"Man-made Obstacles"

    If we plant a seed and the fruit is poisonous and bitter, what does it prove? It proves that the seed must have been poisonous and bitter. But it is difficult, of course, to foretell whether a particular seed will give bitter fruit or not. You may look it over carefully, press it or break it open, but you cannot predict for sure whether the fruit will be sweet or not. You have to await the test of time. 

    Sow a seed. A plant will sprout. Years will pass. A tree will emerge, will spread its branches to the sky, will bear fruit – and only then will you come to know whether the seed that was sown was bitter or not. Modern man is the fruit of those seeds of culture and religion that were sown ten thousand years ago and have been nurtured ever since. And the fruit is bitter; it is full of conflict and misery.

    But we are the very people who eulogize those seeds and expect love to flower from them. It is not to be, I repeat, because any possibility for the birth of love has been killed by religion. The possibility has been poisoned. More so than in man, love can be seen in the birds, animals and plants, in those who have no religion or culture. Love is more evident in uncivilized men, in backward woodsmen, than in the so-called progressive, cultured and civilized men of today. And, remember, the aboriginal people have no developed civilization, culture or religion.

    Why is man progressively becoming so much more barren of love as he professes to be more and more civilized, cultured and religious, going regularly to temples and to churches to pray? There are some reasons and I wish to discuss them. If these can be understood, the eternal stream of love can spring forth. But it is embedded in stones; it cannot surface. It is walled in on all sides, and the Ganges cannot gush forth, cannot flow freely.

    Love is within man. It is not imported from the outside. It is not a commodity to be purchased when we go to the markets. It is there as the fragrance of life. It is inside everyone. The search for love, the wooing of love, is not a positive action; it is not an overt act whereby you have to go somewhere and draw it out.

    A sculptor was working on a rock. Someone who had come to see how a statue is made saw no sign of a statue, he only saw a stone being cut here and there by a chisel and hammer.

    ”What are you doing?” the man inquired. ”Are you not going to make a statue? I have come to see a statue being made, but I only see you chipping stone.”

    The artist said, ”The statue is already hidden inside. There is no need to make it. Somehow, the useless mass of stone that is fused to it has to be separated from it, and then the statue will show itself. A statue is not made, it is discovered. It is uncovered; it is brought to light.”

    Love is shut up inside man; it need only be released. The question is not how to produce it, but how to uncover it. What have we covered ourselves with? What is it that will not allow love to surface?

    Try asking a medical practitioner what health is. It is very strange, but no doctor in the world can tell you what health is! With the whole of medical science concerned with health, isn’t there anyone who is able to say what health is? If you ask a doctor, he will say he can only tell you what the diseases are or what the symptoms are. He may know the different technical term for each and every disease and he may also be able to prescribe the cure. But health? About health, he does not know anything. He can only state that what remains when there is no disease is health. This is because health is hidden inside man. Health is beyond the definition of man.

    Sickness comes from the outside hence it can be defined; health comes from within hence it cannot be defined. Health defies definition. We can only say that the absence of sickness is health. The truth is, health does not have to be created; it is either hidden by illness or it reveals itself when the illness goes away or is cured. Health is inside us. Health is our nature.

    Love is also inside us. Love is our inherent nature. Basically, it is wrong to ask man to create love. The problem is not how to create love, but how to investigate and find out why it is not able to manifest itself. What is the hindrance? What is the difficulty? Where is the dam blocking it?

    If there are no barriers, love will show itself. It is not necessary to persuade it or to guide it. Every man would be filled with love if it weren’t for the barriers of false culture and of degrading and harmful traditions. Nothing can stifle love. Love is inevitable. Love is our nature.

    The Ganges flows from the Himalayas. It is water; it simply flows – it does not ask a priest the way to the ocean. Have you ever seen a river standing at a crossroads asking a policeman the whereabouts of the ocean? However far the ocean may be, however hidden it may be, the river will surely find the path. It is inevitable: she has the inner urge. She has no guidebook, but, infallibly, she will reach her destination. She will crack through mountains, cross the plains and traverse the country in her race to reach the ocean. An insatiable desire, a force, an energy exists within her heart of hearts.

    But suppose obstructions are thrown in her way by man? Suppose dams are constructed by man? A river can overcome and break through natural barriers – ultimately they are not barriers to her at all – but if man-made barriers are created, if dams are engineered across her, it is possible she may not reach the ocean. Man, the supreme intelligence of creation, can stop a river from reaching the ocean if he decides to do so.

    In nature, there is a fundamental unity, a harmony. The natural obstructions, the apparent oppositions seen in nature, are challenges to arouse energy; they serve as clarion calls to arouse what is latent inside. There is no disharmony in nature.

    When we sow a seed, it may seem as if the layer of earth above the seed is pressing it down, is obstructing its growth. It may seem so, but in reality that layer of earth is not an obstruction; without that layer the seed cannot germinate. The earth presses down on the seed so that it can mellow, disintegrate, and transform itself into a sapling. Outwardly it may seem as if the soil is stifling the seed, but the soil is only performing the duty of a friend. It is a clinical operation. If a seed does not grow into a plant, we reason that the soil may not have been proper, that the seed may not have had enough water or that it may not have received enough sunlight – we do not blame the seed. But if flowers do not bloom in a man’s life we say the man himself is responsible for it. Nobody thinks of inferior manure, of a shortage of water or of a lack of sunshine and does something about it, the man himself is accused of being bad. And so the plant of man has remained undeveloped, has been suppressed by unfriendliness and has been unable to reach the flowering stage.

    Nature is rhythmic harmony. But the artificiality that man has imposed on nature, the things he has engineered across it and the mechanical contrivances he has thrown into the current of life have created obstructions at many places, have stopped the flow. And the river is made the culprit. ”Man is bad; the seed is poisonous,” they say.

    I wish to draw your attention to the fact that the basic obstructions are man-made, are created by man himself – otherwise the river of love would flow freely and reach the ocean of God. Love is inherent in man. If the obstructions are removed with awareness, love can flow. Then, love can rise to touch God, to touch the Supreme.

    What are these man-made obstacles? The most obvious obstruction has been the opposition to sex and to passion. This barrier has destroyed the possibility of the birth of love in man.