WHAT IS LOVE?
To feel it is easy, to define love is difficult indeed. If you ask
a fish what the sea is like, the fish will say, “This is the sea. The sea is
all around. And that’s that.” But if you insist – ”Please define the sea” –
then the problem becomes very difficult indeed. The finest and the most
beautiful things in life can be lived, can be known, but they are difficult to
define, difficult to describe. Man’s misery is this: for the last four to five
thousand years he has simply talked and talked about something he should have
been living earnestly, about something that must be realized from within –
about love. There have been great talks on love, countless love songs have been
sung, and devotional hymns are continuously being chanted in the temples and in
the churches – what all isn’t done in the name of love? – still there is no
place for love in man’s life. If we delve deeply into mankind’s languages, we
will not find a more untrue word than “love”.
All the religions carry on about love, but the kind of love that
is found everywhere, the kind of love that has enveloped man like some
hereditary misfortune has only succeeded in closing all the gates to love in
man’s life. But the masses worship the leaders of the religions as the creators
of love. They have falsified love; they have blocked all love’s streams. In
this case there is no basic difference between East and West, between India and
America. The stream of love has not yet surfaced in man. And we attribute this
to man himself. We say it is because man is spoiled that love has not evolved,
that there is no current of love in our lives. We blame it on the mind; we say
the mind is poisonous. The mind is not poison. Those who degrade the mind have
poisoned love; they have not allowed the growth of love. Nothing in this world
is poison. Nothing is bad in God’s whole creation; everything is nectar. It is
man alone who has transformed this full cup of nectar into poison. And the
major culprits are the so-called teachers, the so-called holy men and saints,
the politicians. Reflect upon this in detail. If this sickness is not
understood immediately, if it is not straightened out right away, there is no
possibility – now or in the future – of love in man’s life. The ironical thing
is that we have blindly accepted the reasons for this from the very same
sources that are to blame for love’s not dawning on the human horizon in the
first place. If misleading principles are repeated and reiterated down the
centuries we fail to see the basic fallacies behind the original principles.
And then chaos is created, because man is intrinsically incapable of becoming
what these unnatural rules say he should become. We simply accept that man is
wrong.
In ancient times, I have heard, a hawker of hand-fans used to pass
by the palace of the king everyday. He used to brag about the unique and
wonderful fans he sold. No one, he claimed, had ever seen such fans before. The
king had a collection of all sorts of fans from every corner of the world and
so he was curious. He leaned over his balcony one day to have a look at this
seller of unique and wonderful fans. To him the fans looked ordinary, hardly
worth a penny, but he called the man upstairs anyway. The king asked, ”What is
the uniqueness of those fans? And what is their price?” The hawker replied,
”Your Majesty, they don’t cost much. Considering the quality of these fans, the
price is very low: one hundred rupees a fan.” The king was amazed. ”One hundred
rupees! This paisa-fan, this penny-fan, is available anywhere in the market.
And you ask a hundred rupees! What is so special about these fans?” The man
said, ”The quality! Each fan is guaranteed to last one hundred years. Even in
one hundred years, it won’t spoil.” ”From the look of it, it seems impossible
it can even last a week. Are you trying to cheat me? Is this outright fraud?
And with the king, too?” The vendor answered, ”My Lord, would I dare? You know
very well, sir, that I walk under your balcony daily, selling my fans. The
price is one hundred rupees a fan, and I am responsible if it doesn’t last one
hundred years. Every day I am available in the street. And, above all, you are
the ruler of this land. How can I be safe if I cheat you?” The fan was
purchased at the asking price. Although the king did not trust the hawker, he
was dying of curiosity to know what grounds the man had for making such a
statement. The vendor was ordered to present himself again on the seventh day.
The central stick came out in three days, and the fan disintegrated before the
week was out. The king was sure the seller of fans would never turn up again,
but to his complete surprise the man presented himself as he had been asked to
– on time, on the seventh day. “At your service, Your Majesty.” The king was
furious. ”You rascal! You fool! Look. There lies your fan, all broken into
pieces. This is its condition in a week, and you guaranteed it would last a
hundred years! Are you mad, or just a super cheat?” The man replied humbly,
”With due respect, it seems My Lord does not know how to use fans. The fan must
last for one hundred years; it is guaranteed. How did you fan?” The king said,
”My goodness. Now I will have to learn how to fan too!” ”Please don’t be angry.
How did the fan come to this fate in just seven days? How did you fan?”
The king lifted the fan, showing the manner in which one fans. The
man said, “Now I understand. You shouldn’t fan like that.” ”What other way is
there?” the king asked. The man explained, ”Hold the fan steady. Keep it steady
in front of you and then move your head to and fro. The fan will last one
hundred years. You will pass away but the fan will remain intact. Nothing is
wrong with the fan; the way you fan is wrong. You keep the fan steady and move
your head. Where is my fan at fault? The fault is yours, not that of my fan.”
Mankind is accused of a similar fault. Look at humanity. Man is so sick, sick
from the accumulated illness of five, six, ten thousand years. It is repeatedly
said that it is man who is wrong, not the culture. Man is rotting, yet the
culture is praised. Our great culture! Our great religion! Everything is great!
And see the fruits of it! They say, ”Man is wrong; man should change himself,”
yet no one stands up to question whether things aren’t like they are because
our culture and religion, unable to fill man with love after ten thousand
years, are based on false values. And if love hasn’t evolved in the last ten
thousand years, take it from me there is no future possibility, based on this
culture and religion, of ever seeing a loving man. Something which could not be
achieved in the last ten thousand years cannot be attained in the next ten
thousand years.
Today’s man will be the same tomorrow. Although the outer
wrappings of etiquette, civilization and technology change from time to time,
man is the same and will be the same forever. We are not prepared to review our
culture and religion, yet we sing their praises at the top of our lungs, and
kiss the feet of their saints and custodians. We won’t even agree to look back,
to reflect upon our ways and upon the direction of our thinking, to check if
they are not misleading, to see if they are not all wrong. I wish to say that
the base is defective, that the values are false. The proof is today’s man.
What other proof can there be? If we plant a seed and the fruit is poisonous
and bitter, what does it prove? It proves that the seed must have been
poisonous and bitter. But it is difficult, of course, to foretell whether a
particular seed will give bitter fruit or not. You may look it over carefully,
press it or break it open, but you cannot predict for sure whether the fruit
will be sweet or not. You have to await the test of time. Sow a seed. A plant
will sprout. Years will pass. A tree will emerge, will spread its branches to
the sky, will bear fruit – and only then will you come to know whether the seed
that was sown was bitter or not. Modern man is the fruit of those seeds of
culture and religion that were sown ten thousand years ago and have been
nurtured ever since. And the fruit is bitter; it is full of conflict and
misery. But we are the very people who eulogize those seeds and expect love to
flower from them. It is not to be, I repeat, because any possibility for the
birth of love has been killed by religion. The possibility has been poisoned. More
so than in man, love can be seen in the birds, animals and plants, in those who
have no religion or culture. Love is more evident in uncivilized men, in
backward woodsmen, than in the so-called progressive, cultured and civilized
men of today. And, remember, the aboriginal people have no developed
civilization, culture or religion. Why is man progressively becoming so much
more barren of love as he professes to be more and more civilized, cultured and
religious, going regularly to temples and to churches to pray? There are some
reasons and I wish to discuss them. If these can be understood, the eternal
stream of love can spring forth. But it is embedded in stones; it cannot
surface. It is walled in on all sides, and the Ganges cannot gush forth, cannot
flow freely.
Love is within man. It is not imported from the outside. It is not
a commodity to be purchased when we go to the markets. It is there as the
fragrance of life. It is inside everyone. The search for love, the wooing of
love, is not a positive action; it is not an overt act whereby you have to go
somewhere and draw it out.
A sculptor was working on a rock. Someone who had come to see how
a statue is made saw no
sign of a statue, he only saw a stone being cut here and there by
a chisel and hammer. ”What are you doing?” the man inquired. ”Are you not going
to make a statue? I have come to see a statue being made, but I only see you
chipping stone.” The artist said, ”The statue is already hidden inside. There
is no need to make it. Somehow, the useless mass of stone that is fused to it
has to be separated from it, and then the statue will show itself. A statue is
not made, it is discovered. It is uncovered; it is brought to light.” Love is
shut up inside man; it need only be released. The question is not how to
produce it, but how to uncover it. What have we covered ourselves with? What is
it that will not allow love to surface? Try asking a medical practitioner what
health is. It is very strange, but no doctor in the world can tell you what
health is! With the whole of medical science concerned with health, isn’t there
anyone who is able to say what health is? If you ask a doctor, he will say he
can only tell you what the diseases are or what the symptoms are. He may know
the different technical term for each and every disease and he may also be able
to prescribe the cure. But health? About health, he does not know anything. He
can only state that what remains when there is no disease is health. This is
because health is hidden inside man. Health is beyond the definition of man.
Sickness comes from the outside hence it can be defined; health comes from
within hence it cannot be defined. Health defies definition. We can only say
that the absence of sickness is health. The truth is, health does not have to be
created; it is either hidden by illness or it reveals itself when the illness
goes away or is cured. Health is inside us. Health is our nature. Love is also
inside us. Love is our inherent nature. Basically, it is wrong to ask man to
create love. The problem is not how to create love, but how to investigate and
find out why it is not able to manifest itself. What is the hindrance? What is
the difficulty? Where is the dam blocking it? If there are no barriers, love
will show itself. It is not necessary to persuade it or to guide it. Every man
would be filled with love if it weren’t for the barriers of false culture and
of degrading and harmful traditions. Nothing can stifle love. Love is
inevitable. Love is our nature. The Ganges flows from the Himalayas. It is
water; it simply flows – it does not ask a priest the way to the ocean. Have
you ever seen a river standing at a crossroads asking a policeman the
whereabouts of the ocean? However far the ocean may be, however hidden it may
be, the river will surely find the path. It is inevitable: she has the inner
urge. She has no guidebook, but, infallibly, she will reach her destination.
She will crack through mountains, cross the plains and traverse the country in
her race to reach the ocean. An insatiable desire, a force, an energy exists
within her heart of hearts. But suppose obstructions are thrown in her way by
man? Suppose dams are constructed by man? A river can overcome and break
through natural barriers – ultimately they are not barriers to her at all – but
if man-made barriers are created, if dams are engineered across her, it is
possible she may
not reach the ocean. Man, the supreme intelligence of creation,
can stop a river from reaching the ocean if he decides to do so. In nature,
there is a fundamental unity, a harmony. The natural obstructions, the apparent
oppositions seen in nature, are challenges to arouse energy; they serve as
clarion calls to arouse what is latent inside. There is no disharmony in
nature. When we sow a seed, it may seem as if the layer of earth above the seed
is pressing it down, is obstructing its growth. It may seem so, but in reality
that layer of earth is not an obstruction; without that layer the seed cannot
germinate. The earth presses down on the seed so that it can mellow,
disintegrate, and transform itself into a sapling. Outwardly it may seem as if
the soil is stifling the seed, but the soil is only performing the duty of a
friend. It is a clinical operation. If a seed does not grow into a plant, we
reason that the soil may not have been proper, that the seed may not have had
enough water or that it may not have received enough sunlight – we do not blame
the seed. But if flowers do not bloom in a man’s life we say the man himself is
responsible for it. Nobody thinks of inferior manure, of a shortage of water or
of a lack of sunshine and does something about it, the man himself is accused
of being bad. And so the plant of man has remained undeveloped, has been
suppressed by unfriendliness and has been unable to reach the flowering stage.
Nature is rhythmic harmony. But the artificiality that man has imposed on
nature, the things he has engineered across it and the mechanical contrivances
he has thrown into the current of life have created obstructions at many
places, have stopped the flow. And the river is made the culprit. ”Man is bad;
the seed is poisonous,” they say. I wish to draw your attention to the fact
that the basic obstructions are man-made, are created by man himself –
otherwise the river of love would flow freely and reach the ocean of God. Love
is inherent in man. If the obstructions are removed with awareness, love can
flow. Then, love can rise to touch God, to touch the Supreme. What are these
man-made obstacles? The most obvious obstruction has been the opposition to sex
and to passion. This barrier has destroyed the possibility of the birth of love
in man.
The simple truth is that sex is the starting point of love. Sex is
the beginning of the journey to love. The origin, the Gangotri of the Ganges of
Love, is sex, passion – and everybody behaves
like its enemy. Every culture, every religion, every guru, every
seer has attacked this Gangotri, this source, and the river has remained
bottled up. The hue and cry has always been, ”Sex is sin. Sex is irreligious.
Sex is poison,” but we never seem to realize that ultimately it is the sex
energy itself that travels to and reaches the inner ocean of love. Love is the
transformation of sex energy. The flowering of love is from the seed of sex. Looking
at coal, it would never strike you that when coal is transformed it becomes
diamonds. The elements in a lump of coal are the same as those in a diamond.
Essentially, there is no basic difference between them. After passing through a
process taking thousands of years, coal becomes diamonds. But coal is not
considered important. When coal is kept in a house it is stored in a place
where it may not be seen by guests, whereas diamonds are worn around the neck
or on the bosom so that everybody can see them. Diamonds and coal are the same:
they are two points on a journey by
the same element. If you are against coal because it has nothing
more to offer than black soot at first glance, the possibility of its
transformation into a diamond ends right there. The coal itself could have been
transformed into a diamond. But we hate coal. And so, the possibility of any
progress ends. Only the energy of sex can flower into love. But everyone,
including mankind’s great thinkers, is against it. This opposition will not
allow the seed to sprout, and the palace of love is destroyed at the foundation.
The enmity towards sex has destroyed the possibility of love. And so, coal is
incapable of becoming a diamond. Because of basic misconceptions, no one feels
the necessity of going through the stages of acknowledging sex and of
developing it and of going through the process of transforming it. How can we
transform him whose enemy we are, whom we oppose, with whom we are at
continuous war? A quarrel between man and his energy has been forced upon him.
Man has been taught to fight against his sex energy, to oppose his sex urges.
”The mind is poison, so fight against it,” man is told. The mind
exists in man, and sex also exists
in him – yet man is expected to be free from inner conflicts. A
harmonious existence is expected
of him. He has to fight and to pacify as well. Such are the
teachings of his leaders. On the one hand they drive him mad and on the other
they open asylums to treat him. They spread the germs of sickness and then
build hospitals to cure the sick. Another important consideration is that man
cannot be separated from sex. Sex is his primary point; he is born of it. God
has made the energy of sex the starting point of creation. And great men term as
sinful what God himself does not consider as sin! If God considers sex as sin,
then there is no greater sinner than God in this world, no greater sinner in
this universe. Have you never realized that the blooming of a flower is an
expression of passion, that it is a sexual act? A peacock dances in full glory:
a poet will sing a song to it; a saint will also be filled with joy – but
aren’t they aware that the dance is also an overt expression of passion, that
it is primarily a sexual act? For whose pleasure does the peacock dance? The
peacock is calling its beloved, its spouse. Papiha is singing; the cuckoo is
singing: a boy has become an adolescent; a girl is growing into a woman. What
is all this? What play, what leela is this? These are all the indicators of
love, of sexual energy. These manifestations of love are the transformed
expressions of sex – bubbling with energy, acknowledging sex. Throughout one’s
whole life all acts of love, all attitudes and urges of love, are flowerings of
primary sex energy. Religion and culture pour poison against sex into the mind
of man. They create conflict, war; they engage man in battle against his own
primary energy – and so man has become weak, gross, coarse, devoid of love and
full of nothingness. Not enmity, but friendship is to be made with sex. Sex should
be elevated to purer heights. While blessing a newly wed couple, a sage said to
the bride, ”May you be the mother of ten children and, ultimately, may your
husband become your eleventh child.”
If passion is transformed, the wife can become the mother; if lust
is transcended, sex can become love. Only sex energy can flower into the force
of love. But we have filled man with antagonism towards sex and the result is
that love has not flowered. What comes later, the form-to-come, can only be
made possible by the acceptance of sex. The stream of love cannot break through
because of the strong opposition. Sex, on the other hand, keeps churning
inside, and the consciousness of man is muddled with sexuality.
Man’s consciousness is becoming more and more sexual. Our songs,
poems, paintings, and virtually all the figures in our temples are centered
around sex – because our minds also revolve
around the axis of sex. No animal in the world is as sexual as
man. Man is sexual everywhere –
awake or asleep, in his manners as well as in his etiquette. Every
moment man is haunted by sex. Because of this enmity towards sex, because of
this opposition and suppression, man is decaying from inside. He can never free
himself from something that is the very root of his life, and because of this
constant inner conflict his entire being has become neurotic. He is sick. This
perverted sexuality that is so evident in mankind is the fault of his so-called
leaders and saints; they are to blame for it. Until man frees himself from such
teachers, moralizers and religious leaders, and from their phony sermons, the
possibility of love surfacing in him is nil.
I remember a tale: One
Sunday a poor farmer was leaving his house and at the gate he met a childhood
friend who had come to see him. The farmer said, “Welcome! But where have you
been for so many years? Come in! Look, I have promised to see some friends and
it would be difficult to postpone the visit, so please rest in my house. I will
be back in an hour or so. I will return soon and we can have a long chat.”
The friend said, ”Oh no, wouldn’t it be better if I were to come
with you? Yet my clothes are very
dirty. If you can just give me something fresh, I will change and
come along with you.” Sometime before, the king had given the farmer some
valuable clothes and the farmer had been
saving them for some grand occasion. Joyfully, he brought them
out. His friend put on the precious coat, the turban, the dhoti and the
beautiful shoes. He looked like the king himself. Looking at his friend, the
farmer felt a bit jealous; in comparison he looked like a servant. He began to
wonder if he had made a mistake, giving away his best outfit, and he began to
feel inferior. Now everyone would look at his friend, he thought, and he would
look like an attendant, like a servant. He tried to calm his mind by thinking
of himself as a good friend and as a man of God. He would think only of God and
of noble things, he decided. ”After all, of what importance is a fine coat or
an expensive turban?” But the more he tried to reason with himself, the more
the coat and the turban encroached on his mind. On the way, although they were
walking together, passers-by only looked at his friend; nobody noticed the
farmer. He began to feel depressed. He chatted with his friend, but inside he
was thinking about nothing else but that coat and turban! They reached the
house they were intending to visit and he introduced his friend: ”This is my
friend, a childhood friend. He is a very lovely man.” And suddenly he blurted,
”And the clothes? They are mine!” The friend was stunned. Their hosts were also
surprised. He realized as well that the remark had been uncalled for, but then
it was too late. He regretted his blunder and reproached himself inwardly. Coming
out of the house, he apologized to his friend.
The friend said, ”I was thunderstruck. How could you say something
like that?” The farmer said, ”Sorry. It was just my tongue. I made a mistake.” But
the tongue never lies. Words only pop out of one’s mouth if there is something
on one’s mind; the tongue never makes a mistake. He said, ”Forgive me. How such
a thing was uttered, I do not know.” But he knew full well that the thought had
surfaced from his mind. They started for another friend’s house. Now he had
firmly resolved not to say that the clothes were his; he had steeled his mind.
By the time they had reached the gate he had reached an irrevocable decision
that he would not say the clothes were his. That poor man didn’t know that the
more he resolved not to say anything, the more firmly rooted the inner
awareness that the clothes belonged to him became. Moreover, when are such firm
decisions made? When a man makes a firm resolution, like a vow of celibacy for
example, it means that his sexuality is pushing desperately from inside. If a
man resolves he will eat less or will fast from today on, it implies he has a
deep desire to eat more. Such efforts inevitably result in inner conflict. We are
what our weaknesses are. But we decide to curb them; we resolve to fight
against them – and naturally, this becomes a source of subconscious conflict. So,
engaged in inner struggle, our farmer went into the house. He began very
carefully: ”He is my friend” – but he noticed that nobody was paying any
attention to him; that everybody was looking at his friend and at his clothes
with awe, and it struck him, ”That is my coat! And my turban!” But he reminded
himself again not to talk about the clothes. He was resolved. ”Everybody has
clothes
of some kind or another, poor or rich. It is a trivial matter,” he
explained to himself. But the clothes swung before his eyes like a pendulum, to
and fro, to and fro. He resumed the introduction: ”He is my friend. A childhood
friend. A very fine gentleman. And the clothes? Those are his, and not mine.” The
people were surprised. They had never before heard such an introduction: ”The
clothes are his and not mine”! After they had left, he again apologized
profusely. ”A big blunder,” he admitted. Now he was confused about what to do
and what not to do. ”Clothes never had a hold on me like this before! Oh God,
what has happened to me?” What had happened to him? The poor fellow did not
know that the technique he was using on himself is such that even if God
himself tried it, the clothes would grab hold of him also! The friend, now
quite indignant, said he would not go any further with him. The farmer grabbed
his arm and said, ”Please don’t do that. I would be unhappy for the rest of my
life, having shown such bad manners to a friend. I swear not to mention the
clothes again. With my whole heart, I swear to God I will not mention the
clothes anymore.” But one should always be wary of those who swear because
there is something much deeper involved when one resolves something. A
resolution is made by the surface mind, and the thing against which the
resolution has been taken remains inside in the labyrinths of the subconscious mind.
If the mind were divided into ten parts, it would only be one part, just the
upper part, that was committed to the resolve; the remaining nine parts would
be against it. The vow of celibacy is taken by one part of the mind, for
example, while the rest of the mind is mad for sex – while the rest is crying
out for that very thing that has been implanted in man by God. But for the
moment, be that as it may. They went to a third friend’s house. The farmer held
himself back rigorously. Restrained people are very dangerous, because a live
volcano exists inside them. Outwardly they are rigid and full of restraint,
while their urge to let go is tightly harnessed inside. Please remember,
anything that is forced can neither be continuous nor complete because of the immense
strain involved. You have to relax sometime; sometime you have to rest. How
long can you clench your fist? Twenty-four hours? The tighter you clench it,
the more it tires, and the more quickly it will open up. Work harder, expend
some more energy, and you will tire even more quickly.
There is always a reaction to an action, and it is always just as
prompt. Your hand can remain open all the time, but it cannot remain clenched
in a fist all the time. Anything that tires you cannot be a natural part of
life. Whenever you force something, a period of rest is bound to follow. And
so, the more adept a saint is, the more dangerous he is. After twenty-four
hours of restraint, following the rules of the scriptures, he will have to
relax for at least an hour, and during this period there will be such an
upsurge of suppressed sins he will find himself in the midst of hell. So, the
farmer held himself rigorously in check so as not to speak of the clothes.
Imagine his condition. If you are even a little religious, you can imagine his
state of mind. If you have ever been sworn in, or taken a vow, or restrained
yourself for some religious cause, you will understand the pitiable state of
his mind very well. They went into the next house. The farmer was perspiring
all over; he was exhausted. The friend was also worried. The farmer was frozen
with anxiety. Slowly and carefully he uttered each and every word, of the introduction:
”Meet my friend. A very old friend, he is. A very nice man, he is.” For a
moment he faltered. A huge push came from inside. He knew he was washed up. He
blurted aloud, ”And the clothes? Pardon me, I won’t say anything about them,
because I have sworn not to say anything at all about the clothes!”
What happened to this man has happened to the whole of mankind.
Because of condemnation, sex has become an obsession, a disease, a perversion.
It has become poisoned. From an early age children are taught that sex is sin.
A girl grows and a boy grows; adolescence comes and they are married – then a
journey into passion commences in the set conviction that sex is sin. In India
the girl is also told her husband is God. How can she revere as God someone who
takes her in sin? The boy is told, ”This is your wife, your partner, your
mate.” The scriptures say that woman is the gate to hell, a well of sin, and
now the boy feels he has a living demon as his life’s partner. The boy thinks,
”Is this my better half – a hell-bound, sin-oriented better half?” How can any harmony
happen in his life? Traditional teachings have destroyed the marital life of
the whole world. When married life is full of prejudice, full of poison, there
is no possibility for love. If a husband and wife cannot love each other
freely, basically and naturally, then who can love whom? But this disturbing
situation can be rectified; this muddled love can be purified. This love can be
elevated to such lofty heights that it will break all barriers, resolve all
complexes and engulf husband and wife in pure and divine joy. This sublime love
is possible. But if it is nipped in the bud, if it is stifled, if it is
poisoned, what will grow out of it? How can it flower into a rose of supreme
love? A wandering ascetic camped in a village. A man came and told him he
wanted to realize God. The ascetic asked, ”Have you ever loved anybody?” ”No, I
am not guilty of such a mundane thing,” the man replied. ”I have never stooped
so low; I want to realize God.” The ascetic asked again, “Have you never felt
the pangs of love?” The seeker was emphatic. ”I am telling the truth,” he
replied. The poor man spoke honestly. In the realm of religion to have loved is
a disqualification. He was sure that if he said he had loved someone the
ascetic would ask him to rid himself of love then and there – to renounce the
attachment and to leave all worldly emotions behind before seeking his guidance.
So even if he had loved someone, he felt he must reply in the negative. Where
can you find a man who has never even loved a little? The monk asked for the
third time, ”Say something. Think carefully. Not even a little love – for somebody,
for anybody? Haven’t you even loved one person a little?” The aspirant said,
”Pardon me, but why do you keep harping on the same question? I wouldn’t touch love
with a ten-foot pole. I want to attain self-realization. I want Godhood.” To
this the ascetic replied, ”Then you will have to excuse me. Please approach
someone else. My experience tells me that if you had loved somebody, anybody,
that if you had even had a glimpse of love, I could help enlarge it, I could
help it to grow – probably to reach God. But if you have never loved, then you
have nothing in you; you have no seed to grow into a tree. Go and make
inquiries of someone else. My friend, in the absence of love I do not see any
opening for God.”
Similarly, if there is no love between husband and wife.... You
are sadly mistaken if you think that the husband who does not love his wife is
able to love his children. The wife will only be able to love her son to the
same degree she loves her husband, because the child is the reflection of her husband.
But if there is no love for the husband, how can there be love for the child?
And if the son is not given love, if his nourishing and his rearing are not
with love, how do you expect him to love his mother and father? A family is a
unit of life; the world itself is a large family. But family life has been
poisoned by this condemnation of sex. And we moan that love is nowhere to be
found! Under
the
circumstances, how do you expect to find love anywhere? Everyone says he loves.
Mothers, wives, sons, brothers, sisters, friends – all say they love. But if you
observe life in its totality, there is no love evident in life at all. If so
many people are full of love there ought to be a shower of love; there ought to
be a garden full of flowers, more flowers and even more flowers. If there were
a lamp of love shining in every home, how much light there would be in this
world! But instead, we find a pervading atmosphere of repulsion. There is not
one single ray of love to be found in this sorry scheme of things. It is
snobbery to believe that love is everywhere. And so long as we remain immersed
in this illusion, the search for truth cannot even begin. Nobody loves anybody
here. And until natural sex is accepted without reservation there can be no
love. Until then, nobody can love anybody. What I want to say is this: sex is
divine. The primal energy of sex has the reflection of God in it. It is obvious:
it is the energy that creates new life. And that is the greatest, most
mysterious force of all. End this enmity with sex. If you want a shower of love
in your life, renounce this conflict with sex. Accept sex with joy. Acknowledge
its sacredness. Receive it gratefully and embrace it more and more deeply. You
will be surprised that sex can reveal such sacredness; it will reveal its
sacredness to the degree of your acceptance. And as sinful and irreverent as
your approach is, that is how ugly and sinful the sex that confronts you will
be. When a man approaches his wife he should have a sacred feeling, as if he
were going to a temple. And when a wife goes to her husband she should be full
of the reverence one has nearing God. In the moments of sex, lovers pass
through coitus, and that stage is very near to the temple of God, to where he
is manifest in creative formlessness. My conjecture is that man had his first
luminous glimpse of samadhi during the experience of intercourse. Only in the
moments of coitus did man realize that it was possible to feel such profound love,
to experience such illuminating bliss. And those who meditated on this truth in
the right frame of mind, those who meditated on the phenomenon of sex, of
intercourse, came to the conclusion that in the moments of climax the mind becomes
empty of thoughts. All thoughts drain out at that moment. And this emptiness of
mind, this void, this vacuum, this freezing of the mind, is the cause of the
shower of divine joy. Having unraveled the secret up to this point, man dug
further. If the mind could be freed of thoughts, if the thought-ripples of
consciousness could be stilled by some other process, he reasoned, he could
attain to pure bliss! And from this developed the system of yoga, from this
came meditation and prayer. This new approach proved that even without coitus
the consciousness could be stilled and thoughts evaporated. Man discovered that
the delight of amazing proportions obtained during an act of intercourse could
also be obtained without it. By the nature of the process, an act of coitus can
only be momentary because it involves the consummation of a flow of energy. To
the pure joy, to the perfect love, to the beautiful solace in which a yogi
exists all the time, a couple only reaches for a moment or so. But, basically,
there is no difference between them. He who said that the vishyanand and the
brahmanand, that the one who indulges his senses and the one who indulges in
God are brothers, has stated an inadvertent truth. Both come from the same
womb. The only difference is the distance between earth and sky. At this stage
I wish to give you the first principle. If you want to know the elemental truth
about love, the first requisite is to accept the sacredness of sex, to accept
the divinity of sex in the same way you accept God’s existence – with an open
heart. And the more fully you accept sex with an open heart and mind, the freer
you will be of it. But the more you suppress it the more you will become bound
to it, like that farmer who became a slave to his clothes. The measure of your
acceptance is the measure of your deliverance. The total acceptance of life, of
all that is natural in life, of all that is God-given in life, will lead you to
the highest realms of divinity – to heights that are unknown, to heights that
are sublime. I call that acceptance, theism. And that faith in the God-given is
the door to liberation. I regard those precepts which keep man from accepting
that which is natural in life and in the divine scheme as atheism. ”Oppose
this; suppress that. The natural is sinful, bad, lustful. Leave this; leave that.”
All this constitutes atheism, as I understand it. Those who preach renunciation
are atheists. Accept life in its pure and natural form and thrive on the
fullness of it. The fullness itself will elevate you, step by step. And this
very same acceptance of sex will uplift you to serene heights you had not
imagined possible. If sex is coal, the day is certain to come when it shows
itself as diamonds. And that is the first principle. The second fundamental
thing I want to tell you is about something that has, by now, become hardened
within us by civilization, culture and religion. And that is the ego, the
consciousness that ”I am”.
The nature of the sex energy goads it to flow towards love, but
the hurdle of ”I” has fenced it in like a wall and so love cannot flow. The ”I”
is very powerful, in bad as well as in good people, in the unholy as well as in
the holy. Bad people may assert the ”I” in many ways, but good people also drum
the ”I” loudly: they want to go to heaven; they want to be delivered; they have
renounced the world; they have built temples; they do not sin; they want to do
this; they want to do that. But that ”I”, that guiding signal, is ever present.
The stronger a person’s ego is, the harder it is for him to unite with anybody.
The ego comes in between; the “I” asserts itself. It is a wall. It proclaims, “You
are you and I am I.” And so even the most intimate experience does not bring
people close to each other. The bodies may be near but the people are far
apart. So long as there is this ”I” inside, this feeling of otherness cannot be
avoided. One day, Sartre said a wonderful thing: ”The other is hell.” But he
didn’t explain any further why the other was hell, or even why the other was
the other. The other is the other because I am I, and while I am I, the world
around is the other – different and apart, segregated – and there is no
rapport. As long as there is this feeling of separation, love cannot be known.
Love is the experience of unity. The demolition of walls, the fusion of two
energies is what the experience of love is. Love is the ecstasy when the walls
between two people crumble down, when two lives meet, when two lives
unite. When such a harmony exists between two people I call it
love. And when it exists between one man and the masses, I call it communion
with God. If you can become immersed with me in such an experience – so that
all barriers melt, so that an osmosis takes place at the spiritual level – then
that is love. And if such a unity happens between me and everyone else and I
lose my identity in the All, then that attainment, that merging, is with God,
with the Almighty, with the Omniscient, with the Universal Consciousness, with
the Supreme or whatsoever you want to call it. And so, I say that love is the
first step and that God is the last step – the finest and the final
destination. How is it possible to erase myself? Unless I dissolve myself, how
can the other unite with me? The other is created as a reaction to my “I”. The
louder I shout “I”, the more forceful becomes the existence of the other. The
other is the echo of ”I”. And what is “I”? Have you ever thought calmly about
it? Is it in your leg or your hand, in your head or your heart? Or is it just
the ego? What and where is your “I”, your ego? The feeling of it is there, yet
it is to be found in no particular place. Sit quietly for a moment and search
for that ”I”. You may be surprised, but in spite of an intense search you will
not find your ”I” anywhere. When you search deeply inside you will realize there
is no “I”. As such, there is no ego. When there is the truth of the self the “I”
is not there.
The well-revered monk Nagsen was sent for by the Emperor Malind,
to grace his court. The messenger went to Nagsen and said, ”Monk Nagsen, the
emperor wishes to see you. I have come to invite you.” Nagsen replied, ”If you
want me to, I will come. But, pardon me, there is no person like Nagsen here.
It’s only a name, only a temporary label.” The courtier reported to the emperor
that Nagsen was a very strange man: he had replied he would come, but had said
that there was no such man as Nagsen there. The emperor was struck with wonder.
Nagsen arrived on time, in the royal chariot, and the emperor received him at
the gate. ”Monk Nagsen, I welcome you!” he exclaimed. Hearing this, the monk
started to laugh. ”I accept your hospitality as Nagsen, but please remember there
is nobody named Nagsen.” The emperor said, ”You are talking in riddles. If you
are not you, then who is accepting my invitation? Who is replying to this
welcome?” Nagsen looked behind him and asked, ”Isn’t this the chariot I came in?”
”Yes, it is one and the same.” ”Please remove the horses.” It was done. Pointing
to the horses, the monk asked, ”Is this the chariot?” The emperor said, ”How
can the horses be called a chariot?” At a sign from the monk, the horses were
led away, and the poles used to tie the horses were removed. ”Are these poles
your chariot?” ”Of course not, these are the poles and not the chariot.” The
monk went on, ordering the removal of the parts one by one, and to each inquiry
the emperor had to reply, ”This is not the chariot.” At last nothing remained. The
monk asked, ”Where is your chariot now? To each and every item taken away you
have said, ‘This is not the chariot.’ Then tell me, where is your chariot now?”
The revelation startled the emperor. The monk continued. ”Do you follow me? The
chariot was an assembly; it was a collection of certain
things. The chariot had no being of its own. Please look inside.
Where is your ego? Where is your ‘I’?” You will not find that ”I” anywhere. It
is a manifestation of many energies; that is all. Think about each and every
limb, about each and every aspect of yourself, and then eliminate everything,
one by one. Ultimately, nothingness will remain. Love is born of that
nothingness. That nothingness is God. In a certain village a man opened a fish
shop with a big sign: ”Fresh Fish Sold Here.” The very first day a man came
into the shop and read, ”Fresh Fish Sold Here”. He laughed. ”‘Fresh Fish’? Are
stale fish sold anywhere? What is the point of writing ‘fresh’ fish?” The
shopkeeper decided he was right; besides, ”fresh” gave the idea of ”stale” to
the customers. He deleted ”fresh” from the signboard. The board now read, ”Fish
Sold Here.” An old lady, visiting the shop the next day, read aloud, ”‘Fish
Sold Here’? Do you also sell fish somewhere else?” ”Here” was erased. Now the
board read,”Fish Sold.”The third day yet another customer came to the shop and
said ”‘Fish Sold’? Does anybody give fish for free?” The word ”Sold” was
deleted. Only ”Fish” was left now. An aged man came and said to the shopkeeper,
”‘Fish’? A blind man, even at a distance, could tell from the smell that fish
are sold here.” ”Fish” was removed. The board was now blank. A passer-by asked,
”Why a blank board?” The board was also removed. Nothing remained after the
process of elimination; every word had been removed, one by one. And what was
left behind was nothing, emptiness. Love can only be born out of emptiness.
Only a void is capable of merging with another void; only zero can unite
totally with another zero. Not two individuals, but two vacuums can meet,
because now there is no barrier. All else has walls; a vacuum has none. So the
second thing to remember is that love is born when individuality vanishes, when
“I” and “the other” are no more. Whatsoever remains then is everything, the
limitless – but no “I”. With that attainment, all barriers crumble and the
onrush of the ever-ready Ganges takes place. We dig a well. Water is already
there, inside; it doesn’t have to be brought from anywhere. We just dig up the
earth and stones and remove them. What is it we do exactly? We create an
emptiness so that the water that is hidden inside can find a space to move
into, a space in which to show itself. That which is inside wants room; it
wants space. It craves an emptiness – which it is not getting – so it can come
out, so it can burst forth. If a well is full of sand and stones, the moment we
remove the sand and stones water will surge upwards. Similarly, man is full of
love, but love needs space to surface. As long as your heart and soul are
saying ”I” you are a well of sand and stones, and the stream of love will not
bubble up in you. I have heard that there was once an ancient and majestic
tree, with branches spreading out towards the sky. When it was in a flowering
mood, butterflies of all shapes, colors and sizes danced around it. When it
grew blossoms and bore fruit, birds from far lands came and sang in it. The
branches, like outstretched hands, blessed all who came and sat in their shade.
A small boy used to come and play under it, and the big tree developed an
affection for the small boy. Love between big and small is possible, if the big
is not aware that it is big. The tree did not know it was big; only man has
that kind of knowledge. The big always has the ego as its prime concern, but
for love, nobody is big or small. Love embraces whomsoever comes near. So the
tree developed a love for this small boy who used to come to play near it. Its
branches were high, but it bent and bowed them down so that he might pluck its
flowers and pick its fruit. Love is ever ready to bow; the ego is never ready
to bend. If you approach the ego, its branches will stretch upwards even more;
it will stiffen so you cannot reach it. The playful child came, and the tree
bowed its branches. The tree was very pleased when the child plucked some
flowers; its entire being was filled with the joy of love. Love is always happy
when it can give something; the ego is always happy when it can take. The boy
grew. Sometimes he slept on the tree’s lap, sometimes he ate its fruit, and
sometimes he wore a crown of the tree’s flowers and acted like a jungle king.
One becomes like a king when the flowers of love are there, but one becomes
poor and miserable when the thorns of the ego are
present. To see the boy wearing a crown of flowers and dancing
about filled the tree with joy. It
nodded in love; it sang in the breeze. The boy grew even more. He
began to climb the tree to swing on its branches. The tree felt very happy when
the boy rested on its branches. Love is happy when it gives comfort to someone;
the ego is only happy when it gives discomfort. With the passage of time the
burden of other duties came to the boy. Ambition grew; he had exams
to pass; he had friends to chat with and to wander about with, so
he did not come often. But the tree waited anxiously for him to come. It called
from its soul, ”Come. Come. I am waiting for you.” Love waits day and night.
And the tree waited. The tree felt sad when the boy did not come. Love is sad when
it cannot share; love is sad when it cannot give. Love is grateful when it can
share. When it can surrender, totally, love is the happiest. As he grew, the
boy came less and less to the tree. The man who becomes big, whose ambitions grow,
finds less and less time for love. The boy was now engrossed in worldly
affairs. One day, while he was passing by, the tree said to him, ”I wait for
you but you do not come. I expect you daily.” The boy said, ”What do you have?
Why should I come to you? Have you any money? I am looking for money.” The ego
is always motivated. Only if there is some purpose to be served will the ego come.
But love is motiveless. Love is its own reward. The startled tree said, ”You
will come only if I give something?” That which withholds is not love. The ego
amasses, but love gives unconditionally. ”We don’t have that sickness, and we
are joyful,” the tree said. ”Flowers bloom on us. Many fruits grow on us. We
give soothing shade. We dance in the breeze, and sing songs. Innocent birds hop
on our branches and chirp even though we don’t have any money. The day we get
involved with money, we will have to go to the temples like you weak men do, to
learn how to obtain peace, to learn how to find love. No, we do not have any
need for money.” The boy said, ”Then why should I come to you? I will go where
there is money. I need money.” The ego asks for money because it needs power. The
tree thought for a while and said, “Don’t go anywhere else, my dear. Pick my
fruit and sell it. You will get money that way.” The boy brightened immediately.
He climbed up and picked all the tree’s fruit; even the unripe ones were shaken
down. The tree felt happy, even though some twigs and branches were broken,
even though some of its leaves had fallen to the ground. Getting broken also
makes love happy, but even after getting, the ego is not happy. The ego always
desires more. The tree didn’t notice that the boy hadn’t even once looked back
to thank him. It had had its thanks when the boy accepted the offer to pick and
sell its fruit. The boy did not come back for a long time. Now he had money and
he was busy making more money from that money. He had forgotten all about the
tree. Years passed. The tree was sad. It yearned for the boy’s return – like a
mother whose breasts are filled with milk but whose son is lost. Her whole
being craves for her son; she searches madly for her son so he can come to
lighten her. Such was the inner cry of that tree. Its entire being was in
agony. After many years, now an adult, the boy came to the tree. The tree said,
”Come, my boy. Come embrace me.” The man said, ”Stop that sentimentality. That
was a childhood thing. I am not a child any more.” The ego sees love as
madness, as a childish fantasy. But the tree invited him: ”Come, swing on my
branches. Come dance. Come play with me.” The man said, ”Stop all this useless
talk! I need to build a house. Can you give me a house?” The tree exclaimed: ”A
house! I am without a house.” Only men live in houses. Nobody else lives in a
house but man. And do you notice his condition after his confinement among four
walls? The bigger his buildings, the smaller man becomes. ”We do not stay in
houses, but you can cut and take away my branches – and then you may be able to
build a house.” Without wasting any time, the man brought an axe and severed
all the branches of the tree. Now the tree was just a bare trunk. But love
cares not for such things – even if its limbs are severed for the loved one.
Love is giving; love is ever ready to give. The man didn’t even bother to thank
the tree. He built his house. And the days flew into years. The trunk waited
and waited. It wanted to call for him, but it had neither branches nor leaves
to give it strength. The wind blew by, but it couldn’t even manage to give the
wind a message. And still its soul resounded with one prayer only: ”Come. Come,
my dear. Come.” But nothing happened. Time passed and the man had now become
old. Once he was passing by and he came and stood by the tree. The tree asked,
”What else can I do for you? You have come after a very, very long time.” The
old man said, ”What else can you do for me? I want to go to distant lands to
earn more money. I need a boat, to travel.” Cheerfully, the tree said, ”But
that’s no problem, my love. Cut my trunk, and make a boat from it. I would be
so very happy if I could help you go to faraway lands to earn money. But,
please remember, I will always be awaiting your return.” The man brought a saw,
cut down the trunk, made a boat and sailed away. Now the tree is a small stump.
And it waits for its loved one to return. It waits and it waits and it waits.
The man will never return; the ego only goes where there is something to gain
and now the tree has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer. The ego does not go
where there is nothing to gain. The ego is an eternal beggar, in a continuous
state of demand, and love is charity. Love is a king, an emperor! Is there any
greater king than love? I was resting near that stump one night. It whispered
to me, ”That friend of mine has not come back yet. I am very worried in case he
might have drowned, or in case he might be lost. He may be lost in one of those
faraway countries. He might not even be alive any more. How I wish for news of him!
As I near the end of my life, I would be satisfied with some news of him at
least. Then I could die happily. But he would not come even if I could call
him. I have nothing left to give and he only understands the language of
taking.” The ego only understands the language of taking; the language of
giving is love. I cannot say anything more than that. Moreover, there is
nothing more to be said than this: if life can become like that tree, spreading
its branches far and wide so that one and all can take shelter in its shade,
then we will understand what love is. There are no scriptures, no charts, no
dictionaries for love. There is no set of principles for love. I wondered what
I could say about love! Love is so difficult to describe. Love is just there.
You could probably see it in my eyes if you came up and looked into them. I
wonder if you can feel it as my arms spread in an embrace.
Love. What is love?
If love is not felt in my eyes, in my arms, in my silence, then it
can never be realized from my words. I am grateful for your patient reading.
And finally, I bow to the Supreme seated in all of us. Please accept my respects.
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