Piv Piv Lagi Pyas #10

There is no next step. Why are you thinking about a next step?

To think of a next step means this step is not blissful; you want another. This moment is not enough; you want the next. Today is not sufficient; you want tomorrow. Somewhere there is pain in the present; you long for the future.

The “next step” is the contemplation of a troubled mind. For the happy person, this very step is the last step. For the happy person, the path itself is the goal. If you are delighted with me, drop talking about the next step. There is no next step. The next step arises from a diseased, restless mind. When you are not happy today, you begin to think of tomorrow. To forget today’s misery you think of tomorrow, you spin hopes of tomorrow, you weave dreams of tomorrow, you become absorbed in tomorrow so that today’s pain is forgotten.

In this way you have wasted birth after birth chasing the next step. Now be kind to yourself. Do not bring up the next step. Isn’t this step enough? Isn’t this moment sufficient? What is missing? What is lacking in this very moment? Everything is complete. Only a plunge into the delight of this moment is needed.

So I tell you: there is only one step—and it is this step. There is no second step. Talk of a second is the mind’s trap.

The mind either thinks of the past, which is gone, or of the future, which has not yet come. The mind is never here and now. And this is exactly what existence is—here and now. What has passed has passed. What has not come, has not come. This small juncture, this twilight where past and present meet, where present and future meet—existence is only at this meeting point. If you can dive here, then dive. The doors of the divine are open. But if you talk of the future, you miss. Again you miss.

You say, “Life is passing moment to moment.”
No; you must have heard someone say it. If you had truly felt that life is passing moment to moment, you would begin to use the moments. You would want to absorb this moment totally. You would want to squeeze this moment, to live it the way one sucks a mango and then throws away the pit. Then would you worry about the pit—where did it go?

You remember the past because you did not suck the mango well—juice remained clinging to the seed. Otherwise, who would remember the past! Yesterday is gone. If you had lived it, the story would be over. But you didn’t live it. While it was flowing, you were thinking of today. And when today arrived, that “yesterday,” which is no longer in your hands and about which nothing can now be done, that is what you started thinking about. Is there any limit to your foolishness?

In this world only two things seem infinite: one is God and one is stupidity. They appear to have no end. The mistake you made yesterday, you are making again today. And when tomorrow becomes “today,” you will again repent—because once more some juice will be left in the pit. How long will you go on missing like this? Only today is what there is.

Jesus told his disciples, while walking along a forest path, “Consider the lilies. They do not worry about tomorrow. See how boundless their beauty is! Not even King Solomon in all his glory was so beautiful.”

You too should not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Live this very moment like the lilies. And I tell you: no other qualification is needed to live. Only this much: gather the capacity to dive into this very moment, that’s all. This is meditation, this is worship. This is what Dadu means when he says, “Sukh-surati sahajai sahajai aav”—blissful remembrance arises naturally, effortlessly. To sink into this moment is that effortless remembrance.

If you truly sink into this moment, you will be so soaked with joy that a note of gratitude to the divine will arise on its own. That is prayer. No temple is needed for prayer. What is needed is entry into the moment—a dip into the current of time within it. From there the “ah!” of wonder arises, and then it surrounds the entire horizon of your life.

No, do not even ask what the next step is. There is no next step. There is only one step. Take this very step now; tomorrow you will take this same step; the day after tomorrow too. Do not wait for tomorrow’s path. Open your heart and take it today. If today’s step is rightly taken, from this very step tomorrow’s step will emerge. From where else would it come?

Your future emerges from you. As the tree emerges from the seed, so your future arises from you. If in this moment you are blissful, the coming tomorrow will also be blissful. Drop worrying about it. Do not even bring it up. Why talk about it! Don’t waste time even in talking about it—because that much time lost leaves that much mango unsucked. Then tomorrow you will repent.

When you drink water, drink it completely. When you eat, finish it wholly. When you sleep, sleep with an open heart. When you listen, listen to your heart’s content. Do not wobble away from the moment here and there. Do not be the pendulum of the clock. Stop. That stopping is called meditation.

What is lacking in this moment—I ask you? Birds are singing; you cannot sing—because birds have no worry about the next step. Flowers are blooming; you cannot bloom—because flowers have no worry about the next step. Everything except man seems happy. Man is in melancholy. The “next step” is devouring him.

Whoever becomes free of the future becomes free of the world. Sannyas is in the present; the world is in the future.

So I do not tell you to run away from your home and hearth. I tell you, in your very home and marketplace—this very talk of running away again brings the future in between—wherever you are, learn to live the moment totally. Immediately you will find home gone, door gone, the world at a distance—you have descended into the divine.

Sannyas is not escape from the world—sannyas is finding God in the world.

You float along the stream of time without ever taking a dive. Slowly this habit of floating becomes strong. Then you will never be able to dive. You will always postpone to tomorrow. And one day tomorrow will come—and it will bring death, and nothing else. That is why man is so afraid of death. There is no other reason.

First, you do not know death—how can you be afraid? Fear arises from something that has been experienced. You have no experience of death. Nor do you remember ever having experienced it. Even if it happened, you carry no memory—how can you fear? And who can say with certainty that life after death may not be better than this? No one ever returns to report that life becomes worse after death. There is no reason for fear.

But the cause lies elsewhere. You have made a habit of postponing life to tomorrow. Death erases tomorrow. On the day death comes, after that there is no tomorrow. And your whole life you have lived dependent on tomorrow. Your life has always been a postponement. Death breaks all postponements. Death says, “I have come.” And death always comes today, never tomorrow. When death comes, it comes in this very moment. After that there is not even a single moment. Death takes only one step; it does not take two. It has no next step.

And what is true of death is true of life. Life, too, takes only one step—this moment. If you keep deferring to tomorrow, you will fear death, because death says, “Now there is no tomorrow.” And all your life you have been postponing. You have not lived. You always thought, “We will live tomorrow.”

Stop this habit. This habit is the world. This moment is everything. All eternity is hidden in this moment. The destination is concealed within this very step.

And if you understand this, what you were going out to seek, you will find within yourself. The destination is hidden in the seeker. It is found by the one who, dropping past and future, stands in the moment—for then there is nothing left to do but see oneself. No memories of the past, no imaginings of the future. Then you have the vision of yourself. That self-realization is liberation.

There is only one step. Do not ask why the next step is not clear. It isn’t there at all. How could it be clear?

The world does not cover it. If the world covered it, then no one could ever attain enlightenment while living in the world. I am sitting among you too; I have not run away to the Himalayas. No—the world does not cover it; unconsciousness does.

So if you feel that on returning the world might smother your fire, that the live coal might hide under ash—then understand this clearly: the coal has not truly ignited. Just as a coal is covered by its own ash, not by someone else’s, so your consciousness is veiled by your own stupor; no one else’s stupor can veil you. But the human mind always wants to throw responsibility onto the other.

Now, if you fall into unawareness, you blame the world. Your so‑called saints and mahatmas go on abusing the world—as if the world were responsible for corrupting them. Who corrupts whom? If you want to be corrupt, the world provides the arrangement. If you want to be free, the world provides the arrangement.

The world is only an arrangement; how you use it depends on you.

If, through my words, the fire within you seems to be burning, then somewhere a mistake is being made. It should be burning through your meditation, not through my words. My words can lead you to meditation. Meditation will ignite the ember within. But if you believe that my words are lighting your inner fire, you will get into trouble. Someone else’s words will then heap ash upon it. Then you are dependent on me. To be dependent on me means your dependence is outside you. Then, yes, the world will pile ash upon you. The error lies at the very foundation.

My words will not light your inner fire. Yes—through my words, understand meditation. Let meditation light your fire; then no one will be able to extinguish it. If ever you wish to put it out, you will have to drop meditation.

But this is my experience: one who has once tasted the juice of meditation never leaves it. Does anyone ever abandon a true relish? And if someone leaves it, understand that he never knew the relish.

People come to me. In India, millions dabble in meditation at one time or another. Rare is the life without such a moment; few are the people who never got, at least once, the craze for meditation. They come and say, “Fifteen years ago I used to meditate, then it dropped.” I ask, “Were you experiencing bliss?” They say, “Great bliss!” Even lies have their limits! Does bliss ever get dropped? So I ask, “How did it drop?” They say, “Household, work, duties.” I ask, “And do the household and work give you more bliss?” They say, “Bliss? Where, Master! It’s only suffering.”

Very surprising—what arithmetic is this? Because of suffering they gave up bliss. They left bliss for sorrow—can you find greater renouncers than these?

They never found bliss. This is false. And it may be they don’t even know they are lying. Sometimes a lie becomes so ingrained in the personality that it appears like truth. They may not even know they are lying. They are only parroting a social notion: meditation should give joy; so they had meditated; it must have given joy. And how else can they speak—are the words of the rishis and sages wrong, that meditation doesn’t yield joy? It is a fixed axiom that meditation yields joy; so they dare not doubt that.

They did not truly find joy in meditation. In this world, once someone finds joy in something, he cannot drop it. A man does not give up alcohol once he starts deriving joy from it. All the physicians keep shouting: you’ll die, you’re getting sick, diseased. He says, “All right, fine.”

Mulla Nasruddin drinks. At eighty, his ears have grown deaf; he can hardly hear. The doctor told him, “Old man, stop now; otherwise you will hear nothing at all.” Do you know what Nasruddin said? “Doctor, after turning eighty, what is left worth hearing anyway!”

A man loses his life, but he won’t leave liquor; and he leaves joy. He leaves meditation.

Such fools come to me saying, “I had reached samadhi, then it dropped.” Miraculous men! Has anyone’s samadhi ever come and gone? That would be like: he reached liberation and then returned—what to do, the world’s sorrow kept calling!

Trust only your meditation, not my words. Use my words solely to bring you into meditation. But even there the mind plays great tricks. Listening to me feels good. That feeling good need not last long. It lasts as long as you keep listening to me. It is like someone playing a veena; it feels pleasant. But what is going to happen from someone playing a veena? An hour passes sweetly in entertainment; when you reach home, you are the same as before. From the playing of a veena, the music of life is not born.

I speak to you; I play a veena; I sing a song—it feels good to you. Listening, you forget worldly worries. For a little while the marketplace is forgotten. The nuisances of shopkeeping and household are forgotten. For an hour you are absorbed in my words and it seems as if a different world has begun.

But then you will go home. I cannot keep talking to you twenty‑four hours. And if I did, even that talk would cease to be flavorful; you would grow bored of it. You would get habituated to that too.

Once it happened—there is a Jewish tale—that in Warsaw there was a Jewish rabbi. He had a very simple heart, and thus was in great trouble. There was a sizable Jewish community, many disturbances; to resolve issues, to organize, to collect money for the synagogue and worship, to build—endless hassles. He was very harassed. No sleep, only work and worry—then he had a heart attack. His doctor said, “You are too anxious here. I’ve heard that in another town in Poland a rabbi’s post has fallen vacant. It’s a small place, quiet, secluded—go there. Leave these hassles. This politics, these circles—too much is on your head. You are a straightforward man; go there.”

The rabbi said, “Then listen. When I was a student with my master, I was very troubled by this: why did God make seven hells? Wouldn’t one suffice? So I asked my master: why seven hells? My master said, ‘Look, God is very just. A person commits sin; he is thrown into the first hell. Within a month or two he gets used to that hell; then it no longer troubles him. He is thrown into the second. There, for two or four months, he again suffers in the new place; by then he gets used to it, and he is thrown into the third.’”

The doctor said, “I don’t understand why you are telling me this.”

He said, “What difference does it make? I’ve become accustomed to this hell—Warsaw’s hell—and now you are sending me to Poland’s hell. With these rascals here I have somehow formed a relationship; somehow the boat keeps moving. I am alive! Granted I had a heart attack, but in this old age, with this frailty, to go to a new hell! The same will be repeated there. Wherever there are people, there are people’s troubles; there is people’s politics.”

If I were to speak to you twenty‑four hours, you would get used to that too. Perhaps it would lull you to sleep. It would become monotonous. No, even that won’t be a solution. You will not awaken by that. It is possible you will go to sleep. Do not place too much trust in my talking. Use my talk, but do not take it to be everything.

Many people come to me saying, “Just listening to you brings enough joy—why bother with meditation!” The joy you get by listening to me depends on me, not on you. You are doing nothing in it—you are just sitting, inactive. In meditation you will have to act. Heedlessness is deep. There isn’t even the wish to do that much. You would like me to go on talking and you to go on listening—but what will that solve? Nothing can be solved that way.

Remember: if my talking makes you feel the fire has been lit, it is a false fire. Does a real fire ever get lit by talk? Talk only tells you the arrangement: I tell you, “These are flint stones; rubbing them produces fire.” Don’t rub my words. They won’t ignite it. Speaking is like a formula. Someone says, “Water is H2O.” Now don’t write H2O on a slip of paper and swallow it—that won’t quench your thirst.

Mulla Nasruddin was examining his son. He asked many questions; the boy couldn’t answer a one. Finally he said, “All right, one last chemistry question—what does HNO3 mean?” The boy scratched his head, “It’s right on the tip of my tongue, Papa.” Nasruddin said, “Idiot! Spit it out quickly. It’s nitric acid—you’ll die.”

No one dies from a formula! Nor does anyone live. Don’t imagine that from my words the fire is lit. At most, it will burn in the intellect, not in the heart. It will be only of words. How far will that take you? Do you think you can cross over in a boat of words? A boat of words is a paper boat. However much it may look like a boat, it isn’t a boat.

Yes, by looking at a paper boat you can make a real boat. Travel in that. The paper boat is a model. If you understand, by looking at it you can build a real boat. That real boat will be meditation.

Words are only pointers. The real boat is meditation. And the fire kindled by that—no world will ever be able to extinguish.

First, once you have surrendered, why would you keep accounts of what will be attained and what will not? Leave that too to him. If you are keeping the accounts, then surrender has not happened.

And whenever you surrender, it will come from an incomplete person. There will be some lack in it. For if you were already complete, what need would there be to surrender? You are incomplete—there are flaws, fear, anxiety, sorrow, lust—everything. You will do it in the midst of all this. You are not saying to God, “Accept me: look, I am utterly free of desire; look, there is no craving left in me; look, no fear remains—I have attained fearlessness!”

No—the one who surrenders says, “See, in me is all the world’s desire. See, I am filled with attachment, filled with greed; I have no worthiness at all. If you do not accept me, I will not complain, for naturally I have no eligibility. If you accept me, that is grace; it is not my worthiness, not my merit, not my claim. There is fear, and this surrender is half-and-half: even in this my whole heart is not there. I want to do it and I also do not want to do it. This is my condition. Accept this diseased state of my mind.”

Surrender is not a claim to merit! Surrender is of your suchness—as you are, good and bad, auspicious and inauspicious, just so you lay yourself at the Lord’s feet. Surrender means: I have tried every effort to change myself—nothing happens. I have looked at all the remedies, and I find myself without remedy. I have leapt in every direction and arrived nowhere. I have failed on every side.

Surrender means the state of being helpless, without resources, without support. Then you are not claiming any worthiness! If the Lord accepts, you are blessed; if he rejects, you will know it is perfectly natural: I am not worthy, there is no need to accept me.

And if you think, “I will first make myself perfect and then surrender,” then what is the need of surrender? Then you are already complete without him. You have not understood the meaning of surrender. Surrender means: as I am, just so I place myself at your feet, without any claim.

And if you lay yourself utterly bare, naked, hiding nothing, exposing your entire condition, then you are accepted. For acceptance means simply this: one has abandoned his own devices and placed the whole reins in God’s hands.

Ramakrishna used to say: a boat can move in two ways—by oars or by sail. The unknowing row with oars; the wise use a sail. The wise open the sail and sit; the wind carries them. The unknowing must ply the oars—needlessly laboring.

The divine is also found in two ways: by resolve (sankalpa) and by surrender. To attain by resolve is to row with oars. And even if a river can be crossed thus, this is an immense ocean of becoming. To cross it by rowing is very difficult. The chance of drowning is greater than of crossing. The means of arriving are fewer; the chance of being finished is greater.

With a sail—you unfurl it. You watch the wind’s direction and open the sail. All that is needed is the art of sensing the wind. Then, once the sail is up, the boat moves; there is no need to row. But this requires great intelligence, discernment—to know which way the winds are blowing; that is enough. Meditation will give you such intelligence that you will recognize which way the wind is blowing, and when. Then you will wait on the shore while the wind is contrary; when the wind becomes favorable, you let the sail go—you set out on the journey.

Surrender is an art. And in the surrendered heart there is no aspiration to be perfect. So do not think, “I am still weak”—were you not weak, what need would there be to surrender? Do not think, “I am still afraid”—were you not afraid, what need would there be to surrender? Fearlessness is attained only when God is attained. Before that you will remain afraid. How could anyone become fearless without finding God? And it is fortunate that without finding God no one attains fearlessness—otherwise the need to go to God would end.

You will remain incomplete—that is in your favor. You become whole only upon meeting him. You are a small stream; when you meet the ocean, only then does the vastness begin. But this river can travel to the vast, can surrender, can fall into the sea.

If you exercise too much cleverness—if even a river becomes clever—it will become a pond, not remain a river. For in a pond everything remains with itself; nothing goes anywhere, nothing is lost. But that is precisely the great trouble of the world: here, those who lose, gain; and those who hoard, perish.

A pond keeps rotting; a river is new each day. Even by losing itself, where does the river end? Each day the clouds fill it again. The more you surrender, the more you will receive—what comes to you to surrender. The more you pour yourself out, the more you will find yourself filled. And the more you save yourself, the more you will find that you have gone stale. The miserly soul decays.

Pour yourself out. And do not worry, “Only when I am very beautiful shall I go before him”—then you will never be able to go. You will never meet the measure of his beauty. Drop the talk of worthiness. Be helpless. The little child—thirsty, hungry—cries and wails; the mother comes running. If that little child begins to think, “Do I have the qualifications, the merit? Am I worthy to be given milk, to be saved, to be given life?”—he will fall into trouble.

I have heard a story: Krishna is seated for a meal in heaven, in Vaikuntha. Rukmini has set the plate and sits fanning him. He has taken only one or two morsels when suddenly he stands up and runs toward the door. Rukmini asks, “Where are you going? What has happened?” But he is in such haste that with his hand he signals, “On my return...” Yet at the door he hesitates, pauses a moment, comes back and sits down to eat.

Rukmini says, “The matter is bewildering; I cannot understand it. Why did you run? What was the reason? At the door there was no cause; then why did you return? You went in such a hurry?”

Krishna says, “One of my lovers is passing along a capital city’s road. People are stoning him—he is bloodied; streams of blood are flowing from his head. Yet he is cheerful, ecstatic. And he says, ‘What have I to worry about? The one who gave this body will take care of it. Who am I to interfere? You know, you do your work! It is your hands there that throw the stones; it is your head here that is breaking—as you wish!’ He stands laughing while people throw stones. So I had to run. When someone’s surrender is like that, one must run. I was going to save him.”

Rukmini says, “Then why did you return? What happened then?”

He says, “By the time I reached the door, his mood had changed. He himself had picked up a stone and was answering back. I was no longer needed; he had become capable himself.”

Surrender means: you are helpless, incapable. You leave your boat in his hands, wherever he may take it. Then you do not even ask, “Where are you taking me?”—for to ask that means surrender has not happened. You do not ask, “What will be the result?” In surrender all is left. If he sinks you, that sinking is itself arriving at the shore. If he obliterates you, that obliteration is good fortune. The reins are placed in his hands; you need not keep your own accounts.

Resolve is the effort of a miserly mind. Surrender is a wholly different matter. Resolve stands near the ego. And now and then a rare person has reached by resolve. One can arrive by resolve too; but in the last moment he must drop his immense ego—and that is very difficult.

Once in a while some Mahavira succeeds; that is why I say it is right to call Mahavira by that name—for hardly anyone ever succeeds on that journey. It is very difficult. Difficult because first you build up the ego, refine it; you take everything into your own hands. And in the final moment, when all has ripened, when the ego has been fashioned in its subtlest form, hard as a diamond—so that it can cut through all things and nothing can cut through it—at that very moment you must surrender. At that moment you have to let go into existence. Only a very, very wise man can do that. Most will be lost in the middle; they will pitch their tents around their egos and will not reach God.

By surrender many have arrived. It is the simple means; it is the natural mood. Mira reaches dancing; Chaitanya reaches singing. And for anyone who would walk that path, it is right to drop the ego at the outset. First building it and then dropping it—this will be troublesome.

It has to be dropped in any case, for without dropping the ego no one ever attains God. The man of resolve drops it at the end; the man of surrender drops it from the beginning. It is in your hands. But whatever you do, do it totally.

If you are to go by resolve, then drop all talk of God. That is why Mahavira said, “There is no God”—that is the right statement for resolve. Because if he is, then resolve cannot proceed; he will intervene and stand before you, and power will be in his hands. Therefore Mahavira said, “There is no God—your resolve itself is God.”

The devotee says, “Only you are; we are not.” The seeker says, “Only I am; you are not.” Make it clear in your mind. If you would go by resolve, then drop talk of God; then there is no devotion and no God—there is only you, alone, and only your intelligence; do whatever you have to do. It is a long journey. Now and then someone has arrived; I do not say none have. But out of a hundred who set out, one arrives; ninety-nine go astray. The path is tempestuous. But those who relish traveling a tumultuous road—welcome. On the path of surrender, if a hundred set out, scarcely one goes astray; ninety-nine arrive. Because it is a matter of simple feeling; it is a matter of love. There is not much contrivance, not much discipline. It is simply this: you place your whole self at God’s feet.

Think it over. If you are to place it, place it whole—then keep nothing back. If you are to save, then please save the whole—then place nothing. If you wobble between the two, you will be mounted on two boats; you will reach nowhere; you will live in great confusion.

And this is exactly the condition I see with most people: they do not want to drop the ego, so they preserve it—and they also want to arrive for free, without having to do anything. So they go and bow their heads. Go stand in the temples and watch closely: you will find the man’s skull bending, and his ego standing upright.

If someday photography becomes a little more skillful—which it will, for in Russia a photographer, Kirlian, is doing remarkable experiments—through it the aura of your personality, the luminous field of your being, can be photographed. Sooner or later, in every temple a camera could be installed to check whether a person has truly bowed: for the body will bend, but the aura of your personality will remain standing if the ego has not bowed. Your inner image will remain erect; your real light-body will remain upright—only this clay body will bow.

And what is the point of bowing this? Death will bow it and mix it with dust. By bending this, you are not bestowing any favor on anyone. If there is to be bowing, let the inner disposition bow. If you will not bow, there is no harm; that too is a path—people have reached by it as well. But it should be clear.

If you are to bow, bow utterly. If you are to stand stiff, stand utterly stiff. Do not compromise. Compromise is costly.

One who has not gone beyond death only thinks he is unafraid; in truth he is afraid. He deceives himself that he is fearless. Only by going beyond death, by passing through it, by the very experience of death and by recognizing the deathless, does one attain fearlessness.

But everyone practices this self-deception, “I am not afraid.” He erects such a shell: “I do not fear.” When you come to me and I begin to peel off your layers and your garments start falling away, what you have hidden within begins to be revealed.

No, my words do not create fear in you; through my words the fear that has always been within you becomes visible to you. And you feel like running away because by running you can again put on your clothes, dress yourself up, and stand there. Then you will forget your reality once more.

To know truth is painful, because you have bound many untruths around yourself. To know truth is painful because you have made your self-image entirely false, fabricated.

Your condition is like that of a woman who has her face plastered with powder and is afraid to go out in the rain. It rains, the powder runs; all her beauty goes—because it was painted on. So women carry a handbag with all the make-up in it. Who can rely on the rain! Who can rely on the sun! If the sun comes out, sweat runs, and lines appear on the beauty. Then quickly she takes out her mirror and paints herself again, sets it right.

But one whose beauty is his own—why would he fear the rain? The rain will enhance his beauty. Any dust that has settled will be washed away, and pristine beauty will be revealed.

Your beauty is stale, borrowed; my discourse will break it. When it breaks you will feel, “How ugly I am.” From appearing ugly, fear arises. You will feel, “Run away! Where have we come? We came seeking to be more beautiful, and here we are becoming ugly.” You are not becoming ugly—you are.

Fear is hidden within you. You have somehow propped yourself up. You have forgotten what your reality is. You are lost in your garments. Slowly you have come to believe that your garments are you. And when I take off your garments—which must be taken off, because until you know your own truth there is no possibility of becoming acquainted with life—do not panic. Whatever is there, know it.

This happens every day. People come to me and say, “This is very strange. We came in search of peace, and by meditating our restlessness increases.”

Meditation does not increase restlessness; meditation increases your awareness. As awareness grows, the restlessness that you could never see before starts becoming visible.

It is like a man asleep in his house, dead drunk, while rubbish keeps accumulating. Spiders weave webs, snakes and scorpions make their homes—he has no idea; he is blissfully sprawled. Everything seems clean. Then awareness returns: sleep breaks, the intoxication wears off, he looks around. He may even say, “This awareness is a very bad thing. In unconsciousness everything was neat and clean; in awareness everything becomes filthy.”

You are unconscious within. For lifetimes, how many spiders’ webs have gathered there—you do not know. So much rubbish has piled up there. You bathe the body outwardly, but you do not even know of the inner cleansing. The name of that bath is meditation. When you awaken a little within, many things will begin to be seen.

You came to me seeking peace, but first you must become acquainted with your unrest. For becoming acquainted with unrest is the fundamental step toward peace. To know your illness exactly is half the diagnosis and half the cure. And once the diagnosis is precise—what the illness is—the treatment has already happened. Treatment is secondary; it is not a great matter.

That is why, if you go to a doctor who diagnoses, his fee will be high. A prescription any pharmacist can give; that is not a big deal. Once it is known for certain what the illness is, everything is resolved. The real question is to know for certain what the illness is. If that is not known, then though a pharmacist’s shop holds millions of medicines, they are of no use.

I gradually, gradually acquaint you with your illness. Fear is there, restlessness is there, anger, greed, attachment—these all surround you. And you are sitting, suppressing them. Their wildfire is burning beneath you. You must be shown that. Only when you see it fully will you leap out of it.

If peace is your aim, you must know your unrest. If you would attain fearlessness, you must become acquainted with fear. If you would be healthy, there is only one way: become thoroughly acquainted with the illness.

And the wonder is that with bodily illness, even after recognizing it, separate treatment is needed; but the mind’s illness is such that recognition itself is the treatment. The person who has truly awakened toward his mind—the cure has happened. There diagnosis and medicine are not two; there diagnosis itself is the medicine.

From your side it is a long dream, not from mine. For you it is nothing more than a dream, because you are asleep. Only when you wake will the dream break.
If you look at me awake, you will find something entirely different. If, asleep, you look at me, you find something else. If you listen to me awake, you will hear something else. Half-asleep you listen to me, and you hear something else. Your sleep stands in between like a curtain, and it distorts everything.
For you it is a dream. But if you want to, if you want to awaken, it can be the truth for you too.
Buddha told stories of his past lives. He said that when I was ignorant, I went to an enlightened man. I bowed and touched his feet. I had not even stood up when I was filled with astonishment, because he too bent and touched my feet. I became flustered and afraid: this is a sin—that an enlightened one should touch the feet of an ignorant man like me!
I said to him, Wait, wait! What are you doing? I could not stop him, and I asked, I am ignorant; I touch your feet—this is understandable. But you, the supremely enlightened—why do you touch my feet?
That enlightened one said to me, This is your mistake. It is your dream that makes you think you are ignorant. The day my dream broke for me, that very day everyone’s dream broke for me. I see within you the light that ignorance has never veiled. You are caught in delusion. But your delusion is yours, not mine. Some day you will awaken; then your delusion will also shatter. Then you will understand why I touched your feet.
Certainly, what I am saying to you is, for you, a dream—a sweet dream. It is pleasant, agreeable to hear; but it can become an awakening. That is why I am speaking—not so that you can go on with a pleasant dream, but so that if the sound reaches into your sleep, you wake up.
I am speaking the way an alarm clock speaks. It is not there to give you a dream in your sleep. Have you noticed? You have to get up at five; you set the alarm and go to sleep. Two things are possible. One is that you hear the alarm clock and wake up. The other is that you weave a dream around the alarm as well, and, turning over, go back to sleep.
Very often, when the alarm rings you see a dream that you are sitting in a temple and a bell is ringing. You have put a dream between the alarm clock and yourself. Now there is no danger. You have invalidated the alarm clock. There is no fear now; it will not be able to wake you. You have absorbed it into your dream. Now you are dreaming that a temple bell is ringing, people are worshipping. As long as the alarm continues to ring, you will keep dreaming. Then the clock stops, the dream stops. You turn over and fall into deep sleep. You have rendered the clock useless.
I am speaking just like that alarm clock. From my side the effort is only that you wake up. From your side, the greater likelihood is that you will dream, that you will include me too in your dream, that you will incorporate my words into your dream, and, turning over, go back to sleep.
But if even one out of a hundred awakens, the effort is worthwhile.
The last question:

Dadu would not have been Dadu had he not said it before. “Piv, piv laagi pyaas”—that very refrain is what made Dadu into Dadu. This very repetition, this very thirst, this very calling is what carried him to the Divine. Dadu said it first; that is how he became Dadu. Had he not said it before, Dadu would never have been born. We only heard of it afterward, when Dadu had become Dadu.

Understand this a little. Dadu had already said it; we heard it later. Dadu lived a life of thirst—only then did the moment of fulfillment arrive. He wept—only then came contentment. But we did not hear when Dadu was weeping. That weeping was private, in solitude. It was his own. We heard only when Dadu had become Dadu—when his lighthouse appeared.

What I am telling you now, I had said to myself many times long before my own being came to fruition. I did not say it to you then; you could not have heard it then. Even today, if you hear it, it is much. How would you have heard it in those days! But I said it to myself again and again, and only then did the hour come when awakening happened. And now I can say it to you.

Let the refrain grow, the thirst grow—the ocean is not far. The only distance is the lack of thirst. Let this refrain descend into your heart—“Piv, piv laagi pyaas”—and the goal is not far. The goal is right before your eyes. You have only to open your eyes a little. Open them just a little and see. There is no distance that requires a journey. You are standing in the very sanctuary—but you are standing there drunk.

I have heard: One night a drunkard came home. He had drunk too much. He couldn’t recognize which house was his. Out of old habit his feet brought him there, but standing at the door he began to wonder, “Is this my house?” He couldn’t recall ever having seen it. He started pounding on the door. His mother came out. He fell at her feet and said, “Do this, please—get me to my home. My mother must be waiting for me.” That mother tried to explain, “Foolish one, I am your mother.” He said, “Explaining won’t help; don’t entangle me in talk. Just take me to my house. My old mother must be waiting for me.”

The neighbors gathered. People started laughing, amazed. They tried to explain: “This is your house.” The more they explained, the more the drunk insisted, “If this really were my house, why would anyone need to explain? I would know it myself. Don’t I know my own home? Do you take me for such a fool? Am I mad?”

Another drunk, who had been listening to all this, yoked his bullock cart and pulled up. “Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you to your house.” His mother clutched his feet: “Don’t sit in his cart, or you’ll end up far from home. He is drunk too.” But who listens!

You are standing right in front of your home. So when a guru tells you, “Sit in our cart; we’ll take you on a pilgrimage,” be careful how you sit. You’ll be carried far from home. They too are drunk.

I am not taking you on any journey. I am saying to you: wake up and see. Where you stand is your home. This existence is your home. God surrounds you on all sides. None other surrounds you. It is his winds, his sky, his earth—and you are his. All of it is his play.

But let thirst be born; out of that very thirst will arise the ache, the pain. From that pain, alertness will come. From that alertness, awareness will awaken. Let this melody resound in your heart—“Piv, piv laagi pyaas!”

Enough for today.