Just as nature abhors vacuum, god abhors vacuum too. When the disciple has come to the point of being empty, utterly empty, grace descends; one is fulfilled. That is god-realisation or enlightenment or nirvana; that’s what Jesus calls ‘the kingdom of god’. And the kingdom of god is within you, but you are the barrier to it. You have to disappear, you have to give way. The kingdom of god does not arise from anywhere else. It wells up within you. Once the rock of the ego is removed, the spring starts flowing.
Love so much that the song arises in your being — the song of gratitude. Be grateful and sing the song of gratitude so that you can become more and more capable of love. This is how one reaches higher and higher peaks, and one day, your love and your song have become one. That day is the day where one disappears as a wave and becomes the ocean. That is called samadhi, satori, enlightenment, the kingdom of god — different names for the same thing. But nobody has reached god through logic. And all those who have reached to god have reached through love.
From this moment start watching. There is no need to strain — just in a very relaxed, calm, quiet way, start watching. Slowly you will become aware that the mind is an activity that surrounds you, but you are beyond the activity. just hovering above it. You are a mirror that reflects everything; you are consciousness. The deeper this experience goes, the less miserable one becomes. Then anger comes but it does not stay long because there is nobody to receive it, there is nobody to cling to it, there is nobody to get attached to it. It comes and goes. Its visitations will become less and less, far and few in between. And so will be the case with so many things that one was constantly surrounded by. And one day it starts happening: moments pass and there is nothing to reflect. The mind is utterly silent… not even a ripple of thought. Those are the great moments, the first glimpses of samadhi, of enlightenment.
Love is the only light in life; all else is darkness. You can have money and you will live in darkness; you can have power and you will live in darkness. You can be famous, you can have much respectability, but you will live in darkness. Unless you have light, unless you have love, you will not have light at all. It is only love that makes life a light phenomenon. That is the meaning of the word ‘enlightenment’. It is love that brings enlightenment. So meditate on love, and not only meditate: act on love. Never be afraid of love, and whenever love knocks on the door don’t hesitate to open it. Go with love, take all the risks. You will never be a loser.
Slow down, relax, and let these thoughts disappear. Slowly slowly they disappear. If you remain alert that they have to be dropped, you stop co-operating with them, you stop identifying with them, one day it happens: you are there, god is there, and there is no barrier of thought between you and god, no screen. And that is what is called enlightenment. Suddenly all is light and all is joy and all is eternal life.
Let this be the key: whatsoever you are doing, go on bringing your consciousness to it again and again. It will slip again and again, that’s natural. Don’t be worried about it, don’t be troubled by it and don’t start feeling frustrated by it. It takes months, sometimes years, but it is worth it. And slowly slowly, for a few moments, it will start happening. Even those few moments will bring so much joy to you, more than you have ever known, even dreamt about. Even if for a single moment your body and being are welded, are in tune, you will see what-bliss means. You may not be able to tell anybody what it is, but you have tasted it. In that moment you fell into the ocean of god. In that moment you were showered on by divine energy. Slowly slowly more and more moments will be coming and one day it happens that this becomes your very life. It becomes a crystallised thing. That state is called enlightenment.
Enlightenment means to live life without any hankering for meaning. Then whatsoever is, is good, and whatsoever is not, that too is good. Then each moment becomes so radiant, so luminous, so fun of fragrance, but still there is no meaning.
Enlightenment can happen either through love or through meditation; there are two doors to enlightenment. Meditation means being alone, utterly alone, and love means being totally with someone, so totally that the two-ness disappears and one-ness arises. And these are the two ways. Fifty percent attain through meditation and fifty percent through love; that is a balance.
If one can attain enlightenment through love it is one of the most beautiful experiences, far more beautiful than to attain enlightenment through meditation because meditation is a single note, solo, there is no orchestra in it. Love is an orchestra, two beings playing together. It is far richer.
Nirvan means enlightenment, the state of ultimate realisation, the experience of one’s innermost core, the actualisation of all the potential that one has carried all along, the seed turning into the flower.
One of the greatest steps towards inner enlightenment is to drop the idea of being known to others. That is an ego-trip, and a sheer wastage of time, energy, opportunity — and an opportunity that is tremendously meaningful. If you can use it, if you can turn in, you can be utterly contented. Life has so much to give, but it gives only to those who turn inwards. And the person who is after fame never turns in, because his whole point is to catch the attention of others. He is really childish, still saying ‘Daddy, Mummy, look at me, pay attention to me.’ He is still searching for somebody to pat him, appreciate him. Deep down he feels he is nothing; he wants to be patted, appreciated, so that he can feel some worth. But even if the whole world pats you and the whole world appreciates you, you will remain the same. This is not the way to attain to worth.
Sat means true, bodhi means enlightenment — true enlightenment. There is a possibility of an untrue enlightenment. The ego can play the last trick: the ego can start pretending ‘I am enlightened.’ And it is so subtle that it is almost impossible for others to detect it, because you can talk like enlightened people very easily. Scriptures are available, you can cram them; you can repeat the Upanishads, the Bible, the Koran. You can analyse in such a subtle way, with such philosophical acumen, that it can be easily proved to others that you have attained. You can live a life according to people’s expectations of how an enlightened person should live. If they expect that you should live naked, you can live naked. If they expect that you should kiss lepers, you can kiss lepers. If they expect that you should serve the poor and the ill, you can serve the poor and the ill. It is easy to manage. That is the last trick that the ego can play upon oneself. One has to be very very aware at that moment, otherwise one slips back to the original place, one again falls to the same ground from where one was trying and trying hard to rise.
How to decide whether it is true enlightenment or untrue? The only decisive factor is: the absence of I. In true enlightenment, the idea of I simply disappears, it is not found. There is nobody to claim ‘I am enlightened’, there is simply nobody to claim anything. It is a pure nothingness, full of light, full of joy — very spacious, it can contain the whole sky, but the ‘I’ is found nowhere, not even a trace of it. Then it is satbodhi, then it is true enlightenment.
The ultimate enlightenment means the ultimate dissolution of the ego, the ultimate disappearance of the individual.
In India we have three names for enlightenment; they come from three traditions. The hindu tradition calls it ‘moksha’; it means freedom, absolute freedom: you will be there, absolutely free. The second name is ‘kaivalya’; that comes from the jaina tradition. It means absolute aloneness: you will be there but absolutely alone, purely alone. And the third name is nirvana; it comes from the buddhist tradition. It is the most difficult of all the three and the most meaningful of all the three. It means cessation of the self.
Nirvana means utter cessation, all disappears, there is simple emptiness. In that emptiness there is tremendous consciousness, fulfillment, but no centre to be fulfilled. To know it, it has to be experienced….
Remember this — that by and by one has to drop all distinctions of good and bad, moral, immoral, what should be done and what should not be done. The very idea of ‘ought’ has to be dropped slowly, slowly, so only ‘is’ remains and there is no ‘ought’. When there is pure ‘isness’ one is free. That pure ‘isness’ we call enlightenment. It is not an achievement, you are already that. These clouds that surround you just have to disappear.
