Polishing the Mirror of the Heart

HAKIM SANAI: THIS NAME IS AS SWEET to me as honey, as sweet as nectar. Hakim Sanai is unique, unique in the world of Sufism. No other Sufi has been able to reach to such heights of expression and such depths of penetration. Hakim Sanai has been able to do almost the impossible.

If I were to save only two books from the whole world of the mystics, then these would be the two books. One would be from the world of Zen, the path of awareness: SOSAN'S HSIN HSIN MING.

I have spoken on it; it contains the quintessence of Zen, of the path of awareness and meditation.

The other book would be Hakim Sanai's HADIQATU'L HAQIQAT: The Walled Garden of Truth - in short, THE HADIQA: The Garden. This is the book we are entering today.

THE HADIQA is the essential fragrance of the path of love. Just as Sosan has been able to catch the very soul of Zen, Hakim Sanai has been able to catch the very soul of Sufism. Such books are not written, they are born. Nobody can compose them. They are not manufactured in the mind, by the mind; they come from the beyond. They are a gift. They are born as mysteriously as a child is born, or a bird or a rose flower. They come to us, they are gifts.

So first we will enter into the mysterious birth of this great book THE HADIQA: The Garden. The story is tremendously beautiful.

The Sultan of Ghazna, Bahramshab, was moving with his great army towards India on a journey of conquest. Hakim Sanai, his famous court-poet, was also with him, accompanying him on the journey of this conquest. They came alongside a great garden, a walled garden.

That is the meaning of FIRDAUS: the walled garden. And from FIRDAUS comes the English word 'paradise'.

They were in a hurry; with a great army the Sultan was moving to conquer India. He had no time.

But something mysterious happened and he had to stop; there was no way to avoid it.

The sound of singing coming from the garden caught the Sultan's attention. He was a lover of music, but he had never heard something like this. He had great musicians in his court and great singers and dancers, but nothing to be compared with this. The sound of singing and the music and the dance - he had only heard it from outside, but he had to order the army to stop.

It was so ecstatic. The very sound of the dance and the music and the singing was psychedelic, as if wine was pouring into him: the Sultan became drunk. The phenomenon appeared not to be of this world. Something of the beyond was certainly in it: something of the sky trying to reach the earth, something from the unknown trying to commune with the known. He had to stop to listen to it.

There was ecstasy in it - so sweet and yet so painful, it was heart-rending. He wanted to move, he was in a hurry; he had to reach India soon, this was the right time to conquer the enemy. But there was no way. There was such strong, strange, irresistible magnetism in the sound that in spite of himself he had to go into the garden.

It was Lai-Khur, a great Sufi mystic, but known to the masses only as a drunkard and a madman. Lai- Khur is one of the greatest names in the whole history of the world. Not much is known about him; such people don't leave many footprints behind them. Except for this story, nothing has survived.

But Lai-Khur has lived in the memories of the Sufis, down the ages. He continued haunting the world of the sufis, because never again was such a man seen.

He was so drunk that people were not wrong in calling him a drunkard. He was drunk twenty-four hours, drunk with the divine. He walked like a drunkard, he lived like a drunkard, utterly oblivious of the world. And his utterances were just mad. This is the highest peak of ecstasy, when expressions of the mystic can only be understood by other mystics. For the ordinary masses they look irrelevant, they look like gibberish.

You will be surprised to know that the English word 'gibberish' is based on a sufi mystic's name, Jabbar. It is because of Jabbar's utterances that the English word 'gibberish' has arisen. But even Jabbar was nothing compared to Lai-Khur.

To the ignorant, his utterances were outrageous, sacrilegious, against tradition and against all formalities, mannerisms and etiquette - against all that is known and understood as religion. But to those who knew, they were nothing but pure gold.

He was available only to the chosen few, because only very few people can rise to such a height where he lived. He lived on Everest - the Everest of consciousness, beyond the clouds. Only those who were fortunate enough and courageous enough to climb the mountain were able to understand what he was saying. To the common masses he was a madman. To the knowers he was just a vehicle of God, and all that was coming through him was pure truth: truth, and only truth.

He had made himself deliberately notorious. That was his way of becoming invisible to the masses.

Sufis do that; they have a very strange method of becoming invisible. They remain visible - they remain in the world, they don't escape from it - but deliberately they create a certain milieu around them, so that people stop coming to them. Crowds, curious people, stupid people, simply stop coming to them; the Sufis don't exist for them, they forget all about them. This has been an ancient method of the sufis so that they can work with their disciples.

You can see it happening here. You are my Sufis. I am almost invisible to the people who live in Poona. I am here and not here: I am not here for them, I am here only for you. I am invisible even to the neighbors here. They see and yet they don't see, they hear and yet they don't hear.

Lai-Khur had made himself deliberately notorious. Now, can you find a more notorious man than me? And it is so good: it keeps the foolish away. He was now visible only to the perceptive. A master, if he really wants to work, if he means business, has to become invisible to those who are not authentic seekers.

That is what Gurdjieff used to do. Gurdjieff must have learnt a few things from Lai-Khur. Gurdjieff had lived with Sufi masters for many years before he became a master in his own right. And when I have finished this story you will see many similarities between Gurdjieff and Lai-Khur.

Lai-Khur called for wine and proposed a toast "to the blindness of the Sultan Bahramshah."

Now, first the great mystic called for wine. Religious people are not supposed to drink wine. It is one of the greatest sins for a Muslim to drink wine; it is against the Koran, it is against the religious idea of how a saint should be. Lai-Khur called for wine and proposed a toast "to the blindness of the Sultan Bahramshah."

The Sultan must have got mad. He must have been furious - calling him blind? But he was under the great ecstatic impact of Lai-Khur. So although he was boiling within, he didn't say a thing. Those beautiful sounds and the music and the dance were still haunting him, they were still there in his heart. He was transported to another world. But others objected, his generals and his courtiers objected.

When objections were raised, Lai-Khur laughed madly and insisted that the Sultan deserved blindness for embarking on such a foolish journey. "What can you conquer in the world? All will be left behind. The idea of conquering is stupid, utterly stupid. Where are you going? You are blind!

Because the treasure is within you," he said. "And you are going to India; wasting time, wasting other people's time. What more is needed for a man to be called blind?"

Lai-Khur insisted: "The Sultan is blind. If he is not blind then he should go back to his home and forget all about this conquest. Don't make houses of playing-cards, don't make castles of sand.

Don't go after dreams, don't be mad. Go back! look within!"

The man who has eyes looks within, the blind man looks without. The man who has eyes searches for the treasure within. The man who is blind rushes all over the world, begging, robbing people, murdering, in the hope that he will find something that he is missing. It is never found that way, because it is not outside that you have lost it. You have lost it in your own being: light has to be brought there.

Lai-Khur insisted that the Sultan was blind. "If he is not, then give me the proof: order the army to go back. Forget all about this conquest, and never again go on any other conquest. This is all nonsense!"

The Sultan was impressed, but was not capable of going back.

It must have been the same situation as had happened before, when Alexander the Great was coming to conquer India, and another mystic, Diogenes laughed at him. And he said, "Why? For what are you going on such a long journey? And what are you going to gain by conquering India, or by conquering he whole world?"

And Alexander said, "I want to conquer the whole world so that finally I can rest and relax and enjoy."

And Diogenes laughed and said, "You must be a fool - because I am resting now!" And he was resting, relaxing on the bank of a small river. It was early morning and he was taking a sunbath, naked on the sand, He said, "I am resting and relaxing NOW, and I have not conquered the world.

I have not even THOUGHT of conquering the world. So if you are conquering the world and trying to become victorious just to rest and relax, it looks absolutely meaningless, because Id am resting without conquering anything. And the bank of this river is big enough, it can contain us both. Rest here. Throw away your clothes and take a good sunbath and forget all about conquering!

"And look at me: I am a conqueror without conquering the world. And you are a beggar."

The same must have been the situation with the Sultan Bahramshah, and Lai-Khur must have been again the same type of man. In this world there have been only two types of people: those who know, and those who don't know. It is the same drama played again and again, the same story enacted again and again. Sometimes it is Alexander the Great who is playing the blind person and it is Diogenes who tries to wake him up. Some other time it is Lai-Khur who is trying to wake Sultan Bahramshah.

Alexander said, "I am sorry. I can understand your point, but I cannot go back. I have to conquer the world; without conquering it I cannot rest. Excuse me. And you are right, I concede it."

And the same happened with Bahramshah. He was sad, ashamed, shy. But he said, "Excuse me, I have to go, I cannot go back. India has to be conquered. I will not be able to rest or sit silently until I have conquered India."

Then a toast was called "To the blindness of Hakim Sanai" - because he was the next most important person with Bahramshah. He was his adviser, his counsellor, his poet. He was the wisest man in his court, and his fame had penetrated into other lands too. He was already an accomplished poet; a great, well-known wise man.

Then a toast was called "to the blindness of Hakim Sanai," which must have given the great poet a considerable jolt. There were even stronger objections to this on the grounds of Sanai's excellent reputation, his wisdom, his character. He was a man of character, a very virtuous man, very religious. Nobody could have found any flaw in his life. He had lived a very very conscious life, at least in his own eyes. He was a man of conscience.

More objections were raised. Because maybe the Sultan was blind, he was greedy, he had great lust, he had great desire to possess things, but that could not be said about Hakim Sanai. He had lived the life of a poor man, even though he had been in the court. Even though he was the most respected man in Bahramshah's court, he had lived like a poor man - simple, humble, and of great wisdom and character.

But Lai-Khur countered that the toast was even more apt, since Sanai seemed unaware of the purpose for which he had been created; and when he was shortly brought before his maker and asked what he had to show for himself he would only be able to produce some stupid eulogies to foolish kings, mere mortals like himself.

Lai-Khur said that it was even more apt because much more is to be expected from Hakim Sanai than from Sultan Bahramshah. He has a greater potential and he is wasting it, wasting it in making eulogies for foolish kings. He will not be able to face his God; he will be in difficulty, he will not be able to answer for himself. All that he will be able to produce will be this poetry, written in praise of foolish kings like this blind man, Bahramshah.

He is more blind, utterly blind.

And listening to these words and looking into the eyes of that madman, Lai-Khur, something incredible happened to Hakim Sanai: a satori, a sudden enlightening experience. Something died in him immediately, instantly. And something was born, something utterly new. In a single moment, the transformation had happened. He was no longer the same man. This madman had really penetrated his soul. This madman had succeeded in awakening him.

In Sufi history, this is the only case of satori. In Zen there are many cases; I have been talking to you about those cases. But in the world of Sufism this is the only case of satori, sudden enlightenment - not methodological, not gradual; in a shock it happened.

Lai-Khur must have been a man of tremendous insight. Hakim Sanai bowed down, touched the feet of this madman and wept tears of joy that he had arrived home. He died and was reborn. That's what a satori is: dying and being reborn. It is a rebirth.

He left the Sultan and went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Sultan was not willing, he was not ready to allow him to go. He tried in every way to prevent him: he even offered his only sister in marriage, and half the kingdom, to Hakim Sanai. But now all was meaningless. Hakim Sanai simply laughed and he said, "I am no longer a blind person. Thank you, but I am finished. This madman has finished me in a single stroke, in a single blow."

And he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Why? Later on, when he was asked he said, "Just to absorb, just to digest what that madman had given me so suddenly. It was too much! It was overflowing, I was overwhelmed; it had to be digested. He had given me more than I was worthy of."

So he went to Mecca on a pilgrimage, to meditate, to be silent, to be a pilgrim unknown to anybody, to be anonymous. The thing had happened, but it had to be absorbed. The light had happened, but one has to get accustomed to it.

And when he became accustomed to the new gestalt, to the new vision, he came back to Lai-Khur and presented him this book, THE HADIQA. That's what he wrote on the way back from Mecca.

He poured his experience, his satori, into this book. These words are saturated with satori. This is how this great book was born, like a child is born, mysteriously; like a seed becomes a sprout, mysteriously; like a bird comes out of the egg, mysteriously. Like a bud opens early in the morning and becomes a flower, and the fragrance is spread to the winds.

Yes, this book was not written. This book is a gift from God. This book is a gift from God, and a gratitude from Hakim Sanai to that strange madman, Lai-Khur.

Now the sutras.

WE TRIED REASONING OUR WAY TO HIM:

IT DIDN'T WORK; BUT THE MOMENT WE GAVE UP, NO OBSTACLE REMAINED.

HAKIM SANAI WAS A MAN OF CHARACTER, a religious man. He had tried hard, he had tried all the possible ways to reach God. And he was a very intelligent man, knowledgeable, and was known as a wise man. He was a very capable, rational person. He had tried in every possible way to reach God through reason.

But nobody has ever reached God through reason. That is not the door to him, that is the wall that prevents you. Reason is perfectly capable of knowing the superficial, but it cannot dive deep into the depths. It knows only how to swim on the surface. Reason is perfectly good as far as the journey OUTWARDS is concerned, but it is utterly impotent as far as the journey inwards is concerned.

Reason is good and adequate if you want to know about matter. But it is utterly incapable if you want to know anything about consciousness. Reason can measure, but consciousness is immeasurable.

Reason can weigh, but consciousness has no weight. Reason can see, but consciousness is invisible. Reason has the five senses as its servants, but consciousness is BEHIND the five senses.

You cannot touch it, you cannot smell it, you cannot taste it, you cannot hear it, you cannot see it: it is BEHIND the five senses. You cannot touch it, you cannot smell it, you cannot taste it, you cannot hear it, you cannot see it: it is behind these five windows of the senses which open towards the outside.

You can see the sunlight, but you cannot see your inner light with your eyes. You can hear the birds singing, but you cannot hear your own heart singing.

Reason is capable of measuring. That's how the word 'matter' came into existence. 'Matter' means that which can be measured; 'measurable' is the meaning of the word 'matter'. Reason measures, so whatsoever can be caught in the trap of reason is matter.

But there are things which are immeasurable. How to measure love? How to measure consciousness? The immeasurable is there. But if you insist that you will use only reason to know it, then you will remain ignorant of the immeasurable. Then you will remain ignorant of God.

Hakim Sanai says:

WE TRIED REASONING OUR WAY TO HIM:

IT DIDN'T WORK...

It cannot work, it is intrinsically inadequate. Logic cannot conclude about the unknowable. Logic moves into the world of the known; logic cannot take a quantum leap into the unknown.

Have you not observed it? Your mind can think only about the known. How will you think about the unknown? If it is unknown, there is no way to think about it. Thinking is based on the known. That's why thinking is repetitive, it moves in a circle. Yes, it can go on refining the known - it can go on refining it more and more, it can go on polishing the known - but it can never come to know the unknown.

At the most, it can guess about the unknown. But guesswork is guesswork; it can never become a certainty. It will never give you faith, it can't become trust, because deep down you know it is a guess: it may be so, it may not be so. It cannot become a rock on which the temple of life can be raised. No, it remains doubtful.

Every guess is rooted in doubt: perhaps it is so, perhaps it is not so. And there are three layers of existence. One is the known: a very small, lighted part; a lighted spot, very small, that we have come to know. Then surrounding it is the infinite unknown, a great night of darkness. But about the unknown we can have a few guesses, we can infer, because the known and the unknown are not qualitatively different. That which is known today was unknown yesterday, and that which is unknown today may become known tomorrow. So the known and the unknown correlate; they are of the same family.

Science lives in these two worlds, the known and the unknown. You base your reasoning, your guess, your inference, on the known, so you can deduct something of the unknown and you can reach into the darkness and make a little more territory lighted.

But there is something else, the third realm: the unknowable. Logic can function perfectly in the known; it functions only partially in the unknown as guessing; it cannot function in the unknowable at all. The unknowable is beyond logic, beyond reasoning, beyond knowledge, beyond the mind. And that unknowable is God.

Remember, God is not unknown. If God is unknown, then science one day will know him. God is unknowable. yes, God can be experienced and lived but cannot be known, cannot be reduced to knowledge, cannot be reduced to a hypothesis, cannot be reduced to a formula like H2O.

God remains a mystery. Even to those who have experienced him, God remains a mystery. In fact the deeper you go into him, the deeper becomes the mystery. The more you penetrate into him, the more and more you disappear. One day, God is not known; on the contrary, the knower disappears.

Just like a dewdrop slipping into the ocean, the knower dissolves.

In the world of science the unknown is constantly transformed into the known. And it is hoped that one day the unknown will disappear completely and all will be known.

In the world of religion it is just a totally different story, diametrically opposite. The unknown does not disappear, but the knower disappears. And one day ALL becomes unknowable, and the known also becomes unknowable. Then the mystery is total and absolute.

WE TRIED REASONING OUR WAY TO HIM:

IT DIDN'T WORK; BUT THE MOMENT WE GAVE UP, NO OBSTACLE REMAINED.

God happens in a state of let-go, in surrender. You cannot seek and search for God. All searching will remain rational, all seeking will be based in the mind. The mind is the great seeker. And all search, enquiry, seeking, is based in curiosity.

And deep down behind all your search is the ego: "I want to become a knower." It hurts not to know, it hurts to remain ignorant. The ego wants to gratify itself. And the ego cannot know God, because ego is the barrier. We are not separate from existence, and the ego has given us the illusion of being separate. The ego simply means the illusion of being separate from existence.

Surrender is dropping the illusion of separation. Let-go means "I am no more." Let-go means "I dissolve." Let-go means "I drop all searching, seeking, enquiring." Let-go means "I will be just passive and available." And then it happens.

That's how it happened to Sanai. Looking into he eyes of that man, Lai-Khur, listening to his strange words, listening to his strange music, feeling his presence, it happened. And Sanai had worked his whole life and hadn't reached any closer. And then out of nowhere, in the presence of the master, Lai-Khur, it just happened of its own accord.

He must have been in shock when Lai-Khur said, "Hakim Sanai, you are blind!" Nobody had said that to Hakim Sanai. He was respected and thought to be wise; even kings and emperors used to ask his advice. And this madman, a beggar, calls him blind! He must have been shocked. In that shock his mind stopped. It was almost like an electric shock.

If you are available to the master's energy, it is an electric shock. It can shatter your mind. It can create a chaos - a beautiful chaos, a chaos out of which stars are born. And such a chaos was created by the impact of Lai-Khur.

Sanai disappeared. For a moment he was not there. Only the master and his presence, and those great waves coming from the master... he was drowned. It was a moment of let-go. And God came in the form of Lai-Khur. God came through the flute of Lai-Khur.

... BUT THE MOMENT WE GAVE UP, NO OBSTACLE REMAINED.

HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF TO US...

WHEN YOU ARE IN A LET-GO, GOD COMES. It is never man who reaches God. This is one of the fundamentals of Sufism: it is always God who reaches man.

God is constantly trying to reach you but you don't allow him. You are so closed, you never leave your windows open. You are very tightly closed, nothing can enter you; you are closed airtight. God is trying in every way to reach you, like a mother searches for the child. But you are not available, you are not present. You are so afraid and so defensive.

It happens almost every day. When I initiate you into sannyas I try to reach you. But very rarely does somebody turn up who is available, very rare. Very rarely can I find a way to reach your heart. But whenever it happens, immediately you are no more the same. It happens sometimes, a person IS available and open, is not defending, drops the armour that we all carry always.

We are so afraid of people, we are so afraid of love, we are so afraid of others, that we keep a distance. That becomes a habit. When you come to a master, that habit is there.

Just two nights ago, there was a young sannyasin going back home. I asked him, "When are you leaving?" and he would not answer. And I asked him, "When will you be coming back? And he would not answer. Then I asked him to come close, "So I can touch your head." He wouldn't even come close to me - utterly closed, he did not give me any opening.

These are just ways to find an opening. It does not matter when you are leaving, today or tomorrow.

I ask you only so that you can give me a little opening. I start communication so that I can change it into communion.

But he was not ready to say anything. Nothing is wrong if you don't want to say anything; it is perfectly good. Silence can be immensely beautiful. But silence has to be open, only then is it beautiful; otherwise it is the ugliest thing. He was afraid to say a thing, he was afraid to utter a word, because if he said a word, I would find and entry. At least to utter that word he would have to open himself a little bit.

It would not have been so wrong if it had been an open silence; it would have been tremendously beautiful. But it was not an open silence, otherwise he would have come close. I was calling him to come close, and he wouldn't come. I wanted to touch him - because if words cannot reach him, maybe my presence can. But he would not allow that either.

God is trying to reach you. And when you are in the presence of a master, God is trying very hard to reach you.

HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF says Sanai TO US OUT OF KINDNESS...

Because Sanai was not going to search for God, he was going on a journey of conquest with the king. It happened from nowhere, out of the blue. That singing, that dancing, Lai-Khur's music - he was caught unawares. Just see it: there were many people there. The Sultan was there but he missed; he was not open. Hakim Sanai GOT IT. He was open, he allowed it to happen, he did not resist.

HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF TO US OUT OF KINDNESS...

Remember it: God does not come to you because you are worthy. What worth can you have?

Not because you have earned it, not because you deserve it, but only because he is kind. He is Rahim, he is Rahman, he is compassionate. These are the Sufi names of God. Rahim means compassionate, Rahman again means compassionate, merciful, kind. he comes to you out of his kindness. It is not out of your efforts that he comes; he comes out of your surrender.

... HOW ELSE COULD WE HAVE KNOWN HIM?

Sanai says: now I can say that there was no way to know him. I had tried hard in every possible way; in every rational way I had searched for him. If you cling to reason, you are bound to become and atheist sooner or later. Or you will become a hypocrite. These are the people around you.

Those who are trying to reach towards God through reason and the mind are bound to fall into these two categories: either they become hypocrites, the so-called religious - these people you will find in the churches, temples, mosques and GURUDWARAS, reading the Koran and the Gita and the Bible. These are the so-called religious, the hypocrites. They are dishonest; they have not found anything, but they are not even ready to accept that they have failed. They are not ready to accept the failure of their ego, hence they have started believing. They have not found anything, but they still believe. This belief is false; this makes a person pseudo.

That's why all co-called religious people are pseudo people, ugly - something on the surface, and something totally different deep down. Deep down, a thousand and one doubts, and on the surface just a painted belief. It does not come out of their being, it is not part of their life. It has not grown in them, it is not based in existential experience. It is out of fear that they have believed, it is out of frustration that they have believed. It is because they could not carry the enquiry further. They were tired, they lost courage, they were disheartened. And neither are they authentic enough to say, "We tried and we have not found him. So maybe he is not."

That is the other category, the atheist. The atheist is at least true; he is at least sincere and honest.

The theist is not even honest. The theist is in a double-bind: he believes in honesty, but he is based in dishonesty.

Now all around the world, your churches, your priests, go on teaching you: Be honest, and believe in God. And have you ever thought that these two things are nog possible together? Be honest, and believe in God. And have you ever thought that these two things are not possible together? Be honest, and believe in God: this is a double-bind, you are creating a contradiction. If the person has to be honest he cannot believe in God, because what will belief mean to an honest person? Either you know or you don't know. If you know, there is no need to believe; you know it already. If you don't know, how can you believe?

If the person has to be honest, he cannot believe, he NEED not believe. And if the person has to believe, he cannot be honest. Now you have created a contradiction in the person's being. This is what reduces everybody to a hypocrite. Then you become two or even many. Then you lose integrity. You become dual: you say one thing, you do another; you do one thing, you mean another.

You are never one. And when you are not one, you are never blissful.

Bliss is the by-product of oneness.

Reason cannot find him. Reason is not the only door in your being, there are deeper doors in your being. Are you not aware of the heart? Can't you feel the beat of the heart? Have you not seen anything happening through the heart? When you look at a lotus flower and you feel the beauty, is it reason? Can reason prove that the flower is beautiful?

Reason has not even been able to define what beauty is. For the rational mind there is no beauty.

But you know that beauty exists, and when you see it you are overwhelmed by it. The rational mind says there is no beauty, this is just an illusion, a projection, a dream.

The full-moon night: is it just an illusion? The hypnotic splendour of it: is it just a projection of your mind? It can't be so, because even the ocean, which has no mind, is affected. It can't be so. When the sun rises even birds are affected - it can't be just the mind and its projection.

Beauty exists. But reason has no way to approach it, it is felt from the heart. Have you not felt beauty? Love exists: that too is not through reason, that too is felt from the heart. When you fall in love can you justify it rationally? Can you say what love is? Nobody has yet been able to.

God is all these experiences together: the experience of beauty, the experience of good, the experience of love, the experience of truth. All these experiences happen: don't try to reach them through reason, they happen through the heart. All these experiences that come through the heart, the totality of them is called God. God is not a person somewhere sitting high in heaven.

SATYAM, SHIVAM, SUNDARAM: in the East, that has been the definition of God. SATYAM: he is truth. SHIVAM: he is good. SUNDARAM: he is beauty.

These are the experiences that stir your heart. And God is the ultimate experience through the heart. Knowing the real through the heart is the meaning of experiencing God. Knowing the real through the mind is the experience of matter. The reality is one.

Never fall into the fallacy of thinking that there are two realities - matter and consciousness, God and the world. No. The reality is one; that which is, is one. But that one can be approached in two ways. You have two approaches possible. You can reach it through the head: then it is matter, then the interpretation of reality comes in materialistic terms. Or you can reach it through the heart, and then it is consciousness or God.

These are our interpretations. And certainly the interpretation that comes from the heart is higher, is deeper, is more profound. And it transforms your life: it transports you into another dimension of bliss, of benediction.

HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF TO US OUT OF KINDNESS: HOW ELSE COULD WE HAVE KNOWN HIM?

REASON TOOK US AS FAR AS THE DOOR; BUT IT WAS HIS PRESENCE THAT LET US IN.

And remember one thing more: Sufism is not against reason. That is the difference between the Zen approach Zen is irrational, it says: Drop reason, drop it utterly. Sufism is not irrational, it is supra;rational. It says: Use reason, but it takes you only to the door. It cannot take you inside the temple, it takes you up to the door. Use reason, but don't be caught by it, don't be stuck with it.

That's how it happened to Sanai. he had used his reason to its ultimate potential. In fact that's why it was possible for Lai-Khur to take him inside the temple. The Sultan missed, because he had not even used reason to its optimum. Others were also there, they all missed the point. Only Sanai got it. He had used his reason to its optimum - he had seen that it comes to a certain extent, it takes you to a certain point, and then it is stuck, then it is exhausted. And reality goes on spreading beyond it, so reality is bigger than reason.

Use reason as far as it can take you, but then don't remain there. Go beyond it.

Zen is irrational, Zen is absurd, that is its beauty. Sufism is supra-rational, it is not absurd, that's ITS beauty. Both are right doors to the divine. But Zen is negative, it says: Drop reasoning. Sufism is positive, it says: Use reasoning but always remember there is something beyond it. Never forget the beyond.

Zen is VIA NEGATIVA, Sufism is VIA POSITIVA. Sufism is utterly positive. So people who have a leaning towards positivism will find it easier to have an affinity with Sufism, and people who have a negative approach and are attuned to and enjoy the negative, they will find it easier to follow the path of Zen. One has to decide. One has to watch one's leanings, one's characteristics.

REASON TOOK US AS FAR AS THE DOOR; BUT IT WAS HIS PRESENCE THAT LET US IN.

Use reason, reach the door, remember that the real is still to happen. Wait. Wait in tremendous openness, remain vulnerable. Don't become closed, don't start making a conclusion. A conclusion means you are becoming closed. If reason can give you a conclusion, this way or that, for or against God, you are finished; then there is no beyond.

See the point that reason is inconclusive, and remain non-conclusive and wait. You have come to the door, now his presence will take you in.

That is the meaning of the great maxim that when the disciple is ready, the master appears. It is possible that Lai-Khur was singing, dancing, and playing music only for Hakim Sanai. The ways of existence are mysterious. The trap was ready for Hakim Sanai: that man was ready, he had come to the door.

The same happened to Omar Khayyam, another great Sufi. He was a mathematician, a great mathematician, a genius. He had used his reason to its uttermost, and then he was taken in. And the great mathematician became a drunkard, and the great mathematician started talking of wine, of drunkenness, and the great RUBAIYAT was born.

One cannot believe, reading Omar Khayyam's RUBAIYAT, that he was a great mathematician. One cannot conceive of what kind of mathematician he was, because his poetry is so pure. How can a mathematician attain to such purity of poetry? A mathematician is a logician, he functions through syllogism. He is very practical, he is very objective. He does not allow his subjectivity to enter into his observations; he is very detached. And mathematics is the only perfect science in the world.

All other sciences are so-so; mathematics is the only perfect science. How can a perfect scientist become a sufi?

But now you can understand how it happened. When you come to the extreme point of your reason, and if you are still available, not closed - if you have not concluded, this way or that way, if you have not yet become a theist or an atheist, if you still have the awareness that reason remains inconclusive - then you will be taken in by his presence. He will appear as a master and will take you in.

And then it can happen in a single moment. When one is standing on the boundary, then in a single moment one can enter into the unknowable.

BUT HOW WILL YOU EVER KNOW HIM, AS LONG AS YOU ARE UNABLE TO KNOW YOURSELF?

GOD CAN ONLY BE KNOWN if you have known yourself. And where are you? You are not in your head, you are in your heart. The head can fall into a coma, you will still be alive. There are people who fall into comas and remain in comas for years.

Once a woman was brought to me; for nine months she had been in a coma, utterly unconscious.

The mind was not functioning any more, she was almost vegetating. But she was alive, because the heart was still beating. Once the heart stops then all stops.

So your life is somehow rooted in the heart, not in the head. The heart seems to be the contact point between you and the universe. It is through the heart that you are plugged in with the universe. And one has to know one's heart: that is self-knowledge, that is the meaning of "Know thyself." Because it is only by knowing your heart that you will know the contact with the universe. Entering into your heart, you will become able to enter into the ultimate.

ONCE ONE IS ONE, NO MORE, NO LESS:

ERROR BEGINS WITH DUALITY; UNITY KNOWS NO ERROR.

YOU HAVE MANY MINDS but you have only one heart. Have you observed this fact? You don't have one mind; you are multi-psychic, you have many minds. They constantly change - every moment your mind changes. One moment it is full of doubt, another moment it is full of belief, and another moment again it is full of doubt. One moment you are so full of love, another moment so full of anger and hate.

Watch it: you have a thousand and one minds and they go on rotating. There is a kind of rotation system in your head. for a moment one mind becomes the master, and in that moment you decide something and you think you will be able to do it. You will not be able to, because next moment the monarch is gone. It is a rotation system: another mind has come up, now another spoke of the wheel has come up. And this mind knows nothing of the decision that the other mind has taken.

This self knows nothing of the other self; it will destroy whatsoever you have decided. One moment you decide never to smoke again, another moment you are pulling out your cigarette packet. And you are surprised - just a moment ago you had decided, and the decision seemed so total, so TRUSTABLE. And now it is all gone, gone down the drain, nothing of it is there. And you are perfectly willing to smoke again. And again that old mind will come back and torture you, and you will repent and think that you are guilty.

But this will go on changing. Mind is a flux, it is a continuum of many minds. And that's why those who live in the mind live a disintegrated, fragmentary life.

The heart is one, it is always one. The heart means the watching consciousness in you. Who is the watcher of the head? Try to meditate over it. Anger comes: who is watching? You know perfectly well that there is anger; you know perfectly well that it is coming and growing, you know perfectly well that soon you will be overwhelmed by it. And then it is going, receding, disappearing, you know it is gone. Gone, gone, gone, it is no more there. Who is watching?

Love comes and goes. Misery comes, happiness comes, everything comes and everything goes.

Who is watching? The watcher remains.

Only one thing in you is constant, and that is the watcher. Everything changes, only the watcher abides. It is always there - even while you are deeply asleep it is watching the dreams; even when there are no dreams it is watching the deep sleep. When you are awake it is watching the world, when you are asleep it is watching your inner world, but the watching continues. Not even for a single moment does the watching stop. That is the eternal thing in you, non-temporal: your heart.

Sufis call it the heart. And it is one. And to know the one is to go beyond all errors.

ONCE ONE IS ONE, NO MORE, NO LESS:

ERROR BEGINS WITH DUALITY; UNITY KNOWS NO ERROR.

This unity is called UNIO MYSTICA. This is the mystic unity. This is the integration, the individuation, the centering of the soul. And then you can remain centered even when there is a cyclone raging around you. Then you are the center of the cyclone.

Then you can remain in the world and be not of the world. All errors arise out of duality. And you are not only dual, you are a multiplicity. So, errors and errors and errors - you have become divided into so many fragments. You are a crowd, that's your problem, and the crowd is constantly fighting.

It goes on fighting. You are a civil war.

And hence your life loses all joy, all bliss, all grace.

Be one, and suddenly grace is attained. And suddenly you become elegant, with no effort. Then your life has a beauty of its own. It is exquisite. It is no more that ordinary life - ugly, vulgar, mundane. Now it is the holiest of the holy. It is sacred, it is divine.

THE ROAD YOUR SELF MUST JOURNEY ON LIES IN POLISHING THE MIRROR OF YOUR HEART.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "polishing the mirror of your heart"? More and more, make your heart your center. Fall into your center more and more. Whenever you remember, move to the heart, come down from the head. Be watchful, be wakeful.

But your wakefulness has to be very loving, otherwise you wakefulness can also become only a part of the mind. It if is loving wakefulness, if it is heart-wakefulness, then it will be from the center of your being.

So when you are aware, be loving too. Let love and awareness meet and mingle; let your awareness be suffused with love. You can watch a flower without love: watchfulness will be there, but without love it will be a dry phenomenon. This watchfulness is possible even through the head; then it will not polish the mirror of your heart.

Watch and yet be loving. Watch lovingly. Slowly slowly, your watchfulness and your lovingness become one - they are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Then it is polishing the heart. Love is the method of polishing the heart. Awareness helps you to reach the heart, and love helps you to polish it. And the more it is polished, the better it reflects reality.

THE ROAD YOUR SELF MUST JOURNEY ON LIES IN POLISHING THE MIRROR OF YOUR HEART.

IT IS NOT BY REBELLION AND DISCORD...

You need not fight with yourself, you need not force anything upon yourself, you need not be in conflict. You have to fall into accord, not discord.

Hence Sufism knows nothing of asceticism. The ascetic is a masochist; he is not a really religious person. He does not love himself, he hates himself.

The Sufi loves himself, the Sufi loves all. The Sufi is love.

IT IS NOT BY REBELLION AND DISCORD THAT THE HEART'S MIRROR IS POLISHED FREE OF THE RUST OF HYPOCRISY AND UNBELIEF...

Remember, I told you the possibilities are two if you act from the mind. One is hypocrisy, the so- called religious person. Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jain, Jew: the so-called religious person, the hypocrite. That is one possibility.

The other possibility is unbelief, atheism: "There is no God. I have searched, I have searched to the very limits of my reason, and I have not found God. There is no God."

Both are foolish attitudes. One should remain non-conclusive. One should remain on the border of reason without any conclusion, just silent, passive, available. Then the presence of god takes you in.

... YOUR MIRROR IS POLISHED BY YOUR CERTITUDE BY THE UNALLOYED PURITY OF YOUR FAITH.

There is certainty that is arrived at through reason, but that certainty is always based on doubt.

Doubt cannot be destroyed by reason because reason feeds on doubt, reason begins in doubt.

Reason begins in questioning, reasoning is basically skeptical. So even if it comes to a conclusion it is only hypothetical. it is only for the time being. If some new facts are revealed the conclusion will have to be changed.

That's why science can never say, "This is the truth." Science can only say, "Up to now, whatsoever we know, this seems to be the truth." It can only say, "Hitherto, up to now, this appears to be the truth. We cannot say anything about tomorrow. New facts will be coming, new facts will be revealed, then we will have to change.

Now Newton is out of date. Soon Albert Einstein will be out of date.

But Buddha is never going to be out of date, Lai-Khur is never going to be out of date, Jesus is never going to be out of date. Because whatsoever they have said is not based in doubt. It is not through reasoning, it is concluded through the heart. And the heart knows the eternal because the heart is in contact with the eternal. The head only contacts the temporal, the momentary.

So there is a certitude that is arrived at through love, not through logic. There is a certitude that is arrived at not by the head, not through the head, not by any syllogism, but by a singing heart, a dancing heart.

Have you ever felt any conclusiveness, certainty, certitude, arising out of your love? Then you will understand the meaning. When you say "I love this woman" have you arrived at this conclusion through reason? If you have arrived at it through reason, it may disappear any moment.

That's why, in the West, love has become a very momentary phenomenon. Even love is arrived at through the head. You conclude: "This seems to be the most beautiful woman amongst the women I have known up to now. Who knows about tomorrow? A woman with a longer nose, a woman with more beautiful hair, a woman with deeper shining eyes... who knows? Nothing can be said about tomorrow. This woman may become out of date; you can always come across a better person.

If the conclusion is through the head, then love will never become deep and intimate. Then it will be momentary, then it will be just arbitrary. That's what is happening in the world. Love has become very arbitrary, for the moment; it is just an arrangement for the moment.

But this is not the way to grow deep into love. Love needs intimacy. Love needs a certitude that is not arrived at by the head but through the heart. When certitude is arrived at through the heart, it is for ever and for ever. It knows no change.

Blessed are those few people who can still have some certitude from the heart in their love. Very rare they are now on the earth; that tribe is disappearing, that species is disappearing. And that is a great calamity.

Now, if you come to me, and listening to me, finding me logical, appealing to your logic and your reason, you become a disciple, that is not going to go very far. Tomorrow I may say something that may contradict, that may puzzle your. That will create doubt.

But if it is a heart relationship - not hearing what I say but seeing what I am, not listening only to my words but listening to my silences, not listening to the philosophy that I teach but the presence that I shower upon you - then there is a certitude which is faith, which is trust, which is for ever.

If you arrive through your reason, it is just arbitrary. And you will never be in a let-go. You will always be there, watching from the corner of your eye: if something goes against your head then I am not for you. Then I have to be always fulfilling your expectations - which I cannot do, which no master can ever do. And whatsoever I say, you will always interpret it in your own way.

Just a few days ago, a woman was here. She was very serious, and she asked me, "What to do about my seriousness?" And I talked to her, saying that seriousness is a kind of illness. "You are serious because you think seriousness is something valuable. It is not, it is just stupid. Be playful.

Ad what did she conclude, do you know? She took sannyas, went back, and wrote from there, "I have listened to you, and I am trying to follow you in my own way. I have dropped sannyas, because I think one should be playful - although I have not been able to drop any other thing, I am still serious."

Now look: she could drop only one thing, and that was sannyas. If she had dropped all seriousness, then it would have been okay to drop sannyas too. But the mind is cunning. So now she has interpreted it in her own way, that one should not be serious about sannyas; about everything else she is the same. She has not understood me. In fact to be a sannyasin simply means that you will take your whole life playfully. Dropping sannyas means you have dropped the idea of playfulness.

But this is what is going to happen to many people who only connect through the head. Beware of it.

The heart MIRROR IS POLISHED BY YOUR CERTITUDE - BY THE UNALLOYED PURITY OF YOUR FAITH.

BREAK FREE FROM THE CHAINS YOU HAVE FORGED ABOUT YOURSELF; FOR YOU WILL BE FREE WHEN YOU ARE FREE OF CLAY.

THE BODY IS DARK - THE HEART IS SHINING BRIGHT; THE BODY IS MERE COMPOST - THE HEART A BLOOMING GARDEN.

BECOME DISIDENTIFIED from your head and become disidentified from your body. Remember that you are nothing but your watchfulness. And this does not mean that you have to be against the body. Sufis are not against the body either; they love the body, because the body is the compost. It can become fragrance: it has to be transformed.

... THE HEART A BLOOMING GARDEN.

The body has to function as compost in the garden of the heart. One has not to be against the body or against the head. Use the head up to the door, use the body so that it becomes the soil.

But remember always, the flower of heartfulness, the flower of heart-wakefulness, has to bloom in you. And it can bloom any moment. All that is needed is to drop the chains that you have forged around yourself - your defences, your armour, your protections.

BREAK FREE FROM THE CHAINS YOU HAVE FORGED ABOUT YOURSELF; FOR YOU WILL BE FREE WHEN YOU ARE FREE OF CLAY.

We have to become too much identified with the earth, with the body, with the clay. We have become too much identified with matter, we have forgotten that we are nothing but a witnessing.

That witnessing is your ultimate reality. Let it also become your immediate reality, and you will become the garden of the heart. And you will bloom.

And unless you bloom into a great lotus, into a great golden lotus, your life is in vain.

That's what Lai-Khur told Sanai: "Don't waste your life in writing eulogies to foolish kings. God will soon encounter you, and you will not be able to answer him. Don't remain blind any more Do something: open your eyes!"

Sanai listened and was transformed.

Listen to me: you can also be transformed.