19

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‌CHAPTER 19

20 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, wilayat means a sage. The birth of a sage is through love, not through knowing. It is not a head phenomenon, it is a heart phenomenon. The saint remains in the head; he cultivates it thoughtfully. The sage disappears into the heart. The saint is very clever, calculating, logical, methodological. The sage is almost mad, but his madness has beauty, his madness has a transcendence; it is something not of this world. He may look insane in the eyes of the world because his values are totally different, but in fact, in reality, he is the only sane person. But a sage can be understood only by another sage, otherwise to be misunderstood by people is his fate.

Lao Tzu has said that if something of the truth is said and people understand it, then it is not true; if people mis understand it, then it is true. Because people exist in the world of lies they cannot understand truth. To understand truth they will have to climb high to the mountains, they will have to get out of their dark valleys, and it is so much effort that they don’t want to do it.

Rather than going to the peaks of the mountains and trying to understand, they drag the truth into their world of lies; they falsify it. They understand only when they have falsified it.

They don’t understand Christ; they understand Christianity. They don’t understand Buddha; they understand Buddhism. Buddhism is their own creation. Bud&a is far away: it is impossible for them to see him. And whatsoever they can see, he is not, and whatsoever he is, is invisible to them.

The sage is the climax of human potential. The saint is ordinary: the sage is extraordinary. But the revolution that brings sagehood comes through love. The more you love, the more you become mad in love, the more you fall in love with existence as it is – the more you feel its beauty, its joy, its celebration – the closer you come to sagehood.

Wilayat is a Sufi word.

Deva means divine, lalla literally means a very very small child who has not yet learned anything of the world, utterly innocent. And that is the requirement to enter into the kingdom of god: one has to become a child again.

The child comes into the world as a pure consciousness. The sky is absolutely clear, with no clouds. The child is just a mirror because he knows nothing; that’s why he is innocent. He has great enquiry but no knowledge. He is full of energy but with no attachment.

The same has to happen again: one has to become pure energy without any attachment, because every attachment is a dissipation of energy. One has to become innocent again without knowledge, because all knowledge is like dust on the mirror. One has to unlearn all that one has learned. One has to erase all that the society-has written. This is the whole process of sannyas, of meditation, of becoming religious.

Religion is not part of the society; and if it is, it is no more religion; it is politics. Religion is constant rebellion against all structures. It is the search for the sky without clouds. That is the literal meaning of the word ‘lalla’.

And another meaning.In Kashmir there has been a great woman sage; her name was Lalla. There

have been very few women sages in the world because man has not allowed that much freedom to women; they have been repressed down the ages. But those few women were as great as Buddha, as Christ, as Krishna. They can be counted on one’s fingers: there are not more than one dozen names. Lalla is at the top; she was really a rare woman. To be born in India and to live naked for the whole of one’s life is something; she lived naked. She was an utterly beautiful woman – her courage, her guts.…

So that will also remind you of this strange woman. And if you can find something about Lalla, read it!

Srajan means creative, atosho means discontentment – a creative discontentment. All discontentment is not bad; all contentment is not good either. The creative discontentment is a great value. One has to turn one’s discontentment into a creative energy.

The idea of contentment has been very dangerous: it has made people uncreative. Contentment is good but it should come out of creativity. It should not become inactivity, it should not become lethargy. And a person who is not creative becomes lethargic. A person who is not creative loses all significance and meaning, becomes distracted, loses all direction, starts feeling accidental, because there is no continuity in him. And because he does not contribute anything to life, he feels futile, unworthy. Worth arises only when you contribute to life, whatsoever it is: a poem, a song, a painting, whatsoever it is. Unless you contribute something to lifer unless you beautify life a little bit more, you will never feel that your life has any meaning. Meaning is a by-product of creative contribution.

Remain discontented as far as creativity is concerned. Remain in a chaos, in a deep thirst. in a hunger. Something has to be created: one should not leave life as one has found it. Not that one has to become famous, not that the whole world has to know about you, not that you have to leave your name in the history books; that is not the point. Nobody may ever know about you, but if you create, you will feel tremendously blissful.

And what you create does not matter – whatsoever arises naturally in you. It may be just a small garden. Nobody may ever know about it, there is no need; it is a fulfilment unto itself. The very presence of the flower and the bushes and the tree is enough reward; nothing else is needed. When your rose bush has blossomed, that is enough that is paradise! You have created a little beauty in the world. You have created a little perfume in life. In that very creation, joy arises, wells up.

Religion has suffered very much because it condemned all discontentment and it praised all contentment. That’s an utterly nonsensical standpoint. There is creative contentment – then it is good; there is creative discontentment – then it is good. In fact the goodness that comes is not from contentment or discontentment: it comes from creativity.

Buddha sitting silently under his tree is not uncreative. He is creating a tremendous vibe that is still alive. He is creating a certain space that has not disappeared yet, and those who are perceptive can enter into that space even now. Sitting under the tree, he was not visibly doing anything, but he was in such a creative silence. That silence was not of a cemetery, that silence was very pregnant: out of that silence much has blossomed.

So contentment can be creative, then it is good. If it is uncreative it is not good; it is evil. And thousands of monks and priests have simply been uncreative. In the name of contentment they were hiding their uncreativity, they were hiding their empty souls.

And if discontentment is creative, then it is beautiful. Remember, beauty arises out of creativity, so whatsoever form it takes.… Buddha is sitting silently: that is creativity out of contentment. Michaelangelo is not sitting silently, Mozart is not sitting silently; they are doing a thousand and one things. They are trying to create something: they are trying to bring the unknown into the world of the known, they are inviting the sky to the earth. Somebody may be inviting the sky through sculpture, somebody through painting, somebody through music; those are all mediums. Whenever music catches something of the unknown then it is real music.

So this is my message to you on your sannyas birthday: let your meditations, your work on yourself, be creative, and remember always that one has to create more and more and more; and there is no end to it. Then your creative discontentment becomes a prayer towards god, your offering to god.

Mutriba means a musician. Music is great meditation; in fact it was invented in the beginning as a prayer.

If you can create music, create it; if you cannot, then listen to it. The only thing to be remembered is: if you are making music, get lost in it; don’t remain a technician. The technician is not a true musician. He only knows the peripheral thing of it. He can deceive those who are unaware of real music. He is an expert, he knows the know-how, but the spirit is missing; and the spirit is the real thing, that is a totally different phenomenon. The know-how is needed, but the spirit of a musician is not just the sum total of the know-how; it is something more, that something plus.

If you make music then forget the technician, then forget yourself. Let music happen as if on its own accord, as if you are just an instrument of some unknown force that is flowing through you.

If you are not making music, listen, but in listening forget the listener. Just become listening, just ears and ears and ears, as if your whole body has turned into ears: you have become two big ears

and nothing else. Your eyes are listening, your hands are listening, your feet are listening; every fibre of your being is just a listening. Then the same thing will happen.

The point is to disappear in music; then something starts descending. Then something is heard at the innermost recesses of one’s being. The outer music becomes just a space, a context, in which something inside arises. The outer triggers a process in the inner; it becomes a catalytic agent. It cannot cause the inner music, the inner music cannot be caused by anything but it can be provoked. The relationship between the outer and the inner is that of synchronicity, not of cause and effect.

Now they say that if classical music is played around plants they grow faster. They bring bigger flowers, bigger fruits, and the growth rate is so much more that it cannot be just a coincidence. The same plants without music go only to half the height as those around whom music has been played. But the music has to be Bach or Ravi Shankar – something subtle, something spiritual. If jazz or pop music is played around them their growth is stunted, they don’t grow to their normal size even. Their flowers are smaller and crippled, as if the plant has collapsed inside himself, as if the plant has become suicidal. Now, the music cannot cause anything, but something is provoked in the plant. The plant listens: those vibes thrill something in the plant.

One scientist has been working on a few plants which have never grown any flowers. Just by persuading them – playing music around them, beautiful music, and talking to them – he has succeeded in bringing flowers to plants which have never flowered in the whole of history, who don’t know how to flower; flowers don’t come to those plants.…

Another scientist has succeeded in persuading a cactus not to grow thorns just by playing music and talking to the plant, persuading it ‘Don’t be afraid: we are friends, so you need not grow thorns. Nobody is going to hurt you, you need not be so defensive. Those thorns are just a defence mechanism.’ And he succeeded in persuading a plant not to grow thorns!

These are real miracles, but these miracles have happened through music, and if it can happen to a plant, much more, tremendously more, can happen to human consciousness.

Ashiko means a lover. Sufis have two beautiful words: one is ‘mashuk’, another is ‘ashik’. Mashuk means the beloved: they think of god as a woman. And ashik means lover: god is the beloved and all the seekers of god are lovers. Man or woman, it does not matter; all are lovers of god. Consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t matter, everybody is searching, groping, longing, for god. One may not give it the name of god: one may call it truth, one may call it freedom, one may call it love, but they all mean the same thing.

Something ultimate is needed. Everything seems to be so momentary that it doesn’t satisfy. Everything comes and goes; nothing abides. So the whole effort seems to be making castles in the sand. A little breeze comes and the castle is gone. Something ultimate is needed, something which will come and will never go.

In Sanskrit the world is called jaggat. The word ‘jaggat’ means: that which continuously comes and goes. Gat, ga, means goes; from the same root comes the English word ‘go’: that which is continuously going. The world is just a coming and going, nothing abides. And unless we find a home where we can relax and forget everything, the search continues. The home is god.

Becoming a sannyasin means becoming an ashik, a lover. And when I say ‘becoming a lover of god’ I don’t mean to hate people, to hate the world and to become a lover of god; that is utter stupidity. If you really want to love god you will have to love people, you will have to love the world, you will have to love the trees and the rocks and the river. You will have to love all that is, because it is all god manifest. They are momentary glimpses, but still they are of god. So love, simply love! Let it become your inner climate, a state, not a relationship.

That is the meaning of ashiko: when love is a state – not that you love somebody but that you simply love. It is unaddressed, it is for all that is. And this brings you to true religion. Then whatsoever you do is prayer, is meditation, and wherever you do it is the church, the temple, the mosque. Then wherever you walk, you are walking on holy ground. Then every act has a quality of sacredness about it.

Anand means bliss, sharabi means a drunkard – one who is utterly drunk with bliss. And it is possible to be drunk with bliss. In fact it is not only possible, it is everybody’s birthright. But it has to be claimed, and we have forgotten all about it; it has to be rediscovered.

Each child comes knowing it, being it, but sooner or later we force him to forget all about it. We think we are educating him, we think we are giving him initiation into civilisation. We think we are a blessing to him, that without us he will be lost. In a sense it is true that without us the child will not be able to survive; in another sense it is wrong. It is because of our conditioning that he will remain miserable his whole life. He will remain a lost soul, disconnected from himself, uprooted. He will be a tree which is uprooted from the soil. His life will just be of long long misery, of anxiety, fear, anguish, and the taste in his mouth will be that of meaninglessness, utter futility. If he thinks, he will think like Jean-Paul Sartre, that man is a useless passion, that life is meaningless, that existence is absurd.

Existence is not absurd, neither is life meaningless nor man a useless passion. But we have lost contact with reality, hence these problems have arisen.

One has to get back one’s roots, and the way to get back is to drop all that is unnecessary, all that is cluttering the mind. Ninety-nine percent of it is absolutely unnecessary. Maybe one percent is needed as a utility, but only as a utility. Use it when it is needed, otherwise forget all about it. It should not invade your silence, it should not enter into your being; it should not become a constant inner talk in you. When words are needed they should be used; when they are not needed one should be able to remain in a wordless state.

Then a tremendously beautiful experience starts happening: one starts feeling as if drunk, drunk with something one cannot pinpoint, drunk with existence itself. And unless one has tasted that wine, one should not leave any stone unturned; all efforts should be made to find that source of wine. And it is within you. We are born with it: we just have to dig a little deeper. Much rubbish has gathered around that source so we have to dig deep to find it.

Meditation is nothing but a method of digging. The more man becomes civilised, the more and more will meditations be needed, because that is the only way to get rid of the unnecessary and to get to the essential. Meditation is a return to the source.

Anusati means reflecting – not thinking, but reflecting. The mind can function in two ways: one is thinking, another is reflecting. Thinking is aggressive, the male quality of the mind. Reflection is receptive, the female quality of the mind.

Science needs the male quality of the mind, and religion needs the female quality of the mind. Science is a training in thinking, in rigorous, logical thinking. Religion is a training in becoming a mirror, just reflecting that which is.

If you think, you miss the point, because whatsoever you think will not be the truth. For truth, thinking is not needed at all. It is there, you are here: reflect it, just be a silent mirror with no ripples of thought. If ripples arise then whatsoever you see will be distorted. It will be like a full moon reflected in a lake which is full of waves and ripples; it will be distorted. If you want to get the undistorted moon in the lake, then the lake has to be completely silent with no ripples at all. Then you will get the moon as it is.

Truth is, but we are thinking about it, hence we go on missing it. God is, but we go on thinking about it. Then we become Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians and we go on missing. One needs only to be silent, available, open; that is the quality of anusati. Truth is not very far away, it is very close; it is just that we are disturbed, we are in an inner tantrum. We have so many thought waves.

Slow down, relax, and let these thoughts disappear. Slowly slowly they disappear. If you remain alert that they have to be dropped, you stop co-operating with them, you stop identifying with them, one day it happens: you are there, god is there, and there is no barrier of thought between you and god, no screen. And that is what is called enlightenment. Suddenly all is light and all is joy and all is eternal life.

[Yoga Shakti]: Yoga means a state of inner union. Ordinarily man is just in fragments. He is not together, he is not one; he is many. When all your parts function together in a harmony and are no more in conflict, yoga has happened. Yoga means union, integration. And integration brings power; shakti means power.

The more integrated a person is, the more powerful he is. The more disintegrated a person is, the less powerful, because his energies go on fighting amongst themselves, and fighting amongst themselves is very destructive. But that’s how people are, in a constant civil war – one part destroying another part.

The whole foundation of religion is how to bring all these parts together. That is actually the meaning of the word ‘religion’: to bring fragments together, to bind fragments together. Religion means to bind, and that is really the meaning of yoga too. Yoga and religion are synonymous: the science of creating a togetherness, making you one piece. And then great power is released. Shakti means power, power that comes out of inner integrity, individuation.

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