| |
poet also knows but in a totally different way. He is not an observer: he knows by participation. He dances with the rose, he sings with the rose he feels with the rose. In certain deep moments he becomes the rose.
That is the way of love to know, and that is the way to know God: not by knowledge but by love.
Prem means love, Danny means God is my judge or God judges. The full name will mean the God of love is my judge. Everything has to be tested on the criterion of love. If it fulfils the criterion of love it is good, if it falls short it is bad. The only decisive factor in life is love. One should decide only through love and never through anything else. Nothing else really matters; only love matters.
So a man of love is a moral man and a man without love is immoral. Howsoever virtuous he may try to be, without love he cannot be virtuous. His virtue will be only a pretense, his virtue will only be social respectability, a formality. It will not come from his heart, it will not be his soul.
[To an Indian eye-surgeon working in America:]
This is your new name, and let it also be a new birth. Sannyas is a rebirth, and unless it is a rebirth it has no meaning. One has to become discontinuous with the past. Let this be your birthday. You begin life anew, unburdened of the past, utterly open.
The past becomes a closing. And the past becomes heavy and starts directing you, guiding you, forcing you, coercing you, into certain directions, into certain patterns. One should be able to die to the past every day, in fact every moment, so that one remains new, available to the new life, to the new sun, to the new moon, available to existence as it is. Carrying a past inside distorts reality and does not allow you to be spontaneous. So let sannyas be a new beginning: a death and a resurrection.
This will be your new name: Swami Anand Bharti. Anand means bliss, Bharti means one who belongs to India -- bliss that belongs to India. And by India I don't mean the land, I don't mean the geography, I don't mean the political map. By India I mean the adventure of the Buddhas, the exploration of thousands and thousands of years into the
|
|
|