Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #6

Anand Maitreya! That is precisely why it has become difficult. If it could be done, it would be easy. If it were in our hands, under our control—then simple. It cannot be done; it happens—that is the difficulty. When it happens, where is your control? If it happens, it happens; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Anything to be done is simple. A man can climb Mount Gaurishankar (Everest), or reach the moon; however difficult a doing may be, it can be made easy. Human intelligence, human enterprise, human effort—all come into play. But what is not a doing becomes difficult. We are left utterly helpless. We have no say in it. We become dependent. Like breath—if it comes, it comes; if it does not, it does not. Were it in our control, we would keep on breathing; nobody would die. But death arrives from some unknown source; it is not in our hands. In the same way, love also comes from some unknown source. It is not under human control.

That is why Rahim said it rightly: “The path of love is so difficult!”

It may sound upside down. We think difficulty lies in what is hard to do. But however many obstacles there are, if a thing can be done, in truth it is not difficult. We will find a method, a discipline, a technique, a science—we will find an easier way to do it. In Buddha’s time people traveled by bullock cart; now they fly in airplanes. Things have become easier. But love was as difficult in Buddha’s time as it is today—not a hair’s breadth of difference. Prayer was as impossible then as it is now—not a hair’s breadth of difference. It will never change. These are matters linked to the eternal. The differences that occur in time make no difference here. So though it may sound inverted from the outside, it is not inverted; it is straightforward and clear.

The greatest difficulty is precisely where we cannot do anything. Wherever we have to wait, there is difficulty. Tell someone, “Sit silently; do nothing—don’t do anything at all, just sit silently!”—that becomes the most difficult thing. He will say, “Give me something to do.”

People come to me and say, “Just sit silently, do nothing, and meditation will happen? That we cannot do. At least give us a mantra—some support, some prop. We can sit and chant Ram-Ram; that we can manage. However difficult the mantra, we’ll learn it. But just to sit and do nothing, to sit an hour and do nothing—that we cannot do!”

Non-doing is harder. The mind takes relish in doing. Mind feeds on acts. The mind lives by the prop of activity. The ego also delights in doing—because of the pleasure of being the doer: “I did it. It happened through me. My act—my signature.”

The ego is pleased with doing. In fact, the more difficult the task, the more delighted the ego—a unique distinction! And the mind is pleased too, because the mind wants an arena to think and plan. If there is something to do, there will be thinking, reflecting, planning; a thousand considerations, analysis and research. Mind is satisfied; ego is satisfied.

But the moment you drop doing, mind drops, ego drops. If you are not doing anything, how will mind survive? Without activity, mind cannot survive—because thought is an activity. And without a doer, the ego cannot survive—because if nothing is being done, the sense of “I” will not arise. “I built a house; I built a temple; I did this, I did that”—the more the expanse of your doing, the more the “I” expands. More and more ornaments get added to it, a new, ever-growing empire. But when you do nothing, where will the ego be in that moment? Even if you go within to look for it, you will not find it. There will be a hush, a void.

In that inactive state—where there is emptiness and silence; where ego is not, where the mind’s hustle and bustle is not—love descends. That is why Rahim is right. The difficulty is not the sort that belongs to doing; otherwise it would be solvable. The difficulty is of a wholly different kind, qualitatively different. The difficulty is that we cannot sit empty; we cannot be quiet; we cannot be silent; we cannot be without thought. The difficulty is of an altogether different order. It is not like climbing the Himalayas, not like going to the moon. The difficulty is that we cannot be natural. We have become so unnatural. All our education and training has made us artificial. Whatever was spontaneous within us—arrangements for its awakening have been dismantled. So much rubbish—so-called knowledge—has been heaped upon us that we cannot even tell where, in that junk, our heart was buried. We have become so knowledgeable that we cannot become lovers. This is our difficulty: we know too much. We know nothing, and yet we believe we know a lot. Ignorance is dense; we don’t even know ourselves, what else will we know! We cannot even answer properly who we are, yet we talk of moon and stars. Layer upon layer of information. And beneath it all, the world of feeling has been crushed. The diamond is right here, but buried under garbage. And removing this garbage is hard—because we do not regard it as garbage, we consider it a treasure.

People can give up wealth and position, but they cannot give up knowledge. Tell someone, “Leave wealth, rank, family”—he may leave them. But tell him, “Leave knowledge”—and he will stop dead. “Knowledge? Knowledge is inner wealth, which thieves cannot steal, dacoits cannot rob. How can I leave knowledge?” And where even kings receive no honor, the pundit is worshipped. Knowledge fills the ego as nothing else can. How to drop knowledge? So people go to the forest, they leave society, but they carry their Gita, their Vedas, their Quran, their Bible with them. Even if they do not carry them outwardly, their echo remains within the mind. The fakir sitting in the forest is still a Muslim. There is no mosque, no Quran, no crowd of Muslims, yet he is a Muslim in the forest. The muni in the forest is still a Jain. Why? What makes you a Jain? Bones, flesh, marrow do not make anyone a Jain. Knowledge! What you have collected from scriptures and words—you carried that along. The stronger knowledge holds us, the harder love becomes.

Rahim’s saying is true in many senses. Man has become artificial, false, hypocritical, hence love has become impossible. And the society in which we live is based on hatred. It may hurt to hear this, but I must say what is true as it is. The society in which man has lived till now stands on envy, antagonism, competition, hatred, hostility. This society does not accept love. It blocks every path of love. It does not want lovers; it wants soldiers. It does not want lovers; it wants competitors. If there are lovers, who will thrust bayonets into chests? If there are lovers, the flute will play and bayonets will be lost. If there are lovers, hands will strike the mridangam, but the war drums will fall silent. If there are lovers, life will be joy, festivity—there will be no rivalry. If there are lovers, there will be a longing for God, not a race for wealth and position.

This society teaches ambition. Into small children we pour the poison of ambition. Then how can love arise? We make love difficult. That which was to be simple becomes difficult. That which was to be natural—our connection with it breaks.

You ask: I say love happens; it is not done. But we are taught only those things that can be done. Logic can be done—so it is taught in schools, colleges, universities. Mathematics can be done—so it is taught. Love? Love is not even brought up. Love cannot be taught. But references can be given for love; an atmosphere can be created for love; a garden can be offered where flowers may bloom; a Buddhafield can be created. That is not done. And if ever it is done, society opposes it—fiercely. Because wherever the stream of love flows, there society begins to feel anxious. It is dangerous. For a lover does not remain a slave—of anyone. It is hard to suppress a lover. It is hard to force a lover to sell his soul. A lover will die, but he will not sell himself. One who has known love has known the God hidden within. He is no longer even afraid of death, because he knows: weapons do not cut me; the body may be slain, but I am not slain. Fire cannot burn me. The one who has known love has known something—some nectar—by which you can no longer frighten him. You cannot terrorize him.

And this society wants you to remain frightened, afraid. Because only the frightened can be owned. The frightened will remain in the priest’s vise. The frightened will remain in the politician’s vise. The frightened will remain in anyone’s vise. Frightened children will remain in their parents’ vise; frightened parents in their children’s; frightened wives in their husbands’; frightened husbands in their wives’. Here, everyone is a slave.

It is a very astonishing world! Everyone here is a prisoner, and each is making the other a prisoner. We are prisoners of one another; mutually imprisoned. This is a great prison we have constructed. It is hard to escape from this prison. And unless one escapes from this prison, one will not be able to find love.

Certainly. Love is your very nature. You were born as love. Then that nature was distorted. Then you were trimmed and pruned. You were not left as you were born. Love is natural, but you are no longer natural. Now you are plastic. You are no longer a real flower. The real flower has been buried somewhere; fake flowers have been piled on top. Those counterfeit flowers must be removed so the real flower can appear. And removing the fake flowers seems difficult, because we have attached many vested interests to them.

In this false world today—and it has always been such a world—do you think there can be any difficulty greater than being truthful? Just fix twenty-four hours to speak the truth. Only twenty-four hours! For twenty-four hours you will not lie. And within those twenty-four hours you will get into such trouble that you will not dare to speak the truth again for the rest of your life. Just make a twenty-four-hour experiment—from six this morning to six tomorrow morning we will speak only the truth. Only the truth. And you will find: friends have turned into enemies; the wife has gone to her mother’s; the children haven’t even returned from school; friends have folded their hands and said, “That’s quite enough!”

If you speak the truth, no one will find it pleasing. We have been taught to tell the lie that pleases. Even if anger is rising within, keep a smile on the lips. Even if abuse is surging inside, keep a song on the lips. Inside the mind there is the urge: how to get rid of this scoundrel? But outwardly, embrace him and say, “Come, we will roll out the red carpet—be our guest, stay!” Lies have become our etiquette. And lies are convenient. Because the whole crowd also consists of liars. You know it; they know it: all the smiles are false. Yet the show goes on.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said: if lies were taken away, the world would collapse at once. It runs on the basis of lies. Lies are like the oil poured among the engine’s parts so they don’t collide, so there is no friction. Lies prevent friction between us. The parts remain lubricated. They don’t clash.

On the road you meet someone; you fold your hands and do namaskar. There was neither the mind nor the wish to greet him. The heart was saying: given the chance, take off the shoe and whack him with it. The very one you wanted to hit with a shoe, you greeted with “Jai Ramji.” This keeps oil between the two of you. You said “Jai Ramji,” so he said “Jai Ramji”—and friction was avoided.

Lies have given you many conveniences. Lies are your umbrella—they save you from the sun, from the rain; they provide cover. Lies are your refuge; lies are your security. And you have spoken so many lies and lived so many lies that now perhaps you can no longer even recognize what is a lie and what is the truth. What is false, what is true—it has become difficult to decide. It is very late.

Little children blurt out the truth. That is why little children are so disconcerting.

A rich man was to visit a household. A big personage. He had just one flaw, which was a real problem and a great difficulty for the hostess—his nose was enormous. Very ugly. His face was all nose. She was anxious about her little son. All day she kept instructing him: “Look, keep one thing in mind—guests are coming; don’t look at his nose! Don’t stare at his nose! Because she knew the nose was so big the boy would stare. He had never seen such a nose. And whatever happens, however much the urge arises within, don’t say anything about the nose.” After being lectured all day, the poor boy became far more curious than he had been: What’s the deal? So many people have come and gone; never has there been so much discussion about anyone’s nose.

Since his mother was saying it, he thought she must be right; so he kept his eyes lowered. He tried to glance sideways, furtively. And when you look at someone from the corners of your eyes, it offends even more. It means that you want to look and are also showing that you don’t want to look. The boy, frightened, kept his gaze down. But when you lower your eyes before someone—and that man knew his nose bothered him—somehow the meal proceeded, the hostess somehow managed, keeping in mind that the boy must not speak. The meal was nearly over; it was time for coffee—the hostess was very pleased—and she said to the guest, “How many teaspoons of sugar shall I put in your nose?”

She had been thinking “nose, nose” the whole time. When you keep thinking of something too much, it will pop out from somewhere. If it didn’t come from the boy, it surfaced through the mother. She could think of nothing else; only the nose was on her mind, and she was afraid the boy might say something.

Small children say things as they are. The father says, “Go, someone is at the door; tell him father is not at home.” The child goes and says, “Father says to tell you that father is not at home.”

We destroy children’s intelligence, their naturalness, their nature, their truth, their innocence. Children very quickly discover that lying is convenient. Truth is costly. Truth brings punishment. Lies bring reward. And once a child sees that a lie brings reward, politics is born in his life. You have turned him into a politician.

Everyone has become a politician. Not only those in politics—even those not in politics are in politics. Because where there is a lie, there is politics; where there is deceit, there is politics; where there is hypocrisy, there is politics. And then the path of love becomes very difficult.

It is as if a child were never allowed to walk; from childhood his feet were shackled, his hands handcuffed; from childhood he was carried around. When he becomes an adult, do you think he can suddenly walk? Can he run? Impossible. Forget running; walking is impossible. Forget walking; he may not even be able to stand. That is our condition.

There are so many chains on our love, so many fetters, so many crutches! Our love has not been allowed to stand, nor to walk. And when suddenly some saint tells you that without love you will not attain the divine—you will have to fly! You cannot even stand, cannot walk, cannot run—and the saint says, “Give love wings, let it fly, take it toward the sky!” You will listen; it will sound appealing, but it will not work.

That is why saints keep speaking, you keep listening; their speaking is in vain, your listening is in vain; no connection is made between you and them. You keep thinking: How will this happen? This cannot be done! At least not by me! It is not within my capacity. Listening to saints, you do not remember your capacities; on the contrary, you remember your sins, your offenses, your incapacities. You become more downtrodden.

In any country where religious talk proliferates, people get filled with inferiority complexes in the same measure. It should be the other way: in satsang the sleeping spring within you should burst forth. But what happens is that, listening to satsang, it seems such lofty talk belongs to lofty people! How will it happen to us? We are worms and insects; we will crawl on the earth. How can we fly in the sky? You become despondent, hopeless. You wait for future births—perhaps some day it will be possible; right now it is not.

The path of love is not difficult. If each person were allowed to live in his spontaneity and uniqueness, love would fall of itself like fragrance from flowers and light from lamps. With that same ease, love would happen. But love has been made difficult.

When Rahim says, “The path of love is so difficult!”—he says it because we have made it difficult. Very difficult. In this world the most difficult thing has become love.

You ask: “Then how can the path of love be made?”

To make the path of love means only this: remove the stones that have been thrown into the natural flow of love. You do not have to make a path for love; you only have to remove the obstacles. As with a mirror, dust has gathered. You don’t have to make the mirror; you only have to remove the dust. The mirror is already there. Or a spring of water is ready to burst forth, but a rock lies over it. The spring cannot break the rock and emerge. Remove the rock. You don’t have to bring the spring from anywhere; the moment the rock is removed, the spring will begin to flow.

So “making the path” is not positive and additive; it is subtractive. Simply remove the hindrances on the way. When the obstacles are removed, love consummates itself.

It is not attained; you only remove the obstructions. Clear away whatever is causing the blockage here and there—and love comes to fruition by itself. Open the curtains, open the windows, open the doors—the sun’s rays will dance in, the birds’ songs will flutter into you. You don’t have to create the path; the path is already there, and the guest is already at the door. Just remove what is in the way—once the obstacle goes, love is accomplished.

We have made it difficult; it is not difficult. It is easy, simple, natural. But if I tell you it is easy, simple, natural, I’m afraid you might not do anything at all—you’ll think, “Then what is there to do?” So I repeat Rahim: “The path of love is so difficult!”

I say it seeing you. It is not difficult for me, not for Rahim; I say it seeing you. The words must be addressed to you. It is not difficult for Buddha, not for Krishna, not for Meera, not for Jesus; it is difficult for you. And the remedy is being written for you! The medicine is being prescribed for you! And you will remove the stones only if you remove them one by one. Those stones have been piling up for lifetimes. Those stones have been set in place with the cooperation of the whole society. You have labored your whole life setting them. So when someone suddenly says, “Remove these—because of them your life is misery, you live in hell,” you will not agree. You will be angry. Agreement is far off—you will be angry with the very person who says such a thing, because he is making your life’s entire labor seem futile. What is the outcome of your whole life’s effort? That you are imprisoned in a jail of your own making. The bars are forged by your own hands; the chains are of your own manufacture.

There is an ancient story I have always loved. In Greece there was an invasion; all the dignitaries of Athens were captured. One hundred prominent men were chained and shackled and thrown into the forest, to be eaten by wild beasts. Among them was the village’s most renowned blacksmith—so famous that his name was known in distant lands. His work was unmatched. What he made did not break. No one could break the chains he forged. The other ninety-nine were desolate as the enemy was driving them into the jungle, but the blacksmith was humming a tune. Someone asked, “You’re laughing, singing—have you gone mad? We are going to our deaths! Are you in your senses?”

He said, “I am a blacksmith. All my life I have made chains and shackles. Whoever can make them can also undo them. Don’t be afraid! I’ll break not only my chains, I’ll break yours too. Just wait until they throw us in the jungle and leave. I’m only waiting for them to go. It won’t take long!”

Courage filled everyone. The enemies dumped them in the forest and fled. It was near nightfall; there seemed no chance of survival—wild animals would devour them. They all dragged themselves to the blacksmith. And the blacksmith began to weep; tears rolled from his eyes. They said, “What happened? Just now you were singing—why are you crying?”

He said, “These chains will not break. These are my own chains. No one can break them—not even I. They bear my signature.” He had the habit of signing every piece he made. He showed his chains and said, “These are impossible to break. I do not make things that can be broken.”

Imagine the blacksmith’s state of mind that day—forced to die bound in his own chains.

That is everyone’s situation. You are rotting, dying, and will die bound in your own chains. Yet I tell you this: your chains are not that strong, because you are not such a master blacksmith. Your chains can be broken. And since you are the one who made them, the day you stop making them they will begin to fall apart. When the chains of unnaturalness drop from you, a spring of love will burst forth.

The path of love seems hard because you are standing upside down. If a man is doing a headstand, you have to tell him that walking is very difficult. What else can you say? If you say, “Walking is very easy,” he will answer, “If it’s easy, why can’t I take even an inch?” For the one who is on his head, walking is hard. For the one on his feet, walking is easy. All of you are on your heads. The arrangements of society—of priests, pundits, politicians—have put you upside down, so walking has become hard. Stand on your feet and walking becomes simple. But standing on your feet now seems hard, because you think standing on your head is the only way to stand.

A man is filled by what he is taught. He is bound by what initiations, what conditionings he receives. And your conditionings seem to you like your very soul. They are not your soul.

A great Russian psychologist, Pavlov, did experiments from which a principle was born. It is worth understanding, because it applies to you. He did all his experiments on dogs. In one, whenever he brought bread before the dog—delicious bread—the dog would salivate. When the saliva flowed and the bread was given, he would simultaneously ring a bell. After fifteen days he did not bring the bread; he only rang the bell—and the saliva began to flow.

There is no inherent connection between a bell and saliva. Ring a bell before a dog and he may bark, but why should saliva flow? A bell is no food! But since first the bread came, saliva flowed, and a bell was rung at the same time, gradually in fifteen days bread and bell became associated—their companionship formed, they were linked. After fifteen days, with only the bell ringing, the memory of bread arose. The bread wasn’t there, but the memory was enough.

You have seen: if you merely think of a lemon, your mouth waters. That is Pavlov’s principle. Try it now—think of a lemon, and the water flows. What is the relation between the word “lemon” and your saliva? But with the word are associated your experiences of lemons. The saliva starts at once. The word is enough.

Go into a cinema hall at night and shout “Fire! Fire!” and a stampede will break out. No one will ask, “Where is the fire?” Who has the leisure? The danger of fire is such that panic will spread. The more people run, the worse the stampede becomes; the more they try to escape, the more the doors clog, the more chaos ensues. Later someone may shout, “There is no fire!” but no one will listen until they’re outside. Who knows—maybe there is a fire! The word fire has become associated.

Pavlov called it the conditioned reflex—that we become related to habits. So related that our habits begin to feel like our soul.

That is what has happened. From childhood you have been taught many things—none of which contain love. In fact, the opposite has been taught. For example, guests arrive and the child is dragged over: “This is your aunt—give her a kiss.” The child has no wish to kiss, no interest in the aunt, no desire that she should even have come. But the parents stand there with stern eyes—the kiss must be given. You are teaching a false kiss. If this happens daily—“These are your grandfather; touch their feet”—and the child neither wishes to bow nor feels any reverence toward this grandfather, whom he knows quite well would even pick his pocket given a chance—still he must bow, because father stands there saying, “Touch his feet.”

You are teaching falsehood. You are corrupting reverence, corrupting love, distorting everything. Growing up, he will forget what is true and what is false. The aunt will come and he will salute; the grandfather will come and he will lower his head. And even if one day a true occasion to bow arises, his bow will be false—that’s the trouble. Even if a day comes for a genuine embrace, his embrace will be an act, artificial. When he embraces his wife, it will still be the same as the kiss he gave to the aunt. And what you taught him, he will pass on to his children. Thus every generation hands its illnesses to the next.

From generations we receive nothing else. They pass on their illnesses—with great pride, calling it education, culture, good manners. Nothing but falsehood, dishonesty, hypocrisy is being given. If parents truly love the child, they will say: If there is love, then kiss; if there is no love, let it be. If there is reverence, then bow; if there is no reverence, don’t bow. So that when the door of true reverence one day opens, your bow carries your life, your soul, your authenticity. And when the flower of love blooms at your door, your embrace is alive. Otherwise everything becomes false, merely formal.

Because of this “therapy,” you are standing on your head, and Rahim must say, “The path of love is so difficult!” Not because of love, but because of you. The obstacle is yours. If you change, love is very simple, very easy.

But to change is hard. To change oneself is the greatest revolution in this world—because it is no small alteration. It means wiping out your entire past, becoming disidentified from it, breaking the chain—starting again from A-B-C. Only a few courageous ones can do it.

I have called that courage sannyas. By my sannyas I do not mean leaving the world. I mean freeing your life-consciousness from your past. Not to leave society, but to leave the past. Not to leave family, but to leave conditioning. Not to abandon money, house, shop, but to set fire to the junk left inside you by society, by parents, by generation upon generation, which you hug to your chest as an inheritance. Sannyas means to pass through that inner revolution in which you are born again, a new birth, starting again from A-B-C—fresh, like the morning dew; new, like the first ray of dawn; newly sprouted, like the tender shoot on a tree.

Sannyas means the art of being ever-new: to die each day to the past. What is gone is gone—let it be forgotten. And to live in what is. When the art of living in what is arises, love is easy, simple. Streams of love will begin to flow within you. Blessed is the one in whose life that stream flows, because that very stream one day meets the ocean of the Divine. There is no path to the Divine other than love.

But courage is needed! You must enter a new kind of satsang, a living company. You must break with those you have so far called sages and saints. You will have to create new perspectives, new eyes, new visions, and seek new satsangs, find new saints. Nothing less than a radical transformation will do.

I left the realm of ascetic striving and came among wine-drinkers,
For the “sin” of being alive, I came among the sinners.

I left the land of restraint and arrived among the revelers—among the drinkers, the intoxicated, the mad. If you are to learn love, you will have to do this. Temples will not do. Seek some living tavern where the Divine’s wine is being freshly poured.

I left the realm of ascetic striving and came among wine-drinkers,
For the “sin” of being alive, I came among the sinners.

My long-time companions were fine, but the truth is this:
Passing beyond fixed stars, today I have arrived among the wanderers.

All the old friends were good—true—but they were inert, dead. I left the fixed stars and befriended the moving planets. Those with whom you have lived till now call life a sin. If you truly want to understand life, live with those who love life—who call life the Divine.

My long-time companions were fine, but the truth is this:
Passing beyond fixed stars, today I have arrived among the wanderers.

I used to live in rose gardens, enduring autumn’s blight;
Now I have come to deserts, I have come among the passion-stricken.

I have left old comforts and securities; now I am in the wilderness, among the mad lovers.

The dream-laden scenes of bedchambers are matters of yesterday;
I have come to the life-giving, wakeful vistas of the dawn.

The old sleeping chambers were comfortable; their scenes were pleasing.

The dream-laden scenes of bedchambers are matters of yesterday;
I have come to the life-giving, wakeful vistas of the dawn.

But I left the nights and chose the morning, chose the life-breathing freshness of dawn.

Blessed be those who seek the quiet of life—
Those who want only safety and peace—let them have it.

Blessed be those who seek the quiet of life—
But I, tossed by the tumult of quest, came among the vagabonds.

As for me, the longing for life was so intense that I befriended the wanderers. I left the householders, the well-settled; I joined the nomads. I joined the caravans who, filled with some unknown yearning, have set out in search of truth—of which there is no news, no map. They have launched their boats upon seas whose far shore may or may not exist; it may be they will drown midstream. But remember: those sitting safe on the shores are dead; those who drown in the midstream are alive. Only life can relate to the Supreme Life.

Blessed be those who seek the quiet of life—
But I, tossed by the tumult of quest, came among the vagabonds.

The glitter of silver and gold could have kept my eyes bedazzled,
But I have come to vistas that nourish vision itself.

Granted, gold and silver’s shine could bewitch the eyes. But I have reached scenes where eyes are not beguiled—eyes are born there; vision is born there.

The glitter of silver and gold could have kept my eyes bedazzled,
But I have come to vistas that nourish vision itself.

I was a stranger in the assemblies of those who worship God;
Thank goodness I have arrived among those who worship Man.

Among those who discoursed on God I was an outsider. It did not feel like home, like my people. The words were about God, but hollow.

I was a stranger in the assemblies of those who worship God;
Thank goodness I have arrived among those who worship Man.

Now I have chosen those who love man—those who do not talk about God. Whoever loves man will attain God—inevitably—because in man God has manifested, in his wholeness, in his total beauty.

I was a stranger in the assemblies of those who worship God;
Thank goodness I have arrived among those who worship Man.

I bargained for the tender care of life’s bride,
And I have come among those who bear her delicate whims.

A great longing—how to wed the bride of life! One madness only: how to dance with life!

I bargained for the tender care of life’s bride—
One ecstasy only: how to be wedded to life! Kabir says, “I am the bride of Ram.” How to bind oneself to life in this love-bond?

And I have come among those who bear her delicate whims.

Now I have come among those who are already married to her.

If even the love of life is a crime, then so be it—
I have come among the guilty, I have come among the blameworthy.

If loving life is a sin, fine—I will live among sinners, among the accused.

And let me tell you: your priests and pundits, your so-called monks, have been teaching that life is a sin.

If even the love of life is a crime, then so be it—
I have come among the guilty, I have come among the blameworthy.

“Taban” wandered door to door, street to street,
By the grace of friends, I have at last come among friends.

Now I have come among the lovers—those who care less for God as a theory and more for life as an experience. They argue less over scriptures and drown more in music, dance, and the love of the Lord. It is by the compassion of these mad ones that I too have been included—that I too have become part of the tavern. Love is not difficult, but you will have to muster this much courage.

I left the realm of ascetic striving and came among wine-drinkers,
For the “sin” of being alive, I came among the sinners.

Anand Bharati! If love fits into understanding, then it is no longer love. Whatever fits into understanding is something else. Understanding is a very small thing. Will you call what can be held in a spoon the ocean? The spoon is very small. Love is inexhaustible, boundless, bottomless. It will not come within understanding. Do not even try to bring it there; otherwise, in the very effort to bring it into understanding, the only possibility is that as it is about to come, love will stop.

Love is far greater than understanding. Love can absorb understanding, but understanding cannot absorb love. A drop can fall into the ocean and become one, but the drop cannot contain the ocean. Love is infinite; the intellect has limits. And that is why love is indescribable—because description happens through the intellect.

What does “explanation” mean? It means that the intellect has succeeded in understanding something completely, that it has put its arithmetic on it—two and two make four—and dissolved its mystery. Explanation means: nothing mysterious remains.

But love is vast; even the small things of life defy explanation. If someone asks you, “What is beauty?” what will you say? Is there any explanation? There is none. “What is music?” Any explanation? None. The deeper you go—into poetry, into music, into beauty, into love—the further explanation falls away. Understand it like this: as you move toward depth, the shore recedes. When you reach the unfathomable depths of the ocean, where is the shore? If you insist on the shore there, there is only one way—return to the shore. But then the ocean’s depth is lost. The two cannot be had together.

You ask: “Why is love indescribable?” What thing truly has an explanation? If you look closely, every explanation proves superficial. If someone asks, “Why are trees green?” the scientist gives a path: because of chlorophyll. But if someone asks, “Why is chlorophyll green?” the matter gets stuck right there.

Why did that flower
have to be white?
Why was it not red?
Had it been red
it would still be beautiful,
and the eye
would still linger on it.
But by being white
it did something astonishing—
it filled its surroundings
with a certain radiance,
and left
the lotuses in the pond before it
bewildered.
Such assaults
of form upon form
ought to be stopped;
Nature,
after millions of years,
should at least learn this much!

Man wants to put brakes on everything. “Why is the flower white? It should have been red. Why is the moon so lovely?” People ask such questions—not just small people; great philosophers ask the same. No one has ever received an answer, nor will they. There is no answer. Life is not a problem to be solved; life is a mystery. And mystery means: that which has not been solved, and will not be.

Life can be lived; it cannot be understood. Do not even waste time trying to understand—put that time into living. If any understanding ever comes, it will come through living; but even then it cannot be called “understanding” in that sense. Buddha came to an understanding, but it came through living. And when it came, he did not manufacture answers out of it; he told people, “Do not ask these questions. They are not to be asked.” If you get entangled in asking them, you will waste your time. And if somewhere someone gives you answers—and remember, without exception, all such answers are wrong—if you latch onto any answer, you will get stuck in it.

Someone asks, “What is love?” You will find people ready with answers. Ask a chemist, and he will say, “Nothing special—an attraction between hormones.”

But have you ever loved a rose? There is no play of hormones there. Have you ever felt love in the moment of sunrise? There are no hormones there—there cannot be any on the sun; they would have been ashes long ago. Between a man and a woman, love may begin through biology, but even between man and woman there can be love in which sexuality is absent. In fact, the higher love rises, the more sexuality dissolves.

The rishis of the Upanishads are right: when they bless a bride and groom, their blessing is wondrous—they say, “May you have ten sons, and in the end may your husband become your eleventh son.” The pinnacle of love is when even between husband and wife the biological relationship ends. Only then does love take its full height, its full refinement. Only then does love reveal its full scale—then love sings in the fifth note. At that point biology and hormones are no more.

Love can exist between two men too—it does. There is friendship, deep friendship. So deep that a man may leave his wife but not his friend. There, hormones have nothing to do with it—there the hormones are the same.

With such little explanations one can distract people, but their problems cannot be solved.

And then there is Meera’s love for Krishna. Krishna is not even present. What hormones can there be in an imagined Krishna? First an imagined Krishna, then imagined hormones—and such love that she left home and hearth, left public opinion behind, abandoned all and went mad with devotion! What will you call this love? It won’t fit into chemistry’s definition.

But at least Meera has the imagination of Krishna—perhaps her love can be explained through imagination. But Buddha has no such imagination of any God at all; for Buddha there is no God. Buddha drowned himself in meditation—so deeply that fountains of love began to well up from within. Not towards anyone, in no particular direction—simply the depth of love began to reveal itself, love flowing toward all existence. If Buddha touches a rock, he touches it with the same love with which he touches a tree.

What hormones are there in a rock? What imagination is there in a rock? Yet whether Buddha rises, sits, walks, sleeps—his whole life is an expression of love. Buddha called that love karuna, compassion. Call it whatever you wish.

Love is indescribable, and every explanation that has been attempted falls short. It is good that they fall short. It is man’s good fortune that science cannot explain everything; otherwise life would no longer be worth living—no option would remain but suicide—if science explained it all.

In truth, mark this well: whatever remains un-understood in your life is precisely what makes it worth living. Therein lies the glory, the dignity, the grandeur, the meaning. When everything becomes like mathematics, you will be left sitting, asking, “Now what is there to do?” Where no mystery remains, the longing to live also disappears. That is why, as science has advanced, boredom in people’s lives has increased.

It is striking: with the growth of science, boredom has grown, juice has dried up; people are sad, dejected; dust lies upon their faces, there is no sparkle in their eyes, no song in their breath, no thrill of dance in their feet. In the West, where science has become very dominant, the number of suicides has greatly increased. Suicide should occur in countries like India, where people die of hunger, are sick, have no food, no shelter, no clothing, no jobs—that is where suicide should happen. But it does not. Suicides are increasing in the West. The more affluent a country, the higher the rate of suicide. In fact, you can look up the suicide rate and from it gauge the nation’s affluence.

The more science advances, the heavier life becomes. Everything becomes understandable, and then nothing remains worth living for. If life becomes all prose, nothing remains but suicide. There must be some poetry in life. Poetry means: ungraspable—there is a glimpse, but it won’t be caught. There must be something like mercury too—close your fist and it scatters. And there is much of this in life. Love is exactly like mercury: the more you try to grasp it in explanations, the more it slips away.

In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over?
I know not which sweet dreams
stretched upon the inner screen.
What unfamiliar remembrance
filled my life-breath with monsoon rains?
With the drizzling of my own eyes
I put the rainy season to shame;
and the world too, with moist eyelashes,
raised this innocent question:
These little pitchers, my eyes—how did they hold so much water?
In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over?

When the slumbering pain of the life-breath
keeps smiling now and then,
when clouds of pain gather
to collide with the mountain of the mind,
this broken veena—who knows how—
begins to sing the melody of life.
The surging ocean of feelings
gets bound within the limits of words.
How can I know how the ocean
came to swell within the lotus of the mind?
In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over?

Even in dreams, for a moment,
when have I been able to soothe my pain?
Even with these two springs full of water,
my thirst has not been quenched.
Why does this mind go on
squandering its treasury of compassion for nothing?
Calling the outpourings of a scorched heart “poetry,”
I have delighted the world!
Who knows how my madness
has managed to entertain the world?
In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over?

Love is sudden, spontaneous. Why, when, how—you will not be satisfied by any answer. Why, when, how—such questions cannot be asked. Love is impossible—and yet it happens.

These little pitchers, my eyes—how did they hold so much water?
In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over?
Where are the answers? There are no answers even for the small things. Tears come into a person’s eyes—those too are unanswerable; there is no answer for them either.

Yes, if you ask science, it has answers. But science’s answers are worth two pennies. It will tell you how much water is in a tear, how much salt, and this and that—it will tell you everything. But the joy that flowed with the tears will remain beyond science’s grasp; the sorrow that flowed will also remain beyond it. Sometimes tears are of love, sometimes of anger; sometimes of great pain, and sometimes of great ecstasy, exhilaration. Science cannot distinguish between them. For science, a tear is a tear. Science can answer about the gross; the subtle is outside its grip. And it is the subtle that makes life worth living.

Anand Bharati, love is indescribable and will remain indescribable. Its very nature, its very form, is to be beyond description. And why bother about explanation? When we are hungry, we don’t ask for an explanation of food—do we? When we are thirsty, we don’t ask for an explanation of water. And even if someone gives an explanation, your thirst won’t be quenched. You are thirsty and someone says, “Don’t worry, I will tell you the explanation of water—H2O: two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen; when they combine, water is formed. Now be at peace!” You will say, “What about my thirst?” And perhaps, if the explainer is truly a pundit, he will say, “Sit and chant the mantra: H-two-O, H-two-O, H-two-O… keep chanting, and union will happen.”

Just like that, people go on chanting “Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram.” “H2O, H2O, H2O”—there is no difference. What will happen by chanting “Ram”? Drink Ram! Live Ram! Taste Ram! Digest Ram! Mere repetition of “Ram” will not do; nor will chanting “H2O” bring anything about.

I was a guest in one home. The gentleman there had filled thousands of notebooks, writing only “Ram, Ram” in them. All day he did just this. He had money, no need to earn; his one occupation was—doing a favor to Ram! He sat and kept writing in the books. Other work went on—accountants would come, ask questions; he would answer them, but his hand kept mechanically writing “Ram, Ram.” He would show these to anyone who came, and everyone would praise him. He took me too and showed me his library—thousands of books ruined. I said to him, “What have you done? You could have given them to children, to schools—they would have been of some use. You have spoiled the ink writing ‘Ram, Ram,’ spoiled the books, and wasted your time.”

He said, “What are you saying? You are the first person! Everyone else says, ‘Ah, how much merit you have earned!’ And you say this?”
I said, “There is not a trace of merit in it. And let me tell you, if ever you meet Ram, he will say the same to you: ‘Why did you spoil so many books? Children had no books, and you went on ruining them! And you kept chewing my head: Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram! After all, I too need to sleep, to get up, to sit!’”

A Jew died. He was a great devotee, who remembered God from morning to night as a rule. But his life always went on in trouble. And right across from him lived a sinner who never remembered God. By chance both died on the same day, and presented themselves together. God seated the sinner by his side and told the angels, “Take this gentleman to hell!”
Naturally the gentleman was annoyed; he was furious. He said, “This is the limit! We had heard there may be delay but not darkness; here there is both delay and darkness! All my life I was harassed while he enjoyed himself. He enjoyed there and now will enjoy here—you seat him by your side. And you are sending me to hell! And all my life I remembered you—morning, night, day, whenever I got a chance.”
God said, “It is precisely for that that I am sending you to hell. You ate my head! And I will not let you stay near me here, otherwise you will keep gnawing at my head. This fellow is good; at least he keeps quiet—he doesn’t create a racket.”

I told that gentleman, “You spoiled so many books—what did you gain? Has anyone ever found Ram that way!”

Anand Bharati, what will you do with an explanation of love? Live love! “He who reads the two and a half letters of love becomes a pundit.” But the way to read love is life itself. Love is written in the book of life; from there the experience will arise—and it has begun to arise. Now don’t drag in the matter of explanation and raise a mountain in between.

You write: “The moment it is remembered in the heart, speech falls silent.” Something auspicious is happening. You are fortunate!

“I cannot say what happens.” Who is asking? At least I have not asked. And even if someone asks, don’t tell—because whatever you say will be futile. That which is worth telling will be left behind; it cannot be told. It is unsayable.

And you write: “I can’t understand why this happens.” Now let understanding go! You have lived with understanding long enough—now befriend a little un-knowing! You have been sensible long enough—now befriend a little madness! You have arranged arguments long enough—now the moment has come for ecstasy! Now drink and offer the drink. Drink love; pour love!

And you ask: “What kind of form of love is this?” This is the form of love. I haven’t heard of any other; there isn’t any other; there cannot be any other. Love is a riddle beyond reason. It is the experience of the mad, the power of those intoxicated with bliss. The little yardsticks of understanding and such will no longer serve—let them go.

You write: “I cannot say what happens! The eyes become half-closed, and everything is lost.” This is exactly as it should be. Take my blessings and move further and further on this journey!

Chandulal! How did you land up here? And did you bring Dhabbuji along or not?

You’ve come to the wrong place. Here we don’t discuss nations and the like. What value is there in the lines man has drawn on a map? Here the earth is one. What India, what Pakistan, what China? If you want to hear that kind of talk, go to Delhi. Why have you come here? And don’t stay here too long—the air here is dangerous! If you linger, you might start dancing, singing, humming; then you’ll forget all about India and the rest.

What need is there to praise India? And why do you want India praised? To gratify the ego. Why not praise Pakistan? Why didn’t you ask why I never speak about Pakistan’s greatness? Pakistan was once India; now it isn’t. Burma was once India; now it isn’t. Afghanistan too, once upon a time. And who knows whether what is called India today will remain India tomorrow? Why draw lines on water? Who is India? Whom will you call India? Politics shifts daily, changing and deteriorating. Man keeps drawing lines—he’s crazy about it. He loves dividing what is indivisible, though the earth is whole.

Here we sing of the whole earth. Not just the earth, the whole cosmos. We speak of the moon and stars, of sunsets and dawns, of trees and flowers, rivers and mountains, animals and birds—and yes, of human beings. But this is not a political arena where we sing India’s praises.

And what do you really want behind your request to praise India, Chandulal? That you yourself be praised. “See, India is so great—after all, Chandulal was born here.” Had you been born elsewhere, that land would be “great.” Wherever you were born would be “great.” Every country sings its own praises.

When the English first arrived in China, Chinese texts wrote: “They’re outright descendants of monkeys. Not even human. Look at their faces and ways!” And what did the English write about the Chinese? “It’s hard to consider them human. Eyes so slit you can’t tell if they’re open or shut; eyebrows absent; a beard with four or six countable hairs; flat noses, jutting cheekbones—caricatures, as if man had been put together wrong.”

This is how it goes everywhere. Germans think they’re supreme and deserve to rule the world. Indians think theirs is holy soil: all the avatars chose it—Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira. Nowhere else could they find a place to be born! Ask the Jews and they’ll say: the Jews are God’s chosen people. Ask Christians and they’ll say: apart from Jesus, no one is truly God’s son; the rest are fake tirthankaras, fake prophets, counterfeit avatars—worthless. Every nation, every race, sings its own praises. It’s foolishness, a veiled form of ego.

Still, if you insist, Chandulal, that something is great—at least make an effort to hear! Since you won’t accept otherwise, let me “praise” a bit:

Here the people rule, and every lane is “prosperous.”
Democracy’s horseshoe is nailed into the feet of the poor.
At every crossroads the leaders croak like frogs.
My country is great.

Owls distribute light here, the sun is mocked.
Dense darkness has taken up residence in every eye.
Government grants arrive at the homes of the sycophants.
My country is great.

Khadi-clad creatures are eating every living being,
yet they shout the definitions of nonviolence over the microphone.
Here crocodiles are honored like gods.
My country is great.

The corrupt are draped in the cloak of honesty.
Here the muzzle of a gun decides a person’s worth.
With love we sing of the sacrifice of leeches.
My country is great.

The swan’s discernment of milk and water lies in crows’ hands.
Swans are deemed fools in every enterprise.
Here Jaychand’s glory outshines Prithviraj.
My country is great.

From no direction comes any hint of the sun.
Here the brow of darkness wears a unique crown.
It feels as if a cremation ground is strewn upon every straw.
My country is great.

What is great? And why this craving? When something truly is great, there’s no need to announce it. Its very being is the proof. The sun rises: that is proof enough that morning has come. No need to send a brass band through the streets proclaiming, “It’s morning!” No one needs to shout to the flowers, “Bloom now—the sun has risen!” They bloom. Birds begin to sing. People wake up. The sun arrives without a word, without noise—without the slightest sound.

This hunger to be called “great” comes from a hidden inferiority within. It is an inferiority complex, a covert disease, which makes us want someone to call us great—by any pretext. And we are so pleased to hear it.

Your leaders are clever. They keep singing your greatness to you. You are dying of hunger; they feed you the song of greatness. Intoxicated by that song, puffed up with pride, you forget your real problems. That song of greatness works like opium to make you forget. So leaders come and ladle out your greatness to you: “great Indian culture! the oldest! the most religious!”

It doesn’t ring true, but it sounds sweet to your ears. You forget your hunger, your wretchedness, your poverty, your dishonesty, your thefts. You forget the thefts and deceit of the leaders. The song of greatness benefits both sides: you are great, your leaders are great, your country is great. And the condition? If you were to open your eyes and really look, you’d be frightened. Better to keep your eyes shut and go on singing. It is opium.

Human beings are the same everywhere. Differences are superficial. Someone cuts their hair this way, someone that way—it makes no difference. One speaks one language, another speaks another—no real difference; all surface. Man, as man, is the same across the earth. There are no qualitative differences. If differences appear, they are only of conditioning. One goes to the temple, another to the mosque—but the goer is the same. The temple-goer deceives in the temple, the mosque-goer deceives in the mosque. The temple-goer prays falsely in the temple, the churchgoer prays falsely in the church. Churches and temples differ; one bows at Krishna’s feet, another at Christ’s—but the one who bows is the same human being.

However much you talk religion on the surface, within you are just as materialistic as anyone else—perhaps more so, not less. Your grip on things is as tight as anyone’s—indeed tighter, because you have fewer things. When there is little, one clutches harder to make up for scarcity. Those who have many things—how much can they clutch? Not so much.

In the West, where things have multiplied, you call them materialists simply because their material goods are abundant. And you call yourselves spiritual because you have nothing to eat, no shelter, no jobs. What wonderful “spirituality”! What will you do with such spirituality? Burn it.

Where things are abundant, people’s grip naturally loosens. Where there is nothing, the grip is tighter. A man with only a loincloth clings to it—what else does he have? But one whose life is expansive—if something is lost, so what? Generosity is born, the ability to share. In truth, the more material development there is, the less materialistic a country becomes, because we clutch at what we do not have; for what we have, our grip relaxes.

Understand this law of the human mind. It sounds upside down, but it’s true: we clutch what we don’t have; what we have, we hold lightly. Look into your own life: you don’t cling to what you already possess; it’s there—why clutch? It’s what you lack that obsesses you.

This country makes a hollow claim to spirituality. It must first become materialist; only then will it be able to be spiritual as well. As things stand, we cannot even take care of the body—how will we take flight into the soul? Without a vina, how will you produce music? With empty stomachs, how will seeds of love bear fruit? With empty stomachs, how will meditation sprout?

In my view, our gravest mistake in five thousand years has been to condemn materialism and try to erect spirituality upon that condemnation. We are suffering the consequences. Your so-called sadhus and saints share responsibility. Until you recognize their role in keeping you beggared, poor, and sick, you will not cross this hell—because if you don’t identify the root, how will you cut it?

To me, materialism is an indispensable stage of spirituality. Materialism is the foundation of the temple; spirituality is its spire. Without a foundation there can be no temple. Between matter and spirit there is no opposition, only cooperation. See how deeply your body and soul cooperate: what happens in the body happens in the soul; what happens in the soul happens in the body. Convince a man he is ill, and his body will fall ill.

Try an experiment: decide that a perfectly healthy man is sick. Let the entire neighborhood, after greeting him, ask first: “What’s wrong? Your face looks so yellow. Are you ill?” At first he’ll deny it—he isn’t ill. But after a few people ask, his denial won’t be so firm. Doubt will creep in. By evening you may find him in bed under a blanket. He might even run a fever. “So many people can’t be lying!”

You have hypnotized him; you influenced his mind, and his body followed. The reverse is equally true. These are not separate—two faces of one coin. See the attunement between your soul and body; see the deep bond between the total Existence and the divine.

So materialism and spirituality cannot be opposites. India has made a great mistake treating them as such. The West too errs in the same way. The West chose materialism against spirit; India chose spirit against matter. Both chose half; both are writhing like fish out of water. The water is wholeness.

My proclamation is that we must create a new humanity—one free of both errors. Neither materialist nor spiritualist, but integral. Neither body-centered nor soul-centered, but whole. One that embraces both outer and inner; that raises no conflict between them; that builds a bridge between outside and inside. Such a humanity must be born. All our effort is for the birth of that humanity.

My sannyasin is the first herald of that new man. He accepts the world and does not deny the spirit; he accepts the spirit and does not deny the world. He is experimenting with how to live in the world and yet be beyond it.

I have no esteem for your so-called India. The sooner you free yourself from these hollow vanities, the better.

And you ask why I don’t praise the leaders of this country.

Even if I were to praise—what would I praise? In politicians there is never anything praiseworthy; if there were, they would not be politicians. Politics attracts the sick-minded, the unbalanced, the ambitious, those whose inner inferiority is so deep they seek a post to prove they are not inferior. Those with any real gifts are not keen on politics. One who could be a sculptor would prefer sculpture to politics; a painter would prefer painting; a musician, music. Politics is for the ungifted. That’s why politics requires no qualifications—indeed, disqualification is the qualification. The more unqualified, the further one goes. The qualified hesitate; they want to rely on their talent. The unqualified just barge in: “Take a hundred shoes, but get inside and see the show. Beat me, drag me, do whatever you like—I’m going in!”

What to say, how to say, to whom, and why to say?
Say it behind the back, or say it face to face?
Nothing makes sense—shall we laugh it, or cry it?
Shall we call today’s neta a leader, or a joker?

Everyone here has a style all their own—look!
Look at the spectacle of the chair-worshippers.

Just now they were weeping together behind bars,
just now they all bore mountains of sorrow upon their backs,
just now, sheet stretched out, people slept the sleep of ease,
just now they threaded dreams of relief upon their lashes—
now watch all those dreams scatter once again—look!
Look at the spectacle of the chair-worshippers.

Day and night, a round of phony meetings goes on;
a season of sulks; a season of useless talk;
who knows when the cycle of mutual attacks will end?
This saga of resentments, this season of mischief—
the bag of tricks is open once again—look!
Look at the spectacle of the chair-worshippers.

What fun they find, who knows, in daily quarrels!
Turbans are tossed every minute in the marketplace;
one uprooted, another set back in the government;
one is tottering, one has sunk midstream.
What to say, how to say, to whom, and why?
Someone gropes for a straw to cling to—look!
Look at the spectacle of the chair-worshippers.

There is no town where kidnappings don’t occur.
Highwaymen everywhere, but not a guide in sight.
Pickpockets released from jail—no restraint remains.
Thieves are fearless now; there’s no fear of the stick.
In the season of color, the omens point to thorns—look!
Look at the spectacle of the chair-worshippers.

Whom shall I praise? And why?

And Chandulal, have you come here to hear praises of India and its leaders? Or have you come to wake up a little, to taste life, to be steeped in the nectar of the divine? Have you come to drink beauty, to drown in prayer, to keep company with a little samadhi? To bring your unlit lamp close to a lit one, so that a yearning may arise in you too: when will I be lit, when will my heart shine?

Come here for something else; don’t bring such questions. Leave such questions at home. Bring questions worthy of this place—questions that make you more inquisitive about life’s mystery; questions that can give you a glimpse beyond death.

Surendra Saraswati! That is exactly what I am doing. I have dyed you in this color of light; I am coloring you in this way of samadhi, so that what I have known, you may know; so that what has been my experience may become your experience; so that the Vast that my eyes have seen, you too may see. First I invite you: look a little through my eyes, peer at the sky through my window. Once you have peered through my eyes, looked through my window, then my window will no longer be needed. You will open the window of your own heart. You will open your own eyes. Surendra, it has begun to happen!

You ask:
I want to be
the resonance of your sky.
You are accepted. The resonance has already begun. It is because the resonance has begun that this longing has arisen.

There are some unique things in this world!
An old Sufi saying says: you choose God only when God has already chosen you! A very sweet, wondrous, meaningful saying—that you choose God only when God has chosen you; otherwise you would not even choose. You call to God only when He has already called to you. He is the one who calls first. And rightly so. The Vast will call first. The ocean will call first. What strength has the drop? This yearning has arisen in you to be dissolved into the immensity—this means only one thing: the Immense has already chosen you. The Vast has already plucked the strings of your heart. The resonance has already begun. Do only this: as obstacles arise amidst this resonance, keep removing them. Do not let the obstacle of ego arise; do not let the obstacle of knowledge arise; do not let futile vacillation, the obstacle of thought, arise. Become thought-free, and become more and more drenched in feeling.

Just two things.
1) On one side, keep becoming thought-free.
2) On the other side, keep increasing the tenderness, the moistness of feeling.

The very energy engaged in thought should become engaged in feeling. Today or tomorrow, if not tomorrow then the day after—sometime—the auspicious moment will arrive when you will become a limb of that Vast, no longer separate, but one.

Enough for today.