Sahaj Samadhi Bhali #1

Samadhi will happen of itself. Whatever is unnatural cannot be Samadhi. What comes through effort and striving will not take you beyond the mind, because all effort belongs to the mind. And whatever is found through the mind cannot be above the mind. Whatever you obtain by labor can never be greater than you. The Paramatma you, as a ‘you,’ discover will be smaller than you. There is no way to attain the Paramatma through effort. He is found only in effortlessness.

‘You’ will not find Him; when you disappear, only then can the finding happen. Hence the search for the Paramatma is, in truth, a device to be lost in the Paramatma. Where the mind fails, there Samadhi blossoms. As long as the mind succeeds, the ‘game’ continues; Maya continues.

Understand first of all: Samadhi will happen naturally. It has no kinship with striving, endeavor, effort. Therefore those who have found say: we received it as grace, as the Lord’s compassion. When saints say, ‘By the Lord’s compassion we attained,’ they mean only this: we ran about a lot; the more we ran, the more we went astray; the more we sought, the more we lost; the more we wanted to arrive, the farther it receded. All our efforts were futile. We were defeated. Where ‘you’ are defeated, from there the Paramatma’s victory begins.

Your victory is the Paramatma’s defeat. What would your victory mean? It would mean: I, ego, asmita. The more you win, the greater the obstacle. You are – that is the problem. How will that moment arrive when you are not? When no one remains within you, only bare silence. When in your temple no idol remains; it is formless; not a single word reverberates within. Such a deep hush descends that there is no one to speak and no one within to listen; in that very instant the Lord’s prasada begins to shower. In that very instant you are ready. Where you are not – in that very instant you are ready.

All Samadhis will be natural. The unnatural – is not Samadhi. But the mind wants to win, not to lose. The mind wants to ‘win’ even in meditation; the mind struggles even with the Paramatma, wanting victory there too, wanting to hold the Paramatma in its fist. You earned wealth, you acquired fame, you gathered prestige – now you want the Paramatma also in your fist, so you can say you have ‘acquired’ God too! You want to add God somewhere to your bank balance. Until your strongbox can lock up the Paramatma as well, your ego will not be satisfied. Hence the wise say, those who truly arrive will never, even by mistake, say ‘I attained.’ And those who say ‘I have attained’ – understand, they are still very far, for how could the claimer still be there? The very existence of the claimer is the obstacle. As long as you say ‘I,’ there can be no union with Him.

Kabir has said: As long as I searched, He did not come. And when He came, startled I found that I had vanished. The seeker had disappeared – then He was found.

Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself got lost.
He set out to seek, set out to find – but searching and searching, he himself was worn away! Running and running, he himself was erased! Kabir was lost! Where Kabir was lost, there is the meeting with Him.

Another saying of Kabir: As long as I searched for you, your vision never happened; and now that I am no more, you come running after me. When I searched for you, there was no scent of you, no trace of you; I knocked on so many doors – but none was your door. I tried so many paths to reach you – but none led to your home. And now that I am gone, the irony is that you circle after me, calling ‘Kabir, Kabir!’ Before, I called you; now you call me. And when I called, you were not; now you call, and I am not.

Understand: ‘you’ will never meet the Paramatma. As you are – you will never meet Him. When the meeting happens, you will not be ‘like this.’

As you are, there is no way to reach the Paramatma. You will fall, you will be erased; out of your ashes the temple of the Paramatma arises. His house is built upon your grave. But the mind wants victory. The more you win, the more the intoxication of ego rises.

One more thing: the Paramatma looks difficult to win, so do not think that it is usually religious people who set out to seek Him. Ninety-nine out of a hundred who set out are egoists, because ego always hankers after the impossible – and what is more impossible than God? To climb Everest is difficult, but not impossible – after all, Hillary and Tenzing climbed it. To reach the moon is difficult, but not impossible – man has walked on the moon. He will go to Mars; he will reach distant stars. But to win the Paramatma seems utterly impossible. Those who arrive cannot even claim it; it is that impossible. Those who arrive fall silent. On the moon you can plant a flag; on the Paramatma you cannot plant any flag.

So the egoistic mind wants to conquer the Paramatma as well. He is the highest peak, the most impossible summit: ‘I will plant my flag there too; I will proclaim, I conquered it.’

Ninety-nine out of a hundred who go in search of religion are egoists. Therefore to find humility among the religious is very difficult. The religious man is often egoistic – dreadfully egoistic. Among sannyasins and sadhus it is hard to find humility. Though they will continually tell you to be humble, they are telling you to be humble – to them. And their ego knows no end. It is difficult to seat two sadhus together; for the question arises, ‘Who will sit below? Who above?’

Once I was invited to a meeting in Calcutta, a grand event. Some three hundred pandits, sadhus, sannyasins, mahatmas were invited. They had built a stage to seat all three hundred at once. Yet one by one they gave talks; the three hundred could not sit together. I asked why. They said, ‘It is very difficult. The Shankaracharya says he will come with his throne, and if he sits on his throne, the other sannyasins say, How can we sit on low cots then? We too will sit at the same height. If we raise everyone, then all become equal again. If someone remains high and someone low, there is trouble. The only way is to speak one by one, each sitting as he pleases – high or low.’ No one came to listen to each other either. When one spoke, the next did not come to listen. The ignorant listen; does the knower go anywhere to listen? And when they already know, what is there to hear? Ego is rampant.

The quarrels of religions in the world are not quarrels of religions – they are quarrels of egoists. In the name of religion, it is an egoist’s marketplace – one in the name of the church, one in the name of the mosque, one of the gurdwara, one of the temple; but the fight is of ego. And there is no intoxication greater than ego.

The biggest claim ego can make is to say, ‘I have found God.’ Therefore in Islam such a claimant is called a kafir. There is some truth in this, for ninety-nine times out of a hundred the wrong man claims. Once in a hundred – some Mansoor al-Hallaj – a true claimant appears. But for the one, the ninety-nine cannot be pardoned.

This claim comes from labor, from striving. When you toil, do yoga, asanas, sit in meditation, undertake great austerities, fast, stand in the sun, keep vigil at night – the ego grows stronger, the intoxication increases. You feel, ‘I am doing so much.’ Gratitude toward the Paramatma does not arise; rather a complaint arises. The more your striving, the more your complaint: ‘I am doing so much, and still there is no meeting? I am doing so much, and you remain far? I am doing so much, and the goal has not come?’ Then a worm of complaint gnaws the heart. And the more the labor, the more the ego spreads.

True Samadhi ripens through naturalness. But before understanding naturalness, understand this intoxication of ego. Remember: no intoxication is stronger than ego; there is no greater intoxicant. Then you are not in your senses; then whatever you say, whatever you do, whatever you live, all falls outside awareness.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin always avoided dentists; he was always afraid. But one day the compulsion grew too great: the pain in his tooth was so intense that he had to go. He said to the dentist, ‘For years I put it off; now it has reached a point beyond endurance. I cannot sleep or sit; the pain is too much; I had to come. But I am frightened. My hands and feet tremble; my nerves are taut; my heart is pounding. I am very afraid of you.’ The dentist was kind. He handed him a full glass of liquor and said, ‘Drink it down.’ Nasruddin drank it in one gulp. Warmth rose, his eyes reddened, the pain was forgotten. After a while the doctor asked, ‘How do you feel now? Has the fear gone? Feeling a bit brave?’ Nasruddin stood up, puffed out his chest and said, ‘Brave! Now let anyone lay a hand on my tooth if he dares! Let’s see which mother’s son touches my tooth!’

Ego is the greatest liquor; as it increases, it seems there is no end to your victories. You will conquer the Paramatma too; you will win Him as well.

This egoist has invented many methods – how to attain the Paramatma. But remember: by no method has anyone ever attained Him. Whoever devised methods got lost and forgot.

Sahaj-Samadhi means: the Paramatma is already available; you do not need your methods. How crazy you are! One has to attain what is not already given – and you try to attain what is already given. It is as if some fish of the ocean is seeking the ocean, as if some bird of the sky has set out to find the sky. Thus you have set out to find the Paramatma – that is the very delusion. The Paramatma is within you every moment, and outside you every moment; other than Him there is nothing. If this is understood rightly, Kabir’s words will be understood.

Do not attain the Paramatma – only remember. Therefore Kabir, Nanak, Dadu use a precious word: surati, smriti, remembering. They all say: if He had been lost, we could find Him. How can you lose Him? For the Paramatma is your very nature – your very ultimacy, your Atman.

How will you lose Him? There is no possibility of forgetting Him somewhere; wherever you go, He will be with you – because you are That. He abides in your every breath; the echo of His being resounds in every heartbeat. If you are good, He is there; if you are bad, He is there; if you are virtuous, if you are a sinner – even if you go to hell, the Paramatma will be equally within you; not a whit less. For Paramatma means existence itself. He is your being, your very is-ness. You cannot lose Him, but you can forget. You can forget who you are – and that has happened. Hence the question is not of search, only of remembrance.

And you have often experienced it: you see someone on the street; the face is familiar; the name is at the tip of your tongue. It feels utterly known. Names come to mind – this one, that one – yet the name does not come; recognition does not settle; recollection does not strike. You are troubled; you furrow your brow; you sweat, and you know that you know; you know well it is stuck in your throat; not far. People even say, ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue.’ But it won’t come. Then you go to your garden, start digging a hole, or read the newspaper, or light a cigarette – and suddenly the name that would not come bubbles up from within. The memory returns. What happened?

Psychologists say: when you were striving, you had contracted. There was no space in which the memory could return. The more you strove, the more you tensed; the lane became narrow. When you forgot about it, began to read the paper, dropped the thought, the narrow lane became a boulevard again; no tightness remained; you became light and relaxed – in that relaxation what was hidden within came out.

Sahaj-yoga means: even the effort to remember the Paramatma becomes a hindrance. Sit and go on chanting ‘Rama Rama, Rama Rama’ – this very chanting may become the wall between you and Rama. Your chanting shows you do not yet know what you are doing. Otherwise, would you chant? He is everywhere – who will chant and to whom? You are repeating words. Does He have a name? You are shouting so loudly that Kabir said: This madman calling the azan from the mosque – does he think God has gone deaf? Is ‘Khuda’ deaf? What need is there to shout so loudly? Does He not have ears? He has ears. Even if you do not shout, if you do not speak, if you do not say anything, He will hear. He hears your heart, your bhava – and bhava before it even becomes a word; bhava before it becomes a thought; when the wave of feeling alone is there and no form has arisen in the world of words – He hears that too. Then what is the need to yell so loudly? Your ‘Rama Rama’ will only make your mind narrower.

No one has ever reached Him by calling – but by becoming silent. This shouting is busyness. It will fill you up. One reaches Him by becoming empty. When your pot is utterly empty, when you are not doing anything at all – suddenly remembrance returns, surati comes.

Sahaj-yoga means: nothing is to be done to attain Him – He is already attained. You are that which you are seeking. Had the goal been far, you could have searched and found. You are standing on the goal itself. The treasure is buried beneath your feet.

I have heard: on a highway a man begged for years. Then he died. He gathered coins, bit by bit. When he died the neighbors thought, For twenty or thirty years this filthy beggar sat here – rags piled up. Burn all that; clean the place. Someone wiser said, That won’t be enough; he has soiled this patch of ground too. Dig up some soil and throw it away. When they dug, they were astonished! A treasure was buried there – pots brimming with jewels and diamonds! The whole village said: What a fool of a beggar! He could not think to dig a little beneath?

But we are all such beggars, such fools. When we die, perhaps others will discover that the treasure was buried where we stood. But we do not discover it. There are reasons: wherever we stand, we never look. The eyes go far. The eyes never seek where we are.

The mind always goes far; it never comes near. It needs space for its travels. So we place the Paramatma on the seventh sky – so that the convenience of search remains, so that the mind can think, compute means, do satsang, strive, toil. And the Paramatma is where you stand – right where you are now. There is not a hair’s breadth between you and Him. Therefore no labor is of any use. If there were distance, we would build a bridge. If the ‘other shore’ were far, we could devise some way. But this shore itself is That shore – no bridge can be built. You have only to awaken.

Sahaj-Samadhi means: to awaken as you are, without doing anything.

Now let us try to understand these sutras.

In the history of humankind there is no match for these sutras of Kabir. Never were words spoken on earth more simple and direct, more clear and transparent. It is unfortunate that Kabir remains virtually unknown outside India. Otherwise, Zen would look pale; the names of the Hasidic masters would be forgotten; what to say of the Sufis! Each word of Kabir seems the essence of thousands of scriptures. The Gita may be priceless, but it could dissolve into a single word of Kabir. Why then did Kabir remain unfamiliar? There are many reasons.

First, Kabir was unlettered, not a pandit. The pandits therefore never cared for him; they kept him outside the fold – an untouchable. The language Kabir speaks is the language of a rustic villager – very fresh, like a villager’s speech. It is not stale. The pandit’s language is always stale – however polished, it is dead within. It may be refined, but it is not alive. It may be ornamented, but it has no soul. Kabir is a villager. His words are like uncut stones. Anyone recognizes a carved stone; no great connoisseur is needed. To recognize an uncut diamond, a deep connoisseur is required.

Kabir is an uncut diamond – straight from the mine. The jewelers of Bombay have not worked on him; he has not been polished and shined. Koh-i-Noor has just come straight from Golconda. To recognize it is difficult. Perhaps you know the story of Golconda’s Koh-i-Noor, perhaps not: the man who got it kept it in his home for a year; the children played with it – he thought it was a colored stone.

Kabir is a Koh-i-Noor diamond. But to reach the crowns of emperors, polishing is needed – the chisel and hammer must strike, facets must be cut. That did not happen – and it is good it did not. The more the shine, the more the life is lost. So Kabir was not recognized. The pandits did not bother about him; and they would not, for Kabir is so against the pandits. For Kabir, ‘pandit’ and ‘fool’ are synonymous.

Kabir says:
The two and a half letters of love – whoever learns them is the true pandit.
No one becomes a pandit by reading the Vedas. One who learns the two and a half letters of love is the pandit. Not one who knows scriptures, but one who becomes wise.

Those whom we call pandits are dull-witted; only their stupidity is hidden behind words, ornamented by scriptures. Their dullness wears colorful garments, but inside there is dullness and deep darkness. So pandits cannot relish Kabir.

Again, Kabir’s utterances are not doctrines; they are experiences. With experience there is a difficulty: it is hard to understand unless it becomes your experience. To understand Kabir, you must become Kabir first; otherwise he will appear senseless. Hence people said: Kabir’s sayings are upside-down.

People labeled Kabir’s utterances as ulatbansi – inverted sayings. His language had to be given a separate name – sadhukkadi. It is not a cultured tongue; it had to be given a special name: the babble of sadhus; senseless, without logic or consistency.

To know Kabir, you cannot know by the word; you can know only by experience. How many on earth recognize by experience?

Hence Kabir’s word did not travel far. Buddha’s name traveled.

Buddha too speaks of experience, but he was a prince. The matter is experiential, but expressed in a cultured tongue. The pandit can savor it.

Mahavira’s experience is the same, but he too was a prince, with the best education and culture. He can satisfy the pandit’s logic, consistency, thought, doctrine.

Kabir’s words fall on your head like a club. Only one willing to die will be willing to bear them.

Kabir has said:
Who burns his own house – let him come with me.
Only one ready to burn his house should come along. He accepts nothing less. Yet if someone looks into his words with love, with prayerfulness, there lies the essence of all that man has known at his highest. Understand his words. Each single word is precious.

Jah jah dolau so parikrama,…
People go to temples to do parikrama – circumambulation. An idol is placed in the temple; circling around it they think they are doing the Parikrama of the Paramatma. Is the Paramatma so small you can circle Him? That you can encompass Him? Define Him? Go around Him? Kabir will say, This is an insult. You have not understood that He is greater than you. How will you do His parikrama? Whatever you do, how will you manage it? Therefore Kabir goes to no temple, to no mosque. He says: ‘Wherever I move, that is parikrama.’ Wherever I go, it is His circumambulation. And the parikrama is endless; it will never be completed – how could it be complete unless I were bigger than He, able to encircle Him?

There is a sweet story. Shiva has two sons: Kartikeya and Ganesha. Shiva was playing with them. He said, Do this: both of you go and circle the world. Whoever returns first will be rewarded. Kartikeya is worldly-wise; he ran off swiftly and did not pause for a moment. Ganesha stood still; for one, his body is stout – he cannot be swift. Shiva said, Why are you standing? Kartikeya has already gone and will return soon. Ganesha circumambulated Shiva once and said, I have returned. Ganesha won.

Parikrama of the Paramatma is a feeling, not an outer fact. Kartikeya missed; he literally went to orbit the world. It is a state of feeling. Kabir says: ‘Wherever I move, it is parikrama.’ A prayerful heart – then wherever I move, it is His circumambulation. Whatever I do, it is His work.

This is the first foundation of sahaj-yoga: let your twenty-four hours become parikrama. Not in fragments – yet we have divided life into fragments. We are very clever. We go in the morning and pray, then run the shop and earn money; give a little in charity and earn religion with it. As if life is divided into many compartments and all separate.

When a man goes into a temple, look at his face – he is a different man. Meet him in the marketplace – his face is different, he is no longer the same man. Another compartment. But can life be divided? Life is indivisible.

Prayer, if it happens, will flow twenty-four hours – or it is not. Not for an hour. The Ganga cannot flow only at Kashi and Prayag and at other times not flow – how then will it reach Prayag? You become prayerful in the temple – and outside the temple, even a moment earlier, you were not prayerful; then how will the river of prayer suddenly begin to flow inside? You are playing an impossible trick. At the door you were an ordinary shopkeeper; inside you enter and become a devotee – and stepping out you become the shopkeeper again. In the temple you deceived – for your twenty-three hours are true; your one hour cannot be true.

For twenty-three hours you are dishonest, lying, stealing, deceiving; for one hour you become utterly simple! Is simplicity a game, to be worn at will? Impossible. But we are clever; we want to manage both worlds. We say: give a little time to God too, so we have a foot in both boats.

Kabir says: This is impossible; a religious man either is religious, or he is not. Do not think ten-percent religious, twenty-percent religious, half an hour religious, one hour religious – impossible. As you breathe, you breathe twenty-four hours – whether asleep or awake, conscious or unconscious. Kabir says: when parikrama becomes like breath – wherever you move, the feeling of parikrama remains. Whoever you pass by, there the Paramatma is seen. Whether it is a temple, a mosque, a stone on the roadside, a prostitute’s house – you see only the Paramatma. Your parikrama continues.

Jah jah dolau so parikrama, jo kachu karau so seva.
The sutra of indivisible life is: do not divide. Do not say, ‘This is service, this is work; now I serve, now I work; now I love, now I do duty.’ Do not divide this world and that God; wherever division is, there you have gone astray; duality has arrived. Where two appear, you miss; remembrance is lost; surati is destroyed.

Jab sovau tab karau dandavat,…
Why do a separate prostration, says Kabir? Why go separately to lie full-length in a temple? When at night I sleep, that itself is dandavat. No question of something extra. Separate is show. When I am tired and sleep – that is prostration.

Keep this in mind at night. As in a temple you prostrate, in that same mood lie on the bed; let sleep arrive from the mood of prostration. In the morning, rise with the sense of parikrama – and whatever you do…

Kabir became wise – supremely wise – yet he continued to work. He wove cloth; he remained a weaver. He beat and prepared the threads, wove on the loom. People said, Now stop; what sense is there in this? You have attained supreme knowing; now leave all this. Kabir said, ‘Whatever I do is seva. Rama will be waiting in the marketplace to see if Kabir brings the cloth. If I do not go with the cloth, Rama will return disappointed.’ So he wove – but as Kabir wove, no one ever did: as if he were weaving feeling, soaked in bliss. As a beloved goes to the lover, as the lover goes to the beloved; as after long absence the lover comes and the beloved has prepared garments, weaving them. Then he would run to the market; to whomever the cloth went he would say, ‘Rama, I have woven it with great care; it will last well.’ The ordinary shopkeeper says his goods are strong, yet hopes they will not last, so the buyer returns soon. Kabir says, ‘I have woven with great care; it will last a lifetime; it was woven for you.’

When all action becomes service, religion needs no partition. Then in your life an indivisible, unbroken flame will begin to burn, without fragments. And the more fragments your consciousness has, the more dead you are. The more your consciousness burns as one, you become like a torch. The flame of your life will then be boundless; its glory has no end.

Now you are like a flickering extinguishing lamp, because you burn in so many tiny lights. You have divided your life – an inch here, an inch there. No flood can come to your life, no overflowing. You love feebly; you work insipidly; there is dullness on all sides. The flame of life blazes when there is excess – so much that you can give and it does not lessen; you can pour and feel no impoverishment. Only then does Samadhi blossom.

So the first foundation for Samadhi: become undivided. Do not separate religion and the world. Therefore Kabir does not separate samsara and sannyas. He does not tell you to run away to the Himalayas. For what you will find there was present here in the marketplace. Why go far? And if you could not see Him here, how will you see Him there? You will carry the same eyes. If your eyes were blind here, how will they see on the Himalayas? If in your wife you could not see, in your son, in your home, then in any temple or idol you will not see. Who will see?

A Sufi fakir worked by ferrying people across a river. He earned a few coins for his daily bread. A young man came and said, ‘Take me across. But first let me tell you, I have no money and cannot pay.’ The fakir said, ‘I take only one coin.’ The youth said, ‘I don’t have even that.’ The fakir sat as he was. The youth said, ‘So you won’t take me?’ The fakir said, ‘But what is the use of going? You have no money here; you will have none on the other shore. What will you do? There will be no difference. As you are on this shore, you will be on that shore. Don’t trouble me needlessly.’

If you do not have eyes here, you will not have eyes there. If you are blind as a householder, you will remain blind as a sannyasin. So the real question is not changing place but changing vision. Let your eyes open – then where you are is the Himalayas; where you are is solitude; in the thick market there is stillness. Otherwise, even on the Himalayas there will be great noise; your mind will carry the noise with it. One thing is certain: wherever you go, you will take yourself along. How will you leave yourself behind? There is no way to run from oneself.

So Kabir takes samsara and sannyas as one. He says: here is sannyas, here is samsara. They are not two situations, but two ways of seeing. If the art of seeing arrives, everywhere is sannyas. If it does not, everywhere is samsara.

Kabir says:
Jab sovau tab karau dandavat, pujau aur na deva.
I worship no other god. To worship some other god means you are dividing the world into godly and ungodly. To remember the name of Rama means other names are not his. To build a separate temple means the whole world cannot be the temple. To give his image a form is to say this is his form and the other forms belong to someone else.

Kabir says: ‘I worship no other god.’ There is none other – only He. Who will worship, and whom?

Bayazid grew old. He went to the mosque continually, never missed, completed the five prayers daily. People were so used to seeing Bayazid in the mosque that no one ever thought there could be a day when he would not be there. For forty, fifty years – fever or illness, trouble, rain or blazing sun – Bayazid completed the five namaz. One day in the morning people saw he had not come. It was clear he must have died – what other reason could there be? They ran from the mosque to his hut. He was sitting under a tree in front of his hut, playing a small drum. They asked, ‘In old age have you fallen? After a life of worship, what is this? In your final days you sever your relation with God? Have you forgotten the five prayers?’ Bayazid said, ‘Until now I wandered needlessly. What was present here, we used to seek there. Now I will not go to the mosque. From now on, wherever I go, the mosque will go with me.’

Perhaps the villagers did not understand.

‘I worship no other god.’ Then you yourself are the temple. Then even the distance between devotee and God disappears. Then no difference remains between the worshipper and the worshipped. Then your very way of being is worship. Your rising and sitting are worship; your walking is worship. Even your breathing is imbued with worship.

Kahau so nam, sunau so sumiran, khavu piyau so puja.
‘Whatever I say is his name; whatever I speak is his name.’ Other than Him there is nothing; therefore all forms are His.

‘…whatever I hear is remembrance.’ It is hard to take into account – but once it dawns, nothing is simpler. A bird sings on a branch – what need is there for any other remembrance? The bird’s song is his song. The winds pass through the trees, the leaves tremble, and sound arises – the winds are his, the trees are his, the sound is his. What need is there for separate noise-making? A child laughs, a child starts to cry – his is the crying, his is the laughing. All sounds are his. And one who once takes this into his heart – no sound can obstruct him. In the midst of the marketplace he is filled with remembrance. Everywhere it is his sound: somewhere he speaks as the buyer, somewhere as the seller; somewhere as the shopkeeper, somewhere as the beggar; somewhere as the master, somewhere as the laborer. The sounds are all his. The play is of One. The waves are many, the ocean is one.

Kahau so nam, sunau so sumiran, khavu piyau so puja.

Ramakrishna, appointed priest at Dakshineshwar, created great difficulty, for he broke all the rules of worship. Such a man should not be made a priest; such people cannot be priests, for there are rites and decorum – they cannot obey. Ramakrishna would smell the flower first, then offer it; he would taste the food first, then offer it to God. The committee found out. The trustees were very angry: ‘This is outrageous!’ They called him: ‘This won’t do. What are you doing? A Brahmin, and so unaware!’ Ramakrishna said, ‘Keep your job. I know my Mother. Until She tastes first, She does not give me. I will not offer without tasting. How do I know it is worthy to be offered? I will taste first, then offer to God.’ This is hard to grasp for one living by rule.

But Kabir will not even do as much as Ramakrishna did. He will not offer at all. He says, The one to whom I would offer is here; why act a drama before a stone idol? ‘Whatever I eat and drink is worship.’

Girah ujar ek sam lekhau,…
House or forest –
‘…I take them as one, I erase the feeling of two.’
All the effort is that the feeling of two may vanish. Wherever two appear, Kabir tries to see the One: house and jungle, sannyasin and householder, religion and irreligion, world and liberation – wherever two appear: ‘I erase the feeling of the second.’ Let the feeling of two be gone; let me see only the One.

It is not difficult to see the One. The real wonder is how you came to see ‘two’! The One is; you have seen two. Therefore to return to the One is not a matter of great effort.

How did you see two? As one who is intoxicated sees double. Come back to your senses and you see one. The eyes wobble in intoxication; the balance is lost; in that trembling, you see many. As soon as balance is restored, the inner waves subside; you become still; outside, the One appears.

Outside ‘two’ appear because inside you wobble, you tremble. As if a mirror trembles; you stand one before it, but many images appear. As if on a full-moon night you throw a stone into a lake and the surface ripples; the moon breaks into a thousand fragments. Slowly the ripples settle; a thousand become a hundred, a hundred become ten. As the lake quiets, the pieces disappear; when the lake is still again, one moon remains.

As long as the mind trembles there are ‘two’; when the mind becomes unmoving there is ‘one.’

The One is – you have made two. Thus returning to the One will not be very difficult. Only understanding is needed, a little awareness, and a little – stillness. Whenever you look, do not look while trembling. Whenever you see, do not see through thought, because thought is a ripple, a wave. See without thought; suddenly the One will be seen. If you see without thought the householder and the sannyasin, you will find they are one. If you see without thought matter and God, you will find they are one. Whoever sees without thought will see only the One. The experience of One is the experience of thoughtlessness.

Girah ujar ek sam lekhau, bhava mitavao duja.

Ankha na mundau, kana na rundhau, tanik kashta nahi dharau.
A most amazing utterance.

‘I do not close my eyes, I do not plug my ears, I do not take upon myself even a little suffering.’

By twisting and torturing the senses nothing will happen. Some have gouged out their eyes out of fear that eyes lead to the attraction of form, that woman enchants, that man becomes invitation. If there are no eyes there will be no forms, no attraction, no arousal of desire. The logic is utterly false.

Close your eyes and see. No need to gouge them out. Close them – form does not disappear; it becomes even sweeter and more alluring. No woman is as beautiful as the one seen with closed eyes. No man is as enticing as he becomes in your colorful dreams. You supply the colors, the forms; your desire paints and constructs beauty. Beauty appears to you not because of the eyes, but because through the eyes your desire is being projected upon things. All the while you are pouring your desire upon them.

Have you noticed: the same thing that looked beautiful yesterday looks ugly today – when desire has departed. Yesterday you were mad; today there is no meaning in it. What changed? The thing is the same, the person is the same. The change is only that you no longer pour your desire upon it. The screen is the same, but the projector is off; you are not casting any picture upon it.

All beauty and form are constructions of your mind. And the mind hides behind the eyes; what will happen by breaking the eyes? The blind too suffer desire – perhaps more than you, for they can do nothing, cannot search; it is harder to satisfy desire. Do the lame not suffer the desire to run? Do they not have ambition? Psychologists even say the opposite: in the lame the desire to run is stronger than in one with healthy legs; the blind longs to see more than one with eyes; the urge to hear in the deaf – who can match it? Whatever is lacking becomes a wound; what we do not have, we long for more.

Therefore Kabir says: ‘I do not close my eyes, I do not stop my ears, I do not take on any suffering.’ He says: if by giving oneself suffering one could attain the Paramatma, how easy it would be. Many torture themselves thinking by this they are paying coins to purchase God. Such people are sick; what psychology in this century has recognized, Kabir saw long ago.

There are people who find relish in torturing themselves. Their psyche is pathological. Unless they torment themselves, they find no delight.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who take delight in tormenting others; but tormenting others is always risky, for you challenge the other to retaliate. The coward and the weak too want to torment, but they cannot – it brings trouble. They torment themselves instead. The aggressive torture others; the cowards torture themselves. Some get into violence; others into self-violence.

One man fasts; another lies on a bed of thorns; another has been standing for ten years, never sitting – his legs have become elephantine; he can no longer bend. Another has torn out his eyelids so sleep will not come, so he must keep his eyes open. These are masochists. Psychology calls them self-tormentors; they find pleasure in causing themselves pain.

Kabir says, ‘I do not take on even a little suffering.’ For there is no question of giving pain – neither to oneself nor to others. That is the true sadhu. This is a difficult matter.

You too feel that the sadhu is one who gives himself pain, and the unholy is one who gives pain to others. If you see a sadhu at ease, you feel disturbed: ‘A sadhu, and sitting at ease?’ If you see a sadhu living in a proper house, you are troubled. Seeing a sadhu sitting in the shade makes you restless. The unholy you know well – that is you. You know the unholy: until you stand the other in the sun you have no peace. So the sadhu must be the opposite – that is your logic.

The logic seems straight: you want pleasure for yourself and pain for others. If by giving others pain you can get your pleasure, you will choose your pleasure – even if the whole world suffers, you don’t mind. This is the unholy mind. This unholy mind will call someone a sadhu only when he does the opposite and starts to hurt himself. But this too is only the other side of the duality.

Therefore it is very hard to understand Kabir, because he says: ‘I do not take on even a little suffering.’ I do not trouble others, nor myself. For neither ‘I’ exist, nor the other; there is only the One. Whomever you give pain to, it returns to Him. So do not starve the other, and do not starve yourself; do not stand the other in the sun, and do not stand yourself there. The urge to hurt – whether the other or yourself – is pathological.

The sadhu longs that happiness shower on all – and he does not deprive himself of it either; why this injustice toward oneself? Why this partiality even toward oneself? Why this division? The sadhu’s longing is that the whole world be filled with joy; let no one suffer. He does not exclude himself; he is part of the whole. But understanding the sadhu is hard for us because of our own unholiness. Thus whenever we see a sadhu in comfort, the thought arises immediately: ‘Not a true sadhu.’ He must be in pain.

An Italian thinker, Lanza del Vasto, came to India and went to see Raman Maharshi at Arunachala. A supreme sadhu – but to Lanza, he did not look like a sadhu: sitting, leaning on pillows. Usually Raman leaned on a pillow and sat on the bed; that was his place. Lanza stayed a few days and wrote in his diary: ‘He may be a perfected man for himself – but this is not my kind of sainthood.’ From there he went straight to Sevagram. He was impressed by Gandhi, took initiation at once and became Gandhi’s disciple. Gandhi gave him the name Shantidas. Lanza wrote, ‘I was impressed by Gandhi. Here is a man!’ Working hard, spinning the charkha, pressing the feet of the poor, massaging lepers, eating the bare minimum, a skeleton of bones – no pillow, no bed – this is a sadhu.

Lanza del Vasto is not a bad man; he is good, thoughtful. But his logic… He would have said the same if he met Kabir. If he heard Kabir say, ‘I do not take on even a little suffering,’ Lanza would have said, ‘Not for me.’ Some Jain sadhu would impress him – one who had gouged out his eyes; that would impress you too: ‘He has done something!’ There was a sect in Russia of Christians who cut off their genitals; they had great influence; they were supreme sadhus. Your Surdas may have gouged out his eyes, but cutting off one’s genitals – that is even greater! They were thousands. People asked whether a particular sadhu had cut his genitals; if he had, he was a supreme sadhu; if not, who knows if lust still runs in him? But if the organ is cut, there is no means for indulgence. But does desire die when the means is cut? Do the mind’s diseases leave by cutting the genitals? They may increase; there is no reason they should go, for there is no connection.

Genitals are not the basis of lust; they are only the medium of its expression. By blocking the medium, lust is not blocked. Closing the tap does not stop the water’s flow; even breaking the tap does not stop the stream. Place a stone over a spring; the spring may stop for a while, but it is not destroyed. Desire is bubbling within you.

Kabir says:
I do not close my eyes, I do not block my ears, I take on no suffering;
with open eyes I recognize and, smiling, gaze upon beautiful forms.

Why close the eyes? All forms are His. This is a revolutionary vision.

A beautiful woman passes on the road – the ordinary sadhu’s way is to close his eyes. Kabir’s way is to see the One’s form in her – see only That. Kabir’s way is important: the beautiful woman should not be seen; only He should be seen.

With open eyes I recognize and, smiling, gaze upon beautiful forms.

But we have great difficulty. You can agree about the flower; if I say the Paramatma is in the flower, you have no objection. If I say: look at a beautiful woman, do not be afraid, the Paramatma is in her too – then there is a problem. For the flower is not deeply tied to your desire; seeing a woman, desire arises. And until desire becomes prayer, the Paramatma will not be visible in woman. And until He is visible, you can run into deserts and mountains, but nothing will change. The woman will follow you; she will be with you. The more you fear, the more you will shrink; you will not expand. And without expansion, has anyone ever known Brahman?

A contracted man fills with ego; an expanded man disappears. The more you expand, the less the ego remains; the more you shrink, the more it grows. Ego is a kind of contraction; the experience of Brahman is a kind of expansion.

With open eyes I recognize and, smiling, gaze upon beautiful forms.

Yet you cannot bear to see a sadhu laugh; if he smiles while gazing on beauty, it will be very difficult – you will call the police.

But Kabir says: what is there to weep about? Why are sadhus so morose? Their long faces, their deep gloom – what is it? Desire is not transforming into blossoming; it is becoming disease. Desire is not being transmuted into prayer; somewhere within it becomes a wound – and because of that wound, the faces are sad, without radiance.

We fear radiance; we fear laughter. In the tavern you may hear laughter; in the temple, no. It is in the temple that laughter should resound so that taverns grow pale. What will a drunkard laugh? How deep can his laughter be? It only hides his tears. Laughter should rise from temples that makes the earth tremble.

The unholy cannot laugh; he is not in a state to laugh. Only a sadhu can laugh – but that laughter is possible only when life is a sahaj-yoga. If you force, how will you laugh? If you force, you become sad. If you force, your plant will dry; its roots will be cut.

With open eyes I recognize and, smiling, gaze upon beautiful forms.

Shabad nirantar se man laga, malin vasana tyagi;
utthat baithat kabahun na chhutai, aisi tari lagi.

A very sweet utterance. Remember it.

‘The mind is joined to the eternal Sound; impure desires are abandoned. Rising or sitting, it never leaves – such a trance has come.’

There is a Word whose utterance cannot be made, for whatever we utter cannot be eternal. It arises and passes. We speak, an echo arises and dies. It cannot be everlasting. There is a Word known to the saints that cannot be pronounced, that is already resounding. They have called it Omkar. It is this they speak of. They say: stop your speaking so that the Sound resounding within may come into your awareness.

You speak so much you cannot hear it. You make such a clamor that the voice of God – whose murmur is flowing within – cannot be heard. The man in Samadhi hears the eternal Sound. It has no relation to the words we speak and hear. Kabir and Nanak speak only of Shabd, the Word. It is not related to these words; it is related to that state when our speaking becomes utterly zero, and within we listen.

The words we speak are momentary; the Word we hear is eternal. When we are utterly silent we hear it. One does not talk to the Paramatma; one listens to Him.

‘The mind is joined to the eternal Sound; impure desires are abandoned.’
And as soon as that unstruck bliss begins to be heard, impure desires drop on their own. You do not have to renounce them; they are renounced. Such joy begins to resound that who will ask for small pleasures? Where diamonds and jewels shower, who will count colorful pebbles? Where nectar flows, who will clamour for water?

‘The mind is joined to the eternal Sound; impure desires are abandoned.
Rising or sitting, it never leaves – such a trance has come.’

‘Tari’ means trance, tandra – a sweet, wakeful swoon.

‘Rising or sitting, it never leaves – such a trance has come.’

The Paramatma is an eternal intoxication; there is no wine like it. Drink wine and the intoxication rises and falls; the trance breaks. For a little while you forget yourself and then you remember again. But there is a trance such that once you have forgotten yourself, you never remember yourself again.

‘Rising or sitting, it never leaves – such a trance has come.’

Kah Kabir, yaha unmani rahani, so pargati kar gai;
sukha dukha se koi pare paramapada, tehi pada raha samai.

Kabir says: This is the ‘unmani’ way of living – the way of no-mind – and I have sung it publicly. The supreme state beyond pleasure and pain – in that state Kabir abides.

‘Unmani’ is a priceless word: what Zen calls ‘no-mind.’

Kabir says: The mind has ended, but living continues. The mind is gone, but I am. Name is gone, limit is gone, but the ocean flows on. Form is gone, but life flows day and night.

‘This unmani way – I have made it manifest in song.’ Kabir says: I am only singing this – the secret of living without mind. Which he has already said:

‘Wherever I move, there is parikrama; whatever I do, it is seva.
When I sleep, that is prostration; I worship no other god.
Whatever I say is His name; whatever I hear is remembrance; whatever I eat and drink is worship.
House and wilderness I take as one; I erase the feeling of two.
I do not close my eyes or plug my ears; I do not take on even a little suffering.
With open eyes I recognize and, smiling, gaze upon beautiful forms.
The mind is joined to the eternal Sound; impure desires are abandoned.
Rising or sitting, it never leaves – such a trance has come.
This unmani way of living I have made manifest in song.’

This I have sung openly. What I have known – the secret, the juice, the intoxication of living without mind – I have sung it.

‘The supreme state beyond pleasure and pain – Kabir abides in that state.’

Now the singer is no more; only the song remains. Kabir has merged there which is beyond pleasure and pain.

Either our life is pleasure or pain; either something we want, or something we do not want. Some things we pursue, some from which we run. Then mind remains; choice continues. And Kabir says there is a state – but it is beyond mind – where there is neither pleasure nor pain. We have called it bliss.

A word like ananda is rare in other tongues. You find synonyms for pleasure and pain; but ananda means where there is neither pleasure nor pain.

Remember: do not think ananda means much pleasure. Where there is pleasure there will be pain; if much pleasure, much pain. Their ratio is equal. The poor have little pleasure, little pain. The rich have much pleasure, much pain. Their measure remains equal – like two wheels of a bicycle. If you enlarge one wheel, you must enlarge the other, or you will fall. Pleasure and pain are two wheels; they are always equal. This is man’s compulsion: he enlarges the wheel of pleasure and is amazed that the wheel of pain enlarges. He does not know that if the wheel of pain does not enlarge, he will fall; he will not move. Therefore the happy man is as miserable as the miserable man – even more, for his wheels are bigger.

A poor man’s pleasure is small and his pain small. A rich man’s are both big. Therefore today there is as much suffering in America as there is not in India. Do not think the reason is that you are happy; the reason is that there is more pleasure there, hence more pain here and less pleasure, less pain. The two wheels are balanced by life itself. But as long as there are two, as long as there is duality, mind will remain.

The ‘unmani’ way begins when mind is gone. Then there is another state that is ananda. Buddha did not use the word ananda, only so that the taste of ‘pleasure’ not cling to it. We have misused the word ananda as ‘great pleasure.’ So Buddha used shanti – where both are at peace. Call it ananda or shanti – it makes no difference.

But one thing must be remembered: ‘The supreme state beyond pleasure and pain – Kabir abides in that state.’ Kabir the singer is not left; only the song is being sung. This ‘unmani way’ – this way of living without mind – itself has become a song.

To understand this song, it is not enough to understand the words I have explained. You must hear the ‘eternal Word.’ Let a little taste catch, that is all. Let a little hint strike the ear; your sleep will not break by it, but a hint will fall; someone will shake you and a little awareness will come – that much can happen. Then the search begins.

The search can become effort. If it becomes effort, Kabir’s sahaj-yoga will not happen. Or it can become prasada, grace. Then you will certainly seek, but there will be no labor in the seeking – there will be prayer, worship. Your whole life will become worship. Prayer will be there, but not separately in temple and mosque; your very way of being will be prayerful. You will become prayerful. A state of feeling will be born and from that feeling-state, slowly the mind will dissolve.

When your Kabir also is lost, only then is there a way to understand Kabir. You must become like Kabir. And it can happen – for what you have been doing is the impossible; what Kabir – or I – am saying is your natural state.

Sahaj-Samadhi means only this: that for which nothing need be done, which you already have – that which you never lost, though you think you have. Drop this thought.

I say to you: begin to live as if nothing has been lost. Begin to live as if everything is given. Begin to live as if you have arrived. You will find your life beginning to change.

Do not think about this. Do not argue – otherwise the mind will say, ‘How is it possible? The goal is far.’ Begin to live as if you are at the goal. Live as if you are already where all must arrive. Begin exactly from there.

It is a very paradoxical affair. We start from the first step; sahaj-yoga says begin from the last step. We begin from the beginning; sahaj-yoga says begin from the end. Begin where you arrive. And I tell you: sahaj-yoga is right.

If you have to listen to Kabir or to Patanjali, listen to Kabir, not to Patanjali. Patanjali’s yoga is an unnatural yoga: discipline, hold, labor. Though through Patanjali too people arrive; but the cause of arrival is not Patanjali – they arrive because, practicing and practicing, one day they become so tired they drop it. The day they drop, that very day they find.

Kabir says: This could have happened in the beginning. There was no need to go so far. All that blocking the nostrils, standing on the head – when after so much you were to drop it, we dropped it the first day. We never picked that burden up; we did not place it on our shoulders.

There are only two paths: Kabir or Patanjali. If the mind insists powerfully, then tussle a while with Patanjali. If the mind is intelligent, not even an inch of trying is needed. With Kabir you are, here and now, accomplished. Being accomplished is your nature.

Enough for today.