KABIR
The Guest 10
Tenth Discourse from the series of 15 discourses - The Guest by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near,
wake up, wake up!
Run to his feet –
he is standing close to your head right now.
You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
There is a flag no one sees blowing in the sky-temple.
A blue cloth has been stretched up,
it is decorated with the moon and many jewels.
The sun and the moon can be seen in that place;
when looking at that, bring your mind down to silence.
I will tell you the truth:
the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like someone insane.
A poem from J. Krishnamurti:
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name;
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
Truth has no name, and truth is not confined to any system of thought. Truth is not a theory, a theology, a philosophy. Truth is the experience of that which is.
Truth is not intellectual or emotional. Truth is existential. These are the three layers of human consciousness.
The first is the intellectual: it theorizes, it spins and weaves beautiful words, but with no meaning at all. It is very cunning, very deceptive. It can make you believe in words as if they have some substance. It talks about God, truth, freedom, love, meditation, but it only talks; it is just words and words and words. Those words are empty shells; if you look deep down into them they are hollow.
This part of human consciousness goes on decorating; it uses jargon, to hide its inner emptiness. And our whole education – social, religious, cultural – consists only of words; it only cultivates the intellectual part of our being, which is the most superficial. Through the intellect you cannot reach the divine, through the intellect you will be lost in a jungle of words; that’s how millions of people are lost. Between you and the divine the greatest barrier is your so-called intellect. Remember, your intellect is not intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different matter.
Intellect is a pseudo coin; it pretends to be intelligence but it is not. And because you don’t know the real you are easily deceived by the unreal, by the pseudo. Beware of the intellectual layer of your being, it is the most developed; that is the danger. The most superficial is the most cultivated. The most superficial is the most nourished. From school to university the superficial is being nourished, strengthened. And slowly, slowly, you get caught up in it, you become trapped. Then people think about love – they only think, they don’t feel.
Krishnamurti relates an incident which happened when he was traveling in a car. The car accidentally knocked down a poor animal, but the two people in the car did not notice what had happened because they were engrossed in a conversation on how to be aware. This is the situation of the majority of humanity.
God is present everywhere. Wherever you turn, he is. Open your eyes, he is, close your eyes and he is – because nothing else exists. God means isness.
Anything that participates in existence is divine. But you don’t see. You go on talking about God, discussing. You have become so clever at hair-splitting, at logic-chopping; you can repeat like parrots the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible; you have become so full of rubbish – which you call knowledge. You have to be aware of this dangerous layer that surrounds you like a hard shell.
Krishnamurti is right when he says:
I have no name…
The word God is not God, and the word love is not love either. If you become too engrossed in the word God you will go on missing godliness forever. If you become too intrigued by the word love then you will go to the library, you will consult all the books – and there are millions written about love by people who don’t know anything about it – and you will collect great amounts of information about love. But to know about love is not to know love. Knowing love is a totally different dimension.
Knowledge about love is very simple; you can become a walking encyclopedia. You can know all the theories of love without ever testing any theory by experience, without ever living a single moment of love, without tasting what love is.
…I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
God is neither old nor new – or God is both the most ancient and as fresh as the dewdrops in the early morning sun. Because only God is. God is nontemporal; it does not belong to the dimension of time. Hence you cannot call it old or new – it is fresh, virgin. You need not go into the scriptures. But you certainly have to go into the breeze that is passing through the pine trees, you certainly have to go into the fragrance that is being released by the flowers. Now! You have to go into this moment with your total being, you have to relax herenow, and all the scriptures will be revealed to you. The Vedas and the Gitas and the Korans will be sung in the deepest core of your being. Then you will know that all the scriptures are true. But first your own inner scripture has to be known, understood.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
God is life. Hence God is movement, hence God is in constant change. That is the paradox of existence – it is something that never changes and yet constantly changes. At the innermost core everything remains the same, but on the circumference nothing is ever the same. God is change and no-change. God is eternity and flux.
If you look at the world, you look at the manifest God, which is in constant change – it is like a river moving and moving – but if you look at the unmanifest, then God is always the same. God is both. This world is not separate from God. You need not go in search of him anywhere else; he is hidden here, he is playing hide-and-seek here.
I have no sanctuary; like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
Religion has nothing to do with tradition or sacred books, religion has something to do with existential experience. Your first layer is intellectual – that has nothing to do with religion. You have to bypass it, you have to jump out of it.
Your second layer is emotional, the layer of feeling, where intuitions arise, visions are revealed, dreams of the unknown descend; where poetry is born, and dance, and song. It is closer to God. The intellectual layer is perfectly good for the mundane world, for the marketplace. It is calculation, mathematics; it can become science, technology. It has its uses – use it, but don’t be used by it. The second layer is closer to God, it is the layer of feeling.
The first layer is masculine, the second layer is feminine. The first layer is aggressive, the second layer is receptive. The first layer believes in action, the second layer is a tremendous passivity. It is like a womb. It is an open door, it is a deep welcome. The first goes in search of truth in a very aggressive way; it thinks in terms of conquering.
Even a man like Bertrand Russell writes about “the conquest of nature.” Bertrand Russell remained confined to the first layer. He had the intrinsic capacity to go far deeper into reality, but he remained concerned with words, logic, mathematics. He thought in terms of conquering nature: how the part could conquer the whole, how the drop could conquer the ocean, how the leaf could conquer the tree. It is utter nonsense. The very idea of conquest is ugly, but that’s how the male part of your being thinks. It is aggressive, it is violent, it is destructive, it is coercive, it is possessive, it is imperialistic.
The second layer is intuitive, of feeling, dreaming. The second layer is poetic, aesthetic, of deep sensitivity. It is totally different, its approach is different – it does not analyze. The first part believes in analysis, the second part synthesizes.
Sigmund Freud remained with the first part, Assagioli moved to the second. Hence Sigmund Freud could create psychoanalysis, but Assagioli could introduce the totally new concept of psychosynthesis. Obviously Sigmund Freud looks more scientific, more logical, rational. Assagioli looks like a visionary, a poet, but he goes deeper. Poetry always goes deeper than prose. Singing always goes deeper than syllogism.
Become aware of the second layer in you, help it to revive. Society has repressed it, society does not want it to function. Society is afraid of the second layer because it is irrational, uncontrollable, unpredictable; because the second layer cannot be reduced to mechanical manipulations. The first layer is easily available for the politician, the priest to dominate; it is easily available for the educator, the pedagogue to condition, to hypnotize. The second is not available. The second is so deep that the hands of the priest and the politician and the pedagogue cannot reach it. You have to help your second layer to become more prominent. The emphasis has to shift from the first to the second. And the second is not the last, the second is only the door. The third is the last. The third layer is that of being.
The first layer is intellectual, the second is emotional, the third is existential. With the first you think, with the second you feel, with the third you are. With the third, thinking disappears, feeling disappears. Only a kind of witnessing remains, a pure consciousness, an awareness. That’s what meditation is all about.
All sacred scriptures are in the head; and all your rituals, religions, are in the head. Your rituals, your religions, your theologies don’t even reach the second layer. If you want to reach the second you will have to learn from the painters and the poets, and the singers, musicians, dancers. You will have to go into the world of art. But if you want to go to the third layer you will have to go into deep communion with a master – and without going to the third you will never know what God is.
Only a mystic can make you attuned with your own innermost being. Only one who is in at-onement with his own being can infect you. Religion is something like a contagious disease. It is not a disease, it is health, ultimate health, but health can become as contagious as any illness.
Religion has to be learned in the vicinity of a master. It cannot be learned from traditions, from scriptures. You need somebody alive so that you can be in love, somebody alive whose presence can trigger a process in your being. It cannot be taught, it can only be caught.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
This statement is of tremendous value: “I am the worshipper and the worshipped.” You are the seeker and the sought, you are the devotee and the deity, you are the temple and the master of the temple. You need not go anywhere. If you need to go anywhere it is only inward, into your own interiority.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
These words will help as an introduction, to understand Kabir.
Kabir says:
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near,
wake up, wake up!
The original is:
Parmatma guru nikat viraje,
jag jag man mere…
Your real master, your God, is very close by. You need not go to the Kaaba or to Kashi in search of him. He is so close that even to say that he is close by is not right because closeness means a little distance. He is exactly you. God asleep – that’s what you are. If you awake, you need not go anywhere else.
The difference between you and a buddha is not the difference of any physical distance, is not the difference of any quantitative change. The difference is of only one thing, otherwise you are exactly the same: you are asleep, he is awake. Open your eyes and you are a buddha, be awake and you are a buddha.
Paramatma guru nikat viraje… For whom are you searching? He is just within you and he is the real master. The outer master only functions as a mirror; he simply shows you who you are. He does not impose anything upon you, he only reflects.
The pseudo-master imposes things upon you. He teaches you this and that, he conditions you, makes you a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian; creates great greed in you for the other world, for heavenly pleasures, makes you afraid of hell. He uses a very psychological strategy.
That’s what the most materialistic school of psychologists – Watson, Skinner, Pavlov – goes on teaching. The behaviorists’ whole teaching is that man can be conditioned by only two things, fear of punishment and greed for reward; punishment and reward. That’s how they work with rats, and when they succeed in conditioning a rat they think the same can be done to a man. They don’t give you any more respect than they give to the rats. And in a way they are right; for about ninety-nine percent of you they are right. They are not right only when a person is awake; they are not right about a buddha. Otherwise humanity functions almost like rats, there is not much difference. The rats function through punishment and reward, and that’s how man functions.
The false master simply makes you afraid of hell, greedy for heaven, and through this strategy he exploits you. The real master does not make you afraid and does not make you greedy either. What is the function of a real master then?
The function of a real master is to be a pure mirror so that you can see your own face, so you can recognize your own face. Once you have seen your own heart throbbing in the mirror, your own heart being reflected, you will become aware of the inner master.
The function of the outer master is to make you aware of the inner master. Once that is done then the outer mirror is no longer needed. You may remain grateful to it because it helped you, you may remain thankful to it forever and ever, but it is no longer needed. The real master works hard so that he is no longer needed. His success simply makes him unneeded.
The false master works in such a way that he is always needed, that without him you cannot move a single inch. He makes you dependent on him. He does not give you awareness – eyes to see, to function – he gives you ready-made formulas. And of course life goes on changing, and those formulas go out of date every day.
I have heard…
A rich man was suspicious of his secretary and asked if she was fooling around. She was not only adamant that she wasn’t, she became stubborn and very angry, saying “I’m a virgin!”
The man said, “Then produce a doctor’s certificate.”
She managed somehow to get a certificate that she was a virgin – she bribed a doctor – and brought the certificate to her boss. He looked at it, then looked at the secretary and said, “But it’s dated yesterday…”
Twenty-four hours had passed. Who knows? One can lose one’s virginity within seconds.
And that’s how it happens in your life: whenever fixed, ready-made answers are given to you they are dated, they are always lagging behind. If you ask me how to behave in a certain situation and I give you a particular answer, you will always be in trouble and dependent on me; because the same situation is never going to happen again – never exactly – and the answer is never going to fit any particular situation. You will always be a misfit. Your whole life will become a great misery of trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Your whole life will be a long, long story of frustration; you will worry why your life is not working.
You can see that nothing seems to be working for Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists – their lives are proof of it. What more proof is needed? What Mahavira said is now twenty-five centuries old, how can it fit in this world? But people are still trying, they don’t take note that twenty-five centuries have passed.
Mahavira said not to eat at night. He said it so that insects – mosquitoes and anything else – were not eaten: people used to eat in the dark. They still do in India; in villages, they eat in the dark. The people are so poor that they cannot afford even a kerosene lamp. Mahavira was not aware that one day there would be electricity, how could he have been? Now, there is no problem at all, but still the Jaina goes on insisting that he cannot eat at night.
Once I was staying at the home of a very religious Jaina in Kolkata, a very rich man, and a very beautiful man too. He had a completely soundproofed, centrally air-conditioned palace, but he would not eat at night. I said, “Why? No mosquito can enter, no insects can enter. Why not?” – just because Mahavira said so. This is what happens when people become too obsessed with principles.
The real master never gives you principles, he only gives you insights. He gives you understanding, not commandments. He simply makes you more aware, so that whatsoever the situation is, you can always respond to it on your own; you need not follow a certain fixed principle. He makes you more fluid, more flexible because life goes on changing and if you are very, very inflexible you will suffer.
Parmatma guru nikat viraje, jag jag man mere… Kabir says, the only thing worth doing is to wake up my mind. God, the real guru, is inside.
The word guru is untranslatable. Neither the word teacher nor the word master has its beauty. In fact, the phenomenon of the guru is so deeply Indian that no other language, of any country, is capable of translating it. It is something intrinsically Eastern. The word guru is made of two words, gu and ru. Gu means darkness, ru means one who dispels it. Guru literally means “the light.” And yes, you have the light within you!
If you come across a Buddha or a Jesus or a Krishna or a Mahavira, it will be of tremendous help to you in finding your inner guru. Because seeing Buddha, suddenly a great enthusiasm and hope will arise in you: “If it can happen to Buddha” – who is just like you, the same body, the same blood, bone, marrow – “if it can happen to this man, why not to me?” That hope is the beginning. Meeting with the master on the outside is the beginning of a great hope, a great aspiration.
And this can happen only if you meet a living master. It cannot happen just by reading about Buddha because who knows whether this man was real or not? And the story is being told in such a way that nobody can believe he was historical. Followers are always creating more and more unnecessary stories about their masters. Maybe they do it with good intentions, but even the good intentions of unconscious people are of no use; they are harmful. Maybe the followers want to impress people so they become more attracted, but what really happens is just the opposite.
The Buddhist story is that when Buddha was born his mother was standing, walking in a garden. Buddha was born while his mother was walking. Not only that, the first thing he did was walk seven steps himself. The first thing the child did – walk seven steps. And not just that, the second thing he did was declare, looking at the sky after the seventh step, “I am the awakened one, I am the great Buddha. Nobody has ever been like me and nobody will ever be like me.”
Now, these stupid stories naturally make intelligent people suspicious. One thing is absolutely certain: Buddha is not like us – so maybe, perhaps, he became enlightened, but he gives no hope to us. Jesus was born of a virgin mother – nonsense, patent nonsense. But how can you become enlightened? – you were not born of a virgin mother. Krishna was born as God, he is an incarnation of God – you are not an incarnation of God. These stories, rather than creating hope in you, create a kind of hopelessness.
You need living masters who have not yet become myths. You need living masters who are just like you and yet different, just like you but with something plus, something mysterious surrounding them; in every other way the same as you, but different in one respect: they have a certain understanding which is missing in you, they have a certain luminosity which is missing in you, they have a certain grace, a certain climate which is missing in you. In every other way they are exactly like you: they fall ill, they need food, they become thirsty, they are tired, they have to go to sleep; they are exactly like you in every possible way. Then great hope arises: maybe the “something plus” thing that has happened to them is also latent in you and can become manifest.
The outer master is simply a mirror so that you can see your face, so you can see that you also have the same face, the same possibility, the same potential. And once this has settled in your heart: “I also have the same potential, the same seed,” a great journey has started. You will never be the same again. Looking into the eyes of a living master something synchronizes in you, something is triggered in your being – a process has already started.
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near, wake up, wake up! But we have been asleep so long, for millions of years, for millions of lives, that sleep has become a deep-rooted habit, almost our nature. So it is even possible that you may be with a living master and still miss because the mind goes on creating new ways to go on sleeping, new rationalizations. The mind will say, “Now I have found a guru, I have found a master. What more is needed? It is enough. Now by his blessings I will become enlightened one day.”
This is a trick of the mind. Blessings are of immense help, but just blessings will not make you enlightened. Otherwise one master could make the whole earth enlightened because his heart is not miserly about blessings. He can bless the whole world – he does bless the whole world – but just his blessings won’t do. The mind can give you the idea that there is no need for you to wake up; the mind always thinks in its own old patterns.
A teacher was checking her children’s knowledge of proverbs.
“Cleanliness is next to what?” she asked.
“Impossible!” a small boy replied with great feeling.
The boy knows that the most difficult thing, just about impossible, is cleanliness. His response comes from his experience.
When you are with a living master, your responses are bound to come from your own experience. But there is every possibility you may distort things. The master may mirror your real face, but you may close your eyes, you may start dreaming about your face, you may project something else.
“What did you learn in school today?” a mother asked her young son.
He replied, “We learned that one and one, the son of a bitch, makes two. Two and two, the son of a bitch, makes four. Four and four, the son of a bitch, makes eight.”
The mother was shocked. She went to the school and complained to the teacher, “How could you teach your class such a terrible thing?”
“Madam,” said the teacher, “I taught them ‘one and one, the sum of which makes two.’”
The real master can also be misunderstood, misinterpreted. He may reflect your face, but you may go on seeing something else. You have been asleep so long that you will need to be shocked again and again.
Hence, a constant companionship with the master is needed; it can’t be a hit-and-run affair. Some people come here and they say, “We have come here for three days. Is something possible?” They don’t see the absurdity of it. They don’t see how long they have been asleep; they want to be awakened within three days. In fact, by the way they say that they are here for three days, it seems as if they are obliging me by being here for three days. Even if you became awakened after three lives, that would be too early. And yes, still I say it can happen in a single moment – it depends on you.
There is a story…
Two soldiers, utterly drunk, meet in a training camp. “Where are you from?” inquires the first soldier.
“Mobile, Alabama.” replies the second soldier.
“Mobile?” exclaims the first. “Why, I’m from Mobile.”
“What street in Mobile do you live on?” asks the second.
“Main Street and Elm Avenue,” replies the other.
“That’s where I live too!” says the second southern lad. “I live at 1195 Main Street.”
“Me too! Say, are you married?” asks the other.
“Sure am,” replies the second soldier. “Married a gal whose name was Daisy MacLee.”
“So did I!” gasps the first soldier. Then he pauses for a moment. “Hey,” he drawls, “you reckon we could be husbands-in-law?”
The fact is there are not two soldiers, only one, standing in front of a mirror. But when you are utterly drunk anything is possible. When you are utterly drunk, you need constant hammering from the master. And the truth is not far away:
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near,
wake up, wake up!
Run to his feet –
he is standing close to your head right now.
The original is:
…dhaya ke pitam charanan lage,
sai khada sir tere…
The original has some beauty in it: …dhaya ke pitam charanan lage… Don’t waste time, not even a single moment. Run, fall at the feet of the beloved. He has been standing there for so long, waiting and waiting for you. For lives and lives God has been waiting for you; his patience is infinite.
There are only two things that are infinite: God’s patience and man’s stupidity. If you are fortunate enough to be in the presence of a master, look into his eyes and rush inward. Don’t waste time.
…dhaya ke pitam charanan lage… The beloved is within you, the worshipper is the worshipped. The beloved is within you; you just need to go to the very core of your being. Descend from the head to the heart, and from the heart to the being. Move from thinking to feeling and from feeling to being. Just be! That is the meeting with the beloved. And the meeting is already happening, you are just not aware, you are unconscious.
Run to his feet – he is standing close to your head right now. Without finding him you will remain dissatisfied, discontented. Whatsoever you do, everything is doomed to fail. Except God nothing succeeds.
They say, “Nothing succeeds like success,” and I say to you: nothing fails like success. Once you succeed in your so-called worldly matters – money, power, prestige, respectability – then you will know that all has failed. Your money is there and so is your inner poverty; it has not changed an iota. In fact now, because of your riches, you will become more and more aware of your inner poverty, you will be able to see it more in contrast.
That’s why poor people look a little more satisfied than the rich. Not that the poor people are satisfied, not that poverty has something spiritual about it, not that poverty should be preached – enough of all those stupid things that have been told to people down the ages. The poor person looks a little more satisfied for a totally different reason: he has nothing to compare himself with, he has no contrast. He is a white line drawn on a white board. The rich man is a white line drawn on a black board – a contrast.
The richer a country gets, the more frustrated it becomes. Indians brag a lot: they think their satisfaction, their so-called contentment, has something to do with spirituality. It has nothing to do with spirituality at all. It is a simple psychological fact: they are so poor they cannot afford to be discontented. Only rich people can afford to be discontented. Only rich people really become aware of discontentment.
But one thing is certain: whatsoever you attain, if you have not attained the inner beloved, you will remain poor. You can become rich, you can become respectable, you can become virtuous, you can become a so-called saint, a mahatma, be worshipped by thousands of people, but you will remain in misery deep down, you will remain in darkness.
No one is ever satisfied. Poor men wish they were rich, rich men wish they were handsome, bachelors wish they were married, and married men wish they were dead, and so it goes, on and on. Have you ever come across a person who is really contented? If you do come across a person who is really contented, then be with him, imbibe as much of the vibes of his being as possible because that is the only way to find your inner beloved. The person who is contented must have found him.
Buddhas are surrounded by tremendous contentment, a great silence, almost tangible; you can touch it, you can feel its texture. Buddhas are surrounded by great grace; if you are not closed you will be overwhelmed by it. Buddhas are just pure love; if your hearts are open and beating, if you are still alive, then immediately a great dance will arise in your being. You will start celebrating immediately because on seeing the buddha you will immediately become aware of the inner buddha – it has been asleep for so long, but so what? Even if you have been asleep for millions of lives it makes no difference, you can wake up right now, this very moment.
Kabir says:
You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
…jugan jugan tohi sobat bita,
ajahu na jag sabere?
Don’t be foolish anymore. The time has come, this is the time. Buddhas always speak of this moment. …ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come. This is the morning for which you have been waiting for so long, this is the moment. Buddhas know only one time, that is now, and only one place, that is here. Their time is always now and their space is always here. They don’t talk about yesterdays and they don’t talk about tomorrows.
…ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come, and you are still asleep? Are you not going to wake up? Are you not going to wake up and see the sun rising? You have missed for so long, so long; but forget all about that – you can still wake up, it is still early. Whenever you wake up, it is early.
The weight of old habits is not easy to throw off. You listen, you may even feel a little understanding arising, but still your investment is in sleep. You have been dreaming such beautiful dreams in your sleep and now suddenly Kabir comes and says, “Wake up!” You would like to awake, but not right now – and the masters insist, right now. They don’t want to wait, they start shaking you. You feel angry, naturally. All the great buddhas of the world have created anger in people against them for the simple reason that they disturb sleep, and who wants to be disturbed? Particularly in the early morning when it is cold and you would like to turn over, pull the blanket up and tuck yourself in just a little more.
And people have such beautiful dreams in the early morning. You are having a beautiful dream: you have become the president of America or something, and along comes Kabir and says, “Wake up! …ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come, and what are you doing here?”
You would like to tell him, “Shut up. Is this the moment to wake me up? It has been a hard, hard struggle for me to become the president of America. Somehow I have managed it, and now you come. Where were you before?” The weight of the dreams, of the sleep, all the investment, is great.
A man arrived at the Pearly Gates. On being asked his name he replied, “Charlie Graball.”
“I don’t think we had any notice that you were coming,” he was informed. “What was your occupation in earthly life?”
“Scrap metal merchant,” Charlie said.
“Oh,” said the angel, “I will go and inquire.”
When he returned Charlie Graball had disappeared. So had the Pearly Gates.
Old habits – a scrap metal merchant, even at the gates of heaven. Who cares about heaven? When you can escape with the gates, who bothers about heaven?
And this is the reason you go on finding new excuses for sleeping. You would not believe how much you have invested in your sleep. And the most cunning thing the mind does is make you convinced that you are not asleep at all, that you are already awake: “Kabir must be talking to somebody else.”
That’s what happens when I am talking here – you always think I must be talking about other people. I am talking about you! Sometimes it happens that when I keep on looking at one person, for two, three seconds, he starts looking here and there: “He must be looking at somebody else.” Because nobody thinks that they are Charlie Graball. No, it is always somebody else. This is one of the most powerful strategies of the mind to keep you asleep.
Gurdjieff used to tell this story again and again…
Once there was a magician who had many sheep. Every day a fat sheep was killed for him. Of course, the sheep became alert – they are not as foolish as men. They knew one thing for certain, that they were all going to be killed one day or another. So the sheep started escaping into the hills, into the forests. The magician was at a loss as to what to do; the sheep were becoming aware of their destiny.
Then he invented a strategy: he gathered all the sheep, hypnotized them and told different sheep different things. For example, he told some, “You are exceptional, you are not ordinary sheep. What happens to the others is never going to happen to you.” From that day on those sheep stopped escaping. You could have killed another sheep in front of them, and they would not be afraid because they knew they were exceptional.
Just watch your mind deep down: you all have that idea, “I am exceptional.” One Arabian proverb says that when God creates a man and sends him into the world, before he drops him down he always whispers in his ear: “You are unique, exceptional.” God goes on playing this joke, and so every person carries “I am exceptional,” deep down in his heart. That’s why you can see someone dying, but you never think, “I am going to die.” It is always someone else who dies, it is never “I”: “I am exceptional.”
To some other sheep that he hypnotized, the magician said, “You are lions, you are not sheep at all.” And from that day on they too stopped escaping. They started roaring like lions.
To yet other sheep he said, “You are not sheep, you are men. You are here to keep all the other sheep imprisoned. You are here to help me, you are my friends.” From that day on those sheep became detectives, working against their own kind. They would inform the magician if a certain sheep was trying to escape.
And to other sheep he even said, “You are magicians – not only men but magicians. You can do miracles. You are immortal.”
Once he had done all this, no sheep were escaping – and every day they were butchered.
And every day you are butchered. Every day somebody dies, somebody is killed, somebody is murdered, somebody commits suicide. Every day it is going on, but somehow, deep down, you go on believing you are exceptional. When somebody goes mad you think, “Poor fellow,” you don’t think that you also can go mad. But the difference between you and mad people is not much; it is very nominal, very minimal, only a matter of degrees. Maybe you are at ninety-nine degrees and he is at a hundred and one – just one degree more, you cross the boundary and are mad. Only one day earlier that person was as normal as you are – now he is mad. Today you are normal, tomorrow you could be mad. But in our deep sleep we have auto-hypnotized ourselves. This auto-hypnosis is what is meant by sleep, metaphysical sleep.
…jugan jugan tohi sobat bita, ajahu na jag sabere? How long have you remained auto-hypnotized, in a deep metaphysical slumber? The dawn has come. Now wake up. It is time. Don’t postpone anymore, you have postponed enough.
Why not wake up this morning?
There is a flag no one sees blowing, in the gagan, in the sky-temple.
A blue cloth has been stretched up,
it is decorated with the moon and many jewels.
Gagan math gaib nisan ure,
chandrahar chandva jahan tange,
mukata-manik marhe…
If you wake up, you will be surprised that you are living in such a tremendously beautiful world. But how can you know the beauty of it if you are asleep? You are not aware of the splendor that is showering all around. You are not aware of the glories of life, of the benediction that life is. How can you be aware of it? You are so deeply asleep, you are dreaming your private dreams, utterly unaware that the whole of existence is a constant celebration.
There is a flag no one sees blowing in the sky-temple. A blue cloth has been stretched up, it is decorated with the moon and many jewels. It is a very mysterious existence. You cannot conceive more mystery, more miracles, more splendor, more beauty. It is the ultimate of all that one can imagine, but we are missing it. It is as if a man is asleep in the garden and cannot see the roses blooming, and cannot hear the distant call of a lonely bird, and cannot see the bird on the wing, cannot see the sun and the moon and the stars. He is fast asleep. The fragrance from the roses comes to his nostrils, but he is not aware of it; the fragrance of the wet earth, but he is unaware; the dewdrops shining like pearls in the morning sun, but he is unaware of it, he is fast asleep. This is our situation.
Why not wake up this morning? …ajahu na jag sabere? Morning is knocking on your door, the sun is rising, the call has come, and you go on sleeping? This is the master’s work: hammering his disciples, going on hammering. Any moment the disciple may wake up. There are moments when you are more vulnerable, there are moments when you are more flexible, more feminine; and there are moments when you are very hard, impossible to penetrate. Hence the master goes on hammering every day. He goes on, without taking any notice of whether you are listening or not. He knows one thing: that ultimately everybody has to listen. Finally, everybody has to listen.
The sun and the moon can be seen in that place;
when looking at that, bring your mind down to silence.
…mahima tasu dekh man thir kar,
ravi-sasi jot jare…
Kabir says, if you can do only one thing, if you can attain to silence, you will know the splendor of God. …mahima tasu dekh… You can see that splendor, you can see that infinite beauty. That joy is yours. Just do one thing, become silent. It is another way of saying wake up – the mind remains asleep because of so many thoughts. Sleep simply means a continuous thought process inside you, a procession of thoughts, a continuous traffic. And it is always rush hour in there: day in, day out, thousands of thoughts and desires and imaginations and projections and memories go on rushing in a crowd. You are always surrounded by a big crowd – this is your sleep.
The inner talk has to stop. You can call it being awake, you can call it being silent – it is the same thing. To be silent is the way to be awake, or to be awake is the way to be silent; both methods have been used. Buddha uses the method of being silent so that you can be aware. Krishnamurti uses the method of being aware so that you can be silent. They are two aspects of the same coin; if you have one you will have the other automatically.
…mahima tasu dekh man thir kar… Stop this constant traffic of the mind, stop these thought processes. Then you can see the infinite beauty. …ravi-sasi jot jare… You will see the sun and the moon and the stars inside yourself. The whole sky is yours. And even the sky is not the limit – you are all. If you are ready to die as a drop, you will become the ocean.
I will tell you the truth:
the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like
someone insane.
This world is almost a madhouse. To be sane here will look like being insane.
H. G. Wells wrote a story…
There is a valley somewhere in Mexico, hidden deep in the mountains, where a small tribe lives. They are all blind. There is a fly found in that valley, and once a person is bitten by that fly he becomes blind. Every child is born with eyes, but it is difficult to avoid the flies; they are very common, every house is full of them. So sooner or later a child is going to be bitten by a fly and become blind. Maybe one day, two days, three days, at the most a week or two; if a child is very fortunate then one month, two months, three months. By the time he becomes a little conscious he finds himself already blind. So the whole community is blind.
A man from another community comes to visit. He has heard rumors, but he cannot believe that the whole community is blind. He sees, and he cannot believe his eyes. And he falls in love with a blind girl. But her community won’t allow them to be married. It has never happened before, there is no precedent. They cannot believe that he has eyes. They think he is mad. And of course they are in the majority. Nobody has ever heard of eyes – what is he talking about? Rainbows and colors and the sun and moon – who has ever heard of such things? He must be mad, utterly mad.
But the man is so in love and the girl is so in love that finally the community concedes, but with a condition. They say, “We have never before allowed a girl to marry someone from another community. This is happening for the first time. We will allow you to marry our girl, but with one condition: we will have to destroy your so-called eyes. We cannot allow our girl to be married to a madman. Only if you are ready to be blind, as you think we are, can you marry the girl.”
Their logic is right – if they have never heard of anybody having eyes, how can they believe?
Kahlil Gibran wrote a similar story…
A magician came into a town. He chanted a few mantras, threw something into the town well, and said, “Whosoever drinks the water of this well will go mad.” Now there were only two wells: one for the common people and one inside the palace for the king, his queen and his ministers. By evening the whole town had become mad – they had to drink the water from the town well.
The king was very happy, the queen was very happy: they had a special well – otherwise they also would have gone mad. But in the evening their happiness started to disappear because a rumor went round the town: “Our king has gone mad.” The king and queen became very frightened and scared in fact. The majority of people had gone mad, the king’s guards, the policemen, the army, everybody. Now only three people were left: the king, his queen and his prime minister. It was very dangerous, there was no protection now and the whole town was convinced that these three people had gone mad. The king asked the old prime minister, “Now what do we do?”
The prime minister said, “I will keep these people engaged, I will talk to them. You and your wife go out by the back door and drink from the town well. Later on I will go and drink from it. This is the only way.”
The king and queen went out by the back door. They drank from the town well… Of course, then they didn’t come back in by the back door, they came dancing in the front door! The people were rejoicing, they had never seen them in such a state. That night there was a great celebration in the town. The people thanked God that “Our our king and queen are sane again.”
This is the situation. The whole world is insane, hence the man of godliness looks insane. The whole world is neurotic, they have drunk from the well, the contaminated well. But they are in the majority. Now anybody who is not mad like them is a danger to their security, is a danger to their sanity, is a question mark. Not to be neurotic here, just to be healthy and whole, is very dangerous. The presence of anybody who is not mad is irritating, he has to be destroyed. Hence, you crucify Jesus, you kill Mansoor. That’s why thousands of people are against me, for the simple reason that they are neurotic.
Kabir says: I will tell you the truth… I will not tell you to wake up without telling you the truth. He is saying, “Let me tell you the truth: if you decide to wake up one thing is certain – you will be thought mad. You have to take that risk. Otherwise you will go on sleeping, go on dreaming, remain part of the mad crowd. But please don’t blame me later on.” That’s why Kabir says, I will tell you the truth… if you decide to wake up. Maybe listening to Kabir or to Buddha or to me, you start deciding to wake up. The truth has to be told beforehand, before you decide to wake up.
…the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like someone insane. You have to risk your so-called sanity. It is insanity – but you will have to risk it, and you will have to be ready to accept the world of the few sane people. They are very few – Mansoor and Jesus and Buddha and Kabir and Farid and Nanak… They are very few, they can be counted on the fingers. If you wake up you will become part of that small, fortunate minority, but you will be thought insane by the people.
…kahe Kabir piye joi jan, mana firat mare.
Not only that, you will live like a madman in the world; you will also die like a madman. But it is worth it, the risk is worth taking. It is better to be mad like Kabir than to be sane like Morarji Desai. It is better to be mad like Jesus than to be sane like Pontius Pilate. It is a great decision; guts are needed, great courage is needed.
Sannyas – initiation into the world of truth – is not for cowards. Cowards can go on rationalizing, cowards can go on sleeping, dreaming. Cowards can even start dreaming that they are awake, but they will not risk anything. They remain part of the mob, the insane crowd. And of course their lives will remain ones of misery, of pain, of agony.
If you want to be ecstatic, risk – risk all. Only by risking all does one attain all. Blessed are those who are drunk with God. Blessed are those who are mad for God. Blessed are those who are no longer part of the insane crowd but have learned a new way of insanity – the way of the buddhas.
…kahe Kabir piye joi jan… It is very rare that somebody decides to risk all because it is very rare for someone to be so courageous, so brave. …mana firat mare. Then he lives like a madman, in utter ecstasy, in absolute benediction; and he dies in utter ecstasy, in absolute benediction. Life can be a celebration – and death too, but you will need to risk all.
And that’s what my whole effort here is: to seduce you into risking all for the divine. Remember, you have slept enough and you have not found anything, you have dreamed enough and your hands are empty, you have thought enough, and where have you arrived? Now wake up.
Friend, now wake up!
Enough for today.
wake up, wake up!
Run to his feet –
he is standing close to your head right now.
You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
There is a flag no one sees blowing in the sky-temple.
A blue cloth has been stretched up,
it is decorated with the moon and many jewels.
The sun and the moon can be seen in that place;
when looking at that, bring your mind down to silence.
I will tell you the truth:
the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like someone insane.
A poem from J. Krishnamurti:
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name;
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
Truth has no name, and truth is not confined to any system of thought. Truth is not a theory, a theology, a philosophy. Truth is the experience of that which is.
Truth is not intellectual or emotional. Truth is existential. These are the three layers of human consciousness.
The first is the intellectual: it theorizes, it spins and weaves beautiful words, but with no meaning at all. It is very cunning, very deceptive. It can make you believe in words as if they have some substance. It talks about God, truth, freedom, love, meditation, but it only talks; it is just words and words and words. Those words are empty shells; if you look deep down into them they are hollow.
This part of human consciousness goes on decorating; it uses jargon, to hide its inner emptiness. And our whole education – social, religious, cultural – consists only of words; it only cultivates the intellectual part of our being, which is the most superficial. Through the intellect you cannot reach the divine, through the intellect you will be lost in a jungle of words; that’s how millions of people are lost. Between you and the divine the greatest barrier is your so-called intellect. Remember, your intellect is not intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different matter.
Intellect is a pseudo coin; it pretends to be intelligence but it is not. And because you don’t know the real you are easily deceived by the unreal, by the pseudo. Beware of the intellectual layer of your being, it is the most developed; that is the danger. The most superficial is the most cultivated. The most superficial is the most nourished. From school to university the superficial is being nourished, strengthened. And slowly, slowly, you get caught up in it, you become trapped. Then people think about love – they only think, they don’t feel.
Krishnamurti relates an incident which happened when he was traveling in a car. The car accidentally knocked down a poor animal, but the two people in the car did not notice what had happened because they were engrossed in a conversation on how to be aware. This is the situation of the majority of humanity.
God is present everywhere. Wherever you turn, he is. Open your eyes, he is, close your eyes and he is – because nothing else exists. God means isness.
Anything that participates in existence is divine. But you don’t see. You go on talking about God, discussing. You have become so clever at hair-splitting, at logic-chopping; you can repeat like parrots the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible; you have become so full of rubbish – which you call knowledge. You have to be aware of this dangerous layer that surrounds you like a hard shell.
Krishnamurti is right when he says:
I have no name…
The word God is not God, and the word love is not love either. If you become too engrossed in the word God you will go on missing godliness forever. If you become too intrigued by the word love then you will go to the library, you will consult all the books – and there are millions written about love by people who don’t know anything about it – and you will collect great amounts of information about love. But to know about love is not to know love. Knowing love is a totally different dimension.
Knowledge about love is very simple; you can become a walking encyclopedia. You can know all the theories of love without ever testing any theory by experience, without ever living a single moment of love, without tasting what love is.
…I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
God is neither old nor new – or God is both the most ancient and as fresh as the dewdrops in the early morning sun. Because only God is. God is nontemporal; it does not belong to the dimension of time. Hence you cannot call it old or new – it is fresh, virgin. You need not go into the scriptures. But you certainly have to go into the breeze that is passing through the pine trees, you certainly have to go into the fragrance that is being released by the flowers. Now! You have to go into this moment with your total being, you have to relax herenow, and all the scriptures will be revealed to you. The Vedas and the Gitas and the Korans will be sung in the deepest core of your being. Then you will know that all the scriptures are true. But first your own inner scripture has to be known, understood.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
God is life. Hence God is movement, hence God is in constant change. That is the paradox of existence – it is something that never changes and yet constantly changes. At the innermost core everything remains the same, but on the circumference nothing is ever the same. God is change and no-change. God is eternity and flux.
If you look at the world, you look at the manifest God, which is in constant change – it is like a river moving and moving – but if you look at the unmanifest, then God is always the same. God is both. This world is not separate from God. You need not go in search of him anywhere else; he is hidden here, he is playing hide-and-seek here.
I have no sanctuary; like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
Religion has nothing to do with tradition or sacred books, religion has something to do with existential experience. Your first layer is intellectual – that has nothing to do with religion. You have to bypass it, you have to jump out of it.
Your second layer is emotional, the layer of feeling, where intuitions arise, visions are revealed, dreams of the unknown descend; where poetry is born, and dance, and song. It is closer to God. The intellectual layer is perfectly good for the mundane world, for the marketplace. It is calculation, mathematics; it can become science, technology. It has its uses – use it, but don’t be used by it. The second layer is closer to God, it is the layer of feeling.
The first layer is masculine, the second layer is feminine. The first layer is aggressive, the second layer is receptive. The first layer believes in action, the second layer is a tremendous passivity. It is like a womb. It is an open door, it is a deep welcome. The first goes in search of truth in a very aggressive way; it thinks in terms of conquering.
Even a man like Bertrand Russell writes about “the conquest of nature.” Bertrand Russell remained confined to the first layer. He had the intrinsic capacity to go far deeper into reality, but he remained concerned with words, logic, mathematics. He thought in terms of conquering nature: how the part could conquer the whole, how the drop could conquer the ocean, how the leaf could conquer the tree. It is utter nonsense. The very idea of conquest is ugly, but that’s how the male part of your being thinks. It is aggressive, it is violent, it is destructive, it is coercive, it is possessive, it is imperialistic.
The second layer is intuitive, of feeling, dreaming. The second layer is poetic, aesthetic, of deep sensitivity. It is totally different, its approach is different – it does not analyze. The first part believes in analysis, the second part synthesizes.
Sigmund Freud remained with the first part, Assagioli moved to the second. Hence Sigmund Freud could create psychoanalysis, but Assagioli could introduce the totally new concept of psychosynthesis. Obviously Sigmund Freud looks more scientific, more logical, rational. Assagioli looks like a visionary, a poet, but he goes deeper. Poetry always goes deeper than prose. Singing always goes deeper than syllogism.
Become aware of the second layer in you, help it to revive. Society has repressed it, society does not want it to function. Society is afraid of the second layer because it is irrational, uncontrollable, unpredictable; because the second layer cannot be reduced to mechanical manipulations. The first layer is easily available for the politician, the priest to dominate; it is easily available for the educator, the pedagogue to condition, to hypnotize. The second is not available. The second is so deep that the hands of the priest and the politician and the pedagogue cannot reach it. You have to help your second layer to become more prominent. The emphasis has to shift from the first to the second. And the second is not the last, the second is only the door. The third is the last. The third layer is that of being.
The first layer is intellectual, the second is emotional, the third is existential. With the first you think, with the second you feel, with the third you are. With the third, thinking disappears, feeling disappears. Only a kind of witnessing remains, a pure consciousness, an awareness. That’s what meditation is all about.
All sacred scriptures are in the head; and all your rituals, religions, are in the head. Your rituals, your religions, your theologies don’t even reach the second layer. If you want to reach the second you will have to learn from the painters and the poets, and the singers, musicians, dancers. You will have to go into the world of art. But if you want to go to the third layer you will have to go into deep communion with a master – and without going to the third you will never know what God is.
Only a mystic can make you attuned with your own innermost being. Only one who is in at-onement with his own being can infect you. Religion is something like a contagious disease. It is not a disease, it is health, ultimate health, but health can become as contagious as any illness.
Religion has to be learned in the vicinity of a master. It cannot be learned from traditions, from scriptures. You need somebody alive so that you can be in love, somebody alive whose presence can trigger a process in your being. It cannot be taught, it can only be caught.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
This statement is of tremendous value: “I am the worshipper and the worshipped.” You are the seeker and the sought, you are the devotee and the deity, you are the temple and the master of the temple. You need not go anywhere. If you need to go anywhere it is only inward, into your own interiority.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
These words will help as an introduction, to understand Kabir.
Kabir says:
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near,
wake up, wake up!
The original is:
Parmatma guru nikat viraje,
jag jag man mere…
Your real master, your God, is very close by. You need not go to the Kaaba or to Kashi in search of him. He is so close that even to say that he is close by is not right because closeness means a little distance. He is exactly you. God asleep – that’s what you are. If you awake, you need not go anywhere else.
The difference between you and a buddha is not the difference of any physical distance, is not the difference of any quantitative change. The difference is of only one thing, otherwise you are exactly the same: you are asleep, he is awake. Open your eyes and you are a buddha, be awake and you are a buddha.
Paramatma guru nikat viraje… For whom are you searching? He is just within you and he is the real master. The outer master only functions as a mirror; he simply shows you who you are. He does not impose anything upon you, he only reflects.
The pseudo-master imposes things upon you. He teaches you this and that, he conditions you, makes you a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian; creates great greed in you for the other world, for heavenly pleasures, makes you afraid of hell. He uses a very psychological strategy.
That’s what the most materialistic school of psychologists – Watson, Skinner, Pavlov – goes on teaching. The behaviorists’ whole teaching is that man can be conditioned by only two things, fear of punishment and greed for reward; punishment and reward. That’s how they work with rats, and when they succeed in conditioning a rat they think the same can be done to a man. They don’t give you any more respect than they give to the rats. And in a way they are right; for about ninety-nine percent of you they are right. They are not right only when a person is awake; they are not right about a buddha. Otherwise humanity functions almost like rats, there is not much difference. The rats function through punishment and reward, and that’s how man functions.
The false master simply makes you afraid of hell, greedy for heaven, and through this strategy he exploits you. The real master does not make you afraid and does not make you greedy either. What is the function of a real master then?
The function of a real master is to be a pure mirror so that you can see your own face, so you can recognize your own face. Once you have seen your own heart throbbing in the mirror, your own heart being reflected, you will become aware of the inner master.
The function of the outer master is to make you aware of the inner master. Once that is done then the outer mirror is no longer needed. You may remain grateful to it because it helped you, you may remain thankful to it forever and ever, but it is no longer needed. The real master works hard so that he is no longer needed. His success simply makes him unneeded.
The false master works in such a way that he is always needed, that without him you cannot move a single inch. He makes you dependent on him. He does not give you awareness – eyes to see, to function – he gives you ready-made formulas. And of course life goes on changing, and those formulas go out of date every day.
I have heard…
A rich man was suspicious of his secretary and asked if she was fooling around. She was not only adamant that she wasn’t, she became stubborn and very angry, saying “I’m a virgin!”
The man said, “Then produce a doctor’s certificate.”
She managed somehow to get a certificate that she was a virgin – she bribed a doctor – and brought the certificate to her boss. He looked at it, then looked at the secretary and said, “But it’s dated yesterday…”
Twenty-four hours had passed. Who knows? One can lose one’s virginity within seconds.
And that’s how it happens in your life: whenever fixed, ready-made answers are given to you they are dated, they are always lagging behind. If you ask me how to behave in a certain situation and I give you a particular answer, you will always be in trouble and dependent on me; because the same situation is never going to happen again – never exactly – and the answer is never going to fit any particular situation. You will always be a misfit. Your whole life will become a great misery of trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Your whole life will be a long, long story of frustration; you will worry why your life is not working.
You can see that nothing seems to be working for Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists – their lives are proof of it. What more proof is needed? What Mahavira said is now twenty-five centuries old, how can it fit in this world? But people are still trying, they don’t take note that twenty-five centuries have passed.
Mahavira said not to eat at night. He said it so that insects – mosquitoes and anything else – were not eaten: people used to eat in the dark. They still do in India; in villages, they eat in the dark. The people are so poor that they cannot afford even a kerosene lamp. Mahavira was not aware that one day there would be electricity, how could he have been? Now, there is no problem at all, but still the Jaina goes on insisting that he cannot eat at night.
Once I was staying at the home of a very religious Jaina in Kolkata, a very rich man, and a very beautiful man too. He had a completely soundproofed, centrally air-conditioned palace, but he would not eat at night. I said, “Why? No mosquito can enter, no insects can enter. Why not?” – just because Mahavira said so. This is what happens when people become too obsessed with principles.
The real master never gives you principles, he only gives you insights. He gives you understanding, not commandments. He simply makes you more aware, so that whatsoever the situation is, you can always respond to it on your own; you need not follow a certain fixed principle. He makes you more fluid, more flexible because life goes on changing and if you are very, very inflexible you will suffer.
Parmatma guru nikat viraje, jag jag man mere… Kabir says, the only thing worth doing is to wake up my mind. God, the real guru, is inside.
The word guru is untranslatable. Neither the word teacher nor the word master has its beauty. In fact, the phenomenon of the guru is so deeply Indian that no other language, of any country, is capable of translating it. It is something intrinsically Eastern. The word guru is made of two words, gu and ru. Gu means darkness, ru means one who dispels it. Guru literally means “the light.” And yes, you have the light within you!
If you come across a Buddha or a Jesus or a Krishna or a Mahavira, it will be of tremendous help to you in finding your inner guru. Because seeing Buddha, suddenly a great enthusiasm and hope will arise in you: “If it can happen to Buddha” – who is just like you, the same body, the same blood, bone, marrow – “if it can happen to this man, why not to me?” That hope is the beginning. Meeting with the master on the outside is the beginning of a great hope, a great aspiration.
And this can happen only if you meet a living master. It cannot happen just by reading about Buddha because who knows whether this man was real or not? And the story is being told in such a way that nobody can believe he was historical. Followers are always creating more and more unnecessary stories about their masters. Maybe they do it with good intentions, but even the good intentions of unconscious people are of no use; they are harmful. Maybe the followers want to impress people so they become more attracted, but what really happens is just the opposite.
The Buddhist story is that when Buddha was born his mother was standing, walking in a garden. Buddha was born while his mother was walking. Not only that, the first thing he did was walk seven steps himself. The first thing the child did – walk seven steps. And not just that, the second thing he did was declare, looking at the sky after the seventh step, “I am the awakened one, I am the great Buddha. Nobody has ever been like me and nobody will ever be like me.”
Now, these stupid stories naturally make intelligent people suspicious. One thing is absolutely certain: Buddha is not like us – so maybe, perhaps, he became enlightened, but he gives no hope to us. Jesus was born of a virgin mother – nonsense, patent nonsense. But how can you become enlightened? – you were not born of a virgin mother. Krishna was born as God, he is an incarnation of God – you are not an incarnation of God. These stories, rather than creating hope in you, create a kind of hopelessness.
You need living masters who have not yet become myths. You need living masters who are just like you and yet different, just like you but with something plus, something mysterious surrounding them; in every other way the same as you, but different in one respect: they have a certain understanding which is missing in you, they have a certain luminosity which is missing in you, they have a certain grace, a certain climate which is missing in you. In every other way they are exactly like you: they fall ill, they need food, they become thirsty, they are tired, they have to go to sleep; they are exactly like you in every possible way. Then great hope arises: maybe the “something plus” thing that has happened to them is also latent in you and can become manifest.
The outer master is simply a mirror so that you can see your face, so you can see that you also have the same face, the same possibility, the same potential. And once this has settled in your heart: “I also have the same potential, the same seed,” a great journey has started. You will never be the same again. Looking into the eyes of a living master something synchronizes in you, something is triggered in your being – a process has already started.
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near, wake up, wake up! But we have been asleep so long, for millions of years, for millions of lives, that sleep has become a deep-rooted habit, almost our nature. So it is even possible that you may be with a living master and still miss because the mind goes on creating new ways to go on sleeping, new rationalizations. The mind will say, “Now I have found a guru, I have found a master. What more is needed? It is enough. Now by his blessings I will become enlightened one day.”
This is a trick of the mind. Blessings are of immense help, but just blessings will not make you enlightened. Otherwise one master could make the whole earth enlightened because his heart is not miserly about blessings. He can bless the whole world – he does bless the whole world – but just his blessings won’t do. The mind can give you the idea that there is no need for you to wake up; the mind always thinks in its own old patterns.
A teacher was checking her children’s knowledge of proverbs.
“Cleanliness is next to what?” she asked.
“Impossible!” a small boy replied with great feeling.
The boy knows that the most difficult thing, just about impossible, is cleanliness. His response comes from his experience.
When you are with a living master, your responses are bound to come from your own experience. But there is every possibility you may distort things. The master may mirror your real face, but you may close your eyes, you may start dreaming about your face, you may project something else.
“What did you learn in school today?” a mother asked her young son.
He replied, “We learned that one and one, the son of a bitch, makes two. Two and two, the son of a bitch, makes four. Four and four, the son of a bitch, makes eight.”
The mother was shocked. She went to the school and complained to the teacher, “How could you teach your class such a terrible thing?”
“Madam,” said the teacher, “I taught them ‘one and one, the sum of which makes two.’”
The real master can also be misunderstood, misinterpreted. He may reflect your face, but you may go on seeing something else. You have been asleep so long that you will need to be shocked again and again.
Hence, a constant companionship with the master is needed; it can’t be a hit-and-run affair. Some people come here and they say, “We have come here for three days. Is something possible?” They don’t see the absurdity of it. They don’t see how long they have been asleep; they want to be awakened within three days. In fact, by the way they say that they are here for three days, it seems as if they are obliging me by being here for three days. Even if you became awakened after three lives, that would be too early. And yes, still I say it can happen in a single moment – it depends on you.
There is a story…
Two soldiers, utterly drunk, meet in a training camp. “Where are you from?” inquires the first soldier.
“Mobile, Alabama.” replies the second soldier.
“Mobile?” exclaims the first. “Why, I’m from Mobile.”
“What street in Mobile do you live on?” asks the second.
“Main Street and Elm Avenue,” replies the other.
“That’s where I live too!” says the second southern lad. “I live at 1195 Main Street.”
“Me too! Say, are you married?” asks the other.
“Sure am,” replies the second soldier. “Married a gal whose name was Daisy MacLee.”
“So did I!” gasps the first soldier. Then he pauses for a moment. “Hey,” he drawls, “you reckon we could be husbands-in-law?”
The fact is there are not two soldiers, only one, standing in front of a mirror. But when you are utterly drunk anything is possible. When you are utterly drunk, you need constant hammering from the master. And the truth is not far away:
My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit, the teacher, is near,
wake up, wake up!
Run to his feet –
he is standing close to your head right now.
The original is:
…dhaya ke pitam charanan lage,
sai khada sir tere…
The original has some beauty in it: …dhaya ke pitam charanan lage… Don’t waste time, not even a single moment. Run, fall at the feet of the beloved. He has been standing there for so long, waiting and waiting for you. For lives and lives God has been waiting for you; his patience is infinite.
There are only two things that are infinite: God’s patience and man’s stupidity. If you are fortunate enough to be in the presence of a master, look into his eyes and rush inward. Don’t waste time.
…dhaya ke pitam charanan lage… The beloved is within you, the worshipper is the worshipped. The beloved is within you; you just need to go to the very core of your being. Descend from the head to the heart, and from the heart to the being. Move from thinking to feeling and from feeling to being. Just be! That is the meeting with the beloved. And the meeting is already happening, you are just not aware, you are unconscious.
Run to his feet – he is standing close to your head right now. Without finding him you will remain dissatisfied, discontented. Whatsoever you do, everything is doomed to fail. Except God nothing succeeds.
They say, “Nothing succeeds like success,” and I say to you: nothing fails like success. Once you succeed in your so-called worldly matters – money, power, prestige, respectability – then you will know that all has failed. Your money is there and so is your inner poverty; it has not changed an iota. In fact now, because of your riches, you will become more and more aware of your inner poverty, you will be able to see it more in contrast.
That’s why poor people look a little more satisfied than the rich. Not that the poor people are satisfied, not that poverty has something spiritual about it, not that poverty should be preached – enough of all those stupid things that have been told to people down the ages. The poor person looks a little more satisfied for a totally different reason: he has nothing to compare himself with, he has no contrast. He is a white line drawn on a white board. The rich man is a white line drawn on a black board – a contrast.
The richer a country gets, the more frustrated it becomes. Indians brag a lot: they think their satisfaction, their so-called contentment, has something to do with spirituality. It has nothing to do with spirituality at all. It is a simple psychological fact: they are so poor they cannot afford to be discontented. Only rich people can afford to be discontented. Only rich people really become aware of discontentment.
But one thing is certain: whatsoever you attain, if you have not attained the inner beloved, you will remain poor. You can become rich, you can become respectable, you can become virtuous, you can become a so-called saint, a mahatma, be worshipped by thousands of people, but you will remain in misery deep down, you will remain in darkness.
No one is ever satisfied. Poor men wish they were rich, rich men wish they were handsome, bachelors wish they were married, and married men wish they were dead, and so it goes, on and on. Have you ever come across a person who is really contented? If you do come across a person who is really contented, then be with him, imbibe as much of the vibes of his being as possible because that is the only way to find your inner beloved. The person who is contented must have found him.
Buddhas are surrounded by tremendous contentment, a great silence, almost tangible; you can touch it, you can feel its texture. Buddhas are surrounded by great grace; if you are not closed you will be overwhelmed by it. Buddhas are just pure love; if your hearts are open and beating, if you are still alive, then immediately a great dance will arise in your being. You will start celebrating immediately because on seeing the buddha you will immediately become aware of the inner buddha – it has been asleep for so long, but so what? Even if you have been asleep for millions of lives it makes no difference, you can wake up right now, this very moment.
Kabir says:
You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
…jugan jugan tohi sobat bita,
ajahu na jag sabere?
Don’t be foolish anymore. The time has come, this is the time. Buddhas always speak of this moment. …ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come. This is the morning for which you have been waiting for so long, this is the moment. Buddhas know only one time, that is now, and only one place, that is here. Their time is always now and their space is always here. They don’t talk about yesterdays and they don’t talk about tomorrows.
…ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come, and you are still asleep? Are you not going to wake up? Are you not going to wake up and see the sun rising? You have missed for so long, so long; but forget all about that – you can still wake up, it is still early. Whenever you wake up, it is early.
The weight of old habits is not easy to throw off. You listen, you may even feel a little understanding arising, but still your investment is in sleep. You have been dreaming such beautiful dreams in your sleep and now suddenly Kabir comes and says, “Wake up!” You would like to awake, but not right now – and the masters insist, right now. They don’t want to wait, they start shaking you. You feel angry, naturally. All the great buddhas of the world have created anger in people against them for the simple reason that they disturb sleep, and who wants to be disturbed? Particularly in the early morning when it is cold and you would like to turn over, pull the blanket up and tuck yourself in just a little more.
And people have such beautiful dreams in the early morning. You are having a beautiful dream: you have become the president of America or something, and along comes Kabir and says, “Wake up! …ajahu na jag sabere? The morning has come, and what are you doing here?”
You would like to tell him, “Shut up. Is this the moment to wake me up? It has been a hard, hard struggle for me to become the president of America. Somehow I have managed it, and now you come. Where were you before?” The weight of the dreams, of the sleep, all the investment, is great.
A man arrived at the Pearly Gates. On being asked his name he replied, “Charlie Graball.”
“I don’t think we had any notice that you were coming,” he was informed. “What was your occupation in earthly life?”
“Scrap metal merchant,” Charlie said.
“Oh,” said the angel, “I will go and inquire.”
When he returned Charlie Graball had disappeared. So had the Pearly Gates.
Old habits – a scrap metal merchant, even at the gates of heaven. Who cares about heaven? When you can escape with the gates, who bothers about heaven?
And this is the reason you go on finding new excuses for sleeping. You would not believe how much you have invested in your sleep. And the most cunning thing the mind does is make you convinced that you are not asleep at all, that you are already awake: “Kabir must be talking to somebody else.”
That’s what happens when I am talking here – you always think I must be talking about other people. I am talking about you! Sometimes it happens that when I keep on looking at one person, for two, three seconds, he starts looking here and there: “He must be looking at somebody else.” Because nobody thinks that they are Charlie Graball. No, it is always somebody else. This is one of the most powerful strategies of the mind to keep you asleep.
Gurdjieff used to tell this story again and again…
Once there was a magician who had many sheep. Every day a fat sheep was killed for him. Of course, the sheep became alert – they are not as foolish as men. They knew one thing for certain, that they were all going to be killed one day or another. So the sheep started escaping into the hills, into the forests. The magician was at a loss as to what to do; the sheep were becoming aware of their destiny.
Then he invented a strategy: he gathered all the sheep, hypnotized them and told different sheep different things. For example, he told some, “You are exceptional, you are not ordinary sheep. What happens to the others is never going to happen to you.” From that day on those sheep stopped escaping. You could have killed another sheep in front of them, and they would not be afraid because they knew they were exceptional.
Just watch your mind deep down: you all have that idea, “I am exceptional.” One Arabian proverb says that when God creates a man and sends him into the world, before he drops him down he always whispers in his ear: “You are unique, exceptional.” God goes on playing this joke, and so every person carries “I am exceptional,” deep down in his heart. That’s why you can see someone dying, but you never think, “I am going to die.” It is always someone else who dies, it is never “I”: “I am exceptional.”
To some other sheep that he hypnotized, the magician said, “You are lions, you are not sheep at all.” And from that day on they too stopped escaping. They started roaring like lions.
To yet other sheep he said, “You are not sheep, you are men. You are here to keep all the other sheep imprisoned. You are here to help me, you are my friends.” From that day on those sheep became detectives, working against their own kind. They would inform the magician if a certain sheep was trying to escape.
And to other sheep he even said, “You are magicians – not only men but magicians. You can do miracles. You are immortal.”
Once he had done all this, no sheep were escaping – and every day they were butchered.
And every day you are butchered. Every day somebody dies, somebody is killed, somebody is murdered, somebody commits suicide. Every day it is going on, but somehow, deep down, you go on believing you are exceptional. When somebody goes mad you think, “Poor fellow,” you don’t think that you also can go mad. But the difference between you and mad people is not much; it is very nominal, very minimal, only a matter of degrees. Maybe you are at ninety-nine degrees and he is at a hundred and one – just one degree more, you cross the boundary and are mad. Only one day earlier that person was as normal as you are – now he is mad. Today you are normal, tomorrow you could be mad. But in our deep sleep we have auto-hypnotized ourselves. This auto-hypnosis is what is meant by sleep, metaphysical sleep.
…jugan jugan tohi sobat bita, ajahu na jag sabere? How long have you remained auto-hypnotized, in a deep metaphysical slumber? The dawn has come. Now wake up. It is time. Don’t postpone anymore, you have postponed enough.
Why not wake up this morning?
There is a flag no one sees blowing, in the gagan, in the sky-temple.
A blue cloth has been stretched up,
it is decorated with the moon and many jewels.
Gagan math gaib nisan ure,
chandrahar chandva jahan tange,
mukata-manik marhe…
If you wake up, you will be surprised that you are living in such a tremendously beautiful world. But how can you know the beauty of it if you are asleep? You are not aware of the splendor that is showering all around. You are not aware of the glories of life, of the benediction that life is. How can you be aware of it? You are so deeply asleep, you are dreaming your private dreams, utterly unaware that the whole of existence is a constant celebration.
There is a flag no one sees blowing in the sky-temple. A blue cloth has been stretched up, it is decorated with the moon and many jewels. It is a very mysterious existence. You cannot conceive more mystery, more miracles, more splendor, more beauty. It is the ultimate of all that one can imagine, but we are missing it. It is as if a man is asleep in the garden and cannot see the roses blooming, and cannot hear the distant call of a lonely bird, and cannot see the bird on the wing, cannot see the sun and the moon and the stars. He is fast asleep. The fragrance from the roses comes to his nostrils, but he is not aware of it; the fragrance of the wet earth, but he is unaware; the dewdrops shining like pearls in the morning sun, but he is unaware of it, he is fast asleep. This is our situation.
Why not wake up this morning? …ajahu na jag sabere? Morning is knocking on your door, the sun is rising, the call has come, and you go on sleeping? This is the master’s work: hammering his disciples, going on hammering. Any moment the disciple may wake up. There are moments when you are more vulnerable, there are moments when you are more flexible, more feminine; and there are moments when you are very hard, impossible to penetrate. Hence the master goes on hammering every day. He goes on, without taking any notice of whether you are listening or not. He knows one thing: that ultimately everybody has to listen. Finally, everybody has to listen.
The sun and the moon can be seen in that place;
when looking at that, bring your mind down to silence.
…mahima tasu dekh man thir kar,
ravi-sasi jot jare…
Kabir says, if you can do only one thing, if you can attain to silence, you will know the splendor of God. …mahima tasu dekh… You can see that splendor, you can see that infinite beauty. That joy is yours. Just do one thing, become silent. It is another way of saying wake up – the mind remains asleep because of so many thoughts. Sleep simply means a continuous thought process inside you, a procession of thoughts, a continuous traffic. And it is always rush hour in there: day in, day out, thousands of thoughts and desires and imaginations and projections and memories go on rushing in a crowd. You are always surrounded by a big crowd – this is your sleep.
The inner talk has to stop. You can call it being awake, you can call it being silent – it is the same thing. To be silent is the way to be awake, or to be awake is the way to be silent; both methods have been used. Buddha uses the method of being silent so that you can be aware. Krishnamurti uses the method of being aware so that you can be silent. They are two aspects of the same coin; if you have one you will have the other automatically.
…mahima tasu dekh man thir kar… Stop this constant traffic of the mind, stop these thought processes. Then you can see the infinite beauty. …ravi-sasi jot jare… You will see the sun and the moon and the stars inside yourself. The whole sky is yours. And even the sky is not the limit – you are all. If you are ready to die as a drop, you will become the ocean.
I will tell you the truth:
the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like
someone insane.
This world is almost a madhouse. To be sane here will look like being insane.
H. G. Wells wrote a story…
There is a valley somewhere in Mexico, hidden deep in the mountains, where a small tribe lives. They are all blind. There is a fly found in that valley, and once a person is bitten by that fly he becomes blind. Every child is born with eyes, but it is difficult to avoid the flies; they are very common, every house is full of them. So sooner or later a child is going to be bitten by a fly and become blind. Maybe one day, two days, three days, at the most a week or two; if a child is very fortunate then one month, two months, three months. By the time he becomes a little conscious he finds himself already blind. So the whole community is blind.
A man from another community comes to visit. He has heard rumors, but he cannot believe that the whole community is blind. He sees, and he cannot believe his eyes. And he falls in love with a blind girl. But her community won’t allow them to be married. It has never happened before, there is no precedent. They cannot believe that he has eyes. They think he is mad. And of course they are in the majority. Nobody has ever heard of eyes – what is he talking about? Rainbows and colors and the sun and moon – who has ever heard of such things? He must be mad, utterly mad.
But the man is so in love and the girl is so in love that finally the community concedes, but with a condition. They say, “We have never before allowed a girl to marry someone from another community. This is happening for the first time. We will allow you to marry our girl, but with one condition: we will have to destroy your so-called eyes. We cannot allow our girl to be married to a madman. Only if you are ready to be blind, as you think we are, can you marry the girl.”
Their logic is right – if they have never heard of anybody having eyes, how can they believe?
Kahlil Gibran wrote a similar story…
A magician came into a town. He chanted a few mantras, threw something into the town well, and said, “Whosoever drinks the water of this well will go mad.” Now there were only two wells: one for the common people and one inside the palace for the king, his queen and his ministers. By evening the whole town had become mad – they had to drink the water from the town well.
The king was very happy, the queen was very happy: they had a special well – otherwise they also would have gone mad. But in the evening their happiness started to disappear because a rumor went round the town: “Our king has gone mad.” The king and queen became very frightened and scared in fact. The majority of people had gone mad, the king’s guards, the policemen, the army, everybody. Now only three people were left: the king, his queen and his prime minister. It was very dangerous, there was no protection now and the whole town was convinced that these three people had gone mad. The king asked the old prime minister, “Now what do we do?”
The prime minister said, “I will keep these people engaged, I will talk to them. You and your wife go out by the back door and drink from the town well. Later on I will go and drink from it. This is the only way.”
The king and queen went out by the back door. They drank from the town well… Of course, then they didn’t come back in by the back door, they came dancing in the front door! The people were rejoicing, they had never seen them in such a state. That night there was a great celebration in the town. The people thanked God that “Our our king and queen are sane again.”
This is the situation. The whole world is insane, hence the man of godliness looks insane. The whole world is neurotic, they have drunk from the well, the contaminated well. But they are in the majority. Now anybody who is not mad like them is a danger to their security, is a danger to their sanity, is a question mark. Not to be neurotic here, just to be healthy and whole, is very dangerous. The presence of anybody who is not mad is irritating, he has to be destroyed. Hence, you crucify Jesus, you kill Mansoor. That’s why thousands of people are against me, for the simple reason that they are neurotic.
Kabir says: I will tell you the truth… I will not tell you to wake up without telling you the truth. He is saying, “Let me tell you the truth: if you decide to wake up one thing is certain – you will be thought mad. You have to take that risk. Otherwise you will go on sleeping, go on dreaming, remain part of the mad crowd. But please don’t blame me later on.” That’s why Kabir says, I will tell you the truth… if you decide to wake up. Maybe listening to Kabir or to Buddha or to me, you start deciding to wake up. The truth has to be told beforehand, before you decide to wake up.
…the man who has drunk from that liquid wanders around like someone insane. You have to risk your so-called sanity. It is insanity – but you will have to risk it, and you will have to be ready to accept the world of the few sane people. They are very few – Mansoor and Jesus and Buddha and Kabir and Farid and Nanak… They are very few, they can be counted on the fingers. If you wake up you will become part of that small, fortunate minority, but you will be thought insane by the people.
…kahe Kabir piye joi jan, mana firat mare.
Not only that, you will live like a madman in the world; you will also die like a madman. But it is worth it, the risk is worth taking. It is better to be mad like Kabir than to be sane like Morarji Desai. It is better to be mad like Jesus than to be sane like Pontius Pilate. It is a great decision; guts are needed, great courage is needed.
Sannyas – initiation into the world of truth – is not for cowards. Cowards can go on rationalizing, cowards can go on sleeping, dreaming. Cowards can even start dreaming that they are awake, but they will not risk anything. They remain part of the mob, the insane crowd. And of course their lives will remain ones of misery, of pain, of agony.
If you want to be ecstatic, risk – risk all. Only by risking all does one attain all. Blessed are those who are drunk with God. Blessed are those who are mad for God. Blessed are those who are no longer part of the insane crowd but have learned a new way of insanity – the way of the buddhas.
…kahe Kabir piye joi jan… It is very rare that somebody decides to risk all because it is very rare for someone to be so courageous, so brave. …mana firat mare. Then he lives like a madman, in utter ecstasy, in absolute benediction; and he dies in utter ecstasy, in absolute benediction. Life can be a celebration – and death too, but you will need to risk all.
And that’s what my whole effort here is: to seduce you into risking all for the divine. Remember, you have slept enough and you have not found anything, you have dreamed enough and your hands are empty, you have thought enough, and where have you arrived? Now wake up.
Friend, now wake up!
Enough for today.