3 And I\'m drunk with boundless youth

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‌CHAPTER 3

And I’m drunk with boundless youth

13 January 1975 am in Buddha Hall

O BLESSED WOMEN, SING THE WEDDING SONGS! I’VE COME HOME WITH LORD RAM, MY BELOVED. BODY, MIND, THE FIVE ELEMENTS,

ALL LOVED AND OFFERED IN WELCOME. RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH. THE BODY A POOL OF VEDAS

BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

UNITED WITH RAM – ROUND AND ROUND. HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

GODS ARRIVE IN MILLIONS AND SAGES IN THOUSANDS.

SAYS KABIR: I’M TO WED. AND THE MAN’S IMMORTAL!

Life is a preparation. And the preparation continues every moment. You may or may not be aware of it, but you are moving towards a very great festival. At times you will fall, but you will get up again; at times you will lose your way, but you will find your path again. There is some very powerful destiny, some tremendous pull continuously drawing you towards this great celebration. Something is going to happen to you. In fact, something is already happening to you.

You feel incomplete within, but this is because you are a seed. The seed is groping in the dark, trying to push its way through the earth. The seed breaks through stones, passes through layers of soil and surmounts all obstacles in its upward path towards the sun. But it has no knowledge of what it is doing. If you ask it, “What are you doing? Where are you going?” it will not be able to give you an answer. There is some instinct within it that directs its course. It must reach the sun; it has to touch the sky. There is no other goal. Unless it sees the sun it will never bear flowers; there will never be any celebration in its life.

The tree grows onwards and upwards, spreading its branches to the sky and, when it has done its utmost, flowers bloom. After a time the flowers fall to the ground and become seeds again. Then the same journey begins all over. This kind of repetition is to be found in the life of a tree. The same cycle is present in all of nature.

Man, on the other hand, has evolved to the point where, if he becomes conscious, there is no repetition. But if he remains asleep and unconscious the repetitive cycle will go on and on.

There are a few things that must be understood. Firstly, this infinite universe you see about you, this sun, moon, stars and planets, is not without cause. This whole evolving system exists within a great framework, within a great destiny. Just as flowers are hidden in a tiny seed and bloom from that seed, the potentiality of God’s flowering is hidden in the vast universe. Everything in it is moving towards His flowering, towards His manifestation. Everyone is moving towards this, sinner and saint. Some will be tardy and some will be on time, but it will not make much difference in the end.

There are two kinds of evolution. One kind of evolution is unconscious, and we know nothing about it whatsoever. We neither know what is happening nor why it is happening. Do you really know what you are doing, why you are doing it, what prompts you to act? You cannot even stop doing! You do not even know why you are doing what you are doing; some force, some destiny compels you.

Nature is unconscious evolution and God is conscious evolution. Man is the link between the two; man is how God is linked with nature.

Man is a creature of great dignity. Don’t toss this dignity off casually. You are the point where nature becomes divine, where nature is transformed into Godhood, where matter is transformed into consciousness, where form becomes formlessness, where shape becomes shapelessness. You are that link; your dignity is without limit.

At present your dignity is hidden in the womb of the future. You are a seed; you do not know your flowers yet. Nature is simply unconscious. It is a blind race, a blind journey. With man a new link

begins, but you do not automatically become that link just because you have been born as a man. To become that link, to attain to that status, you will have to exert yourself consciously. The way in which you make that effort is through yoga, through tantra, through religion.

What is the meaning of yoga, of tantra, of religion? They mean only one thing. They mean that from now on you will no longer continue your journey blindfolded, that you will now move ahead with your eyes wide open, that you will now be aware of all your conscious activities, of where you are going, of why you are going somewhere. You will breathe consciously; when you walk you will even raise your legs consciously. You are now taking a jump beyond the blind race of nature. All that blind race does is bring you back to the point from whence you began your journey.

First the seed becomes the tree and then the tree becomes the seed. You are born, then you die, and then you are born again. It is a circle. The world is a wheel; it keeps on revolving and revolving. But you never seem to arrive anywhere.

Man must awaken; he must make this journey with full awareness. Nature brings you to the human state and now you will have to continue on your own. This is a tremendous responsibility and it worries you. This is why man is always so worried – in nature, nothing is worried. The animals and the birds and the trees and the stones and the streams are not worried. They have no cause for anxiety; they are unconscious of what is happening. Man is anxious because he sees clearly that, no matter what happens, it is inadequate. You feel that whatsoever you are it is not enough, that something is lacking. This feeling disturbs you, stabs at you like a thorn, and unless you become conscious, unless you become aware, it will harass you your whole life long.

Your journey with nature is over, nature has brought you as far as it can – and it has been a very long journey. It has not been an insignificant thing; it has taken a very long time. Assuming the earth were twenty-four hours old, then scientists say man has only been here for two seconds. Man has not been here for very long. Nature is very very ancient, but in a total journey of twenty-four hours only two seconds have passed since the consciousness that is man has been born. This evolution to the human stage is the highest flowering in nature.

The journey through the darkness of nature is over. Man has reached the frontier; he has come to the crossroads. If you go back to nature now you will just be repeating the cycle of births and deaths all over again – this is what humans generally do. Such men belong to the world; such men are worldly men.

The Hindi word for world is SAMSAR; it means a wheel. And the man who lives like a wheel, continuously revolving in the same circle, is bound to the world. He repeats the same routine day after day. He gets up in the morning and does what he did yesterday; he spends this afternoon as he spent the one before. Living by the clock – which goes round and round too – he repeats the same routine in the evening and the same routine at night. He is lost in the repetition of his routine. And then one day he is suddenly no more. Then, as a seed, he enters a new womb and the blind journey begins all over again.

The Hindus are the oldest conscious people, the most ancient awakened people on this earth. They were the first to conceive of religion and they have only one great desire, only one great throbbing in their hearts – how to be freed, how to be liberated from this cycle of births and deaths, how to jump

outside the circumference of this wheel, how to attain to consciousness and move outside the circle of samsar. The Hindus say, “We have taken this blind journey so many times. We have become seeds and trees and trees and seeds over and over again. It all seems so pointless, so useless.”

Now a tension begins; now anxiety is born. No irreligious or non-religious man will ever become as uneasy as a religious man will. What is there for an irreligious man to worry about? You will find him making merry in a club, in a bar or in the marketplace. Such a man has no worries at all. And even if he does have a few he is easily rid of them. For example, if he does not have enough money it can be earned; his bank balance can be augmented. If he hankers after fame, fame can be found; if his house is small he can build a bigger one. These are not very great problems; they can easily be solved. This is why such a man is not overly concerned. You will find him laughing and enjoying, but do not be deceived by this outward show.

A deep anxiety grips a religious man because he has begun to think, “How long can this repetitiveness last?” This is the beginning of his anxiety. He is anxious to free himself from this cycle of births and deaths. He thinks, “I have gone around and around often enough. It is already late. When shall I awaken? When shall I become conscious?”

So the first stage in the growth of a man of religion will be one of anxiety; the last stage will be one of serenity and peace. But this last stage is very, very far away; a long journey must be undertaken. Between these two stages, between anxiety and peace, a man of religion has to make tremendous effort.

Bear in mind that, through the process of unconscious evolution, nature has brought you as far as it could. Nature’s function is now complete. Now it is your turn; now you have to do something. For a while a father holds the hand of his baby son and helps him to walk. But how long can he do that? A point comes when the father has to say to his son, “Now walk on your own legs. Now you are ready to walk on your own. Now you are mature. Now you must begin your own journey; now you must take the responsibility for your own life on your own shoulders. Now you must take care of yourself.” Maturity will only come to a man, will only grow in a man, when he accepts this challenge. Your ability to look after yourself is in relation to the effort you expend on your own behalf.

Nature is now telling you the same thing a father tells his son. Nature has brought you to the point where you have evolved into a fully grown human being. Now you are able to think, now you are able to discriminate, and when you become anxious about yourself you can now select the path that will lead you out of your anxiety. Nature’s job is now over. Now you must take the reins into your own hands; now you must become a seeker.

A seeker is a man who has taken the reins into his own hands; a seeker is the child who says to the father, “This is more than enough. I am grateful to you, I am much obliged to you, but now I will stand on my own two feet.” The moment you tell nature you want to stand by yourself you become a young man of maturity. At that moment maturity comes to you for the first time. But from then on you will experience many anxieties because now you are responsible for yourself, because now your SADHANA begins.

To follow a sadhana is to proceed consciously in the direction of evolution. It is a journey of clarity, it is not a blind race. It is a directing of all one’s energy towards a single destination. That is why I always say that if a man’s gaze is not directed towards God his whole life is meaningless.

Directing one’s eyes towards God is just the introduction, just the preamble; the real thing has not yet begun. Think of a classical musician adjusting the strings of his sitar to bring his instrument to the proper tuning. The recital has not yet begun; this is just preparation. This may take a long time; the audience will often get bored and wonder how long this nonsense will go on, how long this will last – but the musician will not begin to play until his sitar is perfectly tuned. Until you evolve to this point you are in the preparatory stage.

Nature has prepared you by bringing you to the stage of humanity. Now you can sing the great song. Now the universal sound can descend on you; now the sound of the universe can thrill your life. But the tuning of the instruments does not produce any music on its own. If you think the recital is over as soon as the tuning is completed then the whole thing is already finished for you anyway; then nothing more can be said to you. And if the classical musician also thinks the concert is over when the instruments have been tuned, his work is incomplete as well.

I see such incompleteness in you. You have earned enough money, you have built a house, you have a wife and children – your instruments are all in tune – so what more is there to do, what else is there for you to do? You realize now that everything is empty, that the whole effort has been wasted; you see now that you have been caught up in nothing. You had things to do before. You had duties to perform; you kept busy doing this and that – but now? “Now” stands before you like a deep abyss.

Being born as a man was only the introduction; life has not yet begun for you. So far you have only been involved in the preparation; you have not yet begun the pilgrimage – you have only been preparing for the journey. Your luggage is ready – you have arranged all your things very carefully; the trunk, the bedding, the provisions are ready for the journey – but you have not yet set out. Man is at this point, at this stage.

If you want to understand clearly what man is and where he is going, then look at him as a man who has made all the preparations necessary for a journey but is sitting beside his luggage because he has forgotten where he has to go, because he has forgotten why he has made all these preparations. Your condition is the same. All your preparations are complete; you are now a completely evolved human being. Now you can jump into your pilgrimage; now there is nothing lacking in you. The instruments are properly tuned; you only have to start playing your music.

Kabir looks on this as the wedding procession – this is how he sees the preparation that has been going on up to now. But the procession is not the be-all and the end-all, it is simply the introduction to the wedding.

O BLESSED WOMAN, SING THE WEDDING SONGS! I’VE COME HOME WITH LORD RAM, MY BELOVED.

If things continue as they have up to now then the whole preparation will be useless, in vain. You will wonder what the point of all this preparation was. You are ready, but you are completely unaware of where you have been preparing to go, of why you have prepared yourself, of who has called you, of what invitation has come to you from the unknown. You have been preparing for so long you are afraid to embark on your journey. You are the kind of person who will unpack his luggage just so he can repack it again. You want to keep busy with your packing. You crave the activity, so the packing continues.

You have prepared for this journey so often. How many times have you done this? And you still have not become a man! You have been in this situation so many times but, each and every time your preparations are complete, you again start to wonder what more there is to be done. Again you unpack your luggage, again you put things away so you can easily find them... then next time you begin to pack. When is the meeting ever going to take place?

The journey will not begin until you become a seeker. And when the journey has been started you are already halfway towards its completion! The beginning is halfway to the end. Once the beginning has been made, the end is not far off.

There is not as much difference between a seeker and an enlightened man as there is between a seeker and one who is not seeking at all. If you can just step out of your house, just once, you will surely reach your goal – no matter how far the place of pilgrimage may be. The real difficulty is getting out of the house – the first step is always the hardest.

Lao Tzu has said that a man completes a thousand-mile journey by taking one step at a time. Who can take two steps at once? When you take a step you can only raise one leg at a time. And eventually, one step at a time, the journey of a thousand miles is completed. As soon as a man takes the first step his transformation begins. Then God takes a step towards him; then divine grace begins to descend on him.

Nature is unconscious evolution, God is conscious evolution, and man is the link in between. Your further evolution is in your own hands. It is as if you are standing at the gate of a house – the whole of nature is behind you, God is in front of you, and you are standing in the middle, at the gate. Nothing is this world is static, and if you grow a little lethargic you are bound to be pushed back. Bear this in mind. If you do not progress you will have to regress, there is no waiting in this world. Even if you want to stand still and wait you cannot, it is not possible. Life is movement; you have to keep on walking.

If you do not move ahead you will be thrown back; if you do not raise yourself up you will be thrown down. Don’t ever think, “At least I can remain where I am.” Such a thing never happens. Even if you want to stay where you are, keep trying to push ahead. You have to keep trying. Don’t stop. If you stop, the flow of life will knock you down.

Have you ever stood in the strong current of a river? If you want to stay where you are you have to fight against the current, you have to work hard, because the rush of the river hauls the sand out from under your feet. The current drags you along with it. In all of existence there is no stopping.

Existence is continuous movement, never-ending motion. Each moment you are either moving forwards or backwards. Don’t trust in your belief that you are standing still, this never happens. If you are standing at the gate and looking behind you, the current of nature will drag you back.

You must forget the past. How long do you intend the wedding procession to last? I grant you that the bridegroom is in the procession, but he is on a horse in front; he is separate from the rest of the procession. I also grant you that the procession is on his account, yet he is not part and parcel of it. He is not a member of the wedding procession, he is quite separate from it – the procession has accompanied him, he has not accompanied it. He still has further to go, while the procession is

finished the moment the bridegroom begins his new journey. As soon as the bride and bridegroom meet, as soon as the marriage is solemnized, the wedding procession is over – but the journey of the bridegroom is just beginning.

Nature has brought you to this door – nature is the wedding procession, and its journey is now over. Just turn and thank it sincerely for having accompanied you so far, it has brought you to the point where you can now stand on your own two feet. So be grateful to the members of the wedding procession, they have brought you to this point. It has been their pleasure; it was not a big thing. Your journey begins when the wedding procession ends.

Yesterday Kabir said:

NOT OF WRITTEN WORDS BUT OF EXPERIENCING:

WHEN THE BRIDE MEETS HIS EMBRACE THE GUESTS ALL FADE AWAY.

Today’s sutra is in reference to this. Let us try to comprehend it. It begins from the point where the wedding procession has lost its significance.

O BLESSED WOMEN, SING THE WEDDING SONGS! I’VE COME HOME WITH LORD RAM, MY BELOVED.

Then Kabir says:

BODY, MIND, THE FIVE ELEMENTS,

ALL LOVED AND OFFERED IN WELCOME.

When one hears Kabir’s words about loving the body and loving the mind it is only natural to ask why he does not mention loving the soul. It is important to understand this. Kabir says that he has loved the body and loved the mind, but that the five great elements out of which the body and mind have been created, the five great elements which have brought man to this stage, are now to be sacrificed at God’s feet. He does not speak of the soul; he does not mention it at all.

When you fall in love with someone you say, “I shall love you with all my soul,” but Kabir only speaks of the body and of the mind. The reason is that the soul is God Himself. There is no distinction. A distinction can only be made up to the level of the body and mind. And sacrifice too can only be made up to this point, up to the point where distinction still exists between things. How can you make a sacrifice when there is no separation between the one who is sacrificing and the one to whom the sacrifice is being made. In the soul, the lover and beloved are one; between RAM and his lover there is not the tiniest space, not the slightest distinction. Then who will make love? Then to whom will love be made?

So Kabir says he will sacrifice everything he has now that the lover he has been awaiting has arrived – the lover for whom the preparations were made, the lover for whom the long wedding procession was undertaken. After countless births, Kabir says, today his search is finished. He has seen the supreme; he has seen that for which he has been so restless, so anxious. Now he is prepared to sacrifice all.

RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH.

There is one kind of youth that is dependent on the body. It carries a certain intoxication with it because youth is a novel thing. Old age, on the other hand, is like a river when the tide has gone out.

Have you ever noticed a river just before monsoon, just before the rainy season? It looks dried up. It is always broken into several tiny streams and a great area of sandy bottom is always visible. It is as if the river itself has departed. There is no trace of the once-swollen river; there is only the rubbish it has deposited in its wake. It is as if some event had once taken place but there is no longer any trace of it and everything seems desolate.

Have you ever seen a river flooded by the monsoon? Then there is a sort of mischief in its flow – it is as if it is drunk with wine, as if it is unable to walk straight. A river in flood is intoxicated; a river in flood is in its youth.

The youth of the body is exactly like this. When all the energies of the body are in flood a young man has no faith in God. He seems to have great faith in himself then – he does not worry about anything at all. He contains so much excess energy he is drunk with it. There is no question of bowing down to anyone, no question of surrendering to anybody. In youth a man is mad, blind, but his condition is pardonable, the situation is out of his control; he is in flood.

The youth of the body comes and then it passes on. It is like the water from the mountains flowing through the riverbeds – the water comes and goes, it does not remain. The energy of the body is like this because the body is a momentary thing, it cannot last for long. It is a miracle the body remains young as long as it does.

It is a mystery of mysteries how a rushing mountain flood can overflow so suddenly and then drop again so quickly. The flood of energy to the physical body will subside too. The light that illuminates the body will soon become darkness; the sweet music of the body will soon become a cacophony, and the beauty of the physical will surely vanish like a dream. The body you saw as a beautiful oasis will turn into a desert. It was all a transitory intoxication, all an illusion you took to be something else. This is why old age is filled with sadness. What was once, has disappeared.

The whole phenomenon of youth is like a dream you see during the night. You dream of becoming an emperor, of possessing huge palaces and great piles of gold coins, of ruling an empire that stretches to far off places – and suddenly you awaken and the dream vanishes. For a moment you hardly trust the sorrowful state you find yourself in – only a moment before you were a monarch with gold and palaces and hundreds of servants. But now all of that has disappeared.

Old people always seems a bit surprised and puzzled; they cannot grasp what has happened. Where has all that energy gone? Where have those sturdy legs gone? Where has all that self- confidence gone? Where has that dynamic personality gone? Their life-energy is at a low ebb; they only see emptiness all around. Old people feel empty inside, hollow within. Only the skeleton of the body remains, and soon the time of departure will come. An old man is standing in the queue, waiting for death.

The youth of the body is transitory. The man who puts his trust in it is heading for disappointment because the death of the body is a certainty. You will be living in deception as long as you put your faith in the body. And you will be filled with sorrow when that trust is finally and positively broken. Youth is the kind of thing that not only torments you in youth but in old age as well. The presence of youth bothers you while you are young; its absence bothers you when you are old. And every now and then an old man’s mind will want to go back to the days of its youth.

There is another kind of youth, the kind about which Kabir is speaking. It is the youthfulness of the soul. And there is yet another kind of youth, the youth of the supreme soul – and that is everlasting. There, the river never floods and the water never ebbs, it is always the same. There is no change; there is perpetuity. And the intoxication of perpetuity is altogether different. It is so different, it is of such a different kind, that no matter how you try to understand it in relation to the intoxication you know, you will be wrong. Not only will your idea be wrong, it will be quite the reverse of the real thing. It will not only be different, it will be exactly the opposite of whatever notion you have.

The intoxication of unconsciousness that is associated with the body is exactly like the intoxication caused by wine. This intoxication is caused by your unconsciousness; it is because you are not awake. The intoxication of the soul comes out of total awareness. Then you are filled with ecstasy because you are filled with awareness. The wine is the wine of awareness. If only such a wine could exist!

There is one kind of intoxication, the intoxication of Buddha, of Mahavir, and there is another kind, the intoxication of Napoleon, of Alexander. This is another kind completely. The intoxication of Napoleon and Alexander will soon wear off, but the intoxication of Buddha and Mahavir will last forever. If the intoxication depends on the body, how can it last? The body itself does not last so very long. If the foundation crumbles, how can the building be saved?

RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH.

When the individual soul meets the universal soul a kind of intoxication comes, it comes out of your great awareness. It is a kind of ecstasy that drowns you completely, and yet it is unable to drown you because the lamp of awareness is burning so brightly within you.

RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH.

You will be able to understand Kabir if just a glimmer, if only the tiniest taste of this intoxication descends into your consciousness.

At times you feel cool and collected, and you feel like this because no one can be so perturbed and ill at ease as not to have ever had a momentary glimpse of peace. You could not live unless you experienced such moments of peace. In moments of such peace your roots are nourished.

Whenever you feel a little calm or when you feel a little elated, simply close your eyes and look within. In that moment of calmness a rhythm happens between you and existence, between you and God, albeit for a very short time. That is why you are calm. Whenever you are with God you become calm. And whenever you are calm, understand that God is near to you. You should remember this sutra; you should make this your touchstone; you should tie a string on your finger to remind you of it – whenever a tuning, a rhythm, happens between you and Him, you experience calmness and peace.

In America, a very rare thinker by the name of Henry Thoreau existed. When he was close to death an old aunt of his, a religious old lady who, though Thoreau was not religious because he never went to church or read the Bible, she came to him and asked compassionately, “Henry, have you made your peace with God?”

Lying on his death-bed, Thoreau opened his eyes and said, “I didn’t know we’d ever quarreled. What is there to make peace about?”

Henry Thoreau was not the type of man to quarrel with God. He never went to church because it wasn’t necessary. If there is no quarrel, then what is the point of going to court? He never made a mantra of God’s name; he never said a rosary. None of this was necessary because a continuous hymn to God was being sung within him. Henry Thoreau was an incomparable flower among men. He was always calm and unperturbed and never quarreled with God. So how could he pray? Whom would he worship? Whom would he adore? The quarrel between you and God disappears when you are at peace. Otherwise, you would be in conflict twenty-four hours a day. And the more you are in conflict, the more agitated you will become.

How can a tree that quarrels with the earth remain calm and tranquil? Its roots are in the earth! Its roots are buried in the earth! Are you fighting with the earth? Are you fighting with your own roots? If you are, uneasiness will become your natural state. Then you will be disturbed; you will be perplexed and confused. If they fought with the earth the trees would go mad. The earth is the womb.

Just as the roots of the trees are in the earth, your roots are in God. Do you intend to fight with God? You fight with him twenty-four hours every day! God expects one thing from you and you want something else. The substance of all your prayers is, “Listen to my prayer. Fulfill my desires.” What you are doing is wrong; your praying is nothing but giving advice to God. You say, “My son is ill. Make him well.” God is the instigator of the illness – who are you to interfere in His work by asking Him to make your son well? In your prayers you say, “I am poor. Give me wealth.” God is the giver. God is more sensible than you, so to whom are you praying? If you listen carefully to people’s prayers, as I have done, you will discover that everyone says this to God – “Oh God, please do as I ask, but I am not prepared to listen to You.” You try so hard and in so many ways to fulfill your desires, and when your attempts fail you approach God with a prayer. But all your efforts are in aid of your own victory and you are busy trying to defeat God. How can you defeat Him? In your very effort to defeat Him you will be defeated. God is your foundation, He is your existence, He is your breath, your life.

No sooner does God come to your door than everything is suffused with calm. A new kind of intoxication pervades your body, your soul, your every heartbeat. The beauty of that intoxication is that it is a thousand times more intoxicating than wine, and yet there is no trace whatsoever of the unconsciousness caused by wine. This is its beauty. This is why the Sufis sing songs in praise of this wine.

The songs of Omar Khayyam were translated by Western writers, but were not correctly understood. Edward Fitzgerald, who did an admirable rendering of Khayyam’s songs, was not a Sufi. He took the word ‘wine’ literally, for example. He also took the word ‘lover’ literally, and did the same with ‘wineshop’. He read the Rubaiyat and tried to understand it with the help of a dictionary. Omar Khayyam was a Sufi fakir, a Sufi saint. When he speaks of wine he is speaking of the wine about which Kabir is speaking:

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH.

Omar Khayyam is speaking of this too. The wineshop is the temple, the lover is the master, the guru, and the wine is none other than the wine of God. Fitzgerald made a great mistake when he translated the songs of Omar Khayyam literally, and many people in the West thought Khayyam was a drunkard and had written these songs in praise of wine.

Many adaptations of the Rubaiyat were made from these translations of Fitzgerald’s and were published all over the world, and so the wineshop of Omar Khayyam became world-famous. This was a great blunder on Fitzgerald’s part. But this was bound to happen, because to understand an enlightened person it is necessary to be enlightened oneself. To understand a madman one must be mad, so if you wish to understand an enlightened man you will have to become enlightened yourself. The sign-language used by a dumb person can only be understood by another who is dumb. Fitzgerald did not realize this. If Omar Khayyam were to return to the world he would not be so displeased with anyone as he would be with Edward Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald made Khayyam’s name famous throughout the world, but he did it in a very wrong way.

RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH.

Whenever you are a little quiet, a little calm, and you feel elated, don’t miss that moment. It means the greatest guest possible is close to you, is hovering somewhere about you. And that is the reason that all of a sudden you begin to experience that elation, that feeling of pleasantness. Close your eyes in that moment. Turn that moment into meditation. Generally you do the opposite; you sit down to meditate whenever you are miserable. But that is the time when there is a great distance between you and God – and that is also why you are miserable.

How can you call Him when the distance is so great? How will you be able to recognize Him? People remember Him in their misery and forget Him when they are happy. In your moments of happiness He is nearest to you.

Happiness is not building a big house – it does not necessarily follow that building a big house will make you happy. Happiness is not winning a big prize in a lottery – there is no certainty this will make

you happy either. It may do the opposite; it may increase your uneasiness – and this is generally what happens. What that moment of happiness means is that now you are able to say, “Whatever is, is fine.” This is the definition of happiness, when your mind tells you that whatever is, is all right. You have no wish to improve it; whatever is, is all right. At such a time there is a harmony within you, a feeling of all-rightness, and you are satisfied with it. It is a particular feeling we call TATHATA in Hindi; it means that everything is fine just as it is.

At such a moment a harmonious note vibrates within you. Make that moment a moment of prayer, of meditation, of worship. There is no need to go to any temple; you are the temple and God is sitting there, hidden within you. The lover is hidden in the beloved. The path is the goal; the seeker is seeking himself.

Close your eyes and try to be silent, try to go deeper and deeper into the silence. Set all your restlessness aside; the man who is restless remains on the surface. Take a dive into that inner peace and you will be able to glimpse, to experience a new kind of youth.

This is a youth that can never be extinguished; it is a youth that can never become old; it is a freshness that will never grow stale. It is a morning which is everlasting, a morning never followed by evening. It is a birth beyond which there is only life and more life and nothing but life; it is a birth beyond which there is no death. It is birth that is not followed by death; it is a morning that is not followed by night.

And then there will be no more nights for you. Then, all of a sudden, you will begin to dance. And in that dance there will be awareness – rather, awareness itself will be the dance. In that dance there will be the kind of wisdom and awareness Buddha and Meera had. You will be like Buddha; you will be like Meera. In Kabir, both Buddha and Meera meet. Kabir is as silent as Buddha and as dancing as Meera.

THE BODY A POOL OF VEDAS BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

UNITED WITH RAM – ROUND AND ROUND. HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

Kabir says his body will become the altar. The guest has already arrived at the door and Kabir is preparing to welcome Him. Any offering less than the body itself would be unseemly, so Kabir says his entire body will become the altar for the sacrifice. He is sacrificing his body; he is surrendering himself completely. In the sacrificial fire he is offering his body to God.

BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

This is rare. When you surrender your body as an offering in the sacrificial fire you will not have to invite any brahmin, any priest, to recite the hymns from the Vedas; that day, God Himself will sing them.

This symbol is of very deep significance. Hindus say that BRAHMA created the universe, and so when you offer your body in the sacrificial fire then it is not necessary to invite a brahmin to perform the rites. All other sacrifices are false, and the mere recitation of the Vedic hymns is of very little value. And who will sing the hymns? Some brahmin you have hired? Under conditions like these the Vedas are false and the brahmin is false; it is all self-deception. And since both are false how can the recitation of the Vedas be authentic?

So when you make your body the offering, Kabir says it is not necessary to invite an ordinary brahmin; Kabir says that Brahma himself, that the creator of this whole existence will himself sing the Vedic hymns. The whole of existence will be filled with the music of the hymns. The whole of existence is elated, filled with ecstasy, when someone surrenders himself completely. And then the whole of existence sings a song of thankfulness, of gratitude.

BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

Existence is not disjointed. Existence is whole, undivided. Somewhere the English poet Tennyson has said that if you pick a flower you will even shock the stars that are millions and millions of miles away. If existence is one whole, then how can that not happen?

Last night I was reading a book by Ugovetti, an Italian dramatist, and I came across a sentence I liked very much. Like the words of the Vedas, it is of great significance. Ugovetti said that if there was even one drop of water less in existence the whole universe would feel thirsty. What he means is that not even a tiny drop of water is separate, that the whole universe needs even the tiniest drop of water to quench its thirst.

Existence is completely full as it is. Nothing can be taken from it; nothing can be added to it. Whatever it is, it is full. When your mind is in this state – when you experience the fullness of the whole existence, when you feel that nothing can be better than it is, when you say with all your heart, “This is the real fullness” – then God comes to your door. At that moment Brahma, the Brahma that is hidden in existence, the Brahma that is the highest existence, the BRAHMA that is the greatest consciousness, comes and knocks at your door. From that day on you are totally at rest; from that day on the guest is always standing at your door.

THE BODY A POOL OF VEDAS BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

Kabir says, “I shall light the sacrificial fire in this body of mine. I shall offer Your presence in this body as a sacred offering. I shall welcome You.”

The Hindus prepare an altar when the marriage of the bride and bridegroom is to take place. The sacrificial fire is lit, offerings are made to the deities, and the couple circles the altar seven times.

This altar is false and this circling is false! Whether the couple circles the altar seven times or seventy times makes no difference. Until you sacrifice your life, until your whole energy burns like fire, this whole show is false! Who do you think you are deceiving with this farce? You are only deceiving yourself with this show! And until you understand this, your hired brahmins will keep on reciting the hymns from the Vedas. The Vedas are books; and they can be purchased in the market.

LOVE’S NOT GROWN IN GARDENS; LOVE’S NOT SOLD AT MARKET.

HE WHO WANTS IT, KING OR COMMONER, GIVES HIS HEAD AND TAKES IT.

Nothing less than this will do. You have been haggling for love for so long. How much longer will you keep on trying? You will have to offer your head.

THE BODY A POOL OF VEDAS BRAHMA HIMSELF RECITES!

When a man transforms his body into an altar the whole of existence begins to sing the Vedic hymn. Then the whole of existence is filled with the sound of AUM, as if Brahma himself were reciting the Vedas.

UNITED WITH RAM – ROUND AND ROUND. HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

Kabir says how fortunate he is to circle the sacrificial fire as the bride of Ram. UNITED WITH RAM – ROUND AND ROUND

HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

There is no greater fortune then to have Ram as your lover and to be His beloved.

Why does Kabir choose to consider Ram as the lover and himself as the beloved? The position can also be reversed, and this is what the Sufis have done – the Sufis call themselves the lovers and God the beloved. Both types of devotees have their own reasons and both are worth understanding.

Kabir calls himself the beloved because he believes that meditation is absolute non-doing. Woman is non-doing, non-aggressive by nature; by his nature man is active. Man is aggressive and woman is submissive. That is why no Indian woman will ever say, “I am in love with you.” She will not say it in so many words. Even that much of a declaration would be considered aggressive.

No woman in India ever runs after a man, she simply sits and waits. She invites but makes no sound; she indicates but her signs are indirect. She may use the language of the eyes, but she will not seize the lover’s hand. To take the lover’s hand would be to go against her feminine nature. The kind of woman who would grab at a man would not be considered pleasing or attractive. Such a woman would be thought of as rude and uncivilized; she would be considered aggressive, a bit manly. That is why a woman in India never extends a direct invitation, but shows by her feelings that she is waiting.

As far as courtship is concerned, no blame can ever be attached to the woman; the wife can always accuse her husband of having been after her. The young lady has never presented herself at the door of her husband-to-be, and so the husband can never say to his wife, “You were chasing me.” Such a thing simply does not happen in India. It is the man who frequents the house of his beloved; it is the man who makes all the fuss about love. It is the man who declares his love. The woman only does one thing – she accepts him or she rejects him. A woman never takes the initiative.

Kabir is asking, “How can I take the initiative? How can I seek You? – I do not even know your address. I am like a beloved who can only wait and wait. So when You feel like coming, please come,” he says. “You are welcome.”

According to Kabir, the devotee waits and God goes to him. Even if the devotee wanted to go to God, where would he go? Where would he look? So the devotee simply sits and waits, calling to God with heartfelt emotion, weeping for God from the depths of his heart. His whole life becomes tears of devotion; his whole life becomes a waiting. This waiting is feminine. And God comes. God is male; God seeks out the devotee, enters his body, goes deep into it, penetrates to the farthest reaches. Then the devotee cries: “How fortunate am I”!

Then the supreme union takes place; then Brahma recites the Vedic hymns to celebrate the occasion.

Sufis have done the same thing in reverse order. They call God the beloved and consider themselves as lovers because their whole sadhana, their whole search, is aggressive. They see God as a woman, sitting there, hidden by a veil. God is to be sought; God’s veil is to be removed, and to accomplish this much effort is needed. God is playing hide-and-seek – He will not reveal Himself of His own accord.

To seek Him out you will have to hunt in many different places. You will find many places empty and you will have to wander here and there, but you will just have to keep on searching. You will have to be manly; you will have to behave like a man. You will have to be like the lover who surmounts any obstacle that stands in his way. You will have to seek as Majnu sought Leila, as Farhad sought Shirin. These are characters from Sufi stories. Majnu is a devotee, a seeker, and Leila is his God; Majnu is seeking her.

If your sadhana is aggressive, the Sufi analogy will appeal to you; if your search for God is non- aggressive, you will prefer the symbology of Kabir.

RAM HAS COME TO LIVE WITH ME

AND I’M DRUNK WITH BOUNDLESS YOUTH. UNITED WITH RAM – ROUND AND ROUND. HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

When the five great elements of the body have been left behind, when nature has been left behind, when the stages of unconscious evolution have all been left far behind and your body becomes the

sacrificial altar, in that deep valley of the heart the whole of existence begins to sing the Vedic hymns to celebrate your acceptance, your offering, your penance, your sacrifice, your gift.

In that inner valley where Brahma himself performs the Vedic rites, where existence itself begins to sing the Vedic hymns, the ceremony of encircling the sacrificial fire takes place. This is the meeting between the devotee and God; this is where the lover and the beloved become one. Then there is no duality; then the lover and the beloved are one. Then who is the devotee and who is God? Then there is no distinction. Before this, before the ceremony took place, the distinction was still there.

Not only is this ceremony, this SAPTAPADI, this seven circles around the sacrificial fire, prevalent in this country, it is also a reflection of an inner activity. Have you ever wondered why the fire is encircled seven times? The great yogis have asserted that when the inner ceremony takes place it happens at each of the seven centers. The energy travels through all the seven centers of the body; it passes through each of them.

You may have observed a whirlpool in a river at some point. No outward cause is apparent, but some source of energy is causing a certain part of the river to revolve in a circular motion. In the current of your bodily energy there are seven such whirlpools. At seven places the river of your bodily energy moves in circles, and when the divine energy descends in you it does so in each of these seven spots, one by one. That is why we speak of seven centers. And because of this inner phenomenon, the husband and wife make seven circles of the sacrificial fire at the time of marriage. Although these are happening in the outer world they are symbols of an inner phenomenon. When this inner event occurs Kabir says:

HOW FORTUNATE AM I!

There is no greater blessing than this. This is man’s destiny. Now one has reached where one has wanted to reach. The seed has achieved the ultimate; the seed has flowered in beauty. Now there is no returning. All has been achieved; one has arrived home. Now is the moment of eternal rest.

You will only attain to this rest when this saptapadi, when this circling of the sacrificial fire happens between you and God. Until then your journey will continue.

GODS ARRIVE IN MILLIONS AND SAGES IN THOUSANDS. SAYS KABIR: I’M TO WED. AND THE MAN’S IMMORTAL!

Kabir is speaking of the moment when the Sita within you will meet the Ram of the outer world, when the inner woman meets the outer man, when you meet existence. What happens at that moment? At that moment the whole of existence celebrates. We are linked to each other; we are joined together. When all of existence remains thirsty if there is even one drop of water less, then just imagine how the whole of existence will dance the day you achieve godhood. And it will dance!

Your fulfillment is also existence’s fulfillment. Existence is one; it is a combined thing. Existence is a complete entity. It is not disjointed, it is not divided into several parts. We are not separate like islands in a sea, we are all joined together. That is why, when a buddha is born, doors open immediately and thousands of others are able to become buddhas as well.

GODS ARRIVE IN MILLIONS AND SAGES IN THOUSANDS.

This means that the whole of existence participates in this great event. The original Hindi sutra speaks of thirty-three CRORES of gods, because in the days of Kabir the population of India was thirty-three crores, three hundred and thirty million – and the Hindus said there were thirty-three crores of gods because every person is ultimately going to become a god, because there is a hidden god in everyone. Today’s number is much greater.

The figure is symbolic; the phrase means that the whole of existence in its entirety was present. Those who were partly awakened came, but those who were asleep remained behind because they had no idea what was happening. Those who were partly awake – godhood is only a part of consciousness, of existence – came. And the buddhas, those who were fully awake, came as well. All gathered to witness the great event.

When something great occurs you will only go to witness the event if there is some awareness in you. When a buddha is born not everyone will go to witness the happening; only those whose hearts respond to that mysterious attraction will go there. They will be dragged there, as if they were unconsciously pulled by some great magnet. It will be impossible for them to resist. Thousands of obstacles may stand in their way, but they will surmount them and go. They may have thousands of responsibilities resting on their heads, but they will all be ignored, set aside, thrown away. Their awareness will be gone then. They will be in a kind of hypnotic state, as if some great force is calling them.

Kabir says that when this great event took place within him millions of gods and thousands of sages, of buddhas, came to witness the occasion. There is no greater happening than this; there is no greater celebration.

SAYS KABIR: I’M TO WED. AND THE MAN’S IMMORTAL!

Now, Kabir says, his marriage to the immortal is to be solemnized; now he is in a state of eternal rest. At that moment you enter into eternal rest the whole of existence feels grateful, ecstatic and tremendously blessed – because you are the child of existence, the son of existence itself.

When you are to marry, your parents seem to be even more pleased than you are. They are very excited; their joy knows no bounds. Those who have given you birth feel filled with great blessedness.

Parents are always anxious about the marriage of their sons. They worry about when the son will marry and whether or not he will agree to the bride they have chosen, and they always feel

incomplete until the marriage has taken place. This feeling of incompleteness is always there – even with the fathers of buddhas – and parents are only content when their son marries.

If worldly parents, if those who are merely related to your body are so keen for your marriage, for your joy and happiness, then is there any wonder that existence – your real mother and father, this earth and sky where you live, from whence you have come and to which you will return – begins to dance and sing when you achieve the highest state of blessedness, when you marry Ram, when you marry the immortal, when you marry Him?

Bear this in mind – through your blessedness the whole of existence is blessed. And remember this also – in your helplessness and wretchedness, the whole of existence is helpless as well.

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