23

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‌CHAPTER 23

23 January 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Anand means bliss, hiram is Hebrew: it means most noble. Bliss is noble when it arises spontaneously, without any effort on your part, when it is a sheer gift from god. You have not begged for it, you have not desired it, you have not asked for it. When it is given out of the overflowing energy of existence and you are only a passive receiver, just an empty vessel, just like a womb, feminine – waiting with great expectancy but with no expectations, ready to wait for infinity, for eternity, but not in any way in a hurry to snatch something from existence – that’s nobility of the soul.

The noble person never begs, but receives all that he needs. To beg is ignoble; to wait is noble. When one begs, one gets only the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial. When one is not a beggar, one is an emperor – and to the emperor the whole existence, the whole kingdom of god belongs.

Prem Laurent. Prem means love, laurent means a symbol of victory. Only the lover becomes victorious. Love contains victory in it, it is the only symbol of victory; but the process of love is very contradictory. It is a paradox: if you want to be victorious you will never he victorious. Love never wants to conquer, but it does conquer; in its non-conquering approach is its victory. It not only does not want to conquer: it surrenders. It wants the other, the beloved, to be victorious; but to be defeated in love is to be victorious. That is the only real victory too.

When you enforce victory on somebody it is violent; it remains superficial, and sooner or later the other is going to revolt. Only when there is love, is revolt not possible; revolt is impotent against love.

[The new sannyasin says: I would like to visit your house.] You can! Lalita will take you up. But don’t tell anybody else!

[A sannyasin, leaving says: I was really afraid when I came this time... To be here and to be destroyed by the ashram.]

But that should not be a fear!

That should not create fear, that should create great joy!

Mm mm because that’s the real thing! To be destroyed means to be moving into a new life. Each death is a new birth. And to die in a master is to be born in god.

But I can understand, fear arises; the fear is in the mind. The heart feels the joy and the mind feels the fear. Because you are not yet aware enough to make the distinction between the two, you become confused and puzzled.

Whenever the heart says anything, you will always find it moving in the right direction. Whenever the heart is allowed, yoU will feel joy; and whenever you allow the head it will create fear – because only the head is going to die, not the heart. And the death of the head is going to become a new life for the heart.

The head is not your friend, it is your enemy, because it has become the master – it is meant to be a servant. The heart is the true master, but things are in a topsy-turvy situation: the heart is not even the servant, the head has taken over the whole thing. The death of the head simply means that the head is no more the master. It is not that the head will be destroyed; it will be brought to its right position. The heart will be the master and the head will be the servant; then there is a great harmony.

The heart has to decide the value of life, the destiny of life, the destination. The head just has to find means and ways of reaching those values. Its function is that of a technician.

Don’t be worried!... There is no need to be afraid. I am doing my work – you do your work!

Anand means bliss, pantha means the path – bliss is the path. To be blissful is to be prayerful, to be blissful is to be in meditation; to be blissful is to worship god. All else is a formality. If one is blissful then one need not go to any temple, to any mosque. In one’s very blissfulness one has prayed, one has offered oneself to god – and it is the true offering, because bliss is the flowering of your consciousness .

If one is blissful, one need not think of religion, of god; those things are irrelevant. They will happen on their own when the time is ripe.

So learn only one thing: how to remain constantly in bliss. Even though circumstances are not for it, even though there is a dark night all around you, even though things are going wrong, you can still remain blissful – because bliss does not depend on outer circumstances, it has nothing to do with outer circumstances.

Bliss depends on your capacity to be aware; it is a by-product of awareness. If you can witness whatsoever is happening, you will be blissful. If there is a headache and you can witness it, the headache will be there but you will be blissful. Even if one is dying, death will happen but one will die blissfully.

Bliss is not caused by outer things, so it cannot be taken away by outer things. It is something that depends on your witnessing – hence you can be blissful twenty-four hours every day. In misery one can be blissful, when ill one can be blissful, because all these things are just on the periphery. And at the centre, if one can remain alert, watchful, observing, then one doesn’t get identified with anything that is happening outside.

In that non-identification is bliss. And bliss is your path.

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