KABIR
The Guest 01
First Discourse from the series of 15 discourses - The Guest by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
When my friend is away from me, I am depressed;
nothing in the daylight delights me,
sleep at night gives no rest,
who can I tell about this?
The night is dark and long…hours go by…
because I am alone, I sit up suddenly,
fear goes through me…
Kabir says: listen, my friend
there is one thing in the world that satisfies,
and that is a meeting with the guest.
Man is not what he is. Man has become what he is not. That’s the root cause of his misery. He has gone astray from his being, he has become too involved in becoming.
“To become” means to become false, “to become” means to become that which you are not. “To be” is already the case. Man has not to become anything other than he is, he has to relax in his being and know the truth.
The truth is already given, the truth is not somewhere in the future. It is not a goal, but the source. You are coming from truth. If you can find the source again, you will know what truth is. You are not going toward truth: all going takes you further and further away from truth.
You must have heard the name of Radha. Mythologically, she is known to be the most beloved woman of Krishna. He had many lovers; Radha was the suprememost. But historically, there has never been a woman by the name of Radha, and in the ancient scriptures her name is not mentioned. It is an invention of later mystics, later sages, and that has tremendous significance; it will be good to understand it.
In Sanskrit there is a word, dhara, which means the flow of a river moving from its source toward the ocean. If you reverse the word dhara, it becomes radha. Radha means the flow of a river moving toward its origin, not toward the ocean; radha is a metaphor. And one can be a beloved of God only if one turns the whole process of life from moving toward the goal to going deeper and deeper down toward the source – from being a dhara, one becomes a radha. And the source is within you. The goal is without, the source is within. The source is your very being.
But the mind is aggressive – it wants to explore, it wants to go on adventures. It wants to know that which is not known, it wants to demystify existence, it wants to conquer – it is on a journey of conquest. The mind is basically masculine, and through the mind there is no way toward godliness.
One has to become feminine. One has to become receptive rather than aggressive. One has to learn the art of relaxation rather than learning strategies to conquer the world and reality. Truth is not going to be a conquest, it is going to be a total surrender. One has to become a host, one has to open up, one has to be just a receptivity – so the wind can come in, so the rain can come in, so the sun can come in. And one day, just hiding behind the sun and the rain and the wind, comes the guest. The guest does not come from the outside, he arises within you. God is the guest.
But you have to be a host first, you have to learn the art of being a host. You have to become a welcome, you have to become a prayer, you have to become an invitation; you have to become a waiting, an infinite waiting. If it takes ages for him to come, you have to wait, with tears in your eyes of course, but with tremendous trust in your heart.
Kabir calls God the guest because he wants the seeker to be the host. The masculine mind cannot become the host. The masculine mind can only become an aggressor; it knows how to snatch things away. The masculine mind is a doer, a great doer; hence the masculine mind gives birth to science – science is basically male.
Religion is female, and those who want to enter the world of religion have to understand this very deeply because it is fundamental. If you miss this point, you will miss it all: you have to become feminine. And when I say “feminine,” I don’t mean biologically; it is not a question of man and woman, it is not a question of physiology – it is a question of your psychology. You can have the body of a woman and yet your psychology is masculine.
That’s what is happening now: many women are turning masculine, becoming more aggressive. In the name of liberation they are losing something infinitely valuable. They are losing contact with the sacred, exchanging it for the mundane. Women have always been connected in a subtle way with the sacred. Women have been mankind’s contact with the divine, but now they are becoming more and more masculine. It is not a question of physiology or biology: remember, you can have the body of a man, but a psychology that I call feminine, receptive. Buddha is feminine if you look at his psychology; Jesus is feminine if you look at his.
Friedrich Nietzsche was the first to point out that Buddha and Jesus are womanish. He was being critical of course, he was not appreciating the fact, but he was the first to point it out; he had that intuitive genius. He would have become a buddha himself, but he used his genius in the wrong way; he used his talents in a very destructive way and released the greatest destructive force seen on earth up until now.
Fascism, Nazism, are nothing but offshoots of Nietzsche’s mind. He was very masculine, he appreciated the masculine mind. He appreciated the soldier not the sannyasin; war not love; swords not flowers; destruction, murder, conquest. He did not appreciate the beauty of surrender, trust, love, friendship; he did not appreciate compassion, ecstasy, celebration – no, those were not his values. Hence he criticized Buddha and Jesus, more particularly Jesus; when he said Jesus was feminine he was condemning him.
I also say Jesus is feminine, but I am not condemning him – I could not appreciate him more. To say Jesus and Buddha are feminine is the greatest appreciation possible because they have become hosts; they have become open, vulnerable to existence. They have sent the invitation and they are simply waiting.
The way of Buddha is meditation, the way of Jesus is prayer. But these are simply different names for the same phenomenon. Meditation means becoming silent, utterly silent, becoming a no-mind; and prayer also means becoming a deep listening. What you think is prayer, is not prayer. You think saying something to God is prayer? It is not prayer at all. What can you say to God; what have you to say to God? Real prayer begins only when you start listening to God, when you become just a listening, utterly silent: then meditation and prayer become very close. Meditation is silence, and prayer too is silence, they are just different names for the same phenomenon.
Jesus and Buddha are feminine, and that’s what Kabir wants you to understand and to be. Kabir says of himself, “I am a woman married to God, God is my lover. I am fortunate that he has chosen me as his wife, as his beloved.” He sings many songs in which he says, “Ram ki dulhaniya – I am wedded to Rama, I am wedded to God.” In his simple poetry, Kabir is giving you tremendously important insights.
The first thing to be understood is that “becoming” is driving you crazy. You are not to become anything, you are already that. You have to accept yourself and relax into that acceptance. The person who is trying to become something is bound to remain tense, naturally: the constant fear of whether he is going to make it or not, whether what he is doing is going to lead him to the goal or not, whether he has chosen the right path or not; the constant fear of whether he is doing enough to achieve or not, whether or not there are others who may reach before him. Becoming creates fear, becoming creates competition, and becoming drives you crazy, neurotic. Becoming takes you further and further away from your being.
Do not become. Be, just be. Becoming is the root cause of all confusion, misery, and anguish: confusion because you cannot in fact become that which you are not. The rose can try as much as possible, but it is going to remain a rose, it can’t become a lotus. The lotus can try hard, can practice all kinds of yoga exercises, but the lotus is going to remain a lotus, it can’t become a rose. A rose is a rose, and a lotus is a lotus. But the lotus is beautiful, and the rose is beautiful. There is no confusion because the rose is perfectly happy in being a rose, and the lotus is perfectly happy in being a lotus. Only man is miserable.
Man is the only being on earth that is miserable because he is not happy in being himself; he wants to become something else. We have been brought up with this poison: “Become.” We have been driven by society, by the church, by parents, by teachers: “Become.” Nobody says to us, “Be.” And if you can find a person who says “Be” to you, that is the person to listen to, that is the real master, because he is giving you the most fundamental thing. Through that vision you will be able to relax, and in relaxation there is clarity.
Confusion arises out of the idea of becoming because you become a duality – that which you are, and that which you would like to be. You become a duality, you deny your reality and impose the unreal upon yourself – a great tension. You become phony, you become pseudo, you become split. And what I am saying is not theoretical: you can look all around – the whole of humanity is split because everyone is trying to become someone else. Someone is trying to become a Christ, someone is trying to become a Buddha, someone is trying to become the richest man in the world, someone is trying to become the president of a country – but becoming, not being; in the name of religion also, becoming.
Then what difference is there between religion and ordinary worldly affairs? If the worldly man is trying to become the richest or most powerful, and the religious man is also trying to become someone – a Buddha, a Krishna – then what is the difference? Both are in the same boat; the name of the boat is becoming.
The truly religious person is the one who drops out of the whole trip of becoming, who relaxes in his being, who rejoices in his being, who says, “Aham brahmasmi – I am that, I am already that; Ana’l haq – I am truth, I am God.” These are just expressions of being. The basic message is: “I am already that, so I need not try to become.”
I have heard one of the most beautiful stories about a Hasid master, Sosya…
About seven hundred years ago, a great master and mystic named Sosya, ripe with years and honors, lay dying. His students and disciples asked him if he was afraid to die.
“Yes,” he said, “I am afraid to meet my maker.”
“How can that be? You have lived such an exemplary life. Like Moses, you have led us out of the wilderness of ignorance. Like Solomon, you have judged between us wisely.”
Sosya replied, “When I meet my maker, he will not ask, ‘Have you been Moses or Solomon?’ He will ask, ‘Have you been Sosya?’”
This is one of the most beautiful stories, meditate over it. Sosya says, “God will not ask me, ‘Have you been Moses or Solomon?’ He will ask me, ‘Have you been Sosya?’”
And remember, God is going to ask you the same thing. He will not ask you, “Have you been Jesus or Buddha or Kabir?” He will simply ask you, “Have you been yourself?” And millions of people are not being themselves. They are all trying to be someone else, something else. Rejecting their beings, they go on rushing toward some idea of becoming. They remain in confusion because they remain in duality. They remain in misery because becoming is not possible – they are trying the impossible.
Remember, misery arises only when you try the impossible – because you want it to happen and it can’t, in the nature of things. You want two plus two to be five: you will be miserable until you realize that two plus two cannot be five. For a few moments, you may believe it can be five, but sooner or later the truth will reveal itself: it is four. How long can you deceive yourself, and what is the point? You are simply wasting your life.
Don’t try to do the impossible – becoming is impossible. You cannot be anyone other than you are; let this idea sink deep into your heart. Let me repeat: you cannot be anyone other than you are, there is no becoming. All becoming is the world. Not to be a part of becoming is to be a sannyasin.
What is a sannyasin? – one who is no longer worried about becoming someone because he is absolutely attuned with his being; one who knows who he is and is happy in being that; one who is grateful in being that. Misery comes whenever you try the impossible. So remember, whenever you are miserable you must be trying something impossible.
Bliss is simply an outcome of being natural. Bliss is not an achievement: it is a by-product of relaxing with yourself, of simply being that which you are. Then this very moment, all misery can disappear; this very moment, there is bliss; this very moment, there is benediction – and the heavens open up and godliness starts showering. Suddenly, a great stirring is felt in your heart; you, who have been asleep, become awake.
Becoming is your sleep. Being is your buddhahood, being is your awakening. And becoming creates anguish because you have to find ways and means. And everything fails, nothing ever succeeds – nothing can ever succeed. Hence great anguish arises; your life, which could have bloomed into flowers, becomes only a bed of thorns.
But you are responsible, nobody else; it is your life, it is your responsibility. You have to take care of your being. And the greatest thing that can be said to you is: “Just be yourself.” Carry no idea about how you should be: drop all how’s, drop all ideals, drop all ideologies, drop all concepts, images, of how you should be. You are already that. Start enjoying that which you are, and then this very ordinary life suddenly becomes extraordinary. Then these ordinary days have such tremendous poetry, then these ordinary moments are full of dance. Then these ordinary people are no longer ordinary people; they turn into gods and goddesses. The moment you accept your being you accept everybody’s being.
Why has this happened at all? And why only to man? Why not to the trees and the birds and the animals? Why are the Himalayan peaks so beautiful, and why are the birds on the wing so enchanting, and why do the trees have such splendor? Why has all this disappeared from man’s life? There is a reason, and it has to be understood.
Man is the only conscious being on earth; that is his glory and that is his agony too. It depends on you whether it will be agony or glory. Consciousness is a double-edged sword. You have been given something very valuable, but you don’t know what to do with it; it is like a sword in the hands of a child. A sword can be used rightly, to protect, but it can be used to harm too. Anything that can become a blessing, can also become a curse – it depends on how you use it.
Man is the only conscious being, and consciousness has two possibilities: either it can become divine consciousness – then it is a benediction, or it can become self-consciousness – then it is a curse. And we have made it a curse. We have changed our consciousness into self-consciousness, we have created an ego out of being conscious. Rather than becoming aware of the organic unity of existence, rather than becoming aware of the orgasmic joy of existence, rather than becoming part of the universal, we have used our consciousness to separate ourselves from the universe, from existence, from life. Rather than making a bridge out of consciousness, we have made a wall.
And that’s what we are continuously being taught. Even modern psychology goes on teaching a very nonsensical thing: that the ego needs to be strengthened, that a man needs a strong ego because he has to fight in the struggle of life. If he does not have a strong ego, he will be defeated by other strong egos. There is a point to that, it is true: if you don’t have a strong ego, you cannot be a politician; if you don’t have a strong ego, you cannot become very rich. You have to fight tooth and nail for these things; you have to fight madly, neurotically, fanatically. You have to fight, utterly blind to what is happening. You have to go rushing into the crowd, you have to risk everything. Only then can you become very rich, very powerful.
But what is the point of much money and much power? In the first place they are not really needed to be happy, they are not really needed to be contented. Modern psychology is still teaching people to have strong egos: it is still not modern enough, in fact; it is still persisting in the old ideology, the old ideas. Psychology has a very long heritage; it has not yet been able to disconnect itself from its past. What the priest was saying in the past, now the psychologist is saying; he is simply repeating the same thing, with new jargon of course, with more scientific terminology – which is dangerous. The priest is exposed now, the priest no longer has any power; the power has moved to the psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, psychologist. The psychologist is the modern priest, and he is saying the same stupid thing that the priest has been saying down the ages: “Have a strong ego.”
The whole of education is based on giving you a strong ego. And the problem is that the stronger an ego you have, the more you feel you are separate, the more you are separate, and the more you are disconnected from existence. And to be separate from existence creates fear, creates paranoia.
Why are people so afraid of death? Do you think they are really afraid of death? You may not have meditated over it. Nobody is afraid of death. How can you be afraid of something which you have not yet seen? You cannot be afraid of something which is unknown, you can only be afraid of something which is known. A child is not afraid of catching hold of a snake, a child is not afraid of putting his hand into the fire. Why is he not afraid? – because he does not know. How can he be afraid of the snake? He has no past experience, no bitter experience. How can he be afraid of the flame? He has never been burned before.
How can you be afraid of death? You don’t know anything about death. Who knows, it may be a beautiful rest? Who knows, it may take you to a higher plane of life? Who knows, it may give you freedom from your body? Who knows? How can you be afraid of death? No, let me say it clearly: nobody is afraid of death.
I know you will say, “Everybody is afraid of death,” but there is something else in it: people are not afraid of death, they are afraid of losing their separation, they are afraid of losing their ego. The fear of death arises when you start feeling separate from existence because then death seems to be dangerous. What will happen to your ego, your personality? You have cultivated your personality with such care, with such effort, you have polished it your whole life – and death will come and destroy it. You will no longer be separate.
If you understand, if you see, if you feel and experience that you are not separate from existence, that you are one with it, all fear of death disappears – because there is nobody to die inside you.
There is nobody at all in the first place, existence lives through you. Saint Paul says, “Not I, but Christ, lives through me.” And Christ says, “Not I, but God, lives through me.” They are expressing their non-separation, they are declaring they are one with existence. Once you know you are one with existence, no death is possible. For death to be possible, first you have to create a private, personal life, then death becomes possible. You make death possible by creating the ego, and the stronger the ego, the more fear of death there will be. Hence, deep down, the most egoistic person is very, very prone to trembling, to fear of death. The less the ego, the less the fear of death.
That’s why small children are not afraid of death: their egos are not yet born. Animals are not afraid of death, they simply die; when death comes they die. When birth comes they are here, when death comes they are gone. A person of true consciousness will come like the wind, and will go like the wind; he will not leave any traces anywhere. He will not struggle with death because he does not struggle with life itself. He will allow life to flow through him, and he will also allow death to flow through him. Life comes from existence, and death comes from existence. Life is a manifestation, death is a rest.
And remember, if the fear of death disappears, then all other fears disappear automatically because they are nothing but by-products of the main, basic fear – the fear of death. Go into any of your fears, and ultimately you will come to rock bottom, and that will be the fear of death. You are afraid of losing money? Go deep into it and you will find that money somehow gives you a feeling that you are more protected, that you can resist death more than the poor man – hence you are afraid of losing money. If you are powerful, politically powerful, it appears you have conquered death: because you have power over other people’s lives there is the illusion that you have power over your own life too. It is sheer illusion, maintained by your high position: you are the president, the prime minister, and millions of people look up to you. You are so important, how can existence afford to lose you? You are so important, how can life continue without you? You are so important that you are needed – that gives you the feeling that you have conquered death.
And because you have such power over people you can kill thousands. Adolf Hitler killed millions of people, and those who have looked deeply into his mind are all convinced of one fact: he was very afraid of death. He was so afraid of death he never allowed anybody to be in his room at night, nobody was ever allowed to stay in the same room, not even the woman he had fallen in love with. He would lock the room and check everything because while he was asleep somebody could kill him. Who knows? The woman he had fallen in love with may be just a spy. He was so afraid, he never allowed anybody to come too close to him.
He married only three hours before he was going to commit suicide; there was not even the chance of a honeymoon. In fact, that was his honeymoon – suicide. In the middle of the night, the priest was called to marry him to the woman who he was in a kind of relationship with – it could not have been love because a man like Hitler cannot love. They were married, and the next thing they did was kill themselves.
When he was going to commit suicide there was no fear, he could allow the woman to come close. The game was lost, all was lost; the enemy had entered the capital, he could hear the bombs exploding close by. Now there was no hope, he had failed. Now he could marry. For what? For twenty years he had been waiting, for twenty years the woman had been waiting – but he was afraid of letting anybody too close.
This man killed millions of people for stupid reasons. He killed Jews, millions of Jews, with the stupid idea that it was because of the Jews that Germany had lost the First World War; that because of the Jews, the nation, the country, the race had fallen. Now, this is a stupid reason, with no logic, no relevance. The Jews had nothing to do with it, they had nothing to do with the fall of the German race. In reality, they have given us the greatest geniuses that Germany has ever known: Karl Marx was a Jew, Sigmund Freud was a Jew, Albert Einstein was a Jew. In fact it was the Jews who were the cream, but Hitler killed millions of them. Deep down, it seems he was suffering from an inferiority complex. And deep down he was suffering from such a fear of death that he wanted to kill, to convince himself: “If I can kill so many people, if I can kill millions of people, then I am so powerful I am beyond death.”
A man who is afraid of death is dangerous, dangerous to himself and to others. And this fear arises out of a very fallacious belief. The fallacy is that we think we are separate – consciousness gives us that possibility. In being conscious, man has been given such potential power that he has to be very careful how he uses it. Remember, if you move on the plains there is no danger of falling; if you move in the mountains, if you go toward the peaks, there is a great danger of falling. The higher you move, the more acute becomes the danger. Man is the only animal who is moving higher, toward the peaks, at the peaks. Consciousness is the mountain, and we have to be very alert.
That is the whole teaching of all the Buddhas and all the Krishnas and all the Christs; and that is the teaching of Kabir: be conscious. Be so conscious that you don’t create the self; be so alert that self-consciousness is not created at all. Just being conscious is a great freedom, a great liberation. By just being conscious, sooner or later you will become God-conscious. Self-consciousness is a disease: by being self-conscious you will eventually lose even that little consciousness that lies behind the self like a small tail; that consciousness will disappear too.
It is the ego that is the problem. The ego will make you more and more unconscious. The ego will enclose you like a prison wall. It will not even leave windows in your being to look out of. It will make you a monad: a windowless, closed cell. You will be encapsulated by the ego.
Hence I repeat again: the male mind is egoistic. You have to learn the way of the feminine. You have to become egoless, you have to learn the path of surrender. You have to learn how to melt into existence, how to become one with the rivers and the mountains and the clouds, how to feel affinity, attunement, at-onement. And then slowly, slowly, you will become a host. And the day you are a host, the guest comes.
God is not a hypothesis; religion does not propose any hypotheses. The hypothesis is part of the scientific world. A hypothesis is just an assumption to explain a few facts which cannot be explained without it. But a hypothesis is always temporary: “Tomorrow we will find a better hypothesis, and then we will discard this one.” Hence, science is discarding hypotheses every day; better and better ones are found and older ones discarded. Now Newton’s hypotheses are discarded because of Einstein, and sooner or later we will find even better hypotheses to explain the facts of the world.
A hypothesis is just a way of explaining the facts – it is man-made. Facts are there, and the mind wants to fix all those facts into a certain system because unless they are put into a certain system the mind feels uneasy, restless. Unless the facts are systematized, categorized, the mind feels very restless. The mind is a great systematizer, it wants to systematize everything. If there is no system available, it will invent one. Always remember that the hypothesis is only an assumption, it is an invention of the mind. You only use the hypothesis, you need not believe in it.
God is not a hypothesis. What is God then? God is a hypostasis, an experience. It does not explain anything, it is the experience of the unexplainable. I call it hypostasis – it cannot be changed, it is absolute, and it is not a belief. Those who believe in God, their God is a hypothesis. Those who know God, their God is a hypostasis, not a hypothesis.
Kabir knows. What he is saying is not an explanation, he is talking about an experience – he is sharing his joy, he is sharing something that he has known, he is singing a song about the unsung. Remember, whenever Kabir talks about God it is not a belief: he knows it, it is his experience. He is talking from his experience, hence he can be of immense help to you.
Those who believe cannot be of any help: they themselves don’t know. If somebody says, “I believe in God,” remember, he cannot be of any help to you. He himself is ignorant, hence his belief. Find a man who says, “I know God. This is not my belief, but my experience.” The miracle is that if you know God, you are God. Knowing God, one becomes God. The old Upanishads say: “Knowing God, one becomes that.”
Kabir is talking as a God-realized man, utterly drunk. His songs are short, but of immense beauty; the songs of a drunkard, drunk on the divine. They may not be great literature because he does not bother about the meter and the grammar and the language, but they are not composed songs, they are outpourings of his joy; a drunkard dancing, singing. You can’t expect formalities to be observed. These songs are very small gems; it is a question of quality, not quantity.
The original song begins:
Sai bin dard kareje hoy…
Without the beloved my heart aches, without the beloved my heart is nothing but pain, without the beloved I am living in hell. Sai bin dard kareje hoy… Without the beloved we are empty, hollow, we are negatives. Unless God enters into our beings, unless God blooms in our beings, we cannot be really existential, we remain shadows. And it is painful, it aches, it hurts, it is like a wound.
When my friend is away from me, I am depressed;
nothing in the daylight delights me,
sleep at night gives no rest.
Who can I tell about this?
The helplessness of the mystic: on the one hand he has tasted something of God, he has seen a glimpse, on the other hand he hankers for more; he does not want to leave that experience, that space, even for a single moment. But one cannot take hold of that space in one go. The experience is so tremendous, so huge, so enormous, that you cannot swallow it. You have to imbibe it slowly, slowly; you have to chew it and digest it. God is an ocean – you cannot drink it. You will have to slowly, slowly, become one with it.
Kabir knows, he has seen the face of the beloved. Now his heart is full of pain, the pain of separation. He has known the state of non-separation, maybe only for a few moments; for a few moments he has been transported to another world, he has tasted the nectar. Now he is back in the world, back to earth, and it is very painful. The world seems to be pale, utterly meaningless, with no significance. His heart longs for the beloved. There is only one thirst – to be again in that vast space, to be again with the friend.
When my friend is away from me, I am depressed; nothing in the daylight delights me… Once you have known God then these so-called days are like nights. Once you have known God then this life is like death. Once you have known God then all the joys of this life are nothing but sorrows. Now you can compare: everything that you had thought of as very sweet before, turns sour.
If you have been to the Himalayan peaks and you have experienced the virgin silence, the coolness, the smell of the snow, that otherworldly something which still exists in the Himalayas, coming back to the marketplace, the heart longs for it. Nobody will be able to understand why you look so sad, nobody will be able to understand why your eyes are so full of tears. It is not so in the Alps; no other mountains have that something, all other mountains are already polluted by man, all other mountains are already destroyed by man. Only the Himalayan peaks still have something very primitive, primordial, ancient, virgin. If you have experienced that silence you won’t enjoy, and nobody will understand why. To the man who has tasted God, the world becomes so futile, so utterly futile, that he is here, but not here; his heart continuously longs for God.
…nothing in the daylight delights me, sleep at night gives no rest. To know God is to know ultimate rest. Your sleep is not much of a rest. If you have known something of meditation you will understand what I mean when I say your sleep is not much of a rest. Your sleep is another kind of restlessness, that’s all; it is good for a change. In the day you are restless in one way, in the night you are restless in another way. Sleep is a kind of rest, good for a change. It is like you have been doing mathematics for three hours and you are tired, then you go into the garden and you dig a hole – it is a kind of rest. In fact it is a new kind of work, but now, tired of mathematics, digging the hole feels good.
That’s why in the schools, colleges, universities, we go on changing subjects; it is a kind of rest: one hour for mathematics, then an hour for geography, then another hour for history. We go on changing because the part of the mind that functions when you are working on mathematics is not the part which functions when you are studying literature. There are different parts, different centers in the mind, so if one center starts functioning the first center goes to sleep, has a kind of rest.
That’s exactly what happens during the night. In the daytime, your conscious mind functions and your unconscious remains hidden. In the night, the conscious mind goes to sleep and the unconscious functions; but work continues, much work, really great work. Your blood circulates, work continues; your heart beats, work continues; your breathing continues, your digestion continues. A thousand and one things are going on in the body, and a thousand and one things are going on in the mind too. Dreams upon dreams are coming; and not only that, a part of your mind blocks everything from the outside, prevents it from disturbing your sleep.
You want to get up early in the morning, at four o’clock. You fix the alarm and the alarm goes, but your mind is constantly working. It does not want you to be disturbed. The mind creates a dream: you start dreaming that you are passing a church and the church bells are ringing. This is a way for the mind to protect your sleep. It misinforms you, misguides you; it changes the alarm into church bells. Great work is going on. The mind is guarding, seeing what can be allowed and what cannot. And if something cannot be prevented, at least it can be interpreted in such a way that sleep is not disturbed. The mind is constantly on guard; great work continues the whole night.
But if you know meditation, then a few minutes of meditation can give you so much rest. Compared to that rest, your whole night will look like restlessness because in meditation you are utterly relaxed, the mind is not on guard, you are not focusing on anything. You are simply open and available, available to all kinds of things – the birds singing, the airplane passing by, the train, the people, the traffic noise. You are available to all. Meditation is not concentration, meditation is not excluding anything; meditation is inclusive of all.
And then there is a great silence amidst all the noise around you, great rest amidst all the turmoil around you. Once you have known the rest of meditation for even a few minutes your whole night will look like restlessness. Comparison will arise, but that is natural for one who has known God – that means one who has known samadhi, the ultimate peak of meditation. Kabir is right: …nothing in the daylight delights me, sleep at night gives no rest. Who can I tell about this? This is one of the greatest problems for the mystics: “Who can I tell about this, who will understand?”
I was traveling in this country for fifteen years, day in, day out, year in, year out, talking to thousands of people. Slowly, slowly, I became aware that I was talking to the walls. Those people could not understand what I was saying. They could hear, but they could not listen. The words reached them, but the meaning was left behind. I tried in every way, but it was impossible. Then I decided to stay in one place and only to talk to those few who really wanted to understand – and who were ready not only to understand, but to be transformed.
Many people come here, particularly Indians, and they ask, “Why isn’t the meeting open to all?” Because it is of no use to them and they will be a nuisance here. Their very presence will destroy something immensely beautiful that is being created. It is open only to those who are seekers. It is not a public place, it can never be a public place. It is a mystery school, it is only for those who are ready to go into the unknown, the unexplainable.
And it has been my experience that if I am talking to my sannyasins I feel a deep rapport, but if I am talking to non-sannyasins there seems to be some difficulty in communication. Many non-sannyasins have asked, “Why can’t we sit in front?” For the simple reason that if you are in front and I see you, it will be difficult for me to say that which I would like to say. Just looking at your faces, communication becomes difficult, some things become impossible. And what to say about communion? Looking at my sannyasins, looking into their eyes, communion is possible.
Kabir is right. He says: …who can I tell about this?
…kase kahun dukh hoy…
There is a great pain in my heart because I have known the bliss of being with the divine, but to whom can I communicate this? It would help me if I could communicate.
Hence, a buddhafield is always needed, satsang is needed. A community is needed where many people are searching together, where you can speak and you can rest assured that you will not be misunderstood. A commune is needed where you can share your burdens, your experiences; you can pour out your heart, and you will be understood, you will not feel embarrassed.
That’s what is happening here. If one sannyasin comes to another and starts crying, the other understands; the other will not start asking questions, questions which would be embarrassing to the person who is crying. He may hug him, he may hold his hand, but he will not start a great discussion about it: “Don’t be emotional, this is not good. Be a man, don’t cry.” No, he will understand, he will have sympathy, he will support. A commune becomes a support, where you can say things which are not ordinarily said in the outside world, where you can share experiences which seem imaginary, illusory, hallucinatory; things that if you tell them to somebody in the outside world they will think you are mad.
…kase kahun dukh hoy… Kabir says, I cannot find anybody to whom I can say this – that I have seen my lord, that I have been with my lord, and now I am again separated. I have known non-separation, those orgasmic moments, those peaks, and now I am thrown back into the dark valley. Now nothing here appeals to me anymore; the beauty here is almost ugliness compared to the beauty that has arisen in my vision. And the happiness here is just false because I have known authentic joy. And all the celebrations here are just a formality, people are moving in empty gestures. I have seen the real celebration!
The night is dark and long…hours go by…
because I am alone, I sit up suddenly,
fear goes through me…
The night is dark and long… You don’t know the night Kabir is talking about. He is not talking about the ordinary night, he is talking about the night that is known only by those who have seen the light – a very paradoxical phenomenon. He is talking about the night that only happens to those who have seen the dawn, who have seen something of the morning. And that morning has disappeared again, and now the night is darker than ever before. Great fear arises: “Will I ever be able to attain to that peak again? Was it real? Or have I only been dreaming?” Great fear grows, great trembling arises, he is scared to death. And he cannot even share it.
It would have helped Kabir if there had been a companion with whom it was possible to share the fear. It would have helped if some consoling words had come from somebody, if they had told him, “Don’t be worried, it will happen again. It has happened to me again.” That would have given him confidence. But whom to talk to? Kase kahun dukh hoy? I am in tremendous pain. But where to go, whom to go to, with whom to share?
…adhi ratiyan pichhle paharva,
sai bina taraf rahi soy…
Half the night is gone, waiting, waiting, waiting, and there is no sign. I cannot hear his footsteps. …adhi ratiyan pichhle paharva, sai bina taraf rahi soy… I have waited long, half the night has passed. Now the last of the night is passing and he has still not come, and I don’t see any sign, any indication, any message. And the darkness is becoming darker and darker; there seems to be no possibility that I will attain to him again. In deep despair, in great pain, I have fallen asleep again.
The night is dark and long… Remember one thing: that time is relative. If you are rejoicing, time goes fast, very fast; if you are in misery, in pain, time slows down. The clock moves at the same speed, but the psychological experience of time is very subjective.
You are sitting by the side of a person who is dying – then you will see how long the night becomes, there seems to be no end to it. You are with your beloved, you have met after many years – and the night goes as fast as if it were just a few moments. You cannot believe how fast it has gone. It seems the night has played a game with you, it went so fast – just to not allow you enough time with your beloved.
Time is relative – psychological time, not clock time. For those who have seen glimpses of God this world is really difficult to live in, and the night is very dark and very long. The Christian mystics have the right words for it; they call it “the dark night of the soul.”
Hours go by… because I am alone… You will know real aloneness only when you have seen God. Before that you have known aloneness: sometimes your friend is not with you, your wife is not with you, your husband is not with you, your children are not with you; yes, you have known a certain kind of aloneness. But that is nothing compared to the aloneness that you will know when you have seen God. That aloneness is like a knife to the heart. One is almost crucified.
I sit up suddenly, fear goes through me… I cannot sleep because he may be coming. Who knows when he will come? His ways are unpredictable, he comes at very unexpected moments. One has to be alert and watchful. So I wake up, I suddenly sit up, again and again, and fear goes through me: “He has not come. Has he forgotten me? Has he lost interest in me?”
These are the fears of a lover – tremendously magnified, infinitely magnified – when the lover is nobody but God himself, no other than God himself.
Kabir says: listen, my friend
there is one thing in the world that satisfies,
and that is a meeting with the guest.
Nothing else ever satisfies, nothing else can ever satisfy. Without attaining to God, without becoming God, without merging with God, you are going to remain discontented. Contentment, real contentment, has only one meaning – the meeting with the guest.
…kahat Kabir suno bhai pyare…
My dear friends, listen.
…sai mile sukh hoy.
There is only one possibility of bliss, and that is when the beloved has been found. And what is the way to find the beloved? – not searching. Lao Tzu says, “Seek, and you will not find. Do not seek, and find.” Seeking is not the way because seeking is again the male mind. Non-seeking is a passive waiting, just being ready, the door open, the house prepared for the guest, sitting on the doorstep, waiting.
This waiting is prayer, this waiting is meditation. This waiting is what is meant by being a host. The moment you have become a host the guest comes, inevitably comes; it has never been otherwise. It is not that you have to find God; if you are ready, God finds you. And how could you find God anyway? – you don’t know his address, you don’t know where he is, you don’t know his face. Even if you came across him you would not be able to recognize him. Even if you met him, the meeting is not going to be a real meeting because you will not recognize him. How could you recognize him? You have never seen him before.
Man cannot seek God – that is the message of these sutras. God can seek man – but then, what can man do? He should be ready, he should be available. If a hand comes from the beyond, he should not shrink back. If a voice comes from the beyond, he should be ready to listen – he will not be able to listen if his mind is noisy.
If God comes and knocks on your door, you should be ready to open the door, you should not be afraid of him. Yes, fear arises when the unknown comes, and when God knocks on your door it is a death for you – and a resurrection. But the resurrection will come later: first the crucifixion, first you will have to die.
Being with God means only one thing: dissolving in him – just as rivers come from the mountains and disappear into the ocean. Maybe there is a moment when the river hesitates. Kahlil Gibran says: “I have watched rivers falling into the ocean and I think that for a moment they hesitate, for a moment fear grips them. I have seen rivers looking back with great nostalgia at all the mountains that they have crossed, and the plains, and the beautiful trees on the banks, and the sunrises and the sunsets, and a thousand and one things.”
The ocean is vast – the river is going to lose its identity, and forever. There is a great nostalgia for all one’s memories, and a great desire not to lose one’s identity – but the river cannot go back. Man can go back, that is the problem. The river is bound to fall into the ocean, but man can turn back, even from the ultimate door.
If fear grips you, if you have a really strong ego and you become too protective of your separate existence, of your personality, of your ego, you may turn back, or you may close your doors. You may not listen to the voice of the beyond. And let me tell you, God comes every day and knocks on your doors. Sometimes he comes as the wind and knocks on your doors, but you don’t open them. And sometimes he comes in the rain, but you don’t go into the open, and you don’t stand under the sky to be soaked by him. No, you hide, you open your umbrellas. And you have psychological umbrellas too, and whenever he comes you avoid him; whenever he comes across you, you escape.
Kabir says, “If you want the guest to come, be a host.” Welcome him, receive him, embrace him. And he always comes, continuously comes, every moment of your life he is coming and searching for you, but you go on avoiding. All that is needed on your part is not to search for God but to be available. When God comes, be ready to surrender; when the ocean comes, be ready to disappear into it. Slip into it like a dewdrop: silently, prayerfully. Dancing, laughing, loving – disappear.
…kahat Kabir suno bhai pyare, sai mile sukh hoy. Kabir says, “My beloved friends, listen. All that I have to say is there is no other bliss than the meeting with the guest.”
Enough for today.
nothing in the daylight delights me,
sleep at night gives no rest,
who can I tell about this?
The night is dark and long…hours go by…
because I am alone, I sit up suddenly,
fear goes through me…
Kabir says: listen, my friend
there is one thing in the world that satisfies,
and that is a meeting with the guest.
Man is not what he is. Man has become what he is not. That’s the root cause of his misery. He has gone astray from his being, he has become too involved in becoming.
“To become” means to become false, “to become” means to become that which you are not. “To be” is already the case. Man has not to become anything other than he is, he has to relax in his being and know the truth.
The truth is already given, the truth is not somewhere in the future. It is not a goal, but the source. You are coming from truth. If you can find the source again, you will know what truth is. You are not going toward truth: all going takes you further and further away from truth.
You must have heard the name of Radha. Mythologically, she is known to be the most beloved woman of Krishna. He had many lovers; Radha was the suprememost. But historically, there has never been a woman by the name of Radha, and in the ancient scriptures her name is not mentioned. It is an invention of later mystics, later sages, and that has tremendous significance; it will be good to understand it.
In Sanskrit there is a word, dhara, which means the flow of a river moving from its source toward the ocean. If you reverse the word dhara, it becomes radha. Radha means the flow of a river moving toward its origin, not toward the ocean; radha is a metaphor. And one can be a beloved of God only if one turns the whole process of life from moving toward the goal to going deeper and deeper down toward the source – from being a dhara, one becomes a radha. And the source is within you. The goal is without, the source is within. The source is your very being.
But the mind is aggressive – it wants to explore, it wants to go on adventures. It wants to know that which is not known, it wants to demystify existence, it wants to conquer – it is on a journey of conquest. The mind is basically masculine, and through the mind there is no way toward godliness.
One has to become feminine. One has to become receptive rather than aggressive. One has to learn the art of relaxation rather than learning strategies to conquer the world and reality. Truth is not going to be a conquest, it is going to be a total surrender. One has to become a host, one has to open up, one has to be just a receptivity – so the wind can come in, so the rain can come in, so the sun can come in. And one day, just hiding behind the sun and the rain and the wind, comes the guest. The guest does not come from the outside, he arises within you. God is the guest.
But you have to be a host first, you have to learn the art of being a host. You have to become a welcome, you have to become a prayer, you have to become an invitation; you have to become a waiting, an infinite waiting. If it takes ages for him to come, you have to wait, with tears in your eyes of course, but with tremendous trust in your heart.
Kabir calls God the guest because he wants the seeker to be the host. The masculine mind cannot become the host. The masculine mind can only become an aggressor; it knows how to snatch things away. The masculine mind is a doer, a great doer; hence the masculine mind gives birth to science – science is basically male.
Religion is female, and those who want to enter the world of religion have to understand this very deeply because it is fundamental. If you miss this point, you will miss it all: you have to become feminine. And when I say “feminine,” I don’t mean biologically; it is not a question of man and woman, it is not a question of physiology – it is a question of your psychology. You can have the body of a woman and yet your psychology is masculine.
That’s what is happening now: many women are turning masculine, becoming more aggressive. In the name of liberation they are losing something infinitely valuable. They are losing contact with the sacred, exchanging it for the mundane. Women have always been connected in a subtle way with the sacred. Women have been mankind’s contact with the divine, but now they are becoming more and more masculine. It is not a question of physiology or biology: remember, you can have the body of a man, but a psychology that I call feminine, receptive. Buddha is feminine if you look at his psychology; Jesus is feminine if you look at his.
Friedrich Nietzsche was the first to point out that Buddha and Jesus are womanish. He was being critical of course, he was not appreciating the fact, but he was the first to point it out; he had that intuitive genius. He would have become a buddha himself, but he used his genius in the wrong way; he used his talents in a very destructive way and released the greatest destructive force seen on earth up until now.
Fascism, Nazism, are nothing but offshoots of Nietzsche’s mind. He was very masculine, he appreciated the masculine mind. He appreciated the soldier not the sannyasin; war not love; swords not flowers; destruction, murder, conquest. He did not appreciate the beauty of surrender, trust, love, friendship; he did not appreciate compassion, ecstasy, celebration – no, those were not his values. Hence he criticized Buddha and Jesus, more particularly Jesus; when he said Jesus was feminine he was condemning him.
I also say Jesus is feminine, but I am not condemning him – I could not appreciate him more. To say Jesus and Buddha are feminine is the greatest appreciation possible because they have become hosts; they have become open, vulnerable to existence. They have sent the invitation and they are simply waiting.
The way of Buddha is meditation, the way of Jesus is prayer. But these are simply different names for the same phenomenon. Meditation means becoming silent, utterly silent, becoming a no-mind; and prayer also means becoming a deep listening. What you think is prayer, is not prayer. You think saying something to God is prayer? It is not prayer at all. What can you say to God; what have you to say to God? Real prayer begins only when you start listening to God, when you become just a listening, utterly silent: then meditation and prayer become very close. Meditation is silence, and prayer too is silence, they are just different names for the same phenomenon.
Jesus and Buddha are feminine, and that’s what Kabir wants you to understand and to be. Kabir says of himself, “I am a woman married to God, God is my lover. I am fortunate that he has chosen me as his wife, as his beloved.” He sings many songs in which he says, “Ram ki dulhaniya – I am wedded to Rama, I am wedded to God.” In his simple poetry, Kabir is giving you tremendously important insights.
The first thing to be understood is that “becoming” is driving you crazy. You are not to become anything, you are already that. You have to accept yourself and relax into that acceptance. The person who is trying to become something is bound to remain tense, naturally: the constant fear of whether he is going to make it or not, whether what he is doing is going to lead him to the goal or not, whether he has chosen the right path or not; the constant fear of whether he is doing enough to achieve or not, whether or not there are others who may reach before him. Becoming creates fear, becoming creates competition, and becoming drives you crazy, neurotic. Becoming takes you further and further away from your being.
Do not become. Be, just be. Becoming is the root cause of all confusion, misery, and anguish: confusion because you cannot in fact become that which you are not. The rose can try as much as possible, but it is going to remain a rose, it can’t become a lotus. The lotus can try hard, can practice all kinds of yoga exercises, but the lotus is going to remain a lotus, it can’t become a rose. A rose is a rose, and a lotus is a lotus. But the lotus is beautiful, and the rose is beautiful. There is no confusion because the rose is perfectly happy in being a rose, and the lotus is perfectly happy in being a lotus. Only man is miserable.
Man is the only being on earth that is miserable because he is not happy in being himself; he wants to become something else. We have been brought up with this poison: “Become.” We have been driven by society, by the church, by parents, by teachers: “Become.” Nobody says to us, “Be.” And if you can find a person who says “Be” to you, that is the person to listen to, that is the real master, because he is giving you the most fundamental thing. Through that vision you will be able to relax, and in relaxation there is clarity.
Confusion arises out of the idea of becoming because you become a duality – that which you are, and that which you would like to be. You become a duality, you deny your reality and impose the unreal upon yourself – a great tension. You become phony, you become pseudo, you become split. And what I am saying is not theoretical: you can look all around – the whole of humanity is split because everyone is trying to become someone else. Someone is trying to become a Christ, someone is trying to become a Buddha, someone is trying to become the richest man in the world, someone is trying to become the president of a country – but becoming, not being; in the name of religion also, becoming.
Then what difference is there between religion and ordinary worldly affairs? If the worldly man is trying to become the richest or most powerful, and the religious man is also trying to become someone – a Buddha, a Krishna – then what is the difference? Both are in the same boat; the name of the boat is becoming.
The truly religious person is the one who drops out of the whole trip of becoming, who relaxes in his being, who rejoices in his being, who says, “Aham brahmasmi – I am that, I am already that; Ana’l haq – I am truth, I am God.” These are just expressions of being. The basic message is: “I am already that, so I need not try to become.”
I have heard one of the most beautiful stories about a Hasid master, Sosya…
About seven hundred years ago, a great master and mystic named Sosya, ripe with years and honors, lay dying. His students and disciples asked him if he was afraid to die.
“Yes,” he said, “I am afraid to meet my maker.”
“How can that be? You have lived such an exemplary life. Like Moses, you have led us out of the wilderness of ignorance. Like Solomon, you have judged between us wisely.”
Sosya replied, “When I meet my maker, he will not ask, ‘Have you been Moses or Solomon?’ He will ask, ‘Have you been Sosya?’”
This is one of the most beautiful stories, meditate over it. Sosya says, “God will not ask me, ‘Have you been Moses or Solomon?’ He will ask me, ‘Have you been Sosya?’”
And remember, God is going to ask you the same thing. He will not ask you, “Have you been Jesus or Buddha or Kabir?” He will simply ask you, “Have you been yourself?” And millions of people are not being themselves. They are all trying to be someone else, something else. Rejecting their beings, they go on rushing toward some idea of becoming. They remain in confusion because they remain in duality. They remain in misery because becoming is not possible – they are trying the impossible.
Remember, misery arises only when you try the impossible – because you want it to happen and it can’t, in the nature of things. You want two plus two to be five: you will be miserable until you realize that two plus two cannot be five. For a few moments, you may believe it can be five, but sooner or later the truth will reveal itself: it is four. How long can you deceive yourself, and what is the point? You are simply wasting your life.
Don’t try to do the impossible – becoming is impossible. You cannot be anyone other than you are; let this idea sink deep into your heart. Let me repeat: you cannot be anyone other than you are, there is no becoming. All becoming is the world. Not to be a part of becoming is to be a sannyasin.
What is a sannyasin? – one who is no longer worried about becoming someone because he is absolutely attuned with his being; one who knows who he is and is happy in being that; one who is grateful in being that. Misery comes whenever you try the impossible. So remember, whenever you are miserable you must be trying something impossible.
Bliss is simply an outcome of being natural. Bliss is not an achievement: it is a by-product of relaxing with yourself, of simply being that which you are. Then this very moment, all misery can disappear; this very moment, there is bliss; this very moment, there is benediction – and the heavens open up and godliness starts showering. Suddenly, a great stirring is felt in your heart; you, who have been asleep, become awake.
Becoming is your sleep. Being is your buddhahood, being is your awakening. And becoming creates anguish because you have to find ways and means. And everything fails, nothing ever succeeds – nothing can ever succeed. Hence great anguish arises; your life, which could have bloomed into flowers, becomes only a bed of thorns.
But you are responsible, nobody else; it is your life, it is your responsibility. You have to take care of your being. And the greatest thing that can be said to you is: “Just be yourself.” Carry no idea about how you should be: drop all how’s, drop all ideals, drop all ideologies, drop all concepts, images, of how you should be. You are already that. Start enjoying that which you are, and then this very ordinary life suddenly becomes extraordinary. Then these ordinary days have such tremendous poetry, then these ordinary moments are full of dance. Then these ordinary people are no longer ordinary people; they turn into gods and goddesses. The moment you accept your being you accept everybody’s being.
Why has this happened at all? And why only to man? Why not to the trees and the birds and the animals? Why are the Himalayan peaks so beautiful, and why are the birds on the wing so enchanting, and why do the trees have such splendor? Why has all this disappeared from man’s life? There is a reason, and it has to be understood.
Man is the only conscious being on earth; that is his glory and that is his agony too. It depends on you whether it will be agony or glory. Consciousness is a double-edged sword. You have been given something very valuable, but you don’t know what to do with it; it is like a sword in the hands of a child. A sword can be used rightly, to protect, but it can be used to harm too. Anything that can become a blessing, can also become a curse – it depends on how you use it.
Man is the only conscious being, and consciousness has two possibilities: either it can become divine consciousness – then it is a benediction, or it can become self-consciousness – then it is a curse. And we have made it a curse. We have changed our consciousness into self-consciousness, we have created an ego out of being conscious. Rather than becoming aware of the organic unity of existence, rather than becoming aware of the orgasmic joy of existence, rather than becoming part of the universal, we have used our consciousness to separate ourselves from the universe, from existence, from life. Rather than making a bridge out of consciousness, we have made a wall.
And that’s what we are continuously being taught. Even modern psychology goes on teaching a very nonsensical thing: that the ego needs to be strengthened, that a man needs a strong ego because he has to fight in the struggle of life. If he does not have a strong ego, he will be defeated by other strong egos. There is a point to that, it is true: if you don’t have a strong ego, you cannot be a politician; if you don’t have a strong ego, you cannot become very rich. You have to fight tooth and nail for these things; you have to fight madly, neurotically, fanatically. You have to fight, utterly blind to what is happening. You have to go rushing into the crowd, you have to risk everything. Only then can you become very rich, very powerful.
But what is the point of much money and much power? In the first place they are not really needed to be happy, they are not really needed to be contented. Modern psychology is still teaching people to have strong egos: it is still not modern enough, in fact; it is still persisting in the old ideology, the old ideas. Psychology has a very long heritage; it has not yet been able to disconnect itself from its past. What the priest was saying in the past, now the psychologist is saying; he is simply repeating the same thing, with new jargon of course, with more scientific terminology – which is dangerous. The priest is exposed now, the priest no longer has any power; the power has moved to the psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, psychologist. The psychologist is the modern priest, and he is saying the same stupid thing that the priest has been saying down the ages: “Have a strong ego.”
The whole of education is based on giving you a strong ego. And the problem is that the stronger an ego you have, the more you feel you are separate, the more you are separate, and the more you are disconnected from existence. And to be separate from existence creates fear, creates paranoia.
Why are people so afraid of death? Do you think they are really afraid of death? You may not have meditated over it. Nobody is afraid of death. How can you be afraid of something which you have not yet seen? You cannot be afraid of something which is unknown, you can only be afraid of something which is known. A child is not afraid of catching hold of a snake, a child is not afraid of putting his hand into the fire. Why is he not afraid? – because he does not know. How can he be afraid of the snake? He has no past experience, no bitter experience. How can he be afraid of the flame? He has never been burned before.
How can you be afraid of death? You don’t know anything about death. Who knows, it may be a beautiful rest? Who knows, it may take you to a higher plane of life? Who knows, it may give you freedom from your body? Who knows? How can you be afraid of death? No, let me say it clearly: nobody is afraid of death.
I know you will say, “Everybody is afraid of death,” but there is something else in it: people are not afraid of death, they are afraid of losing their separation, they are afraid of losing their ego. The fear of death arises when you start feeling separate from existence because then death seems to be dangerous. What will happen to your ego, your personality? You have cultivated your personality with such care, with such effort, you have polished it your whole life – and death will come and destroy it. You will no longer be separate.
If you understand, if you see, if you feel and experience that you are not separate from existence, that you are one with it, all fear of death disappears – because there is nobody to die inside you.
There is nobody at all in the first place, existence lives through you. Saint Paul says, “Not I, but Christ, lives through me.” And Christ says, “Not I, but God, lives through me.” They are expressing their non-separation, they are declaring they are one with existence. Once you know you are one with existence, no death is possible. For death to be possible, first you have to create a private, personal life, then death becomes possible. You make death possible by creating the ego, and the stronger the ego, the more fear of death there will be. Hence, deep down, the most egoistic person is very, very prone to trembling, to fear of death. The less the ego, the less the fear of death.
That’s why small children are not afraid of death: their egos are not yet born. Animals are not afraid of death, they simply die; when death comes they die. When birth comes they are here, when death comes they are gone. A person of true consciousness will come like the wind, and will go like the wind; he will not leave any traces anywhere. He will not struggle with death because he does not struggle with life itself. He will allow life to flow through him, and he will also allow death to flow through him. Life comes from existence, and death comes from existence. Life is a manifestation, death is a rest.
And remember, if the fear of death disappears, then all other fears disappear automatically because they are nothing but by-products of the main, basic fear – the fear of death. Go into any of your fears, and ultimately you will come to rock bottom, and that will be the fear of death. You are afraid of losing money? Go deep into it and you will find that money somehow gives you a feeling that you are more protected, that you can resist death more than the poor man – hence you are afraid of losing money. If you are powerful, politically powerful, it appears you have conquered death: because you have power over other people’s lives there is the illusion that you have power over your own life too. It is sheer illusion, maintained by your high position: you are the president, the prime minister, and millions of people look up to you. You are so important, how can existence afford to lose you? You are so important, how can life continue without you? You are so important that you are needed – that gives you the feeling that you have conquered death.
And because you have such power over people you can kill thousands. Adolf Hitler killed millions of people, and those who have looked deeply into his mind are all convinced of one fact: he was very afraid of death. He was so afraid of death he never allowed anybody to be in his room at night, nobody was ever allowed to stay in the same room, not even the woman he had fallen in love with. He would lock the room and check everything because while he was asleep somebody could kill him. Who knows? The woman he had fallen in love with may be just a spy. He was so afraid, he never allowed anybody to come too close to him.
He married only three hours before he was going to commit suicide; there was not even the chance of a honeymoon. In fact, that was his honeymoon – suicide. In the middle of the night, the priest was called to marry him to the woman who he was in a kind of relationship with – it could not have been love because a man like Hitler cannot love. They were married, and the next thing they did was kill themselves.
When he was going to commit suicide there was no fear, he could allow the woman to come close. The game was lost, all was lost; the enemy had entered the capital, he could hear the bombs exploding close by. Now there was no hope, he had failed. Now he could marry. For what? For twenty years he had been waiting, for twenty years the woman had been waiting – but he was afraid of letting anybody too close.
This man killed millions of people for stupid reasons. He killed Jews, millions of Jews, with the stupid idea that it was because of the Jews that Germany had lost the First World War; that because of the Jews, the nation, the country, the race had fallen. Now, this is a stupid reason, with no logic, no relevance. The Jews had nothing to do with it, they had nothing to do with the fall of the German race. In reality, they have given us the greatest geniuses that Germany has ever known: Karl Marx was a Jew, Sigmund Freud was a Jew, Albert Einstein was a Jew. In fact it was the Jews who were the cream, but Hitler killed millions of them. Deep down, it seems he was suffering from an inferiority complex. And deep down he was suffering from such a fear of death that he wanted to kill, to convince himself: “If I can kill so many people, if I can kill millions of people, then I am so powerful I am beyond death.”
A man who is afraid of death is dangerous, dangerous to himself and to others. And this fear arises out of a very fallacious belief. The fallacy is that we think we are separate – consciousness gives us that possibility. In being conscious, man has been given such potential power that he has to be very careful how he uses it. Remember, if you move on the plains there is no danger of falling; if you move in the mountains, if you go toward the peaks, there is a great danger of falling. The higher you move, the more acute becomes the danger. Man is the only animal who is moving higher, toward the peaks, at the peaks. Consciousness is the mountain, and we have to be very alert.
That is the whole teaching of all the Buddhas and all the Krishnas and all the Christs; and that is the teaching of Kabir: be conscious. Be so conscious that you don’t create the self; be so alert that self-consciousness is not created at all. Just being conscious is a great freedom, a great liberation. By just being conscious, sooner or later you will become God-conscious. Self-consciousness is a disease: by being self-conscious you will eventually lose even that little consciousness that lies behind the self like a small tail; that consciousness will disappear too.
It is the ego that is the problem. The ego will make you more and more unconscious. The ego will enclose you like a prison wall. It will not even leave windows in your being to look out of. It will make you a monad: a windowless, closed cell. You will be encapsulated by the ego.
Hence I repeat again: the male mind is egoistic. You have to learn the way of the feminine. You have to become egoless, you have to learn the path of surrender. You have to learn how to melt into existence, how to become one with the rivers and the mountains and the clouds, how to feel affinity, attunement, at-onement. And then slowly, slowly, you will become a host. And the day you are a host, the guest comes.
God is not a hypothesis; religion does not propose any hypotheses. The hypothesis is part of the scientific world. A hypothesis is just an assumption to explain a few facts which cannot be explained without it. But a hypothesis is always temporary: “Tomorrow we will find a better hypothesis, and then we will discard this one.” Hence, science is discarding hypotheses every day; better and better ones are found and older ones discarded. Now Newton’s hypotheses are discarded because of Einstein, and sooner or later we will find even better hypotheses to explain the facts of the world.
A hypothesis is just a way of explaining the facts – it is man-made. Facts are there, and the mind wants to fix all those facts into a certain system because unless they are put into a certain system the mind feels uneasy, restless. Unless the facts are systematized, categorized, the mind feels very restless. The mind is a great systematizer, it wants to systematize everything. If there is no system available, it will invent one. Always remember that the hypothesis is only an assumption, it is an invention of the mind. You only use the hypothesis, you need not believe in it.
God is not a hypothesis. What is God then? God is a hypostasis, an experience. It does not explain anything, it is the experience of the unexplainable. I call it hypostasis – it cannot be changed, it is absolute, and it is not a belief. Those who believe in God, their God is a hypothesis. Those who know God, their God is a hypostasis, not a hypothesis.
Kabir knows. What he is saying is not an explanation, he is talking about an experience – he is sharing his joy, he is sharing something that he has known, he is singing a song about the unsung. Remember, whenever Kabir talks about God it is not a belief: he knows it, it is his experience. He is talking from his experience, hence he can be of immense help to you.
Those who believe cannot be of any help: they themselves don’t know. If somebody says, “I believe in God,” remember, he cannot be of any help to you. He himself is ignorant, hence his belief. Find a man who says, “I know God. This is not my belief, but my experience.” The miracle is that if you know God, you are God. Knowing God, one becomes God. The old Upanishads say: “Knowing God, one becomes that.”
Kabir is talking as a God-realized man, utterly drunk. His songs are short, but of immense beauty; the songs of a drunkard, drunk on the divine. They may not be great literature because he does not bother about the meter and the grammar and the language, but they are not composed songs, they are outpourings of his joy; a drunkard dancing, singing. You can’t expect formalities to be observed. These songs are very small gems; it is a question of quality, not quantity.
The original song begins:
Sai bin dard kareje hoy…
Without the beloved my heart aches, without the beloved my heart is nothing but pain, without the beloved I am living in hell. Sai bin dard kareje hoy… Without the beloved we are empty, hollow, we are negatives. Unless God enters into our beings, unless God blooms in our beings, we cannot be really existential, we remain shadows. And it is painful, it aches, it hurts, it is like a wound.
When my friend is away from me, I am depressed;
nothing in the daylight delights me,
sleep at night gives no rest.
Who can I tell about this?
The helplessness of the mystic: on the one hand he has tasted something of God, he has seen a glimpse, on the other hand he hankers for more; he does not want to leave that experience, that space, even for a single moment. But one cannot take hold of that space in one go. The experience is so tremendous, so huge, so enormous, that you cannot swallow it. You have to imbibe it slowly, slowly; you have to chew it and digest it. God is an ocean – you cannot drink it. You will have to slowly, slowly, become one with it.
Kabir knows, he has seen the face of the beloved. Now his heart is full of pain, the pain of separation. He has known the state of non-separation, maybe only for a few moments; for a few moments he has been transported to another world, he has tasted the nectar. Now he is back in the world, back to earth, and it is very painful. The world seems to be pale, utterly meaningless, with no significance. His heart longs for the beloved. There is only one thirst – to be again in that vast space, to be again with the friend.
When my friend is away from me, I am depressed; nothing in the daylight delights me… Once you have known God then these so-called days are like nights. Once you have known God then this life is like death. Once you have known God then all the joys of this life are nothing but sorrows. Now you can compare: everything that you had thought of as very sweet before, turns sour.
If you have been to the Himalayan peaks and you have experienced the virgin silence, the coolness, the smell of the snow, that otherworldly something which still exists in the Himalayas, coming back to the marketplace, the heart longs for it. Nobody will be able to understand why you look so sad, nobody will be able to understand why your eyes are so full of tears. It is not so in the Alps; no other mountains have that something, all other mountains are already polluted by man, all other mountains are already destroyed by man. Only the Himalayan peaks still have something very primitive, primordial, ancient, virgin. If you have experienced that silence you won’t enjoy, and nobody will understand why. To the man who has tasted God, the world becomes so futile, so utterly futile, that he is here, but not here; his heart continuously longs for God.
…nothing in the daylight delights me, sleep at night gives no rest. To know God is to know ultimate rest. Your sleep is not much of a rest. If you have known something of meditation you will understand what I mean when I say your sleep is not much of a rest. Your sleep is another kind of restlessness, that’s all; it is good for a change. In the day you are restless in one way, in the night you are restless in another way. Sleep is a kind of rest, good for a change. It is like you have been doing mathematics for three hours and you are tired, then you go into the garden and you dig a hole – it is a kind of rest. In fact it is a new kind of work, but now, tired of mathematics, digging the hole feels good.
That’s why in the schools, colleges, universities, we go on changing subjects; it is a kind of rest: one hour for mathematics, then an hour for geography, then another hour for history. We go on changing because the part of the mind that functions when you are working on mathematics is not the part which functions when you are studying literature. There are different parts, different centers in the mind, so if one center starts functioning the first center goes to sleep, has a kind of rest.
That’s exactly what happens during the night. In the daytime, your conscious mind functions and your unconscious remains hidden. In the night, the conscious mind goes to sleep and the unconscious functions; but work continues, much work, really great work. Your blood circulates, work continues; your heart beats, work continues; your breathing continues, your digestion continues. A thousand and one things are going on in the body, and a thousand and one things are going on in the mind too. Dreams upon dreams are coming; and not only that, a part of your mind blocks everything from the outside, prevents it from disturbing your sleep.
You want to get up early in the morning, at four o’clock. You fix the alarm and the alarm goes, but your mind is constantly working. It does not want you to be disturbed. The mind creates a dream: you start dreaming that you are passing a church and the church bells are ringing. This is a way for the mind to protect your sleep. It misinforms you, misguides you; it changes the alarm into church bells. Great work is going on. The mind is guarding, seeing what can be allowed and what cannot. And if something cannot be prevented, at least it can be interpreted in such a way that sleep is not disturbed. The mind is constantly on guard; great work continues the whole night.
But if you know meditation, then a few minutes of meditation can give you so much rest. Compared to that rest, your whole night will look like restlessness because in meditation you are utterly relaxed, the mind is not on guard, you are not focusing on anything. You are simply open and available, available to all kinds of things – the birds singing, the airplane passing by, the train, the people, the traffic noise. You are available to all. Meditation is not concentration, meditation is not excluding anything; meditation is inclusive of all.
And then there is a great silence amidst all the noise around you, great rest amidst all the turmoil around you. Once you have known the rest of meditation for even a few minutes your whole night will look like restlessness. Comparison will arise, but that is natural for one who has known God – that means one who has known samadhi, the ultimate peak of meditation. Kabir is right: …nothing in the daylight delights me, sleep at night gives no rest. Who can I tell about this? This is one of the greatest problems for the mystics: “Who can I tell about this, who will understand?”
I was traveling in this country for fifteen years, day in, day out, year in, year out, talking to thousands of people. Slowly, slowly, I became aware that I was talking to the walls. Those people could not understand what I was saying. They could hear, but they could not listen. The words reached them, but the meaning was left behind. I tried in every way, but it was impossible. Then I decided to stay in one place and only to talk to those few who really wanted to understand – and who were ready not only to understand, but to be transformed.
Many people come here, particularly Indians, and they ask, “Why isn’t the meeting open to all?” Because it is of no use to them and they will be a nuisance here. Their very presence will destroy something immensely beautiful that is being created. It is open only to those who are seekers. It is not a public place, it can never be a public place. It is a mystery school, it is only for those who are ready to go into the unknown, the unexplainable.
And it has been my experience that if I am talking to my sannyasins I feel a deep rapport, but if I am talking to non-sannyasins there seems to be some difficulty in communication. Many non-sannyasins have asked, “Why can’t we sit in front?” For the simple reason that if you are in front and I see you, it will be difficult for me to say that which I would like to say. Just looking at your faces, communication becomes difficult, some things become impossible. And what to say about communion? Looking at my sannyasins, looking into their eyes, communion is possible.
Kabir is right. He says: …who can I tell about this?
…kase kahun dukh hoy…
There is a great pain in my heart because I have known the bliss of being with the divine, but to whom can I communicate this? It would help me if I could communicate.
Hence, a buddhafield is always needed, satsang is needed. A community is needed where many people are searching together, where you can speak and you can rest assured that you will not be misunderstood. A commune is needed where you can share your burdens, your experiences; you can pour out your heart, and you will be understood, you will not feel embarrassed.
That’s what is happening here. If one sannyasin comes to another and starts crying, the other understands; the other will not start asking questions, questions which would be embarrassing to the person who is crying. He may hug him, he may hold his hand, but he will not start a great discussion about it: “Don’t be emotional, this is not good. Be a man, don’t cry.” No, he will understand, he will have sympathy, he will support. A commune becomes a support, where you can say things which are not ordinarily said in the outside world, where you can share experiences which seem imaginary, illusory, hallucinatory; things that if you tell them to somebody in the outside world they will think you are mad.
…kase kahun dukh hoy… Kabir says, I cannot find anybody to whom I can say this – that I have seen my lord, that I have been with my lord, and now I am again separated. I have known non-separation, those orgasmic moments, those peaks, and now I am thrown back into the dark valley. Now nothing here appeals to me anymore; the beauty here is almost ugliness compared to the beauty that has arisen in my vision. And the happiness here is just false because I have known authentic joy. And all the celebrations here are just a formality, people are moving in empty gestures. I have seen the real celebration!
The night is dark and long…hours go by…
because I am alone, I sit up suddenly,
fear goes through me…
The night is dark and long… You don’t know the night Kabir is talking about. He is not talking about the ordinary night, he is talking about the night that is known only by those who have seen the light – a very paradoxical phenomenon. He is talking about the night that only happens to those who have seen the dawn, who have seen something of the morning. And that morning has disappeared again, and now the night is darker than ever before. Great fear arises: “Will I ever be able to attain to that peak again? Was it real? Or have I only been dreaming?” Great fear grows, great trembling arises, he is scared to death. And he cannot even share it.
It would have helped Kabir if there had been a companion with whom it was possible to share the fear. It would have helped if some consoling words had come from somebody, if they had told him, “Don’t be worried, it will happen again. It has happened to me again.” That would have given him confidence. But whom to talk to? Kase kahun dukh hoy? I am in tremendous pain. But where to go, whom to go to, with whom to share?
…adhi ratiyan pichhle paharva,
sai bina taraf rahi soy…
Half the night is gone, waiting, waiting, waiting, and there is no sign. I cannot hear his footsteps. …adhi ratiyan pichhle paharva, sai bina taraf rahi soy… I have waited long, half the night has passed. Now the last of the night is passing and he has still not come, and I don’t see any sign, any indication, any message. And the darkness is becoming darker and darker; there seems to be no possibility that I will attain to him again. In deep despair, in great pain, I have fallen asleep again.
The night is dark and long… Remember one thing: that time is relative. If you are rejoicing, time goes fast, very fast; if you are in misery, in pain, time slows down. The clock moves at the same speed, but the psychological experience of time is very subjective.
You are sitting by the side of a person who is dying – then you will see how long the night becomes, there seems to be no end to it. You are with your beloved, you have met after many years – and the night goes as fast as if it were just a few moments. You cannot believe how fast it has gone. It seems the night has played a game with you, it went so fast – just to not allow you enough time with your beloved.
Time is relative – psychological time, not clock time. For those who have seen glimpses of God this world is really difficult to live in, and the night is very dark and very long. The Christian mystics have the right words for it; they call it “the dark night of the soul.”
Hours go by… because I am alone… You will know real aloneness only when you have seen God. Before that you have known aloneness: sometimes your friend is not with you, your wife is not with you, your husband is not with you, your children are not with you; yes, you have known a certain kind of aloneness. But that is nothing compared to the aloneness that you will know when you have seen God. That aloneness is like a knife to the heart. One is almost crucified.
I sit up suddenly, fear goes through me… I cannot sleep because he may be coming. Who knows when he will come? His ways are unpredictable, he comes at very unexpected moments. One has to be alert and watchful. So I wake up, I suddenly sit up, again and again, and fear goes through me: “He has not come. Has he forgotten me? Has he lost interest in me?”
These are the fears of a lover – tremendously magnified, infinitely magnified – when the lover is nobody but God himself, no other than God himself.
Kabir says: listen, my friend
there is one thing in the world that satisfies,
and that is a meeting with the guest.
Nothing else ever satisfies, nothing else can ever satisfy. Without attaining to God, without becoming God, without merging with God, you are going to remain discontented. Contentment, real contentment, has only one meaning – the meeting with the guest.
…kahat Kabir suno bhai pyare…
My dear friends, listen.
…sai mile sukh hoy.
There is only one possibility of bliss, and that is when the beloved has been found. And what is the way to find the beloved? – not searching. Lao Tzu says, “Seek, and you will not find. Do not seek, and find.” Seeking is not the way because seeking is again the male mind. Non-seeking is a passive waiting, just being ready, the door open, the house prepared for the guest, sitting on the doorstep, waiting.
This waiting is prayer, this waiting is meditation. This waiting is what is meant by being a host. The moment you have become a host the guest comes, inevitably comes; it has never been otherwise. It is not that you have to find God; if you are ready, God finds you. And how could you find God anyway? – you don’t know his address, you don’t know where he is, you don’t know his face. Even if you came across him you would not be able to recognize him. Even if you met him, the meeting is not going to be a real meeting because you will not recognize him. How could you recognize him? You have never seen him before.
Man cannot seek God – that is the message of these sutras. God can seek man – but then, what can man do? He should be ready, he should be available. If a hand comes from the beyond, he should not shrink back. If a voice comes from the beyond, he should be ready to listen – he will not be able to listen if his mind is noisy.
If God comes and knocks on your door, you should be ready to open the door, you should not be afraid of him. Yes, fear arises when the unknown comes, and when God knocks on your door it is a death for you – and a resurrection. But the resurrection will come later: first the crucifixion, first you will have to die.
Being with God means only one thing: dissolving in him – just as rivers come from the mountains and disappear into the ocean. Maybe there is a moment when the river hesitates. Kahlil Gibran says: “I have watched rivers falling into the ocean and I think that for a moment they hesitate, for a moment fear grips them. I have seen rivers looking back with great nostalgia at all the mountains that they have crossed, and the plains, and the beautiful trees on the banks, and the sunrises and the sunsets, and a thousand and one things.”
The ocean is vast – the river is going to lose its identity, and forever. There is a great nostalgia for all one’s memories, and a great desire not to lose one’s identity – but the river cannot go back. Man can go back, that is the problem. The river is bound to fall into the ocean, but man can turn back, even from the ultimate door.
If fear grips you, if you have a really strong ego and you become too protective of your separate existence, of your personality, of your ego, you may turn back, or you may close your doors. You may not listen to the voice of the beyond. And let me tell you, God comes every day and knocks on your doors. Sometimes he comes as the wind and knocks on your doors, but you don’t open them. And sometimes he comes in the rain, but you don’t go into the open, and you don’t stand under the sky to be soaked by him. No, you hide, you open your umbrellas. And you have psychological umbrellas too, and whenever he comes you avoid him; whenever he comes across you, you escape.
Kabir says, “If you want the guest to come, be a host.” Welcome him, receive him, embrace him. And he always comes, continuously comes, every moment of your life he is coming and searching for you, but you go on avoiding. All that is needed on your part is not to search for God but to be available. When God comes, be ready to surrender; when the ocean comes, be ready to disappear into it. Slip into it like a dewdrop: silently, prayerfully. Dancing, laughing, loving – disappear.
…kahat Kabir suno bhai pyare, sai mile sukh hoy. Kabir says, “My beloved friends, listen. All that I have to say is there is no other bliss than the meeting with the guest.”
Enough for today.