Elephant and Flea

Art Of Life

Just two small things: meditation and let-go. Remember these two key words: meditation and surrender. Meditation will take you in, and surrender will take you into the whole. And this is the whole of religion. Within these two words Buddha has condensed the whole essence of religion.

There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how – to allow dance, if you know how to allow love – if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be – that is the only art of life.

The Bauls say, “Don’t try to force anything.” Let life be a deep let-go. See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds, waiting, never in a hurry, giving their time to them. The Bauls say, “Everything happens at its right time, everything happens in its own season. Wait, don’t be impatient, don’t be in a hurry. All hurry is greed, and all hurry is a subtle fight.” That which is going to happen will happen. Whenever it is going to happen it will happen; you need not fight existence. You can surrender, you can trust.

Buddha says: Remember, you have to do much, but the ultimate always happens when you are not doing anything. It happens in a let-go. PRANIHAN IS the state of let-go. You do all that you can do; it will help, it will prepare the ground, but it cannot cause the truth to happen. When you have done everything that you can do, then relax, then nothing more is left to be done. In that relaxing, in that let-go, the truth happens. Truth is not something that we can bring. It comes, it descends, it happens; it is nothing of your doing.

To live out of understanding is compassion. Never try to practice it, simply relax deep into meditation. Be in a state of let-go in meditation and suddenly you will be able to smell the fragrance that is coming from your own innermost depth. Then the flower blossoms and compassion spreads. Meditation is the flower and compassion is its fragrance.

Learn the art of let-go. The light will come not according to your expectations or by any effort. Every effort will be a great hindrance and every expectation will create distance between you and the light. In fact forget all about light…. Just listen to the sound of rain, the sound of wind and enjoy it with such intensity that in every enjoyment you disappear. Slowly, slowly one day you will find you are not. That is the greatest moment in a man’s life, because the moment you find you are not, light enters in you. It waits until you vacate your innermost being. You are too full of yourself; there is no space for the great light to descend in you.

The whole art of allowing the truth to take possession of you is of being vulnerable, of being open, of being in a let-go. Or in other words, the whole art consists of one word, “surrender”. And that’s what sannyas is, that’s my definition of a sannyasin: a man who has surrendered to existence so totally that he never thinks in terms of achievement any more, because he is no more. Who is there to achieve? – He has disappeared totally, he has not left even a trace behind. In that very moment, when you are just a pure nothingness, truth arrives. It is a gift of God.

Let-go is the way to know that you are not the body, but something eternal, immortal. There is no need for any other religion in the world. Just the simple art of let-go will turn every human being into a religious person. Religion is not believing in God, religion is not believing in the pope, religion is not believing in any ideological system. Religion is knowing that which is eternal within you: satyam shivam sundaram – that which is the truth of your existence, that which is your divinity, and that which is your beauty, your grace, your splendor. The art of let-go is synonymous with experiencing the immaterial, the immeasurable: your authentic being.