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‌CHAPTER 9

9 July 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva Miep. Deva means divine; miep means revolution, rebellion.

Religion is divine rebellion. It is the greatest revolution there is – the greatest because it does not rebel against the formal, it rebels against the essential. It does not change the form, it changes the very content. It is not concerned with the outward, it changes the core, the very being. And when the being is transformed, the outer follows the change of its own accord. You can change the outer, but the inner will not change, and the change of the outer will only create a duality in your being, a kind of hypocrisy, a split. And humanity down the ages has lived in a split, in a kind of mild schizophrenia. The real change first has to happen within, then the without follows.

So don’t try to change your character – change your consciousness. Don’t try to change your doings – change your being. And that’s what meditation is all about: an effort to enter into one’s own being. And the very entry becomes such a great understanding. The moment you see yourself you are no more the same person any longer: the new is born in that very seeing, in that very understanding. Nothing else is needed but a self-encounter, a total encounter. You have to see yourself in utter nudity.

Prem Gabriella. Prem means love; gabriella means one who belongs to God. It is love that becomes the bridge between man and God; it is through love that you started belonging to God. It is love, and only love, that can become the door, the link.

Without love, we are alone, isolated; with love, God is with us. We are no more alone, we are no more outsiders to existence. Love makes us insiders. Then this whole existence is a family, a commune.

Let love grow. Pour your energy more and more into love. Avoid all that goes against love. Never cooperate with anything that is inimical to love. Seek and search for all opportunities where love can be supported, nourished, and you will be on the right track, in the right direction.

Yes, one day you have to become gabriella. Right now it is just a name, but any day it can become a reality. It has to be made a reality.

Paul Chaitanyo. Paul means small, egoless, a state of nobodiness. The ego is always trying to be big, and the egoless person knows that, “I am only a small part, a tiny part, of existence. In fact I don’t exist separately. Because I don’t exist separately, there is no separate self to me; there is only one self and that is God. I am just a small drop in the ocean of God, so small that it has not to be counted at all.” That is the meaning of paul.

And chaitanyo means consciousness. The smaller your ego, the bigger your consciousness. No ego, and you are absolutely full of consciousness. The bigger the ego, the smaller is your consciousness. If the ego is very big, then all consciousness disappears. You live like a robot; then your life is mechanical. Then the ego surrounds you like a dark night and there is no light, not even a single star.

One has to choose between ego or consciousness. Those who choose ego remain unconscious; those who choose egolessness one day become perfect consciousness – that is the meaning of the word “buddha” – they become the awakened.

Be small and be awakened. Be nobody so that you can be God.

Prem Denise. Prem means love; that contains my whole approach to life and existence. That single word is my whole message. It contains all that is significant in all the religions of the world. Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Krishna, they are all essentially contained in the word “love”.

Those who cannot love, they become Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. Those who can love, they don’t need any other doctrine, don’t need any other dogma. They don’t need to go to any church or temple. Love is their God and love is their temple and love is their life. Their religion is not a part-time thing; it is their very flavor, their very lifestyle. Even in their deep sleep they are love.

And denise means, in Greek mythology, the god of wine. Love is the wine; drink as much as you can of it: be a drunkard. God is only for those who are so drunk with love that their egos are drowned in it, that they themselves disappear into it, that they lose all self, and only pure consciousness remains behind.…

Make every possible effort so that you can taste the wine of love.

Just a single drop of it is enough to give you the t taste of eternity. A single moment of love is enough to give you the vision of that which is beyond time and beyond death and beyond mind.

Love opens the door of all the mysteries, and love certainly is a wine. The god of wine is only a symbol and has been very much misunderstood. It symbolizes love. It symbolizes a drunkenness with existence, such a passionate affair with existence that one does not remain a spectator but

becomes a participant, becomes committed, involved, so utterly and so totally that there is no possibility of coming back from it. One crosses the point of no return.

Then life is a benediction, then life is infinite sweetness, then life for the first time releases its fragrance. That fragrance is called God. It is the name not of a person, but of a certain realization. But that realization is available only to the drunkards, to those who are madly in search, whose search for love is such that they can risk all.

Anand Niten. Anand means bliss; niten means virtue – bliss is virtue.

Misery is sin; to be sad is to be a sinner. That’s why I said to you to avoid the so-called saints as far as possible. They are sad people. Looking at them, one becomes afraid of religion. They have made the whole world afraid of religion. Their existence does not give proof of God. On the contrary they prove that life is utterly frustrating, meaningless. And if creation is meaningless, then the creator cannot be very meaningful.

I have a totally different vision of religion: bliss is the core of it. Love, life, laughter, they should be the qualities to be imbibed. Life should be lived playfully, with a tremendous sense of humor, only then does it become religious. And the so-called saints have completely forgotten how to laugh. They have become sad because they are against life. Nobody can be blissful if he lives in negativity; with no you can only be in hell.

Say yes to life, to its extraordinary ordinariness. Say yes to the trees and the birds and the rivers. Say yes to people, to the earth, to the moon, to the sun. Become a yes and you are a sannyasin, and then your life will be overflowing with bliss.

That is the meaning of your name – bliss is virtue.

Deva Roberta. Deva means God; roberta means bright fame. All fame is God’s. Nothing is ours; all glory is his. We don’t exist as separate entities; nothing belongs to us, neither name nor fame.

To know it, not intellectually only but to know it in the guts, to feel it, becomes a transformation – all is his. It brings such a revolution in your being that you cannot believe that with such a small change so much transformation was possible.

All worries disappear the moment we drop the idea of separation, all anguish disappears, because worries exist only as part of the ego. We are worried because we feel that we have to survive, that we have to fight, that we have to protect; that nobody is taking care of us; we have to take the whole care; that existence seems to be utterly neutral, careless. That’s why we are so much in anguish.

The moment we start seeing the fact that we are not separate... How can nature be neutral towards us? – we are part of it, it is not careless, it cares. Suddenly a curtain rises and a new vision appears. Then there is no past and no future, only the present. Then one can sing and dance and be. One feels a tremendous relief, as if a mountain has been removed from the heart.

That’s the beginning of true sannyas: to say wholeheartedly, “I am not, only thou art.” Deva Anutosh. Deva means divine; anutosh means contentment – divine contentment.

Man lives in constant discontent, discontent about everything. That discontent keeps you in a state of storm, in a state of fever, chronic fever. Because of it you cannot know who you are: so much noise inside, so much turmoil. You cannot find the way to your innermost core: there is so much smoke.

One has to learn to become a little more contented. One has to learn to accept things as they are. One has to learn, not to complain, but to accept, and not only to accept, but accept gratefully. The mind of discontent asks for that which is not and never is thankful for that which is. And the being of contentment is just the opposite; it never asks for that which is not and thanks for all that which is.

With this shift of consciousness from discontent to contentment the storm starts subsiding and the smoke starts disappearing and the noise is no more so much. And slowly slowly a stillness settles in.

Then you can hear the still small voice within you, then you can see who you are. And in that seeing you see God; in that seeing you see the whole secret of existence.

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