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towards him he is available. It is like: a man can go running far and far away from the sun, -keeping his back to the sun, but any moment that he turns back. the sun is there as much as before. Those many many miles that he has been running make no sense, no difference.
God is always there; we can keep our backs to him or we can confront him. Sannyas is a confrontation with god, it is an encounter, and it needs courage to encounter god. But if you go on feeling and remembering that god loves you, that courage arises; then there is no fear. If god loves you, then there is no problem. Even if you are not worthy it doesn't matter -- god loves you, his compassion is greater than your worthlessness. Your sins cannot be greater than his compassion.
This is the attitude of the religious mind: I may have gone astray, I may have made many mistakes. but his quality is to forgive. And in his vision, my sins and my errors and my mistakes can't be very important. He may not ever be able to see such minute details. they may not be of any relevance in his vision. Man can confront god only if this remembering slowly slowly sinks deep into the heart that 'God loves me'.
Names like David were given in the old days as part of meditation. All over the world almost all the old names are somehow related with god, for a certain reason: those names were given to remind yoU again and again that you are David -- that god loves you, that you are a beloved one. Don't feel unworthy and don't feel worthless. His love gives you worth, significance. splendour.
That very understanding is nourishing. It helps you to stand erect. It helps you to be strong enough to go into the unknown; it helps you to seek and search and enquire. It helps you to become a pilgrim of the ultimate.
Zahira is one of the Sufi names for god. Sufis have a hundred names for god; ninety-nine are pronounced, the hundredth is kept unpronounced. Zahira is one of those ninety-nine names; its literal meaning is the manifest one.
God has two aspects: one, the manifest -- that is the universe: the sun, the moon, the stars, the people, the trees, the birds, the animals. This multi-dimensional
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