Suno Bhai Sadho #6

Kabir is a great synthesis: a confluence—like Prayag, the king of pilgrimages; a tirtha where whatever is most precious has been joined together. Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet there. Jnana, Karma and Bhakti, the three, have merged there.
Karma is visible; devotion is difficult to hide. Knowledge is a very inner stream. That is why at Tirtharaj Prayag the Ganga and Yamuna are seen, while Saraswati is invisible. Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge.
Understand this rightly.
Karma will be seen, because the very meaning of Karma is: outside. Devotion is hard to hide; just as when someone falls in love, love is hard to hide. In this world you can hide everything—love cannot be hidden. The gait of the lover changes; the eyes change; a subtle intoxication spreads, a divine abandon surrounds him, a melody begins to resound. He will rise, sit, walk—but something has changed! Anyone will see it; even the blind will recognize it. Hence lovers have never been able to hide love. If ordinary lovers cannot hide it, for the lover of the Divine it is impossible. Love burns like a lamp in a dark house—the light is seen far and wide.
Karma is manifest like the Ganga. Love stands in the middle between the manifest and the unmanifest, like the Yamuna. The current of knowledge flows very deep within; that is Saraswati. Hence meditation—Dhyana—can be almost entirely hidden. Truthfully, it is difficult to reveal Dhyana at all.
Therefore those who have traveled only on the path of meditation—like the Sufis—can remain concealed. You will not even know a Sufi; he may live next door and you will not come to know. Even a wife may not know that the husband is immersed in a stream of meditation. For the whole play is very deep; it can be hidden—indeed, to reveal it is what is difficult. Love is difficult to hide. Love is difficult to express, and difficult to conceal. It stands exactly in the middle. Karma is manifest. And Kabir is all three.
Kabir never separated himself from Karma his whole life. He never left Karma. He is a Bhakta. His whole life is filled with the intoxication of kirtan—he goes on singing from morning till night. And those songs are not ordinary. They have not come from the throat alone. They were not born in intellect and thought. They have arisen from the very life-breath of his life-breath. There is less poetry in them; they are not metrical. There are many lapses and transgressions. Yet there is a heart in those songs. And since when has the heart obeyed meter? When has it followed rules! Breaking all rules, the heart flows. The heart is like the Ganga in the rains—flooded, breaking all banks.
Intellect is dry, as the Ganga becomes thin in the hot season, confined within its banks. The heart flows brimming.
So Kabir sang all his life. He did not compose these songs—he sang them.
There is the poet who composes, who labors, who adorns, fits language, arranges grammar, meter, rules. And there is the Rishi who only sings. The Rishi too is a poet; but the poet is not a Rishi. The Rishi also sings, but his song is not any intellectual construction, arrangement, language, grammar, meter. His song is simply the flood that has reached his heart. He cannot contain it within; it flows outward. His song is his ecstasy.
Kabir sang his whole life. In that song, his Bhakti flowed. He could not conceal devotion—no one can. But he held meditation within; its name is ‘care’—jatan. It is an inner happening. It has nothing to do with the outer world. It occurs in utter aloneness. In Karma, there is you and the whole world. In Bhakti, there is you and your Beloved, the Paramatma. In meditation, you are absolutely alone. In Dhyana even the Divine is not there.
Kabir has said:
Herat-herat he sakhi, rahya Kabir hirai.
Searching, searching, O friend, Kabir was lost.
Searching, I myself got lost. Now there is no trace of me—where am I? What I had set out to find is another matter; but even the seeker who set out to search—there is no trace of him now.
In meditation such a moment comes: that which you went to seek does not appear—rather, you disappear. But the moment you disappear, That appears. Hence a great paradox: you will never be able to meet the Divine. Because when the Divine happens, you will not be. As long as you are, That cannot happen. Therefore man never meets the Divine; the Divine meets the Divine. The man melts away on the way, searching, searching. When the moment of meeting comes, you will be startled to see that the one who had set out to seek was left somewhere on the path; and the one who has reached the goal—there was not even the recognition that this, too, is within me. And the one who reached the goal, he was always within; there was no need to go to the goal at all. Had the neck but bent a little, you would have seen within.
The goal is within, the Divine is within; it is the non-disappearance of the seeker that is the obstacle. In meditation you are utterly alone. In knowledge you are utterly alone. The method of knowledge is Dhyana. The method of devotion is love. The method of action is service.
Christ took service as the whole means; hence in Christianity service became worship.
Buddha made Dhyana the center of all sadhana; hence in the Buddhist Dharma, both service and devotion dwindled—only Dhyana remained. Kabir is all three. Meera, Chaitanya—they live solely through devotion.
Therefore I say, Kabir is Tirtharaj Prayag, the highest among pilgrimages; for in him the three currents gather and merge. A greater synthesis than his has not happened. Therefore Kabir is also difficult to understand. Where three unique currents fall together, there arises a great inconvenience—logic will not avail. At times Kabir will seem to be saying this; at times, that. At times he will say a thing; at other times, he will appear to contradict it. For what is true for Karma is not true for Bhakti; and what is true for Bhakti is not true for Dhyana. What is true for Dhyana becomes an obstacle in devotion; what is true for Bhakti becomes an obstacle in action. Therefore, behind a person like Kabir there remains a great mystery—people keep trying to unlock it for centuries, but it cannot be opened.
Today’s song belongs to Bhakti. First let us understand a little about devotion, then we will enter the song.
We know love; we have no connection with Bhakti. And even love we know very little—only a few grains, a few moments. Sometimes a faint glimmer has descended into our life. For a brief moment we felt with someone that we were lost. Wherever there is the experience of being lost—know it as love. If the experience of losing oneself has never happened in life, know that you have remained untouched by love. And the one who remains untouched by love will never understand devotion—because the one who never bathed even in the nearby pond, how shall his journey reach the ocean? He who has never even peeped out the window, how will he go under the open sky? He who has not known ordinary love will never know the extraordinary devotion.
Therefore keep the doors of life open! If love descends from anywhere, let it descend. Because it is the first whisper of Bhakti. It is the first ray of devotion. And if you close the doors to love, then no matter how much you bang your head in temples, and cry and call out in mosques, and sing hymns in churches—your songs, your cries will be in vain; they will not be heard anywhere. For your cries will come from your head, not from your heart. The heart remained closed—the seed did not break. The sprouting did not happen within you. You will say, No, we have loved. We love our wife, we love our children. But look carefully—for love’s definition is precisely this: that in which you are lost. Has there ever been such a moment when you were lost in your wife? No; every husband tries that the wife be lost in him. Every wife tries that the husband be lost in her. Love does not wish to drown the other in oneself; it melts itself into the other. And the one who melts himself into the other, without effort becomes a cause for the other to melt.
So that which you call love is not love. It is another way of exploitation. It is another path of violence.
If you want to possess your beloved, you have not known love. You have not recognized love. Love does not seek to possess—it wants to be possessed. Love does not wish to be the master—it wants to make the other the master. That is why Kabir says again and again: kahai das Kabir—Kabir speaks as servant. Understand this word, ‘das’.
What is the meaning of ‘das’, the servant?
It means that love wants to give possession; it wants to make the other the master. All your love wants to be the master; therefore it is false. A small twist—and you have missed. You want to make the other your servant. Love wants to become servant itself.
Love is utterly humble. Love is not aggressive. Love is invitation, not attack. Love is a call. Love is the readiness to efface oneself. And when you are ready to disappear, then the other too drops the fear of disappearing. And when you try to possess the other, naturally the other also tries to possess you. This is the quarrel of lovers. In love, there can be no quarrel; yet lovers are seen quarreling constantly. The root cause is that they are busy eliminating each other. The wife may say as much as she likes that she is a servant, but her urge is to be the mistress. A father may proclaim love for the son, yet he is not ready to be lost in the son. The father wants the son to follow the father, to become the father’s shadow. The father wishes to destroy the son: My command; what I say shall be right for you. The path I show will be the path. My word will be your direction. You move by my gesture—then the father is pleased.
When someone moves by all your gestures, you have erased him in yourself. That is not love.
If a father truly loves the son, he will tell him: Do not worry about following me. Become yourself. All my support is for you, all my strength is yours; but do not become my shadow. Be yourself. Be your own. Receive the fragrance of your own life. If, in attaining that fragrance, you have to break my commands—what meaning do my commands have! If, in attaining that fragrance, you have to go far from me—what is the point of your being near me, if your fragrance does not bloom!
If the father loves, he will be lost in the son. If the son loves, he will be lost in the father. If the wife loves, she will be lost in the husband. But we are afraid of being lost. It feels: If I vanish, I will be destroyed—how will I survive? The ego is tormented. The ego is frightened: If I am lost, then what will happen! Hence the ego arranges so that love never happens. Remember, nothing opposes love more than the ego. Hatred is not the opposite of love, it is the absence of it. Ego is the opposite of love. For if love is to disappear, ego is the effort to preserve oneself: Let me remain! Therefore, slowly, because of the ego, we close all doors of melting. That is why we have invented marriage in place of love. Because love is dangerous; marriage is convenient. Marriage is a convenience. Love is a disturbance. And in love there is always fear—one may miss, slip! The abyss is always near. The path is wild, not cemented and clean. The path of marriage is a broad highway—cement and concrete. Thousands walk upon it, crowds ahead and behind—security everywhere. Police is stationed on all sides. Courts stand on the roadside. Magistrates sit in their robes, ready.
Marriage is a social institution; love is a personal leap. In love, you are alone; in marriage, the whole world is with you. If there is trouble in marriage, you can appeal in court. Lawyers will become your support. In the law books, paths can be found.
In love, there will be no lawyer by your side, no book of law. Till now no book has been able to enter the world of love; and no lawyer has any place there. In love you are utterly alone. Being alone creates fear.
And then, love means to die. And death feels as if annihilation will occur. Keep this in mind.
I have observed three things from which people are afraid—after dealing with the tangles of hundreds of lives, I have extracted these three. One: love—and whoever is afraid of love is afraid of the Divine, because that is the ultimate consequence. Second: death—and whoever fears death fears life, for death is life’s final event, its peak, its consummation, the distillate of all life. And third: Dhyana—because meditation is like both love and death. In it, one has to die, and one attains the Divine—hence meditation is the most dangerous. If you fear love, the door to the Divine is closed.
When you cannot melt and disappear even with an ordinary man or woman, how will you be able to merge with this vast Existence? You will resist, struggle—you will try to save yourself. And the more you try to save, the weaker you will become. For with whom are you struggling? You are a fraction of this Vast—how will you fight with it? You are born of it. You are like a wave—how will the wave fight the ocean? You are a new bud blooming on a tree—how will the bud struggle with the entire tree? And even if it struggles, can it win? Defeat is certain. Whoever fights will lose. Whoever tries to preserve himself will be obliterated.
Jesus has said: He who saves himself will lose himself. He who loses himself—then there is no way for him to be lost. How can we fight the Whole? If my hand starts to fight with me, how will the hand win? The hand has gone mad—it will be defeated, destroyed, and by its own effort it will annihilate itself. With the Vast one has to be absorbed. All struggle must be dropped. There one must seek refuge—Kabir says, there one must dissolve at the feet.
Love is the first lesson of that vast leap. But we are afraid of love. We have arranged marriage. Marriage is auspicious, if it comes like a flower upon the branch of love, if it is rooted in love. But marriage is inauspicious if it comes by arrangement, by social contrivance.
Strange indeed—mother, father, family, priest, society, the village council, they decide; and about those whom they decide, they never even ask. They know that asking is dangerous. Why? Because they say: The young are inexperienced. Remember, ‘experienced’ always stands against love. Experienced means: ego-filled. Inexperienced means: without ego. Children can fall in love; the old do not fall in love. They have so much experience—their ego is so filled by experience—that they can no longer commit such a ‘mistake’. And what they call a mistake—without knowing—they have missed that which was not a mistake. Missing that, they have missed all. Because the greatest art is the art of melting—melting so much that boundaries are lost; melting so much that I do not even know that I am.
The first glimpse of prayer comes in love. And the final fruition in the Divine also happens through love. Bhakti is the expansion of love. But if the seed is there, it can expand. If there is a drop, an ocean can become. If there is no drop, what can be done?
Therefore, when approaching the path of devotion, first see whether love has happened in life. If it has not, do not choose that path mistakenly. All your effort will be wasted. It is like trying to harvest without seed. You will sit and the crop will not come. You will cry out and no answer will come. You will bang your head in temples—your head may break, but nothing will happen—because there was no seed.
For those whose lives have not known love, Bhakti is not the path. For them, there is Dhyana; for them, Karma—but not Bhakti. Because meditation can happen even without love; you are alone, you do not have to enter into any relationship with another. Bhakti is the ultimate relationship. Dhyana is the breaking of all relationships. The two appear utterly opposite, but the result is one.
Understand love.
The sutra of love is: to drown, to be effaced, to melt, to lose oneself. And when this losing is not with one person but with the Whole, that is Bhakti. God is not a person. God is the totality; the name of all is God. When your love becomes so vast that whether it be rock or tree, man or animal—wherever your eyes fall, there you begin to see the Divine; wherever your gaze goes, there you find That present; when your love becomes so dense that in every leaf you get a glimpse of Him, and in every particle you hear His tune—then it is devotion.
But first learn the lesson of love.
As I see it, this world is a school where we are prepared for the Divine. This world is not against God; it is His preparation. And all the relationships of this world are preliminary arrangements for that ultimate relationship. It must be so; for if the world were against God, if God were against the world, how could the world survive? Its very ground would be lost. Therefore those who taught that to attain God you must be against the world—taught wrongly. Not by being against the world does God happen; He happens by transcending the world. And there is a great difference between the two.
Transcendence means: rise above the world. It is not to go contrary. The more intense your experience of the world becomes, the more you start rising above. As you enter into love—worldly love—you will find that the world goes on vanishing, and the Divine goes on appearing. If you truly drown in the love of even one person, then in a few days that person will dissolve and become a door, and through that door you will begin to hear the footfall of the Divine. But you cannot lose yourself even in the love of one; you have become very hard. Your heart has turned to stone. You talk of love, you even hum poetry; but all your talk is in the head—no tremor rises from the heart; the heart remains untouched; all the arrangement is of your intellect. And until the heart is touched, until it is flooded, until a stream of rasa begins to flow within—until there arises within you the feeling that a new vibration, a new thrill has been born…
This heartbeat of the heart—behind it is hidden another heartbeat, which you have not heard. This heartbeat is produced by the movement of blood. There is another heartbeat, born of the rhythm of love. Always, in different corners of the earth, among different peoples and cultures, totally unfamiliar with one another—yet whenever love is spoken of, people place their hand upon the heart. In this there is no difference. This is amazing. In every other thing there is difference—only in this one thing there is no difference in the human race. Certainly, this placing of the hand upon the heart cannot be a cultural or social event—it must be existential. If it were social, there would be differences.
In small things there are differences. There are peoples where ‘yes’ is signaled by nodding up and down; others where ‘yes’ is signaled by moving side to side. Some signal ‘no’ by moving side to side; others by moving up and down. Certainly, this movement of the head is cultural teaching; it is not existential.
In small things, differences abound. I have searched much—only in one thing there is no difference: whenever love is mentioned, people place their hand upon the heart. Upon which heart do they place the hand? If we ask a physiologist, he will say: You are crazy—there is nothing here like ‘heart’, only lungs; and a pump that pushes blood—a pumping station—and nothing else. And this heartbeat—it is only the rhythm of blood. There is no matter of a heart; this is the lung. But just behind this heart is hidden another heart. When the stream of love flows in you, its heartbeat is heard. Kabir is talking about that heart. But that stream flows only when the rock of ego breaks. The rock of ego is placed at the door of that heart. Because of it, you cannot hear the other heartbeat.
Now let us try to enter these sutras.
Bhakti ka marga jheena re.
Kabir says, the path of devotion is very fine, very delicate. It must be so. The path of Karma is the grossest—give bread to the hungry, press the feet of the sick, aid the poor, serve the helpless. Karma’s path is the most gross. That is why Christianity had such influence in the West—because the Western grip is very gross, materialistic. The more materialistic a person is, the nearer does the path of Karma seem—because action is closest to matter. Karma is like the first gate of your house.
Do—but whatever you do, do it surrendered to God. Therefore Christianity became very effective—half the world is with it today. The reason is clear—because the entire process of Christianity is of Karma. Other religions have to compete with Christianity; so they too talk a little of Karma—but the matter does not fit, for their experiments are much deeper and subtler, and do not match with Karma.
We never even imagined that a sannyasin would go and press the feet of the poor. Here, it is the poor who press the feet of the sannyasin. We have been serving the sannyasin; we have not expected service from him. We cannot even think of Buddha or Mahavira serving patients in a hospital. The patients would not allow it; they would revolt against them, flee—How can our service be done by them! Because Buddha and Mahavira stand at the ultimate depth—Dhyana.
Meditation is subtle—utterly subtle. Karma is gross—utterly gross. Between the two, delicate Bhakti stands. But devotion has not gained much public prestige either. For the Bhakta sings, dances, is intoxicated—but what will others gain from your intoxication? The hungry will not get bread; the sick will not be cured. Hence the two paths—knowledge and devotion—slowly became dim, and the most gross—the path of Karma—remained in front.
There are thousands of commentaries on the Gita—over a thousand. The most gross is of Lokmanya Tilak; but it became highly influential, it influenced this country greatly—because Tilak insisted on Karma. Shankara’s is the most subtle, because he emphasizes Jnana. Ramanuja’s is delicate—he emphasizes Bhakti. But Ramanuja and Shankara faded; Lokmanya’s interpretation became effective.
India too has gradually fallen toward the gross. Now we also see only that which is matter. Now we cannot see beyond matter. Our capacity to see the subtle has reduced. Our relationship with the delicate has broken. To understand the delicate needs a certain cultural height, a refinement.
Mulla Nasruddin once invited a classical musician—a renowned master, difficult to get. He invited all the neighbors. When the assembly sat and the accompaniment was about to begin, the musician asked respectfully, Mulla, which raga do you prefer? Mulla said: Any raga will do; my purpose is only to harass the neighbors.
Classical music is a very delicate matter; if it is not understood, it only creates nuisance.
Now the Bhakta creates nuisance; he is not understood. If a devotee stands among you, you will think he is mad, his mind is deranged. Now we cannot connect with the devotee; because we stand on such a low plane that from there that delicate flower is not visible; our eyes cannot recognize it. If Chaitanya were to return and pass dancing through your village, if Meera were to come and sing in your lane—you would not be able to relish much.
It is difficult, because you will not be able to see from where this event is happening. When Chaitanya sang and danced, even in Bengal people said he was debauched—now it is even more difficult. Today you will think he must be a disciple of Prabhupada—he has joined Krishna-consciousness.
To understand Chaitanya, a state of bhava is needed. Bhava is not thought. Thought you can get from scriptures, you can learn in school. But bhava is an experience; if it is there, it is there; if not, then not. Bhava means you too have known it; you too have had a glimpse; you too have lived it. Maybe not so deep, not so far—but you have entered the river and taken at least a few strokes; you know what swimming is.
Thought can be borrowed; bhava can never be borrowed. Bhava must be experienced; if it is not, it is not. I may say as much as I like that swimming is great joy, great thrill, a great mystery—but if you have never entered a river you will say, perhaps! You will think: What can there be, at most flailing the arms and legs in water—what more can happen! But you have no idea what the swimmer experiences—it is not arm-and-leg exercise; it is to create a rhythmic consonance between oneself and the river. And when the swimmer truly reaches the peak of swimming, swimming itself ends—the river does all the work. He floats upon the river; he does not swim. He need not labor. A rhythmicness arises between the river’s life and his life. He has recognized the deity of the river; now as if the deity carries him. Now someone holds him; the river does not drown him—it is no longer his enemy. A deep friendship has arisen.
If you have never entered the river, at most you will see a person flailing arms and legs—What is the use! Exercise—it can be done at home. We will lie on our bed and flail arms and legs—the same exercise, maybe more. Why take the trouble! Why risk danger!
But you do not know what happens within the swimmer. If the process of swimming becomes right, thoughts disappear; a merging with the river’s current occurs. The river begins to carry him. The swimmer, slowly, leaves his individuality and becomes a part of the flow—as if he too is the river; he floats. And the joy that arises in that floating—he cannot give it to you, nor tell it. He may say much. If you have a little experience… the saints have said: the dumb man’s sugar. Give jaggery to the dumb—he will know the taste; he cannot speak. But leave the dumb—You are not dumb; if we give you jaggery, you will get the taste. You can speak—what will you say? And to one who has never known sweetness, no matter how much you say Sweet, sweet, sweet—he will hear the word, but there will be no meaning, for meaning comes from experience.
Sweetness is a realization.
Kabir has said: ‘The sugar of the dumb.’
All are dumb regarding bhava. Regarding thought we are eloquent; regarding bhava, dumb. You cannot know what the state of feeling is. If there has been even a little experience of love, the path of devotion will appear delicate, fine, subtle to you.
What does delicate mean? What does fine mean? It means: what must be handled with great care. You have seen musicians—before they begin, they spend a good while setting the instrument. The uncomprehending get bored—What is this going on! Somewhere they tap with a hammer, somewhere they pull a string—what are they doing? They are bringing the instrument to a delicate balance where music will become possible. They are seating the strings at that point where they are neither too taut nor too loose. Because if strings are too loose, music will not receive its stroke. If too tight, they will break. So strings must be such—neither loose nor taut—exactly in the middle. And where the strings become exactly symmetric, there samyak-tva arises; there music is born. Such is the art of life.
Bhakti is born exactly in the middle. Knowledge is an extreme; Karma is an extreme. The karmically zealous live at one extreme—gross. The Jnani lives at the other—subtle. The Bhakta lives in the middle. He must finely tune the instrument. The devotee must create great consonance with music. It is delicate. Kabir says:
Bhakti ka marga jheena re.
Nahi achah nahi chahana,…
Let the strings be neither too tight, nor too loose.
Nahi achah nahi chahana, charanan lau leena re.
Let us understand this—listen attentively.
Nahi achah nahi chahana,…
Two extremes: one is desire—chahana; and one is non-desire—achah, nirvasana. And Kabir says: ‘Bhakti’s path is very fine’—between both. If you desire, you are a sensualist—the one who desires, wants this, wants that—goes on asking. We know this—our experience is also the same. All around are such people—their crowd, their markets, their temples. They ask. Even before one desire is fulfilled, their asking has advanced. They remain beggars; they never become masters. The opportunity to give never comes; they have no leisure from asking. There is no question of donation—they are themselves hungry; their own vessel is empty.
Once, in Kabir’s time, there was a faqir: Farid. The people of his village said: Akbar gives you great respect—go once. You need only say a word; the work will be done. The village needs a madarsa, a school. If you say it, it will happen.
Akbar was a devotee of Farid. So Farid said, Good, I will go. He went too. He arrived early in the morning. There was no obstruction for him in the palace; he was taken straight in. Akbar was reciting namaaz in his private mosque. Farid stood behind. As Akbar was completing the namaaz, he lifted both his hands—like a beggar, like a mendicant—and said: O God, increase my wealth, enlarge my empire!
Farid immediately turned back. Hearing someone depart, Akbar, standing on the steps, turned; the prayer was over. He ran and came—Farid was returning. And Farid had never come before; it was always Akbar who went. But Farid had thought: When there is asking to be done, one should go. Akbar caught hold of his feet and said: You came and turned back—is there some error, some fault of mine?
No, said Farid, the mistake is not yours; it is mine. I came to ask from you—but I found you asking yourself. No, I will not make you poor. That madarsa will be expensive then. And I thought—since you ask from Someone, why not ask directly from Him? Why bring another beggar in between? And till now I had thought you were an emperor—that misunderstanding of mine is broken.
As long as there is asking, there can be no emperor. Then how will you give? Even if you give, you will strike a bargain; you will give in order to receive. Even your charity will be investment—with the hope of returns.
One filled with desire is a beggar—this is clear. Because those who saw that desire makes one a beggar, they dropped desire; they went to non-desire—like Buddha, Mahavira; they dropped all desire. They said: Only by dropping asking will this beggary disappear. The matter is straightforward, logical, clear. The path of asking is straight and clear. The path of non-asking too is straight: drop desire, keep no craving. Thus Mahavira and Buddha became emperors—hard to find emperors like them. It is difficult to find beggars like Alexander, Napoleon, Akbar. Hard to find emperors like Mahavira and Buddha. They dropped desire altogether. They stopped the very conversation—closed that door. If we will not ask, a kingdom arises. They became fulfilled in themselves.
But Kabir says:
Bhakti ka marga jheena re.
It is a very delicate matter.
Nahi achah nahi chahana, charanan lau leena re.
We keep neither desire nor non-desire. We stand before the Divine in such a way that it is as if no desire exists—and as if desire too exists. Before the Divine we stand so that we ask nothing; yet we stand like a beggar. We do not ask—for if we ask, our relationship with the Divine is broken.
Then that which you ask becomes more important; the Divine becomes secondary. The Divine becomes a means; that which you ask becomes the end. We stand before the Divine as if we are beggars—and yet our hearts bear no desire. So we stand as emperors—yet with a begging bowl in the hand. Therefore, ‘Bhakti’s path is fine’.
The devotee neither asks, nor does he say, I have attained non-desire. He does not say, I have dropped all desire; nor does he say, I still have desires. Think this over a little.
A beggar and an emperor—both at once! Give him anything and nothing will be added—such an emperor; he will not cling even a grain—he remains as he is. And he stands as if all desire is his—he asks for the Divine alone though he asks not even a grain. Meaning: as if an emperor stands holding a begging bowl. The begging bowl—for before the Divine you cannot stand like an emperor. The posture there can only be that of a beggar. How will you stand stiffly, like an emperor, before That? Therefore Mahavira and Buddha both denied that God is—because when you stand like an emperor, how can God be? Hence in the system of Mahavira and Buddha there is no God—no question of God arises. You yourself are God—the matter is finished. And you go to temple, to mosque—you go to ask. If you do not get in the Hindu temple, you are a Hindu still; but if someone whispers that at such-and-such Pir, at such-and-such Muslim faqir’s grave, you may get, then you will quietly go there too. You remain Hindu and still reach the tomb of a Muslim saint. What faith can a beggar have! He goes wherever he gets. If he gets in this house, fine; if not, he asks in the next.
The beggar has neither faith nor concern with the Divine. If someone says: Become atheist; on this condition I shall give, he will become atheist. He will say: Forget it—what have I to do with God! We went only because… You went so the disease may be cured; God did not cure it. If someone says, I give you a medicine and you will be cured, but from today drop God—you will say: Absolutely ready; we were ready from before.
God was never the concern. We went to ask; we hoped we might get. If we got, we would thank Him; if not, we complain.
It is difficult to find a true theist. Within, all are atheists. You have made yourself theists because you desire, and you feel perhaps from God you may get—perhaps…
One of my friends—an old man. He has been atheist all his life, a famous person, a writer, a novelist. One day his son came running from the house. He said: Father is very ill and has called you. A heart attack had come. The attack had passed, but he was trembling—hands and feet shaking. When I reached, he was slowly saying, Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram. I was surprised—because he is an atheist. I shook his head: What are you doing—corrupting yourself at death? He said: Leave it, don’t raise that matter. Who knows—perhaps there is God!
At death, one is frightened; he thinks: Who knows, perhaps He is! Then he said: What is the harm? If He is not, no harm; if He is, at least I took the Name.
So your God too is calculation; He is the form of your fear. Your God means your fear. When you are afraid, you remember; when you are fearless, you forget. When you are happy, you do not remember at all. When you are unhappy, you begin to chant Ram-Ram. No—you are atheists. Your theism is cunningness. Your theism is not the expansion of your heart; it is a device of your logic. When needed, you are theist; when you are secure, you are atheist.
Mulla Nasruddin was traveling by boat; others were there too. Suddenly a storm came and the boat began to sink. People began to cry out. One said: O God, save me—I will donate so much money. Another said: Save me—I will donate a cow. Another: Save me—I will do this, that. People went on. Then Nasruddin shouted: Stop—do not go too far—shore is near. And all forgot the donations. All began to bind their luggage.
That is how we remember in sorrow. When the shore appears near, what to do with God! He was only a support in a sinking boat. When the boat nears the shore, what use of Him!
We go to God’s door because we ask. Then there were those like Buddha, Mahavira, who dropped asking. They saw that asking leads to nothing but misery. Desire leads nowhere—creates new hells. The more you desire, the more sorrow comes. Desire has a great peculiarity: if fulfilled—it brings misery; if unfulfilled—it brings misery. If fulfilled, you suddenly find that for that desire you wove so many dreams, wreathed so many rainbows, placed such garlands of flowers—and nothing came out. When it comes to the point, nothing comes. You dig a mountain and a mouse is born. If it is fulfilled, it always seems—after digging a mountain we were striving for a mouse. If not fulfilled, you are miserable—thinking, Who knows what might have been if it had been fulfilled!
A psychologist went to study an asylum. The superintendent took him around. In one room, a man was crying loudly, clutching a photograph to his chest. The psychologist asked: What happened to him? The superintendent said: The woman whose picture he holds—he loved her, and he did not get her—he went mad. Now he presses the picture to his chest, beats his chest, cries and shouts. Next door, another prisoner was seen tearing his hair; he too held a picture in his hands. He flung it, bit it, threw it at the wall, trampled it with his foot. Asked: What happened to him? The superintendent said: He got that woman. Both loved her. One did not get her—he went mad. This one got her—so he went mad.
If desire is fulfilled—you go mad; if not—mad still. Desire gives sorrow in every way. If it is gained, sorrow arises—nothing came. If not, sorrow remains—it did not come. The one who desires will be unhappy. One filled with craving will be unhappy. The one to whom this becomes visible—who has tried to understand life a little—he drops desire; he attains non-desire; he makes desirelessness his sutra.
Both these ways are simple.
Kabir says: ‘Bhakti’s path is delicate.’ Ask nothing—and yet stand like a beggar. Be an emperor—ask nothing—and yet bow like a servant.
Nahi achah nahi chahana, charanan lau leena re.
Neither do we ask anything, nor is there any craving; yet—at the feet we are absorbed.
…charanan lau leena re.
We simply hold the feet.
You hold the feet—when you have to ask. If there is nothing to ask, why hold the feet! Hence Kabir says: the path is delicate. Ask nothing—and yet hold the feet. But whoever attains this wondrous state—asks nothing and holds the feet; is an emperor, yet bows with a begging bowl—such a one receives much. Everything comes unasked. Pearls are received unasked. Without asking, a rain begins to fall on all sides. For this man is an emperor, and yet bows like a slave.
You cannot make Mahavira bow. Mahavira will not kneel and fold his hands in prayer. Prayer has no connection with Mahavira. When there is nothing to ask, why bow? Are you mad—why bow? The same logic applies: If there is asking, bow; if there is no asking, do not bow.
Kabir is alogical, paradoxical. It is difficult to find anyone more paradoxical than a devotee. The Bhakta is a paradox—two opposites meet in him. He stands between both. On one side is Mahavira—an emperor; on the other side, an ordinary beggar—both together.
Nahi achah nahi chahana, charanan lau leena re.
And this being absorbed in the feet—what is it?
If you bow, it is only the body that bows—the ego within remains standing—it never bows. Only its bowing is bowing. The body’s bowing has no meaning. And the very moment the ego bows, you begin to be absorbed; a new intoxication, a new color arises within. Therefore you will find the Jnani dry, austere. From Mahavira, no poetry will arise; no song either. You cannot even imagine Mahavira dancing. Chaitanya will dance, Meera will dance.
The devotee is moist, drenched, immersed. The Jnani is dry—like a desert, where no greenery is. He too attains the final state—but he will be desert-like. The devotee is a waterfall—ever singing. The Jnani is silent. The Bhakta is full of music; in his silence too there will be song; in his song, silence. He stands in the middle. When he speaks there is melody; when he is silent, melody can still be heard. From every pore, a tune hums.
Sadhan ke rasdhar mein, rahai nisdin bheena re.
He will be moist—as if one just emerged from bathing in a river—freshly bathed! So drenched—as if always immersed in the stream of nectar.
Sadhan ke rasdhar mein, rahai nisdin bheena re.
And sadhan means Bhakti; sadhan means kirtan; sadhan means remembrance of the Name; sadhan means japa; sadhan means being ever at the feet of the Divine. Whatever he does outwardly, within the same tune goes on humming. He goes to the market, does his work—within, the same tune. And every moment, a feeling of grace; every moment a sense that what God has given is more than needed, beyond my worth. Where is the question of asking? When everything is coming unasked, asking is foolish. He has given life; He has given a heart that throbs with love; He has given so many dimensions of joy—what is left to ask! Let one give thanks every moment.
A Sufi faqir, Bayazid, was passing a road with his disciples. His foot struck a stone; he bent and sat there. Blood began to flow. His hands folded; his head lifted toward the sky. The disciples said: What are you doing? We thought you bent because blood was flowing from the foot, because you were hurt. But we see you are praying. Bayazid said: You do not know His secrets. If today He had not saved me, I would have been hanged. He postponed the gallows and gave only a small stone’s hurt—and that too is His grace, to remind me.
Even if suffering comes into the devotee’s life, he gives thanks. The non-devotee—though pleasures come—complains. Because give the non-devotee as much pleasure as you will—he always thinks: more could have been—only this? And give the devotee as much pain as you will—he always thinks: how much more could have been—only this? Their ways of seeing, their attitudes are different. The non-devotee will always remain miserable—will live in hell. The devotee will remain in heaven—ever joyful. And when you learn to live in joy, joy increases. When you learn to live in misery, misery increases. Heaven and hell are habits. And habits relinquish you with great difficulty.
Sadhan ke rasdhar mein, rahai nisdin bheena re.
Rag mein shrut aise basai, jaise jal meena re.
As fish are in water, so within that raga are all the shrutis—all truth is hidden there.
Rag mein shrut aise basai, jaise jal meena re.
Whoever has found that raga of devotion—within whom that tune has begun to play, who has been intoxicated by that wine—he will find that just as fish are in the river, so in that melody the whole of truth is hidden. What is written in the shrutis, what the scriptures sing—all is hidden there, in that stream of rasa.
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re.
Only one thing is to be done: in the service of the Lord—give your head.
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re.
This final utterance has two meanings. Both are important. Both should be understood.
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir…
In the service of the Divine… ‘Saiṁ’ is an apabhramsha of ‘Swami’—the Lord. In giving to the Lord there is only one thing to do—give the head. By head is meant: intellect. By head: thought. By head: logic. By head: concepts, words. The collected essence of all these is the ‘head’. Merely cutting off this skull will not do; anyone can behead himself. Many suicides manage that; there is no obstacle. But even if you cut off this skull, thoughts will continue inside you. Your skull will remain Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain. Cutting the skull will not do much. The question is not to cut this skull. That is easy. The skull may remain outside; within, it disappears. No thought arises, no argument, no belief survives, no prejudice remains—you become utterly empty within. When His will is your will—what need is there for this head? Its only need is because you think you are insecure—you must make your own arrangements. So it is needed: to think, to plan, to make the way. But when He is seeking your way, when He is making your path, when He is running your breath—why not surrender all to Him?
A king was passing along a road; a Sufi faqir too was there. Seeing the faqir walking, the king said: Come, sit in my chariot. He came and sat. The king was surprised to see that the bundle the faqir had on his head—he still kept it on his head. The king said: Why don’t you put the bundle down? Are you crazy? The faqir said: No, my mind is like yours. That’s why I’m not putting it down—since you have seated me in your chariot, is that not enough? It would not be right to add more weight to the chariot. The king said: I suspected from your behavior that your mind is not right; and you say, like mine! When you are sitting in the chariot, whether you keep your bundle on your head or put it down—what difference does it make? In any case, the weight is on the chariot. The faqir said: Then you seem to be intelligent. Why keep this head up there? When the Divine bears all—life rises, sets; waves arise and scatter in countless forms—when all is moving on His chariot, why do you keep this head? I keep only a bundle on my head—you keep this head! And surely my bundle weighs less than your head.
The head is the weight. Other than the head, there is no weight. Whoever sets down the head becomes weightless—he grows wings. Then he can fly in the infinite sky of freedom.
Thus Kabir says:
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir…
Other things will not do. People are cunning—they go to the temple and break a coconut. The coconut is the symbol of the skull—it even looks like a skull: hair, beard, mustache, eyes… People are clever.
Kabir says:
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir…
They offer coconuts! The coconut looks like a head, so they present it. They smear vermilion in the temple—it looks like blood. But only with blood can worship be done—meaning: give something from your life. What will vermilion do? But people are skillful—they have found substitutes: save the blood, apply a red tika; save the head, offer the coconut! And even the coconuts people take are rotten. The temple coconuts sell separately in the market, because they keep circulating—year after year. Many have offered them; they go round in circulation. There is a shop outside the temple, run by the priest’s kinsman; you offer, by night it reaches the shop; in the morning it sells again; by night it is back; within it rots completely.
The talk is of offering the head. First, you find a coconut—and that too is stale, that too is old, offered by others. No—at the door of the Divine, your authenticity is needed. No borrowed, stale, alien thing will do. Only if you yourself bring yourself can you be accepted.
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re.
And this final half has two meanings. One: that you did not delay even a little—not a moment’s postponement—you offered the head in the service of the Lord. This is the path of devotion—without delay! Think over this a little.
People come to me—thinking about sannyas. I tell them: there are two ways of taking sannyas. One—by thinking it over; then there will be delay. There will be delay—and the juice of sannyas will be lost. Because the more you think, the more you persuade your intellect, argue, weigh pros and cons—and if the intellect decides yes, take it—such sannyas is useless, because it is the decision of intellect. And no one can remove intellect by the decision of intellect; the very purpose of sannyas is to put intellect aside. If you take it by thinking, its meaning is lost.
The second way is of a leap—take it without thinking. Put the intellect aside—and take it. If you take it by putting the intellect aside, then, the very moment you take sannyas, revolution begins—transformation begins. In the very taking, transformation starts—because you did not consult the intellect. For the first time, you did something without the intellect. For the first time—without logic, without thought—you entered the unknown, the dark, the unknowable.
So one meaning is: without delay—leap. That leap has value; it is a leap. If you delay—measuring from all sides, placing a ladder, descending by the ladder comfortably—then the very point is lost! Because it is in the leap that the whole secret lies—there the head falls. The ladder is placed by the head; the arrangement is of the head—there the head will not be cut. Therefore, whoever comes to religion through logic—never really comes at all. This is not an affair of logic; it is the work of the mad. There is no entry for the wise here. The wise remain outside—their very wisdom becomes trouble. The mad leap. This is the work of the intoxicated. This is the work of those who are not businesslike; who know how to stake themselves at the gamble. This is the work of gamblers.
One mind is of the businessman—who thinks, weighs, delays, postpones—We will take it tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. We will arrange from all sides, ask everyone—Is it right or not? We will take counsel with a thousand people. In all this, the whole meaning of taking will be lost.
Sannyas is a leap—of no-mind. In that leap the head falls.
So the first meaning of ‘kuchh vilay na keena re’ is: You did not delay even a little—not a moment was allowed to pass. You understood—and you leapt.
The second meaning: ‘Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re’—In the service of the Lord, you offered the head—and yet nothing was lost—you gained. ‘Kuchh vilay na keena re’—Even though you offered the head, nothing was lost; you gained. You were afraid needlessly that it would be lost.
A strange thing—there is nothing you have, and yet you are afraid of losing it. What is there for which you are afraid? What is the obstacle to the leap? If you had something, fear would be understandable; but you have nothing. And if there is anything, it is exactly that which, if lost, would be good. There is sorrow, anxiety, tension, unrest. In the name of wealth, nothing; in the name of woes, many. Why are you thinking about offering the head? It seems something will be lost. You are like a naked man who does not bathe—because if he bathes, where will he wring and dry his clothes? He has no clothes—yet for fear that if he bathes, where will he dry them—he does not bathe at all.
If you had something to lose, it would be meaningful. But you do not even look back and consider—What do I have? You fear to look—because seeing your emptiness will cause great pain and anguish. The whole life has passed in vain; no attainment; no shore reached; no goal approached. Within, you are utterly hollow. But you fear to see that hollowness—because seeing it would frighten you. Therefore you wander here and there and never look that way; and you keep thinking—We will take it—we will think—something might be lost.
There is nothing you have to lose. And the moment you give the head—you will find that all that you always desired and asked for—has begun to rain upon you.
Jesus said: Whoever gives, to him it will be given; whoever saves, he will lose. And Jesus said: To those who have, more will be given; from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away. A difficult saying, yet meaningful. Because what you have will grow. If misery is there—in this world nothing stands still; everything grows. Keep that in mind. If misery is there, misery will grow. If love is there, love will grow. If anger is there, anger will grow. Nothing in the world stands still—everything evolves. If you delay, what you have grows. Your hell is becoming bigger.
Jesus says: Those who give will receive; those who save will lose. Because what have you to save? You will save your hell. You will lose heaven utterly. You will save yourself—and lose the Divine utterly. And the other saying: To those who have, more will be given. If you have the Divine, more and more will be given; because what you have grows. And those who do not have—Jesus says—from them even what they have will be taken.
Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re.
Offer the head, give everything—and lose nothing; you gain all. As when a drop falls into the ocean—on this side the being-a-drop ends; but on that side it becomes the ocean. What does it lose? It loses being a drop; it gains being the ocean. The moment one loses the ego, the drop is gone—and Brahman happens; the ocean happens. The petty is lost; the vast is found.
What are you saving? For which moment are you waiting? Why the delay? And why the postponement? What seems right to do… Kabir says: ‘Saiṁ sevat mein dei sir, kuchh vilay na keena re.’ There is no need for even a moment’s delay—immediate, instantaneous. The understanding arises—let the leap happen. And those who leap instantly—only they will leap. Those who postpone even a little—will miss. For as soon as you postpone, the moment is lost. The door comes near; you postpone—it goes far. The opportunity comes close; you postpone—it goes far. When the moment comes near—when it is clear by understanding…
Understanding does not mean intellect. Understanding means your totality. When your whole being feels: Yes—do not miss that moment. You have missed it for many, many lives. In that moment, do not delay. In that moment, give the head. You will lose nothing. The drop will be lost; the ocean will be attained.
Enough for today.