Baul Mystics, Vol. 1 The Beloved Chapter 2: I am just a midwife, Question 1

The first question.

Question 1

I ALWAYS YEARN TO BE HERE, BUT WHY, ON SEEING YOU, AM I FILLED WITH AWE?

THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE. One should feel blessed, because awe is the only quality that can make man, religious. That is the only door. Through awe, you start feeling the divine around you. Eyes filled with awe cannot deny God; it is impossible. And people who have forgotten how to be filled with awe cannot accept God. God is not the question. If you are still capable of being in a tremendous state of wonder, so tremendous, so penetrating that thinking stops, everything stops -- suddenly time is not there, space is not there, and you cannot figure it out, what it is -- some sublime presence is felt in those moments.

But man has become afraid of awe. That's why in language, in the ancient days, 'awful' was a religious word, very sacred. Now, when you are feeling terrible you say you are feeling awful. Even the word has changed its meaning. People used to be awful when they were deep in prayer, when they were in close contact with the divine. When the divine was revealed to them, then they used to be awful. Now when they are feeling terrible, horrible, very bad, they say, "I am feeling awful." The word has completely been destroyed. It used to be at the peak; now it is at the bottom. It used to be the most positive feeling; now it is the most negative feeling. How has it happened? There are some reasons for it.

Whenever people used to feel awe, they also used to feel fear. That is natural, because through awe you come in contact with the unknown, unfamiliar, the strange, the mysterious. You cannot control it, you cannot manipulate, you cannot possess it. Suddenly, something bigger than you, something vaster than you surrounds you, and you are at a loss. Fear arises; you start feeling afraid.

All the old religions describe God as both 'the mysterium' and 'the tremendum' -- mysterium because He is the mystery, a mystery that can never be solved, and tremendum because one feels terrible before Him. These two feelings arise together, but you should pay attention to the first feeling more. Otherwise, the doors of the temple will be closed for you. Emphasize the positivity of it, and learn how to be in the presence of the unknown, how to be in the presence of something that you cannot manipulate, how to be in the presence of something where you have to surrender, where surrender is the only thing that you can do, that can be done -- that's all that's possible.

You should feel blessed; but you must be feeling afraid, hence the question. You must be paying more attention to the negative part, to the shadow part. If you do that, by and by, you will become closed. Then you will not feel awe, and if you cannot feel awe you cannot feel God.

They say philosophy arises out of wonder. It is right, absolutely right. Philosophy arises out of wonder; and religion? -- religion arises out of awe. And what is the difference between wonder and awe?

When you are full of wonder, you try to find a clue; how to dissolve that wonder? You try to think about it, figure out what it is. Wonder creates a question-mark in you, and you start struggling with it -- so philosophy is a fight with wonder. It arises out of wonder, then it tries to dissolve the wonder, to dissolve the inexpressible, the unexplainable, to find an explanation so the wonder can be dropped. Wonder is felt like a dis-ease, a tension. So the philosopher is continuously trying ways and means to be again at ease. He is trying to find some answer so the questions can be dropped, so the mystery is no more a mystery. Philosophy is against wonder.

Religion arises out of awe. Awe is also wonder with one different quality: that is, it does not create a question mark in you. Rather,.it creates deep love, it creates deep gratitude, it creates humbleness. It creates such a state in your consciousness that you would like to bow down before it. It is not a question to be solved, but a deep mystery to be respected. You would like to kneel down and pray. You would not like to think about it because it is so vast; it is impossible to think about it. You would like to pray; you would like to fall into it in deep love.

Wonder becomes awe when it does not create a question-mark in you; awe becomes wonder if it creates a question-mark in you. That's the difference between philosophy and religion, and then the paths go diametrically opposite. A philosopher goes on thinking and thinking, and a religious person goes on dropping thinking.

God enters into you through awe.

"I always yearn to be here, but why, on seeing you, am I filled with awe?"

That's how it should be. If you are not filled with awe, then your coming to me is pointless. If you don't feel like praying, if you don't feel like bowing down, surrendering, then you have not come to me. Physically you may be here; spiritually we exist far apart.

It happens many times: every day I watch many people who yet have a living heart in them start feeling awe, but they start repressing it. It feels as if it is a kind of weakness and you are not to show it. If they want to cry, they stop their tears. They have come with many questions to ask and suddenly those questions are not there -- because in an awful mood, questioning stops. They forget their questions. And they are very worried about where their questions have gone, and they start searching hectically inside to find something to cling to so that awe does not become too overpowering. Sometimes they ask foolish questions, just to ask, so that nobody becomes aware that they have lost their grounding, that they have fallen into something deep, that they have not been strong enough to resist -- but then they miss. Then they come to me, and yet, they come not.

Coming to me, be ready. It is not a question of asking questions. In fact, there is no need. Just being with me, just being close with me...fall in line with me, breathe with me, let your heart beat with me a little while so that you can see through my eyes, so that you can taste a little of that with which I am completely overtaken and possessed.

But fear will arise -- because whenever there is something bigger than your mind, the mind says, "Don't move; there can be danger. You may not be able to come back." And the mind says, "It is almost mad, retain your intelligence, retain your thinking capacity, retain your logic." What are you going to do? And you all have been trained for logic, and nobody has been in any way trained for love. That feeling of awe is simply trying to assert something from your heart that has been repressed by the society, by the forces that are trying to control you, by the mind.

Mind is nothing but society inside you: the priest, the politicians, the power-mad people -- they have become your mind. They are trying to manipulate you from within. When awe arises, you are falling into an infinite ocean, not knowing what will happen next. In that moment you would like to escape, you would like to close your eyes, you would like to somehow control yourself -- because you have always been told that control is a great value. So you go on controlling everywhere, where it is not needed at all, where it is a hindrance to life. Where it is almost a suicide, there too you go on controlling. You cannot trust, because trust means losing your controlling to somebody else's hands. You cannot surrender, you cannot love, you cannot pray. Even people making love cannot surrender; they go on controlling deep down. Hence, the real peak is missed. They learn techniques of how to make love. They can become very efficient lovemakers, but love is missed -- because it has nothing to do with you.

Love happens only when you are not there. Love happens only when you are surrendered to existence. Then there is a great orgasmic experience. Then you reach to the very peak of your being, and you look at existence from the top-most peak of the Himalayas; you look from the GOURISHANKAR. Then a totally different vision arises, and that vision transforms your life.

So when you come to me, be ready to lose control, be ready to lose yourself. That is the whole purpose of coming; otherwise, don't come. Even if you ask something, don't ask out of your knowledge. Your asking should also be out of your love. Your asking should also be how to go deeper in the mystery -- not how to demystify it, not how to explain it, but how to move deeper and deeper into the eternally unexplained -- because that's what God is.

So have a little taste of God with me. Allow me to be a door.

It will be difficult for you to face God directly, the Whole, because it will be too much, too dazzling. You cannot look at the sun directly; it will destroy your eyes. That's the meaning of a Master: he gives you God in quantities that you can bear. He gives you God in homeopathic doses, and he goes on increasing the dosage, by and by. The more you become capable of absorbing, the more he gives to you. One day, when you are ready to face the sun directly, he simply disappears. He is no longer between you and God.

It is just as you start learning swimming: first you learn in shallow water, just on the bank. It's natural, it is intelligible, it is practical. Then as you are becoming more and more capable, you start moving towards the deeper parts of the river. One day you are ready to go into the ocean.

When you come to me, allow me to be there rather than insisting for your own presence. You dissolve; let me be there. You open your doors and windows and allow me to pass through you. Much will happen that way. Nothing is going to happen through your questions because they are nothing of worth -- irritations in the mind. But I always see that whenever people feel full of awe, they start defending themselves. Then they undo the whole purpose. Don't defend. If you defend, then how am I going to help you? -- there is no way. I cannot help you against you; I can help you only with your deep cooperation. If you participate, only then can the journey start.

But many times I have felt it -- many people would like to go on the journey, but when it starts, they start clinging to the place where they are standing. They don't want to lose their ground; but then, how can the journey start? You have to go on losing that which you have to attain that which you don't have.

Jesus has said, "Those who want to follow me, they should deny everything, including themselves. They should deny themselves"...and he is right, but it takes a long time. Between a Master and a disciple, that which can happen right this moment takes much time because the disciple goes on defending in many ways, rationalizing in many ways.

The Bauls say,

Look...

Look for Him in the temple of your limbs;

He is there as the Lord of the world --

speaking, singing in enchanting tunes.

He is an expert at hide-and-seek;

no one can see Him.

Do not try to catch Him, O my heart!

He can never be caught --

you can only hope for Him

in whole faith.

When you are deep in awe -- and if you are courageous enough to remain in it -- soon your consciousness will have a tremendous shift, a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. If you can remain in awe for a few moments without disrupting it, without corrupting it with your thoughts, your defences, your rationalizations; if you can remain purely in it -- not doing anything about it, just being in it -- there will be a turn That's what Christians call conversion. It doesn't mean that a Hindu becomes a Christian; that is foolish. It doesn't mean that a Christian becomes a Hindu.'Conversion' means: a great turning in your consciousness. If you can remain with me for a few moments, just in pure awe -- not corrupting it in any way, not doing anything whatsoever; just being in it, allowing it to be -- there will be a shift, a one-hundred-eighty degree turn, a conversion. Suddenly, I will disappear and you will be face to face with your own being. The God is hiding within you.

Look...

Iook for Him in the temple of your limbs;

He is there as the Lord of the world --

speaking, singing in enchanting tunes.

He is an expert at hide-and-seek;

no one can see Him..

... because the very effort to see Him separates you from Him. The very effort to see Him makes Him an object, and He is not an object; He is your subjectivity. He cannot be reduced to being a thing -- He is not. He is not the sought, He is the seeker. He is your consciousness, your purity of consciousness. He is your inner sky. You cannot see Him because He is hiding within you.

There is a beautiful parable:

When God created the world, He used to live here on this earth, but there was great trouble for Him. He was not even able to sleep, because complaints and complaints. And the whole day He was trying to solve people's problems, and in the night also they were knocking on His door. And there were so many suggestions to improve upon the world that He started becoming almost insane. It looked as if nothing was going right -- millions of advisers -- and He was fed up. If He listened to one man's advice, there were a thousand and one against it. It was very difficult to do anything. He asked His counsellors, His advisers, "What to do?" He said, "I would like to hide somewhere."

Somebody suggested, "Why don't you go to GOURISHANKAR, Everest. Nobody will ever be able to come there; you can make your abode there."

He said, "You don't know the future. Just within few minutes -- for God it is only few minutes, our centuries are seconds for Him -- just within a few minutes, this man Hilary will reach, and then the same trouble will start."

And somebody said, "Why not the moon?"

He said, "That too is only a question of few minutes. Soon, man will be walking on the moon. It will not solve anything. It will at the most postpone a little."

Then one old counsellor came close to Him and told Him something in His ear. And He was very happy, and He said, "Right! This appears to be the perfect solution."

The old man suggested, "You hide in man himself. There he will never find you. And even if he finds, a man who is so wise to find you within himself will not create any trouble for you. Hilarys can create trouble, but Buddhas cannot -- because by the time they find you inside themselves they will be almost like you. They will not have any complaints, they will not have any question. They will be as silent as you are, they will be as deep as you are. By the time they reach you inside themselves, they will have been transformed. The very journey will become a mutation."

God is hiding within you, but you cannot see God there directly because you don't know how to go there.

One method, one way, is of meditation: start dropping your thoughts. One day when there is no thinking, no ripple, and you are a no-mind, you will reach there; the conversion will happen. Another way is of prayer.

The SANNYASIN who has asked is Rama Bharti. Her path is going to be that of prayer and love. That's why she feels so much awe. When she comes close to me, I have seen her almost tremble, as if some unknown breeze is passing through her. I have seen her throbbing with an unknown rhythm. Love is her path. She has to use this quality of awe; it is rare. Very few people have it; it is disappearing from the world.

People have become much too intellectual, much too hung-up in their heads. They have forgotten the language of the heart. Awe is the script, the very script of that language. Feel it, allow it to possess you, be possessed by it. It will lead you to the innermost temple of your own being. There will be a conversion, and in that moment your consciousness will have a great shift. Suddenly, it will not be looking at me, it will start looking at itself. That is the only way to know God.

Baul Mystics

VOL. 1, THE BELOVED

Chapter-2

I am just a midwife