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CHAPTER 6
6 June 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Anand Gopi. Anand means bliss. Gopi is a very significant word; it comes from the tradition of the devotee.
There are two paths: one is of knowledge, wisdom, meditation, and the other is that of love, devotion, surrender. The word “gopi” belongs to the other tradition, the tradition of surrender. Literally Gopi means the beloved of God.
On the path of devotion only God is the man; everyone else is feminine.
And everybody is desiring, searching, seeking the lover. Krishna represents the lover and Gopi represents the beloved. The search is not through mind but through heart. The search is not through effort but through surrender, total surrender. So slowly slowly teach her the way of devotion, of love.
Anand Diane. Anand means blissful; Diane means day, bright as the day. In ancient mythology Diana is the goddess of the moon; it represents light. So your name will mean blissful light, blissful day, blissful goddess of the moon.
Night is when we are unconscious of our own self; day is when we become aware of who we are. Darkness exists not outside you, it exists deep inside you. It is a kind of sleep, unalertness. It helps us in certain ways, it protects us in certain ways; that’s why we cling to it. It keeps us unaware of many things which are dangerous, and we are afraid of those things.
For example, our unconsciousness keeps us oblivious of the fact of death. It happens every day: somebody dies, each moment somebody is dying somewhere, but still those who are alive, they go on living as if they are not going to die. It is very comfortable to keep this belief, that it is always the
other who dies. It keeps you consoled. Otherwise life will become so frightening if the idea arises that, “I am going to die; when everybody is dying, I am going to die.” Your whole life’s dreams and projects will be shattered. “Then what is the point of accumulating much money? If I am going to die, and death can come any moment, then what is the point of becoming very famous in the world? If one day I will be just dust and nothing else, then how does it matter whether I was rich or poor, famous or unknown?”
Our whole life’s projects depend on our unconsciousness of death. We can go on dreaming beautiful dreams. Of course dreams need sleep, and we are in a metaphysical sleep, in a metaphysical night.
To be initiated into sannyas is taking a step out of the night; it is taking a risk towards the day. It is a prayerful inquiry towards the reality of life. If it contains death, then it is okay – then it contains death. If there is death then there is death, and we cannot deny it; and by denying we cannot destroy it.
To become a sannyasin is to take a great step; from the secure, comfortable darkness it is coming into the bright day. In the beginning you will be dazzled, you will feel dizzy – but only in the beginning. As you become accustomed to the light, as you become accustomed of the truth of life, you will be surprised that you were unnecessarily afraid and clinging to darkness; because there is no death. Life is eternal; death is only an episode in life. It is not an end of the life; it is just a change of the garments.
We go on and on. We have been in many many bodies; the moment they become useless we drop them. And the ultimate goal is to come to a point where no more any body is needed. So we can live in the universal, formless, bodiless, because then we will be as vast as the sky and as free as the clouds and as blissful as only total freedom can be. We will be oceanic.
The body is bound to die, but not you – you are not the body. To know it is the beginning of the day. To experience it is to become part of God.
Deva Gary. Deva means divine; Gary means a mighty warrior. Your full name will mean a divine, mighty warrior.
One can fight for oneself; then one is undivine, then all fight is an ego-trip. And people are fighting for themselves. Their fields are different: somebody is fighting in the market and somebody is fighting in the politics and somebody is fighting in some academy, but it is the same fight. The ego wants to prove itself superior to others, because the ego suffers basically from an inferiority complex. Because deep down there is inferiority complex, it projects itself as superior. And it tries to prove that its projection is real by accumulating much money, by having much political power, by having many academic degrees. It tries to prove to itself and to the world that that feeling of inferiority was wrong: “I am a superior man.”
But this paradox has to be understood: that only inferior people try to prove themselves to be superior. The real superior man is one who is utterly unaware of his superiority. The real superior man is one who knows nothing of comparison, who never compares – because he knows one thing, that he is himself and there is nobody like him, hence all comparisons are false and impossible. You can compare only two similar things; you cannot compare two dissimilar things. And each individual is so unique; it is incomparable. Hence there is no need to project some idea of being superior.
CHAPTER 6.
And the moment this is understood, superiority and inferiority both disappear from your mind, and with them disappears the last trace of self, ego.
Then a totally new kind of fight starts in life: one starts fighting for God, one starts becoming a divine warrior. Then one is simply a vehicle, just like a flute, so whatsoever tune God wants to sing, to play upon it, one is available. And if God decides to be silent and not to sing at all, one is as happy as when he sings. One simply makes oneself available to God and forgets about oneself totally. That availability to God makes one a divine warrior.
A sannyasin is a divine warrior. Of course, his fight has a totally different flavor. He is not to prove himself, he is not to prove anything. He simply lives for truth. And whatsoever is needed to sacrifice for truth he is ready to sacrifice. And the sacrifice is not done as a duty. It is done out of pure love, it is done joyfully. It is not a burden.
A sannyasin is not obliging the existence in any way; he is simply celebrating it. But he is ready to sacrifice all for his love: his love for truth, his love for God, his love for existence. If life is needed he will surrender life. But in that surrender is victory. In that utter effacement of oneself one arrives home.
Anand Dorothea. Anand means bliss; Dorothea means a gift of God. Bliss is a gift of God. We can only receive it; we cannot achieve it. And because we go on trying to achieve it, we go on missing it. Everybody wants to attain it; everybody is seeking, searching desperately for it, and everybody is missing. And the reason is that from the very beginning the search is a wrong step.
Bliss has not to be sought as a goal. One has to be silent and ready to receive it when it comes. One has to learn patience and waiting. It comes when the time is right; it comes on its own accord. It cannot be forced to come, it cannot be bribed to come. There is no way to do anything about it. But we can create the space in which it comes; we can create the heart in which it comes. We can create the silence in which it descends from the beyond.
And that’s what I call meditation: creating a space for bliss to arrive. The most fundamental thing to remember is that meditate as if it is the goal itself. Don’t go on looking by the corner of your eyes for bliss to come, because that very longing is a disturbance, a distraction. Meditate for meditation’s sake, and then one day suddenly it is there.
It always comes as a surprise. You cannot expect it, you cannot demand it, but whenever one is ripe it happens. Hence it is a gift of God.
[A sannyasin, recently returned, is asked if he wants to do groups. He answers: I’d rather like to go to the meditations and the lectures. They’re closer to me.]
The meditations and the lectures and the groups are not against each other. It will be better if you start thinking of rather going with me. So do a few groups!
They will help your meditations, they will help your listening, they will bring you closer to me.
Everything is interdependent. Even if one part is left you will not be totally here, so don’t leave anything. Whatsoever is available here is made available for a certain reason. It is going to help you
in many many ways which may not be clear to you right now, which will become clear to you only later on. Retrospectively, when you will look back, then you will see that everything was interlinked, that if one link was missed then you would have missed many many things.
So whatsoever is happening here has an organic unity in it; these are not separate things. If you simply do groups and don’t do meditations, your groups will not go very deep. If you simply do meditations and not groups, your meditations will not go very deep.
There are things which can be done only indirectly, and the higher a thing is, the more indirect approach is needed. You don’t have the whole perspective of what is happening, so please don’t start choosing on your own. If you want to choose I will allow, because I allow everything. If somebody wants to have his own way he is free to have his own way. But then later on if you miss something – and you are going to miss something if you choose on your own – don’t throw the responsibility on me; that’s how you have chosen.
But if somebody follows exactly what I say without any choice of his own, then many more things will become possible of which you are not even aware, of which you have never dreamed about. And sometimes things are done in such an indirect way because they can only be done in an indirect way; the purpose is something else.
So my suggestion is: you decide to go with me. You listen, you meditate, and you do few groups.
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