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CHAPTER 2
2 March 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Deva means god, anuneeta means disciplined by – disciplined by the divine.
There are two types of discipline in life: one discipline that you can manage – but that is very ordinary discipline, man-made, home-made, and naturally cannot lead you very far. It is also repressive because you have to continuously fight and you have to repress many things in your being. This creates a sort of split.
I am not in favour of that discipline. I am in favour of a totally different kind of discipline that comes out of surrender – you surrender to god and god gives you a discipline. That very surrender creates a tremendous responsibility in you, and out of that surrender you start a totally new life. Not that you manage, not that you have to plan for it. All that you need to do is to be in a deep let-go. Mm? that’s what tao is and that’s what sannyas is.
So from this moment, feel surrendered to god. Every night before you go to sleep, at least for five minutes just sit silently, feel surrendered, then go to sleep. And in the morning also when you get up, the first thing is: sit in your bed, remember your surrendered state. Just bow down to the divine.
Start living a very natural life. Not in many ways enforcing anything upon yourselfAnd much is
going to happen!
[To a sannyasin who has been practicing Tibetan techniques in the Himalayas.]
Those methods are good but they were meant for a totally different kind of peopleand a different
era. And in fact Tibet has lived in a different era, Tibet has not been contemporary. It has lived very secluded, isolated. It has not known anything of the twentieth century, so it is the most ancient, primitive, innocent culture.
Those techniques are good but to be helped by them you will have to prepare something which is not in those techniques themselves. You will have to pass through other methods, then one day you can do them and they will be helpful.
Prem means love, upasika means a worshipper, worship – a loving worshipper. Worship can be of two types: either you can worship only out of the feeling of duty – as people go every sunday to the church.… They have to, so they go: there is no inner pull; it is a formality, something which has to be observed if you want to remain respectable. It is just a social formality; that is not real worship.
Real worship is out of love. It needs no church, it needs no temple. You can go into the temple, you can go into the church, but your house is as okay as any other place. It needs only a loving heart; that is the real temple.
So never worship out of duty; that is fake and meaningless. And when you start being pseudo even with god, where else will you be honest and true?
So worship only out of love. You can worship a tree; if love is there you have worshipped god. You can worship a child; if love is there you have worshipped god. Whenever there is love all that you do reaches god.
You can worship your beloved... sometimes you can even worship yourself with great love, because god is there too. God is everywhere. Whenever you look with deep loving eyes, he is revealed!
If eyes are not with love, then eyes are blind to god. Only people who have love flowing in their eyes can see god... and there is no other way to see.
So I would like you to become a real worshiper... not concerned with any ritual. Each one has to find his own ritual. There is no need to repeat a particular prayer: you can just sit on your bed and have a good chit-chat with the almighty, with the whole. Sometimes you can talk, sometimes you can simply remain silent; sometimes you can talk, sometimes you can listen. Mm? the wind blowing through the trees or the wind knocking on your door, a child laughing or even dogs barking...
From everywhere comes his message, in every stone is his sermon, in every silence is his music; one just has to be lovingly receptive.…
Literally the word ‘upasika’ means to sit close by. Metaphorically it means worship; literally, the actual word means to sit close by. Mm? that is the meaning of worship: to sit close to god. Whenever you sit close by, wherever you feel god very close – maybe in the silence of the Himalayas, or in the noise of the market... wherever you feel he is and suddenly you become aware of his presence – it is worship. You are close by.
God is always close... sometimes we are also close to him. He is always close, we are not always close. He is always within reach, he is just around the corner. Whenever we are available, we have a contact with him.
So now try it: in different moments, in different situations, sometimes looking at the stars, feel close. And suddenly you will be close, because he is close; only your receptivity is needed!
Listening to music... Here people are meditating, so just sitting by the side looking at the meditators, suddenly he is there! Whenever you look for him, he is there! whenever you look for him, he is there!
We miss him because we don’t look. We miss him because we don’t look through love... and that is the only door and the only bridge.
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