672

There are religions and religions, but Sufism is the religion – the very heart, the innermost core, the very soul.

Sufism is not part of Islam; on the contrary Islam is part of Sufism. Sufism existed before Mohammed was born and Sufism will exist when Mohammed is completely forgotten. Islams come and go; religions take form and dissolve. Sufism abides, continues, because it is not a dogma. It is the very heart of being religious.

You may not even have heard of Sufism but you may be a Sufi – if you are religious. Krishna is a Sufi and Christ too; Mahavira is a Sufi and Buddha too, and they never heard the word. They never knew that anything like Sufism exists.

Whenever a religion is alive it is because Sufism is alive within it. Whenever a religion is dead it shows only that the spirit, the Sufi spirit, has left it. Now there is only a corpse, however decorated – in philosophy, in metaphysics, in dogmas, doctrines – but whenever Sufism has left, religion stinks of death. This has happened many times. This is happening already almost all over the world. One has to be aware of it otherwise one can go on clinging to a dead corpse.

Christianity has no Sufism now. It is a dead religion; the church killed it. When “church” becomes too much, Sufism has to leave that body. It cannot exist with dogmas. It can exist with a dancing soul, but not with dogmas. It cannot exist with theology; they are not good companions. With popes and priests it is impossible for Sufism to exist. It is just the opposite. Sufism needs no popes, no priests; it needs no dogmas. It is not of the head, it belongs to the heart.

The heart is the church, not an organized church because every organization is of the mind. And once the mind takes possession, the heart has to simply leave that house completely. The house becomes too narrow for the heart. The heart needs the whole of the sky; nothing less than that will do. It cannot be confined in churches. The whole of existence is the only church for it. It can throb under the sky, it can throb in freedom, but it dies when everything becomes a system, an organized pattern, a ritual. The spirit of Sufism simply disappears from there.

Christianity killed Jesus, the Jews could not kill him. They crucified him, of course, but they failed. They could not kill him; he survived crucifixion. That is the meaning of the resurrection – not that Jesus physically survived, but that the crucifixion proved futile. The Jews could not kill him. They tried, but Jesus survived. Where the Jews failed, Christians succeeded. They killed him without any crucifixion. They killed him through prayer, they killed him through dogma, they killed him through organization. Followers succeed where enemies fail; apostles succeed where enemies fail.

Christianity is now a dead religion because it cannot allow Sufism to exist within its soul. It is afraid of Sufism. Every dogma is always afraid because Sufism means infinite freedom, no confinement, no limitations. It is more like love and less like a logical syllogism. It is more of a poem, less like prose. It is irrational. That’s why every rational theology is afraid of it. Once you give an opening to the irrational, you don’t know where you are. And remember: God is also irrational, and it is beautiful that he is irrational – otherwise he would have been a professor of philosophy in some university, or a pope, or a priest, but not existence.

Sufism has died many deaths in many religions. Jainism is a dead religion. Once it flourished beautifully and gave birth to such a great mystic as Mahavira. Then suddenly the river disappeared – only the dry riverbed has remained. No river flows now, no greenery on the bank. It has become a desert land, completely deserted. What happened? Jaina followers became too intellectual, mathematical, logical. Out of the mystery of Mahavira they created doctrines and arguments. They became too calculative, too clever, and the spirit was killed. In Christianity, Sufism had to leave because of too much church ritual. In Jainism, Sufism had to leave because of too much intellectual, theological, philosophical effort.

Remember this: Sufism is not a church. It doesn’t belong to any religion. All religions, when alive, belong to it. It is a vast sky of a particular quality of consciousness. How does it happen? How does one become a Sufi? One becomes a Sufi not by belonging to a particular order but by dropping from the head to the heart.

You can exist in two ways. Either you can exist as a head-oriented person. Then you will succeed in the world, you will accumulate many riches, prestige, power. In politics you will be a successful man. In the eyes of the world you will become a pinnacle to be imitated, but in the inner you will fail completely, you will fail utterly because the head-oriented person cannot enter the inner at all. Head moves outwardly; it is an opening to the other. Heart opens inwardly; it is an opening to yourself. You can exist either as a head-oriented person, or you can exist as a heart-oriented person. When your energy, your life energy, falls from the head toward the heart, you become a Sufi.

A Sufi means a man of the heart, a man of love; a man who doesn’t bother from where this universe comes, who doesn’t bother who created it, who doesn’t bother where it is leading; in fact, who doesn’t ask any questions but on the contrary he starts living. Existence is there: only fools bother about where it comes from. Only fools, I say. They may have shrouded themselves in very cunning philosophical words, but they are fools. A man who is wise lives existence. It is here and now, why bother where it comes from? What does it matter from where it comes? Whether somebody created it or not is irrelevant. You are here, throbbing, alive – dance with existence! Live it, be it, and allow it to happen in its total mystery within you.

And this is the miracle: a person who doesn’t bother from where it comes, a person who doesn’t ask questions, receives the answers. A man who is not curious, but celebrating whatever the case is, suddenly becomes aware of the very source, suddenly becomes aware of the very culmination. End and beginning meet in him because he himself becomes the mystery. Now the mystery is not something which is there as an object that you have to go around and around, and look at and observe. No, that is not the way to know it; that is the way to miss it.

You may go around and around, about and about, but you will never penetrate it. How can you know? You are beating around the bush, your attack is on the periphery. Rather, penetrate it, go to its center, become it. And you can become it because you are part of it. And you can become it because it is part of you. Then suddenly all questioning dissolves, suddenly the answer is there. It is not that you have come to a solution for your problems. No, there are no problems at all. When there are no problems at all, for the first time you become capable, capable of living the mystery that is life, capable of living God, capable of being gods.

A great Sufi – you must have heard his name, al-Hillaj Mansoor – was killed by Mohammedans because he said, “Ana’l Haq, I am God.” When you penetrate into the mystery of life, it is not that you are an observer – because an observer is always an outsider – but you become one with it. It is not that you swim in the river, it is not that you float in the river, it is not that you struggle in the river. No, you become the river. Suddenly you realize the wave is part of the river. And the contrary is also true: the river is part of the wave. It is not only that we are part of God, God is also part of us.

When al-Hillaj Mansoor asserted, “I am God,” Mohammedans killed him. Sufism is always killed by religious people – so-called religious people – because they cannot tolerate it, they cannot tolerate a man asserting that he is God. Their egos feel offended. How can a man be God? But when al-Hillaj says, “I am God,” he is not saying, “I am God and you are not”; he is not saying, “I am God and these trees are not”; he is not saying, “I am God and these stones, rocks are not.” Asserting, “I am God,” he is asserting that the whole is divine, sacred. Everything is divine.

So when these people – fanatics, believers in dogmas – said, “God created man, so man can only be a creature, not a creator. It is profanity, the very apex of profanity to assert I am God,” they killed him. And what was Mansoor saying when they killed him? He said loudly to the sky, “You cannot deceive me! Even in these murderers I see you – you cannot deceive me. You are here in these murderers. And in whatsoever form you come, my God, I will know you because I have known you.”

Sufism is not thinking about existence, it is being existence. It is not thinking, it is not doing something about existence. It is neither thought nor action; it is being. And right now, without any effort, you can be a Sufi. If you stop thinking, if you drop the idea of doing something, if you drop the idea of being a thinker and a doer, if you are simply content to be, suddenly you are a Sufi. And this will be my effort while I am talking about Sufism: not to indoctrinate you, not to make you more knowledgeable, but to make a Sufi out of you.

Sufis sing. They don’t give sermons because life is more like a song and less like a sermon. And they dance. They don’t talk about dogmas because a dance is more alive, more like existence, more like the birds singing in the trees and the wind passing through the pines; more like a waterfall, or clouds raining, or grass growing. The whole life is a dance – vibrating, throbbing with infinite life.

Sufis like to dance; they are not interested in dogmas. And they tell beautiful stories – life is more like a story, less like history. Sufis have created beautiful small stories. On the surface you may miss. On the surface it will look just like an ordinary anecdote, but if you penetrate deeply, Sufi stories are very pregnant – pregnant with significance, pregnant with the significance of the ultimate. So I will tell you a few stories, discuss the stories to help you penetrate their deeper core, just to make you understand a few things about the heart, to help you – your energy, your whole being – for a new journey toward the heart, to push you because you will be afraid.

The heart is the most dangerous thing in the world. Every culture, every civilization, every so-called religion cuts every child off from his heart. It is a most dangerous thing; all that is dangerous comes out of the heart. The mind is more secure, and with the mind you know where you are. With the heart, no one ever knows where he is. With the mind, everything is calculated, mapped, measured. And you can feel the crowd always with you, in front of you, at the back of you. Many are moving on it; it is a highway, concrete, solid. It gives you a feeling of security.

With the heart you are alone. Nobody is with you. Fear grips; fear possesses you. Where are you going? Now you no longer know. When you move with a crowd on a highway, you know where you are moving because you think the crowd knows. Everybody is in the same position. Everybody thinks, “So many people are moving, we must be moving somewhere; otherwise why are so many millions of people moving? They must be moving somewhere.” Everybody thinks like that.

In fact, the crowd is not moving anywhere, no crowd has ever reached any goal. The crowd goes on moving and moving. You are born, you become part of the crowd. The crowd was already moving before you were born. Then a day comes when you are finished, you die, and the crowd goes on moving because new ones are always being born. The crowd never reaches anywhere but it gives a feeling of comfort. You feel cozy surrounded by so many people wiser than you, older than you, more experienced than you. They must know where they are moving; you feel secure.

The moment you start falling toward the heart… And it is a falling, like falling into an abyss. That’s why when somebody is in love we say he has fallen in love. It is a fall; the head sees it as a fall. Someone has gone astray, fallen. When you start falling toward the heart you become alone. Now nobody can be with you there. In your total loneliness, afraid, you will be scared. Now you will not know where you are going because nobody is there, and there are no milestones. In fact, there is no solid, concrete path. The heart is unmapped, unmeasured, uncharted. Tremendous fear will be there.

The whole of my effort is to help you not to be afraid because only through the heart will you be reborn. But before you are reborn you will have to die. Nobody can be reborn before he dies. So the whole message of Sufism, Zen, Hasidism – these are all forms of Sufism – is how to die. The whole art of dying is the base. I am teaching you here nothing except how to die.

If you die, you become available to infinite sources of life. You die, really, in your present form. It has become too narrow. You only survive in it, you don’t live. The tremendous possibility of life is completely closed and you feel confined, imprisoned. You feel everywhere a limitation, a boundary. A wall, a stone wall, comes wherever you move – a wall. My whole effort is how to break down these stone walls. They are not made of stone, they are made of thoughts, and nothing is more rock-like than a thought. These walls made of dogmas, scriptures, surround you, and wherever you go you carry them with you, you carry your imprisonment with you. Your prison is always hanging around you. How to break them down?

The breaking down of the walls will appear to you like a death. In a way it is because your present identity will be lost. Whoever you are, that identity will be lost; you will no longer be that. Suddenly something else… It was always hidden within you but you were not aware of it. Suddenly, a discontinuity. The old is no longer there and something utterly new has entered. It is not continuous with your past, that’s why we call it a death. It is not continuous, a gap exists. If you look back you will not feel that whatever existed before this resurrection was real. No, it will appear as if you saw it in a dream, or it will appear as if you read it somewhere in a fiction, or as if somebody else related his own story – it was never yours, but somebody else’s.

The old completely disappears. That’s why we call it a death. An absolutely new phenomenon comes into existence. And remember the word absolutely. It is not a modified form of the old; it has no connection with the old. It is resurrection. But resurrection is possible only when you are capable of dying. Sufism is a death and a resurrection. And I call it the religion.

Let us now enter this beautiful story.

[There was a rich and generous man of Bokhara. Because he had a high rank in the invisible hierarchy, he was known as the President of the World. Every day he gave gold to one category of people – the sick, widows, and so on. But nothing was given to anyone who opened his mouth.
Not all could keep silent.]

Go slowly with me...

[There was a rich and generous man of Bokhara.]

It is a difficult combination, rich and generous. The poor are always generous, the rich never are. That’s how they become rich. If a rich man is generous, a revolution has happened. A rich man becomes generous only when he has attained a deep understanding that riches are useless. When he has come to know that all this world can give is not worth taking. Only then does generosity become possible; then he starts sharing. Otherwise you go on accumulating more and more and more. The mind goes on asking for more, there is no end to it. If you are not alert, all the riches of all the worlds will not be enough because the mind does not bother about what you have. It simply goes on saying “More!”

It is said that when Alexander the Great was on his way to India, he met a great mystic, Diogenes. Diogenes is one of the great Sufis. Diogenes used to live naked, just like the animals. He was so beautiful in his nakedness. It is ugliness that we try to hide, not beauty.
Why do you want to hide your body from others? What is wrong with it? Society, civilization, culture, they have conditioned your minds to believe that something is wrong with the body, and you feel guilty if you are caught naked. Laws and courts exist to force you not to be naked. The whole of nature is naked and it is so beautiful. Only man has gone ugly somewhere.

Someday, when man becomes more aware, man will be less and less attached to clothes. They may be used as utilities: if the weather is cold, of course you have to cover your body. But when the weather is pleasant and one can be like a simple, innocent animal, one has to be. Completely hidden under clothes, your bodies have lost the sensitivity to feel. To feel the touch of the rays of the sun and to enjoy it – you have completely forgotten the language. To feel the wind on your naked body, as trees feel, and dance – you have completely forgotten. Only your face has been left, only your head; otherwise, your whole body has been numbed.

Diogenes lived naked, but his nakedness was very, very beautiful because it was innocent. You can live naked as a perversion also; then it will not be beautiful. Then you may be an exhibitionist – something has gone wrong in your psychological world. Diogenes lived naked like the animals and Alexander, it is said, felt jealous. He was robed in the costliest costumes possible. It is said that on seeing Diogenes naked he felt jealous, envious. So beautiful!

He asked, “How can I also be like you, so innocent, so beautiful?”
Diogenes said, “There is no ‘how’ to it.”
He was lying down on a bank of a river in the sand. It was morning and the sun was rising, and he must have been enjoying the poetry that comes through the sands to the naked body, the subtle messages, the warm sun falling on him.
Diogenes said, “There is no need to ask about any ‘how.’ This bank is big enough for both of us. Throw off your clothes and lie down with me.”

There is no how to ask. Why ask how? How is a trick of the mind to postpone. If you ask how, then you are asking how to postpone. You are saying there must be something to be practiced, and practice will take time. And, of course, you cannot practice right now. Tomorrow comes in. And once the tomorrow comes in, you are done.

Diogenes said, “There is no question of how. Just lie down and rest. This bank is enough for both of us.”
Alexander said, “Someday… I always dream that someday there will be a possibility when I have conquered the whole world. I am waiting for that day. Then I will also relax and rest.”
Diogenes laughed and said, “Then you are foolish because Diogenes can rest and relax without conquering the whole world, so why should you make it a condition that when you have conquered the whole world you will rest and relax? And I tell you: it is not going to happen ever because the mind will ask for more and more. And when you have conquered this world then the mind will ask, ‘Is there any other world?’”
And it is reported that when Diogenes said this – that there is no other world but the mind will ask “Is there any other world?” – suddenly Alexander felt sad. The sadness came immediately to him, knowing that there is no other world.

Once you have conquered this world, what will you do? There is no other world to conquer. The mind will feel very frustrated. The mind goes on asking for more and more and more. It doesn’t bother what you have: you may be a beggar – it asks for more; you may be an emperor – it asks for more. The nature of the mind is to ask for more. What you have is not relevant; it is the very nature of the mind just to go on asking for more. A rich man goes on asking for more and remains poor. He goes on desiring for more and remains poor. It is difficult to find a really rich man.

In my whole life I have come across only one man who was really rich. I have come across many, many rich men, but only one man who was really rich. And why was he really rich? He was rich because he understood the futility of it all. When I met him for the first time he brought thousands of rupees and poured them at my feet. I said to him, “Right now I don’t need them. If some day I need them, I will send a message.”
That old man started weeping and crying. I couldn’t understand what the matter was. He said, “Don’t say that, I am poor. I have nothing to give you except money. I am so poor I have nothing else to give you. If you reject my money, it feels you have rejected me because I have nothing else. Money I can give; that is all I have, nothing else.”
This is a man who has come to understand that riches are not real riches; man remains poor.

[There was a rich and generous man of Bokhara.]

Generous means he has really lived through riches, experienced the world, has come to a decision that this world is nothing more than a dream. And riches only give you an illusion of being rich; they don’t make you really rich. This man is disillusioned, that’s why he has become generous. Now he can share, now he can give all. Now there is no question, now he is not asking for more. On the contrary, whatever he has he is distributing and sharing it with others.

[Because he had a high rank in the invisible hierarchy…]

Such a man immediately becomes very high in the world of consciousness. If you can share whatever you have, suddenly you rise in the hierarchy of the invisible. In this world you may look like a beggar, in the other world, for the first time you have become the emperor.

Buddha renounced his palaces, his kingdom, his riches, and became a beggar. When he came back to his capital his father was very angry, as all fathers are. It is difficult to find a father who is not angry with his son because whatever you do it makes no difference. You may become a criminal, he will be angry; you may become a saint, he will be angry. Even if you become a buddha… The father was angry.

You can never fulfill anybody’s expectations; that is impossible. How can you fulfill anybody else’s expectations? He could not fulfill them himself, and he expects you to fulfill them. So whatever you do will be wrong. The father was very angry. And Buddha had become enlightened. He had come as a totally transformed being, resurrected. He was surrounded by infinite light and silence. It is said that whenever Buddha would move, wherever he would move, even trees would feel his presence and flowers would come out of season. Wherever he would move, for twelve miles surrounding his body suddenly a deep silence would happen. But a father is an exception.

The father was angry. He couldn’t feel the silence, he couldn’t see the light; he could see only a vagabond, a beggar. He said, “It is enough! Now you have fooled around enough. Come back, my doors are still open. Look at yourself, the son of an emperor, asking for your food in the same capital, begging. Look at your begging bowl, your torn clothes, almost rags. What are you doing to yourself? I feel ashamed of you. But I have a heart, the heart of a father, and my doors are not closed. You have hurt me deeply, but still I have the heart of a father. Come back. Don’t move around like a beggar. Be an emperor.”

And it is said that Buddha replied, “I was a beggar, now I have become an emperor – but how to convince you? I was a beggar when I lived in the palace. When you thought I was going to be the heir of your kingdom, I was a beggar and I was imprisoned. Now I am totally free, and for the first time I have understood what it means to be an emperor. But how to convince you?”

The moment you start sharing you show that your consciousness has reached a point, a growth. A grown-up man always shares. If you cling to your things you are not grown-up yet; you are juvenile. Why? Because you can possess a thing only if you share; there is no other possession. If you cling to a thing it shows that the thing is bigger than you, bigger than your love, bigger than your being. That’s why you cling to the thing. Your soul is in the possessions. You cannot share, you cannot be generous.

[Because he had a high rank in the invisible hierarchy, he was known as the President of the World.]

Sufis confer such titles on their beggars: President of the World. Don’t misunderstand, he is not a president in the sense Ford is or Nixon was. They are the poorest men in the world, the very last, in a deep illusion that they are the first. This man must have removed himself to the very last. Only those who are disillusioned with the world can stand at the very end. They can become the very last.

Jesus says, “Those who are last in this world will be the first in the Kingdom of my God.” Jesus must have been talking about such a man – rich, generous. And I tell you: if you are generous, you are rich, and if you are not generous you may be in an illusion that you are rich, but you are poor. Generosity is the real richness. To be generous you don’t need many things to share. To be generous you just have to share whatever you have. You may not have much – that is not the point. Who has much? Who can ever have enough? It is never much, it is never enough.

You may not have anything at all, you may be just a beggar on the road, but still you can be generous. Can’t you smile when a stranger passes by? You can smile, you can share your being with a stranger, and then you are generous. Can’t you sing when somebody is sad? You can be generous – smiles cost nothing. But you have become so miserly that even before smiling you think thrice: to smile or not to smile? To sing or not to sing? To dance or not to dance? In fact, to be or not to be?

Share your being if you have nothing; that is the greatest wealth and everybody is born with it. Share your being, stretch out your hand, move toward the other with love in your heart. Don’t think anybody is a stranger, nobody is – or everybody is. If you share, nobody is; if you don’t share, everybody is.

You may be a very rich man, but a miser, a non-sharing one. Then your own children are strangers, then your own wife is a stranger because how can you meet a miserly man? He is closed, he is already dead in his grave. How can you move toward a miserly man? If you move, he escapes. He is always afraid because whenever somebody comes close, sharing starts. A miserly man feels even shaking hands is dangerous because who knows, friendship may grow out of it and then there is danger. A miserly man is always alert, on guard, not allowing anybody too close. He keeps everybody at a distance. A smile is dangerous because it breaks distances. If you smile at a beggar on the road the distance is bridged. He is no longer a beggar, he has become a friend. Now, if he is hungry, you will have to do something. It is better to go on without smiling. It is safe, more economical, less dangerous – no risk in it.

It is not a question of sharing something, it is a question of simple sharing whatever you have. If you don’t have anything else you have a warm body. You can sit close to somebody and give your warmth. You can smile, you can dance, you can sing, you can laugh and help the other to laugh. And when two persons laugh together their beings are one in that moment. When two persons can smile together suddenly all distance dissolves – you are bridged.

So don’t think that to be generous you have to be rich. Just the contrary is the case: if you want to be rich, be generous. So many riches are always available; so many gifts you bring with your life and take with you with your death. You could have shared, and through sharing you would have become aware of how rich existence makes you and how poor you live. And the more you share, the more your being starts flowing. The more it flows, newer springs are always filling the river again and again – and you remain fresh.

Only a generous man is fresh. A non-generous man, a closed, miserly man, becomes dirty, is bound to become so. It is just like a well. When nobody comes to it and the well is not ready to give its water to anybody, then what will happen to the well? Fresh springs will not be supplying it because there is no need. The old water will become more and more dirty, the whole well will be dead. Fresh, living waters are not coming into it. This is how it has happened to many of you.

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→ Here ends part 1. Go to Pearl 673 for part 2.