Laugh and take the test –

it is beautiful that he considers you worth testing!

But don’t be in a hurry

for the more you hurry the more some goals recede,

and without doubt the temple of God is a goal like that.

He who travels with patience travels fastest on this journey.

The mind will roam again and again –

that is its way;

the day its roaming stops it will be dead.

Sometimes it sleeps –

do not mistake this for death.

Sometimes it gets tired –

don’t mistake this for death either.

Some rest and sleep and it is strong and alive again.

So stop bothering about it altogether

for even this worry gives it strength.

Surrender even this to God.

Say to him: Whatever it’s like, good or bad,

take care of it.

And then just be a witness,

simply watch the whole play.

Watch the play of the mind with detachment

and then suddenly –

there is the consciousness which is no-mind.

151. Love.

God is far off because we don’t know

how to see him close by.

Actually there is nothing closer than him.

More than that – he is the here and now.

The name God is just for those

who can’t find the here and now.

Words, names, doctrines, scriptures, religion, philosophy,

all these are created for those who can see him

only at a distance.

Hence they have no connection with God

but only with those who are blind to the near.

That’s why I say: Drop the distant.

Drop paradises in the sky.

Drop hopes in the future,

and see the near in time and in space.

Be here and now and see!

See the instant in time,

see the atom in space.

In the time moment time ceases to exist.

In the space atom space ceases to exist.

There is no space, no time, here and now.

What is left is truth,

is God,

is that.

You too are that.

Tat tvam asi – that art thou.

152. Love.

Religion too has to take new birth in every age.

Bodies – all kinds of bodies – grow old and die.

Sects are the dead bodies of religion,

their souls have left them long ago.

Their languages have become out of date.

This is why they no longer touch

the human heart any more. Nor is their echo heard any more

in the human soul.

Once Dr. John A. Hutton, while speaking in a gathering of priests asked,

“Why have the preachings of religious leaders turned

so lifeless and dull?”

When nobody stood up to answer, he himself answered it by saying:

“They are all dull because preachers are trying to answer questions

that nobody is asking.”

Religiousness is eternal.

But its body should always be contemporary.

Neither is the body eternal, nor can it be – not even the body of religion.

153. Love.

Drop the fear,

because the moment you hold on to it, it multiplies.

To hold on to it is to nourish it.

But dropping fear does not mean fighting with it.

To fight is also to hold on to it.

Just know that fear is.

Do not run away from it,

do not escape.

In life there is fear,

there is insecurity,

there is death –

just know this.

All these are facts of life.

Where would you run from them?

How would you avoid them?

Life itself is such.

And its acceptance, its natural acceptance, is the freedom from fear.

Once fear is accepted, where is it?

Once death is accepted, where is it?

Once insecurity is accepted, where is it?

Acceptance of the wholeness of life is what I call

sannyas, initiation on the path.

154. Love.

Attainment of meditation is not a question of time,

it is a question of will.

If the will is total, meditation happens in a moment too.

And a mind without will can go on wandering

for lives upon lives.

Intensify the will.

Crystallize the will.

Make the will total.

And then, meditation will knock

upon your door on its own.

And the mind certainly tortures one as long as meditation is absent.

Mind is the name for the absence of meditation,

just as darkness is the name for the absence of light.

As the light arrives, darkness leaves.

As meditation arrives, the mind leaves.

Hence, now drown into meditation.

All else follows on its own.

155. Love.

The world is neither unhappiness nor happiness.

The world becomes the same as we see it.

Our vision is the world.

Each person is the creator of his own world.

If every moment of life gives you unhappiness,

then the mistake is somewhere in your own vision.

And if all that you see around you is darkness,

then certainly you are keeping closed the eyes that see light.

Give a fresh thought to yourself.

Look at yourself from a new angle.

If you put the blame on others, you will never be able to see

your own mistake.

If you put the blame on circumstances, you will not be able

to penetrate the roots of your own mental state.

Hence, whatever the situation, proceed to discover

its causes in yourself.

Causes are always in one’s own self.

But they always appear to be in others.

Avoid this mistake and it will be difficult

to preserve your unhappiness.

Others function only as mirrors.

The face seen is always our own.

Life can become a celebration.

But it is necessary to create oneself anew.

And that is not a difficult thing.

Because in the very seeing of the fault in one’s own vision the mistakes

start dying and the birth of a new person begins.

156. Love.

Do not fight with yourself.

Such a fight is futile.

Because victory never, ever comes through it.

To fight with oneself

is nothing other than a gradual suicide.

Accept yourself.

Happily. In gratitude.

What is, is good.

Sex too, anger too.

Because whatsoever is, is from the divine.

Accept it and understand it.

Search and uncover the hidden potential in it.

Then, even sex feels to be a seed towards the divine.

And anger becomes the door to forgiveness.

Evil is not an enemy of goodness.

Rather, evil is only imprisoned goodness.

157. Love.

Strive for meditation.

Then all problems of the mind will disappear.

In fact, mind is the problem.

All the rest of the problems are only echoes of the mind.

Nothing will come of fighting

each and every problem separately.

Fighting with echoes is futile,

there is no outcome of it other than defeat.

Do not prune the branches, because four other branches

will replace that one pruned branch.

By pruning branches, the tree only grows more.

And, the problems are the branches.

If you want to cut at all, cut the roots,

because by cutting the roots the branches disappear on their own.

And mind is the root.

Cut this root with meditation.

Mind is the problem.

Meditation is the solution.

Mind knows no solution.

Meditation knows no problem.

Because, there is no meditation in the mind.

Because, there is no mind in meditation.

Absence of meditation is mind.

Disappearance of mind is meditation.

This is why I say: strive for meditation.

158. Love.

Don’t be in haste.

Maintain patience.