1984 in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA
Okay. I have heard your notebook open. Now it is my hour, and my hour does not consist of sixty
minutes. It can be anything – sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred... or beyond numbers even.
If it is my hour then of course it has to be consistent with me, not vice versa.
The postscript continues.
The first name today is one not even heard in the West: Maluka. He is one of the most significant
mystics in India. His full name is Malukdas, but he only called himself Maluka as if he were a child
– and he was a child really, not ’as if’.
I have spoken on him in Hindi, but it will take a long time for it to be translated into other languages
for the simple reason that Maluka is so strange, so mysterious. You will be surprised that in a country
like India, which is full of commentators, scholars, pundits, nobody has even bothered to comment
on Malukdas because it is so difficult. He had to wait for me. I am his first commentator, and who
knows, maybe the last too.
Just an example:
Ajgar karai na chakari panchhi karai na kam das maluka kahi gaye sab ke data ram.
Now I will try to translate it. It will not be exactly the same but I am not responsible for it. The poor
English language cannot contain such richness. Maluka says: The snake never goes out to work at
a job, nor does the bird ever work. And, says Maluka, there is no need, in fact, because existence
provides for all. He was a man Zorba would have liked. He was the man with a little madness and a
lot of meditation.
He was so deep in meditation that he says:
Mala japon na kar jibhya japon na ram, sumiran mera hari karain main paya bisram.
He says: I don’t chant the name of God, nor do I use a rosary for worship. I don’t worship at all –
who cares for such stupid things! He continues: In fact, God remembers my name, there is no need
for me to remember him.... Do you see? A little madness and a lot of meditation. Malukdas is one
of the men of whom I can say without any hesitation that he has gone beyond enlightenment. He
has become the picture on the tenth card of the Ten Zen Bulls.
Second, the book of the Sikhs: GURU GRANTHA SAHIB. It was not written by one single man so I
cannot tell you who the author is. It is a compilation from generation to generation. It was compiled
from all sources, as no other book in the world. THE OLD TESTAMENT is only Jewish, THE NEW
TESTAMENT is only Christian, BHAGAVADGITA IS only Hindu, DHAMMAPADA is only Buddhist,
JIN SUTRAS only Jaina; but GURU GRANTHA SAHIB is the only book in the world taken from all
the sources possible. Its sources come from Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, Christian. Such
openness, no fanaticism.
The title GURU GRANTHA means ’the book of the masters’, or ’the master book’. In it you will find
Kabir, Nanak, Farid, and a long line of mystics belonging to different traditions, different schools, as
if thousands of rivers are meeting in the ocean. GURU GRANTHA is like an ocean.
I will translate only one sentence of Nanak. He is the founder, so of course his words are compiled
in GURU GRANTHA. He was the first master of the Sikhs; then followed a line of nine other masters.
Sikhism was produced by ten masters. It is a rare religion because every other religion was created
by only a single master.
Nanak says: The truth, the ultimate truth is unspeakable, so please forgive me, I will not speak about
it but only sing it. If you can understand the language of music, then perhaps a chord in your heart
may be touched. The transmission of the lamp is beyond words.
GURU GRANTHA SAHIB... the Sikhs call it SAHIB because they respect the book so much, almost
as if it is alive, as if it were the very spirit of the master. But a book is a book, and the moment the
masters depart the book is dead, the word is dead. So they are carrying a beautiful corpse, just as
all the other religions are doing. Remember, by the way, that religion is alive only once in a while,
alive only in the presence of a master. When the master is no longer alive it becomes a creed, and
a creed is an ugly thing.
The Dutch parliament has appointed a commission to inquire into ’cults and creeds’. Obviously I
am the first on their list of inquiries. I have informed my people in Holland to tell the commission,
”We are not going to cooperate with you because in fact we are neither a cult nor a creed; we are a
religion. If you want to look for cults and creeds, then there are many: the Christian, the Judaic, the
Hindu, the Mohammedan, and so on ad infinitum.” In fact I was going to say ad nauseam....
The commission has become very worried. They wrote a letter to the orange people in Holland
saying, ”Please cooperate with us.” Our people have again asked what to do. I told them, ”I have
already told you what to do. Unless they appoint a commission to inquire into the very spirit of
religion, do not cooperate.”
Look at the absurdity: the Dutch parliament is dominated by the Christian Democratic Party, and the
people who are appointed to serve on the commission are all Christian Democrats. Now, it is they
who are the creed, they are a cult. My people are not a cult. I am still alive and kicking! A religion
exists only when a master is breathing. His breath is what religion is made of.
GURU GRANTHA has compiled the sayings of ten living masters, ten enlightened ones. I say that
no other book can be compared to it. It is incomparable. Nanak says, ”Ek omkar satnam – only one
thing is true, the name of the inexpressible.” In the East we call it omkar, om – only that is true. The
sound of the soundless... the silence that pervades after the sound has left...ek omkar satnam.
Third: The book by Mabel Collins, LIGHT ON THE PATH. Anybody who wants to travel towards the
heights has to understand LIGHT ON THE PATH. It is a small book as far as quantity is concerned,
just a few pages, but as far as quality is concerned it is one of the biggest, the greatest books. And,
wonder of wonders, it has been written in the modern age. Nobody knows who the author Mabel
Collins is. The author never even writes the name Mabel Collins in full, but only M.C. It is just by
chance that I have come to know the full name through a few friends of M.C.
Why M.C.? I can understand the reason. The writer is only a vehicle, and more particularly so in the
case of LIGHT ON THE PATH. Perhaps the Sufi, Khidr – I have told you about him: the spirit who
leads people, guides people, helps people – was behind M.C.’s work too.
M.C. was a Theosophist. He or she would – I don’t know whether the author is a man or woman, it
does not matter anyway – or may not have liked to have been guided by Khidr, the Sufi idea of the
ultimate guide. But M.C. would be immensely happy if I use the parallel Theosophical name: they
call it K.H. Any name will do. What you call it does not matter... Master K.H. or the mystic Khijra, it is
all the same. But the book is immensely helpful. Whosoever wrote it, whosoever guided the writer,
that’s beside the point; the book itself stands like a golden tower.
Fourth: I am perfectly okay, don’t be worried just because I am numbering correctly. Once in a while
it happens just by accident. Fourth is the Kashmiri woman Lalla. The Kashmiris love Lalla so much
that they say out of respect for her that they have only two words: one is Allah and the other is Lalla.
The Kashmiris are ninety-nine percent Mohammedans, so when they say they know only two words,
Allah and Lalla, it is important.
Lalla never wrote a book. She was illiterate, but so courageous.... She remained naked all her life
– and remember this was hundreds of years ago in the East – and she was a beautiful woman.
Kashmiris are beautiful; in India they are the only really beautiful people. They are the lost tribe
Moses was searching for. They are basically, originally Jews.
When Moses was leading his people towards Israel... and one wonders what that madman was
doing: why to Israel? But madmen are after all mad, there is no explanation. Moses was searching
for a place for his people. He wandered for forty years in the desert, and then found Israel.
Meanwhile he had lost one of his tribes. That tribe had reached Kashmir.
Sometimes at least it is fortunate to be lost. Moses could not find them. Do you know that in his
search for the lost tribe Moses finally reached Kashmir... and he died there. His tomb is not in Israel,
it is in Kashmir.
Strange, Moses died in Kashmir, Jesus died in Kashmir. I have been to Kashmir many many times,
and I know it to be a place where one says, ”Aahhh, could I die this very moment, here and now...!”
It is so beautiful that to live afterwards will not be worthwhile.
Kashmiris are beautiful people – poor, but immensely beautiful. Lalla was a Kashmiri woman,
illiterate, but she could still sing and dance. So a few of her songs have been saved. She, of
course, could not be saved, but her songs have been. I include them in my postscript.
Fifth: 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. Gorakhdhandha 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.
But the world continues, so do I. The world knows no full stop, neither do I. I will die only in the
middle of a sentence; then people will wonder forever what I was going to say, how I was going to
complete the sentence. I respect Gorakh-nath. I have spoken much about him. One day it will be
translated, so I need not waste any more time on this fellow.
Sixth: It is very rare that a man, a single man, produces two masterpieces, but that is the case with
Hubert Benoit. I don’t know how the French pronounce it... and they are so snobbish about their
pronunciation, and I am so sloppy! But I don’t care – what does it matter if a word here and there is
mispronounced? My whole life I have been mispronouncing.
This man Hubert Benoit – I have mentioned his first book, LET GO. In fact that was his second book.
Before writing LET GO he had written another book called THE SUPREME DOCTRINE. I would like
to include that too; otherwise I will feel really sad not to have mentioned it. It is a tremendously
beautiful book but very difficult to read, and much more difficult to understand. But Benoit tried his
best to make it as simple as possible.
Seventh. A great esoteric number, seven. I want it to be given to a really esoteric fellow, Shiva, the
Hindu concept of Ultimate Goodness. Many books carry the name of Shiva; many of them are not
true, they are just using the name to become respectable. But this book is one of the most authentic,
SHIVA SUTRA. I have spoken on it in Hindi; I am thinking of speaking on it in English too. I have
even decided the date, but you know me....
This book SHIVA SUTRA contains the techniques of all meditations. There cannot be any other
technique that is not included in this book. SHIVA SUTRA is the very bible of meditators.
Ashu, I know why they are laughing. Let them laugh. I know I am speaking very, very slowly, that’s
why they are laughing. But I am enjoying it and they are enjoying their laugh. So good, Ashu... only
once in a while one can find such a good woman. There are many beautiful women in the world but
good women are, my God, very difficult to find. Let the fools laugh. I will speak as slowly as I want.
I was talking about SHIVA SUTRA. This book is like no other, it is unique, incomparable.
Eighth: The most immensely beautiful work of an Indian mystic, Gaurang. The word gaurang itself
means ’the white one’. He was so beautiful... I can see him standing right before me, just white, or
rather snow-white. He was so beautiful that all the girls in the village fell in love with him. And he
remained a bachelor. One cannot get married to millions of girls. One of them is too much; millions,
my God! – that will kill anyone! Now you know the secret of why I am a bachelor.
Gaurang used to dance and sing his message. His message was not of words, but much more –
of a song. Gaurang has not written a book; his lovers – and there were many, too many in fact –
they collected his songs. Those songs are one of the most beautiful collections; I have never come
across anything like it before or after. What to say about them... just that I love them.
Ninth: Again another Indian mystic, you may not have heard about him. 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.
What I say about Dadu is true about all saints. They are averse to writing. They sing, they speak,
they dance, they indicate, but they don’t write. To write something is to make it very limited. A word
is a limitation; only then can it be a word. If it is unlimited it will be the sky, containing all the stars.
That’s what a saint’s experience is.
Even I myself have not written anything... just a few letters to those who were very intimate to me,
thinking, or perhaps believing, that they will understand. I don’t know whether they understood or
not. So my book A CUP OF TEA is the only book that can be said to have been written by me. It is
a compilation of my letters. Otherwise I have not written anything.
Dadu’s songs have been collected. I have spoken on him. He reaches to the very heights one can
aspire to.
Tenth, and the last. The last today is one of the strangest men that has ever walked on the earth,
Sarmad. He was a Sufi, and he was murdered in a mosque by order of the Mohammedan king.
He was murdered simply because of a particular Mohammedan sutra, one of their prayers. The
prayer is: ”Allah la il allah – Allah, God, is the only God.” And that is not enough for them; they want
something more. They want to declare to the world that Mohammed is the only prophet of God:
”Allah la il allah; mohammed bismillah. God is the only God, and Mohammed is the only prophet of
God.”
Sufis deny the second part, that Mohammed is the only prophet of God. That was the sin of
Sarmad. Obviously nobody can be the only prophet; nobody absolutely can be the only one –
neither Mohammed, nor Jesus, nor Moses, nor Buddha. Sarmad was killed, murdered, butchered,
by the Mohammedan king of India, in conspiracy with the Mohammedan priests. But he laughed,
and said, ”Even after my death I will say the same thing: Allah la il allah – God is the only God.”
The great mosque in Delhi, Jama Masjid, where Sarmad was killed, is still standing, a monument
to this great man. He was killed in a very inhuman way: just his head was cut off. His head rolled
down the steps of the Jama mosque. The thousands who had gathered there heard the head rolling
down the steps clearly shouting, ”Allah la il allah – God is the only God....”
I don’t know whether the story is true or not, but it must be. It has to be. Even truth has to
compromise with a man like Sarmad. I love Sarmad. He has not written any book, but his statements
have been compiled and the most significant is: God is the only God, and there is no prophet, there
is no one between you and God. There is no mediator, God is immediately available. Just all that is
needed is a little madness and a lot of meditation.
I was going to say something then, but I will not say it... it is unsayable. It has never been said
before, and I should not say it either.
It is still beautiful
like a sunset...
the birds are coming home,
the first stars are coming,
their colors are in the sky.
Can you see
the smile on my face?
Okay. I have heard your notebook open. Now it is my hour, and my hour does not consist of sixty
minutes. It can be anything – sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred... or beyond numbers even.
If it is my hour then of course it has to be consistent with me, not vice versa.
The postscript continues.
The first name today is one not even heard in the West: Maluka. He is one of the most significant
mystics in India. His full name is Malukdas, but he only called himself Maluka as if he were a child
– and he was a child really, not ’as if’.
I have spoken on him in Hindi, but it will take a long time for it to be translated into other languages
for the simple reason that Maluka is so strange, so mysterious. You will be surprised that in a country
like India, which is full of commentators, scholars, pundits, nobody has even bothered to comment
on Malukdas because it is so difficult. He had to wait for me. I am his first commentator, and who
knows, maybe the last too.
Just an example:
Ajgar karai na chakari panchhi karai na kam das maluka kahi gaye sab ke data ram.
Now I will try to translate it. It will not be exactly the same but I am not responsible for it. The poor
English language cannot contain such richness. Maluka says: The snake never goes out to work at
a job, nor does the bird ever work. And, says Maluka, there is no need, in fact, because existence
provides for all. He was a man Zorba would have liked. He was the man with a little madness and a
lot of meditation.
He was so deep in meditation that he says:
Mala japon na kar jibhya japon na ram, sumiran mera hari karain main paya bisram.
He says: I don’t chant the name of God, nor do I use a rosary for worship. I don’t worship at all –
who cares for such stupid things! He continues: In fact, God remembers my name, there is no need
for me to remember him.... Do you see? A little madness and a lot of meditation. Malukdas is one
of the men of whom I can say without any hesitation that he has gone beyond enlightenment. He
has become the picture on the tenth card of the Ten Zen Bulls.
Second, the book of the Sikhs: GURU GRANTHA SAHIB. It was not written by one single man so I
cannot tell you who the author is. It is a compilation from generation to generation. It was compiled
from all sources, as no other book in the world. THE OLD TESTAMENT is only Jewish, THE NEW
TESTAMENT is only Christian, BHAGAVADGITA IS only Hindu, DHAMMAPADA is only Buddhist,
JIN SUTRAS only Jaina; but GURU GRANTHA SAHIB is the only book in the world taken from all
the sources possible. Its sources come from Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, Christian. Such
openness, no fanaticism.
The title GURU GRANTHA means ’the book of the masters’, or ’the master book’. In it you will find
Kabir, Nanak, Farid, and a long line of mystics belonging to different traditions, different schools, as
if thousands of rivers are meeting in the ocean. GURU GRANTHA is like an ocean.
I will translate only one sentence of Nanak. He is the founder, so of course his words are compiled
in GURU GRANTHA. He was the first master of the Sikhs; then followed a line of nine other masters.
Sikhism was produced by ten masters. It is a rare religion because every other religion was created
by only a single master.
Nanak says: The truth, the ultimate truth is unspeakable, so please forgive me, I will not speak about
it but only sing it. If you can understand the language of music, then perhaps a chord in your heart
may be touched. The transmission of the lamp is beyond words.
GURU GRANTHA SAHIB... the Sikhs call it SAHIB because they respect the book so much, almost
as if it is alive, as if it were the very spirit of the master. But a book is a book, and the moment the
masters depart the book is dead, the word is dead. So they are carrying a beautiful corpse, just as
all the other religions are doing. Remember, by the way, that religion is alive only once in a while,
alive only in the presence of a master. When the master is no longer alive it becomes a creed, and
a creed is an ugly thing.
The Dutch parliament has appointed a commission to inquire into ’cults and creeds’. Obviously I
am the first on their list of inquiries. I have informed my people in Holland to tell the commission,
”We are not going to cooperate with you because in fact we are neither a cult nor a creed; we are a
religion. If you want to look for cults and creeds, then there are many: the Christian, the Judaic, the
Hindu, the Mohammedan, and so on ad infinitum.” In fact I was going to say ad nauseam....
The commission has become very worried. They wrote a letter to the orange people in Holland
saying, ”Please cooperate with us.” Our people have again asked what to do. I told them, ”I have
already told you what to do. Unless they appoint a commission to inquire into the very spirit of
religion, do not cooperate.”
Look at the absurdity: the Dutch parliament is dominated by the Christian Democratic Party, and the
people who are appointed to serve on the commission are all Christian Democrats. Now, it is they
who are the creed, they are a cult. My people are not a cult. I am still alive and kicking! A religion
exists only when a master is breathing. His breath is what religion is made of.
GURU GRANTHA has compiled the sayings of ten living masters, ten enlightened ones. I say that
no other book can be compared to it. It is incomparable. Nanak says, ”Ek omkar satnam – only one
thing is true, the name of the inexpressible.” In the East we call it omkar, om – only that is true. The
sound of the soundless... the silence that pervades after the sound has left...ek omkar satnam.
Third: The book by Mabel Collins, LIGHT ON THE PATH. Anybody who wants to travel towards the
heights has to understand LIGHT ON THE PATH. It is a small book as far as quantity is concerned,
just a few pages, but as far as quality is concerned it is one of the biggest, the greatest books. And,
wonder of wonders, it has been written in the modern age. Nobody knows who the author Mabel
Collins is. The author never even writes the name Mabel Collins in full, but only M.C. It is just by
chance that I have come to know the full name through a few friends of M.C.
Why M.C.? I can understand the reason. The writer is only a vehicle, and more particularly so in the
case of LIGHT ON THE PATH. Perhaps the Sufi, Khidr – I have told you about him: the spirit who
leads people, guides people, helps people – was behind M.C.’s work too.
M.C. was a Theosophist. He or she would – I don’t know whether the author is a man or woman, it
does not matter anyway – or may not have liked to have been guided by Khidr, the Sufi idea of the
ultimate guide. But M.C. would be immensely happy if I use the parallel Theosophical name: they
call it K.H. Any name will do. What you call it does not matter... Master K.H. or the mystic Khijra, it is
all the same. But the book is immensely helpful. Whosoever wrote it, whosoever guided the writer,
that’s beside the point; the book itself stands like a golden tower.
Fourth: I am perfectly okay, don’t be worried just because I am numbering correctly. Once in a while
it happens just by accident. Fourth is the Kashmiri woman Lalla. The Kashmiris love Lalla so much
that they say out of respect for her that they have only two words: one is Allah and the other is Lalla.
The Kashmiris are ninety-nine percent Mohammedans, so when they say they know only two words,
Allah and Lalla, it is important.
Lalla never wrote a book. She was illiterate, but so courageous.... She remained naked all her life
– and remember this was hundreds of years ago in the East – and she was a beautiful woman.
Kashmiris are beautiful; in India they are the only really beautiful people. They are the lost tribe
Moses was searching for. They are basically, originally Jews.
When Moses was leading his people towards Israel... and one wonders what that madman was
doing: why to Israel? But madmen are after all mad, there is no explanation. Moses was searching
for a place for his people. He wandered for forty years in the desert, and then found Israel.
Meanwhile he had lost one of his tribes. That tribe had reached Kashmir.
Sometimes at least it is fortunate to be lost. Moses could not find them. Do you know that in his
search for the lost tribe Moses finally reached Kashmir... and he died there. His tomb is not in Israel,
it is in Kashmir.
Strange, Moses died in Kashmir, Jesus died in Kashmir. I have been to Kashmir many many times,
and I know it to be a place where one says, ”Aahhh, could I die this very moment, here and now...!”
It is so beautiful that to live afterwards will not be worthwhile.
Kashmiris are beautiful people – poor, but immensely beautiful. Lalla was a Kashmiri woman,
illiterate, but she could still sing and dance. So a few of her songs have been saved. She, of
course, could not be saved, but her songs have been. I include them in my postscript.
Fifth: 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. Gorakhdhandha 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.
But the world continues, so do I. The world knows no full stop, neither do I. I will die only in the
middle of a sentence; then people will wonder forever what I was going to say, how I was going to
complete the sentence. I respect Gorakh-nath. I have spoken much about him. One day it will be
translated, so I need not waste any more time on this fellow.
Sixth: It is very rare that a man, a single man, produces two masterpieces, but that is the case with
Hubert Benoit. I don’t know how the French pronounce it... and they are so snobbish about their
pronunciation, and I am so sloppy! But I don’t care – what does it matter if a word here and there is
mispronounced? My whole life I have been mispronouncing.
This man Hubert Benoit – I have mentioned his first book, LET GO. In fact that was his second book.
Before writing LET GO he had written another book called THE SUPREME DOCTRINE. I would like
to include that too; otherwise I will feel really sad not to have mentioned it. It is a tremendously
beautiful book but very difficult to read, and much more difficult to understand. But Benoit tried his
best to make it as simple as possible.
Seventh. A great esoteric number, seven. I want it to be given to a really esoteric fellow, Shiva, the
Hindu concept of Ultimate Goodness. Many books carry the name of Shiva; many of them are not
true, they are just using the name to become respectable. But this book is one of the most authentic,
SHIVA SUTRA. I have spoken on it in Hindi; I am thinking of speaking on it in English too. I have
even decided the date, but you know me....
This book SHIVA SUTRA contains the techniques of all meditations. There cannot be any other
technique that is not included in this book. SHIVA SUTRA is the very bible of meditators.
Ashu, I know why they are laughing. Let them laugh. I know I am speaking very, very slowly, that’s
why they are laughing. But I am enjoying it and they are enjoying their laugh. So good, Ashu... only
once in a while one can find such a good woman. There are many beautiful women in the world but
good women are, my God, very difficult to find. Let the fools laugh. I will speak as slowly as I want.
I was talking about SHIVA SUTRA. This book is like no other, it is unique, incomparable.
Eighth: The most immensely beautiful work of an Indian mystic, Gaurang. The word gaurang itself
means ’the white one’. He was so beautiful... I can see him standing right before me, just white, or
rather snow-white. He was so beautiful that all the girls in the village fell in love with him. And he
remained a bachelor. One cannot get married to millions of girls. One of them is too much; millions,
my God! – that will kill anyone! Now you know the secret of why I am a bachelor.
Gaurang used to dance and sing his message. His message was not of words, but much more –
of a song. Gaurang has not written a book; his lovers – and there were many, too many in fact –
they collected his songs. Those songs are one of the most beautiful collections; I have never come
across anything like it before or after. What to say about them... just that I love them.
Ninth: Again another Indian mystic, you may not have heard about him. 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.
What I say about Dadu is true about all saints. They are averse to writing. They sing, they speak,
they dance, they indicate, but they don’t write. To write something is to make it very limited. A word
is a limitation; only then can it be a word. If it is unlimited it will be the sky, containing all the stars.
That’s what a saint’s experience is.
Even I myself have not written anything... just a few letters to those who were very intimate to me,
thinking, or perhaps believing, that they will understand. I don’t know whether they understood or
not. So my book A CUP OF TEA is the only book that can be said to have been written by me. It is
a compilation of my letters. Otherwise I have not written anything.
Dadu’s songs have been collected. I have spoken on him. He reaches to the very heights one can
aspire to.
Tenth, and the last. The last today is one of the strangest men that has ever walked on the earth,
Sarmad. He was a Sufi, and he was murdered in a mosque by order of the Mohammedan king.
He was murdered simply because of a particular Mohammedan sutra, one of their prayers. The
prayer is: ”Allah la il allah – Allah, God, is the only God.” And that is not enough for them; they want
something more. They want to declare to the world that Mohammed is the only prophet of God:
”Allah la il allah; mohammed bismillah. God is the only God, and Mohammed is the only prophet of
God.”
Sufis deny the second part, that Mohammed is the only prophet of God. That was the sin of
Sarmad. Obviously nobody can be the only prophet; nobody absolutely can be the only one –
neither Mohammed, nor Jesus, nor Moses, nor Buddha. Sarmad was killed, murdered, butchered,
by the Mohammedan king of India, in conspiracy with the Mohammedan priests. But he laughed,
and said, ”Even after my death I will say the same thing: Allah la il allah – God is the only God.”
The great mosque in Delhi, Jama Masjid, where Sarmad was killed, is still standing, a monument
to this great man. He was killed in a very inhuman way: just his head was cut off. His head rolled
down the steps of the Jama mosque. The thousands who had gathered there heard the head rolling
down the steps clearly shouting, ”Allah la il allah – God is the only God....”
I don’t know whether the story is true or not, but it must be. It has to be. Even truth has to
compromise with a man like Sarmad. I love Sarmad. He has not written any book, but his statements
have been compiled and the most significant is: God is the only God, and there is no prophet, there
is no one between you and God. There is no mediator, God is immediately available. Just all that is
needed is a little madness and a lot of meditation.
I was going to say something then, but I will not say it... it is unsayable. It has never been said
before, and I should not say it either.
It is still beautiful
like a sunset...
the birds are coming home,
the first stars are coming,
their colors are in the sky.
Can you see
the smile on my face?
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