26. Love.
On my return home from the tour
I looked for your letter.
It came together with the grapes
so the letter, already sweet, became still sweeter.
I am in bliss.
Your love enhances it yet more
and the love of all makes it infinite.
One body – so much bliss!
What else can others do but envy he
who feels all bodies to be his!
May God make you envious of me,
may everybody envy me,
this is my prayer.
27. Love.
Your letter reached me
as I was sitting on that very same spot on the grass!
What I was thinking then
I shall tell you only when we meet.
What a fragrance memories leave behind!
When life is filled with love
it is so blissful.
Life’s only paupers are those
without love in their hearts,
and how to describe the good fortune
of those whose hearts hold nothing but love!
In moments of such abundance
one encounters God.
Only love alone have I known as God.
28. Love.
I received your letter.
I am blissful to learn of your bliss.
This for me is bliss.
With every breath
I pray for all to be filled with bliss.
This is my understanding of religion.
The religion that ends in temples, mosques, churches,
is a dead religion.
A religion that fails to go beyond dead words and doctrines
has no significance.
An authentic and living religion
unites one with the whole
and leads one to the whole.
Religion is whatever unites you with the cosmos.
Whatever feelings lead you towards
this marvelous meeting and merging
are prayers, and all those prayers
can be expressed in a single word;
that word is love.
What does love want?
Love wants to share with all
the bliss it has.
Love wants to share itself with everyone!
To give of oneself unconditionally – that is love.
To love is to dedicate
one’s being to the whole
as the drop surrenders to the sea.
I pulsate with such love.
It has filled my life with nectar and light.
Now I have only one wish:
that what has happened to me should happen to all!
Give my love to everyone there.
29. Love.
I received your letter.
How did you hurt your finger?
It sounds as if you are not taking care of your body.
And why the restless mind?
In this dreamlike world
there is nothing worth making the mind restless for.
Peace is the greatest bliss
and there is nothing worth losing it for.
Meditate on it.
Just being aware of the truth brings about inner change.
I think you won’t be coming to Udaipur to assist me
and that’s on your mind.
Come if you can,
if you can’t – never mind,
you are helping me all the time.
Isn’t one’s love help enough?
If you don’t come I will miss you
because the camp at Udaipur
is linked for me with being with you,
so I am hoping you can come.
Regards to all.
30. Love,
and lots of it.
I looked at once for your letter
amongst the pile waiting for me on my return.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to get it –
written by hand, too.
You write: Now your presence is felt in your absence.
Love really is presence.
Where there is love
space and time vanish,
and where there is no love
even what is near in space and time
keeps immeasurably apart.
Only lovelessness separates
and love is the only nearness.
Those who find total love
discover everything within themselves.
The whole world then is inside, not outside
and the moon and stars lie in the inner sky.
In this fullness of love, ego vanishes.
I want God to lead you to this fullness.
31. Love.
I arrived here yesterday
and have been thinking of writing ever since
but it didn’t happen until now.
Forgive the delay
though even a single day’s delay is no small delay!
What shall I say about the return journey?
It was very blissful.
I kept sleeping, and you were with me.
It appeared I had left you behind
but actually you were still with me.
This is the being-together that is so real
that it cannot be divided.
Physical nearness is not nearness,
there can be no union on that level,
only an unbridgeable gulf,
but there is another nearness which is not of the body,
and its name is love.
Once gained it is never lost.
Then no separation exists
despite vast distances in the visible world.
If you can arrive at this distancelessness
with even one other it can be found with everybody.
One is the door, the all, the goal.
The