The same holds true for God and matter:
God made visible is matter, and what cannot be seen is God.
Take life easily and naturally, just as it comes.
Welcome it in its endless forms with an attitude of complete acceptance.
And do not impose yourself on life;
life has its own discipline, its own wisdom,
and those who are ready to live totally
have no need for any other discipline or wisdom.
But you have always been afraid of life
and therefore you are afraid of love.
Now life has begun penetrating you,
breaking your walls of security.
So, God’s infinite grace showers on you!
Don’t run from it now, accept it gratefully
and my good wishes are always with you.
59. Love.
Be aware in the waking state,
don’t try to become aware in sleep or dreams.
If you become aware in the waking state
awareness in dreams and sleep comes easily –
but you don’t have to do anything for it.
Doing only creates difficulties.
Sleep reflects the waking state:
what we are when awake we are in sleep.
If we are asleep in the waking state only then is sleep really sleep;
the stream of thoughts during the waking state becomes the web
of dreams in sleep.
Being aware in the waking state will begin to reflect itself in sleep too,
and if there are no thoughts in the waking state
dreams disappear altogether in sleep.
Everything else is fine.
My regards to everyone there.
60. Love.
I was overjoyed to receive your letter –
as pure and innocent as your heart.
You want to write that which cannot be written
so you send an unwritten letter.
This is good, for it is better to remain silent about that which cannot
be expressed.
But beware, silence also speaks,
it speaks and speaks so much!
Silence can speak even where words fail.
The void envelops even that which lines cannot contain.
In fact what can resist the embrace of the great void?
Nothing is left unsaid by silence.
Where words fail, silence is full of meaning.
Where form ends, the formless begins.
Where knowledge (veda) ends,
transcendental knowledge (vedanta) begins.
When knowledge dies, the beyond begins.
Freedom from the word is truth.
61. Love.
How can I describe how happy I am
to have received your letter?
Whenever I saw you,
only one question arose in my mind –
How long are you going to keep away from me?
I knew you had to come closer to me, it was only a matter of time,
so I kept waiting and praying for you.
To me, prayerful waiting is love.
I also knew you were going through the pangs of a new birth
and that rebirth is very near –
for only this can give soul to your songs.
Words are the form and form has its own beauty,
its own melody, its own music.
But this is not enough, and he who considers this enough
remains discontented forever.
The soul of poetry lies in silence.
To me, prayerful waiting is love, and the void
is the door to the divine temple.
You have come to me and I want to take you to the Lord
for how can you come close to me
without first coming closer to him?
In fact without coming close to him you cannot come close
even to yourself.
Then as soon as you come near him you attain that life
for which you have gone through so many lives.
To come close to oneself is to be reborn –
the principle of being twice born is just this.
And remember, not even the pebbles lying on the road are just pebbles;
they too await a new birth, for that second birth turns them
into diamonds.
P.S. To run after desires is to run after a mirage.
It is a journey from one death to another.
In the illusion that is life
man dies this way time and time again.
But those willing to die to their desires discover that death itself
dies for them.
62. Love.
Where is truth?
Do not search for it, for when has truth
ever been found through seeking?
For in seeking, the seeker is present.
So don’t seek but lose yourself.
He who loses himself finds truth.
I don’t say: Seek and you will find.
I say: He who loses himself, finds.
63. Love.
I was happy to receive your letter.
The drop doesn’t have to become the ocean.
It already is the ocean,
it just has to know it.
What is,
however it is –
to know it as it is,
is truth.
And truth liberates.
64. Love.
Life is an infinite mystery, therefore those who are filled
with knowledgeare deprived of life.
Life becomes known only to the innocent,
to those whose intuition is not covered with the dust of knowledge.
65. Love.
Do not seek nirvana as something opposed to life,
rather, turn life itself into nirvana.
Those who know, do this.
Dogen has these beautiful words to say:
Do not strive after moksha (liberation);
rather, allow all your actions to become liberating.
This happens.
I can tell you this from my own experience;
and the day it happens
life becomes as beautiful as a flower in full bloom
and brims with fragrance.
66. Love.
I received your letter on my return.
Just as the seed within the soil waits for the rains so you wait for God.
Prayerful, wholehearted surrender is the door
leading to him.
Let yourself go completely,
just like a boat floating on the river.
You do not have to row the boat, just let it go loose.
You are not to swim, just to float, then the river itself takes you
to the ocean.
The ocean is very near – but only for those who float
but do not swim.
Do not be afraid of drowning because that fear makes you swim –
and the truth is that he who drowns himself in God is saved forever.
And do not have a goal,
for he who has a goal begins to swim.
Remember always –
wherever one reaches, that is the destination,
therefore he who makes God his goal goes astray.
Wherever the mind is free from all goals –
there alone is God.
67. Love.
I say: Die, so that you can live!
When the seed destroys itself, it becomes the tree;
when the drop loses itself, it becomes the ocean.
But man – man refuses to lose himself.
How then can God manifest in him?
Man is the seed, God is the tree.
Man is the drop, God is the ocean.
68. Love.
Leave the old track –
only the dead walk on trodden paths.
Life is the continuous quest for the new.
Only he who has the knack of being new
every moment truly lives.
Die to the old every moment
so that you are forever new –
this is the crux of the transformation of life.
69. Love.
Truth is like the sky: eternal, everlasting, boundless.
Is there a door to enter the sky?
Then how can there be one to enter into truth?
If our eyes are closed, the sky exists not.
The same holds good for truth.
Opening the eyes is the door to truth; to close the eyes
is to close that door to truth.
70. Love.
Where to find truth?
Well, it has to be sought within one’s own self,
within one’s own self
within one’s own self
within one’s own self.
It is definitely there.
One who seeks it elsewhere loses it.
71. Love.
I am extremely grateful for your loving letter.
I take life as a whole and I am incapable of viewing it in bits and
pieces; it is already the whole but because it has been viewed
in fragments for so long it has become perverted.
There is no politics, no morality, no religion;
there is life, there is God, whole and unfragmented.
It has to be sought, recognized and lived in all its forms,
therefore I shall continue to speak on all its forms.
And this is only the beginning.
Answering journalists is just preparing the ground.
All paths lead to one end – certain friends might take some time
to understand this truth.
As things are, this delay in understanding the truth is unavoidable,
but seekers of truth won’t be afraid – courage is the first condition
in the search for truth.
Remember, as long as spirituality does not become a philosophy
of the whole life it proves impotent,
and only escapists will take shelter behind it.
Spirituality has to be turned into a force,
spirituality has to be turned into a revolution,
only then can spirituality be saved.
My regards to all.
72. Love.
Man becomes a slave because he is afraid to be alone,
so he needs a crowd, a society, an organization.
Fear is the basis of all institutions,
and how can a frightened mind know the truth?
Truth requires fearlessness and fearlessness comes from sadhana,
not from societies.
That is why all religions, institutions and organization
bar the path of truth.
1970
73. Love.
Don’t be in a hurry.
So often, hurrying causes delay.
As you thirst, wait patiently – the deeper the waiting,
the sooner it comes.
You have sown the seed, now sit in the shade and watch what happens.
The seed will break, it will blossom, but you cannot
speed up the process.
Doesn’t everything need time?
Work you must, but leave the results to God.
Nothing in life is ever wasted,
especially steps taken towards truth.
But at times impatience comes,
impatience comes with thirst,
but this is an obstacle.
Keep the thirst and throw away the impatience.
Do not confuse impatience with thirst.
With thirst there is yearning but no struggle.
With impatience there is struggle but no yearning.
With longing there is waiting but no demanding.
With impatience there is demanding but no waiting.
With thirst there are silent tears.
With impatience there is a restless struggle.
Truth cannot be attacked; it is attained through surrender
not through struggle.
It is conquered through total surrender.
74. Love.
Your letter has been received.
Why seek at all for a purpose?
If you seek this you will never find it
because it is eternally hidden in the seeker.
Life is without purpose – life is its own purpose,
therefore he who lives without purpose truly lives.
Live! Isn’t living itself enough?
The desire to have more than just life is a result
of not properly living –
and that is why the fear of death
grips the human mind, for what is death to one who is really alive!
Where living is intense and total there is no time to fear death –
and there is no time for death, either.
Do not think in the language of purpose –
that language is diseased in itself.
The sky exists without purpose.
God is without purpose,
flowers bloom without purpose,
and stars shine without purpose –
what has happened to poor man
that he cannot live without purpose!
Because man can think he gets into trouble.
A little thinking always leads to trouble.
If you must think, think completely, utterly!
Then the mind whirls so fast with thoughts
that freedom from thoughts is attained.
Then you begin to live.
75. Love.
Rest is the supreme goal, work is the medium.
Total relaxation, with complete freedom from effort,
is the supreme goal.
Then life is a play, and then even effort becomes play.
Poetry, philosophy, religion are the fruits of repose.
This has not been available to everyone,
but technology and science will make it so
in the near future.
That is why I am in favor of technology.
Those who attribute intrinsic value to labor
oppose the use of machines – they have to.
For me, labor has no such intrinsic value: on the contrary,
I see it as a burden.
As long as work is a prerequisite for rest
it cannot be blissful.
When work flows out of a state of rest voluntarily,
then it is blissful.
So I cannot call rest a sin.
Nor do I support sacrifice.
I do not want anyone to live for anybody else, or one generation
to sacrifice itself for another.
Such sacrifices turn out to be very costly –
those who make them expect an inhuman return.
This is why fathers expect the impossible
from their sons.
If each father lives for his son who will live for himself?
For every son is a potential father.
No, I want everyone to live for himself –
for his own happiness, his own state of rest.
When a father is happy he does much more for his son –
and easily, because it comes out of his happiness.
Then there is neither sacrifice nor renunciation;
what he does comes naturally out of his being a father –
and a happy father at that.
Then he has no inhuman expectations of his son,
and where there is no pressure from expectations,
expectations are fulfilled – out of the son being a son.
In short, I teach each person to be selfish.
Altruistic teachings have taught man nothing but suicide,
and a suicidal man is always homicidal.
The unhappy sow their sorrow amongst others.
I am also against the sacrifice of the present for the future,
because what is is always present.
If you live in it totally the future will be born out of it –
and when it comes it too will be the present.
For he who has the habit of sacrificing the present for the future,
the future never comes
because whatever comes is again
always sacrificed for that which has not yet come.
Finally, you ask why I too work for others
and for the future.
First of all, I do not work.
Whatever I do flows out of my state of rest.
I do not swim, I just float.
No one can ever do anything for another
but if something happens to others out of what I am,
that is something else,
and there too I am not the doer.
As for the future –
for me, the present is everything.
And the past too is also a present – that has passed away.
And the future too – that is a present that is yet to come.
Life is always here and now
so I do not bother about past and future.
And it is amazing that ever since I stopped worrying about them
they have begun to worry about me!
My regards to all there.
76. Love.
There is a music which has no sound;
the soul is restless for such silent music.
There is a love in which the body is not;
the soul longs for such unembodied love.
There is a truth which has no form;
the soul longs for this formless truth.
Therefore melodies do not satisfy,
bodies do not satisfy,
and forms cannot fulfill the soul.
But this lack of fulfillment,
this dissatisfaction, has to be understood properly,
for such understanding
ultimately brings about transcendence.
Then sound becomes the door to the soundless,
the body becomes the path to the unembodied,
and form becomes the formless.
77. Love.
God is our only wealth.
Do not depend on any other wealth,
riches of any other kind bring only disaster.
St. Theresa wanted to set up a large orphanage
but at the time she had only three shillings.
She wanted to start this enormous project
with just this small amount.
Friends and admirers advised her:
Get the funds together first.
What can you do with just three shillings?
Theresa laughed and said:
Naturally Theresa can do nothing with three shillings,
but with three shillings plus God – nothing is impossible!
78. Love.
Sansara is nirvana,
sound is mantra,
and all living beings are God.
It depends on how you look.
The world is nothing but how one sees it.
See! Open your eyes and see!
Where is darkness?
– there is only light.
Where is death?
– there is only deathlessness.
79. Love.
I have received your letter.
As the earth thirsts for the rains after a hot summer
so you are thirsting for God.
This thirst becomes an invitation to the divine clouds –
and the invitation has arrived.
Just keep drowning yourself in meditation
and his grace will definitely pour on you.
If you are ready here –
he is always ready there.
Look! Can’t you see his clouds hovering in the sky?
80. Love.
Do not fight with yourself.
You are as you are –
do not strive to change.
Do not swim in life,
just float
like a leaf on the stream.
Keep away from sadhanas, mere sadhanas.
This is the only sadhana.
Where is there to go?
What is there to become?
What is there to find?
What is, is here and now.
Please, stop and see!
What are the animal instincts?
What is low? and high?
Whatever is, is –
there is no high, no low.
What is animal?
What is divine?
So do not condemn,
do not praise,
nor condemn nor praise yourself:
all differences are of the mind.
In truth no differences exist.
There, God and animal are one and the same;
heaven and hell are just two sides of one coin;
sansara and nirvana are two expressions of one unknown.
And do not think about what I have said;
if you think you will miss.
See. Just see.
81. Love.
On the road to God the only sustenance is infinite hope –
hope shining like the north star in darkness, hope keeping
you company like a shadow in loneliness.
Dark and lonely life’s path certainly is –
but only for those without hope.
The famous geographical explorer Donald Macmillan was preparing
for his journey to the north pole when he received a letter.
On it was written:
To be opened only when there is no hope of survival.
Fifty years passed; the envelope remained with Macmillan as it was –
sealed.
Someone asked him the reason for this and he replied:
For one thing I want to keep faith with the unknown sender,
and for another, I have never given up hope.
What priceless words! – I have never given up hope!
82. Love.
I am delighted you have taken sannyas.
A life without the flower of sannyas is like a barren tree.
Sannyas is the supreme music of life.
It is not renunciation, on the contrary, it is life’s highest enjoyment.
Someone who finds diamonds and pearls is not going to bother
about pebbles and stones.
But note – he does not renounce them, interest simply drops away.
83. Love.
Thought is man’s strength
but blind belief has robbed him of it,
that is why he has become weak and impotent.
Think fully,
think tirelessly,
for amazingly enough the state of no-thought
is achieved only at the peak of thought,
it is the culmination of thought,
and at this point all thought becomes useless.
In this emptiness, truth lies.
84. Love.
All crutches bar the way.
Shun all support and then you will receive his.
He is the only help for the helpless.
There is no other guide but him –
all other guides are obstacles on the path.
If you want to reach the master avoid all teachers.
Don’t be afraid to make yourself empty
for that alone is the door,
that alone is the path –
and that alone is the destination.
The courage to be empty
is all that is needed to become one with the all.
Those who are full stay empty,
and those who are empty become filled –
such are his mathematics.
Do not consider doing anything –
through doing you can never reach him,
nor through chanting,
nor through austerity,
for he is already here!
Stop and see!
To do is to run,
not to do is to halt.
Yes! If he were far away we could run to meet him,
but he is the nearest of the near!
If we had lost him we could search for and find him,
but to us he has never been lost!
85. Love.
I am glad to have received your letter.
The I is not to be given up because how can you drop that which is not?
The I has to be looked into, understood.
It is like taking a lamp to search for darkness –
the darkness vanishes!
Darkness cannot be stamped out because it doesn’t exist.
You just have to bring a light and darkness is unmasked.
It is the same with your thoughts – do not fight with them.
The effort to be free of thought
comes itself from a thought.
Know your thoughts, watch them, be aware of them,
then they quieten down without difficulty.
Witnessing finally leads to emptiness, and where there is emptiness –
there is the all.
86. Love.
Why does man suffer so much?
Because in his life there is pandemonium
but no soundless music.
Because in his life there is a babble of thoughts
but no emptiness.
Because in his life there is a turmoil of feeling
but no equanimity.
Because in his life there is a mad rushing around
but no stillness which knows no directions.
And finally, because in his life there is much of himself
but of God, nothing at all.
87. Love.
The time is ripe.
The hour draws nearer every day.
Innumerable souls are restless.
A path has to be created for them.
So hurry!
Work hard!
Surrender totally!
Forget yourself!
Plunge into God’s work like a madman.
Here, only madness will do –
and there is no greater wisdom
than such madness for God.
88. Love.
Non-attachment is not concerned with things
but with thoughts.
Non-attachment is not related to the outside
but to the within.
Non-attachment is not to do with the world
but with oneself.
One day a beggar went to see a Sufi fakir
and found him seated on a velvet cushion inside a beautiful tent
with its ropes tied to golden pegs.
Seeing all this the beggar cried: What is this!
Honorable Fakir, I have heard much about your
spirituality and non-attachment,
but I am completely disillusioned by all this ostentation around you.
The fakir laughed, replying:
I am ready to leave all this behind and come with you.
So saying, he immediately got up and walked off with the beggar
not even waiting to put his sandals on!
After a short while the beggar became distressed.
I left my begging bowl in your tent, he said.
What shall I do without it?
Please wait here while I go and fetch it.
The Sufi laughed. My friend, he said,
the gold pegs of my tent were stuck in the earth
not in my heart,
but your begging bowl is still chasing after you!
To be in the world is not attachment.
The presence of the world in the mind is the attachment,
and when the world disappears from the mind – this is non-attachment.
89. Love.
Once the ego is surrendered there is no suffering, no sorrow,
for the ego is basically the cause of all suffering,
and the moment it is seen that everything is God
there is no more cause for complaint.
Where complaining has ended, there is prayer.
It is a feeling of gratitude, it is trust in God.
In this trust in God, benediction pours.
Trust and know.
It is very difficult to trust – there is no austerity greater
than accepting life as it is.
90. Love.
Do not look for results in meditation –
this is an obstruction.
Do not seek to repeat any meditative experience,
for this too is a hindrance.
When meditating, just meditate;
the rest then happens by itself.
The way to God does not lie in our hands
so leave yourself in his.
Surrender, surrender, surrender!
Remember always – surrender!
Sleeping or waking – remember!
Surrender is the only door to God.
Emptiness is the only boat that sails to him.
91. Love.
How much longer will you go on
letting your energy sleep?
How much longer are you going to stay oblivious
of the immensity of your self?
Don’t waste time in conflict,
lose no time in doubt –
time can never be recovered,
and if you miss an opportunity
it may take many lives before another
comes your way again.
92. Love.
I received your letter.
Do not fall into the whirl of calming the mind;
this in itself is the restlessness.
The mind is what it is, accept it as such.
This acceptance brings peace.
Rejection is restlessness, acceptance is peace –
and he who reaches total acceptance attains to God.
There is no way other than this.
Understand this well
because this understanding brings acceptance.
Acceptance cannot come from an act of will –
the action of will is itself non-accepting.
I do conceals non-acceptance
because will is always of the ego.
Ego cannot live unless fed by rejection.
Acceptance can never be brought about by action,
only understanding life can bring it about.
Look, look at life.
What is is, it is as it is.
Things are such – do not ask for them to be otherwise
because they cannot be even if you so desire.
Desire is altogether impotent.
Ah, how can there be restlessness without desire?
93. Love.
Search, search and search –
so much that finally the seeker vanishes.
There you meet him.
Where the I is lost, there he is.
There is not, and never has been,
any wall between –
except for the I.
94. Love.
When the moon rises in the sky watch it, be absorbed by it –
forget everything else, including yourself!
Only then will you come to know
the music that has no sound.
When the morning sun rises, bow down to the earth
and lose yourself in homage to it.
Only then will you know of the music
that is not made by man.
When the trees burst into flowers, like a flower dance with them
in the breeze.
Only then will you hear the music
that lives in one’s innermost self.
He who knows this music knows life too – its song
is another word for God.
95. Love.
Don’t float with the current of thoughts,
just be aware of them.
Know that you are separate from them, distinct, distant, just an
observer.
Just watch the flow of thoughts like traffic,
watch them as you watch the dry leaves
flying everywhere in the fall.
Don’t be the one who makes them happen,
don’t be the one to whom they happen.
Then the rest takes place by itself.
This rest is what I call meditation.
96. Love.
This is a good beginning to the struggle
and I am glad to have pushed you into it.
Sannyas is a challenge to the world, a fundamental declaration
of freedom.
To live in freedom every moment is sannyas.
Now, insecurity will always be with you,
but that is a fact of life.
The only certainty is death; life is insecurity,
and that is its joy and its beauty.
To be locked in security is suicide,
a living death effected by one’s own hand.
Such living-dead are everywhere.
They have turned the world into a graveyard, and they number
amongst them many celebrated corpses.
They all have to be awakened, though for their part
they are trying to put back to sleep even those who are awake.
Now the struggle will go on and on.
In it your total resolution will be born.
Far off I see your destination – the other shore.
97. Love.
I was traveling, then on my return, there was your letter.
You can meet friends of Jeevan Jagruti Kendra and begin working
for Yuvak Kranti Dal (Revolutionary Youth Force).
There are no rules about it – there can never be rules in revolution.
There needs to be an awakening of understanding among the youth,
with scientific studies replacing blind faith – this is all I wish for.
Do meet me this time when I come to Indore.
Everything is fine.
My regards to everyone there.