It is Time Now!

EXISTENCE is godful. It is overflowing with God. Yet we see Him not. We are blind - blind because of our beliefs. The more beliefs you have, the more blind you are; your eyes become covered with beliefs and you cannot see that which it.

Only a naked mind can see God, only a naked heart can fuel God. You can go on searching with all your philosophies and your religions and your dogmas; you will never find Him. You will not find Him anywhere - and He is everywhere. Something is blocking the way.

If you are a Hindu you will not be able to see God. If you are a Mohammedan you will miss because you are a Mohammedan. If you are a Christian you have already created the obstacle. Don't be a Hindu and don't be a Mohammedan and don't be a Christian, then there is a possibility to know God. And then you need not go anywhere else - wherever you are, God comes to you. God has been always coming to you, He has been knocking on your doors. But you are so full of your own noise, of your own scriptures, that you can't listen to that still small voice.

He comes in a thousand and one ways - He goes on coming, He goes on hoping. But you are stubborn. And the irony is that you think you are searching for God.

The first sign of a seeker is that he drops all dogmas. How can you seek with a belief inside you? You have already accepted a belief; without knowing the truth you have already arrived at a conclusion.

A mind full of conclusions is incapable of knowing. Only a mind that has not yet concluded is capable of knowing, because that mind is receptive.

Drop your knowledgeability, drop your learning, drop all that you have gathered from others. And you need not go to search for God: He comes. Only He is - to say 'He comes' is not right, because He is already here. He surrounds you; He is your within and your without. You breathe Him. Whenever you embrace anybody you embrace Him, whenever you love anybody you love Him. You may not recognize it, but all your love flows towards Him.

God is not separate from existence. But the philosophers and the theologians have given you the i.:lea that God is the creator. God is not the creator, God is creativity. It is not that He created the world one day and finished it and then has been far away resting. No, He is continuously creating it.

Don't divide the creator and the creation; that division is false. There is no creator and there is no creation, there is only creativity. When a flower blooms it is God blooming again, when a bird sings it is God singing again, when the sun rises it is God rising again, when you open your eyes it is God opening His eyes again. In nature that creativity is unselfconscious. In man that creativity is trying to become conscious. Man is the morning, nature is the night. In nature God is fast asleep, in man He is trying to become awake.

That's why Kabir insists so much for SURATI - remembrance, awareness, consciousness. The more aware you are, the more you will be godly. You are already godly, but only in awareness will you recognize the fact. Only in awareness will you be able to see who you are.

A few things before we enter into the sutras. In the East, we have not thought of God as separate from existence. Not like a potter who makes a pot - then the pot is different from the potter. Not like a painter who paints a canvas - once he has painted, he is separate from the painting. The painter may die and the painting will live - the painting has its own life now; the painter is not needed.

In the East, we have conceived of God as a dancer. You cannot separate the dance and the dancer.

God is nataraj, the dancer of all dancers. You cannot separate the dancer and the dance, they are always together. If there is a dances there is the dancer; the dance has no other life than the dancer. And when the dancer is really in dance he is not separate from his dance either. The dancer dissolves into his dance.

Remember that metaphor, it is very symbolic and significant; it will help you to move into godliness more easily. Prayer is not needed, remembrance is needed. You are that already - all that is needed is to remember who you are.

I have heard an ancient parable. a very famous one.

There was once a very great master, his name was Ribhu. He had one rare disciple, his name was Nidagha. Ribhu hoped too much - seeing the potentiality of Nidagha - he was working hard on him.

The master works hard only on those disciples who are more potential than others. There are differences Of potentiality. There are a few who are only casually interested; much is not possible with them - whose passion to find God is lukewarm, cannot even be called passion. There are a few whose thirst is intense, who are ready to risk all. God is not just one item in their life's search, but the only phenomenon that they would like to know.

Nidagha was rare. Ribhu was working hard on him.

Although the master taught his disciple the Supreme Truth of the One Absolute Reality without a second, Nidagha, in spite of his erudition and understanding, did not get sufficient conviction to adopt and follow the spiritual path of Self-knowledge, but settled down in his native town to lead a life devoted to the observance of ceremonial religion.

That's what I mean when I say if you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian you will not find God. Those are ceremonial religions, those are poor substitutes for the real thing. They cannot nourish you. They can only keep you in a kind of consolation, convenience, comfort. You can go on

telling yourself 'Yes, I am doing whatsoever is needed. I go to the temple, to the church, I pray twice, or five times, I do all the rituals.'

But religion is not a ritual. And religion is not a ceremonial thing, it is not a social formality. It is gambling. It needs guts. It needs you to put your whole being at stake - and to stake that which you know for that which you don't know needs real courage, because you cannot in any way predict the outcome. It is going into the dark; it is leaving that which you know for that which you don't know.

And you never know whether you are going to be a loser or a winner. All is vague. Great courage is needed.

Nidagha had the potential, the master was aware of the potential. But Nidagha himself was not aware of the potential - he escaped from the master into ceremonial religion. He said 'I will read the scriptures, I will do the rituals, I will do whatsoever is asked by the priest.'

And remember, the priest asks only the superficial - it only scratches your skin; it never goes into your heart, it never transforms you. Avoid the priest.

But the sage loved his disciple as deeply as the latter venerated his master. In spite of his age, Ribhu would himself go to his disciple in the town, just to see how far the latter had outgrown his ritualism. At times the sage went in disguise, so that he might observe how Nidagha would act when he did not know that he was being observed by his master.

Yes, that's what a master has to do - to go on observing you, to go on observing you in those moments when you are completely forgetful of the master, to see what is really happening in your life - because what you pretend is not the real thing. You can go to the temple and you don't mean it. You can pray and those words are only lip-service; they don't come from your innermost core.

You can read the scripture without reading it at all. You can go on moving through empty gestures, mechanical gestures - you can deceive the ordinary person. But you cannot deceive the master.

He will look through your empty gestures.

So Ribhu was after his disciple, and sometimes he would go in disguise.

On one such occasion, Ribhu, who had put on the disguise of a village rustic, found Nidagha intently watching a royal procession. Unrecognized by the town-dweller Nidagha, the village rustic enquired what the bustle was all about, and was told that the king was going in procession.

'Oh! It is the king. He goes in procession! But where is he?' asked the rustic.

'There, on the elephant' said Nidagha.

'You say the king is on the elephant. Yes, I see the two' said the rustic. 'But which is the king and which is the elephant?'

'What!' exclaimed Nidagha. 'You see the two, but do not know that the man above is the king and the animal below is the elephant? Where is the use of talking to a man like you?'

'Pray, be not impatient with an ignorant like me' begged the rustic. 'But you said "above" and "below".

What do they mean?'

Nidagha could stand it no more. 'You see the king and the elephant, the one ABOVE and the other BELOW. Yet you want to know what is meant by "above" and "below"?' burst out Nidagha. 'If things seen and words spoken can convey so little to you, action alone can teach you. Bend forward, and you will know it all too well.'

The rustic did as he was told. Nidagha got on his shoulders and said 'Know it now. I am ABOVE as the king and you are BELOW as the elephant. Is that clear enough?'

'No, not yet,' was the rustic's quiet reply. 'You say you are above like the king and I am below like the elephant. The king, the elephant, above and below - so far, it is clear. But pray tell me, what do you mean by I and YOU?'

When Nidagha was thus confronted all of a sudden with the mighty problem of defining the 'you' apart from the 'I', light dawned on his mind. At once he jumped down and fell at his master's feet, saying 'Who else but my venerable master, Ribhu, could have thus drawn my mind from the superficialities of physical existence to the true Being of the Self? Oh, benign master, I crave thy blessings.'

If you look at yourself, at your knowledge, at all that you think you know - if you observe it, you will be surprised that you know only words. I, thou, above, below, king, elephant - just words. You don't know who is behind the words.

Who is this person you go on calling 'I'? You have lived with this person, you ARE this person, but do you know who you are? Do you know the woman you love or the man you love, who is the other?

You must be fast asleep; you have not even known who you are.

And you start searching for God, and you start searching for the totality, for the whole. And you do not even know this small tiny reality of your being.

Kabir says: Only awareness will help. You will have to become more aware. You will have to light a small candle of consciousness in your heart - that light will help. You will have to become more silent, you will have to drop the noises in your head; that continuous procession of thinking will have to be stopped. And once that procession is no more there and your heart is alert, aware, conscious, you will be surprised: God has always been there. You have been meeting God every moment of your life - you have been breathing Him, He has been beating in your heart, He has been pulsating in your energy. He has been your love and He has been your anger, and He has been your birth and He will be your death. God is simply the name of the totality that life consists of.

God is not separate and far away, He is very close by - just in the corner. And you go on rushing for Him, you go on searching for Him. Your eyes have become fixed on the distant, on the faraway.

That's why you go on missing Him.

The sutras.

I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS.

KOUN MURALI - SHABD SUN ANAND BHAYO.

KABIR SAYS: The music has penetrated, it has overwhelmed me. But from where it comes I cannot decipher. Whose flute is this? I cannot see the dancer - the dance I can see. I cannot see the singer - the song has reached me. Yes, God is not a singer but a song. There is nobody behind the flute. This is very difficult for us to understand: there is nobody behind the flute like a person, there is nobody behind the universe. The universe is it - it is THIS. The universe is not a symbol for somebody else, not a sign for somebody else. The universe itself is God.

If you can't understand this you will go on looking somewhere in a faraway land beyond life. And you will go on missing - because He is here and you look there, He is now and you look then. He is so close that even if you close your eyes you will find Him. He is the very core of your being.

KOUN MURALI - SHABD SUN ANAND BHAYO.

From where comes this music? says Kabir. Who is playing on His flute? The music has come to me, I am permeated by it. Great bliss has descended upon me, I am blessed by it. But from where does it come? What is the source of it? Who has caused it?

Nobody has caused it. That dual logic has to be propped. The music is the musician and the dance is the dancer. Anal the flute is the flute-player too - there are not two. The moment you create duality you create problems which cannot be solved. And that's how it has been, down the ages. All philosophy depends on duality - I/thou, mind/matter, body/soul. The world/God.

But watch deep inside your own being. Is the mind separate from the body? Is there really any separation, any debarking line? Can you divide? Can you say 'This is mind and this is matter'? The body and the mind are not two things. You are body/mind - you are psychosomatic, you are one unity. The body is the visible part of your being and the being is the non-visible part of the body. The body is your surface and you are the body's depth. But they are not separate.

The world is the body of God. They are not separate, it is one reality. They are two because we cannot yet understand the one. This is the difficulty with the mind - the mind can understand only by dividing, the mind can understand only by analyzing. The mind always divides: that is the way to understand.

You see a dancer and you say 'I am seeing the dance and there is a dancer behind it.' You see a man running on the beach and you think there is running and the runner. There are not two; the running is the runner.

But all the languages of the world - almost all the languages, except a few primitive languages - create this illusion of duality. And it is very difficult for these languages to explain their duality. If you look in the dictionary and you want to know what mind is, you will find the definition: 'That which is not matter.' And if you look for matter you will find the definition: 'That which is not mind.' Now, what kind of nonsense is this?

You know neither mind nor matter. Matter has to be defined by saying 'It is not mind' and mind has to be defined by saying 'It is not matter.' And the definitions look very clear cut, but nobody has been

able to really demark the two separately. They are not; they are one. They are just as one as hot and cold - the hot is nothing, the cold is not separate from the hot. They both exist on the same ladder, it is one energy. But the distinction is useful.

Life and death are also not two. It is the same energy, in action and in rest. Just because an energy has gone into rest you need not call it separate. Speaking, non-speaking, you are one - when you talk and when you are silent, you are one. Just because talking and silence look so different you don't become two; you remain one.

But because of this dichotomy, great problems have arisen in the world of religion. If you think you are separate from the body then you start fighting with the body. Then the holy seems to be the enemy, then the body seems to drag you into the world. Then your life pattern becomes that of repression.

And if you think God is separate from the world, naturally you start thinking that the world distracts you from God. So avoid the world, move into a monastery, escape into a desert or a forest, so that the world cannot drag you into its mire.

Once you start seeing God and His world as one, life becomes a totally different phenomenon. Then you are no more life-negative; you become life-affirmative.

And Kabir is a life-affirmative mystic. He never left his home, his wife, his children. He never went anywhere; he never went to the Himalayas. He lived in his home, just the ordinary life of a householder - and yet became an enlightened one. He never escaped from any situation. He remained rooted in the earth: he was earthly and yet godly. And that is the highest synthesis.

And that's what I would like my sannyasins to be: Be in the world, because this world is God's world.

Love life, and loving life you will be loving God. Search into life, and the deeper you go, the more you will find that the world is transforming its qualities. The earth becomes sky if you go deep into it, the body becomes the soul if you go deep into it. The question is only of depth.

Kabir says:

I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS.

Nobody has ever known. Only the song is heard; the singer is never found. Only the music is heard; the musician is never found. And there is no need for the musician to be there, there is no need for the dancer - the dancer has dissolved into his dance, the singer has become the song.

Remember the difference between the dancer and the dance. When you say 'dancer' it looks like something static. When you say 'dance' it is something moving, dynamic, it is alive. The dancer is closed, the dance is open. The dancer looks like a thing - confined, defined. The dance remains undefined. The dancer is a kind of blocked energy, stuck somewhere. The dance is a rove;like movement. Think of God as movement, dynamism, energy. Don't think of God as substance, as matter, as static. Think of God as action - as creativity, not as a creator.

I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE...

And when you are silent and when you are listening you will hear the sound, you will hear the music.

It is ecstatic - but there is nobody behind it.

... BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS.

A LAMP BURNS AND HAS NEITHER WICK NOR OIL.

JOT BARE BIN BATI.

Kabir says: This is a miracle! I am puzzled.

A LAMP BURNS AND HAS NEITHER WICK NOR OIL.

It is illogical, it is absurd. It should not be so, but it is so. The dancer is not there, only the dance is. It is illogical - how can the dance be without the dancer? You will have to learn dancing, you will have to go into the experience.

One of the greatest dancers of this century was Nijinsky. People were puzzled by his dance. Never before and never after has such a miracle been seen on the stage. There were some moments when Nijinsky would get so lost in his dance that everybody in the audience would feel that the dancer had disappeared. And a miracle would happen: he would start jumping so high that it is not possible, the gravitation does not allow that much height. And not only that - when he would start descending he would come so slowly, as if it was in his control. He would not fall, as expected. He would descend so slowly, as if he had no weight, as if he was just a feather or a dry leaf falling slowly slowly from the tree - in no hurry.

He was asked again and again 'What happens?' And he would say 'If I want it to happen it does not happen. I have tried and I have failed. Whenever I try I fail; my failure is absolutely certain. But when I am lost in my dance, when I disappear, suddenly weight also disappears from me. And I am also surprised just as you are surprised, because it looks so illogical. I don't feel the gravitation any more. It is not that I manage falling slowly; it simply happens. When I am not there, that miracle happens.'

Now, Nijinsky will know what Kabir means - that there is nobody playing on the flute. God has become His flute, His song, God has become His creation. He has descended into you, into trees, into rocks. God exists no more as a person anywhere. He has become His world.

There is a famous Zen story, as illogical as Zen stories are.

A painter was asked by an emperor to paint the Himalayas on his palace wall - he was a lover of the Himalayas. The painter was a Zen master; he took three years - three years to live in the Himalayas, to feel the Himalayas. And the emperor said 'You will take three years?' He said 'I have asked only for the minimum time - because unless I become part of the Himalayas I will not be able to paint it.

How will I know? I have to go and get lost in the Himalayas.'

And after three years he came back and painted the wall - in three days. The emperor came to see. It was a miracle; he had never seen the Himalayas so beautiful - even the real Himalayas were

comparatively a little pale and faint and flat. And he became so interested that he asked 'I can see a path winding around the mountains. Where does it go?'

And the painter said 'Wait, let me go and see.' And he disappeared into the painting. He never came back again.

This is absurd - but significant. It says something. That's how it has happened with God, He has disappeared into His painting. You cannot find Him separate now. You can find Him only in a tree dancing, in the wind or a river winding its path towards the ocean, or in a child laughing or in tears.

You can find Him only in His creation now.

So those who are looking for a God as a person separate from existence are looking in vain.

A LAMP BURNS AND HAS NEITHER WICK NOR OIL.

A WATERPLANT BLOSSOMS AND IS NOT ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM.

A lotus with no roots, and a lamp without wick or oil. A flute singing a song, and nobody behind it.

Uncaused. Yes, it is not logical. But life has no obligation to be logical. Logic is man's effort - life is bigger than that. Kabir is trying to tell you about his experience of the uncaused - his experience of pure energy which is not a person.

When you enter into God you don't enter into Him as if He is a person, you enter into Him as a flood of energy. The lotus blooms but you will never find the roots anywhere. And the light burns bright but there is no oil and no wick.

These words are just to indicate that only those who are ready to become illogical can get into the reality. The logician will go on, round and round, and will never arrive at the center of reality - because.the center of reality is absurd. It follows no logic, it is not according to any philosophy. It is simply there, a paradox.

And to meditate is to live that paradox. To become a sannyasin is to drop logic, is to go into the illogical. If you move logically you move in a human work, if you cling to logic you will remain on the surface. You can spin and weave beautiful philosophies out of logic but they will be dead, they will never be alive. Life is illogical.

And this is one of the findings of modern physics too. This has always been the finding of real metaphysics; now this is corroborated by modern physics too. The deeper the physicist has entered into matter, he has become more and more puzzled - because at the very core of matter all is absurd. Electrons and neutrons and protons follow no logic, they behave in a very illogical fashion - and you cannot impose any logic on them. Modern physics is very close to mysticism.

My own feeling is that whenever you enter into anything deeply you will come across the absurd - because the center is absurd. And it is good that it is absurd. A logical thing will be a poor thing; it will have no splendor, it will have no mystery in it. Only the illogical can have mystery in it, only the illogical can be mysterious. And only the illogical can have splendor and beauty.

I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE,

BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS.

KOUN MURALI-SHABD SUN ANAND BHAYO.

From where does it come? Who is playing it? Great ecstasy has happened to me, says Kabir, but it is all out of the blue, out of nowhere. I cannot pinpoint the source; I cannot indicate from where, from what direction it comes, who has showered upon me such blessing. But great blessing has happened. Who cares from where it comes? Who cares whether there is anybody playing the flute or not? The song is so beautiful, the song is so absorbing, the song makes one so drunk, that it is pointless to bother. Whether God has one thousand hands or two hands or four hands, whether God looks like the Christians paint Him or the Hindus paint Him - that is all meaningless, irrelevant; that is not to the point at all.

Once the blessing has showered on you, when the cloud of the unknown has rained on you, when you have seen that light, that eternal light, that perpetual light, which needs no oil and no wick... and when you have seen that lotus which blooms and has no roots in the earth, which blooms without roots.... To show the paradoxicalness of reality, Kabir is using these metaphors.

A LAMP BURNS AND HAS NEITHER WICK NOR OIL.

A WATER PLANT BLOSSOMS AND IT IS NOT ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM.

WHEN ONE FLOWER OPENS, ORDINARILY DOZENS OPEN.

And Kabir says one thing more: When one flower opens it is never just the one flower - it triggers a process; then flowers go on opening. It is not that one blessing comes to you, or one song - once the one has come then it is a non-ending process. The first flower may be difficult but the others simply go on coming. The first experience is difficult, difficult because you don't allow it. Once you have allowed it then it is not only one flower opening - a thousand and one flowers go on opening.

Your whole being becomes full of the fragrance of millions of flowers. Buddha has said 'When my lotus opened I saw millions of lotuses opening all around. When I became enlightened' Buddha is reported to have said 'I saw the whole existence becoming enlightened.'

One light starts burning in you and the whole of life becomes aflame. Then you see each and everything as luminous. You can see only that which has happened to you; you cannot see that which has not happened to you.

If you come across Christ you will not recognize him. How can you recognize him? - nothing like that has happened to you. Even those twelve apostles who lived with Christ - dined with him, slept with him, moved with him, walked with him - were always suspicious, always doubtful, as to whether he was really the Christ. 'Is he really the messiah we have been waiting for?' Their problem is natural - how can they recognize anything that has not happened in them? You can recognize only that which you know. Nothing like that has happened to them - they have not tasted of God at all; not even a drop of God has entered into their being. And here is this man, drunk with God. They can only trust - but the doubt goes on coming.

When Buddha walked, people couldn't recognize him. Recognition starts coming only when people start becoming enlightened. Then they recognize, then they can see. You can see only that which

you have known already. And then it is not only that you know that a Buddha is a Buddha or a Christ is a Christ - then suddenly you see ordinary trees and ordinary rocks are all Buddhas and all Christs. Then the whole of life is full of God: it is Godful.

WHEN ONE FLOWER OPENS, ORDINARILY DOZENS OPEN.

THE MOON BIRD'S HEAD IS FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS OF THE MOON...

In India there is a bird called the moon bird. It continuously looks at the moon, unblinkingly it goes on looking at the moon. It is mad after the moon - it is a lunatic, it is moonstruck, it is mad.

THE MOON BIRD'S HEAD IS FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS OF THE MOON, AND WHEN THE NEXT RAIN WILL COME IS ALL THAT THE RAIN BIRD THINKS OF.

And there is another bird, the rain bird, which only thinks of one thing - when the rain is coming again. They are lovers.

Kabir says: Unless you become a lover like this, a moon bird or a rain bird, you will not find Him.

Until your whole being is full of ONE - one longing, the longing for the Beloved - you will not find Him. When the longing is absolute and total, suddenly He is there. You will hear the sound of the ecstatic flute, you will see the lamp that burns without wick or oil, and you will see the lotus blooming.

And one lotus triggers the process and the whole existence becomes just lotuses and lotuses and the whole existence is full of the fragrance of the divine.

But when? Just like the moon bird, you have to long for God. An intense intention, a tremendous longing, a total desire, a passion that knows no distraction. A passion so absolute that waking you think of God, that sleeping you dream of Him, that eating you think of Him, that walking you think of Him. When truth becomes such a concentrated search, nobody can miss for long.

WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING?

The original has not been rightly translated. The original is: TAISE SANT SURAT K HOKE HOGAYE JANAIN SANGHATI - 'Just like the moon bird or like the rain bird, the seeker remembers and remembers only God.'

TAISE SANT SURAT K HOKE

He becomes a moon bird, he becomes a rain bird, he longs only for God. His heart burns with one passion, he knows only one desire. All his desires are dissolved into one desire - he becomes a torrent of one desire.

RAISE SANT SURAT K HOKE

His heart beats for one, he breathes for one, he lives for one. His whole life is turned towards God:

the search for truth, the search for the total, the search for the universal spirit. Just like that, the seeker remembers and destroys the wheel of life and death for ever.

HOGAYE JANAIN SANGHATI.

One who longs for God so totally goes beyond life and death - he knows transcendence. He becomes capable of hearing the sound of the ecstatic flute. And when you hear that music so totally it is not only that God is music - when you hear that music so totally you are also music.

Meditate on this line of T.S Eliot:

MUSIC HEARD SO DEEPLY THAT IT IS NOT HEARD AT ALL, BUT YOU ARE THE MUSIC.

God is music, from one side. And when you hear it you are also music, from another side. Then the singer is no more and the listener is no more; they have become dissolved into one music.

I have heard a beautiful story.

It happened in Lucknow, a great musician came to the city. But he was a little bit eccentric, as musicians are prone to be. The king was very much interested, he was a lover of music - he asked the musician to come to the palace and play on his sitar for him.

The musician said 'There is a condition. While I am playing, everybody has to sit like a marble statue. Nobody should move, not even in appreciation. Nobody should shake his head - and if somebody shakes his head, his head has to be cut off.'

The king was surprised by this condition. But he was also a madman. He said 'Okay. The music has to happen.' So the people of the city were informed: 'If you come, beware, come prepared. Nobody is allowed to move.'

And it naturally happens when you hear great music YOU ARE moved - actually moved. Your body starts throbbing with it, you start pulsating with it, the beat enters into your being. People were also very much puzzled; they had never heard of such a condition. In fact a musician loves seeing that people are moved - that tears are flowing and people are swaying, that the music has reached their heart and touched them and moved them.

Thousands of people were interested to hear him play, but only a few hundred came. They all sat like statues in yoga postures, unmoving, afraid, and the king placed a few people around the audience with naked swords. It was a strange sight. And the musician played - and he was a great musician, incomparable - and after one or two hours a few heads, a dozen or so, started shaking.

The king was worried. Those dozen people were caught; when the musician had stopped, those dozen people were caught. And the king asked 'Do you really mean it? Should we kill them?'

The musician said 'No. These are the people I would like to play for now - for them I would like to play. Let the others go, they are worthless. I wanted to find these people, and that was the only way.

That's why I made the condition. These are the people who were really moved - even death was meaningless - who were really drowned, drunk, who became the music.'

Yes, MUSIC HEARD SO DEEPLY THAT IT IS NOT HEARD AT ALL, BUT YOU ARE THE MUSIC.

In that ecstasy of God's approaching you, entering you, neither is there a musician behind that music, nor are you left. Only music is left. That's what Pythagoreans have called 'the divine harmony'.

Pythagoras is one of the most penetrating mystics in the West, one who comes very close to the Eastern heart - who is really a man of the East accidentally born in the West. Pythagoras would have understood what Kabir means, that all is lost in that music and only music remains.

The duality has melted into oneness. The knower and the known are dissolved; there is only knowing. The lover and the beloved have dissolved; there is only loving. And remember, I am not saying there is only love, I am saying 'loving' - so that you remember that love is not a thing but a process. A dynamic process, an ongoing process. That music is our search.

WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING?

Who are you searching for? Ask this question. In moments of silence, in moments of meditation, let this question go like an arrow into your heart.

WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING?

When you have fallen in love with a woman have you really fallen in love with a woman? or has the woman simply been a window to something higher, greater, bigger? You have fallen in love with a friend: you must have seen some glimpse of the beyond. Whenever you fall in love you fall in love with God. Apparently it is not so, you fall in love with a man or a woman - but those are windows.

And that's why love is so frustrating.

It is as if you have seen the sun rising from the window and you have fallen in love with the frame.

Now, sooner or later you will be in despair - because that frame of the window is not the sun rising.

That beauty does not belong to the window; the window only allows you an approach to the beauty.

You cling to the frame, and later on you find it is as if you have been cheated and deceived. All lovers find it finally. And naturally then they are angry at the other - they think the other has been cheating. All lovers experience this.

The husband thinks the wife has cheated him, the wife thinks the husband has cheated her. Nobody has cheated; there was a misunderstanding. The window had given them a glimpse of the beyond - the sky and the bird on the wing, and the sun and the moon and the stars, and the breeze that comes from the window - it had opened a dimension. But the window is not that dimension. And you started decorating the window, and you went to a court and got married to the window. Now you will be frustrated. Sooner or later you are carrying your window everywhere like a cross on your shoulders, and you are burdened. And you think 'For what? How did I become deceived?'

If you can remember that it is always God whom you love... It is always God; God is your original object of love. Yes, sometimes it shows in the eyes of a woman, in the face of a man - that is just a reflection, that is just an echo. Feel grateful to the window, feel grateful to the echo, feel grateful to the mirror that has reflected something of the beyond. But go in search of the beyond.

If love grows rightly it will become prayer. The woman will become your temple, the man will become your temple. You will feel grateful to the woman but you will know that God looked through the eyes of the woman towards you. And you will search for that God.

This is my observation: whatsoever you fall in love with, even sometimes ugly things like money you are still searching for God. Because money gives a feeling of unlimitedness. When you don't have money you feel very much limited - you want to purchase a thing and you cannot. Your money gives you a certain freedom - only so much freedom, but your freedom is hampered from everywhere.

Hence people fall in love with money. They are really searching for freedom, and freedom is with God. They are searching for an experience of expansion, they are searching for some spiritual experience, through money. It is not possible through money - they have misunderstood, they have misinterpreted.

Yes, money gives a certain freedom - you can purchase more, you can shop more, you can do many more things. But you are not more. Having is not being. You possess more, but you are not more because you possess more. In fact the more you possess, the more you feel your inner poverty - compared to your possessions you look even more poor than before. So a very paradoxical thing happens: the richest man in the world feels the poorest in the world. Now he knows that he has possessed all that he can possess - but he is still as small, he has not grown.

People seek ugly things like political power - that too gives a feeling of potentiality, of power. When you are the president of a country of course you are more powerful; when you can destroy people or save people you feel more powerful. But the search is for God - because only with God are you really powerful. The political power is only a substitute and does not mean much; it is deceiving yourself.

Those who have looked into the human mind deeply, their observation is that whatsoever you fall in love with, you are really searching for God. Searching in a wrong way, in a wrong direction, but still searching for God.

WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING?

IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING!

KABIR says: Enough is enough. You have searched in money, you have searched in power, you have searched in men and women, you have searched in many other ways. It is time now...

IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING!

Time to move in the real direction of love, time to search for the real Beloved.

TIE THE BODY AND THEN TIE THE MIND SO THAT THEY SWING

BETWEEN THE ARMS OF THE SECRET ONE YOU LOVE.

BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES.

AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT.

The original has a beauty of its own: NAINAN BADAR JHAR LAO - 'Let your eyes become clouds pouring rainwater.' Let tears flow from your eyes in a deep longing for God. Feel that you are missing your beloved - cry for it, weep for it, let your tears become your prayer. All other prayers are poor compared to the prayer that happens through tears. All words are poor.

NAINAN BADAR JHAR LAO.

Now let your eyes become clouds: pour tears. Words are futile - when you bow down in prayer it is better to cry, it is better to weep. It is pointless to repeat prayers that have been taught to you in your childhood - those words no more have any meaning; you can repeat them mechanically, they are very superficial. Let your heart cry.

BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES.

AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT.

Now, here the English translation has missed the whole point.

SHYAM GHATA UR CHHAU RE.

You will have to understand the metaphor. In the East, Krishna and Rama have been painted as blue. There is no blue race in the world. There are white and there are black and there are yellow people and red people, but there is no blue race in the world; nobody is blue. But Krishna and Rama have been painted in the East as blue-coloured for a certain reason. It is a metaphor. It is not a reality, it is not fact, it is a myth - hilt of treat meaning.

You must have seen it: when the river is shallow it is white, when the river becomes deep it becomes blue - depth gives it a color of blueness. So blue has become the symbol for depth. The sky looks blue: if you ask the scientist he will say there is no color in the sky, the sky is simply colorless - it looks blue because of infinity; that infinity gives it the appearance of blueness. It is not colored blue, blue is an appearance. So blue is the color of infinity.

And in a hot country like India, when the first clouds come the whole country rejoices. The thirsty earth desires and prays for the first clouds to come. And the first clouds are blue clouds, full of rain.

So Krishna's name has become associated with the blue clouds. One of his names is 'Shyam', it means blue - blue like the cloud full of rain. When the rain showers, the heart is fulfilled.

SHYAM GHAYA UR CHHAU RE.

Kabir says: Let your eyes become clouds, let your eyes become nothing but tears of prayer, and cover yourself over entirely with the blue cloud of Krishna. The translation has missed it:

AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT.

It has nothing to do with night, it has nothing to do with the shadow of the night. It has something to do with the infinity of God, with the blueness of God. And if you understand the metaphor of night rightly then the translation that way can be allowed...

Night also has a few things about it. One is, the darkness of the night is unlimited, infinite. Light is always finite, limited; darkness is always unlimited, unbounded. And light creates a kind of tension - that's why it is difficult to fall asleep in the day. In the night you can rest easily, relax easily; the darkness is relaxing, calm and quiet. The darkness is like the womb of the mother, you can lose yourself in it - in that way, God is a dark relaxing night.

Relax into the infinite darkness of God.

To the Western ears 'darkness of God' will sound a little odd. because in the Bible God is always symbolized as light. In the East, we have symbolized God with everything possible - with light, yes, with darkness too. Light has a few qualities which God has and darkness also has a few qualities which God has - because God is both day and night, summer and winter, life and death. He has to have the qualities of all the polarities; God is the unity of polar opposites.

BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES.

AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT.

BRING YOUR FACE UP CLOSE TO HIS EAR, AND THEN TALK ONLY ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT DEEPLY TO HAPPEN.

Again the translation is inadequate - not only inadequate but has missed the point, the vital point in it. The original is: AVAT AVAT STRUT KI RAH PAR - 'Slowly slowly, make yourself listen to him.'

The translation has gone to just the opposite.

These versions are from Robert Bly; he does not know Hindi. He has great poetic insight, that's why I have chosen his translations. There are many translations available which are done by people who know Hindi, or done by Indians, but they don't have any poetic insight. The translations are accurate but very unpoetic. They are literal - but Kabir is a great poet and to translate him literally is not accurate. Then it is only the body, and the soul is missing.

Robert Bly is a poet, has the poetic insight, but he does not know Hindi. So sometimes he has missed, sometimes he has done just the opposite. For example, in this line:

BRING YOUR FACE UP CLOSE TO HIS EAR...

The original is: AVAT AVAT SHRUT KI RAH PAR. 'Bring your ear close to his face' - that will be more accurate. 'Slowly slowly, make yourself listen.'

SHRUT does not mean just hearing, it means listening - and there is a difference. Sometimes you hear but you don't listen - sometimes you are hearing because your ears are open and there is no

way to close them. One can close one's eyes but one cannot close one's ears; they are simply open, so you hear. But only rarely do you listen.

When you are there, totally there in your hearing, then it becomes listening. When one listens attentively, Lovingly. sympathetically, when there is no argument going on inside, when the mind is not wandering anywhere else, when there are no more thoughts moving in the mind, then hearing becomes listening. That is called SHRUT - right listening.

Kabir is saying 'Slowly slowly, make yourself listen to Him.' The right prayer is not to say anything to God. What have we to say to Him? What can we say to Him? The right prayer is to first prepare yourself to listen to Him, what He has to say to you. Become receptive, open, absorbing. Slowly slowly, make yourself listen to Him.

And when you have become so silent, so utterly silent that you can hear whatsoever He has to say, listen: the sound of the ecstatic flute is heard. It is ALWAYS being played - the existence is full of His music. The wind blowing through the trees is His music, these birds are His music. All the sounds in existence are His music. But you have never been able to listen yet. You have heard, but you have not listened.

Kabir says: First become ears, be a silent listening - and only then will you be able to say something to Him.

But people start their prayers by saying something to Him - that's how prayers have gone wrong.

First listen; then you may have something to say to Him. What can you say then? A thank-you, a thankfulness, a gratitude.

So real prayer consists of two parts. First, becoming silent, listening to God's music. And second, a thankfulness. The real prayer demands nothing, asks for nothing, CANNOT ask, desires nothing.

The real prayer is a desire less silence. And after that music has been heard what is there to say?

A gratefulness, a gratitude, has to be expressed.

Bring yourself, slowly slowly, to a silent listening. And then you will be able to say something to Him.

KABIR SAYS, 'LISTEN TO ME, BROTHER, BRING THE FACE, SHAPE, AND ODOR OF THE HOLY ONE INSIDE YOU.'

Become so receptive, become a womb, become feminine. The path of love is the path of the feminine. Whosoever follows it, man or woman, has to become feminine. The path of love is not aggressive, the path of love is not of active search and seeking; the path of love is a passive receptivity. One waits like a woman waits for the lover. One is a womb ready to become pregnant with God.

Remember this metaphor of the womb. On the path of love you have to become a womb - utterly silent and passive, not doing anything, just being.

One who looks is not looking. In looking there is no one - looking is a state of emptiness, as listening is. Truly listening, we are nothing; truly looking, we are nothing. It is not a matter of doing, but of

being. 'The way to do is to be' says Lao Tzu. The way to do is to be - no other doing is needed on the path of love. Just be; calm and collected, just be. Wait. Let your eyes be full of tears, let your heart be full of passion - but wait. Be aflame - but wait. There is no need to go anywhere, there is nothing to be done - just being. The way to do is to be.

But this frightens people; emptiness frightens people.

I have heard, Pascal confessed: 'The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.'

That's why people are so full of unnecessary things. They go on clinging to rubbish. 'The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.' Without, there are infinite spaces, utterly silent. And within you there are infinite spaces, utterly silent. And between these two silences you go on creating noise. That noise keeps you separate from God.

Let that noise disappear, and these two silences become one. In that becoming one, is the meeting with the Beloved. Those who know will not be afraid, those who have tasted a little bit will not be afraid.

Leonardo Dan Vinci said: 'Amongst the greatest things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.'

Buddha said the same thing again and again: To be nothing is to be all. To be totally empty is to be totally full.

A great Zen artist, Hakusai, at the end of a long life, joyously exclaimed 'At last I do not know how to draw!' This is knowing how to draw - this is responding from innocence, from a state of not-knowing.

One starts living when one does not know how to live - as the grey seal in the blue wide way does not know how to swim, and the white gull, ignorant of how to fly, does not try nor worry whence and where and to what end it lives and flies and dies.

On the path of love, knowledge is not needed, but a state of innocence. Doing is not needed, practicing is not needed, but a state of loving. Eyes full of tears and the heart full of prayer - wordless prayer, silent prayer.

All that men strain and strive to become is at best as unnecessary as painting red roses red. At worst it is unnatural - striving to be spiritual, by whatever means, is putting legs on a snake. It is not needed at all, it is unnecessary. Don't try to put legs on a snake. You may think you are being very compassionate, but you will destroy the snake, you will kill the snake. The snake need not have any legs.

All that men strain and strive to become is at best as unnecessary as painting red roses red. At worst it is unnatural - striving to be spiritual, by whatever means, is putting legs on a snake. One cannot strive to be natural, for striving is unnatural. On the path of love there is no striving, no effort, no practicing of anything. No yoga postures, no religious rituals, but just an innocent heart unburdened of all knowledge, unburdened of all borrowed rituals. To see this is to cease to strive. Empty of every wish to be other than we are, we are already other than we were. All that the religions have reached after is already given in grace - if we will have the grace to see it.

Yes, it is already given in grace. Only one thing is needed, a grace to SEE it. On the path of love one simply relaxes and becomes graceful. A great dignity arises out of no-striving; a great calmness surrounds the bhakta, the devotee, the lover. The lover becomes utterly beautiful - something of the beyond starts filtering into him and through him.

All that the religions have reached after is already given in grace - if we will have the grace to see it. There is nothing to be done but to see that there is nothing to be done, and no one to do it. Yes, remember, the doing creates the illusion that you are a doer. Doing stopped, the doer automatically disappears. And when there is no doing and no doer you have arrived; you have arrived home.

To see this is emptiness. All that the religions do to be rid of the self is like shouting at an echo to stop. The ego need not be dropped - stop doing, and it disappears of its own accord. In love, the ego melts and disappears. Trying to drop the ego is stupid - the more you try to drop it, the more you will find it. It is like shouting at an echo to stop - the more you shout, the more you will be echoed. You will be in a vicious circle.

The path of love knows no striving, no doing, no practicing, no discipline, no methodology. It knows tears, it knows passion, it knows a silent awaiting. God comes to you, you need not go to Him. He has always been coming to you, He goes on knocking on your door. But you don't listen, you are so full of your inner noise. He is everywhere but you don't see - you are blind because of your beliefs.

Let these beliefs go and let this noise disappear and God will find you. And when God finds you there is great celebration.

I KNOW THE SOUND OF THE ECSTATIC FLUTE, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHOSE FLUTE IT IS.

A LAMP BURNS AND HAS NEITHER WICK NOR OIL.

A WATER PLANT BLOSSOMS AND IS NOT ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM.

WHEN ONE FLOWER OPENS, ORDINARILY DOZENS OPEN.

THE MOON BIRD'S HEAD IS FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT THOUGHTS OF THE MOON, AND WHEN THE NEXT RAIN WILL COME IS ALL THAT THE RAIN BIRD THINKS OF.

WHO IS IT WE SPEND OUR ENTIRE LIFE LOVING?

IT IS TIME TO PUT UP A LOVE-SWING!

TIE THE BODY AND THEN TIE THE MIND SO THAT THEY SWING

BETWEEN THE ARMS OF THE SECRET ONE YOU LOVE.

BRING THE WATER THAT FALLS FROM THE CLOUDS TO YOUR EYES.

AND COVER YOURSELF OVER ENTIRELY WITH THE SHADOW OF NIGHT.

BRING YOUR FACE UP CLOSE TO HIS EAR, AND THEN TALK ONLY ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT DEEPLY TO HAPPEN.

KABIR SAYS, 'LISTEN TO ME, BROTHER, BRING THE FACE, SHAPE, AND ODOR OF THE HOLY ONE INSIDE YOU.'