Piya Kokhojan Main Chali #7

Satyanand! I gave you the name Satyanand, and you advise me to take delight in untruth! You might have thought a little. Maunam sammatilakshanam—silence too is a sign of consent. And I am not a politician who says what people will like, who says what will please them. I can only say what is, whatever the consequences. Whether friends arise or enemies—that is secondary.

How many friends did Jesus have? Not very many. Had there been many, it wouldn’t have been easy to crucify him. How many friends did Socrates have? Not many.

People live in untruth, so whenever truth is spoken there will be a sting, a hurt, a turmoil. That is natural. In that, it isn’t entirely their fault. But neither is it my fault. I can only say what I see.

And what you have believed up to now—if my statements go against that, your boat begins to sink, your house of cards collapses. Naturally your vested interests are hurt. You don’t have the courage to walk with truth and let the past fall. If the structure you built proves to be sand, then let it be known as sand.

If you have a little understanding, you will thank me. You will say, since it has come to light, the sooner the better. It could have been that no one would be there to tell you, and you would have perished while building houses of cards. You would have lived and ended within false and futile notions; they would have become your gravestones. Whenever you wake, that is morning.

What do I care who becomes a friend and who becomes an enemy! Even if someone becomes my enemy, what can that take away from me? What did you really take away from Jesus? In any case a man must die. No one can escape death. The body will fall; it is here only for a few days. Then why not relish truth! Why not blossom the flowers of truth! Why sow the thorns of lies! Someone will listen. Not all are deaf. Not all are blind. Not all are cowards.

Even a few who will hear, even a few who will see, are enough. If a few people on this earth keep walking while holding a ray of truth, darkness will not prevail. A single small ray of truth is capable of defeating the densest darkness.

You can kill Jesus, but not his life, not his soul, not his truth. You can kill me too; that’s not so difficult. But what I am saying will become even deeper, even more powerful. That truth will be written across the sky in even larger letters; then you will not be able to erase it.

So truth has this beauty: even to die with truth is joy—whereas to live with untruth brings no joy. On the path of truth even pains are sweet; on the path of untruth even comforts are poison. Truth is nectar—untruth is poison.

Don’t think like this, Satyanand.

You say, “You state the truth as it is.” It should be said as it is. There is a great need for people who will speak truth exactly as it is. Slowly people too will become able to bear truth, will grow strong. Their inner strength will awaken. Truth will strike within; at first it will hurt—but how long? If the blow falls again and again, one day this very blow bursts forth within as a fountain of music.

And I will speak bluntly. I will say: two and two make only four. Politicians speak another kind of language; their language is wishy-washy. They speak in such a way that it could mean this and it could also mean that. In their mouths, yes doesn’t mean yes, and no doesn’t mean no. They speak so that whatever way the wind blows tomorrow, meanings can be drawn accordingly. Even if a politician becomes a sadhu, the old habits don’t go; he cannot give up his old ways.

Do you watch Vinoba Bhave’s statements?

Today one thing will appear in the newspapers; four days later he will issue a denial. He will phrase it so that it bears two meanings. He speaks in a roundabout, equivocal manner.

When in the Chikmagalur election Indira won, and the news reached him that Indira had won, he clapped and laughed. The newspapers reported that he was pleased, delighted with her victory. Then he must have thought it over: a costly bargain. Morarji was in power then; to be happy at Indira’s victory was a slip. Soon a statement came that his clapping and laughing had nothing to do with Indira’s victory; he sometimes claps and sometimes laughs just out of playful mood. He changed the story.

Just four or six days ago, before these election results, he told a certain minister that Indira’s Congress would win in only nine states. The minister issued a statement; it was printed. Two days later he must have felt that if victory did not occur in all those states, my word would be proved false; and as soon as it was seen that in Tamil Nadu—in one state at least—defeat was certain, he immediately issued a statement: I never said such a thing.

Now either that minister lied. If he lied, the denial should have been immediate; there was no need to wait two or four days. But they were watching which way the wind would blow. If victory happened in exactly nine states, then he could claim: I prophesied—knower of the future, a seer. But when it became apparent that defeat in one state was becoming certain, there would be public embarrassment; better to say now that I never said such a thing.

And this has not happened just once—many times. In the presence of Indira and Aras he made a statement; two days later he reversed it. Either Indira and Aras lied—but he made the statement to the press in their very presence. He should have stopped them then: that is not my meaning. At that time he sat silently; and when Indira and Aras had left, two days later, when he had weighed the bad consequences—power being still in others’ hands—he promptly changed it: I never said such a thing. I was sitting quietly. I said nothing.

I am not a politician. I will say what seems right to me. Dayanand has never appealed to me; what can I do? And it isn’t that I haven’t tried in every way. I have tried every way to understand Dayanand, because any judgment is proper only after full examination. Ramakrishna appeals to me—both were contemporaries—but Dayanand does not.

Now either I should keep silent. And you are not the first, Satyanand, to give me this advice; others too—my friends—have advised me that Arya Samajis get angry. It is true they get angry. And they shower whatever abuses they can at me—and they are skilled at abusing.

But understand my compulsion too. I made every effort to find something in this man—but I found nothing. This man has always seemed to me a gobar-Ganesh—a blockhead. I sifted through the scriptures he wrote; I saw nothing there.

And whatever he has said is crude and tasteless, unseemly. The way he reviled Mahavira and Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus—that is not critique; it is outright denunciation—so crude and uncultured that it is astonishing we continue to honor such coarse pronouncements!

Now the friend who asked the question yesterday—Vedalankar—wanted me to compare and place Dayanand alongside Jesus. He should know that Dayanand himself would not agree, because in Dayanand’s view Jesus is ignorant. Dayanand would be very angry to learn that some Vedalankar—this refuse from Gurukul Kangri—is trying to have him compared and equated with Jesus. He vilified Jesus to his heart’s content, to the last drop of breath. To him Jesus is utterly wrong. To compare him with Jesus does not even arise—not even by his own reckoning.

And in my view Jesus is one of those deathless beings whose presence has blessed this earth. He is a lotus of this earth—like Buddha, like Mahavira, like Krishna, like Lao Tzu, like Zarathustra, like Moses, like Mohammed, like Bahauddin, like Jalaluddin, like Al-Hallaj—he is part of this wondrous lineage, one of those shining stars. Because of them the sky of this earth has become luminous.

But among these none pleases Dayanand—not Buddha, not Mahavira, not Jesus, not Mohammed. And as for Jalaluddin, Bahauddin, Farid—leave them aside; he would not even count them. He is a very narrow-minded person. For him the entire world is confined to the four Vedas; outside them there is nothing, nor can there ever be anything. Everything is in the Vedas.

I have sifted the Vedas too. Everything is not contained there—otherwise the Upanishads would not have been born. Another name for the Upanishads is Vedanta. Vedanta means: by which the Vedas came to an end; by which the Vedas were consummated; by which the Vedas lost their value.

And in the Upanishads there is a clear declaration that the Vedas are only for worldly people, whose intelligence is grossly material and worldly; they are not for Brahmavadins. For those who wish to take a high flight, to touch the sky—the Upanishads are for them.

I have great reverence for the Upanishads. Wherever something is worthy of reverence, I am always ready to offer it; I am always ready to bow my head. But toward the Vedas I have no reverence. Yes, if you set aside one percent of the Vedic mantras, for those my reverence remains. A few mantras are there, like a few diamonds lying in garbage. But on that account I cannot honor the garbage.

Dayanand’s outlook is such that whatever is in the Vedas must be honored because it is in the Vedas; twist and turn, but try to extract some meaning; try to prove it superior. With the Vedas, the world’s knowing ended; after that, there was no more need of knowledge.

The truth is that with the Vedas, only the beginning of knowing occurred. They are the primary stage. Like a small child taking first steps—tottering. The mother rejoices at the child’s walking, but those first steps cannot be given much value: no destinations are reached by them; it is only the beginning of learning. The Vedas are the ABC of spirituality, not more than that. The Upanishads took height. Then came the Brahmasutras, which rose higher still. Then Buddha and Mahavira arrived, who brought it to the summit.

In Dayanand’s words I have found nothing to which I can give value. And it isn’t that I have refused to value him out of bias. What enmity do I have with him? I have no enmity with anyone. My love is with truth; therefore I love whatever aligns with truth.

I found nothing in Dayanand’s personality either. Leave personality—when I look even at Dayanand’s photograph, he appears to me a certified dunce, nothing more. There is neither the dignity of Buddha, nor the glory of Jesus, nor the beauty of Krishna, nor the ecstasy of Ramakrishna—just a pompous pundit, nothing more.

Satyanand, you say, “The point is true, but it stings.”
Truth always stings, because we live in untruth. But what am I to do? The pus has to be drawn. And when pus is drawn, there will be pain. My work is surgery. You will feel pain, you will hurt, but if you want freedom from the pus, you will have to endure this pain. If you pass through this pain, health can dawn in your life.

You say, “Wouldn’t it be better to remain silent in such matters?”
It may be better for you, for my disciples—so they face fewer obstacles and hassles—but it is not better for me, and not better for truth. And keep this in mind: I am not here for you; I am here for truth. And if you are to be with me, be with me for truth—no other reason. If there is any bridge between you and me, it is truth.

And for truth there must be a readiness to give everything, to sacrifice everything; for less than that, this bargain cannot be struck. No one has ever managed it for less. Even if life has to be offered, fine—so be it—but do not lose truth. Lose everything; do not lose truth. You will have to endure many pains. I am preparing crucifixions for you; thrones will not be waiting. You will have to suffer a thousand kinds of insults. You will have to face trouble at many places.

But apart from this, there has never been any other way for the expression of truth, nor is there any now. One should hope that in the future the situation will change. But that is a distant hope. It does not seem possible that the crowd will ever be ready for truth. One should hope—but when that hope will become reality is hard to say. Buddha hoped, Krishna hoped. Thousands of years have passed; hope is still hope—it has not become reality. I too hope, but perhaps thousands more years will pass.

But man has begun to mature. Slowly, slowly man becomes mature. An individual’s life spans seventy years, so it seems a very long time to us. But the life of humanity is very long—hundreds of thousands of years; here thousands don’t really count. If in ten or twenty-five thousand years man becomes capable of receiving truth with love, of listening to it and letting friendship arise within, then know the event happened quickly, the earth has been transformed. Know then that the night of the new moon has passed and morning has come.

But while this will happen in everyone’s life whenever it does, in your life it can happen today. It should happen today. Being with me can have only one meaning: that you have decided to be with truth at any cost. Sannyas has no other purpose.

Do not give me such advice. Because your advice shows what you will do in your own life. I will not be influenced—but in your life there is the danger that you will do exactly what you are telling me to do. You will try to hide truth. You will whitewash it. You will speak after gauging what the other will find pleasing or displeasing.

But in this way you will stray from the path. You, who have set out in search of truth, on that great quest—your aim will be missed. Then politics will enter within you. You will be more concerned with making friends; and if lies make friends, then lies are fine; and if truth makes enemies, then truth is dangerous—what to do with such truth?

But I tell you: truth alone is the one friend. And there is no need of other friendships. If that one friend is found, the supreme friend is found, because truth is the divine.

So do not give me such counsel; do not even carry such feelings within. For if such inner tendencies persist, they are dangerous.

Chaitanya Bharati! For heaven’s sake! In your whole life you finally asked one question... Are you also an Arya Samaji from the bygone days—what’s the matter? What rubbish to ask! If you were one of those who ask a lot, it would still be okay. Perhaps this is your very first question. And you’ve been with me for years—some fifteen years. In fifteen years this is all that occurred to you! What a profoundly “spiritual” question you’ve asked!

I have no interest in being a Bharat Ratna, nor in being a World Jewel. I am what I am. I am an ordinary person. There is no question of being a jewel.

Better avoid being a “jewel,” because those decorated as jewels often turn out to be real characters—seasoned numbers!

I have no taste for being a jewel. Jewels are just pebbles and stones—what else? Shiny, granted. Their price is only in human eyes. Remove man from the earth: what difference remains between pebbles and jewels? All would be equal. Complete communism would arrive—no pebbles of lesser value, no diamonds of greater value.

I have no interest in these toys. I am, as I am, enough; as much as I am, I am fulfilled; as I am, I am utterly delighted. Nothing can be added to this, nothing subtracted.

To know this truth is what I call the attainment of godliness—when nothing can be added, nothing taken away; when your very being is perfectly satisfying.

I want no title, no honor, no welcome, no throne, no award. I have received all the awards! The day I found myself, I found everything. All titles came to me. The supreme seat came that very day. Once enthroned within, there is no greater throne. The day I learned to sit within, all other thrones became small, all jewels faded. Since I have seen myself, forget jewels—the moon, the stars, and the sun too have gone pale.

Don’t ask childish things.

Swaroopanand! You just saw—Chaitanya Bharati’s answer was, in truth, finished with a mere “oh, damn it.” The rest was just a little pat on the back. As much as is needed, according to the person’s need.

Yesterday I was reading a story in the newspaper. A science teacher was explaining the notion of relativity to his students. Einstein’s theory of relativity is abstruse, difficult. Even Einstein found it hard to explain; he himself said perhaps no more than a dozen people on earth truly understood it. So the teacher explained at length.

It was so long that a student stood up and asked, “Sir, if this comes up in the exam, how will we write such a long answer?”

The teacher said, “Look, there are two kinds of answers—Arjuna-type and Hanuman-type.”
The student asked, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Arjuna-type means: when Arjuna was asked, ‘Son, what do you see?’ He had to shoot the bird’s eye. He saw neither the tree, nor flowers, nor fruits; not even the whole bird; not even both eyes—only the one eye he had to hit. So, answer only what is asked. That’s an Arjuna-type answer, give just that much.

“And the other is Hanuman-type: he went to fetch the sanjivani herb; he couldn’t find it, so he brought the whole mountain and put it before the physician: ‘Here, you find which one is the sanjivani.’ If you don’t know what to answer, then bring the whole mountain—write everything.”

So, Swaroopanand, I watch how much each person will understand. If someone is like Arjuna, I answer briefly. And if someone is Hanuman-stamp—and most people are of the Hanuman stamp—they won’t get it if I keep it short; they’ll miss. As for the Hanuman-type, keep as far from it as you can.

I’ve heard: one friend was telling another, “You know? You’ve just become pregnant; be a little careful. I heard about a woman who was pregnant—she was a devotee of Hanuman and used to recite the Hanuman Chalisa. Then she had her first child. The husband was pacing outside, nurses running back and forth, the compounder rushing about, medicines being brought and taken away. Then the doctor also came running out—so flustered that the husband panicked: ‘What’s the matter?’ The coat’s buttons were all over the place, the tie had flown back, the hat was on backward, the trouser buttons undone—what’s going on? So much commotion! He was sweating profusely. The husband said, ‘Doctor, doctor! I ask everyone and no one answers. What’s the matter? Has the baby been born or not?’

“The doctor said, ‘Yes, the baby is born, don’t panic.’
“‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
“‘That we can’t say yet. Whatever it is has leapt up and climbed onto the chandelier. When it comes down from the chandelier, then we’ll know if it’s a boy or a girl.’”

That’s the fruit of reciting the Hanuman Chalisa! The sons born are Hanuman-stamp—they’ve climbed the chandelier right away.

The woman hearing all this got very worried. She asked, “Do books really have such effects?”
“Yes! One woman was studying scriptures on dualism, so she gave birth to two babies. When that news spread, another woman who’d just conceived thought it better to read a book on non-dualism; otherwise two babies would be born and it would be a nuisance. So she read texts on Advaita. And the result was: an advaitin was born—meaning he had only one eye, one hand, one leg.”

Now the friend who was listening jumped up in a panic: “I’m finished! Oh dear!”
“Why are you panicking?”
“I’m reading Alibaba and the Forty Thieves—what will become of me?”

Don’t become Hanuman-stamp. Be a little careful. But most people are of the Hanuman stamp. For them I have to give long answers. You have to smack them and smack them; with great difficulty they wake up a little. If they so much as open their eyes a bit, it’s good. And many are such that they are lying there awake, only pretending to be asleep; no matter how much you smack them, they won’t open their eyes.

It was afternoon. Nasruddin and Chandulal were traveling by train, in an air-conditioned compartment, just the two of them. Nasruddin first snored a little, and then suddenly started cursing: “To hell with you, Chandulal! You scoundrel! I’ll slap you so hard you’ll never forget it!”

Chandulal shook him at once and said, “Nasruddin, whenever you’re asleep you babble nonsense.”

Nasruddin said, “Who says I’m asleep? If I talk nonsense when I’m fully awake, it starts a quarrel. So I do it in my sleep. I mean, what I have to say I will say. If you let me say it awake, I’ll say it awake; if not, I’ll pretend to be asleep and say it.”

People who lie there making excuses are a real bother. You have to pull and tug at them. Pull their leg, splash water, sit them up, drag them out of bed—barely do they budge. For them, long answers are needed, Swaroopanand. For those who can understand, a single stroke is enough.

The questioner hasn’t written his name. Brother, what kind of cowardice is this! Are you Vedalankar? What’s the matter? Because there was quite a thrashing yesterday, today you didn’t even write your name! At least write your name; it makes it easier for me.

Who says no one has attained buddhahood? But it is part of my process that those who attain, I tell them: keep quiet. Keep silently at work. There is no need to announce. There is no benefit in announcing. I too would have worked silently; I was compelled to make an announcement—so that I could invite many people.

Those who are attaining buddhahood around me do not need to announce it. When I feel it is necessary, that the time has come to announce, I will certainly announce it.

In many lives, revolution is happening; light is breaking forth. Only yesterday I was speaking about Fali Bhai. “Having found the diamond, he tied it in a knot; why open it again and again?” Once the diamond is found and tied up, why keep opening it! Why tell anyone! They are enjoying silently.

Nor is it necessary for everyone to announce, because after buddhahood there are two states: one is the bodhisattva, and the other is the arhat. The arhat need not announce at all, because he will not be a teacher, not a true master. He has attained his own, he has arrived. He cannot support others. To support others, buddhahood alone is not enough; other qualifications are needed—available only if acquired in past lives. Otherwise, he must remain silent.

So, half will be arhats. They have no need to announce. If I feel it necessary, I will announce them. I will certainly announce them when I have a certain number of arhats with me.

My work has its own process. For fifteen years I moved through the nooks and corners of the country; I did not announce my buddhahood for fifteen years. Even those who began to sense it, I told them—keep quiet. Even those who came and said to me, “We have this feeling,” I told them—keep quiet, don’t speak, don’t say it. I still had to move through every corner of the land. If I had announced that I had attained buddhahood, it would have stopped my work altogether. The day I had to stop traveling, the day travel was no longer needed, the day people would begin to come to me, that day the announcement would be made.

So I remained silent for fifteen years. I quietly kept the work going. Otherwise, today you would not find me alive. Today my being here would have been impossible. This body would have been taken from me long ago.

I have my own mathematics for working.

And in those fifteen years I gave no one sannyas, because giving sannyas means wrestling with a fierce fire, creating a fire. When I sat down in one place, then I began to give sannyas. When the hour came—when the right springtime arrived—the flowers bloomed.

When it was needed, I announced my buddhahood. When it was needed, I began giving sannyas. The day I feel that I now have a proper number of arhats, I will announce them. But they will not be of “use” to anyone. They will be for seeing. You will be able to sit with them, but they will be in silence. They will not speak.

When I feel it is time to announce the bodhisattvas, I will announce the bodhisattvas. But that will be possible only when I see that I have such a large class of sannyasins all over the world that they can make arrangements for the bodhisattvas. Otherwise, stones will be thrown at them pointlessly, and nothing else will happen.

I have no taste for getting stones thrown at you needlessly. If stones are thrown under compulsion, that’s another matter; but I have no desire to make you martyrs. I do not want you to be crucified without cause. If it happens and the hour arrives, I will not tell you to run away. But I will not tell you to climb the cross with your own hands for nothing. It is not my plan to make you martyrs.

Therefore I will have to wait. When I have a definite class all over the world… that hour is approaching. There are now about one and a half lakh sannyasins across the world. Soon the time will come when there will be sannyasins in every village. When there are sannyasins in every village, then I can announce who has attained buddhahood, because then they will have to go. They will have to move from village to village. They will have to sit from village to village, and they will have to endure. For now they can sit under my shelter; later they will have to stand on their own feet. But let me complete the preparation.

Had Jesus worked with preparation it would have been different. Jesus’ work was unorganized; therefore at thirty-three he was crucified, and not much could be done properly, not in an orderly way. And after Jesus died, the work fell into the wrong hands. It could only fall into the wrong hands, because the right people could not be produced.

I sow when the time comes, and when the time comes I reap. Not because you ask, “How many have attained buddhahood?” will I say how many have attained. The announcement will be made when, in my own vision, it is necessary.

But this much I tell you: many have attained, many are attaining, many will attain. Possibly never on earth have so many buddhas been available together as can be available now. Such a vast field of buddha-energy, created in such a scientific way, has never before been created. Nor could it have been, because I have the essence of the experiences of all the buddhas—which they themselves did not have. After all, Buddha could not have the experience of the twenty-five hundred years that I have. Jesus could not have the experience of these two thousand years that I have.

Naturally, the buddhas who come after me will have even more experience—more than I have. Buddhahood is one and the same event, but the experience of life, of people, of working with people—that keeps growing; it deepens with time.

I am mindful of the life-process of all the buddhas of the past, and I am using the essence of all that. The announcement will be made when the time is ripe. Only at the right time will any work be done, any step taken. I neither like to, nor do I consider it proper to, do anything before its time.

Sannyas is a dangerous undertaking. If there is any greatest danger in life, it is sannyas—because sannyas means the death of the ego. If you want to save the ego, listen to the mind. And if you are tired of the ego, harassed by it, tormented by it—if you have tasted the hell of the ego—then listen to the voice that is rising from within. That is the real voice. The mind only repeats voices from the outside. The mind is an echo. The mind broods about what the wife will say, what the father will say, the children, the brothers, the villagers—what people will say. The voice that arises from within is the call of your very life-breath.

But of the two you can choose only one—whichever you choose will live, what you let go will die. If you choose the inner voice, then the mind must die. And what is the mind? Just another name for the ego.

A young man was married in the village. For the first time he went to his in-laws’ to bring home his bride. They had prepared a splendid meal. At the very sight of the platter his mouth watered. He liked everything—except the radish curry. He thought, “Let me finish the radish curry first, then I’ll relish the rest at leisure.” But as soon as he finished the radish curry, the in-laws, thinking “our son-in-law liked it very much,” refilled the bowl.

The poor fellow somehow managed to finish that serving too, and said, “Please don’t give me any more of this curry.” But they thought, “He likes it so much he’s refusing out of modesty,” and despite his protests filled the bowl yet again.

Just then a neighbor, hearing the son-in-law had arrived, came to meet him and in conversation asked, “How many brothers are you?” The young man said, “So far we are four, but if they fill this radish-curry bowl once more, there will definitely be only three left.”

Now you decide. Only one of the two will survive. Either the mind can be saved or the inner voice can be saved. If you feel the mind is worth saving—if the mind has given you anything, given you joy, poured a current of nectar into your life—then why drop the mind? Listen to it. But if the mind has given you nothing, only strewn your path with thorns; if the ego has given you only sorrow, only wounds—then why are you even asking? Take the leap now. Let the mind die now. I am ready to fill your bowl with radish curry a fourth time. Just give me a sign. But without your signal I will not say a thing.

I don’t want anything imposed on anyone. Don’t take sannyas under the influence of being here. Don’t become a sannyasin just because you see so many sannyasins here—that would be false. The moment you leave here it will wash off; it will be a flimsy dye. Test the inner voice, recognize it, and when the right decision arises—that you are ready for the death of the mind… And there is no hurry. Think it over well. Come next time. I am not about to depart so soon. Even if countless knives are thrown, don’t worry. Until it is my time to go, no knife can do a thing. The day I have to go, there will be no need to throw knives—I will tell you I am going now. I will go sitting right here. If you ask, I will go while speaking; if you ask, I will go while walking—as you wish. There will be no need of knives on the day I have to go.

But I will go only on the day I can declare at least one thousand buddhas. Before that I am not going. Before that, no power can separate me from here.

So come again; there is no hurry. I assure you I will be here next time too. Don’t be hasty, for a sannyas taken in haste may end halfway along the road! And next time when you ask, at least write your name. Why be afraid? Of whom are you afraid? Such fear is not good. Fear is a sign of unconsciousness, of dullness. Genius is fearless.

Though often it happens that fools appear fearless. They say, “Where the wise would not enter, the fool barges in,” because the fool doesn’t even see he’s putting his head into the mortar. But that is not bravery; it comes from blindness.

I would not want you to take sannyas in a state of unconsciousness. A sannyas taken in unconsciousness will not be sannyas at all. Unconsciousness is precisely the world. Then what would be the difference between sannyas and the world? Only this: unconsciousness versus wakefulness, stupidity versus awareness. The world is full of fools—each more accomplished than the last. There, all kinds of foolishness pass; in sannyas they will not.

Three brothers went to court in connection with a case. When asked something before the judge, the first stood for a long time without answering. The judge asked, “What’s the matter? Why don’t you speak? What are you thinking?”

Hesitantly he said, “Sir, if your head were cut off, what would we grab to lift you up, because you’re bald! This question has seized my mind. I can’t find a solution.”

The judge scolded him soundly and drove him out: “Get out of the court! What testimony can such a fool give? How will he help in a case? Out at once!”

Then the second brother was called. He was told what the first had said: that if the judge’s head were cut off, what would one grab to lift him!

The second said, “Sir, he’s crazy. Don’t mind his talk. If the head is cut off, we’ll lift you by the nose. What’s there to think about! Let the head be cut—I’ll show you, we’ll lift by the nose.”

The judge was even more exasperated. “You’re worse than he is. Out! What testimony will I take from you!”

Then the third brother was called and told the same thing.

He said, “Both are mad. Don’t get into their nonsense. Take a stick, push it into the mouth, and carry him wherever you like. What’s this business about the nose! I’ll set them straight right now.”

The world is filled with one accomplished fool after another. There, every sort of foolishness passes; in sannyas it will not. The very beginning of sannyas is intelligence, is radiance.

Don’t take sannyas because I say so. Don’t take sannyas because you see others who are sannyasins. Don’t take sannyas out of greed. Don’t take sannyas out of fear—neither fear of hell nor lure of heaven. If you are to take sannyas, take it only because of your inner voice. So listen to the inner voice. Meditate; listen within. Slowly, the inner voice will become clear. And when it grips you so strongly that even if you want to stop you cannot, then come. Then coming will have meaning. Then it will have value. Only then will you truly have come.

I am not eager to give sannyas to imitators.

Atmanand Brahmachari! This time it looks as if the whole Gurukul Kangri has turned up here! What I can’t figure out is why celibates are casting their eyes this way. What taste is there here for celibates! Where is Gurukul Kangri and where is this wine-house of ecstasy! Where are you heading!

I am not against brahmacharya, I am certainly against brahmacharis. Brahmacharya is that which flowers naturally out of meditation. The deeper you go into meditation, the more the pull of sex-impulse wanes. Whatever juice lust can give you is nothing—not even a drop; what meditation gives you is the ocean itself—not a mere jug, but ocean upon ocean! Naturally, as meditation deepens, the sex-impulse begins to ebb on its own. Who would be insane enough to waste the same energy in the trivial and futile when it can yield such immense bliss—to hawk it off for two pennies, to squander oneself?

What happens effortlessly through meditation is what I call brahmacharya. I take the word in its literal sense: the conduct of Brahman, Godlike conduct, divine behavior.

But I am against “brahmacharis,” because with the brahmacharya I speak of, the very question of “becoming a celibate” never arises. Such a person, sinking in meditation, quietly becomes free of sex-impulse. He doesn’t have to struggle to be free. The “celibate” has to struggle. He has to repress. He has to force a rule, a code upon himself.

And when you impose from above, a fire begins to burn within. When you press from the outside, turmoil erupts inside. You become distorted. Your naturalness is lost; your energy finds a thousand perverse outlets. What you suppress will gush out—through hidden channels, by the back door.

Most of the sexual perversions in the world have been created by your so‑called celibates. The mental disturbances and disorders caused by sham teaching on celibacy—hollow preaching—are countless. If you don’t trust me, ask the psychologists. The last fifty years of psychological study converge on one conclusion: that in deforming humanity, in making it unnatural and artificial, nothing has contributed as much as your so‑called idea of celibacy. It has spawned innumerable mental illnesses.

So I am against celibates, not against celibacy. But my vision of celibacy is different. I don’t want you to “practice” celibacy. Celibacy is the fragrance, the result of meditation. Plant the tree of meditation and the flowers of celibacy will bloom by themselves. Don’t worry about the flowers. Water the tree, manure it. The name of the tree is meditation. Fruits and flowers will come—of celibacy, of bliss. You need not be anxious about them.

If you try to hang fruits and flowers by force, you will have to buy fake ones from the market. Paper or plastic flowers are available. Bring them home and hang them up. Deceive yourself and deceive others.

I am not in favor of such deceptions. It is this kind of forced “celibacy” that breeds all the unseemly disturbances.

Just yesterday a gentleman—Vedalankar—called a prostitute a “bitch.” He too is a “celibate.” What need is there for a celibate to call a prostitute a bitch? Surely, somewhere inside there is a wish to be a dog. What other cause could there be? A secret desire to trot behind a bitch, nose to the ground. Otherwise, why call a prostitute a bitch? What harm has a prostitute done to you? What is it to you?

But no, it is something to you. Prostitutes first arose in the temples. We gave them pretty names. In India we called them dev-kanyas—“temple maidens.” A dev-kanya lived in the temple; she was an instrument for the priests’ lusts—and for the lusts of visiting devotees as well. They were dev-kanyas. In those days they were “divine maidens”! If prostitution is in the temple, it becomes dev-kanyas; from there it spread outward.

Among the things the British destroyed in India, for which we should be grateful, was the devadasi system. Yet even after being “abolished,” remnants survived; even today some temples in the South still have “dev-kanyas.” And it was not only in India; in almost all countries temples were hubs of prostitution—only it ran in the name of religion. After all, celibates also need an outlet. Priests too need an outlet. What are they to do with their lusts? They hide the lusts on the surface, and find inner pathways.

Psychologists say that homosexuality arose in your so‑called ashrams and monasteries, in the bhikshu-sanghas. Because the monks’ orders, monasteries, ashrams—women’s were separate and men’s were separate. Where only men live, when lust grows strong, what will they do? They begin sexual relations with men. And women with women.

This ashram of mine is the first of its kind on earth in which no perversion is possible, because we accept nature. No hypocrisy is possible, because we embrace what is natural. Here there is no need to separate men and women.

When I was a university teacher, one of the many charges against me was that in my classes I did not allow boys and girls to sit separately. I told them it would not happen in my class. Complaints began to reach the vice-chancellor. He called me and asked, “What are you doing?”

I said, “Come and see my class, and look also at those classes where boys and girls sit apart; then decide. Where boys sit on one side and girls on the other, neither boys hear what the professor says nor do the girls. Their attention is on each other. Notes are being tossed, pebbles are being thrown—everything is going on—while that foolish professor drones on about knowledge. Nobody cares. Why should I bother with such nonsense?

“So the first thing I do when I enter is: ‘Mix up! Sit together. Sit wherever you like.’ No need to exchange notes across the aisle. You’re sitting side by side—what’s the point of notes? Why throw pebbles?

“A pebble is only a way of touching from afar—what else? What a way to behave! If you want to touch someone, you throw a pebble from a distance! If you won’t let them touch in a human way, they will touch like this. The pebble becomes the agent: I touched, you touched—through a medium. If a girl is sitting right next to you, in a little while you will forget; what will you do? In other classes there is jostling at the door. Before class, boys wait outside until the girls go in, then rush in—so they can jostle. And at the end, they wait until the girls come out, then surge out with them.

“I tell them there’s no need for all that. If you want to jostle, do it five minutes before, five after. Jostle first, get it over with, then sit together peacefully wherever you like; after that I’ll begin my work.”

I told the vice-chancellor, “Come and see—mine is the only class where there is no jostling. Whom will they jostle? Why? No pebbles get thrown. No notes are passed. No ink is splashed. Otherwise, from afar the boys spray fountain-pen ink. They bring water-guns filled with color and squirt them. When that whole Rasa‑Leela is going on, what am I to teach? I ended the Rasa‑Leela. I have told them: no need to shove at the door; if you must, do it five minutes before and five after.”

And I told the girls, “You only keep getting shoved—shove back! How long will you only be shoved? It doesn’t befit that only the boys do the shoving. If these poor fellows ‘serve’ you, you should also ‘serve’ them. It is fitting that there be give-and-take. You too shove them—open-heartedly. What is there to fear?”

When the girls began shoving the boys, the boys complained: “What is this? They won’t let us study! Not only have you made us sit together, they jab us with their elbows!”

I said, “They will. For centuries you have been jabbing; how long should they tolerate?”

“They pinch us when we are trying to study.”

“They will pinch. I told them: shove them, pinch them, pull their hair. Do as they do to you. The peace will come by itself.”

And soon enough, in two or four days, everything became peaceful.

But that was indeed a complaint against me. Parents objected that I was instructing their daughters to sit with boys.

I said, “In my class I will not allow this wall between boy and girl.”

Look here as well—do you see anyone shoving anyone? Yes, sometimes some “celibates” turn up; otherwise no one bothers anyone. Nowhere in India can women sit as peacefully as here. Yes, when a few guardians of “pure Indian culture” appear, there is a slight hitch; they make some fuss. So you see—we’ve seated them at a distance, left space in between: celibates at a distance, Vedantins at a distance, Brahma‑knowers at a distance.

I am not against brahmacharya. It is the supreme attainment of life, its highest blessedness. But I am against the “celibates.”

You say: “You are against rules, codes, and ideals.”

Certainly. Because rules and codes are imposed by others; ideals are set by others. I am for awakening. I want awareness to be kindled within you. Your life should be disciplined by your own awareness. You are nobody’s slave. Why should another frame rules for you? What right had Maharshi Manu, three thousand years ago, to make rules I must follow today? I made none for him; why should he make any for me? What have I to do with him?

Yet Manu ordained that a Shudra must not hear the Veda. And Rama himself abided by this rule! A Shudra overheard the Veda; molten lead was poured into his ears. His ears burst. It is doubtful that he even survived. How could he live after molten lead was poured into his ears? If you have ever had hot oil in your ear, just imagine lead.

And yet Rama is your “Maryada Purushottam” because he obeyed the letter of the law; and that is why India’s priestly class keeps shouting his praise—because he blindly followed Manu.

Is this a rule? Is this ethics? It is an inhuman act.

Manu says that killing a Shudra is not a great sin if he is caught listening to the Veda, but the greatest sin is killing a Brahmin.

The lives of Brahmin and Shudra have equal worth—there is no difference at all. As much as a Brahmin wishes to live, so does a Shudra. Yet there is no sin in killing a Shudra, and killing a Brahmin is a mortal sin! Killing a cow is a greater sin than killing a Shudra!

Who will decide this? Who has the right to decide? Who sets “ethics”?

I want your ethics, your conduct, to be determined in the light of your own awareness. I want to return to each person their privacy and sovereignty. I do not preach the slavery of society. All your societies preach slavery.

Then people find clever loopholes. The Jains’ Paryushan comes—ten days without vegetables. All year they eat vegetables; for ten days they don’t, and imagine their conduct is complete! And then they devise tricks.

When I first stayed in Shvetambar Jain homes, I was startled. They would eat bananas and potatoes. I asked, “What is this?” They said, “The scriptures say: don’t eat green things.”

See the cleverness? A banana isn’t green inside, nor is a potato, so it isn’t a “green thing,” so we can eat it. “Sabz” means green—so it’s a matter of color! A loophole.

Clever people will always find ways around rules. What rule can you make against the crafty? Until their own awareness becomes decisive, they will go on cheating—inventing one trick after another.

So I am not in favor of imposing rules from above. Certainly this does not mean I want people to become licentious. I want people to live in accord with their own uniqueness. I want to give them awareness, not rules. I want to give them a lamp, a light—so they can see for themselves where the door is and where the wall.

You don’t bother about the lamp. You say: “The door is on the left, the wall on the right.” Even if there is a wall on the left, they keep banging their heads all life long—because it is written in the scriptures, because others have said so. Perhaps when those scriptures were written, the door was on the left. Everything has changed since. Now the door is on the right. Things flow. They change. Nothing is fixed; all is flux. Rules become fixed, fossilized.

You need a flowing consciousness. That is my effort.

And you say I criticize rishis and monks.

Precisely for this reason: I revere the true rishi; until someone is truly a rishi, I will criticize pretenders. I do not criticize Ramana Maharshi, but I do criticize Dayananda, because I do not see a rishi there. Ramana appears to me a rishi; I have never criticized him. Whoever appears to me a true sadhu, I have never criticized. But out of a hundred “sadhus,” perhaps one is genuine; ninety‑nine are hypocrites, frauds, dishonest. They should indeed be criticized. I criticize them because I have reverence in my heart for the rishi and the sadhu. If you understand me, you will see that I criticize the fake roses so that the real roses may be seen.

I have never criticized Buddha. But if you ask me to praise Durvasa Muni, I cannot. I cannot even call him a muni. Durvasa—and “muni”! Then who would be “not‑muni”? Durvasa—and “rishi”! Then who is not a rishi?

I cannot praise Durvasa. Buddha I call a rishi, a maharshi—give him whatever word you like. But how Durvasa? One who flares up at trifles, blazes with anger; who not only ruins this birth but threatens the next—how shall I call such a perverse man a muni? What experience of silence could he have had? “Muni” means one who has known silence. Where there is silence, how can anger be?

Who is a rishi? One whose inner vision has opened; whose inner poetry has arisen; whose inner veena has sounded. But most of your rishis and munis are no such thing—not even a little. Should I not criticize them?

And my reason? Precisely because I have great reverence. You do not criticize because you have no reverence for rishis and munis; you are loyal only to labels. As long as “pure ghee” is written on the tin, never mind that it contains dalda. Nowadays even dalda isn’t pure! Whatever is inside, if the label says “pure ghee,” you agree to anything.

My vision is clear. I see who is a rishi.

There is a story in the Upanishads about Raikva the cart-driver. He is called a rishi. I cannot call him one. Raikva had wives—I have no objection to wives; a rishi may have wives, no harm. He had concubines too. Well, if wives are allowed, concubines too—so be it.

You’ll be surprised to learn that “vadhu” was said for the concubine—the woman bought from the market.

So Raikva had vadhus. Not only Raikva; many of your so‑called rishis had not just wives but concubines bought in the marketplace. In the era you call “Ram Rajya,” women were auctioned in the marketplace! How can I call that “Ram Rajya”? On what basis? Today things are better. Even if much is going wrong, at least women do not stand for sale in bazaars; at least they are not arranged on shop shelves; at least there isn’t a price tag: buy for so much; there isn’t an auction.

A beautiful woman was being auctioned. Raikva went to buy her. He always rode in his famous cart; hence “Raikva the cart-driver.” He bid; but the emperor too had come to buy. Raikva had money, but how would he outbid the emperor? The bidding escalated; Raikva lost. The emperor bought the woman and took her.

Later some calamity befell the emperor—illness, or threat of attack. People said, “You should go and beg pardon of Raikva; he is angry.”

Do rishis get angry? And the reason for his anger was that the emperor had purchased that woman. “Go, offer him wealth and make him happy. If he isn’t appeased, harm will come to you.”

The poor emperor went. They say he took a chariot filled with gold and jewels. He overturned it before Raikva and said, “Gurudev, this is my offering at your feet.”

Raikva said, “Hey Shudra, take it away! I have no taste for wealth.”

Vinoba Bhave loved to tell this story—but only up to here. He would say: since Raikva said, “Hey Shudra, take this away! I have no faith in wealth,” it means that one who has faith in wealth is a Shudra. During his Bhoodan movement he repeated this often. No one objected. When he came to Jabalpur, I was there. I said, “The story is incomplete. Please tell it whole.”

He said, “Whole? I’ve always told it like this.”

I said, “It’s not a matter of how you tell it. The story is incomplete; tell it whole and the meaning changes.” And I narrated the rest: “The emperor asked his ministers, ‘What now? He won’t take wealth; he said “Hey Shudra, take it away! I don’t trust wealth.”’ They said, ‘He will not take wealth. You must offer him that very woman you bought in the marketplace.’ Then the emperor took that woman; when he placed her at Raikva’s feet, Raikva said, ‘Yes, now speak, my child—what do you seek?’”

I said, “Now the story is complete. Tell me: who was the Shudra here? He abused wealth because he was crazed for the woman. He had no other “ascetic” motive in reviling wealth. He was saying: ‘You try to fool me with money? Move aside; bring the real thing! Go fool someone else.’”

Now you ask me to call them rishis—I cannot. Forgive me. The only reason is that the word rishi holds great value in my eyes. Rishi means “seer”; rishi means “poet”—not in the ordinary sense, but one in whose life the poetry of the divine has descended.

Certainly I tell you to be free even of scriptures. Not because I am an enemy of scripture, but because as long as you are lost in scriptures, you will not read the supreme scripture spread all around you—the scripture of God. Scriptures are words. They may be beautiful, sweet—but they are words, and words are hollow. Even the words I speak—if you get entangled in them, they are hollow. Understand the indication and set out on the journey—then they are meaningful. But set out! If you clutch the words, they are futile.

People worship scriptures! I oppose that worship. Take pointers from scriptures; they are fingers pointing to the moon. Look at the moon; forget the fingers.

The divine is everywhere.

You read the Ramayana—“Sitaram pervades the whole world,” sings Tulsidas. You repeat it too. But let a Shudra appear and you at once forget—where did Sitaram go? Now you don’t see Sitaram. You do not touch his feet, do not say, “Come, Lord Ram, be seated; where is Mother Sita? You might have brought her along.” Now you do not see Sitaram in all. If a Muslim appears, he is a mleccha. Now you do not see Sitaram. Even Tulsidas himself did not—how will you?

Forget the Shudra; the story goes—Nabhadas records—that when Tulsidas was first taken into a Krishna temple, he did not bow. “How can I bow before Krishna’s image? I bow only to bow-bearing Rama, not to just anyone,” he said to his host.

These are the same gentlemen who chant, “Sitaram pervades the whole world!” They do not see Ram even in Krishna! They refuse to bow before Krishna! And you want me to accept that Tulsidas was supremely enlightened? How can I lie? For what reason?

No, that is not possible. Kabir I cannot reject; I accept him. Nanak I cannot reject; I accept him. I accept Farid. But Tulsidas I cannot accept. Tulsidas to me belongs in the same category as Dayanand. These are just words. There is no substance.

When I tell you to be free of scriptures, I mean: do not get entangled in words; do not get lost in them.

In a school a teacher said, “Children, you see, Newton saw an apple fall in a garden and discovered the earth’s gravitational force.”

A little boy said, “Sir, he discovered it in a garden, didn’t he! If he had been sitting in school with his head stuck in books, perhaps he would never have discovered it. How are we to discover anything? You keep eating our heads. We have neither a garden nor apples. We want to go to a garden, but you won’t let us.”

The child spoke to the point.

And what is in your scriptures? Ninety‑nine percent is false—sheer tall tales and gossip.

Two hunters were boasting. One said, “Just last month I went hunting. I roamed and roamed; no lion or leopard in sight. One morning, as I was washing my face, suddenly a lion appeared. I had neither gun nor any weapon—only a bucket of water. I quickly hurled it at the lion—and the lion fled like anything!”

The second hunter said, “Yes, you’re telling the truth. When that lion ran past me, I felt his back—soaked through with water!”

This is the sort of blather in your scriptures. Look closely and you’ll find such lies that even the greatest liars seem small.

There was a famous braggart who loved hunting. He often regaled his friends with exaggerated tales. His friend Chandu Lal told him many times, “Boast if you like, but please, a little less. You go too far.”

The hunter agreed. “All right, when you feel I’m overdoing it, cough a bit.”

“Fine,” said Chandu Lal.

One day the hunter said, “Just last Friday I went lion hunting. As I was walking, suddenly a lion appeared—must have been fifty feet long.”

Chandu Lal coughed loudly. Startled, the braggart said, “But before I could collect myself, I saw—oh, the lion was just forty feet long.”

Chandu coughed again. “But the real surprise came when I aimed and was about to pull the trigger: the lion was only thirty feet long.”

Chandu coughed and cleared his throat. The braggart understood. “When I shot and came right up to him, I saw he was only twenty feet long.”

Now Chandu could not resist; he coughed harder. The braggart snapped, “Shut up, you son of Chandu Lal! From fifteen feet I’m not going to reduce even an inch. The fellow just keeps coughing and coughing. After all, there is such a thing as decency!”

Look into your scriptures—what are you defending? What is there? Ninety‑nine percent is idle nonsense. Hanuman burned Lanka; he leapt the ocean in a single bound—what not! There were no bicycles, yet Ramchandra brought Sita back in a pushpaka vimana! No mention even of bicycles for rishis and munis; nothing of trains; a plane does not appear all at once—the progression begins with a bicycle, then slowly, step by step, ends in an airplane. No trace of the primary stages—straight to the “pushpaka”! All tall tales. There is neither spirituality in this, nor Brahma‑knowledge, nor any possibility of attaining it through such stories.

Atmanand Brahmachari, my meaning is very simple and clear: I want you to know that truth is within you, nowhere else.

You ask: “What is your religion?”

I am not a Hindu, not a Muslim, not a Jain, not a Buddhist. My religion is without adjectives. I am simply religious. I love this existence. My trust is in this existence—not in any temple, mosque, church, or gurudwara. I have no taste for words. I speak for your sake; otherwise my joy is in silence. I speak to lure you toward silence. Those who have truly listened to me have begun to drift toward silence; those who understand me are becoming silent. Even while they listen, they are silent.

And you ask: “Will you lay down any rules for society?”

No. Enough of rule‑making. Where has society reached by such legislation? I trust the individual, not society. I want to give the individual a lamp, meditation, samadhi. Then conduct should flow from that samadhi. People should walk in that light. They should teach their children how that light is found. Teachers should show students how that light is found. Let that light spread.

But each person must have the freedom to live from within—that is my meaning, that is my religion, that is my revolution.

Not society—the individual is my goal. My ultimate reverence is for the individual. “Society” is only a word, a label; it has no being. The individual has being. And within the individual dwells the soul. The individual is the temple of God. There you must seek; and from there you must draw the sutras of life.

Enough for today.