Rahiman Dhaga Prem Ka #1

Sohan! There are tears of sorrow, and there are tears of joy. Tears of sorrow do fade; tears of joy are nectar—there is neither any way to end them, nor any need to. That tears flow in joy is the most auspicious sign. Laughter in joy does not go as deep as crying in joy. A smile is a wave rising on the circumference; tears well up from the inner womb, the innermost core. When tears laugh, the center and the circumference meet. When tears laugh, they become pearls.

These tears are of joy, of love, of prayer, of worship, of meditation, of wonder and gratefulness.

You say, “My first meeting with you was with tears.” For many, the first meeting with me has been through tears. And for those whose first meeting was not through tears, the meeting has not yet happened; when it does happen, it will be through tears.

Tears are the message that something within has melted; something has dissolved; the ego, packed like ice, has thawed, become fluid, begun to flow. The eyes bring news from within. What words cannot say, tears can. Where words fail, tears still succeed.

There is a poetry of tears, an epic—silent, wordless, yet filled with inexpressible expression. Tears are flowers—of consciousness.

Those who meet me the first time without tears only get an introduction, not a meeting. Someday the meeting will also happen—and when it does, it will be through tears. In this world there is no other bridge that can join like tears can. Tears are a very delicate thing. But love is delicate, too. A flower is delicate.

Out of tears an iris forms—a rainbow that joins two souls. There is no need to build bridges of brick and stone; to join the invisible, a rainbow is enough. And when the light of meditation falls upon tears, each tear becomes a rainbow.

I know, Sohan, you have been weeping and weeping. But I have never told you, “Stop, don’t cry,” because this is another kind of weeping! This weeping is not of pain, not of melancholy, not of suffering, not of worry. This weeping is not a problem; it is a solution. This weeping is not anguish; it is the tale of your inner joy.

So I have never told you not to cry. Your tears have always delighted me. Many here weep, but your tears are unmatched. No one weeps as you do. Your tears are utterly natural, spontaneous, for the joy of the heart itself.

You say, “So many years have passed; the tears still do not stop.” They will not stop. This is happening outside of time. What is born within time perishes within time. In time there is a beginning and an end. But sometimes something takes place in time that is timeless, beyond time. That is religion. Call it God, call it liberation, samadhi, nirvana—give it whatever name you please. Raso vai sah! Its truest name is rasa: essence, flavor. And you are steeped in that rasa, soaked through and through. The bond between you and me is not a relationship of thinking and reasoning.

Those who are joined to me by thinking and reasoning are not joined at all. Thought does not join; it separates. It only deceives you into feeling joined; in fact it divides.

There are three kinds of people here. First, those who have come out of mere curiosity—a kind of intellectual itch has brought them here: What’s going on? What is it that is so talked about, so opposed? Let us see with our own eyes! They are spectators. Whether they come or not is the same. Even when they come, they do not come; only their bodies come. Their minds are filled with a thousand questions—and if they were filled only with questions, that would still be all right; they are also filled with answers. Questions are not such a bad thing, but with those whose minds are full of answers, dialogue is impossible. They already know. The Gita is on their tongues, the Upanishads are poised on their lips. They can chant the Vedic richa as if a machine were reciting, like a gramophone record. Knowledge is in their hands; the life-breath is empty. Not a single flower has blossomed in the soul, not a single richa has sprouted, not a single mantra has awakened. All is borrowed, stale. Yet, taking the stale and borrowed as their own, they live by it. They take this hollow refuse to be wisdom. They mistake information for insight. Laden with the weight of scriptures, they imagine those scriptures will turn into boats and carry them across.

The boats of scripture are paper boats. Whoever sets out in the boat of scripture drowns, and drowns badly. Reaching that far bank is out of the question; in fact, one sinks right here at this bank. Lower the boat into the water and it sinks at once. It only looks like a boat; it isn’t one. Can paper boats cross an ocean? And then the ocean of becoming, the vast ocean of life? Do you hope to cross over on the basis of secondhand words?

In the skulls of those who come from curiosity, who knows how much commotion is going on! They seem to be listening to me here, just seem to be listening; they are not really listening. Are they to listen to themselves or to me? They have so much of their own. The whole time they are judging, drawing conclusions: Is what I’m saying right or wrong? As if they already know what is right! The weighing is going on. They sit with a scale, as if they truly had a scale with which to weigh.

Until equanimity is born, until awakening arises, there is no scale. Until then you only repeat others. And there is no one more pitiable than one who merely repeats others.

So those are the first sort; they will keep coming and going.

Second are those who come with inquiry. Not mere curiosity, but genuine inquiry—they truly want to know. They have questions, not answers. If they had answers there would be no inquiry. They are not pundits. They sense that by knowing scriptures the truth is not known. They have never mistaken knowledge for insight; they have not fallen into that deception. It may be written in scripture, and if it is written it is surely written well; but until it is my experience, until I can testify to it, what is the point? Until I can say, “This too is my experience,” then whether Buddha says it, Mahavira says it, Krishna says it, Christ says it, Mohammed says it—they must be saying it rightly; there is no need to doubt them—but neither is there any need to believe. Neither doubt nor belief—then inquiry is born.

Whose mind is free of both doubt and belief, whose mind bears a question mark, who has set out to search, to experiment, who says, “I will try it, I will know; the day I know, I will say so; when I know, then I will accept”—such a person is authentic. He is not a pundit; he is authentic. Pundits are never authentic. Though pundits marshal proofs from the scriptures, there is no proof in their very life-breath.

Someone asked Ramakrishna, “What proof of God do you have?” Ramakrishna stood up and said, “I am the proof! I have no proof besides. If I had some proof, then I would be merely a scholar. Many have proofs; go to them. I am the proof! Look into my eyes! Take my hand in yours!”

Vivekananda had gone to Ramakrishna as an inquirer and asked, “Is there God? Can you prove God exists?” Ramakrishna said, “Can I prove it? What would my proving or disproving do? If I prove it, He is; if I disprove it, He still is. Even if the whole world disproves Him, He is. I know! This is not about proving or disproving. Don’t ask that. Ask whether you want to know.”

Vivekananda had gone to many. No one had ever said, “Do you want to know?” Some believed and told him, “Believe. If you believe, you will know. First have trust, faith; then you will know.”

But think a moment: what foolish arithmetic is this! If you first believe, where is the space left to know? If after believing you still investigate, then you didn’t really believe. And if after believing you do not investigate, how will you ever know? Belief means: someone else said it, I accepted it. Someone said honey is sweet, and we agreed; we never tasted it, never tried, never savored it, never let it slip down the throat. And if the sweetness has never been experienced, let the whole world say honey is sweet—what will change? You will never know what sweetness is.

Sweetness is not in words, not in scriptures; you must place honey on your own tongue. And it must be your own tongue. However much honey may be on Buddha’s tongue, it is of no use to you.

Ramakrishna said, “Ask whether you want to know.” And before Vivekananda could say anything—because he had never even considered whether he himself wanted to know; he went around asking, “Is there God or not?” and quarreling—before he could answer, for a moment he must have been taken aback; Ramakrishna gave him a kick on the chest. He fell. For a moment he was lost in another realm. When he opened his eyes, he bowed and said, “You are something! I had only come to ask—and what have you done! Where have you taken me? What have you shown me! Now how am I to doubt what I have seen?” Ramakrishna said, “See more.”

Thus Vivekananda was caught in Ramakrishna’s net. If you are an inquirer and there is a flame burning somewhere, you will, like a moth, be consumed in it. Only the moths come to know the lamp’s truth, its reality. Spectators only watch from afar; they never come close enough to feel the heat. They fear the heat; they are nervous—lest something burn, lest something be lost!

The inquirer comes to know.

And third are those who are mumukshu—consumed with the longing for liberation. Mumukshu means: those who have in lifetime after lifetime inquired; now even inquiry is no longer needed. Now they want only to sit quietly in some tavern of the divine and drink. No more questions, no more answers. He who comes from curiosity is full of answers. He who comes from inquiry is full of questions. He who comes from mumuksha has neither questions nor answers; he is silent.

Sohan, you came to me in the third state—silence. For some sixteen years Sohan has been with me. Not once has she asked a metaphysical question—about God, about liberation, about the soul, about heaven or hell, about karma, about rebirth. She has never indulged in such chatter. I was a guest in her home for years; she had so much opportunity to sit by me. She has served me, pressed my feet, cooked for me, covered me with a blanket and put me to sleep, but she never asked anything. Inquiry is not in her. Curiosity does not even arise. There is mumuksha.

In past lives, Sohan, your dust fell away—the dust of curiosity and inquiry. Within you there is silence.

She has never even asked, “How should I meditate?” Why would she ask? She is living in meditation. Yes, whenever she has been with me, from her eyes great pearl-like tears have fallen, many tears—she has melted, flowed. This is a good sign. Rahim has called it the thread of love: Rahim’s thread of love!

In mumuksha, love appears—or call it prayer.

Rahim says: The thread of love, Rahim says, do not snap with a jerk. Once broken, it does not join again; if joined, a knot remains.

Rahim is not an enlightened sage; he is a great poet. So a few slips are natural. The poet gets only a glimpse of truth. A rishi is one who becomes established in truth. A poet is like one who, from thousands of miles away, on a clear morning, caught sight of the peak of Gaurishankar glowing—seen from far away—from thousands of miles away—the sun’s fierce rays on Gaurishankar’s lofty summit, its gleaming snow turned to gold! But seen from far. That is a poet. He gets glimpses. For a moment, unexpectedly, a door opens—unplanned, accidental, beyond his control. A rishi is one who has journeyed, who lives on Gaurishankar, who has become one with Gaurishankar, in whom there is no separation anymore, who is one with the divine.

So at times great poets utter beautiful words; lovely roses bloom in them. But somewhere among those roses there will be thorns. The roses of the rishis have no thorns; they are roses without thorns.

Now this verse is very lovely:

Rahim’s thread of love… Love is a very fine thread—so delicate it is almost invisible. And it binds in such a way that chains you may break, but the thread of love you cannot. Swords cannot cut it; fire cannot burn it.

“The thread of love, Rahim says, do not snap with a jerk.” But here the poet errs—“do not snap it,” as if it could be snapped. Who has ever broken the thread of love? And if it has broken, it was not love; it was something else mistaken for love; a label of love was pasted on it. Love has never broken—anywhere in the history of human consciousness. Whether it was Majnun’s love for Laila, Shirin’s for Farhad, Meera’s for Krishna, or Radha’s, or Chaitanya’s, or Rabia’s, or Teresa’s, or Jesus’s—it makes no difference whether love erupts between two persons, or between one person and the Ultimate. Love is love. The ocean is in a drop, too. Understand the secret of the drop and you have understood the secret of the ocean. Love never breaks.

Can you break the love between Meera and Krishna? You can break Meera, not love. Can you break Chaitanya’s love? You can break Chaitanya, not love.

Here the poet slips. The glimpse he had of the Himalaya must have been lost behind clouds—clouds of thought came over the sky.

“The thread of love, Rahim says, do not snap with a jerk. Once broken, it does not join again; if joined, a knot remains.” Does it break anywhere? If it never breaks, the question of rejoining does not arise.

With those with whom my love has happened, it has not broken. The thought of rejoining has never arisen. And where it has broken, they were merely under the illusion that it was love. They had mistaken something else for love—perhaps greed.

You will be surprised to know that the English word “love” is a transformation of the Sanskrit lobh, greed. What a transformation—lobh to love! But so-called love is indeed often a form of greed. You say to someone, “I love you very much.” But look closely into your love; there is an urge to get something—perhaps the body, perhaps wealth, perhaps status—something to be gained. Somewhere some desire is hidden. Where desire is, there is no prayer. Where greed is, there is no love.

Ordinarily our love is greed.

Sohan has neither wanted anything from me nor asked for anything. Those who have not wanted or asked are the ones truly joined to me. They have received much—that is another matter. That lies beyond accounts. It is not recorded in ledgers. There is no accounting of it anywhere. One receives infinitely, if one neither wants nor asks. If you ask, you become small. If you ask, you become a beggar, a begging bowl. And even if someone fills a begging bowl, so what? It is still a begging bowl; soon it will be empty again. Tomorrow morning you will be out begging again.

The vessel of the heart must be filled. And the vessel of the heart can be filled only when there is no desire, no craving.

Here with me are those who have asked nothing, wanted nothing, and staked everything. They are the lovers. They alone have known love. Unconditionally, they have staked all. “If we live, we live with you; if we die, we die with you.” It is not cheap to be with me; it is a costly bargain.

Therefore Rahim is wrong when he says, “Once broken, it does not join again.” It does not break at all. Experience up to now says it never breaks. And what breaks was not love; if you join it again, a knot will certainly remain. A thread that breaks and is knotted will bear a knot. But this thread is not one that breaks.

So understand the difference between rishi and poet. I sometimes use the words of poets because one thing must be kept in mind: rishis have experience, but often lack words; poets often have words, but lack experience. Life has great paradoxes. Those who can speak have nothing to say; those who have something to say often lack the words. Rarely, someone is both rishi and poet together. Whenever such a person appears, we call him a true master—one who has known, and who can also give birth to knowing.

Therefore I use the words of poets, but I give them my meaning. I have to be a little unfair to poets—twist them a little, correct their slips, dye them in my color. This verse of Rahim is dear to me—dear because it says one useful thing, in the first half-line: “the thread of love.” Love is an invisible thread—subtle, delicate, fine—so fine it seems it might break in a puff of wind, yet swords cannot sever it. Death can erase everything but one thing—love. Therefore only the lover is unafraid of death; all others are afraid. Only the lover does not worry about death, because his love tells him he has recognized the eternal. And the culmination of love becomes prayer.

Sohan, you have grown wings of love. Day by day your love is transforming into prayer. You are right when you say, “I want to dissolve just like this.” You have already dissolved. Now there is nothing to want. Nothing is left. The ego is gone. Within, there is a vast hush, a void. In this void the Full can descend any day. You are blessed! May such fortune be given to all!

Naresh! Life is a blank book, an empty page. An empty page is neither meaningful nor meaningless; it is simply empty. What you choose to write on it determines everything. You can write abuses; you can write songs. Most people write abuses and then weep and repent. A few write songs; they become blissful, they dance, they celebrate. The one who writes abuses, I call a householder; the one who writes songs, I call a sannyasin. I have no other definition of sannyas. I do not call runaways sannyasins. Those who drop everything and set off—I don’t call them sannyasins; I call them escapists. They are timid, fearful, cowardly. A sannyasin, to me, is one who fills the book of life with songs.

It is all in your hands. The hands are yours, the pen is yours, the ink and inkwell are yours, the book of life is yours—God has given you everything—write!

You say: “Life feels meaningless.” Of course it will. If you write the wrong things, how could it not feel futile? If you write without thought, without awareness, how could it not be meaningless?

In Mulla Nasruddin’s village he was the only “educated” man, so people would come to him to have their letters written. One day a man came to get a letter written. Nasruddin said, “Not today, brother, I can’t write today—my foot is hurting badly.”

The man said, “Your foot hurts? What does your foot have to do with writing a letter? Are you going to write with your foot or with your hand? You’re sitting comfortably, smoking a hookah. If you can hold the hookah in your hand, can’t you hold a pen? It’s important. My wife has gone to her parents’ home; I must send her a letter—there’s news to give.”

Nasruddin said, “Brother, forgive me; don’t press the matter. My foot really hurts.”

But the man was stubborn. He said, “I won’t leave until you explain what your foot has to do with it. I’ve brought the paper, I’ve brought the pen. All you have to do is write—here, I’ll even hold the pen in your hand; just write a few lines and the address.”

Nasruddin said, “Now you’ve started it, and you won’t accept no, so I’ll tell you. I can write it—but then who will go to that village to read it? No one but me can read what I write. Truth is, even I have a hard time reading it myself.”

The man said, “What are you saying? You have difficulty reading?”

Nasruddin replied, “Why hide it from you? I’m not really educated at all! I have to memorize whatever you dictate, and then in the next village I repeat it from memory. I’m no scholar! But since no one in the village can read or write, I make my living this way—scrape together a few coins.”

Once a man had him write a long letter—he kept dictating, and Nasruddin kept writing. When the letter was finally finished, the man said, “Brother, read it back once, so we can be sure nothing is missing.”

Nasruddin slapped his forehead and said, “Look, first of all, that would be illegal. The letter isn’t addressed to me. Only the addressee may read it—why should I?”

The simple villager said, “That’s true. The letter should be read only by the one to whom it is addressed.”

Nasruddin’s wife overheard this. After the man left, she asked, “I didn’t understand—why didn’t you read it for the poor fellow? What if something was left out?”

He said, “Don’t rub salt in my wounds. Who was going to read it? What I wrote was sheer gibberish—just line after line of scrawl. I don’t even know what language it is. And that man seemed sharp; if I read it wrong, he’d catch me at once. He had me list things: first, second, third. I myself forgot what all he had dictated. Which was number one, which number two, which number three? Who can remember such a long saga? So I had to invent that trick: ‘This letter isn’t addressed to me; it’s addressed to someone else—only the addressee can read it. Otherwise it’s illegal.’”

Your book of life either remains empty—then where will meaning show itself? If you leave the field fallow, do you think flowers will bloom there? Some scrub and weeds may sprout by themselves—that is the nature of weeds: they come up on their own. But roses do not grow on their own, nor jasmine, nor champa; they have to be grown. One must work, create, practice. Yes, weeds sprout by themselves.

A man moved in next door to Nasruddin. He saw Nasruddin’s lawn—very green! Others’ lawns always look greener. Standing by the wall he said, “I’m new here; I have no experience with gardening. I’ve sown grass seed—good seed, expensive seed. It’s begun to sprout. But some useless weeds are sprouting too. How can I be sure what’s weed and what’s the real turf I sowed?”

Nasruddin said, “Very simple. Pull out both and throw them away. Whatever comes up again, that’s weed. What doesn’t, that was your turf.”

If you don’t cultivate anything in the book of your life, still something will grow—weeds. And you’ll hope roses will bloom! No fragrance will arise, no flowers will open, no bumblebees will hum, no butterflies will flutter, no birds will sing. Then you’ll say, “Life is meaningless.” As if life were given to you along with birth! With birth, only an opportunity is given. With birth, you receive land. Now prepare this ground—till it, remove the stones, dig out the roots of weeds, bring seeds. Sow the seeds of meditation! Sow the seeds of love! Sow the seeds of bliss! Then life will have significance, poetry, glory. Otherwise life will indeed feel futile.

Naresh, whose fault is it? Even if you write nothing in the book of life, mice and such will come and gnaw it. If you do not use life, it will rust. The edge of the sword will die. Your talent will be corroded by rust. And this is what’s happening—millions feel there is no meaning in life. But why? Not because life is a futile event. Life is an unparalleled opportunity!

The one life you gave— after all, I have lived it! Morning and evening, bitter, sharp, like boiling poison, whatever cup came my way I lifted it, and drank. I have lived one life.

I picked up embers, the flower of the heart burned, so many will-o’-the-wisps arose— and it was well, for when does this lamp of life ever glow without being lit? When does this incense stick, filled with fragrance, melt without burning?

So I denied nothing, whatever came I accepted with reverence. So costly—this, your grace alone— I have lived one life.

Whenever I went out, an unknown one walked beside me, always, like a shadow. At dusk that shadow shrank, he dissolved like the magic of painted clouds. Today I know, it was no one else— it was my own “I”—alas, he too is gone. I have lived one life.

You gave birth and hung death around my neck. On this long and desolate journey how many times she stood blocking my path. I smiled at her, extended my arms, thrust forward my ribcage, my naked chest. What else is this life but ruthless devotion to death?

So, O formless Friend-to-come! Welcome—thousand times, welcome! You gave me death; I offer you life—here, anything more? Speak, speak! Seeing life, death blushed and trembled— and this surrender, unforeseen, happened all at once. I have lived one life.

All dreams proved false, hopes were broken, yet laughter never quite left these lips. Now, as I go to settle the debt of breaths, one by one, I feel like weeping a little— to wash, with the Ganges-water of my eyes, the rough letters you have written.

Let me carry at least this solace with me: that the shroud you tore, you tore it right through— and I stitched it back. After all, I have lived one life.

People are somehow living—dragging life like a load, a burden. Where there could have been dance, there is only weight. Where flowers could have bloomed, there are only thorns—thornbush upon thornbush. Where sunlight could rise, lamps be lit, offerings be made—there is nothing: a cremation ground’s silence, a desolation, an emptiness. But whose fault is it?

God gives opportunity. Birth is not life; birth is only the chance to gain or to waste life. Death merely snatches away the chance. Those who use the opportunity—who come to know life, to recognize it; who earn life’s flowers, who taste life’s fragrance—death can take nothing from them.

That is why a Buddha embraces death in peace and silence. That is why Socrates departs laughing, smiling. No weeping, no beating of the breast, no regret, no penitence. No feeling in the heart of “If only a few more days had been given.” There is gratitude for the days that were given.

You say: “Life feels meaningless. What should I do?” Make it meaningful! It is not meaningless. If life can be meaningful for a Buddha, for a Krishna, for a Mahavira, why not for you? You too are born with the same capacity. God gives equal opportunity to all—God is a communist in that sense. Then each person is free to do as they wish.

There was an emperor with three sons. He grew old and wished to decide who should inherit the kingdom. All three were talented and brave; it was hard to choose the best. He consulted a fakir, who said, “Do this: take these flower seeds and give them to the three. Tell them you are going on a pilgrimage and will return after a year.” It is an old tale—pilgrimage was not so easy then: leave today, return tomorrow. It was a long journey. “Say to them: how you care for these seeds will decide who will rule my kingdom. Warn them this is an examination.”

The emperor gave them the seeds and left. The first son thought, “Keeping these seeds safe is risky—mice might eat them, thieves may steal them, they might rot. Better to sell them in the market; money is easier to safeguard. When Father returns, I’ll buy seeds and give them back to him. Seeds are seeds—what difference? He won’t know whether they are the same. I’ll buy seeds of the same flowers and hand them over.” He was shrewd, a business mind. He sold the seeds. They were rare and precious, fetched a good price. He thought, “Fine. When Father comes back, I’ll buy more.”

The second son thought, “I could sell them as the elder did. But what if, when Father comes, the market has no seeds? Who knows? Sometimes things are available, sometimes not. The very day he appears at the door, who knows what will be in stock? And these seeds are rare. The shopkeeper might say, ‘Wait fifteen days, a month, the season isn’t right yet.’ I would be trapped, defeated for nothing. Selling is risky.” He bought a strongbox, locked the seeds inside, and kept the key safe: “When Father comes, I’ll quickly open the safe and present the seeds.”

The third son also acted—he sowed the seeds. He said, “There is no better way to care for seeds. If I keep them in a safe they will rot. Selling them and later buying others would be deceiving Father. He said, ‘These very seeds.’ And he said, ‘Take care of them,’ not ‘Sell them and later buy more.’ And the very meaning of a seed is possibility. Make possibilities actual.” He planted them behind his palace.

When the father returned, the first son ran to the market. What had to happen happened. The shopkeeper said, “Brother, I don’t have seeds right now. The ones you sold are gone. When the new crop comes, then I can give you some.” He came back dejected, head bowed, and told the whole story. The father said, “You showed cleverness, but you missed.”

He asked the second son. He smiled and said, “I was clever beforehand—I wouldn’t fall into that trouble.” He quickly opened the safe. A terrible stench rose—the seeds had rotted. From which flowers could have bloomed, from which an incomparable fragrance could have arisen—there was only ash.

The father said, “These are seeds? This is ash. Are seeds to be kept in a safe? Madman! Are seeds banknotes? Banknotes are already dead—you can keep them anywhere. Do notes contain any possibility? They are corpses. Have you ever seen anything deader than money? If they were notes, a safe would do. But seeds? Do you store seeds in safes? They are not minted in man’s mint; God creates them. You do not lock them away. You have killed them—you have destroyed all possibility. Still, you did better than the first: at least the corpse remains, some ash remains.”

He asked the third, “What did you do?” He said, “Come with me.” He led him to the back—thousands of flowers were in bloom, and pods full of seeds. The seeds the father had given had multiplied a millionfold. What flowers! What fragrance! He said, “Here are your seeds.”

Naturally, the third son inherited the kingdom.

What are you doing with the seeds of life—are you sowing them, or locking them in a safe? Are you sowing them—or selling them in the marketplace? People are selling their souls and then say life is meaningless. And they sell their souls for rotten things! If offered a position, they are ready to sell their soul.

If someone said to you, “You can be president—will you give your soul?” you would say, “Brother, take as much as you like—just make me president now. Once I’m president, what will I do with a soul anyway?”

I’ve heard a politician underwent brain surgery. It was a major operation. The skull was opened, the brain taken out for cleaning—being a politician’s brain, it must have been very dirty; cleaning would take time. The surgeon was scrubbing away. The skull lay aside while he worked. Suddenly a man rushed in, flung the door open, and exclaimed, “What are you doing here? You’ve been chosen prime minister! Why are you lying here?” The politician jumped up and started to leave. The surgeon said, “Where are you going? At least take your brain with you!” He said, “What would I do with a brain now? I’m prime minister! You keep it safe—if ever I need it, I’ll see.”

Prime ministers have no need of brains. If one has a brain, becoming prime minister becomes very difficult—very difficult indeed.

People are ready to sell their souls—for a few coins! For money, for position, for prestige—they’ll sell anything. And then they say there is no meaning in life.

Naresh, meaning arises if you create it. The science of creating meaning in life is religion. If life came with built-in meaning, there would be no need for religion. The whole endeavor of religion is simply this: you are an uncarved stone—let it be carved; let the statue hidden within be revealed. You do not know how to dance—let dance be given to you. Your throat is out of tune—let it find melody. Your flute is not hollow—it is stuffed with ego—let it be freed of ego so that it becomes hollow and song can flow through it.

If life is meaningless, it means only one thing: there is no religion in your life. Forget worrying about meaning; concern yourself with religion. Meaning follows as a shadow. Where there is no religion, there is misfortune. Where there is no religion, today or tomorrow the question will stand before you in full force: What am I to do with life? Why drag it on pointlessly? Why go round and round like an ox tied to an oil-press? The same round! The same getting up in the morning, the same office, the same home, the same wife, the same quarrels, the same children, the same commotion! Then morning again, and the same circle turns; I am bound to the potter’s wheel and I keep revolving. Why live? What sense is there?

The great Western thinker Camus has written that, in his view, the biggest problem in human life is only one: Why should a man live at all? Suicide is the central philosophical problem. And Camus is right. If you do not bring meaning into life, then suicide is indeed the biggest problem—why not simply erase oneself?

Other Western thinkers move in the same direction. A hero in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov says to God: “Where are you? I want to meet you—not to worship you, not to pray for anything. I want to ask why you gave me life without asking me. What kind of harshness is this? What cruelty? You should have asked whether I even wanted to be. I want to meet you face to face so I can say: what injustice is this? And I want to return my ticket—please let me out! I don’t want life. I don’t want to live.”

Whoever only thinks will come to feel this way. Keep thinking and life will remain meaningless.

The first sutra of the art of religion is meditation—freedom from thinking. Resting in thoughtlessness. Abiding in silence. Awakening in the wordless. Sitting as the witness. Then suddenly lamps of meaning light up—lamp after lamp; it becomes a festival of lights. Right now your life is bankruptcy; then your life becomes a festival.

Give value to religion. Move into meditation.

You ask: “What should I do?” Meditate. Dive into meditation. Meaning will come. It came in my life; why would it not come in yours? I speak from my own experience. I am not speaking on someone else’s authority. I am not asking you to believe me. I am only inviting you—experiment.

You carry within you as much potential as any Krishna, Lao Tzu, or Zarathustra. The same great lotus will bloom within you—the thousand-petaled lotus. An extraordinary light is already within you.

But go within—then you will recognize it! If you keep wandering outside, you will not find it. The treasure is within, and you wander without. Your kingdom is within, and you search without. Hence the feeling of meaninglessness. Look a little within—just a little—and a revolution happens. And there is only one revolution in life: the inner revolution. All other revolutions are false, illusory, deceptions—self-deceptions.

Sheela! And you—what kind of bartender were you in America! Sure, there’s protein, and I’m no enemy of beer either. But “livva little hot, sippa Gold Spot” has a little rhyme—protein or no protein. It has rhyme, and it’s Italian too. Now “live a little hot, sip a cold beer”—it has neither rhyme nor Italian. And both are necessary. If you insist on forcing me, I’ll say: “kama litila near, sippa colda beer.”

Saint Maharaj! There is indeed a mystery.

The saint too is Punjabi. Even if not a complete Sardar, he is ninety-nine percent Sardar. There isn’t much difference between Punjabi and Sardar—about one percent. Just grow the beard and moustache a bit, let the hair grow, the five Ks... Not even any particularly special Ks—comb, hair, bracelet... once those five “K”s are in place, any Punjabi is a Sardar.

A Sardar isn’t some new caste or new community—he’s Punjabi, caught up in the five Ks. He has drawn a circle of the five Ks and is standing inside it.

And twelve o’clock, Saint Maharaj, does have significance. Twelve o’clock means nonduality—when the two “ones” become one. And where duality has gone, the intellect goes. What need of intellect then! Intellect is needed in this world of twoness. Where there is no duality, what use is intellect?

Twelve o’clock is a very symbolic matter. Likewise, when twelve strikes within you—when the two hands meet and become one: night and day one, life and death one, pleasure and pain one! This is exactly what Krishna explained to Arjuna: O Arjuna, attain equanimity! Do not see duality! In success and failure remain even-minded, be same-sighted. These are the marks of the sthitaprajna. In those days there were no clocks; otherwise he would have said it straight: it’s twelve o’clock. No need for such a long explanation. He would have put it briefly: Son, it’s twelve! Become a Sardar! And had he become a Sardar, what Krishna was trying to explain would have been accomplished. He would himself have started the cutting and slashing; he wouldn’t have paused to listen to Krishna’s entire Gita. He’d have said, Now wait—Gita and all that can come later. Our train is about to leave. And he’d be brandishing the kirpan. The kirpan is one of the five Ks too.

Now the fifth K slips my mind. It’s a bit of a dangerous K as well. Understand if you can. Hint given, grasp much. The fifth K means... think! If you search, you will find! “Those who seek, find; they dive into deep waters.”

There is no need to be annoyed at twelve o’clock; though Sardars do get annoyed, instantly annoyed. Twelve o’clock is a very lofty metaphysical point. But in Punjab the symbol of twelve o’clock is taken quite differently. When someone dies they say, “It’s struck twelve at his house.” So a Punjabi gets upset, a Sardar gets upset. It’s a symbol of mourning. Twelve has struck—meaning the wailing has begun, someone has become a resident of heaven.

Even then, there is no need for all that weeping; if someone has become a resident of heaven, why are you crying? Let him go—he’s becoming a heaven-dweller, not a hell-dweller.

But on the one hand we say so-and-so has become a “heaven-dweller,” and still we weep. Because we know perfectly well that they must have gone to hell; we say “heaven-dweller” because, well, what’s the point of speaking ill of the dead! Once someone’s gone, why speak ill of him!

People write to me, ask questions: Why are you not saying anything nowadays about Shri Morarji Desai?

What should I say? He’s “late,” gone beyond! Who beats the dead! Now the poor fellow—what can he do—he gives discourses on the Gita at the Vedanta Satsang Mandal in Bombay. He’s become a knower of the Gita’s essence. After dying, what all a man doesn’t become! A Gita-expert!

And I too once went to that Vedanta Mandal; I didn’t go a second time. Because there I discovered what Vedanta Mandal really means. Chamanlal here knows what Vedanta Mandal means, because his brother-in-law Harikishan Das Agrawal used to run it—he too has become “late.” Going there I realized that Vedanta means a place where people without teeth gather. Then I never went again. All the old decrepit folks together! Who shouldn’t still be around, but thanks to allopathy’s miracles they are—some ten or twenty-five such old fogies gather. That is called the Vedanta Satsang Mandal. Then I understood that I too had been a fool—not till then had I understood the meaning of Vedanta.

Now Morarji Desai gives discourses there. Or, if no other place is available, Acharya Tulsi runs a movement—the Anuvrat movement—so he gives lectures at Anuvrat gatherings. There some ten or twenty-five Marwaris get together to hear his talk on Anuvrat.

He’s gone, poor fellow! It isn’t proper to criticize the dead. Those who have gone have gone. It’s struck twelve!

Saint Maharaj, it won’t be long—the hands of the clock within you are also drawing near. The day the hands of the clock inside you draw near, then be careful: stop the clock right there. Don’t let the hands separate again.

Rahim says: Do not snap the thread of love with a jerk. Once broken, it will not join; if it does, a knot remains.

Once the two hands have come close, don’t let them move apart. Then grab the pendulum and hang on. Don’t let the clock move forward at all. That is the state of samadhi: the mind is still, time has stopped. Someone asked Jesus, What will be the most important thing in your Lord’s kingdom? He said: There shall be time no longer. There will be no time there.

Amazing! He put it in a downright sardari way. Meaning—the hands will stop completely. Union has happened; then there is no separation. What separation then? The devotee and the Divine have become one.

So you ask rightly whether there is some special mystery to twelve o’clock. Why wouldn’t there be! Here, everything has a mystery! And people ask all manner of questions.

Do you know what “Babaji” means? Ba-bazu—those who have gone from this side to the other side, and settled there—Babaji.

Growing a beard and hair does mean something. I’ve never cut mine; though I am no saint, nor do I wish to be one.

When I was at the university, I went to see my vice-chancellor. He was a very modern man—had traveled the world, had taught at Cambridge and Oxford, and held a D.Litt. from Cambridge—utterly up-to-date. He looked at my beard and mustache. And I wore a lungi even at the university, with a big, flowing robe, and wooden clogs that could be heard from half a mile away so people would know I was coming! Then folks could prepare themselves: “Babaji is on the way!” Those who needed to be afraid could be afraid, those who needed to run could run, and those who needed to make arrangements could make them.

I had gone to ask him for a scholarship. He said, “We’ll talk about the scholarship later; first I want to ask why you’ve grown your hair and beard.”

The head of my department, my professor—who loved me very much—had come along to recommend me. On the way he’d kept advising me, “Look, don’t get into any argument. I’m telling you again and again—no debates. You’re here for the scholarship. You’ll get it; I’ve spoken to him, he’s agreed, there’s no obstacle. But if you start an argument, it will create trouble. Don’t argue with him the way you argue with me.”

I kept listening. I said, “If I’m not to argue with him, I won’t argue with you either. I’ll keep completely quiet. But let me also say this: if he brings up some fundamental question, then to hell with the scholarship, whether I get it or not.” And he brought up exactly such a question. Just seeing me he said, “Everything else is fine, but why have you grown your beard and mustache?”

My professor, sitting next to me, began nudging my leg with his leg—“Quiet!”

I said to the vice-chancellor, “Before I speak with you, please tell my professor not to kick my leg.”

My professor panicked—he broke into a sweat. I said, “Why are you sweating? It’s my scholarship that’s at stake—let it go!”

The vice-chancellor was puzzled: “What’s going on here?”

He asked, “Why are you kicking his leg?”

I said, “He’s been counseling me all the way that if I argue, the scholarship will be lost. I told him that if you raise a fundamental point, an argument will happen. And you’ve raised a fundamental point! Now he’s kicking my leg. Should I worry about the scholarship or defend myself? You tell me.”

He said, “Forget the worry; you can argue. The scholarship isn’t going anywhere.”

I said, “Settle the scholarship first, otherwise he’ll keep kicking my leg.”

It was so clear that he signed my scholarship form first: “That’s done. Now speak.”

I said, “Let me ask you: have you cut your hair and beard, or have I grown them? They grow by themselves. Why did you cut them?”

He said, “It’s true—I’m the one who cut them.”

I said, “Then you’re asking me upside down—the thief scolding the constable! I haven’t ‘grown’ anything; they grew. I simply haven’t cut them. Because I’ve never been able to decide how to cut what God is growing. Next you’ll be telling me, ‘Why not cut off your fingers? Why not cut off a leg?’ Where does one stop cutting? Why did you cut?”

He said, “Give me a little time to think.”

“How much time?” I asked. “The scholarship matter is settled, but I’m not going to drop this. I’ll come every day. You think it over daily; I’ll knock on your door at exactly eleven. In fact, no need to knock—my clogs announce me from half a mile.”

I started going every day. The moment he saw me he’d say, “Brother, I still haven’t thought it through.” On the fourth day he said, “Will you let me sleep or not? I toss and turn all night wondering what answer to give. I did cut them—this is true. The fault, whatever it is, is mine. And I’m the one who asked the question.”

I asked him, “Think a bit: if a woman grew a beard and mustache, what would you call her?”

He said, “We’d call her mad.”

“So,” I said, “if a man shaves off his beard and mustache, what will you call him? The poor woman is ‘mad’ because she grew them! Tell me this: if a woman grew a beard and mustache, would anyone marry her?”

He said, “Brother, it would be difficult for anyone to marry her.”

I asked, “Would you marry her?”

He said, “Certainly not. Who would marry a bearded, mustachioed woman!”

“So the woman who married you,” I said, “should be utterly ashamed. She married a beardless, mustache-less man! What kind of justice is this? What double standard!”

On the fifth day he said, “I fold my hands. I had more questions to ask—about your clogs, this robe, the lungi—but I won’t ask anything. I give up! I withdraw my question. And now I understand why your professor was kicking your leg. He should have been kicking mine! He needed to warn me, not you.”

For two years after that we were in contact, and he never raised such questions again. Even if he saw me doing something a university graduate supposedly shouldn’t do—even if I arrived riding a camel—he couldn’t ask, “Why are you on a camel?” Who knows what might come out of it; better not to stir that hornet’s nest!

You ask, Amarnath Singh, why saints keep their hair and beard long?

Saints are simple, natural people. They let what God does be; they don’t interfere—sitting with a razor in hand, obstructing nature. They accept what God is doing, effortlessly. And this is a mark of the male body; it’s entirely natural. To sit clean-shaven is sheer foolishness. It doesn’t suit you; it takes something away from your manliness.

The more difference there is between your face and a woman’s face, the better—the more distinction, the more the attraction. But there are reasons why men began shaving. A man finds a woman’s face beautiful, so he thought, “If I make my face like that, I’ll be beautiful.” That’s a mistake. Ask women which face they find beautiful! Do women find women’s faces beautiful? Women are puzzled that men swoon over women—why? Women find men’s faces beautiful.

And you must have noticed: with a beard and mustache, a man’s face gains a certain dignity, fullness, a presence. Without them, something is lost; a certain emptiness appears, a kind of hollowness.

In a better world, when people live naturally, it will be entirely natural to grow beards and mustaches. Don’t try to look for some spiritual mystery in this. Yet people are always trying to find a spiritual secret in everything.

Sushila! Pativrata means: the one who gets the husband to take all kinds of vows. “Today is Monday, today is Ekadashi, Paryushan has come—keep a fast!” The meaning is clear: she keeps after the husband—get up at brahmamuhurta, now go for a walk, don’t smoke, don’t drink tea, don’t play cards, don’t go to the cinema, don’t do this, don’t do that—she’s always on his back; she is busy reforming him; she will turn him into a man of vows—that is called pativrata. It’s a plain, simple word! What spirituality are you trying to dig out of it, Sushila?

In a school a teacher asked: Your father earns two hundred rupees. If he gives a hundred to your mother, tell me, what will he be left with? Student: Nothing. Teacher: Why? Student: The other hundred my mother will take on her own. No need for him to give it.

A politician was being tormented by his wife’s lecture—she kept on and on. When he said, “Now be quiet,” she got even more inflamed, as if someone had poured ghee on the fire! She said: You give speeches all day and no one objects. And if I say a little, you immediately say, “Be quiet!” The politician said: When I speak, my shouting gets divided among thousands of ears, so people tolerate it. But your speech I alone have to listen to.

Every husband is listening to a speech.

Mulla Nasruddin was stopped by a policeman at three in the morning: Where are you going? He said: To listen to a sermon. The cop said: Are you in your senses? At three in the night where is a sermon happening? Yes, in Koregaon Park it happens, but at eight in the morning. Three at night? He said: You didn’t understand—I’m going home. And not just three; whether I go at four or five, my wife will be sitting there. Until she gives me a sermon, neither will she sleep nor let me sleep. I’m just getting ready. I have to sit like a listener and hear what she has to say—though it’ll be the same things she has said many times before.

Men have enslaved women and snatched away all their freedom. And women are paying back very well. They had only one means left: to harass the man in the name of religion. And he has no way out. In everything else the man sits like the master; only one sphere remained in women’s hands—religion, vows, rules, morality, conduct. Only in these do they have leverage.

They themselves don’t even have the “freedom” to lose conduct—go gambling, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes. Men kept all those “freedoms” for themselves and locked women in the house. But they are also reaping the fruit, for centuries: as much fun as the man has smoking, drinking, gambling, the women make sure he tastes some fun too—once he gets home. The truth is, if women stopped making them taste that fun, there would be an immediate shortage of mahatmas in the world. It’s women who harass so much that one day the man thinks, “Now it’s better to become a saint. If I’m going to be a saint anyway, why do a clerk’s job!”

A Catholic girl fell in love with a Protestant boy. Her father said: Everything else is fine—the boy is okay, good family, cultured, educated—but he isn’t Catholic. First get him to accept the Catholic faith. Slowly teach him your religion. When he becomes Catholic, I’ll approve the marriage. Every month the girl began to report progress: It’s working. Now he has started going to the Catholic church, listening to the Catholic priest. Now he’s doing this too, that too. Now he has begun to read Catholic scriptures, to observe Catholic rules and vows. Month after month—success. The girl was delighted that it wouldn’t be long… Then one day she came, tears streaming, sobbing. The father asked: What happened? She said: I reformed him too much. Now he says he wants to become a Catholic priest. He doesn’t want to marry at all. I asked him: Why? He said: If before marriage you’ve reformed me this much, what will you do after? Better I become a priest.

These mahatmas you see—they are runaway husbands. Their wives reformed them so well, carried out the pativratā-dharma so thoroughly, made them keep such vows, such headstands, made such a mess of them, that they thought, “Better to become a saint—at least I’ll be worshiped.” Their wives worshiped them—worshiped them in the real sense, in another sense—so they thought, “Better to become a saint.”

If women stopped reforming their husbands, I tell you: the numbers of priests, pundits, mahatmas, sadhus would drop at once. Women sustain religion in two ways. First they harass people so much in the name of being religious that one has to become religious—for self-defense if nothing else. And when they do become religious, then women serve them, wash their feet, drink the water of their foot-washing. In every way the honors due to a mahatma—women bestow them. Men don’t. Men know: Arrey, this one’s a deserter! We too are being harassed, but we stuck it out; this brother ran away! We know why he ran. But we have stayed.

Women first chase them away, then worship them. In this way women keep religion running from both ends. This so-called hollow religion is run by women. And besides the temple and mosque they have nowhere else to go. They can’t go to clubs. Sitting in hotels goes against their modesty. Going to watch a football match doesn’t quite suit “respectability.” What should they do? The only place for them to escape to is the temple—Satyanarayan katha! And there the katha is not Satyanarayan at all; something else is going on.

A Satyanarayan katha was in progress; two friends were chatting. One said: That neighbor is forever bad-mouthing her husband to others—how awful! You should never speak ill of your husband. Just look at me—my husband is such a good-for-nothing, yet how peacefully I put up with it. Do I ever bad-mouth him to anyone?

Once I went to speak on Krishna’s birthday—just by mistake. The organizers insisted so much that I said, All right, I’ll come—just to put them off. But they were persistent; they arrived an hour early and sat there, so I had to go. And what I saw there—indeed it was “Krishna’s birthday” being celebrated! The speaker before me was a big leader, the Speaker of the Madhya Pradesh assembly. The crowd was almost all women. A few men—the sort who come to jostle about, because at such places women gather, so a little pushing and shoving! Men go to religious events for that—an opportunity presents itself. A few loafers were there; the rest were women. And what astonishing work the women were doing! The speaker was talking, and they had their backs to him, gossiping—backs turned! Groups formed everywhere, little clusters!

I said to the organizers, hands folded: Let me go. This is beyond me. These are politicians—they can talk; they don’t care. They don’t care what they are saying, they don’t care whether anyone is listening or not. They care that tomorrow a photo will appear in the newspaper—finished. But I cannot speak. It’s impossible for me. There’s no one here to listen.

In temples women are discussing jewelry, saris; running down their husbands; praising their children. Everyone’s son is a great hero—full reports are being given.

And Sushila, you ask me what pativratā means? And that the scriptures extol Sati Sakkubai, Sati Anasuya, Sati Savitri and their greatness.

Those scriptures were written by men. They made much of saying that women should be virtuous, chaste, “sati”; they said nothing about men—that they should be “sata”! Women were told: If your husband dies, you should die—this is the measure of love. But no husband was told: You too die after your wife. At least one “sata” should have existed! They stage grand tableaux of sati-heroines; why not one for some “sata” too! At least one blockhead could have fallen into the pyre—even by mistake! But no—five thousand years of history and not a single fool did it. Poor women got trapped in the hands of these scriptural pundits. These are men’s scriptures—why wouldn’t they praise women who are ready to die for men! And men arranged it thus: If we live, you live. If we die, we suspect that after our death you might marry someone else. You are our property! You should end along with us. What right does property have to remain alive after the owner is gone?

“Husband” itself means master. Woman is called dasi, a maid. And husband? He is malik, swami. Even the word for President, rashtrapati, is not good; it should be changed. If a woman becomes President, will you call her rashtrapatni? There will be an uproar. The word is not right. Sabhapati (chairman)! If a woman is seated there, will you call her sabhapatni? No—you can’t use patni (wife), because patni carries no sense of ownership. If you say sabhapatni it becomes “the assembly’s wife”—which sounds like a prostitute. But sabhapati is fine, because men have always done this and taught women: We are men; we have all kinds of freedom. Your glory lies in surrender. You drown yourself. All your life burn yourself, and if we die, die with us.

A man has the right to keep not one but many women. Muslims may keep four wives. Mohammed himself had nine marriages. But Mohammed is nothing—Krishna had sixteen thousand women! Where does poor Mohammed figure in that comparison! You can’t even compare—sixteen thousand!

What a man does is fine—this has been a man’s world until now. It should not remain so. Women and men have equal rights. Both should have equality in every way. There is no need for pativratā, and no need for patnivrata either. Enough abuse has happened under the cover of these words.

Love! Live in love! And whatever arises naturally from love, that is auspicious. But conduct should not be imposed from above. Sushila, be a little cautious of men’s scriptures. Women have written none—they weren’t even allowed to write. If they weren’t allowed to read, how would they be allowed to write! It was forbidden to women to read the Vedas, forbidden to read the Quran. If they are not allowed to read, writing doesn’t even arise.

Now break all these nets; drop this madness. Do love, certainly—but love rests on equality and love rests on freedom. Love is not slavery. Love is not itself a slave, nor does it make the other a slave. Love is free in itself and sets the other free. Love is liberating. Love is moksha.

That’s all for today.