I Sing The Glory Of Forms

TRUTH IS A CHALLENGE, the greatest there is. It is challenge to enquire, it is challenge to seek, and it is a challenge to be. It is not something that you will possess some day, it is something that you have to become. And, in fact, you can become only that which you are already, you can become only your being.

The challenge of truth is the challenge of your own innermost core, the challenge to come home, the challenge to come back to the center, the challenge to recognize yourself, the challenge to know, to encounter yourself. It is arduous.

To face oneself is arduous - because we have too much in our ignorance; in our self - ignorance we have staked too much. So self - knowledge begins to become very, very difficult. Hence everybody is called, but only a few listen to the call. And of those few who listen to the call, even many of them misinterpret it, delude themselves. Those who listen rightly, even they don't persist for long. Hence, many are called, but very few arrive.

In fact, everybody is called. God's challenge is for everybody; it is an open invitation. For that challenge you are here - to accept it, to go through the fire, to be purified through the fire. But it is a gamble; one has to stake one's all. And this is the irony: that when you don't have anything, you are very much afraid to stake. The irony.... When you have, you can have courage to stake too.

That's my everyday experience: whatever I see somebody who has something, he is ready to surrender, and whenever I come across a person who has nothing, he is very afraid of surrender.

This is very mysterious. One who has nothing is very much afraid to surrender; maybe he is afraid that if he surrenders he will come across his nothingness. If he surrenders his defences, he will have to know his inner emptiness, his poverty.

It is better to pretend that one is rich and never look within. It is better to go on dreaming: 'I have much, so how can I surrender?' But this is my experience, and I have not come across a single exception to this, they are not afraid. And, Jesus says, 'Those who have, they will be given more, and those who don't have, even that which they have will be taken away.'

When you have, you have the courage to stake. And when you stake you become capable of getting more. And when you stake all, unconditionally, totally, only then do you become capable of receiving the gift of God. Then Christ is born in you. When you stake all, Christ is born in you. When you go through the crucifixion, when you are crucified, there is resurrection.

I see two types of people in the world, the whole humanity can be divided into two categories. One thing: all are crucified. Half of them remain crucified, and half of them, or a few of them, have the possibility of being resurrected. Those who remain crucified simply suffer, and they suffer for nothing. Their suffering is meaningless irrelevant.

Have you watched? - your suffering is meaningless, irrelevant. For what are you suffering? What are you gaining out of it? You are simply suffering; you are a wastage, a wasteland. Those who simply suffer are crucified, those who suffer for God are resurrected. Then their suffering begins to have a meaning, a significance.

Life is going to disappear, that much is certain; death is going to happen, that much is certain; but are you going to die for God? or will you be simply dying? If you are going to die for God, if you are going to become an offering, a sacrifice, then you will be resurrected.

Everybody is crucified, only a few get down from the cross, attain a new life: what Jesus call 'life is abundance', life is infinity, holy life - because it is whole. Only a very few get down from the cross and become ecstatic: their death is no more a death, it is the beginning of eternal life.

Now it is up to you. If you accept the challenge, you can be resurrected; Christ will be born in you, Or Buddha, or Krishna. These are just names.

Remember one thing: Krishna, Buddha, Christ - these are not names of certain persons. They denote a certain state, the same state. Christ means one who has realized himself, and through that realization has realized the whole; one who has come home, one who can say 'I am God'. The same is the meaning of Buddha, or Jaina, or Krishna.

Ordinarily, you are wandering away from yourself, and every day you go on going farther and farther away. You go on moving towards the periphery, and you go on creating new peripheries to move into again. You move towards the horizon which is not possible to achieve - because the horizon exists not, it is just illusory. Only the center exists.

That's why Kabir says: Sadhu, O monks! Go nowhere. God is here. God is where you are. Seek Him not anywhere else, otherwise you will miss. And the challenge is not coming from the outside, the challenge is coming from you innermost core has become almost an outside to you. You have become so unaware of it that when your own soul calls to you, you feel as if somebody else has called you. When the masters call you, it is your own inner voice that he is trying to express to you.

It is coming via him. The Master is not outside.

Just the other day there was a question. Dhruva has asked, 'When to listen to the Master? When to say yes and when to say no?' If you have really understood the meaning of the relationship between the disciple and a Master, then there is no disciple and no Master. Then whenever you say no to your Master, you say no to yourself. Then he is you. The question is not to be decided between the Master and the disciple; the question has to be decided between your center and your periphery.

When you say yes to the disciple and say no to the Master, you have said yes to your periphery against your center. When you say yes to the Master against the disciple, you have said yes to your center against the periphery. The Master and disciple are not separate. We will come to it in this song.

Kabir says: These two birds, the Master and the disciple: the disciple has decided to enjoy the world of forms, the manifold world of forms, the circumference, and the Master sits at the center, at the center of the cyclone, and watches, and witnesses - and is happy, happy even that the disciple is roaming around, enjoying. One day the disciple will come back; he has to come back because on the circumference there is no contentment possible, there is no bliss possible. There is only misery and misery and misery, and misery goes on being multiplied every day.

So the first thing to remember: you are being called. I'm a provocation. I am calling you forth. Listen to it; and not only listen, respond; and not only respond, accept the challenge for the journey.

The journey is arduous. It is going to be difficult; it is very inconvenient to go into the unknown, because you have to move away from your securities, away from your comforts, away from all that you have belonged to up to now - your identities. But only when you move away from yourself do you come to yourself. Because that which you think yourself to be right now is your real nature. It is a deception that you have managed; it is a hallucination, it is an auto-hypnosis.

P.D. Ouspensky talks many times about a certain law; he calls it 'the law of the seeds'. it is of tremendous significance to understand it. Have you ever watched a big oak tree? In its lifespan it will create billions and billions of seeds, but all will not become trees. Out of a million seeds maybe one will become an oak tree, others will be lost. Nature produces very extravagantly knowing well that many are called but many don't listen. A million seeds are produced so that one seed can become an oak. Millions of people are born so that one person can become a Christ or a Buddha or a Krishna. Remember this law of the seeds.

Even in man... an ordinary man, a normal man, will make at least four thousand to six thousand ejaculations in his life. Each ejaculation carries millions of life-cells. Out of millions of life-cells, perhaps one will reach to the woman's egg; the woman will become pregnant. Out of millions life- cells, perhaps one....

You will be surprised: a single male body could populate the whole earth if the seeds became embodied. A single human body is enough; a single male is enough to populate the whole earth - because each ejaculation carries millions of life-cells, and in a whole life there are four thousand to six thousand ejaculations. And I am talking about a normal human persons; I am not talking about the supernormal or the abnormal. The supernormal has no ejaculations. His energy starts moving into different dimensions. The abnormal is a maniac.

Just a few days ago I received a letter from a bride. She wrote, 'I am afraid I married a sex maniac.

My husband never leaves me alone. He makes love to me all day long: while I am in the shower, while I am cooking breakfast, while I am making the beds and even while my back is turned to him.

Can you tell me what to do? Signed, Exhausted.' The name is given but I will not tell you the name because the husband is here. And there was a post-script, a small not: 'P.S. Please excuse the jerky handwriting.'

I am not talking about these jerks!

A normal human being can populate the whole world; what about an abnormal human being? He can populate many earths like this. Abnormal human beings become mechanically sexual. They become sex machines; they simply produce life-cells and nothing else. They don't produce life, they produce life-cells. A normal person produces life-cells and life. A supernormal person transforms his whole life energy into attaining higher peaks of life: energy starts moving upward rather than downward. The energy is no more affected by gravitation; the energy starts levitating, flying. It has a different plenitude now.

But this law of the seeds has to be understood: so many people are born. only a few will attain. And what will happen to other seeds? They simply rot, they simply disappear; or they are thrown back again into the world as seeds, they are again given an opportunity.

Don't miss this opportunity. To be a seed is a great opportunity - because to be a seed means to be a possibility, a potentiality - you can grow. But then the seed has to understand many things, because there are a thousand and one barriers to be crossed, and a thousand and one obstacles to be avoided, and a thousand and one wrong alternatives to be dropped. Only then, you move towards growth.

Growth is a rare phenomenon. It is a natural, yet rare. When the seed has found its right soil, it grows. It is very natural; growth is natural but to find the right soil - that is the very crux of the matter.

In today's song, Kabir is giving very clear directions; try to understand them.

SADHO, SAHAJAI KAYA SADHO O SADHU! PURIFY YOUR BODY IN THE SIMPLE WAY.

The word 'sadhu' is a very beautiful; it has to be understood. It has become associated with wrong meanings, but the word is tremendously significant. The very word 'sadhu' means simple, spontaneous, innocent. The very word means innocent. But if you go and look around India, if you go to sadhus, you will not find them innocent at all. They are very complex people, more complex than the ordinary worldly people. From where has their complexity come? They are not spontaneous at all, they are not natural at all. They are doing unnatural things. They are trying, somehow, to go against nature, to go upstream. They are not moving with the river, they are trying to push the river.

Hence, they have become unnatural. They are not sadhus, they are not innocent people.

The first ingredient in a sadhu will be the understanding that one is ignorant. Ignorance brings innocence; knowledge makes you corrupted. If you can honestly, sincerely, 'I don't know,' you become the sadhu: the first step.

Somebody asks you 'Does God exist or not?' and you say 'I don't know' - your response is that of a sadhu. In Buddhist literature, whenever somebody went to Buddha and Buddha asked, 'Do you believe in God? Do you believe in hell, heaven? Do you believe in the soul?' and the man said, 'I don't know, sir,' Buddha would say, 'Sadhu, sadhu.... You are innocent, you are greatly innocent, you are TREMENDOUSLY innocent.' This is the first step.

Knowledge creates complexity: the more you know, the more you become complex - and the more you become cunning, and the more you start trying to deceive and cheat nature. An innocent person remains in cooperation with nature, a man of knowledge starts cheating nature exploiting nature. He uses his knowledge to force nature to serve him.

That's how you see science trying to cheat nature. Of course, in the long run, nature is going to take revenge; you cannot cheat nature for long. Finally, our cheating is going to be a destructive step against yourself. That's what has happened: three hundred years of scientific cheating, and now the whole humanity is coming close to its total death, a global suicide.

To become a sadhu, the first thing is: don't claim knowledge - because all knowledge is illusory. You don't know exactly what the case is, nobody knows. Only ignorant people think they know, the wise people know that they don't know.

The second thing: the sadhu will be like a child, he will move with spontaneity. When he is hungry he will eat, when he is sleepy he will fall asleep. Have you not watched small children? - even while sitting at the dinning table, they fall asleep. They are just eating - a bite in the mouth... and the children have fallen asleep.

The second thing about a sadhu will his spontaneity, but you will not find spontaneity in the so-called sadhus. When they are feeling hungry they are doing a fast; how can they be innocent and how can they be spontaneous? And when they are feeling sleepy they are keeping a vigilance, they are forcing themselves to remain alert. When they are feeling angry they are trying to smile, and when they are feeling sexual they are talking about BRAHAMACHARYA and celibacy.

These people cannot be sadhus - not according to Kabir, not according to me. The sadhu has to be innocent like a small child. Yes, 'Jesus' saying is right when he says: Only those who are like small children will be able to enter into the kingdom of my God. He is talking about sadhus... like small children. But one distinction has to be made: when I say 'like small children', or when Jesus says 'like small children', he does not mean childish; he means innocent yet mature. Innocence has its own kind of maturity - a ripeness of innocence, when innocence has flowered. What is the difference between a childish person and a person who is like a child? The difference is: the childish person has no awareness at all. Yes, he is innocent: when he feels hungry he feels hungry, and he eats; and when he feels sleepy he sleeps - but his spontaneity has a deep background of unconsciousness. The spontaneity is there, but it is unconscious.

When the spontaneity is there AND in the background is consciousness, awareness; when the awareness is there and still you don't interfere with the spontaneous... you are so disciplined in your consciousness that you don't create any unnatural discipline for yourself; your awareness helps you to be natural, to be spontaneous, non-interfering, non-repressive. But yet, you are aware.

These two things have to be understood. There are people who are unconscious and innocent; they are childish. They will not enter the kingdom of God, they are not sadhus. Then there are people who are conscious and have become unnatural. Because of their consciousness they have started interfering with their natural life. These people are so-called monks, sadhus; they are also not ready for the kingdom of God.

A new combination, a new synthesis is needed: awareness with spontaneity. That is what Kabir mean when he says SAHAJ SAMADHI. SAHAJ means spontaneity, SAMADHI means awareness:

spontaneous awareness. If awareness interferes with your spontaneity, you have missed. If your spontaneity goes against awareness, you have missed. A sadhu is one who is both together:

SAHAJAI KAYA SADHO.

Says Kabir: O sadho! Purify your body in the simple, natural, spontaneous way. Don't fight with the body - that is the message. The body is yours, the body is you; don't create any enmity with the body.

The Christians, the Hindus, the Mohammedans, the Jainas - they have all been fighting with the body. Somehow, a very wrong notion has become very prevalent: that the body is the obstacle towards God. It is not so, not at all! The body has nothing to do with it. The body is a vehicle: if you want to use the vehicle to go to hell, it will take you to hell; if you want to go to heaven, it will take you to heaven. The vehicle is simply available, wherever you want to go. If you want to go outside, it will take you outside; if you want to go inwards, it will take you inwards. The vehicle is just a vehicle; it is tremendously beautiful, tremendously cooperative, The body is so cooperative that even when you start destroying the body it cooperates. You can take a whip and whip yourself, and your hand will be cooperating. Look at the tremendous cooperation: you can whip your body with your own hands; you can drink poison with your own hands and with your own mouth, and the body will cooperate.

Its cooperation is unconditional.

Such a beautiful body, such a friendly body - and you have been taught to be against it, and you have been taught that the body is evil, or that the body belongs to the devil, don't listen to the body.

You are embodied in it, you are rooted in it. It is your soil: you have to grow out of it, you have to be nourished by it.

The first thing Kabir says is: O SADHU! PURIFY YOU BODY IN THE SIMPLE WAY. Don't fight with it, cooperate with it. Befriend it, and be spontaneous with it. Fulfill bodily needs, because the body is a chariot and you can make it go to God. It will become your passage, it will take you, you can ride on it. It has been given to you for a particular goal. It is a very valuable mechanism: science has not yet been able to create anything comparable to the body - and I don't think they will ever be able to create anything comparable to the body. The body is God's most beautiful mechanism.

AS THE SEED IS WITHIN THE BANYAN TREE, AND WITHIN THE SEED ARE THE FLOWERS, THE FRUITS, AND THE SHADE; SO THE GERM IS WITHIN THE BODY, AND WITHIN THAT GERM IS THE BODY AGAIN.

Kabir says: The lifespark is hidden in your body - the germ that can become a flowering, the seed that can become God - the potentiality is hidden in the body. Don't fight with it, because that potentiality is very fragile: if you fight with the body you will destroy that potentiality. That potentiality is very delicate: if you become aggressive, masochistic, if you start torturing yourself, that delicacy will disappear.

The body has to be looked after: one has to be very caring about the body and very loving to the body. And then, its very spontaneity purifies it, makes it holy.

THE FIRE, THE AIR, THE WATER, THE EARTH, AND THE AETHER; YOU CANNOT HAVE THESE OUTSIDE OF HIM.

And Kabir says: This body is not outside of God, it is in God. Nothing is outside of Him. The air, the earth, the aether, the fire, the water - nothing is outside of Him, because NOTHING is outside of Him. God has not outside.

Now let me explain it to you in this way: the rock has no inside, man has outside and inside, both.

The rock has only the outside; God has no outside, He has only the inside. These are the three stages of growth: matter - only the outside, no inside. There is no soul in it, no consciousness in it.

Man is both outside-inside - because he is body-soul, matter-mind both. God has no outside. He is simply consciousness, simply soul.

Nothing is outside of god, so He cannot have any outer circumference. Matter has no center, God has no circumference, and man has both. That is the agony of man, and the ecstasy too.

Man is tremendous because he bridges matter and mind, he bridges the world and God. With one hand he holds matter, with the other he holds God. He is the bridge. Look at the beauty of your humanity, the glory... and that is your anguish too - because man is always pulled apart, torn apart.

On one side matter pulls him, on the other side the call of God; on one side material possessions, on the other side love, prayer, meditation; on one side ambition, money, respect, on the other side silence, beauty, good. And man is torn apart. This is one state.

The other state is: you feel so fulfilled because you are both. In you is the meeting-point of God with the world. Man is a crossroads where God and the world meet.

Let me tell you: without you the world would be very empty. Without God the world could not be.

Without matter also, the world could not be. Without man, the world can be - but it will be very impoverished.

Let me repeat: without God there is no possibility of the world, and without matter too, the world cannot exist. Without man the world can exist and God can exist, but both will be impoverished.

Without man, the agony will disappear, and the ecstasy too. God will not be able to dance and sing, and matter will not be able to reach to peaks and touch the feet of God. Without man, the bridge will be broken.

Man is the greatest glory, the most subtle bridge, the most impossible possibility. It should not happen; it is against all rules that man is. God is simple. God is pure consciousness, matter is pure unconsciousness both. He is polar: opposite meet in him, and contradictions meet in him.

Remember this: it is up to you if you want to turn it into an agony - that is your attitude; it is up to you if you want to turn into an ecstasy - that too is your attitude. Agony is ecstasy looked at in a wrong way; ecstasy is agony looked at in the right way. And the poison becomes honey if your vision becomes right.

O KAZI, O PUNDIT, CONSIDER IT WELL:

WHAT IS THERE THAT IS NOT THE SOUL?

And Kabir says: What is there that is not in the soul? Don't talk about the VEDAS, O Pundit; and don't talk about the KORAN, O Kazi; and don't talk about the BIBLE and the DHAMMAPADA. What is there that is not in the soul itself? All the VEDAS are contained there - because all the VEDAS have come out of the soul, flown out of the soul. The source is there within you. All the GITAS and BIBLES are born in you. Because Christ entered his soul, the BIBLE flowered. Because Moses entered his soul, the BIBLE flowered. Because Krishna entered into his innermost core of being, out came the beautiful BHAGAVAD GITA, the celestial song. Because Buddha penetrated his own soul, DHAMMAPADA was born. All is in your soul. When you seek in the VEDAS and the KORAN you seek in a wrong direction, and you are seeking a second-hand God. And God can never be second-hand; God has to be first-hand.

When you are seeking in the scriptures. you are seeking theories and not truth - and truth is original, HAS to be original. The truth has to be born in you, it cannot be borrowed.

O KAZI, O PUNDIT, CONSIDER IT WELL:

WHAT IS THERE THAT IS NOT IN THE SOUL?

Everything is within Him, within God, within the soul - and He is in everything.

THE WATER-FILLED PITCHER IS PLACED UPON WATER, IT HAS WATER WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

IT SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN A NAME, LEST IT CALL FORTH THE ERROR OF DUALISM.

The whole problem has arisen out of language: within and without, God and the world, matter and mind. The whole problem has arisen out of naming things. Don't name, drop language, be in a non-linguistic gap, and suddenly you see - there is only one. Sometimes try a non-verbal approach.

That's what meditation is all about: looking at life without verbalization. Sit by the side of a tree and just look at the tree; don't even say it is a tree, don't say what kind of tree - kajurina, pine, cedar.

Don't call it any name, drop the names.

Sometimes look into somebody's eyes and don't call then any names - man, woman, yours, friend, enemy, young, old, beautiful, ugly - don't bring names in. Just look into the eyes, try to avoid verbalization, and suddenly you will come to a leap, a quantum leap, where you will be surprised to see that the observer has become the observed, the observed has become the observer. Then you don't know who is 'I' and who is 'thou'. These are the moments from where God enters you; His first footsteps are heard.

At least for one hour, drop out of language. To drop out of language is to drop out of religions; to drop out of language is to drop out of all that is man-created. Have you watched it? - language is very, very significant. Animals are silent, trees are silent; they don't agree, they don't have any scriptures.

A tree is neither a Christian nor a Hindu nor a Mohammedan; it is simply there in its beauty, with no name. It does not even know its own name; those names are given by human beings. Your society is created through language, your knowledge is created through language. Just think, if suddenly a miracle happened and language disappeared from the world, what would be the difference between man and animal? What should be the difference between Hindu and a Mohammedan? There would be no difference. All distinctions are language-created.

So make it a small discipline. When I say 'discipline' I don't mean to force it upon yourself. The word 'discipline' means learning. When I say 'discipline yourself', I mean learn.

Sit by the side of the tree, look at the rose, and don't utter words, outside or inside, Just be present.

Let the rose open in your presence, and let your presence shower on the rose. Let there be a meeting with no language. As the rose is silent, so should you bee; as the rose is not saying anything about you, so please, don't say anything about the rose. The rose is not saying how beautiful a man you are. The rose is not saying you are man or woman, black or white. The rose is not saying anything; the rose is in tremendous silence, pulsating in silence. So should you pulsate. Sit by the side, look into the rose, just watch, don't let language arise. If words come, put them aside. Just remain indifferent to words. They will come; they are you old habit, they will not leave you so easily.

You have been using them so much, exploiting them so much. You have been dependent on them so much that they will not leave you so easily: they will hover around, they will buzz around, they ill bug you. They will come and say, 'Beautiful rose....' You remain indifferent, you don't cooperate. I am not saying that you start fighting; you simply don't cooperate - that will do. Fighting never helps.

The moment you fight you are getting into the mess, the confusion.

If you fight with a word, you will need another word to fight it with, remember. You cannot fight with a word without words. A word come and you say, 'I am not supposed to have any words. Osho has said to sit silently.' These are all words. Or you say, 'Don't you know I am meditating? Don't come to me.' But this 'meditation' is again a word.

You can fight only with words. To fight with words you will need more words, and you will get into the whole rut again. No, different, you be neutral. And they will buzz around for a few days. Then by and by they will feel that they are neglected; by and by they will feel you are no more interested; by and by they will feel that they are not welcome. And when words start feeling that they are not welcome, when thoughts start feeling that they are no welcome, they start disappearing. You are no more a host to them.

And one day suddenly you will be surprised: a few moments have passed - the rose has been there, the sun has been there, the green trees have been there, you have been there - and not a single word has crossed. You have tasted, for the first time, what meditation is. You have tasted Tao.

You have had a glimpse into the being of Kabir and Krishna and Christ. You have tasted Bhagwan.

You have come to see something of tremendous import, for the first time; and once tasted, you will welcome it more and more. Whenever you find time, you will sit silently. And there is no need to go to a rosebush; you can sit silently in your room - the walls are as beautiful.

It is said about Bodhidharma that for nine years he sat facing the wall - doing nothing, just facing the wall. Sometimes sit facing the wall, just look at the wall, the plain white wall - nothing to distract, nothing much to say. Anywhere, you can create the interval, the gap. When two thoughts have a gap between them, in that gap take a jump, dive in.

Language is society, language is civilization, language is communism, language is Islam, language is Hinduism, Language is Christianity; and in the gap is Christ, in the gap is Mohammed, and in the gap arises the koran.

It is said that when Mohammed heard for the first time... of course, it is a parable - he heard that a messenger from God was standing and telling him to recite, recite the name of God, recite His glory. The word 'koran' means recite; that's from where the name 'Koran' has come - because the first thing that Mohammed heard was, 'Recite!' He was very much puzzled, and he said, 'How to recite? I don't know!' And the anger said, 'That's why! Recite - because those who know, they cannot recite.' And Mohammed said, 'I am very illiterate, and I don't even know language rightly. I cannot write and I cannot read.' And the angel said, 'Precisely! That's why I say recite! - because those who know and can read and can write, they are lost in their knowledge. You are pure in this moment: recite. In this purity, God has spoken. In this purity, His own innermost soul has spoken.'

In this very purity the beauty Koran was born.

Now, you need not go to the Koran. You can go to your innermost interval and again th messenger will come and say, 'Recite!' I say it so to you because it has happened to me; it can happen to you.

Whenever there is an interval, God's messengers are around you. When there is tremendous silence, God is within you. You are fulfilled.

IT SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN A NAME, LEAST IT CALL FORTH THE ERROR OF DUALISM.

The moment you give a name to something, you have created the world as dual; you have brought a dualism, you have brought a subtle schizophrenia into the world. Whenever you say, 'This is beautiful,' you have brought ugliness into the world. Don't you see it? Whenever you say, 'I love,' you have brought hatred into the world. Whenever you say, 'You are my friend,' you have brought enmity into the world. Whenever you say, 'This is good, right moral,' you have brought immorality into the world, you have brought the devil into the world. In deep silence, when you don't know what is good and what is bad, and you don't utter any labels and names, in that silence the duality disappears, the schizophrenia disappears, the split disappears. The world becomes one.

That oneness is God. And to live in that oneness is to be a sadhu, is to be a sannyasin.

KABIR SAY: LISTEN TO THE WORLD, THE TRUTH WHICH IS YOUR ESSENCE.

When you are listening to your concepts, labels, names, language, you cannot listen to the ultimate word, you cannot listen to the LOGOS. Kabir calls it SABAD, the Word. It means exactly the same as the Bible says: 'In the beginning was the Word' - it was not human, because it was in the beginning; humanity came long afterwards - 'and the Word was with God, and the World was God.'

Kabir uses the word 'SABAD'. 'SABAD' means the word, the LOGOS, that which was before man was ever there, and that which will be there again when man has disappeared. It has nothing to do with our words: it is not linguistic, it is not part of language; it is OMKAR, it is AUM, it is the soundless sound of existence. It is what Zen Masters call 'the sound of one clapping' - unstruck, not by he clash of two. When you clap hands, it is a struck sound, a created sound - and it is out of conflict, it is out of two.

No, there is a sound of one hand clapping - not out of conflict but out of such ultimate harmony, out of one. That is the word, the SABAD, the truth. But you have to drop your language before God can speak His language. You have to be utterly silent before He can convey His message.

But we have a very wrong notion: we think if we have to pray, we have to talk to God. No, prayer is more listening than talking; better listen rather than talk. You cannot improve upon God. Whatsoever you say is meaningless, whatsoever you say is ridiculous. He knows it already, so what is the point?

You keep quiet, you remain in silence. Rather, you try to hear. Be sensitive; don't use the tongue, use the ear than the tongue. The prayer that comes out of the tongue is foolish, meaningless. You are advising God: you are saying, 'Do it this way. Whatsoever you are doing is going wrong.' You say, 'My wife is ill; make her well again. And I am getting old; give me more strength and longer longer life' - and so on and so forth. All your prayers are your advice to God about how things should be.

A really prayerful man cannot advice God; he will say, 'Thy will be done, thy kingdom come; whatsoever you are doing must be right. Maybe I cannot see why it is right, I cannot see even that it is right - that is my ignorance. But don't listen to me. Even if in my ignorance sometimes I say something to you, please never listen to me; you go on doing whatsoever you are doing.'

Real prayer is not a talk, it is a listening, a deep listening. One simply sits silently, open, sensitive, alert. Have you watched? Sometimes waiting for your beloved, your lover, your friend, a slight murmur in the trees, the wind passing by, or old leaves of the almond falling... and you rush out: 'Maybe she has come; maybe he has come.' And it is nothing - just wind playing with old, dead leaves. You go again, again you wait, again something else: the postman moving in the neighborhood, footsteps, and you are again at the door.

Just as you watch for your lover, for your beloved - for small indications you remain alert - in the same way a prayerful mind remains alert for God, for His word to arrive. And it arrives! The moment comes when the Koran arises in you; the moment comes when you start feeing the reality of the Vedas and the Gita. And when you have felt it at your innermost core, then scriptures are beautiful; then you can read. Then read as many scriptures as you can - it is fun, because then all the scriptures become real. you know, you become a witness of them.

The vice-versa is not true: you can go on reading the scriptures; just by reading the scriptures you will not arrive to truth. But if you have arrived, then all scriptures become true. Truth is first, scriptures are shadows, echoes.

KABIR SAYS: LISTEN TO THE WORD, THE TRUTH, WHICH IS YOUR ESSENCE.

HE SPEAKS THE WORD TO HIMSELF; AND HE HIMSELF IS THE CREATOR.

And there are not two persons: when god speaks, He speaks to Himself. There is no other. You be so silent that only God is; then He speaks to you - but then He is speaking to Himself. It is a monologue, there is no other. He talks to Himself, He whispers to Himself.

That is possible only when you have completely effaced yourself. If you exist as 'the other' he cannot whisper; or, He may go on whispering, you will not be able to hear. As the other you are blocked, as the other you are deaf. Drop the otherness: that is the meaning of surrender.

Just the other day somebody asked, 'What is the meaning of surrender?' This is the meaning of surrender: drop your otherness. Don't think of yourself as the other, put aside your separateness.

Don't say, 'I am'; let Him be so totally that you are drowned in that totality, absorbed, lost. Be a wave in the ocean, but don't claim that you are separate from the ocean - that is the meaning of surrender.

THERE IS A STRANGE TREE, WHICH STANDS WITHOUT ROOTS AND BEARS FRUITS WITHOUT BLOSSOMING; IT HAS NO BRANCHES AND NO LEAVES, IT IS LOTUS ALL OVER.

Now Kabir says: God is the original cause. Of course, He cannot have another cause to Him. God is the creator and you cannot ask who has created Him. He is the uncaused cause.

THERE IS A STRANGE TREE... this God, this existence, is a strange tree... WHICH STANDS WITHOUT ROOTS...

Try to understand it; it is simple. The whole cannot be rooted in anything else because it is the whole; nothing exists outside it. The whole is rooted in itself. Now this will be a very strange tree - rooted in itself. The tree has to be rooted in the earth; how can the tree be rooted in itself? But the whole has to be rooted in itself, there is nothing else.

There can be no cause to God, God is the ultimate cause. That is what we mean by 'God': the ultimate cause, the uncaused one, which has always been, which will always be. There is none before it and none after it. God has no past and no future, God has only the present. God is eternal.

'It is a strange tree,' says Kabir, 'which stands without roots and bears fruits without blossoming.' 'It is very illogical,' he says. Existence is illogical. Or, there is a logic to its illogical. It is very strange, mysterious. It is not reducible to human syllogisms. It blossoms and bears fruits without blossoming.

IT HAS NO BRANCHES AND NO LEAVES, IT IS LOTUS ALL OVER.

How is it possible? - lotus all over? It is only and lotus and lotus; no roots, no leaves, no branches. It is simply ultimate flowering. God is the ultimate, that which has already happened. There is nothing more to happen to it. God is not a seed. The seed is something which not yet a flower; something has to happen to the seed. God is that which has already happened, there is nothing more happen to it.

That is the meaning when we say God is perfect; there is no more growing; it has grown. It has always been in that state, the state of perfection.

... IT IS LOTUS ALL OVER.

TWO BIRDS SING THERE; ONE IS THE GURU, AND THE OTHER THE DISCIPLE.

Now God has divided Himself into many forms and goes on playing the game, the leela. Somewhere He is the man and somewhere He is the woman, and they lure each other, and they sing songs of love, and they dance of love. Somewhere He is the guru and somewhere the disciple - the same polarity. Somewhere He is matter and somewhere He is mind; and somewhere He is the sound and somewhere He has become life and somewhere He has become death... but the same polarity.

'The disciple and the Guru' means the yin-yang, the male-female.

THE DISCIPLE CHOOSES THE MANIFOLD FRUITS OF LIFE...

And both are within you! The Master is your innermost core - the witness; and the disciple is your periphery, your world, the SAMSAR.

THE DISCIPLE CHOOSES THE MANIFOLD FRUITS OF LIFE AND TASTES THEM, AND THE GURU BEHOLDS IN JOY.

And the Master inside you, the center inside you, beholds you in joy, in all your games. Have you watched it? Sometimes shift yourself to the standpoint of the Master and see yourself playing - how many games you play: the game of love, the game of ambition, the game of anger, hatred - all are games, all are games. But if you become too absorbed, you have become the disciple; if you have become alert, you have become the Master.

This is the only change, the only transmutation that is needed, the only alchemy. Watch. Kabir is not saying, 'Stop the games'; he is saying, 'Just you watch from the Master's standpoint too,'

Sometimes simply become the watcher, the witness, and see the disciple playing the games. You are talking to your woman and saying beautiful sweet nothing: watch. Enjoy from the Master's side.

For a moment, shift your whole consciousness to the witness and see how beautiful a game you are playing.

If you can shift the Master to the disciple, from the disciple to the Master, you will never one caught in any game. Then the game will remain the game: you can play it as much as you want, to your heart's desire, but you will never be caught, you will never become identified. You will always remain free, free in the world: JEEVAN MUKTA - free in life, dreaming and yet not dreaming.

The game that you are playing with me, of being a disciple, watch it. And sometimes, let your center become the Master, let the game be introverted. It is an extraverted game: I am just trying to train you so that one day you can introvert the whole game. It is easier to play on an introverted stage, a projected stage. It is easy. I am the Master and you are the disciple, so there is not much confusion.

Things are simple: you have one role, I have another role. One day you have to shift it inside; you have to close the eyes and let your center be Bhagwan, you Master, and your periphery the disciple.

And then play the game, the same game, and there will be tremendous energy released. A great understanding will dawn over you... the morning... the sun has risen... you will see your own game.

And remember, don't be tempted to stop it, there is no hurry. If you are tempted to stop it, again you become identified with the Master.

Identification has to be dropped. One has to be free to move from the Master to the disciple, from the disciple to the Master. This is freedom, this is liberation: to move in the polarities. It is very easy to get identified with the disciple; you are the disciple. Then there are Master who are identified with the Master: both are in the same run, in the same boat. Both are in a deep illusion. The real Master is one who is not identified with either, who knows, 'Both are my being, both are my polarities.'

And the Master sits at the center, and the disciple goes on playing, and the Master does not even interfere. He does not say, 'Don't do this!' It is a fame; in a game everything is allowed - yes, sometimes cheating too. In a game... in a game everything is allowed. The game is a game; one is not sincere, serious about it - it is a game. But the witness remains.And then, by and by, the game continues, and yet on a deeper layer it has stopped. The game continues on the surface, the waves go on playing on the surface, and the ocean is totally silent at the center. This is the state of being a Christ of a Buddha or a Krishna. That is what Krishna is trying to say to Arjuna, his disciple: 'Don't be worried about the game. Play! If it has come to be your part to play the game of a warrior and fight this war, fight. Just remain at the center and go on watching that this is a game. And nothing is to be serious about it.'

You will be surprised that Krishna is the only great Master in the world who is known to have cheated.

And Hindus call him 'the most perfect Master'. He is. Rama is not that perfect; he is very afraid of cheating, he is too sincere. Sincerity is his bondage. He is not relaxed. He is perfect saint: he had denied all that is wrong - but that is seriously, and that shows that you are still taking the game very, very seriously. You are not taking it as a game.

Krishna is totally different: it is a game. He promises one day and forgets on another day. He is really liberated; his liberation is perfect, without flaw. His liberation is without flaw because he knows all is a game. When all is a game and all is a dream, then why be bothered? He is not worried and bothered. He plays it and remains unattached.

Kabir is again a perfect Master. He never left the world - he remained in the world, he remained a householder. He had a wife and children and he continued to do his work. He was a weaver, a poor man; he continued to weave, he continued to sell his cloth in the market, He lived a very ordinary life. He had thousands of disciples and they would come and they would say, 'Master, why do you go on doing these things? You simply sit, you simply meditate, you simply rest. We are here, why should you do anything?' But he would say, 'No. Whatsoever game God has given to me, I have to play. And it is good, and I enjoy it. I will miss it very much if I stop. I will miss my customers in the market. They wait for me, I weave for them, and God comes through them to purchase it. No, they will miss me very much. And who will weave such beautiful clothes for them? Nobody can do it as beautifully as I can do it.

The whole day he would weave, and by the evening he would go to the market - as in India weaver go to the market to sell their clothes, whatsoever they have manufactured. And to each customer he would say, 'Ram. So, God, you have come? You were waiting? For you I made a really beautiful piece. And it is going to last. And I have not only woven it, I have put my whole heart in it. Take care of it; it has been made through love.'

He continued. He remain ordinary, and yet with tremendously extraordinary awareness.

The Master is within you, your center; and the periphery is your disciple. When your center arisen, then the outer Master is just a reflection. Then you are grateful to the outer Master because he has pointed to the inner.

THE DISCIPLE CHOOSES THE MANIFOLD FRUITS OF LIFE AND TASTES THEM, AND THE GURU BEHOLDS HIM IN JOY.

WHAT KABIR SAYS IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND:

THE BIRD IS BEYOND SEEKING, YET IT IS MOST CLEARLY VISIBLE.

The center is beyond seeking. You cannot seek it because it is already there; it cannot be sought. It just has to be discovered. It is already there.

A beautiful anecdote Prembodhi has sent me - a joke by Dick Gregory, the black American comedian....

You white folks must be really crazy - like when you came to America you claimed you discovered a country that was not only being occupied at the time by someone else, by the American Indians, but actually being used by them. And you say you discovered it? You must be crazy.

It is like me and my lady meet you and your lady as you come down the street in a beautiful, brand new Cadillac, and my lady would say, 'Wow! What a beautiful car! I wish it was mine.' And I would say, 'Martha, let us DISCOVER it!'

Just the American way: let us discover it!

The inner bird, the eternal bird, is there; you have to discover it on the American way. It has never been lost. It is already occupied. And you are already using it! You may not know it; you are already using it. You are centered in it. Without it you would fall to pieces; it is holding you together. So you can discover it in the American way; 'Martha, let us discover it!'

It is beyond seeking, because in fact it is the seeker - how can the seeker be sought? - and it is the sought. It is the journey and it is the goal; it is the beginning and it is the end. It is the disciple and it is the Master.

THE BIRD IS BEYOND SEEKING, YET IT IS MOST CLEARLY VISIBLE.

THE FORMLESS IS IN THE MIDST OF ALL FORMS.

I SING THE GLORY OF FORMS.

And Kabir says: I sing the glory of forms, because I cannot sing the glory of the formless. You cannot sing the glory of God; that is not possible. It is difficult tp reduce Him a song, it is difficult to reduce Him the words. So Kabir says: Okay, it is impossible to sing the glory of God? I will sing the glory of the manifold forms. I will sing the glory of the rose flower, I will sing the glory of the human eye. I will sing the glory of the river in the night, I will sing the glory of the white cloud, I will sing the glory of the sun and the stars.'

So let us sing the glory of the manifold forms - and that will be an indirect praise of God. God cannot be praised directly; one has to be very indirect. You can offer your praise to God through a rose flower, through the beautiful rock, through a beautiful woman or man. You HAVE to sing the glory of the existence.

And that is the only way to worship God. Don't go to the mosque, and don't go to the temple, and don't go to the gurudwara. Sing the glory of this beautiful cosmos around you: sing the new leaf on the tree, and sing the glory of the new dewdrop on the grass; sing the glory of the stars and the sky, sing the glory of human love. Create poetry, create sculpture, create songs, be creative - because that is the only way to offer yourself to the feet of the Creator.

Says Kabir: Only when you are creative are you close to the creator.