Science of the Rishis: A Daily Rhythm

Part II: From Fixation to Freedom: Why God is Found in Playfulness

No, this makes no sense! The world is full of so many people, why should you be so fixated? But the fixation comes from the very beginning: the moment a child says ‘my mother’, and the mother feels very happy, the fixation has started. Now the child will remain obsessed his whole life.

And when the child is small, he is naturally dependent on the mother — and mothers and fathers have exploited that dependence immensely. He is helpless, he cannot survive on his or her own; he HAS to look up to the mother and the father. His helplessness is exploited. He knows if the mother is gone, he will be dead. If the mother is no more available, he will be dead, he will not be able to survive. This idea goes on and on getting deeper and deeper…. And the mother helps it, because the mother enjoys the ego trip that “You cannot survive without me.” She threatens many times, “Listen to me, otherwise I will leave and go forever, or I will die — and THEN YOU will know!” And the child is shaken to the very roots — he cannot survive without the mother.

This becomes, by and by, a conditioning. Later on it will be reflected in all his relationships. He will think the same about his wife: if the wife is no more, he will not be able to survive. This will become unconscious. He will think the same again and again about everything: “If this job is gone, then I am finished. If this house is no more with me, then where will I be? If this bank balance is no more with me, then where will I be?” His whole life he will think in terms of fixation, and his whole life will be a long long, unnecessary suffering. He is no more a child, but he remains childish because of the conditioning.

Love, and immediately you turn it into bitterness because you become serious about it. You start thinking of the future. Think of the future — marriage, children, security — and you have destroyed the play and it has become a game, and a very dangerous game. And you will be a loser — nobody is ever a winner.

With play, everybody is a winner. With seriousness, nobody is ever a winner — all are losers.

You come to meditate here and you become serious about it. And I go on insisting: Don’t become serious. Meditation can happen only in playfulness, in utter playfulness, when you are not searching and seeking for anything, when you are simply dancing or singing or chanting; when you are not asking, when the activity is all and all in itself, no future is provoked, no future is involved in it… then it happens. Meditation is a happening. You cannot snatch it from God’s hands. You cannot desire it and you cannot have it. You can only do one thing: you can become an empty receiving end — an;d that’s what happens when you are playful.

Meditation is fun! Even the word looks absurd with meditation — meditation and fun? Down the ages, you have been taught that this is the seriousmost thing: go into the church and become serious — even if you don’t have one, create a long face, then you will look as if you are in the church. Don’t laugh, don’t dance, don’t be playful! — it is a serious affair. You are facing God.

This God seems to be somehow very strange! He cannot allow laughter, He cannot allow dance, He cannot allow love, He cannot allow joy. The Gods of the past were very revengeful, jealous Gods, violent Gods; ready to crush you and destroy you, ready to throw you into hell-fire. Even the idea of God was ugly.

Here with me, you will have to learn a new language: meditation is fun, prayer is love and laughter; and the temple, the church, the mosque, is the place to enjoy, the place to be drunk with life; the place to dance and hold hands, the place to share what God has given to you, the place to be absorbed utterly into the moment. That is the meaning of fun, that is the meaning of laughter, that is the meaning of joy: to be utterly absorbed in the moment as if no other moment exists. So how can you ask for a result? Result needs another moment in the future.

Become like small children — dancing, singing, shouting — and God will come to you unawares. Suddenly one moment, you will find He is surrounding you; suddenly you will find you are not holding the hands of a woman — God is holding your hands; you are not holding the hands of a man — it is God. Looking into the eyes of the other, playfully, joyously, suddenly you will fall into a depth unknown to you, unknown to your mind. You will start disappearing into a deep abyss.

That’s what God is! God is not in the scriptures — it is in the eyes of people, and in the flowers and in the rivers and in the moons. God is written all over the place! Don’t go to the scriptures. And if you cannot find God in alive trees, green and red and gold, if you cannot find God there, you will not find Him in the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas. How can you find Him there if you cannot find Him here? Once you have found it here, you will find it anywhere… then He is everywhere.

Once found, God is everywhere — but you will have to find Him in life, in playfulness.

Playfulness makes you alive to the maximum. Seriousness cripples you. You become shrunken, frozen. You become closed, you become isolated. You become egoistic. That’s why seriousness has been so much cherished by people because seriousness gives you the ego, and playfulness takes the ego away.

You ask me, Sarjana: I LIVE IN THE LAND OF SERIOUSNESS, IMPRISONED IN ITS BORDERS.

YOU CAN EXIST ONLY IN THE LAND OF SERIOUSNESS — you as an ‘I’; and you can exist only imprisoned in the borders of seriousness — as an ‘I’. If you want to be playful, you will have to drop the idea of ‘I’. The ‘I’ cannot be playful; it resists play, because play is death to it. The ‘I’ is always serious.

Have you not watched it? When you laugh, just have a look inside: the ‘I’ disappears. That’s why egoistic people cannot laugh — impossible! When you are dancing, a moment comes when the ‘I’ disappears. But egoistic people cannot dance; they cannot allow the ‘I’ to disappear ever. Naturally, they will remain imprisoned, they will be prisoners. But this is your choice!

If you want the ego, you will have to accept the prison, you will have to accept the boundaries. If you want a bigger and still bigger ego, the prison will become smaller and smaller, and the walls of the prison will come closer and closer. If you want to become the greatest ego in the world, you will be nothing but a prison, you will be surrounded by China Walls from everywhere, you will live in a straitjacket, behind iron walls.

But if you want to be alive, then the ego has to be dropped. Ego is a distraction from life.

I LIVE, you say, IN THE LAND OF SERIOUSNESS, IMPRISONED IN ITS BORDERS. CAN YOU DRAW ME A ROAD-MAP TO YOUR LAND OF LEELA?

And you are again asking about a road-map — that is a serious thing. I have none. If you want road-maps you will have to go to the churches and to the priests — they have. Actually! — in Indian temples there are maps of heaven, hell, and how to reach there, and what you will find… the whole geography! Who is who, and where God lives, and where the great saints live — everything you will find.

They have charted all the maps — all imaginary! because God cannot be caught in any map. And heaven is not a map, neither is hell; they are not geographical at all — they are psychological states. When you are serious, you are in hell; seriousness is hell, playfulness is heaven.

Theory: The Land of Leela: Entering Heaven Through Utter Absorption

Mindful Workplace (Sattva): Cultivate Ananda in the Mundane (Joy in Small Things) – Ananda (Innate bliss found in pure presence)

• Workplace Practice: Infuse humor, genuine laughter, and lightheartedness into daily routines. Celebrate small team moments, bring warmth to simple coffee breaks, and refrain from wearing a long face as a badge of productivity. Joy creates psychological safety for everyone around you.