19

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‌CHAPTER 19

19 October 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine, tarshito means thirst for – thirst for god. God is possible only when it becomes a thirst for each cell of your being, when one is afire, when it is not only curiosity. Because if it is curiosity it remains only in the head – it never reaches to the heart; it is superficial. It gains depth only when it is not curiosity but when one’s life is in danger without god... when it is a question of life and death. It is as if one is lost in a desert and is thirsty – that is tarshito, that thirst when one is dying. When one is dying for god, prayer is born.

There comes a moment of ultimate thirst when you are simply thirst and nothing else... when you reach to the climax of your longing, when the passion is pure fire. Then suddenly the thirst disappears, evaporates, and great contentment descends; but it happens only on that peak.

The people who are in a lukewarm search for god will never attain it. Then god is only one of the items of their desires; they have many others too, they have a long list. In that list god is also one of the items. They are not thirsty. When god is your only longing, then it is thirst. When you are ready to sacrifice everything for it, then it is thirst. When the fulfilment of this longing becomes more valuable than life itself, then it is thirst.

And thirst is the only transforming force. I succeed only with my sannyasins if I can create thirst in them. Truth cannot be given to you but thirst can be imparted. Thirst is contagious, truth is not. But once you have got the thirst then there is no problem. Truth will be found – that is destined. All that is needed is a thirsty heart.

Deva means divine, sunito means virtue – divine virtue. One can cultivate good, one can drop all that is thought to be bad; that is human virtue. It is not of much help because that which has been dropped remains in the unconscious. That which has been denied will take revenge in its own time. It will not leave you – it will haunt you; it will become your shadow. And the good that you have

imposed upon yourself will remain superficial. Anything imposed never goes deep. It is like painting your face: the colour remains on the skin – it does not go in.

Rather than making you virtuous the imposed virtue only makes you a hypocrite. It makes you divided into two persons: one that you are and one that you pretend to be. And the constant conflict between these two dissipates energy. That’s why people look so tired, weary, bored, dragging; their life has no dancing energy in it.

There is another kind of virtue I call divine virtue. It does not come from the outside – it comes out of your simple natural living. It comes out of your inner being and spreads all over. It comes out of simplicity, and simplicity is nothing but inner emptiness. There is no need to figure out what to do and what not to do. Just by living moment to moment, out of inner emptiness a virtue arises.

When you are empty, you don’t have any idea of how to live. Then life has a natural flavour. You never impose anything – whatsoever happens, happens. You remain in a deep acceptance of it, you trust your life energy. Rather than forcing it to move this way or that, you simply go with it, just as if one floats with the river, not fighting the river. In a relaxed way one goes with the river wherever it takes one.

Out of that trust divine virtue is born. Then one remains one, integrated, together, and that togetherness becomes an overflowing energy. When there is no conflict there is no dissipation of energy. And when you don’t dissipate energy, the very gathering of the energy takes you higher and higher. It becomes a trip towards the heights... it is psychedelic. To live simply, to live naturally, to live spontaneously, is to be really virtuous. It has nothing to do with the idea of good and bad – real virtue knows nothing of good and bad: it knows only inner simplicity, a non-hypocritical existence.

[Divine flower – Deva Sevanti.]

Man is born only as a seed – one should not take life for granted. Man is born only as a potential – the potential has to be transformed into actuality. Man is only a possibility, just a seed, and millions of people remain the seed and die, because they have taken their life for granted.

They think all that has to happen has happened with the birth. Nothing has happened with the birth. Another birth is needed – the birth of the soul, the birth of the inner.

When a child is born he is born only to the outside; that is the beginning of the world. Unless his consciousness turns inwards he is not born at all. One needs to be born twice, and only when your energy starts moving inwards does the flower bloom. When the energy starts moving inwards and the circle is complete – it comes from your source and goes back to the source and the circle is complete – in that very completion of the circle one becomes a flower and great fragrance is released. That is the song of life. And everybody has the birthright to attain to it; if we miss, we miss on our own.

The greatest responsibility of a sannyasin is not to die without flowering inwards. That is the meaning of getting involved with me... that’s initiation: an invisible vow of ‘Before I die, I will become twice- born, I will attain to this inner flowering.’ This decision has to become your heartbeat.

[A sannyasin says: I lead a very busy life. Do you think it is good for me to live in a commune? Because I have children and I manage on my own and I feel it is too much for me.]

It will be good to live in a commune... it will be good for the children too.

To bring up children in small families is to give them small minds. That is one of the greatest misfortunes in the world – that children are brought up by small families. They get very small minds.

If they are brought up in a commune they will be far richer because they will be gathering so much from everywhere – so many people, so many possibilities, so many lifestyles. And this is real education for the child. What we call education is not real education. Maybe it is utilitarian and needed but it is not of much value. The real education means becoming aware of the multi- dimensionality of life.

If the children are living only with you, then certainly they have only one type of life to understand. They will become addicted to you, and that will be their problem for the whole of their life; they will know only one kind of woman. Now, the problems will arise – they will never find a wife like you because there is nobody else like you. So your son will suffer because he will hanker for a wife who is like his mother, because he knows only one kind of woman. He cannot find one – that is not possible – because no two individuals are alike. You are the only one, so now you have created trouble for him.

The impact on his mind, deep down, is of you – he loves you. He can love only a woman who is like you, but no woman will be exactly like you. So he will love someone because a few things will be like you in her, and he will hate her too because a few things will be not like you... not even not like you but will be against you, diametrically opposed to you. Hence all lovers hate and love each other... and the conflict and the quarrels. He would like her to behave like his mother... she cannot and she should not. And she herself is expecting that her husband should behave like her father; so complexities arise.

In a commune, if there are a hundred people – so many women, so many men – your child will become acquainted with so many people; he will not be addicted to you. He will be nourished by all these people. You will not be his only mother; all those fifty women in the commune will give something to him. He will become friendly with women, he will move with women, he will chit-chat... so many uncles and so many aunts. His concept of a woman will be richer, and there will be more possibility that he will find a woman because his concept is richer, so any woman can adjust with his concept. He is not narrow, he is not addicted to one person.

In fact, if he knows fifty women he will not have any idea of a particular woman – just a few glimpses of womanhood. His concept of the woman will be very vague – vague but rich, cloudy but rich – and because it is vague any woman that he falls in love with will be able to adjust to it and he will be able to adjust to the woman, because he can expect so many things. And he knows that each woman is different from the other because he has known so many women and all are different.

So he will never hanker for you in his life; he will never be mother-fixated. That is one of the most fundamental reasons of neurosis in the world – that people become mother-fixated or father-fixated.

If it is possible to live in a commune then nothing is better than that – the bigger the commune, the better. Get involved in a commune!

Deva means divine, parimal means fragrance – divine fragrance. God is not a person but only a presence. God is not a flower but only a fragrance. Thinking of god as a person has led humanity into many many troubles. That becomes the root of all idolatry. Then people start creating images, either in stone or wood, or there are also images of thought – concepts, theories – but the moment we think of god as a person we have given him a limitation. We have forced a form on something which is formless. We have put a label on something which cannot be labelled. We have categorised god, and he is beyond all categories.

Think of god as a presence. Then even a solitary tree in the field, if you can feel its presence, is god, is divine. Bow down to it. Wherever you can feel the presence of life, of love, there is god. Then your god is free. Then you can find him anywhere – you need not go to any temple or church in particular; this whole earth is a temple. And all the peoples of the world are his manifestations – animals, birds tooJust start feeling the presence of things.

Have you ever observed the presence of a tree? It is so tangible if you just be there. You can almost embrace it.you can touch it; the tree is not just there without its presence. We don’t feel the

presence because we are unaware, because we ourselves are not present to the moment; otherwise everything has its own presence. A bird sitting silently on the roof has its own presence and a flower is surrounded by its own aura and presence.

Think of god as presence, pure presencenot like a flower but like a fragrance, because a flower

has a form – the fragrance is only felt, it cannot be seen. God is like that.

Deva means divine, sangito means music – divine music. Music has to be your meditation.music

in all its forms. This is music: the raindrops on the roof, the wind passing through the pine trees, the sound of running water.… Wherever, in whatsoever form, there is some rhythm, listen to it! Imbibe it.become one with it!

A great forgetfulness is needed for that. This is the process of un-selfing, and that’s what meditation is all about: the process of un-selfing. And there is nothing better than music in which one un-selfs oneself, one forgets that one is. One is, one is conscious, but there is no self-consciousness. In fact when the self disappears there is more consciousness than ever, because the self functions like a barrier, the self gives a limitation to consciousness. When the self disappears consciousness is there unbounded, with no fence surrounding it; it is just the whole sky. And music will lead you to god.

Listen, play... and in fact there is always some kind of music around. If one listens silently then something or other is always going on, because this whole existence consists of a deep melody.

Deva means divine, anugita means a song – a divine song. Life can be a syllogism or a song. If it is a syllogism then it will have no beauty, no joy. It may succeed in gathering money, in becoming more powerful, in becoming respectable, because the man who lives the life of a syllogism is calculative. He will attain to many possessions in life but he will lose himself and death will destroy his whole edifice; all that he has done will be simply cancelled by death. He will die a poor man, he will live a poor man. A poor man surrounded by richness – that will be his life.

There is another way of life – a life lived as a song, not as a syllogism. Then one may not succeed, one may not become very famous, one may not have all the possessions that the world can give one, but one will be rich, contented, and there will be a subtle joy that one has arrived... a deep, deep satisfaction that one has not failed. There will be no frustration. There will be a tremendous quality of contentment, an overflowing contentment. The person who lives the life of syllogism lives the life of logic, and the person who lives the life of a song lives the life of love. Only love can create the song.

Love and song are two aspects of the same phenomenon. If you love, you become a song; if you are a song, you love more. They help each other, they create each other, and once this creative process starts it culminates in god.

Love so much that the song arises in your being – the song of gratitude. Be grateful and sing the song of gratitude so that you can become more and more capable of love. This is how one reaches higher and higher peaks, and one day, your love and your song have become one. That day is the day where one disappears as a wave and becomes the ocean. That is called samadhi, satori, enlightenment, the kingdom of god – different names for the same thing. But nobody has reached god through logic. And all those who have reached to god have reached through love.

This has to be the basis of the journey of sannyas. The first step has to be love, and then everything is taken care of. If one loves enough, one moves in the right direction; one reaches one day to the ultimate goal of god. But it is always the life of a song, of love, of poetry... of beauty and grace. It is never that of calculation.

Prem means love, kabira means goddess – goddess of love.

Kabira also means great... so your name can also mean great love. There are small loves in life and there are great loves in life. Small loves make life petty. The person who loves money will not really grow; his love is very petty, very mean. He will remain stupid. He cannot become intelligent, he cannot grow in intelligence; he has chosen a very mundane object for his love. The man who loves music will go far deeper than the man who loves money... naturally. The man who loves music is moving on a great journey.

The man who loves power will remain ugly because power can be attained only through violence – any kind of power. The power of a parent over a child is also violent. The power of a husband over his wife is also violent; the power of the wife over the husband is also violent. So not only the political power but all kinds of power are ugly and violent.

But the man who loves dancing, will go deeperAnd the man who loves meditation will go deeper

than any because meditation is the greatest thing possible. Because it is through meditation that god arrives; it is the door to the divine. And to be in love with a master is basically to be in love with meditation. One falls in love with a master only because one has seen something of the unknown, one has felt the mysterious moving around, one has become aware in a very vague sort of way that something mysterious is happening. One cannot pinpoint it but it is there; it has been felt deep down in the heart.

The presence of the master gives you the first experience of meditation. And that’s what sannyas is all about: falling in love with a master, falling in love with meditation, falling in love with god. Let your

love be great, and the greater the love, the greater one becomes. Never choose an ordinary object for love, because it is very decisive.

If it is known what you love then all is known about you. Then your whole life can be deduced out of that simple fact. If somebody says ‘I love money’ then we need not go into the details of his life; we will know. His whole biography can be written without asking him. And if somebody says he loves prayer, then naturally his whole life is going to be different; that too can be deduced.

So ‘Kabira’ is a Sufi name for god. Kabira also means great, and Kabir was one of the great Indian mystics. Study something of Kabir... he is one of the greatest singers of god’s love.

Fall into deeper loves, greater loves, whatsoever the risk. Life means risk, and those who are afraid to risk, remain dead. Only those who are ready to risk all attain to all. Good, Kabira.

[A sannyasin says he is fighting with himself about being alone, running away from it.]

Nobody can run away from himself. One can only deceive but one cannot run away from it. There is no way – you are you. And the aloneness is so fundamental that there is no way to escape from it. The more you try to escape from it, the more you will feel lonely. If you start accepting it, if you start being in love with it, if you start enjoying it, all loneliness will disappear, and then aloneness has beauty, tremendous beauty.

We are made alone. If we were not alone we would not have been at all. Then what would be the difference between a machine and a man? The machine can never be alone; it has no soul. It can never be celibate. It is always with others, it is part of a crowd. Only man can be alone. Even in the crowd man can be alone. That aloneness is man’s freedom. And it is not against love... in fact, only a person who is alone and knows how to be alone will be able to love.

This is the paradox of love: that only the person who is alone can love, and the person who loves becomes alone. They come together.… So if one is not capable of being alone, one will not be capable of being in love either. Then all his so-called love will be just an escape from himself. It will not be real love, it will not be real relating. Who will relate with whom? You have not even related with yourself; how can you relate with the other? You are not there – who is going to relate with others?

So a bogus kind of love exists in the world: you are trying to escape from yourself and the other is trying to escape from herself or himself and you are both seeking shelter in each other, deceiving; it is a mutual deception. Sooner or later deceptions wear away and then you are lonely again. Search for another relationship and the same will happen again. And so on and so forth, it goes on.

The first thing is to know one’s celibacy, one’s fundamental celibacy, to know that our aloneness is our very individuality, and function from that aloneness. Even your love has to function from that base. Then you will be able to love. Only two individuals who are not in any way trying to escape from themselves, but are rooted deep in their own soul can relate. And out of that depth, they embrace each other. Then it is a sharing, not an escape. Then love is really a joy.…

Stop fighting with yourself. It is utterly futile, destructive, and suicidal. And now it is time to drop it.…

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