Chapter title: Bliss

‌Chapter title: Bliss‌

4 February 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8002045 ShortTitle: WITHME04 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]

Money is not your goal, power is not your goal, God is not your goal, truth is not your goal. These are different names which you go on giving to bliss.

All these names have to be removed so that you can face the ultimate goal in its sheer nakedness. Once you know the goal, immediately you know the path.

Once you recognise that bliss is our goal, you need not go outside at all, because bliss is our very nature.

Happiness can exist on may planes. The lowest is pleasure and the highest is bliss, and there are many stages in between.

Man ordinarily lives at the lowest, that's why people go on seeking pleasure. It is a physical phenomenon. Sex and food are their obsessions. Nothing is wrong in enjoying food or sex, but when they become obsessions then you are pathological. One has to go beyond the physical plane of being.

Food and sex are two sides of the same coin. Food keeps the individual alive and sex keeps the species alive. Without food the individual will die, without sex humanity will disappear. Deep down the function of both is the same. That's why

it often happens that a person who starts repressing sexuality becomes more obsessed with food. His whole energy starts moving towards food. The person who starts controlling his food, who starts dieting, becomes more and more obsessed with sex.

One has to understand these energy phenomena, because only by understanding is there a transcendence.

The second plane can be called psychological. Hearing beautiful music... it is a subtle kind of nourishment. It revives the spirit, it thrills you but in some very invisible way. It is not measurable, it cannot be detected by scientific instruments but something happens. It is not objective, so nobody else can see it. It 1/08/07

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is subjective.

The first plane is objective. Sex can be seen by others. Hence for centuries every effort has been made to hide it, not to do it before others... not only not to do it before others, not to do it even before yourself: so do it in darkness.

The reason is that it is an objective phenomenon. Hence people are so interested in pornography --

because sex is transformed into absolute objectivity: it is marketable, it becomes a commodity. So is the case with food.

But with music, with the joy derived from poetry or the joy felt when you are in close proximity to nature, just in seeing a beautiful sunset something of immense value happens. You feel thrilled, uplifted.

That is happiness. It is beyond pleasure.

If one remains on the first plane one remains an animal. Only with the second is the human being born.

But humanity is only a bridge, one has to transcend even that. One should not make one's house on the bridge. One has to go beyond the joy of music, beauty, poetry, painting, creativity.

Then the third plane, the highest opens up. The first is objective, the second is subjective; the third is beyond duality, it is neither subjective nor objective. One is simply a witness, all duality has been left behind. The first is physical, the second is psychology, the third is spiritual. It has nothing to do with the body or the mind. In fact when you go beyond-mind, when you see that you are neither the body nor the mind then you start entering into the third. Then happiness becomes bliss. And that is the goal of sannyas.

Bliss is a state of awareness, watchfulness, meditativeness, of profound silence, peace. Nothing stirs in you, all is quiet, and you are absolutely relaxed. Out of that relaxation something bursts forth at you very center, some energy that has always remained there starts flowing, becomes dynamic. It has been dormant because you were never looking at it. You never paid any attention, you were concerned with the body and the mind. Now, you have turned in. Your whole concern, your whole attention, has settled at the center. You have left the circumference far behind.

When the energy is absolutely centered, at the center, bliss happens. Happiness has to move from pleasure to bliss.

Bliss is always perfect. You can't have imperfect bliss, it is impossible. It is like you cannot have an imperfect circle: if it is imperfect it is not a circle. If it is a circle it has to be perfect. Precisely like that, bliss is always perfect; perfection is intrinsic to it, not accidental. So you cannot find bliss in any other form than perfection.

If bliss is not perfect that means that what you are thinking is bliss is something else. It may be happiness, pleasure, but it is not bliss.

Pleasure is momentary and it is always imperfect. Happiness is a little better than pleasure because pleasure is more body-oriented and happiness is more psyche- oriented: a little higher, just in the middle. On one side, one extreme is pleasure, at the other extreme is bliss. In the middle is happiness.

Move from pleasure to happiness to bliss. That is the whole path of a sannyasin. I don't want you to deny anything, but I also want you to remember that life is

fulfilled only when you have attained to bliss.

Don't get lost in the world of pleasures and happiness. Nothing is wrong in them, enjoy then on the way just as when you go for a walk you enjoy the birds singing on the way, the trees, the flowers. But you don't become attached to any tree, you go on moving.

Enjoy all that is available but go on moving till you have arrived to such a peace that is undisturbable, at such a bliss that cannot be taken away from you. Till you have arrived home go on seeking and searching.

Enjoy everything but don't be obsessed by anything. Remain normal, enjoy eating, meeting people, seeing all that the world makes available -- I am not in favour of escapism -- but continue to remember that this is only an overnight stay. In the morning we have to move. This is only a caravanserai, it is not home.

If this much remembrance is there, one goes on moving and on moving, and one day the miracle happens: perfect bliss has descended upon you. Then there is no misery any more, no possibility of falling back.

It happens only in perfect awareness, in perfect meditativeness, in perfect silence.

Happiness is finite, it begins and ends; hence it has no ultimate value. It is a toy. You can remain occupied with it for a moment, it brings a little sensation, a little thrill into life, but then in its wake it also brings frustration in the same proportion. Because when it ends, and it is bound to end, it leaves you in darkness. So each happiness is a costly affair.

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But bliss is totally different. It has no beginning, no end. It is always there inside you, it is something with which you are born. To express it right, it is you; hence it can neither be taken away from you, nor can it be given to you.

But the question arises: if bliss is your nature why are people in misery? People are in misery because they never look into their nature. Their eyes are focussed outwards on far-away things. They have forgotten how to look in, they have forgotten the very process of turning in.

Meditation is nothing but the simple process of turning in. Meditation does not produce bliss, it simply helps you to recognise what is already there. It does not give you anything new, it simply reveals the ancient most thing in you.

Bliss is the only rock that time cannot destroy. Everything else is destroyed by time, sooner or later.

Only bliss remains untouched by time because bliss is beyond time. Time is part of mind. In fact time and mind are two aspects of the same coin. Time is a psychological phenomenon. You can watch it in your own life: when you are miserable time becomes longer, then one hour seems to be so long. If you are sitting by the bedside of a dying man then the night seems so long, as if there is never going to be an end to it. But if you are holding the hand of your beloved time passes so fast, so quickly, that hours pass and you think only minutes have passed, or not even minutes. The night passes as if the clock has been deceiving you and going faster.

When you are happy time goes quickly. When you are miserable time slows down. So time is something psychological. And when you are neither miserable nor happy, just silent and peaceful, time disappears, time is no more found.

An ancient Sufi parable says that when Jesus was departing one of his disciples asked him "Lord, what will be the most unique thing in the kingdom of God?" And Jesus said, "There shall be time no longer."

It is not recorded in the Christian gospels but Sufis have carried this beautiful anecdote. It is of tremendous significance. The most important thing he says is: There shall be time no longer.

It can be translated as: There shall be mind no longer, there will be no pleasure, no pain, there will be no experience as such, just silence, pure silence.

Every experience is a disturbance. Even the pleasant experience is a disturbance; hence it is tiring. Even pleasure tires people. In fact it tires more than pain, because with pain you keep a little distance. You don't want it, you want it to be

finished soon. You remain a little aloof, detached, you don't cling to it. But you cling to pleasure and you want more and more of it; hence it is more tiring. And you can see it: rich people look more tired than poor people, kings look more tired than beggars, for the simple reason that the beggars can only hope and dream about pleasures, and when you hope and dream it is not tiring. In fact it infuses new vitality in you. When you are just dreaming and hoping it is always a transfusion of new blood.

But the rich, the affluent, the kings -- they are living it, and it is boring and it has become tasteless. They are utterly tired but they don't know where to go now. There is nowhere to go, no exit. That's how Jean-Paul Sartre defines hell: No exit.

Whenever he is in a situation from where there is no exit, the man who is in pain can think of pleasure.

There is an exit, at least in his imagination. But the man who is in pleasure, where can he go? Not even in his imagination... To pain he cannot go; nobody wants to be in a painful state. And pleasure he has already got, so he has nowhere to go. He is stuck. That is hell.

The old idea of hell is really out of date, that people will be tortured and burned and... It is a Nazi idea, a Fascist idea. But it is wrong because if there is so much pain people will be happy. They will be hoping that sooner or later it will be finished.

I would like hell to be like the heaven that is depicted in the scriptures: all pleasures available, everybody suffering from diabetes! (laughter) Everybody so fat that they cannot walk, and refrigerators go on moving behind everybody! (laughter) Wherever you go the refrigerator goes with you, you cannot escape from it. All kinds of pleasures are available and there is no exit. That would be real hell.

The people who depicted hell did not have much imagination. They did not understand much human psychology.

There is only one thing which is beyond heaven and hell, beyond pain and pleasure -- that is bliss. By bliss I don't mean joy, I don't mean happiness, not at all -- but peace, total peace, an undisturbed silence.

One is so centred in oneself that there is no time, no mind. Each moment is all. That is the only permanent thing in existence -- eternal, rocklike.

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Bliss happens only to those few blessed souls who know how to be peaceful. Ordinarily man lives in a great turmoil. He lives constantly surrounded by a crowd of thoughts, desires, memories, imagination, expectations. He is never alone, these people go on following him. Even if he goes to a cave in the mountains these people are there. He is always surrounded by these ugly faces; hence there is no peace.

They all go on pulling you apart, they are all pulling you into different directions.

Your anger wants to do one thing, your greed wants to do something else, your ambition forces you to do something exactly opposite to what your anger wants to do -- and you are divided. You are not integrated.

Peace means that one is integrated. All these fragments have melted into one being. There is no crowd any more. One is alone, utterly alone. A deep deep peace prevails inside. Then one is ready to receive bliss.

Bliss follows peace. Peace prepares the ground, one peace is there bliss is inevitable.

Bliss happens only to those what loyalty is. Bliss happens only in the heart, never in the head. The head is like a desert: nothing grows there. It is only in the heart that everything that is of any value, any eternal value, grows in the heart. But the functioning of the heart and the head are totally opposed to each other.

And we are trained for the head -- that becomes a problem.

The head is based on doubt nd the heart is based on trust. Our whole training is

of doubting, thinking, suspecting, questioning. And that is not the way of the heart; hence we remain hung-up in the head. There are very few people on the earth who know that the heart exists. For others it is only a metaphor, poetry, fiction, not fact; at the most just a jumping mechanism for the blood. But that is not the heart that mystics have been talking about.

There is a center deep down inside you, but that center can only be known through trust.

Sannyas is a jump into trust. It is getting involved in a love affair, a love affair with God himself. Less than that is of no use. Only a love affair can help.

The head will say that this is blind trust and it will condemn it in every possible way. But don't listen to the head; it is the devil who speaks through the head. Listen to the heart -- that is God's voice.

Jos is a form of Joseph, the name of the father of Jesus. Literally it means increasing faithfulness.

Bliss is possible only if you trust. It is not possible in a state of doubt. It never happens to the sceptical mind. In fact it never happens to any mind because more or less all minds are sceptical. It happens to the heart. The heart is always trusting, it is always faithful. It knows how to love, it knows how to be committed to love.

The mind is a coward; hence it cannot trust. It is suspicious, it is always afraid; out of fear it doubts.

Fear and doubt go together, trust and love go together. Doubt is not something to brag about. People brag about their doubting minds, they think that they are doing something great. They even think that they are very brave, that's why they can doubt. But doubt is rooted in cowardliness. To trust more guts are needed.

To trust it really needs great boldness. Trust is a sacrifice: sacrifice of the ego, sacrifice of fear, sacrifice of doubt, sacrifice of the head. But once one has been capable of doing this miracle, of moving from doubt to trust, from head to heart, from logic to love, then all kind of miracles become possible. Then you are entitled to incredible experiences.

It is symbolic that Jesus is born to Joseph, that Joseph is the father of Jesus. It

can be translated into a beautiful symbol: enlightenment is born out of trust, trust is the father of enlightenment.

There are things which man can do and there are things which man can only allow to happen. Bliss belongs to the second category. You cannot do it but you can allow it to happen, you can be available to it, you can be open to it. All that is needed on your side is a deep trust, receptivity, love, surrender, let-go, and then it immediately starts happening. It is never your doing, it can never be your doing. Even when it is happening, if you start doing something about it, it will stop happening. Doing means undoing.

All that is great in life belongs to the second category. The first category is mundane, the second category is sacred. Bliss, love, truth, God, freedom -- they all happen. You cannot do anything, you are the barrier. When you are absent, when the ego is no more functioning, the heavens open and start pouring into you tremendous treasures of joy, inexhaustible treasures of truth. But it is always a gift from God. You cannot claim it as your doing. One can only be grateful.

Bliss is our potential but unless we work hard the potential can never become actual. It can't become 1/08/07

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actual by itself. It needs tremendous effort on our part to transform it from a seed into a tree, into flowers, into fruits.

The potential is like frozen ice: through hard work you can create the necessary heat to melt it. And once the ice starts melting your coldness starts disappearing and love arises. The more you flow, the more loving you are; the more you flow, the more close you are to god, because once you start flowing the ocean is not far away. Howsoever far away it may be, it is not far away. But if one is ice-cold, frozen, the ocean may be just by the corner and the difference is unbridgeable; the ice cannot move, it is stagnant. It has to be melted.

And we have to create the necessary heat to melt it. A sturdy spirit is needed.

People start... many people start meditating, working on themselves, but they are not sturdy. One day they will meditate and then another day they will sleep; for a few days they will work and then they will completely forget about it. And they go astray very easily, any accidental thing can take them away from their work. Great persistence is needed, perseverance is needed, patience is needed. And one has to go on and on hammering.

It is like digging a well. You go on digging. You will not reach the water level immediately although the water is there. But between you and the water there are many layers of earth, maybe rocks took and they all have to be removed. And it needs work.

Starting at one place and stopping then starting at another place and then stopping, then starting at a third place is a sheer wastage of time. It is better to work in a single direction with your total being, with your whole heart. Then the potential certainly becomes actual, and when the potential is actualised life is fulfilled. Then for the first time you know that there is great meaning.

The other name for that meaning is God.

Bliss is the beloved of all. Whatsoever we are doing, we are searching for bliss. In every act, right or wrong, moral or immoral, material or spiritual, the search is the same: the search for the ultimate beloved.

And that is bliss.

If one searches for bliss unconsciously one cannot find it. That's how many people go on searching and searching, and they always find only misery. And the more they reach, the more miserable they become. But the reason is that their search is unconscious. They have not yet become alert to what they are really seeking and searching for.

The moment you become aware that bliss is our goal, things become simple. God is not your goal, truth is not your goal. These are different names which you go on giving to bliss. All these names have to be removed so that you can face the ultimate goal in its sheer nakedness, because once you know what the goal is things become simple. Once you know the goal, immediately you know the path; once you recognise that bliss is our goal you need not go outside at all because bliss is our very nature. The way is in, not out. You have not to rush and run for it. You have to be more still and more silent.

And the moment that you are totally still and silent it wells up within you being. That moment is moment when one is really born. Before that one is only physiologically born, not spiritually. One is not a soul before that. Only after that does one become a soul, does one become an immortal, does one become a god.

Bliss is the ultimate state of flowering, when you become a flower, when you have realised your total potential. Bliss is the reward for growing to one's ultimate height. When you reach the sunlit peaks of your consciousness then only do you know what bliss it.

To be watchful is the way to attain bliss. That's what meditation is all about: being watchful, alert, aware, being watchful of what you do, being watchful of what you thing, being watchful of what you feel.

These are the three watchfulnesses, and if you can do these three then the forth arises in you: you become watchful of who you are.

Start by action because that is the grossest thing, visible, tangible, objective. Then move to thoughts.

They are a little less gross, invisible to others, only visible to you. Then move to feeling, which is even more subtle, more vague. Even to you it is not totally visible, only vaguely available.

If these three watchfulnesses can be fulfilled the fourth arises in you. Then you know who you are. Then you settle in your being. And to be absolutely unidentified with the body, mind and heart is the ultimate peak. Suddenly there is a showering of bliss. From all directions it starts showering on you, and then it goes on showering forever.

Anand means bliss; Adriana means creative heart -- a blissful and creative heart. That's the whole 1/08/07

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definition of sannyas.

Bliss is always creative, it can't be otherwise. And if the person who is creative is not blissful than all his creativity is bogus. He may be a compositor but not a creator. He may be putting things together in beautiful ways, he may know the art of painting, but he can't be a creative artist. He knows the technique, the how- to, but he is not a creative artist. He may know how to dance but he is not a dancer.

The dancer is one who loses himself in his dance and disappears in the dance. The real dancer, sooner or later forgets the technique, forgets the art; it becomes his life.

In Zen they say that if you really want to be a painter, for twelve years learn how to paint and then for twelve years forget all about painting, never touch the brush and never paint again. And after twelve years --

that means after twenty-four years, twelve years of painting and twelve years of silence -- start painting again. Now you have forgotten the technique, now you can be a painter. Now something can start moving from your very heart.

Bliss and creativity are two sides of the same coin. There are people who have been trying to be blissful without being creative and all have failed. All the monks and the nuns of the world have failed for the simple reason that they were trying something impossible. They were trying to be blissful without being creative. And being creative is an absolutely necessary part of it, an intrinsic part of bliss. You cannot drop it.

The same has happened to many artists, painters, musicians, dancers, poets. They had been trying to be creative without being blissful. And if you are miserable, what are you going to create? Your heart is dead!

You are so burdened, you are carrying Himalayas of misery. How can you sing? How can you paint? Your painting will simply be a catharsis.

That's what Picasso's paintings are, a catharsis. They helped him to unburden his misery, his insanity. If he were stopped and where not allowed to paint he would go insane. It is therapy through art but it is not creativity.

And exactly is the case with many poets, musicians, dancers and other kinds of artist. They are trying to be creative but they have nothing to share. They are almost dead, dull, unconscious, in such an inner turmoil and tension that

whatsoever they create will reflect their pathology. The whole of contemporary art is pathological.

The monks and nuns failed because they were trying to do one thing, trying to be blissful without being creative. And the arts have failed because they have been trying just the opposite, being creative without being blissful.

My effort here is to create a new kind of man. My sannyasins have to be creative and blissful together because that's the only possible way to grow, to mature, to be. So remember it: be blissful and creative. And if you are blissful it is easy to be creative; if you are creative it is easy to be blissful. They help each other, they go on helping each other.

The highest peak is attained when both are fulfilled. One can call that state God, Nirvana, enlightenment or whatsoever one wants to call it... the kingdom of God, moksha, ultimate freedom. But it comes only to those few people who are trying both, who are creating a synthesis between bliss and creativity.

Hardy means strong and brave.

Bliss needs both qualities. Cowards cannot be blissful because cowards cannot be individuals. They remain part of the crowd -- and the crowd is insane, the crowd is a mess. The coward cannot be alone, he is so scared of being left behind. He always wants to follow the crowd. He feels good when he is surrounded by people, he feels as if he is safe, secure. And of course the crows is miserable and it expects you too to be miserable. If you are blissful the crowd thinks that you are mad, something is wrong with you.

One needs courage to get out of the structures that society imposes on everybody. One needs to be brave, to resist every kind of slavery, because only when you are utterly free of all slavery, all social conditioning, does your inner being start dancing. In freedom is dance, in freedom is bliss and in freedom is God.

A slave cannot know anything of value.

Bliss is naturally luminous. You cannot hide it. It is bound to explode, it is bound to reach others. It is like the fragrance of a flower. The flower cannot contain it, the winds are going to take it away, far far away. It is like a lamp. You cannot hide it, it shines forth. Even from very far away you can see it in the dark night --

just a small lamp, a candle. And bliss is a light, a flame. It is your heart aflame. When your 1/08/07

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heart has become a divine flame you feel bliss.

Nobody has ever been able to hide it, it shines forth. It is very bright, it is dazzling bright, in fact it is offensively bright, hence Jesus offends people, Buddha offends people. Not that they ever want to offend anybody, they are the humblest people possible, but nothing can be done about it. Their light is so dazzling, their love is such a perfume that it penetrates to the very core of other's people's being. Their joy is such that everybody feels inferior. They don't want anybody to feel inferior, in fact they declare "you are just as we are, we are not different. That is their whole message. Whatsoever they say is one thing, but still their very presence is enough for people to feel offended. They shrink in their inferiority, and out of that inferiority revenge arises; hence Socrates is poisoned, Buddha is stoned, Jesus is killed. These are, in a way, natural causes of death, these are not accidents. They were bound to happen.

The simple reason is that whenever your heart is full of bliss you become open, all windows and doors open up, and your light and your bliss and your presence starts reaching people. Those who understand will be healed by it, but there are very few people who will understand it. Those who don't understand will be hurt by it -- and they are in millions.

Hence the greatest risk in the world is to be blissful. The world loves miserable people, it respects them tremendously. Whenever somebody is utterly miserable it calls it holiness. It worships and respects miserable people as saints and mahatmas. The more they torture themselves, the more the people fall at their feet. But the world has never loved a man who is really blissful. The miserable person suits the miserable world perfectly well. They are on the same plane, they fit together, they hum together.

The blissful person becomes such a peak, he rises so high above the clouds, that we start feeling insulted. The only way is either to rise to the same height or to

destroy that peak so that you can be at ease again, so that you can be at ease with the pygmy crowd, with the miserable lot.

Mind is a state of darkness, but one can rise above the mind and immediately all is light. Meditation means transcending the mind, getting out of the darkness into the light. Once you are in the light of no-mind, bliss arises. It does not come from the outside, it explodes within you. It is not something that is given to you by somebody; hence it cannot be taken away. It is your very nature. But one can see it only when there is light, one cannot see it in darkness. Hence the whole effort of all the mystics of all the ages has been single: to drop the mind and to go into a state of no-mind. And that's actually the process of sannyas too.

Unless one knows "I am something above the mind," one remains ignorant. The moment you know that the mind is only a mechanism -- you are not it, you are the watcher of it, the witness of it -- you have moved from misery into bliss, from the night into the day, from time into eternity.

In the East we make small earthen lamps. The lamp is earthen, made of mud, but the light is not earthen.

The flame is not the earth. The lamp belongs to the earth but the light, the flame, belongs to the beyond.

That's exactly the situation of our being: the body belongs to the earth and the soul belongs to the beyond. If we forget the soul completely and only start living as a body -- that's what millions of people are doing -- then we have forgotten our real home. Sooner or later we will be frustrated because the earthen lamp can never be eternal. It is bound to break at any moment, any small accident and it will be broken.

The body is temporal, a temporary residence. It is not your permanent address. And we have to search for the permanent address, because only by finding it will we be able to find something which abides forever. And to find something which abides forever is to find bliss, because it cannot be taken away from you.

To remain attached to the temporal, to the changing is to remain within the world of misery because the temporal will be taken away. You have invested so much in it but one day everything is taken away. Then it is natural to feel miserable.

Misery is rooted in attachment to the body and bliss is rooted in non-attachment

to the body; hence all the great masters have been teaching methods and means of non-attachment, of getting disidentified with the body, with the mind, with everything surrounds you, and of just remaining a pure witness. That's what we are: pure witnessing, pure awareness.

And that's exactly my work here, to help you to experience it, to have a little taste of it. Once you have tasted it then there is no problem. You will go on moving towards it more and more. Just a drop of the nectar is enough to transform your whole life.

There is no bliss against life, although that has been the idea of the whole of past humanity, that to be 1/08/07

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blissful one has to go against life, one has to renounce life. That is the greatest error that humanity has committed up to now. Bliss is through life, in life, with life. Bliss is life.

Going against life is death. Renouncing life is simply renouncing the opportunity to grow, to be mature, to be; hence iI am against all kinds of renunciation. Renunciation is negative, life-negative, destructive. It has destroyed millions of people. Monks and nuns of all the religions have been victims. They suffered because of a mass hypnosis

My effort is absolutely against traditional religions. It may be Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, it doesn't matter. All the religions have been life- negative. They decided to be life-negative for the simple reason that that was the only way to prove who is holy and who is unholy: the people who love life are unholy. Everybody loves life -- that is natural. Then the holy man has to do something to prove that he is higher, superior. He has to do something just the opposite of the ordinary humanity. He has to be extraordinary, and nothing makes him more extraordinary than going against life. He starts swimming against the current. He becomes special, very special. But this is the way of the ego, not the way of God.

And the saints have been more egoistic than anybody else. They are not saints really. They are suffering from megalomania.

A really religious person is very ordinary. He has no claims to extraordinariness.

Be ordinary but be totally in it. Live the life that has been given to you with joy, with gratitude. It is god's gift. To me this is sannyas, this is a true religious life. When life is God then you are moving in the right direction.

God is not against life, otherwise why should he create it in the first place? God is absolutely for life. It is his creation. It is out of his love that he has created it. We have to live it so totally that the ego is lost in the living of it, that it disappears. And to live life egolessly is enough -- more than that is not needed at all.

It opens you towards God.

We take life for granted -- that is our fundamental ignorance. We never feel thankful for life. It is such a blessing. We are not worthy of it, we don't deserve it. it is given out of God's abundance, not because of our worth. We have not earned it. It is a gift, not a reward. And God gives because he has to give; he has so much.

One of the intrinsic phenomena of bliss is that it needs to be shared. All the old stories of creation somehow or other imply that God was alone and he started feeling very lonely; hence he created the world.

But I don't agree that he started feeling lonely and that's why he created the world. I have my own vision: God was alone and he started feeling so burdened with bliss that he wanted to share it, he needed people.

Not that he started feeling lonely -- that doesn't seem right. God feeling lonely doesn't fit, it is a contradiction in terms. But he started feeling so burdened with bliss, so overburdened, and there was nobody to share it with. How long can you dance alone? You need a partner. How long can you go on singing? You need somebody who will listen.

God gives because he has so much that he is heavy with bliss. Once we understand this, that we have not earned our life, we start thinking in different terms about the whole phenomenon. Then it is a blessing. And when life is a

blessing prayer arises, thankfulness arises, gratitude is born. To be a sannyasin means the birth of gratitude.

From this moment start looking at everything as a blessing. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Even when you sometimes feel pain it is a blessing. You may not understand, but it is a blessing. One day you will understand and you will see that it was a blessing, that it was needed, absolutely needed, that it helped your growth. Even suffering is a blessing. It cleanses, it helps you to become integrated, it takes childishness away from you, it helps you to become mature. A certain ripeness arises out of suffering.

A man who has never suffered remains childish, juvenile, superficial. He can't understand life's deeper things. He thinks that life is just a merry-go-round, so from one sensation to another he goes on moving. He is continuously greedy and hankering for all kinds of toys. But they are toys.

The man who has suffered enough becomes mature. He can see that toys are toys

-- not worth the labour, not worth the worry. He can understand the depth, and he can see other people's lives with more sympathy, with more compassion, with more love. Because he has suffered he knows what suffering is. That makes him more human. So suffering too is a blessing.

Watch, observe and try to find a blessing everywhere. Sometimes it is in disguise, sometimes not so 1/08/07

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much in disguise, sometimes utterly nude. But if you watch you will find it is always there; in success, in failure, in pain, in pleasure, in life, in death too. It is there in summer, it is there in winter, it is there in youth, it is there in old age. It is there in health, it is there is illness. I call that person religious who can see blessings everywhere, who cannot find any place, any point which is not a blessing.

It is only such rare people who attain to the ultimate.

Misery makes one mean, ignoble. Misery is a sin because out of misery only misery arises. The miserable person goes on radiating misery all around himself. He poisons all his relationships, he even poisons strangers. Whomsoever comes close to him, he sucks his energy. He is destructive in a very subtle way. He is negative, that's why he is destructive. He is like a black hole. He cannot be noble.

Only bliss is noble. When you are blissful you start sharing. Bliss has one intrinsic quality, it demands sharing, it asks you to share, because the more you share, the more it grows. It is an inexhaustible source.

The blissful person has a grace. The blissful person can never be mediocre. He is pure intelligence.

Nobility is not something that you can cultivate, but you can learn the ways of being blissful. And once your are blissful nobility comes of its own accord as a shadow. It is a by-product.

Misery has to be earned. It is through great effort that one becomes miserable. And to remain miserable is really a miracle! (laughter) Only very rare individuals can manage it. It needs extraordinary energy.

Bliss is simple, misery is complex. Bliss is natural, misery is unnatural. To main the unnatural you have to put all your energy into it -- to be natural you need not put any energy into it. But millions of people are miserable, and it is very rare to find a person who is not. So what has happened?

It is simple. To understand it is of immense significance. It is only through misery that the ego can exist, because you have to make an effort and you have to be constantly into it, creating it, maintaining it. Then the ego can remain. And if one loves the ego, then misery is necessary to keep the ego alive. In a state of bliss ego disappears because there is nothing left to do and ego can exist only as a doer. In bliss there is no need for the doer, it is simply our nature to be blissful. It is like health, health is simply our nature. Disease is an accident. So when you are healthy you don't ask how, why. When you are ill you ask "Why am I ill?

What is the cause of it?"

Misery has causes, bliss has no cause. You have to decide only one thing; if you are ready to drop the ego nobody can prevent you from being blissful.

So let sannyas be a dropping of the ego. And be blissful from this very moment. There is no need to go on maintaining your misery. Simple say "Enough is enough!"

Bliss is divine. it has nothing to do with human effort, hence it is divine. Misery is human, it is our work, it is our doing. Bliss has only to be allowed. We can prevent it from happening but we cannot create it.

It is as if the sun has risen but you stand confronting the sun with closed eyes and you remain in darkness. The sun is there, you can be in light, but you have decided not to receive the sun. Then you can remain in darkness. Open your eyes and the darkness disappears.

Misery is our decision. We have decided to be miserable, we have decided not to allow the bliss to happen. Although we go on saying that we want bliss, really we don't want it, we are afraid of it. That's my observation of thousands of people, they are very afraid of bliss. With misery they are well-acquainted, familiar, at home. With bliss they start moving into the unknown. With bliss they are at a loss as to what to do ore what not to do. In fact they become absolutely, superfluous, they are no more needed: bliss is enough! They have to evaporate. When man disappears, bliss appears.

And my work here is simply to help you disappear, to help you evaporate. (a little chuckle) How long will you be here?

-- Till you send me away

-- No, I will never send you away!

Bliss is the most godly thing, misery the most ungodly. Misery is a sin, bliss is a virtue. But we have worshipped misery, we have worshipped people who were deliberately miserable. Sad, long faces became our saints. The dancers, the singers, the poets, the musicians -- they were not our saints. In fact they should be the saints because they enhance life, they make it richer, they give it more beauty, they leave the world a little better than they found it. That is the only way to serve god, to worship god.

Anything that creates bliss in you is sacred. So let bliss be the whole target of your life. In every 1/08/07

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possible way become more and more blissful. Don't be serious and don't be sad. The universe is a celebration, participate in the celebration. And you can participate only if you are cheerful. The stars are dancing, become part of the dance.

That's my teaching, that is my initiation into sannyas, to help you sing, to help you love, to help you dance.

Only a blissful person can bring truth to the world. It is only out of bliss that you become a vehicle of God. When one is blissful one becomes just a window. God can look through that window into the world and the world can look through the window into God. One becomes just a hollow bamboo, then God can sing many many songs through the flute. But those songs come from God. Our function is only one: not to hinder them, not to distort them.

It cannot happen in a state of misery. A miserable person is constantly distorting truth. He himself is in such a distortion. He himself is in so many pieces that whatsoever goes through him becomes something other than what is was. Just by passing through the distorted person, it becomes distorted. He is not empty; a miserable person is full of his misery. That is something tremendously significant to remember: a miserable person is very full -- of garbage, rubbish, but very full.

The blissful person is very empty. He is just space. And through this emptiness god can flow into the world.

Become empty, become blissful -- and they go together very well. If you are blissful you will become empty, if you are empty you will become blissful. It is impossible for the empty person to be miserable.

There is nothing left to be miserable about, you are not even there to be miserable. The emptiness is so total that there is no I left behind who can be miserable. The empty person is not a person at all; he is simply emptiness, an open sky, unclouded. Hence through the empty person all the beauty and the

benediction and the blessing of God flows through. The empty person becomes his messenger, he brings truth to the world.

Jesus is an empty person, so is Buddha, so is Lao Tzu. And everybody can become that empty.

Meditation makes you empty on the one hand and on the other hand it makes you blissful. They happen simultaneously.

Bliss is our home. If we are living in misery we are living somewhere else, not in our own home. We are not living in our nature. We are living in something accidental. The moment you start living in your essential being, life is bliss. If you go astray... the farther away you go from you essential core, the more miserable you become. Misery is really the measurement of how distant you are from home.

So remember it: whenever you are more miserable that simply means that you have gone really far away from your home. Come back!

People go on doing a thousand other things rather than coming back home. If they are miserable they go on throwing the responsibility on others. The wife is creating the trouble, the husband thinks that's why he is miserable.… or the society or the state. There are a thousand and one excuses. One can always find them, they are always available. If you can't find them you can invent them. But no excuse is going to help, it simply prolongs your misery more. There is no excuse for your misery except the truth -- and the truth is that you are very far away from your being.

So whenever you are miserable go into meditation: become silent, watch your misery, become a witness to it, don't become identified with it, and you will be surprised that the more you watch, the less it is. And when you are perfectly watchful it simply disappears, as if it had never been there. Not even a trace is left behind. And suddenly you will find that the same energy that was becoming your misery has become a showering of bliss. You have come home.

We have to constantly come back home because our habit is to go astray. For lives together we have been going astray. For lives together we have been going astray. It has become habitual.

Sannyas means a determined effort to remember that "Whenever I am miserable

I have to go back to my sources, to my roots." Slowly slowly you become aware of the whole process of misery and then you go away from your home less and less. More and more you become centred and more and more bliss is there.

When one is one hundred per cent centred and awareness is total, bliss is infinite, you have arrived home. Call it paradise, nirvana, moksha, liberation, but the most beautiful word is "home."

Sannyas is the return journey home. 1/08/07

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If You Choose To Be With Me, You Must Risk Finding Yourself Chapter #5

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