Darshan 18 March 1976

[A sannyasin says: I don't want to be here - and I don't know why. Since Vipassana died I have felt afraid of death. And Amitabh (her boyfriend) seems different... I feel frightened. Sometimes I don't even want to be human any more.

But I also don't believe that if I went away I would feel any different.]

(laughing) I will scare you... that's right! Wherever you go, I will continue to. There is no escape!...

Everything goes... and clinging creates misery. One has to understand that we are lonely, and that all relationship... and once we understand this, then immediately loneliness disappears. Try to understand me. If you go on trying...

(a chuckle) Mm mm... if you think you will be happy, you can go. That is not the problem at all. But you will not be happy. You will be in a worse situation....

So that is not going to help. It is hard to be here, I know, but if you cooperate with me, everything will drop. Things are not hopeless at all.

Everybody has to come to certain understandings - because we go on living in dreams. Whenever something of the real is encountered, one becomes afraid and miserable and wants to change the situation, to escape from the situation - not to look at it. That's why you don't want to look at me (chuckling) because if you look at me you will have to see the real.

If you look at me you will have to look at the facts. Facts are facts. You cannot change them by just becoming unhappy. They can be changed - but a certain understanding will be needed .

When we are together, friendship and love are good - but one should never be in the delusion that one can drown one's aloneness in them. Nobody can. It is not that it is you who cannot drown your aloneness - nobody can, because aloneness is a quality of your being. It is how existence is.

Aloneness is absolutely natural, and there is nothing wrong in it, but we have wrong attitudes about it. Aloneness is your freedom. It is your space. And it is good that you have a space inside where nobody can come; an absolute privacy where you are alone. And once you know how to use it, it is tremendously beautiful. It is the shrine of your innermost core. It is the only temple there is.

But we go on somehow trying to avoid it through relationships, through work, hobbies. Somehow we don't want to come to it, because from the very beginning everybody is taught and brought up in such a way that one starts feeling loneliness as death. Neither loneliness nor death are wrong.

Both have tremendous beauties. But one has to enter into them and earn that beauty.

And whatsoever you do, aloneness can never be destroyed. You can hide it, you can cover it up.

You can forget about it in a relationship - but again and again you will come to it. Again and again it will erupt into consciousness, because all escapes are just repressions. So the better course is to accept it, to enter it courageously... to live it. And once you enter courageously, loneliness disappears, and a totally different quality - which I call aloneness - enters into your being.

And aloneness is simply beautiful, because nobody is there, not even you. Just pure being is there - with no boundaries, no names, no adjectives. Not a man nor a woman... nobody is there. It is pure space. And everybody needs to go and dip into it. That refreshes you, rejuvenates you.

That is why sleep is so essential, because in sleep, deep sleep, when dreams are not there, you touch your innermost core of aloneness. In that moment of deep sleep, who is there? No lover, no friend, no relative - not even you. There is nobody. That sleep gives you vitality, and in the morning you are fresh; again young, again alive, again full of energy to overflow and share. If for a few days you don't sleep well, your whole life seems to be exhausted; from the very morning you are tired.

That aloneness is the very source of health and wholeness. If you can move into it consciously, then it becomes samadhi - the same sleep.

As far as I see, it is good that you have come to this point where you feel so miserable. That's the point where you can take a jump.

Understanding arises only in deep pain. When we are comfortable and everything is going conveniently, and as your mind would like it to go, then there is no need to awake. Then people simply vegetate. These hard facts of life make you mature.

This is just a simple understanding - it is not a theory. Everybody comes alone, lives alone, goes alone. All else is just a game. Once you understand it... I am not saying to drop relationships... I am saying that once you understand it, you relate on a different level. You relate happily. You relate without any dependence. You relate like an individual. You love then, too, but that love is very very different. It is no more a need. You can be alone and enjoy it, but still you want to share with people.

Not that you cannot be alone.

If you cannot be alone and then you relate, your relationship can never be very deep and authentic, because you are exploiting the other person to fill your emptiness and loneliness. You are using the

other person; the other has become a means. And he will try to make you a means - because he is also empty and afraid. And hence the conflict that goes on in lovers. Everybody is trying somehow to use the other. Whatsoever the pretensions, everybody is trying to use the other, because one feels lonely, afraid. One needs the other.

Once you know how to be alone, you don't need the other. Then the relationship is light, weightless, and it has a beauty because nobody corrupts it. It is just for relationship's cake There is no end to it, no goal. You don't cling, because there is no point - you can be alone.

This is my understanding: that people who have come to understand their aloneness - have understood even to the extent that they welcome it - only they are capable of love. Because in the first place, love needs you to be. That aloneness will make you an individual, integrated.

The whole point is that you are coming up against those things from which you have been hiding up to now - and that is the whole purpose of my being here.

Everybody who comes to these moments will start thinking of escaping. The image starts falling.

Amitabh is also passing through problems. He has problems, you have problems. Don't pretend that they are not there. Now it is better to tackle them, better to solve them. Escaping won't be of any help. And whatsoever you have come to know, you cannot unknow now.

Go and live in California or anywhere. Whatsoever you have come to understand will go on haunting you. And there you will feel it more - because I will not be there. There is no need to be worried about any security. I am your security. So why be worried unnecessarily?

Whenever Amitabh is in a negative mood, and whenever he wants to be alone and you feel rejected, then you become insecure. But Amitabh himself is not secure, so how can he give security to you?

I can give you security. Amitabh cannot. He can pretend (Anupama laughs). How can you give security to Amitabh? You yourself are not rooted yet. So don't ask the impossible. He cannot give, you cannot give. Let him also become an individual, and then he will be able to. You become an individual, and then you will not need it.

And in life this is one of the most fundamental things. Whatsoever you need, you will not get.

And whatsoever you don't need comes and knocks at your door (laughter). If you ask for security, insecurity will come. If you accept insecurity, suddenly you become secure. That's the wisdom of insecurity. If you accept aloneness, you will enjoy it. it is tremendously spacious, with no boundaries; nobody else to create any disharmony. Simply you... and you... and you - infinitely you. And wherever you look, endless being.

One should desire it. But people desire it when it is not there, and when it starts coming they become shaken and afraid. Then they start finding little excuses - those are meaningless. The real thing is this - that you are feeling alone. Not that before you were not alone and now you have become alone... before you were a little less aware. You have become a little more aware. Before you were more immature, and you were believing in toys. Now you have become mature, and the toys are - toys. You can play with them, but they are of not much use.

So when for the first time the child suddenly becomes aware that these are toys that he is playing with, he feels emptiness. The toys are gone - as you say, everything is going - and the real things

have not come up. The child simply stands there and cries, and tears come to him. His whole world is shattered - for now he knows that this car is just a toy; it's of no use. Now he wants a real car - but for that he is not ready yet. So there is a gap when the toy car has gone and the real car cannot be given to him. So these intervals are of very painful experiences - but they pay.

Just try to be alone. I am here to try to make you alone - and happy. Don't depend on anybody; nobody can make you happy. Happiness is an understanding... it happens in your growth.

Don't miss this opportunity. California will be there when I am gone. You can always go to California, but once I am gone (a chuckle) you will suffer your whole life. Don't miss these opportunities!

And I don't see that there are many problems. Simple problems are there. Insecurity is a problem - but that is part of feeling alone, being left alone. Nobody can fill your aloneness. You have to fill it by your inner light. We can come closer and closer and closer - it is beautiful to come close - but still we remain two. Somewhere a meeting happens.

For example if we burn two lamps here in this room, they meet - because their light meets with each other's light... mingles, melts. You cannot divide the light of the first from the light of the second, but still the lamps are different. You can bring them close, but their flames will remain different. Their light will dissolve into each other - that's love... but their meditation will remain alone.

You cannot melt into the other. Only your outer aura can melt into the other, your light can melt into the other - but your centre will remain always untouched by the other. And it is good - otherwise you would be corrupted through and through. If there were no centre where you can go into deep aloneness, you would not have any place to move when things become too hard, when the marketplace is horrible. Where will man move when things are too bad outside? So you have an inner shrine. Whenever something goes wrong, you can close your eyes and go deep into yourself.

You can come back again full of energy, again ready to love, again ready to relate.

Let it be a rhythm, and have a very very free swing - sometimes alone and sometimes together.

These are two polarities, and they both go together. If you want just a relationship, and you don't want to be alone, your relationship will be just superficial - because you don't know your own centre, so how can you relate deeply? And if you want to simply be alone and don't want to relate, your aloneness will be poor. Enrichment comes from others. Relate as much as you can, but always come back home and go deep into your being, and rest there. That too, as much as you can.

The problem arises if you choose one - if you choose a relationship as life. You are saying that the pendulum of a clock should only go to the left and not to the right. You can nail it there - but then the whole clock stops. And it will not be a beautiful thing... it will be very ugly. Let it swing, let it touch both the polarities. Let it bridge the opposites - then life is very very rich.

But still, if you feel like going, go. That may be helpful, because the moment you reach California you will think only of me, and nothing else. So that is a trick - I send people just to come back (laughter). Sometimes I even force them to go, because I know they will be coming back.

It may be helpful - it will bring you to your senses! And a holiday is good.