Dyed In His Hue

Religion is an internal bath. When we travel from place to place our clothes become dirty and collect dust. This is easily removed by washing. But as we travel through time, dust gathers on the mind, which is not as easy to remove as the dust in the clothes. Because the body is external the water required to cleanse it is available outside; since the mind and its dust are within we have to acquire some cleaner within.

Every moment the dust keeps gathering within, even if you do nothing but sit. A man may indulge in no activity, yet his body requires a bath each day. The mind is never inactive, but always doing something or other; a tranquil mind is rare. So dust is gathering on your mind every moment, which, no matter how many times you bathe during the day, cannot be cleansed by the outside water.

This sutra relates to water within. It is priceless. If you understand it well enough to recognize the lake within, you will have acquired a key to transform you life. Whatever keys you hold now, none is effective. Had even one worked, there would be no further need to understand Nanak. Though you have many keys, your ego will not allow you to admit that they are useless.

Mulla Nasruddin was a servant in a rich man's house. One day he told his master, "I wish to retire. I can serve you no longer. After all there's a limit to one's endurance. You have no faith in me, and I cannot bear it any longer."

"How can you say, Nasruddin," the master asked, "that I do not trust you? Aren't the keys of my safe always lying on the table?"

"Yes," said the Mulla, "But none of the keys fits the safe."

You also have many keys; so much information have you gathered. When your information works, then knowledge is attained; otherwise you are merely burdened with it.

Carrying the burden of so many keys, it is necessary to ask yourself whether any of them works.

Does the gate of life open with it? Do lights come in? Do I experience bliss? Have I heard the enchanting notes of divine music? Or, for that matter, do I express joy and gratitude to the Lord who has given birth to me? Do I cry out: "Your compassion is great. You have given me life!"

Our complaints are many, our thankfulness nil. And how can you be thankful when no key fits?

Throw away these keys and listen to Nanak who speaks of the key that works, and it is not Nanak alone who has spoken of this key but also Mahavir, Buddha and Jesus. Isn't it strange that you carry a load of useless keys and leave out the one key that works? It is also not correct to say the key that works because it is a master key that can open all the doors of life. Since time immemorial man talks about useless keys and never bothers about the one that really matters.

The reason behind this is very clear: the keys that you are willing to use do not require you to undergo any transformation. You remain as you are. There is no danger of your changing or losing yourself. Besides, the pleasure of jingling keys and making loud noises is very enjoyable, so you are satisfied to have the keys and yet save yourself from the difficult process of transformation.

You do not listen to Nanak or Buddha or Mahavir, because the key they offer is dangerous - it works!

And once it is set in place the lock will open and you will no longer be the same. You have invested heavily in yourself as you are, so a lot is at stake; if you change, all your work till now will have been in vain. The mansions you raised will fall like a house of cards; all the boats you set sailing will capsize. Whatever you have treasured within your mind, the dreams you dreamed, will all prove false.

Your ego refuses to accept this. Your ego says it may be that I am not a super-wise man, but I am wise. Maybe I have committed some errors, but it can't be that everything I have done is wrong!

And it is but human to err sometimes - who doesn't? You put forth all these old sayings and console yourself. To err is human, you say.

The one thing, however, that you are not prepared to admit under any circumstances is that you are ignorant. If you erred - it just happened. Don't the wise sometimes make mistakes? A well-informed person can also go astray, or fall into a pit, or knock his head against the wall. You are not prepared to own to being blind.

Try and understand this: whenever you make a mistake you say something bad has happened. You protect the doer and blame the action. You get angry and say what a terrible thing to happen that I got angry, as if the anger happened to you - that the conditions were such that it was necessary - you don't acknowledge that you are an angry person. If you hadn't been angry someone would have suffered, or you were angry for someone else's sake, never admitting the violence in your temperament. Or you admit that sometimes you tend to get angry though you are aware that it is a mistake. You somehow manage to save the doer and blame the action. You admit the wrongness of the act, but never of the person behind it.

Exactly that is your ego. Because of that ego you guard yourself against the genuine key, because as soon as the master key turns and the lock opens, the first thing to fall away is your ego. You become an insignificant nobody. Whatever you had earned and amassed suddenly proves to be meaningless rubbish. All this falls and the you with it. When the ego is annihilated, then you know that the key has worked; therefore, keep miles away from the key.

Rabindranath Tagore has written a beautiful poem. He says: "Since infinite births I have been seeking God. I do not know how many paths I have trodden, how many religious orders. God only knows how many doors I knocked on, how many gurus I served or how many yogas and penances I performed. One day, however, I ultimately succeeded in reaching His door. I used to get glimpses of Him, though; but that would be as near as some distant star. By the time I reached there, the star had long gone by.

"But today? Today I stand before his gate. I read the name outside - it is His. I climb the steps so overjoyed that the destination is reached. I hold the knocker, I am about to knock, then....

"Then a fear catches hold of me! What if the door opens? What will I do then? And if I do meet God - what then? What will I do next? Till now there was only one aim in life - to attain God. Then there will be no more goal to work for. Till now there was only one obsession, one occupation - it will all be destroyed! And what when I have met Him? Then there will be nothing left to do, no future to look forward to, no journey to undertake - nothing for the ego to work on.

"Fear made me tremble. I quietly put the knocker down. So gently did I let it go for fear lest a slight jerk may cause a sound and the door might open! Then I removed my shoes so that I could go down the steps noiselessly. Then I ran! I ran for my very life, so to say, and never even looked back once!"

In the last verse the poet says: "I am still searching for Him. You will find me searching for Him on different paths though I know full well where He abides. And yet I ask others where can I find Him?"

And I know where he stays. I seek Him even now. Far away near the moon and the stars I catch a glimpse of Him. But now I am confident because I know He will have gone far, far away by the time I arrive. Now I seek Him in all places save one - where He abides; and I never go anywhere near it.

I guard myself... only from Him!"

This poem is a very significant statement, and it describes exactly your condition. Do not ever say you don't know where God is. He is everywhere; then how can you not know where He is? Do not ever say the lock is closed and you don't know about the key, because the key has been given to you a thousand times, but you always forget where you kept it. You leave it somewhere; your unconscious self tries to run away from it. Until your doubts are cleared away you will be seeking Him on one hand and losing Him on the other. You will be raising one foot to step in His direction and the other in the opposite direction.

You keep alive the myth that you are a seeker, because it satisfies you and appeases your conscience. It gives you a sense of importance to feel that you are not an ordinary base person who seeks wealth or position. You feel yourself above them because you seek God, truth, religion.

While others are involved in lesser things, you have opted for the vast universal existence.

So you keep claiming that you are seeking Him, while secretly from within you are trying to escape Him. Unless you understand and confront this duality within you, you will never be able to seek Him.

Your state at present is like that of the man who builds a house during the day and destroys it at night. He repeats the same process day after day. Or, you might say, he lays a brick with one hand and removes it with the other; or he may employ two workers, one to lay the bricks and the other to remove them. When will his house ever be completed? For infinite lives you have been trying to build your home and yet it is not yet built. Surely something is basically wrong that makes you do two opposing things at the same time!

You carry your false keys that do not work. You bathe in the sacred rivers but your mind remains unwashed. You offer rituals in temples, but that is no worship. You offer flowers; you do not offer yourself. You give in charity, you feed the poor, you do these little religious deeds and take cover behind them.

Remember, you will be purified only if you are prepared to be annihilated; therefore you need waters that will make you extinct, that destroy every bit of you. Here we are discussing these waters. Try to understand:

IF THE BODY IS COVERED WITH DIRT, WATER CAN WASH IT AWAY.

IF THE CLOTHES ARE SOILED AND POLLUTED, SOAP AND WATER CAN WASH THEM CLEAN.

EVEN IF MIND IS FILLED WITH EVIL, LOVE FOR HIS NAME CAN DYE YOU IN HIS HUE.

The hue of love. No word is more significant, more meaningful than the word love. After the names of God, love is the next most significant word, so try to understand.

We all know the word. You might say we all know love. What is so special to make it the key?

Though we already know the word, mere acquaintance with words will not do. You have learned your words from the dictionaries of language but not from the dictionary of existence. The dictionary gives various meanings, but love has nothing to do with any of them. When love arises in your book of existence, the experience suffuses the word with life - so different from the lifeless words in the book. Now for instance, the dictionary describes fire as a thing that burns, but this fire does not burn you, any more than, similarly, the water in the dictionary can quench your thirst. If you try to understand love in a like manner, your sins will never be washed away.

Love is a fire. Gold is purified by passing it through a fire in which all but the gold is burnt away - only that remains which is worth preserving; so also, when you pass through the fire of love, all that is worthless and useless in you goes up in flames. All sins are burned away and only the purposeful you, the meaningful you, remains. You become purified, perfect virtue.

So understand love well. First and foremost you must clearly distinguish love from sin, then only can you eradicate sin. Perhaps you have not recognized the relationship between these two very deep- seated conditions within you: You can sin only when love is absent. Sins are born in the absence of love. Where love is, sin is impossible.

So it is that Mahavir says nonviolence. Nonviolence means love. Buddha says compassion.

Compassion means love. And Jesus' words are direct and clear. He says Love is God!

Someone asked St. Augustine, "What is the essence of religion? Please tell me as briefly as you can. How shall I save myself from sin? Sins are so many and life is so short."

The significance is that since life is short and sins are many, could he rid himself of them one by one in the short span of a lifetime? So he pleaded for a master key that opens all locks.

You can steal only if you have no feeling of love towards the person whose possessions you are coveting. You can kill only if you have no feeling of love towards the person you kill. You can cheat, you can deceive, you can commit all other sins - only when love is absent within you. Sins are born only in the non-presence of love. Just as an unlighted house attracts thieves, robbers, snakes and scorpions - and spiders weave webs within it and bats make it their home - but when light is brought in they all make a hasty retreat.

Love is light. No lamp of love has been lit in your life - therefore the sins. Sin has no positive energy of its own. It is a negative, a non-presence. You can sin only when that which should be within you is absent.

Understand a little: you get angry though all religious books exhort you not to. But if your life energy does not flow towards love, what else can you do but be angry? You will have to be angry, for anger - if you understand it well - is that very love that has lost its direction. It is the same energy that could not become a flower but instead became a thorn. Love is creation. If there is no creativity in your life, your life energy turns destructive.

The difference between a saint and a sinner is only that the life energy of one is creative and the life energy of the other is destructive. Thus, whoever creates can never act satanic. And one who creates nothing can never be a saint, no matter how much he deludes himself. The energy within has to be utilized one way or the other, for energy cannot remain stagnant; it has to flow. If you can love you dig new channels for your energy to flow towards love. If there is no love within you, what will your life energy do? It can only disrupt and destroy. If you cannot create you will destroy. Virtue is the positive state of the life energy; sin is the negative state of the same energy.

People come to me and say there is so much anger within them, what should they do? I tell them to stop thinking about anger. The more you think of anger the more energy you supply to your anger. Energy begins to flow in the direction of our thoughts. Energy flows and thoughts are its channels. Just as canals direct water from reservoirs to the fields, the canal for life energy is attention. Wherever your attention is, there your life flows. If your attention points in a wrong direction your energy flows in the wrong direction. If it is directed towards the right direction, your life flows in the right direction and the right attention is love.

Nanak says the day your love is directed towards His name you shall be dyed in His hue; you shall be cleansed. Not only will your past sins be washed away but also future possibility of sin; you will be washed and cleansed before you can even get dirty. You are bathed and cleansed every moment.

You must have had this feeling when in the presence of a saint - a sense of freshness of the morning dew, as if he has just come out of his bath. The reason is simply that the presence of love does not allow dust to gather on him. Love incessantly washes away all dirt - even before it can touch him.

So the first thing regarding love is for your life energy not to become destructive. Destruction is sin when it occurs for its own sake. There is another kind of destruction: a man tears down a house in order to build a new one. This is not destroying but a part of constructing. When you break for the sake of breaking, it becomes a sin.

If you have a small child whom you love very much, you sometimes give him a whack or two - because of your love you have beaten him for his good, to improve him. You hit him because you care. If you did not care for him you would not have bothered what he did and what he didn't do; you would have been indifferent. But you love him enough not to allow him to go on doing what he pleases. You will stop him from going near fire; you will even hit him if he does not listen. This hitting is not sinful, but creative. You want to make something of him.

When you hit an opponent, it is the same hand; the slap is the same, the energy is the same. When the feeling within you is that of enmity, when you are hitting to destroy and not to create, it becomes a sin! An act in itself is not a sin. If the feeling within you is positive and creative, no act is a sin; if the feeling within is destructive, the same act becomes a sin.

There is a Sufi story: A Sufi came to a village on his way to a temple hidden somewhere in the nearby mountains. He went to a tea stall on the roadside and asked, "Can you tell me who is the most truthful man and the most untruthful man in this village?" The stall-keeper gave him the two names. In a small village everybody knows everything about everybody else, so it was not difficult to guide him.

The Sufi went to the most truthful man and asked him for directions. The man looked at him and said, "The easiest way is through the mountains." Then he gave him detailed directions in order to reach the temple.

Then the Sufi went to the untruthful man and asked him to show him the easiest way to the temple.

The Sufi was shocked when this man showed him the same route as the truthful man. He did not know what to believe! He went back to the village square and asked if there was a Sufi in their settlement.

The traveler was directed to a Sufi saint. A truthful person and an untruthful person are two extremes. When a person reaches sainthood he goes beyond both. The fakir heard the problem and responded: "The answer is the same but the angle of vision is different. The truthful and righteous man directed you across the mountains, although it is easier to cross the river to reach the other side. He took into consideration the fact that you have no boat, nor any means of going through the river. Since you have a donkey on which you ride, how would you carry him across? In the mountains the donkey would be useful to you, in the boat he would cause you problems. Seeing all this, he suggested what was best for you under the circumstances.

"The unrighteous man pointed out the same path, but his intentions were dishonorable. He wanted to cause you trouble. He took delight in the fact that you would be harassed." The answers are the same, the intentions are different. Actions can be similar, therefore they tell you nothing; it is the feeling behind them that is the deciding factor.

Therefore we never keep count of the number of times a child gets punished by his father or mother.

The truth is, say the psychiatrists, if a mother has never beaten her child, there cannot be any deep connection between the mother and child; it shows she does not truly recognize him as her own; there is a distance, a gap, between them.

A son never forgives the father who complies with all his demands. Later on in life, he realizes that his father has injured him. The child is not experienced, so his demands have less value. The father has to think and decide what would be good for him because he is more experienced in life.

If he really loves his child he will decide on the basis of his own experiences rather than the child's demands. If a man gives his child full freedom, the child will never be able to forgive him.

Nowhere in the world has a child been given so much freedom as recently in the West. During this century Western psychologists have been teaching people to give total freedom to their children.

The result has been an unbridgeable gap between the parents and the child. In former days sons feared their fathers; in the West today, the father is afraid of the son. In the past parents were revered and respected. In the West today, the child knows no respect for the elders, not an iota of love or caring. What is the reason? It is only this: as the child grows up he begins to realize the harm his parents have done to him by letting him loose to do as he pleased. He should have been stopped when he did anything wrong. It was their duty to prevent him from going astray since they were experienced, and he was not. They should not have listened to him; they should not have given in to his wishes. This revelation comes but, alas, then it is too late.

Remember this: love cares! Love cares that your life should be good, beautiful, truthful, and attain the highest glory. Indifference is a sign that there is no relationship, that your being born to your particular parents is a mere coincidence for all of you. There is no give and take. There is no feeling of oneness or belonging, with the result that in the West all intrinsic relationships are breaking down.

Love can also punish, because love is so strong and so self-confident that it can bring about creation through destruction. The important thing is that the aim is always creation. If destruction is necessary, there is bound to be a creating aim behind it.

The guru kills the disciple - completely! He kills him outright - no father's blows that fall only on the body. Just as water cleanses the body from outside, the father superficially cleanses the life of his son, but the guru hits hard and deep within. He bores inside you to your utmost depth, and will not rest until your ego is completely melted. Until you find such a guru, know that whatever master you follow you will never be able to forgive. Sooner or later it will dawn on you that this man has been wasting your time.

The mark of love is creativity. As long as you are creative in your relationships, you cannot commit sin. How can I sin when I am filled with love? The love gradually spreads and you find yourself hidden in each living being. Then whom will you rob, whom will you cheat? Whom will you deceive, whose pocket will you pick? As love increases you discover that all pockets are yours, and when you harm someone you find you have harmed yourself.

Life is an echo: whatever you do comes back to you. He whose love increases becomes aware that there are no strangers in this world. It is common knowledge that when you love someone, you feel one with him.

You will not want to harm your wife when you realize that by harming her you ultimately harm yourself; because when she is unhappy you also become unhappy. You would wish her to be happy when her happiness increases your potential happiness. One day you comprehend that the sorrow we give others makes us equally sad; the joy we give others makes us equally happy.

But we think in opposite terms - saving joy for ourselves and wishing sorrow on others. And we feel, perhaps, that in that way our own quota of happiness will be greater. The end result is that you find your own life filled with sorrow because whatever you give returns to you. If you have sown thorns for others, your own life gets surrounded by thorns. And if you go about sowing flowers unconcerned with what others are doing, your life becomes filled with flowers. You reap what you sow. But we do not seem to understand this formula of life.

A woman came to me wanting to divorce her husband. I will never forget what she asked of me.

She said, "Show me a way of getting a divorce so that my husband remains miserable for all time to come." She knows very well that her husband will be the happiest person in the world the day she divorces him; she has pestered him endlessly. Now she wants that he be made miserable even after she leaves.

When we are together we wish to give sorrow; when we are apart we wish to give sorrow. Together or apart, if our aim in life is to create sorrow and pain for others, then it can only gradually create a painful wound within ourselves. The wound is of our own making. It comes out of constant attention to provoking pain.

This is what we call karma, the process of actions. Fate, destiny, only mean that whatever you do comes back to you. Though there may be a certain lapse of time, eventually it is bound to bounce back to affect you. Therefore do only what you want to obtain for yourself. If you find yourself in a veritable hell, it is of your own making - the fruit of what you have been doing for countless births.

People come to me and say, "Bless us so that we may attain happiness." There would be no problem if it were so easy, if one man could just bless everyone and they would find happiness. How could my blessings wash away your misery? Try to understand me and not ask for blessings; that would be mere deception. You have given pain and suffering to others, now you must reap the fruits of your actions; and you come to ask for blessings? And your attitude is that you suffer because I do not give you my blessings. No blessings can remove your suffering. If somebody's blessings help to improve your understanding and sow seeds of love within you, that is more than enough. Sins can be washed away only with love, and suffering can end only when you give happiness to others.

Nanak says: If the mind is filled with sin, only the love for His name can purify it. When you begin to love a person, you find it impossible to harm that person, because then the other's happiness becomes your happiness; the other's sorrow becomes yours. The barrier between your life and your beloved's exists no more; you flow into each other.

When that phenomenon takes place between a person and God, it is called prayer, worship, devotion; it is the ultimate form of love. When it gives so much joy to make someone happy and so much pain to make someone unhappy, the same holds true in the case of you and God. If the relationship is one of love you are in heaven; in the absence of love you find yourself in the depths of hell.

God means totality. You have to love this vast expanse, the whole universe, all that is, as if it were a person. All your sins will be washed away when you fall hopelessly in love with all that is. Then whom will you deceive? Wherever you look He is there; in whatever eye you look you will find Him seated.

Devotion is a revolutionary process. It means now there is none but He. Your life has suddenly become simple, uncomplicated. Now there is no more need to sin, no more need to deceive. Do not think that devotion implies going to the temple to offer worship. Reciting the Japuji early in the morning is not devotion; nor is going to the mosque or church. This will not lead you anywhere.

These are the false keys. The genuine key is to fall in love with the infinite. Now every particle of dust on this earth is entitled to your love. Every inch of this earth is my beloved; every leaf bears the name of my beloved; through every eye He looks at me. Everything is His, everywhere.

When you reach this recognition, however you live your life will be through devotion; it will transform your very way of life. You will sit differently, walk in a different manner, because everywhere you see Him present. You will speak differently if whomever you speak to is He. Now how can you annoy or tell lies about someone; how can you insult someone? How will you escape serving others because in the feet of others you find Him hidden!

When this knowledge dawns on you, you will be in a perpetual ecstasy - what Nanak refers to as being dyed in His hue. You will possess nothing yet have everything. You will find yourself absolutely alone and yet all the world is with you. There will be a rhythm, a harmony between you and existence; you will have established an intimate contact with existence.

Nanak says only such a love can cleanse you of sin. All worship and recitations, all sacrifices and incantations are of no avail for the basic factor is missing.

I was once traveling on a train. A woman got on at a station with about ten children, who immediately ran from one end of the compartment to the other, upsetting everyone's luggage, getting into everybody's way; there was complete chaos. At last one passenger could bear it no longer when the kids had overturned his bag and torn his newspaper. He turned to the woman and said, "Sister, it would be much better if you didn't travel with so many children. If you have to travel it would be more comfortable for all of us if you left half of them at home." The woman flared up, "Do you take me for a fool? I have left half of them at home!"

When basic understanding is missing, it doesn't matter how many children you leave behind. If the woman did not use her discrimination while producing twenty children, how can you expect her to use her understanding when traveling?

Sins there are thousands, virtue is only one; illnesses are thousands, health is only one. It is not that you have your kind of health and I have mine. You can be ill with tuberculosis, cancer or some other complaint; there can be differences in illnesses. There can be originality. An illness can carry your individual stamp because illness is part of your ego. For different egos there are different illnesses, but health is one. Virtue is one, because God is one. You cannot be different in this context.

What is this health, this well-being, that is one? It is the feeling of love. Try to drown yourself in life, immerse in it little by little. When you get up from your chair, do so as if the beloved is present. Even when you enter a vacant room, do it as if God is present all around.

There was a Sufi fakir by the name of Junaid. He would tell his disciples, "When in a crowd remember your aloneness, then the remembrance of God will be with you. When you go into solitude, go as if God is present all around."

He is right. If you can remember your aloneness in a crowd you can maintain the remembrance of God; otherwise the crowd will seize hold of your attention and you will be led astray. And if you do not maintain the remembrance of God when you are alone, you will lead yourself astray.

There are two hazards: you can either lose yourself in others or get lost in your own self. God is beyond both. If you remember your aloneness in a crowd and are aware of His presence in your solitude, you will never go astray.

Nanak says, He who is dyed in the hue of love becomes pure within. He has undergone an internal bath.

TO BE SAINT OR SINNER ARE NO EMPTY WORDS; ALL OUR ACTIONS HAVE BEEN RECORDED.

MAN SOWS AND HE HIMSELF REAPS THE HARVEST.

To claim you are trying hard to be virtuous brings about no change within you. By thinking or by speaking about it nothing ever happens. It is not strange that we talk a great deal about virtue and good deeds, whereas we never think or speak about sins, we only do them. If you are told to hold yourself back for a minute when anger comes, you will say it is impossible, anger cannot be postponed. How can you withhold anger when the withholder is not present when anger comes.

Where are we when anger comes?

If you are told to meditate you say: Not today, I have no time. Besides, you feel what's the hurry? We still have such a long way to go in life and these things are intended for the end of life when death is about to come. Remember you can never feel death coming; not even the dying man feels death.

A politician died and Mulla Nasruddin was called upon to make a condolence speech. The Mulla said something noteworthy: "God's kindness is so great. Whenever we die, we die at the end of life.

Imagine what disaster it would be if death came at the beginning or in the middle of life!"

And we keep putting off the end. It never seems to come until it actually arrives. Others come to know when one's end has come; the one who dies has gone before he knows it!

So, if you understand correctly, you never die. You remain always alive in your thoughts. The occurrence of death you do not know - others know it. You are weaving fresh plans for life even in the moment of death. You put off death for the morrow. All that is auspicious we keep putting off; all that is not we do immediately.

The day you do the opposite, you will be dyed in the color of His name. Then you will put off the inauspicious and carry out the auspicious immediately. When the feeling to give arises, give immediately. Don't trust yourself too much; your mind will devise a thousand tricks in a second to make you forget.

Mark Twain wrote that once he went to a convention to hear a minister speak. After five minutes, being very impressed and moved, he decided to donate the hundred dollars he had with him to the minister's cause. After ten minutes, he wrote, the thought arose in him that a hundred dollars was too much; fifty would do equally well. As soon as the thought of the hundred dollars appeared he lost all connection with the clergyman, because the internal dialogue had taken over. Before half an hour had elapsed he was down to five dollars. When the lecture was over he thought: "No one knows I intended to give one hundred dollars. And who gives so much? People don't even give one.

I think one dollar is more than enough." By the time the collection plate came to him, he writes, "The dollar didn't come out of my pocket. Instead I picked up a dollar from the plate... who was watching?

No one. No one would ever know."

Don't trust yourself too much about doing the right thing; it is often rather difficult. At certain moments, when you are on the peaks, the impulse to do good arises within you. If you lose that opportunity it may never come your way again. Never indulge in righteous thought, because the auspicious is the very thing which is not to be thought about but acted on. When you feel like giving, give! When you feel like sharing, share! When you feel like renouncing, renounce! When you feel like taking sannyas, take it! Do not lose a moment, because nobody knows when that moment will come into your life again, or whether it will come at all.

And when the inauspicious, the evil, arises within you - stop! Defer it for twenty-four hours. Make it a rule: if you want to harm someone, do it a day later. What's the hurry? Death is not standing at your door; and even if it is, what is the harm? At the most, the enemy will not have been damaged, that's all!

If you can put off a negative act for one day you will be incapable of doing it, because the frenzy to do harm is momentary. Just as the impulse to do good comes in a moment, so also the frenzy for evil is momentary. If you can bring yourself to desist at that moment, you will realize how futile your action would have been. Restrain a murderer for a moment, and he cannot kill. If a man is about to jump into a river to drown himself, interrupt him for a short while and he will no longer try to kill himself. Certain acts are possible only in certain moments. Within you are moments of both dense insensibility and intense awareness.

At times of heightened awareness you are filled with love and creativity. In moments of intense insensibility you are overwhelmed with senseless destruction. In your frenzy you wish to destroy, then later you repent, but this is empty and worthless. If you must repent, repent after doing some good. What is the sense of repenting after sin? But that is what you always do - first sin, then repent. And good deeds? Since you never do them, the question of repentance doesn't arise.

Nanak says nothing happens by thinking, nor by saying. Sin and virtue have nothing to do with words, but with acts. Your account before God is not in words but in deeds. He judges you by your actions, by what you are. What you have said, what you have learned, what you have thought, has no relevance here. The final outcome rests on your actions. Nanak says man sows and reaps the harvest himself.

Generally we say others cause our trouble, but success we achieve for ourselves. Failures are due to obstruction by others; all that is good is my own attainment. This way of thinking is absolutely wrong. Whatever happens in your life is part of the chain of your actions, part of your karma; you are responsible for all that is good or bad, auspicious or inauspicious, flowers or thorns. The day a person accepts and experiences total responsibility for himself a transformation begins to take place within.

As long as you blame others, there can be no transformation. If others are the cause of your misery, what can you do? Until such time as they all change, your misery must continue unabated. And how can you change others? There is no other way but to bear your sorrow. There is no other alchemy than religion to transform misery.

It takes time for seeds to bear fruit; and because of this, you completely forget that you had sown the seed when the fruits begin to appear. Because of this forgetfulness, you attribute your woes to others. Remember, nobody is worried about you. Each is worried about himself: others are plagued by their own ills and you are plagued by your own. Each person must seek out the thread of his own actions. Recognize well this fact and only then is a profound transformation possible. As soon as you understand that you are responsible, something can be done. The first thing you must do is recognize and accept quietly the reactions and results of your past actions. It makes no sense to produce fresh turmoil while reaping the fruit of your past actions. Only this way can your past actions be neutralized.

A man spat on Buddha. Buddha quietly wiped his face with his cloak. The man was very angry and so were Buddha's disciples when it happened. After he left Ananda could not contain himself.

"This is sacrilege!" he exclaimed. "Moderation doesn't mean that anyone can get away with doing whatever he wants to you. That way would inspire others to do likewise. Our hearts are burning! We cannot bear the insult."

Buddha answered, "Don't be unnecessarily excited, lest that become a link in your chain of karmas.

I must have hurt him sometime and now he has cleared the debt. I may have insulted him somehow and now we are quits. I came to this village expressly for him. Had he not spat on me I would have been in a quandary. He has solved my dilemma. Now my account is closed. This man has freed me from some past action of mine. I am grateful to him.

"And why are you all so excited? It had nothing to do with you. If your wrath is stirred up and you do something to this man in your excitement, you will have created a new link in your chain of karmas.

My chain is broken, yours will be made anew - and for no reason. Why are you intervening? I have to reap the result from the one I have troubled. Before my total, highest annihilation, before I merge completely with the infinite, I must settle my account with all people, all things, all relationships formed in anger, insolence, hatred, attachment, greed, etc. For only he whose actions have been equalized is a completely liberated being."

So remember, let your past actions be discharged peacefully. Accept them cheerfully and be contented. Remember, you are settling your accounts and do not create fresh links; then gradually your connection with the past is loosened and disintegrates.

Now the second thing to remember is: do not do any fresh harm to others or else you will simply be binding yourself to your actions. We create the fetters within ourselves. So remember that you have to break the old links and not create new links.

For this Mahavir used two very beautiful words: asrava means do not allow the new to come in, and jirjara means allow the old to fall off. By and by a moment comes when nothing of the old remains and nothing new is being formed; you are free. Ultimate bliss occurs only in this state.

MAN SOWS AND HE HIMSELF REAPS THE HARVEST.

NANAK SAYS, BY DIVINE ORDER ARE SOME SAVED AND OTHERS REBORN.

BY VISITING HOLY PLACES, AUSTERITIES, COMPASSION, AND GOOD DEEDS, YOU MAY GAIN RESPECT FROM OTHERS; BUT HE WHO LISTENS TO GOD AND MEDITATES ON HIS NAME, HIS HEART IS FILLED WITH LOVE AND HE IS DEEPLY CLEANSED.

All outward ablutions bring no transformation. At most you may gain a little respect in the eyes of others. But this reverence can be dangerous because your ego will try to make a mountain out of it; it won't stop recounting how many pilgrimages you undertook, how many fasts you have observed.

Bodhidharma went to China from India. The Emperor of China came to him. This king had become a Buddhist and then had constructed thousands of monasteries, ashrams and temples. He had printed and distributed thousands of treatises on Buddhism. He fed millions of beggars every day.

All this he recounted to Bodhidharma. He also told him how many images of Buddha he had had made. In fact there still remains a temple constructed by him which bears ten thousand statues of Buddha. He had whole mountains dug up for this purpose. His charity was immense, and all this he made a point of telling Bodhidharma.

Bodhidharma listened completely unmoved. The king could wait no longer. "What will be the fruit of all these good deeds?" he asked.

Bodhidharma replied, "Nothing. You will rot in hell."

The king was dumbfounded. "What is this you say? I in hell?"

"The deeds in themselves are not the problem. They are indeed good deeds, but your feeling of having done them is the difficulty. The good deeds have happened; leave them at that. Don't take upon yourself the doership of them. If you presume that you have done them, all virtue in your actions turns to dust; the medicine will turn to poison. As it is, medicines are made from poisons."

In the days when rupees, annas and pies were still in use Mulla Nasruddin went to the doctor because his wife suffered from insomnia.

"Help me please, doctor," said the Mulla. "She keeps bickering all night long, as if it wasn't enough all day."

"Take this powder," said the doctor, "and each evening give her as much as would cover a four-anna bit."

After about a week the doctor came upon Nasruddin on the road. "Say, how's the wife?" he inquired.

"Your medicine worked wonders, doctor. She is still fast asleep!"

The doctor was worried. "How much of the powder did you give her?" he asked.

"Well," said the Mulla, "I did not have a four-anna bit so I took four one-anna coins, covered them with the powder and gave it to her - so much peace in the house! What wonderful medicine."

Medicine can become poison if you aren't careful about the quantity. Virtue can also become poison beyond a certain proportion. Remember, as long as virtue remains simply an action it is all right.

When the doer is involved the proportion can become dangerous. If good deeds are performed to counteract one's evil deeds it is all right. But if good deeds are performed with the idea of earning or accumulating virtue, it is dangerous. You may gain some respect, but that is all. Don't take this to be religion.

I was once traveling with Nasruddin on a bus. Suddenly Mulla got up in the moving bus and cried out, "Brothers, has anyone lost a bundle of notes tied in a string?" Many people claimed the bundle was theirs; they vied with each other to reach Mulla. "Peace, Peace!" exclaimed Mulla, "So far, I have only found the string."

Religion is like the bundle of notes; good deeds are like the string. Don't pride yourself on them.

The string in itself has no value, only when tied around the rupee notes does it assume value. What worth has a string that is tied around a stone? When good deeds unite with a selfless attitude they become the boat that takes you to the other shore. When good deeds are tied to the ego, they become like a rock on your chest that invariably drowns you. So there are people who are drowned in their evil deeds, and people who drown in their good deeds.

This is why it often happened that a sinner arrived while the virtuous man lagged behind. An evildoer more easily becomes egoless because he knows he is a sinner; he knows it is well nigh impossible for him to reach God. He is convinced he has no good qualities and is only a storehouse of evil.

He doesn't even dare to think that his voice could ever reach Him. In the absence of ego, even the sinner can reach; but when ego is present even the virtuous person drowns.

BY VISITING HOLY PLACES, AUSTERITIES, COMPASSION, AND GOOD DEEDS, YOU MAY GAIN RESPECT FROM OTHERS; BUT HE WHO LISTENS TO GOD AND MEDITATES ON HIS NAME, HIS HEART IS FILLED WITH LOVE AND HE IS DEEPLY CLEANSED.

Such should be your attitude. Don't allow pride to creep in over being a renunciate, or giving charity, or doing this or that. Don't let the pride of the emperor find a foothold in you, or, as Bodhidharma says, "You will rot in hell."

ALL VIRTUES ARE YOURS, O LORD. NOTHING IS IN ME.

WITHOUT VIRTUOUS ACTIONS, NO TRUE DEVOTION EXISTS.

I am not even worthy of worshipping You. I have no eligibility, no capacity.

Therefore, Nanak says, all things are obtained through His grace. What is our capability? All devotees have said the same. It is always through His grace whatever you attain, since you are not capable of attaining by yourself.

To feel yourself capable implies that He has to give. If He does not give in spite of your capability, then we have reason to complain; and if He gives, what reason to be thankful? You have attained by your own merit. Within you a complaint arises out of considering yourself capable yet not having achieved.

On the other hand the devotee's mind is always filled with gratitude, because he always feels unworthy of all he has attained. His whole way of thinking is different. By singing and chanting one doesn't become a devotee; rather your attitude toward life should be: Unworthy I am, He has given me so much! The devotee's prayer is always filled with thanksgiving and gratitude - never with complaint.

Nanak says: I have no talents and without talent I cannot perform worthy actions, so how can I worship You? All I can do is sing Your praises, O Lord. All glory be! That is all I can say. I can only sing your praises, O Lord. I am unworthy, I deserve to get nothing. I am so worthless that all I can do is sing Your glory - that is all.

YOURS IS THE ONLY TRUE WORD. YOU ARE THE SOUND.

YOU ARE BRAHMA. YOUR POWER IS MAGNIFICENT AND SELF-DIRECTING.

WHAT WAS THAT TIME, WHAT DATE, WHAT SEASON, WHAT MONTH WHEN YOU ASSUMED FORM AND CREATION BEGAN?

THE PUNDITS KNEW IT NOT, OR THEY WOULD HAVE WRITTEN IT IN THE HOLY BOOKS; NEITHER DID THE KAZIS KNOW, OR THEY WOULD HAVE PUT IT IN THE KORAN; NOR DID THE YOGIS KNOW THE DAY, THE TIME, THE SEASON, AND MONTH WHEN IT HAPPENED.

THE CREATOR WHO CREATES ALL CREATION, HE ALONE KNOWS.

And I? I am devoid of all talent. The pundits don't know, nor the kazis, the Mohammedan priests.

The scriptures give no information; if all the wise men don't know who You are, where You are, how You assumed form, how You fashioned creation, then how can I, a poor ignorant fool, know what to do?

The devotee never bothers about what He is; the pundit, the learned man does. The knowledgeable man tries to seek Him by analysis; he tries to lay everything bare in order to get at Him. The devotee remains blissful in His grace, because his contention is: How can anyone besides You know how all this came about! You alone can know, all else are foolish surmises. So the devotee never claims that he knows. His only claim is love. Remember, to claim knowledge is the claim of the ego; the claim of love is ego-less.

HOW SHOULD ONE PRAISE HIM AND EXPRESS HIS GREATNESS?

HOW CAN ONE KNOW HIM?

Nanak says: You alone know; how shall I call out to You? I know no form of greeting! What words shall I use? I am afraid of using wrong words. Which aspect of Yours shall I glorify? What praise will be fitting? What words would be worthy for You? I know not. Clever people have expressed praises in Your honor, and each has striven to outdo the others.

But all expressions are incomplete. The really intelligent person has realized that He cannot be expressed because any name will fall short of Him and seem hollow and insignificant when compared to His glory.

HE IS SUPREME. HIS NAME IS GREAT.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS AS HE ORDAINS.

WHOEVER CREDITS HIMSELF AS WORTHY, GAINS NO HONOR BEFORE HIM.

Whoever considers himself to be something invariably misses Him, because there can be only one:

either you or He. In one scabbard there is room for only one sword, not two.

There is a very well-known poem by the Sufi poet Rumi: The lover went and knocked at the door of the beloved. A voice asked "Who is it?" He said, "Open the door. It is I." There was no answer, all was silent within. The lover knocked again. He called out again and again, "Open the door. It is I, your lover," but there was no response. Finally a voice came from within, "Two cannot be contained in this house. This is the house of love, it cannot accommodate two." Then again there was silence.

The lover turned back. He wandered for years in the jungles. He undertook many fasts and practices; he performed many rites and holy works. He purified himself and thus cleansed his mind. He became more aware; he began to understand the conditions. After many, many years he returned once again and knocked at the door. The same question came from within, "Who is it?"

But this time the answer that came from outside was, "You alone are."

And, Rumi says, the door was opened.

If you go to the gates of God as somebody - then even if you appear as a sannyasin, a renunciate, a wise man, whatever, you will fail. The gate opens only for those who are nothing, nobody, who have annihilated their selves totally.

In ordinary life also, love opens its doors only when you are not, when you are completely merged in the other and the voice of I has stopped. Then when this I becomes less important than you, and when you becomes your whole life, then you are capable of destroying yourself for the beloved; you willingly and happily enter into death. Then only does love blossom. In everyday life we thus get a glimpse of the one when two are no more.

When the ultimate love arises, there should remain no sign of you; your name, your designation, your very self should turn to dust. Only when you annihilate yourself completely can this happen.

Remember the words of Jesus: He who saves himself will be lost; he who loses himself will be saved. In His kingdom he who destroys himself attains everything and he who saves himself loses everything.

Nanak says he who considers himself to be something is unworthy before Him. The truth is, he never even reaches Him.

Proud eyes are blind eyes. He who has even a single thought of being someone, his personality is deaf, inert; he is already dead. He cannot appear before God. God stands ever before you but as long as you are, you cannot see Him. You are the obstruction, the obstacle. When this hindrance drops, your eyes become pure and open, devoid of I-ness. You are as if you are nothing, a mere emptiness. And in such emptiness He enters at once.

Kabir has said the guest arrives in the house of one who is empty. No sooner do you become empty than the guest arrives. You miss Him as long as you are filled with your own self. The day you empty yourself He fills you.