Ego is man’s dream, his sleep,

so those who try to renounce it

fall into yet another illusion.

Their humility, their egolessness

are simply more dreams –

like dreaming you are waking whilst still dreaming.

Don’t fall into this trap.

Just keep in mind one thing:

Wake up and see!

Regards to everyone there.

49. Love.

I am so happy to have got your letter.

Can even a ray of love ever come

without the fragrance of joy?

And what is joy but the fragrance of love?

Yet the world is full of mad people

seeking happiness their whole lives –

but with their backs turned towards love!

The doors to God only open

when love turns into the prayer of our total being.

But perhaps his doors are already open,

yet eyes closed to love

will, even so, never be able to see them.

And what is this you write? momentary contact?

No! No! How can love’s contact be so?

Love turns even a moment into eternity.

Where there is love

there is nothing momentary,

where there is love

there is eternity.

Is a drop just a drop?

No! No! It is the ocean!

The drop seen through eyes of love becomes the ocean!

50. Love.

I have got your letter.

I know well how your soul thirsts;

soon it can be quenched –

you are right at the brink of the lake.

You only have to open your eyes,

and I can see that the lids are about to lift.

I shall be with you then,

always with you,

so don’t worry.

Be patient and wait;

the seed takes its own time to break and bloom.

Give my regards to all.

More when we meet.

51. Love.

I have received your letter and your questions.

About death I have remained quiet on purpose,

because I want to awaken inquiry about life.

Those who ponder over death reach nowhere.

Because, in fact, how can death be known without dying?

Hence, the total outcome of such thinking

is either a belief that the soul is immortal or

that the end of one’s life is a total end, nothing remains after that.

They are both mere beliefs.

One belief is based on the fear of death,

the other on the end of the body.

I want man not to get entangled in beliefs and opinions,

because that is not the direction to experiencing, to knowing.

And what else can be found by thinking about death

but belief systems and dogmas?

Thought never takes one beyond the known.

And death is unknown.

Hence, it cannot be known through thinking.

I want to turn your attention towards life.

Life is – here and now.

One can enter it.

Death is never here and now –

either it is in the future or in the past.

Death is never in the present.

Has this fact ever come to your attention,

that death is never in the present?

But life is always in the present – neither in the past

nor in the future.

If it is, it is now; otherwise it never is.

Hence it can be known, because it can be lived,

there is no need to think about it.

In fact, those who would think about it will miss it.

Because the movement of thought is also only of the past

or in the future;

thought is not in the present.

Thought too is a companion of death.

In other words, thought is dead,

there is no element of life in it.

Aliveness is always in the present – it is the present.

Its manifestation is now, absolutely now;

here, absolutely here.

Hence, there is no thinking about life,

there is only experiencing.

Not an experience, but experiencing.

Experience means, it has already happened;

experiencing means, it is happening.

Experience has already become a thought,

because it has already happened.

Experiencing is thoughtless:

wordless – silent – void.

Hence I call thoughtless awareness

the door to experiencing life.

And the one who comes to know life comes to know all.

He comes to know death as well

because death is nothing but a fallacy

born out of not knowing life.

One who does not know life

naturally believes himself to be the body.

And the body dies, the body is destroyed;

the entity called body disappears.

It is this that gives birth to the concept

that death is a total end.

Only those who are a little more courageous

accept this concept.

It is also out of this very fallacy of believing oneself to be the body

that the fear of death is born.

It is the people suffering this fear who start chanting,

“the soul is immortal, the soul is immortal.”

The fearful and weak seek refuge in this way.

But both these concepts

are born out of one and the same fallacy.

These are two forms of the same fallacy

and are two different reactions of two types of people.

But, remember, the fallacy of both is the same,

and in both ways it is the same fallacy

that is strengthened.

I do not want to give any kind of support to this fallacy.

If I say the soul is not immortal, then that is an untruth.

If I say the soul is immortal,

then that becomes an escape from your fear.

And those who are in fear

are never able to know the truth.

Hence, I say death is unknown.

Know life. Only that can be known.

And upon knowing that, immortality is also known.

Life is eternal.

There is no beginning and no end to it.

It manifests, it unmanifests.

It moves from one form to another form.

In our ignorance,

these transition points of change look like death.

But for one who knows,

death is nothing more than changing houses.

Certainly there is rebirth;

but for me it is not a doctrine, it is an experience.

And I don’t want to make it a doctrine for others either.

Doctrines have badly undermined the truth.

I want every person to know it for themselves.

Nobody can perform this act for the other.

But, through doctrines,

it is this very act that appears to have been accomplished,

thus everybody’s individual search

has become dull and dead.

Believing in the doctrines and scriptures

one has sat down quietly,

as if one has neither to know anything for oneself,

nor has to do anything about finding the truth.

This situation is utterly suicidal.

Hence, I don’t want to participate

in this vast scale arrangement

for killing man through the repetition of doctrines.

I want to displace all the established doctrines,

because this alone seems compassionate to me.

This way, all that is untrue will be destroyed.

And the truth is never destroyed,

it is ever available in its eternal freshness

to those who seek.

52. Love.

I received your letter.

I am always with you.

Don’t be worried,

don’t be sad,

and leave your sadhana in the hands of God.

Let his will be done.

Be like a dry leaf,

let the winds take you where they will.

Isn’t this what is meant by shunya (nothingness)?

Do not swim,

just float.

Isn’t this what is meant by shunya?

My regards to all.

53. Love.

Your letter has come.

Love has not to be asked for –

it is never obtained by asking.

Love comes through giving –

it is our own echo.

You feel my love pouring on you

because you have become a river of love