28

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‌CHAPTER 28

29 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love, dipa means an earthen lamp – a small lamp of love. Love’s small lamp is far more significant. far more powerful, than the whole darkness of hate, anger, greed. The darkness of the centuries is not so powerful, so potent, as just a small flame of love. Darkness has no power, it is impotent; in fact it does not exist, it only appears to exist. It is an absence. It is not the presence of something, it is the absence of light. The moment you bring light in, it simply disappears, it is not found at all. It cannot resist, it cannot say ‘I have lived here for millions of years. How dare you, just a small lamp? I am not going to go.’ That is not possible.

A small lamp has to burn, has to be kindled, in the heart. The heart has all the potential to become light. We have not tried, we have not worked on the heart; otherwise it start radiating, glowing, it becomes aflame. All that has been so much of a problem simply disappears. One need not fight with greed, anger, possessiveness, jealousy, one need not fight. And those who fight with them will never conquer: they are fighting with darkness. You cannot fight with darkness you will be defeated. All that is needed is to bring a light in. And this is something very strange, that the light is already there, just a little cleansing is needed. The light is there; it is only that the glass of the lamp is dark, it has not been cleaned for centuries. Clean the glass and the light is burning. That is your life – it has to be there. You are alive, so light is there. You are alive, so consciousness is there, hidden behind a dark glass.

All meditation is nothing but cleansing the glass. Slowly slowly the light start coming out, slowly slowly the darkness is gone, and with darkness, all those problems.

Modern psychology tries to solve each single problem. That is meaningless. A single stroke and all the problems disappear, and that stroke is meditation. So never be concerned with individual problems; just a single experience is enough to destroy them all. Otherwise, if you struggle with

anger you may succeed in conquering it, but then anger will start flowing in some other direction, from somewhere else.

Unless meditation happens, nothing happens. So that has to be kept in mind.

Divyam means divine. We are divine; we may know it, we may not. Even when we don’t know, we are divine. Even when we are fast asleep, lost in dreams, we are divine. It is not possible to take our divinity from us. The sinner is as divine as the saint. Divinity is our inalienable right, it is our very nature. To be at all is to be divine, to exist is to be divine.

But there is a great difference when you know or when you don’t know. The person who is not aware that he is divine goes on living the life of a beggar. Misery surrounds him, and all kinds of anguish and anxiety and tension.

The man who knows that he is divine simply rises above all misery, simply knows that nothing can ever touch him. he still lives in the world but lives in a totally new way: he lives like an emperor. He is no more an outsider; he belongs, he knows this is his home. and all that is needed to know it is to remember, is to become more and more alert, aware, mindful, watchful, because the more aware you are, the less you dream. When you are perfectly aware, even for a single moment, all dreaming disappears, and in that state of no-dreaming the divine is revealed. So the whole thing is to be more and more aware, and less and less involved in dreams and sleep.

By becoming a sannyasin you are taking a decision that ‘I will not co-operate with the dreaming mind any more,’ that ‘My whole energy will be poured into awakening, into becoming aware.’ Then one day it happens, and the day it happens you are really born. Before that, you were only thinking that you were alive. That was not much of an aliveness; it was just a lukewarm life. There was no passion in it, no intensity in it; you were living at the minimum.

The awakened man lives at the maximum, at the highest peak of life. He knows what joy is, what bliss is, what freedom is and what love is...

Arihanto is one of the most beautiful words in the East. It means the ultimate state of consciousness. Literally it means one who has conquered all his enemies: the ego and the whole battalion of anger, greed, lust, etcetera, etcetera. Ari means the enemy, hanto means one who has killed all the enemies. It has nothing to do with outer enemies: the real enemies are within you, and the real friend too. So the whole thing has to happen inside. and the whole thing can be reduced to two simple words: unconsciousness and consciousness.

Unconsciousness creates a thousand and one enemies. to be conscious is to be a master of oneself; to be unconscious is to be a slave of a thousand and one things. and to be a master, to create mastery, is the whole effort of sannyas.

It is possible, and it is possible only through one single phenomenon: by bringing more and more consciousness into your being.

All that is needed is transforming your acts, slowly slowly, into conscious acts. Whatsoever you do, do it very consciously. In the beginning it will be a strain. If you have gone for a morning walk and

you walk consciously, it will be a strain because you have to be alert about each step that you are taking.

Buddha used to say to his disciples ‘When you move your right leg, deep down be watchful: “Right, left, right, left.” Whatsoever you are doing, be watchful. Not that you have to use the words “right, left”, but be alert about what is happening.’ We have lived so long with unconsciousness that it has become habitual. So when for the first time one starts becoming aware, it is a strain, but that strain is worthwhile. It is a little painful; and one feels a little strange too, because one has never done it.

It is just like learning a new art. You feel awkward in the beginning if you learn painting, everything seems to go wrong. If you learn swimming, in the beginning it seems as if it is impossible, but slowly slowly the art is imbibed. And I call it an art because it is not like science; it is very vague, it is very mysterious. One really does not learn it, one imbibes it. Hence down the ages, art has been learned by living with great masters. and that is the way of religion too, because it is the ultimate art.

Being with someone who is alert bring you again and again to alertness. Being with someone who is conscious, hits you again and again into becoming conscious. When ever you go unconscious, immediately you become aware because somebody is there with whom you can continuously compare. It is a very slow-going art, but one it is learned life is transformed.

Mandiro means a temple, a sacred place of worship; and this is how one should respect oneself – as a temple, as a sacred place of worship. Drop all self-condemnatory ideals. Drop all ideas that people have given to you, that this is wrong, that this should not be done, that you should not be like this. People have taught everybody to disrespect themselves; and great respect is needed to grow. One has not only to accept oneself but one has to rejoice in being oneself. One has to be grateful to god that he has made one this way; one has to be thankful for the great gift. And when that happens – that gratefulness, that thankfulness, that respect and love for oneself – one is ready to move into a totally new dimension. And when you respect yourself as a temple you will not remain empty long; soon the deity will arrive. A person who respects and loves himself is closest to god.

But remember, when I am saying to respect yourself, love yourself, that does not mean that you have to disrespect others or you have to hate the others; it has not to be comparative. Respecting yourself is not a comparison with anybody else. It has no ‘more’ or ‘less’ about it. I use the word without any comparative sense. It is not that you are more respect-worthy than your neighbour. When you really respect yourself, it has no comparison in it.

And through great respect for yourself one day you will be surprised: you have started respecting the neighbour too, because he is also a temple, of a different form, in a different size, of a different colour, but the same god resides in him.

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