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‌CHAPTER 3

3 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Svadesh means homeland. Man’s search is for his real homeland. In this world man is a stranger, a foreigner; he lives a kind of uprooted life. Something essential is missing: he is missing the soil where he can grow his roots. His life remains an empty gesture. a constant occupation just so he remains occupied, so that he can forget, forget the longing for the homeland.

So from one sensation man goes to another sensation, and if he is left alone even for a few moments he is in a panic. Great anguish arises, because he immediately starts feeling the falsity of all that he calls life, the futility of all that he has been living, the phoniness of all that he is. So nobody wants to be left alone. Nobody wants any quiet, silent moments to ponder on one’s own being, because the moment one is alone, fear arises.

You start seeing that all that you think is valuable is just rubbish, that all your friendships are superficial, that all your so-called loves are not love at all – maybe something else masquerading as love. Sometimes even hate masquerades as love; because love cannot be dominating, love cannot be possessive. These are the qualities of hate! Love gives freedom: hate cripples, destroys. The so-called love that we live and think is love is not really love. Hate is labelled as love, poison is labelled as nectar, and we believe in the label and we forget about the content.

Whenever one is left alone, in solitude, all these things become so clear, so obvious, that naturally one starts feeling that one’s world is falling apart, disappearing; great panic is bound to arise. One is falling into an abyss! You immediately turn the TV on, you start reading the same newspaper that you have read twice since the morning. You start searching for some new occupation or some new entertainment or some new intoxicant. But nothing really helps. Unless one really searches for one’s own being nothing ever helps.

The word ‘svadesh’ is far more meaningful than the word homeland. Sva means self and desh means country. It is not only one’s own land, in fact it is one’s very self too. Your very self is your

country, and unless you are there you will remain on the surface, you will never know what depth is and what height is; you will never know what real life is.

Sannyas is a penetration into this country of the self, this inner world, the kingdom of god.

Sandip, sandipo, means eternal light, light that has no beginning and no end, light that is never born and never dies, light that needs no fuel. It is another name for your consciousness.

Consciousness is the real eternal light. It lives in the body but it doesn’t depend on the body. The body is just an abode – a beautiful abode, a temple, but still an abode. And one has to search for that which is beyond the body and yet lives in the body. It is very close by: it is you! One can plunge into it any moment. All that is needed is a state of disengagement from the outside world, and that’s what meditation is all about. Meditation is the art of disengagement.

The mind is constantly engaged, occupied, involved. Whenever there is a moment of no engagement, no occupation, no-mind arises in you. That no-mind is the eternal light. All that is needed is turning in, tuning in. It is simple, it is easy, it is natural. It is not something very arduous, it is just that we have forgotten about it completely; a remembrance is enough. I am here to remind you that it has happened to me, it can happen to you; that you are in a state of dream but you can be awakened!

To become a sannyasin means that you are saying ‘I am asleep. Please, wake me up!’ Once you are ready to wake up it is so simple. All that is needed then is just calling you forth, just as Jesus called Lazarus out of his grave ‘Lazarus, come out!’ And man asleep is in a grave; every man is a Lazarus. Until you are spiritually born you are dead.

Veet means beyond, tamaso. means darkness. The time has come to go beyond darkness. The morning is very very close... just a little effort.The barrier between you and reality is not very

thick, it is just a thin screen. It can be easily removed. It is made not of stone; it is made only of thoughts, the same stuff dreams are made of.

It exists only because we don’t know how to be in a state of no-thought. We don’t know how to stop this constant chattering inside. And all the religions of the world simply teach one thing: how to get rid of the mind. And it is simple, the method is not difficult at all, but people don’t even try it. Maybe they are afraid that they may succeed in stopping the mind.

That’s my observation: that people are really afraid of meditative states. They have become so accustomed to living with the mind and its madness, they have become so efficient and clever, they have become so adjusted to all the neurosis of the mind that they are afraid ‘If the mind suddenly disappears then what am I going to do? Then how will I live?’.because then there will be no desire

and no future, then there will be no ambition and no aspiration. There will be no past, no memories of the past, no nostalgia for the past. You will be simply herenow, just this moment will be all; and it seems very dangerous just to be in the moment. We have never lived in the moment. It is so unknown, and anything unknown creates fear.

And meditation is the most unknown thing in the world. The mind is the most known; meditation is just absence of the mind. All our joys and all our miseries are part of our mind. In meditation all

your miseries and all your happinesses will disappear; you will be in a totally new state, in a new dimension. In that dimension you will have to learn everything from ABC, and nobody wants to.

That’s why people are not getting into meditation. They talk about meditation, they make a few half- hearted efforts too, but those are just pretensions. Otherwise it is such a simple thing that if you are really intent, if there is intensity, it will happen, any moment. If you are really afire for it there is no need to wait for tomorrow: it will happen today, it will happen now. And that is the only barrier, a very thin one like a Japanese paper screen; painted beautifully but it is just paper – you can remove it very easily.

The name is to constantly remind you that you have lived long enough in darkness – many lives. It is time to wake up, so don’t miss this opportunity of being a sannyasin. And if you become awakened then you will know what Christ is, what Buddha is. Otherwise you can go on repeating the name of Buddha, of Christ, it is all futile. You can go on creating Christ in your mind, but that is your imagination; it has nothing to do with the real Christ-consciousness. When the mind disappears and you are meditation – I am not saying you are in meditation, I am saying you are meditation – that moment is the moment of Christ-consciousness. One contacts the eternal. Christ and Buddha and Krishna and Lao Tzu are all just expressions of the same, the same truth in different forms.

By becoming a sannyasin you are entering into the essential core of all religions. This is not A religion: this is the religion. I am not a Christian, I am not a Hindu, I am not a Mohammedan, I am not a Buddhist; and yet all that is essential in all the traditions of the world is contained in what I am saying and in what I am doing.

By becoming a sannyasin you are entering into an esoteric school, into an alchemical school. This is not a formal religion, this is not a Sunday religion. This is fire! If you really enter into it you will have to die and you will have to be reborn. You enter into me as one person; when you come out of me you are totally another.

Sannyas is a process of transformation. Hence I am not concerned with dogmas and creeds and ideologies; I am concerned only with the inner science of how to transform your consciousness from the lowest base metal into the highest, into gold.

Lolit. It means the moved. There is a movement in the heart which very rarely happens. That has happened. You will never again be the same person as you came; something new has arrived. Slowly slowly you will become aware of it: something new has entered. To remind you of this moment I am giving you the name ‘the moved’ – one who is moved by god, one who has allowed god to move the heart.

Our hearts are upside-down. Only god can put the heart into the right shape, right-side-up. We are living a very clumsy and chaotic life; only god can bring accord, harmony. Only god can become a dance in the heart. That is the meaning of lolit.

So from this moment think of yourself as a new person, because that will be truer to reality. Think of the past as if it belonged to somebody else. Turn on, tune in, and drop the lot! Think of this as your birth; count your age from this day. If somebody asks you tomorrow how old you are, tell him ‘Twenty-four hours’ because up to now whatsoever you have been doing was just a preparation for this; it was only a preparation, an introduction. Now real life will start.

It may take time for you to recognise what I have seen happening in the unconscious of your being, because anything that happens deep in the unconscious takes time to travel to the conscious. It depends how much distance one has created between one’s conscious and the unconscious; it depends on that how much time it will take to recognise it. But the master can see what you may see sometime in the future. Your future can be a present thing for the master.

Something has moved, something has changed beautifully. Slowly slowly you will become aware of a new heartbeat, of a new love, of a new quality surrounding you – as if suddenly spring has burst forth. It is like a tree growing, growing; much foliage, many leaves, many branches are there but the tree is incomplete. Then spring comes and suddenly it blossoms and it flowers.

That should be exactly the case with man too. We can go on gathering many leaves and branches and great foliage, but that is not real life, that is not the thing we are destined to be. Until we bloom... and then there is a revolution: the green rose bush has suddenly produced red roses. Out of the green, red! It is discontinuous with the past, it has nothing to do with the bush. The bush was a totally different phenomenon, just an introduction.

So the first change happens when a person decides to enter into initiation. And the second thing happens when the flower has opened and the fragrance is released. These are the two revolutions the disciple has to pass through. The first is red roses out of the green bush – a great revolution, but nothing compared to the second revolution when the fragrance is released. The flower was visible; the fragrance invisible. The flower was gross; the fragrance is subtle. The flower was still in the gravitation field; the fragrance is beyond the gravitation field. It is free, it is freedom, it can move upwards. It is no more part of the earth: it is divine!

Orange has been chosen as a symbolic colour. In India it symbolises the spring, it is the colour of the flowers.

Keep alert! Great things are going to happen be watchful. Your name will remind you continuously that the first movement has happened, the first step has been taken; and the first step is almost half the journey because everything else then becomes very natural. It follows as a matter of course.

Prem means love, amrit means nectar. Love is the only nectar there is. Love transcends death: everything else dies. Only love lives and goes on living forever; so those who live in love, those who live as love, become immortal. Those who live without love die again and again.

Death and love are the real opposites, not life and death; they are not opposites. Death is the culmination of life; how can it be the opposite of life? Each life ultimately ends in death, so life is a progression towards death, it serves death; death is the fruit of life. They are not opposites at all. But love is the opposite. Love never dies, it knows nothing of death.

That’s why when you are in love you are not afraid of death. One can die in love and die joyously, dancing, celebrating, because love is completely unafraid of death. Love knows nothing of death. For love it has never happened, love has never crossed death anywhere. And the person who is afraid of death is incapable of love. So those who become too afraid of death become incapable of love.

The West has become very afraid of death, hence love has disappeared; and the reason is the idea of one life. That has made people very afraid of death. The East thinks that there are many many lives, one goes on coming. It is a circular process: just as seasons go round and round, again the spring will come and again and again; just as the sun moves around the earth, again there will be a morning and again. Everything moves in a circle – so does life. The East has taken in the circular phenomenon very deeply: one dies and is born again.

The East believes in reincarnation, hence there is not much fear of death. Who bothers? One simply changes one’s body. Who cares? It is really good that the old is dropped and you will get a new body. It is like changing garments: the body becomes rotten so one changes it, but life goes on moving. Because in the East the idea has been prevalent for centuries, people are more loving. They don’t fear death, there is not much fear.

In the West the Christian idea, basically the Jewish idea, that there is only one life, naturally creates much fear that if you miss once, you miss forever. Hence the speed. Nothing should be missed. Squeeze every moment: eat, drink, be merry, as much as you can. Manage to live as fast as you can, because death is coming and then there will be no other opportunity; this is the only opportunity. This creates great anxiety, and because people become too focused on death, love disappears. Then instead of love there is only ordinary sex, and that is called love; it is not love.

Love can have sex in it but sex has no love in it. When love is there even sex is transformed into something higher, into something spiritual. When there is no love sex is an ordinary, biological mechanism nothing spiritual about it. And because death is too prominent one cannot have enough space and time to love. Love needs time, intimacy, to grow. Sex can be without intimacy. Sex can be a hit-and-run affair. Love needs to grow roots. Love is a Cedar of Lebanon: it takes hundreds of years to grow, it is not a seasonal flower.

So remember, love and death are real opposites. The more you grow in love, the less fear of death there is. When you are really totally in love there is no death; death has disappeared, death has been transcended.

And that is why I call love the only nectar. If one searches for immortality somewhere else, one searches in vain. It can only be found in the temple of love.

Deva means god, viharo means dwelling in – dwelling in god, living in god, being in god. Think of god as the totality, existence. Think of god as the ocean of life and of yourself just as a ripple in it or a fish in it; part of it, an intrinsic part of it.

There is no possibility of separation because there is nowhere to go; all is god. God is everywhere, so there is no way to go away, there is no way to go out. We are in it, we are an intrinsic part of it.

But one can fall asleep and then the ocean disappears. When the fish falls asleep the ocean disappears. When the fish starts dreaming, then she is in the ocean and yet she is not in the ocean; it is in her dreams. And that is the situation of man: man lives in god but is so full of dreams that he goes on missing god... which is everywhere! This is the greatest wonder of the world, that man misses god, that man asks ‘Where is god?’, that man has to seek and search for god – and god is everywhere!

Each breath that you take in is god and each beat of your heart is god. Each pulsation of energy in you is god, because god is the totality of the existence. God is not a person sitting somewhere in heaven on a golden throne: god is an impersonal, universal energy.

That is the meaning of your name, and this has to become your meditation. Get more and more into the feel of it and slowly slowly the dreams, the sleep, start withering away. Slowly slowly it is no more an idea but becomes a reality. And the day this becomes your own experience you have arrived home!

Anand means bliss, sidhamo means: one who has arrived. Bliss is the ultimate goal of life. Rocks are seeking it, trees are seeking it, birds and animals are seeking it, man is seeking it. The whole existence is searching for bliss. And until one arrives this agony of the search continues. And the moment one arrives life has a totally different flavour. One lives without seeking, and when one lives without seeking there is grace. When one lives without any future there is a radiance; one pulsates herenow. Then there is great creativity. Otherwise the desire and the search takes the whole energy; there is nothing left to be creative.

The man who has found bliss starts pouring his being over and into existence. He becomes a blessing to existence. That is the state of ‘sidhamo’: when you are blessed and you can bless the whole of existence.

This is my work here: to help you to come to that ultimate point, the omega point. And it is your birthright. All that is needed is that you have to ask for it. Jesus says ‘Ask and it shall be given unto you. Knock and the door shall be opened.’ You are standing at the door and you have not knocked! It is your birthright but you have not asked for it. It has to be claimed, that’s all. And when one claims with one’s totality, immediately life is transformed. Then you are no more a caterpillar: you become a butterfly.

But before the caterpillar can become a butterfly there comes a moment, a very strange moment: the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis. The caterpillar can move, the butterfly can fly, but there comes a moment between these two when all movement stops; the caterpillar becomes almost dead. That moment of becoming almost dead is the moment of gathering energy. He does not eat, he does not move. He gathers energy, he gathers momentum, and when the right amount of energy is there, suddenly the caterpillar has disappeared: it is a butterfly. It is a totally different dimension. Now the whole sky is available, all freedom is available.

The same happens to man before he becomes a Buddha or a Siddha: all his movement has to stop in meditation. Meditation is a state of fasting – not of physical fasting but of psychological fasting. You have to stop eating psychological food. You have to stop thinking, you have to stop desiring, you have to stop dreaming; that is the real fast. You have to stop crawling in the mind. And once this has happened, energy starts gathering; it is no more wasted. You become a great pool of energy, and when the right amount is there, immediately you are no more a man. You have become awareness, you have become bliss.

Then you participate with the universal. You are no more an individual. That is the state of sidhamo. [A sannyasin says: I ask your forgiveness for not listening to you.]

It is too late, but... you are forgiven – that is not the point – but it is too late!...

If people listen at the right time much can be done. Unnecessarily much is wasted; but that’s how it goes on. It is not only with you; it is with almost everybody. But by the time they understand, it is too late and nothing can be done.

But you have understood; at least that is good. In the future, remember it! When I say something, I mean it! And it is better to do it in the right time.

Forget all about it! You are forgiven. Forget all about it and start some work. Good!

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