Sadhana Sutra #2

The law of life is profoundly contradictory, paradoxical. Outcomes come reversed. If someone tries to run away from his own shadow, the more he runs, the more he finds the shadow running with him. There is no way to escape the shadow by running. If one stops, the shadow also stops. If one runs, the shadow pursues with equal force. There is only one way to be free of the shadow: to know that it is a shadow, that it is not. And then whether it is or not makes no difference. The way to be free of the shadow is not to run, but to awaken to the shadow. And when one knows that the shadow is merely a shadow, one drops even the attempt to avoid it. For why avoid that which is not?
And the moment one drops the effort to escape, one is saved—this is the paradox.
As long as you want to escape, you will not be able to. And when you no longer want to escape, then you will be saved.

As in a river: a living man sinks, a dead man does not; the dead rises and floats. The living sinks, the dead floats—it seems a very upside-down affair. The river’s laws appear utterly unreasonable. The living ought to be saved; if the dead were to drown there would be no harm. Yet the living drowns and the dead is saved. Perhaps the dead man understands the law of the river more rightly. He knows what is to be done with the river. And whatever the living man does, he gets into trouble.
What does the dead know that the living does not?
The dead knows one art: he lets himself be in the hands of the river. Let the river do whatsoever it wants. Then the river does not drown; then the river begins to carry you. The living man fights with the river. Fighting, he breaks and he sinks. The river does not drown; man himself, by fighting, destroys himself and goes down. The river in fact rescues—because it rescues the dead. If the living man were to behave with the river as the dead does, the river would be unable to drown him. But it is supremely difficult.
For the living to behave like the dead—that is the mark of a sannyasi. And the day a man begins to behave like a dead man while still alive, supreme life becomes available to him. And those who try to clutch at life and save it find life slipping out of their hands.
Jesus has said: if you try to save, you will lose; if you are ready to lose, you will be given the whole of life, the supreme life.
These sutras indicate precisely this paradox.

The first sutra is: “Remove the thirst for life.”
But why? Why remove the thirst for life? For this very reason—that life may come to you, that you may attain it, know it, live it—what life is.
Those whose minds are thirsty for life remain deprived of knowing life. It is reversed. It ought to be that those who are thirsty for life should receive life. But they do not; they receive only death. They merely die. Their time is spent only in dying. But the one who drops the thirst for life, who says, “I have no concern for life, no craving; if death is to come, let it come right now—I consent”—that man attains the vision of amrit. It is reversed. But there is a reason for the reversal. When dense black clouds gather in the sky, only then does lightning reveal itself. Against the background of darkness, of blackness, lightning emerges and becomes manifest. If you want to see lightning, black clouds are necessary.
Those who want to see life must accept the background of death. The one who consents to death finds that the inner spark of life begins to stand out and reveal itself. The one who fears death, is frightened of it, who tries to escape death, does not see the spark of life. With the acceptance of death comes the attainment of amrit. And we are all afraid of dying. It is not that by this fear we escape death. Death comes anyway, but because of this fear the life that was near to us—we are deprived of seeing it. We are frightened of death and life passes by our side. Our eyes remain fixed upon death, and life passes close by us.
Life is here, now. To attain life there is no need to go anywhere into the future. You are alive now and here. Neither is it necessary to go back, nor to go ahead. Life is already given, but your mind either keeps wavering into those moments that have gone, or it wanders in worries, imaginations, and plans of the future—into those moments that have not yet come. And in this way, the thin stream of life keeps flowing past you, and you remain unfamiliar with it. You never even bathe in it. No relationship ever gets joined with it.
“Remove the thirst for life.”
Why? So that life may become available to you.
The thirst for life means—future. All thirsts are in the future. No desire is now. This is very astonishing. In this very instant you cannot drown in any desire. Desire exists only in the future. It exists only as tomorrow. Desire needs time; for its fulfillment it needs time and space. Whenever you want something, you always want it in the future. If there were no future, wanting would die. If there were no wanting, the future would cease.
There are two ways. Either wanting drops and one comes into the present. Or one comes into the present and wanting drops. Because here and now there is no way to construct desire.
What would you want here and now? Think a little. In this very instant, what desire can you have? And if you have a desire, you have already moved into the future. The present and desire do not meet. The moment you want something, you have left the moment. You are gone into the coming tomorrow; your mind has run ahead.
The thirst for life means that you are searching for life also in tomorrow, in the future. And life is here; life is now. Life is what you are. You are standing in the very midst of it, and your eyes are fixed upon tomorrow. Therefore what is here today is not seen, and is missed.
Hence the sutra says: remove the thirst for life, so that you may know life. Escape the desire for the attainment of pleasure, so that bliss may become available to you.
All are unhappy—not because the nature of life is misery, but because we do not know the art of being happy. And we know the art of being unhappy to such a degree that it defies measure. We are in search of misery. The man who desires in the future—and all desires are of the future—will fall into suffering. Because the future never arrives; it only appears to be arriving. What arrives is the present. What does not arrive is the future. Do whatsoever you do, what will be given will be in the present. And if your mind has become habituated to living in the future, you will live in the future today as well, tomorrow too, the day after too. Whichever day comes, you will move away into the future. And that which you want in the future—how will it be attained? When the future never comes, when will the desires desired in the future be fulfilled? Suffering will be the result; therefore the fruit of desire is suffering.
Life is not misery; desire is misery. The more desires, the more misery. If you are very miserable, do not imagine that Paramatma is angry with you. If you are very miserable, you are only giving the news that there are many desires. And when those desires remain unfulfilled, wounds of sorrow are formed in the heart.
If there is much sorrow, do not try to escape sorrow; drop desire. Because sorrow is the fruit; desire is the seed.
And the one who has sown the seed, his arrow has been shot. The arrow can be stopped only until the bowstring is released. Once the string is released, there is no way to stop the arrow.
The one who desires will reap sorrow. He has sown the seed; he has planted the crop; the fruits will have to be harvested by him. The sorrows you are receiving are the seeds of desires sown in the past. And if you want there to be no sorrow in the future, then today, in the present, do not sow the seeds of desire. Because the seeds sown today will produce fruit tomorrow.
It is worth understanding also that the more happiness you demand, the more misery you receive. If you want more sorrow, ask for more happiness.
If you truly want happiness, then do not ask for happiness. Then no one will be able to make you unhappy. Then no power in this world will be able to make you unhappy. Even if this whole world were to gather together, it could not give you a grain of sorrow.
If you do not ask for happiness, you move outside the circle of sorrow. The moment you ask for happiness, you enter the world of sorrow. The more you ask for happiness, the more sorrow you will receive.
This arithmetic does not occur to us. This paradoxical law does not occur to us; hence we are greatly troubled. We ask for happiness and we get sorrow. We all make efforts to attain happiness, but the fundamental mistake occurs. Happiness is not related to effort; happiness is related to not asking for happiness.
Lao Tzu says: there is no one as happy as I am, because I never ask for happiness.
Without asking, pearls are given—the one who does not ask, receives everything. And the one who asks, loses everything. The one who lives in this world like a beggar will live in misery. The one who lives in this world like an emperor will live in bliss. But whom do I call an emperor?
I call him an emperor who does not ask for happiness. And I call him a beggar who asks for happiness. So the ones we commonly call emperors are beggars too—they also ask. Therefore it sometimes happens that the beggar visible on the outside is an emperor within.
We have seen Buddha, carrying a begging bowl, asking for alms on the roads. But that man is an emperor—he is not asking for anything. The desire for happiness has been dropped. And then one becomes happy.
Experiment with this a little. You will be with me here for these days. Keep no wish for happiness—and see how the mind becomes filled with joy. Do not desire peace—and see how unrest dissolves. Do not beg for contentment—and see how a rain of contentment begins. Only by doing will it be grasped.
This is the deepest experiment of life. And of all the discoveries that have been possible about life, the greatest discovery is this—do not ask for happiness if you want to be happy. Do not ask for peace if you want peace. What you ask for is what you lose. What you do not ask for is what you gain. You have tried much through asking; now try also through not asking!
There is no need to trust me—there is a need to experiment. What will happen by my saying so? Even if your intellect understands that it is so, the result will not happen—you will have to do it. We have a few days together; in these few days decide that at least for these days we will not ask for happiness, we will not ask for peace, we will not ask for contentment. And see what results occur!
And once it is clear that happiness comes by not asking, then I do not think you will again commit the mistake of asking. Because no one wants sorrow. If it just becomes known that only asking brings sorrow, asking can be dropped. What compulsion is there to ask! No one likes asking anyway. But this secret sutra must be experienced first.

“But work as diligently as those who are ambitious.”
Drop ambition, but work as diligently as the ambitious work. Look at the ambitious—how madly they labor. Someone wants to be an MLA, someone an MP, someone a minister—how madly they labor! What a race it is! They neither sleep nor rest. Twenty-four hours, a single obsession. What devotion they have! What fervor!
This sutra says: leave ambition, but work with the same diligence as the ambitious.
Just as he runs like a madman for wealth, position, fame—there is a great beauty in his madness; his madness is worth learning. Have you ever seen the concentrated state of a man who is seeking money? And when you sit for meditation—then you sit as if, “Well, if it happens, it happens.” But when you run after money, you do not say, “If it happens, it happens.” Then you put your life on the line. You put in everything you have.
For mud a man puts in everything. For amrit he does not want to put in anything.
Learn from him too—the one who is mad for money. Drop his madness for wealth, but keep the madness. That madness will be of use. If the same madness is directed toward the search for truth, then no one will be able to keep you deprived of truth.
Look at Majnu—how crazed he is for Laila. If you become crazed like that for Paramatma, who will be able to stop you? What wall could there be? But for Lailas many become Majnu. For the futile many become mad; for the meaningful people do not become mad. For the meaningful they display great cleverness!
People come to me. A friend comes—always in politics, always in pursuit of position. He comes to me and says, “Shower some grace so that meditation may happen.” I told him, “When you want to meditate, you come to ask for my grace; but when you want to be a minister, you yourself toil. Is it not that ‘grace’ is just a false word? Only your device? You want to get it for free. You yourself know that if you want to advance in politics you must work hard. But if you want to advance in meditation, you think someone else will do it. Is it not that in truth you do not want to go into meditation at all? Where you want to go, there you toil. And where you do not want to go, there you get lost in rhetoric and words. But remember—on the day you labor for meditation with the same intensity, on that very day grace will also become possible.”
Grace too is not obtained for free—it has to be earned; one has to journey in that direction as well. Only those are helped who are not stingy in helping themselves. Only those receive prasad who make the effort. That too is not free. Nothing is free. And how could the search for the supreme truth and the supreme bliss be free!
This sutra says: drop ambition, but work as diligently as the ambitious.

“Honor the life of all beings just as those do who are thirsty for life.”
Drop your thirst for life, but do not drop that quality of those who are mad for life and who want to live at any cost. Drop your own thirst for life, but honor the life of all beings.

“Be as happy as those who live only for happiness.”
But do not desire happiness. Do not ask for happiness—live in happiness.
This is worth understanding a little.
People ask, “How to live in happiness?” I tell them: live in happiness this very moment; do not ask how. Breathe—happily. Raise your hand—happily. Walk—happily. Sit—happily. Whatsoever you do, do it with such a joyous heart that each of your acts becomes a spring of joy. Do not halt for happiness—and do not ask “how” either. Whatever you are doing—even a most trivial thing—sweeping outside the house, do that too with joy; delight in it too.
Whatever you have to do, wherever you are standing—do not do it in sorrow. Otherwise, even if you were to enter into moksha, you would enter in sorrow—you would find sorrow there too. Your eye that seeks sorrow will be with you; you will create darkness even there. Even if Paramatma were present, you would find some fault or other, so that you might remain unhappy.
Whatever you are doing, do it with joy—do not ask for joy.
Keep this in mind during these camp days. Live in joy, do not ask for joy. In whatsoever is, keep searching where joy can be found, how it can be found. Then even a dry crust of bread can give joy—if you know how to receive it. Then ordinary water can become deep fulfillment—if you know how to receive joy. Then the simple shade of a tree can put palaces to shame—if you know how to receive joy. Then the morning songs of birds, or the rising sun, or the spread of stars in the night sky, or a gust of wind—can rain profound joy upon you—if you know how to receive joy. Do not ask for joy—live in joy. The moment you ask, you have begun to live in sorrow.
Search all around you—where is joy? Joy is. And how much can I drink so that not a single moment goes to waste, not a single moment goes empty—let me squeeze it out. From wherever, in whatever way joy can be found, let me squeeze it out. So when you drink water, when you eat, when you walk on the path, or when you simply sit under a tree and breathe—live in joy. Make joy an art of living, not a demand of desire.
There is so much joy that you will not be able to gather it all. So much joy that all your bags will prove small. So much joy that floods will rise beyond the bounds of your heart. And not only will you become happy, but whosoever sits near you will be stirred by the shadow of your joy, by the dance of your joy. Wherever you go, a climate of joy will begin to move around you. Whomever you touch, there the touch of joy will happen. Whomever you look at, flowers of joy will begin to blossom there. There will be so much joy within you that you will be able to share it. It will begin to be shared of its own accord. Joy by itself begins to spread. Waves of joy will rise from you, and songs of joy will pour from you. But joy is not asking; joy is a way of living.
Understand the difference well. Joy is not a desire; joy is an art of living. If you ask, you will miss. Learn the art. Begin from this very instant. What is lacking in this very instant? Birds are singing, the sun’s rays are showering upon you, life is blossoming all around, and you are alive. Where is the lack of joy in this very instant? This very instant everything is brimming with joy.
But desire—and you become unhappy this very instant. Do not desire. Empty, silent… then who could be more happy than you!
This sutra says: “Those who live only for happiness…”
And they end in sorrow. Those who live only for happiness never attain happiness. Leave their concern to them. You be happy.

“Search out the sprout of sin within the heart and uproot it. This sprout grows and flourishes in the heart of a devout disciple just as in the heart of a man filled with vasanas. Only the brave succeed in destroying it. The weak have to watch it grow and flourish, bloom and bear fruit, and then wither away.”
In the mind are the conditionings of years, of births. And for lifetimes you have collected nothing but sorrow. Those conditionings push and jostle and again and again throw you into the whirlpool of misery. Sin has only one meaning: the tendency to be miserable is sin. This will sound strange. You may never have heard such a definition—“the tendency to be miserable is sin.”
Why? Because the man who is himself miserable inevitably takes delight in giving misery to others—hence it is sin. Sin means giving sorrow to another.
But if you are to give sorrow to another, first you must be a master in the art of giving yourself sorrow. For what you do not have, how will you give it to others? If you are not miserable, how will you make others miserable? You must be miserable. And not in an ordinary way—you must be a great scientist of sorrow, so that you can devise many techniques of misery; so that you can extract sorrow from everywhere. Even where heaven is flowing, if you can draw out the tune of hell from there too—only then will you be able to be miserable. Heaven exists all around and is flowing—and you still find hell in it!
To give sorrow to another, it is necessary first to be sorrowful oneself. To give sorrow to another is sin. So fundamentally it means: to give sorrow to oneself is sin. And the one who does not give sorrow to himself does not give sorrow to anyone. He cannot give; he cannot even conceive of it. And the one who does not make himself miserable will become so full of joy—of maha-sukha—that he will want to share it, he will want to give it to others. For the more joy is shared, the more it grows.
Why do we want to give sorrow to others? We are very miserable. And whenever we can make someone more miserable than ourselves, we get a faint glimpse of happiness. That is our only happiness—the only happiness we know. If another becomes more miserable than you, you get a slight taste of happiness. It is not real happiness, but relatively it appears so. When you draw a larger line of sorrow around others, your own sorrow seems smaller.
Therefore we keep drawing lines of sorrow around us. The unhappy husband will make the wife unhappy. Until he makes her thoroughly unhappy, he does not get a glimpse of happiness. The unhappy wife will make the husband unhappy; the unhappy father will make the son unhappy; unhappy sons will make the father unhappy. Our whole society is an interwoven web of sorrow, in which we keep making each other miserable. And whenever we dig little pits of sorrow around us, in the middle we get a little breath of happiness—“At least I am not as miserable as the others.”
And when we get engaged in giving sorrow to others, we even forget our own sorrow. We do not even remember that we are miserable. We become so busy making others miserable that we forget our own concern. Therefore those who give sorrow to others may appear happy in one sense—they have simply forgotten themselves. It is a device to forget oneself.
If it is sin to give sorrow to others, then it is sin to give sorrow to oneself.
This sutra says: “Uproot the seed, the sprout of sin.”
Whenever any tendency to be miserable catches hold of you, throw it out at once. Do not go with it, do not be carried by it, do not identify with it. Whenever the tendency to be miserable catches you, immediately look around and seek joy. And pull out the tendency to be miserable and cast it away. If you can be saved from being miserable, you will be saved from making others miserable. Sin will depart from your life.
Bliss is punya. And when you are blissful, you are a virtuous soul.
Therefore I do not say that if you give charity you will become virtuous. I do not say that if you build temples and mosques and gurdwaras you will become virtuous. It is not necessary. It may be that even these arise out of the tendency to make others miserable. It may be that these too arise out of the tendency to make others miserable. Your neighbor donates a lakh of rupees—then you can donate two lakhs. Because until your ego becomes bigger than your neighbor’s, you cannot make him feel small.
I have heard: in a town there was a very great “donor,” who had never given even a single penny. Yet he was called great in giving; there were grand tales of his charity. He had never given a penny—but if anyone in the village needed donations, first he had to go to this great donor. He would “pledge” a lakh, two lakhs, five lakhs—because he never had to actually give; he never gave. But when he had pledged five lakhs, fire would catch in the hearts of all the rich men of the village—they too had to pledge. He never gave—that was his charity, that he would pledge five lakhs and sign. Then all the moneyed people of the village had to give something. Because then it began to feel painful to their egos.
And such “donors” you will find in every village. Those who collect donations know well that two or four names should be on the list first. Then if you go to anyone, his ego will be hurt; now he will have to give something. Even an ordinary beggar knows that when he leaves home to beg he should put some coins in his bowl—his own. Because when he rattles coins in his bowl, you too feel that someone has already given. Into an empty bowl you are not willing to put anything—because your ego will not be hurt. If someone has already given, it begins to feel painful that if I do not give now, I will appear mean before this beggar.
The beggar also understands that when you are alone he should not ask from you. When four people are present, then he will catch your foot—because in front of four now it is a question of respectability. To make another miserable we can even give donations. To make another miserable we can even build a temple. To make another miserable we can do anything. Then all becomes sin.
Bliss is punya—because when you are blissful, whatever you do, bliss flows through it. Whatever you do—until bliss begins to flow through it—know that you have no glimpse of virtue. But unless the sprouts of sin are uprooted, virtue will not be born. For the stones of sin dam up the springs of virtue.
So keep one thing in mind: wherever you sense that you are entering a pattern of sorrow, for any reason, do not delay—uproot it at once and throw it away. Even a little friendship with it is not proper. Because if you linger even a little, sorrow will spread its roots and will enter within you. Great courage is needed.
The sutra says: “Only the brave are able to destroy it. The weak have to watch it grow and flourish, bloom and bear fruit, and then wither away.”
There is great weakness. Even in uprooting our own sorrow we are weak. What could be the reason? For it appears on the surface that since we do not want to be miserable, we would uproot anything that brings misery. But it is not so. With old sorrows we create friendships and intimacies and closeness. They become our relatives.
You may not be aware, but the human mind is very complex. If you have an illness, and you think it is a big illness, and you go to the doctor and he says, “It is nothing—just a cold,” you feel hurt within—“So, only a cold? Then coming here was useless!” If the doctor says it is a minor illness, the mind does not like it. For such a great person as you—a minor illness! A great person should have a great illness. There is some pain within.
If all your illnesses were snatched away suddenly, you would not agree, though right now you will say, “I am ready to drop all my illnesses.” Think again—you would not agree. For how will you live without your illnesses? You will feel empty. What will you do? What will you weep about? What will you complain about? What flag will you parade around with if all your illnesses are taken away? You will become utterly empty and useless—unemployed, unoccupied—your entire busyness will be destroyed. Suddenly you will find you are utterly useless in this world—no illness, no complaint—then what to do?
Right now there are many complaints—so the day passes, time is spent pleasantly. Right now there are great sorrows—discussing them gives plenty of taste. Have you ever thought—if someone were to remove your illnesses by magic in an instant, you would not agree. Because you think the sum total of your illnesses is you—you yourself would be erased.
If chains remain too long upon the wrists, they begin to look like ornaments. Illnesses also become a way of life—a system. The sick person also protects his illness; the unhappy also preserves his sorrow—these become riches. And when I am saying this, remember I am speaking about all of you. This is a law of the mind. So do not think this is true only of some crazy person—“I, for my part, want to drop my sorrows.” If you wanted to drop them, you would have dropped them long ago. If you have held them, you have certainly invented some trick by which you are guarding them. Otherwise who is preventing you—you would have thrown them away. No one is preventing you; no one is making you unhappy. But inside your mind there is a web that protects your sorrows.
Now psychologists say that even in sorrow there is investment; there is capital invested in sorrow. A small child sees that when he is ill, the mother sits near, places her hand on his head. When he is ill, the father also comes, places his hand upon his head. When he is ill, no one scolds, no one rebukes—everyone loves him. When he is ill, compassion and sympathy come to him from all around. Unknowingly a fact settles in the child’s mind: when he is ill, then it is good; then it is nice. And when he is healthy, no one sits by him; no one places a hand upon his head. Neither father cares, nor mother worries. There is scolding and rebuking, and everyone is trying to improve him. Then the whole world seems harsh.
So the child experiences that there is something wrong with being healthy. There is some goodness in being ill. In illness the whole world becomes one’s own; in health the whole world becomes alien. The taste for being ill has arisen in the child’s mind. Now whenever he finds life difficult, whenever he finds the world harsh, unconsciously he will long for illness. And whatever you long for—that happens.
Psychologists say that out of a hundred illnesses, ninety come by your invitation. And because of these ninety, the road is made for the remaining ten to come. Essentially, you call—and that is what arrives. No guest in your house is uninvited. But it can be that you do not know when you sent the invitation—perhaps you sent it in some sleep; you may not be aware. Or it may be that many years passed between sending the invitation and the guest arriving, and you cannot see the connection between them. Whenever there is any trouble and you want sympathy, pity, love—you fall ill. If a man has fallen ill in order to receive sympathy, he will not want to get well. On the surface he will go to the physician, seek out the doctor—but deep in the unconscious he will want to remain ill. His illness has investment.
Have you ever noticed—even sorrow is not desired by a man unless there is some profit in it. A child falls down and his mother is not near—he looks around. If the mother is not near, he does not cry. This is very surprising—because then crying is useless; there is no profit in it; there is no investment; no benefit appears forthcoming. The one from whom benefit could have come is not present. So the child looks around. He does not cry because of the fall; he cries after looking around to see whether the mother is present or not. If the mother is present, he begins to beat his chest and cry. If the mother is not present, he lets the matter pass.
What is the matter? Right now it is pointless to be miserable. There is no substance in being miserable right now. It is not the right moment. There is no benefit in being miserable. The pain does not come from the injury; sorrow is a tendency of the mind—and even from that we want to derive a benefit! If at once his mother comes into view, he will begin to cry. Now some benefit can be had.
You have seen—women at home sit quite happily, cheerful, gossiping. The husband comes—their faces change; their heads begin to ache; their backs begin to pain; their stomachs begin to hurt—some disturbance or another begins! With the entrance of the husband into the house, who knows how many illnesses appear in the wife! And it is not that she creates them knowingly or fakes them—they arise. There is investment. At the very sight of the husband!
There is a longing for love. And no husband gives love unless the wife is ill. If the wife is ill, he is compelled to give love—he has to give it; if he does not, he appears guilty. So the wife, by being ill, is creating in you a sense of guilt—that you should feel guilty: “I am going to the club while she is so ill. I am meditating while she is so ill. I am reading a book, a newspaper, while she is so ill. She is so ill!” She is saying this—her deep unconscious demand is: give me love. And if love is not given, she is asking for it through sorrow. Now it will be very difficult to make this wife healthy—because this is not a matter of illness. This is the deep unconscious grip of sorrow—there is profit in sorrow.
You are miserable because you see profit in misery. And as long as you see profit in misery, you will remain miserable. There is no profit in misery, because misery is self-destruction. And whenever any tendency of sorrow arises, however much it tempts, however much it promises profit—uproot it and throw it away. All those promises are false; they are deceits. And if a person keeps uprooting the vasana of sorrow within himself in this way, very soon he will find that wherever sorrow used to arise, there the springs of joy have begun to appear.
Joy is very near; it is filled within you. But until the habit of sorrow drops, until the tendency to see joy in sorrow is lost, those sources of joy cannot become available.