I'M TREMENDOUSLY HAPPY TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE WORLD OF THE BAULS. I hope you will be nourished by it, enriched by it. It is a very bizarre world, eccentric, in-sane. It has to be so. It is unfortunate but it has to be so, because the world of the so-called sane people is so insane that if you really want to be sane in it you will have to be insane. You will have to choose a path of your own. It is going to be diametrically opposite to the ordinary path of the world.

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. His rebellion goes even deeper than the rebellion of the Zen Masters -- because at least formally, they belong to Buddhism; at least formally, they worship Buddha. Formally they have scriptures -- scriptures denouncing scriptures, of course -- but still they have. At least they have a few scriptures to burn.

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. He does not even use the word 'God'. The Baul word for God is ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man, THE SOUL. He worships the soul. He says, inside you and me, inside everybody, there is an essential being. That essential being is all. To find that ADHAR MANUSH, that essential man, is the whole search.

So there is no God somewhere outside you, and there is no need to create any temple because you are His temple already. The whole search is withinwards. And on the waves of song and on the waves of dancing, he moves withinwards. He goes on moving like a beggar, singing songs. He has nothing to preach; his whole preaching is his poetry. And his poetry is also not ordinary poetry, not mere poetry. He's not consciously a poet; he sings because his heart is singing. Poetry follows him like a shadow, hence it is tremendously beautiful. He's not calculating it, he's not making it. He lives his poetry. That's his passion and his very life. His dance is almost insane. He has never been trained to dance, he does not know anything about the art of dancing. He dances like a madman, like a whirlwind. And he lives very spontaneously, because the Baul says, "If you want to reach to the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man, then the way, the way goes through SAHAJA MANUSH, the spontaneous man."

To reach to the essential man, you have to go through the spontaneous man. Spontaneity is the only way to reach to the essence...so he cries when he feels like crying. You can find him standing in a village street crying, for nothing. If you ask, "Why are you crying?" he will laugh. He will say, "There is no why. I felt like, I felt like crying, so I cried." If he feels like laughing, he laughs; if he feels like singing, he sings -- but everything has to come out of deep feeling. He's not mind oriented, not in any way controlled and disciplined. He knows no rituals. He's absolutely against rituals because he says, "A ritualized person is a dead person." He cannot be spontaneous. And a person who follows rituals, formalities too much, creates so many habits around him that there is no need to be alert. Alertness is lost; habits are formed. Then the man of rituals lives through habits. If he goes to the temple he bows down, not in any way conscious and alert of what he is doing, but just because he has been taught to do so, he has learned to do so. It has become a conditioning.

So they don't follow any ritual, they don't have any technique, they don't have any habit. So you cannot find two Bauls that are similar; they are individuals. Their rebellion leads them to become authentic individuals.

This has to be understood: the more you become a part of society, the less and less you are an individual, the less and less you are spontaneous -- because the very membership in the society will not allow you to be spontaneous. You will have to follow the rules of the game. If you enter a society, you accept to follow those rules that the society is playing, or has decided to play. That's what membership means: you enter into a certain organization; you have to play the game. Bauls have no organization, so each Baul is individual.

And that's what religion really is: it is an individual approach towards truth. One has to go alone, one has to go in his own way; one has to find one's own way. You cannot follow another, you cannot move on a readymade track. The more you search your own way, the closer you will be to God, or to truth, or to reality. In fact, the way is created by walking. You create it as you walk. It is not ready there for you, waiting to be walked on. You walk and you create it.

It is as if you are lost in a forest. What do you do? You have no map and there is no way leading anywhere -- trees and trees and trees all around, and you are lost. What do you do? You start walking, searching, seeking. By your very walk, by your very search, a path is created.

Life is wild, and it is good that it is wild. It is good that it has no map, that it is not charted, that it is still unknown. And its unknowability is such that there is no way to make it known. Otherwise, all charm will be lost, all beauty will be lost. Then life will not surprise you; and if surprise is lost, all is lost. Then there will be no wonder, no wondering. Then your eyes will go dead and your heart will stop beating; the passion will disappear. Love will not be possible. Awe, wonder, surprise: these are the ingredients of the charisma, of the mystery of life. So it is good that there are no scriptures; it is good that there are no ritualized religions; it is good that you are not on a super-highway.

The Baul is a rebellious person, and I say 'rebellious' with great consideration. He is not a revolutionary. A revolutionary is still thinking in terms of the society. How to change the society: that is the revolutionary's continuous brooding. But he remains society-focused, society-oriented: "How to change the world?" A rebellious person does not bother about the world because he understands that the world cannot be changed by him, and who is he to change the world? -- "What's my authority to change the world? And if the world decides to be the way it is, who am I to interfere with it?" He leaves the world to itself. He does not interfere, he does not meddle with it. He starts changing himself. His revolution is inward; his revolution is absolutely inner.

A rebellious person is a drop-out. He simply drops out of that society which doesn't suit him. He does not wait for it to be transformed so that he can fit with it. That desire is foolish, stupid. Then you will be lost. And that day, that utopia will never happen -- when the society has changed so much that you can fit with it, and the society can fit with you. It has never happened. Revolutionaries have lived down through the centuries, and died. The world has remained the same, more or less, but the lives of those revolutionaries were wasted in changing it.

Just think of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, coming back and looking at the world -- they will start crying. This is the world for which they wasted their whole lives? This is the world for which they hoped and staked their whole lives, gambled with their lives? They could not live their lives because they were trying to change the world. They were trying to change the world because they thought that only when the world had changed according to their wishes would they be able to live. Otherwise, how could they live? How can you live happily in an unhappy world? -- that is the revolutionary's question. Very significant: "How can you be happy in an unhappy world?" -- so he tries to make the world happy.

The rebellious person says, "Leave the world to itself. Nobody has ever changed it." He is more practical and down to earth: "I can live my own way. I can create my own world within me." He is a drop-out. Bauls are drop-outs. They don't belong to any religion, to any society, to any nation. They are beggars, wanderers, vagabonds, hippies, gypsies, moving from one village to another, singing their song, dancing their dance, living their lives in their own way, doing their thing.

TROUBADOUR - SATCHIDANAND

A rebellious person is one who says, "I'm not going to wait, I'm going to live right now." The revolutionary hopes for the future. He says, "I am going to wait. I will wait for the right moment." The rebellious person says, "The right moment is here-now, and I'm not going to wait for anybody, I'm going to live right now." A rebellious person lives in the present.

And one thing more to be understood: a rebellious person is not against anybody. He may appear against because he is trying to live his own life, but he is not really against anybody. He may not go to the mosque but he is not against Mohammedans. He may not go to the temple but he is not against Hindus. He simply says, "I am not concerned; it is irrelevant." He simply says, "Please leave me alone. You do your thing and let me do my thing. Don't interfere with me and I will not interfere with you."

The vision of the rebellious mind is very realistic. Life is short. Nobody knows whether tomorrow will come or not. The future is not certain, and this is the only moment one can live. Why waste it in fighting with others? Why waste it in trying to convince others? Enjoy it, delight in it. A Baul is a hedonist; he is epicurean. He starts living: he loves, he lives, he delights.

When a Baul dies, he is not afraid of death -- he is ready. He has lived his life. He is ripe. The fruit is ripe and ready to fall to the ground, with no hesitation.

You will be afraid. You are already afraid of death because you have not been able to live. You have not lived yet and death has come or is coming. You have not yet had time to live and death has knocked at the door. How can you accept death? How can you welcome?

A Baul is ready to die any moment because he has not wasted a single moment of life. He has lived it as deeply as it was possible to live. He has no complaint, he has no grudge against life, and he has nothing to wait for. So if death comes, he is ready to live death also. He embraces death. He says, "Come in." He becomes a host to death also.

If you live rightly, you will be ready to die peacefully, blissfully. If you are not living rightly, if you are postponing, if you are simply putting aside your life and doing other things rather than enjoying life, doing a thousand and one things rather than delighting in life, then of course, naturally, you will be afraid of death. And when death comes, you will be a coward in front of death.

A Baul dies dancing, a Baul dies singing, a Baul dies playing his AEKTARA and his DUGGI. He knows how to live and how to die. And he is not worried about God; he's only worried about the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man that resides in him. His whole search is to find this essential man that he is.'Who am I?' is his essential search. And he's very respectful about other human beings because they all belong to that essential nature. All other forms are of that formless essential nature; all the waves belong to the ocean. He's very respectful, tremendously respectful. A Baul never condemns anything.

To me, that is the very criterion of a religious man: he has no condemnatory attitude. He accepts everything, his world includes everything. It does not exclude anything. Sex is accepted, SAMADHI also. His world is very rich because nothing is excluded from it. He says, "Everything comes from that essential core of your being, so why deny it? And if you deny it, how will you be able to reach to the source?" Wherever you deny something, you cling there, you stop there. Then the journey cannot move to the very core.

Life, as it is, is totally accepted. That does not mean that a Baul is a man of mere indulgence, no. He knows the alchemy of how to transform the baser into the higher. He knows how to transform iron into gold. He knows how to transform sex into SAMADHI; he knows the secret. And what is the secret of transforming life into eternal life, time into eternity? The secret is love. Between sex and SAMADHI, the bridge is love. Love is participated in by both: on the one hand sex, on the other hand SAMADHI. It is the bridge. One bank is sex, the other bank is SAMADHI. Love includes both, comprehends both. Through love, the Bauls say, one reaches to the eternal home.

So that is the only provision for the path: love. Love is their worship, love is their prayer, love is their meditation. The path of the Baul is the path of love. He loves tremendously.

There are two traditions in India: one is the tradition of the Vedas, the other is the tradition of the Tantras. Vedas are more formal, more of the nature of rituals. Vedas are more social, organizational. Tantras are more individual -- less concerned with rituals, forms, habits, more concerned with the essential; less concerned with the forms, more concerned with the soul.

Vedas are not all-inclusive. Much is excluded; it is more puritan, more moralistic. Tantras are non-puritan, allinclusive, more human, more earthly. Tantras say that everything has to be used and nothing is to be denied.

Bauls belong more to the Tantras than to the Vedas. There is only one improvement on Tantras; that is the only difference. Tantra is all-inclusive, more feminine than male. The Vedas are more male-oriented, the Tantras are more feminine. Of course, woman is more inclusive than man. Man is included in woman, but woman is not included in man. Man seems to be a sort of specialization. Woman seems to be more general, more fluid, more round. Tantra is the way of the feminine, just like Tao.

But the Bauls have improved upon Tantra also. Tantra is too technical. The very word 'Tantra' means technique. It is a little harsh, more scientific. Bauls are more poetic; Bauls are more soft -- singers and dancers.

Tantra uses sex to rise higher than it, but it uses it. Sex becomes instrumental. Bauls say that is not very respectful: "How can you USE some energy? How can you use some energy as a means?" They don't use sex as a means; they delight in it, they enjoy it. They make a worship out of it, but without any technique. It is not technological. They love it, and through love the transformation happens on its own accord.

In Tantra, you are to remain unattached. Even while using sex as a means to go towards SAMADHI, you have to remain unattached to sex, absolutely neutral, absolutely like an observer, a witness, just like a scientist working in his lab. In fact, Tantras say that Tantra techniques cannot be used with the woman you love, because love will be a disturbance. You will be too attached. You will not be able to remain detached and outside it. So Tantrics will find women with whom they are not in love at all so the attitude can remain absolutely of the observer.

That's where Bauls differ. They say it is too cruel; this passionless attitude is too cruel. There is no need to be so hard and so harsh. Through love, the transformation is possible. That's why I call their attitude more poetic, more human, and more worthy. The Bauls say you can live attached in the world and yet be unattached; you can love a woman and yet be a witness; you can be in the marketplace and yet be beyond it. You can live in the world and be not of it.

This vision is my vision also. That is the meaning of my SANNYAS: be in the world but don't be of it. And, nothing is of worth if it is not done through love.

That's where Tantra lacks something; it lacks humanity. If you love a woman, Tantra is not possible. If you love a man, Tantra is not possible. You should be completely aloof. Then sex becomes very scientific. It becomes a technique, something to be manipulated, something to be done -- not something to be in, not something that absorbs you, not something oceanic, orgasmic, but something that you are doing. The very idea of doing something to a man or to a woman because you want to achieve SAMADHI, the very idea of using the other as an instrument, as a means, is ugly and immoral.

That's where Bauls have a totally different fragrance. They say, "There is no need to be so hard. There is no need to be so means-oriented. Love will do." And we will try to understand what they mean by love.

The first poem....

These poems belong to different Bauls, but I'm not going to use their names. That is irrelevant. They all belong to the same vision. Different poems, but they remain, deep down, as the same poem; different words, different forms, but running through them is the same current. It is just like in a garland, many flowers are held together, but only one thread runs inside and holds them all. We will insist on that thread. We will not be bothered about who has written this poem. In fact, many of the poems are anonymous. Nobody has ever known who wrote them, because in fact, they were never written.

Bauls are illiterate; maybe that's why they have such purity. They are not very cultured people, educated in the ways of the world. Maybe that's why there is such innocence. They are children of the earth: uneducated, poor, humble, but very sincere. So, I will not be telling you who has sung this song, or the other songs that will follow in the coming twenty days. That is irrelevant. They come out of the same vision. They have a certain melody, so individual that it is called BAULSUR, the melody of the Baul; so special, the taste is so special and the fragrance is so individual that whenever you hear a song from the Bauls, you will immediately recognize it. It has its own individuality, its own style: wild, illiterate, uncultured, but very individualistic. Just as the ocean tastes the same -- from anywhere you taste it, and it is salty -- in these songs, immediately you will feel that they come from one vision, one attitude, one passion, one experience. And they were never written. Bauls have been singing them down through the centuries. Each Baul has dropped something, added something, made his own songs or used the old songs that he had heard from his Masters, but the vision is so clear that you can never miss when you hear a Baul song.

The first song:

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE CAN

COMPREHEND THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,

OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE..

THE TASTE OF LIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT

AND EVEN EXPERTS KNOW OF NO EASY WAY TO REACH IT.

HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM BUT THE BEE

KNOWS IT.

DUNG BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG DISCOUNTING HONEY.

SUBMISSION IS THE SECRET OF KNOWLEDGE.

The first thing is: that love can be known only by loving. It is not something that can be made comprehensible by intellectual discussion about it. Love is not a theory. If you try to make a theory out of it, it remains incomprehensible. That is the first Baul standpoint: there are things which you can know only by doing them, by being them.

If you don't know swimming you don't know what it is, and there is no way to know about it. You may go and hear a thousand and one swimmers talking about it, but still you will never know it, what it is. It is incomprehensible in every other way; you will have to learn swimming. You will have to go down to the river; you will have to take the risk, the danger of being drowned. If you are very, very clever, you may say, "I will not step into the river unless I know swimming first" -- it is logical -- "How can I step into the river when I don't know swimming? So, first I must know swimming; only then can I step into the river." But then you will never be able to know swimming, because even to learn swimming, you will have to step into the river.

Swimming is known only by swimming; love is known only by loving; prayer is known only by praying. There is no other way. There are things which can be known without moving into them -- those are the futile things, those are intellectual things: philosophies, dogmas, creeds. But all that is real has to be lived, and all that is existential has to be penetrated, and the risk has to be taken. One has to be courageous, one has to be daring. And it is a great daring, because when you love somebody you start losing yourself. To love somebody is to ]ose the ego; to love somebody is to be lost; to love somebody is to give power to somebody over you; to love somebody is to be possessed. To love somebody means surrendering...

... SUBMISSION IS THE SECRET OF KNOWLEDGE...

... because to the Baul, love is the only knowledge there is. You can read the Vedas: there is no need to submit, there is no need to surrender. You can read the Bible; there is no need to surrender. You can become very proficient, very skilled, very learned, but there is no need to surrender. If there is no need to surrender, it is not knowledge for the Baul.

The Baul criterion is this: that when something demands surrender, only then is there a possibility of real knowledge, otherwise not.

If you come to me and I just impart knowledge to you....

Many people come to me and they say, "Is there any difficulty if we don't become SANNYASINS, if we are not surrendered to you? And still, we love what you say. Still we want to listen to it. Is there any problem? Can't we do that?"

I say, "You can do that; the problem is not there. But then you will collect only the superficial. You will collect the words. Then you will collect only the fallen dregs from the table. You will not really be a guest to me. You will miss all that is essential; only the non-essential wi!l be your fate. You have to decide."

Once you are surrendered, a totally different world opens between me and you. The heart-to-heart communication starts. Then you can listen to my words, but you listen in such a different way, with such deep sympathy and love, with such gratitude and receptivity, that those words are no longer words; they start becoming alive. You have made them alive with your receptivity. You become pregnant with what I am saying to you, with what I am communicating to you. Then, there happens a transfer; then words are just excuses. Hanging around the word, I send you something which cannot be managed in the word. Then not only is the word reaching you, but the climate that it carries through my heart.

If you are in love with me, then there is a totally different kind of understanding between me and you. If you are not in love with me, then we are far apart. Then you are on some other planet, thousands and thousands of miles away from me. I may shout: you may hear a few words, but nothing special is going to happen that way. You may become more knowledgeable, but that is not the point. You should have more being, not more knowledge. If you are really becoming richer here, in close contact with me, then your being is growing. Then you are becoming more and more crystallized, more and more authentic, more and more alive, more and more divine. That is not possible without love.

And what is surrender? Surrender means surrendering the ego, surrender means surrendering all that you know. Surrender means surrendering your knowledge, your mind, your intellect. Surrender is a suicide, a suicide of the past. If you carry your past within you in a secret way, then your gesture of SANNYAS is impotent. You can take SANNYAS and still go on carrying your past, hiding and guarding it like a treasure. Then just on the surface you will be a SANNYASIN, but not surrendered to me. And then if you are not fulfilled, nobody else is responsible but you.

The first Baul standpoint is that existential things can be known only through existential ways. Love can be known only by loving.

Somebody asked Jesus, "How to pray?" and he said, "Pray." But he said, "That's what I am asking. I don't know how to pray." So Jesus said, "I will pray. You sit by my side and you also try."

How to teach prayer? It can be caught but it cannot be taught. If you are open to me, you can catch many things. If you are not open to me, nothing can be taught.

A prayer is like an infection. Love is also like an infection: it can be caught but not taught. You can catch it. It is flowing all around you, but if you remain like an island, closed, then there is no way to teach it to you.

The Bauls say,

GOD IS DESERTING YOUR TEMPLE AS YOU AMUSE YOURSELF BY BLOWING CONCH SHELLS AND RINGING BELLS. THE ROAD TO YOU IS BLOCKED BY TEMPLES AND MOSQUES. I HEAR YOU CALL, MY LORD, BUT I CANNOT ADVANCE. MASTERS AND TEACHERS BAR THE WAY.

God is all around you, but you are so full of scriptures, knowledge, so full of your own ego that there is no space left inside you where God can penetrate and enter into you. It has become impossible. It is becoming impossible only because of you.

Jesus is right when he says, "Pray, if you want to know what prayer is"; and the man is also right. He says, "How to pray? That is my problem. You have not answered it." And Jesus says, "The only way is, I will pray. I will kneel down in prayer. You just sit by my side, open, vulnerable; you may catch it."

That's what I'm trying to do here. Just be open to me; you may catch it. There is every possibility once you are not barring your own path, once you start getting out of your own way. There is no problem -- because the essential man that is speaking to you is also hearing through you. Then the essential can meet with the essential. The ADHAR MANUSH can meet with the ADHAR MANUSH. Just put your ego aside, because that is the non-essential. Face me with your essence, encounter me with your essence. Then suddenly you will see a new fire arising in you. A new love is born.

Yes, submission is the secret of knowledge, surrender is the secret of knowledge. It is not an intellectual effort, but a total submersion, a merging of the self. That's why Bauls talk more about love and less about knowledge, because love is the only thing in the world which cannot be attained in any other way than by loving.

Now, it is possible some day that even swimming can be taught to you without taking you to the river. They have invented ways to teach driving without ever taking you to the road. You simply sit in a car in a room: nothing moves, because there is nowhere, no place to move. You simply sit in the car behind the wheel, and a film is shown on the walls. The road moves, so you feel as if you are moving on the road. On both sides, the street is moving. A movie is shown fast; it goes on moving fast. There are turns and things, and you have to do the right things at the wheel. The teacher can show you whether you are doing wrong or right, and you are simply sitting in the car. The car is not moving, the road is moving in the movie, just on the sides. You can learn it. It seems to be safer. I think someday or other you can just lie down on your mattress, and a movie of a river will be all around, and you can start. It is possible. At least a rudimentary knowledge may become possible.

But love? -- there seems to be no way. Many people are trying movies to learn about love. Many people go on trying pornographic literature to know about love. Many people go on reading novels and poetry and others' love letters in order to know about love. Yes, there is a danger that you may come to know many things about love, but to know about love is not to know love. In fact, the more you know about love, the less will be the possibility to know love. You will be lost in your knowledge. You will start thinking that you know.

Have you observed the fact that movie actors who are in the business of love are almost always failures in their own love lives? They never succeed. Even a Marilyn Monroe commits suicide. She was at the top; even President Kennedy was in love with her. The whole world was in love with her. But somehow, her whole life was empty. She committed suicide at the very peak of her career, of her fame; such a beautiful woman.

What happened? Why are actors and actresses always failures in their real love lives? They have learned so much about love that they cannot be real about love. They go on acting the same roles, they go on playing the same games. As they are playing on the stage, they go on playing in life. On the stage it is okay because nothing is involved. But in real life, it is empty. So they go on making empty gestures.

Remember, you can know much about love, but that cannot help to know love. Love can be known only by loving. It means you have to move into love without knowing anything about it. That's why it needs courage. You have to move in the dark, with no map, nobody to guide, not even a torch. You have to move in the dark not knowing where you are moving, not knowing whether you are on the right track or not, not knowing whether you will find the path or you will fall in a ditch and be lost forever.

This is the courage.

Bauls are very courageous people. They say:

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE..

Love has many flavors... Love has many dimensions, many nuances. Love is not one single thing. It is very rich, tremendously rich. It has many aspects to it; it is multi-faceted. It is like a diamond: it has many facets and every facet gives it richness.

Only a connoisseur -- one who has loved in many ways, one who has loved, lived courageously, dangerously, one who knows all the flavors of love.

Have you watched? -- ' love' does not express all. It is a single word. All the ancient languages had many words for love, because there are so many loves. The English language is poor in that way, hmm?. -- because you love a car also, and you love your woman and you love your house and you love your country and you love your child and you love your mother. Only one word! You love a particular brand of cigarettes. It is very poor, because love has so many facets.

When you love a child, you love differently. It is not the same love as when you love a woman. It has no passion. It has compassion, but it has no passion. When you love your mother, it is totally different: it has reverence, it has deep gratitude. But when you love a woman it is totally different: it has great intensity, almost maddening -- but it is not the way you love your mother. You love your friend: that is totally different. It is affection, but not in the same way.

If you watch, you will find many nuances of love. The single word 'love' has many words hidden in it. And one has to know all about love by moving in all the dimensions. If you have not known any facet of love, your understanding about love will lack that much. One has to know all the aspects and all the subtle differences. That's what the Bauls mean when they say,

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE CAN

COMPREHEND THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,

OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE.

Yes, it is a language. A single word will not do; it is a complete language. And once you know, you will be simply surprised. You can touch somebody's hand like a friend, and then the touch has a different flavor. And you can touch somebody's hand like a lover, then the touch has again a different flavor.

A connoisseur, with closed eyes, can just feel your hand and see...and understand the language.

Have you not watched it sometimes: when somebody looks at you with a deep lust in his eyes, you can immediately feel? When somebody looks with deep love, you can see the difference. When somebody looks with affection, you can feel the difference. But these are very rudimentary things because compassion also has many layers.

When a Buddha is there, his compassion has a totally different quality. When you have compassion it is more like sympathy, less like compassion. When a Buddha has compassion, it has nothing of sympathy in it. It is pure.

When Buddha has love showering on you, it has nothing that you have known about love up to now. Only a Buddha can know that. It has no passion in it; it is very cool. It is not hot -- not that it has no warmth; it has warmth, but still it is very cool. It will cool you down if you come close to a Buddha. It will help you to become less excited, more collected. It will not create a turmoil within you. It will subside all turmoil; it will be a soothing force. It will surround you like a subtle climate and soothe you. It will be like a lullaby. You will start feeling, falling asleep, as if just close to your mother's heart. It has something of the mother, something of the father, something of the beloved, something of the child. It has every subtle nuance in it. It has all the dimensions of love in a great harmony. When you come around Buddha, it is an orchestra of all the flavors of love. Sometimes he looks like a child; you can play with him. His smile or his being simply gives you a feeling that he is just a child -- you can mother him. Sometimes he is like a mother and you are like a small child. Sometimes he looks like a beloved -- you can love him, only him, and nobody else. But sometimes he is just like a friend. He is all.

These changes happen because of you: your outlook changes, your vision changes. Your eyes are not yet clear and fixed. You cannot see his totality. You circum-locate him. At one time you see one aspect, at another time you see another aspect -- because you cannot comprehend the whole.

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE CAN

COMPREHEND THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,

OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE.

Not even a clue is possible for others. You will have to move into the world of love; and don't ask how. You will have to move into the dark; And don't ask for a map -- because that very asking is against love. That's why trust is needed, SHRADDHA. If you trust a person, you say, "Okay. If you send me in the dark, I will go. If you send me into death, I will go."

On the path of love, trust is the most essential thing. On the path of meditation, you can move without trust. On the path of meditation you can move without surrender, but on the path of love, without surrender, without trust, there is no go because it is the very first door. Love demands so much. It demands almost the impossible, and on the first step. Love is easy but very demanding. That's why even though the path is so easy, very few people travel it. The path of meditation is very difficult but not so demanding. That's why the path is difficult and arduous, yet still, many people travel it.

When you hear about love it seems very simple and easy; but look at the demands. On the path of meditation, that which will be demanded on the last step, is demanded on the first step on the path of love.

The meditator will be asked to surrender his ego only at the last step: when he moves from SAVIKALPA SAMADHI to NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI, when he moves from the mind to no mind; only at the last step. First he goes on purifying his mind, he goes on purifying his ego. He goes on making it more and more subtle, more and more subtle, refined, cultured. Then just a trace remains. On the last step, he has to drop that trace.

Love demands the impossible. It says: on the first step you have to drop the ego. There is no need to refine it and there is no need to work on it. Because one has to drop it, so why bother carrying it? Drop it here, now.

Trust arises on the path of meditation at the last stage. Trust arises only when you are arriving home. When the arrival is so close and when you are almost approaching, and you can see the door and you can see the house and you can see that you have reached, then trust arises -- you say, "Yes."

But on the path of love, trust is asked on the first step. The first step of love is the same as the last step of meditation. The path is very easy if you are daring, if you are almost a dare-devil. If you are almost mad and ready to risk all without any condition, the path is very easy -- because it completes on the first step. The first step becomes the last step. Here you surrender, and not even a split second is lost and you have arrived.

...THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,

OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE.

People who are very learned in the ways of meditation, in the ways of intellectual comprehension, contemplation, concentration, have no clue about love. They simply don't know that language.

THE TASTE OF TIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT, AND EVEN EXPERTS KNOW OF NO EASY WAY TO REACH IT.

And this love the Bauls talk about, or rather, sing about, dance about, is just hidden inside you at the very core of your being. It is already there. You have just to find a way to reach to your own innermost core -- the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man. It is not something that has to be achieved, it is already there. It is not something that has to be earned, it is a gift of God.

The moment you were created, that very same moment that treasure was handed over to you -- because who has ever known somebody to live without love? Have you known anybody to live without breathing? Love is the very breath of the soul.

Bauls say, "As the body cannot exist without breathing, the soul cannot exist without love." So you may know it, you may not know it, but continuously love is happening inside. It is throbbing there; it is your very beat. You just have to find a way to reach there, because you have gone out in search of other treasures that don't belong to you, in search of other treasures that can NEVER belong to you.

That's why a Baul lives like a beggar. That is simply symbolic. He says, "I am not searching for any other treasure. I am enough unto myself. My treasure is too much. I am a king already. I don't need any other kingdom; my kingdom is already here." He lives like a beggar, but if you come across a Baul you will see that he lives like a king. Even kings are not so kingly. Even-kings are not so blissful as a Baul is. His whole life consists of bliss. He knows no other taste: he knows no anxiety, he knows no worry. He lives in some unknown dimension with tremendous grace. Having nothing, he has everything. Possessing nothing, he possesses the whole world.

The Bauls sing,

THE MIRROR OF THE SKY REFLECTS MY SOUL. OH BAUL OF THE ROAD, OH BAUL, MY HEART! THE MIRROR OF THE SKY REFLECTS MY SOUL.

OH, MY SENSELESS HEART, YOU HAVE FAILED TO CULTIVATE THE HUMAN LAND. CULTIVATED, IT COULD HAVE YIELDED A HARVEST OF GOLD.

WHEN THE LIFE, THE MIND AND THE EYES ARE IN AGREEMENT, THE TARGET IS WITHIN YOUR REACH. YOU CAN SEE THE FORMLESS ONE WITH BARE EYES.

"When the life, the mind and the eyes are in agreement", hmm? -- that is the way to find the inside. When you are in agreement, when there is no conflict inside you, that is the way. That is why Bauls insist on being without conflict, on being natural, spontaneous. Don't create any division within yourself, otherwise you will never be able to reach -- because a tremendous quality of agreement is needed. When you fall into harmony, the door is open. "When the life, the mind and the eyes are in agreement, the target is within your reach. You can see the formless one with bare eyes."

"Forget not," they say, "that your body contains the whole of existence." "I am fulfilled," they sing, "being a blow of your own breath on your flute. What more can I wish for me than to be blown away with such melody?"

A Baul is fulfilled the moment he comes to a deep agreement within himself. His singing and his dancing is nothing but an effort to fall into agreement with himself. Have you watched somebody dancing? What happens? Have you observed yourself sometimes dancing? What happens? Dance seems to be one of the most penetrating things, in which one falls into a harmony. Your body, your mind, your soul all fall into a harmony in dancing. Dancing is one of the most spiritual things there is. If you really dance, you cannot think. If you really dance, the body is used so deeply that the whole energy becomes fluid. A dancer loses shape, fixity. A dancer becomes a movement, a process. A dancer is not an entity: he's movement, he's energy. He melts. Great dancers, by and by, melt. And a dancer cannot retain his ego because if he retains the ego, that will be a jarring note in his dance. A real dancer loses his ego in it. He forgets that he is. The dancer is lost; only the dance remains. Then the door opens because you are one unity. Now the soul is not separate, the mind is not separate, the body is not separate. All have fallen in one line. All have become one, melting into each other, merging into each other.

It is said about Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers in the world, that there were moments when he would take jumps, and he would come back so slowly that it was almost impossible. He would fall back featherlike, as if gravitation had lost its power over him. Scientists were worried: "This should not happen, it cannot happen" -- but it was happening. No other dancer has been capable in that way.

And of course, Nijinsky went mad; he became a Baul. His is one of the madnesses which has not yet been understood. And because he was in the West, it was impossible to comprehend what had happened to him. He was confined to a psychiatric hospital, forced, given electric shocks, insulin shots. Had he been in the East he would have become one of the greatest Bauls. His madness was nothing to be treated, it was something to be revered.

But how did he become mad? He became mad through his dancing. When he was asked what happens to him, he said, "It happens only when I am lost, so I cannot say anything about it. If I am, then it never happens. I have tried it. If I am there, deliberately trying it, consciously trying, it never happens. But there are moments when I am lost. Then simply, I don't know who jumps -- and then it happens. I am also surprised. I have no explanation for it, but it happens only when I am lost."

That is what Bauls say: when you dance and you become a whirlwind and, by and by, you are completely lost in your dancing, it happens. Something breaks down inside you. The barriers are lost. You become one unity. A great orgasm spreads all over your being. You are in tune with existence in those moments. These moments are the SATORIS of Zen, but Bauls have a better way to attain them. Zen has to be worked on for twelve, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. It is a very slow process. It is the path of meditation.

Bauls can attain to it more easily. Just the day you decide that, "I am ready to drop my ego," you become available to God and God becomes available to you. The essential man suddenly arises over the non-essential; there is a mutation. And this is the moment when you are full of love, when you are love, when your energy is love. This is the moment when you can bless the whole existence. When there is no conflict within you, there cannot be any conflict between you and the existence. That is the secret: drop all conflict within you, and your conflict with the existence is also dropped simultaneously. Become one within you and you have become one with the existence.

THE TASTE OF TIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT,

AND EVEN EXPERTS KNOW OF NO EASY WAY TO REACH IT.

In fact, there is no easy way to reach it, because it is hard to drop the ego. And that is the only way.

HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM -- BUT THE BEE KNOWS IT.

DUNG-BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG, DISCOUNTING HONEY.

Bauls say that intellectuals are dung-beetles. The PUNDITS, the scholars, are dung-beetles. They will never find the way to the lotus...only the bee.

Become a bee; become a lover. Because the bee LOVES honey, it finds the way. Why cannot the dung-beetle find the way? It finds a certain way; it finds the way to the dung.

Because love is the way.

Bauls say, "Whatsoever you love you become, and whatsoever is your love you will find." So be alert about your love: don't love a car, don't love a house, don't love a bank balance -- because you will become like that. You will become a dung-beetle. Don't love dung.

If you are to love, then love something of the divine, something...something that transcends things, something that transcends forms, something for which you will have to raise your eyes to the sky. Love a GOURISHANKAR; love the Himalayan peaks. If you love something like dung, you will move into dung because we always find the way. Wherever our love moves, we move behind it. The bee loves the lotus; it finds it. The very love is the path. Howsoever the lotus is hiding, the bee will find it.

There is a story about Solomon:

A woman came; the woman was the queen of Ethiopia. She wanted to love Solomon, she wanted to become his beloved. She was very beautiful, but she wanted to love the wisest man in the world. So she tried a few tests on Solomon, about whether he was really as wise as he was said to be. She did many experiments; one of the experiments was this: she brought one false flower made of paper, but made so beautifully that it was almost impossible to detect that it was false. She went into the court of Solomon, she stood far away from Solomon, and she said, "I have a flower in my hand. Can you say from that far away whether it is real or unreal?"

Solomon said, "Light is not enough, and I'm an old man, and I cannot see rightly. Please open the windows." The windows were opened. He waited for two minutes and said, "No, it is false."

Then the woman brought another flower from her bag and she said, "What about this?" It was exactly like the first, but it was real. Solomon pretended to look at it and then he said, "Yes, this is a real flower."

The woman was astounded. The whole court was astounded: "What has happened?" They asked him, "How could you find it?" He said, "Easy -- I opened the windows for the bees to come in. They decided. For the first flower, no bee came in; for the second they immediately rushed in."

When you love something, you have a supra-sense about where it is. Your love monitors you, it leads you, it becomes your guide.

A bee can smell from miles far away where the flowers are. Much experiment and research has been done with bees about how they find their way. Miles away the flowers have bloomed, and bees will come rushing. Almost a supra-sense exists in them; that supra-sense is-nothing but love.

You will find your way to the object you love, so be very cautious about your object of love because that is going to decide your destiny. Your love is your destiny. Love something superb; love something of the supra-existence; love something of the divine, and you will find your way.

Bauls say, "When there is no fear, just the love is enough; it will monitor you and it will guide you."

HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM