Sadhana Sutra #14

Thousands upon thousands of years of notions have warped your minds so deeply that whatever you see is no longer nature’s truth. You see a distorted image, seen through your own beliefs. And whatever conclusions you draw from that, lead you into delusion.
Life can be transformed only with the help of nature, not against it. For you are made of nature itself; there is no way to flow against it.
The very ground on which you stand can be cultured, refined. Through the laws of that very nature, you can go beyond it. With the support of a ladder one goes across; with the support of a road one reaches the destination—and then the road is left behind. But no one reaches the goal by walking against the road.
Yet the mind can err in logic. If I tell you: this path will take you to the goal, but remember—when you reach, you must leave the path; if you cling to the path you will miss the goal—the mind may argue: then why not drop the path right at the start, since it must be dropped at the end? But then you will never reach.
The path must be held—and then released. In the beginning, hold; at the end, let go.
This can be misunderstood in two ways. One, why hold what must finally be dropped? It sounds logical. But you cannot drop what you never held. And unless you drop it, you cannot arrive. The second trouble is: having held the path, you refuse to let it go—since you have held it, what is there to drop? Then too you never arrive. The path leads up to the goal; it does not lead into the goal. Only when you leave the path, do you enter the goal.
Stairs take you to the roof, not into the roof. If you remain standing on the steps, you have come close, but you have not reached the roof. And if you leave the stairs too soon, you won’t even come close. That the stairs must be left does not make you an enemy of the stairs. That they must be used does not make you their lover. Use them.
Nature is such a ladder; here you stand. The sutra for nature is this. The first sutra was: respect life. That is respect for nature. Understand it—if you are to go beyond. You must go beyond. Within nature alone the supreme bliss is not attained. In nature, happiness and unhappiness will both be.
Nature is a duality—standing upon the balance of opposites. There you may receive pleasure, and you will receive pain. In the measure you desire happiness, in that very measure pain arrives. In the measure you become capable of happiness, in that very measure you become capable of pain. Nature is dual. And the two pans of duality remain equal—otherwise nature would be distorted, chaotic.
Whatever you earn on one side, you earn its opposite as well. If you seek fame, disgrace grows alongside, shadowing you. If you want health, disease stands nearby. If you want life, you must accept death. Within nature you will receive both pleasure and pain. It is dual. You must go beyond—because duality is the very affliction. That moment must be found where duality dissolves.
Where both pleasure and pain vanish, that moment we have called bliss; that moment we have called peace; that moment we have called liberation. Liberation means: beyond duality—where the two no longer press upon you, where opposites do not pull you to either side, where banks disappear and the river merges into the ocean. Yet only by the help of the banks does the river reach the ocean. The banks are friends; use them till the ocean is attained. But do not make the banks such friends that you cling to them and stop short of falling into the ocean.
So, respect nature, respect life—and use the laws of life intelligently.
A friend came to me. He is young; naturally there will be interest in women. But ancient conditioning clouds the mind. Perhaps from childhood he fell into the company of saints and satsang, so the idea arose that sexual interest in woman is sin. The more he thought it sinful, the more the interest grew. He began to run away from women—but the more he fled, the more unruly the surge became. He suppressed desire within; desire rose up in ever new forms. Day full of thoughts; night full of dreams; all suffused with desire. Then he went to some mahatma, who advised: see the mother in woman. But how to see the mother in a woman! The force of desire was pounding within. For help the mahatma said: then worship the Devi. See the mother in the goddess. Slowly, when your feeling toward the Devi becomes established, you will be able to see the Devi in all women.
The mahatma’s intention was good. He wished to help. But without understanding, even help cannot be given. Life is subtle. Without understanding life’s laws, even a well-meant help bears ill fruit.
The result—you cannot even imagine. He began worshipping the goddess and keeping her image with him. And then what neither the mahatma foresaw nor could he ever foresee happened: desire arose toward the Devi herself. In dreams at night he began having sexual relations with the goddess. The poor man was terrified. He who took sex to be sin now felt the sexual urge toward the goddess—he was filled with the sense of monstrous sin: Now I am doomed, no escape remains. He told me: even when I think of the Devi, only lust arises!
I said: Those from whom you sought help lack understanding. This was bound to happen. Desire can be transcended only through understanding. To think you will be freed by imagining every woman to be a mother—this is sheer foolishness. What will your imagining do? You are merely projecting yourself upon the Devi. Whatever is within you—that alone will be projected. What is not within cannot be projected. The Devi is not the issue—you are. Desire is battering within you. So wherever you turn, it will be projected there. To escape one so-called sin, you have created a bigger one. Now the man is here, utterly timid and weak, afraid the goddess will be angry. I said: No goddess will be angry. The goddess is wiser than your mahatmas. Do not worry; no one is going to be upset.
But you can feel the man’s torment—he had fallen into hell. And no one will hold the mahatma responsible for pushing him there. Yet it is he who did. And the mahatma who gave such help surely lives in a similar hell himself—otherwise such ‘help,’ so full of ignorance, could never arise.
What shall I say to this man? I would not say: Do this or that trick. I said: Instead of falling into such distortions, love some woman. And do not be afraid. Let your love be natural. This Devi-love is fatal—because it is unnatural, imaginary. Enter the love of a real woman—and do not be afraid. Enter love and learn in love what love is. First let your love be natural; only then can it be refined. Because with the help of nature, later one can pass beyond. Then turn love into meditation. Purify it as much as possible. Fill it with awareness as much as you can. Live with the feeling that love in your life is not a sin but a virtue.
And do not feel guilty. Because even desire is God-given. It too has been given to you by Paramatman. No mahatma can snatch away what God has given. There is no way. What you have received from nature, use it rightly—and rise beyond it. But you will not rise beyond as an enemy. Enmity leads to such outcomes. How far enmity goes is hard to measure.
In the Victorian age in England, people tied cloth around the legs of chairs—lest the sight of a naked leg arouse lust! Chair legs! If you entered a home and found a naked chair, you would conclude the man is ignoble—his chair’s legs are naked! Queen Victoria was severe about such matters. It was deemed immoral. So in every house the chair legs were draped. And once a leg is draped, it incites even more sexual thoughts: What kind of stupidity is this?
It was not only in Victoria’s time; such people exist everywhere. Even today in England there is a society of women—surely deprived of love, with no taste of love in their lives—who propagate that animals should be taken out on the streets clothed! Dogs, horses, bulls should not be naked, because their nakedness arouses lust! If, at the sight of a bull, the thought arises in you that the bull is naked, it means you are sick. There is a disease within; you are not healthy. Otherwise there is no such issue. If you were healthy, even seeing a human being naked would not trouble you. If you are unhealthy, even a naked chair will trouble you. It is a symptom of your sickness.
You can pass laws to clothe animals, to drape chairs—but the mind obsessed with sex is moving against nature. That mind will be caught in even more nets. It loses courage and becomes guilty.
There was a time in this land when we built the temples of Konark, Khajuraho, Bhubaneswar and Puri. Those people were courageous, splendid. They had accepted nature wholly. On the outer walls of the temples they carved naked figures, erotic images, sculptures of intercourse—at the gates, on the walls. Courageous people they were, magnificent. So total was their acceptance of life that even the temple was within nature. On the outer walls—nature. On the inner walls—Paramatman.
Their vision was this: so long as your interest clings to the outer walls, you cannot enter within. So fulfill your interest on the outer walls, meditate upon these erotic forms. The day there is no interest left for the outer wall, the day you pass by as though no images are there—know that you are now qualified to enter. Then come within. But you will not be able to enter by bypassing the outer wall. If your interest is on the outer wall, even if you come inside, the outer will continue in your mind. There is no need to suppress it.
To carve erotic figures on the temple’s outer wall—this was the work of amazing psychologists; they understood. But then weakness came to this land. A long era of impotence. The land became enslaved and lost its courage. Eventually Gandhi and Purushottamdas Tandon proposed that the temples of Khajuraho, Puri and Konark be covered and buried with earth, since seeing them is dangerous.
Those who carved those statues were brave; they had accepted nature. These weak ones—weakness demands repression. Khajuraho’s statues can be plastered over, erased—but how will you erase human nature? Man’s nature cannot be destroyed. It can be used; it cannot be annihilated.
Remember a law: no energy in existence can be destroyed—impossible. Only transformation is possible. Nature can be transformed and dissolved into Brahman; nature cannot be destroyed.
So in honoring life, keep this great sutra in mind: honor whatever life has given—without and within. But remember: you can honor the outer only when you honor the inner. You insult outside only what you already insult within. If within you there is dishonor toward something, the outer will be dishonored. If within there is honor, the outer will be honored.
Search your nature. Seek your inner being, your swabhava.
Keep two words in mind: swabhava and svarupa. Swabhava is nature; Svarupa is Brahman. Until you understand swabhava, you cannot enter Svarupa. As you go in, first you will meet swabhava—nature. Going deeper still, you will meet Svarupa—the Brahman beyond nature. But if you are frightened of swabhava, you will not go in at all. You will remain on the surface. And if you fear your swabhava, you will build around yourself a wall against it. That wall is called personality.
Now let us understand the sutra.
The ninth sutra: ‘Honor your inner being utterly.’
At first thought, we say: but we do honor our inner being. No. The friend who came to me did not honor his sexual desire. He insulted it, suppressed it, tried to destroy it—and now desire is taking revenge. He took the deity’s support to be free of desire; now desire is projected on the deity herself. The Devi appears weak; desire appears powerful. This is revenge. Not understanding your swabhava creates trouble.
‘Honor your inner being utterly.’
Whatever is within you. And in the beginning you will meet nature. When you close your eyes, what will you meet first? The nature of the body. The nature of the mind. When you pass beyond both, you will meet the nature of the Atman. These are three planes. Honor the body’s nature.
But we insult even that. Either we delight in fasting, or we delight in food. Either we eat so much that food becomes the cause of death—this too is not honoring the body. When you overeat, you insult the body. You are forcing upon it what it does not need; you are creating poison within.
Doctors say fewer people die of hunger than of food—though it should not be so, since there is much hunger. Still, fewer die of hunger; more die of overeating. A hungry man may live, but the overeater gathers toxins and is destroyed.
Do not think the overeater is a lover of the body—he is its enemy. He ignores the body’s simple signals. When the body says no, he goes on eating. This is one way to destroy it. Such a man will sooner or later fancy fasting—having tormented the body by overeating, the body will take revenge; then he will go to the other extreme—fasting. Fasting also is an insult—when the body is hungry and you do not feed it. One insult is to stuff food when the body is not hungry; another, to refuse food when it is hungry.
What is honor? To fulfill only the body’s natural, simple demands—respectfully, lovingly. For the body is an instrument. So great an instrument that through it you will experience the world, and through it you will reach the door of the divine. It deserves honor. But we do not care.
Nor do we honor the mind. We create turmoil there too—swinging from one extreme to another. Honor is in the middle.
Therefore Buddha named his whole vision the Middle Way—Majjhima Nikaya. Neither this extreme nor that—for at both ends nature is insulted. Stop in the exact middle. Do not go to extremes. Then you live respectfully.
If you insult body and mind, a false personality is born within you.
The English word ‘personality’ is very meaningful. In Greek theater, actors wore a mask called persona. From persona comes personality—an adopted face. A face you are not.
One who lives against his inner nature must necessarily fabricate a mask against that nature. He builds a shell of personality around himself. This shell will not let you meet your inner being. Nature is not against you; your personality is. Everyone carries a personality—and keeps strengthening it.
People come to me saying: We want to know the soul—but they are not ready to drop their personality. Clinging to personality they want to attain the soul. Impossible. Understand this personality well—only then can you move in search of the Atman; otherwise you will go on wandering. What you cling to is the very obstacle.
It is as if a man wants to get out of prison while holding tightly to the prison walls, declaring: I will never leave these walls—for I have lived with them so long. He will not break his own chains—he calls them his ornaments, precious! Without them he cannot even sleep; without them he will feel empty, naked. He says: I cannot drop them. But I want freedom.
This is your state. What you protect is the wall. Without breaking it, you cannot enter your inner being.
Understand.
‘Honor your inner being utterly. For through your heart the light is received that can illumine your life and make it clear before your eyes. The only thing difficult to understand is your own heart. Until the bonds of personality loosen, the deep secret of the soul cannot open.’
What are the bonds of personality? We are all born. Inevitably we receive society, family, education—conditioning, beliefs. How to live, how to sit, what is right, what is wrong—everything is given ready-made. We grow accordingly. We must, for those among whom we grow hold power. What they teach, we must learn; otherwise they will not let us live. Their beliefs we must accept; their pressure surrounds us; society is theirs, authority theirs, power theirs, the state theirs. From all sides they will make the small child accept whatever they want. Then the child grows with a personality given by others. With this personality, sooner or later, he will suffer deeply—for it is false. From the false, suffering arises.
Joy can come only from truth—from your own swabhava. Then one seeks spirituality, God, knowledge, yoga, meditation. But he does not realize this personality must be broken. It is like a shell around your spring, a stone blocking your fountain. Yet he hopes to reach God and peace while carrying this personality—this is the hindrance.
Breaking personality is difficult, because great attachment forms with it. You begin to think: this personality is my nature; this is me. The identification with personality is the ego.
Much is said: drop the ego. But you do not understand what ego is. Identification with personality—this personality is me—that is ego. One carries a Hindu personality, another a Muslim, a Jain, a Christian. It blocks the way. And we are attached to it: this is me.
It must be broken. Even a few cracks will let in nature’s fresh air. It is not necessary that you break it and become anti-social. If you throw it away completely, you will be in conflict with society. Not necessary to become society’s enemy. Enough that you can take this cloak off—and put it on—consciously.
Understand me. It is not that you must throw away all garments of personality—you would be in trouble. Those around you have not thrown theirs away; they will harass you; you would disturb their arrangement, and their vested interests are in that arrangement.
To drop personality means only this: remember, personality is not you; and if you wish, you can lay it aside. That is enough. Then for social functioning, wear it. But you are not a slave now—it becomes a play. For society, you put it on; for yourself, you put it off. In meditation you are no longer a person—you are only the Atman.
Then with the outer world, a play begins. The intelligent man inevitably lives in society only theatrically. His relationship with society is a drama.
But if the theatricality becomes inward, trouble begins. Wear a face for the other—if that pleases the other, what harm? But when you are alone, at least then, put the face aside. For whom are you wearing it? Whom are you deceiving now? If this is conscious, personality is not a bondage—it becomes a skill. In relationships, it works as a lubricant; it reduces friction, saves needless abrasion.
But for yourself, in your solitude, if you sit with that mask, you are killing yourself. With society, personality; with yourself, no personality. Until the bonds of personality loosen, the secret of the soul does not begin to open. For within the knot of personality the secret is hidden.
Let us see what personality is, and how it can loosen.
You forget. A friend of mine smiles continually. I know he is unhappy. It is not bad—not every sorrow needs to be shown. One night he stayed with me. At midnight I went to the bathroom; switching on the light I saw that even in sleep his lips were stretched in a smile. I became concerned. The man is unhappy; all day he smiles—this smile is forced. He opens his heart to me and says, I am unhappy; the smile is only a social habit. But now even in sleep his mouth smiles!
In the morning I asked; he said: It has become such a habit that sometimes even alone I would like to drop it, but the jaw has become rigid; it is difficult to relax.
Watch your face. After meeting someone, stand before a mirror and let the face go slack—you will see two faces at once: the face you just wore, and the face when it relaxes.
Here I watch your faces. When you begin meditation, you have a face. In the second stage, when you go madly chaotic, thousands of faces run across your face—one after another, a whole procession. All the faces you use in different situations flash by. Then in the fourth stage, when you stand silent, all faces vanish and a certain facelessness arises—as if the face is no longer there; all lines of tension have disappeared. Perhaps your face becomes as it was in childhood, before society began to spoil you—or in your mother’s womb, before any education entered. Going deeper still, you will find the face that is yours—not the face given by others.
Zen in Japan says: Find your original face—the face you had before your parents were born, and the face you will have after you die. All the faces in between are borrowed.
But we learn these faces. A child in your home—guests arrive; you tell him: Go, touch their feet. He does not want to. But your order must be obeyed.
I visit a house—the parents touch my feet, then catch hold of their little children’s necks and force them to bow! The children are stiff, refusing; they have no connection, no relationship—yet the father forces them.
Soon the child will learn that it is more convenient to touch feet; it becomes part of his personality. He will touch feet anywhere—but the heart will never be in it. A vital possibility is lost. Even if one day he meets someone at whose feet he truly wishes to bow, his bowing will be artificial—the truth is buried too deep; the personality is too heavy.
Parents tell children: This is your mother—love her. This is your father—love him. Is this something to be told? If love is there, it flowers; if not, saying is meaningless. And if there is fault, it can only be the mother’s—not the child’s; the child knows nothing yet.
A mother who has to say, I am your mother—love me, is a birth-giver, not a mother. To bear a child any woman can—but motherhood is something else; not every woman attains it. Motherhood is a long process of love.
So she says: Love me, I am your mother. The child will begin to display love—for what else can he do? From this mother comes milk, money, support, security. He is helpless. A bargain is struck; he will show love. He will smile at her though the smile is false. He will say: there is no mother as beautiful as mine. And the mother is delighted. Meanwhile the child learns deception; he learns falsehood; the supreme phenomenon of love turns untrue. Later he loves a woman—the love never becomes inner. He keeps speaking the untrue: telling her ten times a day, I love you—but it is all false.
Reflect sometime: when you tell your wife, I love you—does something like love arise within at that very moment? Most often it is fear; most often it is a habit to keep saying it so the memory remains fresh. She keeps repeating the same—also untrue. Your personalities talk; your inner beings never meet. From such falsehood no joy arises—nor contentment. From falsehood, nothing can.
Has any sprout ever grown from a false seed? Any song from a false throat? Any vision from a false eye? False means: that which appears, but is not. Nothing grows from it. Life becomes a vacuum. Recognize this personality. Recognize all that is false within.
I do not say: Don’t lie because it harms others—though it does. First, it harms you. You become false, unreal. Not that you are becoming—you already are. You have become expert—so skilled that you no longer know what you are doing.
I know people who lie. I do not hold them guilty—they do not lie consciously anymore. Lies are spoken through them. Sometimes they lie where there is no profit—no benefit—and not even knowingly. Their lie is so seasoned that whatever they think passes through the mold of falsehood. Even when they speak truth, they cannot do it without mixing in some lie. Recognize this framework. Be alert to it. Try to lay it aside.
A friend came to me. Let me show how strong untruth becomes. He said: You say in the second stage, go totally mad; so I dance, jump, cry, scream. But today the thought arose: I am faking it—no real crying comes, no real dance arises; I am doing it falsely. It took him three days to notice this! Such is the strength of the framework. For three days he has been dancing and jumping; only on the third did he notice he was faking. Still, it is early—his framework is not too strong. It should be noticed the very first moment—what are you doing?
However much you fake—dance, jump—you will get some workout; it will feel good, like exercise. But meditation will not happen. Meditation happens when truth begins to break open from within.
The difficulty is ancient. From childhood boys are told: Don’t cry. Especially men—taught cruelly—so they forget the art of crying. They have been told so badly: What are you doing—the work of girls? As if crying is a franchise of girls! As if men have no right to tears. Then why did God give tear glands to men? If the capacity to weep is given, it is given for a reason. Yet boys are told: Don’t do girlish things! As if it is something bad.
The irony is, women tell them so too—mothers say: What girlish behavior is this? As if this is some evil that only women do! Have women taken a contract for all the ‘bad’ things?
But the male must be hardened—that is society’s arrangement—so he can be cruel, violent, kill. If he cries, becomes liquid, tender, he will not be able to do these things. Send him to war with a gun—he will weep: Alas, I must kill a man! He will die, and that is not convenient. So he must be made hard, stony. The soul must be strangled. Hence the ego is flattered: You are a man; do not cry—crying is for women.
If a woman becomes hard, men praise her: She fought like a man—like the Rani of Jhansi! As if becoming manly is glory. A woman went wrong, and they praise her! If a man is tender, delicate, they call him effeminate—unmanly.
We have trained men for violence. You cannot cry; your tears are dried. For years you have not wept; the glands are numb. So even if you scream and shout, tears do not come. I want your glands to revive; for tears to return. With those tears, the thirty-year-old social personality will slip aside. You will return to the time thirty or forty years back—when you were a small child and could weep; when none had yet told you not to do ‘girlish’ things. If true tears flow—if the glands open—you will find your personality sliding away; you are lighter; a crack has appeared.
Hence I insist: cry, scream, laugh—because everything has been stolen from you. You cannot even laugh full-throated—people say, to guffaw is uncultured. Man has been beaten badly. You cannot laugh freely—uncultured! If four people laugh aloud, others look at them as uncivilized, uneducated, rustic. You may only smile; no sound should be heard!
It is as if we tell waterfalls: you may slide gently, but no noise. Winds: blow so that leaves make no sound. When you laugh with your whole being, you do not know how much rubbish flows out in that uproar. But you cannot laugh; the rubbish remains stuck. You are not allowed to do anything whole-heartedly of yourself. It is dangerous—because if you do anything from the heart, society cannot make you a slave. That is the reason.
If all your instincts are repressed, you can be enslaved. If they are set free, you will be so fresh, so alive, that no power can enslave you. But society wants you a servant, not a master. It wants you to move as it signals; to sit and rise as it dictates. It does not want you free. Because a free person becomes rebellious. So it snatches every freedom and puts a shell upon you. From within that shell even if you laugh, the shell allows no space; if you try to weep, it won’t let tears flow.
A woman was brought to me. Her husband had died; for three months she had hysterical fits, fainting spells. I asked, did she cry when he died? Those who brought her said with great admiration: a very brave woman, a university professor, very intelligent—she did not shed a single tear. I said, hysteria is the result. And you fools must have praised her: what a strong heart she has!
Where is a heart ever strong? The heart’s very strength is its tenderness. It is like a flower—delicate. Strong heart—what does it mean? A stone-flower?
They praised her—and produced hysteria. None thinks who will bear the consequences. She kept fainting. She could not cry. I told her: You fell for the words of fools—cry. Being a professor does not mean you are no longer a woman. But the professor weighs heavy; she is head of a department; how can she cry? She is ‘sensible.’ What contradiction is there? A sensible person will cry heartfully—that is all.
She asked: You say I should have cried? You must cry. You loved him; you found joy with him. Then who will bear the sorrow—me? You must. In duality, if you had joy, you must have sorrow—balance returns. Beat your breast, roll, weep.
She said: What are you saying! I said: Otherwise you will have hysteria. This hysteria is the surge of what is repressed—the shock of the dammed-up flood. The sorrow that cannot flow pounds so fiercely that your nerves seize. It is as if someone drives a car pressing both the accelerator and the brake—hysteria is the name of what happens to the car.
Her whole heart wanted to weep. I asked: Did you find happiness with your husband? She said: I found much happiness; I was very happy. Then you must suffer equally. Your whole heart wants to flow, and your professor’s mind—and the praise of a queue of fools—apply the brake. You press both the accelerator and the brake. Whenever in someone both are pressed, hysteria is born. Either only the brake—or no brake. But only if you had found no joy with your husband. But you did—so the other side must be lived.
She began to weep sitting before me. I said: Sit here half an hour and weep with your whole heart. After half an hour she said: Now I know hysteria will not come. I said: Don’t listen to anyone. It will take four to six months—live the sorrow rightly. Even sorrow is precious, necessary—a part of life’s education. The hysteria has not returned—eight months now. But the queue of ‘sensible’ people—hard to find greater fools.
Recognize your personality—and break it.
My meditation process is arranged to break your personality. It is not meditation itself; it is removal of your personality. When it drops, meditation is simple. When the stone is removed, the spring needs no help to flow. Meditation is your nature. If the stones of personality are not there, it will arise. But allow something to become natural. Tears, laughter, dance—let something be natural. Then the supremely natural will also be possible.
‘Until you stand apart from your personality, it will not reveal itself to you.’
That which is your Svarupa will not reveal itself.
‘Only then will you understand it—and be able to guide it; not before. Only then will you be able to use all its powers, and set them to worthy service; not before.’
Understand this too. People, without any understanding of themselves, throw themselves into the service of others! There are many such servants—too many in our land. Those who have no awareness of themselves, no ray of inner light, also rush to serve others. Then their service produces ill-results. And no one can harm as much as the servants can—for they act for your good, and it is hard to escape them. You can escape a murderer—how will you escape a servant? The murderer grabs your throat—you become alert. The servant begins with your feet—you spread your legs further: all right, serve! But then he must progress—he will also reach the throat. He begins pressing the feet; when he catches the neck you cannot protest—he is serving you! In the end, all servants hold the neck.
Gandhi had a crowd of servants. They all hold the country’s throat. Those who were servants are now on seats and chairs, holding the nation’s neck. They went out to serve; now they take service—and in full. Those who cannot get it are miserable: life is wasted—they want at least a copper plaque stating they served! A pension for service! A felicitation sometimes—for service! And what service did they do? If you look closely at the ‘servants,’ you will be in trouble.
Servants come to me. Someone says: for thirty years I have served tribal children—education. Recently a woman came: I have spent thirty years, my whole life. I asked her: your service—fine; your life spent—fine. But those children for whom you spent thirty years—did they gain or lose? The real question is: did their peace increase or decrease? Did their joy grow or shrink? Were they more delighted—or less? She became uneasy. I said: Educating tribal children, at most you will make them like our children—and then what? In our universities we are distressed with our own children; we educated them—and now they burn universities, beat principals, gherao vice-chancellors, throw stones, flash knives! That is what our education did. You work hard on tribal children—if you succeed, these children will do the same. What benefit has come?
But she cares not for benefit—she is busy! Busyness is a device to escape oneself. She is engaged in a ‘good cause,’ so there is no space to look within. She is very restless, troubled, repressed; her energies have turned into diseases—but she keeps herself entangled in the service of others. In this busyness, she never notices her own turmoil.
Often people entangle themselves in others’ troubles to forget their own. Ask them to take a five-day holiday from service… in five days they will begin to see their own problems.
Man is very cunning—many escape routes. He becomes interested in others, so he need not face himself. He runs about—opening schools, building ashrams, going to Delhi. This woman does the same—raising funds, buying a bus! Busy—no leisure.
I asked: Are you peaceful? She said: No; please show a way. I invited her to the camp at Mount Abu. She said: Very difficult—I must go to Delhi then. For what? To open a hospital in a tribal village. I asked: First look at this—are people healthier where hospitals exist, or are tribals healthier where there are none? First look. Hospitals bring cures—and diseases too. Tribals are healthier. But she wants a hospital. She said: True—but still, without a hospital it won’t do; we need progress. She admits tribals are healthier—yet insists a hospital is necessary! For what? If health is the value, the right service would be to close hospitals and make people tribal! If some other value is sought, that is different. But for health—tribals are better. She said: You are right—but still I must go to Delhi; I will come to some other camp.
There is no taste for meditation or peace. She has turned tribal service into her device for unloading her restlessness. Someone unloads in his shop—money-making. Someone in politics—elections, ministries. Someone in service—no concern with the soul.
Remember: whoever serves others without knowing himself—he will harm others. One who does not yet know his own good cannot know another’s good. Becoming a servant without self-entry means you will create some mischief or other. This world suffers less from miscreants than from well-wishers. With goodwill they make such arrangements that you must go with them—even to hell—for they take you with such good intentions, with such a kind heart, with such effort on your behalf, you cannot refuse: Why are you dragging me to hell? Refusal seems unmannerly—because the poor fellow works so hard.
An old Arabic saying: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Paved with good intentions!
The right to serve belongs only to one who has reached depths of meditation. Before that, there is no right to serve. Until you have tasted bliss, you cannot give bliss. You can give only sorrow—whatever name you give it. If there is bliss within you, it can flow to others too.
‘Only then will you be able to use all its powers and set them to worthy service; not before. Until something is certain to you, it is impossible for you to help others.’
How will you help? On matters you do not know, you still advise! Do you ever ask yourself: do I know? Someone comes to you for counsel—have you ever said: I cannot advise; I know nothing? No. You are so generous with advice that if you merely hear someone needs it, you go to his house. Even if he wants to avoid you—he cannot; you advise anyway.
Here in the camp I see people going to each other’s rooms—advising, counseling, giving wisdom—waking each other up, granting peace! They cannot sit silently themselves, nor let the other sit silently. Who needs your advice? Do you have any?
There is great pleasure in being a guru—and no one is eager to be a disciple. Being a guru gratifies the ego. Look at the advisors’ condition: today they advise you; tomorrow when the same event befalls them, you will advise them—and they will be in the same pathetic state as you. If you are angry, they will tell you how to drop anger; give them a small abuse and see—they will forget their advice, and you will have to advise them.
Why this eagerness to advise? You want to taste being wise—without wisdom. If you go to a truly wise man for counsel, ninety-nine times out of a hundred he will say: I do not know. On one occasion, if he does know, he will suggest—and even then he will add: It may not fit you, though it fitted me. People differ, situations vary. I can only say: this helped me; it may harm you—so consider. It is not a universal rule.
But what never helped you—you give to others.
I was reading the memoir of a psychologist’s wife. She wrote to me: My husband is a marriage-counselor. He solves couples’ problems. But between us there is no solution! He has reconciled so many, prevented so many divorces. Yet our divorce is certain! Tell me, why? I agree my husband is intelligent—I have seen him guide many—but why does his own advice not work for him?
Sometimes your advice may help others—simply because you are distant and can be impartial. When it is your own case, you cannot stand aside; you take sides.
I wrote to her: Don’t worry—go to another counselor; he will find a way. In this world of the blind, the blind keep showing each other the path. It works. A way will be found. If you want advice from your husband, that is difficult—he cannot be impartial; he is party to the conflict. You both go to someone else.
This kind of ‘wisdom’ that often works for others is not deep. It does not arise from deep experience; it is bookish, superficial. One must be cautious.
Until we have some glimpse of the soul, at least on matters of the soul we should avoid advice and counsel; otherwise you will create trouble. If you cannot bring joy into another’s life, at least be kind enough not to create disturbance.
‘When you have known the first fifteen rules, and you have developed your powers and freed your senses, and entered the Temple of Knowledge, then you will know that within you there is a source from which the word will arise.’
‘These things are written only for those to whom I give my peace, and for those who, besides the outer meaning of what I have written, can clearly understand its inner meaning.’