27

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‌CHAPTER 27

27 May 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Man is a bridge, a bridge between the animal and God, a bridge between two infinities – matter and consciousness. Man is not a being but a bridge.

A being is complete; man is not complete. Man has to become bridged, man has to go a long way yet. Man is only a passage to be passed over, to be surpassed. Man is not a being but a becoming. God is a being and the rock is a being, but man is between the two – the rock and God.

Unless this is continuously remembered man loses the very point of his existence. It has to be remembered that we are arrows. We can’t be static, we have to go on moving: there are goals to be achieved, targets to be penetrated, promises to be fulfilled.

And man is not only a bridge but a love bridge, because it is through love that the rock can become God. Love is the alchemy that the rock has to pass through. It is love that can transform the animal into the divine. There is no other process for the transformation.

Remember these two things: that you have not yet happened, that you have to happenb yet, that you have to be, that you are still fast asleep, that you have to become awake; that it is still dark and night and we have to grope for the dawn. And the only way of finding the dawn is through love. So remember: you are a bridge, and a bridge of love.

If these two things are remembered, God is not very far away. If this remembrance becomes a constant phenomenon like breathing – whether you are awake or asleep it continues, it becomes a constant milieu around you, your very flavor – then God is not far away. Then the journey of one thousand miles can be completed in a single step.

And that step is sannyas. It is a desire to sur pass oneself. And that is the beauty and the glory of man... because man is the only animal who can envision surpassing himself. No dog can do it, no

tiger can do it, no elephant can do it. They cannot imag-ine that they can be more than they are, that there is more to life than they know. It is the glory of man, the dignity of man, that man can envision, can dream of, can aspire to, can long for, something bigger, for something higher.

That longing is the root cause of all the religions. That longing is the seed out of which religions sprout.

Anand neans bliss; Eva means life. Bliss is life; misery is death. And because millions of people have decided to live in misery they are not really alive. They only live so so, their life is only apparent. Deep down they are dead: their heart is dead, their spirit is dead, their God is dead. They are not flowing with existence. They are stagnant pools, not rivers. And only rivers can meet the ocean; only rivers can go into the beyond, into the unknown. They have no juice in their lives. They are dry, desertlike; not even an oasis exists in them. And the whole cause of it is that they have decided to be miserable – for certain reasons, of course.

Misery has a few things: it has security, safety. It keeps you imprisoned, but very safe. It keeps you dead, but very comfortable. It does not allow you adventures because they are dangerous, but without being adventurous one cannot be alive.

Life is in adventure. Life is in constant inquiry. Life is not a belief but a deep exploration for truth. And life knows no confinement, no limitation. It constantly goes on beyond, it breaks all the boundaries and all the limitations. Then there is ecstasy and the thrill of being. And then one is as blissful as the stars, as the flowers, as the birds, as the trees.

It is our birthright but we have not chosen it. We are free to choose: we can choose misery, we can choose bliss; we can choose life, we can choose death. And because of this freedom we have fallen into the trap of misery. We have believed in its promises.

And the whole society supports it: the church, the state, the education system, they all support it. They support a comfortable life, secure, safe, conformist. Be a Christian, be a Hindu, be a Mohammedan. Go to church – just ritualistically, formally, as a social formality. Don’t get involved in religion or things like that; they are dangerous. Don’t get involved in things like love; they are dangerous. Marraige is safe but marriage is miserable. And don’t get involved in the world of beauty, poetry, music because they are all intoxicants. They can make one tremendously drowned in them, drunk in them.

So keep to the world of money and power and prestige; they are controllable. You can possess money but you cannot possess music: music will possess you! You can manage marriage: you cannot manage love. Love is so vast, it will be just beyond your grasp. You will be drowned in it, you will be gone into it, you will be mad in it. You will forget all arithmetic and all calculation. Hence the society teaches you safer ways.

And we think that by being safe we will be happy, we will be joyful. That is utter nonsense. Joy is in exploration; bliss is in constant inquiry. Life is in journeying; life is in being a wanderer. Life is always in risking, and the more one can risk, the more one can be alive. If one can risk totally then one can have God. God is the total risk, the ultimate risk.

My work here consists in helping you to take the jump into the ultimate risk.

Deva means divine; Sebastian means majestic.

God is the ultimate magic, the ultimate majesty, the ultimate miracle. Logically, God should not be. That’s why logicians go on saying that there is no God. If they have to be sincere and true to their science of logic they have to deny God.

But logic is not synonymous with life; life is more than logic. And God is even more than life. Life is only one expression of God, only one aspect, one facet, just one side of the diamond. There are other sides too. and as you go deeper into the search you will become aware of many more dimensions As you go into the depth you become aware of tremendous treasures of which you were simply oblivious, of which you had never even dreamed.

God is splendor, infinite splendor. And without God life cannot have any meaning. It will have logic but it will not have any meaning. It will be mathematical but it will be utterly senseless. It will be measurable but without any music in it. It will be possible to study and observe it in the science lab but there will be no poetry in it. Without religion, poetry, music, dance – everything that is significant disappears.

And religion is rooted in the experience of the splendor, the multidimensional splendor of existence. Everything is so utterly beautiful, so exquisite, unbelievably beautiful. And everything has such a benediction around it, such grace, that one who has a little sensitivity is bound to become aware of it.

The sound of running water, and the wind passing through the pine trees, and a single bird on the wing, and two lovers just sitting silently by the side of the river... It is so sacred, it is so holy!

Sebastian has all those meanings: majestic, revered, sacred, holy. It is a beautiful word. Let it become your meditation. Let it become your experience. Try to be open to the magic of life. Remain available to God. Even though he comes illogically, remain available.

That is the most difficult thing in life: to accept something which comes illogically. But God cannot come logically. Logic is our game; he has nothing to do with it. It is our small minds that have created logic and all its rules. It is like chess: rules are ours and everything that we have made out of it is ours. It has nothing to do with existence. Logic is nothing but intellectual chess. God need not fit into it, has no obligation to fit into it.

A sannyasin has to learn this tremendously significant thing that God comes illogically and we have to be open to receive him. We are not to impose conditions: “We will accept you only if you come logically”; “Unless you can be measured we will not believe you”; “Unless we can test you in a test tube we are not going to trust you.” If these are our conditions then God will remain unavailable. And without God your life has nothing in it. It is just zero, utter emptiness. It is a graveyard; it is death.

Bring God in and things start breathing. Bring God in and seeds start sprouting. Bring God in and your life has a dance and your life has significance. And for the first time one feels what a gift, what a tremendously valuable gift has been given to us, and we have not even thanked God for it.

Prem means love; Patrick means noble – noble love. Love makes one noble. Nobility has nothing to do with birth. One is not born noble; one can become. One may not become; one may miss. And

one cannot become noble by intellect. Intellect is cunning and mean. That’s why the more the world is becoming intellectual, the more mean and ugly it is becoming. More and more human beings are losing their humanness and behaving in a subhuman way.

Man becomes noble not by the head but by the heart. When the heart opens up it brings nobility. And the opening of the heart is what love is all about. Love is the fragrance of the open heart. When the lotus of the heart opens great fragrance is released: that fragrance is love.

By love I don’t mean a love-relationship, no. By love I mean a state of love, the fragrance of love. The fragrance may be in reference to somebody, may not be in reference to somebody; that is secondary. Relationship is secondary, it is not primary; but the state of love is primary. And one can be totally alone and yet immensely loving.

That love gives you a new birth. It makes you noble. It makes you truly human. It brings dignity, grandeur.

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