Darshan 29 September 1979
[A sannyasin asks of her three-year-old daughter, that she hates going to school and what to do?]
That's very good! Every alive child hates school and education... just teach her whatsoever you can; no need to send her to school. In fact if all the schools, colleges and universities are closed for at least one hundred years humanity will be far better. So don't be worried about it!
(To the child) You are perfectly right!
Prem Ramo: love is God... If there was no love, there would have been no possibility of the idea of God.
Man has stumbled upon the idea of God because of love. In love he has found such rare moments of such incredible ecstasy that there is no other way to explain them than to believe in God. Love is the window from where the first glimpse of God reaches us.
But many people live with closed windows, hence they go on asking "Where is God? What is the proof of God?" And all the time God is knocking on their windows, on their doors. But his knock is soundless: he does not shout, he only whispers. He comes like the sunrays. When in the morning sunrays come they simply wait near your door, patiently. Whenever you open the door, they will enter.
That is one thing, a good thing, about Japanese: they never stay for a few weeks; they stay six months, nine months, one year, two years.
Dwariko... God is the host of the inn called bliss: cross the threshold...
Bliss is the whole alchemy of transformation. It dissolves your ego, it dissolves your mind. It dissolves time: it takes you beyond both mind and time. And that is the world of God, of truth.
Learn to be more and more blissful. Don't search for any reason to be blissful. Those who search for any reason to be blissful can never be blissful; they will always remain miserable.
The first lesson in the art of bliss is that it exists for no reason at all. You can simply be blissful - no excuse is needed. Of course it looks very mad to the mind. If you start simply laughing for no reason at all, people will think that you are insane. If you start dancing for no reason at all, people will think that you have gone crazy. But one has to be courageous enough to be crazy if one wants to be blissful.
Laugh, sing, dance, for no reason at all... just as birds sing in the morning and the flowers bloom and the stars shine and you cannot ask them why. This first lesson learned becomes the foundation, and then everything else is simple; only the first step is the most difficult.
Anand Duilio: Once you know the art of bliss don't forget to share it...
Share your bliss, because that's how it grows. The more you share it, the more you have it. It belongs to a totally different law of life. There is a law in economics that if you share something you lose it, hence economics teaches you to hoard: only by hoarding can you have it. Economics says:
You cannot eat your cake and have it too.
But there is a totally different plane of existence where things become rivers; there is a world where you can eat the cake and have it too! Not only that: the more you eat it, the more you have it! And that is the world of the sacred.
Bliss is the cake. Not only do you have to eat it - invite people to eat it and you will be surprised:
the more you share, the more it is showering on you. Once it is known all miserliness disappears; and not to be a miser is to be religious, not to be a miser is to be open, not to be a miser is to trust.
All these things start happening when you learn the art of sharing.
So if you have a song to sing, share it. If you have a dance to dance, share it. Never accumulate your blissful moments - spread them far and wide. Give your love even to strangers. Don't make any conditions on it: giving is the thing. To whom it is given is irrelevant. If you cannot find anybody, throw it to the rivers, to the rocks, to the trees, and existence will return it a thousandfold.
That's the only way to become really rich. That is the way to possess the kingdom of God.
Gabriele... Discover the truth and become a messenger of God...
Truth is not human. Man cannot invent it, man has to discover it. It is already there - it is just that we are blind to it, deaf to it. We don't have the right heart to feel it.
Because man cannot create truth, he is more interested in lies than in truth. Lies give him the idea of being a creator; they are very ego-fulfilling. Although they create hell for him - they create misery to no end - still, man is deeply interested in creating lies for the simple reason that he feels that he is the creator, that he is somebody, that he is not just part of creation, that he is more powerful than just being a part of creation; that he is separate, that he has an ego, his own identity.
Hence the poets and the painters and the sculptors and the musicians and the actors all feel very egoistic because they can create something. It is very rare to find a humble artist. If you can find a humble artist then you have found real art.
It is because of these egoistic artists that Plato in his Republic denies entry for poets. He says "In my Republic" - that is his Utopia, his world of vision - "poets will not be allowed because they fabricate lies." And ninety-nine percent he is right; ninety-nine percent of poets and artists and singers and dancers are living lies. The basic lie is that "I can create something." The basic truth is that God is the only creator; we can be at the most the mediums for him.
Truth is to be discovered, not created, and the only barrier in discovering it is the ego; that is the curtain over our eyes which prevents discovery. One has to be humble, egoless, a nobody, anonymous, a nonentity, and then one becomes a vehicle of God.
Gabriele also means a messenger of God. If truth has been discovered, you become the messenger of God. And gabriele also has a third meaning - that God is my strength, that I am not separate, that I am just a leaf in the tree of God, that I am part of his will, I have no will of my own.
And this is what sannyas is all about: discovering the truth and becoming a messenger of God.