Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #16

Ranjan,
When religion is alive, laughter is prayer; when religion is dead, it becomes the enemy of laughter. Laughter is the heartbeat of life. A religion that does not know how to laugh died long ago—the heartbeat has stopped, the breath no longer moves, a corpse is lying there. And the worship of the corpse goes on.

Religion fails to transform the earth because again and again it forgets the language of laughter; it forgets song; it forgets dance.

This is no addiction. This is your morning prayer, your worship. Laugh—laugh to your heart’s content! As I see it, if one learns to laugh totally, so that no circumstance in life can rob one of one’s laughter, so that the smile remains—in joy and in sorrow, in success and in failure—then there is nothing left to attain. All is attained! Such a state is samadhi, moksha—liberation.

And one who knows how to laugh—his tears also laugh. One who does not know how to laugh—even his laughter weeps; it is like a sob. Even among laughters you can see the difference. The sad also laugh, but their laughter leaves a bitter taste. The ecstatic also laugh, and from their laughter flowers fall. Laugh in ecstasy.

There is a kind of laughter that is only to forget one’s suffering. That laughter has no great value—it is deception, self-betrayal. And there is a laughter that showers from the bliss rising within you, from the song welling up inside. Inside, something is so full—like a cloud heavy with rain; it must bend and burst somewhere, drenching the earth, bathing the mountains and trees; it has to become light. The laughter that makes you light, that is the overflow of your joy, that shares something—that laughter is sacred, is virtue.

I met Acharya Atre in his final days. His daughter, Shirish Pai, is my disciple. She implored me that before her father left the body, I should meet him. He too deeply wished it. So I went to see him. He was bedridden, in his last hours. This very point came up, the one Saty Niranjan has asked about. He said to me, “Humor is a royal road for bearing suffering.” And I told him, “At such a moment—when you are struggling between life and death—it isn’t right to raise a debate; but let me say at least this much: between your humor and mine there is the difference of earth and sky. You say humor is a highway to bear suffering.”

Then it’s a deception. Then it’s an opium-dream. One person forgets his sorrow with opium, another with alcohol, another in some other way. You laugh and forget—hide it in humor. But does anything get erased by forgetting? If only it were so easy—that we forget something and it vanishes—by now everyone would have become a Buddha. It isn’t that simple. You can forget for a while, delude yourself for a moment; but what is forgotten will return. Forgotten, yes—but not dissolved. It is still inside. For a moment it’s hidden, behind a curtain; like putting a flower over a wound. A flower over a wound does not heal it. Yes, for a while others may not see it. You too may be self-deceived for a moment. But the wound keeps growing, spreading; pus gathers; it can turn into an ulcer, even into cancer.

Between my humor and Acharya Atre’s there is a fundamental difference. He says: to forget suffering, to endure it. I say: to manifest joy, to give expression to bliss. First there must be joy—then the fragrance of dharma is present even in your laughter; then the fragrance of dharma is present even in your tears, let alone your laughter. When you sit, there is a dance. When you are silent, the Upanishads pour forth. Even if you say nothing, the Divine is revealed through you. When you walk, rise, move—there is an otherworldly grace in it; a beauty not of this earth. Then laughter is a different matter altogether—laughter is a wondrous event.

Except for human beings, no animal or bird laughs. No animal has the capacity to laugh. Laughter requires discrimination, awareness. Laughter requires understanding. The deeper the understanding, the deeper your laughter.

So Ranjan, don’t think it’s a strange addiction. It isn’t an addiction. It is worship; it is satsang.

I want to see a wakeful, living, laughing, dancing religion spread across the earth—a religion that embraces life, that enfolds life in its arms; that reveals God’s grace toward life; that is not a renunciation of life, not a denial of life; that feels “ah!” toward life, feels blessed; that is light and playful, not heavy and ponderous.

All the old religions ended up heavy and ponderous. They weren’t so in the beginning. But that is the misfortune: whatever falls into man’s hands gets spoiled. With Mahavira, religion must have been laughing. With Buddha, it must have been laughing. With Jesus, with Nanak, it must have been laughing. If religion didn’t laugh with Kabir, then with whom would it laugh? If it didn’t laugh with Farid, then with whom? But those who come later are almost the opposite. Around the person who gives birth to a religion, a crowd of pandits gathers.

I am very alert. That is why I don’t let pandits settle here at all. Pandits have no entry. If a pandit happens to come, I shake him up so well, he gets such a thrashing, he runs away and never returns. I am cautious of pandits. I don’t want what I am saying to fall into their hands after me—because they have destroyed every religion.

A pandit is solemn and pompous. He knows nothing of truth, has no experience of life. He has words, webs of logic—and he is a tycoon of words and arguments. He talks high and deep, of tangled doctrines. Such discussion cannot coexist with laughter. Laughter and the twisted talk of Brahman-knowledge don’t go together. He tangles on purpose, because tangled talk impresses people. What people can understand, they think, “What’s special in it?” What they cannot understand, they think, “Ah, there must be a mystery.” People are strange indeed!

Truth is simple and straight. Lies are crooked and convoluted—riddling. What riddle is there in truth? Truth is like the open sky, like a blank book—an illiterate can read it. For a blank book, who needs literacy? Truth surrounds you, within and without. It is not far. As the fish is in the ocean, so you are in truth. But the pandit places truth far away—somewhere in the heavens, very far, at the end of a long journey. He hands you maps, explains routes.

All maps are useless, all routes false; because truth is where you are. Right where you are—wake up; look there with a little awareness; probe there—and you will find God. There is nowhere to go—not to Kashi, not to Kaaba, not to Kailash; not into the Quran, not into the Bible, not into the Gita. You must go within. From there the Quran will arise, the Gita will arise, the Upanishads will awaken. Krishna’s flute is playing there—still playing, always playing. The unstruck sound is resounding within you.

But if a pandit does not speak of distance, what use is the pandit? If he does not tangle, why would you value him?

The pandit’s business is to entangle. One who tangles what is clear, that is a pandit. One who makes the straight crooked, that is a pandit. You go to him and return grave and heavy—that is a pandit. You went with a little understanding; you come back having lost even that—that is a pandit. You had some awareness; you return more foolish—that is a pandit. Yes, he will hand you trash, nets of doctrine—nets that solve nothing, and only yield more nets. He will give you answers that raise a thousand questions. You had one question; he hands you answers that beget a thousand more. Your one question still stands, and now his answers create fresh trouble.

There is a difference between a knower and a pandit. A knower is one who has known. A pandit is one who repeats borrowed words.

When religion falls into the hands of pandits, it loses its laughter, loses its smile. The day a religion loses its laughter, its dance—when the anklets cease to ring, when the flute leaves its hands—what remains is a corpse. Then worship it! Keep performing your rituals, your sacrifices—nothing will come of it but ash. Then ash is the only prasad. Call the ash “vibhuti” if you like—that’s your choice. But your calling it vibhuti does not make ash sacred. And yet what strange people—smearing ash and thinking great merits from past lives must have brought this grace of ash on head and brow!

Does merit rain down as ash? Who knows what sins you are reaping! But you say—vibhuti! We give noble names to empty things.

No, Ranjan, this is no addiction. Laugh—laugh to your heart’s content! And don’t be stingy with laughter. People have become miserly—miserly about everything. Even about things that cost nothing. Even about things that grow by sharing rather than diminish.

Understand an amazing law of life. Everything in the outer world—share it and it lessens. Everything of the inner world—share it and it increases. The inner economy is different. Apply the outer rule inside and disaster follows. The outer economy is different.

A beggar once asked Mulla Nasruddin for alms. That very day he had won the lottery. Nasruddin was in high spirits—strolling home singing film songs; banknotes floating everywhere—notes in his eyes, notes in his pockets, notes in his soul—notes, notes, notes! And just then the beggar asked. There was no stinginess today. The fellow looked decent too—cultured face, noble eyes. His clothes, though torn and old, must once have been fine and costly. Nasruddin at once gave him a hundred-rupee note and asked, “Brother, from your speech, your stance, your eyes, your face—nobility drips off you. How did you come to this state?”

He said, “Don’t be alarmed. If you keep handing out hundreds like this, you’ll be in the same state. That’s how I got here. If you’ll take my advice—think before you give. I speak from experience.”

Outside, the more you share, the more it’s depleted. One day you’ll be a beggar. No outer treasure is inexhaustible—not even Kubera’s.

But the inner has a joy. Inside there is an inexhaustible treasure. If you give love, love doesn’t decrease—it grows. If you sing, songs don’t diminish—they multiply. The more you sing, the more your capacity deepens, the more melodious your throat becomes.

Laugh! Scatter pearls of laughter! Don’t be shy that if you share, your laughter may run out; that one day you’ll be empty of laughter. No—the more you laugh, the fuller you become.

And understand the second point: if out of fear, out of miserliness, you suppress laughter, laughter will die. Slowly you will simply forget how to laugh.

People apply the outer economy to the inner, and then they lose precious things. They’re even afraid to love. They fear giving love—that someone will take it and leave them empty, without return. First they make sure that love will be reciprocated. Not only that, they calculate whether they’ll get more than they give—because that’s the business rule: if you give and get more back, the deal is good; otherwise what’s the profit!

Look around—you’ll see people who could have become reservoirs of love, fountains of joy, whose capacity could have birthed the music of samadhi—yet they are empty, vacant, desolate, sad. Why? Because they apply the outer economy to the inner. Inner and outer laws are opposites. What is true outside is not true inside; what is true inside is not true outside. Learn the outer law, and know that the exact opposite applies within: share and it will increase; hoard and it will diminish. Hoard completely, and it will rot and vanish. You will forget—you will simply forget how to laugh.

There are many who have forgotten how to laugh. If they do manage a smile, you can see it’s only a lip exercise—a drill. There is no smile. No bud blooms in the heart, no fragrance rises. It’s a pasted-on smile—pulling, stretching the lips—like politicians smile. With politicians, everything is false—their laughter false, their tears false. Politics is a false trade; only the wealth of untruth circulates there.

A conversation between a leader and a crocodile—
“Friend Croc,
lend me
a few tears,
so we
can shed them
over the country’s plight.”
With dry eyes
the croc replied—
“You’ve come too late, sir,
the whole stock
has already been taken
by the other party.”

Don’t be stingy, Ranjan. The earth is full of misers—misers of many kinds. And I’m not speaking of money and wealth. Even with the wealth that grows by sharing, people are miserly. So miserly that they are ready to die if only they can save something; ready to give up life if only they can save a little.

One night a man caught Mulla Nasruddin in a lonely spot, pressed a pistol to his chest, and said, “Hand over whatever you have! Give me the keys! Either give me everything or you’ll lose your life!”

Mulla said, “Give me a minute or two to think.”

The man was surprised. “I’ve robbed many, but where life and death are at stake, no one asks to think.”

Mulla said, “I don’t do anything without thinking.” He shut his eyes, pondered, then said, “All right—go ahead and shoot.”

The man was even more startled. For the first time in his life his hands went limp: “Should I kill this man or not? What kind of person are you? For a few rupees…!”

Mulla said, “The question is, I’ve saved this money for old age. If the money goes, I’ll be in trouble. Life—what of it? It was given free, it will go free; one day it must go. I am a man of wisdom,” said Mulla. “Don’t count me among petty riffraff. I know Brahman-knowledge. Life is a play, a drama—God’s lila. He gave it, he’ll give it again. But what I saved for my old age—I cannot give that. That is not lila, not play—that’s serious business. And life came free; it will go free. If it must end today—so be it. You take it.”

They say the robber ran—“What’s the point of killing the already dead! He’s otherworldly as it is!”

Do not be stingy.

Seeing his miserly father on his deathbed,
the son ordered
a shroud twice the size,
and felt pleased:
“Father suffered all his life—
never dressed properly, never ate properly.
At least today
I will cover him well.”
Hearing the son’s words,
the father slowly opened his eyes
and whispered,
“Son!
This won’t do.
Why waste money?
Cover my corpse
with half the shroud,
and keep the other half
carefully.
Cloth keeps—
it won’t go to waste.
When you die,
it will come in handy.”

Laugh—laugh to your heart’s content. My ashram should be a laughing ashram. Here, laughter is religion. This is a festival of joy. Don’t sit here gloomy. This is not a congregation of dreary ascetics. I consider gloom a disease—not saintliness, but sickness. Cheerfulness is the sign of health. Be cheerful! And as rays of laughter spread through your life, you’ll be amazed how much there is to laugh at—within your own life and in others’. Everywhere, events upon events to laugh at. We don’t see them—because we are misers, lest we be compelled to laugh we’ve stopped looking. Otherwise, every moment something is happening! Everything invites laughter. It’s not only that sometimes someone slips on a banana peel. Here everyone is slipping on banana peels! The streets are strewn with peels. You’ll see everyone falling.

And it isn’t only others who fall. If you laugh only at others, that laughter isn’t right—not complete, not balanced. You’ll see yourself falling too. And the real laughter will arise when you see you’re slipping on the very peels you yourself laid out—no one else put them there. You’re falling into the very pits you yourself dug.

One of my sannyasins is an Iranian—Dr. Hamid. He was in love with Divya. Then he got tired, bored. Everything wearies the mind; everything exhausts it. That is the law of mind. Until you go beyond mind, there is nothing that won’t bore you. Whether it’s love or hate—they are both games of the mind. Eat the same vegetable every day—okra, okra, okra—and one day you’ll throw the plate and stand up. The mind will rebel. Whether it is your love or your hate—whatever the mind does, it soon gets bored. Boredom is the nature of mind. It clamors for the new. “Something else now. A change—something must change.”

A doctor advised an actress, “You need a change of environment.”
The actress replied, “A change of environment! In the last four years I’ve changed two husbands, four servants, three secretaries, and five lovers—what else should I change?”

So Hamid was tired, very tired. Divya too was tired. Both grew weary. Again and again they wrote to me, “Separate us.” When I saw their weariness had reached a full hundred degrees, I separated them. In a few days, both began longing for each other again. Mind is mad! They wrote again: “We want to be together.” I put them off for a month or two. When I saw it had again reached a hundred degrees—they were going crazy—I brought them back together.

The very next morning Hamid wrote to me, “There is a Sufi proverb I’ve heard since childhood that I never understood until the opportunity you gave me yesterday. The proverb says: ‘Man is the only donkey that falls into the same pit twice.’ No donkey does that. If a donkey falls into a pit once, he will not fall into that pit again. Even if you push him, he’ll refuse—‘If I must fall, I’ll find another pit!’”

With this mind of yours, whatever happens is foolishness. Man doesn’t fall into the same pit twice—he falls a thousand times. He knows it’s a pit; he knows it hurts. He has resolved many times not to fall again. But there is something—like scratching an itch. You know very well that if you scratch, you’ll suffer—there will be burning, blood will ooze. Yet when the itch arises, such sweetness seizes you.

You slip on the very banana leaves you spread yourself. If you look closely at life, everything is laughable. The earth is not strewn with stones—it’s strewn with jokes. Just look, just search.

Mulla Nasruddin went hunting. He sat with his gun by a bush. His companion came running: “Nasruddin! What are you doing? Come quickly! In the tent where you’re staying, your wife is alone, and a cheetah has slipped inside.”

Nasruddin burst out laughing. “Now the wretch will find out. Let her protect herself! Why should I go? Why did it go in? Who protects us? We protect ourselves. Let her save herself—cheetah or whoever. Now the kid will remember his sixth-month milk—‘Where have I come!’”

I’ve also heard that once a circus came to Nasruddin’s village, and a cheetah escaped. The whole village was alerted; police warned, sirens blared: everyone be careful! Nasruddin quickly put a ladder against his thatched roof, climbed up, and pulled the ladder up after him. His wife was very stout and very tall. She shouted, “What are you doing?”

He said, “If you climb, you’ll break the ladder.”

She said, “And if the cheetah comes?”

He said, “Why are you worried? A cheetah won’t come with a crane! What can it do to you? These sirens are for poor fellows like us. You relax. If the cheetah comes, it will defend itself.”

Life is full—if you look closely. There’s so much to laugh at. But you’ve lost the inner capacity; therefore you don’t even get the chance to see—vision itself is lost.

In one case, Nasruddin had to testify. In court he kept trying to prove that such-and-such hotel was a den of vice. The defense attorney kept objecting: “Your arguments are weak. Give one solid reason to make us believe it.”

Nasruddin said, “If you won’t accept it, I’ll tell you—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The lawyer got nervous: “All right—tell us. Why frighten me?”

“I once saw you sitting there,” said Nasruddin. “What more solid proof do you need?”

Ranjan, laugh—laugh to your heart’s content. Laugh on any pretext. If no pretext appears, laugh without one.

Nasruddin was sitting at a station. The train was late—as usual. He got up two or three times to ask the station master; but whenever he went, the delay was longer. Finally he said, “What is going on? Is the train moving backward? Being late I can understand, but getting later and later—what is this? Is the train going that way? Then how will it ever get here? And if every train has to be late, why do you print a timetable?”

The station master said, “If we don’t print a timetable, how will we know how late a train is?”

Nasruddin said, “That makes sense. That’s a telling point!”

Then he said, “All right—no more worry. I’ll sit and wait.”

He sat and watched the tracks. Now and then he laughed. Sometimes he shooed something away with his hand. Sometimes he’d say, “Tsk, tsk!” The station master watched for a while. When he had kept coming to ask, that was fine—but this was provoking curiosity. He’d wave his hand, say “Tsk, tsk,” and burst into laughter. Finally the station master came: “Brother! You’re not letting me work. My heart is stuck here—something will go wrong, the train will jump the track, switch to the wrong line, or two trains will collide. Until I ask you, I won’t have peace. Either you sit a little farther away—or tell me what you’re doing. Why do you laugh off and on? Nothing is happening here. The train is late; there’s silence everywhere; midnight has passed; passengers are asleep; porters too are resting. Why do you laugh?”

Nasruddin said, “What am I to do sitting here? I’m telling myself jokes.”

“All right,” said the station master, “that I understand—jokes. But this ‘Tsk, tsk’ and shooing with your hand—what is that?”

“The jokes I’ve heard before,” said Nasruddin, “I shoo away like this—‘Move along! Back in line!’ They keep pushing in.”

Laugh! If you find excuses, good. If not, search for some. But let your life be a string of laughter. Let laughter become your natural expression.

My sannyasin should give expression to joy and bliss in every circumstance—that is my longing.

A beautiful addiction. If it is an addiction, it is beautiful, lovable, auspicious—deeply religious.

Yog Manik,
No one thinks himself ordinary. If he truly does, he is no longer ordinary; he has become extraordinary. To know “I am ordinary”—there is no greater extraordinariness than that. The one who knows “I am ignorant”—the door to wisdom opens in his life. The one who sees “I am a sinner”—he has taken the first step toward virtue.

But our ego makes us say something else. Our ego says: “You—ordinary? The whole world is ordinary; you are extraordinary! Whether anyone recognizes it or not, when they do, they’ll repent.” Inside each person…

There is an Arab saying: whenever God creates a human being, he plays one joke with everyone. As he pushes them from the sky toward the earth he whispers in the ear, “Brother, listen—never have I made anyone more extraordinary than you. But don’t tell anyone; keep it secret.” So people have kept this “secret.” Hidden deep in the heart, each person thinks, “I am extraordinary; the rest are ordinary.” That is how the ego breeds and is fed.

A thousand happenings tell you that you are ignorant. A thousand happenings tell you that you are unconscious, asleep. A thousand happenings show you that your understanding—what understanding?—has rusted. People have heaped all kinds of rubbish on your so-called understanding, and you clutch it to your chest, believing it precious. You hold on to “knowledge” that is borrowed. Borrowed knowledge is no knowledge at all—wisdom is either your own, or it isn’t. Yet the Gita is memorized, the Koran is memorized. Not a trace of understanding, not a particle of awareness. You can recite the entire Koran; naturally the feeling arises, “Who is as learned as I? I am a pandit, a maulvi, a shastri, a scholar!”

And the ego lives propped up on such false supports—even though your life proves the opposite. If you look at your life with even a little witnessing, you will see: where does the Koran help? You have the Gita by heart, but where does it work?

You remember the Gita perfectly, yet let someone give you a slap and you flare up; in that moment you forget all about equanimity in pleasure and pain. If someone were to remind you of the Gita right then, you’d get even angrier: “Is this the time to remind me of the Gita? I’ll teach him a lesson first—then I’ll recite the Gita.” Arjuna asks: “O Krishna, what are the marks of the steadfast sage?”—one who lives in equanimity, whom success and failure do not shake. And you—someone merely threatens a slap from a distance, doesn’t even land it, just gestures—and you’re ablaze.

When I was small, between my house and school there was a sweet shop. The owner was very devout, with a long vertical mark of sandalwood on his forehead; and since he was bald, the mark seemed to reach up to the moon. People called him “Chandua”—Moon-head. He hated being called that; say “Chandua” and a fight would start. I devised a trick. I would not say “Chandua.” I would just stand in front of his shop, clap my hands, and put my hand on my own bald crown, wiggling it. The moment he saw this, he would ignite—dropping his scale and all, he would charge after me. I would say, “I didn’t even say a word. The clapping is mine—how can you stop me? The head is mine—if I place my hand on my own head, what objection can you have?”

But whom could he tell his heart’s hurt to! The rumor spread. Two thousand students came and went by that shop each day. Word went around that clapping and touching your head makes the man buzz like a hornet. Now with two thousand boys, whom could he chase? And this went on all day: going to school, coming back, the noon recess—one after another. As soon as the school bell rang for dismissal, he would rush inside, sit his wife in front.

One day he saw me coming from afar and ran inside, leaving his wife at the counter. I stood there and kept clapping. She glared at me two or three times, but I said, “Today whatever happens, until that man comes out I’ll keep clapping.” I put down my satchel and sat there. When she saw that, she said, “Why are you after that ‘Chandua’?”

He came out at once. He grabbed his wife by the hair: “Wretch! If others say it, fine—but you? No shame? Even our own have started saying ‘Chandua’ now!”

Then he realized this wasn’t the way. He called me over. “Brother, have some sweets, take some chocolates. Whenever you pass, come and sit.”

I said, “That’s difficult. I won’t accept a bribe. And whom all will you bribe? The thing has spread far. Suppose you give me sweets and chocolates and I stop clapping—but what about the two thousand boys? Who will stop them? I told you already: what harm is it to you if I clap?”

He even came to my house and told my father, “Please stop your boy.” My father asked, “What does he do?”

“What can I tell you what he does!”

“Tell me, what does he do? What is his crime?”

I too said, “Say it plainly—what is the offense? Have I harmed you? Insulted you? Thrown a stone?”

He said, “If he threw a stone, fine; if he abused me, fine—but this is worse.”

“What is it?”

He said to my father, “How can I even say it to you? Understand it yourself.”

I said, “How can we ‘understand’ like that? You came with a complaint; before I get a beating, the facts must be clear.”

My father said, “Why don’t you tell us? What does he do?”

He said, “What is there to tell! He does something I can’t tell anyone—he claps.”

“And,” he added, “he puts his hand on his head.”

I said, “My head, my hand—no one can stop me, not even my father. At least that much freedom I have, to put my hand on my own head. Who are you?”

Let a mere slap come and your Gita-knowledge is gone. He himself was a great reciter of the Gita—that very tilak tempted me to tease him; otherwise I wouldn’t have. I have always had a special interest in “religious” people. Still do; it hasn’t left me, and never will.

But every fool believes himself wise.

A little village doggerel:
Moti, who lives in the village,
with wife Sheela at his side,
for the first time came to Delhi.
No sooner did he step off the train,
he saw a hoarding and
turned on his heel,
caught the same train back
and returned to his village.
On reaching home he told a friend:
“I’ll never go to Delhi—
they made a mockery of me.
Right at the railway station, friend,
there was a billboard that read:
‘For the first time in Delhi,
a henpecked husband is arriving.’”

There are people who consider themselves very clever. He too returned thinking himself smart. Who considers himself ordinary?

So, Manik, I had said: no one sees himself as ordinary. Finding an ordinary man is the hardest thing. If you ever meet one, touch his feet—for he is extraordinary. The one who knows “I am ordinary”—that is the beginning of true extraordinariness.

And indeed, this is the very purpose of sannyas: to make you aware—aware of your actual life, of your torpor, your anger, your infatuation, your greed. That is why I do not tell you to run away—if you run, how will awareness happen? Leave home and go sit in the forest and of course there will seem to be peace. Why would you be disturbed? No wife saying, “You didn’t bring this, you didn’t bring that”; no hassle of salt-oil-firewood; no school fees to pay, no college admissions; no daughter’s marriage; no old father and mother chewing your head; no neighbors blaring radios. Nothing is happening. Only silence. You sit under a tree—naturally it will feel like peace.

But that is no peace. It is the illusion of peace. Having renounced everything, what success and what failure? In the forest there is neither. Sit naked and the animals don’t care; paint yourself and they don’t care. They won’t come to praise or to condemn. They won’t notice you at all. You are alone there.

Here, amid crowds, there is jostling; bumps from all sides—a crush. Here anger will arise, greed will clutch, delusion will grab. Others are racing ahead. Here something is always happening.

A man was about to jump into a river when Mulla Nasruddin ran and grabbed him around the waist. The man struggled to free himself and said, “I’m fed up with the world—let me go. I’ll die.”

But Mulla held on tight. The man said, “This is the limit! You won’t let me live, you won’t let me die. What have I ever done to you? I’ve never even met you, never helped you. Now when I’m going to die, why won’t you let me jump? Where did you come from?”

Nasruddin said, “Listen, brother—if you jump, I’ll have to jump to save you. Out of pity I’ll have to save you; I won’t let you drown. And apart from me there’s no one else here—so I’ll be the one stuck. Just look—how cold it is! The water is like ice. And until the ambulance comes for you, we’ll have to sit here—wet clothes, cold wind, icy water. Your life may be your own, but if I catch pneumonia, who is responsible? You go to assert your freedom, but don’t I have the right to live? Do this: go home and hang yourself. Why drag me into trouble? Or take some medicine from the quack at the corner—you won’t have any difficulty dying. Everyone I’ve seen go there, I’ve seen die. Why suffer so much? Jumping from such a height—you might just break your legs and survive—and then I’ll have to save you; I’m telling you, I will. After all, a little shame, man!”

Here you can’t even die, nor can you live—there are obstructions everywhere. Unless you become meditative, everything will give you opportunities to be agitated, unhinged. Invitations everywhere, temptations all around. Advertisements calling, “Come—this is life! Live a little hot, sip a Gold Spot!” “Why sit idly—drink a Gold Spot!” Even if you’re just sitting, the ad stares you in the face. How long will you sit looking? A stirring will arise: “Let me at least taste what this Gold Spot is! I’ve been living life without it—who knows what secret is in it!”

Temptations here, attractions here—all kinds of delusions and deceits. Run to the forest and there’s nothing: no ads, no invitations, no parties, no casinos, no brothels—nothing. Sit there; out of compulsion you’ll do bhajan—what else will you do? But worship out of compulsion—what kind of worship is that?

So I do not tell my sannyasin to flee. I say: stay firmly right here. Live here, awaken here! And what is awakening to? To the fact that our torpor keeps us ordinary; our ego keeps us ordinary. And the irony is: that same ego convinces us we are extraordinary, special, unique. Because of ego we cannot become unique; and that very ego keeps whispering, “You are unique.” If you cling to counterfeit coins, how will you seek the real?

Sannyas means being free of counterfeit coins, so that the real may be found. The real is here, the fake is here. In the forest there are neither real nor fake—there are no coins at all. There you are just alone; in caves you can very easily fool yourself that you are liberated. Get liberated in the marketplace—then it is liberation.

My whole process of sannyas is just this. It is a method—to awaken you, to make you aware.

“Who said—that is a flower!
Who said—that is a thorn!
With dawn—everything is form,
with dawn—everything is color.
Daylight is elation,
daylight is exuberance.
But the mute, empty night,
carrying the darkness of no-self,
heaved a sigh and said:
‘All that is here is delusion.’
Then taking awareness, taking knowledge,
man climbed the sky,
sun and moon became his eyes,
he fashioned the infinite—
but suddenly he stopped,
his head bowed,
and the earth, taking him in her lap, said:
‘You are dust!’”

The body is dust. The mind is stale and borrowed. Hidden within body and mind is your soul. That is where to move. Not the outer jungle or cave, but the cave of your own heart, the forest of your own heart, the solitude of your own heart—enter there. And the miracle of miracles happens.

Indeed, Manik, it is a wondrous alchemy! There is no greater miracle on earth. The day you reach your innermost center, you know—you are the Divine. There is only God; you are not. That day the proclamation arises: Aham Brahmasmi! Anal Haq!

“Bow your head, O human!
You who rose as a curious wonder,
with life’s thrilled longing;
you who advanced as eager quest,
a free-flowing river of motion!
You who are vast, you who are capable,
filled with inexhaustible trust,
O lord of water, earth and sky—
look just once at your own self.
There are tears in your eyes!
A sigh upon your lips!
A terrible burning within
your inner light.
In one hand you hold creation,
in the other, destruction.
Fear your own self, O human!
Bow your head, O human!
Before you, behind you,
laughs the darkness of the unseen.
Again and again you collide
with your own weakness.
In your eyes the lamp of love,
in your heart the ocean of compassion,
you are awake, you are conscious,
you are eternal, deathless!
Existence is infinite, undivided—
mortal is your ego!
This unitary entity,
its only rhythm is birth and death.
You have not yet known
what is true and what illusion.
Merging in the flow of life,
dissolve the illusion of separate self, O human!
Bow your head, O human!”

Let the ego go—let it melt, dissolve—and you will find the incomparable is enthroned within you. The Divine abides in you. You are His temple. Every person is His temple, every person His Kaaba.

But what I am saying—Aham Brahmasmi, “I am Brahman”; Anal Haq, “I am the Truth”—if you grasp it from the ego, you will go wrong again. The ego is very adept at mischief. The ego will say, “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying—you are verily Brahman!” But when the ego says it, the same statement is false; when it arises in egolessness, it is true. The touchstone is egolessness. And who besides you will know? You must awaken within and see: from where is this arising? Otherwise mistakes will continue. The ego is a master of distortion; it makes you understand something else altogether.

A hawker was selling wares to a lady. He said, “Madam, would you like to buy an electric iron?”
Housewife: “No, give it to the neighbors. Their old irons are broken—we borrow from them and manage.”
Hawker: “But madam, I heard your husband say his old iron is very bad and he wants a new one.”
Housewife: “Oh, so that scoundrel has started speaking ill of me outside the house too!”

Within us there is a layer—the ego—that gives everything its own color, its own meaning. If we are not alert to it, it will keep spinning new tricks. The ego even finds a way to deceive religion. That’s why in your so-called sannyasins, sadhus, mahatmas, there is often more ego than in anyone else. Their ego sits perched right on the nose.

Yesterday I told you the meaning of “Yogananda,” didn’t I? Yogananda had asked why I named him Yogananda. I said, “I saw you—stiff like a yogi, ego like a yogi; you sat in siddhasana when I gave you sannyas—so I thought I’d give you the name Yogananda.”

Once a novelist brought me his novel—a huge tome! He said, “I’ve done everything, only a title eludes me. Please give me a title.”
I was alarmed just looking at the brick. “I’ll have to read such a big tome to find a title!” I said. “Do one thing—go meet Mulla Nasruddin. He’s very wise, with sharp insight; he’ll quickly come up with something.”

I sent him off. He returned in five minutes. “You were right—what a man! He even gave me a title.”

I was surprised. “In five minutes he read that massive tome?” I asked.
He said, “Read? He didn’t even let me take it out of my bag. He asked me two questions, I gave two answers, and at once he gave the title. He asked, ‘Is there any mention of a drum in it?’ I said, no. ‘Any mention of a kettledrum?’ I said, no. He said, ‘Then the title is: Neither Drum nor Kettledrum.’”

When I saw you, Yogananda, I saw—neither yoga nor ananda—so, Yogananda! That’s how I find names. What else to do? “Neither drum nor kettledrum”—a handy trick! Who will open your brick and sift through your lifetimes to find a title? Plain and simple—I saw the two things missing.

In your “mahatmas,” saintliness is not visible. A saint is one in whom truth has descended, sat has descended. If ego sits enthroned, where is room for truth? Your mahatmas are not sadhus. A sadhu is one of simple heart, guileless. Your mahatmas are great accountants, calculative, argumentative—where is guilelessness? Where is plainness? Impossible—to find simplicity and your sadhus together!

Yes, they have imposed an outer simplicity. Someone sits wearing only a loincloth—and if you think that is simplicity, that’s another matter. Someone sits with only a begging bowl—and if you think that is simplicity, fine. But look at the face—the stiffness is such that Alexander would seem pale before it. Peek inside—the blazing fire of ego burns there. A loincloth, yes—but inside the loincloth the ego is doing push-ups.

Therefore your sadhus and mahatmas quarrel themselves and make you quarrel too. They have turned the whole earth into an atmosphere of strife.

This same ego sits within you: some hide it behind wealth, some behind position, some behind knowledge, some behind renunciation and austerity. You must awaken from all this—only then will the extraordinary light arise within. Remember, it is not your light; it is the light of the Divine. Only when you dissolve can it appear.

And you will need vigilance. This is not a matter of one or two days, that you stay careful for a day or two and it’s done. It’s not like the Jains’ Paryushan—ten days of food restraint and the eleventh day you pounce and make up double and triple. It’s not like saying a quick prayer in the morning for a minute or two and getting a receipt for the day—then do what you like. This is a continuous mindfulness to be cultivated.

The paths of the ego are very subtle. You’ll have to remain alert while waking, getting up, sitting down—slowly, even while falling asleep—only then one day that incomparable happening occurs: the ego dissolves. With it all stupidity, all ordinariness, all darkness thins away.

A traveler stopped his car on a mountain slope—frightened. He said to a villager nearby, “This is a very dangerous descent. Why isn’t there a caution sign here? If someone falls from here, he’ll go straight to the netherworld. Such a deep chasm—survival impossible. There must be a caution board!”
The villager said, “Sir, it is dangerous indeed, and there used to be a caution board here. But when no accident happened for two years, they decided it was unnecessary and removed it. Two years is a long time—you see, nothing happens here!”

The caution you must practice is not the kind you observe a little—one or two days, a year or two. It must become your way of life, suffuse your every breath. Only then will you awake and see how many stupidities you have been committing—out of habit, mechanically.

Chandulal’s wife was troubled by his habit of long phone chats—at least an hour each time, never less. One day, by chance, she finished in fifteen minutes. Chandulal asked, “You finished so quickly today—are you feeling alright?”
Madam replied calmly, “Oh, it was a wrong number.”
A wrong number—yet fifteen minutes of talk!

Habits grow roots. We keep repeating the same old patterns. Only awakening can break these habits. And awakening cuts the root of habits—the ego. Then your inner brilliance appears, intelligence appears, the Divine appears.

Jageshwar,
When you have not seen God at all, why worship in the first place? Why does the question arise—whom should I worship, how, and where? That’s strange. It’s like a naked man asking, “If I take a bath, where shall I wring out my clothes? And even if I wring them, where shall I dry them?”

When you have no sense of God yet, how will you worship now? No realization of God—and you want to go further! That’s Sheikh Chilli stuff, castles in the air. But often such foolishness passes for metaphysics. When you asked it, you probably thought you were asking a very profound, very religious question.

You are asking something utterly pointless. It’s like the house isn’t even built, the foundation hasn’t been laid, and you are already worrying about the roof—should it be tiles or asbestos sheets?

Worship will come later; first there must be a sense, a taste of God. Ask how to know God! Why bring up worship now? If God is known, worship comes of its own accord. You cannot help it; you will have to bow.

My concern here is not to teach you worship, nor do I say—do it like this, do it there. Where will you do it? Whatever you do now will be false. Go to a temple—false; to a mosque—false; to a gurdwara—false. First there must be the taste of God. Then whether you go to a temple or not, wherever you bow becomes a temple. Wherever you fall silent, remember the Supreme, are moved, soaked to the core—that is the gurdwara! Otherwise, everything will be a mess.

Yesterday I was reading a poem. You know Kabir’s famous saying:
“Guru and Govind both stand before me—whose feet should I touch?
Blessed be the Guru—he showed me Govind.”
People recite it; it’s on everyone’s lips. The saying is lovely. But when does such a moment ever come to you, where both the guru and God stand before you? First you don’t accept anyone as a guru; God standing there is even more remote. Yesterday I read a verse I found more sensible:
“Wife and beloved both stand before me—whose feet should I touch?
Blessed be the guru—he told me about both!”
This appealed to me more—it’s experiential. It is almost everyone’s experience. Who would be so unlucky as not to have it? Husbands and wives both know this torn-in-two feeling. And then some rogue of a “guru” may have advised, “Brother, touch both—whichever has the substance.”

One day Mulla Nasruddin was sitting very dejected. I asked, “What’s the matter? So downcast! Did your wife catch you with the maid again?”
He said, “Today was the limit—it went the other way.”
I said, “What could be worse than that?”
He said, “Today the maid caught me with my wife. And the wife is at least a little cultured; the maid is a maid! She created such an uproar she gathered the whole neighborhood.”

You ask, Jageshwar: “Without seeing God, whom should I worship—how, and where?”
Don’t worship at all. How could you, yet? And whatever you do will be false. Why get into that panchayat? Ask instead: how can I know God?

That is why my emphasis is on meditation, not on worship. Through meditation God is known. Then, with even the slightest recognition, worship happens on its own. It comes! It needs neither to be learned nor taught. When a child is born he knows how to drink his mother’s milk—does anyone have to teach him? If you had to instruct newborns—“Son, drink like this, only then will you survive”—it would be a big problem. Months would pass just explaining, and in the meantime they would perish. They are born with the art of suckling.

In the same way, with the awakening to God, worship arises by itself. A feeling of grace, of gratefulness, wells up. What is worship? It is thanksgiving. What is worship? “You have given so much—what can we do! We bow our head at your feet. We offer ourselves.”

Worship does not mean offering a coconut. People are clever. They notice the coconut looks like a human head—hair, beard, moustache, even eyes drawn on it. Man has found a trick: he won’t offer his head; he offers a coconut. A symbol! In Hindi they even call the coconut khopra—“skull.” Such cheating! They smash coconuts with abandon—and rotten ones at that! They are symbols of your own skulls. I don’t think anyone ever takes a fresh coconut to the temple.

There are special shops for rotten coconuts, usually right in front of temples. The same coconuts have been “selling” there for ages—ancient coconuts! The more ancient, the more precious—like wine: the older, the costlier. Prices of ordinary coconuts change in the marketplace, but the price of “worship coconuts” never changes. There is nothing inside them; they are good for nothing else; their whole job is to be offered. All day you offer them; at night the priest hands them back to the shopkeeper. In the morning the very same coconuts are on sale again. They keep circulating. The wheel of the world—shop to temple, temple to shop; shop to temple, temple to shop—keeps turning! An understanding between priest and shopkeeper, coconuts shuttling back and forth like a football! And you keep hauling them—here to there, there to here. Rotten coconuts! But in one sense, exact symbols of your skull.

Offer your head. Offer your ego—that is your head. But that you will not offer. Before false gods only false symbols will be offered. You will pluck flowers from trees—someone else’s, too! You’ll climb over walls and fences at dawn to collect “worship flowers.” And people can’t say anything—worship flowers! Who will tangle with a religious fellow? Religious people have been dangerous since ancient times—Durvasa types, quick to curse. So around their fences people plant bushes it’s fine if you take—moonlight flowers: no fragrance, nothing, just for show. They bloom profusely! Pick as many as you like; no one minds. People go out with their little branches, load them up, and carry them off to “offer.” Even the flowers are borrowed! And even if you grew them yourself, they would still be borrowed; they belong to the plants—what of yours is there?

Offer the flowers of your own life: the flowers of awareness, of love, of bliss, of laughter, of tears—these are to be offered.

But for now, refrain; don’t raise the matter of worship yet, Jageshwar. First, wake up. Who gave you this lovely name—Jageshwar? At least be mindful of your name! Keep some respect for it! Wake up now. Become a witness. Stir your consciousness. Let a little taste of the Divine arise.

It does arise—certainly. One who awakens comes to know, inevitably. And when knowing dawns, worship is born by itself; there is no doing in it. And when worship is spontaneous, its beauty is incomparable.

Anand Mohammad,
I see in your eyes—his image has begun to appear! The mirror is becoming free of dust. I am pleased with you. I am delighted with you. Auspiciousness is happening. The very first ray has begun to descend.

The beloved’s image has settled in the eyes—yet where can the image find room?
Seeing the inn already full, says Rahim, the traveler turns back.

That’s all for today.