and found him seated on a velvet cushion inside a beautiful tent

with its ropes tied to golden pegs.

Seeing all this the beggar cried: What is this!

Honorable Fakir, I have heard much about your

spirituality and non-attachment,

but I am completely disillusioned by all this ostentation around you.

The fakir laughed, replying:

I am ready to leave all this behind and come with you.

So saying, he immediately got up and walked off with the beggar

not even waiting to put his sandals on!

After a short while the beggar became distressed.

I left my begging bowl in your tent, he said.

What shall I do without it?

Please wait here while I go and fetch it.

The Sufi laughed. My friend, he said,

the gold pegs of my tent were stuck in the earth

not in my heart,

but your begging bowl is still chasing after you!

To be in the world is not attachment.

The presence of the world in the mind is the attachment,

and when the world disappears from the mind – this is non-attachment.

89. Love.

Once the ego is surrendered there is no suffering, no sorrow,

for the ego is basically the cause of all suffering,

and the moment it is seen that everything is God

there is no more cause for complaint.

Where complaining has ended, there is prayer.

It is a feeling of gratitude, it is trust in God.

In this trust in God, benediction pours.

Trust and know.

It is very difficult to trust – there is no austerity greater

than accepting life as it is.

90. Love.

Do not look for results in meditation –

this is an obstruction.

Do not seek to repeat any meditative experience,

for this too is a hindrance.

When meditating, just meditate;

the rest then happens by itself.

The way to God does not lie in our hands

so leave yourself in his.

Surrender, surrender, surrender!

Remember always – surrender!

Sleeping or waking – remember!

Surrender is the only door to God.

Emptiness is the only boat that sails to him.

91. Love.

How much longer will you go on

letting your energy sleep?

How much longer are you going to stay oblivious

of the immensity of your self?

Don’t waste time in conflict,

lose no time in doubt –

time can never be recovered,

and if you miss an opportunity

it may take many lives before another

comes your way again.

92. Love.

I received your letter.

Do not fall into the whirl of calming the mind;

this in itself is the restlessness.

The mind is what it is, accept it as such.

This acceptance brings peace.

Rejection is restlessness, acceptance is peace –

and he who reaches total acceptance attains to God.

There is no way other than this.

Understand this well

because this understanding brings acceptance.

Acceptance cannot come from an act of will –

the action of will is itself non-accepting.

I do conceals non-acceptance

because will is always of the ego.

Ego cannot live unless fed by rejection.

Acceptance can never be brought about by action,

only understanding life can bring it about.

Look, look at life.

What is is, it is as it is.

Things are such – do not ask for them to be otherwise

because they cannot be even if you so desire.

Desire is altogether impotent.

Ah, how can there be restlessness without desire?

93. Love.

Search, search and search –

so much that finally the seeker vanishes.

There you meet him.

Where the I is lost, there he is.

There is not, and never has been,

any wall between –

except for the I.

94. Love.

When the moon rises in the sky watch it, be absorbed by it –

forget everything else, including yourself!

Only then will you come to know

the music that has no sound.

When the morning sun rises, bow down to the earth