The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

The first layer is only for day-to-day activities; it is a very thin layer. It is enough for your office, wife, children -- the ordinary life. The second layer is for emergencies: your house is on fire; you may have been feeling very tired after the whole day's work and you were coming home and hoping to have a good rest, and suddenly when you come home your house is on fire. Immediately, all fatigue disappears -- you are no more tired. You have forgotten all about rest, and the whole night you try to put the fire out. And even after the whole night's work, you are not tired. It was not the ordinary level of energy that worked -- that was exhausted -- the emergency layer started working.

And the third layer is deeper than that. If you go on and on.... For example, if for one day, two days, three days, you go on working, then the emergency level will also be finished -- and then you come in contact with the cosmic layer. And that is the source of life, and that is inexhaustible. And whenever you are in contact with it, tremendous joy starts overflowing you.

It happens to joggers, to runners, to swimmers sometimes. First layer finished, then the second layer, and if you go on running the second is also finished -- and the moment you are in contact with the third, tremendous ecstasy happens for no reason at all.

It may happen to you while making love. It may happen to you while listening to music. It may happen to you while simply lying in your bed doing nothing. It may happen to you while painting, absorbed, utterly absorbed in it. Or it may happen in a thousand and one ways. But watch: whenever it happens, whenever that tremendous blissful moment comes to you, when God knocks on your door, watch in what context it is happening. Be alert! Look around -- in what space it is happening. And then you have the key. Whenever you will be able to create that context, that space, the moment will come again.

You cannot make it happen, but you can make yourself available for it to happen. You cannot force it to happen, but you can create all that is necessary for it to happen. It is not a doing on your part: it is a happening. But, still, you can play a great role. That's how all techniques of meditation have been developed. That's how Yoga came into existence.

That accord is present in you, because without it you cannot be alive. That music is already there, flowing underground in you, because that music is your connection with the whole. Once it is cut you will be dead. You are alive -- that is enough proof that the music is happening. The only thing is to go deep inside your own being and to find WHERE it is happening.

ENTER INTO?

The Indian mystics use a special word for it: ANAHAD KA BAJA BAJITA -- ANAHAD -- it is boundless, and it is uncreated. It is the sound of one hand clapping. But the Indian mystics go a little deeper; they say there is not even one hand clapping -- there is neither hand nor instrument, but pure music, just music.

The experience of the mystics is that life consists of the stuff called music. Just as physics says life consists of electrons, electricity, mystics say life consists of music. And in a way they are both right, because music is nothing but a certain vibration of electricity, and it may be true vice versa also: electricity may be nothing but a certain density of music, of sound.
HAVE YOU HEARD THE MUSIC THAT NO FINGERS

ENTER INTO?

KABIR IS TALKING TO HIS DISCIPLES who have come to seek God. Somebody must have asked him about God, and he is talking about music. To talk about God is almost useless, but to talk about music is certainly of great significance. If you can hear your inner music, you will know God is.
FAR INSIDE THE HOUSE ENTANGLED MUSIC --

WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LEAVING YOUR HOUSE?

And Kabir says: Where are you going to find God? People go to Kashi and to Kaaba, and people go to Jerusalem and to Tibet, and people go to all kinds of places in search of some significance. They are feeling that their life is meaningless, they are feeling that their life is empty, they are feeling that their life is nothing but a long long tale told by an idiot. They know that their life is just noise, meaningless, gibberish. They know that deep down there is nothing but a kind of hollowness. And they search: there must be some source somewhere which can quench their thirst. There must be some place somewhere where they can encounter God, where they can attain to some significance, where their life can have some meaning. But this search is futile. They will be frustrated again and again -- because the truth they are searching for is already within their being. What they are seeking is in the seeker himself; the sought is in the seeker. You need not go anywhere. You simply have to learn how not to go anywhere.

The greatest art is just to be, without going anywhere. Not going to the past, not going to the future, not going into desires, into psychological spaces, into psychic travels -- not to go anywhere, just to be. And right now! if you are just here... immediately something is felt, something which is intangible. You cannot show it to anybody else; you cannot share your experience with somebody who has not known it. But your whole being starts feeling a kind of intoxicatedness, a drunkenness. You become full of juice, you become full of aliveness, and a very indirect, subtle, delicate experience of the presence of something bigger than you -- that's what God is all about.

The original is:

RAS MAND MANDIR BAJTA

BAHAR SUNE TO KYA HUA?

The truth is just the contrary: unless you love your body immensely, respect your body immensely, you will not be able to know God at all -- because the body is his outer expression. If the body is the temple, then God is the deity inside it.

Within the temple of your body the music is already happening -- just go in. And the word RAS has to be understood. RAS literally means juice. And you will be surprised to know that the mystics of this country have called God the ultimate juice: RASAO VAI SAHA -- he is the ultimate juice. But if you go to your so-called saints, you will find them very dry, with no juice at all. You will find them almost dead, with no life flowing in them. And they have destroyed their bodies; they are living a kind of death. But this is thought to be very respectable. What has really happened? What has gone wrong? Why have these pathological people, mentally deranged people, psychologically ill people, become so dominant? Why have they possessed religion?

The neurotic people have one quality in them: the quality of being fanatics. Only neurotics can be fanatics, and it is very difficult to fight with fanatics. Wherever a fanatic is, sooner or later he is going to become a leader. He is so troublesome, he is such a trouble-maker, that you have to make him a leader; that is just to pacify him. He will only be at rest when he is at the top, when he is the boss.

Neurotics have a tendency to become leaders. Adolf Hitler was a neurotic, and became one of the greatest leaders of human history. He was a madman, but madmen have a few qualities in them which no sane man can ever have: they compete, and they compete with their total energy, and they compete madly. Because they are so mad, they don't think, they act. While the sane person thinks, the mad person acts. The sane person goes on thinking and the mad person has already reached and acted and done. The sane person thinks of consequences, the mad person thinks nothing -- he simply rushes in.

Adolf Hitlers become leaders in politics, and the same kind of people become leaders in religion too. And the pathological people also have a tendency to become organized. The sane person wants to be left alone because he enjoys his aloneness; he wants his own space, he wants freedom -- freedom from the crowd. And the mad person wants the crowd. Left alone he becomes disturbed; in his aloneness he starts seeing his madness. He goes always into the crowd; he wants to live with the crowd twenty-four hours a day -- he is a lover of the crowd.

The sane person moves in solitude and the insane person searches for the crowd. And your religions are nothing but crowds. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism -- different crowds. When Mohammed became enlightened, he was alone, meditating in the mountains. When Buddha became enlightened he was alone, meditating by the side of the River Niranjana, under a tree -- alone. When Mahavira became enlightened he was absolutely alone in the forest, standing underneath a tree, naked in the sun.

Enlightenment has happened to people when they were utterly alone. But leadership does not come that way. Leadership comes when you move into the crowd. Not only that: when you fulfill the expectations of the crowd -- stupid expectations, superstitious expectations, but you have to fulfill the expectations of the crowd -- then you become the leader religious or political. Mad people have a great organizing capacity. Because they fulfill the expectations of the crowd, the crowd looks up to them, the crowd respects them, and the crowd is afraid -- everybody is afraid -- and the crowd wants to be organized because in organization there seems to be power.
An NAACP official telephoned the Library of Congress and told the chief librarian that the library had eighteen thousand books with the word 'nigger' in them and that all the books had to be removed in a week.

"But," protested the librarian, "we have fifty thousand volumes with the word 'bastard' in them."

"I know," said the official, "but those bastards are not organized."
In this world, organization is power, and mad people have a great magnetic force to organize. They cannot be alone, they seek others; and others who cannot be alone, they are also seeking. It becomes a mutual arrangement.

Religions, at the source, are born out of a meditative aloneness, but the moment it becomes known that a Buddha has happened, the mad people start organizing, the mad people start gathering a crowd. And that crowd finally crystallizes into Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity. All their notions are based not in the enlightenment of their founders, real founders, no, but in the pseudo founders, the priests.

And these priests have been telling you that life is irreligious, that the body has to be denied, it is not a temple, it is not a place to be worshipped in.

Kabir is saying a totally different thing, and that's what my emphasis is: the body is sacred -- because ALL IS sacred!

ENTER INTO?

FAR INSIDE THE HOUSE

ENTANGLED MUSIC --

WHAT IS THE SENSE OF LEAVING YOUR HOUSE?

Where are you going? You need not leave the body, you need not leave anything, you need not renounce anything! Remember -- Kabir never renounced anything. He lived a very ordinary life just as everybody else lives -- the life of a householder. He was a father, a husband, and his whole life he continued to work. He was a weaver -- he continued to weave clothes. Even when he had thousands of disciples. And many times his disciples would come to him and say, You need not work at all. We are ready to provide everything for you, and your needs are not many. Why do you go on working?

And Kabir would laugh and say, "You don't understand. I work for God, I weave clothes for God -- because the customers who come to purchase clothes from me are divine. How can I stop my work?"

This quality is true religiousness. And this quality is possible only if you are in love with life, and to be in love with life creates RAS -- juice. Then you don't become dry, then you don't become a desert, then you become an oasis

The so-called religious people of this country are against me because I am teaching you the way of RAS -- the way of life, love, juice, music -- because I am teaching you to become an oasis, not a desert; because I would like you to be in a constant rejoicing; because I am not teaching you renunciation but rejoicing, all the people who have been carrying this nonsense idea of renouncing the world are bound to be against me. That is natural. It is expected. This has been happening always, and it seems, unfortunately, that man has not learnt anything at all down the ages. It is exactly the same today as it was in the days of Buddha, as it was in the days of Jesus, as it was in the days of Kabir.
SUPPOSE YOU SCRUB YOUR ETHICAL SKIN

UNTIL IT SHINES,

BUT INSIDE THERE IS NO MUSIC,

THEN WHAT?

MORALITY IS NOT RELIGION, although a religious person is always moral -- but not vice versa: a moral person need not be religious. A religious person is necessarily moral, because religion means experience of the divine -- one who has experienced the presence of God, how can he be immoral? In fact, he is the criterion, the decisive factor as to what is moral.

Whatsoever an enlightened person does is moral; there is no other way to decide. It is not that he is thing to do that which is moral -- whatsoever he does is moral. He cannot do any harm to anybody; he is a blessing to existence. When God has blessed him, what else is left for him, except to be a blessing to the existence? What God has given to him, he goes on giving to everybody else. His heart is full of bliss, and the bliss starts overflowing. That overflowing bliss is real morality.

Morality means compassion, morality means love, morality means creativity; morality means making the world a little more beautiful than you found it, leaving it a little more beautiful, giving it a new plane, a new level, a new dimension of existence.

The immoral person is destructive; because he is miserable he can only share his misery with others. Remember, you can give to others only that which you have. If you are miserable, whatsoever you say is immaterial, you will make others miserable. If you are blissful, you need not say anything -- you will make others blissful. Your very presence will trigger some blissfulness in their being. Your very presence will create a synchronicity in others. Your music, your juice, will create ripples of joy -- whoever is close to you will become infected with your joy, with your ecstasy, will become drunk -- and that's what morality is.

Kabir says:
SUPPOSE YOU SCRUB YOUR ETHICAL SKIN

UNTIL IT SHINES,

BUT INSIDE THERE IS NO MUSIC,

THEN WHAT?

Then what is the use of it? Yes, that can be done, that is being done. There are people who go on cultivating character, who go on cultivating morality. And they become great moralists. puritans, very righteous. They do only that which is right but it is a forced doing, it is not spontaneous -- it is not out of their being, it is just a forced phenomenon. It is a facade. They have created a beautiful curtain around themselves, behind it is the corpse, the stinking corpse, but on the surface they have decorated themselves with flowers. And the crowd can be deceived by them, but deep down they are the same people, even worse, because all that they are showing on the surface is pseudo. They are just the opposite inside. They are hypocrites. They say one thing, they are just the opposite of it; they do one thing, but their being has no correspondence with it. They are split, they are schizophrenic.

Because of this cultivated morality, we have put the whole of humanity in a state of schizophrenia. Everybody is more or less made into a hypocrite. The society forces you to do it. If you don't do it, you cannot live, you cannot survive. It has become almost a necessity that you don't show your reality. You show only that which people want you to show, and you keep everything else hidden inside. But then your inner being goes on accumulating poisons and poisons and poisons, and you live a hell within, decorated with beautiful flowers. And those flowers are also plastic, because they cannot be true flowers. True flowers need roots in your being.

A really religious person has no morality imposed upon himself. His morality arises out of his consciousness. He is not trying to do the right, he is not trying to avoid the wrong -- -he simply remains conscious and acts out of his consciousness, and whatsoever he does is right. In fact, it is impossible to do anything wrong consciously.

A beautiful story is told about a great mystic, Nagarjuna:

Nagarjuna gave it -- that was the only thing he had -- his begging bowl. And the queen brought a golden begging bowl, studded with diamonds and gave it to Nagarjuna. She said, "Now you keep this. I will worship the begging bowl that you have carried for years -- it has some of your vibe. It will become my temple. And a man like you should not carry an ordinary wooden begging bowl -- keep this golden one. I have had it made specially for you."

It was really precious. If Nagarjuna had been an ordinary mystic he would have said, "I cannot touch it. I have renounced the world." But for him it was all the same, so he took the bowl.

When he left the palace, a thief saw him. He could not believe his eyes: "A naked man with such a precious thing! How long can he protect it?" So the thief followed....

Nagarjuna was staying outside the town in a ruined ancient temple -- no doors, no windows. It was just a ruin. The thief was very happy: "Soon Nagarjuna will have to go to sleep and there will be no difficulty -- I will get the bowl."

The thief was hiding behind a wall just outside the door -- Nagarjuna threw the bowl outside the door. The thief could not believe what had happened. Nagarjuna threw it because he had watched the thief coming behind him, and he knew perfectly well that he was not coming for him -- he was coming for the bowl, "So why unnecessarily let him wait? Be finished with it so he can go, and I can also rest."

"Such a precious thing! And Nagarjuna has thrown it so easily." The thief could not go without thanking him. He knew perfectly well that it had been thrown for him. He peeked in and he said, "Sir, accept my thanks. But you are a rare being -- I cannot believe my eyes. And a great desire has arisen in me. I am wasting my life by being a thief -- and there are people like you too? Can I come in and touch your feet?"

Nagarjuna laughed and he said, "Yes, that's why I threw the bowl outside -- so that you could come inside."

The thief was trapped. The thief came in, touched the feet... and at that moment the thief was very open because he had seen that this man was no ordinary man. He was very vulnerable, open, receptive, grateful, mystified, stunned. When he touched the feet, for the first time in his life he felt the presence of the divine.

He asked Nagarjuna, "How many lives will it take for me to become like you?"

Nagarjuna said, "How many lives? -- it can happen today, it can happen now!"
The thief said, "You must be kidding. How can it happen now? I am a thief, a well-known thief The whole town knows me, although they have not yet been able to catch hold of me. Even the king is afraid of me, because thrice I have entered and stolen from the treasury. They know it, but they have no proof. I am a master thief -- you may not know about me because you are a stranger in these parts. How can I be transformed right now?"

And Nagarjuna said, "If in an old house for centuries there has been darkness and you bring a candle, can the darkness say, 'For centuries and centuries I have been here -- I cannot go out just because you have brought a candle in. I have lived so long'? Can the darkness give resistance? Will it make any difference whether the darkness is one day old or millions of years old.

The thief could see the point: darkness cannot resist light; when light comes, darkness disappears. Nagarjuna said, You may have been in darkness for millions of lives -- that doesn't matter -- but I can give you a secret, you can light a candle in your being."

And the thief said, "What about my profession? Have I to leave it?"

Nagarjuna said, "That is for you to decide. I am not concerned with you and your profession I can only give you the secret of how to kindle a light within your being, and then it is up to you."

The thief said, "But whenever I have gone to any saints, they always say, 'First stop stealing -- then only can you be initiated.'" It is said that Nagarjuna laughed and said, "You must have gone to thieves, not to saints. They know nothing. You just watch your breath -- the ancient method of Buddha -- just watch your breath coming in, going out. Whenever you remember, watch your breath. Even when you go to steal, when you enter into somebody's house in the night, go on watching your breath. When you have opened the treasure and the diamonds are there, go on watching your breath, and do whatsoever you want to do -- but don't forget watching the breath."

The thief said, "This seems to be simple. No morality? No character needed? No other requirement?"

Nagarjuna said, "Absolutely none -- just watch your breath."

And after fifteen days the thief was back, but he was a totally different man. He fell at the feet of Nagarjuna and he said, "You trapped me, and you trapped me so beautifully that I was not even able to suspect. I tried for these fifteen days -- it is impossible. If I watch my breath, I cannot steal. If I steal, I cannot watch my breath. Watching the breath, I become so silent, so alert, so aware, so conscious, that even diamonds look like pebbles. You have created a difficulty for me, a dilemma. Now what am I supposed to do?"

Nagarjuna said, "Get lost! -- whatsoever you want to do. If you want that silence, that peace, that bliss, that arises in you when you watch your breath, then choose that. If you think all those diamonds and gold and silver is more valuable, then choose that. That is for you to choose! Who am I to interfere in your life?"

The man said, "I cannot choose to be unconscious again. I have never known such moments. Accept me as one of your disciples, initiate me."

Nagarjuna said, "I have initiated you already."

Religion is based not in morality but in meditation. Religion is rooted not in character but in consciousness. A really religious person has no character at all -- he is characterless. But let me define what I mean by 'characterless': I don't mean the ordinary meaning that you will find in the dictionary -- because in the dictionary, the man of bad character is called characterless. That is wrong, because he has a character -- maybe it is bad, but he is not characterless. Somebody has good character, somebody has bad character -- both have characters. The sinner and the saint, both have characters, but the really religious man is characterless. He is neither good nor bad -- he is beyond. He has no character because he does not function out of his past: he acts moment-to-moment, he acts spontaneously; he has no ready-made formula, he has no routine. He does not act out of habits -- and that's what character is: creating good habits is good character, creating bad habits is bad character. Creating consciousness, not habits, is religiousness.