Darshan 11 September 1979
[Love is the source of wisdom, mind... ]
It is worldly, it can't be sacred. The sacred arises out of the heart; it is intuitive, not intellectual. It is less logical, more paradoxical. It is rooted in love, not in logic, and love is the greatest mystery in existence. Love becomes the door to the divine. Those who are capable of love are potentially ready to enter into God, because love provides the wisdom that iS needed to seek and search for God.
Live in the light of love and your life will become Prem means love, heidi means a noble heroine.
Life is a drama, a play. The stage is very big and the actors are many, but those who can see have always seen that it is a facade; it is not reality, but a game. The real is hidden behind.
The eyes of love give you two things. On the outside your playfulness becomes very graceful. It attains a great nobility; yes, one becomes a noble hero, a noble heroine. And on the inner side love makes you a witness. You can see the whole of life as a dream, and because it is a dream, you are in it and yet not of it. That gives you a new dimension, a new depth. Then you start feeling a totally different kind of life, the eternal life, which is not a game and which is not a play and which is not a dream, but the reality.
Love helps in both ways: it makes you a better person in the world and it also makes you capable of entering into the other world. Love makes you able to live on this shore in a noble way and makes you capable of reaching the other shore too. It is a miracle.
[Love makes your existence a song of joy]
Love makes you capable of singing, dancing, love gives you the energy to celebrate life. Love makes you meaningful, significant. Without love, life is an anguish, a business, but never a song, a syllogism, but never a song, calculation but never celebration - and unless life is a celebration, one knows nothing of life. One lives and yet lives not.
Live as love, because that is the only way to live. The deeper your love, the deeper is your life. Think of love and life as synonymous. Remember that the quality of your love is going to be the quality of your life. If your love is shallow, your life is shallow. If your love is mean, your life is mean. If your love is great, unconditional, without demands, undominating, non-possessive, non-jealous, if your love is great, your life is great. It cordially becomes a song of joy.
[Befriend God's creation.]
And your friendship should know no limitations. It should be with human beings, animals birds, trees, rocks - with all that is.
If one can be totally friendly to all that is, that's all that can be expected. More is not needed. That creates the proper context, the right space, to find God. God is very close by - it is just that we are missing the friendly approach. We have forgotten how to be friends, how to be lovers. We have to remember the art of friendship, we have to bring it back.
The temples and the churches and the mosques are no more the places to find God. They are the places where in the name of God great exploitation is going on; for centuries it has continued. They are the places that are really against God.
It is because of them that the world remains irreligious, because they go on giving people toys to play with and they never give the real thing. They can't - they don't have it. And even if they had it, they wouldn't give it, because giving it means destroying the whole business.
Those who have known, they have not given rituals to the world. They have just given the art of being blissful, the knack of being blissful, the art of seeing the silver lining in the dark clouds, the art of seeing the rose amidst thousands of thorns. Once you start looking for it, you will not find a single opportunity where bliss cannot be found. In the darkest night, the dawn is hidden, and in the gloomiest moment, if you search deep enough, you will find joy ready to explode.
This is what makes one a sannyasin: this art of transforming every situation into bliss. Then how can you miss God? The more and more blissful you become, the more and more you come closer to him. In the moment of total bliss, when the ego disappears... It has to disappear; if the bliss is to be total, the ego has to disappear. The ego can exist only with misery; it can't exist with bliss.
If the bliss is total, the ego has disappeared, and the moment the ego disappears, God appears.
The disappearance of the ego is the appearance of God.
[Anand Punito, bliss, a fire that purifies]
Misery poisons, and people have learned to live in misery, hence their whole system is poisoned.
Misery circulates in their blood, misery has become their bones and their marrow. And because they are full of poison, they create poison around themselves. They can't help it, they are really helpless.
They have to be forgiven - it is being hard to condemn them - but they can be helped: they can be taught the art of bliss. Even a ray of bliss... and the great work of purification starts happening. Just a small comer of your being starts dancing and soon the ripples start reaching your whole being. A small song arises in your heart and it starts resounding in every cell and fiber of your being. Soon it overwhelms you, and when bliss overwhelms you, encompasses you, it purifies. Just as fire purifies gold, bliss purifies the soul.
Remember it: avoid misery, don't cooperate with it, don't help it to continue. Whenever you can, withdraw your cooperation; whenever you remember, pour your energy into something blissful. And it is only a question of time, because it is a knack - like riding on a bicycle. You have to be put on the bicycle, pushed, and left alone. A few times you will fall; that is part of the learning. A few times you may hurt yourself, you may wound yourself; that is part of learning. But soon you come to know the knack of how to balance on two wheels. It is not an art but a knack. The difference is: the art can be written; you can read the brochure and then ride the bicycle - that won't help. You will need somebody who knows how to ride on the bicycle to help you, at least to give you courage that "Don't be worried - if I can balance on two wheels, you can!"... Someone whose presence can give you confidence enough to do such a crazy thing.
It is crazy! - to be on two wheels is crazy. The first man who did it... people must have thought that either he is possessed by the devil or possessed by God, but a miracle is happening, because it is against the law of gravitation. But once you know it, you never think about it. Once you have known the knack, you don't do anything; you simply ride on the bicycle. And this is one of the two things in life which is never forgotten - the other is swimming. These two things are the only two things which once learned you never forget; there is no way to forget them.
The art can be forgotten, but a knack can never be forgotten. It simply enters your being, becomes part of you. And bliss is a knack.
So start riding on the bicycle. Start balancing, howsoever crazy it looks. You will wobble, and you will fall many times, but don't be worried. A few scratches here and there... it is worth it! Even if there are a few fractures, nothing to be worried about - it is worth it.
Once you have learned how to balance, a new vision opens, a new door opens. Then only are you religious, never before it. You can be Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, but not religious.
[Bliss is a knack]
The ordinary eyes can only see the superficial. There is a hidden eye behind these two eyes - the mystics have always talked about it as the third eye. It is not functioning because we have never paid any attention to it. Once we start pouring energy into it, it starts functioning again. And it is through that third eye that one can see bliss, love, God - all that has depth. Otherwise we live in the shallow. The ordinary eyes can only see the waves on the ocean but can never see the depth of the ocean.
All the techniques of meditation are nothing but to trigger the third eye. Once it starts functioning you enter into a totally different world. In a sense everything remains the same; in another sense everything is different. Because you see differently, your seeing brings a different quality to whatsoever you see. You start pouring poetry into existence, you start pouring meaning into existence.
Meaning is not something already given. The world lacks meaning. It is the man of consciousness who gives meaning to the world. It is immensely meaningful to a Buddha or a Christ because they know the art of pouring meaning into existence.
[Anand Shunyo - the emptiness needed to receive bliss]
We are too full of ourselves; there is no space for God to enter. We are too full of thoughts, memories - the past; desires - the future; expectations, dreams. This whole baggage is too heavy and it leaves no space within, it creates a kind of overcrowding. And bliss is possible only when there is utter silence inside - no crowd, no clamor of thoughts, no conflict of desire, no past, no future; just this moment, just this breath going in, coming out.
In this emptiness you are, but you don't have any ego; you can't say "I", the "I" seems to be too small, it can't contain you. You are an infinite void, and the "I" is too small, it can't contain you.
When you see your vastness, you see an inner sky. In that inner sky, bliss descends. It comes of its own accord. One has just to be empty, nothing else has to be done. You are not to pull it, you are not to seek and search for it; you can simply sit silently and wait. The moment emptiness is total, immediately, instantly, it happens, and you are transported. The mutation has happened.
It happens so quickly, so suddenly, that you cannot even take note of it. You become aware only when it has already happened, when you are full of bliss. Just a moment before you were utterly empty and just a moment afterwards, the whole kingdom of God has entered you.
This is the experience that the seekers of truth have been searching for for ages, and this is the key of all the Buddhas: be empty, and you will know what bliss is.