This too will pass

Question 1:

The most basic thing to remember is that when you are feeling good, in a mood of ecstasy, don't start thinking that it is going to be your permanent state. Live the moment as joyfully, as cheerfully as possible, knowing perfectly well that it has come and it will go - just like a breeze comes in your house, with all its fragrance and freshness, and goes out from the other door.

This is the most fundamental thing. If you start thinking in terms of making your ecstatic moments permanent, you have already started destroying them. When they come, be grateful; when they leave, be thankful to existence. Remain open. It will happen many times - don't be judgmental, don't be a chooser. Remain choiceless.

Yes, there will be moments when you will be miserable. So what! There are people who are miserable and who have not even known a single moment of ecstasy; you are fortunate. Even in your misery, remember that it is not going to be permanent; it will also pass away, so don't get too much disturbed by it. Remain at ease. Just like day and night, there are moments of joy and there are moments of sadness; accept them as part of the duality of nature, as the very way things are.

And you are simply a watcher: neither you become happiness nor you become misery. Happiness comes and goes, misery comes and goes. One thing remains always there - always and always - and that is the watcher, one who witnesses. Slowly, slowly get more and more centered into the watcher. Days will come and nights will come... lives will come and deaths will come... success will come, failure will come. But if you are centered in the watcher - because that is the only reality in you - everything is a passing phenomenon.

Just for a moment, try to feel what I am saying: just be a watcher.... Do not cling to any moment because it is beautiful, and do not push any moment because it is miserable. Stop doing that. That you have been doing for lives. You have not been successful yet and you will never be successful ever.

The only way to go beyond, to remain beyond, is to find a place from where you can watch all these changing phenomena without getting identified.

I will tell you an ancient Sufi story...

A king asked his wise men in the court, "I am making a very beautiful ring for myself. I have got one of the best diamonds possible. I want to keep hidden inside the ring some message that may be helpful to me in a time of utter despair. It has to be very small so that it can be hidden underneath the diamond in the ring."

They were all wise men, they all were great scholars; they could have written great treatises. But to give him a message of not more than two or three words which would help him in moments of utter despair... They thought, they looked into their books, but they could not find anything.

The king had an old servant who was almost like his father - he had been his father's servant. The king's mother had died early and this servant had taken care of him, so he was not treated like a servant. The king had immense respect for him.

The old man said, "I am not a wise man, knowledgeable, scholarly; but I know the message - because there is only one message. And these people cannot give it to you; it can be given only by a mystic, by a man who has realized himself.

"In my long life in the palace I have come across all kinds of people, and once, a mystic. He had also been a guest of your father and I was put into his service. When he was departing, as a gesture of thankfulness for all my services he gave me this message" - and he wrote it on a small piece of paper, folded it and told the king, "Don't read it, just keep it hidden in the ring. Only open it when everything else has failed - when there is no way out."

And the time came soon. The country was invaded and the king lost his kingdom. He was running away on his horse just to save his life and the enemy horses were following him. He was alone; they were many. And he came to a place where the path stopped, came to a dead end; there was a cliff and a deep valley. To fall into it was to be finished. He could not go back, the enemy was there and he could hear the sounds of the hooves of the horses. He could not go forward, and there was no other way....

Suddenly he remembered the ring. He opened it, took out the paper, and there was a small message of tremendous value: it simply said, "This too will pass." A great silence came over him as he read the sentence, "This too will pass." And it passed.

Everything passes away; nothing remains in this world. The enemies who were following him must have got lost in the forest, must have moved on a wrong way; the hooves slowly, slowly were not heard any more.

The king was immensely grateful to the servant and to the unknown mystic. Those words proved miraculous. He folded the paper, put it back into the ring, gathered his armies again and conquered his kingdom back. And the day he was entering his capital, victorious, there was great celebration all over the capital, music, dance - and he was feeling very proud of himself.

The old man was walking by the side of his chariot. He said, "This time is also right: look again at the message."

The king said, "What do you mean? Now I am victorious, people are celebrating. I am not in despair, I am not in a situation where there is no way out."

The old man said, "Listen. This is what the saint has said to me: this message is not only for despair, it is also for pleasure. This is not only for when you are defeated; it is also for when you are victorious - not only when you are the last, but also when you are the first."

And the king opened the ring, read the message, "This too will pass," and suddenly the same peace, the same silence, amidst the crowds, jubilating, celebrating, dancing... but the pride, the ego was gone.

Everything passes away.

He asked his old servant to come on the chariot and sit with him. He asked, "Is there anything more?

Everything passes away... Your message has been immensely helpful."

The old man said, "The third thing the saint said, 'Remember, everything passes. Only you remain; you remain forever as a witness.'"

So this is the answer to your question: Everything passes, but you remain. You are the reality; everything else is just a dream. Beautiful dreams are there, nightmares are there... But it does not matter whether it is a beautiful dream or a nightmare; what matters is the one who is seeing the dream. That seer is the only reality.

In the East we don't have anything like philosophy. Scholars have translated the Eastern word darshan, which means seeing, into philosophy - finding no other way. But they are not at all connected: philosophy is thinking, not seeing.

A blind man can think about light, but cannot see it; the man with eyes can see the light, there is no need to think about it. In the East there is nothing comparable to philosophy; in the West there is nothing comparable to darshan. I have coined my own word to translate darshan, philosia. Philo means love, and sia means to see. Sophy means thinking, sia means seeing.

And the whole East has been working only in one dimension for centuries: how to find the seer. You cannot go beyond it; that is the ultimate. Everything is in front of it; it is behind the whole reality, and everything goes on changing....

You are a child, you will become young, you will become old. You are alive, you will be dead - everything goes on changing.

But the seer is something absolutely eternal.

Just a little glimpse of it and all your problems will start disappearing, because a totally new perspective will arise - a new vision, a new way of life, a new way of seeing things, seeing people, responding to situations. And the seer is always present, twenty-four hours day; whatever you are doing or not doing, it is there. It has been there for centuries, for eternity, waiting for you to take note of it.

Perhaps because it has been always there, that's why you have forgotten it. The obvious is always forgotten. Remember it when you are feeling a well-being, a euphoria; remember it when you are in misery, in anguish. Remember it in all climates, in all moods - go on remembering it. Soon you will be able to remain centered in it, there will be no need to remember.

And that is the greatest day in one's life.

That day you become enlightened.

That day you become awakened.

That day zorba changes into a buddha.

Question 2:

There is no problem. If you feel good with any technique you can continue it. From where it comes does not matter, who has given it to you does not matter. If it gives you pleasant feelings, a certain silence, serenity, continue it.

Being my sannyasin does not mean that I monopolize you. Being my sannyasin means now the whole world is yours; enjoy everything that feels good for yourself - but remember what I was just talking about. A pleasant feeling is not real meditation, because that too will pass away. It is only a technique. I want to give you something that does not pass away. Meanwhile you can play with all kinds of toys, there is no harm.

And you are asking about Guru Maharaji. First I will tell you a small story; perhaps it explains Guru Maharaji to you. It is a Tibetan story....

A man who later on became very famous as a saint was searching for truth. He came across a so- called master who had a great following, whose only teaching was: "Surrender to me and surrender totally, and I will take you to the ultimate state of consciousness. Don't be worried, at the right time the explosion will happen." It had not happened to anyone.

But in the East, one life is not enough to realize oneself. It takes thousands of lives to find the right moment, the right time when the explosion happens. So nobody can complain, "I have been waiting for thirty years and it has not happened." Thirty years or thirty lives don't count.

But this man really, totally surrendered. And the second day the disciples were amazed because he was walking on water. They could not believe their eyes; they asked the man, "What is the secret?"

He said, "You must know it because you have been with the master so long. I surrendered totally, I trust him, I just repeat his name and leave everything to him, and anything becomes possible. I can pass through fire, I can walk on water, I can jump from high mountains. You look surprised," he said. "In fact, I should be surprised that you cannot, and you have been here for years with a great master."

They rushed to the master. They said, "This man is strange. He is walking on water, and he says it is the power of your name. He simply repeats your name and he can do anything."

The master himself was surprised, but he did not show his surprise to the disciples. He said, "That's what you should all be doing. If your surrender is total, my name can take you to ultimate liberation."

But deep down he was thinking that when everybody is gone, he is going to try repeating his own name and walk on water. Because if that other guy in just one day is doing such a miracle, "then what miracles can I not do? I was not aware..." So he repeated his name, walked into the water and started drowning.

With difficulty he was saved, and his disciples said, "What happened?"

He said, "Call that strange man and let me see how he walks, because if I cannot walk repeating my own name, how can he?" The man came and he walked on water.

The master said, "You jump from the mountain, thousands of feet high, deep into the valley."

The man jumped, and they had to walk down for hours to reach him. They were thinking they were not going to find a single bone unfractured, that the man must be splattered all over the place - but he was sitting in a lotus posture under a tree looking so beautiful. He said, "Great master, your name is such a miracle!"

The master had to fall at his feet. He said, "Forgive me, I'm not a master at all; I'm just a charlatan.

I have been cheating people, exploiting people, but I cannot exploit you. Your trust prohibits me."

People like Guru Maharaji belong to the same category as that master. If they repeat their own name, they will start drowning in the water. The technique they have given to you, which is giving you a certain peace and silence, has not given them any peace, any silence.

I know the man, I used to know his father. His father was also doing the same thing - pretending to be a mystic. He trained this boy, Guru Maharaji - who was just six years old at that time - to memorize a few scriptures, and that became a great attraction. He would recite scriptures in pure Sanskrit.

His father used to say, "In his past life he was a great master; he still remembers these things from his past life" - and I know this was not true. The master, the father of Guru Maharaji, was not at ease with his wife - just as nobody is at ease.

I asked the wife... and she said, "He is a cheat, and now he is training his children to be cheats. He has spoiled this boy; now he is spoiling the other boy."

And just because he was six or seven years old, thousands of people would come to listen, believing that it was the memory of his past life.

When the father died he announced, "This boy, Guru Maharaji, will be my successor." Guru Maharaji became world famous - but he was only sixteen when he became world famous, and a boy of sixteen naturally fell in love with a girl. I don't see any objection to it. But his mother, who had always been against the father for spoiling the children, was now doing the same. Those children proved to be a great business.

But the mother was very angry. In India, if a man has some spirituality then he has to be celibate - and he had fallen in love with an American girl. Not only that, he got married. He was not of an age to get married; the girl was twenty-one years old, he was sixteen years old. He had to appear before a court to get the permission of the judge, that he was mature enough.

The judge said, "There is no question about your maturity. You are world famous. You can get married."

This marriage created trouble. The mother renounced the boy and renounced that he was the successor to his father. She said, "The second boy is the real successor." So now the empire is divided into two, the smaller boy and the mother in the East, and Guru Maharaji in America.

When he went to India, the followers of his own brother and mother threw stones, protested against him, and he had to leave India because of them. They would not allow him to stay there - and he is doing the same thing with his mother and his brother when they come to America. These people are simply business people; religion to them is nothing but business.

But this has been so for centuries: exploit the innocent, exploit the ignorant, exploit the miserable, exploit people who are in suffering, in anguish and anxiety.

I have no problem. If you can walk on water with the name of Guru Maharaji you can do it; you should not feel any conflict - because I don't have any conflict with anybody.

Your question may be important for other people also, because many other people may have learned something from some other sources. There is no need to be worried. Sometimes it happens that the source may be wrong but what you have got is right. The master may be fake but he has got some techniques, handed down to him by heritage, which are significant.

But remember, every technique can only give you an experience; I want to give you the experiencer, not the experience. Experience comes and goes; don't rely on it. Unless you have found the experiencer... Who is feeling joy? Who is feeling pain? Who is feeling well-being? Who is feeling sad?

Who is this consciousness?

Every effort should be to reach to this innermost center of the cyclone. Your whole life is a cyclone of change, of changing scenes, changing colors, but just in the middle of the cyclone there is a silent center. That is you.

My effort is to help you to find yourself.

Question 3:

This is the problem everybody is facing... if not today, then tomorrow. Something is always missing, something seems to be wrong, something is not fitting; all lovers throughout history have the same problem. One has to go really deep into it, because it is not one man's problem or one woman's problem.

In the first place we are all living lives according to fictions, poetries, film stories. That has given humanity a wrong impression, the impression that when there is love everything will fit, that there will be no conflict. For centuries poets have been giving the idea that lovers are made for each other.

Nobody is made for anybody else.

Everybody is different from everybody else.

You may love a person without knowing that you love the person only because there is so much difference between you, so much distance. The distance is a challenge, the distance is an adventure; the distance makes the woman or the man worth getting hold of. But things as they appear from a distance are not the same when they come close.

When you are just courting a man or a woman, everything is beautiful, everything fits - because both want that everything should fit. Anything that does not fit is not allowed to surface; it is repressed in the unconscious. So lovers sitting on the beach looking at the moon do not know each other at all.

The marriage is almost finished before the honeymoon is finished.

It is good that in the East there is nothing like a honeymoon; they don't give the chance for the marriage to be finished so soon. In the East people go on living together and never feel the way you are feeling - that things are not fitting, something is missing, there is no chance at all. Husbands and wives do not choose for themselves; marriages are organized by the parents, by the astrologers, by all kinds of people except the two who are going to be married.

The couple cannot see each other in the daylight, they can only meet each other deep in the darkness of the night. And their two families are big, so they can talk only in whispers; fighting is out of the question. Throwing clothes will not work - no woman, no man in the East knows that clothes have to be thrown; otherwise, what kind of love affair are you having? Or that plates have to be broken, or that for each and every thing you have to argue - you say one thing and the woman understands something else; she says something, you understand something else...

There seems to be no communication.

And it starts with the honeymoon, because there for the first time you are together twenty-four hours a day. Now you cannot pretend; you have to be real. You cannot act.

One of my friends was saying that he went to see a movie with his wife. He saw in the movie the actor, the hero kissing his beloved with so much joy, with such ecstasy that the wife told my friend, "Look! You never kiss me like that."

And my friend said, "Darling, that is acting. I can also act, but to be with you twenty-four hours a day and still kiss you with so much ecstasy - I am not that mad."

The woman said, "You don't understand me at all. Here they are acting, but in real life the woman is his wife too."

My friend said, "My God, then he must be a real actor."

I have heard...

One honeymoon couple came to the beach to stay in a hotel for a few days, but there seemed to be some difficulty. As they closed the door of their room, the husband said, "First, put the light off before you go to the bathroom."

The woman said, "Why?"

The man said, "I don't like lights. You just put the lights off, then you go to the bathroom, change your dress and come back."

But she said, "I cannot come in darkness. It is an unknown room; I may stumble on some furniture or something. That I cannot do."

The man said, "This seems to be a difficulty. You will have to do it."

The woman said, "I don't understand the stubbornness. Just for five minutes you cannot remain in the light? You can close your eyes."

The man said, "It is better to tell you the truth, because sooner or later I will have to tell you. One of my legs is artificial and I don't want you to see. I wanted to put it away in darkness down the side of the bed."

The woman said, "That's good that you told me. If you are so honest, I should be honest too. Now there is no need for me to go into the bathroom. I was going to remove both of my breasts; they are false."

Now what do you think? Has anything remained, or is everything finished? When you live together you have to be real to the other person; you cannot hide, you cannot have any secrets. And we have been given the idea from our very childhood that between wife and husband there is always harmony, everything is always fitting, they are always together, always loving, no fight. That whole ideology is the problem.

I would like to tell you the truth. The truth is that both the persons, whoever they are, are different individuals. If you love somebody, you have to understand it that you are going to love somebody who is not your shadow, who is not your reflection in the mirror, who has his own individuality.

Unless you have a big enough heart to accommodate somebody who is different from you, who may have different ideas about different things, you should not get into unnecessary trouble. It is better to become a monk or a nun. Why bother? Why create hell for yourself and the other? But the hell is created because you expect heaven.

I am telling you to accept that this is the situation: the person is going to be different. You are not the master, neither is the other the master; both are simply partners who have decided, in spite of all differences, to be together. And in fact, differences add spice to your love. If you can find a woman who is just like you, you will not find much attraction in her. The woman has to be different, distant, a mystery that invites you to explore; the same is true about the man.

But with two mysteries meeting together, once they drop the idea that they have to agree on everything, there is no question of any fight. The fight arises because you want agreement.

If you are living just like two friends - she has her own ideas, you have your own ideas, she respects your ideas, you respect her ideas; she has her way, you have your own way and nobody is trying to impose on and indoctrinate the other - then there is no question of fight. And then there is no question that things are not fitting - why should they be fitting? - that something is missing.

Nothing is missing; it is just that your idea of harmony is not there. Harmony is not something very great, it is boring. Once in a while, even if you fight, once in a while even if you get really hot, that does not mean that love disappears; that simply means love is capable of absorbing even disagreements, fights, overcoming all these hindrances. Just the old kind of ideology, of man and woman....

I am reminded of the old biblical story which is not told very much because it is very dangerous.

First, God made one man and one woman. But as you know by looking at the world, God does not seem to be very intelligent. Here, nothing is fitting; from the very beginning you can see it. He made man and woman, two persons, and gave them a small bed - not a double bed.

The very first night - in the beginning of the world - was the night of a tremendous fight, because the woman wanted to sleep on the bed. The man wanted that he should sleep on the bed and she should sleep on the floor. The whole night they went on fighting, beating each other, throwing things... and in the morning the man said to God, "I asked you to give me a companion but I did not ask you to give me an enemy. If you think this is a companion... I was better alone. I don't want this woman; there is never going to be peace between me and her."

Now the simple thing was to ask for a double bed. I don't understand what kind of God that was, and what these idiots were asking. The simple question was of a double bed, or two single beds; if things were getting too bad then two single beds. But instead of that he said, "I don't want this woman; she is trying to be equal to me." The male chauvinist idea arose that very night.

And God dismantled the woman - naturally, because God is also a male chauvinist. He dismantled the woman just the way you dismantle any mechanism. He destroyed the woman and said, "Now I will make another woman who will be lower than you and will never ask for equality." Then he made the second woman, who was Eve, by taking one of the ribs from Adam. And out of the rib he made the woman - so that she cannot ask for equality, she is nothing but a rib.

But you cannot manage things like this. Just a little intelligence would have been enough; this way things have not changed. It is said that every night when Adam would come back home and go to sleep, Eve would count his ribs - because she was always afraid that if he loses any other rib, that means another woman is also somewhere around.

There is no need for more than friendship. Love has to be a friendly affair in which nobody is superior, in which nobody is going to decide about things, in which both are fully aware that they are different, that their approach towards life is different, that they think differently, and still - with all these differences - they love each other.

Then you will not find any problems.

Problems are created by us.

Don't try to create something superhuman. Be human: accept the other person's humanity with all the frailty humanity is prone to. She will commit mistakes just as you commit mistakes - and you have to learn. To be together is a great learning - of forgiving, of forgetting, of understanding that the other is as human as you are. Just a little forgiveness...

There is an old proverb: "To err is human and to forgive is divine." I don't agree. To err is human and to forgive is also human. To forgive is divine? - then you are raising it too high, beyond human reach. Bring it within human reach and learn to forgive. Learn to enjoy forgiveness, learn to ask for an apology; you don't lose anything when you can say to your woman, "I'm sorry, I was wrong."

But no man wants to say, "I was wrong." He is always right. No woman wants to say that she was wrong; she is always right. Man tries to prove through arguments that he is right; the woman tries through emotions to prove that she is right - screaming, crying, weeping, tears. And she WINS...

The man becomes afraid of the neighbors, and just to cool her down - because the children may wake up - he says, "Cool down, perhaps you are right." But deep down he still believes he is right.

To be understanding means that you can be wrong, the woman may be right. It is not a guarantee that just by being man you have the power and authority to be right; neither has the woman. If we were just a little more human and a little more friendly, and we could say to each other, "We are sorry..." And what are the things you are fighting for? - so small, so trivial that if somebody asks you, you will feel embarrassed.

Just drop the idea that everything has to fit, drop the idea that there is going to be total harmony - because those are not good ideas. If everything fits you will get bored with each other; if everything is harmonious you will lose the whole juice of the relationship. It is good that things don't fit. It is good that there is always a gap so there is always something to explore, something to cross over, some bridge to be made. The whole life can be a tremendous exploration of each other if we accept the differences, the basic uniqueness of each individual, and we make love not a kind of slavery but a friendship.

Try friendship, try friendliness; and remember always, there is nothing that is going to disturb you.

When you see a beautiful woman, you feel attracted; you should understand that when your wife sees a beautiful man, she must be feeling attracted. If you are understanding, you will both discuss, lovingly, what a beautiful woman she was, and what a beautiful man he was.

But right now the situation is that you can see from miles away whether the couple coming is married or unmarried. With the married couple, the husband moves very cautiously and very carefully; he does not look here and there - as if he has got some neck problem. And the wife is watching where he is looking, what he is looking at, and taking note of everything. This is ugly.

I was traveling - I was going to Kashmir - and in my compartment there was a beautiful woman. Her husband was coming to her every station with ice cream and with bananas, with apples. In Kashmir, fruits are really juicy.

I asked the woman, "How long have you been married?"

She said, "Seven years."

I said, "Don't lie to me."

She said, "What do you mean? Why should I lie to you."

I said, "After seven years the husband is not going to come to every station with all these things. He is not your husband."

She said, "How did you come to know?"

I said, "How did I come to know? I can see it. If he was your husband, once he had dropped you in this compartment, then only on the last station - if you are fortunate - he would come back; otherwise he would escape. Why should he come to you every station with all these things?"

She said, "Strange, but you are right. He is not my husband; he is my friend's husband, but he loves me. And what you are saying about husbands is true. That has happened between me and my husband. We live together but we are miles apart; I am thinking to divorce him."

I said, "Don't do that. Go on living with him and go on loving this man, and don't let this man divorce his wife. She will be loving somebody else, don't be worried. Existence takes care of things. But if you divorce your husband and you get married to this man, you will not get these ice creams and these fruits and this attention and this love - all will disappear."

If you are just friendly and don't make your friendliness a legal affair of husband and wife, things will be far better - because you are not a burden to anybody, not a bondage to anybody. There is no question of fitting with each other. You can have your individuality totally free from each other, and yet be in love.

And really to be totally different in individuality creates the best possibility of love.

Okay, Maneesha.