Piya Kokhojan Main Chali #5

Akshay Vivek! Human beings have been given such wrong conditioning that they have neither ever cried to their heart’s content nor laughed to their heart’s content. They have never really lived to their heart’s content. In no aspect, in no dimension, have they ever done anything totally; everything remains half-done! So many things hang inside, suspended like Trishanku.

I say meditation is a celebration, but what is happening to you happens to others as well. While celebrating, suddenly tears arise from some unknown corner! They must have been suppressed somewhere—perhaps for lifetimes. Especially in men. Because from childhood we tell boys: Don’t cry! Girls cry. You are a man; crying is not for you.

This is false. It is utterly false. Nature has made the tear glands in the eyes of men and women just the same. Men’s tear glands are not smaller than women’s. So one thing is certain—nature intended both to cry equally. But man has constructed an ego that a man must not cry. Better to break than cry. Better to die than cry. Why reveal your weakness by weeping!

We have taught men to be hard. We have gradually made “manliness” synonymous with hardness. In our language there is the word parush—harsh—and most people think purush (man) is derived from parush. Parush means harsh.

Purush is not derived from parush. Purush is a very unique word. It comes from pur—city. This body is a city. The one who dwells within it is purusha. The same dweller abides in a woman and in a man. That which dwells within is neither female nor male in the ordinary sense; it is simply the indweller of the city—the guest. The body is the host.

But we have defined “man” as harshness. And we respect those who are very hard. For instance, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was called the Iron Man of India. As if being harsh were not enough—an iron man!

Now, where do iron men ever cry!

In Russia, Joseph Stalin killed perhaps more people than any man in human history. Remember, Stalin’s original name was not Stalin; Stalin literally means “man of steel.” Slowly “man of steel” became his name; people forgot his real name.

For centuries we have worshipped hardness. Naturally, the result is that men’s tears have remained suppressed; their sobbing has not been able to express itself. Yet crying has its own lightness. Crying has its own secret.

Women go mad less often. Psychologists say the basic reason is simply that they cry to their heart’s content. Their madness flows away with their tears. Men go mad more. Women commit fewer suicides; men commit twice as many. If the world were in women’s hands, wars would cease. If it remains in men’s hands, wars will continue, because we have molded men fundamentally in the soldier’s image. And between a soldier and a sannyasin there is a basic difference.

Akshay Vivek is a strong man. If you look at him you can see he is strong. When he first came to me I even thought he might be a wrestler. Then gradually he became soft—inside he was always very soft, very moist—but the hard crust on top is now breaking. It is centuries old, lifetimes old; it will break only by and by.

So it must often happen that while listening to me you begin to cry. Then cry—cry to your heart’s content. What is wrong in it? The eyes are washed—outer eyes and inner eyes both become clean. Tears are needed precisely so that the eyes can be kept clean. Every moment they moisten your lids, so the eyes keep being washed—because the eyes are very delicate; the most delicate part of your body. The eyelids blink constantly; the secret of blinking is simply to keep the eyes clean. The lids are moist, so dust does not settle on the eyes.

And what is true of tears for the outer eyes is true for the inner eye as well. When you cry in meditation, the inner eye is washed; a lightness comes there too; you become weightless. Have you noticed the weightlessness after a good cry?

If someone dies, women weep, beat their breasts, pull at their hair—and they are freed quickly. But how can men cry! They stiffen, they suppress. The suppressed grief then spreads through every vein and fiber. Life turns to stone. Sensitivity drains away. Then they cannot see flowers any more. If you yourself have become a thorn, how will flowers be visible!

We see what we are. We harmonize only with that which we are. If music is within, we harmonize with music outside. If there is discord within, we harmonize with noise outside. If there is beauty within, we harmonize with beauty outside. If there is ugliness within, we go about seeking ugliness outside. What is within expands without. And we can hide nothing.

This is the secret of meditation: it will bring up whatever is suppressed within you and gradually set it free. You will be rid of it. You will laugh, you will cry. There will be moments when you will laugh and cry together. Anyone seeing you will think you are mad. You yourself may wonder, “What is happening to me? Am I going mad? Only mad people laugh and cry at the same time.”

But everyone is mad, more or less—only a difference of degree: someone is 99 degrees mad, someone 98, someone 97. Give a little push and they are over 100 and inside the asylum. Let bankruptcy come—and that’s it—how long does it take to cross a single extra degree! One can cross it in sorrow or in joy. If a lottery opens and you suddenly win a million, you can cross one degree. You cannot bear it—too much joy—and you break under the weight of happiness. Not only sorrow breaks you; happiness also breaks you. We have become so rigid; we have lost our suppleness. Everything breaks us. And we were taught precisely this: never bend; better to break.

But those who know say something else. Lao Tzu says that when a storm comes, great trees fall and cannot rise again because they stand stiff. Their stiffness becomes their death. The same storm passes by the grass near those great trees. The grass bends with the storm; it dances with the storm. If the wind goes left, it moves left; if it goes right, it moves right; if the storm presses it to the ground, it lies down—no objection at all; it surrenders completely into the storm’s hands.

That is the meaning of trust. To live like that is trust. To live like that is religiosity. Such attunement with existence that you do whatsoever existence makes you do.

When the storm has passed, the great trees lie fallen—never to rise. And the grasses, those thin, weak, delicate plants, are standing again in their places—refreshed. The storm has shaken off all dust; it has made them greener; it has strengthened their roots.

Lao Tzu told his disciples: Do not be like the great trees; they symbolize ego. Be like the grasses; they symbolize egolessness.

Akshay Vivek, when tears come, cry. What harm? When laughter comes, laugh. What harm? And if even during celebration tears burst forth, don’t see a mismatch or a contradiction. Because whatever has been suppressed within can burst forth at any time.

In fact, precisely during celebration the deepest repressed tendencies get a chance to arise. Because in celebration you forget to suppress; all your energy is engaged in dance and festivity; the energy that was suppressing is no longer suppressing. At that very moment all the repressed feelings come up to the surface.

Truths cannot be hidden. And what is the art of meditation? That all truths be revealed. With your inconsistencies, with your contradictions, your whole personality comes to the circumference—then your center is freed, and at your center only the witness remains. It will see the laughter, it will see the tears. It will see both—aloof, unattached, liberated, untouched.

There was a case in court. Matkanath the celibate was accused of raping his neighbor’s wife. When no witness or solid evidence was found, the judge, to intimidate him, said, “Brahmachari-ji, don’t waste the court’s time with arguments; the charge has been proved true because your fingerprints were found on the neighbor’s door, on the bed, and on his wife’s jewelry. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
His Excellency Matkanath said angrily, “This is a downright lie, because I remember clearly that I entered their house wearing rubber gloves.”

In meditation everything will be revealed. Your harshness will melt, your lies will fall away, your cultivated behavior will be uprooted, your spontaneity will manifest, your nature will bloom for the first time. That is why this is happening.

You say: “While listening to you I start to cry.”
Then cry. The very fact that you are listening is proof that something is happening inside you. Wires are being connected between my heart and your heart. My fingers have begun to pluck the strings of your heart. Tears do not come for nothing.

You say: “Now even in the celebration of active meditation, tears burst forth.”
Let them burst. That too is part of the celebration.

You ask: “In the midst of meditation a feeling arises that this body is now a hindrance; how can it be shed?”
This too is the result of teachings hammered in for centuries. We have been taught enmity toward the body. We were taught: You must be free of the body. To be in the body is sin. The body is bondage. The body is contemptible, ugly. The same feeling is arising, nothing else.

This feeling will also pass. If you allow the storm to blow and sway and dance with it, all this dust will settle—tears will go, laughter will go; such feelings will arise and depart. Then the body will not seem sinful, nor a burden, nor an obstacle—it will seem a temple, because where God resides, that place is a temple; it will seem a place of pilgrimage.

And within everyone a Tirthankara is enthroned. You are as much a Tirthankara as Mahavira, as much a Buddha as Buddha, as much an avatar of God as Krishna, as much a son of God as Jesus—there is not the slightest difference. You simply do not know it; they came to know. You can know too. Meditation is the key to that knowing.

The way we live is sheer falsehood. We must see through it. Our conditionings are delusive. Fundamentally, basically, wrong things have been imposed upon us. We have been taught to be against life. And I teach you love for life; because for me life is synonymous with God. There is no God other than life. The vastness of life is what we call the divine. Beyond this, besides this, there is no God sitting far away in the sky with three faces—Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh; with four arms—a Chaturbhuj. These are childish imaginings, good as symbols for explaining to children.

But you are mature, and humanity as a whole has come of age; now we must come out of these untruths.

Life is God. In trees, rivers, mountains, animals, human beings—what is spread infinitely is what we call God. Somewhere it is asleep, somewhere awake. Where it is awake there is Buddhahood—there is bliss moment to moment. Where it is asleep there is misery moment to moment—sadness, restlessness. Restlessness because what is ours we have forgotten. Our own treasure we have not yet claimed. We are emperors who have become beggars. And what beggars! The poor are beggars, of course—but our emperors too are beggars!

And a beggar’s bowl never fills. It looks small, but it never fills, it cannot fill—because the begging mind is insatiable. And to keep begging, what lies we are willing to tell! To fulfill a single desire, through how many lies we go!

Then, frightened by all these lies, we ask the pundits and priests how to be free of them. We are the ones who have created the false snake, and then we ask how to kill it. There is no snake at all, yet we ask someone: How can I kill it? He hands us a stick that is as false as the snake and says: Kill it with this.

What you ordinarily take as religion is nothing but false devices to cut your falsehoods. Meditation will free you not only from irreligion, but from religion too; not only from sin, but from virtue as well. Meditation will establish you in pure consciousness. And that is the truth.

A beggar was begging. He said, “Sir, for God’s sake give this blind man one rupee and ten paise.”
“But you aren’t blind; one of your eyes seems perfectly fine.”
“Then give fifty-five paise.”
“But why do you ask for fifty-five paise? Why not straight eight annas?”
“Sir, don’t you see how inflation is raging—should we beggars not ask for a ten percent cost-of-living allowance?”
“Hey, your other eye has opened too. You’re keeping it shut on purpose and calling yourself blind! There is a limit to dishonesty!”
“Sir, either give or move on. Don’t waste our time with useless chatter. I am not dishonest. I am begging today in place of my blind friend, in all honesty—so I was sitting with my eyes closed. Arguing with you, my eyes opened. My blind friend will return from the circus at nine tonight, and if he finds out, he will be very annoyed. I’m not blind at all; I am deaf—the one who begs across the road.”
“Aren’t you ashamed? You’re a healthy, able-bodied man and you beg! Shame on you. Why don’t you do some honest work?”
“Sir, please go your way. You’re wasting my precious time. You have no idea how much hard work begging takes! And you should be ashamed—while we were talking I picked your pocket; look, I didn’t find a single coin, and you pride yourself on being a hard worker! You should drown yourself in a handful of water.”

Here everyone is a beggar. All have their hands stretched out—more, and more. And to keep begging they are ready to impose any lies upon their lives. Those who have eyes pretend to be blind; those who have ears pretend to be deaf; those who can run pretend to be lame; those who can awaken sleep so deeply that they snore!

Akshay Vivek, meditation is a process of awakening. And on this path many things will happen. You will be very surprised, because you will find within you things you never even imagined—because you never went within: how many tears are suppressed; how many laughs lie withered; how much life lies crushed; how many eyes which, if cleaned, could see the whole existence, are buried under dust; and how many diamonds beyond all price lie as if they were rubbish! And hidden in the deepest depth is your boundless treasure of consciousness—oceanic, without bottom, without shore.

But as you approach it, you will encounter many things and you must pass through all these conditionings. This too is a conditioning that has been taught to you—enmity with the body. That is why it is arising. When you meditate this conditioning will arise: how to be rid of the body; even the body seems a hindrance!

It is not you who are saying this; it is your pundits and priests speaking. It is a gramophone record playing within. When you arrive at your own innermost, there is neither the question of being free of the body nor the desire to be bound in it—while it is, be delighted; when it is not, be delighted. Then everything is God’s will. Then we live in tune with his will.

This surrender is what I call sannyas.

Yogesh! Certainly. Every child is born fresh. His mirror is pristine. There is no crowd of thoughts inside him, no web of desires, no stiffness of ego—there is nothing yet inside. No turmoil has arisen yet.

But the turmoil will arise. We will educate him—and we will raise the turmoil. As yet he is neither Hindu nor Muslim; as yet there is nothing for him to take from mosque or temple. Right now we are going to give him a worldly education. If right now we tell him, “Become the president,” he will say, “Why? Why should I become president?” He is blissful in himself. There is such joy in running after butterflies, such delight in picking shells on the seashore, that if we tell him, “Earn money,” he will laugh. He won’t even understand—money for what? Position for what?

But let him pass through twenty, twenty‑five years of our educational process—and you think twenty‑five years is a small span? It’s one‑third of your life! And the most valuable third, because you will never again be so fresh, never again so alive. After twenty‑five years of schooling we poison every child. We fill him with ambitions; we fill him with politics and diplomacy; we stuff him with all kinds of lies. In all this his innate intelligence gets crushed. So many layers of dust gather on his mirror that the mirror is lost, and nothing is reflected anymore. Otherwise, every child is born with genius.

You must have noticed: every child seems beautiful. There is a sparkle in his eyes, a radiance on his face. Slowly the sparkle fades, the glow is lost, even the beauty disappears. Where does it all go? We snatch it away. Our whole system so far has been inhuman.

The world is eager for a wholly new education—for a new humanity, for a new human being. The old human being has failed. In the human being we have made, something fundamental has gone wrong. He was suited for war, for killing, for dying and making others die; but he did not know the art of living. We taught him grabbing and clawing, quarrel, envy, jealousy, ambition, ego. We never taught him love. We never taught him how to refine his native intelligence or keep its edge sharp.

Listen a little to small children, Yogesh, and you will understand me.

A father scolded his son. He said, “When I was a child I never told lies.”
The boy looked at his father and asked, “Then when did you start telling lies, Dad? When you were a child you didn’t lie. So you must have started sometime—when did you start?”

His eyes see clearly that even this is a lie—pure, outright lie. This claim, “When I was a child I never lied,” is itself a lie.

A mother gave her child a slice of bread with butter. The child kept crying as he ate it. The mother asked, “Why are you crying? I gave you a pretty big piece!”
“That’s exactly why I’m crying—because it keeps getting smaller.”

That is precisely the human condition, but how many are awake to it? How many have the intelligence to see that we are dying every day, that after birth we do nothing but die, that the day we were born, dying began, that the slice of bread keeps getting smaller by the day, that death comes closer every day! And what preparations have we made to welcome death? The guest is at the door—what arrangements have we made for his reception? Death will find you utterly unprepared. Will you be able to embrace death? Will you be able to play the shehnai? Will you be able to say, “Come, you are welcome”? Or will you tremble, be afraid, cry, panic, raise a hue and cry—“Let me live just a little longer”?

The person who, seeing death face to face, says, “Let me live a little longer,” has not lived at all. If he had lived, he would be ready to die too; for the one who has lived, dying is the summit of life, life’s ultimate height, Gauri Shankar—Everest. But for one who has not lived, death feels like the end of the story—and we have not even lived! Life just slipped by, went by without being lived. The caravan passed, and only dust kept swirling! Now there seems to be nothing in one’s hands but dust—what should one do but weep? Even Alexander dies weeping! Only someone like Buddha bids farewell laughing—with joy. He takes leave in gratitude, thanking life for giving so much.

A teacher kept asking a little boy, “Tell me, who fought the Battle of Panipat?”
After asking many times and getting no answer, the teacher slapped him. The boy cried and said, “Masterji, I swear I’m telling the truth—I didn’t fight it.”

Now about the Battle of Panipat—truth be told, it is sheer foolishness that we teach children who fought it. It is foolish to fill their heads with Nadir Shah and Timur the Lame and Genghis Khan and Aurangzeb. It is madness to tell children, “Cram the past.” Pure stupidity. They have to live in the future, and we teach them the past!

It is as if some very mad, foolish man built a car and put a big mirror where the windshield should be—so that the driver could see the road behind. Where there should be glass to see the road ahead, there is a mirror—huge—so the road already traveled is visible, but nothing of the road one is going toward. What will happen then—progress or calamity?

The car is bound to fall into a ditch. Because what you see is the road on which you no longer have to travel, the one you have already passed; and what you cannot see is the road you must travel. You won’t even know whether you are heading toward the road, or toward a wall, or toward an abyss!

True education will teach living in the present, and give such intelligence that we become capable of looking toward the future. But our entire education is oriented to the past. And we teach it with grand excuses, clever devices. We find such beautiful reasons that education seems justified. It goes on all over the world.

I too was a student of history. I was always in trouble with teachers. My quarrel was: what have I to do with where the Battle of Panipat took place, or why it happened? The truth is, it should never have happened. Why did it happen at all?

My teachers would say, “This is too much. We are not asking you why it happened or whether it should have happened. We are asking—where did it happen? Between whom?”
I said, “What is that to me? I have no intention of fighting. Why should I waste time over the Battle of Panipat? Some fools fought, some fools teach what those fools did, and some fools memorize it—what is the point? What has it to do with me?”

If one must speak about the past, then say something about Buddha, about Mahavira, about Krishna, about Christ. About these there is hardly any discussion. They don’t even appear in the footnotes of history. History talks about donkeys—abject donkeys—whom we ought to forget completely. They should never have been; but if they happened to be, why drag them along now? What is the need to remember which king ruled England in which year? What use is that?

That child is right: “I didn’t fight the Battle of Panipat.”

A boy asked his father, “Daddy, why did God make this sky? Why not put a roof up there instead?”
To get rid of him somehow—the father was reading his newspaper and the boy was asking questions for which there are no answers—the father said, “So that ghosts and spirits don’t come down to bother children. If there were a roof, ghosts would come down. He made such a vast sky that even if they started descending it would take them ages. Where could they land? They can’t get down. It would take eternity. That’s why! Now let me read.”
The boy said, “One more question—then where did the teacher come from? If ghosts can’t come down, where did Masterji come from?”

This makes sense to me. Because the teacher’s entire business is to teach about ghosts: what has passed is bhut (a ghost), and what is not here is pret (a spirit). What is Aurangzeb now? A ghost, a spirit.

But we cannot see the genius of children. We do get upset by their questions. And the only reason for our unease is: if we answer them, our stupidity is exposed. We put them off. We try to shut their mouths with our own questions. And we do have the power to silence them by force.

Once a teacher said to the boys, “Name an important battle.”
One boy said, “My daddy says we shouldn’t tell family matters to outsiders.”

A husband, angry, said to his wife, “I’ll set the whole house on fire!”
Their child laughed and said, “You can’t even light the stove—that’s why Mom is upset—and you’ll set the whole house on fire? Let me hear how you’ll do that!”

Children see things straight and clear: the stove won’t light for him, and he talks of setting the house on fire! If the stove lit, the quarrel wouldn’t have arisen; the mother is angry precisely because he couldn’t light the stove.

One child to another: “What does your father do?”
The other: “He distributes people’s joys and sorrows.”
First: “Oh, is he God?”
Second: “No, he’s a postman.”

A teacher asked, “Explain the difference between an event and an accident.”
The child said, “If the school catches fire, that’s an event. And if you survive the fire, that’s an accident.”

A small boy went to school the first day. When he came home the mother asked, “How was it? How did you like school, son?”
“It was fine. But Mommy, our teacher is very stupid—he knows nothing; he asks the children everything.”

If you observe little children carefully, you will find in them a clear intelligence, an insight, an originality. But we kill this originality. We don’t support it, we don’t nourish it; we murder it. If this originality were nurtured, this world could be so beautiful, such wondrous individuals could flower—and every person’s blossoms would be different.

But we twist and deform everyone, mechanically, to make them alike. All our concern is how to fit everyone into one mold, cast everyone in one die! Our schools and colleges and universities are not yet worthy of being called seats of learning. They are factories where we cast human beings into machines. They do not give birth to consciousness. They murder consciousness there. They manufacture poison there.

And we have given such nice names to the poison that neither we nor others even realize it is poison. When you tell children to come first, you are teaching them ambition; you are teaching them war; you are teaching them ego. On one hand you say, “Come first,” and on the other you say, “Learn humility!” You don’t even see the contradiction. On one side you say ego is bad, and on the other you say without ambition how will you progress in life?

This I could never understand even in school.

One of my teachers was a Christian. He was religious, went to church regularly. There weren’t many Christians in my village, only one church and four or six families. I asked him, “You read the Bible. Jesus has said: Blessed are those who are last. But in class you don’t practice this. What kind of Christian are you? Who are blessed—those who sit in the last row, or those who sit in the front row?”
He said to me, “Look, don’t ask absurd questions.”
I can never forget that the man who reads the Bible and goes to church called this absurd! I said, “If this is absurd, then burn the Bible. I want to know where I should sit. Make it clear. As it is, I prefer the back. There are several advantages to sitting back.”
He said, “What do you mean?”
I said, “From the back one can play cards, read novels, throw pebbles, pull people’s clothes... I understand Jesus perfectly: Blessed are those who are last! But you make me sit in front!”
He said, “That’s exactly why I make you sit in front—so you are right under my eyes.”
“Then what becomes of Jesus’ saying?” I asked.
Again he said, “Don’t talk nonsense!”

Whom does all our education honor? The one who comes first—he gets respect, prestige, a gold medal. And the surprising thing is, now, for instance, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta received the Nobel Prize, even she could not refuse it! Such an accomplished Christian, yet she could not refuse that prize. And once the prize was accepted, the felicitations began everywhere. A year has passed; the honors still go on. Service and so on have been forgotten. Where is the time for service now? Today a felicitation in Lucknow, tomorrow in Calcutta, the day after in Madras, then Delhi, then abroad—honors everywhere. Where is the question now of service? Having got the Nobel Prize, now all the universities must confer D.Litt.s, all must distribute titles and decorations. Time goes in collecting honors.

And Jesus says: Blessed are those who are last.

If this lady had been Christian in the true sense, she should have said, “I don’t want the Nobel Prize.” In this, Jean‑Paul Sartre acted far more honestly. When he received the Nobel Prize—though he was not a Christian, he was an atheist—still, I tell you, often atheists are more honest than believers. Your so‑called believers are thoroughly dishonest. Their greatest dishonesty is that they never passed through the fire of disbelief and yet became believers! They never acquired the capacity to say no, and they said yes. Their yes will be limp and lifeless. It cannot have any backbone.

When Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize, he refused it. He returned it with thanks. And what he said in reply was exactly right: “I do not accept the values of the established society; therefore accepting any honor from this established society would be a compromise. I want a new society. I am an enemy of this society; therefore to accept an honor from it would be to take a bribe. There would be no consistency between taking honors from this society and opposing it. So forgive me—I cannot accept this prize. Give it to the flatterers who serve vested interests.”

Even Mother Teresa could not muster that much courage. And she is a follower of Jesus, with a cross hanging around her neck! But that cross has no value, no meaning. If given a chance in the race to be first, who would want to be last? If she could carry the Nobel medal even after death, she would take it along to heaven and show God, “I am no ordinary woman—look, I have brought the Nobel medal. No other Christian servant got it—only I did. I am first among all the servants. Not even a pope received the Nobel Prize, but I did. I should get a special place in heaven.”

I find sense, consistency, and honesty in Sartre’s stance—though he is an atheist; he believes neither in God nor in any inherent meaning of life, nor in any soul that survives. Yet his courage, his boldness, his strength! One thing is clear to him: “Since I oppose the values of this society, how can I accept honors from it?”

If someone conferred on me the title Bharat Ratna, how could I accept it? Impossible. Because I oppose nations. I cannot be the jewel of any nation—at best, a pebble. I cannot be any country’s jewel; that would amount to accepting nationalism. I do not believe the earth should be divided. I do not believe there should be passports. I do not believe there should be any barriers to people going from one country to another.

Every constitution proclaims freedom of movement. But what freedom is this? Is there freedom of movement? Even in one’s own country there isn’t. In Assam, Indians themselves are foreigners! Citizens of India—and yet foreigners—because they arrived after a certain date. If they had come before that date they would be natives; after that date, they are foreigners!

If I were given a Nobel Prize, I could not accept it.

The truth is, do you know who established the Nobel Prize? The man who started it was the world’s biggest manufacturer of arms and munitions—Nobel. The First World War was fought with his weapons. He was the biggest maker of bombs. The money being given with the Nobel Prize today was earned through bombs, killings, and wars. In old age he began to feel remorse: “What have I done?” His hands felt stained with blood. He saw that what he had done all his life was sin—plain and certain sin. All his wealth was soaked in blood. Because of him, millions died and were cut down. “What can I do now?” On his deathbed he must have been afraid that he might have to answer for it—“How will I face God?”

So as atonement he started the Nobel Prize. He made all his property into a trust. And certainly he must have amassed a great fortune. Every year a Nobel Prize is given in each field—and each prize carries a large purse. And he arranged it to go on forever. It runs only on the interest! The millions distributed each year are just the interest on his wealth.

He did atone, but he did not shut his factories. They continued. This is the fun with so‑called religious people. Take a dip in the Ganges and you’re free of sin; then you are free to sin again—after all, you can bathe again. The factories continued, bombs kept getting made; his sons ran them, his family ran them, and from what he had already earned, a trust was created to keep distributing awards. Peace prizes are given, prizes for service, for scientific research! And from whose wealth? From the wealth of the greatest killer of this century. He took a dip in the Ganges—fine. But even after a bath, one’s actions do not change. The same old actions continue.

But where do Christians have such courage? And if you tell them, they too will say, “What rubbish are you talking!”

In little children there is a clear capacity to see—transparent, through and through.

A small boy returned from church. His mother asked, “What did the pastor teach today?”
The child said, “Today the pastor told us about Moses: when Moses brought his people out of Egypt and came to the sea, he put all his engineers to work. They raised great walls; they split the sea in two. The enemy was in pursuit. Moses’ friends and his soldiers all passed between the walls and crossed the sea. As soon as they reached the far shore and the enemy’s army came behind, the walls were made to collapse—the engineers pressed a button and the walls fell, the sea returned to its place. The enemy was left on the other side, and Moses and his people on this side.”
The mother said, “Did your pastor really tell you that story?”
He said, “Mom, what can I say—if I told it the way he did, you wouldn’t believe it. So I made it scientific so you could understand and accept it. He was spinning pure nonsense. He said Moses came—no engineers, no architects, nobody—and a miracle happened, God split the sea in two; they walked through the middle while the sea stood upright, cut open. And when they were through, God did another miracle and joined the sea back together. He told such a false story—so I’m telling it to you properly.”

Children can see where a story turns false and where it stays true. Tell small children that Jesus was born of a virgin—they too will be astonished to hear such a thing.

A child was asking his father, “Where did I come from?” The father was sitting outside puffing his hookah. To get rid of him—parents have invented many tales to escape children—some say God drops them through the roof, others something else. Just then a stork flew by. The father said, “See that stork? The stork brought you.”
The boy said, “Daddy, does that mean the things you do with Mommy you’ve started doing with the stork too? Aren’t you ashamed? If Mommy finds out there will be big trouble! And I’m going to tell her what you’re up to.”

Children know very well. But we keep throwing dust in their eyes. We go on telling them anything, and think we are getting away with it. The children laugh. But soon they too become victims of our dishonesty. They too have to lose their native intelligence.

In my village there was a friend of my father—Pandit Bhagirath Prasad Dwivedi. He was a highly respected vaidya. More than that, his house was a hub for “knowers of Brahman.” Satsang went on there all the time. Sometimes Karpatri‑ji would stay, sometimes some Shankaracharya, sometimes another baba. Rarely was the house empty. And discourse went on constantly. I too would show up. Seeing me, he would call me near and say, “Sit absolutely quietly. Don’t ask any questions. When you are older, everything will become clear on its own. Right now there is no need to ask.”

But I couldn’t help it. When I heard stupidities I couldn’t keep quiet. Though he would snarl at me, glare at me, I would stop looking at him and say to the mahatma whatever I had to say.

Gradually all the saints who came to his house—and practically all the saints of India—I got to know them as a child at his place; they too got to know me. They would tell him, “Look, that boy must not come. If he comes, he will ask something that creates a mess. And the others get affected. If you scold him, he won’t listen; he gets even sharper if you show anger. If you get angry, he says, ‘What kind of saintliness is this—to get angry so quickly? Just now you were preaching non‑anger, and you forgot already, and you yourself got angry! Just now you were saying a man should remain like a lotus on water—and what happened now? Turn the key a little and you forget to be like a lotus; you’ve taken a plunge!’ He makes some mischief.”

So they would send word to my father, “A mahatma has come today—don’t let your son find out.” But I would pass by that house twice a day anyway.

And the pandit’s wife was against the mahatmas, naturally—she was worn out serving them, one idiot after another. So even if I hadn’t come to know, she would send me a message: “Son, you must come. Put him in his place. I can’t do a thing, because my husband is behind him.” She served me even more than she served the saints—fed me malpuas and this and that—“Put this mahatma in his place, so thoroughly that he never returns.”

I told the pandit, “What can I do? I didn’t know. The message came from your home.”
He said, “My wife must have sent it. I know she is on your side. And I know why she is on your side. She is taking her revenge on me through you.”

I said, “Why don’t you tell your mahatmas to answer? That’s what satsang means—give answers. And I don’t ask difficult questions; I ask simple, straightforward ones.”

A mahatma was explaining that Lord Ramchandra ran after a golden deer, and just then Ravana came and abducted Sita. I said, “Wait—you think Rama was that foolish? Did he have no sense at all? Even the dumbest man has that much sense. Even I—suppose I am utterly rustic—if I saw a golden deer, I wouldn’t believe it could be real. Are deer ever made of gold? Tell me, you yourself: if on the road you see a deer made of gold, would you run after it?”
He said, “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Then do you think Ramchandra was worse than you? He went after a golden deer! Are there deer of gold? He should have had at least that much sense. Those who say the whole world is a mirage—mrig‑marichika—got caught in the mirage of a deer! This is the limit!”

When there is no answer, uneasiness arises; sweat breaks out; they get angry.

My own experience is: if small children get a chance—yet we do not give them a chance. We scold and suppress them; we don’t give them the opportunity. Otherwise you will find in them freshness and original insight, vision. And if we support them, we can refine their vision and make it strong.

The capacity that small children have—so far all our efforts have been to destroy it; that is why the human race is so foolish. Otherwise the earth would be full of Buddhas. And it can be filled with Buddhas; but we will have to begin with the children. Until we acknowledge the intelligence of children, we will not be able to transform humanity.

Prem Chaitanya! That is exactly how it should be. What had to happen has happened. But perhaps you came with a different expectation in your mind. People who come to me at first usually think they will return wiser, carrying a little more knowledge. New people write to me with the same request: “God, give us knowledge.”

You already have plenty of knowledge—more than you need. That is what is suffocating your very life. The true Master is the one who takes your knowledge away. As for giving you knowledge—God knows how many have already done that! Everyone is busy giving you knowledge. Parents, neighbors, whomever you meet—everyone is giving. Is there any shortage of advice in this world? Whether you take it or not is your choice, but the givers go on giving.

The most freely distributed thing in the world is advice. Everyone gives it. Even if you don’t ask, they give it! They know you won’t take it, and still they give it! And they offer the very counsels they themselves have never followed. In giving advice people are not miserly at all.

But the true Master does not give advice, does not give knowledge, does not give intellect—he takes the intellect away. What you call intellect, he takes that from you. For the present, your “intellect” is not yours at all—it is all borrowed, stale. Only when it is taken away does your own innermost originality get revealed. Then your native intelligence begins to sprout; buds come, leaves appear, flowers bloom.

This is good. But it will be a difficulty for you, because you came with one idea and the opposite has happened.

To be with a true Master is to enter a world of reversals. That is why the clever and the crafty keep running away; they keep their distance, they avoid. They invent innumerable strategies to escape, they find excuses, they spin webs of argument around themselves.

That is why so many false rumors are spread against people like me. They have to be spread—there is a psychology behind it. And there are always people ready to believe them. There is a reason for their believing too. Who believes such rumors? Only the one who wants to avoid. By believing those lies, he reassures himself: “There is no need to go. Why go to such a man! Are we mad to go to someone like that!”

Whoever does come here, usually comes for the wrong reasons. How could you have the right reasons?

A German professor once said to Ramana Maharshi, “I have come to learn from you— to learn spirituality.” Ramana Maharshi said, “Then go somewhere else. If you want to learn, go elsewhere. If you want to unlearn, stay here. If you want even the spirituality you think you know to be forgotten, then remain. I do the work of unlearning.”

My work is the same: to wipe your slate clean. The answers I am giving you are not to increase your knowledge; they are like using one thorn to remove another thorn. One thorn has pricked you; I use a second to take it out. Then both thorns are thrown away.

But first, Prem Chaitanya, there is this initial turmoil when things are turned upside down. You came with one idea, something else happened. You came thinking you would get free from the cycle of birth and death, and here you found that the very idea is foolish. You don’t have to get rid of anything. The very desire to get rid of is fundamentally anti-life. You came to collect knowledge, to return a little more learned, a little more pundit-like. Here you discover that punditry is a device to hide stupidity. Better to be ignorant than a pundit. Naturally, you panic: everything is being overturned!

Seeing Chandulal looking dejected, Nasruddin asked, “What’s the matter, you look so down!”

Chandulal said, “Don’t ask, my friend. These days I am terribly troubled by my wife’s obesity. It’s gotten to the point that when I go out with her, people say, ‘Brother Chandulal, where are you taking your mother?’ I sink in shame. I have tried every rule and regimen, fasts and vows—whatever I could—but her weight refuses to budge. And ever since I had her ‘exorcised’ by the broom-wielding baba, she’s been getting even fatter. Now only you can help. If you know anything, tell me.”

Nasruddin closed his eyes for a moment, thought, and said, “Do this: for a month, have her do horse-riding. By God’s grace, she might slim down.”

A month later, when Nasruddin saw Chandulal passing by, he stopped him. “Well, Chandulal, any results?”

“Yes, my friend—she’s dried up to half,” said Chandulal.

“See! I told you…,” Nasruddin began, delighted.

Chandulal cut in, “Man, I’m not talking about my wife; I’m talking about the mare! She’s dried up to half. The wife has doubled!”

When the opposite happens, of course you will be startled, you will be surprised. What you thought would happen—and what actually happened!

Hence you ask: “Now what should I do?”

Now don’t ask. If the intellect is gone, let this sense of doership go too. The very energy that moves this vast cosmos—you are part of it. Let that energy move you as well. Say now: “Let Thy will be done.” Let whatever He makes happen, happen. Stop being the doer. Be like a bamboo reed—hollow. Let the song—whatever song He sings—pass through.

This is the meaning of sannyas, Prem Chaitanya: to lose yourself and to leave yourself in the hands of the Divine so totally that whatever He makes happen is your joy, your good, your beauty. You will be astonished—showers of incomparable bliss will descend, flowers of grace will blossom, such fragrance will rise, such music will awaken within you as you cannot even imagine. This is beyond the intellect. It is beyond the doer. It is not in your hands; it is the secret of becoming one with the Vast. The wave, thinking itself separate from the ocean, is thrown into turmoil; knowing itself one with the ocean, all turmoil is stilled and ends.

It is good your intellect is lost. Slowly, slowly you too will melt and disappear. If you remain here and don’t run away, you will surely be lost. And then what remains is God.

So Paltu has said: I warn you beforehand—this wall is a laughing lure; do not climb it to peep over—let no one peep—for whoever peeped was lost. If you have the courage to lose, then peep. If you have the courage to die, then peep. But in that dying no one really dies. In truth, only in dying do you exist for the first time. When the drop disappears, it becomes the ocean.

Your intellect is lost—good. Even when you had it, what could you do with it? What did you ever achieve with it? It only gave you misery. It pricked like a thorn. If a few thorns still remain, let them go too.

Ego still remains, because you ask, “Now what should I do?”

Let this “I” go now. Let this doer go now. Now that you have begun to move, why stop? Now that you have begun, why look back?

Sant Maharaj! How was I to know that you too have now entered the stage of old age? Good that you told me.

Sita Maiya has written a letter saying, “Bhagwan, before you even mentioned it, I had already eaten that fruit. And ever since I ate it, outwardly I may look old, but inside I’ve become like a child.”

And that’s true. She keeps dancing and skipping about. If you see Sita Maiya, you’ll agree she’s dancing and skipping about. And Phali Bhai too has eaten it—whether he admits it or not! These are private matters; it’s not necessary to announce them. Sita Maiya couldn’t hold back—she told.

Nothing stays hidden with women. That’s why it’s said, if you want something to spread through the whole village, just tell one woman. Then stop worrying—within twenty-four hours it will spread on its own. No need to publish it in the newspaper; telling one woman is enough. Yes, while telling, do add, “Sister, don’t tell anyone else.” Then consider it guaranteed. Whether anyone reads an ad in the paper or not!

Now, Phali Bhai too has eaten it, but he’s quiet. A man can hide things. He maintains silence, says nothing. He just smiles sitting there. He’s sitting right here smiling that Sita Maiya has revealed his secret too.

Sant Maharaj, meet Sita Maiya. She knows which fruit to eat.

That is why man invented clothes. If there were no clothes, it would become very difficult. If there were no clothes...

Swami Ageh Bharati has suggested, “Bhagwan, it would be auspicious, beautiful, if whoever comes leaves their clothes at the door and sits in the gathering digambar—naked. Then those who throw knives and such won’t be able to bring knives, etc.”

It’s a point worth considering. Yes, Ageh Bharati is a bit eccentric, but sometimes he hits the mark. The idea appealed to me. And it would be fun. The newspapers would be in an uproar. We’ll think, we’ll consider it. The proposal is fine; only one hitch would arise—that, for instance, if this had already been put into practice, then when I took the names of Phali Bhai and Sita Maiya, I would also have taken the name of Sant Maharaj—if there were no clothes. Because of the illusion created by clothes I assumed that Sant Maharaj is still quite far from old age. See what illusions clothes create!

Chandulal was showing a lady around his garden. The lady was very uneasy. It was a lovely winter morning, yet she was sweating, because the buttons of Chandulal’s trousers were open. And she was worried that someone else might come along. And if she had to tell Chandulal, how to say it? Just then she saw three or four men entering through the gate. The lady thought, Now we’re done for; now I’ll have to say something. She thought, I’ll have to devise some tactic. Women are clever at inventing things—and if it’s about inventing words, no one can match them. She said, “Seth Chandulal, your garage door is open.”

But Chandulal too is a “realized” man. Nothing penetrated his mind—there has to be a mind for something to penetrate. He said, “The garage door is open! Then is my new Mercedes visible or not?”

The woman said, “Oh, come on! A real Mercedes? I can see only that Ambassador in which Father Adam left the Garden of Eden—its four tires punctured—something you’d be ashamed to even call a bullock cart. What Mercedes have you put in there!”

Only then did he realize what was going on! He quickly buttoned up.

Now, Sant Maharaj, you’ve said it yourself! You say, “Revered Sadguru, why did you forget me?”

That’s thanks to clothes, brother. But no harm done; nothing is lost yet. Meet Sita Maiya.

Meditation is that fruit which refreshes you so, which makes you youthful forever. One who has tasted meditation—then there is no death and no old age. The body will grow old and the body will also die—that is the nature of the body; it has nothing to do with you—but you were never born, nor will you ever die. You were never a child, you never became young, you will never grow old. You are eternal; you are ageless and deathless. But the taste of this being is felt only through the fruit of meditation!

Taste the fruit of meditation. Sita Maiya is tasting it, Phali Bhai is tasting it, others are tasting it. And Sant Maharaj, you too are tasting it—you’re just not saying so. Greedy you are. You are tasting it and must have thought, perhaps there are other fruits beyond this; if not, we’ll keep tasting only meditation while others may be tasting something further—samadhi and such—so it’s proper to ask!

No, you are walking on the right path. Along this very path that revolution will happen where everything becomes fresh, fresh forever; thereafter it never becomes stale.

Pandit Krishnadas Shastri! If you are so eager to get into some mess, have it your way. When astrology itself isn’t working, what on earth makes you think poetry will? Astrology—people are so gullible it ought to work. If even that doesn’t, poetry is far tougher. You have no idea about the poets’ conventions in this country; go attend one or two and see. People throw rotten tomatoes at poets, banana peels, rotten bananas, eggs; they scrape their shoes on the floor while poets read, they hoot and holler, they shout, “Stop!” And that’s exactly what the organizers pay the poets for: “Whatever happens, keep equanimity in pleasure and pain—hold the Gita’s state of the steady-in-wisdom.” And the poets? They stand their ground. Once you’ve taken the money, you have to stand there—no matter how much you’re pelted or thrashed, whatever happens.

Astrology isn’t working for you, and now you’ve thought of poetry! If you dodge the well, you’ll fall into the ditch. Be sensible—ask about something worthwhile. What will you gain from poetry? Poetry isn’t something anyone can just take up. Poets are born, not made. Manufactured poets are not poets; they’re only rhymesters. Rhyming is not poetry. True poetry is the name of a new style of living—a way of life filled with beauty, with grace, with awe. Then whether you write or not, your rising is poetry, your sitting is poetry.

At a poets’ convention
the emcee first invited a film lyricist.
He sang—
“When my mother is ill, how can I sing?”
A local poet sitting in the crowd shouted—
“Brother, if your mother’s ill, why did you come to the poets’ meet?”

The lyricist carried on—
“There’s not even a mat at home, not even a broken cot.”
A voice rang out—
“Man, are you singing a song or reporting your home’s economic condition?”

Exasperated, the lyricist started another song—
“Save my country; take my life instead.”
The uninvited local poet yelled—
“Save my nose; take my ears instead.
Don’t sing me a song; take my life instead.”

At the public’s request another poet came
and began his caravan—
“Dreams fell like flowers; friend, thorns stabbed us.
All our adornments were looted by the acacia of the grove.
And we stood there watching the spring.
The caravan passed by while we watched the dust.”

A bhang-intoxicated poet made a parody—
“Thieves took off with the goods, the pots and pans.
All the lentils—moong and masoor—they took them all.
And we, frightened, lay on the cot,
Staring at the open door in front of us.”

Then the emcee called a poetess and said—
“Please come and set this poets’ meet alight.”
The poetess began—
“For an age I have housed you in my heart.”
From the crowd a listener shouted—
“And how many days has it been since you bathed?”

What kind of hassle do you want to get into, Pandit Krishnadas Shastri? Ask something useful. And if you must take on a hassle, become a sannyasin; hassles upon hassles will come, the doors of trouble upon trouble will open. And now that you’ve come here... first you asked me, “I feel like giving up astrology!” Now you ask—“Shall I take up poetry?”

I am neither an astrologer nor a poet. I know only one mischief—sannyas! Become a sannyasin, and then all troubles will descend on their own. Why fall into small pits—poetry, astrology! I will take you to the ocean: if you drown, you drown—there’s no coming back. Like a doll of salt that goes to measure the ocean’s depth: the farther it goes in, the more it dissolves; it never returns to report whether it found the bottom. In finding the depth, the salt doll becomes one with the ocean. Such is sannyas.

You want to escape one nuisance only to fall into another! I give you the way to disappear. And if you disappear, there is no nuisance left. If you are not, there is no illness. You’ve heard of doctors who cure by eliminating the patient. I am of that kind. I don’t worry so much about the disease; I set about removing the one who is sick. If the sick one is gone, who will the disease afflict? The disease vanishes of itself. As long as the patient remains, you’ll dodge one disease and another will catch you. There are thousands—how many will you avoid? Cut the root in one stroke!

What scholarship and erudition are you clinging to? Take the leap today. Let the Pandit die and let the Shastri die; save what’s in between—Krishnadas is dear. Swami Krishnadas Bharati would be just right!

That’s all for today.