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CHAPTER 13
14 July 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Anand Saoirse. Anand means bliss; saoirse means freedom. Bliss is possible only in freedom; freedom is the right space in which bliss grows, the right soil. Without freedom there is no possibility of bliss growing. One cannot be happy without freedom, one can at the most pretend to be happy.
As the society is, everybody exists as a slave. And not only one kind of slavery but many kinds of slaveries surround man.
A sannyasin has to get out of all slaveries, has to declare his total freedom whatsoever the cost. And if from the very childhood you start tasting the joy of freedom, then there is a possibility that your life will not be a wastage, that your life will have some meaning, some significance, that you would have lived truly. Very few people live truly; people’s lives at the most are just acting, pseudo.
So the right time for sannyas is childhood. Even those who are grown-up when they become sannyasins, I make them children again; they have to start again from ABC.
Deva Marriet. Deva means divine; marriet means rebellion.
There are two kinds of rebellion: one is political, the other is spiritual. The political rebellion is superficial; it changes only the surface, it is not a real change. People get tired of one form, one kind of slavery; they go on changing slaveries. That’s what political rebellion is: to move from one prison and enter into another. The new prison feels a little better: it has a few novelties, or maybe it has a different kind of slavery of which people are not yet aware. But sooner or later they get bored with it, tired of it, because it is the same game, only the name has changed.
And this has been so for the whole history of man. Thousands of times we have changed the forms – the state, the government, the social ethics, the morality – and nothing really has changed; it all remains the same. It is very deceptive.
The true rebellion is spiritual. It has nothing to do with the society. It is inward. It has nothing to do with your surface but with your essential being. It does not change character, it changes your consciousness. It changes you, it does not change anything else. But the moment you are new, everything else is automatically new.
The moment you know the taste of inner freedom you cannot be reduced to slavery. Yes, you can be forced to live in a prison but still you will be free, your spirit will be free. A spiritual person can be chained, can be forced to live in a prison, can be killed, but his freedom remains intact because his freedom is so inward that nothing can reach it, nothing can destroy it.
Jesus is crucified but his freedom is not crucified. He dies a free man, he dies in utter freedom. You cannot destroy his spirit; it still lives, it will live forever.
That is the meaning of your name. Think of a great revolution in your being. That’s what sannyas is all about: an effort to change your consciousness. The very chemistry of your consciousness has to be transformed – and it has infinite potential. We live only as a seed and we think this is all. This is not all, it is not even the beginning. The seed has to fall in the soil, the seed has to die in the soil. Then you will be born. Then you will start sprouting in a plant, and soon, when the spring comes, there will be flowers.
And unless one can grow flowers in one’s being one remains unfulfilled, discontented, frustrated. The moment flowers start blooming inside you, you know that God is. In your flowering you have the first proof of God’s existence; there is no other proof.
Deva Mitsuhiro. Deva means divine; mitsuhiro means richness of light – richness of divine light.
Man is born in darkness and lives in darkness, hence all the misery. It is because we have not yet been able to create light within our soul. All that is required to create the light is available – we just have to put all those things together.
That’s the whole art of meditation. In fact the word “art” comes from a root which means putting things together. The word “order” also comes from the same root: putting things together.
Man lives as a chaos, and a cosmos has to be created in him, an order, a discipline. It is our birthright. The whole existence is ready to support us. We just have to take a decision: we have to become involved with this inner growth. A total, intense commitment, that’s all that is needed.
Sannyas is only the outer form of this inner involvement. It is just a gesture from your side that you are ready to be put together, that you will not resist if some changes are made in your consciousness; that you will not remain a spectator, but will become a participant in the process of transformation. Once that is understood things are very easy. And as you start growing, trust grows. As you start feeling more and more together, light starts spreading from the innermost core of your being towards the circumference. And to be full of light is to know what life is. To be in darkness is to be in hell; to be in light is to be in heaven.
Prem Sita. Prem means love; sita literally means born out of the earth. The mythological story is that the wife of Rama was born out of the earth and ultimately she disappeared into the earth again.
It is a very symbolic story: we are born out of the earth and finally we disappear into the earth, yet something in us is not of the earth but of the sky. But that something is as invisible as the sky. The earth is the visible part; the sky is the invisible space within us.
That’s exactly the meaning of the word “human”. Human comes from a root “humus”; humus means the earth. And that is also the meaning of the word “adam”; adam means dust. The story is: God made Adam out of the earth and then breathed life into him.
We have two dimensions to our being: one is earthly, the other is unearthly. The earthly dimension is visible, and because it is visible and gross many people remain lost in it and remain oblivious to the other which is far more significant, far more valuable... because the earthly is going to die, the unearthly is eternal, deathless.
Sannyas is an inquiry into the unearthly. Love is the door for that. Love is the only unearthly thing in our grasp, in our comprehension. But if you can catch hold of the thread of love, slowly slowly you can catch hold of many more things. Love is the beginning of the journey that ends in God; love is the direction towards God.
So remember both parts. The sita part is earthly – it is beautiful, it has to be respected, loved, but it is not all. There is something more to it, something more mysterious. The earthly part is available to logic, the unearthly part is available to love.
Prayer is another form of love; meditation is also love energy. Prayer is addressed meditation to God; meditation is unaddressed prayer. Prayer is a dialogue of love; meditation is simply drowning in love, into your own innermost space.
But remember that the invisible is the real source of our being. I am not against the earthly – I am in tremendous love with the earth – but one has not to stop there. Use it as a stepping-stone, feel grateful to it, because without it nothing is possible, but remember, it has to be used as a stepping- stone. One has to go beyond, and the way to go beyond is love.
Anand Deborah. Anand means bliss, blissfulness; deborah is Hebrew, it means bee – a blissful bee. The bee symbolizes a few things. One is its constant cheerfulness, humming, its constant singing. It is always in a dance. In fact the bees talk to each other through dancing; dance is their language. They communicate through dance, through gesture, through movement.
If a bee finds a new source of nourishment, she immediately goes back to the fold and starts dancing in a certain way. Then all the bees follow her, they have understood. She has conveyed the message that she has found a source of nourishment: she has found a rosebush with many flowers: “Come along!” Dance is her language, humming is her life.
And that should be so with a sannyasin too: humming, singing, should become the very life-style. And a dance, not only of the physical body but of the spiritual being too – a dance so total that the dancer disappears. And only in those rare moments when the dance remains without the dancer, does one have communion with God. Dance is also the language that God understands.
The bee has also another quality. Buddha has said to his disciples, “Be like bees” – because the bee goes from one flower to another but it never disturbs the flower. It takes its fragrance, it enjoys,
but it never possesses and it never disturbs. The flower remains intact; in fact it becomes more beautiful because the humming and the dance of the bee and the bee’s coming to the flower is a great compliment to the flower – the flower has been recognized. The flower’s fragrance has been recognized.
The joy of the bee makes the flower aware of its own being. The bee contributes, the bee makes the flower aware of itself; the bee becomes a mirror. And it is absolutely non-interfering; in no way does it disturb the flower. It takes nourishment in such a subtle way, with such grace, with such art, skill, intelligence, that the flower feels grateful instead of exploited. And it never possesses the flower; it simply moves from one flower to another.
Buddha has said to his disciples, “Go on moving – charaiveti-charaiveti.” Never stop anywhere; don’t possess. Walk on.
Enjoy all that life gives to you but never become possessive of anything. Be like a bee: singing, dancing, enjoying, celebrating, but moving. Remain flowing. Whenever one stops anywhere one becomes stagnant, and whenever one possesses, one becomes destructive. True love knows how not to possess, how to love and yet not to possess.
The symbol is beautiful: it exactly symbolizes the life of a sannyasin. Remember it, and let it become your very life, your very being. Let it permeate your whole existence.
[A sannyasin, leaving, asked which meditation would be good for him. He likes Kundalini most.]
Kundalini you like the most? Then continue Kundalini. Go according to your liking; it always gives you the right direction. And when you like something it is never an imposition, it becomes more and more spontaneous.
All meditations lead to the same goal, so no meditation is better than another. The only question is which one feels good to you – that is good.
Prem means love; manik means diamond. Love is the most precious thing in existence. Lose everything for love, but never lose love for anything. Sacrifice everything on the altar of love, but never sacrifice love for anything. That’s the only religion I teach.
[To a new Indian sannyasin:]
So you have arrived – I have been waiting for you. You had to come and you have arrived in the right time.…
And remember a few things. The most important is that now meditation should become the very center of your life; everything else should be secondary.
Nothing has to be dropped, nothing has to be renounced. Just meditation becomes the most important, significant thing; everything else follows it.
Out of twenty-four hours at least one hour has to be absolutely devoted to meditation, whatsoever the cost. Sometimes it is difficult – one is too busy, too occupied – but if it is the first preference
then other things can be dropped. A little less money will do, but a little less meditation will not do, because ultimately, finally, one finds that the only richness comes through meditation.
When one is dying one comes to know that only the time that has been devoted to meditation has been saved; everything else and all the time devoted to it, has gone down the drain. Nothing is left of it, it has been a sheer wastage. Meditation is the only way to save time and life energy. And one who has been meditating has something to take with himself beyond death, a treasure. He is not going empty-handed, he is going full, overflowing.
Death proves how a man has lived. If a man can go into death dancing, joyously, silent, blissful, that means that he has lived rightly . because death is the climax of life, the essence of the whole of life. It gives absolute proof how one has lived.
People die crying, weeping, clinging. They don’t want to die: a little more life... Everything is unfinished, no desire has been fulfilled, all longings are waiting there and time is finished. They die like beggars. Their whole life must have been wrong, otherwise one dies like an emperor.
So the first thing: meditation has to become the center of your existence. And once it becomes the center it starts influencing everything else, it starts coloring everything else. Your work slowly slowly becomes meditation, your relationship slowly slowly becomes meditation.
A moment comes to the meditator when he need not meditate separately; it spreads over his life – a subtle flavor, an aroma. Then whatsoever he is doing – walking, talking, sleeping – he remains in meditation.
So the second thing to be remembered: only in the beginning is meditation a separate phenomenon that you have to give special time to. But that is only for the beginning, only for the learner. Once you have learned the art, then you have to bring the quality to everyday life. One can drive meditatively, one can write meditatively, and the quality is so definitely different that when you know it you see the difference: each act becomes a deep relaxation; it is no more tense, it is no more worry. And if a man can work without tension his work becomes play, his work becomes worship.
I am not for renunciation. My whole approach is how to make life more joyous, how to transform this life into a rejoicing, a constant rejoicing.
So remember that, the third thing: my approach is not life-negative, it is life-affirmative. Life is God to me, and to live intensely and passionately is the only prayer I prescribe.
And keep in mind that sooner or later you have to come and be part of the family here. Now this is your home – wherever you are you will be in a foreign country. So whenever it is possible – and soon it will be possible, once the seed is there in the heart...
So keep the seed in the heart, let it sink there, and everything will start happening. But this is your home and you have to come here.
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