FRIEND, WAKE UP! WHY DO YOU GO ON SLEEPING? THE NIGHT IS OVER -- DO YOU WANT TO LOSE THE DAY THE SAME WAY? OTHER WOMEN WHO MANAGED TO GET UP EARLY HAVE ALREADY FOUND AN ELEPHANT OR A JEWEL.... SO MUCH WAS LOST ALREADY WHILE YOU SLEPT... AND THAT WAS SO UNNECESSARY!

THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU UNDERSTOOD BUT YOU DID NOT. YOU FORGOT TO MAKE A PLACE IN YOUR BED NEXT TO YOU. INSTEAD YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE PLAYING. IN YOUR TWENTIES YOU DID NOT GROW BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW WHO YOUR LORD WAS. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THERE'S NO ONE IN YOUR BED -- HE LEFT YOU DURING THE LONG NIGHT.

Kabir says: THE ONLY WOMAN AWAKE IS THE WOMAN WHO HAS HEARD THE FLUTE!

I PLAYED FOR TEN YEARS WITH THE GIRLS MY OWN AGE BUT NOW I AM SUDDENLY IN FEAR. I AM ON THE WAY UP SOME STAIRS -- THEY ARE HIGH. YET I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY FEARS IF I WANT TO TAKE PART IN THIS LOVE.

I HAVE TO LET GO THE PROTECTIVE CLOTHES AND MEET HIM WITH THE WHOLE LENGTH OF MY BODY. MY EYES WILL HAVE TO BE THE LOVE-CANDLES THIS TIME.

Kabir says: MEN AND WOMEN IN LOVE WILL UNDERSTAND THIS POEM. IF WHAT YOU FEEL FOR THE HOLY ONE IS NOT DESIRE THEN WHAT'S THE USE OF DRESSING WITH SUCH CARE AND SPENDING SO MUCH TIME MAKING YOUR EYELIDS DARK?

FRIEND WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

THIS HAS BEEN THE CALL OF ALL THE BUDDHAS down the centuries. They have been shouting from the housetops. Everybody hears it, but nobody listens. Everybody knows it, but nobody understands. And knowledge is futile -- it is only understanding that liberates. And hearing is of no use -- unless you listen.

Anybody who is not deaf is capable of hearing, but listening is a totally different matter, qualitatively different. It has nothing to do with your ears: it has something to do with your heart. When your ears and your heart are joined together, listening happens. If the heart is not in the ears, you hear, but hearing is not going to help. It will make you more knowledgeable. But to become more knowledgeable is to create more hindrances between you and the Beloved.

Knowledge can never become a bridge, it is always a wall. It divides you from the ultimate, from the immediate, from the whole. It cannot connect you -- only love connects. But love is of the heart; it has nothing to do with the head. Knowledge gathers in the head; memory accumulates it. The ego enjoys it.

Love wells up in the heart. And love is another name for understanding. It is only the eyes of love which can see, and the ears of love which can hear.

Existence is not a problem that can be solved by the head. It is not a riddle to be figured out: it is a poem to be sung, it is a dance to be danced. It is a love affair! Existence is a mystery -- with no solution, because it is not a problem in the first place. It cannot be solved: it has to be lived.

And when the Buddhas call "Wake up! Wake up!" what do they mean? They mean that your heart is asleep. Your head is very awake, but the awakening of the head is in reality a metaphysical sleep. Unless the heart wakes up, you are only dreaming -- dreams and dreams, even dreams that you are awake, dreams of wakefulness, dreams of becoming religious, dreams of becoming saints, holy, but they are all dreams.

People even think about God! It is such an absurdity. People even try to prove God through arguments. God cannot be proved, because anything that can be proved can also be disproved. If God depends on logic, then logic is God, then logic is higher than God. No, God does not depend on logic. In fact, if you are too logical, you will not be able at all to sense the presence of God in existence. And the loss is going to be yours, because not to feel the presence of God in existence is to miss the whole point of life.

And man lives in thoughts, arguments, theories, philosophies. And the danger is that if you talk too much about God and you read too much about God and you discuss too much about God, you may be able to deceive yourself Millions have deceived themselves in this way.

A seminarian, ordained during his last semester, dressed in his black suit, his gleaming white collar, his well-polished shoes, contemplated himself in the mirror. Pleased with what he saw, he decided to deprive the world of his services no longer and went forth to do God's bidding on Ninth Avenue in New York City.

As he stood on the kerb, hands in pockets, wondering what TO do, he was observed by a drunk who seemed unimpressed. Their eyes met and the drunk said, "Sonny, what the hell do you know about God?"

The young man made no reply, went to his room, removed his clerical garb, and wondered what the hell he did know about God.

You can study, you can go to the universities, to theological colleges; you can have degrees in religious philosophy -- and yet you will never know God. That is not the way -- that is the barrier.

God is known through the heart! Let it sink deep into your being: God is only known through the heart. So when the Buddhas say "Wake up!" they mean let your heart be awake. And what is the meaning of the heart being awake? When the head is awake, it thinks, it spins, weaves, beautiful systems of thought. And when the heart is awake, it sings songs of love. It celebrates -- just the sheer joy of being is enough to celebrate. It loves -- the love is unaddressed; the love is not flowing towards a particular object. When the heart is awake, it starts flowing in all directions. It loves the whole, it simply loves -- it is love.

That's what Kabir is going to say to you today. HIS sutras are of immense beauty. Each single word has to be meditated upon. Remember I am not saying 'think upon', I am saying 'meditate'. I am saying: Be silent and still and let his song sink in your heart. Let it stir your heart, let it awaken your sleeping energies of love, joy, bliss.

Religion is a celebration. You cannot be indoctrinated in religion, because religion is not a doctrine at all. It is a very mad love affair.

FRIEND WAKE UP! WHY DO YOU GO ON SLEEPING?

Man is deep asleep. What does his sleep consist of? He is asleep because he has forgotten the route to his heart. He is alert as far as mathematics is concerned; he is fully alert as far as calculation is concerned, he is awake as far as the world is concerned and worldly concerns are concerned -- for money, for power, for prestige, respectability, he is fully awake! He is awake only for the mundane. He is awake only for the meaningless. He collects garbage with great alertness. But he is asleep for the precious, for the sacred. He sees the trees, but he cannot see the green life flowing in them. He sees the mountains, but he cannot feel the beauty and the virgin silence. He sees people, but people look like machines. He cannot feel their souls -- he has not even felt his own soul, how can he feel anybody else's soul? He has not even become aware of who he is.

FRIEND WAKE UP! WHY DO YOU GO ON SLEEPING?

And in this sleep, when the heart is in darkness and the whole light has become focussed on the head, even if you are told the ultimate truths you will misunderstand them. Even if a Buddha tries to wake you up, you will be angry at him. Naturally, obviously! because you will think he is disturbing you. He is disturbing your dreams, not you, but you have invested too much in your dreams. He will say one thing, you will understand another. Either you will go on listening according to your prejudices, choosing -- choosing only those things which can support you -- or you will become very angry, you will crucify, you will poison, you will destroy such a person who comes and unnecessarily disturbs your sleep.

Your sleep is deep. It has been long, long there. You have become accustomed to it -- so much so that the heart goes on sleeping and still you can manage your life. YOU are a sleep-walker, a somnambulist. There are people who walk in their sleep; they can go to the fridge, they can eat something, they can come back to their beds -- and they will not stumble anywhere. And if you wake them up in the middle, they will be very much surprised; they will not be able to figure it out, where they are and what they are doing. They will be shocked.

They move with open eyes, remember; somnambulists move with open eyes. But those open eyes are not really open; they simply manage a few steps. And because they have become accustomed to those few steps, they can be done mechanically; no consciousness is needed. Just watch your life: you are doing a thousand and one things, but all those things are mechanical. You go on doing them like a robot.

And when you talk to robots, it is really very difficult to reach them. They misunderstand.

It seems there were two brothers by the name of Jones. John Jones was married and Jim was the owner of an old dilapidated rowboat. It just so happened that John's wife died on the same day that Jim's boat filled with water and sank. A few days later, a kindly old lady saw Jim on the street, and mistaking him for John said, "Oh, Mr. Jones. I heard about your terrible catastrophe. You must feel heartbroken."

Replied Jim, "Why, I am not a bit sorry. She was a rotten old thing from the start. Her bottom was all chewed up and she smelled like old dead fish. She had a bad crack in back and a pretty bad hole in the front and every time I used her she started leaking all over the place. Oh, I could handle her all right, but when anybody else used her, she would go to pieces. Well, here is what finished her. Four guys came across town looking for a good time and asked me to rent out. I warned them she was not so hot, but they said they wanted to take a crack anyway. Well, the damn fools, all four of them tried to get inside at once and she split right up the middle."

The old woman fainted before he could finish.

That's how it goes on: one thing is said, something else is understood. Communication is very very difficult. Even ordinary communication is difficult, and when a man like Kabir talks it becomes almost impossible -- because he is talking from the sunlit Himalayan tops and you are listening from your dark holes in the valley. By the time it reaches you its colour has changed, its flavour has changed, its meaning is no more the same.

And, obviously, you interpret it according to your own conditionings, your own past. Hence, you hear but you don't listen. You will have to learn how to listen. Listening means being utterly silent, not interpreting, not judging, not evaluating -- neither for nor against -- just being present.

Listen to these words of Kabir, just as a silent presence. Don't be in a hurry to decide whether he is right or wrong. The beauty of listening is that if he is right, you will simply know that he is right. If he is true, truth is self-evident; you will know it as sure as you know when you have a headache -- nobody needs to prove it to you.

All the elephants in Greece were ordered to evacuate the country. Behind the last one was a small mouse. The elephant turned, "Why are you running, my friend?"

"Haven't you heard the decree?" replied the mouse. "Yes, but you are a mouse," the elephant said.

"Ah yes," the mouse sighed, "but if they say I am an elephant, then how will I prove that I am not?"

It is difficult to prove, but there are things which need not be proved -- a mouse knows that he is a mouse. Proof may be difficult. When you listen to the truth, it may be difficult for you to prove that it is true, but YOU WILL KNOW. It will be an inner feeling that it is true, and that feeling is enough, because that feeling simply transports you into another world. It is not a question of your deciding whether it is true or untrue. If you decide, you will miss the whole point, because how are you going to decide? You will decide by your past. And you don't know what truth is! If you had known there would have been no need to listen to the Buddhas -- you would be a Buddha yourself You don't know, so your past has no idea of what truth is. How can your past decide what is what? Put the past aside. Just listen.

And I am not saying believe -- just listening is not synonymous with believing. It has nothing to do with belief or disbelief -- just listening is just listening. You are neither in favour nor disfavour; you are simply open. You allow it inside you.

And let me repeat: the beauty of truth is that when it reaches you, your heart simply jumps in joy. It knows! Truth synchronizes with your heart. It has the same rhythm. Suddenly the heart starts dancing, and that dance is the proof. And if it is not true, the heart will not dance, and then you will know that it is not true. But it is not a question of logical decision, of logical evaluation.

Listen to these words very meditatively:

FRIEND, WAKE UP!

Kabir calls you 'friend' -- that's how all the Buddhas have always felt. The disciple thinks, "Buddha, Krishna, Christ or Kabir, they are Masters and we are disciples." From the disciples' side this is so, but how is it from the Master's side?

The Master knows there is no Master and no disciple. The Master knows that it is a company of friends. The Master is not holier-than-thou; the Master has no superiority complex. The Master is a nobody; the Master is just ordinary, but his ordinariness is luminous. The whole existence is either ordinary or extraordinary -- but the whole. It is not that a few things are ordinary and a few things are extraordinary. For the Master, everything is unique. His reverence for life is infinite.

When a disciple comes and bows down to the Master, deep down the Master is also bowing down to the disciple. His bowing down may not be visible, because he is not visible; his gestures are invisible. The disciple slowly slowly becomes capable of deciphering, slowly slowly capable of decoding -- slowly slowly he understands that the Master loves him, that the Master thinks of him as a friend, as a beloved.

FRIEND WAKE UP! WHY DO YOU GO ON SLEEPING? THE NIGHT IS OVER -- DO YOU WANT TO LOSE THE DAY THE SAME WAY?

THIS IS A VERY STRANGE STATEMENT. To those who know, life is night and death is the day. In life people remain asleep; it is death that wakes them up. In ordinary thinking, life is life and death is the end of life. To the Buddhas, to the awakened ones, death is far more valuable than life, far superior, far more precious, far more significant.Why? Because it is the crescendo of life, the ultimate flowering. If life is the night, then death is the morn.

Kabir says: THE NIGHT IS OVER... you are getting old, time is slipping by. Death is coming closer and closer every moment.

THE NIGHT IS OVER -- DO YOU WANT TO LOSE

THE DAY THE SAME WAY?

You have lost the night; you could not wake up in the night. But it can be forgiven: it was night and you slept. But you cannot be forgiven when death is coming closer -- now it is time to wake up! And if even death cannot wake you up, then what is going to wake you up? And if a person wakes up in death, then for him there is no more any birth, no more any death.

But a person can wake up in death only if he has tried hard to wake up in life, if his whole life has been a consistent effort to find a center in his being, a persistent effort to know "Who am I? Only then is it possible that when death comes... and death is a great shock! It shatters all that you have made. It takes away all that you have been clinging to; it dispossesses you of all your possessions. It simply leaves you utterly naked and alone. If death cannot wake you up, then you are not simply asleep -- you are in a coma. And that's how people are.

Every day millions of people die. They lived in darkness. they die in darkness. They lived dreaming, they die dreaming. They lived in a stupid way, they die in a stupid way. They miss all opportunities.

And three are the great opportunities in life. The first is birth. Only once in a while is a man so intelligent that he uses that opportunity -- only very rarely. Maybe a Lao Tzu -- hence the story.

It is said Lao Tzu lived in his mother's womb for eighty-two years. Now this is nonsense, but it has some truth in it. It is not factual, but it has some truth in it. And that is the difference between the Western way of thinking and the Eastern. If you tell such a story to the Western mind, he simply says, "This cannot be. How can a person live for eighty-two years in the mother's womb? And what will happen to the mother? Eighty-two years? This is not believable; this cannot be historical."

The Western mind immediately asks about the facticity of the phenomenon -- but it is a parable! It has nothing to do with facts; it certainly has something to do with truth. And truth can only be expressed through parables; there is no other way to express truth. Truth can only be expressed through metaphors, through poetry, not through history. It is poetry, pure poetry, and of tremendous power.

It means that when Lao Tm was born he was already so mature, so ripe, that he used his first opportunity to wake up. Ordinarily it takes eighty-two years for a person to wake up, and even then, how many people wake up? People wake up at the time of death, but how many? -- that too is very rare.

Lao Tzu must have been of immense intelligence, must have carried the intelligence from his past lives -- maybe just a little bit was missing, just the last straw on the camel. He used the opportunity. The first opportunity is birth. It is as important as death. It is a death in a way, because the child in the mother's womb lives in one way, one kind of life, and then is simply thrown out, expelled. He wants to cling to his home where he has lived for nine months, and so peacefully, so silently, without any worry, without any responsibility, in such warmth.... He clings to the womb, he does not want to go out. He feels it as a death, and it is natural -- because what does he know about what is going to happen? One thing is certain: his home is being shattered; he is being thrown out of all his comfort and security. He knows he is dying! Hence the birth trauma -- because the birth enters into the child's consciousness as death. He dies and is reborn.

Lao Tzu used his first opportunity. And the same is the case with Zarathustra, another beautiful story.

It is said that Zarathustra is the only child in the whole history of man who laughed when he was born. Children cry, they don't laugh -- and Zarathustra laughed -- must have shocked his mother and... a real belly-laughter. He must have used the first opportunity.

These two names are known TO have used the first opportunity. The first shock, and they became awakened.

The second opportunity in life is love. A few people have become awakened through love. And the second opportunity is available to more people than the first or the third -- because birth is almost unconscious and so is death, but love can bring a little consciousness to your heart.

Hence my insistence on love -- and Kabir's insistence is also on love, because this is the opportunity many many people can use and become awake. If you love, you will have to drop your ego -- and that will be the death, the death of the ego. If you love you will have to learn how to melt, merge, disappear. If you love you will have to know that there is much more to life than logic, calculation... there is much more to life than having money, more possessions, power.

If you love, you will have a glimpse of the divine. And if you go deep in love, you will start entering into the temple of God -- that is the second opportunity. The society has destroyed it.

The first opportunity is very rare, but the second opportunity could have been available to almost everybody -- that has been destroyed by the society. Your love has been contaminated. You have been brought up in fear, not in love. You have been brought up to fight, not to love. You have been brought up as if the whole existence is your enemy, not your friend -- how can you love? Love has been made impossible by the society.

The only possibility of people turning to religion, the only possibility of revolution in people's lives, has been destroyed by the society. Society is so much afraid of love that it is not afraid of anything else like it is of love. Love is the most potential and dangerous thing for your so-called society, because love will wake up people, love will stir people's hearts. And they will start living through the heart, and they won't listen to the head. And if they don't listen to the head then the society will be at a loss; it will be impossible to dominate people who live through the heart. Only the head can be dominated only heads can be reduced to slaves. The heart is always the king, the master.

And the third opportunity is death -- the last. If you have missed birth, if you have missed love, don't miss death. At least the last chance should not be missed. Kabir says:

THE NIGHT IS OVER -- DO YOU WANT TO LOSE THE DAY THE SAME WAY? OTHER WOMEN WHO MANAGED TO GET UP EARLY HAVE ALREADY FIND AN ELEPHANT OR A JEWEL.... SO MUCH WAS LOST ALREADY WHILE YOU SLEPT... AND THAT WAS SO UNNECESSARY!

ONE THING OF TREMENDOUS IMPORTANCE TO BE remembered, because Kabir will repeat it again and again: he calls the seeker 'the woman' -- and that has been my effort too. I go on telling my sannyasins "Be feminine!" because to be feminine means to be receptive, to be open, to be loving. To be feminine means to be non-aggressive -- and you cannot conquer God! Aggression won't help. You cannot attack the citadel of God. All that can be done is that you can be a feminine welcome. You can invite, you cannot attack. You can absorb: you cannot possess. You can allow God to enter in you. YOU can be pregnant with God -- that's the only way.

Kabir says: OTHER WOMEN... You will be surprised -- why is he talking about women?

OTHER WOMEN WHO MANAGED TO GET UP EARLY HAVE ALREADY FOUND AN ELEPHANT OR A JEWEL.... He says: The impossible has happened -- they have found something which makes life meaningful, something which gives life the colour of a rainbow and the dance of a peacock and the song of a cuckoo. OTHER WOMEN WHO HAVE MANAGED TO GET UP EARLY... Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed. Mahavira -- these are the other women. Don't be offended by it!

Friedrich Nietzsche condemned Buddha and Christ as feminine. His insight was right, but he was using it as a condemnation, as a criticism, because his idea of beauty was that of masculine power, muscular power. His idea of beauty was not that of feminine roundness, softness. His idea of the right person was that of a brave soldier, ready to attack.

He said, "The most beautiful experience of my life was when I saw an army moving and the sun shining and the sound of their boots, the music, the melody of their boots, and their guns shining in the sun. That was the most beautiful experienCe of my life.

He did not talk about a sunrise or a sunset, or the starry night, or a roseflower, or a beautiful woman -- no. Soldiers walking in step, and the sound of their boots and their guns shining in the sun. Of course, he created the philosophic background for Adolf Hitler to follow. Just as Karl Marx created communism, Friedrich Nietzsche, knowingly or unknowingly, created fascism; he was the father of the fascist mind. Of course he was against Buddha, against Christ, because Christ says: Love is God. And Christ says: If somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other too. And Christ says: Love your enemies as yourself And Buddha says continuously: Be rooted in the heart, forget the head. Move to the center of your being; the head is just the periphery. And if you see a statue of Buddha, it looks feminine, it has a feminine beauty.

I tell each of my sannyasins -- man or woman, it doesn't matter -- one has to be spiritually feminine, only then can God be received. You have to be a host, only then can the guest come to you.

But the problem is that down the ages the crowd has been telling you just the opposite. It makes you aggressive, violent, competitive. It takes away all that is soft in you. And now the women's liberation movement is there, which is even destroying the softness of women too. The women's liberation movement is not really a liberation movement. It is in fact just the opposite: it is trying to imitate man, to become as hard as men are, to do whatsoever men are doing.

And remember one thing: if women try to imitate men they will always be carbon copies; they will not attain to their fulfillment, they will not attain the full potential. And they will always remain lagging behind. And they will become ugly too! The real liberation movement has not started yet. The real liberation movement will insist that the woman has to be more and more feminine, that she has to be rooted in HER nature, that she is not to follow men in retaliation, in reaction, in rebellion -- that is stupid. No reaction ever helps.

The woman has to be herself. And not only that: the woman has to be herself and she has to help man to become a little more feminine. Not only does the woman have to be liberated from men, the man has also to be liberated from men. There is a great need for a men's liberation movement -- not liberation from women, but liberation from all the nonsense that has been taught to him down the ages: Be hard! Be steel! Don't bend! Break but don't bend! Man has been taught to be hard like a rock -- man has missed much.

And now women are following in the same tracks. It is a dangerous situation. If the woman also follows the man, she will be a second-rate citizen, she will never be equal to man.

And not only that: if she follows man and becomes hard, as lib women ARE becoming -- their faces are becoming hard, their bodies are losing roundness, softness, vulnerability, they are becoming more and more angry and less and less loving -- the danger is that that will be the end of the whole of humanity, if it happens.

The only hope for humanity is in the quality of feminineness -- the only hope. The hope is not with Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini: the hope is with Buddha, Chaitanya, Meera -- with a totally different kind of people. And we have to turn men and women BOTH into a kind of feminine lovingness.

That's what Kabir means, but you have been taught something else -- and we have learnt the lesson. And when it is told by everybody, the whole crowd goes on teaching you the same thing again and again, the whole crowd goes on singing a chorus... and down the ages. And you want to satisfy everybody -- your father, your friends, your priests, your politicians -- you are trying to satisfy everybody, and in satisfying everybody you are destroying your own soul.

I have heard:

Even in biblical times they knew that too much good advice can produce bad results.

Remember the ancient story of the old, old man in the Holy Land trudging barefoot down a dusty, rocky path? The rocks were sharp and they made his feet bleed, and by his side trudged a small boy with torn sandals, and the sharp rocks cut into his feet too and made them bleed. And behind them ambled a strong, healthy donkey.

They came to a group of travellers resting beside the road. "Look at that," said the travellers, "that poor old man with his bleeding feet while that fat, indolent donkey carries no one on his back."

So the old man shrugged and climbed up on the donkey to continue his journey. In a mile or so, another group of travellers resting by the roadside looked up and said, "For shame, that grown man riding on the donkey while the poor little boy has his feet cut and bleeding by the sharp stones of the road."

Once again, the old man shrugged, got off the donkey and put the young boy up in his place.

A third group of travellers had still more advice to give. "Look at that fat healthy donkey with that small boy his only burden. He should carry both the boy and the man."

Again the old man followed advice and climbed on the donkey behind the boy. Within a few miles they came to a rickety bridge over a fast-flowing river, and with both man and boy on the donkey's tired back, they started over the bridge.

In the very middle, the bridge gave way to the combined weight -- and man and boy and donkey plunged into the raging current.

Thanks to their ride, the man and the boy were rested and managed to swim to shore. But the tired, weary, overburdened donkey was drowned. And it only proves one thing: if you take advice from everyone... you will only end up losing your ass.

If you object to any of the language in that story, don't blame me... that is the way they talked in biblical times.

You have been listening to good advice from every nook and corner. Everybody is giving you ROTTEN traditional ideas. Everybody is conditioning you, hypnotizing you. And because the crowd is big and you are alone, unless you bring your energies together you will not be able to get rid of this prison -- the prison of the crowd. Unless you sharpen your intelligence a little more, unless you start meditating a little more, you will not be able to break the chains that the society goes on putting on you.

And they go on telling you it is just for your welfare. They are destroying you, but they go on saying, "We are serving you." And the strangest thing is that you also think that they are well-wishers -- they think they are well-wishers, you think they are well-wishers, and just look at humanity! So dull, so dead, so ugly... something has to be done urgently, something has to be done very urgently.

And the most important thing will be to bring a little more femininity, a more soft heart to human beings -- men and women both. A little more liquidity. You need not be like rocks: please be like water. Lao Tzu says that his path is that of the watercourse way -- liquid, fragile, feminine, non-resisting, flowing, dynamic

OTHER WOMEN WHO MANAGED TO GET UP EARLY HAVE ALREADY FOUND AN ELEPHANT OR A JEWEL.... SO MUCH WAS LOST ALREADY WHILE YOU SLEPT... AND THAT WAS SO UNNECESSARY!

THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU UNDERSTOOD, BUT YOU DID NOT.

EXISTENCE IS ALWAYS COMPASSIONATE towards you -- it is bound to be so. It has created you. The painter loves his painting, the poet loves his poetry -- existence loves you. Existence goes on creating people. Unless there is great love in the very center of existence, life will disappear. Who will sustain you? Who goes on breathing in you? It is a mystery! Who goes on circulating in your blood? -- it is a mystery. Who beats in your heart? -- it is a mystery. Who is alert and aware in you? -- it is a mystery.

But one thing is certain, absolutely certain, call it God or call it existence -- the whole loves you. And the whole goes on showering with grace and gifts, and each moment it is pouring on you. If you remain a beggar, only you are responsible, nobody else. Existence would like you to be an emperor.

THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU UNDERSTOOD, BUT YOU DID NOT.

Existence understands you, but you don't understand existence. And sometimes when you come to a man who has understood existence -- that's what enlightenment is all about -- he also loves you, but you will not understand him either. You have lost the capacity to trust, because trust comes only as a shadow of love. If love is missing, trust will be missed.

You live in thoughts, and thoughts create doubt. Thoughts are based in doubt -- the greater the thinker, the more and more he has to enter into doubt.

Here, being with mc, you are not to be great thinkers, because the thinkers miss all. They only live in their thoughts, and thoughts are castles in the air. Nothing about those thoughts is existential; they can spin and weave beautiful systems, but they are all useless -- you cannot live in them. And they dissipate your energy.

Be lovers, not thinkers! If you truly want to be religious, be lovers not thinkers. And the heart has its own reasons that reason knows not. Once you have started moving into the world of love, you will be surprised that a new phenomenon starts arising in you: the phenomenon of trust -- SHRADDHA. And that is the greatest experience in life: to trust -- because the man who trusts transforms not himself, but transforms his whole world. He starts living in a totally different world.

Doubt, and you are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Trust, and you are received back, welcomed back -- you are home again.

The man fell over a cliff and in the last moment was able to get hold of a branch that was sticking out of the wall. He heard voices above and shouted for help, "God, help me! Is there anyone up there?"

The answer came, in a deep voice, "My son, relax, let go of the branch."

The man could hardly believe what he had heard and yelled, Is there anyone else up there?"

Even if God responds to you, you will not understand. You cannot relax because you cannot trust. The modern man suffers from great anxiety; it has never been so -- man has never suffered so much from anxiety. Why is there so much anxiety? Amidst so much scientific, technological growth, amidst so much affluence, why does man suffer, why is man in so much anxiety? One thing has disappeared from his heart: trust is no more there, only doubt... doubt and doubt. You are surrounded by doubts, a thousand and one doubts. They are like ghosts torturing you. Your life has become a nightmare.

But remember again: nobody is responsible except you. You can be surrounded by trust, by the milieu of trust, by a climate of trust. And when the climate of trust is there, the spring has come -- you start blossoming, for the first time you start releasing your fragrance. Flowers burst forth, life becomes a celebration.

THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU UNDERSTOOD, BUT YOU DID NOT. YOU FORGOT TO MAKE A PLACE IN YOUR BED NEXT TO YOU. Listen to the words of Kabir: he is talking in the language of love. God has not to be worshipped but loved -- prepare a place for him in your bed.

YOU FORGOT TO MAKE A PLACE IN YOUR BED NEXT TO YOU. INSTEAD YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE PLAYING.

Playing with toys -- money, power, prestige -- ALL toys. And all is vain, because death will take everything away. And you KNOW it! And still you go on clinging, because the idea in your head is: anything is better than nothing. You will have to change it -- you will have to change it diametrically. You will have to learn: nothing is better than anything -- because it is in nothing, in nothingness, in emptiness, in silence, that you become a womb so that God can descend in you.

IN YOUR TWENTIES YOU DID NOT GROW BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW WHO YOUR LORD WAS.

YOU HAVE LOST YOUR YOUTH, which was the MOST precious time. Birth is missed, but it can be forgiven; love missed cannot be forgiven. You wasted your youth on playthings -- you did not really love. Your love never became prayer; your love never attained the glories that it contains in it -- your love remained lust, your love remained a very mundane passion. Your love remained sexual: it never became spiritual.

And love has two aspects: one is sexual, the other is spiritual. And unless love becomes spiritual, it keeps you in the mud; you cannot fly in the sky, you cannot have wings.

And remember: sexual love does not contain spiritual love, but spiritual love CAN contain sexual love -- but then it changes the quality of the sexual love too. This is one of the fundamental laws: the higher contains the lower, but the lower does not contain the higher. So don't be worried and afraid that if you rise higher in your love the joys of your sex will disappear -- no -- they will become intenser, more orgasmic. They will become more deep, more satisfying, more penetrating, and they will have a quality which is not of this world. Your orgasms will not be simply sexual -- they will have the quality of meditativeness in them. Time will disappear and ego will disappear, and for a few moments you will be in God. Your beloved will disappear, you will disappear... the twoness will disappear and there will be oneness, and you will feel an orgasmic oneness with the whole.

Kabir says:

IN YOUR TWENTIES YOU DID NOT GROW...

Very few people grow up. People simply grow old, but they never grow up. And growing old is not growing up.

... BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW WHO YOUR LORD WAS.

When you fall in love with a woman do you think you are falling in love with a woman? If you ask Kabir or if you ask me I will tell you you are not falling in love with a woman -- nobody has ever fallen in love with a woman or with a man: you have had a glimpse of the God in the woman... you have fallen in love with that glimpse.

One ALWAYS falls in love with God. When the rose flower opens up its petals in the morning, fresh with the morning dew, dancing in the morning wind, just joyous with the sun, and you fall in love, do you think you are falling in love with the chemistry of the rose? -- no -- but with the soul. You don't fall in love with the chemistry of a man or a woman, you don't fall in love with the biology -- you fall in love with something invisible, intangible. You may not know it! -- and that is your misery. If you knew it then each love would be prayer, then each love would bring you closer and closer to God, then your gestalt would be different, then your love would not be so much rooted in the earth -- it would have wings, it would have the capacity to fly.

Kabir says, You missed, you could not grow:

... BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KNOW WHO YOUR LORD WAS.

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THERE IS NO ONE IN YOUR BED --

HE LEFT YOU DURING THE LONG NIGHT.

And this happens again and again: you fall in love with a man or a woman and soon everything disappears, the Lord is gone -- because you never paid any attention to the Lord. You became too much focussed on the physical, hence the spiritual disappears. Almost always by the time the honeymoon is over, love is finished -- by that time the Lord is gone. Then only two physical bodies...

Two physical bodies can have a few sexual contacts, but no sexual contact can ever be satisfying, fulfilling. It brings more and more frustration. All sexual experiences end in frustration; in the wake comes great frustration, a kind of hopelessness. And the reason is that you paid attention to the wrong side, you became too much interested in the physical and you did not pay enough respect to the spiritual.

If you focus on the spiritual, by and by the physical becomes secondary. And then the honeymoon is the beginning of a great love affair. It doesn't end with the honeymoon; in fact, it only starts after the honeymoon is over. Then it is a totally different phenomenon. Intimacy goes on growing and growing. Sexuality becomes less and less; intimacy becomes more and more, deeper and deeper.

And soon you find the beloved is not just the woman: the beloved is the ultimate Beloved. And then there is great reverence for the other. And then love gives freedom, and then love does not possess; then love has no violence in it. Then love is sacred, holy.

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THERE IS NO ONE IN YOUR BED -- HE LEFT YOU DURING THE LONG NIGHT.

But you go on making love, and the lover is gone! You are making love to a corpse when the love is gone. When the Lord has disappeared, when you no longer see in the eyes of your woman or man the presence of God, you are making love to a corpse. How can it give you contentment? And how can it help you to soar high.

Yes, in some moments you imagine, in some moments the nostalgia of the past... those beautiful days which are just like dreams now; in fact it is unbelievable that they ever happened. But people are living in imagination, not in reality. If you live in reality, God is everywhere. If you live in imagination, then you are living in a loneliness, there is no God -- the world is empty, then the world has no meaning, then the world is just a nightmare.

The priest, the parson and the rabbi were walking down the street together in New York when they came upon a grubby urchin sitting on the kerb, playing with himself.

The priest was outraged and went over to the kid and asked, "How can a child of decent Catholic parents behave in such an unspeakable fashion?"

Without missing a stroke, the youngster retorted, "Push off! I am not Catholic, and anyway I am not doing what YOU think I am doing."

Speechless, the priest retreated to his companions. The parson took it upon himself to remonstrate with the boy. How can you behave so sinfully after everything you have been taught in chapel?"

"Push off!" said the kid. "I am not Protestant, and anyway I am not doing what you think I am doing." With his tail between his legs, the parson rejoined the other two clergymen.

"This is outrageous," said the rabbi. Striding over to the urchin, he thundered, "Little boy, little boy, you have been raised in accordance with the law of your forefathers and of their forefathers before them. How dare you behave in such an unspeakably vile manner?"

"Aw, push off and leave me alone," the boy responded. "I am not Jewish and anyway I am not doing what you think I am doing."

"In that case," demanded the rabbi, WHO do you think you are and what do you think you are doing?"

"Well, if you must know," said the child, "I am a Christian Scientist and I am making love with my girlfriend in Poona."

From New York... Christian Scientists can do such things, because they think the whole world is nothing but thought. The world is not thought, and if you live in thoughts you will miss the reality of the world. Come out of your thoughts -- that's what Kabir means when he says: Wake up! Wake up!

Move from the head to the heart. A heart wakefulness is needed. Don't live in imagination. Don't live in thoughts! Live in silence -- and only the heart knows how to be still, because in the heart there are no thoughts. Thoughts cannot penetrate into that innermost shrine. No noise ever penetrates there; it is absolute silence, it is virgin silence.

Move into the heart, and suddenly you will see yourself waking up in a totally different kind of waking that you have not known ever before. Your whole life will become full of light and full of life and full of love, and full of energy. And wherever energy is there is delight. Overflowing energy is delight.

Kabir says: THE ONLY WOMAN AWAKE IS THE WOMAN WHO HAS HEARD THE FLUTE!

AND ONLY IN THE HEART, in the deepest recesses of your heart, will you hear the flute of Krishna. This is just a metaphor: you will hear the music, the celestial music of existence, what Zen people call the sound of one hand clapping, what other mystics have called the soundless sound, what in India the Upanishadic seers have called Omkar -- the sound of Aum. Kabir calls it 'the flute' -- the flute of Krishna.

THE ONLY WOMAN... Remember, again he uses the word 'woman'.

THE ONLY WOMAN AWAKE IS THE WOMAN WHO HAS HEARD THE FLUTE! And unless you have heard the flute, don't rest. Go on searching and seeking inwards. A moment comes when you hear the flute, when suddenly a celestial music bursts forth in you. You will be bathed in a totally new experience -- the experience of deathlessness, the experience of timelessness; not the experience that God is present, but the experience that "I am part of God, God is part of me -- I am God -- AHAM BRAHMASMI! ANA'L HAQ! -- I am truth!"

Jesus says: "I am truth! I am the door, I am the way." About whom is he talking? Is he talking about the son of Joseph the carpenter? No. He is talking about the innermost core of your being which is immortal -- he is talking about the flute that he has heard, he is talking about the one hand clapping, creating sound. He is talking about the cosmic sound, the cosmic melody.

THE ONLY WOMAN AWAKE IS THE WOMAN WHO HAS HEARD THE FLUTE!

Remember, till you have heard the flute you are asleep, till you have started feeling God everywhere you are asleep. The only criterion to judge whether you are awake or asleep is this: Do you see the world as matter? -- then you are asleep. Do you see the world as divine? I am not saying: Do you believe? I am saying: Do you see, experience the world as divine? -- then you are awake.

I PLAYED TOR TEN YEARS WITH THE GIRLS MY OWN AGE BUT NOW I AM SUDDENLY IN FEAR.

Kabir says: I have been playing with the same kind of seekers.

I PLAYED TOR TEN YEARS WITH THE GIRLS MY OWN AGE...

Remember, again he use the word 'girls'. He was moving with seekers, searchers, he was sitting in satsang, singing songs of God, dancing, meditating.

I PLAYED FOR TEN YEARS WITH THE GIRLS MY OWN AGE BUT NOW I AM SUDDENLY IN FEAR.

But when you really start approaching closer to the heart, a great fear grips you. Hence, whenever a sannyasin comes to me and says, "I am very much afraid of you," I always say this is a good sign. It simply means the head is losing its grip on you and the heart is coming closer. The fear arises because the head says, "Now, you are falling in danger. Who will protect you? I was protecting you. Who will guard you? I was guarding you. Who will keep you on the right track? Now you are moving into the madness of the heart, you are going beyond me -- I will not be of any help. And you have depended on me up to now. I have been your security, your safety."

Hence, the fear arises.

I AM ON THE WAY UP SOME STAIRS...

Kabir says: Now, some doors are opening -- some stairs I can see going upwards.

... THEY ARE HIGH.

And they are high -- higher than me. I will have to surpass myself, hence the fear. I will have to transcend myself, I will have to drop the ego and go without the ego, and I will have to drop the whole baggage of the mind and go unburdened -- hence the fear.

YET I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY FEARS IF I WANT TO TAKE PART IN THIS LOVE. One has to give up one's fears if one wants to live in love, because it is the SAME energy that becomes fear and that becomes love. If you live in fear, your energy will remain involved, occupied, vested in fear. Drop the fears. Risk... and suddenly the same energy that was contained in the fear is released and becomes a flower of love.

YET I HAVE TO GIVE UP MY F EARS IF I WANT TO TAKE PART IN THIS LOVE.

I HAVE TO LET GO THE PROTECTIVE CLOTHES...

... all the defence measures, all the armours that you are carrying around yourself. One has to be in utter trust. One has to be ready to die -- even if existence kills, it is okay. Only then will you be able to drop your armour. And everybody is carrying a great armour around himself. We are carrying our prisons around ourselves; they are transparent prisons, but you know they are there.

If you want to reach somebody, suddenly there is a glass wall and you cannot reach. People come close, but not really close, because those two walls won't allow. Only walls clash. Hence, all lovers are in conflict -- it should not be so. Lovers should be in deep harmony, but they are in conflict because those walls don't allow you to be in harmony. Each is living in his fear and pretending to be loving -- that love is false, it is a mask.

I HAVE TO LET GO THE PROTECTIVE CLOTHES AND MEET HIM WITH THE WHOLE LENGTH OF MY BODY.

You have to face love utterly naked, absolutely vulnerable.

MY EYES WILL HAVE TO BE THE LOVE-CANDLES THIS TIME.

Enough time is wasted, so many lives wasted. Let your eyes be love-candles this time.

Kabir says: MEN AND WOMEN IN LOVE WILL UNDERSTAND THIS POEM.

This poem will not be understood by the scholars, by the pundits, by the so-called learned people. This poem can be understood only by a loving heart. This poem will be understood by you, my people, because my basic message is love. Love and love and nothing else... because love is enough unto itself.

Kabir says: MEN AND WOMEN IN LOVE WILL UNDERSTAND THIS POEM.

Nobody else will understand it.

IF WHAT YOU FEEL FOR THE HOLY ONE IS NOT DESIRE THEN WHAT IS THE USE OF DRESSING WITH SUCH CARE AND SPENDING SO MUCH TIME MAKING YOUR EYELIDS DARK?

PEOPLE GO TO THE TEMPLES, and the mosques, and the Churches and the gurudwaras -- for what? And you are not in love with God! It is so stupid. You need not waste your time in the temples and the churches if you are not in love. Then why go on...

... DRESSING WITH SUCH CARE AND SPENDING SO MUCH TIME MAKING YOUR EYELIDS DARK?

If you are NOT in love, then why go on doing these empty rituals? Do something else! Do something else that you love. Don't waste your time in the name of religion, because religion is possible only if you are in love. In a deep, intense love, only then is your prayer true. And then whatsoever you say has a sacred quality to it. You need not go to the temples then -- wherever you sit will be the temple. You need not do rituals: worshipping God with flowers and candles and this and that -- whatsoever you do will be your prayer.

Kabir says in another poem: I don't go to the temple, because wherever I sit I find him present all around me. He cannot be in the temples more -- he is not more and less and where: he is exactly the same everywhere.

Kabir says: I don't go with special food to offer to God -- when I eat, that is my offering to God. See the beauty of his statement. He says: When I eat, that is my offering to him -- because HE is inside me. Why should I go to a stone statue which cannot eat at all. If I have more food, I invite friends And when they eat, I know he has accepted my offerings.

Religion is not ritual, religion has nothing to do with formalities -- with Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. Religion is an individual love affair. Be in love with people, be in love with the world, be in love with trees and birds and animals and stars -- BE IN LOVE! And slowly slowly, your love will bun candles in your eyes and you will be able to see him.

He is present, but you are blind. He is playing on his flute, but you are deaf.