Darshan 13 August 1976

Deva means divine and geetika means a poem, a song; a divine song. Will it be easy to pronounce, 'geetika'?

And sing more - that's all we can do. We can dance, we can sing. There is nothing else for man to do. Nothing else is possible. We can pray, we can be full of wonder... and we can allow the mystery to mystify us.

And look at life more like an artist - aesthetically. That is the only religious way to look at life - in an aesthetic way. When your eyes are full of beauty and you start looking through beauty all around, you have heard the song; the first presence has been felt. Beauty is the first entry of the divine into human consciousness. So sing, dance, feel beauty more and more... relax.

Prem means love and kaveesha means goddess of poetry. And to me, poetry is the door.

God is not a logical proposition. It cannot be proved - and those who try to prove him, who try to see him, are committing a sacrilege. You cannot prove your love - and if you can prove it, it is no more love. It remains unproved. And that's the beauty of it. You cannot drag it into the mundane world, with mind and logic and reason.

So poetry, to me, is the only approach. If a person goes on becoming more and more poetic, by and by he is coming home.

In india we have two words for poets. One word is kavi, out of which I have made kaveesha. Another is rishi. When a kavi, a poet, really becomes his poetry, then he becomes a rishi, he becomes a seer. The poet is only sometimes a poet. The rishi is just a poet, a seer, and nothing else. The poet

has only seen moments of poetry here and there, otherwise he is an ordinary man. If you meet him in the coffee house, you may not be impressed.

But sometimes he has flights, sometimes clouds disperse and a ray of light enters him. He is transported into another world. Then he sings songs which are in no way related to him. Even he is surprised. Back in the world, down on the earth again, he cannot believe what has happened to him. That's why all great poets feel that something of the beyond took possession of them; they were not themselves. Some greater force possessed them and flowed through them.

The rishi is one for whom poetry has become his normal state. He will no more come back to the earth - or even if he walks on the earth, he remains far above, transcendental. So every poet, by and by, if he goes on growing and does not make poetry his ego trip, one day is bound to become a rishi, a seer. The door of poetry opens towards god, but one should not cling to the door.

If you cling to the door, you miss the palace.

[She says: I wanted to ask you about my father. He committed suicide, and it's like a shadow that just stays with me.

Well, I couldn't grieve for him for a long time - not until this year, and then within the last three, four months, it all came out - sadness and grief. In the throes of it I decided to come here, and I've been feeling better ever since I decided to come.]

No, it will go. In fact you should have grieved before. But one has to pass through it; it is natural. If you don't pass that natural state, it can linger on for your whole life. Sadness is a passing mood - it comes and goes - but if you don't allow it, it can become like a wound.

So somehow you managed not to allow it. It is happening to many people in the world because we are continuously being taught to control everything, and grief is felt as if one is weak. One is not weak, one is simply sensitive - and to be sensitive is to be human. Somebody dies and you loved them. It is natural to feel sad. There is nothing to feel guilty about.

[She answers: I wanted to ay, but it was as if it was too much to feel the pain.]

No, it is never too much, it is never too much. And it is such a beautiful experience. It is so cleansing and purifying... nothing like it. It has its own beauty, it has its own joy, if you allow me to say so. If you really grieve and go deeply into it, you will come out completely new and fresh and young, as if all the dust disappears with it; the past disappears with it. But it will go. So this time, if it comes here, allow it - and enjoy it.

I'm not saying only allow it, because one can allow it very reluctantly. One can allow it very distantly.

One can remain aloof and allow it, but then it will remain somewhere - a lingering shadow will continue - and that is bad; that is very dangerous. It can become a continuous hangover and that can destroy your present.

So the account has to be dosed. And when it is a question of father or mother, it is a very deep account. In fact, if you can close your account with your father, you will for the first time become

mature, because the disappearance of the father is the disappearance of a certain security, a certain centre. With the father, the past has disappeared. You are no more a child - you have become grown up.

And because it was suicide, it is more difficult to close the account. When a person dies naturally, you accept it. When a person commits suicide, you go on feeling that it might have been possible for it not to have happened. So somehow it is difficult to see the point - that one has ended. When a person commits suicide we go on feeling in our minds that there must have been some way.... It is possible that he could still be alive, because it was not a natural death. But in fact no death is unnatural. It is just our understanding that makes the distinction. It was natural for him to commit suicide. That was his way of dying. And as far as I can see into people - into their life and their death - people who commit suicide have a certain very distinct individually.

In fact they are more individualistic than people who die naturally. They live their own way and they die their own way. Their death has their signature. They will not allow it to just happen. They like to give it a colour and a shape and a date. It happens many times that rare people commit suicide.

[She says: He was rare.]

So, nothing to be worried about. One should be happy about it. He was a rare man, and he had his own way of death. He lived his life, he died his way - and it was natural for him.

There are people for whom ordinary death is unnatural; it won't fit with them. It will be simply like an accident that they died on their bed just by accident. It won't fit with them. There are people for whom it is natural to put their lives aside and take the jump and the plunge into the unknown.

Because we cling too much to life., suicide looks like a sin. It is our clinging - because we are clingers, and if somebody commits suicide we condemn. But it is not necessarily that it is bad. The person may have taken a plunge into the unknown. He has known life, he is finished with it, now he wants to know what death is - and he wants to know it very consciously.

In india there exists one of the most ancient religions, jainism. That is the only religion in the world that allows suicide. It is very rare. It says that when a person, out of his meditation, comes to feel that now he has lived his life and there is no more to it so why go on repeating, he surrenders his life on his own.

That is the only religion. And I feel that sooner or later that is going to become part of every country and every constitution, because a man has a fundamental right to live and to die. Nobody should be allowed to prevent anybody. If somebody wants to dissolve himself, it is perfectly okay. It is his way.

If he wants not to live, then who are others to force him to live? Then it is an imprisonment.

I can see you, and just through you, I can feel that he must have been a rare man. You have something of him in you. So take it naturally. That was natural for him, because in fact nothing unnatural ever happens because it cannot happen. Whatsoever happens is natural, because only the natural can happen. Once you understand this, you accept everything.

And the grief will come. This time just go into it. You are here and I am here, so no need to be worried. Even if it seems too much, allow it. And you will feel very good. The burden and the

shadow will disappear. And it will be good for your father also - not only for you - because whenever one party clings, the other also somehow remains attached. Once you have closed your accounts and you have said a clean goodbye, he is also free. Then he is not involved with you. Love always gives freedom - and this is the last freedom that is needed.

Love gives freedom in life, and love gives freedom in death too.

[A sannyasin, was at darshan tonight, after having heard that his wife of some years, was dangerously ill and hospitalised in germany.]

... don't be worried about [your wife]. She is in a good state. If she stays a little longer, good. If she goes, that too is good.

But she has surrendered and is not fighting. If she dies, she is dying in a good state. Just don't be worried.

And this will be good for you also. If you can just remain silently in deep acceptance of whatsoever happens, this may prove your greatest moment in growth. There may not be another opportunity again, because it is difficult to find a woman to die so soon again. mm?

So use it... use even death. Everything has to be turned into a skilful situation. Buddhists call it 'upaya'. Everything, even when death happens, let it become an 'upaya', a situation to grow. It is happening whether you use it or not, so why not use it? Just accept it, and by your acceptance, she will also be helped.

And I would have sent you (to where she is hospitalised) but it is meaningless. The better thing is to be here, but to be totally accepting. That will be closer to her than just going there to berlin physically. It will not be of any help. Spiritually you will be there.