21

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‌CHAPTER 21

24 June 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva Louis. Deva means God; Louis means victory. God is our only victory. Nothing else can make us victorious. Everything else ends in failure, unexceptionally. Without failure, everything falls into failure.

There are many illusions in life, very attractive, but they are attractive only from the distance. As you come closer you become disillusioned. But man is so foolish that even when he is disillusioned by one illusion he immediately starts projecting another, maybe of the same kind or maybe a little bit different, but basically, essentially, the same.

And mind goes on deceiving. Mind goes on saying, “If you have failed in this, that doesn’t mean that you have failed forever. You may succeed in something else.” Or, “This time you have failed – don’t be disheartened.” Mind goes on giving you encouragement: “Try again and try again, again and again. Who knows? – the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time, you may succeed. It is only a question of perseverance.”

These are very beautiful arguments, but utterly baseless. Even if you try thousand and one times, nothing except God can make you feel successful, fulfilled, victorious. Sooner it is understood, the better, because time is saved, unnecessary misery is saved. And the same energy that we invest into illusions can become a dance, can become a song, can become rejoicing.

Sannyas is the awareness that only God succeeds that only God can be our victory. Sannyas is a one-pointed search for God, a concentrated effort to know the source of life... because the source is also the goal. By knowing it, all is known. By not knowing it, you can know all that is contained in all the libraries of the world and still you will remain ignorant.

Deva Sheri. Deva means divine; Sheri means beloved, loved one, cherished one, dear one – beloved of the divine.

We may know, we may not know; God loves us. We may love him, we may not love, but God loves us. And by God I don’t mean a person but the whole existence. And when I say God loves us I don t mean only human beings: God is love. Existence, this existence, is an ocean of love; it simply loves. It can’t help, it can’t do otherwise. It is because of its love trees grow, birds sing, rivers flow, and we are.

No other proof is needed. A rose flower is a proof enough; this bird singing is a proof enough. The starry night, the morning sun rising in the east, anything... an ancient rock standing so proud, so immensely proud, a bird on the wing, a symbol of freedom... anything is a proof, any and every thing. The whole existence proves only one thing: that it is love.

But we can go on missing seeing it. We can remain closed. We may not receive the guest. It may come, it may knock on the doors, but we may not open the doors. And that’s how millions of people are living: closed, hiding – hiding from love, hiding from life, hiding from adventure, hiding from growing – just hiding. Afraid of death, hence hiding from life, because life brings ultimately death. Afraid of pain, hence hiding from love, because love brings pain – although that pain is a blessing. It cleanses; it is not a curse. And the death that life brings is not the end; it is a renewal. It is a rest and a resurrection. But people are hiding out of misunderstanding.

To be initiated into sannyas is to come out of your hiding places. Come out from all hiding places! Life is beautiful, life is a blessing. There is no need to be afraid. Trust!

And love that surrounds us – we are breathing it in every breath – can be known only if we also become loving, because only love can understand love. Afraid, we are not loving – fear kills love – and because we are not loving, we can’t know. Even when we encounter love we can’t recognize it, we don’t have a feel for it; no bell rings in our hearts.

To know love, one has to become love. To know God, one has to become divine. We can know only that which we are; only being becomes true knowledge. Be love, and know love.

Prem Smito. Prem means love, Smito means smile.

Life can either be tears or a smile. And it all depends on us, it is our choice. We can choose misery... and ninety-nine point nine people choose misery, because misery has few things which bliss has not. Misery gives you nourishment for the ego. The ego feeds on misery, it lives and survives on misery. In bliss it simply melts, evaporates. Just as the sun rises in the morning and dew-drops start evaporating, just like that, as one feels blissful ego is not found at all. Ego can exist only in the ocean of misery; it is an island in the ocean of misery. So if one wants to be egoistic he has to choose misery.

And misery is very convenient. One becomes accustomed of it, familiar, because it is a very small phenomenon. Repetitive it is: the same again and again. Like a wheel it moves: the same spokes come again and again.

Bliss is always new, non-repetitive. One never becomes familiar with it. One can never know that “I know bliss.” One can only see... say, “Yes, few glimpses, yes I can smell.” It never becomes knowledge; it always remains a feeling. And it is always moving into the unknown. It brings every

day something new, a new gift. It is unpredictable, hence dangerous. You cannot control it, you cannot be the master of it.

With misery you are the master – with bliss, bliss is the master. With misery everything is predictable and you can live a very calculated life. You can live almost mechanically, no fear of the new; it is the same old rut. And the mind feels very good with the familiar. With the unfamiliar, unacquainted, with the stranger, mind feels afraid. Even though it is misery, if it is familiar the mind is perfectly at ease with it.

But bliss is a stranger and always remains a stranger, because it comes from the beyond, it is not of this earth. It is untranslatable in the language of the earth. It visits, it comes, just like rays of light, but you cannot catch hold of it. And mind never becomes the controller, hence the mind is not interested in bliss. It is interested in misery, in creating more and more misery.

It may talk about bliss, it may even give you the feel that it desires bliss, but basically – this has been my observation of looking into thousands of people’s lives – that even when the mind wants to be blissful, it is simply trying to create a new misery: that you are not blissful. Just a new misery, that “Now seek bliss, search bliss. You are not blissful. Your life is slipping by – what are you doing?” It is a new kind of misery, a new kind of emptiness, but the mind is not really interested in being blissful. It cannot be, because bliss is going to be a suicide to it.

One can choose the life of crying and weeping and screaming and misery: one will have a beautiful, strong ego. But for the ego that price has to be paid: one has to live in hell, because the ego can exist only in hell. Or one can choose to be blissful. One’s life can be a smile, a song, a dance, but then you have to lose the ego. You can be in paradise, but you have to pay the price. The ego is the price.

Sannyas simply means that you are getting ready to drop the ego, that you are taking the first step towards egolessness. And the first step is almost half the journey, because the second becomes easier and third even more easier. And as you start moving into the unknown, tasting the joys of it, then you don’t move slowly; you start running into it. Then all clinging with the misery and the known and the past simply disappears on its own accord. The sun has risen and the darkness is no more found.

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