Summary: Explains how the mind can be a barrier on the spiritual path, and emphasises the need of a Guru to guide one on through the pitfalls. Points out that the Indian people have devotion and faith as a race, whereas the westerner often over-analyses and can therefore miss recognising the Master. Teaches to reach the quietness within and open the deeper heart.

There is God awaiting you in your heart. Of course you could ask me, who is this God? And that is for you to find out. But It, He, She – is there. And of course after yesterday’s conversation, I would say you have to drop all analysis. (Laughter) I surely can see the dangers of the mind – how much of a barrier it can be! The barriers that the mind can place: in its belief, in its own cleverness. That is why Christ told Judas, “It is not in the head, Judas, it is in the heart.” And that is why my question, “How long should we reason?” It does not mean that the reasoning faculty cannot be employed – but how much?

And talking about humility, that is where the heart comes in. Humility is strength; humility is dignity. There is a difference between humility and humiliation – great difference, a gulf of difference. They are not the same. Humility has dignity, under all circumstances. Humility comes from wisdom. Humility comes from enlightenment, it becomes your natural state of being. And the practice of humility begets wisdom.

As far as I see, L., for your life you need to put yourself totally in this; you cannot be half-hearted about it. Be somewhere where you can have this environment all the time. This is true for everyone of course, but I have known you now for a few days and therefore the suggestion. And some things cannot be analysed, they are beyond all analysis because they belong to another plane altogether: they belong to the plane of experience. And I would say even N. should stop being a psychoanalyst, she should give it up. As a game one can, yes, but then it should not bind you, fix you, limit you in your perspectives, generate conceit and arrogance about the infallibility of your own arguments and conclusions and ‘I know all’ attitude.

To start knowing oneself one has to arrive at a quietness within. This is the first thing, the first step. That is why the Buddhist lama told you that the bricklayer is better for enlightenment than the thinking man, for his thinking mind is filled with thoughts preventing it to be easily quiet. But we do not have to only be the bricklayer to attain to quietness, to be able to be quiet with oneself. Anyone can, through practice. You know that there are different centres of consciousness. From this position of quietness you can awaken the force in them. Now you are in the realm of mysticism. And then you have the freedom to analyse! But right now analysis can become a barrier. That is why all the ones who went before, arrived before, they have repeatedly said, like Christ for example, “It is not until you become like children, childlike, that you can enter the kingdom of God.” It requires practice. Even to arrive at meditation one has to learn about meditation. So one needs a Teacher. I am not putting forward the case for myself as the Teacher, but I see its necessity. I myself have never had a Teacher, but this cannot be for everyone; only a rare few can manage this. But you are all my teachers – in the sense that you are teaching me how to bring you to meditation – involuntarily of course! That is something I am learning because of you. Therefore in the Indian tradition the Guru is raised even above God. In the Tantras it is said, “If God is upset with you the Guru can save you, but if the Guru is upset with you even God cannot save you!” It is put across in this way to show the importance of the Guru.

And as we were discussing the other day, devotion is in the race here, because the Indian people have had it so much that they take to it naturally. It is very much part of their living consciousness. So they definitely have an advantage. They may be poor materially, they may not be able to talk to you about certain subjects, they may be simpletons – but in terms of the Divine, I would say, I would anytime rather be them than you because they have an open door to God and to themselves. In the conceit of the sophistication of the modern mind people today have closed themselves to a greater Reality. They have only developed arrogance, presumptuousness, and therefore ignorance of a greater Reality. And what tremendous experiences await you…

You know the word ‘shrink’, it suits that profession very well because in their ignorance they reduce the Reality to a simplistic understanding of human nature. They have shrunk themselves down to their learnings, so they shrink – reduce everything and everybody else down to their shrunken learnings – this is their arrogance! In their limited learning is the fixation of the arrogant belief that they know and have mapped everything about the human mind and therefore the full range of the consciousness. And the whole fallacy and the paradox of it is that arrogance increases the ego but it really shrinks you in terms of the being and spirit.

L.: Right livelihood. It is not possible to just choose one which carries you to simplicity after a lifetime of building others.

As far as I see it is more in the temperament really. It is something which is basically intrinsic to our nature, our being and personality, developed through lifetimes. And of course, it need not be a permanent thing and can always be altered, changed, modified. After all isn’t life all the time redefining itself through its experiences? One may pass through some things, one may come face to face with certain landmarks, persons and then maybe changes start to happen. Like for example when you drop something from your life. Why? Well, you matured let us say, and decided on it because all the circumstances and the situations in your life have helped you in being able to see certain things. They made you wiser. Learning is an ongoing movement, an endless movement – an evolutionary curve. Where is the room for arrogance? And so you get various kinds of doctors also. You get doctors who know the art of healing, and there are also doctors who are just professionals, basically so full of themselves that they cannot see anything more. What happens is that they become possessed by what they are doing because of which they lose their objectivity.

L.: It is an archetype; it is a role. It is easy for the role to possess you.

And in that one can lose one’s objectivity and lose one’s maturity. But all this is beside the point here, it is basically for the ordinary existence. The important thing is about arriving into the world of the mystical, to the world of your Self, that Reality, and all those regions of the consciousness: to know oneself and that Reality which still is a mystery to one’s self. So just as one wanting to become a psychoanalyst would go to an institution to train for it, one would surely have to train for even this. It is logical, isn’t it? But what I find very funny is that for meditation people are not ready to train! There is always this mindset that somehow it should just happen. And yet for everything else one needs to train. Even to be a cook you need to train if you want to be a good cook.

L.: Imagine then if people knew this training would last for years and years…

Ah! And then again logically speaking, depending on the kind of subject, the time would be longer or shorter. Again it could be that in three seconds something radical could happen. And yet even in three years with any given subject not everybody gets to the same level of training. Do they all reach to one level? Somebody may be down here, somebody may be up there, somebody may be in between. So then it is very subjective again. That is where the advantage of the Indian people is – because as a race, in faith, in the consciousness, they know all this and they can submit themselves, commit themselves totally and completely. This is what I was trying to explain to K. the other day, this very thing. It is so special because they have had it for thousands of years, repeatedly, and they continue to have it.

L.: The westerners need to have these realisations and then they can believe.

And yet for these realisations you need to prepare for it and be guided to it, for which you require faith! They just can’t happen or drop down from somewhere. Nothing comes in this way. Realisation is the effect of something, really of your faith and practice, not the cause of some belief or unbelief. It is a result of your faith and practice and not the other way round. How can you have the fruit before the flower? The westerners need it because they reason and most times ad nauseam. Not that Indians don’t reason but the westerner needs to have some concrete experience and then that gives him the incentive to keep on. So initially they have to be worked with in that way. Really it is an ego problem. It is in the culture. They cannot immediately throw themselves into it. Therefore this type of dialogue, and the constant reminders, practice and the association.

So if you look at the life of Christ and his people you can see, except for Judas they were all unlearned people so to speak: fishermen, moneylenders, carpenters, while Judas was a scholar, the educated one. And he is the one who missed out!

L.: I can take that as my model.

(Uproarious laughter) It is just that his mind could not comprehend its own limits. It was not out of a bad will. He thought he was doing the right thing – and look where he ended up! It is not a pleasant model, but it gives you the right perspective by contrast. Here is a scholar, the learned one, and there is Christ, simple – but the Mysterious as his very Being. The scholar cannot understand, cannot be in tune; and somehow subconsciously or subtly he has the intellectual arrogance to think that he even knows more than Christ. Therefore he goes to the scribes to arrange a ‘better plan’ for the arrival of Christ over there and ends up helping in crucifying him – and Christ knowing it, and going with it: it is altogether a different realm. Christ knows where Judas is going to end up, what is going to happen. He foresees Judas’s planning and thinking – his flaw, but Judas is so sure of himself, his intelligence, his scholarship, his mind! He wouldn’t listen to Christ – he listened to his own mind. What happens? He plays right into the hands of deception. His mind, his intellect lead him to a disaster – the mind and intellect he had so much faith in! If only he had had faith in Christ rather than his own mind and intellect, how could he have done that? His mind kept getting in the way and he ended up tripping over it.

L.: There were very powerful forces at play. The society wants that scholarship.

Even the scholarship – should one live because of the want of society or should it be for the right thing? Yes of course, the scholarship can be part of enlightenment. But the question is how far, how long should one reason? One should have enough room so that one is open for mysterious things, for something more – that kind of openness. Be open to the miraculous…

L.: There must as well be some discrimination what to be open to.

Yes. This is the whole play, and again that is where the paradox is – because how do we know when and where to discriminate and where to trust? Look at Judas!

L.: Is it possible to be a sadhak, an aspirant, and at the same time be highly discriminating as to the people we choose to deal with and the manner in which we approach them, even people on the street?

Yes of course, but the question again would be: until when is it discrimination and where does judgment begin, and then when does it become a force of habit even when something is staring you in the face which does not even require trust? It requires a certain intuition to be in tune. Because you are so continuously discriminating it becomes a force of habit. So when should you trust, when should you intuit? When should you allow and when should you not? Only you can decide – but how? And this is the paradox – for that you have to be enlightened – but until you reach to enlightenment which is when you require it, what should you do? For example with Judas, Christ tries to tell him, but Judas continues to discriminate. He could not trust Christ totally – force of habit? He trusted his own mind, and as a result of that you know what happened.

Here, in this race, in this old civilization, the Masters have seen the pitfalls and the risks that are involved in the workings of the mind. And they gave the people a faith, and through that they could intuit. That trust is not altogether blind, it is an intuition that has now entered the collective consciousness. Instinctively they know; it has become their very nature. That does not mean they do not reason and question. In fact, their scriptures encourage it. “Tadviddhi praṇipâtena paripraœnena sevayâ, upadekshyanti te jñânaṃ jñâninastattvadarœinaḥ”¹; you will know through humility, questioning and service, the enlightened Masters will impart you that wisdom. Be questioning, inquiring, they say – but not at the expense of that quality of being to intuit, to be in tune. And for that they went through generations of training and living, thousands of years, so that it has now become part of their being.

For example, when the Buddha says, “Take refuge in the Buddha,” what does he mean? How would you know a Buddha? – How? He could be sitting in front of you, he could walk by you on a street – how would you know? You cannot do without faith, I tell you. Faith will lead you to experience. Reason most times if not almost always, especially in chronic cases for example, interferes with intuition and therefore experience. What if you were to meet the Buddha and he asks you to take refuge in him? Would you? Or would you say to Him that you need to have your realisations first? Well, you could then be waiting forever for you would have missed the opportunity. And then even if you managed to feel and intuit, could you then offer yourself completely to His workings? Again, this is very subjective. Someone could, someone would require a little working, while the majority would just flip-flop. So, take refuge. What it means is that you would have to associate long, very long periods of time with the Buddha, and then you would start to see the changes, the touches and everything. It is a working out.

And yet like I said, Judas had a Christ there with him but his mind prevented him to trust Him wholly and completely. And he became the instrument for the crucifixion of Christ. Then again the Jews who are wailing at the wall, they are still waiting for the Messiah! What a paradox! He came, they persecuted him, and he left – and they are still waiting for him to come. And they are the chosen people supposedly. They are still crying at the wall for this Messiah. And it is good that they cry, for when He was there they persecuted him, crucified him, killed him. They cry ignorantly, rather they should cry knowingly for having done what they did to Him collectively – still waiting for him to come because they did not believe that it was him when he did come. The Christ was the Messiah. Here their faith failed to intuit the Messiah – reason fails and faith fails and this is an example of that; so then what works? Most likely they did not have real faith.

So the books, the scriptures say it is a great blessedness to even recognise such a person. It is great blessedness. It is a great blessedness to come in contact with someone like that. And if you do come in contact do not let that fellow go – even if you were to die a million times! Such opportunities do not come again and again. And trust Him rather than trust your own mind. Can you? The ball is in your court.

L.: As I said to you yesterday, I have no idea of your realisations of who you might be – zero. I can speculate, some of it may come from my intuition, or I can perceive this: that you stay in the same place, you do not flip-flop. But my ability to actually accept that realisation and surrender to it totally is missing – especially having done that before, having seen the idiocy that I wound up with after twenty-seven years.

That is why I put it as a question: how does one intuit? How does one know? And yet on the other side if you continue to question you may miss the opportunity. It is a paradox.

L.: I can see that the one thing that every tradition stresses is that without the Master you cannot take it any further. No matter how much training you have, the Master must open that door, show you the mind’s essence. You yourself could sit there forever and you can never open the door.

Yes, that is so. His presence, his words, whatever it might be, opens the door to your Self, and Reality. So the importance of the awakened one is undeniable. If one could only convince the ego!

L.: Normally I can tell when someone is lying in an instant, and tell what is true also, very clearly as it comes out. Because I am not emotionally involved, I just sit back and I am observing it. Somebody is saying something, I can feel like a ripple, a slight inconsistency in the tone of voice. But in situations of the heart my emotions are not letting a clear intellect be.

Well, if you are purely intellectual then you are top-heavy and you carry a lot of load on your head! You can overbalance yourself. You know what happens to top-heavy things?

L.: I accept that totally… I keep on falling!

Maybe for a while one could consciously try to develop the intuitive part of one’s being and the heart, and give the reasoning part, the intellectual part a little rest.

L.: What is this thing you call the ‘heart’?

In what context are you asking? It is the seat of emotions.

L.: It is not that. It is certainly not emotions.

Yes, it is the seat of emotions and something deeper – your being, the very heart of your being.

L.: Since it was mentioned at satsang that people were not relating to us, now everybody is very friendly.

Are you sure that is the reason? You know there are a lot of times when coincidences happen or we may be in a certain state where things are seen in a certain way, felt in a certain way, and then there is this shift and you see the same thing in a totally different way, something clears up. That is what I mean by being objective and being able to make room in yourself, being more than your judgment – that immediate conclusion and judgment. Judgment may be there, yes, ok, but is there something more? To doubt our own conclusions. Since we doubt each other so much we could doubt ourselves, or at least try to do that.

L.: I mentioned that in the context of what you said about going not through the intellect but through the heart. There are so many other things that take place in the heart – guilt, remorse, shame… Then I come back to the question, “What then is the heart?” For I am so distrustful from my own experience of having that feeling come out of love.

Compassion…

L.: Love, compassion are often filtered through a whole array of things, I do not know whether it would be true love or compassion. And these things are so impermanent. To look for a state which is not the intellect seems to be as fruitless as to find the answer with the intellect.

This is why I was saying we could find this in the quietness of our being. That is the first step. And then we would find our heart, we would find our intellect too. We would find the whole of our being.

L.: That is the only place…

That is right – and that is your heart. That is what we mean by the heart – that quietness. That is the first priority, the first step. It is like going to nursery school all over again. We have to start from there. That must become the priority. Give a rest to the intellect, give a rest to the emotions – get to the quietness. Practice that.

L.: It is spaciousness.

Yes, that would follow. The quietness: to become centred in yourself and in that quietness; this is the priority. And if you were a believer, I would say – then reach out to God. There are so many ways open to you. You can take that quietness and enter into nirvâṇa; you can take that quietness and through emotions and feelings reach to God. It opens doors to the entire realm of your being. Of course, there is always a place for conversation, dialogue, debate, inquiry. But this practice has to persist; this is the practice which I continue to insist upon. This is the foundation of sadhana.

And the way it is with the mind, you can be so sure but a lot of times you find – it comes from experience – that you do not after a while trust your own mind because it can tell you things which are not actually true. And I am sure you have seen this in all these years, I mean you have plenty of grey hair now, you have had these experiences, you have seen the mistakes the mind can make. With younger people maybe because they can be so impulsive they do not tend to be so observant and objective. But you must have seen this so many times, that there are incorrect projections, misunderstandings that your mind makes, or that many a time it has not understood the complete thing. And this is all part of the learning process which makes you wiser, wise enough not to trust the mind implicitly because there is in fact a degree of ignorance present in the mind, implicit in the mind.

L.: I think the mind is basically mad, just connected by strips of reason that hold it together, but it is mad.

By mad meaning constantly active, yes, sure. That is its job! It just goes everywhere, does everything, keeps filling you with thoughts and ideas. Then again you will notice that it has various levels: somewhere thoughts can also reach to the level of enlightenment, then they come from a different region of consciousness. For example, if you are in a certain centre then the thoughts also reflect that particular centre of consciousness. Like when you are in the emotions then the thoughts also get coloured by those emotions and have emotional content. They are of that kind. Sexuality: when you are in that centre, thoughts have sexual content and so on.

Then you can rise into the level of ideas. Take architecture for example: you will have ideas of various forms of buildings. Where is emotion there? There could be. There could be a touch of inspiration of a certain kind, even sometimes a little stream of passion, and therefore it would be reflected in your creation. You can observe different levels in this way, but you need to be objective. And then you could rise into higher realms of thoughts, but the first thing to do is to come into this quietness, and awaken the force within you. This opens up the whole Reality. Even a dodo, an idiot becomes wise then!

But it is a process, a whole process, and it never ends. It is a continuous manifestation, a process of enlightenment. So to initiate this, to begin with, you need to be trained, you need a certain structure to organise your life in that way. So training, structure, they all have a place. Imagine if the body had no structure, if it did not have a form. Would it be of any use? Really the body would have no existence. How can it even exist without a form and a structure? So watch your mind and its workings while you continue to seek this quiet space in yourself. And from that quiet space reach to your own awakening.

Is it not true that most times you see by trusting themselves people do more harm to themselves than if they were to trust somebody else who was wiser? And if you were to measure the probability you will find this is the case more often. Then one should follow the dictum and the rule: ‘Do not trust yourself – trust the other.’ (Laughter) But you refuse to do that. So it is a great game that goes on: by trusting yourself you do harm to yourself and by trusting the other (laughing) you do harm to each other. And so it goes on. Through all that confusion and harming each other, somehow you manage some wisdom, and life carries on. And you end up living a dilemma.

L.: We seem to have no choice.

Well, that is the thing, you have no choice really and yet in your delusion you believe you are the one making choices. It is like groping: you grope here and you grope there and you hope you hit the nail on the head. Most times you hit the hammer on your thumb – and your own head! Bang! Bang! Bang! Rarely is it that you hit the nail on its head. And through all this evolution has happened. So there is hope…(Uproarious laughter) It took a long time though. But I think it will take even longer to enlightenment if it continues like this. If you allow the mind I tell you, it could even prevent the further evolution. And I am not the only one who says that, even Aurobindo said that. From here on, the mind can become a tremendous barrier for the further evolution of man and woman.

L.: He said there is to be a change in the cells.

Well, basically the cells would change if there were the change in you.

V.: Always trusting others…

I never said to trust others. (Laughing) I just said what the game is all about! Trusting yourself and trusting others, I think there is not much difference. Whether we trust the idiot in us or the idiot in the other, it is the same thing isn’t it? Trust the Guru, the Master, I would say – when you find one.

V.: I feel a clear indication that in spiritual matters it would be beneficial to trust others. But in the other world, the world of business, there these things do not apply as they apply here. So do you continue to live two different worlds or you try to…?

Well you know in the eastern tradition they have this childlike quality where they immediately trust the enlightened one, the Guru. There is even a tradition which is not there in the West: it is the tradition to take a Guru until one finds an enlightened Master who then becomes the sadguru, the true Guru, the Guru to be followed implicitly. Now even if the Guru is not enlightened so to speak, it is there, the tradition: for example the brahmin priest, he is a purohit, the family priest in charge of the family’s religious obligations and duties. He is accepted as the Guru. He has the knowledge of the scriptures. He may not have the realisation of the scriptures, but he has the knowledge of the scriptures. And somehow they have not done too badly. I am not saying it is a foolproof case, but somehow they have not done too badly – in fact I think they have done very well because they have been blessed with enlightened people again and again who come and carry this trust further. It is there in their being, so they take to it very easily.

The West has one approach, the East has another approach. And the paradox is whether to trust yourself or to trust the other, and that game is left to you to decide. It is a game – it can be paradoxical. As long as one does not wake up to the Reality, you keep groping, you keep fumbling and stumbling, and you keep grumbling (laughing) and mumbling!

Therefore I say, to each his or her poison! It is a poison you have to ingest, as it were, for a while. The Guru can help – that is all I say. But then how do you know who is the Guru? That is the question! In the East there is this tradition and they just accept. The guy may be unlearned and unenlightened – but they have accepted him.

I will tell you a story. There are plenty of stories. I just tell stories – it is left to you what to make of them. There was this enlightened man in India called Dhanna Bhagat, a few hundred years ago. He was an ordinary farmer used to ploughing the fields, a simpleton, uneducated and a rustic. One day he saw a brahmin, a priest worshipping the úâlagrâma. The úâlagrâma is a special stone symbolising God, found in the Kali Gandaki river. He was going through the whole ritual of worship. This Dhanna found very enchanting. So he asked, “What are you doing?” The pundit replied, “I am worshipping God.” “Where is God?” and the pundit showed him the stone – the úâlagrâma, “This is God.” “Oh, I would like to worship God also. Can you give me the God?” The pundit was a little conceited, he said, “You fool! It is my job to worship God, your job is to plough the fields,” and in contempt he picked up some stone lying there and said, “Here, take this. This is your God. Worship it!” Dhanna took his word to heart and worshipped that stone as God – and he reached to enlightenment! So these are paradoxes of life – and they are real!

The mind can continue to cheat you. It makes you feel as if you know and continues to fool and befool you. In fact if there is one thing that can fool you constantly and continuously it is your mind. And you live under this great belief that you are very intelligent. That is what happened to Judas. And the beauty of Christ – the beauty of Christ is that he knows it. He could easily have avoided getting persecuted and crucified. But He has placed his will with the will of God. And that is another realm. Even before one can contemplate these things one has to take the first few basic steps. Christ sweated for the poison he was going to drink: he knew what he would go through – the crucifixion – even before it happened. Can any mind understand this? It is a whole different realm of consciousness. Can any psychoanalyst analyse this? They would call Christ a masochist! That is what they would do, because their study is only limited to this. And in that they would be conceited: ‘We know.’ My, what arrogance! They would even shrink Christ down to the level of the mundane because that is all they know. They are the real idiots but they think they know. They do not know the vast realm of consciousness for they are stuck in their limited understanding and small self; they cannot go any further because they are so full of themselves. They cannot see any more than their study, their stupid study that is limited in itself. So it denies them to connect with what Christ is. It requires a whole different sense, a whole different intuition. It is a whole different being.

So in a way some people may never arrive to enlightenment. The intellect has made them so overcautious, so untrusting, and so faithless that they cannot enter into the next realm. And that is the danger. The Ṛishis, the Seers knew, and they gave a tradition. It may not seem perfect to the so-called intelligentsia but it is better than what it would be otherwise. And you can see the results. There is so much awaiting you in your own self, if only you could reach it – through your being, through your quietness.

“Dhamma,” Buddha says, “Take refuge in the dhamma.” This is dhamma that we are talking about: to be able to understand all this. This is dhamma. The philosophy, the teaching, the special sense we are trying to awaken in ourselves – this is dhamma. Take refuge in the dhamma. And there is no difference between the Buddha and the dhamma. Take refuge in the sangha, and there is no difference between the sangha and the Buddha. The sangha is the Buddha, there is no difference. They all three are one. Where the Buddha is, there is the sangha; where the Buddha is, there is the dhamma; where the dhamma is, there is the Buddha and there is the sangha. And where the sangha is there is the Buddha and there is the dhamma. Otherwise what happens is we end up missing out on the sacredness of things.

Love is such a tremendous thing, L., and the most beautiful. But a love that has no expectations, love for its own sake. And that was Christ. And therefore He allowed for his own crucifixion. A psychoanalyst would judge Him as being a masochist, but really it was his love for all humanity. It is a concept that does not exist in their vocabulary, it does not exist in their study. Because the majority does not have that kind of consciousness, they always judge a rare one according to themselves. Majority is authority so to speak: ‘This is our range of consciousness, so everybody’s range of consciousness must be only this much!’ This is how they think. Therefore Freud and Jung, they have their limitations. If for their experiments and analysis they had only morons the range would be moronic! And for all humanity they made this a law. Amazing…

Buddha left his home because he saw the suffering of others. Some people would call Him crazy. It depends how you look at it, from where you are. Who would want to leave a whole kingdom and walk away just like that? Maybe He was neurotic, some analyst analysing somewhere may say because he has the freedom to analyse and has been given a mind and a mouth to express and speak. But to understand these things you require a whole sadhana. Who can understand the Buddha going away, giving up all the pleasures, comfort and luxury, for the sake of others? This is unbelievable… maybe stories handed down by some people. Just because the majority is so involved in themselves and rare is it for them to do anything for anyone else – to have a Buddha walk away from a kingdom seems truly an abnormality, an aberration. To understand the depth of His heart you will have to look into your own, deeply and for a long time. You will not find it in any study. These are exceptions and yet available to all if only they were to seek.

Why am I saying all this? It is so that we can understand that there may always be something more than what we know as our own experience – that is why I am giving these stories even if it be a rare occurrence. Say if there are in the whole entire world only red flowers but somewhere in a corner you find a white one – that means that it is possible. It means that there are not only red ones just because the majority are red. There are other possibilities.

Here is another story: have you heard of Yogananda? His dada Guru, his Guru’s Guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, have you heard of him? Well, He had a devotee, he had many devotees, of course. Amongst them there was this devotee whose son took to the medical profession, passed the exams, became a full-fledged doctor, and he was going to begin his practice. And as the Indian tradition recommends he came to get the blessings from the Guru. It is a way of life here. They accept this totally in faith. It is not a façade but a genuine feeling to go to the Guru and take his blessing. Of course he was a modern kid, and had become a doctor. In those days being a doctor was something – this was the early twentieth century, so he had a little arrogance. His father had insisted – here in India we tend to respect our parent’s wishes – and so he went there to keep his father’s word, sat there, but kind of reluctantly. When you believe you know a little more, in immature minds a touch of arrogance does creep in. And of course the Guru can sense, Guru can see the thoughts going through people’s minds, sense the emotions, reactions, everything. But the Guru, kind as usual, started a conversation, “Ah, so now you are a full-fledged doctor.” He was being genuinely kind, that is his nature. He is not putting on a show, in spite of what he sees in him – the kind of arrogance: ‘Who is this guy? I am a doctor and this guy is an idiot just sitting there!’ Yes, maybe he has learnt more, he is a doctor; he is clever while this fellow, the Guru, had only been an official in the Public Works department, an accountant or something before becoming a Guru full-time. So the Guru continued to talk to him, that is his nature, being kind, but the boy continued to be offhanded and obnoxious. So He decided to teach him some humility, and said, “Well, check my pulse.” The boy checked His pulse – no pulse! “Now you can give me a death certificate!” said Lahiri, “According to your study, according to your knowledge, that is what death is. Look, I speak – no pulse! I live, I eat, I interact, I relate!” So He said, “Young man, your knowledge only goes that far, my knowledge goes further.” Of course the doctor’s arrogance disappeared into thin air. The limitations of his knowledge, of his subject was staring him in the face.

It is good to be in a sangha where things get levelled out, where we clear out certain cobwebs from the mind. And it is a blessing indeed to sit, according to Indian tradition, at the feet of the Guru, if you can find one. Not because I am a Guru – this is something they, the people here, made me! (Laughing) I lived by myself quite happy! Yet, for sure, I can tell you that this man is awake whether you feel him or not. And that is what I hope for you. If you can take advantage of it I am happy. Not because I want to accumulate people. If I want to accumulate people it is so that they may find what is here. I want to clear this idea that the Gurus just like to have people around them so that it pleases their ego.

You know, Ramakrishna when he was in this world people considered him to be a madman because he did strange things. Sometimes Gurus do strange things to sound the depth of the seekers, to sift the husk from the grain. There was a period of time when He used to go around without taking a bath, a bamboo on his shoulders, and totally naked, mad about God. Surely the modern mind would say: ‘Hey, this guy is crazy, man!’ In India they worship crazy people like that! Who knows, maybe behind the craziness the madman may be hiding his enlightenment. Yes, because we have a tradition. A madman, they all chase after him. This guy’s madness may only be a façade they think; he may be enlightened so they give chase not wanting to miss out on such blessedness, because they have had a number of them. Even today they exist but you do not know them; they conceal themselves behind strange façades so as not to be recognised – but the Indians (snapping his fingers) can intuit. They may be poor, they may be unsophisticated, but they have this gift from God because of their humility and faith. These are the real treasures. And they are so much at peace. And look at the West: they know so much, they can analyse, they can do much – but they have no peace. Amazing, what a contradiction!

I am analysing, I am laying the cards on the table – but I am free!

By the way, L., I was never a ‘naked sadhu’ as I believe you were told – I never took any initiation. I simply lived in the Himalaya after returning from America. And what I had in the Himalaya I had in the States, in California. What I had in California I had on the ships as a navigator. What I had as a navigator on the ships I had as a child, and in my mother’s womb. In India people like these are born quite regularly – what can be done?

So somewhere in these matters the East is far, far ahead. I am not putting one against the other, East against West. I am just bringing this out so we can try to understand and see. Somewhere I also want to smash people’s egos. All Masters do that. Ramakrishna was such a simpleton, but the first thing he would do when anybody came to him would be to start working on his ego, start chewing it up. He was like a child and people thought that he was mad, crazy. How do you judge such a man? Maybe posterity will be a fair judge – it always is. They crucified Christ when he was there and now posterity worships him.

So I would say, trust yourself, but always leave a little room for inquiry while you yet seek that quietness in yourself, that quiet stop. And if you can take refuge, if you find a Buddha then take refuge in him, without hesitation. In the sangha too, in spite of whatever frictions and things that one may encounter. That is the game. You have to learn to be able to grow through all that. Do you not do all that anyway out there in the world, all the frictions, the breakups and the joinings that one has to pass through? So why not do it in the sangha? (Laughing) You do it anyway! At least you would have the dhamma to guide you and the Buddha as your friend. But to be a friend to the Buddha is not easy. It is easy to say, ‘I will be your friend.’ But even ordinarily does one really know what friendship means? Would there be all this trouble if it were so and there was much care? But of course caring is not pampering.

And of course to be with the Buddha is fire, much fire! That is why Christ said, “I have not come to bring peace, I have come to bring fire unto the world.” They shall persecute you, they will be critical of you, those out there. They will be watching all of you because you are with the Buddha, you are with the Christ. It is in the nature of things because the ignorance does not want to die, the ego does not want to be dead. So they will persecute you in the name of the Messiah because you are with him; they will point fingers at you. But really it is a test of your faith and your strength – and your compassion.

You know how Marpa worked with Milarepa: he ate up his ego by doing just that – working with him. It was a painful experience I tell you, really painful. Chewing on the ego is really painful (laughter) for both the chewer and the chewed. But Marpa did not let go. Almost as if – and surely according to the psychoanalyst – He was a sadist and Milarepa a masochist for continuing to be there; but look what Milarepa got finally! You may deny through your analysis a greater work that is being done. So should you then trust your analysis and your mind? But that is what is taught by the society and inevitably because you are born in that society, born in that kind of environment, you just accept it. You do not even analyse your blind acceptance, you do not question it. But you do question Marpa, the Guru, the Master, because it is an unusual phenomenon.

Well, if you manage to connect you win the jackpot, if you do not (laughing) you missed it. It is a gamble, hit-and-miss. But keep aiming at that head of the nail and you hope you will hit it. Now the Seers of the Indian tradition, the eastern tradition, knew these things therefore they gave a certain way of life so that there would be more chances for the people to arrive. And the results are there for you to see. You always know the tree by its fruits and the fruits by the tree.

There is all that joy and beauty awaiting you in your own heart. Seek that with all of yourself. Enough of all that you have been doing! Seek it consciously. Time does not matter. Rejoice in the journey, rejoice in every moment. If you seek consciously you will rejoice. That is where faith plays such an important part. Have faith in yourself. Have faith and you will find. Time is no more the criteria, for you live in eternity.

Of course you will pass through so many things – singly, together, because of yourself, because of the other. They are all opportunities for you to learn, for you to grow, and for you to generate an extra impetus for your seeking. If you take to this attitude, if you look at it this way it will all accumulate and be a push. That is a skill. In life you develop skills, the more skills you have the more successful you are. It is not the college degrees that would matter. Many times people with a lot of these degrees are helpless in everyday situations and yet a person who is skilful in everyday situations may not have all these degrees but is very successful in life.

Be playful, be like a child, and when you have pain feel it. You were saying about emotions, when you feel the pain… that is why I asked you, “Could you believe in God?” Then take the pain and reach unto the thought of God. It is a meditation; it is the way of devotion; it is the way of surrender: using the emotions that you feel to reach to God, to the Reality. And you will find peace. Something deep within you will awaken through that pain – your heart. You will feel the stirrings deep in your heart and that will carry you to the presence of something very special and great profundities will awaken. There are so many ways available to you, so many skills. It is for you to journey. Have you faith?

Pushkar

19 Jan 2002