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‌CHAPTER 4

4 May 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Veet means going beyond, transcending, Christian means a follower of Christ. Go beyond following, that’s the only way to be a Christ. Go beyond following, and that’s the only way to be a Buddha. The follower never reaches the goal. Love Christ but don’t follow, don’t imitate, don’t be a shadow, don’t be a carbon copy.

Love, understand, aspire, imbibe the spirit but still don’t be a follower. That is the real way of following. Not to be a follower is the real way of following because then one day you can be a Christ on your own. And what I am saying is not against Christ, Buddha, Krishna; it’s exactly their message. Unless you are an authentic self you can never attain to the Christ consciousness or Buddha-consciousness. And to be an authentic self the first need is never to imitate, because each individual is so unique that if you repeat somebody else’s life you will only be acting; you can never be true.

Yes, you can become an actor and you can act exactly the same way Buddha acted. You can walk, you can talk, you can behave in the same way – maybe even better, because you can practice it, rehearse it, but it will remain pseudo, false. The real follower never follows. He learns, he loves, he feels; he imbibes the spirit, he takes the hints. He is not a sheep – he has his own soul.

And that’s the message of sannyas. By becoming a sannyasin you are not becoming my follower. You are simply entering into my friendship, into a love affair certainly, but not into a following – a love affair that will have far-reaching effects, but they will only be consequences; they will happen of their own accord.

And the closer you come to me, the more you will be yourself. If I can help that only then have I been a help to you. If by coming closer to me you start losing your identity, your individuality, then I am not a friend, then I am destroying you, and I am not creating you at all.

Prem means love, Samma means silence, stillness, tranquility, balance. Love can be feverish, then it is a disease. Unless it is tranquil, it is not really love: it is lust pretending to be love. The feverishness is the indication of something which is not in harmony with you.

Hence true love is not feverish. It is very calm and quiet. It is not hot – neither is it cold. If you think about it in comparison with hot it is cool. If you think about it in comparison with cold it is warm. It has that double quality, warmth and coolness in it. And to attain warmth and coolness together is one of the greatest achievements in life. It is easy to move to the extremes – to become hot or cold. That’s how people move: from hot to cold, from cold to hot, from love to hate, from hate to love. They don’t know what love is. They simply go on moving from one extreme to the other.

Love exists exactly in the middle. It is such a stillness, such a silence, that the lover needs no other meditation, because love in itself is enough of a meditation.

That is the meaning of Samma: to be exactly in the middle, balanced, neither leaning this way nor that. And that quality has to be imbibed by each sannyasin: a calmness, a coolness, yet with warmth. It appears paradoxical but all that is great in life is paradoxical, remember that. Only meaningless things are not paradoxical. The greater the meaning, the bigger the paradox, because meaning happens only when opposites meet. And where opposites meet, paradox is bound to be there: it is a synthesis.

Anand means bliss, Margaret comes from a Persian root, murwari; it means a child of light. Your full name will mean a blissful child of light. Existence is made of the stuff called light. Physics may call it electricity, electrons, neutrons, protons; it doesn’t matter. Mystics have always known it as light.

We are made of light, we come from light – rays of the ultimate – and one day we have to go back to the light. To remember this, that our source and our goal is the same, is of tremendous significance, because that helps you to remain cool. That helps you to remain unburdened. It helps you not to be too attached to things, possessions, the world, because one day we have to leave.

There is a famous story. One American tourist went to see a Sufi Master. He had dreamed of seeing the Master for a long time; he had been reading his books and he was really impressed. But when he went there to see the Master who was sitting in a small hut with a few books, no furniture at all, the American tourist looked around and he said “Where is your furniture?”

The Sufi Master laughed and said “Where is yours?” The tourist said “I am just a tourist here.” And the Sufi Master said “So am I – just a tourist.”

To always remember this – that we are just tourists here, we are not to be here forever, we come and we go, and we come from the same source to which we are going – that remembrance keeps one aloof, uncontaminated, keeps one virgin and pure. And that’s what holiness is: remaining in the world and yet not being part of it.

Veet means beyond, Kammo means action. There are things which can be achieved through effort, through action, and there are things which cannot be achieved through effort, through action. The second category of things is the concern of religion; the first category of things is the concern of science.

Science means action; religion means inaction – a deep receptivity, passivity. God cannot be achieved through action, because whatsoever we achieve through action is going to be something smaller than us. The painting cannot be greater than the painter, nor can the poetry be bigger, greater than the poet. If we achieve God by our action, that God will be just a toy, our own invention to console, to pacify ourselves; it will not be the true God.

Truth can come only in a deep receptivity. One has to be feminine to receive truth. One has to be just a womb to become pregnant with God. Yes, that is exactly the way God comes, beauty comes, truth comes, meditation comes. All that is really valuable always comes through effortless receptivity.

That is going to be your path: become more quiet, silent. Relax more and more into non-doing. In those moments of non-doing, when all simply stops, when thinking disappears and time too, you will have your first glimpses of that which is.

God is only another name of that which is.

Prem means love. Rita comes from a Persian root; it means a pearl. Love is the most precious pearl in the world. Unless a man is full of love he remains poor. He may have all the riches of the world – that doesn’t make any difference. The outer richness cannot fulfil your inner emptiness: outwardly one can be the emperor; inwardly one remains a beggar. And vice versa is possible too: if one is full of love one is an emperor inside. One may be a beggar on the outside, but when the inner is full of light, love, life, who cares about the outer?

Prem is Sanskrit; it means love. Michel is Hebrew; it means godly. Your full name will mean godly love. Love is always godly, it cannot be otherwise. If it is, then it is something else masquerading as love, then it is only a mask. Hidden behind it will be jealousy, possessiveness, anger, hatred – all that is really anti-love.

Love can only be godly; it can only be other-worldly. It grows in the world but goes beyond it. It is like a lotus growing out of the mud: it comes from the mud but it doesn’t belong to the mud. It starts reaching towards the heights; it starts reaching towards the sun, towards the sky. That is its real home. The lotus is trying to free itself from the mud. And that’s exactly what every human being is trying to do: trying to free himself from all that is heavy, from the very gravitation of the earth.

Lust is mud, love is the lotus. I am not against the mud, because if you are against the mud you will never be able to grow lotuses. But don’t get stuck with the mud. Remember that one has to reach to the stars, that our real home is somewhere far away, far, far away, that here we are only strangers, outsiders. We are on a great pilgrimage of learning but this is not our home.

This is what sannyas is all about: helping you remember the real home, creating a longing in you for the real home, stirring your heart, giving you a vision of your real home.

[A sannyasin who has to leave says: How can I continue to nourish what’s happening inside me, and move into a deeper, more sensitive rapport with you?]

Which meditation did you like the most [He replies: Vipassana.]

Then continue Vipassana, and I will be available. Whenever you go in deep Vipassana, I will be there . . .

[A sannyasin, recently arrived, says: I’m always very much scared and I really... I don’t know what to.]

Come for a longer period, mm? Fear is there. It can be dissolved, it can be transformed; and it has to be transformed, because that is blocking your growth. But come for at least three, four months. Try, mm? – because these are things through which you may get into trouble if you start stirring them up and you have to go after three weeks.

A longer period is needed so that everything can be stirred, can be thrown out, cleansed and you can settle back again on a new plane – and then you can go. Otherwise it will be just like escaping from the table of the surgeon in the middle of the surgery, and that will be difficult.

This is a surgery, far deeper than the physical surgery. Everybody is carrying deep wounds, full of pus, and unless that pus is taken out and the poison is cleaned from the body, you will not be able to get free of the fear. It has entered your very blood-stream, your bones. It will take a little time, but it is good that you are aware of it.

Many are more unfortunate: they are full of fear but they are not aware. On the face of it they look very brave and very courageous and very strong. That is just a facade to hide the reality. But you are true about it, and it can easily be changed; no problem is there. But next time come for a longer period.

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