Random Thoughts, pages 77 to 105

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34. We live life only when we touch our ultimate depth.... Otherwise we simply exist.

The difference between simple existence and living life is as much as the difference between dying and living.

35. What is the meaning of dharma? It means the movement from the mud to the lotus.

Where there is mud there is lotus too. But what a lot of difference!

36. Dharma is not a formless conception. It is a perceptible function. It is not a thought; it is an experience. The cultivation of the attitude that those things that cause misery to us should not torment others, is dharma.

37. Do not keep dharma in the mouth. Allow it to go into the belly and be absorbed in the blood. The belly cannot be filled if the morsel of bread is kept only in the mouth.

38. Dharma means death -- death of the self. How can he whose self is dead attain the universal? Shake off the ego. Give up self-worship. Eschewing self-worship is the worship of the Supreme Soul.

39. I urge you to light the lamp of free thinking. Do not behave like a slave to anybody by accepting his thoughts. Truth belongs to those who are their own masters.

40. Life is like a flute, hollow and void within but possessing infinite latent possibilities of music. The extent of music produced therefrom depends on the extent to which one plays on it.

41. I do not ask you to believe in others, for that is the result of the want of belief in your own self.

42. There is an invisible fire that scorches the self incessantly. It is the fire of avarice, which burns like a torch when one holds it aloft against the gust of wind and allows oneself to be burnt and then begins to blame the gust of wind.

43. A very small lamp dispels the mass of darkness accumulated over years. Similarly the tiniest ray of self-understanding removes the ignorance accumulated through hundreds of births.

44. Do you wish to serve? But remember that a person drowning in the vast ocean cannot rescue another person drowning similarly.

45. If you wish to know God, the path is silence. Whatever is said about God becomes untruth exactly for the reason that it is said after all.

46. Man is a journey, journey to the infinite, the eternal. Neitzsche has said, "The greatness of man lies in this that he is the bridge, not the goal." I, too, say the same.

47. Friend, do not bind yourself to disciplinary measure. Real discipline sets in when discrimination wakes up and one is liberated -- not by binding oneself.

48. Education aims at bringing out what lies hidden in the individual. It is not an external ideal or behest but a revelation of the inner being.

49. I am against that education which moulds and shapes individuals according to predetermined ideals. Such educational methods do not develop individuality, they just blunt it. I do not favour that education too which is based on fear, fear of punishment or of failure. What else can be more poisonous than fear? I am averse to a superimposed discipline too because what more is it than a mere preparation for slavery?

50. There is nothing simpler than greatness. In fact, simplicity itself is greatness.

51. Remember one truth for ever. Deception practised on others is eventually the deception practised by one on oneself, because what we do to others eventually returns to us.

52. Do you know that no man has ever been deceived by others so much as he has been deceived by himself.

53. Light travels in a straight line. Truth and dharma too travel in straight lines. If the line of your life's travel is not straight, know that your life is moving towards darkness, evil, and untruth.

54. Dharma is a path. No path can be traversed by merely knowing it, but it can be traversed by realizing what it is -- by actually treading on it.

55. Truth is not opposed to untruth. That which is opposed to untruth is only untruth. In fact, all extremes are untruths. Truth is the mean between the extremes, that is, it transcends the extremes.

56. When I peep into myself, what do I realize? I realize that salvation is nearer than the earth.

57. The time and labour spent in seeking Truth, the Self, never goes in vain. Eventually it turns out to be the time saved and labour rendered meaningful.

58. I have realized untruth as a heap of straw. It has no strength at all. The tiniest spark of truth can reduce it to ashes.

59. The greatest respect that we can show to dharma is that we should utilize it and live it.

He who only discusses it but does not live it, betrays his disbelief in his own discussion and deliberation.

60. What is the aim of dharma? It is the rousing and awakening of the slumbering superman in man. Well, this and this alone is the aim of dharma.

61. Life is not a problem with solutions lying outside. Life's solution is found in life itself, in living it.

62. The greatest liberation is the liberation of the self from the self. Usually we remain oblivious of the fact that we ourselves are the toughest bondage and the heaviest burden on ourselves.

63. Man does not receive gentlemanliness readymade. He has to build it up himself. This is both a blessing and a bane. It is a blessing because he is free to assume whatever form he chooses; it is a bane because he, by nature indolent, may not do anything at all. There is a possibility that he may die without building up himself.

64. Know precisely that you have to get rid of your ego. Egotism is the source of darkness. It disappears as soon as the lustre of self realization creeps in.

65. Man does not become God by developing himself. If only he opens himself fully, he is God here and now itself. In my view, the complete realization of the self is the only realization worth having.

66. Man has to struggle and fight against his ego, against the "I" of the self. He has to start a revolution against the ego, the self. To remain encompassed by the ego is to live in the world. To get out of the ego is to live in the Supreme Soul. Virtually, man is in a sense the Supreme Soul Itself.

67. Do not try to run away from the "I". It is impossible to run away from it because even if you run away, it is there with you. Rather than run away from it, catch hold of it with full force. He who dives deep into the self realizes, to the extent to which he penetrates, that it has no real existence whatever.

68. Do you want proofs for the existence of God? Is not the existence of consciousness a sufficient proof? Does not a drop of water prove the existence of all the oceans?

69. Do no say that you were 'in prayer' because it would mean that you can get out of prayer as well. He who is out of prayer cannot be in prayer. Prayer is not an activity. It is the perfection and fullness of love.

70. In the search for life, there is nothing more fatal than self-satisfaction. Those who are satisfied with the self are, in a sense, not alive at all. He who is dissatisfied with the self moves ahead in the direction of Truth. Remember that being determinedly rebellious and aware of one's own limitations is being virtuous.

71. Haven't you invented God on being haunted by the fear of death? There is no other untruth than the concept of God based on fear.

72. That which ever exists in the present is Truth. That which is nearest to us is the ultimate Truth. Understand the nearer one, not the distant one How can he who is ignorant of the one nearby know the distant one? For him who understands the one nearby, nothing distant remains.

73. "Who am I," you asked. Ask yourself, "Where am I?" Search... seek it in yourself.

When you do not find yourself anywhere, you will realize who you are. It is in the oblivion of the "I" that the secret of the "I" lies hidden.

74. If Truth remains known, the knowledge of the scriptures is useless.

75. You are trying to know Truth and yet you allow dust to accumulate on your mind?

Know that the mind is like a mirror. Wipe it clean. You will see that Truth stands in front of you and that it has always been there before you.

76 In order to get rid of one illusion, do not create another It is improper to slip into another dream to get rid of an earlier dream. Do not presume to scan and define God Abandon all conceptual images of God and look. What you see before you is God.

77. When I enter a river for my bath, I leave my clothes on the bank. He who wishes to have his ablution in the Supreme Soul has to leave his entire clothings on the bank. All the garments, all the raiments of individuality. To that great ocean only those who are stark naked, can have access... only those with whom nothing is left. But blessed are those who can renounce everything because by doing so they can receive that which is more than the sum-total of all.

78. Scriptures and tenets are like dry leaves. The verdure of self-experience is neither present in them nor can it enliven them. Only the tree of self-experience can put forth green leaves and lively blossoms.

79. Although I have been searching, I could not find a greater scripture than silence.

When I searched through the scriptures, I realized that while they were futile, silence alone was purposeful.

80. Where are you going? That which you seek is not far off from you. If you walk on to find what is nearby, you will be going astray. Stop and see. To realize what is near by, it is enough to stop and see.

81. Salvation is achieved neither by prayer, nor by worship, nor even by faith in religious precepts. Salvation is achieved by leading a peaceful life. I therefore say that to remain peaceful in thought and action is prayer, worship, and true religious austerity.

82. Think of that of which you cannot think at all, and you will be outside the sphere of thinking. Once out, you will come within the self.

83. Do not seek Nirvana (salvation) in place of life. Let your life itself be Nirvana. They who know it, do this. Work not for salvation, but let all actions yield salvation. This is possible. What I say iS based on experience. And the day this becomes possible, life becomes beautiful like a full-blown flower, and is filled with fragrance.

84. Do you wish to meditate? Then bear in mind that while you meditate, nothing is before you and nothing is behind you. Let the past perish. Let the future too die. Let memory and imagination become void. There will be no time, no vacuum. You will know that during this void, this moment of emptiness you are in real meditation. The moment of great death is the moment of eternal life as well.

85. You ask me what you have to do for meditation. I say do not do anything. Just be mindful of your breath. Look at the passage of your breath. near witness to your inhalations and exhalations. Let it not be a strenuous activity but a quiet, languid, restful consciousness. Then, without your knowledge of it, in a natural, unrestricted manner, you will have access to an excessively pleasant situation. You will not be conscious of your entry into it. Suddenly you will experience that you are where you had never been before.

And this is the place where, in fact, the consciousness has been for ever.

86. I forgot what I had learnt. I could realize that which alone was worth learning but could not be taught. In order to realize Truth, are you ready to forget whatever you have learnt about Truth? If you say. "yes, come on, the portals of Truth lie open before you.

87. Truth can very well be realized, but it cannot be understood or explained.

88. Truth is like the firmament -- beginningless, endless, and boundless, Is there any doorway and passage leading to the sky? Then, how can there be one in Truth? But, if our eyes are closed, there is no sky. The same is true of Truth. The opening of the eyes is the entrance and the closing of eyes is the closing of the door.

89. What is it that is experienced in the course of the ecstatic trance? Nothing. There is no trance at all so long as something remains to be known. Trance is the state of union with existence. There is no distance as whatever between the aspirant and the reality around him.

90. Staying in the world but not belonging to it is renunciation. It has often been interpreted in terms a fable, the fable of three monkeys who have closed their eyes to escape evil scenes, the ears to escape evil sounds, and the mouth to escape evil speech.

This may be pardonable in the case of monkeys but ridiculous in human beings. Running away from the world for fear is not liberation; but a very subtle and deep bondage. Don't run away from the world but be mindful of the self. In running away there is fear; in being alert there is safety. Nothing other than fearlessness acquired through knowledge can bring us liberty.

91. Can nirvana or moksha be wished for? There is no greater impossibility than a desire for Nirvana, for Nirvana is there where there is no desire. If desire itself is the absence of liberation, how can moksha be wished for? But there are persons desirous of liberation.

Then it is but natural that their so-called renunciation assumes the form of a bondage and becomes a part of the world. Moksha is attained naturally, unsolicitedly and undesiredly at the time when the futility of desire is known and it is recognized that it leads to misery, and when the bondages are known and recognized in their subtlest of subtle forms. Thus when it is recognized that the race has been futile, it comes to all end. In fact, the awareness of the desires racing along in the mind is liberation from them. And that liberation alone is moksha.

92. We are suffering. The whole age is suffering. What is the reason? The reason is not far to seek. We know much more than is needed, but have no experience. The brain is intact, while the heart has dwindled into nothing. True self realization comes not from knowledge but from experience. The eyes that illumine the path of life are not of the brain but of the heart. If the heart is blind, nothing can dispel the darkness of life.

93. The intellect can think, but it cannot experience. Experience originates in the heart, the most vital of the vital parts. Thinking devoid of experience is no more than dead.

Such dead words and meanings reverberate in our brains, and we are afflicted by their burden. They do not liberate us. On the contrary, they are our bonds. Experience in the heart is essential for liberation and for freedom from burden. Therefore I say, "Don't seek the meaning of Truth, an exposition of Truth. Seek the experience of Truth. Seek life.

Dive deep into Truth and remember that only they who become immersed in Truth with full consciousness are liberated from untruth." The intellect makes us float on the surface but the heart takes us to the bottom. The heart, not the intellect, is the way to liberation.

94. There is a lot of difference between the experience of Truth and the exposition of Truth. In expositions we stand outside Truth but in experience we stand inside and commune with it. It is, therefore, impossible for those who have experience to define Truth. The readiness to indulge in exposition is an index of the want of experience.

People ask me, "What is Truth?" All I do to answer them is to keep silent.

95. Knowledge is the understanding of mystery, the acceptance of mystery, the communion with mystery. When all egotism is destroyed and only mystery remains, know that the entry into the holy land of the Supreme Soul has been achieved. And let us know that there is no greater mystery than the quelling of the 'self' because when the self is annihilated, the existence of the Pure Self, the Supreme Self, becomes manifest in its complete grandeur.

96. It is true that man is not an animal, but is it also true that man has become man? His being an animal has become an event of the past but his becoming a man is yet a possibility of the future. Perhaps we are in the middle. This alone is our affliction, this alone our tension and this alone our distress. Those who endeavour and are dissatisfied with their existence in misery and affliction can become men. Gentlemanliness is not acquired, we have to cultivate it ourselves in our own selves. But to become man it is essential to know that not being an animal is not identical with being a man. Moreover, we should not be satisfied with being what we are. A deep and fierce dissatisfaction with the self would help us in our evolution.

97. I can't tell you how distressed I am to see the state of present-day education?

Knowledge that is being imparted destroys the power of thinking. In the crowd of thoughts, this power gets crushed. Memory gets trained, but the springs of knowledge remain unrecognized. This trained memory begins to give the illusion of knowledge. The individual who is educated under this so-called system of education is obliged to learn to think and has to unlearn what he has learnt before. I too was obliged to do this. But this was a tedious job. It was as difficult as stripping the skin off one's body, and not like taking off one's clothes. Except this there was no other way. In order to look at life in my own fashion, it was necessary for me to forget what I had learnt and what I had been taught before. In order to secure my own vision, it was necessary to forget the borrowed views. In order to realize my own thought, it was necessary to be free from borrowed ideas. He who has to learn to walk on his own legs has to abandon the support of another man's shoulder. Only when we cease to see through others' eyes do our own eyes open.

And let us remember that the person who sees through the eyes of others is blinder than the person born blind.

98. Moral evolution, personal development, touch of eminence, whatever there is of some moment in life, all result from precipitate and reckless daring. What I mean by 'precipitate and reckless daring' is 'an invitation to insecurity', 'a love for the strange and the unknown', 'joy in peril', etc. He who is not prepared to face peril and embrace it, may exist but does not live. (1) What is the greatest of this precipitate and reckless daring? It is to seek the Supreme Soul. No way is more insecure than the way to the Supreme Soul.

There is nothing stranger, more unfamiliar and more unknowable than the Supreme Soul.

Is there a greater risk, a more calamitous gamble and a more dreadful peril than seeking the Supreme Soul? No. That is why I say that precipitate daring is the greatest of all virtues. He who is deficient in it is not meant for religion and religion is not meant for him.

[Footnote: (1) Both Krishnamurti and Rajneesh agree that life is really very beautiful to those who have learnt to discover, to revolt, and not to conform and imitate. See R. C.

Prasad, THE MYSTIC OF FEELING (Delhi, 1978), p. 50.l 99. The experience of Truth is neither a thought nor a feeling. It is an agitation and throbbing of all the vital constituents of your entire existence. It is not in you but you are in it. It is your form, not a mere experience. It is also larger than you because the universal existence too is embedded in it.

100. Are you so poor that you are completely devoid of dharma? Economic poverty is not a major consideration. True poverty is the spiritual poverty of dharma. In spite of wealth man remains poor, but if he possesses the wealth of dharma he can no longer remain poor. The greatest event in the life of a man is not his mundane success, the building of an empire, and so on, but the search for that wealth which lies hidden in him. I call that wealth dharma. All material wealth is filthy lucre, all internal, spiritual wealth is divine.

They who seek worldly wealth seek poverty and they who seek virtue seek real wealth.

101. I had been to a house where I saw a lute. I was struck with the idea that human mind too is like a lute. Mind is an instrument, producing rhythmical and discordant notes. We are responsible for it whatever note is produced. So make your mind an instrument of harmonious melody and Truth. Keep it ready and rhythmical. Keep it free from egotism.

There is no element other than the ego which produces a more discordant note. He alone who is full of melody within can approach Truth. It is not he who is merely intellectual but he whose self is fully melodious, who can approach Truth.

102. I see you repeating and chanting mantras uttering words learnt by rote from scriptural texts. My heart is filled with pity and sympathy. What is it that you are doing?

Do you take this doping, this self-forgetfulness, this slumber of the soul for religion and austerity? Certainly the chanting of the mantras, the repetition of words etc. can drown the mind in a pleasant slumber But do not take this slumber for some spiritual trance.

Friends, there is a wide gulf between slumber and trance. In slumber produced by what I call 'soul-fascination' there is an element of experience as well. But this experience is no more than a dream. It is our mind that diffuses such dreams. Even if these be highly pleasing and satisfying, they do not become truths merely because they yield pleasure and satisfaction. But generally it is not Truth that we seek. We seek only satisfaction. Hence it is easy for us to get entangled in all sorts of illusions. The mind that seeks satisfaction is likely to be satisfied with intoxication of any sort. Any kind of self-forgetfulness can yield satisfaction to it. Self-forgetfulness can be achieved through the so-called mantras, chanting of the Lord's Name, and concentration. Any sort of incessant repetition can subdue consciousness. On the other hand, dharma is not at all concerned with stupefaction or self-forgetfulness. It is the state of non-stupefaction, complete soul- memory, and wakefulness.

103. There is no hell other than egotism. Egotism is synonymous with hell. Get rid of egotism. There is no hell.

104. I cannot undertake the voyage to Truth for your sake. Nor can anyone else do the same for me. You yourself have to undertake that journey. Know this precisely, otherwise the precious time of your life is spent in vain. The highway of life is full of darkness. No other light than the luminous understanding of the self can illumine the path. You are the darkness in regard to yourself and only you can be your own light.

105. Learn the technique of surrendering yourself to Truth. Unless you surrender yourself, Truth cannot be realized. The seed crumbles and disintegrates before it germinates into a lovely shoot. Learn to die if you seek to live.

106. Are you in search of bliss? Get ready to purvey it unto everyone. The universe is but an echo; whatever we do comes back to us echoing and rumbling. He who showers blessings on others finds himself delightfully drenched in the blessings poured from every quarter. Words of abuse are paid back with still viler words of abuse. Never expect love in return for the stones you pelt others with. Those who sow thorns for others must be ready to reap a rich harvest of thorns. It is an eternal law that hatred provokes hatred just as love provokes love.

107. Since rudeness can never let knowledge bloom, knowledge bereft of humility is but delusion. Vain-glorious exhibition of knowledge proclaims that it is borrowed.

108. What is sin? A negation of the divinity in yourself. (1) There is no other virtue greater than the perpetual consciousness of your own divinity.

109. It is needless to go out in search of God. Live a life of godliness; prove it in every action. Nay, godliness must be the very breath of your life, for then alone will you realize God.

110. It is essential to wade through death to conquer death. He who is dead to vulgarity defeats death and wins immortality.

111. It is insanely ridiculous to delve into the shastras for the realization of Truth. (1) The shastras may well be the outcome of Truth but are never known to generate Truth. How funny is the behaviour of people who shelter stark ignorance in the living heart and grope among dead words to cull out Truth!

112. If darkness is within, no external light can serve our purpose.

113. Life is but one unit. The realization of this singleness in its entirety is love.

114. Where is ignorance? Undoubtedly in egotism where lustful inclinations have struck their roots deep.

115. Lustful propensities are endlessly painful because they are insatiable.

116. It is vain to expect peace from what one had been longing to possess and had been yearning to secure; for, even if it comes within reach in this way, it cannot but be evanescent. When the mind that yearns is itself transitory how can the cherished object be everlasting?

117. The entrance door to Truth, Perpetuity and Eternity is neither a pining love, nor an unquenchable thirst, nor an insatiable lust. In fact, the mind itself is not the pathway leading to it. Truth is there where the mind is not.

118. Do you wish to hear the sweet eloquence of the Lord? Turn a deaf ear to the worldly verbiage. Those deaf to the external world hear Him well; those blind and lame and crippled see Him distinct and hear Him and keep pace with Him.

119. Running after lecherous fancies is a wild goose chase, a mirage, a journey from a frigid life to a frozen death. Overwhelmed by such misconceptions, man dies many such deaths, but those who are ready to court death in a fight against such fancies shall find Death itself on its death-bed.

120. Life is only for those who know how to die in the fight against life. Where there is fear there is neither freedom nor intelligence.

121. There was a day when death was awaiting me. Since I was frightened, it lay in ambush for me, but when I advanced to embrace it, it was not there: for death is in the fear of death, and its acceptance is salvation. Fear is death and fearlessness is liberation.

Death pursues those who flee it, like their shadow. If you turn and face it, it vanishes. To accept death before its advent is to escape from it.

122. As I stood by the sea, I asked myself, "Why do all the rivers fall eventually into the sea?" Even a child will say, "Because it is far below -- lower than anything else." The thought filled my mind with scintillating rays of light. Blessed is he who is humble since the Lord crowns him with the plenitude of His riches.

123. It is essential to forgo both the good and the bad to be able to realize the Lord. Only then does human consciousness rise above difference and establish itself in identity.

124. Friend, you have forsaken the impure. That's all right. Now, renounce the pure as well. For vanity stays as long as there is a hold on either.

125. Open thy eyes and observe carefully. Don't you see a perpetual change everywhere?

Whatever your eyes behold is caught in a perennial flow, in endless flux, and he who wishes to build up his house in the running river is not in his senses.

126. This Physical body is a sacred temple. Instead of putting up a fight with it, delve into it, for the path to the Lord lies through it. The body is a place of holy pilgrimage inasmuch as God has chosen it as His habitation. It is not surprising that the aspirant for spiritual perfection acknowledges its co-operation with gratitude and diverts its powers towards the Soul Supreme?

127. I was watching the flowers at dawn when the sparkling drops of dew were peacefully and lovingly descending deep in, to them. There was not even the faintest sound of footsteps nearby. When the heart is ready, the Soul Supreme too descends like this. No one gets an inkling of His advent till He manifests Himself.

128. I was atop the hills. What they wanted to convey was transmitted to me through silence. The trees, the fountains, the rivers and the rivulets, the moon and the stars were all communicating in the language of silence that I understood. The gestures of the Lord were clear. I could hear Him only when I became silent, not before.

129. What shall I say? Listen to the stars in the sky. I wish to say what their quiescent diffused light has communicated to me. I would like to say that whatever is, is beyond the reach of speech and hearing.

130. I am the poorest of the poor, for there is nothing I can call mine. Even I myself am not mine. Whatever there is, belongs to the Soul Supreme. The Soul Supreme is Itself All. But the moment I realized this indigence, it at once vanished. I am now the Imperial Majesty, for I am no longer there. The Lord alone exists.

131. Friends, there are who hurl abuses at me and go away. My heart is genuinely thankful to them, for I feel my love flowing towards them through the abuses, spreading an unearthly peace over me.

132. This world itself is a wonder of wonders, for I see that those who apparently seem to live do not live at all. A life enmeshed in lustful fancies is no life at all. I also realize that those who are said to be dead are not dead, for the soul knows no death.

133. Religious leaders make much of their teaching -- "Know thyself". But where does this "self" exist? Is not the existence of this "self" the shadow of the "other self"? Which is why I say, "Know thyself"? I merely repeat -- know, know, know! Know that which is!

134. The physical body naturally grows old. But take care that the mind does not become old along with it. It is a sure sign of the successful completion of the pilgrimage of life, if the mind retains the perfect simplicity of the new-born child when the body reaches the threshold of Death.

135. If you nurse the poison of hatred within, you can never expect the blossoms of bliss to spread their fragrance without. A latent perennial undercurrent of love is a necessity for their efflorescence. Where love's nectar is sprinkled, bliss blossoms in profusion.

136. The portals of beatitude are close at hand; but if one turns about and proceeds ahead nurturing willful violence and seething hatred, one naturally comes to the domain of hell though one may be in quest of heaven. The path one takes is the criterion; ambition alone leads nowhere.

137. There is no greater affliction than trying to become an entirely different being, other than what you are. Although the desire to become has no end and therefore no fulfilment, the majority of people, do turn to be different. Recognize and realize your own nature.

Living in one's own nature is the bliss of heaven.

138. Don't you know that often we search for things close at hand in far-off places? In the case of beatitude, it is wholly true. Understand where it is. Only there can you secure it, not where you seek it.

139. Virtue is happiness.

140. There was a happy man. I found out the secret of his happiness. He did not worry about securing a task according to his taste, but he knew how to love the task that fell to his lot.

141. Two wayfarers took shelter in a squalid rest-house. One of them went on grumbling and brooding over its squalor throughout his stay there. The other one, who set about cleaning the place thoroughly, found immense pleasure in this labour of love. The same resthouse made one extremely miserable and the other immensely glad. Is there a greater pleasure in life than a constructive job lovingly undertaken? No. Is there a pleasure more thrilling than service to others? No. If you seek lasting pleasure, endeavour to leave the rest-house of mundane existence cleaner and more beautiful than ever for the sake of your successors. You will certainly find happiness in the creation of beauty.

142. Brother dear, if the task you are engaged in does not thrill you, nor pleases others, would you like to know why? Evidently because you feel that it is a burden imposed on you. The fact is that pleasure is obtained only from that task which is delightfully undertaken and pursued.

143. Can I you this question, "Wherefore do you live? Is there a goal, an ideal, for which you are prepared to lay down your life?" If the answer is in the negative, know for certain that you are already dead. The powerful energy of a purposeful life is awakened and kept only by an ideal for which one is prepared to court death with smile on one's lips.

Remember that you can win life only at the stake.

144. Once when I said somewhere that I am an emperor, someone put the question, "Where is your crown?" I replied, "It is not on my head but in my heart. It is not made of precious metals but of virtuous thoughts and actions; it is not studded with stones usually called diamonds and emeralds but with rays of tranquillity, knowledge and love. In order to get this crown Emperors have to become beggars."

145. The pleasures of the body and the sense-organs are like tender flowers: they fade on being handled or plucked. In your search for the imperishable pleasures, you have to rise far above the physical body and the sense-organs.

146. What shall I present you with? Some valuable precious stone? No, after all it is only a stone. Some beautiful flower? No, I will not give you a flower which will fade away. I shall give you abundant love out of my heart, love that is not hard as a stone or transient like a flower. Love in man's heart is the divine fragrance, the divine music that thrills the very depths of the listener's heart.

147. To live in Truth is to live in God; to live in God is to live in love. But I see that while God is remembered, Truth is forgotten; the story of Truth is remembered but the life of love is forgotten. It would have been better if we had forgotten God but remembered Truth, and it would have been better if we had forgotten the story of Truth but cared to live a life of love. If there is love, Truth steps in, and where Truth abides, God too exists.

148. Would that we all lived as though the world sat observing us! Whether we know it or not, deep at the bottom nothing lies hidden. Man can never be aloof from the collective whole. The echo of all that rises within him reaches everyone else; (1) even as he lives he forms part and parcel of the life about him, of the life flowing around him.

[Footnote (1) Cf: "Our echoes roll from soul to soul, and grow for ever and for ever..." -- Tennysonl 149. Man lives in his deeds, not in his years. Thoughts which bring along actions with them, are deeper than breaths which drag on the years in their wake. The feelings, the sensations, are deeper than thoughts, but there is an unfathomable bottom deeper than the sensations themselves. That is the human soul. He who goes deeper and deeper into himself rises higher and higher in life in the same proportion. The trees that would like to rise high up in the air must of necessity fix their roots deep into the soil.

150. I love beauty, the beauty that lies embedded far below the body. The body is only its border, the frontier of protection with its beauty of thoughts and the beauty of sensations.

But there is the perfect beauty of that nullified existence, free of thought, free of sensation. Do not, therefore, stop at the body. It would be death. Wade through the deep waters. You can get only pebbles and shells on the shore. You have to go far into the sea for fishing the pearls.

151. There are mirrors and mirrors in every house; but have you observed that a small thought soaked in truth or a wee wave of love's ebullition or even small task of service gives a fresh beauty to the eyes, to the face, to the entire individual? If not, you are as blind as a bat. In vain do you waste your time facing the mirror. It would have been better if you had smashed the mirror to smithereens since you do not know the proper use of a mirror.

152. It does not matter if I am not recognized in the impenetrable darkness enveloping the path of life; but think of the dire consequences if I fail to know myself. Many of us are, alas! not as eager to know ourselves as we are eager to make others know us. That is why life is more and more enveloped in darkness; for how can one shed light all around if one does not know oneself. Men of real understanding pray thus, "I shall readily accept death, unknown to the world, unrecognized everywhere and uncrowned with renown, but let me understand at least myself." In fact, that modicum of light is adequate enough to take us to the Soul Supreme. Friend, the humble lamp illumined by the knowledge of self is more valuable than a million suns.

153. I say: "Give, give, give. Distribute sympathy. Render service. Give love in abundance, for he who gives shall get it back."

154. I had a bath in the holy Ganges and my body was washed of its dirt. I told my companions, "There is another Ganges. If we have our bath in it, our soul will be cleansed." They asked me, "Which is that Ganges?" I said, "That of Love."

155. A friend of mine was unhappy. When I saw him crying I took him out of the house and said, "Behold the stars!" And drops of tears welled up in his eyes and sparkled like stars. His misery gradually subsiding, he said, "How is it that on looking at the stars my heart became freed of its burden? How is it that my misery vanished when I looked at the sky?" I replied, "It is misery to be away from the Lord. It is sorrow to be alienated from Nature. It is woe to be separated from the Soul's being."

"What is the greatest pleasure in the world?" someone was saying. I replied, "To be and not to be in the world. The only maxim that can ensure happiness is this: 'The feet in the world, the heart in the Lord.'" 156. Accept life, the benign gift of the Lord. Never fight, never flee. Love it, for there is no greater conquest than that of Love.

157. A man seen from outside is definitely what he is inside. Everything without is painted with the colours within. If there is bliss within, everything without is beautiful; if there is misery within, everything without is ugly. In fact, man sees himself everywhere.

If you are in hell, know that you are the cause thereof. It is within your powers to be in Heaven as well.

158. You seek my message? Indeed, it is a short one: "Those who were awake lived; those who slept, missed everything."