Darshan 16 March 1978

Aseem means the unbounded, the infinite. Start living in the infinite, because that is our true reality.

The idea that we are finite is just an idea, it does not correspond to reality; hence it creates much misery. Once you start thinking of yourself as finite you are constantly in struggle with the infinite.

By being finite we become many, by becoming infinite only one remains. Then there is no possibility of any conflict, and when all possibilities of conflict cease there is peace. Peace cannot be attained.

only by mental efforts; it needs a new spiritual vision.

Don't think of yourself as the body - not that you are not the body: you are the body plus. Never end anywhere. Go on thinking of yourself in bigger and wider terms. You are the sun too because without the sun you would not be alive. You are the earth too; that's what you go on eating every day. You are the air too; without it you are gone. You are this whole universe, this whole universe crisscrosses in you. You are just the crossroad of millions of things passing through you.

It is just as if you go on drawing lines through one point: the point will become thicker and thicker and thicker; more lines pass and the point becomes very thick - that is the ego. Start taking lines away and slowly slowly the ego disappears. One day you come to know that the ego was only a construct of crossing lines. It was not a reality, just an illusion.

When you think of yourself as finite you become the ego; when you drop the finite the ego disappears, and the disappearance of the ego is the arrival of god. Think of yourself as the universe.

In the beginning it looks crazy but soon the heart starts flowing that way.

Because it corresponds with reality, it comes easily, spontaneously; one day you suddenly see that you are connected with everything that exists. You cannot exist without them, they cannot exist without you; it is a great interdependence. And the sheer complexity of it is a mystery....

Deva means god, ragi means in love within love with god. We may know it, we may not, but our object of love is always god. Whenever we fall in love we fall in love with god. It may be just a glimpse and the glimpse may disappear, but we have fallen in love with god; it is always so.

When you fall in love with a woman you have seen a glimpse of the divine. It is not really the woman that you have fallen in love with; she has been just a window, a beautiful window but still a window.

You have seen something beyond, it may have been just a flash; that's why it is so difficult to explain your love affair to anybody.

If somebody asks, 'Why have you fallen in love with this woman?' it is almost inexplicable. And if you try to explain it looks absurd, even to you. Whatsoever answer you give seems to be wrong, and not to give any answer also doesn't seem right. But the problem is that you have not fallen in love with this woman at all: you have fallen in love with something beyond.

It is as if you have seen a sunset through a window. Now the sun is gone, it is dark outside and you cannot believe how you fell in love with this window. There seems to be no reason at all, but you cannot deny that something happened, something mysterious happened.

Wherever love happens it is always between you and god. Sometimes you have glimpsed him in a flower, sometimes in a star, sometimes in a song, sometimes in the giggle of a child. God comes in so many ways but all these are fragments of god.

Once you start understanding that all love is towards god, just as all rivers are flowing towards the ocean, notwithstanding their directions... One river is going to the north, another is going to the south, some other river is going to the east, some other to the west: notwithstanding their direction they are all moving, groping unconsciously, they are probing and groping for the ocean. They may not be able to answer why; and man also is not able to answer the question why, but we live for that, we move towards that.

Once it becomes conscious, that is sannyas. You still fall in love with a woman but no more only with the woman; in fact you are grateful to the woman that she allowed you a glimpse of god. You still fall in love with a bird on the wing but you know that in that moment something of god has penetrated you. The descent of the bird and something has moved within you, you have touched some depth inside your own being. Or just a small flower dancing touches you, moves you.

Be consciously in love with god.

It means a poet. Think in terms of poetry and live in terms of poetry; let poetry be your religion.

There is no higher religion than poetry. God is not philosophy, not theology either; it is sheer poetry.

It is available only to those who are ready to become mad. The logical, the calculative, the clever, miss; the illogical, the irrational, reach.

The poet is there in your heart, it just needs to be expressed. You are utterly a heart person but in this world the heart is not accepted and the heart people are crushed and repressed?

So don't listen to anybody; you have to live your life. It is better to live one's own life and suffer rather than to be comfortable and live somebody else's life. Millions of people die thinking, 'Whose life have I been living all these years?' because they were not meant to be that which they became.

Somebody was meant to be a carpenter but he became a priest; somebody else was meant to become a priest and became a carpenter. This is very disrespectful towards the inner life.

Love yourself, respect yourself. Be whatsoever it feels right to be and pay for being that, never compromise.

[A couple are present. The woman is not a sannyasin, and the man is. He says: It seems it's hard for one person in a relationship to take sannyas and the other to not be a sannyasin.]

But one can be a sannyasin and the other need not be a sannyasin; what is the problem? One is a man, another is a woman and there is no problem. Why can't one be a sannyasin, another not?

There is no problem! (to the woman) What is the problem? His sannyas is creating trouble? How can his sannyas create trouble?

[She replies: He s been a great blessing of love, but I haven't been able to accept his name.... I feel that he will not accept me if I am not a sannyasin.]

No, no there is no problem at all, mm? - there is no problem. You are imagining things unnecessarily.

How can his change of name create any problem? Were you in love with the name or with the man?

So the man is still there - he has not changed. And he will not expect you to become a sannyasin, no. If you want to, you can, but that is not his expectation. If you don't want to become, you can remain a non-sannyasin. There is no problem in it, mm? so don't be afraid about that.

None of my sannyasins are going to enforce anything on anybody in any way, because that is my whole teaching - not to try to change the other in any way; accept and respect the other as he or she is. So that is an unnecessary fear. And you have to learn... you love the man, so learn his new name!

There is no need to be worried that he will want you to become a sannyasin, no. Even if he wants you to, I will not give you sannyas; unless I feel that you are worthy to receive it, I will not give it. It is not easy. When you feel like it and I feel, 'Yes, the feeling has arisen in you', only then will I give it to you. So drop this idea; and there is no problem - just be in love, mm?

(To the man) And let her feel that your sannyas has made you more loving, more accepting, more relaxed, so that one day she will start feeling like becoming a sannyasin. But that feeling has to arise in her, it is not that you have to put it in her mind. Simply forget about it. Just love her as she is: that very love may change her mind. But make no effort to convert her. All efforts to convert are efforts to dominate, and the freedom of the other has to be respected. Just respect her as she is and love her.

(to the woman) Do a few meditations, do a few groups, start feeling what is happening here. So many people are getting into it; there must be something in it. Don't think that only you are right.

There are so many people; they must be getting something from it.

[A sannyasin who has just completed the individual primal therapy says: I found out what I was doing to myself and I got into some spaces of fear that I couldn't go through. I feel that all I can do now is be with you and be here.]

That's what has to be done: just be with me and be here - that is enough. If you can really be here and be with me, all else will follow on its own accord; there is no need to do anything else. If your heart can beat with me and you can breathe in tune with me, things will happen. And when you are transformed you will not even come to know.