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‌CHAPTER 2

2 April 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem Nozomi. Prem means love, nozomi means hope. Love is the only hope because only love can become a bridge between man and God, because only love can be the boat between this shore and that. Except for love there is no hope. A man without love lives in hopelessness. With love enters the ray of hope. Love transforms you, makes you ready to receive the ultimate guest.

Deva Yumi. Deva means divine, and yumi means tender growing fruits. Man is a seed and God is the fruit. Man can grow into God, and only when man becomes God is there fulfillment. Then one has bloomed, then one has come to the ultimate meaning of life.

Search, seek, grope in the dark. The door is not far away; if one starts groping one finds the door. Even if in the beginning one stumbles a few times, that is nothing to be worried about. Even if a few times one goes astray, that is perfectly natural. Don’t be afraid of committing mistakes, because growth comes only to those who are ready to commit mistakes, because only those who are ready to commit mistakes can learn, and it is only through learning that fruition happens.

A sannyasin has to be a learner, constantly on the go, enquiring, and never settling anywhere. The moment one settles, one is dead. Life is beautiful if it remains a pilgrimage. Settle only when God is achieved. Before that, all stays are overnight stays. Rest, but in the morning remember: you have to go. One day God also happens. If one goes on searching and seeking, if the search is intense, total, if one is ready to sacrifice oneself, then God is achieved. And in that very achievement all desires disappear. Immense contentment happens... one is absolutely blessed.

Deva Takako. Deva means divine, takako means acceptance – a divine acceptance. That is the way of the sannyasin: to accept life as it is, to accept the ordinariness of life with tremendous joy – not hankering for something else but being absolutely contented with that which is.

If it is allowed to happen – this acceptance – then God is not very far away, then Buddhahood is just around the corner. Buddha’s whole teaching can be condensed into one single word, “acceptance”.

You have a beautiful name, but let it become your life too. This is one of the greatest of meditations: to accept things as they are. Drop all shoulds and just be with that which is. Remember: life is perfect as it is, and to live its suchness is tremendously beautiful, exhilarating, ecstatic.

Deva Masanori. Deva means divine, masanori means a gentleman, gentleness – divine gentleness. God is grace, God is gentleness, God is feminine; and the more graceful you become, the more soft, tender and gentle, the more you become available to God.

We are not expected to fight with existence; on the contrary we have to relax with existence. It is not a question of conquering nature, but on the contrary, of being conquered by nature, of being so utterly part of it that one disappears as a separate unit. Gentleness prepares the way so that one day you can dissolve all your arrogance; and the center of arrogance is the ego. If arrogance is dropped, the ego disappears, and what is left, that is gentleness.

One cannot cultivate gentleness; one can only understand the cunning ways of the ego. In that very understanding the ego disappears and what remains is gentleness. Gentleness is our nature; the ego is hiding it, surrounding it. Only the rock of the ego has to be removed and then suddenly the spring starts flowing.

Anand Hoshitaro. Anand means bliss, hoshitaro means a star – a star of bliss. Man is searching for bliss, and not only man but all beings are searching for bliss even trees are searching for it. Bliss is the goal of all existence. It is the star far away, calling everybody, inspiring everybody, to come closer and closer and to be dissolved in it.

Man lives in darkness, but his heart goes on beating for the distant star of bliss. It is our birthright to attain it. It is not difficult either; one just has to become a little more intelligent. One has to become a little more alert, aware, more understanding. That too is our intrinsic quality; it has to be sharpened a little bit.

Meditation is a sharpening of understanding. The more silent you become, the more intelligent you become. So while you are here be as silent as possible. Be still, be quiet, be silent, and out of that will arise a new understanding in you. That understanding transforms one’s whole being. It takes you from the world of misery into the world of bliss.

[Sonia in Russian means Sophia; in Hindi it’s “gold”.]

Deva Sonia. Deva means divine; and both meanings of sonia are beautiful. Sophia means wisdom, and wisdom is nothing but the art of transforming the base metal into gold, the lower into the higher, the earthly into the heavenly, the mud into the lotus.

Gold is an ancient alchemical symbol, it is a metaphor. It represents the most precious: it represents God. It represents your innermost being, the highest, beyond which there is no going.

Sannyas is an alchemical process. It is a science of transforming your being. We have all that is needed, all the energy that is needed to be transformed, but new arrangements have to be made.

Things are topsy-turvy, things are not in their right places. The society has not allowed things to grow in a natural way. The society disrupts every child; the society is really a conspiracy against the child. It does not allow the child’s spontaneity and nature to grow on its own; it interferes, and every interference creates a perversion.

My work here is to undo what the society has done, to put things right, exactly as they should be naturally. If there had been no society and no conditioning, there would have been no need for any sannyas or any religion. It is because of the society; the society creates the illness and then the medicine is needed. In a really natural world there will be no religion because everybody will be simply natural. There will be no need for any medication, there will be no need for any change. The roses don’t need religion because nobody is tinkering with them, nobody is interfering with them; man has been tinkered with down the ages.

But one thing is very important to remember: even if for centuries man has been forced to live unnaturally, if he understands it, in a single moment the transformation is possible, because the nature always remains somewhere there. You can hide it, you can cover it, but you cannot destroy it; and if you allow it, it starts functioning any moment, immediately. Hence enlightenment is a sudden phenomenon. In any moment of understanding one can become a Buddha. It does not take time, it is not a gradual process.

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