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CHAPTER 7
7 April 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Anand Ralph. Anand means bliss, ralph means wolf. The wolf is an ancient symbol for courage; and bliss needs courage. Misery needs no courage, any coward can be miserable. In fact to be miserable simply means that you are a coward and nothing else. Misery is nothing but an aspect of inner cowardliness, and bliss is the flavor that comes with courage. Courage does not mean fearlessness. Courage means that in spite of the fear one goes ahead. Nobody is fearless. Unless one becomes enlightened fear continues; unless one comes to know the immortality of the soul fear continues.
It is natural, because there is death; fear is the shadow of death. Courage means that fear is there but in spite of the fear one enters into the unknown – trembling, that is human; fearful, that is natural. But in spite of it all one goes into the uncharted sea in search of the other shore which is not visible.
That very search is bliss, not the other shore – that very search, that very journey, that pilgrimage towards the unknowable, is bliss. Bliss is in adventure, bliss is in enquiry. Bliss is never a stagnant phenomenon: it is dynamic flowing. Bliss is when you are flowing, moment to moment, from the known to the unknown, from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the spiritual. In those blissful moments when you are enquiring and groping, when you are a seeker and a searcher, bliss happens.
Tao Elena. Tao means the ultimate law that holds everything together. It is another name for God, and far better because “God” gives the idea of a person. Tao does not give you the idea of a person but of a principle; not of a person but of a presence. Tao simply means the ultimate nature of existence.
And elena means light. The ultimate nature of existence consists of light. The deeper you go, the lighter you become, and at the ultimate depth there is light and nothing else. Even you are not there, because if you are there you will cast a little shadow.
You will not be there. You will not be there as a person, you will not be there as an ego, as an individuality. You will be there as a presence which casts no shadow. The whole inner journey is of melting, disappearing; because you are darkness, the ego is darkness. The more the ego is there, the more darkness; the less the ego, more light.
Let sannyas become the beginning of the disappearance of your ego. Slowly slowly drop it. Become more and more conscious so that it no more possesses you. Deliberately remember to drop it whenever it comes just because of an old habit. Forget yourself, because that is the only way to remember God.…
Be here as long as you can be... till you disappear! Just be here. This is your home!
Veet means going beyond, mauro means darkness – going beyond darkness. That is the essence of all prayer, the essence of all religious effort: how to go beyond darkness, how to go beyond blindness, how to surpass oneself.
The ego is dark, the soul is light; but the soul is hidden behind layers and layers of the ego. We have to penetrate all those layers; we have to dig deep within our own being. It is just like digging a well in the earth: many layers of earth will have to be removed and then the fresh waters become available. In the same way many layers of ego have to be removed, and one day suddenly all becomes luminous inside: light simply explodes.
That experience is what liberation is all about. Light has to be liberated from darkness. The soul has to be liberated from the ego.
Deva Heike. Deva means divine; and it does not matter what Heike means! One thing is certain, that whoever you are, you are divine! So your full name will mean divine Heike.
All that needs to be remembered is that we are part of a divine cosmos, that we are not separate from God. Even if we want to be, we cannot be separate. The only thing that is impossible is separation from God. We can believe ourselves separate, but that is just a belief; it is not the truth. We can think, we can live with the idea that we are separate, but it doesn’t make any difference: we remain one with God.
To remember this is to become new. To remember this is to be reborn; and that’s what sannyas is all about: a rebirth. So count your life from today onwards. This is your birthday, and your first birthday.
This used to be the way with Buddha: his disciples used to count their lives only from when they became sannyasins.
One day a great king came to see Buddha, an old sannyasin came – he must have been beyond seventy. The sannyasin touched Buddha’s feet, and as it was Buddha’s usual way of enquiry, Buddha asked, “How old are you?” The old man said, “Only four years.”
The king was puzzled; he could not believe what was happening. He said, “It is not good to interfere, but now I will remain puzzled if I don’t enquire. This old man says that he is four years old, and you accept that.
Buddha said to the old man, “Explain to the king.” The old man said, “It is only four years ago that I became a sannyasin. Before that I was so asleep – how could I have lived at all? It is only in these four that I have lived, truly lived; before that I was just vegetating.
So count your life from today. You are reborn!
Anand Heinz. Anand means blissful, heinz means home – a blissful home. That’s what meditation creates in you; and once your heart has become a blissful home, God comes of his own accord. He becomes a guest. If you have a heart as a blissful home, you are ready as a host. But God cannot come to you unless you have an overflowing blissfulness. God can become a guest in your being only when you are a festival, a festivity, a dance of joy, a song of ecstasy.
And my work here consists in creating blissful people. I don’t teach you how to find God: I teach you how to become so blissful that God has to find you. This is a totally different concept of religion. Man need not go in search of God, man has just to become worthy enough; and then wherever you are, God has to come. You have fulfilled the conditions; now it is up to him to fulfill his promise.
It is a promise, given a long long time before. Man has completely forgotten it; so much time has passed, but the promise stands. From God’s side nothing has passed, no time has passed, because from God’s side there is no question of time. The promise stands absolutely as it was given. You just fulfill the basic requirement of silence, of peace, of bliss, of an inner stillness, and immediately it is fulfilled.
But remember: the seeker should not become sad and serious. Ordinarily the seekers become serious and sad. They think they are doing something great so they have to be serious. They cannot laugh, they cannot enjoy, they cannot be ordinary; they have to be continuously special, holier-than-thou. That becomes their basic mask. All those masks have to be dropped here.
I am not creating holy people; I am creating blissful people. I am not creating religious people; I am creating cheerful people. But one who is blissful and cheerful and is capable of love and laughter, he is religious. He may not be a Christian, he may not be a Hindu, but he is religious; and in that religiousness God has to come.
Become a blissful home, a host.
[A sannyasin, leaving, says she feels she’s much more afraid here than anywhere else.]
That’s natural, because the work here is to bring up all that is repressed in your unconscious; that is the only way to get rid of it. The unconscious is carrying much pus; and being here with me is being in surgery. When the pus starts coming out, one feels fear, one almost feels death approaching. One feels shaken in the roots. One sees one’s ugliness which one has never seen before. It hurts, it goes against the ego, but if one can allow it to surface, it starts evaporating. Once it has evaporated, for the first time you will feel free. And in that freedom love is possible, and God too.
In fact you are going too soon. When can you come back?... Whenever it is possible, come back, and next time stay a little longer. Mm? you are escaping almost in the middle of the surgery. But there continue at least one meditation every day, help my people, be in communication with other sannyasinS; and come back!
Next time things will be finished – they are incomplete. Allow me to finish you completely!
[A sannyasin, leaving, asks about writing poetry, which he used to do, but has dropped for some time now.]
Anything that you enjoy is worth doing... anything. If you enjoy it then anything is poetry; if you don’t enjoy then nothing is worth doing. So let this be the criterion: if you enjoy writing poetry, beautiful; write! And don’t be worried about whether anybody likes it or not, whether you become a famous poet or not; that has nothing to do with poetry.
Poetry is an outpouring of your heart. The joy is not in the reward that it will bring; the joy is in its very existence. The joy is in creating it. The reward is intrinsic; it does not come from the outside.
So if you enjoy writing poetry, write; and only when you enjoy it, write. Don’t force yourself, because there will be periods when you will not enjoy it; then stop! And there will be periods when the poetry starts flowing again; allow it.
Remember to remain natural and always listen to the inner rhythm, never go against it. That’s what happens: if you write poetry and it is not coming, you force it, because you think that you have become a poet so you have to do it. Then it is false. So whenever the mood is there, let it happen, and whenever the mood is not there, don’t force.
[A sannyasin couple are present. The woman is pregnant and says: My baby comes in the next weeks.]
Mm mm, so a great group is going to be there! Enjoy it... enjoy it as deeply as possible. Giving birth to a child can become one of the most orgasmic experiences, but humanity has turned it into a deep pain and agony. Something has gone terribly wrong.
The birth of a child need not be painful; on the contrary, it has to be the greatest joy of life. No sexual orgasm can go so deep and can be so huge and enormous as the birth of a child. But one has to learn a simple thing: to go with it, not to resist, not to fight.
Just be totally in tune with the child, and it will be a beautiful experience.
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