Darshan 19 August 1979
Das Satyen. Das means a slave; satyen means truth - a slave of truth. And swami means a master.
It is a paradox, but existence is full of paradoxes. In fact if something is not paradoxical it cannot have much value, it cannot have much depth, it cannot be profound. If something looks very logical it means it is very superficial. The deeper you go, the deeper you enter into mystery, into paradox.
The way to become a Master is to become a slave. The way to conquer is to surrender. The way to be is not to be. Hence the question is not "to be or not to be"; if you really want to be you have not to be. You will have to choose non-being if you want being to arrive.
Become a slave of truth and you will be crowned as a Master.
Deva Arend. Deva means divine; arend means darkness.
It has been said again and again that God is light, but very rarely has it been said that God is darkness too... because there is nobody else than God, nothing else than God. Unless one becomes capable of seeing God in darkness too, one has not known God yet, be cause to know the part is not to know the whole. And to believe the part as the whole is a great misunder-standing. To call God light is a partial truth; to call God darkness is the complementary truth. Both together create the whole.
It is easier to think of God as light, because we are all afraid of darkness. Because of this fear of darkness it is difficult, very difficult, to comprehend God as darkness. But God is both. We have to transform our psychology, we have to drop our fears. And that is one of the greatest fears deep in the mind: the fear of darkness, because the moment it is dark, you don't know who you are. You can't see anything and you know only how to see outside; you don't know how to see inside.
The man who knows how to look in will feel immensely happy when it is dark, because with nothing to see outside you can turn in.
We have associated darkness with all kinds of wrong things: the devil is dark, death is dark, everything that is somehow frightening we have associated with the dark. It is utterly wrong: there is no devil and there is no death. Only God is - even in the form of devil is the divine, and even in death only God comes.
Remember it and start loving the darker side of life. Start loving the other aspect, the neglected aspect of life, the rejected aspect of life, and you will come closer to the whole.
[The new sannyasin says: I've always thought of darkness as not the opposite of light but that there is light and nothing else, and darkness doesn't exist. This is the way I've thought of darkness.]
If darkness does not exist, then about what have you been thinking? Then how does the question arise at all?
It is true that darkness does not exist in the same way as light exists, but darkness exists in its own way. Its way of existence is not that of presence but that of absence. It is a negative existence, so certainly it is not a positive thing. But it is a negative thing, and the negative has as much energy as the positive. It is just like the negative pole in electricity: without the negative pole there would be no positive pole; electricity would not be possible.
You have been thinking about darkness - that it is not - not because you know that it is not, but because you are afraid of it. Out of fear also sometimes we deny. There are many people who will say, "There is no death," just because they are afraid of death. They would like death not to be. That is their wish. They would like darkness not to be, so they start thinking it is not: "Why are you afraid?
- it is not at all." This is a way of consoling oneself. I also say that darkness does not exist, but not in the same way as you are saying.
First drop your fear of darkness; it is there. First drop your fear of death; it is there. First drop your fear of the devil; it is there. And then you will come to know that darkness does not exist the way that light exists. It is absence of light, hence it has no existence of its own; so is the devil just absence of God, and so is death just absence of life. But those understandings will happen to you only when fear has been completely uprooted, not before it.
If you start philosophizing and fear remains, you may come to very beautiful conclusions, but they will be only hollow words; there will be no truth in them. Rather than believing that darkness does not exist, look into darkness, meditate on darkness. One day you will come to know that it doesn't exist. But don't start from the conclusion, don't start a priori, that it doesn't exist.
Anand Walburgis. Anand means bliss. Wal means a ruler, burg means a castle - a ruler of a castle, a king of a castle.
The body is a castle and consciousness is the ruler of it. If we go into our inner depths we will become aware of the phenomenon. The moment that you realize that the body is just a castle, a beautiful castle, which protects you tremendously, and that consciousness is the ruler, the master of the house, your life will know for the first time what bliss is.
But ordinarily things are very upside-down: the master is asleep, and the castle without the master functions mechanically. It is bound to function mechanically, it is a robot. It goes on performing its work, the daily routine, from birth to death, attaining nothing, reaching nowhere. That is not within its capacity. It is not meant for it; hence we cannot condemn it, we cannot blame it. All the blame goes to the master who is asleep inside. And because the master remains asleep and the body remains a mechanical function, life remains meaningless, empty. That meaninglessness and emptiness is what misery is.
The moment the master awakes, the sunrise has happened! You start being full of meaning, significance. A tremendous glory is yours then, and that makes the heart throb with bliss. And the moment you know the master, you know something deathless in you; all fear disappears. And when there is no fear, love arises. Love is the transformation of the energy contained in fear.
Anand Renata. Anand means bliss; renata means reborn.
Sannyas is bliss reborn. Every child is born full of bliss, but the whole upbringing is against bliss. It destroys the bliss. It makes the child more and more serious, less and less cheerful, more and more utilitarian, less and less playful, more and more logical and less and less loving. The whole process of upbringing, all over the world, hitherto, has been very destructive. The greatest crime that man has committed has been committed against children. They come as blissful flowers and we destroy all their beauty.
Sannyas means regaining that which is lost, reclaiming your own childhood. It can be reclaimed because it is there, deep down, hidden still. The society cannot really destroy it; it can only go on covering it with rubbish. We have only to throw the rubbish out, and the pure joy will be available again. Sannyas is rebirth, a rebirth of bliss, a rebirth of innocence. It is a second childhood. The first is bound to be lost, the second cannot be lost, because the first was unconscious, the second is conscious. The first was not achieved by you; it was simply a gift from God. The second is your own achievement, conscious, deliberate; hence you will not lose it.
Anand Geya. Anand means bliss; geya means that which can be sung. Bliss has two aspects. One always remains unexpressed; it is so subtle that it cannot be expressed. But the other aspect is not so subtle and can be expressed - through singing, through dancing, through loving, through painting.
Being creative in any way is a way of expressing your bliss. One can paint, one can sing, one can dance, and there are a thousand and one things which can be done to express your joy of life. But that is only one aspect, and that too just the circumference of your bliss; the center always remains unexpressed. There is no word in which it can be contained; no painting can have it, no color, no sound. But both are together.
And first one has to begin from the gross. First one has to start singing and dancing and rejoicing, then slowly slowly, one day dancing, suddenly one becomes aware of something hidden behind the dance of which one was never aware before. One day singing a song suddenly you hear something else inside which is far deeper than the song itself. One day playing on the flute, another flute starts inside which only you can hear and which cannot be shared.
Your name means a bliss which can be sung. Start from the gross side of bliss, and slowly slowly search and seek for the invisible hidden behind the visible. Just as there is body and soul, and the world and God, each thing has two aspects: the gross and the subtle, the visible and the invisible.
The goal is the invisible and the visible is the means, the way.
Prem Kazuo. Prem means love; kazuo means a man of unity.
It is love that brings unity. Love is the chemistry that integrates one. Without love a man is just things put together without any inner unity. Yes, there is a certain arrangement but no inner thread connecting everything.
Without love man is more like a pile of flowers; with love he becomes a garland. The thread of love running through the flowers creates a unity. Hence love is the greatest secret of religion. It integrates you, makes you one, and the moment you are one you become capable of knowing the greater one: God. The moment you are integrated you are capable of knowing the universal integrity of existence.
Anand Paritosha. Anand means bliss; paritosha means contentment.
There are two kinds of contentment. One is a negative kind of contentment: in helplessness, one somehow consoles oneself that everything is good, just to cover up one's frustration, just to hide one's failure in life. But that is a very sad contentment and impotent too. It has no life in it. It is the silence of the grave, not the silence of a god.
The real contentment is not out of helplessness; it is not to cover up your despair. It is the shadow of your bliss. Bliss has to be attained, then contentment comes following it of its own accord. Then it has life, tremendous potential for creativity, immense beauty. But bliss has to be the first thing, not contentment. Contentment has to be the second thing. And you are not to do anything for it; it comes on its own. If you are capable of getting into a blissful state, then contentment is a reward from heaven. So I don't teach contentment, I teach bliss.
Sing, dance, rejoice; transform every moment of your life into celebration. Don't think that life is ordinary. It is so precious, it is so extraordinary that it is just incredible; it is unbelievable that it is.
Feel grateful that we are part of this beautiful existence; that we share this existence with the suns and the moons and the stars; that we are part of this beautiful existence which has the Himalayas, the great rivers, the trees, the rocks, the animals, the birds, the people. It is such a vast, rich life that not to feel grateful simply means one must be utterly unintelligent, stupid.
Initiation into sannyas is initiation into intelligence; initiation into understanding that which is. And the very understanding of life brings bliss. Bliss brings contentment. Contentment is another name for God.
Prem Sagaro. Prem means love; sagaro means ocean.
Man appears only as a dewdrop, but the dewdrop contains the ocean. We never become aware of the ocean if we are never in love. It is only love that makes us aware of the oceanic quality of our being, of the vastness, of the infinite sky that we contain within us. Love makes us aware of the god within. Except love there is no way to truth. Without love man is just ordinary, of no significance, because without love no flower blooms, no song arises, no dance is felt in the being. But with love one explodes and becomes an ocean.
I teach love and only love!
[A sannyasin, arriving, says: Why don't I love you?]
Love is not a phenomenon that can be made a question. It happens when it happens. There is no why, there is no how either. If you try to love it will be false. So wait, it will come; when the right moment is there it will come. It simply comes one day; one day you wake up, it is there. And unless it comes on its own nothing can be done.
Man is utterly helpless about love. It is beyond your capacity. It is something bigger than you; you cannot do anything about it. You can simply wait in deep humbleness, in patience and hope. If you can wait and hope, it is bound to happen.
[A sannyasin says that for two months she has had a sound in her head like the ocean, which is very strong in lectures.]
It is there? Whenever you are silent it will be there. It is a good sign - nothing to be worried about.
Enjoy it. That is exactly the meaning of your name. Nada means the cosmic sound.
Sound is always there but because we are not silent we don't hear it. It is exactly like the ocean, and sometimes in the night when you are really silent it will be tremendous.
Don't be afraid; enjoy, dance with it, sway with it. Let it overpower you and possess you. Be simply gone with it. It is something immensely valuable; it is a milestone in meditation. Don't be worried at all. Be in a mood of rejoicing that something has started happening. Feel blessed!