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‌CHAPTER 2

2 June 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, sarla means innocence divine innocence. That is the way to know god. Knowledge is not the way, but innocence, a quality of childlikeness. We cannot approach reality through our calculating mind, because it is not a problem to be solved, it is not a problem at all. So mathematics, logic, can’t help. It is a mystery – it has to be lived. One has to participate in it, one has to dissolve oneself into it just like a drop falling into the ocean and disappearing. And only a child can do that. The more clever one is, the farther away from god. The clever one cannot enter. He calculates, he calculates every move. He is always bargaining with reality.

And you have a mind which is very logical; that’s why I am giving you the name – this is just the polar opposite to you. You have a mind which thinks, and thinks too much. And the base of all thinking is doubt. A thinking mind is always doubtful, hence it cannot take the risk. And a thinking mind is always negative. Thinking starts with no. If you say yes there is nothing to think. Yes means a stop. There is no more to it – the full stop has come. No is a beginning. Then one can go on and on thinking and thinking. You have been a no-sayer, and to be a sannyasin means to be a yes-sayer. It will be difficult to change from the no to the yes, but it will be immensely paying. And once you move from no to yes, you will know that life has a different meaning.

The person enclosed in no lives in a kind of darkness and lives alone like an island, disconnected, alienated. The moment yes arises in the heart, you are no more alone, god is with you. Yes is the price. Saying yes is surrender. And to me that is the very essence of religion.

[A mother with two small daughters says: I don’t feel I can sustain anything any more, you – love or work, relationship. I can deal with it in the moment, but I can’t sustain it... my family... relationship...

]

In fact this is something very beautiful that is happening. It will be scary, frightening, because you

will not know how to cope with it, but this is one of the most important things that can happen to a person: living in the moment, and moment to moment.

There is no need to sustain anything. All effort to sustain something creates falsity. The very idea of sustaining something means the past will continue to dominate the future, the dead will dominate the alive. Live moment to moment. If something is worth sustaining, it will be sustained – not that you have to sustain it. When you are needed to sustain it, that means the thing is not worth sustaining. Now you are just sustaining it because you have decided to do so.

Anything that is really your passion will continue. For example, if you are in love it will continue; you need not sustain it. The question of sustaining arises only when love disappears but the old promises are there and you have been saying things which are no more true. But your ego says ‘You have to sustain it – you have been saying these things.’ You have said to this man ‘I will live for you and die for you’ and now you don’t feel anything for the man. Just the ego says ‘Don’t go against your own word – sustain it. This is your commitment.’ But then you become false. And then you are manipulating something which is no more there, which has disappeared. A flower that used to be there has withered away; now you are pretending that it is still there. This is how everybody has become a hypocrite.

And sooner or later you will take revenge on the person, because it is he whose presence is making you false. You can never forgive the person, and unconsciously you will take revenge, you will start being angry, and using small excuses you will get into a rage. And the reason is not that the person is doing anything to you: the reason is that you are being false and your whole being is against being false. This is the way one should be. Courage will be needed.

And I am not saying that the relationship is to disappear; if it is really there it will continue, but it will not be sustained by you. On the contrary, it will sustain you. And that’s the basic thing to be understood: you need not sustain a love; love sustains you. And if it sustains you, perfectly good; if it is no more nourishing, it is finished, it is better to say so, to say goodbye and move on. Nothing can be done.

If love has disappeared, there is no way to produce it on order. If it is not there, it is not there. Yes, you can pretend, you can still go on smiling and hugging the person, but you are not there. How long will it be so? And the man will start feeling it, because it was not the hug that thrilled him – it was something else inside... and that is missing. You are smiling but your heart is not there. You look at the person and yet you are not looking at the person; your eyes are somewhere else.

This is the real way to live. It is living in danger. And all those who really want to live have to choose this way; otherwise you become a pseudo person. You only go on doing a kind of drama, a theatre, you only act. Your actions are not actions but only acts. And you have masks... but what is the point of that?

My feeling is that this is beautiful. Be courageous – go with this new vision, live this vision, and you will be infinitely benefitted by it. You are not going to be a loser. I can understand your fear, because you know how to cope in the old way. In this new way you will not know what to do – this a new language.

Shyness is always a by-product of a very very subtle ego. Shyness is never the problem; it is a symptom – that you have a very subtle ego. So with the familiar it is okay; with the unfamiliar there is danger. With the familiar you are skillful – the ego knows what to do and how to remain in power. With the unfamiliar, with the unknown, the ego is at a loss because it has no skills for the unknown. So it shrinks, withdraws, and that shrinking feeling is called shyness. Shyness is always part of ego. The more egoistic a person is, the more shy, because he cannot open himself to new situations, because new situations may prove him to be a fool. The new situations may embarrass you, the new situations may take away the very ground from underneath you.

So shyness is never really a problem – it is just a symptom. But down the ages it has been thought to be a good quality because it protects the ego. We think a shy person is a good person, he is non-aggressive; he is not! His aggression is very subtle. So he keeps aloof, he always keeps at a distance. That distance is just a strategy: if things become too much he can always escape. He never gets involved, he remains on the periphery and pretends ‘I am shy, that’s why I am not getting into the crowd, not getting into people, not communicating with new people, not relating – because I am shy.’ That shyness is just an explanation, a blanket explanation. It covers many things, but basically and centrally it covers the ego.

Women have been more shy than men because they are very egoistic. But down the ages they have been praised for their shyness, particularly in the East, very much. A shy woman is thought to be a real woman. Mm? she is always looking down, hiding, always withdrawing, never taking any initiative. To the eastern woman, the western woman looks a little unsophisticated, vulgar, seems to be too masculine because she is not shy. But the eastern woman is very egoistic. Her shyness is just a facade, a beautiful mask.

So don’t think that shyness is the problem – it is not. If you really want to look into the problem, look into the ego and you will find it there, the source is there. And once you understand the right cause, things can change easily. One can go on fighting with the symptom and nothing will be changed.

The conscious mind is only one-tenth of the whole mind; nine-tenths of it is the unconscious, and the conscious mind is getting drowned in the unconscious. Hence this feeling. But this is beautiful. The conscious has to get drowned in the unconscious. Once it is drowned in the unconscious you will have a new kind of integration. Then you will not be divided in two compartments, you will become one. But the fear will be there. One feels as if one is getting drowned and has no help and cannot get out.

The unconscious is dark and deep, and the conscious is a tiny thing, helpless, but once the conscious is drowned in the unconscious two things happen. One: you are no more divided, you are no more schizophrenic. You become one, integrated. The second thing that happens: the conscious, once it is drowned in the unconscious, imparts its quality of consciousness to the unconscious. It is just like a sugar cube being drowned in water – the whole of the water becomes sweet. Once the unconscious takes the conscious into itself, its light, the light of the conscious, spreads all over. It illuminates the unconscious. And both are great steps towards realisation.

Allow it. Relax, be in a let-go.…

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