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‌CHAPTER 2

2 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, devayana means the path of the gods – love, the path of the gods. It is through love that god comes; love opens the door. Love makes you vulnerable, love makes you courageous enough to die as you are so that god can be in you. It is only through love that the ultimate can penetrate you. And love needs no conditions, knows no conditions. It is a pure gift; it asks nothing. The moment it starts asking it is no more love.

Never ask for anything and all will be provided. Never desire and you will be mystified that all desires are being fulfilled, that the universe cares, that you are not accidental here, that you are welcome, that this is your home. To feel at home in existence is to be religious. To feel uneasy with existence is to be irreligious. The moment you feel uneasy with existence, remember: love is missing. The ego is coming and love is missing.

And always watch those moments when you are at home and you will find great love flowing through you and the ego absent. Just watching these two phenomena – that whenever the ego is there one becomes ill at ease – one starts feeling a kind of disease; something goes wrong, one is no more flowing with the total. Something is functioning like a block, the river is not flowing. And because of that not flowing, sadness arises, because then you are no more part of this great life; you have become small. Then your boundary is you and that is not much. You have fallen apart from the procession of the whole, you are no more part of the universe; hence unease.

The moment you are flowing with the total there is great ease, grace; things are in harmony, everything seems to be good, everything seems to be a blessing. Then there is well-being. Watch these two things: whenever you are, there is some kind of discomfort. Whenever you are not, love is; there is flow, there is relaxation. And in that relaxation, in that moment of love, god can come into you. To go into god, god has to come into you.

[A visitor says: I haven’t found my way in life yet. I feel confused and... ]

You are fortunate. The really unfortunate people are those who think they have found. The moment you think you have found then life is meaningless.

Life is search. Seek for the joy of seeking, not for the joy of finding.

[The visitor continues: I see that some of those people I met here have something in their heart, a strength which I don’t have.]

That can happen to you, that is not a problem. It is not that they have found but that they have dropped the whole idea of finding, that’s why they have that strength. Naturally, logically it seems that they have found and that’s why they have that strength and that joy. In fact the reality is. . . I know the inner story! You have watched them from the outside. The inner story is just the opposite: I have persuaded them to drop their goals; they have dropped their goals. How can you miss if you drop the goal? There is nowhere to go and you are here and happy. How can you be miserable when there is no goal?

The goal is the trick of the mind to create misery. Create a goal and then you are miserable because then anxiety arises: How to achieve it? I have not achieved it yet. You go on searching and searching and you never achieve it. You remain miserable and you go on missing all the joys of life because your eyes are focused on the future. You are here and your eyes are focused on the future. I help my people to be here; I destroy their future.

Try to understand this thing: the body exists here but the mind is not here. That is the dichotomy, that is the problem. When you drink water the body drinks herenow. The body cannot drink water in the future, it cannot drink water in the past; the past is no more, the future is not yet. When you feel hungry, you feel hungry herenow. And I am not talking about the hunger that the mind can create; I am talking about the bodily hunger. The body is always in the present and the mind is never in the present, never; hence the anxiety and one being tom apart. The mind goes on rushing towards the future and the body is here. Then the mind starts condemning the body as if the body is lethargic, slow, cannot keep pace. The body is simply here, not lethargic.

And the mind has to learn one thing: to come back to the body. Get out of your mind and into your senses and you will also have that confidence, that joy. No god is needed to give you joy, no truth is needed to give you joy and significance. All that is needed is that your body and mind have to be bridged; it is a simple process. And don’t make this bridging a goal. If you make it a goal, again the same problem has come in from the back door.

Just understand! Then suddenly you have – all energy available, you are confident, you are happy and you start moving with no fear. Not that insecurity disappears; insecurity remains. That is part of life, it is in-built. Those people who think they are secure are simply fools; nobody can ever be secure while alive. You will only be secure when you are in your grave, never before that. How can you be secure? Illness is there, death is there, the friend may die, the beloved may go somewhere else. How can you be secure? The bank may fail, you may go bankrupt, your job may be lost, you may lose your eyesight, you may become crippled, paralysed. A thousand and one things are all around; how can you be secure?

But the very idea to become secure creates the trouble. I help my people to start enjoying insecurity. Not that I make them secure; how can I? Nobody can do that and it is not good to do it either. Even if somebody can do it it should not be done, because when a man is secure he is dead; then you cannot live.

Life comes with death. When you breathe in, you will have to breathe out; you cannot say, ‘I will only breathe in.’ They both come together: breathing in, breathing out. Life is breathing in, death is breathing out. Love is breathing in, hate is breathing out. Joy is breathing in, sadness is breathing out. Marriage is breathing in, divorce is breathing out; they come together! (laughter)

Now, if you want marriage without divorce, the marriage will be plastic; it will not have any joy. You will be secure but there will be no joy, because how can you be happy with a dead thing? If you want your wife to be alive, then there is risk. An alive woman is a dangerous woman: she may fall in love again, who knows? An alive person is an alive person; love can happen again! If you are alive you can fall in love with other women. Life knows no laws, no moralities.

Only death can be controlled, so the more dead you are, the more easily you can be controlled. Then you remain a husband or a wife and this and that, and things look, at least look, secure. A middle-class home, some bank balance, a car in the garage, a woman, children, a good job and one feels one is secure. But is this security? Security is not possible; only comforts are possible. These are comforts, not security, and they can be taken back, they can be taken away.

The only security possible is to start enjoying insecurity. That looks paradoxical but all that is true in life is always paradoxical. Truth is a paradox. Love insecurity and it disappears. Not that you become secure, but when you start loving and enjoying insecurity, who bothers? There is no worry, no anxiety about it. One is really thrilled. One is thrilled; one wonders what tomorrow is going to bring. And one remains open.

Come back again for a little longer period. I will take your future away and then you will be happy. I will take the very idea of security away.

[The visitor answers: It was internal security... heart security.]

It is the same game – internal, external; we just go on changing names. There is no security, internal or external. Security exists not, that’s why existence is so beautiful. Just think of a rose flower in the morning that starts thinking to be secure; then what will happen? If the rose flower really becomes secure it will become a plastic flower; otherwise insecurity is there. A strong wind may come and the petals will be gone. A child will come running and will pick the flower. A peacock will come rushing and eat it. Or anything may happen – no child comes and no peacock and no wind but by the evening it will be gone. Even if nothing happens, then too it will be gone.

But that is the beauty of the rose flower, that’s why it is so beautiful, because it lives surrounded by death, it challenges death, it challenges the winds. Such a small, tiny flower and such a great challenge and it rises out of all difficulties and out of all dangers . . . even if it is only for a few minutes or few hours, that doesn’t matter, time is immaterial. But it has its own day, it has lived. It has talked with the winds and talked with the sun and the moon and looked at the clouds. And there was joy, there was great passion! Then it dies; it doesn’t cling. A clinging rose flower will be ugly;

only human beings become that ugly. When the time comes it simply dies and disappears into the earth from where it came. There is no external security, no internal security. Insecurity is the very stuff that life is made of.

That is the difference between my work and other teachers’ work – they give you security, I take away all security from you. I make you aware of the beauties of life – its risks, dangers, its insecurities. I make you more sensitive. And in that greater sensitivity there is great challenge and adventure. Then one does not bother whether tomorrow is going to happen or not; today is more than enough. If we can love, if we can live, this day is more than enough.

A single moment of deep love is eternity. Who bothers about security? The very idea arises out of greed, the very idea arises out of ego. Call it internal, call it external; it won’t make any difference. One has to look through and through and one has to see that there is no security and that it is not possible in the very situation of existence. In that very moment a great revolution has moved into your being; you are metamorphosed.

Jesus calls that moment ‘metanoia’. You are converted . . . not that you become a christian or you become a catholic or a protestant. In that moment you are no more worldly. To search for security is to be worldly. Even if you call it internal, it doesn’t make much difference. To live in insecurity like a rose flower is to be other-worldly.

Security is of the world; insecurity is of the divine.

[A sannyasin who has begun to help teach in the little school for sannyasins here says: In the West I was teaching art... but I became frustrated because I loved to teach but the system and everything was crazy. Here it’s not.]

No, here you will enjoy. And those little sannyasins are great!..

Very good – teach them art, mm? and they will also teach you many things. Then only is the relationship good, when the teacher is also a student. Then there is great respect. It should not be one-way traffic. If the teacher has just to teach and the students have just to learn, then the relationship is not balanced. When the teacher also learns and is open to learning, there is great relationship, great flow of energy, and there is respect. So help those little children.…

And all children are artists, all children are born artists! We destroy them later on; that’s another thing. Otherwise each child brings great creativity into the world. We don’t allow it because we are afraid of creativity; we only allow it so far, and only for a few people do we allow it. We don’t want everybody to be a poet and a painter because if everybody was a poet and/or a painter the world would be totally different. It would not have any structure then, it would not have any politics; no war would be possible. The politician would have to disappear from the earth. And who would be mad after money if there were many many poets and many painters and musicians and singers? Who would think of money?

So this whole structure depends on destroying creativity. This is a very uncreative society. It allows only a few creative people and that too just for entertainment; just for the change it is okay. Once in a while you can go to the concert and you can enjoy; it is a kind of relaxation from the work world. But nobody takes it seriously and sincerely. It is something aside – a side show.

Creativity has to become the main source, creativity has to become the main current of life, only then will the world be different. Then the world will be religious . . . not because there will be many churches but because there will be many painters, many poets, many singers, many musicians and many dancers. In fact, everybody should know how to dance and how to sing and how to paint. These things should not be specialisations, they are not. They should be as natural as breathing, as loving, as sleeping.

A man who cannot paint is missing something There is no need for everybody to become a van gogh, there is no need for everybody to become a shakespeare, no need. But everybody should be capable of at least writing a few poems to their girlfriends. But I have heard that even when they write to their girlfriends, people copy poetry from others; they cannot even write their own love letters. Books are available in the market, ‘How to write love letters’.People even learn that. This

is an ugly world.

Everybody should be able to sing a song. Everybody should be able to play at least one instrument. These things should be part of life; then we can create a different kind of energy, a different kind of humanity. Help those children!

[A sannyasin asks about his relationship: I really don’t know what love is. My loveseems to be

a mixture of really deep emotions, and when they come they just possess me completely. It’s like really dark clouds and I just can’t see the light at all. We soar so high together and when she’s not there I just fall to the other extreme of feeling.

The energy is moving perfectly well, don’t be worried. Just go into it and be as sincere as possible to your feelings and emotions. Whatsoever it is – darkness, sadness, anger – whatsoever comes up, be totally in it. [Your girlfriend’s] energy will be of great help to you.

A man needs a woman to be provoked by and a woman needs a man to provoke her. That provocation is great benediction because only through that provocation do you come to know what you are carrying within yourself. And whatsoever bubbles up, surfaces, you can be relieved of. That darkness will go; it is coming from your unconscious. But the unconscious cannot drop it directly; first it has to come to the conscious. Anything that has to be dropped, first has to come to the conscious. It is just as when you want to throw something, you have to throw it through the door. The unconscious has no other way of throwing anything out; it has to come up to the conscious first.

That’s why psychoanalysis insists on your bringing your dreams to analysis so the unconscious starts revealing its secrets to the conscious. It happens naturally in a love affair: you provoke the woman’s unconscious, she provokes your unconscious; things start surfacing. That is the therapy of love.

Down through the ages only good things have been allowed, and the real thing is how to get rid of the bad things. We allow only good things. We allow love, we don’t allow hate. Then the hate remains accumulated inside and by and by love is dispersed. So finally lovers find one day that they don’t love each other; they hate! Love has been coming to the surface and has been released and the hate has accumulated.

Let everything come up – love and hate, anger and compassion. Let everything come up, then one day you will find that everything has been released and you have become an emptiness. That

is the greatest peak of love: when two lovers meet as emptinesses. There is neither love nor hatred left; nothing is left. Both are just empty, clean, empty. Then both are meditations and when that meditation meets it gives you the greatest joy possible, the greatest ecstasy. Even love is a hindrance in that ecstasy. Hatred is a hindrance, that goes without saying, but even love is a hindrance.

So these are the three possibilities. One is: release love and accumulate hate; that’s what has been done. So love disappears one day, hate remains. You can find husbands and wives all around the world hating each other through their guts. They may not be able to say it, they may be pulling, dragging on, but they hate each other. It is almost impossible to love your own wife; it is a miracle if a husband can love his wife or a wife can love her husband. They hate each other.

There are other things they have to take care of: the children and the finance and the security and the name and the family; that’s another thing. But love has disappeared; love has been exposed to the conscious and it has disappeared. Hate goes on accumulating, becomes heavier and heavier every day.

The second possibility is: release hate and keep love inside. That too has been done, a very few people have done that; that is far better than the first. If you go to primitive people you can see that that is what they do. They never show much love but they show hate. The husband beats the wife and she screams at him; that goes on. You will not see love scenes, that they are holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes; you will never see the primitive people doing that. But sometimes the husband is beating the wife and she is shouting and screaming and crying. That you will see many times but no love scenes, only hate scenes. That is far better than the first because hatred is released and love goes on accumulating, but they never show it. It is there, they feel it, they both know, but it is a feeling; no expression is needed.

And the third possibility is: release both and become empty. That’s the highest peak.

The fourth possibility is also there: repress both – many people do that too. They neither love nor hate; they become cold; frozen, they are dead people, they are walking corpses. These are the only alternatives.

Perfectly good – go with it; let whatsoever comes, come. And allow her also; whatsoever comes to her, allow her. Respect each other’s moods, even the sad moods, even the angry moods. Respect the other and soon you will see that something beautiful grows out of it.

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