Chapter #16 The Sound Of One Hand Clapping #16

love needs great courage
for the simple reason that
the basic requirement of love
is to drop the ego
and man is very afraid of dropping the ego
it seems almost like committing suicide
it only seems so because we don't know
anything other than the ego
ego has become our only identity
and to drop it certainly means

you are dropping your individuality
it is not true
in fact just the opposite is the truth
unless you drop the ego
you cannot know your real individuality
the ego is a pretender
something false, pseudo, invented
the moment it is dropped
only then you can see the real
otherwise the unreal hides the real
the unreal hides the real like clouds hiding the sun

love requires a dropping of the ego
hence love can become the door to the divine
you may start loving a person
but you will end up loving the impersonal
the person becomes just like a window
open towards the infinite sky
but one has to be absolutely clear
that the ego will have to be sacrificed

people hanker for love
but at the same time they cling to their ego
hence love never becomes a reality
they come and go without tasting the nectar of love
and unless you experience love
you have not experienced life at all
you miss the point

love is sacred

in fact the only thing that can give you
the feeling of the sacred is love
love exists on the earth but is not part of the earth
it is a ray from the beyond
so those who can catch hold of the ray
they can go on moving in the direction
from which the ray is coming
and ultimately can find the source of all love
the religions have called that source god
it is better to call it godliness
so the idea of the person is dropped
and only the idea of energy remains

love is sacred, divine, godly
and also, love is a noble giver
one can give but if there is an expectation
of something to gain out of it
then it is not noble, then it is just pure business
it has no nobility about it
one can give with certain conditions
then it loses all nobility
love is a noble giver
because it gives for the sheer joy of giving
there is no desire for any return --
not that rewards don't come
they come -- they come thousandfold
but that is another matter
that is not your expectation

you were not desiring it, you were not demanding it
you had no idea of any return
in fact the lover is surprised when the gifts come
what he had given was nothing
and what comes is almost infinite, immeasurable

love is sacred, it is really sacred
because it is the art of noble giving

give for the sheer joy of giving
share for sharing's sake, for no other reason
and you will be rewarded immeasurably
you will come to the inexhaustible source
just by giving you will become every time
more and more rich -- that's the economics of love
a totally different economics
just the opposite of the ordinary economics
if you give you will become poor
in the ordinary economical world
if you go on giving soon you will be a beggar
but in the inner world the laws are just the reverse
give and you become richer
the more you give, the more you have
the less you give, the less you have
if you don't give you are poor, you are a beggar
one has to learn it but the only way to learn
is to give and see what happens
to share and see what happens
there is no other way to learn except experiencing it

life has only one centre which is eternal
otherwise everything goes on moving and changing
life is like a wheel
but the wheel moves on something unmoving
that unmoving centre of the wheel is love
everything changes
only love remains always the same
love is the only phenomenon
that remains unaffected by time
that is beyond time
those who have known love
they have known that time is not all
that there is something more than time
the eternity

time moves from past to future
present in fact does not exist in time
ordinarily we think these are the three tenses of time
past, present, future
but in fact time consists only of past and future
you can never get hold of the present
the moment you get hold of it it is already past
or if you try to get hold of it
before it becomes past
then it is in the future
you cannot get hold of it in the present

and love is in the present, love is always now
it abides here and now
it has no past, no future, no birth, no death

it simply is, it is pure isness
and the whole existence
is made of the stuff called love
the deeper you go into it the more you are surprised
that existence is not made of matter
matter is only illusory
illusory in the sense that it appears there
but if you go deeper into it it disappears

physicists say it is energy, not matter
that is their way of saying it
but the mystics say it is love, not matter
in fact both have come very close
the physicists and the mystics
because love is pure energy
of course the mystics way of saying it
is far better, far more poetic
than the physicists' way of saying it
energy is a non-poetic expression, neutral
love is a poetic expression
it brings the energy closer to you
it becomes your very heart
the moment you say it is love
it becomes something of immense value

to know the mystery of existence
one has to know the mystery of love
to know the ultimate, the eternal
one has to dive deep into love

my sannyasins are not in search of god or truth
their whole search is to know love in its totality
because knowing love in its totality is knowing all
it is knowing truth, it is knowing god
it is knowing freedom
it is knowing all that is worth knowing

one has to surrender to love with totality
not holding anything back

if you are holding something back
you will not be able to experience love
one has to be a gambler, not calculating
but ready to risk all, on one stake
everything that one has and in that very moment
is the transformation

there is a a great misunderstanding
it has existed in the whole past of humanity
and because of that misunderstanding
lovers have been quarrelling
fighting with each other
they think they have to surrender to each other
that is nonsense
they both have to surrender to love
surrender has to be there, but it is not to each other
that creates the conflict; then each tries
the other should surrender to me
and of course, the same is the desire of the other
and then there is conflict, then there is quarrel
now psychologists say lovers are intimate enemies
and they are right -- it should not be so
because enemies are after all enemies
intimate or not intimate
in fact intimate enemies are more dangerous
because they are so close
and if lovers are also intimate enemies
then there are only two categories in the world
the unintimate enemies
and the intimate enemies

friendship disappears completely
then there is no third category
and the reason is a fallacy

once it is understood that both
have to surrender to love, not to each other
things become very easy

then there is no question of possessing each other
no question of domination
both are possessed by love
love which is a totally different phenomenon
from their egos, their personalities
they melt into love not into each other
of course indirectly they melt into each other also
because they are melting into the same love
but that is indirect, that happens automatically

love is the first experience
of melting, merging, of losing one's boundaries
hence it is the first spiritual experience
and one should not stop at that
one should go on and on
finding more, deeper surrenders
and one day one has to be ready
to surrender all to the whole
that is the ultimate goal of human consciousness

the moment one surrenders oneself to the whole
one becomes holy

to me there is no other kind of holiness
that is the only possibility
of becoming a seer, a sage, a saint
all other saints are just hocus-pocus
deep down in their minds there are motives, desires
maybe of the other world, of heaven, of paradise
of being with god and all that kind of nonsense

the real seeker simply surrenders to the universe
dissolves himself into the whole, disappears
and in that very disappearance
one finds the ultimate core of one's being
the deathless, the immortal, the eternal

let love be your meditation
let love be your only law
i have only one commandment
because to me the whole religiousness
is contained in this single word
love
all the bibles, all the gitas, all the korans
if in any scripture there is something valuable
then it is bound to be some aspect of love
love has many aspects
it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon
the way to find it is meditation

meditation simply means becoming utterly silent
so that your mind is no more an interference
mind is full of desires, motives, goals, purposes

and love cannot be found by the mind
because love has no motive, no purpose
love has nothing to achieve, nothing to gain
it is not a means to some end
it is an end unto itself
hence mind is incapable of even comprehending
what love is
mind has to be put aside

that putting aside of the mind
is what meditation is all about
when the mind is put aside
you are in a state of meditation
no-mind is meditation
and in that state, love blossoms
suddenly you explode into love
your whole life becomes an overflowing love
but without silence it is not possible

one has to attain to such a deep silence that
not even a slight tremor of the mind remains in it
not even a small ripple of thought, desire
motive, greed, anger, no past, no future
when mind has completely ceased
then one hears the music of silence
the song of silence

the Sound
of one hand
Capping

and that is the moment when love explodes
then your whole life becomes nothing but love

only the loving heart knows what peace is
the unloving heart knows only war
sometimes hot, sometimes cold
but it is war all the same
the unloving heart means a heart full of hatred
and people are living in that ugly space
of course they find beautiful rationalisations
for their head trip

in fact they even pretend to love just to hate
for example they will love christianity
just to hate islam
they will love islam just to hate hinduism
they will love hinduism just to hate buddhism
they will love buddhism just to hate communism
and so on, so forth

if you look deep inside their being
their love is nothing but an excuse to hate
they will love their country to hate all other countries
they will love their race, their colour
to hate all other races and all other colours
but their basic motive is hatred
hence in the name of religion
so much bloodshed has happened
even christians who believe in jesus
whose whole teaching is rooted in love
they have killed thousands of people
they have burned people alive
in the name of jesus, in the name of love
it is a very insane humanity
we talk about love just to hide our hatred
we smile just to hide our anger
a sannyasin has to be absolutely clear about it
one has to be absolutely naked before oneself
no more rationalisation
because that is the only way
to be finished with hatred
if you can see it is hatred
that very seeing is enough
then you cannot live it, then you have to drop it
but if you think it is love
then on the package it is love
wrapped in beautiful packets
but inside it is nothing but hatred
so you can go on carrying those packets
thinking that it is love

a sannyasin has to expose himself totally
before himself he has to be clear
what exactly is in his heart
the moment you see hatred
that is the death of hatred
because nobody can allow it
nobody is so stupid to allow it

if one knows, if one knows exactly the ugliness of it
and it is ugly, hence i say
the very seeing of it becomes its dropping
and the moment hatred is no more there
love blossoms and with love comes peace
peace with the whole existence, a deep harmony
then there is no enemy

jesus says love thy enemies -- i don't agree
because even to think of them as enemies
is not right
once you think of them as enemies
and then you try to love them
you are getting into a contradiction
you can at the most pretend
because deep down you know they are enemies
and through your pretension
that you are loving your enemies
you can get into an ego trip
that you are a holy person, holier-than-thou
look, i love even my enemies
not only that, even my neighbours
i love my neighbours

to me the man of love knows no enemy
hence he loves all
not that he loves his enemies
he simply cannot see
that there is anybody who is his enemy

jesus on the cross says
father, forgive these people
because they know not what they are doing
it looks like a good gesture but in fact
he is condemning them, he is saying
they are fools, they don't know what they are doing
they are doing wrong -- that much is certain
otherwise why forgive them?
the very idea forgive them
shows that jesus knows they are doing wrong
but according to his whole teaching
love thy enemies as thyself
he is acting his whole philosophy
at the last moment also he says forgive

i will not agree to it
because you have already condemned them

they are doing their thing
and you are doing your thing
what is there to be forgiven?
neither they need to be forgiven
nor you need to be forgiven
you enjoyed doing your thing
they are enjoying doing their thing
if i am crucified i will know
that this is what i have been doing
i was driving those people to crucify me
so what is there to ask god to forgive them for?
why this holier-than-thou attitude?
this is a great insult to the people

i will simply thank them
you have done the thing
that i was hoping you would do
so goodbye, see you again
and again i will do the same
and i hope that you will also do the same
what else is there to say?

love cannot even utter these words, forgive them
love simply loves and knows peace
peace with the whole existence

love can either be hot or cold or cool
the cool love is a rare phenomenon
the other two are well known
the hot love is nothing but pure sexuality
and the cold love is nothing but
what happens between a wife and a husband --
it is a pretension, it is hypocrisy
it is a mannerism, etiquette
love is dead when it is cold
it is the coldness of a corpse
you still call the corpse by the same name
as when the person was alive
hence it is called cold love but love is no more there
it is just a corpse
and you have to perfume it
so it does not start stinking

that's what husbands and wives continuously do
perfuming, managing somehow the pretension
knowing perfectly well that all has disappeared
but not courageous enough to say so
there are so many involvements, investments
children, business, money
and a thousand and one things
respectability, society
and one has to think of all these things
then it is cold love
both are known, both are known
because each hot love ends in cold love
because how long can you keep anything hot?
sooner or later it starts getting cold
the honeymoon is enough
the moment the honeymoon is over the heat is gone
now it is a cold thing
you can carry it your whole life

cool love is a very rare phenomenon -- it happens
only when there is deep meditation behind it
meditation makes everything cool
and the miracle of coolness is
it is neither hot nor cold
it is not a passion, lust, hence it is not hot
and because it is never hot it never becomes cold
it simply remains exactly in the middle
but to attain to cool love
one needs the basis of a deep, meditative silence

i am teaching my people to give roots to their love
into the soil of meditation
then you will have cool flowers
and those cool flowers are eternal
they never die
because they are no more part of time

to know the dimension of cool love
is to have found the real home
the real shelter, the real security

love never grows old
if it grows old it is not love
it is something else pretending to be love
love always remains young
it is never childish either
if it is childish it is something else
it is not love
so remember, neither childish nor senile
it is always young
youthfulness is its very flavour
and it is always new, each moment
it has the miracle of renewing itself
rejuvenating itself
the body becomes old
but the heart remains always young

but people are not aware of their hearts
they are not aware of anything in them
which remains always fresh
it has to be searched for
one will have to dig into one's being
because there is much rubbish accumulated
the parents, the teachers, the priests
the politicians -- all kinds of stupid people
go on stuffing every child with nonsense
and by the time the child is capable
of going into himself
a great mountain of junk prevents him
that junk has to be emptied out

that's exactly the whole work of a sannyasin
to get rid of the junk
that others have stuffed you with
to clear yourself completely
to clean yourself completely
so that you can find your real being
that you have brought with yourself

the moment you find your real being
you have found also love, also truth, also freedom
and that experience remains fresh
and to live in that freshness is bliss, is benediction
one can live in it, one can die in it
it continues even after death
one can enjoy life, one can enjoy death
because now one is identified neither with life
nor with death
one knows something in oneself
which is beyond all duality
that is your freshness, your freedom

love can be either addressed to someone
or it can be unaddressed
not to somebody in particular
when love is addressed to somebody
it is narrow, tunnel-like
and a tunnel can become an imprisonment
love addressed to somebody means you have
focussed
your love energy on a single point
and you have excluded the whole universe out of it
just think that if love can give you so much joy
in such a narrow, one-pointed way
how much bliss is possible
if love can be unaddressed
not pointing in any direction
but radiating into all directions

that is the meaning of anuragini
love radiating into all directions
not love to somebody in particular
but just a quality inside you
the quality of being love itself, the quality of loving
so if you touch a rock there is love
you see a flower and there is love
even when you are sitting all alone
love is radiating
just as a lamp is burning in a room, all alone
but still, the light is radiating
this is the ultimate goal of love

and the moment one can allow oneself
so much love-full-ness
one knows the greatest ecstasy possible
there is nothing beyond it
there is nothing more to life
being love means
the mystery of existence has been contacted

you have become part of the miraculous
the mysterious, the unknowable
and to become part of it is the ecstasy
without it one lives in misery
in a dark night of the soul

love brings light, love brings life
and not ordinary live
but eternal life, abundant life