The Decisive Moment is at Hand

As a large number of questions have been received in the last three days I would like today to answer briefly as many of them as possible.

A friend has said that when Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna, "Have you seen God?" Ramakrishna said in answer, "Yes, I have seen God as I see you right now." And the friend wants to know if he can put the same question to me.

Firstly, Vivekananda, while putting the question, did not ask Ramakrishna's permission, he put the question straight. And you are not doing so, you are only wanting to know if you can do so. A Vivekananda is needed to put this question. And remember, Ramakrishna's answer was especially meant for Vivekananda, he would not have given the same answer to anyone else.

In the world of spiritualism all answers are eminently personal, they are meant for the individuals concerned. There the person who answers is, of course, important, but the person who is answered is no less important. The giver is significant, but the re ceiver, who has to understand it, is no less significant.

Any number of people ask me to touch them so they have the same experience of trance as Vivekananda had on being touched by Ramakrishna. But they don't know why thousands of other people, whom Ramakrishna had touched, did not go through the same experience. For this experience which Vivekananda had, Ramakrishna should have only fifty percent credit, the other fifty percent belongs to Vivekananda. It is a fifty fifty business.

And it is not necessary that this experience would have happened if Ramakrishna had touched Vivekananda on any other day. It happened in a particular moment, so the moment is as important.

You are not the same person twenty four hours of the day. In the course of twenty four hours you turn into any number of persons, as such. In a special moment... Vivekananda asks, "Have you seen God?" These words are so simple. It seems to us that we under stand what Vivekananda is asking. But no, we don't really understand.

The question "Have you seen God?" is not that simple, though on the face of it it seems that even a grade one student can understand it. "Have you seen God?" is a difficult question indeed.

And Ramakrishna is not merely answering Vivekananda's question, he is really responding to Vivekananda's thirst, his passion. The awakened ones don't answer your questions, they respond to your thirst, your passion. Vivekananda with his entire thirst, his whole longing for God had entered the question, and Ramakrishna is simply responding to the person behind the question.

Of a fine morning, Buddha visited a village and someone asked, "Is there God?" And Buddha said, "No, there is no God." By midday another person came to him and said, "I think there is no God.

What have you to say to it?" And Buddha answered, "God is." In the evening a third person said to him, "I don't know if God is or is not. What do you say?" To him Buddha said, "Better keep quiet; say neither yes nor no."

Buddha's disciple, who accompanied him on his tour, was flabbergasted when he heard his master's three different answers to a simple question. So before going to bed in the night he told Buddha, "I was so astounded by your answers that it seems I will go mad. In answer to the same question whether God is or is not you said 'no' in the morning, 'yes' in the noon, and 'neither yes nor no' in the evening."

Buddha said to him, "None of the answers were given to you; they were addressed to the persons concerned, those who had put their questions. They had nothing to do with you. Why did you hear them? How could I have answered you when you had not asked the questions? The day you will bring your question you will have the answer, too." The disciple said, "But nonetheless I have heard the answer."

Buddha then said, "Those answers were meant for others, and they were according to their different needs. The one who saw me in the morning was a believer, a theist, and he wanted that I should confirm his belief. He does not know whether or not there is God. He just wanted to satisfy his ego that I should also support his belief. He came to have my support, my confirmation. Therefore I said, 'No, there is no God.' Thus I shook him to his roots. He did not know God; if he really knew he would not have come to me. He who knows does not seek confirmation of his knowledge. Even if the whole world denies God, he will say, 'God is; the question of denial simply does not arise.' But this person is still inquiring, searching; he does not know on his own. That is why I had to say no to him. Actually he had stopped searching, and I had to give him a jolt so that he begins searching again. The man who came to me in the noon was a non believer, an atheist; he believed that there is no God. To him I said, 'God is.' He, too, had stopped searching; he also wanted that I should confirm his atheistic belief. But the one who came in the evening was neither a theist nor an atheist.

So it was not proper to bind him with any belief, because both yes and no bind. So I told him that if he wanted the true answer, he would better keep quiet and say neither yes nor no. And as far as you are concerned, the question does not arise, because you have yet to ask your question."

Religion is a highly personal matter. It is like love. If, out of love, someone tells something to his beloved, it need not be broadcast in the marketplace. It is an utterly intimate and personal matter.

And it loses all its meaning once you carry it to the public. The same way religious truths are highly personal, they are transmitted to one individual by another; they are not something cast to the winds.

So ask the question, and ask you must, but only when you become a Vivekananda, when you have the same passion and intensity as he had.

But a Vivekananda does not ask for permission, he asks his question straight.

A short while ago I had been to a town where a young man came to me and asked if he should become a sannyasin. I told him, "So long as you feel like consulting others, don't take sannyas; otherwise you will only repent. And why do you drag me into this trouble? It is for you to decide. The day you feel that you cannot postpone it even if the whole world came in your way, should be the day of your initiation into sannyas. Then only sannyas can be fruitful and joyous, not before." He then asked, "And what about you?" I said, "I never consulted anybody. At least in this life I did not have to consult anybody. And if I have to consult at all, I will consult my own inner being. Why consult others? And how can you trust what others say? You cannot rely on others' advice.

Whatsoever you do, you cannot depend on what others advise you to do."

And will it make any difference if I say that God is? Did it make any difference for you when you read it in a book that Ramakrishna told Vivekananda, "I see God more vividly than I see you"? You can write another book saying that you asked me and I said, "Yes, God is. And I see God more clearly than I see you." Will it make a difference? Even if a thousand books say that God is, it is all useless.

Unless the answer that God is comes from your inner being, all answers coming from others will be of no avail. Bor rowed answers won't do. Borrowing can be useful in every other walk of life, but it does not work in the context of God. So why do you ask me? And how will my yes or no help you?

If you have to ask at all, ask yourself. And if no answer comes from you, then take it that fate had willed it so. Then wait for it silently; and live without answer, live with non knowing. If you can live with non knowing, then some day the answer will come your way.

And all answers lie within us, if only we know how to ask rightly, if only we know the art of right questioning. And if we don't know the right way of questioning and go about asking the whole world, it will be utterly useless. When a man like Vivekananda asks a question and Ramakrishna answers it, it is not the latter's answer that helps Vivekananda. Vivekananda asks with such intense thirst that Rama krishna's answer does not seem to be Ramakrishna's, but his own, coming from his innermost being. That is why it helps, otherwise it won't. When one asks somebody a question that springs from the very depths of his being, and its urgency is such that one can stake his whole life on it, then the answer received becomes one's own, it ceases to be another's. Then the other is only a mirror for him, reflecting his own answer. If Ramakrishna said, "Yes, God is," it was not really Ramakrishna's answer; he only reflected Vivekananda's inner being. And for this reason it became an authentic answer, as if he had heard his own echo, the voice of his own innermost being echoed through Ramakrishna. For Vivekananda, Ramakrishna seemed to be nothing more than a mirror.

Vivekananda had put the same question to another person before he went to Ramakrishna. He was Maharshi Devendranath, grandfather of the great poet Rabindranath Tagore. He was called Maharshi Devendranath - a great seer - and he used to spend his nights in a boat on the river Ganges and do his sadhana - spiritual practice - in seclusion. In the middle of the night, the dark night of the new moon, Vivekananda swam across the river and climbed into his barge, which shook from end to end. Vivekananda pushed open the door which was loosely closed and entered his cabin. It was dark and Devendranath was sitting with his eyes closed in contemplation. Vivekananda caught him by the collar of his coat and shook him. Devandranath was frightened to find a young man, soaking wet, had suddenly entered his cabin in the dead of night. The whole boat was shaking.

No sooner had he opened his eyes, Vivekananda shot his question at him, "I am here to ask if there is God." Devendranath first asked him to relax and then he felt hesitant about the young man's question. You can imagine the plight of a man who in the dead of night suddenly encounters an unknown young man coming to his solitary retreat by crossing the river and shooting a question at him, "Is there God?" in a way as if he is pointing a gun at him. So he said, "Just wait a little and relax.

And first let me know who you are and what brings you here. What is the matter?" And immediately Vivekananda loosened his grip on his collar, left the cabin and plunged into the river again. When the maharshi shouted at him, "Listen, young man," Vivekananda shouted back, "Your hesitation has said everything, and now I go."

The hesitation had really said everything. Devendranath hesitated so much that he side tracked the real question "whether God is or is not". Later on he admitted that he was really nonplussed because never before had he been confronted with this question in such an outlandish manner.

In public meetings and in temples and mosques people had asked him questions about God and religion and he had explained to them what the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita had said about it. So it was natural that he was taken aback by Vivekananda's manner of asking. He confessed subsequently that he was really in a quandary, he could not think out anything when the young man had shot the question at him. And he also said that, "When the young man had gone I knew for the first time through my hesitation that I had no answer."

So ask you must, but only when you are pre pared for it. Come to me when you are ready to ask the question and take the answer. Because the matter will not rest with question answer alone.

After Rama krishna had answered him, Vivekananda ceased to be what he was before he had put the question. He had gone to him as Narendranath and after Ramakrishna's answer he turned into Vivekananda. Ask you must, but then you will have to be prepared for such a radical change, a transformation of your whole life. And you can have the answer. But remember, Narendranath did not return home as Narendranath, because when Ramakrishna said, "God is, and I see him more clearly than I see you; for once I can say that you are not real, but I cannot say so in regard to God," Vivekananda did not say, "Yes sir, your answer is fine, and I am going to quote you in my answer paper." He simply could not go back home as he was; that answer finished him as he was; Narendranath was finished.

You can have the answer; I will have no difficulty whatsoever in giving you the answer. But it is you who will be in difficulty indeed. So come when you feel so passionately about it. And it would be beautiful if you come in an outlandish manner, in the dead of night and grab me by my collar.

But remember, by the time you will grab me by my collar, you will already be in my net, and then you cannot run away. It is not a scholarly discussion where the matter ends up with questions and answers. That is nothing. It is a matter of life and death; you will have to stake your life itself.

Question 1

Certainly I say it. When we sow a seed, it takes time to turn into a sprout. But really it does not take time to sprout, it takes time only to disintegrate and dissolve as a seed. Sprouting happens in a moment; the seed explodes into a sprout. But it takes time, of course, for the seed to disintegrate and dissolve as seed. So I don't say that you cannot take time to disintegrate as an ego, but I do say that God never takes time, he comes in in a moment. For instance, if we boil water, it takes time to reach the boiling point, to get boiled to the extent of hundred degrees. But once water touches the boiling point, it turns into steam in no time. It is a leap; as soon as water reaches the boil ing point, it takes a leap; it disappears as water and becomes steam. It is not that water will turn into vapor gradually, piece by piece; no, it turns into vapor in a sweep, in a jump. Of course, water takes time in reaching the boiling point. It is still water until it touches the point of no return - the hundredth degree. Even at ninety nine degrees it remains in the form of water.

God is an explosion - a leap. He is the exploding point. Until you reach that point, you remain a man, even if your efforts, like water, have reached ninety nine degrees. When you reach the boiling point, you will turn into God. Where you end, God begins.

So I say, it can happen this very moment. What do I mean by this moment? It means that if we are prepared to go to the boiling point, it can happen in a moment. Is it not already a long time since we have been in the cauldron? For lives and lives we have been trying to get heated in the divine way, and we have failed to reach the hundredth degree. What more time do you need? Have you not taken enough time? No, we have already spent enough time; but we don't know the art of heating and reaching the boiling point. Even when we reach the ninety ninth degree, we immediately turn back and begin to cool down, because we are afraid of the hundredth degree. I noticed it during meditation how many of you turned back after reaching the ninety ninth degree.

It is amazing how trifling things make you turn back. It seems you were intent on turning back. It is like a man boards a railway train for going to Bombay, and finds two persons talking with each other in a loud voice and he gives up his journey and returns home on the plea that two people's loud talk disturbed him and he failed to get to Bombay. It is obvious that this man did not want to get to Bombay, since such disturbances are unavoidable in a journey like this. If one has to get to Bombay he goes in spite of such petty disturbances; he never gives up his journey. Rather the disturbances on the way spur him to move quickly so he does not have to listen to useless chatterings.

But one gives up meditation for very trivial reasons. He gives up because someone pushed him a little, or touched his body or someone fell on the ground and started crying. It seems as if he was want ing to give up and so was waiting for any excuse to depress his enthusiasm. Even a small shout becomes a big excuse for him to stop further meditation. What has a shout to do with you?

And he does not know what he is losing, what he is paying for those trifling excuses. And he also does not know what he is saying.

A little while ago a friend met me on the road and said, "Please ask these people here not to get so much excited, ask them to play it on a lower key, otherwise an explosive situation may be created.

Two persons while meditating, went all naked." He said it rather lovingly: that some people were upset because two persons had shed their clothes, and so I should restrain them.

Every one is naked behind his clothes and no one gets upset about it. Inside our clothes all of us are naked and no one is disturbed. But everyone is disturbed because two persons shed their clothes during meditation. It is a great irony. It would be understandable if someone had disrobed you and you got upset. But why are you upset about someone shedding his own clothes? It was okay to be upset if someone had robbed you of your clothes, although that too would be meaningless. Jesus has said, "If someone deprives you of your coat, give him your shirt too. Maybe, he could not take more because of his shyness." His protest was justified if someone had removed his coat. But why should he lose his head if someone takes off his own coat? It seems that he was just waiting for an opportunity when someone took off his coat and he slackened his efforts and put all the blame on him.

It is amazing how somebody going naked should disturb your meditation, unless you are closely watching him doing so. Were you meditating or what? In fact, you should not know who sheds his clothes and what is happening around you. You have to do your meditation and remain confined to yourself. Or should you be interested in what others do? Are you a washerman or a tailor that you take so much interest in others' clothes? Your worries are baseless and meaningless.

And one who sheds his clothes... just think of it. You will know it if you are asked to strip yourself of your clothes. Then you will know that one had some great reasons for shedding his clothes; something must have happened to him to do so. Perhaps you will not do it even if one offers you a hundred thousand rupees in reward. And this person has shed his clothes without any such offer, and you are unnecessarily upset. Some strong reason must have arisen which prompted him to do so. We have not yet learned to see and understand life with sympathy and care.

When Mahavira shed his clothes for the first time, he was received with bricks and rocks. And now he is worshipped. And those who worship him are selling clothes all over. The followers of Mahavira are all cloth merchants. This is so strange. And it must have been these very people who had hurled rocks on him. And to atone for it they are now selling clothes so that no one is driven to be naked. Cloth merchants are followers of Mahavira who himself lived naked. When he shed his clothes, he was driven out of village after village. Not one village gave him shelter. Wherever he went, he was chased away because he was naked. And now he is adorned and worshipped - he who was refused shelter - not only in a village or an inn, he was not allowed to take shelter even in a cremation ground which lay outside the village and where dead bodies were burned. Wild dogs were let loose on him so that he did not come near a village. What was it that troubled the people?

Nothing except that Mahavira had discarded his clothes.

It is amazing that merely discarding of clothes on the part of one should... What can be the reason?

What is the fear behind it? The fear is really terrible. We are so naked inside, we are so utterly degraded and poor in our beings, that the sight of a naked mall - nakedness is closely associated with poverty and squalor - reminds us of our own inner degradation and poverty. There is no other reason than this.

And remember, nudity is one thing and naked ness quite another. Looking at Mahavira no one can say that he is naked, he looks so beautiful. And so far as we are concerned we look naked and ugly even in the best of our garments.

Did you watch carefully those persons who shed their clothes during meditation? You dared not, al though you must have stolen a glance at them now and then, otherwise you would not have been upset about it and thought of an explosive situation arising out of it. The same friend wrote to me that women are especially disturbed about this matter. What does it mean? Are they here just to watch if someone sheds his clothes? They were here to meditate; instead they were stealthily observing others. They gave up self remembering, they ceased to observe themselves and instead they busied themselves with prying and snooping on the naked persons. Then the situation is bound to be explosive. Who asked you to keep an eye on them? You had your eyes closed. How did it matter if someone was naked? So far as the naked person was concerned, he did not watch you at all. If a naked on had come to me and complained that the presence of women was very embarrassing to him, it could be understandable. It is strange that women found themselves in an explosive state because of him. Your mind would have been gladdened if only you had seen him carefully. Then you would have known how simple and innocent it was. There was so much to gain; your mind would have felt light and unburdened. It would have made a great difference for you. But it seems we are determined to shun all that is really gainful. And perhaps we long to court a disaster.

And there is no end to our mad beliefs and concepts.

A time comes in the course of meditation, and it comes irresistibly to some, when they must shed their clothes. And they shed their clothes with my permission. So if you want to explode, you had better explode on me. Everyone who bared their bodies here had obtained my permission. I had okayed their action. They came to me and said that in the course of meditation they felt that if they did not shed their clothes something within them would be blocked. And I asked them to go ahead without clothes. And it is a thing that should concern them, not you. So why are you worried about it? And if anyone has berated them for this, he has done a very wrong thing. You have no right to do so.

You should understand that there comes a moment of innocence when many things become hindrances for the innocent mind. Clothes comprise one of the strongest inhibitions of man; they make for the deepest of taboos. They represent one of man's oldest and deeply ingrained customs.

And a moment comes in our social life when our garments become the sym bol of our whole civilization. But it is equally true that a moment comes for some, not for all, when they feel like unnecessary weight on the mind.

Buddha wore clothes all his life, and so did Jesus. But Mahavira discarded them. And there happened a woman who dared, like Mahavira, although women in the times of Mahavira could not dare. Mahavira had a very large number of female disciples, they were more numerous than his male disciples. Among his disciples were only ten thousand men and as many as forty thousand women.

But not one of his female disciples could gather courage to shed clothes. That is why Mahavira had to say that these women would have to be born again, because unless they take a male in carnation they would not attain to moksha or liberation. Because one who is afraid of shedding clothes will be much too afraid of shedding the body. Therefore Mahavira had to lay down a law that freedom is not possible through female incarnation; a woman has to take a male incarnation for this purpose.

There was no other reason for this law.

But there have been brave women too: one such was Lalla of Kashmir. If Mahavira had met Lalla he would not have laid down such a principle. Lalla of Kashmir was exactly like Mahavira; if you ask a Kashmiri about her he will say, "We of Kashmir know only two names: Allah and Lalla; only two names." Lalla lived naked, and the whole of Kashmir adored and loved her. In her nudity people saw for the first time a beauty and innocence that were simply extraordinary. She radiated the innocence and joy of a child. If Mahavira had seen her, he would have been saved of a blemish that sticks to him. There is a blemish on Mahavira, and it is that he said freedom is not possible through female incarnation. But Mahavira is not responsible for it, it is really those women around him who should take the blame. Having seen them he said, "How can women drop their attachment to body if their attachment to clothes is so strong? Their clinging to their outer garment is so strong that they could not be expected to get rid of their clinging to the inner garment which is the body."

I don't ask you to shed your clothes, but if some one does it there is no reason whatsoever to prohibit him. If even in a meditation camp we cannot allow this much freedom - that one can be free to this extent, if he wills so, then it will be impossible to find this free dom anywhere else in the world. And a meditation camp is meant for seekers, not for spectators. Here as long as one does not come in the way of another, he is entitled to his absolute freedom. If someone trespasses on your freedom, trouble begins, and you have a cause for complaint. If someone becomes naked and knocks you, if he hurts you, there is every reason to restrain him. But so long as he is doing something with himself, doing his own thing, you are nobody to meddle in his affairs and you have no right to raise any objections.

What we treat as disturbances for meditation is very amusing. If someone is naked, meditation of many others is spoiled. It is no good trying to save a lame meditation, a weak and feeble meditation like this. What is its worth? This much, that if one had not shed his clothes you would have done it. But it is not possible. No, you have to get rid of such petty matters, exceedingly petty matters.

Sadhana or spiritual pursuits is a matter of greatest courage. Here we have to uncover ourselves layer by layer, as we peel an onion. In its deepest sense sadhana is encountering one's innermost nudity. It is not necessary to shed clothes, but for some, a situation can arise sometimes when it will be necessary to do so. And remember that you cannot think of this situation from outside; neither you have a right to judge if it is right or not right, nor to speculate about it. Who are you to do so?

How do you come into this matter? And how can you know it? Do you think people who drove Mahavira out of their villages were wicked people? No, they were as civilized and cultured as you are and, like you, they thought that since he was naked he had no place amongst them.

But it is unfortunate that every time we repeat the same mistakes. The friend who met me in the street said with love and sympathy that I should restrain these people from going naked, otherwise attendance at our meditation in Bombay will sharply fall. Let it fall; let not a single person come!

There is no need at all for wrong people to come to meditation. For me it will not make a difference if only one person turns up. The same friend also said that women would wholly keep away; not one of them will attend the camp. Let them keep away. Who tells them to attend the camp? It is for them to decide, and decide for themselves. And if they choose to attend, they can do so on my conditions. The camp cannot be held on their conditions. And the day I will hold the camp on your terms, it would be well if you don't attend it at all. Then I will have no use whatsoever for you.

The meditation camp will be run on my terms. I do not come for you, nor can I conduct myself according to your wishes. You cannot dictate and direct me. Gurus, Masters who are no more, become popular after they are dead and gone for the very reason that you can manage and manipulate them as you like, they cannot do a thing. But if the Master is alive, he is bound to be difficult for you. That is why an alive Mahavira is beaten and a dead Mahavira is worshipped all the world over. The living Master is troublesome, because you cannot shackle him, you cannot control him.

In my eyes no other reasons for your coming have any validity except one. And who comes and who does not come is of no consequence to me. i want that whosoever comes should come with full understanding as to why he comes and for what.

Question 2

Sahaja yoga is the most difficult of the yogas, because there is nothing more difficult than to be sahaja - effortless, natural and spontaneous. What is the meaning of sahaja? Sahaja means: let whatever happens happen, don't resist it. Now a person has become naked; this can be natural and easy for him to be so. But in reality it has become so difficult. To be sahaja means to flow like air and water, and not to allow the intellect to come in the way of whatever is happening.

As soon as the intellect comes in the way, as soon as it interferes, we cease to be sahaja, natural, and begin to be asahaja, unnatural. As soon as we decide what should be and what should not be, we immediately begin to be unnatural. And we become natural when we accept that which happens, that which is.

So the first thing to understand is that sahaja yoga is the most difficult yoga. Don't think that it is very easy as the term suggests. There is a misconception that sahaja yoga is an easy way of sadhana or spiritual discipline. People quote Kabir: "Sadho, sahaj samadhi bhali; O seeker, natural ecstasy is the best." Of course, it is the best, but it is also very difficult. Because nothing is more difficult for man than to be natural. Man has become so unnatural, he has traveled such a long way from being natural that now it is so easy for him to be unnatural and very difficult to be natural.

But then we have to understand a few things in this context, because what I am teaching is sahaja yoga itself.

To impose doctrines and dogmas on life is to pervert life. But we all do it; we all impose doctrines and ideals on ourselves. Someone is violent and he is trying to be non violent. Someone is angry and he is trying to be peaceful. Someone is cruel and he is trying to be kind. The thief is trying to be generous, and the wicked to be saintly. This is the way we all are; we are always trying to impose something on what we are. But what is the result?

We not only fail when we fail in this endeavor, we fail even when we succeed as such. Because how soever he may try, a thief cannot be generous; he can of course give to charity and he can have the illusion of being generous; but a thiefs mind will find ways to thieve through charity.

I have heard that sage Eknath once went on a pilgrimage. When he was about to leave his village a thief of his place expressed his desire to accompany him on his pilgrimage. He said since he had sinned a lot he would like to wash his sins off by taking a dip in the sacred river Ganges. Eknath said, "I have no objection to your accompanying me, because all those who are going with me are thieves of various kinds, but there is a difficulty. These other thieves say that I should not take you along because they are afraid you will steal their things and put them into troubles. So you can come along on the firm condition that you will not indulge in stealing while on pilgrimage." He said, "I swear, I will not steal during the pilgrimage - from start to end."

When the journey began the thief joined Eknath's party of pilgrims, who were all thieves. They were thieves of various kinds. All thieves are not of the same kind. One kind of thief functions as a magistrate and another kind of thief functions in another way. All kinds of thieves, including this thief, had gone on pilgrimage.

When the journey began, the poor thief felt very uncomfortable. His old habit of being a thief and his promise to Eknath put him into trouble. He passed the daytime, but his nights were difficult.

When other pilgrims were asleep he felt restless, because this was his business time. Somehow he passed a day or two, but on the third he said to himself, "I am afraid this pilgrimage will finish me, since it is a matter of months. How can I endure this long? And the biggest danger is that I might forget my craft if I abstain from stealing these long months. If so, what will I do when I return home?

The pilgrimage is going to end; it cannot be lifelong."

So the trouble started with the third night. It was a kind of orderly and religious trouble. He stole, but in a style that was altogether new and different. He took out things from one pilgrim's bag and put them in another's; he did not take anything for himself.

The following morning the rest of the pilgrims were upset. Each one of them had lost something which was subsequently found in somebody else's bag. There were fifty to a hundred pilgrims - quite a large number - and it was difficult to locate things. Everyone was puzzled, they could not know what it was all about. Things did not disappear; but they had all changed places. Then it occurred to Eknath that it may be the doing of the same thief who had turned pilgrim. So he kept vigil one night. After midnight he saw the same thief leave his bed and remove things from one bag to another. Eknath got hold of him and asked, "Hey, what are you doing?" The man said, "I know I am under oath that I shall not steal, and I stand by my oath. I do not steal things, I only change their places. I don't take a thing for myself; I just re move it from one bag and put it into another. And this certainly did not form part of my pledge to you."

Eknath used to say later on that howsoever a thief may try to change, it makes no difference.

All the unnaturalness of our life is this - that we are always trying to be different from what we actually are. No, sahaja yoga will say, do not try to be other than what you are; know what you are and live it. If you are a thief know that you are a thief and live the life of a thief fully. This is very arduous, because even a thief feels gratified to think that he is trying to get rid of thieving. He does not rid himself of it really, but he feels relieved to think that although he is a thief today he will cease to be a thief tomorrow. Even the ego of a thief derives gratification from the thought that although he is compelled by circumstances to steal, a day will soon arrive when he will be a philanthropist, and not a thief. So in the hope of tomorrow he conveniently steals today.

Sahaja yoga says that if you are a thief then know that you are a thief and steal knowing it, but not with the hope that tomorrow you will cease to be a thief. And if we know rightly what we actually are, if we accept ourselves as we are and actually live with it, then a revolution can happen right today.

If a thief is fully aware that he is a thief he cannot remain a thief for long. In fact, it is his device to continue to be a thief that he says that he is not really a thief, circumstances have compelled him to be a thief, and in better conditions in the future he will not be a thief again. This idea or ideal makes it convenient for him to be a thief; he steals and yet remains a non thief. Another person says that he is not violent, it is circumstances that have forced him to be violent. Someone else says that he lost his temper because the other person insulted him, otherwise he is not an angry man; he was forced to be angry. He even asks for forgiveness; he says, "Forgive me, my brother, I wonder how I used those four letter words against you. I am not really a haughty person." Thus his pride, his ego is restored. In fact, all repentances are ways to restore the ego. The angry person saves his ego by asking for forgiveness.

Sahaja yoga says: Know that you are what you are, and don't try to move away from it even by an inch; don't try to be different from it in the slightest way. And the moment you become fully aware of its sin, its pain, its misery, its agony, its hellfire, you will immediately jump out of it and you will be free of it in no time; you will have to be out of it totally. If a thief fully knows himself to be a thief and does not entertain in his mind even the slightest thought that he will ever cease to be a thief; if he knows that he is a thief today and he will be a greater thief tomorrow, because in twenty-four hours his habit will be further strengthened; if he accepts his destiny as a thief fully and with full understanding, do you think he can remain a thief even for a moment? This awareness that he is a thief will sink into his heart like a bullet and it will be simply impossible for him to live with this condition even for a moment. In that very moment a revolution will happen, a mutation will take place.

But we are very clever, and we have our own clever devices. We are thieves and we dream of be coming philanthropists, and this is how these dreams help us to remain thieves everlastingly.

Actually our dreams work like buffers that are there between two bogies of a railcar to absorb the shocks of movement. The buffers absorb the shocks and the passengers are protected from their hurts. Or dreams are like a shock absorber in a motorcar. As the car runs along a bumpy road, it absorbs the shocks and the gentleman in the car is saved from their hurt and discomfort. Similarly doctrines and principles work as buffers and shock absorbers in our life. I am a thief and I hold to the ideal of non-stealing. I am violent and I have non violence as my motto; I say non-violence is the highest of religion. This ideal is my buffer, it helps me to remain violent. Because whenever I will be confronted with the fact of my violence, I will say to myself, "What violence? I am a believer in nonviolence; non violence is the highest religion for me. If I deviate from it sometimes, it is because I am weak; but I am going to attain to my ideal tomorrow or the day after. And even if I fail in this life, I am going to make it in the next. But non violence remains my guiding star."

Maybe, I carry the flag of non violence all over the world, and continue to be violent within. The flag is an aid to my violence.

Wherever you come across a sticker saying non violence is of the highest, know it for sure that a violent person is around. There can be no other reason for a sign or a flag of non violence; it always comes with violent people. Non violence is a shield to hide violence and perpetuate it. Man has all sorts of devices, and only devices, so much so that he has lost himself in their crowd.

To be sahaja, to be natural means: that which is, is: now there is no way to walk out of it; I have to live it; and I am going to live it, to be it.

But this being and living with what is, is so painful that it is nearly impossible. Do you know what you will do if you are hurled in hell? You will find to your surprise that only with the help of your dreams can you live in hell. You will close your eyes and bury yourself with dreaming and dreaming. Have you fasted on a day? Then you know how you had to pass your day dreaming about food and food alone. Dreams about food help you to get through your fasting. If you stop dreaming you will have to terminate your fast immediately. But the dream that you are going to eat well the next morning sustains you through the fast.

I remember a professor who was my colleague in the university. We were together for a long time.

Having been with him for some length of time I noticed that once in a while he would suddenly start talking about sweets. I was puzzled to see that he talked about sweets only occasionally, and then I observed him carefully and found out that it was Saturdays when he indulged in his talk about sweets.

One Saturday, when he came to the university, I told him that I was certain that he would talk of sweets that day. He was startled and said, "Why do you say so?" Then I told him, "For the past two months I have kept a record about you which says that every Saturday you invariably bring sweets into our conversations. Is it that you fast on Saturdays?" The professor was again startled and he blurted out, "But who told you about it?"

I then told him, "There was no need for anyone to tell me about it; it is my own finding."

He said, "It is true that I fast on Saturdays, but how could you know it?" Explaining it I said, "I think that a normally healthy person who eats and drinks well should not talk about food the way you do on Saturdays. And I know that you eat well, and yet on Saturdays you unfailingly talk about delicacies under one pretext or another." "You have got it right," he admitted. "On Saturdays I think mostly about food; really I keep planning the whole day what I am going to eat the next day. This is how I pass my day of fasting. On Saturdays I fast."

I then suggested that he should some day fast without thinking of food, he should only fast. And he said, "This is not possible; then the fast will have to be given up. It is with the help of these thoughts of food that I am able to pass my time of fasting. Hope of tomorrow makes me go through today's fasting; otherwise it would be impossible."

A violent person continues to be violent in the hope that he will be non violent someday. An angry person continues to be angry in the hope that he will be kindly and compassionate in the future.

A thief continues to be a thief hoping that he will be generous later on. A sinner remains a sinner hoping that he will be virtuous the next day. These hopes are very irreligious. Be finished with them.

What is, is. Know this what is and live with it. That which is, is a fact; live with that fact. Live with the facticity of your life.

But to live with the fact is very arduous, hard and painful. It hurts the mind very much to think that I am not a good man. So a sexual person reads books on brahmacharya, celibacy; that is how he puts up with his sexuality. He is burning with sexual desires, and he reads books about celibacy and believes that he is a seeker of celibacy. This book on brahmacharya helps him to continue to be sexual. He says that only this day he is indulging in sex, from the next day he will be firm in his vow of celibacy. So it is not that bad, he rationalizes.

Once I happened to be a guest in a family. The old man of the family told me that he had been thrice initiated into brahmacharya by a certain monk. I was surprised to hear it, and I said to him, "It is enough that one takes the vow of celibacy once. How come you had to take it thrice?" He asked me with a sense of uneasiness, "What do you mean to say? I have spoken to several friends about it and they all complimented me for doing it thrice. No one questioned my action except you." I again said, "The vow of celibacy can be taken only once. How is it that you had to take it thrice?" He said that because he failed to keep his vow, he had to take it twice and again a third time. And when I asked, "What about the fourth time?" he said, "By that time I had no courage left; I had lost self confidence."

By the time the old man was finished with his vows he had reached the age of sixty. He carried on his sexuality with the help of his vows of brahmacharya.

We are a very strange people. This is the asahaja yoga, unnatural yoga, that we practice. We are sexual and we read books on brahmacharya. The book of brahmacharya works as a buffer in relation to our sexuality. Reading it, we say to ourselves privately, "Who says I am sexual? Since I read books on celibacy, which is my ideal, I am really a celibate. If I indulge a little bit in sex at present, it is because of my weakness, be cause of my past karmas or maybe because the right time has not arrived. But it will soon pass away." This is how sex and celibacy go together; celibacy serves as a shock absorber and the drive of sex goes comfortably on and on.

This is a very unnatural state of things. To return to the natural state you will have to remove the buffer and the shock absorber altogether. If there are potholes on the road, you have to know them.

Drive your car without the buffer or the shock absorber. Then the very first pothole will kill you, will smash your bones, and you will come out of the car and tell it goodbye. Then you will not drive that car again. Re move the spring from the car and then drive it. The very first encounter with a boulder will knock you out and you will bid goodbye to the car. And you will not use that car a second time.

But the shock-absorber fitted at the bottom of the car does not allow you to go through that suffering.

Sahaja yoga means: what is, is; be it. Don't try to be unnatural. Know that which is, accept it and live with it. Then a revolution is certain. He who accepts what is and lives it is bound to change.

Then there is no way to pass sixty years in sex and sexuality in spite of vows of celibacy. Vows are the ways of sexuality. If I have insulted you in my anger and I don't apologize for it, on the contrary I go to you and say that it is the way I am, I am a wrong kind of man who is easily given to anger..."I may do it again, so why should I apologize? And you should know it well if you want to continue to be my friend"... Do you think my friendship will live? All my friends will fall away, all my relationships will be on the rocks and I will be left to live with my anger alone. Then anger will be my only friend; no one will be around me to bear with my anger. Then I will have to live with my anger alone and totally. Will I be able to live it? No, I will jump out of it, saying "What madness it is!"

But we have our own devices. A husband quarrels with his wife in the morning and calls her a bitch and dashes to his office. He returns in the afternoon with ice creams and a silk sari to cajole her.

And the wife thinks that he is again the same old loving husband. The husband, through repentance, restores his relationship with his wife, he returns to where the tie had given way. And with ice cream and the silk sari in her hand the woman will become the good old wife once more. But the story will repeat itself in the evening the way it had happened in the morning. And in the night the husband will again go on his knees and ask for the wife's forgiveness. And the next morning is not going to be different. The same story repeats day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out. Thus it runs through the whole life.

Neither the husband nor the wife is prepared to know their fact, their truth. They are not prepared to face the reality, the dishonesty and deceit involved in their day to day life. Without ever examining it for a moment they continue to deceive each other. And like this couple, we all continue to deceive one another all our lives. And what is worse, we not only deceive others we also deceive ourselves.

Sahaja yoga means: don't deceive yourself. Know and accept yourself exactly as you are and how you are without any reservations. If you do so, mutation will happen instantly. Mutation happens simultaneously with understanding and acceptance. Then you will not have to wait for it. Will one wait till tomorrow if his house is on fire and he knows it? He will get out of his house in a split second.

The day we fully see our life as it is - and it is a house on fire - the moment of mutation arrives.

But we have our own deceptive ways. The house is on fire and we have decorated its interior with flowers. Our hands are in chains and we have coated the chains with gold, and so while we see the glitter of gold we fail to see the chains. We are full of illnesses and wounds, but we have covered our wounds with colorful bandages, and we see the colors and not the wounds behind them.

This deception is so deep and vast that we spend our lifetime in it and the moment of mutation does not come. We go on postponing that moment. Death comes, but not the moment that had been postponed. We die, but we do not change; we are simply incapable of changing.

The change, the mutation can happen any moment really. Sahaja yoga says: live with what is, and you will be transformed. You don't have to make efforts to change; truth changes. Jesus says, "Truth liberates." But we don't know the truth. We live in lies, we live in untruths; but we decorate our untruths before we live with them. And untruth binds, while truth liberates. Even the most painful truth is better than the most pleasant lie. The pleasant untruth is really dangerous. It will bind you; it will be your bond age. And even the painful truth is liberating, even its pain is liberating. So live with the painful truth, and don't harbor lies however pleasant they may be. This is the whole of sahaja yoga.

This is the whole of sahaja yoga. And then comes samadhi, ecstasy or awakening, or whatsoever you call it. You will not have to seek samadhi; it will come on its own.

Cry when you want to cry, and laugh when you want to laugh, and know that it is happening.

I have heard that in Japan a Master died and thousands of people gathered to attend his funeral; he was so much famous. But he had a disciple who was more famous than he. And when the people came they saw that this famous disciple of his was sitting in the open and crying bitterly. They said to him, We are astounded to see you crying, because we thought that you are one of the enlightened ones. Why should you weep?" The disciple said, "You fools, I am not going to stop crying because you say I am enlightened. Crying is a different thing altogether. Keep your enlightenment to yourself; I don't want it." Then the visitors said, "But what will people say? If you can't stop crying then go inside; don't cry in public. Otherwise it will give rise to a scandal. We believe that you have attained to a state of perfect equilibrium, a state of ultimate knowledge. We believed that you are one of the wisest ones, and that nothing can affect you - neither happiness nor sorrow."

Then the disciple said, "You got it all wrong. It was before enlightenment that very few things affected me, because my sensitivity was dull and I was invulnerable and hard headed. Now everything affects me from end to end, so I will cry to my heart's content. I don't care for what you say, for your enlightenment. Throw it out the window."

But as the devotees do, they continued to persuade him and said, "Think of the disgrace that it will cause. So even if you have to weep, do it privately, secretly; otherwise malicious gossips will go round the country." One of the devotees challenged, "You always said that the soul is immortal, then why do you bewail?"

Then the sage said, "Who cries for the soul? I am crying for the body of my Master; I am not crying for the soul which is everlasting and eternal. The body, too, that has broken away from my Master was lovely and lovable, and it is now not going to return to this earth again. The temple in which the soul of the Master resided was not less adorable, and it will not happen a second time. I am crying for that body." And when the devotee again challenged, "So you cry for the body!" the chief disciple said, "Are you going to impose conditions on crying? Will you not allow me to cry?"

Only a true mind, a mind that is authentic, a mind that lives in truth, can be a free mind. A true mind is an authentic mind which means cry when you want to cry and laugh when you want to laugh. If you have to be angry be totally authentic in your anger. If you are angry then become anger itself so that you and all around you know what anger is. That anger will be liberating; it will free you all at once. Instead of being angry for a lifetime, bit by bit in a lukewarm way, be angry once for all, so that it burns you and burns others around you and you know what it is all about. Ordinarily our anger is so lukewarm, so tepid, so inauthentic that we don't know what real and authentic anger is. We are partly angry and partly not angry; we are angry in fragments; and that is what makes it in authentic.

Our life's journey is such that we take a step forward and another step back; so we go nowhere, we remain stationary and stagnant. There is really no journey; we only stagnate and vegetate.

Sahaja yoga says: whatever there is in life, accept it, know it and live it. From this acceptance, from this knowing and living will come what we call mutation or transformation. And this mutation will reach you to God.

What I call meditation, and what we have here, is a process of sahaja yoga. Here you accept all that happens to you, you let go of yourself completely and accept all that happens on its own. Otherwise it would be unthinkable that educated and cultured people, people who are affluent and sophisticated go crying and yelling, hopping and jumping and wildly dancing like crazy people. This is not an ordinary thing. This is something extraordinary and invaluable too. That is why the spectator is bewildered and he fails to understand what it is all about. He feels be mused and then he laughs at the whole thing. But he is not aware that if he were to join you, he would go through the same bizarre experiences. Or maybe his laughter is just a defense measure, he laughs only to protect himself, he means to say through his laughter that he won't do what you are doing; it is not for him.

That is what he thinks, but his laughter on its part says something else. It says that he too has some thing to do with it. His laughter says that in a way he is really concerned with it. His ridicule indicates that if he were to participate in what is happening here he would do the same. He too has withheld and repressed himself; he too has suppressed his tears and laughters, his dances and his ecstasy.

Bertrand Russell said in his later days that civilization has robbed man of a few precious things and dance is one of them. He said that he could not think of standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and dancing, although we claim that we are a free people and that we have more freedom than our ancestors ever had. He also observed that on the one hand it is trumpeted that the world has entered its era of liberty and freedom and on the other he was not free to dance in the marketplace, and if he did so the traffic police would immediately arrest him on the charge of obstructing the traffic. And moreover he would be thought to be a mental case. Bertrand Russell also recalled that whenever he visited some primitive tribes dancing with abandon under the starry sky he painfully realized that the civilized man has really lost much that is valuable.

Civilization's gains are small and its losses are enormous. The civilized man has lost his naturalness and simplicity, he has lost nature itself. And, more over, he is a victim of all kinds of perversions.

Meditation is a way of making you natural and simple, restoring you to your nature once again.

The last thing I want to say is that what has happened here these three days has great significance.

Some friends have had unique experiences and some others had glimpses of them, while a few others made efforts, but could not make it, although they did make some progress no doubt. But everybody did his good bit except a few who have the illusion that they are intellectuals and who in reality have less of intelligence and more of book knowledge. Except these few, everybody participated in meditation, and in spite of many difficulties a special kind of energy was created here and quite a lot has happened that is significant.

But this only the beginning.

If you devote one out of your twenty four hours every day to this meditation, a door can open onto your life. Shut yourself in a room for one full hour and tell your family not to worry about what may happen inside for that hour. Then shed your clothes and be completely naked and do the meditation in a standing position. Spread a mattress on the floor of the room so that you are not hurt in case you ever fall down. Stand up and meditate, but before it inform your family members that many things can happen inside the room - you may shout and scream, anything can happen - but they should not disturb you. And carry the experiment daily for one full hour till we meet together again at the next camp. If the friends who have taken part in the camp here continue with this practice in their places then I will take up a separate camp for them where great progress will be possible.

There is great possibility; the possibility is really infinite. But you will have to make some efforts... If you take one step forward, God will take a hundred steps towards you. He is always ready to come to you. But if you don't take a single step, then there is no way to help you. So take this meditation home and continue to do it regularly and enthusiastically.

I know many things will inhibit you. Your children will say, "What has happened to father? He was never like this; he was always grave and serious. And now he is dancing and jumping and shouting.

Whenever we made a racket in the house, invariably he took us to task. What is it all about?"

Children will certainly laugh at you. You should ask their forgiveness for trying to control them in the past, acknowledge your mistakes openly and tell them to play and dance freely to keep alive their natural propensities for dance and play. It will be of great benefit to them in the future. We force old age on our children much too prematurely. So tell your family not to be curious and inquisitive about what you do inside the room for an hour, and not to argue with you on this score. If you once make it clear, there will be no trouble in the future. In a few days they will get used to your affairs, they will leave you to yourself.

And then you will see that meditation has its effects not only on you but on the whole family.

If possible, have a separate room for meditation, and use it exclusively for meditation. Don t use that room for any other purpose. It may be a small room, but keep it under lock and key. If any members of your family want to join you, allow them on the condition that they meditate with you and not do anything else. It is different if a separate room is not available, but a separate room for meditation will have many advantages. If it is used exclusively for meditation, it will be charged with meditative energy. And when you will enter it you will find that it is not an ordinary space.

We radiate our energy all the time all around us; we send out rays of our mental energy all around us. And the space around us, even inside a room, absorbs this energy. That is the reason why a few places re main holy for thousands of years. If a man like Mahavira, Buddha or Krishna sits in a particular place, it takes on his extraordinary vibe, his unearthly impact, which can last for thousands of years. From such a place one's entry into the other world, the spiritual world, becomes much easier.

Every well to do person - and I have a single criterion to judge a well to do person and it is that he has a temple in his house, otherwise he is a pauper - should have a temple in a part of his house. At least one room in every house should be reserved and used as a temple, as a door to the other world. Don't use that room for anything else. Enter it in silence and use it only for meditation.

The other members of the family will by and by begin to be interested in meditation, because then changes that it will make for you will begin to show.

Now people have started going to those few people here who have experienced changes in them selves, changes that are very significant, and they ask them, "What is it that has happened to you?"

These few people in their turn come to me to ask how they should answer the inquisitive people.

The same way your children, your parents and others will ask you; they will get so interested in meditation. And if you persevere long enough with your sadhana, then the day will not be far away when the greatest of events will happen in your life - for which we have to pass through infinite numbers of lives and which we can miss for infinite numbers of lives.

The coming few years are going to be very significant years in man's history. Now a handful of people will be of no help in matters spiritual. Unless a mighty spirituality is born, unless a mighty and massive spiritual movement sweeps the earth, making its impact on millions of people, it will be impossible to save the world from the mire of materialism. It will be a very, very momentous moment in man's life; the coming fifty years are going to be fateful and decisive. Either religion will live, or stark irreligion, all that is against religion, will live. These fifty years will also decide about Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Jesus, Mo hammed, Rama and the rest of them. All these luminaries will be on one side of the scales while on the other side will be the large crowd of insane politicians, materialists and other ignorant people bent on deluding themselves and others too. They are in huge numbers, while only a handful of people will be on one side of the arraignment. And in fifty years' time the decision will be made.

The struggle that has been going on from time immemorial has reached its moment of decision. And looking at the situation as it obtains at present, there is not much hope. But I am not disappointed because it seems to me that very soon a simple and natural and easy way can be found which will revolutionize the lives of millions of people spiritually.

A few individuals can be of no help in the present times. In olden times it was enough if only one person became enlightened. Now this won't do. In view of the tremendous explosion of population taking place in the world, a few individuals cannot do a thing. Now something tangible can be possible only if, commensurate with the huge population, hundreds of thousands of people are influenced and involved in spiritualism. And it is possible as I see it. If a few people form a nucleus and begin the work, then India can play a significant role in that momentous fight. No matter how poor and miserable, how degraded and slavish, how misled and misguided this country has been, yet this land has some well preserved treasures with it. Down the centuries such people have walked this land that their light, their fragrance, their longings have left their vibes in the air, have left their imprint on every blade of grass here. Man has of course gone wrong, but the dust of this land still remembers Buddha's feet walking it. Man of this country has gone wrong, but the trees still cherish the memory that Mahavira had once stood in their shade. Man has really gone wrong, but the seas surrounding this country still know a different voice they had heard in the past. Man has no doubt gone astray, but the skies of this country are still full of hopes. Everything is there, only man has to come back home.

Of late, I have been constantly praying with the hope that collective explosion in the lives of millions of people may be possible. And you can be of great help in this endeavor. Such explosion in your own life will have immense value not only for you, but for all mankind. With this hope and prayer that you will not only light your own lamps, but that your light will help other extinguished lamps to be lighted, I bid you farewell.

I am grateful to you for having listened to me in peace and with such love, and I bow down to God sitting within each one of you. Please accept my salutation.