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‌CHAPTER 4

4 January 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[Premdipa:] Man remains an unlit candle unless love comes and engulfs him, overpowers him. It is only the light of love that takes away the inner darkness. Without love the inner world is utterly dark; not even a ray of light is possible without love. And it is not accidental that people don’t look inwards: there is nothing to see; it is all dark, it is frighteningly dark and it is very lonely. In the darkness all kinds of fear and all kinds of nightmares are encountered.

The sages have been saying down the ages: Look within yourself, know thyself. But nobody listens, for a particular reason. You can look inwards only if there is something beautiful, something that delights you, something that magnetically pulls you. The outer world looks far better, so people look outside. Socrates may say: Look within, and Buddha may say: Know thyself; people listen but don’t pay any attention. The reason is this: whenever they look inside all is darkness there. What are these Buddhas talking about? It looks so gloomy!

In fact modem psychology says that people who are constantly interested in their inner world are pathological, morbid, introverts, navel-gazers; and they use all kinds of condemnations. Modern psychology is also right, because as you are, if you look in, you will be morbid. You will have a certain kind of suicidal tendency, you will have a kind of masochism, otherwise why should you look at something ugly, nightmarish?

And yet Buddhas are right: Know thyself. How to make some sense out of modem psychology and the ancient psychology? It is possible only through love. First learn how to love. Love brings light and love brings joy and love brings celebration. Then there is no need for anybody to persuade you to look in; you will look in. The inner becomes so psychedelically beautiful that the outer looks very pale, anaemic. Only then does the transfer happen. Only love can become the bridge for you to go from out to in without becoming morbid, without becoming pathological. And then to be in is of immense value; it is pure health, wholeness.

Prem means love, gyan means wisdom – wisdom that comes through love. Knowledge comes from the head: wisdom comes through the heart. Knowledge is knowledge: wisdom is feeling. One cannot be knowledgeable without education, but one can be wise without any education at all.

Wisdom has nothing to do with information, it has something to do with awareness. Information comes from the outside; awareness wells up within you, it is an inner source to be tapped. Knowledge is only apparently wise; wisdom is true knowledge. Knowledge only pretends to know; wisdom knows. Knowledge is parrot-like, borrowed, you repeat others. At the most your memory is full of it, but your inner emptiness remains as it was before.

So there are ignorant but very knowledgeable people in the world, and the vice versa is also true: there are people who are tremendously wise without any knowledge at all. So there is a kind of knowing ignorance – wisdom; and also an ignorant knowing – knowledge.

The man who lives in the heart is ignorant in the sense that he does not know anything from the outside. His ignorance is a kind of innocence, but out of that innocence something grows. Because it is yours, it transforms you, and because it is yours it cannot be taken away from you; not even death will be able to defeat it.

Prem means love, bhakta means devotion, a devotee. There are three stages for the seeker. One is the stage of the student: his approach is intellectual, that of curiosity, he wants to collect information. He can only find teachers, he will never find a master. His search is for a teacher who can teach him, not for a master who can transmute him. His search is for a teacher because he thinks that truth can be taught. Truth cannot be taught, it can only be caught; it is like an infection. It is not a question of the master telling you what it is. It is getting in a deep communion with the master, falling en rapport with the master. Then something is transferred – not verbally, not visibly, but something is certainly transferred, and that transmission beyond scriptures is the beginning of a new life. But that cannot happen to the student; he is not longing for it in the first place.

The second stage is that of a disciple; it is higher than the student. He wants to be transformed. He is not in search of information but in search of transformation. He will look for a master. He will not be interested in, or satisfied with, teachers, he will not be satisfied with scriptures; he will need a living phenomenon so he can participate. But the disciple, although he surrenders, still he remains. His surrender is still his surrender. It is his will, it is his decision to surrender; and when it is your will, you can cancel it any moment, you can withdraw. The disciple can leave the master. It is the disciple’s choice to be with the master or not to be with the master. If he says yes to the master, that too is his own decision to say yes. His ego still functions. He is in a better state than the student, but not yet totally in tune with the master.

The third state is that of a devotee, a bhakta. He surrenders, and his surrender is not his will; he simply allows it to happen. He cannot say ‘I have surrendered.’ He can simply say ‘Surrender has happened to me.’ Then there is no going back, he disappears into the master; and only when you disappear into the master can the master disappear into you. Then the boundaries disappear: there is real meeting, merging, and in that merging is the greatest experience – the experience of satori, samadhi, ecstasy, truth, god, or whatever you call it.

Your name means: a loving devotee. Remember the third stage has to be attained. If the disciple moves rightly he will become a devotee; if the student moves rightly he will become a disciple. If

the movement is right, sincere, authentic, the student and the disciple are both going to become devotees one day.

To be a devotee is to bloom. It is magic. Immediately all your problems disappear as if they had never existed before, as if you are awakened from your nightmare and now you know it was just a dream.

Remember, that is the goal: one has to become a devotee, and only when devotion has arisen is one ready to receive truth. The student only collects information about truth. The disciple collects a few fragments of truth. The devotee drinks it in its totality.

Remember, human happiness is not worth much. It is momentary; it is more or less a kind of forgetfulness. Life is full of miseries: in the moment of happiness you forget those miseries, but they don’t go away. Once the moment of happiness has passed they will be back again, and with a vengeance, and the moment of happiness will leave you in a kind of deep frustration. You cannot hold onto it, there is no way to keep it forever. By the very nature of things human happiness can only be momentary, because in life everything is a flux, nothing ever abides in time.

Divine happiness is that happiness which comes but never goes. It is not of time, it is part of eternity. And when you are really happy, not in a momentary way, the blessing has happened. Now one can feel the blessing of being alive, and because of that feeling one can bless the whole existence too.

Let sannyas become a search for divine happiness and blessing. Sannyas is nothing else but that search.

Subhoda means right-mindfulness. It is the fundamental technique that Buddha gave to the world.

Right-mindfulness means not doing anything mechanically, but doing it with full awareness. Walking, walk with alertness. You can walk without alertness. Alertness is not needed; there is a robot part in the head which goes on doing it. You can eat without awareness, it can become just a habit. You can listen, you can talk, you can live your whole life without awareness, but that is a life of utter meaninglessness. You will never come to know who you are. You will do many things but you will never know who this doer is. Many things will come and pass in your life but you will never know in front of whom all these games are played. You will know the film that is on the screen but you will never know the person who is looking at the film; and to miss that person is to miss all.

The only way not to miss it is to act with awareness, alertness, watchfulness, to always be in a kind of witnessing. Walking, you are still witnessing, deep down in the heart, like a mirror reflecting what is happening. Eating, you are a mirror. Right now listening to me, you can listen in two ways. One is the mechanical way: because you have ears you can listen. but that will be only hearing, not listening. You can listen in a conscious way: your whole consciousness can be there behind the ears. All the past is gone, there is no future: you are just here in this moment, totally alert of what is being said to you, drinking it, with total absorption.

That is mindfulness, and that is the key for you. Use it as much as you can; you cannot use it in excess. And the more you use it, the more you will find a great integrity arising in you. Something almost starts centering at the deepest core of your being; you become crystallised.

Gurdjieff used to say that only the alert person has a soul; others only think that they have souls, they don’t. He is right. In the majority of people the soul is so fast asleep that it is almost as if it were not. It has to be provoked into awakening; and that is the meaning of subhoda.

Deva means divine, rita means utterly empty – a divine emptiness. And that is the greatest thing that can happen to anybody. When the ego disappears, one is empty. When all thoughts disappear, one is empty. When no desire is left, one is empty. The ego, desires, memories, imagination – all are gone. The whole film has disappeared, just the empty white screen remains; and that is the state of meditation. Only in that emptiness does god descend. In that emptiness you become a womb, and only in that womb can god be reborn.

The beauty of a woman is that she has something like an empty womb in her being. It is out of that empty womb that life flows. This is a physical phenomenon; exactly parallel to it there is a spiritual phenomenon. Spiritually one becomes so empty that one becomes a womb, and the moment one is a womb spiritually, one is pregnant with god, one is born anew. You have disappeared and god has possessed you.

You have a beautiful name; now you have to make it a real thing in your life. It can be realised! And that is the whole purpose of my work: to help you to become utterly empty so that god can have some space in you, otherwise so much rubbish, so much unnecessary furniture, is there that there is no space left.

My whole work consists of creating a space in you – that’s what sannyas is all about – and once that space is ready you need not do anything else. That very space is enough to pull the divine into you, that very space becomes a magnetic, gravitational force.…

Come forever. Every one of my sannyasins has to come forever sooner or later! Come back forever!

Just raise your hands, close your eyes, and feel that you are standing underneath a great waterfall. Let the body enjoy the falling water – its coolness, its delight.

A new name has tremendous significance. The old name contains all your past; it is the very centre around which your whole past is arranged. Once the old name is dropped the whole past disappears. A discontinuity is created, and to be discontinuous with the past is a great leap because then you can be in the present.

In the ancient Hebrew language the word for name means that which makes you unique. It is also said in the ancient Hebrew scriptures that god knows every man’s name. It simply means that god knows you only in your uniqueness, not otherwise. If you are pretending to be somebody else god will never know you. If you are trying to be a Buddha or a Christ or a Saint Francis god will never know you. He knows you only as you are, in your utter uniqueness, and the name makes you unique.

When the name is given by a master, it is not only an ordinary label, utilitarian: it shows something of your potential. It can become a key for inner work.

The Hebrews also used to believe that the only way to know somebody’s name is to love him. A strange statement, but if you remember the meaning of the word for ‘name’ – that which makes an

individual unique – then it is simple. How can you know the uniqueness of a person unless you love him? On the surface he is just a number. On the surface he is a clerk, a station-master, a school- teacher, a nurse, a doctor, an engineer, this or that. Now, if you are a doctor, you are replaceable; if you die, another doctor will take your place. The world will not miss you as a doctor, you will not be missed. But if we look into your deepest core as an individual, nobody can replace you. You are unique. You have never been before, you will never be again. Nobody has ever been like you and nobody will ever be like you; you are utterly unique.

This uniqueness is a gift of god, and this uniqueness can only be known in deep love because only in love do you relax, only in love do you put your armour aside. Only in love do you allow yourself to be indefensible. Only in love can you trust that the other will not harm you, so you can allow the other into the deepest and the most delicate part of your being.

And the relationship between a disciple and a master is a love relationship. That’s why I give you a new name, that’s why to every sannyasin I give a new name. That’s my perception of you, that’s my vision of you, that’s my penetration into your uniqueness.

Anand means bliss, bodhisattva means one who is a Buddha in essence, who is a Buddha in the seed. Just a little soil is needed and the courage to die in the soil. Once the seed dies, the tree is born.

Sangitam means pure music. Man is a musical instrument, in fact not just one instrument but many instruments. And if we don’t know how to play on these instruments, life becomes a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. It becomes a chaos, just meaningless noise, a gibberish. But if we know how to play on these instruments then great joy arises. If a man knows how to play on these instruments in a harmony he can become an orchestra. And only when a man is an orchestra is he worthy of offering himself to god. This is possible; and this is not very difficult either, because this is our natural potential.

A man is born to be great music, a great song. But one has to remember that birth is not life. Birth only gives you an opportunity to be alive or not to be alive. If you use it rightly you will attain to life. If you don’t use it rightly you will simply live in boredom, in anguish, somehow dragging the weight; there will be no dance to your feet, there will be no song in your heart and you will not be able to offer anything to god.

The tree can offer its flowers and perfume, the birds can offer their songs and the peacock can offer his dance. Man also has something to offer, and he has something to offer which nobody else can offer – no animal, no bird, no tree: he has a melody of consciousness to offer.

Prashant means profound peace, deep silence. The mind is full of sound, but just behind the sound there is silence. We have to dig a little bit, just as you dig the earth; you can find the sources of water after a few layers of earth – they are always there. It is just like that: in the deepest heart there is silence, absolute silence; it has never been disturbed – it cannot be disturbed – but there are layers and layers of noise.

You have to dig deep and you have to be very patient, because when you start digging a well you first come across rubbish – tins and plastic bottles and things that people have been throwing. Don’t become frustrated; go on digging.

Then you will come across a few rocks and very dry earth, but don’t be afraid. Don’t start thinking ‘The earth is so dry, how can there be water?’ Just go on digging. Soon you will come upon wet earth, and that is the beginning of joy. The first signs that you are on the right track have arrived. Go on digging. You will not immediately find pure, crystal-clear water, first it will be muddy, but go on digging and soon you come across the sources of pure water.

In the same way one has to dig a well into one’s own being and one comes across the same layers, but if one is patient enough one finds the waters of life.

That’s what Jesus said to the woman at the well. He was thirsty and he asked the woman at the well ‘Give me a little water to drink.’ The woman looked at him and said ‘But I belong to a very low class and people of your class don’t accept water from us. Do you know that?’ And Jesus said ‘Forget all about that – give me water, and I will also give you some water out of my well. Your water will quench my thirst only for a few moments, but my water will quench your thirst forever.’ He was talking about that well.

Meditation is a methodology to dig into your own being, to find profound peace, silence, and in that temple of silence and peace is the deity of all deities. You come to know god only when you have come to know this profound peace, undisturbed, eternally undisturbed.

[A sannyas couple are present. The woman says that her husband gambles all his money, and she does not know what to do about it because it causes difficulties.]

[To the husband] Stop this, mm? Simply stop. Don’t make a problem out of it. I will teach you better ways of gambling! What are you doing gambling with money? Gamble with life, and that is sannyas! Just forget about this.

Mm? that can be done by any stupid person; that is not very intelligent. I will teach you some intelligent ways to gamble.

(to the wife) Don’t be worried – he will stop!

[A sannyasin, returned from the west, says: Something of the fight in me has gone, but also I feel dead a lot .. . a lack of enthusiasm. This doesn’t seem right and that doesn’t seem right. I don’t seem to have any heart any more.]

Nothing to be worried about, this space will pass. It always comes, it is a transitory period. When all that you have known becomes meaningless and that which is meaningful has yet to be known, between these two this space comes. It is nothing to be worried about.

[The sannyasin lists several groups he has done.]

Have you done anything like Vipassana or Zazen?... That will be the right thing for this space. Do Vipassana and then we will see what else is needed. And just be here; it will pass. Good!

[A sannyasin says she has been having rather terrible dreams lately. She is booked for several groups.]

Do these and after Hypnotherapy remind me. Those dreams will go. They are nothing to be worried about. In fact they must have always been there; it is just that now you have been able to remember them, that’s all. Millions of people go on dreaming but they don’t remember. When your awareness becomes a little intense you start remembering.

If you ask people you will find many who will say that they don’t dream at all, and that is not true. Scientific researchers say that everybody dreams, unless one becomes a Buddha. And not one or two dreams; out of eight hours’ sleep, six hours are spent in dreaming. Only for two hours is there a dreamless state, and not two hours together – a few minutes here, a few minutes there. The six hours of sleep are full of dreams.

Your dreams reflect your life. Your life is a nightmare; everybody’s life is a nightmare of great tensions and anguish, anxiety, worries. They all come in the dream and they all come with a very much magnified intensity, everything small becomes big. The dreaming mind is a childish mind. If the child looks at a cat, he declares to the mother ‘I have seen a lion!’ That’s what dreaming is!

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