Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #12

Narendra! Sannyas is indeed the loftiest experience of life. It is the peak of Gaurishankar.

But heights carry a danger: if you fall from them, survival is difficult. From the peak you tumble into deep ravines; on level ground a fall is not so risky. Those who fly in high skies accept danger. That is why, when India fell, it fell as no other country has. And why? Because India accepted the challenge of soaring high—set out to attain astounding heights.

Sannyas means living not as a thing among things, but as a soul. It means not remaining entangled only in the seen, but discovering the unseen; not clinging to form, but letting life be related to the formless. Sannyas is the proclamation that life is not limited to the flickering bubbles arising in the stream of time between birth and death. Life is eternal—before birth and after death; thousands of births and thousands of deaths occur, yet the river of life flows on, unbroken, incessant. To know that unbroken, eternal, timeless is sannyas. Nothing can be higher. Beyond it there is no “above.” Where there is neither time nor space, neither qualities nor form; where all dualities fall away and man tastes nonduality—there is sannyas. But whoever flies so high accepts the risk.

India dared the incredible—spread its wings to touch moon and stars. And a few fortunate birds did touch them: a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Kabir, a Nanak, a Farid. But those who could not, who went half-heartedly—who flew yet were bound to earth, who flew and yet did not; whose flight was merely intellectual, not existential—fell badly. Their bones were shattered.

So the history of sannyas is both the history of accepting a unique challenge and, alongside it, a history of misfortune.

No country has fallen in this way—and cannot, because they never aspired so high. We have a word: yogabhraṣṭa, one fallen from yoga. Have you ever heard an equivalent: bhogabhraṣṭa, one fallen from indulgence? There is no such word. Does that mean the indulgent cannot fall? How would he? He walks on level ground. Only the yogi can fall—because only he can ascend. Only he who moves can go astray; one who never leaves his doorway can never go off the path.

Thus many people in the world avoid challenges; there is a convenience in that—you will never fall, never go astray, never err. Such people are cowards, impotent—afraid to act lest they make a mistake. If you do anything, mistakes are possible—inevitable at first. We learn by erring.

So I say to you: make plenty of mistakes! Only, don’t repeat the same one—repetition shows you haven’t learned. And don’t fear falling. Fall and rise. If you can fall, you can rise. Within you is the capacity to rise again and again. Don’t sit still for fear of falling, or you will become crippled. If a bird refuses to fly for fear of getting lost in the sky, it will remain imprisoned in its nest.

India accepted the supreme challenge—to seek God. India’s inner being was forged in the search for the divine. In India’s very breath is one call: How can we know that supreme power, that ultimate truth? But with great challenge comes great danger. Some flew and arrived. Many did not fly; they only learned to talk about flying, and took delight in that. Talking of flight is cheap. The truly wise were few; the pundits became many.

India’s misfortune is its pundits. A pundit is a parrot—a man who talks of the sky without any experience of it, without ever tasting it; who never spread his wings, never leapt into the unknown. Yes, they have maps—complete descriptions of heaven and hell. But they know neither heaven nor hell. They have words—fine words, polished over centuries, washed in many people’s blood. They have subtle exegeses, hair-splitting arguments. Yet they sit confined in their nests. They do not fly. Their words don’t even move themselves. In India sannyas declined because of punditry.

So first cause of decline: punditry. Life is refined by experience, becomes skillful through living. In talk it goes astray. In talk you go nowhere; you remain just as you are. Your words alone cannot revolutionize your life.

Only those can sustain the majesty of sannyas who remember not to get lost in words, not to trap emptiness in them; to keep the void empty—because only in that emptiness can God descend. God asks for the emptiness of your heart; it is his throne. But your heart is full of scriptures. There is no space for Rama; the Ramayana fills you. There is no room for Krishna; like parrots you recite the Gita. How can God come when your inside resounds with the Quran, the Bible, the Vedas?

God comes only when there is total silence—no ripple of sound, no note, no word remains within. The day the music of emptiness plays in you, the Beloved comes—he has to come! Hearing that music, the ultimate depths of existence rush toward you; it has such allure, such gravity. As a snake sways to the snake-charmer’s pipe, so when the music of your inner void sounds, God too begins to dance all around you.

Scientists were astonished watching snakes dance to the been. Why? Snakes have no ears! You’ll be surprised—snakes indeed have no ears. Then how do they hear? Many theories arose: perhaps seeing the charmer sway, the snake sways; for the player rocks with the pipe. But when players were asked to play without swaying, the snake still danced; and when they swayed without the pipe, the snake did not.

After much inquiry an unusual fact emerged: the snake has no ears, but its every hair, every particle hears; its whole body listens—vibrates to waves of sound. Its ear is spread over the entire body—hence we couldn’t find an organ called “ear.” Its whole body is ear.

The day the music of emptiness resounds within you, the whole of existence becomes ear. Trees will hear, moon and stars will hear, mountains will hear. Existence will sway around you; every hair, every particle will dance near you. Just imagine that wondrous moment—when the whole cosmos dances at your side; the rasa begins around you; nectar showers upon you, and God takes his seat in your emptiness. That moment is called sannyas.

Sannyas does not mean leaving the world; it means attaining God. Understand the distinction in this basic statement of mine. Those who move by renouncing become contracted. Living in negation is dangerous—self-destructive. No one can live in “no.” Whoever lives in no, no, no will find life shrinking with every no. “Not this, not that”—neti-neti—you will wither. That may be a definition of ascetic renunciation, but not of sannyas. I call sannyas iti-iti: this also, this also. Live in yes; live in acceptance.

So first danger: punditry. Pundits destroyed the dignity of sannyas. Its virgin emptiness got filled with a web of hollow words, doctrines, and scriptures.

“Every claim of ascent I once accepted,
I searched each corner of creation.
Having known all, O intimate companion,
I came to know this: I know nothing.”

Sannyas descends into the lives of those who have the courage to say, “I am ignorant; I know nothing.”

“I know nothing—that I have come to know.”
This is supreme knowledge. As long as you “know” something, it is petty knowledge, worldly knowledge—the kind schools and universities provide. The day you can say, “I know nothing,” that day is supreme knowing—because you become utterly innocent. The burden of knowledge is gone, the crowd of words gone, the clamor of mind gone; within arises virgin silence, the void. Sannyas is the shadow of that void; sannyas is the guest of that emptiness.

So first, the pundit struck the blow. The second calamity was negation—denial.

The word Brahman means expansion. So sannyas cannot be denial—because sannyas is the search for Brahman. Consider: “expansion” in our tongue springs from the same root as Brahman. We coined a unique word millennia ago: Brahman for the fundamental reality of existence, and brahmanda for the cosmos. Brahman means that which goes on expanding endlessly; without beginning or end; limitless. Brahmanda is the manifest of that expansion. Brahman is unmanifest, brahmanda manifest—both ceaselessly expanding. Science took ten thousand years to stumble upon what the mystics had seen in meditation. Albert Einstein proclaimed a crucial insight: the universe is not static; it is expanding—like a child blowing air into a balloon, it keeps growing. Existence is swelling at tremendous speed.

What physics now says, spirituality said long ago; hence we named the ultimate “Brahman.” No other people gave such a name. Sufis have a hundred beautiful names—Rahim, compassionate; Rahman, merciful—but none equal to Brahman. It means: the ever-expanding. Expansion is its very nature.

If Brahman ever-expands, sannyas cannot be contraction. To relate to Brahman you must be somewhat like Brahman—expand.

But the tragedy here is that sannyas began to shrink. We made it a matter of how much you could leave, not how much you could attain. We started praising sannyasins for having left so much wealth, so many horses, elephants, palaces, gold coins. This is wrong thinking. What was attained? How much meditation? The measure should not be “how much wealth was left,” but “how much awareness was gained; how much love blossomed; how much of God was realized.”

So a second fundamental mistake: sannyas was noosed with denial. Sannyas came to mean: leave, leave, leave.

Mind, I am not saying nothing falls away in sannyas. Understand carefully. You don’t “have to” drop things—much does drop. But there is no stance of dropping, no insistence on renunciation. You were carrying a stone thinking it was a diamond. A connoisseur told you otherwise; you examined and saw the truth—then does it have to be “renounced”? It slips away. Will you beat drums and take out a parade that you are renouncing a “diamond”? If you take out a parade, you still see it as a diamond. As long as it appears a diamond, what renunciation? You may walk away, but diamonds will swim in your dreams; it will live as ego—before you boasted “I have a diamond,” now you boast “I kicked the diamond.” The second boast is subtler, more dangerous—more egoic.

No, in sannyas things fall away on their own. Light the lamp and darkness doesn’t need to be renounced; it disappears. When the flame of meditation is kindled, the grip on the nonessential relaxes, hands open—effortlessly. My emphasis is on attaining meditation, not on giving up money.

Hence it happened that when meditation dawned, King Janaka remained in his palace, on his throne. Do you think Janaka “did not” leave his throne and only Mahavira did? Then you are blind. Janaka also left it. But what is the point in announcing it? He saw it was futile—finished. Where to go? Where to run? He remained where he was; illusions, attachments, clinging broke. The palace remained; the throne remained; the treasury remained; the kingdom functioned as before; and Janaka became like a lotus in water. All as it was—bridges of attachment gone.

Janaka left his throne as much as Mahavira did. Mahavira left in the gross, Janaka in the subtle. I would say: by following Mahavira, sannyas lost its dignity. Had it taken Janaka as foundation, its dignity would have remained. Sannyas became “leaving.”

I am not saying Mahavira erred. For him, it was natural. But those who imitated him, for whom it was not natural or born of understanding—they corrupted sannyas.

Second: denial. Whatever is anti-life becomes a partisan of death. Sannyas committed a kind of suicide.

There is no treasure greater than the earth.
Life sprouted here, blossomed, bathed in its sap.
When, weary of roaming stars, moon, and sun,
God’s body lay asleep in stones.

Do not run away from this earth; it is dear. In every stone the divine sleeps. To denigrate the earth, the very mother whose sap we drink—then we are like trees whose roots are torn out. If uprooted trees die, what is surprising?

Sannyas tried to live without roots—uprooted from the earth. Impossible. The earth loses nothing if a tree’s roots are pulled; the tree dies. Sannyas should be such that feet are rooted in earth and head converses with the sky. Feet firm in soil, wings in the sky—that is whole sannyas. This earth is his, and this sky too. Both are ours. No need to deny earth to affirm sky. Earth and sky are not two; they are a single song’s two verses, a veena’s two strings—break one and life is incomplete.

The sannyasin made the mistake of severing from earth—calling it low, sinful—and thus cut his own roots. What remained in hand were only superstitions. Wherever the sap of earth does not flow through a life-teaching, no flowers bloom. If you see flowers there, know it is illusion, eye’s deceit, a dream.

“A whole lifetime mysticism bewildered me;
In that sea I found not a single pearl.
Each time I drew in my net,
Some delusion or other snagged.”

True mysticism was lost; a counterfeit spread. It always happens: where real coins circulate, counterfeit soon appears. And a law of economics applies widely: bad money drives out good. If you carry one fake and one real ten-rupee note, which will you spend first? You’ll try to pass the fake. So fakes circulate, the real end up locked away.

So too in life. Counterfeits are cheap—minted at home. The real demands labor. True sannyas is tapasya, disciplined alchemy; the transformation of lust into love, anger into compassion. It is a great work—climbing mountains, ascending high. It takes time—years, even lives. The fake is easy. Someone’s wife dies, he is sad—he becomes a renunciate. Someone goes bankrupt—becomes a renunciate. Someone can’t find a job—becomes a renunciate.

In this country there may be five million sannyasins; ninety-nine percent are lazy, indolent, good-for-nothing—who ought to have been thrown on the rubbish heap; instead they sit “most revered.” And you worship them—because they taught you what to worship: whoever fasts, worship him; whoever stands naked in the sun, worship him.

But standing naked in the sun is no virtue—it creates nothing. Any fool can do it; only fools will. Intelligence says: if the sun is hot, sit in the shade; when it’s too cold, step into the sun. The fool does the reverse.

Yet you revere the inverted. If thirsty, drink—that’s intelligence. But if you don’t drink when thirsty, people will touch your feet. If you don’t eat when hungry, crowds will assemble to honor you.

Real mysticism was lost; the fake took its place.

“A whole lifetime mysticism bewildered me;
In that sea I found not a single pearl.
Each time I drew in my net,
Some delusion or other snagged.”

How many delusions—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—piled one upon another, and you lie buried beneath them!

Sannyas died—defeated, dust-laden—because it cut itself off from authenticity and individuality, and emphasized imitation.

First: sannyas died because of punditry.
Second: it died because of denial.
Third: it died because of imitation.

Sannyas is a declaration of individuality. My sannyas will be mine; yours will be yours. No two persons are alike—never were, never will be. Existence does not make carbon copies. Each is unique, incomparable. In all time you are alone. As your thumbprint is only yours, so is your soul’s imprint. If even your thumb is unique, how much more your soul!

Third: sannyas died through imitation—doing what another does regardless of your inner witness. What suits another may be right for him.

Mahavira stood naked; Krishna did not. Hence Jains won’t accept Krishna as God. Not only that, their scriptures consign Krishna to hell—because if your yardstick is Mahavira, Krishna must be condemned. Mahavira renounced everything; Krishna renounced nothing. Mahavira stands naked; Krishna wears silk-yellow garments and peacock crown, plays the flute, dances the rasa with sixteen thousand companions. How will you reconcile?

Mahavira says: step with care lest an ant be harmed; filter water; don’t move in the dark. Krishna tells Arjuna: don’t fear, fight! The Divine does all—kills and gives life; we are only instruments. Strike boldly; nainam chindanti shastrani—no weapon can slay the soul.

See the difference! One says: blow upon each step lest a creature be hurt—violence is sin. The other: fight! Arjuna was preparing to be a Jain—saying: do not embroil me in this sin; what will I do with a kingdom gained by slaughter? My hands will never be cleansed. Let me go. His bow had slipped; he sat dejected. Krishna said: fight, O coward—this does not befit you. Are you becoming unmanly? You are a kshatriya; to be a kshatriya is your nature. Swadharme nidhanam shreyah—better to die in one’s own nature; paradharmo bhayavahah—another’s is perilous. These sannyas-talks do not suit your nature.

Do not take swadharma to mean Hinduism—there was no Hindu/Muslim/Christian then. “Hindu” itself is a later coinage by foreigners. When the first Persians came, they pronounced “Sindhu” as “Hindu,” and those by the river became “Hindu,” and so on to Indus and India. So which “religion” was Krishna talking about? He meant the religion of your individuality. He tells Arjuna: I know you—through and through a warrior; your soul is a blade; you were born for battle; only there will you flower. Don’t turn deserter—that is not for you.

Jains are angry—Mahabharata would not have happened if Arjuna were left alone; Krishna tricked him. He struggled—hence the length of the Gita!—but Krishna somehow persuaded him to war. So Jains throw Krishna into the seventh, final hell, not to be released till the next kalpa—when this creation dissolves and a new one begins. Meanwhile Hindus call Krishna a complete incarnation. Hindus scarcely mention Mahavira in their scriptures at all. If Jain and Buddhist texts did not exist, Mahavira might hardly be known.

But I tell you: Krishna attained godliness, and so did Mahavira. Neither is to be dismissed or damned. What we’ve not understood is that Mahavira is Mahavira, Krishna is Krishna; each has his own individuality. The lotus will flower as lotus; the rose as rose. If you decree that only lotus-like flowering counts, then roses, jasmines, champa, juhi, ketaki—all are lost. This world is delightful because it is diverse, and each person has his own uniqueness.

Sannyas died because we tried to erase individuality. We produced soldiers in the name of sannyas—imitators, followers, sheep—not lions. But sannyas can only belong to lions; it is a lion’s roar—the ultimate declaration of individuality and freedom.

So Narendra, your question is apt: sannyas was born here.

If this land gave the world anything, it is sannyas—a unique gift, the most precious flower in the evolution of human consciousness.

You say: “It was given the majesty of Gaurishankar.”
Indeed. We placed Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas on unparalleled heights. We had to; their feet were such, their aura such, their magic such.

And you ask: “But today its respect is only superficial.”
True. Today in the name of sannyas there is a crowd of hollow people—imitations, carbon copies. How can you truly honor them? You do, out of habit—because fathers and grandfathers did. A sannyasin arrives and you mechanically bow—without awareness. Two things result: outward respect is given, inward respect is absent. Better you stop. If you stop, ninety-nine out of a hundred will quit sannyas instantly—they are there for your respect. However false, it is still respect—and nothing is craved more than honor; and here it comes free!

In the West, to be honored you must create—be a Picasso, a Rodin, a Beethoven. In the East, be a Beethoven or a Kalidasa—no one cares. At best, when some petty politician arrives, Kalidasa will be asked to compose a panegyric. Painters are made to paint politicians’ portraits; creators are not honored.

Everywhere honor is due to creation: add a flower, a song, a beauty, a wave of joy to the world—and you are honored. In India, such people get no respect. Fast! Starve! Stand naked in the sun! Dry out your body! Tear your hair! And you will be honored.

I once passed a village; a huge crowd blocked the square. I asked why: a Digambara Jain monk was performing kesh-luncha—plucking his hair. If a man wants to pluck his hair, let him—but why the crowd? People weeping: “What great renunciation!” Often madmen pull their hair; when your wife goes mad, she pulls her hair. Perhaps this man is mad; or perhaps he’s a born barber—let him pluck! But why the crowd? And I tell you: if the crowd stopped gathering, he would stop plucking. What for? Better pay a barber two rupees. Your crowd forces him; garlands him; women sob. He enjoys it—the cheap gratification. And for what? Nothing is created, no one benefits.

In another village friends told me: a great saint lives here; you should meet—he has been standing for ten years. They call him “Standing Shri Baba.” If a man wants to stand, let him. But around him piles of money, priests doing business. They have tied his hands to rafters so he cannot sit; crutches under his arms; elephantiasis in his legs. A sick man, suffering uselessly—finding only the joy of respect. Crowds, donations, a bazaar. What is the gain? His eyes are vacant—no intelligence in such acts. Yet such nonsense is honored. People give respect outwardly while their souls don’t feel it—hence hypocrisy grows.

Understand rightly: sannyas is creativity. What you take for sannyas today is a kind of self-destruction, slow suicide.

“Now even new songs seem old;
The notes may be fresh, but the meter is the same.
Within the meters, the ragas still battle;
In gardens sprouting thoughts, the flowers are new,
But the nectar is the same.
When imagination comes to truth’s field of tapas,
Even our own dreams seem unfamiliar.
Destruction is easy; creation is difficult.
Fall is simple; ascent is hard.
In the clamor of equality and inequality,
It’s hard to tell mine from thine.
On the footpath of some distant land,
Complete strangers seem somehow known.
I am not a thing beyond understanding,
Nor a night passed only in talk.
What can storms do to me?
I am a mountain—steadfast, not a tender blossom.
In nights wrapped in doubt’s darkness,
Assurances sound like excuses.
Now even new songs seem old.”

So hackneyed has it all become. Time to be free of it.

Destruction is easy; creation is difficult.
And your sannyas is hackneyed, stale—bottles change but the poison within is the same—and the essence of that poison is destructiveness.

Give sannyas creation—poetry, music, art. Expect the sannyasin to create, to contribute, to gift something to the world. Do not have negative expectations; have affirmative ones.

Such is the new sannyas I am birthing.

In my sannyas there is no prohibition—no “leave this, run from that.” Awakening is enough. Cowards run. Those who awaken remain where they are and are free there. My sannyas does not want to give you knowledge; it wants to give you meditation. Meditation means emptiness; it means: I do not know. Life is such an ultimate mystery that nothing definitive can be known about it. And I want to give sannyas a new posture—creativity. I will call him a sannyasin who sings a new song; who strikes a new music from the veena; who dances a new dance; who makes this world a little more beautiful, brings a little more blessedness to the earth.

Then sannyas can regain its dignity.

And I would have the sannyasin not imitate. Listen, understand, contemplate—but live from your own individuality. Therefore I give my sannyasins no codes of conduct—only processes to awaken the within. Then, from that awakened within, live as feels right. If someone must live like Krishna, live like Krishna; if like Mahavira, like Mahavira; if like Buddha, then Buddha—but let the call come from your inner voice. I will not command. I can only give awareness.

Those entering sannyas with me face one great difficulty: they want me to give them conduct—exact rules: when to rise, when to sleep, what to eat, drink, how to walk—an entire regimen. After that they would not be sannyasins, but prisoners. For centuries it has been taught that a true guru gives conduct—meaning: he imposes his experience on you. But what suits me may not suit you. Perhaps rising at 3 a.m. is blissful for me but miserable for you—leaving you dull all day.

Ask scientists: each person’s optimal rising time differs. In every twenty-four hours, body temperature drops for two hours at night—time varies person to person. During those two hours, sleep is deepest; if you miss them, your day is ruined. So how can I set a rule?

People ask: tell us exactly when to rise. I say: experiment. Try three, four, five, six, seven, eight—see when you feel the most music, the most harmony. That is your brahmamuhurta. Brahmamuhurta is no rigid dictum.

You’ll be surprised: research says women should rise a little later than men, because their temperature dip occurs later—often between five and seven; men’s often between three and five or four and six. So the first morning tea should be prepared by the husband, not the wife—and husbands should feel proud, not insulted!

I cannot give you fixed rules about food either—needs differ. But I can give awareness—meditative processes to polish your seeing. On that basis, find your conduct: when to wake, what and how much to eat, what your daily rhythm should be.

Thus each of my sannyasins will have his own life pattern—no marching in lockstep. I don’t want soldiers; I don’t want to drill you. Though you want that—so you need not think or chew; you’d rather swallow what is pre-chewed, even if it is someone else’s leftovers, than take the trouble.

Life is not so cheap. Lived that way, it is lost.

To find life you need one fundamental weapon, one bow in your hand. I call that bow meditation, awareness, wakefulness. By its light you will find the doors and not crash into walls. Why should I tell you where walls and doors are when I can give you a lamp? Besides, in each house doors and walls are in different places—each person is different.

It is happening; it will happen. There are a hundred thousand sannyasins of mine on the earth today; within five years they will be a million. If even ten among them reach that exalted peak attained by Buddhas, my effort succeeds. Sannyas can regain its majesty—it must. I am utterly committed to this endeavor.

“Though night may clasp the Milky Way like chains,
The new dawn cannot be imprisoned.
Death may play the hunter,
But life cannot be made its prey.
Who can turn back time’s sharp, swift current?
Who can break the bond between the path of longing and its goal?”

The time has come to proclaim sannyas anew. Humanity cannot be saved without it. The world’s burdens—possessions, complexities—press heavily on man’s chest; he is being crushed. Sannyas is needed to remove the stones.

Who can turn the fierce current of time? Time itself is ripe for the proclamation—religion must be reborn. And it will no longer be Hindu, Christian, Muslim. It will be simply religiousness. The old adjectives have harmed us enough. The days of mosques, temples, churches—separate and divisive—are over. Now all are ours. We will make the whole earth a temple. Wherever we sit in prayer becomes a temple. The days of books, and of dividing over them—one for Vedas, one for Quran—are over. Time to recognize: the song in the Vedas is the same in the Quran—language differs. And that same song is hidden in our own hearts—expression differs. Until the song of our own being manifests, the Vedas remain unread, the Quran unheard. Only he who knows truth within can recognize it in Veda, Quran, Dhammapada, Bible. The time of books is past; the time to open the book of the soul has come near.

Who can turn time’s sharp current?
Who can break the bond between the traveler of love and his destination?

For me, sannyas is another name for love of God. You’ve heard the definition: sannyas means leaving the world. I say: sannyas means falling in love with God. Why speak of small things like “leaving the world”?

And there is an amusing contradiction: your so-called sadhus say the world is maya—illusion—yet say, “Leave it!” If it’s unreal, what is there to leave? They say the world is a dream—then say, “Renounce it.” They say it is false—then strut about having “left” it. Is there pride in giving up a falsehood? If you used to add two plus two as five and one day discovered it is four, will you parade, “I have renounced adding five; now I add four”? You would rather hide your old foolishness.

Yet your so-called saints proclaim: “I have left the world,” and in the same breath call it maya. If the world is maya, don’t give it attention—neither in grasping nor in leaving. In both you give it value. Value belongs to God.

For me, sannyas is love for the divine. When love becomes sannyas, the peak of Gaurishankar rises again; we move above the clouds; we reach moon and stars. The time is ripe; it must happen.

Who can break the bond between the traveler of love and the goal?
No one can break the lover’s tie.

Color yourself in God’s hue; sell yourself in God’s beauty—that is the meaning of my sannyas.

“We are dyed in your color,
We have sold ourselves for your form.
Bathed with you in milk-washed moonbeams,
These eyes no longer obey—now they speak your language,
Ever since you played hide-and-seek with them.
The outer senses forget;
The heart calls only your name,
Since you came to dandle us,
Sitting at the doorway of our dreams.
Some strange enchantment:
The poet composes your songs,
Saying: apart from you,
Nothing remains to go to.
Whenever you sashay and preen,
Wearing your green-dupatta season,
The whole season sings a ballad—
Some tale of love.
We are dyed in your color;
We have sold ourselves for your form—
Bathed with you in milk-washed moonbeams.”

Saint! You are speaking just like the old saints: “My mind is a great rascal!”
Don’t abuse the mind. Learn to use it. The mind is a precious instrument—there is nothing more wondrous. It is God’s supreme gift to you. With this very mind, if you choose, you can get entangled in the world; with this very mind, if you choose, you can disentangle yourself. With this mind you can descend the steps to hell; with this mind heaven can be yours. Don’t call it a rascal. The mind does not mislead you—you want to wander, and the mind becomes your companion. The mind is your servant, your attendant. If you steal, the mind proposes ways to steal; if you sing a hymn, the mind starts composing hymns. If you worship, the mind becomes adoration; if you sin, the mind becomes sin. But man has a very basic habit: to put the blame on something—never to take it upon himself.

Look, saint, you say: “What should I do?”
You have separated yourself.
“My mind is a great rascal!”
You’ve dumped everything on the mind: the mind is the rascal; I’m a good man, but this mind leads me astray. You have broken yourself off from the mind. You have shifted the responsibility to the mind. This is our trick—and because of such tricks we neither rise nor awaken.

It’s man’s habit to blame something or other. Someone says, “It’s fate—what can I do?” Someone says, “God made me like this—what can I do?” Someone says, “Man is bound by nature’s laws.” Karl Marx says man is shackled by social structures—what can he do? Sigmund Freud says man is enmeshed in the web of the unconscious drives—what can he do? But the meaning of all of them is one and the same: you will remain as you are; nothing can be done. Because the fault is not yours—it lies elsewhere. Call it by any name—A, B, C—it doesn’t matter.

I want to remind you: the mind doesn’t mislead you; when you want to wander, the mind goes along with you; when you don’t want to wander, the mind will support you in that too. The mind is a very sweet servant. If you choose anger, the mind becomes anger. If you choose compassion, the mind becomes compassion. The mind follows behind you. You are talking upside down.

You say, “What can I do—this shadow takes me to the wrong place.” The shadow is yours. Wherever you go, it goes. Yet you curse the shadow: “What can I do—yesterday this shadow took me to a brothel. It just started moving in that direction all by itself!”
Can a shadow take you to a brothel? You went to the brothel—the shadow had to go. Had you gone to the temple, the shadow would have gone to the temple. The mind is your shadow.

I cannot support this line of yours. You are asleep, in a swoon, so the mind supports you in your swoon. Just wake up a little! I also have a mind; I use it as much as you do—perhaps more. Buddha had a mind too. After enlightenment, for forty-two years he spoke continuously—without mind, how would he speak? Who would speak? He went on explaining—village to village, lane to lane, knocking on every door. Who would do that without the mind? After realization Mahavira delivered his message for forty years. Who would do that without mind?

The mind does not only hurl abuses—it also sings songs. If you are abusing, don’t abuse the mind. The mind is helpless—compelled by you. The mind is yours. But we play a trick—we separate ourselves. We say, “We are different, washed in milk—and this mind is the rascal! It tells me to do such-and-such; what can I do?”

It isn’t so. Come to your senses! Look closely! You are the master; the mind is the slave. Because the master in you is asleep, the mind, poor thing—what can it do?—has sat on the master’s throne. You have made it the master by sleeping. You have become so dependent on the servant that you ask the servant, “Where should we go? What should we do?”

Mulla Nasruddin told me yesterday: “I saw a strange thing this evening from my window—something that had come from the moon: blue and orange, moving slowly, and inside it scores of tiny little men!”
I said, “Dear Mulla, don’t drink so much at dusk. What you saw was a school bus. It wasn’t something descended from the moon—no flying saucer. And those tiny men you saw were schoolchildren.”
When a man is drunk, he sees things as they are not. And then you’ll blame the wine! Or did you drink it? Wine does not pour itself down your throat. No one forces it down your throat. Wine doesn’t call out, “Come drink me.” You drink—you get intoxicated.

One night Mulla Nasruddin came home drunk. Standing under an electric pole he was banging on it. A policeman was watching. After a while he felt pity and asked, “Sir, what are you doing?”
Nasruddin said, “Can’t you see? I’m knocking on my front door. My wife must have fallen asleep—let her wake up and open it.”
The policeman laughed: “Sir, this is not a house—look closely!”
Nasruddin said, “Don’t try to fool me. I am looking closely—there’s a light on upstairs!”
Another night he returned even more drunk. He wanted to put the key into the lock, but his hands were shaking; the key wouldn’t go in. A passerby saw him, came over, and said, “Sir, give me the key—I’ll open it for you.”
Mulla said, “I’ll put in the key myself—you just hold this trembling house steady!”

An unconscious man lives in a different world. And we are all unconscious until the lamp of awareness is lit.

Don’t abuse the mind, saint! The mind is doing exactly what you want it to do. There is a danger in abusing the mind: you may start trying to change the mind. That’s what abusing leads to. If you get too troubled by the mind, you’ll try to change it—and whoever tries to change the mind will block it on one side and find that it has started the same work from another door. Shut the front door, it comes in the back. This is how hypocrisy is born. It is this “my mind is a great rascal” that has created hypocrisy. The mind has to be understood, not abused. And to understand it you must awaken the light of meditation. In the light of meditation you can watch the mind: What is happening? What is being done? Then you will never abuse the mind. Rather, you will thank God: “What an extraordinary instrument you have given me!”

Scientists have built huge computers that can do everything the mind does. Yet to equal one human mind, you would need thousands of computers. Even then, computers are not as subtle as the human mind. And thousands of computers would take up vast space, while within this small head such an astonishing process is unfolding!
Scientists say there is so much potential in one human brain that all the libraries of the world could be contained in it. All the information humanity has gathered till now could fit into a single human mind. Such a marvelous device is in your possession. In this small head is a brain with some seven billion delicate fibers. They are so fine that if you place one on another, and go on stacking them, a hundred thousand fibers would equal the thickness of a single hair. And each fiber can hold millions of bits of information.

Understand the mind and you will be wonderstruck. No flower is so wondrous. Nothing in this world is as amazing as the human brain, the human mind.

Yet your superstitious religionists keep abusing it. And their abuse appeals to you; it even seems logical, because it matches your experience. It also gives you a sense of safety—you saved your ego by separating it: “I don’t do anything wrong; this rascal mind makes me do it.”

Just think what you are saying! It’s like saying, “What can I do? The bicycle’s handlebar just turns by itself and takes me wherever it wants.” Then get off such a bicycle! Since when do handlebars take you anywhere? And even if they did, the real pull would still be in your own mind.

Hypnotists—those who have explored the human mind—say it often happens like this. If you learned to ride a bicycle recently you will know. When a novice rides, he is very afraid. And what he fears happens. The road is empty, sixty feet wide—no one there; a learner chooses a time when it’s deserted. Silence everywhere. Far away there is a milestone. He is scared, “What if I hit the stone!” Hands and feet shake, the handlebar trembles: “What if I hit that stone!” On a sixty-foot-wide road, even a blind man would rarely hit the stone. But this man with eyes will hit it—because out of fear what else does he see? That red stone, Hanumanji, stands out alone! Everything else is forgotten—only the stone and the fear! And where there is fear there is attraction; where there is dread there is a pull. He goes! And the more he goes toward the stone, the more his life trembles, the more he loses awareness, the faster he goes toward it. Now he feels escape is impossible—this must happen. And it will. But don’t think the stone did this, or the bicycle did this. Your fear did it—your unconscious attraction. You went—no one took you.

This is what happens in life too.

Mulla Nasruddin decided, “I have suffered enough—now I will not drink.” He took an oath! Only those who are afraid of themselves take oaths. One who is not afraid of himself never swears vows—remember this. Only the fearful take vows; only the cowardly take fasts. So he swore: “Whatever happens, I will not drink.”

Now look closely at this “whatever happens.” He knows the dangers. He took the vow precisely to protect himself by it. But does anyone get saved that way? He set out on the road. As the tavern came near, his hands and feet began to shake. But he had taken the vow, a firm resolve: he refused even to look toward the tavern, kept his eyes fixed the other way. But however much you turn the eyes away, the corner of the eye still sees the tavern; however far you look, the ears are open—the clink of glasses is coming, the sounds of merriment, people getting tipsy, cracking jokes—the whole revelry is audible. The more he heard, the faster he hurried past—lest in a weak moment he should turn back!

A hundred steps beyond, he felt very pleased with himself; he patted his back: “Nasruddin, bravo! You are a hero among heroes! Now let’s celebrate—let’s have a drink!” Back he went. And that day he drank even more—because he had accomplished such a great feat. In that joy he drank himself and treated others too. People asked, “Nasruddin, so generous today!”
He said, “The deed today deserves it. I went a hundred steps past; didn’t even lift my eyes; let the sounds come—I said, let them! I am showing today that I am my own master.”

But what mastery—only from the other door. He thumped his back and said, “Now, what to do to celebrate? Let’s go drink and treat everyone!” He said, “Everyone in the tavern today—drink on me; drink to your heart’s content. The deed deserves it!”

You will press the mind from one side; it will find another path from the other. Why? Because you have not changed—how will you change the mind? You are the same. Take oaths, vows, rules—they won’t help. My emphasis is not on changing your behavior. I say: don’t worry. If you drink, fine—drink. If you gamble, don’t fuss—gamble. I say, don’t get entangled in these, otherwise you will ruin your life. Rather, dive into meditation. Gambling is no obstacle to meditation. In fact, it often happens that the one who lives simply—untroubled by gambling, untroubled by alcohol, untroubled by anything; who doesn’t make a problem out of it, who accepts these as part of life’s ordinary flow—such a person slips into meditation very easily. After initiating thousands into meditation I say this. It is my experience that the vow-takers and fasters don’t enter meditation. The one who has fasted—when he closes his eyes, he remembers only bread—he is sitting there hungry.

The German poet Heine wrote that once he got lost in a forest for three days. On the third day—tired, hungry, thirsty, losing hope—the full moon rose. He wrote: “I was amazed. I am a poet; I have written many poems on the moon, and always I saw my beloved’s face in it. Today I saw a loaf of bread floating in the sky. I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes and looked again—what has happened to the moon? A loaf of bread!”
But a man hungry for three days will see only a loaf in the moon. What will you do with your beloved’s face? Bhookhe bhajan na hove Gopala—on an empty stomach no hymn arises. The beloved cannot appear; only bread appears. Saliva must have filled his mouth at the sight of that floating bread; the aroma must have wafted—like when you pass a bakery.

One who sits with vows and fasts will not be able to meditate. I want you to live a completely ordinary, simple life. Don’t create even the smallest obstruction. Let life be as it is—and descend into meditation. This is the easiest way to enter meditation: accept utterly the ordinariness of life. This is your life. Don’t abuse it. As it is, it is right. For now, it can be only as it is. For now, this is your capacity, your receptivity, your soul. But enter meditation!

And as you descend into meditation, you will be astonished. With meditation, revolutions begin. With meditation, it will become difficult to smoke—quite difficult. Because people smoke to forget their mental tension. Whenever you are tense you smoke more. You get entangled in smoking; the mind’s tension seems to ease a little. The nicotine gives a tiny lightness. You drink because your life is not worth remembering; it is worth forgetting. You drink because you want oblivion.

A drunk came to take sannyas from me. He couldn’t believe I would initiate him. He came to ask, “Will you accept me? Let me tell you first that I am an alcoholic.”
I said, “All are accepted. If God accepts you—and for how many years have you been drinking?”
He said, “I’ve been drinking for twelve years now.”
I said, “If God has kept you alive for twelve years and not killed you, who am I to interfere? My standards cannot be stricter than God’s. Drink without worry. But start meditating.”
He said, “Can a drunk meditate?”
I said, “The truth is, the desire to drink arises in those in whom the possibility of meditation exists.” You will be surprised to hear it. Alcohol brings a momentary forgetfulness of the world; meditation brings liberation forever. Alcohol is momentary meditation; meditation is eternal wine. Those who become fascinated by alcohol are precisely those who want somehow to forget life’s anxieties. In meditation the anxieties end; there is no longer any need to forget. I said, “Meditate—and keep drinking.”

Five to seven months later he came and said, “You have deceived me badly! Now meditation has become delightful—and alcohol has dropped. Even if I want to drink, I can’t.”
I said, “Tell me why you can’t?”
He said something original: “I used to drink to forget life because my life was full of sorrow. Meditation has brought a new aura of joy into my life. When I wake in the morning, what a lovely morning—never known before! Birds were singing before too, but I never heard them. The sun rose before too, but I never saw it. Trees must have been green before, but my eyes were never filled with their greenery. Flowers must have danced in the winds before, but I did not recognize them. Night fills with stars—and my heart overflows with joy. Before, I was unhappy—when I drank, sorrow was forgotten. Now when I drink, this joy is forgotten. And who wants to forget joy? So now I cannot drink. Impossible.”
I said, “Now that you have understood and it has happened, let me confess—I deceived you. Forgive me!”

Saint, don’t abuse the mind. Understand the mind; awaken, meditate. And as you are, you can attain to meditation. Meditation is unconditional—no prerequisites. It does not say: first give up cigarettes, give up alcohol, give up wife, children, wealth—then meditation will happen. No. Quite the opposite: first meditation happens, then whatever is useless drops away on its own; and whatever is meaningful connects even more deeply. Meditation burns the useless to ashes and refines the meaningful.

Meditation is fire. Passing through it, gold is purified—becomes pure gold.
That’s all for today.