19

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‌CHAPTER 19

19 February 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Prem means love; ida is Teutonic, it means happy– happy love. Love can be born either out of blissfulness or out of misery. When love is out of misery it creates more misery; it takes you deeper and deeper into hell. When love is out of blissfulness it gives you wings; you start soaring high. The difference is very significant, and should be understood. And the difference is so subtle that unless one looks very deeply into it, one is not going to detect it; both the loves look alike.

A man falls in love because he cannot be alone: then it is out of misery. He is not really in love with the other, he simply hates his own company; it is negative. It is not going to give you fulfilment; it will create a bondage, a dependence. This love will become possessive, is bound to become possessive. This love will be a kind of exploitation, and all kinds of exploitations are destructive – and love is more so, because it destroys the freedom of the other, it destroys the consciousness of the other, it destroys the very soul of the other. And when you destroy the other, the other starts destroying you; it can never be one-way.

Real love arises not out of loneliness, not out of misery; real love arises out of tremendous happiness. When you are alone, if you are blissful then you have the right beginning for love. If you are alone and you have no need of the other, then only can you move in the right direction towards a creative love. When you don’t need the other you can share.

So either love is a need – then it is wrong; or it is just a fragrance of your being that you would like to share with all the winds – then it has tremendous beauty, then it is liberation.

Anand means blissful, yvan is a Russian form of the Hebrew john. In Hebrew, john means Jehovah has been graceful, god is gracious, life is the grace of god. Your full name will mean: a blissful, gracious gift from god.

One should start from this vision, this should be the first step into sannyas: a tremendous acceptance, a great love for yourself – because god has loved you! His love is absolutely certain, otherwise he would not have created you in the first place. And it is not only that once he has created you then he is finished with you; he Still goes on breathing in you, he is yom heart-beat, he pulsates in your blood, he is your very life. So it is not that the gift is finished at a certain point; the gift goes on coming, god goes on showering.

If this can be the beginning of sannyas, then you have the right frame of mind to transform yom energies, you have the positive attitude. The negative is destructive, the positive creative. To think of oneself as just an accident.That’s what science goes on saying to people, that everything is

accidental, that there is no purpose in life, that there is no meaning in life, that you are not really needed; if you are, or if you are not, it doesn’t matter. Science has humiliated man, destroyed his confidence in himself, destroyed the very possibility of his inner growth – because the positive frame has disappeared.

If you think of yourself as just an accident of circumstances, how can you be happy? How can you be blissful? How can you feel the benediction of existence? Then it is impossible.

Begin with the positive, and god is very close by! Begin with the negative, and god is still close by, but your eyes are closed to him.

Deva means divine; albina is Latin, it means whiteness. The full name will mean divine whiteness The colour white is the purest colour, because in fact it is not colour at all; it is colourless colour, hence it has become the symbol of purity. It has nothing foreign in it. All other colours are imposed on white; white is the natural state, colours are conditionings.

For example, a child is born, he is white. Then he becomes a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan – those are colours. That’s why I am changing your name, Christina; those are colours, imposed by the society.

White is also the symbol of renunciation. Physics says that there are seven colours; white and black are not included in them. Black represents greed, because whatsoever rays fall on black, it absorbs them; it does not leave any ray. It is very greedy, hence greed all over the world is painted as black. Death is painted as black, devils are painted as black.

White is just the opposite: whatsoever colour rays fall on the white, it returns them all, it absorbs nothing. It simply turns them back to their original source; it remains unaffected.

Remember, this quality has to be learned: one has to become unaffected by all that happens in life – good, bad, beautiful, ugly, success, failure. There are millions of things happening, but one has to remain a white colour, leaving them, renouncing them, not clinging to them, remaining always in a state of unclinging non-attachment. Then one starts feeling a tremendous whiteness inside, a great purity, a great light – and that light is divine. That is the first glimpse of god.

Linda is Latin, it means beautiful; devamo is Sanskrit, it means divine – divine beauty. All beauty is divine. Wherever you see beauty, think of god. Wherever you come across beauty, bow down to god. It may be in the sunset, it may be in the song of a bird, it may be in the fragrance of a flower, in a

human face, in a child giggling, in the sound of running water. Wherever it is, without any conditions, feel the presence of god, because beauty is his temple. All other temples are man-made – and god is not found there; god is found in his own temple that he himself has created. And the name of that temple is beauty.

Love beauty, respect beauty, revere it, and slowly slowly your life will become full of prayer, because beauty is everywhere. If one has to be prayerful only in church, then one can go once in a while; but if one has to pray each time beauty is felt, then it becomes a continuous affair, a continuum. And when prayer is a continuum, it transforms. It only transforms when it becomes an undercurrent.

Michael is Hebrew, it means one who is like god. Vedam is Sanskrit; it means wisdom, the ultimate wisdom. It is wisdom that makes a man like god. It is wisdom that helps a man to – transcend humanity and enter into the world of the divine. But wisdom is not knowledge, wisdom is not information. Wisdom has nothing to do with the head; it is a totally different phenomenon. It is a growth in the heart, it is the growth of love.

Love brings insight, love brings a different kind of knowing in its wake; love makes one perceptive of things which cannot be seen with the ordinary eyes. Love makes the impossible possible, because it helps you to see that which cannot be seen and helps you to hear that which cannot be heard.

Wisdom is a miracle, knowledge is ordinary. Any stupid person can gather as much knowledge as he wants. All that is needed for knowledge is a good memory mechanism. Now that can be done by computers very easily, so there is nothing special about it. If computers can do it, then the mind is just a biocomputer, the mind can do it.

There is only one thing the computer cannot do: the computer cannot become a Buddha, the computer cannot be enlightened, the computer cannot be wise you can feed knowledge into the computer and whatsoever you have fed, it is always ready to answer you, but it can never be more than what you have fed into it.

Wisdom is a transformation. It is not a question of being fed with more and more information; rather, it is the beginning of a light in the heart. It does not come from the outside, it explodes within. Meditation is the spark that triggers the process. Once the heart is wise, one is like god, one is divine.

Deva means divine, alan is Celtic: it means harmony – divine harmony. And that is the most important thing to imbibe. Life can be a discord, life can also be in deep accord. If it is a discord you will miss all that is beautiful, all that is true, all that is divine. You will miss god, because god is not a person but the feeling of being in utter harmony. When your life functions like an orchestra, you feel god. God is a feeling, not a person somewhere that you have to encounter and say hello to.

God is not a person but a presence felt in deep harmony.

But if the harmony is not there, which is generally the case – that life is a conflict, a crowd, a market- place, noise and noise and noise, much ado about nothing – then you cannot hear that still, small voice, then you cannot hear the presence; you are too full of your own noise.

Sannyas is an initiation into harmony, an effort to drop the mind, an effort to disperse the crowd, an effort to say to the mind ‘Be quiet’ and slowly slowly learning the art of how to put it on and off. That is the secret of all meditation. Once you know how to put it on and off, you have become a master of your own being. When you need it, you can turn the ignition on, use it; when you don’t need it, you can turn it off and immediately you fall into harmony.

That harmony is deathless, eternal; it is not of the body, it is of the soul. Knowing it one knows that god is; knowing it, one knows that the soul is; knowing it, one knows that everything else is trivia, the real treasure is somewhere within.

[The new sannyasin said travelling here was a shock to him: I haven’t decided anything consciously; it’s been like a series of happy accidents.]

Mm, that’s how it happens! When it happens as a series of happy accidents, it has a beauty of its own; then it is simply a gift from god.

Deva means divine; ann is part of hannah, it is Hebrew. It can mean many things: it can mean grace, mercy, and prayer, but I would like to emphasise the meaning ‘prayer’ – because whenever there is prayer, grace comes on its own, like a shadow; and whenever there is prayer, life becomes mercy, compassion. So prayer is the central thing; everything else moves around it.

Deva Ann will mean: divine prayer.

Prayer can also be of two types. One, that which is done by you. That cannot be of very great depth, because it will remain something of the mind. There is a totally different kind of prayer that is not done by you but only allowed by you. Then it has depth. Then it comes from such deep sources of your being that it will appear in the beginning as if it is coming from somewhere outside, because we are not aware of our own deeper layers.

When for the first time real prayer arises, it feels as if God has spoken to you. In fact your own unconscious has spoken to you, but because it is so separate and because we are unacquainted with it, it appears as if it is coming from some other source. Slowly slowly, as prayer starts settling, you become more and more aware that it is your own depth talking to your superficial mind.

Prayer has to be allowed, not done. How to allow prayer? Just sit silently, close the door, fall utterly quiet. Say to God ‘Possess me and do whatsoever you want to do with me. These are moments for you, this is your space: I am available, I am simply available. If you want to dance through me, dance; if you want to sing through me, sing; if you simply want to sit silently in me, then sit silently. I am at your disposal.’

That’s all that one has to do. Then wait, and you will be surprised: many things will start happening. Sometimes you will see your own hands moving in gestures, your body swaying; or maybe you stand up and you start dancing. Or you start singing a song which has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with scripture, nothing especially Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan. Maybe it is just a song that you used to sing in your childhood, just a song heard somewhere or just a tune that you start humming. Or you may start saying gibberish which means nothing, baby talk, what Christians know as glossolalia – just meaningless sounds, but of tremendous beauty and in an inner harmony. The meaning is not clear, yet it is felt that there is great meaning.

So each day at least for forty minutes, be in this space, and miracles will start happening to you. And we are entitled to all those miracles!

Anand means bliss, peregrine is Latin; it means a wanderer, a traveller, a pilgrim. The full name will mean: a blissful wanderer. Life has infinite beauty if you are not searching for a goal, if you are just a wanderer enjoying the very act of wandering, not going somewhere in particular, not going in a particular direction. Whenever one starts moving in a particular direction, tension arises, because you have to choose, and all choice brings conflict. Who knows whether this direction is right, or the other that you are not choosing? There are so many directions, so many paths – who knows which one is going to lead you to the goal? There is no guarantee. The direction, the path, that you have chosen may end in a cul-de-sac; then your whole life will be a wastage.

To choose is to remain in misery, to choose is to become anxious. To choose means that you have stopped living in the present and you have already started living in the result, in the goal, in the future: that’s what misery consists of.

Be a wanderer, just like a dry, dead leaf in the wind, so wherever the wind goes, the leaf goes. It has no private goal of its own. It does not say ‘Where are you taking me? I want to go to the right; I want to go to the south, and the wind is blowing north.’ The leaf simply goes with the wind wherever it is going. The utter joy of relaxation and the tremendous beauty of let-go: that is the meaning of being a wanderer. God comes to wanderers!

That’s why I have chosen the meaning of wanderer, not the meaning of traveller; because the traveller has a direction, a goal, a destination. That’s why I have not chosen the other meaning of pilgrim; that is even more dangerous than the traveller. One has a religious goal; one is going to Mecca or to Jerusalem, then one is a pilgrim.

Life is not going anywhere; life is simply here! It has never gone anywhere. It is the sheer joy of just being herenow. It is an eternal dance, for no purpose, it is a playfulness. Only the wanderers know what it is.

Become a blissful wanderer. You need not go to god: if you can become a blissful wanderer, god is going to come to you!

Anand means blissful, grazia is Latin. In Latin, grazia can have four meanings. One is grace, which is the literal meaning of grazia. Another is joy, the third is beauty – which are all part of grace. Grace brings joy, joy brings beauty. These three are mythological graces. But my preference is for the fourth meaning which is not so prevalent; that fourth meaning is thankfulness, gratitude.

To me, to be thankful to god is the whole of religion, to be thankful for all – good and bad, pain and pleasure, joy and suffering, for all that life implies – to be thankful unconditionally, to just be thankful. In that very thankfulness, grace starts descending, one becomes joyous.

If one can be thankful for everything, good and bad, how can one ever be miserable? And if one is thankful continuously for everything, that very thankfulness gives you an inner beauty.

Learn to be grateful – and there is so much to be grateful for, so much. We cannot be grateful enough.

John Sanando... John is Hebrew; it means god is gracious. It is also the name of one of the apostles of Jesus, the most beloved disciple of Jesus; so slowly slowly the meaning of john has become: the most loved disciple.

To be a disciple is one of the greatest arts. It needs many things. It needs the courage to trust. It needs guts to be in love – and it is a love which is non-sensuous, a love which is not physical. It needs the capacity to surrender, which is almost impossible for millions of people, because we are brought up as egos. Our whole training has been to create a strong ego: our whole training is against being a disciple.

The miracle of disciplehood has disappeared from the world. But if one can be a disciple, things which look almost impossible immediately start becoming possible, because there is nothing which love, trust and surrender, cannot make possible.

And sanando means blissful. That is the outcome of being a true disciple. Blissfulness comes of its own accord; one need not seek and search for it.

[A sannyasin says he is often attracted to other women which upsets his partner. He thinks the reason is because of too much tension, from which a sexual thing developes.]

This is one of the most eternal problems; it has nothing to do with you in particular. It is really natural to be interested in many women, nothing is wrong in it. But down the ages the woman has learned a totally different attitude; she has been forced to learn it. The situation was such because she had to look after the child, she had to look to her comfort, her security, because when she was pregnant she could not work. So for centuries and centuries she has been afraid that if her man starts moving with other women then where is her security?

And god has really been heavy on women. If I am to decide, then one pregnancy will be the woman’s and another will be.… Then things would have settled; it is such a simple thing, but... I have no say about it! The woman has to suffer all the pregnancies, so she demands some compensation. If she is suffering for you and your child, then at least this much she would like as a contract, that you will not start moving with other women.

Although now we are living in the post-pill era, the old habit persists; it will take a little time to go. Now there is really no need for the woman to be afraid, but the fear has gone deep into the guts. It is not a one or two days’ habit; for thousands of years the woman has remained afraid, trembling. She knows perfectly well that if the man is interested in her, he is bound to be interested in other women too; about that she is certain.

If she can be certain that you are no more interested in any woman, that means that she is also included in it. Then she will leave you at ease; but then too there is a problem, because she misses you – you are no more interested in her. If you are not interested in any woman, she is included, and then she misses the companionship, the friendship, the love. If you are interested in her, out of the corner of her eyes she remains suspicious; if you are interested in her body, why can’t you be interested in other beautiful bodies? And there are so many beautiful women, she knows; she has nothing special. So she has to arrange it in such a way that no other woman is available to you, so that you have to fall upon her again and again, so that you become dependent.

And naturally, you never think of her. Everybody is so selfish. She thinks of herself, hence she becomes jealous and creates so much trouble for you that the small enjoyment you can have with another woman is so little compared to it that you decide it is better not to create the trouble, mm

? That is simple logic; she makes the trouble so heavy that you sacrifice your pleasures; or slowly slowly, seeing that it creates trouble, you start becoming uninterested in the whole thing. But then you become uninterested in the woman, your own woman, and then she also suffers.

The only way out... and now it is possible, in fact this age is fortunate in many ways – now it is possible: the woman need not be so afraid because all those old insecurities are gone. She is as educated as man, she can work, she has all the facilities that the man has. She need not be continuously pregnant, she need not go on bearing children again and again, year in and year out, torturing herself and wearing herself out. There is no need; now she can decide whether to have a child or not. But the old habit will take time: I think twenty-five years more, particularly in the West, and twenty-five centuries more in the East!

Just talk to her. Make it absolutely plain that you become interested.And in fact it is not disruptive

to marriage. No, not at all; in fact it is helpful. If once in a while you can go with some other woman just for a change, your wife is really benefited; When you come back to her again she is new, and seeing many women again and again, finally you come to see the point that there is not much difference either! So why bother and why destroy your intimacy? Why create a hell around yourself?

Talk to her, and if it is too difficult to be with her then drop this idea of being with one woman; just be free. Then move with this woman and that, and do whatsoever you want to do. But then too you will miss something; you will miss intimacy. Sexual relationship is one thing, intimacy is totally different; and intimacy is more nourishing than sexual relationships.

Man is a complex being, and one has to be very very understanding to solve one’s problems. There are no readymade answers to them.

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