Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #3

Mangaldas,
The new always brings fear—precisely because it is new. The mind is forever content with the old, because it lives in the old. In the new, the mind dies; in the old, the mind is nourished. The older a thing is, the more the mind agrees with it; the newer it is, the more the mind gets nervous and tries to run away.

You will have to understand the whole mechanism of the mind. The very meaning of mind is: the past. The storehouse of what has gone by is what we call mind. The present moment has no mind. All the yesterdays—their imprints, their conditionings—that is your mind. Put the past aside even for a while—what remains in the mind? Remove the bricks of the past one by one, and the house of mind collapses. If nothing of the past remains, can you preserve the mind? It becomes impossible. Mind is an aggregate of the past.

Therefore the mind takes great delight in antiquity—in tradition, in history. It longs for the ages that are no more—Rama-rajya, the Golden Age—because through them it finds itself strengthened. The mind also enjoys the future, because the future is only a transformation of the past. Whatever you think about the future is born of the past—where else could it come from? If there are roots of the past, leaves appear as the future. If the past goes, the future goes too.

Ordinarily we think time has three parts—past, present, and future. That notion is basically wrong. The experience of all meditators, the teaching of all buddhas, is exactly the opposite: time has only two segments—past and future. And time is just another name for the mind. Say the mind has two parts—past and future—or say time has two; it is the same thing. Time equals mind. The present belongs neither to time nor to mind. Hence one who would awaken must abide in the present. If in this very moment you become still—nothing behind, nothing ahead—then where is mind? All waves are gone.

The past keeps giving birth to the future. The future is the progeny of the past. Yesterday you tasted many pleasures and many pains. In the future you want the pleasures of the past intensified, embellished; and the pains never to be seen again—absolutely not. That is your future. What is your imagining of the future? You sift from the past: you want to retain the diamonds and jewels, and discard the pebbles and stones.

Our language carries a hint of this that almost no other language has, because other languages were not marked by the imprint of buddhas. In ours, we call both the day gone and the day coming “kal”—yesterday and tomorrow by the same word. We gave both the same name, made no distinction. Why? Because neither exists: one has gone; the other has not yet come. And the mind floats in both. The mind lives in non-existence.

Therefore everyone brags about how ancient his religion is, his caste, his scriptures, his tradition, his country. Exaggerations without any proof—but our mind relishes them. Ask Hindus—they will say, “Our religion is the most ancient on earth.” Ask Jews—they will say the same. Ask Jains—they too claim it. And all gather arguments to support their claim—arguments can always be gathered.

Argument is a prostitute. It has nothing to do with truth. Whoever pays the price, it goes with him. It is a lawyer, forever on sale in the marketplace; it has no fidelity of its own. It is a servant.

Jains say their religion is the oldest. Why? Because their first Tirthankara is mentioned in the Rig Veda. Hindus say theirs is the oldest, because the Rig Veda is the world’s most ancient book—there is no book older. And the Jains say: if the Rig Veda is the oldest book, it mentions Adinatha—our first Tirthankara—and with such reverence that a contemporary is never honored so. Remember, people worship the dead; they abuse the living. Because the dead become part of the past; the living belong to the present.

Since Adinatha is mentioned with such reverence in the Rig Veda, it proves he must have died at least five hundred years earlier; he could not have been a contemporary. So he predates the Rig Veda. And if someone will not accept that, at least accept that he is as ancient as the Rig Veda—and honored within it.

So the Jains say theirs is the most ancient religion. Ask Jews—they say theirs is the most ancient; God has chosen them; they are the chosen people. And so it goes with other religions—each stretching to prove its antiquity. Why? To please your mind. Your mind is greatly impressed by the old: “If it is so old, it must be right”—as if truth were like old wine: the older the better!

Truth is exactly the opposite of wine. Wine gets “better” with age because it gets more poisonous, more intoxicating. Truth breaks intoxication; therefore the newer it is, the purer it is. The older it gets, the more dust settles on it—layer upon layer of dust, of interpretations, commentaries, punditry. So much dust settles that it becomes difficult to discern what the original was, what was actually said by the one who knew. Those who did not know have interpreted so much that you get lost in the jungle of commentaries.

But the mind is pleased by the old. Mangaldas, that is why the old sannyas suits your mind; it does not scare you. Millions have walked on that path—so many cannot be wrong! And the truth is: the bigger the crowd that believes something, the less it can be true. If crowds believed truth, heaven would have descended on earth long ago. The crowd believes the untrue, not the true. The crowd lives in lies, trusts lies. The crowd is blind—of the blind. Here, the knower of truth has always been a rare one. And his fate is what befalls a man with eyes among the blind; among madmen, the one who is not mad.

The crowd wants consolation, not truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said: Do not take away the crowd’s lies, otherwise the crowd will go insane. Do not snatch away its consolations, otherwise it will become impossible for the crowd to live. There is truth in this—and Nietzsche’s own life testifies to it. He too went mad—in the very effort to drop lies, to drop all lies.

Just imagine: if all your lies were snatched from you, you would writhe. “India is a religious land!” As if lands can be religious or irreligious. Land is land. Before 1947, Karachi and Lahore were also “holy lands,” and now? Ask Pakistanis what “Pakistan” means: the land of the pure. Before 1947, they were not “pure”; after 1947 they became Pakistan. For you, before 1947 they were sacred places because they were part of India. Now they are not.

Your ego is gratified by declaring India a dharma-bhumi. You were born here; you have, by being born, “honored” this country—so of course it must be a religious land! Otherwise, how could so virtuous a person as you be born here! In this way you indirectly feed your ego, saying India is the land of rishis and munis—as if sages never arose anywhere else!

They have arisen everywhere—just as they have arisen here. But you never cared to know—about Lao Tzu, about Chuang Tzu, about Lieh Tzu; about Bahauddin, about Jalaluddin, about Al-Hallaj; about Eckhart, about Boehme, about Francis. You never bothered. You only know your own rishis and munis.

Leave far-off lands—ask a Hindu to recite the names of the twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras next door; he cannot. A Jain lives beside him; the Jain temple is around the corner; there the twenty-four images are installed. But what has the Hindu to do with Jains! Why should the Jains care about Hindus? In their scriptures they have consigned Krishna to hell—because Krishna caused war, mass slaughter. Jains uphold ahimsa paramo dharma—nonviolence is the supreme dharma. In their view, there is no greater enemy of dharma than that. Arjuna was almost becoming a Jain—ready to renounce and leave. Krishna confused him, misled him, talked him out of it!

Does any Jain read the Gita? Could a Jain really understand it? Impossible. He would find himself opposed at every turn; anger would arise at every step. He would find arguments against Krishna immediately. For Krishna tells Arjuna, “Do whatsoever God wills.” The Jain will say, “And if God is making him renounce, why are you making him fight? How can you decide what God wants?” If Arjuna were truly a Jain, he would have thrown down the Gandiva bow and said, “All right. Now I shall do only what God makes me do. God says, ‘Take the peacock-feather whisk and the begging bowl; sit under a tree; do tapas.’ It is the voice of my inner self!”

You know this “voice of conscience.” Delhi politicians have popularized—or polluted—the phrase. Whenever they need to come or go, suddenly their “inner voice” is heard!

Krishna deluded him—that is how Jains will feel. So Jains don’t read the Gita. Five thousand years have passed; not a single Jain has written a commentary on the Gita. Thousands of commentaries exist—but none by Jains. They did not deem it worthy. And why should they, when not a single Hindu has written a commentary on Kundakunda’s Samayasara? Hindus do not even know what Samayasara is. They have not even heard the name “Kundakunda.”

A young man took sannyas; I gave him the name “Kundakunda.” He immediately asked, “Who is Kundakunda? I’ve never heard.”

Kundakunda is as majestic a being as Krishna; as Buddha, as Kabir, as Nanak—of that rare order. But we do not look at others. If we do not look next door, how will we know about faraway lands—who the sages were in Israel, in China, in Japan?

So everyone lives in his own well and believes his well is the ocean. He does not even peek outside, fearing there might be bigger wells—then the ego would be hurt, there would be pain. And each remains absorbed in glorifying his own well, in decorating it.

Scientists say the Vedas are not older than five thousand years. Hindus are not satisfied. Only five thousand! Five thousand does not appeal to Hindus. There is danger: the Chinese have a book six thousand years old. Then the Vedas will not be oldest. In Egypt they have found inscriptions seven thousand years old. Then the Vedas will not be oldest. So Lokmanya Tilak tried to prove that the Vedas are at least ninety thousand years old!

And once you decide you must prove something, clever devices can be found. When the conclusion is fixed beforehand and only then the “research” begins—that is the unscientific way. The scientist researches first, then concludes. If you have already concluded… you can “prove” any conclusion.

A man wrote a book. In America, thirteen is considered very inauspicious. If you stay in an American hotel you will not find a thirteenth floor—after twelve comes fourteen. It is the thirteenth, but the number says fourteen because no one wants to stay on the thirteenth floor. There is no room number thirteen either; after twelve comes fourteen. This man wrote a big book and “proved” why thirteen is bad: how many go mad on the thirteenth; how many die; how many suicides; how many accidents; how many cars overturn; how many planes crash; how many earthquakes; how many volcanoes erupt—he collected so much data!

One of his devotees brought me the book. I said, “First do the same research for the twelfth. If you investigate the twelfth, you will find just as many accidents happen on the twelfth. Just as many die and go mad on the twelfth too. And tell me, do good things not happen on the thirteenth? He hasn’t even mentioned that. You tell how many die; how many babies are born? Are no babies born on the thirteenth? And how many planes do not crash on the thirteenth—count those too! How many trains arrive on time without crashing? There is no account.”

The conclusion was taken first; then he went searching. The decision was made beforehand; then he sought facts to suit it. So people try to prove.

Christians cannot accept ninety thousand, because they believe the whole world itself is not that old. They believe God created the world only four thousand and four years before Jesus. They too find arguments. When excavations first began and ancient ruins were found—old skeletons, skulls fifty thousand years old—Christian priests were in great trouble. What to do! Everyone fears: if one sentence in their scripture is proved wrong, doubt will arise about the rest: “If one thing in the Bible is false, what trust in the others?” So every line must be true.

If one thing in the Veda is wrong, what trust in the rest! If Rama can speak one untruth, who knows—everything becomes suspect. Faith wavers. If a little falsehood is caught, the house of faith begins to fall. People’s houses of faith are built like a house of cards. Pull out one card and the whole collapses.

Christians panicked—but they found a device. This is what I call argument being a prostitute. What did they devise? “Yes, it is true that these bones seem fifty thousand years old—but they are not. When God created the world—can a God who created the world not do so small a thing as create bones that appear fifty thousand years old? He made these bones appear to be fifty thousand years—to test who is faithful and who is faithless. It is a touchstone. Even now, those who believe the world was created four thousand four years before Jesus—these are the true Christians.” God planted this measuring rod in the earth!

They found a device! That would make God…

One of my friends runs a factory in Nepal. They manufacture “ancient” artifacts. I was a bit surprised. I said, “You make ancient things?” He said, “Yes—one-, two-, three-thousand-year-old things. First we make a Buddha statue; then we pour acids and chemicals over it to deteriorate it so it looks three thousand years old. Then we bury it. Leave it in the ground for six months or a year. It decays further. Then we dig it up. Now it’s an antique! Then we inscribe it with the date—in the language of the time: Pali, Prakrit. We keep scholars of Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit on staff. We inscribe in that language, in Brahmi script. We even make the writing look partly effaced—some letters gone, some left—so only a word here or there can be made out. We finish the statue, then break a hand, break the nose, break the ears—because a new statue sells for a hundred or two; make it three thousand years old and it fetches lakhs! Such is the fascination with the old, the madness! As if mere age confers value!”

Mangaldas, you ask: “Why am I afraid of your neo-sannyas?” Precisely because it is new. No one has walked like this before. Who knows whether it is right or not. There are no testimonials from the past. And you do not want to know by your own experience; you want certificates from others. You don’t want to search for truth yourself; you want a cheap truth. “What everyone believes must be the truth—so many believe, let me also believe.” This is not the sign of a truth-seeker. It is the sign of one avoiding truth. The one who wants to know truth will say, “I will search. And I will accept only what I know. Only after knowing will faith arise—not by believing.” Then my neo-sannyas will attract you; it will invite you.

There are other reasons for fear too.

A law of the mind is: it lives in extremes. For the mind it is easy to go from one extreme to the other. It is like the pendulum of a clock—swinging left to right, right to left; it never stops in the middle. If it stops in the middle, the clock stops. By going left-right it keeps the clock running.

So it is with our mind: right, left; one extreme to the other, then back again. This is what keeps this clock of our life, this wheel of birth and death, turning. The pendulum, if it comes to rest in the middle, the clock stops—you are free, instantly free! If it settles in the center, you transcend the world. That is what I call sannyas: transcendence of the world, not the world’s renunciation.

The renouncer and the enjoyer are two sides of the same coin. One holds the coin upright; the other holds it upside down—both clutch the same coin. One man is mad after wealth; for him it is only wealth—nothing else exists.

A Marwari lies on his deathbed. The last hour—twilight has come to life; only a few moments remain. He asks his wife, “Where is my eldest son?”

She says, “He is sitting right beside you.”

His eyes have grown dim; life is ebbing. “And the middle one?”

“He is sitting at your feet. Please don’t worry; be at ease.”

But he props himself up on his elbow, “And the youngest?”

“He is sitting on this side. We are all here.” The wife’s eyes brim with tears: even in his last moments he remembers his sons—how loving!

But the poor woman does not know. The Marwari says, “All three are sitting here! You fools—then who is running the shop? I am still alive, and this is the state of things. Tomorrow I will die and then it’s finished—the shop will stop! You will not even let me die in peace! Go, run the shop! Dying and living keep happening—but the shop must go on.”

What “wisdom”—“Dying and living keep happening!” This is the cycle of the world—coming and going! All this is maya! But the shop must go on! “Why are you sitting here like idiots?”

The clutching at money—to the last breath. And it is not only the dying who clutch. I have heard another Marwari tale. He lay on his deathbed; the whole family gathered. The youngest said, “Father worked hard all his life—saved every penny and became a millionaire, always in a rush. At the end, the funeral should be grand. We should hire a Rolls-Royce.”

The middle son, a little shrewder, said, “Are you mad? If the man is already dead, what difference does it make whether you take him in a Rolls-Royce or an Ambassador? Yes, for the living it matters—if you take them in an Ambassador they may not arrive alive. But he’s dead—what difference does it make? An Ambassador will do. No need to waste so much.”

The eldest said, “You are both talking nonsense. Simplicity is a great thing—and simplicity is saintliness. At such a time there is a test. No need even for an Ambassador. Our father was purely Indian—he believed in swadeshi. We will take him in an ox-cart. We have one at home. Why pay useless hire! Petrol is costly as it is, and scarce.”

The old Marwari, half-dead, was listening. He suddenly sat up. “Where are my shoes?”

The three sons were alarmed; they thought he had already departed. “Why do you need shoes?”

He said, “I still have enough strength to walk to the cremation ground myself—to die there. Why trouble the oxen unnecessarily? The price of fodder has gone up; you can’t even get fodder!”

One is mad after money. This is one kind of craziness. Then another kind of madness, born of the first: he starts running away from money. But both keep running. One runs toward wealth; one runs against wealth—but both keep their eyes on wealth. Both are fixated on money. One is crazy to gather as much as he can; the other is so scared of money that he runs without looking back, refuses even to touch it—sadhu, sannyasi, won’t touch money, as if it will bite. Are currency notes snakes and scorpions? What sin is there in touching them?

Vinoba Bhave, if you place money before him, he closes his eyes. Surely there must be some attachment to money somewhere—otherwise why close the eyes? What power does money have to make your eyelids shut? The eyes are yours! Yet he immediately shuts them, turns his face away. He does not touch money—touching money is a sin! What sin can there be in touching money? And the same saints teach that “gold and silver are just dust”—but they walk on dust happily.

I once said to a muni, “You walk on dust—aren’t you ashamed? Have some modesty!” He said, “What are you saying! If we don’t walk on dust, where will we walk?” I said, “At least wear shoes.” He said, “We cannot wear shoes.” I said, “Then dust touches your feet.” He said, “Dust is dust—what is there to fear?” I said, “The fear is that you say gold and silver are dust. If you fear touching gold and silver, fear touching dust too. And if you do not fear dust, why fear gold and silver? Or else you must be speaking a lie when you say ‘gold and silver are dust.’ You must be consoling the mind: ‘It is only dust—why touch it!’ But inside there must be a longing to touch it… ‘What is the essence in it!’ Yet no one ever sits and says, ‘Brothers and sisters, do not touch dust—dust is utterly insubstantial!’ But money is declared insubstantial—‘Do not touch it, do not hold it.’”

They are the same kind of people. Your renouncers and your enjoyers are not different at all. For the mind to move from indulgence to renunciation is easy—one extreme to the other. But for the mind to rest in the middle is very difficult—like walking on a razor’s edge.

I do not tell my sannyasin to run away. I say: here—right where you are, in the shop, in the marketplace—be free, here! If there is freedom, it is here. Nowhere else. If there is liberation, it is in inner awakening, not in dropping things. Liberation is not in running; it is in knowing. So wake up; set your consciousness in motion, upward. Sharpen your meditation. Do not be stuck on outer things—neither for indulgence nor for renunciation. Do not go mad that if you don’t get them you will die; nor mad that if you do get them you will die. If outer things have so much sway over you, you are nobody.

Therefore I say: do not leave wife, children, family and go anywhere. Where you are, slowly become quiet, become silent. One who becomes silent in the clamor of the marketplace—his silence cannot be broken. And if you become silent in a Himalayan cave, that silence is not yours—it is the Himalayas’. Come to the bazaar and it will shatter. If you become silent by fasting, that silence is not yours. Keep anyone hungry and he will become silent—that is no special attainment. Stay well-fed, healthy, living your life—if silence arises within, then something has happened, a revolution, a treasure found within.

I do not tell you to drop outer wealth; I tell you to find the inner wealth. One who has found the inner treasure has no problem with the outer. If there is a palace, he sleeps in the palace; if there is a hut, he sleeps in the hut. His ecstasy remains unbroken. If there is nothing, he is ecstatic; if there is everything, he is ecstatic. Seat him on a throne—no difficulty; leave him under a tree—no restlessness. This is called equanimity. This is called rightness.

Neo-sannyas is a revolutionary vision of sannyas. Naturally you are frightened. You compare it with the old—and that creates more obstacles. People think the old sannyas was very difficult. That is utterly wrong. The old sannyas is easy—very easy for the mind. The new sannyas is very difficult. To sit in a tavern and not drink—then understand something has happened. And where no wine is available, if you do not drink—what is special in that? Go sit in a desert where no one comes or goes; there, if you do not get angry, it has no value. Come into the marketplace—where abuses rain, insults happen, where everyone is eager to wound—and there if anger does not arise, where awareness remains balanced, where within all is still and silent though stones and rocks are hurled—then know something has been attained.

The old sannyas is easy; it speaks the language of the mind. The new sannyas is difficult because you must transcend the mind. Its fundamental basis is not renunciation but meditation. Its fundamental basis is turning within. The old sannyas is outward: “Drop this, give up that.” Its gaze is fixed outside. You too are outward-going, and the old sannyas is outward-going—so there is a harmony. And if you look with open eyes, you will be amazed to see it everywhere.

One of my dear ones is a Digambar Jain. He has a cloth shop: “Digambar Cloth Shop.” I asked him, “Have you ever thought about this? One word—‘Digambar’—is Sanskrit; ‘Cloth Shop’ are two English words. No one notices, but translate it into pure Hindi: it would mean, ‘Naked People’s Cloth Shop.’ Why would naked people need clothes?”

He said, “You are right.”

I said, “And if you don’t mind, if we translate it bluntly, it would mean, ‘Naked riffraff’s cloth shop.’”

He said, “What are you saying? Naked riffraff!”

I said, “Perhaps you don’t know—the phrase ‘nange-lucche’ (naked riffraff) was first used for Jain monks. They go naked and pluck their hair. ‘Luccha’ originally meant ‘hair-plucker,’ not a hoodlum. A Jain monk does not cut his hair—he plucks it.”

There are many forms of madness. In madhouses you will often find people plucking their hair. And in your home, when your wife flares up, the first thing she does is pull her hair—understand, she is becoming a Jain muni!

I said to him, “Have you ever noticed this contradiction—that most Digambar Jains sell cloth? Their monks go naked; their laymen sell cloth. It is a curious affair! There must be some inner connection. Jains are wealthy—and their monks stand against wealth, wealth-opposed. They don’t touch money. They don’t wear clothes. What is this? There must be some secret in it. Jains are very adept in eating and drinking; no one eats heavier food than Jains. And their monks fast.”

This is true of all religions. If you investigate, you will find that the worldly and their renouncers share a hidden harmony, a mathematics. The enjoyer and the renouncer are linked by an inner relationship. Those who sell cloth find a naked man admirable: “Amazing!” Those who eat and drink find a fasting man impressive. Opposites attract. Remember this rule—that’s why women are attracted to men and men to women; opposite poles draw each other, like negative and positive electricity.

Religions of the rich glorify renunciation. And on the rich people’s holy days, you must fast. When the Jains’ Paryushan comes—fast, do anshan. The holy days of the poor are the opposite. When the Muslims’ holy day comes—cook sweet rice, wear good clothes. They buy clothes only once in a year—when Eid comes—and then celebrate with an open heart.

The poor man’s religious festivals are festivals—on that day he indulges whatever there is to indulge. The rich man’s religious days are days of renunciation. All year he indulges; then the mind says, “Do something opposite! Will you remain an indulgent one forever? You will go to hell! So at least fast one day. Fast ten days. At least sometime in the year, fast.”

The poor man fasts all year long. His mind says, “This dharma of fasting goes on all year. At least one day…” He saves all year—then one day let Diwali be celebrated; one day let there be Holi and revelry; one day let color and gulal fly.

Study the religions of the world and you will clearly see that a relationship exists between their renouncers and their enjoyers. The enjoyer and the renouncer are linked by a hidden arithmetic.

Mangaldas, you are not afraid of the old sannyas because it speaks your language. The sannyas I am talking about seems senseless to you; it does not fit your language. And because it is so new there is no mention of it in the scriptures, no tradition, no centuries-old stream, no links, no chain—so fear arises: “Should I step into so much unknown or not?”

A little bird,
aflutter with its own delight,
spread its wings and set off
to measure the blue sky.

Its heart brimmed with joy,
its breath swelled with song;
life’s music was composed
by each pure, rising breath.

Silent lay the woods and groves,
silent stood the hills and peaks;
it sang—and it kept on going,
only the ahead—just the ahead.

Higher and higher it flew,
the earth vanished from its sight;
but before it, the boundless stretched—
its wings began to tremble.

That little bird,
aflutter with its own delight,
spread its wings and set off
to measure the blue sky.

We are people with tiny wings! The sky is vast. The unknown is infinite. The ocean is without shores. Our little canoe, our little oars—of course it feels frightening to step into the unknown. Where many travelers have descended and left notes behind—“Do not fear; we went in and reached; you too will reach”—where there are testimonies and certificates, then the heart is reassured. For the new there is no witness, no testimony, no certificate—how can there be!

And understand this: truth is always new—ever fresh. As fresh as the morning dew, as the petals of a rose newly opened at dawn. Truth is always present; it has no past. It has no tradition.

To enter truth needs courage—boldness. Fear will arise—that is natural. Even so, you must gather the courage to enter. And one who is ready to enter despite fear will certainly arrive. Why? Because if we are in search of God, never forget—God too is in search of you. If we set out to find the truth of existence, truth too aches to be found by us. It is a game of hide-and-seek between us and truth—a play.

There is no need to be frightened. And the vaster the unknown you enter, the vaster your own soul becomes. The greater the challenge you accept, the greater your new birth will be.

In the old there is no challenge. The old is rusted. The new has edge, brilliance, a call. The courage to walk upon the new—that is sannyas.

I do not give you a map, for the sky has no map. There are no highways in the sky—not even footpaths. When birds fly in the sky, their footprints are not left behind. It is not that no one has reached God before you—Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Mohammed have flown—but no footprints remain in the sky. The sky is as empty as ever. When you fly, you too will leave no footprints. It is good that none remain; otherwise people would only be imitators, placing their feet in the footprints of others. When then will their own soul be born? People would become carbon copies—hypocrites. Their lives would lose their edge. How would their souls be born? They would remain hollow. Strength is born from struggle.

The sannyas I am speaking of is an invitation to struggle. You will have to wrestle. Society will be against you. The crowd will be against you. The past will be against you. Traditions will be against you. Temples and mosques will be against you. You will be alone.

But there is a joy in being alone—a unique flavor, a different intoxication. Only in walking alone does the lion’s roar arise within you. Sheep move in herds; lions walk alone. They have no mob.

Only if you have the courage to be alone can my sannyas become your path. Only if you have the courage to endure all kinds of defamation. In the old sannyas there is comfort; you will receive respect; your ego will be gratified. In my sannyas people will say, “You are mad! You have lost your senses! You are hypnotized! What have you fallen into! You have left the track of your forefathers”—and the forefathers’ track simply means: remain sheep. Their forefathers tread their forefathers’ track, and theirs theirs—just be sheep!

A small child was asked by his teacher, “Suppose ten sheep are penned in your shed. If one jumps the fence, how many will be left inside?”

The boy said, “None.”

The teacher said, “Do you understand arithmetic or not?”

The boy said, “Whether I understand arithmetic or not—I have sheep at home; I understand sheep. If one jumps, whatever your arithmetic says—sheep don’t understand arithmetic—they will all jump. Your arithmetic won’t work. I know sheep very well.”

And the child is right. Children sometimes say truths that do not occur to the greatest of elders. It is true—what do sheep know of arithmetic! Sheep walk by sheep-logic.

Sannyas means to leave the beaten track. And leaving the beaten track brings a little fear. In the crowd you feel good—so many are with you; you are not alone. You feel there is no danger; there is safety. Alone, dangers appear all around. No companion, no friend.

But aloneness is our inner truth. We are born alone. We are alone. And alone we must depart. The day you begin to live this aloneness, you have renounced. Gather courage.

“Stringing a hundred strings, I break them again and again!
Bringing my boat to the current, I turn it back again!

Knowing well the certainty of fate—why this uncertainty?
From today to tomorrow—why this futile barter of time?
Astonished at my own fixation—why?
Having lost the pleading of my heart, I turn away!

Reaching right before you, I turn my face away!
Breaking does not break this bond!
Pulled far away, it only draws closer,
Like a secret silken knot, I wrestle with it.

Stringing a hundred strings, I break them again and again!
Bringing my boat to the current, I turn it back again!”

This time do not turn back. Bring your boat to the current—and do not look behind. Look ahead. Ahead is God. Ahead is nirvana. Behind there is only the dust blown up by your steps. Yet people go on like this.

If we designed cars according to people’s psychology, we would build them so the driver could not see ahead at all. Where the windshield is, we would put a mirror—so he could only see behind: the flying dust, the trees left behind. And then you can imagine what will happen—nothing but accidents. He will look behind while going ahead.

You have to look where you are going. What you have passed—what is the point of staring at it! Why keep account of flying dust?

Yet people sit reading the Ramayana—flying dust! And for how long? Centuries! In every village the Ramayana is being enacted. Every year the same Ram Lila. You do not even get bored—as if your intelligence is completely petrified! If someone went every day to watch the same film, you would call him mad, would you not? And if he is not mad, he will become so. To watch it every day—and Indian films! One viewing is enough for a lifetime. They are all noise and commotion—stuffed with songs, dancing at every turn. No one thinks what such a thing has to do with life. Wherever you look, songs appear—life is not like that. And not only songs—bands and orchestras appear as though ghosts always lurk nearby, ready to strike up the music as soon as the heroine begins to sing! A song for everything—tears fall, a song; love happens, a song; love breaks, a song. From start to finish—songs. There is dance stuffed into every corner. You don’t see such things in life—no one singing, no one dancing on every corner.

If a man watches the same film every day, what will you say? And this country has watched the same story for centuries—the same Ram Lila!

Once, in a village—and I was delighted when I heard of it, I said, “At least something happened!”—the man playing Ravana truly loved the woman playing Sita. But they belonged to different castes. Sita was a Brahmin; the man playing Ravana was a carpenter. So marriage was impossible; even talk was dangerous. But by coincidence the carpenter got the role of Ravana. He was the stout fellow in the village—chopping wood makes one strong. He did not miss the chance.

The swayamvara is arranged. As per the story, Ravana comes; Rama comes; other kings gather. In the original trick, Ravana had the strength to break Shiva’s bow and thus win Sita—so to prevent that, politics and cunning were used. If you examine the Ramayana, you will see: Ravana is not initially responsible; first, your rishis and munis are ahead in dishonesty. A messenger runs in shouting, “Ravana, your Lanka is on fire!” Ravana runs—if Lanka is burning, what marriage! Meanwhile Rama breaks the bow and the wedding happens. From this the whole tangle begins. Ravana seeks revenge, abducts Sita. But the initial fault lies on Rama’s side—if not Rama, then his agents, the rishis and munis.

But this time things changed. The messenger came shouting, “Ravana, your Lanka is on fire!” He said, “Let it burn.”

The audience, who were almost asleep, sat up: “What is this! We have never heard this before!” “Let it burn,” he said! The messenger said, “You don’t understand—Lanka is on fire—come!” He said, “I am not going anywhere.” And he stood up and, before anyone could stop him—of course the bow and arrow placed there were a bamboo prop, not Shiva’s real bow—he broke it into many pieces and threw it aside. He said to Janaka, “Bring her—where is Sita? This time I will marry her here and now. Why the bother later of abducting and all?”

Janaka was an old man—he had played Janaka many times. Even his mind reeled: “What to do now!” And the public applauded—“Wonderful! For the first time some joy in the Ram Lila! Now something will really happen!” Usually the same threadbare thing was repeated; people slept—they already knew what was coming. Janaka was a clever man. He quickly said, “Servants, it seems you brought my children’s toy bow by mistake. This is not Shiva’s true bow. Lower the curtain!”

With great difficulty—Rama, Lakshmana, Janaka—because that Ravana was a strong man—dragged him off. He kept shouting, “Where is Sita? This is injustice! This is injustice to a poor man! I am not going to Lanka!”

They somehow hauled him backstage and sat him down. The manager begged, “Brother, are you crazy? You’ve spoilt the whole Ram Lila! Quickly, put another man as Ravana.” Then they raised the curtain and the same story started again.

I said, “At least he did something. For centuries something original finally happened. Let the story go on—what would have happened? If need be, Rama could abduct Sita—what else! At least the story would have had some life.” But they did not let it go on.

People read the Ramayana—look at the dust of the past. We have to go into the future, and you talk of the Golden Age behind. And you step forward. If you don’t fall into pits, what else will happen! This is our stupor; the greatest disease of our life. We look behind; we have to walk ahead. This is the misfortune of this country—of all misfortunes, the greatest.

Chaitanya Kirti,
Where are young men and women in India? Here there are either children or old people. A few simply remain childish all their lives—like Raj Narain and the like. And some are born old—like Morarji Desai and the like. The young simply don’t happen in India; for centuries they haven’t. I do give the call—but there has to be someone young enough to hear. The few true youngsters there are—one here, one there—have come, and will come. The rest are childish, and childish they will remain for life. Their intelligence never matures. And some are old from birth—born wearing churidar pajama, achkan, and a Gandhi cap—from birth! In them there is no challenge, no possibility of youthfulness, no energy to embrace the new. They are dead. Either dead, or children—there seems to be nothing third here. The children simply grow into old people; youth never happens.

It is not only I who say this; psychologists are coming to agree that there are very few countries where youth truly occurs. In new countries, youth is happening—like in America. But in old countries, youth does not happen. In old countries the old receive so much reverence. Old means past, bygone—and that is revered. So children immediately start trying to be old. Whatever is honored, that is what one wants to become; the ego is gratified by it. Little children begin imitating the old. Before they can become young, they have already become old.

The young are not honored, because the new is not honored. There is no respect for youth, because there is no respect for freshness. The more old and dead a person is, the more respect we give. When someone is utterly dead, we call him a mahatma. Once he is finally in the grave, then no one speaks against him any more—everyone starts speaking in his favor, everyone begins to honor him. Because we have been taught to honor the dead.

Chaitanya Kirti, where are the young? If there were young people, they would hear the call. If there were young people, my words would occur to them. Now Mangaldas has asked. If even a little youthfulness is alive within him, he will set fear aside and accept the challenge of sannyas. But if old age has thickened within, it will be very difficult.

I have heard that this happened in Lucknow. A woman became pregnant. Nine months passed, but the child was not born. The woman’s pain kept increasing, but no birth. The doctors examined her thoroughly and got into even more of a fix. They said there isn’t just one child inside, there are twins. But they simply won’t be born. It is said sixty years passed like this. It’s a Lucknow story; so as far as truth or untruth goes—take it as you will. But the story is meaningful. When sixty years had passed, no remedy was in sight, and the woman was near death, she said, “Then at least cut open my belly and save the children—I am going to die anyway.” Her abdomen was opened—and out came two six-inch-tall old men. The same churidar pajama, achkan, khadi cap—thorough Gandhivadis; and they were bowing to each other saying, “After you!” That’s what sixty years had gone in—“After you! After you!” Who should come out first! Observing etiquette. Pure Lucknow etiquette—“After you!”

Some never get born at all. Some who are born are born dead. And some who are born alive quickly learn that respect lies in being a corpse.

What you have so far called sannyas, Mangaldas, is merely a process of becoming dead. What I call sannyas is life—ahobhava, joy, celebration, spring.

Light red, the horizon is flushed,
The palash is deep red!
Phagun, the spring month, has blossomed like a flower!

The cuckoo sings the virtues of Phagun,
The mango groves are heavy with bloom,
Slings are cracking,
The sky is bridal, garlanded with flights of parrots!

Barley ears brim with milk,
The yellow mustard has turned green,
The sown crop has come to ripening—
Today, trust is born!

The branches have shed their coyness,
They will all don new attire;
Rustling over the dry leaves
The lord of seasons has come near!

The west wind has begun to sway,
The village singer has begun to sing Holi;
A new color in every limb,
In every vein, a thirst for nectar!

Light red, the horizon is flushed,
The palash is deep red!
Phagun, the spring month, has blossomed like a flower!

My sannyas is spring. My sannyas is the month of Phagun. My sannyas is like flowers. It is a celebration of life. It is gratitude to the divine, a feeling of grace. It is not renunciation. It is not indulgence either. It transcends both renunciation and indulgence. It is to enjoy in such a way that you enjoy yet are not bound. To pass through the world in such a way that you pass through and yet the dust of the world does not settle upon you. That the world cannot touch you; you pass through untouched. Pass singing. This is not a sannyas that weeps. This is not an indifferent sannyas. This is a dancing sannyas.

These words of Yog Pritam will help you—

In this great rasa, let me speak as ankle-bells,
Let me become the dance of Your play.
You have risen like a great sun in the sky of this age,
By You the lotus of the age’s good fortune has opened in delight;
Let me sway to every note of Your festival,
Let me become the dance of Your play.
What other meaning is there to my remaining?
What other condition is there to my life?
Let me become Your kirtan and pour in sweetness,
Let me become the dance of Your play.
Since I met You, liberation upon liberation has come into life,
I blossomed the day devotion blossomed in life;
Beloved, now let me lift the veil,
Let me become the dance of Your play.
Let me become a flower in Your garden,
Become a single wave of Your ocean, and wave on,
Let me be the honey-rain of Your monsoon,
Let me become the dance of Your play.
In this great rasa, let me speak as ankle-bells,
Let me become the dance of Your play.

This is a dance, a celebration, a great rasa! If you are ready to embrace the joy of life, then come—the doors are open! Come—welcome! Come—there is a call, an invitation! And if you are a worshiper of death, then the old sannyas will suit you. It is a way of dying. It is self-destruction. It is a doctrine of sorrow. Think it over, ponder, weigh it well.

God is life. There is evidence everywhere—on every leaf. The greenness of every leaf is His greenness, the color of every flower is His color. He is in moon and stars, in the sun, in the mountains, in the oceans. All around—just open your eyes a little—there is celebration upon celebration, spring upon spring! Flowers upon flowers have bloomed, lamps upon lamps are lit! Everywhere it is Diwali.

But if you are a votary of sorrow, if you relish only pain, if you want to live in wounds, if you are filled with a suicidal tendency—to starve yourself, to lie on thorns, to kill yourself slowly by degrees—then as you wish. But know that it is self-destruction—what you have called the old sannyas. Only the sick have been drawn to it, only the deranged have been drawn to it.

That is why the earth has not become religious. And let me tell you: Buddha, Mahavira, Nanak, Kabir, Meera—none of them has anything to do with that old sannyas. Look at the image of Mahavira—how beautiful! How suffused with bliss! And look at the Jain monks—does there appear any harmony between that image and these monks?

Look at Krishna—life is sheer rasa! The peacock-feather crown, the joy, the song, the dance under moon and stars, the flute, the melodies flowing from the flute—do you see any sadness in them? Is there any note of melancholy anywhere? But look at the Hindu sannyasi reading the Gita—there is no peacock-feather crown anywhere, no flute anywhere, no celebration of life, no song, no tune, no note, no music. Everything stale and sad.

You see Buddha’s silence, his serenity, an incomparable grace—but you don’t see it in Buddhist bhikshus. They look like dead, yellow leaves. Some people commit suicide quickly—in a hurry: they swallow poison, jump from a mountain, hang themselves. And some cannot gather that much courage; they commit suicide gradually, slowly, bit by bit.

Mulla Nasruddin was chain-smoking, and in between he was also taking sips of liquor. Along came a Gandhian social worker, a Sarvodaya type. She said, “Nasruddin, when I came last time I was so pleased, so delighted to see that you neither drank nor smoked.” Nasruddin said, “Madam, that day you were pleased; today let me be pleased. Always you, you—being pleased...! That was your happy day; today is mine. At least sometimes give me a holiday!”

The lady flew into a rage. People who want to improve the world get angry very quickly—the ones who are after the world and won’t let anyone live! They don’t live themselves, nor will they let anyone else live. She got angry and said, “Do you know that what you are smoking is poison—nicotine! It will kill you. And this alcohol is absolute poison. You are committing suicide slowly.”

Nasruddin said, “Madam, I am in no hurry. You go about your business.”

He said, “Once I did hurry—and even then it didn’t work.”

Once he had tried to commit suicide. Quite determined this time. And why not? He had four wives. That is the one danger in being a Muslim—you can marry four times. One wife is enough, one husband is enough. Four! In the end he panicked. He made up his mind firmly to commit suicide. And he was a man of calculation, clever; he arranged everything. He took along a drum of kerosene, a rope, a pistol, and matches. He left no loophole. He climbed a hill. Below flowed a deep river. From a bush on the hill a long branch jutted out; he tied the rope to it. He tied the noose around his neck—first death would come by hanging. If not, he had another arrangement: he poured the entire drum of kerosene over himself and lit a match. But who knows—he might still survive. In life, accidents do happen. You may make a thousand arrangements and something or other goes wrong. So he also fired a bullet into his head. The next day when I met him I asked, “Nasruddin, what happened?”

He slapped his head. “Fate! Ill luck! I shot at my head, but the bullet hit the rope—so the rope snapped. I fell with a thud into the river—so the fire went out. And by your grace I knew how to swim—otherwise yesterday would have been the end.”

People commit suicide in two ways: either in one stroke, or slowly. Those who commit slow suicide have been considered sannyasis.

I call that one a sannyasin who lives life in its totality; who lives as if life itself is God; for whom life and God are synonyms; for whom life is God’s gift; who lives it in gratitude; who lives with awareness; who does not dedicate his life to the past, nor dedicate it to the future; who lives in the present—in the density, urgency, and intensity of the present. The art of living in the present is what I call sannyas. From that the great rasa is born. From that, spring comes, and thousands of flowers blossom—lotus upon lotus bloom in your consciousness—the lotuses of awareness! The lotuses of awakening! The lotuses of samadhi!

Mangaldas, think. Churn. Contemplate. Meditate. Fear will be cut through. If there is even a little soul within, the fear will fall away and sannyas will happen. A self-possessed person cannot escape being enchanted by what I am saying; you cannot run away without diving into what I am saying. If you have come this far, then dive. But not by my say-so—by your own seeing, your own decision. I teach you to be your own lamp. Be a light unto yourself!

That’s all for today.