There is no urge whatsoever in me to write.
But if you persuade me it is a different thing!
Everything else is fine.
9. Love.
I read your letter on the way here.
It has touched my heart.
If your desire to know life’s truth becomes strong
then what is longing today
becomes one day the attainment.
Burning desire is all that is needed
and nothing else.
As rivers seek out the ocean
so man if he wants to can find the truth.
No peak, no mountain can stop him,
in fact their challenge awakens his sense of adventure.
Truth is within everyone.
Rivers have to find the ocean
but our ocean is inside us –
it is a wonder that so many remain thirsty still without it.
Actually they cannot really want it.
There is a saying of Christ’s: Ask and ye shall receive.
But if you don’t ask, whose fault is it?
There is no better bargain than the attainment of God.
We have only to ask, nothing more.
As the asking grows stronger and stronger
so he who asks starts vanishing.
A limit is reached,
a point of evaporation is reached,
where the seeker utterly disappears
and only the asking remains.
This is the very moment of attainment.
Truth is where the I is not –
this experience alone is the divine experience.
Absence of ego is presence of God.
My regards to all there.
10. My respects to you.
I was waiting for your letter when it came.
I really want your life to be filled with light,
for you to surrender yourself to God.
God and light are always close by.
It is only a matter of opening one’s eyes
and then what is ours becomes ours.
The distance is just that of
between the eyelash and the eye –
and perhaps not even that much;
the eyes are always open, only we don’t know it.
There is an old story:
A fish had long heard stories about the ocean.
She began to fret about it
so one day she asked the Queen of Fishes:
What is this ocean and where is it?
The Queen was surprised. She said:
The ocean? Why, you are in the ocean itself!
Your very existence, your very life, is in the ocean.
It is within you.
The ocean is your everything,
but for the ocean, you are nothing.
For this very reason
the fish couldn’t see the ocean!
And for this very reason
we are unable to find God.
But he can be found –
by being empty.
In the state of emptiness we meet him
for God is emptiness.
I am in bliss,
or shall I say –
Bliss alone is and I am not!
11. My respects to you.
I received your letter, I was waiting for it.
The trip to Rajnagar was blissful.
Religion robbed of the spirit of yoga has become a matter
of morality only, thereby losing its soul.
Morality is negative.
Life cannot be based on negation,
negation cannot nourish life.
The emphasis has to be on attainment
not on renunciation.
It is not a question of renouncing ignorance
but of attaining understanding,
it is this that has to be central.
Practice has to be positive
and this sadhana can happen through yoga.
In my talks with Acharya Tulsi,
Muni Shri Nathamaljee and others
I have stressed this point.
Many letters have come from Rajnagar and Rajasthan
in this connection; as you have said
it seems some fruitful work has been accomplished
by going there.
One thing is very clear:
people are eager for a spiritual life
and current forms of religion do not satisfy them.
If however the right religion is given to them
it can revolutionize human consciousness.
I think of you.
May God grant you peace.
My love and regards to all.
12. My respects to you.
All your letters arrived in good time
but as I have been busy I could not reply sooner.
I have been out most of the time
and I have just returned after speaking in Jaipur, Burhanpur,
Hoshangabad, Chanda and other places.
How thirsty people are for spiritual life!
Seeing this
I am surprised that some people say
man has lost all interest in religion.
This can never be.
No interest in religion means no interest in life,
bliss, the ultimate.
Consciousness is by nature God-oriented
and it can only be satisfied by attaining God –
the state of satchitananda,
the truth-awareness-bliss state of being.
Hidden within one in the form of a seed
is the very source of religious birth,
therefore whilst religions may come and go
religion can never die.
I am glad to know that you feel patient
about your progress towards the light.
Patience is the most important thing of all
in spiritual life.
How long one must wait after sowing the seed!
At first all the effort seems wasted,
nothing seems to happen, and then one day
the waiting ends and there is actuality –
the seed breaks, pushes through the earth, into a plant!
But remember that even when nothing seemed to be happening
the seed was working away under the soil.
It is the same with the seeker for truth –
when nothing appears to be happening
much is happening.
The fact is that all growth of life-energy
is unseen and unknown.
Only the results can be observed not the progress.
I am in bliss.
I want you to come closer to God.
Forget about results, just keep going on your path;
let the fruits come by themselves.
One day one wonders: What has happened!
What was I!
What have I become!
Compared to the results all the effort seems negligible.
My love to all.
13. My respects to you.
I have just returned from Rajnagar in Rajasthan.
I was invited to a religious function there
organized by Acharya Shree Tulsi.
I put four hundred monks and nuns
through an experiment in meditation.
The results were extraordinary.
In my view, meditation is the essence
of all religious practice.
All the rest –
such as non-violence,
renunciation of wealth, celibacy etc. –
are just its consequences.
With the attainment of samadhi,
the culmination of meditation,
all these things come by themselves,
they just happen naturally.
Since we forgot this central sadhana
all our efforts have been external and superficial.
True sadhana is not just ethical,
it is basically yoga practice.
Ethics alone are negative
and nothing enduring can be constructed on negation.
Yoga is positive and can therefore form a base.
I want to convey this positive basis to all.
1964
14. Love.
I have received your very affectionate letter.
You write that my words ring in your ears;
what I want is for their echo to carry you
into that space where everything is silent, empty.
This is the way from words to emptiness.
There one meets oneself.
I am in bliss.
Take my love.
I have nothing else to offer, it is my only wealth.
The marvel of it is that the more of it you give
the more it becomes.
Real wealth is like that –
it grows as you give it away;
and if it diminishes – it is not wealth at all.
Write again,
for not only do you wait for my letters,
I too wait for yours.
15. Love.
On returning from the meditation camp
I had to leave town again.
I returned only last night but I thought of you all the time.
I cannot forget the thirst for God I saw in your eyes
and the striving for truth in your heart.
This is a blessing because no one can attain
without passing through this anguish.
Remember, thirst is a prerequisite
for the birth of light and love.
Together, light and love are God.
When love has no limits
its flame becomes smokeless and so divine.
I have seen the seeds of this growth within you
and it fills my soul with great joy.
The seed is there, now it has to become a tree.
It could be that the time is at hand.
God-realization cannot happen without meditation
so you must turn towards this now
with courage and perseverance.
I have great hopes – will you fulfill them?
My regards to other friends there.
I wait for your letter.
Remember what I said about the blank paper?
Everything else is fine.
I am in bliss.
16. Love.
I received your letter.
What you say has made me very happy.
Words that come out of the depth and fullness of heart
echo the infinite
just as a tiny flower expresses infinite beauty.
When love breathes life into words
what is expressed is
not what is said
but what wants to be said.
Inside each of us there is a poet,
there is poetry,
but because we live on the surface
these are never born.
Those who go deep
awaken divine love
and this love fills their lives
with music, beauty, peace and poetry –
their very lives become music
and on to this stage truth descends.
Truth will descend where there is music
so life must be turned into a melody.
Only through music can one reach the truth.
You too have to become music,
the entire life, every little act,
has to be turned into music:
this happens through love.
Whatever is – love it.
Feel love for the whole world.