Hallelujah Chapter - 31

The Boat to the other Shore is Love

Deva means divine, shobhana means beauty - divine beauty. Existence is utterly beautiful. If we cannot see it that simply proves that we are blind. And to see beauty is to see god. The search for truth never goes so deep as the search for beauty, because the very word 'truth' is of the head.

Beauty stirs the heart. And unless the heart starts becoming wakeful nothing is possible.

Only through the wakefulness of the heart does one arrive. And then each and everything, the total existence, takes on such radiance, such infinite grace, that no poetry has been able to depict it, no painter has been able to catch hold of it. It remains elusive, it remains mysterious. One can feel it, one can be it but one cannot say it. That is the meaning of the word 'shobhana'.

Deva means divine, geeto means a song - a divine song. It has yet to be sung. Many people die without singing their song, without bringing their lives to a conclusion, without knowing fulfilment.

Many people die without flowering at all; then their lives have been a sheer wastage. Each child that is born brings a song in the heart that has to be sung, a seed that has to reach ultimate flowering.

Birth is only a beginning, the beginning of an opportunity. One can use it, one can miss it - and unfortunately the majority miss it because they start thinking that this is all there is in life: just the mundane, the day-to-day. They get lost in the trivial, and the song remains unsung. That is the only sin there is - not to be that which you are born to be, not to manifest it, not to express your innermost core. That is the only sin. And the only virtue is to dance your dance, to sing your song, to be yourself.

Hallelujah Chapter - 30

Learn how to Weep in Blissfulness

[A sannyasin says: I am scared and sad because I have to leave you.]

That's natural, but no need to be sad. In fact this going away can be used as an opportunity to come closer spiritually rather than physically; and that is real closeness. Real closeness is what love is all about. Physically we can be close and we may not be close at all. That is what is happening all over the world: people are physically close but worlds apart; no communication, no meeting ever happens. People have become almost like parallel lines: running very close but never meeting anywhere. Even those with whom we think we are close - parents and children, husbands and wives, friends - even they are just parallel lines.

One needs to know that real closeness has nothing to do with space and nothing to do with time either. Real closeness is that of feeling. It is of intensity; it consists of intensity. If you can feel for me intensely there back in Germany, immediately you will be close.

So make it an opportunity. Always use all opportunities to grow. When you are here, enjoy that - the physical closeness; when you are far away, start thinking of spiritual closeness. Make a rhythm - and both are fulfilling. So just go. Sadness is natural but you can make it a stepping-stone and you will rise to a new vision of love, intimacy....

The relationship between a master and the disciple is the closest relationship. Even lovers are not that close, cannot be, because even lovers are limited through their egos, and egos are always in conflict, always in clash. Egos are always trying to dominate the other, and hence conflict is natural.

Hallelujah Chapter - 29

Love is the Seed, God is the Flower

Deva means divine nratyo means dance. Life is not static - it is a dance; it is dynamic, it is movement. Not even for a single moment does anything remain the same; everything goes on changing. Change is absolute. The mind wants things not to change, and that's how the mind and life are in conflict. The mind wants things to be static, because only that which is unchanging can be controlled; that which remains the same can be controlled because you will be in the know about it.

The mind is very afraid of the new because with the new it is incapable; it is not ready to face the new. With the old it is very efficient. It knows what to do, how to do, but only with the old. The new simply makes it look utterly stupid. The mind can function only within the known; the unknown is beyond it. Hence the tendency of the mind is that everything should remain static. The mind is very orthodox and life is revolution, literally revolution, because it goes on revolving, changing, moving.

The movement is very fast; that's why you cannot see it. Otherwise languages would not have any nouns, only verbs. You cannot say 'The tree is', because the tree is never in a state of isness; it is always growing, becoming. You can only say 'The tree is tree-ing.' There is no state in which it is; it is a river.

Heraclitus is right when he says 'You cannot step in the same river twice.' And I say to you 'You cannot step in the same river even once because the river is changing and you are changing, the sun is changing, the wind is changing, the sky is changing, the earth is changing and all is constant change'. And that is the beauty of life. But the mind is very afraid of this change. Hence wherever the mind suspects change, it kills, dissects, destroys. It transforms love into marriage. Now, love is constantly flowing, changing. Marriage is a static institution - dull, dead, insipid. But the mind is very happy with marriage; with love it is very much afraid, apprehensive.

Hallelujah Chapter - 28

Bliss is being in Orgasm with Existence

Prem means love, ashen means hope. Love and hope are the foundations of life and all its meaning.

The moment love and hope disappear, all that is left is despair, darkness, an utter meaninglessness.

And these two things are disappearing from the world. People are falling into a kind of hopelessness.

They are feeling that they are not needed, that they are almost unnecessary, that they are not fulfilling any purpose here, that life is just an accident... utter futility.

This has made man very heavy. He cannot fly any more. He creeps in sadness, in darkness. His heart is becoming like a rock. The fire of life is dying. That fire can be rekindled, and the two essential things are: one should be able to hope, because all meaning is through hope, but one can hope only if one is in love; hope is a shadow of love. When you love, you hope. Love necessarily, inevitably, creates hope. A thrill enters your being... you are delighted. It is not just useless to be here. Life starts taking a turn towards creativity, and that creativity brings meaning, music.

So remember these two words, and if you can fulfil these two words, all is fulfilled.

Anand means bliss, ashru means tears - tears of joy, tears of bliss. That is one of the greatest transformations in life - when even tears are no more tears of pain, sadness, sorrow, but of joy, bliss, benediction. The lowest form of tears is connected with sadness, and the highest form of tears is connected with bliss.

Hallelujah Chapter - 27

Meditation has to be a Love Affair

[A mother with her child says she feels resistance and indecision.]

It is on the right track. It is how trust arises. Trust arises out of the dark night of doubt. One has to go deep into doubt to find trust. Trust is not something that you can find by dropping the doubt. If you drop the doubt forcibly your trust will always remain shaky. It will be at the most a belief, not a true faith - and belief is impotent. It appears to be like trust but it is not; deep down there is doubt. On the surface, belief; at the centre, doubt. It is better to have the doubt on the surface and trust at the centre - that is far better, and that's what your situation is. At the centre there is trust; you are not aware of it because you are not aware of your centre either. On the circumference there is doubt.

You are aware only of doubt because you are aware only of your personality, not of your essence.

But I can see: the trust is there, the seed is there. It is trying to come out. Soon it will be available to your consciousness... just a little more waiting.

That's why I am sending you back; otherwise I would have told you to stay. I say to stay only when I see that your circumference and centre have fallen in harmony, that you are one, because only then will being here be of any value; then only can you really be with me. Otherwise whether you are in England or in Poona will not make much difference.

I am sending you knowing that you will be sad, that you will be in a kind of suffering and agony. You would have liked me to tell you to stay but that will be against your own growth. One day you are going to be here and forever, but that day we have to wait for, and we cannot force it right now. A forced thing never works. A forced thing remains pseudo, creates a kind of hypocrisy. And because I can see that the possibility will soon become an actuality, I am ready to let you suffer a little bit.

Hallelujah Chapter - 26

Whenever you are Joyous you are in God

[To an elderly sannyasin]

Because the last days of the life should be totally devoted to prayer, to meditation, to god. One has to prepare for death. And death is more important than life, because life is just superficial. Death will take you to the ultimate core of existence. It will reveal to you the eternal. Much has to be prepared; otherwise people die in a state of unconsciousness. They live unconscious - they were sleep-walkers in their lives - and they die unconscious. They miss all.

Death has to be explored, and with tremendous joy, because you are not going to die! You are the very principle of life - there is no possibility for it to be destroyed. Only the shell around you will die, only the body will be gone, not you, and when the body falls you become infinite, you become unbounded. So the preparation for life is very ordinary; any school, college, university can do it.

Now you have to be part of my university. We teach death - how to prepare for it and how to be able to celebrate it.

If one can die dancing one has overcome death. And that is the whole purpose of life: to overcome death, to know that death is false, to experience that life never begins, never ends, to come to an existential understanding of one's own eternity, timelessness....

Hallelujah Chapter - 25

Bliss is Prayer

This will be your new name... and remember that the change of name is not only a change of name but the getting out of the old, dropping out of the old continuum. It is only symbolic but it carries much meaning in it. If it is just a change of name it is not significant - then all names are the same; whether you have one name or another will not make any difference. If the old continues in the new name too, then you have only changed the label - the wine is old, the bottle is new - and that is not going to help at all.

The change of name has to be understood as being a discontinuity with the past. It has to be deeply felt as the old being dead and the new being born. Sannyas is significant only if it is a new birth.

If it remains a horizontal continuity with the past it is utterly meaningless. It has to be a change of direction, dimension. From being horizontal it has to become vertical. One has to stop being the old.

And this is one of the fundamentals to understand - that if you decide, it is immediately possible; all that is needed is a decisiveness.

It is not a question of time. Time never changes anything - it only gives the appearance of change; deep down things remain the same. Time only changes covers, clothes, but never the real essence.

It changes the personality but the personality is not you. Your essence remains untouched by time.

Hallelujah Chapter - 24

Love has never failed

Deva means divine, prapata means a waterfall. The waterfall is symbolic of many things. The first: it seeks depth, it is always moving towards the depth. And that should be the search. God is not there high in heaven but deep in you. Your consciousness has to become a waterfall, to seek the deepest valley in your being - and you will find god there.

Secondly: water is liquid, fluid, flowing. Life should never be rigid. Rigidity is death and fluidity is life. So when the waterfall is there, there are rocks also. The water is very soft and rocks are very hard, but sooner or later the rocks will be defeated. The feminine wins over the masculine. The soft wins over the strong. The fluid wins over the rigid. Life goes on winning over death. Death happens but life continues. Death has always been happening but it has not destroyed life; again the spring comes and again the flowers are there. Life asserts itself eternally.

So become a soft element like water and then all victory is yours.

Deva means god, pritama means beloved - god's beloved. And it is one of the most important things to be remembered, that god is continuously showering his love on you. We may understand, we may not understand; we may be worthy, we may not be worthy - his love is constantly being showered on us. And it is not that we deserve it, it is not even that we have asked for it: it is god's nature to shower in love. That's what Jesus means when he says 'God is love.' It is not something that he has to do; it is his very nature.

Hallelujah Chapter - 23

Bliss is a by-product of losing Yourself

Prem means love, saburo means waiting - waiting is love. And that's really what meditation is:

waiting for the unknown to happen. We cannot make it happen. Whatsoever we do will always be a repetition of the known, because we are the known. There is no way for us to make the unknown happen. Whatsoever we try to do will be a continuity of our knowledge, a projection of our past - it can't be new. And god is new, utterly new. God is that which is still unknown.

So the only way to reach god or truth or tao is to let it happen. Man can only wait... but wait in love. One can wait in despair too, one can wait hopelessly too. One can wait in a kind of defeatism too, but that waiting won't help because deep down one knows that he is not going to come, it is not going to happen. So you are waiting but giving yourself a deep suggestion of 'It is not going to happen. I know it is not going to happen.' Your suggestion will be suicidal. Waiting in hope, in tremendous trust, in great love, is all that a man can do. And if this is done, god happens. God has always happened, but only to those who are patient enough to wait.

The modern mind is feeling very alienated from god for a simple reason - that never before in history was man in such a hurry as modern man is. Never was man so impatient as modern man is, and that is the barrier: modern man has forgotten how to wait. He wants things instantly, he wants them now. He cannot wait for the spring to come. He cannot wait for the seed to die and grow and become a tree. He has lost all patience. That is one of the characteristics of the modern man: he has no patience in his heart, and that is making him very ill. Constantly running, rushing and reaching nowhere, because all that the inner soul desires needs waiting, needs time, needs a relaxed stillness - no hurry, no speed, because we are not going anywhere.

Hallelujah Chapter - 22

Meditation is the Path of Ecstasy

Anand means bliss, aikanto means aloneness - the bliss of being alone. There is a kind of bliss which arises in relationship, in love, with people. But there is also a blissfulness which arises when you are simply, utterly alone. The first bliss can only be momentary because it depends on the interaction of two persons. And two persons are two worlds apart; if they meet for a few moments, if really the meeting happens, it is a miracle. But it cannot be a constant state of your being; it will come and it will go. There will be ups and there will be downs, and the higher the ups, the lower will be the downs. And after each peak experience of bliss you will fall into a deep darkness, into a valley of darkness.

Love gives ecstasies but also agonies. Love gives a few moments of heaven but also in the same amount a few moments of hell too. Love has two aspects - heaven and hell both; it is a mixture. And it cannot be otherwise, because two persons are so different that even to meet for a single moment is more than one can expect or hope. And immediately the separation starts. You come closer and closer and there comes a moment when you start moving away from each other. Love is constantly in flux, waves come and go. It is ebb and flow.

But there is a higher kind of blissfulness which is attained only when one learns how to be alone. It arises from your very being, it wells up in you. And because it doesn't depend on anybody else it can become a continuous process; you can be in that bliss forever and forever. And the search is for that bliss.

I am not against love, because love gives you the first glimpse of blissfulness. In fact love is the introduction to meditation. And those who stop at love have only read the introduction and have not gone into the book itself. Love is only an introduction to blissfulness. It gives you the first glimpses, a preview. It creates a desire, a longing. It gives you dreams of 'If it can happen for a few moments, why not forever?'

Hallelujah Chapter - 21

Love is Madness with a Method

Prem means love, parijato is a flower, the name of a flower. Prem Parijato will mean a flower of love.

Man never blooms without love. Love is like spring: once you are in love, hidden possibilities start manifesting themselves, that which was latent before starts arising, surfacing. All the colours and all the fragrance that one contains are released. Love releases the potential. Without love a man is only a possibility; with love man becomes actual, real. Love is realization.

Prem means love, rupo means beauty. The full name will mean beautiful love... and love is beautiful.

Really the only beautiful thing in life is love. Without love a man remains ugly. With love everything is transformed.

To be a sannyasin means to become loving... and that makes one tremendously beautiful. Will it be easy to pronounce?...

Prem means love, and dipo means light. Love brings light and life; otherwise, all is dark. Without love there is only fear, because in darkness naturally one is afraid. With love all becomes light and fear disappears. And that disappearance of the fear is the greatest joy.

Deva means divine, ravi means the sun - divine sun. Let the sun become your meditation, and you will gain much from it. It will be very very deeply stirring for your being; it will make you awake. For a few people the sun can function as the great awakener; it depends on the type. For a few people the same sun can be very maddening. For you it will be a tremendously beautiful meditation, but you will have to find the right moments, because when the sun has risen too high in the sky you cannot look at it.

Hallelujah Chapter - 20

Prayer is a Love Affair with Existence

Prem means love, gitama means a song - a song of love. Life cannot be more enriched by anything, except love. Life remains poor without love and life remains a hell without love. Love is the only quality that transforms life from misery to bliss. Love brings the transformation. So if one can love then the impossible becomes possible, then each moment is joy and each breath is a song. Then just to be is enough... nothing else is needed. So let this secret become your very foundation of life.

Deva means divine, paritosho means contentment. And contentment is the door to god. If one is contented, one has already arrived. And the meaning of contentment is absolute acceptance as you are. Contentment means acceptance, discontentment means non-acceptance. A wants to become B - that is discontent. A is perfectly happy in being A, there is no desire to become B - that is contentment.

In the state of contentment desiring disappears, and when there is no desire there is no tension, no anxiety, no anguish. When there is no desire there is no mind either. The mind can only exist in desiring. The mind is the name of the whole process of desiring. And desiring is based in non- acceptance.

The moment your mind says that things are not as they should be, desire arises. The moment you say that things are as they should be, desire disappears. And the disappearance of desire is the appearance of the divine. Hence I call contentment the door to god. To be contented is all.

Hallelujah Chapter - 19

Aloneness is Celebration of Being

Deva means divine, gariba means poverty. Jesus says 'Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of god.' To be poor in spirit means to be egoless. It means to be humble. It means to be a nobody. To be poor in spirit does not mean to live in poverty - because one can practise poverty and can be very egoistic about it. That's what happens to people who renounce the world: they start having a pious kind of egoism, which is far more dangerous and poisonous than the ordinary kind.

One has to be aware that inside all is empty. One has to live without any ambition. One has to live without any desire to be powerful over others. That makes one poor in spirit. But those who are poor in spirit become rich in spirit. That's the miracle, and that is the meaning of the Jesus' saying 'Blessed are the poor in spirit...'; that is the first part. And the second part is:'... for theirs is the kingdom of god.' It means that those who are poor are rich, and vice versa too: those who are very rich in their egos are really very poor spiritually.

The way to inner richness is the way of inner poverty.

Anand means blissful, suviro means courage - blissful courage. And that is one of the most important qualities because the search for god needs great courage, it needs guts - because it is going into the unknown. No map is available, no guide book either. One has to find one's path by groping. There is no ready-made road to it; just by walking on it one creates it. Hence great courage is needed. And one has to go alone, one cannot be accompanied by anybody else. Plotinus says 'It is a flight of the alone to the alone.' Hence, unless one is really courageous it is impossible to move a single step into it.

Hallelujah Chapter - 18

Love is the Soul of the dance, dance, the Body of Love

[To Ma Anand Christa]

Anand means blissful; and Christa is not Christ's name but a state of consciousness, what in the East we call Buddhahood - the ultimate state of consciousness where all darkness has disappeared, where all is light, when man is no more identified with the body but knows himself as the supreme self, where one can say 'I am god!' That state of consciousness is Christ-consciousness.

Jesus is only one of the Christs - there have been many, there will be many; but Christians are not so generous as to recognize it. Buddha is a Christ, Krishna is a Christ, Lao Tzu is a Christ and there have been thousands. Buddhists are more generous in recognizing Christ as a Buddha, recognizing Lao Tzu also as a Buddha. 'Buddha' is the Indian word for Christ. They are not personal names, they indicate the ultimate state of consciousness.

So your name will mean: blissful ultimate state of consciousness. That has to be searched for. It is a long journey but if one goes on it, then each step is a fulfillment and at each step the celebration of life goes on growing. And this should be understood as a criterion: if your bliss goes on growing then you are on the right track. If your bliss starts diminishing, your misery grows, then you have missed, you have gone astray. Bliss is the criterion. If one can only go on checking again and again 'Whatsoever I am doing - is it creating more bliss for me or not?' one will never go astray. And even if one does, one will come back soon.

The closer we are to god, the more blissful we are. And when we dissolve into god and god dissolves into us, there is pure bliss and nothing else. That state is 'Christa'.

Hallelujah Chapter - 17

Sannyas is the Dimension of the Festive

Prem means love, paribhasho means definition. There is no definition of love, but one can become it. Life can become the definition of it. There is no possibility of defining love in words, but one can live in such a way that one's whole being becomes its definition. And. each one has to find the definition on his own. Nobody can live somebody else's definition, otherwise one has missed one's life.

Life is an opportunity to carve out the definition of love. It is a raw opportunity, just like a marble rock.

Each one has to carve something out of it. The whole of life is raw: we have to create it, we have to give it a form. We have to make that which is unmanifest, manifest. We have to bring the seed to its flowering. And each individual is so unique that there is no possibility of general definition, hence love is indefinable... because your definition will not be my definition, my definition will not be your definition.

And it is beautiful that no imitation is possible; hence the authenticity of love. Love makes people authentic, and those who are authentic, only they can love. There is a deep synchronicity between authenticity and love.

So live in such a way that life becomes more and more love... Less and less-business, more and more love; less and less rice and more and more roses, so something of the beyond starts penetrating you. Love makes one open to the beyond. And love has to flow in as many directions as possible. It should not move only in one dimension - otherwise life remains one-dimensional; it should be multi-dimensional. One should love people, one should love poetry, one should love music; one should love as many things as possible. Then each dimension gives a new richness to your being. And when all the dimensions are flowering, for the first time you start feeling what love is.

Hallelujah Chapter - 16

Bliss is a Shadow of God

Prem means love, sandhan means enquiry into... enquiry into love. Life is an enquiry into love. All else is secondary; the primary thing is love. Those who miss love, miss all. So remember it always, that only a life of love is a fulfilled life. Love immensely.

And this is the right time to start the enquiry. Once habits of non-loving become settled it becomes more difficult. Every child is born loving but soon we teach him not to love. On the contrary we teach him to be ambitious, to be jealous, to be possessive. By the time he becomes capable of standing on his own he has completely forgotten the language of love.

Sannyas is nothing but a language of love.

Prem means love, nartan means dance - a dance of love. Always think in terms of dance and love.

Love is the soul of dance, and dance is the body of love. Only those who know how to love know how to dance. Without love dance is dead. Without dance love has not yet manifested. If both are there then life is a great joy. Then the tree has bloomed.

[A thirteen year-old girl has two difficulties. One is: she can't look into a person's eyes for a long time; and she can't always express to a person what she wants to say.] Mm mm... mm mm. The first difficulty is not a problem. It is good. There is no need to look into somebody's eyes for a long time unless you are tremendously in love with a person. And when you are in love you can look; everybody can look into the eyes. And without love, looking into somebody's eyes for more than three, four seconds, is offensive. It is violating the other person's freedom. It is trespassing into his being, because the eyes are doors of the other's being. So one should not look too much into somebody's eyes unless the other invites, unless you are interested in the person so much that you both would like to melt into each other. Then it is perfectly good, and then you will be able to look into the eyes.

Hallelujah Chapter - 15

Love's madness takes one beyond all insanity

Anand means bliss, veetkam means beyond sex. Bliss is the same energy as sex. If the energy remains completely involved in sex it cannot become bliss. Even in sexual orgasm that little bit of bliss comes to you because in that moment you are free of sex. This will look strange, but while you are making love, when the moment of orgasm comes you are free of sex for a moment. That freedom from sex brings bliss.

It is just as when you have eaten, for a few hours you are free from hunger; just as when you have drunk water, for a few hours you are free from thirst. The bliss that comes from sex is not really from sex: it is because for a few moments sex has disappeared from you. It is satiated - there is no longing, there is no desire; it is a moment of desirelessness. The orgasm is a moment of no passion, hence something of bliss descends in you.

A Buddha lives in that moment continuously. So this is the meaning of your name: bliss beyond sex... and it is my message to you. I am not against sex, and I am not saying drop sex. I am saying understand it, meditate over it - don't just go on making love in an unconscious way - and that will become your greatest meditation. Be more conscious, alert, aware, and see what is actually happening. Is this moment of bliss coming through sex or because there is no sex any more for a few moments and the desire has disappeared? For a few hours after sex you don't think of sex, hence the peace, the calm, the quiet. Again the desire will come and again the desire will disturb; again there will be turmoil and the lake will have ripples, waves.

If one meditates on one's sexuality, one starts understanding great secrets of life; they are hidden there. Sex is holding the very key. If is not only the key to reproduce children, it is also the key to recreate yourself again. It is not only reproduction, it is really recreation.

Hallelujah Chapter - 14

Music is a short-cut to God

Deva means divine, abhavo means absence. The moment you are absent, god is present; and god is present only when you are not. There is no co-existence possible - man cannot encounter god.

That is impossible, as impossible as darkness encountering light. Darkness is possible only when light is not. If the light is, darkness is not. Man is a darkness. So the more capable we are of losing ourselves, the more full of god we are; and the more full of ourselves we are, the less is the possibility of god penetrating us.

One can call it meditation, one can call it prayer, but the most essential thing is your absence, your disappearance. And remember, it is not empty; in fact your presence is a kind of emptiness When you are not, you are so full of god - how can you call it empty? So the absence is divine. It is the greatest possibility... not to be, utterly not to be. And it is not a negative state at all, the most positive, but one has to know it only by knowing it.

A few glimpses come of it in deep love, but only glimpses, momentary flashes. In deep love one disappears, and in that disappearance there is great joy. The absence is so full of something unknown that the absence becomes celebration. So this is going to be your work on yourself:

disappear, dissolve.

Prem means love, diwani means mad - love mad. Love is illogical, irrational, not of the mind at all.

Hallelujah Chapter - 13

Only in Bliss are you Close to Me

Avoda means service out of ecstasy. The Christian idea of service is that service has to be first then ecstasy follows. The Eastern idea is just the reverse: ecstasy has to come first then service follows.

If service comes first it will be just a duty - imposed, cultivated, practised; it is impossible for ecstasy to arise out of it. It will create only a hypocrite, and that's what the Christian missionary has become in the world.

Service is something outer, something you do for others, but how can you love others if you have not even arrived at your own centre? That love will be only lip-service. You can force yourself into many kinds of services but there will be greed behind it: greed to go to heaven, greed to be known as virtuous, greed to become famous as a public servant, but deep down it will be greed. Out of this kind of service nobody has ever known ecstasy.

Ecstasy has to come first, and then service flows out of it of its own accord. When you have something to give, only then can you give. When love is overflowing in you it can be shared, and then there is no greed in it. In fact you are not obliging anybody; on the contrary, you feel obliged because they allowed you to serve them. You feel grateful because they did not reject your love.

They could have, but they accepted it, they welcomed it.

And you don't ask for anything out of the service. Now service is a joy in itself. You don't ask for any virtue, you don't ask for any account of it in the bank of god, you don't ask for paradise for it; its value is intrinsic. In fact it is a by product of your joy. It is just like a shadow: you move - your shadow moves with you.

Hallelujah Chapter - 12

The Taste of God is Love

Kusum means flower, swarna means gold - a golden flower. It is still in the seed but it can come; it has to be provoked, it has to be ca]led forth. One should not dissect the seed. If you dissect the seed you will not find the flower. That's what people are doing all over the world. If you dissect man you will not find god... and then they think there is no god.

Man is a seed, god is a flowering. You cannot find the flower in the seed if you search for it directly.

You have to give the seed the right soil, the right climate, and you have to work on it for years; then one day, the miracle. And that is the greatest miracle - when a seed becomes a sprout. Just those two small leaves coming out of the earth is the greatest miracle in the world, the greatest revolution.

That which was dead has become alive. That which was potential has become actual. That which was invisible has become visible. Now the journey has started... but it happens only when the seed disappears. You cannot find god in man: god happens only when man disappears. And to allow oneself to disappear is what sannyas is all about.

It is an effort to efface oneself. to empty oneself of oneself, and when one is not, suddenly god takes possession. Those first two leaves start growing. Now the flower will not be far away; the real thing has happened. Now the flower is only a question of time. The spring will be coming and the tree will bloom.

Don't go and cut a tree to see where the flowers are hidden; wait for the spring. If you cut the tree and its branches to find the flowers, you will not find them. And that's what science goes on doing: