The fourth question:

Question 4

MANY PEOPLE FEEL QUITE HOPELESS ABOUT LOVE. IS THERE NOT ANOTHER WAY TO REACH PRAYER?

No. If you feel quite hopeless about love, you should have to feel absolutely hopeless about prayer, because prayer is nothing but the very essence of love. Love is like a flower and prayer is like a fragrance. If you cannot attain to the flower, how can you attain to the fragrance? Nobody can bypass love. And nobody should try, because there awaits failure and nothing else.

Why you are so hopeless about love? The same problem will come with prayer because prayer means love with the whole, the cosmos. So go deeper in the problem of love, and solve it before you think about prayer. Otherwise your prayer will be false; it will be a deception. Of course only you are deceived, nobody else. There is no God listening to your prayer. Unless your prayer is love, the whole will remain deaf. It cannot open in any other way -- love is the key.

So what is the problem? Why one feels so hopeless about love? Too much ego will not allow you to love anybody. Too much egocentric, too much selfish, self-oriented, self-obsessed -- then love will not be possible because one has to bend a little, and one has to lose one's territory a little. One has to surrender a little in love. Howsoever little, but one has to surrender a part. And in certain moments one has to surrender completely.

To surrender to the other is the problem. You would like the other to surrender to you, but the other is also in the same plight. Two egos when they meet, try that the other should surrender, and both are trying the same. Love becomes a hopeless thing.

Love is not to force the other to surrender to you. It is hate that forces the other to surrender to you: that is the nature of hate, because to force the other to surrender to you is to destroy the other. It is a sort of murder. Love is to surrender yourself to the other not because you are forced to surrender, no; it is a voluntary thing -- you simply enjoy it -- not that you are forced. Never surrender to anybody who is forcing you to surrender, because that will be suicide. Never surrender to anybody who is manipulating you, because that will be slavery, not love. Surrender on your own, and the quality immediately changes.

When you surrender on your own it is a gift, gift of the heart. And when you surrender on your own, voluntarily, simply you give yourself to the other; something for the first time opens in your heart. For the first time you have the glimpse of love. You have only heard the word, you don't know what it means. Love is one of those words everybody uses and nobody knows what it means.

There are a few words, like "prayer", "love", "God", "meditation": these words you can use, but you don't know what is their meaning because their meaning is not in the dictionary. Otherwise, you can consult a dictionary; that is not difficult. Their meaning is in a certain way of life. Their meaning is in a certain transformation within you. Their meaning is not linguistic; their meaning is existential. Unless you know by experience, you don't know -- and there is no other way to know it. When you surrender on your own, unconditionally... because if there is any condition it is not a surrender at all; then it is a bargain. Even if this condition is there, that "I will surrender to you if you surrender to me," then too it is not a surrender. It may be business, bargain, but not surrender.

Surrender doesn't belong to the market. It is not part of the economics at all. Surrender means unconditional: "I surrender because I enjoy; I surrender because it is so beautiful, I surrender because in surrendering, suddenly my misery disappears." When you surrender, the misery disappears because the misery is the shadow of the ego. When you surrender, the ego is not there. How the misery can exist? That's why love is so happy.

Whenever somebody is in love, suddenly, as if spring has come within the heart, the birds have started singing which were silent and you have never heard them. And suddenly everything within has bloomed and you are full of a fragrance which doesn't belong to this earth. Love is the only ray on this earth which belongs to the beyond.

So you cannot avoid love and reach to prayer, because love is the beginning of the prayer. It is as if you are asking, "Can we avoid the beginning and reach the end?" It is not possible. It has never happened and never will happen.

What is the problem in love? First, you cannot surrender. If you cannot surrender in love, how you will surrender in prayer? -- because prayer demands total surrender. Love is not so demanding. Love demands, but even a partial surrender will do. Even if you can surrender part, even if you can surrender sometimes, that will also do. Even for few seconds you can surrender -- in those few seconds a door will open and you will have a glimpse of the other world. Love is not so demanding. And if you cannot fulfill the demands of love how you will fulfill the demands of prayer? Prayer is absolutely demanding. It will not accept you if you surrender part. It will not accept you if you surrender sometimes and sometimes not. Prayer is very much demanding. One has to go through love. If you ask me, love is a school for prayer -- the training, the discipline, getting ready for the higher jump. I am absolutely for love.

People have tried: what you are asking, people have tried through the centuries. People who couldn't love tried to pray. All the monasteries are full of those people  -- failures in love, feeling hopeless in love, they thought they could at least try towards prayer. But if you are a failure in love, how can you pray? In the monasteries, thousands of people all over the world are doing their prayer, but they don't know what love is. Then prayer becomes just verbal chattering. Then they simply from the head go on talking to God. With God, communication is of the heart. With God, you cannot talk through the head because the God doesn't know any language that your head knows. He knows only one language, and that is love.

That's why Jesus says, "Love is God," because love is the only way to reach him, and love is the only language he understands. If you speak in English, he will not understand. If you speak in German, absolutely not... no language of the earth.

Why I say, "If you speak German, absolutely not"? -- because German is more male-oriented language. The Germans call their country "fatherland". The whole world calls their country "motherland". The more male-oriented a language, the less God can understand it. In fact, God understands the feminine mind more than the male mind, because feminine mind is nearer the heart than the male mind. Poetry he understands more than prose. In fact, he understands emotions more than thoughts. He understands tears more, smiles more than concepts. If you can weep wholeheartedly, he will understand. If you can dance he will understand. But if you go on talking in words, they are just being thrown into emptiness -- nobody understands.

God understands silence, and love is very silent. In fact, whenever two persons are in love, they would like to sit silently together. When the love disappears, then only language comes in. Husbands and wives continuously talk because love has disappeared; the bridge is no more there. Somehow they create a bridge of language. They talk about anything -- rumors, gossips -- because they cannot tolerate silence. Whenever they are silent, suddenly they are alone. The wife is not there, the husband is not there -- there exists a vast gap. Through language they deceive that the gap is not there. In deep love, people are silent. There is no need to talk. They understand without talking to each other. They can hold each other's hands and sit silently. Prayer is also silent, but if you have never been silent in love, how you will be silent in prayer? It is a silence between you and the whole.

Love is silence between two persons; prayer is silence between one person and the whole. That whole is God. Love is a training; it is a school. I will never suggest you to avoid it. If you avoid it, you will never reach prayer. And while you will pray you will talk too much, but the heart will not be able to communicate, to commune. So howsoever hard the lesson, howsoever difficult to break the ice... but don't try to avoid love. Prayer is not an escape from love; don't make it an escape -- many have done that and failed. You can go to the monasteries anywhere in the world and look at those fools who have failed, failed because they tried to avoid love.

One has to go through love, otherwise you will remain angry at life. How you will be able to pray? You will remain in deep rejection of life. How will you accept and pray? You will remain a condemner; acceptance will not be possible. In love, for the first time you accept. In love, for the first time you understand that meaning is there and life is meaningful. In love, for the first time you feel that you are at home in the world, not a stranger, not an outsider. In love, for the first time a small home is created. In love, for the first time you feel peace and somebody loves you and somebody feels happy with you; for the first time you accept yourself also. Otherwise, how will you accept yourself? In life, from the very childhood you have been trained to condemn yourself, to reject. "Don't do this, don't be like that" -- and everybody is preaching at you and everybody is trying that you are absolutely wrong and you have to improve yourself.

It happened: Mulla Nasruddin's wife was very ill. She was in the hospital. Mulla used to go every day, and he will ask the doctors and the nurses and they will say, "She is improving." And her condition was getting worse and worse every day, but the doctors continued and the nurses continued, that "She is improving, she is improving." And I used to ask Mulla Nasruddin, "How is your wife?" He said, "The doctors say, 'Perfect! -- she is improving.' The nurses say she is improving, so she must be coming back home soon." Then one day she suddenly died. So I asked him, "What happened, Nasruddin?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I think she couldn't stand all that improvement. It was too much."

Everybody is improving you: the parents, the teachers, the priests, the society, the civilization. Everybody is improving, and nobody can stand that much improvement. And the total result is that you never attain to be the ideal man, you simply become a condemner of yourself. The ideal is impossible, the ideal is imaginary. The ideal is simply not possible, abstract, not natural. And everybody is being forced, pulled and pushed from every direction to improve. From everywhere comes the message that whatsoever you are, you are wrong -- improve. That creates a self-condemnation; you reject yourself, you are not worthy -- worthless, rubbish, rot. That is in the mind.

Only love never tries to improve you, accepts you as you are. When somebody loves you, you are simply perfect, the ideal, as you are. And if lovers are also trying to improve each other, they are not lovers. Again the whole game is there. Love accepts you as you are, and through this acceptance happens a transformation. For the first time you are at ease and you can relax, and this is going to be the prayer finally.

Then only, when you are at ease and relaxed, a gratitude arises. A gratitude just to be is so beautiful and ecstatic. You don't demand anything in prayer, you simply are thankful. Prayer is a thanksgiving; it is not begging something from the God. Beggars are never people who can pray. It is a thankfulness, a deep gratitude, that "Whatsoever you have given is too much. In fact I never deserved it." The whole life, through love, becomes a gift of the divine, and then you feel grateful. And out of gratitude arises the fragrance of prayer.

It is a very subtle process: from love, acceptance of yourself and the other; through love's acceptance, a transformation, and a vision that howsoever, whatsoever you are, you are perfect and the whole accepts you. Then a gratitude; then arises a prayer. It is not verbal; simply the whole heart is filled with gratitude. Prayer is not an act, prayer is a way of being. When there is really prayer, you are not praying, you are the prayer. You sit in prayer, you stand in prayer, you move in prayer, you breathe in prayer.

The glimpse will come from love. Have you ever been in love? -- then you breathe in love, then you walk in love. Then your step has a quality of dance in it even visible to others. Then your eyes have a light, a different light to them. Then your face has a glow. Then your voice has a song in it.

A man who has never loved walks as if he is dragging himself. A man who has loved floats as if on the wings of the wind. A man who has never loved cannot dance because he doesn't know what dance is, in his inside being. He can never be ecstatic-sad, closed, almost dead, almost living in a grave. Love allows you to move to the other, and when the energy moves to the other you become dynamic. When the energy moves to the other, from the other to you, suddenly you create a bridge between you and the other. And this bridge will give you the first glimpse, the first blueprint of what prayer is. It is a bridge between you and the whole.

I cannot conceive how it is possible for anybody to go to the prayer without going through love, so don't be scared of love. Die into love so that you can be reborn. Lose yourself into love so that you can become again fresh and young. Otherwise there is no possibility of prayer. And don't feel hopeless about love, because that is the only hope. Says Jesus, "If the salt loses its saltiness, then how it can be salted again?" And I say unto you, if love becomes hopeless, then there is no hope, because love is the only hope. Then where you will get the hope again?

Don't drop the effort, don't accept the failure. There exists somebody for you; you exist for somebody. If the thirst is there, there must be water. If the hunger is there, there must be food. If the desire is there, there must be a way to fulfill it. Don't feel hopeless. Revive your hope again, because only a hopeless person is irreligious; only a hopeless person is atheistic. Love is the only hope. Through love, many new hopes will arise, because love is the seed of the ultimate hope -- that is God. Make every effort; don't settle in that hopelessness. It may be arduous but it is worth, because without it you are stuck, and you will be thrown back and back again into life unless you learn the lesson of love. And once love is learned, prayer is so easy. In fact, there is no need to learn prayer; it comes by itself if you love.