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2 June 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Prem Ellen. Prem means love; Ellen means light. Love is the only light there is in life. Love is the inner light. It needs no fuel; it is eternal. It is not caused by anything, hence it cannot be turned off. Anything that can be put on can be turned off. It is simply there; you cannot put it on, you cannot put it off. This light, this love, has not to be invented but only to be discovered or rediscovered.
And sannyas is nothing but an inquiry into this inner world of love and light. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon: when you look in, it is light; when you share it with others, it is love. When you are alone with it, it is light; when you communicate it to others, it is love. Light communicated is love; love burning inside as an alone flame is light.
And this is the whole quest of humanity, to discover it. Once you have discovered it all fear of death disappears, because then there is no death. And all fear of darkness disappears because then there is no darkness either.
The experience of the light is so tremendous that people have given it names: God, nirvana, enlightenment, moksha. It is so huge that no ordinary words can contain it; hence every language has invented words for it. God is not a person, neither is nirvana a place. These are different names for that experience of light.
When it explodes within you it is so much, uncontainable, inexpressible, inexhaustible, that one is simply drowned in it, one is simply drunk with it, and drunk forever. There is no coming back; once gone into it one is gone forever.
Anand Rene. Anand means bliss; Rene means reborn – reborn into bliss.
Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God. He is talking about a spiritual death and a spiritual birth. But the birth can come only if death precedes it. The resurrection is possible only if there has been a crucifixion. One has to die to be born again.
Death and birth are very potent symbols. And when we are talking about birth and death we are not talking about ordinary birth and death: we are talking about the death of the ego and the birth of the non-ego. Ego is misery; non-ego is bliss. To be confined in the ego is to live in a prison cell, in darkness, in hell, isolated from the whole of existence and its mysteries and its celebration.
To live as a no-ego is to live openly, under the sky and the stars, with the sun and the moon and the wind and the rain. To live as a non-ego is to become part of this eternal celebration that goes on and on. Unending celebration it is, with no beginning and no end.
But the risk has to be taken: the ego has to be dropped, the ego has to be crucified. And that’s what sannyas is all about: a death and a rebirth.
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