The Whole of Religion is Nothing but a Commentary on Love

Prem means love, and shiven means god of goodness, god of virtue. The name will mean, prem, the god of love, the god of goodness. And love really is the god of all good. If you try to be good without being deeply in love, your goodness will harm people. You will become a do-gooder - and it is very dangerous... it is violent. You torture people by hiding behind beautiful rationalisations - that this is being done for their own sake.

Down the centuries it has been happening again and again. People have been tortured for their own sake, killed for their own sake, destroyed for their own sake. The do-gooders have been one of the greatest calamities upon humanity. They have proved the most mischievous of people. The world would have been far better without them.

Unless there is love, goodness becomes an instrument to exploit, oppress, dominate. Only when there is love is there no fear, because then nothing can go wrong.

It is said that once a man came to saint augustine and said, 'I am very uneducated, and I am not well-versed. I don't know anything about religion, and I am a very simple, poor man. Tell me something in brief, and in such a simple way that I can understand. An uneducated man like me - what should I do?'

Augustine looked into the eyes of the man and said, 'If you love, you can do anything whatsoever you want to. So take care of love, and everything else will be okay. You need not bother,' Augustine said to him, 'about other things. Love is the only commandment.'

And the whole religion is nothing but a commentary on love.

You may have heard the name of a jewish mystic, Hillel? A sceptical man came to him and he said, 'I will be standing in front of you on one leg. Try to summarise the whole torah in the time that I can stand on one leg.'

So Hillel said to him, 'Do unto others what you would like to be done to you. That is the whole torah, and the rest is just com-mentary.'

Love is the whole torah, the whole bible, the whole veda. All else is just commentary.

I call love the god of good. And this is going to be your name - prove worthy of it!

Have you ever done any sort of meditation?

[The new sannyasin says: No, I have only recently started here.]

That's very good. A clean slate is always good, and to start with a man who has not done anything is simpler than with one who has done many things. Because first all that they have done has to be undone. Only then the fresh can start. So you are uncorrupted; that's very good!

Now people are asking how to make love. Experts have arisen who are teaching people how to make love. This is one of the most sad states... a very miserable state of affairs. It is as if people have lost all naturalness - now even love they have to learn, they have to be taught. What animals can do, even that is becoming difficult for man. Even love is being transformed into a technique.

Masters and johnsons and kinseys, and people like that, are turning everything into a technique.

My whole effort here is to turn techniques into love. I use techniques, but if you are alert that they should not be just taken as techniques, then there is no harm; then you will change.

So remember this: while meditating, be loving. Love has to be your very base, and everything has to arise out of that base.

Anand means bliss, deshna means a gospel; a gospel of bliss, a message of bliss. And that's how life should be - a gospel of bliss. Everybody is seeking, searching for happiness - and that's why we go on missing it. There is no need to seek it; one has just to start living it. There is no need to wait for tomorrow to be happy, otherwise you will never be happy.

Tomorrow never comes, and of course, happiness never comes. One goes on preparing and preparing, and the whole preparation is empty because tomorrow never comes. In the first place, the preparation is not needed at all - you are wasting time.

Bliss is a natural state of being. It is not something that you have to learn, earn, cultivate. Every child is born blissful. Full of bliss the child comes into the world.

We come as messengers of bliss, and then the society corrupts and creates a personality - a false personality - around the child. By and by the whole effort of the society is how to disconnect the child from his spontaneity, because the society is very much afraid of happy people. The society wants unhappy people, because unhappy people are easy to dominate. Unhappy people can be turned into slaves. Unhappy people can be tortured, and they will never be rebellious. Unhappy people are always obedient. Unhappy people are very efficient, mechanical.

Happy people are not so efficient. They cannot be, because they are not machines. And happy people are always rebellious. If they feel like going with something, they will go, otherwise they won't. They cannot be tortured so easily... they cannot be dominated. They are dangerous. They are individuals.

Whenever you see a person happy, you will see individuality, an integration. A happy person becomes unique. A happy person has his own climate... lives in his own way... has a style, a flavour. A happy person is always a little eccentric. He does not care what other say - he lives in his happiness. He is here to live his happiness. He is not worried about others' opinions. He lives from the inner. His trust is in himself - not in rules and principles and disciplines and structures and systems... not at all.

So the society does not want happy people. From the very beginning it starts corrupting the happiness, starts creating such a situation that the child loses more and more contact with his own being.

My whole effort here is to make you again connected with your natural being. I am not going to give you anything new. It is some-thing that is yours and you have forgotten about it.

Religion is needed because the society is there. Religion is nothing but an undoing of whatsoever the society has done.

So religion is basically against the society - and if religion is not against the society, it is no more religion. Then it has become part of the society - it has betrayed.

For example, Jesus is religious - Christianity is a betrayal. Buddha is religious - Buddhism is a betrayal. Christians have betrayed Jesus and betrayed the revolution that he brought into the world.

He was against the society, hence he was crucified. And christians are all for society - for the structure, for the system, for convenience, security.

Religion is basically the antidote. It is the undoing of all that the society has done. If society disappears, religion will disappear, because when the disease disappears, the medicine becomes useless.

Religion is medicine... my sannyas is medicinal.

So from this very moment I am giving you total freedom to be happy. The old mind will create troubles. It will say, 'Why are you happy? There is no reason to be happy!' Never listen to the old mind! There is no need for any reason to be happy. You need reason only when you want to be unhappy.

Unhappiness is unnatural - that's why we don't want it. Happiness is natural - that's why we want it. Anything natural needs no reason for its existence; it simply exists. The unnatural thing needs some reason to exist. When you are healthy, you don't go to the doctor and ask, 'Why am I healthy?'

Health is natural, you take it for granted.

When you are unhealthy, then you go to the doctor and you ask for the diagnosis of why you are unhealthy; why you are sick.

Where is your sickness? But you never ask the question, 'Why am I healthy? Where is my health?

And why am I healthy in the first place?'

Bliss is like health. In one stroke, all misery can be dropped. That's the revolution I am trying to bring to you - just in one stroke.... And be finished with all misery. Don't take much time, because if you take a long time to get finished with misery, meanwhile you will be miserable, and meanwhile the misery will go on creating new seeds and new roots in you. So never say, 'Okay, I will be happy tomorrow,' because what will you do meanwhile? You will remain unhappy. Instantly be happy!...

this very moment!

And I can see that you can be, that's why I am giving you that name. Just forget the old ways of being unhappy, that's all, and you will find a natural happiness arising in you. You will be surprised - it was always yours, but you were seeking it somewhere else. You were preparing for something which was already yours!

Deva means divine and shanta means peace; divine peace. And that is going to help you tremendously. Try to be as peaceful as possible. Slow down all the processes that you do. If you are walking, walk slowly - there is no hurry. If you are eating, eat slowly. If you are talking, talk slowly. Slow down all the processes, and you will see that you can become silent very easily.

In the West, hurry is killing many people. People are hurrying for no reason at all, there is nowhere to go, but they are hurrying. They go on becoming more and more speedy. Nobody is bothered about where you are going and for what you are being in such a speed. Speed seems to be, in itself, the goal. If somebody comes with any idea that the speed can be increased, people are ready to take it immediately.

There is a very old story, a taoist story. A man had invented some machine to draw water from the well. He came into a garden to see an old man - very old, ancient - with his young boy. Both were pulling the water out, and it was hard and the old man was perspiring.

The man said, 'Have not you heard about a mechanical device? Now there is no need!' The old man said, 'Keep quiet! When my boy is gone then I will talk to you.'

When the boy had gone to take food, the old man said, 'Don't talk nonsense here. If he hears this, he is yet too young, and he may be corrupted by it.'

The man said, 'What are you saying? Are you in your senses? I am saying that you can save much labour.'

But the old man said, 'What is one going to do with that labour then? For what? I am one hundred years old and I am still alive enough to do all my work. If I had depended on mechanical devices, I would be dead by now. My young boy is very young - please don't say such things before him, otherwise he may get your ideas, may become interested. Young people are foolish!'

And this is not just a story. In fact the first beginnings of all the great inventions that are the fundamental of all scientific progress were done in the east - in China and India. But India and China never developed them, knowing well that speed and efficiency only create more worry, make people tense... and time is not saved! Even if time is saved, what is one going to do with that time?

You will worry in that time.

First you have the time, and then you worry and become anxious and ask for some entertainment, because now what to do with the time? First you save time, and then you enquire how to kill time.

So there are people who sell ideas on how to become more speedy and more efficient; then there are people who go on selling ideas on how to entertain yourself when time is there. It is just absurd!

So you try one thing - slow down. And just by slowing down ordinary processes, you will see how peaceful you can become. Eat slowly - take time! If you eat in twenty minutes, why not in forty?

There is no hurry! Enjoy the food! Chew it more; it will be digested better. Your body will feel more at ease and at home. And of course when the body is at home, the mind too feels at home.

Sometimes when you don't have anything to do, just sit silently doing nothing. There is no need to read the newspaper or to see the TV. Don't be in such a mad rush to occupy yourself. That is a way to escape from oneself. So sometimes when you have nothing to do, feel happy that you have some time when you have nothing to do. Then just sit silently, look at the stars or at the trees, or just close your eyes and look inward.

If you can sit silently every day at least for one how, within three, four months, you will know for the first time what peace is. And unless one has known what peace is, one has not known what life is.

Only in a surfacing of peace, when the springs of peace start flowing in you, do you feel the meaning of life. Otherwise it is much ado about nothing.

Much is going to happen to you. Feel at home here - this is your home.

[A sannyasin says: I had some problems back home. I've been doing some meditation, mostly some kundalini, and I've had some very bad experiences.

Just feeling things around me... and feeling as if I were going to choke any moment. Just having visions and things, and people coming to really choke me. This happens almost every day - that very frequently I lie in bed, and I start shaking.]

Mm mm. You need to stay here a little longer. The energy is coming up and work is needed on it, otherwise you will become scared. And it is beautiful energy, but if you don't know what to do with it, you will become scared.

The fear of people around you and choking you is just your mind. But the mind gets scared, and the energy is such that it is very easy to hallucinate. When energy arises it is really very easy to hallucinate, imagine, see things which are not.

You need to stay here a little longer so you can do a few groups, you can go through a few processes.

And while you are here, if something happens, it can be looked after. Once your energy has settled, there will be no problem. That's why I always want people to be here at least for three, four months; then something settles. Mm? you have been here only for a few days, so things have started changing.

And it is good - this is the energy people long for. But I can understand - one becomes very very afraid. When you are alone and you don't know what is happening, it looks crazy! You are lying on the bed and suddenly the whole body starts shaking. You feel afraid - has some evil spirit taken possession of you, or what? It has never been so, and suddenly....

It is a great energy that is arising, and you cannot control it. If you control it that will be had, because that will be repression. If you don't control it, you will start hallucinating.

... Next time you make it possible... be here for a little longer. Once it has settled, there is no problem. Then you can be anywhere, and you will know, and you will enjoy it, and you can use it crea-tively. It is great energy, pure energy, but if you don't know, then the fire is dangerous. One can cook on it if one knows; otherwise one may get burned.

[The sannyasin answers: It's the meditations that really bothered me.]

No, no need to be afraid. You have a box with you? Just hold the box and go to sleep, or keep the box under your pillow and go to sleep, and let it be so. It is good! Just remember me and fall asleep.

... because stopping won't be good. It comes very rarely so easily. People work for years, then it starts. But when people work for years and it starts, they are not so afraid. When it starts so instantly - without much work - then fear is more. Because you have not earned it - it out of the blue - and you cannot believe that it is happening to you. Because you cannot believe it is something happening to you, you start feeling that maybe something is around you, somebody is doing something to you... some evil spirit trying to kill you or suffocate you. And if you think these things in an energy-state, they will all look real. When energy is there, anything is real if you imagine it. Immediately it becomes real! Not that it becomes real - to you it looks real.

The energy makes you so sensitive, and the energy functions on the centres of the mind which are of imagination, so imagination is released, and you will start seeing things. Sometimes it can happen that you can almost create the people who are suffocating you.

There is nothing to be worried about... let it continue. Hold the locket in the hand and let it continue.

And after one month when you come, tell me again, mm? If you become too much afraid, it can be stopped. That's not a big problem. To start is difficult - to stop is very easy!

But my suggestion is, you continue, mm?