11

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‌CHAPTER 11

12 July 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand Ciska. Anand means bliss; ciska means freedom. Bliss is freedom and vice versa: freedom is bliss. In fact they are two sides of the same coin. Misery arises out of limitation. Bliss is to know that we are infinite, that even the sky is not our limit, that we are one with the whole. Only then does one know both the taste of freedom and bliss. They come together simultaneously, in the same instant.

And freedom is the goal of life. We are caught in many limitations – the body, the mind – and we have created many artificial limitations – of nation, of religion, of color, of race – and all together they create a prison around us.

Just disidentify yourself from the body, mind, from all that limits you, and out of this disidentification, freedom arises and a fragrance that is bliss.

Prem Grada. Prem means love; grada means brave. Love is the bravest thing in life because it needs your total courage. It needs your total courage because the ego has to be dropped. Love can happen only when the ego disappears. With love you cannot have the ego, with the ego you cannot have love. They can’t exist together, there is no possibility of their coexistence. If the ego is there, then love is false, pseudo; it is something else masquerading as love. It can even be hate with the label love.

The ego has to be utterly dropped, and it can be dropped because it is not really part of our being. It is an artifact, it is our own creation. In itself it has no substance, it is a shadow. Hence to look deep down into it is to make it disappear; to look for it is not to find it at all. It exists only because we never look within.

Look within... let the ego disappear, and then you will be surprised: great love is welling up – love that you have never known before, love that you have not even dreamed about, love that is not a relationship but a state of being, an unconditional sharing of joy.

Prem Chicca. Prem means love; chicca means freedom. Love is true only when it brings freedom; if it brings bondage it is not love.

And ordinarily that is what happens: love brings a very very beautiful bondage. But howsoever beautiful it is, it is bondage all the same, and sooner or later the beauty disappears and only ugly bondage remains in your hands. It happens because we have not yet been able to disassociate love from possessiveness. That is one of the greatest achievements of being aware.

The man of awareness is not possessive because possession is destructive, because possession is violence, because possessiveness is immoral, unspiritual. It is reducing the other person to a thing... because only things can be possessed, not persons. The moment you possess a person he becomes a thing, or she becomes a thing. Hence husbands are not persons, neither are wives – because they are possessive of each other they both have become things. And to be a thing is the original fall. It is to lose your soul, it is to lose all track of your being.

True love means giving freedom to the other so that the other is allowed her or his own space. Not to interfere in the other’s being – that’s what love is. It is a delicate phenomenon. To give and yet not to interfere needs great sensitivity, needs very artful hands, because the moment we give, we immediately start possessing. We start demanding, we start hoping for something in return.

True love simply gives and never demands anything in return. Much comes in return, but that is another story; love has nothing to do with it. When it comes love is thankful; if it does not come there is no complaint. True love can never be frustrated; it is impossible to frustrate true love because if nothing comes in return, then too love is happy. It is happy because it has been allowed to share its joy. It is grateful because the other has allowed himself to be flowing, to be sharing. And if something comes in return, that is a reward... unexpected, undemanded – hence that too has tremendous beauty.

Anand Narayani. Anand means bliss; narayani means goddess. Bliss is the ultimate form of divinity; bliss is God.

God is not a person but the experience of total joy, of orgasmic rejoicing. When you are utterly lost, drunk, when only the dance remains and the dancer is no more – in that moment bliss is known. It is a state of egolessness. Immediately one becomes aware that one is not, God is. The moment you disappear, God appears; your disappearance is his appearance. But remember, by using “he”, “his”, I don’t mean that he is a person.

It is an experience... formless. You cannot catch hold of it, and you cannot make an image of it. You cannot describe it; it is indefinable. It is a taste on the tongue, a perfume, a song heard in your deepest core of being, a song which does not exist of words but only of silence. It is an invisible dance of energy.

[A sannyasin says: I’m worried about being able to continue to grow when I get back to the West.]

Worrying is one of the obstacles in growth – even worrying about growth. Growth happens of its own accord; you need not do anything for it. You simply have to be available to existence: to the sun, to the moon, to the rivers, to the mountains, to the people, birds, animals. Remain available to life in all its multiplicity. Remain available to the present. Don’t carry the past with you and don’t project any future. And growth happens of its own accord, just as the grass grows by itself. You need not do anything for it. It has nothing to do with doing, it is a happening. How can we stop it from happening? So all that we are required to do is not to stop it, that’s all.

So don’t be worried about it, otherwise that will become an obstacle. Worrying means that you have already started thinking of the future. Live in the moment! Sometimes it is painful and sometimes it is a tremendous pleasure, and sometimes it is sad and dark, and sometimes it is very light and a great delight. One has to be available to all these possibilities: valleys and peaks, days and nights, summer and winter. And then you go on growing, you need not think about it at all.

Just remain available to life. Don’t close yourself, remain open. Help my people there!

[A sannyasin, arriving, says: I wanted... to ask you about how to love my parents inside, that I carry around with me, and the woman inside me.]

Just wait; do few groups, and then ask, mm? They may disappear, and there may be no need to make any effort to love or to hate.

In fact one need not love the past, one need not have it either. The past has to be simply dropped, one has to be free of it.

Love is another kind of attachment, clinging, just as hate is. Hate is negative clinging, love is positive clinging. But clinging to the past is bad, it keeps you hanging somewhere which is no more existential.

One has to live in the present, and the only way to live in the present is to die completely to the past every day so it is never accumulated. And then you will be able to love your parents, your friends, the world. But it is not a question of settling your past; on the contrary it is a question of cleansing your heart of the past so that you become a mirror. Whatsoever is the case is reflected, and you respond to it.

Responsibility is not duty towards the past, responsibility is a mirrorlike quality. It is the byproduct of living in the present.

After a few groups remind me. Good!

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