Bliss is a Shadow of God
Prem means love, sandhan means enquiry into... enquiry into love. Life is an enquiry into love. All else is secondary; the primary thing is love. Those who miss love, miss all. So remember it always, that only a life of love is a fulfilled life. Love immensely.
And this is the right time to start the enquiry. Once habits of non-loving become settled it becomes more difficult. Every child is born loving but soon we teach him not to love. On the contrary we teach him to be ambitious, to be jealous, to be possessive. By the time he becomes capable of standing on his own he has completely forgotten the language of love.
Sannyas is nothing but a language of love.
Prem means love, nartan means dance - a dance of love. Always think in terms of dance and love.
Love is the soul of dance, and dance is the body of love. Only those who know how to love know how to dance. Without love dance is dead. Without dance love has not yet manifested. If both are there then life is a great joy. Then the tree has bloomed.
[A thirteen year-old girl has two difficulties. One is: she can't look into a person's eyes for a long time; and she can't always express to a person what she wants to say.] Mm mm... mm mm. The first difficulty is not a problem. It is good. There is no need to look into somebody's eyes for a long time unless you are tremendously in love with a person. And when you are in love you can look; everybody can look into the eyes. And without love, looking into somebody's eyes for more than three, four seconds, is offensive. It is violating the other person's freedom. It is trespassing into his being, because the eyes are doors of the other's being. So one should not look too much into somebody's eyes unless the other invites, unless you are interested in the person so much that you both would like to melt into each other. Then it is perfectly good, and then you will be able to look into the eyes.
But sometimes children try these things - looking into each other's eyes, and it becomes difficult. It is not good. No need to look into somebody's eyes.
And the second problem is: you cannot express, mm?
... Mm mm. But you have been explaining to Haridas [the translator] so perfectly well! (laughter) I have been watching you....
Don't be worried, you will be able... you will be able. You are one of the best Germans to express themselves in front of me! (laughter) Even Haridas finds it difficult! Nothing to be worried about.
Just do this group, and start doing meditation, mm? Good!
Sat means being, savya means all - being is all. Having is nothing, doing is nothing: being is all.
People are lost in doing and having, and they have completely forgotten the being. They are so occupied by these two - having and doing. And these two are partners. If you want to have more, you will have to do more; if you have more, then again you will have to do more. They perpetuate each other. And slowly slowly you go farther and farther away from the being, and the being is the essential part of you. You come into the world as a being and you will leave the world as a being. All doing and all having will be left behind. One should not become too interested in things which have to be left behind; they are not real treasures.
The being is not affected at all by these two things, having and doing. The difference between a sinner and a saint is that of doing. The saint has been doing one thing and the sinner has been doing something else; their doing is contrary but both are doers. And so is the case with the poor and the rich; the difference is that of having. But whether you have much or not much, the being is not affected by it.
The being is just a witness to all that you are doing and having. You may be in a beggar's robe or in a king's robe; the being simply watches it. It makes no difference for the being whether the robe is that of a beggar or that of a king. You can have a very big palace or just a hut; your being is just a watcher. This watcher has to be remembered because that is our reality, and only through our reality can we connect with the reality of the whole, of the universe.
Only your being can have a communion with god's being. He will not ask what you have done in the world and he will not ask what you earned in the world. He will ask 'Do you know who you are?' So the fundamental question of religion is not god, not heaven, not hell, neither good nor bad, but 'Who am l?' One has to go into that deeper and deeper: 'Who am l?' A moment comes when all answers disappear. They have to disappear because they have only been learned from others. Then only the question resounds in you. And a moment comes when the question also disappears, and suddenly you are in all its brilliance, in all its intelligence, in all its splendour. That is the meaning of your name.
Anand means bliss, nartana means dance - bliss dance. Life is not static, it is dynamic, it is movement. And god must be so because this life represents god; it is his creation. His signature is everywhere. And life is movement, it is a constant riverlike flow. The movement is not haphazard either: it has a rhythm, it is very harmonious. Such an infinite universe and moving in such a harmony! It is an orchestra, and everything seems to be in tune... except man. Man has fallen out of tune. He has to learn the dance again.
He has fallen out of tune because of a certain potentiality: because he is given freedom. He is the only animal who is free to choose his being, to choose his path. No other animal is allowed freedom; they are all programmed. They have simply to enact their programme - their roles are determined beforehand. A dog cannot be anything other than a dog. He will simply live as a dog and die as a dog. Man can be many things.
Man is born only as an opening with a thousand alternatives available. That is the dignity of man and the danger too, because he can choose the wrong, he can choose the right. But the freedom to choose implies also the freedom to choose the wrong; they come in the same package. So if one chooses the right, one becomes a Buddha or a Christ, or even closer, a Krishna: a dance. If one chooses wrongly one becomes an Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane. It all depends on your choice, and each moment is precious.
The way to judge whether you have chosen right or wrong is to feel the rhythm. If you are becoming more harmonious with existence then you are on the right track. Then whether you are alone or with many people makes no difference. You can move alone - you will find the source. If you start feeling disharmonious, tense, if anguish arises, trembling arises - you start losing sense of direction and you start feeling that you are accidental, that there seems to be no meaning - then that is a clear-cut indication that you have fallen out of the rhythm of existence. Just as the disease is nothing but the body falling out of its natural rhythm, so is the case with evil. Evil is an inner disease, a spiritual disease: falling out of the inner rhythm of existence.
I give you this as a key, as a criterion, as a touchstone. Keep it always in mind that whenever you are feeling uneasy, disturbed, restless, remember: you are doing something which is against the universal rhythm, the universal dance. You are out of step, that's all. Start moving back into rhythm, come back into harmony, and suddenly there is sunlight; the clouds have disappeared and the path has been found.
Dance is a rhythmic movement. Dance represents god more than anything else. In my observation, dance is the most prayerful activity possible. When your body is in a dance and you are utterly lost in the rhythm of it, you start coming closer to god.
The indian story is beautiful... in India the story of creation starts with a dance. God started dancing and out of his rhythm and movement the world arose. The Christian idea, that god said 'Let there be light,' looks very intellectual... a kind of commandment, an order. The Hindu idea looks more in tune with existence: god wanted to create so he started dancing. His first step is the beginning of creation, his first movement... he started moving. He must have remained stagnant, he must have remained dormant, he must have been fast asleep, unmoving until then. He started moving. In that very movement, creation started. Hence you see the statues of Shiva dancing. He is called Nataraj - the god of dance.
And the world also ends in dance.... The dance becomes more and more mad, maddening. It becomes a frenzy, a fever, it becomes chaotic. And with that chaotic dance coming to a peak, the world collapses, disappears. Again there will be a long period of rest. The first step, the movement, and the creation starts. It is a cycle. Mm? The dancer gets tired, but before he stops he brings the dance to a crescendo. That is called 'tandeva': dance becoming such that it is almost mad, inconceivable; it loses all possibility of being comprehended. It becomes dangerous, but it comes to a peak beyond which there is no possibility of going. It is a climax, like a sexual climax; and then one falls into deep sleep.
The Eastern idea is very psychological, very existential. Think of prayer in terms of dance, think of existence in terms of dance, and think of sannyas in terms of dance.
Veet means beyond, manaso means mind. Beyond the mind is god, is truth, and beyond the mind Is your reality. The mind is a shadow existence, as if one is looking in a mirror and starts thinking 'I am inside the mirror.' You are not inside the mirror; the mirror is reflecting something that is confronting the mirror. The mind is a mirror, a beautiful mirror, very useful, but it is very easy to get caught in the mirror... because you don't know yourself, and whatsoever you know about yourself, you know from the mind. Your face you know only because of the mirror; the mirror becomes very important. And all that one knows through the mind is a reflection, it is not real. The real has to be known without the mind; the mind has to be put aside. One has to face oneself immediately, without the mind. And that's all, the whole of the science of meditation: how to put the mind aside, how to be mindless for a few moments.
In the beginning they are very tiny moments, just drops of mindlessness, but immensely illuminating, immensely transforming. Because even if a drop of mindlessness enters in your being, you have tasted something of the reality. And that taste lingers on your tongue forever, you cannot forget it.
And only after that taste can you see that the mind is only reflecting things, because now you can compare. Without that experience there is no way to compare. With what to compare? You know all that the mind says to you, and it is all from the mind. Something has to be known that is not from the mind and then you will see that the mind starts becoming pale. Then you know that the reality is totally different, utterly different.
So that has to be done, and it can be done. The mind is not a must; it can be put aside. It is an activity - it can be put to rest. It is like walking: when you need to walk, you walk: when you don't need, you put your legs to rest. The mind is an activity, more subtle than walking, but there is no need for it to continue for twenty-four hours a day. When it is needed use it; it is a biocomputer, immensely helpful in work. But when it is not needed put it aside, tell it to slow down, tell it to go to sleep and rest.
In the beginning it will not listen because for so many lives you have been listening to it. The servant has become the master and the master has been behaving like a servant. So right now it is not going to listen if you say 'Stop!' But if you go on, slowly slowly the master begins his mastery and the servant starts behaving. The mind is beautiful as a servant but it is very evil as a master. When you are the master and the mind follows you like a servant, it is a beautiful instrument, a great mechanism to be used and it can be helpful in many ways, but only as a servant....
Anand means bliss, zeno means meditation. Meditate on the blissful aspect of existence. Make it a point to see the positive. Don't count the thorns; count the flowers, even though they are few and far between. Count the flowers and you will become a flower. Count the thorns and you will become a thorn. A man becomes that which he contemplates. Don't contemplate on the misery of life; contemplate on the joys. Don't think that there is only death; think of the eternal beauty of life.
Then a great transformation happens: if you go on looking and seeing the silver lining in the dark black clouds, slowly slowly even the dark black cloud is no more dark and no more black; you start befriending it, because the silver lining is possible only because of it. Then even death is no more the enemy. Then death makes life possible. How can it be the enemy? Then thorns are not ugly.
They protect the flowers; they are soldiers on guard. The same tree nourishes the flowers and the thorns; there is a deep unity.
Once you start going deeper into the positive aspect of life you will be surprised to see that the negative starts disappearing into the positive. And one day the whole of life is beautiful. And unless the whole is beautiful without excluding anything, one has not come home yet. Even the sinner becomes a saint when you see the ultimate unity of the polar opposites; and when the sinner is also a saint there is no problem left for you. You can live without problems, you can live as a celebration, and to me that is the culmination of religious life.
Anand means bliss, dharma means the ultimate law, endra means god - god of the ultimate law of bliss. Bliss is the ultimate law of life, hence the longing for it... and not only in man but in animals, in birds, in trees. The whole existence is searching for bliss. It is the deepest desire. It must be something of the nature of the ultimate... god must be a synonym for bliss.
This desire has not to be dropped. This desire has to be intensified. One has to put all one's energy into this desire so that it becomes a flame, so it is not just a lukewarm longing but a matter of life and death. The moment the intensity is total, the thing happens. Nothing else is needed - just the totality of the longing is enough. You become afire, and that fire burns all that is unessential in you, and the essence surfaces in its absolute purity.