Shunya Ke Par #3
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked—a question he has written himself. He has written: What concern have we with God if even a God of imagination can give us pleasure? We want pleasure. What concern have we with God? We want pleasure!
This question is important. It is important because it is not just one person’s question; thousands carry the same demand: give us pleasure.
But remember, the pleasure we have manufactured is false. It is not bliss. Bliss is that which we have not manufactured. Therefore the pleasure we have manufactured will keep being lost—again and again.
Ramakrishna would fall into samadhi. When the samadhi would break, he would beat his chest and weep: “Give me samadhi again, O Mother! Grant me the vision again! Where have you gone?”
In truth, how long can you hold on to a dream? The dream will slip away from time to time, and when it slips away, it brings pain. So the pleasure of the dream is like the pleasure of alcohol. A man drinks—then when his senses return, he says, “Give me more wine, because I have fallen into misery!” He drinks more. As long as he remains insensible, it is all right. Then his senses return and he says, “Give me more wine!” In insensibility he feels pleasure; in wakefulness he begins to feel misery again.
Whoever is getting pleasure in a dream will keep getting pain as well, because the dream will keep breaking. A dream cannot be permanent, cannot be eternal. It will break—and when it breaks, it gives great sorrow. Then the dream has to be spun again.
Pleasures can come from dreams, but they are not real, because behind them sorrow is constantly waiting.
No, bliss is something else. Bliss is not a pleasure produced by us. Bliss is that moment, that state, when both pleasure and pain have gone. All that we had manufactured has disappeared—pain gone, pleasure gone. The hells we created are gone; the heavens we created are gone. Now only that which is eternal remains. There, there is bliss.
The devotee does not attain to bliss; he attains to pleasure. For dreams do not carry one beyond pleasure. And the dream that gives pleasure is followed by the dream that gives pain; it says, “All right, you finish, then I will come.” So devotees are also seen weeping. When they get a glimpse of God, they are very delighted. And when the glimpse does not come, when the dream cannot be formed, they beat their chests, they weep, and the fire of separation torments them. It is the same old story of lovers; only the object of love has changed. They have made God the object of their love. But that does not make any difference.
To the friend who has asked that what we need is happiness! If what you need is only happiness, you can never be free of misery. Happiness and misery are two sides of the same coin. Whoever longs for happiness will keep falling into sorrow again and again—because when he picks up the coin of happiness, the other side of the same coin comes along with it. In a little while the coin flips, and what was underneath comes on top. So behind every happiness, sorrow is hidden; behind every sorrow, happiness is hidden. It is like day and night—after every day comes night, after every night comes day. It keeps changing just like that. Whoever asks for happiness can never come out of suffering.
But bliss is a different matter. Bliss is the experience of attaining the Divine, of realizing truth. Then it has no end; it is infinite. It has no other side. There is nothing hidden behind it.
Have you ever heard an opposite of bliss? It is a great wonder—there is no opposite word for bliss! The opposite of happiness is misery. The opposite of peace is restlessness. But there is no opposite of bliss. Bliss has no second face. There is no way to turn bliss into something else. Bliss is only bliss. There is nothing behind it. However deep you go into it, it is only bliss—only bliss. Like tasting the sea from anywhere, it is salty, salty, salty! However deep you go, it is salty. In the same way, taste the ocean of bliss from anywhere, approach from any direction, go as deep as you like—it is only bliss, nothing but bliss.
Happiness is not like that. If you taste happiness a little closely, you will find misery. And if you probe misery deeply, you will find happiness—because they are two aspects of the same thing. One who is immersed in the longing for happiness will certainly create the very God who belongs to dreams—because the God of dreams can grant happiness. But that dream-God will also bring misery. Devotion does not rise above dream.
Another thing to understand: in dream there is always duality—always two. In truth there is always non-duality—always one. In dreams there are two: the dreamer and the dream. In devotion too there are two: the devotee and God; the seer and the seen.
But in the realization of truth, there are not two. The experience and the experiencer are one. There is no separate seer and seen. That is why the devotee is always afraid. He keeps praying to God, “Never leave me! Do not abandon me!” He keeps praying, “May your company remain, may I sit by you, may I press your feet.” The devotee never rises beyond duality. He cannot rise beyond it—he can do so only when devotion breaks, emotion breaks, the mind breaks. Then one can go beyond duality.
The devotee lives in duality. The devotee cannot even conceive that only one may remain—because if only one remains, where will God be, and where will the devotee be? So the devotee does not long for the One to remain. But what is, is only One. Then comes the method of organizing the dream—planned dreaming. The process of seeing a systematic dream is yoga, is practice. If we grasp two or three of its sutras, the whole matter of devotion will become clear.
If you want to see an organized dream—because devotion is organized, planned dreaming. Ordinarily we see dreams every day, but they are unorganized, chaotic. We don’t know what dream will descend upon our heads. Devotion is organized, planned dreaming. We see only the dream we want to see. And the devotee’s ultimate longing is not to see it with closed eyes, but with open eyes! So the devotee must make arrangements for the dream.
Three sutras are essential for arranging a dream. The first sutra: there must be no doubt. Even a trace of doubt, and the dream will break. There must be faith, complete faith. If even a little doubt arises, the dream breaks. Doubt is a very amazing thing—it shatters dreams. Therefore doubt cannot be allowed entry into the world of devotion. There is no place for it. There, blind faith is required—utter blind faith. Blind faith means: you leave no possibility for doubt. If I have eyes, even if I close them, there is the fear that I might open them a little to see. Better to have no eyes at all—then the fear ends.
Blind faith—blind belief—is the first sutra of devotion.
Accept with eyes closed; then the dream can be complete. Then the thought will not arise, “Is what I am seeing only a dream?” Even that much, and everything collapses. So the first sutra of devotion is total trust.
And if God does not appear, those who understand devotion will say, “Your faith is not complete! There is deficiency in your faith!” Faith must become total. Total faith means that even the doubt “this is a dream” should not remain. Only then can the dream seem true.
Hence devotees have been telling people for thousands of years: have faith—complete faith, total surrender. Do not hold back even a bit of yourself to think, “I, too, am here.” Drop all thinking, all doubt, all reasoning—then devotion can certainly be fulfilled.
If you want to take a dream to be true, blind faith is the first sutra.
And if you want to break a dream, opening the eyes is the first sutra. Doubt will be the first sutra.
Devotion begins with blind faith. If you want to see the dream completely—so completely that there remains no difference between reality and dream—if you want a three-dimensional dream, where length, breadth, and height all become visible and it appears utterly real—then the mind must be weak, and the psyche must be feminine. That is why it is difficult for a masculine psyche to be a devotee.
I’m not speaking of men and women; many men have a feminine psyche, and many women have a masculine psyche. The masculine psyche cannot dream properly because its inner stance is aggressive; it is active. For dreaming, one must be passive, inactive, receptive.
The feminine psyche is more capable of dreaming. It simply receives, simply accepts! That is why devotees adopt feminine devices. If you meet a true devotee, you will feel he has set out from manhood toward womanhood. Feminine qualities begin to manifest. He has assumed the passive, feminine mind.
There are devotees who begin to regard themselves as women. They say, “We are Krishna’s sakhis.” And they don’t hold this notion merely superficially. If you understand their whole arrangement, you will be very surprised—but the arrangement is perfectly consistent. Without it, it cannot happen. They go so far on that journey that at night they go to bed with Krishna.
And it does not stop there. Those genuine devotees who have accepted the total feminine attitude—that Krishna alone is the male and we are women, his companions—even experience menstruation for four days. They abstain during those days. It cannot literally happen—and yet, with deep auto-hypnosis, perhaps even that could occur; it would not be astonishing. But for those four days, just as women refrain from certain things, so do they. Their “period” comes. These are the real devotees who have reached the logical end, the rigorous conclusion—who have taken themselves to be women completely.
To be a devotee, a feminine psyche is an essential condition. The reason is that the feminine mind is emotional, not logical.
Hence women have not produced many great scholars. As I said, women have not produced jnanayogis. That part of the mind is not so strong in them. Women have produced Meera, produced Teresa, and others like them. But women have not produced pundits and system-builders—no scripture-makers and philosophers. Women could not produce Kapila, Kanada, Mahavira, or Buddha. Women produced devotees. And among men too, those with a feminine psyche—knowledge is not their path; devotion is their path. They begin to live around God as a husband, taking God as their spouse.
The second condition: a feminine psyche, a weak resolve—absence of will. Will must be dropped completely. The aggressive attitude must be shed. Only a passive awaiting—just waiting: “Come, come.” Calling, weeping, beating the chest—“Come!” If someone—no need for long; try it—twenty-one days are enough for a vision of such a God. No more is needed. For twenty-one days, accept blindly. For twenty-one days, keep only thirst, only calling, crying, singing, beating the chest—morning till evening, evening till morning—keep one single tune: “O God, grant darshan! O God, grant darshan!” Fix God’s image clearly; sit with that image in the mind. Sleep with it, wake with it. Feed that image, bathe it, serve it. Take it to be alive, and weave your feelings around it. If every breath is dyed in it, twenty-one days are enough—twenty-one days suffice.
And within twenty-one days you will find that God’s visions have begun! Which means: you have reached the brink of madness. You have gone mad. Your mind has deranged. If you want to derange it faster, fasting is very good. Fast for twenty-one days, because the weaker you become, the stronger the dreams become! Fast. It becomes easy. Fasting reduces sleep; the time that would have gone to sleep, where the repetition could not continue, will now be available—so let the repetition continue even in sleep. Even in sleep, keep the chant—God, God—whichever deity you choose, keep the chant running. With less sleep—keep the chant running. Hungry—keep chanting to forget the hunger during the fast.
On the day one fasts, people sit in the temple, because at home the memory of hunger strikes. In the temple, hunger is forgotten. There, beating cymbals and handbells, hunger is not felt; it gets suppressed. And the hungry mind—the hungrier it is—the more it becomes prone to imagination! Its power of imagination increases. And go into solitude. Crowds interfere with dreaming. Go into solitude, because in solitude our capacity to dream brightens.
For example, we are all sitting here. If we all slept here at night, nothing would happen. But if one person slept here alone in the dark—let a leaf rustle and he would feel someone is coming; the sound of footsteps would seem audible. The trousers he himself hung on the rope after his evening bath—at night, alone in the house, they will look like a person standing there, two legs visible! He himself hung those pants!
Leave a person alone, and his imagination deepens. It starts to work. If another person is present, imagination is held back. That is why the devotee needs solitude. Give him solitude, he remains there, and his God remains there—then all is well. The brain can become disturbed very quickly.
Devotees have used other means as well to intensify this emotional capacity—smoking ganja, taking opium, hashish. And now in America new scientific tools have been discovered—LSD, mescaline, marijuana—newer substances! These are even better. If someone wants to advance in devotion quickly, scientific methods are better—because an unscientific method moves like a bullock cart, while a scientific method moves like a jet plane—very fast.
Aldous Huxley wrote a book: The Doors of Perception. In it he advises that today there is no need to labor like Meera or Kabir. By using LSD—lysergic acid—one immediately reaches the devotional state. Then whatever one wishes to see, one sees—whatever! And whatever one accepts becomes true. Because these chemical drugs invade the brain and instantly overwhelm all rational intelligence. Faith becomes total. They weaken all thought. Doubt is destroyed. And as we dream at night, the mind in that state begins to produce images.
So those who have taken LSD—by now, millions have. If you hear or read their accounts, you will be amazed. They begin to see colors we have never seen! They see forms we have never seen! Birds appear to fly that never flew! They hear sounds we never heard! Anahata nada and so on are heard a great deal after taking LSD! Exquisite music is heard! Wondrous flowers begin to bloom! And if someone is a devotee of God, God appears instantly. LSD bestows perfect faith, makes the mind feminine, and snatches away the power of thought. It is a chemical drug.
Research now shows that long fasting produces similar chemical changes in the human mind.
Long fasting produces chemical change; so does LSD. Forcing celibacy intensely produces chemical change. Pranayama—vigorous breathing—also produces chemical change. Current research is unsettling: it says all these are chemical changes.
When a man does strong breathing in pranayama, the chemical balance of the body changes because oxygen increases and carbon dioxide decreases. The inner chemical equilibrium of his personality is disturbed. When that balance is upset, the mind’s capacity to dream becomes very intense.
This new “chemical revolution” appearing around the world gives rise to a notion that to meet God one needs only an injection of LSD, or a pill, or marijuana! No need now for spiritual practice!
If devotion is a practice, then in the future no one will do devotion. In the future one will simply get a chemical tablet at the chemist, take it, and become a devotee—start dancing and singing! God will appear immediately! One’s own God will appear: Christ to the Christian, Krishna to the Krishna-bhakt, Rama to the Rama-bhakt!
A man in New York took LSD. He slept in his fortieth-floor apartment. He often dreamt that he was flying in the sky. Many people do. For those who live on the ground, dreams of flying are not surprising. Who does not wish to soar? The ambitious psyche dreams of flying—it symbolizes ambition, that we have risen above the lowly things; everything below is left behind, we are flying above!
He too dreamed of flying. After taking LSD, grave trouble arose. He immediately saw with his eyes that he had become a bird. And from his fortieth-floor apartment he flew out! Not a bone was left intact. Because LSD creates such illusion that whatever appears seems utterly true. Doubt does not arise, because the mind is freed from doubt. Not once did it occur to him, “How can I be a bird?”
Has it ever occurred to you in a dream? When, in a dream, you become a bird, do you think, “What am I seeing? How can I be a bird?” No. A dream is filled with unquestioning faith. One never doubts in a dream, “How can I be a bird?” Yes, upon waking you think, “What nonsense I saw—that I became a bird, a horse, this or that!”
The fun is, a dream has such unquestioned faith that even if you turn from a bird into a horse in a flash, you still don’t doubt, “Just now I was a bird—how did I become a horse?” No—there is no doubt in a dream. That is why I said: to see a dream, dropping doubt is the first condition; total faith is the first condition. LSD produces total faith.
The man “flew.” He flew—but he was not a bird. He fell and died. Perhaps at the moment of death he still believed the bird was dying, because he was in an LSD state.
From Vedic times till today, sages and devotees have used all kinds of intoxicants to seek God—what the Vedas call soma is not different from what modern scientists call LSD or mescaline. From soma to LSD, God-seekers have used every kind of intoxication, and have added subtler and subtler intoxications.
Music too has been used to induce intoxication. If cymbals and handbells are beaten around you for twenty hours, your head will begin to spin—try it; it’s not difficult. And if twenty people are dancing, how long will the twenty-first sit without dancing? In a while his hands and feet will twitch. A chemical change has begun in him; intoxication is taking hold! And when twenty people are beating cymbals and bells into his ears, the intellect becomes dulled, reasoning is lost. He too starts dancing! And when the feet begin to throb, the dance starts, and visions appear—then everything is different!
Devotees have used music—because music is highly intoxicating, very close to wine. With the constant blows of sound upon the ears, intoxication can be produced.
Devotees have used beauty; beauty too can intoxicate.
They have used fragrance; that too can be intoxicating.
Devotees have used everything that takes the mind into intoxication and destroys its capacity to reason—wipes out thinking—until a state arises in which there is firm trust in whatever is happening. Then there is no difficulty in obtaining visions of God.
I want to tell you: no one has ever reached the real God through devotion. Through devotion, people have reached the God they wanted to reach—not the One who is.
Feeling must be dropped. Devotion must be dropped, because devotion and feeling are parts of the mind.
One must go beyond the mind. Without transcending the mind—without rising above it—there can be no experience of truth.
But remember, the pleasure we have manufactured is false. It is not bliss. Bliss is that which we have not manufactured. Therefore the pleasure we have manufactured will keep being lost—again and again.
Ramakrishna would fall into samadhi. When the samadhi would break, he would beat his chest and weep: “Give me samadhi again, O Mother! Grant me the vision again! Where have you gone?”
In truth, how long can you hold on to a dream? The dream will slip away from time to time, and when it slips away, it brings pain. So the pleasure of the dream is like the pleasure of alcohol. A man drinks—then when his senses return, he says, “Give me more wine, because I have fallen into misery!” He drinks more. As long as he remains insensible, it is all right. Then his senses return and he says, “Give me more wine!” In insensibility he feels pleasure; in wakefulness he begins to feel misery again.
Whoever is getting pleasure in a dream will keep getting pain as well, because the dream will keep breaking. A dream cannot be permanent, cannot be eternal. It will break—and when it breaks, it gives great sorrow. Then the dream has to be spun again.
Pleasures can come from dreams, but they are not real, because behind them sorrow is constantly waiting.
No, bliss is something else. Bliss is not a pleasure produced by us. Bliss is that moment, that state, when both pleasure and pain have gone. All that we had manufactured has disappeared—pain gone, pleasure gone. The hells we created are gone; the heavens we created are gone. Now only that which is eternal remains. There, there is bliss.
The devotee does not attain to bliss; he attains to pleasure. For dreams do not carry one beyond pleasure. And the dream that gives pleasure is followed by the dream that gives pain; it says, “All right, you finish, then I will come.” So devotees are also seen weeping. When they get a glimpse of God, they are very delighted. And when the glimpse does not come, when the dream cannot be formed, they beat their chests, they weep, and the fire of separation torments them. It is the same old story of lovers; only the object of love has changed. They have made God the object of their love. But that does not make any difference.
To the friend who has asked that what we need is happiness! If what you need is only happiness, you can never be free of misery. Happiness and misery are two sides of the same coin. Whoever longs for happiness will keep falling into sorrow again and again—because when he picks up the coin of happiness, the other side of the same coin comes along with it. In a little while the coin flips, and what was underneath comes on top. So behind every happiness, sorrow is hidden; behind every sorrow, happiness is hidden. It is like day and night—after every day comes night, after every night comes day. It keeps changing just like that. Whoever asks for happiness can never come out of suffering.
But bliss is a different matter. Bliss is the experience of attaining the Divine, of realizing truth. Then it has no end; it is infinite. It has no other side. There is nothing hidden behind it.
Have you ever heard an opposite of bliss? It is a great wonder—there is no opposite word for bliss! The opposite of happiness is misery. The opposite of peace is restlessness. But there is no opposite of bliss. Bliss has no second face. There is no way to turn bliss into something else. Bliss is only bliss. There is nothing behind it. However deep you go into it, it is only bliss—only bliss. Like tasting the sea from anywhere, it is salty, salty, salty! However deep you go, it is salty. In the same way, taste the ocean of bliss from anywhere, approach from any direction, go as deep as you like—it is only bliss, nothing but bliss.
Happiness is not like that. If you taste happiness a little closely, you will find misery. And if you probe misery deeply, you will find happiness—because they are two aspects of the same thing. One who is immersed in the longing for happiness will certainly create the very God who belongs to dreams—because the God of dreams can grant happiness. But that dream-God will also bring misery. Devotion does not rise above dream.
Another thing to understand: in dream there is always duality—always two. In truth there is always non-duality—always one. In dreams there are two: the dreamer and the dream. In devotion too there are two: the devotee and God; the seer and the seen.
But in the realization of truth, there are not two. The experience and the experiencer are one. There is no separate seer and seen. That is why the devotee is always afraid. He keeps praying to God, “Never leave me! Do not abandon me!” He keeps praying, “May your company remain, may I sit by you, may I press your feet.” The devotee never rises beyond duality. He cannot rise beyond it—he can do so only when devotion breaks, emotion breaks, the mind breaks. Then one can go beyond duality.
The devotee lives in duality. The devotee cannot even conceive that only one may remain—because if only one remains, where will God be, and where will the devotee be? So the devotee does not long for the One to remain. But what is, is only One. Then comes the method of organizing the dream—planned dreaming. The process of seeing a systematic dream is yoga, is practice. If we grasp two or three of its sutras, the whole matter of devotion will become clear.
If you want to see an organized dream—because devotion is organized, planned dreaming. Ordinarily we see dreams every day, but they are unorganized, chaotic. We don’t know what dream will descend upon our heads. Devotion is organized, planned dreaming. We see only the dream we want to see. And the devotee’s ultimate longing is not to see it with closed eyes, but with open eyes! So the devotee must make arrangements for the dream.
Three sutras are essential for arranging a dream. The first sutra: there must be no doubt. Even a trace of doubt, and the dream will break. There must be faith, complete faith. If even a little doubt arises, the dream breaks. Doubt is a very amazing thing—it shatters dreams. Therefore doubt cannot be allowed entry into the world of devotion. There is no place for it. There, blind faith is required—utter blind faith. Blind faith means: you leave no possibility for doubt. If I have eyes, even if I close them, there is the fear that I might open them a little to see. Better to have no eyes at all—then the fear ends.
Blind faith—blind belief—is the first sutra of devotion.
Accept with eyes closed; then the dream can be complete. Then the thought will not arise, “Is what I am seeing only a dream?” Even that much, and everything collapses. So the first sutra of devotion is total trust.
And if God does not appear, those who understand devotion will say, “Your faith is not complete! There is deficiency in your faith!” Faith must become total. Total faith means that even the doubt “this is a dream” should not remain. Only then can the dream seem true.
Hence devotees have been telling people for thousands of years: have faith—complete faith, total surrender. Do not hold back even a bit of yourself to think, “I, too, am here.” Drop all thinking, all doubt, all reasoning—then devotion can certainly be fulfilled.
If you want to take a dream to be true, blind faith is the first sutra.
And if you want to break a dream, opening the eyes is the first sutra. Doubt will be the first sutra.
Devotion begins with blind faith. If you want to see the dream completely—so completely that there remains no difference between reality and dream—if you want a three-dimensional dream, where length, breadth, and height all become visible and it appears utterly real—then the mind must be weak, and the psyche must be feminine. That is why it is difficult for a masculine psyche to be a devotee.
I’m not speaking of men and women; many men have a feminine psyche, and many women have a masculine psyche. The masculine psyche cannot dream properly because its inner stance is aggressive; it is active. For dreaming, one must be passive, inactive, receptive.
The feminine psyche is more capable of dreaming. It simply receives, simply accepts! That is why devotees adopt feminine devices. If you meet a true devotee, you will feel he has set out from manhood toward womanhood. Feminine qualities begin to manifest. He has assumed the passive, feminine mind.
There are devotees who begin to regard themselves as women. They say, “We are Krishna’s sakhis.” And they don’t hold this notion merely superficially. If you understand their whole arrangement, you will be very surprised—but the arrangement is perfectly consistent. Without it, it cannot happen. They go so far on that journey that at night they go to bed with Krishna.
And it does not stop there. Those genuine devotees who have accepted the total feminine attitude—that Krishna alone is the male and we are women, his companions—even experience menstruation for four days. They abstain during those days. It cannot literally happen—and yet, with deep auto-hypnosis, perhaps even that could occur; it would not be astonishing. But for those four days, just as women refrain from certain things, so do they. Their “period” comes. These are the real devotees who have reached the logical end, the rigorous conclusion—who have taken themselves to be women completely.
To be a devotee, a feminine psyche is an essential condition. The reason is that the feminine mind is emotional, not logical.
Hence women have not produced many great scholars. As I said, women have not produced jnanayogis. That part of the mind is not so strong in them. Women have produced Meera, produced Teresa, and others like them. But women have not produced pundits and system-builders—no scripture-makers and philosophers. Women could not produce Kapila, Kanada, Mahavira, or Buddha. Women produced devotees. And among men too, those with a feminine psyche—knowledge is not their path; devotion is their path. They begin to live around God as a husband, taking God as their spouse.
The second condition: a feminine psyche, a weak resolve—absence of will. Will must be dropped completely. The aggressive attitude must be shed. Only a passive awaiting—just waiting: “Come, come.” Calling, weeping, beating the chest—“Come!” If someone—no need for long; try it—twenty-one days are enough for a vision of such a God. No more is needed. For twenty-one days, accept blindly. For twenty-one days, keep only thirst, only calling, crying, singing, beating the chest—morning till evening, evening till morning—keep one single tune: “O God, grant darshan! O God, grant darshan!” Fix God’s image clearly; sit with that image in the mind. Sleep with it, wake with it. Feed that image, bathe it, serve it. Take it to be alive, and weave your feelings around it. If every breath is dyed in it, twenty-one days are enough—twenty-one days suffice.
And within twenty-one days you will find that God’s visions have begun! Which means: you have reached the brink of madness. You have gone mad. Your mind has deranged. If you want to derange it faster, fasting is very good. Fast for twenty-one days, because the weaker you become, the stronger the dreams become! Fast. It becomes easy. Fasting reduces sleep; the time that would have gone to sleep, where the repetition could not continue, will now be available—so let the repetition continue even in sleep. Even in sleep, keep the chant—God, God—whichever deity you choose, keep the chant running. With less sleep—keep the chant running. Hungry—keep chanting to forget the hunger during the fast.
On the day one fasts, people sit in the temple, because at home the memory of hunger strikes. In the temple, hunger is forgotten. There, beating cymbals and handbells, hunger is not felt; it gets suppressed. And the hungry mind—the hungrier it is—the more it becomes prone to imagination! Its power of imagination increases. And go into solitude. Crowds interfere with dreaming. Go into solitude, because in solitude our capacity to dream brightens.
For example, we are all sitting here. If we all slept here at night, nothing would happen. But if one person slept here alone in the dark—let a leaf rustle and he would feel someone is coming; the sound of footsteps would seem audible. The trousers he himself hung on the rope after his evening bath—at night, alone in the house, they will look like a person standing there, two legs visible! He himself hung those pants!
Leave a person alone, and his imagination deepens. It starts to work. If another person is present, imagination is held back. That is why the devotee needs solitude. Give him solitude, he remains there, and his God remains there—then all is well. The brain can become disturbed very quickly.
Devotees have used other means as well to intensify this emotional capacity—smoking ganja, taking opium, hashish. And now in America new scientific tools have been discovered—LSD, mescaline, marijuana—newer substances! These are even better. If someone wants to advance in devotion quickly, scientific methods are better—because an unscientific method moves like a bullock cart, while a scientific method moves like a jet plane—very fast.
Aldous Huxley wrote a book: The Doors of Perception. In it he advises that today there is no need to labor like Meera or Kabir. By using LSD—lysergic acid—one immediately reaches the devotional state. Then whatever one wishes to see, one sees—whatever! And whatever one accepts becomes true. Because these chemical drugs invade the brain and instantly overwhelm all rational intelligence. Faith becomes total. They weaken all thought. Doubt is destroyed. And as we dream at night, the mind in that state begins to produce images.
So those who have taken LSD—by now, millions have. If you hear or read their accounts, you will be amazed. They begin to see colors we have never seen! They see forms we have never seen! Birds appear to fly that never flew! They hear sounds we never heard! Anahata nada and so on are heard a great deal after taking LSD! Exquisite music is heard! Wondrous flowers begin to bloom! And if someone is a devotee of God, God appears instantly. LSD bestows perfect faith, makes the mind feminine, and snatches away the power of thought. It is a chemical drug.
Research now shows that long fasting produces similar chemical changes in the human mind.
Long fasting produces chemical change; so does LSD. Forcing celibacy intensely produces chemical change. Pranayama—vigorous breathing—also produces chemical change. Current research is unsettling: it says all these are chemical changes.
When a man does strong breathing in pranayama, the chemical balance of the body changes because oxygen increases and carbon dioxide decreases. The inner chemical equilibrium of his personality is disturbed. When that balance is upset, the mind’s capacity to dream becomes very intense.
This new “chemical revolution” appearing around the world gives rise to a notion that to meet God one needs only an injection of LSD, or a pill, or marijuana! No need now for spiritual practice!
If devotion is a practice, then in the future no one will do devotion. In the future one will simply get a chemical tablet at the chemist, take it, and become a devotee—start dancing and singing! God will appear immediately! One’s own God will appear: Christ to the Christian, Krishna to the Krishna-bhakt, Rama to the Rama-bhakt!
A man in New York took LSD. He slept in his fortieth-floor apartment. He often dreamt that he was flying in the sky. Many people do. For those who live on the ground, dreams of flying are not surprising. Who does not wish to soar? The ambitious psyche dreams of flying—it symbolizes ambition, that we have risen above the lowly things; everything below is left behind, we are flying above!
He too dreamed of flying. After taking LSD, grave trouble arose. He immediately saw with his eyes that he had become a bird. And from his fortieth-floor apartment he flew out! Not a bone was left intact. Because LSD creates such illusion that whatever appears seems utterly true. Doubt does not arise, because the mind is freed from doubt. Not once did it occur to him, “How can I be a bird?”
Has it ever occurred to you in a dream? When, in a dream, you become a bird, do you think, “What am I seeing? How can I be a bird?” No. A dream is filled with unquestioning faith. One never doubts in a dream, “How can I be a bird?” Yes, upon waking you think, “What nonsense I saw—that I became a bird, a horse, this or that!”
The fun is, a dream has such unquestioned faith that even if you turn from a bird into a horse in a flash, you still don’t doubt, “Just now I was a bird—how did I become a horse?” No—there is no doubt in a dream. That is why I said: to see a dream, dropping doubt is the first condition; total faith is the first condition. LSD produces total faith.
The man “flew.” He flew—but he was not a bird. He fell and died. Perhaps at the moment of death he still believed the bird was dying, because he was in an LSD state.
From Vedic times till today, sages and devotees have used all kinds of intoxicants to seek God—what the Vedas call soma is not different from what modern scientists call LSD or mescaline. From soma to LSD, God-seekers have used every kind of intoxication, and have added subtler and subtler intoxications.
Music too has been used to induce intoxication. If cymbals and handbells are beaten around you for twenty hours, your head will begin to spin—try it; it’s not difficult. And if twenty people are dancing, how long will the twenty-first sit without dancing? In a while his hands and feet will twitch. A chemical change has begun in him; intoxication is taking hold! And when twenty people are beating cymbals and bells into his ears, the intellect becomes dulled, reasoning is lost. He too starts dancing! And when the feet begin to throb, the dance starts, and visions appear—then everything is different!
Devotees have used music—because music is highly intoxicating, very close to wine. With the constant blows of sound upon the ears, intoxication can be produced.
Devotees have used beauty; beauty too can intoxicate.
They have used fragrance; that too can be intoxicating.
Devotees have used everything that takes the mind into intoxication and destroys its capacity to reason—wipes out thinking—until a state arises in which there is firm trust in whatever is happening. Then there is no difficulty in obtaining visions of God.
I want to tell you: no one has ever reached the real God through devotion. Through devotion, people have reached the God they wanted to reach—not the One who is.
Feeling must be dropped. Devotion must be dropped, because devotion and feeling are parts of the mind.
One must go beyond the mind. Without transcending the mind—without rising above it—there can be no experience of truth.
A friend has asked: You say that truth cannot be expressed in words?
It cannot be said. That which is known by rising beyond the mind has no way of being told, because to tell it one needs the mind. What is not known through the mind cannot be said through the mind either.
But they have asked, “Two plus two is four—that is the truth, at least that much you can say, can’t you?”
They don’t know that two plus two equals four is not truth, it is only a convention. Not truth—merely our agreement. Two and two could be five, and two and two could be six. It’s a matter of what we agree to. Perhaps they don’t know much mathematics. Einstein used only three numerals—one, two, three! He said there was no need to assume numbers up to ten.
There really is no need. Have you ever wondered why we count up to ten? And then why everything spreads out from ten? You may never have noticed. The reason for counting to ten is quite curious. There is no deep mathematical reason. Man has ten fingers—that’s all. Nothing more than that. Because man began to count on his fingers, the count of ten caught hold of him first. So all over the world the number system of ten runs—because everywhere in the world there are ten fingers. Now, having ten fingers is no... but out of that the system of ten arose. Because of that system, two and two make four.
Einstein used to say: one, two, three are enough. If we accept three as the base, then how will two and two make four? Because there would be no digit four. One, two, three! After three would come: 10, 11, 12, 13! After 13 would come: 20, 21, 22, 23! How much would two and two be? Two and two would be 10, if we accept three as the number-base! These are all matters of convention. They have nothing to do with truth.
Mathematics is pure convention. A game we have agreed upon—the play of numbers. We agreed, so it runs that way.
Language is also our agreed-upon game. Language is nothing but a game. We have agreed, so the game goes on. If even one person refuses, we cannot make him consent. We say, “This is a hand.” And someone says, “Why should I call it ‘hand’?” Then no power in the world can convince him that it must be called “hand.” He says, “We call it ‘hand’ in English, so it must be ‘hand.’”
And if he says, “We don’t accept even that,” then there are thousands of languages in the world, and for “hand” each has its own game. Thousands of games. All languages are games. There is no compulsion that it must be ‘hand.’ What this is—this is. The rest—the word—is your game. Call it whatever you like; no problem arises. The hand never says, “Who am I?” Whatever you wish, call it that. If ten of us agree, “We will call this a hand,” then for those ten, language becomes workable.
Language is convention; truth is not convention.
Therefore, as far as language goes, you cannot come upon truth. And the moment the mind drops, language drops too. As far as mathematics goes, you cannot come upon truth. And the moment the mind drops, mathematics drops too. When the mind is gone, all is gone. And then what remains—what is it? There is no way except to know it.
Nothing will be known by my saying so. Nothing will be known by anyone else’s saying so. Yes, only this much may be known: that perhaps there is something outside the walls of our house. You go to the outer side of the wall—stand outside. I can only say this much: it is not within the walls of the house. Therefore, whatever has been said about the Divine has always been negative—via negation. It is neti-neti. Only this can be said: “Not this, not that.” Only this can be said: “Not this, not that.”
So you will ask, What is it? That cannot be said. Only this can be said: it is not in this wall of the house, nor in this wall, nor in this wall.
You will ask, Then in which wall is it? Then I must fall silent. It is not in any wall. It is outside the walls. And if you go outside all walls, you will find it.
Hence the entire search for truth is a search by negation.
The entire search for the Divine is a search by negation.
The person who can deny everything ultimately attains That-which-is.
But if you are weak in denying and you say, How can I deny? How can I deny devotion? How can I deny knowledge? How can I deny action? How can I deny worship, the priest?—then you will remain standing within the walls of priest, worship, devotion, knowledge. You will not reach outside to truth. And all these are games.
Devotion is a game of feeling.
Knowledge is a game of thought.
Action is the game of the mind’s layer of doing.
Tomorrow we will consider that third layer—what this game of action is. And if you step outside all these games—step outside! You can. You already are. But you don’t know it, don’t remember it. If you step outside, then what you will know—there is no word that can tell it. No picture can depict it. No image can represent it. No pointing can indicate “there it is,” because there is a great error in pointing.
Let me say the final thing. There is a great mistake in pointing. If I say, “There it is,” pointing always sets a limit; for then what about what lies outside the point? We can point only with respect to something limited: “There it is.” But then what of all that remains outside the pointing?
With regard to the Divine, you cannot point with a finger. The only gesture possible is with a clenched fist: “Here it is.” “Here it is” means: we cannot point anywhere for it. If we point, confusion will arise. If we say, “somewhere,” then it cannot be “everywhere.” If we say, “It is there,” then how will it be “everywhere”? That which is to be everywhere must be nowhere. That which is to be “everywhere” must be “nowhere” in the sense of not located anywhere. Therefore no pointing works. No sign works.
But then what is the way?
Drop all signs. Drop all pointers.
There really is no need. Have you ever wondered why we count up to ten? And then why everything spreads out from ten? You may never have noticed. The reason for counting to ten is quite curious. There is no deep mathematical reason. Man has ten fingers—that’s all. Nothing more than that. Because man began to count on his fingers, the count of ten caught hold of him first. So all over the world the number system of ten runs—because everywhere in the world there are ten fingers. Now, having ten fingers is no... but out of that the system of ten arose. Because of that system, two and two make four.
Einstein used to say: one, two, three are enough. If we accept three as the base, then how will two and two make four? Because there would be no digit four. One, two, three! After three would come: 10, 11, 12, 13! After 13 would come: 20, 21, 22, 23! How much would two and two be? Two and two would be 10, if we accept three as the number-base! These are all matters of convention. They have nothing to do with truth.
Mathematics is pure convention. A game we have agreed upon—the play of numbers. We agreed, so it runs that way.
Language is also our agreed-upon game. Language is nothing but a game. We have agreed, so the game goes on. If even one person refuses, we cannot make him consent. We say, “This is a hand.” And someone says, “Why should I call it ‘hand’?” Then no power in the world can convince him that it must be called “hand.” He says, “We call it ‘hand’ in English, so it must be ‘hand.’”
And if he says, “We don’t accept even that,” then there are thousands of languages in the world, and for “hand” each has its own game. Thousands of games. All languages are games. There is no compulsion that it must be ‘hand.’ What this is—this is. The rest—the word—is your game. Call it whatever you like; no problem arises. The hand never says, “Who am I?” Whatever you wish, call it that. If ten of us agree, “We will call this a hand,” then for those ten, language becomes workable.
Language is convention; truth is not convention.
Therefore, as far as language goes, you cannot come upon truth. And the moment the mind drops, language drops too. As far as mathematics goes, you cannot come upon truth. And the moment the mind drops, mathematics drops too. When the mind is gone, all is gone. And then what remains—what is it? There is no way except to know it.
Nothing will be known by my saying so. Nothing will be known by anyone else’s saying so. Yes, only this much may be known: that perhaps there is something outside the walls of our house. You go to the outer side of the wall—stand outside. I can only say this much: it is not within the walls of the house. Therefore, whatever has been said about the Divine has always been negative—via negation. It is neti-neti. Only this can be said: “Not this, not that.” Only this can be said: “Not this, not that.”
So you will ask, What is it? That cannot be said. Only this can be said: it is not in this wall of the house, nor in this wall, nor in this wall.
You will ask, Then in which wall is it? Then I must fall silent. It is not in any wall. It is outside the walls. And if you go outside all walls, you will find it.
Hence the entire search for truth is a search by negation.
The entire search for the Divine is a search by negation.
The person who can deny everything ultimately attains That-which-is.
But if you are weak in denying and you say, How can I deny? How can I deny devotion? How can I deny knowledge? How can I deny action? How can I deny worship, the priest?—then you will remain standing within the walls of priest, worship, devotion, knowledge. You will not reach outside to truth. And all these are games.
Devotion is a game of feeling.
Knowledge is a game of thought.
Action is the game of the mind’s layer of doing.
Tomorrow we will consider that third layer—what this game of action is. And if you step outside all these games—step outside! You can. You already are. But you don’t know it, don’t remember it. If you step outside, then what you will know—there is no word that can tell it. No picture can depict it. No image can represent it. No pointing can indicate “there it is,” because there is a great error in pointing.
Let me say the final thing. There is a great mistake in pointing. If I say, “There it is,” pointing always sets a limit; for then what about what lies outside the point? We can point only with respect to something limited: “There it is.” But then what of all that remains outside the pointing?
With regard to the Divine, you cannot point with a finger. The only gesture possible is with a clenched fist: “Here it is.” “Here it is” means: we cannot point anywhere for it. If we point, confusion will arise. If we say, “somewhere,” then it cannot be “everywhere.” If we say, “It is there,” then how will it be “everywhere”? That which is to be everywhere must be nowhere. That which is to be “everywhere” must be “nowhere” in the sense of not located anywhere. Therefore no pointing works. No sign works.
But then what is the way?
Drop all signs. Drop all pointers.
A friend has asked:
Osho, you say knowledge is not a path, devotion is not a path, action is not a path—then what is your path?
Osho, you say knowledge is not a path, devotion is not a path, action is not a path—then what is your path?
I am saying: there is no path.
So do not ask for my path, because if I were to tell you mine, it would become a fourth path. That too is not it. There is no path. And the person who stands outside all paths arrives ‘there.’ Other than being outside the paths, there is no other path.
I am grateful that you have listened to my words with such peace and love. And in the end, I bow to the Divine seated within everyone. Please accept my salutations.
So do not ask for my path, because if I were to tell you mine, it would become a fourth path. That too is not it. There is no path. And the person who stands outside all paths arrives ‘there.’ Other than being outside the paths, there is no other path.
I am grateful that you have listened to my words with such peace and love. And in the end, I bow to the Divine seated within everyone. Please accept my salutations.
Osho's Commentary
The great power of the human mind is bhav—feeling. But power serves going outward; for going inward it becomes an obstacle. Feeling has great uses—and great misuses.
In a deeper sense, bhav means: the capacity to dream. It is that feeling-energy within us which manufactures dreams.
Dreaming has its uses. The greatest use of dreams is that they make our sleep smooth; they do not hinder it.
It is helpful to understand this a little.
Ordinarily we think that when a dream comes at night, it disturbs sleep. That is not so. Dreams do not disturb sleep; dreaming is the device by which sleep continues. If there were no dreams, sleep would very quickly be interrupted.
For example, you went to bed hungry. That hunger tries again and again to break your sleep: Get up—there is hunger! The dream arranges otherwise—The dream says, Eat, why get up? The dream provides food! The dream can provide false food. You begin to eat in the dream, and sleep goes on its way. You are thirsty; without dreams the sleep would break. So the dream arranges a river flowing full: drink to your heart’s content.
You have set an alarm to wake at four in the morning. Now the alarm will break your sleep. The dream does not hear an alarm clock—it hears temple bells ringing, worship underway! Dream is the trick to protect sleep, a safety measure. It arranges that sleep not be broken.
Ordinary sleep is protected by dreams.
There is another great sleep—call it spiritual sleep—in which we are asleep twenty-four hours a day. That sleep too needs many dreams to keep it going. That is why we keep seeing dreams of the future. Today there is sorrow, so I keep dreaming: tomorrow all will be well. Today I am a servant, so I dream: tomorrow I will be the master. Just a little while, just a little waiting.
I have heard: a fakir died. And when he reached before God he asked, I am amazed—why are people alive at all? What is the reason they keep living? People are so miserable—why do they not die?
God said: Because of hope! Today there is suffering—tomorrow all will be well!
So in life there is a deep sleep too. The sleep we take each day is very ordinary—the body’s need. But there is another deep sleep in which we have been asleep since birth! And very few are fortunate enough to awaken from that sleep before death. Dreams are most important for running that sleep as well. They keep hope tied to us.
Once it happened in a monastery in Egypt—a fakirs’ ashram—that a man died, a fakir died. Their rule was this: beneath the ashram a trench had been dug miles long, and the dead were dropped down into it. The fakir died, the stone slab was opened, and the body was lowered into the charnel pit. The rock was shut.
But a mistake had happened. The fakir had not died—he was only unconscious. The stone closed. The fakir regained consciousness.
Such a mistake happens many times. We often take the living to be dead; and often we take the dead to be living.
We are all dead men who imagine ourselves alive.
Just this morning I was saying that we die at one time and are buried at another. A man dies very early—some at twenty, some at fifteen, some at ten, some at five! But he is buried at seventy, seventy-five, eighty! The interval between dying and being buried—that is when we live dead. So it is no surprise that if we can take the dead to be living, we might also take the living to be dead!
That man came to, and imagine his plight! There, besides corpses, no one. Darkness, insects, worms, those who fed on corpses. A stench, a foul reek. Would that man have killed himself? He did not. Hope kept him alive! He thought: perhaps tomorrow someone will die and the stone will open! The stone opened only when someone died. He shouted a great deal. He knew that his voice would not carry beyond the rock, yet he shouted all the same.
Hope makes everything happen. Perhaps someone might hear!
He knew no one would hear. The ashram was distant from the pit. And the stone sealed hard; he himself had sealed it many times when a man died—lowered the corpse and shut it. He knew no one would hear, yet hope said, Shout—perhaps someone will! Someone might be passing! No one heard, and still hope kept him alive—that tomorrow someone might die, this evening someone might die, the day after someone might die!
That man lived down there for seven years! How did he live?
The first day or two he somehow bore the hunger. But how long could a hungry man last? He was a fakir—had never eaten meat, never even thought he might. And the meat of dead corpses—he had never thought that. In comfort one never knows what one can do; one learns only in discomfort.
Who knows when he began to eat—rotting flesh—he himself did not notice. He began to catch worms and insects and eat them, because staying alive was necessary. From the walls of the burial trench, the runoff of drains seeped in; he licked it, sipped it—because staying alive was necessary. Only a matter of two or four days; someday someone would die, the charnel would open, and I would get out.
And that fakir, who had prayed for all—God, grant everyone a long life—still prayed, but now saying: Let one man in the ashram die, otherwise how will this grave open! O God, in some way kill one man!
Seven years is a very long time, in that darkness, in that charnel. ... After seven years someone died, the rock opened. The man came out.
People had forgotten him. They did not recognize him; at first they ran away, thinking a ghost had come. Who had emerged from the charnel? The man’s hair had grown down; his eyelashes had grown so long his eyes would not open. And astonishingly, he came out carrying some belongings!
In Egypt there is a custom: the dead are dressed in new clothes; one or two extra outfits are placed with them, some coins too. He had collected all the dead men’s clothes and money—in the hope that when he came out, it would be useful. And when he said, Don’t run, I am the same man you buried seven years ago. And don’t be afraid—I had not died, I was alive.
They said, That you had not died and were alive—that is not the great wonder. How did you live for seven years in that charnel?
The man said: On the support of hope! I kept thinking tomorrow—and the days kept passing. And what passed I forgot. And hope for tomorrow kept being tied: tomorrow... And see, my hope has succeeded; at last the charnel has opened and I am out.
All life long we keep seeing tomorrow’s dreams. And the dream of tomorrow helps us stay alive today. The dream of tomorrow does not let today’s sleep break. We bear today’s sorrow and remain asleep.
The power of bhav, the power of imagination, the power of dream—these have uses, but not spiritual uses. They are profoundly non-spiritual uses. Some use this very power to search for God—this very power. This deep power of imagination—they use it and call it bhakti. They say, We will live with the God of our own imagining. We will imagine God so intensely, feel so deeply—how could he not come?
He does come. But that is not the real God; that is only the God of our imagination. If imagination is intense we can manufacture our own gods—just as we like. And imagination has such power that, compared with it, even a man actually standing before us can seem pale, while the imagined one appears more real. In daily life we do this all the time.
Majnu became infatuated with a woman. The whole village said he had gone mad—the woman is ordinary. But Majnu could not see that. He saw something else. He had draped his imagined woman over that woman. The woman known to the villagers was only serving as a peg. She was not the real woman. The real woman was in his mind, which he had hung on that peg.
Majnu was summoned by the village king. He said, You have gone mad!—for you will be surprised to know that Laila was a plain-looking woman. The king said, You are mad—for a plain-looking woman? We can give you girls far more beautiful; let her go. He called ten or twelve beautiful girls and said to Majnu, Look—look at these girls.
Majnu looked and said, I can see no one but Laila.
The king said, Have you gone mad?
Majnu said, Perhaps—but right now it seems to me you are mad, to call Laila plain! Have you seen Laila?
The king said, Madman! I have seen her well. She passes my gate every day. The whole village has seen her; the whole village laughs; the whole village says Majnu has gone mad for an ordinary woman. He can get a very good woman. Leave thinking about her.
Majnu said, Then you have not seen Laila through my eyes. You do not know Laila. To know Laila you need Majnu’s eye. Only my eye can see her.
The truth is: the Laila that is—she is Majnu’s creation, Majnu’s production. He has imposed his imagined woman upon Laila. That is why a beloved looks so beautiful, while a wife does not look so. Even if the beloved becomes the wife, she no longer appears the same, because once she becomes wife, the imagined woman that was draped upon the peg slowly slips away. Only the peg remains. And then one realizes: this is a great deception, a great mistake.
Those lovers remain happy who never get their beloved, because their imagination stays awake. But those who do get the beloved—their imagination breaks.
I have heard: a psychologist went to an asylum to study the insane. The head of the asylum, showing him a madman, said, See that man in the barred cell? He was a university professor.
A university professor should always be careful—he can go mad any time. The university is a preparation for the madhouse. There is always danger there—on the verge; they stand right at the edge; a little push and they go.
This one was a university teacher—he went mad. The visitor asked, What was the cause of his madness?
He said, See the photograph in his hand? That woman is the cause. He loved her and could not have her—and he went mad.
They moved on. In another barred cell, the head said again, See that man? He too went mad; he is the first one’s friend.
What caused his madness?
He said, The same woman whose photo I showed you—the woman loved him back; he married her. Because of her he went mad.
One went mad by not getting her; one went mad by getting her!
Still, the head said, the one who went mad by not getting her is happier—because he still thinks that someday he might get her. This one, who went mad by getting her, is very unhappy—he has no hope left.
Men impose imaginations on women, women on men. Fathers impose imaginations on sons; sons on fathers. Hence everyone is troubled afterward. Because when the real man appears, it seems: What sort of son is this?—the one I raised? The one you raised was your image, your imagination. He was not the real person. The one who now stands before you—he is the real person.
The mother says, I kept you in my womb for nine months! The one she kept in her womb never gets born—that was her imagination. The one who is born is someone else. And even after he is born, the mother keeps imposing her dreams. He is small—he cannot stop her: Do not project your imagination. The mother keeps imposing—You will become Napoleon, you will become Vivekananda, you will become Krishna! Who knows what all she makes of him in her mind! When the boy grows up and becomes himself, all imaginations break. The peg stands naked. The mother is very unhappy: For this son... it would have been better not to give birth. Where did this son come from?
We live in imagination twenty-four hours a day. On the basis of these very imaginations some want to attain God. Some have even attained—but that God is the God of our imaginations. If one imagines systematically, any imagination can take form.
I have heard about Tolstoy: he was climbing a staircase in a library—narrow steps—and with him a woman was walking. Not a real woman. With poets a real woman is rarely there! With them walks the woman of their imagination.
With Tolstoy a woman walked—she was a character in one of his novels. He was writing the novel; she was a character—she was walking with him. Talking with her, he ascended the stairs. Only Tolstoy knew of her; no one else. The stairway was narrow; a man was coming down from above. There was space for only two. And that third woman—lest she be jostled—this was before 1917; now in Russia no one fears or cares about pushing a woman—lest she be jostled, Tolstoy moved aside and fell down the stairs.
The other man came down and said to Tolstoy, Why did you move? There was room enough for two!
Tolstoy said, If there were only two, why would I move? Only with my knee broken did I realize we were two; I was thinking we were three! I was talking to a woman.
He said, What woman? I see no woman!
Tolstoy said, Now I too do not see her—but for that, my leg had to be broken. The leg broke—and then it was clear: I had erred.
Now, if Tolstoy wishes to have the darshan of God, he will have no difficulty. In place of that woman, God will walk; he will talk with the flute-playing God! Or with the bow-bearing God!
This is absolutely simple for Tolstoy. For it is the same faculty, the same arrangement of the mind, the same dream-producing mechanism. We can dream so intensely that what is not present begins to seem present; we begin to talk to it; we begin to live with it!
This power of bhav—when set toward God—is called bhakti. This capacity to dream, when directed toward God, becomes devotion. The devotee begins to live with God twenty-four hours a day.
But remember: feeling gives birth to dreams, and dreams are always private. Dreams are never public. A mark of dream is this: however much we try, two people cannot see the same dream. A criterion: that which cannot be made public, which two cannot see together—that is a dream. That which ten can see together—that is truth.
Dreams—each of us will see our own. No socialism can ever be brought into dreams. It can never happen that all see the same dream. Because a dream is my private affair, your private affair. And even if I appear in your dream, I remain only the me of the dream—I cannot truly be present there.
God too—for devotees—is an utterly private experience—completely private! Not public.
If in one house we lock Meera, Francis and Tulsidas together, there will be great commotion in the night. Meera will keep seeing her Krishna; Tulsidas will keep seeing his Rama; Francis will keep seeing Jesus. And in the morning the three will quarrel: You are wrong—where was Krishna here? Francis will say, There was no sign of Krishna; Jesus stood here all night! And Meera will say, What Jesus are you talking about? Did you not hear the flute? All night there was dancing! And Tulsidas will laugh: Have you two gone mad? Neither any dance happened here nor was anyone on a cross—Rama stood guard with bow and arrow!
We manufacture our gods. We can manufacture our gods. One can waste an entire life—many lives—with a dream-God. There is this convenience in a dream-God: there is no peg at all—only the dream hangs there. Hence difficulty never arises. Only the dream—and the dream is in one’s own hands. Even to make God dance is in one’s own hands. So the devotee makes his God dance; the devotee runs ahead, and behind him his God runs to appease him! They are his own God—born of his own imagination.
Through bhakti no one has ever reached God. Because of bhakti, as many have been prevented from reaching God—perhaps by nothing else have so many been stopped. But it is pleasant. And man wants pleasure more than God. Who is it that truly wants God?