Sumiran Mera Hari Kare #1

Chaitanya Kirti!
Baba Maluk Das has a famous saying:
Do not finger the rosary, do not mutter; let not the tongue say “Ram.”
My remembering is done by the Divine; I have found repose.

Maluk Das is one of those rare beings you can count on your fingers. Even among the rare, he is rarer. Not a conventional saint—he is a rebellious one. His being is not traditionalist, rigid, fossilized; he is fiery, ablaze like flame. Each of his utterances, weighed against diamonds, outweighs them—diamonds are dust beside his words. And this is his loveliest utterance. If you go into its depth, you will sink into the depth of meditation. It contains the very essence of meditation.

“Do not finger the rosary, do not mutter...”
Maluk says: count a hundred thousand beads—nothing will happen. That’s mere formality. No outer act can take you inward; outer acts drive you further out. And man is so crazy—he does irreligion outside and religion outside. Then what difference is left between them? The tavern is outside, and your mosque, your temple, your gurdwara, your church—outside as well. One thing is common: both are outside! Both journeys are outward; neither can bring you to yourself. Someone sings a film song—lost in his tune; someone goes on chanting “Ram, Ram”—lost in his tune. But both are entangled in the mind. Whether it is a film song or the praise of Ram—these are activities of the mind. No activity of the mind can take you into no-mind. If you would go beyond mind, you must leave all the mind’s doings behind.

If you would find truth, if you would find yourself, neither Kaaba nor Kashi will help. It is not a matter of abandoning the world; it is seeing that the outward journey is futile. The energy tied up outside has to be released from the outside so it can set out on the inner pilgrimage. You must dive within yourself. There—what rosary, what name, what chant! No mantra there, no tantra there, no yantra there. Scriptures are left behind. Words are left behind—how will scriptures remain?

“Do not finger the rosary, do not mutter...”
So I do not turn a rosary; I do not count the name of Ram on my fingers. I do not even “remember Ram.” See this revolutionary proclamation! I have dropped even the remembrance of Ram, for remembrance itself is external. Memory is fashioned for the outside. The mind is engaged in serving the outer; it is a slave of the outer. Whether the mind becomes religious or irreligious—it makes little difference. Whether it serves the vicious or the virtuous—same coin.

In the ultimate vision of religion, the bad and the good are two sides of the same coin; neither can connect you to the Divine. The danger is this: the “bad” person, wounded by his own inner pain—“What am I doing?”—perhaps out of remorse, out of self-pricking, may one day set out on the inner journey. But the “good” person, who thinks, “I give charity, I earn merit, I build temples, I perform worship, I recite scripture”—why should he drop any of it? He is doing nothing wrong! His chains are of gold. The bad man’s chains are iron. Iron chains chafe and hurt; one wants to break them. But it is easy to mistake golden chains for ornaments. And if they are studded with jewels, what to say—then even gold seems fragrant.

So the sinner might perchance remember the Divine, but the virtuous man goes on wandering and getting stuck. Sin obstructs less than virtue does. In religion’s vision both are to be dropped, because it is the outward journey you must abandon. In truth, you are to drop doing, to drop activity, to drop the mind, the entire commerce of the mind. You are to reach that innermost stillness where no ripple arises—no film tune, no abuse, no remembrance of Hari. No wave arises there. Waveless, thought-free, without alternatives. In that very state is the experience. In that state is the vision, samadhi. In that state is the solution.

Maluk says it exactly: “Do not finger the rosary or mutter; let not the tongue say ‘Ram’!” Why should I say “Ram” with the tongue? What meaning has a Ram uttered by the tongue? None at all. And remember: when saints use the word “Ram,” they are not concerned with Ram, son of Dasharatha. The word “Ram” is far older than that prince. “Ram” is one of the names of the Divine. Even before the Ram of the epic, there was Parashuram—“Ram with the axe.” The name “Ram” already existed; that is why the prince too was given the name Ram. So do not fall into the misunderstanding that the reference is to Dasharatha’s son. Ram is one name of the Divine, as Hari is one name, as Om is one name. Choose any name, for in truth he has no name—he is the Nameless.

“...let not the tongue say ‘Ram.’”
Why should I say it with the tongue? Why say at all? What will saying do? Why call out? Why raise a din? Why make a show?

“My remembering is done by the Divine; I have found repose.”
I have sat in supreme rest.

This is meditation. Rest is meditation. Where there is no act, no movement, no stirring. Everything has become still. Not even a leaf stirs. Only silence upon silence. In that supreme void, a wondrous event occurs—Maluk Das says—the Divine himself remembers you; you need do nothing. He takes care of you. He takes your concern. He alone should; he alone can. We are his limbs. We are rays of his energy. We are little lamps; he is the sun. The light in us is his light.

By “God” I mean this whole existence, the totality. This existence is not filled with indifference toward us; it is full of supreme love for us. From this existence, ceaseless streams of love flow toward us at every moment. But we sit closed. The rain is falling, our pots are kept upside down. The rain passes; we remain empty. We keep crying, “When will our thirst be quenched? When will our dissatisfaction end?”—and the pot sits upside down. “Why do we not get filled? God is gracious to everyone; why not to us? Is he angry with us? Are we suffering the fruits of sins from past births?”

You are not suffering the fruits of sins from past births. These are your devices to talk yourself into consolation. You do not want to set the pot upright; so what inventions you devise! What theories you discover! How clever you are! How tricky! You concoct such theories—so full of dishonesty—that there is no end to them. And once you have a theory, you cling to it.

For thousands of years you have been telling the poor they are poor because of sins in past lives, and telling the rich they are rich because of past merits. The pundit profits and profits. The rich man is doubly pleased. First, because his merits from past births are being proclaimed. The world knows his dishonesty. The world knows how he amassed his wealth, whose throats he has slit, whose blood he has drunk. He may strain his water, but he drinks blood unstrained. Everyone knows his exploitation. And yet the pundit keeps crying that in past lives he performed meritorious deeds. So one benefit is that, under the din of past merits, the sins he commits in this life get concealed, get minimized. Draw a long bold line of merit and the line of sin looks small. Lamps of merit are lit; talk of merit resounds; bells ring. Then who counts the sins of this life! That’s one gain.

The second gain is that the theory he gives leaves the poor with no scope to rebel. What sense is there in revolt! If you did sins in past lives you must suffer now—what else? As you sow, so shall you reap. You have sinned; therefore suffer. Do at least this much: do not sin now, or you will suffer again in the next life. So no revolt, no revolution, no uprising; for all that is sin—and then you will suffer more. What has accrued already is enough. Settle this account somehow. Get free of the past first; do not take on new trouble.

Thus the wealthy are pleased in two ways: the sins of this life are hidden by the noise about past merits, and they gain protection from the poor. Therefore no revolution could occur in this country. Marx could not be born here—could not! No conception of communism could arise here—impossible—for the definitions and conditioning of this country’s mind are deeply bourgeois. The conditioning of this country’s psyche is heavy, inert. The cultural grooves are anti-revolutionary. For five thousand years this is perhaps the only country where no revolution has happened. Even today the possibility is dim, because we still carry the same rotten mind.

And the poor too see a gain in it. They get consolation: if I suffer, there is a cause. The moment a cause is found, man feels comforted, consoled. Sympathy comes in the form of people saying, “What can he do? He is helpless; what happened in past lives cannot now be undone. What is done is done. When was it done? One cannot undo it now. So he must suffer.”

Therefore in this country the question of serving the poor does not arise; he is reaping his karma. Will you obstruct his fruit? Let him reap. If you obstruct by serving, then in the next birth he will have to reap it again. You will bring no benefit, only harm.

Among the Jains there is a sect, Terapanth. Acharya Tulsi is its head. The Terapanthis hold that if a man falls into a well, do not save him—since he is experiencing the fruit of his karma. He must have pushed someone into a well in a past birth. If you pull him out, how will he reap that fruit? And if he does not reap it—and reap he must—then he will have to fall again. What would have been settled in one fall, you have created more trouble—you have arranged for two falls. And for the obstruction you put in the order of life, you will have to reap the fruit of karma. If not into a well, you will fall into a smaller tank. But fall you will. Thus you have done twofold mischief: sin for yourself, and obstruction in that man’s life.

The Terapanthi position goes so far that even if someone is dying of thirst in the desert, do not give him water. Quietly go on your way. Do not waver. Remain steadfast, unmoved—for he is reaping his fruit; let the poor fellow reap it. As he has done, so must he suffer.

What kinds of theories! What astonishing “spirituality”!

Therefore the Indian sadhu-sannyasi does not serve; he takes service. The talk of service—this Christians brought. That is a Christian conception. It is not the conception of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists. You cannot even imagine a Jain muni serving someone. When Jain householders go for the darshan of their muni, their language is: “We are going to serve the muni.” It is unimaginable that a Shankaracharya—of Puri or of Dwarka or anywhere—would be serving. Impossible.

Thus we have harried the shudras for five thousand years. We have been giving them the fruits of their karma. Otherwise why would they be shudras! They are shudras because they sinned. Let them reap the fruit. And if we do not give them the fruit, who will? We are engaged in God’s work! Give them their fruit—the right fruit—so they will not commit such error again. As a judge gives the right fruit, does he not? If you steal, cheat, defraud, the judge’s work is to give you such a fruit that you will not do it again. This is the work of the Brahmin, the priest, of all you “good people.” The question of service does not arise.

Saved from service, saved from revolution. And there is a strange comfort besides: “What can we do! You too can do nothing. It is not your fault—this is old fault.” And the poor find relief too: they have a cause.

A delightful fact about the mind is that until it finds a cause for something, it is restless. Even a false cause brings it peace. Until a cause is found, it keeps asking, “Why? Why so?” Thought arises, anxiety arises. The moment a cause is found, the arithmetic is solved. The mind has its answer. Hence if you are poor, blind, lame, crippled—the answer is clear: you are reaping the karma of past lives! You must suffer. This brings relief, consolation. Now only take care that you do not commit such error again.

We have spun a web of bizarre theories! The truth is something else. The truth is: you are sitting with your pot upside down; set it upright and it will fill right now. Or some have set it upright but do not see that the bottom is broken. They say, “What are you saying! I do keep the pot upright, but it doesn’t fill.” Then look whether there is a bottom or it is broken. The bottom is broken. Some have a sound bottom, but there are so many holes that as the pot fills, it empties. And some have no holes, the bottom is sound, the pot is upright—but the pot is so filthy that even if nectar rains from the sky, it turns to poison. The purest water falls, but the moment it reaches your pot—not to speak of drinking—it is unfit even to touch. So the pot must be cleaned. The whole matter is to be done now.

Meditation completes this entire process. First: the pot is set upright. The mind is set aside and consciousness faces the Divine—this is the pot upright. Thoughts disappear—holes are sealed. Thoughts, desires, cravings, ambitions, yearnings, lusts—these are the holes, thousands of holes. When these are gone, the pot has no perforations. The ego disappears—the bottom is no longer broken. Ego has smashed your bottom. Ego is killing you.

And what a strange ego! It has built staircases. The Brahmin, full of ego, looks down upon the Kshatriya. The Kshatriya’s pleasure is to look down upon the Vaishya. The Vaishya’s pleasure is to look down upon the Shudra. Do not think the Shudra is exempt—he too has made arrangements. The cobbler looks down upon the sweeper. Among shudras, no one considers himself equally shudra; they too have built steps.

I once went to speak at a barbers’ gathering. A wondrous saint, Sena the barber, was being celebrated on his birthday. People had come. I said, of course I will come. But apart from the barbers, no one came to listen. Those who regularly come to hear me did not come. Later I asked them, “You were nowhere in sight!”

They said, “How could we sit with barbers! Sit among the naus! Barbers are shudras!”

Some are Brahmins, some Kshatriyas, some Vaishyas—how could they sit among shudras!

Another time I went to speak at a cobblers’ gathering. They wanted to hear me on the words of Ravidas. I thought at least the barbers would come here; there the barbers hadn’t come. They did not come here either. I asked the barbers, “Why, brothers, you were so angry that others didn’t come; you at least should have come. You are shudras, they are shudras.”

They said, “What are you saying! To a gathering of those ‘chamarrattas’ and we should go! We are barbers!” Nowadays they do not even call themselves barbers; they call themselves Sena—“We are Sena; we cannot go to the cobblers’ gathering. Sit among cobblers?”

In the cobblers’ gathering only cobblers came—no one else. And even then not all cobblers came. I asked, “Are these all the cobblers here?” They said, “No, there are more. But among us too there are higher and lower castes. Those who do better work are a different caste. They consider themselves higher. Those who sell shoes consider themselves higher than those who skin dead animals.”

So step upon step we have built. Man has been fractured like this.

Where there is ego, this is bound to happen. Ego breaks everyone’s bottom. And where ego is, there can be no relationship with the Divine. The Divine will go on raining; you will remain empty. Ego cannot be filled. When has anyone’s ego been filled? Ego is empty and remains empty, try as you will to fill it.

Meditation is the alchemy that accomplishes this astonishing work. It dissolves your ego. Where there is emptiness, where is the sense of “I”? And where there is no “I,” what Brahmin, what Shudra, what Kshatriya, what Vaishya! And where the mind is gone, the pot is upright—consciousness directly linked to the Divine. And where desires have ceased, the holes are gone.

And what is all the turbidity? Of anger, enmity, jealousy. These are poisons smeared inside your pot. But when the mind falls, these poisons fall away. All these poisons extend only as far as the mind; beyond the mind they have no reach. All this restlessness, all this turmoil, is of the mind.

Maluk Das is right:
“My remembering is done by the Divine; I have found repose.”
He says: my rest has happened. I am no more. I have come to such rest, such stillness—movement gone, doing, running, hustle, bustle—all gone—that then I discovered something astonishing, a unique miracle, the wonder of wonders: I am not chanting the name of Ram, yet the Divine remembers me; for twenty-four hours he keeps me in his remembrance! For twenty-four hours his grace showers on me—unasked.

Unasked, pearls are given; asked, not even bran.

That is why I have chosen this title—for the coming ten days. May it happen in your life too; only then know that you have lived, only then know you have gained something, only then know that life has become meaningful.

Paola Falachi! First, one who cannot take care of himself can never fulfill any other responsibility. The first responsibility is toward oneself, and if you miss there, you will miss in all responsibilities. One who is not at peace himself cannot bring peace to anyone. One who is not blissful himself cannot make anyone else blissful.

We can give to others only what we have. If we have misery, we will give misery; there is no alternative, it cannot be otherwise. This is an inevitability of life. Yes, we may wish to give happiness, but by wishing we cannot give anyone heaven. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why?

Paola Falachi, those sons and daughters who are with their parents—are their parents satisfied, fulfilled by them? Which parents are content with their children? Which parents are not full of complaints? Which husband is not full of complaints against his wife, which wife is not full of complaints against her husband? Which children are not full of complaints against their parents? And all over the world everyone says, “We love,” yet love is nowhere to be seen. The music of love is not heard. The flowers of love do not blossom in experience. Nowhere does the fragrance of love drift. Everywhere there is lovelessness, hatred. What could be the reason? Precisely that we try to give to others what we ourselves do not have. The husband is not blissful himself and is busy trying to make the wife blissful—how can that be? The wife is not blissful herself and is trying to make the husband blissful—how can that be? It is like two beggars standing before each other with bowls out. Who can give whom? Both bowls are empty. And both are getting angry with each other.

Two astrologers met on a path. They met every day, passing that way in the morning on their way to the market. They would show each other their palms: “Brother, just read my hand—how will business go today?”
If astrologers are showing their palms to each other, whose hands will they be able to read? They don’t even know themselves; how will they give anyone else a direction!

Two psychologists once met in a garden, out for a morning walk. One psychologist said to the other, “You look fine and healthy. Will you say something about me—what is my condition?”
You can see the other from the outside and he appears fine and healthy. But you don’t even have the capacity to see yourself, because you have no capacity to go within. “What is my condition? Tell me something about me”—this we keep asking the other.

Paola, this thought arose in your mind that these young men and women come here and are so blissful, but they have left their parents at home in anguish. Those who have not left their parents—are their parents blissful? Think of that too. And if parents are in anguish, it is not necessary that the reason is their children coming here. The cause may be their own stupidity, their own rigidity. For their rigidity the sons and daughters are not responsible.

Just now a letter came from a woman—to her daughter. Her daughter—she is a sannyasin, and she is from your country, Paola, from Italy—must have sent my books to her mother. The mother read the books and wrote back, “I felt happy reading them; what is said is absolutely right. I only want to know one thing: is this person with whom you have stayed a Catholic or not? If he is a Catholic, then all is perfectly fine. And if he is not a Catholic, then come home as soon as you can.”
She writes that my words are right. But what has that to do with anything? She knows that her daughter is blissful, but even that has no meaning; what matters is whether the person she has stayed with is a Catholic or not. Certainly I am neither Catholic nor Protestant, neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Jain nor Buddhist. I am simply a man—purely, just a human being! No adjective. Now if this mother becomes distressed, is her daughter responsible? It is the mother’s foolishness. What can the daughter do about the mother’s foolishness? She tries: she sends books, she writes letters, she tries to explain—what more can she do? Do you think if this daughter goes back she will be able to make her mother blissful? She will only lose her own bliss. And what bliss could the mother have attained so far, if she has not yet understood even this much in life—that religion has nothing to do with being Catholic, Christian, Hindu or Muslim! The mother is superstitious. If someone suffers because of their superstitions, whose fault is that? Where is the mistake?

Then we should close all schools, because Christians believe that the earth is flat, and the children will return from the university having learned that the earth is round; the parents will be distressed. Christians believe that the sun goes around the earth, and the children will come back from the universities having learned that the sun does not go around the earth; the earth goes around the sun. The parents will be distressed. What are we to do? Look to the parents’ distress, or look to the truth? Then all the universities should be shut. And even then do you think parents will become blissful? Parents are hardly ever blissful! Whose parents are blissful? Parents always have complaints.

In this world no one can become blissful because of someone else; you cannot be blissful on account of another. Bliss is an inner phenomenon, it happens spontaneously. Bliss arises out of meditation, not out of relationships.

Therefore, this that you see, Paola—that all around here you see people who are blissful, and you too feel it is a beautiful thing. Do you also see such blissful people who are living with their parents? If not, then how are those unblissful people fulfilling their responsibilities? They must be dragging them along unwillingly. Inside, the children are thinking, “When will we be rid of this cantankerous old man? When will this old woman die so the nuisance ends?” And in the West, sooner or later the children leave the parents anyway. In the West the old parents live in hospitals or old-age homes. They are going to be left somewhere or other. If these young people have come here, immediately a question is raised that they have abandoned their duty. If they had gone somewhere for a job and were earning money—even if they earned by stealing, even if by dishonesty—then they would be said to be fulfilling their responsibility. But their being blissful is not considered fulfilling a responsibility!

In my view, if they return some day with bliss, perhaps they will be able to share it. Wherever they go, they will scatter rays of joy. In my reckoning responsibility is secondary, number two; bliss is first. And only a blissful person can truly fulfill his duties. A miserable person cannot fulfill his duties; even if he does, he does it forcibly, out of compulsion—he has to, that is why he does it. There is no juice in his doing.

And if you can understand me—it will be difficult—I teach self-interest. For me the word swarth is not a bad word. Swarth means: the meaning of the self. Swarth means: to know who I am. And the person who knows himself undergoes a revolution in life. He will be a good husband, she will be a good wife, a good son, a good daughter, a good father, a good mother. Whoever he is, wherever he is, there will be a fragrance in his life, a juice in his relationships; because upon his every way of living there will be the imprint of the divine. I am not anti-self-interest.

You will be even more surprised to know, Paola, that in my understanding only one who understands self-interest rightly can be altruistic. I do not see a conflict between self-interest and other-interest. One who is not truly self-interested can never be altruistic. One who has not yet realized the meaning of himself—how will he realize the meaning of others? Yes, you can force him to do something for others, push him into service; he will do it. But it will be compulsion, coercion; there will be no joy in it. And what is the point of that in which there is no joy? What juice is there in that which does not arise from within you?

I teach self-interest. The flowers of altruism bloom only on the tree of self-interest. Yet up to now you have been told and retold that self-interest and altruism are opposed—drop self-interest and do altruism. All through human history this foolish notion has been preached. The result has been that altruism has not happened, and self-interest has not happened either. First I say: strengthen your roots so that flowers may blossom in your life. When flowers blossom, their fragrance will certainly reach others. And if your own roots are not strong, do not fall into the illusion that you can ever give fragrance to anyone.

Paola’s second question is:

Pavla, up to now you have only been taught war. Love has not been taught. You have been readied for war; you have been given no role in love, no lessons in peace. Though politicians say they want peace, their peace is strange indeed! They want peace and build atom bombs! They want peace and build hydrogen bombs!

Leave others aside—this is Gandhi’s India, the land that talks of nonviolence—yet it spends seventy percent of its wealth on armies. People are starving, half naked, with no clothes, no houses, no kerosene; even basic needs go unmet, yet the military bulls are being fattened. Colonels, generals, majors—these are all bulls with nothing to do. Drill them, because there is danger—the neighboring countries are fattening their own bulls! If their bulls are doing push-ups and squats, make ours do push-ups and squats too. Everyone wants to keep his flag high. No one really cares about the flag; everyone wants to keep his stick high! The flag is the excuse; hidden behind it is the stick.

As long as there are nations, there will be wars. Nations must dissolve. Enough now. There is no need any longer for India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Italy, Japan, Germany. Enough. Nations must disappear from the earth. As long as there are nations, wars will continue.

I am experimenting with this here. Here no one knows who is who, and no one cares. The whole world is living here like a single family—a small family, but it contains people from everywhere. People from thirty, thirty-five nations—and yet no discrimination.

Religions must go. Religion should remain; religions, in the plural, should disappear. There is no need for many religions—one is enough. What need is there of Hindu, what need of Muslim, what need of Christian? What need of popes and shankaracharyas? It is enough that people are religious; and to be religious, meditation is needed—nothing else. There is no need to believe in the Bible, the Koran, or the Vedas. And these Bibles, Korans and Vedas are stuffed with such foolishness that only blind people can swallow them. If someone looks at them with eyes even half open, he will be embarrassed: how to accept all this? There is more rubbish than jewels; a jewel is found only now and then. And the jewels you will discover within yourself by digging in meditation; why be harassed by all that trash? And until you have found your own jewels, you won’t even be able to know what in the Vedas is trash and what is jewel. How will you know? You have no touchstone, no standard, no balance.

If wars are to disappear from the world, Pavla, then nations must go, religions must go, borders must go—every kind of boundary must go. The earth is one. The earth is one and it should be one. One government is enough for the whole earth; all these nations, these powers, these governments are unnecessary.

My sannyasins are taking the first step in that direction. As their number grows, politicians will get more worried, because my sannyasin is a rebel in every way—and is already rebelling.

Pavla, if you want to end war, spread sannyas; if you want to increase war, raise soldiers. Soldier and sannyasin are opposites. A soldier means war—war and the preparation for war. A sannyasin means peace—the preparation for peace. Spread the sannyasin! Spread the color of sannyas! Drown the whole earth in meditation! Wars will end of their own accord. Wars are not needed; they have been fought without cause, in vain. In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. And until now it was still somehow possible, because our means were petty and poor. Now the matter is grave. Now if there is war, it will be total. In a single war the whole world will end—no humans left, no animals or birds, no plants, not even insects. Life itself will not remain. We are standing at the door of a catastrophic war.

In one sense this is good, because we will have to decide. Only in moments of such danger do people decide; otherwise they don’t. When life itself is at stake, then decisions are made. Now life is at stake. Before this century ends, the world will have to decide: if you want war, let nations continue; if you do not, bid nations farewell. Once nations are gone, India need not keep an army—against whom would it keep one? Pakistan need not keep an army—against whom? And right now armies are devouring everything. Seventy percent of the world’s wealth is eaten up by armies. This world could become a paradise. Just imagine if that seventy percent were invested in productive work, and these idle people who do nothing all day but drill—foolishness! Left turn! Right turn! What is the point of left turn and right turn? Why on earth are you turning left and right? Has someone gone mad? If there is work, by all means turn; but to turn left-right for no reason! Forward march! About turn! No one even asks why forward, why back! The “preparation” goes on. The neighbor is always a threat.

If nations vanish from the earth, that threat ends, that fear ends. The days of nations are over now, the days of politics are over. This rotten world of politicians—its time has come to end. They have tormented the world enough. They themselves have brought us to the point where humanity must choose: either die—collective suicide, universal suicide, a global suicide—or a great revolution in which we change all the old patterns and procedures, begin to create the human being afresh from the alphabet. Man needs to be remade.

That great work is happening here on a small scale. Today the work is small; in twenty years it will be big. By the time this century ends, you will see that from this work a direction has begun to emerge for human life.

The energy of meditation must spread in the world, and the climate of love must spread in the world. I have only two teachings: go within into meditation, and go without into love.

Opposition to me is inevitable. Scholars will oppose me, priests will oppose me, popes and pastors will oppose me. Politicians will oppose me, the custodians of society will oppose me, vested interests will oppose me—those who have held power till now will oppose. Naturally so, because I want to cut them at the root. This is a revolution from the very root.

My sannyasin is not an old-style sannyasin, not an escapist who runs off to some cave in the Himalayas. My sannyasin will stand in life and live in a new way. His life will have two facets—love and meditation. Meditation for himself; love for others. Meditation will be his center; love his circumference. And as more and more people are filled with meditation and love, the possibility of war in the world will grow weaker and weaker.

Politicians have been exposed and have rotted; they are standing like corpses—just a push is needed and they will fall. No great intelligence is required in politics.

I have heard: a man needed to have his brain replaced. His old brain had decayed, so he went to a surgeon. The surgeon said, “A brain can be replaced. Choose the brain you like, according to your means, according to the strength of your pocket.” He then showed him many brains in his laboratory. There was a scientist’s brain priced at only twenty dollars, and a politician’s brain priced at two thousand dollars. The man exclaimed, “Incredible! I thought scientists’ brains were precious. The politician’s brain costs two thousand dollars and the scientist’s only twenty—and this scientist had even received a Nobel Prize!”

The doctor laughed and said, “You didn’t understand. Because the scientist’s brain had received the Nobel Prize, it costs twenty dollars—it has been used up. The politician’s brain has never been used—there was never any need—it has never come into service. Think of it as brand new! Hence the price, two thousand dollars.”

What use has a politician for a brain! The less brain, the greater the chance of success in politics. It is a world of fools, and fools have tormented us enough. These Genghis Khans, Taimurlangs, Nadir Shahs, Alexanders—and we keep calling them ‘great’! History is filled with them, and we stuff children’s skulls with this garbage of names. Burn this whole history! We don’t need it. Give children just a few names—of Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Mahavira, Farid, Nanak, Maluk—that is enough.

We should teach the whole of history differently. Teach what those said who spoke of love. Teach the words of those who spoke of the divine. Teach the sutras of meditation given by the awakened ones. Why teach about those donkeys who devastated life, laid it waste, committed massacres, flooded the earth with blood!

We will have to change our entire color and style. Now we must change, Pavla, because you ask rightly: “You know that right now the world is talking of war.”

And this talk is not ordinary, it is extraordinary—because the next war will be the last, the decisive one. Either man will survive or he will be finished. If man is to survive, people will have to listen to those like me; and if you do not wish to survive, fine—go on living as you have lived, and die like bedbugs and mosquitoes. This earth will be emptied; it will fall silent. The incomparable flame of consciousness that a few have lit in the human race over centuries will be extinguished. The great work the buddhas have done will be lost. The temple they built will be buried in dust. It is all in your hands.

Bid the soldier farewell; make room for the sannyasin. Stop the language of war; teach the lessons of the language of love. But to teach the language of love, everything will have to change. Radical change is needed. It won’t do to shout a few peace slogans or to take out a peace march with a few flags saying, “We do not want war.” That will not solve anything. What is needed is a creative work—the very kind of creative work that is happening here.

Pavla, try to understand this. This is a beginning. In my vision all these things are contained. In what I am doing there is a complete plan—a total philosophy of life for the future of humankind.

The third question is from Pavla:

Certainly—because I give them an even bigger intoxication. What intoxication can they manage in Italy! Marijuana, hashish, ganja, opium, LSD... I am giving them meditation. Once the intoxication of meditation takes hold, all other intoxications drop. And the beauty of the intoxication of meditation is this: it is, and it is not. Meditation is a profoundly paradoxical high. It awakens you and it drowns you. It intoxicates too. It fills you with ecstasy and it also ignites supreme awareness. It sharpens your inner consciousness, breaks your stupor, puts dance in your feet and humming in your throat. It gives you song—such songs, such colors, that rainbows spread through your very life-breath, that lotuses bloom within you! One who has tasted this intoxication—every other intoxication falls away.

In my view, those who take drugs are actually searching for meditation. They have not yet found meditation; so they grope in the dark and grab whatever comes to hand. Someone drinks alcohol—I say he too is seeking meditation. But meditation is not bottled and available everywhere; alcohol is. And what is he trying to do by drinking? For a little while he wants to forget the turmoil of the mind. But the mind’s turmoil does not end; the next morning it is back, standing there with double force.

What is the person doing who takes marijuana, LSD and such drugs? His life has gone flat, sad, heavy with boredom. He no longer feels any juice or meaning in life. He is frightened. All the colors have drained away, all the songs are ruined. Nowhere does he sense any dignity, any splendor. He feels: let me vanish, die—or find some way by which meaning can arise. So the poor fellow takes a drug. He takes a drug and, for a little while, trees look green again, flowers seem beautiful again, he experiences the signature of the divine on butterflies; the moon and stars start to shine; his eyes gleam like a child’s; he is wonder-struck. But how long will it last? After a short while he is back on the same ground. It was only imagination. It was a hallucination of meditation. Meditation gives this permanently. What drugs give only as a deceptive glimpse, meditation gives steadily—and once given, it doesn’t go.

I am not treating drugs or drug-takers. I recognize their search. So when someone who uses drugs comes to me and says, “Can I also become a sannyasin? Because I drink, because I am in the habit of smoking ganja?” I say: Precisely for this reason you drank, precisely for this you smoked ganja—you were groping in the dark. Now you have come into the light. Become a sannyasin. The one who has never smoked ganja, never taken opium, who has always sat there like a gobar-Ganesh in some shop—what kind of sannyasin will he be! At least you were seeking! You were searching. The search was going in the wrong direction, but search is search. Even if it is wrong, at least it is there! One who searches wrongly will one day search rightly too.

I do not do any “cure.” But I give such a great intoxication that, in its presence, the small intoxications drown by themselves. You were trying to drown in a palmful of water. I say: the whole ocean is here—why are you trying to drown in a handful of water! How will you drown? You cannot. Here is the ocean: take a plunge such that there is no coming out.

Three children were talking at school. One said, “My father is a great diver. When he dives into the water, he doesn’t come up for five to seven minutes.”

The second said, “That’s nothing. My father is a diver. When he dives, he disappears in the water for half an hour.”

The third said, “That’s nothing! My father is a diver—today it’s been seven years since he dived, and he hasn’t come up at all.”

I teach the third kind of dive: once you dive, you dive—there is no question of coming out.

Dharm Jyoti! Precisely for that reason! The real is hard to run, because buyers for the real are rare. The real is a costly bargain. For the real, you have to pay a real price. The fake comes cheap.

Mulla Nasruddin was in love with a woman. He brought her a diamond ring as a gift. A big diamond—about the size of a jujube berry. The woman was startled. Set in gold, it glittered so! She was delighted. When Nasruddin slipped it onto her finger, she hugged him at once and said, “Nasruddin, you really do love me! No one loves me the way you do. But tell me one thing—is this diamond real?”

Nasruddin said, “If it isn’t real, then the bastard I bought it from cheated me out of a whole rupee and a half!”

A real diamond the size of a jujube—for a rupee and a half! And set in gold! Nasruddin said, “If it’s fake, you tell me—I’ll crack open the skull of the guy who sold it to me saying it was real. I paid him cash—one and a half rupees. Though, to be honest, that one and a half I handed him wasn’t real either. So even if it’s fake, I haven’t lost anything of mine. But I’ll teach him a lesson!”

Religions run by pandits and priests are fake; that’s exactly why they keep going. But your question is right: then why have they gone on for centuries and centuries? The question does arise: if something has run for so many centuries, surely there must be some truth in it! Our math goes like this: if something is that old and still running, it must be true.

Oldness has nothing to do with truth. The fact that something is old only tells you that it has kept appealing to the crowd. And what has the crowd to do with truth! The crowd likes untruth. The crowd wants consolation, comfort. And untruths are very comforting. They give great consolations. To earn truth, you have to pay the price—perhaps with your life; perhaps by sacrificing yourself; perhaps by putting your neck on the block. Untruth asks nothing of you. Untruth only asks that you offer a couple of coins—and you are clever too; you even offer fake coins.

In my village, tableaux of Krishna were celebrated with great fanfare. It was the special feature of that village. People from far-off villages would come to see them. At Krishnashtami, in the monsoon when the swings were hung, the temples were decorated and crowds gathered. I, too, would form a little gang of four or six boys and head to the tableaux. And we had worked out a trick. At that time there was a two-paise coin, almost the same size as a rupee. We would cover it with silver foil so it looked exactly like a rupee. And the crowds at the tableaux were so large, and so much money was being thrown, that the priest couldn’t possibly take it by hand—people just tossed it. So we would also throw our fake two-paise coin, with the silver foil, with a good ringing clink so the priest would notice that a rupee had been thrown. And immediately we’d ask for eight annas in change!

So the days of the tableaux were very profitable days. We’d go to one temple four, even six times. Eventually the priests began to get suspicious: “What’s going on? This boy comes six times in one night! And every time he tosses a rupee with such a clink!” Then, when they counted the money at night, they started to discover that these six “rupees” were fake two-paise coins covered with silver foil. One day, as soon as I threw the “rupee,” a priest grabbed it at once and said, “You wait—you won’t be able to cheat us today. You keep passing off fake two-paise coins and taking an eight-anna change from us.”

I said to him, “That swing you’ve hung—are there any real Krishnas sitting in it? Whom are you rocking? We’re only doing what you’re doing. You’re doing it on a large scale; we’re doing it on a small scale. We’re still young; when we grow up, we’ll do it on a large scale too. Let us practice, sir! If we practice now, only then will we get good at it.”

He started laughing. He said, “That’s true enough. Here, brother, take your eight annas. Don’t tell others. Keep this secret to yourself.”

And I said, “We aren’t just cheating you. There are thirty or thirty-five temples in the village—we give to all of them, equally. We see everyone with equal regard. Isn’t that what Krishna says in the Gita—to see all with equal vision?”

This swindle goes on. And when you run a swindle, the public knows it. You can hire a priest for four coins to perform a Satyanarayan katha. Liberation accomplished! You’re securing moksha for four coins! Mahavira must have been a fool, knocking his head against meditation for twelve years! The Buddha a simpleton, staking his life for six years before he attained meditation. And you—getting a Satyanarayan katha done for four coins—from a man who knows nothing of truth. You know it too. Who will come and tell the story of Satyanarayan for four coins! And have you ever listened to that Satyanarayan katha? There is neither truth in it, nor any Narayan. But who listens! Who cares to listen! Who wants to know! The business of lies is red hot. Lies are very easy to sell.

Fake things sell more than the real.

Beloved!
The stars in the sky are banging their heads,
no one asks after them;
it’s the film stars that shine.
Poor moon, luckless,
he’s eclipsed by “moon-faced” beauties,
because fake things sell more than the real.

Nights burned out the eyes,
all through the summer season,
ten times did the revision—
still, they didn’t pass;
hope broke.
Those who made merry all year long
walked away with first division.
Understand, dear ones!
Copying and cheating bear more fruit than study,
because fake things sell more than the real.

As everyone knows:
more than the moon,
the “moon-faced” are valued.
The royal throne
has become a seat for lies;
truth sleeps in the grave.
Imitation pearls glitter on lovely bosoms,
while with the physician in his mortar
the poor genuine pearl is pounded.
Looking at the neighbor’s jewelry,
the honest Harishchandra’s wife weeps:
“We’ve no oil to cook with,
and she’s smearing butter on the dog’s tail!”
Because fake things sell more than the real.

Listen further, brother:
Maganlal Malaiya
weeps over his fate.
Manmohan-ji kept mixing—
salt into lime, lime into soda,
trash roasted into the garam masala,
and charged double.
Sawdust into the cumin,
“lofty thoughts, simple living.”
Brick dust in the chili,
water soaked into the sugar,
and the money poured in.
Crying, Malaiya-ji says,
“Ten years of life were wasted;
we fools kept selling the genuine stuff—
real tobacco, real puffed-rice brittle—
and that’s what sank our boat.”
The real is costly, the fake is cheap;
who will buy the costly—are the people mad?
Dear, the cheap moves faster than the costly,
because fake things sell more than the real.

The village’s great beauty
doesn’t do well in the city,
and a city matron looks like a girl.
Powdered paste, modern dress, a gleaming face,
red on the lips, kohl black in the eyes—
with a wig of false hair,
youth doesn’t fade,
because fake things sell more than the real.

Clever people think
the fake has more power than the real—
Dalda-eaters keep ballooning.
The living Ram goes to the forest;
the Ramlila’s Ram is worshiped.
Jesus’s throat hangs from the cross,
and Christians hang the cross on their throats.
Autobiography is true,
satire is false—
therefore people read satire more than memoir.
Wrestlers keep at their practice,
men with fake moustaches become bosses.
How did Netaji get the votes?
The secret is his false promise.
People forget the original song, but the parody circulates;
before liars, the dish of the truthful doesn’t cook,
because fake things sell more than the real.

Paper flowers outlast real flowers.
More people drink cocktails than straight liquor,
for we Indians worship Ardhanarishvara—
we are synthesizers,
accustomed to adulteration,
fond of mixtures.
“Live with give-and-take,”
our grandparents told us.
We fancy the “other” more than our own;
we like the mixed more than the pure.
Where’s the fun in plain milk?
We prefer tea,
because fake things sell more than the real.

Listen even to the doctors:
“Don’t feed real milk to children.
If it’s in their fate,
Amul or Lactogen will be found in the market—
bring that home.”
Children’s health is built on tinned milk;
only fools keep a cow at home nowadays,
because fake things sell more than the real.

Wisdom weeps, cunning laughs;
dishonesty smiles, honesty gets trapped.
All the lamps burn out, but the darkness doesn’t lift.
Life ends, but death doesn’t die.
Feet grow tired, the crutch never tires—
because fake things sell more than the real.

Dharm Jyoti, that which is fake has kept going—naturally, precisely because it is fake. The real has obstacles. The real has a thousand hindrances. That is entirely natural. The older the thing, the more carefully, knowingly, thoughtfully you should receive it. Understand this: if it is that old, it is very likely fake. If it has gone on this long in the midst of the crowd—how could it be real?

Truth is always new, ever-fresh—new like the morning dew, new like the first ray of the morning sun. Lies are old, very old. But lies advertise themselves well. Lies live on propaganda. And propaganda has its marvels—astonishing marvels of advertising. Shout it loudly!

That is exactly what pandits and priests have been doing for thousands of years. You don’t even stop to wonder what you are doing: standing with folded hands before a stone idol! A statue made by men, adorned by men—and you stand bowing to it. And you find it difficult to fold your hands before a living person. The stone idol sits there as God, and in a living human being you cannot see the divine! What a marvel! How propaganda has blinded you—how it has put colored lenses over your eyes. Whatever lens is put on, that is all you see.

Where there is newness, there is the possibility of truth. And remember, to choose truth is always to choose the cross. To choose truth is always to choose the difficult path. To choose truth is always to walk on the razor’s edge. Therefore only a few courageous ones choose it.

Dr. Shobhalal! I have no problem giving you my blessing—what do I lose? But then I think of the patients. If your practice doesn’t run, there must be some secret to it. You can’t run a medical practice in thin air. It isn’t a kite you fly on the wind; you run it on patients. You must have been doing a number on them; otherwise, your practice would have taken off.

Why would God be angry? God must be pleased with you—you keep sending people to become God’s favorites! He would love for your practice to flourish, for Shobhalal to send Him more and more people. But doesn’t the patient also have a right to preserve his life? Doesn’t he have the birthright of self-defense?

I could bless you—what do I lose? But you are one, and the patients are many. Seeing your question, I was thinking, “Let me bless him.” Then I thought, what would that blessing mean! Who knows how many patients you might dispatch to heaven at once. And if your practice hasn’t run for a long time, you must be all primed—sharpening your knives and forks, keeping your toolkit ready—waiting to pounce.

Mulla Nasruddin once went in for an operation. He was nervous—anyone would be. It was an appendix operation; the belly would be cut. He was sweating all over, though the operating theatre was air-conditioned. The doctor said, “Why are you so nervous, Nasruddin?”

Nasruddin said, “I’m nervous because this is my first operation.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” the doctor said. “Am I nervous? This is my first operation too. When I’m not nervous, why are you?”

Nasruddin stood up. “Then I’m leaving. This is too much trouble. If it’s your first operation, go practice on someone else. First practice on animals and birds; then operate on humans.”

Shobhalal, is it that you want to practice directly on human beings? What do you say? If your practice doesn’t run, there must be a reason. Find the reason. Somewhere you’re making mistakes. But in our country, no one needs to seek reasons. If things don’t run, it means there’s a flaw in one’s fate. Bravo! Better to say, “Others have good fate.” There’s nothing wrong with your fate.

Mulla Nasruddin fell off his donkey. I went to see him. I said, “Nasruddin, your donkey did something amazing! Such a smart donkey! I heard you fell off, and the donkey went and brought a doctor!”

“Brought a doctor!” Nasruddin said. “He brought Dr. Shobhalal! He is a donkey after all—he couldn’t find any other doctor in the neighborhood.”

First go practice. Practice on donkeys like Nasruddin’s donkey. You’ll find other donkeys too. Practice free, or even pay to practice. And if you don’t get such a facility, go to Punjab and settle in Hoshiarpur, because I’ve heard this story—

For work, Mulla Nasruddin once went to Hoshiarpur. The train reached at ten at night. During the long journey he got a severe stomachache. He asked the station master if there was any transport. “As for transport,” the station master said, “there are only tongas and ekkas.” Somehow he got outside the station, saw a tonga standing there, the horse grazing on grass laid out on the road in the night. He asked a passerby, “Brother, where’s the driver of this tonga?” The villager said, “Brother, what’s a driver?”

Nasruddin said, “Good lord, the height of foolishness! Just as I’d heard, so I’ve found. The one who drives the carriage is called the driver.”

The man beamed. “Oh, oh, now I know what a driver is! Look, there he is—grazing on the grass harnessed to the tonga.” Such foolishness pained Nasruddin. After a while the tonga-wallah came; Nasruddin somehow persuaded him to go to a doctor. The jolts in the tonga increased his pain. Along the way he saw lamps lit at every house—five at some, ten at others, as if Diwali everywhere, lamps upon lamps! After a while the tonga stopped before a broken-down house. The tonga-wallah said, “Here you are, sir, the doctor’s house.”

Nasruddin knocked. An elderly man opened the door with a lantern in his hand. Seeing Nasruddin, he said, “Come, my boy, come. Tell me, what’s the trouble?”

“Sir,” Nasruddin said, “I’ve come from out of town, and I’ve a terrible stomachache. It was bad enough, but your Hoshiarpur tonga nearly killed me—my soul is flying away. Give me some medicine quickly, or the cage will be left behind and the bird will fly.”

“Don’t worry, son,” the old man said. “Here, I’ll give you such a medicine that the disease will be uprooted.”

The old man started preparing the medicine, and they chatted. Nasruddin asked, “Tell me, why are there lamps at every house?” The old man said, “The thing is, son, for each patient a doctor kills, he lights that many lamps in front of his house. So what you saw on the way—our Diwali—we celebrate the deaths of patients.”

By then the medicine was ready. As Nasruddin drank it, he said, “But, sir, on every house there were five lamps, ten lamps, rows of lamps, yet on your house there isn’t a single lamp! How is that?”

The old man grinned. “Heh-heh-heh, it will be lit, son, it will be lit. God willing, today itself. He is the one who sent you to me!”

Dr. Shobhalal, who knows what kind of doctor you are—homeopathic, allopathic, ayurvedic, biochemical, naturopathic? These days there are so many doctors; so many people are after the patients to kill them! One patient and a thousand killers. They cut at the root. Whether there is disease or not, the treaters pounce. Healers are everywhere. Who knows what kind of doctor you are—and you ask for a blessing. I meditate on your patients.

God is not angry, but think—somewhere you must be making mistakes. This has become our old habit, our inherited pattern: we never look at our own errors. We always look for the mistake somewhere else—fate, God, past karma. Not in ourselves—we shift responsibility elsewhere. This way of thinking is wrong; it is unscientific.

Think, be aware—what mistakes are happening? And is it not that you became a doctor by force? Many times it happens that parents decide to make the child a doctor, and they do. The one who should have been a tailor becomes a doctor. The one who should have been a doctor is a cobbler. The one who should have been a cobbler is selling sweets. The one who should have sold sweets is making clothes. Everything is topsy-turvy. No one gives anyone the space, the chance, to become what he wishes to be.

I asked a little boy, “What do you want to become?” He said, “I’m in great confusion. My father wants me to be a doctor. My mother wants me to be an engineer. My uncle is a musician; he wants me to be a musician. And my aunt is fed up with my uncle and is divorcing him. She says, ‘Don’t you ever become a musician. These musicians are so unfaithful—he makes connections who knows where. That’s why I’m divorcing him. Become anything, but not a musician.’ So I’m in a huge fix—what should I become and what not? And no one even asks me what I want to become. Everyone is imposing their own thing.”

This disorder is nearly universal. People impose on you what you should become. Therefore you never manage to decide where your life’s naturalness will flower and bear fruit.

I want a life, a social order, where each child is gradually led toward his own destiny; where we understand the child rather than imposing our ambitions on him. Otherwise there will be a mess. The one who should have been a blacksmith becomes a doctor—mess is inevitable. The one who should have been a tailor becomes an engineer—what sort of engineer will he make! The one who should have been a cobbler becomes a teacher—he will go on cobbling through the pretext of teaching.

Today the situation is that almost everyone is where he should not be. Very few are where they should be. That is why there is so much disorder, so much anarchy. God has no fault in this. Blessings are not at fault. We need to reconsider.

Think again, Shobhalal. If you feel this is not your juice, not your joy—drop it even now. What’s lost? Become a carpenter, open a shop, take a job, scrub utensils, bake tandoori bread—do anything. But do what gives you zest.

And remember one thing: the question is not who does a higher job; the question is whether whoever is doing whatever, is doing it with supreme skill or not.

When Lincoln became president of America, a man, to insult him—on the very first day as he addressed the assembly—stood up and said, “Don’t forget, Mr. Lincoln, your father used to mend shoes at my house!” Lincoln’s father was a cobbler. Silence fell in the house—such a crude remark, meant to humiliate. But Lincoln was his own kind of man. He said, “Thank you for the reminder. I feel grateful to my father. I know one thing: I have never seen another man who could mend shoes like him. There have been many presidents like me and will be many more, but a shoemaker like him—he was unique. No one can fill his place. And I want to ask, he made shoes for your family—do you have any complaint? Do his shoes still pinch or give you trouble? Why did you remember him today? He isn’t even alive now. But I am blessed to be the son of a man who never made a bad pair. Whoever had shoes made once, always returned to him. He was an extraordinary cobbler—an artist!”

This is my vision regarding life: no work is big, no work is small. Whatever you do, do it with excellence, with skill—let there be art, talent in it. Then do anything—even sweep the floor—no harm. There is no need to be a doctor or engineer or politician. No need to be a president. If you can stitch shoes—matchless, unique—your life will be blessed. You will be fulfilled. The person who does what he was born to do experiences a deep sense of fulfillment within.

That’s all for today.