Ramnam Janyo Nahin #6

Anand Kiran, for centuries religion has been afflicted by the conspiracy of priests. Into the nectar of religion the priest has poured every kind of poison—poured it cleverly, systematically, logically—so that it is not easily detected. This sutra is just such a thing. It is useful to understand it.

“Vratena dīksham āpnoti—by vow, initiation.”
Right there, the very first step sets off in the wrong direction. There is no connection between a vow and initiation. From initiation a vow may arise, but how can a vow give birth to initiation? And then where will the vow itself come from? Vrat means a disciplined life—truly, a self-disciplined life. Vrat means to live with awareness, not in stupor. Vrat does not mean living by oath, as you have been taught—because only those lacking awareness need oaths.

For example, someone who takes the vow never to lie is announcing that within him is the urge to lie—strong, powerful, compelling. He is afraid of that urge, terrified of the attraction of the lie sitting within him. So he swears—he swears publicly, before the crowd, before society; in a temple, mosque, church; before a priest, calling him witness; before monks and holy men—so that people’s eyes will prevent the hidden lie within him from showing itself. He has taken a vow, he has taken it before people; to go against it now would mean losing respect. And society gives great respect to the “vowed.” It does so precisely so that, sustained by respect, the vowed person will stick to his vow. That respect is society’s bribe. Society makes it clear: as long as you keep the vow, there will be respect; the moment the vow breaks, respect will turn into disgrace.

Understand this process well. Such a vow is fundamentally an expression of the ego, because respect nourishes the ego. When someone takes a vow, society praises him. When someone renounces something, society honors him greatly. That honor becomes a prop for the ego. And it also becomes clear that the day the vow or the renunciation goes, this bloated ego—this balloon—will be burst by the very people who filled it with air. They will withdraw the nourishment.

Society honors those acts that serve its vested interests. It never honors without a reason. It honors for its own ends. And the vowed person delights in the feeding of his ego. Then turning back becomes difficult. The greater the honor, the harder it becomes to look back.

A journey that begins from vows begins from the ego. A journey that begins from the ego never reaches truth; it cannot. The dissolution of the ego is precisely the arrival of truth. Vows, as commonly understood, feed the ego.

You give so much respect to monks, sages, saints—perhaps you don’t even realize that by honoring them you destroy every possibility of truth entering their lives. They accept your honor; they do not see that with their own hands they are sawing off the branch they sit on. Only a fool gets caught in such a conspiracy—and there is an army of fools, a crowd of fools.

There is no connection between a vow and initiation. Then what is initiation connected to?

Anand Kiran, if you ask me, I will say: initiation comes from awareness.

Life is suffering—as you live it. Life is meaningless—as you live it. Your life is a burden. In your life there is no poetry, no blooming, no lamp lit. No music, no dance—no anklets ringing on your feet, no flute upon your lips. Your life is a desert—a senseless hustle, a deranged tale with neither rhyme nor reason. You cannot even answer why you are living. What have you gained from life? Look closely and you will find your hands empty, your very breath empty.

The moment someone sees his mistaken style of living—and it isn’t hard to see; it is your truth, standing before you at every moment—each morning you rise, you run about all day, at dusk you fall onto the bed, then you rise again in the morning; from cradle to grave, what substance is there in this? What attainment? What dignity? What glory? Seeing this, recognizing it—this awareness that my way of living is wrong, that the way I’m living is not living but only gradually dying—out of this awareness initiation is born. Only from such awareness does true initiation arise. There is no other means to initiation.

What does initiation mean? Seeing the futility and hollowness of your life, you seek one whose life blooms with flowers and fragrance; one in whom there is no darkness but light; one whose desert has become a garden; one whose thousand-petaled lotus has blossomed. You seek a master. And when you find someone in whose presence you can clearly see: I am the new moon night, and he is the full-moon night—then bowing down before him, sitting in his company, is initiation. To bow your head before him is initiation. To pray, “Take my hand into your hand! Lead me along your path! Turn my life too! I have no direction; I am lost. At the crossroads I do not know what to choose. Whatever I have chosen so far has proved wrong. I have developed a habit of choosing the wrong. Therefore I am ready to be changed, to be transformed.”

The willingness to wipe off your past is initiation. The readiness to sever yourself from your past is initiation. A new beginning, a new birth—that is initiation.

And initiation can happen only with one in whom the sun of consciousness has risen. Only in his nearness—sitting by him, moving with him—can his fire ignite the fire in you. His music can set your heartstrings vibrating.

There is a known law in music and acoustics: leave a sitar in one corner of an empty room and in the other corner a sitar-player plays another sitar; the strings of the unattended sitar begin to shimmer. As the room fills with the resonance of the one sitar, that resonance is enough; its overtone starts the echo in the other, its reverberation awakens there.

Carl Gustav Jung, a great Western psychologist, gave a lovely name to this—a new principle. Science recognizes a law of cause and effect: heat water to a hundred degrees—that is the cause; at a hundred degrees it becomes steam—that is the effect. It is invariable; whenever the cause is present, the effect follows. Science seeks causes; once causes are known, effects are in our hands. Jung said: in the realm of consciousness another law applies. In matter, cause and effect are valid; in consciousness, not so. He called it the law of synchronicity—of simultaneity, of being in tune. One sitar sounds; there is no causal necessity that the other must sound—yet it does.

Sitting near the true master is worship. The very meaning of upāsanā is “sitting near”—upa-āsan. From sitting near the master, the Upanishad is born; Upanishad too means “sitting close.” And upavāsa also means “sitting near.” Upavāsa, upāsanā, Upanishad—these words do not mean what you have been made to think.

Upavāsa does not mean fasting. What has going hungry to do with it? If starving gave enlightenment, it would be wrong to eradicate starvation from the world. Then the poor and beggars would be closest to realization. Starvation has nothing to do with it. Upavāsa means sitting near—look at the word itself.

Upāsanā means the same. The tray of rituals and flowers you offer in temples is not worship. What will you gain by sitting near a stone idol? You yourself are like stone; sitting near stone you will become more stony. Sit near a living music. Temples, mosques, gurudwaras cannot accompany you; seek a living Buddha.

And certainly to sit near him means only one thing: to sit surrendered. If you sit stiff with pride—well then, imagine the second sitar in the corner stiff, egoistic, tight in itself—let the first sitar sound a thousand times, the strings of the second will not vibrate. Instruments are not so egoistic—that folly belongs to humans. Instruments are simple. If you sit near the master stiffly, you have not truly sat near him. Then no Upanishad will arise; no answering resonance will happen within. Hence initiation.

Initiation means only this: a submission—“Please accept me.” A prayer—“Place my hand in yours.” A request—“Grant me the permission to sit with you, to be in satsang.”

From awareness—initiation. The felt futility of one’s life is the very foundation of the search for truth. Only when you understand the worthlessness of your own life will you be able to recognize the meaningfulness of another’s. Unless you recognize thorns, recognizing the flower is impossible. If you still mistake darkness for light, why would you seek light?

Therefore the so-called pundits and superficial knowers never attain initiation. They live under the delusion that they already know, already recognize. They can parrot the Vedas.

Anand Kiran, had you asked this Yajurveda sutra of some pundit, he would have said, “Ah, what a marvelous sutra! The whole truth is contained in it.”

The sutra is utterly wrong. Some hollow pundit must have coined it. It is not a spring flowing from a realized consciousness. At best, it has trickled from a tap.

“Vratena dīksham āpnoti—by vow, initiation.”
This is like hitching the oxen behind the cart.

I tell you: from initiation, vow. From awareness, initiation; and when vows come from initiation, they have a different beauty. Then you don’t “take” vows—they arrive. Remember this distinction. The vows you “take” are hollow, worth two pennies. Never make the mistake of taking vows.

I often stayed as a guest at Sohanlal Dugad’s home in Calcutta. He was a lovely man. In worldly terms there was no bigger stock speculator in the country—he was the biggest. But often it happens that compared to your so-called saints, speculators can be more honest and true—straight and clear. The first time I stayed with him, he said to me…

By birth he was a Terapanthi Jain, a disciple of Acharya Tulsi. And this is Acharya Tulsi’s whole business—administering vows. Since people cannot keep great vows—life would become impossible—he invented “Anuvrat,” the mini-vow. Meaning: small, manageable vows that anyone can adopt. He made vows market-friendly. Can’t buy wholesale? No problem—buy retail! Acharya Tulsi is a Marwari: if you can’t buy the whole bolt of cloth, take a yard; if not a yard, take a scrap—any loincloth is good enough for a fleeing ghost! He chose a nice name—Anuvrat: take as much as you can afford.

Sohanlal told me he had taken the vow of brahmacharya (celibacy) from Acharya Tulsi. I looked at him closely and kept looking. He became uneasy, a bit nervous. “Why are you staring like that?” he asked. I said, tell me honestly—how many times have you taken it? He was an honest man; he said, three times.

A foolish Jain sitting with us was very impressed. Folly has its own arithmetic: if once is good, thrice is glorious! He said to me, “I never imagined Sohanlalji was such a man of vows!” I said, keep your stupidity to yourself. Think a little: how can one take a vow of celibacy three times? And I asked Sohanlal, why didn’t you take it a fourth time?

He was sincere. “Why should I hide it from you? No one has ever asked me this! People just get delighted hearing I took the vow of celibacy. When you stared, I broke into a sweat and had to tell the truth: I took it thrice. Now you ask this—strange indeed!”

I said, just be honest. He said, “No, I didn’t take it a fourth time. I lost the courage. I tried thrice and saw it wouldn’t stick—whom am I going to deceive?”

Vows are not to be taken. Those that are taken are hollow—pretense and hypocrisy. Because taking a vow means you are taking up the opposite of your reality. You split yourself in two. Within you there is sexual desire, and you take a vow of celibacy. One takes a vow of celibacy only when desire is overflowing inside. One in whom sexual desire is absent—why would he take such a vow? For what reason?

A vow is proof that the opposite condition prevails within you. But by taking a vow can you change your inner state? At most you can suppress it. You will become double-faced—one mask to show, another to live. Then guilt will sprout within you, a sense of sin. The religions have filled the earth with guilt and sin. Everyone feels like a sinner. Everyone has been told what is “right.” But the “right” does not happen; what happens is “wrong.” The dishonest and crafty keep up their show; the simple and straightforward suffer badly.

Your so-called religions’ insistence on vows has produced two kinds of people: the dishonest, crafty hypocrites—these become your saints, monks, mahatmas; and the guilty—the simple folk who needlessly burn in the fires of hell. Either you produce hypocrites, or you produce criminals. Both distortions—you do not transform the person.

Therefore I do not say take any vow. Vows are not taken. From initiation, vows bear fruit. When you sit near the true master, when, gradually, the vina of your heart begins to sound, when his emptiness starts entering you, when his song starts making sense—then, without any contrivance or effort, revolution begins.

A single spark is enough to set your whole life ablaze, as a forest catches fire. In that fire all that is useless turns to ash, and what is meaningful is refined—becomes pure gold. What must turn to ash should turn to ash; what survives the fire is gold. This is the touchstone.

To be with the true master is to be near fire. That is why people worship dead masters—because what is there to fear in the dead? A dead master is ash. If you like, call the ash “vibhuti” (holy ash)—that’s the trick. People worship dead masters. A master died five thousand years ago, the worship goes on. In five thousand years what fire remains? What embers remain? Even the ash, who knows how many times it has been swapped.

One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin walking grandly with an umbrella. “New umbrella—just bought?” I asked. “No, thirty years old,” he said. “Thirty years old and so fresh—looks straight from the factory!”

“It’s thirty years old,” he insisted. “My grandfather bought it; then my father used it; now I am using it. It’s amazing—my children will use it too.” “What’s the secret?” I asked. “Nothing—just that it’s been replaced many times. Just yesterday at the mosque, it changed again.” Thirty years old—replaced many times.

In five thousand years even ash has been replaced many times.

In Lanka, at Kandy, there is a temple preserving a tooth of Buddha. Scientists say it is not even a human tooth, let alone Buddha’s—some animal’s. But the worship continues. No scientist agrees it is human; human teeth are not like that. All the chemical tests are done. Still the temple of Kandy is crowded daily with pilgrims. The tooth of Buddha is worshipped—and it isn’t even his.

In Srinagar there is the Hazratbal mosque, preserving a hair of Muhammad. You haven’t forgotten the story: a few years ago the hair was stolen—and then it “reappeared.” No one now asks whether the one that reappeared is the one that was stolen. In fourteen hundred years, who knows how many times it has been replaced? Only eight or ten years ago it was replaced—stolen, riots ensued, Hindus and Muslims clashed, there was bloodshed, and then the hair was “found.” But no one disclosed where it was found, who had stolen it. No thief was caught, no source revealed—but the hair was found.

It’s a bogus hair. And there is no way now to prove whether it is genuine or not. How will you establish that it belonged to the Prophet? Perhaps it belonged to some man named Muhammad. But how did it reappear? And the one whose theft caused such unrest—why was he never caught?

It is a collusion. The hair must be there because the mosque and its attendants live by that hair. If the original was lost, so be it—any hair will do, at least the business of the mosque continues.

Worshiping dead masters is always easy. But those who worship dead masters are dead people. Being dead themselves, they worship the dead. Your worship reveals who you are. Whether you worship Krishna, Muhammad, Rama, Buddha, Mahavira—by some pretext you worship the dead. I tell you: if Mahavira were alive, you would not go to him. Because then there would be danger—there would be fire. Only those ready to burn and die would go—the moths.

When the lamp is lit, moths come. When the lamp is extinguished, then all kinds of bugs and insects gather. When the lamp burns—moths; when it is out—the crowd arrives. The very crowd that calls moths mad; the bugs and mosquitoes come, not moths. Moths always seek the living. You need the readiness to die.

Who invented stone statues? Stony people. Those whose eyes and hearts have turned to stone created stone idols and stone temples—fitting to themselves, convenient for themselves.

From awareness—initiation. And from initiation—revolution. With initiation, transformation begins. Many things fall away. You do not have to drop them; just satsang—the right company—drops them.

A philosopher named Malunkyaputta came to Buddha. He said, “I have gone to many great philosophers—I myself am famous—but none has answered my questions. Are you prepared to answer?”

He had not expected what Buddha said—for Buddha is not a philosopher, but a seer. Philosophers are the blind discussing light; a seer has eyes and sees the light—he is not thinking. Philosophers are thinkers; the seer is thought-free. Malunkyaputta could not have imagined what would happen next—but coming near a true master is always dangerous.

Buddha said, “Good that you’ve come. No one could answer you?” “No one,” said Malunkyaputta. Buddha said, “I can answer—but are you ready to receive?” No one had ever asked him that. Whoever he questioned gave answers; no one asked whether he was ready to take them in.

“What condition must I fulfill?” he asked. Buddha said, “Sit near me for two years—silently, without asking anything. Just sit; do nothing. By and by, become quiet. After two years, when your mind is completely still, ask whatever you wish. I promise I will answer every question—and I assure you they will all be resolved. But you must show this much preparation. It cannot be for free. Sit with me two years.” Malunkyaputta said, “Agreed.”

As soon as he agreed, Mahakashyapa, a disciple, burst into laughter. Malunkyaputta felt pricked. “Why is Mahakashyapa laughing?” he asked. Buddha said, “Ask him yourself—if he’s laughing, there must be a reason.”

“Why do you laugh?” Malunkyaputta asked. Mahakashyapa said, “Good man, if you must ask, ask now. I too once came like you—and just by sitting in silence, all my questions fell away. Now Buddha keeps teasing me: ‘Ask! Don’t you have anything to ask?’ Wherever he sees me he pinches—‘Mahakashyapa, nothing to ask? Where did your questioning go?’ So I laughed—this old trick is about to happen again. Don’t get taken in—ask now. I too would like to hear how he answers.”

Buddha said, “I will keep my word. But you must ask after two years.”

Two years passed. Exactly two years later Buddha said, “Now, stand up and ask.” Malunkyaputta burst out laughing. “Now I understand why Mahakashyapa laughed,” he said. “In these two years, everything has fallen away—the very mind that asks is no more. The questioner has gone. These two years of silence were like a flood that washed away all the rubbish. I have nothing to ask. Without my asking you have given the solution—by giving me samadhi, you gave the resolution.”

Sitting near the true master, revolution happens. Life is transformed. Vows come; they are not taken. The false drops away; the right mode of living arises. In satsang even death happens—your past dies; and rebirth happens too.

Therefore I cannot agree with this Yajurveda sutra:
“Vratena dīksham āpnoti—by vow, initiation.”
No—absolutely not. From initiation, vows! And by vows I mean not oaths or pledges, but that which is natural and spontaneous.

The second sutra says: “Dīkshayā āpnoti dakshinām—by initiation, the offering.”
Now you can see how the priest’s trick slips in.

“By initiation, offering.”
What has offering to do with it? Where did this dakshina come from? But the priest will take care to include his own arrangement.

“By initiation, offering.”
If you are initiated, then you must give an offering—something to the priest.

A true master does not ask for dakshina. He asks for nothing. He says only this: become silent, become still. But the priest sits there asking—his eyes are on the offering. And what nets they have woven! Jain scriptures say: give offering only to a Jain monk, feed only a Jain monk—for only he is the true guru, all others false.

Buddhist monks say: give offering, clothes, food, shelter in the rains only to a Buddhist monk—for he alone is the true guru, all others false.

Brahmins say: give offerings to Brahmins; scriptures are filled with the glory of giving to Brahmins. Give to a Brahmin and you will reap heaven. No scripture says: give to a Shudra. Even his shadow pollutes you, they say. Give to the Brahmin. A Shudra may be of noble character, still he is unworthy; a Brahmin may be debauched, yet he is worthy. Do you see these frauds? These dishonesties?

This same thing has crept into the Yajurveda sutra: “By initiation, offering.”
There is no connection. The true master asks nothing. He gives—what would he ask for? What do you have to give the master? If only you had something! You have nothing—you are a beggar. What can you give?

The master gives. He has something to give—God himself. He has the supreme wealth of life to give: light, bliss, beauty, truth—the entire otherworldly treasure. What do you have?

But the clever ones have desecrated religion. They have ground their gruel on the breast of religion and sucked people dry. On the one hand they say money is dust; on the other they say donate money to the Brahmin. No shame! Who will donate dust? They teach that wealth is dust precisely so they can say, “Why cling to dust? Let it go—donate!” And if you donate here, there in the next world you will get a crore-fold return.

Donate dust and receive crore-fold dust! Your grave will be ready. When crore-fold dust falls upon you in the other world, who knows where you will be buried. Do not, by mistake, give offerings and donations.

Dakshina has nothing to do with initiation. Therefore I will say: from initiation, sannyas. Sannyas means the art of living rightly—living with awareness; not like the blind, but like one with eyes; living with the inner lamp lit. From awareness comes initiation; from initiation, sannyas. In sannyas all vows are included; in right living, everything essential arrives.

But under the name of sannyas something strange has been going on.

A certain friend has wandered in here by mistake. His name: Mahant Garibdas Jholiwale. Be a little careful of him—he carries a begging bag, and he is “Garib-das” (servant of the poor); he will make off with your dakshina!

The fraud and hypocrisy that have paraded under the name of sannyas in this country have nothing to do with sanctity; they belong to hypocrisy. What has been taught for centuries in the name of sannyas? Only this: abandon life, run away. You have taught people to be fugitives—escapism.

If someone runs away from a battle, we call him a coward. But the one who runs away from the battle of life—you call him a mahatma! You feel no shame in calling him a great soul! He is a runaway, a coward, a frightened person who could not face the truth of life.

And on the other hand you say God created the universe and gave life. It’s quite a spectacle: God creates life, gives it to you, and you run away from it—and you call that religion! Then God must be at fault, and you are correcting His mistake. If God had even a little sense, He should stop creating life at once. If life is only something to be discarded, is God deranged that He keeps creating it—new children, new seeds and sprouts, new stars and new suns? The mahatmas, it seems, are wiser than God. If these mahatmas ever came across God, they would throttle Him.

But they never meet Him; they cannot. Those who have denied God’s life—those who ran away from life—where will they find God? God is hidden in life; God is life. Life and God are synonymous.

Garibdas, you say: “The sanctity of sannyas...”
What sannyas are you talking about? What sanctity has your sannyas had? Is running away sanctity? Do you call the weak and the impotent “holy”? Those who could not bear life’s challenge, who lacked the intelligence to meet it, who fled, who hid in caves—God erred in making them human; He should have made them bats! Why create them at all? They are busy correcting God’s blunder!

One who runs away merely reveals his fear. He knows that if he remains in life, he will not be able to control himself.

A disciple of Buddha was setting out to preach the Dhamma. He asked Buddha for an instruction. Buddha said, “Only one thing: don’t look at a woman.”

What is the fear here? The fear is obvious: the man is still full of lust for women. And he is off to preach religion! When lust is not gone, when kama is not gone, how will he recognize Rama? He has not even known the Name of Rama. As long as lust fills you, has anyone ever known God?

And what difference will Buddha’s injunction make: “Don’t look at a woman”? Do you think if you pass by with your eyes closed, the woman won’t be seen? With eyes closed, a woman appears even more beautiful. The pleasure of seeing a woman with closed eyes is of a different kind. With open eyes and full awareness, the woman is not so beautiful. And if your eyes had an X-ray quality—which a meditator’s eyes do—then bones, flesh, marrow, pus, excreta, urine, everything would be visible. You need keen, penetrating eyes. But this is not only true of women; it is true of you as well, of everyone. With a sharp gaze you’ll see the same everywhere. What is there to fear?

Imagine someone tells you, “You’re going down the road, but if a municipal cart goes by loaded with garbage and excreta, don’t look!” What can that possibly mean? It means you’re a Morarji Desai—that if excreta is seen, you won’t be able to control yourself. That life-water will create such an upheaval in you that you’ll forget whose it is—yours or another’s. Why discriminate? Nonduality must be practiced! Such a thirst will arise that you won’t be able to restrain yourself.

This instruction of Buddha—“Do not look at a woman”—is a formula for escapism. And if it is true that this man will waver at the mere sight of a woman, why are you sending him to preach religion? What religion will he preach? He will preach irreligion.

But that monk was not so easy to convince. Whenever laws and rules are made, people immediately start finding loopholes. Man is clever—so clever it’s hard to keep count. Whatever is suppressed seeks a way out.

So the bhikshu asked, “Bhante, you are right. But there may be a situation in which I have to look at a woman.”

Such an accident could happen. In fact, how will you decide not to look at a woman without first looking to see whether it’s a woman or a man? You’ll have to look! Otherwise you’ll have to keep a blindfold on permanently—then whether it’s a woman or a man or a donkey or a horse, who knows? But Buddha has not forbidden looking at men; so your eyes must remain open to see: this is a man—fine, look; this is a woman—don’t look! But you have already looked. What then? The birds have eaten the crop—what’s the use of repentance now? You can keep your gaze lowered as much as you like, but what has been seen has been seen. And within you an inner resonance has already begun, a call has already arisen.

So the basic formula “don’t look” is wrong. Still, the man asked, “There might be a situation where I must look. Say I am walking and a woman falls into a ditch. At least I should call people to help her out.”

Buddha said, “In such special circumstances, there is no harm in looking.”

Now who will decide what counts as a special circumstance? The very man himself will decide.

So Buddha added, “If you must look, look—but don’t touch.”

What is the difficulty in touching? Skin touches skin—what is the problem? “Don’t touch.” He tried to close the second door: okay, you looked—never mind—but don’t touch. Because if you have seen, the desire to touch will arise.

And Indians in particular are seized by the desire to touch! See a woman and the urge to touch awakens. Then they will find an opportunity to give a shove—though in such a way that it looks religiously accidental. They’ll enter crowds where a shove is easy. They’ll pinch. What inventions the religious have made! Consider even this a religious innovation: a woman is going by, pinch her. If they cannot touch from nearby, they’ll throw a pebble. People even throw kisses from afar—what’s a pebble compared to that! They whistle from a distance and feel satisfied.

This is the result of your so-called holy sannyas!

Buddha said, “Don’t touch.”

But the man was persistent. He said, “Bhante, you are right. But there could be a situation where I must touch—say a woman falls right in front of me, and no one is around. I must lift her. You yourself have taught compassion, kindness, service. If a woman lies before me with a broken knee, should I pass by? That would be against compassion.”

Do you see the tricks man finds? For every law a workaround must be found—because the law is not inner; someone is imposing it from outside. Buddha is imposing; the poor fellow is defending, finding a way: okay, you say so—but sometimes one must touch.

Buddha said, “All right. If you must touch, touch—but remain aware.”

The man replied, “That is perfectly right.” Because awareness has no outer sign. He didn’t raise further questions there. Think about it: he did not say, “It could also happen that I lose awareness.” Why worry now? The matter has become invisible. Now touch to your heart’s content. Pinch—mindfully! Give a devout shove—mindfully! Stare to your fill—mindfully! He asked no more. He said, “Bhante, now I go.”

What sanctity is there in what you call sanctity? It is hypocrisy. People have been taught to be false.

And you say, “For centuries in this great country of India...”
What greatness? Every nation suffers this delusion that you do. Do you think China believes India is great and China is not? China believes China is great. Do you think England or Germany or Japan believes you are great and they are not?

Every nation has this delusion, this stupidity, this ego: “We are great!” Look closely—what are you really saying when you say “We are great”? You are saying: the land where I was born—where Garibdas Jhōliwale was born—must be great! Otherwise we would have taken birth elsewhere.

George Bernard Shaw used to say, “I do not accept the theory that the earth goes around the sun. I do not agree with Galileo or Copernicus. I accept the Bible’s theory that the sun goes around the earth.”

People said, “You’ve gone too far. This is proved beyond doubt. Even the Pope would not dare to say the sun goes around the earth. It is established that the earth goes around the sun.”

Shaw said, “What have I to do with proofs? The issue is that I was born on earth. My earth cannot go around the sun; the sun must go around the earth—the earth on which Bernard Shaw was born!”

He is joking. He is joking about Garibdas Jhōliwale. Wherever you were born… If Garibdas had been born a Muslim, then Islam would be the great religion! As it is, Hinduism is the great religion. Then Arabia would be the great land.

Last night I heard a song. A verse came in which the singer tells God, “I have no desire to see paradise yet; my eyes are fixed on Medina.” Then, “On this earth only that land is holy where the beloved of God, Muhammad, had his home.” Naturally a Muslim thinks this way—Mecca and Medina, where Muhammad resided. So, the dust there is better than paradise.

This is ego. The time has come to understand: the earth is one. This “India, the great land, where even gods long to be born!” This Mecca-Medina, “where the beloved of God had his home!” This Jerusalem, where Jesus walked and taught. This Bodhgaya, where Buddha awakened. And this Kashi, “unique in the three worlds!” It is indeed unique—such filth is hard to find anywhere. And the kind of circus gathered in Kashi is unmatched: whores, clowns, and bulls all together. What else is there? It is unique indeed. It is hard to drive through the streets—bulls lounge in the middle of the road. The streets of Kashi are not even streets—lanes worse than lanes. Bulls enthroned! Nandi Baba himself. You cannot move them; try and there’s a quarrel. Cow-mother sits in the middle of the way.

I went to Kashi once and said, “Never again.” What absurdity is this? The cow-mother sits there, you honk and honk, she doesn’t move. And Kashi’s cows are no ordinary cows! And why should the bulls care that your car needs to pass?

On what do these delusions rest? On ego—everyone’s ego. No nation is great, no nation is low. No race is great, no race is low.

Mahant Garibdas asks: “But why are you and your sannyasins destroying the sanctity of sannyas?”

We are destroying the hypocrisy of sannyas, not its sanctity. We are giving sanctity to sannyas—bringing life to a dead, rotten corpse; transforming a stinking cadaver. Because by my sannyas I mean the art of living. Not the renunciation of life, but awe and gratitude in life. For this astonishing grace that existence has bestowed upon you—life—say thank you.

Life is a school. There are difficulties in a school—questions, problems. But they are there so you can learn to go beyond them, to turn them into steps and transcend them. Only by living life rightly can one be liberated. Only one who lives life in totality becomes free. Runaways are never free; they remain bound. Call them, if you like, by some fancy name like Ranchhodasji.

What a joke! In my village there is a temple named the “Temple of Ranchhodasji.” I told its mahant, “At least change this name. What does Ranchhodasji mean? The one who left the battlefield and ran!”

He said, “Who knows where you get such ideas. I’ve spent my life serving Ranchhodasji, and it never occurred to me. Now you’ve created a snag. Now whenever I hear ‘Ranchhodasji’—and the deity is Krishna, but called Ranchhodasji because once Krishna fled the battlefield—this will trouble me.”

He said, “Brother, don’t come here. Whenever you come, you leave some complication behind. Now even when I worship, I’ll feel, what am I doing—Ranchhodasji!”

We try to hide hollow things with fine names. I do not accept that Mahavira, Buddha, Shankaracharya, and Nagarjuna did well by abandoning life. If only such people had lived life in its wholeness, today there would be dignity and glory in this country’s life; more fragrance, more music! Naturally, had we seen Buddha living life, we would have learned the art of life. But they all fled.

I see no sanctity in running away—only weakness and cowardice. Therefore, Garibdas, do not say my sannyasins are destroying the sanctity of sannyas. For the first time they are giving sannyas sanctity—by giving it life. And what is more sacred than life? Do you think death is sacred?

Renunciation is not sanctity. To live life with joy and relish—that is sanctity. This is our true definition: Raso vai sah. The Divine is essence, rasa. One who lives life with a rasika heart, who lives its beauty with sensitivity—he is the sannyasin.

You ask: “What will you gain by this?”
Everything—God, truth, bliss, liberation. What will be lost is hypocrisy—which should be lost. What will be lost is escapism—which should be lost. It’s been long enough—this nonsense in the name of sannyas. It should end. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I want to give religion a new definition. Because what has the old definition achieved in ten thousand years? Do the accounting. Man is still deranged, still violent, still trapped in the same disorders as before. Nothing has changed.

Buddha and Mahavira told people: do not steal, do not be dishonest, do not lie, do not commit adultery. Obviously, people were committing adultery, lying, cheating—or why teach it? The oldest scriptures say the same. And the same is still being said today. The era you call the golden age taught exactly what is needed today. If the same medicine was being dispensed then as now, one thing is clear: the disease was the same then and is the same now. There is no special difference between the golden age and the dark age.

It is time to act—enough talk. You have tried your sannyas. Let my sannyas be tried too. Why such panic about my sannyas? If you are true, you will win. Why the anxiety? Why the restlessness? Why is the whole country so agitated? Why are all the saints and mahants so shaken? If I am wrong, the wrong will fail. Your scriptures say: Satyam eva jayate—Truth alone triumphs.

But you are afraid that Truth is not with you. I have no fear. Your saints and mahants have an old, immense crowd, armed with tradition and scripture. My sannyasins are new, like freshly blossomed flowers, tender. I should be afraid for them; they have no protection. Yet I have no fear, because Truth has no reason to fear. The false is bound to fail.

And you finally ask: “Do you mean this holy sannyas had no contribution?”
No—its contribution has been enormous. Otherwise where did such poverty, famine, slavery, stupidity, and superstition come from in this country? The contribution is immense—terribly so! What has your sannyas and your religion not given? It has given every kind of rot and filth. You taught people that if you are poor, it is fate; if you are enslaved, it is your destiny—nothing can be done—bear it, and bear it with contentment. This is utterly false.

America, in three hundred years—only three hundred—reached the peak of prosperity. And you, in ten thousand years, have sunk deeper into poverty day by day. Surely your so-called holy sannyas and religion have made a great donation. You have kept digging the pit: “Brother, go down further!” You have dug a grave for this country, burying people alive. In ten thousand years India could have touched the summits of science. We could have been the first to reach the moon, the first to unlock the atom and the hydrogen bomb. Ten thousand years of genius! But with only a small tradition of three hundred years, America stood a man on the moon and reached the heights of prosperity.

And still you ask whether your sannyas contributed nothing?

Of course it did. You did not let science be born. Because when the world is Maya—illusory—how can science arise? If there is no reality in the world, if it is all false, what is the point of inquiry? Science stands only when the world is real. But your Shankaracharya teaches: Brahma satyam, jagan mithya—Brahman is true, the world is false. These became the foundation stones of unscience. If it’s false, what is there to explore? If it isn’t, if it is a mirage, what will you find even if you search?

The world is true, and Brahman is true—this is my declaration. And the world and Brahman are not two; they are two sides of the same coin. Brahman is the depth of the world. Just as your body hides a soul, so the vast universe hides Brahman at its innermost core. This cosmos is the expansion of Brahman.

Who is responsible for the murder of science in this country?
People like Shankaracharya. They ought to be put in the dock and made to answer before the court. Enough of worship.

If we want to transform this country, we must change the very foundations. Whenever a person of genius was born here, we taught him to flee. So genius fled—to the forests. Genius was left barren. The fools were left in charge of the nation. The Buddhas went into the forests. Mahavira went into the forests. Shankaracharya ran away. If the world is Maya, you must run—what else to do! These were the cream, the clarified butter. From their genius, an Einstein, Rutherford, Edison, Newton could have arisen. But it did not happen. And even as you rot in poverty and are crushed by hunger, you don’t wake up. You keep dosing the poor with the same opium: “It is your fate—endure it peacefully, with contentment.” This is the process of making man servile.

No, Garibdas, don’t say your so-called holy sannyas had no contribution. It had a massive contribution. In ten thousand years you have murdered this country. And still you sit sharpening your knives and slicing necks—so cleverly that the one whose neck is cut believes a holy act is being performed! For thousands of years he has heard it is holy.

Awareness to initiation, a ray of bliss; from initiation to sannyas. Sannyas means the art of living—totally, wholly. From sannyas comes shraddha. Not according to that Yajurveda sutra, which is a trick—surely forged by some dishonest priest:
“Dakshina shraddham apnoti—From dakshina (offerings) arises shraddha (faith).”
What an outrage! At best, offerings can produce distrust, not faith. But people must be persuaded that offerings generate faith—only then will they give, only then will they donate. Otherwise who will give to the Brahmin, the priest? He has to lure you: “If you give dakshina, faith will arise. And from faith you will get truth.” If you want truth, then dakshina is indispensable—the very pivot of the whole formula.

Try as you may, you cannot link faith to offerings. Faith arises from sannyas. And sannyas means: live! Live artfully, so that life becomes your joy, your celebration. When life is joy and celebration, faith arises naturally: certainly there is God. Apart from festivity and bliss, there is no other proof of the Divine. When a stream of rasa flows within you, only then do you assent—Raso vai sah!

Your so-called saints are dry sticks—no rasa, no poetry, no music, no festivity, no joy. Shrunken like corpses, the sum of their art is to bind themselves with ropes and chains—gouge out their eyes lest a woman be seen; plug their ears lest music be heard; cut off their hands lest the desire to touch arise. Crippling themselves in every way. Will such cripples ever know faith?

But the priest keeps persuading you: give alms, offer dakshina—to me—and faith will arise! And beware, if faith doesn’t arise you will miss truth.

I cannot agree. That is the net—the same across priesthoods, Hindu or Jain or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim, it makes no difference. The fundamental exploitation is one.

I say: from sannyas comes shraddha. When a ray of joy enters your life, gratitude will naturally arise toward existence. You will feel grace: I had no merit, yet I have been given such an extraordinary life. I earned nothing, yet existence has given me so much. I was a nobody, yet a rain of gold has fallen on me; diamonds and jewels have been showered. From this experience faith arises—faith toward existence.

And certainly, from faith truth is attained. Of that last sentence I approve. But those three earlier propositions do not lead to the last.

“Shraddhaya satyam apyate—By faith, Truth is attained.”
That is true. But those three steps do not reach that door. These are the steps needed: from awareness comes initiation, from initiation sannyas, from sannyas faith, and from faith the realization of truth.

Anand Veetrag, it is true that I painted the images of Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna in captivating colors—hoping that a sense of awe would arise within you. You yourself say, “You filled us with awe for them.”

But my aspiration was something else: that awe should arise toward your own possibilities. The opposite happened. Your mind felt awe for Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna. When I saw that I was doing one thing and you were understanding another; I was saying something and you were taking a different meaning—then it became necessary to begin working from another dimension.

I wanted you to become aware of your own potential. Because I wanted you to see that the possibility of Buddhahood exists within you, I used Buddha as a pretext and painted him in alluring colors. I made Krishna a device. I took Mahavira as an excuse. These were pegs to hang something on. I had no real use for those pegs themselves. My intention was that you see this: what Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna became—you too can become. Within your ordinary life, your extraordinariness is hidden. There is no exclusive privilege to being a Buddha. Buddhahood is your birthright. This was my longing.

But inside you, the opposite took place. When I colored Krishna, the Hindu mind did two things. First, it said, “Ah! How wonderful our Krishna! None can compare—unique! We were right all along to regard him as the complete incarnation.” I saw your gaze did not turn toward yourself; it went to tradition, to the past. And I also saw that instead of you peering within, your ego grew stronger: that I am a Hindu, I am a Jain, I am a Buddhist, I am a Sikh—and look, our Master Mahavira is so great, our Master Nanak so great, our Master Krishna so great. Your ego swelled, and your reverence for a dead past grew. When I saw that in your stupor, in your sleep, you were hearing something else entirely, I had to change my approach.

I have nothing to take from Krishna, nor from Buddha, nor from Mahavira. And let me also tell you: those colors I filled in Krishna—it is not necessary that they ever belonged to Krishna. I filled those colors. The coloring had a different purpose; it had no real connection with Krishna. Krishna was only the canvas; the colors were mine. Therefore, whenever I wish, I can withdraw my colors. The colors I filled in Buddha—I filled them. Buddha had nothing to do with them. The purpose of coloring was not to prove Buddha’s greatness but to make you aware of your own possibility. When I saw that this was not happening, that you were doing the very opposite—well, people are like that, upside-down. The human mind is strange in strange ways.

Mulla Nasruddin came home from the doctor with medicine. He had to take it six times a day. By evening he began to feel dizzy, his head spinning, the world whirling around. He went back to the doctor and said, “This is too much—my illness is as it was, and a new one has come upon me: the world is spinning, my head is reeling, I can’t even stand.”

The doctor said, “I’ve never heard of such a reaction to this medicine. Did you take it exactly as I instructed?”

Nasruddin said, “Word for word, precisely.”

The doctor said, “I don’t understand. Why is your head spinning? This medicine has no such property.”

Nasruddin said, “No such property? It’s written clearly on the bottle: Shake well before use.”

The doctor said, “What has that got to do with it?”

He said, “It has everything to do with it. Before taking the dose I shake my body so violently that I start feeling dizzy. And six times a day—sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for an hour—I keep shaking, keep shaking. I feel like vomiting. This medicine is a nuisance!”

If you shake yourself six times a day for hours, naturally the world will seem to spin. “Shake before use”—see what meaning Mulla Nasruddin took from it!

You too take your own meanings. And your meanings compelled me to change. So now I have begun to pull back the colors, because I want it to be clear that you must not fix your gaze on Buddha but on yourself. Too many garlands have already been heaped upon Krishna; too many heads have already bowed at the feet of Mahavira. But all that is the dead past. You have to recognize the principle of life within yourself.

So, just as I once filled in colors, I have begun to remove them. Even while coloring, the purpose was the same. My purpose has not changed. My goal is exactly the same. But the method has changed. I colored so that you would look at yourself. If you could not, then now I am removing the colors so that the canvas becomes empty and you are forced to look at yourself. I will not leave anything else for you to look at. I will not leave any arrangement by which your garlands of worship can be placed elsewhere. I will not allow you any route of escape from yourself. I have to seat you within yourself.

That is why I made images and that is why I am breaking images. For the same purpose that I created them, I am demolishing them. Certainly, the journey is toward the formless. The images were like fingers pointing to the moon. But when I saw you had caught hold of the fingers—and some, very naive, even began to suck the fingers—I had to take the fingers back.

I want to show you the moon; the fingers themselves are of no use. Buddha is a finger, Mahavira a finger, Krishna a finger. The Gita, the Koran, the Bible too. I had wanted all these fingers to help show you the moon. But you clutch at the fingers.

A Christian becomes pleased if I endorse some sutra of the Bible; he gets elated. I am not sitting here to gratify anyone’s Christian ego. If I see his Christian ego getting elated, I will strike at Jesus—because only then will his balloon burst. In truth, it is his ego I am beating. But the only way is that somehow the image of Jesus that has formed in his mind be shattered. I am no enemy of Jesus.

I have neither friendship nor enmity with anyone. The purpose is clear: you must awaken. By whatever means, I will awaken you. If you can awaken through images, fine—I have no objection. And if you cannot awaken through images, then I will have to take a hammer to the images and shatter them into pieces. Perhaps by the breaking of the image, you will awaken. But my intention is one, definite. However much my methods may change—whether I adorn or dismantle, support or oppose—the goal is single and sure: the sleeping soul within you must awaken. The dormant fire within you must be kindled. The God hidden within you, now covered, must be uncovered.

That is all for today.