Preetam Chhabi Nainan Basee #8

Om,
This is an important question. Life can be lived in two ways: either by listening to others, or by listening to oneself. Either life is imitation, or life is spontaneous. Either one walks by one’s own inner light, or on borrowed light.

Whoever lives on borrowed light lives in vain, because a borrowed life is hollow, false, painted on the surface. Inside there will be something else; outside, something else. Only the one who lives from spontaneity has the possibility of truth in his life, and only such a person can ever come to the realization of the divine.

Imitation is not religion, though it has installed itself on the chest of humanity as religion. The earth is full of people who are imitating others. They don’t know: What is truth? What is God? Whether God even is or not—they don’t know. They have never asked, never felt a real inquiry. They never risked what true inquiry demands. They never set out on a search. Setting out is dangerous—you may never come back! Who knows whether anything lies ahead? Who knows where you might be lost in this unknown ocean! There are storms, tempests; the path is arduous; there is no guarantee of a destination—you will know only when you reach. No one can assure you in advance. Great trust is needed for exploration—trust in yourself!

But in the name of religion, you are taught: have faith in others.

Faith in others is irreligion; faith in oneself is religion. Yet to come to faith in oneself is to pass through fire, because the first step to inner trust is a no, not a yes. First you must have the strength to say no. If your no is weak, your yes can never carry strength. Your yes can only be as strong as your no; never more. And if your no is complete, then your yes will have completeness and totality. Then you can stake your life upon it.

Imitating another is cheap, easy. You need not go anywhere, search for anything, risk anything. Just accept stale words. Accept what the crowd says. There is great safety in it. Born in a Hindu home—you are a Hindu; what inquiry did you do to become a Hindu? Born in a Muslim home—you would have been Muslim. Born in a Jain home—you would have been Jain. Are you a human being or a lump of clay—whoever’s hands grab you, that’s the shape you take? If you were born in a communist family in Russia, the babble about God would never have caught you; you wouldn’t even give the Bible, Quran, or Gita a glance. For you, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira would be meaningless words. Worse, you would think these are the very people who corrupted humanity—feeding it opium and keeping it unconscious. You wouldn’t go to temples or mosques. You wouldn’t pray, not even by mistake. The very word meditation would seem useless. What search? Whose search? No God, no soul—man is just a heap of five elements. When they scatter, the story ends. Nothing after death; nothing before birth.

One who lives by influence does not live at all. And nearly the whole world lives by influence. Whosoever’s influence you happen to fall under by accident, you get colored in that dye. You have no inner privacy, no sense of I within that can think, reflect, deliberate, decide. You are like sheep; wherever the crowd moves, you move. You have no remembrance of yourself. You only repeat what you’ve been told—like a gramophone record. Handed the Gita, you recite the Gita; handed the Quran, you recite the Quran. You have nothing to do with the Quran or the Gita—no resonance of the Gita’s song in your very life-breath, no music of the Quran within. Inside, you are empty. Everything is on the surface. Influences never reach your nature; they remain outside, on top.

It’s like rouge and powder on the face.

A Bengali professor, a friend of mine, once told me he was bringing his wife to meet me—she was very eager. He arrived alone. I asked, “What happened to your wife?” He said, “It began to drizzle on the way—so she went back.” I asked, “What does drizzle have to do with it?” He replied, “You don’t understand—her makeup started running. Lines appeared on her face.” Later, when she did come to meet me, I was convinced—the makeup was laid on so thick that even a light drizzle would have forced a retreat.

Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—all are mostly makeup. A little drizzle and it runs. It cannot hold in the rain.

You can be reading the Gita, and someone abuses you—there, the drizzle starts. You’ll fling the Gita in his face; you won’t even notice what it is in that moment. Later, you may pick it up, press it to your head, offer flowers, feed five girls—another matter. But in that moment of insult, all runs; the Gita won’t help.

I’ve heard of a man of immense anger who once shoved his wife in a rage—she fell into a well and died. He was stricken with remorse. Remorse is inevitable after anger, and after such a great outburst, even more so. Burning in repentance, he ran to a temple. He was a Jain; Digambar monks were visiting. He fell at their feet: “Only you can save me. This anger has gone too far. I’ve created havoc—once I even set my house on fire, but at least no life was there; I built another. Today I pushed my wife; she died. This is beyond all limits. Give me initiation—I want to renounce the world.”

The monk said, “There is a sequence for initiation. In our tradition there are five steps. First take the vow of celibacy; then become a junior renunciant, then the next stage… slowly, slowly. First you keep a sheet, then two loincloths, then one—one must be trained. If you drop everything at once and stand naked, you yourself will feel uneasy. Gradually one becomes accustomed.”

The man said, “I don’t want steps. Who knows about life! My wife was alive in the morning; now she is gone. I will become a monk right now.” Even the monk was a little afraid: “Not so fast, brother.” But the man wouldn’t listen—he was a man of anger. He threw off his clothes and stood naked on the spot. The crowd clapped: “This is renunciation! Why leave for tomorrow?” Even the monk was impressed: “I have initiated many, but none as religious and resolute as you!”

There was no resolution—this was the same angry man. He who can push his wife can also throw off his clothes. He never thinks before doing; he does, then thinks. He would sit later, naked, and wonder, “What have I done? It’s cold…” But by then the applause had flowed; turning back becomes difficult. They took out a procession. As the procession moved, he began to feel it—naked in the bazaar. But it was too late; and to withdraw would be embarrassing. His remorse too was just anger standing on its head. That’s what repentance is: anger inverted, a headstand. But too late. Bands were playing, flowers showering, praises resounding—where could he go?

That is why showy processions have to be taken out—for monks and sadhus—so they cannot escape. Beat the drums, shower honors, so much respect that to flee would feel like losing the greatest nourishment of ego. There is nothing else in their hands by which they might get honor. This is their sole capital—that they stand naked, or they are fasting. What other art do they have?

This man had nothing—except anger. He became a great monk. And he was angry by nature. Since he received so much just by dropping clothes, he found more and more devices—for anger is but a facet of ego. Anger arises when the ego is obstructed; it is the bodyguard of the ego. Where the ego is hindered, anger appears. If the ego is never obstructed, anger does not come.

Monks don’t get angry because their ego is never challenged. Everywhere they receive honor; there is no occasion to be angry. Not because anger is not within them—give them a chance and you will find they can be angrier than you. But they don’t get the opportunity—daily worship keeps the ego soothed. New platters of worship are offered to it every day.

So, from just dropping clothes he got so much that he made further renunciations: one meal a day, then no ghee, then no salt—abandoning more and more, he dried up. The more he dried, the more the honor swelled. He became renowned nationwide. A childhood friend came to see him. The monk saw him—how could he forget a friend with whom he had played, fought, grown up? He recognized him but pretended not to—arrogance! Now he was high, elevated; how could he recognize any Tom, Dick, or Harry? He looked and looked away.

The friend sensed it—recognized, yet pretending. He had always doubted how such a turbulent man had become a great monk. Miracles do happen—but still… So he moved closer and said, “Maharaj, may I ask your name?” Now the monk’s anger leapt its bounds. “Do you read papers? Listen to radio? Watch television? Who doesn’t know my name, you idiot! You ask my name?”

The friend said to himself, Nothing has changed. If given a chance, he would wrestle here and now. But to test further, he said, “I am uneducated, I don’t hear radio or see TV; I’m a village bumpkin. You are right—idiot! Tell me once more. To hear your name from your own mouth would be such satisfaction.”

The monk glared. He knew the friend was educated, knew everything. But with others present, he couldn’t start a scene. He said, “My name is Shantinath.” A while later, after some spiritual talk, the friend got up: “Now I’ll go. One more favor—your name I’ve forgotten.”

Now the monk completely forgot he was a monk: “Forgot my name! I’ve never seen such a fool. I told you just now and you forgot! How will you understand talk of Brahman, the soul, liberation? What will you remember if you can’t keep my name straight? I’ll tell you one more time: my name is Shantinath—Lord of Peace!”

The friend said, “Your kindness is great.” He sat a bit, then asked again while bowing, “Maharaj, your blessed name?” The monk picked up his staff, struck his skull: “My name is—Shantinath!”

The friend said, “I understand, Maharaj. Peace is radiating from your very being. That is what I came to see. You are exactly where you were.”

On the surface, you may go naked, do worship, recite scriptures—yet all false if within you the old poisons remain. Your prayer too will be lust mildly perfumed.

One day Chandulal saw his son Bantu go into the family shrine. He never went there, not even when scolded. Today he went on his own—Chandulal got suspicious: smoking secretly? Or something worse? He tiptoed over and peeped through the window. He was surprised—Bantu was kneeling, hands folded, all devout, saying, “O God, just one small thing! What’s difficult for you? You’ve done such wonders—scripture is full of them. One small thing for me too! Make Timbuktu the capital of India.” Chandulal was startled—Timbuktu? Still he waited to hear it all. Bantu continued, “Don’t sit so silent—say something! Nod your head, hmm something. I’m not asking much—you are omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent; you can do anything. Make the impossible possible. You made cripples climb mountains, gave sight to the blind. You have done so many miracles—this is nothing. Come on, do it!”

Chandulal burst in, grabbed his neck: “Bantu! How dare you address God as ‘buddy’! And what kind of prayer is this? How many times I explained how to pray! ‘Make Timbuktu the capital of India’—why?” Bantu said, “Don’t interfere. By mistake I wrote in the exam that Timbuktu is India’s capital. If it isn’t made the capital quickly, I’m finished. Please don’t meddle.”

Each person’s personal desires will leak into their prayers. And true prayer happens only when there is no desire at all. Whether you want Timbuktu as the capital or you want liberation—there is no difference. As long as there is wanting, there is no prayer; as long as there is asking, you cannot enter the temple.

But you pray because those you learned from were praying for the same reason. People remember God in sorrow and forget him in happiness. Why remember in happiness? There is no need. They remember in pain, in failure, in defeat—and you learn from them.

Om, devotion born of influence is false. Influence means borrowed and stale. And who knows—the one you’re borrowing from also borrowed it. After passing through thousands of hands, influence is like a dirty banknote. The dirtiest thing in the world is perhaps money, because it passes through the maximum number of hands. How many germs—TB, flu, cancer—hang on! The English word currency is apt: that which is always moving, current. It never stands still. That’s why it’s so soiled. Your influences are dirtier still. Notes may be ten or fifty years old; your impressions are thousands of years old—passed from father to son, for generations, perhaps since Adam. So stale, so rotten—if you have a hint of cleanliness you would refuse second-hand even in the name of God. Will you not experience anything firsthand in this life? How will you discover your ownness? You will go on believing whatever is said—and they will tell you: have faith, do not doubt. Those who need their doctrines to continue teach faith, not doubt.

Faith means: murder your no. Strangle the no that arises in you. But no matter how you strangle, the no will not die. Outside you will paste on faith; within, denial will persist. Think a little: you “believe in God,” yet somewhere within you will find doubt creeping, hiding in the dark corners. Give it a chance—it will still come into the open courtyard. Doubt floods the inner being and faith sticks on the circumference. A little drizzle and all these pasted-on faiths wash away.

A friend lost his wife. I went to his house. Neighbors were consoling him: “Why weep? The soul is immortal! Swords do not pierce it. Fire does not burn it. The body is a clay pot; it breaks. Dust to dust, light to light—why cry?” One man was very insistent, reciting verses. I thought: a knower of Brahman! After four months his own wife died. I went especially. He was crying. I said, “Swords do not pierce; fire does not burn—yet you weep? Where is your Brahma-knowledge?” He glared, “Stop your nonsense! My wife is dead and you talk Brahman! You never even came to my house before—why today?” I said, “I came to see the condition of Brahma-knowledge. These are the moments that test it. Recite a few verses, speak of the Upanishads—why weep? The clay has returned to clay; the soul has merged into the soul.” He said, “You won’t understand—you never married.” I replied, “Is marriage necessary for Brahma-knowledge? This is new! I always heard marriage is an obstacle. Then I’ll marry—one, two, three—if knowledge comes from that!” He began to fume. I added, “At least trust the Giver—he who gave one will give another. If you forget scripture, at least keep faith.” And I told a story: When Mulla Nasruddin’s wife died, her lover—who was also Mulla’s friend—cried even more than Mulla, beating his chest so loudly that the whole town gossiped. Mulla finally said, “Brother, don’t cry—I will marry again. Why are you so miserable?” So have faith; the Giver has a thousand hands. The room fell silent; the learned gentleman told me, “Please go now; I will come to you. Don’t torment me in this hour.” All such knowledge runs off in a drizzle.

Om, you ask: from influence or from nature?
Influence is worth two pennies. To be influenced is already to go wrong. Devotion under influence will have some other motive hidden within; only the label will be devotion. Knowledge will be parroted; of little worth. Action you will do in the hope of heaven arriving any minute—the Pushpak chariot descending to carry you bodily to paradise. Your service will be dipped in desire: serving in hope of a payoff—pressing the poor man’s feet today so that gods and goddesses will press yours forever. Is that service? That is not karma. Until action is desireless, it is bondage; a hidden craving slips in through the back door.

And here, everyone seems “knowledgeable.” In this land, hard to find anyone who admits ignorance. Read ten books, compile an eleventh, and you are a great scholar; people will discuss you. People come to me who have written books on meditation and have never meditated. I ask, “Have you meditated?” “No, I wrote a book.” “How?” “Everything is written in the scriptures.” “But did those who wrote the scriptures meditate—or did they also write from what they read?” It’s a deceptive business. They write so beautifully, analyze words so finely, one is easily deceived into thinking they know.

Acharya Tulsi, a famous Jain leader with seven hundred monks, once called me. He insisted on meeting alone. In private he said, “Please tell me about meditation—how to do it?” I said, “You are a monk, a leader, a guru to seven hundred—and you have not yet meditated? Surely you jest.” He said, “No, that’s why I called you—teach me.” Meditation should be the first requirement of a monk. Yet their talks are on meditation; books too.

He sent two monks to learn meditation with me. Simple men. They had one request: “You ask people to tie a band over the eyes while meditating. Please don’t let anyone take our photographs. Acharyaji said if a photo appears, it will be a scandal: ‘Jain monks went to learn meditation.’” I said, “There will be photographs; you reminded me. If you want to meditate, there will be photos. Otherwise, pranam.” They had walked hundreds of miles—a compulsion. For fifteen days they meditated, and every day worried only about the photos. The outer conduct has been learned—robes, alms-bowl, whisk, how to sit and stand. But within remains darkness.

Action will bind you unless it is detached. Detached action blossoms only out of meditation. Meditation is not imitation; it is settling in one’s own nature, abiding in one’s own being—svarupa-ramaṇa. Your knowledge will be true only when it arises from within; when you see, recognize, witness for yourself: yes, there is a soul! Not quotations—but experience. When you can say, “I have known, tasted, drunk”—then your knowledge is true. Then you yourself are the Gita, the Quran, the Veda, the Upanishad. Whatever you say will carry the ring of truth; even your silence will drip truth; your words and your wordless presence will both vibrate with it.

Then your devotion will have a gladness, a celebration, a great dance. It won’t be like what you see in temples and mosques—people doing it because their fathers did, trudging the rut, afraid that not doing it might invite danger. “No harm—do it; if there is a God, we can claim we worshiped; if not, what’s lost? A little time, as in cards or cinema. And going to temple brings social respect—it’s part of politics.” If people think you religious, you can loot them easily—“How can a religious man cheat?” Mulla Nasruddin was in court for cheating the simplest man in the village. The judge said, “Weren’t you ashamed to swindle such an innocent?” Mulla said, “Ashamed? Very! But whom else should I swindle? Everyone else is worse than me. Only this poor fellow is swindlable. The rest are swindling me. Tell me, whom should I swindle? I am drowning in shame—but he’s the only one I can get.”

The simple are looted; the cunning calculate. One calculation is to build a religious reputation: hold nonstop kirtans, read the Ramayana, perform grand rituals. A certain gentleman keeps writing to me: “You mention Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna; why not Jimbheshwar Maharaj?” Who is that? I’ve never heard. Perhaps the husband of some local goddess! People organize vows, feed girls, distribute prasad—thus cultivate prestige. Then they can pick pockets easily. “He’s religious—let him take it; he must be taking for some good reason.”

I heard of a jeweler, a great “devotee.” He never did the shop work; he sat with a rosary muttering “Hari-Hari, Ram-Ram”—these were signals for his clerks. When he said “Ram-Ram,” it meant “let this one go, not worth the effort.” “Hari-Hari” meant “take it!” In Sanskrit, hari also means “to take away.” People marveled—“What a religious man!” He sat “praying,” watching, giving coded cues.

Even devotion you do will be false, a deception.

Don’t trust in borrowed belief; there is no substitute for self-experience.

So, Om, I say: avoid influence; seek nature. You are listening to me. Even now you can do one of two things: either be influenced and repeat my words like parrots—and there are many parrots around me too, and all over the country. People even go to these parrots when they can’t meet me—“Let’s ask Parrot-ji Maharaj.” The parrots sit in lotus posture, roll their eyes upward, go “within,” and then utter mysterious phrases. “Mysterious” here just means confused gibberish: if people don’t understand, they think it profound.

I’ve heard of a priest who went to buy a parrot. The shopkeeper said, “I have a special one for you.” In a back room sat a parrot draped in a ‘Rama-name’ shawl, rosary in claw, chanting the Gayatri. “How does he chant?” asked the priest. “A thread on his left leg—pull it gently; that’s the cue.” “Anything else?” “Another thread on the right—pull that and he chants the Jain Namokar mantra. We’ve trained him so Hindus or Jains, even ‘all-faith’ people can be satisfied.” “And if I pull both threads together?” The parrot squawked, “You fool! I’ll fall down!”

Parrots have a little sense; some pundits don’t even have that.

Knowledge by rote is parrot-talk. Devotion will be hollow. Action will not be non-action.

So how to search for nature?

First condition: whatever you have learned, bid it farewell.

A German philosopher came to Ramana Maharshi: “I’ve come to learn truth.” Ramana said, “If you’ve come to learn, go elsewhere. Here you must first unlearn what you know. Empty the rubbish; make yourself clean, innocent like a child. Then something is possible.”

So, Om, if you would seek nature, let go what others taught you—even those things that look like diamonds. Anything borrowed is counterfeit, even if it shines.

Mulla Nasruddin gave his beloved a ring with a huge “diamond.” She asked, “Is it real?” Mulla said, “If it isn’t, my two rupees are wasted!” He had bought a “real diamond” for two rupees, with full confidence.

Counterfeits come cheap and deceive as if real. Whatever comes by influence is fake; what comes by nature is real. Inside you is the mine of true jewels, but you get entangled with glittering pebbles. Pebbles are pebbles.

No, Om—devotion, knowledge, and action must arise from within you. And they blossom from one soil: become quiet, become silent, become empty. These are flowers of emptiness; all three bloom together.

This too is to be understood. You have been told these are three separate paths—bhakti, jnana, karma. That is false. If learned by influence, they fragment; if known by nature, they arise together. They are three petals of one flower. It cannot be that a life has devotion and not knowledge—then what is the value of devotion? Nor can there be knowledge without prayerfulness. Impossible. Nor knowledge and love without compassion and service—impossible.

People have written three kinds of commentaries on the Gita. The jnana-margis like Shankaracharya insert knowledge everywhere—even if it isn’t there—declaring the world illusory and Brahman the only truth. The bhakti-margis like Ramanuja find devotion everywhere. Lokmanya Tilak finds karma everywhere—discarding both knowledge and devotion in favor of action. This is possible because Krishna’s words are born of self-experience; they carry the fragrance of all three. Whichever fragrance you choose to sniff will fill your being and you will see it everywhere.

But the one who knows by self-experience will say: these three happen together—this is the real confluence. The true Prayag is not the external one; the true pilgrimage is within, where devotion, knowledge, and action meet and merge. That is the true Trimurti—not Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh—but devotion, knowledge, and action dancing in one rhythm. This cannot happen by influence—only by nature.

Beware of others, because everyone is eager for you to be influenced; influence is a way to exploit, to enslave, to become master. You must guard your freedom with alertness. There is deceit everywhere. The greatest deceit is done “for your own good”—they climb on your chest “for your benefit,” cut your throat “for your welfare.” You can hardly refuse. They impose “good sanskaras” on you.

No imprint is good—imprint means bondage. Chains are chains, whether of iron or gold. One must be free of chains.

A new recruit to the police was warned by the inspector: “Be careful—this village is full of tricksters.” On his first day, eager not to return empty-handed, he waited for prey. He saw a man cycling without a light. He whipped out his notebook and asked, “Your name?” “Rameshchandra,” the man said. “Don’t try to fool me,” snapped the constable. “I’m a tough man. Tell me your real name.” The man said, “Idi Amin.” The policeman said, “Now that sounds right. You thought I’d fall for Ramesh!”

Borrowed alertness goes like this. He was determined no one would trick him—and became the fool.

Awareness that arises from nature has a rightness, a balance—no excess this side or that. There is music in such a life; and beauty in music.

I call sannyas the making of life musical—life becoming celebration, spring. Then know you have tasted religion.

But “religious” people look gloomy, defeated, dry, dead—autumn in their lives, no spring. That proves a fundamental mistake: they live under influence. And with influence, you get only autumn. You can hang plastic flowers—but plastic has no life, no fragrance, no bees, no humming, no butterflies. You’ll fool no one.

When the wind brimmed with ecstasy
and tangled with fragrance uninvited,
then my dream too got entangled
in some new, tender longings.
When marigolds burst in the gardens
and mustard bloomed in the fields,
suddenly a joy flowered
in my withered breath.
The quiver of a bud’s kiss
became a song in the bee’s hum,
and a fierce intoxication surged
through these heedless songs of mine.
With new longing, with new color,
spring entered my courtyard,
and unknowing, today I am reborn
among my own unknowns.
What is past was bewilderment—
it was ugly, it was hard.
Do not remind me of that yesterday;
failure weeps in the past.
When like a fog my breathing
was heavy and labored,
that dim shadow of sorrow
still sleeps in my eyes.
But today there is a new sparkle in the sun,
a new rising in the heart,
so that it seems this world
is becoming new, brand new.
New hope, new desire,
a new thirst for unfolding—
a new stream of life’s nectar
soaks the inner being today.
Give this body a new vigor,
give the mind a new awareness,
give life a new knowing—
O Lord of Seasons, accept my homage.
May I grow a hard detachment from pleasure,
an unflinching renunciation toward myself.
May I be such a fire
as to burn away the world’s wailing.
Let me be love for the world,
devotion for the people.
May I be such a strength
as to make an Eden on earth.
May this festival of spring
be auspicious in the temple of the heart.
As a human, may I today
salute humanity.
When the wind brimmed with ecstasy
and tangled with fragrance uninvited,
then my dream too got entangled
in some new, tender longings.
When marigolds burst in the gardens
and mustard bloomed in the fields,
suddenly a joy flowered
in my withered breath.
With new longing, with new color,
spring entered my courtyard,
and unknowing, today I am reborn
among my own unknowns.

There is a search for one spring, a spring that fills your life-breath with blossoms. It comes—but no one can give it to you. You must sow these seeds within yourself. You must do this farming inside. You must make this garden within. That is why Buddha says: appa dipa bhava—be a light unto yourself.

Om, be your own lamp!

A true master does not give you influences or imprints; he gives only pointers—for the inner journey. The true master does not mold you into his image; he inspires and supports you to find your own. He does not try to make you something else.

Old-style renunciates come here and say, “Teach your sannyasins conduct—when to rise (at brahma-muhurt), what to eat and drink, when to sleep, when to pray and worship.” I tell them my sannyas is not about handing out conduct. I remind my sannyasins of their nature; then I leave it to their freedom.

If I say, “Rise at five,” it may not suit everyone. Psychology has researched sleep. The conclusion: neither sleeping nor waking at the same hour suits all. Some will feel fresh rising at five; others will feel stale, dull, dragged all day. There can be no fixed rule.

Science has found each person enters dreamless, deep sleep for only two hours between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. Those two hours are real sleep—when the body renews, stress melts, every cell is refreshed. But those two hours are different for each. One person’s deep-sleep window might be between two and four. For him, rising at four is perfect—if he sleeps on, it becomes laziness, dreams, and he loses the freshness. Another’s deep sleep is between four and six; another’s between five and seven. With age it changes—infants sleep almost all day; youth around eight hours; the elderly four or five; the very old only those two real hours. No fixed doctrine can work. Each must inquire, experiment for a month or two, and find the right moment.

If I impose, it may by chance suit a few and hurt others. In Vinoba’s ashram, because he rises at three, all must rise at three. This is violence—an imposition. It becomes a chain of further absurdities: if they doze in the day, they’re called tamasic; then they’re told to change diet—drink only milk as the most sattvic food. But who told you milk is sattvic? Milk is midway between vegetarian and non-vegetarian; it comes from blood and flesh. It’s not grown on trees; it is an animal product, like eggs. Now there are even “vegetarian” eggs, but there is no “vegetarian” milk. And drinking milk increases sexuality; it is a highly erotic food. Drink a bull’s milk (the cow’s milk is meant for the calf who will become the bull) and expect to become sattvic? You may become bullish!

In Kashi I asked, “What is the city famed for?” They said, “For three things: bulls, widows, and clowns.” “And sannyasins?” “Count them among the bulls.” Old-style “sattvic” diet yields its consequences. Apart from humans, no animal drinks milk after infancy; milk is needed for the immature. To drink it lifelong is unnatural, and it involves violence—snatching the milk meant for another’s child.

Thus, one imposition breeds many—dietary rules, then repression of sexuality, then headstands to force semen upward. Nonsense grows from small rigidities.

Each person needs a different diet; each must discover his own needs. Each needs a different medicine. The chemist’s store has many medicines; not every bottle is for you—drink randomly, and it is poison. Scriptures list many medicines—but who will decide your need? A true master listens to your situation and offers a suggestion, not a command—an indication, not an order. He cannot say, “Do this—this alone is right.” Right and wrong will be decided through your own testing; you must experiment upon yourself.

Religion turns each person into a laboratory—to experiment within one’s own inner world. Only through experiment do you know what is right for you. And what’s right for you may not be right for someone else—so don’t impose it. Influence creates the danger that we begin to impose. Others impose on us; we, in turn, impose on others.

Religion cannot be imposed; it is not an imposition. Then what is the function of the true master? To clarify, to untie knots, to suggest, to point—like a finger to the moon. But the finger is not the moon; do not start worshiping the finger. Look at the moon—and the moon is within you. Every true master tries in every way to turn you inward. All yogas, all meditations point in one direction: go on the inner journey. From there your nature will flower; the lotus will blossom; fragrance will arise—and only that fragrance can be offered at the feet of the divine.

Krishnanand,
Attain it first, then ask. Once you attain, you will know it cannot be expressed. Because the matter is so vast and words are so small. The matter is so mysterious and words are so petty. The matter is infinite and words are makeshift. Words are useful in the practical; but they are not ultimate—they are incapable of revealing that which is of the highest meaning.

Beloved companion, I could not sing to my heart’s content.
Singing is but a pretext of this mind;
the true aim of life is vision.
I went on dyeing the rose, yet on the canvas I could not raise my own image.
In these songs there is the crimson ray of dawn,
infant ripples, a youthful day-star.
Countless, matchless forms are bound within—yet I myself could not enter the songs.
Some feelings of love are bound and narrowed,
some fear, some faith of the heart,
but that essence which is beyond these I could not seat in letters.
Imagination has roamed the sky,
in victory’s woods, in the Nandan gardens;
I have wandered worlds and grown weary, yet have not reached my own home.
Singing, drunk on the pride of triumph,
I cannot reach myself.
In the worship of memory I could never offer two flowers to the deity.
I circle the periphery upon periphery,
I sway with mere fragrance.
That untasted chalice of nectar, untouched—my lips I could not press upon it.
Before me a light quivers,
a blossom laughs and giggles.
I keep sketching what I see, yet I could not make the picture.
On cloth after cloth I draw and erase,
still something invisible remains.
What is this illusory secret? To my mind I have not yet explained it.
Each moment there seems some far-off land,
some final song remains;
I see its shadow—yet I could not come to know the body.
Wings spread, I keep flying,
songs along the sky’s far shores,
toward that unsung song to which I could never press my very life.
The day it comes into sound,
nothing further will remain;
saying it, I will say that which till now I could never make heard.

There is something that does not come into songs. There is something that does not come even into music. There is something for which there is no way to bind it—within any boundary. That boundless is what we call God. And you will find Him only when you, too, become utterly empty; you won’t remain; the I-sense will not remain. There will be no words, no mind, no thinking or contemplating—then you will find Him. You will find Him in wordlessness; how then will you express Him in words?

And who will express Him? In attaining Him, you will be lost; the one who could express does not remain apart. Therefore God has indeed been known, but no one has been able to make Him known. And it isn’t that people haven’t tried. Every enlightened one has tried—tried tirelessly—to speak. To say at least something, if not the whole; to speak a fragment, if not the entirety. But the matter is such that in the very saying it flies off into thin air; it cannot reach you.

Hence, whoever gets entangled in the words of the true masters misses. Immerse yourself in the presence of the masters. You will understand their words only when you begin to understand their silence. Bind yourself to the masters in love, in one music. If the heartbeat of you and your master becomes one, in rhythm, then perhaps a little glimpse, a slight thrill of that which cannot be said may reach you—a small wave, not the ocean, but a small wave; a gust of wind may come, bringing a little of the fragrance to you—up to your nostrils.

But Krishnanand, why worry now? For now, worry about attaining. We are very strange people! We raise strange questions. You have not attained yet, and you are anxious about why, after attaining God, that experience cannot be expressed? This is a hypothetical question. It has no value. First attain, then you will know why it cannot be made known! You yourself will smile, you yourself will laugh. The question will not arise at all. It arises only because as yet you have no taste of the vastness within yourself. But even in life, if you explore a little, you will find experiences that cannot be told.

You wake at dawn and watch the sun rise—the beauty of it. Can you convey it to someone? Yes, if you wish you can take a photograph, you can paint a picture of sunrise. But is a picture of the sunrise the sunrise? If you keep it in the dark, will there be light?

There will not. Even a photograph of sunrise is dead. The sun is racing on, soaring—rising into the sky. In your picture the sunrise is frozen: it will not move, it will not sway.

A little child, sitting beside his mother, was looking through the old family album. A picture comes up of a young man—beautiful curly hair, a robust body. He asked, “Mommy, who is this?”
His mother said, “Oh, son, you didn’t recognize him? That’s your papa!”
He said, “My papa? Then the old fogey who lives in the house—who is he? I had thought he was my papa till now.”
A picture is a picture—taken when the father was young. The picture stayed where it was; the father grew decrepit. Not a hair left on his head. Where those curly locks went—no one knows. The boy is right to ask: if this is my papa, then that man I’ve been thinking my papa—who is this who has entered our house? Why don’t we get rid of him?

The child is asking the right question; it’s an important question. A picture is dead.

Someone said to Picasso, “I saw your picture in a house; it was so lovely”—a beautiful actress was telling him—“that I couldn’t resist, I hugged it to my chest and kissed your picture.”
Picasso asked, “Really! And what did the picture do then?”
She said, “What could a picture do? It did nothing.”
He said, “Then it must have been something else; it wasn’t me. Because if someone kisses me and I don’t respond! And you too—” Picasso said—“you met me so many times, yet you never hugged me, never kissed me! And fool, you hugged the picture while I’m sitting here alive!”

But people fall in love with pictures. Words are pictures. Scriptures are pictures. There, everything dies.

Therefore I keep telling you: don’t get entangled in words. If there is someone who has known God, who has lived Him, sit near him, move around him. Just by being near him, perhaps the magic will happen. It’s a matter of magic.

That’s all for today.