9 Relax in joy

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‌CHAPTER 9

Relax in joy

19 January 1975 am in Buddha Hall LORD OF DEATH TURNS INTO RAM. MISERY GONE, I RELAX IN JOY.

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND;

FIENDS ARE SEEN AS GENTLE MEN. NOW, FOR ME, ALL IS BLESSED.

KNOWING BHAGWAN, SILENCE DESCENDS. A MILLION PROBLEMS IN THE BODY

TURN INTO JOYFUL, SIMPLE SAMADHI.

A RECOGNIZING DEEP WITHIN MY HEART: DISEASE NO MORE AFFECTS ME.

MIND NOW BECOMES THE ETERNAL. I KNOW NOW: I WAS LIVING DEAD.

SAYS KABIR: I’M SIMPLY JOYOUS.

I’M NOT AFRAID, NOR FRIGHTENING OTHERS.

There is an ancient anecdote about Valmiki. He was not a learned man and he forgot the particular name for God his guru had given him as a MANTRA. He had given him “Rama,” but the reverse of Rama – MARA – became fixed in his mind. ‘Mara’ means death. It is said that he repeated this mantra for quite a long time and ultimately achieved liberation. If the words “Mara, Mara, Mara” are repeated continuously, the sound of “Rama, Rama, Rama” will begin to emerge of its own accord.

Whether this really happened or not is unimportant, but the story is very symbolic and very beautiful. You are also repeating “Mara, Mara,” but it does not turn into “Rama, Rama.” Everyone is afraid of death and keeps repeating “Mara, Mara” within.

Kabir says a man dies a hundred times a day, and whenever any fear whatsoever catches hold of him the sound of “Mara, Mara” is created within. Fear is nothing but the repetition of the mantra of death. But your “Mara, Mara” does not become like that of Valmiki – you have not repeated it with as much sincerity, rapidity and continuity as Valmiki did. The point of this story is that if anyone continues to remember death correctly, that remembering of death will itself become the remembrance of God.

When someone remembers death correctly his attachment to life is broken. Such a person will see death hidden in every moment of life. The attachment to life, the infatuation for life, of someone who has known death rightly will be killed naturally, will naturally disappear. Such a person will soon come to know the nectar hidden behind death, will soon come to know that death is one side of the coin and God is the other. On one side there is death; on the other, nectar.

Those who have known death have also known nectar. This is the substance, the inner meaning of the story that prevails about Valmiki – that while repeating “Mara, Mara” he achieved Ram, he achieved nectar.

You also remember “Mara, Mara,” but there is no density in your remembering. You do it slowly and at great intervals. You say “Mara” once, and then repeat it again after a long time, so they are not linked together. The sound of “Rama” will only be created if they are linked together rapidly. Then the remembering of death will itself become the remembering of Rama, of God. This is the first thing to be remembered before we move into the sutras of Kabir.

The second thing to remember is that no matter what you have in this life, nothing is useless. It is possible you may have been unable to arrange things in your life properly, and so no harmony is produced from them; it is possible you may not have been able to time things properly, that you may not know the art of beautifying your life; it is possible your life may be upside down, but if you master the art of tuning it properly you will find that nothing you have is meaningless. Everything is useful. Not even the smallest thing in life is useless – it cannot be. How can anything be useless? It is all the gift of the great existence from which life is created, of the great existence which has given life to us as a gift.

It is possible your understanding of life may be incomplete, that it may be faulty, but speaking truthfully, nothing in life is useless. There should simply be proper planning and arrangement, proper

harmony. As you are, there is much disorder, much noise in you. But if a musical expert were able to catch hold of all these noisy sounds he would use them to produce harmonious music, to create a sweet and pleasing song. Through them, he would pour out his heart.

You have everything already, except this art of arranging things correctly. Were you to know this art your anger would be transformed into compassion, but you are ignorant of this art and so compassion itself is turned into anger. If you know this art your hatred is transformed into love; if you do not know this art all your love will sour into the poison of hatred. You can turn a friend into an enemy or an enemy into a friend in the same way. It all depends on whether you know the art or not. If you don’t know the art of life, “ours” becomes “others”; if you do know it then “others” becomes “ours.”

No one else is ever responsible for anything that is wrong in your life. The fault lies somewhere in your arrangement of things. So don’t slander life, you will gain nothing by it. When you slander life you are severing the limbs of your body, and they have been very useful in life. When you realize it later on, you will be sorry to see that you have made yourself crippled. Nothing is worth throwing away. If any limb, if any part of life is giving you trouble, understand that you have arranged it badly. Put it in its proper place and the trouble, an uneasiness, will disappear.

You are restless and uneasy, and the whole reason is because you have your ears where your eyes should be, your hands where your eyes should be and your legs where your head should be. You are standing on your head. This is the cause of your uneasiness.

Giving proper and correct form to your life is the real task, the real SADHANA. When you feel that something is giving you trouble, is making you uncomfortable, is pinching you, don’t begin to condemn it, don’t begin to censure it – begin to think about it, begin to think deeply about it and find out if you have made some mistake, find out if you have been keeping it in the wrong place.

With these things in mind let us now enter these sutras of Kabir. LORD OF DEATH TURNS INTO RAM.

MISERY GONE, I RELAX IN JOY.

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND; FIENDS ARE SEEN AS GENTLE MEN. NOW, FOR ME, ALL IS BLESSED.

KNOWING BHAGWAN, SILENCE DESCENDS. A MILLION PROBLEMS IN THE BODY

TURN INTO JOYFUL, SIMPLE SAMADHI.

A RECOGNIZING DEEP WITHIN MY HEART:

DISEASE NO MORE AFFECTS ME.

Kabir says that which he considered as death, that person he considered as the messenger of death, has proven to be God Himself. He says he has known that death itself is nectar, but that he made a mistake seeing death in this way. Death is nowhere to be seen. There is no death except in ignorance. Nobody has ever died; nobody can ever die. Death has no existence. It cannot have. Whatever is will remain forever.

How can that which is be destroyed? To be destroyed means that existence becomes nonexistence, that whatever existed became nonexistent, yet scientists say we cannot even destroy a particle of sand. No matter how hard we try, even if we blast a sand particle apart with an atomic bomb, it will not be destroyed. It will be broken into pieces, but it will not be destroyed. There is no device to destroy it – there is none to create it.

To destroy means that what was there now becomes nonexistent; to create means that what is now there has been caused by us. What we call creating is only rearranging things, and what we call destroying is only a scattering here and there.

For example, we construct a building. Everything was already there. The bricks, the stones, the water, the earth – they were already there. We simply arrange them, and the building is built. And now we pull it down. Then everything will still be there – bricks, stones, earth. The union among them is all that is broken.

Nothing is destroyed and nothing is created – only unions and scatterings take place. Union is life and scattering is death. As soon as you realize this you will see God standing behind death.

You remain afraid of death because you think it will obliterate you completely. There is no possibility whatsoever of your being obliterated. Death has visited you many times and you are still not canceled out. You have remained untouched. There is not even a mark of death to be found on you. Death has played all its tricks on you, has tried to blot you out, but you have remained invincible. And still you are afraid of it. It only appears as death, as obliteration, because of your ignorance. You have not looked at it in full consciousness.

A few moments before death a man becomes unconscious, and so you do not remember your past deaths. The only person who remembers his past death is the man who dies in consciousness. Remembering happens when one is aware; it cannot happen in unconsciousness. If a man sees death in awareness, then the lord of death turns into Ram, then Mara becomes Rama, then death becomes God. That was what happened to Valmiki.

As Valmiki was repeating “Mara, Mara,” he all of a sudden became enlightened. The mantra reversed, and the continuous sound of “Rama” was heard. The letters in “Rama” and “Mara” are the same, only their positions change. In “Mara,” “Ma” is first and “Ra” is next; in “Rama,” “Ra” is first and “Ma” is second. This is the only difference. But there is a great difference between “Mara” and “Rama,” between death and God. God is ultimate existence; death is fear and darkness.

But enlightenment only happens when you are able to face death in awareness. So don’t run away from death – wherever you go it is sure to follow you. There is no escape from it. Stop and look at death bravely.

Raman Maharshi has told how he achieved enlightenment. When he was seventeen years old, all of a sudden one day he felt that death was approaching. He had been wanting to know death, and so he lay down on the ground. When it is coming what else can be done? No one is ever saved from it. If death is certain, then die bravely, then meet it in awareness.

His hands and feet grew cold, his body became numb and he saw death approaching. The body lost its vitality and became almost lifeless, and yet he watched it approaching. At that moment the transformation took place. The body was dead, but he was alive. He sat up. He realized that death had happened to the body, but that there was no death for him. The fear disappeared that day; that day his search was over. That day the word “Mara” reversed, that day it became “Rama.” Then there was nothing left to know.

And so the technique of Raman Maharshi is very easy. He says only this much – learn to die. And when you have learned this you will find, at the time of your death, that there is something within you which does not die. Your consciousness does not die. The body will be lying there, absolutely lifeless, but you will be fully alert, totally alive within. You have never been this alive, this alert, because up to now you have been one with the body; up to now its whole load has been on you. But now the body lies there dead, and there is no burden at all. Now you are free to fly in the sky.

If you practice how to die for a few days – lying down for a time every day and allowing the body to be as if dead – you will attain to meditation. You only have to remember one thing – that the body is now dead, that it is now just a corpse. It is not to be shaken or disturbed at all – a corpse does not move. Suppose an ant bites you. Then what will you do? You are lying there dead, and the ant is biting you. You should only observe it.

If you can lie down as if you are dead, if you can lie there absolutely motionless for some time each day, suddenly one day the happening will take place – the relationship between you and the body will be shattered, the consciousness and the body will separate from each other. Remaining apart, aloof, you will see your body alongside. An infinite distance happens then. And there is no way to bridge it. In this moment “Mara” is reversed, and the sound of “Rama” is heard. Now there is no death. Now you have known death and it has disappeared forever. The person who tries to run away from death without knowing it only becomes more and more afraid of it. You are trying to run away from it, and because of this you are in great difficulty. You are great escapists. Whenever you see danger you always run away. Yet you do not realize that your fear increases by running away, it does not decrease.

How can you run away from your shadow? Where will you run? If you run faster and faster you will see that your shadow runs just as fast. Your shadow is just behind you so you will say you are not running fast enough. You will run faster, and then your shadow will run even faster. Your mind will even tell you to risk your life to save yourself. But no matter how hard you try, you will always find your shadow next to you. It is your own shadow, it can never be avoided.

If you don’t want your shadow to pursue you, then don’t run. Just stand there and look at it. You will laugh when you look at it, because it is not there. Something’s shadow appears as soon as that something obstructs light, and, in the same way, any obstruction to knowledge is death.

Death is your shadow. Death is not there; it only seems to be solid because you are running away from it. You want to save yourself from it and so it pursues you. But if you stand still, it will also stand

still. Look at it attentively; it will be no more. There is no need to destroy it, no need to take a sword in your hand and cut its throat. Nothing has to be done to it. You have only to know its real nature, to know that the shadow is merely a shadow.

No sooner do you realize untruth as untruth, than it is no longer there. As soon as you recognize illusion as illusion, it ceases to exist; as soon as you recognize maya as maya, where can it exist? There is no need to know truth, you only need to know what falsehood is. When you know something as untruth it topples immediately. What remains is truth.

Don’t try to seek truth directly, just try to know what untruth is. Don’t try to know the meaning of life directly, try to know only what death is. Where are you going to look for God? Just know what death is. The shadow that looks like death is also God. Just look at the shadow attentively, and with its help you will reach Him whose shadow you see. At present you are trying to save yourself from the shadow, and so you are unable to attain to Him whose shadow it is you are seeing.

The shadow is the ladder. That is why Kabir asks, “When shall I disappear? When shall I see that total bliss?” When you look at the shadow with great attentiveness you will cease to be and only God will remain. As long as you are afraid of the shadow you cannot be authentic. How can you be authentic when you are afraid of untruth?

The thing that is afraid of the shadow is your ego. Understand this, and the meaning will be clear. The ego is afraid of death. And its fear is quite natural, because it will surely die. You have become one with the ego; you have identified yourself with it – and so you are afraid. It may not be easy for you to understand that the ego is going to die, but your fear is completely beyond comprehension. You are worried and anxious without any real cause.

As soon as you stand still the shadow and your ego will both disappear. These two are linked together. And in that moment of light and wisdom the messenger of death proves to be Rama. Then the whole meaning of life changes. Seen from this angle life is perfect bliss, the ultimate of existence. It all depends on how you look at it. Suppose someone has a glass half full of water. If you look at the unfilled part you will say it is half empty; if you look at the filled part you will say it is half full.

When you look at life from the angle of death you are looking at the unfilled part. Your emphasis is on the unfilled part, on the shadow. And so all your experiences will negate life. You could also have looked at life from the angle of fullness. Why do you choose to look at it from the angle of death? Why don’t you look at it from the angle of life? Why do you look at it from the negative angle? This is the very deep-rooted habit of your mind. To look at the absence of something is the nature of the mind.

You do not see what you have – you only see what you don’t have. The mind lives in that which is absent and so it always remains in misery and in anxiety. How can anyone live in joy if he is always thinking about things that are not? The road to joy is to live in the things with which we are full.

There once was a Jewish mystic called Jhusia. He was so poor none was poorer. One day the king was out riding on his horse and he passed a certain road, a road where Jhusia could always be found sitting under a nearby tree. If it were cold he would just sit there, trembling. He didn’t

have enough clothes, nor did he have wood with which to make a fire. He lived on whatever food was given him. The king had always noticed him praying in the morning, and so one day the king stopped to listen to his prayer.

Jhusia used to say, “O God, you are so very kind. You look after all my needs and fulfill them.” The king could not endure this. He waited until the prayer was over and then he said, “Jhusia, you should be ashamed, telling such a lie. A seeker should not lie. What you are saying to God in your prayer is completely untrue. It is cold and you have no wood for your fire; you haven’t enough clothes to wear and your body is trembling with the cold. You get your bread with great difficulty and you don’t have a roof to shelter you – you are living under a tree. Your poverty is so great and yet you say to God, ‘O God, you are so very kind. You look after all my needs and fulfill them.’”

Jhusia began to laugh and said, “Poverty is my need.” For such a man death will be reversed, Mara will become Rama.

This sentence of Jhusia’s, “Poverty is my need,” is really wonderful. There are certain things that only flower in poverty. If you are able to see this, if you are able to understand this, you will know the meaning of “Poverty is my need.” There are certain things that die in prosperity, and if you are able to understand this you will see that richness is not a necessity. There are also certain things that flower in richness, in prosperity, and if you are able to see this, then richness is a necessity. It all depends on how you look at things. Jhusia said, “Poverty is my need.” He said, “I need it now and so He has made me poor and kept me poor.”

What angle do you look at life from? Why do you immediately begin to look at it from the angle of the shadow? You are alive now, but you do not see life; the fear of death has engulfed you. But that fear is not there at the present moment, is it? In fact, it never exists.

You are unable to see life, and it is standing just at your door. The sun has just risen but you don’t see it; you are trembling in fear for the night that will come in the future. But for you the night has come now! Now what need is there for night to come? You have already brought it. In the bright morning, the night has already come. There is darkness at high noon.

And just as you have turned the bright sun into darkness, you can also create the opposite state. One who looks at things with a positive attitude, and not with a negative one, sees his own sun rising even in the dead of night. His sun never sets, it cannot. It all depends on how you look at things.

Always remember to look at things with a positive attitude, to look at things from the angle of what truly is. Slowly, slowly, climbing each step of the ladder you will reach the final step – Ram, the ultimate. But if you look at things from a negative viewpoint you will slowly and surely descend into the valley of darkness, into the valley of nonexistence, into the valley of death. It all depends on you.

The ladder stands between darkness and light. It is one and the same ladder. Have you ever noticed a ladder? It has two parts. One part is composed of small fixed bars or steps. These are the steps of positivity, the steps one uses to climb towards reality. The other part is that of voidness, of nothingness. This is negativity. And if you put your foot on this part, on the negative part, you will fall down into deep darkness. That is death. That is the shadow, that is darkness. But if you step on the rungs of is-ness, you will attain to SAT-CHIT-ANAND, to the highest and most perfect bliss. Kabir says:

DEATH – THE WHOLE WORLD FEARS. DEATH – MY HEART OVERJOYS.

How do you look at things? How do you live? What is your way of life? Is it negative? Are you a nonbeliever? A believer? An atheist? A theist?

I call a man a theist, a believer, when his outlook is positive, and a man whose outlook is negative, I call him an atheist, a nonbeliever. To be a believer has no relation at all to believing in the existence of God, and to hold such a belief is completely unnecessary. To see what is, to know what really exists, is the way of the theist, of the believer; to see what does not really exist is the way of an atheist, of a nonbeliever. And if you form the habit of seeing what really does not exist, you yourself will cease to be. And that is death. By forming the habit of seeing what is, you will become the highest existence. And that is God.

LORD OF DEATH TURNS INTO RAM. MISERY GONE, I RELAX IN JOY.

“My unhappiness is gone,” Kabir says, “and now I am at rest, now I am happy.” When there is a lot of running about, a lot of running here and there, man is unhappy. Happiness is being at complete rest. You run here and there in search of happiness, but your arithmetic is wrong, your calculations are faulty. You think you will find happiness by running hither and thither, but in the end all this running only makes you miserable. The final result of all this running about is unhappiness. The more you run, the more miserable you will be. Happiness is that moment of rest when there is no more running, when you are just at rest, when you are simply there where you are, when you do not move even an inch. And then, in that moment of rest, there is happiness, there is nothing but happiness. Meditate over this.

The extent to which you run is the extent to which you are deprived of happiness. And the more you keep on running, the more and more unhappy you become. Happiness is to be found by stopping. And stopping is meditation, prayer, worship. Stopping means having no idea or thought of the future whatsoever. As long as you remain attached to the future your running will continue.

The present moment is everything, so why run? Where will you reach by running? There is no place to run, no time in which to run. Existence is celebrating this very moment and you are cut off from it. You are so unfortunate. And you are unfortunate because you are running. If you expect happiness to come to you tomorrow you will receive nothing but misery. Why don’t you take your happiness today? – it is already there. Please just stop for a while. You are missing happiness because of your running, and because of your running you have no free time, no leisure to enjoy it.

All the enlightened ones have said that desire is the root cause of misery and that contentment is the foundation of happiness. Contentment means rest, contentment means that whatsoever you have is enough, more than enough. Where is your ability to enjoy what you already have? Think about it a moment. Do you even have the capacity to enjoy that which you already possess? You are unable to contain all that is given to you already, and yet you are running after more and more.

There are two types of people in the world. The first type is the kind who enlarge their vessels, because what is given to them is so much more than the vessel can contain. The vessels of these seekers are not large enough to contain all, and so they try to enlarge their vessels, they try to expand themselves.

The second type does not even care enough to see whether there is a vessel or not. This type simply keeps running about in search of happiness. But even if they succeed in this search what will they find? They will find they do not even have a vessel. In their search for happiness they shrink more and more; their vessel becomes smaller and smaller. As you keep on running, your vessel gets smaller and smaller, your vessel goes on shrinking. Only when you stop, only when you cease running does your vessel become great. At that moment of stillness, of no-movement, your self becomes like the sky.

You have been given much more than necessary – the lake holds much more than you can drink. There is always more celebrating than you can enjoy, and it will be so even until infinity. Make your vessel larger and larger. Don’t worry about how to get happiness, just be concerned about how to become big enough to contain all that is.

Each of these two types of people moves in quite independent ways. One changes himself, transforms himself; the other goes on changing circumstances. From a smaller house to a larger one, from lack of money to lots of it, from poverty to affluence, from failure to success – the second man goes on seeking and seeking, goes on trying to change circumstances.

The first man changes himself – he looks to his own vessel. He sees that it is not upside down but that it is open to the sky; he sees that it is not so weak it won’t be able to hold anything; he sees that it is not broken anywhere, that it has no hole from which the nectar can leak, from which the nectar can drain out. All a seeker’s concern relates to his self; that of a man of the world, to worldly affairs.

Whenever your mind becomes very restless and you feel you want to change a particular situation or circumstance, always wait for a while. If you follow the advice of the mind at that particular moment it will mislead you. Just cleanse yourself as much as possible, and the moment your vessel is ready to hold the divine nectar, that is surely the moment you will receive it. There is not a moment’s delay; the only requirement is that you be worthy of it. God is ready the very moment you become ready. He has been ready forever. He has only been awaiting your readiness.

MISERY GONE, I RELAX IN JOY.

And then Kabir says:

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND...

The whole world changes when you change. If you can transform Mara into Rama, if you can reverse death and begin to see God, then how is it possible for anyone in the world to be your enemy? You only see someone who threatens to kill you or someone you fear will kill you as an enemy because you are full of fear. Your fear creates the enemy. And so a person who is very afraid will have many enemies. The number of your enemies depends on the intensity of your fear. So if you have no fear you will have no enemies. Someone may consider himself as your enemy, but to you he will not be an enemy.

Kabir had enemies, but they were only enemies from their points of view. Those who were afraid of Kabir looked on him as an enemy, but for Kabir, he had no enemies at all. The learned men, the pundits of Kashi, were very afraid of Kabir because he cut away the roots of falsehood and hypocrisy. He spoke of things that seemed to be against the tenets of the scriptures; he used to tell people that the temples and mosques were without significance. “What is a Hindu?” he would ask. “What is a Moslem?” It was all hocus-pocus, he said. He spoke about things that appeared to be in opposition to the religious sects, in opposition to the society, the civilization, the culture; he said things that seemed against accepted beliefs. He said:

REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.

He said:

ONE WHO WALKS ALONE, HE ALONE FINDS TRUTH.

He said some wonderful things to the people, but the pundits were afraid of him.

Many people became his enemies, but only on their sides. Kabir knew no enemies. Even if someone had cut his throat he still would not have seen him as an enemy. Kabir knew that the cutting could not happen to “him,” that what could be cut was not “him.” He knew the assassin would be exerting himself uselessly, and as far as Kabir was concerned, such a man would simply be committing a sin without any purpose. Kabir had no cause to worry. Such a man would simply be committing a pointless sin, unnecessarily creating a web of complications. Kabir would have pitied such a man.

Kabir could not have any enemies, because there can only be an enemy as long as there is fear. A fearless consciousness knows no enemies. And when one has no enemies, everyone is a friend. Your friends are not true friends; your friendship is a political device. Your friends are friends because of some self-interest, because of some selfishness. When you die they will not accompany you; when you are in misery they will be nowhere to be found.

Mulla Nasruddin once told his wife that fifty percent of his friends had abandoned him because he was on the verge of bankruptcy.

His wife asked, “And haven’t the other fifty percent gone too?”

The mulla replied, “They do not know about it yet. Only those who know have left.”

Your friends stay with you in your prosperity; they only remain with you while they can bleed you. When they find there are no more dinner parties, that you have become penniless, that you are completely sucked dry, they will throw you out just like a stick of sugarcane from which all the sweetness has been sucked. What is the meaning in such friendships?

A Sufi fakir always prayed to God saying, “O Lord, I shall settle things with my enemies myself, but please save me from my friends.” Friends are also secret enemies. But Kabir is not using the word in this sense when he says the whole world has become his friend.

As soon as your fear leaves you the whole world becomes your friend. As soon as you cease to fear death the whole world becomes friendly, and until this happens there is no such person as a real friend. Until then it is all just a case of more or less. Until then some people are more enemies and some are lesser enemies, some are close enemies and some are distant enemies, some are enemies from your own people and other enemies are strangers – but all are enemies because they all seem to be destroying your life.

You do not know that life is a perpetual stream that can never be exhausted. “I” cannot be exhausted no matter how much you may try to disturb it. Even if you give away your all, you will remain as full as you were before. The Upanishads say that if you take the whole away from the whole, the whole will remain, that it will not make the slightest difference at all. On the contrary, you will become fresher and fresher. Your stream will receive fresh water. New sources will keep opening to you and you will never be empty.

As soon as water is drawn from a well the place from which it was drawn is immediately filled up with water. The well is linked with the boundless ocean; the small streams are linked with hidden springs. In the same way, you are linked with the infinite, with the whole. Who can rob you? Who can destroy you? If the well is afraid, if the well is frightened and says, “I will not allow anyone to draw water from me” – a timid person is always afraid of sharing, of giving, and becomes miserly – then the well will perish. It will become dirty, it will begin to stink, and by and by the source will dry up. Sources that remain unused dry up.

Your poverty, your helplessness, is all because of your fear. You are closed to the sources of fresh water, and as the level goes on decreasing you become apprehensive, you worry about getting a fresh supply. And so a vicious circle is created.

You could have become a clean well, one that could have given and yet not been exhausted, one that could have been continuously replenished with fresh water to the same degree it has been giving it away. Then another kind of circle begins, because now you know that no matter how much you give away, it goes on increasing.

Kabir says to draw it out, to distribute it with both your hands. Even if you had a thousand hands it would not decrease. You are unbounded; you are limitless. You are not what you appear to be. From above the well may look small, but it is linked with the ocean. Its mouth may be small, but its soul is vast. In the body you may look small, but this is only the mouth of the well; deep within you are limitless.

And bear in mind that he who does not give will take. Taking is sin; giving is holy, sacred. This never occurs, but if a well were to take water from other wells do you know what would happen? Water seeks its own level, and if a particular well began to take water from others, then the sources from which it was obtaining its water would themselves begin to take water back from the well. The level of water always remains the same.

The level of consciousness, of the essence of life, always remains the same as well. Whether you give or you don’t give makes no difference; the level of consciousness within you always remains constant. Your divinity neither increases or decreases in the least. You are worrying unnecessarily. Even if you give the limit, the level remains the same – but then you will become more delighted,

more blissful. What causes more joy than giving? Only those who have given have known joy. If you do not give, you will remain miserable, worried, guilty. And the beauty of the whole phenomenon is that the water maintains its level whether the well gives or the well takes away. There will be no difference whatsoever in your being, but there will be a great difference in your experience. If you give you will feel happy and in bloom; if you take you will feel miserable.

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND; FIENDS ARE SEEN AS GENTLE MEN.

Kabir is speaking about those who worship the goddess Shakti, the goddess of power. Their way of life creates fear in the hearts of others. The devotee of Shakti lives on the cremation ground, and his way of life is terrible. The cremation ground is his home and he decorates his body with the ashes of corpses. A skull is his drinking bowl. People are always afraid of these devotees of Shakti.

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND; FIENDS ARE SEEN AS GENTLE MEN.

The devotee’s drinking bowl, the skull, reminds you of your own skull and so you become nervous. You think, “This will happen to me too,” and that is why the devotee of Shakti drinks water from a skull. He does not do this to create fear in others; he does not do this to be harmful to anyone. Making friends with death is his technique, his sadhana, and so he lives in the cremation ground, he lives in a place that is supposed to be the realm of ghosts and evil spirits. He is acquainting himself with death; he is diminishing the distance between life and death. He creates fear in our hearts because his appearance is unpleasant. Yet Kabir says:

FOE REVERSED BECOMES A FRIEND; FIENDS ARE SEEN AS GENTLE MEN.

Kabir says he is happy to see them. “When I have made friends with death itself,” he says, “why should I be afraid of these devotees? As soon as I knew death I attained to Rama, so I shall also find Him in the company of these devotees.”

When death is no longer death for you the whole style of life changes. At present your fear of death is the basis for your whole way of life. When the foundation is changed, the whole structure changes.

NOW, FOR ME, ALL IS BLESSED.

KNOWING BHAGWAN, SILENCE DESCENDS.

Now there is no death, so how can anything be unfavorable or inauspicious? Behind whatsoever is looked upon as unfavorable, death is hidden somewhere. The shadow of death is what is seen, and it is that which is looked upon as evil.

When a dead body is being carried along the road a mother will tell her son to stay in the house and keep the door shut. No one considers the sight of a dead body lucky or auspicious. If you are out

of your house in the early morning and you happen to see a dead body lying beside the road you will consider the whole day as inauspicious. You will think, “I will meet with failure today.” But why? What is wrong with a dead body? Those who are alive are seen committing sins, but no dead body has ever been found doing so.

Mulla Nasruddin decided to go to a hill-station for a while. But he wanted to take his dog with him, and so he wrote to the manager of the hotel asking whether he would be allowed to keep his dog with him in the hotel.

The manager replied, “In my experience running this hotel for the last thirty years, I have never found a dog drinking wine, hiding wine bottles, nor damaging the bedding by smoking. Moreover,” he added, “I have never caught a dog with stolen towels, weights, spoons and such in his suitcase. In thirty years I have never called the police because of a dog. We have no complaints against dogs. And if your dog is willing to bring you with him, you are welcome too.”

Has a dead body ever wronged anyone? Has a dead body ever been found stealing or murdering or committing adultery? But still, if you happen to see a corpse lying on the road, you rush back home, you consider it a bad omen. Evil acts are only performed by the living. Dead bodies are in the ultimate state – how can any wrong or evil emanate from them? No, all these ideas are because a dead body reminds you of your own death. And so when you encounter a corpse you immediately rush back home and life seems dull and uninteresting to you. When you see a dead body you have a small taste of what death is. And then you begin to tremble, then you begin to think inside, “This is going to happen to me too.” The taste of success disappears; your zest for life disappears.

With great expectations you are on your way to open your shop, and then you see a dead body on the road and all your interest in doing business evaporates, all that madness to do business cools down. “What am I going to get out of this shop?” you begin to think. “The shop will remain after my death,” you say, “and these people who are carting this corpse away will also carry me off tomorrow.” Such are your thoughts; such are the thoughts that begin in you when you see a dead body. You are reminded of the facts of life, and so you consider the dead body to be an evil omen.

But there is nothing wrong in a dead body. Buddha became aware when he saw a corpse – and you are looking upon a dead body as inauspicious? It only looks like this to you because your world is shaky. If you realize that this is the ultimate state of each and every one, then your rosy dreams and all your hopes and desires will begin to vanish; then your house of cards will tumble and your paper boat will sink. A dead body destroys all your dreams.

But if you are a man with a bit of sense you will find it is tremendously worthwhile to go deeply into the meaning of death. It would be very helpful if you were to visit a cremation ground and sit there for a while. That which will not happen by your going to a temple will happen if you go to a cremation ground. It is essential to imprint the realization of death upon yourself, and it should go so deep that the repetition of “Mara, Mara” begins in you – so deep that your breath is filled with the sound. And then all of a sudden, “Mara, Mara” will change to “Rama, Rama.” You will not even be aware of exactly when it happens. Valmiki achieved Ram by repeating “Mara, Mara.”

Don’t run away from death; don’t repeat the name of Ram out of fear. Fear has no connection whatsoever with God. Only when you call on Him with joy and happiness is your call meaningful.

But this moment of joy only comes when you are not afraid of death, when death ceases to be death for you.

How can someone who is afraid of death be happy and joyful? How can the fragrance of life’s flowers emanate from such a person? Only the stinking smell of the corpse will exude from such a man. And how then can your prayers to Ram be offered up with fragrance? Prayers and mantras filled with stink, with this odor, will not reach to Him.

NOW, FOR ME, ALL IS BLESSED.

KNOWING BHAGWAN, SILENCE DESCENDS.

Understand this properly. You desire peace and rest, but you want them without knowing God. But this can never happen because the root cause of your restlessness is that you do not know God. People come to me and they say, “We are not so anxious to know God but we do want mental peace.” Their desire seems logical to them. They say, “We are not in search of God. It is just that our mind is restless and we want it to be at peace.”

When I hear them speak like this I am in great difficulty. For such people there is no remedy, there is no way out. They have already closed the door before anything can be done. Up to now no one has become restful and peaceful without knowing God. It is just not possible. To know God means to attain to one’s own inner music. That is peace; that is rest. To know God means to be God, to be totally contented. That is peace; and before that there cannot be any. Only when you can see God in death will you be able to be peaceful, will you be able to be at rest.

Your restlessness and your uneasiness are quite natural. You are not blind – you see death approaching. You are not deaf – you can hear death’s footsteps. You know that you too will one day be no more, and so you tremble. That is your restlessness.

So no matter what steps you take to protect yourself, all your efforts will finally prove to be unsuccessful. You put up a large building and then you see someone with a bigger one dying; you earn a lot of money and then you see a richer man dying; you achieve prestige and a great name and then you see a more famous man returning to dust. And so you know that all your efforts are pointless. You can try as hard as you can to persuade your mind otherwise, but you will never succeed. And that is why you are worried and uneasy.

All the consolations you resort to are false. The older and older you grow, the more you begin to be aware of this, the more you begin to think about what can be done. You hanker after peace. But you are worrying about peace without worrying about God! How is that possible? You have been doing this very same thing through countless births.

If you think the search for peace is not the same as the search for truth then you are mistaken, then you are laboring under a delusion. The search for truth is most certainly the search for peace. Peace comes as the shadow of truth – peace is a consequence, a result. No one can find peace or happiness directly.

When you become deeply engrossed in something, all of a sudden you will hear a sort of music ringing within you. This is the music of peace. At times when you are listening to good music

this absorption can happen. You forget yourself for a moment; for a moment the past and future disappear and you are drowned in the sweet sound of music. Live in the present and you will experience that moment of peace all about you. At times such a moment comes in love, at times in the beauty of nature. These are the moments you experience peace.

But then your restlessness increases, because the second that moment goes you become even more uneasy. You have tasted it once, but the taste has not lasted for long. That is what Kabir is indicating:

LORD OF DEATH TURNS INTO RAM.

This man-created music, this love between two people, is bound to be momentary. Only the love that happens between man and God can be everlasting. Only the music that happens between God and man can be eternal. That is why Kabir says:

LORD OF DEATH TURNS INTO RAM. MISERY GONE, I RELAX IN JOY.

The man who knows God knows everything. Then there is nothing left to know – he has heard the ultimate music. And this music is not the kind of music that will pass away. This music is not created by someone, it is hidden in existence, it is the way of existence. And then permanent peace comes.

Now Kabir says:

A MILLION PROBLEMS IN THE BODY TURN INTO JOYFUL, SIMPLE SAMADHI.

What was causing anger has now become compassion. Kabir says the energy that was creating mischief and disturbances has now reversed its course, it has now become an effortless samadhi, an effortless meditation. What was causing anger has now become compassion; what was causing ignorance has now become wisdom; what was creating darkness is now bright light. You only have to reverse your position. As you are now you are upside down. If you take the reverse position now, you will be straightened out. As you are now you are in SHIRSHASANA; you are standing on your head. You have to stand on your feet.

A RECOGNIZING DEEP WITHIN MY HEART:

DISEASE NO MORE AFFECTS ME.

How can any disease spread in a person who has known this himself? The body can be sick or unwell, but the self does not become sick. The body will die, but the self does not die – the consciousness remains untouched.

MIND NOW BECOMES THE ETERNAL. I KNOW NOW: I WAS LIVING DEAD.

Kabir says that the mind from which it is so difficult to become free is now reversed and becomes the everlasting God. There is no need to be free from the mind, but it must be put into well-planned order. As long as the mind is active it is still there, but when it stops talking, when it ceases its activity, when it becomes silent, then it is the ATMA, the soul.

The ocean becomes a wave, and when the wave passes away it becomes the ocean again. Is there any difference between the ocean and the wave? The only difference is that the wave is agitated and uneasy, but it most certainly is part and parcel of the ocean. It has simply been caught up in the air currents; it has simply struck up a temporary friendship with the wind. But in the end it will be quiet; in the end it will be lost in the ocean.

The mind is a wave. It has just become a little disturbed by the currents of the world – it has just made a few wrong friends; it has foolishly become identified with the periphery. But then, in the end, everything becomes quiet. And then the mind is no more – then there is everlasting peace. You may call it the everlasting itself.

MIND NOW BECOMES THE ETERNAL. I KNOW NOW: I WAS LIVING DEAD.

When one knows this, one knows death while one is alive. This is the whole art, this is the whole secret. The whole art of religion is to know the secret of death, to die while alive.

Everyone dies. As Kabir says:

DYING, DYING, ALL GO ON DYING. NONE DIE A PROPER DEATH.

People die in a wrong way. They die without living; they die without knowing Him. People are given the chance to live correctly, but the opportunity becomes lost in their unconsciousness and they simply pass away.

Kabir says he died a wise death, a death that was correct and proper. And what is that death? That death is to die before death happens. One day the body will perish, and you will die that day too because by then the opportunity will have slipped through your hands. The body is right here at present and you are still breathing – so die right now. This is an experiment for a sporting man – to die while living.

Die every day. Set aside one hour for death every day. To live for twenty-three hours each day is quite enough. For one hour a day just go deeply into death. Let the body lie there as if it were dead, and just go on observing it, just be a witness. No matter what happens, do not be a doer. You will be very surprised.

On the first day you will experience great difficulty – something will always seem to be happening somewhere in the body. Your leg will feel cold or there will be a pain in your stomach or an ant will be crawling on some part of you. But if you look for the ant you will be surprised to find that there is no ant at all, you have simply imagined it. These are the tricks of the mind.

The mind will create a thousand and one excuses; it will urge you to get up and go about your affairs. So for one hour every day, die. By and by you will come to know all the tricks of the mind, and when it presses you to be busy you will say, “I am already dead. What can I do now?” If an ant crawls on you, then let it crawl. What can you do when you are really dead? Then you won’t be able to do anything at all. The meaning of dying while alive is to let that which will happen after death happen to you.

After several days of continuous practice this technique will become stronger and stronger. You will simply be able to lie there like a corpse, and by and by you will notice that your breathing is becoming slower and slower. As you practice more and more, your breathing will become weaker and weaker. And then a moment will come when your breathing has suddenly stopped and your body is lying there like a corpse. And in that moment you will know, for the first time, that you are separate from the body. At that moment death disappears and Ram becomes visible; at that moment you experience what nectar is. Then you will keep on living but you will behave like a corpse towards the world. You will get up in the morning, you will take your walk, you will do everything there is to do, but all the while you will remain conscious that this body is going to die, that it is really already dead.

Your present condition is such that you do not have a correct idea of what the body is and of what you are. The body is mortal; you are immortal. But in your mind there is great confusion. Mortality and immortality are all mixed up together and you are unable to distinguish between them. The whole substance of one’s sadhana, of one’s journey to self-realization, is this and this alone – that you are able to separate mortality and immortality, that you come to know what the body is and what you are. Then you will not live the way others live. Kabir says you will be alive within, but on the outside you will be like a corpse.

SAYS KABIR: I’M SIMPLY JOYOUS.

I’M NOT AFRAID, NOR FRIGHTENING OTHERS.

Kabir says that he has now achieved the true SAMADHI, that he is now dead although he is alive. Now, he says, he threatens no one and no one threatens him.

Why do you threaten others? You threaten others because you are afraid of them. In actual fact this is just a trick to protect yourself from fear. You try to threaten others before they have a chance to threaten you. One makes threats and the other is afraid.

We create fear in others; we browbeat them. This is not only a trick for self-protection, it is also the way of a coward. The coward knows that if he does not threaten the other first, the other will threaten him. When someone threatens you, know well that he himself is afraid of you. So there is no need to fear him; in fact he deserves to be pitied.

The man who is unafraid threatens no one. He is nobody’s master; he is nobody’s slave. He is beyond both. He lives in a novel way – while he is alive he is like a corpse. He does everything that is worth doing, but now he is no longer the doer. Now he becomes an actor, acting on the stage of life. Nothing pleases him or displeases him. Now there are two levels to this man’s life. On the outer level, worldly actions continue; on the inner level, he remains a witness. Although he does everything there is to do in the outside world, it is all a play to him – there is no seriousness in any of it. He is like Ram in the Ramleela pageant.

When Ram sees his beloved Sita being carried away, he weeps aloud, he sheds tears. He wanders all over the jungle crying all the while, “Where is Sita? Where is my Sita?” Within, there is no weeping; within, he remains a witness. When the curtain falls he will go home and rest, and in his dreams no Sita will trouble him. This is a play, a LEELA.

The original Ram was like this, and Ramleela is not really a drama because the real Ram was just like the hero of the pageant we watch today. Ram was also playing; it was all leela for him. Sita being carried away, his weeping – it was all acting. That is why we call it Ramleela. It is a leela, not the historical conduct of an actual person. It is just a play.

Nothing penetrates the inner; everything remains on the outside. This SANSARA, this outer play, only touches such a man outwardly, it does not penetrate within. This is what it means to be like a corpse while alive. If a thorn pricks such a man he will experience pain, but the pain will remain outer, he will not be affected within. No trace of happiness or of unhappiness will now reach the inner; no wave will rise within. Everything will be peaceful and silent within.

The inner will become the abode of the everlasting. All the changes will keep on happening in the outer world but there will be total silence within, a dead silence, a void, a sky. Birds fly in the sky but leave no trace behind – after they pass, the sky is as blank as ever. Planets will be created and destroyed, but nothing of their history will ever be recorded in the sky. Wars will be waged and peace treaties will be signed, but there will not be the slightest disturbance in the sky. To be like the sky within is the meaning of dying while alive. Then you will live in the inner sky alone, and whatever happens in the outer world will be like a dream.

This does not mean that you will run away, that you will abandon the outer. Kabir did not run away. What need is there to run away? When you become free within – dead while alive – where will you run? You will simply stay where you are. Kabir kept on weaving lengths of cloth and selling them. He had a family, a wife and a child, and everything stayed as it was.

So Kabir says he is neither afraid of anyone nor is he a threat to anyone. Now there is fearlessness within. Now death has disappeared, and now Ram is within. Try to maintain this tone, this attitude within yourself.

There is infinite pleasure to be found in maintaining this attitude, but you will find it very arduous in the beginning because your identification with the body is so very, very old. To sever any kind of relationship is always very difficult – marriage is easy but divorce is very difficult. And many births have gone by since your marriage with the body, so to divorce it will be very difficult. That divorce is sannyas. That divorce is not from your wife or children, that divorce is from your own body. This is not renouncing something, it is the separation within yourself, of the fields of death and immortality.

Everything that happens is a dream, and the one before whom all these things take place is the truth. As you play more and more with the inner witness you will be able to understand Kabir’s words better and better. Kabir’s songs are not to be taken literally, they are not meant for that.

NOT OF WRITTEN WORDS BUT OF EXPERIENCING.

Truth is not a matter of recorded words, it is something to be experienced. If you experience truth you will also understand it, you are strong enough for that. You only have to make a small effort to remember your own capability, your own strength, your own kingdom. You are the master, you are the emperor, but you have forgotten and so you stand there like a beggar. As soon as you remember, your begging will disappear. The empire has never been lost, it has always been yours. It is just that you have been lost in dreams for a while, and this dreaming has become your life.

Awaken from this dream and you conquer death while you are still alive. You will be dead although you will be alive.

I KNOW NOW: I WAS LIVING DEAD.

When you are dead but alive you will know this too. In the long series of your births you have died many times. This time, die while you are alive. Then there will be no death for you. Then you will not have to come again. The man who dies while alive has no birth or death.

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