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‌CHAPTER 1

1 May 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine and gupta means secret – divine secret. And the divine secret is that there is no secret in it! The divine secret is the open secret. It is very obvious – it is not far away, it is not distant. It is close-by, it is within, it is you... it is your very core. We go on missing god because we go on looking far away. We are searching for god with a telescope, hence we go on missing. A telescope is good to see things which are far away, but if you start looking for things through the telescope which are not far away, which are very close by, you will miss them... and god is the closest!

Even to look at god with open eyes is to miss, because open eyes look far away... even an inch away is far away. That is why in deep prayer or in deep meditation eyes are bound to close themselves.

God can be seen only with closed eyes: he is so close by – even open eyes will take you far away. He is just in the heart beat. This is the secret: don’t look far away, don’t go after the distant, search in the close-by, look within! And god has always been there – it is a miracle that we miss him! To find god is a simple thing – to miss him is a miracle. To find god is very easy – to miss him is a very complex phenomenon. It is simply incredible how we go on missing him, because we live in him, we are born in him, we breathe in him, we die in him. We are just like fish and he is just like the ocean – but it is said that the fish goes on missing the ocean. It is so close. How can you see it?

The fish comes to know about the ocean only when she is caught and thrown out of the ocean, taken out of the ocean. Then she recognises, then only does she become aware of what she has lost. We can take a fish out of the ocean – how can we take a man out of god ? There is no way because there is no shore to it – god is a shoreless ocean. There is no place outside him so we can never fall out of him. To understand this is to understand the greatest secret. Just a simple, loving heart is needed. It is not a question of great intellectual understanding, no! – just a feeling heart is needed. God is known through feeling: it is not an intellectual work – it is intuitive. So start looking within-wards, mm?... and sannyas is the beginning of the journey within-wards.

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Deva means divine and chaya means shadow – divine shadow. We are all god’s reflections, and to think about ourselves otherwise is wrong. We are joined to god as the shadow is joined to our body. There is no way to go away, the shadow cannot leave – it simply follows.

Once this is understood, life becomes very easy and very blissful. Then you are not the doer, then there is no responsibility on you. The whole responsibility is on god’s shoulders, and in that there is rest and relaxation.

So from this moment, leave everything to god and suddenly you will feel a great transformation. Become a shadow!

[A sannyasin says: Last time you told me that will is not my path, so when I do active meditations, I just do them relaxedly. I don’t know if I have to impose anything on myself]

You have some wrong notion – that something has to be achieved – that’s why you start thinking that you are going astray.

Where can you go? And how can you go astray? – because whatsoever happens is the truth. That is the truth of that moment – that your mind started going away. That is the truth of that moment, that’s how that moment came to you.

My whole insistence is to learn not to will things – learn to allow them – otherwise will always creates tension in you. You are already tense and will will create more tension. If you succeed sometimes – which doesn’t mean that will succeeds; it simply means that the things were going that way and you also willed it – it was a coincidence.…

Whenever will succeeds, it simply shows it is a coincidence – will never succeeds. The wind was blowing to the north and you were rushing to the north. The wind is not blowing to the north because you are going to the north. It is just coincidence that the wind is also going to the north; it is not following your will. Sometimes you will feel that the will succeeded – it was coincidence – then it creates ego and ego is a great problem, the greatest of them all.it is the essential madness. If you

fail there is frustration.

If you fail you feel very horrible about yourself – you think you are not worthy, that you are worthless, that you don’t even deserve to be alive – and then you find a thousand and one faults with yourself and you start hating yourself. When you hate yourself you hate the whole world, and when you are not satisfied with yourself you are unsatisfied with everything.

So if will succeeds – which is a coincidence – then ego is created, and ego is anguish, hell. If will fails – which is natural, which is not a coincidence, which is just how things are – if it fails, then you are frustrated. And out of one hundred times, ninety-nine times the will will fail and only one time will it succeed. It will create problems both ways: either this or that you will be in a problem.

What I am saying is to let existence be as it is! Please don’t try to change it – nobody has ever been able to change anything; change is one of the greatest illusions. The day you accept things as they are, you have become mature. It is simply childish to try to change them.

People recognise it, but very late – when the whole life has gone and they have wasted their whole life fighting and trying to change. When they are just going to die or just a few years are left, then they start recognising that nothing has happened, they have not been able to change anything. Only one thing has happened: trying to change they have wasted their life. They could have lived! Only people who don’t want to change things are capable of living – you cannot do both together.

So make the best of it; whatsoever is available is available. This is the only world – there is no other world – and this moment’s reality is this moment’s reality.

What is, is, and what ain’t, ain’t!

Relax into it, accept it. Don’t say that the mind goes astray. How can the mind go astray? Wherever it goes, it’s okay, and whatsoever happens is good; that’s how the whole is willing it to happen. Who are we to fight with it and how can we hope to succeed against the whole? The part cannot succeed against the whole.

There is no goal and there is nowhere else to go – this is it!

If you can just start living your life as it comes, if you start enjoying whatsoever it gives... And I am not saying that it will be perfect; it is never perfect, and it has no obligation to be perfect. This is how it is – perfect, imperfect. Now you can do two things: either you start trying to change it – then you miss living it, you cannot do both together – or you live it.

Then you don’t bother about changing it... and anyhow it is never changed.

This I call maturity. A man who has no idea to change anything has arrived! Then how can there be any tension, anguish, anxiety? Then everything starts being beautiful because you start living it. Will is just another way of asserting the ego.

So let me repeat it: this is it! Get hold of this moment and live it!

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