1970

1970

73. Love.

Don’t be in a hurry.

So often, hurrying causes delay.

As you thirst, wait patiently – the deeper the waiting,

the sooner it comes.

You have sown the seed, now sit in the shade and watch what happens.

The seed will break, it will blossom, but you cannot

speed up the process.

Doesn’t everything need time?

Work you must, but leave the results to God.

Nothing in life is ever wasted,

especially steps taken towards truth.

But at times impatience comes,

impatience comes with thirst,

but this is an obstacle.

Keep the thirst and throw away the impatience.

Do not confuse impatience with thirst.

With thirst there is yearning but no struggle.

With impatience there is struggle but no yearning.

With longing there is waiting but no demanding.

With impatience there is demanding but no waiting.

With thirst there are silent tears.

With impatience there is a restless struggle.

Truth cannot be attacked; it is attained through surrender

not through struggle.

It is conquered through total surrender.

74. Love.

Your letter has been received.

Why seek at all for a purpose?

If you seek this you will never find it

because it is eternally hidden in the seeker.

Life is without purpose – life is its own purpose,

therefore he who lives without purpose truly lives.

Live! Isn’t living itself enough?

The desire to have more than just life is a result

of not properly living –

and that is why the fear of death

grips the human mind, for what is death to one who is really alive!

Where living is intense and total there is no time to fear death –

and there is no time for death, either.

Do not think in the language of purpose –

that language is diseased in itself.

The sky exists without purpose.

God is without purpose,

flowers bloom without purpose,

and stars shine without purpose –

what has happened to poor man

that he cannot live without purpose!

Because man can think he gets into trouble.

A little thinking always leads to trouble.

If you must think, think completely, utterly!

Then the mind whirls so fast with thoughts

that freedom from thoughts is attained.

Then you begin to live.

75. Love.

Rest is the supreme goal, work is the medium.

Total relaxation, with complete freedom from effort,

is the supreme goal.

Then life is a play, and then even effort becomes play.

Poetry, philosophy, religion are the fruits of repose.

This has not been available to everyone,

but technology and science will make it so

in the near future.

That is why I am in favor of technology.

Those who attribute intrinsic value to labor

oppose the use of machines – they have to.

For me, labor has no such intrinsic value: on the contrary,

I see it as a burden.

As long as work is a prerequisite for rest

it cannot be blissful.

When work flows out of a state of rest voluntarily,

then it is blissful.

So I cannot call rest a sin.

Nor do I support sacrifice.

I do not want anyone to live for anybody else, or one generation

to sacrifice itself for another.

Such sacrifices turn out to be very costly –

those who make them expect an inhuman return.

This is why fathers expect the impossible

from their sons.

If each father lives for his son who will live for himself?

For every son is a potential father.

No, I want everyone to live for himself –

for his own happiness, his own state of rest.

When a father is happy he does much more for his son –

and easily, because it comes out of his happiness.

Then there is neither sacrifice nor renunciation;

what he does comes naturally out of his being a father –

and a happy father at that.

Then he has no inhuman expectations of his son,

and where there is no pressure from expectations,

expectations are fulfilled – out of the son being a son.

In short, I teach each person to be selfish.

Altruistic teachings have taught man nothing but suicide,

and a suicidal man is always homicidal.

The unhappy sow their sorrow amongst others.

I am also against the sacrifice of the present for the future,

because what is is always present.

If you live in it totally the future will be born out of it –

and when it comes it too will be the present.

For he who has the habit of sacrificing the present for the future,

the future never comes

because whatever comes is again

always sacrificed for that which has not yet come.

Finally, you ask why I too work for others

and for the future.

First of all, I do not work.

Whatever I do flows out of my state of rest.

I do not swim, I just float.

No one can ever do anything for another

but if something happens to others out of what I am,

that is something else,

and there too I am not the doer.

As for the future –

for me, the present is everything.

And the past too is also a present – that has passed away.

And the future too – that is a present that is yet to come.

Life is always here and now

so I do not bother about past and future.

And it is amazing that ever since I stopped worrying about them

they have begun to worry about me!

My regards to all there.

76. Love.

There is a music which has no sound;

the soul is restless for such silent music.

There is a love in which the body is not;

the soul longs for such unembodied love.

There is a truth which has no form;

the soul longs for this formless truth.

Therefore melodies do not satisfy,

bodies do not satisfy,

and forms cannot fulfill the soul.

But this lack of fulfillment,

this dissatisfaction, has to be understood properly,

for such understanding

ultimately brings about transcendence.

Then sound becomes the door to the soundless,

the body becomes the path to the unembodied,

and form becomes the formless.

77. Love.

God is our only wealth.

Do not depend on any other wealth,

riches of any other kind bring only disaster.

St. Theresa wanted to set up a large orphanage

but at the time she had only three shillings.

She wanted to start this enormous project

with just this small amount.

Friends and admirers advised her:

Get the funds together first.

What can you do with just three shillings?

Theresa laughed and said:

Naturally Theresa can do nothing with three shillings,

but with three shillings plus God – nothing is impossible!

78. Love.

Sansara is nirvana,

sound is mantra,

and all living beings are God.

It depends on how you look.

The world is nothing but how one sees it.

See! Open your eyes and see!

Where is darkness?

– there is only light.

Where is death?

– there is only deathlessness.

79. Love.

I have received your letter.

As the earth thirsts for the rains after a hot summer

so you are thirsting for God.

This thirst becomes an invitation to the divine clouds –

and the invitation has arrived.

Just keep drowning yourself in meditation

and his grace will definitely pour on you.

If you are ready here –

he is always ready there.

Look! Can’t you see his clouds hovering in the sky?

80. Love.

Do not fight with yourself.

You are as you are –

do not strive to change.

Do not swim in life,

just float

like a leaf on the stream.

Keep away from sadhanas, mere sadhanas.

This is the only sadhana.

Where is there to go?

What is there to become?

What is there to find?

What is, is here and now.

Please, stop and see!

What are the animal instincts?

What is low? and high?

Whatever is, is –

there is no high, no low.

What is animal?

What is divine?

So do not condemn,

do not praise,

nor condemn nor praise yourself:

all differences are of the mind.

In truth no differences exist.

There, God and animal are one and the same;

heaven and hell are just two sides of one coin;

sansara and nirvana are two expressions of one unknown.

And do not think about what I have said;

if you think you will miss.

See. Just see.

81. Love.

On the road to God the only sustenance is infinite hope –

hope shining like the north star in darkness, hope keeping

you company like a shadow in loneliness.

Dark and lonely life’s path certainly is –

but only for those without hope.

The famous geographical explorer Donald Macmillan was preparing

for his journey to the north pole when he received a letter.

On it was written:

To be opened only when there is no hope of survival.

Fifty years passed; the envelope remained with Macmillan as it was –

sealed.

Someone asked him the reason for this and he replied:

For one thing I want to keep faith with the unknown sender,

and for another, I have never given up hope.

What priceless words! – I have never given up hope!

82. Love.

I am delighted you have taken sannyas.

A life without the flower of sannyas is like a barren tree.

Sannyas is the supreme music of life.

It is not renunciation, on the contrary, it is life’s highest enjoyment.

Someone who finds diamonds and pearls is not going to bother

about pebbles and stones.

But note – he does not renounce them, interest simply drops away.

83. Love.

Thought is man’s strength

but blind belief has robbed him of it,

that is why he has become weak and impotent.

Think fully,

think tirelessly,

for amazingly enough the state of no-thought

is achieved only at the peak of thought,

it is the culmination of thought,

and at this point all thought becomes useless.

In this emptiness, truth lies.

84. Love.

All crutches bar the way.

Shun all support and then you will receive his.

He is the only help for the helpless.

There is no other guide but him –

all other guides are obstacles on the path.

If you want to reach the master avoid all teachers.

Don’t be afraid to make yourself empty

for that alone is the door,

that alone is the path –

and that alone is the destination.

The courage to be empty

is all that is needed to become one with the all.

Those who are full stay empty,

and those who are empty become filled –

such are his mathematics.

Do not consider doing anything –

through doing you can never reach him,

nor through chanting,

nor through austerity,

for he is already here!

Stop and see!

To do is to run,

not to do is to halt.

Yes! If he were far away we could run to meet him,

but he is the nearest of the near!

If we had lost him we could search for and find him,

but to us he has never been lost!

85. Love.

I am glad to have received your letter.

The I is not to be given up because how can you drop that which is not?

The I has to be looked into, understood.

It is like taking a lamp to search for darkness –

the darkness vanishes!

Darkness cannot be stamped out because it doesn’t exist.

You just have to bring a light and darkness is unmasked.

It is the same with your thoughts – do not fight with them.

The effort to be free of thought

comes itself from a thought.

Know your thoughts, watch them, be aware of them,

then they quieten down without difficulty.

Witnessing finally leads to emptiness, and where there is emptiness –

there is the all.

86. Love.

Why does man suffer so much?

Because in his life there is pandemonium

but no soundless music.

Because in his life there is a babble of thoughts

but no emptiness.

Because in his life there is a turmoil of feeling

but no equanimity.

Because in his life there is a mad rushing around

but no stillness which knows no directions.

And finally, because in his life there is much of himself

but of God, nothing at all.

87. Love.

The time is ripe.

The hour draws nearer every day.

Innumerable souls are restless.

A path has to be created for them.

So hurry!

Work hard!

Surrender totally!

Forget yourself!

Plunge into God’s work like a madman.

Here, only madness will do –

and there is no greater wisdom

than such madness for God.

88. Love.

Non-attachment is not concerned with things

but with thoughts.

Non-attachment is not related to the outside

but to the within.

Non-attachment is not to do with the world

but with oneself.

One day a beggar went to see a Sufi fakir

and found him seated on a velvet cushion inside a beautiful tent

with its ropes tied to golden pegs.

Seeing all this the beggar cried: What is this!

Honorable Fakir, I have heard much about your

spirituality and non-attachment,

but I am completely disillusioned by all this ostentation around you.

The fakir laughed, replying:

I am ready to leave all this behind and come with you.

So saying, he immediately got up and walked off with the beggar

not even waiting to put his sandals on!

After a short while the beggar became distressed.

I left my begging bowl in your tent, he said.

What shall I do without it?

Please wait here while I go and fetch it.

The Sufi laughed. My friend, he said,

the gold pegs of my tent were stuck in the earth

not in my heart,

but your begging bowl is still chasing after you!

To be in the world is not attachment.

The presence of the world in the mind is the attachment,

and when the world disappears from the mind – this is non-attachment.

89. Love.

Once the ego is surrendered there is no suffering, no sorrow,

for the ego is basically the cause of all suffering,

and the moment it is seen that everything is God

there is no more cause for complaint.

Where complaining has ended, there is prayer.

It is a feeling of gratitude, it is trust in God.

In this trust in God, benediction pours.

Trust and know.

It is very difficult to trust – there is no austerity greater

than accepting life as it is.

90. Love.

Do not look for results in meditation –

this is an obstruction.

Do not seek to repeat any meditative experience,

for this too is a hindrance.

When meditating, just meditate;

the rest then happens by itself.

The way to God does not lie in our hands

so leave yourself in his.

Surrender, surrender, surrender!

Remember always – surrender!

Sleeping or waking – remember!

Surrender is the only door to God.

Emptiness is the only boat that sails to him.

91. Love.

How much longer will you go on

letting your energy sleep?

How much longer are you going to stay oblivious

of the immensity of your self?

Don’t waste time in conflict,

lose no time in doubt –

time can never be recovered,

and if you miss an opportunity

it may take many lives before another

comes your way again.

92. Love.

I received your letter.

Do not fall into the whirl of calming the mind;

this in itself is the restlessness.

The mind is what it is, accept it as such.

This acceptance brings peace.

Rejection is restlessness, acceptance is peace –

and he who reaches total acceptance attains to God.

There is no way other than this.

Understand this well

because this understanding brings acceptance.

Acceptance cannot come from an act of will –

the action of will is itself non-accepting.

I do conceals non-acceptance

because will is always of the ego.

Ego cannot live unless fed by rejection.

Acceptance can never be brought about by action,

only understanding life can bring it about.

Look, look at life.

What is is, it is as it is.

Things are such – do not ask for them to be otherwise

because they cannot be even if you so desire.

Desire is altogether impotent.

Ah, how can there be restlessness without desire?

93. Love.

Search, search and search –

so much that finally the seeker vanishes.

There you meet him.

Where the I is lost, there he is.

There is not, and never has been,

any wall between –

except for the I.

94. Love.

When the moon rises in the sky watch it, be absorbed by it –

forget everything else, including yourself!

Only then will you come to know

the music that has no sound.

When the morning sun rises, bow down to the earth

and lose yourself in homage to it.

Only then will you know of the music

that is not made by man.

When the trees burst into flowers, like a flower dance with them

in the breeze.

Only then will you hear the music

that lives in one’s innermost self.

He who knows this music knows life too – its song

is another word for God.

95. Love.

Don’t float with the current of thoughts,

just be aware of them.

Know that you are separate from them, distinct, distant, just an

observer.

Just watch the flow of thoughts like traffic,

watch them as you watch the dry leaves

flying everywhere in the fall.

Don’t be the one who makes them happen,

don’t be the one to whom they happen.

Then the rest takes place by itself.

This rest is what I call meditation.

96. Love.

This is a good beginning to the struggle

and I am glad to have pushed you into it.

Sannyas is a challenge to the world, a fundamental declaration

of freedom.

To live in freedom every moment is sannyas.

Now, insecurity will always be with you,

but that is a fact of life.

The only certainty is death; life is insecurity,

and that is its joy and its beauty.

To be locked in security is suicide,

a living death effected by one’s own hand.

Such living-dead are everywhere.

They have turned the world into a graveyard, and they number

amongst them many celebrated corpses.

They all have to be awakened, though for their part

they are trying to put back to sleep even those who are awake.

Now the struggle will go on and on.

In it your total resolution will be born.

Far off I see your destination – the other shore.

97. Love.

I was traveling, then on my return, there was your letter.

You can meet friends of Jeevan Jagruti Kendra and begin working

for Yuvak Kranti Dal (Revolutionary Youth Force).

There are no rules about it – there can never be rules in revolution.

There needs to be an awakening of understanding among the youth,

with scientific studies replacing blind faith – this is all I wish for.

Do meet me this time when I come to Indore.

Everything is fine.

My regards to everyone there.

98. Love.

My work is only God’s work;

apart from this there is neither me nor mine.

No other work exists apart from his.

You just live in God, that’s all,

and the rest happens by itself.

Jesus said: First seek ye the Kingdom of God,

then all else will be added unto you.

I say the same.

But the mind of man seeks all else first,

so what is bound to happen, happens –

nothing else is gained,

and he even loses whatever he had.

99. Love.

The fragrance of sannyas

has to be spread around the world.

Religions, like gaols,

have imprisoned the flower of sannyas too

within their great walls.

Hence the sannyasin has to say now:

I belong to no religion – all religions are mine.

It was a terrible mistake

to tear sannyas away from the world.

It has become bloodless.

And the world without sannyas has lost its life.

A new bridge has to be built between the two.

Sannyas has to be given back its blood,

and the world, its soul.

Sannyas has to be returned to sansara,

fearless and unattached:

in the world yet not of it,

in the crowds, yet alone!

And the world has to be brought to sannyas too,

fearless and unattached.

Then sannyas will be a real sannyas

and not an escape from the world.

It will be sannyas and in the world.

Only then can that bridge of gold be built

joining the seen with the unseen,

the form with the formless.

Commit yourself to this great work,

join in the building of this great bridge!

100. Love.

Even the impossible is not impossible if resolution is there,

and even the possible becomes impossible

if one lacks will.

The world we live in is our own creation.

The time gap between sowing

and reaping creates confusion.

Because cause and effect are so separated the mind fails to understand

what would otherwise be obvious.

Nothing is fragmented or disconnected.

The missing links are always there if you look deeply.

Understanding the life process opens the door to peace.

The light lies close by, waiting for the seeker.

101. Love.

I am glad to receive your letter.

You have the strength within

but you don’t know about it.

To find it you need a catalyst.

The day you realize all this you will laugh,

but until then I am prepared to be your catalyst.

I am already laughing and just waiting

for the day you can join

in this cosmic laughter.

See! Krishna is laughing! Buddha is laughing!

Listen! The earth and heaven are laughing!

But man is weeping for he doesn’t know what he is.

What a joke! What a game!

Emperors go on begging

and fish in the ocean are thirsty!

102. Love.

Existence is a play of sun and shade

of hope and despair,

of happiness and sorrow,

of life and death.

So existence is duality –

a tension of opposite poles,

a music of contrary notes.

To know it,

to recognize it,

to experience it as such,

is to go beyond it.

This transcendence is the real sadhana,

the real achievement.

The key to this transcendence

is the witness state.

Bid good-bye to the doer,

live in the witness state.

Watch the drama.

Don’t drown in it,

rather be drowned in observing.

Then happiness and sorrow,

birth and death,

remain just a play;

they do not affect you,

they cannot affect you.

All error, all ignorance, comes from identification.

103. Love.

I received your letter.

It is good to know that your mother’s death

has made you consider your own.

One has to go through the awareness of death

to reach deathlessness.

The thrust of death goes deep

but the mind cunningly goes on evading it.

Don’t evade it,

don’t console yourself –

any kind of consolation is a suicide.

Let yourself feel the wound of death completely:

wake up and live with it!

This will be hard

but revolution always is.

Death is,

it is there always,

but we forget about it.

Every day death is there,

every moment.

104. Love.

I received your letter.

So many questions!

To answer them I would have to write a book

bigger than the Mahabharata!

But even then you would not get your answers

because some questions others can never answer –

your answers lie deep within your own life.

And some questions have no answers

because they are wrong questions

for which no answers can be found.

As the search continues

these questions always gradually drop away.

Then there are some questions which are right questions

but have no answers at all.

They have to be experienced deep within oneself.

105. Love.

Do not desire bliss

because that desire gets in the way.

Live life unchained to desire

and without an eye on a goal.

Live free!

Live from moment to moment!

And don’t be afraid, be free of fear

because there is nothing to lose –

and nothing to gain

– and the moment you realize this

the totality of life is attained.

But never approach the gates of life as a beggar,

never go begging,

for those gates never open to beggars!

106. Love.

It brings me happiness to bear witness to your new birth.

You have worked for it over many lives

and now the boat flows rightly,

I can rest assured about you.

Once I made you a promise

and this is now fulfilled.

It is your turn to fulfill your part of the promise;

make sure you don’t miss the chance.

Time is short

and I may not be able to be with you again.

Muster your whole will,

take the oars in your hands

and begin the journey that is infinite.

You have wasted much time sitting on the banks;

now the winds are favorable.

This I know,

and that’s why I am pushing you off

the banks so earnestly.

God’s grace is showering –

be open to it and let it in.

Dance it and drink it in!

With such nectar at hand will you still stay thirsty?

107. Love.

What is sought totally is always attained.

Thoughts, when concentrated,

become things.

As the river finds the ocean,

thirsty souls find the temple of God.

But the thirst must be intense

and the work tireless

and the waiting without end

and the calling with the whole heart.

And all this thirst, work, waiting, calling –

are contained in one small word

and that word is prayer.

But praying cannot be performed,

it is not an act,

you can only be in it.

It is a feeling,

it is the soul,

it is a surrender of oneself

without words or demands.

Leave yourself to the unknown

and accept whatever comes.

Whatever God makes of you – accept it,

and if he breaks you, accept that too.

108. Love.

My blessings on your new birth

– sannyas is a new birth,

in oneself, by oneself, of oneself.

It is also a death,

not an ordinary death but the great death.

It is the death of all that you were up until yesterday.

And what you are now –

that too must keep dying every moment

so that the new can be born and born and born again.

Now you will not remain you even for a moment.

You have to die and be reborn every moment –

this is the only sadhana.

Live like a river, not like a pond.

The pond is a householder;

the river, a sannyasin.

109. Love.

The temple of God is open only

to a dancing, singing, happy heart.

A sad heart cannot enter there

so avoid sadness.

Fill your heart with color

as vivid as a peacock –

and for no reason.

He who has reason to be happy is not really happy.

Dance and sing –

not for others,

not for a reason,

just dance for dancing’s sake;

sing for singing’s sake;

then one’s whole life becomes divine

and only then becomes prayer.

To live so is to be free.

110. Love.

I am glad to get your letter.

The moment of the inward revolution is near

but first you have to go through the birth pangs.

Nothing hurts more than this giving birth to oneself

but what comes after it is life’s greatest bliss.

So, longing, waiting, prayer –

take these for your sadhana.

Everything else is fine.

My regards to all.

111. Love.

As the birds sing each morning at sunrise,

the heart fills with song at the dawn of meditation.

As flowers bloom in spring,

the soul is drenched in fragrance

as meditation is born.

As everything glistens green beneath the rain,

consciousness shines with many colors

as meditation showers.

All this and much more takes place,

and this is only the beginning.

Ultimately everything goes;

fragrance, color, light, music –

everything disappears.

And an inner space, like the sky, appears –

empty, formless, without quality.

Wait for that. Long for that.

The signs are good, so do not waste even a moment.

Go on! I am always with you.

112. Love.

Thirst is good,

longing is good, an aching heart is good,

because he comes through the vale of tears.

Weep so much

that only the tears remain, not you.

If the tears alone remain

and he who weeps vanishes

then God comes by himself.

That is why I let you go, not stopping you.

I knew you would regret it –

but this regret is good.

I knew you would weep

but these tears have their usefulness –

can there be a profounder prayer than tears?

113. Love.

What is truth?

This much at least can be said:

It cannot be defined.

So forget about all definitions,

drop all evaluations and interpretations –

these are all mind games,

all creatures of thought.

What is, is beyond the mind.

Thoughts are as unaware of reality

as the waves are of the peace of the lake.

With waves

the lake loses its tranquillity;

when the lake is calm

then the waves cannot exist.

One has to know that-which-is.

Its interpretation is very different from knowing it.

Interpretations take one astray –

they are as illusory as scarecrows.

The seeker of truth has to be wary of words.

Words are not the truth,

truth cannot be words.

Truth is an experience,

truth is reality,

and the path to it is neti, neti –

neither this nor that.

Drop explanations,

drop definitions,

drop scriptures and doctrines,

remember neti, neti – not this, not that!

Then drop I and thou

and say neti, neti.

What is left manifest in the emptiness –

that is truth,

and that alone is.

All else is dream.

114. Love.

The decision to take sannyas is propitious –

and sadhana follows decision like a shadow.

Seeds have to be sown in the mind as well;

there too – as we sow we reap.

The way has to be carved out of the mind too.

The temple of God is close

but the mind is like a dense forest

we have to hack our way through to reach it.

The first steps have to be taken from where you are.

Even for a long journey

the first steps have to be taken just close by,

and in every journey,

not only that towards truth,

the beginning is not different from the end –

they are two ends of the same span,

two poles of the same entity.

Yet often you cannot guess from the first step

where you will end up;

those first steps may seem quite unrelated to the last!

Charles Catering recollects this interesting incident:

Once I bet a friend

that if I bought him a birdcage to hang in his sitting-room

he would have to buy a bird.

The friend laughed and said

he could keep a cage without a bird –

there was nothing to it!

He accepted the bet

and I bought him a beautiful cage from Switzerland

which he hung in his sitting-room.

Naturally, the inevitable happened –

life has its own logic.

Whosoever saw the cage

immediately sympathized with him,

asking:

When did your bird die?

He would answer: I never had a bird.

Then they would say: So why the empty cage?

Finally he got sick and tired of explaining

and went and bought a bird.

When I asked him about it he said:

It was easier to buy the bird and lose the bet

than to explain things to each and everyone

from morn till night.

And also,

seeing this empty cage hanging there

day in and day out, my mind kept repeating:

The bird! The bird! The bird!

So, if you hang commitment like a cage in the mind

it won’t be long before the bird of sadhana comes!

115. Love.

Man lives not in reality but in dreams.

Each mind creates a world of its own which exists nowhere.

During the day as well as the night

the mind is swamped in dreams.

When the dreams become too much, too intense,

insanity results.

To be clear and healthy is to be without dreams.

Once, the president of a country went

to inspect the nation’s largest lunatic asylum.

The director took him to a room and told him:

In this room, the inmates suffer from car-phobia.

The president, curious, looked through the window.

But there is nobody there, he said.

They are all there, sir – under the beds repairing cars,

the director replied.

Everyone is lying under their dreams in the same way.

If this president had looked within, what would he have found?

Is not every capital a great madhouse?

But one cannot see one’s own madness – this is a sure trait of madness.

When someone starts doubting himself, seeing his madness,

know well that the time has come for his insanity to go.

Awareness of madness marks the end of madness.

Awareness of ignorance heralds its end.

Awareness of dreaming brings dreams to an end.

What is left is truth.

116. Love.

I am very glad to have received your letter.

Anxieties exist in life but there is no need to worry about them.

Worrying stems not from the anxieties but from our attitude towards them.

To be anxious or not is always our open choice.

It is not that a non-anxious mind is free of anxieties – anxieties are there,

they are an unavoidable part of life –

but it does not burden itself with them.

Such a person always sees beyond them;

dark nights surround him too but his eyes look to the rising sun

and therefore his soul

is never drowned in darkness.

And this alone is enough —

that the soul not be drowned in darkness.

The body is bound to drown in it – in fact it already has.

Those who are condemned to die live their lives in darkness;

only the deathless have their lives rooted in the light.

Blessings to the children and regards to all.

117. Love.

There is no greater power than trusting oneself –

its fragrance is not of this world;

peace, bliss and truth flow from this fragrance.

He who trusts himself is in heaven

and he who mistrusts himself

holds the keys of hell in his hands.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume was an atheist,

but every Sunday he made it a point

to attend the sermon of John Brown,

a confirmed theist.

When people pointed out

that going to church was against his own principles

he laughed – and replied: I have no faith whatever

in what John Brown says,

but John Brown has total faith in what John Brown says.

So once a week I make a point of hearing a man

who has total faith in himself!

118. Love.

Love is also fire,

but a cool fire.

Yet we have to burn in it

because it also purifies;

it burns only to purify.

The dross burns

leaving pure gold.

In the same way my love will bring suffering

because I wish to destroy you in order to recreate you.

The seed must be broken –

how else can the tree be born?

The river must end –

how else is it to merge with the ocean?

So let go of yourself and die –

how else will you find the self?

119. Love.

Truth is discovered not through swimming

but through drowning.

Swimming is a surface happening,

drowning takes you to the infinite depths.

120. Love.

The search for meaning is disastrous;

it has brought nothing but meaninglessness.

To see that there is no meaning –

is to have the real meaning

where meaninglessness cannot be,

where meaning doesn’t matter

and so its disasters are avoided.

What remains just is, and what is,

is and what is not, is not and that’s all.

You ask for a clear statement about motivelessness.

Your attempt to understand cannot succeed

because it is motivated!

Why bother about understanding?

Look, isn’t the thing clear before you there?

All things are open!

All things are clear!

But man is so busy understanding no one is left to see what is clear,

what is obvious, what is there!

Confusion is the effort to understand.

Ignorance is the effort to know.

If you don’t try to understand or know,

nothing can hide itself from you!

Truth is always in front of you, naked, clear.

121. Love.

You say you feel broken.

It would be better if you broke down completely and disappeared.

That which is will always be the case

and that which has become is bound to vanish.

Becoming always leads to dissolution so do not try to save yourself.

One who loses himself goes beyond life and death,

and he who saves himself is lost.

You are busy saving yourself

and that is why you are afraid of breaking down.

But what is there to save?

And that which is worth saving is already saved.

122. Love.

You long for the sun

and you will get it for sure,

but you have to have the courage to burn!

You can’t reach the light without dying,

for ego is darkness,

and besides, the sun isn’t anywhere outside

but is born within when everything else there burns.

When the self is alight – that is the light.

The fear of dying is darkness,

the jump into death is the light.

Die, and know this!

Disappear, and you will find it.

That is why I say love is prayer –

it is the first lesson in death.

Regards to all.

123. Love.

Do not look for a purpose in life but live, and live totally.

Do not be serious and grave but turn life into a dance.

Dance – like the waves on the sea!

Blossom – like the flowers in spring!

Sing – as the birds do continuously!

All without purpose, for no reason; then purpose is there,

and all mystery is solved.

The famous physician Rocky Tonsky once asked a student:

What is the purpose of life? What is its meaning?

The student hesitated and stammered, as if trying to remember,

then said: Yesterday I knew, but right now I seem to have forgotten.

Rocky Tonsky looked up at the sky and cried:

God in heaven!

The only man who ever knew and now he has forgotten!

Love to all the family.

124. Love.

You ask for my ten commandments. This is very difficult

because I am against any sort of commandment. Yet just for the fun

of it I set down what follows:

1. Obey no orders except those from within.

2. The only God is life itself.

3. Truth is within, do not look for it elsewhere.

4. Love is prayer.

5. Emptiness is the door to truth; it is the means, the end and the achievement.

6. Life is here and now.

7. Live fully awake.

8. Do not swim, float.

9. Die each moment

so that you are renewed each moment.

10. Stop seeking. That which is, is: stop and see.

125. Love.

The news of the commune delights me.

The tree’s seed is sprouting,

soon innumerable souls will shelter under its branches.

Soon the people for whom I have come will gather –

and you are going to be their hostess!

So prepare yourself;

that is,

empty yourself completely

because only emptiness can be the host.

You are already on your way,

singing, dancing, blissful

like a river flowing to the sea.

I am delighted,

and I am always with you.

The ocean is close –

just run, run, run!

126. Love.

Everything changes except change, only change is eternal.

But the human mind lives in the past – and that is the confusion

of all confusions.

One day the sky was filled with the clouds of war –

plane upon plane loaded with death.

Beasts, birds, worms and beetles –

all that could flee, fled.

Horses, donkeys, rats, sheep, dogs and cats, wolves –

all ran for their lives

and the paths and tracks were full of them.

As they fled, this multitude saw

two vultures sitting on a wall by the road.

Brothers! they cried to them. Flee! At once!

Man is on the warpath again.

The vultures just smiled. They knew!

One said: Since time immemorial man’s wars

have been good news for vultures.

Our ancestors have said so, and so too our scriptures.

It is also our own experience.

In fact it is for the benefit of vultures that God sends man to war!

God has made man and war just for vultures!

This said, the two vultures flew off towards the battle –

and in the next moment were blown to pieces by falling bombs.

If they had only known how things

can change over thousands of years.

But does even man himself realize this?

127. Love.

I received your letter.

Don’t be afraid of sexual desire

because fear is the beginning of defeat.

Accept it,

it is and it has to be.

Of course, you must know it and recognize it,

be aware of it,

bring it out of the unconscious into the conscious mind.

You cannot do this if you condemn it because condemnation

leads to repression and it is repression that pushes desires

and emotions into the unconscious.

Really, it is because of repression

that the mind is divided into conscious and unconscious,

and this division is at the root of all conflict.

It is this division that prevents man from being total –

and without integration there is no way to peace,

bliss and freedom. So meditate on sexual desire.

Whenever the desire arises,

watch it mindfully.

Do not resist it,

do not escape from it.

Encountering it leads you to unique experiences.

And whatever you have learned

or heard about celibacy –

throw it once and for all into the dustbin,

for there is no way other than this

of reaching to brahmacharya.

My regards to all there.

128. Love.

Be like steel – clay will no longer do.

To be a sannyasin is to be a soldier of God.

Serve your parents – even more than before.

Give them the joy of a sannyasin son.

But don’t relent,

keep your resolution firm;

it will bring glory to your family.

The son who compromises with a thing like sannyas

shames his family.

I have complete trust in you,

that’s why I have been a witness to your sannyas.

Laugh and go through everything.

Listen to everything and laugh.

This is your sadhana.

Let the storms come and go.

129. Love.

In sannyas, sansara is just a drama;

to know the world as a play is sannyas.

Then no one is small,

no one great,

no Ram and no enemy, Ravan,

and everything is a Ram-leela, God’s play.

Whichever part you are given play it well.

The part is not you

and as long as we identify with our part in the play

self-knowledge is impossible.

And from the day that this identification is broken

ignorance becomes impossible.

Play your part

but know well it isn’t you.

130. Love.

I have received your letter.

There is a great difference between love and pity.

There is pity in love

but there is no love in pity.

Therefore it is important to know things as they are:

love as love, pity as pity.

To take one for the other

is to create unnecessary worry.

Ordinarily, love has become impossible

because as he is man cannot be loving:

to be in love the mind must be completely empty

and we love only with our minds,

so that when our love is at its lowest it is sex

and at its highest it is compassion,

but love is a transcendence of both sex and compassion.

Therefore understand what is

and do not strive for what should be –

what should be flows out of

the acceptance and understanding of what is.

131. Love.

I received your letter.

Now never worry about me,

not even mistakenly for two reasons.

First: the day I surrendered myself for God

I transcended all anxiety –

because trying to look after oneself

is the only anxiety!

Ego is anxiety.

Beyond it: what anxiety? whose? and for whom?

Secondly: men like me are born to be crucified.

The cross is our throne

and our mission is fulfilled

only when stones are showered, not flowers.

But on the divine path

even stones turn into flowers,

and on the contrary path

even flowers turn out to be stones.

Therefore when the stones start raining on me,

be happy and thank God!

Truth is always received like this.

If you don’t agree

ask Socrates

ask Jesus

ask Buddha

ask Kabir

ask Meera.

My regards to all.

132. Love.

What does the seed know of its own potential?

It is the same with man:

he doesn’t know what he is nor what he can be!

The seed, perhaps, cannot look within but man can.

This looking in is called meditation.

To know one’s truth

as it is here and now is meditation.

Dive into it, deeper and deeper;

there, in the depths, all that is possible

can be clearly seen.

And once seen it begins to happen –

the awareness of what is possible turns it into a reality,

like a seed stirred by a vision of its potential

beginning to sprout.

Time, effort, energy – pour it all into meditation

because meditation is the gateless gate through which

the self becomes aware of itself.

133. Love.

Nothing in life is sure – except death,

otherwise life is another name for insecurity.

When this is realized

the desire for security simply vanishes.

To accept insecurity is to become free of it.

Uncertainty will stay in the mind

because that is its nature.

Don’t worry about it

because that will add fuel to it.

Just let the mind be, where it is,

and you go into meditation.

You are not the mind

so where is the problem of the mind?

Leave the darkness where it is

and just light your lamp.

Are you going to think carefully and then surrender?

O mad one! Surrender is a leap outside thought.

Either jump or don’t jump

but for God’s sake don’t ponder over it!

134. Love.

Theism is another name for infinite hope.

It is patience,

it is waiting,

it is trust in leela,

in the play of life,

and therefore with theism complaining cannot be.

Theism is acceptance,

it is surrender –

acceptance of what is beyond the self

and surrender to the source of the self.

In 1914 a fire broke out in

Thomas Edison’s laboratory.

Machinery worth millions

and all the papers pertaining to his lifelong research

were burnt to ashes.

Hearing of this tragedy his son Charles

came looking for him

and he found him standing by the side

enjoying the sight of the leaping flames.

On seeing Charles, Edison said to him: Where is your mother?

Go and find her and bring her here quickly;

such a sight she will never see again!

The next day, walking amidst the ashes

of his hopes and dreams,

the 67 year-old inventor said:

What benefit there is in destruction!

All our mistakes have been burnt to ashes, thank God!

Now we can begin afresh, all over again!

God’s grace is endless.

We just need the eyes to see it.

135. Love.

Wittgenstein has said somewhere:

Of that which one cannot speak,

one should remain silent.

Oh, if only this advice was heeded

there would be no useless arguments about truth!

That-which-is cannot be spoken of.

Whatever is said in words is not,

cannot be,

that-which-is.

Truth is beyond words,

only silence is related to truth.

But silence is very difficult;

the mind wants to speak even of that

which is beyond words.

Really, the mind is the only barrier to silence.

Silence belongs to the state of no-mind.

A preacher came to address some small children.

Before beginning he put a question to them:

If you were asked to address a gathering

of such intelligent boys and girls

who expect a good lecture from you,

and if you had nothing to speak on,

what would you say?

A small child replied: I would keep quiet.

I would keep quiet.

This child-like simplicity is needed to experiment with silence.

136. Love.

Sannyas is a pilgrimage to Mt. Everest –

naturally there are difficulties on the way.

But the fruits of determination are sweet too,

so bear everything calmly and joyously

but don’t give up your commitment.

Serve your mother even more than before –

sannyas is not a running away from responsibility.

Your family is not to be given up,

rather you have to make the whole world your family.

Encourage your mother to take sannyas too.

Tell her: You have seen enough of the world,

now raise your eyes towards God.

But make sure she is caused no trouble on your account.

This doesn’t mean giving in or compromising –

sannyas knows no compromise.

Strong, bold and resolute is the soul of sannyas.

137. Love.

Love does not discriminate

even in dreams,

and in that love which is prayer too,

there are no distinctions at all.

Now I am no more.

The word I is simply a convenience

and as such causes many difficulties.

When the clouds of the I disappear

nothing remains but love –

love without cause,

unconditional love.

Here I stand in the marketplace:

who is ready to come and take it from me?

Kabir stands in the marketplace, torch in hand.

If you are ready to burn your house down, come with me.

138. Love.

Ah, if the veena were outside you could hear its music,

but it is inside

and we do not hear it.

But we can become one with it.

And how much is music worth that ends with listening?

Ultimately the musician, the veena, the music,

the listener

are not separate.

Look inside,

go within,

and see who is waiting there for you.

139. Love.

The springs of meditation are close at hand

but the layers of suppressed sex work like rocks.

The repression of sex has choked your life with anger,

its smoke pervades your whole personality.

When you were meditating in front of me the other day

I saw all this very clearly,

but I could also see that your will is very strong too,

your thirst for God is also strong

and you are working hard,

so there is no need to be disheartened.

Difficulties are there,

blocks are there,

but they will disintegrate

because the breaker is not yet broken.

Meditate totally and soon the springs will be reached.

But you have to put your whole being at stake –

nothing less will do.

Hold back a bit and you will miss.

Time is short so gather all your strength;

whilst the opportunity is here

your effort must be total.

It is difficult to say whether you will have such an opportunity

in another life, so everything must be finished in this one.

If the gates don’t open this time

you will have to start from the very beginning next time –

and then it is far from sure that I will be with you.

In your last life you worked for it

but the work was not completed;

and it was the same in the life before that.

For three lives you have repeated the same cycle

again and again –

it is time now to break it.

It is already late,

any further delay would be foolish.

My regards to all.

140. Love.

The meaning of sadhana

is to enter into one’s own nature,

to live in it,

to be it.

One must therefore know what is not one’s nature

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