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‌CHAPTER 2

2 July 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand Erik. Anand means bliss; erik means brave, courageous.

The root cause of misery is fear: we are too afraid of the unknown. We remain confined in the known, and because we remain confined in the known, life becomes a repetition, a circle; one goes on moving in the same circle again and again and again. Because of this continuous, repetitive, routine life, one feels misery, boredom, futility.

Life is tremendously beautiful, but we never go into the unknown – and life belongs to the unknown. The more you go into the unknown, the further you go into the unknown, the more alive you become because then life has newness, youth. Nothing is ever repeated, hence no boredom is created. Every morning brings something new, unexpected, uninvited. Life remains a thrill, an adventure... but for that one has to be courageous.

Great courage is needed to explore the unknown territories of life, existence, being. The courageous person will explore in both ways: he will explore in the outside, and that exploration becomes science, and he will explore his interiority, and that exploration becomes religion. And both are beautiful.

That moment when the first man walked on the moon was of great ecstasy for the man – not only did he feel ecstatic, and whole humanity felt ecstatic. For a moment all boredom disappeared, not only for the man who walked on the moon but for the whole humanity, which was not walking on the moon but which was somehow represented by the man. That man become a symbol of the whole earth.

We have entered into some new territory. Now history will be totally different. Man entering into space, getting out of the field of gravity, is going to divide history. Now everything will be before and

after: before man walked on the moon and after man walked on the moon. It will be exactly as Jesus divided history one day, and since then everything is before Christ or after Christ. Christ became the dividing line.

He had entered into the inner world. Particularly for the West, he was the first explorer who has really reached the innermost core – and not only reached but brought news back from there. That’s what the gospel is. Moses had also reached, but he must not have been a great poet to be able to express it, he must have lacked expression. And it happens to pioneers, those who have entered into some experience for the first time: it is so shocking, shattering.

It is said when Moses asked God, “Let me see your face,” God said, “That will be too much for you. You can only see my back.” Moses only saw God’s back, because God said, ‘No one can see my face and yet live. It will be too much for you, unbearable. Sometimes ecstasy can kill you.’

I love this story. It is not history: you don’t encounter God in some forest or on some mountain like that, and you don’t talk to him. But it is tremendously significant that God says, “You can only see my back.” Moses saw God’s back; Jesus saw God’s face, it was a face-to-face encounter. Moses brought back something very vague, that is the meaning of seeing only the back. It is very difficult to recognize a person just by seeing his back. It remains guesswork: maybe he is the same person or he is somebody else, who knows? – unless you face him, unless you see him face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

Moses brought a message, but it was vague, it was not clear-cut. Jesus brings the message to its uttermost clarity. He is the first man to see God face-to-face, at least in the West.

In the East there have been many people, hence in India there is not a single person who divides history. India has lived in undivided time, because for so many thousands of years so many people have seen God that we don’t remember exactly who was the first. It is almost impossible to decide.

Five hundred years before Jesus, Mahavira entered into that realm, but he said, “I am the twenty- fourth in that chain which I represent.” And the chain is very long – it covers almost ten thousand years – so the first man in the chain is already twelve thousand years past. And he was not the first either, because in the Vedas that man whom Mahavira calls the first in his chain, in his tradition, Adinatha, is remembered as one of the seers; but many have preceded him.

It has been such a continuity in the East that we don’t have something like the Christian calendar. There are many calendars. Jains follow one calendar that starts with Mahavira; Buddhists follow another calendar that starts with Buddha; Hindus follow another, and so on, so forth. Mohammedans follow still another that begins with Mohammed.

But Jesus has divided the history for the whole of humanity, in a way. And the reason he became the decisive point is that he was the first to explore, and not only to explore the unknown, but to bring the news to a humanity which is struggling in the dark valleys of life.

Again it has happened: a man has walked on the moon. That is going to become very decisive, because man is going to explore further and further. But the outer exploration is not so significant as the inner. You can reach to the moon, but you still remain the same person: the same anger,

the same greed, the same jealousy. It does not transform you. It brings nothing new to your consciousness, it brings no new flowering. Yes, a moment of ecstasy, but only a moment. When you go in it becomes your very state.

Explore: that’s my message. Explore your whole being. Don’t leave even a nook or corner dark inside: let it be full of light. Encounter yourself in your totality. Of course great courage is needed, but that courage is rewarded with great bliss.

Premrahi. Prem means love; rahi means a follower of the path – a follower of the path of love.

Love has to be the key for you, the master key. Only one key is enough, it can unlock all the doors. It can make you capable of entering into all the mysteries of life. It can take you to the innermost sanctum of existence.

Forget everything else: remember only love. Love each and every being. Don’t bring in your likes and dislikes. Don’t make love synonymous with your liking. People almost always do that: they call their liking their love. Then it becomes difficult to love that which you don’t like. But love has nothing to do with liking or disliking, it is a totally different phenomenon.

Love has to be just your flavor, your aroma, your fragrance. When you pass by the side of a rosebush, the rosebush does not bother whether it likes you or not. Its fragrance is available to you as much as to anybody else. Its fragrance is available to the birds, to the animals, to the trees – and unconditionally, without any expectation in return. Its fragrance is available even when there is nobody present to enjoy it, appreciate it. It simply goes on releasing its fragrance; it is its nature.

That’s how love has to be: your very nature – not a relationship with somebody but a state of consciousness. Then it is enough. Then no scripture is needed, no other method is required. Then you need not be a Hindu or a Christian or a Buddhist. Then you are all and none. Love opens the door of the temple of love.

Gyanodaya. Gyan means wisdom; odaya means rise – the rise of wisdom... just like the sunrise.

Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge. Knowledge is a pretender: it only pretends to be wisdom. It is very deceptive, it is not the true thing. There is nothing substantial in it, all is superficial. But knowledge deceives many people because it is available very cheaply. It is available without any risk; it is available without any sacrifice, it is available without any effort.

Wisdom is not so cheap. It is the costliest thing in the world because one has to sacrifice oneself in attaining it. It is attained only through that price. One cannot withhold oneself even a little bit, one has to surrender oneself totally. Hence the risk is great: one is going into the unknown, risking all that is known, and there is no guarantee what is going to happen. There may be truth, there may not be. There may be God, there may not be. And the mind goes on creating all kinds of suspicions, doubts.

Wisdom needs great trust, great courage, guts, and a deep longing to know – so deep that it cannot be satisfied by mere information. Then one searches, not in the scriptures, but in one’s own consciousness. Then the method is not study but meditation, not thinking but just the opposite

of thinking, a state of no-thought. Knowledge is accumulation of thought; wisdom is dissolution of thought.

And the moment wisdom arises in you, it is the sunrise. All darkness disappears. When you become settled and rooted in your consciousness there is no darkness anywhere. Life is full of light and full of delight.

Neel Kamal. Neel means blue; kamal means lotus. In the East, the blue lotus is the symbol of enlightenment, of the ultimate attainment, realization. The blue is the color of depth. That’s why the sky looks blue: eternal, abysmal depth, with neither a beginning nor an end.

And the lotus is the most beautiful flower of the East, and the blue lotus is rare. There are many kinds of lotuses; the blue lotus is very rare. Its original place of growth is deep in the Himalayas. It grows only in the purest of waters. It has become the symbol of ultimate enlightenment, because it is so rare.

The blue lotus has a fragrance which is almost otherworldly; it appears as if it doesn’t belong to the earth. And that’s the fragrance of the Buddhas. They live in the body, and yet they are not in the body. They walk on the earth, yet their feet never touch the earth. They eat, and yet they never eat. They are and they are not; their presence is almost absence. In them, absence and presence have become one.

Think of the blue lotus, meditate over it. With closed eyes, visualize a blue lotus opening. It will help you tremendously; it will become your meditation. Whenever you have time, just close your eyes, see the blue lotus – as if your head is turning into a blue lotus and it is opening. It will not be long before suddenly one day you will start smelling something strange, some new perfume that you have never known before. It comes from the deepest recess of your soul, it is your own perfume.

I have been waiting for you for a long time. And [your sannyas friend] was afraid – afraid because he thinks you are an intellectual type. He is utterly wrong! You have nothing to do with intellect. But sometimes it happens in this world, in this world of competition and struggle, that even people who are not basically intellectual become intellectual, because that seems to be the safer way to survive, that seems to be more secure.

And the people who are basically of the heart are afraid to open up, because the heart takes you into territories of which you know nothing. The heart opens up doors of the mysterious and the miraculous, and the mind feels scared, afraid. The mind is very conservative, orthodox, conventional. The mind always thinks of security and safety; the heart is a gambler.

Because the whole society exists through the head, the person of the heart also starts pretending – even overdoing it. That’s what must have created the thought in [your sannyas friend’s] mind that you are an intellectual type. But as I see you, you are utterly of the heart. You may have used the head to create a camouflage to hide your heart, but you cannot hide it from me!

From this moment drop that camouflage; stop hiding behind intellect. Come into the open. Let your heart dance and sing in the sun, in the rain, in the wind. Go wherever your heart leads you.

And sannyas is a good beginning. For the first time you have heard something of the heart. Otherwise you have been denying it, you have been keeping yourself almost deaf. This is the first thing in your life that is happening through the heart, hence it is of utter importance. It can now become a chain: it will trigger more things, and slowly slowly the head will disappear.

That happens to all of my sannyasins: they become headless! They live, but they don’t live through the head. They find the shortcut to life; it is through the heart. The heart is immediately joined with the divine. The head is a very long route and very circuitous, and very vicious. Once one gets into the mess of the head one goes round and round in circles; it takes you nowhere. Only the heart can reveal the truth to you. Only the heart can reveal reality to you. Only the heart is worth listening to, worth following.

I am happy that you heard this still small voice from the heart, and that you gathered courage enough to take the jump into this unknown experience, sannyas. Many many flowers will bloom. Just go on allowing it: let the heart be the master and the head the slave. Then everything is put perfectly right. Then everything is put in its own place and great accord arises in one’s being. All conflict ceases, all anguish disappears, and slowly slowly the darkness becomes light. Even death is transformed into eternal life.

Anand Tanmayo. Anand means bliss; tanmayo means utterly absorbed, dissolved, drunk – drunk with bliss, dissolved in bliss, lost in bliss. And that’s how my sannyasins have to be.

Life has not to be taken as a problem; it is not. It has to be taken as a gift, a tremendously valuable gift from God. Life has not to be taken as a burden but as a dance. One need not drag oneself. We can dance the whole way, we can laugh the whole way, and we can love the whole way.

Life is meant to be a miracle, but it depends: if we choose misery, life becomes misery. Life is very obliging: if you choose misery it becomes misery, if you choose darkness it becomes darkness. It is so obliging, whatsoever you choose it becomes that for you. If you choose bliss it becomes bliss, if you choose God it becomes God. It depends on you.

And people go on choosing wrong things, and then they make life responsible. In fact they are responsible: whatsoever happens, happens because they have willed it so. Knowingly, unknowingly, consciously, unconsciously, they have willed it so. It happens only when somehow, somewhere, in your being, you have willed it.

From this moment, only will bliss. Think bliss, feel bliss, be bliss. And just by your being blissful, your whole world becomes blissful. When your eyes are full of bliss, then you see the same flowers and the same trees and the same people, but they are no more the same. Now your eyes have a totally different vision, now you see that which your eyes are full of. Then the whole of life becomes a celebration.

But first one has to let one’s heart dance, then the whole of life starts dancing. Laugh – and the old saying is true – the whole world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone. Nobody participates in your misery, and everybody is ready to be a guest in your bliss.

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