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Chapter 4: Every Step Is the Destination

Just as men are born and die, in the same way religions are born and die. With time everything becomes old, weak, dilapidated and useless. When somebody dies in the house - your mother dies; how much you loved her.but when she dies you have to take her to the cremation ground. If some foolish person keeps the corpse of his mother in the house, then it will be difficult for the living people to live there. It may be very painful to cremate your mother whom you loved, but there is no way out. A dead body cannot be kept in the house, it has to be cremated.

But we don’t deal with belief systems with this understanding. Religion means living religion; when it becomes a creed it be-comes a dead body. But we keep the corpse very carefully: because of the stink of the creed it becomes difficult to breathe. Religion unites, but creeds fight and make others fight. Creeds break and make others break. There is a lot of enmity between a temple and a mosque, but there cannot be any enmity in the divineness of the temple and of the mosque. There is a lot of enmity between the worshippers of the temple and of the mosque, but the one who is being worshipped in the temple and in the mosque - someone calls him “Rama” and someone calls him “Allah”.these addresses can be different, but the one who is called, is one.

By the time Buddha’s stream reached Shankara it had became dirty, it had lost its purity - the Ganges had reached Varanasi. Shankara had to oppose it, because now there were lots of Buddhists, followers of Buddha, and it was a large creed. They would not allow the dust to be cleaned, so again a new mirror had to be made. Today the condition is just the same: dust has gathered over the mirror of Shankara. It will always be thus.

Don’t worship the dust. Always look for the mirror. Then you will find the same mirror in everyone. When you can see the same mirror in everyone, only then wisdom is born in you.

This is the only difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence criticizes, opposes, debates; but wisdom communicates; intelligence tells where the difference is, and wisdom shows where the unity is. Intelligence analyzes, wisdom synthesizes; intelligence draws boundaries, wisdom destroys boundaries.

When all boundaries disappear, then the unlimited is obtained. Don’t think that you can know the unlimited while remaining limited. Who will know? If you are bound and limited, then who will know the unlimited? Whatever you will know will be limited. For knowing the unlimited, you will have to break all your limitations. If you see the sky from the window you will see only that much which is visible through the structure of the window, not more than that; the window limits the sky also. If you want to see the whole of the sky then you have to come out. Be under the open sky where you will be neither a Hindu nor a Mohammedan, because these are the names of the windows. Only you in your purity will remain under the open sky, and this is pure isness.

There is a way to know the unlimited. To know the unlimited one has to become unlimited - this is the only condition, because only the like can know like. How can you, the limited one, know the unlimited? If you try to see the unlimited you will only see what your limitations can show you.

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