Mulla said, “Will you give it to me for four and a half rupees?”

The shopkeeper said, “Sir, it would cost me four and a half rupees if I took it home.”

So Mulla said, “Good, that’s fine. I’ll just take it home.”

Man goes on putting his own interpretations on things.

A patient asked a dentist, “Can you pull a tooth without pain?”

The dentist said, “Not always. Just yesterday I dislocated my wrist while twisting on someone’s tooth.”

The dentist has his own pain. The one who came to have a tooth pulled has other worries, his own pain.

Mulla Nasruddin was given a job somewhere. The boss said, “When you were given this job you said that you never got tired – and now you are sleeping with your feet stretched out on the desk.”

Mulla said, “Boss, this is the secret of my not getting tired.”

We go on interpreting our own way. And as long as we go on interpreting, the meaning of the sutras will not be apparent. A special art is needed to read sutras. To read sutras a mind free of projections is needed, a mind emptied of projections. Reading sutras, don’t be in a hurry to interpret: the capacity of listening, of tasting, of relishing joyfully and patiently is needed.

Listen to these sutras:

Light is my self-nature. I am not other than that.
When the universe is illuminated,
it is illuminated by my light.

Janak says this whole universe is illuminated by “my light.” Certainly this light Janak is talking about cannot be the light of the “I.” This light can only be a light void of “I.” So don’t look at the language, don’t be a rhyme-maker, don’t let the intellect meddle. The meaning is plain and simple; don’t twist and distort it.

Light is my self-nature.