Utsav Amar Jati Anand Amar Gotar #5

Anand Maitreya, whether a true Master sings a song or hurls an abuse, his aim is always one: by what means can your ego be erased. If it dissolves through song, he will sing; if through abuse, he will abuse. Neither the abuse has any value nor the song; both are means, devices. The whole endeavor of the true Master is this alone: how the rock of your ego may be shattered to pieces.

For this reason Ramakrishna would sometimes pat your back, sometimes shower you with abuses. And this is not only with Ramakrishna; it is so with many realized ones. Sai Baba of Shirdi would abuse, throw stones, run after people with a stick. People thought he had gone deranged. He was not. As his death drew near, he abused more, threw more stones, ran more to beat. People thought the madness had reached its peak. Not so. Death was approaching, so he was in a hurry. With death standing at the door, he did not want to miss any opportunity to strike those in whose lives there was even a little possibility, in whose lives a blow might ignite a revolution. Let the world call it madness—so be it.

The realized ones do not care what the world says. They have only one aim: to share what they have found. But only those can receive it in whom the ego has departed within. Into vessels filled with ego, the Divine cannot be poured. Only vessels emptied of ego can receive the Divine. Empty yourself of yourself, and the Divine will rush in to fill you.

Therefore those who knew, who recognized, would say: only if the true Master’s grace is upon you will he abuse you. Otherwise, why would he take the trouble to abuse? Only in his great compassion will he run after you with a stick. His running after you with a stick or abusing you is proof that you are a person of worth; that there is some possibility in you; that the seed can sprout; that the lamp can be lit; that you are worthy of every effort a true Master can make; perhaps you are very close. Just as water heats to ninety-nine degrees and at a hundred becomes steam, perhaps you are at ninety-nine. Just a push! Who knows—a single abuse may give the shove, a single blow may do it!

The Zen masters did not only abuse; they would strike and beat. One Zen master even picked up his disciple and threw him out of a window—from the third floor of a three-storey house! When the disciple fell below, the true Master leaned out of the window and asked, “So, how was it?” In that instant—the Master looking out, asking, “So, how was it?”—and those blazing eyes and that bliss-intoxicated face—the disciple simply forgot that he had been thrown from the third floor, that bones had broken! In that one moment the body was not remembered. In that one moment everything was forgotten. In that one moment a revolution happened. What years of study, reflection, and meditation could not do, happened in that one instant. The bones did break, but the soul was found. And the bones will in any case break; they are bound to return to dust; made of earth, they must fall back into earth.

A true Master does not abuse the unfit. The unfit are not worthy enough for the Master to take such trouble. But it is very difficult—today it has become even more difficult. As man has become civilized, mannerly, cultured, he has lost some very precious understandings. If today Ramakrishna were to abuse you, you would not go back to that door again. If Ramakrishna abused, in your eyes it would only prove that nothing has happened to this man yet—he swears! A saint—and he swears! If a true Master were to come after you with a stick, you would think him deranged. Not to speak of a saint, you would not even consider him a gentleman.

This is a very poor, lowly state of man. Man’s understanding regarding the transformation of life has become very small. Our condition has become like this: a physician, a surgeon, presses to release the accumulated pus in your body, and you feel pain, and you think he is the enemy; he amputates limbs to remove the poison that has filled them, and you think he is the enemy. The true Masters’ abuses are surgery.

Neelam, I am ready to fill everyone’s begging bowl with happiness, but people are so miserly they are afraid even to hold out their bowl! People have become such misers—far from giving, they have become stingy even about receiving! And to hold out the bowl you need egolessness. People are so full of ego—how can they spread their bowl? They want everything, they want the whole sky to pour, but they don’t even have the capacity to hold out their bowl. They don’t have even that much humility, that bowing, that feeling of surrender.

I want to fill everyone’s bowl. Because the bliss with which I fill your bowl is not something that becomes less if I fill one bowl. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: the more bowls are filled, the more of it there is in me. The Upanishads say: even if you take the whole out of the Whole, the Whole still remains. I could give everything away, and still the Whole would remain. I could go on pouring and pouring and never exhaust it. However much I ladle out, it cannot be emptied. The moment the ego drops to zero, the Full starts flowing from within you. Then give—give to your heart’s content!

But people have become hesitant even to receive—How to take? How to hold out the bowl? How to bow? The river is flowing right in front of them, and they stand thirsty, parched. But the ego says, Don’t bend!

Now the river is not going to rise up to your throat. You will have to bend! You will have to make your hands into a cup! Then the river will certainly quench you.

Neelam, when you come to me you come with the complete capacity to hold out your bowl. When you come, you come like an open bowl. You have not the slightest hesitation in spreading your lap, the end of your veil. You have no hitch in bending. Therefore your bowl is easily filled; the credit is not mine, it is yours.

The sun has risen; whoever opens his eyes will have them filled with light. What credit is there to the sun in that? The sun has simply risen. And whoever keeps his eyes closed, his eyes will remain full of darkness.

Open your eyes—the sun has risen. Open your heart—God is showering.

But people sit with their hearts closed, their eyes closed, their whole being hardened like stone. And then they ask, Where is God? They ask, We don’t see any light! They ask, We don’t hear any music anywhere!

How will music be heard? How will light descend? How will nectar rain upon you? God is not absent for even a single moment. That which can become absent is not God. This whole existence is filled with him, brimming over. If there is any lack anywhere, it is on our side. We are not willing to receive. The guest stands at the door and we do not open it! We cannot do even this much—to say, “Welcome.”

Neelam, your bowl will go on filling with more and more joys—joys that no one will be able to take away. Bliss will become your wealth—eternal wealth. This is being made certain by your surrender. In your offering, your bliss is safeguarded. You will attain truth, because you are willing to disappear.

And one more thing to understand. You say, “Like yesterday, you always fill my bowl with joys.”

Strictly speaking, even to say that I fill your bowl with joys is not quite right. Your bowl is already full of joy; when you hold it out, it becomes visible to you. People sit with their bowls tied up; they cannot see what lies in their own bowl. I can give you only what you already have, and I can take away only what you do not have.

This is the fundamental sutra of spiritual life. The true master gives only that which is already yours—always was, eternally is; he gives nothing new. Under this sun there is nothing new. And the true master takes away only what was never yours; it was never there from the first.

It may sound a little upside-down: to give what is already there, and to take away what is not there—sounds like a paradox. But if you think a little deeper, descend a little, meditate a little, it won’t seem paradoxical; it will all become simple and clear—as clear as two and two make four.

Bliss is your nature. You have forgotten. The master shakes you and reminds you. If someone is asleep—wakefulness is his nature. And when you shake him awake, will he say you gave him wakefulness? Formally, he may say, “Thank you for waking me.” But the capacity to awaken was already his. If there were no capacity to awaken, he could not even sleep. Only one who has the capacity to awaken can sleep. Only one who has the capacity for bliss can suffer. Only one who has the capacity for immortality can die. He had slept because he can awaken. You shook him. Shaking does not produce wakefulness; by shaking, what was already within comes to the surface. And what did you take away? You took away sleep.

Sleep is not your nature; if it were, it could not be taken away. Nature cannot be taken away. Sleep is artificial, external, a covering; therefore it can be removed. Ego can be taken away, because ego is false. The soul cannot be given, because the soul is true.

Your bowl fills with joys—not because I fill it, but because near me your reverence is so deep, your trust so total, your surrender so complete that in guileless simplicity you open your heart. In that guilelessly opened heart you begin to see your own diamonds; you come to experience your own treasure. I need give nothing.

And if this sutra is understood, then even without me—wherever you can simply open your heart—on a riverbank in solitude, on a mountain peak, beside a tree, alone in your home, in a temple, in a mosque—wherever you can open your heart, there instantly bliss will well up, every pore will thrill.

Remember, let your joy not become tied to me in any way. Let it not be that without me you cannot find joy. Let it not be that your joy becomes dependent on me. Otherwise a great mistake will be made.

I want to give you liberation. I want to give you freedom. I want to give you the cadence hidden within you. Let your song be yours. Let your victory be yours. Let your kingdom be yours. It is yours! The emperor has fallen asleep and is dreaming he is a beggar. I will shake him and wake him up. The kingdom is his—it was always his! It was his even when he slept. It was his even when he forgot.

And what will I take away? I will take away his beggary—which he never was, he was only dreaming it.

Suffering is your dream; bliss is your nature.

What has begun, Neelam, let it go on happening. With me the beginning will be made, but slowly, slowly, let it also happen away from me. Slowly, let it happen even without me. Let me be only an occasion, not the cause. I am not the cause. No true master is the cause of a disciple’s awakening; he is merely the occasion. I am only an opportunity. Use this opportunity. And once awareness dawns, then use that awareness in many places, in different situations, in different circumstances.

And that is why I do not tell my sannyasins to run away from the world, because I would like that what you experience here in meditation, in love, in dance, in song, in my presence—that very thing you should experience in the marketplace too; only then is it true, only then is it genuine, only then is it pure. In the noise of the marketplace too, if within you the same peace remains dense that here, near me, becomes dense; in the midst of anxieties at home, disturbances, crises, if within you that same day-and-night inner sound continues to resound that resounds here near me—only then know that what was attained has truly been attained. If in the market it is lost, if in the crowd it slips from your hand, if in the hustle of work you forget, then understand that it was never attained. Then understand only this: sitting near me, you mistook my wave of peace for your peace; as you went away, it disappeared. My wave should not become your wave. My wave should only become the occasion to awaken your own wave.

And Neelam, I am happy—very happy with you. Not only with you; with many others it is happening so. I am delighted with my sannyasins. In this sense I am fortunate: the caliber of intelligence that has become available to me in my sannyasins—such availability very rarely happens to anyone. Human beings have become more and more thoughtful. Today the kind of talent that man has—if it can be given a religious turn, there will be an explosion of religion in this world. If not given the turn, then there will be an explosion of irreligion. The same talent will become irreligion; the same talent can become religion.

Today energy is in our hands. If the lamp of a little understanding is lit, this very energy can make this earth into heaven; otherwise it won’t take long for it to become a cremation ground. This earth could any day become a crematorium. This whole earth could become a Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Never before were such significant moments in the hands of man. You are fortunate—you are living in the most significant moments in the history of the human race. These coming twenty years, the last phase of this century, are going to prove the most important years in human history; either man’s talent will become self-destruction, or self-transformation.

Talent is a double-edged sword. If it goes on the wrong path, life becomes dangerous. If that same talent turns onto the right path, life fills with flowers.

Those who are gathering around me are not the ordinary middle-grade mind. Those who are gathering around me are people of first-rate intelligence. Only those who possess first-rate talent are able to understand what I am saying.

As for third-rate minds—who knows what all they are thinking, what all they are imagining! They cannot even understand what I am saying. Third-rate minds are always bound to the past—someone is a Hindu, someone a Muslim, someone a Christian, someone this, someone that. Third-rate minds are thousands of years behind the time.

First-rate people understand what is true before its time. And he who understands before the time—he is the truly intelligent. After the time has passed, everyone becomes intelligent. To understand while time is still present—that is intelligence. And to understand before time—what to say of that! And I am happy that those who have gathered around me are diamonds; they only need a little sharpening.

Neelam, you are indeed a neelam—a blue sapphire; you need only a little edge to be honed. The edge is being sharpened, and the polish has begun to appear. And I am as delighted as a gardener when flowers begin to blossom in his garden, and the gardener rejoices.

Haridas, if you try to live so that no mistake ever happens, you will not be able to live at all—you will only die. Only the dead make no mistakes. If your only aim is to avoid mistakes, then quickly crawl into your grave; dig it yourself. And this is what most people have done. Where do most people truly live? They are so afraid of mistakes that they do not know how to live—lest a mistake be made!

There is nothing wrong with mistakes. Yes, only one thing: the same mistake should not happen twice. It is through mistakes that a person learns and is refined. Mistakes sharpen you; they give you radiance. A mistake is a challenge.

Make new mistakes. Make mistakes every day. Yes—just don’t make the same ones. The one who keeps repeating the same mistake is dull; he is not learning. Once is forgivable—because how else will you know it is a mistake unless you make it? And who has ever arrived without wandering? And the one who arrives without wandering will have no spine, no life-juice, no soul.

I have heard an old story from Egypt. A farmer, utterly harried, cried out to God one day— in old stories God was not as far away as He seems now; He would listen, perhaps living by the eaves of the house. The farmer shouted, “It’s too much! It seems you know nothing of farming. Give me one year, and I will show you how to farm. Everything you do is upside down. When water is needed, no rain falls and the tender shoots dry up. When water isn’t needed, it rains and the near-ready crop is swept away in floods. And then so many pests, so many bugs, swarms of locusts, fog! Do you have any sense? Do you know anything about agriculture?”

God said, “Fine. This year, you take charge. Whatever you want, that will happen.”

The farmer made a complete plan. He was experienced: he had seen frost, hail, storms, high winds, floods, drought—everything. He made a meticulous design. He was overjoyed. When his wheat plants grew taller than a man’s head, he said, “Now God will know how farming is done!” Big, big ears formed; the plants were tall and lush. When water was needed, he asked for exactly what was needed, and it rained that much. When sun was needed, he asked for exactly that much, and the sun shone just so. No locusts came, no frost, no hail, no pests. Everything was arranged.

Then harvest time came, and his joy knew no bounds. He gathered the whole village and said, “Cut the crop. We will show God how farming is done!” But when they began to harvest, it was as if a knife passed through his very being. The ears were large, but there was no grain in them. He cried to God, “What happened? What kind of joke is this? Such big ears, such big plants, perfect timing for everything—why was there no wheat?”

Laughter rang from the sky. God said, “You fool! For wheat to be born, it needs adversity. It needs inconvenience. Your ears became pithless because there were no storms, no gales, no hard rains, no fire from the sun. You provided only comfort and control. So the ears remained empty.”

Only in crisis, in struggle, in challenge, is the soul born. Do not be afraid of mistakes, Haridas. Make mistakes to your heart’s content—just do not repeat a mistake. If you remember only this, every mistake will teach you a lesson, every mistake will move you forward.

But you have been taught this for centuries: in every society and culture the insistence is, “Do not make mistakes.” And because of this people have become dead. “Don’t make mistakes. Don’t step off the path. Walk the groove. Don’t deviate even a little from the line.” So people walk—slaves of the groove, “lakir ke fakir.” There is no soul in them. No grain ripens in their ears. No life condenses within. A kind of impotence remains in them; strength does not arise, manliness does not awaken. Safe—safe in every way. How can strength awaken in safety? Even their talent gathers rust. Their lamp, when it burns, is smoky—little light. They have committed no mistakes in life!

You complain that I have changed,
and I too complain
that you have not;
you complain
that I feel no regret for changing,
and I complain
that you feel no remorse for not changing;
you say
that by changing I have declined;
I say
even if I have declined, I have also grown;
but that you are inert,
I am now convinced.

How is consciousness born? It does not arise on its own. Challenges are needed—or you remain inert. Tie this well into your heart: do not avoid mistakes. Don’t keep tiptoeing through life. Don’t walk only on the highways. Sometimes take the footpaths; descend into dense forests. Search also where there is fear of getting lost. Spread your wings even where there seems no possibility of return. Even if you are burned, a soul will be born within you. Even if you go astray, strength will be born within you. Even if troubles come, they will not harm you.

Thomas Alva Edison was working on electricity. Three years of experiments had passed; his assistants were exhausted. But every morning the old man would arrive with the same joy and enthusiasm and go to work again. In three years at least seven hundred experiments had failed. His assistants were convinced electricity could not be produced, and Edison was just stubborn. “Seven hundred times we have failed. How many more times must we fail? Seven hundred mistakes are enough. We should stop wasting life.”

One day they all gathered and told Edison, “Enough. Three years have been wasted. Seven hundred experiments have failed. How long will this go on? And when we see you arrive every morning with the same enthusiasm—no gloom, no despair—it unnerves us. Do you not know we have failed seven hundred times?”

Edison said, “I do. That is exactly why my enthusiasm grows. If there are, say, a thousand possible mistakes, we have already made seven hundred. Only three hundred remain. We have tested seven hundred doors; the right door hasn’t appeared there. The number of wrong doors is decreasing every day; the right door is getting closer. Don’t be afraid.”

And so it was. After six more months of experimenting, electricity was discovered—one of the greatest discoveries in human history. But had Edison been afraid of making mistakes, it could not have happened.

Look into the lives of scientists—how many mistakes they make! Mistakes every day! But no one keeps count of their mistakes. When they succeed, only the success is written into history. This creates a great illusion.

Mahavira meditated for twelve years. Your Puranas mention only the success. What was he doing for twelve years? He succeeded in the twelfth year, but through those twelve years he must have made thousands of mistakes. No one mentions them. When victory comes, people lose all interest in how many defeats preceded it. Behind every victory are many defeats; behind every correct experience lie many wanderings. Buddha struggled for six years and kept failing, failing, failing—then one day he succeeded. We count only the success and leave out the failures and the mistakes. This produces a very wrong idea in us.

We teach children, “Don’t make mistakes.” We tell them, “Do only what is right.” In the attempt to do the right thing, what can the child do? He imitates. He becomes a carbon copy. A carbon copy is always correct; how can it make a mistake? It is only a copy of the original. But if you set out to explore your own life, if you set out again on the search for meditation, you too may wander for twelve years—and there is a joy in that which is wholly different.

To walk as Mahavira’s shadow is one thing; to be a Mahavira is another. To repeat what Muhammad said, like parrots, is one thing; but to know as Muhammad knew—passing through all those mistakes, all those thorny paths, all those slippery roads, falling many times, skinning your knees, bleeding, losing your way in dark nights, despairing often, again and again losing the thread of dawn in your hand—until you pass through all that again, you will not have Muhammad’s strength, Mahavira’s capacity, Buddha’s depth.

No, Haridas—do not ask how to live so that there are no mistakes. I say: live so that as many mistakes as can happen do happen; only do not repeat a mistake. Live fully! Drop the worry about wandering, about fear. Cowards remain stuck; they never rise.

Just think: if little children decided, “We will walk only when there is no danger of falling,” then everyone in this world would go on crawling on their knees; no one would ever walk. But small children are brave, unlike your question. The child does not ask, “Teach me a way to walk such that I never fall.” He just gets up and falls, skins his knees, gets up again and falls again—again and again—until one day he stands on two feet.

It is a miracle to stand on two feet, for all animals walk on four. And scientists say man was once a monkey and walked on all fours. Imagine those primitive monkeys who first stood on two legs. The rest must have laughed: “Look at these gentlemen—now they will fall, and fall badly!” The monkey pundits and priests, the tradition and its old dogmas—they must have said, “Never have we seen or heard of a monkey walking on two legs. Fools!”

We call it evolution. The monkeys must have called it decline. They live in trees; man had to live on the ground. From up to down—surely decline! How will you call it development?

But those first monkeys who walked on two legs must have fallen many times, like the small child. Their knees would have broken, bled. Yet they kept trying. One day their effort succeeded. From their success, humanity was born. The day two hands were freed from the work of walking, they became available for other work. Then we could do so much. If all four limbs are used for walking, nothing else can be done. Man began walking on two feet, and his two hands became completely free. With those free hands we lit fire, made tools and weapons, built houses, bullock carts, airplanes—whatever we wished. In these two free hands lies the whole development of humankind.

The monkey is still safe in his tree. He chose the path of not making mistakes.

No—don’t even ask such a thing. I teach you to embrace challenges; only then will there be morning in your life. And the darker the night, the sweeter the dawn. The farther you wander from the divine, the greater the joy of coming near. The drier the throat, the deeper the quenching.

I spent a whole life beneath the darkness;
only at your door did I learn what morning is.
Amid the waves I had never met the shore;
only meeting you did I learn what a shore is.
On the burning sands there is only the acacia’s shade;
let me find your shade—then I shall know what shelter is.
You laughed in such a way, you took autumn by the hand—
only then did I learn the spectacle of the seasons.

Seek spring within autumn; search for it there. In mistakes and wanderings, the temples of truth are hidden—dig in your mistakes, dig deep!

The person who wants to avoid mistakes loses courage; he becomes a coward. And for cowards there is nothing in this world. One courage is needed: “All right—if we must wander, we will wander.”

Jesus’ famous story: A father had two sons. The younger—a gambler, a drunkard, a frequenter of brothels. The elder—temple-going, devoted to worship and recitation, diligent in shop and farm. Finally the elder said, “I cannot live with my younger brother. I earn and he squanders! Separate us.” So the father divided the property equally and separated them.

The younger took his half and went straight to the city. What would he do in a small village? There were not enough facilities there for mistakes. The elder remained in the village. He threw himself into business and farming with all his might and prospered. The younger squandered in the city, and in two or four years became a beggar—as was bound to happen.

The father heard that the younger was begging, ruined. He sent word, “Come back home. There are so many servants here; even if you do nothing, it will be fine. Come back.” The message reached him, and the son returned. When he did, Jesus says, the father lit lamps throughout the house, celebrated a festival, hung garlands, decorated the road for his welcome, built arches, prepared the finest meal. After years, the son was returning.

The elder was working in the fields—in the blazing midday sun. Someone told him, “There is a limit to injustice! You are wearing yourself out serving your father, still toiling in the noonday heat—blood and sweat. Yet never has there been a welcome for you—no garlands, no festival, no perfumes, no band! And your younger brother is returning, ruined and a beggar! The shehnai you hear is for him.”

Naturally the elder was hurt. He came home and said to his father, “This is injustice. I have never been welcomed. I have always served at your feet and never made a mistake. I always did what you said. He did the opposite of what you said—and he is being welcomed!”

The father said, “You know well, for you tend the fields, and we also keep sheep. When a sheep strays into the hills, the shepherd leaves his thousand sheep unsafe and goes at midnight into the forest in search of that one. And when he finds it, he carries the lost sheep back on his shoulders. He never carries on his shoulders those that never strayed—there is no question of carrying them back. You are with me; there is no question of welcoming you. But he went far away and wandered much, and now he returns—his welcome is needed.”

Jesus said, this is not just the story of a father and his sons; it is the story of existence, of God. The farther one wanders, the more ready God is to welcome him—because the one who wanders earns something invisible.

You may have noticed: those who have never made any mistakes—if you look at them you will find them gobar-Ganesh, idols of dung. Sit them in a corner and they look nice; but they are good for nothing. Inside, completely pithless; there is no grain. And those who have made many mistakes, wandered much, stumbled from door to door—you will find in them a certain strength, a certain dignity, a certain grandeur. In them you will find something that can be called soul.

Therefore I do not say, Haridas, “Do not make mistakes.” I say, Make mistakes—consciously. My teaching is entirely different. Make mistakes; by all means—consciously. Learn from each mistake; squeeze it, extract it, make it your own experience.

I spent a whole life beneath the darkness;
only at your door did I learn what morning is.

Then the door of dawn will open, after you have spent a whole life under who knows how many new moons of darkness.

Amid the waves I had never met the shore;
only meeting you did I learn what a shore is.

Only then will the shore appear, only then will union with truth happen—when you have set your little boat loose amid many storms and crossed them. Only by risking the danger of drowning again and again is there a shore. Those who cling to the shore—what is a shore to them? Only for those who have crossed the storms is the shore truly the shore; those who made the midstream their shore know the meaning of shore.

Life is not cheap. For every experience you must pay—something must be paid; a price must be paid. Mistakes, and the sorrow, repentance, and pains born of them, are the price a soul-full person must pay. Pay it! And you will receive exactly as much as you are able to pay—no more, no less. There is no injustice in this world. Each receives in proportion to the capacity he has earned.

And how is capacity earned? Not by hiding in a corner of the house. Yet that is what you have been taught—especially in this country for centuries: do not make even a single mistake. The result is that the whole country has become gobar-Ganesh. From one corner to another there are rows of corpses with scarcely a trace of life.

Otherwise could it be that for thousands of years this land remained enslaved? Small tribes came—people of little strength—and they too conquered. The Huns came, barbarians came, Tatars came, Mughals came, the English came, the Portuguese came, the French came—whoever came held this vast country in his fist in a moment! What was the reason?

And this country speaks of soul, of God! It speaks of immortal, eternal life! But the reality is different. The country has become very cowardly. And what is the reason for this cowardice? This fundamental teaching: don’t make mistakes; walk carefully; don’t fall. If there is a fear of falling, don’t walk at all—just sit. Better to sit than to fall. Better not to walk—just do not wander.

But if you want to arrive anywhere, you will have to take the risk of wandering. Risk is life.

Anand Mohammed, whatever love diminishes is not love at all; it must be something else wearing the garb of love. Love does not know how to lessen; it knows only how to grow. Love knows only how to become larger. Love knows how to become prayer. And one day, ultimately, love becomes God. Therefore, if love has truly awakened, it will not decrease. No experience will make it less; every experience will make it more expansive. Yes, if love has never been born in the first place, then of course it can “lessen.”

Consider this: you are not filled with love for God, but you do crave heaven. So you go to the temple, you go to the mosque; you perform worship, you recite scriptures. You have nothing to do with God—you only want to use God as a means. And there is no greater sin in the world. To use God as a means is the greatest sin.

A great Western thinker, Immanuel Kant, said: I consider one thing immoral—using a human being merely as a means. Every human being is an end in himself. To use a person as a means is to turn him into a thing, to rob him of his soul. If a husband uses his wife as a means—for the gratification of lust, for managing the household, or for looking after the children—that is sin. The wife is an end in herself; she cannot be used as a means. Nor can the husband be used as a means.

Wives, too, are using husbands as means: because he is the breadwinner, they depend on him; they cannot leave, because on him rests all the value, the whole economy, the entire financial burden of the family. But this is precisely the use of another as a means. If, as Kant says, using a human being as a means is sin, then using God as a means is a great sin. Yet people do exactly that.

A man once came to me and said, “A great reverence has arisen in my heart—towards you.” Just seeing him I suspected something was wrong; in his eyes I did not see reverence, I saw greed. I asked, “What happened? Tell me the whole story; let me understand.”

He said, “For three years my son couldn’t get a job. Fifteen days ago I said, before your picture, ‘If within fifteen days he gets a job, I will accept you as God and worship you forever.’ And the job came. I’ve come to give thanks.”

I told him, “Before you decide anything, at least take one or two more tests.” He asked, “What do you mean?” I said, “For example, if your wife is ill, give it fifteen days again: if she isn’t cured within fifteen days, then there is no one worse than me. One shouldn’t decide on the basis of a single event—it can be a coincidence.”

He said, “Yes, that could be.” So I said, “Make two or four experiments; when it happens repeatedly, then come back.”

It failed at the very second experiment. His wife was ill; he set fifteen days, and she did not recover. He came back and said, “All my reverence has been shattered. What have you done?”

I said, “I did nothing the first time, and I’ve done nothing this time. Make a few more experiments; don’t be angry. This too is coincidence. But let me tell you something: you have nothing to do with reverence, nor with God. You want your son to get a job; you want your wife’s illness to be cured. You want to use me as a means. I am not your slave. And if I am not your slave, will this whole existence be your slave? Your very notion is irreligious.”

But people take such notions to be religious. What games go on! People go to the temple saying, “We’ll offer a coconut if our desire is fulfilled.” Because of this coconut, bribery cannot be eradicated from this country; bribery here is a religious tradition. It is impossible to wipe out bribery, for we have been giving bribes since time immemorial!

And what bribes! “We’ll offer a coconut”—a rotten coconut, because the ones meant for offering are sold separately in the market—cheap and spoiled. In pilgrimage places there’s a coconut shop right in front of the temple. You offer a coconut in the temple; the next day the very same coconuts are back on the shop, because the priest has sold them. They are rotten, they’ve been offered for ages; there’s nothing left inside that resembles a coconut. But they come cheap.

You buy a five-anna coconut, offer it, and go home at ease: “Now let’s see what happens!” You’ve staked God’s honor on a five-anna coconut: “Now mind your reputation—or else beware of this coconut! A devotee will be lost; one number will drop; one vote will be gone! If you want to save your prestige, keep your honor, then do what I have asked!”

This, too, is using God as a means. This is greed, not love.

You will be amazed to know that the English word “love” comes from the Sanskrit “lobh,” greed. Surely there is something in greed that can pass itself off as love. The greedy person can perform the act of love. He wants heaven; he wants heaven’s apsaras; he wants fountains of wine in heaven; he wants ghilman and houris; he wants the kalpavriksha—and beneath it he lies at ease, making merry and more merry. A wish arises here and is fulfilled there, with not even a moment’s delay. And then people speak of love for God: “Because we love God, we practice austerities.”

Out of a hundred, perhaps once in a while someone is truly aflame with love for God, Anand Mohammed. And whenever anyone is stirred by love for God, love does not diminish; it goes on increasing. Love does not know how to decrease; it is that sky which knows only how to spread, how to become vast.

You say—
“No one meets death in the world of love;
the flame of the lamp of life does not grow dim here.
Hopes break; supports fall away.”

Whatever happens, love is not destroyed. Death has been defeated only before love.
No one meets death in the world of love!

The lover simply does not die. The lover has never died. The lover can never die. Why? Because in love, egolessness flowers by itself. And where there is no ego, there is no death. Only the ego dies. You never die. You are eternal, you are nectar. Amritasya putraḥ! O children of immortality! You have no death.

But the ego you have constructed—the I-sense you have built—that will die. It is imagined. You have propped it up by force. It is false. It is like the fake man we stand in a field: a pot hoisted on a pole, a Gandhi cap set on top, an achkan draped, a sherwani thrown over, a mask fixed—and there stands the field’s sham man. At most, it will scare off a few animals and birds; what else?

Yet even this sham man can develop a swagger—“I am something too. Don’t you see animals and birds fear me? Don’t you see that from afar even big, ferocious beasts, on seeing me, turn away?” Even this fake figure can become arrogant.

Kahlil Gibran tells a little story: I saw a sham man standing in a field. I passed that way daily. Seeing him, I felt great compassion—poor fellow stands there: whether blazing sun or biting cold, heat or rain, with no concern for day or night, no ease of sleep, just standing. He must get tired. So I asked, “Brother, don’t you get tired? Through rain, heat, cold, day and night, ceaselessly you stand—don’t you get tired?”

The sham man burst out laughing and said, “Tired? Of what? The pleasure of shooing away the animals! The delight of frightening others—who would tire of that!”

That is why you see politicians never seem to tire: the pleasure of frightening others, of making others anxious! Politicians don’t tire; they keep running, keep rushing in their scramble. No sleep? So be it. Fatigue doesn’t touch them. They are the scarecrows of the field. Kahlil Gibran is right: the pleasure of frightening others!

What is your ego? The thrill of frightening others—what else? What is your ego? The pleasure of pressing others down. “I am greater than others”—that very feeling is ego.

This feeling is false. However many sherwanis you dress it in, however many Gandhi caps you set upon it, however much khadi you cloak it with—false it is and false it will remain. Adorn this lie as you will, groom it as you like: if not today, then tomorrow it will topple; topple it must! Its fall is certain. It is artificial. “We are separate from existence”—that very notion is a lie. From this lie, death enters.

We are not separate. Death comes and shatters our delusion that we are separate. Death comes and joins us again with existence. Death is not the enemy; it is the friend. If there is an enemy, it is the ego—for ego divides; death reunites. But the one who is already joined through love—what work is left for death there? Love has already united; what will death do now? For such a one, death has no function, no meaning.

Anand Mohammed, the lover knows no death. Whoever has known love has known the eternal; he has known the timeless, indestructible existence.

No one meets death in the world of love
It does not come, it has never come, it cannot come.

The flame of the lamp of life does not grow dim here.
The lamp of love is such a lamp that the fakirs have called it: “without wick, without oil!” There is no wick to burn out, no oil to be exhausted. That light depends on no causes. Therefore, it cannot be extinguished.

No one meets death in the world of love
The flame of the lamp of life does not grow dim here.

Hopes break; supports fall away—
Yes, agreed: many times hopes will break, many times supports will slip away; many times it will seem that instead of drawing near, the goal has receded; many times it will feel as if this night may never break, that dawn may never come. But if love has awakened...

If love has awakened, it will live through all disappointments and frustrations. If love is awake, no circumstance has the power to defeat it.

Anand Mohammed, I wanted to look into your eyes and tell you this; I did not say it. But when you decided to take sannyas, I did tell Laxmi to ask Mohammed first. You come from the Muslim tradition—after taking sannyas there should not be obstacles, people should not harass you. For other Muslim friends who have taken sannyas have faced a thousand kinds of troubles. Although in the end those troubles are beneficial, at the beginning there are great hindrances.

So I told Laxmi: first ask. Otherwise let it remain hush-hush; let the heart’s secret remain in the heart—don’t make it public outwardly, in case trouble comes! Anand Mohammed is from Surat. So I said, in Surat he should not face obstacles, no difficulty should arise. He would be the first Muslim there to become a sannyasin.

But Anand Mohammed said, No—now no obstacle can come, and now nothing can stop me. Now I am ready to take every risk. Now living without being a sannyasin is futile; to die as a sannyasin is meaningful.

So certainly love has been born. Only love can speak such a language, and only love can dare so much. Difficulties will come; endure them joyfully—smiling, dancing, singing. By becoming a sannyasin you have become a Muslim in the true sense. Therefore those who are Muslims in the false sense will create obstacles. By becoming a sannyasin one becomes, in the true sense, a Hindu, a Jain, a Christian, a Muslim, a Parsi, a Sikh. But those who are Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis in the false sense will create obstacles. Take their obstacles as gifts sent by the Divine. For by passing through all those obstacles you will be tempered, you will ripen; the lotus within you will one day bloom—surely it will bloom. Just keep deepening love; keep guarding it; keep sounding love’s call.

However dark the night, if you go on singing the song of love, morning will have to arrive. How long can the Divine ignore it!

Ramakrishna, everyone moves by their own whim. There is that much freedom. To tell the truth, our very effort to wake someone is a kind of interference. Someone wants to sleep and we are waking him. If he wants to sleep, let him sleep. The thought to wake him has arisen in you—that is your thought. He has the urge to sleep. Should he listen to himself, or to you?

Yes, I am not saying you must stop calling out either. Keep calling. Let there be a contest. Let him sleep—his whim; let him sleep. Let him sleep like a log, as if he has sold his horses, and pull the blanket over his head. You too climb onto the rooftops and call out. Let the collision happen. But do not complain that he did not wake up. Who are we to wake anyone by force? Our whim was to awaken, so we tried; his whim was to sleep, so he slept.

No one is decisive for another—and no one should be. There should not be even the slightest obstruction to a person’s supreme freedom. That is why those who truly awaken people do it very gently, very slowly—by coaxing, not by shaking. Even when they place their feet, they do it so no sound is made—lest someone’s sleep be broken without cause, by force. That would be violence; that would be insistence. All insistence is violent.

I have awakened, and I may wish to awaken you. What does that mean? It means I want to make you like me. But why? Your choice. I have awakened and found bliss; so at least I must bring you the news that in awakening there is a certain joy. And I must also tell you that once I too slept. I know both states—sleep and wakefulness. You know only one—sleep. So I wish that if you wake, the sky of bliss may become available in your life too.

But not by force. In forcing, a mistake is bound to happen. And the more you try to force someone to wake, two things will become evident. First, Ramakrishna, that you yourself are not yet awake—otherwise you could not insist.

I even call the word satyagraha wrong, because all agrahas—insistences—belong to untruth; truth has no insistence. Truth is non-insistent. Mahavira said the same: non-insistence is truth. Not command, but counsel. Therefore Mahavira also said, “I do not issue orders; I only give guidance.”

Understand the difference. A command means: you have to do it. Guidance means: a request. This is what has happened to me; I submit it. Your will. Choose it—good; don’t choose it—also good. If you choose, you will benefit; if you don’t, your freedom remains intact. You will choose at some other time, in some other moment, on some other morning.

You ask: “Bhagwan, even after being woken again and again, why don’t people wake up?”
They don’t wake because they don’t want to. The matter is straight and simple. And how your attempts to wake them feel inside their sleep—you have no idea. Their sleep can only register that some nuisance-maker has arrived and is making a racket.

I had a professor when I was a university student. Every morning at five I would go for a walk, passing his house. He too wanted very much to get up early but could not. He said to me, Please do me this favor; as you pass here, wake me. I said, First make sure—because when I do something, I do it. He said, What do you mean? I said, I will not just knock and go away; I won’t call once or twice and leave. Then it will be me and you. He asked, What does that mean? I said, It means I will not go until I have woken you. You think it over. He said, No, no—I’ve thought it over.

But that’s how it is: what you think in the evening—where does it stand by morning? The mind is not that steady. At dusk you think, I must rise at five. At five you think, Oh, if for one day I don’t get up, it will be fine.

That evening he had told me to wake him, and I had already said, Understand my condition: I won’t leave without waking you. Now if I tried to wake him and he didn’t get up, I would snatch his blanket and throw it off. He became very upset. His wife woke up too. She said, What are you doing? Does anyone wake someone like this? I said, Don’t interfere. This is between him and me.

When I started pulling him out of bed, his wife protested, and he burrowed deeper into the covers. It was a cold morning—I can understand. But I told him, Understand this much: the longer you delay, the more trouble there will be. Just get up. The poor fellow got up and said, Brother, I beg your pardon. Today you’ve woken me, fine—but never again. I withdraw my request. I thought you would knock and go; if I had to, I would get up.

But I said, When you yourself said you wanted to rise, then who is it that wants to sleep in the morning?

We don’t have just one mind—that is the snag. Many minds. One mind says, Wake up; another says, Keep sleeping. One mind says, Do this; another says, Do that. We think we have one mind. No; Mahavira was right: a human being does not have a single mind; man is multi-minded. Mahavira, for the first time in human history, used this word—bahuchittavan, multi-minded. Two and a half thousand years later the West has now accepted it: man is not mono-psychic; he is multi-psychic.

So one mind says one thing, another says another, a third says yet another. Each mind pulls in a different direction. And when you say something to a sleeping person, what you say does not reach him as you said it; it cannot. Passing through the layers of sleep, it is transformed.

Have you ever noticed? At night you set the alarm to rise at five. When the alarm rings, you dream that you are in a temple, bells are ringing, the priest is performing worship. What is happening? Outside the alarm is ringing; inside you dream you are in Kashi at the temple of Vishwanath and the bells are sounding. This is sleep’s trick to falsify the alarm so the alarm cannot awaken you.

Earlier people thought the dream disturbs sleep; now the situation is exactly the opposite. Those who are doing deep research on dreams—and much work is going on in the West; in America alone at least ten universities are working on dreams—are building a science of dreams. One of the latest findings is that the dream is not an obstacle to sleep; it is the protector of sleep. The dream is sleep’s soldier.

You often hear people say, I had so many dreams last night; that’s why I couldn’t sleep. They are quite wrong. If dreams had not come, they could not have slept at all. Because dreams came, they could sleep a little.

You are asleep, and you feel hungry. If no dream comes, hunger will break your sleep. But you dream that there is a banquet at the presidential palace, and you are invited. Your nostrils savor the aroma of delicious dishes; your eyes see laden platters; you sit to eat; you eat; you eat heartily. What is this dream? Only a device to save sleep. Otherwise, strong hunger would break it. With this false meal, sleep is saved. You are given an illusion and you go on sleeping.

Like when a mother does not want to breastfeed a baby, she puts a rubber nipple in the baby’s mouth. Sucking on the rubber nipple he falls asleep, thinking he has the mother’s breast. The dream is a rubber pacifier. It creates the deception.

When you try to wake a sleeping man, what meaning he takes inside his sleep is hard to say.

Someone asked Mulla Nasruddin, Tell me, why does the groom ride a mare to his wedding instead of a donkey? Nasruddin said, So the bride won’t be frightened by seeing two donkeys together.

A man is drowning in a river. A policeman comes and stands on the bank and, thinking the man is swimming, shouts to him, Can’t you see the signboard? Swimming here is prohibited! Pointing to the board, he calls out to the man swallowing water. The man gasps, But officer, I am drowning. Good then, the policeman says as he walks away. If you’re drowning, then it’s all right—no rule is being broken.

The sleeper’s interpretation will be his own interpretation. An old woman tripped crossing the road and fell; a man quickly picked her up. Grateful, she blessed him: May God grant you a long life! And may God also “lift” you as quickly as you lifted me.

Ramakrishna, you may be waking them, but what that sleeping person is thinking—you cannot know.

Nothing at all is new,
everything is old;
only the dye is fresh
with which the age is colored.

I sing even among thorns, with a little smile;
remaining silent, I let this life’s note be heard—
but who here listens? Only the pretense of listening.

The notes that arose thousands of times I have repeated;
thousands of times I have gone and returned empty-handed—
yet the caravan of pleading halts and then sets out again.

Before morning I saw evening arriving at every door;
it brings a fresh message: wake—and then lull back to sleep;
but if sleep is in their destiny, when does the world awaken?

But who here listens? Only the pretense of listening.

People don’t really listen. They only hear—the ears hear. The heart is not reached. The mind understands, the life-breath remains untouched.

But, Ramakrishna, there is no need to be disturbed by this; it is entirely natural. If you feel that the sleeping should wake, first wake yourself. That event has not happened yet. And don’t get involved in the worry of waking other sleeping people.

This is how missionaries are born. All the missionaries you see in the world are sleeping people busy trying to wake other sleeping people. The sick seeking cures for other sick people. They themselves have no hint of God, and they are explaining God to others. They know nothing of prayer, and they teach prayer. Their lives are as benumbed as others’, and they preach awareness.

I have heard: a very beautiful young woman came to a Catholic priest to confess her sins. The priest sat behind the screen—on one side the priest, on the other the woman. He knew her—she was exceptionally beautiful. She said, I have made some mistakes; I have come to confess. Please forgive me. Yesterday a young man came; he touched my feet. The priest grew curious. He asked, Then? In his “then?” there was great eagerness. The woman said, Then he began to pull at my sari. The priest’s heartbeat quickened; he asked, Then? She said, I too was liking it, so I let him pull the sari off. The priest asked, Then? She said, Then my mother came in. The priest said, Damn it!

These are the missionaries—out to awaken the whole world, to make it religious, to turn it toward God.

Ramakrishna, never, even by mistake, become a missionary. The missionary is the most pitiable state.

First, wake up. Why this worry—why don’t people wake even when woken? My dear sir, you too are not waking! Whom are you talking about? You speak as if there is someone else who won’t wake despite being woken. You leave yourself out; you don’t count yourself. The real question is your awakening. Wake up. What have you to do with others? Mind your own affair. At least you wake up!

Then, when you wake, you will know how to awaken others—how lovingly, how gently, how to coax them so that they slide out of their dreams. You can do this only when you yourself have awakened, because then you will know the whole path from sleep to wakefulness.

But it often happens that people come and ask me—constantly they ask—Great immorality is spreading; how can morality be spread? The world is becoming irreligious; how can religion be spread? They have assumed one thing—that they are not included; they stand outside.

The truly religious person asks, I am asleep—how can I wake? The false religious person asks, People are not waking—how can they wake?

Ramakrishna, first you wake. If you wake, the world is awakened. In your awakening, the door opens for others to awaken.

I am not preparing people here to go and wake others; I am preparing people to awaken themselves. My sannyasin is not a missionary. My sannyasin is not a servant; he has no one to serve. If he can serve himself, that is much. If he himself becomes a lit fire, that is enough. If he becomes a smokeless flame, that is enough. Around that smokeless flame, other lamps begin to draw near of their own accord. And it is a joy to awaken the one who comes of his own accord.

The thirsty one comes to the well; the well does not need to go to the thirsty.

Enough for today.