than to explain things to each and everyone

from morn till night.

And also,

seeing this empty cage hanging there

day in and day out, my mind kept repeating:

The bird! The bird! The bird!

So, if you hang commitment like a cage in the mind

it won’t be long before the bird of sadhana comes!

115. Love.

Man lives not in reality but in dreams.

Each mind creates a world of its own which exists nowhere.

During the day as well as the night

the mind is swamped in dreams.

When the dreams become too much, too intense,

insanity results.

To be clear and healthy is to be without dreams.

Once, the president of a country went

to inspect the nation’s largest lunatic asylum.

The director took him to a room and told him:

In this room, the inmates suffer from car-phobia.

The president, curious, looked through the window.

But there is nobody there, he said.

They are all there, sir – under the beds repairing cars,

the director replied.

Everyone is lying under their dreams in the same way.

If this president had looked within, what would he have found?

Is not every capital a great madhouse?

But one cannot see one’s own madness – this is a sure trait of madness.

When someone starts doubting himself, seeing his madness,

know well that the time has come for his insanity to go.

Awareness of madness marks the end of madness.

Awareness of ignorance heralds its end.

Awareness of dreaming brings dreams to an end.

What is left is truth.

116. Love.

I am very glad to have received your letter.

Anxieties exist in life but there is no need to worry about them.

Worrying stems not from the anxieties but from our attitude towards them.

To be anxious or not is always our open choice.

It is not that a non-anxious mind is free of anxieties – anxieties are there,

they are an unavoidable part of life –

but it does not burden itself with them.

Such a person always sees beyond them;

dark nights surround him too but his eyes look to the rising sun

and therefore his soul

is never drowned in darkness.

And this alone is enough —

that the soul not be drowned in darkness.

The body is bound to drown in it – in fact it already has.

Those who are condemned to die live their lives in darkness;

only the deathless have their lives rooted in the light.

Blessings to the children and regards to all.

117. Love.

There is no greater power than trusting oneself –

its fragrance is not of this world;

peace, bliss and truth flow from this fragrance.

He who trusts himself is in heaven

and he who mistrusts himself

holds the keys of hell in his hands.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume was an atheist,

but every Sunday he made it a point

to attend the sermon of John Brown,

a confirmed theist.

When people pointed out

that going to church was against his own principles

he laughed – and replied: I have no faith whatever

in what John Brown says,

but John Brown has total faith in what John Brown says.

So once a week I make a point of hearing a man

who has total faith in himself!

118. Love.

Love is also fire,

but a cool fire.

Yet we have to burn in it

because it also purifies;

it burns only to purify.

The dross burns

leaving pure gold.

In the same way my love will bring suffering

because I wish to destroy you in order to recreate you.

The seed must be broken –

how else can the tree be born?

The river must end –

how else is it to merge with the ocean?

So let go of yourself and die –

how else will you find the self?

119. Love.

Truth is discovered not through swimming

but through drowning.

Swimming is a surface happening,

drowning takes you to the infinite depths.

120. Love.

The search for meaning is disastrous;