The Divine Melody

Talks on Songs of Kabir

Talks given from 01/01/77 am to 10/01/77 am

English Discourse series

10 Chapters

Year published: 1978

The Divine Melody

Chapter #1

Chapter title: God is dwelling everywhere

1 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701010

ShortTitle:

MELODY01

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

73

mins

1.68 bhai kai satguru sant kahawai

HE IS THE REAL MASTER, WHO CAN REVEAL THE FORM

OF THE FORMLESS TO THE VISION OF THESE EYES:

WHO TEACHES THE SIMPLE WAY OF ATTAINING HIM,

THAT IS OTHER THAN RITES OR CEREMONIES:

WHO DOES NOT MAKE YOU CLOSE THE DOORS, AND HOLD THE BREATH, AND RENOUNCE THE WORLD:

WHO MAKES YOU PERCEIVE THE SUPREME SPIRIT

WHEREVER THE MIND ATTACHES ITSELF:

WHO TEACHES YOU TO BE STILL IN THE MIDST OF ALL YOUR ACTIVITIES.

EVER IMMERSED IN BLISS, HAVING NO FEAR IN HIS MIND,

HE KEEPS THE FEAR OF UNION IN THE MIDST OF ALL ENJOYMENTS.

THE INFINITE DWELLING OF THE INFINITE BEING IS EVERYWHERE: IN EARTH, WATER, SKY, AND AIR:

FIRM AS THE THUNDERBOLT, THE SEAT OF THE SEEKER

IS ESTABLISHED ABOVE THE VOID.

HE WHO IS WITHIN IS WITHOUT: I SEE HIM AND NONE ELSE.

1.22. jab main bhula re bhai

O BROTHER: WHEN I WAS FORGETFUL,

MY TRUE GURU SHOWED ME THE WAY.

THEN I LEFT ALL RITES AND CEREMONIES,

I BATHED NO MORE IN THE HOLY WATER:

THEN I LEARNED THAT IT I ALONE WHO WAS MAD,

AND THE WHOLE WORLD BESIDE ME WAS SANE;

AND I HAD DISTURBED THESE WISE PEOPLE.

FROM THAT TIME FORTH I KNEW NO MORE HOW TO ROLL

IN THE DUST IN OBEISANCE:

I DO NOT RING THE TEMPLE BELL:

I DO NOT SET THE IDOL ON ITS THRONE:

I DO NOT WORSHIP THE IMAGE WITH FLOWERS.

IT IS NOT THE AUSTERITIES THAT MORTIFY THE FLESH

WHICH ARE PLEASED TO THE LORD.

WHEN YOU LEAVE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND KILL YOUR

SENSES,

YOU DO NOT PLEASE THE LORD:

THE MAN WHO IS KIND AND WHO PRACTISES RIGHTEOUSNESS,

WHO REMAINS PASSIVE AMIDST THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD,

WHO CONSIDERS ALL CREATURES ON EARTH AS HIS OWN SELF,

HE ATTAINS THE IMMORTAL BEING, THE TRUE GOD IS EVER WITH HIM.

KABIR SAYS:` HE ATTAINS THE TRUE NAME WHOSE WORDS ARE PURE, AND WHO IS FREE FROM PRIDE AND CONCEIT.'

What is religion? Religion is falling in tune with the whole, falling in love with the whole, falling in a togetherness with the whole. A religious person is one who is not against the whole and the irreligious is one who is fighting the whole, is in conflict with the whole. The religious person is life-affirmative. The irreligious person is life-negative.

To the religious person all is good -- his affirmation is absolute and total. Nothing is wrong; even if it appears at times that it is wrong, it cannot be wrong. It must be a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation. It must be based somewhere in our ignorance because we don't know the whole story. So maybe some part looks as if not fitting with the whole. We have not heard the whole song, so some note appears to fall out of line.

But everything has to be good if there is God. God is the guarantee of goodness. Evil, as such, cannot exist. If it appears, it must be a nightmare of our own minds; we must have created it.

The religious mind denies not. His affirmation is absolute, unconditional. He says yes to existence. And his yes has no conditions -- remember it; when he says yes he means it. If you find a person who says no to existence, to life, to this and that, then remember, he is just an egoist -- not religious at all. He is fighting the whole, trying to prove himself a conqueror, trying to prove that he is something special. He is doomed to fail. His frustration is sooner or later going to be;it cannot be avoided for long, it is predestined. It is predestined by his own attitude of conflict. Religion is cooperation -- cooperation with all that is.

Try to understand it as deeply as possible because only then will you be able to understand this mystic singer Kabir. He is a lover of life. He does not deny, he does not negate, he does not condemn, he never sees anything bad anywhere. Once you have had a vision of the whole, all becomes sublime. Then there is nothing secular;everything is sacred, and the whole existence is the temple of God, and the whole life is a prayer.

Walking, you walk in God. Dancing, you dance in God. Sleeping, you sleep in God --

because nothing else exists than him.

God is the guarantee of goodness. God means the good. The good is the substratum of existence, so evil is not possible. Evil is impossible. We must have misrepresented; we must have brought our own ideas, concepts, doctrines; we must have created our own stupid private notions of how things should be. Things simply ARE.There is no SHOULD in existence. The idea of should is brought by man -- and once you bring the idea of should, existence is divided into two: good and bad. Once you say `Things should be like this', you have moved away from reality, you have moved away from that which is. And only that which is, IS; nothing else. Reality is here as it is; don't bring the should, otherwise the condemnation comes.

In the West, Albert Schweitzer has created a very false notion about the East. He was a great thinker, but unfortunately not acquainted with the Eastern mind at all. And he was too Western. He has created a notion that East and Eastern religions are life-denying, life-negative. It is utter nonsense. And you will see, when we enter into Kabir you will see: more life-affirmation is not possible, more love for live is not possible. Even Jesus is not so life-affirmative as Kabir. Where else can you find a temple like Khajuraho, more life-affirmative? Where can you find an occult science like Tantra, more life-affirming?

Where can you find such absolute YES? Life is God -- and there is no other god; and worship of life is worship -- and there is no other worship.

But Schweitzer got his ideas because the Christian missionaries have been interpreting the Eastern religion in such a way that it looks life-negative. Of course there have been a few thinkers in the East who ARE life-negative, but they are very few, and the main current of Eastern religiousness does not consist only of them. In fact they are by the side of the road; they are not the main flow of Eastern consciousness. But Christian missionaries emphasized those life-negative thinkers, and, emphasized their life-negativities more and more, to create an atmosphere in the West as if Christianity is life-affirmative. The truth is just the reverse: Christianity is not life-affirmative. It has not loved man, it has not loved this world, it has not danced, it has not laughed.

Go to a Christian church and you feel as if you have entered a cemetery -- dead, very serious, corpse-like. You enter a church and you start feeling that you are also becoming serious. The very vibe is not of laughter, no. Christians say Jesus never laughed. I don't believe it -- I cannot believe it, because I know Jesus better.

But Christians say Jesus never laughed If I write the gospels, I would write that Jesus laughed his whole life. In fact, when he was crucified he had a belly laughter. He laughed tremendously, uproariously -- because this was just ridiculous. To try to kill that which cannot be killed, to try to kill Jesus -- the very idea is ridiculous, he must have laughed. I can still hear his laughter.... But Christians have not heard his laughter; they have based their religion more on the cross than on Christ.

Christianity would have been benefitted tremendously if the cross had been forgotten --

because with the cross, death comes in. I call Christianity `crossianity'. It is a religion of death, of the cross -- serious, sad. If Christianity had paid more attention to Jesus, then a totally different world view would have arisen. More emphasis should have been given to the resurrected Christ -- not to the crucified. Then Christianity would have been more life-affirmative, even death could not kill, even the cross could not destroy -- Jesus is resurrected. Then Christianity could have danced, then there would have been singing and celebration, and churches would have been more human, But that didn't happen; the whole of Christianity became attached too much to the cross.

In fact, we are all too much attached to death. Death leaves a greater impression in us. If somebody is alive we don't bother to be happy with him, but if he dies we cry. We had never thought about it before, that that man was alive just a day before and we could have danced together and we could have celebrated a few moments and we could have allowed benediction to enter -- we never thought about it. Now he is dead, now we cry. We don't seem to be interested too much in life, we seem to be interested too much in death.

I have heard...

A great enemy of Voltaire died. They were lifelong enemies, critisising each other.

Somebody rushed to Voltaire to release the news and said, `Your great enemy is dead.'

Shocked, Voltaire said, Ì will miss him tremendously.' He started crying and he said, 'He was a great man and it will be difficult to find a greater man than him. His intelligence was tremendously sharp and his whole life was a beautiful life.'

The man who had come to release the news could not believe these words, that Voltaire would say these words -- he was expecting that he would be happy. Seeing him shocked, Voltaire said, 'All these things are true, provided he is really dead. Provided he is really dead -- if he is still alive, then forget all this.'

When a person is dead he becomes good. We declare people good only when they are dead. Alive, they are not good; alive, they are not worth friendship; alive we fight. Dead

,we praise them to high pinacles.

I have heard...

A miserly man died. The widow went to the priest and asked him, `How much will it cost? -- you have to deliver a speech.'

He said,` There are speeches and speeches. The best will cost two hundred dollars.'

`Two hundred dollars?' the woman said. `My husband would not have allowed that much of a luxury. Isn't there a cheaper speech/'

Them man said, `There are hundred-dollars -- but then I will not be able to praise him much.'

The woman said, `Still come a little lower.'

And the priest said, `Fifty dollars is still too much.'

Then he said, Òkay, ten dollars -- but remember, then I will have to tell the truth.'

When a person dies, we start telling lies... beautiful lies. In India everybody dies and goes to heaven -- even politicians. Nobody seems to go to hell; hell must be absolutely empty.

Death seems to be very important to us. We are death-obsessed. That's why Christians made too much fuss about the cross -- that became a symbol. A religion that is centered on the concept of the cross and death and crucifixion cannot be a religion of life-affirmation. Schweitzer is wrong. He should have read Kabir -- his whole being would have been benefitted tremendously.

Kabir is REALLY the religious person. His declaration about life is of tremendous trust.

He does not say to you to renounce anything. He says rather, `Bring everything to God and bring God to everything.' You will be surprised by his assertions: these assertions are tremendously revolutionary.

A few things more ,before we enter the songs.

Religion is not traditional -- cannot be by its very nature. Tradition is that which is dead.

Tradition is that which has passed away, tradition is just the dust of the past, tradition is just the memory. Religion is always alive, breathing. Religion can never be traditional.

Whenever religion becomes traditional, it serves the Devil more than God. Then it serves death more than life. Then it serves politicians, priests, organizations, churches, but it doesn't serve the spirit of man. Then it is no more an opening towards the future.

Tradition looks back; we have to go forward. Looking backward is meaningless; not only meaningless, but harmful too, dangerous -- because we cannot go backwards, we have to go forwards, and looking backwards and moving forwards is bound to create trouble.

The second thing: religion is not in the scriptures, cannot be. Scriptures are dead letters.

Yes, there was religion some day, throbbing in those words when they were being uttered by an alive Master. When Krishna told Srimat Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna, it was alive. It was alive because of Krishna, it was illuminated because of Krishna -- when Krishna disappeared, the Bhagavad Gita became a corpse. Dead words: you can go on analyzing those words, interpreting this way and that... There are one thousand commentaries on the Gita -- famous ones; there are many more. In fact, whenever anybody reads the Gita, he has his own meaning of it. Krishna's meaning is lost; it disappeared with Krishna himself.

The snake has passed... only the track on the sand is left. That track you go on worshipping as a scripture.

When Jesus walked on earth and talked to his disciples, it was a throbbing truth, throbbing with life -- alive, vibrating, pulsating. The word was not dead; the word was God, the word was truth itself. The word had a heart in it. The word was suffused with love, experience, existence, being. When Jesus has gone, life is gone. Then you can collect words and you can make as many gospels as you want. Those gospels are going to be of no help.

Real religion is never in the scriptures. And a real religious seeker does not go in search of scriptures, he goes in search of a Master -- a living Master. That is one of the basic tenets of Kabir's understanding: SATGURU -- the living Master. Go and search for a living Master! If you can come in contact with a living Master then dead scriptures will become alive again. They become alive only VIA the living Master -- there is no other way, because the living Master is the only scripture. When the living Master touches the Bhagavad Gita it will become alive; when he touches the gospel, the gospel will become alive. When he recites the Koran, the Koran will again become alive. He will give his own life to these words, they will start throbbing. But directly you cannot find religion in the scriptures.

So religion is not in the tradition and religion is not in the scriptures and religion is not in the rituals. Rituals are formalities. Unless you are in communion with a living Master, rituals are a dead weight. They will burden you, they will dry you, they will kill you, and you will be lost in infinite formalities. With a living Master, a new ritual is born. It comes out of the contact; it has a context to it, a living reference to it. It is not learned by dead tradition being transferred from one generation to another. You live it -- and through living it, you learn it.

When you come to a living Master, deep down something in you wants to bow down. It is not that you are going to do a certain formality -- if you are doing, it is meaningless.

But something really down in your spirit, deep in your spirit, deep in your center, wants to bow down. Then bowing to a Master is no more ritualistic. It is alive, it is meaningful, it is not an empty gesture. But you can just go on bowing down to anybody, because you have been taught to bow down -- then it is useless. Try to see the difference. When something is born into you out of your spontaneity, then it is true. When you have to do something as a duty, it is untrue. `Duty' is a dirty word. If something is born out of love, good. If something is born out of duty, avoid it, never do it -- because that is dangerous.

If you learn the ways of duty too much, you will forget the ways of love. Duty is against love. Duty is a false substitute for love.

Religion is not in the rituals. Of course, whenever there is religion there is ritual -- but that is a totally different matter. How can you avoid when Buddha walks amongst you, how can you avoid touching his feet? Impossible. You can do only two things and both are rituals: either you have to touch his feet, or you have to throw stones at him. Both are rituals -- one is that of the enemy and one is that of the friend, but both are rituals. You cannot neglect Buddha, you cannot be indifferent, that's all. The phenomenon is such that you cannot just bypass. Either you have to become a friend or you have to become an enemy; you have to choose. You have to have an attitude -- that attitude is ritual. But then it is born into your heart, not learned from somebody else. It simply arises in your being.

Religion, wherever it is, always brings rituals; but when the religion disappears, the rituals become dead. Don't carry the corpse. Yes, you loved your mother very much and now she is dead -- what are you going to do? Are you going to carry her corpse for your whole life? You have to burn it or bury it. You have to get rid of it, you cannot go on carrying it. But this same thing happens as far as religion is concerned. You loved the Buddha so much, and great passion arose in your soul, and great worship and great songs were born in his presence... now he is gone, you continue the song. By and by, it is a far away echo of the echo... goes on fading.

When the pope speaks in the Vatican, it is not Jesus' voice at all -- cannot be. When Jesus speaks, he speaks on his own authority. When the pope speaks, he speaks on the authority of Jesus. A real Master speaks on his own authority, he is his sole authority.

Religion is not in the tradition, not in the rituals, and NOT in the so-called religions --

Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. Religion has no adjective to it. Religion is simply religion, as love is love. Do you call love Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan? If love is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan, then why should God be Christian, Hindu and Mohammedan? Has not Jesus said `God is Love'? Religion is not in the religions; religion is pure of all adjectives, pure of all definitions, and each one has to seek it.

Nobody can be born into a religion, religion has to be born into you. You have to open your soul and receive religion. It is showering all around... but you are carrying toys, substitutes, false coins, in your hands, and thinking you are having religion. In the church it is not, in the mosque it is not, in the temple it is not. Go somewhere where a living Master is: it is there. And that too exists only for a few moments -- the Master is gone, and the religion disappears.

Hence Kabir's insistence for a SATGURU -- for a true Master Religion is individual, one has to seek it on one's own. It is not a social phenomenon, it has nothing to do with the crowd and the collective. It is a private thing, as intimate as love. You come to it alone, in deep intimacy, privacy... you open your heart. Religion is spontaneous in the sense that you cannot learn it. You can be it, but you cannot learn it. It is as spontaneous as love. Have you ever learnt what love is?And that day will be a doomsday, when man will have to learn how to love. That day seems to be coming closer every day, in the West particularly, and more particularly in America. Books are being written: How to Love, How to be Friendly -- foolish books, because if man has forgotten how to love, no book can teach it. To teach humanity how to love is as if somebody goes to the fish and teaches the fish to swim -- that will be foolish. And so is the case with religion. Religion cannot be taught, it can only be caught; it is a sort of infection. You can go wherever a holy person exists and you can catch it, you can imbibe it.

Religion is a rebellion. It is a rebellion against death, it is rebellion against all that is dead; it is rebellion against the outside: it is rebellion against politics, greed, society, culture, civilization. Religion is a rebellion: it says we have to listen to the innermost core of our being and follow it wherever it leads. Wherever... unafraid of the consequences, we will listen to the small still voice within and follow it. Religion is a risk. Those people who are after security too much can never become religious; it is a dangerous thing. If you pass through it, you will be passing through a crucifixion... but only after the crucifixion is resurrection.

Now listen to the sutras of Kabir.

HE IS THE REAL MASTER, WHO CAN REVEAL THE FORM

OF THE FORMLESS TO THE VISION OF THESE EYES...

Now if the real Master is the basic thing to search and seek for, then of course a definition is needed: Who is the real Master? Whom to call the real Master? How to know? Kabir says:

HE IS THE REAL MASTER, WHO CAN REVEAL THE FORM

OF THE FORMLESS TO THE VISION OF THESE EYES

... in whose presence the formless descends and becomes a presence... through whom you can have a look at the farthest star... through whom you can have a feeling of God himself... through whose words silence speaks, and through whose eyes the infinite peeks at you. And if you hold his hand, you will suddenly see: the hand is his, but not only his -

- God is holding your hand through him. He is a vehicle, a bamboo flute on the lips of the infinite. He gives form to the formless, he is the embodiment of the formless.

You have to be very open and vulnerable, only then will you be able to feel a Master.

Don't go to a Master with a negative attitude, otherwise you will never reach him. The very negative attitude will not allow his vibe to reach you. The negative attitude will not allow you to move into the same wavelength in which he lives. Hence trust is needed.

Hence, love is needed. Otherwise you will go empty and you will come empty -- and when you will come empty you will say,`This is not the real Master. I went empty and I have come empty.' If you are not open, you will come empty. Only if you are open is there a possibility to feel. And don't be afraid of open-ness. If you are open and the Master is not real, nothing will happen; and you will know it, and you will know it certainly, that this is not for you, that this is not the man you are seeking. But be open --

because if you are open, only then can you know whether he is true or not. If you are closed, already closed, then there is no possibility. In fact, if you are closed, sooner or later you will become a victim of somebody who is a pseudo-Master -- because pseudo-Masters try to convince you argumentatively.

The real Masters are very paradoxical, very contradictory. They are as contradictory as life itself, because they embody life. They are as inconsistent as God himself, because they embody God. They are not logical, they are very illogical -- because they are superlogical, because they are bringing something which cannot be grasped through logic.

In the closeness of a real Master you will feel you are close to an abyss... but if you are open -- only then. If you are not open, you will become a victim to some pseudo-person who can convince you, who can talk you in, who can seduce you in. For example, if you are greedy he will talk about greed. He will tell you how much you are going to gain out of the meditation, the prayer. He will persuade your greed, how much you are going to have in heaven if you follow him. He will promise you much. A true Master never promises anything. In fact he shatters you completely -- your greed, your desire, your idea of becoming somebody, being somebody -- he shatters all in all. A real Master is a rock against which your boat is completely shattered... your whole mind is shattered. He drives you crazy; he does not argue. His argument is more of his being than of his words.

But we are greedy. We live through greed, we are afraid, full of fear -- somebody gives us consolation, we become victims. A real Master is not a consolation, he is not a solace.

He is, in fact, death to you. He kills you, he destroys you, he is very destructive... but creativity is possible only when the old is destroyed. When the old ceases to be, the new can enter in.

I have heard a beautiful anecdote. Meditate over it....

The letter from Sean to his old, old mother was heartening. `Dear mother,' he wrote, Ì

am sending you some pills that a witch doctor gave me and if you take one, it will take years of your life.'

He came home a few weeks later, and there was a beautiful young woman outside his house rocking a pram in which a baby lay sucking a bottle.

`Where's my mother?' he asked.

Àrrah, don't be silly,' she said. Ì'm your mother and these pills were marvellous.'

Ìmagine!' said Sean. Òne pill, and you're as beautiful as anyone could be -- and what's more, you were able to have a baby. Lord, but they were powerful!'

`You madman!' she cried. `That's not a baby, that's your father. He took two;'

Avoid greed -- otherwise you will take two pills. And there are many people who are selling things like that. Witch doctors....

A Master is not here to fulfill your greed, he is here to destroy your greed. Because once greed is destroyed, you become available to yourself. If you are greedy you are never available to yourself. Greed becomes desire, desire becomes a projection in the future.

And you are always wandering somewhere in the future; you are never herenow. Greed takes you away from yourself: greed has to be destroyed.

A Master never promises you anything -- but only in the presence of a Master something becomes possible. He will not tell you: Ì will take death away from you', or `You will become immortal'. He is not giving you nectar, elixir, ambrosia. Of course, being with a Master one becomes immortal -- but not that he MAKES you immortal. He simply takes you deep into the existence of death.

Just look at it: he takes you deep into the experience of death. That is what deep meditation is all about -- a death *experience. And when you have known your death, watched it, suddenly you realize you are separate from it. It happens, but it never happens to you. It happens on the periphery, it never reaches to the center. It happens to the body, it never happens to you. And the body is nothing but your abode. You have changed many bodies, and you will change many more -- but you are immortal. But a real Master does not promise it. He delivers it one day, but there is no promise for it. If you are seeking one state where fear will dissolve, some state where your greed will be fulfilled, some state where you will be titilated constantly with pleasure, paradise, then you are bound to become a victim of some pseudo-person.

SATGURU means the real Master. A SATGURU means the pseudo-Master.

HE IS THE REAL MASTER, WHO CAN REVEAL THE FORM

OF THE FORMLESS TO THE VISION OF THESE EYES:

WHO TEACHES THE SIMPLE WAY OF ATTAINING HIM....

THE SIMPLE WAY -- not complex methods, not yoga postures, not very complicated rituals. He teaches simple ways, very simple, that anybody who wants to do it can do it right now. His ways are so simple and spontaneous that you will be surprised why you did not discover them yourself. They are so simple! Once the Master has taught you, once you have known the beauty of them, once you have tasted a little, you will be simply surprised why you could not discover them -- they are so simple.

The real Master is not technical, he is simple -- because there is no technique to achieve God. God is not somewhere at the end of a technique, no. God is already available to you.

You are in God;you just have to shake yourself a little so that you can become a little more alert. Just a little more alertness, that's all.

Sometimes you do become alert, but you become alert also in a very unconscious way.

You are driving a car and suddenly you see that a bus is coming and the driver seems to be drunk or mad and you see no possibility of avoiding the accident. The accident is going to be; it becomes almost a certainty. In that moment you become alert, very alert, but that alertness is unconscious. You are alert, but you are not alert that you are alert.

In some dangerous situation you become alert, but that alertness is unconscious. A Master simply teaches you how to be alert with full consciousness. He teaches you conscious awareness. Now you may be a little puzzled, because... conscious awareness?

You think consciousness means awareness, awareness means consciousness. No. There are moments when you are aware but not conscious. If somebody comes suddenly with a pistol in his hand and forces the pistol on your chest, you will be aware but not conscious. Thinking will stop. The shock is so sudden, so unexpectedly sudden, and cannot figure out what is going to happen, and death is so close... in that shock, your mind stops. Your constantly spinning mind spins no more. Your constantly chattering mind is simply shocked into silence: you become aware. But this awareness is unconscious.

The Master teaches only one thing: how to be consciously aware. And that's a very simple thing. You can start doing it any moment; you can apply awareness, consciousness, to any activity that you go on doing.If you are walking on the road, just walk consciously. Take each step in deep alertness. Listening to me, right now, listen attentively. You are listening attentively but that attention may be unconscious. Become conscious of the attentiveness, and suddenly you will see a tremendous blessing descends in you. Out of nowhere, suddenly it is there. Just a moment of conscious alertness and your doors open and God enters in -- as if he was just waiting there at the door, knocking and knocking and knocking. But you are so much preoccupied....

Kabir says:

WHO TEACHES THE SIMPLE WAY OF ATTAINING HIM....

People who teach complex ways simply show that they have not known God -- because God needs no expertise. And people who teach complex ways have a reason to teach complex ways :so that they always can say to you Ìf you are not doing the thing rightly, how can you hope to attain?'

Have you heard a beautiful story of Khalil Gibran?..

A man used to move from town to town. He was a great teacher and he used to say to people, `Come and follow me, and I will show you the way to God.' But people were engaged. They had so many thousands of things to do and they would say, `We worship you, we respect you, and one day we are coming to follow you -- but right now it is difficult.'

Nobody is ready now -- that's why so many pseudo-Masters can exist. Saint Augustine, in his confessions says: Ì used to pray to God when I was young, "God save me, but not right now. Save me but not right now" -- because I was indulging in so many things,' he says, ànd I wanted to enjoy all that is available. So this was not to be heard immediately.

I was saying the prayer because it has to be said formally, but I would always say, "Save me Lord, but not right now."'

So this preacher went from town to town, and people would say, `Not right now. We will come one day.' And he was very happy because nobody ever followed him and there was no trouble. A madman one day said, Òkay, I am coming.' He became a little afraid, but he said -- he was a very clever and cunning man -- he said, `Come.' And he would give him such complex procedures as are almost impossible to do. But the man was really mad. He would do them, and even this teacher could not find any fault. And the man continued. The teacher was thinking he would get fed-up sooner or later.

One year passed, two years passed, and he would say, `When?' The disciple was too much! -- and he would ask again and again,`Now, what else to do?' And he was doing everything! Even the Master became afraid -- now he could not think what else to say for him to do, and he was doing EVERYTHING.

Six years passed, and one day the disciple said, `How long is it still? I am ready to do anything but you are not giving me anything.' He said, `Listen: the truth is, in your company I have lost my own way. I used to know where he is, but since you have come.... You just have mercy on me and leave me.'

Complex procedures have been invented by cunning people. First nobody is ready to do them; good -- the pseudo-Master can exist, because his techniques will never be put to any experimentation. Second if somebody tries to do it, they are so complex that it can always be said that you are not doing them rightly.They are so complex that you cannot trust yourself and you are always afraid that something may go wrong. But a real Master will give you very simple techniques -- anybody of average intelligence, of average health, can do them.

WHO TEACHES THE SIMPLE WAY OF ATTAINING HIM,

THAT IS OTHER THAN RITES OR CEREMONIES...

He never teaches you rituals, rites and ceremonies. He may teach you celebration -- but never ceremonies. Celebration is of the heart, and ceremony is just a ritual of the mind.

WHO DOES NOT MAKE YOU CLOSE THE DOORS, AND HOLD THE BREATH, AND RENOUNCE THE WORLD...

The real Master is all for the world, because this world is a manifestation of God. This world is full of God. Every rock is so crowded with God, and every tree and every bird and all that exists is so full, overflowing with God... where to go? and for what? Whom to renounce? and for what? And how can one renounce? -- because wherever you are in God, and wherever you are you are in this world... because there is no other world.

HE DOES NOT MAKE YOU CLOSE YOUR DOORS, AND HOLD YOUR BREATH, AND RENOUNCE THE WORLD:

WHO MAKES YOU PERCEIVE THE SUPREME SPIRIT WHENEVER THE MIND

ATTACHES ITSELF...

Just look at the beauty if this sutra. Kabir says:

WHO MAKES YOU PERCEIVE THE SUPREME SPIRIT WHENEVER THE MIND

ATTACHES ITSELF...

He says: Don't be worried. Whenever you mind feels attachment, don't be afraid of the attachment: go deep into it and try to find God there... and you will find him there. You love a woman-no need to escape from her: look deep into her eyes... and you will find God there. God is welling up everywhere. You love your child-don't renounce the world and don't throw the child to this hungry, violent, ugly world, don't abandon the child to the wolves: look into the eyes of the child. Put ears to his heart and listen deeply... and you will find God there.

Kabir says: Unconditionally, whenever the mind attaches itself, perceive the supreme self.

I have heard about a man who came to Kabir and he wanted to know god, and Kabir asked him, "Don't you love somebody?"

He said, `Sorry, I don't love anybody.'

Kabir said, Ànybody will do, but you love-because unless you love, there is no bridge.'

The man was a little shy but then he confessed, `Yes, I love. I love my cow.' A poor man, and he had one cow and nothing else.

Kabir said, `Perfectly good. That will do.'

The man asked, `Then what have I to do now?'

He said, `Now you start thinking that the cow is divine. Now she is no more a cow; she is a god, a goddess. You serve her, you love her, you pat her, you give her a bath, you do everything-but now she is a goddess. God is hidden there. And come after three months.'

After three months the man was totally different, radiant with new energy. The disciple of Kabir were a little puzzled -- Ìs he just joking with this man?' But when the man came, they were surprised. he had almost become a new man, a new being; and he fell at Kabir's feet and said, `Tremendous it is! I have found my God. And the day I found him in my cow, I found him everywhere.'

Whenever your love falls, no need to escape and renounce. Let your love become your prayer.

WHO TEACHES YOU TO BE STILL IN THE MIDST OF ALL YOUR ACTIVITIES.

EVER IMMERSED IN BLISS, HAVING NO FEAR IN HIS MIND, HE KEEPS THE

SPIRIT OF UNION IN THE MIDST OF ALL ENJOYMENTS.

And Kabir says: Don't escape from enjoyments. Remember, they are his gifts. And don't escape from the worldly activities; remain passive. Move in the crowd and remain alone.

The real thing is to be alone-not to be lonely. And one can be alone in the crowd, and you can be in a crowd when sitting in a Himalayan cave-it all depends on your mind. So the change has to be inner, not outer.

THE INFINITE DWELLING OF THE INFINITE BEING IS EVERYWHERE: IN EARTH, WATER, SKY, AND AIR:

FIRM AS THE THUNDERBOLT, THE SEAT OF THE SEEKER IS ESTABLISHED

ABOVE THE VOID.

HE WHO IS WITHIN IS WITHOUT: I SEE HIM AND NONE ELSE.

You just become empty of your self. Empty yourself, become void... and you will become the seat, you will become the abode, you will become the temple.

O BROTHER: WHEN I WAS FORGETFUL,

MY TRUE GURU SHOWED ME THE WAY.

THEN I LEFT ALL RITES AND CEREMONIES...

When you have found the guru, what is the use of rites and ceremonies? When you have found a living Master, then what is the use of scriptures and traditions? `When I left my Master...

I LEFT ALL RITES AND CEREMONIES,

I BATHED NO MORE IN THE HOLY WATER;

THEN I LEARNED THAT IT WAS I ALONE WHO WAS MAD, AND THE WHOLE

WORLD BESIDE ME WAS SANE; AND I HAD DISTURBED THESE WISE

PEOPLE.

This must be you experience too, of all sannyasins. People will think you mad.

And Kabir says: Since I have left foolish things -- I don't go to take a bath in the holy ganges and don't go to the temple and I don't do any ritual-people Think I have gone mad.

Whenever you will come in close contact with a Master, the world will think you have gone mad. They are all sane, wise people. Their wisdom never leads them anywhere, their sanity never gives them a single glimpse of bliss; their sanity is nothing but their misery, and their wisdom is nothing but all stupidity-but still they think they are sane and they are wise, they should be blissful. If they are really sane, they would show intelligence, creativity. But they don't show anything.

But people who come in close contact with a Master and are illuminated by his being will look mad. Always it has been so, and always it will be so. So of people think you are mad, don't be worried-they were thinking that even about Kabir.

THEN I LEARNED THAT IT WAS I ALONE WHO WAS MAD,

AND THE WHOLE WORLD BESIDE ME WAS SANE;

AND I HAD DISTURBED THESE WISE PEOPLE.

FROM THAT TIME FORTH I KNEW NO MORE HOW TO ROLL IN THE DUST IN

OBEISANCE:

I DO NOT RING THE TEMPLE BELL;

I DO NOT SET THE IDOL ON ITS THRONE:

I DO NOT WORSHIP THE IMAGE WITH FLOWERS.

IT IS NOT THE AUSTERITIES THAT MORTIFY THE FLESH WHICH ARE

PLEASING TO THE LORD.

And Kabir declares: If you mortify yourself you are a perverted being, and God is not happy with you. If you torture yourself you are a masochist, and God is not happy with you. God is happy when you are happy, God is happy in you happiness... because he is hiding in you deepest core. When you torture yourself you torture God-how can he be happy? When you become a masochist and people start worshipping you like a MAHATMA, you are a masochist, a perverted being, insane-and torturing the God within yourself.

Helpless is he, helpless like a small child. You an torture him easily.

IT IS NOT THE AUSTERITIES THAT MORTIFY THE FLESH

WHICH ARE PLEASING TO THE LORD.

WHEN YOU LEAVE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND KILL YOUR SENSES YOU DO

NOT PLEASE THE LORD...

Listen to these rebellious maxims. It is not that when you destroy your senses God is pleased; rather, he is pleased when your sensitivity goes to a peak. When you can see more beauty in the world, When you can hear more music in the world, when you can love more deeply, when you can be more alive, he is happy.

WHEN YOU LEAVE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND KILL

YOUR SENSES, YOU DO NOT PLEASE THE LORD:

THE MAN WHO IS KIND AND WHO PRACTISES

RIGHTEOUSNESS,WHO REMAINS PASSIVE AMIDST

THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD, WHO CONSIDERS

ALL CREATURES ON EARTH AS HIS OWN SELF.

HE ATTAINS THE IMMORTAL BEING, THE

TRUE GOD IS EVER WITH HIM. KABIR SAYS:

`HE ATTAINS THE TRUE NAME WHOSE WORDS ARE

PURE, AND WHO IS FREE FROM PRIDE AND CONCEIT.'

One who is kind to himself and others, only one who loves himself and others.... You have been taught: `Never love yourself.' You have been taught: `Never be kind to yourself.' You have been taught to never forgive yourself. You have been taught much self-torture: you are praised in the same proportion as you torture yourself. If you want to become a MAHATMA you have to be a masochist-there is no other way. I f you are happy, joyous, delighted in your being, nobody is going to worship you.Who worships a happy man? Have you seen any happy man being worshiped? People worship sad longface, dead, dull, stupid people who can torture themselves. Their only art is that they can torture themselves; they are cruel to themselves, they are violent.

Kabir says: Be kind, and let kindness flow through you. Love yourself, and only then can you love others too. In deep love, in deep sensitivity, God is pleased.

The whole point is that you have to become a spiritual hedonist. That's my whole teaching too: become a spiritual hedonist. There are spiritual people but they are hedonists, and there are hedonist who are not spiritual. The West is hedonist but not spiritual; materialist. The East is spiritual but not hedonist-and both have missed. A higher synthesis is needed: hedonim and spiritualism. When they meet, the total man is born. And that total man is the enlightened man, that total man is the holy man.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Become a flame

2 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701020

ShortTitle:

MELODY02

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

91

mins

Question 1

I REALIZED IN YESTERDAY'S DISCOURSE THAT I AM RESISTING THE WORD

`GOD'.

MY THOUGHTS GO BACK TO AN EVENT WHICH HAPPENED SEVERAL

YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS CARING FOR A VERY ILL MAN IN THE HOSPITAL -

- HE WAS DYING. HE HAD ASKED ME TO GET A PRIEST FOR HIM AS HE WAS

AFRAID.

ON ARRIVAL OF THE PRIEST, THE ILL MAN SAID, "GOD DAMN YOU,"

DIRECTLY TO THE PRIEST. AND THE PRIEST WALKED AWAY, AND SAID TO

ME, "HE ISN'T WORTH IT."

I TOLD THE PRIEST, "THIS MAN IS VERY ILL AND THE WORDS HE USES, HE

KNOW NOT."

THE PRIEST STILL REFUSED TO HELP HIM. SINCE THAT DAY I HAVE NOT

GONE INTO A CHURCH.

I KNOW GOD IS WITHIN ME. WHAT IS THE RESISTANCE THEN? PLEASE

HELP ME.

The word `God' is not God. The word `love' is not love. The word `fire' is not fire. So the first thing is to remember: don't get attached too much to words, don't get obsessed too much with words. Words are only symbols, indicative: use them, but don't become burdened too much by them. If the word `god' creates trouble, forget that word. Àllah'

will do, `Ram' will do, `X Y Z' -- choose another word if that word has become wrongly associated. But if you start creating a resistance against God himself, against the truth itself only you will be responsible, and only you will be missing something of tremendous value. but this happens. We use language; we become so much obsessed with language that we forget that language is not the reality. In fact, one has to put language aside to see the reality.

The incident is significant. if you had become resistant against priests, there was nothing wrong in it; but that has not happened. The priest had refused to help -- not God. Avoid priests, there is no problem in it -- in fact, the more you avoid them, the closer you will be to God. The priest is not needed at all. He goes on propagating that he is needed; he emphasizes that without him there is no possibility for you to ever enter into the world of God -- but that is HIS proposition. It is his business, it is his trade secret, he has to create this atmosphere. Otherwise, no medium is needed; God is immediately available. But of course, priests have made a great business -- the greatest ever -- and they ideal in such a commodity which is invisible, so you can never prove whether they deliver or not. The commodity itself is invisible. It is a beautiful game.

I have heard...

"What's the little boy crying about?" the kind old lady asked the ragged urchin.

"That other kid swiped his candy," he replied.

"But how is it that you have the candy now?"

"Sure, I got the candy now," replied the urchin. "I'm the kids lawyer."

You get it? The priest is going to exploit you; he becomes your lawyer, he becomes you agent. He himself is completely unaware of God -- otherwise he would not be a priest; he would have been a prophet, not a priest at all. `Priest' is an ugly word: one who is using religion as a business and exploiting people in the name of God. The prophet is one who helps you to be transformed, transfigured. The prophet is not so much concerned with God as he is concerned with you, your reality. Once your reality starts manifesting you will know what God is -- because you are God in seed. We can completely forget about God: Buddha never talked about it, Mahavira never talked about it. Yet Buddha helped tremendously. He insisted: God is not the question, God is not the quest; the quest is your innermost being. A prophet is concerned with your being. If your being flowers, blooms, in the fragrance you will know what god is. There is no other way.

By prayer, by the temple, by the church, by the ritual, tradition, you are not going to get anywhere; only the priest will go on becoming richer and richer. And his investment becomes so big that the priest and the politician join together in exploiting people. That is the greatest conspiracy: down the centuries, the priests and the politicians have always joined hands together. They are the greatest culprits. Jesus was crucified because he was not a priest. He started behaving like a prophet, priests are afraid -- because he is going to destroy the whole business. Jesus was crucified because of the priests; the priests were behind the whole scene. No prophet is ever tolerated by priest -- cannot be tolerated; it is dangerous.

So if you incident had helped you to become aware of priest, it was good. But somehow your association went wrong. Don't go to a church, there is no need; God is everywhere.

Don't go to a priest, there is no need; God is available to you -- directly, immediately. But if you have a resistance to the word `god' itself, that will become a barrier. That will prohibit you; that won't allow you to flow towards the infinite. and there is no reason --

because God has not done anything. The priest turned away, but do you know that God turned away? God has never turned away from anybody. In fact, because the priest turned away, God may have looked and cared for the dying man more -- because there was no other help. When a man is helpless, God simply starts flowing towards him. In tremendous helplessness you become receptive. When the man was completely helpless, and the priest turned away, and the man dying and death is enclosing upon him -- in that helplessness he must have made a contact; you cannot see it from the outside.

Be against the priest. But there is no need, it is not warranted at all, that you say, I know God is within me. You don't know, you know it not at all. You have heard it. You have heard me say it, you have heard Jesus saying it -- "God is within you" -- but you don't know it at all. Because once you know it, then there is no problem; knowing that `God is within me', immediately God is without too. The moment you know a single ray of the divine penetrating you, you have come to know all that is there to be known, it becomes known, the without is known. The without known, it become known in the within too --

because within and without are not two separate things, they are two aspects of the same energy.

Now, this thinking that `God is within me' may again be a trick of your resistance, because you don't want to see God out there. You are against it, because somewhere deep down in your mind you feel that if God is there then you will need a mediator, then you will need somebody to guide you there. If God is without, somewhere up in heaven, then somebody will be needed to guide you. Alone, you will not be able to find him, where he is. So you say, "God is within me" -- now there is no need for the priest. You are saying it just to avoid the priest -- but you don't know it.

God is all. The distinction between within and without is false. Without and within are on; it is one reality, from one corner to another. It is not two, it is not dual, so don't divide it.

I have heard...

When Xerxes stood on the shore with his army and looked across the Hellespont, he asked himself, "How can I get my men across?" He commanded his generals to build him a bridge of boats, and they obeyed. But a storm came up and smashed his bridge into driftwood. In a towering rage, he ordered the execution of the overseers who had directed the work. But that was not enough to satisfy him as he was really in a great rage, almost mad. So he ordered his slaves to administer three hundred lashes to the sea.

Now this is foolish -- three hundred lashes to the sea. But this how mind works; our mind is very childish. Have you not seen a small child? -- he hurts himself against the door or against the furniture and then he beats the furniture. As if the furniture is the enemy, as if the furniture has done something to him. He may have stumbled himself, but he feels the chair is responsible. This childish attitude continues. People become senile, but their childish attitude never changes.

Now, a priest misbehaved. If you are a little reasonable.... First thing: if one priest has misbehaved, that does not mean all priests are wrong. Second thing: the priest has misbehaved, not God. Third thing: you don't know what happened to that dying man in his innermost core of being.

Don't be in such a hurry to make conclusions. A wise man never concludes so easily, because all conclusions make your mind closed. We don't know enough; conclusions are dangerous. A conclusion is right only when you have known all. The greatest wise men of the world have said they know nothing, so how can we conclude? And whatsoever we know is so small, so tiny... as if you have read one line in the Bible, and the whole Bible has not been read by you, and from that one line you conclude something. It will be foolish; it is not wise.

You ask, "What is the resistance then?" I don't think that the resistance depends on this incident. In fact, everybody is resistant against God; excuses may be different. This story is an excuse -- because it is unreasonable to be resistant to God only because of this incident. So this must be an excuse. You wanted the resistance -- this story simply supplied you an argument, an excuse.

Everybody is resistant against God -- why? Because if you want to know God, you have to disappear: that is the resistance. You have to die if God is to live in you. You have to disappear utterly, totally; you have to be vacant, you have to empty yourself. Only in you void can God descend; when you are too much, he cannot enter in you. Your cup is too full of yourself. This cup has to be emptied -- that's the resistance.

Don't pay much attention to excuses -- they are meaningless. Behind the excuses the real problem hides. The real problem is: to become religious, one has to deny oneself -- that is the only sacrifice needed. The ego has to be dropped. The mind has to cease for the God to be -- and of course, then there is resistance.

So drop this incident. This has nothing to do.... In fact, it is very rarely that I come across a person who is not resistant, who is not deep down fighting with God. It is natural; try to understand it. We want to remain our own selves: God is the greatest danger. Hence, people go to the priest. They could have walked directly to God, but they go to the priest

-- because they don't really want to go to God. The priest protects them from God. They go to the scripture, because the scripture is dead and you cannot find an alive God in scripture. This is a way to avoid.

People don't go to a living Master, because to go to a living Master means jumping into the fire. You will disappear -- but only through that disappearance God appears.

To be really religious is to commit suicide. And I mean it -- when I say suicide, I meant it

-- suicide. When a person kills himself, that is not suicide; just the body changes -- he will be born again. That is just a change of the body, change of the clothes, change of the abode. But when a man simply drops his ego, he has committed real suicide, authentic suicide; now he will be coming no more. Now there will be no need for him to have another abode in this world of misery, in this world of darkness, in this world which is almost a hell. He will not be coming again. Ego dropped, you journey is finished; you have learned the lesson. That's the resistance.

So please forget about this excuse. Otherwise you will continuously think about this excuse -- and that is no the true cause.

Question 2

I WISH I COULD KNOW MORE ABOUT GOD. CAN YOU HELP ME, BELOVED

MASTER?

There is no way to know more about God. You can know God, but you cannot know more about God. Knowing more about God is not knowing God. Knowing more is knowledge; knowing God is a totally different dimension. Knowing about is knowledge -

- you can go on, about and about and about, but you will never reach to God. To know God is totally different than knowing about God.

You can know much about love without knowing love at all. You can go to the libraries and you can consult the encyclopedias and you can collect all knowledge possible about love -- but if love has not happened to you, if that fire has not happened to you, you will not know what love is. You can collect all the stories about love -- Laila and Majnu, Shiri and Farhad -- you can collect stories about all the lovers of the world; that too won't help.

Love has to happen to you; you have to fall into love. You have to take the risk, you have to gamble -- only then will you know.

You say, "I wish I could know more about God." So, first thing: knowing more will not be of much help. That's how a person becomes a pundit, a scholar-knowledge. I am not here to help you become more knowledgeable; you already have too much knowledge. I am here to destroy your knowledge, to take it away from you. You have to learn how to unlearn.

And then you say, "I wish." Wish is a very very weak thing. Just by wishing, nobody can move towards God. More urgency, more deep desire is needed... desire which becomes a flame in you. Hunger is needed; wishing won't help. Thirst is needed... as if you are lost in the Sahara desert, and for miles all around just sand and sand and the burning sun, and not a drop of water with you and you cannot see any greenery anywhere, and you are thirsty, and your whole being is at stake -- any moment you can die -- and the thirst goes on and on and you become a flame... in that thirst, God is possible.

Become thirsty. Wishing is not enough; wishing is too weak. I have heard...

A hungry-looking tramp stopped at a farmhouse and asked for some food. The housewife brought him some and he sat on the back step enjoying all she had set before him.

As he sat there, a little red hen dashed by, being chased by a rooster. The tramp threw the rooster a piece of his bread. It stopped dead in its tracks and greedily swallowed the bread whole.

"Gee!" said the tramp. "I hope I'll never be that hungry."

You have to be tremendously hungry. It is not just a curiosity. God cannot be an object of your wish. God is not a wish-fulfillment, God is not your dream. God has to go like a flame into your guts. When you start feeling that nothing else matters, when God is the first priority and you are ready to sacrifice everything. When God becomes such an absorbing, urgent desire that even life is not meaningful any more without God-only then.

And then there is no need for anybody to help you, your desire will do the work.

In that urgent thirst, in that intensity, all that is darkness in you disappears. In that flame, all that is useless burns down. You come out as pure gold.

God is your reality as much as it is my reality. God is as much your reality as it was Jesus Christ's or Gautam Buddha's. The difference is, you have not yet been able to sort out the chaff from the wheat; the wheat is in you, but too much chaff is there. In a tremendous desire to know, to be, the chaff burns down -- and there is no other way.

When you go to a master, he in fact does not help you to reach to God, he helps you to become more and more thirsty. He helps you to become more and more intensely hungry.

He gives you thirst and hunger; he gives you a mad passion for the impossible.

One man came to Buddha and asked, "If I come and follow you, will I be able to know truth?" Buddha said: That is not certain. I cannot guarantee. I can guarantee only one thing, that I will make you more and more thirsty. Then everything depends on you. I can transfer my thirst to you and if you are ready to allow that much thirst... because it is painful. The journey is painful; all growth is painful. If you allow me to create that much pain in you, that very pain will purify. Pain is a purifying process.

So never ask about God as if it is your wish, and never ask that you would like to know more. God either is known or not known -- more or less is not the question. You cannot divide God -- "I know a little bit and somebody else knows a little more, and somebody almost half, and somebody a hundred percent." God cannot be divided; either you know, or you don't know. And the knowledge of God is not like any other knowledge. It is not like scientific knowledge, that you can go on knowing more and more and more, never ending, the procession continues. It is not a knowledge from the outside. The knowledge of God is not like knowledge, it is more like love. You disappear in your beloved -- that is the only way to know. And the more you disappear in your beloved, the more you know that "I don't know."

The greatest knowers of God always say they don't know. They are like drops in the ocean -- they have fallen into the ocean and disappeared, and the ocean has fallen into them and disappeared. Now, who is the knower and how is the known?

Kabir has said: I was searching and searching and searching, and then I got lost, and then happened the miracle of miracles. When I was not there you were standing before me.

And when I was there and searching and searching, you were so far away -- not even a glimpse. And now, look... I have disappeared. Searching, searching, I got lost, completely lost; my whole search absorbed me, destroyed me completely. Now I am no more... and my Lord, you are standing before me.

Kabir has said that the seeker never reaches to the sought. Man never confronts God --

because unless you disappear he cannot appear, so there is no meeting-point. When you are, he is not; when he is, you are not -- so how can you claim that "I know?" You are not

-- only then, he is. When the knower disappears, the knowledge appears; it cannot be just a wish-fulfillment.

I can help you to become a flame -- thirsty, hungry, burning; I can give you the pain.

Then everything else depends on you -- how much you go into that pain, into that fire.

You can take a jump, and God can happen in a sudden moment. There is no need to wait, there is no need to postpone. This very moment it can happen... if you are ready to go into that pain totally.

Question 3

I GREW UP IN A TOTALLY UNRELIGIOUS HOME, BUT EVERY TIME I HEAR

YOU MENTION THE NAME OF JESUS I CRY AND SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE

ME IS MOVED. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

That must be because you grew up in an unreligious home. Religious homes destroy religion forever. Religious homes are the most unreligious places on the earth. What do I mean when I say this? If you are born in a religious Christian home, they will go on forcing you to bow down to Jesus, they will go on forcing you to become a Christian.

they will condition you. They will not listen to your desire, and they will not bother about your freedom; they will condition you to be a Christian. And of course, the innermost spirit rebels against all sorts of bondages. Christianity is a bondage, so is Hinduism, so is Islam, and all so-called religions. When a child is forced to become a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan, the innermost being rebels. He resists. And when something is forced on you, howsoever beautiful it is, it becomes ugly.

God has to be searched in freedom -- not through any conditioning. The world is so unreligious because of these religions, because of these religious people. They go on conditioning people; they destroy the very urge.

Just think of it: you go into the garden, you watch the trees, you look at the flowers and you are very happy. But if it is forced on you, and a policeman follows you with a bayonet and says, "Look at the rose and enjoy!" what will happen? The rose will be the same, but how can you enjoy when a man is standing behind you and ordering you to enjoy?

When you are forced to go to the Sunday-school and you wanted to go somewhere else --

to the zoo, or you wanted to go fishing, or you wanted to play, and all the children of the neighborhood were playing, but you are a Christian so you have to go to the church... and the child is sitting there in bondage -- listening yet not listening, ready to escape any moment, waiting for when this nonsense is over. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.... Jesus becomes a swear word; it loses all meaning. And then it is very difficult later on to dis-cover the meaning.

You are fortunate that you were born and grew up in a totally unreligious home. In a better world, every child should be allowed to grow without any religious teaching.

Love your children, but never give your ideologies. Love your children, let them feel that Jesus has done something for you, or Mohammed has done something for you, Or Mahavira -- let them feel, but don't force. Let them grow in freedom. Let them see when you pray, let them see your tears rolling down on the cheeks and the beauty of it. Let them see when you bow down to Jesus, let them watch... and children are very very watchful, very sensitive -- if things are not forced on them, they will move on their own.

When they see you crying beautiful tears, when they see you bowing down before Jesus and they feel the vibe... suddenly everything has become quiet, suddenly the father is no more the father and the mother is no more the mother, suddenly they have become luminous beings... he will also start bowing down. Maybe in secret when you are not watching, he will go and he will also bow down. He would like to know what happens when one bows down to Jesus or Buddha, when one prays. Let them catch it -- don't teach it, don't force it. Everything becomes ugly when forced.

Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children. They go on forcing the child -- they are afraid, they don't trust their own prayer.

When I was a child, I used to go with my father to his temple. In the beginning, he would tell me to do this and that. I told him, "If you tell me, I will do -- but from the very beginning, I will be against it. So please, don't enforce. Let me come, let me watch. If I feel something has happened to you, that will be the decisive factor." And he is a simple man. He allowed me. He said, "That's right." And he would go and pray, and I would simply sit and watch. Prayer, meditating, I would see how he changes, how his face suddenly goes through a transformation, how his face becomes luminous, how silent and graceful he becomes. That became an enquiry... one has to know these spaces too. Then the child is enchanted. Then a great desire arises in him to know what it is, what it is all about.

Good, that you were brought up in an unreligious home. That may be the cause that whenever I mention the name of Jesus you cry and something deep inside you is moved.

Good -- because you are not a Christian, Christ can still mean something to you. And because you are not a Christian, soon you will see that Buddha also is meaningful, and so is Patanjali and so is Kabir and so is Nanak. When one is not conditioned, one remains available to all the sources, to all the great masters.

One should claim the whole heritage of humanity as one's own -- we are unnecessarily poor. Somebody says, "I am Christian." He is saying, "I claim only Jesus. I don't claim Buddha, I don't claim Zarathustra, I don't claim Lao Tzu." How poor a man! The whole humanity, the whole history of man, is yours. Jesus is as much yours as Lao Tzu, as Buddha, as Mohammed. They are all yours: claim them all together, that is your heritage.

But that is possible only if you are not conditioned to be a Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan.

Good, you are fortunate that Jesus can still have some meaning to you. This is my whole effort here -- to uncondition you. If you are a Christian, I want you to become unconditioned. Drop your Christianity, drop your Hinduism, drop your Jainism. And paradoxical it may look to you, but try to understand: if you drop Christianity, you may be able to have a love with Christ again. If you drop Hinduism, you may be able to dance again with Krishna; you may start singing the notes that he is still playing on his flute.

Hinduism is standing like a great China Wall -- it does not allow you to reach directly to Krishna. Become unconditioned. Drop all culture, civilization, religion, sects, theologies, philosophies. Just be simple, be a child again.

It is fortunate that you were not born in a religious home, otherwise you would have come in contact with the priests. And to come into contact with the priests is to become irreligious forever, because the priests are the most unreligious people. They pretend --

but pretensions can never be appealing, convincing. You know them; in their life they are as ordinary as anybody. Just in the pulpit, just in the church, they become suddenly very very eloquent about religion. Their life is completely silent; no flicker of consciousness, awareness, no possibility of any gods flowering in them, no fragrance around them, not a single vibe, not a wave... but when they stand on the pulpit in the church, suddenly they start talking about religion. Religion has nothing to do with them; they are as irreligious as anybody else. Pretenders, hypocrites....

I have heard...

A very sick-looking man sat down in the doctor's chair and the doctor looked him over and said, "What's the matter with you?"

He said, "I don't really know. I feel weak, very, very weak, I worry too much, I haven't got any strength, I don't eat well and I can't sleep at nights And moreover, I'm becoming impotent. I look like losing my job too, if I don't try and pull myself together."

"I see," said the doctor. "Tell me, what kind of work do you do?"

"Well, you know those cartoon adverts in the papers -- those things that advertise Scroggs Super-Pep Tonic Wine? Well, I'm the fella who draws them."

This is the type you will find in your priest. He goes on talking about God -- and look into his eyes... not even a shadow of God. Look deep into his being... and he is as far away from God as you are -- maybe even more. Maybe the people who come to the priest believe a little, but the priest is always an unbeliever. He knows; he knows the whole trade and the secret. He knows that there is no God. He cannot say it because he has invested too much in it, he depends on it. Priests are the most unreligious people on the earth, and there is a reason -- because they know; the statue in the temple is just a stone, they know. They have seen rats and mice running over it, and they know that the statue cannot do anything; and they have prayed for you, and they know the prayer reaches nowhere -- but they go on pretending.

If you have come in contact with priests, there is every possibility you may become anti-religious. If you have not come in contact with priests, there is a possibility that someday the desire will arise -- because religion is a natural desire. If not corrupted by priests, everybody is born religious and everybody will find his way somehow. Just like rivers moving, now knowing where, but they reach to the ocean -- everybody will find his way to God if he is not hindered by priests and not prevented by religions. A really religious person will be religion-LESS.

And these priests are really very serious people. They even kill your desire to love, to celebrate; they kill all possibility of being happy. They promise that in heaven you will be happy, but not here; it is not allowed here. In fact, you have to be masochistic here, torture yourself, and then in heaven you will have your reward. Nobody knows about heaven. The real prophets, who are never priests -- a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mahavira -- the real prophets really teach to be delight-full herenow, this very moment; there is no need to postpone. Heaven is here... because heaven is not a geographical place, heaven is your attitude.

I came across a cartoon some years ago that I have never forgotten and over which I still chuckle. Two men are standing on a street corner across from a church. It is obviously Sunday noon and people are pouring out of the church -- cheering, laughing, arms in the air, some even dancing. In the middle of all this, they are carrying out their be-robed preacher on their shoulders. Observing this, one man says to the other, "I wonder what he preached on!" Because such a scene in a church -- people dancing, singing, carrying their priest on their shoulders dancing -- it seems impossible. Dance in a church? People enjoying, delighted, celebrating, in a church? Laughter in a church? -- not known. Right: observing this, one man says to the other, "I wonder what he preached on!"

In fact, true religion will always create dance in you, true religion will always create a song in you, true religion will create the divine melody in you. True religion is nothing but true happiness.

Fortunate you are that you were born in an irreligious family. Now that Jesus moves you, go wholeheartedly with him. Now that the mentioning of the name of Jesus makes you start crying, cry wholeheartedly. That will be your prayer: that IS prayer. Be really moved... religion is being born in you. This is how religion is always born. Nobody can teach when the right moment comes, when the ripeness comes... suddenly one day you start feeling new urges; new dreams hover around you, new paths open, new doors send their challenges to you, new adventures.

This crying, this moving that is happening within your soul -- allow it, go with it. Don't try to control it -- I am saying this because there is every possibility you may try to control it, because we have been taught to control. Crying? -- control it. Laughter? --

control it. Control everything! And by control, you lose all spontaneity -- and God is spontaneity. If you become spontaneous, you are moving hand in hand with God; by being spontaneous, you are in God. That is the whole teaching of Kabir: SAHAJ

SAMADHI BHALI -- be spontaneously in meditation. That's the best meditation.

Now, if Jesus' name moves you, sit silently and let that name move you. Sometimes say silently, JESUS... and then wait. That will become your mantra -- this is the way that a real mantra is born. Nobody can give you a mantra, you have to find it. What appeals?

What moves you? What creates a great impact on your soul? If Jesus, then beautiful.

Sometimes, sitting silently, just repeat "Jesus" and wait... and let the name move deep, deeper into the recess of your being. Let it go to the very core. And allow -- if you start dancing, good; if you start crying, good; if you start laughing, good. whatsoever happens out of it, let it be. Let it be so; don't interfere, don't manipulate. Go with it, and you will have your first glimpses of prayer and meditation and first glimpses of God. The first rays will start penetrating your dark night of the soul.

Question 4

BELOVED MASTER,

I FEEL SO FRUSTRATED!

So what! You must be responsible for it. If you don't want to feel frustrated then there is no need. You must be creating it. Nobody else is responsible; if you feel frustrated, you must be reaping the crop which you go on sowing. But you don't see the relationship. If you expect too much, you will be frustrated. If you don't want to be frustrated, don't expect. Live without expectations and there will be no frustration.

But people go on expecting; they know no ends to their expectation. Then frustration comes in -- frustration is the shadow of expectation. Frustration is never the problem, the problem is with expectation. When you feel frustrated you think that existence is doing something wrong to you. No -- you were asking too much. In fact, ask and you will be frustrated. Any asking is asking too much. Don't ask, be. And then you will be surprised -

- whatsoever happens is good; you have no way to judge it.

I used to stay with a rich family in Calcutta. Once I went; the family had come to take me from the airport. The husband was very sad. I enquired, "What is the matter?" He said,

"There has been a great loss." Listening to this, his wife started laughing. She said, "Don't bother about what he says. There has been no loss -- in fact, there has been a great profit."

I was puzzled. I said, "You both are here. Please try to explain this riddle to me." The wife said, "There is no riddle. He was expecting ten lakh rupees and he got only five lakh rupees. So he says, `Five lakh rupees' loss,' and I say, `You have profited' -- but he won't listen, and he is very said."

When you expect ten lakh rupees and you get five lakhs you feel frustrated. If you are not expecting and you get five lakh rupees you are full of joy, thankfulness, gratitude. Don't expect, and you see your whole life becomes a joy. Expect, and your whole life becomes a hell. Expectation is the cause. If you want to change, never start by the effect, start by the cause. Frustration is the effect. You can go on fighting with frustration -- nothing will happen, you will become more and more frustrated. Start by the cause, always look for the cause. Whenever you are feeling miserable, go into it and find out where the cause is.

and then it is up to you. If you want to drop the effect then avoid the cause; then become aware, more and more aware.

If you are enjoying frustration... because there are many people who enjoy. There are many people who enjoy being miserable. In fact, they cannot tolerate happiness at all.

When they are miserable they are happy, when they are happy they feel very miserable.

You laugh at it, but this is a truth about the majority of people. And again, there are reasons. Whenever you are miserable you gain something: sympathy, attention.

Whenever you are happy nobody shows any sympathy -- in fact, people become jealous.

when you are unhappy everybody is a friend, everybody sympathizes with you -- even your enemy will sympathize with you. When you are happy even your friend will become jealous and inimical.

When you are happy nobody pays any attention to you. People avoid you. In fact, they start thinking you must be mad: Happy? -- who has ever heard of anybody being happy?... must have gone crazy or something, or must be pretending. When you are unhappy they accept you. Then they think everything is okay, because this is how things have to be. And people enjoy your unhappiness, that's why they pay attention -- because whenever you are unhappy they can compare themselves, and deep down they can feel good -- "So I am in a better position. People are so unhappy! -- at least I am not that much unhappy. I am unhappy, but not so much." He can compare. When you are happy, you bring the man down; he becomes unhappy looking at your happiness -- "So you are happy? So you have attained?" He will deny, he will create trouble for you.

This world consists of miserable people, unhappy people. They don't allow any happy person to live or to exist.

I have heard about a man, a great poet; old, sixty years old, and he was in a hospital lying on his bed. Nothing to do, so he was meditating about his life -- that he has lived a miserable life. He has been creating beautiful songs -- but they are not real, they are just compositions. He has a knack of writing poetry -- but those poems have not grown in his soul, they are just intellectual. He has the skill, the technique, but they are not outpourings of his heart.

So he was lying on the bed, nothing to do, was thinking, meditating, and he said, "Now I am sixty and within a few years I will be gone. Why am I wasting my life? Can't I be happy? And then he became aware that there is nothing really to be unhappy about. He has everything -- whatsoever a man needs, he has. He has prestige, respectability, name, money, house, a good wife, children -- he has everything. Why is he unhappy? He started laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it -- "I have nothing to be unhappy about, and I am unhappy. This is foolish!" He started laughing. The nurse heard him; she immediately ran to the doctor. And he saw that the nurse was shocked and she had run out of fear, so he started laughing even more. And then the doctor came and the doctor was shocked and said, "What has gone wrong?" -- so he laughed more.

Immediately he was taken to the mental department. He told me himself, "I was laughing even more there -- `You people, have you gone mad or something?' And I would tell them that nothing is wrong -- but who listens? They said, Èverybody says that! Suddenly out of the blue you started laughing.'" Something has gone wrong; his mind is no more sane. When he came to see me and he told me this story, he said, "This is something!

Nobody ever thought I was mad when I was miserable."

It happens to my sannyasins every day. One of my sannyasins wrote a few days before, that he took sannyas, he was very happy, he went dancing from his station to his home --

he went dancing, he was so happy. The whole town gathered together; they said, "He has gone mad." His wife started crying and weeping! and his children, they said, "Poppa, what are you doing?" And looking at this, he started laughing more. He said, "What am I doing? I have become a happy person!" They forced him into the hospital. He telegrammed here: Beloved Master, save me! They are going to give me tranquillizers and electroshock. What am I to do?

Happiness is not allowed. Happiness is something mad. You say, "I feel so frustrated!"

Look into it. If you enjoy it, then there is no problem -- it is your choice. If you enjoy it, then I will tell you this anecdote...

The nervous tourist didn't like standing too near the edge of the cliff on Beachy Head in Sussex.

"What would I do," he said to the guide, "if I fell over?"

"Look to the right in that case," enthused the eager conductor. "You'd love the view."

"Look to the right in that case..." If you are going to fall, you are going to fall! "Look to the right, you'd love the view."

So if you are going into frustration and you love it and you enjoy it, then go into it more alert, aware. And enjoy it! Then don't complain, don't create a contradiction. You love frustration? -- love it! go into it. Become more artistic about it, decorate it a little more; make new possibilities, new doors to become more frustrated... if you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, then I don't see the problem. Just go deep into it, watch, and you will find some expectation hidden behind. Whenever you expect, you are asking for frustration.

Drop expectations.

The life of a sannyasin should be a life of no expectations. And then every moment is such a bliss, such a benediction, because whatsoever God gives is so much. Then you always feel grateful. But your desires are so much that whatsoever God gives always looks so little; and you feel frustrated, and you feel complaints, and you cannot feel grateful. And without gratitude, there is no possibility of prayer arising in your heart.

Gratitude is prayer.

Question 5

WHY DO I MAKE FUNNY FACES?

It is from Amida. First, an anecdote...

A person was frighteningly ugly. Once he was asked how he could go on living with such a terrible face.

"Why should I be unhappy?" answered the man. "I never see my own face. Let others worry."

So Amida, you simply throw your mirrors -- that's all. And this is others' problem, not yours. They will come to me -- "What to do with Amida's faces?" But, one thing: all faces are funny, because deep down you have no face at all. That's why all faces are funny. Nobody is ever satisfied with their face; even the most beautiful people are not satisfied. You may think otherwise, but you don't know. Even Cleopatra was worried that her nose was a little longer than it should be. Marilyn Monroe committed suicide -- a beautiful woman, but not satisfied, not contented. There is something in it. All faces are funny because all faces are false. Deep down, your being is faceless. That's what Zen people call the original face. When a disciple comes to a Zen master, the master says,

"Go and meditate upon your original face." And what is the original face? The face that you had before you were born and the face that you will have again when you are dead: find out that original face. It is not a face at all.

Have you ever thought about it? The shape of your face is given by the body. It can be changed by plastic surgery. And you will not be changed by the change of the face: your nose can be longer, shorter, your eyes can be different, eyebrows can be different -- much can be done now. And you will remain the same. So the face is not your being, it is just the shape of your body. It is not YOUR face. Have you got any face? Sometimes with closed eyes go deep into it... and you will be surprised to see you don't have any face.

God has no face at all -- and you are gods and goddesses.

That's why one is never contented. One can never be contented with this face, howsoever beautiful. This face is not going to satisfy you unless you come to the original face, the facelessness of your being: purity with no shape, the formless, the attributeless. The form is of matter. The form is not of consciousness; consciousness is formless. Your body is a meeting-place of the form and the formless, of matter and consciousness. Your body is a container. The contained is you, and that contained has no face. So always, any face is funny. The very idea of having a face is funny because all faces are false. Face as such is false.

This hunger to be more than we are reminds me of a four-year-old who met an old friend of the family who had not seen the little lad for several years. "Oh, John," said the friend,

"I'm surprised at how bit you are!" To which the boy replied, "Oh, but I'm bigger than this!"

"Bigger than this" -- you always have that feeling that you are bigger than this, that you are more beautiful than this, that you are more truthful than this, that you are more eternal than this. And because of this a great problem arises. Everybody looks at your face, and nobody can look deep into your being. And you are aware, a little aware of your being; you don't think you end with your face. You may think you start from there, but that is not the end. But for others that is the end, the terminal point.

You love a woman, and whatsoever you do she will never be satisfied, because she always feels she is bigger than this, more beautiful than you feel her. And the same is true about you -- the woman may love you very much but you know she has not yet known you; just on the periphery. 'I am bigger than this, I am more than this." So no relationship becomes satisfying -- cannot be. It cannot be, in the very nature of things, because you know something which is very great, tremendously great, huge, enormous... and the other knows only the face, the body form. You are reduced to a small thing -- and whatsoever his praise, it never comes to satisfy you. It cannot.

And, every child makes funny faces. Have you watched? Leave him in the bathroom and watch from the keyhole, and he will make funny faces. In fact he is enjoying having a face, trying to manipulate it in many ways, playing with it. And he can play because he is separate. When he is making a funny face, he knows "I am not this funny man. This face is only the face; I am behind it. This is just a mask." And even grown-up people do it in the bathroom. If nobody is watching, everybody is tempted to do a little.... In the mirror, one wants to make funny faces. Nothing wrong in it -- it simply shows that you cannot adjust yourself with the body, that the body is not all, that you are far beyond it, that you can play with the body like a mask. It is a mask.

In fact there are many old meditations which make use of making funny faces. You can make it a meditation -- in Tibet, it is one of the oldest traditions. Keep a big mirror: stand naked, make faces, do funny things -- and watch. Just doing it and watching for fifteen, twenty minutes, you will be surprised. You wills tart feeling you are separate from this. If you are not separate, then how can you do all these things? Then the body is just something in your hand -- you can play with it, this way and that. That's why I always say mimicry, mime, is a spiritual art. And soon we are going to open a small school of mime.

If you can learn how to make faces, if you can act with your body in many ways, you will be suddenly freed from the body; your identity will be broken.

This is my experience. Many people come to me and ask, "Why do so many actors come to you?" My experience is this, that acting is one of the most spiritual professions in e world. Because an actor moves into so many actings -- sometimes he is this, sometimes that -- so many identities that he becomes loose. Then one day he suddenly starts thinking, "Who am I? One day I am Abraham Lincoln, another day I am George Washington, another day I become this and that," and every day he goes on changing. In one film he is one, in another film he is another. Sometimes he is a saint, and sometimes he is a sinner. Only then can he be a perfect actor.

You can ask Veeten, Veeten is here. You can ask Vijay Anand, Vinod -- they are my sannyasins. By and by he comes to know, a good actor comes to know, that all are acts.

"Then who am I?" In ordinary life you are identified with one thing: you are a doctor, so you are a doctor -- morning, evening, night, you are a doctor; for thirty, forty years, you are a doctor -- you become fixed with the identity, with the role. It is a role too -- but you never change, so you become fixed. You forget; the role becomes your being. When a person has to change many roles, he becomes loose. by and by the question arises: Who am I? All these are roles -- then who am I? who is this man who some day becomes a sinner and some day becomes a saint? And some day plays the role of a murderer, and some day becomes a great lover? Who is this man? Who is this being behind all these actings?

To me, acting is one of the most spiritual professions. And if you take life as an acting, you will start moving towards spirituality. Take life as an acting, you will start moving towards spirituality. Take life as acting, a great drama. The world is a vast stage. You are a mother -- that is only one role. You are a father -- that is only one role. You are a businessman -- another role. You are a brother to somebody -- another role. You are a son, husband -- another role... a thousand and one roles if you watch. And you go on changing your faces. When your servant comes to see you, you have a different face.

When your boos comes to see you, you have a different face. Watch it, become a little more alert, and you will see you have a thousand and one faces, continuously changing. It is automatic. You need not do anything -- they change automatically. You have become very skillful. Once you understand this, you start moving inwards where there is no face at all.

Amida, good. You make it a meditation. You start doing this meditation every day for twenty minutes. Find out new ways to make funny faces, funny postures -- do whatsoever you can do. And it will give you a great release; and you wills tart looking at yourself not as the body, not as the face, but as the consciousness. It will be helpful.

Question 6

BELOVED MASTER,

HAVE I BECOME ENLIGHTENED? AND IF NOT YET, THEN WHEN?

Enlightenment is not an object to be desired, it is not a goal to be achieved. And you will become enlightened only when you have forgotten all about it -- otherwise, never. And it is not a question to be asked. Even if I say you have become enlightened, that won't help.

The very question shows that you are still desiring. Enlightenment has become your greed. You may have been desiring other things before -- money, respectability, power, prestige; now you are desiring enlightenment. The desire has moved to a different object, but it has not changed. The desire is still the same and desire is the problem.

To desire anything is to remain unenlightened.

Let me tell you one anecdote...

The doctor slapped the asylum patient on the back and said, "Well, old man, you're completely cured. Run along and write to your family and tell them you'll be back home in a couple of weeks, as good as new."

He went off to write his letter. When he was licking the stamp, it slipped through his fingers and fell onto the back of a cockroach which happened to be passing at the time.

Amazed, the patient watched the stamp zig-zagging across the floor, up the wall and right around the skirting-board and then under the door. After a while he tore up the letter.

"Two weeks!" he said. "Hell!" I won't be out of here for two lives."

That stamp is your desire, and if you look behind the desire you will find the cockroach of your ego. And if you don't look behind the stamp at the cockroach, even two lives won't help -- you will remain unenlightened. Enlightenment is not something that you have to achieve. It is your nature; you have just to remember it. Look into your games of the ego -- subtle are those games. Just watch. Nothing is to be done, just see how ego goes on creating ambitions. And once you have seen all the ways of the ego the cockroach dies, the ego disappears, and you are there -- as enlightened as you have always been.

Enlightenment is your nature. It is not something to be achieved, it is already the case.

Question 7

BELOVED MASTER,

WHAT IS YOUR TASK HERE?

What is my task here?

Once upon a time, there was a frog. But he really wasn't a frog, he was a prince who looked and felt like a frog. A wicked witch had cast a spell on him: only the kiss of a beautiful maiden could save him. But since when do cute chicks kiss frogs? So there he sat, unkissed prince in frog form. But miracles happen. One day a beautiful maiden grabbed him and gave him a big smack. Crash! Boom! Zap! There he was, a handsome prince. And you know the rest: they lived happily ever after.

So what is my task here? To kiss frogs, of course.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #3

Chapter title: The bee has received it's invitation

3 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

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I.20. MAN NA RANGAYE KAPADA

THE YOGI DYES HIS GARMENTS,

INSTEAD OF DYEING HIS MIND IN THE COLORS OF LOVE:

HE SITS WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD,

LEAVING BRAHMA TO WORSHIP A STONE.

HE PIERCES HOLES IN HIS EARS, HE HAS A GREAT BEARD

AND MATTED LOCKS, HE LOOKS LIKE A GOAT:

HE GOES FORTH INTO THE WILDERNESS, KILLING ALL HIS DESIRES, AND TURNS HIMSELF INTO AN EUNUCH.

HE SHAVES HIS HEAD AND DYES HIS GARMENTS;

HE READS THE GITA AND BECOMES A MIGHTY TALKER.

KABIR SAYS: "YOU ARE GOING TO THE DOORS OF DEATH, BOUND HAND AND FOOT."

III.102. HAM SE RAHA NA JAY

I HEAR THE MELODY OF HIS FLUTE, AND I CANNOT CONTAIN MYSELF: THE FLOWER BLOOMS, THOUGH IT IS NOT SPRING;

AND ALREADY THE BEE HAS RECEIVED ITS INVITATION.

THE SKY ROARS AND THE LIGHTNING FLASHES,

THE WAVES ARISE IN MY HEART,

THE RAIN FALLS; AND MY HEART LONGS FOR MY LORD.

WHERE THE RHYTHM OF THE WORLD RISES AND FALLS,

THITHER MY HEART HAS REACHED:

THERE THE HIDDEN BANNERS ARE FLUTTERING IN THE AIR.

KABIR SAYS: "MY HEART IS DYING, THOUGH IT LIVES."

Man is a rainbow, all the seven colors together. That is his beauty and that is his problem too. Man is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional. His being is not simple, it is a great complexity. And out of that complexity is born the harmony we call God: the divine melody.

So the first thing to be understood about man is that man is not yet. Man is only a possibility, a potentiality. Man can be, man is a promise. The dog is, the rock is, the sun is... man CAN BE. Hence the anxiety and anguish -- one can miss too; there is no certainty. You may flower, you may not flower. Hence the shivering, the shaking, the trembling inside: "Who knows whether I will be able to do it or not?"

Man is a bridge between the animal and the divine. The animals are tremendously happy

-- of course not aware, not CONSCIOUSLY happy, but tremendously happy, unworried, non-neurotic. God is tremendously happy and conscious. Man is just in between the two, in limbo, always wavering -- to be or not to be?

Man is a rainbow, I say, because a rainbow will give you the total perspective in which man can be understood -- from the lowest to the highest. The rainbow has seven colors, man has seven centers of his being. The allegory of the seven is very ancient. In India, the allegory has taken the form of seven chakras: the lowest is MULADHAR and the highest is SAHASRAR and between these two are five steps, five more chakras. And man has to pass through all these seven chakras -- seven steps towards the divine.

Ordinarily, we are stuck at the lowest. The first three -- MULADHAR, SVADHISTHAN

and MANIPURA -- are animal chakras. If you live in the first three you are no more different than the animals -- and then you are committing a crime. Not that you are actually committing a crime -- you are committing a crime because you will not be able to be what you were meant to be; you will miss the possibility. If a seed does not grow to be a flower, it has committed a crime -- against nobody; against himself. And the sin that one commits against oneself is the greatest. In fact, we commit sins towards others only when we have committed the first, fundamental sin against ourselves.

The first three chakras are concerned with food, money, power, domination, sex. food is the lowest, sex is the highest, in the lowest three chakras. This has to be understood. Food is the lowest -- a food-obsessed person is in the lowest category of animals. He simply wants to survive. He has no purpose, he just wants to survive to survive. If you ask him for what, he has no answer to give to you.

One day, Mulla Nasruddin told me, "I wish I had more land."

I asked him, "But why? As it is, you have enough."

He said, "I could raise a lot more cows."

I asked him, "And what would you do with them?"

He said, "Sell them and make money."

"And then? Then what you are going to do with that money?"

"Buy more land."

And I asked him, "For what?"

"To raise a lot more cows."

This way it goes, just a vicious circle in which you never come out: you eat to live, you live to eat. This is the lowest possibility. The lowest form of life is the amoeba. The amoeba simply eats, that's all. An amoeba has no sex life, an amoeba goes on eating whatsoever is available -- the amoeba is exactly the symbol of the lowest man. The amoeba has no other organs, only the mouth; his whole body functions as a mouth. He goes on digesting whatsoever comes close by; whatsoever comes close, he simply digests it. From the whole body he absorbs it; his whole body is a mouth. He becomes more and more, bigger and bigger; then comes a point where he is too big and he cannot manage --

then he splits in two. Then there are two amoebas instead of one; then they start doing the same thing. The amoeba simply eats and lives, and lives to eat more.

A few people live at this lowest level. Beware of it -- life has something more to give to you. It is not just survival, it is survival for something significant. Survival is necessary but is not the end unto itself; it is just a means.

The second type, a little higher than the food-obsessed, is the power-maniac, the politician. He wants to dominate people. For what? He feels very very inferior deep inside: he wants to show to the world that "I am somebody; I can dominate, I can put you in your right place. He has not put himself in HIS right place and he tries to put the whole world in ITS place. He is the ego-obsessed person. He can move in any direction: if he moves into money, he will go on hoarding money -- money becomes the power symbol.

If he moves into politics, he cannot contain himself until he has reached to the very end --

and there is nothing.

Once I had a cat -- a very foolish cat, almost a politician. She would go and climb on the trees, and in that she was perfect. And she would go to the topmost branch of the tree and then she would be stuck there and she did not know how to come down. And it was a problem almost every day -- somebody had to go up the tree to bring her down. She would be stuck there and she would cry and make noise in agony. And she never learned.

So I used to call that cat "the politician."

He goes on -- prime minister, president, Adolf Hitler, Richard Nixon -- he goes to the highest top and then there is nowhere else to go and he does not know how to climb down. No politician ever knows how to climb down. He learns only one art: how to go on climbing up and up. Then there comes a moment when there is no more "up".... Then, great frustration.

It is said that Alexander went to see an astrologer. The astrologer looked at his hand and said, "Alexander, everything is okay, you will become the greatest conqueror in the world. But remember, there is only one world to be conquered." And it is said, Alexander became very sad. The astrologer asked, "Why have you become so sad, so suddenly?" He said, "What else should I do? If there is only one world, then once I have conquered it, what am I going to do? It makes me feel very sad."

The climber.... In animals you can observe the pecking-order. If you see a group of monkeys you will find one as the president or the prime minister or whatsoever you call the king of the monkeys, and all the monkeys following him. He is the leader, he dominates. If you come across tigers you will find one tiger dominating the whole herd.

To dominate somebody else, to try to conquer somebody else, is a very animal instinct.

The real man tries to conquer himself, not others. He wants to know himself. He does not want to fulfill some inner gap by dominating somebody else. The real man loves freedom for himself and for others too.

Then third is sex -- and I say it is better than food, than politics, because it has a little higher quality: it shares. It has something higher. In food, you simply absorb; you don't share. In domination, you destroy; you don't create. Sex is the highest possibility on the lower plane -- you share, you share your energy, and you become creative. As far as animal existence is concerned, sex is the highest value. And people are stuck somewhere with these three.

The fourth is ANAHATA chakra. The first three are animal, the last three are divine, and in between these two is the fourth, ANAHATA -- the heart chakra, the lotus of the heart, the chakra of love. And that is the bridge. Love is the bridge between the animal and the divine. Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because that is the whole message of Kabir -- the message of love. Below the heart, a man is animal; above the heart, he becomes divine. Only in the heart is a man human. That's why a man who can feel, who can love, who can pray, who can cry, who can laugh, who can share, who can have compassion, is the really human being. Humanity has dawned in him, the first rays of the sun have entered in him.

Then fifth is VISUDDHI, sixth is AJNA, and seventh is SAHASRAR. With the fifth, love becomes more and more meditative, more and more prayerful. With the sixth, love is no more a relationship. It is not even a prayer -- it has become a state of being. It is not that you love somebody, no. Now it is something like YOU ARE love. It is not a question of loving -- your very energy is love. You cannot do otherwise. Now love is the natural flow -- just as you breathe, so you love; it is an unconditional state. And with the seventh is samadhi, SAHASRAR: you have arrived home.

In Christian theology you can find the same allegory in the story that God created the world in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Those six days are six chakras -- the six centers of being. The seventh is rest: one has arrived home, one rests. That allegory has not been understood well. Christians, and particularly Christian theologians, never go very deep. Their understanding remains superficial -- at the most, logical, theoretical, but never touches the real point. God created the world: first he created matter, and last he created man. For five days he was creating everything else in the world -- matter, animals, birds -- then on the sixth day he created man. And in the last moment of the sixth day he created woman. Now this is very symbolic: woman is the last creation --

even man is not the last. And the allegory is still more beautiful because it says he created woman out of man. That means woman is a refinement of man, a more purified form.

First: a woman means intuition, poetry, imagination. Man means will, prose, logic, reason. These are symbols: man means an aggressive quality, woman means receptivity.

Receptivity is highest. Man means logic, reasoning. analysis, philosophy; woman means religion, poetry, imagination -- more fluid, more flexible. Man is fighting with God.

Science is purely a male by-product -- man fighting, struggling, trying to conquer.

Woman never fights; she simply welcomes, she waits, she surrenders.

And the Christian allegory says God created man first. Man is the highest in the animal kingdom -- but as far as humanity is concerned, woman is higher. Christian theologians have interpreted it in an absolutely wrong way -- they have interpreted in a male chauvinist way. They think man is more important, so God created man first. Then animals must be even more important! The logic is false. They think man is the real thing, woman is just an appendix. At the last moment, God felt that something was missing so he took one bone out of man and created the woman. Woman is not to be thought very significant -- just a helpmate, just so that man feels good, otherwise he will be alone. The story is analyzed in such a way that it seems that woman is less important than man -- just a toy for man to play with, otherwise he will be alone. God loved man so much that he thought he would be sad and lonely.... No, this is not true.

Imagination comes only when will is surrendered. The same energy that is will becomes imagination, and the same energy that becomes aggression becomes reception, and the same energy that fights becomes cooperation. The same energy that is anger becomes compassion. Compassion comes out of anger; it is a refinement of anger, it is a higher symphony out of anger. Love arises out of sex; it is a higher reach, more purified.

God created woman after he created man, because woman can be created only afterwards. First you have to create the crude energy and then you can refine it.

Refinement cannot come first. And in this allegory there is a message -- that every man has to become feminine before he reaches to the seventh. This is at the sixth center. In yoga, the sixth center is called AJNA chakra -- it means the center of will. AJNA means òrder, commandment'. It is the most powerful center, the sixth, and many become stuck there. Then they go on playing with spiritual energies and go on doing foolish things. At the sixth center, man has to turn into a woman and his whole will has to be used for only one thing -- and that is, he has to will surrender. To will surrender is the greatest thing in the world; and this can be done only if you have willpower -- not ordinary, EXTRAORDINARY willpower.

Ordinarily, you think people who surrender are weaklings -- you are wrong. Only very strong people can surrender, surrender needs strength, great strength. If you surrender out of weakness, your surrender is meaningless, impotent. If you surrender out of strength, then your surrender has meaning, significance. At the sixth center, when will comes to its ultimate focusing, surrender is possible. Out of will is created surrender: out of man, God created woman.

At the sixth center... now if you ask the brain surgeons they will also agree with me --

they say the brain is divided into two hemispheres: man and woman, the left and the right. The left brain is male and the right brain is female. The right brain is connected with the left hand; that's why the left hand is not appreciated -- even condemned. The right hand is associated with the left brain -- hence, right seems to be right and left seems to be wrong. It is a man-oriented world, male-dominated world. Right hand is the symbol of male, left hand is the symbol of female. And your head is divided into two hemispheres.

A poet functions from a different part of his head than a logician. A poet is more feminine. It is not just a coincidence that if you look at great poets you will find great femininity, grace, beauty, a charm, a tremendous attraction, a charisma, feminine charisma. If you look at painters you will find them a little effeminate; their dress, their long hair, their way of walking, is more feminine.

Have you ever heard of a bodhisattva the Chinese called Kuan-Yin? In India, there was a very compassionate bodhisattva or Buddhist saint. But when Buddhism reached China, it seemed strange to the Chinese that a man should be so compassionate. So they thought that the saint must be a woman! And so they depicted the saint as a woman and worshipped him as a woman, down the centuries.

The story is of tremendous import. Buddha looks more like a woman than like a man --

his face, his grace. The sixth center has been surrendered. Logic has been surrendered to love, argument has been surrendered to feeling; aggression has become reception.

conflict has turned into cooperation. Now there is no struggle between the part and the whole; the part is flowing with the whole, the part is in a let-go -- the whole has possessed it.

That is the meaning of the Christian allegory that God created man first, and then woman out of man. This is to pay tremendous respect to feminine qualities: they are higher than man, they come out of man, they flower out of man. And then, on the seventh day, God rested. What else can you do when you have come home? SAHASRAR is the center of rest, absolute rest -- you have arrived; now there is nowhere to go.

The lowest -- MULADHAR -- is the center of unrest, the highest is the center of rest, and between these two there are seven divisions. You can call them seven colors -- yes, man is a rainbow. Or, you can call them seven notes of music. Eastern music divides sound into seven notes: SA, RE, GA, MA, PA, DHA, NI -- these are the seven basic notes. And out of these seven basic notes all music is created -- all symphony, all melody, all song, all dance.

Remember, seven is a very significant number.

And one thing more, before we enter into the sutras. To be more modern and contemporary, I would like to divide these seven centers in this way. The first I call NO-MIND. `No-mind' means mind is fast asleep -- MULADHAR. it is there, but so fast asleep that you cannot even detect it. In the rock, God is fast asleep. In the man he has become a little alert -- just a LITTLE alert, not very much. In the rock he is fast asleep, snoring. If you listen closely you will hear the snoring... God snoring. That's why rocks are so beautiful -- so deeply silent, no turmoil, no anxiety, nowhere to go. This I call no-mind. I don't mean by `no-mind' that they have NO mind; I simply mean the mind has not manifested yet. The mind is waiting in seed, the mind is getting ready to awake, the mind is preparing, the mind is resting. Sooner or later there will be the morning and the rock will become a bird and will start flying, or will become a tree and will start blossoming.

The second state I call UNCONSCIOUS MIND. In the trees, the mind is there -- not like the rock, God has become a little different from the rock. Not conscious, UNconscious.

Trees feel -- they cannot feel that they feel, but they feel. Listen to the difference. If you hit a tree she feels it, but she cannot feel that she feels it. That much awareness has not happened. Feeling has come in, the tree is sensitive. And now there are modern experiments proving it, that trees are tremendously sensitive.

This I call unconscious mind. Mind is there... almost like one is asleep. In the morning one remembers that it was a beautiful night and "I slept deeply, the sleep was very profound." But you remember in the morning, not when the actual sleep is happening; you remember later on, retrospectively. Mind was there in sleep, but was not functioning at that moment; it only functions retrospectively, later on. In the morning you remember -

- a beautiful night, such a soothing and satiny night, such deep silence and such happiness

-- but you recognize it in the morning.

The third state is SUBCONSCIOUS mind. Subconscious mind is in the birds, animals. It is like dreaming. In a dream you become a little more conscious than you become conscious in your sleep. Let us say the rocks are in a coma; in the morning they will not even be able to remember how profound was the sleep -- it is a coma. The trees are in a sleep; when they awake, they will remember. The birds and the animals are dreaming --

they are very close to humanity. I call this subconscious mind.

The fourth I call CONSCIOUS MIND. That's where man is. Not very conscious; just a flicker, just a small wave of consciousness -- and that too happens only when you are in tremendous danger, otherwise not. If somebody suddenly comes and is ready to kill you with a dagger, you will become conscious. In that moment there will be tremendous awareness, intelligence, radiance. Thinking will stop. You will become a flame. Only in rare moments do you really become conscious; otherwise, you move almost like a somnambulist. I have heard...

In 1959, two drunkards in the French town of Vienne opened what they thought was a door to the street. Actually it was the window of a room four storeys up. With a gay song on their lips they marched out, arm in arm over the sill to the street below. A beat policeman, hearing the thuds and rushing to help, was dumbfounded to watch them careering away, still singing and obviously in tip-top condition. "We missed our step,"

they explained.

They were not aware at all. Had they been aware, they might have died. They were not aware; they simply thought they had missed a step. Four storeys!

And this is your situation too. Your whole life is almost that of a drunkard. You go on stumbling here and there, missing one step here, another step there. Your whole life is nothing but misery upon misery, stumbling, bumping into each other. You may call it love, but what it comes to is just bumping into each other. It creates misery.

Only consciousness can give ecstasy. Ecstasy is the shadow of consciousness. This is the fourth stage in which ordinarily human beings live and die. This is a sheer wastage.

Rocks can be forgiven and trees can be forgiven and birds can be forgiven, but not man --

because you have the first glimpse: now it is your responsibility to grow it, to make it more solid, to make it stronger. You cannot say to a rock: "You missed," but you can say to a man: "You missed."

Man is the only responsible animal -- he can be asked, he will have to answer: that is the meaning of responsibility. One day or other, he will have to answer to God or to the center of this existence or to existence itself: "How did you miss? You were given the rudimentary beginning, you could have grown it. You were given the seed, you could have blossomed. Why did you miss?"

That's the anxiety of man, the agony, the trembling, the anguish -- because man is the only animal in this world who can become ecstatic, who can achieve to conscious blissfulness, who can become SATCHITANAND: who can become truth, consciousness, being, who can become bliss, who can come to the ultimate.

The fifth I call SUBSUPERCONSCIOUS MIND. At the fourth stage -- the conscious mind -- your consciousness is just a very flickering thing, very momentary, with no stability, comes and goes, and is beyond your power; you cannot recall it when it is needed. All religions exist between conscious mind and superconscious mind. All techniques of yoga, all techniques as such, are nothing but to transform your consciousness into superconsciousness. Gurdjieff calls it self-remembering. Kabir calls it SURATI YOGA -- `surati' also means remembering. Jesus says again and again: Be aware! Be awake! Watch! Buddha says: Be alert. Krishnamurti goes on talking about awareness; for forty years he has been talking about only one thing, and that is awareness. One word is the whole message: that word is the bridge between conscious mind and superconscious mind.

When your consciousness has become a stable factor in you, an integrated factor in you, a crystallized factor in you, and you can depend on it.... Right now, you cannot depend on it. You are going along, very conscious, and somebody hits you -- immediately the consciousness is gone; it is not dependable. Somebody says a simple word, somebody says to you, "Are you an idiot?" -- and consciousness is gone. Just the word "idiot" and your eyes are bloodshot, and you are ready to be killed or to kill.

Even people who seem to be very very alert and aware may be just alert and aware because they have escaped the situations. Their alertness is not real. You can go to the Himalayas, you can sit in a cave -- nobody will come to call you an idiot. Who will take such a bother to come to the Himalayan cave to call you an idiot? Of course you will not get angry. Your state of awareness in a Himalayan cave is not worth much, because there is no test for it, no possibility to destroy it. Hence, Kabir says: Be in the world. Don't be of the world, but be in the world, live in the world. Live in the ordinary situations where everything provokes you to be unconscious and everybody helps you to be conscious.

If you understand it, the world is a great device of God to make you more conscious.

Your enemy is your friend, and the curses are blessings, and the misfortunes can be turned into fortunes. It depends only on one thing: if you know the key of awareness.

Then you can turn everything into gold. When somebody insults, that is the moment to keep alert. When your wife looks at somebody else and you feel hurt, that is the moment to keep alert. When you are feeling sad, gloomy, depressed, when you feel the whole world is against you, that is the moment to be alert. When you are surrounded by a dark night, that is the moment to keep your light burning. And all these situations will prove helpful -- they are meant for it.

From conscious mind to superconscious mind is all yoga, meditation, prayer, awareness.

Subsuperconscious mind is an integrated phenomenon, but you will still lose it sometimes. Not ordinarily when you are wakeful, but when you go to sleep you may lose it. Subsuperconscious mind will help you while you are wakeful, and sometimes even in dreams you may remember -- but not in deep sleep. When Krishna says in the Gita, "The yogi is awake even when the whole world sleeps," he is indicating towards a higher state which I call the sixth -- SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND. Then one remains alert even while asleep; deep asleep, but awareness remains there. This is the sixth. And out of this sixth, the seventh grows spontaneously -- you have not to do anything for it.

That seventh I again call NO-MIND, to make the circle complete. The first is the no-mind of a rock and the last is the no-mind of a god. To show this unity, we have sculptured gods in stone. To show this unity, this circle complete, we have made stone statues of God to show that stone is the first and God is the last and both meet somewhere. Again, no-mind -- call it soul, God, enlightenment, nirvana, salvation, or whatsoever you choose to call it.

These are the seven stages. And this is the rainbow a man is. One thing more, then we enter into the sutras, and that is: not a single color has to be denied. All the colors have to be absorbed in the rainbow, and all the notes of music, all the seven notes of music, have to become part of the melody, and all these seven chakras from MULADHAR to SAHASRAR, they have to become a unity. It is not that you have to deny some chakras, because that denied chakra will not allow you ever to become whole -- and one who is not whole can never be holy. They all have to form a hierarchy, a unity; they all have to belong to one center.

A real man of religion lives the whole rainbow, from the rock to God -- from no-mind on this end to the no-mind on the other end. He is the whole spectrum. He lives life totally.

Nothing is denied, everything is used. Nothing is denied at all; if something feels like a jarring note, that simply means you have not yet been able to utilize it. It can be used, the poison can become medicinal -- you have to know how to transform it. And sometimes the nectar can be poisonous if you don't know how to use it.

If you know how to use anger, you will see anger gives you a sharpness of being -- just as if somebody has sharpened a sword. Anger rightly used gives you a sharpness, a radiance, a tremendous vitality. Sex rightly used makes you so full of love that you can go on sharing with all and sundry and it is never exhausted. Sex rightly used gives a rebirth to yourself. Ordinarily, it reproduces children; extraordinarily, it reproduces your innermost being.

Everything that you have has to fall into a unity.

Once a very rich man asked Pablo Picasso to make a portrait of him, and as Picasso was well-known he demanded a very fantastic price for it -- millions of dollars. The rich man said, "That's okay, you just do the portrait."

The portrait was finished. Came the rich man. He was not satisfied; he said, "For that much money... and what have you done? Just an ordinary canvas and a few colors."

Picasso said, "Just a few colors and an ordinary canvas? Wait." He went into his studio, brought a big canvas and many tubes of colors and brushes and gave them to him and said, "You can make your portrait yourself. And I will not charge for it at all. You can take these colors, these brushes and this canvas as a gift from me."

Then the rich man understood. It is not the colors, it is the combination. It is not the canvas, it is not the brush, it is the artist behind it -- one who has combined all together and has created a new unity which never existed before. Those colors were separate, that canvas was just dead. Now it has become alive; now it speaks a language, sings a song. It is not just colors -- a greater harmony has descended in those colors, a music has arisen out of them.

Let me tell you that whatsoever you have, all has to be used -- nothing is useless. Never throw anything away, otherwise you will repent one day. All has to be used. Just become more insightful, more mindful, become more aware, and start looking into things of your inner being and how to bring them to a higher harmony -- that's all. Right now you ar a crowd. Right now you are not an individual. You are not a rainbow -- all the colors are falling in separate dimensions, moving away from each other; they don't have a center.

Right now you are a noise, not music -- but remember, in the noise all the notes are present. Rearranged, arranged in a better, aesthetic, artistic way, they will become beautiful music. All that is needed is a deep aesthetic look into your being.

Now the sutras.

MAN NA RANGAYE YOGI RANGAYE KAPADA

THE YOGI DYES HIS GARMENTS,

INSTEAD OF DYEING HIS MIND IN THE COLORS OF LOVE...

Kabir says: O fool, rather than dyeing your mind in the love of God, rather than dyeing your being in the radiance of love, you simply go on dyeing your clothes. Religion happens from the inside out; it does not happen from the outside in. It arises in the center of your being and spreads towards the periphery -- not otherwise, not vice versa. Religion never arises from the periphery. If religion arises from the periphery, it will remain peripheral -- it will never touch your soul, and it will never bring any transformation to you. That's how it has been happening all over the earth.

A child is born -- it is accidental whether in a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan house -- and immediately the society, the parents, jump on him and they start dyeing his clothes. They tach him: You are a Christian. He does not know anything about Christ. In fact, he is not even thirsty to know; that desire does not even exist. He has not entered life at all, and you start saying to him, "You are a Christian," and you go on forcing on his mind that he is a Christian. You take him to the church, you force him to read the Bible, you force him to go to the Sunday-school, and you condition his mind.

By and by, continuous repetition changes the periphery. The cloth is dyed. He becomes a Christian without ever falling in love with Christ. He becomes a hypocrite, he becomes a pretender. You have destroyed his being -- rather than being a help, you have been tremendously harmful. You were not his friend. You have destroyed the very possibility: one day he was going to search for religion, but the search has to be one's own; nobody can force it from the outside.

If you are thirsty, I can show you the way. If you are not thirsty, you may stand just on the bank of the river and you may not be able to see that the river is flowing just in front of you. Only thirst gives you eyes to see the water; when the thirst is not there, it is meaningless. We are all religious people -- somebody is Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist -- and we are all false religious people: our clothes have been dyed, conditioned.

Kabir says: MAN NA RANGAYE YOGI -- better color your consciousness, dye your consciousness, rather than going on arranging your periphery. Start from the center, start from being. Don't start from behavior, start from being. Don't try to cultivate a character, try to bring awareness.

Remember these two things: character and consciousness. The society insists that you should have a character. Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, Kabir, they insist you should have a consciousness -- not character; character is just peripheral. If you have consciousness, you will be good, naturally good; there is no need to bother about character. But if you don't have any consciousness, your character will be just a false thing hanging around you. It will not be true, and it will become a bondage to you, and you will have to find subtle ways to avoid it -- because it has no intrinsic relationship with you. The society says, "This is good," so you do it. You do it half-heartedly, you do it without any heart in it, you do it as a duty -- and deep down, you want to do just the opposite. And you will find, if you are clever, you will find ways to go on doing the opposite and go on pretending. How to be in two worlds; a double-bind -- that's what all your character, all your conditioning, comes to. Man is split.

People say, "This is good; it has to be done, otherwise you will be thought bad" -- out of fear, you follow it. Deep down you know that this is not good, deep down you know something else is good, but you cannot follow that -- out of fear. Fear cannot give character. Fear only gives impotence, makes you weaker.

Kabir says:

THE YOGI DYES HIS GARMENTS,

INSTEAD OF DYEING HIS MIND IN THE COLORS OF LOVE:

HE SITS WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD,

LEAVING BRAHMA TO WORSHIP A STONE.

And Kabir says: God is within you, you are within him, and you go on worshipping in a ritualistic way. You go on seeking and searching. Somebody is going to Kaaba and somebody is going to Kashi and somebody is on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and somebody is going to Giranar. What nonsense! Kabir says: He is within you -- where are you going?

There is no need to go anywhere. In fact, stop all going and close your eyes and look within and he is there: the Lord of Lords is always present within you. He is born in you, you are his temple.

HE SITS WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD,

LEAVING BRAHMA TO WORSHIP A STONE.

And you leave this Lord, your innermost being, and you go on worshipping things, man-made things, man-made gods.

HE PIERCES HOLES IN HIS EARS, HE HAS A GREAT BEARD

AND MATTED LOCKS, HE LOOKS LIKE GOAT...

Right is Kabir. He says: Whatsoever you go on enforcing from the outside, will never make you human. You will remain animal. Just look -- I told you that the first three chakras are animal: food, domination, sex, pleasure, indulgence -- these are the first three chakras. And now go into the scriptures and see what they say about paradise -- all these three things, nothing else. In paradise you will have beautiful women, more beautiful than you can ever have here, with golden bodies -- they don't perspire. And they don't age; they remain fixed at the age of sixteen -- at least in the Hindu paradise they never go beyond sixteen. Eternally young.... This mind, who has conceived this paradise, must be hanging around the lower centers.

In the Hindu paradise they have wish-fulfilling trees -- KALPATARUS. You just sit underneath them and all your desires are fulfilled. Not a single moment is lost. You desire; here you have not even desired, and it is fulfilled. Great opportunity to indulge --

because here on the earth if you desire something it will take years for the fulfillment. If you want a big car you will have to earn money, steal money, exploit, so something --

and then too it is not certain. If you are fortunate, after a few years of struggle you may have a big car. Not so in the Hindu paradise: the desire arises -- a big car -- the image arises, and simultaneously comes the car. Now, this paradise cannot be very high. It shows from where it has arisen -- the lower animal centers.

In the Mohammedan paradise even worse things are possible, because in the Mohammedan countries.... This is something: all races and all religions that have come out of Judaism, somehow have always been homosexual. In the Mohammedan countries homosexuality was so prevalent that that too is provided for in their paradise. Not only beautiful women but beautiful boys will be available. This seems ugly; just the very idea seems nauseating. But those three lower chakras -- whatsoever their desires are, they have been projected.

Kabir says:

HE PIERCES HOLES IN HIS EARS, HE HAS A GREAT BEARD

AND MATTED LOCKS, HE LOOKS LIKE A GOAT...

It is very symbolic. He says: Your whole idea of religion is obsessed so much with the lower centers that you are not a man yet. You may be just a goat -- very animalistic.

HE GOES FORTH INTO THE WILDERNESS, KILLING ALL HIS DESIRES, AND TURNS HIMSELF INTO AN EUNUCH.

And Kabir says: Repression is not BRAHMACHARYA. Repressing your desires and destroying your desires is not the way of celibacy, because if you repress your desires you will remain hung-up with them. Whatsoever is repressed, you have to repress it again and again and again, and whatsoever is repressed, you have to sit on it continuously; otherwise there is fear -- if you move somewhere else, it may bubble up again.

Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master. So the so-called celibates in the monasteries -- the BRAHMACHARIS -- they are continuously obsessed with sex. Their whole obsession is sex, their mind is completely sexual -- it has to be so. Or, if you are mad, and you are REALLY against the body and you start destroying the body, the only thing that you can succeed in will be that you will become a eunuch.

Yes, that too has happened. In Russia there has been a Christian sect; for hundreds of years they have existed, and their number has been great. They cut their sexual organs --

actually cut. Stupid, because just by cutting your sexual organs you don't go beyond sex.

You simply become incapable of sex -- but to become incapable is not to go beyond.

Incapacity is not transcendence.

Kabir says: Be natural. Let this sexual energy be understood more, in a deeper way; let it be transformed, channelled to higher parts in your being: let it move from the third center to the fourth, from the fourth to the fifth, and you will see -- the sexual energy is not your enemy; it is a great reservoir, a great gift from God. It has tremendous value. Without it there is no possibility of spiritual growth.

Have you ever heard about any impotent person becoming enlightened? I have never come across any. Otherwise, impotent people would be the most enlightened people in the world. They don't have energy -- they should reach first. But it seems they never reach -- because without energy there is no possibility of movement, without energy there is no growth. You have to ride on the waves of energy.

Kabir is in tremendous love with life and all that life is. He says: Use all. Use it for higher purposes, go on finding higher goals, go on finding better and better goals, higher harmonies -- but never deny anything, never say no to anything. Anything that God has given to you must have a purpose behind it: find out the purpose. Don't be on a hurry to cut anything.

HE SHAVES HIS HEAD AND DYES HIS GARMENTS;

HE READS THE GITA AND BECOMES A MIGHTY TALKER.

KABIR SAYS: "YOU ARE GOING TO THE DOORS OF DEATH, BOUND HAND AND FOOT."

And Kabir says: People read the scriptures -- Gita, Koran, Bible -- they become very proficient, very logical, argumentative, talkative, but they don't know anything.

Knowledge is one thing, and to know, another. to know means to come face to face with reality, to have an encounter with God. Knowledge means to collect information. You can collect, you can use your mind as a computer, you can go on feeding it; it can collect all the knowledge that is available in the world. Do you know? -- a single mind can contain all the libraries of the world. Given enough time, a single mind is enough to contain all the libraries. So much information can be collected. Yet you will remain ignorant; behind all those curtains, decorated curtains of information, you will remain ignorant -- because you have not tasted, you have not known yourself. Unless you know yourself, all knowledge is futile.

KABIR SAYS: "YOU ARE GOING TO THE DOORS OF DEATH, BOUND HAND AND FOOT."

Go on talking about the Gita and go on talking about the Koran and go on talking about the Bible -- but I can see you are simply going into death and nowhere else, because you have not yet contacted the source of life.

I HEAR THE MELODY OF HIS FLUTE, AND I CANNOT CONTAIN MYSELF: HAM SE RAHA NA JAY.

Says Kabir: I cannot contain myself. I have heard his melody, I have heard his flute. It is not from the Gita, it is not from the Koran, it is from his lips directly.

I HEAR THE MELODY OF HIS FLUTE AND I CANNOT CONTAIN MYSELF: THE FLOWER BLOOMS, THOUGH IT IS NOT SPRING;

AND ALREADY THE BEE HAS RECEIVED ITS INVITATION.

Just as I told you, when you reach the fifth state -- subsuperconscious mind -- or what in yoga is called VISUDDHI chakra, or what in the Christian allegory is Good Friday....

Jesus is crucified on Friday, the fifth day of the week. It is very significant, allegorical.

Jesus is crucified when he is at the fifth, VISUDDHI chakra -- subsuperconscious mind.

Your ego dies only at the fifth -- never before.

At the fourth you are so unaware, you cannot catch hold of your ego. It is very subtle. At the fifth your awareness is more bright; you can look deep into the phenomenon of the ego, you can catch hold of it. And this is the beauty of it -- once you have caught hold of your ego, it dies on its own accord. In fact, the moment you have seen it through and through, it is no more. It is just a shadow. It existed because of your unawareness. And when the ego dies -- or, in the Christian terminology, when Jesus is crucified -- then the melody is heard.

Below the fifth, you go on hearing your own mind, your own chattering. It is all nonsense. You are almost insane; you go on hearing your own insanity, and you go on chewing it again and again and again. Whatsoever you call thinking is nothing but chewing the same things again and again. Some day, write it down on a paper.

Whatsoever comes in the mind, just go on jotting it down. Don't try to improve it, don't fill the gaps, and you will be surprised how the mind jumps from one thing to another...

meaningless -- just a junkyard, a rubbish heap. And you will not be ready to show that paper to anybody, because whomsoever you will show, he will say, "Some madman has done this." Try it. That madman is within you.

Up to the fourth, you are a madman -- and because of this madness and constant noise that you mind makes, you cannot hear the flute. God is continuously playing on his flute: HAM SE RAHA NA JAY. Kabir is saying: Now it is impossible to resist. I cannot contain... he has called me. I have heard his notes, his flute is ringing in my ears.

I HEAR THE MELODY OF HIS FLUTE, AND I CANNOT CONTAIN MYSELF...

This happens at the fifth center -- subsuperconscious mind. The melody comes, surrounds you like a fragrance, cleanses you, refreshes you, rejuvenates you, gives you new elan, new zest, new enthusiasm. The word ènthusiasm' is beautiful: the root means `God within'. It comes from THEO: theo means God. ENTHUSE means `God has entered within'. God within -- that is the meaning of enthusiasm. Only at the fifth, one becomes full of enthusiasm -- God has entered, the melody has entered. You are surrounded by something unknown, the mysterious has happened. The impossible has happened: only at the fifth do you become religious for the first time. And of course this religion is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan. This is simply religion. You have heard his flute: HAM SE RAHA NA JAY.

And says Kabir: Now there is no way to remain where I am. It is pulling me beyond myself. Now I cannot resist. The pilgrimage has started, the odyssey has begun.

THE FLOWER BLOOMS, THOUGH IT IS NOT SPRING...

And Kabir says: This is a miracle. The spring has not come and the flower is blooming.

In fact, in that world beyond the fifth, it is always spring. Below the fifth it is never spring. Below the fifth it is always a dark night of the soul. Below the fifth it is always desert. Beyond the fifth it is always spring. Kabir says: THE FLOWER BLOOMS, THOUGH IT IS NOT SPRING;

The miracle is happening...

AND ALREADY THE BEE HAS RECEIVED ITS INVITATION.

At the fifth you receive the invitation -- from the seventh. It comes from far away because there is still one barrier, a very thin barrier. You can see through it, it is very transparent. It is not much of a barrier, it is not a China Wall; it is pure glass. Unless you come very close you will not know it. The sixth is a very thin barrier, a screen. At the fifth, one starts feeling that one has arrived. By and by, one becomes aware that the melody is coming from very far away; the home is not yet come... THE BEE HAS

RECEIVED THE INVITATION.

Now the God has called forth, the God has provoked and challenged. Now, for the first time, God becomes a reality. Up to now it was just a symbol -- a meaningless word, too much used and abused, too much used by the priests and the politicians and made dirty because of that use. For the first time, now God is not a theological word, it is not a symbol, it is reality -- crystal clear. You can feel the impact, you are thrilled... God starts pulsating in your heart: HAM SE RAHA NA JAY.

And Kabir says: Now it is impossible to stay here, I have to go. Now there is no way. I am being pulled, I am helpless. This is the point from where grace starts. Let me tell you: you have heard about the principle of gravitation. Up to the fifth, you are pulled downwards -- that is the principle of gravitation. Beyond the fifth, you are pulled upwards. That is the principle of grace. Science knows only one; religion knows both.

I have heard about a Sufi mystic who was staying in a house. The people with whom he was staying were afraid because he was a madman, as all really religious people always are. And he was very unpredictable and he could do anything, so they were worried, and they put him in the basement so that he could not escape in the night, could not create any scene -- he might start singing and dancing, and the neighborhood would gather, and it would not be good.

Suddenly in the middle of the night they heard a great laughter, belly laughter, coming from the terrace. They rushed. He was laughing there and rolling on the terrace. They asked, "What has happened?" He said, "A miracle. I fell upwards."

The principle of grace -- one starts falling upwards.

He said, "You had put me in the basement... HAM SE RAHA NA JAY... but I cannot be there. I am falling upwards -- how can you hold me there? And I am laughing, because what will you think of it? You will not believe me -- that one can fall upwards. That's why I am laughing. But trust me, believe me, it has happened. I fell from the bed in the basement, opened my eyes and I was on the terrace."

After the fifth, this miracle happens -- you start falling upwards: the principle of grace.

... AND ALREADY THE BEE HAS RECEIVED ITS INVITATION.

THE SKY ROARS AND THE LIGHTNING FLASHES...

Now you are entering into the inner sky. You have seen the outer sky and you have seen the outer lightning; you don't know anything about your own inner sky which is vaster than the outer, which is greater than the outer.

THE SKY ROARS AND THE LIGHTNING FLASHES,

THE WAVES ARISE IN MY HEART...

And I am become oceanic -- waves upon waves are rising in my heart and I am reaching to higher peaks every moment.

THE RAIN FALLS; AND MY HEART LONGS FOR MY LORD.

And when you are at the fifth, from the sahasrar, the seventh, something starts falling on you like rain. Thirsty for millions of years you have been, thirsty and hungry and dying...

and suddenly nectar starts showering on you.

THE RAIN FALLS; AND MY HEART LONGS FOR MY LORD.

WHERE THE RHYTHM OF THE WORLD RISES AND FALLS,

THITHER MY HEART HAS REACHED...

And then an upsurge arises in you. Up to the fifth you have to work your way: from the fifth, God takes charge of you. Up to the fifth you have to search him; from the fifth he holds your hand. Up to the fifth you can go astray; beyond the fifth there is no way of going astray.

The sixth comes spontaneously. By and by, become more and more suffused with the beyond, luminous with the beyond, you become more and more ecstatic with the beyond

-- the benediction, the beatitude. Now it is not work: you start singing and dancing. You start enjoying. Now those days of SADHANA are over, now you have nothing to practice. God has taken possession of your heart -- now he will do; now you can trust and leave it to him. One relaxes totally. This is what leg-go means. Not that the journey has ended -- the traveler is gone. Traveling continues now but the traveler is gone. Now there is nobody who is journeying. The journey continues... and now there is a beauty to his journey, because there is no effort.

THERE THE HIDDEN BANNERS ARE FLUTTERING IN THE AIR.

And you can see the hidden banners fluttering in the air -- the faraway goal is not so far away now.

From the fifth you move to the sixth -- sixth is superconscious mind. From the sixth, a sudden jump into the seventh. It is sudden, remember; it is not gradual. Up to the fifth, effort is needed. From fifth to sixth, no effort is needed. From sixth to seventh there is no gradual progression -- a sudden jump, instantaneous, immediate; not even a split-second is needed.

KABIR SAYS: "MY HEART IS DYING, THOUGH IT LIVES."

In a way, I am dying. The old is going, the new is born. In a way, I am no more, and in another way, I am -- for the first time. This is the crucifixion and the resurrection. At the fifth, Jesus is crucified. In his crucifixion he relaxes -- in that relaxation he moves beyond the sixth. In the seventh, he is resurrected. Jesus is gone, Christ has come. Buddha is gone

-- the old Buddha, Gautam Siddhartha, is gone -- now a totally new being, nameless, formless, is born.

KABIR SAYS: "MY HEART IS DYING, THOUGH IT LIVES."

In fact, it lives for the first time; it lives utterly, totally. Only when you die, God lives in you. Until you die, God cannot live in you. Only when you have vacated, when your inner space is absolutely empty, when you have come to a zero experience, he comes, he floods you, he starts overflowing. These songs of Kabir are nothing but the overflowing of that melody that he has heard. These songs are nothing but the overflowing of the flood that he has received into his innermost being. These songs are no more ordinary songs. These songs are not only that of a poet, but that of a mystic -- one who knows, knows by living it; one who has tasted of God, who is drunk with God.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #4

Chapter title: The greatest love affair on earth

4 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701040

ShortTitle:

MELODY04

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

89

mins

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,

HOW CAN I BE MYSELF?

That should be the easiest thing in the world, but it is not. To be oneself one need not do anything; one already is. How can you be otherwise? How can you be anybody else? But I can understand the problem. The problem arises because the society corrupts everybody. The society up to now has been a great corruption. It corrupts the mind, the being. It enforces things on you and you lose contact with yourself. It tries to make something else out of you than that which you were meant to be. It puts you off your center. It drags you away from yourself. It teaches you to be like a Christ or to be like a Buddha or to be like this and that; it never says to you to be yourself. It never allows you freedom to be. It enforces foreign outside images on your mind.

Then the problem arises. You can pretend at the most, and when you pretend you are never satisfied. You always want to be yourself -- that is natural -- and the society does not allow it. It wants you to be somebody else. It wants you to be phoney. It does not want you to be real, because real people are dangerous people, real people are rebellious people. Real people cannot be controlled so easily, real people cannot be regimented.

Real people will live their reality in their own way -- they will do their thing; they won't bother about other things. You cannot sacrifice them. In the name of religion, in the name of the state, nation, race, you cannot sacrifice them. It is impossible to seduce them for any sacrifice. Real people are always for their own happiness. Their happiness is ultimate: they are not ready to sacrifice it for anything else. That's the problem.

So the society distracts every child: it teaches the child to be somebody else. And by and by the child learns the ways of pretension, hypocrisy. And one day -- this is the irony --

the same society starts talking to you in this way, starts saying to you: What has happened to you? Why are you not happy? Why do you look miserable? Why are you sad? And then come the priests. First they corrupt you, the distract you from the path of happiness -- because there is only one happiness possible and that is to be yourself -- then they come and say to you: Why are you unhappy? Why are you miserable? And then they teach you ways to be happy. First they make you ill and then they sell medicines. It is a great conspiracy.

I have heard...

A little old Jewish lady sits down on a plane next to a big Norwegian. She keeps staring and staring at him. Finally she turns to him and says, "Pardon me, are you Jewish?"

He replies, "No."

A few minutes go by, and she looks at him again and asks, "You can tell me -- you are Jewish, aren't you?"

He answers, "Definitely not."

She keeps studying him and says again, "I can tell you are Jewish."

In order to get her to stop annoying him the gentleman replies, "Okay, I'm Jewish."

She looks at him and shakes her head back and forth, and says, "You don't look it."

That's how things are. You as me, "How can I be myself?" Just drop the pretensions, just drop this urge to be somebody else, just drop this desire to look like Christ, Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, to look like your neighbor. Drop competition and drop comparison and you will be yourself. Comparison is the poison. You are always thinking in terms of how the other is doing. He has got a big house and a big car and you are miserable. He has got a beautiful woman and you are miserable. And he is climbing up on the staircase of power and politics and you are miserable. Compare, and you will imitate. If you compare yourself with the rich people, you will start running in the same direction. If you compare yourself with the learned people, you will start accumulating knowledge. If you compare yourself with the so-called saints, you will start accumulating virtue -- and you will be imitative. And to be imitative is to miss the whole opportunity to be oneself.

Drop comparison. You are unique. Nobody else is like you, nobody else has ever been like you, and nobody else is ever going to be like you. You are simply unique -- and when I am saying you are unique, I am not saying you are better than others, remember. I am simply saying they are also unique. To be unique is an ordinary quality of every being. To be unique is not a comparison, to be unique is as natural as breathing.

Everybody is breathing and everybody is unique. While you are alive, you are unique.

Only corpses are all alike; alive persons are unique. They are never similar -- they cannot be. Life never follows any repetitive course. God never repeats: he goes on singing a new song every day, he paints something new every day.

Respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison. Comparison is the culprit. Once you compare, you are on the track. Don't compare with anybody -- he is not you, you are not he. You are going to be yourself, he is going to be himself: let him be, and you relax into your being. Start enjoying whatsoever you are. Delight in the moments that are available to you. Comparison brings future, comparison brings ambition, and comparison brings violence. You start fighting, struggling, you become hostile.

Life is not something like a commodity. Happiness is not something like a commodity, that if others have it, you cannot -- "how can you have it, if others have happiness?" --

happiness is not a commodity at all. You can have as much as you want. It simply depends on you. Nobody is competitive about it, nobody is a competitor to you. Just as the garden is beautiful -- you can look and appreciate, somebody else can look and appreciate. Because somebody else is appreciating the garden and saying it is beautiful, you are not hindered; he is not exploiting you. The garden is not less because he has appreciated it; because he is enthralled by its beauty the garden is not less. In fact, the garden is more so -- because he has appreciated it he has added a new dimension to the garden.

People who are happy are in fact adding some quality to existence -- just by being happy they are creating vibes of happiness. You can appreciate this world more and more if more and more people are happy. Don't think in terms of competition. It is not that if they are happy how can you be happy? -- you have to jump on them and snatch happiness away, you have to compete. Remember, if people are unhappy it will be very difficult for you to be happy. Happiness is available to everybody -- whosoever opens his heart, happiness is always available. This happiness I call God.

It is not that somebody has achieved; it is not like a political post -- one person has become the president of a country, now everybody cannot become the president, true. But one person has become enlightened: that does not hinder anybody else from becoming enlightened -- in fact, it helps. Because Buddha became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Because Christ became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Somebody has walked on the path: footprints are there, he has left subtle hints for you; you can go more easily, in deeper confidence, with less hesitation. The whole earth can become enlightened, each single being can become enlightened. But everybody cannot become a president. This country has six hundred million people -- only one person can become the president. Of course it is a competitive thing. But all six hundred million people can become enlightened -- that's not a problem.

All that is divine is noncompetitive -- and your being is divine. So just sort it out. The society has muddled your head; it has taught you the competitive way of life. Religion is a noncompetitive way of life. Society is ambition, religion is nonambitious. And when you are nonambitious, only then can you be yourself. This is simple.

Question 2

THIS MORNING YOU ARE THE RISING SUN IN MY HEART, YOU ARE THE

SINGING BIRDS IN MY SOUL, YOU ARE THE RUSTLING LEAVES IN MY

BLOOD, YOU ARE THE WARM BODIES ALL AROUND. YOU ARE THE

SILENCE, YOU ARE THE SOUND. YOU ARE, YOU ARE NOT... I AM, I AM NOT...

WE ARE.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR BEST SONG YET. WHY CAN I NOT HEAR IT EVERY

DAY?

The song is always the best. The song is always the most perfect. Whatsoever I am saying is always the absolute truth. Sometimes you hear it, sometimes you miss it -- that depends on you. Sometimes you fall in tune with me, sometimes you stand apart. Sometimes you take courage and move with me, and sometimes you hesitate and linger. Sometimes you lag behind me, sometimes you accompany me. It depends on you. The song in itself is always the best.

I have heard: A Zen monk, Rinzai, was passing from a marketplace. He was near the shop of a butcher, and a customer was asking the shopkeeper, "Give me the best meat you have." The butcher said, "What nonsense! I never sell anything that is not the best.

Here everything is the best." And it is said, hearing this, Rinzai became enlightened. The moment he heard this -- "Here, everything is the best" -- it shattered something in his mind. A breakthrough, a piercing insight -- EVERYTHING is the best?... and he realized something. That's how it is, the whole existence: it is never less than the best. And he danced. And when he came back to the monastery, his master hugged him and said, "So!

-- so it has happened. Now tell me the whole story, how it happened." Rinzai said, "It is ridiculous. It happened by hearing a butcher say something to his customer." Of all places, in the marketplace, and of all persons, through a butcher! -- but something shattered, something simply dropped.

Each moment is the best, and each rose is the best. Yes, I would like to tell you, in the same way as the butcher told his customer: Here everything is the best. I don't deal in anything less than that. If I say it, it must be the best, otherwise I won't say it. But sometimes you get it and sometimes you miss it -- it depends on you. It has to be understood.

First: listening to me, your mind is not empty. Listening to me, you are not like a mirror.

Listening to me, you are full of your inner chattering. That is a disturbance. You listen to something and I say something else. Sometimes you listen only half-heartedly -- a word here, a word there -- and then you connect it. It is a hotchpotch, it is a mess; you will be never able to figure it out.

You have to listen to me so silently that not a single word is missed. I'm not saying listen to me in deep concentration, no. I am saying listen to me in awareness. Because concentration can never be perfect; there is always a possibility of distraction in concentration. I am saying something to you and a bird starts singing -- what will you do?

The sound of the bird will start coming to you; it will be a distraction. Concentration implies distraction, so I am never in favor of concentration. Listen to me in deep awareness.

Awareness means you listen to me and you listen to the bird also, to the wind passing through the trees and all that is happening right now. Don't listen to me with a narrow mind, closed to everything else and only open to me. Then you will not be able to listen to me, because what I am saying will be less if the sound of the bird is not included in it.

What I am saying will not be true if all that is happening in this moment is not included in it. Don't listen to me exclusively. Listen to all, inclusively: everything is included --

you are simply a silent mirror reflecting everything that is happening all around. Nothing is distracting. In those moments, in those crystal-clear moments, again and again you will come to hear the best song. Otherwise you hear one thing, you miss another, you hear again one thing -- one word here, one word there -- then you connect them. Then whatsoever comes out is not what I have said, it is what you have heard.

It happened...

The old tramp stood at the back door and the lady of the house appeared.

"Lady," he said, "I was at the front..."

"You poor man!" she exclaimed. "One of the war victims. Wait till I get you some food and you can tell me your story. You were in the trenches, you say?"

"Not in the trenches," said the tramp. "I was at the front..."

"Don't try to talk with your mouth full, take your time. What deed of heroism did you do at the front?"

"I knocked," he said, "but I couldn't get an answer so I came around to the back."

You don't even listen to the whole sentence. You listen to one word and you start interpreting it. "The front..." and immediately you have interpreted -- the ward, the trenches, the war victim.

What I am saying is not really a doctrine. On the contrary, I am not conveying anything to your intellect, but trying to pulsate something in your intuition. It is not a verbal communication. Just by the side of the verbal communication something deeper and greater is transpiring between you and me: the nonverbal. The said is not the real thing: the UNsaid, the gap, the interval. If you only hear my words, then too you will miss the meaning because my meaning is more in the gaps, in the silences. So you have not only to hear my words, you have to hear the wordless that is surrounding the words. That is possible only in deep trust and love.

So silence alone won't help. Silence is the first requirement -- that you listen meditatively, that you listen in awareness -- but that won't help alone. You have to listen in tremendous trust, in love, in sympathy. You have to participate with me. Because what I am saying are not syllogisms, not logical statements. Yes, it is a song, not a syllogism. It is not logic, it is love that I am pouring into you. Rightly listened to, one word, or even one wordless moment, can swing you into spaceless flight.

Rightly listened to, what I am saying to you is not a philosophy, not a dogma, not a doctrine. I am not trying to convince you about anything; I am not a teacher at all. My work is totally different, qualitatively different. The whole effort here is so that I can make a contact with the essence of your being. The words are used as a device, as a bridge. But you should not pay too much attention to the words. Look deeper, to the gesture. What I say has to be heard; more important, what is left unsaid has to be allowed a vibration in your being. I speak to create waves in your consciousness. These words are being used like pebbles thrown in a lake, so the lake starts waveing. Your consciousness is fast asleep: I want to create waves in your consciousness so life comes back to you, so you start streaming, so a dance of the inner being starts.... And whatsoever I am saying is never complete -- it cannot be, by its very nature.

You must have heard about the Japanese poem, haiku. It is the smallest poetry form in the world -- seventeen syllables only -- but one of the most penetrating. The word HAIKU

means `the beginning'. This is a tremendous significance -- the word haiku means the beginning. The haiku poets say: We only begin, we never end. The poet begins, the listener has to complete it. If a poem is complete with the poet then nothing is left for the listener. Then the listener will be just a spectator. Then the act is not creative -- in fact, it is dangerous. The poet, the REAL poet, never completes. He leaves something incomplete. He gives hints and leaves gaps: those gaps have to be fulfilled by you. Then the transfer is creative. The poet sings a song, ripples are created in your consciousness, and YOU complete the song in your innermost core of being. The poet begins it, you complete it. Then you are joined in one creative process: the painter begins it, then the person who looks at the painting completes it.

That is exactly what I am doing here. Whatsoever I am saying is never complete. It is just a hint, a push, the finger pointing to the moon. Forget the finger and look at the moon --

there is the message. The message is not in the finger. My words are pointers towards wordless silence... and I only begin, then I leave you to complete it.

That's why many people who have become too much accustomed to logic feel a little dizzy with me, hanging.... They feel as if I never complete anything, that I lead them on the way, that I never come to conclusions, that I start something and always leave in the middle. That is true, because I don't want to destroy your creativity. I would like to participate with you, to help you to be creative. I cannot do the work of creativity for you

-- that won't be friendly, that won't be compassionate. I can start, I can sing a song, and then you take it over and you start singing. It will be completed in you.

The transfer between a master and a disciple is exactly like the transfer between a lover and the beloved. The lover initiates, but the beloved becomes the womb. The lover initiates, starts, and the beloved completes it. Then the child is born. The child neither belongs to the father alone nor to the mother alone: it belongs to both. The father started, the mother completed it. Between the master and the disciple something exactly like that is happening. Whatsoever I am saying here, if you just try to understand it from the outside, you will miss. It is not for outsiders, it is only for insiders. Hence my insistence for sannyas. Sannyas is just a gesture that you have become part of my family, that you are married with me, that now we can take the responsibility of a child, that we can father and mother a child -- a new being is possible.

Truth is not something dead that can be transferred to you. It is an impulse, an energy impulse. The energy impulse reaches you, then you have to become the womb for it. You have to feed it, nourish it, nurture it, and then it will arise in your being. It is an inner transformation.

You say, "Thank you for your best song yet. Why can I not hear it every day?" You can hear it every day, you can hear it every moment, you can hear it even when I am not here.

You can hear it even when you are thousands of miles away from me. Because the song that I am singing has nothing to do with me in particular: it is the song of the divine. And it is being sung in a thousand and one ways all around you -- you just need to know how to listen, you just have to become a receptive womb, that's all. If you can learn only this much, how to become a receptive womb, you will hear it anywhere. Anywhere -- a river rushing by and you will hear it there, and the wind passing through the trees and you will hear it there, and the rain falling on the roof and you will hear it there, and you will recognize me.

Unless you start hearing it everywhere, it is not of much worth. Only when you have started hearing it everywhere, only when you don't miss it -- awake, asleep, it continues --

when it has become a milieu around you that surrounds you, when you cannot escape out of it, it has become your climate, your very being, only then you have hard it.

But, a good beginning: even if you heard it one day, it shows the possibility -- it can be heard another day. If you can hear it only once, it shows your potentiality. And right you are. You say, "This morning you are the rising sun in my heart, you are the singing birds in my soul, you are the rustling leaves in my blood, you are the warm bodies all around.

You are the silence, you are the sound. You are, you are not... I am, I am not... we are.

That is the meaning of sannyas: we are. A point where I am no more separate from you, and you are no more separate from me; a point where our boundaries are blurred; a point where we become nebulous -- like two clouds meeting, penetrating, dissolving into each other; a point where definitions become meaningless; a point where separation is not a reality, union is a reality. That is the meaning of sannyas, initiation, the master-disciple relationship. It is the greatest love affair on the earth. All love affairs are only preparations for it. If they lead you towards it, good. If they hinder you, it is evil.

Question 3

WHY ARE THE BOYS IN THE MUSLIM HEAVEN SO MUCH MORE

NAUSEATING THAN THE GOLDEN APSARAS WITHOUT ANY PERSPIRATION, OF THE HINDU PARADISE? YOUR CONDEMNATION OF HOMOSEXUALITY, NOT ONLY IN THIS LECTURE, DOESN'T SEEM VERY COMPASSIONATE.

Truth is never compassionate or is always compassionate. It depends on you, how you look at it. One thing is certain: truth is truth -- compassionate or not. This has to be understood.

Homosexuality has grown out of a male-dominated world. Homosexuality is a disease because of male domination; it is not a natural phenomenon. And there is every possibility that homosexuality is going to grow more and more -- the possibility that even states and governments and religions will start preaching homosexuality. Within fifty years, you will see it happening. Just as governments are now preaching birth control, abortion, they will preach homosexuality -- because the population is impossible, and homosexuality is going to be one of the ways to prevent new people coming to the earth.

Sooner or later, each government of the world is going to allow homosexual marriages --

men marrying men, women marrying women. This is going to happen. Already, many more people are moving into homosexuality.

The disease has come out of male domination. Just as I said the other day, all the cultures that have come out of the Judaic tradition are homosexual: Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish. The reason is, Judaism is one of the most male-oriented communities -- it had to be. They have suffered so much; they have been wanderers, for centuries they had no nation, nowhere to live. Of course, the man became more and more powerful -- he had to protect the woman, the children -- and the society became more and more centered around the man. Only a relaxed society, when things are going beautifully and there is plenty of food and there is no war, becomes heterosexual. Otherwise, when there is war, continuous struggle, the society leans towards male domination.

In the East, homosexuality has never been a problem. In fact, it has existed only in rare cases. Particularly in India, homosexuality has not been a problem at all. It has been so exceptional, it has not even been discussed. The reason? -- the country has lived in tremendous peace, well-being, satisfied. Wars have been there, but India has not fought any war on its own. Somebody came -- India was always ready to be conquered; it has not bothered much. Those who came were homosexuals -- because the army has to be basically male, and all armies become homosexual. Armies -- because only men are there

-- where are they going to put their love, the energy? They are forced to go homosexual.

So any country that has been continuously in war becomes homosexual. Or, male-oriented communities -- for example, monasteries: Buddhist monasteries, Jaina monasteries, Catholic monasteries, all became the breeding grounds of homosexuality because only men were allowed. It has not been researched well, but if one goes deep into it, it will be found always that whenever men will be alone together, homosexuality is bound to be there.

Now the same thing is happening in the world of women also, because the women's lib movement is the first thing in the world up to now where women are meeting with women and basically women oriented groups are being created. Lesbianism is happening.

When women are together and against men, where are they going to put their love? The man is the enemy: they have to love women.

Homosexuality and lesbianism both are growing; these are simple facts. A few things to be understood: I am not saying anything against homosexuality -- because I know there are many homosexuals around here. If you are not interested in any higher possibilities, homosexuality is as good as heterosexuality. There is no problem in it. If it is only a question of sexual release, homosexuality is as good as heterosexuality. But if you are interested in higher growth, then you will be in trouble.

Each child born is masturbatory, because the child first learns to love himself. That is the only natural way. He knows nobody else, he plays with his own body. each child born is naturally masturbatory: that is his first love. The second stage of his growth is, he becomes homosexual -- naturally so. He has loved himself: if he is a boy, certainly he starts loving other boys -- his love is spreading. Girls are very far away, a totally different kind of animal. He loves himself -- it is easier for him to love other boys. A girl loves herself -- it is easier for her to love other girls; the boys are a world apart. This is the second step, NATURAL step: masturbatory, then homosexuality.

Then the third thing, the third wave, is when you start loving the other -- the opposite.

Man and woman are polarities, and when polarities meet, only then is there challenge.

Yes, there is conflict -- and that conflict is the challenge. A homosexual love affair can be more convenient, true, because there is not much conflict. Both are alike: they understand each other, they know each other's ways and each other's mind. There is no polarity --

and if there is no polarity of course there is no conflict, but there is no growth either.

With polarity, conflict arises, challenge -- to penetrate and know the other, to understand the ways of the other. And it is part of spiritual growth that a man should come to know the woman and the woman should come to know the man.

Why do I say it is part of spiritual growth? Just the other day, I was saying that at the last moment, at the sixth chakra -- AJNA chakra -- one has to come to a tremendous meeting of the man and the woman. You are also divided inside into two: man and woman. If you cannot meet with the outer woman, it will be very difficult for you to make space for the inner woman. If you cannot love the other on the outside, it will be impossible for you to create a loving space for the other inside you. A man is not only man, he is man-woman together. He is born out of a man and a woman -- fifty-fifty percent he is, and so is a woman. and the ultimate inner meeting, the union, the inner alchemy, is possible only if you have learned the ways in the outside world.

When a man falls in love with a woman he is learning something. When a man falls in love with a man he is not learning anything. When a woman falls in love with a man she is learning something -- something of the unknown, something of the opposite, something of the quite other. Man and woman in love, means the right hemisphere in love with the left hemisphere.

So if you are interested in spiritual growth then you have to grow from homosexuality towards heterosexuality. If you are not interested in spiritual growth then there is nothing wrong. You can remain -- heterosexual or homosexual, it is all the same. I think I have made it clear. If you are not interested in spiritual growth, then there is no problem. I am not against homosexuality, I am not against anything. It is your life -- you have to decide; who am I? I am simply stating a fact that ultimately, inside your being, a meeting is going to happen: be prepared for that meeting. And the outer love with the other prepares you.

The more you understand the woman and the man outside you, the more you will have an understanding of the inner polarity. And one day, at the sixth center of your being -- what yoga calls AJNA chakra, and yesterday I called "superconsciousness" -- there you will feel that your understanding of the woman and the man helps you tremendously. There, intuition and logic meet, imagination and will meet, initiative and reception meet. You will find it easy. You have learned the ways from the outside world -- now you can use them for your inner alchemy.

So let me repeat it. There are many homosexuals here, lesbians too, and that's natural because there are so many Jews here. And in a way there is some relationship why they are here, why they are attracted towards me; there is some reason in it. Homosexuals, lesbians, they are always inventive people... in fact, they have invented homosexuality.

They are always revolutionary people, they are never orthodox. They have discovered a new way in their sexual life. Mm? -- they have improved upon nature, they have moved away from nature. They are inventive people, they are not traditional. Hence, more and more homosexuals will be coming to me, because whatsoever I am saying is so untraditional, only very revolutionary minds can come to me. But then there is going to be trouble too. You become attracted towards me because my teachings are so untraditional, so rebellious; you become attracted. My teachings are rebellious, my teachings are unorthodox, but I cannot support any lie. I cannot say to you that your homosexuality is as it should be. I cannot support it... and if you are really revolutionary, try to find out a way.

Go into nature and see. Animals become homosexual only when they are put in a strange situation, otherwise not. In a zoo, animals become homosexual, but never in nature --

rarely. In nature they always turn to be heterosexual. In a zoo, they can turn homosexual because they cannot find the female, or the female cannot find the male. That's an unnatural condition, an artificial condition.

Man also turns homosexual when he is in an unnatural situation. It is not natural -- and that is why so many people are turning all over the world, because the whole human situation is very unnatural today; it has never been so unnatural. Everything is artificial.

We have gone far away from nature in every other way, so we are going far away from nature in sexuality also. Everything is interlinked and connected. You live in an artificial house, you live with artificial mechanisms, you live in an artificial world -- the asphalt roads, technology -- everything is artificial. Naturally, your sexual energies will start becoming artificial too.

Man is living in a zoo; it is not a human society, because it is not natural. Hence, sexuality is becoming more and more perverted, finding perverted ways -- and I can understand it. The more man has become intelligent, he wants to find new ways: and homosexuality is a new way -- so contrary to nature; an invention, a discovery that you can relate man-to-man or woman-to-woman.

There are people who are even more revolutionary. They are relating to false toys. You can make a woman, a plastic woman, and make love to her. That is even more revolutionary -- and more convenient too. any moment you can pack her back in your bag, and you can carry her anywhere you want. Homosexuality is more convenient than heterosexuality because the language is the same. But convenience is not the goal: growth is the goal. Growth always happens through inconvenience. Growth always happens through pain, challenge.

If you are interested in spiritual growth, move towards heterosexuality. If you are not interested in that, then there is no problem. If you want to go beyond, if you really want to search your innermost being, the inner space, then heterosexuality will be helpful. Just as I said to you: first stage is masturbatory, second stage is homosexual, third stage is heterosexual, fourth stage is asexual -- that is the state of BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy.

And only when you have achieved to the fourth stage will you be able to penetrate to the uttermost core of your being -- otherwise not.

A masturbatory person remains childish, a homosexual person remains juvenile, a heterosexual person remains animal. These stages have to be passed. Don't get stuck anywhere. And I am not condemning, remember always; I have no condemnation for anything. Sometimes homosexuals come to me and they say, "But Beloved Master, we feel it is good." I say, "Okay. If you feel good, it is your life. Who I am to condemn it, and for what? Why should I condemn it? It is your life; if you decide to live it in this way, good. Live it with all my blessings." But I feel sorry, deep down -- sorry because their growth will be hindered, sorry because they will not know what great possibilities they were carrying within themselves.

Sex is not an ordinary thing. It is one of the most substantial parts of your being. One should not be so unalert about it. It is the foundation of your being: you are born through sex, you live through sex; your birth is through sex, your youth is through sex, your love is through sex, and your death is going to happen through sex. Your whole life is a sexual affair. One should be very very alert and watchful of what one is going to do with one's sex energy.

Question 4

BELOVED MASTER,

YOUR IDEAS SEEM TO BE CRAZY!

Thank you for the compliment. They don't SEEM to be crazy, they ARE. But that is the only way God expresses himself. God's ways are crazy. If the word `crazy' does not look proper, you can say, "God's ways are miraculous" -- but it means the same. Translated rightly, miraculous means crazy. God is not a logician -- he may be a singer, a poet. His ways are crazy. They are not like superhighways, they are more like footpaths in a forest

-- zigzag. On the footpaths you can go astray very easily: freedom is intact. On a superhighway you cannot go astray: freedom is not allowed -- those milestones everywhere, they will hinder you.

God is crazy, truth is crazy, because truth is so vast, it cannot be reduced into a syllogism.

You can sing about it, but you cannot argue about it -- the moment you argue about it, you have falsified it. You can dance it, but you cannot make a dogma out of it. Yes, you are right. My ideas ARE crazy, because they are not MY ideas. I simply allow myself to be a hollow bamboo and whatsoever song God wants to sing on it, I allow him total freedom. I don't stand in judgment. I don't say: Don't sing this sing, this will look crazy. I say: Okay, if you want to sing it, sing it. If it is crazy, it s crazy.

I have heard a true story, as told by Freeman Dyron...

A few months ago, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli believed that they had made an essential step forward in the direction of a theory of elementary particles.

Both the names are world-famous: Heisenberg and Pauli -- two of the greatest scientists of any time, and they were thinking that they had come across the basic theory to explain the structure of the elements.

Pauli happened to be passing through New York, and he was prevailed upon to give a lecture explaining the new ideas to an audience which included Niels Bohr -- another famous name, another great name in science. Pauli spoke for an hour, and then there was a general discussion during which he was criticized rather sharply by the younger generation of scientists. Finally, Niels Bohr was called on to make a speech summing up the argument. "We are all agreed," he said, "that your theory is crazy, Pauli. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough."

And that's how things really are. A very sane theory cannot be right, because a sane theory will be human. It will be very limited. Only a crazy theory has any possibility of being right, because crazy means that which transcends human limitations. Crazy means that which cannot be reduced to human logic, crazy means that which is beyond your understanding. Yes, right is Niels Bohr. Let me repeat: "We are all agreed, Pauli," he said, "that your theory is crazy." This much agreement is there. "The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough."

If you look into the modern world of physics, you will be surprised. Those old days of clear-cut theories are all gone; the days of Darwin, Newton, Edison, are gone. Truth has erupted, exploded -- in Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, Niels Bohr, Planck -- and physics looks more and more like metaphysics; more and more like poetry and less and less like prose. The deeper scientists have penetrated into the world of physics, the more they are surprised to find that our logic is just irrelevant. Reality is more than our logic. It's FAR

more than our logic. Our logic is just a small piece of ground that we have cleared and cleaned, and reality is this great jungle of infinity.

Yes, you are right: my ideas ARE crazy because they are not MY ideas. If they were mine then there was a possibility I would have made them logical -- it is not very difficult. I can deny those parts which look illogical, and insist on the logical. I can remain consistent; I can make a very clean-cut philosophy. That is not difficult -- in fact, that will be very easy. But I am not interested in consistency. I am not interested at all in logic, I am interested in truth. And if truth is crazy, I am crazy. If truth is mad, I am mad.

And let that point be remembered by you all, because my whole effort here is to relax you so you can also become a little crazy; to help you relax, to help you loose the grip of the mind so the no-mind can penetrate in you; to put the human aside so the divine can have a chance in your being.

Don't cling to the clear-cut. Truth is not so clear-cut, and cannot be. Truth is so vast, it contains contradictions. It is crazy.

It is said that Aristotle used to say that God is a mathematician. I cannot conceive how God can be a mathematician. On the door of his academy it was written: "Those who don't know mathematics should not enter here, should not dare to enter here." I cannot conceive what mathematics has to do with God, what mathematics has to do with reality.

If I have to put a sign on Rajneesh Ashram's door, then I will put: "Those who are not crazy enough should not enter here."

God is mad. If you are ready to be a little mad, only then is there any possibility of any contact between you and the infinite. It has to be so. When the whole ocean drops into a drop, the drop is going to get crazy. When the infinite descends into the finite, how can the finite remain sane? It has to go mad. The old mystics have always called it "the divine madness."

All meditation is an approach towards divine madness. Stake all human sanity. It is better to be mad in a divine way than to be sane in a human way.

I am crazy.

Question 5

BELOVED MASTER,

HOW DO YOU CHANGE SO QUICKLY FROM WHAT YOU ARE WEARING AT

THE MORNING DISCOURSE INTO YOUR BLONDE WIG AND ORANGE ROBE

TO TEACH SUFI DANCING? YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DRAG QUEEN I HAVE EVER SEEN, AND I WILL NEVER TELL.

That's true. Aneeta's surrender is so total that I can function through her. Learn from her, imbibe the spirit of surrender from her. She is a new sannyasin, but within a few days she has surrendered so deeply.... In fact, the first day she came and I looked in her eyes and saw her total surrender, that very day she was no longer new to me -- she became an ancient companion. You may feel many times that while she is leading you into the Sufi dances my presence will be felt. If you are surrendered, if you are totally surrendered, if your love has no conditions, this will happen to you too. This is happening to many other sannyasins too. Many group leaders have started feeling it more and more: the more they surrender, the more they feel that I am working through them. Their burden is less, their anxiety gone; they can leave it to me, they can trust. And when they trust me, many things that they always wanted to happen start happening. Many things that they always had wanted to happen and were not happening start happening. You become a vehicle.

All of my sannyasins, by and by, slowly slowly, are to come to a point where they can allow me to function through them.

I am not going anywhere. I don't even go outside my room. I will be sending you to the far corners of the earth: you will be my ambassadors at large, you will function for me. I will see through your eyes, and I will talk through your tongues, and I will touch people through your hands, and I will love through your love: be prepared for it.

The questioner is right. Aneeta has disappeared. She has allowed me total space of her being.

Question 6

WHEN I THINK ABOUT BECOMING A SANNYASIN, I GET VERY WORRIED

ABOUT MY BEING ACCEPTED IN ORANGE CLOTHES AMONGST MY OLD

FRIENDS. I AM FRANKLY AFRAID OF BECOMING AN OUTSIDER IN MY

WORLD, PARTICULARLY SO AS I AM ON MY OWN AND WITHOUT A HUSBAND WITH WHOM TO SHARE THIS NEW WAY OF LIFE. DOES THIS

MEAN I AM NOT YET READY TO BECOME A SANNYASIN AND SURRENDER

TO YOU?

No, it does not mean that you are not ready to become a sannyasin, or not ready to surrender to me. You are ready -- hence the question. And the question arises in everybody. It is a dangerous step; it is going into the unknown. Fear is natural, anxiety natural. One wavers. The old seems to be comfortable -- old friends, old relationships --

one is settled. Now everything will be unsettled again. Mind is always afraid of unsettled states; mind is always afraid of the unfamiliar, mind is always afraid of the unknown.

Mind is always afraid to go out of the familiar, the comfortable, the convenient.

No, you are ready -- hence the question has arisen. And now you cannot escape, because you will feel more and more that my friendship is more valuable than all the friendship that you have. And I will haunt you, I will not leave you alone. Wherever you are, I will follow you like a shadow. And soon the comparison will be there -- either to choose the old or the new. The new is being born already. Soon you will see -- now the question is either to leave me, or the old convenient comfortable structure. And to leave me will become more and more difficult.

Let me tell you one anecdote...

Zsa Zsa Horntoot's husband arrived late at a country club dance and discovered that in emerging from his Rolls he had torn one knee of his trousers.

"Come into the ladies' dressing room with me," suggested his resourceful Zsa Zsa. "There isn't a soul there and I'll pin it up for you." It developed, however, that the rip was too large to be pinned. A maid furnished needle and thread, and was stationed at the door to keep out all and sundry, while Mr. Horntoot removed his trousers.

Suddenly a bevy of formidable matrons shoved the mad aside and demanded immediate admittance. "Quick!" Zsa Zsa commanded her mortified spouse. "Get into the closet."

She pushed him in just in time and slammed the door.

No sooner had she admitted the matrons, however, than Mr. Horntoot began screaming,

"Open this door IMMEDIATELY!"

"But the girls are in here now," Zsa Zsa reminded him.

"To heck with the girls," cried Mr. Horntoot. "I'm out in the main ballroom!"

Soon you will find that. First fall in love with me, and then choice will not be very difficult. You are ready... and the fear is natural. But let me tell you a few things: first, if you really have friends, and you call them OLD friends, they will understand you. If they cannot understand you, your change, they are not friends, they are not old friends at all.

Friendship always allows space for the other to be. Otherwise the friendship is just false; it may be acquaintance -- it is not worth bothering about.

You say, "I am afraid of becoming an outsider in my world." Everybody is an outsider; howsoever you pretend, you remain an outsider. Unless one enters into God, one remains an outsider in this existence. We pretend, we try to create a small oasis of relationship --

friends, relatives, children, husband, wife -- and we try to hide behind these things. But death comes and destroys all, and suddenly we are naked in our outsiderness. No, in this world you cannot be an insider unless you have moved into God. This world belongs to God. Only by belonging to God do you become part of this existence -- otherwise not.

These trees will remain strangers to you and so will remain the birds and the sun and the moon and the sands and the rains. Everything will remain a stranger unless you have made a contact with the divine. With that contact the whole quality of life changes.

My suggestion is, you are an outsider already -- everybody is. By becoming a sannyasin you will be taking a few steps to become an insider.

And you say, "Particularly so as I am on my own and without a husband with whom to share this new way of life." Now this is ridiculous, because people come to me and they say... the wife says, "Because of the husband -- he will not understand, that's why I cannot take sannyas." The husband comes; he says, "I want to take sannyas but... because of the wife; I am not alone." Now, you are alone: nobody to hinder you, nobody to understand or misunderstand.

You say, "Now that I am on my own..." Don't find excuses. Mind is very cunning in finding excuses, and mind is a coward.

Let me tell you one story, a beautiful story: meditate over it...

Once there was a great king who asked his magician to find him a courageous man for a dangerous mission. After a long search, the magician brought four men before his master.

The king, wishing to choose the most courageous of the four, asked the magician to arrange a test.

The king, the magician and the four men went to the edge of a large field, on the other side of which stood a barn. The magician gave instructions: "Each man shall have his turn. He is to walk to the barn and bring forth what is there inside."

The first man walked across the field. Suddenly a storm came up: lightning flashed, thunder rolled, the ground shook. The man hesitated. He was frightened. As the storm increased, he fell down in fear.

The second man walked across the field. The storm grew worse, until it was a tempest.

The second man passed the first man, but finally he also fell down.

The third man started with a rush, and passed the other two. But the heavens opened, the ground split, and the barn itself waved and cracked. The third man fell down.

The fourth started slowly. He felt his footing. His face was white with fear. But he was more afraid of being thought afraid than of anything else. Slowly he passed the first man, and he said, to himself, "I'm alright -- so far." Foot by foot he went on until he had passed the second man, and again he said to himself, "So far I'm alright." Little by little he closed the gap between him and the third man, while the storm got worse. When he passed the third frightened man he said to himself, "So far I'm alright. Nothing has happened to me. I can go a little farther." So little by little, an inch at a time now, he went towards the barn. He got there at last, and just before he touched the latch he said, "So far I'm alright. I can go a little farther." Then he put his hand on the latch.

Instantly the storm ceased, the ground was steady, and the sun shone. The man was astonished. From inside the barn came a munching sound. For a moment he thought it might be a trick. Then he thought, "I'm still alright," and opened the door. Inside he found a white horse eating oats. Nearby was a suit of white armour. The man put it on, saddled the horse, rode out to the king and the magician, and said, "I am ready, Sire."

"How do you feel?" asked the king.

"I'm alright so far," the man said.

You are ready for sannyas. Believe me or not, you are ready for sannyas. Hence the question, hence the fear. In those who are not ready, fear never arises. Those who are ready, they start trembling because of the possibility of so many changes. You have hard me: your heart is already seduced. Now move inch by inch, slowly -- but move. And you will find that as far as you go, "So far, I am alright." You will go on finding -- to the very end, more and more, you will find that you are becoming an insider in this tremendous beautiful existence.

And, I promise you, you will have better friendships, you will have better lovers, you will have better relationships -- because a man who is ready to move into the unknown, naturally moves into love... because love is the stuff the universe is made of. Sannyas is nothing but learning the ways of love. God is another name for love. And sannyas is a readiness to dissolve into a loving universe. Fear is there because it is like death. Sannyas is suicide, death: the past is destroyed -- but only then the new is born. When YOU cease to be, you allow God to be. There is no other way.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #5

Chapter title: : Your lake reflects the moon of god

5 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

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7701050

ShortTitle:

MELODY05

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Yes

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Length:

108

mins

III.9. SIL SANTOSH SADA SAMADRISHTI

HE WHO IS MEEK AND CONTENTED, HE WHO HAS AN EQUAL VISION, WHOSE MIND IS FILLED WITH THE FULLNESS

OF ACCEPTANCE AND OF REST;

HE WHO HAS SEEN HIM AND TOUCHED HIM,

HE IS FREED FROM ALL FEAR AND TROUBLE.

TO HIM THE PERPETUAL THOUGHT OF GOD

IS LIKE SANDAL PASTE SMEARED ON THE BODY,

TO HIM NOTHING ELSE IS DELIGHT:

HIS WORK AND HIS REST ARE FILLED WITH MUSIC:

HE SHEDS ABROAD THE RADIANCE OF LOVE.

KABIR SAYS: "TOUCH HIS FEET, WHO IS ONE AND INDIVISIBLE, IMMUTABLE AND PEACEFUL;

WHO FILLS ALL VESSELS TO THE BRIM WITH JOY,

AND WHOSE FORM IS LOVE."

III.13. SADH SANGAT PITAM

GO THOU TO THE COMPANY OF THE GOOD,

WHERE THE BELOVED ONE HAS HIS DWELLING PLACE:

TAKE ALL THY THOUGHTS AND LOVE AND INSTRUCTION FROM THENCE.

LET THAT ASSEMBLY BE BURNT TO ASHES

WHERE HIS NAME IS NOT SPOKEN!

TELL ME, HOW COULDST THOU HOLD A WEDDING FEAST,

IF THE BRIDEGROOM HIMSELF WERE NOT THERE?

WAVER NO MORE, THINK ONLY OF THE BELOVED;

SET NOT THY HEART ON THE WORSHIP OF OTHER GODS,

THERE IS NO WORTH IN THE WORSHIP OF OTHER MASTERS.

KABIR DELIBERATES AND SAYS:

"THUS THOU SHALT NEVER FIND THE BELOVED!"

Man is born awake and then he falls asleep. Man is born one and then he becomes many.

Man is born individual and then he falls asleep and dreams of being a crowd. This is the whole problem, the whole task, the whole challenge of life. It has to be understood. This is the search: we are seeking that which originally we were. We are seeking that which we really are. We are seeking that which we have not lost for a single moment, only forgotten; we have only become oblivious of it. Maybe it is so obvious, that's why we have become oblivious.

Jesus says: Unless you become like children again, you will not enter into my kingdom of God. His indication is clear. Unless you regain originality, unless you move to the original source again.... One night, a seeker asked Jesus, "What should I do to know God?" And Jesus said, "Unless you are born again, you will not know him." One has to move to that original space where we were before we were born.

Legend has it that Jesus refused to learn his alphabet, his letters. He would not allow the teachers to discuss the beta -- two -- until they could explain to his satisfaction the meaning of alpha -- one. and of course they could not explain it. One is the number upon which arithmetic rests; one is the number upon which each individual, the whole of the universe, the concept of God, of reality, rests. And the child Jesus insisted, "Unless you explain to me what the meaning of one is, I am not going to move to another letter of the alphabet. First tell me what alpha is. Then only am I ready to go to two -- the beta." And because it could not be explained he refused to go to school.

This is not recorded in the Christian gospels because much is left unrecorded in Christian gospels. But it is one of the oldest Essenes traditions. It has been handed over, this story, from master to disciple down the centuries. It is one of the most meaningful stories about Jesus: his insistence that the one must be known first, because it is the one which is the base of all.

When you are awake, you are one. When you fall asleep, you become many. Have you watched it? -- in a dream you play so many roles simultaneously. In the morning when you are awake, you are one. In the dream you are the dreamer, you are the dreamed; you are the director of the dream, you are the actor, you are the story, you are the stage, and you are the audience too. You become many, you become split, you become a crowd. In a dream, you are no more one. When you are awake, suddenly the director, the actor, the story, the stage, the drama, the audience, the dreamed and the dreamer, all disappear into one unity. Hindus call this whole world a dreamland -- MAYA. We are fast asleep. So to search the one, or to search awareness, is the same; because by becoming aware, you become one -- or, by becoming one, you become aware.

Now let me explain to you how, in so many ways, in millions of ways, we are searching oneness. The child is born. His first functioning in the world is through eating; his first functioning in the world is through absorbing matter. The search has started: matter wants to meet matter. Matter wants to have an organic unity with other matter: matter is being pulled by matter, attracted by matter. This is the first love -- food. Food gives the first orgasm to the child. When you feel satisfied after taking food or drinking water, that satisfaction is a feeling of oneness: matter from the outside has been absorbed into the inside, the inner and the outer have met. The meeting is not very deep -- it cannot be, it is of matter; it is very superficial but still it is there.

Hindus call this, the first chakra, MULADHAR. There are many people who live at this first chakra. They simply go on eating and defecating. Their whole life is nothing but absorbing matter and throwing matter out; their life is very mechanical. It is very very narrow -- a small tunnel. MULADHAR is the smallest aperture in your being from where the light enters into you, and you enter into the existence. The smallest aperture is MULADHAR -- the first center. It starts functioning because the child has to survive; he has to take food first, otherwise he will die. It is a survival measure -- but one should not live to eat. If you are just living only to eat, you are not living at all. You are simply waiting for death. And you have chosen a very small pleasure, very ordinary pleasure --

just titillation, and you will be finished with that small pleasure. And immense possibilities surround you....

Look into your own life. If you are attached too much to food, become a little more aware. It is the first search towards oneness. Now even physicists, a few crazy physicists, say that atoms are together because they love each other. The word `love' is not good to use, it seems anthropomorphic; but now a few physicists are courageous enough to say that it explains something. And it HAS to be used, because there seems to be no other explanation. Why are electrons, neutrons and protons together? Why this togetherness?

There must exist a certain sort of bond, a certain attraction. There must be a certain unity, a certain love affair going on -- on the lowest level, but there must be a certain love affair

-- otherwise why don't they fall apart? You can call it gravitation, you can call it magnetism, you can call it electro-field, or whatsoever you choose -- but love seems to be the best word because it can explain the whole spectrum from the lowest to the highest.

Love seems to be the most economical word: the whole spectrum is included in it. When you eat, and you become obsessed too much with eating, you are just hanging around the first lesson of love -- electrons, protons, neutrons, attracted by each other; your body attracting other body-matter from the outside. Of course there is a certain satisfaction, because whenever there is oneness there is satisfaction, there is content -- but it is of the very lower, the lowest. One should learn to go beyond it. Hence all the religions teach the significance of fasting.

Fasting does not mean starving, fasting does not mean that you have to kill your body, that you have to be destructive, no. Fasting simply means: give only as much a is needed, not more than that, so that you can become available on the second plane: you can become available to the second center. If you are obsessed too much with food, you will be closed by food; you will become just material. One should not get attached too much to food and one should not get attached too much to fasting either. Then the balance is achieved. And only through balance is growth.

The second center is SVADHISTHAN. When the child is healthy, happy, his body is whole, he starts dominating. A desire to dominate arises in the child, the child becomes a politician. He starts smiling at people because he comes to know that if you smile, people come under your influence. He starts crying, screaming, because he comes to know that by crying and screaming you can manipulate your mother, your father, your family. Once the child's physical needs are fulfilled, a new need arises that is a VITAL need: to dominate. That too is again an effort to bring a unity -- the unity between the dominated and the dominator.

Whenever you dominate somebody you become, in a certain way, one with him.

Whenever somebody surrenders to you, or you surrender to somebody, you become one in a certain way. Hence, all over the world, people try to dominate each other -- wives trying to dominate husbands, husbands trying to dominate wives, parents trying to dominate children, children trying to dominate parents, in their own ways. The whole world tries to dominate. If you understand rightly, that too is a search for unity.

Whenever you have defeated a person and you have become the possessor, you have absorbed the person into your being. His vitality has been absorbed, his vital energy has become one with you. This aperture is a little bigger than the first -- more opening. A person who is food-obsessed is more closed than the person who is power-obsessed -- at least he moves to others. In his life he will have a certain type of relationship -- not very good, because the relationship of domination cannot be very good, it is violent to begin with, aggressive, ugly -- but still some sort of relationship.

The politicians live in this second center. The gluttons live in the first, the politicians live in the second, and then there is the third -- MANIPURA: male and female want to meet, to become one. In the Bible it is said: God created Adam in his own image. Now one thing has to be understood. Adam must have been both, Adam must have been Adam AND Eve -- otherwise Eve could not be taken out of Adam. In the original Hebrew, the wording is such that it explains it clearly: God created Adam-Eve in one being. The original being created was neither man nor woman: he was both. He was neither he nor she, he was both; he was a unity. Only out of that unity could he take the separate woman.

If you ask the scientists, they say that when the child grows in the mother's womb, for a few months he is neither male nor female: he is both. By and by, distinctions arise; by and by, he becomes either a male or a female. The original cell, amoeba, is both male and female -- it is not yet divided. So to say that God created Adam is not good. My own suggestion is: God created Adam-Eve. I make one word out of both. God created Adam-Eve, and then later on he divided them into two. With that division, a great desire to meet with the other has arisen.

Each man is seeking a woman, each woman is seeking a man. We are seeking the opposite, the polar opposite. Without the other, it seems something is lacking; without the other, life seems to be unfulfilled; without the other, it seems you are half, not whole.

Hence, so much hankering for love -- to love and to be loved. This is the third chakra --

MANIPURA: the need for the male and the female to meet and become one.

As far as the lower nature is concerned, this is the highest center. In the lowest three centers, sex is the highest center. The gluttons only hoard; they are the ugliest people in the world. They never share -- the misers, the rich, the hoarders, the exploiters. Better than them are the politicians -- they at least relate. But they are dangerous too, because their relationship is that of domination. Their whole language is inhuman. They don't know any human relationship; they know war, they know violence, they know aggression. Their whole effort is to become so dominant that everybody is absorbed in them. That's what Alexander the Great is doing, that's what Adolf Hitler is doing -- better than the first, at least they relate. They relate wrongly, but at least they relate.

The first relates only with things -- money, food, house, car. The second relates with persons. His relationship is not yet worthy, but still it is a relationship -- rudimentary, the very beginning, very primitive -- but still a relationship. The third is the relationship of sex, of two lovers: poets, artists, painters, they exist with the third center -- the aesthetic.

The third is the highest in the lower centers -- one starts sharing. And if you love a person, you don't want to dominate. Remember it: if you want to dominate, your love is contaminated by the second center -- it is not yet love. If you really love, you want freedom for yourself and you want freedom for your beloved too. Love frees, gives independence -- because the beauty of love is only when it is out of freedom. It is not a domination, it is a sharing, a responsible sharing; you are happy in sharing your energies.

But this too is not yet human; animals can do it, are doing it very well -- better than human beings. But the search is going higher.

When a man and a woman really meet and the orgasm happens, you will have the first glimpse, faraway glimpse, of the divine. Hence the attraction of sex, hence the deep desire for sexual orgasm, because the one is reflected in it -- only for a moment, maybe not even for a moment, for a split second... just a passing glimpse... but God passes by.

The food addict is very far away -- not even a glimpse. The power addict is very ugly, very aggressive, very much in turmoil -- the glimpse is not possible. With a deep sexual love affair, God can have the first penetration in you. The first ray of samadhi enters into sexual orgasm. In fact, man came to think about samadhi only because of sexual orgasm -

- becoming aware of that moment of benediction when two persons meet so deeply that they dissolve into each other, that their boundaries are no more their boundaries, that somehow in a miraculous way the start throbbing from one center, that they are not two hearts, that they are not two breathing bodies, they become one. A rhythm arises, they fall in tune with each other. And the rhythm is so tremendous, so powerful, dat they both are lost in that rhythm, they both are surrendered into it.

Remember, with the second center you try to make somebody else surrender to you, and the other tries to make you surrender to him. In the third center you both surrender to something that is beyond you both. You both surrender to the god of love. You both surrender to the orgasmic unity of sex energy: in that surrender, you both are effaced. For a single moment, you are Adam and Eve together.

And the Bible says: God created in his own image. When Adam and Eve REALLY meet, the image of God is reflected again in the pool of your consciousness. Your lake of consciousness reflects the moon of God... still it is far away, but the first glimpse has entered in you.

MULADHAR is material, the first center. SVADHISTHAN, the second center, is vital.

The third, MANIPURA, is psychosomatic; it is the highest unity of the lower world --

momentary of course, but still of tremendous significance.

The fourth is ANAHATA: it goes beyond sexuality, becomes pure love. When you see a flower, a roseflower, and your heart throbs with it, there is no sexuality. There is no question of man and woman, there is no polarity -- you are simply thrilled by the beauty.

The beauty has no reference to man and woman, the beauty is beyond man and woman.

You look into the night, the whole sky full of stars, and suddenly you are thrilled to your very core of being. A tremendous joy arises... you start meeting with the stars. There is no question of man and woman, there is no yin and yang -- it is not a question of polarity at all.

Love goes beyond polarity, sex remains below polarity. Sex needs the opposite, love does not need the opposite. Hence, in sex there is always a subtle conflict, because with the opposite the harmony can never be total. For moments maybe... again the conflict comes in. Lovers go on fighting. In fact, psychologists say, when two lovers stop fighting, it simply shows love has disappeared. Lovers are intimate enemies. They go on quarreling, nagging. Yes, there are moments when they completely dissolve into each other but those are rare moments, few and far between.

With love, polarity disappears. Love is more like friendship. You can love a tree, you can love a rock, you can love the stars, you can love the grass, you can love anything. Love has nothing to do with the male-female polarity. Love is beyond opposites -- hence, the unity is deeper. This is the fourth chakra -- ANAHATA -- the heart chakra. And with this fourth you really become human. Up to the third you were part of the animal kingdom, one of the animals -- nothing more, nothing special. With the fourth you become special, unique: humanity is born, you have become a human being.

Remember, just to look like human beings does not mean that you are a human being.

Only with the fourth center starting functioning, you become a human being. Many people die as animals; they never rise above sexuality. They never come to know that there is a kind of love which is beyond opposites and which is tremendously fulfilling because there is no conflict in it. Love is unconditional, sex is conditional. In sex there is a give and take. In love, you simply pour. You don't ask, there is no demand. Not that you don't get -- you get a thousandfold -- but that is not asked for. That simply comes on its own accord: the whole existence showers back, echoes back.

At the fourth center there is again a unity: the lower and the higher meet. Remember these unities, because by and by we are moving towards becoming one. First plane, matter meets with matter. Second plane, vital meets with the vital. Third plane, opposites meet: the male meets the female, yin meets yang. Fourth -- ANAHATA -- the lower meets the higher. Three centers are lower than the ANAHATA and three centers are higher than the ANAHATA: ANAHATA is the door in between -- the bridge.

At your heart center God meets the world, the unmanifest meets the manifest, the unknown meets the known, the host meets the guest, mind meets the no-mind. The heart is the most mysterious center in man. And unless your heart starts functioning, you will not know what is the purpose of life. With the heart, the first beginning of the higher.

Vast spaces open... you are getting out of the tunnel.

ANAHATA is a great window; it makes you available to the sky and makes the sky available to you. Or in another way you can say: at ANAHATA, in love, unconscious and superconscious meet. Or in still another way you can say: in ANAHATA, in love, sex and prayer meet. Sex is lower than love, prayer is higher than love. And love is a great mystery. Something in it is of sex, certainly, and something in it is of prayer. Hence, there is no mystery comparable to love. There is something of sex: if you go and love a tree, you would like to hug it; you would like to touch it in the same way as you would like to touch your beloved's face. If you love a rock, you would like to kiss it in the same way as you would like to kiss your beloved's lips -- something of sex, something lingering from the past. And still, when you kiss a rock there is reverence, great awe, great wonder. You are full of respect, you are prayerful: it is a sort of worship.

In love, prayer and sex meet. If you are not alert, love can fall down and become sexual.

If you are aware enough, love can rise high and become prayerful. That has to be remembered. Love is very fragile. There is more possibility that love will descend into the lower realm and become sex. When for the first time you fall in love with a woman or with a man, there may be nothing of sex. Sooner or later, sex enters. When first you look at a beautiful woman, there may be reverence, a great awe -- as if you have seen God's face in her face. When you look into the eyes of a woman, suddenly a door opens to the mysterious. You are not thinking in terms of sex and body and the physical; you are not concerned at all. Something of the higher has challenged you. But then you fall in love, and by and by you forget the higher and you enter into the lower.

Love almost always falls into the lower because we are not conscious. And that's why, in all the languages, whenever a person moves into love we say of him, "He has fallen in love." People fall in love; very rarely do people rise in love. Remember, the formulation is very correct. Love starts as something very high, romantic, poetic, divine, and then by and by settles on something very ordinary, physical, rotten.

Love starts as a prayer, love's beginning is religious -- but love ends in a nightmare.

Remember it: if you are alert you can help yourself not to fall, you can help and discipline yourself to rise. Then love can become prayer.

At ANAHATA -- the heart center -- the lower and the higher meet. It is a great experience of oneness: very fragile of course, trembling, shaking, not very certain; like a process -- moving forward, going backward -- but if you are alert you can use it as a stepping-stone for still higher possibilities.

The fifth chakra is VISUDDHI. It is the chakra of prayer -- the throat chakra: the chakra of prayer, chanting, communication with God. At the fifth chakra, the inner and the outer meet. Remember, at the fourth, the lower and the higher meet. At the fifth, the inner and the outer meet. "God" simply means the whole existence that is outside you, and "you"

the existence that is inside you: I-thou is the form of prayer. That's what Martin Buber says. I-it is the experience of the world; I-thou is the experience of prayer and God and love.

At the throat chakra, VISUDDHI -- the word `visuddhi' means `the pure, the purest' -- at the fifth, love has become purest. It is simply an ecstasy, a joy. The inner and the outer meet. When the devotee bows down before his deity, the inner is bowing down towards the outer. When somebody goes and sings a song to the sun or to the moon, the inner is singing a song to the outer. And remember, you have witnessed only one thing: you have witnessed the devotee singing a song to the deity. You have not seen another thing, because that is very subtle: the deity singing a song to the devotee -- that too happens, but that is very subtle. That you will come to know only when you have experienced prayer.

Sometimes you pray to God, and sometimes God prays to you. Let me say it, because ordinarily it is not said, because it looks sacrilegious to say that God prays to you -- but it happens. Just as the mother goes on singing a lullaby to the child... yes, God also sings a lullaby. But you have to earn it. When your prayer has been heard, when you have really poured your heart, you have forgotten yourself completely, then suddenly prayer is no more and expression on your part. You start listening... God starts praying. The inner and the outer meet.

And then there is the sixth chakra, the chakra of meditation -- the third-eye chakra, AJNA chakra. Left and right meet, reason and intuition meet, masculine and feminine meet, yin and yang meet. Now, something has to be understood. At the third, man and woman met on a physical plane, outside. At the sixth, again the masculine and the feminine meet, but no more on the outside -- in the inside. The third is the center of sex, and the sixth is the center of tantra. Inside, you are both. Half of your being is feminine and half your being is masculine. And at your third eye, there happens a meeting. This third eye is very symbolic -- that means your left and right eyes dissolve into one eye: that becomes the third eye. Right now you have two eyes, two beings. Then you will have one eye.

There is a saying of Jesus of tremendous import. Listen to it, meditate over it. Says Jesus:

"If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." He is talking about the third eye: If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

One eye is connected with the left hemisphere, the other is connected with the right hemisphere. They both are a division in your being -- you are not yet a symphony. Your left and right are asymmetrical. Have you looked at your face? Your face halves, the right and the left, are not symmetrical. Look into the mirror again, watch carefully: your left face is different from your right face. Your innermost mind is divided into right and left hemispheres, and they function differently. The left hemisphere reasons, and the right hemisphere intuits. Poetry is born out of the right hemisphere, and logic is born out of the left hemisphere. If a poet's left hemisphere is removed, he will not lose anything; he will not even become aware of it. If a mathematician's left hemisphere is removed, he will be completely gone; he will not know what to do. His whole expertise will disappear.

Imagination is from the right, reasoning is from the left. The right hemisphere is feminine and the left hemisphere is masculine, and these two are bridged by a very small bridge, just linked. At the sixth center -- AJNA chakra, the third-eye center -- these two hemispheres meet and become one. Then your reason is not against your intuition, and then your imagination is not against your logic. Then your logic and your imagination both come together.

Look: whatsoever I am saying I am always talking logically, but whatsoever I am saying is always illogical. The content is illogical, the container is very logical. If I want to argue with you, I can argue -- there is no problem about it. But what I am saying to you is something beyond argument. If your faith is against logic, then you have not come to the inner unity yet. Your faith should be beyond logic, but not against logic. Remember this distinction. Your faith should be beyond logic; supported by logic, but not finished by logic -- something going beyond and far away. But it can be supported by logic; up to a certain point, logic can go with it. It can be very rational, it can be very reasonable. There is no need for faith to be against logic. If the faith IS against logic then you are still divided, then that one eye has not happened yet.

The greatest mystics of the world were always the greatest logicians too. Shankara, Nagarjuna -- great logicians and yet illogical. They will go as far as possible with logic, and then suddenly they take a quantum leap... and they say, "Up to this point, logic helps

-- beyond this, logic has no go." If you want to argue with Shankara, you will be defeated in argument.

Shankara traveled all over this country -- a great mystic, and he defeated thousands of scholars. His whole life work was this, to go and defeat people -- and still he was very illogical. In the morning you would find him arguing so logically that the greatest logicians would look childish. and in the evening you would find him praying and dancing in the temple and crying and weeping like a child. Unbelievable. He has written one of the most beautiful prayers, and somebody asked, "How can you write such beautiful prayers? You are such a logician -- how can you be so emotional that you cry and weep and tears fall down?" He said, "My intuition is not against my logic, my intuition is beyond my logic. My logic has some function to fulfill: I go with it, I go with it whole-heartedly -- but then there comes a moment when it cannot go beyond... and I have to go beyond too."

Remember, this is the greatest unity. And when this happens at the sixth -- that your feminine and masculine, your inner yin and yang, have met -- you become one. This oneness has one step more. You have become one inside YOU. Now the seventh chakra is SAHASRAR. This is the chakra of samadhi -- ultimate ecstasy, total orgasm. Now, part and whole meet, the soul and God meet, you and all meet... you disappear into total orgasm.

You may not have thought of it in this way, but let me tell you: all these seven chakras are seven ways of orgasm. There is a subtle orgasm when you feel satisfied with food -- a deep contentment. There is a subtle orgasm when you dominate: politicians look very happy and healthy -- while they are succeeding. When they are in power, they look very radiant. Their energy seems to be overflowing; they look inexhaustible -- never tired, rushing from one place to another, doing one thing and a thousand things -- never tired, very radiant. Hitler had that magnetic force, that charisma. From where comes this radiance? -- it is power orgasm.

Have you watched it sometimes? When a politician stands, and millions of people surround him and look at him, there is a subtle orgasm happening. He feels very happy: so many people giving attention to him, so much vitality overflowing towards him, so much vibration flowing towards him, meets his vibe and there is a great orgasm. He becomes radiant. He explodes. When a politician is losing, is proving a failure, then all his radiance disappears, all his charisma disappears. When you see a politician in failure -

- for example, if you go and see Richard Nixon now -- you will be simply surprised how this man who was so powerful has become so powerless. All charisma has disappeared.

Poor Nixon.... And the same man was so powerful -- what has happened? The energy that was flowing towards him flows no more. The orgasm is no longer happening. He has lost his beloved: the beloved was the crowd, he was making a love affair with the crowd --

that is lost. Politicians, when they have failed, look very empty; when they are successful, look so full.

On these seven planes, seven types of orgasm happen. And what I mean by orgasm is the experience of oneness. The ultimate happens at SAHASRAR -- the seventh chakra --

when the individual ego is completely dissolved into the cosmic whole. That is the total orgasm, the goal, the source.

Christians have made the cross their symbol. As I look at the cross, I think Christians have missed its real meaning. To me, the cross is not a symbol of death, but the arithmetical symbol of plus. And I see it in that way, and then it has a totally different significance -- the arithmetical symbol of plus. Because Jesus joined together with the whole in that moment on the cross: Jesus became plus. Jesus disappeared in God. Jesus no more existed: only one.

I told you about the legend that he would not learn the second letter -- beta -- because he said, "First I have to understand alpha -- one." No teacher could teach him. He had to be withdrawn out of the school. But he learned the meaning of alpha on the cross. Only God can teach that: for that only God can be the master. What happened on the cross? The cross means plus; before the cross, Jesus lived a life of minus -- as everybody lives. Let me tell it in this way: the ego is a minus, because it exists not. The ego is that which is not, it is a minus thing. God is plus: God is that which is. On the cross, the plus of God met Jesus' minus. The minus dissolved into the plus, Jesus became Christ. Jesus himself became one: now he is no more two or many, he has become the alpha. This is the source and this is the goal. The source is the goal, because the beginning is the end. The alpha is the omega.

The atomic scientists say that each atom has a plus and minus charge. If we take the plus and minus charge apart, there is an explosion -- that's what atomic explosion is. Each small atom, invisible atom, has two energies: positive and negative, minus and plus. They are together: joined together in deep orgasm, in deep intercourse -- the minus with the plus, the positive with the negative. If you pull them apart, if you divorce them, there is a great explosion of energy. That's what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- a small atom pulled apart can become so destructive.

The same happens at SAHASRAR, from the other side. The minus is joined with the plus: not pulled apart, put together; not divorced, but marriage happens. This marriage is the union, the yoga. Ordinarily we exist as a minus; God is the plus energy, ego is the minus energy. The day you decide to drop your minus into the plus, there will be a marriage. That marriage happens at SAHASRAR -- the seventh chakra.

These chakras are just allegories, mm? -- just to give you a map so you can understand how, from food to God, the search is one. The search is to find the one. We are lost in the many, we are lost in a crowd, we are split; and the whole search is how to find one, how to become indivisible, how to become individual. And remember this Christian symbol of the cross, not as a death symbol but as a meeting -- yoga symbol, marriage symbol: plus.

Now the sutras:

HE WHO IS MEEK AND CONTENTED, HE WHO HAS AN EQUAL VISION, WHOSE MIND IS FILLED WITH THE FULLNESS

OF ACCEPTANCE AND OF REST;

HE WHO HAS SEEN HIM AND TOUCHED HIM,

HE IS FREED FROM ALL FEAR AND TROUBLE.

Kabir is describing the person who has come to the plus point, who has become one. How will he be? HE WHO IS MEEK AND CONTENTED -- meek he will be. He will not have any ego, he will not have any sense of I -- that is the meaning of `meek'. Says Jesus: Blessed are the meek. Why? why are the meek blessed? Because they ARE NOT.

Miserable are those who ARE, because the more you are, the more miserable you will be.

The more you are, the more tense; the more you are, the more anxiety; the more you are, the more far away from God you are. The more you are... that means you are taking your minus, which is nothing, much too seriously. You have made too much fuss about nothing, much ado about nothing.

When you are not, God is. Meekness means "I am not, I efface myself"... and then suddenly there is contentment. If you are, you are always discontented. Whatsoever you are, you always feel emptiness, because the ego IS empty -- by its very nature it is empty.

It is a minus thing -- it is a miracle how you believe in it; it is not, it is just a shadow. If you look deeply, it disappears. If you don't look at it, it appears. It exists only in ignorance. In light, it is not found; it exists only in darkness. It is a phoney thing: it only appears -- it is not.

So the egoist always finds himself empty, and he wants to fill it -- with money, with power, with love, attention, this and that -- and always he finds that everything goes on disappearing, and nothing fulfills. You go on throwing ANYTHING into your ego -- the whole world will disappear -- and you will remain as empty as ever, because a minus cannot be turned into a plus. A minus remains minus: it is its nature. Once you have understood it, then you don't try to fill it -- you renounce it. You say, "This trip is over. I am no longer interested in my ego." In that very moment contentment arises, because when you drop the minus, the plus arises in you -- it is hiding behind the minus. The minus is working as a screen; it does not allow you to see the plus.

God is everywhere, God is hiding in you -- but you are interested too much in the ego; you don't look at God at all. And he is very silent, unobtrusive... he does not make any noise... his presence is almost like absence. He stands and waits.

HE WHO IS MEEK AND CONTENTED, HE WHO HAS AN EQUAL VISION...

This equal vision is a particular concept in Indian mysticism: SIL SANTOSH SADA SAMADRISHTI.

SAMADRISHTI... it is a difficult word to translate. It means: one who has come to see the one in all, whose vision has become equal. One who has come to see one in all --

SAMADRISHTI. In the rock he sees the God, in the God he sees the rock: his vision is equal. Now he does not see two, he sees one. Once the ego is dropped, your vision becomes clear, transparent: you start looking through and through. Nothing bars the path.

... WHOSE MIND IS FILLED WITH THE FULLNESS

OF ACCEPTANCE AND OF REST...

And suddenly, when the ego is not there, the constant trouble-maker is not there, you are full -- full with the plus-energy of God, full of acceptance and rest.

HE WHO HAS SEEN HIM AND TOUCHED HIM...

Kabir says: God can not only be seen, he can be touched -- because he exists in everything. When you touch a rock, you have touched him too. When you touch your woman, you have touched him too. In fact, Upanishads say: ANAAM BRAHMA -- even food is God; the lowest is also the highest. And in the highest also you will find the lowest -- they cannot be separate, they are one spectrum.

HE WHO HAS SEEN HIM AND TOUCHED HIM,

HE IS FREED FROM ALL FEAR AND TROUBLE.

And fear will only leave you when you have touched him, when you have touched the deathless.

Man is mortal: the body is mortal, the mind is mortal. As man we are going to die, so as man we can never be free of fear and trouble. Only when we recognize ourselves as gods, fear disappears and trouble disappears.

People come to me every day. One of the basic problems is fear, and they say, "How to get rid of fear?" And I say to them: You cannot get rid of fear. You will have to get rid of YOU. You want to get rid of fear? -- that is impossible. You will have to get rid of you: when you are not, fear is not. If you are there, fear will remain -- you are the source of fear. The very idea that "I am" creates fear, because the very idea that "I am" creates the possibility that "I may not be. One day, I may not be"... then the fear arises.

Once you drop this idea that "I am" then how can fear exist? You have dropped the very source of it. Then God is. And God always is: you cannot say "God was" -- that will not be a right sentence. You cannot say "God will be" -- that will be absurd. God simply is.

Only IS is correct about God. One day you were not: how can you trust that one day you will not disappear again -- how can you trust? You cannot remember yourself before birth

-- how can you trust that after death you will be? The fear cannot leave.

Get rid of yourself and fear disappears.

TO HIM THE PERPETUAL THOUGHT OF GOD

IS LIKE SANDAL PASTE SMEARED ON THE BODY,

TO HIM NOTHING ELSE IS DELIGHT...

And once you have dropped your ego -- the minus, that which is not -- and you have come to see that which is, then God surrounds you like a fragrance, twenty-four hours.

Breathe in, breathe out... and you breathe him in, and you breathe him out. Open your eyes and close your eyes... and you see him with open eyes and you see him with closed eyes. God surrounds you as a subtle fragrance...

LIKE SANDAL PASTE SMEARED ON THE BODY,

TO HIM NOTHING ELSE IS DELIGHT...

And to one who has known this delight of being in God, then nothing else is delight.

Then all pleasures disappear. Then there is only one delight, one joy: the joy of being in God, the joy of being part of him, the joy of being a drop in his ocean, a wave in his infinity.

HIS WORK AND HIS REST ARE FILLED WITH MUSIC...

And Kabir says: Only such a man is a real musician. all others are just playing. Only such a man is a real musician -- he does not create music, his whole being IS music. He does not play on a veena, his whole life is a veena. In fact, God plays on him and creates a thousand and one songs. God dances in him, God takes possession of him, God plays many many games through him, with him, for him.

HIS WORK AND HIS REST ARE FILLED WITH MUSIC...

And such a man, whether he works or he rests, it makes no difference... the music continues. You can see him working, you can see him resting; you can see him in the marketplace, and you can see him in the monastery. Whatsoever the situation, the situation becomes irrelevant: his music is eternal. God goes on playing on his flute. Once you have dropped the ego, you have become a passage for him, a vehicle.

HIS WORK AND HIS REST ARE FILLED WITH MUSIC:

HE SHEDS ABROAD THE RADIANCE OF LOVE.

And all love before it was just a reflection. You love food -- that is the first reflection.

You love power -- that is the second reflection. You love a woman or a man -- that is the third reflection. You love -- that is the fourth reflection... and so on, so forth.

At the seventh you don't love: you become love. Now love is no more a relationship with anything -- food or God -- no, love is no more a relationship, love is your state of being.

You are love.

That's what Jesus means when he says: God is love. Christians have not been able to understand it rightly. They think Jesus says God is loving, Jesus is not saying that, that God is loving. He is simply stating "God is love." God is another name for love, or love is another name for God. God is not loving -- because if you say "God is loving" it means sometimes he may not be loving: sometimes he may hate, sometimes he may be angry.

But when you equal God and love, when it is an equation that God is love, then there is no possibility of his being anything else. At the point of SAHASRAR, samadhi, a man becomes love. Then there is no possibility of his being anything else -- it is his state of being.

KABIR SAYS: "TOUCH HIS FEET, WHO IS ONE AND INDIVISIBLE..."

This is how in the Eat we have become attached so much to the masters. God we cannot see: it is far away, just a dream, an idea... may be, may not be -- who knows? But a master we can see. One who has attained to SAHASRAR is a master, one who has dropped his minus and has become a vehicle for the plus-energy of God is a master:

"TOUCH HIS FEET, WHO IS ONE AND INDIVISIBLE..."

Wherever you find somebody who has become one, who has become love, who is no more a crowd, touch his feet -- just to show that you also desire, that you also dream, that you also are full of thirst for his state of being.

Touching the feet is symbolic. Touching the feet means: "We cannot reach to your ultimate, it is far away... but we can touch your feet." A master is someone whose feet are on the ground, on earth, and whose head is in heaven. The head cannot be touched. He is rooted here... but his branches have reached into God. Those branches we cannot see: they are far away, they disappeared into the clouds. the feet are the visible part. The innermost SAHASRAR is the invisible part -- we cannot see it right now... we can trust.

In the East, touching of the feet became a great symbolic act. In the West it has never arisen, because in the West the symbology has not been worked rightly. The West has not been long in search of the inner, so for a Westerner, to touch the feet looks a little ugly, looks awkward. But in the East, it became one of the most significant symbols. The master is in the world and yet not in the world: touching the feet, we touch the part that is still in the world, to show that "We would like to make you a bridge to the divine.

Become our bridge. We can only touch the visible, but we know the invisible is there."

"TOUCH HIS FEET, WHO IS ONE AND INDIVISIBLE,

IMMUTABLE AND PEACEFUL..."

Look into the master and you will find he is one. The hankering for the other is no longer there. He is in tremendous rest and union with himself. You can feel it. It is so tangible a thing -- if you allow, if you are receptive, if you just sit by the side of a master, you will feel it: you will start vibrating into his rhythm. You will feel his peace, his silence -- you will have a taste of it. And you will see that he is immutable, that nothing changes in him... because he is joined with the eternal. And he is peaceful because there is no becoming left: he has become the being, he has become that which is the goal. He has come home.

"... WHO FILLS ALL VESSELS TO THE BRIM WITH JOY..."

And this will be his indication. Whenever you will come to a master he will fill you with joy. You may come with sadness, you may come with misery, but he will go on pouring joy into you.

"... WHO FILLS ALL VESSELS TO THE BRIM WITH JOY, AND WHOSE FORM IS

LOVE."

These are the hints to find a master... WHOSE FORM IS LOVE.

SADH SANGAT PITAM...

These are tremendously beautiful words, almost untranslatable.

GO THOU TO THE COMPANY OF THE GOOD...

No, this is not the translation. No, justice is not possible, cannot be done.

SADH SANGAT PITAM... a few glimpses will be good. SADH does not mean `the good' -- it is one of the meanings, but SADH simply means `the simple, the spontaneous'.

When you say `the good' the duality arises with `the bad'. No, SADH means: so simple that he does not know what is good and what is bad. SADH means: so simple that he has forgotten what is right and what is wrong; he does not know what is good and what is evil. SADH means: so simple that he cannot make a distinction between the saint and the sinner... SADH SANGAT PITAM... and Kabir says to be in the company of such simple people is to be in company with the Beloved.

SADH SANGAT PITAM: if you can find a simple man, a master, who has forgotten duality, who has forgotten the two, and has attained to the alpha; one who knows only the one, who has forgotten the language of the many... SADH SANGAT PITAM... if you can find the company of such a man, you have found the company of the Beloved: you will find God through him. He will be your first approach towards God. Through him you will be anchored in God.

SADH SANGAT PITAM

GO THOU TO THE COMPANY OF THE GOOD,

WHERE THE BELOVED ONE HAS HIS DWELLING PLACE:

God exists in the masters. He exists EVERYWHERE... but if you cannot see him in the world then go and find somebody where he exists so tremendously that even a blind person like you cannot avoid; where he exists so powerfully that even a person like you, insensitive, starts feeling the vibe. God exists everywhere -- but sometimes, in some people, he exists tremendously. Sometimes, somewhere, his presence becomes very very solid. These are the people we call Buddhas, Christs, Krishnas -- where he becomes very intense. These people become a concentrating force for God.

SADH SANGAT PITAM: find, if you can find somewhere, a man who has become a tremendous presence of God. Bathe in his presence, drink in his presence: drink his presence....

Just the other day, I was reading a book of R.D. Laing. He remembers, he is a Scot, he remembers that he had one aunt who was a great drunkard. When I was reading, I remembered old Paritosh, and I thought maybe she was also an aunt to old Paritosh. She was such a drunkard that when she gave birth to a child the child was drunk from the very beginning. And the doctors had to take the child away, because it was found that the woman's milk contained fifty percent alcohol.

A master is so drunk with God... almost ninety-nine percent alcohol. Just being in his presence you will start being drunk. You will start swaying... you will start losing the grip of the ego.

SADH SANGAT PITAM... says Kabir: The Beloved is difficult to find in the world: he is everywhere -- but you are not so sensitive. You are not so aware. He is everywhere --

but right now you cannot find him everywhere. Find a man where he is pouring -- cats and dogs -- so howsoever insensitive you are, you will have to partake of something of it... you WILL become drunk.

Yes, there are people where God rains: Kabir, Christ, Krishna -- SADH SANGAT

PITAM.

TAKE ALL THY THOUGHTS AND LOVE AND INSTRUCTION FROM THENCE.

And be in the presence of these people, and start living from their presence. Catch hold of their vibe, fall in tune with their wavelength. Find your thoughts, your love, your discipline, your instructions, from their presence: let that become your guide. The love of a master, the presence of a master -- let that be your scripture. That is the Bible, alive; that is the Koran, still being recited, still being sung -- not a dead thing.

Blessed are those who can find a master, because they have found God: and they have found God in such a way where the first experience of the divine can become possible.

Once it has happened you can look everywhere and you will find him everywhere... but first it has to happen somewhere.

LET THAT ASSEMBLY BE BURNT TO ASHES

WHERE HIS NAME IS NOT SPOKEN...

And avoid that company where God is not remembered. Escape from those people where God has become almost absent. Don't be with those people because otherwise you will learn your discipline from them, and you will learn your thoughts from them, and you will start by and by imbibing their spirit. Avoid those people who are not full of love for God -- who are not singing, who are not praying, who are not meditating, who are not dancing, who are not ecstatic: avoid.

TELL ME, HOW COULDST THOU HOLD A WEDDING FEAST,

IF THE BRIDEGROOM HIMSELF WERE NOT THERE?

And if God is not there, it is futile -- the feast is not possible, the ceremony is not going to happen, you will not be fulfilled. Avoid: the bridegroom is not there -- how is the feast possible? It is said, Jesus says somewhere, that one day he was staying in a house and a woman came and she poured very costly perfume on his feet. And Judas criticized it. And you will agree with Judas -- more possibility is there that you will agree with Judas. And Judas must have been the first communist: he said, "This is wrong -- economically wrong. Such a valuable thing, wasted. We could have sold it and given the money to the poor -- and you allowed it. You could have stopped the woman. This is useless; why waste such valuable perfume?" And Jesus looked at Judas and he said, "Soon the bridegroom will be gone, and then you can do whatsoever you want to do... but right now, when the bridegroom is here, let there be ceremony and let there be feast."

Kabir says:

TELL ME, HOW COULDST THOU HOLD A WEDDING FEAST,

IF THE BRIDEGROOM HIMSELF WERE NOT THERE?

Where the master is not, where God is not intensely present in somebody, all your religious ceremonies are just impotent. Go to the churches and to the temples, and go to the Vatican or to Kashi -- all futile. Go to a master: because wherever the bridegroom is, THERE God is celebrating. Find out somebody who has realized; there is no other way.

Only an alive flame can make your life also aflame.

WAVER NO MORE, THINK ONLY OF THE BELOVED...

And when you come to a master, waver no more. The mind will pull you back, the mind will find a thousand and one excuses; the mind will not be ready, the ego will create rationalizations... WAVER NO MORE -- because it is very rare to come across a person who has achieved. THINK ONLY OF THE BELOVED... when you are in the presence of a master, in the presence of God himself, where God is burning very intensely and alive, then don't think of other things -- then don't think of the world, then don't think of money, then don't think of power, and then don't think of respectability. Then only think of the Beloved, and go mad....

SADH SANGAT PITAM: find out the company of someone who is so simple that God has chosen him to be his vehicle.

SET NOT THY HEART ON THE WORSHIP OF OTHER GODS...

And when you have found a master, then there is no need to worship any other god: you have found your god. All other gods are dead. When Jesus is alive, Jesus is God: in the great temple of Jerusalem there is nobody -- it is empty. When Buddha is alive, then Buddha is God: then he is the temple and he is the TEERTHA -- then the Kashi is empty and the Giranar is just a rocky place. Whenever there is a living master, God has chosen to be present there... but our minds cling to the old places. Waver not: SET NOT THY HEART ON THE WORSHIP OF OTHER GODS...

Be courageous enough to recognize: it is very easy to go on worshipping dead gods. Yes, once they were alive -- and by the time you come to know them they are gone. And then for thousands of years you will worship them. Only very few people went to Jesus. The learned ones never went -- the rabbis, no; the professors, no; the scholars, no. Very simple people went to him. Now the scholars go to him -- the learned people, the popes, the bishops -- they go to him: now he is a dead god.

Just a few days before, one woman came and she said, "I love you, Beloved Master, but there is a problem. I feel guilty, because I have loved Christ from my very childhood.

Now I feel guilty. Am I betraying Christ in loving you? I would like to become a sannyasin," she said, "but I cannot. That will be a betrayal."

God is betrayed only when you betray an alive master -- never otherwise. When I am gone, let it be finished. Then go and find out living masters. Then don't think you will be betraying Rajneesh: when he is gone, he is gone. Then God has chosen some other place to manifest himself -- then don't allow me to hinder you, then don't let this idea become a barrier. You will not be betraying me. If you cling to me when I am gone, then you will be betraying me.

Jesus is gone: now you can go on clinging. God has chosen some other place to exhibit himself, to manifest himself. Always look at the alive. God is life -- and he always goes on leaving the old skin, and into new spaces and finding new expressions... new songs to sing, and new dances to dance.

SET NOT THY HEART ON THE WORSHIP OF OTHER GODS,

THERE IS NO WORTH IN THE WORSHIP OF OTHER MASTERS.

If you have found a master, then forget about all other masters, because that will be a division in your head. Then let your devotion be total, otherwise that will create a wavering in your mind. Then forget all about others. You have found: now move into it totally, whole-heartedly.

KABIR DELIBERATES AND SAYS:

"THIS THOU SHALT NEVER FIND THE BELOVED."

If you go on worshipping the dead gods, and if you go on wavering between too many masters, you will never be able to find God.

"THUS THOU SHALT NEVER FIND THE BELOVED."

SADH SANGAT PITAM: if you have found one, that's enough. If you have found one person who is throbbing with God, who is radiant with God, who is pulsating with God, drown yourself in his pulsations, become part of his being, and forget all... and you will find the Beloved. In fact, you have already found -- in finding the master, the Beloved has already been found.

From the first chakra to the seventh, from the first love to the last, the search is one; the search is FOR the one. And unless that one is found there is no rest. Unless that one is found there is no peace -- there cannot be; there is no contentment. And that one can be found: you just have to go on becoming more and more aware. Don't get entangled at the lower centers. Always remember that you have to move higher: from food, move higher; from sex, move higher; from love, move higher; from meditation, move higher. Unless you have come to your ultimate flowering, the inner lotus, SAHASRAR -- one-thousand-petaled lotus... when it opens, Kabir says: The spring has not come, and the lotus has bloomed! The spring has not come, and the bee has already received the invitation from the Beloved.

Yes, there, in the innermost being, it is always spring. It is never otherwise. There is only one climate: it is always spring. Just go on moving, higher and higher -- don't get too entangled and obsessed with the lower. I am not condemning the lower, remember. I am simply saying that the goal will not be fulfilled. Good, enjoy food but remember God.

Enjoy relationship but remember God. Enjoy sex but remember samadhi. Go on moving.

Walk on the earth, but keep your eyes on the stars. And if you can find a man where the star is burning bright...

In the Jesus-parable it is said that when he was born three wise men from the East went in search because they saw a star in the sky. And they were filled with joy: they were very old -- they were full of joy that somewhere God had descended. And they followed the star, and the star moved, and then just over the poor small village of Bethlehem it stopped... and they found Jesus in a stable.

That star you can see: whenever there is a master in the world that star is there. And those who are wise, they start feeling it, they start moving. Wherever that master is, a star shines in the sky -- and those who are a little sensitive, those who have any inner search to seek and find, they immediately become aware of the star and they start moving. From thousands and thousands of miles away they start moving, and they come to a place where the master is.

When you have found that place, don't waver.

SADH SANGAT PITAM... in the master you have found God himself. The master is your future: that which you can become he HAS become. The master is nothing but your own unfoldment: you are a seed, he is a flower. Let the master become an invitation to you -- the invitation for the inner spring, the invitation for the inner flower. The possibility is there, and unless that possibility becomes actual you will never be satisfied.

Unless a man becomes God there is no benediction, no bliss. And each is a potential God, and the whole life is a task to transform the potential into the actual.

SADH SANGAT PITAM

The Divine Melody

Chapter #6

Chapter title: : You will awake praying

6 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701060

ShortTitle:

MELODY06

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

86

mins

Question 1

IS THERE A SLEEP CHAKRA TOO?

Each chakra has a sleep part, except the last -- the SAHASRAR. At the seventh chakra, awareness is total: it is pure awareness. That's why Krishna says in the Gita: The yogi never sleeps. "The yogi" means one who has come to the last center of his being, to the ultimate flowering; one who has become a lotus. He never sleeps. His body sleeps, his mind sleeps: he never sleeps. Even when a Buddha is sleeping, deep in the innermost core of his being a light goes on burning bright.

The seventh chakra has no sleep part to it, otherwise all the six chakras have both: yin, yang. Sometimes they sleep and sometimes they are awake: day, night -- they have both aspects. When you feel hungry, the center for hunger is awake. If you have ever tried fasting, you would be surprised. If you try fasting, then for two, three days in the beginning you will feel hunger, and then sometimes hunger will disappear completely. It will come again, it will disappear again, it will come again... and you are not eating at all, so you cannot say, "The hunger disappears because I have eaten." You are fasting: sometimes hunger comes with great power, tries to overpower you -- and if you remain undisturbed by it, the hunger goes. The chakra has fallen asleep -- it will awake again in its turn when the day will come; it will fall back into sleep again.

The same happens with the sex center. You feel so hungry for love, then you have made love -- and then suddenly all desire for love disappears. The chakra has fallen asleep. If you try celibacy, without repression, then you will be surprised. If you don't repress your sexual desire, you simply watch it.... Try it for three months -- just be watchful. When the desire comes, sit silently, let it be there, let it knock on your doors, listen to it, be attentive -- but don't be carried away by it. Let it be there: don't repress it, and don't indulge in it. Be a witness -- and you will be surprised again. Sometimes the desire comes with such intensity that one feels one may go crazy. And then automatically on its own accord it disappears, and sex becomes irrelevant. Again it comes, again it disappears. The chakra goes on moving: sometimes it is day, then sex arises; sometimes it is night, then sex goes to sleep.

And so is true about all the six chakras below the seventh. Sleep does not have a separate chakra; sleep has a counterpart with each chakra, except SAHASRAR. So one thing more to be understood: as you grow higher and higher in your chakras, you will have a better quality of sleep because a higher chakra has a deeper quality of relaxation. The man who lives with the first -- MULADHAR -- will not have a deep sleep. His sleep will be very superficial because he lives with the physical, the material.

I can describe these chakras in this way too. First, the material -- MULADHAR. Second, the vital -- SVADHISTHAN. Third, the sexual, the electrical -- MANIPURA. Fourth, the moral, aesthetic -- ANAHATA. Fifth, the religious -- VISUDDHI. Sixth, the spiritual --

AJNA. And seventh, the divine -- SAHASRAR.

As you move higher, your sleep will go deeper and will have a new quality to it. The man who is food-obsessed and lives only to eat and eat and eat, his sleep will be very disturbed. His sleep will not have silence, peace to it; his sleep will not have music in it.

His sleep will be nightmarish. the man who is a little higher than the food-addict, a man who is more interested in persons that in things and wants to absorb people, will have a deeper sleep -- but not very deep. The sexual person will have the deepest, in the lower realm. That's why sex is used almost as a tranquillizer. If you cannot fall asleep, make love -- and immediately you will be falling asleep. Love relieves you of tensions. In the West, doctors go on prescribing sex for those who suffer from sleeplessness. Now they even prescribe sex for people who are prone to heart-attacks, because sex relaxes, gives you deep sleep.

On the lowest plane, sex gives you the deepest sleep. Then if you move still higher, with the fourth -- ANAHATA -- sleep becomes tremendously tranquil, silent, very purifying and refined. When you love somebody, your relaxation is tremendous, immense. Just the idea that somebody loves you and you love somebody, relaxes you; all tensions are gone.

The world is no longer alien, it is a home. With love, the house is transformed into a home and the alien world becomes a community, and nothing is far away. Through the person you love, God has come very much closer. A loving person knows a deep sleep.

Hate, and you will miss your sleep. Be angry, and you will miss your sleep -- you will fall lower. Love, have compassion, and you will have a deep sleep.

With the fifth, sleep becomes almost prayerful. Hence, all the religions of the world have been insisting that before you go into sleep, pray. Let prayer be associated with sleep.

Never fall into sleep without prayer, so the rhythm goes on vibrating in your sleep. The reverberations of the prayer will transform your sleep. The fifth is the center of prayer --

and if you can pray, and if you can fall asleep praying, you will be surprised in the morning: you will awake, and you will awake praying. Your very wakefulness will be a sort of prayer. With the fifth, sleep becomes prayer. It is no longer ordinary sleep. You are not only going into sleep, you are going in a subtle way into God.

Sleep is a door when you forget your ego; and it is easier to drop into God than while you are awake, because when you are awake the ego is very strong. When you fall deep into sleep your healing powers function to their total optimum capacity. Hence the physicians say that if a person is ill and cannot sleep then there is no possibility for his being healed

-- because healing comes from within. Healing comes when the ego is absolutely nonexistential: when the ego is not, then the healing power flows from the within -- it wells up. The man who has moved to the fifth, the VISUDDHI chakra -- to the chakra of prayer -- his life becomes a benediction. You can see: even if he walks you will feel the quality of relaxation in his gestures, in his movements.

The sixth chakra -- AJNA -- is the last, where sleep becomes perfect, beyond which sleep is not needed: the work is finished. Up to the sixth, sleep is needed. With the sixth, sleep becomes meditative -- not even prayerful but meditative -- because in prayer there is a duality: I and Thou, the devotee and the deity. With the sixth, even that duality disappears. Sleep is profound... as profound as death. In fact, death is nothing but a great sleep, and sleep is nothing but a small death. With the sixth, sleep penetrates to your deepest core... and then the work is finished. When you come out of the sixth to the seventh, sleep is no more needed. You have gone beyond duality. Then you are never tired, so sleep is not needed.

This state of the seventh is the state of pure absolute awareness -- call it the state of Christ, Buddha, God.

The same person has asked another question, related to the first: IF SEX CHANGES

INTO LOVE, DOES THE URGE TO DOMINATE BECOME WILL, OR THE EFFORT

TO BE CONSCIOUS?

This too has to be understood. The first three lower centers are deeply related with the second part -- the three higher centers. First, MULADHAR, SVADHISTHAN, MANIPURA: these are the first three. The second three are: ANAHATA, VISUDDHI, AJNA. These are the two pairs. They are joined together deeply, and it has to be understood -- it will be helpful for you, for your journey.

The first chakra is concerned with food and the fourth chakra is concerned with love.

Love and food are deeply related, joined together. Hence it happens that whenever somebody loves you, you don't eat much. If a woman is loved she remains lean, thin and beautiful. If she is not loved she starts becoming fat, ugly, goes on accumulating; she starts eating too much. Or, vice versa too: if a woman does not want to be loved, she starts eating too much. That becomes a protection -- then nobody will be attracted towards her.

Have you watched it? If a beloved comes to your home, a friend has come, and you are so happy, and so full of love -- that day, appetite disappears. You don't feel like eating -- as if something more subtle than food has fulfilled you, something more subtle than food is inside you and the emptiness is not there. You are full, you feel full. Miserable people eat too much, happy people don't eat too much. The more happy a person, the less he is addicted to food -- because he has a higher food available: love. Love is food on a higher plane. If food is food for the body, love is food for the spirit.

Now even scientists are suspecting it. When a child is born, the mother can give just milk, bodily food. She may not give love -- then the child will suffer; his body will grow but his spirit will suffer. Just bodily nourishment is not enough: spiritual nourishment is needed. If a mother only gives food and not love then she is not a mother, she is only a nurse. And the child will suffer for his whole life -- something will remain stuck, ungrown, retarded. The child needs food, the child needs love: love is needed even more than food.

Have you watched it? If a child is given love he does not bother about food much. If the mother loves the child she is always worried that the child is not drinking as much milk as he should. But if the mother is nonloving then the child drinks too much milk. In fact it is difficult to take him away from the breast because the child becomes afraid: love is not there, he has to depend only on physical food -- the subtle food is missing.

And this goes on happening in your whole life. Whenever you feel that you are missing love, you go on stuffing your body with food -- it becomes a substitute. Whenever people feel empty and they don't have that thrill that love brings, that zest that love brings, that energy that love releases, they start stuffing their body with food. They have fallen back to their childhood; they are in a regressed state.

Children who are given enough love are never addicted much to food. Their spirit is so full: the higher is available -- who bothers about the lower?

Remember, all the religions have talked about fasting for a certain reason. Unless you are taken out of your food obsession prayer will not happen. Hence, fasting gives a great possibility to pray. I am not telling you to become a fast-addict. I am not telling you to start torturing yourself. But if you are a food-addict then fasting is the medicine. If you have been eating too much ten bring a balance. Eating too much you remain too attached to the physical... and you cannot fly into the sky. You are too burdened: a little fasting will be helpful. And in fasting people have observed that their prayer becomes very easy, simple; it is no more a problem. Because when you are not burdened too much by food and the body, the spirit is weightless, can fly: the spirit has wings....

The first and the fourth are related. And my experience is this: that if people are helped to be more loving they forget about food by and by. The old religions insist for fasting, I insist for love -- and you can see the connection. The old religions insist for fasting, so that you can be taken away from your too-much-food obsession. I insist for love -- my technique is more subtle. Then, without even becoming aware, if you are loving you will be taken away from your food obsession. The old religions sometimes can be dangerous, because the food-addict can turn into a fast-addict. He can become another sort of neurotic person: first he was eating too much, now he may start starving himself. In both the cases he remains concerned with food.

I have watched many Jaina monks: they continuously think about food. They believe in fasting, they do fasting, but they are continuously thinking about food -- what to eat, what not to eat, how to eat, when to eat -- their whole psychology is based on food. Food becomes too much of a problem. Hence, I don't insist on fasting, I insist on love -- and fasting comes as a shadow. If you are tremendously in love, one day you will find you don't want to eat today. The love is so much, and you don't want to destroy it. You are flowing so high, you don't want to stuff yourself and bring yourself low... you don't want to move on earth today. And the fasting comes naturally -- you don't think about it, you don't take a vow about it, you don't take a decision about it: suddenly you feel that higher food is available and the lower is not needed... and the fasting happens. Then fasting is beautiful.

The second chakra is related to the fifth. The second chakra is political -- domination, domination over others -- and the fifth chakra is spiritual power -- domination over oneself. With the second chakra you try to overpower people, with the fifth you try to overpower yourself. With the second you try to conquer others, with the fifth you try to conquer yourself. With the second you become a politician, with the fifth you become a priest. And priests and politicians have always remained together: there is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician. The kings and the priests, the politicians and the popes -- they are joined together. They may not be aware, but this is the basic cause behind it: the politician needs the support of the priest, and the priest feels somehow in tune with the politician, because both hanker for power -- one over others, the other over oneself, but the goal is power.

Remember it. I would not like you to become a politician and I would not like you to become a priest either. In fact there is no need to dominate others and there is no need to dominate oneself. Domination as such should be dropped: one should simply be. The very idea to dominate is egoistic -- whether you dominate others or yourself makes no difference. Have you not observed it? -- a person who feels that he has great self-control becomes a great egoist. He goes on declaring that he has tremendous control over himself. His ego is strengthened -- there is danger.

Domination as such has to be dropped. You should not become a priest. Become religious

-- don't become a priest. To become religious is one thing, to become a priest is another.

The priest by and by starts declaring that he not only has power over himself, he has power over God. The priest by and by starts declaring that he has power over spiritual forces, psychic forces, occult, esoteric... he becomes more and more obsessed with inner powers. But ALL power is an ego-trip.

Be aware of the second, and be aware of the fifth too: there are pitfalls, there are dangerous possibilities. And once a person becomes a priest he stops; his growth is no more going on. Once you have become a priest you are no more religious; your whole energy has become stagnant. The religious person is always flowing: from first to second, from second to third, from third to fourth, he is always flowing. Up to the seventh he knows no stopping -- there is no station on the way. And with the seventh he also does not stop, because with the seventh he disappears... there is nobody to stop.

Up to the sixth you can stop and become stagnant. With each center there is a possibility that you may fall and become stagnant. If you become stagnant with the first, you will know only the material. If you become stagnant with the third, you will know only the sexual -- and so on and so forth. The second and fifth are joined together, and so are the third and sixth. The third is the sex center and the sixth is the tantra center.

Now, one thing to be remembered always: if you are not very alert you may go on believing that you are moving into tantra, and you may be simply rationalizing your sexuality -- it may be nothing but sex, rationalized in the terminology of tantra. If you move into sex with awareness, it can turn into tantra. If you move into tantra with unawareness, it can fall and become ordinary sex. It has happened in India -- because only India has tried it.

All tantra schools in India, sooner or later, were reduced to sex orgies. It is very difficult to keep aware... it is almost impossible to keep aware. If from the very beginning the discipline has not gone very deep in you, there is every possibility that you will start deceiving yourself. Tantra schools arose in India with great energy, with great insight.

And they had something -- because that is the last center humanly available: the seventh is superhuman, the seventh is divine. The sixth is the spiritual center.

From sex to tantra: a great revolution, a mutation, is possible in man. And in the Eat, people became aware that if you become meditative while making love, the quality of sex changes and something new enters into it -- it becomes tantric, it becomes prayerful, it becomes meditative... it becomes SAMADHI. And a natural flow happens: from the third you can jump to the sixth -- you can bypass the fourth and the fifth. It is a great temptation, a great leap -- you can bypass, a shortcut -- but dangerous too, because you may be simply deceiving yourself... and man is very clever -- very clever in finding rationalizations.

I have heard...

From the diary of a globe-trotting young cinema queen: MONDAY: The Captain saw me on deck and was kind enough to ask me to sit at his table for the rest of the trip.

TUESDAY: I spent the morning on the bridge with the Captain. He took my picture leaning against the "Passengers not allowed on this bridge" sign.

WEDNESDAY: The Captain made proposals to me, unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

THURSDAY: The Captain threatened to sink the ship unless I agreed to his proposals.

FRIDAY: I saved eight hundred lives today.

You can find rationalizations. The temptation is always there -- you can find good reasons for wrong motives.

Tantra can any moment become just a garbed sexuality; just in the guise of tantra, nothing but sexuality. Then it is dangerous, more dangerous than ordinary sex -- ordinary sex is at least honest. You don't pretend, you don't claim something higher; you simply say it is ordinary sex. But tantra can be dangerous: you start pretending that this is something higher, something superhuman, something not of this world. Keep this in mind. The third and the sixth are very deeply related. The third can become the sixth, the sixth can fall into the third. A great awareness is needed.

These first three and the last three are two balancing forces. The seventh is beyond. When the first three have been balanced by the second three -- when the lower has been balanced by the higher, when the lower has been cancelled by the higher, when the lower and the higher are of the same weight -- then the seventh happens. Then suddenly the duality disappears. Then there is nothing lower, nothing higher; nothing outer, nothing inner; nothing worldly, nothing otherworldly: then only one is. That one is the goal of all search.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

IF YOU ARE NINETY-NINE PERCENT ALCOHOL, WHAT ABOUT THE ONE

PERCENT?

I said it deliberately -- that the master is ninety-nine percent alcohol -- and I was aware that somebody was going to ask the question: Why not one hundred percent? But I said it deliberately, for a certain reason.

The moment the master becomes one hundred percent alcohol he disappears. He cannot exist here; that much purity cannot exist here... he becomes invisible. That one percent impurity is a must -- otherwise there will be no difference between the master and God himself. God is one hundred percent alcohol, a master is ninety-nine percent alcohol: that one percent is the bridge. That one percent makes the master visible; God is invisible.

And that is the whole purpose of a master -- that he brings you something that you cannot see by your own eyes. He becomes the vehicle, he becomes the medium, the passage.

Once the master is also one hundred percent alcohol then there is no difference between the master and God himself. Then he will become as absent as God is: he will be here...

but he cannot be a master.

It is said about Gautam Buddha -- a beautiful parable -- that when he reached the door of the ultimate the doors were opened, there was great celebration, great rejoicing: Buddha has come home. Rarely somebody comes back. The world is so vast, and people go astray in a thousand and one ways... rarely somebody returns back. One soul has returned back.

But Buddha stopped at the gate and he would not enter. And the gatekeeper said: "Sir, why are you standing there? Come in."

Buddha said, "I will not come. I have to stand outside. Unless everybody else enters in, I will cling outside, I will not come in."

The gatekeeper said, "You have attained: now disappear into the absolute."

And Buddha said, "No. I will cling to this bank, outside the absolute, as long as I can, to help those who are still stumbling. I can see millions of souls stumbling on the way. If I disappear into the absolute, then my contact is broken."

The parable is beautiful. This is one percent which is not alcohol: one hundred percent...

Buddha disappears. In the Jaina mythology they say that a person becomes a master if he has one desire still left in his being. If all desires disappear then a person disappears. If there is one desire still left then a person becomes a master -- and not pure alcohol. Jainas call it "a bondage." This too is a bondage: with this bondage the master clings to this shore. If he leaves this desire too he will be gone; he will be not of any help to you.

Millions of people down the ages have attained the truth, but very few of them have become masters. All enlightened people don't become masters, remember. Very rarely an enlightened person becomes a master -- because to become a master you have to be capable of allowing at least one percent impurity in your being. Great compassion is needed. Who bothers? When you have attained, who bothers? who wants to cling? One wants to disappear into the other... great compassion is needed.

It is reported in Ramakrishna's life that he was very much attached to food -- too much: his attachment was really unbelievable. He would be discussing about God and MOKSHA and meditation, he would be doing his SATSANGA... and just in the middle of it he would say, "Wait. I am coming." And he would go into the kitchen to see what was being prepared. His wife, Sharada, would tell him, "Paramahansa Deva, this doesn't look good. People laugh and they know where you are going. Just in the middle of such a great discussion, talking about God, suddenly you remember food. This doesn't suit you.

People laugh about it, they joke about it."

But Ramakrishna would laugh and he would not change his habit. One day Vivekananda caught hold of him, mm? -- his greatest disciple -- and of course he was feeling very much offended because people were asking, "What is this about your guru? Is he mad?

Why does he go to the kitchen to ask?" And when Sharada his wife would bring his thali, his food, he would simply jump! He would uncover the thali and look into it -- "What have you made?" -- and the disciples were there! It was unbecoming.

So Vivekananda closed the door, locked the door, and said, "Now you have to decide something." Ramakrishna said, "If you insist, then I will tell you the truth: the day I become indifferent to food, I will disappear. This is just an effort to cling to something.

And food seems to be innocent enough -- one has to cling to something. This is my only way to remain on this shore. But you insist, so now you remember: the day I am indifferent to food, remember, Ramakrishna is here only for three more days."

They laughed; they didn't believe him. Who believes the master? They laughed. They said, "He must be joking, or he must be finding an explanation to explain it to us --

otherwise, this is not so." Even Sharada his wife wouldn't believe it. But this happened.

One day Sharada brought his food, and rather than jumping and looking at the food he turned his face towards the wall. Sharada remembered what he had said a few years before... the thali fell from her hands. But Ramakrishna said, "Now it is too late. Now no need to make much fuss about it. You all always wanted me to turn away from food: I have turned. Now three more days..." And within three days he was gone; on the third day he was dead. That was one percent....

You ask me: "If you are ninety-nine percent alcohol, what about the one percent?" I am clinging to that one percent for you. It is possible for me, right this moment, to become one hundred percent -- but then I will be beyond your reach. In this world absolute purity cannot exist; it is not the nature of things. A little impurity is needed.

Once something becomes absolutely pure it simply disappears from the world -- from the world of things, from the world of visible phenomena, it simply disappears. If beauty is one hundred percent pure it will disappear. If truth is one hundred percent pure it will disappear. Purity cannot exist. Purity exists only in God. The master remains, at the most, ninety-nine percent... so that you can drink out of him.

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

I HEAR YOU HAVE BEEN PUTTING IN YOUR OWN QUESTIONS SOMETIMES.

That's true. I cheat sometimes. The question is obviously from Arup. She gathers the questions, so sometimes she comes to hear me answering a question that she has not put in. There are reasons.

There are two types of people: one I call the question-type and the other I call the answer-type. The question-type is one who goes on asking -- he is not worried whether his question is answered or not. He is not concerned what answer is given to his question; his basic concerns it the question. When I am answering him, then too he is preparing some other question. He is not interested in the answer as such -- he is a question-type. He creates questions, he enjoys creating questions. Sometimes he asks absurd questions --

meaningless, irrelevant. Sometimes he asks meaningful questions -- that too, accidentally.

He goes on asking: sometimes by coincidence it is a meaningful question, sometimes it is not.

The other type is the answer-type -- who never asks anything, who simply waits for the answer. For this answer-type, even the questions that the first type asks are meaningful, because he listens to the answer. He never asks the question, but he is very attentive to the answer. Now it happens, sometimes the question-type has to ask a question which is irrelevant to himself but may be relevant to somebody else who is an answer-type. And that too is happening: I continuously watch you, mm? -- somebody is sitting there, a question-type, and just by the side an answer-type, and I see a question from the answer-type jumping into the head of the question-type.

The answer-type cannot ask directly; he has to ask through the question-type -- that is the only way. And the question-type feels very good; whenever he can manage a question he is very happy. He is not worried whether it is his question or not -- it may be somebody else's. It is almost always somebody else's; you don't really ask your questions. Many times you ask other people's questions -- not that they have told you; just sitting by your side they are full of a quest, inquiry: that inquiry pulsates in you, creates a question.

I depend on the question-type for those people who are also answer-types. But sometimes it happens... I go on watching: a person has a question and he is not asking, and nobody else is asking for him. Then sometimes I have to cheat: I put a question in. I have to take care of all of you, of all types.

For example, if Arup had not asked this question I was going to insert it. She was a little impatient -- if she had waited just one week more... because it was hovering on her head.

At least for two, three weeks she was puzzled by this: to ask or not to ask?

My whole process is to make available all that is needed for you. It does not matter whether you have asked or not -- you ask many questions, I never answer them. I choose

-- that too is a cheating. Then I never answer the whole question, I choose parts -- that too is a cheating. But I am not a teacher. I am not here to answer your questions, I am here to create a situation in which you can become more and more aware, alert. I am not to satisfy your questions, I am to satisfy your being -- and that is a totally different matter.

Sometimes I see that a question is needed and nobody is asking: I insert it.

You have to ask many questions. Not that just by asking questions you will be able to know the answers; but just by asking questions there is a possibility... the door opens.

Just by asking a question something in your being surfaces: it becomes the most important thing. You make it possible for me to tackle that question. It is not an intellectual thing; I am not going to inform you more. Just by tackling that question something deep in your being will be changed -- because that question is a symptom.

That question has arisen because you are in a certain state of being.

For example, Arup has asked this question. Somewhere deep in her mind a distrust goes on lurking -- otherwise she would not have asked, the question would not have arisen.

She would have said, "Okay, if our Beloved Master feels it right that he has to insert a question, he inserts it." But deep down somewhere, a shadow of doubt: "Why did he insert the question? -- it was not asked. Why?" Somewhere deep, a shadow.... She may not even be aware of it -- that's why she waited for two, three weeks. She could not manage courage; she thought and thought and thought.

Whatsoever you ask is symptomatic: it shows something, it gives an indication. And I am not much concerned about the question; I am much concerned about the real disease about which the question is a symptom. I don't deal with symptoms, I don't treat symptoms -- symptoms are only indications. Somebody has a fever: fever is a symptom, it is not a disease. The disease must be somewhere else. Because of the disease the body is hot: somewhere deep in the body there is a turmoil, a fight going on. Because of that fight, friction, the body has become hot and is feeling feverish. Fever is not the disease; fever is a symptom of some disease inside.

Now if you treat fever directly, you can kill the patient. You can put the patient under a cold shower to make his body cool: you can kill the patient -- this is not treatment. You have to look deep into his body: where is the turmoil? Where is the conflict, the friction?

Why has the body become hot? Why has it lost its normal temperature? A normal temperature means the body is moving without any inner friction. With friction the body becomes hot.

Questions are symptoms. Ask them. I would like you to come to a state where no question arises -- but that cannot come by just not asking. That will come by asking, by asking and dissolving. Those people who are not question-types, they too have to make an effort. It is difficult for them because they are not articulate. Try it: whatsoever you feel -- maybe it is vague, nebulous -- try to fix it into words. Just by bringing it into the conscious mind, becoming articulate about it, you have changed something deep in you.

That's the whole of psychoanalysis -- that the patient goes on talking. The psychoanalyst does not do anything in fact, he simply waits and listens. But just by talking the patient becomes more and more articulate about his unconscious feelings, and once those feelings have been expressed the burden is dissolved -- one is unburdened.

So don't be shy about asking questions. Try. And don't feel that they are foolish -- all questions are foolish. But if one is a fool, one is a fool; and just by hiding it nothing is going to change. Express it. When you don't ask a question and I feel it hovering on you, I have to insert it. If you start asking there will be no need for me to insert.

The whole thing to be remembered is: I am here to help you. I am a physician, I am not a professor. The whole focus is how to help you mutate. so ask as many questions as you can. One day you will find that, by and by, those questions have disappeared. Not that I have answered them -- but just that you asked them, became aware of it; I discussed about it, analyzed it. I really don't answer a question, rather, I try to destroy it. Once it is destroyed, dismantled, it disappears. Not that you will get the answer, but one day you will come to a point where there are no questions in your being. A questionless consciousness is the goal: not a consciousness full of answers, but a questionless consciousness. When there is nothing to be asked, you have arrived.

I have heard...

A young woman went to a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller charged her twenty dollars and said she would answer two questions.

The young woman, after considerable hesitation, finally paid the money and then she said to the fortune-teller, "Isn't that a lot of money for only two questions?"

"Yes, it is," answered the fortune-teller. "Now, what is your second question?"

Don't be afraid of such a thing with me. You can ask a s many questions as you want.

Ask -- and don't be shy. And remember, all questions are foolish, so there is no need to feel awkward. And one thing more: the people who don't ask have more important questions to ask; and the people who ask go on asking for asking's sake -- they don't have many important questions to ask. They ask because they can ask; they may not have the right question. And the people who don't ask may have the right question -- and I have to answer for those too. So if you don't ask I will have to insert questions for you.

A few more things about questions: one, whenever it arises don't wait for tomorrow, write it immediately -- because no question is going to be relevant tomorrow. If you wait for tomorrow you may not ever ask it, and something very much needed may be missed.

The mind goes on changing continuously. the moment you feel the question is there, write it. Don't be worried whether it is relevant or not relevant, whether it will be relevant tomorrow -- "Should I wait? Should I see whether it remains there or simply disappears?"

It WILL disappear -- not because it has become irrelevant; it will disappear because you have a mind which is continuously changing. Even a question cannot be retained: your mind is a flux. Write the question -- and sometimes it may be that it is no more relevant for you, but it may be relevant for somebody else.

All questions are human questions. Maybe you are not in any way anxious to know about it anymore -- somebody else may be. And our thoughts are not individual properties; it is a collective mass. Thoughts go on entering into your head and going out -- it is a continuous exchange between you and others. No thoughts is yours: it comes for a while, stays there, and is gone... and enters into somebody else's head. It is almost like breathing: I breathe in -- it is the same breath that was within your chest just a moment before. Now you have breathed it out, I breathe it in. I breathe it out, somebody else is going to breathe it in. Exactly the same is true about thoughts. You breathe in, breathe out: it is a continuous exchange.

So don't be worried. Let questions be asked. Just one thing to remember: questions should not be asked only for asking's sake. They should be asked because somewhere it is hurting you; somewhere in your being, it has some relationship, some relevance, something to do. Something is like a knot in your being, and this question will help it to open, to dissolve. The question should not be just intellectual, it should be existential.

An elderly lady and gentleman who were obviously from the upper crust, found themselves obliged to travel by train one day, and moreover, had to travel second-class as there were no first-class carriages on the train. The compartment was almost full, and the couple sat stiffly in silence for a while. But soon the atmosphere improved and they found themselves exchanging conversation and pleasantries with the other men in the carriage.

The stories became more and more risque, and finally one of the men told a real beauty.

"How dare you!" said the elderly gentleman indignantly. "How dare you tell that story before my wife!"

"Sorry, guv," apologized the man. "I didn't know she wanted to tell it herself."

Remember, if you don't ask, somebody else is going to ask; if you don't tell, somebody else is going to tell. If it is there, it is going to come. If it is there at all, it is going to erupt from somewhere or other. And if nobody is going to tell, then I am going to insert it. You cannot escape it. Any existential question that is really significant and meaningful and is going to help you, has to be asked. And don't be ashamed of asking.

Question 4

YOU HAVE TOLD MANY TIMES WHY YOU CALL YOUR MALE SANNYASINS

"SWAMI." CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY THE WOMEN SANNYASINS ARE CALLED

"MA"?

The path of the masculine is that of awareness, and awareness brings you to a point where you become master of your own being. That is the meaning of SWAMI. The feminine path is that of love, and love brings you to an ultimate point where you can mother the whole existence. And that is the meaning of MA.

A woman in her ultimate flowering becomes a mothering energy... she can mother the whole existence. She feels blessed, and she can bless the whole existence. When a man arrives at the ultimate point he does not become a father, he does not become a mother, he simply becomes a master: master of his own being.

Love and awareness -- these are two paths. And when I say masculine I don't mean that all males are masculine, and when I say feminine I don't mean that all females are feminine. There are women who will have to pass through the path of awareness -- I would like to call them swamis too, but that would be a little more confusing. As it is, it is already too crazy... so I resist that temptation. But sometimes it comes to me that I see a woman taking sannyas and I feel like calling her swami not ma. And then sometimes a man comes, very effeminate, and looks more feminine than any woman. Sometimes it even happens that Mukta sits by my side and she has to tell me, "Beloved, Master, he is a man." She has to remind me, otherwise I may give him a ma name.

But remember, some women are there -- nothing wrong in it -- and some men are there --

and nothing wrong in that either -- who will pass through the opposite path, the contrary path. There was a very famous saint in Kashmir: Lallah was her name. She remained naked. She is the only woman, enlightened woman, who remained naked. Many enlightened men have remained naked, but she is the only woman. It is very easy for a man to remain naked, it is very difficult for a woman to remain naked -- the very feminine quality is to hide. The female is not an exhibitionist. But Lallah remained naked and she became such a famous saint in Kashmir that Kashmir says, "We know only two names: Allah and Lallah. We respect only two names: Allah and Lallah." She was a swami; I cannot call her a ma.

And there is another precedent: in the Jaina tradition, one woman, Mallibai, became a master -- a TIRTHANKARA. But Jainas have changed her name from female to male.

Instead of calling her Mallibai they cal her Mallinath -- the name is changed from a woman's to a man's. And the reason seems to be right, because to be a Jaina TIRTHANKARA is impossible for a woman unless the woman is a woman only in the body. The path is of will and awareness, it is not of love and devotion. The path is of struggle, the path is not of surrender. so I absolutely agree. They have done right when they changed the woman's name into a man's name. She must have been a woman only for the name's sake: deep down, she had that male energy.

I call a woman "ma" because if she flowers and comes to the seventh -- SAHASRAR --

she will become a mothering force. I call the man-sannyasins "swami" because when they come to their ultimate flowering they will simply feel that they have become masters of their own being. Both are the same -- but one is a male interpretation of the same experience, another is a female interpretation of the same experience.

Question 5

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Prayer is wonder, reverence. Prayer is receptivity for the miracle that surrounds you.

Prayer is surrender to the beauty, to the grandeur to this fantastic existence. Prayer is non-argumentative dialogue with existence. It is not a discussion... it is a love-dialogue. You don't argue... you simply whisper sweet nothings.

When a man falls in love with a woman he whispers sweet nothings into her ear. When a man falls into love with existence... the same romance: prayer IS romance. It is fantasy; it is becoming available to the miraculous. Many people have lost the capacity to pray, because many people have lost the capacity to wonder. They have lost the capacity to be surprised. You go on seeing millions of wonders every day but you are not surprised at all. Your eyes are so full of dust and knowledge that you don't see anything. A seed is sprouting, and you don't see any wonder. A new leaf coming out of the tree, and you don't see any wonder. A bird singing, and nothing happens inside you. A peacock dances, and nothing dances inside you. A white cloud floats in the sky, and you remain untouched. Then prayer is impossible.

Prayer needs a poetic heart, a loving heart. Approach reality more poetically -- don't be too much of a scientist, don't be too much of a rationalist. don't think that you know; nothing is really known -- ignorance is absolute, ignorance is ultimate. Once you understand that nothing is known, and ignorance is ultimate, you will again be full of those beautiful eyes you had when you were small children.

I have heard...

The husband was one of those cynical, sour guys whom nothing moved or impressed. To him, everything was just a big "so what?" He visited a psychiatrist, and after a short examination was given this diagnosis: "You are cold and blase. To you, everything means a big nothing. You are married, eh? Well, here's what you do. Ringling's circus is in the town: take your wife and see the show. Take a look at how red-blooded people live and act. Watch the performers who live dangerously; see how they pulsate and glow."

The schnook took his wife to the circus. Out into the ring came the roaring lions and tigers. The wife was thrilled by the excitement, but the husband yawned and replied,

"Yeah? So what?" Finally there came the grand finale where the daredevil was shot out of a cannon three hundred feet into the air, turned several somersaults, and then, pulling out a clarinet, began playing before hitting the net. The crowd roared its appreciation for the act, but the husband, after a few minutes of thought, turned to his wife and grunted in a bored manner, "A Benny Goodman he's not!"

Prayer is the capacity to be amazed. prayer is the capacity that you had as children, and you have lost. Claim it -- reclaim it -- because with prayer you have lost all. The day your wondering eyes closed, God became nonexistential to you. Open your wondering eyes again, and you will find him pulsating again. He's very close by... he's all around you... he is within and without.

Question 6

BELOVED MASTER,

YOU SAY WE ARE ALL: EVERYTHING IS, IN YOUR EYES, HOLY, ENLIGHTENED, ONE. WHY NOT THEN, FOR INSTANCE, ONE MORNING OF

YOUR BEING INDISPOSED, ALLOW A SANNYASIN OR SOMEONE ELSE -- OR

PERHAPS A DOG, A FLOWER -- TO SIT IN YOUR LECTURING CHAIR, JUST AS

A SPICE IN THE PRESENCE OF YOUR SILENCE. IS IT NOT CRAZY ENOUGH?

Far out, Devadas.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #7

Chapter title: : It is heard without ears

7 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

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MELODY07

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III.66. NA MAIN DHARMI NAHIN ADHARMI

I AM NEITHER PIOUS NOR UNGODLY.

I LIVE NEITHER BY LAW NOR BY SENSE,

I AM NEITHER A SPEAKER NOR HEARER,

I AM NEITHER A SERVANT NOR MASTER,

I AM NEITHER BOND NOR FREE,

I AM NEITHER DETACHED NOR ATTACHED.

I AM FAR FROM NONE: I AM NEAR TO NONE.

I SHALL GO NEITHER TO HELL NOR TO HEAVEN.

I DO ALL WORDS; YET I AM APART FROM ALL WORKS.

FEW COMPREHEND MY MEANING:

HE WHO CAN COMPREHEND IT, HE SITS UNMOVED.

KABIR SEEKS NEITHER TO ESTABLISH NOR TO DESTROY.

III.84. JHI JHI JANTAN BAJAI

THE HARP GIVES FORTH MURMUROUS MUSIC;

AND THE DANCE GOES ON WITHOUT HANDS AND FEET.

IT IS PLAYED WITHOUT FINGERS, IT IS HEARD WITHOUT HEARS: FOR HE IS THE EAR, AND HE IS THE LISTENER.

THE GATE IS LOCKED, BUT WITHIN THERE IS FRAGRANCE:

AND THERE THE MEETING IS SEEN OF NONE.

THE WISE SHALL UNDERSTAND IT.

Please meditate on these words of Walt Whitman:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they ar so placid and self-contained; I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition.

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

If you look at the animals it is natural to be tempted by their silence, by their acceptance, by the peace that surrounds their being, by the non-tense, non-neurotic state of their minds. It's very natural to be tempted by the animals.

It seems man has fallen. It seems there has not been an evolution; man has not progressed

-- just the contrary. For three hundred years the scientists have been telling man that there has been a great evolution and the evolution has happened in man: man has come far above the animals. Before these three hundred years Christianity was teaching to the world that man has fallen from God, and there is no evolution -- rather, a sort of involution: man has not evolved but has fallen into dark dismal depths of sin. both attitudes are extremist: the pendulum moved from the Christian attitude to the scientific attitude. Science still remains a Christian endeavor, a reaction.

In the East we have looked at things in a totally different manner. The first thing to be remember is: man is higher than animals and still man has fallen. This will look paradoxical. But the East says man has fallen because he is higher. Only the high can fall: if you are not high, where are you going to fall to? The animals cannot fall -- there is nowhere to fall to.

When you move on heights you are taking a risk. A man who moves on plain ground cannot fall but a man who goes climbing mountains is always in danger of falling.

Animals cannot fall because they have no consciousness yet. Animals cannot commit sin because to commit sin one needs to be aware. To go astray one needs freedom; to do wrong one needs a certain growth capacity, a certain power. Only those people who are capable of doing right can do wrong. Only those people who can rise can fall. The sinners and the saints are not separate -- the saint is possible because sin is possible.

No animal is a sinner but no animal is a saint either. Have you ever heard of any animal becoming a Buddha or a Christ? Yes, they are not Judases, they are not Adolf Hitlers, they are not Joseph Stalins -- right -- but nobody is born in the world of animals as a Buddha either. Man is an adventure: risky of course, very risky, dangerous. Man is trying to rise higher and higher... and the more you rise, the more is the possibility to fall. The higher the peak, the deeper will be the valley surrounding it. Around an animal there is no valley; with man there is a valley... and the greater the man, the greater the valley, remember.

And modern man is at the peak of a big mountain, at the peak of the Everest -- hence so much trembling, anguish, anxiety. Modern man, if he falls, will fall totally. If something goes wrong with modern man, everything will go wrong. That was not so in the past.

The more you become alert, conscious, capable, the more is the danger. It grows in the same proportion.

So I tell you to meditate on these words of Walt Whitman, not to follow Walt Whitman --

because Walt Whitman is basically wrong. I can understand his temptation, but no man can become an animal again; that is not possible. And if you become an animal in the forest -- you will still be a man. There is no possibility. You can do bad, you can do good, but you cannot fall back from your consciousness: you will remain conscious.

Consciousness is such a quality that once gained, it cannot be lost; once learned, there is no way to unlearn it. It is almost as if you have become a youth and you are tempted to become a child again. Yes, you can play with the children, you can go and have fun -- but you will still remain a youth. There is no way to really become a child again. Nobody can go backwards: all movement is forwards. All movement is forwards and upwards.

To many people, Walt Whitman's temptation has appealed. It is not new: down the centuries, many people have escaped from human society to become animals again. and many have lived life almost like animals -- the people who go to the caves, the people who escape to the Himalayas, the people who hide themselves in the monasteries. They become almost animal-like, but there is nothing of worth in it. They are neither man nor animals, they are simply avoiding the risk -- and the man who avoids the risk never grows.

The path of growth is tremendously risky. One can come home... and one can go astray for ever and ever. That's the beauty too: with the risk, with the danger, is the thrill.

So when I am talking about meditation I am not saying to you, "Become like animals."

When I am talking about meditation and sannyas I am telling you, "Take more risks."

You cannot go back: the backward path is completely utterly closed. Man cannot enter into the Garden of Eden through the same gate from where Adam was expelled -- that gate is closed. Man will have to enter from another gate; he will have to find another gate to enter into the Kingdom of God. Man will have to go a long way to find another gate...

of consciousness, awareness, love, prayer.

Yes, a moment comes when a sage becomes almost like animals; but I say "almost like" -

- I don't say that he becomes an animal. Yes, you can see in the eyes of a sage the same purity as is in the eyes of a cow. But a cow is a cow, and a sage is a sage. His innocence is not unconscious, his innocence is full of consciousness. He is innocent because he is conscious, the cow is innocent because the cow is not conscious. The cow is innocent because she cannot be otherwise, the saint is innocent out of his own choice --

TREMENDOUS choice. The saint can be otherwise, and he is not: it is a great achievement. The cow is silent, innocent -- she cannot be otherwise. There is no achievement in it, the cow is simply ignorant. The saint is wise. His innocence is out of wisdom -- he has learned the lesson of life. But remember, to become a cow is very cheap and easy, to become a saint is arduous.

What Kabir is going to say today in these songs is of tremendous import: try to understand it. He is not talking about falling back -- though it may look so at times -- he is telling you to go beyond. The beyond always looks like the below.

When an old man becomes really wise, he starts looking like a child; but remember, he is only LIKE children -- he is not really a child. He has passed through all the lessons of life

-- good and bad, sweet and bitter. He has matured, he has seasoned. Again he is a child --

out of his own choice, out of his own understanding. The circle is complete.

NA MAIN DHARMI NAHIN ADHARMI

says Kabir: I am neither religious nor irreligious. Now, this can mean two things. It can mean that you have become an animal -- neither religious nor irreligious; you have fallen back. Or, it can mean you have transcended -- you have gone beyond religion and irreligion. They both look alike but there is immense difference.

When Kabir says I AM NEITHER PIOUS NOR UNGODLY he is saying that he has gone beyond duality. Let us try to understand. There are people who are irreligious --

they will not go to the church, they will not bow down to any god, they don't have any reverence in their heart, they never pray. They simply live an ordinary mundane life: eat, drink, and be merry. There is nothing of the transcendental in their life. If you ask them: What is the meaning of your life? they can, at the most, shrug their shoulders... or they can find some rationalizations. But look deep into them: they don't know why they are living, for what they are living. Is there any significance? is there any song? are they waiting for something to manifest in their hearts? are they growing into some unknown dimension somewhere? No, they are just moving in a rut. Of course they are very much frustrated.

There is no greater frustration than moving in a rut -- the same, again and again... one goes on moving mechanically. By and by, all hope disappears. You know you will do the same again tomorrow: you will eat, you will go to the office, you will make love, you will go to sleep, you will fight, you will nag, you will quarrel... and the same will happen again... and so on, and so forth, dragging.... One day, one dies. So this whole life is just a dragging journey towards death -- is that all?

Look into the eyes of people who have not made any contact with deeper realms, with the depths of their own inner core: you will find them barren, you will find them desert-like, dry -- no juice flowing. No song is born out of their souls. They are being dragged by some unknown force: they are accidental. They are simply here -- not knowing why, not knowing where, not knowing from where, no knowing who they are. They remain... yes, they remain occupied in a thousand and one things, just to avoid this inner emptiness --

so they don't come across it, so they don't have to encounter it. Otherwise, it is very shocking: if you encounter your emptiness, your unfulfilled soul, then it will be difficult even to drag -- one will start thinking of committing suicide.

Gabriel Marcel has written that there is only one basic metaphysical problem, and that is suicide. It is true, it's really true. If you look into the ordinary life, the only problem is: why do you go on living? why not commit suicide? If death is to come then why wait?

for what? Why not stop all this nonsense? Not a thing is going to happen; there is no hope. No flower is going to bloom, no spring is going to come. You will repeat the same thing again and again and again, and one day the mechanism will stop -- and there is nothing else to it. If there is no significance in your life, there cannot be any soul. Soul exists with significance.

So, there is this one type -- the irreligious. And when I talk of this first type many so-called religious people are included in it -- because they go to the church as part of the rut, and they read the bible as part of the rut, and they repeat catechisms like parrots.

They are Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas and Buddhists -- these are again occupations of the mind, to remain occupied; they also are not religious.

Out of a hundred persons ninety-nine are irreligious. Many of them profess to be religious, but they are not -- otherwise the world would have a different quality, a different flavor: there would be celebration, there would be joy and rejoicing, there would be a totally different kind of humanity. These people talk about love and go to war. These people talk about brotherly love and kill each other and murder each other. These people are even more dangerous than the so-called plain people who say that they are irreligious.

These who are hiding behind religions -- these people are more dangerous. They deceive themselves, they deceive the whole earth.

Kabir says, "I am not irreligious." But he says, "Neither am I religious." I say ninety-nine percent of people are irreligious, one percent of people are religious -- very few people.

How will you know if somebody is religious? If you see that in his step there is a dance, know that he is religious. If you see that in his eyes there is a flame, know that he is religious. If you feel that he is not just moving in the rut, that flowers bloom in his being... that he still has hope left in him, that he still dreams, that he is still in a romantic relationship with reality, that all has not become dull and drab, that there is still poetry...

that he still laughs and laughs totally, that he still loves and gets lost into his love, that he still sings, that he still looks at the flowers and the stars... that he still has a kind of innocence, wonder, reverence, that he respects life, that he is not suicidal... and -- last but not least -- that sometimes you can find him just sitting doing nothing, and full of joy. His source of joy remains unknown. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his being he must have found a source from where the joy wells up.

If you can find a person who is capable of remaining unoccupied then he is religious. Let this be the criterion: if a person cannot remain unoccupied then he is afraid of his own being. Then he is avoiding -- he has to do something; his doing is neurotic. If you leave him alone in the room he will read the newspaper, he will open the window or close the window, he will start changing the furniture or will listen to the radio or the TV -- but he will do something. And if he cannot find anything else he will fall asleep -- but he cannot remain awake and not doing anything.

If you can find a person who is sitting awake, fully awake like a flame -- still, tranquil, unwavering -- not neurotically obsessed by any action; passive -- just enjoying his being, enjoying the moment of here and now... and you will feel a different vibe around him, of REVERENCE -- yes, that is the right word. Albert Schweitzer calls it "reverence for life": that is the quality of a religious person. If he takes a rock in his hand, he will take it as if the rock is alive -- to you it looks "as if" the rock is alive -- for him it is so: it IS

alive. Even if he talks to a small child, he is full of respect -- tremendous respect --

because even the child is a presence of God, a pure presence of God. Even if he is sitting with a dog, he is sitting with God. For him there is no much difference... maybe the dog is just god read in the reverse order -- just a difference of order. You can arrangègod' as

`dog' -- the same word; you can arrange the same word `dog' as `god' -- a mere question of arrangement... but nothing of much difference.

A religious person need not be in a temple or a church, but wherever he is, he is in a temple. A religious person need not be praying in a formal way, in a ritualistic way, but whatsoever he is doing, that is his prayer -- doing or not doing. Doing, he is in prayer; not doing, he is in prayer.

And Kabir says: I am not irreligious -- not difficult to understand -- but he says: Neither am I religious. Now an even higher dimension opens: the transcendental -- where a person is neither religious nor irreligious. What will this dimension be? Now even reverence or prayer or worship is no longer needed, because that too creates a difference, a distinction -- the distinction between the subject and the object, the knower and the known, the worshipper and the worshipped.

This is the transcendental ultimate, when one has become one with the whole. Now one is God and there is nothing else than God. This is the ultimate experience: AHAM

BRAHMASMI -- I am God. ANA'L HAQ -- I am truth. That's what Jesus means when he says: My God and I are both one. When there is oneness, even reverence will look lacking; something is missing. When there is reverence there is a little duality, a subtle duality. Now one has come to the oceanic experience.

Kabir says: I am neither religious nor irreligious, I am transcendental. And let that be your goal, let that be your destiny -- because only then will you come to the unfoldment of your being: you will become a thousand-petaled lotus in full bloom... showering your fragrance into existence. You have come home.

I LIVE NEITHER BY LAW NOR BY SENSE...

All these sutras are to help you to go beyond duality, the dualism, the two. I LIVE

NEITHER BY LAW NOR BY LICENSE... There are two types of people ordinarily: people who live by license, by sensuality, by desire -- people who simply indulge; they don't know anything else. They are lost in very ordinary gratifications; their life is very gross. Then there is another type of people who live by law, discipline, commandment: the people who follow the ten commandments -- who listen more to the tradition, the scripture, the society, the state, than they listen to their own desiring, body, mind. They listen to authority, they don't listen to themselves. These are the two ordinary people.

If you live by license you live a life of indulgence -- and you will be destroyed by it. If you live a life of law you will again be destroyed -- not by indulgence, this time by authority -- because nobody can give you the commandment, nobody can give you the law. Life is so spontaneous -- how can there be a fixed law to follow? And the moment you start following a fixed law you are a dead entity, not a living being. Your life is no longer a river, it has become a stagnant pool which will simply become more and more dirty, will be more and more stinking, and will disappear into mud.

Kabir says: I neither live by license nor do I live by law. Then how do you live? Kabir says: I live by spontaneity; I live by awareness. Watch it -- this is one of the most important things. Indulgence comes from your unconscious mind. Sexuality, or a lust for power, comes from your unconsciousness, from the dark parts of your being --

overpowers you, possesses you, drives you mad... and one day you simply feel your whole life is finished and you have not gained anything. Maybe you have succeeded, but still, in the ultimate analysis, ordinary success proves to be a failure -- utter failure. I always say: Nothing fails like success. You may have accumulated much money, then one day suddenly you find life is gone. Money is there, but you are gone -- so what is the point of this success? You indulge with many women, with many men: energy is wasted, and suddenly there you are -- a desert land, a wasteland; nothing has flowered, nothing has grown. That whole journey was just very very momentary, very temporal. Yes, you indulged in one thing after another -- but all those things have passed like nightmares, and your hands are empty. And those moments cannot be reclaimed. The time lost is lost forever; the energies lost are lost for ever... and people who indulge go on indulging to the very end -- even when death is knocking on the door, they are thinking of indulgence.

I have heard about an old English lord, one of the richest men of England, who married at the age of ninety -- and married a girl of eighteen.

On the first night, his servants helped him to reach the room where he was to see his wife.

In fact, a servant helped him to climb up to the bed... he was almost dead. And then he looked around and the eighteen-year-old girl was there, just facing this corpse, and he asked the girl, "One thing -- have you asked your mother about the facts of life?"

The girl said, "No sir, I haven't asked." And the old man said, "That's dashed awkward --

because I have forgotten all about it!"

A ninety-year-old man... he has forgotten all about the facts of life, and now he has got married.

To the last moment, when death is knocking, people go on thinking of indulging more and more -- they don't know any other way to be. This is one of the most penetrating things to understand: that almost ninety-nine people when they die are thinking of sex.

The priest may be repeating something else -- the priest may be reading the Bible or the Gita; people may be pouring the pure water of the Ganges into their mouths -- but they themselves are still thinking of sex, or money, or power. This is a very stupid way of living life.

Kabir says: I don't live by sense, and I don't live by law.

Then there is another way which is also stupid in the same way, but more respectable --

stupid, but more respectable: people who live by law, who always follow the authority --

the state, the priest, the church. They are people of rules and principles. They go on crushing their own desires. Desires come from the unconscious, and this law is superimposed by the society; it is not your consciousness. And this law also functions from the unconscious. That's why every religion and every society tries to condition the children, newborn children: immediately, they start trying to convert them into religion.

A new boy is born into a Jewish family, he has to be circumcised immediately: now the conditioning has started. Or, a Christian child has to be baptized: the conditioning has started. Or, the Hindu child has to pass through the thread ceremony: the conditioning has started.

During the first seven years, every society tries to condition the mind -- and conditioning means nothing but hypnosis: forcing authority, law, tradition, religion, scripture, the priest, the church, into the innermost unconscious of the child so that from there you can control him. It is an old bullock-cart way. In the future, societies will do better. They will not be doing so much work, it is unnecessary: they will find some jet-speed methods.

Those methods are available: you can insert an electrode in the brain of the child and then there is no need to condition him. From that electrode, the politician sitting in Delhi or Washington or London or Moscow, can go on ordering... and whatsoever order is received, you will feel that it is coming from your own being -- that's how you will feel.

If you are born in a Jaina family, from the very beginning you have been conditioned against non-vegetarian foods. Continuous conditioning.... I was born in a Jaina family: from my very childhood, I was conditioned that to eat in the night is a sin. I must have been almost eighteen -- up to that time I had never eaten anything in the night -- then I went with a few of my friends on a picnic. They were all Hindus, and they were not interested in cooking food in the day. Mm? -- the day was so beautiful and the mountain was so tremendously thrilling, and I was the only one who wanted to eat in the day and they were not interested in it -- so of course I had to concede. The whole day climbing the mountain... I was dead tired and was feeling very hungry when they started cooking. The temptation was tremendous -- the flavor of the food, and the whole day's tiredness -- and I could not resist. And I started arguing in my mind..."If all these people are going to hell, okay, I will also go. And just one night? -- it is not going to be such a great sin." But my whole being revolted, because for eighteen years I had been continuously conditioned that to eat in the night is the greatest sin.

I was wavering... and they were cooking... and the flavor became more and more strong...

and then they invited me: that was too much. Deep down reluctantly -- but still I ate. You will be surprised: the whole night I could not sleep, I had to vomit three times. It was nightmarish. And they were all asleep, fast asleep, and I was puzzled: if we all have committed sin, then why are THEY not punished? only I am punished. The vomit: unless I had completely thrown out whatsoever I had eaten I could not sleep that night.

And of course, that day it looked as if Jainas are right. I had been punished, immediately punished. This is the trick of conditioning -- and it felt as if it was coming from my own heart. It was not coming from my own heart, it had nothing to do with my own heart: it was the implanted idea, the electrode, that was working and creating trouble.

This is the way of the authority, the state, the priest: they have been trying to condition the mind.

Kabir says: A few people move through sensuality, indulgence; a few people move through law, authority. Those who move through indulgence are under the bondage of nature; those who move through law are under the bondage of society. These people who move by law are very respectable citizens: in the church they will sit in the first row, in the temple they will be respected; everywhere they will be thought to be very good people -- as people SHOULD be. But they are just mummies -- dead corpses run by the state. They don't have their own soul.

I would like to say to you: There is no commandment which may not be broken -- neither those I say unto you, not those laid down by the other Buddhas. There is no commandment which may not be broken -- because a commandment is a dead thing, and you are an alive being. I am not saying, "Go and break them" -- I am simply saying there is no commandment which may not be broken. The decisive factor has to be your spontaneous awareness. You have to look into things from your own awareness -- neither from the bodily instinct nor from the social intellect -- you have to go into your being, alert, fully alert, and see what has to be done, and live through that understanding. That is the way of transcendence.

So the second sutra is the sutra for spontaneity. The first sutra is the sutra for transcendence -- and spontaneity is the way to transcendence. If one day you really want to go beyond nature and beyond society -- and God IS beyond both -- then you will have to follow a tremendously risky path: that is, of spontaneity. You will have to listen to your own heart. Society has corrupted it, so you will have to sort it out -- the wheat from the chaff. You will have to continuously be on guard, because society has been very tricky: it has put things so deep down that sometimes it appears as if it is your conscience

-- it is not.

That's why everybody's conscience differs -- if you are a Christian you have a different conscience, if you are a Hindu you have another conscience, if you are a Mohammedan, still another. How can conscience be different? These consciences are false, CREATED

ones. Real conscience will be the same: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian -- it will not make any difference. The real morality is one: whether you are born in th East or in the West, whether you are a white or a black, it makes no difference.

If something makes a difference, then remember, it must be the society who has taught you, who has put things deep down in your basement of being -- and from there it goes on manipulating you. Don't be a slave to instincts and don't be a slave to the society. And then religion -- REAL religion, the transcendental religion, which is even beyond religions -- is born. And that brings truth, and that brings benediction.

I AM NEITHER A SPEAKER NOR HEARER...

You must have heard, you may have sometimes even tried... there is a silence -- when you don't speak, it surrounds you. But that is not true silence, that is just absence of speaking. In India, they call it MAUNA -- people go into silence, they stop speaking.

Once a man was brought to me: for twelve months he had been in silence, and he wanted to break his silence in my presence. So he was brought to me. I looked at him and I said,

"There is no need to break it, because you never started: I can still hear you chattering."

You can ask Nirgun -- she keeps silent... but inside the chattering continues.

Still, it gives you a quality -- it is half-way. Speaking has stopped on the outside, but not on the inside. Speaking can stop on the inside too, but then one more point has to be understood: if you have stopped speaking on the inside, and still you become interested in hearing, then it is not yet perfect silence. A dog barks, and you hear. Somebody talks, and you hear. In fact, if you are keeping silence, you will become more and more interested in hearing what people are saying, what is going on all around. That will be a substitute; that's how you will satisfy your curiosity and fill your mind.

Real silence happens when you are not talking, not listening. Then you have gone really beyond the word. Kabir says:

I AM NEITHER A SPEAKER NOR A HEARER...

He says: I have become really silent. I have nothing to say, and I have nothing to hear. I am absolutely contented. There is no curiosity left.

I AM NEITHER A SERVANT NOR A MASTER...

There are two types of people, again, who try to master others -- and feeling frustrated in that endeavor, one day start mastering themselves. These are the two types of people: the other-conquerors and the self-conquerors. Kabir says: I am neither. I have dropped the whole idea of conquering. There is no need to conquer anybody -- neither the other nor oneself.

The very idea of conquering is violent, foolish, creates conflict and misery. There is no need -- one should simply be. And remember, when you are neither a slave nor a master a great upsurge of freedom happens. One does not allow anybody to become your master, and one does not try to force anybody to become your slave. They both are in the same boat -- masters and slaves. Have you watched it? If you master somebody, in a deeper subtle way he has mastered you. That's what happens. The husband tries to master the wife and thinks that he has mastered his wife, but one day finds -- one day comes to a surprise -- that the wife has mastered him. All husbands go on ragging... and all husbands are henpecked.

In India, the wife calls the husband SWAMI -- "my master." And when wives in India write letters -- they rarely write -- to their husbands, they sign: Your servant. But nobody is befooled. In fact if you master somebody, in a deeper way, in a subtle way, you are being mastered by the other. The master becomes a servant of the servants because you start depending -- and dependence is really slavery.

Have you watched it? If you depend on things, things become your master. There are two types of ways of creating mastery. One is very gross -- the male way: forcibly, just by muscular power. The other is a subtler way -- the feminine way: not by muscles but by crying, weeping, and things of a different type. The man cannot understand, but the woman starts crying... or -- have you watched it? -- she may not argue, but the way she pours the tea is enough. She may not say anything against you, but the way she will pour the tea... and everything is made plain. And you cannot even argue, because she has not said anything. Her argument is very subtle.

Kabir says: If you really want to be free, don't allow anybody to become your master and don't allow yourself to become anybody's master -- you have to avoid two things. When you are neither anybody's master nor anybody's slave, freedom rises in you: your energy is free of all entanglements. It does not mean don't love -- in fact, if you love, how can you be a master? If you love, how can you reduce the other to be a slave? Love is freedom: love is rooted in freedom, love flowers in freedom. Love's ultimate fragrance is that of freedom.

Kabir is not saying: Don't love. Kabir is saying: Love so deeply that the mastery and the slavery is not created at all. He is not saying: Don't be related. Relate. But slavery and mastery? -- what type of relationship is this? This is no way to relate -- in fact this is the way to destroy all relationship, and all possibility of relationship. How can you relate with a slave? how can you relate with a master? -- impossible. The fear is there -- how will you relate? Relationship is possible when there is no fear. Relationship is possible only amongst equals.

That's why I say to you that, up to now, men and women have not been living in relationship -- because woman has never been thought equal. And relationship exists only between equal people; it cannot happen between unequal people. Unless woman is given total freedom, absolute equality, there will be no possibility to relate. Up to now, man has exploited woman, woman has exploited man; there has not been real relationship. It cannot be, because the way man has treated woman has been basically wrong. Only between two equal persons is there a possibility of relationship, because fear is not there -

- one can be open, one can be true, one can be honest. Only between two equal persons, when there is no fear, is there love. Love arises when fear has left you. When fear is there, love cannot enter: they are NEVER together.

I AM NEITHER BOND NOR FREE...

And then Kabir says -- he brings in a still higher quality of freedom -- he says: I AM NEITHER BOND NOR FREE...

Because even to feel, "I am free" means that somehow, somewhere, you are still not free.

Have you watched it? When you are really healthy you forget all about health. Unhealthy people talk much about health -- in fact, unhealthy people become interested too much in things like naturopathy, and they start reading books on nature, health, this and that. They become obsessed.

A healthy person will not bother. A healthy person is healthy -- and when you are healthy you don't think about health. In fact, to think about health is a sort of illness, perversion.

When you have a headache it's okay, you think about the headache; but when you don't have a headache do you go and declare to the world at large: "I have no headache"? Then people will think you are mad.

A really free person never goes to declare anywhere: "I am a free person." If you declare that you are a free person, somewhere deep down the bondage still persists. So Kabir says:

I AM NEITHER BOND NOR FREE,

I AM NEITHER DETACHED NOR ATTACHED.

Both are wrong -- both are extremists. People are attached to money, and then they become detached from money. To have any attitude of attachment or detachment means you are still obsessed with the money. Somebody says, "I am detached from money" --

but why? What is the point of being detached from money? Is there still some fear of attachment lurking in your consciousness? -- because the idea of detachment arises only when you are attached. When you are not attached it is perfectly okay... money is money!

There are people who think that money is the only god: these are the people who are attached with money -- their only god is money. Then there are people who say that money is dirt; not much difference -- the have moved to another polarity: money is dirt.

They won't touch money. There are such mad people in India -- they are worshiped by people as sages. They are simply perverted people; they won't touch money.

Once it happened: I was staying in a village and a man came and he gave me nearabout five thousand rupees. A very rich man -- but very traditional. I told him, "Right now I don't need the money, but if I need it sometime, I will ask you." He had come to examine me -- whether I would take the money or not. But this statement was puzzling for him because I had not said that I would not take it; I said, "When I need, I will ask you." And I had not taken and not accepted because I was in no need. So he was very much puzzled.

He said, "You have confused me again. I had come here with this money because my guru said, "You go, and you will see: take the money to this man -- that is the only criterion to know whether somebody has achieved or not. If he has achieved, he will say: Keep it away, don't bring it close to me, money is dirt. He will not touch it." You have not taken -- that's okay -- but you say that if you need, you will take it?" I said, "Yes --

because money is neither God nor dirt; money is simply money. And money is a utilitarian thing -- when you need, money is valuable; when you don't need, there is no value in it. The value is not in the money; money in itself is not valuable. It is just a simple means of exchange -- and a perfectly good means of exchange. Nothing is wrong in it."

He said, "You always puzzle. Why can't you give me a certainty? -- either you take it or you refuse it."

In India there are saints whose whole sainthood depends on this phenomenon -- that they don't accept money. If you bring money to them they will be very angry. They will be enraged, they will start shouting at you: "What do you think about me? Do you think that I am so low that I will accept your money?" And you will come back full of deep respect for them. These are mad people, perverted people. They are the same people, now standing on their heads -- first they thought that money is God, now they think that money is dirt. But they cannot accept a simple phenomenon -- that money is money. It is neither God nor dirt; it is not the greatest value nor the lowest -- it is just a utilitarian means of exchange.

Kabir says:

I AM NEITHER DETACHED NOR ATTACHED.

I AM FAR FROM NONE: I AM NEAR TO NONE.

And Kabir says: Nobody is close to me and nobody is far away from me. All are the same: I look at everybody with an equal eye -- SAMADRISHTI. Nobody is mine and nobody is my enemy; nobody is my friend and nobody is the enemy. The whole existence is my home.

I SHALL GO NEITHER TO HELL NOR TO HEAVEN.

Hell means fear, projected fear. Heaven means greed, projected greed. If you think in terms of heaven and hell you are the same, you have not changed at all. A real person of understanding does not think in terms of reward and punishment -- he does not think in terms of the future at all. His life is herenow. He knows only two things: here and now --

and they are also not two, they are part of one phenomenon: herenow. He lives herenow.

People who live in the future create hell and heaven -- out of greed, heaven; out of fear, hell. Of course for yourself you create the heaven, and for the enemies you create the hell. And every religion goes on saying: Come and follow us -- otherwise you will fall into hell. If you are not a Christian then beware: Christ won't save you in the last moment. You will be thrown into hellfire, and then you will suffer. Christ is not going to save you from there, unless you declare that you are a Christian. And so are the Hindus, and so are the Mohammedans -- everybody is trying to pull you by your greed and fear.

They say: Come to us. We promise you a better heaven -- with more facilities, modern equipment, modern devices, air-conditioning and all. You come to us, and don't go to the others -- because then you will suffer hell.

I have heard: A man from the remote corners of Bastar.... Bastar is one of the most primitive parts of the world -- very poor, very primitive, illiterate people... one man came to me and he said: It happened in my village, a Hindu sannyasin was staying there and a Christian missionary came, and the Christian missionary was trying to convert the tribal people to Christianity. And he had almost succeeded -- because he did one thing. He brought a big bucket of water... because if you have to talk to the tribal primitive people you cannot argue, you have to argue in their way... he gathered the whole community around the bucket of water and then he produced two statues -- one of Christ and one of Rama. And he said: Look. And they were both alike, exactly alike -- of the same size and same weight. Then he dropped them into the water. Christ's statue started floating on the water and Rama's drowned. So he said: Look! do you understand?

And of course the primitive people understood exactly -- they were ready. They said: Okay, so Christ saves -- because he can save himself. And Rama cannot save himself: look! -- you will go with Rama to the very bottom of existence. And they were almost ready to become Christians -- but that Hindu sannyasin created trouble. He said: Wait.

Arrange for fire. They said: For what? He said: Water is no criterion; fire is always the criterion. Put both Christ and Rama into fire and see who is saved.

Of course the statue of Christ was of wood... and Christ got burned, poor Christ! And the community was saved.

And the man was very happy. But I said: There is no difference -- whether you are Hindus or Christians, it makes no difference. The argument is foolish, the whole argument is foolish. But this is the whole argument all over the world -- not only with primitive people, with very educated people. The real thing that is being manipulated is fear and greed: "Christ saves!" You are afraid: you have been doing wrong things in life -

- everybody has. It is impossible to avoid doing wrong things, because all that is natural has been declared wrong -- so it is impossible to avoid. If you love, it is wrong. If you eat, it is wrong. If you enjoy, it is wrong. If you are happy, it is wrong. All is wrong -- in fact, to live is wrong. Commit suicide: that seems to be the only virtue. Even that is not allowed -- they say, "Don't commit suicide, otherwise THAT will be wrong." So nothing is allowed.

First, the priests make you feel guilty. They condemn everything -- this is the very rationale, this is the trick: first they condemn everything. Once they have made you afraid

-- they have condemned everything and they have painted hellfire as clearly as possible, in psychedelic colors -- then the whole work is done. Then you are ready to fall into their trap, because you have to be saved now -- you have committed wrong. The hellfire is there, death is coming close, and only Christ can save, or Mahavira can save, or Buddha can save. So somewhere or other, you have to belong to somebody so you can trust that you will be saved.

Nobody can save you unless you go beyond greed and fear. No Christian, no Hindu, no Mohammedan, nobody can save you -- because greed and fear, they are your real misery.

Kabir says:

I SHALL GO NEITHER TO HELL NOR TO HEAVEN.

Because heaven and hell are just mythological; they exist not. They exist only n your fear and greed. When fear and greed have dissolved, heaven and hell disappear. And in that state when there is no fear inside you and no greed, real paradise arises. Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, have a better name for it: they call it MOKSHA, NIRVANA. In Christianity, Judaism, Islam, that word does not exist. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, they talk about heaven and hell -- nothing beyond. In the East, people have looked deeper. They say: Heaven and hell are just psychological. Go beyond, go beyond the psychological -- only then do you attain the spiritual. That is NIRVANA -- where no fear exists and no greed: where simply consciousness exists. And this is possible herenow. Heaven will be after you die, hell will be after you die. NIRVANA, MOKSHA, is possible herenow.

I DO ALL WORKS; YET I AM APART FROM ALL WORKS.

This is the meaning of becoming conscious, alert, aware. You do -- whatsoever is needed you do -- but you remember that you are not the doer, that God is the doer. You are only a vehicle, instrumental.

FEW COMPREHEND MY MEANING...

Certainly. The meaning is so deep that only a few will comprehend... but those few will immediately transcend. The very comprehension of the meaning of the words of Kabir will be a great illumination, will be a sort of satori, a glimpse of enlightenment.

... HE WHO CAN COMPREHEND IT, HE SITS UNMOVED.

And Kabir says: If you have heard me and if you have understood me, if you have looked into the reality I have been pointing at, you will sit unmoved. What does it mean when he says that you will sit unmoved if you have understood?

There are three types of people, again. First: when you listen to something you agree, you move your head in agreement -- you say, "Right." The second: you don't agree, you move your head negatively -- you say, "I don't agree." These people who agree and don't agree, cannot understand. When you say you agree, what do you mean? You mean, "I know what truth is, and you are also saying it, so I agree. You are saying something which goes according to my conviction, so I agree." When you shake your head in disagreement, what are you saying? You are saying, "You are talking nonsense. I know what is true, and I don't agree with you." The agreeing and the non-agreeing both are fools.

Kabir says: One who comprehends it, HE SITS UNMOVED. Truth is such... how can you agree with truth? how can you disagree with truth? Agreement, disagreement, is of the mind: truth is of the beyond. When truth is understood one simply remains in a tremendous silence, unmoving. There is no agreement, no disagreement. It is not a question of agreeing and not agreeing -- when truth is there you don't say yes, you don't say no. In fact, when truth is there you become so silent... all yes and no drops. Truth is so vast, you dissolve into it.

... HE WHO CAN COMPREHEND IT, HE SITS UNMOVED.

KABIR SEEKS NEITHER TO ESTABLISH NOR TO DESTROY.

And Kabir says: I am not here to establish any theory, any philosophy, any dogma. And I am not here to destroy any theory, any philosophy, any dogma. Kabir says: I am simply stating my own experience.

Kabir says: Please don't agree and disagree with me. Just listen. Listen attentively, totally.

Kabir says: Please don't be in a hurry to decide and to conclude. I am not preaching anything here, I am not trying to establish any tradition or destroy any tradition. I am simply saying something that has happened to me, that has grown in me, that I have experienced. I am simply singing my own song.

Kabir says: Listen to me as you listen to the murmur of a river... the murmur of the wind passing through the trees -- do you agree? do you disagree? AS you listen to the birds in the morning, do you agree? do you disagree? There is no question of agreement and disagreement -- it is not intellectual at all. You simply allow it... and you become silent.

Such a tremendous thing is present: how can you be so foolish as to agree or disagree?

All agreement, disagreement, is foolish, stupid. When truth knocks at your door you will simply be suddenly silent, unmoving. THAT is real agreement -- which is not of the intellect, not of the mind. That is not from you; that is from such a depth in your being that you can almost say it is from God.

THE HARP GIVES FORTH MURMUROUS MUSIC...

And says Kabir: So am I like the harp.

THE HARP GIVES FORTH MURMUROUS MUSIC;

AND THE DANCE GOES ON WITHOUT HANDS AND FEET.

And look at me! I am a dancer... though my feet and hands are not moving.

... THE DANCE GOES ON WITHOUT HANDS AND FEET.

IT IS PLAYED WITHOUT FINGERS, IT IS HEARD WITHOUT EARS: FOR HE IS THE EAR, AND HE IS THE LISTENER.

Only God is. When truth is uttered, whenever truth is uttered, the sayer and the listener are one. There is nobody to agree, and nobody to agree WITH. And you will feel this here also, many times: when you are agreeing you are missing, when you are disagreeing your are missing. People who are for me and people who are against me -- both will miss; nobody amongst them is with me. People who are simply here in my presence, with no agreement, no disagreement... sometimes truth comes. It is suddenly there... it surrounds you... it overwhelms you. It is heard -- but in that moment the sayer and the listener are not two.

Truth joins the master and the disciple. In the moment of truth the master disappears, the disciple disappears... only truth spreads all over.

IT IS PLAYED WITHOUT FINGERS, IT IS HEARD WITHOUT EARS: FOR HE IS THE EAR, AND HE IS THE LISTENER.

THE GATE IS LOCKED...

And whenever this happens -- this moment of truth, when the master and the disciple disappear... because the master is not propounding a doctrine, and the disciple is not trying to collect some knowledge... when it happens that truth is so throbbing that in that throb, in the dance of truth, in the song of truth, the master and the disciple both dissolve, both fall in tune with that great rhythm that truth brings -- THE GATE IS LOCKED.

In that moment a tremendous privacy happens. So many of you are here... but sometimes it happens to one -- and in that moment only that one is with me here, and nobody else.

And in that moment, I am with that one and with nobody else. THE GATE IS

LOCKED... whenever a master and a disciple meet, the gate is locked: it is secret. They may be standing in the marketplace, but THE GATE IS LOCKED.

... BUT WITHIN THERE IS FRAGRANCE:

AND THERE THE MEETING IS SEEN OF NONE.

THE WISE SHALL UNDERSTAND IT.

Only the wise can understand it. Who are the wise? Those who are not agreeing and not disagreeing, those who have not come with any a priori, those who have not already come with a conclusion -- those who have not concluded that they are Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, for and against, this and that -- those who have come without a conclusion; those who have come open, ready for the truth to descend: those are the wise people.

A wise person has no conclusions. He has truth but no conclusion. And a fool has many conclusions and no truth. The fool is always a great philosopher, theoretician, dogmatist, propagandist. He believes; and whenever there is conclusion doors are not open for the truth.

When you come to a master, come without conclusions. Come without your head -- leave your head where you leave your shoes. Come without your head, come without any conclusions -- because we are not trying here to convince you, for or against. Here something of a tremendously different dimension and quality is being transferred.

Something is transpiring between you and me... and that can happen only in rare moments.

When truth is so real, tangible, that you can touch it... when truth is so strong that you are lost in it... when truth comes like a flood and your small ripple is lost in it... when the master and the disciple in a certain moment of truth become one... THE GATE IS

LOCKED. In that privacy of all privacies, in that secret space, the meeting happens. That meeting is seen of none: nobody can see it, because it is not an objective phenomenon.

So when you are talking to outsiders, many times you will find it difficult to talk --

because you will say something, and they will not understand. And you cannot convey --

because something that you have known, something that you have glimpsed, cannot be conveyed to an outsider. For that, great sympathy is needed, love is needed, openness is needed. When you go back, you will not be able to say what has happened to you. People will think you have gone crazy... and they are right too! You will not be able to articulate what has happened to you, because it happens in such intimacy, in such deep privacy. It is not an objective experience, it is subjective. It is absolutely subjective: only THE

WISE SHALL UNDERSTAND IT.

"The wise" means one who has not determined any conclusion beforehand. The wise is one who has not invested in any conclusion, who is ready to go with truth wherever it leads. And this is the meaning of sannyas too -- the freedom from conclusions, the freedom from "isms" and ideologies, the freedom to move with truth, the freedom to accept the challenge of truth.

And let me repeat: it is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing -- hence it is crazy. I am not trying here to convince, I am not trying here to convert. Something is available here: if you are courageous enough to open your heart you will melt into it, you will disappear into it, and you will come out of it totally liberated, totally new.

A few words from T.S. Eliot...

THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT TO RECOVER WHAT HAS BEEN LOST

AND FOUND AND LOST AGAIN AND AGAIN: AND NOW, UNDER

CONDITIONS

THAT SEEM UNPROPITIOUS. BUT PERHAPS NEITHER GAIN NOR LOSS.

FOR US, THERE IS ONLY THE TRYING. THE REST IS NOT OUR BUSINESS.

You just try to be without conclusions. You just try to be silent, without agreeing and disagreeing.

FOR US, THERE IS ONLY THE TRYING. THE REST IS NOT OUR BUSINESS.

If you succeed in not being in agreement or disagreement, the rest is going to happen. It has always happened. It always happens.

And a few lines from W.H. Auden...

THEREFORE, SEE WITHOUT LOOKING, HEAR WITHOUT LISTENING, BREATHE, WITHOUT ASKING:

THE INEVITABLE IS WHAT WILL SEEM TO HAPPEN TO YOU PURELY BY

CHANCE;

THE REAL IS WHAT WILL STRIKE YOU AS REALLY ABSURD...

Unless you are certain you are dreaming, it is...

CERTAINLY A DREAM OF YOUR OWN;

UNLESS YOU EXCLAIM -- THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE" -- YOU MUST BE

MISTAKEN.

THE INEVITABLE IS WHAT WILL SEEM TO HAPPEN TO YOU PURELY BY

CHANCE... the inevitable can happen here -- and you have come here only by chance. It is a chance meeting that you are here and I am here... it is just accidental, pure chance.

THE INEVITABLE IS WHAT WILL SEEM TO HAPPEN TO YOU PURELY BY

CHANCE;

THE REAL IS WHAT WILL STRIKE YOU AS REALLY ABSURD...

Because the real is so vast, it cannot be contained by your categories of reason, irreason; good, bad; this, that. The real is so vast that all your categories have to dissolve into it.

THE REAL IS WHAT WILL STRIKE YOU AS REALLY ABSURD... so what is to be done? THEREFORE, SEE WITHOUT LOOKING...

What is the meaning of seeing without looking? See -- without any conclusions. When you have a conclusion you are already looking for something -- you are not seeing, you are looking for something. If you have a conclusion then your vision is not pure.

THEREFORE, SEE WITHOUT LOOKING, HEAR WITHOUT LISTENING, BREATHE, WITHOUT ASKING:

THE INEVITABLE IS WHAT WILL SEEM TO HAPPEN TO YOU PURELY BY

CHANCE;

THE REAL IS WHAT WILL STRIKE YOU AS REALLY ABSURD...

The Divine Melody

Chapter #8

Chapter title: : Trust is a touchstone

8 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701080

ShortTitle:

MELODY08

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

102

mins

Question 1

I WANT TO BECOME A SANNYASIN BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN THEN?

Nothing sir, nothing in particular. Exactly nothing: that's the commodity I deal in.

Literally, it is much ado about nothing. But the nothing is not just nothing; it is the source of all.

Sannyas means you are tired of being yourself and you are ready to drop that burden.

You are tired of being and you would like to rest in nonbeing. Sannyas is a state of nonbeing. You drop yourself and you enter the realm of nothingness... and suddenly everything is beautiful -- because things were ugly because of you. They were not ugly in the first place, not ugly themselves, it was your interpretation; you were corrupting them.

Now the corrupting agent is no more there, eyes are clear and one can see through and through; one's vision is transparent. YOU disappear in sannyas. And the moment you disappear, immediately, instantly, God appears. When you are not, God is.

So sannyas is not a way to decorate your being. Sannyas is utterly destructive. I annihilate you. In the old Eastern scriptures it is said, "The master is a death." The master is the greatest death -- but only through death, new life becomes possible. The greater the death, the greater the resurrection. Let me be your cross. Die in me so that you can be reborn.

You ask what will happen if you take sannyas. This question arises out of fear, out of greed. You would like to be certain, promised, what will happen. If I promise you anything that very promise will become the barrier; then sannyas will not happen --

because to whom am I promising? To you: to your greed, to your ambition, to your desire

-- to all that nonsense I am promising -- and that whole nonsense has to go. Not even a bit can be allowed to remain. If even a bit remains, that's enough. Ego is like cancer: you have to utterly annihilate it. Even if a small part remains somewhere, it will grow again...

and cancer grows fast.

Kamal has sent me a beautiful anecdote; I would like you to meditate over it...

Once Mulla Nasruddin came home, as usual very drunk. His wife was in a rage, more so because he had just promised the other day that he was trying to leave his habit by and by. And the wife said, "Now, what about your leaving the habit?" Mulla said he had tried his best to break the habit, but when he cut `h' from the word `habit' still à bit' remained.

When he cut à' still `bit' remained, and when he cut `b' still ìt' remained.

Ego is like that. You go on cutting: à bit' remains... `bit' remains... ìt' remains -- but it REMAINS. And this desire to be certain what is going to happen, is an effort of the ego to survive even sannyas. No, I cannot promise you. You are to go TOTALLY -- then something is going to happen. But you cannot even conceive it, what it is.

It is just like a blind man asking, "What is going to happen when my eyes will be operated on and I will be able to see? What is going to happen? Tell me -- otherwise I am not going to take this operation. Let me first be certain. Let me feel what is going to happen." What can you say to the blind man? Can you say, "You will be able to see colors and the rainbow and the butterflies and the flowers"? "you will be able to see light

-- light playing on water, sunrays being reflected by dewdrops"? He will say, "What you are saying is all nonsense. I don't know what you are talking about. Talk sense!" Because to talk to a blind person in the language of those who have eyes is nonsense. I cannot say to you what is going to happen, and whatsoever I say you will not be able to understand, and whatsoever YOU can understand is not going to happen. Hence trust is needed.

Sannyas is not a conversion, it is a quantum leap in trust. Sannyas is a gambling, it is not a bargain. I can say only one thing: you will not be there. Something will be there -- call it "x". Old religions call it God. Buddha calls it nirvana, Jesus calls it the kingdom of God. But all those words are meaningless to you. Kingdom of God? -- talking about a rainbow to a blind man? talking about Beethoven's symphony to a deaf man? No, it does not carry any meaning. I cannot say what is going to happen. The only meaningful word that I can say is: Nothing is going to happen, exactly nothing. But remember, nothing does not mean nothing; it means the source of all. That's what Buddha's word `nirvana'

means: nirvana means `nothing'. Nirvana simply means you will cease to be, you will not be there.

The word `nirvana' means exactly as when you put off a candle. When you blow a candle out, if somebody asks where the light has gone what will you say? You will say it has disappeared into nothingness; it is no more, it is lost into the whole. To put a candle off, to blow a candle out, is the literal meaning of the word `nirvana'. Sannyas is a readiness to be put off: the candle that is burning in you, the candle of ego, will not longer be there.

Instead of it there will be a tremendous space.... But that space is not known to you, it is not your experience.

You can see it in my eyes if you try. You can feel it in my presence if you allow. But to say anything about it will not carry meaning. It will become philosophy; it will not be truth. Truth uttered becomes false -- not because it is uttered but because those who will hear it are bound to misunderstand it. Either they know it -- then they can understand it, but then there is no need to utter it; or they know not -- then the need is there to utter it but then they cannot understand it, they can only misunderstand.

If you allow me, totally, unconditionally, something is going to happen -- something of tremendous import, immeasurable.... Even the sky is not the limit for it, because it has no limit. It is tremendous, huge; it is oceanic. But if you don't allow me, then too, nothing will happen -- nothing in the sense that you know the word. If you allow me then nothing will happen in the sense I am using the word. If you don't allow me, you can take sannyas, you will be in orange -- but the same old ego will now be hiding behind orange.

Maybe the ego will even become more strengthened.

I have heard...

An organ-grinder appeared beneath Mascagni's window one morning and began to play the famous "Intermezzo". He played at such a fast tempo that the composer could not stand it. Rushing to the street, Mascagni seized the handle of the instrument and turned it at the proper speed, explaining to the bewildered organ-grinder that, since he had composed the piece, he wished it to be played correctly.

The next morning, the organ-grinder appeared outside the composer's house with a huge sign in front of his organ, which read: "Pupil of the Celebrated Mascagni."

So if you don't allow me, this will happen: you will have a huge sign -- "Pupil of so-andso, Disciple of so-and-so" -- but the sign will only be a new injection of vitality to the dying ego. it depends, because when you take sannyas two persons are involved: I am involved and you are involved. So what will be the outcome depends on us both -- me and you. If you allow me, then nothing will happen -- nothing in the sense of the vastness out of which everything arises, in the sense of God. If you don't allow me, then too, nothing will happen -- in the sense you know the word. Or, something can even go very wrong: you can become a new egoist -- the ego of the sannyasin, the ego of the meditator, the ego of the righteous, the ego of the knower.

So it depends. If you are really going to take sannyas then let it be in my way not in your way, because in your way it only appears that it has happened -- it has not happened. It can happen only in my way. In fact, you cannot take sannyas, you can only allow me to give it to you.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

WHY DO I STILL NOT TRUST YOU?

It is from Arup.

First, a parable: meditate over it. It will reveal mysteries to you about how the mechanism of mind functions.

There is a story that when the great library of Alexandria was burned, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book, and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers. It was not very interesting, yet there was a most interesting thing in it. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the "touchstone".

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold The writing explained that it was on the shores of the Black Sea lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles which looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: the real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold. So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing the pebbles.

This was his plan: he knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebbles hundreds of times. So when he felt one that was cold he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this, and they were none of them the touchstone. Then he spent a week, a month, a year, three years... but he did not find the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way: pick up a pebble, it's cold, throw it into the sea... and so on and so on. Just visualize the man doing it for years and years and years -- pick up a pebble, it is cold, throw it into the sea... from morning to evening, for years and years.

But one morning he picked up a pebble and it was WARM -- and he threw it into the sea.

He had formed the habit of throwing them into the sea, you understand, and habit made him do it when at last he found the touchstone, poor fellow.

That's how mind functions. Trust is a touchstone. Very rarely do you find a man in whom you can trust. Very rarely do you find a heart who is warm, loving, in whom you can trust. Ordinarily you find pebbles which look like the touchstone, almost alike, but all are cold. year in, year out, from the very childhood: you pick up a pebble, you feel it, it is cold, you throw it into the ocean.

One day -- it is a very rare phenomenon -- you come across a real touchstone. You pick it up, it is warm, but still you throw it. Then you cry and weep, then you cannot understand how it happened -- but it is a simple mechanism. From the very childhood you are brought up to mistrust. You are brought up in such a way that you cannot trust. Doubt has been put deep into your being. In fact, it is a survival measure: if you don't doubt, you will not be able to survive. You have to look at the world with hostile eyes, as if everybody is your enemy. Nobody is warm, nobody is a touchstone. You cannot even trust your own parents. And the child by and by comes to know that nobody is there who can be trusted. The parents are very contradictory; they say one thing, they do another thing. The child feels confused. It is very difficult for the child to figure it out, what the mother really wants. In fact, the mother herself does not know. And the child again and again feels that it is impossible to trust anybody.

Just the other day, I was reading a memoir. An old woman relates one incident of her youth when her first child was born. The child was very curious, as children are, and one day the child asked, "Mummy, what is marriage?" He was looking into a book, a colored book of pictures, in which he had come across the word `marriage'. He became very curious; he said, "What is marriage?"

And the mother said, "Marriage is a tremendous experience of love, intimacy, joy, delight into each other's being; living in love with a person with joy and celebration is marriage."

The child became very much puzzled. The mother said, "Why are you so puzzled?" So the child said, "That means you are rarely married -- once in a while only. Months pass, then rarely there is a moment when I see you and Daddy happy, married. Just this morning, you were not married -- you were nagging and he was shouting."

Now, how to convince this child? What the mother has said goes contrary to her own life-pattern. She has explained marriage as an experience of love, delight, sharing, and she may not have even been aware of what she was saying. And now the child is puzzled. No, even your own mother cannot be trusted.

Your father goes on saying to you: "Be truthful" -- and you find a thousand and one times that he is untruthful. He even tells the child to go and tell the beggar who is knocking on the door that Daddy is not at home. And the child is puzzled: the father goes on saying,

"Be truthful, never lie" -- and he is lying! How to trust? And the child asks, "Is there God?" and the father says with tremendous confidence, "Yes there is. God created the world" -- and one day or other the child discovers, "My father has not known. He simply deceived, bluffed. He himself is searching. He has not known God; he has not known that God has created the world."

Mistrust is born. Feeling the cold pebbles again and again, you become accustomed to throw them. Then, not only this happens, an even deeper danger arises out of it.

Mistrusting everybody who is around you.... Your teachers, your parents, your friends, neighborhood, society, the priest, the politician -- all are cheating, all are deceiving.

Nobody can be trusted in this world: this conclusion, sooner or later, dawns on the child's mind. Then an even greater damage has been done: he cannot even trust himself. Why? --

because whatsoever he does according to his nature, is never liked by anybody.

Whatsoever he does according to his feeling is always wrong, found to be wrong.

He wants to go out and play with the children and the mother says, "Do the homework."

If he trusts his own feeling he has to go out and play -- but that is dangerous. The mother will be angry, and tomorrow in the school the teacher will be angry... and the punishment of it all. He cannot trust his own feeling so he forces himself to sit there and do the homework. When he wants to sing, he cannot sing. When he wants to play, he cannot play. and whatsoever he wants, everybody seems to be against it. There seems to be a conspiracy. by and by, he comes to know that "If I do MY thing I am punished. If I don't do my thing I am rewarded." How can one trust oneself then? -- dangerous. So first he loses trust in others, then he loses trust in himself.

That's why, Arup, it is difficult to trust. You are now in a situation which goes against your whole life-pattern. When you come to a master you have come to a touchstone, and nothing can happen with a master unless you trust. And unless you trust unconditionally, nothing is possible.

Unconditional trust is a basic condition. Now your whole life is against it. Many times you will miss -- that is natural, nothing to be worried about. Many times you will be lost in your doubt -- remember, come back again; hold the thread of trust again. By and by, as you have learnt mistrust, you will have to unlearn it. As you have learnt mistrust, you will have to learn trust too. And to learn mistrust is easy because it is very ego-fulfilling. To learn trust is more difficult because it is very ego-shattering.

Trust brings into your life a new breeze, a new opening, a new door. You have not travelled that way ever; you have not moved in that direction ever. You are not acquainted, familiar; you are moving into the strange -- fear arises. And you cannot trust yourself either -- otherwise there would not be so much fear. If you had trusted yourself then you could have a try, then you could have a certain confidence in yourself -- even that is not there. Trust as such has simply disappeared from your life; that dimension is closed. So your ind will find a thousand and one arguments against trust.

You cannot trust anybody. How can you trust me? -- I am outside you. I am part of the outer world -- as your parents were, the society, the priest, the politician. You cannot trust Christ if you come across him, because how to trust him? -- he is outside you. You cannot trust Buddha. And you cannot trust yourself -- otherwise you could take a little risk.

I have heard...

Mulla Nasruddin limped into the doctor's office with a badly swollen ankle.

"Goodness, man!" said the doctor, after looking at Nasruddin's ankle. "How long has tit been in this condition?"

"About three months," said the Mulla.

"Why, this ankle is broken!" said the doctor. "Why didn't you come to me right away?"

"Well, I sort of hesitated," said the Mulla, "because every time I say anything is wrong with me my wife insists that I stop smoking."

"Anything wrong with me, and she immediately jumps on me and says: Stop smoking! --

so I hesitated." Now, the ankle has nothing to do with smoking, but wives are wives, and husbands are husbands, and parents are parents, and the society is society.

Have you any remembrance of any time in your life when trust was helpful? Do you remember any time when trust was beneficial? Always, whenever you trusted, you were deceived. By and by, you lost confidence in your own trust, in your own being. In fact, I don't see a problem why you can't trust. The miracle is that you have come across a person where the problem has arisen, why you can't trust. This is a great indication -- that now you have started thinking about trust, that a desire to trust is arising, that the seed is sprouting. I have heard...

The Irish army platoon got lost on manoeuvres in Kerry. The sergeant called out to a passing local, "How much further to Dingle?"

"Two miles," was the reply.

They marched on, and after an hour the sergeant asked another man how far they had to go to Dingle. "Two miles' came the answer again.

After another hour they asked again, and the reply this time was still, "Two miles."

For a moment the sergeant looked depressed. Then, wiping the perspiration from his face, he straightened his back. "Come on, men!" he ordered. "At least we're holding our own."

I am happy, Arup, that at least the question arises. At least you have not lost the inquiry about trust. That's enough; now much is possible. If you insist on this query again and again, if you go on inquiring into situations where you allow trust.... In the beginning it will be difficult, just because of old habits. Once it starts happening, little by little, inch by inch, you will be filled with so much warmth that you will be able to risk more and more. Only by experiencing it will you gather courage. And one day, one can risk ALL

for trust -- because through trust is God, through trust is love, through trust is all that is beautiful. Through doubt, nothing but misery; through doubt, nothing but darkness; through doubt, nothing but nightmares; through doubt, nothing but hell.

The choice is yours. The society has one its work, it has corrupted you deeply. Now there is no need to go on weeping on the spilled milk, there is no need to cry over it.

Whatsoever has happened, has happened; but it can be undone -- you have to take a conscious note of it and start working on it. That is the greatest thing in life to work for.

Trust opens the door for the unknown.

Trusting me, you will learn to trust yourself. It looks paradoxical: I say "Trusting me you will be able to trust yourself" because trusting me, for the first time you will start tasting what trust is, and how beautiful, what a benediction.... The master is just a via media. He simply gives you a situation where you can taste what trust is, and by and by he will throw you back to yourself.

I am not here to make you cripples, and I am not here to function as your crutches. I am not going to carry you on my shoulders; I am not interested in that type of work at all.

Trusting me, I simply want to give you a taste of this beautiful nectar. Through it you will be able to walk on your own, through it you will be able to trust others, through it you will be able one day to trust life itself. That day, you become religious.

Not trusting in the Koran, not trusting in the bible, not trusting the Gita, you become religious. You become religious when you trust life. When your trust is such that you are cheated a thousand and one times but still you go on trusting.... Because to be cheated is nothing -- to lose trust is all.

Once can be deceived: I am not saying that when you trust you will not be deceived -- no, never; I am not saying that. You may become more of a victim and many people will deceive you. I am not promising that when you trust, nobody is going to deceive you; that is nonsense -- in fact, people may deceive you more. But now you know that being deceived is better than losing trust. Because trust gives you the eternal; and even if you are not deceived, what are you going to save? A little money, a house, this and that -- and death will take them away anyhow, so what is the fear? Just for these small things you throw trust? you throw prayer? you throw love? You say, "How can I love when people are so deceiving?" Let them be deceiving. What can they deceive about? What can they rob? What have you got that they can rob? They can take away your money, something you used to possess, but if trust is left you will have your soul... and that is the kingdom of God.

Question 3

SOME DAYS I FEEL LIKE A SWAMI AND OTHERS LIKE A MA. CAN I BE

BOTH? OR WILL I GROW UP SCHIZY?

The question is from Mallika.

Everybody is both, and you have become aware -- that's very good; that's a great insight into your being. Everybody is both. The difference between a man and a woman is not much; the difference is only of degree, quantity -- not of quality. A woman may be sixty percent woman and forty percent man, or may be just fifty-one percent woman and forty-nine percent man. And so is the case with men. It is only a question of percentage -- but both exist in you.

You come from both -- from your father and from your mother; they both have contributed to you. Men and women are not just men and women: they are bisexual, they are a meeting-place of both the sexes. The polarity is there. So, no woman is just a pure simple woman. If you understand this your life will become more clear to you.

In some moments a woman is more of a man than a woman, and so is the case with a man. In some moments he is very feminine; in some moments he is male, in some moments he is female. There are soft moments and there are hard moments, there are aggressive moments and there are receptive moments.

But up to now, the society has been conditioned in such a way, we have been taught and brought up in such a way, that man is man, woman is woman. This is a very false arrangement, untrue to nature. If a man starts crying and weeping, people start telling him, "Don't weep like a woman, don't cry like a woman; don't be sissy." This is nonsense

-- because a man has as many tear-glands in his eye as a woman. If nature had not meant for him to cry and weep then there would have been no tear-glands.

Now this is very repressive. If a girl starts behaving like a man, is ambitious, aggressive -

- mm? -- people start thinking that something is wrong: something hormonal is wrong.

They call her a tomboy; she is not a girl. This is nonsense! This division is not natural; this division is political, social. Women have been forced to play the role of women twenty-four hours, and men have been forced to play the role of men twenty-four hours, which is very unnatural and certainly creates much misery in the world.

There are moments when a man is soft and should be feminine. There are moments when the husbands should be the wife and the wife should be the husband, and this should be very natural. And there will be more rhythm and more harmony. If a man is not SUPPOSED to be a man twenty-four hours, he will be more relaxed. And if a woman is not supposed to be twenty-four hours a woman she will be more natural and spontaneous.

Yes, sometimes in a rage a woman becomes more dangerous than a man, and sometimes in soft moments a man is more loving than any woman -- and these moments go on changing. Both these climates are yours; so don't think that you are becoming schizophrenic or something. This duality is part of nature. This duality exists up to the sixth center, the AJNA chakra. Only beyond the sixth the duality disappears -- but the duality disappears in the sense that now it becomes so harmonious, so one, that "man"

and "woman" carry no sense.

In India we have depicted God as ARDHANARISHWAR -- half-man, half-woman. That is tremendously beautiful. That seems to be the best image ever invented of God: half-man, half-woman. That's how it should be. When you reach to the seventh, to the ultimate growth in your being, you will neither be a man nor a woman; or, both together -- in such harmony that there will be oneness. But before that, the duality continues. Nothing is wrong in it. Don't be afraid of it, because if you become afraid you wills tart repressing --

and any part repressed is a hindrance, is a block, towards the ultimate growth. No part should be repressed, no part should ever be rejected and denied: all has to be made part of the organic unity. Each part of you has to meet and merge into the other so that the conflict disappears and you become an orchestra.

And this is happening at each center. Look: our divisions are all false divisions. On the tree, on the apple tree, there is one apple. You say it is outer to you, outside of you; it is not inner, certainly not -- it is hanging on the tree. You eat it; you have eaten the outer.

You digest it: it becomes your blood, your bone, your marrow... it will turn into your dreams, into your poetry, into your painting. Now it is no more outer, it has become part of the inner. The outer has dissolved into the inner. Then one day you die, and the earth will use your body as a manure, and again in the apple tree one apple will be born. Now the inner has become the outer.

The inner and the outer are continuously meeting and merging into each other. The demarcation is only utilitarian; it is not real. Where does the inner end and the outer begin? -- can you tell me? can you make an exactly clear line, where? The outer is continuously moving into the inner: you are breathing in. And the inner is continuously moving into the outer: you are breathing out. There is no demarcation between the outer and the inner, they are one.

In the same way, there is no demarcation between the lower and the higher. But people have mad ideas of demarcations, categories. People even think that the lower body is lower and the upper body is higher. Just because the lower body is lower they think it is lower as a value. Nonsense -- because your blood continues to flow around the body: the same blood goes to the feet, the same comes to the head. Your oxygen goes on being divided all over the body; you eat, and the food is digested by the whole body -- not the lower and the higher. The lower and higher are two aspects of the same reality, and so it is about man and woman. And if you look deeply then all duality is just a human categorization to understand things. Arbitrary is the categorization -- otherwise, everything is part of everything else. This whole existence is one.

Mm? -- that is the meaning of Kabir singing again and again: Wherever you find the one, touch the feet. Wherever you find outer and inner meeting, the higher and lower meeting, the material and the God meeting, wherever one is present, bow down, surrender to it.

You are closer to reality when you are closer to the one. That's why I say that the true sage will not be an escapist, because for him there can be no "this world and the other world." For him, this shore is the other shore. He will be in the world and not of the world. He will be a lotus flower -- in the water, and yet untouched by it. For him there is no division. In fact, for him there is no division into good and bad, moral and immoral, God and Devil. All divisions are part of one organic existence.

So Mallika, a good insight has happened to you. Don't lose it, and don't be worried that you are going schizophrenic. Up to the sixth, the division remains and becomes more and more clear cut; and again and again one will feel the changing, shifting. It is a shift: a few hours you are man, a few hours you are woman. If you watch it exactly, you can know exactly how many minutes you are a man and how many minutes you are a woman. It is a periodical change. In yoga they have worked hard on these inner secrets. If you watch your breath, that will exactly give you the time. When one nostril, the left nostril, is breathing you are feminine. When the right nostril is breathing you are male. And after nearabout forty-eight minutes they change.

Continuously -- day, night -- this change happens. When you are breathing by the left nostril your right-brain hemisphere functions: the right is the feminine part. When you are breathing from the right nostril your left brain functions: that is the male part. And sometimes you can play games with it. If you are very angry then do one thing: close your right nostril and start breathing by the left, and within seconds you will see the anger has disappeared -- because to be angry you need to be in the male part of your being. Try it and you will be surprised. Just by changing the breath from one nostril to another, something of tremendous importance changes. If you are feeling very cold towards the world then breathe from the left nostril and let your imagination, fantasy, warmth, flow in

-- and you will suddenly feel full of warmth.

In tantra they say: Never make love unless you have checked your nostril -- never make love. If the man is breathing from the feminine nostril then the woman has to breathe from the male nostril. Then there will be real orgasm. Otherwise, love will be just a wastage of energy -- not more than sneezing. You will feel relived after a sneeze -- a good sneeze, one feels relieved -- but nothing much will happen out of it.

If the woman is in the feminine nostril, then the man has to be in the male nostril. And according to this, Vatsayana -- the first REAL sexologist -- worked hard into deeper mysteries. He says: When the woman is in the male climate she should be on top of the man, she should play the role of the man. Man need not be always in the missionary posture.... That is called "the missionary posture" in the East because in the East it was never known that the man has to be always on the top. Only when Christian missionaries came to the East people became aware that this foolishness exists in the West -- so it is known as the missionary posture.... Sometimes the woman is in a male climate: she should be on the top and she should be active; and the man, if he is in the feminine climate, should be passive. He should play wife and she should play husband. And then there will be a great meeting.

And this has to be remembered always, because there are acts which can be done more easily when you are in the male climate. When you are doing something hard -- carrying a rock, pushing a rock -- check your nostril. If it is not in the male climate it is not good.

It may be dangerous for the body: you will be very soft. When you are playing with a child, or just sitting with your dog, feel that you are in the feminine -- more affinity will arise. When you are writing a poem or painting or making music you should be in the feminine... unless you are trying to create a war music! then it is okay, you should be in the male climate -- aggressive.

Watch it, and you will be becoming more and more aware of these two polarities. And this is good that these two polarities exist: that's how nature arranges for rest. When the male part becomes tired you move to the female part; the male part rests. When the female part is tired you rest; you become male. And this is an inner economy -- one goes on changing. But your society has taught you wrong things: that a man is a man, and HAS to be a man twenty-four hours -- this is too much of a duty. And a woman has to be a woman twenty-four hours -- soft, loving, compassionate: this is too much of a duty.

Sometimes she also wants to fight, be angry, throw things -- and this is good, if you understand the inner play.

I have heard... A little boy was overheard by his mother. He was sitting all alone in his room, bored, and he was muttering: "I wish I were two dogs -- then I could play together."

These two polarities are a good inner play -- the play of consciousness. This is how God has become divided in you, to have a play of hide-and-seek with himself. When the play is over, when you have learnt that which is to be learnt from the play, when the lesson has been learnt, then you pass beyond the sixth.

The seventh is neither male nor female: the seventh is neutral. That's why in Indian languages BRAHMA, `God', is a neutral word, neither masculine nor feminine. It has no gender: it is the merger of both, absolute merger -- and in the merger is transcendence.

Question 4

DOES ATTAINMENT TO THE SEVENTH CHAKRA, SAMADHI, TOTAL

DISSOLUTION OF THE EGO, MEAN THAT ONE NO LONGER IS INTERESTED

IN THE PROBLEMS THAT FACE MANKIND? -- HUNGER, POVERTY, MISERABLE LIVING CONDITIONS, LITTLE ROOM TO DEVELOP ONE'S OWN

ABILITIES, TALENTS.

In fact, before you have dropped your own problems, you cannot have the right perspective to understand the world problems. Your own home is in such a mess, your own inner being is in such a mess -- how can you have a perspective to understand VAST

problems? You have not even understood yourself; start from there, because every other start will be a wrong start.

And people who are in a tremendously confused state of mind start helping others, and start proposing solutions. These people have created more troubles in the world than they have solved. These are the real mischief-mongers: the politicians, the economists, the so-called public servants, missionaries. These are the real mischief-mongers -- they have not solved their own inner consciousness yet, and they are ready to bump into everybody else and to solve everybody else's problem. In fact, in this way they are avoiding their own reality: they don't want to face it. They want to remain engaged somewhere else with somebody else -- this gives them good occupation, good distraction.

Remember: you are the world problem, YOU are the problem, and unless you are solved, whatsoever you do is going to make things more complicated. First bring your home in an order -- create a cosmos there; it is a chaos.

There is one ancient Indian fable, a very old story but of great importance...

A great but foolish king complained that the rough ground hurt his feet, so he ordered the whole kingdom to be carpeted with cowhide to protect his feet. but the court fool laughed at this -- he was a wise man. Said he, "The king's idea is simply ridiculous."

The king was very angry and said to the fool, "You show me a better alternative, otherwise you will be put to death."

The fool said, "Sire, cut out small pads of cowhide to cover your feet." And this is how shoes were born.

There is no need to cover the whole earth with cowhide; just covering your feet covers the whole earth. And this is the beginning of wisdom.

Yes, there are problems, I agree. There are great problems. Life is so much of a hell.

Misery is there, poverty is there, violence is there, all kinds of madnesses are afloat, that's true -- but still I insist the problem arises in the individual soul. The problem is there because individuals are in a chaos. The total chaos is nothing but a combined phenomenon: we have all poured our chaos into it.

The world is nothing but a relationship; we are related with each other. I am neurotic, you are neurotic: then the relationship goes very very neurotic -- multiplied, not only doubled.

And everybody is neurotic, hence the world is neurotic. Adolf Hitler is not born out of the blue -- we create him. Vietnam is not born out of the blue -- we create it. It is our pus that comes out; it is our chaos that takes the toll. The beginning has to be with you: you are the world problem. So don't avoid the reality of your inner world -- that is the first thing.

You ask: "Does attainment to the seventh chakra, samadhi, total dissolution of the ego, mean that one no longer is interested in the problems that face mankind?"

No, in fact only then is one really interested. But his interest will be of a totally different kind: he will look to the root cause of it. When you are interested you are interested in the symptoms. When a Buddha or a Christ is interested he is interested in the root. You may not agree because you cannot see the root, you see only the symptom. He is interested --

but now he knows where the root is, and he tries hard to change that root.

Poverty is not the root, greed is the root. Poverty is the outcome. You go on fighting with poverty -- nothing will happen. Greed is the root; the greed has to be uprooted. War is not the problem, individual aggressiveness is the problem -- war is just the total. You go on doing protest marches, and war is not going to be stopped. That doesn't matter -- your protest marches, everything -- you can enjoy the fun. There are a few people who enjoy the fun; you can find them in any protest march. You can ask Astha -- her mother and her father have both been protesters. Anywhere you will find them protesting; all over the world her mother goes on rotting, protesting against everything. It is fun -- you may have also enjoyed it.

In my childhood, I used to enjoy it very much. I was in every procession, and even the elders of my town started worrying. They said, "You are everywhere -- whether it is a communist procession or a socialist or a congress... anti-communist... you are there." I said, "I enjoy the fun. I'm not worried about the political philosophy -- just shouting is so much fun; I enjoy the exercise."

You can enjoy; it does not make much difference -- war goes on. And if you look at these protesters you will see these are very aggressive people -- you will not see peace on their faces. They are ready to fight. Peace-protest marches any moment turn into riots. These are aggressive people -- in the name of peace they are showing their aggression. They are ready to fight: if they have power, if they have the atom bomb, they will drop th atom bomb to create peace. That's what all politicians say -- they say they are fighting so that peace can prevail.

The problem is not war, and Bertrand Russells are not going to help. The problem is inner aggression in individuals. People are not at ease within themselves, hence war has to exist

-- otherwise these people will go mad.

Each decade a great war is needed to unburden humanity of neurosis. You may be surprised to know that in the first world war, psychologists became aware of a very rare, strange phenomenon. When the war continued, suddenly the proportion of people who used to go mad fell almost to nil. Suicides were not committed, murders were not done, and people even stopped going mad. That was strange -- what has that to do with ar?

Maybe murders are not done because murderers have gone to the army, but what happened to people who commit suicide? Maybe they have also joined the army, but then what happened to people who go mad? -- they have even stopped going mad? And then again in the second world war the same thing happened, in a greater proportion; and then the link was known, the association.

Humanity goes on accumulating a certain quantity of neurosis, madness: each decade, it has to throw it out. So when there is war -- war means when humanity has gone mad as a whole -- then there is no need to go mad privately; what is the point? All are mad -- then there is no point in trying to become mad privately. When one nation is murdering another, and there is so much suicide and murder, what is the point of doing these things on your own? You can simply look at the TV and enjoy, you can read it in the papers and have the thrill.

The problem is not war, the problem is individual neurosis.

A man who has become enlightened looks into the deep causes of things. Buddha, Christ, Krishna, they have been looking into the root, and they have been trying to tell you: Change the root -- a RADICAL transformation is needed; ordinary reformations won't do. But then you may not understand -- because I am here, I go on talking about meditation... no, you can't see the relationship, how meditation is related with war. I see the relationship, you don't see the relationship.

My understanding is this: that if even one percent of humanity becomes meditative, wars will disappear -- and there is no other way. That much quantity of meditative energy has to be released. If one percent of humanity -- that means one in one hundred people --

becomes meditative, things will have a totally different arrangement. Greed will be less; naturally, poverty will be less. Poverty is not there because things are scarce; poverty is there because people are hoarding, because people are greedy. If we live right now, there is enough, the earth has enough to give us. But we plan ahead, we hoard -- then trouble arises.

Just think of birds hoarding... then a few birds will become rich and a few will become poor; then American birds will become the richest, and the whole world will suffer. But they don't hoard, so there is no poverty. Have you ever seen a bird poor? Animals in the forest -- nobody is poor, nobody is rich. In fact you don't even see fat birds and lean and thin birds. All the crows are almost alike; you cannot even recognize which is which.

Why? They enjoy, they don't hoard.

Even to become fat means you are hoarding inside the body -- that is a miserly mind.

Misers become constipated; they cannot even throw out. They hoard: they control even defecation, they go on hoarding even rubbish. Hoarding is a habit.

To live in the moment, to live in the present, to live lovingly, to live in friendship, to care... and then the world will be totally different. The individual has to change, because the world is nothing but a projected phenomenon of the individual soul.

No, he will be interested -- only he WILL be interested -- but his interested will be of different dimensions. You may not even be able to understand it. People come to me and they say, "What are you doing? There is poverty and there is ugliness, and you go on teaching about meditation. Stop this. Do something for poverty." But nothing can be done for poverty directly. Only meditative energy has to be released so people can enjoy the moment. Then there will be no poverty. Communism is not going to destroy poverty; it has not destroyed it anywhere. It has created new sorts of poverty -- and greater, and more dangerous: now the Russian is far MORE poor because he has lost his soul too.

Now he is really not an individual at all -- not even the freedom to pray and to meditate.

This is not going to help, this is destroying. These are the do-gooders -- avoid them.

And you say: "Will there not be a little room to develop one's own abilities, talents?" In fact there will be no need to develop them, they will START developing. When a man meditates he starts flowering. If he is a painter, he will become a GREAT painter. If he is a poet, then suddenly tremendous poetry will arise out of his soul. If he is a singer, for the first time he will sing a song that is close to his heart's desire.

No, there is no need to make any effort. When you are silent, rooted in your being, centered, your talents automatically start functioning. You start functioning the way God always wanted you to function. You start functioning the way you were born to function, you start functioning the way your destiny wants you to function. You become spontaneous. You start doing your thing -- and now you don't bother whether it pays or not, whether it makes you more respectable or not. It makes you happy, and that's enough. It makes you tremendously joyful, and that is more than enough.

Meditation releases your energies -- then there is no other need. And a man who has come to samadhi, the seventh chakra -- what more is possible? He functions as a God. He is a full blown-up existence. He has come to the ultimate flowering -- now nothing is needed. His every moment is creative, his every gesture is creative, his very life is grace.

But there are people who would like to go very roundabout: they would like to change the whole world first, and then they will come to themselves. But let me tell you, you will never be able to come to yourself i you go that far.

I have heard... An old man was sitting near Delhi and a young man was driving past. He came to a halt and asked the old man, "How far is Delhi?" The old man said, "If you go on the way you are going, and in the direction you are going, it is very very far. You will have to travel the whole earth -- because you have left Delhi behind, just two miles back."

If you turn, then it is not very far -- just a question of two minutes. If you go to change the whole world and THEN you think you will change yourself, you will never be able to; you will never be able to come back home. Start where you are. You are part of this ugly world: by changing yourself you are changing the world. What are you? -- a part of this ugly world. why try to change the neighbor? -- he may not like it, he may not want it, he may not be interested. If you have become aware that the world needs a great change, then YOU are the closest world to yourself: start from there.

But there are a few people who are very philosophical. They brood, and they go in roundabout ways.

I have been reading Leo Rosten's beautiful book THE JOYS OF YIDDISH. He tells of a great Jewish philosopher, Mr. Sokoloff, who had been dining regularly at a certain restaurant on Second Avenue, beginning each meal with a dish of chicken soup. One night, Mr. Sokoloff called out to his waiter, "Come back here and taste this soup."

"After twenty years," demurred the waiter, "you question the perfection of our wonderful chicken soup?"

"Come back and taste it," repeated Mr. Sokoloff.

"All right, all right," conceded the waiter, "I'll taste it -- but where's the spoon?"

"Aha!" cried Mr. Sokoloff.

He simply wants to say, "I don't have a spoon." Now he goes in such a roundabout way --

"Taste this soup...."

Don't go so roundabout, don't be so philosophical. If you don't have the spoon, simply say you need a spoon. The spoon will do.

All that one needs is a spoonful of meditation.

Question 5

THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE AT THE ASHRAM WHO ACT AS YOUR

INTERMEDIARIES -- TRANSLATING RESPONSES TO OUR LETTERS, GIVING

DARSHANAS, RUNNING KITCHENS, GUARDING GATES, RUNNING GROUPS.

ARE THEY ALWAYS OPEN PASSAGES FOR YOU? HOW TO SURRENDER TO

THEM IF THIS IS SO, OR IS RESISTANCE SOMETIMES APPROPRIATE?

They are not always open passages for me, they are sometimes hindrances -- but that's how I want them to be. If they were always open passages to me they would not be needed. They are needed to create a certain situation: they are needed to bring your resistance out. And if you are really surrendered to me you will be surrendered to them --

this is my will. And that will help you tremendously. It is very easy to surrender to me; it is very difficult to surrender to Krishna on the gate. But Krishna is me. When you surrender to him you will have more understanding of surrender.

When it is very easy to surrender, it is meaningless. When it is difficult, it is meaningful.

All these people here around me are doing everything that I want. Sometimes they are rough to you; then remember, I want them sometimes to be rough with you. Sometimes they are indifferent to you; then remember, I want them sometimes to be indifferent to you. Sometimes they seem to be simply hindering you for no reason at all -- right.

Remember, I want them to be that way.

A young girl went to see a big throat specialist. He specialized in big throats! She has a shore throat, and when she saw the nurse she told her about it. The nurse said, "Take all your clothes off."

The girl said, "I beg your pardon, but I've only got a sore throat."

She said, "Nevertheless, the doctor insists on all patients removing their clothes before he will see them."

So the young girl went into the ante-room to change and there was another girl in there, naked -- barefoot up to her neck! The young girl said, "This is ridiculous! I've only come here with a sore throat and I've got to remove all my clothes!"

The other one said, "What are you complaining about? I only came here to pay my bill."

You may find such situations here: surrender! It may be your throat, but if Krishna says undress, undress -- and you will be benefitted.

It is easy to surrender to me, to my love. It is not difficult at all -- you are all for it. But then I have to create a few hindrances. These are devices for you. If you use them you will be tremendously benefitted. If you don't use them you will unnecessarily be worried, in conflict, in anger, in anxiety. It is for you. It is up to you to choose whatsoever you want.

Remember one thing: you are here to disappear -- that remembrance will always help. So whomsoever, in whatsoever ways, helps you to disappear, feel grateful to him.

And many times it may not be the gate-guards, it may not be the group-leaders -- it may be just YOU who feels that way. It may be just your idea of how you have to be received and welcomed that may be creating the trouble.

A tipsy gent dropped a nickel into the telephone coin-box, dialed a number with great deliberation, and cried "Hello!" Hello!"

A voice at the other end of the wire called back, "Hello! Hello!"

The inebriated one banged the receiver down, and bellowed to the world at large, "This phone has an echo!"

Remember, it is more possible that you see your own face. I provide mirrors here: don't start fighting with the mirror.

I have heard that in the twenty-first century they invented a mirror to reflect your mind...

just as the body can be reflected, someday one is going to be discovered so that you can just look in the mirror and your mind is reflected.... And everybody was purchasing it and millions of mirrors were sold. But within a few days, the mirrors were thrown and broken and the sales simply dropped to zero.

The inventor was very much puzzled, and the company that was producing them, and hoping to earn millions of rupees, was simply at a loss -- what has happened? First they were selling so fast.... Then the inventor looked into the matter and found that nobody likes to see his own mind, so people dropped them -- sometimes accidentally... but knowingly, very deliberately; the accident was false. Sometimes they destroyed it themselves, sometimes they threw it out, sometimes they forgot it in the train... and by and by, they all went to the junkyard.

Then he invented another mirror which showed you as you would like yourself to be --

and that has been selling and selling and selling... and there is no end. Each person has spare mirrors too, in case sometimes one is broken. It shows you the ideal one -- as you would like yourself to be, as you really think, imagine, yourself to be.

These people here on the gates, group-leaders, Maneesha smelling you: all these people are the first type of mirrors. And I am not in favor of the second type of mirrors.

Question 6

BELOVED MASTER,

HOW DID YOU FEEL BEFORE YOU WERE ENLIGHTENED?

The question is from Chaitanya Hari. Just like you, Chaitanya Hari. Just stupid.

Question 7

WOW! I HAVE KISSED A RAJNEESH-FROG. HOW REALLY FAR OUT! HOW

COULD WE NOT GAIN FROM IT? -- THE WHOLE... TOWARDS WHAT'S

BEYOND ONENESS, EVEN...

You say FAR OUT? -- then you must have kissed somebody else's frog. If you kiss my frog you will feel far IN -- not far out, far in.

Question 8

YOU GO ON SPEAKING DAILY, ON AND ON, BUT WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU

WANT TO SAY, BELOVED MASTER?

A parable...

He said: I see.

And they said: He's crazy -- crucify him.

He still said: I see.

And they said: He's an extremist. And they tolerated him.

And he continued to say: I see.

And they said: He's eccentric. And they rather liked him, but smiled at him.

And he stubbornly said again: I see.

And they said: There is something in what he says. And they gave him half an ear.

But he said, as if he had never said it before: I see.

And at last they were awake. And they gathered about him and built a temple in his name.

And he only said: I see.

That's what I am saying: I see. I go on saying the same thing again and again -- that I see.

The day you will hear it in deep awareness, you will also be capable to see. There is nothing else to say. I see -- you can also see. And that seeing is the goal.

In the East, we don't call philosophy "philosophy," we call it DARSHANA.

DARSHANA means `the capacity to see'. When you come to see me, it is called DARSHANA. It means you have come to be with me, to see through me, with me, through my eyes. I am not conveying any message to you. I am simply shouting one thing: that I have seen, and I am seeing, and you are blind.

If you are ready to risk, open your eyes and see... and God is here.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #9

Chapter title: : The pause between two notes

9 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

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I.108. MAIN KA SE BU JHAVN

TO WHOM SHALL I GO TO LEARN ABOUT MY BELOVED?

KABIR SAYS: "AS YOU NEVER MAY FIND THE FOREST

IF YOU IGNORE THE TREE,

SO HE MAY NEVER BE FOUND IN ABSTRACTIONS."

I.92. AVADHU BEGAM DES HAMARA

O SADHU: MY LAND IS A SORROWLESS LAND.

I CRY ALOUD TO ALL, TO THE KING AND THE BEGGAR,

THE EMPEROR AND THE FAKIR --

WHOSOEVER SEEKS FOR SHELTER IN THE HIGHEST,

LET ALL COME AND SETTLE IN MY LAND:

LET THE WEARY COME AND LAY HIS BURDENS HERE:

SO LIVE HERE, MY BROTHER,

THAT YOU MAY CROSS WITH EASE TO THAT OTHER SHORE.

IT IS A LAND WITHOUT EARTH OR SKY,

WITHOUT MOON OR STARS:

FOR ONLY THE RADIANCE OF TRUTH

SHINES IN MY LORD'S DURBAR.

KABIR SAYS: "O BELOVED BROTHER:

NAUGHT IS ESSENTIAL SAVE TRUTH."

Love is the only miracle there is. Love is the ladder from hell to heaven. Love learned well, you have learned all. Love missed, you missed your whole life. People who ask about God are not in fact asking about God; rather than asking, they are declaring that they have not known what love is. One who knows love has known the Beloved: love is the insight into the Beloved. One who asks about light, simply says that he is blind. One who asks about God, simply says his heart has not bloomed into love.

Never ask about God. If you cannot see him that simply shows you don't have eyes to see. If you cannot hear him that simply shows you are deaf. If you cannot touch him that simply shows you are without hands -- that you don't have any sensitivity. God is not the problem, God cannot be the problem. God is not far away, God is herenow. All that is, is in God and is God -- so how can God be the problem? God is not to be searched: where will you search him? He is everywhere -- you just have to learn how to open your eyes of love. Once love has penetrated your heart, God is there. In the thrill of love is the Beloved: in the vision of love is the vision of God.

So God is the only real inner alchemy: it transforms your material life into the divine. It is the only alchemy, I say, because it changes the baser metal into gold. Without love, life is a dull affair, grey -- with no colors, with no songs, with no celebrations. One can drag and one can hope only for death: death will come and relieve you of your dragging long affair. Love brings color: the grey suddenly becomes a rainbow, explodes into a thousand and one colors, and the drab and the dull become psychedelic. Love changes the whole climate of your inner being -- and with that change the whole existence is changed.

Nothing is changed on the outside -- but once you are full of love you have a totally different existence available to you.

God and the world are not two things, it is the one existence. There is only one existence: seen without love, it looks material; seen without love, God looks like the world --

SANSARA. Seen with love, the world is transformed, transfigured... and the very world becomes divine.

Yes, then in sight there is music. When love has dawned, then miracles happen -- even in sight there is music; in sound, a luminous silence. Love is magical. And Kabir's whole teaching is that of love: he calls love "the divine melody." The heart, pulsating in love, becomes a flute on the lips of God... and a song is born. That song is religion.

Religion has nothing to do with churches and temples and rituals: religion is born only when somebody pulsates with love. Each individual has to give birth to a religion -- and unless you have given birth to a religion in you, you are not religious. You cannot join an organization and become religious, remember -- religion is not an organization to belong to. To be religious you have to give birth to religion in your innermost core, in your very core: when religion is born THERE, only then are you religious. Not by becoming a Christian but by becoming a Christ, not by becoming a Buddhist but by becoming a Buddha, religion is born.

When you are born in love, religion is born in you -- and then your whole life is a melody, a beautiful song. And then you will be surprised that nothing is wrong: all fits together. Right now, nothing fits together. Right now, you are a mess: right now, you are an anarchy. Right now, you are just traffic noise -- rushing in all directions, falling apart, disintegrating. Right now, you are nothing but anguish, agony. Once love is born, you have a center. Once love is born, you are centered -- and everything falls in tune with the center. You become an orchestra, a beautiful harmony. It is hidden in you: you have brought it into the world, it is yet unmanifest. Kabir says: Manifest it -- let your love be manifested. In that manifestation will be your prayer.

A few things, very basic and fundamental to understand, before we enter these beautiful sutras -- the last of the series.

The Talmud has a tremendously beautiful story to tell. A heathen came to Hillel -- a great Jewish mystic -- and cynically asked him: "Teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Now this is impossible; the Torah is a big scripture -- it really takes years to understand it. And this cynic, this skeptical person, says to Hillel: "If you have understood the Torah then give me the gist, the summary, the essential. While I stand on one foot, you tell me all that is in the Torah."

And this skeptic had been to other mystics also -- but they must not have been mystics; they were great theologians, philosophers, thinkers, pundits, scholars. They all had refused. They said, "This is impossible; the Torah needs years of study, a lifelong study.

And the Torah cannot be condensed into a few sentences -- that will be sacrilege. It is not possible." But Hillel agreed, and answered immediately: "Do not unto others as you would not have others do unto you. This is the whole Torah -- the rest is commentary."

Love is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary. And what is love? -- do not do unto others that which you would not like to be done to you. This is the criterion of love: do unto others that which you would like to be done to you. Whatsoever you ask for yourself, allow that to others too. Whatsoever you don't want to happen to you, don't do it to others. Think of yourself as the very center of existence. In fact, don't think of the other as the other: only you are. and in the other too, is the same life, the same song waiting to be uttered, the same urge to rise to the divine, the same seeking, the same inquiry, the same throbbing heart, the same agony, the same ecstasy.

This love is waiting in you. There is no necessity; it can wait and you can die. Birth is beyond you. You are already born -- nobody had asked, your permission was not taken at all, you were not even asked where you wanted to be born and what you wanted to become. You always find yourself in the middle of life; you are already here. Birth is no choice for you... nor is death. One day suddenly death will come, without even giving you any warning. And not for a single moment will death wait. Birth happens, death happens -- they are beyond you; you cannot do anything about them. Between birth and death there is only one thing you can do something about, and that is love.

These are the three great things of life: life, love, death. Life has already happened. Death is going to happen -- it is a certainty. In a way, it has already happened with birth: you have already taken one step into the grave. The day you are born, half the journey is complete; the remaining half will take a little time... or a little more. With life, death has also penetrated you: now only one thing remains to be done that YOU can do, something that depends on you, and that is love. And because it depends on you, there is every possibility that you may miss it.

That is the agony of love: you can miss it. If you don't do something, if you don't become alert, if you don't move towards it consciously, deliberately, you may miss it. There is every possibility that you may not be able to unfold it -- hence the fear, the trembling, the anguish, the anxiety: will I be able to make it? will I be able to move into love? will I be able to flow into love? But side by side with this agony there is an ecstasy -- that one is free.

It is because of freedom that the fear exists. If love was also predestined, as life and death are, then there would have been no fear, but then there would have been no ecstasy either

-- because ecstasy is possible only when you achieve something, when consciously you choose something, when deliberately you arrive somewhere, when it is YOUR journey and you are not being dragged. That's the beauty of love and that's the danger too.

Meditate on these lines from Rilke...

I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES

THAT FALL INTO A REAL ACCORDANCE SCARCE AT ALL

FOR DEATH'S NOTE TENDS TO DOMINATE.

BOTH THOUGH ARE RECONCILED

IN THE DARK INTERVAL TREMBLINGLY

AND THE SONG REMAINS IMMACULATE.

Lines of tremendous significance. I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES... death and birth. These are the two notes played on you by the unknown. And I AM THE

PAUSE BETWEEN THE TWO NOTES -- you are the pause, the interval, the gap, between birth and death. Very subtle.

I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES

THAT FALL INTO A REAL ACCORDANCE SCARCE AT ALL...

It is very rare. Only in a Buddha or in a Christ, death and life fall into real accord... and the melody is born -- in a Kabir, in a Mahavira. SCARCE AT ALL -- very rare is the phenomenon when life and death come to an inner harmony: the conflict ceases, the rift is bridged, and both become part of one melody -- not in conflict but in cooperation.

I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES

THAT FALL INTO A REAL ACCORDANCE SCARCE AT ALL

FOR DEATH'S NOTE TENDS TO DOMINATE...

Life has happened, birth has happened, now death is going to happen. So our life is predominated too much by death -- hence everybody is in search of security, safety, insurance: how to avoid death? How to prolong life a little longer? How to be here a little more? How not to die? How to escape from death? Death predominates -- hence money becomes so important.

Remember, the importance of money is the importance of death, because money gives you a false sense of security -- that you have money, that you have the physicians, that you have the medicine, that you have the bank balance, that you have the life insurance, that you have friends, that you have a good house, that if there is some trouble you are protected. So a person becomes obsessed too much with money: have more and more money, create big China Walls of money around you, so death cannot penetrate.

But nothing can prevent death. Your effort to prevent it simply destroys the opportunity which could have been a great experience, which could have flowered into love. There are only two types of people in the world: death-oriented and love-oriented. Life has already happened, so there is no question about it. Nobody is worried about birth -- that has already happened.

In India we have three gods -- TRIMURTI, the Indian trinity -- three faces of one god: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Brahma is the god who created the world, Vishnu is the god who maintains the world, and Shiva is the god who will destroy the world. Now, you will be surprised. There is not a single temple dedicated to Brahma, the god who created the world. Who bothers? -- once you have already created your work is finished. You will not find a single temple dedicated to Brahma. Yes, there is only one temple -- very rare, somewhere in India -- but it is impossible to find. Thousands and thousands of temples are there -- in one town you can find hundreds of temples, but not a single temple dedicated to Brahma, who has CREATED the world. What type of gratitude is this? But who bothers about life? -- it has already happened. Birth is not the question.

You will find Shiva worshipped everywhere; the most worshipped god is Shiva. Millions of temples are dedicated to Shiva: he is the god of death. Number two is Vishnu, who maintains life. People worship Vishnu; but even people who worship Vishnu, when they are in danger they immediately run to Shiva's temple -- because he is the ultimate god.

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva: three are the gods. Shiva is called "the great god" --

MAHADEVA; the other two are lesser gods. Death predominates.

I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN THE TWO NOTES

THAT FALL INTO A REAL ACCORDANCE SCARCE AT ALL

FOR DEATH'S NOTE TENDS TO DOMINATE.

BOTH THOUGH ARE RECONCILED

IN THE DARK INTERVAL TREMBLINGLY...

And that dark interval is love -- where death and life meet, where death and life embrace each other, where life and death have a love affair, where life and death come ton orgasm. Hence, there is tremendous attraction in love, because it is life... and fear also, because it is death too. When you make love to a woman or a man, you never go totally into it. You go so far, because it is life -- then you start hesitating, then you don't go any further, because then death is also there. It is the pause between the two notes, and it is dark -- the dark interval between the two.

Why does Rilke call it dark? Love IS dark. It is not just a coincidence that people have chosen the night to make love -- it is not just coincidence: there is some affinity between darkness and love. Making love in the bright light looks a little rude, vulgar, ugly.

Making love in the marketplace where others can watch is just insane. One needs privacy

-- and darkness gives you absolute privacy, because in the darkness you cannot see the beloved, the beloved cannot see you. You are absolutely alone; the other is not any interference.

Love has a quality of darkness in it, because it has depth. Darkness is always deep, light is shallow. Remember, howsoever much light is there, light is always shallow. Look: the day is shallow -- night is so deep, infinite. Love is like the dark... deep rest... falling into tremendous depth. Death is also dark: all over the world, death has been painted as dark.

Love is dark, death is also dark -- there is an affinity between love and death too.

Many people come to me and they say, "Why are we so much afraid of love? Why? We hanker for it, and yet we are afraid, and when the opportunity arises we are stuck; we cannot let go." Because love is half death and half life -- that is the dilemma. It is THE

PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES...

BOTH THOUGH ARE RECONCILED

IN THE DARK INTERVAL TREMBLINGLY...

You live in love, and you die too. Or -- you die, that's why you live. A crucifixion and a resurrection...

AND THE SONG REMAINS IMMACULATE.

Unless you have known what love is, you have not known what melody is. It is the meeting, orgasmic meeting, of death and life. Unless love is known, you have missed.

You were born, you lived, and you died -- but you missed. You missed tremendously, you missed utterly, you missed absolutely -- you missed the interval in between. That interval is the highest pinnacle, the peak experience. Kabir calls it the divine melody.

To attain it, there are four steps to be remembered. The first step: be herenow -- because love is possible only in the herenow. You cannot love in the past. Many people do that, but you cannot really love in the past. Many people simply live in the memory -- they loved in the past. And there are others who love in the future -- that too cannot be done.

These are ways to avoid love: the past and the future are the ways to avoid love. So either you love in the past, or you love in the future -- and love is possible only in the present, because only n this moment death and life are meeting... in the dark interval that is within you. That dark interval is always present, always present, always present. It is never past and it is never future.

If you think too much -- and thinking is always of the past or of the future -- your energies will be distracted from feeling. Feeling is herenow. If your energies are moving into the pattern of thinking then you will not have enough energies to move into feelings -

- and love will not be possible.

So the first step is: be herenow. Future and past bring thinking; thinking destroys feeling.

And a person too much obsessed with thinking, by and by completely forgets that he has a heart too. A man who is too much into thinking, by and by starts moving in such a way, starts living in such a way, where feeling has no say. Not listening to the feeling, by and by feeling starts falling away from him. There are millions of people in this state, who don't know what heart means. They think heart is just a pump. Their whole concentration is in the head. Head is an extremity; it is needed, it is a good instrument, but it has to be used as a slave. It should not be the master. Once the head becomes the master and the heart os left behind, you will live, you will die, but you will not know what God is because you will not know what love is.

The same dark interval, first contacted looks like love... and when you are lost into it totally, it becomes God. Love is the beginning of God -- or God, the ultimate peak of love.

The second step towards love, and towards the divine melody, is: learn to transform your poisons into honey. Because many people love, but then their love is very much contaminated by poisons -- with hate, with jealousy, with anger, with possessiveness... a thousand and one poisons surround your love. Love is a delicate thing. Just think of anger, hatred, possession, jealousy: how can love survive?

First, people move into the head and forget the heart -- they are in the majority. Then a minority still lives a little in the heart, but then that minority does another wrong: the small light of love is surrounded by jealousy, hatred, anger, a thousand and one poisons.

Then the whole journey becomes bitter. I told you, love is the ladder between heaven and hell, but the ladder is always a two-way thing: you can go up, you can come down. If there are poisons, the ladder will bring you down -- you will be entering into hell and not into heaven. And instead of attaining to a melody, your life will become a nauseous noise

-- conflicting, traffic noise; just a maddening noise -- a crowd of many noises with no harmony. You will remain on the verge of madness.

So the second thing to remember is: learn to transform your poisons into honey. How are they transformed? There is a very simple process. In fact, to call it transformation is not right, because you don't do anything; you only need patience. This is one of the greatest secrets I am telling you. Try it: when anger comes you are not to do anything; just sit silently and watch it. Don't be against it, don't be for it. Don't cooperate with it, don't repress it. Just watch it, be patient, just see what happens... let it rise.

Remember one thing: don't do anything in the moment of anger -- wait. Just give it a little time and wait... and you will be surprised. And one day you will understand that if you can wait enough, anger itself becomes compassion. It is a wheel; it is moving on its own -

- YOU are in a hurry. Just as night becomes day if you can wait a little, in the same way, anger becomes compassion if you can wait a little. The same energy -- just patience has to be added to it, nothing else. You try it.

Remember one thing: never do anything in the mood when the poison is possessing you; just wait. When the poison has started changing into its other.... This is one of the basic laws of life: that everything continuously changes into its other. Just as I told you that man changes into woman, woman changes into man, there are periodical changes in you -

- the good man becomes the bad, the bad man becomes the good; the saint has sinner's moments and the sinner has saintly moments... one has just to wait.

Act when the saint is uppermost -- that's all. Don't act when the sinner is uppermost, don't act when anger is uppermost, otherwise you will repent and you will create a chain of reactions and you will get into karma. That's the whole meaning of getting into karma.

Do anything when you are in a negative moment and you will be in a chain, and there is no end to it. When you are negative you do something, the other becomes negative, the other is ready to do something -- negativity creates more negativity. Negativity provokes more negativity, anger brings more anger, hostility brings more hostility, and things go on and on and on... and people have been entangled with each other for LIVES together.

And they continue!

Wait. When you are angry, this is the moment to meditate. Don't waste this moment anger is creating such great energy in you -- it can destroy. But energy is neutral -- the same energy that can destroy, can be creative. Wait. The same energy that can shatter, can shower life -- just wait. Waiting and not doing anything in a hurry, one day you will be surprised, seeing the inner change. You were full of anger, and then anger goes on and on and comes to a climax... and then the wheel turns. And you can see the wheel is turning, and the anger is relaxing, and energy is released, and now you are in a positive mood -- the creative mood. Now you can do something. Now do. Always wait for the positive.

And what I am saying is not repression. I am not saying to repress the negative, I am saying watch the negative. Remember the difference, tremendous difference is there. I am not saying sit on top of the negative, forget the negative, do something against it -- no. I am not saying that. I am not saying when you are angry, smile -- no; that smile is false, ugly, phoney. Don't smile when you are angry. Then close the room, keep a mirror in front of you, see your angry face yourself. There is no need to show it to anybody else. It is your business, it is your energy, it is your life, and you have to wait for the right moment. Go on looking in the mirror: see the red face, the red eyes, the murderer there.

Have you ever thought that everybody carries a murderer inside? You also carry a murderer inside. Don't think that the murderer exists somewhere else -- somebody else is a murderer who commits a murder -- no: everybody has the possibility to commit a murder. You carry the suicidal instinct in you.

Just look in the mirror: these are your climates -- you have to be acquainted with them.

This is part of the growth towards self-knowledge. You have heard so much, from Socrates to today: "Know thyself" -- but this is the way to know thyself. "Know thyself"

does not mean sit silently and repeat, "I am Brahma, I am Soul., I am God, I am This" --

all nonsense. "Know thyself" means know all thy climates, all possibilities -- the murderer, the sinner, the criminal, the saint, the holy man inside you, the virtue, the God, the Devil -- know all the climates, the whole range of it, and by knowing it you will be discovering secrets, keys.

You will see that anger cannot be there forever -- or can it be? You have not tried it; you try it -- it cannot be there forever. If you don't do anything, what is going to happen? Can anger hang there forever and forever? Nothing hangs there forever. Happiness comes and goes, unhappiness comes and goes. Can't you see a simple law? -- that everything changes, nothing remains permanent. So why be in a hurry? Anger has come -- it will be going. You just wait, have a little patience. Just look in the mirror and wait. Let anger be there, let your face go ugly and murderous -- but wait, watch.

Don't repress and don't act according to the anger, and soon you will see that the face is becoming softer, eyes are becoming calmer, the energy is changing -- the male turning into female... and soon you will be full of radiance. The same redness that was anger, now is a certain radiance -- a beauty on your face, in your eyes. Now go out: the time has come to act.

Act when you are positive. Don't force positivity, wait for the positivity to come on its own. This is the secret -- when I say "learn to transform your poisons into honey" this is what I mean.

And third: share. Whenever it is negative, keep it to yourself. Whenever it is positive, share. Ordinarily, people share their negativities; they don't share their positivities.

Humanity is simply stupid. When they are happy they don't share, they are very miserly.

When they are unhappy they are very very spendthrift -- then they are very much ready to share. When people smile they smile very economically -- just so, so far. But when they are angry they are totally angry. The third step is to share the positivity. That will bring your love flowing riverlike, arising from your heart. Your dilemma of the heart will start moving when you share.

I have heard a very strange saying of Jorge Luis Borges. Listen to it...

GIVE THAT WHICH IS HOLY UNTO THE DOGS

CAST THY PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

FOR THE THING THAT MATTERETH IS GIVING.

You have heard the contrary saying: Don't throw to the dogs, and don't cast pearls before the swine, because they will not understand. Says Borges...

GIVE THAT WHICH IS HOLY UNTO THE DOGS

CAST THY PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

FOR THE THING THAT MATTERETH IS GIVING.

The real thing is not what you are giving -- pearls and holiness and love -- and TO

WHOM you are giving; that is not the point. The point is that you are giving. When you have, give it.

Gurdjieff used to say, "All that I hoarded was lost, and all that I gave is mine. All that I gave is still with me, and all that I hoarded is lost, gone." True: you have only that which you have shared. You have only as much love as you have shared. Love is not a property to be hoarded, it is a radiance, a fragrance to be shared. The more you share, the more you have; the less you share, the less you have. The more you share, the more will be arising from your innermost core -- it is infinite: more will be welling up. Draw water from a well, and more water comes running fresh into the well. Don't draw the water, close the well, become a miser, and no more springs will function. By and by, spring will become dead, blocked; and the water that is in the well will die, will become stale, dirty.

The flowing water is fresh... the flowing love is fresh.

So the third step towards love is: share your positivities, share your life, share all that you have. Whatsoever beautiful is with you, never hoard it. Your wisdom, share; your prayer, share; your love, your happiness, your delight, share. Yes, if you cannot find anybody, share it with dogs -- but share. Share it with rocks -- but share. When you have pearls, throw them -- don't bother whether they are swine or saints, just throw them. THE

THING THAT MATTERETH IS GIVING.

Hoarding poisons the heart. All hoarding is poisonous. If you share, your system will be free of poisons. And when you give, don't bother whether it is responded to or not. Don't even wait for a thank-you. Feel grateful to the person who allowed you to share something with him. Not otherwise -- don't wait, saying deep in your heart that he should be thankful because you shared something with him. No -- feel thankful yourself that he was ready to listen to you, to share some energy with you... that he was ready to listen to your song... that he was ready to see your dance... that when you had come to give to him he didn't reject -- he could have rejected.

Sharing is one of the most spiritual virtues, one of the greatest spiritual virtues.

And the fourth: be nothing. Once you start thinking that you are somebody, you stop; then love does not flow. Love flows only out of somebody who is a nobody. Love abides only in nothingness. When you are empty, there is love. When you are full of the ego, love disappears. Love and ego cannot exist together. Love can exist with God but cannot exist with the ego, because love and God are synonymous. Love and ego are impossible to be together. So be nothing. That is the meaning of being humble, meek. Says Jesus: Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

These four steps -- and now the sutras will be easy to understand. First...

TO WHOM SHALL I GO TO LEARN ABOUT MY BELOVED?

"To whom shall I go to learn about my Beloved?' Kabir says: Where should I go to learn about my Beloved? Where is my Beloved? Where is his abode? and who can show it to me?

KABIR SAYS: "AS YOU NEVER MAY FIND THE FOREST

IF YOU IGNORE THE TREE,

SO HE MAY NEVER BE FOUND IN ABSTRACTIONS."

A tremendously significant sutra, of very great value -- like a criterion. Listen: I come across people who say, "We love humanity" -- and they have not loved a single human being. Humanity is an abstraction. How can you love humanity -- just tell me? Where will you find humanity/ How will you hug humanity? How will you kiss humanity/ No, these are tricks of the mind. Wherever you come across anyone, you will always come across a human being.

Humanity is nowhere; there are only human beings and human beings. Humanity is an abstraction, an idea; it just exists in the minds of philosophers -- nowhere else. But a very tricky idea: you can avoid human beings in the name of humanity -- you can even kill human beings in the name of humanity. You can say, "I am serving humanity, and you are coming in the way, so I will destroy you." That's what Adolf Hitler says, that's what Joseph Stalin says, that's what Chairman Mao says, that's what all the politicians of the world say: "We love humanity. To save humanity, we will have to kill human beings."

these are very tricky ideas.

KABIR SAYS: "AS YOU NEVER MAY FIND THE FOREST

IF YOU IGNORE THE TREE...

The forest exists not -- `forest' is just a word. That which exists is the tree. Trees and trees and trees -- they exist; and if you start looking for the forest and ignoring the trees, you will never find the forest. Maybe that's why so many people look for God and never find him -- they look for an abstraction. God is like the forest: you will find a tree, a rock, a man, a woman, a dog, a snake, a star -- these things you will find; you will not find God anywhere. God is the name of the totality. He exists in these particulars; he has nowhere any other existence. He exists in the snake as the snake, and he exists in the tree as the tree, and he exists in the rock as the rock, and he exists in the man as the man.

Kabir is indicating something of great importance. People ask; Where is God? Standing in the forest, they are asking, "Where is the forest?" If you say, "You are surrounded by forest," they will say, "This is an oak tree, this is a pine tree -- but where is the forest? I know there are trees, this is a pine tree -- but where is the forest? I know there are trees, but where is the forest? I want to know the forest." But this man will go mad and he will never come across the forest. Denying the tree, there is no forest. The forest exists in the oak, in the pine, in the cedar. The forest manifests into a thousand and one forms. The forest in itself cannot be found -- that is just an abstraction, a universal.

Find the particular and forget the universal. That is the difference between real religion and false religion. False religion is dedicated to abstractions, real religion is dedicated to particulars. Love the man, love the woman, love the child, love the animal, love the tree, love the stars.... Don't ask for God, and you will find God.

Loving a woman, loving an animal, loving a tree, by and by you will become aware that the tree is not just a tree. The tree far transcends the tree itself; it is transcendental.

Loving a woman, you will know that she is not just the body, not just the mind; something FAR transcendental is hidden behind. The woman becomes a window -- a window into God. Your own child becomes a window unto God.

Love the particular, the concrete, the real, and you can see what mischief people have done in the name of abstractions. Christians fighting against Mohammedans, Mohammedans fighting against Hindus, and asked, "For what?" -- they say, "God." The Mohammedan god is an abstraction, the Christian god is an abstraction, the Hindu god is an abstraction. Only godliness exists. And you kill the Hindu, and you kill the Mohammedan, and you kill the Christian: you kill real gods in the name of false ideas; you kill real persons in the name of theories.

Kabir says: This is no way -- so I am not going to ask anybody, "Where is my Beloved?"

I am going to love, and find my Beloved in loving. I am not going to ask, "Where is God?

What is God?" and the definition of it. No, I am going to start loving -- and through love the definition is going to come into me. The comprehension will come through love -- not through ideation, not through thinking. This is the way of the heart -- to start loving. And the way of the mind is to go on thinking.

AVADHU BEGAM DES HAMARA

And Kabir says: By loving, I have come to a point where no misery exists.

O SADHU: MY LAND IS A SORROWLESS LAND.

Love knows no sorrow. If you still know sorrow, you don't know love. Love knows no sorrow, no sadness. How can love know sorrow? It is impossible -- because love is a transcendence if life and death, both. It is going beyond life and death, both. It is the pause between two notes. It is higher than life, it is higher than death... how can there be sorrow? And it is a pause, silence... how can there be sorrow?

O SADHU: MY LAND IS A SORROWLESS LAND.

I CRY ALOUD TO ALL, TO THE KING AND THE BEGGAR,

THE EMPEROR AND THE FAKIR --

WHOSOEVER SEEKS FOR SHELTER IN THE HIGHEST,

LET ALL COME AND SETTLE IN MY LAND...

And Kabir says: Come to the land of love. Don't go on fighting about doctrines, dogmas.

Don't go on hair-splitting -- don't waste time. I have arrived -- and I declare to all and sundry, to kings and to beggars, and to emperors and to fakirs, "Come to my land!"

AVADHU BEGAM DES HAMARA... and I have arrived in a country where there is no sorrow. Why are you wasting your time in abstractions and theories and philosophisations? Come! -- LET ALL COME AND SETTLE IN MY LAND...

LET THE WEARY COME AND LAY HIS BURDENS HERE...

Only love can become the rest, only love is the shelter. You can find anything, except love, but you will only be finding new tensions and nothing else; and new burdens -- and those burdens are heavy.

Jesus says: Come to me all those who are heavily burdened. My burden is light. Come to me, rest in me.

... LET ALL COME AND SETTLE IN MY LAND:

LET THE WEARY COME AND LAY HIS BURDENS HERE...

Only in love, burdens disappear. Because what in fact is the basic burden? The basic burden is that of the ego: I am -- that is the basic burden. All other burdens are accumulated on this center. This is the very hub -- I am; then you accumulate many burdens. The center has to be destroyed. Love makes you a nobody, love takes you off your ground, love destroys your ego utterly. It annihilates, it kills you completely, and it gives you a new life -- a life without any ego: a humble life, a simple life, a life which God can live through. You become a hollow bamboo... and his music starts flowing through you. You don't hinder, because you are not there to hinder him. If you are, you are the hindrance.

People come to me and they ask: How can I go beyond sorrow? I tell them: You cannot go beyond sorrow. There IS a transcendence, but YOU cannot go; you will have to drop before it. Yes, there is a state of sorrowlessness, but you cannot enter into it; you will have to drop out of it. Something within you will enter, but not you. Something within you will go into that land of no sorrow, but not you: you are the sorrow.

Have you not watched it? -- the greater your ego, the greater sorrow it creates. It hurts --

it is like a wound. The lesser the ego, the less it hurts -- the wound is healed. When there is no ego, it hurts not at all. Even if somebody insults you it does not hurt, because you are not -- how can he insult you? The insult hits you only when the wound exists -- you are defeated because you wanted to be victorious. If the ego is not, what is the difference between victory and defeat? What is the difference between success and failure?

All distinctions are created by the ego. Wherever ego feels fulfilled, it is success, victory.

When ego feels unfulfilled, it is failure, defeat. All defeats and victories are because of the ego. When there is no ego, you simply live without victory, without failure. You simply live without success, without failure. You simply live... and that simple life is the religious life.

That's what Kabir mans by what he calls SADHU. SADHU means the simple, SADHU

means the noncomplex, SADHU means the humble. That's what I call "sannyasin."

SO LIVE HERE, MY BROTHER,

THAT YOU MAY CROSS WITH EASE TO THAT OTHER SHORE.

"So live here, my brother, that you may cross with ease to that other shore." You can live in two ways: you can live in such a way that you become burdened so much with this shore that the journey becomes impossible to go to the other. Live lightly... so when the day comes to go to the other shore, you can simply jump on your feet and start moving.

I have heard...

When Pompei was burning, and the whole town was rushing out, and people were carrying whatsoever they could carry -- jewels, gold, silver, valuable things.... And they were all crying and weeping because they had much that they could not carry --

somebody has missed his child, somebody has missed his wife. It was a mad crowd -- the whole town on fire -- and they were all rushing out of the town just to save their lives. It was a chaos.

Only one man, it is said -- it was three o'clock in the morning -- only one man was coming out of the town very quietly, silently, as if nothing had happened. He was a mystic. He had only a walking-stick. And many people looked at him and said, "You look undisturbed." He said, "For what to get disturbed? I have nothing else -- just this walking-stick; and this is my time to go for a morning walk. So, for what?... I have nothing to lose!"

Live here in such a way that the here does not become too important for you -- don't become obsessed. It is good to live in a house, but when the time comes to leave the house one should be able to go without looking back. Be with people -- but if your wife dies, one should be able to say goodbye... silently, lovingly, with no complaint, with no grudge. Live in such a way that you don't become entangled too much.

SO LIVE HERE, MY BROTHER,

THAT YOU MAY CROSS WITH EASE TO THAT OTHER SHORE.

And that other shore is not very far away, the other shore surrounds you everywhere. If you start living rightly... and what do I mean by "rightly"? Those four steps: be herenow, learn to transform your poisons into honey, share your positivity, and be nothing. That's what I mean by "living rightly."

If you live rightly, in twenty-four hours' time you will cross many times to this shore from that, from that to this, from this to that -- many times God will penetrate you, radiate you. Many times you will be suddenly on the other shore. Walking on the street... and suddenly he is there. The sun is falling on you, the sunrays falling behind the trees... and suddenly the other shore is there. It is not somewhere far away near other galaxies; it is always here. It is a quality of your awareness, it is a quality of your understanding, it is a quality of your meditation. If you are unburdened here, unobsessed with the worldly things....

Live in the world but don't allow the world to live in you. And then you will be alone even in the crowd... and even in the crowd you will see the other shore. The other shore becomes so close that you can cross the barrier any moment you want. It is so easy, like breathing -- but the art has to be learnt. It is a question of art, skill. Be skillful. Love, but don't allow your love to become lust. Love, but don't allow your love to become attachment. Love, but don't allow your love to become a dependence, a slavery. And then... then love tremendously. Then there is no fear. And loving, you will be able to cross to the other shore without any difficulty.

Use money, but don't become money-minded. I'm not saying escape from money, and I'm not saying escape from your wife and children and desert them and go to the Himalayan caves -- I am not teaching any sort of foolishness to you. And neither is Kabir in favor of that. Kabir is tremendously life-affirmative, he's absolutely for life. In fact, anybody who knows God will be for life, because this life is of God. If you escape from life you are escaping from God himself -- from the very opportunity where he was available. Don't escape anywhere. Rather than putting effort into escaping, put more effort into becoming aware. That will be the REAL escape: without escaping anywhere, you will create a cave in your heart... and you will start living there.

And the other shore is always by the corner. Any moment you want, you can move... and you can have as many drinks out of God in the day as you like. Looking at a flower, you can drink him... and the other shore opens. It is a vision -- it is not a material thing.

Looking at a roseflower, silently, lovingly, without any verbalization inside -- total silence... and the silence becomes luminous, and the silence becomes a song, and a vision arises. The flower disappears, you disappear... and God is there. In the disappearance of the subject and the object, the gap arises. Between the two notes, the pause... and suddenly you are on the other shore.

I AM THE PAUSE BETWEEN TWO NOTES

THAT FALL INTO A REAL ACCORDANCE SCARCE AT ALL

FOR DEATH'S NOTE TENDS TO DOMINATE.

BOTH THOUGH ARE RECONCILED

IN THE DARK INTERVAL TREMBLINGLY

AND THE SONG REMAINS IMMACULATE.

Look at the roseflower. You will tremble and the roseflower will tremble and there will be a pulsation between you and both will disappear... and the other shore. And suddenly you are transfigured -- transplanted into another world.

To a real SADHU, to a real sannyasin, to a real devotee, to a real seeker, disciple, this becomes very simple -- just like blinking the eyes. Close your eyes and you are on the other shore, open your eyes and you are on the other shore. The other shore is not something far away, or after death: the other shore is here between life and death. Each moment it is here -- between past and future it is here: between past and future the little gap, just a little gap, a split-second, and it is there.

The present is the presence of God...

SO LIVE HERE, MY BROTHER,

THAT YOU MAY CROSS WITH EASE TO THAT OTHER SHORE.

IT IS A LAND WITHOUT EARTH OR SKY,

WITHOUT MOON OR STARS;

FOR ONLY THE RADIANCE OF TRUTH

SHINES IN MY LORD'S DURBAR.

There is no earth, there is no sky; it is a nonmaterial dimension. There is nothing -- not even you.

IT IS A LAND WITHOUT EARTH OR SKY,

WITHOUT MOON OR STARS;

FOR ONLY THE RADIANCE OF TRUTH

SHINES IN the Kingdom of God.

"Only the radiance of truth..." Only truth IS on the other shore -- neither the seeker nor the sought, neither the observer nor the observed, neither matter nor consciousness --

only truth, only the ultimate science. And you become one with it, you are not separate from it: you become part of that divine melody.

KABIR SAYS: "O BELOVED BROTHER:

NAUGHT IS ESSENTIAL SAVE TRUTH."

Nothing else is essential. Search, seek, try to know what truth is -- and truth is not in abstractions, and truth is not in scriptures, and truth is not to be found in the dialogues of the theologians. Truth is herenow. Truth IS: you have to become available to it. Truth is in the opening of your heart -- love will become the bridge between you and truth.

Right now you are trying to live with the world, with the ego-bridge. Ego separates, love joins. Love is the only yoga -- `yoga' means union. Ego separates, makes you an island --

aloof. And look at the irony: first you cultivate the ego, and then you say, "I feel very lonely." Ego makes you feel lonely, it makes you lonely. Ego makes you like a small island. Love... again you have become the continent. Love is the bridge between you and that which is.

Kabir sings the song of love. And he says: through love you will attain to that pause between two notes... where divine melody continues... where God is playing on his veena. And that is very close by. Right now, this very moment, it is surrounding you. It is within your reach, almost within your grasp -- just a little more understanding, a little more awareness. Live in awareness. Let these four steps become your whole religion, your whole Torah -- all else is just commentary.

Be herenow... just this moment: you see the beauty of it? This very moment the benediction is here, God is here. When you are silent he speaks, when you are listening he sings.

And learn to transform your poisons into honey, so all barriers are destroyed.

Then third, start sharing: whatsoever you have, share it. Share your beauty, share your song, share your life. In sharing, you will be enriched. Don't hoard. The moment you start hoarding you are going against God. The moment you start hoarding you are trying to depend on your own self; you have lost trust in life. Give it! As life has given it to you, give it -- more will be coming.

And fourth, be nothing. Nothing is the source of all, nothing is the source of infinity...

nothing is God. Nothing means NIRVANA. Be nothing -- and in being nothing, you will have attained to the whole. In being something, you will miss; in being nothing, you will arrive home.

These are the sutras of Kabir. Kabir is one of the greatest mystics of the world. Meditate on Kabir -- pay attention to him, to what he says. And he is a very simple man, not learned in any way -- all that he says is out of his experience. He is not a scholar, he does not know anything about the Veda and the Koran and the Bible. All that he says is out of his own existential experience. He is not a theoretician or a philosopher; he is a poet. And not only a poet, he is a mystic poet -- and the difference is that the poet sometimes has glimpses of God, and then he falls back again -- rare moments of flight.

In India we have a saying that if you love the poetry of any poet never go to see the poet, because then you will be disappointed. You will find a very ordinary man -- even more ordinary than ordinary people. Or you may find somebody ugly -- and he has been talking so beautifully. And you will find somebody vulgar, immoral, obscene -- and his poetry was so spiritual. The saying is right: if you love the poetry forget the poet, never go to see the poet. Because the poet only jumps -- in rare moments of insight he flies high, he's turned on, some visions descend in him... then he is closed again, turned off; then he is an ordinary man. Only sometimes, like lightning, poetry comes to him.

That is the difference between a poet and a mystic poet. A mystic poet has arrived. It is not a flight of his imagination, it is not just a vision -- now it is his very life. He breathes in God, he lives in God, he lives like God, he IS god. So when he says something, it is not just accidental; when he says something, it is from his very core.

Kabir is a mystic poet. Listen to his melody, sing his song... and if you have understood, then become a little more aware. And don't look for the forest! There are only trees, there is no forest -- `forest' is just a collective noun, an abstraction. There is no God high in the heaven; there are gods and gods and gods -- the tree god, the rock god, the river god, the man god, the woman god -- there are gods and gods and gods... but there is no God.

This whole existence is divine. Love the trees if you want to know anything about the forest. Love people if you want to know anything about God. Each particular manifestation can become a window, a door. Don't be obsessed too much by words -- the word `god' is not God, the word `love' is not love, and the word `fire' of course is not fire.

Drop words, and move more and more towards the existential.

Feel more, rather than thinking. Through feeling, your prayer will arise... and through feeling, you will be dissolved one day. And when you are dissolved, God is.

The Divine Melody

Chapter #10

Chapter title: : Married for eternity

10 January 1977 am in Buddha Hall

Archive

code:

7701100

ShortTitle:

MELODY10

Audio:

Yes

Video: No

Length:

89

mins

Question 1

WHY DOES MAN CONTINUE TO LIVE THE WAY HE LIVES -- IN MISERY, IN

AGONY, IN SUFFERING?

Man lives under a great hypnosis. Man lives under deep conditionings: the society has conditioned you, the state has conditioned you, the priest, the politician, the culture, the religion, the church -- all their investments are there in your deep sleep. They don't want you to be awake. Once humanity is awake, there can be no politician possible. Once humanity is awake, there can be no priest possible. Once humanity is awake, temples, churches, religions, will disappear from the earth. This whole exploitation is possible because man lives in sleep. The exploitation is possible because man is miserable -- only a miserable humanity can be exploited.

It is a vicious circle: only a miserable man can be exploited, and when you exploit him he becomes more miserable. When he is more miserable you can exploit him even more --

and so on and so forth.

A happy man is a rebellious man. Happiness is tremendous rebellion. No society has yet been capable of allowing people to be happy -- it is dangerous, too dangerous. How can you send people to war if they are happy? How can you teach them foolish things like Nazism, communism, fascism, nationalism? If people are happy they will laugh at your foolishness, at all your ideologies -- they will take them as jokes, they won't take them seriously. They will laugh at the very idea that somebody can be a Christian, somebody can be a Hindu and somebody can be a Mohammedan, and that then they can fight for centuries and kill each other.

Gurdjieff used to love a parable. It is of tremendous significance. Meditate over the parable.

There was a rich magician who had a great many sheep. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing -- he was very miserly and very mean. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on; and above all, they ran away -- for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins, and this they did not like.

At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal, and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned -- that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant.

Secondly, he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them. And in the third place, he suggested to them that if anything at all was going to happen to them, it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it.

Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all: to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

And after this, all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.

This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.

You have been hypnotized to remain in misery. You have been taught, conditioned, to remain in misery. And the trick is very subtle. For example -- try to understand it -- first, everybody has been told that happiness exists in the future. This is absurd, this is nonsense. Happiness exists herenow. You need not achieve it, you bring it with yourself -

- it is part of your innermost core. But every child has been taught -- suggestion and suggestion and suggestion -- that unless you have a big house and a double-car garage and so many gadgets and much fame and a certain amount of bank balance and success in the market, you will not be happy. As if happiness depends on some commodities! as if happiness depends on anything. Happiness does not depend on anything; every child is born happy.

These ambitions create misery. They never make you happy, they create misery. Once the mind becomes ambitious the seeds of misery are planted deeply in you. Now you will never be happy, because the future never comes, tomorrow never comes -- and your hope hangs in the tomorrow which never comes.

You may have a big house, but you will not be happy because there will always be bigger houses than your house, and that will create misery. You may have a beautiful woman, but there are thousands, many more beautiful women in the world, and that will not make you happy. You will have money, but even that won't make you happy, because more is always possible. This is the trick: "more" has been implanted in you like an electrode --

"Have MORE, then you will be happy." Now how can you have more? Whatsoever you have, you can always imagine more. You have ten thousand rupees, you can imagine twenty thousand. You have twenty thousand, you can imagine forty thousand. How are you going to stop that "more"? You cannot have more; whatsoever you have will always be less than the more -- and that will create misery.

You have been taught from the very beginning to compare. Comparison brings misery.

Each individual is incomparable; nobody else is like you -- how can you compare?

Comparison is relevant when there are two things alike -- you can compare one Ford car with another Ford car, they are alike. But how can you compare two men? Impossible.

Each is so individual that all comparison is going to bring misery.

The moment you compare, you are creating hell around you; and from the very childhood you have been taught, every child is being told: "Be like that. Look at the neighbor's child, how intelligent -- and you are stupid. Look at somebody's daughter, how mature she looks -- and you are immature. Look at somebody else, how clean his living is -- and you are dirty." Now these comparisons make you feel miserable. You are yourself: there is nobody like you, there has never been anybody like you, there is going to be nobody like you ever. God never repeats.

You are unique. And remember, when I am saying "unique" I am not saying it in a comparative sense -- I am not saying you are more unique than others, I am simply saying that each is unique. Uniqueness is very ordinary -- everybody is unique. Once you have started comparison you are going to be neurotic -- sooner or later you will land up on some psychiatrist's couch.

Flowers are not mad and not miserable, because they don't compare. Have you ever thought of a roseflower comparing with other roses? No comparison, no neurosis... alone, happy, unique, offered to God.

Comparison creates tension, anxiety. And these things have been taught to you: you have been taught you are a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan -- now how can consciousness be confined to ideologies? Ideologies are just mind-products; consciousness is far beyond, far above. Ideologies are just fictions -- nothing to do with the truth. The truth is your consciousness -- but you pay more attention to the ideology, and you have forgotten the truth. You fight, you unnecessarily quarrel, you argue, you prove, you disprove. You have been taught that somebody is an Indian, somebody is a Chinese, somebody is a Japanese; political ideologies -- you are a communist, you are a fascist, this and that -- a thousand and one diseases have been implanted in you... and you want to be happy. You will have to drop all this.

And you can drop it, and you can drop it in a single stroke -- there is no need to drop it by and by. If you drop it by and by, you will never drop it -- because if you drop it by and by, meanwhile you will be carrying it, and you will be watering it, and you will be helping it.

Drop it in a single stroke of a sword: that stroke is what I call understanding. An intelligent person, seeing all this, immediately drops it. IMMEDIATELY, I say. I don't say that he thinks, "Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I will drop it" -- otherwise he has moved into misery again. Tomorrow? -- misery has entered. Or he says, "How can I drop it right now? Preparation has to be made: I will go to a yoga school and do yoga ASANAS and stand on my head -- then I will drop it." You are not going to drop it then.

If you cannot drop it while your head is in the right place, you are not going to drop it when the head will be in the wrong place!

Standing on the head, you will become more stupid. Standing on the head is dangerous: more blood flows towards your brain. And the brain tissues are very subtle -- when too much blood flows towards the brain, those subtle tissues are broken. You will never find a yogi who is also intelligent -- it is impossible. He will have good health -- that's one thing -- but he will not be intelligent. You will find all sorts of stupidities in his being. He will be healthy like an animal. Animals are more healthy, certainly, and one of the reasons why they have grown intelligence is that their head is still flooded too much with blood -- it is parallel to the earth. Man has evolved consciousness because he stood on two feet, and the head went up, and the head went against gravitation. Now because of gravitation the head cannot get too much blood, so subtle tissues have grown in the head: those subtle tissues are your basic mechanism for intelligence.

So if you think that tomorrow you will do something, prepare yourself, and then you will drop, then you have not understood. It is as if a snake crosses your path and you say,

"First I will prepare, then I will jump out of the way." The snake is not as foolish as you...

and I don't think you will do it -- the moment you see the snake, you will jump. The action is instant, immediate; you will jump out of the way. That's what I mean -- a single stroke of the sword. If you understand me, then you will simply drop your being Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, English, American, Indian -- you will simply drop comparison.

I say "simply" -- you will not prepare for it; you will simply drop the idea of more, because you will see into it. It is bringing misery. You will stop comparing.

When comparison has stopped, the "more" has been dropped, and foolish ideologies have been thrown away, suddenly you sill see a delight arising in your being, a celebration -- it was waiting. The hypnosis has been broken.

The difficulty is not that you cannot drop it right now -- you can. But you don't want to, because you have become too familiar with it. You talk -- you SAY that you would like to be happy, but you are afraid to be happy. In fact you don't dare to be happy. You have lived with this hypnosis for so long, you have become too familiar with it: if you move away from it, you will be moving into the unknown, into the strange -- that creates a trembling. You have become accustomed to it. Now it does not hurt you really; you have become dull and dead. You can carry it. Man has a tremendous capacity to become adjusted to anything -- to any climate, to any situation, to any illness, to any misery; man has infinite capacity for adjustment. You have become adjusted to it.

You are not happy -- that is certain -- but you are not miserable either. The misery has become your companion.

I have heard...

Into a cross-maker's shop one day came a man who wearily took down his cross from his shoulder and set it on e floor.

"And what can I do for you?" the cross-maker asked him.

"I want to exchange my burden," said the man. "This one is too heavy for me to carry. I stagger under the load."

"Very well," replied the cross-maker. "Take your pick of all these crosses and see which suits you best."

So the man gladly set about trying them on. The first was very light for a moment or two, but as he walked about, testing it, he concluded that it wouldn't do, for soon it became heavier than his old one. so he tried another, and another, and another, until at last he found one lighter than all the rest. "I can bear this one easily," he told the cross-maker.

"May I have it?"

"Very well," the cross-maker answered. "But that is the one you brought in with you."

People become accustomed.... If you have been carrying a certain misery load, a certain cross of anguish, anxiety, you have become accustomed to it -- it is almost part of your being. Now anything new will be more disturbing: with the new, you will have to earn new ways of being. And happiness? -- you have forgotten the very language of it. You don't even remember what happiness means; you don't remember that you ever experienced it. It seems to be just a dream -- very fragile, not solid enough to catch hold of; you cannot hold it in your hand and see it.

What do you mean by happiness? When was the last time you were happy? Can you remember any moment in your life when you were really happy -- REALLY really happy? And you will be surprised -- the whole life looks like a desert. You have been hoping... but you have not experienced happiness. Now this whole desert-like life is what you mean when you say, "I am." This is your ego -- all this pus, all this canceric state, all this disease and illness, all this neurosis -- this is what you call "I am." This is your ego.

And if I say to you, "Drop the ego," you say, "How can I drop the ego? Why should I surrender? Why should I surrender to anybody?" This "I" is nothing but your past. Look deep into it, analyze it a little -- you will not find anything in it but just miseries and miseries and miseries... hurts insults, irritations, nightmares.... But you fight for it. You are not ready to drop it, you are really clinging to it.

Surrender simply means an understanding: Enough of this "I" -- now I drop it. The moment you drop "I", you have dropped the whole hypnosis that the society has forced you to go through. The moment you drop the ego, you have dropped the state, the religion, the church, the society, the parents, the school, the university, the civilization, the culture: you have dropped all conditioning. And then suddenly you will see an upsurge of tremendous bliss arising in you. It was there, waiting -- just remove the weight, and the spring can flow again.

Happy you were born -- each child is born in happiness. Each child is born for happiness

-- this whole life is a great celebration. But there are people who would not allow you to be happy. Have you observed it? Whenever you start feeling a little happiness you also feel, side by side, a little guilt arising -- as if you are doing something wrong. If you are unhappy, there is no guilt; if you are happy, there is guilt. You must be doing something wrong -- you are feeling happy?

People come to me, and they say that doing meditations, dancing, singing, sometimes happiness comes like a breeze... but then guilt. It feels as if the whole world is so miserable..."and I am feeling happy? Everybody is so miserable, in this ocean of misery, and I am feeling happy? -- no, this is not good. How can I be happy?" People even ask ME: they ask me "How can you be happy when the whole world is miserable?" As if, if I am also miserable, the whole world will be less miserable. It will be MORE -- one plus!

At least one person is happy -- that much burden is removed from the world.

You feel very very afraid to laugh -- as if you are going to commit a sin. When you are miserable, you feel very very at ease -- no problem. The whole world is miserable; you are not going against anybody, you are just like everybody else. To dance and to sing and to celebrate, you become individual; you are no more like everybody else. And people will also feel offended if you are happy. You will feel guilty, people will feel offended.

Nobody forgives a man who is happy: How can you DARE to be happy!

People only allow mad people to be happy. They say: Okay -- he is mad. If a man laughs loudly and dances in the street, they say he is mad. If you are happy they can forgive you only if you allow them to call you mad. If they can label you as mad then nobody is worried; then they can smile at you -- they know that you are mad. Otherwise, how can a man be happy? -- he must have gone mad.

People have forgotten the very language... but you can regain it, because it is your natural thing. It is nothing to be learnt; you have just to unlearn what the society has put on you.

You have to regain your childhood, you have to be reborn. That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus: You will have to be reborn. You have to die as you are, and you have to be reborn. You have to wash yourself clean of society.

Once the society is dropped, God starts singing a song in you. He is still singing in the birds, because they don't have a society and they don't have to go to schools and they don't have to be cultured and conditioned. He is still singing in the trees, because the trees have not yet created priests and politicians. He is still singing in the waves of the ocean....

Except in man, God is happy everywhere. Something has gone wrong with man.

Gurdjieff used to say -- just a fictitious idea -- that when God created man, man was very happy -- so happy that God became afraid. And man was so happy that he wouldn't even listen to God -- who bothers? And man was so happy, and he was so much involved in his happiness, that he would not even worship God -- he would not pray. Then God had to think about it -- this is too much! No parent allows children to go so far. Mm? -- you have to be respectful, obedient. That's the Christian story also -- that Adam disobeyed: that is the first sin.

Gurdjieff used to say that then God became very much afraid, and he implanted a subtle mechanism at the source of the spine: what Hindus call KUNDALINI, he used to laughingly call "kundabuffer." God placed a small mechanism just under everybody's spine; a small mechanism -- kundabuffer. It does not allow your happiness to reach to your consciousness, it is a buffer.

And maybe he is right -- the story is fictitious, but he is right; there is a certain kundabuffer. God has not implanted it, but society has implanted it. In fact, your gods are creations of the society. All your gods are nothing but creations of the cunning priests --

they have put in a kundabuffer. Maybe that's why all the religions are so much against sex, because being against sex is the way to create the kundabuffer.

Sex energy is just at the source of the spine. If a child is taught from the very beginning to be against sex.... Sex is sin, and sex has to be destroyed, or at least controlled -- never allowed to go too far, never allowed to be spontaneous; has to be put under many controls, laws, regulations. These laws, regulations, suppressions, they become the buffer: the kundabuffer is created. Then sex energy remains repressed at the source of the spine and does not rise in the spine.

That's what they say in the East: Once the sex energy rises in the spine, you start becoming very very happy. When the sex energy reaches to the seventh -- SAHASRAR -

- you flower into a lotus bloom. Your life then is a deep ecstasy.

This repressed sexual energy is your repressed happiness. By repressing sexual energy, happiness has been repressed. By repressing sexual energy, you have been cut from your roots.

In Japan they have a four-hundred-year-old tree, just six inches high. The tree was planted in a saucer four hundred years ago, and the man who planted it continued to cut its roots. The roots were never allowed to grow, and the saucer has very little soil in it --

just a little bit. For four hundred years, the tree has remained just six inches in height... if it had been allowed, it would have touched the clouds.

That has happened to man -- your roots are being cut. You are not allowed to touch the clouds, you are not allowed to dance, not allowed to sing. You are allowed a little bit --

but that is controlled so much that it is almost meaningless.

So many laws and regulations are enforced that by the time something is allowed, it is almost insignificant -- just a trickle; it is not a gushing flood. And you can be happy only when your energy gushes in a flood -- when you are overwhelmed, when you are lost into it, when the energy is so much that you don't know any boundaries. William Blake has said: Energy is delight. And energy has been repressed -- society has created the kundabuffer.

The buffer has to be broken. That's what I am doing here -- trying to break the buffer.

That's why people are so much against me. i am trying to help them to be happy, but they protect their misery -- they don't want to be happy. They want to be Hindus, they want to be Mohammedans, they want to be Christians -- they don't want to be happy. They want to belong to this organization or that -- they don't want to belong to God. And they go on doing something that is basically against themselves. Not only others are cutting your roots; you go on pruning your own roots. You have been taught to do it -- your hands are almost doing it unconsciously.

Man exists in deep slumber. Man is hypnotized. That's why you go on living the way you live -- in misery, in unhappiness, in agony. The same energy can become ecstasy --

release it! Be yourself and forget what others have been trying to make of you. Declare your freedom! And be rebellious. I am not saying go and fight with society, because that is foolish -- you will be again wasting your energy.

And this is the difference that I make between a rebellious person and a revolutionary: the revolutionary is a reactionary -- he reacts against the society, he starts fighting the society. First he was miserable because he was burdened by the society, now he becomes miserable because he has to fight the society. First he was following the society, now he fights the society -- but he remains obsessed with the society. A revolutionary is not a really rebellious person.

Who is a rebellious person? A rebellious person is one who has understood the whole nonsense of the society, and simply slips out of it. He does not fight with it; on the surface he even continues to pretend that he belongs with you. He is a clever person --

Gurdjieff used to call him "the sly person." He is clever enough -- he is neither orthodox nor revolutionary, he is just rebellious. But his rebellion is so intelligent that he knows there is no point -- if the society says "Walk on the left" he walks on the left, because there is no point in fighting in this -- it is meaningless.

On the surface he goes on following the society; deep down he has slipped out of it, deep down he starts living his own life. He does not go into the marketplace to exhibit, because if you exhibit your happiness in the marketplace they are going to kill you; they will crucify you. They did the same to Jesus, they did the same to Socrates, to Mansoor -- they are not going to leave you alone.

There is no need. When you are sitting with miserable people, keep a miserable face --

even more miserable than they have -- because it is just a game you are playing: you are not miserable, you can act it better then them -- they are REALLY miserable. Keep a longer face than them. When alone, have a good laugh. Don't start fighting with the society otherwise you will be in trouble, and happiness will again be far away -- as far away as before. First you were following the society and could not be happy. Now you fight the society, so the society throws you in a jail or in chains, or the society tries to crush you -- and again you are unhappy.

A rebellious person is a very very clever person. He slips out in such silent ways that he does not create any ripple on the surface... and he starts living his private life in his own way. That's what I teach you: I don't teach you to be revolutionaries, I teach you to be rebellious. A religious person is a rebellious person.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

SOMETIMES THERE IS SUCH A FEELING OF NOT BELONGING ANYWHERE

THAT EVEN MY ORANGE AND MY MALA ARE NO CONSOLATION. ARE WE

REALLY SO ALONE, OR AM I JUST BEING NEGATIVE AND CLOSED WHEN I FEEL THAT?

The question is from Astha.

The first thing: you don't belong anywhere -- that is reality. All hankering to belong is deceptive. The very idea to belong creates organizations; the very idea to belong creates the church -- because you cannot be alone, so you want to drown yourself somewhere in a crowd.

A sannyasin is one who has accepted his aloneness. It is fundamental; it cannot be drowned. By becoming a sannyasin you are not becoming a part of a certain organization

-- this is not an organization at all. By becoming a sannyasin, you are becoming courageous enough to accept a certain fact: that man exists in aloneness. And it is so fundamental, there is no way to escape from it. It is as fundamental as death. In fact, death is nothing but bringing you the news that you were alone, and now you are alone.

What is death? For the whole life you were deceiving yourself that you were with somebody -- you belonged to this family, to this clan, to this society, this culture, to East, to West; you belonged to this organization, to this party... to crowds and crowds you were belonging. And you were feeling very good -- "I am not alone."

Then comes death. Shocks you. You start clinging, you start crying, you feel very helpless. A sannyasin will not feel helpless when death comes. A sannyasin will feel perfectly happy when death comes, because death has nothing to shock him with. The sannyasin knows that he is alone. Death cannot take anything away. Death can take away only those deceptions which you have put in your life.

To become a sannyasin means you have negated death. You have said, "Now you can come, and you won't find anything to destroy -- I have destroyed all that myself."

Sannyas is voluntary death, it is spiritual suicide. It is a declaration that "I am alone, and my aloneness is so fundamental that there is no way to lose it."

For moments you can forget -- you can fall in love with a woman or a man and you can create the idea, the illusion, that you are together. Both are alone. When two persons fall in love and get married and start living in a house, only two alonenesses are living together, that's all. They are not together: nobody can be together. Togetherness cannot happen, and it is good that it cannot happen, otherwise you would have lost your soul --

then you wouldn't have any center.

Two persons in love touch each other's being, but their beings remain crystal-clear, separate. Yes, their boundaries overlap... but their centers remain far away. They don't lose their soul -- otherwise love would not be such a beautiful thing. Lovers are not together in the sense that they are lost into each other; lovers are together in the sense that two alonenesses are together -- holding each other's hand, knowing perfectly well that they are alone; sharing with each other their aloneness, their beauty, their silence, their love -- but knowing well that they are alone. The fact is so fundamental that it cannot be changed.

People try to avoid. Just as they try to avoid death, they try to avoid aloneness. A Sufi parable...

There was a merchant in Baghdad who went his servant to market to buy provisions, and in a little while the servant came back white and trembling and said, "Master, just now in the marketplace I was jostled by a man in the crowd, and when I turned I saw it was Death. He looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now, lend me your horse and I will go to Samarra, and there Death will not find me."

The merchant lent his horse, and the servant mounted and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and saw Death standing in the crowd, and he came to Death and said, "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my poor servant when you saw him this morning?"

"That was not a threatening gesture, sir," Death said. "It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

You cannot escape. If you are going to die in Samarra, you will reach there somehow.

You cannot escape death and you cannot escape aloneness. Try as you will -- try, but all efforts fail. Nobody has ever succeeded in avoiding aloneness, because aloneness is your being. When you are avoiding aloneness you are avoiding yourself -- how can you avoid yourself? How can you escape from yourself? In trying to escape, you miss -- you miss the beauty of being alone. In fact, you start thinking of yourself as lonely because you have missed the beauty of aloneness.

Aloneness is tremendously beautiful, loneliness is ugly. They don't mean the same, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. Aloneness is such a beautiful experience. You ARE -- pure, uncontaminated by anybody else's presence; no shadow falling on you -- a clarity, unclouded... your being pure, virgin -- nobody has ever travelled in that territory.

It is virgin territory. It is of tremendous beauty, silence, bliss.

Loneliness is an ugly idea. Loneliness is the idea which comes when you try to escape from yourself and cannot escape. Then you fall into loneliness -- you miss the other. You don't see your presence, you miss the other's presence -- your whole focus is wrong. You don't look into yourself, you look outside. You say, "Some friend should be here... or should I go to the restaurant? or should I go to some club or to the movie-house or watch TV? What should I do?" You don't look in, you look out. You wait for the other, your eyes are searching for the other... and the other is not.

When the other is not, you feel lonely. When you ARE, you feel alone. So Astha, this has to be understood deeply: you cannot belong anywhere, belonging is not possible. You can love, but you cannot belong. You cannot get attached. You can love, but you cannot possess and you cannot be possessed. Your freedom is ultimate: nobody can possess you, nobody can make you a slave. You cannot become anybody's shadow. That is the meaning when I say "your aloneness is ultimate." Once you understand it, you start cleaning the ground -- you start forgetting the idea of loneliness; you don't get confused with the idea of loneliness.

What is meditation, after all? It is going into your aloneness. It is moving into the deepest core of your being, where nobody else has ever entered, will ever enter -- where you, and only you, can enter. That is your privacy, your subjectivity.

You ask: "Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere..." Good, that feeling is not wrong. That feeling simply brings the reality. You can create a fiction, but the reality goes on asserting itself again and again. Your fictions cannot dissolve reality --

they may hide it for a moment or two, and then reality asserts itself again and your fictions are broken.

"Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere..." You don't belong. The WHOLE is yours -- you don't belong anywhere... because to belong anywhere will be very limited. All is yours: the whole God, the whole sky is yours. You don't belong anywhere -- belonging will be a limitation, a finitude: the infinite is yours.

"... that even my orange and my mala are no consolation." I have never meant them to be consolations. I don't give you any consolation, I take all consolations away. I am here to shatter all consolations. I am not here to pat your back and sing a lullaby so that you can sleep well and dream beautiful dreams. No, I have to shock you into awareness so that you see the reality. Sweet dreams won't help. Even if the reality is bitter, it is reality --

and one has to learn the ways of it. If it is bitter, it simply says you have not learned its ways -- hence it appears bitter. Learn the ways and reality becomes sweet.

But you cannot substitute by sweet dreams. That's what people have been doing down the ages: life after life, people are trying to get consolations. Truth has to be sought, not consolation. The orange, the mala, the sannyas, are not consolations -- not at all.

"Are we really so alone?" Yes... more so than you know. You have not yet penetrated it; just the periphery... and you become afraid and you start escaping into the other. Gather courage -- take a plunge into your being. Let us be acquainted with our own center. Let us ask only one question sincerely: Who am I? All else is meaningless. Unless this question is answered, all your love affairs, friendships, all are nonsense. Unless this question is answered, nothing is answered.

Go into your aloneness with only one quest: Who am I? And don't seek consolations --

because cheap consolations are available, and the mind is very clever in supplying them.

When you ask: Who am I? the mind can immediately supply an answer -- mind is very clever. Mind says, "You are God. You are a soul, an immortal soul." These are the ideas put by the magician into the heads of poor sheep. The magician suggested to a few that they were lions, to a few that they were eagles, to a few that they were men, to a few that they were even magicians. The magician hypnotized the sheep and told them, "You are immortal souls: nobody can ever harm you. How can you be harmed?" The magician suggested to them: "I am for you. I am the best master you can ever find, and I exist for you, and I will do whatsoever is needed, and I will always do whatsoever is good for you.

Even if I kill you, I will be killing you just for your sake."

You have been given these ideas by the society; your mind is nothing but a projection of the society. It is society within you -- the penetration of the society inside you; it is a miniature society. You have been told things, and you have believed them -- and when you ask the question "Who am I?" if you are a Hindu the Upanishad will speak from the head: the Upanishad will say, "AHAM BRAHMASMI -- I am the Brahma himself." This is not your answer; this is the answer taught by the magician.

I am not saying the answer is wrong or right, I am simply saying it is not your answer --

and when the answer is not yours it is wrong. I am not saying whether the answer is right or wrong per se, I am simply saying it is not yours -- hence it is wrong. It may be that when you really enter into your innermost core, there you will find AHAM

BRAHMASMI -- but that will be a totally different thing. Now it is not from the magician, not from the outside, not from the Upanishad, not from the society, not from the priest; now it is arising in your own being.

Maybe, if you are a Christian and you ask, "Who am I?" the answer comes floating -- a beautiful lullaby: "The Kingdom of God is within you"... and you are very happy. Don't be deceived by the magician of the Vatican -- these things won't help. Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan is not the question. And I am not saying the question is wrong or right; I am simply saying it is not yours, hence wrong.

Only YOUR authentic response will be the true answer. So go deep with only one question; let this be your only key, and unlock all the doors inside... and go on penetrating, go on penetrating. One day, when there is nobody left -- not a shadow of the outside -- when you are tremendously in the inside, when you are just a subjectivity, a pure virgin consciousness -- there is the answer. And it is not an answer which comes in a verbalized form it is an existential experience... and you know that your aloneness is your soul.

Mahavira -- one of the great masters of the world -- has named the ultimate state KAIVALYA. KAIVALYA means absolute aloneness... his word is of tremendous beauty. He says: When you reach to your innermost core you become absolutely free; and that state is of pure aloneness -- KAIVALYA. and out of that is wisdom, and out of that is light, and out of that is compassion: everything is born out of that -- so don't avoid aloneness.

Yes, Astha, everybody is absolutely alone -- and the sooner you recognize it, and the sooner you dare to go in, the better. Because all the days that are wasted in going somewhere else are simply wasted. You never go anywhere, you simply deceive.

Question 3

DURING A DISCOURSE SEVERAL DAYS AGO, I THOUGHT THAT YOU HAD

SKIPPED A CERTAIN QUESTION NUMBER. I COULDN'T BE SURE. MAYBE I SIMPLY WAS NOT AWARE ENOUGH AND THAT IT WAS I WHO HAD SIMPLY

FORGOTTEN IT. BUT THEN AGAIN YESTERDAY I NOTICED THAT YOU DID IT

AGAIN, AND NOT JUST ONCE BUT TWICE -- YOU SKIPPED QUESTIONS

THREE AND FIVE. I RECALL THAT ONE QUESTION HAD TWO PARTS SO

THAT COULD EXPLAIN IT, BUT I AM PRETTY SURE THAT WAS NOT THE

CASE FOR THE OTHER. ANY SIGNIFICANCE?

Oh, holy smoke!

You are constantly in search of some esoteric significance. My arithmetic is simply not good. It is as bad as Albert Einstein's -- do you know he failed in mathematics in his matriculation examination? I didn't fail in my matriculation examination -- but I must not cheat you, I must make it clear that I had not taken arithmetic in my matriculation examination. Otherwise there was no possibility of my ever passing!

Once I was in a car accident and one of my fingers was damaged very badly, and the doctor said it would have to be cut off. I said, "Okay, but then I will only be able to count up to nine!" So he took pity on me, and they didn't operate.

Don't try to find esoteric things everywhere....

When I was small, one day I came running home, very proud, exhibiting a book which I had got as a reward. My mother asked me, "However did you do that? How did you get it?" I said to her, "The teacher asked how many legs an ostrich had -- I said three."

"But an ostrich only has two legs," my mother said.

I said, "Well, all the rest of the class said four."

Question 4

WHERE DO INDIVIDUALITY AND EGO SEPARATE?

Individuality means your uniqueness -- not compared with anybody else. Your incomparable uniqueness: that is individuality. Individuality is beautiful; that's how God has made you -- as an individual. Ego is comparison. Ego is your invention. God has not given you any ego; he has certainly given you an individuality.

Ego is comparison: you think yourself more intelligent than the other, you think yourself more superior than the other -- or inferior. You think yourself more beautiful than the other. Then you are bringing ego in: the moment you compare yourself with somebody, the conclusion that comes out of the comparison is ego. If you stop comparing then you are there -- tremendously beautiful and unique. All superiority or inferiority, all anxiety of where I am, where I stand, who is above me and who is below me, are ego problems.

The superior person suffers, the inferior suffers; both suffer -- because even the superiormost cannot have a state where he can be satisfied.

Abraham Lincoln was not very beautiful, his face was ugly. And that was a torture. In fact, when he stood for the presidentship, eh had no beard. In his campaign, a small girl suggested to him, "If you grow a beard, you will look a little better." Hence, he grew the beard. But he remained constantly aware of his ugliness. He became the president... but whenever he would see a beautiful face he would feel hurt.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not very tall, just five-five -- just exactly my size. He remained disturbed for his whole life. Now, nothing is wrong in being five-five. What is wrong in being five-five? -- I have never felt any problem in it! And what is going to happen if you are five-seven or five-eight? Nothing is going to happen, you will be the same -- five-five or five-seven or five-nine makes no difference. But he was tremendously troubled -- he was so conscious of it. One day he was trying to fix a picture on the wall and the picture was a little higher than him, and his bodyguard said, "Sir, I am higher than you, I will do it." He said, "Stop! Never utter such a word. You are taller, not higher."

He was very conscious about it -- "Higher? Say you are taller; don't say higher!" Now, if even Napoleon is not happy, who can be?

People who compare can never be happy. These trees are happy -- the smaller tree does not bother about the higher tree. They never bother about each other: the smaller is smaller and the higher is higher. In fact, the higher and the taller and the smaller and the lower are human terms -- they don't exist in the world of trees. A rosebush is as happy as a big oak tree; there is no problem about it. Not even a rosebush, but just a small leaf of grass is as happy as any lotus flower. It makes no difference.

God is showering on everybody -- on the rosebush, on the grassleaf, on the lotus flower...

he is showering everywhere. And the whole existence is happy; only man has got into trouble. The ego arises with comparison. Individuality you have, unique individuality you have. With comparison how many problems arise!

Just a few days before, one woman was saying to me that she cannot accept her body. But why? -- because she is a little fatter. Now, why compare? How can you be fatter if you don't compare? Mm? -- you must have some idea of a thinner woman, and you must be comparing. I don't see any problem in the woman directly. I looked at her: she is a beautiful woman, a unique woman, an individual -- but unnecessarily in anxiety, in deep anguish, suffering. She cannot believe that anybody can love her, because she is a little fat.

And who has given the idea? How do you decide what is standard? Nobody has any idea what is standard; all averages are just false. Nobody knows how much fat is needed for a particular body -- only the body itself knows. Listen to your body, love your body, and don't compare.

Now this comparison will create such trouble that she may miss her whole life. Because of comparison she cannot love. And she will create such trouble that she will not allow anybody to love her, because she cannot trust anybody who can love her. That man must be perverted: how can you love an ugly woman? -- your idea of beauty must be perverted, or your must be deceiving.

She cannot trust anybody -- if somebody comes and says to her, "I love you," she will distrust them. She cannot love herself -- how can YOU love her? Impossible. You must have some other design, you must have some other idea behind it: you may be interested only in sex, or you may be interested in something else -- in her money, or something else -- but you cannot love her. Because how can you love her? -- she cannot love her own face in the mirror. And even if you persist, she will try in every way to destroy your love, so she can prove that she was right and you were wrong. Now it is very difficult to find a lover who will take that much trouble to convince you. she will remain loveless.

And when there will be no love coming, her idea will become more and more fixated: I am ugly. And she is not ugly at all.

In fact, I have never seen an ugly person in my life. How can a person be ugly? Have you ever seen any ugly crow? Impossible! Have you ever seen an ugly cow? Impossible.

Have you ever seen an ugly tree? Impossible. All is beautiful as it is... but with human beings you bring comparison, and immediately trouble starts.

Don't compare, there is no need. Comparison is one of the greatest calamities that has fallen on humanity. You are perfect as you are. Love yourself, respect yourself. If you are not going to respect yourself, who is going to respect you/ If you are not going to love yourself, who is going to love you? People don't respect themselves, and expect everybody else to respect them. They don't love themselves, and want the whole world to fall in love with them. Now you are asking impossibles -- these things cannot happen.

Love yourself, respect yourself -- and a person who respects himself never compares.

Comparison is a disrespect.

Now, if you summarize all this, it means: to be an egoist is to be very disrespectful towards yourself. To be an individual is perfectly good, but to be egoistic is disrespectful.

Question 5

BELOVED MASTER...

I DON'T GET IT!

So what! You don't get it! Get it?

One should always be alert: if you get it you get it, if you don't get it you don't get it.

Still, you get it.

Question 6

SOMETIMES YOU TALK NON-SENSE IN THE LECTURES. HOW CAN YOU

TELL US TO GO AND LOOK FOR AN ALIVE MASTER IF YOU DIE? YOU KNOW

PERFECTLY WELL THAT WE ARE MARRIED FOR ETERNITY. IF YOU ARE

TRYING TO ESCAPE THIS MARRIAGE, TOO BAD: THERE IS NO DIVORCE

AVAILABLE FOR GODS! BE CERTAIN THAT WE'LL BE HUNTING YOU

EVERYWHERE, IN EVERY STONE OR FLOWER, IN EVERY EYE AND STAR....

Because I am so certain about it, that's why I can play -- that's why I can say, "Look for a living master." I am so certain about you. My trust is absolute about you -- that's why I can say, "When I am gone, don't be bothered with me: look for a living master.

But if you have loved me, I will live for you forever. In your love I will live. If you ave loved me, my body will disappear but I cannot die for you. But I can assert much nonsense because I know your love: I trust it.

When a master says, "Don't go to anybody; cling to me. Even when I am gone, go on continuously with me. don't move anywhere" -- that simply means he does not trust you.

He is afraid, he has doubts -- he knows that once he is gone, you will be gone. In fact, he knows that even while he is alive, you will be gone. He protects; he says, "Don't go to anybody else. I am the only one." He is very monopolistic. He is so doubtful, that his marriage with his disciples is a sort of monogamy. He's afraid. He is afraid because the divorce is possible -- he is afraid of it, and wants to protect in every way so that it is not going to happen. He will say, "Never worship anybody, never love anybody, never revere anybody, never listen to anybody, never go to anybody -- just look at me, and forget the whole world. Exclusively love me."

I don't say that to you. I know: even if I am gone, I know you will search for me. Yes, I can trust you will hunt for me in every stone and flower, in every eye and star....

And I can promise you one thing: if you hunt for me, you will find me... in every star and in every eye... because if you have really loved a master, you have moved into eternity with him. The relationship is not of time, it is timeless.

There is going to be no death. My body will disappear, your body will disappear -- that will not make any change. If the disappearance of the body makes any change, that simply shows that love had not happened.

Love is something beyond the body. Bodies come and go, love remains. Love has eternity in it -- timelessness, deathlessness. That's why, Seeta -- the question is from Seeta -- that's why sometimes I can talk nonsense. I know you will find sense even in my nonsense. I know you will understand, you will not misunderstand -- that's why.

Question 7

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YOUR LONG BEARD?

I have none. Look again!

You may not know -- in Zen there is a koan. The koan is: Why didn't Bodhidharma have a beard? Now, Bodhidharma has a big beard -- the founder of Zen. In fact his bears is so big that you can only see his eyes... all beard. And "Why does Bodhidharma have no beard?" -- this is given to the disciples to meditate on... and they have to close their eyes and meditate. Now, it is very difficult: Bodhidharma has a big beard, and the question is why he has none... and the disciple meditates and meditates, and it is very puzzling. And Bodhidharma comes again and again, and laughs... and his beard is there!

And the disciple comes to the master and says, "It is difficult -- he has!" The master says,

"You go and look again." After months of meditation, one day the recognition happens --

that the beard belongs to the body; how can it belong to Bodhidharma? Bodhidharma is not the body. The body is just the abode, the temple: Bodhidharma is something beyond that is residing in it.

The day this dawns on the consciousness of the disciple, he has realized something within himself. Then he comes to the master and says, "Yes, you were right. He has no beard."

You ask: "What is the significance of your long beard?" Never heard about it. I don't have any beard. You look again. And Bodhidharma is dead, I am here alive: you can look rightly... I have no beard at all.

If you see the beard, then it must be a projection of yours.

Table of Contents

Chapter title: God is dwelling everywhere

Chapter title: Become a flame