The Sword of Love-and-Death

THE greatest mystery in life is not life itself but death. Death is the culmination of life, the ultimate blossoming of life. In death the whole life is summed up, in death you arrive. Life is a pilgrimage towards death. From the very beginning, death is coming. From the morn.en of birth, death has started coming towards you, you have started moving towards death.

And the greatest calamity that has happened to the human mind is that he is against death. Being against death means you will miss the greatest mystery. And being against death also means that you will miss life itself - because they are deeply involved in each other; they are not two. Life is growing, death is the flowering of it. The journey and the goal are not separate - the journey ends in the goal.

Death has to be taken as the crescendo. Then a different vision arises. then you don't avoid death, then you are not anti-death - then you are thrilled by its mystery and you start enjoying it and contemplating it and meditating on it.

And death comes in many ways. When you die, that is only one of the forms of death. When your mother dies, that is a death to you too - because the mother was involved in you, she was occupying a great part of your being. And the mother has died - that part inside you has died. Your father will die, your brother, your sister, your friend. Even when your enemy dies, something will die in you, because the enemy was also involved in you. You will miss something, you will lack something, you will never be the same again.

So it is not only in your death that death comes; death comes through many ways. Death is always coming. When your childhood disappears and you become a young man or a young woman, can't you see? Death has happened. The childhood is no more there, the childhood has died, that door is closed. You cannot move back, you cannot recapture it, it is gone for ever: you have died as a child.

And then one day the youth moves into old age: he has died again. There are a thousand and one deaths.

In fact if you look deeply, penetratingly, you will see each moment you are dying, because each moment you are changing - something is slipping out of your being and something is entering your being. Each moment is a birth and a death. You flow between these two banks, birth and death. Your river of life is possible only because of birth and death - and it is each moment that it is happening.

It happens very silently. You cannot hear its footsteps, it makes no noise. It goes on happening - and it happens so continuously that you don't see it, it is so obvious. The obvious is forgotten, it becomes part of your life. You only take notice of something which happens suddenly, you only take notice of something which is abrupt. And death is continuous - that's why you don't take any note of it.

And these are not the only forms of death; there are even more subtle forms of death. When you fall in love you die. Love is death - death in its purity. And only those who are ready to die will be able to love. If you are afraid to die you will also be afraid to love. That's why love is missing in the world.

People go on thinking about love - they fantasize about it but they don't move into it. Because love is death. And death frightens you.

Lovers die into each other. And only those who are ready to die into each other become lovers.

Others are only playing the game. The game of love is not real love, it is phony. And millions of people go on being phony - because they are afraid of death, therefore they are afraid of love too.

And love always brings death in. Love is a door for death and death is a door for love.

Or when you meditate, then too you die. Hence people are afraid of going into deep meditation.

Every day somebody comes to me: 'Now, Osho, it is happening. And I am frightened, I am frightened to my very roots. Meditation is happening; I feel a kind of disappearance. Now protect me.' He was eager to meditate - when it was not happening he was very worried about it. Now it is happening; that creates worry. And I know why - because when he was reading about meditation and hearing about meditation he became greedy about it, without becoming aware that it will lead one into a deep death.

Or you surrender to a master. That is one of the most profound deaths: the ego dies and disappears.

These are all deaths, and death is always coming.

You must have heard these famous lines of John Donne: 'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee.'

Whenever anybody dies anywhere, death knocks at your doors too. And not only a human being:

a dog dies, a crow dies, or a leaf becomes pale and dies and drops from the tree - you are dying.

Because we are involved in each other, we are parts of each other, we are members of each other.

Man is not an island; we are all in a kind of togetherness. And death is happening each moment in millions of ways all around the world. Existence lives through death, existence renews itself through death. Death is the greatest mystery - more mysterious than life, because life is only a pilgrimage towards death.

And only those who are in love with death will be able to know what life is. People don't live - they can't live, they are so frightened of death.

I have heard: Ludwig Wittgenstein, a great philosopher, was staying at another great philosopher's house - Bertrand Russell. 'While staying at Bertrand Russell's home one night, Wittgenstein tramped back and forth, keeping Russell awake. Russell asked the reason. Wittgenstein said he was trying to decide whether to commit suicide or not. Russell said "Well, hurry and make up your mind, for I want to get some sleep."'

Russell joked about it but missed the point. Russell was a very rational man, realistic, pragmatic, logical. Wittgenstein was also a great logician, greater than Bertrand Russell, but he knew the limits of logic too. He knew that there is something beyond logic and he knew that life reveals its mysteries only in death. And he remained fascinated with death his whole life - he was always contemplating whether to commit suicide or not. By 'suicide' he does not mean the ordinary suicide - he is asking whether to disappear or not.

And one can disappear in two ways. One, the ordinary way, the ordinary way of dying - resisting, fighting. The other way is relaxing, enjoying, ecstatic about it. That's what he calls suicide.

Voluntarily, dancing, thrilled by the adventure - that's what he calls suicide. Suicide means being ready of one's own accord, taking a few steps to meet death and embrace death.

This is one of the greatest problems each single individual has to decide. Don't die an ordinary death - reluctant, fighting, angry, in rage, clinging, greedy for life. Die lovingly. Only then will you be able to understand these sutras of Kabir - they are of immense value and of immense splendor.

THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT IS COMING ALONG FAST, AND THE SHADOWS OF LOVE CLOSE IN THE BODY AND THE MIND.

A very strange statement.

TINVIR SANZ KA GAHIRA AVAI CHHAVAI PREM TAN-MAN MEN.

THE night is coming fast, the night is becoming darker and darker, all light is disappearing. Life is being drowned by death, death is coming like a flood - CHHAVAI PREM TAN-MAN MEN. But Kabir says: I am surprised that my body and mind are both so full of love. And death is coming - it should not be so.

Ordinarily it is not so. When death comes your love disappears absolutely. You become dry like a desert, all that is green in you disappears. How can you love when death is coming? Who can think of love when death knocks on the door? How can you afford to think of love when death is so close by? Love is a luxury - when death is far away you can afford it.

In fact lovers think that they are not going to die. Lovers tend to forget about death - they start feeling love is eternal, it is for ever and ever. Love is possible, ordinary love I mean, is possible only when you can think, imagine, that there is no death. Only then is there time and space to show love, to grow love, to reap love. If death is coming...

Just think: you are sitting by the side of your beloved holding her hand and suddenly a messenger comes and says that within five minutes you are going to die. The beloved will disappear, she will not be there at all. Your hand may still be in the hand of your woman but your hand will not feel anything at all. Your hand will be a dead hand. You will become cold, all warmth will disappear.

Death is coming. Who can think of love?

That's why only young people can afford to be in love - death seems to be far away, very distant.

If it is going to happen it is so far away, there is no need to worry about it. As you grow old, love becomes difficult because death is coming closer in many ways. Your hairs are turning Grey, your face is getting wrinkles, your body is becoming weak, you are losing something every day. And whatsoever you lose cannot be reclaimed again. You are dying. As you become old, love seems to be almost impossible. And if old people are always thinking about young people as fools, they have a reason to think so. The reason is, they can now see the foolishness of love.

When death is there, love is foolish, love is absurd. If there is no death then love is possible, then love is beautiful. If death is there, what is the point of love? It is only a kind of hallucination. Maybe love is a natural drug that your body secretes; it is chemical.

The old man starts thinking - as his juices start getting drier and drier, as he starts becoming a desert, he also becomes very wise and he starts thinking that love is foolish and stupid. Only young people are so foolish that they can think of love - otherwise what is the point? He can't see any beauty anywhere any longer. He starts seeing people as skeletons, he starts seeing people as rotten bodies, as dirty things. How can you fall in love with skeletons?

Just think of your beloved as a skeleton. And hug the skeleton. Just think of the bones... No, you need youth to be fool you - that's what the old man starts thinking. He is dying. And when death enters from one door, love disappears through another.

That's why I say Kabir's statement is strange and of immense value. He says:

THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT IS COMING ALONG FAST, AND THE SHADOWS OF LOVE CLOSE IN THE BODY AND THE MIND.

CHHAVAI PREM TAN-MAN MEN.

'My body and mind are becoming over flooded with love.' This is how one should die. If death destroys your love then you have not known real love; then you were really in delusion - that love was not true love. Then you have not yet found your beloved, then you have not seen God in your beloved. Otherwise, as death comes closer, you will feel full of love - over flooded, overflowing.

Why? Because now you as a separate entity are going to disappear completely into the Beloved.

Then death is no more death, but God. And this is the miracle of meditation, that it transforms death into God. And if meditation can transform death into God, what to say about life? It naturally transforms life into great ecstasy.

One should learn how to live and how to die. This is the way to die - full of love, full of prayer, ready to go on that adventure called death. The body will be going; you as a separate phenomenon will disappear into the whole. But that is the hankering of love - love WANTS to disappear, love wants to die, love wants to become one with the whole. It does not want to remain separate.

This longing to be one with the whole is love.

Remember, if death reminds you of love then you are on the right track. If love reminds you of death then you are on the right track. If your love is possible only by denying death then your love is false.

And if the very idea of death destroys your quality of love then you have not yet known what love is.

Death and love go together, they are aspects of the same energy. When death fulfills your love, and when in love you are ready to die - when they have the same taste and the same flavor - then for the first time you have really become aware of the mysteries of life, love and death.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE AIR INSIDE YOU.

'Open the window to the west...' This is a metaphor. The east represents the rising sun, the birth.

And the west represents the setting sun, the death. Kabir says: Open the window to the west. Now get ready, open the window to the west, the sun is going to set. Be quick, open the window to the west, don't miss this beauty of the sunset. You have seen the beauty of a rising sun, now dance with the setting sun. You have lived your life, now live your death.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE AIR INSIDE YOU.

The original is: DUBAHU PREM-GAGAN MEN - Disappear in the inner sky of love. Open the door for death and disappear into the inner sky of love. Let there be a meeting of death and love, let death and love become one. And then one knows what God is.

Yes, the meeting point of love and death is the experience of God. And you go on asking what God is, and you go on asking about God as if it is a question to be answered by some theologian or a philosopher. It is an EXPERIENCE, and only available to the most courageous - because it is a meeting of death and love.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE INNER SKY OF LOVE.

Then you will know what God is. God is love from one side, and death from another side. And there are two types of religion in the world - religions which have taken the love side of God and emphasized it, and the religions which have taken the death side of God and emphasized it. Christianity has taken the love side, Buddha has taken the death side.

Kabir transcends both sides, and says: There is no need to choose. Let both be there - why choose?

Let death and love meet.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE INNER SKY OF LOVE.

DUBAHU PREM-GAGAN MEN.

'Be drowned by both love and death.' Kabir has a very transcending insight. Jesus says 'God is love' - that is the positive side of God. Buddha takes the negative side of God - his path is the path of the negative, via negative. Christ says yes, Buddha says no. And God is both, yes/no. God is both and yet beyond - He cannot be confined in the yes and He cannot be confined in the no. Buddha says 'nirvana'. Nirvana means death - the word literally means 'putting out a lamp'. Nirvana means 'putting out a flame'. Just like that, you disappear in death.

Death is God for Buddha. That's why Buddha chose the yellow robe for his monks - yellow is the color of death. The leaves become yellow before they die; the man becomes yellow, the blood disappears from his face before he dies. Yellow is the color of death.

Kabir is both Buddha and Christ. He says 'Why choose? God is both.' But why have Christ and Buddha chosen? Because if you don't choose you look very illogical. God, both love and death? It looks absurd - it does not fit with our categories of thinking. God, both light and darkness? God, both creative and destructive? God, both good and evil? It doesn't fit. Because it doesn't fit, we create the devil.

Christians have created the devil. Because if God is love then who is hate? And hate exists, in fact exists more than love. Hate seems to be more of a power, a greater power, and has more grip on the human mind, than love.

Have you not seen it happening everywhere? When a country goes to war the country becomes united. When the country is not at war there is no unity. When your family is fighting with some other family you become united, you show great love for the members of the family. But when there is no fight, no hatred, no war, you start fighting amongst the family.

In India it has happened. Hindus and Mohammedans have lived together here for many centuries.

When India became free it was a problem - they were killing each other. And the only solution was to separate the country into two parts. It was hoped that if Mohammedans had their separate country, Pakistan, and Hindus had their country as Hindustan, there would be no problem; they would live at peace. But that has not happened. Mohammedans and Hindus no longer fight, because they have separate countries, they are not together. But Pakistan started fighting amongst itself: Mohammedans started fighting Mohammedans, and Bangladesh was created. And Hindus started fighting amongst themselves.

India is a big country. The Hindi-speaking people are fighting the non-Hindi-speaking people, the Gujaratis are fighting the Maharathis, the south is fighting the north - and a thousand and one fights entered. One fight disappeared and a thousand and one fights entered. When Hindus and Mohammedans were fighting, there was unity amongst Hindus and there was unity amongst Mohammedans. And this is the story of the whole history of humankind.

People are not together because of love, people are together because of the common enemy. The common enemy unites them. Adolf Hitler said in his autobiography 'Whether there is an enemy or not, you have to go on shouting that the country is in danger.' People remain united that way; if there is no real enemy, create a false enemy. But a country can remain united only if there is an enemy - true or false, that doesn't matter.

People are together only when they are in hate. Hate is a greater passion in the world. Creators are very few and far between. One painter, one poet, one dancer, one singer - creators are very few, one in a million. And the remaining people? They are destructive people. And destruction has many ways of showing itself. You may not be able to see, because sometimes you have become accustomed to it. For example, a person likes to eat continuously and goes on stuffing himself. He is destructive; he simply enjoys destroying food. Ask the psychologists; he is a destructive person.

No creative person ever eats too much - he cannot. Your teeth are your ancient weapons. When man was just an animal like other animals and had no bayonets and no swords, teeth were your weapons for violence. Now you cannot just bite anybody, now you cannot use your teeth in that way; that looks very vile and ugly.

Sometimes that too happens, that people bite each other - especially the so-called lovers. Mm?

What kind of love is this? Those who have been searching into the deeper mysteries of love, they say a kiss is only a phony bite. You want to bite but your culture, your civilization, prevents you. So you go only so far. And if two lovers go too far into kissing, biting arises. If you go on and on, it is called a love bite. How can love be biting?

In one of the most ancient scriptures on love, the Kamasutra of Vatsayana, he describes the beauties of the love bite. And there are many kinds of love bite, just as there are many ways of kissing - French, and this and that. The love bite has its own methods, techniques and art.

Your teeth are your condensed violence. When you cannot use them the only way available for a civilized man is to go on eating, to go on stuffing. A creative person is never an over-eater. And when somebody comes to me and says 'How to stop eating? How to stop? - because now the body is becoming ugly, it is gathering too much fat: what to do about it?' - my suggestion is that unless you become creative you cannot stop it. Dieting won't help; sooner or later you will start eating again with revenge. Unless your energies become creative you will remain in it; you will go on stuffing yourself. You may not have thought about it that way: people are destructive.

From where does all this destruction come? So the Christians had to invent the devil. The devil is just a scapegoat to unburden God, so God remains pure love and the devil becomes pure hate. But in life nothing is pure, all is mixed. Life and death are mixed, love and hate are mixed, creativity and destructiveness are mixed, war and peace are mixed, men and women are mixed. It is a great mixing of the polar opposites.

Christ's choice for love is the choice of a positive mind. Christ is very positive; his religion is a positive religion. Buddha's choice is for the negative, he is a negative mind. But both have chosen - and when you choose, something has to be left outside the choice.

Kabir is courageous enough to be absurd. He says God is both: love and death.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE AIR INSIDE YOU.

NEAR YOUR BREASTBONE THERE IS AN OPEN FLOWER.

CHET-KAMAL-DAL RAS PIYO RE.

Just at the innermost core of your being there is a lotus of consciousness, full of the juice of immortality.

NEAR YOUR BREASTBONE THERE IS AN OPEN FLOWER.

But that flower can be experienced only when love and death are experienced together - otherwise not. That flower blooms only when love gives it nourishment and death showers on it like rain. When love and death both enter into the flower it opens - otherwise not. The perfect flowering of a human consciousness is of love and death.

NEAR YOUR BREASTBONE THERE IS AN OPEN FLOWER.

DRINK THE HONEY THAT IS ALL AROUND THAT FLOWER.

THE original is very beautiful: CHET-KAMAL-DAL RAS PIYO RE - 'Be conscious of the flower that you have been carrying within yourself for ages. Let death awaken you, and let love give you the ecstasy of awakening.' Both are needed - the shock of death is needed to awaken you, and also the nourishment of love. If there is only the shock of death you may fall into a coma. If there is only the nourishment of love you will go into hallucinations.

The shock of death will not allow you to go into hallucinations, into any inner lsd-trip. And love and the nourishment of love will not allow you to dry up because of death. You will remain green because of love and you will remain alert because of death.

Have you observed it? Whenever you are in danger you become more aware. In fact that is the reason why people sometimes love to be in danger. When you are driving a car, there arises a longing to go faster and faster. When you are going at a hundred miles per hour there is great awareness. All thinking disappears - when you are going at a hundred and twenty miles per hour, how can you think? Mind stops. Mind cannot afford to think, it is too risky - the thought may distract you, and there is death. You have to be absolutely alert, on guard.

That's why people go mountain climbing - it helps awareness. They may not be consciously searching for awareness, but those who know, they say man seeks dangers just to feel the thrill of consciousness. Whenever death is close by you become aware. And whenever there is love you bloom.

Alone, love will take you into hallucinations, dreams, fantasies. Alone, death will make you aware, but so frightened that you will shrink, that your inner source will close. They are both needed together.

And that is the method of Kabir, and that's my method too. The work that we are doing here is going to prepare you so that you can...

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE LOVE SKY WITHIN YOU.

NEAR YOUR BREASTBONE THERE IS AN OPEN FLOWER.

DRINK THE HONEY THAT IS ALL AROUND THAT FLOWER.

WAVES ARE COMING IN...

If you allow these two things - if you allow this paradox, if you allow this absurdity of death and love both throbbing in you, dancing in you hand in hand - then, then you will experience...

WAVES ARE COMING IN.

The original is far better: LAHAR LEHU YA TAN MAN MEN - 'Let the divine flood this, THIS body.'

This very body the Buddha. You need not go anywhere else; you need not have any heavenly body, you need not become an angel. In this very body, in this very ordinary body, the extraordinary happens. Just allow love and death together, and waves start coming in, waves from the beyond.

LAHAR LEHU YE TAN MAN MEN.

And this very body becomes a dance, a vibration, a streaming energy, a pulsation. Then it breathes in the divine, then it beats in the divine. Then this very body is transformed. Then: This very body the Buddha.

WAVES ARE COMING IN:

THERE IS SO MUCH MAGNIFICENCE NEAR THE OCEAN.

If you allow death and love to happen together, for the first time you will come close to the infinity of existence, to the ocean-like vastness of existence. And waves will come and drown you. And in that drowning you will find yourself. In that disappearing you will become for the first time a being. Yes, you will not exist as a separate individual; you will lose your definition, you will not be this and that.

But you will be all.

LISTEN: SOUND OF IMMENSE SEASHELLS!

Kabir says: If you have followed me up to now, and if you have opened the window to the west and you are ready to disappear into love, then...

LISTEN: SOUND OF IMMENSE SEASHELLS! SOUND OF BELLS KABIR SAYS, 'FRIEND, LISTEN, THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY:

THE GUEST I LOVE IS INSIDE ME!'

The host is the guest. When love and death meet in you, the host and the guest are known to be as one. The guest is not separate from you. You have been unnecessarily waiting for him, he will never come, because he is already inside you. He cannot come. He has already come; from the very beginning he has been inside you. He is you: the seeker is the sought, the observer is the observed, the meditator is the meditated upon. But the division exists between the meditator and the meditated upon, the seeker and the sought, the knower and the known, the host and the guest.

Why this division? This division exists because of an inner and far deeper division, the division between love and death. When that division disappears, all divisions disappear. Let me repeat it:

There is only one division in life, and that is the division between love and death. All other divisions are by-products of it. Once the fundamental division is no longer there, all divisions simply disappear on their own accord; they lose all substance.

KABIR SAYS, 'FRIEND, LISTEN TO THIS, THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY:

THE GUEST I LOVE IS INSIDE ME!'

He is me. I am that.

FRIEND, HOPE FOR THE GUEST WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

SADHO BHAI, JIVAT HI KARO ASHA.

KABIR says that people are postponing, they live in postponement. People live in the tomorrows - they say 'Yes, when death comes we will try.' But you will not be able to do it when death comes; you will not be prepared for it. And death comes so suddenly. Death is always an accident, because it comes without informing you, without warning you. When it comes, it comes - and suddenly it is there and all is finished. Unless your whole life has been a preparation for it you will miss the point, unless your whole life you have been learning how to die, unless you have not been missing any opportunity to die in love, in friendship, in trust, in surrender.

Your mother dies: don't miss that opportunity. When a sannyasin comes to me and says 'My mother is dying, my father is dying' I tell him 'Go and be with your dying father and experience death.' One shrinks away. One wants to think 'My father is dying, not I.'

'Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee.'

Even in the death of a stranger you are dying. Whenever there is death, go close, get involved, allow it, let it happen to you. When your father is dying, when his breathing is becoming hard, feel it, empathize with him. Feel what he is feeling, become him, and let a death happen to you too. And you will be immensely benefited. You will be thankful to your father for his life and for his death too - he gave you much when he was alive and he gave you even more when he died.

When your woman is dying, when your man is dying, be close. Feel the heartbeat of a dying friend, a lover, a beloved - let that experience become your experience too. And, slowly slowly, knowing death in its many aspects, you will come to recognize it as a friend, not as an enemy; as a great rest and relaxation. It is not against life. It is only because of death that life is possible. Without death, life will not be possible.

When a rose flower is disappearing in the evening, its petals are falling, sit there and meditate.

Feel yourself as a flower with your petals falling. Early in the morning when the sun rises and the stars disappear, feel yourself disappearing with all the stars. And when the sun has risen and the dewdrops on the grass leaves start disappearing, feel yourself disappearing like the dewdrops. Feel death in as many ways as possible. Become a great experience of death.

And you have to do the same with love. Not only experience your own love, experience everybody else's love. Two lovers are passing, hand in hand, in a deep deep communion: feel that communion, be thrilled by it. People ordinarily become jealous and antagonistic. Lovers are not allowed. If two lovers are on the street hugging each other, the police are bound to take them to the police station. Even in advanced countries - maybe nobody interferes, but nobody likes it either. People are offended.

Why does love offend? Love should be a blessing. Whenever two persons are in love you should feel nourished. Love is happening, a flower is blossoming, and you are offended? Don't miss any opportunity. Wherever love is happening, great energy is released. God is present.

But have you watched? People are offended. And if somebody comes close to the lovers, lovers are offended. If somebody stops and simply starts enjoying two lovers, they are offended - 'What are you doing here?' Only for a few seconds are you allowed to see, then it is ungentlemanly. Then you have to go on your way; you cannot even look back. You cannot go close to the lovers and thank them for being in such deep love. You don t go to the lovers and hold their hands in silence, just to show your gratitude. No, you simply start walking a little faster. You avoid them. You look at something else, somewhere else; you pretend that you have not seen them.

What kind of nonsense is this? You missed an opportunity. It is as if a lotus has flowered and you look somewhere else. How can you look at a lotus flowering? - it is so ungentlemanly. It is as if the moon is there in the sky and you cannot look at the moon, your culture prohibits it.

Love is the greatest flowering on this earth. No rose is as beautiful as the energy between two lovers.

Eyes are needed to see it and the heart is needed to feel it. No moon has anything compared to that light which arises between two lovers.

Nourish yourself from all kinds of love experiences. Love and death both have to be experienced and then you will become rich. Then you will attain to great peaks of joy. And finally, only then will you be able to know God - because God is the experience of love and death together, in a single instant.

Kabir says:

SADHO BHAI, JIVAT HI KARO ASHA.

Hope while you are alive. Do something while you are alive!

FRIEND, HOPE FOR THE GUEST WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

Don't postpone it. People go on postponing - they say 'Yes, when the time comes we will see; we will pray, we will meditate. And I am still young and death is far away.' And then people have created philosophies. People are more interested in what happens after death than in what happens before death. There are hundreds of books written all over the world in all the languages about the mystery of what happens after death. People are very interested.

People come to me, they write letters to me: 'Tell us something - what happens after death?' And I tell them 'First see what happens BEFORE death! "After" is not a relevant question. You are alive:

just see what is happening right now.' But they are not interested in the right-now; their mind is always spinning and weaving about the future. The mind is a distraction from reality.

FRIEND, HOPE FOR THE GUEST WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

JUMP INTO EXPERIENCE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

THINK AND THINK WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

Kabir offended the so-called religious people very much. All really religious people offend the so- called religious - they are not politicians, they are not diplomats, they call a spade a spade. They simply say what the truth is.

I was reading a story the other day.

A British minister and a bureaucrat were driving down the countryside when their driver pulled up and said to the minister 'Sorry, sir, but I am lost.' The minister then let down his window and asked the man standing on the roadside 'Man, can you tell me where I am?' The man looked at him and coolly replied 'Yes, certainly sir, you are in your car.'

Even as the minister turned red in the face, the bureaucrat interrupted to say softly but firmly 'Excuse me sir, but I think his answer is very good.'

'How?' shot back the minister. The bureaucrat replied 'It is short, accurate, and raises no controversy.'

The really religious person is a rebel and raises MUCH controversy; he is controversial. Kabir created much controversy while he was alive - because for centuries the Indian mind has been thinking about what happens after death. The Indian mind has become focused so much on the life beyond death, the afterlife, that it has completely forgotten to live right now. It has completely forgotten how to live in this moment; the afterlife has become its obsession.

Kabir says:

FRIEND, HOPE FOR THE GUEST WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

Don't think that when you are dead you will go to paradise, to heaven. You will remain the same wherever you are. Death is not going to transform anything, unless you become rich through the experience of life and death every moment.

JUMP INTO EXPERIENCE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

THINK AND THINK WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

JIVAT SAMAZE JIVAT BOOZE.

The original is far deeper than the translation. It does not say 'Think and think while you are alive.'

It says 'Understand and be' - JIVAT SAMAZE JIVAT BOOZE. Understanding is not just thinking.

Understanding is more of the heart than of the head - it is more an insight, an experience, rather than an intellectual argument. It is not thinking ABOUT; it is going into things, experiencing them, understanding them.

Love as much as you can, then you will understand what love is. By thinking about love you will not understand - about and about, you will go round and round, and you will never reach to the center of it. You can read much about love, because much has been written. You can go to the library and consult books. There are thousands of volumes on love and almost all are written by people who never knew what love is - because one who knows what love is will not bother. He will not write poetry about love, he will LIVE the poetry of love. The people who write poetry about love are the people who have missed love and are just creating some substitute for it: their poetry is the substitute.

JIVAT SAMAZE: understanding comes through life and the experience of living. JIVAT BOOZE:

and when under-standing comes, it is not that you know about love. You become love. That is the difference between knowledge and understanding. When knowledge comes, you remain separate from the knowledge. When understanding comes, you become one with it.

'Understand and be' says Kabir.

WHAT YOU CALL 'SALVATION' BELONGS TO THE TIME BEFORE DEATH.

Don't look for any salvation in the afterlife. Salvation is HERE, because salvation is through experience. Salvation is not through renunciation, salvation is not through virtue, salvation is not through doing good to people. Salvation is through experiencing life as deeply, as intensely, as passionately as possible. Virtue arises out of that passionate living. Good happens to people - it happens naturally without any effort on your part.

The do-gooder is not a good person and the good person is never a do-gooder. The good person is one whom good follows just like his shadow. He does not intend to do it, he has no intention to serve anybody, but his life becomes a service. It comes effortlessly.

WHAT YOU CALL 'SALVATION' BELONGS TO THE TIME BEFORE DEATH.

Because the body is the occasion to experience, the mind is the occasion to experience. These are opportunities, gifts from God - and you go on missing. Experience as much as you can, experience all that is available, don't be afraid and shy. Don't be afraid of ANYTHING. Wherever you feel something intriguing, wherever you feel something that creates curiosity in you, go into it. Don't be afraid of committing errors, don't be a coward - because only those people grow who are ready to commit as many errors as needed. Those people who go on avoiding errors remain stuck and immature. Growth comes through many errors; errors are part of growth.

WHAT YOU CALL 'SALVATION' BELONGS TO THE TIME BEFORE DEATH.

IF YOU DON'T BREAK YOUR ROPES WHILE YOU'RE ALIVE, DO YOU THINK GHOSTS WILL DO IT AFTER?

If you cannot know truth while alive, how will you be able to know truth when you are dead? Life gives you three-dimensional opportunities - of the body, of the mind, of the soul. Death will take two dimensions away from you - your life will be one-dimensional, of the soul only. This three- dimensional school of life is the greatest possibility to know, to understand, to be.

THE IDEA THAT THE SOUL WILL JOIN WITH THE ECSTATIC JUST BECAUSE THE BODY IS ROTTEN - THAT IS ALL FANTASY.

WHAT IS FOUND NOW IS FOUND THEN.

ABAHUU MILA TO TABAHUN MILEGA.

If you can get it RIGHT NOW, only then will you be able to get it THEN. Kabir is very emphatically in favor of living here now.

But people are interested in fantasy, in dreams. People are not really interested in growth; they are more interested in seeing light, in seeing visions, in hearing inner voices, in feeling the arousal of kundalini, in the opening of the chakras, in miracles. People are more interested in rubbish.

Every so often, a disciple wrote to his master and summed up his current attitude with a brief statement, so that the master might know his spiritual progress.

In the first letter, he wrote 'I feel a great expansion of my inner awareness.' The master threw the letter in the waste-paper basket.

The second letter said 'I see that all things are interrelated, a part of each other.' And the master was indifferent.

Next came 'God is in everything.' And the master yawned.

After that, his words were 'Each thing in the universe is the essence of perfection.' And he didn't give it a second look.

Then he wrote 'All my actions, even the most trivial, are profound manifestations of spirituality.' And when he read it, he said 'Ho-hum.'

And then 'As I write to you, I sit in an ecstatic state of timeless bliss.' And the master didn't even open the letter.

But after that there was a lapse in correspondence. And so, after a time, the master wrote to the disciple and reminded him that he had neglected to describe his current attitude. He wrote back and replied 'Who cares?' And the master laughed aloud and was glad, for this was real spiritual progress.

Don't be a victim of fantasies. Spirituality is not a sensational experience - it is maturity, it is let-go, it is becoming desire less. Nothing is really experienced. Spirituality is not really an experience, because all experiences are bound to be separate from the experience. Spirituality is the disappearance of all experiences. You are left alone and there is no object in your consciousness; consciousness is pure like a mirror and nothing is reflected in it.

That mirror like consciousness reflecting nothing is spirituality. And that can happen only right now.

Now or never.

ABAHUU MILA TO TABAHUN MILEGA.

WHAT IS FOUND NOW IS FOUND THEN.

IF YOU FIND NOTHING NOW, YOU WILL SIMPLY END UP WITH AN APARTMENT IN THE CITY OF DEATH.

AND IF YOU MAKE LOVE WITH THE DIVINE NOW, IN THE NEXT LIFE YOU WILL HAVE THE FACE OF SATISFIED DESIRE.

But the love has to be made now. There is no other time, now is the only time. And there is no other space, here is the only space. If you can make love to the divine make it NOW. Don't say 'tomorrow', don't say 'later', don't say 'next life'. Don't postpone it! Postponing is one of the greatest insults to existence and God. God is ready now. And you say 'tomorrow'? God wants to make love to you right now, and you say 'tomorrow'? This is insulting existence - and you have been insulting it for many many lives. This is the sin, the original sin.

AND IF YOU MAKE LOVE WITH THE DIVINE NOW, IN THE NEXT LIFE YOU WILL HAVE THE FACE OF SATISFIED DESIRE.

What is satisfied desire? Desirelessness is satisfied desire. When desires disappear there is contentment. And desires cannot disappear unless you have made love to God. No other experience is going to satisfy you. In fact the definition of God is nothing but this: that experience which satisfies you so totally that desire never arises again. That experience is God: the ultimate experience that leaves you contented for ever and for ever.

THEN PLUNGE INTO THE TRUTH, FIND OUT WHO THE TEACHER IS, BELIEVE IN THE GREAT SOUND!

SATT GAHAI SATGURU KO CHINHEN.

A great statement: 'Accept the Truth and recognize the master.' What does Kabir mean by it?

SATT GAHAI SATGURU KO CHINHEN.

DROP beliefs, they are not true. Drop philosophies, they are not true. Burn all your scriptures, they are not true. Only silence is truth. A silent mind, or a no-mind, is truth. SATT GAHAI: truth is inside you, and you are searching outside. All search outside is going to lead you from one lie to another lie You can go on changing your lies and your churches - that is not going to help you. Drop all outward search.

OPEN THE WINDOW TO THE WEST, AND DISAPPEAR INTO THE AIR INSIDE YOU, INTO THE LOVE SKY INSIDE YOU.

That is where truth abides - truth is in your inner silence. Let thoughts disappear. SATT GAHAI: when thoughts have disappeared you will know what truth is. And when you have started experiencing a little bit of truth inside you, only then will you be able to recognize the master.

A student cannot recognize the master, only a disciple can. The difference is great. A student looks through the head - he thinks, argues for and against. The disciple is one who looks through the heart - silently looks, observes, with no prejudice. In that non-prejudiced state something from the master starts flowing into the disciple, some vibe. Yes, there is no better word than 'vibe' - some vibe, invisible to everybody else, enters into the disciple. The master knows and the disciple knows that it has happened: they are bridged.

But you can become a disciple only if you are meditating. If you are only thinking, you will never become a disciple. Meditation will give you a little glimpse, a little taste, that the truth is inside you:

now you need somebody who can throw you into your own inside. On your own it will be very difficult to go into your own inside, because you will be going into love and death - which frightens, which scares.

The master does not give. you anything, he simply gives you your own being. He gives you that which you already have. He takes away, certainly, a few things from you - your fear, your unconfidence in yourself, your doubt in your possibility, in your capacity, in your potential. He takes your doubts away.

Kabir says: SATT GAHAI SATGURU KO CHINHEN. Only two things are needed: start moving inwards, and recognize a master.

THEN PLUNGE INTO THE TRUTH, FIND OUT WHO THE TEACHER IS, BELIEVE IN THE GREAT SOUND!

And when the master and the disciple meet, great music arises, a great melody is born - because it is the most harmonious phenomenon in the world. Yes, deeper than that which happens between two lovers, because the meeting of two lovers is ordinarily of two bodies or at the most of two minds.

The meeting between the master and the disciple is between two souls - it is the deepest love possible. Great music is heard.

That is 'the Word' the Bible talks about: 'In the beginning was God, and God was with the Word and God was the Word.' The word, the sound, or what the Zen people have the best way of expressing as 'the sound of one hand clapping'.

The master and disciple become one. And then the sound arises: one hand clapping. That sound is what the universe consists of. That sound, it is called AUMKAR - the sound of AUM, the sound of all sounds, the ultimate sound - that is the very fabric of this existence. Physicists say that this existence consists of electricity, and sound is a form of electricity. The mystics say the existence consists of sound, and electricity is a form of sound. Maybe they are saying the same thing in two ways, from two different angles, but mystics and modern physics agree.

For the first time in human history, the mystic and the scientist have come to a tremendous agreement. This agreement is of great significance - it will herald a new age, it will be the beginning of a new step and a new journey.

PLUNGE INTO THE TRUTH, FIND OUT WHO THE TEACHER IS, BELIEVE IN THE GREAT SOUND KABIR SAYS THIS:

'WHEN THE GUEST IS BEING SEARCHED FOR, IT IS THE INTENSITY OF THE LONGING FOR THE GUEST THAT DOES ALL THE WORK.

LOOK AT ME...

YOU WILL SEE A SLAVE OF THAT INTENSITY.'

A PASSIONATE longing for god - so intensely, utterly, that you become aflame with only one desire, that all else disappears.

A man came to Baba Farid; Farid was a Sufi mystic. The man said 'I have heard that you have come to know God. I have come from far away. Tell me what God is and how God can be known.'

Farid said 'Right now I am going to the river to take my morning bath. You come along and if possible I will answer there.'

The seeker looked a little puzzled - 'Why can't he answer it right now? Why should he answer there?' But he had heard that mystics are eccentric people: 'Maybe some idea of this madman...'

He followed.

Far id told him 'You also throw off your clothes, be naked and come into the river. Perhaps then I can answer.' The man thought 'This is going too far: "Throw off your clothes"?' But there was nobody else on the riverbank, so he said 'Why not?' He threw off the clothes and jumped into the river.

Far id was a very strong man. He jumped upon the seeker and started drowning him in the river and pushed him hard. The seeker was a very thin and weak man - must have been a philosopher, must have been thinking too much, must not have cared about the body - and Farid was killing him, murdering him. But only for one minute, and the weak and thin man threw Farid away. He tried so hard to come up that Farid could not hold him any longer.

Then they faced each other. The man could not understand. He said 'It is my own fault that I followed you; I should have been a little more intelligent. You are a madman! What were you doing? You were murdering me!'

Farid said 'These things later on. First I want to ask one thing: how many thoughts did you have while I was pulling you down into the water?'

He said 'Thoughts? There was only one thought, and that too was not a thought: "How can I get out?" And that too was not a thought - it penetrated my whole being, it saturated my whole being, it permeated every cell of my body. It was not a thought.'

Far id said 'That you have understood. When you desire God so passionately, you will know - not before that.' God is not a philosophical theory, it is an experience of intense passion.

Kabir says:

'WHEN THE GUEST IS BEING SEARCHED FOR, IT IS THE INTENSITY OF THE LONGING FOR THE GUEST THAT DOES ALL THE WORK.'

Nothing else is needed - no method, no technique. If the intensity is great then that will do the work.

In fact all the methods and techniques only help your intensity. They don't really help you to go to God, they only make you more and more aflame.

The master cannot help you to see God but he can create great thirst in you. He can impart his thirst, he can impart his fire, he can put you on fire. And that does the work. Once you are afire then there is no problem: the thing is going to happen to you.

'LOOK AT ME!' SAYS KABIR.

'YOU WILL SEE A SLAVE OF THAT INTENSITY.'

That intensity cuts the knot, that intensity becomes a sword. In a single stroke you are no more the old person, you become the new person. And Kabir believes in THAT kind of work. He says to his disciples: 'Come with me only if you are ready to put your house on fire. Come with me only if you are ready to cut off your head.'

He is not interested in solving the problem, he is interested in destroying the problem utterly.

I have heard a small story.

Once there was a man called Gordon. When he was a little boy, his parents tied a monkey on his chest. Every day they made the knot tighter and more complicated, until the monkey was almost a part of Gordon's body. With this handicap Gordon found it difficult to have any fun or play with other children, and it interfered even more with his life when he grew up. So he decided to go to a doctor and get rid of the monkey.

The first doctor he went to said 'Well, if you will lie still and don't give me any back talk, maybe we can do something.' So, week after week, Gordon lay still while the doctor tried to unravel the knot.

At the end of a few years there were some loose ends, but the knot still held firm. Then Gordon got tired of going to that doctor and stopped.

The next doctor looked at the knot carefully and said 'That's awful. It's not just a knot, it's a double knot.' He was a good doctor, but he couldn't get the knot untied.

Gordon went to a third doctor. This doctor looked at the knot carefully, took out a sword, and with one blow cut right through the center of Gordon's knot, so that the rope fell off and the monkey ran away.

When the first doctor heard about this, he came to look. He said 'That's not fair. You're supposed to unravel it. And besides, Gordon has a big white spot where the monkey used to be.' And he said to the second doctor 'Don't worry, it's not gone for good anyway. Gordon will soon be back for more treatment.' And Gordon said to the third doctor 'He's right, that was cheating. You were supposed to unravel it. And I do have a big white spot where the monkey used to be. And besides, I miss my monkey.'

So the third doctor said 'I'll tell you what. Let's have some fun. We'll paint designs on the white spot where the monkey used to be.' So they painted pictures and designs on the white spot. At first Gordon didn't like the idea, but he soon began to enjoy it. 'They're only watercolors' said the third doctor 'and they'll wash off any time. And in any case, after a while the white spot will go away and you'll look just like everybody else.'

But Gordon's friends, when they heard about Gordon having fun like that, said 'Disreputable.

Disgusting. Cynical. Everybody knows you're not supposed to have that kind of fun. Why can't he stick to standard methods of having fun?'

Remember, this is how things are in the world. Your psychoanalysts, your counselors, your therapists, are all trying to unravel the knot. And in that unraveling things are getting even more messed up.

Kabir believes in cutting the knot with one stroke of the sword. And it can be done - that's really the only way to do it. But the scholars and the pundits were not happy with Kabir. They started saying 'This is unfair. You're supposed to unravel the knot. And even the people whose knots are cut don't like it when those knots are cut. They start missing their monkeys, and the white spot is also there.

This story is beautiful. This is not the story of somebody else, this is your story. And all the parents and all the societies and all the cultures go on putting a monkey on you and tying the monkey tightly to you. That's what your knowledge is, that's exactly what your mind is: a monkey tied on by the society. The mind has to be cut - and psychoanalysis and things like that simply go on unraveling it.

Have you ever seen any man fully psychoanalyzed? There is no possibility - because mind is not just like a rubbish heap, that you can go on throwing out the rubbish and one day the mind will be empty. No: the mind manufactures rubbish. It is not easy: while you are emptying it, it is creating more rubbish - fresh rubbish, stronger rubbish, better rubbish. It goes on creating. Only for a few moments will you feel a kind of unburdening, and again it is there. No person is fully psychoanalyzed, no person can be - because psychoanalysis tries to unravel the knot.

Mystics believe in drastic methods. The situation is such, desperate, that only a drastic thing can help. A sword is needed. Kabir is a sword. And you can also create your own sword. The sword is created by two energies: love and death.