I just came to some house in Coimbatore. It’s part of the Indian tradition that if somebody comes home the first thing is always, the first form of welcome is – a glass of water, always. So this lady brought a glass of water, on a tray. I looked at her, she looked like Kali to me. Have you heard of Kali? All of you? The non-Indian people, you heard of Kali? Kali is a terrible form of Goddess, tongue hanging out, blood oozing everywhere, and all that.
So I said, you are looking like Kali today. I don’t want to drink this water. The moment you say, that I don’t want to drink water – this is another thing you must know. If you go to a South Indian home – if they bring water, you don’t say ‘no’. You sip it, you understand. If you say ‘no’, they’ll get terribly offended – that you are refusing to drink water in their house.
So, now I know another kind of drama will begin. Then I said, okay, you sip the water first.[She speaks in Tamil].. That means – she thinks that I am using her as a food taster. She sips it and she says, it’s good water. What she means by that is, I have not poisoned it.
I said you don’t have to poison it, the way you are is enough. Just give it to me a moment. She gave the water to me. I just held it in my hands for one minute and gave it back to her. I said, drink it. She drank it and burst into tears and started crying loudly. “It is sweet! It is sweet!” she is crying. I said, that’s all it is. This is all your damn life is all about. You can either turn this sweet or make it poisonous – it’s up to you. That’s all it is.
So the water today – we know about it in so many ways in India, teerth. In every temple there is a teerth, because water is capable of memory and intelligence. Today much research has gone into this. Every molecule of water, water molecules which gather and make into water cells, have phenomenal capability to remember things. Everything that happens around the water, it remembers. Everything that it comes in contact with, it remembers. It is alive. It is alive and intelligent.
Water behaves just about the same way as the human nervous system behaves. If you take this water [holds the water pot] and just look at it with a certain emotion, immediately the molecular structure will change. If you look at it with a different kind of emotion, it will change differently. It is no more your grandmother talk.
Even today in traditional Southern Indian homes, if you go and see, water is kept like a deity, you understand. With vibhuti, with scared ash smeared on it. And properly worshipped, everyday it is worshipped before you drink, because we’ve always been conscious that water has memory. And if it has memory of the right things it will do the right things within you. If it has memory of the wrong things, it will do wrong things within you.
