Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #13
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
First question:
Osho, this feeling keeps arising that perhaps Gautam Buddha has reincarnated as you. You call everyone “friends.” And Buddha’s future avatar is to be called “Maitreya.” You too—as the proclamation foretold—impart awakening while seated on a chair. I have seen, in the Chicago Museum, a Tibetan statue of Buddha seated on such a chair. You are creating a Buddhafield. Or are you Lao Tzu—not even Maitreya? Would you kindly shed light on this?
Osho, this feeling keeps arising that perhaps Gautam Buddha has reincarnated as you. You call everyone “friends.” And Buddha’s future avatar is to be called “Maitreya.” You too—as the proclamation foretold—impart awakening while seated on a chair. I have seen, in the Chicago Museum, a Tibetan statue of Buddha seated on such a chair. You are creating a Buddhafield. Or are you Lao Tzu—not even Maitreya? Would you kindly shed light on this?
Satyavedant! Buddhas do not return. Buddhas have no reincarnation. Returning is possible only in ignorance; knowledge does not return.
This does not mean there is only one Buddha. Many Buddhas have been, many Buddhas will be—but no Buddha is an incarnation of another Buddha. Yet the taste of any two Buddhas will be exactly the same.
Last year spring came; this year too spring will come—but not the same spring. Flowers will bloom again—but not the same flowers. And the birds will sing again; neither the same birds nor the same songs. Every year spring comes, yet no spring is a repetition of another spring. Each spring is new, fresh—and still all springs are alike. Their color and their flavor are one. If you taste the innermost soul of spring, you will find a single taste.
When Buddha said, “In the future I will come as Maitreya,” it means nothing more than this: the future Buddha’s fundamental quality will be maitri—friendliness; he will teach friendship, he will teach love.
And this is meaningful—very worth pondering. Friendship has been lost in this world. Of all that is most important and has been lost, it is friendship. Love no longer takes that leap that becomes friendship; it no longer takes that flight that becomes friendship. Now friendship is formal, makeshift—matter-of-fact, utilitarian. It no longer has the quality of prayer. Man has been torn apart from man.
The significance of Buddha’s proclamation is precisely this: the hour will soon come when human beings will be so disconnected from one another that a Buddha will have to teach humanity friendship, will have to teach the lesson of love. Love ought to be natural—needing no teaching. But when it is no longer natural, when man becomes distorted, artificial, then even nature must be taught. It becomes a necessity. If flowers forget how to bloom, they will have to be instructed in blooming. If birds forget how to fly, they will have to be given lessons in flight.
Something just like this has happened with man. For centuries we have been taught hatred, hostility, malice, envy, jealousy, competition. All of these together have strangled the neck of friendship—choked it, hanged it.
Buddha is right in saying, “Twenty-five centuries from now I will come as Maitreya.”
But this is symbolic. It does not mean Gautam Buddha will return. Who is there to return? The day Gautam became a Buddha he was dissolved. That very day the I-sense disappeared. The “I” went—and only then did he become a Buddha. That very day individuality ended. That very day he knew he is one with existence, not separate. Now what coming? What going?
After his enlightenment, Buddha lived for forty-two years. Someone asked him, “You say you are dissolved—then how are you still alive?” He replied, “Only the body is alive. Where am I now? Understand it like this: you are riding a bicycle; you have been pedaling for many miles. Then you stop pedaling, yet the bicycle, carried by its old momentum, may continue for a few furlongs. You are not pedaling, but it still moves—the stored momentum of having rolled for miles keeps the wheels turning. Motion too becomes accumulated.” In the same way Buddha said, “For ages this body has gone on; it has the habit of going. I am no more; the one who pedaled is no more. But this body will move a little while.”
It moved for forty-two years! And when Buddha’s final day came, the monks began to weep. Ananda said, “You are going—what will become of us?”
Buddha said, “Foolish Ananda, what are you asking? I went forty-two years ago! If you had to weep, you should have wept then. Now who is going? Only the body’s momentum—waning, waning—has almost come to rest. For whom are you crying? For the one who died long ago—died forty-two years ago!”
Only when the ego dies is Buddhahood born. What is the meaning of Buddhahood? When the darkness of ego departs, the lamp of Buddhahood is lit—or when the lamp of Buddhahood is lit, the darkness of ego is gone. Ego means darkness. In Buddhist terminology, the first event is called nirvana—when the ego departs but the body continues; and the second event, when the body also falls, is called mahaparinirvana. After mahaparinirvana, what returning? Impossible.
So Buddha’s words have another meaning. He is speaking in symbols. He is saying: someone like me—not “me,” but like me. Exactly like me—this very taste, this same song, this same proclamation, this same light, this same celebration, this same color—this same spring will come again twenty-five centuries later. And then its fundamental characteristic will be friendliness, love. Its essential teaching will be love.
Buddha’s essential teaching was compassion, because the people of that age were steeped in violence. Violence was their way of life. Not only were people ordinarily violent, they were religiously violent too; sacrifices were performed in the name of religion. Today Hindus make much clamor: cow slaughter must stop. But Hindus too once sacrificed cows—there were gomedha yajnas; there were ashvamedha yajnas in which horses were sacrificed; and there are even accounts of naramedha yajnas. So not only in ordinary life, but in the name of religion as well, violence prevailed. Buddha taught compassion.
A Buddha speaks what the age needs to hear. You give the sick the medicine that will heal their illness. Gautam Buddha poured his whole message into compassion. He said, “After twenty-five centuries, the essence of Buddhahood will be friendship,” because people’s lives will have been severed from love; the bridges will be broken; people will be isolated. Each person will begin to live in his own ego, and apart from himself will care for no one, will not think of anyone. Each will be sunk in a deep self-interest. That will be the disease; therefore the remedy will be friendship.
Vedant, your question is important. I am not an incarnation of any Buddha. Gautam Buddha is Gautam Buddha; I am I. But it would not be surprising if the one who tastes me has such a feeling. Vedant, your love seems to be for Buddha—therefore you will find the taste of Buddha in me.
Countless Christians have taken sannyas with me. They keep coming and saying, “We used to think Christ was only an idea; but in your eyes we have had a vision of Christ.” Their love is for Christ, so they will find the taste of Christ. As one’s inner feeling is, so it will be. Those who fall in love with me will receive the taste they already recognize.
But whether you say Christ, or Krishna, or Buddha, or Lao Tzu—these are only different names. The rivers may be different, but the current of water flowing in them is one. Drink water from the Ganga, or the Yamuna, or the Narmada, or the Godavari, or from the Volga, or the Amazon—it makes no difference; every water will quench your thirst.
Buddha has said: Taste me from anywhere, you will find my taste the same. Taste in the morning, at noon, in the evening, at night; today or tomorrow—you will find no difference in my taste.
This can be carried further:
Taste the Buddhas of the past, or of the present, or of the future—you will not find a difference in taste. When you come to recognize the taste, immediately it will seem to you that Buddha has come again, Mahavira has come again, Krishna has come again, Christ has come again. This is the language of your love. Otherwise, I am I; the Ganga is the Ganga and the Godavari the Godavari; the Himalayas are the Himalayas and the Alps the Alps. Though when you climb to the heights, the experience of height is one.
No one is anyone’s reincarnation. And for those who have attained the ultimate knowing, there is no way to return. They cannot return—even if they wanted to. If after Buddhahood there could still be coming and going, then what difference would there be between the ignorant and the Buddhas? The ignorant are those for whom there is coming and going—who must come, must come again and again; who must fall again and again into the dark womb; who must return again and again to the pit of the world. One goes on coming until ultimate Buddhahood happens—until you are lost, dissolved into the vast, made one with the immense; until you are in total communion with the Brahman. Then who remains to return? And where would you return? And how would you return? To return, some desire is needed.
The truth is that even in those forty-two years after enlightenment, a slight desire is needed somewhere. Only compassion desires—that others be awakened.
There is a lovely, very important mention in Ramakrishna’s life. His devotees—Vivekananda and others—were much concerned. It didn’t seem right; the disciples felt a little uneasy, a little ashamed. For Ramakrishna would get up in the middle of a discourse on Brahman and go to the kitchen and ask, “What is being cooked?” Satsang is going on, disciples are sitting, very lofty things are being discussed—and in the middle of it he would stop and say, “It seems fritters are being made!”
Now this jars. Ramakrishna’s wife also felt much hurt hearing of it.
At last one day Sharada said, “We ought not say anything to you—perhaps you do this in your innocence—but in the midst of a discourse on Brahman you ask such things. What will newcomers think? Those who know you, who are in love with you, won’t mind. But new people come—what will they think? And you leave the discussion midway and go to the kitchen, peep in, and ask: What is being cooked?”
When Sharada would bring the plate, he would immediately stand up. He would quickly uncover it—what all has been prepared? He wouldn’t even consider that people were sitting there.
Ramakrishna said, “Since you have asked today, I will tell you. The day I take no relish in food; the day you bring the plate and I turn my face to the other side—understand that I will remain on the earth only three more days. Somehow I have staked a peg on this shore. My boat has already come, the sail is unfurled—any moment it will cast off. Somehow, with my peg driven in, I have stayed on this shore a little longer—just a little longer. So that the dying lamp may burn a little more. So that the plants I have tended may come to flower. So that the crop may be harvested from the seeds I have sown. So that I may give you shade a little longer. So that for a little while more you can drink me in and digest me. That is why I have been lingering. This relish for food is my peg.”
That day no one took it seriously. But years later it happened: one day Sharda brought the plate; Ramakrishna was lying on the bed; he turned on his side and faced away. Instantly she remembered—Sharda remembered—and the plate slipped from her hands and fell. Exactly three days later Ramakrishna died.
Once knowledge has been attained, remaining on this earth even a little while is possible only by driving in pegs. Otherwise death can happen together with enlightenment. Buddha has told his disciples: along with meditation, keep compassion awakened too, so that when the flower of meditation blooms and the life-birds are ready to fly, compassion will hold you back.
Compassion is the purest form of desire.
Desire means: let me be happy; compassion means: let the other be happy. It is the same thing, only thrown from me onto the other. The same blanket I had wrapped around myself, I now wrap around the other. The innermost of desire and compassion is not different. Desire asks for oneself; compassion asks for the other. Desire is self-interest; compassion is for the other. Desire says: may showers of happiness fall upon me. Compassion says: may happiness rain on all. Still, it is happiness that is sought. This too becomes a peg.
But once the body has dropped after enlightenment, there is no way to return to the body. Once the boat has cast off, it has cast off; it never returns—never.
Do not take the symbolic stories we have too literally. We say: Rama, Krishna, and Buddha are all incarnations of the one Vishnu. This is only a manner of speaking. It means only this: the same Truth has manifested in all; the same realization has awakened; the same flame has been born. We have given that flame the name Vishnu. But do not think that the same person is incarnating again and again. In the realm of enlightenment the person has no place. When no boundaries remain, how can the person remain? When no definition remains, how can the person remain?
Therefore, Vedant, your question is meaningful, but understand it rightly. I am I, though my flavor is the same—because that flavor is not mine, it belongs to the Divine. If you taste, if you experience, you will find Buddha; you will find Lao Tzu; you will find Zarathustra—you will find them all. If you do not taste, if you stand far away with your doors closed, you will not be able to experience any of them. But I am neither Buddha nor Lao Tzu nor Mahavira nor Zarathustra. No one comes again into this world. Nanak is Nanak; Kabir is Kabir; Farid is Farid; Mansoor is Mansoor.
This does not mean there is only one Buddha. Many Buddhas have been, many Buddhas will be—but no Buddha is an incarnation of another Buddha. Yet the taste of any two Buddhas will be exactly the same.
Last year spring came; this year too spring will come—but not the same spring. Flowers will bloom again—but not the same flowers. And the birds will sing again; neither the same birds nor the same songs. Every year spring comes, yet no spring is a repetition of another spring. Each spring is new, fresh—and still all springs are alike. Their color and their flavor are one. If you taste the innermost soul of spring, you will find a single taste.
When Buddha said, “In the future I will come as Maitreya,” it means nothing more than this: the future Buddha’s fundamental quality will be maitri—friendliness; he will teach friendship, he will teach love.
And this is meaningful—very worth pondering. Friendship has been lost in this world. Of all that is most important and has been lost, it is friendship. Love no longer takes that leap that becomes friendship; it no longer takes that flight that becomes friendship. Now friendship is formal, makeshift—matter-of-fact, utilitarian. It no longer has the quality of prayer. Man has been torn apart from man.
The significance of Buddha’s proclamation is precisely this: the hour will soon come when human beings will be so disconnected from one another that a Buddha will have to teach humanity friendship, will have to teach the lesson of love. Love ought to be natural—needing no teaching. But when it is no longer natural, when man becomes distorted, artificial, then even nature must be taught. It becomes a necessity. If flowers forget how to bloom, they will have to be instructed in blooming. If birds forget how to fly, they will have to be given lessons in flight.
Something just like this has happened with man. For centuries we have been taught hatred, hostility, malice, envy, jealousy, competition. All of these together have strangled the neck of friendship—choked it, hanged it.
Buddha is right in saying, “Twenty-five centuries from now I will come as Maitreya.”
But this is symbolic. It does not mean Gautam Buddha will return. Who is there to return? The day Gautam became a Buddha he was dissolved. That very day the I-sense disappeared. The “I” went—and only then did he become a Buddha. That very day individuality ended. That very day he knew he is one with existence, not separate. Now what coming? What going?
After his enlightenment, Buddha lived for forty-two years. Someone asked him, “You say you are dissolved—then how are you still alive?” He replied, “Only the body is alive. Where am I now? Understand it like this: you are riding a bicycle; you have been pedaling for many miles. Then you stop pedaling, yet the bicycle, carried by its old momentum, may continue for a few furlongs. You are not pedaling, but it still moves—the stored momentum of having rolled for miles keeps the wheels turning. Motion too becomes accumulated.” In the same way Buddha said, “For ages this body has gone on; it has the habit of going. I am no more; the one who pedaled is no more. But this body will move a little while.”
It moved for forty-two years! And when Buddha’s final day came, the monks began to weep. Ananda said, “You are going—what will become of us?”
Buddha said, “Foolish Ananda, what are you asking? I went forty-two years ago! If you had to weep, you should have wept then. Now who is going? Only the body’s momentum—waning, waning—has almost come to rest. For whom are you crying? For the one who died long ago—died forty-two years ago!”
Only when the ego dies is Buddhahood born. What is the meaning of Buddhahood? When the darkness of ego departs, the lamp of Buddhahood is lit—or when the lamp of Buddhahood is lit, the darkness of ego is gone. Ego means darkness. In Buddhist terminology, the first event is called nirvana—when the ego departs but the body continues; and the second event, when the body also falls, is called mahaparinirvana. After mahaparinirvana, what returning? Impossible.
So Buddha’s words have another meaning. He is speaking in symbols. He is saying: someone like me—not “me,” but like me. Exactly like me—this very taste, this same song, this same proclamation, this same light, this same celebration, this same color—this same spring will come again twenty-five centuries later. And then its fundamental characteristic will be friendliness, love. Its essential teaching will be love.
Buddha’s essential teaching was compassion, because the people of that age were steeped in violence. Violence was their way of life. Not only were people ordinarily violent, they were religiously violent too; sacrifices were performed in the name of religion. Today Hindus make much clamor: cow slaughter must stop. But Hindus too once sacrificed cows—there were gomedha yajnas; there were ashvamedha yajnas in which horses were sacrificed; and there are even accounts of naramedha yajnas. So not only in ordinary life, but in the name of religion as well, violence prevailed. Buddha taught compassion.
A Buddha speaks what the age needs to hear. You give the sick the medicine that will heal their illness. Gautam Buddha poured his whole message into compassion. He said, “After twenty-five centuries, the essence of Buddhahood will be friendship,” because people’s lives will have been severed from love; the bridges will be broken; people will be isolated. Each person will begin to live in his own ego, and apart from himself will care for no one, will not think of anyone. Each will be sunk in a deep self-interest. That will be the disease; therefore the remedy will be friendship.
Vedant, your question is important. I am not an incarnation of any Buddha. Gautam Buddha is Gautam Buddha; I am I. But it would not be surprising if the one who tastes me has such a feeling. Vedant, your love seems to be for Buddha—therefore you will find the taste of Buddha in me.
Countless Christians have taken sannyas with me. They keep coming and saying, “We used to think Christ was only an idea; but in your eyes we have had a vision of Christ.” Their love is for Christ, so they will find the taste of Christ. As one’s inner feeling is, so it will be. Those who fall in love with me will receive the taste they already recognize.
But whether you say Christ, or Krishna, or Buddha, or Lao Tzu—these are only different names. The rivers may be different, but the current of water flowing in them is one. Drink water from the Ganga, or the Yamuna, or the Narmada, or the Godavari, or from the Volga, or the Amazon—it makes no difference; every water will quench your thirst.
Buddha has said: Taste me from anywhere, you will find my taste the same. Taste in the morning, at noon, in the evening, at night; today or tomorrow—you will find no difference in my taste.
This can be carried further:
Taste the Buddhas of the past, or of the present, or of the future—you will not find a difference in taste. When you come to recognize the taste, immediately it will seem to you that Buddha has come again, Mahavira has come again, Krishna has come again, Christ has come again. This is the language of your love. Otherwise, I am I; the Ganga is the Ganga and the Godavari the Godavari; the Himalayas are the Himalayas and the Alps the Alps. Though when you climb to the heights, the experience of height is one.
No one is anyone’s reincarnation. And for those who have attained the ultimate knowing, there is no way to return. They cannot return—even if they wanted to. If after Buddhahood there could still be coming and going, then what difference would there be between the ignorant and the Buddhas? The ignorant are those for whom there is coming and going—who must come, must come again and again; who must fall again and again into the dark womb; who must return again and again to the pit of the world. One goes on coming until ultimate Buddhahood happens—until you are lost, dissolved into the vast, made one with the immense; until you are in total communion with the Brahman. Then who remains to return? And where would you return? And how would you return? To return, some desire is needed.
The truth is that even in those forty-two years after enlightenment, a slight desire is needed somewhere. Only compassion desires—that others be awakened.
There is a lovely, very important mention in Ramakrishna’s life. His devotees—Vivekananda and others—were much concerned. It didn’t seem right; the disciples felt a little uneasy, a little ashamed. For Ramakrishna would get up in the middle of a discourse on Brahman and go to the kitchen and ask, “What is being cooked?” Satsang is going on, disciples are sitting, very lofty things are being discussed—and in the middle of it he would stop and say, “It seems fritters are being made!”
Now this jars. Ramakrishna’s wife also felt much hurt hearing of it.
At last one day Sharada said, “We ought not say anything to you—perhaps you do this in your innocence—but in the midst of a discourse on Brahman you ask such things. What will newcomers think? Those who know you, who are in love with you, won’t mind. But new people come—what will they think? And you leave the discussion midway and go to the kitchen, peep in, and ask: What is being cooked?”
When Sharada would bring the plate, he would immediately stand up. He would quickly uncover it—what all has been prepared? He wouldn’t even consider that people were sitting there.
Ramakrishna said, “Since you have asked today, I will tell you. The day I take no relish in food; the day you bring the plate and I turn my face to the other side—understand that I will remain on the earth only three more days. Somehow I have staked a peg on this shore. My boat has already come, the sail is unfurled—any moment it will cast off. Somehow, with my peg driven in, I have stayed on this shore a little longer—just a little longer. So that the dying lamp may burn a little more. So that the plants I have tended may come to flower. So that the crop may be harvested from the seeds I have sown. So that I may give you shade a little longer. So that for a little while more you can drink me in and digest me. That is why I have been lingering. This relish for food is my peg.”
That day no one took it seriously. But years later it happened: one day Sharda brought the plate; Ramakrishna was lying on the bed; he turned on his side and faced away. Instantly she remembered—Sharda remembered—and the plate slipped from her hands and fell. Exactly three days later Ramakrishna died.
Once knowledge has been attained, remaining on this earth even a little while is possible only by driving in pegs. Otherwise death can happen together with enlightenment. Buddha has told his disciples: along with meditation, keep compassion awakened too, so that when the flower of meditation blooms and the life-birds are ready to fly, compassion will hold you back.
Compassion is the purest form of desire.
Desire means: let me be happy; compassion means: let the other be happy. It is the same thing, only thrown from me onto the other. The same blanket I had wrapped around myself, I now wrap around the other. The innermost of desire and compassion is not different. Desire asks for oneself; compassion asks for the other. Desire is self-interest; compassion is for the other. Desire says: may showers of happiness fall upon me. Compassion says: may happiness rain on all. Still, it is happiness that is sought. This too becomes a peg.
But once the body has dropped after enlightenment, there is no way to return to the body. Once the boat has cast off, it has cast off; it never returns—never.
Do not take the symbolic stories we have too literally. We say: Rama, Krishna, and Buddha are all incarnations of the one Vishnu. This is only a manner of speaking. It means only this: the same Truth has manifested in all; the same realization has awakened; the same flame has been born. We have given that flame the name Vishnu. But do not think that the same person is incarnating again and again. In the realm of enlightenment the person has no place. When no boundaries remain, how can the person remain? When no definition remains, how can the person remain?
Therefore, Vedant, your question is meaningful, but understand it rightly. I am I, though my flavor is the same—because that flavor is not mine, it belongs to the Divine. If you taste, if you experience, you will find Buddha; you will find Lao Tzu; you will find Zarathustra—you will find them all. If you do not taste, if you stand far away with your doors closed, you will not be able to experience any of them. But I am neither Buddha nor Lao Tzu nor Mahavira nor Zarathustra. No one comes again into this world. Nanak is Nanak; Kabir is Kabir; Farid is Farid; Mansoor is Mansoor.
Second question:
Osho, I cannot accept happiness. It seems sorrow appeals to me. Yet I want happiness. When happiness comes, I can’t trust it. When happiness comes it feels like a dream. Please untangle my confusion!
Osho, I cannot accept happiness. It seems sorrow appeals to me. Yet I want happiness. When happiness comes, I can’t trust it. When happiness comes it feels like a dream. Please untangle my confusion!
Ramakrishna! This is not only your confusion; it is every human being’s confusion. This question is not private, it is public. You have begun to notice it; others don’t. In that sense you are fortunate! You are getting small glimmers of meditation; that’s why it is becoming clear to you that you cannot accept happiness. It takes eyes to see this. This is the condition of people: no one can accept happiness. But they don’t notice that they cannot accept it. They think, “Happiness doesn’t come to me. If it came, I would surely embrace it.”
The truth is the reverse. Happiness comes—you don’t accept it. Happiness comes—you don’t hold it. Happiness comes—you don’t nurture it. Happiness comes—you don’t spread a welcome within. Happiness comes—you don’t open the doors of your innermost being. When happiness comes, you get frightened. You shrink. You think, “This can’t be. Is this my fate? How could this happen to an unlucky one like me? Surely there’s some mistake. I must be imagining it.”
This happens here every day. As soon as someone gets a chance to descend a few steps in meditation, happiness bursts forth—fountains of joy, showers of sparks. And then he comes running to me and says, “I can’t believe it; I must be imagining. So much joy can’t be possible.”
I understand him too. One who has known only sorrow—if suddenly fireworks of joy begin, how to trust it? Even if he wants to, how to bring trust? One who has known only thorns—if suddenly a rose blooms among the thorns, he will feel, “Are my eyes deceiving me? Have I longed so long for the flower that now I’m seeing what isn’t there—a daydream, an impossibility?” Because all he has experienced are thorns. So many have betrayed you that when one day someone doesn’t betray you, you get scared. You cannot accept that this person won’t deceive. You fear there must be some bigger trap behind it.
Mulla Nasruddin’s neighbor came to borrow some money—one hundred rupees. Nasruddin didn’t want to give—who wants to lend? But social pressure and reputation... He couldn’t refuse in front of four people. He steeled his heart: “Consider these hundred gone,” he told himself, “they won’t come back.” He had given others too—never returned. In fact, those who borrow even stop returning themselves! If you want to get rid of someone, people say, lend him money—he’ll never show up at your door again! Even on the street he’ll cross over to avoid you. So he gave, cursing inside: “Damn fellow, you had to come in front of people! Had you come alone I’d have shown you!” But to his amazement, as the man had promised, on the third day he came back and returned the hundred. Nasruddin couldn’t believe it. He said, “I won’t take this money.” The man asked, “Why?” Nasruddin said, “You deceived me the first time!” “What deception?” “When you took it, I firmly believed you would never return it—and you did. You shattered my first conviction. And if I take it now, there must be some trap behind it. Keep it and don’t get me into trouble. Today you return a hundred; tomorrow you’ll come to ask for a thousand—and I won’t be able to refuse!”
Nasruddin then said, “Have you heard the old story?”
An old Sufi tale: A man borrowed a big pan from a rich merchant to cook for guests. Next day he returned the pan—and along with it a little pan. The merchant said, “Where did this small pan come from? You took only one.” The man replied, “What can I do? Your pan gave birth in the night—its baby is yours too.” The merchant was astonished—pans giving birth! But when a fool is giving, who refuses? He said, “Quite right; I knew she was pregnant. Leave it!”
A few days later the man came again: “I need a large cauldron—guests are coming; kheer to cook.” The merchant was delighted. “Take care—mind the pregnancy,” he winked. He expected the cauldron back with babies. But two, three days passed; no return. He went to inquire, “What’s the matter? You neither returned the cauldron nor its babies?” The man said, “Forgive me—your cauldron died.” “Cauldrons die?!” “If they can give birth, they can die.”
Nasruddin said, “Brother, take back your hundred! I don’t get into such messes. Once deceived is enough—what I believed didn’t happen. I won’t be fooled again.”
Such are our situations. People get deceived so much that they can’t trust anyone not to deceive. People suffer so much that they can’t trust happiness to come.
When, for the first time in meditation, a glimpse of bliss arises, the mind’s first question is, “Perhaps I’ve fallen into a web of imagination.” And if you tell others, they’ll say, “You are hypnotized.” Tell someone you’re miserable—no one says you’re hypnotized! Watch the irony.
Cry before someone, speak of your misery—no one says you’re imagining. But if you sing of joy, if your eyes shine and your face glows, and you say, “I am utterly blissful; in meditation there is great ecstasy,” they’ll say, “Go fool someone else! This glow is all imagination, a mood, a belief you’ve adopted.”
Sorrow, they say, isn’t a belief—it’s truth. And happiness is only belief! The reason is obvious: he has never known joy, nor has he known joyful people. How can he accept that you are happy? That’s why we always doubt the Buddhas. “So much bliss, so much nectar—impossible!” Our only experience is poison. And these Buddhas say, “The rain is nectar!” Kabir sings, “A thousand suns have risen within me.” Yet whenever you close your eyes you find only darkness—and if you probe the dark long enough, at best a few snakes and scorpions slither by; no visions of God inside! Others say, “I closed my eyes and saw the supreme radiance of the Divine.” They must be lying! Or dreaming! Or on opium or bhang! Something fishy.
You are right, Ramakrishna; this is everyone’s situation.
You say: “I cannot accept happiness.”
That you have understood this is important. It is a big step—the first step toward embracing happiness—to know, “I cannot accept happiness.” Most don’t even know that they don’t accept it. Tell them and they won’t agree. “What nonsense! I wouldn’t accept happiness? I’m searching only for happiness!”
People certainly search, but they don’t accept. And when it comes, they don’t recognize it. Searching becomes a habit.
Rabindranath has a delightful tale, turned into a song: “For lifetimes I sought God. Sometimes I glimpsed Him by a distant star, and I ran; but before I reached, He had moved on. Sometimes near distant suns I saw His golden chariot gleam; before I arrived, He had gone. Again and again it happened; I missed, I missed. Then one day the unlikely happened: I reached a door with a sign—‘God lives here.’ Imagine my joy! I ran up the steps. I raised my hand to knock—suddenly a thought arose: If truly the door opens and I meet God, what will I do then? Searching is my life. Quest is my delight. For lifetimes I have lived seeking. If I find Him and He embraces me—then? Then nothing will be left to do. And that was so terrifying—nothing left to do! For once God is found, what remains to find? All attained—God attained. Then?” The question mark swelled so huge, the panic so great, that, says Rabindranath, “I gently let go the latch—lest it sound! I slipped my shoes from my feet—lest they creak on the steps and God open the door! Taking my shoes in hand, I ran; and I never looked back. And now I search for God again—everywhere except that one place where I know He lives.”
This poem is important—an inner-science of man, with a razor gaze, transparent. Tagore caught it exactly. This is our condition. You seek happiness, yes; but if it arrives, you won’t accept it. If it comes, you’ll slip away. You will search everywhere except where it is—because searching is your habit, your ego is in the search, you are in the search. When bliss showers, the ego melts. And who wants his ego to melt?
So people avoid love, avoid happiness, avoid religion, avoid truth, avoid meditation, avoid prayer. They’ve invented clever ways to avoid: false prayers, false temples, false churches, false priests; they go formally to temples but not to that temple where meeting might happen. They slander that temple—so that they don’t go accidentally someday. They pile so much condemnation that until they remove that mountain, they cannot reach that temple.
People avoid love. In love’s name they have erected its substitutes—institutions like marriage—to avoid love. They avoid religion; to avoid it they arrange religion from birth. One born in a Christian home becomes Christian; in a Jain home, Jain.
What has birth in a house to do with religion? Then tomorrow someone born in a communist’s house must be communist; in a Congressman’s, a Congressman; in a Socialist’s, a Socialist; in a Jan Sanghi’s, a Jan Sanghi, because father will say, “Remember my blood! I am Jan Sanghi, you too. My son! My blood and marrow are in you—how can you be anything else?”
If political ideology is not inherited at birth, how can religion be? Religion is an inner choice; one should choose it oneself.
But every kind of arrangement is made so that a person cannot choose. We pour religion into small children—false religion, because what is not chosen is false. What is not embraced by your own inner joy can never become your soul. At most it remains formal conduct.
Father says, “Come to the temple,” so the son goes, compelled, helpless, dependent. Where the father bows, he bows. If he is made to memorize the Quran, he memorizes the Quran; if the Gita, the Gita. Before his intelligence can awaken, poison is poured in. Before he can think, he is already a Muslim, a Christian, a Jain. Later there is no chance to think—the conditioning sits deep, becomes part of the unconscious. This is a device to avoid religion.
And now, in the Indian Parliament they are bringing a new act—to prevent people from changing their religion easily. Nothing could be more anti-democratic.
In truth, we should bring an act that no parents may impose their religion on their children. Just as we say a child at twenty-one can vote, so we should decide that at least at forty-two—double, because if at twenty-one one is mature for politics, for religion, at least by forty-two—when a person has searched: go to temples, mosques, gurudwaras; read the Guru Granth, Quran, Vedas; explore—then at forty-two decide: “Now which is my temple?” Then there would be religion in the world.
Bring an act that parents cannot forcibly enroll their children into their religion. Stop parental tyranny. That is not being stopped. Instead a rule is coming that a Hindu cannot become a Christian even if he wants to.
Which Hindus become Christians? Not Brahmins. Not the affluent. Who becomes Christian? Those whom Hindus have oppressed for centuries. And you won’t even give them a chance to escape your net? Your temple bars their entry; enjoy the irony. For the shudra who cannot enter your temple, cannot draw water from your well, cannot marry your daughter, cannot sit to eat with you—you won’t give him the right to at least be free of your prison? If he wishes to be Christian, let him; Sikh, let him; Buddhist, let him; and if he wants freedom from all religions, let him be free. You won’t grant even that? You oppress—have oppressed for centuries. Even today Harijans are attacked, huts burned, villages destroyed, women raped, children roasted alive in fires, their settlements razed. This still happens. And if they wish to change religion, even that right is denied. And they name the act “Freedom of Religion”! In this country miracles happen—calling it the Freedom of Religion Act, when it is the Enslavement of Religion Act.
And why such panic? If Christians can persuade some to become Christian, what stops you? Why can’t you persuade some Christians to become Hindu? What are your priests and sannyasins doing? Are your holy men impotent—good for nothing?
There are reasons. They can do nothing, because you have oppressed so much that anyone who escapes your net once will never want to fall back into it. What have you given in the name of religion? Neither religion nor the conditions to live. In the name of religion you exploited. In its name you sit on their chest—and won’t get off.
So we have fabricated false religion—forced by parents, by law, by priest and church. We pounce on the child from the start. The whole world wants “religious education” for children. Why? Fear that when grown up they won’t listen!
And there is some truth in the fear. If a child is not spoiled from the beginning, then at twenty-five or thirty, when you say, “Worship Lord Ganesh,” he’ll ask, “Are you making a joke? Worship this gentleman with a trunk? Chant ‘Jai Ganesh’?” He’ll say, “Do I have no brains?” Celebrate Ganesh festival? He’ll laugh—childish stuff. He’ll think, he’ll examine. If you haven’t conditioned him from childhood and suddenly at thirty—after university, after understanding all religions—you say, “Now there will be a yajna; we’ll throw millions’ worth of ghee and grain into fire, and the world will have peace,” do you think he’ll agree? That he can be made a fool? That you can say, “By pouring grain and ghee into fire there will be world peace”?
It hasn’t come yet—how many yajnas you have done! Forget world peace—the priest who performs the yajna has no peace at home, though he has done countless yajnas. After each yajna, the hundred-odd priests fight: who got how much? The quarrels go to the police. World peace!
And you’ll say the strangest things. If you haven’t corrupted them early, will they accept? You’ll say, “This brings rain.” They’ll ask, “Whom are you fooling? What has burning ghee to do with rain? If you want rain, use scientific methods—rain is possible. In Russia they seed clouds from airplanes with ice; the cold condenses water and it rains. But you burn ghee and grain! You need rain for grain to grow, and you burn the grain! Is there any end to your stupidity?”
But children don’t see the stupidity because you put those glasses on their eyes from the start.
So your religion is false; your love is false; your joys are false. False joys are taught: to every child we say, “When you come home first class from the university, you’ll get happiness.” He returns with a bundle of certificates and asks, “Where is the happiness?” Then we defer: “How can it come now? First you’ll marry, ride a horse, the band will play—then you’ll get happiness.” He thinks, “All right.” He rides the horse, brings the bride home: “Still no happiness?” We say, “So soon? Wait till you have children.” When the children come, he still asks, “When will happiness come?” “Let them grow up, be educated, get married.” He stops asking only when his children start asking him, “When will happiness come?” Then he repeats what his father repeated, what fathers have always repeated.
We go on passing along a lie. We tell children, “When you grow up you’ll understand everything.” And we know, while saying it, that we ourselves understood nothing—and yet we tell them! We are postponing, saving face. “When you’re grown, we’ll see.” And when he grows, he too understands that growing up brings no understanding.
When I was a schoolboy, a teacher said something like this. I asked something about God. He said, “When you grow up, you’ll understand.” I said, “Please give the exact age. ‘Grown up’—what does that mean? Give a proper age; on that date I’ll come to your house.”
He got nervous. “Age has nothing to do with it. When you grow up...”
I said, “But when will I be grown? Give any date. If you live and I live, we’ll meet then.”
He grew anxious, flustered. A decent man. “Forgive me; I don’t want to get into a wrangle.”
I asked, “Has it happened to you?”
He said, “Why hide? I was told the same: ‘When you grow up, it will happen.’ I’m telling you the same. It hasn’t happened to me—and don’t come here again.”
You tell children, “When you grow up you’ll know everything!”—deferral, deception. By the time they grow up they too become adept at deception.
Here every story ends in happiness. You read: “Once there was a king, once there was a queen...” and at the end the shehnai plays: they marry and live happily ever after. That’s where the story stops. Hindi films too end there: lots of trouble, love triangles, fights, and everyone in the hall knows it will all be fine in the end—no need to panic. And sure enough there’s a device, everything’s fine, shehnai plays, garlands around the bride and groom—and The End!
In truth, that’s exactly where the real story begins—but it isn’t told; who would expose themselves? “They married and lived happily ever after”—but after marriage people begin to live unhappily. Before that, there may have been a little happiness.
A young woman, soon to be married, had her arms around her lover and said, “Don’t worry, when I’m with you, I’ll share all your sorrows.” The young man said, “But I have no sorrows.” She said, “I’m not talking about now—I’m talking about after marriage.”
You are right, Ramakrishna: “I cannot accept happiness.” But this is a significant realization—a precious awareness. From this awareness the doors open.
You say, “It seems sorrow appeals to me.”
A priceless insight. Sorrow appeals to everyone. You will be shocked, you may not agree, but everyone likes sorrow; that is why there is so much of it. If joy appealed, this world would be different—we would have made it a heaven; but sorrow appeals.
Not directly. If asked straight, no one will say, “I like sorrow.” Indirectly, by roundabout ways, we produce it. We have big vested interests in suffering. When the wife is sad or ill, the husband sits by her, strokes her head, presses her feet. When she is healthy, he reads the newspaper, listens to the radio, scarcely notices her. Slowly the wife learns: if she wants to keep the husband’s attention and service—and who doesn’t enjoy being cared for?—then being unhappy is necessary; being ill, depressed. Only then sympathy comes. Small children learn the same.
Ask psychologists: they say seventy percent of illnesses people produce themselves. Seventy percent is no small figure. Because in illness they get a peculiar morbid juice.
When do you pay attention to the child? When he is sick. Then the whole house revolves around him—he becomes the center. He enjoys it. Neighbors and relatives come to see him, ask after him, bring toys—when he is sick. When he is healthy, he is scolded from all sides: healthy, he climbs trees; sits on the roof; breaks the toys; makes noise. “Stop that! Sit quiet! Sit in a corner! Where are you going? Outside?!” Healthy, he gets nothing but reprimand. Sick, he gets honor and care.
Do you see what poison you pour into his life? You teach him: it is in your interest to be sick, to be miserable. This settles into the unconscious. Later in life, whenever difficulty arises, he will fall ill—not pretending, truly ill. A voice rises from the unconscious and seizes the mind. Business is hard, debts mounting—he falls into bed. At least there’s an excuse: “How to pay debts? I’m ill!”
If a healthy man goes to the market, people demand payment: “It’s been long!” If he’s ill in bed, who will ask? People pity, give more credit. If he’s ill, the wife takes a job, the children find work—otherwise they were loafing. In all this a kind of juice is produced, a self-interest.
It’s true, Ramakrishna: people like sorrow. We have built this world on sorrowful foundations. Our society, our crowds, live in such darkness, with such arrangements of suffering, that there is no counting. And then we expect great happiness. With one hand we clutch sorrow, and with the other we expect joy. And if happiness, by some mistake, arrives at the door, we have no capacity to receive it. We don’t know how to laugh with joy; we only know how to weep, how to be gloomy; we know nothing of celebration.
“I think I should leave your gathering.
The heavy burden of colors and fragrance
will crush my sensitive nature, my pride.
This chamber of delights, by your love I swear,
will not suit my vagabond temperament.
As the showers of melody falling from the strings
only increase the thirst of longing,
your radiant youth, your resplendent bloom
will lead the emotions astray, my friend!
Life will be lost in the tresses and the cheeks,
lost in song and scent and light.
My art, my imagination, my delicate thoughts
will shiver in the cold climates of luxury.
The songs—of stars, of sparks, of blossoming gardens—
that are yet to be clothed in words,
will suffocate and die in your embrace.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace,
and if life has no burning ache, it is nothing, nothing at all—
I think I should leave your gathering.”
The lover says to the beloved—
“...they will suffocate and die in your embrace.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace.
In your lap I will be dissolved, for there is nothing but happiness there.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace.
If life has no burning ache, it is nothing, nothing.”
Remember, in sorrow the ego thrives; in joy it melts. In love the ego must die; in hate it grows strong. In hell the ego has every convenience; in heaven it has no place.
“I think I should leave your gathering.
The heavy burden of colors and fragrance
will crush my sensitive nature, my pride...”
And crush my ego too. This flood of color and scent, this rain of love, will destroy my self-importance.
Keep this in mind: amid sorrow the ego lives comfortably; in bliss it melts. Love kills the ego; hatred nourishes it.
Therefore, Ramakrishna, you are right: “I cannot accept happiness. It seems sorrow appeals to me. Still I want happiness. Untangle my confusion.”
Just understand the tangle—and it is untangled. If you see clearly that it is a tangle, it begins to dissolve in that very clarity.
Keep three things in mind. First, wherever in sorrow you have tied your vested interests, recognize them. Do not derive even the slightest profit from suffering; otherwise happiness will never be yours. Do not give sorrow a place in your life—by any excuse, any pretext. Uproot the weeds of suffering from the garden of your life; only then can roses bloom.
And be very alert. For centuries sorrow has been taught. Your saints and sages tell you life is suffering. Your priests say you must suffer the fruits of sins from past lives—someone has to bear them. Endless ideas are thrust upon you for one purpose only: to make your suffering seem natural, inevitable. Supports are placed under your sorrow. Remove all supports and suffering collapses. These props you’ve leaned against—kick them away. You are not suffering the karmic fruits of past births—fruits don’t take that long! They are immediate. Those who taught you otherwise are tricksters. Put your hand in fire now, and they say, “In your next life your hand will be burned.”
Think a little! Put your hand in fire now and it burns now—instantly; no next life required. The sins of the last life were borne then; the virtues too. If you give alms, the joy that arises in your heart at that very moment is the result, the fruit. If you rage at someone, the poison that floods you then is your punishment.
One who is angry burns himself before he burns you. What wound he inflicts on you, he must first inflict on himself. This is the supreme law: whatever you do to others, before you do it to them, you have to do it to yourself. If you want to give sorrow, you must first make yourself sorrowful—only a suffering person can spread suffering; we can give only what we have. If you want to give joy, you must produce joy within.
And note: there is no gap between act and result; the result is inherent in the act. Where you give joy, there and then you receive joy—immediately. Where you give pain, you receive pain in the very giving. The account is settled on the spot. If in this life you are suffering, it is not because in some past life you sinned; if you receive happiness, it is not the fruit of past virtues. These false notions keep your life from being resolved.
Then some say: “Whatever God has written in your fate will happen.”
Is this God a god—or a devil—who writes such things in your fate? Your life full of pain and anguish—does He enjoy tormenting you? But your holy men hold that God delights in your suffering. Is God like little boys who throw stones at frogs, pull off ants’ legs, tear butterflies’ wings? Is God a sadist? But that is what they imply: God writes suffering in your fate; therefore if you want to win His favor, inflict suffering on yourself. Go hungry. Torture and wither the body. Stand in the blazing sun. In winter, stand all night in the river. If that doesn’t satisfy you, go naked to the icy Himalayan rocks. If even that doesn’t suffice, go into the desert and bake in the heat. The more you torture yourself... find new methods of torment.
And methods have been found. Some lie on beds of thorns—as if man were made for thorns. Some drive nails into their shoes so they pierce and wound their feet. They think they please God! People like this, who imagine that by suffering God is pleased, give an absurd logic—based on the premise that since there is so much suffering in the world given by God, He must delight in suffering; so if we suffer, we will be His beloveds. The more we suffer, the more beloved we become.
And you honor these sorrow-mongers. Some saint fasts a hundred days—you take out a grand procession.
What are you celebrating? A man tortured himself for a hundred days, and you garland him, beat the drums, fall at his feet? He needs psychiatric care—electric shocks. He is becoming unnatural. Hunger is natural; to satisfy natural hunger is natural. I cannot imagine any mother pleased that her child sits hungry for a hundred days. How would God be pleased to see someone starve? Seeing him hungry for a hundred days, God would weep—if there is a God with a heart. And when you take out processions, He would beat His chest: not one madman, but a whole procession of madness! Because Munishri Thothumal fasted for a hundred days, all the fools of the village gathered—and marched.
Among Christians there was a sect of ascetics who whip themselves every morning as prayer. The more lashes, the greater the saint. And people gather to watch, crowds in the morning—who wouldn’t, for a free circus!
People seem sick. It is a sickness also to go watch someone being whipped. But don’t laugh. Two men fight on the street—you were going to buy medicine for your wife, urgent—and you forget the medicine, lean your bicycle and join the crowd. The quarrel heats up, abuses heavy, and your heart is delighted: “Now something will happen, now a fight!” If, seeing the crowd, both suddenly get sense and say, “Brother, we’ll meet tomorrow,” and walk away, you will be disappointed: “Nothing happened! Stood for nothing.” Though if the fight begins, you’ll try to stop it—outwardly: “Don’t fight!” Inwardly you’ll hope it escalates.
Films run only when they have murder, theft, dacoity, looting, rape. Make a film with none of these—who will watch? People are sorrow-lovers; they want to see pain.
So those Christian ascetics who whip themselves gather crowds each morning—just as you go to see a fasting monk. They make their bodies bloody. Then there is competition among them: who can whip more? Some have gouged out their eyes, cut their tongues, cut off genitals; women cut off their breasts—and thousands gather to watch! What a sickness. And those who do it believe God is pleased.
You must understand. You must examine, with alertness, all the connections you have with suffering; and cut them. You live in a sorrow-worshipping society. Your whole culture is sorrow-centered—East or West, differences of degree, not kind. Your entire lifestyle honors suffering. Become alert and sever your ties with it. Only then will you be able to embrace joy.
My teaching is of joy. I want to teach you supreme bliss. It is your birthright. And God will be delighted—the more joyous you are. He should be. Otherwise such a God is no God. He will see your celebration, your dance, the blossoming flowers of your love, the fragrance of meditation rising within you—and He will dance. When you dance, God dances; when you laugh, God laughs.
A Hasid dervish was dying—his name was Jhusia; he must have been a wondrous, lovable man. Someone asked, “Jhusia, have you completed all austerities? All vows, all rules? Will you be able to stand before God with your head held high?”
Jhusia opened his eyes and said, “Is God some villain who will ask me how many days I starved, how much nakedness I endured, how much heat and cold I suffered? I’ve not made such preparations, because I know God.”
“Then what preparation have you made?”
He said, “I’ve memorized some superb stories. I’ll tell Him a few tales that will have Him rolling with laughter. All my life I’ve made people roll with laughter. I know how to laugh and make others laugh—that’s it! Just let me get to Him—I have such select, handpicked jokes that if He doesn’t roll, you can come and tell me. I’ll distract Him with stories. I’ll tell Him some jokes. And I know songs—I’ll sing. And I’ve learned to dance—I’ll dance too. And you’ll see—I tell you—He will dance with me, laugh with me, sing with me. I’ll hand Him the drum: ‘You beat the drum, I’ll dance. You play the tambourine, I’ll sing.’”
This Jhusia is dear to me. He seems to know God better. This whole existence is celebrative. Become celebrative, and you become God’s beloved. Break your ties with sorrow. Uproot, consciously and unconsciously, all your connections with suffering. And the moment you break with sorrow, you will be astonished—fountains of joy begin to flow. Bliss is our nature.
The truth is the reverse. Happiness comes—you don’t accept it. Happiness comes—you don’t hold it. Happiness comes—you don’t nurture it. Happiness comes—you don’t spread a welcome within. Happiness comes—you don’t open the doors of your innermost being. When happiness comes, you get frightened. You shrink. You think, “This can’t be. Is this my fate? How could this happen to an unlucky one like me? Surely there’s some mistake. I must be imagining it.”
This happens here every day. As soon as someone gets a chance to descend a few steps in meditation, happiness bursts forth—fountains of joy, showers of sparks. And then he comes running to me and says, “I can’t believe it; I must be imagining. So much joy can’t be possible.”
I understand him too. One who has known only sorrow—if suddenly fireworks of joy begin, how to trust it? Even if he wants to, how to bring trust? One who has known only thorns—if suddenly a rose blooms among the thorns, he will feel, “Are my eyes deceiving me? Have I longed so long for the flower that now I’m seeing what isn’t there—a daydream, an impossibility?” Because all he has experienced are thorns. So many have betrayed you that when one day someone doesn’t betray you, you get scared. You cannot accept that this person won’t deceive. You fear there must be some bigger trap behind it.
Mulla Nasruddin’s neighbor came to borrow some money—one hundred rupees. Nasruddin didn’t want to give—who wants to lend? But social pressure and reputation... He couldn’t refuse in front of four people. He steeled his heart: “Consider these hundred gone,” he told himself, “they won’t come back.” He had given others too—never returned. In fact, those who borrow even stop returning themselves! If you want to get rid of someone, people say, lend him money—he’ll never show up at your door again! Even on the street he’ll cross over to avoid you. So he gave, cursing inside: “Damn fellow, you had to come in front of people! Had you come alone I’d have shown you!” But to his amazement, as the man had promised, on the third day he came back and returned the hundred. Nasruddin couldn’t believe it. He said, “I won’t take this money.” The man asked, “Why?” Nasruddin said, “You deceived me the first time!” “What deception?” “When you took it, I firmly believed you would never return it—and you did. You shattered my first conviction. And if I take it now, there must be some trap behind it. Keep it and don’t get me into trouble. Today you return a hundred; tomorrow you’ll come to ask for a thousand—and I won’t be able to refuse!”
Nasruddin then said, “Have you heard the old story?”
An old Sufi tale: A man borrowed a big pan from a rich merchant to cook for guests. Next day he returned the pan—and along with it a little pan. The merchant said, “Where did this small pan come from? You took only one.” The man replied, “What can I do? Your pan gave birth in the night—its baby is yours too.” The merchant was astonished—pans giving birth! But when a fool is giving, who refuses? He said, “Quite right; I knew she was pregnant. Leave it!”
A few days later the man came again: “I need a large cauldron—guests are coming; kheer to cook.” The merchant was delighted. “Take care—mind the pregnancy,” he winked. He expected the cauldron back with babies. But two, three days passed; no return. He went to inquire, “What’s the matter? You neither returned the cauldron nor its babies?” The man said, “Forgive me—your cauldron died.” “Cauldrons die?!” “If they can give birth, they can die.”
Nasruddin said, “Brother, take back your hundred! I don’t get into such messes. Once deceived is enough—what I believed didn’t happen. I won’t be fooled again.”
Such are our situations. People get deceived so much that they can’t trust anyone not to deceive. People suffer so much that they can’t trust happiness to come.
When, for the first time in meditation, a glimpse of bliss arises, the mind’s first question is, “Perhaps I’ve fallen into a web of imagination.” And if you tell others, they’ll say, “You are hypnotized.” Tell someone you’re miserable—no one says you’re hypnotized! Watch the irony.
Cry before someone, speak of your misery—no one says you’re imagining. But if you sing of joy, if your eyes shine and your face glows, and you say, “I am utterly blissful; in meditation there is great ecstasy,” they’ll say, “Go fool someone else! This glow is all imagination, a mood, a belief you’ve adopted.”
Sorrow, they say, isn’t a belief—it’s truth. And happiness is only belief! The reason is obvious: he has never known joy, nor has he known joyful people. How can he accept that you are happy? That’s why we always doubt the Buddhas. “So much bliss, so much nectar—impossible!” Our only experience is poison. And these Buddhas say, “The rain is nectar!” Kabir sings, “A thousand suns have risen within me.” Yet whenever you close your eyes you find only darkness—and if you probe the dark long enough, at best a few snakes and scorpions slither by; no visions of God inside! Others say, “I closed my eyes and saw the supreme radiance of the Divine.” They must be lying! Or dreaming! Or on opium or bhang! Something fishy.
You are right, Ramakrishna; this is everyone’s situation.
You say: “I cannot accept happiness.”
That you have understood this is important. It is a big step—the first step toward embracing happiness—to know, “I cannot accept happiness.” Most don’t even know that they don’t accept it. Tell them and they won’t agree. “What nonsense! I wouldn’t accept happiness? I’m searching only for happiness!”
People certainly search, but they don’t accept. And when it comes, they don’t recognize it. Searching becomes a habit.
Rabindranath has a delightful tale, turned into a song: “For lifetimes I sought God. Sometimes I glimpsed Him by a distant star, and I ran; but before I reached, He had moved on. Sometimes near distant suns I saw His golden chariot gleam; before I arrived, He had gone. Again and again it happened; I missed, I missed. Then one day the unlikely happened: I reached a door with a sign—‘God lives here.’ Imagine my joy! I ran up the steps. I raised my hand to knock—suddenly a thought arose: If truly the door opens and I meet God, what will I do then? Searching is my life. Quest is my delight. For lifetimes I have lived seeking. If I find Him and He embraces me—then? Then nothing will be left to do. And that was so terrifying—nothing left to do! For once God is found, what remains to find? All attained—God attained. Then?” The question mark swelled so huge, the panic so great, that, says Rabindranath, “I gently let go the latch—lest it sound! I slipped my shoes from my feet—lest they creak on the steps and God open the door! Taking my shoes in hand, I ran; and I never looked back. And now I search for God again—everywhere except that one place where I know He lives.”
This poem is important—an inner-science of man, with a razor gaze, transparent. Tagore caught it exactly. This is our condition. You seek happiness, yes; but if it arrives, you won’t accept it. If it comes, you’ll slip away. You will search everywhere except where it is—because searching is your habit, your ego is in the search, you are in the search. When bliss showers, the ego melts. And who wants his ego to melt?
So people avoid love, avoid happiness, avoid religion, avoid truth, avoid meditation, avoid prayer. They’ve invented clever ways to avoid: false prayers, false temples, false churches, false priests; they go formally to temples but not to that temple where meeting might happen. They slander that temple—so that they don’t go accidentally someday. They pile so much condemnation that until they remove that mountain, they cannot reach that temple.
People avoid love. In love’s name they have erected its substitutes—institutions like marriage—to avoid love. They avoid religion; to avoid it they arrange religion from birth. One born in a Christian home becomes Christian; in a Jain home, Jain.
What has birth in a house to do with religion? Then tomorrow someone born in a communist’s house must be communist; in a Congressman’s, a Congressman; in a Socialist’s, a Socialist; in a Jan Sanghi’s, a Jan Sanghi, because father will say, “Remember my blood! I am Jan Sanghi, you too. My son! My blood and marrow are in you—how can you be anything else?”
If political ideology is not inherited at birth, how can religion be? Religion is an inner choice; one should choose it oneself.
But every kind of arrangement is made so that a person cannot choose. We pour religion into small children—false religion, because what is not chosen is false. What is not embraced by your own inner joy can never become your soul. At most it remains formal conduct.
Father says, “Come to the temple,” so the son goes, compelled, helpless, dependent. Where the father bows, he bows. If he is made to memorize the Quran, he memorizes the Quran; if the Gita, the Gita. Before his intelligence can awaken, poison is poured in. Before he can think, he is already a Muslim, a Christian, a Jain. Later there is no chance to think—the conditioning sits deep, becomes part of the unconscious. This is a device to avoid religion.
And now, in the Indian Parliament they are bringing a new act—to prevent people from changing their religion easily. Nothing could be more anti-democratic.
In truth, we should bring an act that no parents may impose their religion on their children. Just as we say a child at twenty-one can vote, so we should decide that at least at forty-two—double, because if at twenty-one one is mature for politics, for religion, at least by forty-two—when a person has searched: go to temples, mosques, gurudwaras; read the Guru Granth, Quran, Vedas; explore—then at forty-two decide: “Now which is my temple?” Then there would be religion in the world.
Bring an act that parents cannot forcibly enroll their children into their religion. Stop parental tyranny. That is not being stopped. Instead a rule is coming that a Hindu cannot become a Christian even if he wants to.
Which Hindus become Christians? Not Brahmins. Not the affluent. Who becomes Christian? Those whom Hindus have oppressed for centuries. And you won’t even give them a chance to escape your net? Your temple bars their entry; enjoy the irony. For the shudra who cannot enter your temple, cannot draw water from your well, cannot marry your daughter, cannot sit to eat with you—you won’t give him the right to at least be free of your prison? If he wishes to be Christian, let him; Sikh, let him; Buddhist, let him; and if he wants freedom from all religions, let him be free. You won’t grant even that? You oppress—have oppressed for centuries. Even today Harijans are attacked, huts burned, villages destroyed, women raped, children roasted alive in fires, their settlements razed. This still happens. And if they wish to change religion, even that right is denied. And they name the act “Freedom of Religion”! In this country miracles happen—calling it the Freedom of Religion Act, when it is the Enslavement of Religion Act.
And why such panic? If Christians can persuade some to become Christian, what stops you? Why can’t you persuade some Christians to become Hindu? What are your priests and sannyasins doing? Are your holy men impotent—good for nothing?
There are reasons. They can do nothing, because you have oppressed so much that anyone who escapes your net once will never want to fall back into it. What have you given in the name of religion? Neither religion nor the conditions to live. In the name of religion you exploited. In its name you sit on their chest—and won’t get off.
So we have fabricated false religion—forced by parents, by law, by priest and church. We pounce on the child from the start. The whole world wants “religious education” for children. Why? Fear that when grown up they won’t listen!
And there is some truth in the fear. If a child is not spoiled from the beginning, then at twenty-five or thirty, when you say, “Worship Lord Ganesh,” he’ll ask, “Are you making a joke? Worship this gentleman with a trunk? Chant ‘Jai Ganesh’?” He’ll say, “Do I have no brains?” Celebrate Ganesh festival? He’ll laugh—childish stuff. He’ll think, he’ll examine. If you haven’t conditioned him from childhood and suddenly at thirty—after university, after understanding all religions—you say, “Now there will be a yajna; we’ll throw millions’ worth of ghee and grain into fire, and the world will have peace,” do you think he’ll agree? That he can be made a fool? That you can say, “By pouring grain and ghee into fire there will be world peace”?
It hasn’t come yet—how many yajnas you have done! Forget world peace—the priest who performs the yajna has no peace at home, though he has done countless yajnas. After each yajna, the hundred-odd priests fight: who got how much? The quarrels go to the police. World peace!
And you’ll say the strangest things. If you haven’t corrupted them early, will they accept? You’ll say, “This brings rain.” They’ll ask, “Whom are you fooling? What has burning ghee to do with rain? If you want rain, use scientific methods—rain is possible. In Russia they seed clouds from airplanes with ice; the cold condenses water and it rains. But you burn ghee and grain! You need rain for grain to grow, and you burn the grain! Is there any end to your stupidity?”
But children don’t see the stupidity because you put those glasses on their eyes from the start.
So your religion is false; your love is false; your joys are false. False joys are taught: to every child we say, “When you come home first class from the university, you’ll get happiness.” He returns with a bundle of certificates and asks, “Where is the happiness?” Then we defer: “How can it come now? First you’ll marry, ride a horse, the band will play—then you’ll get happiness.” He thinks, “All right.” He rides the horse, brings the bride home: “Still no happiness?” We say, “So soon? Wait till you have children.” When the children come, he still asks, “When will happiness come?” “Let them grow up, be educated, get married.” He stops asking only when his children start asking him, “When will happiness come?” Then he repeats what his father repeated, what fathers have always repeated.
We go on passing along a lie. We tell children, “When you grow up you’ll understand everything.” And we know, while saying it, that we ourselves understood nothing—and yet we tell them! We are postponing, saving face. “When you’re grown, we’ll see.” And when he grows, he too understands that growing up brings no understanding.
When I was a schoolboy, a teacher said something like this. I asked something about God. He said, “When you grow up, you’ll understand.” I said, “Please give the exact age. ‘Grown up’—what does that mean? Give a proper age; on that date I’ll come to your house.”
He got nervous. “Age has nothing to do with it. When you grow up...”
I said, “But when will I be grown? Give any date. If you live and I live, we’ll meet then.”
He grew anxious, flustered. A decent man. “Forgive me; I don’t want to get into a wrangle.”
I asked, “Has it happened to you?”
He said, “Why hide? I was told the same: ‘When you grow up, it will happen.’ I’m telling you the same. It hasn’t happened to me—and don’t come here again.”
You tell children, “When you grow up you’ll know everything!”—deferral, deception. By the time they grow up they too become adept at deception.
Here every story ends in happiness. You read: “Once there was a king, once there was a queen...” and at the end the shehnai plays: they marry and live happily ever after. That’s where the story stops. Hindi films too end there: lots of trouble, love triangles, fights, and everyone in the hall knows it will all be fine in the end—no need to panic. And sure enough there’s a device, everything’s fine, shehnai plays, garlands around the bride and groom—and The End!
In truth, that’s exactly where the real story begins—but it isn’t told; who would expose themselves? “They married and lived happily ever after”—but after marriage people begin to live unhappily. Before that, there may have been a little happiness.
A young woman, soon to be married, had her arms around her lover and said, “Don’t worry, when I’m with you, I’ll share all your sorrows.” The young man said, “But I have no sorrows.” She said, “I’m not talking about now—I’m talking about after marriage.”
You are right, Ramakrishna: “I cannot accept happiness.” But this is a significant realization—a precious awareness. From this awareness the doors open.
You say, “It seems sorrow appeals to me.”
A priceless insight. Sorrow appeals to everyone. You will be shocked, you may not agree, but everyone likes sorrow; that is why there is so much of it. If joy appealed, this world would be different—we would have made it a heaven; but sorrow appeals.
Not directly. If asked straight, no one will say, “I like sorrow.” Indirectly, by roundabout ways, we produce it. We have big vested interests in suffering. When the wife is sad or ill, the husband sits by her, strokes her head, presses her feet. When she is healthy, he reads the newspaper, listens to the radio, scarcely notices her. Slowly the wife learns: if she wants to keep the husband’s attention and service—and who doesn’t enjoy being cared for?—then being unhappy is necessary; being ill, depressed. Only then sympathy comes. Small children learn the same.
Ask psychologists: they say seventy percent of illnesses people produce themselves. Seventy percent is no small figure. Because in illness they get a peculiar morbid juice.
When do you pay attention to the child? When he is sick. Then the whole house revolves around him—he becomes the center. He enjoys it. Neighbors and relatives come to see him, ask after him, bring toys—when he is sick. When he is healthy, he is scolded from all sides: healthy, he climbs trees; sits on the roof; breaks the toys; makes noise. “Stop that! Sit quiet! Sit in a corner! Where are you going? Outside?!” Healthy, he gets nothing but reprimand. Sick, he gets honor and care.
Do you see what poison you pour into his life? You teach him: it is in your interest to be sick, to be miserable. This settles into the unconscious. Later in life, whenever difficulty arises, he will fall ill—not pretending, truly ill. A voice rises from the unconscious and seizes the mind. Business is hard, debts mounting—he falls into bed. At least there’s an excuse: “How to pay debts? I’m ill!”
If a healthy man goes to the market, people demand payment: “It’s been long!” If he’s ill in bed, who will ask? People pity, give more credit. If he’s ill, the wife takes a job, the children find work—otherwise they were loafing. In all this a kind of juice is produced, a self-interest.
It’s true, Ramakrishna: people like sorrow. We have built this world on sorrowful foundations. Our society, our crowds, live in such darkness, with such arrangements of suffering, that there is no counting. And then we expect great happiness. With one hand we clutch sorrow, and with the other we expect joy. And if happiness, by some mistake, arrives at the door, we have no capacity to receive it. We don’t know how to laugh with joy; we only know how to weep, how to be gloomy; we know nothing of celebration.
“I think I should leave your gathering.
The heavy burden of colors and fragrance
will crush my sensitive nature, my pride.
This chamber of delights, by your love I swear,
will not suit my vagabond temperament.
As the showers of melody falling from the strings
only increase the thirst of longing,
your radiant youth, your resplendent bloom
will lead the emotions astray, my friend!
Life will be lost in the tresses and the cheeks,
lost in song and scent and light.
My art, my imagination, my delicate thoughts
will shiver in the cold climates of luxury.
The songs—of stars, of sparks, of blossoming gardens—
that are yet to be clothed in words,
will suffocate and die in your embrace.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace,
and if life has no burning ache, it is nothing, nothing at all—
I think I should leave your gathering.”
The lover says to the beloved—
“...they will suffocate and die in your embrace.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace.
In your lap I will be dissolved, for there is nothing but happiness there.
Music upon music is your gathering, your embrace.
If life has no burning ache, it is nothing, nothing.”
Remember, in sorrow the ego thrives; in joy it melts. In love the ego must die; in hate it grows strong. In hell the ego has every convenience; in heaven it has no place.
“I think I should leave your gathering.
The heavy burden of colors and fragrance
will crush my sensitive nature, my pride...”
And crush my ego too. This flood of color and scent, this rain of love, will destroy my self-importance.
Keep this in mind: amid sorrow the ego lives comfortably; in bliss it melts. Love kills the ego; hatred nourishes it.
Therefore, Ramakrishna, you are right: “I cannot accept happiness. It seems sorrow appeals to me. Still I want happiness. Untangle my confusion.”
Just understand the tangle—and it is untangled. If you see clearly that it is a tangle, it begins to dissolve in that very clarity.
Keep three things in mind. First, wherever in sorrow you have tied your vested interests, recognize them. Do not derive even the slightest profit from suffering; otherwise happiness will never be yours. Do not give sorrow a place in your life—by any excuse, any pretext. Uproot the weeds of suffering from the garden of your life; only then can roses bloom.
And be very alert. For centuries sorrow has been taught. Your saints and sages tell you life is suffering. Your priests say you must suffer the fruits of sins from past lives—someone has to bear them. Endless ideas are thrust upon you for one purpose only: to make your suffering seem natural, inevitable. Supports are placed under your sorrow. Remove all supports and suffering collapses. These props you’ve leaned against—kick them away. You are not suffering the karmic fruits of past births—fruits don’t take that long! They are immediate. Those who taught you otherwise are tricksters. Put your hand in fire now, and they say, “In your next life your hand will be burned.”
Think a little! Put your hand in fire now and it burns now—instantly; no next life required. The sins of the last life were borne then; the virtues too. If you give alms, the joy that arises in your heart at that very moment is the result, the fruit. If you rage at someone, the poison that floods you then is your punishment.
One who is angry burns himself before he burns you. What wound he inflicts on you, he must first inflict on himself. This is the supreme law: whatever you do to others, before you do it to them, you have to do it to yourself. If you want to give sorrow, you must first make yourself sorrowful—only a suffering person can spread suffering; we can give only what we have. If you want to give joy, you must produce joy within.
And note: there is no gap between act and result; the result is inherent in the act. Where you give joy, there and then you receive joy—immediately. Where you give pain, you receive pain in the very giving. The account is settled on the spot. If in this life you are suffering, it is not because in some past life you sinned; if you receive happiness, it is not the fruit of past virtues. These false notions keep your life from being resolved.
Then some say: “Whatever God has written in your fate will happen.”
Is this God a god—or a devil—who writes such things in your fate? Your life full of pain and anguish—does He enjoy tormenting you? But your holy men hold that God delights in your suffering. Is God like little boys who throw stones at frogs, pull off ants’ legs, tear butterflies’ wings? Is God a sadist? But that is what they imply: God writes suffering in your fate; therefore if you want to win His favor, inflict suffering on yourself. Go hungry. Torture and wither the body. Stand in the blazing sun. In winter, stand all night in the river. If that doesn’t satisfy you, go naked to the icy Himalayan rocks. If even that doesn’t suffice, go into the desert and bake in the heat. The more you torture yourself... find new methods of torment.
And methods have been found. Some lie on beds of thorns—as if man were made for thorns. Some drive nails into their shoes so they pierce and wound their feet. They think they please God! People like this, who imagine that by suffering God is pleased, give an absurd logic—based on the premise that since there is so much suffering in the world given by God, He must delight in suffering; so if we suffer, we will be His beloveds. The more we suffer, the more beloved we become.
And you honor these sorrow-mongers. Some saint fasts a hundred days—you take out a grand procession.
What are you celebrating? A man tortured himself for a hundred days, and you garland him, beat the drums, fall at his feet? He needs psychiatric care—electric shocks. He is becoming unnatural. Hunger is natural; to satisfy natural hunger is natural. I cannot imagine any mother pleased that her child sits hungry for a hundred days. How would God be pleased to see someone starve? Seeing him hungry for a hundred days, God would weep—if there is a God with a heart. And when you take out processions, He would beat His chest: not one madman, but a whole procession of madness! Because Munishri Thothumal fasted for a hundred days, all the fools of the village gathered—and marched.
Among Christians there was a sect of ascetics who whip themselves every morning as prayer. The more lashes, the greater the saint. And people gather to watch, crowds in the morning—who wouldn’t, for a free circus!
People seem sick. It is a sickness also to go watch someone being whipped. But don’t laugh. Two men fight on the street—you were going to buy medicine for your wife, urgent—and you forget the medicine, lean your bicycle and join the crowd. The quarrel heats up, abuses heavy, and your heart is delighted: “Now something will happen, now a fight!” If, seeing the crowd, both suddenly get sense and say, “Brother, we’ll meet tomorrow,” and walk away, you will be disappointed: “Nothing happened! Stood for nothing.” Though if the fight begins, you’ll try to stop it—outwardly: “Don’t fight!” Inwardly you’ll hope it escalates.
Films run only when they have murder, theft, dacoity, looting, rape. Make a film with none of these—who will watch? People are sorrow-lovers; they want to see pain.
So those Christian ascetics who whip themselves gather crowds each morning—just as you go to see a fasting monk. They make their bodies bloody. Then there is competition among them: who can whip more? Some have gouged out their eyes, cut their tongues, cut off genitals; women cut off their breasts—and thousands gather to watch! What a sickness. And those who do it believe God is pleased.
You must understand. You must examine, with alertness, all the connections you have with suffering; and cut them. You live in a sorrow-worshipping society. Your whole culture is sorrow-centered—East or West, differences of degree, not kind. Your entire lifestyle honors suffering. Become alert and sever your ties with it. Only then will you be able to embrace joy.
My teaching is of joy. I want to teach you supreme bliss. It is your birthright. And God will be delighted—the more joyous you are. He should be. Otherwise such a God is no God. He will see your celebration, your dance, the blossoming flowers of your love, the fragrance of meditation rising within you—and He will dance. When you dance, God dances; when you laugh, God laughs.
A Hasid dervish was dying—his name was Jhusia; he must have been a wondrous, lovable man. Someone asked, “Jhusia, have you completed all austerities? All vows, all rules? Will you be able to stand before God with your head held high?”
Jhusia opened his eyes and said, “Is God some villain who will ask me how many days I starved, how much nakedness I endured, how much heat and cold I suffered? I’ve not made such preparations, because I know God.”
“Then what preparation have you made?”
He said, “I’ve memorized some superb stories. I’ll tell Him a few tales that will have Him rolling with laughter. All my life I’ve made people roll with laughter. I know how to laugh and make others laugh—that’s it! Just let me get to Him—I have such select, handpicked jokes that if He doesn’t roll, you can come and tell me. I’ll distract Him with stories. I’ll tell Him some jokes. And I know songs—I’ll sing. And I’ve learned to dance—I’ll dance too. And you’ll see—I tell you—He will dance with me, laugh with me, sing with me. I’ll hand Him the drum: ‘You beat the drum, I’ll dance. You play the tambourine, I’ll sing.’”
This Jhusia is dear to me. He seems to know God better. This whole existence is celebrative. Become celebrative, and you become God’s beloved. Break your ties with sorrow. Uproot, consciously and unconsciously, all your connections with suffering. And the moment you break with sorrow, you will be astonished—fountains of joy begin to flow. Bliss is our nature.
Third question:
Osho, I am in love with a young woman. You sing songs of love, and it comforts the mind. Though I know you are singing of quite another love. Still, I take it to be my kind of love and feel pleased. I am in love with you too. Now what should I do? Drop everything and plunge into sannyas? Or as you say! I am only twenty-six.
Osho, I am in love with a young woman. You sing songs of love, and it comforts the mind. Though I know you are singing of quite another love. Still, I take it to be my kind of love and feel pleased. I am in love with you too. Now what should I do? Drop everything and plunge into sannyas? Or as you say! I am only twenty-six.
Surendra! You will understand exactly what I say only when you attain the state of consciousness in which I am. Until then, misreadings are natural. I will say one thing; you will hear another. Don’t make this a big problem. I will call from the mountains, you will listen from your valleys—and by the time a mountain-call reaches the valleys, it is much transformed, much translated. Many translations happen.
So when I sing of love, naturally you take it to mean what you call love. And what do you call love? What you have seen in Hindi films. What else do you know of love? There is nowhere else love is taught. You watch movies and learn love from them. The irony is, those who act love on screen—I know many of them well, they come here—have no idea of love. They only know the acting of love. Even in their own lives love does not happen; in their lives love is very difficult.
It might surprise you: actors and actresses all over the world are largely failures in love. America’s famous actress Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in the flower of youth. Why? So many lovers were available to her—from nobodies to America’s President, Kennedy—yet she was deprived of love. A crowd of lovers does not give you love. Love is the experience of intimacy, of inwardness. Love is a most delicate happening. Monroe had thousands of lovers, millions who wrote to her—and still she died by her own hand. The reason she left was this: “There is no love in my life. I could not find love. Then what is the point of living?”
From such people you will learn love? Films are teaching you love where there is no love, no experience of it. Or you learn from poets whose songs try to console a heart in which love has not happened. Psychologists agree: those who sing too many songs of love—such poets—are often precisely those in whose lives love does not happen. How to fill the lack? They fill it by singing.
When I speak of love, I speak of my love. When you understand, you understand in terms of your love.
And what is your age? At this age I would not say that being in love with a young woman is a mistake. Not to be would be a mistake—because it would be unnatural. It is perfectly natural. I hold nature in the highest respect—just one step below the divine, only one step. And it is by riding on nature that one reaches the divine; there is no other way, for nature is the staircase to that temple.
You say: “I am in love with a young woman. You sing songs of love, and the mind feels good. Though I know you are singing of another kind of love. Still, I take it to be my love and feel pleased.”
Do not do that! Do not deceive yourself. Your love too is acceptable to me. But do not equate the love I speak of with the love you now feel. Let there remain room to grow. Let there be a star shining in your sky. Your love I embrace—it is beautiful, auspicious. But love has higher heights yet, further destinations, deeper refinements. If you make my love and your love the same, you will lose the goal of your life. Then there will be no movement, no growth. I accept your love as the first step. But there are many steps yet, and then there is the temple, and in the temple dwells the God of love. That is where one has to go. So don’t give yourself that consolation, that deceit.
Human beings are very clever at deceiving themselves—more than deceiving others. There is a reason: if you deceive another, the other may try to defend himself. If you deceive yourself—you are utterly helpless there; there is no one to save you. If you are yourself the deceiver, who will be saved, and from whom?
I row my boat on a river of turmoil,
I breathe the winds of deceit.
No one does such injustice to an enemy
As the fraud I practice upon myself.
We keep it going, very cleverly. We declare our present state perfect; then there is nothing left to do.
As you are, you are natural—but nature has more dimensions. A seed is natural; that does not mean it should remain a seed. It must become a tree. The tree is natural; that does not mean it should remain only a tree—it must bring forth flowers. Flowers are natural; that does not mean they should remain flowers—they must become fragrance and fly into the sky. Until the seed—hard and small—has become an invisible perfume moving in the vast sky, do not be content; do not seek consolation.
Your love is like a seed. The love I speak of is like fragrance. That fragrance will come from your very seed, so there is no denial of your seed—there is acceptance, a welcome. But it is not the end.
Two mistakes can be made with me. One is to think your love is the ultimate—some people do this. The other is to think the love I speak of leaves no place for your love, that my love is opposed to yours—this mistake too has been made for centuries. What I am saying is different from both: your love is included in my love; it is a limb of it. But your love and my love are not the same.
Imagine you draw a large circle, and inside it a small circle. Your love is like the small circle. The small circle is within the big one, but the big circle is not within the small. If this is clear, there will be no mistake.
And never condemn this fact. Being in love with me does not mean you should abandon the person you love and become a sannyasin. My sannyas is not of leaving, escaping, running away. If your heart holds love for a young woman, nothing is wrong; it should be so. God has willed it, therefore it is happening. It is not your doing; it is nature’s spontaneous expression.
Justice! You who gave the longing for idols,
You who gave them beauty and gave me the eye—
With what face will you indict me on Judgment Day,
You who gave the heart its craving for sin?
Yes. Say this to God when you meet him on the Day of Reckoning: Justice!
Justice! You who planted in me the love of beautiful forms—
You created beauty: women and men, flowers and birds, moon and stars.
You created in me the eye to see beauty. If my gaze falls in love and is bound, whose fault is it? Justice!
And if desire is sin, you were the giver. How will you punish me? You gave me desire, you made beauty, you gave me sight, and the capacity to fall in love.
Do not be afraid. Your love is no sin—so there is no question of dropping it. But your love is not the end. You have to go higher, your love has to rise higher. It must travel from mud to lotus.
And I will not tell you to leave everything and—You ask: “What should I do now? Drop everything and drown myself in sannyas? Or as you say!”
Even if you drop everything and drown yourself in sannyas now, you will not be able to drown. Sannyas requires maturity. It is not only a question of age—Shankaracharya took sannyas at nine, but many lives of maturity stood behind him. Buddha left at twenty-nine, but many lives of maturity were there. Generally, there is no need to hurry. Even if you take sannyas now and remember God, in that remembrance the memory of your beloved will shimmer through. You will pray, but in prayer a heart still thirsty for love will weep.
At very dawn you come to pluck flowers, in white attire,
In the parijat courtyard.
Darkness does not fully fade,
Light does not fully arrive—
That hour between night and morning.
The day turns auspicious at first sight of you,
In the parijat courtyard.
Poised on the threshold of age,
Standing within, not yet stepping out—
Adolescence has just gone,
Youth has not yet come.
No introduction yet to beauty and its pride,
In the parijat courtyard.
Your camphor-like virginity
Flickers like a little lamp,
And our feeling stands
Between love and worship.
I sit to meditate on God—yet you come into my meditation,
In the parijat courtyard.
If I were to tell you now, Surendra, “Leave everything and come,” this is the obstacle that would arise:
I sit to meditate on God—yet you come into my meditation,
In the parijat courtyard.
There is no hurry. The beloved is not the opposite of God. From the beloved’s door the path goes to God. Love much. Purify love—of hatred, anger, jealousy, enmity. Purify anger in every way, and it becomes compassion. Purify kama, sex-desire, through and through, and it becomes Rama—the divine. If you keep purifying the love you now call love, then one day the love I call love will happen. Do not leave, do not run. Use the opportunities God gives.
I teach transformation, not escape.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
The impudent season of the passionate gaze has come,
The innocent follies of a wounded heart have arrived.
The eye of beauty is inclined to be a buyer,
The wares of passion are going cheap.
The temperament of intellect is out of sorts,
The days when the lineage of madness speaks have arrived.
Heads have resolved to invite bewilderment,
The days when hearts host the guest of pain have arrived.
The flames of tulip and rose-lamps have begun to drip,
In the garden the days of scattering sparks have returned.
Spring did not become the cause of the garden’s unity—
The perfume of the flowers is scattered and astray.
There the gold-dust of blossoms is strewn in the garden; here, Taban,
Have come the days of our poverty and lack.
In your life the hour of love has come.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
Do not run away! Play the flute, strike the sitar, lift the reed-pipe! Sing songs of life, of life’s joy! Love—love to your heart’s content! For out of this love will come maturity. By living this love you will see that there is a love beyond it. By living this love it will be seen that this love is fleeting, like a bubble on water—now formed, now gone. From this very love you will get the taste of that love which is eternal. This love will slowly bring you one day to the threshold of God. It surely does; this has ever been the experience of the awakened.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
Do not be afraid. Never be afraid of any experience in life. Whoever becomes afraid does not ripen, does not become rich. Taste all the colors of life. Live all the ways of life. All the dimensions of life should be familiar to you—know the bad and the good, the nights and the days, the spring and the fall. Only by facing the challenges between fall and spring will there arise within you the love we call love of the divine.
And this is the difficulty: people are not ready to endure so many buffets—so the supreme experience slips from the hand. The path of love is hard—why? Because storms must be weathered, gales endured, tempests faced; one must fall into pits; make many mistakes; repent many times. Only by passing through the fire of all your errors, illusions and regrets does your gold become pure.
Surendra!
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
The impudent season of the passionate gaze has come,
The innocent follies of a wounded heart have arrived.
The eye of beauty is inclined to be a buyer,
The wares of passion are going cheap.
The temperament of intellect is out of sorts,
The days when the lineage of madness speaks have arrived.
Heads have resolved to invite bewilderment,
The days when hearts host the guest of pain have arrived.
The flames of tulip and rose-lamps have begun to drip,
In the garden the days of scattering sparks have returned.
Spring did not become the cause of the garden’s unity—
The perfume of the flowers is scattered and astray.
There the gold-dust of blossoms is strewn in the garden; here, Taban,
Have come the days of our poverty and lack.
That is all for today.
So when I sing of love, naturally you take it to mean what you call love. And what do you call love? What you have seen in Hindi films. What else do you know of love? There is nowhere else love is taught. You watch movies and learn love from them. The irony is, those who act love on screen—I know many of them well, they come here—have no idea of love. They only know the acting of love. Even in their own lives love does not happen; in their lives love is very difficult.
It might surprise you: actors and actresses all over the world are largely failures in love. America’s famous actress Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in the flower of youth. Why? So many lovers were available to her—from nobodies to America’s President, Kennedy—yet she was deprived of love. A crowd of lovers does not give you love. Love is the experience of intimacy, of inwardness. Love is a most delicate happening. Monroe had thousands of lovers, millions who wrote to her—and still she died by her own hand. The reason she left was this: “There is no love in my life. I could not find love. Then what is the point of living?”
From such people you will learn love? Films are teaching you love where there is no love, no experience of it. Or you learn from poets whose songs try to console a heart in which love has not happened. Psychologists agree: those who sing too many songs of love—such poets—are often precisely those in whose lives love does not happen. How to fill the lack? They fill it by singing.
When I speak of love, I speak of my love. When you understand, you understand in terms of your love.
And what is your age? At this age I would not say that being in love with a young woman is a mistake. Not to be would be a mistake—because it would be unnatural. It is perfectly natural. I hold nature in the highest respect—just one step below the divine, only one step. And it is by riding on nature that one reaches the divine; there is no other way, for nature is the staircase to that temple.
You say: “I am in love with a young woman. You sing songs of love, and the mind feels good. Though I know you are singing of another kind of love. Still, I take it to be my love and feel pleased.”
Do not do that! Do not deceive yourself. Your love too is acceptable to me. But do not equate the love I speak of with the love you now feel. Let there remain room to grow. Let there be a star shining in your sky. Your love I embrace—it is beautiful, auspicious. But love has higher heights yet, further destinations, deeper refinements. If you make my love and your love the same, you will lose the goal of your life. Then there will be no movement, no growth. I accept your love as the first step. But there are many steps yet, and then there is the temple, and in the temple dwells the God of love. That is where one has to go. So don’t give yourself that consolation, that deceit.
Human beings are very clever at deceiving themselves—more than deceiving others. There is a reason: if you deceive another, the other may try to defend himself. If you deceive yourself—you are utterly helpless there; there is no one to save you. If you are yourself the deceiver, who will be saved, and from whom?
I row my boat on a river of turmoil,
I breathe the winds of deceit.
No one does such injustice to an enemy
As the fraud I practice upon myself.
We keep it going, very cleverly. We declare our present state perfect; then there is nothing left to do.
As you are, you are natural—but nature has more dimensions. A seed is natural; that does not mean it should remain a seed. It must become a tree. The tree is natural; that does not mean it should remain only a tree—it must bring forth flowers. Flowers are natural; that does not mean they should remain flowers—they must become fragrance and fly into the sky. Until the seed—hard and small—has become an invisible perfume moving in the vast sky, do not be content; do not seek consolation.
Your love is like a seed. The love I speak of is like fragrance. That fragrance will come from your very seed, so there is no denial of your seed—there is acceptance, a welcome. But it is not the end.
Two mistakes can be made with me. One is to think your love is the ultimate—some people do this. The other is to think the love I speak of leaves no place for your love, that my love is opposed to yours—this mistake too has been made for centuries. What I am saying is different from both: your love is included in my love; it is a limb of it. But your love and my love are not the same.
Imagine you draw a large circle, and inside it a small circle. Your love is like the small circle. The small circle is within the big one, but the big circle is not within the small. If this is clear, there will be no mistake.
And never condemn this fact. Being in love with me does not mean you should abandon the person you love and become a sannyasin. My sannyas is not of leaving, escaping, running away. If your heart holds love for a young woman, nothing is wrong; it should be so. God has willed it, therefore it is happening. It is not your doing; it is nature’s spontaneous expression.
Justice! You who gave the longing for idols,
You who gave them beauty and gave me the eye—
With what face will you indict me on Judgment Day,
You who gave the heart its craving for sin?
Yes. Say this to God when you meet him on the Day of Reckoning: Justice!
Justice! You who planted in me the love of beautiful forms—
You created beauty: women and men, flowers and birds, moon and stars.
You created in me the eye to see beauty. If my gaze falls in love and is bound, whose fault is it? Justice!
And if desire is sin, you were the giver. How will you punish me? You gave me desire, you made beauty, you gave me sight, and the capacity to fall in love.
Do not be afraid. Your love is no sin—so there is no question of dropping it. But your love is not the end. You have to go higher, your love has to rise higher. It must travel from mud to lotus.
And I will not tell you to leave everything and—You ask: “What should I do now? Drop everything and drown myself in sannyas? Or as you say!”
Even if you drop everything and drown yourself in sannyas now, you will not be able to drown. Sannyas requires maturity. It is not only a question of age—Shankaracharya took sannyas at nine, but many lives of maturity stood behind him. Buddha left at twenty-nine, but many lives of maturity were there. Generally, there is no need to hurry. Even if you take sannyas now and remember God, in that remembrance the memory of your beloved will shimmer through. You will pray, but in prayer a heart still thirsty for love will weep.
At very dawn you come to pluck flowers, in white attire,
In the parijat courtyard.
Darkness does not fully fade,
Light does not fully arrive—
That hour between night and morning.
The day turns auspicious at first sight of you,
In the parijat courtyard.
Poised on the threshold of age,
Standing within, not yet stepping out—
Adolescence has just gone,
Youth has not yet come.
No introduction yet to beauty and its pride,
In the parijat courtyard.
Your camphor-like virginity
Flickers like a little lamp,
And our feeling stands
Between love and worship.
I sit to meditate on God—yet you come into my meditation,
In the parijat courtyard.
If I were to tell you now, Surendra, “Leave everything and come,” this is the obstacle that would arise:
I sit to meditate on God—yet you come into my meditation,
In the parijat courtyard.
There is no hurry. The beloved is not the opposite of God. From the beloved’s door the path goes to God. Love much. Purify love—of hatred, anger, jealousy, enmity. Purify anger in every way, and it becomes compassion. Purify kama, sex-desire, through and through, and it becomes Rama—the divine. If you keep purifying the love you now call love, then one day the love I call love will happen. Do not leave, do not run. Use the opportunities God gives.
I teach transformation, not escape.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
The impudent season of the passionate gaze has come,
The innocent follies of a wounded heart have arrived.
The eye of beauty is inclined to be a buyer,
The wares of passion are going cheap.
The temperament of intellect is out of sorts,
The days when the lineage of madness speaks have arrived.
Heads have resolved to invite bewilderment,
The days when hearts host the guest of pain have arrived.
The flames of tulip and rose-lamps have begun to drip,
In the garden the days of scattering sparks have returned.
Spring did not become the cause of the garden’s unity—
The perfume of the flowers is scattered and astray.
There the gold-dust of blossoms is strewn in the garden; here, Taban,
Have come the days of our poverty and lack.
In your life the hour of love has come.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
Do not run away! Play the flute, strike the sitar, lift the reed-pipe! Sing songs of life, of life’s joy! Love—love to your heart’s content! For out of this love will come maturity. By living this love you will see that there is a love beyond it. By living this love it will be seen that this love is fleeting, like a bubble on water—now formed, now gone. From this very love you will get the taste of that love which is eternal. This love will slowly bring you one day to the threshold of God. It surely does; this has ever been the experience of the awakened.
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
Do not be afraid. Never be afraid of any experience in life. Whoever becomes afraid does not ripen, does not become rich. Taste all the colors of life. Live all the ways of life. All the dimensions of life should be familiar to you—know the bad and the good, the nights and the days, the spring and the fall. Only by facing the challenges between fall and spring will there arise within you the love we call love of the divine.
And this is the difficulty: people are not ready to endure so many buffets—so the supreme experience slips from the hand. The path of love is hard—why? Because storms must be weathered, gales endured, tempests faced; one must fall into pits; make many mistakes; repent many times. Only by passing through the fire of all your errors, illusions and regrets does your gold become pure.
Surendra!
Spring has come, the days of scattering flowers have arrived.
Pick up your instrument, the days of singing ghazals have arrived.
The impudent season of the passionate gaze has come,
The innocent follies of a wounded heart have arrived.
The eye of beauty is inclined to be a buyer,
The wares of passion are going cheap.
The temperament of intellect is out of sorts,
The days when the lineage of madness speaks have arrived.
Heads have resolved to invite bewilderment,
The days when hearts host the guest of pain have arrived.
The flames of tulip and rose-lamps have begun to drip,
In the garden the days of scattering sparks have returned.
Spring did not become the cause of the garden’s unity—
The perfume of the flowers is scattered and astray.
There the gold-dust of blossoms is strewn in the garden; here, Taban,
Have come the days of our poverty and lack.
That is all for today.