Sahaj Yog #4

Narendra! Just as a single seed can give birth to a tree with countless branches and infinite blossoms, so from the seed of one Buddha a great bodhi-tree arises—many branches, many leaves, many flowers, many fruits!

The great revolution that happened in Gautam Buddha’s life spread its rays in all directions. Zen is a flower on that same bodhi-tree, and so is Saraha’s Sahaj-yoga. Saraha is as indebted to Buddha as Bodhidharma is. From one disciple of Buddha, Bodhidharma, Zen arose; from another, Saraha, the siddhas’ Sahaj-yoga arose. But in both the notes of the same veena-player resound. On the surface there will be differences; at the core there is no difference. The raga is one; the instruments may differ. Someone played it on the flute, someone on the veena. Instruments will differ—of course they will. Bodhidharma had one kind of personality from which Zen was born; Saraha had another, from which the siddhas’ Sahaj-yoga was born.

When the moon rises, its reflection appears in lakes, in rivers, in oceans, in ponds. It is the reflection of the same moon, yet each body of water lends it its own color—muddy here, clear there, blue somewhere, crystal-like elsewhere. Such differences appear, but they are not essential.

Zen’s awareness of the moment and Saraha’s Sahaj-yoga are two expressions of the same process. If you understand both rightly, their oneness becomes clear. In truth, when you understand rightly, there is only oneness—only oneness. Then you see not only that two disciples of Buddha are one; you see that Buddha and Mahavira are one. Though they are lamps from different traditions, no matter how many different potters have fashioned the lamps, the flame is the same. And if you go deeper, you will find the same oneness among Buddha, Mahavira, Moses, Muhammad, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu—though the clay be of different lands, the craftsmen different, the oil and the way the wicks are set different—yet the flame is one!

Its very nature is to shatter darkness.

The deeper you go, the more you see the nondual. Difference is a sign of shallowness. As long as you see differences, know that understanding has not yet dawned. When you begin to hear one note ringing everywhere—one Om—then whether it is Buddha or Mahavira or Zarathustra, not even a trace of difference is seen. Words differ, styles differ, but the inner sound is one—that is the birth of understanding. That understanding is called prajna. It does not come from scriptures. If it came from scriptures, religions would not have created so many conflicts and disturbances in the world. It comes when within you there is the flavor of emptiness. It is the fragrance of the state of shunyata. In the depths of meditation that understanding arises.

Zen says: Live moment to moment. Let no shadow of past moments fall on this moment. Let no shadow of future moments fall on this moment. For if the past casts its shadow, it will make this moment stale. You will no longer live fresh. Boredom will enter your life. Repetition will follow. You will not remain young; you will grow old before your time. In some real sense you will not be alive—you will only appear to be, but you will be dead, because the past is the name of the dead. What has gone and is no longer should not weigh upon you. The moment that has passed is past—let it pass. Don’t collect its dust; if the mirror of the mind fills with dust, it will no longer be able to reflect what is present. Then whatever you do will be a reaction, colored by the past. You will miss, for your response will not be to the present. Something will be asked, you will say something else. The situation will be one thing, your response another, because your response will come from the past; those situations are gone. Each moment now is a new situation.

If a mirror starts holding on to images—someone passes before it and it retains the image; then another passes and it holds that too—soon the mirror will be so crowded with images that new reflections will not form; if they do, they will be distorted. The beauty of the mirror is just this: the mirror is Zen. That is why Zen mystics love the example of the mirror; it is their special symbol. Whoever comes, the mirror reflects; whoever goes, is gone, and the mirror is empty again—empty of emptiness—so that whatever comes next can be reflected totally. To live like such a mirror is Zen. Naturally, one who lives this way will carry no burden and no anxiety—no load of memory, no worries of the future. His moment will be pure, fragrant, fresh as these trees—evergreen! Each instant will be filled with an incomparable innocence. There will be a certain fragrance in his life. That fragrance is called sannyas. Such a state is called meditation. Such a person will not need to sit down to meditate—he will rise in meditation, sit in meditation, walk in meditation, speak in meditation, be silent in meditation, sleep in meditation; meditation will be his bedding and his covering, his roof, his food, his way of life. Such a samadhi-filled man attains Buddhahood.

Saraha’s Sahaj-yoga says the same thing in another way. Sahaj-yoga means: do not be artificial; remain natural. Don’t wrap ideals around yourself; ideals bring hypocrisy. Ideals create distortion, because you are one thing, and you try to be something else; tension arises. Then what you are gets suppressed under what you are trying to be. That is hypocrisy.

Saraha says: Live as you are. Think a little, meditate a little on this. Live as you are and face the consequences. Don’t deceive. Don’t pose as other than you are. If you lie, say, “I am a liar, brothers. Beware of me; I lie. Lying is my way of life. So no one should trust me. If someone trusts me, it is at his risk; I have warned you—I lie.”

Think a little: can one who can say this remain untruthful? In the very saying, he has become true. What truth could be greater than this—that a thief comes and tells you, “Be on guard tonight; my eyes are on your safe. I am a thief, not a good man. However much friendship I make with you, stay alert.” Is such a thief a thief? Such a thief has become a sadhu!

This thief has proclaimed his naturalness. He has revealed his privacy. How can he remain unrighteous now? His hypocrisy is gone.

Then there is another person who claims to speak truth and hides behind that claim while he lies. Whoever has to lie must claim repeatedly that he speaks the truth—otherwise who will believe his lie? Therefore the liar keeps insisting, “I tell the truth, I tell the absolute truth, I swear I am telling the truth.” Whenever someone swears too much, be alert—that is the symptom of a liar.

There is a small Christian group, the Quakers. They do not take oaths in court. Many cases have been brought against them; they have suffered punishments, but still they refuse to swear. In court one must swear on scripture or in God’s name: “I swear I will not lie.” The Quakers say: one who can lie can also take such an oath and still lie. What is the problem for a liar in taking a false oath? They are right: if someone lies, how can you trust his oath? He will lie even in the oath. They also say: since we do not lie, how can we swear that we will not lie? To swear is to assume that we have lied, that we do lie, that we could lie—and now we are swearing that we will not.

Quakers do not take oaths. It is a beautiful point. Why would a truthful man need an oath? The very idea of oath implies that without swearing whatever you say is false. And one who lives by lying—what difference will oaths make to him? Remember, whoever keeps saying, “I swear—by Lord Ram, by the Gita, by the Bible,”—beware. A truthful man does not take oaths. A truthful man simply speaks the truth; he does not need to keep invoking it. The liar himself is suspicious; he fears no one will believe him, so he tries to bring in the Quran, the Bible, the Gita, to bring in Ram, Krishna, Allah—perhaps behind their screen his lie will pass. Oath-taking is not a good sign—it is the mark of the liar.

To declare oneself exactly as one is, not deviating a hair’s breadth—this is Sahaj-yoga. Reflect a little on this. Such a life will have no complexity. There is no cause left for complication. Falsehood creates complexity. And by falsehood I don’t mean only spoken lies; people live lies. People wear masks. Behind the mask is something else. “Ram on the lips, a knife in the armpit.” Masks can be very charming; they are sold in the marketplace; you can put on whatever mask you like, and the real face hides behind. Great strategists—you must have seen—wear dark glasses day and night so their real eyes are not seen. If someone wears dark glasses even at night, be alert, because such a person is signaling that he does not want to show his real eyes. The eyes often reveal what the tongue cannot say. So he veils the eyes. A dishonest person does not look you in the eye; he looks here and there. He fears the eye might betray him—eyes do betray.

Science has now discovered methods that will astonish you. Someone says, “I have no interest in women; I am a celibate. No feeling arises in me.” Scientists give him ten pictures: a car, a house, a river, a mountain... then a nude woman—and all the while his eyes are being measured by instrument. The device photographs his eyes. As soon as the nude appears, his eyes suddenly widen; the one who claims to be celibate has his pupils dilate. You know: in bright light, the pupils become small; in dim light, large. You can see in a mirror: come in from the sun and look—your pupils will be tiny; slowly they grow larger as the light diminishes. In other words, when there is much light, the pupil contracts—it would be harmful to let too much in; when it is dark, the pupil expands so you can see. Like a camera’s lens—open longer in the dark, shorter in bright light.

When the nude picture appears, you become so eager to see that unconsciously your pupils widen. You want to gulp it all. You may loudly declare you are celibate, but the eyes will reveal the truth. Your words will not help. How many so-called sadhus and brahmacharins would pass this small test? And the fun is, you have no control over this part of the eye. The pupil is not under your command, as your tongue is. You can say, “I am celibate,” but you cannot will your pupils to be small or large. They respond to your inner emotional surge—and when it rises, they expand at once.

That is why you stare at women. In Hindi we even have a pungent word, luchcha—one who ogles. It comes from lochan, eye. The critic, alo-chak, too, is one who stares intently. You may turn your neck away when a beautiful woman passes, but that won’t help; the pupil will speak, the pupil will tell. The eyes will report.

A dishonest man won’t meet your gaze; he looks up and down, here and there. He speaks one way and looks another. And the very crafty—politicians, diplomats—put on dark glasses so there is no hassle. They will keep looking at your eyes, but you have no way to see theirs; you cannot know their reality. You will be forced to trust whatever they say.

Sahaj-yoga means: do not make life complicated. Do not become false. The more false you are, the more miserable you will be. Falsehood brings suffering, because through it your connection with truth loosens and breaks. Existence is truth. If you become truthful with it, your music will harmonize, your notes will fall into place. Then your rhythm coincides with the whole; there will be dance and celebration. Becoming true with the whole, you merge with it—and in that merging is samadhi. If you remain false, you remain isolated.

Existence can have no union with falsehood, because falsehood has no being. What is not cannot unite with what is. Only what is can meet what is; what is not can only meet what is not. That is why one lie forces a thousand more. To protect one lie, you must tell another, because only lies can shield lies. Then to cover the second, ten more—and so on. Have you noticed how much trouble one lie brings? For twenty-four hours you must keep remembering: “I told that lie; I must not let it slip by mistake.” And it will slip. How long can you protect it? How much? By day if it doesn’t, at night it will.

One night Mulla Nasruddin suddenly spoke in his sleep, “Kamla! Kamla!” His wife sat up, startled—wives are vigilant day and night. She heard “Kamla!” She already suspected—wives always do; they don’t need reasons—now at least the witch’s name was known: Kamla! She shook Mulla awake: “Who is this Kamla?” The husband, too, is constantly on guard. The more suspicious the wife, the more alert the husband—even in sleep. He realized a mistake had occurred. “Kamla? No one. There is a mare in the coming horse race named Kamla.” Somehow the matter was patched up and both slept. But wives do not accept so easily. Next day, when Mulla returned from work, she said, “That mare called on the phone.” Mulla broke into a sweat—caught! No phone had come. But even that one line trapped him.

If you lie, it cannot go on for long. It cannot. Lies have no legs. And if a lie must walk, it borrows the legs of truth. Truth’s legs with the body of a lie—this creates a split in your life. And since there is not one lie but a thousand, a thousand splits arise. A person caught in these conflicts lives in hell.

Sahaj-yoga means: drop these dualities, drop the web. Accept yourself exactly as you are. Don’t show yourself to be what you are not. Let all hypocrisy go. If a person can accept himself in total nakedness, what happens? A revolution happens. With that acceptance, the Zen process happens.

Zen says: Don’t think of the past. But one who accepts his nature nakedly has no business with the past—what is gone is gone, and false. And one who is at ease with his naturalness does not plan for the future—“Tomorrow I will be this, the day after that.” He delights in being exactly as he is. His future drops, too.

Sahaj-yoga is a feeling of gratefulness toward the divine: “As you have made me, so I am; I do not wish to alter even a hair. I do not wish to prove myself wiser than you.” As the divine has colored you, that is your color, your way; you do not aspire or dream to be otherwise.

From here you will understand the other point: Is Sahaj-yoga another name for surrender? Certainly, Narendra—Sahaj-yoga is another name for surrender. One who has accepted his naturalness has surrendered himself to the divine. Only through surrender can one be natural. We become unnatural because we try to stand on our own feet. When he is carrying us—where he wills, as he wills—what worry remains, what burden? Then drop the load. Flow with the current. When personal will is gone, prayer arises.

No prostration is free of one’s own purpose.
In God’s name, man worships his own will.

Your prayers are false. You take God’s name, but you are bowing to yourself, because you place your demands before him. Your demand is foremost. You want to use God, exploit God. If in the temple, mosque, or gurdwara you asked for anything—anything at all: liberation, wealth, position—you have put God second. Your demand has become greater than God. You have gone to exploit God. Your prayer is not prayer; it is trickery, dishonesty, diplomacy. No prostration is free of one’s own purpose! See people’s prayers, their prostrations—you will find them full of self-interest. In God’s name, man worships himself. He takes the divine name, touches God’s feet, but look closely: he is touching his own feet. He bows his head to God, but in fact he is bowing to his own head. The truth is, he wants to make God bow at his feet: “Do as I say. Do not differ from my will. My will above yours.” That is making God’s head bow at your feet. And you call this prayer? You call this prostration? You call this namaz?

If only the human heart had not been stained by the blot of desire—
God is witness, this gem would be beyond price.

Only one flaw keeps man from being a diamond; otherwise he would be a precious jewel! A tiny defect has crept in—a stain.

When a diamond has even a small blemish, its price falls. A small flawless diamond is more valuable than a large one with a flaw. What stain came upon man that he ceased to be a diamond? If only the blot of craving, of desire, had not fallen on the human heart—God is witness, this gem would be priceless.

Sahaj-yoga means: we will ask for nothing; we will live silently. Content with whatever comes. What does not come, we will know that not getting it was for our good. Such is the inner world of Sahaj-yoga! If a flower comes, we accept; if a thorn comes, we accept. No difference in our acceptance. Success or failure, honor or insult—inside, prayer and gratefulness flow on unchanged. That steady current is Sahaj-yoga.

What petitions people make—endless—but as for me:
my only prayer is that there be no demand at all.

There is but one prayer worth making: O Lord, teach me to pray without any craving.

What petitions people make—endless—but as for me:
my only prayer is that there be no demand at all.

To be able to pray in that way—without any desire or ambition—is enough.

Sahaj-yoga is surrender—total surrender.

Beloved of my life,
remove this darkness!
Before my eyes
stretches endless mist,
a fog-colored sky,
muddy and dim!
O Infinite, with your arms
gather me in!
Come, riding the chariot
of your rays, resplendent;
spill in every direction
a soft rosy dawn!
Take my voice and make it
the sweetness in birdsong!
Beloved of my life,
remove this darkness!

Call upon the divine with a simple heart—free of petty desires—and drift quietly in life. Do not swim, do not struggle. Let the river carry you where it will, for all rivers ultimately reach the ocean. If one flows quietly, union with the divine is assured. The divine is already given; only flow, and it comes into experience. Rest a while—but you are so busy striving, rushing, scrambling. In this bustle, the one who sits within cannot be seen. You are so entangled, so occupied—how will you see what already is?

God is your very nature. Therefore God is not to be attained. Drop the race to attain, sit a while, and the experience begins.

Fly now, far away, O swan-like breaths of life!
The pathless sky is not far, O swan-like breaths.
Earth cradled you in her lap and raised you,
gave you direction, set you on your feet—
but do not make an eternal nest, O wandering soul!
The compassionate heart of earth belongs to the sky;
you are a part of that, and earth is its handmaiden.
Cast off the spell of clay, O seeker of the beyond!
Your destination lies before you—do not turn from the flow!
Wing through the ether, leaving your shadow on the ground.
Do not grasp at shadows, O bearer of shadows!

We set about making a permanent nest—that is where we go astray. Life is a flow. Do not make an eternal nest, O wandering soul! Life is a river in motion, and we clutch and cling, become attached, begin to build nests—everlasting nests—as if we were to live here forever!

Sahaj-yoga says: Nothing here is forever; all is flowing, passing. All is momentary. Don’t clutch—live. And let what goes, go—so that your heart is empty and open for what is new and arriving. Don’t keep accounts of yesterdays; don’t worry about tomorrows. Whatever has come today—dance it, sing it, hum it. In this very song, prayer is fulfilled. In this song, surrender is complete. In this song, the siddhas’ Sahaj-yoga flowers, and the Zen monks’ awareness of the moment flowers. These are two facets of one and the same happening.

Anand Maitreya, just as every person is born and dies, so too every faith one day becomes superstition. Superstition is the corpse of faith, out of which the life-breath has flown.

You loved your mother so much, and then one day she passed away. You don’t keep the corpse at home, do you? If you keep a corpse, living becomes difficult. The whole house will stink. And if you keep collecting such corpses—one day the father will die too—then living in that house will become impossible. The dead will be so many—where and how will the living live? So, though the mother was very dear, when she passes away you don’t delay in tying the bier. And even if you delay, the neighbors begin to tie it quickly. After all, they too have to live. While you are absorbed in weeping, the neighbors start gathering bamboo and wood; because when someone dies in their house, you gather bamboo and wood for them. It is mutual give-and-take. It doesn’t take long—someone dies and the corpse is lifted. With every passing moment, keeping a corpse in the house becomes more difficult.

And it isn’t that you did not love your mother; you loved her deeply—you beat your chest and cry—but still, crying, you carry the bier. Crying, you place her on the pyre. Crying, you set it alight. It has to be done.

Exactly so is the state of faith and superstition. Faith—when truth is alive. And when the life has flown out of truth and only ritual remains, yet you keep dragging that ritual—then superstition. A faith with eyes is alive; blind faith is dead. Someone saw the Buddha, saw that unparalleled light, and bowed at his feet! That is faith. There was no plan to bow, no prior intention to bow; but you bowed, you had to bow. The light was such, the aura so radiant! You could not stop yourself. You don’t even know when you bowed. This is a living event. It has juice in it; it carries deep meaning. There is a heartbeat of feeling in it. It is breathing. When someone, seeing the Buddha, looking into those eyes, overwhelmed by the glory at those feet, places his head there—from his own experience, his own realization, his own direct encounter—then it is another matter.

But that man is gone, the Buddha is also gone. Yet his children bow before the Buddha’s statue because the father once bowed to the Buddha; and then the children’s children will keep bowing, and keep bowing. Centuries pass. Now a Buddha statue is installed and people bow their heads. Inside, there is no feeling of bowing. How could there be? Can one feel that before a piece of stone? There is no glory in the stone, no life in it. It was the Buddha’s glory, the Buddha’s descent, before which your ancestor bowed. But why are you bowing? You say, “Our fathers and grandfathers bowed; we too will bow.” Then keep bowing. But your bowing is superstition.

Understand this: at the beginning of every superstition there was faith. Otherwise, how would it be born? Someone was intoxicated by Nanak’s ecstasy. He heard Nanak’s song, his being swayed and danced, spring burst forth—and in that spring, bowing was inevitable. If a flower like Nanak blossoms and one does not bow, he is unfortunate, blind; stone has lodged within him, not heart; he is lifeless. If a flower like Nanak blossoms and your nostrils are not filled with fragrance, how is that possible? That is possible only if you have no sensitivity at all. If there is even a little sensitivity, if even a little humanity is awake and alive within you, you will bow.

But then centuries pass. Now Nanak is no more; not even his image is there. Yet someone goes on bowing before the Guru Granth Sahib.

I was a guest in a Punjabi home. Early in the morning, going for my bath, I had to pass through a middle room. What I saw there astonished me: they had built a grand throne for the Guru Granth Sahib. To seat Nanak upon the throne of the heart—that I can understand—but now a book has been seated on a throne. Even that, let it be; it is your reverence. What shocked me was that beside that throne a silver lota—a water pot—was placed filled with water, and a toothbrush twig was also kept there. I asked, “What is this for?” They said, “The toothbrush for the Guru Granth Sahib.” Now this is the limit. Had you taken a lota of water to Nanak for his brushing—even a silver or gold lota—that would make sense. But now you are keeping a toothbrush for a book! Are you in your senses, or have you gone mad? Yet this is how it happens.

I have heard: a man died. He had the habit of cleaning his teeth with a little stick after every meal. His children were very small. The father died, the mother had already passed away. The children didn’t remember much else, but they did remember that just outside the kitchen niche a little stick used to be kept, and after meals their father used to do something with that stick; what he did, they did not know, but surely there must have been some secret significance. So they kept a stick. Now, if it is to be kept in memory of the father, why keep an ordinary stick? They kept a piece of sandalwood. And if you are keeping it, why keep a small one? They kept a big piece of sandalwood, all carved. Now it had no connection with cleaning teeth. You couldn’t clean teeth with it. It had nothing to do with teeth anymore. Later the children grew up; they built a new house. They earned wealth. In the new house they thought, “It sits in a niche; it is a remembrance of our ancestors—why not build a small temple?” The idea appealed to all, and now there was money, so they built a small marble temple. They said, “Why keep it in a niche—our forefathers were poor, so that was all right.” Now a big marble temple was made; then why keep a little piece of wood within it? So they brought an entire trunk, perhaps a whole tree of sandalwood, had it richly carved, and installed it there. I have heard that now its worship goes on, the bell rings, a priest comes, flowers are offered. No one even remembers where the whole thing began.

Whatever superstitions you see in this world, their beginning surely once lay in faith. Somewhere—though much may have been lost, though it may be impossible today to trace it, though we may no longer have the means to peel back the layers of history and find it—somewhere, at the beginning, there must have been some small or big reality. There was some truth that someone had realized. But later, all things turn into superstition.

Faith means: that which arises from your own experience.

Now people come to me. Some mother has taken sannyas; she brings her son, “Give him sannyas too.” The son is trying to run away; she is grabbing him, “Give him sannyas.” He won’t sit; he keeps getting up; she forces him to sit, “Give him sannyas.” Holding his neck, she presses his head to my feet. He keeps refusing, pulling his head away. Will this be sannyas? If I refuse, she feels hurt. If I say no, she is hurt. I understand her difficulty too, because she says, “At home the boy keeps asking for a mala. He says, ‘We too will wear the ochre robe, we too will wear the mala,’ and he has created trouble for me.” But the mother took sannyas with awareness and understanding; upon the son it is being imposed by force. Right here and now, both faith and superstition are being formed. Tomorrow the mother will be gone, and the son will remain a sannyasin. He will be utterly hollow—a sannyasin of no value, no meaning. Yet he will carry stubborn pride: “Our mother was a sannyasin; how can we betray her?” So he will wear the robe; and if he feels too much like wearing other clothes, he will put the ochre on top and wear whatever he fancies underneath. Inside he will wear velvet and silk, and on top he will drape ochre. Or by day he will wear ochre when people can see, and by night at home he will wear whatever he enjoys. Now the mala will become false. The wooden beads will disappear; gold and silver beads will take their place. The mala will start acquiring new meanings. It will become an ornament.
You have asked: The other day, speaking of India, you said that the basic problem of this country is its superstitions. Not only of this country but of the whole world—the basic problem everywhere is superstition; only a little more here. Why more? Because in this land there have been many men around whom trust awakened. Therefore this country also has more superstitions. Buddha happened here, Mahavira happened here, Krishna happened here—rare beings—Saraha and Gorakh and Kabir and Nanak and Dadu and Raidas and Farid...! A lineage of wakeful lamps. This country has gone on celebrating a continual Diwali. Lamp after lamp has been lit here. Where so many lamps have burned, naturally there will also be worship of many extinguished lamps; for the lamps that burn must one day go out. And we do not gather the courage that when a lamp is extinguished we should let it go into nirvana—carry it away, consign it to the river, bow and bid it farewell. We don’t muster that much courage; no one does. Attachments arise, clinging binds us. Fear too takes hold.

“The other day, speaking of India, you said that the basic problem of this country is its superstitions, and that this country is fifteen hundred years behind time. Would you kindly tell us what is the touchstone for telling faith from superstition?”
Right here in Poona there is a gentleman—educated, a big contractor, wealthy. His wife comes here to listen to me; he doesn’t want to let her. He’s afraid she might become a sannyasin. His wife told me he is so angry with you that he won’t let me read your books. So I have to read them in secret. If ever the book is found in his hands he throws it out of the house. And then she laughed and added: the funny thing is that when I’m not looking, he goes and picks the book up, bows to it, and puts it back. Of course he must be getting nervous—he threw it away, but what if some sin happens! So when the wife isn’t looking, he bows to it.

Man is that strange. Some are held by attachment, some held by fear: “If I drop it now, what loss might come? I’ve held it so long; what harm in keeping up a little worship? What’s the harm if I ring a bell for five minutes every morning, sprinkle a little water, and be done with the fuss? Only five minutes gone, nothing much. Who knows—maybe there is a God; if after death we meet him, at least I can say I did my daily worship. And if there isn’t, what’s lost? Time is passing anyway; five more minutes gone.”

Because this land has produced so many who could kindle trust, it has also produced a great crop of superstitions. Behind every good fortune stands its shadow of misfortune. Only a rich man can become poor; the poor cannot become poor—they don’t even know what poverty is. It is when the rich fall that they know poverty; they have the means of comparison. Those who have known happiness come to know unhappiness; those who have lived only in unhappiness don’t really know it.

Know this and you will be surprised: nowhere in the world have the poor made a revolution. Whatever Karl Marx and his followers may say, the poor have made no revolution. The poor never will; they cannot—for they have no taste of happiness, no hope. And the rich—why would they make a revolution? They already have everything; they would only lose by it. So one point is settled: the rich won’t make revolutions. The poor can’t; they have no inkling of well-being. Then who makes revolutions? The middle class, those between the two—those who have known a little suffering and had a taste of a little joy.

The middle class is the revolutionary class. Hence all upheavals arise from it. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin—all middle-class people. In this country too, as elsewhere, whatever talk of revolution arose, it arose from the middle class. You know who led India’s freedom movement—lawyers. In the beginning the Congress was an association of lawyers. Why lawyers? What do lawyers have to do with freedom? Every sort of person existed here, yet no one else cared; why did lawyers care? They got a little taste of status, of prestige, of courts, in the company of the British. You’ll be surprised to know that those who stirred revolution in this land were all educated in the West—middle-class people. They returned from the West having tasted a little freedom.

There would have been no revolution here had there been no Macaulay. People say Macaulay enslaved this country, and I tell you Macaulay is the father of its freedom. If the British hadn’t tried to educate people here, revolution would never have come—because it came through the educated, not the uneducated; not through pundits and priests, not through experts in Veda and Upanishad, but through those who returned with a taste of the West.

Subhash wrote that when he first reached Europe and a British shoeshine boy polished his shoes, his joy knew no bounds. One who has seen an Englishman polish his shoes—how can he come back here and polish the Englishman’s shoes? Now trouble began.

Macaulay is the father of India’s freedom. He stirred the unrest. Had he not given English education, had he left people to study Sanskrit and to rote-learn the Gayatri in little schools, nothing would have happened. They would have gone on peacefully with sacred thread on their shoulders, tinkling bells, busy with their bhajans and kirtans. He gave people the taste of the freedom that had ripened in the West. Once you taste it, obstruction arises.

Look at Iran right now. The troubles the Shah is facing are of his own making. Iran is the one Muslim country where education has been widely expanded—and the Shah emphasized it. Among all Muslim nations Iran is prosperous, educated—and that turned into the problem. The same educated and prosperous people no longer want to remain quiet. They say: give us our rights; we want democracy; give us our chance to govern. And no other Muslim country is in such turmoil because people are so poor, so uneducated, they can’t even imagine power coming into their hands. Who desires the impossible? Upheaval begins when something seems possible, within arm’s reach—“with a little effort we can have it.”

Shudras in this country have been oppressed for thousands of years—no rebellion arose; it couldn’t. In a person like Ambedkar it did, because the British gave him the chance of education.

It is a fact of life worth understanding: neither the poor nor the rich revolt; the middle class does. All revolutions—of ideas, of economy, of society—arise from the middle.

This land has much experience of trust—its taste, its peace. It knows that an event like Buddhahood can happen; it has that certainty. Therefore, even if there is no Buddha, “let a Buddha’s statue do”—it clings to something or other.

Other countries don’t have so much superstition because they haven’t had so many occasions for trust. In America there isn’t much superstition because America has known no Buddha, no Mahavira, no Krishna. In that sense America is non-superstitious. And superstition cannot arise until trust has arisen. Where there is pleasure, there is the sense of pain; where there is wealth, the sense of poverty; where there is the taste of trust, the shadow of distrust is cast. Then fear of distrust makes one clutch at superstition and somehow sit tight.

Imagine your house is dark and you have seen the lamp’s light—now you cannot be content with darkness. The lamp went out and you still can’t be content with darkness. You know light exists; it was; it can be again. But for now it isn’t, darkness is all there is. You can at least do one thing: hold on to that very lamp in which there had been light, in the hope that it may light again. So you cling to the lamp itself; you begin to worship the lamp—in the memory of light. Then your children too worship the lamp—because children think if we don’t do what parents do, it’s betrayal. You teach them the same: do what we do, or it will be betrayal. Thus lamp-worship begins.

Here lies the irony: the worship of the lamp began from the light—but once lamp-worship begins, light may never arise again. Because with lamp-worship one feels one has done enough; one doesn’t search for light. One thinks lamp-worship is sufficient.

So superstitions arise out of trust. And once superstition is born, genuine trust becomes very difficult.

That’s why I say: break superstitions so that the stream of trust can flow again; so that you can search for the real essence of reverence.

“The other day you said India’s basic problem is its superstitions, and that the country is fifteen hundred years behind the times. Would you kindly tell us what distinguishes faith from superstition?”

If it is alive, it is faith; if it is dead, it is superstition. If it is your own, it is faith; if it is borrowed—stale, second-hand, your parents’, your forefathers’—it is superstition.

“And won’t today’s faith become tomorrow’s superstition?”

Certainly it will. Maitreya’s point is: if today’s faith will become tomorrow’s superstition, why cultivate faith at all? Will today’s children not become tomorrow’s old? Then stop bearing children. Will one who is born today not die tomorrow? Then should we end the process of birth? Will the flower that bloomed in the morning not wither by evening, fall back into dust? Should we, for that reason, forgo the joy of the morning blossom? The sun that rose—will it not set by evening? The body that is healthy today—will it not be ill one day? For that reason will you abandon health? The lamp is lit—should you blow it out because it will go out anyway?

What you are really asking is: if all today’s faith is tomorrow’s superstition, then what’s the point? No—there is great point. While faith is alive, it gives you light. Those who walk in that light will arrive. Tomorrow surely it will become superstition—hence a standing reminder is needed: whenever a faith turns into superstition, carry its bier. Cry if you must, but hoist the pot on your shoulder and set off, chanting “Ram-Ram satya hai”—take it to the cremation ground and burn it. There will be some pain, but do not preserve superstition.

A true master has two tasks: first, to give you trust—to show you the path of living experience; and second, to alert you that when trust dies and only blind belief remains, bid it farewell—immerse it in the river, or cremate it on the burning ground. Do not bequeath blind belief to your children. Do remind them that there is such a thing as trust—we knew it; that there are beings like Buddha—we met them—so you too seek. Do not hand them your Buddha’s idol, but do tell them of your Buddha-experience. Tell its story. Hum its song in their ears so an echo keeps resounding within, and one day they too set out. But don’t foist your guru upon them—that is where the mistake begins. Your attachment says: my guru should be my son’s guru too. Why?

I am alive for you, and you are alive for me; between two living beings something can happen. When I am gone tomorrow, how will anything happen between me and your children? Yes—tell your children this much: such happenings do occur; seek them. We found someone; you will too. Someone will be found—a wakeful man; bow at his feet. But do not hand them my picture or my statue. Because for you I am not a statue; for you I am a living experience. For your children I will be a dead idol. They will worship me, bathe me with water, place a toothbrush before me—but for an idol these are meaningless. All in vain. And because they will be entangled with the idol, even if a living master passes by their door they won’t see. They will say: we have no need; we already have a guru, we worship him, we believe in him.

A woman has just come here. Something in her has stirred toward me—otherwise she wouldn’t have come all the way from America. She is elderly. But a big obstacle has appeared. She says: since childhood I have believed Jesus is my guru; how can I have two gurus? I told her: if Jesus is your guru, why have you come here? If having Jesus as your guru has fulfilled you, you are fulfilled. If it has not, how is Jesus your guru? Period, full stop. Jesus might have been your forefathers’ guru—you have inherited the right.

This isn’t the kind of wealth that comes by will. Outer wealth is willed; inner wealth is not. Their ways differ. When your father dies, you inherit his safe. But when your father dies, you don’t inherit his bliss, his samadhi, his meditation. Inner wealth isn’t given away in a will—no one on his deathbed writes: all my money is my son’s and so is my samadhi; and my meditation too. If I have four sons, divide the samadhi four ways.

Meditation or samadhi cannot be divided, cannot be given or taken.

So this woman has come from far, but she will miss. One more obstacle: her husband has come too; he is taking sannyas—now another hurdle. She wrote yesterday: I had one obstacle—what to do or not do; now my husband is taking sannyas. Won’t it create a rift—his guru one, mine another? Will we fall apart?

If Jesus has brought peace to your life, the matter ends. If peace comes to your husband through me, how can that create opposition? Two peaces always become one. Two disturbances may clash. But no peace has come to the wife—otherwise why come this far?

“Jesus” is just an empty word for her, without value. What is your experience of Jesus? Where have you known him? Where have you looked into his eyes, held his hand? Even if you want to, how?

Between you and Jesus there is a gap of two thousand years. In those two thousand years thousands of popes and priests have planted themselves between you and Jesus. There is a great wall—greater than the Great Wall of China. To dig through that wall to the real Jesus—you will die before you arrive. In those two thousand years so many commentaries and interpretations have been dumped on Jesus that identifying his own voice is nearly impossible. Even to decide whether he existed or not is impossible. As for Krishna—what to say—more distance, more difficulty.

A true master can only be contemporary. One who is in a body now—only he can relate to you who are in a body now.

No, Maitreya—because faith may become superstition, it must not be abandoned. Live by faith. Taste the joy of trust. Be drunk in it; those who come after will manage their own. Only, don’t place obstacles in their way. Don’t bind them in your insistence or give them your biases. Give them the longing, the thirst for free inquiry. Tell them: we searched and we found someone by whose side we heard the discourse of heaven, whose nearness let us hear celestial music; with whom we walked a few steps in God’s light; we knew meditation; a few flowers of samadhi fell upon us—now you too seek.

This world is brimming with the divine, and in countless forms the divine keeps manifesting here. When you become adamant about old forms, new forms become hard to see. Then trouble begins.

If a Muslim comes to me, his maulvi tells him: being a Muslim, you go there? What’s lacking here? Everything is written in our Quran. A Hindu who wishes to come is stopped by his priest: why go there? These are the very people who used to stop before. When Mahavira was alive, they stopped people. When Muhammad was alive, they stopped people. They are enemies of life, partisans of death, worshippers of the dead.

I would certainly say to you: give your children inquisitiveness, longing, the urgency to search. Give them thirst—but don’t hand them bound doctrines. Then what was your faith will not become superstition for your children. It depends on you. Do not impose your faith on anyone. Give your children your love, not your beliefs. Give them love, not your dogmas. Give them the urge for truth, not scriptures about truth. Then slowly trust can arise in the world and there will be no need for superstition.

Yet even this is not a hundred-percent safeguard, because some people are not interested in trust at all; they want superstition and cannot be stopped. Their vested interest lies in it.

Superstition has its “advantages”—understand those too. Why do people cling to it? People aren’t utterly foolish; they are quite clever, calculating. When they cling to superstition there is logic behind it. What logic? First: no hassle. Superstition never requires you to change yourself. It lets you remain as you are; it does not touch your life, doesn’t hurt you. A living faith will change your life—it is fire. Passing through it, you will burn. Though only by burning will you be refined, the burning moments are hard, painful. Superstition is ash—call it by a finer word, “vibhuti.” Rub it on, smear it on your body, nothing changes. Once it was live embers.

A gentleman said to me: why don’t you perform miracles like Satya Sai Baba—producing vibhuti? I said: I create embers; ash will arise by itself when embers die. If you want to eat embers, come to me; if you want to chew coals, come to me. What’s there in vibhuti? Ash always comes on its own; every ember ends up as ash. Then share the vibhuti, smear it on your head, even taste it. But nothing will happen from ash. Embers—embers are needed.

Being with a living master is being near fire. Superstition has one convenience: it is a toy—play as you like, no danger. Superstition is not fire; it is a picture of fire on paper. Press it to your chest, place it on your head—no harm; you won’t be burned. Faith is fire, not the picture of fire. Touch it and transformation begins.

So only those join with faith who want to change, who are ready to stake their lives, who say: we want light in life, to know nectar before we die. Such people will turn to faith. But ninety-nine percent don’t want such trouble. They say: life is going well enough; we’re fine. Yet now and again a doubt catches the mind: one day we’ll die; we’ll stand before God; he will ask—what did you do? It will be awkward, for our history is only this much: from this hotel to that hotel; from this club to that club; from this film to that film; dropping this woman and picking up that woman—that’s our story. We’ll be embarrassed to say it before God. So when going from one club to another, we bow our head at a temple in between—it will help. At least we can say: on the way we bowed at Hanuman’s temple. When we left one woman and married another, we went to the temple; we offered flowers, even a coconut. When we left one business for another, we remembered you. We’ll have something to say.

Doubts arise because death is! How can you deny it? And what after death—is anything left? It never becomes certain what is after death; will we survive or not? If it were absolutely certain that we will not, then you would drop even superstition; there would be no question of faith either. If it were decisively proven that everything ends with death, you wouldn’t bow to Hanuman’s idol. What’s the point? Why waste a coconut? Use the time to make a little more money, to listen to the radio, read the newspaper—do something else. Why waste time? But it never gets decided what is after death. Nor does it become sure that we will survive. If it were sure we will, then adopt faith—seek a true master. Nor does it become sure we won’t. If that became sure, you’d drop even superstition. In this indecision—will we survive or not—you devise a trick: do a little something. Doing a little something seems wise.

A friend of mine has listened to Krishnamurti for thirty years—he listens to me too. He believes in neither God nor mantra nor worship nor prayer—nothing. One day his son told me he’d had a heart attack; please come, he may have only a couple of hours; your coming will help. I went—and I was shocked. I slipped quietly into his room. Because he was in bad shape, eyes closed—chanting “Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram.” I couldn’t believe it! I shook him—for a moment I even forgot he’d had a heart attack. I said: to hell with your heart attack—what are you doing? Ram-Ram! Thirty years of Krishnamurti, ten years of me—Ram-Ram!

He said: please leave that aside now; don’t raise it. This is a matter of dying. Who knows—could be. Don’t bring up philosophical principles now. Let me chant Ram-Ram. If something happens, at least I can say I remembered at the end.

Such a man moves by calculation, with arrangements made.

Mulla Nasruddin was walking to the bazaar with an umbrella. It began to rain. His companion said: Nasruddin, why don’t you open the umbrella? He said: there’s no use; it’s broken, full of holes. The companion said: then why carry it at all? Mulla said: I thought—who knows, it may not rain!

That is the condition of a superstitious person: an umbrella. Useless, but at least it looks like an umbrella. Who knows—it might not rain; better to carry it. One keeps a sort of confidence that the umbrella is there—though if it rains, it’s full of holes.

Such is man’s state. Examine yourself. Have you gone to the temple out of reverence? Out of your own gratitude? Have you ever bowed in a drunken ecstasy? No—it's that umbrella full of holes: who knows, there might be a God; so bow. But your bowing is false. A holed umbrella—won’t serve. Whom are you deceiving?

So I don’t say there’s a hundred-percent guarantee that if you don’t hand your children superstition they won’t create it anyway. Ninety-nine out of a hundred will. If you don’t give it, they’ll make it themselves. If you don’t hand it to them, they’ll pick it up. Because superstition gives a kind of safety—at least the illusion of safety. And it provides a convenient shelter: you needn’t change, needn’t burn, and still you get the fun of being “religious.” That’s why people go to temples, mosques, gurudwaras, churches—Sunday, they’ve been to church. Men meet and gossip there; they have nothing to do with the church. Women show off jewelry and saris; they too have nothing to do with the church.

Once I went to speak in a Jain temple. I was astonished—women sat loaded with jewelry, all in fine saris. One was eyeing another’s fabric, another her ornaments. I said: why have you brought me? I have neither sari nor jewelry—what am I to show and what am I to see? Those who brought me said: you know, the temple is the only place Jain women have to wear their saris and jewelry; they have nowhere else to go—not yet educated enough for Rotary or Lions clubs, not that modern. The temple is their Rotary, their Lions—whatever you call it. Here they dance all their dances. Nowhere else to go. The whole village gathers here and displays saris and ornaments. And the fun of sari and ornament is that others should see it—otherwise what’s the point? Locked in your safe, what’s the use?

You’ve heard the story of the woman who bought new bangles and for a month kept clinking them, but no one asked; so she set her house on fire. Beating her chest, waving her hands, she cried, “Ruined, ruined!” Another woman asked, “Sister, everything else aside—you’re ruined alright—but when did you buy those bangles?” She said, “You fool! If you’d asked earlier, why would I set the house on fire?”

Let the house burn—no worry—as long as people know I have something. Inside there isn’t much—everything is outer.

People gather in temples and mosques for entirely different purposes. God is not their purpose. Those who preach to them also pursue other purposes; God is not theirs either. Behind religions runs politics—deep politics. Religious congregations are political hubs. But people want superstition because not everyone is courageous.

If you want a world without superstition, cultivate courage—indomitable courage: either we will grasp truth, whatever fire rains upon us, or if we do not wish for truth, we will not clutch false truths in its name. Either be a real theist—one who has known God—or remain an atheist, but an honest atheist.

This is my message: either be an authentic theist, or at least an authentic atheist. In between lies the superstitious person—neither real theist nor real atheist. He is actually an atheist wrapped in a shawl of piety—in a Ram-Ram blanket—with doubt inside and belief outside. That is the state of superstition.

And you asked: “Will you also tell us what a person or a group should do to be contemporary, to remain modern?” Only one thing: what has gone is gone; what is, is; what is not yet, is not yet. Relate to what is. In every sense, relate to the present. You don’t eat the food that was in the world three thousand years ago—do you? In that regard you are completely contemporary. You eat what is available today. You don’t wear the clothes your forefathers wore—you are modern there. You wear terelene, tericot. Even Morarji Desai is trying to make khadi inauthentic—eighty percent synthetic in the weave. Even khadi wants to be modern! You are modern in clothes, food, even your breath—only in religion you aren’t. Because you have no real taste for religion; otherwise you would be modern there too. You don’t wear the clothes of Buddha’s time or eat his food—so why perform Buddha’s style of worship? You have no taste for worship. You say: anything will do—what is it to me!

In matters that interest you, you try to be ultra-modern. When a year passes you buy the new model of car; if you can’t, you get uneasy. If there’s no way, at least you put on a new plate—Ambassador Mark III. The Ambassador is the same; it never becomes otherwise—but the Mark III plate is in the market; that you fix. You deceive yourself and others.

One day I went in Mulla Nasruddin’s car to his house. It was blazing hot. He would not open the windows. I said: Mulla, you’re crazy—you’re drenched in sweat, so am I! He said: even if life goes, honor is at stake. I asked: what’s honor got to do with it? Open the windows. He said: What will people think—that the car isn’t air-conditioned. Let life go; he said, that doesn’t matter. But the neighborhood must know the car is air-conditioned. He staggered to his bed, collapsed, took half an hour to recover. I asked: what’s the use of such air-conditioning? He said: be that as it may, a man must preserve his respect. You are modern about cars, houses, clothes—everything—only about religion you ask how to be modern! Perhaps you don’t want to be modern there. Otherwise, when you are modern in all things, what obstruction is there in religion? If you like the new model of car, if you have even a little intelligence, you will naturally prefer the newest edition of religion too.

Morarji Desai said in Ahmedabad—my sannyasins met him and he said: I am very upset that you compare your guru with Mahavira. He cannot be compared with Mahavira. My friends came and told me. I said: in this I agree with Morarji Desai. Why do you compare me with Mahavira? I cannot be compared—Mahavira is a two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old model. Have some concern for my dignity! It’s like comparing a 1978 Mercedes-Benz with a Ford Model T. Have some concern for my honor. Twenty-five centuries have passed; I have the benefit of them. Mahavira knew nothing of those centuries. Why drag him in?

I said: meet Morarji again and tell him your guru is very angry too. He also says this is absolutely wrong—never do it again.

If you are ultra-modern in everything, why not in religion? Why do you ascribe value to the ancient there? The truth is, you don’t want to be religious. These are your excuses, your postponements. You don’t ride the chariot of Krishna’s time. Jesus rode a donkey—you don’t. For a Christian to ride in a car hardly befits him if Jesus rode a donkey! There you have changed your ways.

In the same way everything else moves. God makes new flowers every day. He also sends new messiahs every day; new tirthankaras; new prophets. God is not tired. But you cling to the old. There is convenience in clinging to the old; nothing needs to be done. You get the illusion of being religious, and you need do nothing—once in a while a worship, a few flowers, and done—conscience quieted. If you cling to the new, trouble will come.

Walk with me and trouble will come. What trouble is there now in “walking with Mahavira”? None. But with me there will be trouble inch by inch—and it is precisely that trouble which transforms.

People are the same everywhere. There isn’t much difference among people. Here there is one kind of superstition, there another kind. No fundamental difference—at most a difference of degree.

Do you think that if I were to go to America, my words would be understood more easily? No. Just as here Hindus object, Muslims object, Jains object—there Christians will object, Catholics will object, Protestants will object.

You’ll be surprised to know that I have never even gone abroad, yet the Protestant Church has sent its agents here, because many young people from Germany have come and taken sannyas. The Protestant Church is suffering a great loss from this. I am spoiling their people. My very work is to spoil! Now the German Church is worried. They have sent agents here to investigate, so that by any means wrong and twisted reports can be spread in Germany. I have never been to Germany, but at this moment there is more talk of me in Germany than in India. There is hardly a German newspaper that isn’t filled with discussion of me. In these two months it feels like some collective conspiracy—every newspaper, every magazine—because a large number of young people have come from Germany.

And naturally many would come from Germany. The German nation has a little courage, a little strength. It isn’t without reason, not accidental, that they are coming. There is some mettle there. The German government is disturbed too; they have also sent agents to inquire what the matter is. Surely I must be hypnotizing people—because whoever comes here, never goes back!

Do you think that if I go to Germany I’ll find peace? It will be hard there too—the same kind of difficulty. No difference. The truth is, however bigoted the Hindu race may be, there is no people in this world more tolerant than the Hindus. This must be acknowledged. However bigoted, however superstitious, there is no people more tolerant than the Hindus.

The Jews could not tolerate Jesus; they put him on the cross. The Greeks could not tolerate Socrates; they made him drink poison. And Muslims—obviously—are extremely dogmatic; they killed Mansoor and killed fakirs. India is the only country where we made some fuss over Buddhas and Mahaviras, threw a few stones, used abusive language, remained annoyed with them—but we did not crucify them, we did not shoot them. We gradually accepted them, assimilated them.

What I am saying will bring trouble in any country, and more trouble than in this country.

You ask why I am bothering with traditionalists and conservatives. I am not bothered—I am enjoying myself! It is the conservatives and traditionalists who are bothered. Why should I be bothered! They are the ones who are anxious. It is they who have something to lose, not I. By tangling with me they may lose a few of their people. I have nothing to lose. There is no reason for me to suffer any loss. And if I were to be troubled by something, I would stop doing it—because I have no relish for worry.

So whatever I am doing, I am doing with joy. And whatever is happening, I am watching it with joy.

But I understand your difficulty. You must be puzzled: why put in so much effort? And you, tired of so many superstitions, say you want to go abroad. It will make no difference. Abroad you will find the same kind of people.

If there were no sorrow, there would be no savor in joy.
Without imprisonment, there is no delight in freedom.

Where there is no pain there is no happiness; where there is no prison there is no experience of freedom. All dualities walk together. Along with darkness goes light, along with birth goes death—every duality moves side by side. Bigotry will remain in the world; even so, we must light lamps—light lamps right in the midst of bigotry. If someone sits beating his head that there is too much darkness, what use is bringing light? The very joy is that there is darkness and we must bring light. Only because there is darkness is there the joy of lighting lamps. And there has never been as much darkness as there is today. Therefore, the joy of kindling light today has also never been so great.

The disciples of Buddha could not take the delight you can, because there wasn’t so much darkness then. Today the darkness is great. We must light torches! Because of the darkness we will not stop lighting torches; because of the darkness we will light even more torches. If darkness has its stubbornness, light will have its own stubbornness too.

Do not despair of the politics of the waves, O Fani;
In every layer of the whirlpool the shore is visible.

Do not grow sad at the force of the waves.
Do not despair of the politics of the waves, O Fani.
In every layer of the whirlpool the shore is visible.

If you look into the depths of the vortex, you will see that in every depth a shore appears. What is needed is the knack of seeing. Change your way of seeing. By changing your place nothing will happen. If you leave here and go elsewhere, what will change? With minor differences, the same kinds of people, the same kinds of superstitions.

Step forward, you whom autumn has befallen! Those destinations await you,
Where, upon arrival, the eyes and the heart will taste the freshness of spring.

The advent of the new man—he whose very gleam of awareness
Will give society a jaunty grace, and life a new charm.

Gather a little courage. Step forward, you autumn-fated ones! Granted that today it is fall and no flowers are to be seen, but step forward a little. Step forward, you autumn-fated ones! Those springtime destinations are awaiting you. Spring is waiting. Where, on arriving, both the eyes and the heart will be refreshed. Just move a little. Take a few steps.

The advent of the new man… a new human being has to be brought to this earth. The new man is preparing to arrive. You prepare the ground a little—prepare the garden, prepare the soil. Water it, manure it! The advent of the new man… the new man is about to arrive. Which moment he will appear is hard to say. The advent of the new man—by the mere gleam of whose awareness, the very hint of whose coming is enough, the faintest sound of whose footsteps is sweet enough—society will gain a dashing grace, and life will gain loveliness. Life can become ecstatic. Society can again be filled with color. Rainbows can appear once more.

Do not grow despondent; where will you run? And wherever you run, you will find the same kind of people. Run away, and you will discover that the very people you left behind were better.

What remedy for your poverty, when you are harried by your own sensibility?
If your mind remains impoverished, poverty will meet you everywhere.

Fill the emptiness within your mind, or living itself will become hard.
If this adornment of nature remains empty, you will find the whole world void.

You may leave the homeland—but will the sorrow of the homeland leave you?
Whether it be the strain of an instrument or the beloved’s cry, every sound will carry grief.

Those compatriots you meet there will also be portraits of sorrow.
Every gesture will be grief-struck; every gaze will be dewy with night.

When talk of this land arises, in those airs your breath will choke.
The candle of the heart will be guttering; you will find life full of smoke.

Do not consign me to death, O you who go far from the homeland.
Today corpses writhe here; here tomorrow life will be found.

These yellowed leaves will gather themselves up and fold away their beds.
The garden will be safe; one day spring will be seen circling around.

A new age, a new dawn, new lights will be found.
When this night has taken its last hiccup, a different life will be found.

This night is about to break. It will break with a single hiccup. These yellow leaves will gather themselves, fold up their beds. These dry leaves will go away on their own. These dry leaves will become manure for spring, for the season of blossoms.

These yellowed leaves will gather themselves up and fold away their beds.
The garden will be safe; one day spring will be seen circling around.

Very soon you will find: spring has come, and the breeze is circling in worship! It all depends on you. Running away will do nothing; awakening can do everything.

A new age, a new dawn, new lights will be found.
When this night has taken its last hiccup, a different life will be found.

That is all for today.