Samadhi Ke Dwar Par #4

Without samadhi no one can truly be nonviolent, nor non-possessive, nor arrive at truth. Ahimsa, truth, non-possession, and the rest are the results of samadhi, consequences, not causes. No one reaches samadhi by practicing ahimsa; rather, in the life of one who has reached samadhi, ahimsa flowers. They are like flowers, not like seeds. What must be sown is the seed of samadhi...

In understanding life we often mistake what is the seed and what is the flower. Ahimsa, brahmacharya, truth, and non-possession are blossoms on the plant of samadhi. If someone hankers after the flowers directly, he can at best go to the market and buy artificial ones—and do nothing more. Without the plant there will be no flowers; you might get paper or plastic ones.

What Gandhi calls ahimsa is, in my view, not ahimsa at all—at most a paper ahimsa. It has not grown on the plant of samadhi. It is very useful to understand this because we carry many such confusions. That is why in Gandhi’s ahimsa the element of violence is continually present. Gandhi uses his ahimsa to accomplish exactly what another person might accomplish through violence.

Violence means coercion. Violence means: pressing the other. If I stand before you with a dagger at your chest and say, “Do as I say, otherwise I will stab you,” this is violence. And if I turn the dagger toward my own chest and say, “Do as I say, otherwise I will stab myself,” how is that ahimsa?

All of Gandhi’s fasts are violent. Therefore, despite the ceaseless talk of ahimsa, only violence has borne fruit in this country; ahimsa could not. India was partitioned, millions died, and Gandhi himself met a violent end. That is not ahimsa. But Gandhi is deluded, and his devotees are deluded. The flower of ahimsa blooms only in samadhi. Between the two there is a fundamental difference. If we bring ahimsa from the marketplace, then between that paper flower and a real flower there are basic differences.

First: when ahimsa arises out of samadhi, it does not come by fighting violence. When samadhi arrives, violence dissolves; what remains is ahimsa. Ahimsa is not the opposite of violence such that by fighting violence you become nonviolent. Ahimsa means the absence of violence. When in samadhi you see there is no real difference between “I” and “you,” when it is realized that I am that and that is me—that it is one—then the path of violence vanishes; there is no way left. Whom would you harm? Whom would you oppress? No one wishes to torment himself. If the realization dawns that “it is all me,” a very different kind of ahimsa flowers—one in which there is not the slightest trace of violence.

There is another kind of ahimsa—false, counterfeit. It is an ahimsa attained by fighting violence: “Violence is there; suppress it and become nonviolent. Eradicate it and be nonviolent. Push it down and be nonviolent.”

Understand the process: if a violent mind tries to suppress violence to become nonviolent, outwardly it may look nonviolent, but the repressed violence will always remain inside. It will begin to find new and novel forms of expression—so novel that it becomes very hard to recognize. Therefore, even straightforward, honest violence is better than counterfeit ahimsa—because deception is great and hard to detect.

The violence within me—if I fight it, who will fight? I. Who will suppress it? I. And I am violent. In my suppression there will be violence; in my fighting violence there will be violence. The violent tendency that used to fight others will now feel satisfied fighting itself. I will wage war against myself. When one fights another, we can see it. When one fights himself, it is hard to see. But fighting oneself is as much violence as fighting another. In truth, it is the fighting that is violence.

So the person who tries, morally, to become nonviolent will fight. The one who strives to adopt brahmacharya, what will he do? He will fight sex. He will suppress it. He will push the sexual drive into the unconscious. All day he will be “celibate”; at night unchastity will return in dreams.

Gandhi said that while awake he had conquered sex, but not in sleep; in sleep, in dreams, brahmacharya is broken. Dreams come that are unchaste. Of course they come. The fault is not Gandhi’s as a person; it is the fault in the process. You can repress during the day; who will repress at night? The repressor has fallen asleep; the guard is asleep. What was pushed down by day will come out at night.

Hence, ascetics and sannyasins begin to fear even sleep. Even something as innocent as sleep becomes frightening, because what was repressed by day returns in dreams. It doesn’t go anywhere; it hides within, saying, “Not now—when I get the chance, I will come out.” And once it hides within, its workings become very hidden. It starts seeking new paths for tormenting and coercing others.

There are respectable ways to torment as well. Those we call “good people” torment in good ways; they have style. Their torment is so religiously dressed that it’s hard to catch that they are tormenting. They torment themselves and others too.

If we starve someone else, we will say it is violence. But if a person starves himself, we call it austerity. Self-violence becomes tapascharya. To inflict suffering on oneself becomes holiness.

There are two kinds of violent people; in English there are two terms: sadist and masochist. A sadist torments others; a masochist torments himself. Two kinds of violence: other-tormenting and self-tormenting. But we sit mistaking self-tormenting violence for ahimsa. It is hard to recognize that self-torment is also violence—and more dangerous.

Gandhi fasted against Ambedkar. He used to say his fasts would bring about a change of heart in others. Never happened. In all his life, no such change of heart is visible. He fasted many times; no one’s heart changed. He fasted against Ambedkar; Ambedkar yielded so that Gandhi might not die, not because his heart changed. Later Ambedkar said, “My heart has not changed, nor do I agree that Gandhi is right. I only yielded so that I would not unjustly carry the burden of Gandhi’s death upon me.”

Gandhi quickly gave the appearance of preparing to commit self-harm; that he called satyagraha. In truth, no insistence is ever of truth; all insistence hides untruth. The very moment I insist—“you must do as I say”—violence begins. The effort to press another is violence.

But one can also press oneself.

No—before samadhi, no one can be truly nonviolent. Before samadhi there are only two types of violent people we can be: overtly violent and covertly violent. Samadhi takes you elsewhere—to where “I” and “you” disappear, where the mind becomes empty. The very ground from which violence arose collapses.

It is not that ahimsa is produced as the opposite of violence. No: when violence is no more, ahimsa remains. That is why ahimsa is a negative word: it means “where violence is not.” Our process is reversed: the angry man is trying to become non-angry, the violent to become nonviolent, the thief to become non-thief, the dishonest to become honest.

Now, in trying to become honest, the dishonest man will practice dishonesty. He is dishonest! In trying to become nonviolent, the violent man will display violence. In trying to become non-angry, the angry will manifest anger in full. Recognition is difficult because we can repress so much that we ourselves no longer know where we buried it; but it can burst out, timely or untimely.

Gandhi used to say continually, “I have no doctrine, no ideology. There is no such thing as Gandhism.” It sounded very humble. In Karachi there was a conference where Gandhi was speaking. Communists waved black flags and shouted, “Down with Gandhism!” Gandhi was at the microphone. Always, whenever anyone spoke of Gandhism, he would say, “There is no such thing.” But that day, when the slogan “Down with Gandhism!” was raised and the black flags waved, it suddenly burst out of his mouth, “Gandhi may die, but Gandhism is immortal!”

What was hidden in the unconscious surfaced. It had been pushed down in some inner corner; hard to detect. We are not even aware of the corners of our own minds—what lurks where. It can slip out in an unguarded moment.

It is necessary to understand Gandhi’s life very correctly. Gandhi’s life is a great failed experiment—a great experiment, and equally a great failure. And it is necessary to understand it so that our deluded notions about ahimsa can be cleared.

You cannot “practice” ahimsa. Who will practice it? How will a violent person practice nonviolence? Whatever a violent person does will contain violence. If the violent one dissolves, disappears, perhaps what remains will be ahimsa.

I have heard this: In a village there was a very angry man—so angry he pushed his wife into a well and killed her. Then he repented.

The angry do repent. In truth, only the angry repent. The one who did not get angry, why would he repent? And repentance is not the opposite of anger. Repentance is a way of returning to the very spot where anger began—so that one can be angry again. If I abuse you and then apologize, be warned: I am preparing to restore the old terms so I can abuse you again. Neither I know it nor you know it. We are returning to the state that existed before the abuse, so that it can be repeated. Repentance too is a part of anger.

That man repented deeply. The wife was dead. He had not thought this would happen; in the moment he did not foresee the consequences. Often we don’t. Only when consequences happen do we realize. He was in great sorrow. A muni (sage) had come to the village; he fell at his feet and said, “Save me! What will become of my life? I am on the road to hell. I pushed my wife into a well and killed her. How can I be free of anger?”

Sadhus and sannyasins usually have only one remedy: “Renounce the world.”

As if leaving the world frees one from anger. It has never happened. If we investigated, we would find renunciates often more irritable than householders. In the world, there are daily outlets by which anger is discharged and thus not accumulated. In solitude, lacking outlets, anger accumulates. That is why our stories of rishis and munis are full of great anger and curses—Durvasa, for example. They suppress anger and it piles up.

The muni said, “Become a renunciate! Leave everything; take sannyas. How will you be free from anger in the world?”

The man was hot-tempered. A hot-tempered person is one who, in an emotional moment, can do anything—push his wife into a well or push himself into sannyas. Right there he threw off his clothes, stood naked, and said, “I renounce the world!”

The muni said, “I have never seen such determination! I have advised many to renounce; they say ‘tomorrow, the day after.’ You look a great soul!”

The muni did not understand: not a great soul—the same anger. The one who could push his wife into a well in a moment can push himself into renunciation in a moment. It is another form of anger. Hard to recognize, because it wears beautiful robes.

He became a sannyasin. The muni had many disciples, but none could match this newcomer. If the disciples sat in the shade, he stood in the sun. If they ate twice, he ate once. If they slept six hours, he slept two. If they walked on the path, he walked on thorns. His fame spread; the guru faded next to him. His asceticism gained renown.

In fact, what we call tapas (austerity), only an angry man can do. A man of calm mind cannot commit such follies—he has no reason to. This man was angry but became a great ascetic. Far and wide his fame spread. People came to bow at his feet; the more respect he received, the more his tapas grew.

Respect is solid fuel for austerity. Without respect, tapas does not grow. To stoke tapas, ego is needed; respect nourishes the ego: “You are great.” Feed a man that thought—then you can make him commit any stupidity. There is no stupidity he will not commit. Ego is ready for anything—headstand, whatever you like.

He began doing anything and everything. His body dried up like a thorn. He no longer raged at others because the energy of anger was being spent on himself: he tormented himself so much there was no need to torment anyone else. The tormenting tendency was being satisfied by self-torment. He inflicted every kind of suffering on himself.

He reached the capital. A childhood friend lived there. The friend heard: “My hot-tempered companion has become a great ascetic!” He was astonished; he saw a contradiction where, in truth, there is none. Only those who know the mind’s truth know there is no contradiction: the great angry can become the great ascetic.

He came for darshan. The ascetic’s platform had risen higher and higher as his austerities increased. The friend arrived. The ascetic recognized him—it was his childhood companion—but when anger sits on a high platform, it does not recognize those below. To recognize would imply, “I too was once like you—down there.” He saw his friend but did not acknowledge him. The friend understood: he has seen me, knows me, but refuses to acknowledge.

The friend sat near and said, “Master, I wish to know your name.”

Because he had taken initiation on the opposite pole of anger, he had been given the name “Shantinath” (Lord of Peace). The muni looked down with blazing eyes and said, “Don’t you read the newspaper? Don’t you listen to the radio? You don’t know my name! My name is Muni Shantinath.”

But in the very saying was complete restlessness. The friend said, “I don’t notice much difference, but in this world even miracles happen.” He fell silent. The usual talk of self-knowledge and so on proceeded. After a few minutes the friend said, “Forgive me—I forgot. What did you say your name was?”

Then the limits of anger were crossed. He knew very well this was his old companion. He lifted his staff: “You won’t learn any other way!”

The friend said, “Now I recognize you; no more difficulty. I was perplexed as to how you could have become ‘other.’ My doubt is gone; I will leave now. You are the same; nothing has changed.”

Anger, by trying to erase anger, can only be repressed—not destroyed. Violence, by trying to destroy violence, only turns inward—not destroyed. Brahmacharya, by suppressing sex, becomes mental debauchery—nothing else. Then what is the way?

There is a way: be transformed at the roots. Don’t try to change piece by piece. The radical transformation is samadhi. Turn to knowing that which is hidden in your deepest depths. Don’t fuss too much about how you dress, how you get angry, what you eat, how you behave. Don’t wander on the periphery. Seek that which is hidden within, deeper and deeper. In the greedy one too, that God is as present as in the non-greedy; in the angry as in the non-angry. There is no difference in God’s presence. However we are, that supreme light abides within. Care to glimpse it, to recognize it.

Samadhi is the way to recognize it. The day you recognize that light, everything changes—because from that day you cannot be the same as before. Why? Because fundamental differences arise. A person gets angry at trifles because he has never known peace. If he knows peace once, anger becomes impossible.

Buddha was staying in a house. A man came and spat on him. Buddha wiped it away and asked, “Anything more to say?”

The man said, “I have spat on you; won’t you get angry?”

Buddha said, “You should have come ten years earlier—then I used to get angry. You have come late.”

The man said, “Still, what’s the harm! I spit on you—get angry!”

Buddha said, “I wiped your spittle off with my sheet. The unbroken peace that abides within me cannot be shattered by your spitting; your spit does not reach there. You can do whatever you like; you cannot reach that far. When I myself was not within—when I too wandered outside the house—then your spit could reach me. Because I too was outside, and your spit was outside. Since I went within, your spit appears to fall miles away; it has nothing to do with me. You labored in vain; you came to the wrong man.”

The man must have been deeply troubled. He left, perhaps could not sleep that night. The next morning he came to ask forgiveness, placed his head upon Buddha’s feet, and wept.

Buddha said, “If I ‘forgive,’ it would imply I was angry. I was not angry. I only felt compassion: ‘How mad! What are you doing, spitting?’ I do not punish myself for another’s mistake. You spit; should I burn in the fire of anger? I am not mad. I have understood the arithmetic of life. You erred; you bear it. Why should I be angry?”

Buddha later used to say: “Anger is punishing yourself for another’s mistake.”

When does this become visible? When the inner sky of peace is found. Then anger is not to be “left”—it simply leaves. Like a man clutching a handful of colored pebbles—when he finds a diamond mine, he doesn’t even notice when his fist opened and the pebbles fell while he gathered diamonds. Would you call him a great renunciate for having “left” the pebbles? He would be a renunciate if he clung to the pebbles and ignored the diamonds. When the diamond mine is found, the pebbles drop; they don’t need to be dropped.

When the inner peace is experienced, the strategies of outer restlessness fall away; they don’t have to be abandoned. When a ray of inner bliss dawns, the pleasure from sex begins to feel like suffering; it loses meaning. No one can leave the pleasure of sex until the bliss of samadhi is found. No one can leave violence until the inner nonduality is realized. No one can leave the lure of outer wealth until the inner treasure is obtained.

So I say the process is exactly the reverse of what we think. First find the Divine, then the world drops. No one reaches the Divine by leaving the world; he only gets into trouble. The Divine is not found, and the world is also lost—his condition becomes like Trishanku, hanging in between. Having dropped the pebbles, with no sight of the diamond mine, his hands are empty. So he grows angry at those with full hands—even if full of pebbles. He shouts, “You will go to hell! You are arranging your own hell! Empty your hands too!”

In truth he is saying, “Are we alone to suffer? Let others suffer too, then at least we’ll be assured we haven’t made a mistake.” How many sannyasins have told me in private: “Many times it occurs to me—have I blundered? What we left is gone, but nothing has been gained!”

The ascetic’s anger and condemnation of the world has a psychological cause: by condemning, he takes a certain pleasure. He tells himself, “No matter—if my hands are empty now, they will be full in heaven; yours will burn in hell.” Morning to night he abuses the worldly. This taste of calling others sinners—this is the only taste he has left.

One who has tasted even a drop of that bliss will not call the worldly “sinner.” He will be filled with compassion: “How mad that you clutch pebbles when a diamond mine is at hand!” But even then he will not say, “Drop the pebbles.” He will say, “Come to the diamond mine—the pebbles will drop by themselves. What can pebbles hold? When the real wealth is not found, one has to clutch the fake.”

Yet again and again we fall into the illusion that one must first drop this or that. That illusion has a root cause. Understand it too. If Mahavira, Buddha, or Krishna have attained inner bliss, samadhi, union with the Divine—their “inside” is not visible to us. What is visible is their outside. The event happens first within, then without; we see the without first and infer the within.

For example, Mahavira dropped his clothes and was naked. He left possessions, home—became non-possessive. We do not see what happened within. How could we? Those who cannot see within themselves—how will they see within Mahavira? Those who do see within themselves will not bother peeking within Mahavira! So we see only his outside: naked, homeless, penniless, nonviolent, without anger; his eyes, his face, his boundless peace, his unique joy in living and dancing. Seeing this, we think, “If we too drop clothes, home, wealth, we will have that peace.”

The thing is reversed. Because that peace came, he could leave home. We think if we leave home, peace will come. Reverse—completely reversed. It is like sowing wheat and getting chaff as a by-product; but if someone sows chaff, wheat will not grow. With wheat, chaff comes on its own; with chaff, wheat never comes. If you sow chaff in the field, even the chaff will rot; nothing will come.

We see Mahavira’s chaff; we don’t see his grain. The outer wrapping is visible. We begin sowing chaff. Ninety-nine out of a hundred so-called seekers do this. Then they are in trouble: no wheat grows, nor chaff. What they had is lost. Then they rage at the world, and to soothe themselves, they invent excuses: “We lack worthiness; perhaps the karmas of past lives obstruct; it takes lifetimes; or, when God’s grace descends...” Even with God’s grace, chaff has never produced wheat—and if one day it did, we would have to conclude God’s mind has gone astray.

No—wheat does not grow from chaff. That is not the law. But chaff is what we see first, and from this all the confusion arises. We circle those who have glimpsed truth, look around their outside.

Recently, in a town, a district collector came to see me—an educated man. He closed the door and said he had a few questions. “First: if I begin to wear a sheet like yours, will some peace come?”

An educated man! If a villager asked, it would be forgivable. I said, “You will lose what little peace you have; you will get into trouble with these clothes. They have nothing to do with it.”

He said, “Then tell me your daily routine—when do you get up? I will structure my day the same.”

What has timing to do with it? Will the one who rises at nine not attain enlightenment, and only the one who rises at five will? Childish talk. If getting up at nine hinders enlightenment, then enlightenment is a weak and cheap thing—cheap enough to be purchased by rising early.

He said, “Don’t joke.”

I said, “I’m not joking.”

“What do you eat? Note it for me.”

Food? Drink? Clothes? How you get up? This is all we can see. We copy that frame and impose it upon ourselves. We call that frame yama, niyama, vows, rituals. We get trapped in it. For those we copied, that frame was not a prison; something came from within and spread without. For us, nothing has come from within; we have brought a frame from outside. Now we are caught in it.

Hence, the person of vows and fasts will almost always display a slave mentality—mentally a slave; without independent intelligence or brilliance—third-rate. He will be so, because what he is doing puts him into the third category. He is building a frame and thinking the frame will do everything.

Thus the world’s vows, rituals, and ceremonies came into being.

I have heard: One night a husband returned home after a long journey, tired. He lay down and said to his wife, “I’m very thirsty; bring water.” She went to fetch it. By the time she returned, he had fallen asleep. She thought, “He was so thirsty and tired; who knows when he will wake, and if I fall asleep he may suffer. I’ll stand here, so when he wakes, I can give him water and then sleep.” He did not wake till morning. She stood all night. In the morning, when he opened his eyes and saw her, he said, “Foolish woman, what are you doing standing here?” He had forgotten.

She said, “You asked for water. When I brought it, you were asleep. I thought, who knows when you’ll wake and need water—so I kept vigil.”

The story spread through the village; even the king heard. He came in the evening to see this woman who stood all night. “There are women who keep their husbands standing all night; but a woman who stands all night for her husband—who is she? I have come for darshan.” The whole village gathered. Some offered flowers, others gifts; the king gave a costly diamond necklace. He said, “If such love still exists, there is hope.”

The neighbor women burned with envy. One said to her husband, “What’s the big deal? Not one night—we’ll stand ten! Today, come home late, act exhausted. Lie down and say you’re very thirsty. When I bring water, close your eyes and pretend to sleep. I’ll stand all night. In the morning we’ll spread the story. For such a small thing she got a priceless necklace—why should we miss out?”

The husband, as husbands generally are, was obedient. In the evening he returned “exhausted”—or acted so—panting, he lay down and said, “I’m very thirsty.” The wife said, “Wait, I’ll get water.” She filled a glass, returned. Sleep was nowhere near the husband, but he had to close his eyes—ritual, ceremony. The wife stood for a while, then thought, “Who will see me all night? I’ll get up early and stand then; we only need to spread a rumor.” Sensible—this is the logic of ritual: since we are already deceiving—pretend thirst, pretend exhaustion, pretend sleep—why should I actually stand all night? She put the glass down and slept. In the morning she would stand and launch the rumor.

Morning came. The husband opened his eyes again and again; the wife wasn’t there. He closed his eyes again—keeping the rule. Finally, the sun was high, the neighborhood awake. He shouted, “What are you doing? Come stand quickly—how will the rumor spread otherwise!”

They spread the rumor, but the emperor did not come; no one came. Then the wife was furious. In the evening she went to the palace and said, “This is injustice! When one is honored for such a deed and we do the same, why are we not honored? What kind of king are you?”

The king said, “Foolish woman, she didn’t do it for honor; it happened. You did it for honor—therefore it was false. She did not come to my door; I went to hers. You have come to mine.”

Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ—things happened to them. They are immersed in samadhi; ahimsa happened, love happened, compassion happened. It was not their effort. And we? We “practice.” We practice ahimsa—sit spinning the charkha from morning, practicing nonviolence. Practiced ahimsa is dangerous—because it means false ahimsa. Nothing essential can be cultivated. Whatever is significant in life happens; it cannot be manufactured.

So I am not saying, “First be nonviolent, then enter samadhi.” I am not saying, “First practice brahmacharya, then samadhi will happen.” I am saying: dive into samadhi. And samadhi is not something to be practiced; it is already present within. You only have to raise your eyes toward it. Let your gaze lift toward what is already there—your own treasure. Lift your eyes, and you will find your life has become nonviolent; you will find brahmacharya has borne fruit; non-possession has appeared. You won’t have to bring them.

When brahmacharya comes, it is utterly untainted by sex. When it is manufactured, sex saturates it through and through. When brahmacharya comes, it does not even know sex exists—because it has nothing to do with it. When ahimsa comes, not a grain of violence remains. When love comes, no outline of hatred remains. Only then does it blossom flawlessly. Samadhi is the seed, the ground. The flowers will bloom.

Therefore I am not in favor of vows and rules. I am precisely opposed. Do not, by mistake, practice vows—otherwise what could come naturally will never arrive. Do not impose rituals from above—otherwise the inner revelation will wait forever. Do not “become” nonviolent if you would have nonviolence arrive. Do not “become” celibate if you would let brahmacharya come. Do not impose by your own effort. There is only one thing worth doing: to know “Who am I?” And to do this you need bring nothing from anywhere; this is what you already are.

In the last great war a soldier fell and was injured. From the blow he lost his memory; he could not remember who he was. He had a number; if they had found it, they could have looked him up in the register. But the number too was lost on the battlefield. It became a great problem: who is he? He could not answer. When anyone asked, “Who are you?” he himself would ask, “That’s exactly what I want to know—who am I?”

The war ended. He was retired from service because his memory did not return. He said, “Where shall I go? You are releasing me—kind—but where shall I go? Who am I? Where is my wife? My children? My father? My village? My home?” The officers were troubled: Where to send him? They could not keep him; of what use? Someone suggested: “England is not so large—put him on a train, take him around; at every station let him get down; perhaps some station will be his, and memory will return.”

They took him. At each place he got down and looked—nothing stirred. At a small village, the train did not even stop; he saw a platform sign and said, “Ah! That name looks familiar!” He pulled the chain and got down, and began to run—into the station, into the waiting room—“My village!” He ran into the lanes and byways. It was the village where he was born; memory returned. He stood before a house and read the nameplate: “Ah! That is my name!” He went inside, fell at his mother’s feet, embraced his wife. His companions asked, “Is this it?” He said, “Don’t ask—don’t say anything. Go now; the matter is finished.”

What had happened? Memory had been lost; it returned. What I call samadhi is to take you around to many stations—in darkness, in aloneness, in dying—stations where I ask you to wander. Wander there; perhaps somewhere the signboard will appear—“Here is my home!”—and you will go within and meet that one who has been waiting there always. Once this happens, you will return as another man.

The hallmark of one established in samadhi is ahimsa—a sign, not a practice.
The hallmark of one established in samadhi is brahmacharya—a sign, not a practice.
The hallmark of one established in samadhi is non-possession—a sign, not a practice.

If your outlook is one of profit and advantage, you cannot go within. The eye of profit constantly pulls you outward. If you are asking “What will I get?” then don’t go in—because what you get there is already gotten. Nothing new is obtained there.

When Buddha awakened, people asked him, “What did you get?” Buddha said, “I got nothing. I only came to know what was already mine. What was never lost is what was found.”

Those who live by profit and loss want to get what they never had before. In that sense, samadhi is not profitable. There you find only what has forever been yours.

What is the goal? Whatever is truly significant in life is always goalless, purposeless. When you have loved someone, did you ask: What is the goal of love? No—you say love is its own goal. When you become joyous, do you ask: What is the purpose of joy? Why should I be joyful? No—you simply rejoice, and never ask what the goal of joy is. You never say, “First let me calculate the benefits of being joyful, then I will be joyful.” You are always ready to rejoice. And what is joy’s goal? Joy is goalless. Love is also goalless. And God is utterly goalless. That which has nowhere to go is God. That which has nowhere to reach is God. That which is always already where you long to arrive—that is God. Samadhi is the door to That.

So if you are still running after goals, then run after them a little longer; don’t worry about samadhi. Why? Because by running after goals you come to see that all goals are futile. If you still desire gain, then go after gain; there is no hurry. And God waits endlessly—there is no haste. Play a little more; play some more; play out this life—play as long as you need. There is no hurry there, because there is no shortage of time there. If time were limited, God might say, “It’s five o’clock—dusk is falling—now come.” But there, no evening falls, and no clock strikes five. Where endless eternity is, where time is null—what hurry can there be? What rush? He waits; he waits.

I have heard a story. A rishi, a sage, seeks God intensely. He seeks so that upon meeting God he can ask, “What is the secret of this whole existence? What is going on here? What is this play? I don’t understand.” One day, the poor God meets him—hard to find, but he happens upon him.

I call him “poor” because he keeps avoiding such people. For if a man meets him, trouble begins. At once the cross-examination starts: this doubt, that doubt. He is hiding everywhere to escape our doubts—as if to say, “Please come only when all your doubts are finished; before that, don’t come. What is the goal of life? Why did you create life? Come when you have no goal left; then there will be no fuss—we can sit silently; no conversation will be needed.”

The sage reaches him, grabs hold of God, and asks, “What is the mystery of this world? What is happening? What is this game? I cannot make sense of it.”

God says, “I am terribly thirsty. Don’t you see it’s midday and the sun is blazing? Please bring me a glass of water from somewhere, then I will tell you.”

The sage goes for water. He comes to a hut—it’s a Brahmin’s house. The father is away; a young daughter is there. She brings out the water; the sage is enchanted. Sages have always been prone to such enchantment, because whatever you fight keeps a subtle attachment inside. Perhaps it was by fighting woman that he had become a sage. Now a woman has appeared, and his fight vanishes in a moment. He proposes: “I wish to marry.” The father returns, sees a worthy, healthy, handsome, holy man—what could be better? They are married. The poor God waits there, thirsty—the sage forgets.

Children are born; he grows old; his children are married; his children’s children arrive. Much time passes. The poor God still waits, thinking the sage will bring the water.

At last, when the sage is old, a great flood comes—torrential rains. The whole village is drowning. The sage struggles to save his wife, his children, and their children. He rescues one and another is swept away; he saves a son and loses a daughter; he goes to save the daughter and the wife slips away. In the flood all are lost. Somehow the sage drags himself to the bank, exhausted, collapses unconscious. When he opens his eyes, God is standing there. “You didn’t bring the water? You took so long. Where is the water? I’ve been sitting here thirsty.”

The sage panics: “Water? There was nothing but water—only water everywhere! My wife is gone, my children are gone, my grandchildren are gone…”

But he sees the sun is exactly where it was when he left to fetch the water. The heat is the same; it is the same place. He says, “I am in great difficulty. But in the meantime so much happened! In this time I had children, and grandchildren; there were marriages to arrange; and then the flood came and all went wrong. And you are still sitting here! And you ask for water? You haven’t found water yet?”

God says, “I have been waiting for you. I always wait.”

The sage protests, “But so much happened!”

God answers, “All that happens within time. Outside time, nothing is noticed—no leaf even stirs. There is infinite waiting there.”

So what is the hurry? Go now—go find water, go to someone’s hut, marry, have children—let it all happen. And when the flood comes—and the flood does come—when everything you have gathered begins to sink; when what you wanted slips away; when what you saved is lost—the flood comes. And when it comes and everything is swept away, and in the end only you remain, alone; when you stand on the shore and open your eyes—He is always near, waiting. He will ask, “Did you bring the water?”

I do not say go to samadhi out of greed. No one can enter samadhi through greed. From the standpoint of gain, no one can go. Samadhi cannot be made a goal. The urgency for samadhi arises in those who begin to see all goals as futile; for whom profit and loss become equal; to whom victory and defeat in life appear the same; for whom pleasure and pain no longer differ; for whom birth and death look alike.

So go into life; there is no hurry. Seek and seek, get troubled and tired. The day you are tired, the flood will come; you will return to that shore. But for those who have reached that shore, let them set about the search for samadhi. Samadhi has no goal. Nothing is acquired through samadhi; much is lost—you yourself are lost.

Then the mind will say, “If so, why should we seek at all?”

Don’t seek—seek wherever you feel it is right to seek! But wherever you seek, every search will prove futile. Ultimately only one search can be meaningful: the search for oneself. But that lies beyond profit and loss. Leave at least one thing outside the marketplace. Do not make at least this one thing a commodity that is bought and sold, where there is loss and gain. At the very least, do not stand your own being in the market like merchandise. Leave at least one thing outside the market. And when you are tired of the market, then come. The way to get tired is to run hard in the market—run as fast and as forcefully as you can—until exhaustion happens.

Those who become weary of the world, to whom the futility of the world is revealed, for whom the world can no longer provide meaning—only they return to the inner journey. Only they return within. But then the question does not arise, “What is the profit?” for they have seen all profits and found none to be profit in truth. Then they do not ask, “What is the goal?” for they have searched every goal and found none; or, finding one, discovered there was nothing in it. Then they do not ask, “What is the advantage? What will we gain?” They ask nothing. They say, “Now we want to be in that place where there is no goal, no gain, no loss; no pleasure, no pain; nothing to attain, nothing to lose; no coming, no going. Now we want to be in that place where there is nothing.”

And the wonder is: where there is nothing, there abides everything. But that will be known only upon arrival—not from anyone’s saying. For if it were known by someone’s words, you would turn that too into a goal: “All right then—let’s go to get everything.”

Do not worry about that. Just become empty, a zero. He comes. As long as you are not empty, he cannot come. Space is needed—inner space—for his being to happen. And for his being the whole space is needed. If even an inch inside is occupied, he will not come. He needs the whole space, only space. Emptiness.

You become empty—that much is your work. Filling will be his work. Our work is simply to open the door of the house. You cannot bundle up the sun and carry him inside. Open the door, then when the sun rises he will enter and the house will be filled with his rays. Only keep the door open. Let it not be that the sun comes and the door is closed, then even the sun will not enter. The sun, light, the Divine—they are very courteous, impeccably well-mannered. If the door is even slightly stuck, they will remain standing outside. They will not even knock. They will not say, “Open.” They will say, “When you open, then we will come.” For now they stand, they will keep waiting.

The day we make ourselves zero, that day we create a place for the Whole to descend. Rain falls on mountains and on lakes. The mountains remain empty because they are already full. The lakes fill because they are empty. A lake is a hollow. What is empty fills. A mountain is already full. The rain does fall, but it all runs down; it does not stay on the mountain. Where there is no space, how will it stay?

If we can become a zero, we become qualified to receive the Whole. On our side, apart from becoming empty, nothing has to be done. Religion is emptiness, and the outcome is fullness. Emptiness is the door; the Full is the attainment. But do not think of it in the language of profit and loss. Do not even think in the language of “attaining God.” Otherwise the Divine will be stopped by that very language. The language of getting does not work there; the language of losing does.

I have heard: on a seashore there was a great crowd, a fair, and some people sitting on the shore began to wonder, “How deep is the ocean?” Sitting on the shore they began to think! Those whom we call the wise sit on the shore and think: How deep is the ocean?

How will you know the depth of the ocean sitting on the shore? A debate started. Someone opened the Vedas. Someone opened the Koran. Someone said, “The Bible says it is so many feet.” And another said, “The Vedas declare it is so many miles, and the Vedas can never be wrong.” Someone else said, “What is there in the Vedas and the Bible! The Koran is absolutely true; it says the depth is this.” A great debate, a great uproar arose. Quarrels began. All who cling to books eventually come to blows. The moment someone grabs a book, he starts preparing to fight. The moment someone says, “This is right,” he tells someone else he is wrong. Commotion began—great commotion. It became very difficult on the shore.

By chance two salt dolls had also reached that fair. They said, “This is troublesome. But these people only quarrel sitting on the shore. Why doesn’t someone go in? Why doesn’t someone jump?” One salt doll said, “Wait! Stop the debate a bit, I’ll jump in and find out.” He was a salt doll; he could muster courage, for he was the son of the sea. He felt no fear in jumping. He jumped. He began to go in, he began to rejoice—he was beginning to know the depth. But the deeper he went, the more he melted and disappeared. He arrived, he reached; but when he arrived and saw he had found the depth, he looked for himself and he was not there. The depth was found, but the doll had melted. Now he was in great difficulty: How to give the news? Those people on the shore must have resumed their debate, again fighting whether the Koran is right, the Vedas are right, the Upanishads are right—who is right and who is wrong! I have come to know—but now I am not; how can I go back?

For a while the book-people watched. They said, “We have seen many go into the sea; no one ever returns. We will live by our book.” Again they started quarreling over the books.

The second doll said, “Wait, I will go find my friend. Where has my friend disappeared?” He too jumped in. He came close to his friend. But the friend was in a new form—the friend had become the ocean. From every place the friend’s voice could be heard, from every place the friend’s fragrance came, but he could not be seen. Where was the friend? He had become the sea itself.

And the more he came to know of his friend, the more he came to know of his friend—at last it became clear the friend had become the sea; but by then he himself had become the sea. Then they were in great difficulty: How to return and give the news?

The fair dispersed. People took their books and went home. Some exchange also happened—someone took someone else’s book, someone swapped this one’s book for that one’s in the scuffle. Some reconciled with some, some got offended with others. But people went back with books. Someone had come with the Bible and left with the Gita. Someone came with the Gita and left with the Koran. Exchanges happened there, but books remained in their hands; no one left with empty hands.

Every year the fair gathers there again. And every year people ask, “Did those dolls not return?” Now those dolls are in the depths of the sea and on the waves of the sea. They too hear the book-people saying, “The dolls did not return!” But there is a great difficulty: those people understand only the language of books. The dolls too shout from the waves of the sea, but the people do not understand the language of the waves. One who has not gone into the depth of the sea—how will he understand the language of the sea? They cry out, “Listen to us, here is the sea—come, jump, merge, become one, know!” But those people remain entangled in their books. Some even say, “The sea makes a great noise; it greatly hinders our reading. This wicked sea just keeps making a racket. We are discussing such lofty matters, and this sea keeps shouting for no reason.” And the dolls are astonished. “We were sent, we were lost, we came to know, and now we are shouting—but a difference has arisen between our language and theirs. We speak the language of the sea’s depth; they speak the language of the shore. What connection is there between the language of the shore and the language of the sea?”

Samadhi is to go into the depth of the ocean. Therefore there is great difficulty, because the language that operates there does not operate on your shore. And when you shout from there, little is understood, more is misunderstood. And if you do not shout, that will not do either, for the people sitting on the shore are visible, arguing. They are saying, “How deep is the sea?”

If you would know the depth, it can be known only by becoming depth. So do not ask me what you will gain. When nothing in the world appears worth gaining, when the mind begins to turn homeward, when the marketplace becomes futile and the inner journey begins, then arrive and know—he is always waiting. Whenever you go, he will not say, “You are very late.” He will say, “Come, come in.” Whoever comes whenever, there he is accepted.

Some questions remain; we will talk about them tomorrow morning. But those who want to go into the depth, come to the experiments in the evening and at night. How long will you stand on the shore? The sea has been calling for a long time!

I am grateful for the peace and love with which you have listened to my words. And in the end I bow to the Divine seated within all. Please accept my pranam.