Piv Piv Lagi Pyas #8

Words are not of much value. Even if the words are not heard, it is all right; even if they are heard, there is no real gain. If you look toward me, it becomes meditation. If the meditation becomes right, if the wire is connected, the words will stop being heard—because to hear words, a restless mind is needed, an agitated, unquiet mind.

In that moment—when the connection is made—the soundless will begin to be heard; that is the real satsang. It is not of much value that you hear what I say. If you can hear what I am, only then does it have value. Speaking is just a pretext; words are only devices. The arrival is into the soundless; the awakening is in silence.

If this is happening, then drop all concern for words; just keep looking at me. Let the flame be joined. Forget that I am speaking. There is no need to remember anything. By collecting words you will not gain anything. If you hear in the soundless—if you hear the soundless—you have gained all. Only in silence can you be connected with me. With speaking, a split is created. Through speaking there is never true communion; in speaking, dispute is already hidden. In the void alone is communion.

So it is going well. Do not take needless worry about it—let it happen. Let yourself go into it completely. But if you create trouble, if you worry, “The words are not heard, the void takes hold,” and you try to listen by stopping the seeing—then restlessness will be felt. Restlessness will be felt because you are leaving the essential and grasping the nonessential; inwardly consciousness will be disturbed. Leaving diamonds and picking up pebbles—restlessness is natural. What is happening is just right.

Satsang means only this: to sit near the master in silence.

I speak only to bring you to this place, so that one day you may become capable of sitting in silence. Speaking is not the goal. I have nothing to explain to you; in truth, there is nothing in the world that can be explained. All are words—mere words. However beautifully you arrange them, they are rainbows on bubbles of water—here now, gone the next moment. Do not take them as wealth. The treasure is within you. It will be seen only in emptiness, when all the waves of the mind have ceased.

So look. Look to your heart’s content. That is why when we go to the guru we call that event darshan. Darshan means: we will see the guru. We do not call it hearing. Not “We will listen to the guru,” but “We will see.” We will see to our heart’s content. We will be filled to the brim—let there be a flood of seeing.

In that very seeing the spark will be kindled—what Dadu calls the flame—the flame will awaken. The master’s racing fire will call to the fire buried beneath your ashes. The master’s fire rising upward will become the guidance for your fire to rise as well. Depth will call to depth; the inner calls to the inner.

Words become walls—there will be a wall of words. You will hear me, you will understand me, and still you will go on missing me. It is only because you cannot yet understand the void that I must speak. The day you begin to understand the void, the whole arrangement of words is futile.

And if it is happening that as you look at me, listening stops—blessed are you. Feel graced. Give thanks to God. There is no need to listen. Look—look to your heart’s content. Let the energy of darshan flow.

In that very moment you will be linked with the master. Your ash will fall away. The fire is hidden within you too; only ash has accumulated. If you collect my words, what will happen? More ash will gather. As it is, you are already quite knowledgeable; a collection of my words will only make you more learned.

And remember, attaining God is not a matter of quantity—how much you know. Attaining God is a matter of a transformation in quality. Whether you know a hundred facts, a thousand, or millions—it makes no difference. If the very quality of your being changes, then you know God. No one has ever known through erudition.

I have heard that one day at the gates of heaven two simple monks—simple-hearted—knocked, and just then a pundit also knocked. The door opened. For the pundit a great welcome ceremony was arranged: velvet carpets were laid, music played, flowers were showered. For the two monks there was no special reception. It seemed to them they were being slighted; they were a little surprised.

When the ceremony was over they asked the gatekeeper, “We do not understand this. We had always heard that saintliness is honored there. Here too saintliness seems to have no honor. We had heard that the simple are accepted; here too there seems to be no acceptance for the simple. We had heard the words of Jesus—that those who are poor within will be enriched by God. We have come poor, and yet it seems we are neglected.”

The gatekeeper said, “Do not worry needlessly. Monks like you come here every day; this pundit has come for the first time. It is proper to welcome him. Simple-hearted people come to heaven every day—this is their home. When someone comes to his own house, is a grand reception needed? But this pundit has come for the first time—such a thing happens once in centuries. His welcome is appropriate. Do not trouble yourselves.”

However much of a pundit you become, you will not arrive by that. Not by listening, not by stuffing the memory, but by the opening of the eyes. That is why in India we have called the science of truth darshan-shastra. The whole world calls it philosophy by other names; we have called it darshan—seeing—because we have known that truth is not attained by mere thinking and reasoning; it is attained by the opening of the eyes. Therefore we have called the knowers drashta—seers. We have not called them thinkers or philosophers; we have called them seers. They have seen the truth.

So if you look at me with full eyes, nothing could be more auspicious. If you can do only that, it is enough—satsang has happened. Then what I am saying may well not reach within you—there is no need—it is I who will begin to reach within you. Do not pay much attention to my words; listen to my silence. There is the music of truth.

It is not right to say “they help.” Help happens. The doer does not remain. It is not right to say the river quenches your thirst; the river simply flows. If you cup your hands and drink, the thirst is quenched. If the river itself quenched thirst, you would not need to drink; the river would make the effort. But the river moves on, inactive. The river goes on being itself; you can stand on the bank for lifetimes and still remain thirsty. Bend down, fill your cupped hands, drink, and the thirst will be gone.

The enlightened do not help you either before merging into the Whole or after merging into the Whole. Because only when the sense of “doership” disappears does knowledge arise. As long as the sense of doership is there, one is not enlightened but ignorant.

I am not helping you, nor serving you. I cannot do it. I am simply here. Fill your hands. If there is room in your bowl, fill it. If there is space in your heart, receive it. If your throat is parched, drink. The enlightened one’s mere presence—an inactive presence—is enough. There is no bustle of doing there, no frenzy of not-doing either.

Hence the enlightened one is not anxious. If you do not listen to him, he is not worried. If you do not do what he says, he is not upset. If a doer is hiding inside, there will be upset. If you do not heed him, he will insist, he will force, he will go on a fast: “Obey me, or I will starve, I will kill myself if you don’t obey…”

The word satyagraha is completely wrong. Truth never insists. All insistence belongs to untruth. Insistence as such is untruth. Truth simply is; what insistence can it have? Truth is utterly without insistence. Truth is present; whoever wants may take it. Thanks to the one who takes. Whoever does not want to take, let him not take—thanks to him too. Truth has no concern whether it is taken or not, whether anything happens or not.

Truth is very nonpartisan. There is no lack of compassion, but compassion is inactive. The river flows on, carrying infinite waters, but it is not an aggressor. It attacks no one’s throat. And if someone decides to remain thirsty, that is his freedom. He has the right to remain thirsty.

The world would be very evil—would become a great slavery—if you did not even have the right to remain thirsty. It would be utter bondage if you did not even have the right to be miserable. If you could be made happy by compulsion, then liberation would be impossible. You are free: if you wish to be miserable, be miserable. You are free: if you wish to be happy, be happy. Open your eyes if you will; keep them closed if you will. The sun has nothing to do with it. If you open them, the sun stands at the door. If you do not open them, the sun does not feel insulted.

Whether in life or after the body has dropped, knowing is an inactive presence.

Lao Tzu has called this wu-wei. Wu-wei means: doing without doing. This is the most mysterious formula in the world. The enlightened does not do—he is. The enlightened one acts without acting. And Lao Tzu says: what cannot be achieved by doing, happens without doing. Do not, even by mistake, try to impose good on anyone; otherwise you yourself will be responsible for pushing him toward the not-good.

This happens every day. Bad children are born in good homes. A saintly father turns his son un-saintly. He tries to make him saintly, and in that very effort the son becomes un-saintly. And the father thinks, “Perhaps I did not try enough. Perhaps I didn’t try as much as I should have, that’s why the boy went astray.” The truth is exactly the opposite. If you had not tried at all, your grace would have worked. Because you tried, resistance arose.

If someone tries to change you, a stubbornness not to change arises. If someone tries to make you clean, an insistence to be dirty arises. If someone tries to lead you onto the path, wandering becomes sweet. Why? Because the ego wants freedom—at least that much freedom!

Those who know bring change without doing. Around them, transformation happens. It happens the way iron filings are drawn to a magnet. No magnet “pulls,” as such—iron filings are drawn. No magnet arranges a campaign or casts a net. A magnet has a field. It has a circumference of influence. Enter that sphere of presence and you begin to be drawn; no one is drawing you.

The enlightened one is a magnetic field. Mustering a little courage, just come near—then the rest begins to happen. That is why people are afraid to approach a knower. They find a thousand ways to avoid coming, a thousand excuses not to come, a thousand arguments in the mind to keep away. They keep convincing themselves in a thousand ways that there is no need to go.

No one is afraid to go to a scholar, because a scholar can do nothing. It is amusing: the scholar wants to do, yet cannot. And the enlightened do not want to do—and it happens.

Satsang is a great danger. You will not return untouched; you will be dyed. You will not go back uncolored; that is impossible. But do not think the enlightened one is doing anything. Though it will seem to you that much is being done—because it is happening to you—you will feel, “He is doing a lot.” Your feeling is natural for you; yet the enlightened one does nothing.

When Buddha’s last moment approached, Ananda asked, “What will become of us now? Until now you were here—our support, our trust, our hope that because you are doing, all will happen. What now?”

Buddha said, “Even when I was, I was doing nothing. It was your illusion. So do not be troubled. Even when I am not, what was happening will continue. If I had been doing anything, it would stop after my death. But I was doing nothing. Something was happening. Death has nothing to do with that; it will continue. If you know how to open your heart toward me, it will continue forever.”

As Dadu says, when the enlightened merge, their flame pervades the whole of existence. Then their flame begins to draw you. It does nothing; but suddenly, in some sensitive moment, in some receptive instant, a flame seizes you, descends into you. It was always present. The rays of all the enlightened who have ever lived are present. Toward whomever you become sensitive, that one’s ray begins to work upon you. It is not quite right to say “begins to work upon you”—rather, the work begins.

That is why it happens that a devotee of Krishna begins to see Krishna in meditation, and a devotee of Christ begins to see Christ. Both may sit in the same room, both in meditation—one sees Christ, the other Krishna. Their sensitivities are tuned to two different streams. There is the breeze of Krishna, there is the breeze of Christ; to whatever you are sensitive, that breeze begins to blow toward you. For whomever you have made a hollow in your heart, that one begins to fill it.

The influence of the enlightened remains unto eternity. It never fades—because it is not their influence; it is the influence of the Divine. If it were the enlightened person’s influence, it would fade someday. But it is the influence of the eternal Truth; it never fades.

Open just a little. Around you are waves that can lift you into the sky; that can become a boat for you and ferry you across the ocean of becoming. Hands are all around; if your hand meets them, you will find support. But those hands will not lunge to grab yours. You will have to feel for them. They are not aggressive; they are present. They are waiting. But they are not aggressive. Knowing is non-aggressive. Knowing has no insistence.

Understand this a little. Knowledge offers invitation—yes, invitation—but no insistence. No aggression. Whoever hears the invitation begins to drink from the infinite sources of the world. Whoever does not hear, the streams are right there—and he lies thirsty. You die of thirst standing on the bank, where everything was present.

But there is no doer. The doing will be yours. Buddha has said: The Buddhas only point the way; the walking is up to you.

First thing: this talk of lifetimes—you have only heard it, not known it. It is not your realization that you have been here for many, many births.
And forget lifetimes—do you even have awareness of this very birth? When you were born, do you remember anything? Nothing at all. Others tell you, “This is your mother, this is your father. You were born on such-and-such date at such-and-such time.” Astrologers issue certificates, or it’s written in the municipal corporation’s register. Beyond that, do you remember anything?
You spent nine months in the womb this very life—do you remember those nine months? Do you remember your birth? If you try to go back, at the most you might reach four years of age. Beyond that, memory dissolves. Nothing comes; it’s all hazy, dark. At best a stray fragment from around four or five may flash—and after that, a long dark night. And you speak of lifetimes!
You don’t even know this life in full. Even your own birth is not your experience; others say it happened. That too is hearsay. Your very birth is not established on your evidence but on other people’s testimony. Could anything be more unreal than a life where even your birth you don’t know? If society decided to deceive you, you might never find your real mother or father. Many times a man goes on taking as father one who is not his father.
I have heard: in the twenty-first century, a hundred years into the future, computers had been built. Whatever you asked, they answered. A man with some suspicions went and asked the computer, “What is my father doing right now?” The computer said, “He is on the seashore catching fish.” The man laughed, “Utter nonsense! I just left my father asleep in bed at home.” The computer replied, “The one you left at home is not your father. Your father is on the seashore catching fish.”
There isn’t even a firm certainty about who your father is, or your mother; and you talk of lifetimes? You have heard it, that’s all. Hearing it again and again, for so long, you have heard it so many times that you have forgotten it isn’t your knowing. In this country, talk of lifetimes has been current for ages; you have heard it so often that a groove has formed within.
Remember: go only as far as your own awareness; beyond that, untruth begins. Mahavira and Buddha say there were other births because remembrance of those births arose in them. You don’t say so. Stay within your boundary. I don’t say you should assert that they don’t exist either, because that too would be going beyond your limit. Whether they exist or not, you don’t know. Kindly stop where your memory reaches. And make an effort to deepen that remembrance—how to become aware of the chain of memory, how your life-stream can be illuminated so you can know backwards.
Silently accepting doctrines solves nothing; it creates more tangles. Now you ask, “For lifetimes we have experienced suffering.” First, the lifetimes—that’s untrue. Sometimes a Buddha or a Mahavira remembers; you do not.
Second, you say, “We have known suffering.”
That too is wrong. You come to know suffering only after it has gone. When it is there, you don’t know it. All your knowing happens only after the time has passed.
Understand this: anger comes—do you know in that very moment, “Anger has come”? No. After you have smashed someone’s head and someone has smashed yours, afterwards you sit in your room with bandages and think, “Anger came, anger is bad, very painful; I will never be angry again.” You call this “experience.” But in the very moment anger stood before you, were you conscious, did you look it straight in the eyes? Had you seen it then, these bandages would not be on your head. Had you seen it then, there would be no occasion for remorse. One who meets the moment directly never repents. In his life there is no such thing as penitence.
Have you seen anger in the moment when it stands before you? No. Then you are unconscious; drunk with anger, buried under its poison. Then whatever you do, you are not doing it; anger is doing it through you.
Yes, when anger has passed—the storm has gone, the shrubs uprooted, the roof blown off, the walls broken—then you sit and weep. Whatever you have known, have you known it in the moment, or only after the moment has passed? Try to understand this a little.
All your knowing belongs to the past. You have no connection with the present. If it connects, you attain Buddhahood. Then there is nothing to be done; there is no suffering. You come to know only when the thing is already gone. You always arrive at the station after the train has left.
A friend asked me a few days ago, “I get a recurring dream that I am going to catch a train and it leaves; what does it mean?” The meaning is clear: the train is leaving daily, every moment it is leaving. Whenever you arrive, you find the station empty. The porter tells you, “It’s gone.”
Many people see such dreams. It isn’t only one or two. Dreams of missing out are very common. They are the shadow of your reality. They are reflections telling the story of your life—that you always arrive late. When the moment is there, you are not; when you are there, the moment is gone.
Be present in the moment; only then will you know. Otherwise, what value has your knowing? Your knowing is also false. How can you know what has already passed? You cannot know it as it was; it no longer is. Only a faint trace remains.
Think of it like this: at night you dream. In the morning you wake and know that a dream occurred; but by then many fragments of the dream are already forgotten. Many details have changed. Even then you remember it only for a minute or two after waking; then that too is gone. But while the dream was on, did you know it was a dream? If you do know, the dream breaks; awakening happens. Buddhahood is nothing but awakening from this sleep. It is to catch the boat of the moment at the very point it pushes off.
You keep missing—and still you say you have known the experience of suffering. You haven’t known it; you have only heard. Buddha says: life is suffering; old age is suffering; birth is suffering; death is suffering; all is suffering. And a Buddha’s words are immensely potent; naturally, each of their words carries great gravity, dignity, power. Their words strike within you and echo—you think it is your own voice. It is as if you go into the mountains, shout, and the valleys echo—and the valleys imagine the sound is their own.
You are like those valleys. The words of the awakened echo in you. Slowly you forget that these words are not yours; they are heard. Remember, you have not known suffering either. Had you known, it would have ceased. If the lamp of knowing is lit and suffering remains, it is like lighting the house and the darkness refusing to go.
Does it ever happen that you turn on the light, lamps are burning, and darkness still sits there obstinately saying, “I will not leave”? No. You light the lamp, darkness is gone. If you truly know suffering, suffering vanishes. Suffering is darkness; knowing is the lamp.
You say: “For lifetimes we have known the experience of suffering, yet why can we not see our mistake?”
If you had known, you would see. Your mistake is precisely this: you take what you have not known as known. If you know, the mistake is very simple. What is the mistake? It is this clear…
Falling into suffering again and again means only that you have not yet seen that suffering always arrives promising happiness first. It is the promise that traps you. Each time the promise proves false. Each time you go chasing pleasure and get pain. I say again and again: on the gate of hell the signboard says “Heaven.” The devil is at least that intelligent: if he put up “Hell,” who would enter? He has put up “Heaven,” and people walk right in.
It happened that a politician died. A clever man—he knew the tricks of life, had spent his life in Delhi. When he died, he said, “I want to see both—heaven and hell. Only then will I choose where to stay.” The gatekeeper said, “As you wish. See both.”
Heaven was shown. The politician wasn’t impressed. One who has lived in Delhi will find heaven utterly dull. The excitation of Delhi—gheraos, agitations, rallies, leaders clashing, every kind of uproar! Delhi is a mad bazaar. The country’s madmen are all gathered there. One who has lived there even once—one who has stayed in a madhouse—will not enjoy a temple. In a temple the silence will feel so still it breaks the heart; it feels gloomy. What kind of place is this! No noise, nothing.
He looked everywhere, then asked, “Do you have newspapers?”
Here nothing happens. People sit with eyes closed on their siddha-shilas. No quarrels, no tricks, no heads being broken, no murders, no elopements—nothing happens here at all. Even if you were to publish a newspaper, what would you print? There is no news. No newspapers are printed.
He said, “Useless. If there isn’t even a morning paper, what kind of life is this? What will we do here? People just sit under trees like this? Don’t they get bored? I want to see hell too; then I’ll decide.”
He went to see hell. He was welcomed grandly. Bands were playing, beautiful women danced, wine was poured. He was delighted. He said, “The world spreads utterly wrong reports—that heaven is bliss and hell is misery. For centuries these priests and temple pundits have been deceiving people. Heaven looks exactly like hell, and this hell is just like heaven. Somewhere a mistake is being made.”
The devil said, “The matter is this: all the propaganda tools are in God’s hands. No one listens to us. When we try to explain, they say, ‘Satan, keep away!’ God has incited everyone—one-sided publicity. We have no temple, no Bible, no Koran, no saints to spread our message. It’s all the magic of advertising. You, of all people, know what advertising can do!”
The politician said, “Right. Then I choose to stay here.” He told heaven’s gatekeeper, “You can go back. I’ve decided to remain here.”
The door closed, and as soon as he turned around he was stunned. The scene had changed. The bands and beautiful women were gone. Skeletons were dancing. A great fire burned, cauldrons were being heated, and people were being thrown in. He looked at the devil and lost his breath—the devil had his hand at his throat, knee on his chest. “What is this? Just now everything was fine.” The devil said, “If it weren’t fine at the start, how would anyone come in? What we showed was for tourists. Now the real hell begins. We at least give that much convenience—for the sake of choice.”
On the gate of hell is written “Heaven.” On the gate of every sorrow is written “Happiness.” How many times, desiring pleasure, have you become entangled in pain! You go with hope; you get despair. You go to gain; you only lose. At the beginning the dream looks sweet; later it becomes a nightmare. The wise have defined suffering thus: that which at first appears like happiness and in the end is suffering. This is how you have been cut to pieces. Your wings are clipped, your hands and feet are cut—you are maimed and blind—by too many promises. Still you say, “We have known suffering.” Had you known, you would have known that wherever “pleasure” is written, there is pain. Pain is the outcome of what you call pleasure. Pain is the final fruit of what you take to be happiness.
You may think you planted mango seeds, but when the fruit comes it is bitter neem. If you truly know, you will also know that the seeds which looked like mango were not mango at all. Otherwise how did neem grow on a mango tree? Those seeds were neem. But around the seeds the propaganda, the seeds’ own persuasion to you, was: “I am mango.” One who has known suffering knows that all suffering comes promising happiness. Otherwise how would you ever let it in? Once it enters, it sets up camp in the house.
This means: one who knows suffering strives to be free of pleasure, not of pain. If you seek freedom from pain, you have not known pain. Everyone wants to be free of pain. Everyone wants pleasure. That much is obvious. All want pleasure, all want to drop pain—and all get pain. Pleasure is granted to none.
Somewhere the arithmetic is wrong. Understand it, clarify it. Do not desire pleasure—and pain will not befall you. Desire pleasure—and pain will come. The ignorant asks for pleasure and gets entangled in pain. The wise stops asking for pleasure—the door of suffering is closed. And when the wise stops asking for pleasure and the door of suffering is shut, the moment that comes in life you may call peace, bliss, nirvana, liberation—whatever you like. But it is beyond both pleasure and pain.
“For lifetimes we have known suffering; yet why can we not see our mistake?”
No—neither have you known for lifetimes, nor have you known suffering; otherwise the mistake would be visible. The mistake is that you believe you have known when you have not. Drop this mistake now. Begin again from A-B-C. What you have “known” till now is useless. Open your eyes afresh and see. Wherever a call of pleasure arises for you, stop. It is pain’s deception. Don’t go! Say, “We do not want pleasure.” Make peace your goal. You made pleasure your goal and found pain. Now make peace the goal.
Peace means: neither pleasure nor pain is wanted. For both pleasure and pain are excitations; peace is the state of un-excitation. And for the one who is willing to be peaceful, the rain of bliss begins in his life. As I said: pleasure is the door to pain; likewise, peace is the door to bliss.
Practice peace; bliss blossoms. You cannot practice bliss. Practice peace. And peace simply means: I have no taste left for pleasure or pain, because I have seen that they are two sides of the same coin. I drop them both—that is sannyas. This inner stance is sannyas: I drop both pleasure and pain. One who drops only pain and wants pleasure is worldly. One who desires pleasure and tries to avoid pain is worldly. One who is willing to drop both is a sannyasin.
A sannyasin first becomes peaceful. But to the worldly, a sannyasin’s peace will look dull; it will seem like the dead silence of a temple. He will say, “What are you doing? Live! Life is short. This color and music will not last forever—enjoy it, consume it.” He has no idea that to one who has tasted peace, both pleasure and pain become bitter and acrid. And as one becomes established in peace—peace means meditation; as one becomes steady in peace, as one’s flame settles in peace, as the wire connects—one day suddenly he finds: bliss has showered.
Peace is tuning the instrument; and bliss is when, once tuned, God’s fingers begin to play upon your strings. Peace is preparing yourself; the day you are ready, union with the divine happens. That is why we have called the divine Sat-Chit-Ananda—truth, consciousness, bliss. His innermost state is bliss.

Samadhi cannot be borrowed. No one can give it to you. And if someone seems to be giving it, don’t accept it by mistake—it will be false. You will have to discover samadhi yourself, because samadhi is not an external event; it is your inner growth.

Money I can give you—money is an outer event. But remember, whatever can be given from the outside can also be taken away from the outside. A thief can steal it. If it can be given, it can be taken back.

What kind of samadhi is it if it can be taken away? If thieves can steal it, dacoits can loot it, the income tax office can deduct from it—what kind of samadhi is that! Samadhi is that which cannot be taken from you. Samadhi is such that even if you are killed, samadhi cannot be killed. Your body may be cut, samadhi is not cut. You may burn, samadhi does not burn. Even your death does not become the death of samadhi—only then is it samadhi. Otherwise, what kind of solution would that be!

Such samadhi no one can give you; you must discover it. Even a Buddha cannot give it. It is essential that you find your own growth. Yes, a Buddha can support you; his presence can be of immense value. In his presence your trust can deepen.

It is like this: when the mother is present, the small child tries to stand up. He knows that if he falls, the mother will catch him. The mother cannot walk for the son; the son has to walk. Only when the son’s own legs gain strength can he walk. Nothing will come of the mother’s strong legs. But the mother can say, “Yes, my son, walk. Don’t be afraid, I am here. You won’t fall.” The mother can give a little support with her hand. The child will stand on his own trust, on his own strength, yet the mother’s presence creates a climate, an ambience. In that ambience, courage grows.

Psychologists have studied this a great deal. If children lack an environment of love, they walk late. If there is a climate of love, they begin to stand sooner. Without love, they take much longer to speak. With love, they begin to speak sooner. If they receive no love at all, they just lie on the cot; they become sickly from the very start. Then they cannot get up, cannot walk. No one ever gave them the trust that “you can walk.”

How would a child even know he can walk? He has no experience, no memory of the past. How would he know he can speak? He has never seen a word come out of his throat. But if there is an environment of love—someone who coaxes him, supports him, who says, “Don’t worry; if not today, tomorrow it will happen. We too learned to walk this way, we too fell this way; one must take such knocks—this is not an injury, it is training”—if someone gives such support, creates a breeze of love, then walking becomes easy, getting up becomes easy, speaking becomes easy.

What is true for the small child is true for the seeker as well. The seeker is a small child in the world of the soul. The Buddha does not give; he cannot give. He can only create around you a loving family. In that air, much happens on its own. Have you ever noticed, ever observed? If ten people are sitting cheerful, laughing, chatting, then even if you are sad, you soon forget your sadness. Their laughter becomes infectious; it touches you. You forget that you had come in depressed.

If ten people are sitting in gloom—someone has died, they are weeping—and you were walking along humming a tune, suddenly you hear someone familiar has died. You go into that house and at once the heart sinks, as if the breath has stopped, the blood no longer flows but has frozen. What has happened? There is an atmosphere of sorrow there.

That is why Buddhas have created families. The Buddha created the sangha. He formulated three refuges. The first was: “Buddham sharanam gacchami”—I go to the refuge of the Buddha. But as long as the Buddha is alive this is easy. When the Buddha is no longer in the body, an ordinary person finds it difficult—how to take refuge in one who is not visibly present? He is invisible; even his feet are not visible—how to take refuge?

So the Buddha made a second formula: “Dhammam sharanam gacchami”—if there is no Buddha, take refuge in the Dhamma. But Dhamma is a very subtle, ethereal thing. Dhamma means the law by which the universe moves. Yet it is not seen.

So the Buddha made a third formula: “Sangham sharanam gacchami”—take refuge in the Sangha; the community of monks, the family.

The Buddha is the subtlest. Buddhahood means: one who, awakened, has realized the Dhamma. A step below the Buddha is the law—the science, the mathematics—Dhamma. A step below that is the Sangha, the family.

People ask me, “You are giving sannyas to thousands—what is the point? What is your purpose? Do you intend to change society, to change the world?”

Not at all. I have no intention to change society. No intention to change the world. The world never changes; nor is there any need. The world is needed too. Those who have to live that way need that kind of world. If you abolish the marketplace, it won’t be good. Let it be; some people need the marketplace. They can live only there—they are creatures of the marketplace. Take them anywhere else and they will die. For those who want the world, the world is there.

No—the thousands to whom I am giving sannyas form a sangha, a family, an atmosphere. Wherever ten sannyasins sit together, the color changes. That is why you have been given the color red—the color of fire, the color of the flame, the color of what Dadu calls “the flame.”

Where ten sannyasins sit, the flavor changes, the conversation changes; the air becomes different. You will talk of the divine. You will sow the seeds of the divine. You will dance, you will sing, you will celebrate. Even the one who came sad and weary will be rejuvenated.

A milieu is needed. The Buddha only gives the milieu, the indication, the support. The walking is yours, the attaining is yours, the discovering is yours. How can someone else give you liberation? Otherwise, what kind of liberation would that be! It is your inner growth, the ultimate state of your innermost being.

Do not be disheartened by this. Support can be given—great support can be given. And if you are in love with your master, then there is support upon support.

The mind is very strange. It never doubts; if there is suffering it never asks, “Is this a trick of the mind?” If there is anger, it never asks, “Is this a trick of the mind?” But if a little peace is felt, trust does not arise. The mind says, “It must be a deception. Can you receive more peace? Impossible. Can you experience more joy? That cannot be. Surely there is some mistake somewhere.”

You have lost so much trust in yourself. You have tied your destiny to darkness. You have made melancholy your fate. If, in a moment of that melancholy, even a single ray of the sun descends, you think, “It must be a dream. A sunray, and descending upon me? Impossible. Only darkness can descend upon me.” Why have you come to believe this?

And if this is your belief, so it will be—because your belief becomes your destiny. When a ray of the sun descends, you won’t welcome it; you will look at it with suspicion. When darkness comes, you will press it to your chest. Naturally, darkness will increase. The sun’s ray will come less and less, because where there is no welcome, what is the point in coming? Where a guest is not honored, even the divine will slowly begin to avoid the place. For if the divine were to come to your door, it is certain you would not trust that it could be the divine. You might even slip out the back door and file a report with the police that some unknown person is standing there. “It cannot be God. Some trouble has arrived. God—at our doorstep!”

Why have you made yourself so small? Why have you come to think of yourself as so weak? Why have you become your own enemy?

Now two things are happening. In meditation, peace is arising in the mind. A slight thrill of joy is coming. Nearby, a few ripples of mind continue—thought is moving. Two things are happening.

But the questioner does not ask whether these ripples of thought might be a deception. No—he asks whether the peace that is being felt might be a deception. What you take to be a deception will fade away; what you take to be true will come to be. Thoughts become things; feelings become states. As one believes, so one becomes.

There is a famous saying of Buddha in the Dhammapada: “You become what you think.” What you are today is the result of yesterday’s thinking. What you think today, you will become tomorrow. Thinking is sowing seeds—and then you weep when you reap the fruit.

Let the ripples of thought continue. Place your attention on the peace and trust it with a sense of awe and gratitude. Give thanks to the divine that so much peace has come. Become supremely grateful; peace will begin to grow day by day. As peace grows, the ripples of the mind will diminish—because it is the same energy that is now becoming peace. The mind will no longer be able to grasp it.

One day you will suddenly find that all the mind’s ripples have disappeared. That clamor no longer arises. That road has closed; no travelers pass that way anymore. Now there is no traffic of thoughts. A deep silence abides within you.

But if you doubt the peace, soon you will find that the energy which was flowing toward peace starts flowing back toward thoughts. This doubt is arising from those very thoughts. Those little ripples of thought moving along the edge are making a last-ditch effort to save themselves. They are covering your mind and saying, “What peace! There can be no peace. Has anyone ever attained peace?”

A Western psychologist was with me some months ago—a very thoughtful man. He told me, “I simply cannot believe that the mind can ever become silent. It is unnatural. The movement of thought in the mind is like the flow of blood in the body. Psychology does not accept that a moment can come when thoughts do not move. That would be like the blood stopping—one would die. Thought will keep moving.”

I said to him, “Do a little experiment. For now there is no way to convince you. Perhaps someday, even for a moment, thoughts may stop in meditation. If they can stop for one moment, they can stop for two, for three. Then we will speak further.”

By coincidence, around the fifteenth or sixteenth day the event occurred—thoughts must have stopped for a few moments in meditation. He came running to me and said, “I cannot accept it. It is impossible. Even now that it has happened, I cannot accept it. It is impossible!” He began saying, “I must have imagined it.”

But how can you even imagine peace if you have never known peace? One can only imagine what one has known. Can you imagine something wholly unfamiliar, unknown? Impossible. Yes, you can imagine by combining fragments of the known. For example, you can imagine a horse made of gold that flies in the sky. There is no difficulty—because you have seen birds fly, you have seen gold, you know horses. You put the three together. But can you imagine something you have never known at all?

I asked that friend, “Have you ever known peace before?” He said, “No—the first time.” “Yet it seems like imagination,” he said.

What you have never known—how will you imagine it? Imagination means a rearrangement of the known. You can polish and decorate the known a little, but there can be no imagination of the unknown. Yes, you can imagine God, because pictures hang in temples and images are installed there. But have you ever seen a picture of peace anywhere? A statue of peace? Peace is a feeling; there is no way to paint it.

I told him, “All right, let’s say it was imagination; it isn’t bad, is it?” He said, “No, not bad—there was great joy. But the doubt remains. This cannot be.”

“Continue a few more days; experience a little more. Your mind, which never doubts sorrow and readily accepts restlessness, doubts peace. The mind is your enemy.”

When such a moment comes, do not listen to the mind. Tell the mind, “Even if it is imagination, it is better than your so-called truths. Your truths are sorrow, anxiety, melancholy. Your truths are restlessness, tension, torment. Better this imagination—of peace, contentment, a deep joy. We will remain in imagination; we want freedom from your truths.” If you can persuade your attention to accept this peace, and your whole life-energy begins to nourish and nurture it, then very soon you will find that what today seemed like imagination becomes the greatest truth of life—and the mind you had taken to be true turns out to be only a dream from the past.

The mind is a dream—but a very ancient one; it has deep roots within you. Peace is truth—but it is a very new sapling, just descended today. Give it strength; give it soil, water, nourishment so it can grow. If today you set it to fight the mind, the mind is very old, very strong—naturally more capable in a fight; its roots are deep. Tell the mind, “You look after your own affairs; let us enjoy a little of this ‘imagined’ delight.” Soon you will see the great tree of the mind begin to wither and fall. It lives by your support, by sucking your energy. If your energy begins to go to the plant of peace, the neglected plant of the mind will dry up by itself. And the day the plant of the mind dries up and falls, that day you suddenly discover that this very place was heaven—and because of the mind you had turned it into hell.

If there is laziness in the mind, even little things feel like great effort. It’s a matter of your interpretation. In truth, you are not exerting at all. I tell you, those who are near me and engaged in “practice” are the people on earth who are laboring the least. You have no idea what real effort is.

When a person is deeply lazy, even trivial things seem like toil. What are you actually doing? What is it you keep calling “great effort”? Which great effort are you making?

You dance a little—and you call that great effort? Is dancing an effort? Dancing is joy! But your perspective is wrong. If you take joy to be effort, you have missed. Dancing is celebration, a juicy happening. Where is the effort in it? If even dancing is effort for you, then what would non-effort be?

If I tell you, “Just sit quietly,” you will say even that takes great effort. Sit with eyes closed—you say it’s great effort. If I ask you to dance—you say it’s great effort. Your laziness seems endless. And you even wear it like a badge of honor—“I am making such great effort!”

I have heard: In a village a forest-festival was being held. A prominent leader gave a speech, urging people to save and protect trees—trees are life; without them the earth will become barren. Then he said, “As far as I know, none of you here has ever, in your whole life, protected a single tree.” No one stood up—except Mulla Nasruddin, who rose with great pride. He said, “You are wrong. Once I threw a stone at a woodpecker—the woodpecker bird. It didn’t die, but I tried very hard.”

He took that to be protecting trees: “I stoned a woodpecker, because woodpeckers damage trees. If the stone missed, how is that my fault? I did try!” Great effort—killing a woodpecker! You take a few forceful breaths and call it big “practice”? This only reveals your dense tamas, your inertia—nothing else.

You really don’t know what sadhana is. Had you met a Mahavira, then you would know what practice means! He would keep you hungry for three or four months at a stretch, silent for twelve years—then you would know what sadhana is. I am asking you to dance, to laugh. I am not asking you to break anything in life; I am asking you to use everything life has given you. I am not telling you to run off to the mountains; I am trying to bring the mountain into your marketplace!

In truth, I am not asking you to do anything; I am asking you to surrender. Surrender means: don’t take anything upon yourself. Drop the very idea of doing. Let the Divine do. Hold His feet and say, “Now, whatever You do—Your will.” Dance in gratitude. You have received so much.

I am teaching you ahobhav—wonder and thankfulness—not making you sweat through disciplines. That is exactly what Dadu means when he says, “sukh-purvak surati”—joyful awareness.

But you say, “I have to pass through great effort, practice, and labor.” I don’t see what labor you are doing, what great practice, what austerity is being demanded of you. I understand your laziness; from your angle, even dancing may look like a heavy austerity. You are only revealing your perspective.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was lying with a friend under a tree. The mangoes were ripe; one mango fell. The friend said, “Look, it’s right by your side—pick it up and put it in my mouth.” Nasruddin said, “You are no friend, you are an enemy! A little while ago a dog was peeing in my ear—you didn’t even shoo it away. And now I should pick a mango and put it in your mouth?”

That is your life. You lie there—and want someone else to put the mango in your mouth. Even when a dog misbehaves with you, you cannot chase it off; you expect someone else to do even that for you. And you think you are engaged in great austerity!

Drop these futile notions. Break your laziness; remove your heedlessness. For as little as I am asking of you to take you along on the journey, no one has ever asked for less. And if you miss through me, then there will be no remedy left for you.

Seek it within yourself.
All these other things are easy to understand because they belong to the intellect. The intellect can grasp them. But the talk of the flame belongs to the heart; it is not understood, because the intellect has nothing to do with it.

The mind as a horse—yes, that is clear. It runs twenty‑four hours a day. It drags you over rutted tracks, sends you on crooked journeys; it drops you where you never meant to go, and where you wanted to go you never reach, because the horse bolts elsewhere. The intellect can see this; there is no difficulty in understanding it.

Consciousness as the rider is also understandable: if you cultivate awareness—even a little—then you are on the horse. If there is awareness, the horse can no longer take you just anywhere. You begin to travel in the direction you actually want to go; a direction appears, a mood, a state is created in which the journey can happen. The mind only leads you astray; consciousness brings you home. That too is understandable.

Even the master's whip of words makes sense, because masters have always lashed with their words—that much is easy to get.

What does not sink in is the talk of the flame. How does that thirst arise? How does that fire leap up? And if it does not, then all understanding is useless. It is like not feeling hunger though the meal is ready; not feeling thirst though a lake has come right to your door. But if there is no thirst, what will you do with a lake? Everything else is meaningless until the flame is there.

But where will you find the flame? There is no way to find it elsewhere. You will have to seek it within. The flame is already burning, but the connection between your heart and your head is broken. The flame burns in your heart. You have stopped listening to the heart, and the intellect goes on thinking—and finds no flame anywhere, because the flame is always of the heart. Only the heart can dare such madness—the burning, the longing, the flame, the thirst.

When you love someone, you do not put your hand on your head and say, “I have fallen in love.” You put your hand on your heart. Have you ever seen a lover point to his head? It would not feel right. In every culture and civilization of the world, whenever a person falls in love, the hand goes to the heart—because something begins there: a stir, a sprouting, the cracking of the earth, a movement within the heart. Where you love from, from there you will also pray. Seek there. Move downward; come into your heart. Whenever the question arises, “Where do I look for that flame?” close your eyes and search in the heart. Place your hand on your heart and search.

But the difficulty is that you have stopped loving, prayer has stopped, the door to the divine is blocked. Love! If you begin to love, you will soon feel movement in the flame. The flame will start to flare. Give it a little fuel of love.

By love I mean: if you touch a tree, touch it lovingly. Nothing is lost; nothing is spent. Touch with love. Try small experiments. Sit by a tree; place your hand upon it and feel as if there is a deep love between you and the tree. The tree is a friend; you have come after a long time; sit hand in hand with it, or clasp it to your chest and be with it for a while with eyes closed.

And watch what happens. You will find your heartbeat has changed, the quality of the heart has changed; you have descended from the head. For a tree has no head—only heart. If you speak to it a little in the language of the heart—he is very simple—very soon it will begin to send rays of love toward you. If your heart has called to it, it will call back to your heart.

Touch even a rock with love and you will feel the difference. Touch a rock lovingly and you will sense a warmth within it. And if you take a human hand without love, you will feel a chill, a deadness.

Let your love spread a little. When you eat, eat with love, because you are taking the food into yourself. Receive it with reverence. Invite it with deep affection.

The Hindus were very skillful. They would first offer the food to the divine and then to themselves. It was an act of love. They would say, “Food is Brahman.” You must not take it casually. Pray, worship; offer it to the divine as prasad—and then partake.

When you bathe, be filled with love toward the water. For your very body is water; ninety‑nine percent of it is water. You came from the ocean. All life came from the ocean. Sit by the sea and look at it with great love, as a lover looks at his beloved. Then you will feel the waves inviting you. And soon you will find your head has stepped aside; the chord of the heart is joined.

Go to the mountains. Seeing the greenery, be glad, dance. Look at the sky, the moon, the stars. You are connected with the whole existence. Love will connect you; the head has cut you off. And as this connection awakens, you will find Dadu’s flame beginning to blaze.

First, fall in love with existence. By descending into that love, slowly you will find your love growing so vast that small and narrow love‑objects will no longer suffice; now only the divine will do—the totality of existence. Enlarge the vessel of your love; only then can you make God your beloved.

Your love is according to the size of your vessel. Someone loves his safe—he has an iron heart. He cannot love a human being; he loves money. Money means metal; his world is on that plane. His heart is filled with metal and nothing beyond.

Someone loves human beings—he has risen higher. Someone loves a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna—higher still. He loves the avatars—he has come higher.

Then a moment comes when the vessel of your love becomes so vast that none but God can be its object. On that day, the flame leaps up.

You will not find it anywhere else. The spark is present in your heart; ash has piled up. Go down into the heart. Do not be afraid.

To descend into the heart feels frightening—like climbing down into a chasm, a deep well. There is a fluttering inside; to go inward creates a tremor. To remain in the skull feels all right—you are completely familiar there. You walk on well‑known ground; the whole map is clear.

Go into the heart. You will have to wait a great deal. The heart is so jammed; the mechanism has not worked for so long that you have even forgotten where the heart is. You will have to wait. You have even forgotten how to wait. One who knows how to love also knows how to wait.

I was once sitting with Mulla Nasruddin at a railway station; the train was late. He called a porter. He was very irritated and could not sit peacefully even for a moment—standing up again, checking the timetable, reading the notices, going to the station master: “How long?” Matching his watch—this and that. He called a porter and asked, “Is there a cemetery nearby?” The porter said, “Why a cemetery here? This is a station.” Mulla said, “Then where do you bury those who die waiting here?”

There is no capacity for waiting left. People die—as if waiting itself were death. If one has to pause even for a moment—dead! Running feels like life; stopping feels like death.

And only one who is willing to wait much can descend into the heart. The distance between heart and head is so great that waiting is needed. Do not think they are close. In the body they look close—just a handspan. But I tell you, the distance between heart and head is as vast as any two points can be. They are utterly opposite poles—earth and sky apart.

The journey is long, and there is no alternative to going there. So it must be undertaken. The more time you waste here and there, the more it will prove wasted. Do not wander anywhere. Climb down from the skull and move toward the heart. And live from the heart. Stop living from thought. Even if you get robbed by living with the heart—be robbed. In that losing you will find a great treasure. And if, living from the head, you do not lose even a little and you loot the whole world, in the end you will find you are going empty‑handed; you earned nothing—you squandered life. Only those gain the wealth of life who awaken the flame of the heart.

There is the temple; there the fire burns day and night. Do not ask where to search, where to find. It is within you. Enough for today.