Shiksha Main Kranti #16

Understanding simplicity is not simple; it is difficult. Simplicity itself is very simple, but understanding it is difficult because none of us are simple. We have become very complicated. We have all become so complicated that attaining simplicity now appears to be the most difficult thing of all. Man is so complex and entangled that becoming even more complex seems easy; dropping entanglements and becoming simple feels hard. Yet within everyone there is a thirst for the joy of being simple. Without becoming simple, no one can be blissful; without becoming simple, no one can be beautiful. Without becoming simple, even being healthy is impossible.

To the extent the mind is complex, to that extent there is illness, unhealth. To the extent there is complexity, there is ugliness; and as the mind becomes more complex, it becomes that much more incapable of knowing the truth. A complex mind cannot even love, because it is so entangled in itself that it cannot really see the other; loving is a far‑off thing. To love, a mind must be so simple, so simple that “I” dissolve, that I am not. My very “I‑ness” is a complexity. And when the mind becomes so simple that even the “I” is no longer present—like a lake gone still without a ripple—only in such a silent lake do the seeds of love sprout. Because then I can see the other, know the other, recognize the other, enter the other, become one with the other.

So a person who is not simple will attain neither love, nor truth, nor beauty, nor health. And if these do not come, life becomes a kind of death. Then there is no meaning in life. The more complex we have become, the more life has begun to seem meaningless. Meaning is lost, significance is lost—because meaning could arise only in these very directions.

Without love, how can one experience a meaningful life? As fragrance is to a flower, so love is to life. If a flower remains without fragrance, it has not truly become a flower. As the flame is to a lamp, so love is to life. If a lamp remains unlit, it is no lamp at all. In the same way, if the flame of love does not manifest, one cannot experience the meaning of life; one is not truly alive. Love gives life.

Because of our complexity, everything has been lost; only complexity remains in our hands. And when complexity goes on increasing, it ultimately culminates in derangement and madness. In truth, there is not a very great difference between a madman and our so‑called normal man—only a difference in the degree of complexity. The madman has become even more complex. The one we call normal also has plenty of complexity, but not yet so much that we would call him mad. His complexity is inside; he is suppressing it, while outwardly he exerts himself to appear simple, or he is just complex to the extent that society can still function without obstruction. But each person carries a madman within, and anyone can go mad at any moment. The final fruit of complexity is derangement, and the final fruit of simplicity is liberation. There are only two movements: either a man will become deranged or he will be liberated. Either he will become so complex that he goes mad, or he will become so simple that he becomes one with the divine—wholly healthy. Perfect health is liberation, and perfect unhealth is derangement. These are the two options, and the journey to either is completed along the paths of simplicity or complexity.

Therefore deep within there is indeed a thirst to be simple. But how to be simple? This question has always stood before man. And the most straightforward thing that has appeared to complicated people is this: let a man wear the outer cloak of simplicity—keep few clothes, have a small house or become houseless; leave wife and children; keep no money at hand; become non‑possessive; renounce—give up whatever there is—and he will become simple.

Those in whom this idea arose did not understand the question. Man is not complex because of things; because he is complex, he accumulates things. Things are not the root issue, not the cause; they are only effects, results. If a man is complex within, he will spread a web of complexity all around. Even if we tear apart the outer web of complexity, we do not thereby become simple within. The man remains the same. It can even happen that he will be just as complex with a little hut as he was with a great palace. It can happen that he will be just as anxious and troubled about his last loincloth as he was about a big safe. The question is not whether one has a loincloth or a palace; the question is: what kind of mind is there? If the mind is complex, it will be complex even with a loincloth. If the mind is simple, it can remain simple even with a palace.

Those who said that by giving up outer things a man will become simple must have been materialists. I do not call them spiritual, however much history and worldly tales may call them so. Whoever thinks that by having fewer objects the mind will become simple is a materialist; his emphasis is on objects, not on the soul. So he says: leave the house, leave home, leave wife and children—leave all that is outside us. This man’s trust is in the outer world; his focus is on wealth. Yesterday he was saying, “Grasp wealth.” Today he says, “Abandon wealth.” But his emphasis remains wealth; wealth is still his center. He has no relationship with the inner person.

Thus complicated, material‑minded people have produced two kinds of mischief: one is that of possession and attachment—keep collecting things and piling them up. This too has been done by materialists and is a form of the complex mind. And the opposite, when someone gets frightened of this, is: give up everything, run away from all things. This too is only a form of the complex mind, and it too is a process of materialism. Both are materialists—one has attachment to materialism, and one has developed aversion to it. But both are, basically, materialists.

And the amusing thing is that the complexity or non‑complexity of the mind has no relation to whether there are more or fewer objects. The real question is that my mind become simple; and it is true that if the mind is simple, then outwardly a certain chastity, a certain simplicity, a certain cleanliness, a kind of non‑possessiveness appears. But it does not have to be brought in; it comes by itself, and exactly to the extent that outer things become pointless.

A deranged person keeps collecting useless things only because of derangement. A man of complex mind is not accumulating because things have any meaning, but because, due to his inner fear and inner anxieties, he keeps himself occupied by collecting things.

A man keeps accumulating wealth. He already has so much that money has no further value for him, because whatever could be bought with money he can buy. Beyond this, accumulating money is only piling up clay and stone, because there is no longer any purpose of buying. He has the biggest house, the biggest car. He has every convenience. Whatever the world can give, he has. Yet he remains madly engaged in the race for money! In fact, because of this race he cannot even enjoy the conveniences. He has bought an expensive television, but cannot watch it because he is busy earning money. He has bought a big car, but cannot sit in it; he can never go out for a picnic, because he is busy earning money. He has brought home the most beautiful woman, but where is the time to speak with her?—he is busy earning money. So even what he has gathered through money he does not enjoy. Beyond this, money has no value. So this earning of money is born of some inner madness. Somewhere inside there is a craziness that wants to remain occupied—so occupied that its own madness does not get exposed. It wants to remain entangled, to forget itself.

The more complicated a man is, the more he strives to forget himself. The devices for forgetting can be many. Someone forgets himself in earning money; someone can forget himself in social service; someone by drinking; someone by listening to music; and someone can even forget himself by prayer, by hymns and kirtan.

When a man is troubled within, he wants to forget. The way to forget is to get occupied somewhere, to get busy—and so busy that all your strength is exhausted in the busyness. No time remains, no strength remains, no possibility remains to think about yourself. You remain forgetful and keep running.

So the more deranged a person is, the more he is engaged in a race—so that he remains forgetful. He can run after money, and it can also happen that tomorrow he leaves money and becomes just as busy in the race for God. Then only the object of busyness has changed; the man is the same. Yesterday he was busy collecting rupees; today he can be busy giving up rupees. Yesterday he took delight in counting how many lakhs he had accumulated; today he is counting how many lakhs he has renounced. Nothing has changed.

The man within is the same. And until simplicity arises in that inner man, outer simplicity will create even more complexity—because he will appear simple on the outside while remaining what he was within. No outer change ever brings any inner change. An inner change certainly brings outer change. Understand this clearly: no outer change, ever, brings any inner transformation, because the inner is the deeper reality; the outer is shallow. No wave can bring any change to the depths of the ocean, because the wave is on the surface. Let it dance, leap, jump—whatever it does, the ocean’s depths are unaffected. But if the ocean’s depth changes, then the wave must change, because the wave is a part of the ocean. The ocean is not a part of the wave.

So what happens on the outer circumference of our life is a part of us; we are not a part of it. It happens because of us; we do not happen because of it. If this becomes clear, then all transformation begins within and spreads outward. The center of change is inside; the spread is outside. The center can never be outside; the spread can never be toward the inside.

If a man becomes simple within, then certainly a kind of renunciation, a kind of austerity, will appear in his life. But he will have no awareness of that austerity, no sense of that renunciation; nor will he think, because of that renunciation, that he has done something. He will not even know it. It will be like sweeping the house in the morning and throwing the trash out; you don’t then go around the neighborhood announcing that today you have renounced the trash. Trash is trash; you throw it out—the matter is finished. The very question of “renouncing” it does not arise. If someone comes and says, “Today I renounced the trash of my house,” we will think him mad: was he so attached to the trash that he had to renounce it? And the one who comes declaring, “I have renounced the trash,” is still bound to the trash—now he is taking pride even in the renunciation of trash. And I would say that having trash in the house was not as bad as the relish taken in its renunciation; that relish is dangerous, because the man is ill.

The day events begin to happen within, outer changes certainly follow. His living will change, his way of sitting and rising will change, his relationships will change, because all the outer events will gradually be affected by what has arisen within. Their result will appear outside. But then he will neither become a renunciate, nor will there be any awareness of renunciation in his mind; there will be no gratification of the ego from renunciation, and renunciation will not become his occupation or busyness. He will not be a sannyasin; he will not even know sannyas—sannyas will have happened. But simple sannyas can never be recognized; only complex sannyas is conscious. That very complexity says, “Now I have become a sannyasin,” and begins to take just as much delight in this “I” as it used to take when “I” was something else.

The first point is that from the outside toward the inside, no transformation happens at all. Therefore all those who have said, “Eat less; eat such and such food; wear such and such clothes; do not wear clothes, be naked; do not live in a house, live in a hut, or under a tree, or under the open sky”—all these people desired to bring change from the outside toward the inside. This desire is wrong. The outside may change, while the inner man remains exactly what he was. No difference will occur in him.

An incident comes to mind. One night I traveled by train. In my compartment I was there, and at one station a sannyasin also took a seat. Quite a few people had come to see him off—he must have been much respected. I too became curious, because he had only rags of burlap on—gunny cloth. A strip of burlap was wrapped around his waist; a piece of burlap was thrown over his shoulders. He had a small basket with him; in it too were two or four pieces of burlap. People saw him off and left. I lay with my eyes closed. The sannyasin thought I was asleep. As soon as he put down his basket and looked toward me, he assumed I was sleeping. I was not asleep; I was awake. From time to time I watched what he was doing. Setting down the basket, he quickly peeped beneath those two or four pieces of burlap. There were some rupees there—offerings that must have been given to him. Taking them out, he counted the rupees on the sly. I watched all this. Having counted them, he wrapped the rupees in the burlap and placed them under his head.
Then I got up for some errand and he asked, “When will Bhopal come?” I said, “It will come at six in the morning. Please sleep peacefully; don’t worry. And this coach is to be detached at Bhopal, so there is no way of going beyond Bhopal. So sleep at ease. I too have to get down at Bhopal.” But what do I see? An hour later—must have been around eleven at night—at some station he again opens the window and asks people, “When will Bhopal come?” Then I was amazed and told him, “Don’t be troubled; Bhopal is not going to come before six in the morning.” But what do I see? At four in the night, at some station, he again opens the window and asks. There is no sign in him of anything like ease, and he is worrying over such a petty, utterly meaningless thing—when will Bhopal come? When I had told him, and you’ve already asked at two stations—they have said it will come at six in the morning—still there is no trust in anyone? Lest Bhopal slip by!
That man did not sleep the whole night. Around five in the morning he is getting ready again, and even his getting ready seemed worth watching to me. He assumes I am asleep. From the moment he woke up, the first thing he did was once again to take out his notes from his money-belt—a cloth belt with a hidden pouch—and count them. Now I am quite amazed: why are these notes being counted again and again? On the one hand this man has the belt tied on; on the other, his relish is in counting the notes. The fear that the notes may be stolen is the same as any man might have. But the notes are hidden in the belt. The belt is outside; the notes are inside.

Then I see that the way he has tied the belt, now he is standing before the mirror tying it. Again and again he ties it and looks in the mirror; then it doesn’t please him. Then he ties it in another way. I am amazed—this is exactly what happens when a man puts on finer and finer clothes! Even then he looks in the mirror and ponders, “Do I look good or not?” This man is doing the very same with his money-belt. Four times he opened and tied it; then he draped it properly over his neck; then, peering into the mirror, he felt assured! Now he is ready for Bhopal station to arrive. The preparation is exactly the same as when a lady readies herself with her cosmetics and beauty aids! Or as a lover of clothes, after dressing, keeps looking again and again to see whether it sits right or not!

Now this man is wearing a money-belt. But with the belt his mind is exactly what it would have been with fine garments. And what does a person want even with fine garments? He wants others to be impressed by him. With the belt too, the man wants the same—that others be impressed by me! And it may well be that he has tied the belt precisely for this; and it will indeed be so that there are people who are not impressed by the costliest velvet yet will be impressed by a belt.

In Bhopal I see garlands being offered, and that man is standing there, chest puffed out! The person who renounces on the outside does not change on the inside—cannot change. Because the outer has no such connection with the inner. If there is to be change, it will have to come from within. Therefore I reject the very first premise: that simplicity can ever come that way. Only the illusion of simplicity can be produced. Only deception, delusion, can happen. And we can deceive others—how will we deceive ourselves!

The first path is to try to be simple, to make an effort, to practice it. Cultivated simplicity is always false. Because to practice, by its very meaning, is to practice against your own mind; otherwise, what is the practice against? If being naked is blissful for me, I will not call it practice. If wearing clothes is blissful for me and then I start practicing being naked, will nakedness be a “practice”? And if being naked is simply blissful—if wearing clothes never gave me the joy that comes from being naked—then no one would call it a practice. It is my joy. We practice only that which is contrary to us; practice means repression. Practice is inevitably repression. And wherever effort is required, against whom is that effort made—against oneself? No effort made against oneself can ever win. How could it win? Who would win? How can I win against myself? And that against which I am fighting is deeper in me; otherwise there would be no need to fight. The part of my mind that fights is quite superficial; if it were not, the matter would end at once—there would be no need to struggle.

So one path says: cultivate simplicity. Cultivated simplicity will always be false; it is another name for complexity. But open, honest complexity is at least good—it is clear. Simplicity on the surface and complexity within is a great deception, in which a man can waste a whole life—many lives. Our so-called sadhus, renunciates, monks, ascetics live like this and fall into the illusion that they have become utterly simple—because they stand naked. There is not even a trace of simplicity, because the same man is standing there; the man himself has not changed. And how could clothes change the man? How can the soul be changed by clothes!

The second path is this: we must understand our complexity—why we are complex, where we are complex. We need to become aware of our entire complexity; an unclouded consciousness is needed to see it all. From the moment I get up in the morning until evening, in how many ways am I complex? Where am I entangled? Where do I lose simplicity, and how do I lose it? I must see all this thoroughly, recognize it. If I come to know it completely, become familiar with it, it will not be difficult to understand that this entire complexity is continuously plunging me into misery.

The truth is, whenever a single ray of joy has touched us in life, we must have been simple in that moment. Whenever even the slightest glimpse of joy has occurred, simplicity must have been the background. Joy has never arisen out of complexity. Children appear more blissful, because they are simple; the old become miserable, because they have become complex. Life only makes one complex. With those we love, we are simple; therefore, with them we find joy. With those we do not love, we become complex; therefore with them we do not find joy. Wherever we are simple, the beginning of joy happens.

So the person who awakens to his complexity and observes all the workings of the mind—how it becomes complex, how it brings sorrow—when it becomes evident to us that complexity is suffering, complexity is hell, complexity is darkness, complexity is thrusting oneself into thorns with one’s own hands—once this begins to be seen, becoming complex becomes impossible. Then we will not have to drop complexity; it will begin to drop of itself. We will find it is leaving, because the human mind naturally wants to move toward bliss. That is its natural flow, its spontaneous movement—to go toward joy. Yes, if it sometimes goes toward suffering, it goes under the delusion that joy will be found there.

No consciousness ever flows toward suffering. Just as water naturally flows downward—unless we install pipes, machines, pumps to throw it upward—water flows down. In the same way, consciousness by nature flows toward joy, until we do some foolishness and set up pumps to hurl it toward suffering. But even to throw it toward suffering, you have to write “Joy” on the tank of suffering; only then will it go there—otherwise, it will not.

We have written “Joy” over all our miseries; thus the mind started going there too. If we awaken and understand this situation, we will begin to see where joy is, and where it is not. Once a person sees just this much, he begins to become simple. Then, to be simple, he does not need any device or effort. He finds there is no way now but to be simple, and becoming complex starts to become impossible. Slowly, complexity becomes an impossibility. Then the man will not say, “I dropped complexity and became simple.” He will say only, “How mad I was that I even used to be complex!” Where is the question of dropping? It dropped. It was seen, and it dropped.

Just as, once we see where the door is, we go out through the door—we do not then try to go out through the wall. And after going out through the door, we do not say, “I have stopped going through the wall; I go only through the door.” If we said that, people would ask, “Were you mad, that you tried to go through the wall?” Yes—at most we may say, “There was a time when walls looked like doors to me, and I used to smash my head; the head would break, but I could not get through. Now I have begun to see what is a door and what is a wall.”

Therefore awareness, consciousness, must grow. Those who busy themselves with changing outer things—there is no question of their consciousness growing, because they are not moving in the direction of awareness; they are still entangled with objects.

In my view, the more alert a person is, the more simple he becomes. Simplicity is the natural outcome of awareness. And when one becomes simple, the flowers of love, of bliss, of truth begin to bloom of their own accord in life. These are effortless flowers blossoming in the soil of simplicity. Nothing needs to be done to make them bloom.

A simple person will be loving, and his love will be unconditional, because he knows that only a complex person places conditions on love. And when conditions are imposed in love, love brings misery, not joy. If I place conditions—“Be like this and I will love you; do this and I will love you; in exchange for my love you must do this and that”—then I know I am inviting my own suffering. Wherever I impose a condition, love is gone; only bondage remains, and bondage brings pain. Therefore the love of a simple person is unconditional.

A simple person gives love; he does not speak of taking. Much comes to him—abundantly—but he does not make taking the point. Whatever he gives, he receives a thousandfold. But he does not talk of taking. If it comes, he thanks, he feels graced; if it does not, the matter is finished. The work was to give—that is complete. He has found so much joy in the very act of giving that there is no need to ask for anything more.

Conditional love says, “If you give me love, I will be delighted.” Unconditional love says, “That you received—already it gave me enough joy; the matter is over.” You received, and I was gladdened. In this very way things begin to appear in the tangible world as well.

A simple person will see that in the outer life a certain chastity, a certain beauty, a certain austerity begins to arise. But the reason is not that he is renouncing things; the reason is that some things have become futile and are falling away—like dry leaves fall. The tree does not “drop” them; they simply fall.

Absolutely right. Wherever there is effort, there is complexity. In fact, effort is just another name for complexity. And wherever there is effortlessness, there is simplicity. Where we are not doing anything, something happens; where we are doing, it does not happen—that is where complexity begins. If I am “doing” love to someone, that love will be very complex. At most it can be acting; it can only be an act. Acting has to be done; it does not happen. And if love is done, it too will be acting. Love should be; it should flow naturally.

Whatever is important in life happens; it does not have to be done. Whatever is futile has to be done; it never truly happens. And we have all fashioned such lives—and our moral and religious teachers have taught us only effort, only repression, only struggle—and in this way they have made our whole lives ugly. We scarcely have anything like life, because we have no experience of the simple and the spontaneous. Whatever we are doing is not happening; we are doing it. And because of this doing, its innocence, its virginal freshness, is being lost.

There is a possibility that a person lives without trying to live; loves without trying to love; is silent without trying to be silent. There is also a kind of peace that comes through the effort to be peaceful, but it is always dead; it is dead silence, the silence of a corpse.

The so‑called seekers often attain such dead peace. All it means is that they have suppressed restlessness; peace has not come—restlessness has been pushed down. When restlessness is pressed down, you do not notice it. Like a man with a wound on his hand who ties a bandage and presses it, and then says, “There is no wound.” His wound has not disappeared; he has only hidden it under cloth. Behind such dead peace, restlessness lies repressed. A person can keep trying continually and sit on the chest of his restlessness, and it will look as if he has become peaceful. But inside, restlessness is boiling and waiting. Repressed restlessness must be repressed continually—day after day, waking and sleeping. Not for a single moment can such a person relax.

That is why our monks and saints have nothing like a holiday. They have to remain engaged in this hocus‑pocus twenty‑four hours a day, because if they take even a moment’s break, all that has been suppressed will immediately surface; it will all rise up. So there is no holiday for them. From morning to evening and evening to morning—only fighting and fighting. This is why our monks become afraid even of sleep. They are frightened of sleep, because in sleep a holiday arrives. The mind that was suppressed all day opens up and starts to play in sleep, and exactly what was being suppressed starts happening. So fear of sleep arises, and the effort runs on: better not to sleep at all, better if sleep does not come.

In truth, only a simple person can truly sleep. If a complicated person keeps growing in complication, sleep will disappear—so much busyness accumulates, so much tension mounts in the mind, that sleep goes. And if the complicated person drops all his complications and runs away, he becomes afraid of sleep, because what he ran away from will seem to return in sleep—since in sleep the mind again moves into effortlessness.

Then whatever we have suppressed by effort will reappear. If sex was suppressed, sex will appear; if food was suppressed, food will appear. If we roam about naked by force in the daytime, then in sleep we will find ourselves wearing an emperor’s clothes and sitting on a throne—that is what will happen.

Only the person who has not made efforts for simplicity can be simple in the true sense. But what does this mean? Does it mean we should do nothing for simplicity? No, it does not mean that. I am saying: do not make effort—but you will have to be aware. And being aware is not effort, because in awareness we are not suppressing anything. In awareness we are not repressing anything. In awareness, the light of our consciousness, which lies asleep in dark corners, we lift it up; we awaken it.

A man is asleep; we wake him. We are not making him repress anything; we are only breaking his sleep. Our consciousness within is asleep—deeply asleep in many ways. We are awakening it. This awakening may look like a kind of effort, but it is not effort in that sense. Therefore the Zen masters call it effortless effort—actionless action, action in inaction.

There is only one such thing that is an effortless effort—and that is the endeavor toward awakening, toward awareness. The more we are awake to the ordinary things of life—the moment you get up in the morning, complications begin. Your shoe is not in its proper place and you become angry; your tea is a little cold and you flare up; you speak to your wife in words you could never have imagined—and the complications begin. Before the boss you stand wagging your tail, and before the servant you puff yourself up; complications start everywhere. We need to wake up to all this.

Even our smallest actions, our tiniest gestures—we need to be awake to them: What am I doing? Is this a complex act or a simple feeling? If it is a simple feeling, we will stand with the same simplicity before the boss as before the servant. But a complicated man cannot do this. Before the boss he stands in a different way; he smiles falsely, even if a fire is burning within. And before the servant he never smiles, even if a smile is bubbling inside. In every way he becomes more complicated. Slowly, slowly, the false actions he has imposed upon himself become his reality. He forgets who he is, because in simplicity he could have known who and what he is; in complexity he keeps showing forms that he is not. And through continual practice, through conditioning, it can come to pass that he no longer knows who he is. All that remains is this notion: before the servant I am one; before the boss I am two; before the wife I am three; before someone else I am four. All day long I have different faces, different manners, different performances. But who am I?

To put on the act of simplicity is more complex than being complex. Because a man who is complex—and knows he is complex and shows it—is, in one sense, simple. If anger arises in me and I express it—fire gleams in my eyes, sparks seem to fly from my hands, and I reveal outside what is inside—then even so, in one sense, I am simple. But if anger arises within and outwardly I go on talking of love, then my complexity is very deep.

The man who lets natural anger happen will see it pass in a little while, because anger is not something that stays. But the man who suppresses anger and displays non-anger—his anger will linger and fester, making wounds within. The first kind of man is simple, and someday, when he awakens, he can be free of anger. The second kind can never be free, because to awaken he has to take two steps: first, he must awaken to the fact that he is acting the part of a nonangry man; and then he must awaken to the fact that anger is there. His complexity is double-tiered. And if you look carefully at human life, there are scores of tiers, one upon another; only by inquiring through them can we become simple.

Often the “primitive” man is simpler: if there is anger, he gets angry; if there is love, he loves. If he has to hurl an abuse, he does; if he has to crack a skull, he cracks it. He is simpler than the civilized man. Because with the civilized man it is hard to know: when he smiles, is he abusing you or not? When he shakes your hand lovingly, does he want to cut your throat or not?

Hiding complexity within and acting simplicity without; hiding vice within and putting on the outer show of saintliness—this is complexity in a double sense. Freedom from it becomes even harder. And slowly such a person can not only deceive others; over long periods he can deceive himself. Then it becomes more difficult. If I deceive you—anger is within me, I know it, and I show you forgiveness—that is a deception to you. But by doing this continually, it may happen that I, too, start believing there is no anger within me, that I am forgiving. Then the complexity becomes three-layered. And if layers keep piling up, a person will get lost. In that jungle it will be hard to find his trail back. The return grows more difficult because he must descend as many steps as he climbed.

So I hold that acting is always dangerous. We should be as we are. And the beautiful thing is: in being as we are there is a kind of simplicity. Then we must become aware of what we are. As we begin to be aware, whatever brings sorrow will start dropping away, and whatever brings bliss will begin to grow. A state will come when bliss is our only direction; the movement toward sorrow will cease.

In my view, I call that person religious who has discovered where bliss is and whose consciousness has begun to flow there. And I call that person irreligious who, mistaking misery for bliss, keeps flowing toward misery. This understanding no one else can give you. If I say, “There is great bliss in love,” nothing is going to change. If I say, “There is great suffering in hatred,” nothing will change. You may even agree, “Yes, there is great suffering in hatred”—but that will not reveal anything. You will have to be awake in the state of hatred; only then will you see hatred’s whole sting, its whole suffering. When anger seizes you, you will have to be alert and see what anger is doing—what kind of fire I am burning in. And when its suffering is fully revealed on your consciousness, then to move toward anger again will be impossible for the mind. You will not need to stop yourself by effort, “Now I shall not be angry.”

A man who awakens does not need to go to a temple to take a vow: “Now I renounce anger; now I will not be angry.” The situation reverses. If you try to make him angry, it will be difficult. If he has to be angry, then at most—just as earlier he used to act forgiveness—now he can only act anger. And why would anyone want to act anger? Why would anyone want to act hatred? Why would anyone want to act enmity?

Awakening must be to all the states of our consciousness, and to all our relationships—because life is in relationship. The man who was imposing simplicity upon himself would run to the forest. Alone, it is easy to impose simplicity, because then we do not even come to know our complexity—it is an escape; we don’t see it. Complexity is revealed in relationship. When you are walking down a street, you can notice whether you are strutting stiffly or not. When you are walking in the forest, you won’t notice, because in the forest you do not walk stiffly—there is no one to watch. Where there are onlookers, it becomes clear whether there is stiffness in your gait or not; whether you are walking simply, or even in walking you are nurturing some feeling of ego; whether even in walking you are nursing some sickness—or simply walking. This will be seen on the street where people are, even more on that street where people know you, and still more where people are related to you. The closer people’s relationships are to you, the more you will come to know yourself.

That is, in my view every other person is a mirror for us. In every other person we peep at our own face. It may happen that a man is ugly, and he renounces all mirrors and assumes, “I have become beautiful”—he will not become beautiful. The only difference will be that, since he has no mirror, he will not see that he is ugly. Ugly he will remain.

I have even heard of a woman who was ugly but refused to admit it. If anyone brought a mirror before her, she would break it—and she would give this reason: the mirror is faulty. “In this mirror my face does not appear as beautiful as it is. This mirror makes me ugly. This mirror is not well made. The right mirror will be the one that shows my beautiful face. That I am beautiful is a settled fact; there is no doubt about it.”

We can break the mirrors, yet we will remain what we are. This woman will seem mad to us. But the person who runs away from life is just as mad. In truth, it is only harder to recognize there, because the mirrors from which he is fleeing are very subtle.

There is a possibility. But man as he is before us does not show that possibility, and I also believe that when someone, with love, ...

It is true. Much confusion has happened between love and attachment. The confusion is natural. But love and attachment are not only different; they are opposites.

Where there is love, attachment cannot be. Where there is no love, attachment appears. If we understand what love is, the difference becomes clear.

First, know this: love is not a relationship. Love is a state of mind, a state of being. Ordinarily we think, “I love so-and-so.” This very idea is mistaken. The truth is: I can be loving. And if I am loving, I remain loving no matter who changes; even if I am alone in a room, I remain loving. Being loving belongs to my state of consciousness. But we commonly believe that one person loves some and not others.

The person whose inner state is not of love does not truly love anyone. And the one he claims to love is, as you say, simply someone through whom some need of life, of the body, of arrangement, is being fulfilled. That need might be sexual, financial, a need for security—on any level. And the person who serves as the means of fulfilling that need is the one he parades as “I love.” But that so-called love breaks the very moment the need stops being met. This is a kind of exploitation in the name of love.

Naturally, we get attached to whatever meets our needs. Without it we feel we cannot live; life would be painful, uncomfortable. So we grow a fondness, an attachment to what we feel we cannot live without—like becoming attached to furniture if we cannot live without it, to the radio if we cannot be without it, to a wife if we cannot be without her, to a friend if we cannot be without him. But this attachment is not love. It merely indicates that there are things without which I do not feel at ease, and with which I feel peaceful and comfortable. Toward such things, a clinging arises, a desire to preserve them, a fear that they might slip away. All this surrounds the mind—but it is not love.

Love is entirely different, the very opposite. In attachment we make someone a means; in love we become the means. In attachment, someone fulfills my needs; in love, I fulfill another’s needs. Love does not think in the language of “give me”; love thinks in the language of “take from me.” Love is a gift; attachment is a demand. Attachment says, “Give me this,” and if it is not given, it breaks. Love longs to give; it does not ask. Attachment is conditional—“If you give me this, then I will give you that.” It is a bargain.

Love is not a bargain. There are no conditions in it. Whether you give me or not is not even the question. I want to give to you, and in giving I am delighted—and that is the end of it. In this sense love is a giving. And this state of love cannot be toward one person only. It cannot be that I love one and not another. If my consciousness is loving, I will love whoever comes near. If it is not loving, I will not love anyone who comes near. When consciousness is not loving, those from whom I derive benefit, whose presence serves my needs, I pretend to love; and those from whom I derive no benefit I stand coldly apart; those who harm my interests I make my enemies. But when someone’s heart blossoms in love, when the flower of love opens in a life, then who comes near is no longer a question. It becomes irrelevant who comes.

When a flower blooms and fragrance spreads, it does not ask who passes by. Whoever passes receives the fragrance. Useful or not, friend or foe, enemy or neutral—whoever it may be, the question is irrelevant. The passerby receives the scent because the flower imposes no conditions, and it asks nothing in return. The flower gives fragrance because it is in bloom; giving fragrance is its very nature. Like a lamp that is lit—its light falls whether someone passes or not; it falls even on emptiness. The lamp is not giving light to someone; the lamp is luminous, therefore light falls on whoever comes near.

So I call love a state. When the lamp of love is lit within, when the flower of love has bloomed, whoever comes near receives its love. Whether someone can receive it or not is another matter. Someone may be capable of taking in fragrance, someone may be ill—that is a different matter. Someone may be blind; whether he sees the light or not is another matter. But from a heart full of love, love falls continually—like light, like fragrance—and whoever is capable of receiving, receives. If they are not, that is their affair; it has nothing to do with the one who is giving. Therefore love is liberation, because it does not raise the question of binding anyone. Whoever comes receives; whoever goes, goes. Like a mirror: if someone stands before it, a reflection appears; when they move away, it disappears. The mirror is empty again, ready to reflect another.

Love is a state in which, if you come near, you receive its fragrance and light. If you move away, the shower of love continues. Someone will keep sharing, someone will keep receiving. Hence love does not want to stop anyone—“Stay, because I love you.” Love keeps loving anyway. Attachment says, “Stay. Don’t go anywhere, otherwise whom will I love?” Attachment says, “Do this and that, only then can I love; otherwise my love will stop.”

Attachment is not love; it is only a deception in love’s name—a hypocrisy, a pretense. We mistake attachment for love because the flowering of love requires long discipline; it lies beyond the realm of needs. Where the questions of need fall away, where consciousness becomes so full of bliss that there is no way but to share it—and a mark of bliss is that it longs to be shared—it does not ask, “Who are you?” If you come near, it makes you a partner.

In my view, one who has not attained bliss has no love in his life. One who still lives in sorrow shares hatred, because sorrow can only spread hatred; but since we have to make use of people, we cannot openly hate them, so hatred puts on the mask of attachment and says, “I love you.” Without love within, how can one do love? And one who is not in bliss—what can he give to anyone?

Love is a giving. Only when there is bliss can love be given. In my understanding, when the lamp of bliss is lit, the light of love begins to spread all around. Therefore, for me love carries the same meaning as the search for the divine. For me, love is God. And yet ordinarily we assume that everyone born is capable of love. Being born of parents does not confer the capacity to love. One must be born again in another sense—enter the dimension of bliss, truth, meditation. When that entry happens and consciousness is transformed, rises above need, becomes so affluent with bliss that it overflows, then the event of love happens. Before that—when our vessels are themselves empty—love cannot happen. Hence the attached person merely makes a show of loving.

Essentially, almost everyone is begging for love. Each is asking the other, “Give me love.” But love cannot be begged; it can only be received. And once you beg, receiving becomes difficult. Nor can anyone who lacks love give love. We can only give what we have. Ordinarily we have sorrow; we give sorrow—to enemies and to friends. Before enemies we stand as we are; before friends we change our face, put on the garment of love, and stand there. But inside the garment we remain what we are. That is why the one we hug lovingly one day finds his neck clutched in our vise the next. Our talk of love becomes bondage at depth—binding the other, stopping the other, imprisoning the other. How can love bind or imprison anyone?

Love liberates, makes the other free, allows the other to be a person. Attachment turns the other into an object and possesses so totally that it refuses to recognize that the other has a soul: If I say yes, then yes; if I say no, then no; if I say day, day; if I say night, night! Attachment says, “Only I am; you be erased.” Husbands have made wives into objects, wives have made husbands into objects. Lovers make each other into objects, and the moment an object shows a little movement, a little independence, attachment turns into enmity and pain.

Love is a state of consciousness, not a relationship. Attachment is a relationship. And wherever there is relationship, there is need; we relate in order to fulfill a need. Love will, of course, relate—but it is not a relationship. As I said, the lamp’s light falls; if you pass by, the light will fall on you—it relates—but the lamp has no desire to relate. If you go away, the matter is over. There is no insistence on relationship.

Love is just this simple. And nothing is more simple, more innocent, more guileless than love. Nothing is more difficult, complex, cunning than attachment. Yet we have taken attachment to be love; therefore the mistake perpetuates itself. Attachment spreads like poison through life—our own life and the life of those to whom we bind ourselves. Gradually, a person living on the plane of attachment never comes to know himself. He lives only in relationships, knows only relationships; he never learns who it is that is relating.

Therefore, whoever wishes to embark on the journey of love should know: it will not be fulfilled by searching for a lover or a beloved. The journey of love begins with the search for oneself: Who am I? The day I know fully who I am, I cease to be a seeker of relationships, because I am complete in myself. There is no lack then, and on that plane there is no need to be completed by another. On that plane I am self-fulfilled within. From that fullness, bliss is attained.

Incompleteness is misery; in incompleteness we bind ourselves to others, hoping they will complete us. But no one can complete another, because deep down we are already complete. Once it is known, “I am complete,” fountains of bliss begin to flow. Then I can love—without binding, without being bound. Without making anyone a slave, without imprisoning anyone, without holding anyone even for a moment, my love can become unconditional giving. On that plane love is, and therefore for me love is the very form of the divine. We fail to recognize it because we mistake attachment for love.

Attachment is a counterfeit of love, a false coin. One who takes this counterfeit as real never sets out on the quest for love.

The search for love is as deep as the search for God. The discipline of love is as deep as the discipline for the divine. No one can attain love without attaining oneself. In this sense, love accompanies bliss. Wherever bliss happens, love spreads around it like a circumference.

Certainly, if we are to live in society, we will have to live in relationships. But let relationships not be there to fill some psychological lack or some spiritual absence in us. Let us be whole within ourselves first, and then let there be relationships. If we are complete within ourselves and then we relate, those relationships will never determine any spiritual slavery for ourselves or for the other; they will be flowers blossoming in freedom.

Two flowers bloom side by side; they too are related. Each receives the fragrance of the other, yet neither depends on the other, neither is bound, and neither makes demands. In the sky so many stars shine at night. All the stars pour out light. Their lights meet and relate, but no star is bound by another’s light. Each has its own light. Becoming related in this way does not diminish their individuality. In a room where fifty lamps are lit, their lights mingle and become one; in the light there is no difference left. Yet no lamp depends on any other lamp. The lamps are in themselves.

So my point is: let our being be in love, and then we relate. But this relating will be on quite another dimension, another plane—where we do not depend on the other, nor do we make the other depend on us; where each is independent and free, and yet we meet. The joy of such a meeting is of a different quality, because in this meeting there exists no binding, no bondage, no fetters, no chains—not even their jingle. Here, even in coming together, we keep each other free. Here we meet one another and yet remain ourselves. Our authentic being is not lost anywhere. We neither take ourselves to be one with anyone, nor do we insist on making anyone one with us.

Then we do not emphasize identification, identity. Each remains each. All live in themselves—and then we relate. Such relating is utterly unconditional; it is a relationship only of giving, and there is a grace, a gratitude in it. We come close, the joy of each falls upon the other, we meet—but we will take leave, tomorrow on our own paths. No sting, no wound will be left behind.

The love I am speaking of… Certainly the question arises: in society we have to relate; society itself means relatedness. Where there is society, there are relationships. But for now relationships are between people who are not even there as themselves—who are inwardly absent. So at present all relationships are of faces; within, no one relates, because within we are not there to relate. Therefore all relationships are false, and they are no more than needs. We relate where our need is fulfilled; the need ends, we become unrelated.

And this means that when we are relating to someone, we are not really relating to that person; we are relating to a means that serves our need. There is some third factor in between as the reason for the relationship. Hence, to speak accurately, all our relationships are commercial—friendship too, love too; there too a business stands. Even there the person has no intrinsic value for us. The value is only so much as he becomes a means for me, becomes useful in some work of mine, lends a hand in the race of my life—that is the extent of my relationship. And he too has come to me for the very reason that, by entering into a relationship with me, I may become a means for him.

We are making one another into means, and in human life there is nothing more sorrowful than having to treat a human being as a means; for whom we make into a means becomes a thing. Each person is an end, not a means. So we must take care that I do not make any person into a means—but this will be possible only when love arises within me. Then each person will be an end in himself. I can become a help to him, he can become a help to me, but there is nowhere any urge to turn the other into a means. When this happens naturally, we will stand together and become collaborators. As we are now, we cannot truly collaborate; for now we can only be master and slave.

The possibility of cooperation exists only when two individuals have been born. In the society as it is, even a person who loves will have to bear great difficulties, because he will take everyone as an end, while everyone will take him as a means. He will have to pass through great pains. He will have to suffer much misunderstanding. No one will be able to understand him, because he is not a man of the language in which we think and live. That is why, in this world till now, those who have loved have had to endure much suffering. But the joy of love is so great that these sufferings are of no account. He bears them.

The joy of love is so abundant, the stream of bliss within him is so great, that he does not even notice where all these sufferings disappear. But if we look from the outside, it is natural that a loving person falls into trouble, because he will proceed by regarding each as an end, whereas all who come near him will regard him as a means. He will give people love, because love is within him. He will give love even without entering into a relationship, yes.

Certainly—absolutely! The way we have educated and “cultured” the person up to now, the kind of civilization we have taught—the whole of it, all civilization, all culture, all education—only makes him clever, makes him cunning. Cunning in the sense that the educated man learns how to turn other people into means. And the one we call educated is the one who can make the maximum number of people into means! The one who cannot make anyone into a means is labeled uneducated, rustic, illiterate. In this world, the more people a man can use as means, the greater he becomes—successful, a bigger politician, occupying higher posts—because he has turned more people into his instruments; he rides on them, on their chests, on their heads.

All our education so far is education in cleverness, and all of it is education in ambition. Keep this in mind: a man filled with ambition can never be loving, because the ambitious man will make others into means to fulfill his ambition. One who loves cannot be ambitious, because in love you cannot make anyone a means. The irony runs so deep that our religion and culture make not only people, but even God, into a means! A man stands in a temple and says to God, “Get my son a job and I will offer a coconut.” He is putting even God into his service, his employment—and along with it he lays down a bribe and a condition: only when his son gets the job will he offer the coconut!

In this way, all our religion and all our education have been teaching us: do not love, because by loving you may fail. If you want to succeed, be cautious; and if you must show love, then only to the extent you can exploit a person—love as behavior and performance within that limit.

So the so-called education has, until now, prevented human beings from becoming loving. It is quite possible that the uneducated, the tribal, the ancient forest-dwelling societies were more loving than we are. But as education, civilization, and culture have increased, human cunning, ambition, and the drive to succeed have intensified. This intensification has diminished the possibility of love.

Therefore, certainly an opposite kind of education is possible—and it should be. In that education we will not teach ambition, because an ambitious person simply cannot love. The ambitious one hates; he takes himself as the center and everyone else as a means. He grants no person enough worth to be an end in himself. If you can serve as his ladder, fine; otherwise he will kick you away. And even after climbing the ladder he will kick it, lest someone else climb up.

Ambition is violence at its core. In fact, ambition is violence—and the ambitious man can never be non-violent. Love is non-violence; love is the state of being totally non-violent—where the mind becomes completely non-violent, where it does not want to hurt anyone.

We can certainly design an education in which ambition is not taught, in which instead we help the person to flower into individuality. We lead him through disciplines by which springs of joy begin to well up within—through meditation, through yoga. We take him through processes by which he discovers the sources of joy inside himself, and slowly, slowly we help a non-ambitious mind arise in him—so non-ambitious that the very idea of turning another into a means drops away. And when he finds even a single ray of joy within, love begins in his life; then he will love, he will give love, and that love will be unconditional.

Unless such people can be born, wars will not disappear from the world. Hatred will not disappear; violence will not disappear. The history of humanity’s wars, hatred, and violence so far is proof that our education is teaching humans war, hatred, and violence. It is not teaching love.

Absolutely. An ambitious mind is a mind filled with fear. And within it there is inferiority—an inferiority complex.

So the kind of education I am talking about will try to remove the feeling of inferiority from within each person. At present, our education teaches people to suppress the feeling of inferiority and to cling to a superiority complex. It teaches each person: forget your inferiority; if you are somebody, reach high positions, accumulate wealth—prove that you are somebody. Thus a reversed situation is created: the inferiority complex remains inside, and the race for superiority begins. On the surface one runs after superiority, while inside one remains inferior.

True education—call it the education of love—will not create a sense of superiority within a person; it will only teach how the feeling of inferiority can be dissolved. Right now we are the ones who create the feeling of inferiority. Because if we don’t create it, the race for superiority will not start. And if the race for superiority doesn’t begin, how will an ambitious man be produced?

As it is, we say that boy A is weaker than boy B, less intelligent. We tell boy A: get ahead of B. Look how far behind you are; you are nothing before B. See how many certificates he brings, how many gold medals; you are nothing. Through comparison we plant inferiority in every child and instill fear: if you remain inferior, remain behind, you’ll be a nobody; you’ll never become anything. We create a fever, a burning: a fever in which he runs, panics at the thought of being inferior, and becomes ambitious.

The education I am speaking of will not teach comparison. It will not say you are behind A. It will say: you are you, and no one like you has ever been, nor will ever be. It will teach that each person is incomparable, unique—comparison is impossible. As one is, no one like that has ever been, nor can ever be. Therefore comparing—whether you are ahead of someone or behind someone—is meaningless. Comparison is only possible when people are identical.

For the state of love to arise, inferiority is not to be suppressed—neither is it to be created, nor is a feverish race for superiority to be created. Inferiority has to be wiped away. It has arisen from ignorance, from misunderstanding. No one is inferior. No one is great and no one is low, because there are not two people who are alike. Each person is solitary, unique. Therefore there is no ground for comparison.

All our education so far stands upon comparison. Comparison will create inferiority; comparison will create superiority. Comparison will create fear, the urge to run ahead or the fear of being left behind. One must avoid comparison. One must be free of comparison. So in the education I speak of, there will be no room for comparison—no comparison at all.

We will try to nurture each person in such a state of feeling, in such an environment, with such teachers and such friends, in such a school, where no one—ever, even by mistake—compares. Each person is accepted as they are. And as they are, we prepare the soil and the environment for how we can help them grow. The teacher is a collaborator in helping us become what we are; the teacher is not striving to make us into someone else, into what we are not.

There each person is supported to manifest what he can be—his potentiality, what is hidden within. And no sense of comparison is created. Then inferiority will vanish; the race for superiority will also disappear; ambition will not remain. And in such a mind—without inferiority, without superiority, without comparison—the flowering of love can happen.