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of misery, you can move in the direction of bliss; always choose the direction of bliss. Slowly slowly, it becomes natural to you, then there is no need to choose it deliberately; you simply choose it. And to be blissful is to be ready for God. God is the goal, not bliss; bliss is the discipline to attain God.
Anand Nirmohi. Anand means bliss, blissfulness; nirmohi means non-attached.
Blissfulness is possible only if one remains non-attached to everything that happens, remains unclinging to everything that happens, does not become identified with anything. The mind immediately starts clinging, and particularly when something beautiful is happening, the mind naturally tends to cling more. But to cling is to miss it, to cling is to destroy it. If you love and your love becomes possessive, you have killed it. Now you can go on carrying a dead bird -- you can put it in a beautiful golden cage -- but it cannot sing any more and it cannot fly in the sky and it Cannot soar high in the winds, it cannot whisper with the clouds. All life is gone.
Nirmohi means not to be attached to anything, not to be possessive, not to be clinging... moving through life utterly detached. It does not mean indifference, it does not mean renunciation. Live in life, but don't gather the dust of experience around yourself. Each moment die to the past so that you are again new, so that each moment you are born again, fresh, again with the wonder of life, again with the surprise of a child, again full of joy, intrigued with everything that is happening.
That's the true way to be a sannyasin: being blissful and yet unattached. In the East we have a metaphor for it. We say that a sannyasin should be like a lotus leaf in the pond: the lotus leaf remains in the water, but it is so silky that the water cannot touch it. It remains in the water but utterly untouched by the water. So even when dewdrops collect on the lotus leaf... In the morning you can see them, separate. They are resting on the lotus leaf, but utterly separate like pearls; a wind will come and they will slip back into the lake and they will not leave a trace behind.
That is the way of a sannyasin: to
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