11

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‌CHAPTER 11

11 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[deva jyotsna – divine moonlight.]

The moon and its light is very symbolic. When one comes to one’s own inner light, it is not like the sun: it has no heat in it. It is like the moon, it is cool. The inner energy is not a hot energy. All heat is on the circumference; at the centre there is just coolness, pure coolness. All fever is on the periphery, all passion is on the periphery. At one’s deepest core all fever, all passion, all excitement disappears; it is calm and quiet, it is like moonlight.

Devadas means servant of god and bharti means one who belongs to India. And when I say ‘servant of god’, it is indicating a certain path. We can be related to God in many ways, in as many ways as we can be related. One can relate to god like a son. Jesus did that; his relationship with god is that of a son and father. When he says ‘abba’, the word is alive, throbbing with his heart.

Sufis have related to god as if god is their beloved, their woman. That’s why Sufi poems are so beautiful.

They have been written with such love, they are love letters. One can understand that a freudian is bound to misunderstand sufi poetry. It will look too sexual, too human, it will look as if it is addressed to a woman; god seems to be just an excuse. But Freud is not right about it. Sufis have related to god as man relates to a woman; it is a love affair.

In India just the opposite has been done: people have related to god as if they are the woman and god is the man. Then again a different kind of love poetry has come into being, a different art.

Man can relate to god in as many ways as man can relate to man. For you, this will be the best: relate to god as your master and feel yourself to be the servant. It means dropping the ego utterly,

becoming a slave. No more of your will; his will is all. You withdraw your will; you say, ‘Use me. Do whatsoever you want to do through me and if you don’t want to do anything, that too is okay with me. I am just at your disposal; your order will be my life.’ That will help you immensely, to drop the ego. To different people different paths are helpful.

...’Bharat’ is the ancient name of India; ‘India’ is not its name. It has been called India by foreigners; bharat has its own name.

The name comes from a very strange mystic, bharat. He was one of the people most intoxicated with god, so intoxicated that he was almost mad... and he was an emperor also.

When Persians came to India, they came across the river Sindhu. They cannot pronounce ‘s’; they pronounce it as ‘h’; so they pronounced the river Sindhu as Hindu. And from Persians it reached to Egypt and from Hindu it became Indu, and then it reached to Greece and there from Indu it became Indus, India. Just for a purely accidental reason, a linguistic reason, but it is not this country’s name.

... bharti – one who belongs to bharat – because to me bharat or India is not just its geography; it is a spiritual metaphor. It stands for religion as no other country does. For example, greece stands for its logic, roman civilization stood for its law, the west stands for its science. India stands for its religion; that’s its contribution to world consciousness. And to me all those who are religious, wherever they are, belong to India; it can’t be otherwise. They are Indians in their deepest core of being.

So become a servant of god and start realising that you are part of a religious metaphor, a religious symbol.

And work on those two things. Start feeling more and more part of India; that will help immensely. And start dissolving your will. It will be difficult, it is always difficult to drop one’s will because that seems our very soul. It is not – in fact because of it, we are unaware of our real soul.

Once you don’t have any will of your own then you have no anxiety, no frustration. Then all is good and life starts moving very smoothly; it grows wings.

[A sannyasin yoga teacher says: When people talk about chakras I always say, ‘It is shit and I don’t want to listen to it.’ But in another way I’m... yes, I’m also attracted.]

Mm mm.… (a pause) It is just a useful map – neither wrong nor right. For example, if somebody shows you a map of India, it is not India. Still, it can be used to find where India is. Those are just arbitrary maps to help people to search for their innermost core. Many maps have been used down the ages. They are not facts, they are utilitarian. For example, we divide space into directions: south and east and west and north; but where is East? Go on searching for East and you will never find it. Wherever you go people will say, ‘That side is East; go on moving.’ And if you go on moving – the world is round – you may reach denmark one day after much searching, searching. You will say, ‘But this is west.’ But still it is utilitarian. We say ‘up’ and ‘down’; there is no up and no down. It makes sense, because if sitting here, we say ‘up’, up means on the terrace, in [the upstairs] room. But in space itself there is no up because there is no end of space; there is no terrace and there is no bottom to it. It is unending from every side, it is infinite, so how can you say what is up and what is down?

Sitting here you can think that you are up and America is down. If you dig a hole here, now, and you go on digging and digging, you will reach America. But people who are in America will think they are up and you are down. They are not in any way different from you; they w ill think they are sitting on top of you. And if you look from here they will look upside-down and you will look upside-down to them; These are just utilitarian maps. There is no up, no down; there is no east, no West. Exactly like that, there are inner maps.

Many maps have been drawn and all are different. There are a few maps which talk about six chakras, there are a few which talk about seven and there are a few which talk about nine. Who is right? It is just a question of an arbitrary division. You can make nine divisions from your sex energy to samadhi. You can make nine divisions, you can make six, you can make five, you can make four; it is all arbitrary. You can make sixty or seventy, but this thing is certain: that sex energy is at the lowest and samadhi is at the highest. When I am saying lowest and highest, again remember, those are utilitarian... just like up and down. If you stand on your head, your sex energy is up and your samadhi is down! (laughter) But there is a space between these two points, that is true, that much is true, and that space has to be covered. Now, a map can be drawn of how it should be covered, how we should reach from where we are to where we should be, where we are meant to be.

If you draw the map of the world you will not find poona on it. That doesn’t mean that poona doesn’t exist; the world map is a big map. You will find new Delhi, you will find Bombay but Poona will not be there. If you make a map of India then Poona will be there but Koregaon Park will not be there. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. If you make a map of Poona then Koregaon Park will be there.

So there have been different kinds of map-makers. Those chakras are simply indicators that things can move this way. There are many religions that have not talked about chakras at all; christianity knows nothing about those chakras. It doesn’t mean that they never reached samadhi. You can walk a road without looking at the milestones, there is no need really. In India also, Jainas have never talked about chakras, they have not talked about Kundalini either; they have followed a different map.

These are all maps, arbitrary but useful, so neither call them nonsense nor call them great truths; they are neither. If you want to use them, you can. If you don’t want to use them, throw them; then they are rubbish. You follow me?...

Don’t become too much involved in these things They are neither true nor false but certainly they can be of help and some kind of help or other is needed.

For example, you see an appleNow the word ‘apple’ is just arbitrary. There are as many names

for the fruit as there are languages. No name is true and no name is false; all names are the same, but we have to call it something. An apple is not the word ‘apple’, but some linguistic map will have to be used.

So is the case with your inner reality: you can use a Christian map or a Buddhist map or a Hindu map or a Tantra map or a Yoga map or a Tao map; these are all languages. You never fight with anybody saying that the word apple is the real word. You know that the word has no truth in it but it is utilitarian; it indicates something. If you are in england then it is better to use it.

If you are teaching Yoga to people it is better to use that map, but if you are teaching Zen then there is no need. If you are in Japan you can forget about the word apple; you will have to find some Japanese word for it. If you are following Tantra then there is no need; they have their words and their language and their whole jargon.

These are different languages and reality is confined by none, defined by none; the reality remains indefinable. But still, by saying ‘apple’ you are not defining the fruit; you are saying nothing about it. The apple word is in your head. You can eat the apple without using any language. If you give an apple to a cow, she will eat it and she will not bother about what it is called. She will enjoy it as much or even more than you do! She will know the taste of it but she will not know the name of it. She will digest it, it will become blood; the name is irrelevant.

If one can remember that about religions, a great insight arises; then you don’t start arguing. If people take sides, both are fools. One who says, ‘This is the truth: there are seven chakras, neither eight nor six,’ is a fool. He thinks the map is the country, the word is the thing. And somebody can be just on the opposite pole. He can start fighting and say, ‘This is all nonsense; these chakras don’t exist.’ He is also a fool, both are foolish. The wise man will simply smile. So if you are teaching yoga, you can use yoga maps. That’s what I go on doing: if I am talking about yoga, I use yoga words; if I am talking about sufis, I use sufi words; if I am talking about zen, I have to talk in their terminology. Those are evolved languages. People have used them down the ages; they have become very refined. They are very useful, but nothing is true about a language. It is just that it is a tool, an instrument. Wise people will use it and will be benefitted and fools will be used by it and will be harmed. When will you be coming back?

[A sannyasin asks the meaning of her name, Prabhu maya – ‘god’s powers’; and also: how to be more loving? I find myself very often in envy and jealousy, especially of people having relationships.]

All power is god’s power. Power is from god, and when we start thinking that it is our power, we fall in the ditch. It is given to us; it is a gift. It doesn’t originate in us; we cannot produce it. It only comes; we are the receivers. But man is a pretender and starts pretending ‘This is my power.’ You say, ‘This is my intelligence, this is my love.…’ Nothing is yours. In fact you are just a false entity; there is nobody like ‘you’, you don’t exist. That is just an idea and a very wrong idea, but once that idea is there everything starts going wrong. Then you start seeing everything from a wrong perspective.

Life is given to us. You have not earned it; nobody has ever asked you whether you would like to be born or not. It has been a sheer gift, for no reason at all. And everything goes on happening but we go on imposing ourselves. People even say ‘I am breathing’... as if one can breathe! If one can breathe, then there will be no death: when death comes, maya will go on breathing. But you can’t even breathe, the breath is also coming and going on its own. You can try it for a few seconds and you will know. Stop it; if you are in control then stop the breath, stop it inside you and within seconds you will feel you cannot. It wants to go and you are helpless. And it will go. Stop it outside and it will want to come; it will come, and you will have to relax. Even breath is not our own. Still the ego goes on playing games. Intelligence is not our own, the heart is not our own, consciousness is not our own.

We are god’s, in toto; that is the meaning of prabhu maya: start thinking in terms of your belonging to god, that you are not separate, that it is all his, that nothing belongs to you, not even ‘I’. And once

that starts deepening in your heart, that vision, great will be the changes. And the second thing will automatically happen: you will become more loving, because when you see that so much is given to you, you will start giving; that’s what love is. Love is a response to existence. It is a response of deep gratitude. Because god has loved you, you love god in as many ways as possible. He is the tree in your garden, so you water it; and he is the man in your house, so you love him, you cook for him. He is the son who has come through you, you take care of him. He is the friend, he is the neighbour, he is the bird calling and he is the cloud. It is one reality. How to express our thanks? So much is given to us; how to repay it? Feeling gratitude, love arises.

Love is a by-product of gratitude. But the problem is that the same ego that pretends ‘This is mine, this is mine,’ also pretends ‘This is my love, this is my husband, this is my child’... and there is possessiveness, domination, and through possessiveness, jealousy, and through domination, conflict, violence, anger. Then everything goes sour and life becomes a mess.

But the basic problem is the same. If you can start living not as separate from the whole but as part of it, as a wave of the ocean, then the second problem will disappear on its own accord. Then you can’t be possessive. And when possessiveness is not there how can there be jealousy? Then you love for the sheer joy of love. It has been given to you, you share it; what else can you do about it? And once you start sharing, you come to realise that more is given; the more you share, the more goes on coming. God opens all his treasures to those who are ready to share. You get back one thousandfold. Who wants to be possessive when so much is coming just by giving? Then the whole approach is different: you feel thankful to this man who has taken something from your love because now there will be more coming. You don’t clutch and cling to this man. You don’t say to him, ‘Where are you going? I have given you so much love and you are going? Why are you looking at that woman so lovingly? What about me and my love?’ No, you don’t say anything. That is not the point at all: you give because you get so much out of it.

And that reward does not come from this man; that reward comes from god. So don’t hold this man, don’t cling, don’t suffocate him; give him total freedom. It is not a question of him having to repay you; you are always being paid a thousandfold, a millionfold. You are thankful that he accepted your love, and there it is finished. If you can give so much freedom to the one you love, then there will be no conflict. Conflict arises out of something ugly.

And it is possible that the man will love you more than ever. Because you don’t possess he will feel even more grateful to you. He may stay with you forever. Where can he go? Where will he find a person who loves and does not cling? Everybody is searching for that person who will love and who will not possess. In fact, people start moving from one to the other just because that one started possessing.

In the beginning we keep our possession repressed. In the beginning we show a different face, because to show an ugly face in the beginning will destroy the whole thing from the very start. So in the beginning lovers show beautiful faces, and when they are trapped with each other, involved, committed, and things have become settled, their ugly faces start surfacing. Once your lover has seen your ugly face, you have turned him away. It is because of you that now he will find some other. You had given him great hope and you have destroyed that. Now he will seek his hope somewhere else. And this thing will happen again and again.

Everybody is searching for one who will not deceive, who will not cheat, who will give and will not

ask, and who will feel grateful that you have accepted. Then there is no need to go anywhere; you have arrived home, you have found the person for you. Give freedom to your lover, to your friend, and he may never leave you. But I am not saying that he will not leave you, because if you give freedom only for that – so that he does not leave – that is not freedom. You have used even freedom as a servant for your possessiveness; it is not freedom. You have given a little longer rope, that’s all, but a long rope or short rope, both are slaveries. Allow god to happen to you... and the second thing will disappear.

[A sannyasin says of his relationship with his girlfriend: We’re now giving each other freedom to be with whom we want to be... and it’s really beautiful.]

It is always beautiful with freedom. People don’t know, that’s why they suffer unnecessarily. With freedom things are really beautiful. Then a relationship is extraordinarily deep-going. So don’t cling, don’t possess and just whenever you feel like meeting, meet. You remain free and she should remain free. Freedom should not be destroyed. Love can exist only between two free persons; between two freedoms only love can exist. And because people in the world have made slaves of each other, love has disappeared. Love needs the two banks of freedom to flow between like a river.

And if a real relationship is there, it will change. Everything alive changes; only dead things don’t change. So don’t ever be afraid of change; change simply shows that you both are alive. Your relationship is alive so things are changing.

Your face goes on changing, your body goes on changing, your mind goes on changing. Her body, her face, her mind is changing, and naturally whatsoever exists between two evolving persons, two alive persons, will also change. A relationship only becomes unchanging when the persons are dead. That’s why people try to kill each other; they become husbands and wives. Once you are husbands and wives you have killed each other, poisoned each other, stopped growing. Now nothing will change: it will be a repetition of the same rut every day.

But what joy can there be with a dead routine? You will be repeating impotent gestures, you will go on repeating words that you used to say in the past. But then they were meaningful; now they are no more meaningful. You will say, ‘I love you,’ and you don’t mean anything; she will say, ‘I love you,’ and you know she doesn’t mean anything. These are empty words. Life becomes stale.

Never allow life to become stale. Remain alive and flowing and wherever it leads is good. We are not searching for a particular goal. This is our goal: to live moment to moment, flowing, alive, changing, taking the challenge as it comes and responding.

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