Ramnam Janyo Nahin #4

Premmurti, this question is indeed very worth pondering. There is much hidden in it that is not immediately visible. The basic assumption at its root has covered religion for centuries. And because of that very assumption, religion has not truly happened on the earth.

Whoever uttered this statement has no sense of life’s fundamental foundations. It is a contradictory statement. The road to hell is paved with such pronouncements. But because we have heard these ideas for ages, our ears have grown numb. We have stopped thinking about them. We are hypnotized. A kind of trance has gripped humankind.

Adolf Hitler says in his autobiography that the only difference he saw between a lie and the truth is this: a lie, if repeated over and over, becomes the truth; and the truth, when spoken for the first time, appears to be a lie. Hitler may not be a hundred percent right, but he is ninety-nine percent right. Repetition lends even the falsest statement the feel of truth.

Consider this very aphorism: “Erase your very self if you desire rank.”

Think about it a little. If you desire rank, erase your self. But why do you desire rank? For whom do you desire it? What is this “rank”? A new name for the ego! On the one hand you are told, “Erase your self,” and on the other, the temptation is dangled—at once—“if you desire rank.” Anyone who agrees to erase his self will do so only because he desires rank.

Will the self be erased like this? Is this the way to erase the self? This is, in fact, a way to preserve the self. It is a way to grant it more rank. It is to enthrone the self, not crucify it. It is to deck the self with new ornaments, new finery… to turn the self into a bride. But we do not see it, because such things have been repeated endlessly.

Many of Jesus’ sayings are like this. Jesus said: Blessed are the poor, for in the kingdom of God they shall be owners of great wealth. So become poor, that you may have great wealth in the kingdom of God! Jesus says: Blessed are the meek, for they shall be honored in the kingdom of God. If you want honor—and not ordinary honor, you want honor from God, honor in the kingdom of the Lord—then become meek. Jesus says: The last in this world shall be the first in my Father’s kingdom. So become last, if you long to be first.

Understand this contradiction properly. It is this very contradiction that for centuries has entangled man in a conflict—a conflict that has torn him into fragments. Because it is contradictory, it will inevitably divide you. On one side you will start trying to become humble; on the other you will feed the ambition: “Not long now—if there is a delay, it is not injustice. Just a few days more. Life is not very long in any case. Then for all eternity there will be rank, honor, welcome in the kingdom of God. So put up with a little poverty, practice a little renunciation, wrap yourself in the cloak of humility.”

But behind this cloak of humility, who is playing the game? The same ego. That is why, generally, ordinary people are not as egoistic as your so‑called rishis, monks, sadhus, saints, and mahatmas. An ordinary person’s ego is ordinary. He may build a house, earn a little profit, buy some fine clothes—such small foundations cannot support a grand ego; they are too small. And a house is not yours alone; millions have houses. However precious your clothes, millions wear the same. Such an ego cannot be very big.

But the ego of saints is otherworldly; it is not concerned with this world. It comes through great austerities, harsh disciplines, by being very unnatural and distorted. Naturally, it is bigger and more dangerous.

Your ego is like a cold; theirs is like cancer. But a cold is visible, while cancer is hidden deep within; only a skilled physician can detect it. A cold hardly needs treatment—people joke that if you take medicine you’ll be fine in seven days, and if you don’t, you’ll be fine in a week. The ailment is so small that medicine or no medicine makes little difference!

The deeper the disease, the more hidden, the more unmanifest, the harder it is. And when anger dons the cloak of compassion, what then? How will you spot it? Then you need a very sharp eye. Ordinary people are bound to be deceived. And ordinary people have been deceived for centuries. Those you worshiped, you never recognized. You did not worship them; you worshiped their show, their hypocrisy. You worshiped the screen they had erected around themselves. You never even became acquainted with the person behind the screen.

If only you could peer into the innermost of your saints, you would be shocked. Your criminals would turn out to be far more innocent. Your sinners would be found far more simple-hearted and natural. Saints become very crooked. Their greatest crookedness is that their outward conduct is the reverse of what they are within. Conduct is visible; the soul is not. The soul remains hidden.

And this is why my words seem so difficult; because I do not fall for veils. I believe in pulling veils aside. I want to lift the curtain. Behind the curtains, very ugly faces are hiding. Have you noticed, if a woman passes veiled along the road, everyone who sees her imagines there must be untold beauty hidden behind the veil! In my view, veils were invented by plain women. A beautiful woman has no need of a veil. However beautiful a woman is, once you see her without a veil, the matter is finished. The veil creates mystery.

And your saints’ veils are very long. Though Meera cries, “Lift the veil,” they do not. They keep lengthening it.

You ask, Premmurti—

“Erase your very self if you desire rank,
for the seed, mingling with dust, turns into flowers and gardens.”

That very desire for rank will not let you be erased; it is the obstacle itself. That longing to become flowers-and-gardens—how will it allow you to dissolve? Dissolution is possible only when there is no motive behind it. As long as there is a motive, there is a hindrance.

In the office of the principal of the school where I studied, a maxim hung on a big plaque. The first time I entered his office I requested him to remove it.

He was startled. He said everyone who saw that plaque liked it. What objection could I have?

I said, “This plaque is the foundation of hypocrisy.”

He said, “What are you saying! Such a lovely maxim!”

It was a saying of Vivekananda: “If you desire respect, learn humility.”

I asked him, “One who desires respect—how can he learn humility? And if he does, it will be only on the surface. The desire will remain within: now let respect come; why has it not come yet?”

I said, “Please remove this plaque.”

Such plaques have become our foundation stones. The entire stench of our lives is filled with such contradictory statements.

One must dissolve, Premmurti; but not because you will get rank by dissolving. Dissolve because what you currently take yourself to be is not what you are. Dissolve so that what you are not disappears, and what you are becomes manifest. There is no talk of rank. No question of honor and respect. “The right to the kingdom of heaven”—all these are lures. Ego is your delusion.

Do you think that when, in the twilight, on a dim path, you mistake a rope for a snake, and I say to you, “It’s not a snake, it’s a rope; here, take this lamp and see,” then on seeing it is a rope and not a snake, you will receive a great rank? Great honor? A special place in the kingdom of heaven? When you die and reach heaven, do you think Bismillah Khan will play the shehnai—“Welcome, welcome!”—gods will dance? What rank is there in seeing that a rope is a rope? Only stupidity is gone. A delusion has broken—that’s all.

On the night Jesus was arrested, the last thing his so‑called disciples asked him is worth pondering. Crude—and revealing that a gathering of fools had formed around Jesus. And why they had gathered also becomes clear from their question. They had gathered hearing these very sayings of Jesus: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, for they shall be rich; the last shall be first. Those who could not be first here must have thought, “This is a chance not to be missed. Here, being first is difficult, a rough competition—a throat-cutting competition. Not easy at all. Here, whatever little rank there is, you might lose even that. Here, you can’t even watch the spectacle without a hundred beatings. It takes wrestling, pushing, grappling.”

Just look at politicians! One pulls a leg, another an arm; someone runs off with the cap, someone strips the jacket.

That is why politicians wear churidar pajamas—everything else may be snatched, but at least their pajamas cannot be pulled off. To remove a churidar you need two wrestlers, and time. By then they can raise an alarm. The churidar was chosen with great cunning. But even if the churidar won’t come off, people still run away with the drawstring.

Ask those seated on the chair of power how they must grip it; they have to hold the chair, cling to it. A chair is not a place to sit—it is a place to grab. Where is the leisure to sit? Nod off for a moment and it’s gone. People all around are waiting for you to blink so they can shove you. Whoever sits got there by shoving someone else down. This is wrestling.

So naturally those who saw there is no way here… Who were Jesus’ followers? Fishermen, carpenters—uneducated, ordinary folk. They thought: do not miss this chance. Here we are last anyway; what further lastness is left? Why miss the chance—we’ll be first there. This came out on the last night.

Just imagine: the master is departing, and the disciples ask such tasteless things! Jesus asked if there was anything to ask—just as Buddha asked his disciples at the moment of final departure: “This is the last sunrise I will see. After this I shall not see the sun rise again. If you wish to ask anything, ask now.”

But Buddha had extraordinary people. He is important in human history for this very reason—his assembly was unprecedented. Not a single question arose. A silence fell. People said, “You have answered even those questions we never dreamed to ask. We have become questionless. Our minds and their tangles ended long ago. No problem remains. Do not worry. Depart in peace. We are fulfilled.”

That is one scene.

In Jesus’ case, he is about to be arrested; word has come the enemy approaches. Flames of torches are visible on the nearby road. Men are coming at midnight to capture Jesus. So Jesus asks, “Anything to ask? Perhaps we will not meet again.”

Can you imagine what the disciples asked?

They asked one thing: “In the kingdom of God, surely you will stand at God’s right hand. In God’s kingdom, God will be first, you number two. But among us, who will be number three? Who number four?” There were twelve disciples. “Tell us our positions here and now—then whether we meet again or not!”

How did such questions arise? And I will not say only the disciples were responsible. Jesus too bears responsibility, because all his life he taught people: if you are last here, you will be first there; if you are poor here, you will be rich there; if you are meek here, you will gain rank there. So I cannot say only the disciples are to blame. Jesus is more responsible.

The whole thing is futile. It is the same greed, the same lust—in a new dimension, but with no real difference. Greed is greed whether for wealth here, or wealth there; whether you hoard here, or hoard merit for the hereafter.

I was in Delhi. Jugal Kishore Birla wanted to meet me. I was not particularly eager, but my host, Seth Govinddas—an old Gandhian, close to Jugal Kishore—insisted that it would not be right to refuse. “He is elderly and himself eager to meet—what harm is there?” I said, “All right.”

Jugal Kishore Birla asked me: “I have built so many temples, dharmashalas, done so much charity—what fruit will I receive in the next world?”

I said, “Greed here, greed there! A Marwari here, a Marwari there too! Even after dying you will continue the same business? Is that why you built temples? Then they are not temples. Is that why you built dharmashalas? Then they are not dharmashalas. This is a kind of bribe. A deal. Straight business. Inside the intention is to recover the principal, and to receive compounded interest.”

I said, “You will receive nothing from that. In fact, I doubt you can even go to heaven. If you do go, it will not be because of your temples and dharmashalas and so‑called good deeds. If you go, it will be because of the Ambassador car you manufactured.”

He said, “What do you mean? What has the Ambassador to do with it?”

I said, “It does. Whoever sits in an Ambassador must chant ‘Ram Ram’ throughout the journey—the bumps never end. So many people you have made chant the Lord’s name—‘Ram naam satya hai!’ Even if they never knew Ram, you made them chant him. You created this miracle of a car in which every part makes noise except the horn! For this marvel you might reach heaven—otherwise I see no reason.”

I said, “Truly speaking, there is no heaven and no hell. These are inventions of priests. They pour fuel into the fire of your craving. Priests know well that two things matter most inside you—greed and fear. If man is to be exploited, it can be done only on the basis of these two. Frighten him—show him hell; entice him—show him heaven.”

But he listened without interest. How could he be interested? He said, “Then all those temples have gone to waste?”

I said, “Completely wasted.”

He said, “You are a strange man. So many sadhus and saints I have asked the same question—everyone said, ‘No, you have done great deeds!’”

I said, “They are not saints. They are accomplices and beneficiaries of the long deception and conspiracy—doing double duty: squeezing the rich in the name of charity and consoling the poor: don’t worry, your poverty will bring great fruit; you are ‘daridranarayan’—God as the poor.”

Here is the great joke. Gandhi’s greatest disciple was Jamnalal Bajaj. He moved Gandhi from Sabarmati to Sevagram, Wardha. He built Gandhi’s ashram, provided the funds. Gandhi considered him a son. And when he built a temple—one must build a temple, otherwise how will you go to heaven?—he named it “Laxmi-Narayan Temple.”

I was a guest at their home. Jamnalal had passed on, but his wife, Jankidevi Bajaj, was alive. I asked her: “He was a great devotee of Gandhi—so much so that Gandhi called him his son. And Gandhi spent a lifetime spouting the nonsense of ‘daridranarayan’—God in the poor. At least the temple should have been named ‘Daridranarayan Temple.’ ‘Laxmi-Narayan Temple’—is this appropriate? Neither Gandhi nor Vinoba objected. All supported a Laxmi-Narayan temple!”

This so‑called fraternity of priests and saints is very clever. To the rich they say “Laxmi-Narayan”—to the poor, “Daridra-Narayan.” To the rich they say, “Your wealth is due to past merits.” To the poor they say, “Don’t worry; bear poverty with peace and contentment; ahead, a great rank awaits.”

That is why no revolution has happened in this country in five thousand years. How could it? The poor are consoled, “In heaven you will be first—don’t worry.” He sits waiting for heaven—for tomorrow, which never comes. Tomorrow is an outright lie.

Premmurti, first of all—do not desire rank. What will you do with rank? What does “rank” mean? That others will honor you! Why do we seek respect from others? Because we feel an inferiority complex within.

This psychology must be understood clearly. The person who feels inferiority within seeks respect from others so that somehow the inner pit may be filled. But it never fills, because how can outer respect fill an inner hole? There is no way to fill it that way. Outer wealth cannot remove inner poverty. Neither outer fame nor outer status can bring any inner transformation. The inner and the outer worlds spread in opposite dimensions.

That is why those who run after outer wealth do so for one reason—they feel impoverished inside. How to deny this inner poverty? Pile up wealth outside; prove to the world, “I am not poor.” That is possible—you can prove to the world you are not poor. But will you become inwardly rich? Wealth is outside; it will remain outside. Within, as empty as you were—perhaps you will feel even more empty, because against the backdrop of outer wealth, by comparison…

And comparison is very important in life; things appear small or large in relation.

There is a famous story. One day Akbar drew a line in court and said to his courtiers, “Make it smaller without touching it.” None could. The simple arithmetic was: touch it and erase a part—half the line gone, now it is shorter. But do not touch the line—and make it smaller. Finally Birbal stood up and drew a longer line beneath it. He did not touch the original line and it became smaller.

Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity; Birbal applied it by drawing a bigger line near a small line.

When a mountain of money rises around you—Mount Kailash of wealth—then your inner poverty will hurt you more. Against the mountains outside, the canyon within will seem even deeper.

Respect can be obtained outside, honor can be gained—cheap stuff. Just fulfill people’s expectations. It is not very costly. Countless fools do it. In truth, intelligence is hardly required. If people say “fast,” then fast. If they say “stand on your head,” then stand on your head. Respect will begin to flow.

I passed through a village. People said, “What a coincidence—Khade Shri Baba is also in the village today.”

I asked, “What is his specialty?”

They said, “Specialty! He has been standing for years.”

I asked, “Any other specialty?”

“What are you saying?” they replied. “Is it not enough that he only stands, never sits!”

At night he would stand on crutches, holding a rope tied to the rafters. Two men would hold him so he would not fall.

When I passed the spot where he stood, I saw that even if he wished, he could no longer sit: his legs were swollen like an elephant’s. The body above had dried up, as it must. All the blood had collected in the legs. I saw his pitiful state—eyes lifeless, face corpse-like; only the legs remained alive. And the respect continued! Crowds to touch his feet, to offer flowers. Money and jewelry being piled up.

Does standing require intelligence? Does standing on one’s head require intelligence? Do yogasanas require intelligence? The less intelligence, the easier these things are. A wise man might hesitate. A fool will do them quickly.

Rank can be obtained, honor can be gained, the ego can be well-nourished—just fulfill society’s foolish expectations. But your inner inferiority will not disappear. It will remain.

Inner inferiority dissolves only by going inward. That inner emptiness is not to be filled, because that emptiness is your very nature. Recognize it. In that emptiness all secrets are hidden. That emptiness is meditation. The realization of that emptiness is samadhi.

You do not have to be annihilated; you have to know that what you take yourself to be is not you. In this very knowing, the dissolution happens. And then the question of rank does not arise. The experience of truth is sufficient. It brings supreme contentment. But do not set out with motives beforehand—

“Erase your very self if you desire rank.”

“If you desire rank!” There’s the mistake. Even if you try to erase your self, within you will still desire rank—erasing only for the sake of rank. How will you erase? Everything will become false.

I say: recognize your “self”; then what is not will disappear and what is will be revealed. And when what is becomes manifest, only then does the real spring arrive.

“As the seed, mingling with dust, becomes flowers and gardens.”

Surely, when a seed merges with soil it sprouts; only then do blossoms appear, leaves unfurl, fruits come. But keep one thing in mind: your life is very different from that of the seed and the tree. Within you, it is not the seed that has to die. Your ego is not your seed; it is only a mistake, an appearance—like seeing a snake in a rope.

In my village there was a Kabirpanthi mahant—Sahabdas. Since Shankaracharya, sadhus have used this symbol a lot—the snake in the rope. “This world is maya,” they say. Sahabdas-ji constantly explained that the world is maya—just like a snake in a rope.

I heard him a lot. I was his special listener because he said such foolish things! I would ask him such questions, and he was ready to answer everything. He would prove that everything originated in the Vedas—things you couldn’t imagine. I once asked him where the origin of the railway was in the Vedas. After days of searching he said, “It is in the Vedas; it is written that God created all ‘sliding’ things. A train is a sliding thing.” He was a great sleuth! Everything must be in the Vedas.

Listening to his chatter that the world is maya… and watching his life. He was mahant of a big Kabirpanthi monastery, with a large orchard. I would often sneak in to steal fruit. One day he caught me. I said, “All maya, Sahabdas-ji! Like the snake in the rope. Where is fruit? Where are trees? Where am I? Where are you?”

He said, “Do not talk of such knowledge here.”

I said, “I only learned it from you.”

I used to bathe in his well; this angered him greatly. He loved that well—quite large and not very deep, so you could dive straight in. He had fixed iron ladders for cleaning; returning was easy. One day he caught me in the well. He brought a bamboo stick and started to beat me.

I said, “Sahabdas-ji, have you forgotten? The world is all maya! Maya well, maya water, maya me.”

He said, “Today I will set you right. I will not let you out.” He told a disciple to fetch my father—my father was his friend—“Because today I have caught him red-handed. He is ruining my well.”

I said, “You may send him, that’s fine—but I urgently need to pee. If I have to remain in the well one more second, I give you no guarantee. Stop that man, or you will regret it.”

They quickly pulled me out and said, “Brother, forgive us. At least stop doing this. We drink this water.”

I said, “What difference does it make? All is maya.”

Having heard him on and on—“the world is snake in a rope”… He used to pass by my lane—my house was next to the monastery. Every evening after his discourse he would pass. I thought I should conduct an experiment. If he says this, he must have at least that much awareness. In the market a man was selling paper snakes; I bought one, tied it to a thin thread, and hid inside my house.

He came by at about nine in the night. I began to draw the snake along slowly. As soon as he saw the snake—how he ran! In panic he fell and fractured a bone.

I was caught. But I said it was not my fault. He teaches daily that the world is like a snake in a rope; I thought at least he would have enough awareness not to be deceived by a fake snake. He was deceived by a fake snake! If he broke his bone, how is that my responsibility? I was only moving a fake snake. It was a coincidence he passed at that moment; I had not set it for him. At least he should have proved his teaching by passing fearlessly. Why did he run? Why did he panic?

That was the last day he used the metaphor of snake and rope. At least when I was present, he stopped. If I saw him about to begin, I would raise my hand: “Be careful—I will expose the whole story.”

The relationship between a human being and the opening of his thousand-petaled lotus is not exactly like that between seed and tree. The seed is a reality, a truth; but man’s ego is utterly unreal, untrue.

I say to you, the world is true. I do not say the world is maya. Such foolish talk has distorted your life. The world is perfectly true. If anything is untrue, it is your ego. Ego is only an appearance.

Therefore, there is nothing to “erase,” Premmurti—only to see. The moment you see, it dissolves. Simply light the inner lamp of attention. When the lamp of meditation is lit, the ego departs. Then spring arrives. Flowers bloom. Life fills with fragrance.

I do not tell you to erase the ego. Because whenever you are told to erase something, you will ask, “Why?” There must be a motive. To undertake the labor of erasing—what you built and decorated all your life—you will demand a reason. Your religious leaders supply one: “You will get rank; you will get the kingdom of heaven; you will enjoy the fruits of merit.” A motive becomes necessary.

I do not tell you to erase. Even in talking of erasing, you have accepted that the ego is real. And how can the truth be erased? In speaking of erasing, you have already granted the ego the status of a fact to be removed. Your very acceptance strengthens it. The more you try to erase, the stronger it becomes—because your fundamental misunderstanding remains.

That is why you will see the so‑called humble always saying, “We are the dust of your feet.” Look at their faces. They say “dust of your feet,” but read their noses—ego is written there. They say it precisely to gain rank. Their intentions are different from their words.

These poses of humility are defenses of the ego. They are beautification of a lie, adding more color to it.

No, I do not tell you to erase. Erasing becomes relevant only when something exists. Ego does not.

Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor Wu, “I am tormented by ego. I have tried countless ways to erase it; it does not go. I was waiting for you. Now you have come, traveling from India to China. I have heard sweet tales about you. Can you erase my ego? I have given up—I have done whatever I could; I practiced whatever disciplines I was told to. But I find the ego survives; it hides somewhere in a corner; it returns again, slips in through the back door. Throw it out here, it comes in there. Close the doors, it comes through the windows. Close the windows, it enters through the cracks. It always comes. I give up.”

At least one thing Wu said correctly. He was honest. He had the discernment to see that his methods of erasing were futile. All his practices had proved fruitless.

Bodhidharma said, “Then do this—what you could not erase, I will erase. Come at three in the morning to the hill where I stay. But come alone.”

Emperor Wu said, “All right.”

And as he was descending the stairs of the monastery where Bodhidharma was staying, Bodhidharma shouted after him, “One more thing: be sure to bring your ego with you, otherwise how will I finish it? Don’t leave your ego at home! ‘Come alone’ doesn’t mean leave your ego at home. It only means don’t bring the crowd—courtiers, flatterers, sycophants. Come alone. But be sure to bring the ego; do not forget—because only if you bring it can I end it.”

Emperor Wu was a little perplexed—is this man sane or deranged? He looked extraordinary. His aura, his radiance, the sharpness of his eyes, the sting of his words! But what is this—“Don’t forget the ego”? The ego is within—how could I forget it! If I could keep it outside, I would have freed myself already—taken a sword and chopped it to pieces. I cannot catch it at all—how can I forget it? The ego is within—it will come with me. What kind of thing to say!

He could not sleep. Should he go or not? Three in the morning, dark night—go alone—and who knows what this man will do! No one had ever said to him, “Come, I will finish your ego.” He also carried a staff. Bodhidharma’s eyes were big—enough to frighten anyone! His words were sharp as swords; he struck mercilessly.

The emperor hesitated—go or not go? He could not sleep all night. But he also felt attracted: for the first time a man has said he will erase it. Whether I meet such a man again or not—worth the risk. At the most he will beat me—what else? He won’t kill me.

The emperor came. The first thing Bodhidharma asked: “Did you bring the ego?”

The emperor said, “What kind of thing to say! I could not sleep all night because of this question—and now again the same thing. The ego is within me; even if I want to leave it, it does not leave. How could I forget it? Not for a single moment do I forget. Every moment it grabs me, binds me.”

Bodhidharma said, “So you say it is within.”

The emperor said, “Certainly.”

“Then,” said Bodhidharma, “close your eyes. I am sitting before you with this staff. Look within. And when you find it, tell me you have found it. In a single stroke I will finish it.”

The emperor was nervous—whose head would he finish? Mine or my ego’s? And he’s sitting with a stick—he might crack my skull!

But Bodhidharma’s presence, the stick in his hand, and the clear instruction—“Just locate it: ‘Here it is.’ Point to it, and I’ll finish it”—had one consequence: his presence kept the emperor from dozing off. Otherwise, after a sleepless night, at three in the morning, if he had closed his eyes, he would have dozed. But that man sat before him with a stick—he would strike. The emperor began to search—for the first time he truly searched within: “Where is it?”

The more he searched, the more astonished he became. The more he searched, the less he found. He searched and searched, examined the whole interior—nowhere was it. Dawn began to break. The sun began to rise. Bodhidharma saw an extraordinary peace, a profound silence, a wonderful grace descending upon the emperor. The fresh rays of morning outside; as if a new sun had arisen within the emperor too; morning outside, morning within.

Bodhidharma said, “Open your eyes now. And tell me—did you find it?”

The emperor said nothing—he simply fell at Bodhidharma’s feet. “I did not find it,” he said. “It is clear now: what I was trying to erase does not exist. I was fighting a nonentity.”

And whenever you fight the false, you will be defeated. Not because the false is strong; because it does not exist. You cannot defeat darkness by fighting it. Not because darkness is powerful; darkness is not. It is only the absence of light.

Ego is the absence of awareness, as darkness is the absence of light. So do not worry about the ego. That worry is misguided. Light the lamp of meditation. If you wish to remove the darkness in your house, light a lamp. Keep your attention on lighting the lamp. If you focus on removing darkness, you will be in trouble. What will you do—push it around? Fight with it? Wield a sword? Whatever you do, darkness will not be cut, will not depart. You will be defeated, exhausted, fall over. Naturally, your logic will say darkness is very strong—it doesn’t go away. Do as many pushups as you like, build as much strength as you like—no difference. Wrestle as much as you like—defeat is certain.

Remember, and let me repeat—defeat is certain not because darkness is powerful, but because darkness is an absence. What are you fighting? That which is not! How will you cut or remove what is not?

For thousands of years religions have taught—erase the ego, remove the ego, melt the ego. The result is that people have been absorbed in futile struggle. The very energy you waste fighting darkness or ego can become light.

I do not tell you to erase the ego. I say: awaken meditation. The capacity for meditation lies asleep within you—just awaken it. As you become quiet and silent, light will spread within you; morning will break. Then you will see darkness was only absence. The ego was not—it was only a dream. The world is true, the soul is true, the body is true, matter is true—ego alone is false. Other than the ego, nothing is false.

Premmurti, do not live by so‑called Sufi sayings like—

“Erase your very self if you desire rank.”

Whoever said this is ignorant; he has no experience of meditation. He is not a Sufi. He has not known tasawwuf—what kind of Sufi would he be! A mere rhymester.

“As the seed, mingling with dust, turns into flowers and gardens.”

For the seed, yes; for the seed it is true. But not for you. Such sayings turn your direction the wrong way.

My word is straight and clear, two-edged. Concentrate all your energy on meditation. Do not let your energy flow in any other direction. When all your energy showers upon meditation, revolution happens on its own. The ego will not be found, envy will not be found, greed will not be found, pride-arrogance—these are all plays of darkness, ripples of darkness—they will all depart together.

But the so‑called religions have told you to wage separate wars—fight ego, fight greed, fight attachment. Keep fighting. You will fight for lifetimes and gain nothing.

Do not fight. I say—wake up!

Shyam Talreja, first, whatever Krishna said was not spoken from one and the same direction of consciousness. Some statements he must have made when he had not yet attained buddhahood, when he was as asleep as you are. Some he must have spoken when he was drawing near to buddhahood—night was breaking, the last stars were sinking. Dawn had not yet arrived, yet the darkness had already receded; that twilight had come, that interval when the sun is just about to rise. Some words he must have uttered when the eastern sky had reddened, when the sun’s arrival had been announced. And some when the sun had risen. Some when the sun had reached the zenith, mid-sky. And some when the sun had attained its full maturity—toward evening, before sunset, when the sun had traversed the entire sky, completed the whole journey.

Hence the difficulty. The scriptures collect all the utterances together—as in the Gita. You will say the Gita was spoken at one time—on the first day of the war, when Kauravas and Pandavas stood face to face, and Arjuna, seeing the violence of war, the possibility of terrible bloodshed, was becoming disenchanted—then the Gita was spoken. So you will say the Gita was delivered in a single state.

The truth is otherwise. It seems quite absurd, incongruous, that when the conches of war have sounded and warriors stand ready to fight, an eighteen-chapter Gita would be spoken. That would take a great deal of time. It is only a narrative device—a dramatic frame to gather Krishna’s sayings at one place and give them a theatrical beginning. In the Gita, Krishna’s utterances from different life-experiences, different moods, different realizations, different levels of feeling have been compiled. Linking the Gita to the Kaurava–Pandava war is a charming dramatic device—to give it a story-form, a fixed frame. But those words were spoken at different levels.

Therefore I will agree with some sayings and oppose others; with some I will agree a little, with some fully; with some partially, with some wholly. And behind my agreement or disagreement the foundation is only my own experience—that is the measure, the touchstone.

I understand your difficulty. You ask: how can it be that the same person supports such terrible violence and also speaks wondrous truths?

It can be so. After all, it is the ignorant who attain to knowledge. It is the asleep who awaken. Those lost in dreams one day come to the truth. And usually it is hard to draw the line as to when the revolution happened. Especially regarding Krishna, we have no historical proof of when the revolution occurred—what was that moment after which Krishna attained buddhahood? Owing to a basic error in the Hindu conception—that Krishna is an incarnation of God—the line has never been drawn. They hold he was enlightened from the very beginning, born with enlightenment; he did not attain it, he brought it with him. Hence they must accept the whole of his life as enlightened.

I have no such compulsion. I am not a Hindu. I am not a Jain. I am not a Buddhist. I am nobody’s follower. Therefore I have a freedom a follower cannot have. I can decide with simplicity. My experience is my touchstone. Whatever rings true in my experience, I call true—no matter who has said it. And whatever does not, I call false—no matter who has said it. Whether Jesus said it, Krishna said it, Buddha said it—it makes no difference.

I do not agree with Krishna’s violent outlook. I certainly consider Krishna’s doctrine of violence far more dangerous than the violence of people like Hitler and Stalin. For these people may well have committed violence, but they had no philosophical justification for it, no chain of reasoning to support it. Krishna provided violence a rationale, a philosophical backdrop—that is what is dangerous. The philosophical foundation Krishna laid does not only justify the violence in the Mahabharata; it justifies violence of every kind.

Krishna says, in brief, that the body is already dead, being made of dust; the soul is immortal, and cannot die. So when you kill someone you are merely separating body and soul—there is nothing like death in it. The body was already dead; how can you kill what is dead? The soul was immortal before and remains immortal now; how can you kill the deathless?

It is like stripping someone’s clothes. The person was naked under the clothes anyway; removing the clothes does not make him naked—his nakedness is merely revealed. Therefore Krishna says there is no sin in violence. If no one dies, how can there be sin?

If this is true, then all the violent conquerors of the world—Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Nadir Shah—did no harm. They were performing religious acts, good works—separating the body from the soul, doing milk-from-water discrimination—paramahansas!

Krishna’s second argument for violence: death is fixed, breath by breath ordained. Whoever is to die, will die at that very moment. Arjuna, do not fall into the illusion that you are the killer. The killer is God! He has already killed. You are merely an instrument.

If this is true, it is true for all murderers. Then why hang Nathuram Godse? God would already have killed Mahatma Gandhi. Consider Nathuram as Ram himself—just a little blemished in the nostrils; he is doing Ram’s work. Nathuram should be called a mahatma—he became an instrument of God. Why the gallows?

Then all murders, all sins stand ratified. Your house is destined to be burgled—so it will be. It was in your fate. What fault is it of the thief? Someone runs away with your wife—what can the abductor do? God had already carried her off!

Just see the absurdity of this logic. On its basis, life becomes impossible. And Krishna himself did not live by this logic; therefore I call it dishonest. When Duryodhana began to pull at Draupadi’s clothes—what was the poor fellow’s fault? God would already have pulled them. Straightforward enough. If even the great matter of death is left to God, to fate, then this business of disrobing Draupadi is no big thing! He had every moral right—he had won her in a game of dice. If he was stripping her, why did Krishna need to make her sari unending? They were interfering in God’s work. Duryodhana was doing God’s work, and these brothers were obstructing it!

And the entire cause for the obstruction is only that Draupadi was their sister. They themselves used to steal other women’s clothes and climb up trees—but those women were not their sisters; so that was rasa-lila. Poor Duryodhana must have thought, let me also do a bit of rasa-lila. If rasa-lila is such a juicy affair, let me have some too. Perhaps he took inspiration from Krishna. Krishna did rasa-lila, but Duryodhana was not allowed to? You steal other women’s clothes and sit in the trees—that is moral, that is religious, that deserves praise. But when Duryodhana feels the same spiritual inspiration, it becomes sin!

Such utterances of Krishna are purely political—and fascist. They deserve complete condemnation. But Krishna has also spoken many lovely, fragrant truths. I support those; I have no quarrel with them. They were spoken, for certain, from different inner states.

And the same is true of Mohammed. The same is true of Buddha.

My selection is atomic—remember this. I test each point on the touchstone. I do not accept everything, however venerable the scripture. If something appears false to me, I will call it false—let the consequences be what they may. But this does not mean that when something appears true I will refrain from saying so for fear that people might think I am inconsistent—sometimes calling a statement true, sometimes false. My approach is atomic, granular.

For example, this verse from the Srimad Bhagavatam: सुखदुःखो न चान्योऽस्ति यतः स्वकृत्‌ भूव पुमान्‌.
Meaning: There is no other giver of happiness and sorrow; man reaps only the fruit of his own actions.

This is right from one angle and wrong from another. It is right in the sense that it inspires each person to assume responsibility; it makes each one the master of himself: you are the cause of your sufferings and of your joys. It is your choice. You can choose a way of living that becomes heaven, and you can live in such a way that becomes hell. If this is the meaning taken, I support it.

I am giving you an example: it can happen that I support one statement in a particular sense and oppose it in another.

Its second meaning, I oppose—and that second meaning has sat like a stone on India’s chest. Then it means there is no way left to transform society. If you are poor, it is because of your sins—not because there are people sucking your blood. If you are suffering, it is because of your sins—not because you live in a social arrangement where there is no facility to live joyfully, where every arrangement produces suffering.

From this arises a kind of social slavery. For thousands of years India has had the poor, yet the poor never rebelled. Why? How to rebel? The Srimad Bhagavatam tells them: you are poor because of your past karma. And what can you do now about past karma except endure it? Endure it quietly, patiently. Suffer what you have done, so that the karma is exhausted. Thus social responsibility ends—and that is exactly what the exploiters want.

If it begins to be understood that poverty has nothing to do with your past sinful actions—and I tell you, it has nothing to do with them—then things change. Poverty is a social arrangement. Slavery is a social arrangement.

India remained enslaved for twenty-two hundred years precisely because of such scriptural pronouncements. For what could be done? Slavery was written in our fate. Small tribes—without any great strength or stature—could easily enslave this vast country, because within the country an inner conspiracy of spiritual slavery had been running for centuries. People accepted bondage. “It is fate; what can we do? Nothing is in our hands. Not a leaf moves without God; how will slavery be removed? When He wills, it will be removed. When our karma changes, it will go.”

This implies that the marauders bear no responsibility. Those who trampled, exploited, and crushed this land bear no responsibility. We alone are responsible. It is as if four men seize a woman and rape her—and the woman is held responsible: she is reaping the fruit of past lives. And these four gentlemen—perhaps they are reaping the rewards of their past merit! They must have done great virtue, so they have been granted the prize of raping a woman. And the woman—she is suffering her sin.

If such aphorisms are taken in that sense, I oppose them. Therefore it is not necessary that I support every possible meaning of a statement. Each statement can have many dimensions; those dimensions must be chosen.

I do accept this: if you are miserable, there is some error in your vision of life. And if your vision is in error, you will remain miserable whether poor or rich. But your vision is not the cause of your being poor or rich. Those causes are different: social structure; economic order; scientific, technical, industrial arrangements—thousands of causes. One thing, though, is certain: if your fundamental outlook is wrong, even if you become rich you will remain miserable. You will use your wealth to increase your misery—what else will you do?

A man, an ordinary tailor, had the habit of buying a one-rupee lottery ticket each month. He had been buying it for thirty years—never won, nor had he any real hope; but out of habit he would put down a rupee on the first of each month. What was the harm?

Then one day a big car stopped at his door and bags of cash were brought in. His eyes popped. “What is happening?”

“You are blessed,” they said. “The lottery has opened in your name. You have won the first prize. We have brought you a million rupees.”

Naturally, the tailor lost his balance—anyone would. A million rupees! He had never even seen ten rupees together. He locked his shop and threw the key into the well. Matter finished—what need of it now! With a million in hand, he began to drink, visit prostitutes. He plunged into every kind of mischief. He started gambling. And people gathered: gamblers, drinkers, pimps, even politicians. Someone said, “Stand for election, brother. Don’t miss such a chance!”

In a year the million was gone. Not only the money—within ten years his health was ruined.

A year later he returned to his shop, for he had not a paisa left. Then he remembered—he had thrown the key into the well! He climbed down—after great difficulty he found the key. Then he pondered: what did I do this past year! That million was not a blessing to me—it was a misfortune. Earlier I was fine—no worry, no anxiety, no trouble; I was healthy too. God forbid I ever win the lottery again.

But habit is habit—each month he again bought a one-rupee ticket. And he thought as well—such is man’s inner conflict—now it won’t come; and then, perhaps now it will! For thirty years it hadn’t—then by sheer coincidence it did. So he kept buying.

And coincidence struck again: the second year he won again. When the car stopped before him, he beat his chest, “No, brothers, not now!” He said “not now,” yet he went ahead and locked the shop; he said “not now,” yet he threw the key again. Such are man’s insanities! Denying—and at the same time clutching the moneybags—and the same cycle began again.

In the second round, though, there was a final end. There was no chance to retrieve the key. His very life ended.

A man’s way of living—his inner condition—is decisive, whether there is wealth or poverty, comfort or discomfort. Therefore in one dimension that aphorism is true, but in other dimensions it becomes false.

Shyam Talreja, when you are listening to me, you are not listening to an ordinary religious preacher. I am not here to approve or endorse any scripture. What have I to do with scriptures! I have my own vision of life, my own way of seeing, my own sensibility. And by that vision I have been blessed—supremely blessed. I want to share that vision with you—perhaps a lamp may be lit within someone; perhaps light may arise; perhaps a flower within may bloom.

So whatever I say has no purpose relating to Krishna or Buddha or Christ or Mohammed. But since these names have inhabited your minds for centuries, I make use of them—just so the point reaches you. This is your language, so I use it. Otherwise I could simply say my piece without naming anyone. But then it would be harder for you to understand.

And I want to give you an opportunity to learn that accepting a scripture wholesale is mere foolishness—and rejecting it wholesale is also foolishness. These two kinds of foolishness are the common ones. Either someone believes—and believes the whole book—or he disbelieves—and disbelieves the whole book.

This is wrong. You have intelligence. You must develop the capacity to choose. You are free to choose. The day you gather the courage to call one statement of Krishna wrong and another right, that day dignity will arise within you; your individuality will be refined. That day the first beginnings of the capacity of Krishna, Christ, and Buddha will arise within you.

I want gradually to give you a glimpse of your hidden capacities. Within each person lies supreme discernment, supreme knowing; only to bring it forth, to give it expression—there are obstacles in between that must be removed, rocks that block the spring of your consciousness. To remove those rocks I have to undertake such discussions. It is difficult for you, it is hard—but I too have my compulsion.

If you are to walk with me, you must be prepared to endure all kinds of blows. If you are to sit with me, remember the way Emperor Wu sat before Bodhidharma. My staff is not visible to you—that is all.

Kabir says:
Kabir stands in the marketplace, a firebrand in hand.
Whoever burns down his own house, let him come with me.

That’s all for today.