Books on Adi Shankaracharya:
The Song of Ecstasy (in English)
The Great Transcendence (in English)
Bhaj Govindam Moodh Mate (in Hindi)

“Adi Shankaracharya was an unbounded flow of revolutionary energy, a Ganges rushing towards the ocean. He cannot be channeled like a canal.”
- Nowhere To Go But In, Chapter #3

Adi Shankaracharya, the first shankaracharya, who established four temples -- the four seats of shankaracharyas for all the four directions. Perhaps in the whole world, he is the most famous of those philosophers who are trying to establish that everything is illusory. Without doubt he was a great logician, because he went on conquering other philosophers; he moved all over the country and defeated all other schools of philosophy. He established his philosophy as the only right vision, the only right perspective: that all is maya, illusion.
- The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Chapter #9

This is the book I have always wanted to talk about; it is even scheduled for my morning talks in English. I have already spoken on it in Hindi and it can also be translated. The book is by Shankaracharya -- not the present fool, but Adi Shankaracharya, the original one.
The book is one thousand years old, and is nothing but a small song: "BHAJ GOVINDAM MOODH MATE -- O Idiot...." Now, Devageet, listen carefully: I'm not talking to you, that is the title of the book. BHAJ GOVINDAM -- sing the song of the Lord -- MOODH MATE, O Idiot. O Idiot, sing the song of the Lord.
But idiots don't listen. They never listen to anybody, they are deaf. Even if they listen they don't understand. They are imbeciles. Even if they can understand, they don't follow; and unless you follow, understanding is meaningless. Understanding is understanding only when it is proved by your following.
Shankaracharya has written many books but none of them is so beautiful as this song: BHAJ GOVINDAM MOODH MATE. I have spoken much on these three or four words, almost three hundred pages. But you know how I love to sing songs; if I have the opportunity I will go on endlessly. But here I wanted to at least mention the book.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #15

Books on Ashtavakra:
Enlightenment : The Only Revolution (in English)
Ashtavakra Mahageeta (6 volumes in Hindi)

Ashtavakra is not for synthesis -- he is a man of truth. He speaks the truth just as it is, without any artifice or coloring. He is not concerned about the listener, he does not care whether his listener will understand or not. Such a pure expression of truth has never happened anywhere before, nor has it ever happened again.

No one is concerned with Ashtavakra, because to accept Ashtavakra you are going to have to drop yourself -- unconditionally. You cannot bring yourself along. Only if you stay behind can you come near him.

If you really want to understand Ashtavakra you will have to descend into the depths of meditation. No commentary, no interpretation will be of any help.

And for meditation Ashtavakra does not ask us to sit and chant "Ram, Ram." He says that anything you do will not be meditation. How can there be meditation when there is a doer? As long as there is doing, there is illusion. As long as the doer is present, the ego is present. Ashtavakra says becoming a witness is meditation. Then the doer disappears; you remain only as watcher, nothing but the observer. When you are nothing but the observer then only is there darshan, seeing; then only is there meditation, then only is there wisdom.
- The Mahageeta, Vol 1, Chapter #1

Ashtavakra, one of the greatest seers of this country, says: The sannyasin is one who is dead even while he is alive. But the person who is dead while he is alive will be alive when he is dead.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5, Chapter #4

Ashtavakra says, "Rest in yourself, and you will attain all." Because resting in yourself you will know who you are.
- The First Principle, Chapter #9

“One very great mystic of India -- I have spoken on him for almost half a year continuously. His name was Ashtavakra. And what he has written is tremendously important; each sentence has so many dimensions to be explored, but the man himself was in a very difficult situation.

Ashtavakra -- the name was given to him, because he was almost like a camel. In eight places he was distorted in the body -- one leg was longer, one arm was shorter, his back was bent -- in eight places he was distorted. That's how he was born, with a crippled, distorted body. But even in a crippled and distorted body the soul is as beautiful as in the most beautiful body.

He became enlightened, but his body was too rigid to change with his inner change. His eyes started showing something of the beauty, but the whole body was in such a mess.”

“It is one of the strangest things in this country that on every book written by any prominent mystic there have been hundreds of commentaries, but nobody has commented before me on Ashtavakra. And he must be at least five thousand years old. For five thousand years nobody has bothered to look into his statements, which are so significant.

But his inner enlightenment, his inner understanding could not change his outer appearance. And yet for those who are going deeper into themselves, the outer does not matter. They would have seen even in Ashtavakra tremendous beauty, but it would not have been of the outer circumference, but of the center.
Most often the inner change changes the outer, if the outer is not too rigid. But the outer never changes the inner.

You need to have eyes, going deep into people's beings, which is possible only if you are going inwards yourself. The deeper you go into yourself the deeper you can look into other people's beings. And then a totally new world opens its doors.”
- Sat Chit Anand, Chapter #27

Just a few days ago I was talking about Ashtavakra. Yes, he is exactly like Lao Tzu; he also praises the quality of sublime laziness. He calls it ALASI SHIROMANI. the emperor of laziness, a great king of laziness, the highest peak of laziness. But remember, inactivity plus energy, plus vitality. And not a single effort has to be made, because in the effort so much energy will be wasted that you will be less radiant. And God comes to you only when you are so vital -- optimumly vital, optimum... at the peak -- that you cannot be any more vital. At that peak you meet the divine. Your highest energy comes closest to God's feet; God's lowest energy is closest to man's highest energy, and there is the communion.
- Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, Chapter #2

Book on Atisha:
The Book of Wisdom (in English)

Atisha is one of the rare masters, rare in the sense that he was taught by three enlightened masters. It has never happened before, and never since. To be a disciple of three enlightened masters is simply unbelievable -- because one enlightened master is enough. But this story, that he was taught by three enlightened masters, has a metaphorical significance also. And it is true, it is historical too.

The three masters that Atisha remained with for many years were: first, Dharmakirti, a great Buddhist mystic. He taught him no-mind, he taught him emptiness, he taught him how to be thoughtless, he taught him how to drop all content from the mind and be contentless. The second master was Dharmarakshita, another Buddhist mystic. He taught him love, compassion. And the third master was Yogin Maitreya, another Buddhist mystic. He taught him the art of taking the suffering of others and absorbing it into your own heart: love in action.

This could happen because all these three masters were great friends. They had started their search together; while they were on the way they had remained together, and when they attained they were still together.

Atisha became a disciple of Dharmakirti. Dharmakirti said to him, "I will teach you the first principle. And for the second you go to Dharmarakshita, and for the third to Yogin Maitreya. This way you will know all the three faces of the ultimate reality, the three faces of God -- the trinity, the TRIMURTI. And this way you will learn each face from the person who is the most perfect in it."
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #1

Because Atisha learned under three enlightened masters, he is called Atisha the Thrice Great. Nothing more is known about his ordinary life, when and where exactly he was born. He existed somewhere in the eleventh century. He was born in India, but the moment his love became active he started moving towards Tibet, as if a great magnet were pulling him there. In the Himalayas he attained; then he never came back to India.

He moved towards Tibet, his love showered on Tibet. He transformed the whole quality of Tibetan consciousness. He was a miracle-worker; whatsoever he touched was transformed into gold. He was one of the greatest alchemists the world has ever known.

These "Seven Points of Mind Training" are the fundamental teaching that he gave to Tibet -- a gift from India to Tibet. India has given great gifts to the world. Atisha is one of those great gifts. Just as India gave Bodhidharma to China, India gave Atisha to Tibet. Tibet is infinitely indebted to this man.
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #1

Atisha is really very very scientific. First he says: Take the whole responsibility on yourself. Secondly he says: Be grateful to everyone. Now that nobody is responsible for your misery except you, if it is all your own doing, then what is left?
BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #5

Bahaudin is one of the greatest Sufi Masters ever. He is of the same status as Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ. "Naqshband" means "a designer"; and he was a designer, and this story is a design. He used to create situations because people can only be taught through real situations. And he was one of the greatest designers.

Gurdjieff learned his devices from the Order of Naqshbandis, the followers of Bahaudin Naqshband. They are called Naqshbandis, "The Designers", still. No other school of human transformation has created so many devices. Bahaudin used to say that people are so asleep that if you simply talk with them, they will listen and yet they will not listen. They will only hear, and they will not listen. And even if they hear, the meaning that they will give to you and your words will be their own. They have to be brought to actual situations. People are so asleep, they have to be hit by actual realities; only then can something penetrate into their thick, dense, insensitive, unintelligent heads.
- The Secret, Chapter #1

When you go to a man like Bahaudin you are coming close to danger, you are coming close to fire, you are coming close to death.
- Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, Chapter #5

Sufis don't believe in teachings and teachers. This man, Bahaudin, is one of the greatest masters. The master does not teach: he demonstrates; his whole being is a demonstration. He opens new dimensions and he invites you to look through these new dimensions, new vistas, new windows. He demonstrates, he does not teach. And even if he teaches, it is just to persuade your intellect to come to his window from where things have a totally different look.
And a master has to be skilled in the greatest art: the art of the human heart -- because subtle are the problems, very complicated and complex.
- Until You Die, Chapter #5

The book I am going to talk about is a Sufi one, THE BOOK OF BAHAUDDIN. The original Sufi mystic, Bahauddin created the tradition of Sufism. In his small book everything is contained. It is like a seed. Love, meditation, life, death... he has not left anything out whatsoever. Meditate over it.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #11

Book on Zen with Basho’s Haikus:
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus (in English)

Basho has tremendous respect in my heart. He is not only a mystic, a master, he is also a poet, a painter, a sculptor; he is a creative phenomenon. Nobody can compare with him as far as his multidimensional personality is concerned.

He has the fragrance which only a flower can have. That fragrance is manifested in his poetry, in his small statements, in his every gesture. Even in his ordinary talks with people he cannot be other than Basho.
Basho is far more refined, perhaps the most refined Zen master up to now. His refinement is in his cultured, meditative spaciousness. Out of that spaciousness many flowers have showered on the world. It does not matter wherever he is and whatever is going on, Basho is going to make it a Zen state of affairs. That uniqueness will not be found again.
- Live Zen, Chapter #4

Basho is one of the greatest poets of the world, but he has written only haikus -- very symbolic but very miraculous, very simple but very mysterious. They are all to be understood through visualization, because Zen does not believe in words. Visualize and perhaps you may have some understanding.
- Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus, Chapter #1

A meditator, according to Basho, will go on searching deep within himself, but that does not mean that he should lose contact with the outside world. Once in a while he should open his eyes. With all his emptiness he should mirror the outside world. Those reflections are collected in these haikus. They don't mean anything, they simply depict a picture.
- Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus, Chapter #1

Basho is the greatest haiku poet of Japan, the Master haiku poet. But he was not just a poet. Before becoming a poet he was a mystic; before he starting pouring out with beautiful poetry, he poured deep into his own center. He was a meditator.
- The Beloved, Vol 2, Chapter #8

It happened when Basho's master died -- Basho is a buddha, a buddha who writes poetry, a buddha who paints beautiful pictures, a very aesthetic buddha. His master died, thousands of people gathered. His master was very famous; more famous because of Basho, because Basho was a famous poet and painter and he was Basho's master. Thousands of people gathered and they were very much surprised when they saw Basho crying, big tears rolling down his cheeks.

A few close disciples of his master came to Basho and said, "It does not look right. Thousands of people are coming and they are getting confused. They don't think a buddha should be crying and weeping, and you are the man who has been saying to them again and again: There is no death and the innermost core lives forever. Then why are you weeping? Your master is not dead, he has only moved from the small body to the universal body of God. So why are you weeping?"

Basho wiped his tears and he said, "Listen! This is nobody's business. I live according to my inner feelings, I cannot pretend. When my innermost core

has disappeared into the universal. don't care whether people think it right or not. If they don't think that I am enlightened it's okay, but I cannot pretend. I cannot do something which is not really there. And yes, I have said that the soul is immortal and my master has not died, he has disappeared into the universal. That's why I am crying, not crying that he is dead but crying that now I will never be able to see his form. Now he has become formless -- and his body was beautiful. I will never be able to look again into those deep eyes, I will never be able to hold his hand and touch his feet. I have lost his form -- I am crying for his body, for his form; I am not crying for the formless soul. And I am not concerned whether people think me enlightened or unenlightened, that is their business. Who cares?"
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, Chapter #8

Book on Baul Mystics:
The Beloved (2 volumes in English)

The Bauls are called Bauls because they are mad people. The word 'Baul' comes from the Sanskrit root VATUL. It means: mad, affected by wind. The Baul belongs to no religion. He is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist. He is a simple human being. His rebellion is total. He does not belong to anybody; he only belongs to himself. He lives in a no man's land: no country is his, no religion is his, no scripture is his.

Bauls have nothing -- no scripture, not even to burn; no church, no temple, no mosque -- nothing whatsoever. A Baul is a man always on the road. He has no house, no abode. God is his only abode, and the whole sky is his shelter. He possesses nothing except a poor man's quilt, a small, hand-made one-stringed instrument called AEKTARA, and a small drum, a kettle-drum. That's all that he possesses. He possesses only a musical instrument and a drum. He plays with one hand on the instrument and he goes on beating the drum with the other. The drum hangs by the side of his body, and he dances. That is all of his religion.
Dance is his religion; singing is his worship.
- The Beloved, Vol 1, Chapter #1

The Bauls say that life is not a creation of something new, it is just unfoldment. You already have it; it just has to be unfolded, barriers just have to be removed. Obstacles just have to be put aside and your life starts unfolding. You are like a bud: when obstacles are no more there, you start flowering, your lotus opens.
- The Beloved, Vol 2, Chapter #1

The methods of the Bauls are very simple. They say that if you can dance, many blocks will disappear from your being -- because when a person dances and really moves into dance, and becomes movement, then he becomes liquid. Have you not seen it? If you have seen somebody lost in dancing, can't you see it? that he is no longer solid? He is flowing. The solidity is gone; he has become liquid. This liquidity melts the blocks. So dancing is the Yoga of the Baul; he dances for hours together. When the moon is in the sky in the night, the Bauls will dance the whole night -- because for them the moon is a symbol of their Beloved, Krishna. They call Krishna 'the moon'. When the moon is there they will dance, and they will dance madly. And this dance is not a performance. It is not for somebody else to see. If somebody sees it and watches, that's another thing. The Baul dances for himself, for his own pleasure.
- The Beloved, Vol 2, Chapter #1

Bauls have been very extraordinary people. The word BAUL means MAD. Bauls were mad mystics. They have talked in all sorts of paradoxes; but very beautiful. They are not philosophers, they are mad poets. They are not proposing any logical thing, rather on the contrary 'they are trying to show you something through paradox.
- Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 4, Chapter #2

Bauls were great mystics of such beauty and depth that people started thinking that they were mad. So the literal meaning of the word "baul" is mad; it means: the mad mystic. Their whole life was so utterly different, so radically different from the ordinary life, that naturally they looked mad. They danced, they sang, they moved like madmen, traveling up and down the country singing songs of joy, of celebration. Naturally they looked mad, because in a world of suffering how do you conceive of celebration? In a world where everybody is miserable, the man who is dancing and has laughter in his soul looks simply out of place, outlandish, mad, stoned, not in his senses. Hence the word "baul" -- it means the mad mystic.

Slowly slowly they have disappeared; very few Bauls are still alive. But the glory is gone because this country no more welcomes the real mystic. It still talks about mysticism, in fact talks much about mysticism, but its heart has become materialistic.
- God's Got a Thing About you, Chapter #13

Books on Sufis:
Just Like That (in English)
The Wisdom of the Sands (2 volumes in English)
The Secret (in English)
Sufis: The People of the Path (2 volumes in English)
The Perfect master (2 volumes in English)
Until You Die (in English)

When a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, was dying, people who had gathered around him -- his disciples -- were suddenly surprised, because when the last moment came his face became radiant, powerfully radiant. It had a beautiful aura.

Bayazid was a beautiful man, and his disciples had always felt ar aura around him, but they had not known anything like this; so radiant.
They asked, 'Bayazid, tell us what has happened to you. What is happening to you? Before you leave us, give us your last message.'

He opened his eyes and he said, 'God is welcoming me. I am going into his embrace. Goodbye.'
He closed his eyes, his breathing stopped. But at the moment his breathing stopped there was an explosion of light, the room became full of light, and then it disappeared.

When a person has known the transcendental in himself, death is nothing but another face of God. Then death has a dance to it. And unless you become capable of celebrating death itself, remember, you have missed life. The whole life is a preparation for this ultimate.
- The Art of Dying, Chapter #1

Bayazid of Bistam, one of the greatest names amongst the Sufis.
- Just Like That, Chapter #8

Sufism is the path of intense love, passionate love. As Bayazid has said, "The duration of Bayazid's life of asceticism was only three days. On the first day he renounced the world, on the second day he renounced the other world, and on the last day he renounced himself. "
- The Secret, Chapter #17

Bayazid says that it is the nature of the master to change others; it is not an effort. Nothing is being done by the master, simply his presence.... And if he appears to do something, that appearance is just a trick because you cannot understand the language of nondoing. You can only understand the language of effort. So he creates a language for you. Even if you cannot understand his language, he can understand your language very well. Even if you cannot understand him, he can understand you very well.
- The Supreme Doctrine, Chapter #3

Books on Bodhidharma:
The White Lotus (in English)
Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master (in English)

I have a very soft corner in my heart for Bodhidharma. That makes it a very special occasion to speak about him. Perhaps he is the only man whom I have loved so deeply that speaking on him I will be almost speaking on myself.
- Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master, Chapter #1

I AM ECSTATIC because just the name of Bodhidharma is psychedelic to me. In the long evolution of human consciousness there has never been such an outlandish Buddha as Bodhidharma -- very rare, very unique, exotic.
There have been many buddhas in the world, but Bodhidharma stands out like Everest. His way of being, living, and expressing the truth is simply his; it is incomparable.
- The White Lotus, Chapter #1

Bodhidharma reached China. He was one of the greatest buddhas of all the ages. After Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma seems to be the most precious person in the Buddhist heritage.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 12, Chapter #10

Bodhidharma is one of the greatest enlightened men who has ever existed, and one of the most unique amongst all the enlightened men. In many ways he surpasses his own master, Gautam Buddha.
- From Bondage to Freedom, Chapter #7

I also forgot THE NOTES OF THE DISCIPLES OF BODHIDHARMA. When I talk of Gautam Buddha I always forget Bodhidharma, perhaps because I feel as if I have included him in his master, Buddha. But no, that is not right; Bodhidharma stands on his own. He was a great disciple, so great that even the master could be jealous of him. He himself did not write a word, but a few of his disciples, unknown because they did not mention their names, wrote some notes of Bodhidharma's words. These notes, though few, are as precious as the Kohinoor. The word Kohinoor, do you know, means the light of the world. Noor means the light, kohi means of the world. If I had to describe anything as Kohinoor, yes, I would indicate towards those few notes by the anonymous disciples of Bodhidharma.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #2

But who are they to decide how an enlightened or illuminated person should speak? Have they known Bodhidharma? Have they seen his picture? They will immediately conclude that an enlightened or illuminated person cannot look like that. He looks ferocious! His eyes are those of a lion in the forest, and the way he looks at you is such that it seems he will jump from the picture and kill you instantly. That's how he was! But forget Bodhidharma, because now fourteen centuries have passed.

I knew Bodhidharma personally. I traveled with the man for at least three months. He loved me just as I loved him. You will be curious to know why he loved me. He loved me because I never asked him any question. He said to me, "You are the first person I have met who does not ask a question -- and I only get bored with all the questions. You are the only person who does not bore me."
I said, "There is a reason."

He said, "What is that?"
I said, "I only answer. I never question. If you have any question you can ask me. If you don't have a question then keep your mouth shut."

We both laughed, because we both belonged to the same category of insanity. He asked me to continue the journey with him, but I said, "Excuse me, I have to go my own way, and from this point it separates from yours."

He could not believe it. He had never invited anyone before. This was the man who had even refused Emperor Wu -- the greatest emperor of those days, with the greatest empire -- as if he was a beggar. Bodhidharma could not believe his eyes, that I could refuse him.

I said, "Now you know how it feels to be refused. I wanted to give you a taste of it. Goodbye." But that was fourteen centuries ago.
- Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Chapter #6

Books on Buddha:
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha (12 volumes in English)
The Diamond Sutra (in English)
The Discipline of Transcendence (4 volumes in English)
The Heart Sutra (in English)
Ais Dhammo Sanantano (12 volumes in Hindi)

I love Gautama the Buddha because he represents to me the essential core of religion. He is not the founder of Buddhism -- Buddhism is a byproduct -- but he is the beginner of a totally different kind of religion in the world. He's the founder of a religionless religion. He has propounded not religion but religiousness. And this is a great radical change in the history of human consciousness.

Before Buddha there were religions but never a pure religiousness. Man was not yet mature. With Buddha, humanity enters into a mature age. All human beings have not yet entered into that, that's true, but Buddha has heralded the path; Buddha has opened the gateless gate. It takes time for human beings to understand such a deep message. Buddha's message is the deepest ever. Nobody has done the work that Buddha has done, the way he has done. Nobody else represents pure fragrance.

Other founders of religions, other enlightened people, have compromised with their audience. Buddha remains uncompromised, hence his purity. He does not care what you can understand, he cares only what the truth is. And he says it without being worried whether you understand it or not. In a way this looks hard; in another way this is great compassion.
- The Diamond Sutra, Chapter #1

Buddha is one of the most important masters who has ever existed on the earth -- incomparable, unique. And if you can have a taste of his being, you will be infinitely benefited, blessed.
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, Chapter #1

GAUTAM BUDDHA is like the highest peak of the Himalayas, like Gourishanker... one of the purest beings, one of the most virgin souls, one of the very rare phenomena on this earth. The rarity is that Buddha is the scientist of the inner world -- scientist of religion. That is a rare combination. To be religious is simple, to be a scientist is simple -- but to combine, synthesize these two polarities is incredible. It is unbelievable, but it has happened.
- The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1, Chapter #1

But as far as Gautam the Buddha is concerned, I welcome him in my very heart. I will give him my words, my silences, my meditations, my being, my wings. From today onwards you can look at me as Gautama the Buddha.
- No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity, Chapter #1

Buddha says: Meditation is enough to solve your problems, but something is missing in it -- compassion. If compassion is also there, then you can help others solve their problems. He says: Meditation is pure gold; it has a perfection of its own. But if there is compassion then the gold has a fragrance too -- then a higher perfection, then a new kind of perfection, gold with fragrance. Gold is enough unto itself -- very valuable -- but with compassion, meditation has a fragrance.
- The Heart Sutra, Chapter #1

Even I myself could not believe that I had not included Gautama the Buddha's DHAMMAPADA. Gautam Buddha was sitting there silently in the last row. I love the man as I have loved nobody else. I have been speaking on him throughout my whole life. Even speaking on others I have been speaking on him. Take note of it, it is a confession. I cannot speak on Jesus without bringing Buddha in; I cannot speak on Mohammed without bringing Buddha in. Whether I mention him directly or not that's another matter. It is really impossible for me to speak without bringing Buddha in. He is my very blood, my bones, my very marrow. He is my silence, also my song. When I saw him sitting there I remembered. I cannot even apologize, it is beyond apologizing.
DHAMMAPADA literally means 'the path of truth', or even more accurately 'the footprints of truth'. Do you see the contradiction?
Coming in
going out
the waterfowl
leaves no trace behind,
nor it needs a guide.
Truth is unspeakable. There are no footprints. Birds flying in the sky don't leave any footprints... and buddhas are birds of the sky.
But buddhas always speak in contradictions, and it is beautiful that at least they speak. They cannot speak without contradicting themselves, they cannot help it. To speak of truth is to contradict yourself. Not to speak is again to contradict, because even when you are trying not to speak, you know that your silence is nothing but an expression, without words maybe, but an expression all the same.
Buddha gave the name DHAMMAPADA to his greatest book, and there are contradictions upon contradictions. He is so full of contradictions that believe me, except me nobody can defeat him. Of course he would enjoy being defeated by me, just as a father once in a while enjoys being defeated by his own child. The child sitting on his father's chest victorious, and the father has simply allowed him to win. All the buddhas allow themselves to be defeated by those who love them. I allow my disciples to defeat me, to go beyond me. There cannot be anything more joyous than seeing a disciple transcend me.
Buddha begins with the very name DHAMMAPADA -- that's what he is going to do: he is going to say the unsayable, to utter the unutterable. But he uttered the unutterable so beautifully that DHAMMAPADA is like an Everest. There are mountains and mountains, but not one rises to the height of Everest.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #6

Books on Chuang Tzu:
The Empty Boat (in English)
When the Shoe Fits (in English)

Chuang Tzu is a rare flowering, because to become nobody is the most difficult, almost impossible, most extraordinary thing in the world.
Chuang Tzu says: To be ordinary is to be the sage. Nobody recognizes you, nobody feels that you are somebody extraordinary. Chuang Tzu says: You go in the crowd and you mix, but no one knows that a buddha has entered the crowd. No one comes to feel that somebody is different, because if someone feels it then there is bound to be anger and calamity. Whenever someone feels that you are somebody, his own anger, his own ego is hurt. He starts reacting, he starts attacking you.
- The Empty Boat, Chapter #1

Chuang Tzu says that the real, the divine, the existential, is to be attained by losing yourself completely in it. Even the effort to attain it becomes a barrier -- then you cannot lose yourself. Even the effort to lose yourself becomes a barrier.
- When the Shoe Fits, Chapter #1

Chuang Tzu says: Even the distance of a hair is enough, and heaven and earth fall apart. Just the distance of a hair -- not much at all, almost negligible -- but it is enough to separate earth from heaven. When even that much difference is not there, one is enlightened.
- Theologia Mystica, Chapter #15

Chuang Tzu is very rare -- in a way the most unique mystic in the whole history of man. His uniqueness is that he talks in absurdities. All his poems and stories are just absurd. And his reason to choose absurdity as his expression is very significant: the mind has to be silenced. With anything rational, it cannot stop; it goes on and on. Anything logical and the mind finds nourishment through it. It is only the absurd that suddenly shocks the mind -- it is beyond mind's grasp.
His stories, his poems and his other statements are so absurd that either people simply left him, thinking that he is mad.... Those who were courageous enough to remain with him found that no other meditation is needed. Just listening to his absurd statements, the mind stops functioning. And that is the meaning of meditation.
Meditation is not of the mind.
- The Razor's Edge, Chapter #14

Chuang Tzu is one of my love affairs, and when you talk about someone you love you are bound to use extremes, exaggerations, but to me they don't sound like that. I could give the whole kingdom of the world to Chuang Tzu for any single parable that he wrote -- and he wrote hundreds. Each is a SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN, a SONG OF SOLOMON, a BHAGAVADGITA. Each parable represents so much, and so richly, that it is immeasurable.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #14

Book on Dadu:
Sabe Sayaane Ek Mat (in Hindi)

He was called Dadu, which means the brother. He was so loving that people forgot his real name and simply remembered him as Dadu, the brother. There are thousands of songs that Dadu sang, but they were not written down by him, they were collected by others, just like a gardener collects flowers long fallen.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #7

“Dadu was the most beautiful flower”
“And the day Dadu died Rajjab simply closed his eyes. It was closing eyes to the world. He was saying, Now there is nothing more to see. I have seen that which is really worth seeing. Now why waste your eyes and why collect dust? Once you have mirrored God then there is nothing else -- you have seen the ultimate."
“And what happened to Sundero, another disciple? When Dadu died he laid himself down on the same bed and remained on the same bed; he never left the bed again. The Master had slept on it his whole life: it was full of his vibe, it was full of his presence, it was soaked with him. He would not leave the bed. "Why?" people would ask him.
And Sundero would say, "There is nowhere to go. I have arrived -- this is my home. This is my MOKSHA, this is my heaven. And I would like to LIVE in this beautiful space that the Master has created in this bed, and I would like to die here."
It is becoming so attuned with the Master that you don't feel your life and your death as separate from him; that is the meaning of it.
Sundero was so attuned with the Master's life that it used to happen sometimes that he would speak in Dadu's name. And he was told by people, "You are not Dadu!"
Then he would say, "Yes, forgive me. I forget! But if you ask in reality, then I am Dadu -- I have become one with my Master."
That is the ultimate state of disciplehood: when the disciple becomes one with the Master. He used to say that he was Dadu. He has written songs in which his name is not given but Dadu's name -- and people think that is not good. And the scholars go on discarding all that has been written by Sundero; they think that is not from Dadu.
But I say to you: it IS from Dadu! Sundero has become just a hollow bamboo on the lips of Dadu. Sundero exists no more as a separate entity. That is the ultimate goal of a disciple: when the disciple and Master meet and merge and become one. Sundero has become one with the Master, hence he has every right to sign 'Dadu'. He signs his poems as Dadu, not as Sundero -- and I TOTALLY agree with him! And I would like the scholars to be a little more sensitive.”
- Be Still and Know, Chapter #9

Books on Daya:
The Last Morning Star (in English)
Jagat Taraiya Bhor Ki (in Hindi)

THE SONGS OF DAYA. She was a contemporary of Meera and Sahajo, but she is far more profound than either of them. She is really beyond numbers. Daya is a little cuckoo -- but don't be worried.... In fact in India the cuckoo is called koyal, and it does not have the meaning of being nuts. Daya is really a cuckoo -- not nuts, but a sweet singer like the Indian koyal. On an Indian summer night, the distant call of the cuckoo; that's what Daya is... a distant call in the hot summer of this world.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #12

Translated from BIN GHAN PARAT PHUHAR
Daya has trodden the path and is acquainted with it. She has left no stone unturned on that path. She has died in the dust of the path. Treading on the path, traveling on the path she has become empty in every way. Now just the fragrance of the path is there. That very fragrance has appeared in her small verses.
Daya belongs to those devotees who have left no information about themselves. They drowned so much in singing songs of the divine that no time was left for leaving information. Just the name is known.
- Early Talks, Chapter #9

Diogenes is one of the most loved human beings, as far as I am concerned. As far as the world is concerned, he is one of those who are destined to be condemned for their behavior, for their ideas. And Diogenes particularly, because he is so unique.
- Beyond Psychology, Chapter #14

It is said of Diogenes, a man of the same caliber as Bodhidharma .... If they had met, it would have been a great meeting. Diogenes was in Greece. He lived naked; he had such a beautiful body that to hide it behind clothes would have been a crime. It is perfectly good to hide an ugly body behind clothes but a beautiful body needs to be available for anybody who wants to see the beauty, the proportion. Diogenes was one of the most beautiful men. Even when Alexander the Great met him, he felt a little embarrassed -- although he was a world conqueror, compared to Diogenes he was utterly poor.
- Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master, Chapter #14

I am reminded of Diogenes, a beautiful Greek philosopher, mystic -- and a mystic of a rare quality. He was a contemporary of Aristotle, and he was as much against Aristotle as I am, so I have a certain friendship with Diogenes.
Aristotle defined man as an animal who walks on two legs. What did Diogenes do? He caught one animal -- and there are many animals who walk on two legs, but they have feathers also, they can fly also -- a peacock. He took out all the feathers -- because men have no feathers. Take out all the feathers of the peacock... the peacock walks on two legs. And he sent the peacock to Aristotle with the message: "Please receive the gift of a human being."
- From the False to the Truth, Chapter #30

I am reminded of Diogenes. I love this fellow Diogenes for the simple reason that he does not claim any authority from God. He does not give any orders and commandments and disciplines to others. He used to live naked -- not for any religious reasons, not to get to heaven; he was not concerned about heaven and hell at all. He lived naked, because, he said, "That's how I was born. Nature wants me to be this way. Why should I be otherwise? I am going to be just natural."
- From Unconciousness to Consciousness, Chapter #28

Book on Dionysius:
Theologia Mystica (in English)

Dionysius is one of the greatest Buddhas ever. And whenever the Eastern scholar by any chance, if at all, comes across a person like Dionysius, he starts thinking that he must have borrowed from the East. That seems to be a tacit assumption: that the East has some monopoly over spiritualism. Nobody has any monopoly. East or West cannot make any difference in man s spiritual growth. Jesus could become a Buddha in Jerusalem, Lao Tzu could become a Buddha in China, Dionysius could become a Buddha in Athens. There is no need to borrow from anybody.

Dionysius is a rare man: living with stupid Christianity and its rigid organization, being a bishop and still being able to reach to the ultimate peaks of consciousness is something worthy of praise.
- Theologia Mystica, Chapter #1

The fourth name is Dionysius.I have spoken about his statements, which are only fragments noted down by his disciples, but I have spoken on him only to make it known to the world that people like Dionysius should not be forgotten. They are the real people.

The real people can be counted on your fingers. The real person is one who has encountered the real, not only from the outside as an object, but as his own subjectivity. Dionysius belongs to the great world of the buddhas.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #8

And the problem with Dionysius is that professionally he is a theologian and spiritually, existentially, he is a mystic -- which very rarely happens. I have never come across another case like Dionysius, not at least in the Western history of thought. In the East it has happened a few times that the same person was a mystic and a theologian, and whenever it happens in the East the same problem arises. The language is of the theologian, and in the language, in the thick forest of words, the truth is lost.

But the truth is valuable and has to be saved. That's why I decided to speak on Dionysius. I was aware that I cannot like the way he speaks, his expression -- I hate it! But I love the truth that he wants to express.
- Theologia Mystica, Chapter #13

DIONYSIUS has to go through all this unnecessarily. I feel sorry for the man. I have a deep love for the man, and many times reading his statements I have wondered... It must have been an accident that he was born in the West; he belonged to the East. In the East he would have flowered fully.
- Theologia Mystica, Chapter #4

My approach is Dionysian, I am a disciple of Dionysius: Live and love life. Enjoy this occasion as deeply as possible, as totally as possible, and out of this living experience you will grow. A maturity will come to you; you will ripen and you will carry the fragrance with you. That fragrance is heaven. Nobody goes to heaven -- those who go to heaven, they have to carry their heaven in their heart. Nobody goes to hell -- those who go to hell, they have to carry their hell in their heart.
- The Revolution, Chapter #6

Book on Dogen:
Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment (in English)

Before I explain Dogen to you, let this be the introduction, because this is what he is trying to say: that everything passes and yet there is something that never passes; that everything is born and dies and yet there is something that is never born and never dies. And unless you get centered into that eternal source you will not find peace, you will not find serenity, you will not find blissfulness, you will not find contentment. You will not feel at home, at ease in the universe. You will remain just an accident, you will never become essential.

Dogen is a very unique genius. He is saying, "You may be aware of your buddhahood or not aware of your buddhahood -- don't be worried. When the right time and the right season come you will blossom into a buddha." Just wait ... wait intelligently, wait without desire; enjoy waiting, make waiting itself a blissful silence, and whatever is your birthright is bound to flower. Nobody can prevent a bird from flying, nobody can prevent a cuckoo from singing, nobody can prevent a rose from blossoming. Who is preventing you from becoming buddhas? Except you, nobody is responsible for it.
- Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment, Chapter #3

Dogen, a Zen master, used to say, when he felt hungry he would say, "It seems the universal feels hungry through me." When he would feel thirsty he would say, "The existence is thirsty within me." This is what this meditation will lead you to. Then everything disperses from your ego and becomes part of the universe. Then whatsoever happens, happens to existence itself; you are no more here. Then there is no sin, then there is no responsibility.
- Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, Chapter #39

Gurdjieff perhaps was the first man from the East who penetrated into the Western consciousness. He was a very strange man, and he passed through strange experiences and learned on his own, without any master. He moved in many monasteries, in many groups, and never belonged to any one, but collected fragments of forgotten teachings. And he was of tremendous intelligence, to join all those fragments and make a system out of them which can certainly transform man.
- Hari Om Tat Sat, Chapter #25

George Gurdjieff is one of the most significant masters of this age.
He is unique in many ways -- nobody has said things in the contemporary world the way Gurdjieff has said them. He is almost like another Bodhidharma or Chuang Tzu, apparently absurd but in reality giving great indications towards the liberation of human consciousness.
- The Invitation, Chapter #4

According to George Gurdjieff, only a few people live eternally, most people are just experimental. They are born, they do all kinds of stupid things, and the final stupidity -- they die. But they don't leave even a trace in the world of eternity. Only very few people, like Gautam Buddha, achieve to the eternal. And because of these few people, the fallacy has come into being that everybody has an eternal being: Buddha achieved it, Mahavira achieved it, Bukko achieved it. Gurdjieff's logic was, because these few have achieved it, people think everybody else has it -- just he has not discovered it.
Gurdjieff was not ready to agree on only discovering, because discovery means it already exists -- you have just to pull back the curtains. Gurdjieff used a word never before used in spiritual experience, and that was `crystallization'. You have this small life and this small consciousness. You can make it so concentrated, so hard, like a diamond, that it can pass through fire without being burned. But unless you do it, don't hope.
- The Language of Existence, Chapter #4

I forgot to say something about Gurdjieff and his book ALL AND EVERYTHING -- perhaps because it is a very strange book, not even readable. I don't think there are any living individuals except me who have read from the first page to the last. I have come across many Gurdjieff followers, but none of them had been able to read ALL AND EVERYTHING in its totality.

It is a big book -- just the opposite of the ISA UPANISHAD -- one thousand pages. And Gurdjieff is such a rascal saint -- please allow me this expression, rascal saint -- he writes in such a way that it becomes impossible to read. One sentence may go running on for pages. By the time you come to the end of the sentence you have forgotten its beginning. And he uses words he made up himself, just like me. Strange words... for example when he was writing about kundalini, he called it kundabuffer; that was his word for kundalini. This book is of immense value, but the diamonds are hidden among ordinary stones. One has to seek and search.

I have read this book not once but many times. The more I went into it the more I loved it, because the more I could see the rascal; the more I could see what it was that he was hiding from those who should not know. Knowledge is not for those who are not yet capable of absorbing it. Knowledge has to be hidden from the unwary, and is only for those who can digest it. It has to be given only to those who are ready. That's the whole purpose of writing in such a strange way. There is no other book stranger than Gurdjieff's ALL AND EVERYTHING, and it certainly is all and everything.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #2

Gurdjieff wrote this book MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN as a memoir. It is a tremendously respectful memory to all those strange people he had met in his life -- Sufis, Indian mystics, Tibetan lamas, Japanese Zen monks. I must mention to you that he did not write of them all; he left many out of the account for the simple reason that the book was going to be in the marketplace and it had to fulfill the demands of the market.

I don't have to fulfill anybody's demands. I am not a man who worries at all about the market, hence I can say that he left out the really most remarkably significant people from his account. But whatsoever he wrote is still beautiful. It still brings tears to my eyes. Whenever something is beautiful my eyes fill with tears; there is no other way to pay homage.

MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN is a real book. A few of the people Gurdjieff mentions are still alive; I have met a few of them myself. I am a witness to the fact those people are not fictitious, although I cannot forgive even Gurdjieff for leaving out the most remarkable people he met.

There is no need to compromise with the marketplace; there is no need to compromise at all. He was such a strong man, I wonder why he compromised, why he omitted the really important people. I have met a few people that he omitted from the book, who themselves told me that Gurdjieff had been there. They are very old now. But still the book is good -- half, incomplete, but valuable.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #12

Books on Gorakh:
Die O Yogi Die (in English)
Maro Hey Jogi Maro (in Hindi)

Gorakh is the first link of a chain. Through him a new type of religion was born. Without Gorakh, there could be no Kabir, no Nanak, no Dadu, no Vajid, no Farid, no Meera -- without Gorakh none of these are possible. The basic root of all of them is in Gorakh.

Gorakh made many discoveries within man for the inner search, more perhaps than anyone else has made. He has given so many methods, that in terms of methods Gorakh is the greatest inventor. He pushed open so many doors for going into man's inner being, he created so many doors that people got caught in them.

Gorakh says I teach death, the death I passed through and became awakened. It was the death of sleep, not of me. The ego died, not me. Duality died, not me. Duality died, and non-duality was born. Time died, and I met the eternal. The small constricted life broke, and the drop became the ocean.
- Die O Yogi Die, Chapter #1

Another mystic, Gorakh, a tantrika, a man so versed, so efficient in all the methods of Tantra that anybody in India who knows many businesses is known as doing gorakh-dhandha. Gorakh-dhandha means 'in the business of Gorakh'. People think one should stick to one's own business. Gorakh moved in all directions, in all dimensions.

Gorakh's full name was Gorakh-nath. It must have been given by his disciples, because nath means lord. Gorakh has given all the keys possible to enter into the inner mysteries. He has said everything that can be said. He is, in a way, a full stop.
- Book I Have Loved, Chapter #7

Books on Hakim Sanai:
Unio Mystica (2 volumes in English)

HAKIM SANAI: THIS NAME IS AS SWEET to me as honey, as sweet as nectar. Hakim Sanai is unique, unique in the world of Sufism. No other Sufi has been able to reach to such heights of expression and such depths of penetration. Hakim Sanai has been able to do almost the impossible.
If I were to save only two books from the whole world of the mystics, then these would be the two books. One would be from the world of Zen, the path of awareness: SOSAN'S HSIN HSIN MING. I have spoken on it; it contains the quintessence of Zen, of the path of awareness and meditation. The other book would be Hakim Sanai's HADIQATU'L HAQIQAT: The Walled Garden of Truth -- in short, THE HADIQA: The Garden. This is the book we are entering today.

THE HADIQA is the essential fragrance of the path of love. Just as Sosan has been able to catch the very soul of Zen, Hakim Sanai has been able to catch the very soul of Sufism. Such books are not written, they are born. Nobody can compose them. They are not manufactured in the mind, by the mind; they come from the beyond. They are a gift. They are born as mysteriously as a child is born, or a bird or a rose flower. They come to us, they are gifts.
- Unio Mystica, Vol 1, Chapter #1

Sanai, and his beautiful statements. People like Sanai don't argue, they only state. They need not argue, their very existence is the proof; no other argument is needed. Come, look into my eyes, and you will know that there is no argument, only a statement. A statement is always true. An argument can be clever but is rarely true.

Sanai is one of my love affairs. I cannot, even though I would like to, exaggerate him. It is impossible. Sanai is the very essence of Sufism.

Sufism is an English word for tasawuf. Tasawuf means 'pure love'. 'Sufism' comes from suf, meaning wool, and a Sufi means a person wearing a woolen robe. Sanai used to wear a black cap -- a white robe and a black cap. No logic, no reason, just a mad person like me. But what can you do, these people have to be accepted as they are. Either you love them or hate them. Love or hate, they don't give you any alternative. You can be for them or against them, but you cannot be indifferent to them. That's the miracle of mystics.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #8

A very fundamental thing. Sanai says: IF YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH you need not be worried what others think about you, whether they accept you or reject you. If you are worried about others' rejection and acceptance, that simply shows one thing -- that you don't know your own worth, that you don't know your own being, that you don't know God resides in you, that you are an abode of the divine.
Hence you are worried what people are thinking about you -- because on their thinking, on their opinion, will depend much. Your ego depends on others' opinions: your being depends on nobody. That's why the man of being is always a rebel, and the man who lives in the ego has to compromise very much with the society. The egoist has to compromise, because if he does not compromise, nobody is going to fulfill his ego. The ego needs others' support, it needs props from others: the more people like you, the better and more polished and refined an ego you can have.
- Unio Mystica, Vol 2, Chapter #3

Book on Heraclitus:
The Hidden Harmony (in English)

I have been in love with Heraclitus for many lives. In fact, Heraclitus is the only Greek I have ever been in love with. Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him.

Heraclitus is a really rare flowering, one of the most highly penetrating souls, one of those souls who become like Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. Try to understand him. It is difficult; that's why he is called Heraclitus the Obscure. He is not obscure. To understand him is difficult; to understand him you will need a different type of being -- that is the problem. So it is easy to categorize him as obscure and then forget him.
- The Hidden Harmony, Chapter #1

For Heraclitus, fire became the symbol -- and fire is really a beautiful symbol. Heraclitus says fire is the basic substance of life. It is! Now physicists agree with Heraclitus. They agree that electricity is the base of all existence, that everything is nothing but modes of electricity. Heraclitus says it is fire. What is the difference? And fire is a more beautiful word than electricity. Fire gives a sense of more aliveness than electricity does, fire is more wild than electricity. When you say electricity is the base, it looks as if the universe is somehow mechanical because electricity has become associated with a mechanism, and then God looks like an engineer -- but electricity is fire.

Hindus have called this basic element PRANA, vitality -- but vitality is fire. When you are vital, alive, you are fiery, aflame. Henri Bergson has called the base of all, elan vital, just like prana. Those who have been seeking, somehow or other they come near fire. Deep down this existence is fire. Fire is life.
- The Hidden Harmony, Chapter #6

Heraclitus is innocent: he simply says you, "This is the thing: the abyss is here. Jump!" He does not persuade you; he does not seduce you. He simply says, "This is the fact. If you want to jump, jump; if you don't want to jump, go away." And he knows that to make steps is useless because finally one has to take the jump.
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2, Chapter #2

There is no one, I repeat, who can be put in the same category as Heraclitus. He is just far out -- dangerously awakened, unafraid of the consequences of what he was saying.
Heraclitus says in the FRAGMENTS: "You cannot step in the same river twice." And then he says: "No, you cannot step in the same river even once...." This is tremendously beautiful, and true too.
Everything is changing, and changing so fast that there is no way to step in the same river twice; you can't even step in the same river once. The river is constantly flowing; going, going, going to the ocean, to the infinite, going to disappear into the unknown.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #4

Book on Hyakujo:
Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus (in English)

“Hyakujo was the direct heir of Ma Tzu and became most well known for his establishment of the first truly Zen monasteries and his treatise on sudden enlightenment.

To understand Hyakujo, the first thing is to understand that enlightenment can only be sudden. The preparation can be gradual, but the illumination is going to be sudden. You can prepare the ground for the seeds, but the sprouts will come suddenly one day in the morning; they don't come gradually. Existence believes in suddenness. Nothing is gradual here, although everything appears to be gradual; that is our illusion.”

“Hyakujo introduced another thing: Zen monasteries. Before him there were Zen temples -- small groups of people living in those temples, meditating, reading scriptures. But he introduced a new thing, the monastery, where people were absolutely devoted to a single-pointed goal: to become the buddha. No scriptures, no rituals... the whole energy has to be poured into a single direction: to discovering your intrinsic nature. And why monasteries? When there are thousands of people together, going into the unknown, it is easier for you, because you know that although you are going alone into your own space, thousands of others are also going into the same space on their own. You are not absolutely alone. Secondly, a monastery creates a certain atmosphere. That was the greatest contribution of Hyakujo.”
- Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus, Chapter #1

This gesture by Hyakujo is the greatest sermon delivered in the whole history of mysticism. Just to prepare his people he used to say, "Go and work in the field. You cannot work with the trees and with the grass and with the roses for long without yourself becoming as silent as they are."
The people who live with nature naturally find a synchronicity between themselves and the rivers and the mountains, they are closer to the earth and its heartbeat.
Hyakujo first tried to bring the disciple close to nature, close to silence. Unless he is prepared, the great sermon cannot be delivered. A great sermon needs great disciples, and a great disciple is exactly one who is silent.
- This, This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen, Chapter #3

This series of talks is entitled THE GREAT PEARL, HYAKUJO, WITH THE HAIKUS OF BASHO. Hyakujo is immensely expressive and knows what he is doing and how to bring people to the unknowable.
Basho never wrote prose. Basho is one of the greatest poets in the world. His greatness is not in his poetry -- there are far greater poets as far as the composition of poetry is concerned. His greatness is that his poetry is not just verbiage, is not just putting words together according to a certain pattern, his poetry is an experience.
I have put them together because Hyakujo never wrote any poetry. His approach is very prose and direct, and the haikus supplement what is missing in the prose. Basho expressed himself very graphically. His experiences are more paintings than poetry. And his understanding is -- and I agree with him -- that where prose fails, poetry may succeed. Poetry has a more feminine way, more subtle, more graceful, entering into the heart.
Prose directly enters into the head and immediately becomes a concern of logic and reason. Poetry has a different root, a different path. You don't bring in rationalization as far as poetry is concerned. Something else becomes stirred in you, something deeper than the mind. Poetry cannot be a logical statement. It is an existential statement -- what Basho himself has seen he has tried to put into words. Hence I have put together two great masters.
- Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus, Chapter #2

Book on Isan:
Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky (in English)

The title of the series is ISAN: NO FOOTPRINTS IN THE BLUE SKY. He was as great a master as one can be, but has left behind him neither great scriptures nor great commentaries. Isan functioned exactly as Buddha had said an authentic master would -- to disappear in the blue sky like a bird, leaving no footprints.

Why this idea of leaving no footprints? It has great implications in it. It means a great master does not create a following; he does not make a path for everybody to follow. He flies in the sky, he gives you a longing for flying, and disappears into the blueness of the sky -- creating an urge in you to discover what it is like to disappear into the ultimate.

Isan followed exactly what Buddha had said. He is a great master, but almost forgotten. Who remembers people who have not created great followings, who have not made organized religions, who have not chosen their successors, who have not made their religion a politics, a power in the material world? Isan did none of that. He simply lived silently. Of course thousands of disciples were attracted towards him, but it was not his fault. You cannot blame him for it -- it was just the magnetic force that he had become by disappearing into enlightenment. The light shone to faraway lands and those who had eyes started moving towards a small place hidden in the forest where Isan lived. Slowly slowly, thousands of disciples were living in the forest -- and Isan had not called a single one. They had come on their own.
- Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky, Chapter #1

Isan was very polite. Naturally his politeness would affect whatever happened around him. He was a very humble person, never tried to convert anybody, but on the contrary slipped deep down into the forest, so nobody came to him. He felt it a little embarrassing to be the master and degrade somebody as a follower -- a very nice, very delicate personality, the personality of a poet, of a singer, of a dancer.
- Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky, Chapter #3

Choosing Kyozan as his successor, and waiting for forty years -- what patience! -- almost transforming a stone into a diamond. But Isan was determined to make one point absolutely clear to humanity: if Kyozan, a simple and ordinary person, not belonging to any speciality, any category, without any talent, any genius -- if he can become enlightened, it will be a proof. To give this proof to humanity he chose Kyozan and worked hard on him. And the day Kyozan became enlightened, the day Isan transferred his enlightenment and the two flames became one, Isan disappeared from the world of matter, body, mind.
Kyozan was so radiant now. He was not only once enlightened, he was twice enlightened. His master has given him richer experiences, far deeper spaces, far clearer skies.
- Kyozan: A True Man of Zen, Chapter #1

With J. Krishnamurti the situation is totally new. He is enlightened, and he is not orthodox -- but he has gone to the other extreme: he is anti-orthodox. Anti should be underlined.
- From Personality to Individuality, Chapter #7

J. Krishnamurti is a beautiful man but one-dimensional, very linear, one line; he follows one track. Hence you will not find any contradictions in him. For fifty years he has been repeating simply the same thing again and again. unknowingly he has conditioned people; just by repeating the same thing again and again for fifty years he has hypnotized people. He has created a great difficulty for those people: he is not a Master himself, he cannot impart his experience -- he is an ARHATA, not a BODHISATTVA -- and he has prevented those people from going into search for some other living Master. He has created a real mess in many people: they would have been in search of a Master but he has prevented them. His logic is clear, appealing, very appealing to the egoist, particularly to the so-called intelligentsia, very appealing, because the so-called intellegentsia is always afraid of surrender, of dropping the ego -- they are egoist people. And when he says, "There is no need to follow, there is no need to go to any Master, there is no need of any initiation," they feel very happy. Their ego is saved but their ego is there.

Now the ego even has the support of Krishnamurti, and all his arguments will be used by the ego. And that's what has happened to thousands of people who have listened to him. He has not been a blessing, because of his linear logic.

In the ancient days people like Krishnamurti used to remain silent. That was the way of the ARHATA -- because he knows that he cannot impart, he has no skill, he remains silent. He does not go around the world telling people, that "I cannot impart and nobody else can do it either."
- I Am That, Chapter #3

AN ENLIGHTENED person can never be wrong. Neither J. Krishnamurti is wrong, but he never considers the situation in which you are. He considers only the space in which he is, and that freedom is part of enlightenment.

The enlightened person has reached the highest peak of consciousness; his abode is on Everest. Now it is his freedom to speak according to the peak, the sunlit peak where he is, or to consider the people who are still in the dark valley, who know nothing about the light, for whom the peak of the Everest is only a dream, only a perhaps". This is the freedom of the enlightened person. Krishnamurti speaks in terms where he is.

I speak in terms where you are, I consider you, because if I am speaking to you, you have to be taken in consideration. I have to lead you towards the highest peak, but the journey will begin in the dark valley, in your unconsciousness. If I talk about my experience, absolutely inconsiderate of you, I am right, but I am not useful to you.
An enlightened person is never wrong, but he can be useful or he can be useless.
- I Am That, Chapter #7

The death of an enlightened being like J. Krishnamurti is nothing to be sad about, it is something to be celebrated with songs and dances. It is a moment of rejoicing.
His death is not a death. He knows his immortality. His death is only the death of the body. But J. Krishnamurti will go on living in the universal consciousness, forever and forever.
- Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, Chapter #8

J. Krishnamurti's THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM. I love this man, and I hate this man. I love him because he speaks the truth, but I hate him for his intellectuality. He is only reason, rationality. I wonder, he may be a reincarnation of that goddamned Greek Aristotle. His logic is what I hate, his love is what I respect -- but his book is beautiful.
This was his first book after his enlightenment, and the last too. Although many other books have appeared they are only poor repetitions of the same. He has not been able to create anything better than THE FIRST AND LAST FREEDOM.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #3

But Jabbar was saying something through his gibberish. He was saying, "All that we can say about existence is gibberish." He was very much in tune with existence.

It seems unbelievable that he had one thousand disciples. Sitting by his side, when he was silent they would be silent; when he would go into gibberish, they would go into gibberish -- and nearabout twenty-five people became enlightened. Not a word was said by Jabbar, nothing was heard by anybody.
You cannot write a treatise on Jabbar because he never spoke anything except gibberish. But he was a radiant man, a man who had come to flowering, whose spring had come, and who was not afraid to be vulnerable and open and receptive. He went along with the wind.
- Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky, Chapter #8

But gibberish has been thought to be one of the methods used by enlightened people. You will be surprised to know that the word, the English word, gibberish, is not English, it is Arabic; and it comes from an enlightened man, Jabbar. Jabbar was certainly an enlightened man, but he spoke so fast that his words would run over each other. It was impossible to make any sense out of what he said because there were no full stops, no commas, no indication of where the sentence began and where it ended. Jabbar simply did not believe in all these mannerisms.

It is because of Jabbar that people started calling his language gibberish, but by and by the word gibberish became completely disassociated from Jabbar. Nobody would think that the English word gibberish is from a Sufi word and has come from a man who was enlightened. Gibberish, in the East, is thought to be a way of enlightened people. They are saying to you: Nothing can be said through words. You will have to understand something besides the words.
- From Personality to Individuality, Chapter #17

Do you know from where the word gibberish comes? It comes from the name of a Sufi mystic, Jabbar. He used to talk nonsense, because he came to understand that whatsoever you say is nonsense. Then why even pretend that it is sense?

Jabbar started really talking nonsense. He would use sounds, words... nobody could follow what he was saying. Everybody was free to have his own interpretation. The followers of Jabbar were many -- because when the master cannot be understood, it is very easy for the disciples to follow him, because then they can interpret.

For example, if you had asked Jabbar, "Do you believe in God?" he would have said, "Hoo hoo!" Now, it is up to you to find out what "Hoo hoo!" means. The very clever one will think it is the last part of Allah-hoo, that the master has given only a hint, and so on, so forth.

Or he will do something absurd. You ask, "What is God?" and he may stand on his head immediately. Now it is up to you to figure it out -- and everybody is clever in figuring out things. Somebody will think he had given the indication that everything is topsy-turvy, so whatsoever you have been thinking up to now has to be put upside down. Some disciples even started reading the scriptures backwards!
But one thing was good about it: Jabbar must have enjoyed the whole show! He must have really enjoyed how many interpretations people can find. The English word gibberish comes from Jabbar.
- The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #19

But Jabbar must have been a very unique man. It is very unfortunate that there was no way of recording in those days; otherwise whatever he was saying could have become one of the holiest scriptures. Nobody would have been able to understand it -- but you don't have to understand anything, you have just to be silent, you have just to be absent.

So any way, either singing or dancing, whatever makes you absent, immediately you will be filled with God's presence. Suddenly you will become aware of your own inner light.
- The Razor's Edge, Chapter #12

The poem by Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi is beautiful, as always. He has spoken only beautiful words. He is one of the most significant poets who are also mystics. That is a rare combination; there are millions of poets in the world and there are a few mystics in the world, but a man who is both is very rare to find.
Rumi is a very rare flower. He is as great a poet as he is a mystic. Hence, his poetry is not just poetry, not just a beautiful arrangement of words. It contains immense meaning and points towards the ultimate truth. It is not entertainment, it is enlightenment.
- The Hidden Splendor, Chapter #7

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a Sufi mystic, simply made whirling his only method. His followers are called whirling dervishes. They whirl for hours -- it is not easy. Jalaluddin Rumi himself whirled for thirty-six hours continuously, and in the whirling he became enlightened because in the whirling he got lost; only whirling remained. There was no one inside. There was utter emptiness and silence.
- Joshu: The Lion's Roar, Chapter #7

Jalaludin Rumi -- insist -- 'Remember, no-self, anatta.' Sufis call it fana -- one disappears. And one should prepare for this disappearance, one should be ready -- not only ready but in a deep welcome. It is going to bring great joy, because all your misery is contained in your ego. The very idea that 'I am' is your ignorance. The very idea that 'I am' creates all kinds of anxieties and problems for you. The ego is the hell.
- Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2, Chapter #1

Sufi mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi, who has been loved by Sufis the most. He is the only Sufi mystic who has been called mevlana: master of masters. And he was certainly a master of masters.
- The New Dawn, Chapter #17

The words of Mevlana Rumi are immensely significant. There have been very few people who have moved and transformed as many hearts as Jalaluddin Rumi.

In the world of the Sufis, Mevlana Rumi is the emperor. His words have to be understood not as mere words, but sources of deep silences, echoes of inner and the innermost songs. He is the greatest dancer the world has known. Twelve hundred years have passed since he was alive.
His dance is a special kind of dance. It is a kind of whirling, just the way small children whirl; standing on one spot they go on round and round. And perhaps everywhere in the world small children do that and their elders stop them saying, "You will become dizzy, you will fall, you will hurt yourself," and, "What is the point of doing it?"

Jalaluddin Rumi made a meditation of whirling. The meditator goes on whirling for hours -- as long as the body allows him; he does not stop on his own. When whirling a moment comes that he sees himself utterly still and silent, a center of the cyclone. Around the center the body is moving, but there is a space which remains unmoved; that is his being.

Rumi himself whirled for thirty-six hours continuously and fell, because the body could not whirl anymore. But when he opened his eyes he was another man. Hundreds of people had gathered to see. Many thought he was mad: "What is the point of whirling?"

... Nobody can say this is a prayer; nobody can say this is great dance; nobody can say in any way that this has something to do with religion, spirituality....

But after thirty-six hours when they saw Rumi so luminous, so radiant, so new, so fresh -- reborn, in a new consciousness, they could not believe their eyes. Hundreds wept in repentance, because they had thought that he was mad. In fact he was sane and they were mad.

And down these twelve centuries the stream has continued to be alive. There are very few movements of spiritual growth which have lived so long continuously. There are still hundreds of dervishes. `Dervish' is the Sufi word for sannyas. You cannot believe it unless you experience, that just by whirling you can know yourself. No austerity is needed, no self-torture is needed, but just an experience of your innermost being and you are transported into another plane of existence from the mortal to the immortal. The darkness disappears and there is just eternal light.
- Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Chapter #11

Books on Jesus:
Come Follow To You (4 volumes in English)
I Say Unto You (2 volumes in English)
The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus (in English)

I AM A DRUNKARD. You may believe it or not, but I am a drunkard. You can look into my eyes and you can see it -- I. am drunk with Jesus. And Jesus is a wine; he is not a man, he's an intoxication. And once you have tasted of him, then nothing of this world will ever be meaningful to you. Once the meaning from the beyond enters into your life, this whole world becomes futile, immaterial, insignificant.
- Come Follow To You, Vol 3, Chapter #1

The Gospel starts in an incredibly beautiful way. No other book starts that way, no other book can start that way. The Bible is 'the book of the books': that is the exact meaning of the word 'Bible' -- the Book. It is the most precious document that humanity has. That's why it is called 'The Testament', because Jesus has witnessed to God in it: Jesus has become the witness to God, a testament. It is the only proof possible. God cannot be argued, but only a man like Jesus can become a proof for him.

The Gospel carries all that is beautiful in Jesus' flowering, the Beatitudes. Those statements are the most beautiful ever made. Not even Buddha, not even Lao Tzu, have spoken that way. Buddha is very philosophic, very refined; Jesus is very plain, simple. Jesus speaks like a villager, a farmer, a fisherman. But because he speaks the way common people speak, his words have a solidity, a concreteness, a reality.

Buddha's words are abstract; they are very very high words, philosophical. Jesus' words are down-to-earth, very earthly. They have that fragrance of the earth that you come across when the rains have started and the earth is soaking up the rains and a great fragrance arises -- the fragrance of the wet earth, the fragrance that you find on a sea beach, the fragrance of the ocean, the trees. Jesus' words are very very earthbound, rooted in the earth. He is an earthly man, and that is his beauty. Nobody else can be compared with that beauty. The sky is good, but abstract, far away, distant.
- I Say Unto You, Vol 1, Chapter #1

Whenever a man like Jesus comes, the world is immediately divided between those who are for him and those who are against him. You cannot find a single person who is indifferent to Jesus. Whenever a Jesus-type is there, immediately the world is divided. Some are for him and some are against him, but nobody is indifferent. It is impossible to be indifferent to Jesus. If you hear the word, if you look at the Jesus, immediately you are divided: either you become a lover or you become a hater; either you fall in line or you go against; either you follow him or you start working against him.

Why does this happen? Because a man like Jesus is such a great phenomenon and he is not of this world. He brings to this world something from the beyond. Those who are afraid of the beyond immediately become the enemies -- that is their way of protecting themselves. For those who have a desire, a seed hidden somewhere, who have been searching and searching and longing for the beyond, this man becomes charismatic, this man becomes a magnetic force -- they fall in his love. They have been waiting for this man for many lives.

Immediately the world is divided: either you are for Christ or you are against him. There is no other alternative; you cannot be indifferent. You cannot say, "I'm not bothered"; that is impossible, because a person who can remain in the middle will become a Jesus himself. A person who can stand in the middle, in neither love nor hate, will go beyond the mind himself. You cannot stand in the middle; you will fall, you will become a 'rightist' or a 'leftist', you will be on this side or on that. He creates great turmoil -- not only in individuals but in society too, on the earth; everything comes to be in a conflict, a great war starts. Since Jesus there has never been peace in the world. Jesus created a religion. He brought something into the world which created such a division, such a conflict in all minds, that he became the focus of all history. That is why we say 'before Christ', 'after Christ'; he became the focal point.

History is divided, time is divided, with Jesus. He stands on the boundary. Before Jesus it is as if time was of a different quality; after Jesus time became of a different quality. With Jesus, history starts. His attitude, his approach towards the human mind, is very different from that of a Buddha or a Lao Tzu. The ultimate goal is one, the ultimate flowering is going to be one, but Jesus' approach is absolutely different. He is unique.
- The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus, Chapter #2

Book on Joshu:
Joshu: The Lion's Roar (in English)

Joshu is one of those exceptional people who become enlightened without any formal initiation. They are nobody's disciple. It is a very exceptional case. But the story of Joshu is going to be very beautiful. His each statement is so poetic, so pregnant, that unless you listen in utter silence, you will miss its fragrance, its meaning, its penetrating insight into reality.

Joshu is one of the most loved masters in the Zen tradition. There have been great masters, but nobody has been loved so much as Joshu -- and he deserved it. His working on people, on disciples, was so soft, so delicate, that only a poet can manage it... a great craftsmanship in carving buddhas out of the stones of humanity.

Every man is just a big rock. It needs a craftsman, a great artist, a sculptor, who with loving hands removes all that is unessential and leaves only that which is absolutely essential. That absolutely essential is our buddha.
- Joshu: The Lion's Roar, Chapter #1

JOSHU: THE LION'S ROAR -- is also a milestone in the history of consciousness, a tremendously brave man who created roaring lions, buddhas of great strength and power.

He was a disciple of Nansen, but he was always a category in himself. He never became a disciple to Nansen formally; he was never initiated by Nansen; but he lived with Nansen, loved Nansen, and Nansen loved him, showered him with his love. Everybody knew that if Nansen died, he would choose Joshu to be his successor, although he was not his follower. He was such a unique person in himself, he could not follow anybody. He was a fellow traveler.
- Nansen: The Point of Departure, Chapter #10

At the age of sixty, Joshu started. You can start any time, and this has always been my feeling. Joshu lived so long -- he lived one hundred and twenty years -- he must have lived one hundred and twenty years, because he started at the age of sixty. And when you start meditating, you become so fresh and young, you can simply live long without any effort.
- Returning to the Source, Chapter #2

Books on Kabir:
The Divine Melody (in English)
Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language (in English)
The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty (in English)
The Guest (in English)
The Path of Love (in English)
The Revolution (in English)
The Great Secret (in English)
Suno Bhai Saadho (in Hindi)
Kahe Kabir Deewana (in Hindi)
Kahe Kabir Mai Poora Paya (in Hindi)

Kabir has said: I was searching and searching and searching, and then I got lost, and then happened the miracle of miracles. When I was not there you were standing before me. And when I was there and searching and searching, you were so far away -- not even a glimpse. And now, look... I have disappeared. Searching, searching, I got lost, completely lost; my whole search absorbed me, destroyed me completely. Now I am no more... and my Lord, you are standing before me.

Kabir has said that the seeker never reaches to the sought. Man never confronts God -- because unless you disappear he cannot appear, so there is no meeting-point. When you are, he is not; when he is, you are not -- so how can you claim that "I know?" You are not -- only then, he is. When the knower disappears, the knowledge appears; it cannot be just a wish-fulfillment.
- The Divine Melody, Chapter #2

Kabir is a nobody, a man of the masses, very poor, very ordinary, with no education at all, with no culture. And that is his rarity. Why do I call it his rarity? Because to be ordinary in the world is the most extraordinary thing. He was very ordinary -- and he remained ordinary.
Kabir is really that normal person that you never come across in life, with no desire to be special. When he became enlightened, then too he remained in his ordinary life. He was a weaver; he continued to weave.
- Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language, Chapter #1

Kabir is one of the greatest revolutionaries who has ever walked on the earth. His insight is of tremendous value. If you can fall en rapport with his vision you will be enriched -- you will be enriched beyond all your expectations.
- The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Chapter #1

Kabir knows. What he is talking about is not an explanation, what he is talking about is an experience -- he is sharing his joy, he is sharing something that he has known, he is singing the song about the unsung. Remember it, that whenever Kabir talks about God it is not a belief; he knows it, it is his experience. Hc is talking out of his experience, hence he can be of immense help to you.

Kabir is talking as a God-realized man, utterly drunk. His songs are songs of a drunkard drunk on the divine, small, but of immense beauty. They may not be great literature -- they are not -- because he does not bother about the meter and the grammar and the language. These are not composed songs, these are outpourings of his joy; a drunkard dancing, singing. You can't expect formalities to be fulfilled. These songs are very small gems. The quantity is not the question, but the quality.
- The Guest, Chapter #1

Kabir says: I am not for renunciation. If God creates the world, the world is beautiful. If it comes out of God, it is beautiful; it cannot be a punishment, it is a reward. This is a very revolutionary statement -- that the world is not a punishment, the world is a reward; that God has not thrown you into a dark and dismal cell. It is a celebration. God has loved you so much that he has created this world for you, to play with, to dance with. It is a celebration.

Kabir is not for renunciation; he's all for celebration -- one thing. The second thing: Kabir says: Life is in community. Life is a communion, so don't try to escape from the world, and don't try to remain in a solitary life. Because the richness is in the community; you are enriched by the community, by your relationships.
- The Path of Love, Chapter #1

Kabir is a harbinger, a herald of the future, the first flower that heralds the spring. He is one of the greatest poets of religion. He is not a theologian, he does not belong to any religion. All religions belong to him, but he is vast enough to contain all. No particular religion defines him. He is a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Jaina and a Buddhist. He's a great beauty, a great poetry, a great orchestra.
Kabir is rare, he is a poor man. In Kabir, for the first time a poor man is recognized as a man of God. Otherwise it was a monopoly of kings and princes and rich people.
- The Revolution, Chapter #1

Before Kabir the Upanishads lose their luster. The Vedas look pitiful and second-rate before him. Kabir is singular, unique. Although he is illiterate he has succeeded in extracting the essence from the experience of his life. He is not a scholar; he has expressed this essence very briefly, not at all in great detail. His words are like seed – mantras.
- The Great Secret, Chapter #1

Kabir, THE SONGS OF KABIR. Nothing like it exists in the world. Kabir is incredibly beautiful. An uneducated man, born a weaver -- to whom nobody knows -- his mother left him on the bank of the Ganges. He must have been an illegal child. But it is not enough to just be legal; he was certainly illegal, but he was born out of love, and love is the real law. I have also spoken much on Kabir too, so there is no need to add anything except again and again to say, "Kabir, I love you as I have never loved any man."
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #5

Book on Kahlil Gibran:
The Messiah (2 volumes in English)

Kahlil Gibran... the very name brings so much ecstasy and joy that it is impossible to think of another name comparable to him. Just hearing the name, bells start ringing in the heart which do not belong to this world. Kahlil Gibran is pure music, a mystery such that only poetry can sometimes grasp it, but only sometimes.

You have chosen a man who is the most beloved of this beautiful earth. Centuries have passed; there have been great men but Kahlil Gibran is a category in himself. I cannot conceive that even in the future, there is a possibility of another man of such deep insight into the human heart, into the unknown that surrounds us.

He has done something impossible. He has been able to bring at least a few fragments of the unknown into human language. He has raised human language and human consciousness as no other man has ever done. Through Kahlil Gibran, it seems all the mystics, all the poets, all creative souls have joined hands and poured themselves.

Although he has been immensely successful in reaching people, still he feels it is not the whole truth, but just a glimpse. But to see the glimpse of truth is a beginning of a pilgrimage that leads you to the ultimate, to the absolute, to the universal.
- The Messiah, Vol 1, Chapter #1

There are men who have found the truth and remained silent, because they don't know how to express it. Kahlil Gibran is just the opposite -- he has not found the truth, but he is capable of expressing. And for the humanity which lives in darkness, even his poetry appears as if it is coming from the source of self-knowing.
- The Messiah, Vol 2, Chapter #5

Kahlil Gibran has written tremendously beautiful words. They come so close to Christ, to Zarathustra, to Lao Tzu, to Gautam the Buddha, and there is every possibility many people will think that Kahlil Gibran is enlightened. He may even surpass Lao Tzu and Buddha and Christ as far as expression is concerned; his expression may be far more beautiful because he is a skilled poet, a very skilled painter. He has the sensitiveness to appreciate beauty, but howsoever he is appreciating it is unconscious.
- Philosophia Ultima, Chapter #10

Kahlil Gibran in his wonderful book THE PROPHET says lovers should be like pillars of a temple -- supporting the same roof, but not too close to each other. Like pillars.... If they come too close, the whole temple will fall; if they go too far away, then too the whole temple will fall. They cannot come too close; they cannot go too far. They should be like pillars of a temple, supporting the same roof.

This is the art, the knack. If you want your love to be eternal, don't come too close, because if you come too close then the need to go far away arises. If you come too close then you trespass on each other's freedom -- and everybody needs a space of his own. Love is beautiful when it co-exists with your space; if it starts trespassing on your space then it becomes poisonous. And lovers always behave foolishly and stupidly. When they are in love they don't listen to anything; they try to come too close and then they destroy their love. Had they been a little wiser, they would not have come too close and then they would have remained close forever.
- Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1, Chapter #5

I want to include another book by Kahlil Gibran, JESUS, THE SON OF MAN. It is one of the books which is almost ignored. Christians ignore it because it calls Jesus the son of man. They not only ignore it, they condemn it. And of course, who else cares about Jesus? If Christians themselves are condemning him, then nobody else cares about it.

Kahlil Gibran is a Syrian from very close to Jerusalem. In fact in the hills of Syria, people -- a few people at least -- still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Amid those high- reaching cedars, anyone, even a fool, is bound to be amazed, mystified. Kahlil Gibran was born in Syria under the cedars reaching towards the stars. He comes very close in representing the real man Jesus -- closer than the four so-called disciples who wrote the gospels. They are more gossips than gospels. Kahlil Gibran is closer, but Christians were angry because he calls Jesus the son of man. I loved the book.

The book related different people's stories about Jesus: a laborer, a farmer, a fisherman, a tax-collector -- yes, even a tax-collector -- a man, a woman, all possibilities. It is as if Kahlil Gibran is asking many people about Jesus -- the real Jesus, not the Christian Jesus; the real Jesus, made of flesh... and the stories are so beautiful. Each story needs to be meditated upon.

Another book by Kahlil Gibran, THE MADMAN. I cannot leave it out, although I confess I wanted to. I wanted to leave it out because I am that madman about whom he is talking. But I cannot leave it out. He talks so meaningfully, so authentically about the very innermost core of the madman. And this madman is no ordinary madman, but a Buddha, a Rinzai, a Kabir. I wonder -- I have always wondered -- how Kahlil Gibran could manage it. He himself was not the madman, he himself was not the enlightened one. He was born in Syria, but lived unfortunately in America.

But there are wonders and wonders, questions without answers. How did he manage? Perhaps he did not manage it himself... perhaps something, someone -- what Sufis call Khidr, and Theosophists call K.H., Koothumi -- must have taken possession of him. He was possessed, but not always. When he was not writing he was a very ordinary man, in fact more ordinary than the so-called ordinary man: full of jealousy, anger, passions of all kinds. But once in a while he became possessed, possessed from above, and then something started pouring through him... paintings, poetry, parables.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #9

Again and again I come back to Kahlil Gibran. I have loved him and would have liked to help him. I have even waited for him, but he is not born yet. He will have to seek for some other master in the future. THE WANDERER is my choice for this number.

THE WANDERER, by Kahlil Gibran, is a collection of parables. The parable is the oldest method of saying that which is profound; that which cannot be said can always be said in a parable. It is a beautiful collection of small stories.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #11

Books on Krishna:
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy (in English)
Geeta Darshan (8 volumes in Hindi)
Krishna Smriti (in Hindi)

Krishna is utterly incomparable, he is so unique. Firstly, his uniqueness lies in the fact that although Krishna happened in the ancient past he belongs to the future, is really of the future. Man has yet to grow to that height where he can be a contemporary of Krishna's. He is still beyond man's understanding; he continues to puzzle and battle us. Only in some future time will we be able to understand him and appreciate his virtues. And there are good reasons for it.

The most important reason is that Krishna is the sole great man in our whole history who reached the absolute height and depth of religion, and yet he is not at all serious and sad, not in tears. By and large, the chief characteristic of a religious person has been that he is somber, serious and sad-looking -- like one vanquished in the battle of life, like a renegade from life. In the long line of such sages it is Krishna alone who comes dancing, singing and laughing.
- Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, Chapter #1

Krishna is right when he says, nainam chhindanti shastrani -- "No weapon can even touch me"...nainam dahati pravaka -- "And neither can the fire burn me." He is not talking about the body, the brain, the self -- they will all be destroyed -- but there is something in you indestructible, immortal, eternal. It was with you before your birth and it will be with you after your birth, because it is you, your essential being.
To know it is to be free, free from all prisons: the prisons of the body, the prisons of the mind, the prisons that exist outside you.
- The Messiah, Vol 2, Chapter #2

You will be surprised that Krishna is the only great Master in the world who is known to have cheated. And Hindus call him `the most perfect Master'. He is. Rama is not that perfect; he is very afraid of cheating, he is too sincere. Sincerity is his bondage. He is not relaxed. He is perfect saint: he had denied all that is wrong -- but that is seriously, and that shows that you are still taking the game very, very seriously. You are not taking it as a game.

Krishna is totally different: it is a game. He promises one day and forgets on another day. He is really liberated; his liberation is perfect, without flaw. His liberation is without flaw because he knows all is a game. When all is a game and all is a dream, then why be bothered? He is not worried and bothered. He plays it and remains unattached.
- The Path of Love, Chapter #5

Love is an infinite stillness, a state of rootedness. Krishna has called this state of rootedness sthita-pragya. Love can only happen to one whose mind has come to a standstill, it trembles no more.
- Nowhere To Go But In, Chapter #5

Krishna accepts life with all its flowers and thorns, its light and shade, sweet and sour. He accepts life choicelessly, unconditionally. He accepts life as it is. It is not that Krishna chooses only the flowers of life and shuns its thorns; he accepts both together, because he knows thorns are as necessary to life as the flowers. Ordinarily we think thorns are inimical to flowers. It is not true. Thorns are there for the protection of flowers; they are deeply connected with each other. They are united -- members of each other. They share common roots, and they live for a common purpose. Many people would like to destroy the thorn and save the flower, but that is not possible. They are parts of each other, and both have to be saved.
So Krishna not only accepts politics, he lives in the thick of politics without the least difficulty.
- Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, Chapter #10

BHAGAVADGITA -- the divine song of Krishna. By the way 'Christ' is only a mispronunciation of 'Krishna' just as 'Zoroaster' is of 'Zarathustra'. 'Krishna' means the highest state of consciousness, and the song of Krishna, the BHAGAVADGITA, reaches to the ultimate heights of being.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #1

Book on Kyozan:
Kyozan: A True Man of Zen (in English)
Kyozan was a very simple man -- not the philosophic kind, not a poet, nor a sculptor. Nothing can be said about him except that he was absolutely authentic, honest. If he does not know a thing he will say so, even at the risk of people thinking that he has fallen from his enlightenment. But this makes him a unique master.

Zen is full of unique masters, but Kyozan's uniqueness is his simplicity. He is just like a child. It took Isan, his master, forty years of hard work to make Kyozan enlightened. He was determined, and he said he would not leave the body until Kyozan became enlightened -- though he was old enough.
Kyozan did everything that Isan said, but nothing penetrated to his very being. He was a very ordinary man. Heaven and hell, God and the beyond had never worried him. He was not a seeker in the sense every seeker is -- a seeker of truth.

No, he was not seeking truth, because he is reported to have said that, "If you are seeking the truth you have certainly accepted that truth exists, and I will not accept anything on belief. So I am just seeking, searching in all directions, trying to come in tune with the universe. It may be just my fallacy, my fantasy, but I want to go without any prejudice."
- Kyozan: A True Man of Zen, Chapter #1

Kyozan was Isan's chief disciple, and finally was going to be his successor. He was under preparation, he was almost chosen by Isan to be his successor -- undeclared, but it was known to all the disciples that Kyozan was going to be the next master. Hence Kyozan was allowed the privilege of asking all kinds of questions, because he would have to face the same kinds of questions when he became the successor.
- Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky, Chapter #5

I have entitled this series, KYOZAN: A TRUE MAN OF ZEN. I have not given any speciality to him, for the simple reason that he avoided speciality, uniqueness, some higher quality. He removed himself deep into the forest just to avoid seekers. But if you have found the truth, if your innermost lotus has blossomed, wherever you go seekers will come. There seems to be an inner pathway.

The seeker may not know even where he is going. He may not be aware of his thirst, may not be aware of the truth, but he starts moving towards the master.

Mostly the master has nothing to do. He teaches you simply a different way of being graceful. He gives you a beauty that no mirror can give to you. He gives you a dignity. He declares your potential buddhahood, and unless your potential buddhahood is declared you may never think that in the innermost core you are a buddha. The master makes many devices, but the aim is the same.
- Kyozan: A True Man of Zen, Chapter #4

Books on Lao Tzu:
Tao: The Three Treasures (4 volumes in English)
The Way of Tao (2 volumes in English)
Tao Upanishad (6 volumes in Hindi)

I speak on Lao Tzu totally differently. I am not related to him because even to be related a distance is needed. I don't love him, because how can you love yourself? When I speak on Lao Tzu I speak as if I am speaking on my own self. With him my being is totally one. When I speak on Lao Tzu it is as if I am looking in a mirror -- my own face is reflected. When I speak on Lao Tzu, I am absolutely with him. Even to say "absolutely with him" is not true -- I am him, he is me.

Lao Tzu is not like Mahavir, not mathematical at all, yet he is very, very logical in his madness. He has a mad logic! When we penetrate into his sayings you will come to feel it; it is not so obvious and apparent. He has a logic of his own: the logic of absurdity, the logic of paradox, the logic of a madman. He hits hard.

To understand Lao Tzu's logic you will have to create eyes. It is very subtle, it is not the ordinary logic of the logicians -- it is the logic of a hidden life, a very subtle life. Whatsoever he says is on the surface absurd; deep down there lives a very great consistency. One has to penetrate it; one has to change his own mind to understand Lao Tzu.

So Lao Tzu is just a spokesman of life. If life is absurd, Lao Tzu is absurd; if life has an absurd logic to it, Lao Tzu has the same logic to it. Lao Tzu simply reflects life. He doesn't add anything to it, he doesn't choose out of it; he simply accepts whatsoever it is.
- Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1, Chapter #1

Lao Tzu is one of those few masters who have tried to say the truth as accurately as it is humanly possible. He has made tremendous effort to bring the inexpressible to the world of expression, to bring the wordless experience within the confinement of small words.

The words we know are mundane; they are meant for ordinary day-to-day use. And the experience that happens in absolute silence is absolutely beyond them. But still it has to be expressed -- if not expressed, at least hinted at.

Lao Tzu's words are fingers pointing to the moon. Don't cling to the fingers. Forget the fingers and look at the moon, and great insight will descend upon you.
There is no other scripture like the TAO TE CHING for the simple reason that each single word in it is immensely pregnant, not only with the unknown but also with the unknowable. Words have been used only as indicators, milestones showing the way, telling you to go ahead, not to stop there.
- Come, Come, Yet Again Come, Chapter #11

One of the greatest sayings of Lao Tzu is: The most beautiful company is when you can be with someone as if you are alone. See the insight of Lao Tzu: . . . when you can be with someone as if you are alone, when he allows you so much silence and so much freedom that you are absolutely alone, as if actually alone. His presence is not a hindrance; his presence, in fact, enhances your aloneness, enriches your aloneness.
- Guida Spirituale, Chapter #5

When I talk on Lao Tzu I say I "talk Lao Tzu,' because from where he is talking, I am standing there. Whatsoever he says I would like to have said myself. I have never come across a single point where I can say I disagree with him.

Lao Tzu is a luxury, a let-go. Remember the "I's" -- he is a luxury, a let-go. If you can afford, beautiful. If you cannot afford, it simply creates a desire and a frustration and nothing else: a desire, of how things would be if you could take the jump. A tremendous desire arises. You feel him so near in your desire, but you cannot take the jump because the courage is not there; and, suddenly, he is so far away, like a star. Frustration falls on you.
- Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5, Chapter #4

If we wish to understand Lao Tzu, we shall have to set aside our mode of thinking. If we approach Lao Tzu with our view-point, our words, our preconceived notions, it will be difficult to decide whether he is right or not. Set aside your views and concepts. Then only will you understand him. Then you shall be able to judge whether he is right or wrong, but not before that. Just to comprehend is an obstacle because our manner of thinking is one thing and Lao Tzu's is just the opposite. It is as if we discern things by our sense of touch whereas he uses his eyes and sees Or as if we use our eyes and he uses his ears. Then the language becomes different.
- The Way of Tao, Volume 2. Chapter #19

Book on Lieh Tzu:
Tao: The Pathless Path (2 volumes in English)

I REJOICE in Lieh Tzu -- he is one of the most perfect expressions for the inexpressible.
Truth cannot be expressed: that inexpressibility is intrinsic to truth. Thousands and thousands of people have tried to express it -- very few have succeeded even in giving a reflection of it. Lieh Tzu is one of those very few; he is rare.

So the first thing to be understood about Lieh Tzu: he is not a theoretician, he will not give you any theory; he will simply give you parables.

Lieh Tzu is not a theologian either; he does not talk about God. He TALKS GOD, but he does not talk about God. Whatsoever he says comes from the source, but he does not TALK ABOUT the source let it be very clear to you. There are two types of people: one who talks about God, he is the theologian; one who talks God, he is the mystic. Lieh Tzu is a mystic. The man who talks about God has not known God. otherwise why should he 'talk about'? The 'about' shows his ignorance. When a man talks God he has experienced. Then God is not a theory to be proved, disproved no; then God is his very life: to be lived.
- Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, Chapter #1

Lieh Tzu was one of the masters of the school of Lao Tzu, one of the enlightened disciples of Lao Tzu. And Lieh Tzu was not an ordinary master, not concerned with your small problems, your actions, not concerned with small teachings. Lieh Tzu was concerned only with the ultimate. He had many disciples.
- The Grass Grows By Itself, Chapter #2

I say to you that when Lieh Tzu says 'I know', he knows. And his 'I know' means exactly the same as when the Upanishads say 'I don't know'. His 'I know' means exactly the same. It means exactly the same as when Socrates says 'I don't know a thing'. By saying 'I don't know a thing' Socrates is denying the 'I'. But by saying 'I know' as a simple fact, as an ordinary fact, with no claim, Lieh Tzu is doing a far greater miracle because -- listen to it -- sometimes a pretender can pretend and say 'I don't know' in the hope that you will think that he knows. Because the Upanishads say so and Socrates says so, a pretender can say 'I don't know' and hope that you will think that he is a knower, that he is another Socrates. Mind is very cunning. So remember one thing: if a mind is simple, humble, and simply states the fact, then that is the truth -- whatsoever the fact.
- Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2, Chapter #11

THE BOOK OF LIEH TZU. Lao Tzu I mentioned, Chuang Tzu I mentioned; Lieh Tzu I forgot, and he is the very culmination of both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Lieh Tzu is the third generation. Lao Tzu was the master, Chuang Tzu was the disciple. Lieh Tzu was the disciple of a disciple, perhaps that is why I forgot him. But his book is immensely beautiful and has to be included in the list.
- Books I Have Loved, Chapter #2