21

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 21

21 April 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva Debbie. Deva means divine, debbie means bee – a divine bee.

The bee is always searching for the lotus, hence it is a symbol of the seeker of truth. The lotus is the ultimate symbol of one’s flowering, hence in the East the ultimate state of samadhi is called the one-thousand-petaled lotus. Once the bee has entered into the lotus it never comes back. It cannot come back; it has found its home.

Each seeker is a bee, groping in the dark, inquiring. Each being is a quest, a quest for the ultimate flowering.

Anand Rama. Anand means bliss, Rama is a name of God. Your full name will mean God of bliss. Remember that God is bliss, so there is no need for the seeker to be serious. To be serious creates a hindrance. The search has to be playful. Be sincere but not serious. Take it easy and take it as fun. When you are in a playful mood you are closest to God. When you are cheerful he is just around the corner. Hence it has to be constantly remembered that a religious person should develop more and more cheerfulness.

In the past the practice has been just the opposite: the religious person becomes sad, serious, dry, dull. In the past his effort has been how to destroy all joy, how to sacrifice all playfulness. Naturally the past of religion has been very juiceless, utterly uncreative... only once in a while, a Buddha, a Jesus. That is nothing worth bragging about.

In millions and millions of people if one person becomes a Buddha that does not give any credit to humanity. In fact those who have become Buddhas have become Buddhas in spite of this stupid nonsense that has been perpetuated in the name of religion.

Prem Midori. Prem means love, midori means green – green love. Love is always green, always young, always fresh; love never grows old. It matures but it never ages. It becomes more and more ripe but it remains green, it remains young. That’s the miracle of love.

If one can remain loving continuously, one can remain alive and fresh to the very end. Even into death one can enter with all the greenness of life, with all the joy, with all the dance. Unless a man is capable of entering into death dancingly, he has not lived at all.

Anand Dheeren. Anand means bliss, dheeren means infinite patience. Bliss is possible this very moment, but infinite patience is needed. It is our impatience that functions as a barrier; it is our hurry that does not allow us to relax. And without relaxing, without going into a deep let-go, we cannot contact our own inner source and that’s where bliss is.

Bliss is not something outside you that you can achieve: it is something inside you that you have forgotten. One has to go deeper and deeper into oneself. But the hurried mind cannot dive deep; it can only swim, thrash, on the surface; it can only rush hither and thither. Because it is constantly in a rush it is never in the moment.

Your mind is constant!y hijacking you from the present moment – either Into the past or into the future, but it never allows you to be now, to be here. By infinite patience is meant that “I trust, I am not worried. I am not rushing for tomorrow. I will rest in this moment. I will allow this moment its totality. I will explore this moment with my totality.”

Then immediately, without even a second in between, something wells up within you, something overwhelms you: a kind of music, a kind of melody, a feeling of well-being, as if everything is as it should be, you are at home, nothing is needed, all is perfect. That feeling is bliss – that everything else as it is, is right; it is absolutely okay, it cannot be better. That feeling is bliss, but that feeling is possible only when you relax, are patient, unhurried. And that’s what meditation is all about.

Sannyas is nothing but a style of life, of living moment to moment, without hankering for the future... just living the present so totally that the mind has no time, no space, to go anywhere else... so absorbed, so utterly involved, drunk, with the present.

Deva Patrice. Deva means divine, patrice means noble. Man is animal without God. Minus God, man is just another animal; plus God, man is not only not animal: man becomes something superhuman. That superhuman quality is nobility. It brings grace. If one starts feeling that God is everywhere, within and without, that very feeling transforms. Otherwise man goes on crawling in the mud; it is impossible to think of flying into the sky. First the sky has to be experienced, at least looked at, and not only that: one has to be aware of one’s wings.

Sannyas makes you aware of your wings and makes you aware of the sky that is available and which is for you. It is yours, just for the asking, and you belong to the sky. Crawling in the mud you will never feel blissful.

Man is carrying something within him which is of the beyond. No animal is discontented except man; no animal is bored except man. No animal is searching for truth or God except man, for the simple reason that there is something inside that does not allow man to be contented with the ordinary life.

Something goes on gnawing in his heart, a subtle pain that something is missing. Something is certainly missing. Man is vast enough to contain God in himself, and nothing else can fulfill him.

Invite God into your being. God is available: you just have to be open and inviting and welcoming, and he rushes to you from all the corners; and that makes one noble.

Anand Hari. Anand means bliss, hari is a name of God – God of bliss. Bliss is my most fundamental teaching. To be blissful is to be virtuous; not to be blissful is to be a sinner. In the ancient days it was taught that if you are virtuous you will be rewarded by bliss. I say just the opposite: if you are blissful you will be rewarded by virtue.

There is no need to cultivate virtue: all that is needed is the art of being blissful, and virtue comes of its own accord, because a blissful person cannot do any harm to anybody; that’s impossible. A blissful person can only go on sharing his bliss with people. Slowly slowly, his very presence becomes a sharing. And a blissful person is naturally loving...

Anand Leela. Anand means bliss, leela means play – divine play. Christianity, Judaism, Islam – they think that God created the world; but that is not the vision of the Indian mystics. They say that it is God’s play. Creation seems to be a little bit of a serious thing, and that’s why Christians say that after six days he was tired, and the seventh day he rested.

The eastern concept of God cannot conceive him as tired. He is not tired even yet! He is continuously creating; in fact he is creativity itself. But the creativity is not a serious phenomenon: it is just playfulness.

This is a totally different vision. It allows you to live your life in a light way. It allows you to remain unburdened. It allows you a kind of weightlessness, and to live life without any weight is the only way to live. People are burdened with weight, guilt, fear. There is no need to be; the whole thing is just a play. We are actors on a great stage, playing our roles. So do the best you can, but don’t be worried: nothing serious is involved. Once the curtain falls, everything disappears. In the ultimate reckoning there is no sin, no virtue; nothing is good, nothing is bad. Some people played the role of being saints and some people played the role of being sinners, that’s all. But once the curtain falls, the sinners and the saints all sit together and drink tea!

< Previous | Contents | Next >