| |
lose their profession. They have a beautiful profession, most prestigious, powerful; who wants to lose prestige and power?
The moment you use the word "God," it gives you a sense of person: God becomes limited, becomes defined. But love is not a person. It is a quality, a presence, a fragrance, not a flower; more unlimited, more unbounded, more infinite.
When you say "God," you simply feel impotent -- what to do? But if love is there you can do something about it. It is your innermost nature to be loving. Hence my whole teaching revolves around the word "love."
Jesus says "God is love." I say "Love is God." And you name, Nihat, is beautiful, the sound of it is poetic. Meaning is not needed, in fact all meanings are invented. No word has any meaning -- we give the meaning to it. And it is significant sometimes to use meaningless words for the sheer beauty of the sound, for the sheer poetry -- for no other reason.
And you say that you don't know the meaning of it. That's one of the essential qualities of a sannyasin: to function from the state of not-knowing. If you don't know something, simply say "I don't know." If you know, if you really know, only the say "I know." Much of the misery of the world can disappear if people become a little more alert. People go on saying things which they don't know, they go on pretending, as if they know. Not only do they deceive others, they deceive themselves too.
People talk about God and heaven and hell and the theory of karma and rebirth; they go on talking about these things as if they know. They go on believing in their own false knowledge and because of this false knowledge they will never be able to attain to true knowledge.
So remember it, always be alert: if you know something -- and when I say "you know," I mean you, not that the tradition says, the scriptures say, the priests say.... They may know, they may not know -- that is their business. Their knowing is not your knowing. Mohammed knows, Jesus knows, Buddha knows, but their knowing is their knowing. Their knowing has liberated them; their knowing cannot liberate you. Only your own knowing is going to liberate you.
So
|
|
|