Sanch Sanch So Sanch #7

Bharat Bhushan, the tale of India’s misfortune is very ancient. India’s roots have become poisoned. Ordinary medicines will not heal India; surgery will be needed. And when pus has spread deep within, drawing it out causes pain. That is why there is contempt for me, neglect of me. I could be honored, revered—but then I would have to water the very toxic roots that are the cause of India’s misfortune. For me, the easy thing would be to water those roots; for India, nothing could be more calamitous.

So I have chosen insult, contempt, neglect—but the diseased roots must be cut. I am not affected by insult, neglect, or contempt. If I can cut even a few roots, wipe away a few conditionings, give a little cleanliness to India’s mind, a little health, then sunrise is not far.

Granted, the night is very dark, and we have lived in this darkness for so long that we have lost trust that morning ever comes. We have made our peace with the night. We have come to take night itself as life. Therefore when someone speaks of dawn, we feel agitated—he is disturbing us again. Somehow, with great effort, we have managed to make our home in the night; then someone calls out “morning,” someone gives a summons and a challenge. It breaks our sleep; it shatters our dreams. If we do not get angry, what else shall we do? So people’s anger toward me is natural. Still, I will do what I have to do.

Neither their ways are new, nor my love is new.
Neither their defeat is new, nor my victory is new.

In their contempt, in their insults, in the abuse hurled at me, they only declare their defeat. When we are defeated in argument, we descend to abuse. When we can think of no answer, we start throwing stones. That is proof of defeat—good proof. These are not bad symptoms. They tell me my words are causing a disturbance somewhere, someone’s sleep is being troubled. That is my victory. If even a few awaken, we can awaken the sleep of this whole country.

You ask, why contempt, why neglect—when what I say could become a path to all-round development?

Some things must be understood.

First point: India’s whole outlook on life is negative. And I am obliged to tell you the truth. However carefully I speak, truth must be told. Your great men are responsible for creating this negative outlook. Small people cannot determine a nation’s vision. Whenever there is guilt to assign, we push it onto small people; whenever something great happens, we sing the praises of the great. Our arithmetic is strange! When a golden summit rises in the land, we say, “The land of Mahavira, Buddha, Shankaracharya!” But when stench spreads, when sickness spreads, when the country’s soul is diseased, we don’t say, “The land of Buddha, Mahavira, and Shankara!” We say, “The great ones kept speaking rightly; people did not hear, did not understand, did not obey.”

I say to you: whether for good or ill, your great men are the determiners. The common man is a line-follower; he just falls in behind; he trusts and walks.

In India’s negative gaze, men like Buddha, Mahavira, and Shankara have a hand, because they are all escapists. And wherever escapism sits on a nation’s chest, know that its soul has cancer. A bodily cancer may perhaps someday be cured; the cancer of the soul is very difficult.

A negative outlook means a life-denying outlook: life is evil, an entanglement; it is to be renounced; one must flee it. And if you renounce and flee, how will you make life beautiful? Who will make it beautiful? If life itself is base, ugly, to be despised, why adorn it, why give it grace, why make it prosperous? Let it rot! That is its destiny! Nothing can be done!

Such despair, such dejection has been taught to you for centuries. It has entered your blood, your flesh, your marrow. It has been accepted beyond doubt; no one even raises a question now. No spirited young person calls for rethinking—“Let us reconsider once again: Why are we poor? Why were we enslaved? Why are we so abject? Such a rich land, with virtually all the world’s seasons, all kinds of climates—nothing is lacking—then what happened? The fault is not in the land, nor in the seasons, nor is there any lack of rivers, mountains, or soil. Something has gone wrong in man, something has become askew. This needs rethinking.”

Rethinking is painful, because beliefs held for thousands of years have become our temple. There we have offered flowers, waved lamps, burned incense. And if today I suddenly say to you, “Think again: in the ways of seeing life given to you by Manu, Mahavira, Buddha, Shankaracharya—might there be errors?” If you call the world maya, illusion, how will science be born? If you call the world maya and abuse “kamini-kanchan”—women and gold...

Ramakrishna spent his whole life on two words: renounce women and gold. Understand these two words well. If gold is dirt, why produce it? Wealth is not showered from the sky; it is born of human labor and intelligence. Man must invent his arts. Science is precisely that—an organized, systematic creation of wealth.

But if gold is to be abandoned, if wealth is futile and vain, then you will remain poor. Then why weep? Why be upset? Why go begging around the world? Then rejoice in your poverty—be glad that God, in His great grace, has already saved you from the snare of wealth.

I tell you: wealth is not worthless. The sin lies in clutching wealth, not in using it. The sin is in greed, not in money. And even in calling greed a sin, my reason is not the traditional one; I call greed a sin because greed stops the circulation of wealth.

If two thousand of us are here and each clutches his money, wealth will not flow. But if people live with wealth, enjoy it, spend it, invest it, buy and sell, then the more money moves, the more it multiplies. If I have five rupees and I give it to another, it becomes ten—because I used five, and now he gets the chance to use five. He passes it to a third—fifteen; to a fourth—twenty; to a fifth—twenty-five. Each has used the five, and the next still receives five.

In English we call money “currency”—exactly right: that which runs, current. Like a stream that flows. Greed blocks it, as if someone had placed rocks in a waterfall. The waterfall isn’t bad; placing rocks is. But for centuries you’ve been taught that the waterfall is bad.

I say: remove the rocks. Learn the art of enjoying wealth. When you learn the art of enjoying wealth, you will have to learn the art of creating it too.

Nor am I against “woman.” A man who is against women will see all the juice, beauty, and love dry out of his life. It will dry up. A woman who is against men—how will the flowers of poetry bloom in her life? Impossible. Where love dries, humanness dies. Then what is a nation? A heap of corpses.

We have cultivated hatred toward love, for we called love a bondage. I tell you again: love is not bondage; attachment is bondage. Change your language. We must rewrite the entire alphabet; only then can dawn arrive here. Not “money” but “greed.” Not “love” but “attachment.” Yes, attachment is wrong. But attachment is precisely what we are ready for, while we have turned against love.

Attachment is wrong because it harms love—just as greed harms wealth. As greed’s rocks dam the stream of money, attachment’s rocks block the stream of love. Attachment means: “This is mine—my wife. If she laughs sitting with someone else, I am restless; I must keep watch day and night.” And the wife’s job is the same: keep an eye on the husband. He goes to the office—four or six times a day she calls: “Where are you? What are you doing? Any chit-chat going on? Any friendship with some woman?”

This attachment kills. Love too needs flow. The more people you can love, the more streams of sap will course through your life. As the dimensions of your friendship grow, as new branches sprout in your relationships, there will be more juice in your life. You know this from experience—but you trust not experience, you trust scriptures. You know it: when love enters your life, flowers bloom, spring arrives.

Look at husbands and wives walking together—both dejected; both guarding each other. Both thieves, both policemen. The husband can’t even glance around.

Mulla Nasruddin once got into an elevator with his wife. A very beautiful young woman was also inside. Naturally, Mulla’s eyes got stuck on her. No sin in it. If, on seeing a beautiful sunrise, your eyes linger; if, when a rose blooms, your eyes pause for a moment—how will they not pause at a woman’s beauty? They must. If they don’t, something is wrong.

Mulla tried every trick to look here and there; but the elevator was small and his floor would arrive soon—no time to look elsewhere. So he kept staring at the young woman. He wanted to avoid it because his wife was there, but no matter where he looked, he kept looking at her.

We have a word, “luchcha”—a lecher, a louche fellow. It comes from “lochan,” eye: a luchcha is one who ogles, who stares. From the same root comes “alochak,” a critic. Both do the same—stare hard.

After a while the young woman lifted her hand and—smack!—hit Mulla across the face. Poor Mulla—what could he do? The woman said, “Aren’t you ashamed? At your age—and pinching!”

What could Mulla say! When they got out, he said to his wife, “By Allah, Fazlu’s mother, I swear I did not pinch her.”

Fazlu’s mother said, “I know. I was the one who pinched her. But I had to—otherwise how would the slap land!”

There is nothing wrong in love. There is nothing wrong in the acceptance of beauty. Yes, attachment is wrong. But out of fear of attachment, we cut away love itself. There’s an English saying: when you bathe the baby, don’t throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater. But we threw the baby out with the dirty water. We threw out love for fear of attachment—“If love remains, attachment might arise.” And we threw out wealth for fear of greed—“If there is money, greed might arise.” Then we dried up. Neither love remained, nor prosperity. The outer wealth went—and the inner wealth too. Love is inner wealth; money is outer wealth. We have lost both and sit empty-handed.

So when I say today that I do not agree with Ramakrishna’s teachings on these points, it creates anxiety—because for you Ramakrishna is a Paramhansa. Whatever he says is a supreme utterance. If today I say I do not agree with Mahavira’s leaving the palace, or Buddha’s renouncing his kingdom—this I do not agree with.

I would have preferred that Mahavira had stayed in his palaces and transformed his state. He had the capacity, the brilliance. If he had wished, he could have filled the realm he inherited with prosperity and science. But that he did not do; he ran away. That did not remove the poor’s poverty or the suffering ones’ suffering. Buddha left and went.

In this country, those who had talent ran away. Fools sit in the shops. Fools sit in politics. Fools run the world. The wise went into the Himalayan caves. Elsewhere, the wise remained in the world—and naturally the world benefited.

Think for a moment: if Einstein had run to the forest like Mahavira—granted, he might have experienced some peace there—but how much harm would have come to the world, have you any reckoning? If Edison had run away, there would be no electricity, no radio, no telephone. Edison made a thousand inventions. But you will not give Edison as much respect as you give Mahavira—because what did Mahavira do? He stood naked! The one who stood naked has left you all naked as well—when what was needed was clothing. The one who left his hut has caused your huts to collapse—when what was needed were roofs.

We must change our evaluations. And since I speak of changing evaluations, I must strike at Mahavira, at Manu, at Shankaracharya, at Ramakrishna. They are your revered lineage. How will you restrain yourselves from abusing me? That you leave me alive is itself surprising. You will, of course, think in your old way.

A public prosecutor, leveling charges against a man, said:
“My Lord,
He has no ration card!
He has no concern for wheat or sugar,
In his talk there is never
A mention of inflation or the government,
Not only that,
He is always laughing and carefree,
And—see!—he even dares
To call himself an Indian.
There is not a single line of worry on his face—
He surely seems a foreign spy.”

In India, to be carefree, joyful, exuberant has become a sin. Here, sadness and seriousness have become the signs of sainthood. The more dead a person is, the more decayed, the more he becomes worthy of respect.

Who do you honor? Someone is fasting—so you honor him. What will his fasting do? In India half the people are already fasting, dying of hunger. Someone stands naked—you honor him. As if many people here have clothes! The loincloth itself is gone. They say, “When a ghost runs, even his loincloth is good.” That loincloth, too, is gone; who knows how many thousand years ago the ghost ran! Even if you search you will barely find a loincloth. But if a man stands naked, he becomes your object of veneration. You are overwhelmed. You rush with garlands to welcome him; your heart writes “Welcome!” Your heart’s gates swing open: “Please, sir, come! Food and water are pure—come, be seated!” You are so dyed in a wrong outlook that you take what I say and make it something else.

A preceptor, Triguna Acharya Trishul, was instructing a disciple:
“Calling your father ‘Daddy’ is against our culture.”
“Against culture indeed,” said the innocent beloved girl,
Lowering her gaze and speaking in a soft register,
“But, sir, saying ‘Pitaji’ is a problem:
Our lips collide—and my lipstick smears.”

She has her own way of thinking!

Montessori tots, snacking at halftime,
Were boasting of their papas’ positions.
One said, “Our papa is a lakhpati.”
Second: “My father is a crorepati.”
The third opened his mouth: “Our daddy is mummy’s pati.”

Smearing Holi’s gulal, a hero-type brother-in-law said:
“If we two were locked in a room,
And the key got lost,
What would happen, bhabhi?”
“What else, lala?
We’d have to have the three-rupee lock broken.”

I will say something; you will hear something else. And what is your fault? Your language has been fixed; your conditionings have hardened. These are no longer lines drawn on water; they are engravings on stone.

“O Lord, I have not taken a bribe.
They forcefully stuffed notes into my pocket, wrestling with me.
They trapped me; I barely escaped, O great cheating Seth.
I find neither food nor hymn sweet; nausea keeps rising.
Hold the Seth by the hair, Lord—and take half for yourself.”
Uncle says:
Then the Lord laughed, hugged me, and said,
“O Lord, I have not taken a bribe.”

Even your devotion will speak in your own idiom. The songs you hum will rise from your own breath.

Therefore, Bharat Bhushan, what I am saying is indeed the path of all-round development. But you hear through your pattern. Your assumptions have become fixed. India’s negative outlook must be changed; it must be given creativity. Life must be moved from despair to hope. Affirm that the world is as real as the soul; the body is as real as consciousness. Then science and religion can walk together; they should walk together. A bird needs two wings to fly. Without two wings, it cannot fly; with one wing it will flap and fall.

The West too has only one wing—science—and it is badly troubled. And we have one wing—religion—and we too are badly troubled. This is the time to learn from each other. East and West must meet. Science and religion must join. The future depends on this union—this yoga. I call it the great yoga—the union of science and religion. Only then will you attain joy both within and without. There is no opposition between the two joys; in truth, they harmonize. Outer joy becomes the prelude to inner joy.

Therefore I do not tell you to leave the world; I tell you to learn the art of living it. My sannyas is not renunciation; it is the art of celebration. You will be startled, for you have heard for centuries that sannyas means renunciation. I say sannyas means the art of enjoyment. Yes—without art, if you indulge, you become animal; and without art, if you flee, you are merely a coward. One who knows the art need neither run away nor become a beast; a great revolution occurs in his life. Lotus-like in water. Here, in the world, amidst its full abundance, he lives as if untouched. Granted, this is a house of lamp-black; but there is also a way to pass through. If Kabir passed, you can pass. If I am passing, you can pass.

Kabir said: “I returned the cloth just as it was; I wore it with great care, O Kabir.”
He did not let it get even slightly soiled. The soot could not cling. What skill is there in running away—never entering the blackened room—and keeping the garment white? None. Nor is there art in entering and coming out blackened, with the garment black and the self blacker. Art lies in walking through and emerging unblemished. Only then, I say, are you worthy to return the life God gave you, with gratitude: “Thank you for the rare opportunity—to awaken, to gather awareness, to meditate.”

You asked: you are awakening India to its infinite potential.

It is the awakening that creates trouble. Wake a sleeping man—he will be annoyed. He may have said at night, “Wake me early; I have to catch a train.” But in the morning, he resists: pulling the blanket back, “Just five minutes more. Let me turn over once more. What is the hurry? And these Indian trains—do they ever come on time? Why are you after me?” And if he is seeing a beautiful dream—that he is living in a royal palace—then he will be even more angry.

You are dreaming heavens that exist nowhere; Vaikuntha that exists nowhere; Golok that exists nowhere. You are seeing beautiful dreams. Your rishis and munis are seeing even more beautiful dreams, because they think that since they fast, sit by a sacred fire, have renounced clothes, gone to the forest—they have earned the right to heaven.

But those who sit by the sacred fire are practicing for hell: in hell fires blaze and cauldrons boil. Naturally, the well-practiced will be sent there! Why send untrained people? It is straightforward arithmetic: if you’re an engineer, you will be given engineering; if you’re a doctor, medicine. Study engineering and become a doctor—you’ll kill people! You’ll get into trouble and put others in trouble.

Those sitting by the sacred fire, tormenting themselves in the sun, lying on thorns—if there is any hell, they are practicing for it. No need to send them to heaven. What would they do there?

I heard of a circus man whose act was to lie on a bed of nails. Sharp spikes that would leave your hand bleeding if you touched them—he would lie on them. There is an art to it; there are points on your back where there is no sensation. If you don’t believe it, ask someone—your wife will enjoy it—to prick your back with a needle. Wherever you feel pain, say “Ram! Ram!” and wherever you feel nothing, have her mark it. There are many points where you won’t feel the prick—no sensitivity. The art is to align those points; the spikes must touch only those spots.

One day, on a day off, he was laying out his bed of nails at home. His wife was shocked: “What are you doing? It’s a holiday!” He said, “It is—but how will I sleep? I’m habituated. Unless I lie on this spiked bed, I cannot sleep.”

Habit is a great thing.

Your rishis and munis should indeed be sent to hell—if any exists. If sent to heaven, what will they do? And if, as Muslims believe, heaven’s brooks flow with wine—and here wine is forbidden—then consider Mirza Ghalib. When the British had seized Delhi and were taking him to prison, they asked, “Are you Muslim?” Ghalib replied, “Sir—half.” Surprised, they asked, “Half? We have caught many Muslims and many Hindus, but you are the first to say this. What do you mean?” Ghalib said, “Half, because I don’t eat pork—but I do drink wine. How can I say ‘full’?”

Here wine is forbidden, yet those who abstain are promised rivers of wine in paradise! What arithmetic is this? Omar Khayyam’s arithmetic seems clearer. He was a wondrous Sufi. He said a thing worth noting: “Let us drink here—let us practice! Here we didn’t even sip from a cup, and there we will guzzle from streams? We’ll die! Such a fierce intoxication will arise that God standing before us will look like the devil. Let us practice. Let us drink here. The training here will be useful there.”

What will your rishis and munis drink! And if heaven has only wine and no water, they will be in dire straits. They must go to hell; where is there room for them in heaven?

There is no heaven or hell elsewhere. You create them here. If you see life with negation, it becomes hell. If you give life creativity, it becomes heaven. Pluck flowers—why make beds of thorns? If beds of flowers can be made, why are you dying on thorns?

There are reasons why people became negative. The desire for happiness is natural; the aspiration for joy is in everyone. Who does not want bliss? That longing is innate. And we honor those who perform something extraordinary. If someone stands on his head, a crowd gathers. You stand on your feet as long as you like—no one will come. God gave feet for standing. To stand on your head is foolish—heads have other uses. But the head-stander will draw a crowd—he is doing something unusual. Where people eat twice a day, one who fasts for ten or fifteen days will win respect; he is doing something special.

Yet it is nothing special—he is only practicing starving. And you can practice anything. After three or four days of fasting, hunger begins to die—because the body has a provision for three months of food in store; that is why fat accumulates. Women have more fat than men because pregnancy brings nine months of difficulty—nausea, no appetite, the child takes space—so nature gives women more fat, a kind of roundness. A healthy man too stores enough fat to go three months.

So when you fast, to speak scientifically, you become a flesh-eater—eating your own flesh. One day of fasting, and you lose a kilo. Where did the kilo go? You digested it. A fully healthy person could fast comfortably for three months. In three to five days, a shift occurs; the stomach stops demanding external food and begins digesting internal stores; then there is no need for food from outside.

Therefore those who fast long—do not think they are doing a very hard task. The real difficulty is in the first three or four days; after that the body has switched to a new mode.

But the one who fasts—Mahavira is said to have eaten only one year in twelve; eleven years he remained without food—not all at once, or he would have died; but fasting eleven days, eating on the twelfth, and so on, for twelve years.

Naturally, great respect followed. Where people can’t skip even one meal—morning breakfast, then lunch, then an afternoon snack, then dinner, then milk before bed—when they hear Mahavira going eleven or twelve days without food—what a miracle!

The negative could command respect because they were rare. But honoring them has distorted your psyche. Those who ran away from wealth—you honored them, and whether you live in the world or not, guilt arose in you for being worldly. Condemnation of the world settled deep. And whatever we condemn deeply, we stop adorning.

And when I talk of all-round development, I speak of adorning life—of coloring it, making it an arc of the rainbow.

All life we spent like a dust-blown reed,
In the garden, raising only the garden’s dust.
We kept the lamp of longing to kiss your feet alight:
Know this—that we too are marks upon your path.
The ache of hearts, at some time, rises to the lips—
It takes the shape of a cry, the semblance of a call.
No signposts on the road in the desert of exile—
So we kept making our own paths, like the wind.
The grief of shattering kept us company at every step—
Like some companion, some friend acquainted with pain.
God, let the winds of grief not reach anyone’s hem—
Let them be as feeble as my unskilled hand.
We have often heard the name of “happiness,” O Taban,
But we found no existence to it—like the fabled Huma.

In Urdu poetry there is mention of the mythical Huma bird. If even its shadow falls on someone, luck awakens and gold coins rain down. But Huma is imaginary—where will its shadow fall?

We have often heard the name of “happiness,” O Taban—
Yes, the name we have heard—
But we found no existence to it—like the Huma.
Its very being we did not find anywhere. We searched much—but never found it.

So this country keeps speaking of bliss for centuries—where has it found it? If you cannot attain even the outer joy, how will you attain the inner? Even materialists find outer joy; if you cannot, then inner bliss is a very distant thing. It is by climbing the steps of outer joy that inner joy is reached.

Build a few steps outside—so that you can enter within. The outer and the inner are not in opposition; they complete each other—like day and night, youth and old age, life and death, winter and summer.

Do not make the outer and inner enemies. Their enmity has killed us, crippled us, lamed us. I point to their friendship—and naturally my pointing goes against your so-called avatars. You will be angry with me. You will rage against me.

Let the horde of pain grow so much the path is lost;
Let there be that night whose dawn itself is lost.
The fun is when, with the vagabonds of longing,
We go as dust—and the very road is lost.
Let there be no one like us—ruined by journeys;
God grant that no one’s guide be lost.
We too have set forth, lamps of vision lit:
Let even this light be lost somewhere upon the way.
The heart seeks a friend—but God knows
Where it wanders, where it goes, where it is lost.
In every garden there is the tumult of growth:
We go to seek flowers—and lose even ourselves.
The soul of poetry is the beauty of saying, O Taban—
But not so that only words remain, and the thought be lost.

We are left only with words; their meanings were lost long ago. Bliss, soul, liberation—mere words now, their meaning gone.

The soul of poetry is beauty of expression, O Taban—
But beware!
Not so that only words remain and the fresh thought is lost.
Let it not happen that only rhetoric remains—the beauty of expression remains—but the inner meaning is lost.

That is exactly this country’s misfortune. We have beautiful words—very beautiful; but the experience behind them, the realization, the direct seeing—those have long been lost.

I want to breathe life into your words. I want to blow breath into your vocabulary. I want to give a heartbeat to your stopped heart. But you have been dead for so many centuries that you no longer want the bother of living. You do not want the hassle of life. Life is a challenge; life is a risk—remember that.

Mencius asked Confucius, “I want peace—ultimate peace—such peace that no disturbance ever comes.” Confucius gazed at him and said, “Wait—when you die, what will you do in the grave? Attain that peace there. No disturbance will come then. For now, you are alive. Live life now. Death will come, surely it will come—inevitable, unavoidable. Then lie in peace in the grave; no one will disturb you. However much band and music plays, you will hear nothing. But for now—live. While there is life, live it totally.”

And I tell you: life can be lived in such a way that there is dance, song, music—and peace as well. There can be comfort and wealth and bliss. There can be bodily health and meditative awareness. There is no conflict between the two.

But for centuries we have been lying in the safety of the grave. This is a mound of corpses, a country of the dead. Waking the dead will bring trouble. Some corpses will be angry: “We were sleeping peacefully; why did you interfere?” They will throw stones, hurl abuse, insult, neglect. All this is natural.

Bharat Bhushan, nevertheless I will continue to do what I must. Neither their stones nor their abuses nor their insults can stop me. For I see the future of this country only in one thing: that it attains harmony between outer and inner. Let them do their work; I will continue mine.

Neither their ways are new, nor my love is new.
Neither their defeat is new, nor my victory is new.

Vishnudas Rathi, if people had thought like this before, no one would ever have loved. Problems have always been there and they will always remain. It’s another matter that the layers of problems keep changing—sometimes of the body, sometimes of the mind, sometimes of the soul. Problems will be there. Yes, let the problems be higher. The smallest are bread-and-butter problems; the highest are of meditation and samadhi.

But don’t remain under the illusion that some day problems will end forever. If there were no problem at all, then that itself would become a problem: now what to do? No problem! We’d be finished! There’d be nothing left to do. Life is the name of problems. Solving life’s problems is the way talent is refined. But did you stop eating because life is full of problems? “How can I eat now—this would be a luxury!” Did you stop breathing? “How can I breathe! Life is full of so many problems—riots, lockouts here, strikes there, road blockades, gheraos, dacoities, rapes, murders, war clouds!” So many problems—and you are breathing! Aren’t you ashamed?

Vishnudas Rathi, think a little. What a luxury you’re indulging in! You still sleep? You still get up in the morning and bathe? No modesty, no shame, no decorum! You raise this question only in the matter of love. Then no one could ever have loved.

When were there no problems? Not in Rama’s time? He lost his own Sita—and there were no problems? It was nothing but problems. Not in Krishna’s time? Then how did the Mahabharata happen? For no reason? Just as a game? Was it kabaddi? Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi! Or kho-kho! A billion and a quarter people died—and there was no problem?

And your rishis and sages prayed unceasingly: O Lord, lead us from darkness to light, from death to immortality, from untruth to truth. No problems? Buddha explained for forty years—do not steal, do not rape, do not cheat, do not deceive. If there were no problems, were they mad, out of their minds? Were they saying this to people who never stole—“Do not steal”? To those who had no idea what rape is—“Brother, do not rape!” Then they would stand up and ask: “Sir, first at least tell us what rape is! First teach us how to rape!”

In a Christian school a priest was explaining to children what must be done to attain God: repentance, penance. After much explanation he asked the children, “What must be done to attain God?” A little boy stood up and said, “You must sin.” The priest said, “Impossible! I never said that. I’m talking about penance, repentance—you wicked boy! And you say one must sin!” The boy said, “If we don’t sin, then what will we repent for? What will we do penance for? First teach us to sin. We’ll sin, then we’ll repent, then by repenting we’ll attain God.” The boy spoke more sensibly than the priest.

In a village a new priest arrived. Two women were discussing him. “What do you think of the new priest?” The other said, “He’s amazing! Until he came we had no idea what sin was. Since he’s come, we’ve learned what sin is.”

So whom was Buddha telling, “Do not rape”? Whom was Mahavira telling, “Do not be violent”? Ahimsa paramo dharma—nonviolence is the supreme religion! To the nonviolent? To those who had never killed even a mosquito or a bedbug—were they being taught that nonviolence is supreme? Then people would say, “Enough of this nonsense. There’s no one here who is violent—whom are you preaching to?”

There’s a famous story of Kahlil Gibran. A dog used to preach to the other dogs: “Don’t bark needlessly. It’s this useless barking that has ruined the dog race. As long as we bark uselessly, our energy will be wasted. If energy is spent in barking, what else will we be able to do? We’re falling behind—even behind humans!” The dogs found the point reasonable; but poor dogs are dogs after all—how to remain without barking? The moon comes out and dogs not bark! A soldier passes and dogs not bark! The postman goes by and a rattle rises. Let them see a monk… Dogs are sworn enemies of uniforms! They see someone in uniform and they can’t help themselves. The dam of restraint breaks; yama, niyama, pranayama—all get corrupted. “We’ll see about it tomorrow, today let us bark. There is such joy in barking right now!” But that dog was right. People worshipped him: “An avatar! Never seen a dog like this—he doesn’t bark himself and doesn’t let others bark. Extraordinary!”

Years came and went. The preacher kept on preaching, and the listeners kept listening with bowed heads: “What to do—helpless—sinners!” “But this is a highly realized one! Not an ordinary dog—surely an incarnation sent from heaven.” He never barked; no one had ever seen him bark. His conduct was pure, perfectly aligned with his words—saint among saints.

One night, the dogs decided: “Our guru keeps explaining; he’s old now. Let’s for once prove we have listened. Tomorrow is the new moon night. Whatever happens—however much temptation arises, however much the devil tickles our throats; whether policemen come, soldiers or monks—we will lie low, eyes shut, hidden in dark lanes and drains. For once let the guru have the reassurance that we did heed you.”

The guru went out in the evening, as was his work—to find a barking dog, catch him and preach. But no one was found. It was midnight—silence everywhere! The true guru got worried. “Where have the scoundrels gone! Not a single one!” He used to relieve his own itch by preaching. Today there was no one to preach to. Suddenly a tickle rose in his own throat. No dogs in sight, all gone missing; for the first time he noticed the soldiers, the postmen, monks walking by! Up surged a lifetime of suppressed urge. He tried hard, restrained himself, repeated Ram’s name—but nothing worked. He couldn’t hold it. He slipped into a lane and barked. The moment he barked, the whole village erupted. The rest thought, “A traitor has betrayed us! If one has broken faith, why should we lag behind? We’ve been needlessly suppressing ourselves!” All started barking—never had there been such barking. And the true guru returned, the Tirthankara returned: “You wretches! How much I’ve taught you, but you won’t listen. You won’t change your breed. Your disease won’t go. Again barking! It’s this barking that ruined our species. Else today we’d have humans on leashes around their necks. Kali Yuga has come! Why are you barking?” The poor dogs slunk off with tails between their legs: “What to do, Sir! It just doesn’t leave us. Today we had firmly resolved, but some traitor deceived us. Who knows who the traitor was, which cheat barked!”

You say, “As long as problems remain, love will be a luxury!” Problems will always remain. Dogs exist, they will bark. Humans exist, problems will arise. Yes, you will not remain—problems will. Problems are eternal. You are here now, then you’re not. You weren’t before; you won’t be again. Don’t waste your time in these problems.

And what problems will you solve? And what other way is there to resolve problems except love? These problems are here precisely because there is so much hatred, so much violence, so much malice and envy. And you are the one avoiding love! And you say, “Love would be a luxury!”

And you say, “I am a poet.”
I don’t know what sort of poet! From your name you sound Marwari—Vishnudas Rathi. What connection is there between a Marwari and poetry? You must be composing poetry like this:

We churned the art of statecraft and gained this lore:
Iron cuts iron—that’s a proven law of yore.
Proven indeed—fight poison with poison more;
If a thorn pricks, use a thorn to draw it from the sore.
Says Kaka the poet: why tremble when you take a bribe?
If caught with a bribe, with a bribe your way contrive!

Being a Marwari, what else will you do? Why tremble! If you’re caught taking a bribe—give a bribe and walk out!

“Grandpa Udham Singh told the boys:
Fun got spoiled when ragging was banned—joys!
Ragging banned—this leaves me vexed:
One class remains, why leave that un-perplexed?
In danger are the lives of simple, trusting husbands—poor lives!
Their wives conduct daily ragging—by the wives!
Says Kaka: O government, have mercy on our plight,
Ban these stone-hearted aunties with your might!”

What kind of poetry will you write? When you’re afraid of love itself, what else will be in your verse? Granted, there are problems—certainly there are. But you can’t abandon love because of them.

And it’s also true that love is a luxury. In this life, whatever is truly important is a luxury. Flowers are a luxury, and the moon and stars are a luxury. But do you want only problems to remain—no flowers, no birds singing, no cuckoo calling, no papihas singing, no peacock dancing, no peacock’s plumes, no rainbow arcing in the sky, no joy of sunrise, no beauty of sunset, no sky filled with moon and stars? All this is luxury in a world full of problems. Do you want headlines alone to be printed across the sky—wherever you look, murder; wherever you look, bribery; wherever you look, rape; wherever you look, some upheaval? Do newspapers not satisfy you, Vishnudas Rathi?

Granted, there are problems, and they certainly make things difficult—love becomes difficult. But first of all: Is there love in your life? You say, “I want to distribute love to everyone.” Before distributing, it has to be there. Otherwise it will be like this: a naked man wants to bathe—what will he wring? I’ve heard of a naked man who never bathed. That’s how the saying came: “A naked man bathes—what will he wring?” People asked, “Why don’t you bathe?” He said, “I could bathe, but what shall I wring out? And where will I dry my clothes?” He had no clothes, yet out of worry about drying them he wouldn’t bathe.

You say, “I want to distribute love to all.” But what will you distribute? Dust? Call it “holy ash” then! Love must be. And love doesn’t happen without meditation. People live merely with the idea that there is love. That’s why the problems of salt, oil, firewood—the everyday world—prove sufficient to kill love. The moment the world’s worries come, love dies. It doesn’t survive precisely because it wasn’t there to begin with—only an idea.

“Do not ask of me, my love, that first love again!
I had thought, while you were, life would glitter bright—
If I had your grief, what were the world’s grief then!
From your face the world found spring’s delight;
Beyond your eyes, what else was worth the sight!
If I could win you, fate itself would bow its head—
It wasn’t so; I merely wished it so instead.
Do not ask of me, my love, that first love again.

There are other pains in the world than love’s,
Other comforts than the comfort of union’s dove.
The dark, bestial spells of countless ages past,
Woven from silks and brocades rich and vast—
Bodies bought and sold in alleys and bazaar,
Smeared with dust, bathed in blood from war;
Bodies pulled from scorching kilns of disease,
Pus flowing from ulcers that never cease.
Do not ask of me, my love, that first love again.

My gaze still turns back there—what can I do?
Your beauty still enchants—but what can I do?
There are other pains in the world than love’s,
Other comforts than the comfort of union’s doves.
Do not ask of me, my love, that first love again.”

Granted, there are problems, sorrows, pains; but they have always been and will always be. To save yourself from love because of them is dangerous, costly. For one who avoids love will avoid prayer—because prayer is the fragrance of the flower of love. And one who avoids prayer—how will he understand God? In that fragrance is the first experience of the divine.

Let the problems be. Let the stream of love flow. Love will help to dissolve problems. Will it wipe them out completely? No. Yes, it will give a new plane, a new dimension. And remember always: higher-plane problems are better than lower-plane problems. For example, I would prefer that a person not have bodily problems—they can be dissolved now because science is adequate. But then mental problems will arise.

Yet the so-called Indian sadhus and saints, who roam the world preaching spirituality—who knows who gave them this contract?—they suffer the delusion that India must be the world’s guru. They go about saying: Our country is poor, yet there is less madness there; our country is poor, yet people aren’t afflicted with mental tension. These madmen don’t realize that mental tension, madness, derangement, and suicide are problems greater than hunger—higher problems. First the belly must be filled; only then can the mind have tension. If the belly itself is taut with hunger, how can the mind be tense? If the belly is hungry, how can mental worries arise?

And when all the problems of the mind are resolved, then new and greater problems arise—of the soul, of existence, of the meaning of life. The height of a civilization is shown by the height of its problems; its lowness by the lowness of its problems. India is living on a very low plane. But we are very clever.

And Vishnudas Rathi, you are a Marwari, so you’ll understand a Marwari’s language. Let me place before you a letter written by Chandulal Marwari to his beloved, Gulabo. It’s a thirteen-point letter:

My one and only queen of my heart, Gulabo, as you surely know, this year too, as every year, our government, upholding the nation’s glorious tradition, has raised the prices of all necessary and unnecessary goods. Therefore, O my life’s beloved golden nightingale, it stabs my heart to inform you that from now on I will be able to write you far fewer letters, because the increase in postal rates has cooled my enthusiasm for writing love letters almost completely. Henceforth, under the heading of letters I will write only work-related business correspondence. Still, if someday—say, in a year or two, or across births and rebirths—some extremely urgent reason should arise, then no matter how much money it costs—never mind—if not an inland letter then at least a postcard, but I swear I will write you a love letter. Though for lack of space I will not be able to write many of the things I used to write as the wasteful extravagance of love when postal rates were cheap. Therefore I beg you, keeping my compulsions in mind, O my sensible queen of dreams, kindly consider all those many unwritten things as already written! Those many things are as follows; I’m writing them this one last time because the rates are still the same old ones. From the first of the month they will change.

1) First: At the beginning of letters I will not fill up the postcard with useless salutations like “beloved of my soul,” “empress of my heart,” or “queen of my heart.” To write “queen of my heart” and then have tears pour from the eyes—this will not do.

2) Second: Words like love, kisses, regards, etc., take up unnecessary space; hence in future these words will not be used at all.

3) Third: Writing “I am well here; may you be well there” is foolish in this age. How can anyone be well in these inflationary times! If I write, “I hope you and your family are in good health,” and someone there has a fever—just imagine how you’ll feel! Therefore you will not find such silly nonsense in my future letters.

4) Fourth: Writing “I received your letter, thank you,” or “You must have received my last letter” is like picking flowers from the sky; I have no faith in such things now. Doing so would be treachery against the Indian Post and Telegraph Department, which a patriotic citizen like me will never want. If necessary I may write, “I have received your love letter written five years ago”—a line or two like that.

5) Fifth: I will not take the risk of writing sentences like “I miss you very much.” Suppose I write, “I am burning in the fire of separation,” and along with the memory you yourself turn up—then, in these times, as a figure of speech, I’ll be bankrupt.

6) Sixth: I do not wish to turn my letters into a health science textbook by writing advisory lines like “Take care of your health.” Besides, you never follow any advice I give; you do the opposite. Thus, if I advise you to care for your health and there you set out to ruin it, the result will be the reverse. Therefore, your psychologist lover, Chandulal Marwari—well-versed in the Law of Reverse Effect—will no longer take the trouble of extending good wishes for your health.

7) Seventh: In the future, there will be no discussion of love and such. I have already told you I will use postcards instead of envelopes, and I do not want every Tom, Dick and Harry of a street-corner postman, or your household, to read my heart’s deep feelings and make illegitimate use of them.

8) Eighth: I have no further interest in promoting falsehood by writing things like “The rest you are intelligent enough to understand.” Hence you will not find any such headless, tailless statements in my next letters.

9) Ninth: Writing “Now I end” irritates me. If there is no space left in the letter, what else will I do but end it? Start it? What’s the point of writing such a line?

10) Tenth: Writing “Do send a reply” seems to me like inviting someone for a meal and then turning up at their house the next day to say, “We fed you yesterday, now you feed us.” Hence such sentences I will never write again. If you wish, invite me to a meal; otherwise there is no compulsion. I am a Marwari of lineage, not a starving beggar.

11) Eleventh: At the end of the letter, the use of pointless words like “your lover,” “your dear,” or simply “yours” has no justification. If I didn’t write “queen of my heart” at the beginning, then what’s this formality now? There’s no need to sign at the bottom either. From my miserable ledger-clerk, accountant-style scrawl you will know whose letter it is.

12) Twelfth and important: I will never affix a stamp to a postcard. When I have spent ink and worn down the pen’s nib to express so much love, will you not display some of your love by redeeming my postage-due letter?

13) Thirteenth and final: Take note—if space remains I will write the address; otherwise accept my apology for not writing it.

That’s all for today.