Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #8

Shivananda Bharati! The Divine is arriving every moment. To call it “arriving” is not even right—the Divine has already arrived. The Divine is not the future; the Divine is the present. When a gust of wind comes, it is He who comes. When a ray of the sun comes, it is He who comes. When the birds sing, it is He who sings. Other than Him there is nothing here.

That is why our prayers that “call Him” go to waste.
He has already come—and we go on calling Him. He stands at the door—and we search far away. He is nearer than the nearest—while our eyes are entangled with the moon and stars. Man misses, not because God is far, not because He is hidden, but because He is so manifest, so near, so utterly uncovered that we fail to recognize Him. Like a fish in the ocean failing to recognize the ocean. Born there, grown there, lived there, played there, the whole net of life woven there—the ocean was always there. The fish remembers the ocean only when the fisherman catches her and flings her onto the sand. Only when she is torn from the ocean does the memory of the ocean arise.

But a human being can never be torn from the Divine. There is no shore where you could be flung away. For wherever there is, whatever there is, it is only the Divine. There is no way to be other than God. And this is the greatest obstacle. If only we could be separate, in a moment we would be ready to unite with Him—because separation would make us writhe, like the fish. But we are non-separate. We are not—we are only He. We are His very breaths, His very heartbeat, His very waves.

So do not pray that God should come. You will have to try from the other side. God has already come; we have kept our eyes shut. Shivananda, open your eyes! God has already come; we are standing with our backs to Him. Shivananda, turn your face toward the side where you have turned your back! God has already come; His veena has been sounding—forever sounding; His music is eternal. Shivananda, open your ears! Listen! Be quiet, be silent, be empty. And then you will no longer need to ask—When will God come? When will His chariot arrive? When will His arrow pierce through my life?

At every moment the arrow is poised and drawn. But you are not there! You are running, so restless that the target cannot be hit. For the arrow to strike, the target must be still. You are never still. You are changing every moment. You are a flowing stream. Sit utterly still even for a single moment, and His arrow will pass through your heart.

And I do not say this because of any doctrine; I have no interest in doctrines. I say it from my experience. Like you, for a long time I too prayed. And all my prayers went in vain. For I was praying to the Divine—and at the same time I had my back toward Him. I was offering salutations to the sun—and had my eyes closed to the sun.

How would such prayer be fulfilled? Then what will you do but weep? Your songs will appear only in your tears. Your whole life-breath will fill with a sadness, a deep despondency, a despair. The entire story of your life will become sorrowful, a tale of pain. I speak from experience. What you are doing, I did too.

But when again and again prayer failed, again and again I offered oblations that never reached His feet, again and again I worshiped and it was lost in emptiness—then a thought began to dawn: could it be that my back is turned to Him? Could it be that I am rushing about so much that even if His arrow were to come it could not pierce me? I must become still. Stillness is meditation. And I must become quiet. Quietness is to turn toward Him. And I must become empty. For apart from emptiness there is no prayer, no worship, no adoration.

What I say as my experience
is not mine alone!
From the ocean of life
clouds of experience
keep rising,
spreading across the boundless sky,
pouring life-nectar
on mountain peaks,
on rocks,
over fields and threshing floors,
over desert tracts,
into rivers and rivulets.
The clouds of experience are numberless—
brown, yellow, rosy clouds,
white-black jewel-toned clouds,
orange kohl-eyed clouds,
clouds that laugh,
clouds that weep,
clouds that even roar with laughter,
clouds as guileless as infants,
clouds with demonic claws.
Rainbows bloom within them;
lightning at times falls from them!
The clouds of experience are numberless,
but there is only one ocean of life
whose depth no one
has yet been able to measure,
whose limits neither space nor time
has yet been able to know.
It is unfathomable,
it is infinite.
What we call the horizon
is only the limit
of our own seeing;
it has no horizon!

Clouds of experience are numberless,
but all rise from the ocean of life.
Therefore,
what I say as my experience
is not mine alone!

What I am saying is my experience—but not mine alone. Whoever awakens finds the same. All who open their eyes find the same. The experienced are of one mind. All the truly wise agree! If there is dispute anywhere, it is among scholars. Those whose awareness has awakened have no quarrel. The wrangling of doctrines and scriptures is among the scripturalists. They even wield the scriptures as weapons—new pretexts for fighting, new devices for the prestige of the ego. But among the awakened, among the siddhas, there can be no dispute. It is impossible. Experience is one.

And the One of whom there is experience is a single ocean. All clouds rise from the one ocean. Whether they are brown, yellow, or seven-hued makes no difference; all clouds rise from the same ocean. But they rain upon rocks, upon mountains, upon fields and threshing floors—and then differences appear. On stone, those very clouds rain and no grass sprouts. They rain upon the rocks and the rocks remain empty—unmoistened, unsoaked, uninfused with sap. The same clouds will fill the lakes. Because the lakes were empty, were void, when the clouds rain upon them, the lakes brim over. And because the mountains are already full, the same clouds will rain upon them and the mountains will remain empty as ever.

If there is ego, you will remain empty. Let go of the ego, become like a lake—the clouds are already raining; it will not take long to fill.

And remember this: He will indeed come; His chariot will pass through the depths of your life; His arrow will surely pierce you; you will experience Him—and still you will not be able to know Him. There is no way to know Him. He can be lived, not known.

Whose depth no one
has yet been able to measure,
whose limits neither time nor space
has yet been able to know—
He is unfathomable,
He is infinite.
What we call the horizon
is only the limit
of our own seeing;
He has no horizon!

He has no boundary—neither in time nor in space. That is why, even as we know and know, we still do not know. The more we know, the more mysterious He becomes.

Your prayer is auspicious. But you yourself must become in tune with your prayer. Your worship is good. But the lamps you have lit on the plate of worship are not the lamps of your soul. The flowers you have brought to lay at the Divine Feet are not the flowers of your soul, not the flowers of your awareness. You have plucked them from some trees—rose and champa and jasmine—and placed them upon a stone idol.

All of it is false. The stone idol is false—made by man. The flowers are borrowed—from trees. The flame is not your own. The prayer and worship are stale. One repeats the Gayatri, another recites verses from the Quran, another chants the Navkar mantra. The prayer is not your own, the feeling is not your own—so much is borrowed: a stone god, flowers from trees, borrowed worship, stale prayer, even the lamp not lit from your own consciousness—then how will it happen?

Bring something authentic!

Tell me today, O lamp, my dear,
how shall I become like you?
At your base there is darkness,
yet you dispel the dark.
With every breath, in threads of smoke,
you pour out your private sorrow.
I see within your flame
your restless heart throbbing.
And it is only by banishing night
that your own life keeps burning.
Even while giving life to the world,
how shall I find my light?
Tell me today, O lamp, my dear,
how shall I become like you?

The moth comes flying to you—
but he too is burned.
In the fever of your living flame
the mad one singes his body.
His sacrifice does not in the least
impede your onward motion.
Blessed, blessed is your life,
burning in ceaseless flow.
This momentary lamp of life—
how shall I make it fulfilled?
Tell me today, O lamp, my dear,
how shall I become like you?

Become lamps! Shivananda, become a lamp! Light the inner lamp. That is what I call meditation. Light the inner lamp—that is what I call love. Let flowers bloom in consciousness, in compassion, in bliss, in wonder, in gratitude. Offer these flowers. And there is no need to go seeking stone idols. He is present everywhere. He fills all directions. In whichever direction you bow, there are His feet. At whichever feet you bow, they are His. And let prayer arise from your own being! At least let the prayer be yours. Even if it lisps, it will do. Lisping prayers will reach, and the purest intonations of the Gayatri will not. This is not a matter of mantras, of sounds, of meters, of grammar or language; it is a matter of love.

Have you watched a small child when for the first time he lisps? How delighted the mother becomes! The same child will one day return from the university with a Ph.D., will speak in elegant, ornamented language, but the mother will never be so delighted again! Even his Ph.D. will hold little meaning for her. That first time when he lisped—he didn’t even speak, merely made a sound… ma… ma…—the mother rejoiced. In that first sound there was nature, spontaneity. Now there is education, conditioning—all of it borrowed. That first sound rose from his very life.

Such a sound reaches the Divine—remember!

Speak your own. And if nothing can be said, then weep! Tears at least are your own! A good thing about tears is that there is no Gayatri for them, no Quran. You cannot shed another’s tears—only your own. They will reach. They will bathe His feet.

And let me repeat just this: He has already come; you are the one who is running. The question is not of His coming; the question is of your standing still, of your stopping.

Anand Maitreya! It is necessary to understand the process of human birth. In the mother’s womb the child naturally knows an incomparable well-being. No worries, no anxieties. There is no need to plan for food; it comes effortlessly from the mother. He does not even have to breathe for himself; the mother breathes for him. And the child floats in the mother’s womb as Vishnu on the Ocean of Milk. The very image of Vishnu floating on the ocean surely arose from the sight of the child floating in the mother’s belly. The water and salts in the womb are in such a proportion that the child cannot sink. If you add a certain amount of salt to water, a person simply cannot drown in it.

You must have read in geography about the Dead Sea in Europe. Its peculiarity is that it has accumulated so much salt that fish cannot live in it—no creature lives there; in that sense it is “dead.” Its other peculiarity is that even if you try, you cannot push a person under; the water weighs more than the person.

Exactly that is the condition inside the mother’s body. That is why when a woman is pregnant, her taste for salt intensifies; salty things become pleasing, because the belly is asking for salt—more salt and more salt. The child floats in the mother’s womb. The temperature remains absolutely constant for nine months, unwavering; not the slightest fluctuation. The temperature is delightful, and because it is steady it is very soothing. And no sounds reach the child in the womb—except modern noises like that of jet planes, which is dangerous. Scientists worry that such noise will harm the child, deform the child. Normally no natural sound reaches the womb. There is silence—profound peace.

For nine months the child lives in this emptiness, this meditation, this ease, this safety, this naturalness; he experiences well-being. Although he does not yet know it as “happiness”—that recognition comes only when suffering is known. The remembrance of bliss comes later. Whether he knows it or not, it is a supremely pleasant state.

Then, after nine months, an upheaval occurs. The house in which the child has lived for nine months is suddenly torn away, and suffering begins. Birth is suffering. From the comfort he knew for nine months the child is wrenched, and must enter an unknown, unfamiliar world where everything seems to hurt.

In the West some scientists are working on this, and their findings are significant. They say that in hospitals, where children are born, such harsh, bright lights are used that we have no idea how we are damaging infants’ eyes. For nine months the child has lived in tranquil darkness, where not a ray of light reaches. His eye-tissues are extremely delicate. And in the hospital there are fluorescent tubes blazing—terrible light. The infant’s tender ocular fibers receive a heavy shock. Researchers say the world would need far fewer eyeglasses, far fewer people would have damaged eyes, if we could let children be born in very gentle light—so soft that the contrast between the womb’s darkness and this light is minimal. The transition should be gradual, so there is no trauma.

No sooner is the child born than we cut the umbilical cord. We give him a jolt. Psychologists say that this immediate cutting leaves a wound for life, in the consciousness. That cord was how the child breathed; it was his very life-line, his existence. You break it with a jerk. The child has not yet started breathing on his own, and you sever his cord.

New discoveries say: first let the child learn to breathe. When he is fully breathing on his own—wait a little, what is the rush—then cut the cord. Allow the transformation. Let the child acquire the capacity to breathe himself rather than through the mother. Wait five, ten, at most fifteen minutes. If you wait between five and fifteen minutes, there will be less shock to the child; when he himself starts to breathe, the injury is less.

If the child does not start to breathe, the doctor grabs his legs, hangs him upside down, gives him a headstand, and thumps his back hard, so that out of panic his breathing begins. Is this any way to begin life? It is violence.

Then the child is swaddled in clothes. His skin is so delicate that no matter how soft the cloth, it feels painful. New researchers say the baby should first be placed in a tub of water at exactly the temperature of the mother’s womb, with the same chemical composition of salts, so that he can float. And then, gradually, make the transition. There would be less suffering in the world.

After that, all our education is unnatural. We do not accept the child’s nature. We impose ideals upon him. We do not give him the chance to live as he was born to live. We bind him with molds, with “character,” rules, proprieties. We draw Lakshman-rekhas around him. We deform the child, make him unnatural—and suffering grows dense.

By my definition: suffering is becoming unnatural; happiness is being natural. Whenever we are in accord with our nature, there is happiness.

Examine your own life a little. Whenever you are aligned with your nature, a pleasant aura surrounds you. And whenever you go against your nature, there is pain, a wound, a festering sore in your soul. And our entire process of life—what we call education, what we call giving “sanskar” to the child—

What strange “sanskar”! Such foolish conditioning! A Jewish child is born, or a Muslim child, so perform circumcision. The genitals are the most sensitive organ. The child is born and the very first thing Jews do is cut the foreskin. You inflict an injury he may never heal from all his life. But foolish notions prevail—that only by circumcision will he be a Jew; otherwise he won’t remain a Jew. There are countless such customs we impose on children. If you were to tally them all, you would know why a Himalaya of suffering sits on man’s chest.

Then whatever the child wants to do, we tell him it is wrong. If he wants to play outside—wrong: he will catch a cold. If he wants to play in the sun—wrong. If he wants to climb trees—wrong. If he wants to swim in rivers—wrong. If he wants to go to the hills—wrong. A heap of wrongs! Whatever the child wants to do is wrong. And what we want him to do makes no sense to him—why should he do it? His nature has no place for it.

A mother was feeding her child spinach. He was crying, and she kept feeding him spinach because spinach is healthy. And the child, crying, said: When I eat ice cream you stop me, and when I don’t want to eat spinach you force me! The mother said: Spinach has vitamins. The child said: What kind of God is this who put vitamins in spinach and not in ice cream!

Whatever delights the child is somehow wrong. Whatever we want to impose does not delight him. In this conflict, this strangulation, the whole joy of life is stolen. Gradually we produce a human being who seems filled with suffering, who appears nothing but suffering.

Then when we have produced this unhappy person, he asks: Why so much misery? So we must provide explanations. Our pundits and priests invent them. Someone says, You committed sins in your past life, therefore you suffer now.

Utter nonsense. You are not suffering because of sins in past lives; you are suffering because of sins committed upon you in this very life—the excesses inflicted upon you. Still, explanations must be given, and the story that you are reaping past-life sins is convenient. It gives a certain consolation: very well, then I must remain unhappy. Only one hope remains—if I don’t sin in this life, I will be happy in the next.

But no one seems to get happiness. And you must have thought in the past life that happiness would come in this one. This is that “next life”—and still there is no happiness. Nor will there be in the next one either, because the whole setup of life is unscientific, unnatural. The method by which man has been fashioned so far is so false, so artificial, that happiness cannot arise from it. It is not the fruit of past sins.

Some say you suffer because Adam... When did Adam sin, and what was the great sin? He ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge—disobeyed God’s order not to eat it. Adam disobeyed thousands of years ago, and you are reaping the results!

Such foolish things have been fed to people. But the truth is never told—because if truth is spoken, we must bring revolution today. If Adam sinned, what can we do now? We must bear it. If you sinned in past lives, what can you do? You cannot go back—so bear it.

Your priests, your pundits, your politicians are in a conspiracy—to make you willing to suffer, and in such a way that you do not even realize you have been made willing. They put balm on your wounds and hide from you the fact that suffering is being manufactured. Your social structures, your ways of thinking, your ideals and values—all are producing misery. But if this is admitted, then those values must change, and vested interests are attached to them. The truth is: many people’s interests are served by keeping you unhappy. No one wants man to be happy.

I have heard: One night there was great celebration in a liquor house. A man brought his friends; there was drinking late into the night. The owner was delighted. As the guests were leaving, he said to his wife, If guests like this came every day, our fortune would shine. The departing guest overheard and said, We would love to come every day—pray that our business keeps doing well. Pray for us. The owner said: Of course I will. But tell me, what is your business? The guest said: Better you don’t ask, otherwise praying will be difficult. The owner, even more curious, insisted. The guest said: I sell wood at the cremation ground. The more people die, the more my wood sells. If it sells, we’ll come every day. Just pray that our business keeps going.

Now it’s a problem. If someone’s business is to sell wood at the cremation ground, his prayer is only one: O Lord, let someone die today! He lives off death.

This society, if you look closely, will amaze you—it lives off your suffering. Those who sit on your shoulders, who have accumulated power through wealth and position, live off your misery. You are unhappy; therefore power is in their hands. If you become happy, power will slip away from them.

Imagine a society that becomes happy, utterly happy. Everyone is blissful in his own bliss. Politicians say: We must go to war, fight the neighbor. Who will be ready to go? People will say: To what purpose? Why should we fight? Our life is so joyous—why throw it away? The politician will say, Our flag must fly high! They’ll reply: You keep your flag high; our life is far higher than your flag. Only people of two pennies’ worth die to keep flags high—those who have nothing in life. What is in a flag?

Yet people die for flags—how foolish! Someone lowers your flag and that’s it—life or death! You’ve turned pieces of cloth into flags, stuck them on poles, and you’re ready to fight for them. Your derangement and your misery must be very dense.

I have heard that before the Second World War, a great English statesman went to meet Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted to impress, to shock, to intimidate—that was his style. They were on the roof of a seven-story building. Hitler said, Look, don’t tangle with me! I have soldiers who will conquer the whole world—no one can match them. And suddenly, to shock the Englishman, he told a soldier standing nearby: Jump! The man immediately leapt off the seventh floor. The Englishman was dumbfounded: how could someone be so eager to die? He should have hesitated, asked why? But he jumped! Seeing him stunned, Hitler tried another trick and told a second soldier to jump—he jumped too. Now the Englishman trembled. Seeing him shake, Hitler told a third: You too—jump! By then the Englishman lunged, grabbed the man, and said: Have you lost your mind? Is this how one dies? Is there no joy in living for you? The man said: Let go of my hand! You call this living? What we live with this man—you call it life? Better to die than live with him.

People are so eager to die because life is barren. Any excuse will do. Islam is in danger—some fools rush to die! Hindu dharma is in danger—more fools rush to die! Any pretext will do.

Such eagerness to die tells only one thing: there is no juice in your life, no experience of life. Life is so precious, such a unique gift of the divine, such prasad—and you are ready to waste it because a flag tilted, or a bit of land changed hands!

Whose land is it? National borders—and the readiness to die for them! And those who die are praised and honored with “Mahavir Chakras”! At least don’t defame the word mahavir (great hero)! Give them a chakra if you must. You award the “Mahavir Chakra” to blockheads who have no intelligence at all.

This entire arrangement, this whole web of order, stands because man is unhappy. Because he is unhappy, goods sell.

Look at advertisements—cars, clothes, cigarettes. Study the ads closely. Every ad says that man is unhappy, and the ad exists to exploit that. Until you have two cars in your garage you cannot be happy—such ads run in American magazines. The unhappy man thinks: all right then, perhaps that’s how. He gets the two cars—no happiness. Then the ads come again: now you need a boat, and a house in the hills—then you’ll be happy. As if happiness were so easy! The ads keep multiplying.

All advertising says only this: man is unhappy. And because he is unhappy, things can be sold to him—useless things he does not need. But in the hope of happiness he is ready to buy. Perhaps this way, perhaps that way. Perhaps wearing these clothes women will be enchanted. Look at the clothing ads—wear this fabric and you will stand out among thousands; all women will turn their heads. Hope arises: no woman ever looks at me, and if I look at one, she calls the police—perhaps if I wear this... Khubsoorat Soorat Mills cloth... perhaps women will look, surprised! Perhaps Indra will send apsaras!

They keep you alive on hopes.

Cigarette ads say: only in smoking this brand is there prestige. Prestige—in smoking? Some brands are so expensive very few can buy them; if that cigarette is in your hand, you have status. In the hand that holds it, success shines on the face.

Every trick is invented.

A man turned a hundred. Reporters asked the secret. He said: Give me two days. I can’t tell you now—after two days. They said: Strange! You’ve lived a hundred years—don’t you know the secret? Will you research it in two days? He said: No, I know it all—but I’ll tell you in two days because I’m negotiating with several ad companies. Once it’s fixed—whether it was Ovaltine, or Bournvita, or Parle biscuits—then I can say for sure why I lived to a hundred.

Man is unhappy—he can be exploited. A happy man cannot be exploited.

In my view a happy man is rebellious; a happy man is a revolution. How will you exploit him? You won’t be able to deceive him. He is so delighted, playing his flute of peace, he won’t go to fight with your rifles. He is so engrossed in his flute, he won’t get entangled in political tricks. He will have no interest in Delhi. Shout all you like that Delhi is near—he won’t go. Only a madman goes to Delhi! In his small, ordinary life he is experiencing such extraordinary joy—why should he worry about becoming prime minister? That is the race of unhappy people. Why become president? That too is the race of the unhappy. The unhappy man imagines: perhaps if I become president, happiness will come. It doesn’t; but by then it’s too late—the tail is already cut; there’s no point saying so then.

I have heard: A fakir came to a village and announced: Whoever wants a vision of God must have his nose cut off. The idea caught on, because many had tried many ways and had no darshan. It impressed them even more because the fakir’s nose was already cut. The truth was he had been caught in an affair with another man’s wife, and her husband cut off his nose. To save face he had invented this trick: “The moment my nose was cut, the curtain dropped; immediately I had the vision of God!”

Many want visions of God—people are so unhappy, so harried that if nothing else comes, at least let God come! Some began to come and sit with the fakir. And he had only one lesson: Do what you like, nothing else works—look at me! Can’t you make this little sacrifice?

Finally one “courageous” man—call him courageous or call him a fool; often it’s the same kind—stood up: All right, what is the most—only a nose! Life is anyway being cut away; let me try this too. In private the fakir cut his nose. The nose was gone, but God did not appear. He said, I don’t see God. The fakir said: Now keep quiet! You think I saw him? Mine was cut and I am saving face; now yours is cut, save yours. If you tell people your nose is gone and you didn’t see God, they will call you a fool. They will laugh. Better to dance and say: Brother, amazing! Such an easy method! The moment my nose was cut, the doors opened!

The man thought it over and agreed. He went to the village dancing, drums beating. People asked: What happened? He said: I had a vision of God.

Then more came. And with everyone the same. The village filled up with noseless ones. News reached the emperor. Emperors are as unhappy as anyone. He told his vizier: If cutting the nose yields God, life is short anyway. I’m old; two or four years at most; perhaps not even that. Better to see God. Why be deprived of Him over a little nose? And so many have seen—then it can’t be wrong.

People’s logic is: if a crowd has it, it can’t be wrong. The truth is, the crowd is wrong ninety-nine times out of a hundred. The crowd and truth—very rare. Truth belongs to the few, not the masses.

The vizier said: Wait, let me find out. He investigated and questioned many. But whoever he asked, tears of bliss would flow, they would sway and say they had seen! The vizier would not believe. A dishonest vizier—how could he believe easily? He had deceived all his life and become a vizier; why should cutting the nose be related to God? He saw no math, no logic. The king was nearly ready. The vizier pleaded for one more day. He had four or five noseless ones seized and locked up, and had them soundly beaten. He said: Tell the truth, or we’ll beat you more. They said: If you insist, here is the truth—no vision happened. But what can we do now? Our noses are gone! For self-protection we must say what we say.

People think that being president or prime minister will bring happiness. By the time they get there, the nose is gone. If, after becoming prime minister, he says he did not get happiness, people will say: Fool! We always said there’s nothing in it. So he must keep up appearances—don the sherwani, the achkan, and go on—maintaining a face: Yes, I have attained all there was to attain.

This whole world is unhappy. Out of this misery politics is born. Out of it countless hollow businesses thrive. Out of it thousands of vested interests are served. Out of it temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras are crowded. When man is unhappy, he goes to priests. When you are happy, do you remember God? Does God come to mind in happiness? It is in suffering that He comes. Then one thing is certain: if anyone wants a business in God’s name, it is essential that you remain unhappy; necessary to keep you unhappy.

Man has so far been the victim of a deep conspiracy.

You ask, Anand Maitreya: “You have said that man’s search for happiness shows that he is unhappy.”

Certainly. The search for happiness reveals two things. First, that man is unhappy. Second, that somewhere in his innermost core he knows what happiness is. At some unknown moment he has tasted it. He may have forgotten; it may be buried in the unconscious—but in the mother’s womb the child knew what well-being is. Even now the spring trickles within. In the inner womb of being he still catches the fragrance of that pleasant memory. Even now that lamp has not been completely extinguished.

So two things are clear: one, every person has an unconscious experience of happiness. Otherwise, we cannot seek what we do not know. Someone who has never seen a rose cannot go in search of a rose. One who has never seen a diamond cannot go in search of diamonds. Man has certainly known that diamond; the rose has bloomed once. His nostrils still remember a fragrance. Deep within, some memory is seated—forgotten, covered by the dust of a thousand thousand things, lost in the crowd—but it is there. Somewhere the spring still flows. Two: life, as it is, is suffering—utterly contrary to that. Hence the search for happiness.

The search for happiness is religion. The search for happiness is the search for God. Call it bliss, call it moksha, call it the great happiness, call it God, call it nirvana—it makes no difference. Man is seeking a state where there is no pain, where there is no thorn of suffering at all. This search is natural.

But there are those who obstruct it. They want you to go on searching without ever finding. As long as you search, their business runs; if you find, their business ends.

A doctor grew old. His son returned home from medical college. The father said: Now you take over; I am tired. I will rest for a month in the hills. The father went to the hills. When he returned, the son welcomed him at the station, touched his feet, and said: Father, you’ll be pleased to know that I have cured that old woman whom you couldn’t cure in thirty years. The father slapped his forehead: You idiot! It was precisely she whom I would not let be cured. Otherwise how would you have studied and become a doctor? It’s her grace! On her basis your younger brother is also becoming a doctor, and your little sister too. What have you done? You’ve ruined the business. It was on that old woman I ran the whole trade.

She was wealthy. Remember, when a poor man falls ill, he gets well quickly; when a rich man falls ill, it takes time—so it should. The physician has to live too, not only you.

In ancient China there was a marvelous rule. If ever the world becomes wise, this rule will be universal. The patient did not pay the physician for curing disease; he paid for keeping him healthy. Each year the patient pledged a certain sum—if he remained healthy. If he fell ill, he deducted from it.

It may sound strange, but it is profoundly meaningful—surely born in the shadow of Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu would say: The physician’s task is to keep the patient healthy and be paid for that. If the patient falls ill, the fee is cut—only then will the physician be keen to keep people healthy. Otherwise the opposite happens.

Today the world is upside down. The physician awaits the season. When malaria spreads, doctors say: The season has come. People are dying—and their season has come! Influenza spreads, and doctors’ faces beam with joy!

Mulla Nasruddin’s doctor sent many messages: You haven’t paid your son’s bill. Your boy had smallpox; I came many times, used many medicines. When the servants did not listen and kept turning him away, the doctor finally came himself. He said: Nasruddin, will you pay or not? Nasruddin said: You ask me to pay? You pay me! It was my boy who spread smallpox in the whole school. Ninety percent of your earnings are due to me—my son’s doing! And you ask me for money? Shame! You should thank me.

If physicians live off illness, there is danger. And the priest lives off your misery—there lies the danger.

I want man to be happy. But if man becomes happy, the priest, the pundit, the mullah will take leave. What use will they be? If man becomes happy, the bells in temples and mosques will fall silent; their purpose will be gone. If man becomes happy, foolish politicians will not be able to lead you—because with happiness, intelligence is born; in misery, intelligence withers; in happiness, it blossoms. If man becomes happy, nations will fade away—for nations have given nothing but wars and misery. If man becomes happy, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—all these identities will vanish. They have made people fight, slaughter, be violent, shed blood. They brought no happiness; they turned earth into hell. If man becomes happy, he will be neither Hindu nor Muslim, neither Indian nor Chinese. A happy man will simply be happy. And then a new kind of prayer will arise toward God—of gratitude.

Right now your prayers are all demands: O Lord, give me this, give me that! You go on begging. As long as there is begging, prayer is false. Then there will be another kind of prayer: O Lord, you have given so much! A deep gratefulness, a deep thankfulness. And when gratitude is in prayer, its beauty is unique. Then there is prasad in prayer; then it has wings, the capacity to soar into the sky.

I certainly want to see man happy. That is precisely why politicians are angry with me. Pundits, priests, mullahs are angry with me. All those whose vested interests may be hurt are angry with me. All those who teach people to cut off their noses are angry with me. I am telling people: nothing needs to be cut—not even the nose. Anger need not be cut, sex need not be cut; transformation is needed, not mutilation. Cut off the nose, cut off anger, cut off sex—whatever you cut off, you will become incomplete, crippled. You will become ugly. Existence has made you whole and beautiful. You have been given everything necessary. Yes, what you have can be refined—endlessly refined. You have been given the veena; what song you draw from it depends on you.

Do you think that if someone does not know how to play the veena and produces a cacophony, you should tell him to burn the veena? That is exactly what your religious leaders tell you. You don’t know what to do with anger; you don’t understand how to transform sexual energy. Priests tell you: Chop it off, throw it away! Sex must not be, burn it.

But when sex is burned out of life, a certain dryness, aridity enters. There is no greenness then, no flow of sap. It becomes a river without current—only sand. The day you cut away anger, you end the possibility of compassion, because anger is the manure out of which compassion grows. Be a gardener—nose-cutting won’t help. Be an artist, be skillful, be an alchemist. These are all alchemical energies. If anger is rightly understood and joined with awareness, anger plus awareness gives birth to compassion. If sex is joined with awareness, brahmacharya is born. Sex + awareness = brahmacharya.

Nothing is to be cut off; everything is to be transformed.

Religion is an art—not life-negation but life-affirmation.

And if from childhood we can succeed in keeping children natural, if we can support them to be simple and spontaneous, that would be right education. Education can have only one goal: How can man be happy? No other goal is possible. The sole aim of education should be: How to realize sat-chit-ananda.

But your schools teach mathematics and geography, and who knows what else. They teach Hindu-Muslim wars; Christian-Muslim jihads—they teach poison. Your past is stuffed into the tender minds of little children. Stuffed and stuffed. And children are helpless—they can neither run nor escape. They are bribed: If you swallow what we pour and then vomit it back on the exam paper exactly as you took it in—undigested—you will be richly rewarded. If you fail, you will suffer and be shamed. But they are taught neither love nor meditation.

And where love and meditation are taught, the government is unwilling to recognize that such a place could be an institution of learning.

Just yesterday I received official papers: they cannot recognize this as a place of education. Their notion of education is that people should be taught about Aurangzeb, about Shivaji Maharaj! What I am doing here does not seem to them like education. The truth is, what they call education is not education at all—it is deception. Their education does not produce human beings; it produces machines.

Here I am teaching meditation, love, celebration; teaching Holi and Diwali. This is not education! What have they to do with celebration? With joy? With God-realization? They are unwilling to allow this place to be called a university. People have come here from all over the world. In no Indian university are there people from as many countries as there are here. Yet this is not a university!

A school for the whole world—that is what a university is.

But they have their own criteria. They say: Until the University Grants Commission recognizes you, to use the word “university” is a crime.

Lawyers can sometimes be very blind—sticklers to the line. They cannot open their eyes to see that there is not a country from which people have not come here. They have come to learn—and they are learning. They are learning the art of living, the science of inner transformation. This is not a university! Because by law the word can only be used with government approval. Even words must bear a government seal! Even words have patents now! We no longer own our words!

I have no particular interest in calling this a university. To tell the truth, looking at your universities, I would not like to use the word for this place, because I do not want to put it in the same category as your trash universities. I myself would prefer that it not be called a university. But the truth is, this is a university—and yours are not.

Their conception is peculiar: education means something imposed from above.

My meaning of education is: what is dormant within you, your nature, be brought forth—not imposed from above but awakened from within. Real education is the process of awakening your sleeping soul. Information is not education. By piling heaps of information no one becomes educated—you may become “literate,” but not educated. If even a little of the sleeping God within you awakens, turns over a little, perhaps you will not be very learned, your information may be negligible—but your wisdom will be extraordinary; there will be a flame of knowing within you, an aura—one that not only transforms you but transforms others too.

Man can be happy. Man is born to be happy. But we do not allow him to be. By nature man is born into well-being, and no sooner is he born than we begin to hurt him. For centuries we have hurt him so much that we have forgotten that we are responsible. Under lovely names we deform him. In the guise of beautiful words we do not let him live; we cripple him. We have made man lame, deaf, blind. His eyes must be opened again. His ears must be reawakened. His heart must beat again.

This is possible—because it is our natural capacity. If it does not happen, that is the misfortune; if it does, there is nothing exceptional. That trees reach to flowering is natural; if they do not, something blocked them. Every tree reaches its flowers. Birds are joyous, animals are joyous—only man is not. And yet man can be the most joyous of all. Will animals and birds and plants compete with man?

But now the situation is reversed. Stand beside a rose—you look sadder than the rose. Watch a peacock dance—and envy arises in you. The peacock, seeing you, does not feel envy; he must feel pity: poor man!

It should have been the other way. Man is the pinnacle of life, the highest peak of consciousness, the greatest creation of God. But vested interests—the social contractors, religious leaders, politicians—have pressed man’s neck so hard that he hangs on the gallows, on the cross. He who should have been on a throne hangs on a cross.

I want to seat him on the throne. The irony is: the very person I want to enthrone will oppose me—because he has become accustomed to the cross. Those whose honor I sing shower me with abuse.

Buddha told his disciples: When you go to explain to people, remember one thing: you will speak for their benefit, but they will treat you badly—because you see from a height, from the mountain peak, and they live in dark ravines; they will not understand you.

A monk named Purnakashyap was going to spread Buddha’s message. Buddha asked: Where will you go? He said: To a region in Bihar called Sukhapranth—no monk has gone there yet. Buddha said: Don’t go there, Purna. Obey me in this—do not go. People there are not good. That’s why no monk has gone. They are wicked—greatly wicked. They enjoy tormenting others—for no reason. You will be in trouble. Purna said: Precisely why I want to go. Someone must go! Should we abandon them? His reasoning was weighty. Should we leave them as they are? Should we not have compassion? Buddha said: All right, you insist—go. But answer three questions. First, if they abuse you, what will happen to you? Purna said: What will happen? I will think: people are good—they only abuse; they don’t beat—though they could. Buddha said: Second, if they beat you, then what? Purna said: I will think: people are good—they beat, but they do not kill—though they could. Buddha said: Third and last: If they kill you, as you die, what will happen to you? Purna said: I will think: how kind they are; they have freed me from a life in which mistakes could have been made. I will die with gratitude. Buddha said: Then you can go anywhere—you are ready.

People are strange. Even when you speak for their good, they won’t like it—because for centuries what they have called “good” is precisely what your words contradict. They do not see their noose as a noose but as a garland. They do not see their chains as chains but as ornaments—anklets, little bells. When you break their bells—which to them are anklets but to you are shackles—they will be angry.

People are angry with me. My only “crime” is that I want to make clear why you are unhappy—not because of past lives, not because of fate, but because of a blind present arrangement. And you are responsible—because you support that blind arrangement. You do not withdraw your hand.

Withdrawing your hand from this blind order of exploitation and suffering is what I call sannyas. That is my understanding of sannyas. A sannyasin is one who breaks his cooperation with the blind, pain-producing, hell-making system. He says: I will not be a collaborator. He says: I will now live happily, and I am not prepared to have my nose cut. I will not cut off anything. Whatever God has given me I will use, and through it I will seek what is hidden. I will not break the strings of my veena. If a discordant sound arises, I will learn how to draw melody from it—I will learn to play the veena.

Learn to play the veena, and oceans of bliss can surge within you!

Niranjan! Man has always been like this. If there is any difference, it is only that man today is better than before—because he is more conscious than before. Never has he been so conscious. Today man has begun to think and reflect as never before. These are good signs. These are the first flowers blooming before spring. Spring must be on its way.
I am not a pessimist. Nor am I an opponent of the modern man.

The farther back you go, the more blind man was; the farther back you go, the more superstitious he was. If I had said to you two thousand years ago what I am saying today, you would long ago have crucified me. After all, you did crucify Jesus! And what Jesus said was not as dangerous as what I am saying. And you did give Socrates hemlock! And what Socrates said was certainly not as dangerous as what I am telling you.

Man has not become worse, Niranjan! Yes, one thing has happened: the old structures have loosened. The old obedience has loosened. The old fetters have loosened. So you begin to suspect that man has become bad. He has not become bad; he has certainly become a little more free. And this is a good sign, because freedom is auspicious. Today man does not follow the pundits and priests with the same blind conformity as before. Hence the pundits and priests shout that man has gone astray. But as I see it, it is not so. The farther back I look, the worse I find man. And that is natural, because evolution is in process. We are moving very slowly—granted, we should move faster, there should be some urgency—but we are moving.

Two thousand years ago wars were called holy wars. Today no war can be called a holy war—no war. Even a war fought in the name of religion today would be called an unholy war. This is evidence of the growing capacity of human consciousness. Today, every war meets with opposition.

Today something astonishing happens: if America drops bombs on Vietnam, American youth themselves oppose it. This had never happened in the world. For if India were to drop bombs on Pakistan and someone opposed it in India, you would call him a traitor. India is still backward in this sense. American youth opposed the bombing in Vietnam, and still the world did not call them traitors; they were called pacifists, lovers of peace. Young men refused to go to war, accepted punishments, went to jail. In these terms India is still very backward. If there were a war between India and Pakistan and thousands of young men in India were to say, “We will not go to war because war is inhuman,” what do you think would happen? You would call them traitors. You could not honor them. You could not even conceive, “What is this?” Because you are still living a thousand years behind. You still think in old languages—war, holy war, nation, nationalism.

These are all worn-out phrases. They have no future. The feeling is arising that the whole earth is one. And the next twenty-five years will be very unique. This whole earth will live as one. These national boundaries are absurd. There is no longer any need for them. Man is one. Whether he is black, white, or yellow makes no difference. These are surface differences, not inner ones.

But think a little of the old days!
How much you revere Rama! You have called Rama an avatar. But reflect—if you think in today’s language, could you still call Rama an avatar?

In Ayodhya a Brahmin’s son died. He died in Ayodhya. The Brahmin became very angry. For a son to die before his father! He appealed to Rama. And do you know what reason the Brahmins discovered? They discovered that thousands of miles away a shudra had secretly listened to the recitation of the Vedas; because of that, this Brahmin’s son died in Ayodhya. So Rama had molten lead poured into that shudra’s ears—because he had heard the Vedas. Could you, today, call such a Rama an avatar?

Many people say to me, “You speak on Krishna, on Buddha, on Mahavira, on Jesus; why don’t you speak on Rama?”
There are some obstacles for which I do not speak on Rama. What am I to do with this incident, if I do speak? How am I to…? I think in many ways whether somehow this incident can be whitewashed—whether I too can save Rama—but it is very difficult! Rama’s conduct is inhuman. But in those days this was considered right. In those days a shudra was not even regarded as human.

Rama returned having won Sita. And I take Rama as an example because Rama is “Maryada Purushottam”—the supreme exemplar of rectitude! If the conduct of the most exalted is like this, what is there to say of others? That is why I take Rama as the example. One should take the highest as the example, for the lowest are anyway the lowest. But when the highest behaves this way, then you can yourself calculate about the lowest.

Rama has won the war, Sita has been brought back from Ashoka Grove, and the words Rama spoke to Sita are crude and unseemly. In Valmiki, Rama says to Sita: “Do not think that I fought this war for you. What difference does it make whether you are or are not? I fought for the honor of the clan.”
The honor of the clan! Not the reverence of love, but the ego of lineage! No goodwill or love toward Sita. And then he demanded: “Give an ordeal by fire.”
No one asks, “Lord Rama, you too were alone for so many days; who knows whether you had any relations with some woman, and so why don’t both of you undergo the test?” Only Sita must be tested—that is an insult to womankind. And no test for Rama? Rama should have been honest enough that both would pass through fire. But Sita alone is made to pass through the fire. Because, of course, the man is all right. And the man is a man; his glory is boundless. The woman must be tested. The woman is not to be trusted. This is insult again. And on top of insult, more insults piled up.

Later, even after the ordeal, Sita was abandoned because a washerman said to his wife, “I am no Rama that I will let you spend a night outside and then take you back into my house!”
If that was so, then he himself should have gone to the forest. But he did not give up the throne; he gave up his wife. Office is greater than the wife; position is greater than love. He did not renounce the kingdom! He should have said, “All right, if people have doubts, then I too shall go.” But the pregnant woman was abandoned in the forest. Her test had been taken. Then this is injustice.

But injustice kept happening to women; injustice kept happening to shudras. And it is still happening. In India even now shudras are burned alive, their women are raped, their children are killed, their houses are set on fire—even today.
India is backward. India is not contemporary.

But if you ask why man is sinking day by day into the abyss of sin, then you ask wrongly. As far as man—the whole of humanity—is concerned, man is rising. There is no reason to despair about man. Man’s consciousness is growing, clarifying, becoming beautiful. Today, if a shudra is burned alive, a pang arises in your heart as well. Today, if shudra women are raped, it troubles you too. These are auspicious signs.

So I do not believe that man has fallen into the pit of sin. I also do not believe, “What has happened to man!” Whatever man is, he is what your traditions of thousands of years have made him. But within him new rays have begun to break forth. I am very hopeful about man’s future. There are difficulties, there is darkness, there are troubles; but all these can be crossed, all these difficulties can be broken. The truth is, all these difficulties can become steps, and all these troubles can bring a refinement.

Bitterness seems to dissolve into the air,
Darknesses keep surging and surging,
Lightning ripples close to the nests,
Life is a steadfast, mighty mountain—yet
Even the devils of oppression dash against it,
Storms of fire and blood crash against it,
They smash their mouths, are thrown back, get shackled,
How many autumn onslaughts ravaged the garden of the world,
How many raids did death make upon life.

Sometimes storms rose from Greece, sometimes from Rome,
From the valley of the Nile a bloody flood at times boiled up,
The fires sometimes blazed from Persia’s fire-temples—
Life kept being tempered and refined in the flames,
The more it was ravaged, the more it was adorned.
Life kept being tempered and refined in the flames,
Life has kept on being refined; all the fires kept burning, the flames kept pouring down.
Life kept being tempered and refined in the flames,
The more it was ravaged, the more it was adorned.
The more it was devastated, the more it grew resplendent.

I am not a pessimist. If I speak to you of the futility of the past, it is only so that you can rise above it, so that you do not remain buried beneath it.

Life kept being tempered and refined in the flames,
The more it was ravaged, the more it was adorned.

I see a new sun, a new dawn, a new human being, a new earth—becoming more radiant day by day. If we become a little more aware, it will happen sooner; the night will end sooner; the dawn will come sooner.
Light the lamps of meditation and sing the songs of love. Songs of love and lamps of meditation can bring about the morning that has not yet dawned in man’s life. And man has pined enough; he has lived in hell long enough. It is time we bring heaven down to earth. Heaven can descend.
Enough for today.