Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #5

Yog Hansa,
As you wish! I won’t take your name. In any case, no one truly has a name. A name is just a lie—one more among the many lies we live with. We take a name to be “mine” and live by it. We don’t know our own reality, and that rankles. So we accept a false address, a false name, and reassure the mind: no, no, I know.

You did not come with a name, and you won’t leave with one. Names are just the fuss in between. Others gave them to us; necessary for social dealings. But our delusion is that we mistake convention for truth. People live and die for names—names that are sheer falsehood. Whose name is what? We are all nameless. The truth within has no form, no definition, no boundary. We are infinite, ineffable, inexpressible. Our being is vast. Bound by a name, we shrink.

Even in sleep you forget your name—then what to say of death! Who knows how many births you’ve had, how many names you’ve had—none remembered now. All erased like lines drawn on water. Not even like lines in sand—for even a line in sand remains awhile; a line on water doesn’t last at all. Yet how often we fall into the same delusion.

A Sufi saying: man alone is the donkey who falls into the same pit twice. No donkey will fall into the same pit twice. Fall once, and he understands. Donkeys aren’t that donkey-ish; even they have some sense. They might fall into some pit, but not the same one again. But man is such a donkey he won’t even change pits—he falls again and again into the same ones, as if he were never awake at all.

One night Mulla Nasruddin came home drunk. There was one neem tree outside his house. Swaying, eyes spinning, one tree looked like many. He thought a whole forest of neem stood before him. Panicked: how will I get through this jungle? What if I crash into a tree? So many trees! He tried to avoid them, but bumped into the tree and hurt himself. He stepped back, steadied himself, tried again. But trees everywhere—how to avoid them? Bumped again. After four or six collisions he shouted, “Anyone there? Help! I’m lost in the forest!” His wife opened the window and said, “Talk sense. It’s one neem tree. I can hear you banging into it. There’s no need to avoid it.”

Somehow he was taken inside. His wife asked, “It was only one tree—why did you bang into it so much?” Nasruddin said, “Self-defense.” As if the tree were attacking him! How does one keep colliding with a single tree again and again? Because he wasn’t seeing it as one. And it’s not only you who are lost—everyone here is lost. Those you ask for advice are lost too; they also see many trees.

She took him to a psychiatrist and said, “Please do something. For days he’s been seeing one thing as three.” The psychologist looked him up and down and said, “Do all five of your senses see three things?” He himself saw five of one thing! You are not alone in confusion; your advisers are even more confused. Your pundits have fallen into deeper pits—scriptural pits, verbal pits. And they’ve given their pits beautiful names—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist. They’ve decorated their pits, inscribed mantras on them—Gayatri, Namokar, Quranic verses. Then of course you’ll fall. If you won’t fall into such holy pits, where will you fall!

Man is unconscious; his guides are unconscious. Man is blind; his guides are blind. The blind are leading the blind. No one sees.

Hansa, what of your name! Here you are invited to drop the very notion of name. That is why, when I give sannyas, I change your name—not because the new one is any truer. All names are equally false. But the old name has calcified; so I change it. You received the old name when you were so small you had no awareness of it. By hearing it again and again you were hypnotized. I change the name to remind you that a name is superficial—easily changed, with a snap of the fingers, whenever you wish.

Your name is changed in sannyas only to help you realize: you are not the name. Perhaps in the moment of change you glimpse: if I were only the name, how could change be possible?

But our stupor is deep. We can’t loosen our grip on the old name, and then we cling to the new—more tightly. Our fist won’t open; we feel we must hold on to something. We fear that if we open our fist, we might see that it is empty.

The greatest pain in this world is the fear that we might discover we don’t know ourselves—that we are strangers to ourselves; that we are in a stupor, so unaware we don’t even know who we are. What greater stupor could there be?

So we keep convincing ourselves. Tell the maddest person, “You are mad,” and he’ll say, “What did you say? You must be mad. Me—mad?” The most foolish person won’t agree he’s foolish. The most unconscious won’t agree he’s unconscious. Even the most unconscious tries to prove he is alert.

Another night Nasruddin returned home. He tried to open the lock, but the key wouldn’t go in because his hands were shaking. A policeman watched from the corner. After a long time he said, “Sir, give me the key; I’ll open it.” Nasruddin said, “No need to give you the key. I don’t give the key even to my own father. You just hold this house steady—it’s trembling so much. I’ll put the key in myself.” The kind policeman came over and turned on his torch; the key wasn’t even there—Nasruddin was trying to open the lock with a cigarette.

By then his wife woke up. She called from upstairs, “Shall I throw down the other key? You must have lost the first one.” Nasruddin said, “Don’t worry about the key—throw me another lock. The key is with me; it’s the lock that’s faulty.”

No one is willing to accept, “I am at fault, what I’m holding is wrong, I am in error.” The whole world must be mistaken, unconscious, insane—we alone are fine. We keep protecting our self-image.

Hansa, you have no name, no village, no fixed address. When this truth dawns, for the first time a little of our stupor breaks and a little awareness begins to awaken.

In this bustling town we are utterly strangers,
We are so ignorant that to ourselves we are unknown.
That is why we say to you:
Friend, ask not our name—
We are ever the roamers of the One,
Friend, ask not our village.
Like a machine that fate’s own hands
Set into motion—
Such is our existence:
Friend, ask not our work.
Here success or failure—these are only pretexts;
Only this much is true: to ourselves we are unknown.
There’s trembling at our feet, a hundred doubts upon the brow;
Darkness fills the eyes, a stabbing pain within the heart!
Of these frailties of ours—
We confess—we are aware.
Therefore we are seeking
That which is eternal, that which is great.
All we have seen—perishing,
All we have seen—dying;
The one that carries life and creation—
Alone is love, all-powerful.
Think not ill of us—life after life we are love-mad.
That is why we say to you we are utter strangers.
A certain burning lives in our breath, a quiver in our life-force;
We see no difference between buds and stones.
The question of softness—how much water in these eyes?
And hardness asks—
Tell, how much strength lives in this heart?
What have we to do with others?
The answer we must find in ourselves.
Entangled, entangled are we alone—
This world is simple, effortless.
Sin-virtue, fame-infamy, pleasure-pain—all are familiar;
Alone are we in the world, unknown unto ourselves.
We bear no bitterness toward anyone, no anger toward anyone;
Heads bowed, we only dismantle our own obstruction.
Friend, like us the creatures of this world
Are all lost, lost.
Alas, when did they laugh from their own heart?
When did they weep from their own heart?
Aimless, without a goal,
All wander in want,
Begging for compassion and mercy,
Each gathering his own pain.
We have seen palaces and treasures fall and be plundered,
And so we cry:
We are utter strangers.
We have brought love, we have come to give love,
For those of love, tell me, when are there “ours” or “others?”
Therefore we say to you:
Friend, name and village are vain.
We are beggars across the ages—
What have we to do with bonds?
What hoarding? With empty hands
We come and we go.
We wish you wealth and splendor—
Our giver, friend, is Ram.
Call us foolish if you like—we are most wise,
In this world of ignorance, we too are unknown.
Let one thing only come to mind—
In this bustling town we are utter strangers,
We are so ignorant that to ourselves we are unknown.

We have no introduction to ourselves, no awareness of ourselves, no recognition of ourselves. What is religion? The process of self-realization—lighting a lamp within so we can see what we are, and recognize it. Become a witness, become aware. Then you will find: you are neither body nor mind. Then what of name? What of caste? What of nation? What of religion?

Therefore we say to you:
Friend, ask not our name—
We are ever the roamers of the One,
Friend, ask not our village.
Like a machine that fate’s own hands
Set into motion—
Such is our existence:
Friend, ask not our work.

Until one becomes a witness, until the lamp of inner awakening is lit, until the flame of meditation glows, you are a machine. Unaware, you keep moving. Whatever you think you are doing, you are not doing—blind forces of nature are doing it through you. Whether you love or you hate, befriend or make enemies, build a family, hoard desires, pursue ambition—or, bored and tired, renounce it all and flee to the jungle—nothing will come of it. It is all the race of blind energies.

Here success or failure—these are only pretexts;
Only this much is true: to ourselves we are unknown.

Whether you succeed or fail—both are pretexts, different ways to keep forgetting yourself. People have invented many ways; they must, else the thorn will begin to prick—life is slipping away; the pitcher empties drop by drop, moment by moment, and still we have not even met ourselves! Who knows when death may knock—there is no certainty even of the next instant—yet we live as if we will be here forever! What madmen we are! And how do we live? No more than a machine. Press the button, the light comes on; press it, it goes off—such are your buttons: press, and you are angry; press, and you are pleased; press, and you are sad; press, and you are glad.

You know very well you have buttons. Everyone walks around carrying his own switchboard. You also know others have buttons. Every day your buttons are pressed, and you press others’. You know they behave mechanically; you do too.

Valya, the Bhil who later became Valmiki, was a murderer, a bandit. He went to rob—and that day he was robbed, for he met Narada.

Sometimes you meet those before whom you can only be robbed. You may go to rob them, yet you are plundered. Sometimes you meet one so full of awareness that you can only bow. He seized Narada, drew his sword. Narada cared neither for the sword, nor the fierce face, nor the eyes. He kept playing his veena; the melody flowed on, unbroken. Fingers did not stop, strings did not still, the song did not pause.

Valya was startled. He had known only two kinds of people: those who, seeing his sword, drew their own—he knew them; and those who, seeing his sword, tucked their tails and ran—he knew them too. Both are mechanical. But this third kind—neither drawing a sword nor running away. Not only did he not run or draw, even the music of his veena didn’t waver. The same bliss, the same ecstasy. With a hand gesture he signaled Valya to wait until the chant finished.

When the chant ended, Valya had ended. He looked closely: here is a man whose buttons cannot be pressed. Cut him to pieces and still his face will be in prayer; even if he dies, the song will not break—it will go on in another realm, at another plane, in another dimension.

Valya bowed, “Forgive me. A question has arisen. I know only two kinds of people. I’m uneducated, a rustic, but I do recognize this much. You seem to be a third kind.” Narada said, “Only the third kind is truly human. Those who draw swords and those who flee are two sides of the same coin. One intimidates, the other is intimidated—both are forms of fear. If they are weaker, they threaten; if stronger, they frighten. But you cannot touch me—you cannot harm a hair of my head—for I have recognized That which is eternal. Therefore you cannot run me; you are not my master. I am my own master.” Valya asked, “How can I attain such mastery?” That question began his journey from Valya to Valmiki. How can I become master of myself? A machine can never be master; only that which is wholly conscious can be master.

Hansa, awaken! Drop unconsciousness! Drop mechanical motion!

Beyond myself there is also something
On which I depend!
Whether the world thirsts or not,
I am a thirsty spring!
Removing rock after rock
From my own breast,
I have voiced my tale of pain
Through rippling streams.
He who seeks a path upon the earth—
I am that blue sky!
The footprints of the Lordly One
Are the stars in the unreachable sky;
The mind cannot reach Him,
Eyes and knowledge both fail.
I am the melting mercy
Of that Lord—an immortal tear!
With the arms of waves outstretched,
Epochs of feeling!
Into whose embrace come
The oppressed, the unconscious—
Of the new ocean of compassion, the great epic,
I am the first letter!

What you appear to be on the surface, you are not. Your body is no more than clothing; your mind too is only the inner garment. Body and mind are not separate: the mind is the inner aspect of the body, the body the outer aspect of the mind. You are neither. You are the letter that never takes birth and never dies. You are part of that great epic which some call God, some Liberation, some Nirvana. You are a drop of the Lord’s eye—an immortal tear. You are a limb of the Divine; not separate. What name could you have?

Thus the rishis of the Upanishads proclaim their Brahman-being—not their personal being, but Brahman’s being. Thus Al-Hallaj Mansur cries “Ana’l-Haqq!”—I am the Truth! Not “I am,” but Truth is.

Our name separates us. Remember your namelessness, so this separateness dissolves. Our form, color, caste, class—these divide us. And whatever divides is not religion. That which joins, joins us to the Infinite—that alone is religion.

You asked, Hansa: “No question really forms. I don’t even know whether I want to ask anything.”

That’s just the state it is. You’re not even sure you want to ask. Everything seems hazy. Our life gropes in the dark. Even a clear question is not there. And the questions people do ask are not their own; they are borrowed. The clearer the question, the more likely it’s borrowed. Those who truly want to ask their own question will be like you; they will feel, “What is there to ask?”

Usually, the clearest questions aren’t yours. Like: Who created the world? What is that to you? Suppose A created it, or B, or C—what difference would it make? Or suppose no one created it—what difference then? Futile questions appear very clear to people because they’re borrowed. Not only your answers, even your questions are borrowed. Such is our pitiable condition.

You learn your answers from others. Someone says: God created it. Someone says: No one created it; it is beginningless, eternal. If you are born in a Jain home you’ll hear, “It has always been.”

Hindus shouldn’t really use the word “Prakriti”; it belongs to Jains and Sankhyans. Prakriti means that which existed before any “kriya,” any making—never made, pre-made. That which is prior to making. Hindus, Muslims, Christians shouldn’t use “Prakriti.” And Jains and Buddhists shouldn’t use “Srishti,” creation—because srishti implies that something was made. But everything has become a jumble. People are unclear. Jains are heard using “srishti”; Hindus use “prakriti.” They don’t remember these are technical terms with entire philosophies behind them.

If you were born in a Jain or Buddhist home, then God does not exist—there is Prakriti. Prakriti and God cannot coexist. God can go with srishti, because He is the maker. With Prakriti He is unnecessary—an extra hypothesis. If you were born Jain you never ask, “Who created the world?” Hindus, Muslims, Christians ask; Buddhists and Sankhyans don’t. Atheists won’t ask. Communists won’t ask. Scientists won’t ask “who made the world” because the question itself smuggles an answer. Only those ask who have been taught that God created the world.

If you are born Hindu you will readily assume God made the world. If you are born in Russia you will assume there is no God, no soul—just a play of matter.

Hence Stalin could slaughter millions without a qualm. If it’s only clay, what’s the problem in smashing clay pots? No pain, no worry—calmly he killed. It’s estimated he killed at least ten million during his rule—perhaps more than any man ever killed. Yet not a prick of conscience, not a dart pierced him—not even a thorn.

The cause is his philosophy—Marxist thought. No God, no soul; man is just a clay idol. The ancient Indian Charvakas thought the same, and so did Marx. In Russia every child “knows” there is no God—because that’s what’s taught. Whatever tradition you are born into, the conditioning you bear—those become your answers. The strange thing is: even your questions are borrowed. Borrowed questions are always the neatest.

So I am glad, Hansa, that you don’t know whether you even want to ask. It means you are beginning to be freed of borrowed questions and answers. A good sign. Now you are entering your own mist. Like coming from the blazing midday sun into a house—the inside looks dark at first. Sit a while, rest, and slowly the light appears. The eyes must readjust. In the sun the pupil contracts so too much light doesn’t enter. If you look in a mirror then, you’ll see the pupil small, proportionate to the sunlight. With that small pupil you enter the house and it seems dark. The pupil must enlarge—and that takes a little time. Sit, rest, have a little water; slowly the pupil dilates, the lens opens. Where there seemed darkness, light appears.

Exactly so within us. You have wandered outside for lives upon lives; your eyes have adapted to the outer. When you turn inward, darkness is seen first. All awakened ones say, “Within there is only light.” Yet whenever someone meditates, first he finds darkness. People come to me, “This is upside down! Whenever I close my eyes—darkness! But all the awakened declare it is all light within. Kabir says: as if a thousand suns rose at once—so much light! Where is it? I see darkness.”

You see darkness because you’re going inward after many births. You’ve lived in the sun too long; your eyes are adapted to the outside. It will take time—patience, waiting. Usually three to nine months before a glimpse of inner light begins.

So it’s a good sign, Hansa, that you say, “I don’t know what to ask. I don’t even know whether to ask or not.” A good sign because it is the beginning of freedom from the borrowed. You no longer carry the stale questions others taught you, nor the stale answers. For the first time, the movement inward is unburdened.

You say, “No question really forms.” As you settle and go within, no question will form at all. People think: when I reach within, when self-realization happens, I’ll get answers to all questions. They are wrong—completely wrong; they know nothing of the within. When you arrive within, you won’t get answers to all questions; all questions will drop. No answer will be given—there will be no questions left. When you are questionless, that state is resolution—samadhan, samadhi. There is no “answer,” but because no question remains, there is peace—samadhi. To become questionless is the peak of meditation.

But many here keep asking, so perhaps Hansa also thinks: everyone asks; I should ask. There must be something worth asking! There is nothing worth asking. What I give you as “answers” are not answers; they are the murder of your questions. My work is not to answer but to cut your question at the root.

Understand this difference. Pundits give answers; go ask them. They have readymade replies. You barely begin to ask and their answer starts—Gita verses, Upanishadic sayings, Vedic hymns—quotation upon quotation.

Colonel Ingersoll, a great Western thinker and one of the finest speakers of his century, whenever he began a talk, would wave his fingers in the air; people were puzzled by this ritual. And when he finished, he would wave the fingers of his other hand and sit down. People often asked; he would smile and remain silent. On his deathbed his friends pressed him, “Now at least tell us! What was that magic? You spoke like flowers falling; every word was music, enchanting. But you kept the secret. Now you are leaving—tell us.” Ingersoll laughed, “No magic—no mystery. When I began, with my left hand I drew quotation marks in the air; when I ended, with my right hand I closed them. I was signaling: none of this is mine—it’s all borrowed. I didn’t want to say it bluntly, nor did I want to hide it. If I hid it, my conscience hurt; if I declared it, my ego was hurt. So I signaled—let those who can, understand.”

What the pundit has is all quotations—nothing his own.

I have no answers to give you from the Quran, Bible, or Gita. I have an inner vision, an experience, a knowing-by-being. When you ask, it may appear I answer—but I don’t. I seize your question and shake you as much as I can. By means of your question, I cut your roots as much as I can. By means of your question, I dissolve the mind as much as I can—whether you ask or not.

See—Hansa asked nothing, and the hour is nearly over. I’ve been thrashing Hansa all along!

Hansa says, “No question really forms.” It need not. Questions are like itches: scratching feels sweet, but soon blood will flow. Best not to scratch—but it’s hard. When an itch comes, not scratching is very difficult; it takes great restraint. Fasting is easier; not scratching an itch is harder. Such sweetness seems to be there, as if nectar will rain if you scratch. And you know nothing is gained—only perhaps the skin will be peeled by over-scratching.

And itches arise at the most awkward times—when they shouldn’t. Sit to meditate—then, of all times. Ever sat cross-legged? The moment you do, an ant seems to walk on your leg. You look, and there’s no ant—just imagination. Or an itch on the back.

An American woman, out of pity for me, brought me a plastic hand with a battery. I asked, “What is this?” She said, “Whenever I sit to meditate, my back starts itching. Americans make gadgets for everything. Why scratch with the hand—and the hand can’t always reach the back—so they made a plastic hand with a battery. I place it on my back, press a button, and it scratches. My only problem in meditation is this back-itch that comes only when I meditate. I thought: what must your plight be, being in meditation twenty-four hours—how many back-itches you must get! So I brought you this hand.”

Those itches—in the leg, the arm, the back—are the body saying, “Pay attention to me. Where are you going? You can’t go so easily. You won’t break this bond of lifetimes so simply. Come back! Here’s an itch—you’ll have to return.”

The mind too itches. Sit to meditate, and strange questions arise that never arise otherwise. Life goes on in work and chores, but the moment you sit silently, the mind raises questions. You yourself will be surprised: I never knew I had such a philosophical mind! Amazing thoughts, waves and waves. But the mind is simply saying, “We won’t let you go so easily. Will you end this friendship like this? Divorce is not easy. Marriage can be with anyone; divorce is the trouble—courts, lawyers, division of property, custody of children—thousands of hassles.”

Nasruddin wanted to divorce his wife. They went to a lawyer. The lawyer said, “Fine, divide everything half-half.” Nasruddin said, “Look, I earned it all. Why half?” His wife said, “Count yourself lucky I agree even to that.” “All right,” said Nasruddin, “half-half. But there are three children—how do we split them half?” The wife took his hand, “Let’s go home—come back next year.” The lawyer was amazed: “Clever woman—make it four, then divide. What’s the hurry?” He asked, “Are you sure there’ll be four in a year?” She said, “Absolutely.” The lawyer said, “But you just said your husband doesn’t love you, is out all night drunk, and even when he comes he’s so far gone that love is out of the question. One night he sat with his suitcase open, and when you asked what he was doing, he said, ‘Reading the Quran!’ Another night he came home beaten up, and to hide the bruises from morning eyes, he stood before the mirror and applied ointment all over his face. In the morning you said, ‘Get up! You’ve ruined the mirror—why did you put the ointment on it?’ He had no awareness—he thought he was applying it to his face, but he was smearing the mirror wherever the face appeared. If he has so little sense, how can there be four children by next year?” The wife said, “Since you’ve asked, I’ll tell the truth: if I depended on him, even three wouldn’t be there. Who depends on him! Don’t worry, I’ll bring the fourth.”

Marriage is easy; divorce is difficult. When you start divorcing the body and mind—that is sannyas, that is meditation—both create trouble, all kinds of temptations and pulls. The body says, “Look at me!” The mind says, “Look at me!” It raises new desires, new ambitions: “You’re still young—is this the time to meditate? Meditation is for old age! Sannyas after seventy-five.”

Very clever were those who fixed sannyas at seventy-five—as if anything worth renouncing remains then! First, most people won’t reach seventy-five. Even now, in countries like India, how many cross seventy-five? To keep living, people do strange things. Morarji Desai drinks his own urine to keep going—live more, live more! And if you live more—what will you do? Drink more urine!

Sometimes someone does reach seventy-five. But the average person dies earlier. The Vedas bless, “Live a hundred years.” If everyone lived a hundred, this would be a curse, not a blessing. If everyone lived a hundred anyway, and you said “live a hundred,” he’d be annoyed—“Is this a blessing? We’ll reach a hundred without you; perhaps a hundred ten; you’re cutting it to a hundred!”

The old scheme: twenty-five years in gurukul, twenty-five as householder, twenty-five as vanaprastha—preparing for the forest, not literally going. Twenty-five years to prepare? Then sannyas from seventy-five to a hundred, as if everyone lived to a hundred. In truth, even in the past people did not live to a hundred. Now, in very rich countries, a few do. But the mind wants excuses, and it found a good one: sannyas after seventy-five. If you don’t survive, who will take sannyas?

Body and mind are unready to be left; both pull, offering lures. In such a mind, questions arise—no more than mental itches, devices to entangle. I don’t answer them; I only alert you: don’t get caught in questions. What looks like an answer from me is only the dissolution of questions, cutting them and tossing them away.

You say, Hansa: “No question really forms.” Why should it? Why the eagerness to make one? Don’t let it form. Good that it doesn’t. A good hour approaches—now take the leap into questionlessness.

And you say: “I don’t even know whether I want to ask.” This is also a good sign: you are entering the inner twilight, where all is hazy, nothing clear, all mysterious. Go a little deeper, and things will become clear. Then there remains nothing to hear, nothing to ask, nothing to know. Yes, there remains the relish of sitting with the Master—satsang.

You know the meaning of satsang? Simply sitting together—the circle of the intoxicated, the gathering of the mad lovers, the moths around the flame—swaying in joy, in ecstasy; where a stream of nectar flows, hearts are joined and vibrating together. In the end, only satsang remains. What I am saying to you now is only to cut the webs of your mind. They are like cobwebs—not hard to sweep away. You spun them yourself; a little effort and they will fall like cobwebs.

But we are lazy; we won’t make even this small effort. We thicken the cobwebs, go on spinning, and are lost in our own webs—our words, scriptures, assumptions, biases, beliefs and superstitions. Such a crowd gathers within that we get lost. We forget who we are, what we are for, what the purpose is. This fair of life—we turn it into a tangle.

It could remain a fair—and a joyous one—but inside we create such a mess that nothing is seen rightly; whatever we see, we see wrongly. So many veils on the eyes—grill upon grill—that everything appears distorted.

Ask no questions; collect no answers. Walk into the void. Hansa, fly to that land! Journey into emptiness—for only in emptiness does the Whole descend.

Deepika,
If it is love, the question will not arise at all. If the question arises, it is attachment. It is like someone asking, “Is it light or darkness? How can I know?” If you have eyes, such a question does not arise. Only if you have no eyes can it arise. Only a blind person can ask, “Is it light or dark? Is it day or night?” The blind must ask; he has no eyes of his own and must depend on the eyes of others.

Love is the eye of the heart. Love is the heart opening like a lotus. When the flower of love blossoms, it is impossible not to know. It has never happened otherwise; such is the law of life. When the flower of love blooms, you know—inevitably. Even if you try to hide it, you cannot. Not only will you know; others too, who have even a small glimpse of love, will recognize it. They will catch its fragrance; your rays will begin to reach them. Those who have known love will see and know that in this person’s life love has arisen, a flame has been lit, the new has descended.

Love is revolution. Love is the death of the ego. There is no greater revolution, because where the ego dies, God arrives. When the ego vacates the place, a space opens for the divine to enter. Love is prayer. Love is God.

Yet the question arises. It arises because what we are living is not love, it is attachment. Attachment is blind; love has eyes. Those who say love is blind are wrong. Love alone is not blind—everything else is.

And still, they are right in their own way. When they say “love,” they mean attachment, because their experience is of attachment, not love. They want to call attachment blind, but they call love blind. In your dictionaries there is no distinction between love and attachment. In the lexicon of your life there is none either. Your condition is like that of the blind. Even if you wish, how will you distinguish between light and darkness?

A blind man is taking leave at night from a friend’s house. Out of kindness the friend says, “The night is dark, it’s the new-moon night—take a lantern with you.” The blind man laughs: “What will I do with a lantern? I am blind; for me even the day is night. Full moon or new moon—it is all the same. I see no difference between day and night. What will I do with a lantern? How will it help me?”

But the friend was logical: “I know you are blind; a lantern in your hand is of no use to you. But others will see you in the dark as you come, so they won’t collide with you. If we can manage even that much, isn’t it something?”

This argument seemed right. The blind man agreed and set off with the lantern. He had gone barely a hundred steps when someone bumped into him. The blind man was astonished. His lantern fell and broke, he fell too, and he said, “What’s this? Are you also blind? In this village I am the only blind one—have you come from somewhere else?”

The man laughed, “I’m not blind, but your lantern had gone out. You were walking with an extinguished lantern.”

How is a blind man to know whether the lantern is lit or extinguished! Give him a lantern and he will walk on. Just so, you are clutching doctrines—extinguished lanterns. The Gita in Krishna’s hand had light; in your hands the same Gita has no light. Your hands are enough to put out its flame. You suffice. For the light to remain in the Gita while in your hands—that is impossible. Whatever falls into your hands takes on your color. Put the Qur’an there and it will stagger. Put the Bible in your hands and it will go blind. Put the Vedas in your hands and they will faint. You are something! Doctrines and scriptures will not be able to change you; you will change them. Your scriptures too, along with you, are staggering, lying in gutters here and there—with you. Wherever you are, there your scriptures will be.

A man drank heavily one night—a clever fellow, a philosopher, a great thinker. He had thought ahead before leaving home: “When I drink too much, I might lose my way, I might not see.” So he took a lantern from home. When he had drunk his fill, he picked up his lantern and started off. He fell into a gutter, bumped into a buffalo. He picked up his lantern to check: “But the lantern is here!” Somehow he gathered himself, set off again, collided with a wall, fell in several places, skinned his knees. In the morning people carried him home, unconscious. At noon the owner of the liquor shop came and said, “Sir, last night you carried off my parrot’s cage. Here, take your lantern back and return my parrot.”

Then he looked carefully and discovered—yes. But the parrot was dead. So many collisions—buffaloes, walls—how could the poor parrot have survived! He said, “Take your cage; the parrot has departed.”

But all the while he had been taking the parrot’s cage to be his lantern!

Until you know love, such a question can arise. Deepika, to ask, “How can we know whether it is love or attachment?”—the very question shows it is attachment, not love. If it is love, you know instantly. Some signs are that clear. For example, when it is attachment to someone, you become dependent. Without them you do not feel happy; aloneness irritates, bites, becomes unbearable. But when it is love, you do not become dependent. Your freedom remains unbroken. In aloneness you are just as joyful as together. Your joy does not change.

In truth, attachment is to persons; attachment is a relationship. Love is a state, not a relationship. Love does not happen toward persons; love is a condition of being. When a lamp is lit, whoever passes by receives its light. It does not choose and shine more on “our own man,” a little extra for a sycophant, and none for a stranger—“let him die, let him go in the dark.” When light is on, it falls on all. A flower blooms; its fragrance is for all. No friend, no foe.

Love is a state, not a relationship. Attachment is a relationship. Love is a wondrous thing. When love is within you, a rain of love falls all around you—whoever wants to gather it, let them; whoever wants to drink, let them. Whoever comes near will have their bag filled, their cup filled. Then no one is seen as worthy or unworthy, no one as ours or another’s.

Love is the awakened form of your soul. Attachment is your soul’s sleeping state. In attachment you are unhappy with yourself, so you think that by being with another perhaps you will find happiness. You yourself are not happy; in aloneness there is nothing but hell. Therefore you seek another. And the great joke is, the other too is seeking you for the same reason—he too is unhappy alone. Now will two mistakes make a right? Two mistakes make two mistakes—not merely double, but multiplied. You are a beggar; the other is a beggar. He hopes for bliss from you; you hope for bliss from him. Each is giving the other hope. Both sit with hooks covered with dough. Both will be caught. And soon you will find it was a hook; there was no dough. The dough was only on the surface to hide the hook. And when the hook pierces, it is already too late; escape becomes difficult.

First you were unhappy alone; now you will be unhappy together. And naturally, when two people are unhappy together, they will be more unhappy, because their skills will combine, their arithmetic will combine; they will fall upon each other and each will take revenge on the other.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife died. As they carried the coffin down from the house, the staircase was narrow; the coffin bumped a little, got a jolt, the lid opened—and the wife sat up! She had not died; perhaps she had fainted, gone into a coma. She lived three more years. Then she died—this time truly. She was placed in the coffin. And when they began to carry it down the stairs again, Mulla said, “Brothers, be careful! Mind the stairs—let us live too! For your small mistake we have suffered three years...”

At first people are unhappy alone; then they become doubly unhappy.

Attachment brings suffering. It densifies your pain. Yes, in the beginning, as long as a little “dough” remains—but it cannot last long. The truth is the hook hidden within. When lovers first meet, what talk they talk! What poetry! What romance! “I will bring you the moon and stars,” the lover says.

A lover said to his beloved, “I will cross the Himalayas for you. Even if fire rains, I will come. I cannot live a moment without seeing you.”

When it was time to part, the beloved said, “You will come tomorrow evening, won’t you?”

He said, “That depends—if it doesn’t rain.”

Scaling mountains and coming through showers of fire—those are just sweet words, pleasant to say and to hear. People feel elated saying such things to each other. But soon the color fades; realities are exposed. People meet painted and varnished, wearing masks. Soon the masks fall. Then the truth begins to show: on both sides are unhappy people, on both sides darkness, on both sides beggars. And now it has become very difficult—how to part! And even if you part, where will you go? Everywhere else there are beggars too.

Attachment is only a deception; for a little while you can be taken in. It is a charming illusion; for a little while you can beguile yourself. But soon you will suffer, and soon the illusion will break.

What flame has not gone out, like a sigh upon the lips—
there is no desire like that in life.

My feet have reached the limit of fatigue,
my head, the heaviness of foolishness;
a kind of smoke gathers in the heart,
and often water gathers in the eyes.

An unknown world with an unknown order,
all knowledge and illusion alike unknown;
a traveler I am of an unknown direction—
only failure is known and familiar.

What path has not suddenly lost itself in darkness—
there is no such path in life.

Lips kissed by waves of ecstasy
still carry the stinging burn of thirst;
the sea of lack that swells into tears—
in those very waves plays beauty’s image.

Behind me, the lament of countless ruins;
before me, only a hazy emptiness.
This music and color, this bustle—everything is here,
and yet within myself, how solitary I am.

What depth could give me support even for a moment—
there is no such soundings in life.

Whomever I saw was lost in their own selfhood,
whomever I found was senseless in burning here.
Like a madman I went from door to door
awakening the Unnameable.
The very one you ask is himself in a tangle.
In every silence there is a suffocating fear;
in every sound a trembling doubt.
How laden the earth is with sighs,
how many exhalations have sunk into the sky.
There is no sigh in life
that could shake destiny’s order.
There is no desire in life
that, becoming a sigh upon the lips, has not been extinguished.

Just look at your life, Deepika. Become a little more alert, a witness, and examine your life. What, other than suffering, have you found here? From all those from whom you hoped for happiness, you received sorrow. The greater the hope you placed in someone for happiness, the greater the sorrow you got. The bigger the expectation, the bigger the hell that was built.

Attachment is the art of manufacturing hell. Attachment is hell, and love is heaven.

But Deepika, I understand your question too. People go on calling attachment “love.” When I speak of love, I speak of love—but you take it to mean attachment. You can only understand what you are familiar with; that is your language. I say: Love. You hear: Attach. You think I am endorsing your attachment. Finding an enemy greater than me for your attachment would be hard. But I am certainly a champion of love.

You cannot distinguish between love and attachment, nor can your so‑called saints. Whenever they want to abuse attachment, they end up abusing love. And when you want to praise attachment, you start using the word “love.” Both are caught in the same confusion. Your saints have become so frightened of attachment that they have grown terrified of love. They have run away. They have broken all ties with the realm of love. But remember, in their lives there is nothing but disappointment—there cannot be. The bridge that could have joined them to the divine has also collapsed.

Apart from love, you will not be able to be joined to the divine—there is no other way. Love and meditation are two sides of the same coin. The more meditative you become, the more loving you will be. And the more loving you become, the more meditative you will be. Meditation means awakening; and love is the sharing of the joy and ecstasy that arise within from that awakening.

Buddha has said: in the one who attains to meditation, to the wisdom of meditation, streams of compassion, streams of love begin to flow.

They will flow. If there is meditation within, waves of love will rise in your outer life. But the one who, out of fear of attachment, became an enemy of love—what will there be in his life except darkness and emptiness? That is why the lives of your saints are utterly empty, hollow—more hollow than yours. In your life at least there is something, at least there is suffering. If there is suffering, happiness can someday be; if there is hell, the possibility of heaven sometimes is there too—you can put up a ladder. But your saints are completely vacant; there is nothing within. From you, curses arise—there is no need to be afraid, because from the very words that make curses, songs can be made. From your saints no curses arise, but no songs arise either. Your saints have become completely empty—not in the sense of shunyata, but in the sense of vacancy. Shunyata is a wondrous happening; it is available only to one established in samadhi. Vacancy—anyone can produce that.

Your saints are not peaceful. The stillness of the cremation ground is not peace. We need a peace that dances, sings, hums. We need a peace where flowers bloom, birds sing, peacocks dance, the cuckoo calls, and the pied cuckoo cries its pi-kahan. Such peace is needed. The peace of the cremation ground—your saints are full of that. That peace is dead. A corpse lies still and so it becomes “peaceful.” But you wouldn’t call that peace, would you? “See how peaceful the holy man is lying there! Just a while ago he was worldly, now he’s become a saint. He used to speak, walk; he was entangled in the illusions of the world. Now see how peaceful he lies—utterly detached, dispassionate!” No, you do not call a corpse a saint. Yet those you are calling saints are nearly corpses. And where is the confusion born? In the failure to distinguish between love and attachment. Out of fear of attachment, the saints flee from love too. They fear that where there is love, attachment may creep in. And you, in your longing for love, fall into attachment. Both are making the same mistake.

I want you, Deepika, to understand this distinction clearly. Attachment is that which brings sorrow, bondage, and dependency. Attachment is that which makes you dependent on the other. When your happiness lies in the other, that is attachment. And when bliss wells up within you and there arises a deep urge to share it, that is love. Attachment is a relationship; love is your spontaneous, natural state.

Madhukar,
No more now. No more. What is left to say! The snake has gone; only the line in the dust remains. The rope is burned, yet its kinks remain. What is there worth saying now? The Lallu ke patthe have made as much mischief as they could, created as much uproar as they could.

They started being called “Lallu ke patthe” because saying “ullu ke patthe” didn’t seem proper—ullu ke patthe, “sons of an owl,” meaning fools. The father’s name was Lallu, so: Lallu’s sons. In the same way people now say: Lallu is dead, but he left his offspring. You do the translation.

For sixty years the Lallu ke patthe stayed in the womb and kept saying, “After you! After you!” Then, from sixty years of experience they learned those sixty years were wasted; so the moment they came out they began to say—“Me first!” Thus the matter that began with “after you, after you” ended in “me-me, you-you.”

But the entire world of politics is exactly this “me-me, you-you”—quarrels, tricks and deceptions, mischief, clamor. It goes on because you are all unconscious. If you are unconscious, you need people even more unconscious than you to become your leaders. Just a shade more unconsciousness is enough to be a leader. If you are in darkness, you will need people even blinder than you. If you are in ego, you will need people even more egoistic to lead you. You find your own kind; the responsibility is nobody else’s, it is yours. What fault is theirs? Where there is demand, supply begins. Your demand is for the wrong people.

As long as you live in the hope that someone will redeem them, there will be no redemption. The very hope is the mistake. Someone else should save you—why? Has anyone taken a contract for your salvation? You create the mess and someone else should do the saving! What harm have your politicians done? At least they have saved themselves! That is what self-reliance means. That’s what “sarvodaya” is called! That was Gandhi’s great teaching! Well, at least they and their kin got prosperous. Something did happen! Some poverty was removed! Some people’s poverty was removed! Whose it was is not so important.

But this hope of yours—that who will save the tens of millions of poor—is itself wrong. You have sat with this hope for centuries; that’s why you are wretched, that’s why you are poor: that someone ought to save you.

Stand on your own feet. Trust yourself. Drop your blindness. Drop your stupidities. You go on doing stupidities and someone else should save you! You keep producing children, lining them up, increasing poverty—and someone else should save you! How very kind of you.

You are the reason for your poverty. Your beliefs are foolish. And if anyone calls your beliefs wrong you get angry. Until your beliefs break, there can be no sunrise in your life.

First thing: for centuries you have honored poverty. Then remain poor now. What you honor, you become. You prayed to God so fervently—he heard you! What fault is it of his? Daridra-Narayana! Mahatma Gandhi calls the poor “Daridra-Narayana.” Well, that’s good: since all are poor, all are Narayan—consider them all gods! The untouchables are “Harijan.”

We used to call devotees by “Harijan”—Kabir, Nanak, Raidas, Farid, Bulleh Shah—we called them Harijans. But now Babu Jagjivan Ram is a Harijan! Now poor Ramji is in real trouble. He is trying hard to somehow find a place at Mother Sita’s feet! Do you see what state Ramji has come to!

You told the untouchables, “You are the Lord’s beloved.” The word “untouchable” was good; it had a sting, a bite, a pain. No one wanted to be an untouchable. “Harijan”—anyone would like to be that. You called the poor “Daridra-Narayana.” We are very skilled at finding nice words! We settle everything with words. And you give great honor to poverty. If a man stands there naked—“Mahatma!” Then if you all become naked, all will be mahatmas; what’s the problem? Someone renounces wealth—Mahavira renounced wealth, Buddha renounced a kingdom—only then did they manage to be called great souls. They had to undertake the trouble of renouncing. You have nothing—you are spared even that trouble. You are already Buddha and Mahavira! Just think how gracious God has been to you! They had to bother to give things up—the fruits of past sins had given them wealth; so, to earn merit, they abandoned it. You never committed any sins, so you didn’t get wealth—so there is no question of renouncing. You were born liberated!

Drop the notion that someone else will save you. In the search for a savior you have remained wretched for five thousand years. This poverty of yours is not new. You have always been afflicted and unhappy. And the responsibility is yours. To keep hoping that someone else will save you is just self-deception. No one will save you. Why should anyone care?

A mother, a Christian mother, was instructing her child: “Son, you must serve others. God made you precisely to serve others.”
Small children sometimes ask very important questions. The boy said, “All right—let’s accept that God made me to serve others. For what did he make the others? So that I should serve them? Or so that they should serve me?”
The mother was in a bind. She couldn’t at once think what to say! Children often put you in a fix. They have a clear vision. He saw it straight. He said, “What upside-down talk is this! He made me to serve them; he made them to serve me. Brother, you serve yourself; I’ll serve myself. Why create all this fuss!”

Who will save you? Why would they?

But people sit waiting—yada yada hi dharmasya… whenever there is a decline of dharma, Lord Krishna will come. So let there be decline! Create more decline! Evidently it isn’t complete, otherwise he would have come. Make more decline! Create as much turmoil as you can! Then Lord Krishna will come and save you.

As if, back then, he saved anyone! What salvation happened then? The war of Mahabharata happened—what salvation was that? People died, were cut down, beaten—what salvation? Thousands, hundreds of thousands of women became widows—what salvation? Thousands, millions of children became orphans—what salvation? And after Krishna’s death, what happened to his followers, the Yadavas? They slaughtered one another and were wiped out! Whose salvation was that?

Do you think Lord Ram saved you? Who can save whom! He had great difficulty even “saving” Mother Sita. And even that couldn’t be brought to completion—a washerman created trouble. Then Mother Sita had to be sent to the forest. What salvation? Whose salvation? When has anyone ever saved anyone! The very notion is wrong.

In other countries this notion doesn’t exist; that’s why they have been able to save themselves. In America no one thinks someone will save us. Each person works hard, labors. So America created such prosperity! And it gives honor to prosperity.

You honor poverty and want to become prosperous—how will that happen? Even now you worship the naked—some muni, some great muni, some mahatma—because he wears only a loincloth. Some “karpatri,” because he eats from his hands. All your gestures and your honors show that you are worshipers of wretchedness. So you will remain wretched. These notions must fall. If you want prosperity, honor prosperity; then you can become prosperous. Because what you honor, you will bring into being.

Your politicians are not so much at fault. They are your own offspring. They are the blockheads begotten by blockheads—you are the blockheads! You will have to take responsibility into your own hands.

I respect the individual. My trust is in the individual. I have no trust in society, collectives, politics, religion. My trust is in the soul of the individual, in the awakening of the individual. You wake up! Fill yourself with awareness! Bring order to your life! Remove the false notions from your life. Drop your prejudices. Free yourself from the past.

You are rotting under the weight of the past, yet the ego keeps proclaiming, “We are great!” Not two pennies to your name, yet “We are great!” That the land of India is a land of merit—gods long to be born here! I cannot even imagine why gods would long to be born here. For what reason? And if gods long to be born here, then it is their misfortune—their wits have gone astray.

But you are filled with such vanities. These egos must be dropped. This nation is rotting from caste-pride. And it is entangled in deluded notions. Each person must organize his own life. Only then can society be organized.

And the biggest notion that haunts you is that some savior will come. Who cares! No savior has ever come, nor will one ever come. Buddha saved himself. And those who wanted to save themselves learned from Buddha. Mahavira saved himself. And those who wanted to save themselves lit their lamps from Mahavira’s light.

Here a light is lit. If you want to light your own lamp, light it. But don’t get lost in futile talk—who will save this country? Which savior will come? When will God incarnate? Why is God silent?

That’s all for today.