Crying For The Light

A Sufi story:

The philosophers, logicians and doctors of law were drawn up at court to examine Mulla Nasruddin.

This was a serious case, because he had admitted going from village to village saying: "The so-called wise men are ignorant, irresolute and confused." He was charged with undermining the security of the state.

"You may speak first," said the King.

"Have paper and pens brought," said the Mulla.

Paper and pens were brought.

"Give some to each of the first seven savants."

They were distributed.

"Have them write separately an answer to this question:

'What is bread?'"

This was done. The papers were handed to the King, who read them out:

The first said: "Bread is a food."

The second: "It is flour and water."

The third: "A gift of God."

The fourth: "Baked dough."

The fifth: "Changeable, according to how you mean 'bread'."

The sixth: "A nutritious substance."

The seventh: "Nobody really knows."

"When they decide what bread is,"said Nasruddin, "It will be possible for them to decide other things.

For example, whether I am right or wrong. Can you entrust matters of assessment and judgement to people like this? Is it or is it not strange that they cannot agree about something which they eat each day, and yet are unanimous that I am a heretic?"

Yes, that is the situation of your so-called philosophers, theologians, doctors of law: the learned people. They are parrots. They have not even known themselves yet - what else can they know?

They are not even acquainted with themselves - how can they be acquainted with others? They have not unravelled the mystery that they are.

The closest is your own mystery. If even that is not known, how can you know the mystery of others? Those mysteries are farther away from you, they are distant. The easily approachable, the most easily approachable, is your own mystery. The journey has to begin from there.

The learned people - the pundits, the scholars, the professors - they are only better informed. But information makes no one wise. Yes, it helps you to pretend wisdom. It becomes a camouflage; it is a facade behind which you can hide your ignorance. But the ignorance is not destroyed by it - on the contrary, it is protected.

Your knowledge becomes a defence; it is a security for your ignorance. It is nourishment. You become fully unaware that you are ignorant: that is the purpose of your so-called knowledge. And this is dangerous. If you are unaware that you are ill, then there is no possibility of searching for health. If you become oblivious to the fact of your fundamental ignorance, how are you ever going to become enlightened?

If you have forgotten that your interior is full of darkness, you will not search for light. You will not work to create light. If you have already accepted that you know, then what is the point of going on an adventure of knowing?

And that's what your so-called knowledge goes on doing. It does not change the ignorant person into a knowing person; it only gives an illusion of knowledge. It is a mirage. It is a dream in which you become wise. But in reality you remain the same.

The difference between the ignorant and the so-called learned is only of quantity. No qualitative difference at all exists between them. The ignorant is less informed, less polished, less educated.

The learned is more informed, more educated, has read more, has listened to more people. The difference is of language. The learned is more articulate, knows many more words. But they are mere words, remember. There is no meaning in it, there cannot be any meaning in it, because meaning comes through experience.

You can learn all the great words there are in the dictionaries. That's how you go on using words.

When you use words like 'god' do you know what you are saying? Do you know what you mean?

What is God? It is a mere word for you, and it will remain a mere word. But behind the word there is a danger: you may start believing that you know because you know the word.

Knowing the word 'god' is not knowing God. Knowing the word 'love' is not knowing love. Knowing the word 'fire' is not knowing fire. Remember, words are mere symbols. Unless you pour existential meaning into them they will remain empty. There is no meaning in words, the meaning is in the individual and his experience.

If Krishna uses the word 'god' it is not a mere word. It is meaningful, it has significance. The significance comes from Krishna's life, the significance is poured from Krishna's consciousness.

When Jesus uses the word 'god' it is of utter import, it is pregnant with great meaning. The meaning is in Jesus, not in the word 'god' - because the word 'god' had been used by rabbis, down the ages, with no meaning at all. Jesus poured meaning into it. He transformed an empty word into a significant, meaningful, alive thing: it started pulsating.

When Buddha touched any word it became alive, it grew wings. Suddenly there was a metamorphosis.

But the learned is only full of dust, the dust that he has gathered from books and scriptures. Beware of such learning, it is more dangerous than simple ignorance. Why is it more dangerous than ignorance? Because ignorance has a purity; it has innocence in it and it has an authenticity. It is true - and from truth there is a possibility to go further. Knowledge, the so-called knowledge, is untrue. From untruth you cannot go on a journey of truth.

Remember, there is no actual difference between the learned and the ignorant, except that the learned believes that he knows, and the ignorant knows that he does not know. But then the ignorant is in a better position.

An American lady who speaks no French takes her little daughter to the Paris zoo. They stop in front of a cage with porcupines inside and read a sign that says: Porcupi Africain, Porcupi Australian.

This puzzles them, because the porcupines all look just about the same. So the mother goes up to the guard who is standing nearby and says, "Monsieur, do you speak English?"

The guard touches his cap and says, "Madame, I speak... only a very leetle of English.... Wat ees eet Madame weesh to know?"

"Would you tell us please what is the difference between the Australian porcupine and the African porcupine?"

"Eet eez thees, Madame: zee prick of zee African porcupine, she is longair zan zee prick of zee Australian porcupine."

The lady is horrified and rushes off with her daughter until she finds the superintendent of the zoo.

"Monsieur," she says, "Do you speak English?"

"Madame," says the superintendent, "I am speaking English for many years. I have studied at Oxford and in fact I can speak as well as you. What does Madame wishes to know.

So she tells him with great indignation the awful thing that the guard has just said in front of her and her little girl.

"Madame must not be offended," says the superintendent. "You see, what the guard is trying to say is that the quill of the African porcupine is longer that the quill of the Australian porcupine - for, as a matter of fact, Madame, their prick is of the same size."

There is not much difference between the so-called learned and the unlearned. Maybe the difference is of words, of language, but not of any quality. Their inner quality remains the same.

This is one of the fundamentals of Sufism to be understood: knowledge is futile if it has not arisen in your own experience. Knowledge is an utterly unnecessary burden if it is not part of your own life.

If it is added to you from the outside, drop it. Don't unnecessarily carry it. It is useless, it is harmful, it is poisonous, and a burden. It will not allow you to move quick and fast. And the more you gather knowledge, the less is the possibility of your movement.

Hence your learned people live like stagnant pools: They are no longer rivers. Learned people go on talking about beautiful words, spinning and weaving great philosophies around them. But if you go into their words and penetrate deeply, you will always find emptiness and nothing else.

Great books are written about God by people who have no inkling. Great books are written about heaven and hell, maps of heaven and hell have even been drawn by people and they don't know a thing. They have not even penetrated their own world of emotions and feelings; they have not contacted their own inner consciousness. And they are talking about distant things: the afterlife, life after death.... And they are clever people; they know how to talk, they know how to prove, they know how to argue. And they argue in such a beautiful way that anybody can be deceived.

If you go into their argument you will find it very valid. But the validity of the argument is irrelevant.

The question is of whether the person knows or not. Sometimes it happens that a person knows but cannot argue, or argues faultily. A person sometimes knows but has no language to express it, or uses wrong language. But what he says is still true. His argument may be false, his language may not be adequate, but what he says is still true.

And at the other extreme there are people whose language you cannot find fault with, whose argument is perfect, who are accomplished logicians. You cannot argue with them, they will immediately silence you. But still, what they are saying is utterly stupid. It does not make any sense. It is just in their minds; their hearts are utterly untouched by it. They themselves are not moved by what they are saying. When they talked about God there is no juice flowing in their being.

When they talk about love you will not see any sign of it in their eyes, and when they talk about poetry there is no poetry in their presence. They talked about grace but you will not see any grace anywhere.

But they can create a great turmoil of words, they can create a great smoke of words. And if you also live in words there is every possibility you will be deceived. That's how million of people are lost. The blind are leading the other blind. The articulate blind are leading the inarticulate blind, the informed blind are leading the uninformed blind.

And whenever a man of eyes is born - a Jesus, a Buddha, a Bahaudin, a Hakim Sanai - all those scholars and learned people are immediately in agreement about one thing, that Jesus is wrong.

They may not agree about what bread is, they may not agree about anything else, but about one thing they immediately agree, that Jesus is wrong.

They may be Hindus, they may be Mohammedans, they may be Jews, they may be somebody else.

But when there is a man like Jesus they immediately all fall into agreement, because they all see the risk. If Jesus is right, then they are all wrong. Jesus has to be proved wrong. And if they cannot prove him wrong - and they CANNOT prove it - then Jesus has to be destroyed. If they cannot prove it then the only way is to remove Jesus from people's lives.

And once Jesus is killed. the same people who killed Jesus will become Jesus' followers, popes, bishops and priests. Again they are there to philosophize.

With Jesus there is trouble. But with Jesus' words there is no problem. They can spin and weave around any word; whether it is of Moses or Jesus makes mo difference to them. Now Jesus becomes their center of philosophizing.

Buddha becomes the greatest source of philosophers: a strange phenomenon, unbelievable - because Buddha was utterly against philosophy. His whole life he remained absolutely anti- philosophy. He never talked about any philosophical subject; he was down to earth. He was a pragmatist, a practical man. If you had asked him about god he would have immediately pushed the question aside and would have said to you, "How is it going to transform you? Talking about god is meaningless - don't waste time.Think about meditation, think about compassion. Think about things which can transform you. What can god do?"

If you had asked him about the afterlife he would have immediately stopped you: "Don't talk nonsense. You are alive, and you don't know what LIFE is, and you are thinking about the afterlife!

You don't know what you are right now, and you are asking,'What will I be after death?' This is utter stupidity."

Rather, go into yourself and see who you are. And if you have known yourself then there is no problem. When you die you will know whether you survive or not - why make much fuss about it right now? And how can it be decided? There is no way of deciding. Even if the whole world says that you will survive the bodily death, the doubt will still persist. Who knows? Everybody may be wrong - because the whole world used to believe that the earth was flat, and the whole world was wrong. The earth was not flat; now we know. The whole world has believed, down the ages, that the sun moves around the earth. Now we know, the earth moves around the sun, not vice versa.

So it is not a question of how many people believe in it. Truth is not decided by the majority, it is not a question of voting. Even if a single man knows truth, and the whole world is against him, he is still true and the world is still wrong.

You cannot be convinced that you will be when you are dead; there is no way of convincing you. You can believe it if you want to; if you want to believe, you can believe anything. But is because you want to, not because you are convinced.

You are afraid of death, so you would like to remain after death: you want to believe it, so you believe it. But you know that it is your belief; it may not be so. Deep down, the doubt will persist.

And Buddha would not have answered any question that you could think belonged to philosophy.

He used to say, "If I say something about the beyond, you will misunderstand it. You don't have any experience of the beyond; communication is not possible."

And you can see how difficult it is to communicate. I say one thing, you will understand another.

People will understand according to their level of understanding.

A playboy who had squandered a fortune was asked what he had done with all his money. He answered, "Some went for liquor and fast automobiles, and most went for women. The rest I spent foolishly."

Words don't mean the same thing to everybody. It is according to your understanding.

"Your continual unfaithfulness proves that you are absolutely worthless!" yelled the outraged man who had just caught his wife for the tenth time with another man.

"Quite the contrary," came the cool reply. "It merely proves I am too good to be true."

It all depends on you.

On a foreign business trip, a man found himself hampered after working hours by the fact that he didn't know the language. He was delighted, therefore, when a gorgeous woman sat down at his restaurant table.

"Can you speak English?" he ventured hopefully.

"Jus' a leetle," she said with a smile.

"Just a little, eh?" he repeated. "How much?"

"Twenty-five dollars," was the prompt reply.

Communication is one of the most difficult problems in the world. When you use a word you give it your meaning. When it reaches the other person it is bound to take his meaning. And between the transfer everything is lost.

So Buddha said, "I will not talk of the beyond. And don't ask ask anything about the beyond. Be more scientific and realistic: go into that which is. Don't talk about truth. Go into that which is, go into that which you are, and that is the way to know the truth.

But once Buddha died, great philosophical schools arose. It had never happened in the whole world as it happened in India after Buddha. The man who for his whole life was against philosophy and philosophizing, became the source of the greatest philosophical endeavor ever. Thirty-six schools of philosophy were born when Buddha died. And the people that he had always condemned all gathered together to philosophize about him.

And see the beauty, the irony of it all! They started philosophizing about why Buddha kept silent.

Why he did not say anything about the beyond: that became their philosophy! They started talking about why he kept silent about the beyond. And there were as many answers as possible.

Somebody said, "Because there is no beyond." Now one philosophy has taken roots. Another said, "The beyond is, but it is inexpressible. That's why he kept silent." Now another school, and so on and so forth.

Even the silence of Buddha became a problem, and people started discussing the silence. Nobody tried to become silent; people started talking ABOUT the silence.

Beware of this trap, the mind is very cunning. If I say something about meditation, I am saying it so that you can meditate. But you start thinking about meditation, what meditation is. "How many kinds of meditation are there in existence? What is the difference between them? Why are they antagonistic to each other?

And then you can go on ad infinitum, and there will not be any time when you will ever meditate.

You will become more and more confused. You will become so confused finally that you will not know how to start meditation. because there are so many directions opening. Where to go? What to choose? You will simply be paralyzed.

The mind always does that. And only a few people who are really alert are capable of getting out of these traps of the mind. The mind is a great philosopher. And life is not a philosophy, life is a reality.

Philosophy is an escape from reality; philosophy means thinking. Life is - there is no question of thought. You can simply jump into it.

The ancient pond a frog jumps in the sound Just like that, you can jump into this ancient pond of life. You can know it only by jumping into it.

There is no other way to know life; thinking about it is the surest way you miss it.

The sutras:

HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS OWN SELF:

HOW SHOULD HE KNOW THE SELF OF ANOTHER?

But this is what everybody is doing. You think you know the woman you love? You think you know your husband? You think you know your child? Just because you carried the child in your whom for nine months. do you think you know him? You only believe that you know him. The child is a mystery; you don't know a thing about him. The child is as mysterious as the whole existence.

You don't know the woman you love. How can you know the woman? - because you have not yet known yourself. The woman may be close to you, but she can never be as close as you are to yourself.

Hence I say if you don't love yourself you will not be able to love anybody else in the world. And if you don't know yourself you will never be able to know anybody else in the world. Love or knowledge, all start from your own center. The first ripple has to arise there, then it can go on spreading. Then it can go on spreading to the unbounded boundaries of existence.

But first it has to start at the very core of your being.

HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS OWN SELF:

HOW SHOULD HE KNOW THE SELF OF ANOTHER?

And what is the problem? Why don't you know your own self? This should be the easiest thing in the world, and it has become difficult, the most difficult. This has become almost impossible, to know oneself. What has gone wrong? You have the capacity to know. You are there, the capacity to know is there. Then what has gone wrong? Why cannot this capacity of knowing turn upon itself?

Only one thing has gone wrong, and unless you put it right you will remain ignorant of yourself. And the thing that has gone wrong is, a split has been created in you. You have lost your integrity. The society has made you into a divided house, divided against yourself.

The strategy is simple; once understood, it can be removed. The strategy is, the society has given you ideals of how you should be. And it has enforced those ideals so deeply in you, that you are always interested in the ideal "how I should be" and you have forgotten who you are. You are obsessed with the future ideal and you have forgotten the present reality.

Your eyes are focused on the distant future. Hence they cannot turn inwards. You are constantly thinking of what to do, how to do it, how to be this. Your language has become that of shoulds and oughts, and the reality consists only of IS. Reality knows no should, no ought.

A rose flower is a rose flower, there is no question of its being something else. And the lotus is a lotus. Neither does the rose ever try to become a lotus, nor does the lotus ever try to become a rose.

Hence they are not neurotics. They don't need the psychiatrist, they don't need any psychoanalysis.

The rose is healthy because the rose simply lives its reality.

And so it is with the whole existence except man. Only man has ideals and shoulds. "You should be this and that" - then you are divided against your own IS. Should and is are enemies.

And you cannot be anything other than you are. Let it sink deep into your heart: you can only be that which you are, never anything else. Once this truth sinks deep, that "I can only be myself" all ideals disappear. They are discarded automatically. And when there is no ideal, reality is encountered.

Then your eyes are herenow, then you are present to what you are. The division, the split, has disappeared. You are one.

This is the beginning of being one with god. First be one with yourself. This is the first step of UNIO MYSTICA: be one with yourself. And then the second step, and the last, is: be one with existence. The second is easy. The first has become difficult because of so much conditioning, so much education, so many civilizing efforts. The first has become difficult.

If you have taken the first step of just accepting yourself and loving yourself as you are, moment to moment... For example, you are sad. This moment you are sad. Your whole conditioning says to you "You should not be sad. This is bad. You should not be sad. You have to be happy." Now the division, now the problem. You are sad: that is the truth of this moment. And your conditioning, your mind says, "You should not be like this, you have to be happy. Smile! What will people think of you?"

Your woman may leave you if you are so sad, your friends may desert you if you are so sad, your business will be destroyed if you remain so sad. You have to laugh, you have to smile, you have to at least to pretend that you are happy. If you are a doctor your patients will not feel good if you are so sad. They want a doctor who is happy, jolly, healthy, and you are looking so sad. Smile - even if you cannot bring a real smile, bring a false smile, but smile. At least pretend, act.

This is the problem: you pretend, you act. You can manage to smile, but then you have become two.

You have repressed the truth, you have become phoney.

And the phoney is appreciated by the society. The phoney becomes the saint, the phoney becomes the great leader, the phoney becomes the mahatma. And everybody starts following the phoney.

The phoney is your ideal.

That's why you are unable to know yourself. How can you know yourself if you don't accept yourself?

You are always repressing your being. What has to be done then? When you are sad, accept the sadness: this is you. Don't say "I am sad." Don't say that sadness is something separate from you.

Simply say, "I am sadness. This moment, I am sadness." And live your sadness in total authenticity.

And you will be surprised that a miraculous door opens in your being. If you can live your sadness with no image of being happy, you become happy immediately, because the division disappears.

There is no division any more. "I am sadness" and there is no question of any ideal to be anything else. So there is no effort, no conflict. "I am simply this" and there is relaxation.

And in that relaxation is grace, and in that relaxation is joy.

All psychological pain exists only because you are divided. Pain means division. and bliss means no-division. It will look paradoxical to you: if one is sad, accepting one's sadness how can one become joyous? It will look paradoxical, but it is so. Try it.

And I am not saying try to be happy; I am not saying that, "Accept your sadness so that you can become happy" - I am not saying that. If that is your motivation then nothing will happen; you are still struggling. You will be watching from the corner of your eye: "So much time has passed and I have accepted even sadness, and I am saying 'I am sadness", and joy is still not coming. "It will not come that way.

Joy is not a goal, it is a by-product. It is a natural consequence of oneness, of unity. Just be united with this sadness, for no motivation, for no particular purpose. There is no question of any purpose.

This is how you are this moment, this is your truth this moment. And next moment you may be angry: accept that too. And next moment you may be something else: accept that too.

Live moment to moment, with tremendous acceptance, without creating any division, and you are on the way towards self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is not a question of reading the Upanishads and sitting silently and reciting, "Aham Brahmasmi, I am God." These are all foolish efforts. Either you know you are God, or you don't know it. You can go on for your whole life repeating, "Aham Brahmasmi, I am God." You can waste your whole life in repeating it, but you will not know it.

If you know it, there is no point in repeating it. Why are you repeating it? If you know, you know. If you don't know, how can you know by repetition? Just see the whole stupidity of it.

But that's what is being done in this country and in other countries also, in monasteries and ashrams.

What are people doing? Parrot-like repetition.

I am giving you a totally different approach. It is not by repetition of the Koran or Bible or Vedas that you will become a knower, no. You will only become knowledgeable. Then how does one come to know oneself?

Drop the division: the division is the whole problem. You are against yourself. Drop all ideals which create this antagonism in you. You are the way you are: accept it with joy, with gratitude. And suddenly a harmony will be felt. The two selves in you, the ideal self and the real self, will not be there to fight any more. They will meet and merge into one.

It is not really sadness that gives you pain. It is the interpretation that sadness is wrong that gives you pain, and that becomes a psychological problem. It is not anger that is painful; it is the idea that anger is wrong that creates psychological anxiety. It is the interpretation, not the fact. The fact is always liberating.

Jesus says, "Truth liberates." And that is of tremendous import. Yes, truth liberates, but not KNOWING about truth. Be the truth, and it liberates. Be the truth, and there is liberation. You need not bring it, you need not wait for it: it happens instantly.

How to be the truth? You ARE already the truth. You are just carrying false ideals; they are creating the trouble. Drop the ideals: for a few days be a natural being. Just like trees and animals and birds, accept your being as you are. And a great silence arises. How can it be otherwise? There is no interpretation: then sadness is beautiful, it has depth. Then anger too is beautiful it has life and vitality. Then sex too is beautiful, because it has creativity.

When there is no interpretation, all is beautiful. When all is beautiful, you are relaxed. In that relaxation you have fallen into your own source, and that brings self-knowledge. Falling into one's own source is what is meant by "Know thyself." It is not a question of knowledge, it is a question of inner transformation.

And what transformation am I talking about? I am not giving you any ideal that you have to be like; I am not saying that you have to transform from what you are and become somebody else. You have simply to relax into whatsoever you are, and just see.

Have you hears what I am saying? Just see the point: it is liberating. And a great harmony, a great music is heard. That music is of self-knowledge. And your life tarts changing. You then have a magic key which unlocks all the locks.

If you accept sadness, sadness will disappear. How long can you be sad if you accept sadness?

If you are capable of accepting sadness you will be capable of ABSORBING it in your being; it will become your depth.

And how long will you be able to be angry if you accept anger? Anger feeds on rejection. If you accept it, you have absorbed the energy. Anger has great energy in it, vitality, and when that energy is absorbed you become more vital. Your life then has a passion to it, it is a flame. It is not a dull insipid life; it has intelligence and passion and sharpness.

And if you have accepted sex, one day sex disappears too. And it releases great creativity in you, because sex is the potential of creativity. And then you become a creator. Great paintings may arise through you, great poetry may come, great sons may be born, or music. Anything and everything is possible then; you participate with God.

Sex is the lowest form of creativity, just the seed of creativity. Once the seed has broken, has dissolved, has been absorbed, your whole being comes creative. And to be creative is to be blissful, to be creative is to be one with God. When you become a creator you participate in God.

And I am not saying that unless you paint and write poetry you will not be a creator. Buddha did not paint, did not write any poetry, but his whole life was of creativity. Whosoever he touched was transformed. Whosoever was courageous enough to come close to him was reborn. He created a great energy-field, a buddhafield, and whosoever entered that field was never the same again. That is his creativity. He did not write any visible poetry. But the way he walks is poetry, the way he looks at people is poetry. He never danced. But if you watch, silently sitting underneath the bodhi tree there is a great dance happening in him. It is an invisible dance; it is subtle, it is not gross. It is not of the physical, it is a spiritual dance.

He is not separate from existence. So he is dancing with the trees in the wind, and he is dancing with the stars, and he is dancing with the whole. He is not separate any more.

Do you understand the difference? If you try to drop sex, all creativity will disappear from your life.

That's what happened in this unfortunate country. People tried to drop sex, people tried to somehow impose celibacy on themselves. And they all became uncreative; they all became dull, they lost intelligence. You can go around and look at Indian mahatmas, and you will not see such dull and stupid people anywhere else in the world. Their whole life consists of living in a very uncreative way; they are praised for uncreative things.

Somebody fasts, that's why he is praised - not for any dance. Somebody sleeps on a bed of thorns, that's why he is praised. Now, he has not done anything creative in the world. He has not made the world a little more beautiful than he found it. He will leave the world as ugly as it was before, or even uglier. But he is praised because he lies on a bed of thorns. What is the point of it?

If you repress sex, creativity disappears. If you accept sex, sex is transformed into creativity. If you accept anger, it releases great vitality and passion in you. Your life becomes a passionate life. It is then a life of involvement, commitment and participation. Then you are not just a spectator, then you are in the thick of things, in the dance of life, part of it. Your every moment is of involvement. Then you are not an escapist; you live joyously and totally. Then you contribute something to existence.

Then you are not futile, you have some meaning. But anger has to be accepted, then anger's energy is absorbed.

Whenever you reject something, you have rejected some energy. You have said, "I don't want to absorb this energy." But this is your energy. And the rejected energy will keep you poor. Reject anger, and you have rejected the possibility of being vital. Now you will be dull. Reject sex, and you have rejected the possibility of being creative. Now no poetry, no song, no dance, is going to happen in your life. You will be just a walking dead man. Your life will be an empty gesture, impotent.

If you have rejected sadness then you will not have any depth. You will remains hallow. Your laughter will also be shallow, because it will not have any depth; that can only be released by sadness through acceptance. Your laughter will be just on the surface.

That's what I mean when I see people and call them phoney. A phoney person is one who is only pretending to live but not really living, one who is afraid of life. And this phoniness comes through rejection. Go on rejecting everything. Keep an ideal in the mind that you have to become a Buddha, that you have to become a Jesus. You will never become one; on the contrary, you will lose all possibilities of ever becoming anything.

Forget all about Buddhas and Krishnas and Christs, they are not ideals to be imitated. Don't have any ideals, be an ideal-destroyer. This is rebellion and this is religion too.

And when there are no ideals haunting you, torturing you, you fall into harmony with yourself. And when you don't reject anything, all energies are yours, you are enriched. Then you have tremendous energy. And that tremendous energy is you, that energy is delight.

Falling into your own source, you become a knower. And the moment you know yourself, you have known all, because it is the same. That which is in me is in everybody. Only forms are different, houses are different. It is the same consciousness.

That in me which says, "I am" says the same in you also: "I am." This I-am-ness is one. It is the same in the tree, unspoken. It is the same in the rock, fast asleep. But it is the same I-am-ness. And to know this is to know the meaning of AHAM BRAHMASMI. I am God.

HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS OWN SELF:

HOW SHOULD HE KNOW THE SELF OF ANOTHER?

HE KNOWS ONLY HIS HANDS AND FEET, HOW SHOULD HE KNOW ABOUT GOD?

You know only your hands and feet. This is the abode, this is the house. You are acquainted with only the temple: when are you going to be acquainted with the deity of the temple? Who is this who lives in this house? Who is embodied in the body? What is this consciousness?

You are listening to me, you are listening through the ears. You are seeing me, you are seeing through the eyes. Certainly you are not the ears and you are not the eyes. Eyes and ears are windows - somebody is hidden behind, standing behind the windows.

Just watch: your eyes are windows. When you are looking at me you are looking through the eyes.

But who are YOU? Who is this who is looking at me? Who is this who is hearing? What is this consciousness?

Don't reject anything, otherwise you will never be able to know this consciousness. Accept all that you are. If you reject anything you recoil from your own energies. You create fragments. Don't recoil from your energies. When anger is there, accept it. When sadness is there, accept it. This is your energy, this is God's gift. Absorb it, digest it, it is you.

And when you are not recoiling from anything, when you don't have any interpretations of good and bad, when you don't condemn anything, when you forget all about judgment, when you are not a constant judger, assessor, condemner, evaluer, when all these things have disappeared and you are simply a tremendous acceptance of all that is, knowing happens.

And in that knowing, God is known.

THIS IS BEYOND THE SAGE'S GRASP:

YOU MUST BE A FOOL IF YOU THINK THAT YOU KNOW IT.

Even the so-called sages find it beyond their grasp. So the learned people, the pundits and the scholars, if they think that they know God, that they know themselves, they must be fools.

God is beyond any grasp; even the grasp of the sage is not capable of holding God in the hands.

Because God is never the sought, but the seeker. God is not out there, so that you can grasp him.

God is the one who is trying to grasp: how can you grasp the grasper? That will be absurd.

That's why you cannot see your own face. You cannot see your own eyes; you can see them in a mirror but you see only the reflection of your eyes, not your eyes. The eyes cannot see themselves.

How can God grasp himself? If I try to grasp my hand with the same hand, it is going to be maddening. It will drive you crazy. It will be like a dog trying to chase its own tail.

THIS IS BEYOND THE SAGE'S GRASP...

Because it is beyond grasp. Why is it beyond grasp? Not that it is far away, but because it is the very energy that is trying to grasp it. The knower is the known. The knowledge is not going to be of something else, it is self-knowing. There is not going to be any object of knowledge that you will grasp. You are the subject and you are the object. You are all that is.

Consciousness is all.

WHEN YOU CAN EXPOUND ON THIS, YOU WILL KNOW THE PURE ESSENCE OF FAITH; TILL THEN, WHAT HAVE FAITH AND YOU IN COMMON?

You can't know what faith is; what you call faith is only belief. Belief is of the head, it is part of knowledge. Belief is false and phoney. Belief means somebody else has said something and you have believed it; it is borrowed. Belief is never original. Faith is always original. It arises in you: it is the growth of your own consciousness.

... YOU WILL KNOW THE PURE ESSENCE OF FAITH only when you have known yourself; TILL THEN, WHAT HAVE FAITH AND YOU IN COMMON?

So don't deceive yourself that you are a believer. Don't pretend, and don't think that you know, and don't think that you think original thoughts. No thought is ever original. Only experience is original.

After little Lori had a tussle with a neighborhood friend, the girl's mother scolded her. "Remember, Lori," said the mother, "that it was the Devil who suggested to you that you pull little Alice's hair."

"I suppose so," said Lori. "But kicking her in the shin was my own idea."

People go on thinking that something "is my own idea" - it gives a good feeling to the ego. But no idea is yours. Only consciousness is yours.

Alfred Tennyson says:

But what am I?

An infant crying in the night?

An infant crying for the light?

And with no language but a cry!

Knowledge is not going to help. A cry may be of more help. Weeping, crying, tears, love - something authentic, something true, something that arises in your being in this moment, may be of more help.

It will give you some taste of reality. Otherwise your faith is only borrowed, dead.

That's how there are so many Mohammedans and Hindus and Christians and Jews, but you don't find religious people anywhere. Religious people have disappeared from the earth. Yes, Christians are there, Hindus are there, but where are the religious people?

Religion consists of faith, not of belief. Behind the belief there is always doubt. Belief is rooted in doubt. It is because of the doubt, it is to repress the doubt, that you put a belief upon yourself. It is as if you hide a wound behind a roseflower, but the wound remains there.

Mr and Mrs Mandelbaum decided the only solution to their marital problems was in divorce. So they went to see the rabbi.

The rabbi was concerned about the three children and was reluctant to see the family broken up.

He thought that if he could stall the couple maybe they would work it out together.

"Well," said the rabbi, "there's no way of dividing three children. What you'll have to do is live together one more year. You'll have a fourth child, and then it will be easy to arrange a proper divorce. You'll take two children, and he'll take two."

"Nothing doing," said Mrs Mandelbaum. "Rabbi, if I had depended on him, I wouldn't even have had these three!"

Just on the surface, things appear in one way. Deep down it is totally different. On the surface, people show trust and confidence in each other. Deep down, there is doubt. On the surface, love; deep down, there is hatred. On the surface, people are so nice; deep down, they are really bitter and poisonous.

This duality has to be dropped. Faith arises only when you have become one. Faith is the fragrance of oneness, of integration, of individuation.

IT IS BETTER TO BE SILENT THAN TO TALK NONSENSE LIKE ONE OF THE LEARNED; FAITH IS NOT WOVEN INTO EVERY GARMENT.

It is better to be silent, says Hakim Sanai, because at least in silence you will not be lying to anybody.

And you will not be lying to yourself either. In silence at least you will be ignorant; you will not pretend knowledge.

If a person can remain silent for a few hours every day he will become aware of his whole phoniness, because he will see his real face again and again. If you continuously talk and continuously relate with people you forget your original face, because you have to wear masks continuously. For twenty- four hours you are talking, using words. And when you continuously use words, slowly slowly you start believing in those words, in the sound of those words.

Words have a hypnotic power. If you use a certain word again and again, it hypnotizes you. If you use the word 'god' again and again, slowly slowly you start thinking that you know what you mean, that you know what God is. It is very dangerous to repeat words.

But people go on talking. They don't give any gap in which they can simply be silent and be.

If you are silent for at least one hour every day, you will be aware continuously that your talk is nonsense. And then ninety-nine percent of your talk will start disappearing. What is the point of talking nonsense?

But why do people talk then? They talk just to hide themselves behind the noise. Whenever you are nervous you start talking.

Now it is a known fact: if people are forced to live in solitude, after three weeks they start talking to themselves. They cannot bear silence, it becomes intolerable, so they start talking to themselves.

They have to talk; words somehow keep them clinging to their personality. Once words disappear, they start falling into the impersonal. And they are very much afraid of the impersonal.

The impersonal is your reality. And you are afraid of the reality and you are clinging to the illusions that words create.

YOU WERE MADE FOR WORK:

A ROBE OF HONOR AWAITS YOU.

HOW IS IT THAT YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH MERE RAGS?

People are satisfied with mere words; they are rags. Sanai says: It is unbelievable. How are you satisfied with mere rags? You were made to work your way through this darkness of existence. This is a task to be done, this is a way of growth. To be here on the earth simply means that God has given an opportunity to you to grow. This earth is a challenge. Accept the challenge, encounter life:

don't escape.

A few people escape in words, a few people escape into monasteries, a few people escape into politics, a few people escape into money - these are all escapes. A few become learned people, a few become rich, a few become very powerful in the world, a few become very respectable, moral and virtuous. But the real work is not done.

What is the real work? Sufis call only one thing real work, and that is self-remembrance.

Gurdjieff learned the word 'work' from the Sufis. He used to call his teachings "the work." He also learned the word ZIKR, self-remembering, from the Sufis.

The work is remember oneself. The only work worth doing is to remember oneself.

YOU WERE MADE FOR WORK:

A ROBE OF HONOR AWAITS YOU.

HOW IS IT THAT YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH MERE RAGS?

HOW WILL YOU EVER HAVE RICHES IF YOU ARE IDLE SIXTY DAYS A MONTH?

This is a very strange expression, "sixty days a month." It contains a great insight. The man who remembers himself has sixty days in one month: thirty are his inner life, and thirty the outer life.

He lives in a double way. His life has not only one dimension, the horizontal; his life has double dimensions, the vertical too is there.

Thirty days he lives outside through the senses in the world. Thirty days he lives within himself in silence in his interiormost core. He has sixty days: this is a beautiful expression. The really rich life cannot be only horizontal, it cannot be linear, because the line cannot have any depth and the line cannot have any height either. The real life has to be both horizontal and vertical. Then there is all that is needed.

You meet God outside, you meet God inside. You move between the outer God and the inner God:

that movement is real richness. Wherever you go you find God. You open your eyes and the tree is there, and God is green in it and God is gold in it and God is red in it. And you close your eyes: the pure consciousness, the silence - and God is silence there.

God is in you and in the other. Life becomes multi-dimensional.

Once a man asked Emerson, "How old are you?" Emerson was nearabout sixty, but he said, "I am three hundred and sixty years old."

The person who had enquired was very much puzzled, he could not believe his own ears. Three hundred and sixty years? He thought he must have hears wrongly, so he said, "Pardon me, sir, can you repeat that again? How old are you?"

And Emerson said again, "Three hundred and sixty years."

The man said, "You must be joking."

Emerson said, "No. Comparatively speaking, in sixty years I have lived six times more than other people live. In sixty years I have lived six times more, hence I count my age as three hundred and sixty years."

And there have been people, and there are people, who live so intensely that their single moment is equivalent to eternity.

KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW BE SERENE ALSO, LIKE A MOUNTAIN; AND DO NOT BE DISTRESSED BY MISFORTUNE.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT SERENITY IS AN UNLIT CANDLE; TOGETHER THEY ARE HONEY-COMB; HONEY WITHOUT WAX IS A NOBLE THING; WAX WITHOUT HONEY IS ONLY FIT FOR BURNING.

KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW, BE SERENE ALSO...

The real test is in serenity. The man who is simply knowledgeable is not serene. That has to be used as a criterion. The knowledgeable man is not calm and quiet and serene. His heart is constantly in turmoil, his head is continuously in a kind of insanity. Deep down in him there is a constant traffic of thoughts. There is no serenity, no stillness.

Sitting by the side of such a man - a learned man, a pundit, a scholar - you will feel a kind of uneasiness arising in you. You will not be surrounded by his serenity, you will not have any taste of his grace; he has none.

Sanai says:

KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW BE SERENE ALSO...

Knowledge alone is not enough. In fact, knowledge without serenity is not true knowledge. The true knowledge is born out of serenity, silence and meditativeness. First one falls into deep silence inside, and out of that silence arises knowing. Then it is true knowing. It does not arise out of scriptures, it arises when you open the book of your own being.

... BE SERENE ALSO, LIKE A MOUNTAIN; AND DO NOT BE DISTURBED BY MISFORTUNE.

The man of serenity is not disturbed by anything because he accepts. Sadness comes, he accepts it. Joy comes, he accepts it. He has no preference, he has no choice. He lives in a choiceless consciousness: whatsoever happens happens, whatsoever is is, and he is totally open to it. He drinks it, he absorbs it. He has no likes and dislikes, no preferences, no choices. He is not against sadness, he is not against anger, he is not against sex, he is not against love. He is neither against nor for, he is simply serene.

If you choose, immediately you are disturbed. Watch it: whenever you choose you will be disturbed.

Choice brings disturbance, because choice means alternatives: to be this or to be that, to be or not to be. Choice means you are standing at a crossroad: now which road to follow? If you go to the right, who knows? It may just lead you into a cul-de-sac. Maybe the left was the right choice. Who knows? How to decide?

The moment you choose, you become disturbed. And you always choose against yourself, against a part of yourself. One part says, "Choose this," another part says, "Choose that." Now you have to decide, and in that decision you will be divided. The part that was saying, "Don't choose this," has been denied, has been rejected. That rejected, denied part will take revenge. Sooner or later it will say, "Now see what happened: now repent. I told you beforehand not to choose this, that this was wrong, but you didn't listen to me."

And the same would have happened if you had chosen the other. The man who chooses remains disturbed.

Serenity means a state of choicelessness. Just like a mirror, it simply reflects, with no choice. An ugly man comes, it reflects. A beautiful man comes, it reflects. It has no choice; there is no question of choice. Just reflecting.

Sadness comes, and the man of serenity says, "I am sadness. This moment, this is how I am. This moment, this is my reality." He does not compare either: "The last moment was better, I was joyous.

Now I am sad." He never compares two moments, he never hankers for something else in the future.

Whatsoever is, he is totally relaxed with it. This is serenity - and out of serenity comes real knowing.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT SERENITY IS AN UNLIT CANDLE...

And what is the point of an unlit candle? There will be no light. That's how the knowledgeable people are: great knowledge, candles and candles and candles, but all unlit. They stink of wax but no light comes out of them.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT SERENITY IS AN UNLIT CANDLE; TOGETHER THEY ARE HONEY-COMB...

Together they are beautiful HONEY WITHOUT WAX IS A NOBLE THING...

Even if there is only serenity, it's better. Without knowledge, serenity is better; it is still a noble thing.

... WAX WITHOUT HONEY IS ONLY FIT FOR BURNING.

But knowledge without serenity is of no use, it is worthless.

LEAVE THIS ABODE OF BIRTH AND DECAY; LEAVE THIS PIT, AND MAKE FOR YOUR DESTINED HOME.

THIS HEAP OF DUST IS A MIRAGE, WHERE FIRE SEEMS LIKE WATER.

Here, you are deluded in many ways. Ignorance pretends to be knowledge, fire appears like water, poison is labeled as nectar. You are living in a very very delusory world. Unless you wake yourself up you will continue to move from one mirage to another mirage, from one dream to another dream.

LEAVE HIS ABODE...

This abode of illusions and mirages. Leave this abode of past and future, imagination and memory, of birth and decay. Leave this abode of time, of beginnings and ends.

LEAVE THIS PIT AND MAKE FOR YOUR DESTINED HOME.

Where is the destined home? It is within you. It is what I call falling into your own source, relaxing into your own being.

Be the truth that you are, and you will be liberated: you will be liberated from all illusions, from all mirages. Each moment, be the truth that you are. This is the message of all the Buddhas and all the Sufis: Each moment, be the truth that you are. Don't hanker for anything else, don't desire anything else. Don't try to become anything, just be what you are in the moment. Relaxed, serene, utterly at home: this is the destined home.

THIS HEAP OF DUST IS A MIRAGE, WHERE FIRE SEEMS LIKE WATER.

Beware. You are surrounded by many things which are not what they appear to be. Don't be deceived by appearances. And time is slipping by: each moment an opportunity is wasted.

There is a Sufi saying:

Don't be inattentive to the Beloved, not even for the blink of an eye; for perhaps in that moment she will look and you will have missed Her.

Sufis call God "the Beloved." They think of God as "she," as their woman, as their beloved.

Don't be inattentive to the Beloved, not even for the blink of an eye...

No moment has to be missed, because who knows what moment the destined home may have arrived? Who knows in what moment she will look at you? And if you are inattentive and lost in your imaginations of the future - of how and what you would like to be - and you are lost in memories of the past, you will go on missing.

God can be contacted only in the present moment: this moment, now and here. And only now and here. And time is fast slipping by. Every moment you lose some tremendously valuable opportunity.

As the young bachelor sat having coffee with a friend's stunning wife, she announced, "I think I'd better warn you, my husband will be home in an hour."

"But I haven't done anything wrong," responded the bachelor, somewhat surprised.

"I know. I thought you'd want to know how much time you have."

There is not much time, you don't have much time. Don't postpone: this is the moment.Don't say, "Tomorrow" - tomorrow is a mirage. Be alert now, be awake now, this moment, and there is serenity and there is calmness. And suddenly one is relaxed, and the source is contacted and one has arrived home.

This is the home for which you have been searching for so many lives. But your very methodology of search has been wrong. You made it a goal. And it is not a goal, it is the source.

God is not where we are going, God is from where we are coming. God is not there, God is here.

God is not then, God is now.

What I have been telling you this morning is of immense value. This is my message to my sannyasins, to my Sufis: Accept yourself in tremendous gratitude. Whatsoever is is, and it can't be otherwise. So don't fight with it.

No fact ever creates any psychological pain. It is the interpretation that brings pain to you. Pain is your creation, because it is your interpretation. Change the interpretation and the same fact becomes pleasant. Drop all interpretations and the fact is simply a fact, neither painful nor pleasant.

Don't choose, don't have any preferences. Just be watchful, accepting and watchful, and you have the secret key in your hands.

This will create the first unity in you, the unity with yourself. And then the second happens of it sown accord; you need not worry about it. You do the first step, the second step is taken by God himself.

You move half, he moves half.