A Hand Beckoning

THE gods of the past are dead. And they cannot be revived again. They have become irrelevant to human consciousness; they were created by a very immature mind. Man has come of age. He needs a different vision of the gods, he needs a different kind of religion. He needs to be freed from his yesterdays, because only then can the tomorrow become possible. The old has to die for the new to be.

It is good that the old gods are gone - but it is difficult for humanity to say goodbye to them.

Humanity has become too familiar with them. They have been a great consolation and comfort and convenience, they have been a sort of security. propping them one feels frightened, scared.

Mind wants to remain with the known because the known is the familiar, the trodden. Mind is always afraid to move into the unknown. The unknown on the one hand challenges, attracts, on the other hand creates fear. It is unpredictable, one cannot know beforehand what will be the outcome. And mind is always orthodox, it is conventional. Mind is a convention, mind is traditional, mind is tradition.

So the problem is always there - mind clings with the past and life wants to go into the future, and there is a constant tug of war between mind and life.

Those who choose mind remain dead. Those who choose life against mind are the salt of the earth.

It is not only that the gods of the yesterdays are dead, the very concept of a personal god has no more any meaning. In the future there will not be gods, there will not even be one god, there can only be godliness. Try to understand it. God cannot have a form in the future, and if you insist on the form there will be no religion. Only a formlessness can be conceived - a quality, not a person; an energy, not a being. Not God but godliness. Not any particular religion - Christianity, Hinduism, Islam - but only religiousness.

Those who can see this can have a great transformation in their lives. Those who can see the point that God has to be dropped in favor of godliness and religions have to disappear in favor of religiousness, they are the people of the future. And I am talking only to those people who belong to the future. I am not interested in the dead, I am not interested in the graveyards. And the graveyards can be beautiful... but that is not the point, they are still graveyards.

Life is an adventure. An ongoing adventure, a continuous adventure into the unknown. That's where logic and life part ways. Logic remains with the old. Logic cannot have any leap, it doesn't allow any quantum leap - by its very nature it cannot allow it. It has to move step by step, it has to follow the premises. The conclusion is nothing but something that was contained in the premises and has become manifest; it is nothing new. Logic never arrives at the new, it only makes the old manifest. It makes the old understood, it makes the old clear, it makes the old transparent. But it never arrives at the new. It cannot, because for the new there is no context in the old. That's why it is new, because it has no roots in the old. It is utterly new. It comes from nowhere, it comes out of nothingness. It has no support from the past.

That's why I call it a quantum leap. It doesn't move step by step, it doesn't move by argumentation.

It is not a syllogism, it is a song. And it bursts forth in your being if you allow it. It is mysterious.

It cannot be explained, because all explanations come from the past. It remains unexplained. But that's the beauty of it, the mystery of it, the wonder of it, the awe of it. It is an Aha! experience.

You can have it but you cannot make a theory out of it. The moment you make the theory you have converted life into death, you have reduced life into death.

The moment you try to analyze something - and explanation means analysis, dissection - you destroy its organic unity. You see a rose flower, it is there in all its beauty - but unexplained, unexplainable. It is there to be loved, to be celebrated. You can have a dance around it, you can sit in silence with it, and there will be great joy and great insight; But your mind demands explanations.

Your mind says 'What is the meaning of this rose flower?' There is none. It is beyond meaning. You want to have an explanation - why does it exist, for what? And you are losing track of its reality, you are getting absorbed in the mind which comes from the past. You may compare it now with other flowers that you have known. Or you may dissect it, you may try to get into its reality by logic.

By the time you understand it - you can understand its chemistry, not its poetry - by the time you have understood its chemistry, by the time you have some explanations for it, it is gone. The flower is no more. You have a few chemicals in your hands - they are not the flower. They may have been the constituents of it but they are not its organic unity. And a flower is not just a sum total of its parts, it is more than the sum total' of its parts.

That's what I mean by poetry. When something is more than the sum total of its parts it is poetry.

You cannot reduce the whole to its parts, because the whole has something which the parts can never have - it has an organic unity. You cannot grasp it, you cannot hold it in your hand, you cannot put it down into a theory, you cannot write a scientific paper about it. It is beyond grasp, it is very elusive. T.he more you chase it, the more you will miss it. You have to enjoy it to know it truly, you have to love it to know it truly.

But love never gives any explanation. It gives great insight, great intuition, it brings a great vision to you. But there is no explanation. You cannot create a doctrine, a dogma.

The future is going to belong to those who can have poetry of the heart. The past was too logical.

Even the so-called religious people were nothing but logicians. In the garb of theology they were spinning and weaving logic, in the name of God they were creating philosophy. The highest form of the religion of the past was philosophy, and the lowest form was superstition. And both are false.

One needs a poetry of religion, a mysticism.

Kabir is a harbinger, a herald of the future, the first flower that heralds the spring. He is one of the greatest poets of religion. He is not a theologian, he does not belong to any religion. All religions belong to him, but he is vast enough to contain all. No particular religion defines him. He is a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Jaina and a Buddhist. He's a great beauty, a great poetry, a great orchestra.

And the man was utterly illiterate. The man was a weaver, a poor man. In India he is rare - Buddha was the son of a king, so was Mahavira, so was Rama and so was Krishna. India has been always interested too much in riches - notwithstanding what its leaders go on saying to the world, that it is spiritual. It has been too materialistic, and not even honest about it. Even when Indians talk against material things they are materialists. If they praise Buddha they praise because he renounced the kingdom - the value is still in the kingdom. Because he renounced such wealth, that's why he's worshipped.

Kabir is rare, he is a poor man. In Kabir, for the first time a poor man is recognized as a man of God.

Otherwise it was a monopoly of kings and princes and rich people.

Kabir is the Christ of the East. Christ was also illiterate - the son of a carpenter - and Christ also speaks in the same way as Kabir. They have great similarities. They belong to the same earth, they are very earthy, but both have great insights. Unsophisticated they are, uncultured, uncivilized.

Maybe that is the reason why their sayings are so potent. Their wisdom is not that of the universities, they have been never to any school. Their wisdom comes from the masses, their wisdom is out of their own experience. It is not learned, it is not scholarly, they are not pundits and rabbis. They are ordinary people. In Kabir, in the East, for the first time a poor man has come to declare the beauties of God.

It is very difficult for a poor man to declare the grace of God, it is very difficult for a poor man to be religious. This is my understanding - that if you find a rich man and not religious, then he is stupid.

A religious consciousness is bound to happen if you are rich. Much awareness is not needed for it, your very riches will prove to you the futility of this world. If you have all, you have to become religious, that is inevitable - because when you have all you will be able to see, even a stupid person will be able to see, great intelligence is not needed, that 'I have got all, and I have nothing inside me.

' If this does . not happen to a rich man then he is really very very foolish, utterly stupid.

To be religious for a poor man is very difficult, great intelligence is needed - because a poor man has nothing. To see that the world is meaningless is very difficult when you are poor. You have not experienced the world - great insight is needed to see that which you don't have, to see its futility.

Because of that, my appreciation for a Christ or a Kabir is far more than for a Buddha or a Mahavir.

They had all; they went through the world. Buddha had all the beautiful women of his kingdom available to him. If he became aware that there is nothing in physical beauty, that it is a dream, it is natural. He had all the luxuries possible to a man twenty-five centuries ago. If he became alert that they don't satisfy, much intelligence is not needed for it. They don't satisfy - the actual experience proves that they don't satisfy, that the discontent remains the same.

But for a Kabir or a Christ it is very difficult. They are not kings, they are poor people; even their necessary needs are not fulfilled. There is every possibility of hoping and dreaming and desiring. To see that the world is meaningless will need a great genius. So Kabir is illiterate but a man of great intelligence - of eyes so penetrating that he can even see the futility of that which he has not got. He can SEE it without having it in his own hands, his perception is so clear. He brings the first glimpse of a future religion.

The future religion will not be of ritual. There will not be much worship ping Bud there will be much celebration. And in fact to celebrate is the only real worship. There will be much singing and much dancing, but not offered to any god in particular, just offered to existence itself. A pouring of the heart, a communion of the heart. Dance itself is enough, it need not be for somebody. The song in itself is enough, it need not be addressed. The prayer in itself is enough, it need not be done in a temple or a church or a mosque. In fact it need not be done at all, just a prayerful heart is enough.

And it will be a religion which will not be confined by any doctrine, by any dogma - a religion which will not supply a philosophy but will certainly give you the vision of a different dimension of reality.

Remember, Kabir is a rebel. And I make a great distinction between a rebel and a revolutionary. A revolutionary is not much of a revolutionary. A revolutionary is against something, he is an extremist.

The orthodox, the conventional, the traditional, is the rightist; the revolutionary is the leftist - but they are part of the same game. Just like the right hand and the left hand belong to the same man, the rightist and the leftist belong to the same mind.

I have heard about a great Russian saint, his name was Avvakum. Avvakum believed that an individual should cross himself not with three fingers (symbolizing the trinity) but by two (symbolizing d e dual nature of Christ, that Christ is man and God both). He is thought to be a great revolutionary.

Now what kind of nonsense is this? Whether you cross yourself with three fingers or two fingers, what difference does it make? But Avvakum is thought to be a great revolutionary saint. And the people must have thought so - because he was crucified, he was killed. Those who murdered him were stupid people and Avvakum doesn't seem to be much of an intelligent man either; He was so adamant about this that to the very end he dutifully, defiantly, crossed himself with two fingers as he was engulfed in flames at the stake in 1682 - courtesy of the church. He crossed himself with two fingers in the flames, to defy.

But what revolution is there? Three fingers or two - trivia. Your revolutionaries are always like that.

The orthodox people are foolish and the revolutionaries are not very intelligent either. They go on doing the same thing on opposite poles. But those poles are of the same energy, the same kind of mind.

Religion is not revolutionary, it is not orthodox, it is rebellion. These new dimensions are nowhere on the right or on the left, these new dimensions are up. Up is an entirely new framework whose very premises and goals transcend the conventional right and left. Left or right, they are all conservative, they are all down. Rebellion is an up dimension; it is neither right nor left. It is a totally new kind of energy, moving upwards; it has a different vision of life.

Kabir believes in the up dimension. What is up? The past is down, the old is down, the familiar is down. The unfamiliar, the unknown, the mysterious, is up. Be up. Never belong to the dimension of the down. That's where people are. Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas and Buddhists, they go on living just as if crawling on the earth. They don't fly. Religion gives you wings to go into the infinite.

Listening to the sutras of Kabir, remember it. He will be very very shocking, he will shatter your mind. Out of his compassion he will destroy, he will create a kind of emptiness in you - because only in that emptiness God is: God as godliness. Only in that emptiness is meditation, and only in that emptiness do you start seeing for the first time.

Nicholas of Cusa has pointed out that the word for God 'Deus' comes from 'theory'. 'Theory' is a beautiful word from which 'theory' comes. 'Theory' has become very ugly, but 'theory' is beautiful - it simply means 'I see.'

Religion gives you eyes, it is simply a clarity. Remember, clarity does not give you explanations - but it makes you able to live, it makes you able to love. Clarity does not give you meanings but it gives you significance. Again, they are different things. A meaning is a mind thing, a significance is a life experience - it is existential.

I have heard, Albert Einstein used to say 'Religion without science is blind, and science without religion is lame.' With a little change, I would like to agree - but that little change has much to say.

Einstein says 'Religion without science is blind.' That is not right. Rather, 'Religion without science is lame, and science without religion is blind' - because religion gives eyes. It gives insight into reality, it gives insight within and without. Yes, it is true - without science religion is lame, it cannot walk.

You can see it in the East, the East is lame - actually lame. And the West is blind, actually blind.

Science gives energy, power, speed, technology, but it does not give you insight into what to do with it. It gives you insight only into matter, but not insight into your own being. So the insight into matter goes on becoming greater and greater technology, and you don't know what to do with it.

And when technology is there you have to do something with it. Science gives power without giving you wisdom, that is the danger. And religion gives you wisdom without giving you power, that is the danger. In the East, people have eyes but no power to do anything.

The future will have a new kind of synthesis happening: science and religion meeting and merging into each other. Then man will not be lame and man will not be blind.

Kabir's approach will give you many glimpses of the future, what kind of religion is possible. It may shock you many times, it may be disturbing to you many times. But remember, all growth is painful - and with Kabir you can grow immensely.

Kabir is not interested in giving you any answers - because he knows perfectly well there is no answer. The game of question and answers is just a game - not that Kabir was not answering his disciples' questions; he was answering, but answering playfully. That quality you have to remember.

He is not a serious man; no wise man can ever be serious. Seriousness is part of ignorance, seriousness is a shadow of the ego. The wise is always non-serious. There can be no serious answers to questions, not at least with Kabir - because he does not believe that there is any meaning in life, and he does not believe that you have to stand aloof from life to observe and to find the meaning. He believes in participation. He does not want you to become a spectator, a speculator, a philosopher.

He says: Jump into life! Become part of it, throb with it. And then you will know - although you will never be able to transfer your knowledge through words to anybody else. Truth is not transferable.

But you will become truth and you will be a light in this dark night of life and you will become a path into this jungle of life.

Many will have insights in your presence, you will be a catalytic agent, but you will not be able to give ready-made answers.

There can be no serious answers to questions about the meaning of life, for to ask about life is to stand back from life and pretend one is not it. And from there you have taken a false step from the very beginning. And the first step wrong, and all your steps will be wrong. Questions at best are a form of play and may be enjoyed as such. And there are no right answers, only light ones. Let me repeat it: And there are no right answers, only light ones, given and taken lightly by those who know that they play.

That is the game between a master and a disciple. Whatsoever Kabir is saying has not been written - it is addressed to his disciples. This is a spontaneous outpouring of his heart. He was a singer, he was a poet: somebody would ask something and he would sing a song spontaneously. And nobody has ever sung such songs.

The enlightened man is not other than the fool. Remember, while moving in the company of Kabir, that the enlightened man is not other than the fool. What makes a man enlightened is the realization that he is as a fool. 'My mind is that of a fool' says Lao Tzu. Kabir will agree perfectly, totally. 'How empty it is' says Lao Tzu ' - as empty as the mind of a fool.' Emptiness takes nothing seriously, raises no one thing up over another. Worship ping nothing, it celebrates all.

Kabir is a celebrant. He celebrates all - all colors of life, the whole rainbow of it. What he is going to say to you is not philosophy but pure poetry. It is not religion but a hand beckoning, a door half opened, a mirror wiped clean. It is a way back home, a way back to nature.

Nature is God to Kabir - the trees and the rocks and the rivers and the mountains. He does not believe in the temples and the churches and the mosques, he believes in the living reality. God is there, breathing, flowering, flowing. And where are you going? You are going to a temple, man- made, to worship an idol, again manufactured by man, in his own image.

Kabir calls you back from the temples and the mosques: What are you doing there? He calls you back to celebrate life.

I have heard:

The old man of Zen, Dr D. T. Suzuki, was asked by a student at a lecture once: 'When you use the word REALITY are you referring to the relative reality of the physical world, or to the Absolute Reality of the spiritual world?' Saying nothing, Suzuki closed his eyes. ('Doing a Suzuki' the students called it, for at such times it could not be known whether he was profoundly meditating or jut fallen asleep.) After a full minute that seemed very much longer, Suzuki opened his eyes and said 'Yes'

This is the way of a wise man. Questions don't mean much, this way or that. Answers don't mean much, this way or that. Life has to be lived without questions and without answers, only then do you live in its authenticity. So go to life - that is the only temple where God can be found. And with no questions and with no answers, just go silently, innocently. IGNORANTLY. Just go there and let life take possession of you.

Don't try to possess life - that's what the ego goes on doing. Don't try to grab it, allow yourself to be possessed by it. Be overwhelmed by it, be flooded by it, and you will know. And you will know so deeply that you will never be able to say 'I know.' You will know so intimately that you will not be able to reduce it to knowledge.

Only superficial things can be reduced to knowledge. The profounder a truth, the harder it is to reduce it to knowledge. The knowledge seems so pale, and truth is so alive. Knowledge is bloodless, heartless. And truth is the beating of the heart and the circulation of the blood and the breathing of the air, and love, and dance.

Now the sutras.

THERE IS NOTHING BUT WATER IN THE HOLY POOLS...

In the East the holy pools have been believed in for ages - that if you go to the Ganges you will be purified; nothing else is needed. Very cheap, very easy to do. But very tricky; you are be fooled by the priests. Kabir says, 'There is nothing but water in the holy pools' - he takes the hammer in his hand and he starts destroying your so-called religion. The holy pools halve been of immense value to the Hindus. The water certainly cleanses the body but it cannot cleanse the soul. How can it cleanse your consciousness? You commit wrong, and you go and take a dip in the Ganges and you think it is finished.

It happened, a follower of Ramakrishna was going to the Ganges on a certain auspicious day, and he asked permission of Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was not like Kabir. A very polite man, he would not take a hammer in his hand. But truth is truth. He would hit with a flower, not with a hammer - but hitting is hitting, and sometimes a flower hits more deeply than a hammer. He said 'Good, you go - the Ganges is beautiful, it purifies. But remember one thing: don't come back, remain in the Ganges for ever. Because the moment you get out, the effect is lost. And have you seen the trees on the bank of the Ganges?' And the devotee said 'Yes, there are big trees on the Ganges.'

And Ramakrishna said 'Have you ever pondered over it, why they are standing there?' He said 'No, I have never thought about it.' And Ramakrishna said 'When you take a dip in the Ganges and you go underwater, naturally, the Ganges is so pure that your sins leave you immediately. But they jump on the trees and sit there. And when you are coming back home they jump upon you again.'

But this is saying the same thing. It is just that Ramakrishna's and Kabir's way of saying it are different - Kabir is just blunt, Ramakrishna is polite.

Just look at the stupidity of human mind. For thousands of years it has believed that by going to a holy pool, to a river or to a pond, all will be good. And in the same way others have believed other things - going to sacred cities, Jerusalem, or the Weeping Wall, or going to Kaaba. They are all the same stupid attitudes. You want to find cheap ways to get rid of all that you have been doing, you don't want to take its responsibility on yourself. You don't want to transform yourself, that's why you find these cheap ways. You remain the same.

Man has not changed - because of these things. And these things became a great consolation. A murderer goes to the river, a holy river, and takes a dip in the river and feels perfectly good. The same is being done by the Christians when they go to confess. You go to the priest and you confess, and you think it is finished just by confessing it. And next day you are ready to do it again. And you know that there is not much of a problem, you can do it again and go and confess again. You can go every year to the Ganges, take a dip, and the whole year is clean and you have earned great virtue.

When you think over it, it looks so stupid. But that's how man has lived up to now. In the name of religion, man has just been postponing his transformation. And the real religion should be a transforming force. But the so-called religion has not been a transforming force; on the contrary, it has been a hindrance. It has been the greatest obstacle in man's change.

So religious people go on moving in a circle. They go on doing certain things, hoping that everything will be okay, and they remain the same. They God year in, year out, to the temple. They go on playing with their beads, they go on repeating sacred names, and they remain the same - not even a slight change. Nothing ever changes. In fact their beliefs are their ways to protect themselves from change; their beliefs are their defenses, their beliefs are the arm our around themselves. They want to remain the same. They still want to have that pleasure also, that they are religious, that they are holier then others - that they are not ordinary people, they are extraordinary. And these things give you beautiful dreams of yourself being extraordinary, superior, holier-than-thou. These are ego trips.

THERE IS NOTHING BUT WATER IN THE HOLY POOLS, I KNOW, says Kabir, I HAVE BEEN SWIMMING IN THEM.

ALL THE GODS SCULPTED OF WOOD AND IVORY CAN'T SAY A WORD.

I KNOW, I HAVE BEEN CRYING OUT TO THEM.

And Kabir says it out of his own experience. He had been going to all these places - to the temple and to the mosque and to the holy river and to the sacred places, he had travel led along. But he was traveling with eyes open, watching what is happening. And nothing was happening. He says it out of his own experience. He is not a theoretician, remember it always - whatsoever he says, he says because he has experienced it. His statement has a validity; he is not only philosophizing, it is not only an idea, that there is nothing but water in the holy pools. He says:

I KNOW, I HAVE BEEN SWIMMING IN THEM. ALL THE GODS SCULPTED OF WOOD AND IVORY CAN'T SAY A WORD.

And you go on praying to them. And see the absurdity of it, the ridiculousness of it: you have created them! You have purchased them from the marketplace and then you start worship ping them. They are playthings, toys to play with, and you go on deceiving yourself. And you can be so auto hypnotized by your own deceptions that the whole life can go down the drain without knowing a single glimpse of truth.

Destroy all these idols. It will be painful, because they have a certain consolation. It will become very very painful, because you will be left alone with no god to cry to, to pray to. You will be left alone in this vast emptiness of existence. But that is the first step towards reality, towards the true God, towards godliness.

Be naked of all beliefs and be free of all idols.

ALL THE GODS SCULPTED OF WOOD AND IVORY CAN'T SAY A WORD.

I KNOW, says Kabir, I HAVE BEEN CRYING OUT TO THEM.

He had prayed for many years - he is not just saying it, he cried his eyes out. He was weeping and crying and weeping and crying and praying. And then one day suddenly he realized the fact: 'To whom am I addressing this? There is nobody, the temple is empty! The god has never been there.

It is a man-made temple manufactured by the stupidity of man, manufactured for certain securities.

Because man cannot remain alone, he creates a god. God is nothing but a childish desire that you always need a parent. It is a father-fixation or a mother-fixation.

The child is born. He is born in security, comfort, convenience. The mother takes care, the father takes care, he is protected. He grows in this protection, in this caring loving atmosphere; he becomes accustomed to it. He starts getting the idea that he will be always cared for this way, always protected this way, always loved this way. It is natural for a child, because one learns by one's experience. Sooner or later he will have to stand on his own feet. Sooner or later the mother will die, the father will disappear, he will be left alone. Now a problem will arise: 'Who will care? Who will love me? Who will protect me?' Now all his securities are gone. And now he creates imaginary securities. He says 'There is a god' - God the Father, or God the Mother.

Why do you call God 'The Father'? It has something to do with your father. Why do you call God 'The Mother'? It has something to do with your mother. It is a projection, it is a wish-fulfillment.

Kabir will absolutely agree with modern psychology and its approach. It is a father-fixation, a parent- fixation - because your real parents are gone, you create unreal parents. You cannot remain alone.

You are still childish deep down, still immature deep Down; you are not an individual yet.

To be an individual one has to be free of all idols, all projections. To be an individual one has to live in insecurity without any arm our. One has to live vulnerably, without any protection; one has to live dangerously. Because you are afraid, you create a god. Your god is out of your fear.

And the real God is never out of fear. From where does the real God arise? The real God arises out of love. And the false god arises out of fear. Keep it in your mind: Whenever you pray out of fear your prayer is false, pseudo, a sheer wastage of time. When you pray out of love your prayer is true. Only love is true. But the difference has to be understood. When you pray out of fear you ask some god somewhere in the sky to give love to you. It is begging. You are a child, you need a father. Your own father has betrayed you, died, your own mother has not been true to you for ever.

Now you need a father or a mother who will be for ever and ever - an immortal father and mother, an eternity. But you want love.

A child wants love, a grown-up man gives love - that is the difference between a child and a grown- up man. And the so-called grown-ups are not all grown-ups. Growing in age is not real growth, growing in consciousness is real growth. Growing is not necessarily growing up, it may be just a passage of time. You only grow old, you don't grow up. You only age, you don't become wise.

The child simply takes. It is natural; the child cannot give, he can only take. He takes milk from the mother, he cannot give anything in return. He cannot even say thank-you, he simply takes. And he takes it without any gratitude; he is not even grown-up enough to feel gratitude. He takes it for granted that this is how things are and this is how things should be.

When you are a grown-up, when you start giving, when you start sharing love... And this is one of the greatest problems each and every human being has to face. I observe it every day. Couples come to me and they find a thousand and one problems, though those are not real problems. The real problem is that both are immature - others are just excuses. Both are immature, both are asking for love, and nobody is grown-up enough to give it. Hence the problem: two beggars begging from each other and nobody is ready to give, nobody has anything to give. Naturally they both become very very angry.

Just watch. When you love a person what is the motive? You want to be loved? Then it is childish.

Or you want to share your love, you have so much that you would like to share it, you have so much that you would like to shower it - then it is mature. Immature love is a beggar, mature love is a king.

Out of fear you create a god which is immature, as immature as you are. Out of love you start seeing God - godliness, rather. Love gives you eyes to see that this whole existence is full of divinity. Then you don't call God 'The Father' or 'The Mother'; in fact then you don't give it any name.

Lao Tzu says 'I don't know His name, so I will call it Tao. But this is just to indicate. I don't know His name.'

Godliness has no name, no limitation. Wherever you pour your love you will discover it. Pour your love on a tree and the tree becomes God. Pour your love on a woman and the woman is a goddess, pour your love on a man and the man is a god. Pour your love anywhere, and suddenly love makes it possible, love creates the miracle, and God is discovered. Pouring love is the way to discover God.

But your gods are not discovered gods, they are invented gods, invented out of fear.

ALL THE GODS SCULPTED OF WOOD AND IVORY CAN'T SAY A WORD.

I KNOW, says Kabir, I HAVE BEEN CRYING OUT TO THEM.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST ARE NOTHING BUT WORDS.

I LOOKED THROUGH THEIR COVERS ONE DAY SIDEWAYS.

If you also try to look sideways you will also find nothing but rubbish in the so-called sacred books.

Rubbish of the ages, junk. But you will have to look sideways. What does he mean by 'sideways'?

Look without the eyes of belief, look without any prejudice. Look courageously, daringly, don't be afraid in looking, and you will be surprised. In the Bible, in the Koran, in the Vedas, just look directly.

Very rarely will you come across a gem; otherwise all is rubbish. One wonders why it has been collected in the so-called sacred scriptures of the world. But if you look with a prejudiced eye, with the belief that whatsoever is written there is truth and nothing but truth, then you will not be able to understand Kabir.

Kabir is saying: Burn the scriptures, be free of the scriptures - because by being free of the scriptures you will be free of mind, by being free of scriptures you will be free of thoughts. You will attain to a kind of innocence, a not-knowing innocence. And from that point knowing starts. First become ignorant. Remember, a learned man is not needed, a learning man is needed. And there is an immense difference between the two. The learned man thinks he has arrived, he knows. And the learning man knows that he does not know, so he goes on learning.

Never become knowledgeable, then you will know. And there are wonders upon wonders to be known. The reality is inexhaustible - you can never come to a point where you can say 'Now I have known all.' The more you know, the more you understand that more is yet left to be known.

The greater becomes your insight, the greater becomes the mystery of life. At the ultimate stage of knowing, all knowledge disappears. Mystery surrounds you. You are surrounded by something which by its very nature cannot be known. And you are not separate from it to know it; you are one with it, you are part of it.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST ART NOTHING BUT WORDS.

And remember, the word can create great illusions. Somebody comes here and shouts 'Fire! Fire!'

and you will start running. The very word triggers something in you - fear. The word 'fire' is not fire, the word 'god' is not God and the word 'love' is not love. And the word 'food' is not food; it will not help in any way to satisfy your hunger. The word 'water' will not quench your thirst.

And what is there in the sacred scriptures? Words upon words. They cannot nourish you. You will need God Himself, not the word 'god'. Only then, and ONLY then, will there be contentment.

I LOOKED THROUGH THEIR COVERS ONE DAY SIDEWAYS.

THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST ARE NOTHING BUT WORDS.

WHAT KABIR TALKS ABOUT IS ONLY WHAT HE HAS LIVED THROUGH.

IF YOU HAVE NOT LIVED THROUGH SOMETHING, IT IS NOT TRUE.

Go on watching your mind, how pretentious it is. It goes on saying many things which it has not experienced. This is dishonesty, this is cheating. If you don't know a thing, say it clearly to yourself and to others: 'I don't know. ' That honesty will help you. If you have known something, only then say that you know. And you will be unburdened - because ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you carry is just a burden. It is not your experience, it is borrowed. And all that is borrowed is untrue - from whom you have taken it doesn't make any difference. You may have taken it from a man who knew, you may have taken it from Kabir or Christ or Krishna - that doesn't make much difference.

From whom you borrow, it doesn't make any difference; the moment you borrow it, it is false.

Truth cannot be borrowed.

I see something. But when I say it to you, it is not my vision that reaches you but only my words.

The vision is left with me; only words leave me. Those words are empty. And you will collect those words, and you will think they have come from a man who knows, so they must be true. They are not.

Truth is only when there is experience.

So when Kabir is saying it he is not only saying it against ancient scriptures, he is saying it against his own words too. Remember it with me too. You cannot see truth just by collecting my words. And the temptation is great. When you see a man who knows, his words have such authenticity, such vigor, such passion, that his passion is infectious. Beware of the temptation. When I say something to you I say it so totally that you can start believing in it. But that will be a belief, and you will only be cherishing words.

I have seen the beauty. But when I talk about it to you it is no more the same. You can ask then why do I talk in the first place? Why does Kabir talk? If words cannot say it, then why talk at all? There is still some reason to talk. Words cannot give you the truth, but words can create a thirst in you.

I cannot transfer my truth to you, but I can make you feel that truth exists. Now the journey starts - don't think that the journey has ended. Words can put you on the way, they cannot give you the truth. But from a man who knows, they come like flames. They burn you. They create a great desire in you to know, to see, to be.

But those words are not enough. Don't sit upon them! Let me be infectious to you as far as your thirst, hunger, for truth is concerned. But my words are words, Buddha's words are words, all scriptures are words. The wise person will just take the indication that truth exists: 'Now I have to search.' The search has to be individual.

WHAT KABIR TALKS ABOUT IS ONLY WHAT HE HAS LIVED THROUGH.

IF YOU HAVE NOT LIVED THROUGH SOMETHING, IT IS NOT TRUE.

I HAVE BEEN THINKING OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WATER AND THE WAVES ON IT. RISING, WATER'S STILL WATER, FALLING BACK, IT IS WATER. WILL YOU GIVE ME A HINT HOW TO TELL THEM APART?

To to the sea and see the waves rising. Are the waves separate from the ocean? Is the ocean separate from the waves? Has anybody ever seen a wave separate from the ocean? Has anybody ever seen the ocean without waves? They are together. In fact to say 'together' is not right, because they are one. What is a wave? An ocean waving, an ocean in movement. And what is an ocean?

All the waves together, all the waving together. Waving is an aspect of the reality of the ocean.

But words create separation. When you say 'the wave', 'the ocean', there is a difference. If you look in the dictionary, the dictionary cannot say 'the wave is the ocean' or 'the ocean is the wave.'

The dictionary will go into the etymology of the words 'wave', 'the ocean' - they are separate. The dictionary has to keep them separate, otherwise words will enter into each other and there will be great confusion. They have to be kept separate, compartmentalized. But only words are separate; in reality nothing is separate.

The tree is separate, the earth is separate, but in reality the tree is never separate from the earth and the earth is never separate from the tree. In words the sky is separate from the earth, but in reality they are together.

The reality is a togetherness. All things are hanging together, inter linked, intertwined, members of each other. If you start working from one thing you will end up with the whole.

That's why Tennyson is reported to have said 'If I can understand a single flower in its totality, root and all, I will have understood the whole universe.' He is right, he has a great insight there. If you can understand a single flower in its totality, root and all, you will have understood all the stars and all the suns and all the moons and all the men and all the women and all the earths and all the planets. Because if you go deeper and deeper and deeper you will find in a single small flower the whole is involved. You cannot understand it separately. Without the earth what is it? And without the sun what is it? There will be no color without the sun, without the earth there will be no form.

And who knows how many more things are involved in it? Without the stars maybe roses will not be the same. Who knows what pulsations the roses get from the stars? And certainly without the human eye the rose will not be the same. It will not have any color - the moment you don't look at the rose, it is no more rosy, because the color exists only in relationship with the eye. When there is an eye there is color; without the eye there is no color.

When you go to Niagara and you hear that great sound of the Niagara Falls, it was not there, it jumped into existence the moment you came there - because without the ears there is no sound.

If there is nobody around the Niagara Falls there is no sound, it falls silently. Because how can the sound be created without the ear? For thousands of years Niagara went on falling and falling silently, because there was nobody to hear it. Then there must have entered some adventurous prim-itive, and the moment he came close by, the Niagara burst into great sound. The ear is a must.

Now scientists say, even scientists - poets have always been saying this, but now even scientists say that when you love a rosebush bigger flowers come to it. Love somehow gives a warmth, nourishment.

In Canada they have been experimenting with what effects music can have on roses. In a certain university the experiment was done; they were surprised, they could not believe it. The same kind of flowers were divided into two parts - a dozen plants on one side, a dozen plants on another side.

One part of the plants was fed with Ravi Shankar's music, and another part with jazz. The plants that were fed upon Ravi Shankar's sitar all started leaning towards the instrument, all leaning - became fans, all leaning.

And on the other side where jazz was given to the plants they were all leaning to the other side, all escaping, trying to escape - because rooted they cannot escape, but all trying to escape. And the flowers were bigger with Ravi Shankar and the plants were double, their length was double. And they were all watered the same way, manured the same way, looked after the same way. When they were planted they were of the same height, and there was no other difference. The same light, the same earth, everything was the same - just the music was different.

Life is so much intertwined, everything is part of everything else. Only in words do things exist; in reality no thing exists. It is all together, it is one thing. It is good that Buddha calls this 'nothing', because no thing exists. You cannot call it anything, say what it is; it is all together. Men and women and animals and birds and trees and mountains and stars: all is one.

I HAVE BEEN THINKING OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WATER AND THE WAVES ON IT. RISING, WATER'S STILL WATER, FALLING BACK, IT IS WATER. WILL YOU GIVE ME A HINT HOW TO TELL THEM APART?

BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS MADE UP THE WORD 'WAVE', DO I HAVE TO DISTINGUISH IT FROM 'WATER'?

Beware of language. Language creates so many games, and you can be caught in those games.

That's why the insistence of all the great mystics of the world that the reality is known in silence.

When language is completely dropped, only then is the reality known - because language creates barriers.

BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS MADE UP THE WORD 'WAVE', DO I HAVE TO DISTINGUISH IT FROM 'WATER'?

THERE IS A SECRET ONE INSIDE US.

The unknown one, the secret one, the mysterious one. He is within and without. That secret one is a wordless reality, a silence, a profound silence. Alive, but soundless. Throbbing - but no name can be given to it.

THERE IS A SECRET ONE INSIDE US.

Why does Kabir call it 'secret'? Because language is not applicable to it. Language makes everything public. The moment you can say something it becomes public; saying means making it public. When you cannot say a thing, when there is no way to say it, it remains secret. If something can be said it cannot be kept secret. Philosophies are public, your so-called religions are public, your scriptures are public. And the truth is a secret. Not that somebody is keeping it a secret, not that somebody is hiding it - its very intrinsic nature is such that it cannot be said.

Lao Tzu says: The Tao cannot be said. And the moment you say it, you have falsified it.

THERE IS A SECRET ONE INSIDE US.

THE PLANETS IN ALL THE GALAXIES PASS THROUGH HIS HANDS LIKE BEADS.

And you are not small. Nothing is small. If everything is together then nothing is small, then everything is just a door to the whole. If you go deeper into yourself you will reach to that profound depth which is the depth of all. Only on the periphery are we separate; at the center we are one.

The center is one, only peripheries are different.

Your name is different, my name is different, but my reality and your reality are not different. Your body is different, my body is different, but the body is just a dressing, a clothing. The reality that is clothed in the body is not different.

Drop language, and then see. And you will find the secret one throbbing in you, breathing in you.

And you will see it is the same breathing in somebody else. It breathes in a thousand and one ways, but it is one. Life is one. Life is God - not the word 'god' but life, not the word 'life' but life itself.

THERE IS A SECRET ONE INSIDE US.

THE PLANETS IN ALL THE GALAXIES PASS THROUGH HIS HANDS LIKE BEADS.

THAT IS A STRING OF BEADS ONE SHOULD LOOK AT WITH LUMINOUS EYES.

But you will need luminous eyes to see this reality, to recognize this secret one inside you. To recognize this vastness, this totality, this wholeness, you will have to create luminous eyes. What does he mean by 'luminous eyes'? Your eyes are too dusty, the dust goes on collecting. It is like a mirror which has collected so much dust that it reflects no more. What dust? Beliefs, religions, idols, ideals, ideologies, scriptures, -isms. All kinds of dust have accumulated on your eyes. It is really a miracle how you go on seeing the little bit that you do - even that should not be, because with so much dust...

Scientists say that we see only two percent of life. Ninety-eight percent remains unavailable because of our prejudices. We see only that which we want to see, we see only that which we are prepared to see, we see only that of which we are not afraid. We don't see things which we are afraid of, which we don't want to see; we go on avoiding. By and by the mind becomes very very narrow and we see only a small bit of reality. And we go on claiming that reality to be the all, and we go on claiming that 'My truth is the whole truth.' And much conflict and controversy arises out of it.

Kabir says: You will have to create luminous eyes. Empty eyes are luminous eyes. Drop all dust.

Sacred or mundane, drop all dust; holy or profane, drop all dust. Cleanse your eyes: that's what meditation is all about.

Let your past disappear from your being. Be here now, and you will have luminosity and you will be able to see. God is not somewhere else - you need not go to the Himalayas. God is not somewhere high in heaven, God is here now! This very moment! But your eyes are not luminous, you cannot reflect Him. God is not to be searched for, your eyes have only to be clean, unburdened. Let the past disappear.

Says Jesus: Let the dead bury their dead. Disconnect yourself from the past - and this has to be done every day, because the past is created every day. What is today will become your past tomorrow. The moment it is past, loose hold of it, don't cling to it, let it go. It is no more significant, no more of any value. If you can let the past go, you will be available. That availability is luminosity.

You will have eyes which can reflect, which can see; you will have become mirrors. Meditation is the way of becoming a mirror.

And all the things Kabir will be saying to you are only to help you to become meditators. God need not be worried about. Let only one thing remain in the deepest of your heart - that you have to bloom into a meditator. And all else will follow it.