Darshan 12 July 1978

Deva means divine, uparati means indifference to the non-essential - a divine indifference to the non essential. And that's the whole work of the seeker. We are caught up in the non-essential, the mundane, the trivial. For the moment it looks so important, and the next moment it appears as if it had not happened at all.

When one looks back, one is always surprised: the same things that had looked so important, look utterly futile... and one was ready to die for those things! Just some abusive word from somebody, and the mind becomes focussed on it out of all proportion and is ready to kill or to be killed. After a few minutes, when things have cooled down, it looks so stupid. Even to talk about it, even to say 'I got so disturbed by it' looks silly. But almost ninety-nine percent of our whole life consists of such things, hence it is a wastage.

One has to be very alert and aware. One has to save oneself for god. If we lose our energy in just collecting stones on the beach, by the time we come on the treasure we will not have any energy.

We remain beggars when there is no treasure, and we will remain beggars when there is every possibility to become an emperor.

One has to be very conscious of what one is doing with one's energy, of where one is putting it, because once gone it is gone forever. And the time that is passing will not come back; nothing can be recaptured. Once this awareness settles in, a great difference arises.

Just think: if you are going to die tomorrow, then how many things will be important and how many things will be unimportant? It will change your whole gestalt. Just a moment before you were thinking to make a new house, to start a new relationship, to have one child more, to do this and that. There were a thousand and one plans in the mind, all running around.

The moment you become aware that tomorrow you are going to die, all those thoughts simply disappear; they become irrelevant. Something else, that you were not thinking of at all, becomes relevant: 'What is death? Am I ready to face it? Have I done anything to go into it silently, lovingly, in a kind of welcome? Am I ready to face my creator?' Something new becomes important, something that was not at all in the consciousness surfaces and becomes central. All that was in the consciousness and all those desires that were clamouring for your attention are no more relevant - that is just the market noise.

And this is how it is. Tomorrow is not certain: tomorrow may be, may not be. Death is always waiting tomorrow. About only one thing can we be certain, and that is death; all else is uncertain.

To become a sannyasin means to put things in their right perspective, to bring a balance, to put priorities right.

Prem means love, kavita means a poet - a poet of love. And that's my vision of being a true sannyasin - love and poetry. And in fact, if love is there, there is always poetry. Love blooms in poetry. And by poetry I do not mean anything literal; it is a metaphor with me.

It means a life lived with great sensitivity. It means a life lived not through the head but through the heart. It means a life which is basically rooted in beauty. When life is oriented in beauty, it has poetry. Then one walks poetry, eats poetry, breathes poetry. It has nothing to do with poetry as such. The thing ordinarily called poetry is only one aspect of this life - this life lived in beauty and grace, life lived in joy and celebration.

The head is serious and sad. Only the heart knows how to dance; the head is crippled as far as dance is concerned. And the head is very earthy; it crawls on the earth. The heart has wings; it soars high in the sky. And that soaring is what I call poetry.

So drop seriousness. Forget that you have a head. Function more and more as if you don't have a head. In the beginning it is just an 'as if'; slowly slowly it becomes a reality. And the day it becomes a reality, you are a sannyasin. This is just the beginning, the beginning of dropping the head.

Anand means bliss, mahbuba means beloved. God creates the world out of his love. The world flows out of his love - it is an expression of his love, an explosion of his love. He loves every creature...

from stones to stars. We are all protected by his love, we are all continuously showered on by his love. Everyone has to consciously become a beloved of god. Once this recognition penetrates the heart, it transforms your whole being. It is as if suddenly a light comes into darkness and darkness is gone.

Just the idea 'God loves me', just the feel of it - 'He surrounds me like a caress, his lips are on my lips, his heart is in my heart. I am not abandoned by existence; I am loved, cherished by existence.

I am not worthless, I am not unworthy...' and the dignity and the splendour starts growing in one.

And remember a great paradox: the real dignity has no ego in it; the real splendour has no idea of any superiority. In fact, the ego is just a cover-up for our worthlessness. Because we think ourselves worthless, we try to prove in every way that we are not worthless. That effort is our ego trip - 'I am a president of a country, I am not worthless. I have so much education; I am not worthless.' 'Look, I have got so many lovers; I am not worthless.' But deep down we are constantly nagged by our worthlessness. Deep down we know we are worthless, dust unto dust.

That has been taught to us down the centuries. Our souls have been corrupted and poisoned.

The priests and the politicians have conspired against the whole of humanity. This is their whole conspiracy: to create the feeling of worthlessness in human beings. If they feel worthless they can be dominated by the politician, they can be dominated by the priest. If they feel worthless they will seek some authority figures to depend on. If they feel worthless they cannot not be independent.

That is the secret trick in it. If they feel worth, if they feel loved by god, if they are nourished and cherished by existence, they will not look up to any father-figure, to any authority - political, religious, or any other.

So the basic conspiracy has been created in every child - the idea that you are absolutely worthless, that you are not up to the standard, that you are not as intelligent as you should be, that you are not as beautiful as you are supposed to be, that your behaviour is ugly, to improve yourself, to prove yourself. That's what improvement is: an effort to prove 'I am somebody.' The ego is nothing but an effort to cover this inner worthlessness that has been created by the society. My effort here is to give back the dignity that really belongs to you.

Everyone is utterly essential. This existence needs you - without you it would not be the same existence. And not only does it need you: it needs everybody in the same way, so there is no question of superiority.

It needs even a small blade of grass as much as it needs the sun and the moon. As far as the whole is concerned, everything is absolutely essential - the great oceans and the small dewdrops. It will miss the small dewdrop if it is not there; it will not be so beautiful. There will remain a hole in it which cannot be filled by the great oceans; they can only be filled by small dewdrops.

As far as the whole is concerned, there is absolute equality. In asserting one's own dignity, one asserts the dignity of the whole of existence of animals, of trees, of people, of mountains, of rivers, of all. So it does not create any superiority complex, because a superiority complex is nothing but an inferiority complex standing on its head, doing sirshasan, a headstand; that's all it is. And it has nothing to do with ego. Ego simply shows a poor person who has not yet become aware of his inner splendour and the gifts that god has given to him.

Anand means bliss, raje means king or queen. And my observation is that people go on pretending for the whole of their lives that they are beggars... and they are not. They are kings and queens.

Even the beggars are not beggars. In fact there cannot be a beggar in existence because god exists. If there were no god then everybody would be an orphan. Then we would be just accidental, driftwood - a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. But it is not so, fortunately it is not so. We have significance; we are part of a great destiny that is unfolding. This is our kingdom! And all that we will ever need has already been provided for; we are born with it.

But because the kingdom is inner, we go on missing it. Our search is outer - this is the dilemma of humanity: the search is outer and the kingdom is inner, so the search and the kingdom never meet.

The more you search, the more beggarly you become, because the further you go into search, the further you are going away from your kingdom. When all search stops and all seeking disappears, and one is simply in a state of no-movement - that's what meditation is all about - then suddenly the kingdom is there and one starts laughing. It has been a cosmic joke, because the kingdom has always been there! Even when we were rushing and begging each moment, at every door, the kingdom was there inside.

By the 'kingdom within' I mean that our nature is intrinsically blissful. Misery is an accident; bliss is our nature. Misery comes and goes; bliss remains, abides. But because our whole mechanism of senses is out-going, misery becomes very important. When we see something miserable we magnify it. All our senses jump upon it; it becomes the focus of our whole being. And we don't have any sense that goes in - all the five senses go out.

The inner sense has to be developed; it is a potential. These five senses are actual; we are born with them. The sixth sense is a potential. If one works on it, if one helps it to grow, it grows, and it becomes such a powerful phenomenon that it absorbs all the five senses. That sixth sense is capable of doing all that these five senses can do and plus. It is capable of seeing, and it can see even without eyes; that's what clairvoyance is. It is capable of hearing, and hearing without ears and without sound; that's what telepathy is. When the inner sense starts functioning, all these five senses are nothing compared to its power. And it has something plus too: it can look inside, it can hear inside.

All the five senses are one-way; they simply go out. The inner sixth sense is two-way; it can go out, it can go in. The sixth sense joins you together. The inner and the outer disappear in that bridging, and one for the first time comes to know existence as a totality - not as inner, not as outer, not as objective, not as subjective, not as I and thou. I and thou both disappear. There is utter unity. That unity is called samadhi, satori, ecstasy, enlightenment, buddhahood, christ-consciousness, or what you will....

But the inner has to be provoked, challenged, helped, and that is possible only if you become intimate with somebody whose inner sense has started functioning, because it is contagious, it infects. That's why I am not interested in people who are not sannyasins. They are keeping aloof - they cannot be helped much. They are protecting themselves. They have created all kinds of walls around themselves.

To become a sannyasin means you surrender all your protection, you become vulnerable. Only then can that contagious phenomenon happen. Only then can something from me penetrate you. Only then can my music be heard by your potential. And once your potential starts throbbing, is risen, you will be surprised that the whole existence becomes psychedelic. The trees are more green than they have ever been, and love is not just love but prayer too. Ordinary life starts taking on extraordinary colours, and ordinary people start looking divine. Then you see only kings and queens walking around, gods and goddesses.