can be seen in all things.
Part and whole in fact are not in opposition:
deep love for even one other finally spreads to all
because love dissolves the self, leaving the no-self.
Love is like the sun, the individual like frozen ice.
Love’s sun melts the icebergs, leaving a limitless ocean.
So the search for love is really the search for God,
because love melts, and also destroys;
because love only melts and only destroys.
It is both birth and death.
In it the self dies and the all is born.
So there is certainly pain –
in the birth as well as in the death.
Love is the deep anguish of birth as well as death.
But the poetry flowering in you shows that you
have begun to experience the joy that lies in love’s anguish.
58. Love.
Your letter has filled my heart with joy.
You are at the threshold of a great revolution;
now, even if you want to run away I will not let you.
You will certainly have to perish in it
so that you can be reborn.
Gold has to pass through fire – only then is it purified.
Love is fire for you, and I pray to God
that your ego burns in it.
Then if love comes, prayer can come too;
without love prayer is not possible.
Remember that body and soul are not two.
The part of the person that can be seen is the body,
the part that cannot be seen is the soul.
The same holds true for God and matter:
God made visible is matter, and what cannot be seen is God.
Take life easily and naturally, just as it comes.
Welcome it in its endless forms with an attitude of complete acceptance.
And do not impose yourself on life;
life has its own discipline, its own wisdom,
and those who are ready to live totally
have no need for any other discipline or wisdom.
But you have always been afraid of life
and therefore you are afraid of love.
Now life has begun penetrating you,
breaking your walls of security.
So, God’s infinite grace showers on you!
Don’t run from it now, accept it gratefully
and my good wishes are always with you.
59. Love.
Be aware in the waking state,
don’t try to become aware in sleep or dreams.
If you become aware in the waking state
awareness in dreams and sleep comes easily –
but you don’t have to do anything for it.
Doing only creates difficulties.
Sleep reflects the waking state:
what we are when awake we are in sleep.
If we are asleep in the waking state only then is sleep really sleep;
the stream of thoughts during the waking state becomes the web
of dreams in sleep.
Being aware in the waking state will begin to reflect itself in sleep too,
and if there are no thoughts in the waking state
dreams disappear altogether in sleep.
Everything else is fine.
My regards to everyone there.
60. Love.
I was overjoyed to receive your letter –
as pure and innocent as your heart.
You want to write that which cannot be written
so you send an unwritten letter.
This is good, for it is better to remain silent about that which cannot
be expressed.
But beware, silence also speaks,
it speaks and speaks so much!
Silence can speak even where words fail.
The void envelops even that which lines cannot contain.
In fact what can resist the embrace of the great void?
Nothing is left unsaid by silence.
Where words fail, silence is full of meaning.
Where form ends, the formless begins.
Where knowledge (veda) ends,
transcendental knowledge (vedanta) begins.
When knowledge dies, the beyond begins.
Freedom from the word is truth.
61. Love.
How can I describe how happy I am
to have received your letter?
Whenever I saw you,
only one question arose in my mind –
How long are you going to keep away from me?
I knew you had to come closer to me, it was only a matter of time,
so I kept waiting and praying for you.
To me, prayerful waiting is love.
I also knew you were going through the pangs of a new birth
and that rebirth is very near –
for only this can give soul to your songs.
Words are the form and form has its own beauty,
its own melody, its own music.
But this is not enough, and he who considers this enough
remains discontented forever.
The soul of poetry lies in silence.
To me, prayerful waiting is love, and the void
is the door to the divine temple.
You have come to me and I want to take you to the Lord
for how can you come close to me
without first coming closer to him?
In fact without coming close to him you cannot come close
even to yourself.
Then as soon as you come near him you attain that life
for which you have gone through so many lives.
To come close to oneself is to be reborn –
the principle of being twice born is just this.
And remember, not even the pebbles lying on the road are just pebbles;
they too await a new birth, for that second birth turns them
into diamonds.
P.S. To run after desires is to run after a mirage.
It is a journey from one death to another.
In the illusion that is life
man dies this way time and time again.
But those willing to die to their desires discover