Sadhana Sutra #11

Man hears only the echo of his own heart in all the experiences of his life. Whatever meets you outside is only a projection of what is within you. Outside there are only screens. You go on seeing yourself upon those screens, your own shadows upon them. If life appears painful and a pall of sorrow seems to hang all around, it is the sorrow of your own heart. If there is melancholy in life, it is you who have poured that melancholy into life. Only that shows outside which we spread outward from within.

Understand the world as a mirror, and what we see there is our own picture. But we think what appears before us is in the world. Then we get busy trying to erase it from the world. This very attempt is ignorance. And this very attempt leads into deeper suffering. For what we are erasing there does not have its root there. If your image looks ugly in a mirror and you begin to break the mirror, you can certainly break the mirror, but your ugly face will not change. When the mirror is broken it may happen that you no longer see your ugliness, but not seeing it is not the same as its being gone.

Hence many people flee society, because in society their ugliness becomes visible. In relationships, in the mirror of relationship, all the inner diseases are revealed. In the forest, in solitude, in the Himalayas, no mirror remains. There they no longer see how they are. And then this not-seeing they take to be spiritual transformation. That is delusion. They will have to return from the Himalayas. Only when they stand again amidst society will they know whether something had truly been erased in the Himalayas, or whether, merely due to the absence of a mirror, nothing was visible.

That is why one who has once escaped into the solitude of the jungle becomes afraid of returning to society—because again the same things will begin to show which he imagined had disappeared. You need the other. Without the other you cannot see yourself. The presence of the other, relation with the other, furnishes you the opportunity to be revealed to yourself.

How will you get angry if no one is present? Then there are two ways to end anger: either dissolve anger, or run away from the presence of the other. How will you indulge in vasana, how will you hoard, how will you construct ahankar—ego—if no other is there? If you were utterly alone upon the earth, what would you do? What would there be to covet? What meaning could greed have? The whole earth is for you alone—where would you put up a fence? Where would you draw the boundary line of a house? Where would you claim, “This is mine”? Alone, claim has no meaning. Claim is against the other. The other’s presence is required.

Even the proclamation of ego—to whom will you announce it? Will you declare, “I am Alexander, I am Napoleon”? What would be the point? To whom would you say it? Who would listen? Who would lift their eyes toward you to see that you are Alexander? No, even ego would have no meaning. And even if you cultivated humility, what use would it be? To whom would you give the news that no one is as humble as you?

If you were alone, you would be in great difficulty. For whatever is hidden within you would have no opportunity to manifest. It might even happen that you never come to know what all lies hidden in you.

Therefore the sannyas that flourishes by abandoning society is unripe. It will break. It is afraid; it can live only in safety. Only if a special arrangement is maintained can it survive. In ordinary life, under the open sky, its paint and polish will peel off.

The sannyas that flowers within society—that alone I call real. For there the mirrors were present. And you did not break the mirrors; rather, seeing your ugly image in them, you attempted to change yourself and made yourself beautiful. There were people present who provoked your anger, on whom you would throw your anger, who would become the apparent cause of it, and the fire of anger within you would flare outward. But you did not run away from them, nor did you condemn them as guilty, nor did you say, “You are the cause of my anger.” You understood: you are only a peg; anger is within me. I hang my anger upon your peg—your grace gives me the chance. You provide the situation and enable me to see what was hidden in me. You became a circumstance—and my self-study deepened.

And if you set about changing yourself—without breaking the peg, without smashing the mirror, without fleeing society—you will be amazed. The day anger is dissolved within you, that day you will suddenly find the entire world free of anger. Not that anger will vanish from the whole world—for the angry will still remain angry. But for you, this world will become angerless. Because no situation in the world will be able to make you angry. No peg will any longer be capable of having your anger hung upon it—because within, anger is no more. No mirror will reveal your ugliness—because it is no longer there.

The quest of adhyatma begins with this fundamental sutra: whatever we find outside ourselves is hidden within us. If we insist that it is only outside, you can never become religious.

Hence Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Lenin denied religion. There is great meaning in their denial—and if one accepts their premise, it is logical. For Marx said the disease is in society, not in the individual. Therefore society must be changed; only then will the world be better. There is no point in changing the individual, for no disease resides within the person. This is the basic proposition of communism. Therefore Marx said religion is useless—futile. If his view is right, then religion is indeed useless. He caught the logic well: if communism is right, religion is vain. The fundamental proposition of communism is that the illness is outside, not within. And the fundamental proposition of religion is that the illness is within, not outside.

Therefore upon this ground religion and communism are the greatest of rivals. The deepest conflict is between these two outlooks—and it will remain. If disease is outside, then the individual need do nothing—no meditation, no sadhana, no self-revolution. All such things are fruitless. Then we should change the outer setup. When the situation changes, when the mirror is changed, you will appear beautiful. There is no need to change you.

But in communism there is one basic difficulty: who will do the changing? Individuals will change it—those very individuals who were born in that society which was ugly, dirty, exploitative. And those individuals are the makers of society! Since communism does not grant any intrinsic power to the individual—assigning all power to society—how will the people produced by a corrupt society change it? Here communism gets stuck: the very individuals who will change society are the ones produced by it. If the individual has no intrinsic potency and all potency belongs to society, then a society made by such individuals cannot be new. Whence will the newness come? Those nurtured in the old will reinstall the old. And that is exactly what happened.

There was revolution in Russia; the change was on the surface. Within, the same old structure returned. Names changed, systems changed, there was great upheaval, massive killings—but fundamentally society remained what it was. The capitalist ceased, the poor ceased, but now there are managers and workers! The same difference remains, the same distance, the same exploitation. The wretched are still wretched, the affluent still affluent. The mode of affluence changed: there is no longer power in money in Russia. Now power lies in how high a post you hold in the Communist Party.

What difference does it make whether the note is in the hand or a party certificate is in the hand? No difference at all. The powerful remain powerful; the weak remain weak. And the distance between them is as it was—perhaps greater. In a poor country a poor man may sometimes become rich; but in Russia, one who is not a communist finds it nearly impossible to climb the communist ladder. For forty-fifty years a small group of ten-fifteen people has dominated all of Russia. A small clique holds the entire nation. The whole land is in a condition of slavery. No poor man was ever so enslaved.

Religion’s standpoint is that the disease is with the person, not with society. Only if the fundamental quality of the individual changes can society change. Revolution can be only in the individual—or there can be no revolution at all.

What does revolution in the individual mean? It means: whatever I find in my life is what I myself have put there from within.

Understand it like this. You are hungry, you are unhappy, you are depressed, the mind is wrapped in melancholy. Spring has come; flowers have blossomed; birds have begun to sing. But you will hear neither the birdsong, nor the blossoming of flowers, nor will the fragrance falling from flowers touch your nostrils. Spring will come—and you will not even know. You will remain enclosed in your sadness. It may even happen that the blossoming of flowers appears painful, that the birds’ song feels like noise, and you wish everything would fall silent. What uproar is this? The breezes of spring will sting you—for you will see through the filter of your sorrow.

It also happens that you are in great love, great joy, greatly elated. Then even where a plant has only thorns, no flowers, in those thorns too you may experience beauty. A cactus can become a symbol of supreme beauty. If within there is the celebration of love and joy, thorns turn into flowers. For it is the seer who sees, the hearer who hears. What the eyes see outside is of lesser value; what is hidden within and peers through the eyes is of greater value.

Your very soul spreads around you and overlays things. So whatever you see, whatever you find, is your own form spread out. If this is so, only then is there a way to change life—because then, if I change myself, I change the whole world.

Understand this as well: we do not live in one world. It appears so, but each of us has a different mental world. As many people as are sitting here, so many worlds are present here. Someone among you is unhappy, someone happy, someone peaceful, someone restless—then you cannot be members of the same world. The one who sits here in peace will feel this world around him suffused with perfect peace. Every particle of air, every star in the sky, the leaves, the flowers, the trees—everything will seem to give him peace. Even a gentle ripple of breeze will be a gust of peace. He will be filled with freshness. And right next to him someone sits sad and miserable; the same events occur, but the interpretation is different.

The world is created by interpretation, not by objects. The way we interpret, the way we see—that is how the world is formed.

And each of us has a different gaze. Each of us has a different philosophy. Our worlds are different. Every person lives in his own mental world. Hence we collide—because our worlds are so different.

Two people marry—and never manage to be in tune. Because the mental realm, the constructed inner world of each, is so different that they collide; conflict arises. The husband says something; the wife understands something else entirely, which he never said. He says a thousand times, “That is not what I meant,” but the wife cannot accept that that is not his meaning: “This is exactly what you mean.” What the wife says, the husband cannot understand. Dialogue seems impossible. You say something; something else is taken to be the meaning. The other says something; you derive a different meaning. The other knocks his head, “That is not my intention,” and still you are not convinced: “That is your intention, now you are changing it.” The way of seeing…

However close we come, our worlds remain separate. And conflict persists—until you understand that each person is living in his own manas-loka, his mental realm; until you become so alert that you begin to see how the other must be seeing, until you put yourself in his place—until then, conflict will continue. Until then even friendship is a kind of enmity; relationship a sort of quarrel; the family a kind of disturbance. For there arise so many worlds there—and among them conflict.

But we do not remember that we see through a shell, that we look through a pair of spectacles. The color of our spectacles spreads over everything—then we set about changing things instead of changing the spectacles, instead of taking off the spectacles. Instead of changing myself, I get busy arranging the outside—how the world should be made good, how the house should be beautiful, how beauty should surround me. And the man within is ugly—he makes everything ugly.

When I stay in the homes of the wealthy, I am astonished. They have money—but no sense of beauty. So the house becomes a warehouse of bric-a-brac—very expensive. They bring costly things, gather them from the whole world—but there is no sensibility for beauty. They have money; their homes look like junk museums. Whatever is new in the market, they buy it and keep it. But neither do they have the art of placing things, nor the eye to see, nor any sensibility for poetry, nor any experience of beauty. The only experience they have is of collecting money—which is the ugliest act in this world. The whole soul becomes ugly. Yet with money they can purchase beauty. So whatever they are told is “beautiful”… If a rumor comes that a Picasso must be in the house, they spend millions to buy a Picasso! They do not understand what the painting is. They cannot even tell whether it is hung upside down or right side up. But since it is a Picasso, it must be in the house. So they hang it.

Picasso wrote in a letter that my life is the life of a sad man. Whatever I created through the labor of a lifetime is hanging in houses where there are neither eyes to see nor hearts to understand. Somewhere I am hanging in a bathroom, somewhere in a drawing room. The labor of my whole life has gone to those who will not pause even for a moment to look at what it is they have brought.

Gather as many things as you like—if there is no sensibility within, ugliness will surround you. And even in a hut there can be beauty if the sense of beauty is within. Then even an empty space can be beautiful. That sensibility is projective; it is that very sensibility which constructs the world around you. It may be that there are no costly flowers in your vase, and you have only arranged a few simple leaves—but even in that there will be beauty, because beauty arises from within.

This sutra is to be understood. For those moving in the direction of a life-revolution, it is most worth pondering.

The fourth sutra: “Listen to the music of life. Seek it, and first hear it in your own heart. At first you may perhaps say that there is no song here; when I search, only tuneless clamor is heard. Search more. And if still you remain unsuccessful, then stop—and search again at a still deeper level. A natural music, a secret spring flows in every human heart. It may be covered, completely hidden, and seem silent—but it is there.”

“Listen to the music of life.”

But the first condition for hearing it is: first hear it in your own heart. Otherwise it will not be heard outside. We hear music outside—we may even think we are understanding it. We nod our heads and feel delighted. But if the inner music has not been heard, all this is superficial; it will not grant entry into music.

Music is adhyatma. Until the taste of raga arises in your heart, until a rhythmic breath begins to flow in you, until the very pulsation of your life becomes a vina, until the inner nada—sound—is heard, the sound that is not to be produced but is already going on, that which you are—until that is heard within, you will have no recognition of the infinite music resounding in this cosmos. And once that nada is heard within, you will find that everywhere—the tinkle of a stream, the wind passing through the leaves of trees, in the fall of a stone, in the flow of a river, in silence, in the hush of night, in the chirr of crickets—everywhere you begin to hear the echo of your heart. This world becomes a music.

But this will happen on the day the heart can be heard.

Why? Because the heart is so near—if you cannot hear its music, all else is far; their music you will not hear. The stars are far—how will their music reach you? The heart is so close—if even that is not heard!

Begin the journey from the nearest.

In very ancient days—so ancient that history has forgotten to remember it—education in music began with meditation. For what will you do with an instrument, what will your throat accomplish, until the tone of the heart’s music is experienced? Education in dance began with meditation. For what will moving the body do? Until the inner pulsation begins, until an inner electricity flows, until someone within begins to dance—until then, moving the body will be drill; it will not be dance. And however much skill arrives in making the body move, that skill will be technical, not of the heart. The heart will not be anywhere in it—only skill. The skill can become very deep—still the soul will not be there; only the body will dance. That is the difference.

A great musician too can dance; a dancer can dance; a great musician can generate music. But in Krishna’s dance there is something else. Technically he may even be “wrong”; pundits could find faults in his dance—and if you set pundits at it, they surely will. Yet his dance belongs to another dimension.

In Meera’s music faults can be found—in her poetry, errors in grammar. For Meera is neither a poet, nor a dancer, nor a musician. Yet somewhere in the inner recesses, deep within, music has happened, dance has happened, poetry has been born. That very poetry, that very dance, has reached the body and spread outward. Therefore there is something entirely different in her dance—it is not of this world. Some ray arrives from beyond; some news comes from far away. Hence Meera has possessed the heart. There have been very great musicians—Meera is incomparable to them. Technically she has no standing; yet the musicians we shall keep forgetting—forgetting Meera is impossible.

Chaitanya dances. In his dancing there is neither method nor knowledge—the dance is unpolished. But in the dance there is prana, there is some soul; the dance is alive. Not only the body trembles—somewhere deep within, pulsations are happening, and the body is only giving the news of those pulsations.

All arts such as dance and music were born once in the temple; they were born from the temple. They later spread into the world. Their primary stage was part of the search for adhyatma. But slowly, as happens with all things, we became more interested in the outer casing. Then we became busy arranging the outer shell. We decorated it so much that we forgot the one for whom the arrangement was made—he had long since died. Now we go on adorning only the body.

Music has gone far from adhyatma; dance has gone far—so far that it has almost turned upside-down. Dance and music now almost serve vasana. Once they were born of the soul; now they are in the service of desire!

Hence Islam had to deny music altogether, to call it sin. It is astonishing—but worth thinking about.

Hindus considered music supreme; the experience of music, supreme meditation. And thousands of years later the last religion to appear on earth—Islam—forbade music: music cannot be played before the mosque! Music was declared a sin!

Islam is right—and the Hindu is right. On the day music was born, it was part of supreme knowing, of meditation. But drifting away, it came to serve vasana. When Mohammed was born, music was in the service of lust; it had become a limb of kama. Therefore Mohammed said: music is not before the mosque—then it is sin. Both are right, because music has two poles, two ends.

Remember one thing: music will fall into the service of vasana if you have not first heard it within. If you hear it outside first, its impact will strike your sex center—for the sex center is the most outward, the lowest, the nearest. If you hear music within, it will resound in the soul. If you hear it outside first, its first blow falls upon the sex center—because that is closest. Then inevitably music becomes engaged in the service of sex.

Thus the sexually obsessed relish dance and song. Gradually it became a thing for the courts of kings; the sadhu withdrew, because the unsaintly began to savor music. But music is not the cause—the trouble arises if the journey has not begun within. If the journey begins within, once the inner music is experienced, then whatever music is in the world—made or unmade; natural or artificial—all of it, once the inner is remembered, will strike the same place.

Nanak kept a musician with him. He spoke little—he sang more. And by his side sat Mardana, playing his ektara. But Nanak first taught ajapa—the unuttered mantra. First the inner ajapa-nada must be heard. When his seekers would become absorbed in ajapa, hearing the inner sound, then he would also offer outer music. Then the outer music would unite with that deep inner music. And when the music of the outer and the inner become one, the outer and inner disappear—only music remains. That moment of music becomes a moment of Brahman-experience.

“Seek it, and first hear it in your own heart. At first you may perhaps say that there is no song here, no music here; when I search, only tuneless clamor is heard.”

Certainly, the first time you go within, you will find nothing but a crowd and a marketplace—for until now you have only carried crowd and market within. There you will hear hubbub. You will hear futile voices. You will hear broken fragments of talk without rhyme—music is far away—without even congruity or connection. If you sit in solitude and write down what goes on within, you will think: someone crazy is inside me—or many crazies are inside me.

Scientists now think that today or tomorrow they will devise a way to fasten electrodes to your skull and amplify what goes on within so others can hear it too. No one will agree to this work—that others should hear what is going on within you. Once others have heard, no one will trust you anymore. For the face you maintain is counterfeit. You appear very wise—this too is fake. Within there is only a babble of deranged tones.

Naturally, when you go within you will first hear this derangement. First these same voices will be heard. Do not be frightened by them, do not be upset. A little deeper entry is needed. Listen to them with sakshi—witnessing—then the entry will be possible. Do not oppose them, for in opposing you will get entangled there. Do not fight them—if you fight, you too become a part of the inner riot; the riot will grow. Do not try to stop them either, for stopping does not free you. And whatever you suppress, you must then sit upon its chest—you cannot go beyond. Do nothing with them at all—remain neutral.

Buddha has said: proceed inward by indifference—upekkha.

Let the clamor go on—like when you pass through a market: it is the market, and you carry no concern for it. So too, while passing through this inner market, do not be troubled. Maintain a mood of indifference: “So it is—a market. This is what I have collected until now.” Silently, in the spirit of witnessing, move inward and search deeper.

“Search still deeper. If still you remain unsuccessful, then stop—and search again at a yet deeper level.”

Do not be afraid—for surely the spring is there. Many have found it; you too can. Those who have found it bear testimony that it can be found. It is within you, covered layer upon layer. There may be many layers. But do not be disturbed—continue the search. However much upheaval appears within, sit quietly and go on watching it.

When Sri Aurobindo first entered sadhana, his master told him: thoughts will move greatly within you; do one small thing—consider thoughts to be flies, buzzing around your head. Pay them no mind; let them clamor. Understand you stand in the middle and the flies buzz all around. Sri Aurobindo sat in that state for three days. At first he was much upset, because there were not a few flies—if each thought were a fly, then millions began to hum. But he was a man of resolve. He said, “If I am to take them as flies, then what is there to worry about? Just sit.” He sat and sat; the flies kept buzzing. He neither fought nor chased nor shooed them away.

Gradually he found, after hours, that the swarm was thinning. Then confidence grew: if just by sitting the crowd is thinning, then with more sitting it will thin further. Joy came, trust came, hope came, self-confidence increased. He kept sitting. He thought, “Now it is not right to get up—on getting up it may be I will have to pass through such a crowd again. So keep sitting.” He sat for three days without food or drink. He decided, “Until the last fly is gone, I will remain seated.” In three days the last fly too departed. No thought remained.

In that moment the music of life is heard; in that moment the inner spring is revealed. When you are nirvichar—without thought—there is connection with the heart’s music. As long as you are filled with thought, there will be clamor. But this clamor is not very difficult to cross. Only indifference, a refusal to get entangled in it, and a gradual letting-go—these are needed.

In the West they have made feedback machines—cheap devices of great use. Very small machines—perhaps the price of a few thousand rupees. Wires are attached on the forehead where the blows of thought land and the nerves of the brain quiver. You are seated before the machine and the switch is turned on. Instantly the needle begins to whirl rapidly—the more rapidly your thoughts are whirling, the faster the needle spins. You are told to relax, to become more and more at ease. You see before you that as you relax the needle slows. Confidence grows. As you become more still, the needle slows further. When you come to just that state of quiet which they call alpha, the machine begins to beep—peep, peep, peep. As the machine beeps, you gain sure confidence: thoughts have fallen silent; I have entered alpha waves, where meditation and deep sleep occur. In that instant if you look within, not a single thought is there. Outside the machine signals it; inside there is no thought. If you become stiller yet, you descend deeper than alpha—then the machine gives another kind of sound.

What you might achieve in years happens in three to seven days sitting with this machine—because whatever you do, meditation or anything, you do not know what is happening within. If you know, it becomes a great convenience. You get the confidence that some movement is happening, some change is coming. This they call feedback—because the machine assists you, feeds you the news: yes, now you are growing quiet. You do not know within, but the machine tells you you are becoming still. The notion “I am growing still” becomes a suggestion. If I am growing still, you grow stiller. As you quieten, the machine signals more—and thus a dialogue forms between you and the machine. If you do nothing, only sit and relax, then within five to seven minutes—in two or three days of practice—you will achieve alpha waves.

In the inner world this is the only experiment: to relax thoughts and gently detach yourself from them. In all religions, all systems, all yoga, all tantra—there is only this one important thing: somehow cross the layer of inner clamor and reach that place where the spring of silence flows within. That spring is within you—as much within you as within Buddha, not a whit less. The issue is to establish contact with that spring.

“If still you remain unsuccessful, then stop—and search again at a yet deeper level. A natural music, a secret spring flows in every human heart. It may be covered, completely hidden, and seem silent—but it is there. At the very root of your nature you will find the attainment of shraddha, hope and love.”

And the day you become related to this source, your life will be filled with shraddha, hope, and love. That will be the sign.

People are told: have faith. How can they have faith? Bring trust—how can they bring it? Believe—how can they believe? For trust, belief, shraddha do not arise until there is a connection with the inner joy, the quiet music. They are outer outcomes of being related to the inner music. Trying, people bring counterfeit shraddha; by force they believe. They think, “Since it is said so often to believe, fine—we will believe.” But a harm occurs: they are deprived of true shraddha; a false, fake faith remains in their hands, and they think this is shraddha.

All of us carry such shraddha. From childhood we have been taught to believe, so we do. Then even disbelief faces obstacles. It is convenient to believe, for there is a whole group around us of believers. But the belief is false—through it we never reach inner trust.

To reach inner trust there is no means other than meditation. Information, education—nothing will help until you begin to taste the inner. When this taste arises, three things happen in your life. Shraddha arises.

Shraddha does not mean shraddha toward someone. Shraddha means the very tendency to trust. It is not that you will have shraddha toward your guru, or toward Mahavira. For I see that one who has shraddha toward Mahavira has none toward Mohammed. This faith is false. Toward whom is not the question. Within you a spontaneous mood of trust will arise. Your first gesture will be to trust—not toward this or that, but as a way of being. Right now what is your first gesture? Distrust.

If a stranger comes to your house, you first look at him this way: isn’t he a thief? A rogue? Put the things away! Might he take something? Has he come to beg? Will he ask for money? What will he do? First you… then you examine his clothes, his condition—for condition gives news. Your first look at anyone is of distrust. Even if later you bring trust, it is only after you have thoroughly distrusted and seen that distrust does not succeed—that he is neither stealing nor running away nor doing anything—then you bring it.

Your trust is not a spontaneous mood; it is the outcome of your reasoning. Your spontaneous mood is distrust. The first thing born in you is distrust. If at night you see a man enter the house in the dark, you instantly cry, “Thief!” You have no alternative; this is your spontaneous cry. Seeing a shadow in the dark, the first notion is enemy—not friend.

What I am saying is: without any reasoning our spontaneous mood is distrust. This is the mark of a mind full of clamor. It is frightened. Everywhere it sees hostility; everywhere someone eager to snatch something; everywhere a thief, a cheat; looting all around; and the whole world’s eyes are just on him.

As soon as one becomes related to the inner music, the opposite happens—a spontaneous trust arises. Then even if a thief enters your house, your first thought is not that he is a thief. The first thought being “thief” is very bad—even if he truly is a thief. Even if he proves to be a thief—the harm this thought does is greater than any harm the thief might do. For such a person cannot become religious. Such a person will be deprived of Paramatma. He will save a few little things, will protect himself from thieves and cheats, will keep his pocket safe—but what he saves is worth two pennies. And what he loses is infinite.

If you trust, what will be lost? What have you that can be lost? What can be looted? The man who has been deceived a thousand times, yet when the thousand-and-first chance comes, trusts again—that man is a saint. The reason for his saintliness is that his tendency to trust is spontaneous. However contrary the experience, he will not abandon that tendency.

I have heard—Umasvati has written somewhere—that a sadhu entered a river to bathe. He saw a scorpion had fallen in. He lifted it onto his hand to place it on the bank. The scorpion stung. With the sting the scorpion slipped and fell back into the water. The sadhu lifted it again. A fisherman on the bank said, “Are you mad? That scorpion stings you, it just stung you—and again you’re lifting it from the water!” The sadhu said, “A scorpion does not abandon its nature; I too should not abandon mine. I want to save it, but the poor scorpion is afraid—out of fear it thinks perhaps I am going to kill it, so it stings. But do you think I should be defeated by a scorpion, and the scorpion win? I will lift it. And I will try until a moment comes when even the scorpion understands that the one lifting me is not doing it to kill me. Only then will I stop. I cannot be defeated by a scorpion.”

Understand this a little. What will the scorpion do by stinging? Give a little pain. But if this sadhu does not lose to the scorpion, the bliss he will attain—you cannot even imagine it.

This sutra says: at the root of your nature you will find shraddha, hope, and love.

Shraddha will become a spontaneous mood. Toward whom is not the question—you will become a person of faith. Whether it is a thief or a sadhu, a mahatma or anyone else; whether one is your own or a stranger—your spontaneous mood will be one of shraddha. This is the sign of the faithful.

Therefore those devotees whom you see bowing their heads before a temple and walking stiff before a mosque—they are not devotees. A devotee will bow everywhere. They protect the mosque and burn the temple! They are not devotees. They carry the Koran on their heads and kick the Gita! That is not devotion. Such faith is false—and dangerous, poisonous.

A devotee means: whatever is around, he will find something in it worthy of reverence. He will find it—his spontaneous search is to revere.

“Hope and love…”

In the life of the person who begins to hear the inner music, despair will disappear. And do not take hope to mean he will think: tomorrow I will get this, the day after that. No—that hope is the hope of desire. We left that far behind in earlier sutras. The seeker has abandoned that long ago.

Hope now means this: wherever he looks, he will see the hopeful aspect. If the night is dark, he will see how close the dawn is. If the sky is covered with black clouds, he will say: today the flashes of lightning will be splendid. If sorrow comes, he will say: wait for joy, surely it is near. However much he is given suffering, he will find joy within it. However much he is troubled, he will extract learning from it. Whatever occurs in his life, he cannot be made despondent. He will find the point of hope everywhere, the white point—he will find it everywhere. It is present everywhere.

The despairing man finds darkness everywhere. Do what you will—ask the despairing, he will say the world is very bad. There are two nights, then somehow there is a little day.

Another will say: the world is wonderful—two bright days, and in between a little night. Night and day are equal—the rest is a matter of angle of vision.

The despairing man, going to the rose, will count the thorns. Seeing a thousand thorns, he will say: this one rose is deception. Where so many thorns are, can there be a rose? A plant from which such poisonous thorns sprout that they could take life—can a rose happen in it? This flower is only a lure, so you get caught in the thorns. The flower is false. The rose blooms in the morning and withers by evening—thorns abide. Truth is the thorn; the flower is maya, a dream—do not get entangled, beware.

The hopeful person too will go to the rose—but the flower will seize him first. He will be so lost in the flower that even if someone reminds him of the thorns, he will say: where such a wondrous flower has bloomed, how can thorns be? And if there are thorns, they must exist to protect the flower. If thorns are there, they must have some meaning. For in the plant where such a beautiful flower blossoms, thorns cannot be like enemies—they will be like friends.

And one who is truly immersed in the nectar of the flower will begin to see flowers even in the thorns. And one who is truly soaked in the poison of thorns will begin to see poison even in the flower’s nectar. Then the world becomes as we see it.

Hope means: the white facet of life will be visible to him.

“And love will be attained.”

Love does not mean he will start loving one person. Love now means that love will be his natural state. He will love—and whoever is ready, whoever is open, will become a recipient of his love. His love will not be moha—attachment. His love will not be asakti—clinging. From his love no bondage will be created. His love will be a spontaneous giving. He will share the peace and joy that have happened within. The act of love will be to go on sharing his serenity and bliss. For us love is a relationship; for him love will be a state. It is not that he will love you—he will be loving.

There is a difference. You love someone, so love is for you a relation—but you are not loving. A Buddha or a Mahavira loves no one in particular, yet they are loving. This does not mean everyone will get their love equally. They give equally to all—but each receives according to his capacity. Whoever stands before them as an enemy remains deprived. Whoever opens the vessel of his heart entirely becomes filled to the brim.

All will receive differently. But from Mahavira’s side the giving is equal. To say “giving” is not even correct. It is like this: when a lamp is lit, light falls from it. If you pass by with eyes open, you will see; with eyes closed, you will not. The light does not fall “for” you—light simply falls. You pass by; if your eyes are open, it becomes available. In such a person’s life love is a state.

“He who chooses the path of sin refuses to look within, stops his ears to the heart’s music, and blinds his eyes to the light of his own soul. He finds it simple to remain immersed in his passions—therefore he does so.”

The path of sin has only one meaning: instead of moving toward yourself, within, you move outward—toward someone else. Sin means only this: your inner journey is closing and the outer journey begins. All outward-going is sin. Even if you give it a religious name, there is no difference. Whenever you are moving away from yourself, you are on the path of sin. And when you are coming nearer to yourself, you are on the path of merit. One who wants to go away from himself must become deaf to the inner voice—because that voice will pull him inward. One who wants to go away from himself must become blind to the inner vision—for that vision will call the eyes within!

So slowly we become utterly finished with the inner, so we may comfortably go out, go far away, and none may stop us. But the farther we go, the more clamor and disturbance gather around us. Then when, tormented and pained, we want to return within, first we must come back through this very marketplace we ourselves created. Yet if someone holds courage, if someone holds daring, the crowd can be crossed—for the crowd is very weak; the inner sound is immensely powerful. Once contact is established, we become masters of an infinite source.

“But beneath all life a swift river flows which cannot be stopped. Truly, deep water is there—discover it. Know this much: without doubt the voice is within you. Seek it there, and once you hear it, you will more easily recognize it in the people around you.”

Would that it be heard within you—then you will begin to hear it in everyone around you. The deeper you go within yourself, the deeper you will be able to see within others. The day you recognize your own center, people too will cease to be mere bodies for you—they will become souls. Their center will become transparent for you.

Remember this: as deep as you are within yourself, that deep you can see into another. If you are not within yourself at all—if you are shallow—then that shallow you will see into others.

Thus it happens that you pass even close to a Buddha or a Krishna and do not recognize. For you can see in others only to the extent you can see within yourself. If you are shallow, you cannot peer into their depth. Shallow notions arise; you gather shallow things and think you have known, recognized.

And when I say you pass by a Buddha, I do not say it idly—you have passed by. For you must have lived upon the earth. Some Buddha, some Christ, some Mahavira, some Rama, some Krishna must have lain upon your path. Through how many births, how many paths you have traveled—but you did not recognize. Had you recognized, perhaps you would not even be here today—or you would not be as you are, filled with pain and sorrow.

The reason for not recognizing is that you always see in proportion to your own depth. What you cannot see within yourself you cannot see within anyone. If all around you people appear bad, false, dark—one thing is certain: you have not seen light within yourself. One thing is certain: you have not seen the divinity within. One thing is certain: the inner music has not yet come into hearing.