Darshan 14 September 1979

[Blanka means white, the most paradoxical of colors]

In one sense it is a color and in one sense it is not. It is a color because it contains all the colors; the whole spectrum of the rainbow is contained in white. And yet it is not a color at all because it is neither red nor blue, nor green - it is a transcendence of colors. And so is bliss - it contains all and yet it is empty of all.

Bliss contains pleasure, happiness, joy, and yet it transcends all. It is a state of pure silence, utter silence. And the absolute silence can only be represented by whiteness, hence down the ages white has represented the holy. It is literally the whole, total, and it is also holy in the sense of purity.

To attain to God one has to become white in one's inner being: silent, still, empty, exactly blank.

That is the meaning of blanka, utterly blank. Only in that absolute emptiness can God descend. We have to lose all before we can gain all.

Jesus says that if you save you will lose, and if you are ready to lose you have already saved.

Anand Jan. Anand means bliss. Jan is Hebrew; it means God's gracious gift. Bliss is always a gift of God. It is not our achievement. We cannot claim it as our achievement, because before it enters into our being we have to lose our ego. Only in an egoless state is bliss possible, so the ego cannot claim that "I have achieved it." Hence we cannot make a goal of bliss, we cannot desire bliss. When we don't desire at all, bliss is; when we stop seeking all goals, bliss is. When all movement of desire stops, bliss is.

And it is always felt as a gift of God, because it is a gift of God: it comes from the beyond - we are at the receiving end.

[Anand Rob: light of bliss]

It becomes famous of its own accord; one need not advertise it. The moment you are blissful a certain vibe is created around you. You are no more the ordinary person you used to be. Something of the divine had penetrated you; you are aflame with it. You cannot hide this flame, you cannot keep it a secret, hence the mystics have called it the open secret. Every mystic has tried to hide it so that he can avoid unnecessary people, so that he can avoid crowds, curiosity-mongers, people who are not really seekers. But every mystic has failed; they have succeeded in attaining bliss but they have failed in hiding it.

It is like the sunrise: how can you hide it? It is like the full moon: where are you going to hide it? It is like Mount Everest: for thousands and thousands of miles it will be seen and known. Hence even in the ancient days when means of communication were not in existence at all, people like Jesus and Buddha were known almost all over the world.

Buddha lived in a very small place in northern India his whole life. He never went out of his province, but his rays penetrated the whole of Asia. They reached faraway lands - Tibet, China, Korea, Ceylon, Burma and Japan. The whole of Asia was conquered by a man who never went out of a small province in northern India. Pilgrims started coming to him from faraway countries.

If bliss is real it creates its own magnetic energyfield. It attracts the seekers; it becomes an almost irresistible force for those who are really in search. But it has nothing to do with your ego; it is not your fame. It is God becoming famous through you, it is God's fame. All fame is his.

[Bliss is the last word in consciousness]

It is the highest peak - beyond it there is nothing. The moment you attain to bliss you have arrived home. Paradise, heaven, and words like those, are just metaphors for bliss.

Bliss is not what we understand by happiness. Yes, something of happiness remains in it, but something is missing also. Happiness is always a mixed phenomenon, mixed with unhappiness.

Watch next time you are happy, observe, you will be surprised: it is never pure; unhappiness is always lingering side by side. Even in the happiest moments of your life, unhappiness is just around the comer and sooner or later it takes over. Just as the night is taken over by the day and the day is taken over by night, bliss, as we understand it, is continuously followed by misery.

That is not what is meant by anand. Anand means bliss which is not followed by misery - bliss means a state which has gone beyond misery, now misery is impossible. Hence it has the flavor of happiness, the flower of happiness, but the thorns that grow side by side are no more there: it is a thornless rose.

Unhappiness is absolutely missing. Hence there is no fear, no clinging. Even if you want to lose bliss you cannot. Once attained it cannot be lost. Happiness you will attain many times and you will have to lose it many times. Even if you don't want to, you will have to lose it; it cannot be retained, it is momentary. Happiness is momentary; it is followed by unhappiness inevitably. Bliss is eternal; it is never followed by anything other than bliss itself.

Hence there is a great silence because the contrary is missing, and without the contrary there can be no conflict, no noise.

The Zen people call it the sound of one hand clapping. Now you cannot create a sound by one hand li clapping - one hand cannot clap. That's the state of bliss, there is no other. The polar opposite is absolutely gone, hence it is a state of peace.

Happiness has some excitement in it; bliss has no excitement in it. It is absolute peace, silence, harmony, and naturally, to attain such peace, such harmony, such ultimate joy, makes one kingly.

One may be a beggar from the outside but from the inside one is an emperor.

A Buddha is a beggar, but look into his eyes and you will find the greatest emperor that has ever walked on the earth. Alexander the Great is great as far as possessions are concerned, but if you look into his eyes you will find a beggar. And he knew it! In the last moments he repented.

It is reported that he said that "If I had known before, that all my possessions and all my kingdom could not save me from death, then I would not have bothered about these things." If death is going to take away everything, then you are simply befooling yourself that you possess them. At the last moment, his last wish was that "My hands should be left hanging out of the side of the coffin; when you carry me to the graveyard, let my hands hang out of the coffin."

"Why?" his ministers asked. "This is not convention; nobody has ever heard of it."

He said "For a certain reason: millions of people will gather to see me carried to the grave. Let them see that my hands are empty; I am dying like a beggar."

Bliss makes one a king, a queen. It gives grace, it gives infinite contentment. And naturally when you are full of contentment you have a power - a power which is not of this world, a power which is not destructive, a power which creates, a power which becomes a benediction to the world, the power of a flower, the power of a song, the power of a dance, the power of love. They are all born out of the source of bliss. One becomes capable of infinite love, one becomes capable of infinite joy, becomes capable of singing, dancing, celebration, because in knowing bliss one knows that God is, and that only God is.

[A Sufi story:]

A lover knocks at the door of his beloved. From the inside of the house it is asked "Who are you?"

and he says "I am your lover; can't you recognize me? - my voice, my footsteps, my knock?"

And the voice from the inside says "The house of love is very small; it cannot contain two. First be ripe, be mature, and then come again."

The lover went to the desert. Months passed, years passed, and ultimately he attained what was expected of him. He came back, knocked on the same door. The same voice asked the same question "Who art thou?"

Now he laughed and said "I am no more - only you are," and the doors were opened for him.

The doors of love open only when you can say "I am not - only you are." Martin Buber has written a famous book, I AND THOU, and he says that prayer is a dialogue between I and thou; he is utterly wrong. Prayer is not a dialogue between I and thou; prayer is a surrender of the I to the thou. It is not a dialogue.

The I simply disappears into the thou. Just as a river disappears into the ocean or a dewdrop evaporates into the sun, when you can say "God is my strength, God is my being,"... when you can say "God is my soul, I am not," bliss is yours. Then the temple of bliss opens its doors to you. Then you have come back home, then you are received back.

It is just as Adam was expelled from paradise because he disobeyed; disobedience simply means the beginning of the ego. He said "No" to God. That means he said "You are not - I am. I am going to live my way, I am going to live separately as an independent entity."

That's the meaning of the whole parable: he became knowledgeable, he ate from the tree of knowledge; he had to be expelled.

It is the same Adam when he comes back as Jesus. Jesus says on the cross "Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done." That is the other side of the story. By saying this, Jesus is getting ready to be received into paradise. He has canceled Adam's sin. He is the same Adam, but now his back is no more towards God, his face is towards God. Now he is ready to bow, to surrender, to say yes.

He is ready to say "Amen. I am yours. I am not real, only you are real. I exist because you allow me to exist. I breathe because you breathe in me. You are my life."

When one can say this with totality one is blissful.

[Anand Dhyano: bliss learned through meditation]

Meditation prepares the way. Meditation helps us to unburden the unnecessary. Our minds are cluttered with the unnecessary: memories - the past, desires - the future. We are crushed between these two, the past and the future. The present is the only reality there is. The past is unreal because it is no more, and the future is unreal because it is not yet; only the present, now, which is a very tiny moment, a small phenomenon, is real. It is crushed between these two unrealities. We go on losing it Meditation helps us to be here and now. Meditation is the art of being here and now, the art of being in communion with reality, the art of getting out of the dead past and the unborn future. The moment you are out of the past and the future you are in tune with God, because God is reality. God is not a person, God simply means all that is. God is another name for the totality, for the whole.

The door to God opens through the present. Now is the door of God. This is the only moment to enter. You cannot postpone for tomorrow, because the tomorrow never comes. It is always now and it is always here. Wherever you are, you are always in the now and in the here. Medtation helps you to become more and more alert about this phenomenon.

The day you are rooted in the present is the day of great benediction, of great blessing. Flowers start showering. The beyond descends in you. That is the meaning of meeting with God. It is not that you meet somebody, not that a very ancient, old man comes and meets you. But it is simply the meeting of the dewdrop with the ocean - that's what God is all about. God cannot be worshipped, because worship is a kind of desire. God can only be lived. And meditation is the way to live God, to live your life as divine.