You carry your false keys that do not work. You bathe in the sacred rivers but your mind remains unwashed. You offer rituals in temples, but that is no worship. You offer flowers; you do not offer yourself. You give in charity, you feed the poor, you do these little religious deeds and take cover behind them.

Remember, you will be purified only if you are prepared to be annihilated; therefore you need waters that will make you extinct, that destroy every bit of you. Here we are discussing these waters. Try to understand:

IF THE BODY IS COVERED WITH DIRT,

WATER CAN WASH IT AWAY.

IF THE CLOTHES ARE SOILED AND POLLUTED,

SOAP AND WATER CAN WASH THEM CLEAN.

EVEN IF MIND IS FILLED WITH EVIL,

LOVE FOR HIS NAME CAN DYE YOU IN HIS HUE.

The hue of love. No word is more significant, more meaningful than the word love. After the names of God, love is the next most significant word, so try to understand.

We all know the word. You might say we all know love. What is so special to make it the key? Though we already know the word, mere acquaintance with words will not do. You have learned your words from the dictionaries of language but not from the dictionary of existence. The dictionary gives various meanings, but love has nothing to do with any of them. When love arises in your book of existence, the experience suffuses the word with life -- so different from the lifeless words in the book. Now for instance, the dictionary describes fire as a thing that burns, but this fire does not burn you, any more than, similarly, the water in the dictionary can quench your thirst. If you try to understand love in a like manner, your sins will never be washed away.

Love is a fire. Gold is purified by passing it through a fire in which all but the gold is burnt away -- only that remains which is worth preserving; so also, when you pass through the fire of love, all that is worthless and useless in you goes up in flames. All sins are burned away and only the purposeful you, the meaningful you, remains. You become purified, perfect virtue.

So understand love well. First and foremost you must clearly distinguish love from sin, then only can you eradicate sin. Perhaps you have not recognized the relationship between these two very deep-seated conditions within you: You can sin only when love is absent. Sins are born in the absence of love. Where love is, sin is impossible.

So it is that Mahavir says nonviolence. Nonviolence means love. Buddha says compassion. Compassion means love. And Jesus' words are direct and clear. He says Love is God!

Someone asked St. Augustine, "What is the essence of religion? Please tell me as briefly as you can. How shall I save myself from sin? Sins are so many and life is so short."

The significance is that since life is short and sins are many, could he rid himself of them one by one in the short span of a lifetime? So he pleaded for a master key that opens all locks.

You can steal only if you have no feeling of love towards the person whose possessions you are coveting. You can kill only if you have no feeling of love towards the person you kill. You can cheat, you can deceive, you can commit all other sins -- only when love is absent within you. Sins are born only in the non-presence of love. Just as an unlighted house attracts thieves, robbers, snakes and scorpions -- and spiders weave webs within it and bats make it their home -- but when light is brought in they all make a hasty retreat.

Love is light. No lamp of love has been lit in your life -- therefore the sins. Sin has no positive energy of its own. It is a negative, a non-presence. You can sin only when that which should be within you is absent.

Understand a little: you get angry though all religious books exhort you not to. But if your life energy does not flow towards love, what else can you do but be angry? You will have to be angry, for anger -- if you understand it well -- is that very love that has lost its direction. It is the same energy that could not become a flower but instead became a thorn. Love is creation. If there is no creativity in your life, your life energy turns destructive.

The difference between a saint and a sinner is only that the life energy of one is creative and the life energy of the other is destructive. Thus, whoever creates can never act satanic. And one who creates nothing can never be a saint, no matter how much he deludes himself. The energy within has to be utilized one way or the other, for energy cannot remain stagnant; it has to flow. If you can love you dig new channels for your energy to flow towards love. If there is no love within you, what will your life energy do? It can only disrupt and destroy. If you cannot create you will destroy. Virtue is the positive state of the life energy; sin is the negative state of the same energy.

People come to me and say there is so much anger within them, what should they do? I tell them to stop thinking about anger. The more you think of anger the more energy you supply to your anger. Energy begins to flow in the direction of our thoughts. Energy flows and thoughts are its channels. Just as canals direct water from reservoirs to the fields, the canal for life energy is attention. Wherever your attention is, there your life flows. If your attention points in a wrong direction your energy flows in the wrong direction. If it is directed towards the right direction, your life flows in the right direction and the right attention is love.

Nanak says the day your love is directed towards His name you shall be dyed in His hue; you shall be cleansed. Not only will your past sins be washed away but also future possibility of sin; you will be washed and cleansed before you can even get dirty. You are bathed and cleansed every moment.

You must have had this feeling when in the presence of a saint -- a sense of freshness of the morning dew, as if he has just come out of his bath. The reason is simply that the presence of love does not allow dust to gather on him. Love incessantly washes away all dirt -- even before it can touch him.

So the first thing regarding love is for your life energy not to become destructive. Destruction is sin when it occurs for its own sake. There is another kind of destruction: a man tears down a house in order to build a new one. This is not destroying but a part of constructing. When you break for the sake of breaking, it becomes a sin.

If you have a small child whom you love very much, you sometimes give him a whack or two -- because of your love you have beaten him for his good, to improve him. You hit him because you care. If you did not care for him you would not have bothered what he did and what he didn't do; you would have been indifferent. But you love him enough not to allow him to go on doing what he pleases. You will stop him from going near fire; you will even hit him if he does not listen. This hitting is not sinful, but creative. You want to make something of him.

When you hit an opponent, it is the same hand; the slap is the same, the energy is the same. When the feeling within you is that of enmity, when you are hitting to destroy and not to create, it becomes a sin! An act in itself is not a sin. If the feeling within you is positive and creative, no act is a sin; if the feeling within is destructive, the same act becomes a sin.

There is a Sufi story: A Sufi came to a village on his way to a temple hidden somewhere in the nearby mountains. He went to a tea stall on the roadside and asked, "Can you tell me who is the most truthful man and the most untruthful man in this village?" The stall-keeper gave him the two names. In a small village everybody knows everything about everybody else, so it was not difficult to guide him.

The Sufi went to the most truthful man and asked him for directions. The man looked at him and said, "The easiest way is through the mountains." Then he gave him detailed directions in order to reach the temple.

Then the Sufi went to the untruthful man and asked him to show him the easiest way to the temple. The Sufi was shocked when this man showed him the same route as the truthful man. He did not know what to believe! He went back to the village square and asked if there was a Sufi in their settlement.

The traveler was directed to a Sufi saint. A truthful person and an untruthful person are two extremes. When a person reaches sainthood he goes beyond both. The fakir heard the problem and responded: "The answer is the same but the angle of vision is different. The truthful and righteous man directed you across the mountains, although it is easier to cross the river to reach the other side. He took into consideration the fact that you have no boat, nor any means of going through the river. Since you have a donkey on which you ride, how would you carry him across? In the mountains the donkey would be useful to you, in the boat he would cause you problems. Seeing all this, he suggested what was best for you under the circumstances.

"The unrighteous man pointed out the same path, but his intentions were dishonorable. He wanted to cause you trouble. He took delight in the fact that you would be harassed." The answers are the same, the intentions are different. Actions can be similar, therefore they tell you nothing; it is the feeling behind them that is the deciding factor.