9

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 9

9 January 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, gireesh means a mountain – a mountain of love. And we carry that much love in our hearts, that’s why love always remains dissatisfied. It is always hankering for something bigger; nothing seems enough, everything falls short, because we have as much love as the whole universe can contain and unless we start showering our love on the whole of existence it remains dissatisfied. That is the whole meaning of religion: to love the whole existence so that your whole heart can be spent. In that very spending there is joy. In that very pouring forth, in that very emptying of the heart you are full. It looks paradoxical that when you empty yourself utterly, you are full. It is like the tree when it has bloomed: it has emptied itself of all colour, all joy, all song. It has been carrying it all along – it was in the seed, it was in the root, it was in the trunk, it was in the branches, it was in the leaves, it was in the foliage, it was all over it. All along the way it was carrying a celebration in the heart. Now that celebration has exploded: the flowers have come, the fragrance is released, the tree is happy.

And so is the case with man. All along we have been carrying infinite love; an infinite object is needed to pour it into and we go on finding small objects for love.

Money is such a small object, how can you be satisfied? Nothing is wrong with money itself but it cannot help you empty your heart; it is so tiny, so trivial.Or power or prestige – all are very small.

Even people are small – a man, a woman. They are far better than money and power and politics but still limitations are there.

Unless you love all unconditionally – that is the meaning of loving god – you remain dissatisfied with yourself, you go on feeling something is missing, something essential is missing; life is not as it should be. You can succeed and still you remain a failure. You can have as much money as possible and still you remain poor. You have loved many women, many men, many friends and still you are there, unspent. And to be unspent is to be heavy, heavy of heart; that becomes burdensome.

Life knows celebration only in being spent, utterly spent with no holding back. And that is the message of sannyas: be spent, don’t be a miser; empty yourself completely into existence. Give back whatsoever has been given to you by existence – all, roots and all, and in that very giving up, in that very sharing, you will feel fulfillment.

Yes, when one empties oneself, one becomes full. When one is lost, one has arrived, when one is no more, one is for the first time.

Prem means love, goloka means paradise: love is paradise. There is no other paradise. If you are in love, you are in paradise. Paradise is not something geographical; you cannot find it in space. It is a quality that you can allow to grow in your being. So is hell: when you are in hate you are in hell. And a man goes on moving between hell and heaven continuously. In the morning you may be in heaven and by the afternoon you are in hell, and sometimes within seconds one goes on wavering.

If one starts being more and more in love then a stability arises and one day it happens that love has become your very nature; then you are paradise. That’s what jesus means when he says, ‘The kingdom of god is within you,’ and when he says, ‘God is love.’ He has given the keys: god is love and the kingdom of god is within you. So if you are in love, you are in the kingdom of god.

[The new sannyasin says: I finished my studies in economics and now I study political science. I don’t think that I will continue my studies any more.]

It is better not to! First, politics is not a science, and second, no more politicians are needed in the world. Drop out of it – why waste time? Do something worthwhile. Learn something which will be more beneficial to your growth. Political science is ugly; there is no need to bother about it.

Learn poetry rather; painting will do, dancing, music. There are a thousand and one good things in the world.

[Another sannyasin says she doesn’t really know why she took sannyas and that in her country she feels she will want to be on another trip... I want to see friends... from my past.]

So that has nothing to do with... there is no problem in it. And they will be very happy seeing you as a sannyasin, mm? They will think at the most that you have gone crazy... but they must have always known that! Only crazy people become sannyasins, but crazy people are the beautiful people, they are the very salt of the earth. Only they have courage; they have courage to change themselves, they have courage to go against public opinion, they have courage to be themselves. It needs great courage. So don’t be afraid; just go and let them laugh and participate in their laughter; you also laugh at yourself.

Laughter is my basic message. If you can laugh, then nothing else is needed. And if you can laugh at yourself then you have become wise. Only fools laugh at others; wise people laugh at themselves.

It is said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; they can laugh at themselves so they don’t have any weight. That’s why they can fly. So have a good laugh!

... And sannyas is a journey; by and by you will come to know what it is. Every day it will take new colours and new shapes and new forms. It is not like a dogma that you can say what it is. It is an

unfolding journey. Every day you will find new things happening and every day you will find a new definition of sannyas. But you can remember a few things, that sannyas is a love of life. Sannyas is a search for god in life and not against life. Sannyas is a celebration of this moment... for no other reason, just for the sheer joy of it, without any motive. Whenever you bring any motive into it you belittle it.

Sannyas is exuberance, an overflowing... the dance of a peacock, the call of a bird or just the laughter courageously with no fear, without holding anything back. It is going into each moment totally, it is loving whatsoever happens. Even if death comes, a sannyasin will be ready to embrace it, to kiss it. Sannyas is not a philosophy but a very radical vision: of living life in a totally different way from what people have become accustomed to. But definitions will go on changing and there will be as many definitions as there are sannyasins. And who am I to define it?

You will define it by your living, by your experiences, by your insight, but again, that definition will be applicable only to you and to nobody else. So I cannot give you a definition as people can about a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan; I cannot give you that kind of definition. I cannot tell you ‘These are the beliefs that a sannyasin believes in’; there are none! I give no rules, no discipline. I simply give you freedom because I believe only in freedom. And then wherever it takes you... I help you to be courageous and fearless, to go into it wherever it takes one to go with the river. It will take you into dangerous situations, it will take you into the mountains, into the valleys, into the ocean. But that is the only way to live! I exalt life. Life is god to me and because life is god to me, love is worship, love is prayer.

But you will have to find the definition. I send you on the adventure; you have to discover. Every day you will find something happening. Just remain courageous; don’t be afraid of public opinion, that’s all. Public opinion is very destructive; it paralyses people, it cripples them. Remain free and remain yourself. And next time when you come you will bring a few definitions of sannyas!

[A visitor says he was nearly killed in an automobile accident which started him thinking about god again: I was philosophically grounded in god through a strong background in metaphysics and that sort of thing... and as I think that you have mentioned in your discourses, knowledge, logical systems and this type of thing lead you away from god rather than towards god. I’m trying to search and I think with time I will come to.]

It is time.… And knowledge is a hindrance only to people who are not really intelligent. If you are really intelligent you will be able to see through the knowledge and then you will be able to see that knowledge only pretends to know; the mystery remains the mystery.

In his last days Albert Einstein started feeling much about the mysterious that surrounds one. In fact it should be so, because how can a man of such intelligence avoid reality? And for how long? No mystery is ever solved. And if we look deeply into the explanation we again find that the mystery is hiding there. Sooner or later it again surfaces and destroys all our knowledge. And modern physics particularly is in total chaos because that is the only really developed science which has come face to face with reality. A thousand and one problems have arisen and all the old certainties are gone. Those stupid, stubborn ideas that developed in the eighteenth century are no more relevant.

Now the physicist knows perfectly well that knowledge is impossible, that things are not as they appear, that there is no longer any matter, that things we are talking about – electrons and protons

and neutrons – are as mysterious as the holy ghost, god and the son, or even more mysterious, that the more we are penetrating into reality, the more aware we are becoming of how ignorant we are and how helpless.

Mystery has deepened through physics. The effort was to destroy it, the effort was to de-mystify existence, but just the opposite has happened. Those who are really deep in physics know that there seems to be no possibility of ever knowing; that it is not only unknown, it is unknowable. At the most we can manage a certain kind of knowledge for our utilitarian purposes but that knowledge is not real knowing. We don’t know anything about electricity, all we know is how to use it. But to know how to use it is not to know it.

I know how to move my hands but nobody knows how I manage to move them, because the decision to move happens in the consciousness and then the hands follow. It is a miracle: matter following consciousness. And there seems to be no link; it is an absolute miracle. A woman gives birth to a child but she does not know how. We can only use our knowledge, that’s all. But the mystery is not destroyed; in fact, if one has enough intelligence one will see that the mystery is more mysterious than ever. In the middle ages stars were not so mysterious as they are today!

The theologians and the professors and the philosophers of the middle ages were living in a very cozy and snug world, a very small world. Now the world has expanded to infinity and it goes on expanding; it is an expanding universe, all boundaries are lost. It is time that you started searching... and sometimes it happens that the beginning is when you start feeling the first footsteps of death.

Many times a man has become religious through accidents. Ordinarily we slowly die, so we go on becoming accustomed to death. Slowly, slowly you become old, slowly, slowly... one dies in parts. Your teeth are removed: one part is dead; then one eye is removed: another part dead. Then the kidneys go, then the appendix goes and things go on... You don’t go wholesale you go retail! So one never becomes aware of when death is coming. One goes on believing that everything is okay; just the kidneys have gone. But in an accident you go wholesale; suddenly death is there in totality. It is not only a question of an operation or a disease or removing the teeth; you are suddenly there and you see nothingness facing you. And if you survive the accident you can’t be the same man again, and if you can be the same man then you are utterly stupid. Otherwise you can’t be the same man again. Even a little bit of intelligence will be able to see the whole futility of life and the plans and the dreams and the desires. And then something new starts becoming attractive; one has to know what is beyond.

One day, sooner or later, you will die; you have survived this accident, how much longer can you survive? We can escape a little bit and play hide-and-seek but finally death wins... if not around this tree then around another tree, if not in this car then in some other car. But it is almost like a cat playing with a rat: it gives enough rope for the rat to enjoy and the cat knows whenever she wants she will jump and catch hold of it, mm? – that’s how we are. From the very moment of birth we are in the hands of death; it can suffocate us any day.

So accidents sometimes come as a great blessing. They shock you, they disturb you, they confuse you. For a moment your mind stops and you have a glimpse of your own non-being. And that’s really what god is: your disappearance, your non-being is god’s being, your presence is god’s absence, your absence is his presence.

So be here. Do a few groups if you can, meditate.

Deva means divine, manu means man – divine man. The english word comes from ‘manu’. This is the sanskrit root of the english word ‘man’; the english word ‘mind’ also comes from the same root. Man is man because of the mind and if man can drop the mind he becomes a divine man. Animals have no mind, not at least in the sense that - man has. Man has a mind; the divine man has, again, no mind. He is similar in a way to the animals... not exactly, just similar, but with a great difference too. The animal is below the mind. has not yet evolved the mind. The divine man is beyond the mind; he has evolved the mind to its uttermost capacity and found that it is no more functioning, it is no mole needed. Its work is finished so it has been dropped. It was a ladder from the animal to the divine; it has been used, now it is of no use. It was a boat, a raft, from one shore to the other. Once you have reached the other shore it is no more needed. You don’t carry the raft on your head, you leave it there.

Animals are without the mind, hence they are so happy, so blissful, so innocent; they are still in the garden of Eden. The divine man again has no mind; he has again entered the garden of eden. Only man is astray, and the reason that man is astray is his mind, his thinking, his continuous inner talk. Once that inner talk is dropped you become part of eternity.

In the dead sea scrolls, in one fragment, a new statement of Jesus of immense value has become available. A disciple asked him, ‘How should we be able to enter into the kingdom of god? Tell us, master.’ And Jesus said, ‘Follow the beast and the bird and the fish and the flower, and you will enter into my kingdom of god.’

A strange statement: ‘Follow the beast and the bird and the fish and the flower...’ He is saying exactly what I am saying to you become a no-mind again like animals and you will enter into the kingdom of god.

< Previous | Contents | Next >