We are searching for god with a telescope

We go on missing god because we go on looking far away. We are searching for god with a telescope, hence we go on missing. A telescope is good to see things which are far away, but if you start looking for things through the telescope which are not far away, which are very close by, you will miss them... and god is the closest!

Even to look at god with open eyes is to miss, because open eyes look far away... even an inch away is far away. That is why in deep prayer or in deep meditation eyes are bound to close themselves. God can be seen only with closed eyes: he is so close by – even open eyes will take you far away.

He is just in the heart beat. This is the secret: don’t look far away, don’t go after the distant, search in the close-by, look within! And god has always been there – it is a miracle that we miss him! To find god is a simple thing – to miss him is a miracle. To find god is very easy – to miss him is a very complex phenomenon. It is simply incredible how we go on missing him, because we live in him, we are from him, we breathe in him, and when we die we go back to him. We are just like fish and he is just like the ocean – but it is said that the fish goes on missing the ocean. It is so close. How can you see it?

The fish comes to know about the ocean only when she is caught and thrown out of the ocean, taken out of the ocean. Then she recognises, then only does she become aware of what she has lost. We can take a fish out of the ocean – how can we take a man out of god ? There is no way because there is no shore to him – god is a shoreless ocean. There is no place outside him so we can never fall out of him. To understand this is to understand the greatest secret.

Just a simple, loving heart is needed. It is not a question of great intellectual understanding, no! – just a feeling heart is needed. God is known through feeling: He is not an intellectual work – He is intuitive.

So start looking within-wards.

GOD certainly is not a hypothesis

GOD certainly is not a hypothesis.
A hypothesis can only be part of an objective science. You can experiment upon it, you can dissect it, analyze it.
That’s what Karl Marx has argued: ”unless God is proved in a scientific lab, I am not going to accept him.” What Karl Marx is saying is that, ”I can accept God as a hypothesis, but a hypothesis is not a truth. It has yet to be proved, and the proof has to be scientific.”
But if God is put into a scientific lab, in a test tube, and dissected, analyzed, and we know all the constituents that make God, will it be the God who created the world? And if Marx is going to accept God only then, that means God has to be reduced into a thing.
Then what would be the difficulty in manufacturing God? Once you have analyzed all the constituents of God, all the chemicals, then there is no problem. Get your discovery patented, and start manufacturing God. But that manufactured God will not be the God you are asking about.
God is not a hypothesis, cannot be a hypothesis, because the very word hypothesis takes the ground from beneath His feet. God is not to be proved. If science has to prove God then the scientist becomes higher than God. The poor God will be just like a white rat. So you play around and make boxes, and God moves from one box to another, and you find out how much intelligence God has.

Create your face

Unless you create your face you will not find any face. You come faceless into the world. Unless you create your soul you don’t have any. You can have only that which you create.
Don’t take it for granted. That has been one of the causes of greatest miseries to humanity, that people think they have souls. How can you have if you have not created it in the first place? You can have only that which you create. You can possess only that which you have created.
Religion should be that creativity – creating a soul, creating a face, creating a being out of nothingness. Then there is joy, then there is great exaltation. Then life has zest, juice, flow, thrill.
Then life pulsates, is adventure; is not monotony, is not a nightmare. Then trees start growing in your desert, birds start singing in your wasteland, flowers come, clouds come, and the emptiness is no more empty; it is full of life.
Let me repeat: the meaning has to be created.

Life is always in the now

Life is always in the now. There is no other moment to it. Only one moment exists – this moment – all else is just a projection of the mind. Only today is, and only today remains. Tomorrow never comes, it cannot come because it doesn’t belong to reality. Only today comes, goes on coming, because today belongs to reality.
Tomorrow is your dream. And you need a dream because you are not rooted in reality. This has to be understood.
Why are dreams needed? When reality is available, why do you dream?
If you are tense you will need dreams, because they help you to relax. If you are not HERE, you will need a dream of being THERE, because you have to be somewhere. If you cannot be here then you will feel suspended in the sky, uprooted, unanchored, just hanging in the middle. That will give you a very restless, uncomfortable feeling. So... a dream: ”I may not be here, but I am going to be there.” The dream helps you to rest and relax.
If you cannot be now, then you create a future. The future is needed. The future gives you a consoling sleep, it relaxes you. Millions of things are there which you cannot fulfill right now, and if there is no future you will be too much burdened by unfulfilled desires. A future is needed so you can at least say to yourself: ”If things are not as they should be, there is tomorrow. Don’t get panicky, things will be better tomorrow.” You can hope, because there is time.

Life is a Gift

The greatest secret of life is – and remember it always – that life is a gift. You have not deserved it in the first place. It is not your right. It has been given to you, you have not earned it. Once you understand this, many things will become clear.
If life is a gift then all that belongs to life is going to be a gift. Happiness, love, meditation – all that is beautiful is going to be a gift from the holy, from the whole. You cannot deserve it in any way and you cannot force existence to make you happy, or to make you loving, or to make you meditative.
This is one of the most basic things to remember always: you have not deserved life, and life is there! Absolutely undeserved, you are alive, with tremendous energy – alive!
How does it happen? And if life can happen without deserving it, without any right to it, why not happiness? why not love? why not ecstasy? They can all happen, but you have to understand the law. The law is: don’t try directly. Happiness cannot be pursued. It can be persuaded. Persuasion is indirect. It is not an attack. You move, but not directly, because when you are direct you are aggressive. Nothing is as direct as violence. And nothing is as violent as directness.
Life moves in circles, not direct. The Earth moves around the sun. The sun moves around some greater sun. Galaxies move, the whole universe moves, in rounds. Seasons move in a round. Childhood, youth, old age, move in a round. The whole of life is circular, it never goes direct. It is not like an arrow that goes direct to the target. An arrow is man’s invention. In life there is nothing like an arrow. An arrow is man’s violent mind. An arrow chooses the very shortest cut between two points. The arrow is in a great hurry, seems to be too time-conscious. But God is not in a hurry.

How can you reduce the unknown to knowledge?

The unknown cannot be taught, the unknown has to be learned. And even when you have learned it, it remains unknown – that’s the beauty of it. It never becomes the known. God never becomes knowledge. On the contrary, the more you know, the more he becomes mysterious. The more you penetrate him, the more he is elusive. As you come nearer to the center you start feeling lost – all certainty gone, all clinging disappeared. In fact YOU are disappearing.
And when you have really reached the center, God is there in his absolute grandeur. But you are not there; the seeker has disappeared, the knower has disappeared. And when there is no knower, how can you reduce the unknown to knowledge? The unknown becomes knowledge through the knower. If the knower has disappeared, there is no possibility of knowledge. The abyss remains, the mystery remains. But, in a very paradoxical way, the mystery is also revealed to you. You know it, you feel it, because you are...

The search depends on the seeker.

The search depends on the seeker. Masters can only show the way. The search depends on the seeker – what quality of being, what quality of inquiry the seeker brings to the search. Everything will depend on it, on why he is in search, what the reason is, because the reason of the search will become the cause of his growth. If the reason is wrong, from the very beginning he has taken a wrong step, and the right end cannot follow a wrong beginning. The first step is the last step also, because the first step implies in it, has in it already, the last step as a potentiality.
The seed is the tree because the seed will become the tree. The end will come out of the growth of the seeker, and if from the very beginning a wrong reason exists to seek and search, then everything is going to be in vain.

Truth cannot be taught...

Truth cannot be taught... but it can be learned. And between these two sentences is the key of all understanding. So let me repeat: truth cannot be taught, but it can be learned – because truth is not a teaching, not a doctrine, not a theory, a philosophy, or something like that. Truth is existence.
Truth is BEING. Nothing can be said about it.
It can be encountered directly, but not through about. There is no VIA MEDIA.
Truth is here and now. Only truth is. Nothing else exists. So the moment you raise a question about it the mind has already moved away. You are somewhere else, not here and now.
Truth cannot be taught because words cannot convey it. Words are impotent. Truth is vast, tremendously vast, infinite. Words are very very narrow. You cannot force truth into words, it is impossible. And how is one going to teach without words?

The existential remains existential.

The existential remains existential. There is no existence coming out of nonexistence, and existence cannot go into nonexistence. You can ask the physicists. They have not yet been able to destroy a single atom. You cannot destroy anything – and you cannot create anything either. You cannot destroy a grain of sand. Science has progressed so far, so much, but we are incapable of creating a single grain of sand or of destroying a single grain of sand. You can grind it, you can change the form, but it will remain in another form. Only the form changes; life goes on.

God is

Because only God is. In fact to say ”God is” is a repetition because God is never ”is not.” God is the very isness of existence. We can say ”the house is” because once the house was not and once again the house will not be. To call the house ”is” is okay because the ”is not” is possible. We can say ”the man is” but we cannot say ”God is,” because only he is, always has been, always will be. God is the very isness.

This is what is called wisdom

This is what is called wisdom. Knowledge is not wisdom. To know ”I don’t know anything” is wisdom. That is the meaning of the oracle of Delphi’s declaration.
Somebody asked, ”Who is the greatest wise man of the world?” and the oracle said, ”Socrates.”
The person went to Socrates and told him,” Have you heard it or not? The oracle of the temple has said that you are the wisest man in the world.”
Socrates is reported to have laughed and said, ”You go back. There must have been some mistake because just today, this morning, it has happened to me that I don’t know anything. How can it be?
If you had come yesterday I would have believed you, because I used to think that I know, but not now. This morning – this very morning – something tremendous has happened to me: all knowledge has appeared as futile. I am awakened. The sleep of knowledge is no longer there; I am no longer dreaming. And now I know only one thing for certain: that I don’t know anything.
”You go back and tell the oracle that something must have gone wrong. The oracle has always been right and true, I know, but this time the oracle has committed an error. You go and put things right. And it is me, Socrates himself, saying that I am the most ignorant man of the world. How can the oracle say I am the most wise? No, it is not possible.”
The man was puzzled, he could not believe it, but he went to the oracle and said, ”There must have been some mistake, sir, because Socrates denies it. He says, ’I know only one thing: that I don’t know anything.’”
And the oracle said, ”That’s why we have declared that he is the greatest wise man of the world. That’s why! Precisely that’s why we have declared it! Go and tell him. If you had asked yesterday, we would not have said so. He was as foolish as anybody else. Now he is not a fool at all – he is not fooled by knowledge. He has awakened.”
Knowing that you don’t know, you really become a knower. That is wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge. Wisdom is awareness.

Truth is not known in the ordinary sense

THE TRUTH IS KNOWN AND YET NOT KNOWN – known in a sense and not known in another – known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate; and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic problem that faces the seeker of truth. We are one with it, there is no space between us and the truth, so we cannot become the knower. We cannot separate the known from the knower – there is no way to separate – and knowledge exists only when the knower and known are separate.
Knowledge is a bridge between the object and the subject. If they are not separate, the bridge cannot exist. So the first thing to be remembered: truth is not known in the ordinary sense, cannot be known in the ordinary sense.

This is pure rationalism.

Socrates was dying, and somebody asked, ”Are you not afraid, Socrates?” He said, ”Why should I be afraid, because I don’t know what is going to happen? First thing, maybe atheists are right.”
Listen.
He says, ”Maybe, perhaps, atheists are right and I will simply disappear. Then there is nobody left, so why fear? For whom to fear? There cannot be any anguish for me, because I will not be there. If atheists are right, then I will not be, and when I am not, fear cannot exist. I will not be tortured. Or maybe theists are right and I may continue, and if I continue, then why fear? I will be there. So I will see what happens, but I have not died yet. Wait, let me die. Only then will I know whether I survive or not.”
This is pure rationalism. A rationalist cannot assert such things, that ”I don’t believe in a soul.”

RATIONALIST AND ATHEIST?

A person cannot be both together – a rationalist and an atheist. It is impossible. Either you can be a rationalist or you can be an atheist. A rationalist cannot believe in anything. A rationalist cannot have any belief – in God or in no God. A rationalist suspends all belief. A rationalist can only be an agnostic; he can only say, ”I do not know.”
The moment you say ”I know,” you are no longer a rationalist. The moment you say ”I know that God does not exist,” you are as irrational as the person who says God exists. You have lost track.
How can you say God is not?
The whole existence has not yet been measured. There are depths upon depths, there is much still unknown. A little is known. Far more remains unknown and unknowable. How can you say dogmatically that God is not?
A rationalist will avoid all temptation of dogmatism. He will say, ”I do not know.” Socrates was a rationalist, but he was not an atheist.
Atheism means you are against theism; you have chosen a belief. To believe in God is a belief; to believe in no God is a belief again. You remain a believer.
To be a rationalist is very difficult, arduous, because man wants to cling to some belief.

Where is God?

People come to me and they say, ”Where is God? We cannot see him.” I look at them and I inquire, ”Do you really want to seek him, REALLY? Close your eyes,” I say to them, ”and look into your heart. Are you really in passionate love with God? You really want to see him?” And they say, ”Not really.” Then how do you suppose to know him?
God – I have seen so many people’s hearts – is the last item on their list. There are other things to do first. When all is done, then comes God. He is always the last in the queue. And, of course, the queue is never going to end. God will never be the first this way, because in the world nothing ever is completed. You do one thing; a thousand and one things arise out of it and you go on getting more and more entangled in the world and the queue becomes bigger and bigger and God is forced farther back, farther back. And then you want to see him. No, it is not possible.

Words

Sartre has called his autobiography 'Words'. We live in words. That is, we don't live. In the end there is only a series of accumulated words and nothing else. Words are like photographs. You see something that is alive and you take a picture of it. The picture is dead. Then you make an album of dead pictures. Only verbal pictures are there, only memories. Nothing has been lived; everything has just been verbalized.

The Oracle at Delphi declared

The Oracle at Delphi declared Socrates the most wise man on the earth. A few people rushed to Socrates and they told him, "Be pleased, rejoice: the Oracle at Delphi has declared you the wisest man in the world."Socrates said, "That is all nonsense. I know only one thing: that I know nothing."The people were puzzled and confused. They went back to the temple, they told the Oracle, "You say that Socrates is the wisest man in the world, but he himself denies it. On the contrary, he says he is utterly ignorant. He says he knows only one thing: that he knows nothing."The Oracle laughed and said, "That's why I have declared him the wisest man in the world, the greatest wise man in the world. That's why -- precisely because he knows that he is ignorant."

The magistrates gave Socrates three alternatives

Socrates said, "I cannot stop teaching the truth because that is my very life. What will I do? To go on living if I cannot teach... then death is far better. I am dying for the truth, but I cannot live without truth. I cannot leave Athens because Athens is the most cultured part of the world. And if in Athens I am poisoned, I cannot hope that anywhere else I am going to survive. It is better that I should be killed here, and the blame should remain on the heads of the people of Athens, whom I have been teaching my whole life, and who still could not understand. Rather than moving to a new place and being killed by people who don't understand me..."

Socrates Still Feels Whole