Vigyan Dharam Aur Kala #4

My beloved Atman!

I have been asked to say a few things about Dharma. But the greatest difficulty is this: nothing at all can truly be said about Dharma. It can be known, it cannot be spoken. So first I want to share with you a very paradoxical statement. Whatever can be said is not Dharma; and what Dharma is, cannot be said.

In life, all that is deepest cannot be uttered. We speak only about what is trivial. Whatever is profound falls outside the circle of words.

Rabindranath was dying, lying on his deathbed. He had written six thousand songs in his life. It is believed that no poet in the world has ever created such a marvel, or so many songs. The English poet Shelley is called a great poet; he wrote only two thousand. Rabindranath wrote six thousand. Someone came to visit him and said, 'You have achieved all that is to be achieved; you have sung all that needed singing; you have said all that needed saying. You can depart in great peace.' Rabindranath began to weep. He said, 'You are wrong! What I wanted to say, I have not yet said. What I wanted to sing, I have not yet sung. I had only just tuned my instrument, and the time to leave has arrived. What I wished to speak has remained within. And every day I am saying to God, what kind of jest is this? Just when I am beginning to be able to attempt saying something, I am being called away.'

The man asked, 'But you have sung so much, written so many songs?' Rabindranath replied, 'Before singing I used to think I would be able to say something; after singing I discovered that the words went out, but the meaning remained within. That which I wished to convey stayed in my heart.'

Almost all who have known Truth, Beauty, the divine—this has been their greatest difficulty: it is impossible to say it. The language available to man is very feeble. It serves well in the marketplace, in utilitarian life. But the moment we try to touch some deep source, it fails us.

When we love someone, in the moment of love speech falls away. However much a lover may have prepared—'I will say this, I will say that'—the moment he reaches the beloved, or his friend, or his mother, whom he loves, he falls silent. Words do not work, one must be quiet.

It is a wonder indeed that whatever is truly important in this world is said in silence, not in speech. Even in ordinary love one must be quiet, because the experience is so deep that to pour it into words is difficult. And the experience of the divine is far deeper still—there is no way to cast it into words.

In China there was a most wondrous sage, Lao Tzu. He was eighty, yet he had written nothing. People would tell him, 'Write down your experience.' Lao Tzu would laugh it away and say, 'My preparation is not yet complete.' Then his final moments drew near, and people pleaded, 'Now at least write, otherwise your experience may be lost.'

Lao Tzu said, 'How can I say it? I have tried my whole life. Whenever I try to say what I want to say, that very thing remains behind; and what I never intended to say escapes through the words.' But people would not relent, so he wrote a book. Its name is Tao Te Ching. The very first thing he wrote there was: 'Let me first submit this—do not cling to anything I am going to say. For what I want to say, I shall not be able to say.'

In the preface itself he says: 'If I point to the moon with a finger and someone grabs my finger and thinks this is the moon, such a mistake happens with words. Words can indicate; they cannot tell the Truth.' But we clutch at words—as if I point to the moon, and someone holds my finger and believes that is the moon.

The finger is not the moon. The finger has no relation to the moon's where-ness. And if one wants to see the moon, one must forget the finger. But fingers are held onto. Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh—these are the names of those who have clutched at the finger and forsaken the moon. Someone has grabbed Nanak's finger and is called a Sikh; someone Krishna's finger and is called a Hindu; someone Christ's finger and is called a Christian. But the moon is one; fingers can be many. Whether the finger raised is Christ's or Nanak's or Krishna's, Buddha's or Mahavira's—fingers may be a thousand, ten thousand, but the moon is one.

Dharma is one. Yet it does not appear one. Many religions appear. I say, many appear because fingers have been seized. If the moon were seen, only one Dharma would remain; not many. Truth cannot be many; untruth can be many. If I speak untruth, there are many options, many alternatives. If I speak Truth, there is no alternative. Truth is one; untruth can be many. And Dharma is the ultimate Truth—the ultimate. Therefore there cannot be many Dharmas.

So the first thing I wish to say about Dharma is: nothing can be said about it, only indications can be offered. And the danger is that the indication itself is grasped; then the mistake is made. Indications are to be dropped. Therefore, whoever wishes to reach Dharma must leave the shastras behind, for the shastras are only indications. Whoever wishes to reach Dharma must leave the Guru behind, for the Guru is only an indication. Whoever wishes to reach Dharma must leave sect behind, for every sect is just an indication. To reach Dharma, all indications must be dropped, and the eyes must be raised where the moon is—there is no indication there.

First, understand this well: man is clinging to indications. Indications have created great mischief. Because of indications, we fight. And the more we fight, the more difficult it becomes for Dharma to enter our life. Into a fighting mind, Dharma cannot descend.

Dharma descends into a mind where all conflict has ceased; the divine comes to the door where stillness is, where silence is. But at the door of a Hindu there can be no peace, at the door of a Muslim there can be no peace—there the quarrel will continue.

Recently I was in Ahmedabad. Before me Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had been there. There had been riots. He told the Muslims, 'You must become true Muslims.' He told the Hindus, 'You must become true Hindus.' After him Jayaprakash was there; he said to people, 'I am a Hindu and I take pride in being a Hindu.' Later I went there, and I discovered some astonishing things. I told the people: 'If half-baked Muslims and half-baked Hindus create so much trouble, if they become true and well-cooked Hindus and Muslims, trouble will multiply a thousandfold, it will not diminish.'

No—the question is not of a Muslim becoming a 'pukka' Muslim, nor a Hindu becoming a 'pukka' Hindu. The question is for the Hindu to let his Hindu-ness disappear, for the Muslim to let his Muslim-ness disappear. Only after Hindu and Muslim both have dissolved will what remains be a religious man—not a 'pukka' man. Not a 'pukka' Hindu, not a 'pukka' Muslim—these hardened shells must melt. Within, the plain, simple human being—without any label, not divided into Hindu and Muslim—only he can become religious.

If one is to meet the divine, no one can go there as a Hindu or as a Muslim. For, as I have said, these are indications. Whoever clings to the indication will never reach the moon. But we live in great error, in great delusion. All our zeal in life is to become a perfect Hindu or a perfect Muslim.

But the issue is not being a perfect Hindu or a perfect Muslim. To be religious has nothing to do with being Hindu or Muslim. To be religious is a wholly different dimension, a different axis, a different pilgrimage. When one sets out on it, all temples, all mosques, all churches, all gurudwaras become temples and mosques of the One. But our great difficulty is this: whenever someone finds such Dharma in the world and comes to tell us, some mistake occurs.

There was a Muslim fakir, Farid. He was traveling, and Kabir's ashram lay on the way. Farid's companions said, 'It would be good to be guests at Kabir's ashram for two days. If both of you converse, we will be blessed.' Farid said, 'We will certainly stay, but conversation may not happen—what conversation could there be?' Kabir's disciples told him, 'Farid is passing; it would be good to stop him for two days, make him a guest. If you both converse, nectar will shower upon us.' Kabir laughed and said, 'Conversation may not happen.' The disciples did not understand. They stopped Farid. Farid stayed two days. Kabir and Farid met, embraced, wept, laughed, sat together. Two days passed—no words.

In two days the disciples became anxious. Farid's disciples were anxious; Kabir's too. Boredom set in. After the farewell, as soon as Kabir and Farid parted, Kabir's disciples seized him, Farid's seized Farid, and asked, 'What did you do? Why did you remain silent?' Kabir said, 'There is no way to say the divine. If Farid had not known, we would have tried to explain in words; but he too knows—so there is no need to speak.' Farid was asked the same; he said, 'Whoever would speak would be the ignorant one; there, in that realm, there is no way to speak. Only those enter who become silent.' Farid's disciples protested: 'But you speak to us.'

Farid said, 'I speak out of helplessness—in the hope that, hearing me long enough, you will tire of words and fall silent. For you do not know; you cannot even understand words—how will you understand silence? But Kabir knows; with him, words are meaningless.'

Those who have known on this earth have never been able to say what they knew. But they tried to point. They made some indications—and from those indications great error has arisen. For from indications we can only understand what we already know. If you read the Gita, you will understand not what Krishna said, but what you are capable of understanding. If you read Nanak's bani, you will not understand what Nanak said—because to understand it you would have to be in Nanak's state of consciousness; you will only understand what you can.

Hence so much dispute: a thousand commentaries on the Gita, a thousand men deriving a thousand meanings—'The Gita means this; the Gita means that.' They argue that the others are wrong and that theirs is the true meaning. Now, Krishna's head was not muddled that a single statement of his could carry a thousand meanings. His mind was crystal clear. What he said has only one meaning—known to Krishna. The commentator knows nothing of it; he is inserting his own meaning. When we read a book, we do not take meaning out—we take words out and pour in our own meaning. The words belong to the book; the meaning is ours.

One night Buddha spoke. Whenever he finished speaking, his bhikshus, his sannyasins gathered around him. He would say, 'Now the talk is over; begin the real work.' This happened every day. The monks understood what the real work was: prayer, meditation, Samadhi. That night a thief too had come. When Buddha was done and said, 'Now get to the night's real work,' the thief said, 'It is late; shall I go out stealing?' That night a prostitute had also come to listen. When Buddha said, 'Begin the night's real work,' the monks went to Samadhi, the prostitute went to open her shop. Buddha had said one thing; the thief took his meaning, the prostitute hers, the monks theirs. Had you and I been there, we too would have taken our own meaning. The meanings are always ours.

All this mischief has arisen because scriptures contain words and we supply the meanings. No one ever reaches Truth through scriptures; clutching scriptures, we keep walking round and round ourselves. If anyone wishes to reach Truth, he must stop the process of pouring his meanings in. Things must be seen as they are. Do not add meaning.

If even for a single moment you could look at existence with eyes fully open, and add no meaning, we could see the divine here and now. But we do not. Someone approaches—I say, 'My wife is coming.' I have imposed a meaning. I say, 'My friend is coming'—a meaning. 'My enemy is coming'—a meaning. If around us we do not impose any meaning on what is happening, and simply know it as it is, something astounding happens.

When a person adds no meaning of his own, what appears is Paramatma. Then even in a tree Paramatma becomes visible; in a flower too; in the stone lying by the roadside as well. But we do not see. We have become addicted to imposing meanings. So even when we go to seek God, we make an idol and impose our meaning: 'Here is God.' What is the idol—this does not matter; we impose our meaning: 'There—God.' We keep pouring our own meanings even there; we do not see what is.

I have heard of a fakir in Japan. He was lodging in a temple—a Buddhist temple. The night was cold, intensely cold. He got up and saw three statues of Buddha, wooden statues. He took one, lit a fire, and began to warm himself. The priest noticed a fire in the temple and came running. 'What are you doing? A fire in the temple!' But it was not only fire; it was 'God' burning. The priest went mad with outrage. The statue had become ash. The priest cried, 'What have you done? Are you insane? You burned an image of God!' The fakir picked up a stick and began to poke the ashes. The priest asked, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'I am looking for God's bones.' The priest said, 'You are completely mad. Where would bones be in a wooden statue?' The fakir said, 'Then the night is very cold, and two statues remain—bring them too; we will burn them and warm ourselves. For you yourself say a wooden statue has no bones; then you know it is wood—and yet you insist it is God. You know it is wood, and you believe it is God. The belief is your imposition.'

The priest threw the fakir out. In the morning, when the doors were opened, that fakir—who had warmed himself by burning the statue—was sitting before a mere milestone outside, with two flowers placed upon it, palms joined. The priest said, 'This man is certainly mad. He burns God's statue and folds his hands before an ordinary milestone!' He shook him and said, 'What are you doing? You burned the image of God and now you bow to a milestone?' The fakir said, 'I set fire to your statue to test whether you could see God; and I now sit with folded hands before this stone to test whether you cannot see God here.'

If God is to be seen, it will be only when we refrain from imposing meanings upon life.

We have imposed meanings on everything. We see only what we want to see. We do not see what is. The atheist sees that there is no God—he too is imposing a meaning. The theist sees that there is God—he too is imposing a meaning. The religious man is of a third kind: he imposes no meaning at all. He says, 'I will not go to look at life through my own interpretations. I will stand empty and know life as it is.'

Whoever is ready to know life as it is—such a one at once becomes capable of knowing the truth of Dharma. But it is very difficult, for we have everywhere falsified. We have replaced things-as-they-are with our labels. I see a man standing before an idol in a temple, palms joined. He says, 'I am praying.' If we could tear his heart open, we would find no prayer there—perhaps fear. And kneeling has nothing to do with prayer. A frightened man kneels, folds his hands. Inside is fear, but he says, 'This is prayer.' He is imposing the label of prayer upon fear.

We have changed everything, pasted new names on everything. The rose is not a rose; the rose knows nothing of being a 'rose.' We have imposed a word: 'This is a rose.' And we live by the word. We have never seen what is hidden in the rose. We have missed what is hidden in life, and we will go on missing it because we are always trying to see something.

I heard an incident.

A sannyasi went to speak in a village. A few people had come to listen. Some women too. One woman had brought her little boy. In the middle the boy stood up and told his mother, 'I need to pee.' Everyone laughed and looked at the boy. After the meeting, the sannyasi called the woman and said, 'Teach your son that if ever in a crowd he feels this, he should not say it plainly; he should say something else.' The woman asked, 'What should he say?' The sannyasi said, 'Make a code. He can say, for instance, "Mother, I want to sing." You will understand; no one else will.' The matter ended; the mother taught the boy: whenever you need to pee, say you want to sing.

A year later the sannyasi was a guest at that woman's house. The woman had to go to a wedding nearby; she left her son sleeping near the sannyasi, saying, 'Please watch over him.' It was around midnight. The boy shook the sannyasi and said, 'Swamiji, I want to sing.' The swami said, 'Who sings at midnight? Go to sleep.' The boy was quiet a while, then said, 'No, Swamiji, I cannot sleep quietly; I have to sing.' The swami said, 'What a crazy boy—who sings at midnight? Sing in the morning.' The boy said, 'I will sing again in the morning, but I have to sing now.' The swami grumbled, 'What trouble that woman has left me! I am tired from the day, I need to sleep—and you want to sing! Be quiet; do not make a fuss.' But how could the boy sleep? After a while he again said, 'No, Swamiji, it is impossible to sleep quietly; I have to sing.' The swami said, 'If you won't listen, then hum it softly in my ear.'

We too have made codes for life, rather than knowing things as they are. We are saying one thing, we have falsified the whole of life. The facts of life we have falsified; we keep renaming. And because of naming, what is does not appear; what is not is grasped. What is, is Paramatma. If only we could refrain from this technique of naming, Paramatma would be visible immediately.

But we cannot live without naming. A flower appears—we will say 'rose.' A man appears—we will say 'Hindu, Muslim.' A book—we will say 'sacred, profane.' We are unwilling to see life without naming. And because Paramatma is nameless, we miss. We cannot even see anything without first naming it.

We have even given names to the divine. Someone says His name is Ram. Ram was the name of Dasharatha's son; it is not the name of the divine. Ram was a very lovely man, but his name is not God's name. Someone says His name is Allah; someone else says Om, Brahman, Ishwar; we have given a thousand names. We name even the divine, whom we do not know. And a man sits repeating 'Ram Ram' and imagines he will find God. How will he find the Nameless by repeating a name? Never. Yes, one can waste one's life in this Ram-Ram.

I recently went to a village. They had built a temple. In that temple thousands of notebooks were kept; each book filled with 'Ram Ram' written hundreds of thousands of times. In that temple, the sole occupation is this—some hundred people sit day and night writing 'Ram Ram.' The devotees of that temple live all over India; they keep filling volumes with 'Ram Ram' and send them to the temple. A library is rising there. The caretakers told me, 'Do you know? Billions of names have arrived. The books are full; we have no space left. We must build a new temple. So much propagation of religion is happening—people are writing Ram-Ram and sending it.' I said, 'Is religion being propagated—or madness? These notebooks could have served children; they are ruined. But those writing Ram-Ram think they will find God!'

Paramatma has no name. By repeating 'Ram Ram' He will not be found. We will have to drop this habit of naming everything. We must learn to see without names.

Try this a little and a new experience will be born. Walk through a garden and do not name the flower—just stand by it. The mind will insist: 'jasmine, rose, juhi.' Tell the mind: do not name. For the jasmine itself knows nothing of its name. Neither does the rose. Does the sun have a name? Do the moon and the stars have names? We too were born nameless. But we gave ourselves names; from that very day the deception began.

A child is born; we say, 'Your name is Ram.' All his life he will believe, 'I am Ram.' And if someone insults 'Ram,' he will be ready to fight. But does anyone come with a name?

We are all born nameless. Life is nameless. Truth has no name. But the mind is addicted to naming; without names it refuses to accept. If someone meets us and says, 'I have no name,' we say, 'You have lost your mind.' But he is right; our mind is astray. Whose is a name?

A friend of mine fell from a train. He is a doctor. He hit his head and forgot everything—his own name too. When I visited, he did not recognize me. I said, 'Don't you know me?' He said, 'How could I recognize you when I cannot recognize myself? I don't know who I am.' His father whispered to me, 'Say anything, but his mind has gone.' I asked his father, 'Do you know who you are? You tell your son his mind is gone. Do you know who you are?' He said, 'I know—I know my name. He does not even know his name. The fall ruined everything.'

But are we our names? We are not. We have named everything, and man is lost—in words, in names. If man is to rise above all this, he must drop the habit of naming. Begin the habit of seeing; end the habit of naming.

If even for one hour out of twenty-four we could live without naming, a new doorway would open in life—the doorway through which the divine enters. For He has no name. If for one hour we can refrain from naming, refrain from weaving words—if for one hour we can be without thought... for know this: when you do not name, when you create no words, thinking stops. Thinking is the process of naming. Thinking will break, end. And where thinking ends, there the door opens—the door of the divine. In thoughtlessness His door opens. In thoughtless awareness, where no thought moves, He enters within.

But we are filled with thought. We are drowned in thought twenty-four hours a day—words and words and words. In our brain only words whirl. If we closed a door and sat in a corner and wrote down on a piece of paper all the words passing through the mind, we would not be willing to show that paper even to our closest friend. Reading it, we would think, 'Am I mad? Is this what is circling in my head?' Words spinning like flies. The head is full all the time; it is never empty. And as long as it is full of words, that which is beyond words cannot enter.

So the second thing I want to say about Dharma is: we must learn the art of being thoughtless; only then can we be related to Dharma. We must learn the art of silence—within and without. Only in that stillness is the sound of His footsteps heard. But we are so noisy that even if the divine were to pass by our house with a brass band we might not hear. And His feet create no sound; He comes silently—so silently that we do not notice. We are filled with ourselves.

Rabindranath wrote a song. He wrote of a temple and its high priest who dreamt one night that God would come to the temple next day. There were a hundred priests in that temple—great temple, wealth of millions. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of devotees. The high priest dreamt that God would come. At first he did not believe it.

It is a strange fact: those who go to the temple perhaps have more faith in God than the priest who stands there. He knows the full secret of the shop; he has erected the whole apparatus. He knows full well there is no God. It is hard to find men more atheistic than priests. It is trade for them—a business. They know all the tricks of how it runs. They have nothing to do with the divine; they have another concern.

The high priest said, 'It must be a dream; God never comes.' But the other priests heard and said, 'A dream may come true. Life is peculiar: sometimes what we call real turns dreamlike; perhaps a dream may come true. We should prepare—what if He does come?' The high priest said, 'You are mad. For years I have been worshipping here—He never came. I have seen worshippers come and go, but never the One to receive worship. It is a dream.' But the others insisted, 'Even if it is a dream, what is the harm? Let us prepare. If He does not come—no harm. But if He comes and we are unprepared, it will be a great calamity.' So, politically, religiously speaking, 'just in case,' they prepared the temple—cleaned it, lit lamps, cooked offerings for God.

Every day they made offerings too; but finally those offerings went to themselves. That preparation was different. Today suspicion pricked them: 'Are we being foolish? Who will come to take the offering? For whom are the flowers arranged? For whom are the lamps lit?' Yet for politeness' sake they made arrangements. Evening came—He did not come. They went again and again to look outside—He did not come. The One you must go to look for outside will not come—He comes from within. They kept peeking at the steps and returned saying, 'He has not come.'

The high priest said, 'Fools, I told you in the morning. Now let us eat the offerings and go to sleep. We have tired ourselves in vain.' They ate. Tired with waiting, they slept.

At midnight, at the door, as if a chariot arrived—the sound of wheels. A priest awoke and said, 'It seems His chariot has come.' The others said, 'Be quiet. You troubled us all day; now stop. That is not a chariot; it is thunder.' They slept. Then someone climbed the steps—the sound of feet. Another priest said, half-awake, 'It seems someone is climbing the steps.' The others said, 'Be quiet. All day no one climbed the steps; who will climb them at night? It is an illusion. You have a desire in your mind that He will come; hence the illusion. Sleep.' Then someone knocked at the door. Again someone said, 'Someone knocks.' The high priest said, 'Fools, will you let me sleep? It is the wind rattling the shutters. No one is there; it is the wind.'

Night passed. In the morning they rose; there were the tracks of a chariot at the gate, footprints on the steps, marks on the door of knocking. Then they all began to weep: the moment was missed.

When I read this song, I thought: is it not the same with us all? When the footprints were heard, they said 'illusion.' When the sound of wheels came, they said 'thunder.' When the door was knocked, they said 'wind.' They decided while lying there; they did not rise to check. They made words; they did not go to see what is. They named, they worded, they thought—and remained where they were. We do this all life long. It is not that God comes some night to some temple; He comes every day to the temple of each of us—every moment. But with words we miss.

There was a fakir, Sai Baba. A Hindu sannyasi used to come to him. Sai lived in a mosque. It was not certain whether he was Hindu or Muslim. In truth, only the irreligious can be fixed as Hindu or Muslim; a saint is never fixed. He lived in a mosque, and that Hindu sannyasi, though a disciple, could not stay in a mosque. He lodged in a temple outside the village. But his love for Sai was so great that he would cook his meal and first carry it to Sai; then he would eat. He had to walk three or four miles in the sun. One day Sai said, 'Why do you come so far? I will come there myself. The noon sun is harsh; I will come tomorrow.' The sannyasi said, 'It would be my great fortune if you came to my hut. I will wait.' Sai said, 'Wait—but will you recognize me?' The sannyasi said, 'How could I not recognize you? I will recognize you.' Sai laughed: 'I have come before too, but you did not recognize.' The sannyasi said, 'Tomorrow I will not even blink—lest I blunder. I will wait.'

Twelve struck—time for food—still he had not come. One o'clock passed. The sannyasi became restless, then ran with the plate to the mosque. Laying it before Sai he said, 'You did not come.' Sai laughed, 'I came; again you did not recognize.' The sannyasi said, 'No one came—only a dog came and kept putting his mouth to the plate. I stopped him: "Get away, dog!"' Sai said, 'That was me. I will come again tomorrow—will you recognize me then?'

How could he accept a dog? The word 'dog' blocked the way. As soon as the dog appeared, he said, 'A dog has come.' With the word 'dog,' the divine stopped. The divine is in a dog too. But the word will hinder. The next day he resolved: even if a dog comes, I will accept. But no dog came; life is unpredictable—life is new each day. A beggar came—he was a leper. From a distance the sannyasi cried, 'Keep away—do not defile the food!' Two o'clock passed. Again he ran to the mosque. 'You did not come today either. I waited so much!' Sai said, 'I came today also—but today I had leprosy.' Then the sannyasi began to weep: 'What will I do then? How will I recognize you?' Sai said, 'It is because you give a word that the difficulty arises—you are stuck there. Yesterday you said "dog"—finished. Today you said "leper"—finished. Do not give a word; then I can appear to you.'

But we are all addicted to giving words; thus the divine cannot appear. The divine must be known without words. Whoever wants to know the secret of Dharma must break this bad habit of naming. The possibility of the wordless, of emptiness, of stillness must be cultivated. Then it is not that in some heaven you will find the divine—you will find Him in the dog, in the beggar, in the stone by the roadside, in the neighbor sitting by your side; looking within, you will find Him in yourself.

Paramatma means: Existence. Paramatma means: that which is—the Totality. Paramatma is not a person. Paramatma is the name of the grand total of existence—the sum of us all. If such a grand total can be, the final sum in which all are included, that sum is called Paramatma. Therefore, you need not go to the Himalayas to seek Him, nor to Mecca and Kaba, nor to Kashi. To find Him, our way of seeing must change.

Our seeing is now encircled by words and thoughts. If He is to be seen, a seeing must be found—an eye that looks beyond word and thought; that only sees, does not think. Such a third eye becomes the path to the experience of Dharma.

Finally let me say: this third eye only sees, it does not think—just seeing. But we have stopped seeing; we begin thinking before we see. Whenever we look, thinking comes along. We cannot see without thinking.

Then the religious eye cannot be born within us. We must develop the capacity to see without thought. That is vision; that is real seeing. But we begin to think over everything. We have never seen anything without thought. If you watch, you will be amazed. You have never seen anything without thought. The moon in the night sky—you have not seen it without thinking. The hush of night—you have not seen it without thinking. These are far-off things. If you are a husband, you have never looked into your wife's eyes without thinking. If you are a father, you have never looked into your child's eyes without thinking.

If you can see anything without thought even for a single instant, suddenly the door opens with a jolt. The wife recedes and the divine arrives. The child recedes and the divine arrives. The tree vanishes and the divine arrives. The wall disappears and the divine arrives. If even for a moment lightning flashes within you—and you can look without thought—this is possible; we simply do not suspect it.

When a child is born for the first time, he does not think—he only sees. If you bring something red before him, he cannot think, 'This is red'—he knows nothing of it. He only sees. He does not know that this is a rattle or a doll; he knows no words. He only sees.

Someone asked Jesus, 'Who will see your God?' Jesus said, 'Those who have eyes like children.' He said, 'Only those childlike in simplicity will see.'

I do not think the meaning of 'childlike simplicity' is understood. A child has one quality that a grown man lacks: a child can see without thought; an old man cannot. The fundamental difference between child and old is this: the child's perception, his seeing, is pure—no word intrudes. He only sees. Therefore the measure of a child's joy is incalculable.

All children are closer to the divine than we are. Then we give them 'structure' and pull them far away. The old man goes very far from the divine. All children are close. Their art is simply this: they see directly, immediately—nothing in between. There, what is, is; here, they are—between, no word. No obstacle. The eyes are open, clear.

I call a religious man one who has, later, regained the child's eyes; who has reclaimed a child's innocence, a guileless mind. This is possible. It is not difficult—except for habit. We are slaves to habit.

A friend of mine was a barrister in the Privy Council—a great lawyer. He had a habit that whenever a case got tangled, he would begin twirling the first button of his coat. It had become a habit. As soon as his fingers touched that first button, the movement of argument in his mind quickened; he could think. Whenever in difficulty, he twirled the button.

We too, if anxious, scratch the head, stroke the beard—something—and feel relief.

There was a big case in the Privy Council—a princely state's case, worth millions. The opposing counsel had noticed for long: when my friend touched the button, he argued best. He bribed the chauffeur and said, 'Tomorrow when you bring the coat to court, break off the first button.' The driver carried the coat; he broke the button.

My friend donned the coat, began his pleading. When the knotty moment came, his hand went to the button—suddenly all was lost. He told me, 'For the first time in life my head reeled; everything swam. I quickly sat down. All arguments vanished from my mind. That little button was gone—and all was chaos.' For the first time, he lost a case; the reason was a small button.

We cannot even imagine that a coat button could affect victory in court. Habit.

History keeps the trivial and drops the vital. You may not know why Napoleon lost to Nelson. He lost because of a very strange thing. He did not really lose to Nelson at all.

When Napoleon was six months old, a wild cat climbed upon his chest. His nurse had gone nearby. She came and drove the cat away, but the shock remained. Later Napoleon could face lions, but at the sight of a cat he trembled. The cat had sunk into his unconscious when he was six months old—at the sight of a cat he became six months old again. He could bare his chest to cannon, but a cat's paw was a terrible thing. The day he lost, Nelson had seventy cats tied at the front of his army. Somehow it had been discovered that Napoleon feared cats. When Napoleon saw them, he told his general, 'You take over. I have lost my senses. I cannot fight. My hands and feet are shaking. I have no control. How has Nelson brought cats? Today victory is hard.' Napoleon lost for the first time—his last and first defeat. And we say: to be defeated by a cat is only a matter of habit.

The human mind too is under the habit of words—only habit. We are losing the divine because of one wrong habit: we have no thoughtless vision. We have no thought-free seeing.

The name of thought-free seeing is meditation—Dhyana. If in thoughtlessness we can see, then here and now we can see the divine. To seek Dharma, one need not go anywhere far. To seek Dharma means to understand the wrong habit of the mind and to go beyond it. We have not lost Paramatma; because of a wrong habit a net has formed and we are entangled. It only seems that we are lost.

One small story and I will finish.

A great poet was traveling one night in a boat. He had a candle lit and was reading a book—on aesthetics, the science of beauty. Till midnight he read. He was tired, bored. He closed the book and blew out the candle. As soon as he blew it out, he was stunned. While the candle burned, he had not known that outside it was full-moon night. The whole sky was open; on the lake all around beauty was showering. He had not known—he was lost in his book.

And there is no beauty in books. There are books on aesthetics; but beauty is not in books.

Beauty was showering all around, spreading everywhere, while he was drowned in a book. And the candle burning blocked the moonlight; it could not enter. It remained outside the windows. As soon as the candle went out, through the windows, through the doors, through every crack the moon entered and danced. The poet was shocked; he too began to dance. He wrote in his diary: 'How foolish I am—beauty was all around, and I was seeking it in a book. Beauty was showering everywhere, and I was searching in words. Beauty was blazing, blossoming—and I was keeping a small candle burning, blocking it.'

The day you come to know the divine, you will know this too: the divine is raining all around. But you are tangled in the book of words, of thoughts; and you keep the candle of the ego lit. The tiny light of that ego—yellow, dirty, smoky—by its meager glow you block the moonlight of the divine—without smoke, without yellowness, without impurity; always fresh, never stale. That light waits outside, watching for when you will blow out your candle.

But we cling to our candle, protect it, feed it so it does not go out; and we drown ourselves deeper in our book.

Knowledge is not in books. The knowledge of Dharma is not in books. Science's knowledge is in books—so science can be found in libraries, laboratories, universities. But Dharma has no library, no laboratory, no university. It cannot be found anywhere there, because it is not in books. We can teach everything—agriculture, chemistry, physics, philosophy—only religion cannot be taught. Dharma cannot be taught. Dharma is present all around. To know it, we must change the habit, the conditioning, the way of our mind.

Once this thought dawns, change is not difficult. When you pass a flower, kindly for two moments do not name it—just look at what is. Suddenly the flower will be new, and its petals will become the petals of the divine. When at night you look at the sky, do not name the stars—do not even say 'stars'—just look, just seeing. Then such peace will begin to shower from the stars—that peace is of the divine. When you gaze into a person's face, give no name, do not say Hindu or Muslim, do not assign caste, give no label—just look into the eyes. If you can quietly look into even one person's eyes, you have looked into the eyes of the divine. After that it will be difficult to forget who it was that you saw.

Therefore, for me, Dharma is an experience. Only by doing it will you know it. No one can give it to you; no way has ever existed to 'tell' it. Then what have I been doing for an hour? If it cannot be told, why have I been speaking to you?

It cannot be told, but thirst toward it can be awakened. I cannot take you to the lake, but I can bear witness that there is a lake. I cannot lead you to the water, but I can provoke your thirst within.

All the great ones—Krishna, Christ, Nanak, Buddha—did not give Truth; they awakened the thirst for Truth. They did not give God; they awakened the thirst for God.

And if the thirst arises, you will reach the lake on your own—because the lake is not far; it is just behind your house. Just turn your neck and look back—and there it is.

But without thirst, why would you turn your neck? With thirst, the neck turns. With thirst, you search for the lake. Without thirst... And we have given false names even to our thirst. One man says, 'I want to reach the highest position'—a false name. However high he climbs, nothing will happen—the thirst will continue. There is only one position that quenches all thirst: the position of the divine. Before that, no thirst is quenched. One says, 'I want to collect great wealth...'

In America a billionaire died—Andrew Carnegie. At death he had around ten billion rupees. A friend said, 'You must be fulfilled; you are leaving so much.' Carnegie looked in anger and said, 'Leaving what? Only ten billion! My intention was to make a hundred billion.' He said it as if 'ten' were ten pennies. But if he had had a hundred billion, would anything have changed? Nothing. Desire would have moved ahead: a thousand billion, a trillion... Would anything ever be enough?

Our life-breaths yearn for a wealth that is infinite. We are searching wrongly. Only on finding the divine does the race for wealth end; before that it cannot—because He is the supreme wealth. After Him, no other treasure is needed. The race for position also ends by finding Him—because He is the ultimate position. In truth, upon finding the divine, the race for all attainments dissolves. But we do not know; we have misnamed our thirst. Someone says, 'I want wealth'—in truth he is saying, 'I am unwilling to remain poor.'

But do you know? However much wealth you gather, you will remain poor. Wealth does not remove inner poverty. Outside money piles up; inside the poor man remains poor. Often the poor are less poor than the rich; the rich man's poverty becomes even deeper.

What difference will big positions make? Chairs grow taller and taller—what difference? Even if the chair reaches Delhi, what difference? The legs of the chair only lengthen. Childish! Small children climb up on their father's chair and say, 'See, I have become taller than you.' The father smiles and keeps quiet. Those on chairs say the same: 'See, I am greater than you. I am a minister, a president.' They are children on chairs, telling neighbors, 'I am greater.' Inside, nothing has changed: the same pettiness, the same poverty, the same misery.

Without finding the divine, man does not become peaceful—cannot. But we have diverted even our search for the divine. So many diversions, so many names. The most that can be done is to reveal the true face of your desires.

Man's deepest desire is neither wealth nor position. Man's deepest desire is the divine. The day you see this, a revolution begins in your life. The religious man is born within you. And the day you understand that you are entangled in the net of words, if that net can be torn, then rising beyond words, a man reaches the realm of Truth.

Where there are no words—there is Truth. Where there is supreme silence—there is Truth. Where Sat-Chit is—there is the temple of the Lord.

These few things I have said—do not clutch my words. Much harm has been done by clutching words. Do not grasp the indications. Wherever I have raised a finger, wherever I have pointed—forget me, forget my words—lift your eyes to that moon which is there, forever waiting for you. The day you reach that moon, beatitude showers upon your life—ambrosia, life. Apart from Dharma, there is no bliss; apart from Dharma, there is no peace; apart from Dharma, there is no nectar. All else is the poison we go on drinking.

You have listened to me with such silence and love—I am deeply obliged. And in the end I bow to the Paramatma seated within everyone. Please accept my pranam.