Sadhana Sutra #12

If there is anything most worth learning in life, it is the sense of music, the feel of music. Music means that the ultimate mystery of life is not a crowding of notes, nor chaos, nor disorder; rather, all notes are meeting in one wave, one rhythm, one pointing, one hint. At the supreme center of life everything is joined, everything is in order. And what appears as disorder is because of our blindness. What appears as the uproar of notes, the tension among them, is because of our deafness. Because we do not hear rightly, we do not experience the consonance flowing between the notes.
We do hear the notes, but the bridge that joins one note to another—the music—we do not hear. As the capacity to listen grows, notes begin to fade and music begins to arise. A moment comes when notes are lost, become zero; all waves subside and only an ocean of music remains, only the presence of music remains.
Music means the love-relation between notes, the way one note is joined to another, the way one note dissolves into another and becomes absorbed. The interval between two notes is not empty. That interval too is full. Even if it is filled with silence, even if it is filled with the void, it is full. To experience that interval is to experience the music of life.
You have heard that truth cannot be said in words. But it appears in the empty spaces between words. And you have heard that emptiness does not break, it joins. And you have heard as well that Shunyata is not merely emptiness; Shunyata is filled with an incomparable music. But we do not have the capacity to hear the void, to hear silence. The music of life is in the intervals. Intervals do not appear to us. In between, we think there are gaps and chasms. One note is heard, then another is heard, but no bridge in between is seen. Hence we experience chaos.
We sit here, so many of us. One person is seen, then another person is seen; what joins the two is not seen. Therefore all persons seem separate. If the joining in between became visible, persons here would dissolve, and a single stream of life would remain. As I see it, you are less important, and the person sitting beside you is also less important; but the life flowing between you—that is more important. Because of that very life you live, and your neighbor lives. But that life is invisible. You appear at one pole, the neighbor appears at the other pole; the wave of life in between does not appear.
One who looks only at the visible will see chaos in life. For all that is visible is joined to the invisible. What is seen is only the edge; what is not seen—the wave in between, the ripple in between—that is the real existence. To experience that invisible is to experience the music of life.
Take the meaning of music rightly to heart: that which fills the intervals, that which completes even the empty, that which is present as fullness even in the void. That which is not seen, yet is. It can be experienced. As we become more sensitive within, it begins to be experienced. And then persons do not appear; that Paramatma who joins them begins to appear. Then one tree does not appear, and another tree does not appear, but the life that flows alike in both—within them and around them—begins to be seen.
The day that begins to be seen, that day this world is the expression of the One. Therefore these sutras lay great emphasis on music. Because one who experiences music—not the notes, but the waves that join the notes, the invisible waves, the rhythmicity flowing between notes—he will experience Brahman. Because Brahman is precisely that which binds all together and yet does not appear.
Certainly, what is seen will pass. What is seen will be lost. What is not seen will not pass. There is no way for it to be lost. Like waves, we arise and become visible. And then the waves fall and are lost. And the ocean which never appears... You will be surprised; you will say, the ocean is visible. But I tell you, the ocean is never seen. When you say you see the ocean, you only see the waves. You have not seen the ocean. You only see the waves. You see the surface of the sea. The surface is always full of waves. You never see the ocean itself. You see only those waves; the ocean is your inference. The waves are seen, they rise and fall. But the ocean in which they rise, from which they rise, and in which they dissolve—that is music. Waves are notes. Notes are heard, music is not heard! Waves are seen, the ocean is not seen!
And it is a great wonder that waves cannot be without the ocean. And notes cannot be without music. The ocean can be without waves; but waves cannot be without the ocean. Music can be without notes; but notes cannot be without music. Even so, music is not heard, the ocean is not seen! Waves are seen, notes are heard!
That which is impersonal, that which is Brahman, that supreme and secret expanse of life, does not come into experience; persons come into experience. The person has a limit, therefore he is seen. The wave is small, it is seen. The ocean is vast, the eyes are small, it is not seen. The note is small, it strikes, it is heard. Music is oceanic, even its stroke is not felt. It does not come into experience. But if we begin to move within, then as we slide inward, that music will begin to be heard.
But why? Why will it be heard by turning within?
Take the metaphor of the wave a little further. If a wave were to rise and look around, if a wave had eyes—and there is no difficulty in a wave having eyes, for we too are waves and we have eyes—if the wave had intelligence and looked around itself, it would see only waves, waves everywhere; it would not see the ocean. And the wave would also see that all other waves are different from itself.
Certainly, some wave is becoming big, some small, some is falling, some is forming. So how can this wave consider itself one with all other waves? Because some wave is disappearing right before it, and it is not disappearing. If we were one, we would vanish together. Some wave is rising and becoming bigger than me. Then we cannot be one. Because if we were one, I too would grow with it. So if the wave looks all around, two things will happen—first, the ocean will not be seen, because the chest of the ocean is covered with waves; and second, all waves will seem different from it. And third, it will seem that all waves are its enemies, eager to erase it, eager to push it aside.
Struggle, competition, rivalry—this is what is happening with us. But if the wave could turn toward the within, close its eyes to the outside and turn within, what would it find? If the wave turns within, just as it goes inward, it will begin to descend into the ocean. Because within the wave there is only ocean; beneath the wave there is only ocean.
If the wave looks outside itself, waves are seen; if it looks within, the ocean is experienced. And looking within, the whole situation changes. If the ocean is experienced, then the wave will laugh that those waves which were appearing were not real. Within them too is the same ocean. Now the wave can enter, from its own within, into the within of other waves as well. For underneath there is a single ocean—no barrier anywhere, no wall anywhere, no hindrance anywhere in going.
One who goes within can enter within anyone. Because he has found that lower path, that inner womb, from where we are one.
Therefore when you go to one like Buddha or Mahavira, you cannot figure it out; it seems they are looking at you from above. But they also have an inner way by which they are looking at you from within. From where they are seeing you in such a way as even you have never seen yourself.
Hence the great insistence in the traditions that complete surrender to the guru alone can become the path. Because he can know about you what you do not know about yourself—he does know. What you say about yourself is worth two pennies. The introduction you give of yourself has no great value. What is your identity?
You have only seen the upper layer of your own wave. And it may be that what he tells you will not make sense to you, because he is seeing you from the depths, from where you have not yet formed any relation, any contact.
Complete surrender means that you drop your self-knowledge, what you think you know, and you agree now to become acquainted by that path which the guru knows and you do not. If a wave goes within itself, it has gone within other waves too. Then it will experience that being a wave is unreal; being the ocean is real. It will experience that other waves are not different from me—however different they may appear, we are the play of one ocean.
And the third thing it will see is that as a wave I shall perish, but as the ocean there is no way for me to perish. This is the very experience of amrit. And if the knowers have said that the Atman does not die, do not think that you do not die. You will surely die. You were born, and you will die—the Atman does not die. By Atman is meant that the ocean within you does not die. The wave within you—of course it dies.
But for now you take the wave to be your being. Therefore a great delusion arises. People read that the Atman does not die and then think that they will not die. You will die for sure! There is no way for you to be saved. But when I say you will die, I am saying that what you now think you are will die. But within you there is also such a center, which you do not even recognize as you; that will not die.
As a wave, death is certain; as the ocean, amrit is certain.
Now let us enter these sutras.
The fifth sutra: 'Inscribe the heard sweetness of notes upon your memory. So long as you are only human, only some fragments of that great song reach your ears. But if you listen with attention, then remember them precisely, so that what has reached you does not get lost. And by it strive to grasp the purport of that mystery which surrounds you on all sides. A time will come when you will need no guru. For just as man has the power of speech, so too the All-pervading in which man exists has this power.'
'Inscribe the heard sweetness of notes upon your memory.'
Certainly, the whole of that great music cannot be heard today. As you are right now, the whole of that music cannot be heard. To hear that whole, you too will have to become gradually attuned within, because only the similar can know the similar.
Remember this maha-sutra always: only the similar can know the similar.
If you want to hear that great music, you yourself will have to become musical. If you want to see that great light, you will have to be filled with light. If you want to experience amrit, you will have to go beyond the fear of death.
Whatever you want to know, you will have to become like it. Because only the similar can be known; there is no way to know the dissimilar.
Therefore the ancient experiencers said that the eye is a portion of the sun within you, hence it can see light. The ear is a portion of sound within you, hence it can hear. Lust is a portion of earth within you, hence it pulls you downward. Meditation is a portion of Paramatma within you, hence it leads you toward the Divine.
Remember, whatever you are linked with becomes your path of journey. So if you want to hear that great music, as you are, you will not be able to hear it. Because you are so full of unmusicality, your life is so bereft of the sweetness of notes. There is so much turmoil within you, not a trace of rhythmicity. In your rising, sitting, walking, living, thinking—there is a crowd, a noise. As if you are a marketplace road upon which who knows what all is moving; in which there is no order in the midst, only chaos. From this chaotic state, if you wish to hear that great music, it is impossible.
But if you make a little effort, fragments of it can be heard. Because however much chaos you may have within, you are alive. This very fact is the news that some rhythm must be within you too; otherwise you could not live; you would break down, fall to pieces. If truly your crowd had become so great that there were none left within to bind that crowd together, you would fall apart into fragments. You would collapse like a house in which the mortar between the bricks has gone. You would be leveled to dust.
But you are alive, you have not been extinguished, you have not been leveled. Therefore, however much disturbance is within you, however much tension among the notes, however much conflict among them—somewhere, something must be binding you. Otherwise how could you be? Something must be holding you. Somewhere, somehow, some music is present even within this disturbance of yours. Perhaps sometimes a glimpse of it comes.
Some morning, seeing the sun rise, a wave of peace runs through you. Or some night the sky is full of stars and you are lying upon the earth looking at them, and suddenly all becomes silent. Or in a moment of love, or hearing some music, or seeing a dancer dance, something within you also becomes a dance. In some moments you too get a glimpse of music. That very glimpse you sometimes call happiness, that very glimpse you sometimes call peace, that very glimpse you call rasa. You have given it many names.
But that glimpse is simply the fact that in the presence of some outer event, you became joined within. Your turmoil vanished for a moment, and the notes within you met for a moment. The waves became the ocean for a moment. And within you as if a door opened. For a moment only, true—but a glimpse comes, and the world becomes different. This is the possibility. Fragments will come into experience. A very distant sound will be heard.
Therefore the fifth sutra says: 'Inscribe the heard sweetness of notes upon your memory.'
Whatever events have occurred in your life in which you experienced rasa, music, rhythm—accumulate them in your memory; do not let them be lost.
There was an old Christian order—the Essenes—in which Jesus received initiation. The Essene order had one method of meditation. And it was this: if ever in your life any moment has occurred in which thoughts were not and you were filled with bliss, then by remembering that very moment again and again, meditate upon it. Whatever that moment may have been, remember it again and again and meditate upon it, because in that moment you were at your highest peak—the furthest you have yet been able to go. Dig there, labor there.
In everyone’s life there is such a moment. In the hope of it man goes on living—that perhaps that moment will come again. In this trust he keeps living—that perhaps that moment will go still deeper. It is hard to find a person who does not have one or two such memories. Sometimes very trivial causes bring such an event. Perhaps you are walking, sunrays are falling upon your head, and suddenly you find that you are peaceful. You did nothing; suddenly, you have come to that place where the tuning has happened.
Sometimes in very ordinary happenings—lying in your bed in the morning, you awaken and suddenly you do not even recognize who you are. The man who slept at night—full of disturbance, anxiety, worry—is not there. For a moment you do not even know where you are. You are utterly silent. You are so silent that even self-recognition is forgotten. For any sort of reasons—while they have no particular relation—life goes on within you. Sometimes, without your knowing, your fragmented parts fall together—accidentally. And then whatever may be the hour outside, you suddenly become quiet.
Treasure these memories. Then, if you are meditating, such memories will go on increasing. Collect these memories. Keep gathering them in a corner of the heart so that they become deep. And all the memories in which bliss has happened in your life, in which you have known music, bring them all close, concentrate them upon a single point, so that with the support of all of them you can move ahead. For now you will get fragments; keep collecting these. When these fragments gather, the possibility of receiving greater fragments increases. Thus, slowly, brick by brick, that edifice will be raised on the day when you can hear that great music which is called the music of life.
But man is very contrary. We store the memories of sorrow! We take great relish in sorrow. We discuss our sorrow again and again. Listen to people’s talk—they keep weeping their sorrow. No one laughs his happiness; people weep their sorrow! There is not even a phrase in language that someone laughs his happiness. In language there is the phrase that someone weeps his sorrow. People go on telling one another of their sorrow, as if sorrow were something to tell, as if sorrow were a great event! As if you have accomplished some great deed by being unhappy!
But why does man so discuss sorrow? And he does not know that he is committing a kind of suicide. Because by discussing sorrow, sorrow becomes dense. By talking of sorrow, sorrow grows. By talking of sorrow, attention becomes fixed upon sorrow. By talking of sorrow, sorrow coagulates and produces new sorrows. Because what you store up, that alone you become capable of knowing more and more.
No one speaks of happiness! We just leave happiness aside and move on! Happiness is indeed lesser. But one reason it is lesser is that we do not accumulate happiness. We accumulate sorrow.
But why? Why does man talk of sorrow?
There are reasons. Whenever someone talks of sorrow, it only means he wants the other’s sympathy, the other’s love. And we do not speak of happiness because no one sympathizes with happiness. People feel envy toward a happy person, not love. Out of fear that others will feel jealousy, out of fear that no one will sympathize, man talks of sorrow. Man is thirsty for sympathy, thirsty for love.
But remember, the sympathy expressed after hearing your sorrow is not love. And the pity shown after hearing sorrow is an acceptance of your wretchedness. But in this way you will become more wretched. And if you have made a single relish out of your life—getting sympathy—then you will even imagine false sorrows that never happened. And gradually you will prepare the way for their happening.
Remember, do not talk of your sorrow. What is the point of it?
I am not telling you to talk of your happiness, but do express your happiness. Dissolve your sorrow in aloneness. Close the doors and windows, cry from the heart, scream, shout; but do not go to another to discuss your sorrow. Because you are not becoming a companion in the other’s happiness, you are making him miserable too. Therefore, however much sympathy we express to one who talks of sorrow, we still want to avoid that person. Better if he does not cross our path. Because he sends his waves of sorrow to us as well. And even if we listen to his talk of sorrow, we do so with the hidden desire that he should become quiet, so that we can tell him our sorrow. Such an exchange of sorrow goes on.
Stop talking of sorrow altogether. Your sorrow is private; suffer it in privacy. I am not telling you to suppress it; certainly express it—but into the empty sky, where it will not become a burden upon anyone’s chest. And do not ask for sympathy by telling your sorrow. This is beggary. Leave it alone; dissolve sorrow in solitude.
And whenever you are with someone, bring up the memory of happiness within you. Whenever you are with someone, reveal your happiness, dance and laugh your happiness, and live your happiness, so that you can lessen the other’s sorrow a little. And the more you begin to live this happiness, the more happiness will grow. And the more you remember this happiness, the more your movement will begin toward deeper happiness.
What we give attention to goes on increasing. Attention is the way of augmentation.
Now botanists say that if you give proper attention to a plant, it grows faster—the plant too. Therefore, the plant in the garden that the gardener loves more grows faster. The one he pays more attention to grows faster, it flowers sooner.
There have now been many scientific experiments on this. By attention alone! Give a plant no attention; give it soil, manure, water, sun, give everything—only do not give attention, give it neglect; its growth is arrested!
Scientists now say that the speed with which an infant grows with the mother is because of the mother’s attention. She may be far, she may be in another room, but her attention is on the child. She may have gone hundreds of miles away, she may be entangled in a thousand tasks, but within her, attention is fixed on the child. At night she is sleeping, even then her attention is on the child. Clouds may thunder in the sky, her sleep does not break; but if the child just stirs a little, her sleep breaks! Her attention is on the child.
Scientists say that in the child’s growth, even more essential than the mother’s milk is her attention. Therefore, even in orphanages children do grow; they may even get milk better than the mother’s milk—that is not the difficulty; they can receive service from trained nurses; a mother cannot serve so well, for she has no training; they can get clothes, medicine, all arrangements well; but somehow there is a lack of growth within them. All seems dry. One thing is missing: attention is not being received.
We are so eager for love. You may not know why. Because without love, attention is not received. The search for love is really the search for attention. If someone gives you attention, the flower of life blossoms within you, growth happens. If no one gives attention, you wither. Therefore the thirst for love—that someone may love—is not really for love. It is that someone should give attention, someone should look at you, someone should look at you and rejoice, be delighted—then you grow.
But sometimes this takes a morbid form. Every good thing has morbid forms.
The search for love is healthy; but when someone tries to get attention by any means whatsoever, then danger arises. If you cry and shout loudly, people’s attention will come to you. The child learns this if the mother does not love him properly. The child whose mother loves him rightly does not cry, does not scream and shout. But the child whose mother does not love him rightly cries more, screams more, shouts more. Because he is learning a trick: when he cries out, the mother pays attention; when he throws down things, the mother pays attention; when he breaks something, the mother pays attention.
Have you noticed that when guests come to your house, the child throws more things, creates more disturbance? He is drawing the guests’ attention. Otherwise he was sitting quietly. And you want him to remain quiet when guests arrive. How can he remain quiet? More people have come into the house; their attention... And the guests are talking with you and no one is paying attention to the child, so the child will create twenty-five disturbances so that you will pay attention and the guests will pay attention.
It is going on unconsciously. But attention is a factor in growth. Growth happens in proportion to attention given.
Then people become ill. Think of a politician—what is he asking for, if not attention? What will he gain by being in office? A thousand kinds of abuse, a thousand kinds of insult, a thousand kinds of defamation—and nothing else. But one thing is there: when he is in office, on the chair, attention is gained; people look from all sides.
The search for office is the search for attention—but morbid. Because this way of seeking attention is to demand it by force, violently. Just as the child demands attention by breaking things, so too the politician demands attention by becoming violent.
Therefore you will see, if ever war comes to this land, then in times of war the great leader of the nation becomes a great great leader. Because in times of war the attention you must pay to the leader is far more than in times of peace. Hence political science says that if someone wants to become a great leader, war must occur during his term. Otherwise, he will not.
India and Pakistan went to war over Bangladesh, and you began to call Indira a Mahakali. You would never have said that otherwise. Leaders are lost if war does not occur in their lives. And if they lose the war, then they get no attention at all. If they win the war, then the full attention is theirs. Therefore a leader tries very hard that somehow the wreath of victory may be tied upon his head—then the whole country, the whole world, gives attention.
But this is morbid. Because this attention is not being received through love, not through creativity. This attention is being received through destruction, violence, hatred. But these are the very children who must have attracted attention by breaking utensils at home. Now, as MLAs, MPs, ministers, they are attracting attention. These are the children who did not receive the mother’s love.
If the mother’s love is received, a person does not attract attention violently. Then in a creative way... then he rejoices. And if attention comes to joy, it is fine; then he does not cry and shout.
Do not join this search for attention with sorrow, otherwise you will become more and more miserable. Nor ask for attention by making another miserable, because then you will become more and more miserable.
Gather the happy moments of your life, cherish their memory. In the experiments of meditation, whenever any experience comes—some fresh breeze moves through you, some sunray flashes, some flower blooms within, some fragrance fills, some fragment of music is heard—keep collecting it, saving it in the depths of the heart. And try to live it more and more. Call it more and more. Bring it more and more into experience. Whenever the opportunity comes, whenever a solitary moment is there, close your eyes, return into that very moment, live it again. Then you are increasing it, and you are giving it life and attention. You will gradually find that larger fragments begin to come, greater pieces descend, things begin to become clear, the sense of music becomes deeper and deeper.
'As long as you are only human, only some fragments of that great song reach your ears. But if you listen with attention, remember them precisely, so that what has reached you is not lost. And by it strive to grasp the purport of that mystery which surrounds you on all sides.'
Whatever is most precious can be lost. Until the Total is attained, anything gained can be lost.
Keep this in mind. Do not think that what has been gained cannot be lost. Until the Total is found, you must not be careless. Until then, whatever little is gained, try to preserve it. For you have much sorrow, and a grain of happiness sometimes arrives. If you are careless, in this sorrow it will be lost somewhere. In your house there is so much rubbish that if you find even a fragment of diamond, you can lose it in your own garbage. There is no need to go outside to lose it. It can be buried anywhere in the dust of your house. It is so small, and comes so rarely. And you have collected such a heap of trash in the house that it will remain buried in that trash.
So clean one corner of your heart, and there store only happiness! Until the Total is attained. Upon the attainment of the Total, all your dust, all your trash is lost. Then there is no fear; then there is no fear of losing. Even at the last boundary, falling back can still happen. Even one moment before the ultimate experience, wandering can still happen. After it has happened, then there is no fear. Because you have plenty of stuff where you can be lost; you have plenty in which you can be lost. Therefore make one corner of the heart utterly clean. As someone makes a temple in the house, he does not sleep in that temple, he does not go there to quarrel, and he does not eat there. He goes into that temple only for prayer, only for worship. However impure the house may be, he keeps that small corner pure.
So also make a temple in one corner of the heart; there collect only those occasional glimpses of happiness that come into your life. And whenever you have the chance, close your eyes and slip into that corner. Live again; bring back those memories again. Some moment of love, some moment of joy, some moment of meditation—live them again and again. To live again is not merely memory. To live again means to live again. There is a difference between the two.
Suppose you remember your childhood. You remember that childhood was delightful. Or you recall that one morning you went into the garden, the trees were silent, there was hush, sunrays were entering through the edges of the trees, and you saw a butterfly flying and you began to run after it. You still remember it today. You can remember it in two ways. One—like an intellectual memory, you can give a description that such and such happened before you. The second way is this: close your eyes and become a child again. Remember that you are again standing in the shade of those trees where you stood twenty or fifty years ago. Remember that the rays of the sun are touching you, you have become a child again. Forget the fifty years in between; remove them, become a child again. Relive; do not merely remember. Remembering is from above, from the outside. If you are fifty years old, you remain fifty and remember.
Reliving means that you have become five or six years old. Now you have forgotten that the forty-five years between have passed. You are a five-year-old child; that very moment is present again. The sunlight is descending from the edge of the trees, a butterfly is flying, you have begun to run after it. Run. For a moment, become a five-year-old child. When you come back, you will find you have returned with freshness. In this fifty-year-old age, if you can again be a five-year-old child, you have filled your fifty years with a new freshness and new life. When you open your eyes, you will find that you have the eyes a five-year-old child has—innocent. This will remain for a moment, but reliving it again and again can become a way of transforming your life.
Live the moment of happiness, the moment of bliss, the moment of music, so that it is not lost.
'A time will come when you will need no guru. For just as man has the power of speech, so too the All-pervading in which man exists has this power.'
If you keep catching these fragments of music and these fragments begin to sit together and give birth to a larger music, then a time will come when you will be able to hear directly the voice of that inner Atman, or that Paramatma—whatever name you wish to give—the voice and its instruction. You will not then need to make any person your guru. That is needed only so long as you cannot hear directly. Until then you need a mediator who can hear directly. He is saying to you precisely what you too could have heard. He is telling you what you too are capable of hearing. But you are not yet capable, because there is such clamor within you. As this clamor falls, as the plots of inner ground are cleared, as the junk is thrown out and the useless brush is uprooted, and within you only that remains which is essential—as you become clean within, so you yourself will begin to catch the tones of the Infinite, the voice of the Infinite, the word of the Infinite.
The day you begin to catch it yourself, on that day there will be no need of the outer guru. He was only a mediator. He was catching; you were not able to. He was telling you what your inner Atman would also tell you. But take each and every step by holding to the experience of happiness—as much as you can hold it, hold it and fill yourself.
One more point is necessary to keep in mind here, which becomes a very bad obstacle. Do not make such a mistake. Many people do. They come to me and say that yesterday there was great bliss in meditation, but today such bliss did not come. Someone says that in the beginning great bliss came in meditation, but now such is not coming. He is very troubled by this.
Remember, this sutra does not mean this. If you demand today what came yesterday in meditation, it will not come. Because bliss cannot be brought by force. No expectation can be made of it. If you expect it, you will become so tense that it will not come.
Therefore it often happens that those who start meditation for the first time experience such bliss as they do not later. The reason is they themselves. The first time they experienced, at that time there was no waiting; they did not even know; there was no tension that it should come. There was not even this: if it does not come I will be unhappy. They knew nothing. They were simple and innocent. Into that innocent, expectation-free mind bliss had descended.
Once bliss has descended, now they expect. They stand in meditation with the condition that now bliss must come. Now they are taut, now they are stretched. Now they are not meditating, they are only demanding bliss. The first time it came, there was no demand; now there is demand. Now it will not come. You have changed its very foundation.
This sutra does not mean: whatever you have received, demand it. This sutra means: whatever you have received, live it, remember it. But do not demand its repetition; then it will repeat. Do not demand it, and it will be given. Do not try to bring it by force. Because in life, whatever is supreme cannot be forced. Only the inferior can be forced. The superior cannot be forced. If you use force, it will break.
A stranger meets you. You fall in love, great joy comes. Then you marry, and that kind of joy does not come. The same has happened. Now your expectation is that the joy should be brought—where is it? Bring back the joy you knew on the first day! No one in the world can bring it. No one can drag it and bring it.
You are demanding from your wife that when you were my beloved, and the moment of joy you gave me then, why are you not giving it now? Has your love ended? The wife says to the husband, now you do not speak that way, you do not express love as you did before! What is the matter? Are you entangled in love with someone else? Now husband and wife are anxious, troubled. They guard one another. And they demand from one another. And nothing comes into the hand. And life becomes empty, spent. Now they only give pain to one another. The reason for the pain is the same. What happened on the first day happened unknowingly. That day she was not your wife; that day you had no power over her. That day you could not demand; that day it was given. That day you too gave without asking. The event happened unknowingly. What happened unknowingly, now you want to make it happen knowingly. You are introducing a new condition; that condition will spoil everything.
The stream of love that flows between lover and beloved does not remain between husband and wife. It is very difficult. Almost impossible.
The joy that is experienced when you descend into meditation on the first day will not happen on the second day. Because on the second day you come prepared, thinking that now you are going to get joy. This preparation was not there the first day—remember. On the second day also come just as unprepared as on the first, and a still greater joy will happen. On the third day come even more unprepared. Do not demand at all, only meditate. Do not even ask when it will happen now. Do not raise this question at all. Simply meditate—it will go on increasing.
The meaning of this sutra is that whatever your happiness is, gather it. Relive it, but do not desire its repetition.
To relive means: from what you have gathered from the past, taste it again and again, chew it over. The cow and the buffalo know how to chew the cud—learn that. They take food, and then chew the cud, again and again they chew. Whatever bliss is experienced, chew its cud.
You already do a lot of cud-chewing of sorrow, so you surely know how to chew. If someone abuses you once, you repeat his abuse within yourself fifty times—that he said such. Again and again you become inflamed. What is the use? He gave it once; you are giving it fifty times! At night you cannot sleep because he abused you. Now you are chewing its cud. What relish is there in abuse? A little sorrow happens, and you go on thinking and thinking why it happened; it should not have happened!
Chew the cud of happiness in this manner. By chewing the cud of sorrow you have increased it a lot. Then chew the cud of happiness, and happiness will increase much. But do not demand. Go into the future empty. Draw the juice of happiness fully from the past into your very life-breath, but go into the future empty, void. That happiness you are drawing from the past is preparing you for the future. You do not need to ask; your happiness will go on increasing.
The sixth sutra: 'And from those waves of sound learn the lesson of attunement. Life has its own language and it is never mute, and its voice is not a shriek, as you who are deaf may perhaps suppose. It is a song. Learn from it that you yourself are a part of that consonance, and from it learn to obey the laws of harmony.'
These fragments of music that you will collect within—do not collect them merely as fragments; seek the relations between them.
It is difficult, and the art of living is needed. In childhood a happiness happened as you ran after a butterfly—that lies within you. Then, for the first time you fell in love with someone, and then you experienced an overflow of joy—that too lies within you. And then one night sitting by the ocean, you were drowned in the roar of the sea—that too lies within you. And sometimes without cause, you sat empty and suddenly you found that all became silent and still—that too lies within you. Thus ten or five experiences lie within you. They are pieces. You have never tried to find what is the common element in all of them? Where is the equal tone in them?
The child running after the butterfly and the youth sitting by his beloved—what is the accord between these two? Both gave happiness, and in both there was an experience of music, and between both there was a glimpse of joy—then surely there must be some element common to both. The situations are entirely different. The child running after the butterfly, the youth sitting by his beloved, the old man chanting Om—among these three no outer agreement is seen; but within, surely, one event is the same. Because all three say: there is great joy. The taste is certainly the same, the dishes may be many.
So try to find what happiness the child received while running after the butterfly. There was one-pointedness—only the butterfly remained. The whole world was forgotten. The child was running, he did not even know he was running. He became one with the running. His eyes were fixed upon the butterfly. All thoughts in the mind were lost, because the butterfly had to be caught—only so much notion was there. It is difficult even to call it a notion. There was a feeling. Because of that feeling-one-pointedness, the experience of happiness happened.
Then that same child who was catching the butterfly became a youth; now he sits by his beloved on a starry night. A butterfly and a beloved have no relation. But sitting by this beloved he is again absorbed in one feeling. Only one feeling remains, the world has disappeared, only the beloved has remained. Now no thoughts are in his mind. In the presence of this beloved he drinks only her. No other feeling, no other thought grasps him. In this moment he is again drowned in feeling-one-pointedness.
Then the old man chants Om. Where is the butterfly, where is the beloved, where is the chanting of Om? Where is this temple corner—incense and lamp and wick! No relation is seen. But in the chanting of Om he is again feeling-one-pointed. The world has disappeared; the sound of Om is all. He has forgotten himself. He is not even aware that he is uttering the mantra. Only the mantra remains, only the sound of Om remains. Again he is feeling-one-pointed. Then you will understand that there are three fragments, now they are no longer fragments. A single thread has been found within them. That very thread is music, that very consonance.
So among your life-experiences, among your joys, among your moments of music, whatever fragments you collect, search for the consonance, the harmony between them. And then you will be greatly amazed. Then you will be greatly amazed that however different the experiences may appear from the outside, if there is happiness within them, they are alike. And however different experiences may appear from the outside, if there is sorrow within them, they are alike.
Sorrow has one language. Happiness also has one language. If you keep seeing them separately, you will not gain a vision of life. Then the old man chanting Om will think the youth is immature: where is he wandering after women? The youth sitting by his beloved will think, why are children wasting their time wandering after butterflies?
Then they will not understand one another. They will not understand because the old man has not understood even his own youth, nor his own childhood. He has grown old, but he has not yet come to know that youth, childhood, old age are parts of one stream of life. And whenever happiness is found anywhere, whenever a sense of bliss appears, then however different the outer environment may be, within the event is one and the same.
Run after the butterfly or chant Om—it is the same. Running after the butterfly is the child’s way of chanting Om. Chanting Om is the old man’s way of running after the butterfly. The youth too, sitting by his beloved, is chanting Om and is running after the butterfly. The day this becomes visible to you, on that day all fragments will fall into one music, and you will find the inner thread. Then the beads of the rosary will not remain important; the thread has come into your hand. And that very thread can lead to the Supreme Truth.
Then the elder will not be angry at the child, because he has understood his childhood and assimilated it. The elder who is angry at the child is not truly wise. He is angry with his own childhood. In fact, he is projecting upon the other child. The elder who says to the youth, why are you wasting your life, has not understood the experience of life. His saying to some youth that you are wasting your life only means that he thinks he wasted his life in youth—nothing more. In this elder’s life, youth and childhood have not become one. This elder lives in fragments.
In fragments there is sorrow. Otherwise the elder would help the child to catch the butterfly. And the elder would help the youth to descend into the art of love. Because the elder knows it is all the sound of Om in different states. Then he is not angry. Then he has no complaint about anything.
And remember, only such an elder can be called a rishi; not every old person. People become old through age, but very few attain elderhood. Elderhood means: the whole experience of life has been distilled.
Therefore, in this country we gave respect to elders—not because of old age. We gave respect to the elder because the child has the experience of catching butterflies, but not the experience of Om. The youth has the experience of sitting by the beloved, but not the experience of Om. The elder has all three. He has everything. Therefore we said: bow at the feet of the elder. Bow—not because his years are many, but because his beads have become complete, and it may be that he has grasped that thread. He who has not grasped it has not become an elder. He has only ripened his hair in the sun. His life has passed within time, but he has not experienced the Timeless.
What is the Timeless? To catch one music among the diverse, innumerable experiences—that is the Timeless. It is outside time.
And one who has caught it has then no sorrow in this world. For him there is nothing binding in this world. He has obtained the essence of life. Obtaining the essence, a person becomes free of life.
Life exists precisely so that you can obtain the essence. If you do not obtain the essence, then from the old you will have to become a child again, then take birth again, then you will have to catch butterflies again, then you will have to sit by beloveds again, then you will have to sound the Om again. And if even then you do not catch the thread of the entire essence of life, then you will have to become a child again. If you catch the wholeness of life in one thread, there is no need for you to be a child again. To be a child means you have been sent back to the first class. You had come up to matriculation, then you were pulled down and seated in the first class. It is very sad.
Therefore in this land the aching of our hearts has been one: how to be free of the coming and going? Its total meaning is only this: what does it mean that after becoming old you become a child again and again? It means that the time went in vain. You reached the last class and then were pulled back and seated in the first class! It is only that you are given a new body, so there is not much pain.
If God creates the world again, we should pray to him for this: do not give a new body. Make the old man a child again—as he is. Then if he catches butterflies it will be more beneficial. If a new body is given, you forget what the matter is! What you are doing! Better it would be to have the old man, while remaining old, catch butterflies again, then chase women again, then come to the temple again. But in fact this is what is happening, because the inner soul remains the same.
'From those waves of sound learn the lesson of attunement.'
That very lesson is the distilled essence of life.