Rahiman Dhaga Prem Ka #11

Swabhav! Until a seed perishes, its existence has no meaning. Its fulfillment lies in its very dissolution. Its good fortune is to break open and scatter. A seed that manages to save itself is unfortunate. A seed must decay, merge with the soil—be so assimilated into the earth that even if searched for it cannot be found. Only then does sprouting happen; only then does life take birth.

The heart is the seed of the soul. Those who save their heart are deprived of the birth of the soul. And those who have not even known the soul—for them God is a far-off fancy, mere imagination, airy talk. It has no value. When the heart dissolves, the soul manifests. And the day you are ready to let even the soul dissolve, that day the Divine is experienced. By “heart” I mean your sense of identity, the I-feeling; “heart” means: I am separate from existence.

Break this separateness and at first it will feel as if you are being ruined. And to others it will always look as if you are ruined. So others are right to say, “People say you have ruined me.” They will only see the ruin; they can have no inkling of what has happened within you. Only you know that new shoots have sprouted within, that a new life has begun. Therefore you can say:
Don’t lament that you wrecked my heart—
my sorrow is that you wrecked it so late.
Others will say only this much: that you got ruined. “This man drowned you.” And they are right—in their own accounting.

Now, Swabhav is the owner of a big factory... Only yesterday I saw that his factory, Wakefield, received an international award. There was a photo. Seeing it, I felt that had Swabhav not become a sannyasin, he would perhaps have been in that picture, seen receiving the award. Someone else is receiving it. Swabhav was the very life of that organization. He dropped everything and went mad with me. So of course people will say he is ruined, that he has gone mad. It isn’t their fault; they have their own yardsticks. If a piece of coal turns into a diamond, the other pieces of coal will say, “He’s ruined.” Remember, coal itself is diamond. There is no chemical difference between coal and diamond. Coal, pressed for ages beneath the earth, transforms into diamond. The chemical formula is the same. The diamond is the final culmination of coal, and coal is the beginning of diamond. Say the coal is the seed and the diamond the flower. But they are joined. When a diamond is being formed from a lump of coal, what would the other lumps of coal be saying? “He’s ruined! He’s done for! He’s no longer one of us!” But diamonds will recognize that what was worth two pennies has become priceless.

So, Swabhav, those who, like you, have been “ruined” will recognize you. You will recognize you. Because before this you were not really living. It was a pretense; you were dragging, carrying a burden. Today you are alive. There is a surge, a blossoming, a bliss. Today you are drenched in sweetness. The identity has gone, the ego has gone, the stiffness has gone. Today you are fluid, you are simple. And this very fluidity, this very simplicity, will make you a vessel for the supreme happening. That moment of supreme good fortune is not far when the Lord descends into you, when that great dance of love happens, when his stream of nectar flows. But people will go on saying the same even then.

People said the same to Meera: “What are you doing, you madwoman! You are from a royal house, from palaces, and you dance in the bazaars! You have lost all regard for reputation!”

They said the same to Buddha: “Everything was yours—beautiful palaces, a beautiful wife, a son. Great possibilities lay ahead. The rank and prestige for which people run their whole lives was yours without effort. Who knows how many lifetimes of merit it took to yield such fruit! And you kicked it away and left! You are mad!”

When Buddha left home, he left the kingdom, he crossed its borders. For if he remained there his father would send men to persuade him, to wear down his resolve; so he went to the neighboring kingdom. But fathers do not give up so easily. He sent word to the neighboring king. Bimbisara was the neighboring king. He was a childhood friend of Buddha’s father; they had studied together and trained in archery together. It was an old friendship. He sent the message: “My son has become a renunciate; he is somewhere in your kingdom. Go and persuade him.”

Bimbisara went. He met Buddha with much love and said, “These things happen sometimes. Something must have happened. You and your father don’t get along—forget it. I am also like your father. Your father has done me many favors. If only I could do something for you, I would be relieved of my debt. Come. This palace is yours, and this kingdom too is yours. I have only one daughter, I will marry her to you. Leave that kingdom. You have left it—fine. If you do not wish to return, don’t. No son truly gets along with his father—don’t worry about it. Take charge of this kingdom. As it is, that kingdom too is yours, because you are the only son. Your father is old. You will become lord of two kingdoms.”

Buddha laughed and said, “It seems I must flee this kingdom as well. I left there for this very reason—that persuaders would come. And now you have come here too!”

But Bimbisara said, “You are still young; you have no experience of life. Don’t be hasty, don’t be impatient. Come to the palace. Think it over. Give it time. I tell you—later you will regret it.”

Buddha asked only this much: “Can you place your hand upon your heart and say that you have attained that by which contentment arises?”

Bimbisara was a bit unsettled. He could not place his hand on his heart and say so. He must have been an honest man. He said, “I cannot say that I have attained that by which life becomes content, by which life becomes complete.”

Then Buddha said, “Do not hinder me. In your palace I will find only what you have found. That has not brought you contentment—how will it bring it to me? It did not to my father—how will it to me? When has it to anyone? Leave me to my path. Leave me to my ‘ruin’; do not pity me. For I have seen those who are ‘settled’ like you truly ruined. Leave me to my ruin. Who knows—perhaps this is the path to being truly established.”

And one day Buddha was truly established. And one day Bimbisara bowed at his feet. One day even Buddha’s father bowed at his feet.

Today, Swabhav, many will say to you, “Return even now; nothing is irretrievably lost yet. Your home, your family, your brothers…” And they all love you. It is not that they are your enemies. They are all your well-wishers. They will all want you to return. For your own good they will want you to return. But how deep is their understanding? What is their experience? It may be of wealth, of comfort and convenience; not of meditation, not of inner bliss. They too will say that you are ruined. But there is a great difference between their saying it and your saying it. I too say you are ruined. But I say this is the good fortune—the supreme good fortune—that you gathered courage and could be ruined. Now the doors of possibility open. Once the seed splits, new sprouts emerge, new leaves unfurl; a great tree will grow under whose shade thousands can sit. Its fragrance will fly into the sky; there will be conversation with the moon and stars.

You are right to say:
Don’t lament that you wrecked my heart—
my sorrow is that you wrecked it so late.
It does feel like that. When you begin to taste the joy of this “ruin,” the flavor of it, when you drink this wine, it feels just so: “Ah! How late it happened; if only it had happened a little earlier!” But nothing happens before its time. It has happened when it could. Had I told you before, you would not have listened. There are so many to whom I am speaking who are not listening. They too will one day say, “You ruined me too late.” Once they drink the flavor of ruin, then they will say it! For now, ruin frightens, it makes one anxious. For now, one searches for ways to save oneself—how many devices are tried!

The things said against me are nothing but devices for self-protection. Their only aim is self-defense. They raise such a cloud of smoke around themselves against me that one conclusion becomes firm in their own eyes: “No, do not take a step with this man.” For that much, how many abuses they have to hurl, how many lies they have to coin—they do all that. How much inventiveness is required! They are ready to do it all—for safety, for self-defense. Yet they too will one day say the same.

Swabhav pulled and tugged for a long time. No one is quickly willing to be dissolved. Who is eager to perish? Slowly the taste arises. This taste is costly. The bargain is costly. What you have begins to slip from your hands; and what is not yet—what trust is there in that? You must stake what you have against what is far away, somewhere in the sky, only a hope. Great courage is needed, audacity is needed!

Swabhav also quarreled with me plenty. There was much tug-of-war. He tried every strategy to save himself. But he is fortunate that all his strategies failed. Sometimes it happens that in defeat there is victory, and sometimes in victory there is defeat. If you can be defeated before an awakened one, you have won; if you win, you have lost.

But remember: when it happens, the moment it happens, only that moment was possible. There is a ripeness of time. There is a moment of maturity. Nothing in this world happens out of season. I have tried a thousand devices with many people, but if their time was not ripe, nothing could happen. Just when it seemed to be happening, it would fall apart. And if the time was ripe, then even without any device it happened. Just a gesture, and the journey began. Otherwise you can call and shout, but the words fall on deaf ears—no one hears.

Once at a crossroads two deaf men met. One deaf man asked the other, “Brother, are you going to the market?”
The second deaf man said, “No, no, I’m just going to the market for a bit.”
The first deaf man said, “Ah, I thought you were going to the market.”
It is just like that. I will say one thing; if your time is unripe, you will understand something else. Even if you don’t understand, it’s all right. Even if you understand nothing at all, it’s all right. You will understand something or other. If the meaning doesn’t get through, it’s still okay; but the wrong meaning does get through.

A philosopher, out of compulsion, had to take a job. He had been expelled from the university for saying some topsy-turvy things—rebellious talk the university could not tolerate. He knew nothing else, so he could only do some menial work. He took a job in a house—to sweep, to wash utensils, such small tasks. Being a philosopher, he didn’t bother to ask the master anything. He thought himself clever enough—he would manage on his own. But his cleverness belonged to another world. The smartness of philosophy is one thing; sweeping is entirely another. Washing utensils is entirely another. Studying and teaching logic is entirely another. There is no alignment between the two.

The master became tired of him, even frightened. Finally the master said, “Listen, before you do anything, ask me. Because whatever you do, you get it wrong. From a sensible man like you I did not expect that when I send you to the market to buy vegetables, you spend the whole day bringing vegetables.”
First he brought okra, then he brought greens, then radishes, then chutney—one item at a time! All day he kept going to the market and coming back.
The master said, “This is too much! Is this any way to do things?”
The philosopher said, “I thought it best to complete each task to perfection. Getting entangled in many tasks breeds conflict, doubt, confusion. I am a clear and settled man. But as you say!”

One day it happened: the master was talking to someone, and the philosopher stood by. When the talk ended, he asked the master, “Master, I looked through the window and saw a cat drinking milk in the kitchen—if you say so, shall I chase it away?”
Had it stopped there, it would have been all right. But the master fell ill. He sent the philosopher to fetch a doctor. He left in the morning and returned at dusk. And he did not bring just one doctor; he brought ten or twenty-five people with him. The master was stunned; the illness fled with the shock. He sat up straight—he had been lying all day. “What’s the matter? Why are you bringing a whole procession?”
He said, “Master, you had said it wasn’t right to go for okra once, radish once, greens once, chutney once—that one should settle everything in a single trip. So I went and brought a vaidya. But the vaidya might or might not succeed, so I also brought a hakim. And who knows about Unani—so I brought an allopath as well. And who can say with allopathy—so I brought a naturopath. And whether you have faith in naturopathy or not—I also brought a homeopath. I have brought every kind of doctor—in one go!”
Still the master said, “Even this won’t solve it. Why these twenty-five people?”
He said, “Some of them make poultices—because if some doctor says to make a poultice, then we would have to go to the market.”
Still the master said, “But I see some neighborhood ruffians among them!”
He replied, “I brought a few strong fellows because the doctors may or may not succeed—if you die, won’t someone be needed to carry you to the cemetery? It took all day to find sturdy men for that. I have also brought the bier and everything, master—be completely at ease! The bier is being prepared outside; inside, the treatment will proceed. I have settled everything in one trip.”

What I am telling you—if you don’t understand, it’s okay. But the difficulty is not merely non-understanding. It is not just that the meaning doesn’t land; the wrong meaning lands. And until that supreme moment of life arrives—that springtime when flowers bloom—nothing is possible, Swabhav. Your longing is beautiful. But take it as the grace of God that whenever it happened, it happened early. It could have taken even longer. Forget even this complaint that it took so long. The complaint is natural; everyone has it. Even Buddha had it.

When enlightenment happened to Buddha, the first question that arose in him was precisely this: Why did it take so long? This is so simple. It should have happened long ago. So many births have been spent for such a simple thing! It seems a senseless puzzle. But life ripens. All of life’s experiences ripen you. Pleasure and pain—both ripen. Day and night, cold and heat—everything ripens. And each person has his own style of ripening. Just as every fruit has its own way of ripening, and every tree its own season for flowering, its own opportunity. Some flowers bloom in the day, some at night; some in summer, some in winter; some in the rains. All live by their own destiny, by their own nature. And the process of each one’s nature is private.

So your feeling—“Why ruin me so late?”—though natural, let even that complaint go. Say, “Well, at least I was ruined—even if late! It wasn’t too late.” Eternity still remains. For eternity this joy will now drizzle, will shower. What delay has there been? None at all.

Deepen the feeling of gratitude instead of complaint. There is a benefit in this. Gratitude is auspicious, because apart from the feeling of gratitude there is no other prayer.

Krishnamurari! If you did not attain in life, how will you attain in death? Death is the very culmination of life. Death is not the end of life—remember. Let me repeat: life does not end in death; it is completed in death. Death is life’s ultimate flowering, its final peak. So what was not found in life cannot be found in death. What you have found in life alone is refined, distilled, and found in death. Death is the essence of a whole life. If in life there were flowers and only flowers, then death is the attar—the perfume—of all those flowers, the entire fragrance gathered into a single drop.

Much is received in death, but only if you have cultivated flowers throughout life. If you have sown thorns all your life, do not expect flowers to bloom suddenly at death. If all your life you have collected rubbish, death has no magic to transmute that rubbish into diamonds and jewels. Yet your pundits and priests have been deceiving you for centuries. They see your life passing empty and keep promising: “Don’t worry; at the last moment just take God’s name and all will be well. Go to Kashi; take the Kashi turn and all will be well. Whoever turns in Kashi goes to heaven. At the time of death others will pour Gangajal into your mouth and you will ascend to heaven. At the last moment others will recite the Navkar mantra in your ear, the Gayatri mantra, or repeat verses from the Quran—and you will go to heaven.”

Do not fall for such cheapness. Don’t fall for such bazaar talk. People of this kind have made religion worth two pennies; its dignity is lost, its worth is lost, its glory is lost.

I cannot say that what you did not find in life you will be able to find in death. And right now, Krishnamurari, you are alive. You are not yet dead. If you can still ask the question, you can also seek the answer. It is not yet too late. If you can still think, you can also go beyond thought. If you can still worry, you can also be free of worry. Granted, death may be knocking at the door—but at whose door is it not knocking? Do you think death knocks only in old age? Death begins knocking the very day you are born. The moment you are laid in the cradle, death begins to knock. Whether you listen or not is another matter. The cradle swings here and there, and death starts knocking. The day you were born, dying began. To live a day is to die a day; one day less from your span.

Death keeps on coming. It is not that one day suddenly at seventy she appears at the door and stands there. Give up that notion of death. Death is not an accident, not a sudden mishap. Death develops along with your life. If one leg is life, the other leg is death. If one wing is life, the other wing is death; they move together. As your shadow walks with you, so does death.

But why did you get nothing in life? For what reason? Think now—even now nothing is lost. If the one who went astray in the morning returns home by evening, he is not called lost. So what if it is evening in your life and the sun is setting? No problem. The birds are returning to their nests—return with them. It is still not too late. But once dead, you cannot return. The sun is setting—come back. Yet it seems even now you have no intention of returning. Even now you hope anew and think perhaps something will happen in death.

Nothing has ever happened by itself, nor can it. If you do something, it will happen. What have you done in life? How many people do not blame life! How many say life is futile! And they never made a single effort to make it meaningful. They say life is a blank, but when did they ever write anything in it? They never learned to write, never learned to read.

Mulla Nasruddin went to the eye doctor. The doctor examined him, determined the number, prepared the glasses. Mulla kept asking, “Once I put on these glasses, I will start reading, right?” The doctor said, “Yes, of course you’ll be able to read!” But he asked again and again. While the doctor was fitting the lenses into the frame he kept asking, “Doctor, say it once more—are you telling the truth, that if I put on the glasses I will start reading?”

The doctor said, “What more can I say? Do you want it in writing?”

Mulla said, “If you give it in writing it will be marvelous—because the truth is, I never learned to read or write. So I am puzzled: how will I start reading by just putting on glasses!”

Then the doctor understood the secret… Putting on spectacles alone will not make you read. You must have learned to read. If you cannot read because your eyesight has grown weak, glasses will help you read; but if you never learned to read, what will glasses do?

When did you ever wish to give life meaning? What effort did you make? What discipline did you undertake? Meaning arises from discipline. Life is a blank book. God hands every person a blank book; then, if you want, write abuses or write songs; draw pictures of thorns or adorn it with flowers. He leaves it all in your hands. He gives you complete freedom. He hands you your life, gives you capacity, energy, opportunity, time. Then he says: “Now make of this life whatever you wish.” Here one person becomes a Buddha and another a Genghis Khan. Here one becomes Krishna and another Adolf Hitler. The opportunities were equal; not a hair’s breadth of difference. And most people remain such that they become nothing at all; they wander around holding the blank book, keep opening it again and again, and say, “There is nothing in life; it is meaningless.”

Fill it with color. Pour some dance into life. Sweeten life with nectar. Meaning is not found like that; meaning has to be created. But for centuries we have lived in the illusion that meaning too should come ready-made. How long will you remain children? The child is born and the mother’s milk is given; in milk there is all nourishment. But how long will you keep drinking milk? How long will you remain sucklings? Will you never chew? Never digest? Will you never begin to live by your own hands? We sit with mouths agape waiting for someone to drop chewed food into our mouths. We do not manage even that much effort.

For me, sannyas has only one meaning, Krishnamurari: the art of pouring meaning into life. A householder, in my language, is one who is not bringing meaning to life, who keeps wandering with a blank book—and if he uses the book at all, it is to jot down a shopping list, to note how much money he earned, to keep accounts. Such trivialities he writes in his book. And that is what people do right up to their dying breath.

One man died. When he died they were bringing him home from the hospital in an ambulance. Ten or twelve men were pushing the ambulance. People asked, “Brother, what was the last wish of the departed?” One said, “His last wish was that petrol be saved under all circumstances—so we are fulfilling that.” The last wish: that petrol be saved at any cost!

Just yesterday I read in the newspaper about Jabalpur, where I lived for some twenty years. A big fuss arose there. At weddings, at the time of farewell the groom asks for something. What do you think the groom asked for? A hundred liters of diesel! In earlier days they would ask for a scooter; this time he did not ask for a scooter. Ask for a car! They used to ask for a radio and such things—he asked for a hundred liters of diesel! And he put them in a fix. Where to bring a hundred liters of diesel from! Hands folded in supplication—the father-in-law pleaded, the neighbors pleaded, “Brother, forgive us! Don’t demand such a difficult thing! Ask for something simpler. Take a scooter. If you want a car, take a car. But a hundred liters of diesel—where will we get that?” But he too was adamant. He must have been a remarkable fellow.

Some such fellow must have died, who said petrol must be saved at all costs. Even at the last breath, what do people write in the book of life? And then you say there is no meaning! As if someone else will write meaning for you!

It is in your hands. Pour in color. How much color there is in existence! How many songs are bursting forth in the cascades! On every stone there is the imprint of God’s bliss! In every flower the smile of His lips! But there are no eyes to see, no inner stillness to seek, no silence. Hence the hindrance.

Sandcastles,
a citadel of wax—
this is all I got.

Walls filled with salt,
a cardboard roof—
who will send
a love-filled letter here?

Afraid of the cloud,
afraid of the sun,
afraid of both—
one cannot even breathe;
what kind of house is this?

A chain of insults—
this is all I got.

In cities of glass
I found a halt;
to swim
we were given a paper boat.

Only emptiness
gives a sense of direction;
what keeps watch over the body
is merely dampness.

To sleep upon,
a slab of ice—
this is all I got.

Sandcastles,
a citadel of wax—
this is all I got.

But you received exactly what you made. You get only what you create. If you build sandcastles, what will you get? If you make paper boats, what will you get?

Take a careful, fresh look at your life. Sit silent and still for a while and look back. What did you do with your life? Did you run after money? Then—paper boats, sandcastles. Did you chase position? Paper boats, sandcastles. Did you seek prestige, fame, name? Paper boats, sandcastles. And now you say you got nothing in life, and death stands at the door—will you get anything in death?

Forgive me, Krishnamurari—nothing will be got in death either. What you have found—or not found—in life you will only see condensed in death. If your life has been a dream of sorrow, death will become a great dream of sorrow. If your life has gone to waste, death will hurl you into a desert of futility where you see no greenery for miles and miles.

Yet it is still not too late. You are alive. And who knows how long you will remain alive! And the question is not of time; it is of intensity, of urgency, of totality—not of time. If one truly wills, a revolution can happen in a single instant. Otherwise one can wander birth after birth like the bullock of the oil press—round and round. You are wandering just so, Krishnamurari. This is not your first birth; you are an old hand. Many lives have been wasted like this. Wasting has become a habit. You are wasting this one too.

Nor am I even sure what you mean by saying you got nothing in life. Did you want to be president? Prime minister? A Tata, a Birla? For I see them weeping too; they are worse off than you. What did they get?

Seeing a child crying at a bus stop, the conductor stopped the bus and asked, “Son, what happened?”
“My rupee, with which I was to buy the ticket, is lost.”
“Never mind,” said the conductor, “I will take you for free.”
Sitting in the bus, the boy began crying again. The conductor asked, “Brother, now what happened?”
“My seventy paise—where are they? The ones that would have been left from the rupee!” sobbed the child.

This world is strange! Whatever you get—still, what did you get? Where are the seventy paise? The child is right. Ask the president, the prime minister, the millionaire—he will not speak of what he has; he will speak of what he does not have.

Andrew Carnegie died—the American tycoon. He lived weeping and died weeping. If you live weeping, you will die weeping. He left ten billion in cash, yet died in tears. Two days before his death his biographer asked, “Why are you sad? You are the most successful man! Who in history has had such success? Born in poverty, and you leave ten billion behind!”
He said, “Stop the nonsense! My intention was to earn a hundred billion; I’ve lost by ninety billion. That is no small defeat.”

Do you think there is any difference between the child crying for seventy paise and Andrew Carnegie crying for ninety billion? The logic is the same. What is gained is never seen; what is not gained pricks and torments.

There was a beauty contest. Mulla Nasruddin was one of the judges—experienced fellow, four wives, a connoisseur of women—so he was chosen. The most beautiful young women came on stage—dancing, nearly naked, only in bikinis. Mulla sat in the center, the senior-most judge. Two judges on this side, two on that. Each beauty appeared and he looked and said, “Pfaugh!” The four judges were shocked, their saliva practically dripping, and this dispassionate sage! A woman so perfect one could hardly find a fault—waist as slim as it should be, body in perfect proportion, complexion just right. And this grumpy old codger! One, two, three—again and again: “Ugh, pfaugh!” Not only said it—he spat! After five or seven had walked past, the other judges could not hold back and asked, “Nasruddin, what’s the matter? Do none of these women please you?”
“Ah,” he said, “who is talking about these women! I am thinking of my own women and saying ‘pfaugh!’—what a wasted life! Where did I get entangled! And with four of them—no escape now. The world is having such fun! I am spitting at my own wives, not at these. These are fairies, nymphs—houris of heaven!”

What you have is never seen. The most beautiful woman ceases to be beautiful if she is your wife; the most handsome man ceases to be handsome if he is your husband. What you have loses its value; its value lies only so long as you have not yet got it. The greater the distance, the harder it is to get, the greater its value.

So I do not know, Krishnamurari, what you want—what you wanted to attain in life. I am assuming you did not find the soul, the Divine, meditation, samadhi. I may be mistaken. Perhaps you have nothing to do with God, meditation, samadhi—you were chasing some apsara and did not get her. You ran after wealth and lost. You kept contesting elections and never won.

I know people who have been contesting elections all their lives. They leave no election uncontested—as natural to them as breathing. And they lose every time. Yet such dispassionate men! They have learned from the Gita to remain equal in pleasure and pain. Another election comes—they contest again. “What is victory, what is defeat! It’s all a divine play.” Who knows—maybe you lost an election, or in the race for money, or could not survive in the marketplace. If that is your complaint, then even if you had “won,” what would you have got? What have those got who “got it”? Even if your grave is made of gold, what then? Even if your bier is studded with diamonds, what then?

In life there is only one real attainment: that we know the eternal. And if you have not known That yet, do not wait for death. Death is unreliable—who knows when it comes! Use whatever time remains. And if your longing becomes intense, even a little time is enough. Death will give you nothing. But if you use this little time rightly, if you devote it to meditation, if you dedicate it to samadhi, if you bow your head at the feet of the Divine and lay it there—then it will happen here, in life. And only if it happens in life can it be there in death.

Not every morning, not every evening,
not every night—
rather, every single moment
you keep breaking me:
not like the stem of jasmine,
but like a dry hemp stalk.

Not every morning, not every evening,
not every night—
rather, every single moment
I keep joining myself:
not as cement joins bricks,
but like a woman splicing a snapped thread.

This moment-to-moment
breaking and mending,
this moment-to-moment
hope and despair,
this moment-to-moment
life and death—
is this a meaningless clinging to life,
or meaningful?
Who will make you understand—
but You?

There is no refuge anywhere
but in God.
Who will make you understand—
but You?

From none but that God will a ray of understanding come; from nowhere else will the sun of awareness rise. And what you have to do is a small thing: empty yourself of the mind’s useless clamor so that His voice can be heard. Become so silent that when He speaks He does not find you deaf. That is all.

I do not take prayer to mean that you say something to God. That is a mistaken notion. True prayer is: you become so silent that if God says something you can hear it. And from that very moment an unprecedented meaningfulness will enter your life—because from that moment death will vanish from your life. From that moment there is neither birth nor death; there is only life—eternal life—without beginning, without end. Then such springs of bliss can burst forth from you, such songs can be created from you—as the songs of the Upanishads, as the songs of the Quran, as the songs of the Guru Granth Sahib. All those songs arose just so. They are flowers of samadhi.

Amrit Priya! Philosophy is only talk—the art of splitting hairs. Philosophy has nothing to do with reaching God. It is futile wrangling, building castles in the air. Even sandcastles are somewhat real, and paper boats are a little real; the boats of philosophy aren’t even paper boats, they’re boats of mere imagination; not even sandcastles—just castles in the air.

Philosophy keeps thinking about things that have no value. Why did God create the world—what will you do by knowing that? Even if you knew, what then? And how would you ever know? And even if you knew, what proof would there be that what you know is true? What is God’s form and color; is he with attributes or without; does he have four faces, a thousand hands; what is his height, length, breadth—what purpose will all this useless talk serve? And suppose he has a thousand hands—what’s the point? If he had four faces he’d only be in trouble.

I have heard: One morning in heaven, Ravana was strolling and walked into a cafe—Cafe de Heaven. The menu came. He glanced at it. It was a cold morning and he felt like having a hot coffee. He saw: coffee, fifty paise. He said, “Bring a coffee.” He drank it and was very pleased. He asked for the bill. The bill came—five rupees. He was shocked. He said to the waiter, “Are you out of your mind? The menu says clearly fifty paise!”

Seeing Ravana’s fearsome form, the waiter got nervous. He said, “I’ll call the manager.” The manager came running. He said, “You’re right, sir—but please read carefully. It says fifty paise per head. And you have ten heads; so five rupees.”

If God had four heads, he’d be entangled in all kinds of hassles. What good would it do? Even deciding for himself where to go would be difficult—why go, where go? And managing four heads—one head is hard enough to handle; one head alone overheats so easily! With four, he would have gone mad long ago. And a thousand hands! With just two hands a man can create so much mischief—what would happen with a thousand! With two, a man builds with one and destroys with the other; with a thousand you’d never know who built what, who destroyed what, what was being done and what not! There would be chaos. Yet philosophy keeps getting entangled in such pointless matters.

Religion has nothing to do with philosophy. Religion is related to seeing, not to philosophizing. You need eyes—the eye that sees! A clear eye, that can see! A transparent eye, free of dust!

And look at philosophers—their lives show you any God anywhere? Do you see any meditation in their lives? Do you see any peace, any silence? I was a student of philosophy, then a professor, so I know philosophers from all sides. There is no profession more deranged.

One of my professors was very attached to me. Naturally—because however high his talk in the air, I could take it higher. We got along well. He said to me, “Why are you wasting away in the hostel? I live alone… a lifelong celibate, and now old. I have a big bungalow—come and stay with me.”

I said, “As you wish. One should regard happiness and unhappiness alike—so whatever comes, fine.”

He came with a car, loaded my luggage, and took me to his house. The trouble began. As he was a lifelong celibate, he had a passion for playing the guitar. Wives don’t let you get into such mischief. He would play an electric guitar till two in the night, so there was no way to sleep till two. The whole house would throb with his guitar. And I used to get up at two. I thought something must be done. So from two I would read aloud so loudly that he could not sleep. For two days this went on. On the third day he said, “Brother, listen—we have to work out some compromise.”

I said, “We’ll have to.”

He said, “I won’t play the guitar till two at night, and you don’t read so loudly from two. By the way, did you always read aloud?”

I said, “No. But for the sake of a compromise, one should make prior arrangements. So for two days I’ve been reading aloud. My throat is giving way too. If the electric guitar stops at night, then my loud reading will stop. If not, I’ll stand at your door from two and read till exactly seven in the morning. Neither you’ll sleep, nor I.”

He was supremely lazy, and I am lazy anyway! We had divided the chores a little. He said, “You do one thing and I’ll do another, but in the morning you bring the milk. There’s a milkman nearby—he brings it, but dilutes it with water. You go and get good milk yourself.”

I said, “Let’s do this—whoever gets up first will bring the milk.”

“That’s perfectly fair.”

The next day both of us lay there. Neither did he get up, nor I. I opened an eye to look; he too. Ten o’clock. Finally he panicked and leapt up—he had to go to the university at eleven for his job. I was a student; going or not was all the same. He sprang up and said, “This is too much! All right, I’ll go and get the milk.”

I said, “Go. And from tomorrow remember—be it one day, two, or three, I will not get out of bed till you bring the milk. Whoever gets up first gets the milk. And I am not going to be the first.”

He was eccentric. He carried an umbrella all twelve months—for no reason. He held it so low it touched his skull. No one could see him, no one could greet him. I asked, “Why do you hold the umbrella so close?”

He said, “It has great advantages. One can think whatever one wants; there’s no need to pay attention to anyone. If you want to laugh, laugh. If you want to be happy, be happy. If you want to cry, cry. The umbrella hides you. Waves are always arising in the mind—how will fools understand? What do they know of philosophy—of the moods in which we philosophers are swept away! If they butt in, they’ll ruin everything with a ‘Jai Ramji!’”

He hadn’t got a single student for three years; I was his first in three. He looked me up and down and said, “Do you know I haven’t had a student for three years? No one takes my subject.”

I said, “Do you know I’ve been expelled from three universities? No university will take me. We’ll get along.”

We argued so much that after five to seven months he said, “Listen—are you going to take your exams or not?”

I said, “We’ll see about exams when exam time comes. While we are in the middle of debate, don’t raise such trivial matters.”

He said, “You’ve made it impossible to teach. Whatever I say, you raise a counter. And then you get me so riled up that if you say something, I can’t stop myself—I have to counter you.”

“Well, I won’t suffer,” he said. “I can get through the year; you’ll be at a loss.”

I said, “Don’t worry about that either. I don’t need to pass any exam. The work I have to do in life won’t need certificates. The disgrace will be yours—that in three years you got one student and even he didn’t pass. I have no question of disgrace.”

That struck him. Before the exam he would call me and tell me, “These questions are coming—prepare them! The year is gone, but these are surely coming. No need to start a debate in the hall—just prepare these.” He didn’t even trust I’d prepare, so he prepared them for me: “These are ready—read them.” And in the morning he would wait in the car to take me to the exam because he suspected I might not go.

Philosophers are kind people, but crackpots. Religion has nothing to do with them. They are dear souls, but their quest for truth is only logical, not grounded in any practice.

Therefore, Amrit Priya, philosophy is not even slightly sufficient. If there is only curiosity, it is fine. If there is a burning longing for liberation, philosophy is not sufficient.

These days Chandulal has become extremely philosophical, often absorbed in solving airy problems. One evening he was lying on a deck chair in his courtyard, eyes fixed on the patties stuck to the wall of the house opposite, lost in thought. His wife Gulabo arrived, irritated: “What are you staring at like that? Gazing at that hussy Dabbu’s wife?”

Chandulal said, “No, no. I’m trying to solve how on earth Dabbuji’s buffalo climbed the wall to defecate!”

Fuming, the wife said, “This is what you waste your time on—these topsy-turvy, senseless matters! You don’t care a bit for the house! Do you even know that our little Munna started walking a week ago?”

Startled, Chandulal said, “Oh! Why didn’t you tell me before? Who knows how far he’s gone by now!”

A philosopher husband returned home after a long world tour. Naturally, as soon as he arrived the husband and wife began making love. Just then someone knocked at the door. The wife, trembling with fear, stammered, “Listen, listen—it seems my husband has come!”

Hearing this, the philosopher husband pushed her away from his chest and jumped out the window. To this day his whereabouts are unknown.

There are three dimensions in the world.
1—Science: the dimension that knows the truth of matter.
2—Religion: the dimension that knows the truth of consciousness.
3—Philosophy: the dimension that only thinks. It thinks about matter and also about consciousness—but only thinks. Does thinking fill anyone’s stomach? Think all you want—if you’re hungry, you will remain hungry; you need food. For the body’s food, ask science; for the soul’s food, ask religion. Philosophy hangs in-between—like Trishanku. Philosophy is neither science nor religion. It just thinks—good, lofty thoughts perhaps—but mere thinking serves no purpose. How much fuss philosophy makes about God! But what comes of all that fuss?

The night is dark; think as much as you like—thinking won’t light a lamp. If you want to light a lamp outside, ask science. If you want to light the lamp within, ask religion. If you don’t want to light any lamp and only wish to kill time, then philosophy is useful. Sit and think: What is light? What is darkness? Does darkness even exist or not? How does light dispel darkness? Can it, or not?

Philosophy is a very sophisticated name for Sheikh Chilli–ism.

There was a theft in a village. The inspector came, investigated thoroughly, found no trace of the thief. Finally the villagers said, “This won’t do. In our village there is a Sheikh Chilli; there is no question he cannot answer. Ask him.” Just a few days earlier, an elephant had passed through the village at night. An elephant had never come through there. In the morning we were all worried—what animal could have such huge footprints? No solution. At last they called Sheikh Chilli; he solved it in a minute: “No big deal; why worry so much? A deer hopped by with a millstone tied to its leg!”

The inspector didn’t really like the idea of asking such a man, but with no alternative in sight he went. Sheikh Chilli first demurred: “Brother, I don’t want to get into such hassles. My taste is in lofty philosophical matters. What are these gross things—thievery and so on! Who is a thief, whose theft! All land is God’s—who thief, who owner! He alone is the owner!”

The inspector insisted, “Listen—if you won’t speak, we’ll take you in.” As the situation worsened, Sheikh Chilli said, “I’ll tell you—but in private. We’ll have to go far outside the village where no one can hear. I don’t wish to be involved in quarrels.”

Then the inspector felt a little hope—this one seems to know. He took him far outside the village. “Brother, now there isn’t even a bird or a dog here—speak!”

Sheikh Chilli came close and whispered in his ear, “Since you won’t give up, I’ll tell you—but swear on your father you won’t tell anyone.”

“I swear on my father. Now speak!”

“Some thief committed the theft.”

This is exactly what philosophy does: “Some thief committed the theft.” You ask—because you don’t understand straightaway—“Who created the world?” Philosophy says, “Some creator created the creation.” Do you get it? The same thing: some thief committed the theft. But when you hear “Some creator created the creation,” you think something profound is being said! If the world exists, a creator must have created it; and if a theft occurred, a thief must have done it. But where is the answer in that?

Other than religion, there is no way to know God.

Religion is the science of inner search.

The last question:
I cannot trust my wife. She doesn’t listen to me, nor obey me. I even doubt her character. This keeps my mind disturbed. What should I do?

Rameshwar! A wife is not God that you should place your trust in her. Who told you to trust your wife? Can’t you find anything more worthy to have faith in? Anything higher for your reverence? Poor wife! For reverence, seek the heights.

But we are taught: wives should have faith in their husbands; husbands should have faith in their wives. Even if you manage to “have faith,” what will happen? And whenever the talk of trust arises, it already means that doubt stands within; otherwise where is the question of trust? If there were no doubt, why the insistence on trust? We’re told to trust only because doubt is there—and must be plastered over and hidden.

And how will you trust? You don’t trust yourself—how will you trust your wife? What happens in your mind when you see a beautiful woman? Then how can you assume that when your wife sees a handsome man nothing stirs in her mind? Don’t try to wriggle out by saying, “I am a man—men are different!” Those days are gone; nobody is different. You know yourself well—when I wobble, the wife too must wobble now and then. Hence the doubt.

The doubt is less about the wife and more about yourself. Doubting the wife is beside the point. First, there is no need to trust. You’re disturbed for nothing! But we’ve been taught that a wife must be pativrata—devoted to one husband, eyes fixed only on him. Then even if she does fix her eyes only on you, trouble begins—because when she is pativrata, she expects you to be equally devoted to one wife. You both start spying on each other. Life becomes hell.

Be simple, be natural. Learn to live in freedom. Your wife has her own intelligence; you have yours. She is entitled to her life; you to yours. That you have chosen to live together is fine—but it does not mean you are each other’s slaves. Centuries of wrong teaching have created a great tangle. One after another, troubles spiral—and we don’t see the root causes.

Just the day before yesterday the papers reported that some thugs in Bombay abducted a woman from her husband and children and threatened that if the police were informed, they would kill her. The husband was distraught all night—how could he sleep? He waited. Early morning the wife returned. Before the husband could speak, she said, “Let me bathe first, then I’ll tell you everything.” She went into the bathroom, poured kerosene over herself, set herself on fire, and died. Now everyone is condemning the rapists—and they should be condemned.

But these are symptoms; they are not the root disease. If you trace the rapists back precisely, you will find saints at the root. No one bothers about that. Those same saints declaim that morality has fallen, the dark age is here, religion is corrupt. These fools have created this havoc. When you repress sex so much, rapes will happen. The more you repress sex, the more rapes there will be. If you give a little freedom to sexual energy, if you regard it as a simple, natural, ordinary part of life, rape will stop by itself. Without repression, rape disappears.

Suppose your wife is playing cards with some man—no sin has been committed; there is no rape. You won’t run to the police at once. And if you happen to see her playing cards with someone, she won’t douse herself in kerosene and die. She was only playing cards—what sin was that?

If we can also regard sexual energy as a simple, natural thing… We have hoisted it so high, carried it on our heads, draped it with false ornaments of sanctity and religiosity—that problems have become insoluble. Some people get repressed as a result.

Those thugs who abducted that woman cannot be people who have known a woman’s love in life. These are people who never received love. And perhaps they never will. They are trying to snatch love by force. One is willing to snatch only when one cannot receive naturally. And love is joy only when it comes naturally; love seized by force has no joy, no meaning.

But you do not allow the natural conditions for love. And if someone tries to create such natural conditions, you shout, “Society is being corrupted!” The very people shouting this are the ones who create rapists. Behind every rapist you will find saints hiding. They are the progeny of your rishis and munis.

Look at the other side too. No one has looked at it. The woman returned home, set herself on fire, and died. No one condemned her. The rapists were condemned—and rightly so. But no one condemned the woman. She too took the matter as something immense. Because she has been taught that her chastity is destroyed.

What nonsense is destroyed! Chastity is a matter of the soul, not the body. What was destroyed? If the body is covered in dust, you take a bath; the body is not destroyed.

It was wrong. I do not support that such a thing should happen. But I am also against putting a woman in such a position that she has to burn herself. For this, we too are responsible. The rapists are responsible—and we are responsible. Because if she had lived, she would have had to suffer stigma for life. Those who would have stigmatized her are partners in the sin of her death. If she had lived, her husband would have looked at her with contempt, her children too, the neighbors too: “What is she—worth two pennies!” Now they say she became a sati—did a great, noble deed! They will set up a little shrine to the “sati.” Another Dhandhan Sati! They will decorate a tableau—more stupidity.

You all are responsible for this murder. You are responsible for creating the climate of rape. You are responsible for this woman’s death. She too should be condemned. What was the big matter? It was not her fault; she did not go of her own free will. Force was used. If someone forcibly cuts your hair on the road, will you set yourself on fire—“All is lost! My life is finished!”

There were times when if someone met you on the road and snipped your mustache—finished! Honor gone! Mustache gone, all over! Now mustaches are shaved by yourselves; you even pay the barber. And if no barber is found, you happily shave in the morning. Yet once the mustache was a great thing—people twirled it with pride; it was part of their arrogance.

This notion of “chastity” is childish and hollow. It does not accord with the simplicity of life. First, we should give as much freedom as possible to people’s sexual life. As far as one can, do not treat sexual energy as anything more than play—a biological play, a leela; nothing more. That would be revolutionary.

But you take it with such dead seriousness. You say, “I suspect my wife; I suspect her character.”

Who are you to suspect your wife’s character? If you must worry, worry about your own character. Are you the owner of your wife’s character? Owner of her soul? Did she sell herself into your hands?

No, Rameshwar. There are bigger things worthy of doubt—doubt yourself. And there are bigger things worthy of reverence—revere them. Why get stuck in trifles? Then one day, crushed under these trifles, you’ll say, “Life passed by; I found no meaning, no fulfillment.” Where will you find it from?

Humanity is being crushed beneath many delusions; it is dying, rotting. But those delusions are so ancient and we have honored them so much that it doesn’t even occur to us that they are delusions. Even today “satis” are worshiped. In village after village there are little sati shrines. What madness! Women were burned, made to burn, arrangements made for their burning—murders committed—and you offer them honor!

Still the same lessons are being taught. Virginity is highly prized; a girl must absolutely be a virgin before marriage—why? It is utterly unscientific. You marry a woman who has no experience of love. An inexperienced woman—and if by misfortune the man too has been raised by blockheads—then both are inexperienced. You yoke them together. You have pushed their lives into a ditch. A little experience beforehand is proper and useful.

There are tribes in Africa that take care to know with how many people a girl has had love relations. The more she has, the higher her value. I hold that they are more psychological. Primitive, but their view is more insightful. Because if many have loved her, two things follow. One, she is lovable; so many would not love her without reason. Two, by being loved she has gained experience, and on that basis some maturity. A virgin girl or a virgin boy has no experience. To yoke two virgins is like yoking two bulls that have never pulled a cart—both will suffer, and the cart will be smashed. An accident is certain.

That’s why every marriage turns into an accident.

Let people pass through experience. And why this insistence on monopoly—on exclusive possession? Why do you suspect your wife? Why this claim of ownership? A wife is not a thing that you are her sole owner! If your wife finds someone else delightful and a loving bond arises, why do you get so agitated?

No, but our male pride is deeply wounded: “While I am here, my wife finds someone else beautiful!” And how many women do you find beautiful while your wife is there? You keep a picture of Hema Malini hidden in the Gita! You say you’re reading the Gita while gazing at Hema Malini.

Doubt yourself, Rameshwar. Let the wife think for herself—about herself. Let her direct the current of her life herself. Do not become an obstruction to anyone’s freedom—whether wife, husband, son, or daughter. A mark of a religious person should be that he declares his own freedom and respects the freedom of others. The more freedom increases on this earth, the more blessed it is. Only then can we bring God closer.

God can descend only in an atmosphere of freedom—not in bondage, not in chains, not in prisons. Be free and set others free.

That’s all for today.