Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #2

Meera,
There is no interval between this shore and the other—of space or of time. Wake up, and this very shore is transformed into the other shore. The difference is only between waking and sleeping.

A river has two banks; between those two there is a distance. To go from this shore to that, you must swim, take a boat, lift the oars, struggle with storms and squalls. And who knows whether the far bank will even be reached! What guarantee is there? The boat may sink midstream. But the two shores of the river of life have no distance between them. The distance between them is only as much as that between your sleeping and waking in the morning. That cannot be called distance. Just now you were asleep; just now you are awake. No journey has to be made between sleeping and waking. A moment ago the eyelids were shut; now they have opened. A moment ago there was darkness and dreams upon dreams; and now there is light—and where the dreams have vanished, you don’t even notice! Whether they ever were, you cannot even tell.

This stream of life flows between the two banks of sleep and wakefulness. We are where we are—sleeping there, waking there. Asleep, we are lost in dreams; awake, we encounter truth. So don’t get entangled in language. When I speak of the other shore, I am not speaking of some far-off destination. There is nowhere to go. The talk is not of going; it is of awakening.

You say:
“Don’t take me across just yet!
In these dark nights
I have seen the moon for the first time!”

What you are experiencing now, this glimpse of the moon you are getting now—it is within a dream. In a dark night there can only be dreams. For darkness means sleep; night means slumber. Yes, you can dream—you can even dream of the other shore. A person asleep can think, “I have awakened.” Even in sleep one can dream of waking. But that is not awakening.

And it is true that even the feeling of awakening within sleep tastes blissful. There is so much juice in the very idea of awakening that even the impression of it in sleep exhilarates. The moon you have seen now is at most a glimpse of the moon. Like the moon reflected in a lake—exactly like the moon it appears, but there is nothing there, only a reflection. Like a face seen in a mirror; there is nothing there. Break the mirror and you will find nothing. Only the mirror will break; nothing will come into your hands. The image will be lost.

Certainly, sitting near me, rising and sitting, listening and understanding, a current of sweetness flows. At first the moon will be visible to you only in the lake. And when the moon appears in the lake, naturally your enchantment and attachment arise. You will want to clutch that moon. So lovely! Reflection though it may be, for you it is the truth. Reflection is reflection only for those who have seen the real; they can compare what truth is and what reflection is. You have not seen the original, so you have no choice but to take the reflection as truth. And if I say, “This is false,” if I say, “This is a dream, maya,” it will hurt. With great difficulty a glimpse came—after searches upon searches, after quest upon quest through births and births—somewhere the moon appeared. And no sooner has it appeared than I begin to say, “Drop it! It is only a reflection, merely an image. Wake from it! It is only a dream!”

This dream is pleasing. The moon in the lake is also very beautiful, very dear. And if the lake is unmoving, it seems absolutely real; such a delusion can arise.

I speak of the moon; you hear of the moon every day. That talk slowly settles within, penetrates the innermost. Then I continually urge you toward meditation, invite you. Slowly your taste for meditation stirs, your curiosity awakens. Meditation means: to still the waves arising in the mind. And as soon as, Meera, the waves of the mind subside, the reflection of the moon forms in the lake of the mind.

That is what is happening. And it is not only happening to you; it will happen to many. Everyone must pass through this moment. And as soon as the waves in your mind-lake are gone and the moon’s reflection appears, it is necessary that I startle you, shake you, and say: don’t get lost in this. This moon that looks so lovely is only a reflection; now the real moon must be sought. Now the other shore must be journeyed to.

Then naturally it seems to you: with difficulty this beautiful experience has occurred; with difficulty this slight intimation has come; a window opened in life, some door swung ajar; it felt as if the temple came near, as if the distance dissolved—and before this could take root, I again begin calling you: don’t stop, don’t linger. This is only a waystation, not the goal. Rest a while if you must, but keep the readiness to move. Still more to go, still more to go—until we reach truth itself, keep going. Many halts will come, and at every halt it will feel as if we have arrived. Because of fatigue too, it begins to seem we have arrived. And we have no experience of truth, so whatever we get, we begin to be satisfied with it. Isn’t even this enough! We think, perhaps the goal has come.

I have heard an old Sufi story. A fakir sat beneath a tree, singing his songs in his ecstasy, sometimes playing the flute, sometimes dancing. A woodcutter passed that way daily, carrying the wood he had cut. The fakir, carefree and god-intoxicated; the woodcutter would bow and go on. One day, as he bowed, the fakir said, “Brother, how long will you go on cutting wood? O mad one, go a little further! Just beyond where you cut wood there is a copper mine. In one day you can bring so much copper that you won’t need to cut wood for seven days. Enough provisions for seven days.”

The woodcutter didn’t quite believe it. But the fakir kept saying it day after day. Whenever the woodcutter came and touched his feet, the fakir would remind him, “Just a bit further!” When he returned and touched his feet, he would remind him, “Fool, will you keep hauling wood and not listen? Go a little further!”

One day he thought, “This man is kind, blissful; who knows, he may be right!” It is hard to deny the words of the intoxicated ones. Their very ecstasy is the proof of the truth of their words. There is no other proof of truth in this world—except uncaused joy, except bliss, except celebration. “This fakir dances so much! He has nothing. Such a stream of melody flows in his songs! Even when he sits silent, there is a wave about him—from some other realm. Who knows, he may be right! And why would he lie? For what reason? What harm have I done him that he would send me on a useless journey? And he doesn’t say it just once, he says it every day. I feel a bit embarrassed too—if he says it again today, I’ll go.” He went a little further and found there indeed was a mine. He was astonished. “What a fool I’ve been! The fakir had been telling me for so many days!”

He gathered so much copper that, though the fakir had said seven days, it was enough for at least a month. For a month he didn’t come. Once a month he would come, load up from the mine, sell it, and be carefree for a whole month.

One day the fakir said, “Madman, will you get stuck at copper now! Won’t you go a little further? There is also a silver mine.”

The woodcutter thought, “Such fortune isn’t mine! A silver mine, for a poor man like me? If fate had written this in my destiny, I’d already have found it.” The fakir must be joking; perhaps testing him—to see if he is greedy.

He pretended not to hear. But the fakir kept saying it. Whenever he came, once a month, the fakir would ask, “What are your plans? Will you stop at copper?”

One day he thought, “Who knows—just as the first thing proved true, the second may prove true too!” He went further; there was the mine. And so the story goes on. Then a gold mine, and then a diamond mine. And when the woodcutter reached the diamond mine, the fakir said to him, “A little further, a little further.” He asked, “Now what mine is there?”

The fakir said, “That I cannot tell you. But a little further. You have not yet found the real wealth. All this is counterfeit wealth. Death will snatch it away. But that wealth has no name; it is nameless, inexpressible. I cannot define it. There is no word into which it can fit. But a little further. You heard me this far; hear me a little further.”

This did not appeal to him. And one who has found diamonds—what does he care now! He began to avoid the path where the fakir sat. But fakirs are not easily given up. The fakir began to go to his house. At midnight he would knock at the door: “My brother, will you sleep on? A little further! You have listened this far—now don’t get stuck. Two steps more.”

And often it happens: when the goal is two steps away, people stop. When the goal is two steps away, people sit down, exhausted.

But the woodcutter’s point seemed true too. He would say, “With difficulty I have found a diamond mine. Old age has come. All my life I starved, lived in misery and poverty. Now I have enough that not only I, but my seven generations will be provided for. Why should I bother now?”

But the fakir would say, “Trust me. Listen to me. Don’t you want to gain that wealth which can never be taken away?”

And the woodcutter’s point was also apt. He would say, “Give me proof. Convince me. Let me first understand what you are saying, then I will go further. Until now what you said I could understand. But what you say now is unintelligible.”

One day the fakir said, “Look at me. Look into my eyes. Can’t you see that I have gained something more than diamonds? Otherwise I too would be sitting at the diamond mine. Looking at me, do you not get an inkling that there is something beyond diamonds? Otherwise am I some madman who knows of the diamond mine and the gold mine and yet sits under a tree just playing a flute? Who sways in bliss with eyes closed? And what do you see with me? Nothing except this begging bowl. Would I remain a beggar? Would I not become an emperor? Would I go around telling you? Have you told anyone? You are hiding it so no one may find out about the diamond mine; I too would have hidden it. I told you because the gate of an even greater treasure has opened for me. I have reached the gate of such wealth that however many take from it, nothing will be diminished there. It is immeasurable, bottomless. Go a little further and you will reach where I am.”

Wealth can be seized; meditation cannot be seized. But meditation alone is the real wealth—beyond diamonds and gems, timeless, beyond time. The other shore, Meera, is what I call you toward: come, move on. I will not let you stop until you reach the other shore. And the wonder is that the other shore does not mean going somewhere else. The other shore means within. This shore means without. This shore means drowsiness, sleep. That shore means awakening, meditation. This shore means reflections, glimpses, dreams. That shore means truth. And only truth is liberating.

But the fear you feel—everyone feels it.

Who knows to which bank the boat of life will moor!
Whether or not there will be lovely companions on that bank like those on this shore!
The easy, smiling pleasures, the wealth of the heart—who knows where they will be?
Where will be sorrows, and unions, the Yamuna of the body and the Ganga of the mind?
Who knows who will be our own and who will be strangers on that shore!
Where will be that moist earth with its simple, earthy fragrance?
That wave which suddenly makes the thirsty glance turn liquid—where will it be?
Where will be the tender grass, and on it the playful grains of frost!
Where will the blue sky, star-bedecked, be—and where my two beggar-eyes?
Where will be the dream’s celestial city, its heart-captivating scenes?
The world will come to my mind—whether or not the world acknowledges me today!
Who knows to which bank the boat of life will moor!
Whether or not there will be lovely companions on that bank like those on this shore!

It feels frightening. Anxiety grips you. Should we leave this shore, which has only just begun to be endearing! Which has only just begun to be beautiful! Where it has just now felt that there is joy! Where just now the veena’s strings have begun to reverberate! Where just now the stream of mystery has begun to flow! Should we leave this shore? And what do we know of the other shore? What assurance is there of that shore? It is natural for fear to arise, natural for anxiety to take hold.

You are right to say:
“Don’t take me across just yet!
In these dark nights
I have seen the moon for the first time!
Let me live for a moment now;
let me stop and gaze a while.”

However much you gaze, a reflection can never become the real. Even if you stare a thousand times, the false will remain false, the shadow a shadow, maya will remain maya.

But this is precisely the method. You cannot be shown the moon directly either. You live in the world of dreams; therefore first you must be shown a glimpse of truth, in your language, so it can be understood by you.

Once the glimpse is understood, then you can be told: now understand the indication; now rise beyond the glimpse. Now see that of which this is a glimpse!

First the glimpse has to be shown you upon the earth; then you can be pointed toward the sky. And if the glimpse of the moon is so lovely, how lovely must the moon itself be! Think this, reflect on this. And this glimpse can be lost in a moment. Then melancholy may seize you. Before sadness takes hold—a tiny pebble may fall into the lake; waves will arise and the moon’s reflection will be lost. A trivial incident happens and a person is upset. This dense peace that has gathered for a moment—make use of it, make it a ladder. Therefore I do not want even for a moment that you stop at this glimpse. Who knows whether in the next moment this glimpse will still be there or not. And if the glimpse is lost, then it will become impossible to take you to the real moon. The glimpse has to be used—as an indication.

You say, “Let me live for a moment now!”
Even a moment—what certainty is there of it? Not even a single moment is ours. Who can say for sure that the next moment will arrive! And lest it happen that the treasure slips away just as it is coming into your hands. So no, I do not want you to pause even for a moment, to wander and be deluded.

You say:
“Let me stop and gaze a while,
let me say a little, hear a little.
Saying, ‘It is illusion, it is a dream,’
please don’t open the doors of the void just yet!”

Whether I say it or not, what is, is as it is. My saying changes nothing. If I see you chasing a shadow, should I remain silent? Granted that by saying, “It’s a shadow,” I will become an obstacle to your running—while you, so intoxicated, are dashing along as if some treasure had fallen into your hands, as if truth had been attained—and if I stop you and say, “All this is maya, all this shadow,” it hurts.

Meera is right to say: don’t say this is illusion, this is a dream.

But what difference does my saying make? It is illusion! It is a dream! Whether I say it or not. If I do not say it, there is a danger that you might remain engrossed in this illusion; that you might get lost in this very dream. The doors of the void have to be opened, because in the void alone is the encounter with the Full. In the void alone is the experience of truth. Void means samadhi. In meditation you only get a glimpse of the moon; and in the void, in samadhi, the moon itself is found. Crazy Meera, if the glimpse of the moon is so sweet, then spread your bowl—the moon itself is ready to fall into your bowl! But the glimpse will have to be left.

On the path of truth nothing else has to be renounced—only the false; only the insubstantial. What is not, that alone has to be dropped. This will seem absurd to you. On the path of truth you must drop only what you don’t really have, and know what you truly have.

I will say it, and say it again and again: this is a dream.

Buddha said to his disciples: if, on the path of meditation, even I appear to you, raise your sword and cut me into two.

If Buddha appears to you on the path of meditation—you are sitting in meditation and Buddha manifests—will you be able to raise your sword and cleave him? You will be overjoyed. You will fall at his feet. You will say: The attainment has happened! The goal has come! What more is needed!

But Buddha says: even if I appear to you on the path of meditation, cut me into two! Because my appearing on the path of meditation is only a reflection, only a shadow. If you become free even of that, you will yourself become a Buddha. And until you become a Buddha yourself, what meeting with Buddha can there be? What kind of meeting? We can know only what we become. All other knowing is false.

Save the lamp of song
with the notes of radiant awakening!
On the heart’s clouded canvas write again
with the letters of lightning!
This is a land of darkness; you
must not leave the least trace of gloom within!
Let the vine of light
wave and blossom every moment!
Let the petals of rapture-flowers
fall from your laughing hands!
In the depression of ages
let lotus-moments of delight bloom!
Those long estranged,
join outer and inner in gladness!
Let showers of ray-buds rain down
again from sweet lips!
Let imagination’s swan once more
open its wings and roam free!
By the touch of honeyed rhythms
let thrilled sensation quiver!
Let tiny drizzles fall again
from the cascades of consciousness!

Become the void. And soon—then tiny drizzles will fall from the cascades of consciousness! Become utterly empty; grasp nothing. Become utter silence. And nectar will shower. From that very void the Full manifests. In that void the lotus of the Full blooms.

I will keep herding you on, keep calling—move ahead! I will not let you stop.

You will want to stop. You will be ready to stop anywhere. You are ready to halt at a milestone. You don’t want the bother of reaching the goal. The sooner you can stop, the better. Who wants to walk! Who wants to journey! Who wants to take up the effort!

But sannyas means precisely this: we will not stop without realizing truth. The name of this resolve is sannyas.

Paresh,
You do understand. I am speaking in plain, simple words—not in dead languages like Sanskrit, Arabic, Latin, Greek. I’m speaking your everyday tongue. There isn’t a single word I use that you don’t know. The words are understood; what doesn’t register is the emptiness hidden in them. And that won’t come just by listening and listening. For that, some practice is needed.

It’s like going to a classical music concert: you may hear everything, yet the rasa doesn’t touch you—until you’ve cultivated some sensitivity, some grounding in classical music. With practice, its secrets begin to reveal themselves.

What I am saying is simple; but what is contained as experience within those simple words is deep. Until that experience becomes yours, you may hear the words and still feel something is missing.

And you are new here; it’s your first time. You may not even be able to listen properly yet—because listening is an art. I am speaking here, and there your mind is chattering about a thousand things. If your mind is busy in its own talk, who is there to listen? If a crowd of thoughts is moving inside, that crowd won’t let my words reach you. And if somehow my words do get through, they will be badly distorted—something will be lost in the jostling, something broken, something will change color and shape before it reaches you. I will say one thing; something else will reach you.

As long as the mind is crowded with thoughts and dilemmas, we listen and yet do not hear. We are deaf—more deaf than the deaf. A deaf person, if you shout, might still catch something; but no matter how loudly I shout, your inner thoughts are making such a ruckus that anything coming from outside is like a flute in a brass band. Inside your band is blaring, a whole wedding procession is passing through. Not just one or two thoughts—there are long queues of thoughts without end.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife died, and a huge crowd went to the cemetery for the last farewell. People were surprised. A newcomer in the village asked, “Was the lady extraordinary? Why such a crowd—almost the whole village?” He asked several people; everyone just smiled. The mystery deepened. Finally he thought, Let me ask the man whose wife died. He caught hold of Nasruddin’s hand: “I’m new here. Everyone just smiles when I ask. Was your wife some remarkable woman?”

Nasruddin said, “They haven’t come for the lady. They all want to buy my donkey.”

“To buy your donkey? Why?”

“My donkey kicked my wife so hard she died. They’re all prospective buyers. That’s why they just smile and say nothing.”

The man got curious: “How much for the donkey?”

Nasruddin said, “Get in the line. Buyers are many already. We’ll auction at the cemetery. Whoever bids higher can take him—if he has the courage. It’s a pedigree donkey! He’s done this before. I searched hard to find him.”

Just look within and see what kind of crowd is gathered there! There are murderous thoughts, violent thoughts, even thoughts of suicide; thoughts of destruction. There isn’t a single sin ever committed by any human being whose thought doesn’t also arise in you. Whether you act on it or not is another matter. You won’t be able to find a single thought that has occurred in someone, somewhere, that isn’t also in you. You are a representative of all humanity. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler—all are present within you. Give them the chance and you too can do the same.

And these thoughts are in fierce conflict. Even if it were only Hitler and Genghis Khan in you, it would still be simpler; but in you there is also the possibility of a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ. Hence the great tumult. Inside, the Mahabharata is on twenty-four hours a day; armies arrayed on both sides, and you split between them.

It isn’t even as it was in the Mahabharata, where some of Arjuna’s kin were on one side and some on the other. Things had gone so far that Krishna was on one side and Krishna’s army on the other. That is not only in the epic—it is even more so inside you. At least Krishna was wholly on one side there; it wasn’t as if half of him was here and half there—one hand with the Kauravas and one with the Pandavas. But that is exactly the state within you.

A man was run over by a steamroller and died. His wife rushed to the hospital on hearing he had been admitted to Sassoon Hospital. She asked the nurse, “Which ward is my husband in?” “Name?” “The one crushed under the steamroller.” The nurse said, “Yes, he’s been admitted—in wards four, five, and six.”

If one man is admitted in three wards at once, you can imagine what the steamroller did—skull here, arm there, leg somewhere else; things spread out. He’s sleeping in three wards at once: a miracle!

But this miracle is going on inside you moment to moment. In how many wards are you divided! Fragment upon fragment. A crowd. Who is there to listen? People are utterly deaf.

I’ve heard: A priest arranged Chandulal’s marriage. On the wedding day, when Chandulal saw the girl, he grabbed the priest in anger and pulled him aside: “This is too much! Even lies have limits. And you, a Brahmin—no shame! I feel like wringing your neck. I’ve never seen a more hideous, ugly woman. She frightens me. One eye looks here, the other there. Her nose is crooked, her lips—look at them! Her face so black that tar would look white by comparison. She’s hunchbacked. You brought me to see this woman? No shame?”

The priest said, “Chandulal, no need to whisper—speak up; the girl is deaf. Say whatever you want, loudly. She’s not short of qualities!”

Almost everyone is deaf—not physically, but mentally. The ears are fine; but in the ear, the brain is raising such a clamor that nothing gets through to the other side; it gets stuck in the ear itself.

A gentleman sitting among friends was praising his brother-in-law’s daughter. “She’s very tall. Her nose is very high. She’s received a very high education. The standard of their family is very high. And what’s more…” Someone chimed in, “Yes, she also hears very high”—meaning, she’s hard of hearing.

Paresh, you say: I don’t understand what you say. What should I do?
First, stop this “high-volume hearing.” First, learn the art of listening. Understanding comes later. If you can listen, understanding can follow. Step by step; you won’t reach the mountain peak in a leap. Climb by steps. First learn to listen. Become a listener.

What is listening? Listening in stillness, in silence, without prejudice—putting all your biases aside. This doesn’t mean believing whatever I say. It only means: don’t rush to believe or disbelieve. First, just listen; later you can think whether to accept or reject. Without listening, how will you accept or reject?

People don’t listen at all, and already they’re tangled in “agree or disagree”—Was what he said right or wrong? Does it fit the scriptures or go against them? Did Krishna say this in the Gita or not? What do the Vedas say? If you’re Hindu, you try to match it with Hindu scriptures; if Buddhist, with Buddhist texts; if Muslim, with the Quran. Who then is listening? You’re busy doing something else.

And remember, I’m not saying “believe whatever I say.” There’s no need to believe. Just listen. Then think it over. But to listen rightly there must be no interference in between. Put the scriptures aside for a while. They won’t get lost. Later, pick them up and compare.

But while I am speaking, inside people a thousand things are going on—is it right or wrong? Evaluation is underway, verdicts being rushed. You don’t even hear the whole thing and conclusions are drawn. Someone takes sides for, someone against.

Both are unwise. Both were in a hurry. There’s no hurry to be for or against. Patience is needed. The art of listening comes only to the patient. Listen in stillness, in silence. Listen just to listen—“for now, let me simply hear.” Listen as you would to the roar of the ocean, the rumble of thunder. At such a time you don’t think, Is it right or wrong? Does it conform to the Vedas? Are the verses of the Quran for or against this mountain stream?

You must have heard the story. Three pundits finished their studies in Kashi and set out for home. They halted in a forest at night. In the morning, hungry, they decided to cook. One was a botanist. “You go buy the vegetables; who better than you to choose?” The second was a philosopher, the kind who debate age-old problems like, “When we put ghee into a pot, is the ghee holding the pot, or the pot holding the ghee?” They said, “You buy the ghee. You’ve pondered this for years—you must be an expert now. Take this pot and go.” The third was a linguist, scholar of phonetics. “You light the fire and put the water on. When it begins to bubble, you can let it bubble according to the laws of sound.”

The botanist scoured the market but found fault with every vegetable—one increases wind, another bile, another phlegm. In the end, he plucked neem leaves: flawless, faultless. He returned delighted: “I’ve brought a gem! Both friends will be happy.”

The philosopher bought ghee and put it in the pot. He thought, I’ve read and read and never settled this—does the ghee hold the pot or the pot the ghee? Today I can experiment. He turned the pot upside down. The ghee spilled everywhere. “Settled! The pot holds the ghee; the ghee doesn’t hold the pot.” He returned beaming: “A centuries-old debate resolved so easily!”

The third lit the fire. The water began to bubble; the damp twigs crackled too. He thought hard; in phonetics there was no such sound described. He remembered one aphorism: wherever there is a-non-sound (ashabda), do not listen to it. “This is not a proper sound; it’s ashabda.” To sit listening to it! He picked up a stick and smashed the pot. The pot shattered, the water spilled, the fire went out. The ashabda ceased. He relaxed: “I did a noble deed today. The non-sound was happening; I did not let it.”

When the three met, the result was obvious. No cooking—no pot, no vegetable, no ghee. They beat their heads.

Scholarship makes people deaf and blind. Scholarship is not wisdom. Listen with innocence, not with scholarship. If you listen with scholarship, you won’t hear. Simple, silent, at ease.

I’m saying very simple things—like two and two are four. Don’t start thinking. First, listen; think later. And here’s the wonderful thing: if you listen in a quiet way, truth has a dignity of its own; as you listen, that dignity reveals itself. Truth has its own fragrance; as you listen, your very being is filled with it. Falsehood has a stench; as you listen, that stench will show itself. You may find there’s hardly anything left to think about. Without deciding, the matter decides itself in the listening.

Truth is self-evidencing; untruth is self-invalidating. There’s no need to disprove the false. If you listen silently, you’ll see through it—clear as day—that it’s false, useless, not worth two pennies. That conclusion won’t come from thought; it will arise in your silence. It will be so obvious that words won’t form around it—there will simply be a seeing, and the matter ends. And truth touches the heart so deeply, so sweetly, that try as you may, you will never again be able to prove it false.

Paresh, learn the art of listening. The depth of listening gradually flowers into the art of understanding.

No fathoming the depth of life!
My mind’s restless fish
keeps playing with the waves.

This little scale of little knowledge—
how will it weigh the bottomless?
The iron-wood boat of the body
keeps me from dissolving into the waters.

All my critique of doctrines—wasted;
no guru-mantra found, no initiation;
today the very dust shows one hue,
tomorrow another, in every grain.

Here, love does not answer love;
the flower of truth does not bloom as a dream;
self-interest has become the master,
wisdom a weary maid, tired at every step.

No fathoming the depth of life!
My mind’s restless fish
keeps playing with the waves.

With this fish-like mind you will not fathom the depths. And here the talk is of the unfathomable, the inaccessible.

Satsang is precisely where the mysterious is spoken of. Mystery is not something to be understood. If it were understood, what mystery would remain? What is understood is that it cannot be understood. You have to enter, to dive. It can be drunk. By drinking it you can be delighted, nourished, strengthened. You can be immersed in it, rapt in its rasa. But to understand it? How would that be possible? What can be understood is shallow; that’s why it can be grasped. What is deep is deeper than understanding; the yardsticks of understanding don’t work there. If you go with rulers and scales, they won’t help. The matter is bottomless. Truth is inaccessible. Who has ever understood it?

Yes, if at least you understand that it cannot be understood—that is great understanding. If you understand that this is about diving—that is great understanding; that it is about dissolving—that is great understanding.

But people stand on the shore and hope to determine the ocean’s depth—standing on the shore! They won’t even dip a toe. They don’t want to risk even that much. Very clever. They argue from the shore: how deep is the ocean? Heavy disputes—heads get broken, murders happen. Over what? Things no one knows.

What are Hindus and Muslims fighting about? What are Muslims and Hindus fighting about? What disputes between Christians and Jews? What struggle between Jains and Buddhists?

All are standing on the shore and arguing about the ocean’s depth. Assign whatever depth you like; neither you can prove it nor can anyone disprove it. That is why for centuries these disputes have continued without end. How can they end? They cannot—no one enters the water.

And those who do enter and return say: What is known cannot be said; what can be said does not contain what is known. It is inexpressible, indescribable, indefinable. No one has ever said it; no one ever will.

Then what is satsang? Why satsang? What is its point?

Only this: the presence of one who has lived it—his vibrations, his being-there, his words, his silence, his rising, his sitting, his eyes looking into you, your simply being near him—perhaps it will touch you. Perhaps it will infect you. Perhaps you too will begin to tremble.

It happens. A musician plays the veena and, sitting in your chair, your hand starts beating time. What happened? No one told you to keep time. No order was given: “Ladies and gentlemen, now everyone clap.” Such orders were given in Joseph Stalin’s speeches: the lecture was printed and distributed, with “Applause” written in places; there you had to clap. If you didn’t, you were in trouble—whether you felt like it or not, whether it made sense or not, you had to.

Satsang is not like that—some people applauding ceremonially, some nodding formally. No—it has to be heartfelt. When the veena plays, some heads will start to sway; they won’t even know when the sway began, when absorption set in, when total involvement happened, when one string resonated with another. Heads begin to nod, hands to beat time, feet to dance. On seeing a dancer’s bells, don’t your feet tingle? That is what happens in satsang.

Paresh, the point is less to “understand,” more to be immersed in satsang. Keep coming, keep sitting; slowly the color will soak in. It soaks in by soaking in; there is no hurry. Colors applied in haste turn out raw. When the color takes by itself—when you become helpless, when the hands have to clap, when the head has to nod, when even if you try to stop, the feet won’t and the dance begins—then know that understanding has arrived. But remember: what “arrives” as understanding is such that more and more veils of mystery keep lifting; the mystery never ends.

That is why we call the Divine infinite. The more you know, the more there is to know. Know as much as you like—there is still more. Keep knowing, and the more you know, the more you feel how ignorant you are and how much, how infinite, remains.

But this glory delights the devotee; it does not depress him that he has not yet fully understood. It fills him with joy that the Divine has no end, that he will be lost in God and still not find the shore. For the devotee longs to be lost. No one wants to drag God into a laboratory, put him in a test tube and heat him to see at what degree he turns to steam or to ice. God is not to be brought into a laboratory, nor can he be.

Karl Marx said, “Until God is brought into the laboratory, I will not believe.” Then people like Marx will never believe—God cannot be brought into a lab. If I ever meet Marx, I will ask him: you accepted many things that cannot be brought into a lab. You fell in love with a woman and said, “She is beautiful.” Frau Marx, whom Marx loved—he wrote that she was very beautiful. Can beauty be brought into a lab? Bring your wife to the laboratory and have her examined. No scientist can prove “she is beautiful.” He can measure weight, bones, flesh, marrow—mostly water, eighty percent. And not even sweet water—salty like the sea. The rest is earth, a little air, a little sky. Where is beauty?

So many autopsies have been performed, but has anyone found a scrap of “beauty” in a corpse? The nose may be long—so be it. But what of beauty? There are people who consider a flat nose beautiful. The lips may be thin—so what? In parts of Africa, people consider thick lips beautiful. Women there do everything to thicken their lips—hang stones from them so they swell. We would say, “How ugly!” But for them, the thicker the lips, the more beautiful. And their reasoning is thought-provoking: the thicker the lips, the deeper the kiss. That is also true—what kiss will thin lips manage? There must be some surface area.

The world has a thousand standards—different for different people. Women grow their hair; hair is considered beautiful. But in some African tribes, women are completely shaven—like tridandi sannyasins. Their reasoning too is interesting: If a woman looks beautiful because of her hair, is she really beautiful? Let’s see beauty without the bush! By their measure, your most beautiful women would become plain—shave their heads clean. Shave your wife and see—yourself you will run, never to return home. She’ll look like a ghost! But they say: until the grass is cleared—hair is garbage, a dead part of the body—you won’t see true beauty. If, with the brush cleared, a woman looks beautiful, then she is beautiful.

Different people, different standards, different beliefs. But is beauty something a laboratory can decide?

To Marx I would say: you shouldn’t accept beauty. Yet you say your wife is beautiful; you even wrote poems to her. You say God must come to the lab, then you’ll believe. But beauty you believe without lab proof? That’s a logical error—immature reasoning.

In life, whatever is truly important cannot be proven in a lab. The lab can grasp only the gross; the subtle slips away. And the Divine is the subtlest of the subtle—subtler than the subtlest. No one has ever “understood” him. Yes—people have known, lived, recognized, dived in, lost themselves utterly in that and attained supreme bliss, sat-chit-ananda. But they too say: it is inexhaustible, bottomless; much remains—endlessly more! What we have known is almost nothing. Like a drop we have known, and the ocean remains.

But one who has tasted a drop no longer worries about knowing the whole ocean. One who has tasted has no relish left for “understanding.” Do you want to know about sweetness, or do you want to taste sweetness? Think a little. The wise will say, “We want to taste.” The foolish will say, “We want to understand.” Do you want to understand water, or quench your thirst? The wise will say, “I am thirsty; I want water.” The foolish will say, “First we’ll understand; until we do, how can we drink? What is the proof that water quenches thirst?” It’s good people don’t ask such questions, or staying alive would be difficult. “What is the proof that water quenches thirst? How can we accept it? What property in water quenches thirst? It must be proven in the lab.”

It cannot be proven in a lab—only the throat can testify. How will a laboratory prove it? No evidence other than the throat can show that water quenches thirst. And a laboratory has no throat. A lab can tell you that water is formed from oxygen and hydrogen—H2O. But “H2O” is a formula—like a mantra, like the Gayatri mantra. People chant Gayatri thinking they’ll arrive that way. It’s the same folly as a thirsty person chanting “H2O, H2O, H2O,” imagining the thirst will go.

H2O is good for describing water, for scientific understanding—but not for quenching thirst. For thirst, you must drink. Likewise, the Divine must be drunk.

Paresh, sit here and drink. As you drink, glimpses will come, a thrill will arise. It does happen. You will see it on many faces here. The very atmosphere carries that fragrance, that music!

Usha,
What does “the world” mean? By “world” we mean what we have imagined, what we have concocted. We are afraid to be alone, we panic. Loneliness bites; there is great pain in being solitary. We want the other—someone to fill up our loneliness: a wife, a husband, children, a family.

These are all conventions. But we manage to live by getting ourselves tangled in these conventions, by beguiling ourselves with these toys. And we are terribly afraid that our delusions might break. We even avoid people who might shatter them. We know it’s all illusion, yet we go to great lengths to make our illusions look real.

Look at marriage—of a young man, a young woman. In earlier times people were shrewd: they did child marriage. The greatest “virtue” of child marriage was precisely this—that children can be deceived quickly and made to trust the deception in a way you cannot do with adults. With age, awareness arises, thought arises. Little children of four or six will believe anything. Tell them anything and they accept it. At night, a rag hanging on a rope looks like a ghost to them. Tell them, “See those two hands—there stands a ghost!” They accept it and are terrified. They can be frightened by anything. In little ones, logic hasn’t yet awakened, thought hasn’t yet arisen, discrimination hasn’t yet lit up.

The old folk were clever—more crafty. They married off small children. And the arrangement was so grand that trust got planted. The little boy is put on a horse, made into a king—“the bridegroom king!” A little dagger and suchlike hang from him; he’s dressed splendidly. The biggest people of the town walk below while he rides above. His swagger knows no bounds; his ego is mightily fed. Then big rituals—worship, fire oblations, priests and pundits, chanting in dead languages. So much pomp and formality that it seems something momentous is happening. Then the seven rounds around the sacred fire. And all of it done so gravely. It’s all two-penny stuff! Whether you sit on a horse or an elephant—what difference does it make? Whether you take seven rounds or seventy—you’re just going around; nothing special is happening. But the little boy has the corner of the bride’s sari tied to his sash—he thinks, “Now the knot is tied,” and he’s told, “Now the knot is tied—such a knot that will never open; it can never open.”

Children accept it. Once the suggestion takes root in childhood… these were techniques of hypnosis—pure hypnotism. Then the boy grows up with that same wife, sees her growing as a sister would grow alongside a brother. Naturally, living together, with cooperation and companionship, the bond deepens.

As long as there was child marriage, divorce simply didn’t arise; it wasn’t even conceived. From the day youths insisted they would marry as adults, danger for marriage began. Because you can seat a young man on a horse a thousand times—he knows you’re merely seating him on a horse. What is to come of it? Call him “bridegroom king”—what difference does that make? Tie seven knots—what happens by that? Make him walk seven rounds—what happens by that? He can see plainly: What does any of this actually do? Till yesterday that woman was a stranger; how does she become “mine” today? Till yesterday I was a stranger; how have I become “hers” today? Till yesterday we had nothing to do with each other; how did seven circuits around a ring of fire suddenly make us belong to each other?

We create the world—samsara—because we fear being alone. We are frightened of being alone. And the truth is: we are alone. Alone we came, alone we shall go. In between, the little interval we stuff with crowds. But even then, the truth is, we are alone.

I call that person a sannyasin who knows: alone I came, alone I will go, and alone I am.

This does not mean you should run off to the Himalayas and sit in a cave. To be alone you need go nowhere; wherever you are, you are alone. The person who says, “I will leave the world and go to the Himalayas, because I am alone,” still has doubt—he believes that if he stays in the world he is not alone, while if he goes to the Himalayas he will be alone. Your so-called escapist sannyasins are in as much delusion as householders. Both share the same underlying belief: that by staying here, there will be company and togetherness. The sannyasin is also afraid—more afraid than the householder! The householder is actually braver: he stands his ground. The sannyasin is a deserter; he has shown his back.

But when we want to worship something, we give it a nice name. We don’t call him a runaway; we don’t call him an escapist. We call him a “renunciate”—tyagi. A beautiful word to hide the flight. When Krishna ran from the battlefield, we did not call him “Bhagoradas” (Mr. Runaway). We named him “Ranchooddasji” (the revered one who left the battlefield). What clever people we are! Ranchooddasji—meaning the same thing. But now no one considers what the word means. There are temples—temples of Ranchooddasji! Yet what does Ranchooddas mean? He left the battle and fled. Say “Bhagoradas” and there will be an uproar; Hindus will drag you to court, claiming their religious sentiments have been hurt. Although “Bhagwan Bhagoradasji” would actually sound more fitting than “Bhagwan Ranchooddasji”—it even rhymes a bit. But the meaning is the same. We give pretty words.

A man dies and we say, “He has set out on a great journey.” If he were to rise and return, he would crack your skulls, “I died and you say I set out on a great journey!”

Someone dies and we say, “He became dear to God.” If he were to get up for a moment, he would wring your necks, “So this is being dear to God? I’m dying and you’re saying I became God’s beloved!”

We search for sweet words—to cover lies. A child dies and people go to console the parents: “Don’t worry, God takes the good ones early; He leaves the bad ones alive.” Then what went wrong with Gautam Buddha, who lived eighty-four years? He must have had some defect, else he would have been God’s beloved early on.

But we plaster and paint over every delusion. These are our habits. In this way we somehow prop up our world. It’s a house of cards, yet we keep bracing it. If it sags here, we put up a prop; if it sags there, another prop. Props everywhere. We sit in a house built of sand. We know it will fall. Its fall is certain. The only miracle is that it hasn’t fallen yet—why not? A slight gust of wind and it will collapse. Yet we keep hoping: others’ houses fall, ours will not. We built ours so skillfully!

A sannyasin is not one who runs away from the world. A sannyasin is one who knows, even amid the crowd, “I am alone,” who accepts his aloneness—does not deny it or reject it.

What is the world? It is only your hope. By “world” I do not mean these trees, these animals and birds, the moon and the stars. By “world” I mean the web of your imaginings. Withdraw it, draw it back. This world-as-existence will remain where it is.

When I say the world is maya—illusion—I do not mean that with meditation the trees will vanish and the mountains will cease to be. The mountains will be there, the trees will be there. This cosmos will remain. Only the fantasy you had built around it—a kaleidoscope of your own imaginings—will no longer be there.

The manifest world is real—as real as Brahman is real. But inside this world you have constructed a world of fantasies; that is utterly false, and it is yours. When you awaken in the morning, your dreams disappear; that does not mean your room’s furniture disappears, or the bed you slept on all night is missing. You will find yourself on your bed, in your room. But one thing will have changed: in your dreams at night you were neither on your bed nor in your room—you were God knows where! Timbuktu or Tokyo—who knows where you roamed! What feats you performed in dreams—how many thefts you committed, murders you did, someone’s wife you ran off with—who knows what! All that vanishes. But what is, remains. It remains as it is.

Two college girls were walking down the road. Suddenly they got into a spat. The first said, “You’ll get a blind husband!” The second retorted, “You’ll get a lame husband!” Two beggars walking by heard this; one was blind and the other lame. They stopped, listening. The quarrel dragged on. Finally the two beggars pushed through the crowd and said to the girls, “Ladies, you can keep fighting as long as you like, but please tell us—should we stand here or go?”

Your world is just like that! You cling to hope. Those two poor beggars got their big chance. They’d never imagined it. “When God gives, He tears the roof,” they must have thought. “What a lucky day! One says she’ll get a blind husband; the other says she’ll get a lame one—and we two are right here! What are we waiting for? Fight later! So should we wait or leave?”

Where do you stand? In what hope do you stand? All your hopes—for wealth, position, prestige—are just like that: false.

Usha, in this world there is no one who is truly ours.

This does not mean make enemies of all. It does not mean do not give love. It does not mean do not serve others. It does not mean run away and hide in some far, deserted place. It only means: do not drown your solitude, your aloneness, in these delusions. Live your solitude. Living your solitude is what meditation is. Savor your aloneness. Discover the joy of your aloneness. And the joy that is in you, in your very being, in your aloneness—no relationship in this world can equal it.

But people have created confusions. The wise have always said: “Know the One hidden within.” Instead of knowing that One, two kinds of people have sprung up in the world: those who are bound to the other, and those who are running away from the other. Both are engaged in not knowing themselves. One is attracted to the other and clutches at the other—he is mistaken. The other “leaves” the other and flees. Leaving the other could be true only if grasping the other were possible. What you can never hold—how will you leave it? What was never yours—what renunciation of it will you perform?

A sannyasin once said to me, “I renounced my wife, I renounced my children.” I asked him, “Were they yours? If they were yours, then your renunciation has meaning. If they never were yours, then say whatever you like—say you have renounced the sun, renounced the moon. Why don’t you say that? Your wife was no more yours than the sun is yours. Then, if you want to make your renunciation as big as you like, make it big—proclaim anything! Nothing is yours. The ego of renunciation stands on that very delusion.”

But the words of the wise, falling into the hands of the ignorant, take on the strangest meanings.

A young woman living on the second floor came back late after dumping the trash off the roof. Her husband asked, “Why did it take you so long to throw the trash?” She replied, “You yourself told me—when tossing trash from the roof, look down and watch for people passing below before you throw it. No one passed for quite a while. Just now, when one man did pass, I looked at him and threw the trash.” That was her explanation for the delay.

The Buddhas have said: Be exhilarated in being alone. Find the juice of aloneness. Whenever you get the chance, close your eyes and go within.

People don’t do that. Some run outward toward money, and some run away from money. But both are running outward. Money is outside; renunciation is outside.

So I do not tell my sannyasin to give up wealth, or position, or wife. Stop this whole racket of “giving up.” Nothing is yours. What is there to leave? What is there to grasp? You are nobody’s, and nobody is yours. We met on the road for a while—river-and-boat happenstance. We will travel together a little while, then our paths will part. While we are together, share your fragrance if you can—share it. Share your perfume if you can—share it. While companionship lasts, share your joy—share it. Do not give your misery. People are already miserable enough.

And share your joy, because joy increases by sharing—remember this principle. If you give others your misery, your misery will grow. If you give others your joy, your joy will grow. Whatever you give will increase.

And don’t make wrong interpretations.

Two young men were traveling. On the way they quarreled with a third man. The third started thrashing the first. The second seized the chance and ran away. Later the beaten friend asked, “Why did you run off and leave me alone? What kind of friendship is that? A friend is one who stands by you in time of need, who cannot bear to see his friend in pain.” The other said, “Exactly! That’s why I ran—because I couldn’t bear to see you getting thrashed. I just couldn’t! It was beyond my tolerance. I closed my eyes. But I could still hear the blows landing, so I thought it best to get away from there altogether. A true friend neither sees nor hears!”

In life we have made thoroughly upside-down interpretations. Man has a very inverted head. Say one thing, he understands another. And then he carries that misunderstanding for centuries.

Do not leave the world, Usha. Yes, here there is no one who is yours. That does not mean grow insipid. It does not mean become indifferent or cold toward others, or bring a deadness into your life. No; no one is anyone’s here—no one is theirs either. And yet everyone wishes there were someone, that we were not alone. Because of this longing, everyone builds arrangements of their own kinds. People form families, build religions, create political parties, fashion nations. All are devices to manufacture some kind of ties—“someone is ours! We are not alone!”

When you say, “I am Indian,” what are you saying? You are saying: all who live in India are mine; I am theirs. When you say, “I am Hindu,” you are saying: all Hindus are mine; I am theirs. When you say, “I am a Brahmin,” you are saying: all Brahmins are mine; I am theirs. In this way you draw bigger and smaller circles, and within those, even smaller circles. And when even those don’t suffice, someone joins Rotary—now all Rotarians are “ours.” Someone joins the Lions Club—now all “Lions” are ours.

A lady once took her child to a museum. Children ask strange questions. Seeing a lion, the child asked, “Mommy, can you tell me how lions love one another?” His mother said, “Son, all your father’s friends are Rotarians, so I can’t say about lions. But if you ask me about Rotarians, I can tell you how Rotarians love!”

Circles upon circles, and smaller circles within them—we keep making them, only in the hope that surrounded by many rings we will forget our aloneness. But no one has ever forgotten it, and no one can. Your aloneness is the supreme truth of your life. Its acceptance is sannyas—its natural acceptance is sannyas.

Live in the crowd, live in the marketplace, but do not forget your aloneness. And whenever you get the chance, close your eyes and dive into your aloneness. That very dive will slowly take you into the Divine, because when you are utterly alone, you are in God. And when you are immersed in the crowd, entangled with others, you are turned away from God. Join the crowd and you turn away from Ram; join yourself and you stand before Ram. To stand before Ram is revolution.

Enough for today.