Rahiman Dhaga Prem Ka #9

Purusottamdas! To end life within the familiar—that is death. To steer the boat of life into the unfamiliar—that is life. Life is in the ever-new—each moment the challenge of the fresh, the call of the unknown, a welcome! The more you enter the unknown, the more alive you become. And the more you lock yourself in the known, the more you settle into the grave.

Many people never live; they die before they can live. Many are never even born—living is far away. And the greatest obstacle is the fear of the unfamiliar.

Religion is for those who have courage—not just courage, audacity! And the wonder is that religion has been occupied by the cowards of the ages! Those you will find kneeling in temples and mosques, in churches and gurdwaras, praying—they are cowards. Their prayer rises out of fear. And can prayer ever arise out of fear? Can God have anything to do with fear? The God you accept in fear is only an extension of your fear; he is your device for security. You are scared. You want arrangements all around—physical, mental, spiritual. You want not even a trace of insecurity to remain—neither in this world nor the next. You want security in every way. That is your religion. And whoever gives you a promise of security, you are ready to fall at his feet.

I have no promise of security. Sannyas is the embracing of insecurity—voluntarily. Because once it is understood that a God based on fear is false, and that love is never born of fear, how will the divine be born? Can you love the one you fear? You can pretend—that’s granted. You can maintain outward formalities—that’s granted. But in your innermost core there will be opposition toward what you fear. You will want to take revenge; there cannot be friendship. The one who frightens you—is he a friend?

A young man was returning after marriage. He boarded a boat to cross a river. He was a samurai—Japan calls its warriors samurai—famous far and wide. Whoever felt the blow of his sword never survived, and no one yet had managed to land a blow on him. As they were crossing, a storm arose. His wife began to panic and tremble; but the samurai remained just as steady, just as unmoved, just as carefree as before—as if the storm had not come at all. Astonished, she asked, “Does this storm not frighten you?”

Instead of answering, the samurai drew his sword from the sheath. In the sunlight the blade glittered; he placed it near his wife’s neck, so near that there was only a hair’s breadth—one little jolt, the boat rocks in the storm, and her neck would be severed. But the wife kept smiling. The young man asked, “You are not afraid? The sword is so close!”

The young woman said, “The sword is in your hand—why should I be afraid? We are not frightened of a sword; we look at whose hand holds it.”

The young man sheathed his sword and said, “The storm is in God’s hand—what is there to fear? How can there be fear of the one we love? If there is a storm, it is in his hands. Whatever happens will be right. Wrong cannot happen—impossible.”

Love is not afraid. Love cannot be frightened. You can cut off the lover’s head, but you cannot make him tremble. And the one who is fearful—do what you will, however many prayers and rituals—all will be false, all hollow.

If you want to live you must drop religion based on fear. Tulsidas has said: “Without fear there is no love.” Nothing more false has ever been said. They say love cannot be without fear. Nothing could be more unpsychological. I tell you, this one sentence is enough to show that Tulsidas knew nothing. Love can never coexist with fear. And Tulsidas says love is not without fear!

But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere.

Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole.

I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you shut the bathroom door and take off your clothes? How will you bathe with your clothes on? Your body has begun to smell.”

She said, “How can I take them off? Isn’t it written in the Bible that God sees you everywhere? Then he sees in the bathroom too. Is it proper to be naked before God?”

Someone should tell this madwoman: if he can see you in the bathroom, can he not see inside your clothes? How will you escape that? This is not God, this is a bedbug—crawling under your clothes, investigating what is going on! Not God, a detective, hounding you.

All the religions have frightened you—thoroughly. Make a small mistake and—hell! In the smallest things—hell! Smoke a cigarette—off to hell! Chew betel—off to hell! Drink water at night—off to hell! Different religions, different hells to fear.

There are religions—like Jainism—where, during Paryushan, if you eat a potato—poor potato—off to hell! A tomato! You will not find more innocent beings—neither hurting nor bothering anyone, utterly nonviolent! But eat them and you are consigned to hell. What fears! How many kinds of fear! You have been made afraid in everything.

This is the net of pundits and priests; it has nothing to do with the divine. They live off your fear, off the exploitation of your fear. They keep you trembling, never letting you be still. The more afraid you remain, the more power they have over you. If you are afraid you will never declare your freedom. If you are afraid you will remain a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jain. Once fearless—then why… why confine yourself in such small boundaries and circles? Why shut yourself in these little boxes? Become fearless and you will drop the worries and mad ideas that somewhere there is a hell where people are boiled like fritters in cauldrons, and somewhere a heaven where houris serve the rishis and sages, angels and apsaras welcome you with bands playing, where fountains of wine flow, and wish-fulfilling trees stand with sages beneath them, every desire granted the very moment it is wished.

There is no hell anywhere, nor any heaven. Hell is in your fear, and heaven is in your fearlessness. And where will you learn fearlessness? This very life is the school.

Purusottamdas, you say: “The path of sannyas is unfamiliar.” Precisely therefore it is worth walking. Whenever a path is unfamiliar, don’t miss it. Walk it. The unfamiliar has to be recognized. Whatever in life is unknown has to be made known. That alone will lead toward awakening. The day nothing remains unfamiliar, the day you know all that is to be known, that day you will be enlightened. If you keep shrinking from the unknown and, out of fear, keep yourself walled inside your house—“If I go out this may happen, that may happen”—you will fall into great difficulty.

I was a professor at a university. The vice-chancellor called me one day. A few people were sitting in his room; he told them to leave: “I have something private to discuss.” I wondered what private matter he could have with me. Still, I kept silent. Then he said, “Why hide it from you? Let me tell you the truth. I often have to travel by airplane, and I get very frightened. Don’t laugh, and don’t tell anyone. What will people think—at my age, a vice-chancellor, yet afraid to sit in an airplane! But I’m scared all the time. I keep chanting ‘Ram, Ram.’ I never chant like this otherwise. I never remember God like this—only in the airplane. I keep feeling ‘now it will fall, now it will fall.’ Somehow, chanting ‘Ram, Ram,’ I reach the other place, get off the plane, then only do I find peace. And my work is such I have to go here and there frequently. What should I do?”

I said, “What is there to be so afraid of?”

He said, “You say that! Everyday the newspapers report: a plane crashed here, fifty died; there one fell, seventy died!”

I said, “How many planes fly, and how many fall? You were a professor of mathematics; you know a little math. What is the ratio? Out of a hundred, not even one falls; out of a thousand, maybe one.”

He said, “That is true.”

“So,” I said, “nine hundred and ninety-nine times you are chanting ‘Ram, Ram’ for nothing.

“Tell me—do you sleep on a cot at night?”

He said, “Of course.”

“Are you afraid then?”

“Why would I be?”

I said, “Do you know how many people die on cots? At least ninety-seven percent. Out of a hundred, ninety-seven chances are that you too will die on a cot. Then chant ‘Ram, Ram’ all night! If you must be afraid, fear the cot, not the airplane. In a plane there is one chance in a thousand. On a cot there are ninety-seven chances in a hundred.

“I say—keep flying; you will die anyway. If you die in a plane, at least the news will appear in the papers. If you die on a cot, who cares? Who cares for those who die in bed?”

Where I lived—Jabalpur—where that vice-chancellor was, there is a saying: when someone dies they say, “His cot has been stood up!” Remarkable! The man lay down, the cot stood up. “The cot stood up” means the bier has been lifted. Just as in Punjab they say “Baarah baj gaye” (it’s twelve o’clock), in Jabalpur they say “Khatia khadi ho gayi.” In Jabalpur, don’t tell someone by mistake that his “cot has been stood.” You’ll start a quarrel.

That’s why a Sardar gets annoyed if you ask, “Sardarji, what time is it? Is it twelve?” He flares up at once. You think he flares up because it’s twelve. Poor fellow—he flares up because you don’t know that in Punjab “baarah baj gaye” means the gap between the two hands has vanished—become the Beloved of God! The distance called the body is gone; now the two are one—finished. “Baarah baj gaye” means mourning has fallen.

So I told him, “If you must fear, fear the cot. One day it will stand! Chant ‘Ram, Ram’ all night.”

Five or seven days later he called me again. He said, “You’ve made my trouble worse. I called you to get a solution. Now I’m afraid even on the cot!”

I said, “Now become religious. These are the ways to become religious. Earlier you became religious only in airplanes—that happens only sometimes; will sometimes do? A person should be religious unbroken! Now do an unbroken recitation. Life is four days; remember Ram. How much life is left anyway? Even these four days are nearly over; the last hour is approaching. Now what sleeping? To sleep is to lose. Now chant ‘Ram, Ram’—all night, all day.”

People are living out of fear. And can you live that way? Then everything becomes fear. What in this life is not unfamiliar? Everything is unfamiliar. When the child comes… Purusottamdas, had you a bit of sense you would never have left your mother’s womb—because where to go into an unfamiliar world! You stayed nine months in the womb—it was familiar. To leave the familiar! And a more secure, more comfortable place you will never find again—impossible!

Scientists say that man’s search for happiness is actually the search for what he experienced for nine months in the womb. Unknown to him, the echo remains within: where have those days gone, those days of bliss! The womb is a supremely pleasant state. Inside the mother’s body is water at exactly your body’s temperature. Resting in that temperature is the most blissful condition—like lying in a bath with water at body temperature. And it isn’t just water; it contains the same chemical salts found in the ocean. Hence the body gets the chance to relax completely. Your body too is eighty percent ocean water. And the child floats in that water. No worry about food—not even about breathing. No exercise, no walks—no “go five miles a day, or your health will suffer,” no “eat spinach, or your health will suffer.”

A little boy said to his mother, “God is a strange fellow! He put the vitamins in spinach, and none in ice cream! If he had to put vitamins, he should have put them in ice cream. People would eat heartily. He went and put them in spinach—hardly edible—and we have to eat it every day.”

No need for spinach, no worries, no rent to pay, no electricity bill, no income tax—nothing. No government, no policemen, no teachers, no school. The child is carefree. He doesn’t even breathe on his own; the mother breathes for him. He gets all nourishment from the mother. For those nine months he lives in paradise.

Freud discovered that because of what the child experiences in the womb for nine months, man seeks happiness. Unknown to him, it is imprinted within that such a blissful state is possible. Then we build houses along the same lines; all our effort is to recreate that cozy state. But to recreate it we have to shoulder such anxieties that whatever little happiness may be in life gets lost.

If you were afraid, you wouldn’t be born. But it was your good fortune you had no awareness—you were born in unconsciousness; otherwise, “wise” people would never be born. They would remain inside, saying, “Why go, leaving our home! Our home is best!”

Now you say the path of sannyas is unfamiliar.

All paths of life are unfamiliar. What is familiar? Is love familiar? When you fell in love for the first time—was it familiar? When you fell and were exhilarated, delighted, when songs began to flow and flowers began to bloom—was that familiar? Yet you set out on the unfamiliar path—wherever it might take you. When you were touched by music and began to learn the veena—was it familiar how much practice it would take?

Someone asked Yehudi Menuhin—the famous violinist—“How much do you practice? It seems so spontaneous when you play.” Menuhin laughed and said, “Why wouldn’t it seem so! I practice eight hours a day. Because I practice eight hours a day, it seems spontaneous. If I don’t practice for three days, I begin to notice the mistakes creeping in. If I don’t practice for four days, the critics begin to notice. And if I don’t practice for five days, the general public begins to notice.”

When you listen to the violin, it doesn’t even occur to you how much labor is behind it—how much sadhana, how much tapascharya. Looking at a violinist you don’t think of austerity. You think of austerity when you see some fool sitting by a sacred fire. Is there any tapas in that? Smearing ash, lighting a brazier and sitting—is that tapas? The sitarist’s fingers become raw and bloody. After years of continuous practice, a heavenly music begins to arise from the strings. For years the chest aches, breath falters, blowing the flute; only then do life and breath enter the flute. That is tapascharya.

But the first steps must be taken into the unknown. You cannot know in advance what obstacles the journey will bring!

I am not saying that the path of sannyas is easy—God forbid. A desire has arisen to tread a difficult path. Unfamiliar it is.

Buddha has said: sannyas is like birds flying in the sky—their footprints do not form. So if someone wishes to imitate and walk by stepping into their footprints in order to fly, he is mistaken. Sannyas has no fixed tracks, no highways, not even footpaths. One has to walk by oneself and cut the way through the forest.

Yes, if you want imitation—that’s another matter. Fake sannyas is not unfamiliar; it is completely familiar.

My sannyas is utterly unfamiliar, and I want to keep it unfamiliar. That’s why I give no ready-made doctrines. I do not tell my sannyasin: eat this, do not eat that; drink this, not that; sit like this, not like that; wear this, not that. I give my sannyasin no prefabricated beliefs. I give only the message of awareness. And then do whatever your awareness tells you to do. Only don’t do it in unconsciousness—that is the essence. Live awake, not in sleep. Then whatever flowers in your awakening is auspicious. Go wherever your awakening leads you. However much fear pulls you back, don’t be pulled. Chains will try to stop your feet—and they are not ordinary chains, they are subtle. They are not iron, they are gold. That’s why attachment arises. They are studded with jewels—seem like ornaments; how to drop them? The prison begins to look like home; having lived there so long you cannot imagine your life without it. But when the winds of the unfamiliar and the unknown begin to touch you, and when a new thrill enters your life, then you will know that life was something else; we had sat mistaking something else for life. Do not be afraid.

Let the path remain unfamiliar, let the soul remain alone!
Let the shadow gather as night,
let this encircling cloud today drizzle
into kohl-dark tears;
and then the eyes will dry,
lamps go out bit by bit, the lids grow arid;
in this moistened gaze
a hundred lightnings play like lamps!
Others’ feet will give out,
and those who turn back will surrender all resolve to the thorns;
but the vow-bearer, mad with creation,
these feet that measure immortality
will bind to the lap of the world
a golden hour out of the dark!
It will be a different story,
whose sounds are erased in the void, whose traces are lost in dust;
at which even apocalypse is amazed—
I keep setting, day after day,
a market of pearls
and a fair of sparks!
Send the honey-messenger of laughter,
let the frown of anger be borne like an autumn that sheds its leaves!
Then the unwavering heart will receive
waters of pain, and hundred-petalled dreams;
know this: that solitary union
is twinned in separation!
Let the path remain unfamiliar, let the soul remain alone!

Gather courage!
Let the path remain unfamiliar, let the soul remain alone!

The path is unfamiliar and you are alone, and this journey is for the solitary. It is an inner journey. No one else can go with you. No one can go with you. Even to God, you will have to make the flight alone.
And when such a longing has arisen — it must have arisen, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked — then set fear aside. There is fear, granted; but why listen to it? Listening is not necessary. Remember this truth: in this matter there is no difference between the brave and the coward — both feel fear. Do not think that the brave do not feel fear. He feels exactly as much fear as the coward. After all, he too has a heart and a mind, and he too has the urge to preserve his life. When he goes along an unfamiliar path, his mind too wavers, hesitates. Then what is the difference between the coward and the courageous? The difference is that the coward listens to his fear and the courageous does not. The courageous says, “All right, let the fear be!”
Let the path be unfamiliar, let life be solitary!
I set out!

The more fear the courageous one feels, the more he turns it into a challenge. He even makes fear into a staircase. He says: Since there is so much fear, I must go. Surely something worth knowing is hidden there.

Nothing comes free. And we want to get God for free. And what cheap gods we have manufactured! Smear vermilion on any stone and it becomes Hanumanji! Try it: bring a stone, smear vermilion on it, offer two flowers, then sit and watch. In a little while you will see people passing: someone will bow his head, someone will offer two flowers, someone two coins, someone will break a coconut. How cheap it all is! However beautifully the idols in your temples are carved, they are stone all the same. However artistic your temples may be, they are, after all, man-made. What have these to do with God? God is neither in the mosque nor in the temple; neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash. If God is anywhere, he is in the life of the audacious. In that challenge — when someone descends, cutting through all fears, pushing aside the hordes of fear, and sets off alone, launching his little dinghy upon the ocean of the unknown. There is no assurance of the far shore; nothing is certain — who knows whether there even is another shore! No guarantee. Whether I will reach or not is hardly certain! And in this tempest, this storm, this whirlwind — this tiny boat, these small hands, these small oars — will they manage? Who knows where I will drown!

But blessed indeed are those who dare so much, because wherever they drown, there is the shore. For them, midstream becomes the bank. For them, drowning itself becomes deliverance. Unfortunate are those who remain stuck on the bank, keep hesitating, keep thinking, keep sitting and thinking, “When will the auspicious hour come so we may launch the boat?” That auspicious hour never comes. Life slips from the hands, death arrives — the auspicious hour never comes. Now, while there is longing, now, while there is still a little energy in the breath, a fire within, do something. Use this fire. Later, only ashes will remain.

When, teased by the fingers,
the ears would receive drops of nectar.
Hearing the melodies, people would sway their heads;
life would flow into the notes.
Delight would seep through the veins
when the throat joined in.
When the meends turned to twists,
the people’s ecstasy would begin to dance.
Out of these came those ragas
that became garlands for the throats.
Such suppleness mingled with the notes
that showers of rasa would pour down.
The wave that buys up hearts
found its been through these.
They filled the sitars with that resonance
which would steal away hearts.
Their words were priceless;
once they too had a ringing tone.
Who will love them now?
Today they are broken strings.

Before the veena’s strings break, play it. Sing two songs. The strings will break anyway. The boat will sink anyway; even if you sit on the shore it will sink. Then why forgo the joy of drowning midstream? Why let go the ecstasy of the midstream? If we must die, must disappear, then one thing is certain: there is no reason to fear death. When death is so certain that it cannot be escaped, we can leave death outside the arithmetic. When there is no way to avoid death, when all must perish, then what worry? Then while breath remains, stake it. While the veena can still sound, play it. For the veena will remain broken, but the music that rose from it will reach the Divine. The body of bone, flesh, and marrow will lie here, but the songs that arose from it will reach the sky. Your end may come midstream, but that search within you, that longing, that prayer — that will reach. That alone is your soul.

Now you ask, Purushottamdas: “What should I do?”
Choose the unknown! Wed yourself to the unknown! Other than this, there has never been a way to live, there is none, and there never can be.

Laharu! Nothing could be more direct than this. Even donkeys learn from experience. Ask the scientists.

A scientist was testing how much intelligence monkeys have. He tied a banana from the rafters, dangling just out of reach. A monkey sat watching. A monkey cannot watch a banana with detachment—no monkey is dispassionate! His desires must have blossomed, his mouth watering. But the banana hung too high; he couldn’t jump that far. The scientist wanted to see how much sense the monkey had. He brought wooden boxes from inside and stacked them by the wall. The monkey watched the boxes; his eyes were sparkling. The scientist thought, “He’s calculating: stack a box on a box, climb up, and reach the banana.” When the scientist put the last box in place and turned to walk away, as soon as he came under the banana the monkey leapt, jumped on his head, and plucked the banana!

Even the scientist hadn’t thought of that. Monkeys are clever! Why lift boxes? This donkey is hauling them for me. The monkey figured it out: “He’s brought the last box; as soon as he moves off, use him—otherwise I’ll have to lug boxes myself.”

Donkeys learn too. This is precisely how human beings learn—by trial and error, through experience. What does experience mean? It means making mistakes, wandering astray, suffering pain because you stray, pricking yourself on thorns; doing the right thing, and flowers shower. Slowly the arithmetic settles: it becomes visible what brings delight and what brings misery. There is no other way to learn—mistake and correction. Nothing could be more straightforward. People try to avoid this—and in the attempt they become false. Then only one path remains: believe what others say. That is what people have done. They read the Gita and think, “Krishna Maharaj has said everything already—what’s left for me to learn?” But circumstances change, time changes, everything changes. Even if Krishna returned, he wouldn’t repeat the Gita. Krishna isn’t His Master’s Voice on a gramophone record. If he came back, he’d see everything has changed; there’d be no point in saying the same thing.

But just yesterday I read Morarji Desai said, “All answers are in the Gita.” Then what were you doing for those three years, brother? You could have used at least one answer! At the very least, there’s no “life-water” answer in there; that one you did take up—what else did you do? People keep beating the same old tracks: “The Gita has all the answers!” Listeners feel pleased; it gratifies their egos—“Yes, that’s exactly what we believe: the Gita contains everything.” So ever since he stopped being prime minister, he’s become a Gita-expert, giving discourses—“The Gita has a solution for everything!”

Muslims think the Quran has a solution for everything. Christians think the Bible has a solution for everything. Solutions may be written—but where have they solved anything? Not even in Krishna’s presence were the problems resolved—so why would they be now? And Krishna offered solutions for his circumstances; they didn’t work even then—will they work five thousand years later? What answers to today lie there? But this seems the cheap, “direct” way: read a book and the matter is finished because the answer is printed at the back. It’s like schoolchildren do with math: flip the book over and the answers are written there. They glance at the answer and think, “Done—we know it.”

But knowing the answer is nothing. What about the process that links the question to the answer? Where is the method? Without the method, your answer will be hollow, stale, borrowed; it cannot have life. It isn’t an answer at all. You have not arrived at it yourself. Krishna may have, through his own experience—he paid the price; he arrived. You haven’t paid any price, and you think you’ll arrive! Borrowed answers won’t do.

I was reading that two days ago in the Vatican the Pope carried a wooden cross up the hill near the Vatican on his shoulder—just as Jesus had to carry his cross two thousand years ago. Hundreds of thousands gathered! They did then too. But then those crowds threw stones at Jesus, rotten tomatoes, hurled abuse, shoved him. And now? They showered flowers! What you saw was a show. Then Jesus had to drag a heavy cross; three times he fell on the climb, crushed under its weight—his knees were torn, bloodied. He was whipped: “Get up! Carry the cross!” Nothing like that happened now. For the Pope it was a beautifully carved, very light, low-weight cross.

Yet they say they’re following Jesus’ words: “Whoever walks my path must take up his cross.” Bravo! What sweet imitation! So they carry the cross. Small fry brought little crosses too—if the Pope is carrying one, others will too. Pilgrims came with crosses. A procession, a pageant—like a Rama-lila. They reached the hill. People must have brought picnic baskets. Having come all that way, who would go back without? They picnicked and returned home happy. And it was hailed: “A great deed!”

I said: If a great deed was to be done, at least crucify the Pope! That would’ve resolved so much! Having gone all the way to the hill, you could have finished this much! Picnic later—first finish the job! Spare the poor man some suffering! He hauled the cross, did everything—and nothing happened. The Pope came back safely! What sort of bearing-the-cross is that? Hang him on it and put him in a nearby cave for three days—and then see whether resurrection happens or not. Then the drama would be complete. As it is—what Rama-lila is this!

And such Rama-lilas are going on everywhere. Everyone is trapped in them. The whole world is entangled in religious pageantry. Rama-lila means imitation—hollow, stale imitation.

Answers seem straightforward, but they aren’t. If someone had landed a single whip on the Pope mid-way, you’d have found out! Or smacked him with the cross right there.

Once in a Rama-lila something like this happened. Hanuman went to fetch the life-restoring herb. He came back sliding along a rope, a fake cardboard mountain slung over him. Somewhere the pulley jammed. Hanuman got stuck midair, mountain and all. Lakshman lay below, unconscious—now and then he opened his eyes: “It’s taking so long!” Rama was watching Hanuman hanging right there yet kept saying, “O Hanuman, where are you? Come quickly!” The audience laughed: great fun!

The manager had no idea what to do. There were no directions in the script for such a situation; Tulsidas hadn’t written anything for this contingency. In panic he climbed up to untangle the rope. But what you tackle in panic only tangles more. In the tug-of-war, Hanuman’s leg got yanked, his tail broke off and fell. And Rama kept repeating, “O Hanuman, where are you?”

The manager couldn’t think of anything. He pulled out a knife and cut the rope. Hanuman crashed down with the mountain. Lakshman sat up—no need for the herb at all. And Rama kept up his refrain: “Brother, did you bring the herb?”

Hanuman said, “To hell with the herb! First tell me—who cut the rope?”

Rama-lila is Rama-lila. What’s it worth? Hanuman jumped up in a fury, grabbed his tail and said, “First I’ll deal with the manager’s brat—then I’ll be right back!”

If you imitate—be it the Gita, the Vedas, or the Dhammapada—it’s of no use. Life’s lessons have to be learned from your own life. And there is only one way: make as many mistakes as you can—yes, don’t repeat the same mistake. Make new mistakes, every day. At least invent your own mistakes—show that much intelligence! At least make fresh mistakes. One should be that much of an inventor.

But people make the same old worn-out mistakes—the very ones your fathers and grandfathers made; you keep making them too. Have some shame.

I’ve heard of a man who sold caps. During elections, Gandhi caps sell fast; he made good money. All year he made caps, and during election season he sold Gandhi caps and that was enough for the year—because Gandhians sprout overnight. Everyone’s a Gandhian! Those who killed Gandhi are Gandhians too—they wear Gandhi caps as well. One day he was returning from market after selling caps. Tired, he lay down to rest under a tree. A few caps were left in his basket. He dozed off. Monkeys were up in the tree. They came down, saw the man wearing a cap, liked the look and thought, “Let’s be Gandhians too! Everyone’s becoming one—our ancestors were with Lord Rama; why lag behind?” They opened the basket, found caps, put them on and sat up in the tree, all capped.

When the man woke up, the basket lid was open, the caps were gone. He panicked—“Where did they go? Someone stole them!” Then he heard giggling—the monkeys were laughing, all sitting like Delhi’s Parliament. He thought, “What to do? How to get the caps?” The monkeys were mocking him, showing thumbs. It struck him that monkeys are imitators. He took off the one cap he had—on his own head—and threw it to the ground. The monkeys took off theirs too and threw them down—they couldn’t be outdone by this fellow. He quickly gathered the caps, shut the basket and ran home.

He told his son, “Listen, I’m getting old. If this ever happens to you, remember monkeys are imitators. If they steal your caps, take yours off and throw it—they’ll throw theirs too. Don’t panic. I panicked, but by good fortune I remembered that monkeys imitate. I risked one cap and saved the lot.”

Years later the son was selling caps. He rested under the same tree. Monkeys came down, put on the caps, and climbed up. He woke, smiled. They mocked him, showed thumbs. He said, “Mock away! I know the trick!” He took off his own cap and threw it down. A monkey who hadn’t got any cap climbed down, picked up that cap, and ran back up. Those monkeys’ fathers had taught them too: “Son, if a cap-seller pulls this stunt, grab his cap—don’t throw yours!” The monkeys learned; the man didn’t.

You say, Laharu, that you are such donkeys you keep falling into the same pit. That only means others call it a pit—you don’t. To you it seems, “Ah—how lovely!” The sages stand outside and shout, “It’s a pit!” and you feel, “Ah, how delightful! How charming! Let me fall once more! One more dip! Who won’t wash their hands in a flowing Ganges?” You say, “Mahatmaji, you’re right—but just one more dip. The heart won’t listen.” They say it’s a pit; you don’t see it. The day you see it as a pit, you’ll stop falling. And you cannot see because they say so. If you believe them and still fall, only one thing will happen: you’ll fall into the pit with a burden of guilt—that’s doubly costly. Falling wasn’t as bad as the guilt that follows.

Take a man smoking a cigarette. A saint meets him, says, “Aren’t you ashamed?” You hide the cigarette. Now you’re afraid of meeting the saint on the street while smoking. You begin to smoke in secret, in fear. You avoid saints, priests, teachers, parents, your wife—always avoiding! What are you doing, after all? You draw smoke in, blow it out. To hide it, what pains you take! And two results follow. First, whatever you do clandestinely becomes sweet; there’s a thrill in it. They say stolen kisses are the sweetest—there’s something to that. Fruit you buy from the market has no such relish; pluck it from the neighbor’s tree and see—how delicious, even if unripe!

Whatever is forbidden becomes tasty. That’s the ancient Christian story: God told Adam and Eve, “Don’t eat the fruit of this tree; it’s the tree of knowledge. If you eat it, you will be expelled from the Garden.” This God was something—he knew nothing of psychology. With millions of trees in the Garden, if he had left them alone, to this day they would not have figured out which tree was the tree of knowledge. But he himself pointed it out: “This one—don’t eat it.” From that moment their sleep was ruined. They could never be at peace. Whenever they passed that tree their hearts must have tickled—“What secret lies here?” Then the Devil tempted them—coming as a serpent. He said, “You don’t know—God forbids you out of jealousy. If you eat this fruit you’ll become as wise as God. He can’t bear anyone else being wise. He’s envious. He wants to keep you ignorant.” This appealed to her. He first persuaded the wife—that’s still the way salesmen work. You go to the office; salesmen come home: “Buy this machine, this juicer, this sewing machine, this sari—without it life is wasted.” They wait for you to leave; wives must be convinced first. Once the wife agrees, what strength do you have? The first salesman was the Devil. But God himself played into his hands. He convinced Eve: “You people are fools. Taste it—the fruit is delicious, and its juice has the magic to make you like God. God is jealous. He wants to keep you ignorant. Your wish—stay a fool if you want.”

Once a salesman has persuaded a woman, the matter is sealed. She got Adam to agree. Adam was the first husband; all husbands have followed. There must have been a little yes-no tussle, but she would have insisted, pulled hair, cried. He thought, “Let’s end this hassle.” And he too must have felt—what if it’s true? Why else would God forbid it?

When you tell your son, “Don’t smoke,” he thinks, “Why not? The whole world smokes—only I shouldn’t? There must be some secret. Let me try!”

That is how the mistake happens—and it keeps happening. Others tell you, “It’s a pit.” Everyone tells you, and you nod, because you’ve been told so often that the idea has taken root. You don’t have the courage to say, “I don’t see a pit. It looks like a lovely bed; I want to lie on it.” You don’t have the strength to say it. You say, “It’s a pit,” because everyone says so—so many authorities, so many arguments.

When I first returned home from the university, naturally my parents wanted me to marry. What parent doesn’t? But my father knew a habit of mine: if I said no once, there was no power under the sun that could wring a yes from me. So he didn’t want to ask directly, because if I said no, that would be the end, and he thought the chance of my saying yes was low. He asked a friend of his, a lawyer, to talk to me. The lawyer felt challenged: “I’ll convince him. Who does this boy think he is? I’ve spent my life in court, won cases that were certain losses, got murderers acquitted. This is just to get him to agree to a marriage—no problem. However he argues, I’ll handle it.”

He came and gave a big speech. I said, “Everything you say is fine. But first, who will be the judge? Let’s appoint an umpire; you’re a lawyer—you know a magistrate is needed. Otherwise we’ll argue endlessly.”

He said, “That’s reasonable.”

I said, “Whomever you propose, I accept. One more condition: if you win, I’ll definitely marry. But if I win? You’ll have to divorce your wife.”

He stared at me: “That’s…tricky. I’m a family man.”

I said, “That’s your concern. I’m not. If you’re a family man, think it over—consult your wife and children.”

He didn’t come for two or three days. I went to his house. His wife said, “He isn’t home.” From her tone I knew he was. I said, “That won’t do. I’ll sit here; he’ll come sometime. Whenever he does, we’ll settle this—my life is at stake.”

His wife said, “Your life—or ours? I told you he’s out. He won’t be back for two or three days.”

I said, “Then I’ll stay here for two or three days.”

The lawyer emerged: when he heard I’d sit for days, how long could he hide? He said, “Brother, I fold my hands. I was mistaken to take this on.”

I said, “You thought an argument could be one-sided? You’ve won big cases; I’ve never litigated in my life—this is my first case, and you’re losing without a fight!”

“Why so scared, so upset? It seems your own experience tells you you’re trapped—that you won’t be able to prove your point, because all the sages are on my side. For centuries they’ve been on my side. I’ll summon them as witnesses. And I won’t let this go. Either give it to me in writing that you apologize and will never again persuade anyone about marriage—or I’ll come sit here daily, and tell the whole town you challenged me and are running away!”

He took me aside and said, “Brother, I know it’s a pit. Your father asked me; I thought I’d persuade you.”

I said, “You felt no shame luring me into a pit? And if it’s a pit, why don’t you climb out—when I’m ready to help?”

But you call it a pit because others do. Your own experience doesn’t say so. If it did, you’d run for your life.

Someone asked Buddha, “How do we get free of mistakes?”

Buddha said, “The question doesn’t arise. The day you see a mistake as a mistake, you are free of it. A man whose house is on fire doesn’t ask, ‘How do I get out?’ He jumps. Even if he’s bathing naked, he won’t pause to wrap a towel. He’ll leap out stark naked—and people will excuse him: ‘Brother, the house was on fire. In such a state, etiquette doesn’t apply.’ No one will say, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to climb out the bathroom window? You should exit by the front door like a gentleman!’ When the house is on fire, do rules matter? Everything is proper.”

“The day you see—Buddha said—that your house is on fire, you’ll jump out.”

Laharu, you say you’re donkeys who keep falling into the same pit. You don’t even know you’re donkeys—you only say it. If a donkey comes to know he is a donkey, he’s no longer one. The very donkey who knows, “I am a donkey,” his donkey-ness ends. Whoever knows, “I am ignorant,” in him the first ray of wisdom has dawned. And if you have seen it is a pit…

You must come to see it—that is my constant emphasis. It must dawn on you. What if I say it? What if the world says it? What if all the sages say it? It has to dawn on you. If it doesn’t, others may try a thousand methods—you’ll find ways to wriggle out.

I’ve heard Chandulal had been enjoying guest-hospitality at Mulla Nasruddin’s for about a month. Naturally, when a guest enjoys, the host suffers—two sides of a coin. From the first day Nasruddin tried to get rid of him, but nothing worked. As soon as he saw Chandulal getting down from the tonga that first day, he started a loud fight with his wife: “Let it happen—pour out your life’s pent-up anger right now! If Chandulal gets scared—‘What sort of house is this, with such violence? There’ll be murder and the police will come’—make it a bloodbath!” The wife obliged. Nasruddin grabbed a stick and started thrashing the cot; the wife screamed, “He’s killing me! Murder! I’m done for!”

After ten-fifteen minutes of this drama and silence outside—no knock at the door at dusk—Nasruddin peeked out: the tonga was gone, and so was Chandulal. He was delighted. They came out; dusk, a cot in the courtyard. “See, what a beating I gave,” Nasruddin said. “The cot broke, but what a beating!” “And what a scream I let out,” said the wife. “My throat is still sore.”

Just then Chandulal crawled out from under the cot: “And what a run I made!”

Since then he’d been parked there for a month. If someone simply refuses to understand… After a month they were worn out. Chandulal objected to everything: today this vegetable, tomorrow that; today the cinema, tomorrow the theater—demands upon demands. Life became impossible. Finally Nasruddin said, “Brother, it’s been a month. You’re a husband—think of your wife too. She and the children must be miserable, waiting for you.”

“Oh,” he said, “why didn’t you say so earlier? We’ll wire them to come tomorrow.”

Nasruddin thought, “He’ll leave.” But he wired them to come—and misery was multiplied. Now they settled in as if it were their own house and Nasruddin the guest. Nasruddin couldn’t even find a moment to talk to his own wife; either Chandulal was there or his wife, or the children were running riot. And the two needed to conspire about how to be rid of them.

One day Nasruddin told Chandulal, “I’m going out tonight; don’t wait up.” To his wife he said, “I’ll come around midnight. When they’re asleep I’ll knock softly. Open the door and we’ll talk.”

At midnight he knocked softly. Someone quietly opened the door. There stood Chandulal. “Come, come,” he said. “I’ve just written a poem. I was waiting for you. You’re just in time. Listen.” He began his recitation. His poetry was deadly; he knew nothing of ABCs of verse—but oh, the length! Husband and wife resolved, “By any means, we must get rid of them.” Next morning, at breakfast, they planned a quarrel over the soup. Nasruddin said, “I’ll say the soup is cold—and throw you out: ‘Leave this house at once! I’ll divorce you!’ If Chandulal agrees the soup is cold, I’ll throw him out too: ‘You get out with her! I want neither you nor my wife and kids!’ The anger will carry it through. And you say the soup is hot. If he says it’s hot, you throw me out: ‘Leave! If we can’t agree on anything, what’s the point of living together?’ If he sides with me, you throw him out too: ‘Get lost! Friend of his, get out! We want neither my husband nor you.’ Let them both go to hell!”

They fought—hot or cold. Chandulal quietly sipped, spoon by spoon. It went on and on; he said nothing. Finally Nasruddin said, “Brother, say something! What do you think?” Chandulal said, “I’ve nothing to say. I have to stay another month. Whatever it is, it’s God’s grace. Hot or cold—be content. The contented are always happy.”

If you insist on not understanding, that’s another matter. Otherwise life teaches everything. What greater school is there, Laharu?

And you ask me for direct guidance. Whatever I’m saying is the straightest, simplest thing. You say you are asleep. I know that—so I’m shaking you awake. I jolt you—sometimes ruthlessly. I break your cherished notions, anger you, provoke you—because you don’t like your beliefs being shattered. But I see no other way—perhaps you’ll wake up.

Like someone snuggled under a blanket in the sweet chill of dawn, savoring morning sleep. Morning sleep has a pleasure unmatched by any other hour. You snatch the blanket or pull him out—he’ll be angry, he’ll protest. Even if he himself told you, “Wake me early,” he’ll say, “No—don’t wake me. Forgive me; I shouldn’t have asked. Let me sleep a little longer.”

I know you are asleep. Precisely for that reason I try every way to wake you. If you awake, you begin to see. Right now you are dreaming. Even your religiosity is a dream. Whatever you do now will be dream-like. You can become a monk—it will be a dream. A renouncer, a vow-taker—it will be a dream. Leave this, leave that, leave home, sit in a cave—what will you do there? Dream more. Sink into deeper sleep. If the market’s noise didn’t wake you, will a cave’s silence? In the cave you’ll sleep better—pull the blanket over your head.

I know you are asleep. But you can awaken—that secret is hidden in your sleep. Whoever sleeps can wake; whoever strays can find the path; whoever falls can rise. The capacity to fall implies the capacity to rise; the capacity to sleep implies the capacity to wake. Your sleep announces your potential to awaken.

Therefore I do not condemn your sleep. I want to break it, yes—but I also want to tell you that your sleep indicates your capacity to wake. Don’t be afraid. Life itself will awaken you. These thorn-strewn paths of life will wake you. That’s why I don’t want to pull you out of life. I want my sannyasins to live life—because I don’t see any austerity apart from life itself. Everything else is theater. Life is tapascharya. To live with a wife, a husband, children, parents, in-laws—can you think of a greater austerity? You think those who eat once a day are austere? Those who stand naked are austere? Those are small disciplines; they have little value. Ask a woman enduring her mother-in-law what austerity is!

One day Nasruddin took his beautiful, expensive dog to the vet: “Cut off its tail!” The doctor said, “Are you in your senses? Such a lovely dog—if we cut the tail, it’ll be spoiled, worthless. And you just bought it for two thousand!” Nasruddin said, “Don’t worry—just cut it. Take your fee. Don’t get entangled in the secret. Let the secret stay secret. But cut the tail quickly.” The doctor said, “I’ll cut it if you insist—but tell me why, or curiosity will keep me up all night. Why ruin such a fine dog?” Nasruddin said, “My mother-in-law is coming. I don’t want a single sign in the house that could be taken as a welcome. This wretch will wag his tail. For three days I’ve been explaining: ‘Son, don’t wag your tail.’ I say, ‘Don’t wag,’ he wags it at me. He’s a fool; he won’t listen until it’s cut. If he wags, take it that she’ll settle in. That much applause is enough. Earlier I didn’t believe in hell—but my wife and mother-in-law have made me a believer: hell exists, whether heaven does or not! I’m crushed between the two. Earlier I didn’t understand Kabir’s line—‘Between two millstones no grain remains whole.’ My wife and mother-in-law have explained it to me: ‘Son, this is its meaning!’ When I myself am not left whole, how will my dog remain whole? Cut it, brother! It’s the dog of an unfortunate man—how long can he save his tail? Mine’s been cut; his must be cut too.”

Austerity? Ten or fifteen children at home—what more austerity do you want? Seat ten-fifteen kids around some saint; if he doesn’t run in two or three days, then tell me. He’ll say, “We’ll tend our sacred fire. That was far more peaceful. These children are killing me—they’ll eat me alive! One pulls here, one pulls there.”

Nasruddin was traveling by train with his dozen children. He kept slapping one of them. A woman across finally couldn’t bear it: “Listen, though it’s none of my business, I can’t watch this. The child isn’t doing anything, and you keep beating him. If you hit him once more, I’ll give you a lesson you’ll remember for life.” He said, “Go ahead and give me a lesson—that’s your business. Am I not tasting enough ‘lessons’ already that you should add yours? Listen: my wife ran away with the driver and left these twelve kids with me. My eldest daughter has come home pregnant, unmarried. I asked her, ‘At least tell me the father’s name.’ She says she has no idea. I told her, ‘I educated you, at least ask a man his name!’ This little one I’m beating—he ate the tickets. And I’ve just discovered we’re on the wrong train. And you want to teach me a lesson? Do! What lesson is left untasted? Come along and deliver it! Let me bear whatever karmic fruits there are.”

Life is tapascharya. You don’t see it because you’re all living it. But look closely: in my eyes there is no tapas in the mountains, ashrams, caves like the tapas you are already doing. Twenty-four hours you sit on coals, walk on coals. If you can’t wake here, Laharu, where will you? If you can’t wake with such battering, you won’t wake anywhere.

This world is God’s device to awaken man. Sleepers are sent here to wake up. That’s why I say: learn from experience. Your experience is your only teacher. Appa deepo bhava—be a light unto yourself. Make your own lamp!

All eyes’ tears are pure; in everyone’s dreams truth is cradled.
The One who entrusted it with flame
filled it also with nectar.
Dissolving, it pours out light,
and as it drips, it scatters fragrance.
Both are companions, the path is one—yet when did a lamp bloom? When did a flower burn?
That one offers itself to the motionless earth,
restless in a hundred thousand streams;
this one encircles the world forever
with its ever-tremulous waters of compassion.
When did the sea’s heart turn to stone? When did the mountain become merciless flesh?
Sky-like, star-sparked, quivering,
this one kisses the razor’s edge;
that one drinks the honey of embers
and sways like saffron rays.
When did gold break to stay precious? When did diamond melt?
Two caskets of sapphire and emerald
in which the life-pearl is formed;
into this flow all colors and forms,
and that one’s aura trembles alive.
What became lightning-cloud in the sky
sprouted as a seed in the dust.
At each step toward the world,
gather the new script of my breaths;
in my ceaseless making and unmaking,
count the moments of your own sadhana.
In a world burning, blooming, growing,
mingling and dissolving, the solitary soul moved on.
In dreams upon dreams, truth took shape!

Truth’s shadow falls even in your dreams, and in your sleep the seed of awakening lies. From there it will sprout. And life is the only opportunity. Don’t run away. People think I’ve made sannyas easy because I don’t tell my sannyasins to leave home. They are wrong. I have made sannyas most difficult. The old sannyas is cheap—worth two pennies. Who doesn’t want to run away from home? Ask yourself—how often the thought comes to leave everything; how often even the thought of suicide arises. Life can press one so hard that one thinks, “Let me end it. Why suffer so much?” The impulse to flee the world arises again and again—especially in a country where the tradition of escape is so honored. Here we honored escapism so much that it became synonymous with religiosity. That cheap sannyas destroyed religion in this country.

I’m making sannyas hard. I say: sit in your shop, stay in the marketplace, at home—where there is austerity upon austerity. There’s no need to tend any other sacred fire—it’s already burning. No need to pierce yourself with tridents—you’re already pierced. No need to spread a bed of thorns—your life is already thorny. What more is needed?

Live this very life—and live it with growing understanding: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? What do I get from it? If joy comes, live it fully—live to the brim. If sorrow comes, whatever brings sorrow—let it go. If anger brings pain, drop anger. If meditation brings joy, put into meditation the energy you put into anger. Thus transformation happens. If you must fall into a pit, why fall into anger’s pit? Fall into meditation’s. If you must fall, why choose the pits of status, ambition, ego? Fall into humility, warmth, simplicity. If only you’d start choosing.

And you can choose. When you get a headache, you know it—you take medicine. When your stomach aches, you know it.

I had a teacher in school. On the first day of class he said, “Note a few rules. First: I don’t accept certain pains like headaches and stomachaches.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “You can’t prove them. Fever I accept—there’s proof. Without proof I won’t accept. Otherwise students cheat: ‘Headache—let me go home.’ ‘Stomachache’—and so on. These two I never accept.” I said, “All right.”

Next morning he went for his daily walk. Two honey trees stood near the school. I climbed up and dropped a stone on his head. It thwacked him; he looked up, “You’ll split my skull! What are you doing? It hurts so much!” I said, “Headaches—I don’t accept either. You go for your walk. And if you talk like this, then know this: today I’ll have a headache in school. I’m telling you in advance—it’s going to happen.” He called me home. “If you ever have a headache,” he said, “no need to announce it in class. Just signal with a finger. I’ll grant leave—otherwise all the students will take advantage. And about that stone—don’t tell anyone. I’ve managed students for years like this; otherwise it’s always headaches and stomachaches.”

I said, “If you like, I can demonstrate a stomachache too.” He said, “No—the headache is enough. How will you demonstrate a stomachache?” I said, “I’ll find a way. You’re a bachelor; you have a cook. I’ll persuade him—for a rupee or two—to mix something in your food. You’ll remember your mother’s milk. And since you don’t accept proofs, you’ll have to accept my headache and stomachache.” He said, “I accept! Just give me the finger signals—one finger means headache, two means stomachache.”

You notice a headache, a stomachache—do you not notice the pains in your soul? Are you that asleep? No one is that asleep. When you’re angry, you feel it; the pain is felt. When you burn with jealousy, you feel the burn—like an ember lodged in your chest.

No, Laharu, no one is that asleep. Unless you refuse to look—that’s different.

And sannyas simply means: look. Whatever is happening in your life—observe it, examine it, trace its causes. In finding the cause—in diagnosis—lies the cure. As soon as you see, “This is the cause of my pain,” that cause drops from your hands. What you truly understand, you are free of.

No—you are a human being, not a donkey. You are majestic. Within you lies an extraordinary capacity for consciousness. God dwells within you. Give him a chance to awaken. He longs to awaken. Until he does, you will know neither contentment nor joy. Your life will remain barren—no poetry, no music, no lotus of samadhi, no fragrance. You will come and go as if you had never been. Will you remain mere mud—or bring forth a lotus from the mud?

And what I am saying—nothing could be more direct. My talk is simple; that is why you find it difficult. You want me to hand you canned commandments: don’t eat tomatoes, don’t smoke, strain your water, don’t eat at night, be vegetarian—do this, don’t do that. You think that’s straight guidance. But none of these have helped. People are doing them already. The man who strains his water drinks blood unstrained. The man who doesn’t eat at night eats so much in the day that no one can keep count.

Go and see. You’ll find Jain bellies bigger than anyone’s. No food at night, not even water—so they gorge in the evening to last the night. The bellies grow. Jain monks shouldn’t have bellies—such fasters, vow-takers! But their bellies are big too. They stand naked; their paunches look ugly. My objection to their nakedness is only because of the belly—otherwise I have none. If the body were healthy, proportionate—fine, stand naked. At least maintain a little form. At least don’t terrify people at first sight! Let people feel some calm. On seeing you, let them not feel disillusioned. The whole body is thin and the belly is big—because if you eat only once a day you stock up for 24 hours. Like a camel drinks its fill for the desert. Same story.

Such rules don’t work. People invent tricks. Give up one thing, grab another. That’s why I don’t give you rules; I give you awareness, remembrance. Your awareness should determine your rules. You don’t want that labor; you want predigested food. But you’ll remain infants—how long will you live on predigested food? When will you grow up? The moment for maturity has come. Humanity is no longer a child to be told petty little things.

In Bhopal I was a guest in a wealthy house. In the drawing room a placard read: No spitting here. I said, “This is the limit! Do people spit here?” They said, “This is Bhopal.” I said, “I don’t understand.” They said, “Here people will do anything. It’s the capital. People chew pan and spit right where they sit. So we must put up signs: No spitting here.” I said, “Then put one up: No urinating here—lest a Morarji Desai or his kin come and start. If such signs are everywhere, even those who didn’t feel like it will feel the urge. Sit on a chair and read ‘No urinating’ repeatedly—your hand will reach for your sacred thread before you know it. You won’t think of anything else.”

Petty rules only prove human immaturity. I don’t give you such rules—what to do, what not to do. I say only this: whatever you do, do it awake. Whatever you do. Even if you steal—do it awake. I don’t even say, “Don’t steal.” Steal, but wakefully. If you can steal wakefully, even stealing is auspicious. Though I know: no one can steal while awake. If you drink, drink wakefully. If you can drink awake, it is good, virtuous. But I know: no one can drink while awake. When you wake up, the useless drops away by itself; only the meaningful remains.

That’s all for today.