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.
98. Love.
My work is only God’s work;
apart from this there is neither me nor mine.
No other work exists apart from his.
You just live in God, that’s all,
and the rest happens by itself.
Jesus said: First seek ye the Kingdom of God,
then all else will be added unto you.
I say the same.
But the mind of man seeks all else first,
so what is bound to happen, happens –
nothing else is gained,
and he even loses whatever he had.
99. Love.
The fragrance of sannyas
has to be spread around the world.
Religions, like gaols,
have imprisoned the flower of sannyas too
within their great walls.
Hence the sannyasin has to say now:
I belong to no religion – all religions are mine.
It was a terrible mistake
to tear sannyas away from the world.
It has become bloodless.
And the world without