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145. Love.

Atheism is the first step towards theism,

and a must.

If you haven’t been through the fire of atheism

you’ll never know the light of theism.

If you haven’t the true strength to say No

your Yes will always be impotent.

So I am glad you are an atheist –

something that can be said only by a theist.

So I say: Go deeper into atheism.

Superficiality won’t do,

so don’t just think atheism, live it –

and it will ultimately lead you to God.

Atheism isn’t it,

it is just a doubting.

Doubt is good but it isn’t it.

Actually, doubt is a search for trust.

So go on, make your journey,

for the path to truth starts with this doubt.

Doubt is sadhana

because doubt eventually exposes the incontestable truth.

Inside the seed of doubt is the tree of trust,

so if you plant the seed of questioning

and work on it

you are bound to harvest trust.

And beware all religions!

Only religions obstruct the true path of religion.

146. Love.

Dreams too are true

because what we call truth is only a dream –

it is just the difference between open and closed eyes.

Understand this fully

and then one can go beyond both,

and the way lies beyond both.

Both are the seen and beyond both is the seer.

147. Love.

Not only is a seed a seed,

man is also a seed.

Not only seeds bloom,

man also blooms.

Not only seeds blossom into flowers.

148. Love.

How can the search begin unless there is doubt?

How will the heart awaken to know the truth

unless there is doubt?

Remember – belief and faith bind man,

doubt liberates him.

149. Love.

I was glad to receive your letter.

Make love your prayer now.

Love alone is worship, is God.

Let there be love with every breath –

this is your only sadhana.

Sitting, rising, sleeping, waking

just remember: love.

Then you will see that his temple is not far off.

150. Love.

God is testing you every moment.

Laugh and take the test –

it is beautiful that he considers you worth testing!

But don’t be in a hurry

for the more you hurry the more some goals recede,

and without doubt the temple of God is a goal like that.

He who travels with patience travels fastest on this journey.

The mind will roam again and again –

that is its way;

the day its roaming stops it will be dead.

Sometimes it sleeps –

do not mistake this for death.

Sometimes it gets tired –

don’t mistake this for death either.

Some rest and sleep and it is strong and alive again.

So stop bothering about it altogether

for even this worry gives it strength.

Surrender even this to God.

Say to him: Whatever it’s like, good or bad,

take care of it.

And then just be a witness,

simply watch the whole play.

Watch the play of the mind with detachment

and then suddenly –

there is the consciousness which is no-mind.

151. Love.

God is far off because we don’t know

how to see him close by.

Actually there is nothing closer than him.

More than that – he is the here and now.

The name God is just for those

who can’t find the here and now.

Words, names, doctrines, scriptures, religion, philosophy,

all these are created for those who can see him

only at a distance.

Hence they have no connection with God

but only with those who are blind to the near.

That’s why I say: Drop the distant.

Drop paradises in the sky.

Drop hopes in the future,

and see the near in time and in space.

Be here and now and see!

See the instant in time,

see the atom in space.

In the time moment time ceases to exist.

In the space atom space ceases to exist.

There is no space, no time, here and now.

What is left is truth,

is God,

is that.

You too are that.

Tat tvam asi – that art thou.

152. Love.

Religion too has to take new birth in every age.

Bodies – all kinds of bodies – grow old and die.

Sects are the dead bodies of religion,

their souls have left them long ago.

Their languages have become out of date.

This is why they no longer touch

the human heart any more. Nor is their echo heard any more

in the human soul.

Once Dr. John A. Hutton, while speaking in a gathering of priests asked,

“Why have the preachings of religious leaders turned

so lifeless and dull?”

When nobody stood up to answer, he himself answered it by saying:

“They are all dull because preachers are trying to answer questions

that nobody is asking.”

Religiousness is eternal.

But its body should always be contemporary.

Neither is the body eternal, nor can it be – not even the body of religion.

153. Love.

Drop the fear,

because the moment you hold on to it, it multiplies.

To hold on to it is to nourish it.

But dropping fear does not mean fighting with it.

To fight is also to hold on to it.

Just know that fear is.

Do not run away from it,

do not escape.

In life there is fear,

there is insecurity,

there is death –

just know this.

All these are facts of life.

Where would you run from them?

How would you avoid them?

Life itself is such.

And its acceptance, its natural acceptance, is the freedom from fear.

Once fear is accepted, where is it?

Once death is accepted, where is it?

Once insecurity is accepted, where is it?

Acceptance of the wholeness of life is what I call

sannyas, initiation on the path.

154. Love.

Attainment of meditation is not a question of time,

it is a question of will.

If the will is total, meditation happens in a moment too.