Science of the Rishis: A Daily Rhythm

Part II: Destroying Poetry to Earn a Living: How Education Suffocates the Soul

All the mythologies of the world are closer to truth than your so-called histories. But we teach our children history, not mythology. We teach them arithmetic, not poetry. And the way we teach a little bit of poetry — we teach it in such a way that they become so fed up and bored with it that once the student leaves the university he will never read Shakespeare again, he will never look at Milton’s works again. The very names of Shakespeare, Milton, Kalidas, Baubhuti will create a kind of nausea in him. The professors have tortured him so much behind these names that he is finished forever. His interest has not been encouraged, he has not become more poetic; he has lost all interest in poetry. He has not been supported to be creative, he has not been helped to learn how to poetise.

The scholars are so clever in destroying all that is beautiful by their commentaries, interpretations, by their so-called learning. They make everything so heavy that even poetry with them becomes non-poetic.

I myself never attended any poetry class in the university. I was called again and again by the head of the department, that ‘You attend other classes, why you don’t come to the poetry classes?”

I said, “Because I want to keep my interest in poetry alive. I love poetry, that’s why. And I know perfectly well that your professors are absolutely unpoetic; they have never known any poetry in their life. I know them perfectly well. The man who teaches poetry in the university goes for a morning walk with me every day. I have never seen him looking at the trees, listening to the birds, seeing the beautiful sunrise.”

And in the university where I was, the sunrise and the Sunset were something tremendously beautiful. The university was on a small hillock surrounded by small hills all around. I have never come across… I have traveled all over this country; I have never seen more beautiful sunsets and sunrises anywhere. For some unknown mysterious reason Saugar University seems to have a certain situation where clouds become so colorful at the time of sunrise and sunset that even a blind man will become aware that something tremendously beautiful is happening.

But I have never seen the professor who teaches poetry in the university to look at the sunset, to stop even for a single moment. And whenever he sees me watching the sunset or the sunrise or the trees or the birds, he asks me, “Why you are sitting here? You have come for a morning walk — do your exercise!”

I told him that, “This is not exercise for me. You are doing exercise; with me it is a love affair.”

And when it rains he never comes. And whenever it rains I will go and knock at his door and tell him, “Come on!” He will say, “But it is raining!”

I said, “That’s the most beautiful time to go for a walk, because the streets are absolutely empty. And to go for a walk without any umbrella while it is raining is so beautiful, is so poetic!”

He thinks I am mad, but a man who has never gone in the rains under the trees cannot understand poetry. I told to the head of the department that, “This man is not poetic; he destroys everything. He is so scholarly and poetry is such an unscholarly phenomenon that there is no meeting ground between the two.”

Universities destroy people’s interest and love for poetry. They destroy your whole idea of how a life should be; they make it more and more a commodity. They teach you how to earn more, but they don’t teach you how to live deeply, how to live totally. And these are the ways from where you can get glimpses of Tao. These are the ways from where small doors and windows open into the ultimate. You are told the value of money but not the value of a rose flower. You are told the value of being a prime minister or a president but not the value of being a poet, a painter, a singer, a dancer. Those things are thought to be for crazy people. And they are the ways from where one slips slowly into Tao.

Prem Radha, Tao is certainly greater than mind — Tao is greater than everything. Tao is God, Tao is the whole. But we are very much afraid of losing ourselves, and we keep on feeding our egos in thousand-and-one ways.

We are doing two things in our life: closing all windows and doors to the sun, to the moon, to the stars, to the wind, to the rain, to the birds, to the trees, to love, to beauty, to truth. We are closing all the windows, we are creating a grave around ourselves with no doors and no windows. We are becoming Leibnitz monads, windowless capsules. Our life is encapsulated. That is one part that we go on doing. And the second part is to go on making the walls thicker and thicker. That is done by competition, ambition: have more and more; whether you need or not, that is not the point at all. Do you think the richest people in the world need more money now? They have more than they can use, far more. But the desire for more does not stop, because it is not a question that they need money; the question is to go on making the walls of the ego thicker and thicker. They are continuously in competition with each other. Competition creates conflict. Conflict keeps your ego alive.

A beatnik was boppin’ down the sidewalk just a-poppin’ his fingers and feeling good, when a Jaguar pulled up at the intersection. “Hey, daddy cool, wanna drag?” said the beatnik. “Sure,” laughed the sportscar driver, amused.

The light turned green and off they shot, the beatnik in the lead, running like hell. The driver was amazed! He looked at his speedometer: twenty, thirty, not until forty miles per hour did he finally overtake the beatnik.

Then he looked in his rearview mirror and noticed that the beatnik had suddenly disappeared. Concerned, he went back to find him lying in the ditch all bruised and battered. “Hey,” said the man, “you were doing great: I could not believe it — what happened?” “Like man,” groaned the beatnik, “I mean, you ever had a sneaker blow out on you at forty-five miles an hour?”

Prem Radha, one has to decide one thing once forever: whether one wants to live the life of the ego, which is more like death than like life, or one wants to live the life of Tao, which is death in a sense and resurrection in another sense. It is both a crucifixion and a resurrection. The dewdrop disappears, but it becomes the ocean. It loses nothing, it only gains.

Sannyas means that you have decided to live the life of Tao, that you will not cling to the mind, that you will let it go, that you will not nourish it anymore, that you will not support it in any possible way, that you will go on finding how you have been supporting it and withdrawing your support. When all supports are withdrawn it falls on its own accord. And the moment the ego falls and disappears is the greatest moment in life. That’s the moment of enlightenment, the moment of awakening, the moment when you become a Christ or a Buddha or a Krishna.

Theory: Walks in the Rain: Living the Love Affair of the Ultimate

*Mindful Workplace (Sattva): Sahaja refers to a state of natural, effortless being  – doing without over-intellectualising or forcing.

• Workplace Practice: Academia and corporate culture often suffer from over-interpretation, endless meetings, and heavy jargon that *destroy everything beautiful.* Practice simplicity and directness. When solving problems, cut through excessive over-analysis and tap into intuitive clarity and unforced creativity.