Darshan 10 September 1979
[Sannyas is an upsurge from the heart, not a rational conclusion]
The mind can conclude but can never be resolute, because every conclusion is only hypothetical:
maybe it is true, maybe it is not. And any new fact found tomorrow may change the whole thing.
Science works through hypothesis, but each hypothesis is only true for the time being. Tomorrow one never knows: we may find something which will bring the change.
But the heart resolves, it never concludes. It simply takes a quantum leap into the unknown. It is not hypothetical It is a commitment. Hence very few people take the risk. It is only for those who have courage, and only the courageous ones have been able to know God. The cowards go on thinking about God, but they never take a jump into the unknown.
Buddha says that they go on walking up and down on the same shore. They travel much, but they never jump into the river to reach the other shore. Just going up and down on the same shore is not going to help. And that's what the mind goes on doing: shuttling in the same pattern; it is the heart that takes you to the further shore.
Sannyas is a jump, it is a risk, and it is possible only if it arises out of bliss, otherwise it is not possible.
Out of despair, nobody can become a true sannyasin. If out of despair one becomes a sannyasin, one's sannyas is wrong from the very beginning; it is pathological, it is ugly, it is ill.
That's why down the ages, in many countries, monks, bikkhus, sannyasins, have existed, but ninety- nine percent of them were pathological people. Their decision to be a monk, to renounce the world, was not out of bliss: it was out of despair, anguish, anxiety. They were escapists. My sannyas is not escapist. It is an art to live in the world in such a way that it does not contaminate you.
[Sannyas is a rebellion in the name of bliss]
It is a rebellion against the whole conventional religion; whether it is Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian does not matter. One has to rebel against the formal religion so that one can come to an informal communion with God. One has to rebel against the priests so that there is no mediator between you and God.
That's the difference between a priest and a Master. The priest is a mediator; he stands between you and God. The Master is just a friend; he simply helps you to look towards God. And the moment you have become able to see God yourself, he disappears. That's the beauty of the phenomenon of a Master; he never makes you dependent on him. He helps you only to a certain point and then he pushes you into the unknown, because then the journey of the alone to the alone begins.
The priest makes you dependent, because his interest in religion is not really religious, it is professional; he is doing business. He would not like you ever to be independent, because your becoming independent means losing a customer. Hence the Master and the priest have to be absolutely and clearly distinguished.
Sannyas is also rebellion against scriptures, because books cannot deliver the truth even though they have been written by those who have known, because no word can contain truth. The moment you transform truth into words you falsify it.
Lao Tzu says: Tao uttered is no more tao. Truth said becomes a lie. So no scripture is religious - it is an impossibility. One has to rebel against the word, the language, so that one can move into silence. It is only in silence that God is found. And all these rebellions help you to go into silence.
When there is absolute silence, God is. In fact that silence itself is divine; that silence is God.
[Bliss is always young, because it flowers only in the herenow]
Anything that belongs to the past is bound to become old. It is the past that makes things old. The body becomes old because it is rooted in the past. The mind becomes old because it is nothing but memory; it is all past, it is all dead. The dust of experience, knowledge, goes on collecting, layer upon layer - that's what the mind is. But bliss is always young. It has no past, no future; it is simply of the moment, of the now, of the here.
[Devaprem]
God is not an intellectual search. It is a love-affair. It is very illogical... better to say, supralogical, because it is not a concern of the mind at all. It is a concern of a totally different center in you, which has become non-functioning due to centuries of neglect, repression, rejection, denial. Man is living only in the head with the belief that that's his whole reality - it is not even a small fragment of his reality. But a very small fragment has become predominant, has become dictatorial. The real Master lives in the heart; it lives in the form of love. But logic has become the dictator.
We have to move back to the heart, we have to find the source of our love, because it is only from there that the true journey towards God begins. All these meditations here, and all my efforts and devices, are just to throw you back to the very center of your heart so that you can have a taste of love. Once you know it is there, then the mind cannot dictate any more; then you know who is the real Master.
Right now, not knowing the real, the unreal can go on pretending that it is the real. To know the real is to know the unreal immediately; to recognise the true is to see the false as false. And the moment you recognise truth as truth, the false ceases to be, it disappears. Just as you bring light into the room and darkness disappears, bring love into your being and logic disappears. Let the heart bloom and the head disappears: you become headless. A real sannyasin is headless.
It is a totally different way of living your life, of experiencing existence.
[Not only Jesus, we are all sons of God.]
Everyone is, and not only man but animals also, and not only animals, but the trees and the rocks, all are included.
God fathers all, mothers all. God is not a person but the presence that cares for everybody. It cares for you as much as it cares for the trees. It cared for Jesus, it cared for Buddha, it cares for everybody!
Then the question naturally arises: what is the difference between you and Jesus, between you and Buddha? The only difference is that they know that they are sons of God, and you have forgotten.
The difference is not that you are not a son of God and they are. You are as much a son as they are, but they have come to remember it, and you have yet to remember.
By becoming a sannyasin you are entering into a path of self-remembrance. The whole effort here is to shake you up into awakening so that you can know who you are, so that you an know that the whole kingdom of God is yours. It is your birthright.