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‌CHAPTER 26

26 February 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Hari priya. It means beloved of god. And there are two things which are the most difficult in life: one is to love and another is to allow love to happen, to allow somebody to love you. And the second is far more difficult than the first. To love is difficult because one has to flow and one has to give, one has to share. It is difficult – but not as difficult as the other.

... As to receive love – because that is very much against the ego.

When you give you have the upper hand, but to receive means that you become humble. To receive means that you bow down. To receive means that you become just a receptivity; you are no more.

When you give you are, when you receive you are not. So the second is far more difficult.

You can find people who love but it is very rare to find a person who can allow himself to be loved.

And to become a beloved of god is the most difficult thing – it means to allow the whole existence to love you... to allow all sorts of situations to happen, but still remembering that god loves. Even when you are miserable, even when you are unhappy, it is love from god.

One very famous philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, a danish philosopher, writes about one of his friends who was a great musician. One day he was very much applauded in the theatre. For minutes together people were clapping and he was appreciated like anything. He came back home and he prayed to god and thanked god with great enthusiasm.

Kierkegaard asked him, ‘If they had booed you and you were insulted and humiliated, would you have prayed and thanked god? If you had done that, only then would you have understood what prayer is.’

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It is very easy to thank god and to feel his love when you are happy – it is very difficult to feel his love when everywhere you see misery and darkness and death. But that is the point to remember: that he loves!

Even in the darkest night it is his love that is expressed. We may understand; we may not understand. We may not be able to see the significance of it. We may not be able to see where it is leading.

That’s what trust is: not knowing exactly what is happening, but knowing that god loves.

So if this name can become a constant remembrance it will help you tremendously: love, be loved, and feel continuously that god is loving you!

The wind, the trees, the river, the people – all are his expressions, and he is reaching you from everywhere in millions of ways. These are all his hands! He is seeking you and searching for you.

Man thinks that man has to seek and search for god – that is only half the truth. And if it were only man seeking and searching then there would be no possibility to meet. God is also seeking and searching – that is the beauty of the whole play. It is a love play – what hindus call ‘leela’. It is a love play – man is seeking god, god is seeking man.

And of course we can seek only in a limited way. He can seek us in an unlimited way.

You must have come across pictures of some statues of a hindu god with thousands of hands; that is very symbolic. He has thousands of hands – not only two hands. When we seek, we seek only with two hands; of course, the search is very limited. But when he seeks, millions are his hands, all are his hands.

When a small child puts his hand in your hand, it is god’s hand. When a stranger looks at you with love, it is god’s love. When a bird comes on your window and sings his song, it is his song.

The name should be very very meaningful, and it should create a climate around you. This is one of the most beautiful names I am giving – ‘hari priya’, mm? Hari means god, priya means beloved.

[A sannyasin who is leaving for the West says: There’s so much going on!... It’s too much!]

Be courageous and allow it... never prevent it. Even if sometimes you feel it is becoming impossible, still allow it. Because this is the only way that one goes beyond oneself. If you allow only that much which you can tolerate, you will remain limited to your being – whatsoever you are. Only when the intolerable is tolerated is there a breakthrough, then something really opens.

Then you jump ahead of yourself, beyond yourself, and the new is contacted. Certainly it is difficult, painful, sometimes maddening, confusing, looks almost a chaos, a disorder – because the old is disordered and the new order has not yet happened; you are just in the middle of the two. So many things are going on. You are a construction site, many things are going on.

The old building is being demolished, the new building is being constructed and much work is going on... it is a confusion, but allow it!

The natural tendency is to prevent it, to control it, to make it bearable – but then you miss the point. When it is unbearable, only then is it going to help, otherwise not. When it almost becomes a hammering on your soul and you start feeling that you will die, it is too much and you start crying for help, those ate the moments when something is happening... something of which you are not even aware. Some door opens which has not been opened for centuries.

You have completely forgotten that that door even exists. It is a great process of cleansing, catharsis, renewal, resurrection. Much will be cut and thrown away from you, much will have to be chiselled away.

A man ordinarily is just a bLock of marble. Much has to be chiselled away, then it turns into a beautiful statue.

Many people die as just blocks of marble. The image never comes up, is never freed from the block – it remains imprisoned. Every man is an imprisoned splendour; the splendour has to be released.

The indian word for ultimate liberation is ‘moksha’. Rightly translated it means release – releasing that which you have been carrying all along, releasing the image from the block of marble.

Here it is different – so many people like you are here, fellow travellers. There is a certain affinity, a family atmosphere, a commune.

There you will be alone – in a way, good; in a way, difficult. Good, because the process will become very very strong and there will be no way to get out of it unless you really go into it and go beyond. Good in that way – difficult because you will not have much support around you; the supporting climate will not be there.

You can use it for your benefit. When there is no support you have to stand on your own. When there is no support, no supporting atmosphere, one becomes tremendously centred – one has to depend on one’s own legs. That too is good.

[The hypnotherapy group was present. One member said: Incredible. I experienced things, and all the time my mind was screaming, ‘It can’t be true, it can’t be true’]

It is true!...

The mind cannot believe when something happens which is out of the mind. The mind cannot believe it because the whole reality of the mind is at stake. If that is real, the mind becomes unreal. The mind has to say that it is unreal, to protect its own reality – the so-called reality.

So whenever something deeper comes into vision, the mind immediately will say, ‘No, this is just a dream! This is unreal!’ That’s the only way for the mind to protect itself. If that is real, then the mind becomes unreal – comparatively, relatively.

In India they say that the mind is like a one-eyed man who becomes the king amidst blind people.

The mind is the king – when you live in unreality. When the reality erupts, the kingdom of the mind is at stake. The mind has to deny it; it will argue and create a thousand and one sorts of proofs that this can’t be.

Sometimes, unbelievable things happen. It is my everyday observation that when people become happy for the first time, the mind says ‘This is unreal!’ The mind had never said so when they were unhappy – never! They have lived a miserable life and the mind had never said, ‘Your misery is unreal.’ It was real! About misery, the mind has no problem.

Now, some happiness has come in, a door has opened, a flower has bloomed, a song is born and the mind says, ‘This is unreal. Misery was real – this blissful moment is unreal.’

So keep it as a criterion – that whatsoever gives you blissfulness is real; let that be the criterion of reality. And whatsoever makes you miserable is unreal. This is the right arithmetic. Because the real question is not about reality and unreality: the real question is about being happy or unhappy.

Whatsoever gives you blissfulness is real. So whenever you see that out of a certain experience bliss is arising, let it be a decisive thing that this is real – don’t listen to the mind. And whenever you see some misery is arising and the mind goes on saying, ‘This is real’ – don’t bother! Remember, ‘This is a dream... has to be a dream!’ Because bliss is man’s nature. We are made of the stuff called bliss – ‘satchitananda’.

So whenever reality is happening we are bound to be blissful, and whenever unreality is happening we are bound to be miserable. Misery simply means something which should not happen is happening. Something which should not be the case is becoming the case.

When you feel happy it simply means that things are what they should be. things are as they are. Then there is great tranquility, great silence, great joy.

So always use joy as the touchstone.

[Another group member said she found the group painful. The group leader comments that she needs to be with more loving people. Hard groups which she had previously done, she enjoyed.]

Mm, that’s what I feel. You could enjoy the hard groups because you have become a little hard, and the soft group became painful because it brought you to your soft feelings and those are the feelings you have not allowed. That’s whyIt is rare – ordinarily just the contrary happens. In hypnotherapy,

very few people feel pain; they enjoy the relaxation, but you could not relax.

The hard groups were good – they went perfectly well with you; you were in tune with them. You fell out of tune in the (hypnotherapy) group because you could not relax that much.

Shouting, catharting, was perfectly good; crying, weeping, was perfectly good. Doing things was perfectly good, but just relaxing – it became difficult. You came to understand how you have been creating barriers against relaxing, how you have created barriers against your own softness – hence the heart felt very heavy. The heart is the softest centre and you have created a china wall around it.

And [the leader] is right – you need a little more love. You need to love, you need to be loved. Only love will melt you. I will give you a few other soft groups, mm?

... T’ai chi will be very good, mm? But you have come across something – which is very good, because to know it is already to have gone beyond it; at least half the work is done. If you know it perfectly well, then there is not much of a problem.

So just remember it – whenever anything soft happens, don’t harden yourself... allow! If somebody is loving, don’t protect. If you feel love coming towards somebody, don’t hide: show it... Let it be expressed. And it need not be a person necessarily – you can be loving to a rock, you can be loving to a tree. The question is of being loving. So start with rocks and trees and animals, because with man you may feel a little difficulty in the beginning. Mm? and man is a different animal.

Start with simple people – dogs, cows. They are simple people and there is no involvement, no commitment. Mm? you can love the dog and you can go on your way, he goes on his, and he will never bother you again. He will not say, ‘You had loved – now what about that? Have you changed your mind or have you betrayed me?’ He will never say that.

So start with simple, small children. There are beautiful children around the ashram, mm ? So love, play with them, and then by and by, graduate to people. Right? Good!

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