Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #2

Swarup! That which does not fit into your understanding—that is what is called Paramatma. What fits into understanding is called the world. That which does not fit into understanding also is. Existence does not end at the boundary of understanding; it stretches beyond it. The very proclamation that existence extends beyond understanding—that is what “Paramatma” means.

Paramatma is not a person. If you look for God as a person, you will wander in vain and reach nowhere. Paramatma is the name of the unknown—and not only the unknown, but the unknowable. Try to know it and you will not be able to know it; the more you attempt to know, the more unknown it becomes.

And yet there is another doorway into Paramatma—the name of that doorway is love. It is not known by knowing, but it is known by loving. If knowing were the only way to know, there would be no way to relate to Paramatma. But there is another way. Your intelligence is not all that is within you; remember your heart as well. Thinking is not everything within you; taste a little of the tenderness of feeling. The eyes do not only see stones and pebbles; tears of love also flow from them. If you stop at thought alone, then there is no God—not because God is not, but because thought has no capacity to know God.

It is as if someone wanted to hear music with his eyes and, not hearing it, declared: “Until I can hear music with my eyes, I will not believe.” What can one do then? Music cannot be heard with the eyes. It can be heard with the ears—but he insists he will not open his ears.

Every instrument has its limits. The intellect can know matter, not God. The heart can know God, not matter. Ears can hear music but cannot see light. Eyes can see light but cannot hear music. Hands can touch and feel but cannot smell; for that you need the nostrils. Every experience has its own door, and it is available only through that door.

You ask, Swarup: “The word Paramatma does not make sense to me.” To whom has it ever made sense? Has it ever made sense to anyone? It has nothing to do with “making sense.” It is the possibility for those who are willing to be unknowing. It is the path of the ecstatic, the intoxicated in love. That is why the path of love is so difficult. The path of love is so hard!

What is the difficulty? The difficulty is that we manage almost everything in life through thinking. And so an illusion arises: since thinking solves mathematics, language, logic, philosophy—geography, history, politics, science—then perhaps with the same intellect we can solve God as well. In that very hope, trouble begins. In that very hope lie the seeds of our despair and our failure. From school to university you are trained only in intellect. Nowhere in this world is there a place where the heart is trained. That is why I say: though the world is full of temples, mosques, and churches, real temples have disappeared—because a temple should be a place where the heart is trained.

Your temples too are full of intellect. They have become schools. Scriptures are being explained there; your temples have become abodes of the head. The heart no longer dances there; the flute of love no longer plays. Nets of argument are being spread even there. A Hindu attacks the Muslim, the Muslim attacks the Hindu. The Arya Samaji refutes the Sanatani; the Sanatani refutes the Arya Samaji. Even in temples it is all refutation and counter-refutation. Where is the flower of love to blossom? In mosques, too, the wine of love is not being poured; even there they try to go only as far as argument can carry them.

Reason is like a stick in the hands of a blind man. It gropes a little. And the blind man’s stick is of some use; I do not say it is utterly useless. It has its utility. The blind man can find his way home with it, find the door, search for his shoes, avoid bumping into things. But the blind man’s stick does not become his eyes—nor can it. If eyes are found, one must drop the stick at once. Who then cares for the stick?

Therefore, those who gave the heart a little space to open, allowed its bud to become a flower, dropped the babble of argument. They began to live in God. They no longer offered proofs of God; they themselves became the proof. Their rising and sitting, their speaking and their silence—everything became an expression of God. Their whole life became a song of God. A fragrance began to rise from their lives.

Such fragrance can rise from your life too. You are worthy of it. You are as much the owner as any Buddha, any Krishna, any Christ; as much as Mahavira, Mohammed, or Meera. Your ownership is not a whit less. But if you try to pass through a wall and cannot, do not blame your fate. If there is a door, why try to go through the wall? Why bang your head against it? Of all the things you do with the head, they are nothing but banging against a wall.

There is another, more intimate world within you—a realm of feeling. Very delicate, very tender. And because it is delicate and tender, it has been kept very hidden. The more precious a thing is, the deeper we bury it so that it is not stolen. The intellect is on the surface, because it is the junk. The heart is very deep, because it is your treasure. Your samadhi is hidden there; your solutions are there. Intellect is makeshift, of the marketplace, cheap. The heart is the very foundation of your life.

No one has ever understood God—and no one ever will. The day God becomes understandable, that day religion will end. That day religion will be dead. That day there will be bonfires of Qurans, Gitas, Vedas. Nothing of substance will remain in religion the day God is understood.

Karl Marx said, “I will believe in God when He is caught in the laboratory—when He is trapped in a test tube and examined, analyzed, measured, seen through instruments; when He can be weighed and gauged by mathematics, logic, and science—then I will believe.” But if one day you catch God in the laboratory and finish examining Him, will God remain thereafter? Whom will you worship then? A God caught in test tubes cannot be worshipped. To whom will you pray? A God proven in the lab cannot receive prayer. He would be your slave, your servant—like electricity today, enslaved to you: press a button and the light turns on; press a button and it goes off. Such a God would be in your hands. Command Him and He would say, “Yes, sir! At your service!” He would go where you take Him, do what you make Him do. Then you would become greater than God, the day you understand Him.

No. God is vast; our understanding is very small. Our understanding is like a spoon, and God is like the ocean. And you set out to measure the ocean with a spoon! See the folly—the folly of the intellect. With such a tiny spoon you will never measure such an immense ocean. No one ever has.

But this does not mean that the ocean is not, because you cannot measure it. There is no need to measure—dive in! Bathe! Float upon its waves! Launch your boat upon it! The ocean’s call is the call of the unknown. And the more you “understand”—and when I use the word “understand,” I mean the more your heart becomes suffused with feeling, the deeper your devotion becomes—the more you will find there is yet to understand. The more you know, the more remains to be known. And do you know what the peak of knowledge is? The peak of knowledge is the declaration: “I am ignorant, and before God I will remain forever ignorant,” because God is unknowable.

So you will not be able to “understand.” But you can live it.

I am showing you the way to live God—not to understand God. I am not a scholar, not a preacher, not a philosopher. I have nothing much to do with scriptures, nor do I know much about them. What I am saying to you is the offering of my own heart’s feeling. I too tried to reach God through intellect and could not. I used all the intellect I had; the more I used it, the more I became an atheist. Then one day it became clear: the more intensely I apply the intellect, the deeper atheism grows. Then surely I am walking on the wrong path.

If you walk toward the sun, the eyes should see more light; if you walk with your back to the sun, the darkness will increase. If you walk toward the garden, the breezes will become fragrant and cool; if you walk away, even the fragrance and coolness that were there will be lost.

Soon it dawned on me that the more I thought and reasoned, the more difficult God became—difficult even to accept, let alone to know.

And I had tried to the utmost! I was expelled from the university because no teacher was willing to have me in their class. They said there was too much argument, too much debate—no study could happen; there was debate about everything. I understand their difficulty. One can argue about everything. And through argument I had set out to seek the truth.

The more I tried to think and reason, the more I saw there was no way. Negativity deepened. People stopped talking to me; they would take another road to avoid me—because to talk to me meant having all their beliefs and assumptions declared wrong. But soon something else became clear to me: whether God is or is not, by denying God I was crippling my own life. My life was becoming constricted.

No one can live by negation. How will you live on “no”? There is no room to live in a “no.” Life happens in yes, in acceptance. Keep saying “no” to everything and you will shrink. If there is no God, no soul—what remains then? He who denies everything must, in the end, deny himself—that is the culmination of logic. If you play with the sword of logic, one day you will have to cut off your own head. Doubts keep increasing; and the more doubt there is, the more difficult life becomes—each step becomes hard to take.

To live, faith is needed. No one lives on faithlessness. Even the one you call an atheist lives by faith—only his faith stands on its head. He is not a genuine atheist; his faith is that there is no God, and he lives by that faith. Atheism is his religion. The Kremlin is his Kaaba. Das Kapital is his Quran, his Bible, his Veda. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao—these are his Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. His atheism is not atheism; it has become a theism in the name of no.

My “no” was total. There was no hidden “yes” in it.

That is why I say: if you have the courage to be utterly atheist, then do not be afraid—but utter atheism means do not look for support even in atheism. Drop all supports. Become so supportless that in that very supportlessness you will, for the first time, feel: What have I done? I have bored holes in my own boat! Now it is sinking. In that helplessness a revolution can happen within you: the mind remembers the heart! I have another possibility—of affection, of love, of feeling. Let me try that too. A drowning man will grasp even at a straw—remember this.

When your intellect fails utterly and throws you into an amavasya—a moonless night—when all around there is such darkness that not a single star shines, when even the faith that there is such a thing as light is gone, in that deepest night you will reach for a straw. In that deep night you will see: one limb of mine has remained unlived. I have done much thinking; I have not felt at all. Let me try feeling a little. What does a dying man not try? I have never stepped through this door; let me try this one. Who knows, perhaps this is the door!

And the day I went out through that door, I saw only God—God everywhere. Earlier I used to ask, “Where is God?” Then I began to ask, “Where is He not?”

Swarup, you ask, “What does Paramatma mean?” Paramatma means heart. Paramatma means feeling. Paramatma means love.

“I could not understand You.
My thirsty inner being,
wandering the vast desert within,
grew weary and defeated;
in the effort to understand You
I spent my whole life.
Yet all my life You remained
a shadow of a mirage—
I could not understand You.

‘You are the friend of my heart,’
my restless mind kept saying;
to attain You I worshipped
many men and many stones.
Behind what veil have You
set up Your world?
I could not understand You.

Either erase the seeming divide
between You and me,
or uproot entirely my mind’s trust in You.
All my life I wandered
in the world’s maze—
I could not understand You.”

Understanding is not the way. Madness! Call it unknowingness! Not knowledge, but innocence—undefiled feeling. Look with the wonder of a small child and God is. Look agitated through logic and there is no God. Put on the spectacles of logic and God disappears from the world. Take off those spectacles; open the eye of love a little, and you will find—everywhere, only That!

Rabindranath wrote the Gitanjali. For that extraordinary garland of songs he received the Nobel Prize. Great honor followed. Even those who had abused him began to honor him. He had many critics in Bengal—some people are strange that way! Rabindranath had harmed no one, yet there was much jealousy, envy, many troubles. But once the Nobel was awarded, there were ceremonies everywhere, receptions, garlands.

Yet there was an old man living next door who did not honor him. One day he came—Rabindranath was a little afraid of him; there was something in his eyes, a look like a dagger that pierced the heart—and, looking straight into Rabindranath’s eyes, he said, “All this is nonsense! Have you seen God? And you talk of God! You got the Nobel Prize… Gitanjali is full of songs to God, and very lovely ones. But have you seen God?”

Rabindranath was not one to lie. He could not say, “I have seen.” And it was difficult to deceive that man’s eyes. He left, saying, “First see, then write such songs! When you see, I will accept. Writing songs—anyone can do that. Yes, you are a fine poet, but you are not yet a seer. Do not forget! These honors, ceremonies, garlands, receptions—do not forget. I will keep coming to remind you.”

And he did keep reminding him. His reminders were not pleasant; they pained Rabindranath. If the man met him on the road, he would grab his hand in the middle of the street and say, “Don’t forget! You are getting lost in garlands. See—and then I will accept.”

Rabindranath began to avoid him, taking other streets so as not to pass his house, telling servants to say he was not at home if the man came.

Then one morning something happened. It had rained in the night; puddles stood along the roadside. At dawn Rabindranath went to walk by the sea. He saw the sun rising over the ocean. It was a beautiful morning—the hush of dawn, the salty air, the freshness of sleep, birds taking wing, the sun ascending. For a moment he stood transfixed. In that instant, thought slid aside, the intellect slipped away. Something connected with the heart. It was as if the sun had touched his heart, as if the sun’s rays had teased the strings within. A little color splashed inside. He returned, joy-intoxicated, and the same sun glimmered in the puddles by the road; each time he saw the sun reflected there, the same hint, the same ecstasy returned, again and again.

Just then the old man appeared on the path. Today, seeing him, no resistance arose in Rabindranath, no scorn, no urge to avoid. He himself was surprised—he felt to embrace the man. He went and hugged him. The old man smiled, looked into Rabindranath’s eyes, and said, “Now I accept. Today something has happened. Today your feelings have been stirred. Today the strings of your heart have sounded. Welcome! Thank you! I was waiting for this day. That Gitanjali you wrote—it was all the play of intellect. But today something has happened. Today your color is different, your rhythm different. Today your fragrance is different, your wave different.”

And Rabindranath has said that the joy he did not get from the Nobel Prize he received from those words of that man. From his eyes, a shower of nectar fell upon him.

If you live only by intellect, the question will persist: What does Paramatma mean? And you will never get an answer. Intellect has no answers. Remember, the intellect is skilled only at raising questions; it is impotent at giving answers. It is expert at multiplying questions—and even if you give it one answer, it will extract ten fresh questions out of it. All its skill is to increase and entangle questions; it has no capacity to resolve. The heart’s capacity is entirely different—it does not know questions, it knows only answers.

It is a strange thing: in the head there are questions, only questions; in the heart there are answers, only answers. If you want answers, dive into the heart. If your delight is in questions, remain entangled in the head. If your interest is philosophy, keep asking in the mind; philosophy will go on growing like a comet’s tail, longer and longer. But if you want an answer, a resolution, samadhi, then step a little away from the head, take a small leap, enter the realm of feeling. Dance, sing, hum. This world is so lovely—come into a little harmony with it. Such incomparable beauty is showering all around—bathe in it! Converse with the moon and the stars. Do not search in scriptures. What will you find there? Paper, with stains of ink upon it. The sky is filled with luminous stars, and you are busy searching your books? God is densely present everywhere—tree as tree, rock as rock, human as human. These are all His forms. But the intellect cannot recognize them. Come, let us seek a little through love; let us try the other door.

This is the difference between philosophy and religion.

Philosophy is the mind’s brooding; religion is a plunge into the heart. You will find Him; the friend of your heart you will surely find. He is hidden within you—why would you not find Him? The real wonder is how you miss Him. The day you know, you will hardly believe how you could miss for so long—how?

But your intellect stands like a rock, a wall between it and your heart. I say to you: instead of scripture, music—so that the rock cracks. Instead of prose, poetry—so that the rock cracks. Instead of logic, love—so that the rock cracks.

Drop cleverness! Do you want to go before God being clever? Cleverness is a veil. Be simple. There is a joy in being guileless. Go to Him as a small child calls out to his mother. Call Him like that. And if your call carries your thirst, your tears, your deep longing, the call is fulfilled instantly.

Advait Bodhisattva! When the first flower of spring blossoms, don’t think spring has arrived. The first flower only brings the news that spring is coming, coming, coming... Now it is coming, now it is coming, now it is coming... The first flower is only an announcement. Coming and coming, at last spring will arrive.

When the first clouds gather before the rains, it doesn’t mean the rain has come. But the early clouds of Ashadha carry the news: it won’t be long now. Soon the sky will be filled with rain clouds, the rains will pour, and the earth’s parched, thirsty life will be satisfied. Trees will turn green. On the mountains, springs will come alive. Waterfalls will flow again.

Fifteen years is not a long time. You say you met me fifteen years ago, and that even then my godliness had become clear. The first flower had blossomed. Today it seems to you it was already clear then. It wasn’t. It was only the first flower. A hint had reached you. The first whisper had come to the ear—distant, unfamiliar, unknown—so recognition was not really possible. In the life of one who has never known spring, even seeing the first flower, trust won’t arise that spring is on the way. Yes, when spring comes and one looks back, then one remembers: Ah, when that first flower appeared, why didn’t I bow then? Spring had already arrived! Why did I delay so long? Then there is a pang.

So it has been with you, Bodhisattva. I know your eyes: that first flower did reach you. For fifteen years you have been steadily connecting with me, day by day. Every day the connection has deepened; more and more flowers have blossomed. But these are deep matters—and fifteen years is nothing; even fifteen births are nothing. You came quickly! There are those who saw the flower before you and still have not come. Many, even after seeing the flower, wandered farther away. You are fortunate: you did not go far; you kept coming closer.

And you have shown courage. Bodhisattva holds a high post as a judge in Rajasthan. You dropped everything. You didn’t hesitate at all to leave. You have taken the intoxicating sip! And then miracles are bound to happen. With such readiness, how could they not?

You say some surprising things are happening. Much more will happen. This is only the beginning; wait and watch... You won’t be able to believe it. For the mind to which “belief” belongs, what is starting is beyond its grasp. Now the heart is announcing its sovereignty. These waves, this blissful feeling, these wonder-filling experiences are arising from the heart. The mind will be left dumbfounded. And if you tell others, naturally people will think you have gone mad. So don’t say it!

These are the talks of the mad—tell them only to the mad. Yes, if you find four fellow crazies, then certainly share. There is benefit in that. But don’t tell everyone. Tell the crowd, and the crowd is “sensible”: they will all say you’ve gone mad. And your mind is not dead yet; it is alive. The heart has begun to rise, but the mind has not died. The mind of many lifetimes does not die so easily. And those hundreds of so-called sensible people can still persuade your mind, can sow doubt in you: Who knows, perhaps I am mistaken!

So remember this: when sannyasins begin to have wondrous happenings, experiences beyond the capacity of the mind, then as far as possible, don’t talk about them. I know a great urge arises to tell someone and feel lighter. Just as when a flower is full of fragrance it wants to release it, so when certain feelings arise in your being, you too will want to share. This is precisely why sannyas was born.

People ask me, why sannyas at all? It is very much needed. Chiefly so that when something begins to happen within one person, there are a few others around who will understand, respect, and revere that inner flowering—who will nourish it, water it, support it; who will say, Good, this is right. This is how it happened to us too, this is how it is happening to us now. They will say, You are blessed! This is what we have been waiting for. These are the very flowers we too long to see blossom. This is the very light we are seeking. You have gone ahead; give us your supporting hand. Pull us along too. It is to create a gathering of such people that sannyas exists.

You say, Bodhisattva, that your progress is very slow, while your wife Krishna is having new miracles every day. Yours will be a little slower—you have been a judge! You have taken a very big leap, a great courage indeed, even a kind of audacity. But the judge will not vanish all at once. He will be hiding in a corner, watching: What is right, what is wrong? Which experience is to be accepted, which is only a dream? Which is hypnosis? Which is the mind’s imagination? Which is real? The judge sits there with his touchstone—like a goldsmith testing gold. But test the gold if you must; don’t start testing flowers on the goldsmith’s stone. Be a little wary of the goldsmith sitting inside!

In this Krishna is at an advantage. She is not a judge. And as the wife of a judge, she must be utterly fed up with judging—that’s her further advantage.

Then Krishna is a woman, you a man. A man’s natural bent is toward the head; a woman’s natural bent is toward feeling. Krishna is mad in love; she comes from the world of Meera. Truly, it is Krishna who has, slowly, slowly, drawn you here. Though she never said anything to you directly, many men here have been gently drawn and enticed by their wives. She never overtly tried to bring you here, but the transformations happening in her, the deepening intoxication, the deepening of her experiences—they kept becoming living proofs for you. You should also feel grateful to Krishna. To have such a wife is a grace. She has led you to the right temple. Perhaps by yourself you might not have come; perhaps alone you would have faced a thousand entanglements. But your love for her is so much that you came bound by that love—and her love for me is such that she had to come.

Your love for me too is not lacking; it is deep. But a man’s love is shadowed by thought; he keeps thinking and weighing.

That is why Chaitanya too danced—and danced greatly—yet still there is something that belongs to Meera and not to Chaitanya. When Chaitanya dances, it looks a little strange; when he beats the mridang, it looks a little odd. For Meera, dancing is utterly natural. If she did not dance, what else would she do! If Mahavira danced, it would feel somewhat out of place. The same slight awkwardness is felt with Chaitanya. Mahavira standing in silence—that is utterly natural.

And then, Bodhisattva, you come from a Jain family. A man, a judge, and Jain to boot! Who knows how many rock layers you had to break through to reach me. In Jain thought there is little place for feeling, no method of prayer, no possibility of devotion. Jain thought is dry, logical, mathematical.

People often ask me why I don’t speak on the Jain scriptures. They are wonderful scriptures—but not suited to speak on; they have no rasa, no juice. They are arid. What can one say upon deserts? Exquisite scriptures—like Kundakunda’s Samayasara. Many times Jains have asked me to speak on Kundakunda. Obeying them I sometimes pick up the book, flip through it, then close it again—because it is mathematics upon mathematics, logic upon logic, thought upon thought. Feeling has no place; the heart has little relation there.

That is why Jain thought could not spread in this land; it shrank. And those who remain Jains are so mostly in name only, for mathematics cannot be wedded to religion. Once in a while it can happen—someone like Albert Einstein can become religious even through mathematics. Mahavira must have been of the Einstein type; between Einstein’s and Mahavira’s thinking there is much harmony.

You will be surprised to know, Mahavira was the first proponent of relativism; Einstein the last. What Einstein called the theory of relativity is what Mahavira called syadvad—the sevenfold logic. That was the language of Mahavira’s time; the difference is only linguistic, the spirit is akin. Through mathematics Einstein was slowly turning toward life’s mystery.

But this only happens for one in a million—for whom mathematics is their poetry; who loves mathematics as others love poetry; who hears music in numbers. Such people have appeared among the Jain acharyas—Kundakunda must have been such a wondrous being, Umasvati too. Yet there is little there to speak on.

On the Upanishads one can go on speaking endlessly—dense forests, where countless flowers bloom. You can describe flower after flower and there is no end. On the saints, one can go on speaking; every word holds so many lamps, so many drops of nectar, so many treasures of pearls. But when it is dry mathematics—what to do!

That Bodhisattva has come here is certainly the result of deep love toward me—otherwise it would not have been possible. It is a miracle, this coming—leaving everything, a high post, a big job, prestige, all dropped. But Krishna is certainly receiving more. Learn from her. Learn feeling. Dive into feeling. Let thought go too. As you have dropped being a judge, drop thinking as well. Become a little more feminine within. The more you become full of feeling—the more a feminine softness and receptivity arises in you—the more miracles will begin to happen to you too. What is happening to Krishna today will happen to you tomorrow. And it is certain—because you have no doubt about Krishna, though you are astonished.

And if you tell others, few will believe. These things are known only by experience. No one ever believes another in such matters. How can a blind man believe that in the sky a rainbow with seven colors has appeared? How can a blind man believe that the sky is filled with the beauty of billions of stars? How can a blind man believe that in the world there is light, color, form, beauty? Only when the eyes open!

So let what happens between you and Krishna be shared with the many lovers here—but don’t go telling just anyone. Remember something very important: life’s subtle experiences are very delicate. They take a long time to grow, but it is very easy to break them; anyone can break them. Any fool who has no experience can just say, Ah, it’s all nonsense! That it is all blind belief. That you are hypnotized. That you are caught in imagination. Anyone will say it—and many will. After all, they too must protect themselves!

There is a famous story by Turgenev. In a village there lived a great fool. He suffered a lot, because whenever he said anything, people laughed. His stupidity was so well-known that he stopped speaking. If he remained silent, people laughed: Of course he is silent; if he speaks he’ll be exposed. If he spoke, they found fault. One day a fakir came to the village. The great fool fell at his feet: Save me! Must my life go on like this? If I speak, they think I am a fool; whatever I say is wrong. Even when I say something right, people suspect—there must be some mistake; if the great fool says it, it must be wrong. Someone else says the same thing and nobody laughs; I say it and everyone laughs. If I keep silent, they say, What else can he do but keep quiet? I am trapped! Help me.

The fakir said, Don’t be afraid. Here is a trick. Come back in seven days and tell me. The trick is simple: whatever anyone says, you refute it. Never attempt affirmation, for there is danger in affirming—that task belongs to the truly strong. In refutation there is no danger.

What do you mean? he asked.

The fakir said, For example, someone says, Look, how beautiful the moon is tonight! Immediately say, What beauty is there? The moon is always there; what is new in that? I see no beauty. Prove to me where the beauty is. Who will be able to prove it?

Someone says, Look, the bird beating its wings in the sky—how lovely! Immediately refute: What is lovely in that? Birds have been flapping their wings for ages—flap, flap. What beauty is there? Prove it! Someone says, Shakespeare’s poetry is so beautiful! Catch him right there: Prove it! What poetry? What beauty? No one will be able to prove it. Someone says, God exists. Say, He doesn’t. Bring evidence! Then come back in seven days.

Seven days later he returned with two or three hundred people. He fell at the fakir’s feet: You gave me a wonderful key! The whole village now believes no one is more brilliant than I am. All these standing behind me are my disciples. They say, Such genius has never been born in our village. You are one in a million! I have silenced everyone. Whoever spoke, I cut their tongue, so to speak. Amazing trick!

The fakir said, Then remain with refutation only. Never go to affirmation, and it will keep working.

Because for refutation no intelligence is required, no talent either. Any fool can say, It’s all nonsense. Any fool can say, There is no God, no soul. Any fool can say, There is no beauty, no truth. Any fool can say, It’s all dreams, imagination, illusion. And you will not be able to prove otherwise—because these things are inner; how will you bring them out? What is happening within you cannot be placed on a platter and shown to people.

So remember: inner experiences are attained with great difficulty, and any fool can break them with a slight jab. Therefore tell them only to those who will support you. From ancient times the custom has been to go to one’s satguru and say, Bless me—let there be a shower of nectar upon me; let the new shoots and tender sprouts appearing within become strong.

Distance, too, is an ally—just as nearness is. Distance ripens; it makes love surge. Distance awakens thirst. Distance makes one ache. You kept coming, you kept going—in these fifteen years who knows how many times you came, how many times you left—each time you carried a new flavor, each time a new thirst. The thirst kept deepening, deepening, deepening. As water turns to steam at a hundred degrees: it keeps heating... at ninety-eight it doesn’t turn to steam, at ninety-nine it doesn’t; exactly at a hundred it becomes steam. These fifteen years were needed for your thirst to reach a hundred degrees. Before that it could not have happened. Had it happened earlier, it would have been unripe.

And sometimes a few unripe people do come. I don’t refuse them—unripe or not, after all they do have thirst! I don’t refuse, but I know they are unripe; they won’t be able to stay. They will discover twenty-five reasons and go back. They will find some petty reason you couldn’t even imagine. Any little obstacle will be enough and they’ll turn back. Sometimes, out of sheer stubbornness, they come. I keep saying, “It is not yet time to come—wait a little longer,” but they don’t listen. The more I try to stop them, the more their stubbornness grows. They come anyway—and within a month, within a fortnight, the whole matter collapses. Then they have to return. And that returning becomes costly, because then the gap between us grows even longer. Better had they not come then. From afar, at least they remembered; from afar, at least they wanted to come.

Everything has its own timing. Every fruit has an appointed season to ripen.

That’s why many times, Bodhisattva, you asked me if you could come. I said, “All right—wait a little more, wait a little more. What’s the hurry? Let this year pass. When the new commune is ready, then come; wait a little more.” I kept postponing. You kept coming, you kept asking; I kept deferring. Now there is no need to defer. Now you are ripe. Now you are ready to come without conditions. Ripeness means: unconditional.

Some people come with conditions. The one who comes with conditions will miss. His very conditions will remain the barrier between us. Only the one who comes unconditionally is able to be joined to me.

And you are blessed, because you, your wife, your daughter—all are connected with me, with the same feeling. There is not the slightest obstacle.

My victory, even if you refuse to call it your defeat—
Beloved, on your defeat I pour my victory.

With trembling hands I paint only you today.
If a song resounds with your echo, its notes are filled with love.
You may not accept my poor, guileless song,
Yet in every song I gently adorn your form.
Beloved, on your defeat I pour my victory.

When has the chakori ever received a boon of nectar from the moon?
Yet has she ever, even in dreams, forgotten her goal?
Remain, if you will, the unknown goal—
I keep my eyes fixed on the pole-star marks of your path.
Beloved, on your defeat I pour my victory.

Since when has mere wishing ever fulfilled anyone’s longing?
Since when has measuring ever shortened anyone’s road?
If my love cannot touch your feet,
Upon that little love I would lavish a hundred births.
Beloved, on your defeat I pour my victory.

Who will tend the wick? Who will light the lamp of worship?
Who will pour the libation at your feet, holding water in cupped hands?
Who knows whether it reaches you or not—
But in every breath I sing your aarti.
Beloved, on your defeat I pour my victory.

I am hearing the aarti of all three of you. The song of all three of you rises together toward me; I am experiencing it.

It is rare that an entire family joins me together. If the wife joins, the husband obstructs; if the husband joins, the wife obstructs. If the children want to come, the parents won’t allow it; if the parents want to come, the children raise a ruckus. You are fortunate that your whole family is immersed in the same nectar. Therefore the morning is not far. Dive deep!

And about those wondrous events that are happening—do not brood over them, do not analyze them. Experience them, but don’t analyze. Don’t even raise the question “Why?” Whatever is happening, accept it with joy, as grace, as prasad. Then more and more, more and more will happen. New peaks are yet to be climbed; new lights are yet to be experienced; new doors of samadhi are yet to open. Don’t get stuck in “why.” “Why” does arise—whenever something new happens within, the “why” arises: “Why is this happening?” But if you get entangled in “why,” the very energy that would carry you forward becomes caught in the whirlpool of “why.” And the circle of “why” is vast. It doesn’t untie the knot; it tangles it further. Bid farewell to “why.” What is, is. As it is, so it is. To live in such total acceptance is called trust.

And I teach trust. I do not make you a Hindu, I do not make you a Muslim, I do not make you a Christian—I make you only a believer in yes. The rare capacity to say “yes” is trust. And when “yes” is learned, who bothers about “why”?

Understand the difference.
A rose has blossomed. You ask: Why? Why is it red? Why did it bloom today? Why is it only this big? You can ask a thousand “whys.” But in that whole entanglement you will forget that a rose has blossomed. The ecstatic savor that could have been drunk in its beauty—that will not be possible. In the mesh of “why,” you won’t be able to dance beside the rose. You’ll go on with “why, why,” and meanwhile the rose will wither, its petals will fall—and you will still go on with “why, why.” At most, you will pluck the rose, press it in a book, dry it, keep it labeled—what species it was, when it bloomed, how big it was.

But those dried roses in your books are of no use. Your books are filled with dried roses. While the flower is alive, dance—become intoxicated. While the flower is alive, sing. While the flower is alive, become a flower yourself.

A fair maiden tends a four-wicked lamp;
the beloved fills it with oil.
A milky radiance glows,
illuminating threshold and courtyard.

The new bride holds the offering-plate;
the first lamp Mother sets alight.
The Diwali flame awakens—
at its lotus feet all bow,
king, pauper, beggar alike.

For the sake of dharma the giver takes his vow,
stringing pearls on the thread of resolve.

The second lamp is carried to the temple,
the third to the goddess’s shrine,
the fourth burns at the town’s waterside,
the fifth at the tulsi altar.

Five lamps for the rites of worship—
tongues of flame rise to the light.

In a little while, all is recognized:
empty attics fill with glow;
from courtyard to the town-gate
every doorway wakes.

Village women wander, adorned
in garments of many colors.
Catching sight of the flame,
from the edge of their veils
they draw out the shyness of modesty.

Softly, softly the lovely one walks
from courtyard toward the well;
anklets tinkle at her feet,
bangles lift upon her hands.

Mother distributes tiny lamps,
hands brimming with puffed grain and sugar drops.
Brother asks for red imarti,
he who has fasted all these days.
“On the second day he’ll come
and eat his fill,”
says the sister to the messenger.

From a single flame burn and shine
a million lamps, a hundred thousand wicks.
Those whose hearts are dry without love—
in their chests only smoldering.

The parrot of intellect knows not the secret;
ask the myna of love to speak of love.

The light is one, burning in millions of lamps. Meditation is one, manifesting in countless experiences. The taste of samadhi is one, yet it becomes a thousand miracles.

From a single flame burn and shine
a million lamps, a hundred thousand wicks.
Those whose hearts are dry without love—
in their chests only smoldering.

And unfortunate are those whose hearts are dry of love, for in their hearts nothing burns but the funeral pyre. There is no life there. Life is only where love is.

Those whose hearts are dry without love—
in their chests only smoldering.
The parrot of intellect knows not the secret;
ask the myna of love to speak of love.

Therefore I say: become as feminine as you can, as soft as you can. The divine alone is the one male. He alone is Krishna; all the rest are gopis—let this feeling become dense. Then miracles upon miracles will line up. Lamps upon lamps will be lit. The entire Diwali is ready to descend within you. Open the doors! Open the doors of love!

Santosh! An affliction indeed! A great affliction. All the calamities you have known are very small. Someone does not get wealth and writhes—this restlessness is nothing. Someone fails to get a position and weeps bitterly—those tears are nothing. Their worth is only as much as the worth of money and status. Even if you had got the money, what would you have gained? If you didn’t get it, what did you really lose? What posts have ever truly been “gained” by gaining them? And by losing a post, is the true stature lost? In this world success itself is small; then failure must be small. Here even victory is like defeat—so what to say of defeat! But the state of viraha is certainly a great affliction. The path of love is so arduous!

Viraha means the drop filled with the longing to become the ocean. A longing for the impossible—what seems it cannot be, what logic says cannot be, what all thought goes against, what all life-experience does not support—to long for that boundless, impossible, formless: that is viraha.

Only the devotee truly weeps. Only the devotee knows what it is to weep. His tears are not ordinary tears. Don’t take his tears to a scientist for testing. The scientist will find in them what he finds in yours—that is the limit of science. One man’s ten-rupee note is lost and he weeps; another weeps for God. Take both sets of tears to the scientist—he will not be able to tell the difference. He will analyze and say both have so much salt—equal—so much water, and this and that. But he will not be able to say who is weeping for ten rupees and who is weeping for God. He cannot tell. There will be no difference in the tears. That is the limit of science: it grasps the trivial and misses the vast.

But you know. Because you too have wept in many ways. Your mother died and you wept—that was one kind of weeping. You failed in some race and you wept—that too was a kind of weeping. Yet the difference between those two weepings is vast—worlds apart.

The devotee knows the greatest weeping in this world—the deepest weeping. His tears do not come from the eye; they come from the soul. They are the very essence of his life-breath. And since the devotee’s tears are the highest, his bliss too is the highest. Climbing the very steps of these tears he reaches that supreme bliss. These tears are the price he pays.

The state of viraha means it has begun to be felt that God is—He is near. A tremor of yearning arises. A ringing begins. The search starts—and He is not found! He is near, yet not found!

Have you noticed? You see someone on the road, the face is remembered, everything is remembered—you know him, the name is on the tip of your tongue. You say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” but it won’t come. Then see the discomfort—the restlessness, the inner turmoil! You know that you know, and yet it won’t come into your grasp.

Such is the devotee’s condition—so near and yet so far! Here He is—and He keeps slipping away. As if one were to clench a fist over quicksilver and the mercury would scatter. The tighter the fist, the more it scatters. Such is the devotee’s state—if he doesn’t weep, what else can he do!

He weeps deeply. But his weeping creates a chemical transmutation. The more he weeps, the lighter he becomes. The lighter he becomes, the more wings he finds to approach God. The more he weeps, the more he is refined. The more refined, the clearer the image of God becomes. The more he weeps, the more dust is shaken from his eyes.

Ask an eye-doctor the real purpose of tears: he will tell you—the purpose of tears is so that dust may not settle on the eye. The moment a tiny particle enters the eye, tears flow so it may be washed away. And why do you blink all day? Because the eyelid is moistened by tears within, and by blinking again and again it wipes, moistens, softens the eye so dust cannot cling.

That the doctor will tell you—of the outer eye. But the same is true of the inner eye.

As soon as the devotee weeps, the dust of his soul is shaken off, wiped away. As his sobbing deepens, breath enters his prayer. His prayer begins to breathe. And the more breath-filled your prayer becomes, the more you find God nearer, and nearer, and nearer. A moment also comes when the devotee is not separate from the weeping—he is the weeping. There is no state of viraha: he is the very fire of viraha. Only viraha remains; the one who longs is no more. In that very moment—union. In that very moment—attainment. In that very moment—arrival.

You ask: “The saints speak a lot of the state of viraha. What kind of affliction is this viraha?”
Have you known even a small separation in life, or not? Have you ever loved someone, Santosh? Or have you only been content?

This thirst of the autumn full moon is with me,
the clinging feel of the moonlight is with me,
this fragrance of remembrance will sleep by my side,
tonight, only this night will weep all night—
you are far away!

Listen—over there the drum has sounded, melodious songs surge,
arm in arm the beloveds dance in their ecstasies,
promises are made to sing and dance the whole night,
and all my songs have remained half—
you are far away!

This moonbeam peeps in through the windows,
and I sit writing a letter to you;
did the full moon not give your door a gentle tap?
Tell me truly: did your eyelids not close even for a moment?
If you were near, I would ask—how does it feel?
You are far away!

Have you loved someone? A woman, a man, a friend, a dear one? If you have, you will have tasted a little viraha—the small separation of the world. Upon that very basis the supreme viraha can be understood. You have no other way to know the devotee’s viraha for God, except that you have once loved someone. Your love is a drop; theirs is the ocean. Your love is tiny, momentary; theirs is eternal, timeless. Yet love is love.

Listen—over there the drum has sounded, melodious songs surge,
arm in arm the beloveds dance in their ecstasies,
promises are made to sing and dance the whole night,
and all my songs have remained half—
you are far away!

Have you ever felt someone’s absence? If not, then love! Don’t be afraid of love! Do not be frightened—because that very love will point you toward a greater love. Burn in love! It is that burning that will lead you toward the supreme fire of viraha.

Someone asked Ramanuja, “I want to attain God—what shall I do?”
Ramanuja looked at the man. People like Ramanuja, when they look at someone, see right through. He must have seen what kind of man he was. Ramanuja asked, “Brother, first answer me one thing—have you ever loved anyone?”
The man said, “I’ve never gotten entangled in love and such. I want God!”
Ramanuja said, “I ask again—surely you must have loved someone? A friend, mother, father, brother, sister—someone?”
But the man was of one piece—a dyed-in-the-wool renunciate. He said, “Love? Love is bondage. Love is delusion, attachment. I have loved no one. And why do you keep asking this? I only want to attain God.”
It is said tears fell from Ramanuja’s eyes, and he said, “Then I am helpless. I can be of no use to you. I cannot help you. If you have not known love, how can I yoke your love to God? If you had even sipped a mouthful, I could have explained the ocean. But you are deprived even of a sip.”

And your so-called sadhus and saints have taught you just this. They are enemies of love. They have frightened you at every step—attachment, delusion, this, that! They have scared you so thoroughly that they have left no possibility for love to arise in you. And on top of all this, the joke is they tell you: Love God. Now you are trapped—a noose around your neck! They won’t let you love, because all love is attachment, bondage, worldliness; and then they say: Love God with pure love! They take away the mud and ask you to bloom the lotus!

But without mud, the lotus does not bloom. The lotus blooms in the mud. The lotus is the purest expression of mud. The lotus is hidden in the mud, unmanifest. What you call worldly love—within it your devotion is hidden, the lotus of devotion is hidden. Yes, the world is mud—but I honor that mud, because out of it lotuses arise. In this very world Buddhas arise. In this very world Meera, in this very world Daria, in this very world Kabir, Nanak. So many lotuses blossom in this world—and still you go on abusing the world? Have a little restraint. Feel a little shame.

Do not abuse the world! If this world has produced even a single Buddha, it has already proven its worth. If it has produced so many Buddhas—a lineage of Buddhas—it has given enough proof that mud is not merely mud; lotuses are hidden in it. Now it is up to you whether you can discover lotuses in the mud or not. Do not spend your time cursing the world for your own clumsiness and witlessness.

Santosh, love! Whatever kind of love—auspicious. Because whatever kind it is, it can be refined. If you fear persons, then love music. Love nature. Love the moon and stars. Love something! Pour your love into some creative dimension. Sculpt, or compose songs, or dance. But let your love flow in some direction, so that you may have a little experience of love. When love is experienced, then alongside it the experience of viraha will come. Viraha is the shadow of love.

The Malaya breeze’s chariot-notes begin to sway,
bees hum, opening folded wings;
why do floods stir upon the eyelids?
Some moan rises in the heart,
a current none can check or stay.

Lips, sweet with nectar, fall into silence,
again and again the vina of awareness sounds;
the cloud of memory, swollen with love,
whose hidden shade has fallen over me?
The rhythm runs on, seeking a way.

O wave of the ocean of love!
Why are you so deep today?
You are all ache—only endure, dear heart;
a wildfire of pain, a scorching blaze—
I beat my head and find no depth.

World-weaving, creation drinks itself,
bearing gem-lamps like serpents with hoods;
dying and dying, living a hundred times,
the longing nursed in my breath—
ah, how pitiless he has become!

If you love, you will endure viraha. Because the one you love will not come just when you want. And the more you love, the more cruel it seems—because the more you ask, the more you find a distance still remains. Love does not tolerate distance—not even an inch. Love does not tolerate duality. As long as duality remains, viraha remains. Love longs for nonduality. Love longs to become one, utterly one.

If there is any fault in worldly love, it is only this: no worldly love yields the experience of nonduality. And if it does, it is momentary, just for a little while—a glimpse. The glimpse comes and goes. After it goes, an even deeper darkness remains, you fall into an even deeper pit, a denser melancholy. Because once you have known the glimpse of oneness, then twoness rankles and hurts.

I say to you: know the love of this world—so that duality may chafe, may sting. So that duality may pierce your chest like a dagger. Only then will you move toward nonduality. Only then will you seek that Supreme Beloved, with whom union, once it happens, happens—once and for all. With whom, once united, there is no separation. Into whom, once you drown, you never surface. From where there is no way back. That supreme state we call moksha—where there is no returning.

But you will need to have some experiences of love. And drop your rotten notions! Abandon your blind beliefs, pounded into you for centuries upon centuries! Because of them you are deprived of love, and you do not know viraha. Because of them you have become dry—sap does not flow. And don’t suppose that just because you are “in love” you will have the experience: your mind has become so poisoned against love that even those who are in love are in it like criminals. Inside, a sense of guilt remains: “What mistake am I making!”

Young people come to me and say, “What to do? Very bad thoughts arise in the mind.”
“Bad thoughts? Which bad thoughts?” I ask.
“We have fallen in love with a woman. Very bad thoughts arise. Please free us.”
They call falling in love with a woman “very bad thoughts.” Love—a bad thought! But this is what has been explained, this is what is taught. Armies of pundits and priests are spreading this poison.

It is utterly natural. There is nothing bad in it. Nothing sinful or criminal. Yes—one thing is true: do not stop there. Do not gather the mud and sit with it. Do not sit in the mud. Lotuses must be born. Keep the remembrance of the lotus, keep the search for the lotus. But the lotuses are rooted in the mud. Love! Love fearlessly. Love consciously. Love, dropping all guilt.

Then you will know love, you will know viraha, and you will know the transience of worldly love, the futility of worldly love, the melancholy of worldly love. You will know its hopes, and its disappointments. And the mature extract that falls into the hands of man from all these hopes and disappointments—that alone compels him to lift his eyes toward God, the Supreme Lover. When all the lovers of this world fail, when all the love of this world fails, then the eyes lift to the sky in search of the Supreme Beloved. Then you will know what viraha is!

Saints do not speak of viraha idly. A dagger has struck their heart, an arrow is lodged; they are in great pain—though the pain is sweet, very sweet. For to be pained for God is itself a blessing. Do not call it an affliction. It is blessedness! Blessed are those in whose life the longing to attain God has arisen, viraha has awakened, the fire of viraha has flared—because they alone will one day be worthy to receive Him. They have already become worthy to receive Him.

Rajpal! It depends on you how long the hide-and-seek goes on. It does not depend on me, nor on the Divine; it depends only on you. Keep a small key in mind—the hide-and-seek can stop today. The key is simple and straightforward, though hard to remember.

What is the key?

You say: sometimes it feels the goal is very near, dawn is about to break. Then the mind becomes very delighted.

At that time do not identify with the joy. Do not think, “I have become joy.” Remain aware and remain a witness. See that joy surrounds you on all sides; I am separate, I am distinct. I am the watcher, the witness, the seer. Joy is the seen; I am the seer. This is the key.

Then sometimes a deep darkness is experienced within; then there is great pain.

Even then, the same key. The key is the same. Know: there is darkness, there is deep pain; I am the seer, I am the witness; I am only seeing. I am neither joy nor sorrow. I am neither light nor darkness. I am not this, not that—neti-neti.

Hold on to this small key of neti-neti. Then the morning will come. Otherwise it will only go on seeming like morning forever while the night remains. Now it seems the dawn has come—and the night remains. It will keep missing just as it is about to arrive, because you identify with the states of the mind.

It is easy to consider yourself separate from sorrow; to remain separate from happiness is very difficult. And that is the real point. Therefore I say: start with joy. When you feel you are becoming joyful, exhilarated, even then keep knowing: Yes, I am the seer. Yesterday pain surrounded me; today joy surrounds me; tomorrow again pain will surround me. Just now it was morning; now it has turned to evening. But I am separate; I am only the watcher.

Settle and settle and settle into the seer. This is what Dariya has called: waking within wakefulness. In the ordinary sense you are awake, but this is not real wakefulness. Waking within wakefulness! And then you will be amazed. Then neither joy remains nor sorrow. That state is the true bliss. Then neither day remains nor night. That state is the true day. Then two do not remain. And when the two do not remain, the hide-and-seek ends.

It is in your hands. Nothing will happen by my doing. Even God can do nothing. This is the dignity, the glory of man—that he has been given complete freedom: if you want to suffer, suffer; if you want to enjoy, enjoy; if you want to play hide-and-seek, play hide-and-seek; if you want to step out of the game, step out of the game.

The witness is the art of stepping out of the game. And that is the supreme art.

That is all for today.