13

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‌CHAPTER 13

13 May 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, Barbara means a stranger. Love is a stranger in this world; hate is not. hate is part of the very fabric of this world; love comes from the beyond. Hate belongs to the earth; love is part of the sky. Hate gravitates downwards; love soars upwards. Love is a stranger, and because love is a stranger, love becomes the vehicle to God. Because love is not part of this world love can take you into another world, to the other shore; it can become the vehicle, the boat.

Hold fast to love and drop anything that goes against love. That’s true sannyas, that is true renunciation: renouncing all that goes against love and celebrating all that is part of love and enhances it.

Anand means bliss, Mandiro means a temple – a temple of bliss. Man has the potential to become a temple of God, and unless he becomes it he remains unfulfilled. Life is meaningless unless God comes and becomes a guest in you; life can’t have any significance.

We can have money, and we can have power and we can have respect, but deep down you will remain aware that something is missing because whatsoever we can attain in the outside world cannot fill the inner emptiness. Only God can enter into the innermost core of your being, only God. Not even you lover can reach that core.

That’s why love frustrates very much: you aspire, you long, you hope that now this is going to happen. It is always just on the verge of happening but it never happens. That’s why nothing is more frustrating in life than love, because nothing is more promising than love. It is just going to happen it seems and one is so expectant, but it never happens and then there is great frustration.

It cannot happen. We are asking the impossible: even your lover cannot penetrate to the innermost core of your being. That is available only to God. And to open yourself to God is sannyas. To be available to him is sannyas, to be non-resistant to him is sannyas.

Paul means small, little; Narayano is a name of God. To be small, so small that one is almost nothing, is the way to God. Not to be is the door to being in God, for being God. The whole art of religion is the art of disappearing, evaporating so that the big ego goes on becoming smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, and one day it is gone forever. When it is really gone what is left is divine, is godliness. The ego is hiding it, covering it. The ego is the only barrier, and the last barrier.

Start dropping chunks of the ego; that will make you a Paul – smaller, smaller, smaller. and the day when you are not is the day of great rejoicing because then instantly God is there. Not to find yourself is to find God.

Deva means God, Nicole means victory – God’s victory. Let God be victorious over you. Don’t hanker for your own victory, don’t desire your own success. Don’t desire anything, just let God be victorious over you. His will has to be your will. To leave oneself totally in the hands of God in utter surrender and trust is to be religious, is to be meditative, is to be prayerful.

Prayer is not a ritual: it is a surrender. And meditation is not a method: it is a trust. And God is not a hypothesis which has to be proved by arguments: it is an experience, the experience of total surrender to existence. Having no will on one’s own is the door to God.

Remember Jesus’ words again and again – that’s exactly the meaning of your name: Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done.

Anand means blissful, Claudio means lame – blissfully lame. Lame is a metaphor, a metaphor for human limitations, a metaphor for human imperfections, a metaphor for human weaknesses. One has to blissfully accept ail limitations, all imperfections, all weaknesses. To accept oneself as one is, is a great step towards growth. Not trying to improve upon oneself is the best way to improve – just relaxing, accepting, and leaving it to God.

Dance even if you are lame. Dream even if you are blind. If you cannot hear the outer sounds, if you are deaf, hear the inner sounds! Find a way in your limitations, through your limitations, and then each limitation becomes a stepping stone. They have to be used rather than distorted because God never gives anything which is not really needed. Whatsoever he gives is needed. We may not understand, we may not be able to see the point immediately, that s why we go on missing many blessings: because they come in disguise. But the person who accepts totally cannot miss any opportunity. Because he accepts even calamities, how can he miss? In whatsoever form the blessing comes he is ready to embrace it.

That’s the meaning of your name: a blissful acceptance of all limitations, a deep acceptance of humanity, desiring no perfection. Then suddenly a transformation happens: the imperfections start falling into a hole; the jigsaw puzzle itself, of its own accord, starts settling. All discord starts disappearing and a great harmony arises; that harmony is God.

Sannyas is a search for God.

[A sannyasin says: All the time I seem to hold back.]

It will go. Go on holding! One day you will get so tired that it will slip out of your hands; that’s how it happens. Nobody can drop it; that is part of the human dilemma. You cannot drop it because if you

drop it you become the dropper. You still hold the ego and it is the same game played in new names from the back door.

You cannot drop it. You have to carry it; it is your karma. You have to carry the weight, you have to drag it, but one day it is too much. It accumulates, accumulates, accumulates and then it becomes such a Himalayan job to carry it that out of sheer fed-up-ness it slips from your hands and suddenly it is gone and you are free of it. That’s how it happens.

It is exactly like sleep: if you try you will not be able to sleep at all. Try tonight; try to sleep. Every effort is against sleep. Even trying to sleep is against sleep. It will keep you aware, alert; you will remain awake. Forget all about it and suddenly one moment it has happened and you are gone into it. Only in the morning will you remember that there was a moment when you were not trying and then it happened.

God comes through grace, not through effort; God comes like sleep.

But this is part of our situation – that first we have to struggle hard. And every struggle is bound to fail; you cannot succeed through struggling but you have to learn the hard way.

So don’t be worried – this is natural, normal. I say go on holding and soon the weight will be so much that you will not be able to hold it any longer. And anything can become the last straw on the camel, remember – anything. One never knows which thing is going to become the last straw. Just a small thing... sometimes very small things have caused tremendous transformations.

Lao Tzu was sitting under a tree – he had struggled hard and nothing had happened – and then suddenly a dry leaf, a dead leaf started falling from the tree. And that did it! Seeing that leaf falling so silently without any effort he became enlightened. The whole credit goes to the leaf.

Buddha became enlightened seeing the last morning star disappearing. As the star disappeared he disappeared; and for six years he had been struggling hard.

One never knows; it happens unexpectedly. It is going to happen, that much I can say. When is not possible to predict, but it is going to happen; that much is certain.

So as long as you can carry it carry on. Nothing to be worried about. I have every sympathy with you but what can be done? (laughter)

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