and there is nothing worth losing it for.
Meditate on it.
Just being aware of the truth brings about inner change.
I think you won’t be coming to Udaipur to assist me
and that’s on your mind.
Come if you can,
if you can’t – never mind,
you are helping me all the time.
Isn’t one’s love help enough?
If you don’t come I will miss you
because the camp at Udaipur
is linked for me with being with you,
so I am hoping you can come.
Regards to all.
30. Love,
and lots of it.
I looked at once for your letter
amongst the pile waiting for me on my return.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to get it –
written by hand, too.
You write: Now your presence is felt in your absence.
Love really is presence.
Where there is love
space and time vanish,
and where there is no love
even what is near in space and time
keeps immeasurably apart.
Only lovelessness separates
and love is the only nearness.
Those who find total love
discover everything within themselves.
The whole world then is inside, not outside
and the moon and stars lie in the inner sky.
In this fullness of love, ego vanishes.
I want God to lead you to this fullness.
31. Love.
I arrived here yesterday
and have been thinking of writing ever since
but it didn’t happen until now.
Forgive the delay
though even a single day’s delay is no small delay!
What shall I say about the return journey?
It was very blissful.
I kept sleeping, and you were with me.
It appeared I had left you behind
but actually you were still with me.
This is the being-together that is so real
that it cannot be divided.
Physical nearness is not nearness,
there can be no union on that level,
only an unbridgeable gulf,
but there is another nearness which is not of the body,
and its name is love.
Once gained it is never lost.
Then no separation exists
despite vast distances in the visible world.
If you can arrive at this distancelessness
with even one other it can be found with everybody.
One is the door, the all, the goal.
The beginning of love is through one, the end is all.
The love that unites you with everything,
with nothing excluded, I call religion,
and the love that stops anywhere I call sin.
32. Love.
I received your letter;
I have been waiting for it ever since I returned.
But how sweet it is to wait!
Life itself is a waiting!
Seeds wait to sprout,
rivers to reach the ocean.
What does man wait for?
He too is the seed for some tree,
a river for some ocean.
Whoever looks deep inside
finds that a longing for the endless and boundless
is his very being.
And whoever recognizes this
begins his journey towards God
because who can be thirsty and not look for water?
This has never happened and never will!
Where there is longing,
there is thirst for attainment.
I want to make everyone aware of this thirst.
I want to convert everyone’s life into a waiting.
The life that has turned into a waiting for God
is the true life.
All other ways of life are just a waste, a disaster.
33. Love.
I received your letter.
Its poetry filled my heart.
It is said that poetry is born out of love.
In your letter I saw this happen.
Where there is love
the whole existence becomes a poem;
the flowers of life bloom under the light of love.
It is strange that you ask
why my heart holds so much love for you.
Can love ever be caused?
If it is,
can it be called love?
Oh, my mad friend! love is always uncaused!
This is its mystery,
and its purity.
Love is divine
and belongs to the kingdom of God
because it is uncaused.
As for me
l am filled with love
as a lamp is filled with light.
To see this light one needs eyes.
You have those eyes so you saw the light.
The credit is yours, not mine.
34. Love.
I never imagined that you would write
such a loving letter!
And you say that you are uneducated!
There is no knowledge greater than love,
and those who lack love – these are the true illiterates,
because the heart is the real thing in life,
not the intellect.
Bliss and light spring from the heart,
not from the mind, and you have so much heart – that is enough!
Can there be a better witness of this than me?
I am surprised that you write asking me
to point out any mistakes you have made.
So far on earth, love has not made one mistake.
All mistakes happen through lack of love,
in fact this for me is the only mistake in life.
Writing to you: May God make you envious of me
was no mistake.
I would like the bliss that has arisen in my heart
to make you thirst for it more and more.
Queen of Mewal!
there is no reason for you to worry about it!
35. Love.
It was just this time of night, two days ago
that I left you at Chittor.
I can see now
the love and bliss filling your eyes.
The secret of all prayer and worship
is hidden in the overflow of those tears.
They are sacred.
God fills the heart of those he blesses
with tears of love,
and what to say about the calamity of those
whose hearts are filled instead with thorns of hate?
Tears flowing in love
are offerings of flowers at the feet of God
and the eyes from which they flow
are blessed with divine vision.
Only eyes filled with love can see God.
Love is the only energy
that transcends the inertia of nature
and takes one to the shores of ultimate awareness.
I think that by the time this letter reaches you
you will already have left for Kashidham.
I don’t know how your journey was
but I hope it passed in song and laughter.
Give my kind respects to everyone there.
I am waiting for your promised letters.
36. Love.
I was very happy to meet you the other day.
I felt the stirrings of your heart and the longing of your soul.
You have not yet flowered as you were born to:
the seed is ready to sprout and the soil is right.
You will not have long to wait.
But now you have to work with great determination.
It is only a matter of starting the journey,
God’s gravitational pull does the rest.
37. Love.
It is good that you are forgetting the past –
it will open up an altogether new dimension of life.
To live completely in the present is freedom.
The past does not exist apart from memory
and nor does the future apart from castles in the air.
What is, is always present,
and if you start living unreservedly in the present
you live in God.
Once you are free of past and future
the mind turns empty and peaceful,
its waves die down
and what is left is limitless, endless.
This is the ocean of truth –
and may your river reach it!
P.S. I shall probably go to Ahmedabad in January,
can you come with me?
It would be good if we traveled together for a few days.
38. Love.
I am glad to see such thirst for God!
To have this thirst is a divine blessing;
where there is thirst – there the way is.
In fact, intense longing becomes the way.
God is summoning us at every moment
but because the strings of our heart are slack
we don’t echo his call.
If our eyes are closed then even if the sun is at the door
we will be in darkness;
and the sun is always at the door –
we only have to open our eyes and let it in, that’s all!
May God give you light, that’s my wish.
My love and I are always with you.
Regards to the family and love to the children.
39. Love.
I have your letter.
The wheel of the world keeps spinning
but why spin with it?
See what is behind body and mind;
that has never moved,
is not moving,
can never move,
and thou art that, tat tvam asi.
Waves lie on the surface of this ocean
but in its depths – what is there?
When the waves are taken for the ocean
it is a terrible mistake.
Look at the wheel of a bullock cart:
the wheel turns because the axle does not;
so remember your own axle,
standing, sitting, asleep or awake,
keep it in mind.
By and by, one begins to encounter
the changeless behind all change.
You have asked me about the poem.
I had a little piece read out by someone,
then it came to me: I should hear it from you yourself!
Now when you read it out to me I shall listen –
and then I can read both you and your poem.
40. Love.
I received your letter on my return.
I welcome this birth of determination in you.
Such strength of will alone
takes us to truth.
Our deepest powers are aroused by it,
the unorganized energy becomes organized
and then there is music.
What tremendous energy exists in this atom of self!
But it can’t be known without utter intensity of will.
You must have seen rocks
that even the strongest chisel cannot break,
and yet the sprouting shrub or plant
slips cracks and crevices through it so easily!
When the tiniest seed is filled with determination
to push through and reach the sun,
even the hardest rock has to give way.
So a weak seed wins over the mighty rocks!
The tender seed breaks through the hardest of rocks!
Why? Because no matter
how strong and powerful the rock,
it is dead,
and because it is dead it has no will.
The seed is tender,
it is weak,
but alive!
Remember, where there is will there is life
and where there is no will there is no life.
The seed’s will becomes its power,
and with this power
its tiny roots sprout,
enter the rock and spread out,
until one day they break the rock.
Life always wins over death.
The living force within has never been defeated
by the dead obstacles without – and never will be.
41. Love.
Your letter was received with joy.
When the heart thirsts so much
for truth,
for peace,
for religion,
one day you come face to face with the sun
which dispels all life’s darkness.
Thirst!
Pray!
Strive!
Wait!
A journey of a thousand miles is covered
step by small step,
so don’t lose heart.
Vast distances can be covered one step at a time
and an ocean filled drop by drop.
My regards to all.
I shall be coming soon now.
The rest when we meet.
42. Love.
Your letter has arrived.
You ask me about sex.
That energy too belongs to God
and through meditation it too can be transformed.
No energy is bad but there can, of course,
be wrong use of energy.
When sex energy flows upwards
it turns into brahmacharya (godly behavior).
It is good that you are becoming detached from it
but that isn’t enough.
You have to go through it to transform it,
rejection just leaves you arid and dry!
It is true you are not alone in your sex life
but sex is not essentially of the body at all
but a modification of the mind.
If the mind is completely transformed
it affects the other person too,
and one who is related so intimately
is quickly affected.
Until we meet, keep in mind that:
there should be no calculated ill-will towards sex –
cultivated detachment is useless.
Stay aware whilst making love,
be a witness in this situation;
if one can stay
in a state of meditation and right-mindfulness
then the sex energy can be successfully transformed.
We shall talk more about this when we meet.
Brahmacharya is a complete science in itself
and many doors to bliss open on that path.
Still, the very first thing is
a friendly attitude towards all one’s energies.
Enmity towards them does not lead to spiritual revolution
but to self-destruction.
Give my regards to all there.
You are not coming to Pune – I shall miss you.
43. Love.
You have asked me about the sense of humor.
We can talk about it in detail when we meet
but first of all:
the sense of humor should be directed towards oneself –
it is a very great thing to laugh at oneself
and he who can laugh at himself
gradually becomes full of concern
and compassion for others.
In the entire world no event,
no subject, invites laughter
like oneself.
About the truth of dreams as well
we shall have to talk in detail.
Some dreams are definitely true.
As the mind quietens down
glimpses of truth begin to appear in dreams.
Dreams are of four kinds
– those concerned with past lives,
– those concerned with the future,
– those concerned with the present,
– and those concerned with repressed desires.
Contemporary psychology knows something
about the fourth type only.
I am glad to know
that your mind moves towards being at peace.
Mind is what we want it to be,
peace and restlessness are both our own creations.
Man binds himself with his own chains
and so he is always at liberty to become free of the mind.
44. Love.
What gift is greater than love?
And still you ask – What have I given?
Oh, mad one!
When love is given
there is nothing left to give,
not even the giver,
for to give love is to give oneself.
You have given yourself,
now where are you?
Having lost yourself,
now you are bound to find
the one you have been longing to meet.
Now she has been born,
and I am a witness to it,
I have watched it happen.
I can hear the music that you are going to be.
The other day, when your heart was close to me,
I heard it.
Intellect knows of the present
but for the heart the future is also the present.
45. Love.
