What Does It Mean to Remember God, and Be Lost?
Questioner: “Remember God so much that you are forgotten. Let the caller and the called disappear. Be lost in the call.”
~ Rumi
The question is, Acharya Ji, what does "being lost in the call" mean? Does it mean being totally aware at all times? Is it the same as an empty mind? What is it?
Acharya Prashant: We have to go into remembering, forgetting, calling, and disappearance. We remember and we call. Our remembrance of anything or anybody is always related to us. This would be borne out from simple observations of life. You don't always remember anything or anybody. You remember only in particular conditions related to you.
When do you remember food? When do you remember water? Please.
Listener: Hungry.
Acharya Prashant: When you are hungry or you are thirsty. Now, are you remembering food or are you remembering yourself?
Listener: Yourself.
Acharya Prashant: How are you remembering yourself?
Listener: I am.
Acharya Prashant: Because you are hungry. Food comes later, your personal hunger comes first. Similarly, when do you call for help? When you are in distress. While calling for help, are you remembering the other or your own state? What is it that you primarily remember when you call for help?
Listener: My miserable state.
Acharya Prashant: Your own miserable state. The other comes later. Concern towards your own state comes first. That's how we remember. That's how we call. So, when we remember anything or anybody, primarily I am remembering just myself. Right?
Now, this remembrance is no remembrance at all. Because if there is one thing that you always always remember, it is yourself. So if you choose to remember or call the other in relation to yourself, then you are not remembering or calling at all. You're still within your own narrow confines.
You are worried. You are afraid. So you start remembering God and calling out His name. What is it that you primarily remember? You remember your own worried state. God comes later. God has been made a servant. You would not have remembered God had you not been in a worried state. So even in remembering God, are you remembering something outside of yourself?
Now this is a very remarkable thing. In our entire life, in this entire world, whenever we have remembered something or somebody, we have remembered that thing, that person, for our own personal reasons. I do not remember you. I remember what I get from you. You are not important. What is important is what I seek to have from you. This is not only loveless but also quite exploitative. It is equally truthless and foolish.
Truthless, because one is not only centered in his own false identity, but is also not prepared to move beyond it. Not only that — he is pretending. He is pretending that he is taking the name of the other, whereas the fact is that even through the other, he is remembering just himself.
Here is a question: Have you ever remembered anything that is not at all related to you? Take it as a challenge. Have you ever sought anything that is not at all related to you? Have you ever thought of anything that is not at all related to you? Have you ever called out to anybody who is not at all related to you?
That is the nature of the mind. Even when it says that it is looking beyond itself, it is just actually furthering its own confines.
We are not at all interested in anything beyond us. We do not even admit that there is anything beyond us. The very mention of anything beyond us shakes us up. Where then is the question of seeking something beyond us.
If you are saying God, truth, liberation, emancipation, freedom — you only mean freedom from your own wretched state. See how your concept of freedom is just an extension of your concept of yourself and your state. So Rumi is asking: is it possible to remember totally? To remember without reference? To remember without context? To remember without a center? To remember without a need? To remember without a self? Is it possible?
When you remember with the self and through the self, then you remember nothing but the self. When you say that you love somebody and you are therefore doing something for that person, are you really doing anything for anybody outside of you? In fact, you are very forthright — unconsciously. You have clearly mentioned that you are doing something for the other person because the other one is related to you. Had the other one not been related to you, you would have not done anything. And we are so naive. We often take this as selfless service.
One says, "I'm doing so much for my family. Look at my devotion." Yes, you indeed are devoted, but you are devoted to your own family, and thereby yourself. You say you are devoted to your mission. If you're devoted to your mission, you are devoted to yourself. And who is this one who is picking, choosing a mission? Know this one who picks, who chooses, by the quality — the totality of all his actions and thoughts. The center is the same. So look at the entire day. Look at the entire life. Look at how you live.
If most of what is there in one's life is petty, how can the mission that one has picked up in this same life be great? It may appear great, but it would just be an extension of the pettiness that the rest of the life is. So if you are dedicated to your mission, you are just dedicated to your pettiness. Saying that you are dedicated to your pettiness and saying that you are dedicated to yourself is much the same thing.
Rumi is exhorting: Is it possible to just remember and just call? As long as you are the caller, you would be calling out only to yourself. It's like calling your name out loudly in a large room and being fooled by the echo.
If you remember God, you are only nourishing yourself. If you sit down to meditate, you are only continuing yourself.
If you read Rumi, then you have established yourself as superior to Rumi. Rumi is saying: "Is it possible that you remember without reason?" That seems so absurd to us. Why to remember if there is no reason at all? And it is not as if Rumi is talking of hidden reasons, unconscious reasons. He's asking: Is it possible to remember with no reasons?
Now that surprises us. We are taken aback. We have never done anything for no reason. Now how to remember or call out without reason? To call out without reason is to call out to the beyond — for all reasons are within yourself. Being free of reasons is being free of yourself.
What then is one's relationship with God?
It's a very queer question. People often talk of their relationships with God and such things, and these things are talked of in very warm and soft manners. "My personal deity, my little God, my own intimate relationship with divinity."
But we just saw that if you are establishing a relationship, that relationship can only be with yourself. Remembering food, you are just remembering your own hunger. Remembering food, you are just remembering your own sense of taste. So if you have a personal relationship with God, you only have a personal relationship with the person.
That hurts because in order to have a relationship, we feel there must be two. I must be there so that there might be a relationship. Relationship implies two-ness — A and B, duality. Sadly.
Oh, not sadly at all that does not work. In matters that matter, relationships are one-way. It's like a balance that has only one side. That's why saints have had to talk of absurdities. We usually find things together, and therefore we think that for anything to happen there must be two — the two together.
Saints come and shock us with mention of things that are usually seen together as being seen in isolation. Light without the sun. That's a pet phrase of the mystics. Can there be light without the sun? That's what Rumi is asking. Can there be remembrance without the self? That's what Rumi is asking.
Anahad Naad, sound without impact. We have always seen impact and sound together. The saints say no. Is it possible to have sound without impact? "Bin dharti ek mandaak dise, sunta hai guru gyaani. Gagan mein awaaz ho rahi, jheeni jheeni."
Can there be an aura without nothing from which the aura proceeds? Can there be love without a lover? Can there be you without you? Can there be God without a concept of God? Without someone who holds that concept?
Rumi is not only asking, he is hinting. He's saying this is it. And if you don't understand even now, then you are too busy with yourself. There's a beautiful one by Sahajo Bai. She says there is the lamp, and the lamp has no oil nor any wick, yet there is light. Bin baati, bin tel. That astounds us.
How is it possible to have light without wick and without oil?
The scriptures talk of Nirdhum Jyoti. So you have always seen light and smoke together. Dhum means smoke, and the scriptures say Nirdhum Jyoti. Is it possible that there is light but no smoke? And smoke will always be there if there is a wick and if there is oil and if there is a lamp. So there is just the light — nothing from where the light comes. Nirdhum Jyoti.
Kabir has great fun poking absurdities at us. At one point he says: "Can you love a calf that is not born out of a cow?" What does that mean? Calves are born out of cows. And Kabir is saying, "Can you love that calf which is not born out of a cow?"
All that which exists for a reason, all that which exists in relation to your old self, is not going to do you any good. It is not going to bring the new to you.
Your old car will suddenly not start flying. Yes, it can take you a long distance in the same old dimension. It can take you north, south, east, west. It cannot take you to the stratosphere. It is an old car. Doesn't matter how hard you accelerate it, it won't start flying.
Remember God so much that you are forgotten. "Apni chavi banai ke mai pee ke paas gayi, jab chavi dekhi pihu ki to apni bhool gayi."
Remember God so much that you are forgotten. Even when you go to meet your beloved, you deck yourselves up. You put on so much makeup. You take great care of yourself, and you are saying that you're going to meet your... Isn't that a contradiction? Had you really been immersed in the beloved, how could you have ornamented yourselves?
So Khusro puts it very beautifully. You start off taking care of yourself when you go to your beloved. But if the beloved is really lovable, then you will forget yourself.
Rumi is saying the same thing: Remember God so much that you are forgotten. "Jo chavi dekhi pihu ki, mai apni bhool gayi." When I looked at the real, I forgot myself. Unless you forget yourself, what you are looking at is either not real or you are not looking at all.
“Let the caller and the call disappear. Be lost in the call. “Bin dharti ek ambar dise.”* Nobody to call, yet there is such a loud call. And this call is not of desperation. This is just a call. When you are the caller, then the call has content. Then the call has meaning. Then the call has reason and purpose. Then the call has direction.
When there is just a call, then the call is purposeless, meaningless, reasonless, no direction. It doesn't exist to achieve anything. It isn't a call for help. It isn't even a call of joy or bliss. It is just a call. Like Anahad nad, like the bindu, like the shabd that saints have so often talked of reasonless. Coming only from the ultimate, primary reason. Saints have constantly talked of the call, the sound, the primordial sound.
Even before light, they talk of sound. And what is that sound for? Nothing. That sound is coming from completion, so it cannot have a purpose. That sound is coming from the complete one, so it cannot have a reason. It is not a sound that seeks to get something. Rather, it creates. The entire universe, they say, is the result of such a call. A reasonless, meaningless call. A sound that gets manifested as, solidified as, everything that we are and everything that we see around ourselves.
The question has been asked: does being lost in the call mean being aware at all times?
Not quite. If I get what you mean by "being aware"— when you say being aware, you always have a being who is aware. You are saying "being aware." By that you mean a being who is aware. And as long as that being exists, only that being exists. For the ego only the ego exists.
For that being who claims awareness, only that being exists. That being can seek self-improvement, and in seeking self-improvement it can start calling certain states of consciousness as awareness. Just toying with the nomenclature won't help. You can start calling your cancerous tumor a pimple. That won't help you. You can start calling another state of consciousness as awareness. That won't help you. You are still confined in consciousness, and all consciousness is just a trap — an illusion in duality.
So Rumi is not asking you to be aware. Rumi is saying: if there is somebody aware, can you go past that one? Let him play with his awareness. Let him feel elated that his awareness is deep. Let him claim that he is now a realized one. If he's entertained by these things, let him be entertained. Go past.
You are saying: "being aware all the time." There would only be time. All that you'll have would be time. It is not that you'll be aware all the time. If you are aware all the time, then all you have is time. "Am I aware?" "Yes." "Am I aware?" "Yes." "Am I aware?" "Yes."
What are you doing? Foolising yourself? Trying yourself in a court?
This awareness is only a thought. Please get rid of this. Don't try to be aware at any time — let alone being aware all the time.
Anything on this?
Questioner: Acharya Ji, this line, “Be lost in the call” is actually drumming in my mind. But there is silence also. What to say…
Acharya Prashant: And if there is no silence, and there is Rumi, why does Rumi exist? Why do the saints exist? So that they may keep telling you that the caller still exists.
The saints exist to trouble you, so that if you start cultivating fancy notions about yourself, they can come and whisper a vicious poem in your ears — a poem that will just rankle you, disturb you greatly.
Listener: Actually, it's perplexed and confused thoroughly,
Acharya Prashant: And when you will again gain composure, you'll have another saint coming your way. Because what you call composure is just a layer of dead cells upon the wound.
Questioner: Sir Question.
Acharya Prashant: Without the questioner, please.
Questioner: So, when you said that 'remember water,' I'm actually remembering myself? I actually disagree with it. I actually feel that thirst is calling me towards water. So, it happened to me, not that I remembered thirst.
Acharya Prashant: So there was the thirst that took you to water. What happened to the thirst then?
Questioner: To satiate it.
Acharya Prashant: Then why do you keep rushing to the water again and again?
Questioner: I didn't get it.
Acharya Prashant: Why do you keep rushing to water again and again if the thirst gets satiated?
Questioner: Sorry, I don't rush. I go to water only when….
Acharya Prashant: So, it doesn't happen with you then? Then you are not attracted to water at all? So, it's not happening? So, there is nothing that you remember then? Whatever you remember is being symbolized by 'whatever.' Do you remember anything?
Questioner: Yeah, I remember.
Acharya Prashant: Whatever you remember is just you remembering yourself, simply. And that is why that process of memory keeps continuing — because you are the one who will keep continuing. Had you remembered anything really outside of you that could have completed you, then remembering once would have sufficed.
You see, if this glass of water or juice is feeling incomplete and must gain completion, then it cannot gain completion through itself. It is only this much (a partially filled glass). Only something outside of it can come and fill it up. Only something outside of it can come and fill it up.
And once filled, why must it again call? But you keep calling again and again. And what does that prove? That you have not even once called to something outside of yourself. This liquid has been calling only to itself. So, in spite of all the calls, it remains only this much. Had it ever called to something outside of itself, the outside could have come, the beyond could have come and filled it up, and that would have been the end.
But there is no end. Your thirst never gets satiated. You said it gets satiated. Does it ever get satiated? The process of calling is continuous. Continuous. Continuous. And if it is continuously calling and yet remaining only this much — incomplete, unfulfilled — it means it has never called to anything outside of itself. It has only called to itself.
So there is, you know, a little bit of turbulence within, a little bit of shaking up, but never any completion. It can get stilled. It can get frozen. It can get a little cold. It can get a little warmer. But whatever you do with this liquid, it would remain just this much of liquid. It never gets filled up.
So the continuity of incompleteness is proof enough to suggest that one does not call to the beyond. One feels that the calling is happening. But whatever you feel about the beyond is just your own personal feeling. The beyond is a very, very tricky affair. It is so simple.
Questioner: How do I know, I'm calling something beyond?
Acharya Prashant: If you are calling, rest assured, the call is false. Therefore, those who have known have repeatedly advised — stop calling.
You are calling within an echo hall. Nobody outside of the hall is hearing your calls. Who will come to your help? Being alone in that hall, that is called loneliness. That is the ego. A hall of mirrors. You feel there are many, but there is only you. A hall full of egos. You feel there are many, but there is only you.
Who will come to your help? And that is why man is never helped. Man keeps calling all his life, but no help ever comes. Why?
Because he has been calling only to himself. Like a man who is drowning, and his left hand is calling to his right hand for help. And the right hand indeed does come to help. But what is the potency of that help? Nothing. And that is why it has been advised that real prayer is just silence.
Whenever you will pray, you will pray only to yourself. It’s like a beggar pinning all his hopes. He wants to become a millionaire. And to become a millionaire, he is pinning all his hopes upon his own bank account. One fine morning, he feels that he must be a millionaire. That's absolutely necessary. So what does he do? He goes and withdraws all the money from his own account. "I must be a millionaire!"
You are seeking help only from yourself. What will you get, you beggar. You had two rupees in your bank account. Now you have two rupees cash. That's the nature of our calls, our prayers, our remembrance. Petty remembering just the petty. What will you get?
The blind one is saying, "You know what? I'm fed up with looking at all the rubbish in the world. I'm going to close my eyes." And then he feels compassionate. "But this world, you know, is in severe need of help. So I'll donate my eyes." That's what the blind one is saying.
Questioner: So what does it mean to become silent?
Acharya Prashant: Silence is not the word "silence."
The question is — what does it mean to become silent?
When I was in Europe, my host would often talk of the Western inclination for silence. She would say, "Indians are used to noise. They are born in noise. They live in noise. They're used to noise. Here, we value silence greatly."
And I found that quite interesting. So I said, "What is silence?" And she would say, "See, it's 10 p.m., and in the entire locality you can't hear a thing. Nobody honks. People love their silence. Do you hear anything from anywhere?"
And she was right. No sound was emanating from any place.
In fact, that was quite distressing to the volunteers who had accompanied me. When it would be near midnight, then they would wake up and do all the stuff they are used to doing here in India. And our host would be startled. She would say, "I would be thrown out of this locality. We value silence."
Now what is this silence that has been turned into an object to be consumed? What is this silence that can be disturbed so easily?
That is the silence that you know and you talk of. That is not silence at all. That is just a state of the senses. You say if there is noise that the senses can perceive, it is noise. and if there is noise that the senses cannot perceive, it is silence.
You have become a consumer of silence — so much so that silence can even be sold. You can say, "If you buy flats in this particular locality, you have to pay 10% premium because this is a very silent locality." You see, silence has been packaged and sold. Now is that silence? Is that silence? Silence that you are so particular about? And you extend the same treatment to words like joy and peace and love and truth.
Silence that can be thought of is noise. Silence that you can point as being present or as being absent — it's just noise. Silence that you can experience is nothing but the experiencer with his mouth shut. If you shut up, do you disappear? Do you? The Chit chat continues within.
So it is just a demand of communication that words like "silence" have to be used. These are actually not words at all, because a word is supposed to have a meaning. Every word in the dictionary is a concept. Every word in the dictionary is related to another word, and that is why its meaning can be expressed in terms of another word.
Silence, and truth, and love, and joy, and freedom, and simplicity are not words because they have no meaning. They are not related to any other word. You cannot explain the meaning of truth using other words. Truth is not a function of any other thing. So these are not words. One does not interpret them.
These are signals. A signal is meaningless. A signal only is an indication. It's just that ordinary signals are indications of something — and these words are indications not even of something.
So these words are then signals that there is something beyond words. These words are then signals that beyond the dimension of the book and the paper on which these words are printed, there is another dimension.
Questioner: You said, "Don't call me silent." So, what does this ‘silence’ mean?
Acharya Prashant: You look at the image of the moon in the lake. You are looking down at the lake. Not looking down in the metaphorical sense. What I mean is — you're looking downwards at the lake. Right? Now, looking downwards, you have been reminded of something up there. That's what these words do. You never intended to look upwards. You are only looking at the lake down there. But along with the water, what you also see is the image of the moon.
Now a strange thing happens — without even raising your head, you have been told of something that is above your head. You're looking down there, and what you're seeing is something that is up there. That's what these words do — silence, truth.
You are reading a book, but suddenly something beyond the book has come upon you. Or would you fish for the moon? After all, it appears in the lake. So why not try and extract it and keep it in your pocket? It appears there in the book, in the lake but it is not there. It only appears there. It is up there. Similarly, the word silence appears to be in the dictionary, but it is not of the dictionary. It is up there.
