Prem Panth Aiso Kathin #9

Krishnadas! The games of the mind are very subtle. The mind’s politics runs deep. The mind is a skilled diplomat—and its greatest diplomacy is never to let you decide. Never to let you conclude. Never to allow you to come to a resolution. Because if there is no bamboo, the flute will not play. If you never reach a conclusion, action will never be born.

So the mind always keeps you wavering. The mind says: this or that. And the mind can keep you wavering like this forever; it has done so. Krishnadas, it isn’t that you started thinking this only in this life; who knows for how many lives you’ve been thinking this way! And then the mind’s argument seems reasonable: “If I cannot decide, how can I act? Let me decide first!” And the mind will never let you decide—because deciding is not the mind’s capacity. Conclusion is not the mind’s possibility. Conclusions are taken by the heart, through feeling, through trust.

The mind knows only how to doubt. It is very skillful at doubting, highly proficient. It has honed doubt to a fine edge. In its hand is the knife of doubt—and whatever comes before it, that knife cuts into pieces. The mind knows how to break; it does not know how to join.

Sheikh Farid, a Sufi fakir, was once visited by an emperor. The emperor brought a precious pair of scissors—made of gold, studded with diamonds and jewels, worth a fortune. Some king had gifted it to him. He wondered, “What should I take to a fakir?” He had great feeling for Farid, so he brought the most valuable thing he owned—the scissors—and offered them to Farid.

Farid took the scissors, laughed, and said, “You’ve brought this to the wrong place. What will I do with scissors? I have given up the business of cutting. I do not cut things apart. I join things together. Better you take the scissors back and bring me a needle and thread—for with needle and thread one can join; with scissors, one cuts.”

In a very loving way Farid said something utterly unique. The intellect is a pair of scissors—it cuts. The heart is needle and thread—it joins. Trust joins; doubt fragments. Trust makes whole.

If you go on thinking, you will never decide whether to pursue devotion or meditation. And the fun is: do you imagine there is such a big difference between the two? They are both paths to the same destination. Whether one walks from the east or the west, one arrives at the same place. All rivers reach the ocean. The roads differ, the directions differ—and all trusts reach the Divine, whether the trust is of devotion or of meditation. It is trust that carries you; neither devotion nor meditation “carries” you. Meditation and devotion are merely means; what truly carries you is trust.

But you are caught in doubt. So you will keep sinking and surfacing, sinking and surfacing. You will belong neither to home nor to the ghat—you will be like the washerman’s donkey, belonging nowhere. Flowers will never bloom in your life, because you will never trust long enough for roots to take hold.

So what, really, is the difference between meditation and devotion for which you’re thinking so hard?

Meditation is self-remembering, and devotion is God-remembering. Meditation is the awakening to the truth “I am the Divine.” Devotion is the awakening to the truth “All else is the Divine.” Whoever truly knows “I am the Divine” inevitably knows that all else is also Divine—for the very One who is alive in me is alive in all. The One who is breathing in me is breathing in everyone. Thus the meditator ultimately arrives at devotion.

And the one who feels that God abides in everyone—will he make an exception of himself? Will he see God in all but not in himself? Whoever sees the Divine in all will see the Divine within himself. If you walk by devotion, meditation follows like a shadow.

Devotion and meditation are two sides of the same coin—what are you sitting and thinking about? If you are not going to do anything, that’s different—then think as much as you like! For the one who doesn’t want transformation, the best method is: keep thinking. For the one who never wants to transform life, the greatest safety is: keep thinking. It’s a defense. Behind this screen you can hide. But whom will you deceive? This is self-deception. You will only deceive yourself.

Krishnadas, now do something. Anything. If you cannot decide, take a coin in your hand, toss it, and take heads or tails! And I tell you: heads is His, tails is His.

Smoke is rising again from the lamps—do something.
Even this house has begun to feel suffocating—do something.
Today, even if we open our windows, how can we?
The illusion of light is collapsing—do something.
Had it been night, it would be one thing;
But in broad day men are being plundered—do something.
Friends, vultures are circling this city again;
Stockpiles of death are gathering—do something.
Let not another forest descend in this age;
The greenness of life is dimming—do something.

Just look: the greenness of life is fading. Days are passing, emptying out.
The provisions of death are being piled up—do something.

And who knows when death will seize you—while you sit there thinking, “Meditation or devotion?” Death won’t ask you whether you want to die or not. Death will simply pounce. It will not give you time to think. Do something!

But action is only possible when one is freed from the mind’s futile dithering. Life changes by doing—not by sitting and continuing the itch inside the head. Thought is nothing more than scratching an itch. It doesn’t bring relief. At best, in the beginning there is a little sweetness; afterward, there is great pain.

Wake yourself up! Meditation or devotion—either one. A dying man does not ask whether the water is from a lake, a well, or a river. Seeing water, he cups his hands and drinks.

You are deluded. You’re thinking you will live forever; that you have lots of time; that you can waste as much as you like!

You say, “I’ve been thinking for years, and I still can’t decide.”

Think for lifetimes—still you will not decide. Deciding is not the mind’s capacity. See this truth—mind never decides. And whatever you have ever decided in life—search within a little, dig—and you will find: decisions always come from the heart.

You fell in love with a woman. The mind keeps thinking—but the heart fell in love. That’s why the mind says the heart is blind, that love is blind. If one tries to love through the mind’s eyes, love will never happen. You’ll waste your time thinking.

Whatever has happened in your life… someone became a musician—look closely. If he had kept thinking with the mind—“Should I be a musician? Or a doctor? A physician? An engineer? This or that?”—there were a thousand options in the world. But his heart was seized by music. He dropped everything and drowned in music—and thus became a musician.

You too have done things in life. If not good things, then at least bad ones. The lesson is the same, whether good or bad. Someone hurls an insult. Sit and think: “Should I reply or not? In what language should I reply? Which curses would be apt and justified?” Sit and ponder: “What if what he said is true? Someone called you ‘son of an owl.’ It might be that you are indeed the son of an owl—then what’s the insult? Perhaps he spoke the truth. Or perhaps he lied outright—then why be troubled by a lie?”

That’s why the Buddhas have said: before doing an evil act, think—think as much as you can. They have given you a key—if you think before doing evil, you will not be able to do it. The same key! Whatever you brood over, you won’t be able to do. The Buddhas say: if it is a wholesome act, do it immediately; don’t think. And if it is an unwholesome act, what’s the hurry? Postpone. Tomorrow, the day after—think a little, then do it.

You do the opposite. You do the bad immediately, without thinking. When someone insults you, you don’t say, “Come back tomorrow; let me think.” In that very moment you are ready to fight. But when it comes to something wholesome—devotion, meditation—you’ve been thinking for years!

This is the only difference between the Buddhas and you; between the wise and the unwise. Not a big difference. The unwise do the bad without thinking; the wise do the good without thinking. Such a small difference—yet it makes a heaven-and-earth difference.

Awaken your heart a little. Your heart lies asleep; the intellect is making a racket, and the heart is completely unconscious.

Let it not become like city life somewhere—
Hurl a stone hard, do not let the lake fall asleep.
The tale once titled “Prohibitions”—
Though late, I’ve understood.
When flattery clings to the banks,
This river-like life turns to stone.
Once a thorn is lodged in your foot, keep it moving,
Whatever the pain—do not let this nail fall asleep.

We are thriving outwardly, true—
But within we’re being laid waste.
Everyone has made their compromises,
Only words go on waging wars.
To sit still is inauspicious—let it fly, keep it flying,
Throw pebbles—do not let time’s hawk fall asleep.

We were busy stringing our tears
While the capital of pain was being looted.
Like legislators we were in our baths
While the youth of light was being plundered.
All that remains in the name of light is the “village” now—
Do something—do not let this last lamp fall asleep.

Within you, the source of flame is the heart. The lamp burning within you is the heart. The intellect has awoken a lot; the heart’s lamp sleeps deeply. Awaken it a little.

And how to awaken it?

Enter into small acts of trust. Take small decisions. I am not even speaking of big ones. When you learn to swim, you start in the shallows, then venture into the deep. So, in the shallows, make small decisions—and act on them. Then there is something to decide from. Try devotion; try meditation. Taste both. Who knows what will suit you? For some, devotion appeals; for others, meditation. But without tasting, how will anything appeal?

There are two kinds of people in the world: some who arrive through devotion, some who arrive through meditation. Who knows, Krishnadas, which of the two you are? But one thing is certain: you are definitely one of the two. So taste both. Then choose the one that clicks, that charms, that appeals; the one that digests well, that becomes your flesh and bone. Then choose that.

Each to their own destination, each to their own gait;
Someone stops, someone breaks through the bramble’s net.
Leaning on crutches someone kisses the mountain’s brow—
Do not let your courage wane, guard your own feet.
You are a forest flower blossoming even in the fall;
What marvel are paper flowers, after all?
Some bodies are so tender that excess pleasure burdens them;
Some hearts ache, yet no complaint touches their lips.
Questions are a crowd—but who will answer?
And some answers have no question at all.
Smiles are locked, small joys under ban,
But tears, repression, pain—these are never in short supply.
What to say of those with wings of gold and silver—
How can caged birds fly back to their branch?
Let us soothe for a moment the wounds of ages,
Before the hunter’s net snatches the birds away.
Each to their own destination, each to their own gait;
Someone stops, someone breaks through the bramble’s net.

You too have your own gait. But walk, so it can be known. Walk this way, walk that way.

That is why, in my Buddhafield, meditation is happening and devotion is happening. Lovers are dancing in ecstasy, and meditators are sitting in silence. Both are flowing together. This has never happened before. Those who gathered around Buddha meditated; those who gathered around Meera were devoted. For the first time on this earth, Sufi ecstasy and Sufi dance are here, the joy of the devotees is overflowing, and alongside that, Vipassana, zazen, and deep, deep meditative processes are also here. I am giving you both opportunities. You are the master—taste both. Then the decision will happen by itself.

But you are sitting outside. You neither meditate nor sing bhajans; you sit afar as a spectator, pondering: “What should I do? What should I not do?” Could it be that there is a great laziness in the mind, a great inertia?

Two lazy men were lying under a tree—Satyapriya sent me a little joke—a jamun tree. A jamun fell. One man said to the other, “This is the limit of laziness! A jamun fell and you couldn’t even—after all our friendship, and people say a true friend is one who helps in time—pick it up and put it in my mouth! What kind of friendship is this?” The other said, “And think about yourself! Just now a dog was sprinkling life-water into my ear, and even though you noticed, you kept your eyes shut! You couldn’t even shoo the dog away!”

A passerby heard them and thought, “This is the limit of laziness!” Still, compassion arose. It’s beyond the pale that if a dog sprinkles life-water, the other should drive it away—at least that much! He came over, picked up two jamuns, placed one in each man’s mouth, and said, “Brothers, now are you pleased?” He turned to go. They said, “Wait! Who will take out the pits?”

Is it not possible that all this thinking is just dressing laziness in beautiful clothes? You don’t want to do anything—neither meditation nor devotion—so you’ve found an easy way: you’ll go on thinking, go on pondering.

In other matters of life, Krishnadas, you don’t do this. Do you wonder, “Shall I drink water or not? Shall I eat or not? Shall I sleep tonight or not?” You do everything else in life with ease; only about devotion and meditation you exhaust yourself thinking. Perhaps the reason is: what you value, you simply do; what you don’t truly value, you think about.

Either forget it altogether. Why waste time? Forget meditation and devotion both. Either drop the whole fuss—there are a thousand other things to do in life! Earn a bit more, build a bigger house, pile up more money in the bank. Why get into useless talk? Either leave it—or, if you cannot leave it, if this tune keeps rising within you, then try both. Decision will come through experience. Trust will awaken through experience. Love will well up through experience.

Kashmeera! I and mine are both enemies of love. Both destroy love. Both are a cancer to love. And you are thinking that I and mine are themselves love! And you think that if I and mine go, life will become dry and arid! Life is dry and arid—because of I and mine. And if a little greenery appears anywhere in life—if a leaf or two sprout now and then—know that they sprout in spite of I and mine, not because of them. Some part within you must be empty of I and mine; there alone will there be a little greenery, a small oasis. Otherwise, only desert upon desert.

I means ego. What relationship can ego have with love? Love is the dissolution of the ego. Whenever love wells up toward someone, we drop our ego toward that person, we surrender our I to that person. Whether it is love in the ordinary world or love for God, the fundamental process is the same. The woman you loved, or the man you loved—what does love ask you to renounce? What does love demand? It asks only one thing: surrender the I. And whenever a woman and a man can surrender their I to each other, great greenery comes into their lives; flowers bloom, fragrance arises. But this happens with great difficulty. For after all a woman is a woman, a man is a man; to surrender the I totally to them is almost impossible. And even if it does happen sometimes, it is only momentary. In that moment you get a glimpse of the nectar, the mind is enchanted, the life-breath rejoices—but only for a moment! And then the dark night. Then a deep dark night. As if lightning flashed for a moment, and then the new-moon night, darker than before.

Therefore in love there is a little joy and much more sorrow. Those who have loved have not known only joy; they have known a sorrow deeper than joy. So many people do not fall in love at all. They will be deprived of a small joy, but they will also be spared a very great sorrow. That is why for centuries many people have fled to forests. They fled the places where love could happen. What does the word “world” mean? The place where love is possible. Where there is opportunity for love. Where others are present. Where—who knows when—minds may attune! Who knows when a chord of affection may join! Who knows when your veena might start playing with another’s veena! Who knows when, and with whom! So run away! For centuries sages and saints have been running to forests and mountains. From what are they running? They say, we are running away from the world. But if you understand their psychology, it will not be hard to see that they are running from love, not from the world. They flee from where there is the possibility, the challenge of love. The world is another name for love.

People run from love because love frightens them—it brings a little joy and a great deal of pain. A rose or two certainly bloom, but it brings thousands of thorns; the whole chest is pierced by thorns. Yes, sometimes a waft of fragrance comes—and then a lot of stench fills the air. A little joy and, as a result, much pain. So people have done the simple arithmetic: just flee from such a place where there is so much turmoil of joy and sorrow.

But such fugitives become supremely egotistical. Therefore the kind of ego you will see in our monks and saints, you will not see anywhere else. Their ego is very manifest, very intense, very subtle, and very deep. Because only love could have dissolved the ego; they left love behind. Now there is no one left to dissolve the ego. The disease remains, the medicine is gone. And you will find a desert in their lives; there will be no greenery there.

Kashmeera, you are right. If I were producing monks of the old style, your statement would be absolutely right—that then life would become dry and arid. But I am talking of a very different sannyas: a renunciation that does not run away from love, rather awakens to the truth of love; a renunciation that does not accept love as merely momentary, but embraces it as its eternal truth; that does not flee the world or flee love, but drops the ego. For sorrow does not come from love; from love comes joy, even if momentary. Yes, when love goes and the ego becomes strong, then sorrow comes.

This is a subtle process; you will understand only if you look carefully.

Sorrow never comes from love. Sorrow comes from ego, from attachment, from possessiveness, from the sense of I. Therefore in the beginning, love relations are very pleasant and delightful. The honeymoon days are very pleasant and delightful—because the I has not yet arrived. It will arrive soon. There will soon be marriage, a home will be set up, and the I will return with its whole army, with its full assault. The husband will be born, the lover will depart. The wife will be born, the beloved will depart. The beloved will die, and on her corpse the wife will stand. The lover will be reduced to ashes, and on those ashes the husband will stiffen and stand erect. Where husband and wife have arrived, there sorrow has arrived. As long as there were a lover and a beloved, it was a different matter, a different quality. The I had not yet come; there was no claim, no staking of rights.

Sorrow comes because of ego. Possessiveness is a form of ego. Mine—that very claim is ego. The day you said, she is my wife, that very day you offered that woman’s life in sacrifice. You killed her freedom. You pressed her neck. Until then she was alive, a bird flying in the sky; now she is a caged wife. Yes, you have given her ornaments, brought beautiful saris—you have decorated the cage very nicely. But the flow is gone. And the one you have caged will take revenge. After all, who wants to be dependent? She too will want to be the master; she too will want to claim you. In her too a thousand jealousies will arise, a thousand envies, a thousand ambitions. The husband thinks: I am the master. The wife thinks: I am the master. Both are busy trying to possess each other.

This is the net of possessiveness. Where is the greenery in this net, Kashmeera? It is a deception—or the drum heard from afar that sounds sweet.

You ask: You once said in a discourse that for men the I-sense and for women the mine-sense—i.e., possessiveness—are obstacles. Is possessiveness not just another form of love?

No, not in the least. Possessiveness is love’s corpse. It is love’s stench. It is the announcement of the end of love. As long as there is love, there is no possessiveness, no attachment. There is a guilelessness, a freedom. As long as there is love, lovers set each other free. Love brings freedom; possessiveness brings bondage. How can the two be the same?

But I understand what you are saying. That is what the dictionary says. And in our common schooling that is what is taught: that possessiveness means love. But in the realm of existence, possessiveness is not love; it is the very opposite of love. If love is nectar, possessiveness is poison.

You say: Is possessiveness not another form of love?

Not at all! Where love has flown away, a dead body is left lying there—that you call possessiveness. Then worship that corpse, offer flowers on it, but life has flown from that house; only an empty cage remains, the swan has flown.

You asked: Is such a loving quality...

I do not call possessiveness a loving quality at all. If possessiveness is rightly recognized, it may even evoke disgust, but it cannot be love. It will be a little complex to understand, because for centuries we have been conditioned to think possessiveness equals love. And I am telling you: possessiveness precisely means love is not there; now we want to take possession of the other. Possessiveness is politics; love is religion. Possessiveness is proprietorship; love is liberating. Possessiveness says: never leave me. Possessiveness says: I have drawn this boundary line—do not step outside it. Possessiveness says: you are mine, and no one else’s. Possessiveness is very jealous; jealousy is a part of hatred, its shadow. Possessiveness has assumed the form of love, put on the mask of love, and thus it deceives mightily.

But true love does not claim the other.

Khalil Gibran has said it rightly: love your children, but do not give them your thoughts. Love your children, but do not assert your authority over them. For if you assert authority, if you give them your ideas—you have put a noose around their necks. You have cast them in your mold—that becomes hatred, not love.

Two lovers are not each other’s masters; they are companions. Two lovers do not keep expectations from each other, do not keep demands, do not keep conditions. Their giving is unconditional. The lover wants to give, and possessiveness wants to take. Possessiveness is grabbing—more! and more! and more!—and the begging bowl of possessiveness is never filled. Love says: take; I am sharing; I am blessed that you accepted. But love does not demand a return. Possessiveness does not really want to give, and yet it demands a return—give! Possessiveness’s voice is: give! and give! this much is not enough.

What wife is satisfied with her husband’s love? She thinks: there should be more. What husband is satisfied with his wife’s love? He thinks: there should be more. Are children happy with their parents? They think: there should be more. And are parents happy with their children? They think: there should be more. However much is given, the begging bowl of possessiveness does not fill. And love has no begging bowl at all. Love is royalty. Love is giving. Love is sharing.

These are two very different things, Kashmeera. Do not mistake possessiveness for a loving quality; otherwise you will remain deprived of love. You will go on picking trash and pebbles while diamond mines lay close by. Trash and pebbles also sometimes glitter and can fool you for diamonds. A connoisseur is needed. And the test of love is a deep test, because there is no greater diamond than that. Love is the Koh-i-Noor; not everyone will understand it.

You asked: ...a loving quality that has overtaken my life...

It may well have overtaken your life, but it is not a loving quality. Search again. Feel your way again. Do not be satisfied with a cheap thing. I want you to attain true love—because true love one day becomes prayer. And possessiveness keeps you wandering in the world. Possessiveness keeps you roaming from one door to another like a beggar. And love one day lets you enter the palace of God; love one day makes you the beloved of God.

But the first lessons of love must be learned here in human life—through children, husband, wife, friends. Learn the first lessons of love from them. Let possessiveness go and awaken love. Do not ask; give. Do not claim; do not assert rights. And with whomever you love, remember this: even by mistake do not draw boundary lines around them. Be careful that whomever you love is not crushed under the weight of your love. Let your love make them weightless, give them wings, give them the capacity to fly. Let your love make them capable of loving more and more people.

What does possessiveness say? Possessiveness says: love only me, no one else. Possessiveness is like this: the husband steps out of the house, and the wife says, look, for twenty-four hours do not breathe anywhere else; when you come back, breathe only by me. Because you are married to me—am I not your life? Then do you feel no shame taking breaths elsewhere? If I am your life, then when you sit by me, breathe to your heart’s content, take deep breaths, enough to last twenty-four hours. Possessiveness makes just such demands: love me, and no one else.

Possessiveness is so jealous that when the great musician Beethoven was asked why he did not marry, he said: I am married to music, so I did not want to bring another rival into the house. Because conflict between my wife and my music would have been certain.

If a husband is absorbed in playing his veena and the wife is present, she gets angry: with me here, and you are absorbed in the veena? Am I your wife or is the veena your wife? Who is it—this should be decided. Wives cannot tolerate their husbands’ love of music; it becomes difficult. Leave aside another woman—even music, which is not a woman, loved so much becomes difficult.

The great poets, musicians, artists, sculptors, painters of the world have often remained unmarried. Not because they were old-style renunciates; simply because it is a bit difficult to carry two wives together! Quarrels, hassles!

Socrates’s wife would be so filled with jealousy when Socrates spoke with his students and discussed philosophy with his friends, because he would become so absorbed that he forgot he even had a wife. One day she became so enraged that she poured a boiling kettle over his head. Half his face was scarred for life. His disciples were dumbfounded. One asked, what do you have to say about this?

Socrates said, nothing at all—I understand her difficulty. I become so absorbed in discussion with you that jealousy arises in her.

It is worth thinking. The wife had possessiveness, attachment; Socrates surely had love. Socrates did not utter a word of anger. He only said: I understand her pain; I feel her suffering. That’s all. And where the conversation had broken off, he started right there. This is love, which feels the other’s pain more than even the pain done to oneself.

But what Socrates’s wife did was possessiveness, attachment. She wanted Socrates to be only mine. Whisper in my ear, talk to me—such sweetness with others?

Kashmeera, do not mistake possessiveness for a loving quality. Most women have assumed exactly this; that is their ailment. Possessiveness is the ailment of women, and ego is the ailment of men. I-sense is the ailment of men, and the sense of mine belongs to women—my saris, my house, my money, my wealth, my this, my that. That is why you see, in India we call the woman gharwali, “the one of the house,” we do not call the man gharwala. The poor fellow earns, takes the knocks; from morning to evening he breaks, dies, carries the burdens of life—but we call the woman the one of the house. The reason behind it is that possessiveness, mine-ness, that claim belongs to the woman. As the other things of the house are hers, among those things one thing is the husband too; among those things are her children too.

For the man the heavy thing is ego, the I-sense—his I should not be hurt. For the woman the heavy thing is her belongings—her mine should not be hurt. But these are two sides of the same coin: one the masculine form, one the feminine. One has to be free of both; only then is love born. When ego in all its expressions has departed, then the temple doors of love open. And then the temple of love soon becomes the temple of religion. Where love is, there is religion.

Kashmeera, you will not have to become dry and arid. I do not believe in making people dry and arid; I am against them. That is why all the dry and arid people are against me. I want people’s lives to be green, richly green; let many flowers bloom in them; let people be laden with leaves.

But dreams are very difficult to drop. Possessiveness is your dream.

A dream is a dream; let it remain a dream.
With this alone I’ll build my little world!
To amuse my heart, I’ll borrow
a few notes of your song and sing!

Silence is dear to you forever;
let me at least speak my own!
Let the dream remain a dream!

This deception is my only support,
this dream too is full of faith!
By attaining you, even inert life
will brim with joy!
On waves of trust, rippling, rippling,
let this life-craft float!
Let the dream remain a dream!

Can I make you mine?
Do I have such a right?
Even if restrained, does
the love of an anxious heart stop?
Let me love you to my heart’s fill—
let at least this little joy remain!
Let the dream remain a dream!

Even if one knows it is a dream, still a person wants it to continue: may it not break, may it not fall away. But if a dream is a dream, however sweet, however melodious, however pleasant it feels—if it is a dream, it is futile.

Awaken—awaken from the dream of possessiveness, and the true world of love begins. Break the sleep. Ego is sleep; egolessness is awakening. And then, for the first time truly, joy will come into your life, celebration will come. I want to make your life seven-colored, like a rainbow. I want to make your life of all seven notes; let the whole scale be yours. But you are satisfied with small things—this is my house, this is my shop, this is my husband, this is my son—you are satisfied with small things. This whole existence can be yours! Just drop the sense of mine.

Ramtirth has said: the day I left my small courtyard, the whole sky became my courtyard. And the day I blew out my small lamps, all the stars in the sky became my lamps. And the day I left one house, the whole existence became my home.

That is well said. I am not speaking literally that you should leave your house, your courtyard. Just drop the possessiveness toward courtyards so that the whole sky can be yours—it already is. And when small courtyards give you so much greenery, then just think—extend the arithmetic—how much greenery will the whole sky not give! When a little drizzle of small love makes you so green, then when the monsoon clouds pour and God showers—nectar rains, the lotuses bloom—how much greenery, how much celebration, how much eternal life!

I want to make your life a daily Holi, a daily Diwali. But dreams have to be dropped. Awakening to the truth is essential.

In its purest form, jiveshana is the Divine. In its purest form, jiveshana is life’s pure energy. And it is eternal—without beginning or end. God is life. For me, God and life are synonyms. God is not some separate, isolated person sitting apart. This infinite, boundless expansion of life itself—“God” is just a loving name for it. The endless longing for life within you is the very form of the Divine.

So first, let me say clearly: jiveshana is auspicious; jiveshana is true. There is neither any way to escape it, nor any need to. There is no need to run from it—there is a need to live it. Taste it! Become a consummate enjoyer!

But your question is something else. By jiveshana you mean something else. You mean: “May this body remain forever.” You’re asking about the impure forms of jiveshana—reaching high positions, amassing wealth, gaining prestige, big name, big fame, never perishing, the body remaining and remaining, this life never slipping out of your hands.

These are the impure forms of jiveshana—like a diamond fallen into mud, covered by layers of dirt. Those layers have to be washed off.

And you say you even understand that there is great suffering in life.

No—Vishwanath Bharti, it hasn’t yet been understood. You hear it; it sounds logical; but it doesn’t reach understanding. You hear it; if you’re thoughtful it seems coherent to your reasoning—but it doesn’t descend into the heart. It remains on the surface, skimming along. In one ear and out the other. It seems to arrive, and just as it arrives it slips, it flies from your hand. The grip doesn’t set—because if it did, a revolution would happen.

And even here the mind plays cunningly. The mind says, “Look, Vishwanath, I’ve understood everything—life is nothing but suffering. So why ask more of life, why have expectations, why nurture ambitions?”

What the mind has “understood” is not enough. It must be understood on all your planes—not only by the mind, but by the heart; not only by the heart, but by your innermost being. When your three dimensions—your triad, your trimurti—are threaded into one understanding, the way a gardener strings flowers on one thread; the day your understanding becomes the understanding of your totality—when every pore of you bears witness to it—on that day a revolution happens. Then you don’t have to ask, “How do I drop it?” No: the natural outcome of such deep understanding is that the futile simply falls away.

You say, “I understand a little.”

Then mark this, secondly: understanding is either whole, or it isn’t. “A little”—there is no such thing as “partial understanding.” That’s a cheat. “A little understanding” means nothing. Imagine telling someone, “I’ve fallen a little in love with you.” They will be startled: “A little? What do you mean a little?” Either a person is alive or dead. “Somewhat alive”? Either a person is awake or asleep. “Somewhat awake”? That won’t do. The truths of life are either whole or not. A circle is complete or it isn’t; an incomplete circle is no circle. You can’t say something is “a little true.” Impossible—Truth has no fragments. Understanding has no fragments. If Truth has no fragments, how could understanding be fragmented?

So when you say, “I understand a little,”
it is the mind deceiving you. It says, “Look, at least intellectually it makes sense.” But intellectual understanding is no understanding. You can “understand” everything and remain exactly as you are.

Suppose I tell a man, “Here is the door; if you have to go out, go through this. Bang your head on the wall and it will break.” Later I find him again banging against the wall. I ask, “Brother, what happened?” He replies, “I do understand a little that the door is there. But tell me, what am I to do—how do I stop exiting through the wall?”

If you’ve understood where the door is, exiting through the wall has already stopped. If it hasn’t, then clearly you still see a door in the wall. And this “door” you say you “somewhat” see—it’s just polite pretense. You’re saying, “You’ve put in so much effort; if I don’t even understand a little, it would be unjust to you.” You’re being gracious to the Buddhas! “They’ve labored so hard for ages explaining—so all right, ‘a little’ I do understand.”

Let me be blunt: “A little” has no value. Don’t give it any value, or you’ll be trapped in delusion. If you have understood—go out through the door. Understanding has one proof: you go through the door. And if you haven’t understood, then please say so plainly: “I don’t see the door. To me there is a door in the wall; I will keep trying the wall.” At least there will be honesty in that. And where there is honesty, Truth is not far. There will be authenticity. Otherwise you end up with a double mess—exiting by the wall while talking about the door.

This is what people do. They talk religion but live in the mire. They sing the lotus’s praise and haul the mud. They talk of heaven, but don’t even know how to crawl on earth. “Ram-Ram” on the lips, a dagger tucked under the arm. They read the Gita, but there is no song in their lives—forget the Bhagavad Gita, there is not even a simple melody, not even a hum. They read the Qur’an, but there’s no sparkle in the eyes, no music in their breath. This self-deception comes from “understanding a little.”

I want to speak to you straight. You are my sannyasin, so I want to speak straight. If a non-sannyasin asks me, I show a little courtesy. But Vishwanath, you are my sannyasin. I owe you no politeness; I owe you a soul-relationship. If I get a chance, I’ll slice off your whole head. “A little” won’t do.

You ask: “I even understand a little—then why does the urge to go on living persist?”

Because you don’t understand—that’s why the urge persists. What you take for understanding is only cleverness. And because it is only “a little,” merely on the surface—hollow, shallow—the mind goes on playing its game without worry. The mind says, “All right, it didn’t happen today—but who can guarantee it won’t happen tomorrow? Pleasure didn’t arrive today—it may come tomorrow! The nectar of life we couldn’t taste today—tomorrow we might! Not with this woman—maybe with another! Not in this position—maybe in another! So search a little more. What’s the hurry? Why such haste for nirvana? Nirvana will happen anyway, sooner or later. If not this life—then the next!”

Thus Indians invented a very convenient device—the doctrine of countless births. It gave great comfort to laziness. There was no hurry to do anything. Man is so devious that out of even the loftiest truths he extracts some trick. Man is such a lawyer—such a jurist—he will wring a loophole out of anything.

The East devised an extraordinary doctrine—that life recurs again and again, innumerably, that there is rebirth. Those who taught it had a different purpose. Buddha said it, Mahavira said it, Krishna said it—all said it. In India there is one doctrine on which all Indian religions agree; on no other do they agree. Therefore this doctrine cannot be trivial. Mahavira says there is no God; the self and the world are enough. Buddha says there is no God, no self, no world—this is all a dream. And the Hindus accept all three: the world, the self, and the Divine. There are great differences. Yet on one point all three agree: that rebirth happens. Sometimes it’s astonishing—why this one point of agreement?

Their indication, their intention, was different: to make you see that this very hocus-pocus you’ve been doing—nobody knows how many times before—you’re doing it now and will keep doing it. Won’t you get bored at last?

Know this: only man has the capacity to be bored. No other animal gets bored. Have you ever seen a buffalo bored? Sitting there, bored, depressed? Never. Ever seen a donkey bored? The buffalo eats the same grass every day—never bored. The donkey brays the same notes every day—never bored. Except for man, no creature on earth has the capacity for boredom. This was seen by Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna—that if man has one astonishing capacity, it is the capacity to be bored. They wanted to use it. They devised a method. They sought a means.

What is the greatest way to produce boredom? Repetition. If you must listen to the same thing every day, read the same story every day, watch the same film every day—you will be bored. And in boredom you want to be free: “How to be free?”

All Indian religions say: you have already enacted this same hocus-pocus innumerable times—these webs of attachment, the spread of wealth, position, prestige, mine-yours, quarrels, frauds, courts, lawsuits—all of it, innumerable times. You are doing it still. And you intend to go on doing it—innumerable times more? Won’t you be bored? How long until you are bored? The day you are bored with all this, that day the dignity of man will dawn within you.

That was their vision, their intent. But what trick did we extract from it? We are not behind them in playing our own moves! Buddha casts his dice; we are no less—we play Shakuni’s game. We find our tricks. You go branch to branch—I go leaf to leaf! We say, “You want to bore us? Not so easy! If there are countless births—why the hurry? Then let’s watch a little longer. Let’s play a little longer. We’ll settle it in the next life—do meditation and devotion next time. For now, a few days more… One more election to fight! ’82 is near—let’s take one more shot! Buy one more lottery ticket! This business is fully in our hands—why drop it? Let’s complete it! This customer has come to the shop—let’s fleece him! We’ll see next life. If we need more meditation then, we’ll do a little more. And the next life isn’t here yet—there’s time. Keep postponing!”

We found our trick. The Buddhas wanted us to get bored—and from boredom a revolution to arise. We did not get bored; we got lazy—monumentally lazy. There is no country on earth lazier than India. And behind this laziness stands the doctrine of rebirth.

Seeing India’s plight, the religions born in the West—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—did not accept rebirth. Seeing India’s plight. India’s plight is old—this is the most ancient land, the oldest civilization and culture. They learned from its mistakes; those three religions came later. All three rejected rebirth, because we had turned it into a trick.

This doesn’t mean Moses, Muhammad, Jesus didn’t know of rebirth. They knew as much as Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna. But they didn’t speak of it, because its ill effects had been seen. The doctrine was true—but people are dishonest. What can truth do? The door was true—but people kept exiting through the wall. So the three settled one thing: there is only one life—and whatever is to be done must be done in this life.

Their insight too was significant; their intention equally benevolent. They wanted to bring urgency, intensity into your life: only one life! You be startled—speechless—and say, “Whatever I must do, let me do it quickly; lest this life slip away and there be no second chance. If I am to meditate—let me meditate. If I am to love—let me love. If I am to surrender my life to the Divine—let me do it now. Postponement is unwise.” This was the intention of Moses, Muhammad, Jesus.

But man remains man—dishonest whether East or West. What cheating did the Westerner extract? “Only one life—then let me indulge. It won’t come again. There will be no second chance—so loot as much as you can, suck as much as you can. Eat, drink, be merry. One life only. Four days of moonlight, then dark night—so sing, dance, be intoxicated. Indulge, earn, fulfill every ambition.”

And because of “only one life,” the West became feverish—rush and race. Hence speed. In everything: hurry up! It hardly matters what you’ll do with the time you save—time must be saved. Where it takes an hour to reach, arrive in one minute—even if the remaining fifty-nine minutes you kill with cards, because how else to pass the time? Great frenzy! The West’s urgency and speed have behind them the one-life doctrine.

But there were side effects. We became lazy; the West became tense. With such hurry the mind gets stressed. The West is becoming unhinged. Run! Don’t stop—time is slipping away—so hurry everything.

The capacity to savor anything with repose and peace has ended in the West. Food? Stuff it down quickly. People go out to “enjoy nature,” but by car—sixty-seventy-eighty miles an hour. No trees are seen, no flowers, no birdsong—you went out to enjoy!

Yesterday I was reading an English writer’s diary. He wrote: “I have a car; I do a two-hundred mile loop. Still I don’t find the joy my father found in walking five miles—because birds, plants, trees; the sun, its rays filtering through leaves—on the highway of speeding cars, where is all that?”

People travel fast—circumnavigate the world. Tourists roam everywhere—no happiness anywhere, no joy. The West has become fevered: hurry! So the West cannot settle for one marriage—change partners five or ten times; one life only. Who knows with which woman or man happiness will be found! Switch jobs. In America no one stays in one occupation more than three years; nor in one town; nor in one marriage. This “three” has become a new spiritual number—trimurti, triveni, triputi—the new trinity: every three years make it quick! Life is running away—never pause!

So the West is going mad. The intent was something else—that you remember the Divine because life quickly passes, don’t postpone. The East’s intent too was something else—that you grow bored with the repetition and pray for release from the round of birth and death. But people became lazy. People are dishonest. They translate even the greatest truths in such a way that the exact opposite emerges.

You ask, “Then why does the desire to live persist?”

Vishwanath, the mind keeps persuading you: granted—till now it’s been suffering—but what about tomorrow! What guarantee is there of tomorrow? What hasn’t happened yet may happen tomorrow.

Every darkness, every brightness—time
passes anyway,
Each day comes to paint
some hues of joy and sorrow;
By minting the coins of justice and injustice
by crucifying true values somewhere,
By adorning the longings of a new tomorrow,
it sinks away.
Time—how hard, and yet how transparent!
Time, however, never says,
“I accept defeat.”
Time doesn’t hide
in a pocket or a safe.
Time says: flowers will blossom tomorrow
more lovely than before.
Time says: dreams
will no longer remain virginal.
Time says—
To be “wrong,” is very, very wrong.
Time is the prayer of buds,
the oath of sunbeams.
Time says—
everyone’s tomorrow is alluring and happy.
Why turn inward?
Why this indifference?
Time gathers the tears of an age,
Time listens to everyone’s pain,
Time is truly visionary, tender at the core—
Time—how hard, and yet how transparent!

If understanding isn’t firm, time will deceive.

Time, however, never says,
“I accept defeat.”
Time says: flowers will blossom tomorrow
more lovely than before.
Time says: dreams
will no longer remain virginal.
Time says—
To be “wrong,” is very, very wrong.
Time is the prayer of buds,
the oath of sunbeams.
Time says—
everyone’s tomorrow is alluring and happy.
Why turn inward?
Why this indifference?
Time gathers the tears of an age,
Time listens to everyone’s pain,
Time is truly visionary, tender at the core—
Time—how hard, and yet how transparent!

If there is no understanding, time will sway you. Time is a great charmer. It keeps whispering: “Just a little more. A little more waiting. The destination is at hand; dreams are about to be fulfilled. Don’t turn inward yet—why this indifference now? Don’t grow dispassionate yet; don’t become a sannyasin yet. Who knows—tomorrow all that you’ve always wanted may happen!”

Without understanding, you will be under time’s spell.

Know this, and you’ll be a bit startled: mind and time are two names for the same phenomenon. Awakening and freedom from time happen together. Awareness is timeless. So as you enter meditation—or devotion—you will find: time dissolves; you are beyond time. Where there is no thought, there is no time. Where thought is, time is.

From life’s flaming tavern,
the bitter wine of days
still remains to be drunk.

Time keeps persuading—offering new temptations: “The wine of life is yet to be tasted.”

From life’s flaming tavern,
the bitter wine of days
still remains to be drunk.
The winds of today bring no wakefulness,
yet on the hope of tomorrow
we must go on living.
The ill-starred custom of this age’s injustice—
how many miseries beset the path of love!
And the lifeless system of soulless tradition—
these too are among the scourges of affection.
Under the weight of sorrow, feeling is crushed;
courage sags, strategies fail.
Dark and starless is the sky of desires;
deep clouds of grief and pain are gathering.
A tiny, flickering lamp of hope,
the fragrant scar in a hopeless heart,
still burns,
but in the bedchambers of grief.

Nights are full of sorrow—yet a small lamp of hope keeps burning.

A tiny, flickering lamp of hope,
the fragrant scar in a hopeless heart,
still burns,
but in the bedchambers of grief.
From life’s flaming tavern,
the bitter wine of days
still remains to be drunk.
The winds of today bring no wakefulness,
yet on the hope of tomorrow
we must go on living.

Time will deceive. The mind will deceive. Hope will persist—despite every despair. Even after every hope dies, a little lamp of hope inside will keep flickering. This is what you are calling jiveshana.

This is not jiveshana. This is its distorted, deranged form. Purify it. If it says, “I will live tomorrow,” jiveshana is distorted. If it says, “I will live now,” jiveshana begins to be purified. Live in the present—jiveshana begins to purify. Let there be no past and no future besides the present—let this moment encircle you totally, from all sides. Let there be no other moment than this. In the purity of such a moment, time will be absorbed, mind will fall away, the nets of hope and despair will end. And in the purity of that moment you will find jiveshana in a different color and form—you will find jiveshana as the Divine. And then it is no longer apt to call it “eshaṇa”—desire. Eshaṇa means craving. Then it is right to call it simply life.

God is life—eternal life. But we have no acquaintance with that. Because we identify life with the body, the mind craves, “Save it—let me live a little longer. I have hardly tasted anything—let me live a little more.”

In the Upanishads there is the story of Yayati.

Death came to Yayati. He was a hundred years old—a great emperor. He had a hundred queens, a hundred sons. When death arrived, Yayati trembled—who wouldn’t? Though he had lived a hundred years, with a hundred queens and a hundred sons, a vast empire—when has anything ever been complete? When has there been satisfaction? However much there is, dissatisfaction remains dissatisfaction. He began to plead, to fold his hands before Death: “This is too soon! You should have given some notice! If only a year or two earlier I had been warned, the intentions left incomplete—I would have completed them. I have completed nothing—and you arrive at the door, without notice! Have mercy—give me a little more time so I may fulfill the dreams left incomplete. Lifelong desires have been nurtured—let me fill them. Don’t kill me unfulfilled, hungry.”

Death said, “I must take you. But do one thing”—she felt pity for the old man—“if one of your sons is willing to go in your stead, I’ll take him. But someone I must take.”

Yayati began pleading before his sons. Imagine: a hundred-year-old man, begging his young sons: “Let any one of you agree!”

The elder sons—some were seventy, some eighty, some sixty, some fifty—slipped away, looked here and there. Naturally. If your desires aren’t fulfilled in a hundred years, how would a son’s be fulfilled in fifty? Why would he die—for someone else?

We say, “I’ll die for you.” But if the moment came, we would say, “Oh—that was just a figure of speech.” Husbands tell wives, “I’ll die without you.” No one dies. Wives say the same. The British had to ban sati, because wives were being forced onto the pyre. If they truly wanted to die, no law could stop them. There used to be so many satis! Now you hardly see any. Those satis must have been coerced. The whole arrangement was set up to burn them by force. Who wants to die!

The sons looked away. Only the youngest—the one who had seen nothing of life, maybe twenty years old—stood up: “I’m ready. I will go.”

The father was delighted; he gave great blessings. Imagine: a father blessing, “Son, you are my true son. My blessings to you—great merit will be yours—you are saving your father.”

But Death felt deep pity for the boy: “This old man is saving himself and sending a twenty-year-old who has seen nothing—not the bitters or the sweets of life. Death said to the son, “Think once more! You seem naive. Can’t you see your father at a hundred still doesn’t want to die? All your brothers sit here—ninety-nine of them, with eyes lowered. None wants to die. Why do you?”

The son said something precious: “Precisely seeing this, I am willing. If my father, at a hundred, still hasn’t fulfilled his desires, why should I gnaw away eighty years? At a hundred I too will be pleading. My brothers—eighty, seventy, sixty—sit with heads bowed. If even at seventy or eighty they couldn’t fulfill their desires, how will I? Seeing all this, I realized the whole thing is futile—nothing to be untangled here. Take me.”

Even then the father didn’t awaken. Even after the son’s extraordinary words, no other brother awakened; all sat as they were. People cling to life like that.

The story is charming. A hundred years passed—the son’s years accrued to the father. After another hundred, Death came again—and the father again pleaded. “Nothing is fulfilled yet. These hundred years passed like a moment.” By then a hundred more sons had been born; he had made new marriages. Death said, “Then send another son.”

And so it went on—ten times, they say. The tale is sweet. The old man became a thousand. Then Death asked, “Now what is your intention?”

Yayati laughed: “Now I am ready to go. Not that my desires are fulfilled—they are as unfulfilled as ever. But one thing is clear: no desire is ever fulfilled. Take me. I am bored. This begging bowl will never be filled. It has no bottom. Whatever you put in, it remains empty.”

When jiveshana is tied to the body, to desires, to the mind—that is the world. When jiveshana is free of all—no world, no body, no mind—then it is no longer “eshaṇa.” Only life remains—pure life, pure gold. That is nirvana. That is moksha.

Last question:
I listen to you and I am left astonished—speechless, amazed—but I can’t take the leap into sannyas. What should I do?

Radharaman! Are you truly left speechless? Truly amazed? Wonder-struck? Then the leap will happen. Who remains mindful enough to stop it? If you are intoxicated, you won’t even notice when you have already leapt; only afterwards you’ll say, “Ah! The leap happened!”

But you are being stingy. You must be getting speechless in small doses—in homeopathic doses! Guardedly. When it begins to pour, you open the umbrella. You stand at a distance—like a spectator. Our relationship hasn’t yet become that of enjoyer; it remains that of a listener. You are a shravak, a hearer—still not a devotee. And only the devotee can relate. What relationship does a mere listener have? He listens, likes some things, collects a little, adds a little to his stock of knowledge, gives the ego a few more ornaments, gathers some talk to talk about, gains another occasion to display knowledge.

But if truly you are speechless, amazed, wonder-struck—then why ask? And does anyone ever leap by asking? A leap is that which is taken without asking. If you ask and then step, that is climbing stairs—calculating: What will I get? What will I lose? How far should I go? How far not? How far so that, if needed, I can return?

A leap means: madness. A leap means: love gone wild.

Don’t miss! Don’t remain only a listener!

When the strange chariot of Time,
gleaming, suddenly halted at your door,
you stood agape—
eyes full of disbelief at the dazzle,
listening to the cheers.
Upon the turning wave of Time
there drifted to you,
unbidden,
the golden crown of decision.
The earth swirled
around you in surprise.
Spellbound you kept gazing
at the nectar-pot lifted high
on the foaming crest of the tide—
the chariot of Time had brought it for you,
but you did not take it,
you did not share and drink it.

When from an unimaginable, unlikely quarter
there came a storm—spreading silence—
a suffocating darkness fell all around.
Your separate little boats
vanished in the swooping mists.
Then people lit a great lamp,
that which cleaves the storm,
showing the path, bringing you to shore—
forgetting the purpose,
you began showing off that marvel to everyone,
this hand to that hand,
blowing it out and relighting it,
and deeper and deeper into the pit of darkness
people began to sink.
That lamp—you did not turn it toward all four directions,
you did not give it to the people!
Dust settled on the light,
moonlight never happened.

Look—the fresh, open, fragrant breeze
that flowed across this vast tree
has begun to falter.
In the contrary wind
each wrong step becomes
a whirling black tornado.
Branches are tangling, struggling with each other,
gust against gust,
leaf against leaf,
tiny straw against tiny straw,
helpless nests are burning,
fruits and flowers are tearing into shreds,
full honeycombs are bursting;
the body of the tree,
cut into living lumps,
is tossed and flung
into dust and din.
Blood-sucking flies dart out, buzzing,
fearless beasts strut about,
robbers stand in ambush everywhere.
The innocent tremble,
every door breathless and dry.
The steadfast great tree still waits—
on its brow the bright lines of experience,
watching the streaming three-times,
watching:
who cares for this undivided tree,
whose head itself is the sky,
in whose roots sit
innumerable centuries,
whose fragrance has turned into aeons;
beneath whose canopy
the constellations of culture glitter;
whose tenderness has become the Ganges,
whose austerity the shining Himalaya,
the peacock-feathered plains,
golden Vindhyan glow,
the signal-fire of patience,
forests like rangoli, hamlet, field, threshing floor,
virgin progeny like unbroken rice upon the ritual tray—
from this rough-hewn tree
rises the silent call of Time:
you who enjoy the shade—beware!

All this has been poured on you,
again and again,
yet Time waits for no one.
Time’s chariot cannot tarry long,
nectar kept back turns into poison,
the missed moment never returns.

Are you speechless? Wonder-struck? Amazed? Has the impulse to leap arisen? Then don’t ask—let the leap happen!

Spellbound you kept gazing
at the nectar-pot lifted high
on the foaming crest of the tide—
the chariot of Time had brought it for you,
but you did not take it,
you did not share and drink it.
That lamp—you did not turn it toward all four directions,
you did not give it to the people!
Dust settled on the light,
moonlight never happened.
From this rough-hewn tree
rises the silent call of Time:
you who enjoy the shade—beware!
All this has been poured on you,
again and again,
yet Time waits for no one.
Time’s chariot cannot tarry long,
nectar kept back turns into poison,
the missed moment never returns.

That’s all for today.