened ones is “India.” But why call it India? Why not Japan, China, Arabia, Israel? What is this fascination with the word “India”? If India is the East, Japan is even more to the East—the land where the sun rises. By Japan’s reckoning, we are Westerners—we fall to their west. If you must pick an emblem of the East, pick Japan! But even for Japan, America is to the East. The earth is round. Who is Eastern and who Western? From here, someone is Western; from there, the same person is Eastern.

What attachment to the word “India”? What special charm in this word? They are only our attachments. The Jew’s attachment is Israel; the Muslim’s attachment is Mecca-Medina, Arabia. All these are attachments. There is nothing “Indian” in Ashtavakra, nothing “Indian” in Krishnamurti, nothing “Indian” in me. And what is in me, in Krishnamurti, in Ashtavakra—that is the same in Bahauddin, Jalaluddin, Pythagoras, Zarathustra, Jesus, Baso, Linchi, Huang-po. The element by which one recognizes life is awareness. What has awareness to do with India? Is awareness a geographical thing? One can awaken anywhere—in Tibet, in China, in India. The body is only earth; awareness can awaken in any body—white-skinned or black-skinned.

Ashtavakra’s body was crooked in eight places; hence the name Ashtavakra—“eight bends.” Have you ever seen a man crooked in eight places? He must have been like a camel. In such a body one foot would land here and the other there; one eye looking this way, the other that way.

I read of a magistrate whose two eyes looked in different directions. Three accused stood before him. He asked the first, “What is your profession?” The second answered, “Sir, I run a hotel.” The magistrate said, “I did not ask you!” Whereupon the third blurted, “I am in the cloth trade”—while the first hadn’t even been looked at!

Ashtavakra’s state must have been like that—seeing somewhere, walking somewhere, arriving somewhere else. It’s good he lived earlier; in today’s traffic he would have been crushed. One step forward, two steps sliding back.

A small child reached school late. The teacher asked, “Why so late?”
He said, “What can I do, sir? It was raining; you can see what mud there is! I would take one step forward and slide two back.”
The teacher, a mathematician, said, “If you took one step forward and slid two back, how did you ever get here?”
The boy was sharp too. “Then I started walking toward home, only then could I finally reach here!”

In a body like Ashtavakra’s, awareness awakened and the lamp was lit—then it can awaken in any body. So, Bharat Bhushan, why this attachment to “India”? What is so special in it?

So I cannot call Ashtavakra or Krishnamurti “Indian,” nor can I call this long line of enlightened ones a garland of Indian culture. They have nothing to do with geography, nor with history. To tell the truth, it is not right even to call their continuity a “tradition.” The word tradition is dangerous, misleading. Science has a tradition; religion has none.

Try to understand this truth. Usually people do the reverse. They don’t speak of a tradition in science, and they do speak of a tradition in religion; whereas the reality is the opposite. Science has a tradition. If Newton had not been born, Edison could not have been; because Edison’s discoveries rest upon Newton’s. And if Newton and Edison had not made their discoveries, Einstein could never have been. Science builds step upon step—and without the first step, how the second? Scientists form a chain. One scientist stands on another’s shoulders. So Edison can see farther than Newton, because he stands upon Newton. And Einstein farther still, because he stands upon Edison. Those who come later will see yet farther because they will stand upon Einstein.

Science has a tradition, a chain, link by link. But religion has no links. Had Ashtavakra never been, it would not have hindered the Buddha one bit. Whether Ashtavakra was or was not makes no difference to the arising of the Buddha. If, without knowing Buddha, Lao Tzu can happen, and without knowing Lao Tzu the Buddha can happen, what difference would Ashtavakra’s being or not being make? Even if the Buddha had not been, Krishnamurti could be, Ramana could be—no difference. Because religion has no tradition.

Outer discoveries depend on others. Whoever invented the bullock cart—we don’t know his name—but had he not invented it, the airplane could not have been invented. Without the bullock cart there would be no bicycle, no car, no train. And without those, how an airplane?

You may know the Wright brothers’ father ran a bicycle shop, renting out bicycles. Bicycles would break down, so in the cellar he kept a junk pile of broken parts. His two sons were young—one twenty, one twenty-two. They would sneak into that cellar and, from the broken bicycle parts, made the first airplane. Without that cellar they could not have done it, because the whole village thought them crazy—and their father too. But the father had to tend the shop; he couldn’t keep watching what they were up to in the cellar. He’d be at the shop; they would be in the cellar. He’d be asleep; they’d be in the cellar. Because of that cellar the airplane could be made. And when they finished it, they could not get it out—the plane wouldn’t fit through the cellar door. So they dismantled it, took it outside the village, reassembled and tightened it there. They told no one, because they themselves were unsure whether it would fly. After one brother stayed aloft for sixty seconds, they sent word to the village—“Now call those who called us crazy.”

But without bicycles, no airplane; without the bullock cart, no bicycle; and without the airplane, no spacecraft to the moon. All are linked. But Buddhahood has no chain, no binding. Each Buddha is his own, in his own uniqueness, incomparable. Whether someone came before or after makes no difference. Because Buddhahood happens in the present; it happens by being free of the past. Science depends on the past; without the past it cannot be.

Hence be careful: when science speaks of the present, the word is the same, but science’s “present” depends on the past. When religion speaks of the present, it has no relation with the past; religion’s present is free of the past. One word, but utterly different meanings.

There is no garland of lamps, no chain here. But your mind suffers from a universal disease—everyone’s mind does, all over the world. Each person wants to exaggerate the glory of his country; in his country’s glory he finds gratification for his own ego. That is why we talk of the glories of the past. Even if the past was rotten—and it was—we cover its stench with flowers. We sprinkle perfumes on graves. We drape beautiful silks over corpses, overlay them with silver and gold, stud them with jewels. Because if our past is glorious, we too are glorious—we are its limbs.

This is only the effort of the ego. Bharat Bhushan, be free of this ego; then you too can be Ashtavakra, you too can be Krishnamurti, you too can be Buddha. But the ego will put obstacles.

I have no enmity with anyone. What have I to do with that? But with those friends who have chosen my company, I will make every effort to break their ego. And the most important thing in that is that their ego breaks so they can live in the present. They must be freed from the past.

You say, “My request is: please do not take me as your critic.”
I have not. You have only asked questions—you have not criticized. You have been a seeker.

You say rightly, “Because I understand well that only what you are doing can bring welfare to all humankind.”
You do understand—but for now it is only on the surface. If this understanding deepens, you should join in this great work. You must yourself accept this joke of the ochre robes. You too must wear the mala. And don’t be afraid—we will give you such a name: Swami Bharatanand Bharati. A name you will remember! Don’t worry about that. If you love me, join me. But there will still be many doubts in the mind. Write again tomorrow.

There is no way without getting connected. No path without drinking. No solution without samadhi.

A song of Yog Pritam—

Take away my cleverness, give me a single goblet;
let this “I” of mine be erased—grant me that very end.
Great is the burden on my head—what will I do carrying it?
Take all my names away; give me rest.
The winds are blowing, the clouds are gathering—
everything is happening; give me desirelessness.
Thousands of flowers bloom, the stars keep shimmering—
let me too bloom silently; grant me that same message.
There is such noise and clamor, a hue and cry everywhere—
save me from it; give me our true abode.
Walking on the feet of ego, I am utterly tired—
now let Ram himself walk; give me repose.
With this very longing I stand at the door—
if there is a dawn, let it be his; let the evening be his too.
Take away my cleverness, give me a single goblet;
let this “I” of mine be erased—grant me that very end.

That’s all for today.