The Last Morning Star

 

Daya says:

Until the strings are ready to play
To become some new tune, some new rhythm,
One may pluck those strings ten thousand times
But there will be no resonance.

Until the black bee is drunk with nectar,
Until a melody arises in its own heart,
One may tease the bee a thousand times
But there will be no humming.

Until one awakens oneself with restlessness,
Until the fire to act ignites itself,
One may provoke a dead heart a hundred thousand times
But there will be no answering roar

Until the strings are ready to play

Veena

An enlightened mystic is one whose strings have been awakened by the divine. An enlightened consciousness is one whose veena is no longer lying idle; the hand of the divine has touched it. To be an enlightened mystic means that the song this person was born to sing has burst forth, the fragrance that was hidden in this flower has been released to the winds. An enlightened consciousness means that you have become, that which you were destined to be. And naturally, in the fulfillment of this destiny, there is supreme bliss.

A seed is unhappy and in anguish as long as it is a seed. The anguish lies in the very fact of being a seed. To be a seed means you are meant to become something which you have not yet become. To be a seed means you are meant to blossom but you have not yet blossomed. A seed is meant to grow but it has not yet done so, it has not yet fulfilled its potential. To be a seed means the waiting continues... the path is long, and you have not yet arrived at your destination.

The enlightened mystic is a human being who has become what he was destined to become. He is no longer a seed, now he is a flower: a lotus with its thousand petals blossoming, blissful like a flower. What is the bliss of a flower? Now there is nothing left to become, there is no place left to go. The journey is over, the full stop has come. Now there is the possibility of being at peace - because when there is somewhere to go you are always restless, when there is something to be done, you must plan. As long as you have to become something, success and failure will be following you.

Who knows whether you will succeed or not? Doubts and misapprehensions will surround you...a thousand things. The mind will remain wavering, the mind will not be stable. "Which path should I choose? How to avoid a mistake? The path I choose may turn out not to be a path at all. Will the path I am choosing be in harmony with my ultimate destiny or not?" So doubt lives and burns inside us, filling us with despair.

And naturally there are the pains of the journey, the obstacles on the path. The biggest obstacle will be that the seed is not confident that it can become a flower. How can it be? It has never been a flower before. How can one have trust in what one has never been? "Other seeds have become flowers, but this does not prove that I will also become one. The other seeds were other seeds; they may have been different. This seed that I am may be just a pebble, it may not have anything inside it."

There is no way a seed can be confident about its future. Confidence comes only from experience. So a thousand doubts and misapprehensions surround it: Do I have a future? Does the direction in which I am heading exist? Is the idea of what I want to be simply a trick of my mind? Am I just dreaming? Am I creating some new kind of deception, some new illusion? All these things cause pain; they prick us like thorns.

The bliss of the flower is that it doesn't have to go anywhere; the future has ended for it. And when the future ends, the connection with the past also breaks. When nothing more has to happen, who needs to remember the past? We remember the past because something is about to happen, because our past experience might be useful. We gather from our past experiences for the journey ahead: they might be useful. When there is nowhere to go, when there is nothing left to become, when the future has come to an end, in that same moment we are free from the past. Now there is no need to carry the burden of memory. The test is over. Now there are no more trials.

So there is nothing to remember and no web of imagination to weave. The energy that was scattered into the past and the future is now concentrated into the tiny moment of the present. There is supreme bliss in this intensity and a sharp focus. It is in such a moment that sat-chit-anand - truth, consciousness & bliss - or what the devotees call God & the wise call truth or liberation, happens.

An enlightened consciousness means the flower of a person's life has blossomed. And when that flower blossoms its fragrance is bound to spread; when the flower blossoms there will be a celebration. All the enlightened mystics have expressed their celebration in poetry. Some did not write poetry as such, but there is a poetry in their speech. Even when they didn't compose poems or write verses, even if they only spoke in prose, their prose is still full of poetry. Buddha never composed any songs, but it makes no difference. Each and every one of his words is full of juice. Every word is imbued with juiciness, every word is extraordinarily poetic, every word is a burning lamp.

Before we turn to these songs of Daya's, we need to keep certain things in mind.

Firstly, enlightenment is a celebration, a great festival. No festival is greater than this. The supreme moment of life has arrived.There will be dancing, there will be singing, a thanksgiving, an expression of gratitude. How one does this is another matter. Meera danced, Daya sang, Sahajo hummed, Chaitanya danced, Kabir composed verses, Buddha spoke. Sometimes it also happens that one remains silent...but in this silence there will be a beauty.

Khajuraho

The enlightened mystic is a festival. An enlightened consciousness manifests itself in many ways: someone creates the statues of Khajuraho, someone carves out the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, someone dances, someone composes songs, someone remains silent. But one thing is certain: if you look deeply into them, they are all expressions of great poetry, unprecedented poetry What form that poetry takes, what color - that is another matter. Most often, the sages have sung. They have sung what they wanted to say; they have not just said what they wanted to say, they have sung it, hummed it, ecstatically. There is a difference between the two.

When you speak prose you use logic. When you speak poetry you rely on feeling. When you have to prove an argument, it can't be done in poetry; when you have to prove something, you have to use prose. The language of logic must be highly polished. Logic requires an unblemished mathematical approach. But devotees and sages do not need to prove anything. They have experienced the divine. It is not just a hypothesis; it is already proved to them.

No more evidence needs to be gathered. An enlightened mystic does not need to prove that the divine exists. When he speaks to you, it is not to prove something to you. It has already been proved to him; he speaks as an expression of his fulfillment. He says: "It has happened to me. I am dancing because of what has happened to me. If you can understand my dancing - fine. If you do not understand - that is your misfortune!"

An enlightened person does not need to prove anything, so you will not find the word "therefore" in his language. He does not say: "The world exists, therefore God exists, because there has to be someone who created the world." This is nonsense! To prove God by logic is a kind of atheism. It means that God is smaller than logic; he can be proved by logic. What can be proved by logic can also be disproved by logic.

So bear it in mind that a mystic is no pundit. He is one of feeling, filled with feelings, moved by feelings. The mystic has known: now, how to make it so you can know? He has experienced something unprecedented - how to convey this good news to you? His eyes have opened, he has seen the light - the same light that you have been longing to see for many lives. How to tell you that the light exists? Should he argue, teach you doctrine, try to explain to your intellect?

The enlightened mystic has no such function. No one has ever been able to convey understanding through the intellect. An enlightened person tickles your heart, he awakens your feelings.

He says: "Come and dance with me! Sing with me! Abandon all logic and thought - come, immerse yourself with me in this juice, perhaps you will be touched by the same thing that has touched me. And there is no reason why not. I am a sinner just like you, I am a human being just like you. I have made mistakes as you have. I have the same limitations as you. I am in no way different from you, I am in no way more special than you are. You are the same as I am. Perhaps the divine came into me because my doors were open - and your doors are shut, so he is unable to come in. Just become like me! Look! When I dance, my doors open. You can also open your doors. If you taste it once, you will find this out too."

It is not the purpose of the mystic to explain: he makes you taste. It is not the function of the mystic to make your intellect agree with his: he wants to color your feelings. This is a completely different process. It as if he is drunk - thoroughly intoxicated and dancing with unrestrained ecstasy - while you are sitting dry, devoid of all juices, like a desert. An oasis has never happened in the desert of your life, so what can he do? Can he dance, and hope you will see his dance? Can he ask you to look into his eyes, to see his ecstasy - the ecstasy which is a part of his life and can be a part of yours? Can he say, "I am swaying in bliss, why can't you also sway in bliss?"

Understand this difference. A pundit explains the existence of God; a mystic explains the existence of ecstasy. And when you are ecstatic, you begin to see God. A pundit explains that if you believe in God, you can be ecstatic. But how to believe in God? Who does
not want to believe in the divine and who does not want to be ecstatic? But this is a very strange condition - that first you believe in God and then ecstasy will come. And this is where the obstacle arises. How can you accept God? How can you believe in what you cannot see? How can you believe in what you have not known? How can you believe in what you have never tasted? So there is a falseness in the way that those who do believe in God, believe.

The earth is full of believers - false believers. They believe because of their greed - thinking that believing will bring them bliss. So far, this hasn't happened. Many lifetimes have passed. They have worshipped in temples, they have placed offerings of flowers on stones, they have made pilgrimages, they have visited Kaaba and Kashi - they have been through the whole complicated business, but there is still something basically wrong in it. Their belief is false. True [knowing] is a product of your experience. Belief is a substitute for the experiencing itself. A very poor substitute at that. A false promise. A lie.

Belief is to approach things from the wrong way around. You are tying the bullock to the back of the bullock cart. Your pundits have told you that you should believe first and then you will know the divine. This is the wrong way around. When you know, then you know, no belief is needed.

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