Darshan 23 October 1976

[A sannyasin with a small child says that her husband has sent her away. He loves her but cannot live with her any more: He wants his silence, and the child and I are too much of a disturbance, I think.] No, no, those are simply excuses. If you love, you accept everything that comes out of it. You love the child and you love the child's crying too; it is no more distracting. Love makes everything acceptable. But if love is missing, everything is a problem. If you can love a woman, she can never hinder you on the path of spirituality because love is always a good help and spirituality is not at all opposed to love. He must have some wrong notions in his mind.

[She says: I really feel that I cannot love as deeply as it should be. Maybe I'm afraid of love - I don't know.] That 'should' is poisoning your love. You think you don't love as you should love. That 'should' is a very poisoning thing. Never have any 'should' because that becomes a condemnation.

When you have some ideal of how love should be, if you fall short of it.... And you will always fall short of the ideal because the ideal is just utopia, imagination; it has nothing to do with reality. In fact the ideal is always unreal - that's why it is ideal. It does not happen in the nature of things. It is a wish, a hope, but it is never fulfilled. And once you have a certain idea that it should be like that, you will always feel as if you are falling short and there will always be a condemnation arising and self-hatred. Then you are in a conflict.

The conflict is not created by the way you love him. You love him the way you can. The conflict arises out of a should. Drop that should completely.

[She explains: Yes, but this should doesn't come from my part; it comes from him. He always says to me, 'You don 't love me as I would be loved' - or something like that.] No - just accept that this is the only way that you can love. You need not accept that ideal of his.

True love never believes in ideals and the idealist is never a lover. True love is based on the reality; it is very down to earth. It knows that there are flaws in human beings - no human being is perfect - so how can love be perfect? Your love is bound to have all the imperfections that you have. All your limitations are bound to shadow your love. You have many flaws; everybody has flaws. If you don't accept those flaws you are living in an ivory tower, and because of that you will always feel that you are not as you should be. If you love, you simply love the way you can - there is no other way.

So the first thing to learn while you are here is to start accepting yourself and never be deceived by anybody else's ideals.

If somebody says that you should be like that, you can immediately understand that he is trying to create a trouble in your life. Prevent it then and there! Don't allow it to corrupt you. Just say, 'This is the way I am. Either you love me or you don't love me.' Never hide your faults and never try to pretend the ideal. That destroys everything. Be real. In a real person there is anger, in a real person there is sadness, in a real person there is unhappiness. The real person has bad moods, good moods. The real person has many changing climates.

In Japan, in zen monasteries they don't have trees. They make rock gardens. The reason why they developed the rock garden is because the rock garden never changes. It remains the same; no climate affects it Trees change with every mood of the climate. Sometimes it is raining and they are very happy. They become very bushy and they bring great greenery. Sometimes it is summer and they don't feel good. Reluctantly they exist and complaint is written large on their faces. They go on complaining to the sky, 'This is not good and we don't like it at all.' Sometimes the leaves are falling - it is fall - and the trees are sad. Sometimes it is spring and the trees are dancing and become very poetic. To avoid these climates in zen monasteries they developed the rock garden. It remains unaffected by the climate. It has no moods... it is a dead thing.

Man has always tried to become something like a rock - permanent. But the more permanent you become, the less alive you are. An alive person is continuously changing. There are moments of happiness - one has to share those - and there are moments of sadness also. Love is bigger, vast...

can contain all contradictions.

So the first thing: just learn to be true. If he has ideals that is his problem; that has nothing to do with you. Simply assert your reality. If he remains with you, good; if he does not remain with you, that too is good. But you need not manage yourself according to his ideals. If you try to, you will become unreal. When you become unreal your love becomes unreal. It is a vicious circle. Then he feels that you don' t love him. Do you see the point?

He says that you don't love him so you try to pretend - and pretensions cannot be satisfying. Then he feels even more that you don't love him so he brings a bigger ideal, a bigger should. You try more - you become more unloving because you become more unreal.

Just tell him, 'This is my reality and I have decided to be real. I will not pretend and I Will not be a hypocrite. If you choose to be with me you choose a contradictory being. Sometimes I will be angry

and sometimes unhappy and sometimes happy. Choose me totally; don't choose me in parts. I am all that I am and I am going to remain this way.' This is what you need to learn - and suddenly you will see that your relationship is changing, because when you become real your love becomes real.

Then it is his problem.

He is obsessed with ideals, spirituality, this and that. They will all disappear, because my sannyasin cannot remain with ideals for too long. My whole approach is non-idealistic. It is a realistic approach, empirical, down to earth.

So here just enjoy, dance - and be real!

Deva means divine and neelama means sapphire - a divine sapphire, a divine blue diamond. I would like you to concentrate more on the colour blue - the blue of the sky, the blue of the river.

Whenever you have some view of something blue, just sit silently and look into the blue of it and you will feel a very deep tuning with it. A great silence will descend on you whenever you meditate on the colour blue.

Blue is one of the most spiritual colours because it is the colour of silence, stillness. It is the colour of tranquillity, rest, relaxation. So whenever you are really relaxed, inside, you will suddenly feel a blue luminosity. And if you can feel a blue luminosity you will immediately feel relaxed. It works both ways.

[She asks: What about the colour green?] Green is also good, but not for you. It depends.... Green is also a colour of peace, but for different persons. It depends on where one's energy is, what colour one falls into. All colours are beautiful but it depends on the person - it is not a question of the colour.

Green is very good but for you blue is going to be the helpful colour. It will function like a companion on the way. Good.

[A sannyasin says: Life's very intense at the moment. I spend a lot of time at the ashram and I feel a lot more in my heart.] Mm mm, it is a good sign. Something is happening - only then one gets mixed, confused, otherwise not. If you just go on living the way you have always lived you have a clarity - not the clarity that I talk about, but you have a certain clarity. The old habits, the same pattern - you go on following them; you move smoothly. When you come in contact with a person like me and if the contact really hap-pens, you will feel confused and mixed up, because the new will start happening and the old is there. You will be hesitating, wavering as to whether to continue with the old or take a jump into the new. Everything will become a chaos... that's a good sign.

Jesus is reported to have said, 'I don't bring peace to you - I bring conflict. I don't bring peace to you - I bring a sword.' Christians have been in a difficulty to explain that because Jesus saying that he brings not peace but war looks just... not right! 'I bring a sword,' he is saying. 'I am here to destroy you - to destroy all your peace and to create a great conflict in you, to create a great chaos.' And that can only be done by a living master.

Now if you follow Christ and you are a Christian, he cannot bring conflict to you. In fact you will gain much consolation from him. You will feel more peaceful with him; and then the whole point is lost.

I also bring conflict to you. When you are with me there is bound to be a great divide in you one day or other - your past and your future completely falling apart. If you go with your past, you miss me.

That too you cannot do. If you go with me, you will miss your past. That too seems to be very risky, because that's all you have. Your past is all that you possess. If you go with me, if you choose to go with me, you become a beggar. You become poor in spirit because your past becomes meaningless, irrelevant. Your past drops. Then you don't know who you are because you can only know through the past. You don't know what your identity is because your identity comes through the past. You don't know then whether you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan.

That's my whole effort - to help you to come to such a critical point where you have to decide either for the future and gamble with the whole past, or to completely close off the future and move with the comfort and convenience of the past.

That's why you are feeling mixed up. So don't feel in a hurry to settle things. Allow this confusion to go to the very roots of your being so that you are divided clear-cut into two parts. In the beginning it wiO feel almost as if you are becoming schizophrenic, becoming split, but this split is needed.

Once you have decided to get out of the past the confusion will disappear and there will come the clarity that I call clarity. A clarity not because you are efficient in your doings, a clarity not because the path is familiar, a clarity not because you have certain skilful mechanisms - a clarity because now you don't have any mind so there is nothing to cloud you - just a tremendous openness...

immeasurable.

That clarity is not really yours. When you are not, that clarity is. That clarity comes only when you have disappeared completely. You are the hindrance. The clarity can come any moment. The moment you decide that you are ready to disappear, the moment you decide to drop fighting, the moment you surrender, the clarity will be yours.

But don't be in a hurry. I'm not saying to do it. I'm not saying that - because you can do it in a hurry and then again and again you will go back. Only when the fruit is ripe is it good for it to fall and disappear into the earth - but only when it is ripe. An unripe fruit is not good; it is not good for it to fall.

So simply wait, watch. Let the confusion be there. Don't try to sort things out, don't try to figure things out, because whatsoever you do is not going to help now. Simply watch. This is a great parting of the ways. The way you have walked up to now is no more going to be your way in the future. You have come to a crossroads. A great decision, a moment of decision is bound to create much turmoil. So simply watch. There is no need to do anything now.

One meditation you can start every night before you go to sleep.... Just sit in your bed - sit in a relaxed way - and close your eyes. Feel the body relaxing.... If the body starts leaning forwards, allow it; it may lean forward. It may like to take a womb posture - just as when a child is in the mother's womb. If you feel like that, just move into the womb posture: become a small child in the mother's womb.

Then just listen to your breathing, nothing else. Just listen to it - the breathing going in, the breathing going out; the breathing going in, the breathing going out. I' m not saying to say it - just feel it going in; when it is going out, feel it going out.

Just feel it, and in that feeling you will feel tremendous silence and clarity arising.

This is just for ten to twenty minutes - minimum ten, maximum twenty - then go to sleep, mm? And tell me after fifteen days.

Just let things happen as if you are not the doer. For fifteen days become completely dead. That will be a very necessary thing for the fruit to ripen and to fall on its own accord.

[The sannyasin queries: But when you say, 'dead'.... I do various things about the ashram . . .] No, do them! That's not the question. Don't make effort to help or do anything about this confusion.

I' m not saying don't eat, don't take a bath - I'm not saying that. Whatsoever you are doing, do. Just don't do anything about this confusion. About this confusion, just be dead, mm? Good.