Sapna Yeh Sansar #4

Sagar Chaitanya! Grasp the single word anukampa—grace—firmly. Everything else will happen on its own.

There is the path of resolve and struggle, and there is the path of surrender, of dissolving the ego. The path of struggle is thorn-strewn, and on it lurks the danger of the ego being born. The path of surrender is supremely easy, because the greatest danger—the birth of ego—has no possibility there. Surrender!

These are small, everyday things, yet they feel impossible to drop because they are all parts of the ego: anger, sex, greed. You want to drop them—who doesn’t? For what do anger, lust, and greed bring except pain, sorrow, hell? Anyone with even a ray of intelligence will want to drop them.

But the one who tries to drop them gets into a new tangle. Anger, lust, attachment stand where they are—and now a new nuisance is added: the effort to drop them! And the more you try to drop them, the more they seem to grip and bind you. The would-be renouncer becomes even more restless and agitated. The basic mistake is this: lust, greed, anger all arise from the root of ego. If you don’t cut the root but keep pruning the leaves, you will go on wasting lives. Keep pruning and grafting—the tree will only grow denser. Strike at the root. Why make a thousand cuts when one stroke can do it? One blacksmith’s blow equals a hundred goldsmith’s taps. Deliver the blacksmith’s blow. Let it be done in a single stroke.

That is why I tell you: hold on to the word anukampa. Let that be your scripture, your Veda. Say, “By my doing nothing happens; now I leave it in the hands of the Divine.” And then move as the Divine moves you. Walk unhesitatingly. Walk without fear. If it is the East, then the East; if it is the West, then the West. Drop this feeling of doing, this sense of the doer. And then you will be amazed: in the life of one who has surrendered, religion descends by itself.

The night has passed All slept through the night, but I kept vigil; In restlessness my steps wavered; The vast darkness was conquered by a tiny ray— The night has passed.

Dawn has smeared vermilion on the brow of the sky, The world’s pouch has filled with light; When will the empty hut of my heart be filled? The night has passed.

I set out to swim—an insurmountable ocean lies ahead; Somewhere across that ocean is my Rama’s home. If his grace be, I shall attain my heart’s desire— The night has passed.

Let the night pass now, let the morning dawn now—leave everything to God’s grace. This is the very essence of bhakti. Nothing will happen by my doing—only by his will! If he leads us astray, we shall wander. A sannyasin must have at least this much courage: if God leads us astray, we shall wander; if he takes us into dark alleys, we shall go. Once everything has been left to him, the decision is no longer ours. Then we will not divide things into auspicious and inauspicious. If we are to be his shadow, let it be total.

At first it seems risky: “If I leave everything, I will only make mistakes. Even now I try so hard to be careful, and still I fall; if I stop trying to be careful and leave all to him, my destiny will be nothing but falling.” No—the law of life is otherwise. You fall because you try to keep your balance. It is in the very effort to balance that you fall. In trying to balance, it is the ego that is “balancing”—and that is the fall. If you are willing even to fall—“If he makes me fall, I shall fall; who am I to interfere? If he erases me, I shall be erased. If he wishes to take me into hells, then that is heaven for me”—for one whose heart has such total refuge, balance happens. There is then no way left to fall. Nothing can make him fall. There are no pits left for him. There can be no straying.

There is Aesop’s famous fable about the centipede. A centipede has a hundred legs; hence its name. One centipede was walking—morning sun up, just awake after the night, fresh and lively, out seeking breakfast. A rabbit saw him, watched those hundred legs, became utterly bewildered. He asked, “O centipede, will you answer a question?” The centipede said, “What is it?” The rabbit said, “Whenever I see you, this thought arises. I’ve never asked—why raise questions about your life without reason? It didn’t seem proper. But today I can’t hold it any longer; I’ve suppressed it long enough. How do you manage those hundred legs? When do you lift the first, when the second, the third, the fourth, the fiftieth, the eightieth, the ninety-ninth, the hundredth? How do you keep count? Don’t you stumble? Don’t your legs get entangled? You march as if a platoon of soldiers were passing by, thundering along! I have never seen you fall.” The centipede said, “That is a difficult question. I have never thought about it. I was born with a hundred legs and have simply walked. I never looked down to think it over. Now that you ask, I will consider it and answer.”

And what had to happen, happened. For the first time he deliberately lifted a leg to see which came first, then the second, then the third—he got hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of his hundred legs. He stumbled and fell right there. The rabbit hadn’t even gone yet. He turned and said, “Centipede, I have never seen you fall; what is happening?” The centipede said, “Fool, this is your doing! I have always walked; I had never tried to ‘walk’ by myself. You made me deliberate; my ego came in between; I fell into thinking—and my legs tangled. Until now it all happened naturally. Today I stood in the middle and got in the way of nature.”

My teaching is: nature. Live. The body has its nature—do not go against it; there is no need. Consciousness too has a nature—the highest peak of the same nature. If the body is the foundation, the self is that temple’s golden spire. They are two aspects of the same nature. The name of this very nature is God. God is nowhere else. Surrender to nature. Do not fight, do not quarrel, do not decorate and arrange; do not make ego’s plans—there is no need to become a siddha, a saint, a mahatma; be simple, be effortless, be natural, be spontaneous. This will happen if you can leave it to the Divine.

Just safeguard the word anukampa. Let that be your practice. And the night will pass. Morning is certain. Morning already is. The night is of our making. Existence is always morning. There, there is only light. Our darkness is the ego. One ego earns wealth, another craves position, another “renounces,” another gets busy with “spiritual practice”—these are all different expressions of the same ego. Only surrender is not an expression of ego. Lay everything at his feet. Say, “As you will.” And then live once that way. A new flavor, a new nectar, a new taste will arise in life—that is the taste of samadhi.

Ranveer! If you are the question and I am the answer, how will the question be resolved? If you are the question, then you yourself will have to be the answer. If I am the answer, then my question is resolved. Where the problem is, there the solution is needed. If the problem is in one place and the solution in another, they will never meet. This is the age-old snag.

You are the question; Krishna is the answer. You are the question; Christ is the answer. You are the question; Mohammed is the answer. Let Mohammed, Krishna, and Christ remain the answers—what will happen? The question is yours. Dig where the question is. Within every question the answer is hidden. If you dig to the bottom of each problem, you will find the solution. If you take me as the answer, the confusion begins. My answer, for you, can at most become belief; it cannot become knowing. My answer will depend on your trust in me, not on your own realization and seeing. You can have reverence for me, but it will remain superficial. Somewhere in your very life-breath a doubt will persist. Therefore the sickness will not diminish. And the more medicine you take, the more the disease will grow. Because the original sickness will remain, and on top of it, by clinging to my answers, new diseases will be born. The first question stands where it is; my answer will raise ten new questions. Thus the illness increases.

No, this is no way to resolve. Go within yourself; have a vision of the Self; encounter yourself.

Granted, you are a question. Existence gives everyone birth as a question and hopes you will die as an answer. It sends you as a question and wants you to return as an answer. The world is an experience, a school where questions become answers—a touchstone on which life is tested and ripened in experience. But we are all weak, cowardly. We accept borrowed answers. Who will inquire? Who will get into the hassle of a search? To seek, to explore, to be inquisitive is a long journey, full of dangers. One has to cross a thousand hurdles. But accepting someone else’s answer is very cheap; you need do nothing. Yet if my breathing cannot give you breath, my solution will not become your solution. If my life cannot become your life—if you are lame, my legs do not become your legs; if you are blind, you cannot see with my eyes. Your own eyes will have to be healed.

I am not giving you an answer. I have no interest at all in handing out knowledge. I want you either to take the path of meditation or of devotion. Whether meditation or devotion, in both cases you yourself must become the solution. And the day one becomes the solution, how can any question remain? All questions drop—just as when a lamp is lit, darkness disappears. Such a light must be kindled within you.

All questions are beautiful, because without questions there would be no inquiry; without inquiry you would never set out on the search. But you become dishonest: the questions are authentic, yet you borrow answers. From that, scholarship may arise, but not resolution in life. Resolution comes only through samadhi. And samadhi means a state of consciousness within yourself where there is no thought, no feeling, no memory, no imagination—where all the waves of the mind have become still; where all the activities of the mind have come to cessation: chitta-vritti-nirodha. That is the state of yoga, where the lake of consciousness has become utterly wave-less. In that wave-less lake, the moon is reflected. In just the same way, in the silent, void state of your consciousness, God is realized. The realization of truth is knowing.

My knowing is not knowing for you. My truth will become falsehood for you. Borrowed truths turn into lies. If borrowed truths could be truth, then once one Buddha had attained, all would have become Buddhas; once a Kabir had attained, all would have become enlightened; once a Nanak had attained, what need would there be for anyone else to attain?

This is the difference between science and religion. In science, if one person finds an answer, that answer becomes everyone’s answer. Why? Because science is an outer search. What is outside can be seen by all. If we bring a rose and place it here, all of you will see it. It is matter, an object. Science is about objects. Therefore, if Newton discovers something, if Edison discovers something, if Albert Einstein discovers something, then every person need not discover it again and again. Einstein discovered the theory of relativity; now it belongs to all. You no longer need to pass through the same discovery. Science is objective. Objects are outside. Knowledge of the outer becomes public. A tradition of outer knowledge is formed. It can be transmitted; it can be taught in schools, colleges, universities; it can be understood through scripture; it can be expressed in words.

But religion is an inner experience. I can place the rose before you and all will see it; but the beauty I am seeing in the rose—how can I show that to you? The poetry I am experiencing in the rose—how can I make you experience it? The God who is revealing himself to me through the rose—how can I introduce you to him? If I say, ‘God is present—look! This color, this style, this fragrance, this beauty is of God,’ you will shrug your shoulders. You will say, ‘Up to the rose, it is fine; beyond that we see nothing. We see no God.’

And it may even be that someone very material asks, ‘Beauty? Where is beauty? The flower, yes, we understand—but where is the beauty? Show it. Show it in a way that can be tested, in a way that can be experimented upon.’ Beauty too cannot be shown. And the poetry of which I speak—you too will know and experience it only on the day you yourself know and experience it. Yes, if you wish, you can take my word for it. And this is what has happened often.

If you love me, if you feel attached to me, then what I say you will accept in the shadow of that love. But such acceptance cannot transform your life; it will become an obstacle. Love me, yes, but what I say must be sought and discovered. Only if my love can make you a seeker have you truly loved me. If my love turns you into a believer, then you have simply become a believer of a new kind—like a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian. Then the new religiousness I speak of has not been born; you have only found a new sect. You escaped the old prison and got a new one. And the old one you wanted to leave—you were bored of it; but the new one perhaps you will not even want to leave. The new may seem pleasing. The old was given by your parents; the new you chose yourself. Therefore your ego was not so involved in the old as it will be in the new. It is your choice. Naturally you will be bound more by the new. Old chains can be broken; time weakens them. But new chains are strong—freshly cast in the factory; they are very strong.

If, out of love for me, you accept my words, those words will only become chains—and new chains are more dangerous than old ones. My love is only a finger pointing to the moon. Do not hold on to the finger.

The Zen mystic Rinzai used to say: Do not lick my finger, do not bite my finger—look at the moon. But people prefer to suck the finger. Just as little children suck their fingers, so do grown-up children... In the world of religion, you are still little ones; there, you are children. In the realm of religion you are still swinging in your cradle. Your condition there is like that of a small child being sung a lullaby—an arrangement is being made for him to fall asleep somehow. A whole setup to put the little one to sleep.

One woman’s child was crying in the middle of the night. A guest was staying in the house; he said, ‘Why don’t you sing a lullaby and put the child to sleep?’ The woman said, ‘If I sing a lullaby, my neighbors object.’ The guest said, ‘I don’t understand.’ The woman replied, ‘The neighbors say that compared to your lullaby, your child’s crying is preferable.’

Lullabies put little ones to sleep, but for grown-ups they should become a reason to awaken, to break their sleep. In the religious realm you are still like small children—you want lullabies. What are your Gita, your Koran, your Vedas, but this? You have turned them into lullabies. You sing them and go to sleep; you hum them and go to sleep. They have become sedatives—free and cheap—and very gratifying to the ego too, because they are religious and honored by tradition.

I am not giving you a lullaby. I want to wake you up—even if it feels unpleasant. A little child begins to suck his finger—that too is his way of going to sleep. With the finger he deceives himself; with the lullaby the mother deceives him. The mother says, ‘Go to sleep, my child! My little prince, go to sleep!’ She repeats again and again, ‘My little prince, go to sleep!’ If you repeat to anyone again and again, over and over, ‘Go to sleep, child, go to sleep,’ then not only the child, even the child’s father would fall asleep! If you keep drumming on his head, ‘Go to sleep, child, go to sleep,’ what can he do? He cannot run away—where will he go in the dark night? So sleep becomes a way to escape.

Why do children fall asleep again and again listening to your nonsense? Where can they go? The mother sits with her hand on his chest, repeating, ‘Go to sleep, child!’ At first the child squirms a little, turns over—he cannot even run away; in this dark night where could he go? Then only one way of escape remains: to flee into sleep—anything to stop this babble. So he sleeps.

In the same way, you keep repeating lullabies. And if the mother is not there to repeat, the child sucks his thumb, sucks his finger. He creates the illusion of the mother’s breast; he deceives himself.

Likewise, in the religious realm there are grown-up children. They start sucking on the fingers of the scriptures, the fingers of the masters. They think they are getting nourishment. This is not nourishment; it is poison. Fingers are not for sucking. My finger is pointing to the moon. Ranveer, do not cling to my words! Otherwise, the more medicine you take, the more of a patient you will become—the disease will increase. Understand my indication. Do not repeat what I am saying, do not make it your intellectual property; make what I am saying into the conduct of your life, into a process of inner transformation—pass through it. I am teaching alchemy here. No philosophy is being taught; an alchemy to change your life is being given.

You say: I am the question—along with all my weaknesses, all my illnesses, all my limitations. As I am now, for the time being I am a question. The answer is undoubtedly you. Then why does this question not fall, not disappear?

It will not fall that way, it will not disappear that way. You too must become the answer—then it will drop. You are the darkness; you must become the light. You are lost; you must come to the path. You have closed your eyes; my eyes are open—but what connection is there between my open eyes and your closed eyes? You may accept me, honor me, respect me—you may say, ‘My master’s eyes are open’—so the master’s eyes are open; yet your eyes remain closed. Your eyes will have to do the work. Become your own lamp. This is what a true master teaches: become your own lamp.

And what is the way to become that? Do not search for answers to the question—because where will you search? Answers are searched for outside—in scriptures, from masters, in society. No: do not search for answers to the question; become a witness to the question. Within you there are questions upon questions, weaknesses upon weaknesses—utterly natural. Everyone’s condition is like this; there is nothing special about it. Do not condemn yourself unnecessarily. This is everyone’s condition; this is natural. Accept it, and be a witness to it. Stand within and look at all your illnesses, all your limitations, all your questions, all your problems—only look; be the seer. Do nothing else—no fiddling, no repression, no alteration, no interference. Stand at a distance—the farther you can stand and see, the better. Because the farther off you can stand and look, the clearer the perspective becomes. As if one were standing on a mountain looking down at the plains; like the bird’s-eye view—a bird flying in the sky and looking down: everything can be seen, far and wide.

Create distance. Learn the witness attitude. Just sit and watch for an hour every day—only watch: mere seeing. Do not change anything yet. Do not be in a hurry—‘this question should be changed,’ ‘its answer is needed,’ ‘this problem should be removed, a solution brought,’ ‘this illness is not okay, I must be healthy; where is the treatment, where the medicine?’—do not get into all that. Whatever is—good or bad as it is—without any judgment and without any bias, without bringing in notions of auspicious or inauspicious, just watch as a witness. And you will be astonished, amazed. As your capacity to see deepens, the seen will begin to dissolve. As the seer awakens here, the objects there will begin to fade—because the very energy that becomes the seen becomes the seer. The day your seer stands fully and whole, you will find: no questions remain, no problems, no weaknesses, no limitations. Uncaused, you are free. The unprecedented moment has come—the wondrous instant where the person vanishes and God begins; where boundaries are transcended; where Buddhahood is born.

If there is a problem, there is also a solution; if there is illness, there is also medicine. But the illness is not outside, nor is the medicine outside. The illness is within; the medicine is also within. The one who has given the illness has already made provision for the medicine.

You have heard the saying, have you not? The one who gives the beak provides the grain in advance. He gives hunger and prepares the food beforehand. Even before the child is born, the mother’s breasts begin to fill with milk. As the child is born, the mother’s breast fills with milk. Do you think the child is making arrangements? The arrangements are being made. Nature is a wondrously rhythmic order.

Be a witness. In becoming a witness is truth, is samadhi, is rightness.

Rameshwar! God is not a person; God has no existence, because God is Existence itself. Everything else has existence; God does not “have” existence—God is another name for Existence. Call it God or call it Existence, it is the same. I have existence, you have existence, trees and mountains have existence—God has no separate existence. The existence that is in the trees, in me, in you, in the mountains—the totality of that Existence is what we call God.

So the first thing: God has no separate existence. Therefore the question of proving does not even arise. What is certain is that Existence is. Must Existence itself be proved? You are—this much is certain. All else may be a dream, but one thing is sure: the dreamer is real. Even to dream, at least a dreamer is needed. Without the dreamer there cannot even be a dream. So you are true; and if you are true, God is true. Your very being is the name of God.

There are great heights in this being. This being may lie in the mud, as the Koh-i-noor lies in the mud—that is the world. If this Koh-i-noor is lifted from the mud, washed, refined, if it falls into the hands of a connoisseur, to a jeweler, and the jeweler edges it, brings out its facets—this very Koh-i-noor becomes liberation, becomes nirvana.

When the Koh-i-noor was first found, it weighed about three times what it does today—but it was worth almost nothing. The weight was triple, yet the price was negligible, not worth even a couple of coins. Through centuries jewelers and artists worked at it, polishing and polishing; in that refining, in opening new facets, its weight decreased—only a third remained—but today its value is beyond measure. As the gross diminished, the subtle increased.

Because you are, God is. Rameshwar, your existence is the proof. What more proof do you want?

But people want God to be proved the way science proves things: as two and two make four; as water turns to steam at a hundred degrees. God will never be proved in that way. If you try to prove him thus, only one thing will happen: God will become disproved—for you. It is like trying to take the fragrance of flowers with the ear, to hear music with the eyes, or to see light with the nose. Ears are not made to take fragrance; ears can hear music. If you ask the ears for proof of fragrance, the ears will say: Fragrance does not exist. If you ask the nose about colors in relation to existence, the nose will say: Colors? Never heard of them; our forefathers didn’t tell us; the scriptures don’t mention them. There are no colors. Ask the eyes about sound, and the eyes will flatly deny it.

That is why science denies God. The reason is not that God is not; the reason is that the scientific method is gross, external. With it the mud is caught, the lotus slips away. For God there can be no scientific proof. This does not make God unproved; it only proves the limit of science. God is proved in inner experience.

So do not ask whether the existence of God can be proved. Better ask: How can I know my own being? Ask: How can I know the soul? Whoever has known the soul has known God. To the one who experiences the soul within, it is instantly revealed that the same consciousness abides in all. Different forms, different modes, different styles—but the One is manifesting. Whoever has grasped it within has grasped it in all. And first it can be grasped only within.

But people do not look toward themselves; they search outside: Where is God—in Kashi or in Kaaba? Is he in the Vedas or the Quran, the Bible or the Dhammapada? Where should we go—what temple, what mosque? Go within: there is Kaaba, there is Kashi, there is Kailash. But you never go within. There a deep desolation reigns; you have become virtually dead there. Because you have never gone, the dust of centuries has gathered.

Do not ask who we are or why we sit helpless by the road; We are travelers who have lost the courage to travel.

You rose from that side, we rose from this world on this side— Come, we too sit ready to go along with you.

Who has the leisure to fulfill love’s duty of service? Neither you sit idle, nor do we sit idle.

If we rise, we rise in the fever of seeking the Friend; If we sit, we sit absorbed in the longing for the Beloved.

Such is the station of succor that your travelers on the path of love, After a thousand quests, have lost heart.

Ask not who we are, what our claim is—nothing, dear sir! We are beggars, sitting under the shadow of a wall.

It cannot be that the tavern is empty of “Azad”— Look there! Who sits? The very sovereign sits.

Courage has been lost. We have become helpless. The feet will not lift to go within.

Ask not who we are, what our claim is—nothing, dear sir! We are beggars, sitting under the shadow of a wall.

Do not ask who we are—we ourselves do not know. Do not ask what our aim is. “Nothing, sir! We are beggars, sitting in the shade of a wall.” And if we have found the shadow of a wall, we sit right there. Do not even ask who we are, what we are. Such a life cannot attain the Divine. Yet the Divine can be realized. You will have to change a little—give your life a new manner, a new color, a new style.

If we rise, let it be in the heat of seeking the Friend; If we sit, let it be absorbed in the longing for the Beloved.

Rise in search of the Friend. Sit steeped in his remembrance. This is prayer, this is worship, this is adoration. Then surely the proof will be found—but it will be within. It will not be intellectual; it will be existential. And once it is seen within, the whole world becomes his ocean.

They enter our sight, our soul, our heart; They spread over every realm of possibility.

Those veils of duality that even Beauty itself could not lift— Now those very veils are being raised.

Those splendors prudence had kept concealed— Now they are displayed openly in the assembly.

This palace of beauty is the fire-temple of love; Here, instead of candles, hearts are set aflame.

The whole realm of the sensed trembles When, somewhere, a tear is let fall from the eye.

You have seen our state—now see our depth: Our gaze does not rise, yet griefs we shoulder.

Seeking is not a requirement of love, O “Sagar”: Even without searching, he is found within us.

Whoever looks within discovers with amazement this truth: Seeking is not essential to love, O Sagar— Even without searching, he is found within us.

And then whether you seek or not—you will find, you will surely find; you cannot escape.

Go within, Rameshwar. Do not ask for proofs; ask for the way. And the way does not go outward. Outward lies the expanse of the world. Granted that he is hidden there too, but you will not recognize him yet. The first recognition is within. The first meeting is within. First connect with yourself; then there is no place where he will not be seen. First light the lamp within, and you will be able to see even in the dark.

This palace of beauty is the fire-temple of love— Instead of candles, hearts are set aflame.

Learn the art of setting the heart aflame. Light the inner torch—the burning of the devotee, of the meditator, of the lover, of the mad ones. The “intelligent” keep asking: Can the existence of God be proved? And none are more foolish in this world than the “intelligent.” They go on asking and thus waste their time. Neither is Existence proved, nor do they set out on the search. Their logic, too, sounds neat: Until Existence is proved, how can we embark on the search? And those who have sought say: Until you search, how will Existence be proved? Between these two, you must decide one.

Mulla Nasruddin went to the river to learn swimming. The instructor was startled, because as soon as Nasruddin reached the bank, his foot slipped on a mossy stone—down he fell with a thud, one leg went into the water, his clothes got wet. He jumped up and ran home. The instructor called, “Good sir, where are you going?” Nasruddin said, “Now, until I learn to swim, I will not set foot near the river. This is dangerous business! By God’s grace, if I had slipped a bit further in, you were standing outside—you would have just watched while I was done for! I will learn to swim first, then I’ll go near water.” But where will you learn to swim? Can one learn on mattresses and cushions? And however much you practice flailing your arms on cushions, it will not help in water—remember.

No—the way to learn swimming is to go to the water. How will you prove the existence of God? With logic? With thought? Then you are engaged in the wrong work. God has been known through no-thought. God has been known through the heart. And you set out to prove him by the intellect. He will not be proved—and today or tomorrow you will say: He is not. Once this settles deep in your mind—that he is not—you are stuck. Your growth is blocked.

Do not ask the wrong question! Ask: Am I? Ask: How shall I know who I am? Leave God aside! What have you to do with God? First recognize the drop; later recognize the ocean. Right now you do not even recognize the drop, and you raise questions about the ocean. Such questions are futile; only the naive will give answers to them. Yes, in books such proofs are written—grand proofs; great pundits and scholars offer proofs of God’s being. And their proofs are childish, worth two pennies—because no proof can be given.

What are their proofs? Proofs like: as a potter makes a pot—without a potter how can a pot be made? In the same way, God made the world; he is the potter. You have made him a shudra too! Now ask these “wise” men: if a pot needs a potter to be made, then to make the potter, someone else is needed too! They say: Yes, God made the potter. Then what becomes of your argument? If God made the world, who made God?

This is exactly what Buddha asked, what Mahavira asked—and the pundits were silenced. The pundits were offended. They call it an “excessive question.” If you ask, “Who made the world?”—that is a proper question. But if someone asks, “Since nothing is made without a maker, who made God?”—that is an excessive question; your tongue will be cut. Is this justice? It is your own reasoning, just pulled a little further.

And where will it end? If you say, yes, some greater God made God, and then some even greater God made him—where will it end? It becomes an endless, useless chain. No—such proofs prove nothing. They prove only the ignorance, the lack of sensitivity of the proof-givers. They do not prove God; they prove only the foolishness of those who offer proofs.

Buddha does not give proofs of God; Buddha becomes the proof of God. Understand the distinction. The Buddha becomes the proof of the Divine; the Buddha is the proof of the Divine. I say to you: become a proof yourself. You can, because Buddhahood is hidden within you. The spring is dammed: remove the rock of thoughts and let the spring of feeling burst forth! Dance, sing—experience the festival of life! And you will come to know that God is. The day you know that life is a rasa, a great celebration, full of melody and color; a seven-hued rainbow; a music filled with wondrous notes—that day the proof of God has happened. Though you will not be able to hand that proof to anyone else. That experience is like jaggery in the mouth of a mute.

Blessed are those who receive such an experience that cannot be spoken. The most blessed in this world are those who taste the mute one’s jaggery.

Satyanand Bharti! It all depends on you. No outer situation in this world is decisive; what is decisive is your inner state. The wise find the divine even in hell, while the foolish forget it even in heaven. It all depends on you.

Someone once asked Socrates, “What should I do—marry or not?” He had come from far to ask, because Socrates was certainly experienced. The woman he married was quite accomplished—in making him suffer! And of course Socrates himself was partly responsible. Living with a philosopher-husband is no child’s play. Socrates was lost in the mysteries of life; where would he have awareness of his wife? So she would fret, be angry, be upset. She must have been jealous of philosophy itself. To her, philosophy must have felt like a co-wife: Socrates was more interested in philosophy and less in her. Even when he sat near his wife, his mind would be roaming the skies. So it wouldn’t be fair to say it was entirely her fault.

But the wife was “accomplished” too! She tormented even a man as extraordinary as Socrates. Once she brought a full kettle of boiling tea and poured it over him—because he was talking to his disciples; the tea was ready; she had called him three times: “Come now, drink it; it’s getting cold.” When Socrates kept talking and simply didn’t come, she decided not to let the tea grow cold—she brought it hot and poured it on him: “If you won’t drink it this way, then drink it this way.” Half of Socrates’ face was scalded black for life. Socrates, however, remained silent, said nothing. The wife stormed off in anger after dousing him. Socrates picked up the thread of discourse exactly where it had broken. A disciple asked, “Won’t you say anything about your wife’s misbehavior?” Socrates said, “Her act is her concern. Let her think about it. What have I to do with that? And if half my face has turned black, it will not affect my search in the least. Nor will God refuse me for this reason. It’s secondary, not worth considering.”

But remember: if a husband is so detached that his wife pours hot tea on him and he doesn’t utter a word—what is a helpless wife to do but become even more furious!

So that young man had said, “I’ve come to ask you—should I marry or not?” Socrates said, “Do marry—it’s good!” The young man said, “You say, ‘Do marry—it’s good!’ I had come hoping you would certainly say, ‘Don’t marry.’ I don’t want to marry; I only wanted your certificate so I could tell my parents. What do you mean by ‘Marry—it’s good!’?” Socrates said, “Because if you get a good wife, you will know happiness, music, love, and savor. And taste, love, music, celebration—these are doors to the depths of life. And if you get a wife like mine—she’s remarkable—then renunciation will arise. Renunciation is also a way to attain the divine. Some go through passion and love into the same beyond—immersion in love is one path; and through renunciation others also arrive. A bad wife is good, and a good wife is good—either way, good!”

Satyanand, it depends on you. People are miserable without a wife; people are miserable with a wife. If there’s a wife it doesn’t work; if there isn’t a wife, that also doesn’t work. People’s minds are such that whatever is, seems futile. So the married think, “Blessed are those who never married.” And the unmarried think, “When will I be fortunate enough to get married?” This world is strange indeed! Everyone imagines the other is having the fun.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife, Guljaan, once told him that our neighbor, Pandit Matkanath Brahmachari, has written a detailed illustrated book on hell—its geography, climate, system of governance, the types and categories of hells, and their penal codes. Nasruddin said, “All lies, nonsense.” Guljaan said, “How can you say that outright? It could be true. And you haven’t even read the book.” Nasruddin said, “It can never be true! That coward didn’t even marry—what could he possibly know or understand about hell!”

If you avoid marriage out of cowardice, you won’t be able to escape. Marriage will slip in through the back door somehow. Cowardice can’t save you—only understanding can. But where will you get understanding from? I could say, “Don’t marry,” but that would be my understanding. How will your understanding be born? And I won’t make the mistake of telling you “Don’t marry,” because then you’ll curse me your whole life: “Ah, everyone else is enjoying themselves, and here I sit a foolish celibate! What ill-starred moment did I ask that question!”

If I say, “Do marry,” that’s trouble too—because then also you’ll curse me for life. Every time you look at your wife you’ll remember me: “Had I not asked that question, I wouldn’t be caught in this mess.”

You’ve put me in a fix. Such is the matter of marriage. It’s not only hard to marry; even answering about it is a big hassle!

Nasruddin’s wife was on her deathbed. Nasruddin was beating his chest, crying, “O Guljaan, the moment you die, I’ll go mad. Truly, I’ll go completely mad.” Guljaan opened her eyes and said, “I know you well. I die today and tomorrow you’ll remarry. Why lie?” Nasruddin, in a huff, said, “What are you saying, Guljaan? I will certainly go mad—but not so mad as to marry again!”

Better you think it through yourself. Wives have benefits and drawbacks; husbands have benefits and drawbacks. In this life there is no situation that has only one side.

Someone asked the American magnate Andrew Carnegie how he became so rich. Born poor, he died the wealthiest man in the world—when he died he left ten billion rupees in cash in the bank. The person asked, “What was it in you that drove you like a madman in the race for wealth?” Andrew Carnegie said, “I’ve never told anyone, but now that I’m close to death I can say it—what’s there to fear? But promise me you’ll tell people only after I die—at least don’t let my wife hear.” The man said, “What’s the matter?” He drew closer and said, “Whisper it in my ear; I’ll keep it safe and reveal it only after you’re gone.” Carnegie whispered, “I ran after wealth to see whether there could be such a state of riches that my wife would finally be satisfied. But no—even with all this money I couldn’t satisfy her. I kept at it simply as an inquiry: could there be so much money that my wife would be content? I was defeated. She wasn’t satisfied. Still, there was one gain—I became the richest billionaire in the world.”

And then, wives differ from wives.

It’s said Dabbu-ji’s wife made him a lakhpati within a year. “Really? Who is this Dabbu-ji? So fortunate! Did he get a huge dowry?” “No, no dowry at all.” “Then did his wife hit a lottery?” “No.” “Ah, then perhaps some relative left them a bequest?” “No, brother. Dabbu-ji’s wife herself toiled blood and sweat to make him a lakhpati in a year—one year earlier he was a crorepati.” (In other words, from a millionaire down to a hundred-thousandaire.)

Wives differ from wives.

So who knows, Satyanand, what kind of wife you’re looking for—or what kind of wife is looking for you? Which net you’ll get caught in isn’t clear. But I will say this: you asked the question; so somewhere in you there is a desire. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked.

I was in Raipur when a young man came to me—the very Socrates story replayed—with a slight change in context. He asked, “Should I marry or not?” I said, “You should definitely marry.” He said, “I came to you precisely because I was sure you would say, ‘Don’t marry.’ If marriage is right, why didn’t you marry?” I said to him, “I never went to ask anyone—you have come to ask me. I never asked anyone—on the contrary, people used to come to persuade me to marry!”

One lawyer pestered me so much that he poured all his legal brilliance into this one mission, as if it were the sole duty of his life. Morning and evening he would come and sit for hours. I told him, “Is this your life’s goal—my marriage? What harm have I done you? Are you repaying some karmic debt from past lives? Why waste so much time? Am I your client? What’s the case? You have no peace morning or evening. Have you got into trouble with your own marriage—is that it? You want to trap me too? It often happens: someone loses his tail and goes about cutting off everyone else’s! What’s the matter? Say it once or twice and I’d understand, but this became a routine—at dawn you’re already here; in the evening, before I return from the college, you’re sitting there! Do you even go to court? Do you do any other work, or is this your only profession?” But he was obstinate. He would bring big arguments: Why marry? What’s the benefit? What are the outcomes?

I said, “Look—you’re a lawyer; you’ll understand. Let’s call in a magistrate tomorrow and settle this once for all.” He said, “What will a magistrate do?” I said, “He will give the judgment—who wins. You argue for marriage; I’ll argue against. Whatever the magistrate decides! If he says marriage is appropriate, I’ll marry. If he says it isn’t appropriate, then you’ll have to get a divorce.” From that day he vanished. Then I started going to his house morning and evening. Finally his wife said, “I beg you with folded hands—because of you he doesn’t come home morning or evening! Why are you after my husband? What harm has he done you? Don’t you have anything else to do? He rushes out early in the morning saying, ‘He’ll be coming!’ And in the evening he peeks in to see if you’re sitting there, and if you are, he goes elsewhere. Why are you wrecking our home?”

So I told that young man: I never went to ask anyone. You have come to ask me. Your asking itself shows that it’s best for you to go through the experience. Besides experience, there is no other real answer.

Satyanand, you ask: “I am about to get married.”

It seems the matter is already settled. In any case, it’s a bit late now.

“Will this cripple my search for truth or support it?”

It depends on you. Your search can be hampered; it can also be helped. But you should marry. At least I’ll get a sannyasin—and whatever happens, happens! You take care of your business; I’ll take care of mine!

Devendra Bharti! It is only the mad who have ever done anything. The “wise” keep on thinking, forever deliberating. Those entangled in intellect never actually do. People knotted up in mind have proved utterly inactive. Here, whatever happens, happens through the mad. The good too, and the bad too. The good is done by madmen, the bad is done by madmen. The “wise” do neither good nor bad—they can’t decide what is good and what is bad. They remain in that very turmoil: what’s good, what’s bad?

One of the great Western thinkers, G. E. Moore, wrote a book: Principia Ethica—among the handful of important books of this century. He investigates: What is good? What is bad? What is auspicious, what inauspicious? And after two or three hundred pages of dense, tangled logic he arrives at the conclusion that good and bad cannot be defined. That’s the conclusion! After trudging through a thick web of argument, he lands on the claim that good and bad are indefinable. They cannot be explained.

The “wise” haven’t managed to explain anything—because explanation is born of action, of lived life.

You ask: “The age—the people of intellect—has grown despondent.” Indeed. And not just today—always. The world has always been disappointed with the intelligent; they’ve always left it disheartened. Nothing has ever come from them. They go on gathering the ashes of theories. They keep collecting rotten, decayed scriptures and doing “research” on them.

It’s quite a spectacle. When Kabir was alive, not a single pundit would go to him. All the pundits of Kashi were against Kabir; they made his life a misery. And after Kabir died? It’s astonishing—there’s more research on Kabir than on anyone else! Especially at Kashi University, volume after volume is written on Kabir. There’s no university in India where someone isn’t researching Kabir. Hundreds of PhD theses have been written on him. And not one of these would have gone to him—had he been alive. No one went. The same Kashi, the same pundits. But now? Now they burrow into Kabir’s books—these are book-worms! Termites! They live off books, they eat books. In their heads there’s nothing but rubbish. From such people nothing has ever happened in this world. Here, only the crazy ones actually do. The good they do, and the bad they do.

So, madness too is of two kinds. One kind is falling below the intellect—like Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong. And one kind is rising beyond the intellect—Gautam Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Kabir, Paltu. Both are “mad” in a sense. One has fallen below mind, the other has gone beyond it. Rise beyond the mind. Here I am gathering a congregation of such madmen—lovers, moths to the flame. One must have the courage to die, to dissolve. One must dare to stake one’s life. Only gamblers gain anything. Only the intoxicated gain anything. Over there people are busy filtering their water—what on earth will come of that! Drink the juice of life unfiltered. Drink it with your eyes closed. For within the nectar of life all the mysteries lie hidden. The “wise” just go on thinking.

One day an incident occurred in heaven. In a café, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius were sitting and chatting. What else is there to do in heaven anyway! Besides gossiping there’s no other work there. You gossip, or you spin yarn! Or something of the sort—play cards, move chess pieces! What will you do in heaven? Like villagers on rainy days with nothing to do, they recite ballads. So in heaven, recite ballads; what else will you do?

The three sat gossiping. Time is never short there—endless time! Then an apsara—perhaps Urvashi herself, for lesser nymphs don’t readily serve the likes of Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius—arrived with a flagon brimming with the nectar of life. She offered it to Buddha. Buddha at once closed his eyes. “Take it away, take it far away! I am a renunciant. Life is nothing but suffering. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering—life is suffering through and through. This is not nectar, it’s poison. Away with it!” Confucius kept one eye half open, the other half closed—or say one closed and one open—because Confucius teaches the rule of the middle: no extremes. Buddha has gone to the extreme—both eyes shut! Decisions shouldn’t be made so quickly. First taste the nectar of life! So Confucius said, “I’ll take one sip, then decide.” He took a sip and said, “Buddha is right. It’s bitter, astringent, and will bring sorrow. On the surface it smells sweet and fragrant, but inside it’s dangerous.” Lao Tzu took the whole flagon and gulped it down in one go. The whole flagon! When he glugged it down, Buddha too must have opened his eyes to see what was happening; hearing the gulps, Confucius opened both eyes. Both were shocked. Lao Tzu finished the entire flagon, then stood up and began to dance—light, lilting steps! Ta thai, ta thai! And he said, “Closing your eyes is pointless, and from a single sip nothing can be known. Only the one who drinks it whole knows.” Wholeness is Lao Tzu’s message.

Live life in its totality—only then will you know. Buddha thought it over and declared life futile; Confucius too is thoughtful, a follower of the middle path—the golden rule of thought: avoid the extreme, stay balanced, like the scale’s needle at center. Lao Tzu is a madman. But the depth with which Lao Tzu has known life—none has known it so.

Devendra, you are right: “The age—the people of intellect—has grown despondent; it would be no surprise if some mad lover were to get the work done...” That is why I am gathering the mad. One or two madmen won’t do. The age needs many madmen—whole neighborhoods, communities of them. We need to fill the earth with madmen—people who drink the nectar of life in totality, who drain the flagon and can dance, who can sing, whose dance and song become contagious and fill the whole earth with a great festival. Only such people give hope for the survival of humankind. Otherwise the “wise” have tormented us enough—and they’re still sitting on our chests!

“We took on the storms; now does the shore know that we drown here at the harbor—does the current know? When my name arises you smile in silence; you call it a secret, yet the whole world knows.

This world belongs to madmen, this gathering is decked with moths; you are the flame—deny it if you will, but your heart knows.

From city to city, country to country, we roam as wanderers; every speck of the path of fidelity knows our name.

Victories of the heart, defeats of the heart, all the magician’s arts— the evening star may know or not, the morning star surely knows.

The raw threads have snapped; so many companions have fallen away— why does my heart still take you as its only support?

Yesterday Mir was the madman; today we are the mad— this world of the wise knows too well our fate.

‘Bakar,’ how long will you spit blood? Think of ways to die! You live for the heart; only your heart knows you.”

“Yesterday Mir was the madman”—this is a nod to the great poet Mir...

“Yesterday Mir was the madman; today we are the mad— this world of the wise knows too well our fate.”

This world of the clever knows well what becomes of madmen. So the clever fear and hesitate. And what becomes of madmen? First of all, a madman surrenders himself into the great fire of existence. He erases himself, dissolves. He does not save himself—he melts away. As ice melts in the morning sun, so do they melt in God’s warmth, in His love—liquefy, dissolve, are absorbed.

“Victories of the heart, defeats of the heart, all the magician’s arts— the evening star may know or not, the morning star surely knows.”

Madmen are the morning star: they have seen the whole night and all its secrets; they have recognized the darkness, and they have met the dawn; now they also behold the rising sun. But the morning star must accept one risk—no sooner does the sun rise than the star disappears; it must be ready to vanish.

“This world belongs to madmen, this gathering is decked with moths; you are the flame—deny it if you will, but your heart knows.”

The Divine is the flame; this world is filled with mad lovers, this assembly adorned with moths. The Divine is the lamp’s glow, and only the one who, like a moth, plunges into it—dies into it, loses himself, becomes one with it—attains.

Devendra, you are right. But don’t just say it—be mad! Let it not be one more clever thought. The mind is cunning; it can even speak against the mind—so cunning it is.

“This season of joy, these moods of yours— may the stars not sink before they rise.

Fight the whirlpools, grapple with the fierce waves— how long will you edge along the shore?

Strange is this game of love: who loses, wins; who wins, loses.

Sunbeams turn to dark serpents and bite— who can live daily in such stark light?

The ships have sunk there, inevitably— where the helmsmen lost heart.

Many revolutions came into the world, yet our days remained unchanged.

‘Raza’ brings tidings of sailors: these swift currents are touching the horizon.”

Don’t just keep thinking. Thinking won’t do a thing. The clever mind will even think the talk of madness, make a theory of it; it will think of becoming a moth, theorize it—but never itself become the moth.

“Fight the whirlpools, grapple with the fierce waves— how long will you edge along the shore?”

The cautious man walks along the shore. He sees the storms and gales, the far shore is invisible, the boat is small, the hands short, the oars short—who will risk such danger? And remember, even if someone ventures out timidly, with a half heart, he will not reach.

“The ships have sunk there, inevitably— where the helmsmen lost heart.”

If the boatman has no courage, if before launching he is already disheartened—then the boats will sink.

“The ships have sunk there, inevitably— where the helmsmen lost heart.

‘Raza’ brings tidings of sailors...”

A new dawn is near, a new ray is about to break, the night is ending—humanity has lived long in darkness; the web of pedantry is rotting; this edifice is about to fall; it needs just a push.

“‘Raza’ brings tidings of sailors: these swift currents are touching the horizon.”

Open your eyes a little and see: life is eager to be new. Life wants to slip free of old webs; the old boundaries are becoming life’s grave; old ways and old prejudices have become chains on the feet, a prison. Free the human being! But you can free humanity only by freeing yourself.

You have said something to the point—see that it does not remain merely a saying. Let it become life. Become mad! Become a moth! You have walked the shoreline long enough—now launch the boat! Storms are there, yes, but storms are a blessing, for only those who confront them get tempered, become incandescent.

A storm is a challenge. Hidden behind it is the other shore. Those who have known say: the storm itself is the other shore. If you drown in midstream, you arrive.

But there is a way to drown. One man drowns because he has lost heart—faint, cowardly. He drowns at the very shore. He doesn’t even need to go to midstream—he dies right there. For him, a palmful of water is enough to drown in. Cowards drown in a palmful of water. But the brave leap in, setting all cleverness aside, plunging in a mad love into the storms. Then even if they drown in the midstream, they reach the shore—for the arithmetic of life is very strange:

“Strange is this game of love: who loses, wins; who wins, loses.

Fight the whirlpools, grapple with the fierce waves— how long will you edge along the shore?”

That’s all for today.