The Beloved, Vol 1 and 2 Talks On The Baul Mystics

1/08/07 Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994
Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

Query:-
The Beloved
Vol 1
Talks on the Baul Mystics
Talks given from 21/06/76 am to 30/06/76 am
English Discourse series
10 Chapters
Year published: 1976
The Beloved, Vol 1
Chapter #1
Chapter title: Submission is the secret of knowledge
21 June 1976 am in Buddha Hall
ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVOURS OF LOVE CAN

COMPREHEND THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,
OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE.
THE TASTE OF LIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT,
AND EVEN EXPERTS KNOW OF NO EASY WAY TO REACH IT.
HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM -- BUT THE
BEE KNOWS IT.
DUNG-BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG, DISCOUNTING HONEY.
SUBMISSION IS THE SECRET OF KNOWLEDGE.
I'M TREMENDOUSLY HAPPY TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE WORLD OF THE BAULS. I hope
you will be nourished by it, enriched by it. It is a very bizarre world, eccentric, in-sane. It has to be so. It is
unfortunate but it has to be so, because the world of the so-called sane people is so insane that if you really
want to be sane in it you will have to be insane. You will have to choose a path of your own. It is going to
be diametrically opposite to the ordinary path of the world.
The Bauls are called Bauls because they are mad people. The word 'Baul' comes from the Sanskrit root
VATUL. It means: mad, affected by wind. The Baul belongs to no religion. He is neither Hindu nor
Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist. He is a simple human being. His rebellion is total. He does not
belong to anybody; he only belongs to himself. He lives in a no man's land: no country is his, no religion is
his, no scripture is his. His rebellion goes even deeper than the rebellion of the Zen Masters -- because at
least formally, they belong to Buddhism; at least formally, they worship Buddha. Formally they have
scriptures -- scriptures denouncing scriptures, of course -- but still they have. At least they have a few
scriptures to burn.
Bauls have nothing -- no scripture, not even to burn; no church, no temple, no mosque -- nothing
whatsoever. A Baul is a man always on the road. He has no house, no abode. God is his only abode, and the
whole sky is his shelter. He possesses nothing except a poor man's quilt, a small, hand-made one-stringed
instrument called AEKTARA, and a small drum, a kettle-drum. That's all that he possesses. He possesses
only a musical instrument and a drum. He plays with one hand on the instrument and he goes on beating the
drum with the other. The drum hangs by the side of his body, and he dances. That is all of his religion.
Dance is his religion; singing is his worship. He does not even use the word 'God'. The Baul word for
God is ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man. He worships man. He says, inside you and me, inside
everybody, there is an essential being. That essential being is all. To find that ADHAR MANUSH, that
essential man, is the whole search.
So there is no God somewhere outside you, and there is no need to create any temple because you are
His temple already. The whole search is withinwards. And on the waves of song and on the waves of
dancing, he moves withinwards. He goes on moving like a beggar, singing songs. He has nothing to preach;
his whole preaching is his poetry. And his poetry is also not ordinary poetry, not mere poetry. He's not
consciously a poet; he sings because his heart is singing. Poetry follows him like a shadow, hence it is
tremendously beautiful. He's not calculating it, he's not making it. He lives his poetry. That's his passion and
his very life. His dance is almost insane. He has never been trained to dance, he does not know anything
about the art of dancing. He dances like a madman, like a whirlwind. And he lives very spontaneously,
because the Baul says, "If you want to reach to the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man, then the way, the
way goes through SAHAJA MANUSH, the spontaneous man."
To reach to the essential man, you have to go through the spontaneous man. Spontaneity is the only way
to reach to the essence...so he cries when he feels like crying. You can find him standing in a village street
crying, for nothing. If you ask, "Why are you crying?" he will laugh. He will say, "There is no why. I felt
like, I felt like crying, so I cried." If he feels like laughing, he laughs; if he feels like singing, he sings -- but
Query:-
everything has to come out of deep feeling. He's not mind oriented, not in any way controlled and
disciplined. He knows no rituals. He's absolutely against rituals because he says, "A ritualized person is a
dead person." He cannot be spontaneous. And a person who follows rituals, formalities too much, creates so
many habits around him that there is no need to be alert. Alertness is lost; habits are formed. Then the man
of rituals lives through habits. If he goes to the temple he bows down, not in any way conscious and alert of
what he is doing, but just because he has been taught to do so, he has learned to do so. It has become a
conditioning.
So they don't follow any ritual, they don't have any technique, they don't have any habit. So you cannot
find two Bauls that are similar; they are individuals. Their rebellion leads them to become authentic
individuals.
This has to be understood: the more you become a part of society, the less and less you are an
individual, the less and less you are spontaneous -- because the very membership in the society will not
allow you to be spontaneous. You will have to follow the rules of the game. If you enter a society, you
accept to follow those rules that the society is playing, or has decided to play. That's what membership
means: you enter into a certain organization; you have to play the game. Bauls have no organization, so
each Baul is individual.
And that's what religion really is: it is an individual approach towards truth. One has to go alone, one
has to go in his own way; one has to find one's own way. You cannot follow another, you cannot move on a
readymade track. The more you search your own way, the closer you will be to God, or to truth, or to
reality. In fact, the way is created by walking. You create it as you walk. It is not ready there for you,
waiting to be walked on. You walk and you create it.
It is as if you are lost in a forest. What do you do? You have no map and there is no way leading
anywhere -- trees and trees and trees all around, and you are lost. What do you do? You start walking,
searching, seeking. By your very walk, by your very search, a path is created.
Life is wild, and it is good that it is wild. It is good that it has no map, that it is not charted, that it is still
unknown. And its unknowability is such that there is no way to make it known. Otherwise, all charm will be
lost, all beauty will be lost. Then life will not surprise you; and if surprise is lost, all is lost. Then there will
be no wonder, no wondering. Then your eyes will go dead and your heart will stop beating; the passion will
disappear. Love will not be possible. Awe, wonder, surprise: these are the ingredients of the charisma, of the
mystery of life. So it is good that there are no scriptures; it is good that there are no ritualized religions; it is
good that you are not on a super-highway.
The Baul is a rebellious person, and I say 'rebellious' with great consideration. He is not a revolutionary.
A revolutionary is still thinking in terms of the society. How to change the society: that is the
revolutionary's continuous brooding. But he remains society-focused, society-oriented: "How to change the
world?" A rebellious person does not bother about the world because he understands that the world cannot
be changed by him, and who is he to change the world? -- "What's my authority to change the world? And if
the world decides to be the way it is, who am I to interfere with it?" He leaves the world to itself. He does
not interfere, he does not meddle with it. He starts changing himself. His revolution is inward; his revolution
is absolutely inner.
A rebellious person is a drop-out. He simply drops out of that society which doesn't suit him. He does
not wait for it to be transformed so that he can fit with it. That desire is foolish, stupid. Then you will be
lost. And that day, that utopia will never happen -- when the society has changed so much that you can fit
with it, and the society can fit with you. It has never happened. Revolutionaries have lived down through the
centuries, and died. The world has remained the same, more or less, but the lives of those revolutionaries
were wasted in changing it.
Just think of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, coming back and looking at the world -- they will start crying. This
is the world for which they wasted their whole lives? This is the world for which they hoped and staked
their whole lives, gambled with their lives? They could not live their lives because they were trying to
change the world. They were trying to change the world because they thought that only when the world had
changed according to their wishes would they be able to live. Otherwise, how could they live? How can you
live happily in an unhappy world? -- that is the revolutionary's question. Very significant: "How can you be
happy in an unhappy world?" -- so he tries to make the world happy.
The rebellious person says, "Leave the world to itself. Nobody has ever changed it." He is more
practical and down to earth: "I can live my own way. I can create my own world within me." He is a
drop-out. Bauls are drop-outs. They don't belong to any religion, to any society, to any nation. They are
Query:-
beggars, wanderers, vagabonds, hippies, gypsies, moving from one village to another, singing their song,
dancing their dance, living their lives in their own way, doing their thing.
A rebellious person is one who says, "I'm not going to wait, I'm going to live right now." The
revolutionary hopes for the future. He says, "I am going to wait. I will wait for the right moment." The
rebellious person says, "The right moment is here-now, and I'm not going to wait for anybody, I'm going to
live right now." A rebellious person lives in the present.
And one thing more to be understood: a rebellious person is not against anybody. He may appear against
because he is trying to live his own life, but he is not really against anybody. He may not go to the mosque
but he is not against Mohammedans. He may not go to the temple but he is not against Hindus. He simply
says, "I am not concerned; it is irrelevant." He simply says, "Please leave me alone. You do your thing and
let me do my thing. Don't interfere with me and I will not interfere with you."
The vision of the rebellious mind is very realistic. Life is short. Nobody knows whether tomorrow will
come or not. The future is not certain, and this is the only moment one can live. Why waste it in fighting
with others? Why waste it in trying to convince others? Enjoy it, delight in it. A Baul is a hedonist; he is
epicurean. He starts living: he loves, he lives, he delights.
When a Baul dies, he is not afraid of death -- he is ready. He has lived his life. He is ripe. The fruit is
ripe and ready to fall to the ground, with no hesitation.
You will be afraid. You are already afraid of death because you have not been able to live. You have not
lived yet and death has come or is coming. You have not yet had time to live and death has knocked at the
door. How can you accept death? How can you welcome?
A Baul is ready to die any moment because he has not wasted a single moment of life. He has lived it as
deeply as it was possible to live. He has no complaint, he has no grudge against life, and he has nothing to
wait for. So if death comes, he is ready to live death also. He embraces death. He says, "Come in." He
becomes a host to death also.
If you live rightly, you will be ready to die peacefully, blissfully. If you are not living rightly, if you are
postponing, if you are simply putting aside your life and doing other things rather than enjoying life, doing a
thousand and one things rather than delighting in life, then of course, naturally, you will be afraid of death.
And when death comes, you will be a coward in front of death.
A Baul dies dancing, a Baul dies singing, a Baul dies playing his AEKTARA and his DUGGI. He
knows how to live and how to die. And he is not worried about God; he's only worried about the ADHAR
MANUSH, the essential man that resides in him. His whole search is to find this essential man that he
is.'Who am I?' is his essential search. And he's very respectful about other human beings because they all
belong to that essential nature. All other forms are of that formless essential nature; all the waves belong to
the ocean. He's very respectful, tremendously respectful. A Baul never condemns anything.
To me, that is the very criterion of a religious man: he has no condemnatory attitude. He accepts
everything, his world includes everything. It does not exclude anything. Sex is accepted, SAMADHI also.
His world is very rich because nothing is excluded from it. He says, "Everything comes from that essential
core of your being, so why deny it? And if you deny it, how will you be able to reach to the source?"
Wherever you deny something, you cling there, you stop there. Then the journey cannot move to the very
core.
Life, as it is, is totally accepted. That does not mean that a Baul is a man of mere indulgence, no. He
knows the alchemy of how to transform the baser into the higher. He knows how to transform iron into gold.
He knows how to transform sex into SAMADHI; he knows the secret. And what is the secret of
transforming life into eternal life, time into eternity? The secret is love. Between sex and SAMADHI, the
bridge is love. Love is participated in by both: on the one hand sex, on the other hand SAMADHI. It is the
bridge. One bank is sex, the other bank is SAMADHI. Love includes both, comprehends both. Through
love, the Bauls say, one reaches to the eternal home.
So that is the only provision for the path: love. Love is their worship, love is their prayer, love is their
meditation. The path of the Baul is the path of love. He loves tremendously.
There are two traditions in India: one is the tradition of the Vedas, the other is the tradition of the
Tantras. Vedas are more formal, more of the nature of rituals. Vedas are more social, organizational. Tantras
are more individual -- less concerned with rituals, forms, habits, more concerned with the essential; less
concerned with the forms, more concerned with the soul.
Vedas are not all-inclusive. Much is excluded; it is more puritan, more moralistic. Tantras are
non-puritan, allinclusive, more human, more earthly. Tantras say that everything has to be used and nothing
Query:-
is to be denied.
Bauls belong more to the Tantras than to the Vedas. There is only one improvement on Tantras; that is
the only difference. Tantra is all-inclusive, more feminine than male. The Vedas are more male-oriented, the
Tantras are more feminine. Of course, woman is more inclusive than man. Man is included in woman, but
woman is not included in man. Man seems to be a sort of specialization. Woman seems to be more general,
more fluid, more round. Tantra is the way of the feminine, just like Tao.
But the Bauls have improved upon Tantra also. Tantra is too technical. The very word 'Tantra' means
technique. It is a little harsh, more scientific. Bauls are more poetic; Bauls are more soft -- singers and
dancers.
Tantra uses sex to rise higher than it, but it uses it. Sex becomes instrumental. Bauls say that is not very
respectful: "How can you USE some energy? How can you use some energy as a means?" They don't use
sex as a means; they delight in it, they enjoy it. They make a worship out of it, but without any technique. It
is not technological. They love it, and through love the transformation happens on its own accord.
In Tantra, you are to remain unattached. Even while using sex as a means to go towards SAMADHI,
you have to remain unattached to sex, absolutely neutral, absolutely like an observer, a witness, just like a
scientist working in his lab. In fact, Tantras say that Tantra techniques cannot be used with the woman you
love, because love will be a disturbance. You will be too attached. You will not be able to remain detached
and outside it. So Tantrics will find women with whom they are not in love at all so the attitude can remain
absolutely of the observer.
That's where Bauls differ. They say it is too cruel; this passionless attitude is too cruel. There is no need
to be so hard and so harsh. Through love, the transformation is possible. That's why I call their attitude more
poetic, more human, and more worthy. The Bauls say you can live attached in the world and yet be
unattached; you can love a woman and yet be a witness; you can be in the marketplace and yet be beyond it.
You can live in the world and be not of it.
This vision is my vision also. That is the meaning of my SANNYAS: be in the world but don't be of it.
And, nothing is of worth if it is not done through love.
That's where Tantra lacks something; it lacks humanity. If you love a woman, Tantra is not possible. If
you love a man, Tantra is not possible. You should be completely aloof. Then sex becomes very scientific.
It becomes a technique, something to be manipulated, something to be done -- not something to be in, not
something that absorbs you, not something oceanic, orgasmic, but something that you are doing. The very
idea of doing something to a man or to a woman because you want to achieve SAMADHI, the very idea of
using the other as an instrument, as a means, is ugly and immoral.
That's where Bauls have a totally different fragrance. They say, "There is no need to be so hard. There is
no need to be so means-oriented. Love will do." And we will try to understand what they mean by love.
The first poem....
These poems belong to different Bauls, but I'm not going to use their names. That is irrelevant. They all
belong to the same vision. Different poems, but they remain, deep down, as the same poem; different words,
different forms, but running through them is the same current. It is just like in a garland, many flowers are
held together, but only one thread runs inside and holds them all. We will insist on that thread. We will not
be bothered about who has written this poem. In fact, many of the poems are anonymous. Nobody has ever
known who wrote them, because in fact, they were never written.
Bauls are illiterate; maybe that's why they have such purity. They are not very cultured people, educated
in the ways of the world. Maybe that's why there is such innocence. They are children of the earth:
uneducated, poor, humble, but very sincere. So, I will not be telling you who has sung this song, or the other
songs that will follow in the coming twenty days. That is irrelevant. They come out of the same vision. They
have a certain melody, so individual that it is called BAULSUR, the melody of the Baul; so special, the taste
is so special and the fragrance is so individual that whenever you hear a song from the Bauls, you will
immediately recognize it. It has its own individuality, its own style: wild, illiterate, uncultured, but very
individualistic. Just as the ocean tastes the same -- from anywhere you taste it, and it is salty -- in these
songs, immediately you will feel that they come from one vision, one attitude, one passion, one experience.
And they were never written. Bauls have been singing them down through the centuries. Each Baul has
dropped something, added something, made his own songs or used the old songs that he had heard from his
Masters, but the vision is so clear that you can never miss when you hear a Baul song.
The first song:
Query:-
ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE CAN

OTHERS HAVE NO CLUE..
THE TASTE OF LIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT
HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM BUT THE BEE
KNOWS IT.
DUNG BEETLES NESTLE IN DUNG DISCOUNTING HONEY.
The first thing is: that love can be known only by loving. It is not something that can be made
comprehensible by intellectual discussion about it. Love is not a theory. If you try to make a theory out of it,
it remains incomprehensible. That is the first Baul standpoint: there are things which you can know only by
doing them, by being them.
If you don't know swimming you don't know what it is, and there is no way to know about it. You may
go and hear a thousand and one swimmers talking about it, but still you will never know it, what it is. It is
incomprehensible in every other way; you will have to learn swimming. You will have to go down to the
river; you will have to take the risk, the danger of being drowned. If you are very, very clever, you may say,
"I will not step into the river unless I know swimming first" -- it is logical -- "How can I step into the river
when I don't know swimming? So, first I must know swimming; only then can I step into the river." But
then you will never be able to know swimming, because even to learn swimming, you will have to step into
the river.
Swimming is known only by swimming; love is known only by loving; prayer is known only by
praying. There is no other way. There are things which can be known without moving into them -- those are
the futile things, those are intellectual things: philosophies, dogmas, creeds. But all that is real has to be
lived, and all that is existential has to be penetrated, and the risk has to be taken. One has to be courageous,
one has to be daring. And it is a great daring, because when you love somebody you start losing yourself.
To love somebody is to ]ose the ego; to love somebody is to be lost; to love somebody is to give power to
somebody over you; to love somebody is to be possessed. To love somebody means surrendering...
... SUBMISSION IS THE SECRET OF KNOWLEDGE...
... because to the Baul, love is the only knowledge there is. You can read the Vedas: there is no need to
submit, there is no need to surrender. You can read the Bible; there is no need to surrender. You can become
very proficient, very skilled, very learned, but there is no need to surrender. If there is no need to surrender,
it is not knowledge for the Baul.
The Baul criterion is this: that when something demands surrender, only then is there a possibility of
real knowledge, otherwise not.
If you come to me and I just impart knowledge to you....
Many people come to me and they say, "Is there any difficulty if we don't become SANNYASINS, if we
are not surrendered to you? And still, we love what you say. Still we want to listen to it. Is there any
problem? Can't we do that?"
I say, "You can do that; the problem is not there. But then you will collect only the superficial. You will
collect the words. Then you will collect only the fallen dregs from the table. You will not really be a guest
to me. You will miss all that is essential; only the non-essential wi!l be your fate. You have to decide."
Once you are surrendered, a totally different world opens between me and you. The heart-to-heart
communication starts. Then you can listen to my words, but you listen in such a different way, with such
deep sympathy and love, with such gratitude and receptivity, that those words are no longer words; they
start becoming alive. You have made them alive with your receptivity. You become pregnant with what I
am saying to you, with what I am communicating to you. Then, there happens a transfer; then words are just
excuses. Hanging around the word, I send you something which cannot be managed in the word. Then not
only is the word reaching you, but the climate that it carries through my heart.
If you are in love with me, then there is a totally different kind of understanding between me and you. If
you are not in love with me, then we are far apart. Then you are on some other planet, thousands and
thousands of miles away from me. I may shout: you may hear a few words, but nothing special is going to
happen that way. You may become more knowledgeable, but that is not the point. You should have more
Query:-
being, not more knowledge. If you are really becoming richer here, in close contact with me, then your
being is growing. Then you are becoming more and more crystallized, more and more authentic, more and
more alive, more and more divine. That is not possible without love.
And what is surrender? Surrender means surrendering the ego, surrender means surrendering all that you
know. Surrender means surrendering your knowledge, your mind, your intellect. Surrender is a suicide, a
suicide of the past. If you carry your past within you in a secret way, then your gesture of SANNYAS is
impotent. You can take SANNYAS and still go on carrying your past, hiding and guarding it like a treasure.
Then just on the surface you will be a SANNYASIN, but not surrendered to me. And then if you are not
fulfilled, nobody else is responsible but you.
The first Baul standpoint is that existential things can be known only through existential ways. Love can
be known only by loving.
Somebody asked Jesus, "How to pray?" and he said, "Pray." But he said, "That's what I am asking. I
don't know how to pray." So Jesus said, "I will pray. You sit by my side and you also try."
How to teach prayer? It can be caught but it cannot be taught. If you are open to me, you can catch many
things. If you are not open to me, nothing can be taught.
A prayer is like an infection. Love is also like an infection: it can be caught but not taught. You can
catch it. It is flowing all around you, but if you remain like an island, closed, then there is no way to teach it
to you.
The Bauls say,
GOD IS DESERTING YOUR TEMPLE AS YOU AMUSE YOURSELF BY BLOWING CONCH SHELLS AND
RINGING BELLS. THE ROAD TO YOU IS BLOCKED BY TEMPLES AND MOSQUES. I HEAR YOU CALL,
MY LORD, BUT I CANNOT ADVANCE. MASTERS AND TEACHERS BAR THE WAY.
God is all around you, but you are so full of scriptures, knowledge, so full of your own ego that there is
no space left inside you where God can penetrate and enter into you. It has become impossible. It is
becoming impossible only because of you.
Jesus is right when he says, "Pray, if you want to know what prayer is"; and the man is also right. He
says, "How to pray? That is my problem. You have not answered it." And Jesus says, "The only way is, I
will pray. I will kneel down in prayer. You just sit by my side, open, vulnerable; you may catch it."
That's what I'm trying to do here. Just be open to me; you may catch it. There is every possibility once
you are not barring your own path, once you start getting out of your own way. There is no problem --
because the essential man that is speaking to you is also hearing through you. Then the essential can meet
with the essential. The ADHAR MANUSH can meet with the ADHAR MANUSH. Just put your ego aside,
because that is the non-essential. Face me with your essence, encounter me with your essence. Then
suddenly you will see a new fire arising in you. A new love is born.
Yes, submission is the secret of knowledge, surrender is the secret of knowledge. It is not an intellectual
effort, but a total submersion, a merging of the self. That's why Bauls talk more about love and less about
knowledge, because love is the only thing in the world which cannot be attained in any other way than by
loving.
Now, it is possible some day that even swimming can be taught to you without taking you to the river.
They have invented ways to teach driving without ever taking you to the road. You simply sit in a car in a
room: nothing moves, because there is nowhere, no place to move. You simply sit in the car behind the
wheel, and a film is shown on the walls. The road moves, so you feel as if you are moving on the road. On
both sides, the street is moving. A movie is shown fast; it goes on moving fast. There are turns and things,
and you have to do the right things at the wheel. The teacher can show you whether you are doing wrong or
right, and you are simply sitting in the car. The car is not moving, the road is moving in the movie, just on
the sides. You can learn it. It seems to be safer. I think someday or other you can just lie down on your
mattress, and a movie of a river will be all around, and you can start. It is possible. At least a rudimentary
knowledge may become possible.
But love? -- there seems to be no way. Many people are trying movies to learn about love. Many people
go on trying pornographic literature to know about love. Many people go on reading novels and poetry and
others' love letters in order to know about love. Yes, there is a danger that you may come to know many
things about love, but to know about love is not to know love. In fact, the more you know about love, the
less will be the possibility to know love. You will be lost in your knowledge. You will start thinking that
you know.
Query:-
Have you observed the fact that movie actors who are in the business of love are almost always failures
in their own love lives? They never succeed. Even a Marilyn Monroe commits suicide. She was at the top;
even President Kennedy was in love with her. The whole world was in love with her. But somehow, her
whole life was empty. She committed suicide at the very peak of her career, of her fame; such a beautiful
woman.
What happened? Why are actors and actresses always failures in their real love lives? They have learned
so much about love that they cannot be real about love. They go on acting the same roles, they go on
playing the same games. As they are playing on the stage, they go on playing in life. On the stage it is okay
because nothing is involved. But in real life, it is empty. So they go on making empty gestures.
Remember, you can know much about love, but that cannot help to know love. Love can be known only
by loving. It means you have to move into love without knowing anything about it. That's why it needs
courage. You have to move in the dark, with no map, nobody to guide, not even a torch. You have to move
in the dark not knowing where you are moving, not knowing whether you are on the right track or not, not
knowing whether you will find the path or you will fall in a ditch and be lost forever.
This is the courage.
Bauls are very courageous people. They say:
ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE..
Love has many flavors... Love has many dimensions, many nuances. Love is not one single thing. It is
very rich, tremendously rich. It has many aspects to it; it is multi-faceted. It is like a diamond: it has many
facets and every facet gives it richness.
Only a connoisseur -- one who has loved in many ways, one who has loved, lived courageously,
dangerously, one who knows all the flavors of love.
Have you watched? -- ' love' does not express all. It is a single word. All the ancient languages had
many words for love, because there are so many loves. The English language is poor in that way, hmm?. --
because you love a car also, and you love your woman and you love your house and you love your country
and you love your child and you love your mother. Only one word! You love a particular brand of
cigarettes. It is very poor, because love has so many facets.
When you love a child, you love differently. It is not the same love as when you love a woman. It has no
passion. It has compassion, but it has no passion. When you love your mother, it is totally different: it has
reverence, it has deep gratitude. But when you love a woman it is totally different: it has great intensity,
almost maddening -- but it is not the way you love your mother. You love your friend: that is totally
different. It is affection, but not in the same way.
If you watch, you will find many nuances of love. The single word 'love' has many words hidden in it.
And one has to know all about love by moving in all the dimensions. If you have not known any facet of
love, your understanding about love will lack that much. One has to know all the aspects and all the subtle
differences. That's what the Bauls mean when they say,
Yes, it is a language. A single word will not do; it is a complete language. And once you know, you will
be simply surprised. You can touch somebody's hand like a friend, and then the touch has a different flavor.
And you can touch somebody's hand like a lover, then the touch has again a different flavor.
A connoisseur, with closed eyes, can just feel your hand and see...and understand the language.
Have you not watched it sometimes: when somebody looks at you with a deep lust in his eyes, you can
immediately feel? When somebody looks with deep love, you can see the difference. When somebody looks
with affection, you can feel the difference. But these are very rudimentary things because compassion also
has many layers.
When a Buddha is there, his compassion has a totally different quality. When you have compassion it is
more like sympathy, less like compassion. When a Buddha has compassion, it has nothing of sympathy in it.
It is pure.
When Buddha has love showering on you, it has nothing that you have known about love up to now.
Only a Buddha can know that. It has no passion in it; it is very cool. It is not hot -- not that it has no
warmth; it has warmth, but still it is very cool. It will cool you down if you come close to a Buddha. It will
Query:-
help you to become less excited, more collected. It will not create a turmoil within you. It will subside all
turmoil; it will be a soothing force. It will surround you like a subtle climate and soothe you. It will be like a
lullaby. You will start feeling, falling asleep, as if just close to your mother's heart. It has something of the
mother, something of the father, something of the beloved, something of the child. It has every subtle
nuance in it. It has all the dimensions of love in a great harmony. When you come around Buddha, it is an
orchestra of all the flavors of love. Sometimes he looks like a child; you can play with him. His smile or his
being simply gives you a feeling that he is just a child -- you can mother him. Sometimes he is like a mother
and you are like a small child. Sometimes he looks like a beloved -- you can love him, only him, and
nobody else. But sometimes he is just like a friend. He is all.
These changes happen because of you: your outlook changes, your vision changes. Your eyes are not yet
clear and fixed. You cannot see his totality. You circum-locate him. At one time you see one aspect, at
another time you see another aspect -- because you cannot comprehend the whole.
Not even a clue is possible for others. You will have to move into the world of love; and don't ask how.
You will have to move into the dark; And don't ask for a map -- because that very asking is against love.
That's why trust is needed, SHRADDHA. If you trust a person, you say, "Okay. If you send me in the dark,
I will go. If you send me into death, I will go."
On the path of love, trust is the most essential thing. On the path of meditation, you can move without
trust. On the path of meditation you can move without surrender, but on the path of love, without surrender,
without trust, there is no go because it is the very first door. Love demands so much. It demands almost the
impossible, and on the first step. Love is easy but very demanding. That's why even though the path is so
easy, very few people travel it. The path of meditation is very difficult but not so demanding. That's why the
path is difficult and arduous, yet still, many people travel it.
When you hear about love it seems very simple and easy; but look at the demands. On the path of
meditation, that which will be demanded on the last step, is demanded on the first step on the path of love.
The meditator will be asked to surrender his ego only at the last step: when he moves from
SAVIKALPA SAMADHI to NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI, when he moves from the mind to no mind; only at
the last step. First he goes on purifying his mind, he goes on purifying his ego. He goes on making it more
and more subtle, more and more subtle, refined, cultured. Then just a trace remains. On the last step, he has
to drop that trace.
Love demands the impossible. It says: on the first step you have to drop the ego. There is no need to
refine it and there is no need to work on it. Because one has to drop it, so why bother carrying it? Drop it
here, now.
Trust arises on the path of meditation at the last stage. Trust arises only when you are arriving home.
When the arrival is so close and when you are almost approaching, and you can see the door and you can
see the house and you can see that you have reached, then trust arises -- you say, "Yes."
But on the path of love, trust is asked on the first step. The first step of love is the same as the last step
of meditation. The path is very easy if you are daring, if you are almost a dare-devil. If you are almost mad
and ready to risk all without any condition, the path is very easy -- because it completes on the first step.
The first step becomes the last step. Here you surrender, and not even a split second is lost and you have
arrived.
...THE LANGUAGE OF A LOVER'S HEART,
People who are very learned in the ways of meditation, in the ways of intellectual comprehension,
contemplation, concentration, have no clue about love. They simply don't know that language.
THE TASTE OF TIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT, AND EVEN EXPERTS KNOW OF NO EASY
WAY TO REACH IT.
And this love the Bauls talk about, or rather, sing about, dance about, is just hidden inside you at the
very core of your being. It is already there. You have just to find a way to reach to your own innermost core
-- the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man. It is not something that has to be achieved, it is already there.
Query:-
It is not something that has to be earned, it is a gift of God.

The moment you were created, that very same moment that treasure was handed over to you -- because
who has ever known somebody to live without love? Have you known anybody to live without breathing?
Love is the very breath of the soul.
Bauls say, "As the body cannot exist without breathing, the soul cannot exist without love." So you may
know it, you may not know it, but continuously love is happening inside. It is throbbing there; it is your
very beat. You just have to find a way to reach there, because you have gone out in search of other treasures
that don't belong to you, in search of other treasures that can NEVER belong to you.
That's why a Baul lives like a beggar. That is simply symbolic. He says, "I am not searching for any
other treasure. I am enough unto myself. My treasure is too much. I am a king already. I don't need any
other kingdom; my kingdom is already here." He lives like a beggar, but if you come across a Baul you will
see that he lives like a king. Even kings are not so kingly. Even-kings are not so blissful as a Baul is. His
whole life consists of bliss. He knows no other taste: he knows no anxiety, he knows no worry. He lives in
some unknown dimension with tremendous grace. Having nothing, he has everything. Possessing nothing,
he possesses the whole world.
The Bauls sing,
THE MIRROR OF THE SKY REFLECTS MY SOUL. OH BAUL OF THE ROAD, OH BAUL, MY HEART! THE
MIRROR OF THE SKY REFLECTS MY SOUL.
OH, MY SENSELESS HEART, YOU HAVE FAILED TO CULTIVATE THE HUMAN LAND. CULTIVATED, IT
COULD HAVE YIELDED A HARVEST OF GOLD.
WHEN THE LIFE, THE MIND AND THE EYES ARE IN AGREEMENT, THE TARGET IS WITHIN YOUR
REACH. YOU CAN SEE THE FORMLESS ONE WITH BARE EYES.
"When the life, the mind and the eyes are in agreement", hmm? -- that is the way to find the inside.
When you are in agreement, when there is no conflict inside you, that is the way. That is why Bauls insist
on being without conflict, on being natural, spontaneous. Don't create any division within yourself,
otherwise you will never be able to reach -- because a tremendous quality of agreement is needed. When
you fall into harmony, the door is open. "When the life, the mind and the eyes are in agreement, the target is
within your reach. You can see the formless one with bare eyes."
"Forget not," they say, "that your body contains the whole of existence." "I am fulfilled," they sing,
"being a blow of your own breath on your flute. What more can I wish for me than to be blown away with
such melody?"
A Baul is fulfilled the moment he comes to a deep agreement within himself. His singing and his
dancing is nothing but an effort to fall into agreement with himself. Have you watched somebody dancing?
What happens? Have you observed yourself sometimes dancing? What happens? Dance seems to be one of
the most penetrating things, in which one falls into a harmony. Your body, your mind, your soul all fall into
a harmony in dancing. Dancing is one of the most spiritual things there is. If you really dance, you cannot
think. If you really dance, the body is used so deeply that the whole energy becomes fluid. A dancer loses
shape, fixity. A dancer becomes a movement, a process. A dancer is not an entity: he's movement, he's
energy. He melts. Great dancers, by and by, melt. And a dancer cannot retain his ego because if he retains
the ego, that will be a jarring note in his dance. A real dancer loses his ego in it. He forgets that he is. The
dancer is lost; only the dance remains. Then the door opens because you are one unity. Now the soul is not
separate, the mind is not separate, the body is not separate. All have fallen in one line. All have become one,
melting into each other, merging into each other.
It is said about Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers in the world, that there were moments when he
would take jumps, and he would come back so slowly that it was almost impossible. He would fall back
featherlike, as if gravitation had lost its power over him. Scientists were worried: "This should not happen,
it cannot happen" -- but it was happening. No other dancer has been capable in that way.
And of course, Nijinsky went mad; he became a Baul. His is one of the madnesses which has not yet
been understood. And because he was in the West, it was impossible to comprehend what had happened to
him. He was confined to a psychiatric hospital, forced, given electric shocks, insulin shots. Had he been in
the East he would have become one of the greatest Bauls. His madness was nothing to be treated, it was
something to be revered.
But how did he become mad? He became mad through his dancing. When he was asked what happens to
him, he said, "It happens only when I am lost, so I cannot say anything about it. If I am, then it never
happens. I have tried it. If I am there, deliberately trying it, consciously trying, it never happens. But there
Query:-
are moments when I am lost. Then simply, I don't know who jumps -- and then it happens. I am also
surprised. I have no explanation for it, but it happens only when I am lost."
That is what Bauls say: when you dance and you become a whirlwind and, by and by, you are
completely lost in your dancing, it happens. Something breaks down inside you. The barriers are lost. You
become one unity. A great orgasm spreads all over your being. You are in tune with existence in those
moments. These moments are the SATORIS of Zen, but Bauls have a better way to attain them. Zen has to
be worked on for twelve, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. It is a very slow process. It is the path of meditation.
Bauls can attain to it more easily. Just the day you decide that, "I am ready to drop my ego," you
become available to God and God becomes available to you. The essential man suddenly arises over the
non-essential; there is a mutation. And this is the moment when you are full of love, when you are love,
when your energy is love. This is the moment when you can bless the whole existence. When there is no
conflict within you, there cannot be any conflict between you and the existence. That is the secret: drop all
conflict within you, and your conflict with the existence is also dropped simultaneously. Become one within
you and you have become one with the existence.
THE TASTE OF TIME RESTS IN THE CORE OF THE FRUIT,
In fact, there is no easy way to reach it, because it is hard to drop the ego. And that is the only way.
HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM -- BUT THE BEE KNOWS IT.
Bauls say that intellectuals are dung-beetles. The PUNDITS, the scholars, are dung-beetles. They will
never find the way to the lotus...only the bee.
Become a bee; become a lover. Because the bee LOVES honey, it finds the way. Why cannot the
dung-beetle find the way? It finds a certain way; it finds the way to the dung.
Because love is the way.
Bauls say, "Whatsoever you love you become, and whatsoever is your love you will find." So be alert
about your love: don't love a car, don't love a house, don't love a bank balance -- because you will become
like that. You will become a dung-beetle. Don't love dung.
If you are to love, then love something of the divine, something...something that transcends things,
something that transcends forms, something for which you will have to raise your eyes to the sky. Love a
GOURISHANKAR; love the Himalayan peaks. If you love something like dung, you will move into dung
because we always find the way. Wherever our love moves, we move behind it. The bee loves the lotus; it
finds it. The very love is the path. Howsoever the lotus is hiding, the bee will find it.
There is a story about Solomon:
A woman came; the woman was the queen of Ethiopia. She wanted to love Solomon, she wanted to
become his beloved. She was very beautiful, but she wanted to love the wisest man in the world. So she
tried a few tests on Solomon, about whether he was really as wise as he was said to be. She did many
experiments; one of the experiments was this: she brought one false flower made of paper, but made so
beautifully that it was almost impossible to detect that it was false. She went into the court of Solomon, she
stood far away from Solomon, and she said, "I have a flower in my hand. Can you say from that far away
whether it is real or unreal?"
Solomon said, "Light is not enough, and I'm an old man, and I cannot see rightly. Please open the
windows." The windows were opened. He waited for two minutes and said, "No, it is false."
Then the woman brought another flower from her bag and she said, "What about this?" It was exactly
like the first, but it was real. Solomon pretended to look at it and then he said, "Yes, this is a real flower."
The woman was astounded. The whole court was astounded: "What has happened?" They asked him,
"How could you find it?" He said, "Easy -- I opened the windows for the bees to come in. They decided. For
the first flower, no bee came in; for the second they immediately rushed in."
When you love something, you have a supra-sense about where it is. Your love monitors you, it leads
you, it becomes your guide.
A bee can smell from miles far away where the flowers are. Much experiment and research has been
done with bees about how they find their way. Miles away the flowers have bloomed, and bees will come
rushing. Almost a supra-sense exists in them; that supra-sense is-nothing but love.
You will find your way to the object you love, so be very cautious about your object of love because
Query:-
that is going to decide your destiny. Your love is your destiny. Love something superb; love something of
the supra-existence; love something of the divine, and you will find your way.
Bauls say, "When there is no fear, just the love is enough; it will monitor you and it will guide you."
HONEY IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE LOTUS BLOOM -- BUT THE
BEE KNOWS IT.
Surrender is the secret of knowledge, because surrender is the secret of love-and love is the only
knowledge of worth.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #2
Chapter title: I am just a midwife
Archive code: 7606220

ShortTitle: BELOV102
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 104 mins
The first question.
I ALWAYS YEARN TO BE HERE, BUT WHY, ON SEEING YOU, AM I FILLED WITH AWE?
THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE. One should feel blessed, because awe is the only quality that can make
man, religious. That is the only door. Through awe, you start feeling the divine around you. Eyes filled with
awe cannot deny God; it is impossible. And people who have forgotten how to be filled with awe cannot
accept God. God is not the question. If you are still capable of being in a tremendous state of wonder, so
tremendous, so penetrating that thinking stops, everything stops -- suddenly time is not there, space is not
there, and you cannot figure it out, what it is -- some sublime presence is felt in those moments.
But man has become afraid of awe. That's why in language, in the ancient days, 'awful' was a religious
word, very sacred. Now, when you are feeling terrible you say you are feeling awful. Even the word has
changed its meaning. People used to be awful when they were deep in prayer, when they were in close
contact with the divine. When the divine was revealed to them, then they used to be awful. Now when they
are feeling terrible, horrible, very bad, they say, "I am feeling awful." The word has completely been
destroyed. It used to be at the peak; now it is at the bottom. It used to be the most positive feeling; now it is
the most negative feeling. How has it happened? There are some reasons for it.
Whenever people used to feel awe, they also used to feel fear. That is natural, because through awe you
come in contact with the unknown, unfamiliar, the strange, the mysterious. You cannot control it, you
cannot manipulate, you cannot possess it. Suddenly, something bigger than you, something vaster than you
surrounds you, and you are at a loss. Fear arises; you start feeling afraid.
All the old religions describe God as both 'the mysterium' and 'the tremendum' -- mysterium because He
is the mystery, a mystery that can never be solved, and tremendum because one feels terrible before Him.
These two feelings arise together, but you should pay attention to the first feeling more. Otherwise, the
doors of the temple will be closed for you. Emphasize the positivity of it, and learn how to be in the
Query:-
presence of the unknown, how to be in the presence of something that you cannot manipulate, how to be in
the presence of something where you have to surrender, where surrender is the only thing that you can do,
that can be done -- that's all that's possible.
You should feel blessed; but you must be feeling afraid, hence the question. You must be paying more
attention to the negative part, to the shadow part. If you do that, by and by, you will become closed. Then
you will not feel awe, and if you cannot feel awe you cannot feel God.
They say philosophy arises out of wonder. It is right, absolutely right. Philosophy arises out of wonder;
and religion? -- religion arises out of awe. And what is the difference between wonder and awe?
When you are full of wonder, you try to find a clue; how to dissolve that wonder? You try to think about
it, figure out what it is. Wonder creates a question-mark in you, and you start struggling with it -- so
philosophy is a fight with wonder. It arises out of wonder, then it tries to dissolve the wonder, to dissolve
the inexpressible, the unexplainable, to find an explanation so the wonder can be dropped. Wonder is felt
like a dis-ease, a tension. So the philosopher is continuously trying ways and means to be again at ease. He
is trying to find some answer so the questions can be dropped, so the mystery is no more a mystery.
Philosophy is against wonder.
Religion arises out of awe. Awe is also wonder with one different quality: that is, it does not create a
question mark in you. Rather,.it creates deep love, it creates deep gratitude, it creates humbleness. It creates
such a state in your consciousness that you would like to bow down before it. It is not a question to be
solved, but a deep mystery to be respected. You would like to kneel down and pray. You would not like to
think about it because it is so vast; it is impossible to think about it. You would like to pray; you would like
to fall into it in deep love.
Wonder becomes awe when it does not create a question-mark in you; awe becomes wonder if it creates
a question-mark in you. That's the difference between philosophy and religion, and then the paths go
diametrically opposite. A philosopher goes on thinking and thinking, and a religious person goes on
dropping thinking.
God enters into you through awe.
"I always yearn to be here, but why, on seeing you, am I filled with awe?"
That's how it should be. If you are not filled with awe, then your coming to me is pointless. If you don't
feel like praying, if you don't feel like bowing down, surrendering, then you have not come to me.
Physically you may be here; spiritually we exist far apart.
It happens many times: every day I watch many people who yet have a living heart in them start feeling
awe, but they start repressing it. It feels as if it is a kind of weakness and you are not to show it. If they want
to cry, they stop their tears. They have come with many questions to ask and suddenly those questions are
not there -- because in an awful mood, questioning stops. They forget their questions. And they are very
worried about where their questions have gone, and they start searching hectically inside to find something
to cling to so that awe does not become too overpowering. Sometimes they ask foolish questions, just to
ask, so that nobody becomes aware that they have lost their grounding, that they have fallen into something
deep, that they have not been strong enough to resist -- but then they miss. Then they come to me, and yet,
they come not.
Coming to me, be ready. It is not a question of asking questions. In fact, there is no need. Just being with
me, just being close with me...fall in line with me, breathe with me, let your heart beat with me a little while
so that you can see through my eyes, so that you can taste a little of that with which I am completely
overtaken and possessed.
But fear will arise -- because whenever there is something bigger than your mind, the mind says, "Don't
move; there can be danger. You may not be able to come back." And the mind says, "It is almost mad, retain
your intelligence, retain your thinking capacity, retain your logic." What are you going to do? And you all
have been trained for logic, and nobody has been in any way trained for love. That feeling of awe is simply
trying to assert something from your heart that has been repressed by the society, by the forces that are
trying to control you, by the mind.
Mind is nothing but society inside you: the priest, the politicians, the power-mad people -- they have
become your mind. They are trying to manipulate you from within. When awe arises, you are falling into an
infinite ocean, not knowing what will happen next. In that moment you would like to escape, you would like
to close your eyes, you would like to somehow control yourself -- because you have always been told that
control is a great value. So you go on controlling everywhere, where it is not needed at all, where it is a
hindrance to life. Where it is almost a suicide, there too you go on controlling. You cannot trust, because
Query:-
trust means losing your controlling to somebody else's hands. You cannot surrender, you cannot love, you
cannot pray. Even people making love cannot surrender; they go on controlling deep down. Hence, the real
peak is missed. They learn techniques of how to make love. They can become very efficient lovemakers, but
love is missed -- because it has nothing to do with you.
Love happens only when you are not there. Love happens only when you are surrendered to existence.
Then there is a great orgasmic experience. Then you reach to the very peak of your being, and you look at
existence from the top-most peak of the Himalayas; you look from the GOURISHANKAR. Then a totally
different vision arises, and that vision transforms your life.
So when you come to me, be ready to lose control, be ready to lose yourself. That is the whole purpose
of coming; otherwise, don't come. Even if you ask something, don't ask out of your knowledge. Your asking
should also be out of your love. Your asking should also be how to go deeper in the mystery -- not how to
demystify it, not how to explain it, but how to move deeper and deeper into the eternally unexplained --
because that's what God is.
So have a little taste of God with me. Allow me to be a door.
It will be difficult for you to face God directly, the Whole, because it will be too much, too dazzling.
You cannot look at the sun directly; it will destroy your eyes. That's the meaning of a Master: he gives you
God in quantities that you can bear. He gives you God in homeopathic doses, and he goes on increasing the
dosage, by and by. The more you become capable of absorbing, the more he gives to you. One day, when
you are ready to face the sun directly, he simply disappears. He is no longer between you and God.
It is just as you start learning swimming: first you learn in shallow water, just on the bank. It's natural, it
is intelligible, it is practical. Then as you are becoming more and more capable, you start moving towards
the deeper parts of the river. One day you are ready to go into the ocean.
When you come to me, allow me to be there rather than insisting for your own presence. You dissolve;
let me be there. You open your doors and windows and allow me to pass through you. Much will happen
that way. Nothing is going to happen through your questions because they are nothing of worth -- irritations
in the mind. But I always see that whenever people feel full of awe, they start defending themselves. Then
they undo the whole purpose. Don't defend. If you defend, then how am I going to help you? -- there is no
way. I cannot help you against you; I can help you only with your deep cooperation. If you participate, only
then can the journey start.
But many times I have felt it -- many people would like to go on the journey, but when it starts, they
start clinging to the place where they are standing. They don't want to lose their ground; but then, how can
the journey start? You have to go on losing that which you have to attain that which you don't have.
Jesus has said, "Those who want to follow me, they should deny everything, including themselves. They
should deny themselves"...and he is right, but it takes a long time. Between a Master and a disciple, that
which can happen right this moment takes much time because the disciple goes on defending in many ways,
rationalizing in many ways.
The Bauls say,
Look...
Look for Him in the temple of your limbs;
He is there as the Lord of the world --
speaking, singing in enchanting tunes.
He is an expert at hide-and-seek;
no one can see Him.
Do not try to catch Him, O my heart!
He can never be caught --
you can only hope for Him
in whole faith.
When you are deep in awe -- and if you are courageous enough to remain in it -- soon your
consciousness will have a tremendous shift, a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. If you can remain in awe for
a few moments without disrupting it, without corrupting it with your thoughts, your defences, your
rationalizations; if you can remain purely in it -- not doing anything about it, just being in it -- there will be
Query:-
a turn That's what Christians call conversion. It doesn't mean that a Hindu becomes a Christian; that is
foolish. It doesn't mean that a Christian becomes a Hindu.'Conversion' means: a great turning in your
consciousness. If you can remain with me for a few moments, just in pure awe -- not corrupting it in any
way, not doing anything whatsoever; just being in it, allowing it to be -- there will be a shift, a
one-hundred-eighty degree turn, a conversion. Suddenly, I will disappear and you will be face to face with
your own being. The God is hiding within you.
Look...
Iook for Him in the temple of your limbs;
He is there as the Lord of the world --
speaking, singing in enchanting tunes.
He is an expert at hide-and-seek;
no one can see Him..
... because the very effort to see Him separates you from Him. The very effort to see Him makes Him an
object, and He is not an object; He is your subjectivity. He cannot be reduced to being a thing -- He is not.
He is not the sought, He is the seeker. He is your consciousness, your purity of consciousness. He is your
inner sky. You cannot see Him because He is hiding within you.
There is a beautiful parable:
When God created the world, He used to live here on this earth, but there was great trouble for Him. He
was not even able to sleep, because complaints and complaints. And the whole day He was trying to solve
people's problems, and in the night also they were knocking on His door. And there were so many
suggestions to improve upon the world that He started becoming almost insane. It looked as if nothing was
going right -- millions of advisers -- and He was fed up. If He listened to one man's advice, there were a
thousand and one against it. It was very difficult to do anything. He asked His counsellors, His advisers,
"What to do?" He said, "I would like to hide somewhere."
Somebody suggested, "Why don't you go to GOURISHANKAR, Everest. Nobody will ever be able to
come there; you can make your abode there."
He said, "You don't know the future. Just within few minutes -- for God it is only few minutes, our
centuries are seconds for Him -- just within a few minutes, this man Hilary will reach, and then the same
trouble will start."
And somebody said, "Why not the moon?"
He said, "That too is only a question of few minutes. Soon, man will be walking on the moon. It will not
solve anything. It will at the most postpone a little."
Then one old counsellor came close to Him and told Him something in His ear. And He was very happy,
and He said, "Right! This appears to be the perfect solution."
The old man suggested, "You hide in man himself. There he will never find you. And even if he finds, a
man who is so wise to find you within himself will not create any trouble for you. Hilarys can create
trouble, but Buddhas cannot -- because by the time they find you inside themselves they will be almost like
you. They will not have any complaints, they will not have any question. They will be as silent as you are,
they will be as deep as you are. By the time they reach you inside themselves, they will have been
transformed. The very journey will become a mutation."
God is hiding within you, but you cannot see God there directly because you don't know how to go
there.
One method, one way, is of meditation: start dropping your thoughts. One day when there is no thinking,
no ripple, and you are a no-mind, you will reach there; the conversion will happen. Another way is of
prayer.
The SANNYASIN who has asked is Rama Bharti. Her path is going to be that of prayer and love. That's
why she feels so much awe. When she comes close to me, I have seen her almost tremble, as if some
unknown breeze is passing through her. I have seen her throbbing with an unknown rhythm. Love is her
path. She has to use this quality of awe; it is rare. Very few people have it; it is disappearing from the world.
People have become much too intellectual, much too hung-up in their heads. They have forgotten the
language of the heart. Awe is the script, the very script of that language. Feel it, allow it to possess you, be
Query:-
possessed by it. It will lead you to the innermost temple of your own being. There will be a conversion, and
in that moment your consciousness will have a great shift. Suddenly, it will not be looking at me, it will start
looking at itself. That is the only way to know God.
The second question:
WHEN YOU WERE A ZEN MASTER TELLING US TO CHOOSE OUR PATH AND STICK TO IT, I FELT
SURE THAT MY PATH WAS OF THE HEAD, THAT I WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO SURRENDER TO
ANYONE. NOW, AFTER ONE LECTURE ON THE BAUL MYSTICS, I FEEL LIKE A LOVESICK
SCHOOLGIRL. HOW TO CHOOSE A PATH WHEN YOU HAVE NONE? HOW TO BE A LIGHT UNTO
MYSELF WHEN YOUR LIGHT DAZZLES ME EVERY MORNING?
I can understand your difficulty, but it is being created knowingly. I will throw you from one path to
another many times, because that is the only way for you to find out which is your path. Sometimes I will
push you, pull you towards meditation; sometimes I will force you towardslove, prayer. You will need the
taste of both; only then can you be decisive about it, otherwise not. Just by listening to me you cannot
decide, because while you are listening to me you are too much impressed by me.
So this is part of the device: that one day I am speaking on meditation, another day I am speaking on
love. I would like you to taste both because that taste will be decisive. Only that will decide which your path
is where you feel really flowing, where you feel really spontaneous Where things happen on their own
accord and you need not force them, that is your path -- but how to know it?
When you listen to me when I am talking about love you will be impressed by it, but that is not going to
decide it. Just being impressed is not going to help. It is a sort of hypnosis. When I am chanting and singing
about love you will be hypnotized by it. You will start thinking, "Yes, this my path." But this is just a wave
created by me. It may be your wave, it may not be your wave; and you cannot know it. And your whole life
has been conditioned so much by others that you have become very impressionable. You immediately take
the imprint from the outside. If you listen to me on meditation, you will be impressed by that. That' why
ordinarily Masters have not done that which I am doing here. They only insist on one path continuously, for
their whole lives. But then many people follow that path only -- because their Master has impressed them so
much about it continuously and consistently that they follow. That may not be their path. Hence, my
ABSOLUTELY new effort.
I will be talking on all sorts of paths and all sorts of methods In the beginning it will be very confusing,
but that is meant to be so. I would like to confuse you so much that you forget all about being impressed by
anybody. My whole effort is to throw you to yourself. How long can you go on doing this? -- one day you
are thinking of meditation, an then I talk about love; you start thinking about love. Again I will talk about
meditation, and again the problem will arise. How long are you going to be impressed by me? One day or
other you will say, "Now I have to decide. This man will drive me crazy!"
J. Krishnamurti says, "Don't be impressed by anybody," but he is a very consistent man, VERY
consistent. And his consistency becomes a deep imprint on his followers. He goes on saying,'Don't be
impressed by anybody," but he has been saying that for forty years so consistently that people have even
become impressed about it. They say, "Because Krishnamurti says,'Don't be impressed by anybody,' we are
not going to be impressed by anybody" -- but this is the impression.
What I am doing is exactly what Krishnamurti is saying. I am doing it; he is simply saying it.
I will not allow you to be impressed. Even if you want, there is no way. I will change continuously: I
will plant a few seeds today, tomorrow I will take them back. I will plant something today, tomorrow it will
be gone. How long are you going to wait for me? One day you will say, "Wait! Now let me decide. Enough
is enough!" But by that time you will have been shifted and shunted from this to that so much that you will
have had glimpses of both. You must have tasted a little of love, prayer, a little of meditation, a little of
yoga; a little of Meera and Chaitanya, and a little of Buddha and Mahavir. You will have tasted both, and
then decision will arise in you. And that will not be because of me, that will be because of you. And when
something is because of you it is real, it is authentic; it transforms, it transfigures, it transports you into
another world. If it is just an impression, because I have been consistently telling you about something again
and again and again, then it becomes just a suggestion deeply implanted within your mind. You may think
that you have decided, but it is not your decision.
Query:-
Krishnamurti has never asserted a single contradiction. He simply goes on repeating the same thing. His
note is simple, clear; there is nothing confused about him. Either you agree with him or you don't agree with
him -- that is another thing -- but there is nothing to be confused about. Nobody can say that he is confusing.
You can say he is right or you can say he is wrong, but not that he is confusing.
You cannot say about me whether I am right or whether I am wrong. At the most, you can say that I am
confusing. But that is my whole device: to confuse you so much. How long can you allow me to shift from
this to that, from that to this? One day you are going to shout, "Keep your hands away! Now I want to
decide"; and that decision will come out of you. And that will come not only because of intellectual
conviction, it will come because of real experiences on both the paths. When you have tasted all, you can
decide easily. And then you can remain with that decision for your whole life.
If you are impressed by me and then you decide, you can be impressed by somebody else tomorrow, and
then you will decide that. And if you are impressionable for me, you are impressionable for anybody else.
That's how people go from one Master to another.
Here there is no need to go anywhere because I am all the Masters together. You can just remain here
and the Master changes; there is no need to go anywhere. I consistently contradict myself, so there is no
problem. You need not go anywhere; you can just remain where you are.
People go on changing Masters because one day something impresses you and you are over-enthusiastic
about it, and then there is a honeymoon -- but honeymoons end. Anything that begins has to end. After a
few days the enthusiasm is gone. Now the thing seems to be familiar. The enthusiasm was because of the
unfamiliar, because it was new. Try to understand this mechanism.
You fall in love with a woman because she is so new: the physiology, the proportions of her body, the
face, the eyes, the eyebrows, the color of her hair, the way she walks, the way she turns, the way she says
hello, the way she looks. Everything is new, the whole territory unknown. You would like to investigate this
territory; it is inviting, it is very inviting. You are caught, hypnotized. And when you start approaching, she
starts to run away; that is part of the game. The more she runs, the more enchanting she becomes. If she
simply says, "Yes, I am ready," half of the enthusiasm will be dead that very moment. In fact, you will start
thinking how to run away. So, she gives you a chance to chase her. People are never as happy as while the
courting continues -- very happy -- because it is a chase. Man is basically a hunter, so when the woman is
chased, running away, trying to hide here and there, avoiding, saying no, the man gets more and more hot.
The challenge becomes intense; the woman has to be conquered. Now he is ready to die for her, or do
whatsoever is needed, but the woman has to be conquered. He has to prove that he is no ordinary man.
But once they are married, then everything...because the whole interest was in the chase, the whole
interest was in the unfamiliar, the whole interest was that the woman was apparently unconquerable. But
now she is conquered; now how can that old interest remain? At the most one can pretend, but the old
interest cannot remain. Things start becoming cold. They start getting bored with each other because now
there are other women who are again new territories: they attract, they invoke, they call forth.
The same happens with thoughts: you are enchanted with one sort of thinking, but by the time you
become acquainted with it the honeymoon is over, the love is over. Now you would like to be interested in
something else, something new that again gives you a thrill, a kick. This way one goes from one woman to
another, from one man to another, from one thinking to another thinking, from one path to another path,
from one Master to another Master. This sort of searching will never allow you time enough to create trust.
In one aboriginal community of India in the very primitive parts of Madhya Pradesh, in Bastar, there
lives a tribe -- aboriginals, very old people, primitive, almost three or four thousand years old. They are not
contemporaries at all but something can be learned from them. One thing has happened in that community
that has never happened before anywhere else, and that is: once a man marries a woman there is never any
divorce. Divorce is allowed, but never has divorce happened. And once a man marries a woman, he remains
truly with her, and the woman remains truly with him. He never becomes again interested in any other
woman in any other way, and the woman never becomes interested in any other man. How have they
managed this miracle? They have managed very psychologically.
The structure of their society is such that every boy and every girl is allowed to meet and mix with every
other boy and girl. So every boy comes to know each girl of the community, and each girl comes to know
each boy of the community. In fact, by the time boys and girls are getting interested in the other sex, they
don't stay in their homes in the night. They have a small temple-like thing just in the middle of the village;
they call it GHOTUL -- a youth house.
Once a boy becomes interested in girls he has to go to stay in the GHOTUL; once a girl starts becoming
Query:-
interested in the boys, she has to go to live in the GHOTUL. In the GHOTUL they live, all the boys of the
village and all the girls of the village, and they make love to each other. Only one thing is insisted upon: the
superintendent of the ghotul insists that no boy and girl should remain with each other more than three days.
They should change, so that before their marriage time comes they have known everybody; then they can
decide.
When you know all the women of your community and decide, that decision is totally different than the
decision that is taken in civilized societies. You don't know other women; a better woman, a better man is
always possible. Then what will you do? A more interesting personality can always be there; then there will
be disruption, there will be distraction, there will be problems. These are small village communities: not
many people -- two hundred, three hundred people, at the most, in one community. Every boy is allowed to
know each girl. When he has known all the girls and all the girls have known all the boys, and then one girl
and one boy decide to get married, before marriage happens they are given one more year to be together, to
finally decide -- because to decide before knowing each other well is dangerous. The decision may be only
because they want to know each other well. But once they have known each other well, then what will
happen to their decision? So they have to know each other well for one year, two years; whatsoever time
they need, they can be together. There is no interference on them by the society.
But once they decide to get married, of course that decision is very, very solid, absolute, unconditional
-- because all conquering is gone, hunting is gone, chasing is gone. The honeymoon is before marriage in
that community, and that seems to be more logical, psychological, more true to the human mind. The
honeymoon is before the marriage. Marriage has to happen only when the honeymoon is over. When two
persons, knowing each other well, decide to be together, now it is not a question of conquering. It is not a
question of novelty. It is not that they decide for marriage because they want to know each other; they
decide for marriage because they know each other. This is totally different.
But that GHOTUL and the system of those communities is disappearing. They are being civilized by us,
forced, because this seems to be immoral. At least for Christians, Hindus, Jains, it seems immoral. Their
community is being destroyed; their GHOTUL is thought to be like a house of prostitution. So they are
being taught against their experience: they are being taught to destroy GHOTULS and to stop this 'immoral'
situation.
But man seems to be absolutely foolish. They are not immoral people; they are very moral people, very
natural people. But Christians are there working and trying to convert them into Christians. They have
converted many of those poor people into Christians. Now GHOTULS are disappearing, and there, one of
the most solid systems is being destroyed. In fact, we should learn something from them.
My whole device is to give you all the chances possible for spiritual growth so that you can have a feel
for the right path. And that feel has to come through you. It has not to come through me, it has not to come
through my, influence.
There are two ways not to influence you: one way is not to speak, to disappear somewhere so nobody
can come close. Many people have done that too, but that doesn't seem to work. It has no compassion in it.
The other way is to communicate to you, to say to you what I have attained, what I have known, what I have
tasted. That has been done, but then people become impressed. They become so impressed that they are
almost dragged out of their natures That too is dangerous. Maybe a hundred persons are influenced -- then
ten, fifteen, at the most twenty, will reach to the goal. Eighty will be going against their nature.
My effort is to make you available to all possibilities and to make all possibilities available to you so
you can move, you can change, you can have your own time, at your own pace. And then one day a feeling
will arise, and tha. feeling will be totally yours. It will have nothing to do with me. Then you have come to a
point where marriage happens: then you are married to a particular path.
I will continue talking about other paths, but from that moment you will listen to me, you will love me,
you will be grateful to me, but if I am saying something which goes against your path you will not choose it,
you will not be impressed by it. If something fits on your path you wil choose, but the decision will be your
chosen path. Now anything that fits with it you will take in; anything tha doesn't fit you will not take in.
And you will not say, "That is wrong"; you know that on some other path it fits, so I may be right for
somebody else.
But once you have chosen your path, whatsoever I say, you will be able to choose. You will become a
chooser you will have an inner criterion -- what fits, what does no fit.
I am here for many sorts of people. I am not one dimensional; I am here for all sorts of people, and I am
speaking to all of them. By and by, listening to me, being attentive to me, you will go on deciding by your
Query:-
feeling. Then I will continue to speak; you will love to listen, you will love to understand, but you will not
be distracted. Once you are married you will not be distracted. Then there is no divorce.
"When you were a Zen Master telling us to choose our path and stick to it, I felt that my path was of the
head, that I would never be able to surrender to anyone. Now, after one lecture on the Baul mystics, I feel
like a lovesick schoolgirl. How to choose a path when you have none? How to be a light unto myself when
your light dazzles me every moming?"
One day you will be saturated with it. One day, one morning you will arise in your own being, alert to
your needs, alert to your direction. Once that direction is understood, recognized, then there will be no
problem. But one has to wait for it; it takes time. And before it happens I will have to shift you, turn you,
shunt you from here and there.
Sorry, but I have to do it.
The Bauls say,
Blind one,
how can you stumble
on a straight spontaneous path?
Be spontaneous in your own self
and find the way
that is born in you.
That's what I am trying to do here -- I am a midwife. I'm not going to create something for you; it is
already being created in your womb. It is already being created in your innermost shrine. At the most, I can
help it to be born smoothly. At the most, if something goes wrong I can help you to remove the obstacle.
But the child has been getting ready in you; I am just a midwife....
Once you have found your child, your direction, then the path is very spontaneous.
Blind one,
how can you stumble
on a straight spontaneous path?
Be spontaneous
in your own self,
and find the way
that is born in you
Words of wisdom describing God

can reveal us riches
in a darkened room.
Seeking in darkness
is confusing.
Break the barriers
and look at the sky;
the formless
is held as a beautiful form
in the arms of the moon.
I go on describing about the wealth, treasures, but your eyes are full of darkness. My description
impresses you; greed arises in you. You would also like to become a possessor of great treasures -- but your
eyes are full of darkness. Even if the treasure is right in front of you and I am describing it to you, you are
Query:-
impressed by my description but you are not aware of the treasure Iying just in front of you. My description
is not going to help.
Words of wisdom describing God

can reveal us riches
in a darkened room.
Seeking in darkness
is confusing.
Break the barriers
and look at the sky;
the formless is held as a beautiful form
in the arms of the moon.
So don't be too impressed by my words, and don't start feeling very sure while listening to me. But I
know it is natural, it is human. Many times you will feel sure: "This is my path"; but next day it will change.
So become a little unsure about your sureness. Hesitate a little. When I was talking on Zen you felt sure:
"This is my path." Now I am talking about Bauls -- remember, tomorrow I may be talking about something
else, so this time at least don't feel so sure. Listen to me, but don't give surety to what is heard. Wait, there is
no hurry. Be patient, go on listening and trying, but don't feel sure because your surety is dangerous. Feel
sure only when your child is born, when you have a sense of direction. And you will be able to see the
difference, because it is so tremendously different. It will not be because of me. You will be able to see now
that it is not that you are impressed by me; there is nothing like impression. Suddenly a great upsurge, a
great energy has happened in you, and it is absolutely certain. But you will be able to see that it is not
because of any influence from my side. Sometimes it may even happen contrary to what I am saying.
Sometimes -- it is possible if you have been shifted too many times from one path to another -- I am talking
about love, and listening to me about love a great certainty will arise in you that, "This is not my path; my
path is meditation," or vice versa. It is difficult to say how you will be able to make sure that this is not the
surety coming by influence, but your own. But I know that you will be able to do it.
It is exactly like when you have a headache: you know. You don't ask anybody, "Please tell me when I
have a headache. How am I going to know that it is a headache, that I am really having it?" No, you will
know. When the real certainty arises, it is so clear, so crystal-clear -- like a pillar of light; and just by its
arising you are washed clean.
Just by its arising you feel a new being, altogether new, a new birth. It is not intellectual, it is not in the
head. You will feel it all over your body, all over your body, all over your mind, all over your heart. Your
totality will feel it. When that certainty arises, then it is faith, then it is trust. By being influenced,
whatsoever you get is nothing but a belief. A belief is a very impotent thing;.it never changes anybody.
The third question:
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FOLLOWING: THINKING AND UNDERSTANDING,

REACTION AND RESPONSE, BELIEF AND FAITH, SYMPATHY AND COMPASSION, COMMUNICATION
AND COMMUNION?
Thinking is the absence of understanding. You think because you don't understand. When understanding
arises, thinking disappears. It is like a blind man groping his way; when eyes are there you don't grope for
the way, you see it. Understanding is like eyes; you see it, you don't grope. Thinking is groping. Not
knowing what is what, you go on thinking, guessing. Thinking cannot give you the right answer because
thinking can only repeat that which is known. Thinking has no vision for the unknown.
Have you ever tried thinking about the unknown? How will you think? You can think only that which
you know; it is repetitive. You can go on thinking it again and again, you can make new combinations of
old thoughts, but nothing really is new.
Understanding is fresh, new. It has nothing to do with the past. Understanding is here, now. It is an
insight into reality.
Query:-
With thinking there are questions and questions and no answers. Even sometimes when you feel that you
have found an answer, it is just because one has to decide some way or other. It is not really the answer, but
you have to decide for action so some answer has to be clung to. And if you look deeply into your answer,
you will see a thousand and one questions arising out of it. Understanding has no questions but only
answers, because it has eyes.
Thinking is borrowed. All your thoughts are given by others to you. Watch -- can you find a single
thought that is yours, authentically yours, that you have given birth to? They are all borrowed. The sources
may be known or unknown, but they are all borrowed. The mind functions like a computer, but before the
computer can give you any answer you have to feed it. You have to supply all the information; then it will
give you the answer. That's what mind has been doing.
Mind is a biocomputer. You go on collecting data, knowledge, information, and then when a certain
question arises your mind supplies the answer out of that collection. It is not a real response; it is just out of
the dead past.
What is understanding? -- understanding is pure intelligence. That pure intelligence is originally yours;
you are born with it. Nobody can give you intelligence. Knowledge can be given to you, not intelligence.
Intelligence is your own sharpened being. Through deep meditation one sharpens one's being; through
meditation one drops borrowed thoughts, reclaims one's own being, reclaims one's originality, redaims one's
childhood, innocence, freshness. Out of that freshness, when you act, you act out of understanding. And
then the response is total, here-now; and the response is because of the challenge, not because of the past.
For example: somebody asks you a question -- what do you do? You immediately go inside the mind
and find out the answer. You immediately go into the basement of the rnind where you have collected all
knowledge, and find the answer there. Then it is thinking. Somebody asks a question and you become silent;
you look into the question with penetrating eyes; not into the memory, but into the question. You face the
question, you encounter the question. If you don't know you say you don't know.
For example: somebody asks whether God exists or not. You immediately say, "Yes, God exists." From
where is this answer coming? -- from your memory? Christian memory, Hindu memory, Muslim memory?
Then it is almost useless, futile. If you have a communist memory you will say, "No, there is no God." If
you have a Catholic memory you will say, "Yes, there is God." If you have a Buddhist memory you will
say, "There is no God." But these answers are coming from the memory. If you are a man of understanding
you will simply listen to the question, you will go deep into the question, you will simply watch. If you
don't know, you will say, "I don't know." If you know, only then will you say you know. And when I say 'if
you know', I mean, if you have realized.
A man of understanding is true. Even if he says, "I don't know," his ignorance is more valuable than the
knowledge of the mind, because at least his ignorance, his acceptance of the ignorance is closer to truth. At
least he is not trying to pretend, he is not a hypocrite.
Watch, and you will see that all your answers come from your memory. Then try to find out a way
where memory does not function and pure consciousness functions. That is what understanding is.
I have heard....
A doctor stepped into the patient's room. Five minutes later he came out and asked for a corkscrew, then
he went back to his patient. In another five minutes he was out again and demanded a chisel and hammer.
The distraught husband couldn't stand it any longer. He pleaded, "For heaven's sake, doctor, what is
wrong with my wife?"
"I don't know yet," the doctor replied. "I can't get my bag opened."
Even sometimes when you say, "I don't know," it is not necessary that it may be coming out of
understanding. It may be simply that you can't open your bag. It may be that you cannot open your
memories, or you are not able to find something in the memory; you need time. You say, "I don't know";
you say "Give me time, let me think about it." What will you do by thinking? If you know, you know; if you
don't know, you don't know. What are you going to think about? But you say, "Give me time, I will think
about it." What are you saying? You are saying, "Give me a little, time; I will have to go into the basement
of my mind and search. And there is such rubbish accumulated through the years that it is difficult to find,
but I will try."
Meditate, and become free from this basement. It is not that the basement is not useful; it can be used.
But it should not become a substitute for your understanding.
A man of understanding looks into things directly. His insight is direct, but he can use all his
accumulation to help the insight to reach you. He can use all his accumulation to make everything that he is
Query:-
trying to convey to you clear. But that which he is trying to convey is his own. Words may be borrowed,
language may be borrowed -- has to be borrowed -- concepts may be borrowed, but not what he is trying to
convey to you. The container will come from the memory, but the contents will be his insight.
And of course, a man who has no understanding is continuously a victim of so many thoughts, because
he has no one insight to give him a center. He has a crowd of thoughts, unrelated to each other, even
diametrically opposite to each other, contradicting each other, with deep antagonism towards each other. He
has a crowd -- not even a group, not even a society, but a mob of thoughts buzzing inside the mind. So if
you go on with your thinking too far, one day you will become mad. Too much thought can create insanity.
In primitive societies madness is rare. The more civilized a society is, the more people go insane. Even
in civilized societies, more people go insane who work with their intellects. This is unfortunate but this is a
fact: that more psychoanalysts go mad than in any other profession. Why? -- too much thinking. It is very
difficult to manage so many contradictory thoughts together. In managing them, your whole being becomes
unmanaged, becomes a chaos.
Understanding is single, understanding is central. It is simple; thoughts are very complex.
A henpecked husband visited a psychiatrist and said he had a recurring nightmare.
"Every night," he said. "I dream I am shipwreck with twelve beautiful women."
"What is so terrible about that?" asked the psychiatrist
"Have you ever tried cooing for twelve women?"
That was his problem: how to 'coo' twelve women Even to coo one woman is difficult.
Thinking is like cooing for thousands and thousands of women around you. One naturally goes mad.
Understanding is very simple: you are married to one insight, but that insight works like a light, a torch.
Wherever you focus your torch, mysteries are revealed. Wherever you focus your torch, darkness
disappears.
Try to find your hidden understanding, and the way is to drop thinking. And to drop thinking two are the
possibilities: either meditation or love.
The second: 'reaction and response'.
Reaction is from the thoughts and response is understanding. Reaction comes from the past; response is
always in the present. But ordinarily we react -- we have everything already ready inside.
Somebody is doing something and we react as if button has been pushed. Somebody insults you -- you
be come angry. That has happened before. It has been happening the same all the while. It has become
almost like a button: somebody pushes it, you become angry. There is not a single moment of waiting, not a
single moment where you look at the situation -- because the situation may be different. The person who is
insulting you may be right. He may have simply revealed a truth to you; that's why you feel insulted. Or, he
may be absolutely wrong, or he may be nasty person -- but you have to look into the person. If he is right,
you have to thank him because he has shown some thing to you -- he has shown compassion towards you.
He has been friendly by bringing a truth to your heart. Maybe it hurts, but that is not his fault. Or, he is
simply stupid ignorant: not knowing anything about you he has blurted something out. Then there is no need
to be angry; he is simply wrong. Nobody is worried about something which is absolutely wrong. Unless it
has some truth in it, you are never irritated by it. You can laugh at it, at the whole absurdity of it. It is
ridiculous.
Or, the person is nasty and that is his way. He is being insulting to everybody. So he is not doing
anything to you in particular; he is simply being himself -- that's all. So in fact, nothing is needed to be
done. That man is that type.
Somebody insulted Buddha. His disciple Ananda asked him, "I was getting very angry and you kept
quiet. You should have at least allowed me; I would have put him right." Buddha said, "You surprise me.
First he surprised me, now you surprise me. Whatsoever he was saying is simply irrelevant. It is
unconnected with us, so why get into it? But you surprise me more: you have become very annoyed, you
look angry. This is foolish. To punish oneself for somebody else's error is foolish. You are punishing
yourself. Cool down. There is no need to be angry -- because anger is fire. Why are you burning your own
soul? If he has committed some mistake, why do you punish yourself? It is stupid"...but we react.
I have heard....
One man was saying to one of his friends, "To please my wife, I have given up smoking, drinking, and
playing cards."
"That must make her very happy," said his friend.
"No, it has not. Now, every time she begins to talk to me, she can't think of anything to say."
Query:-
People live mechanical,-robot-like lives. If your wife has been continuously nagging you to stop
smoking, and you think that she will be happy if you stop, you are wrong. If you smoke she is unhappy, if
you stop smoking she will be unhappy, because then she will not find any excuse to nag you.
One woman has said to me that she doesn't want her husband to be perfect. I asked, "Why?" She said,
"Because I love nagging." If the husband is perfect what are you going to do? You will be simply at a loss.
Watch yourself, watch others, and see how they are behaving in a mechanical way: unconscious, like
somnambulists, sleepwalkers.
Reaction is of the mind; response is of the no-mind.
Belief and faith? -- again the same: belief is of the mind, of the thinking; faith is of no-mind, of
awareness, understanding.
It happened in a hillside village: the hunter said to his guide, "This seems to be a very dangerous cliff. It
is a wonder they don't put up a warning sign."
"They had one up for two years," the native guide admitted, "but no one fell over so they took it down."
Belief is blind -- you believe because you have been taught to believe -- but it never goes very deep
because it has no understanding of the situation. It is just a superfluous tag, just something added to you. It
has not grown from you, it has not been a growth. It is just borrowed, so it never penetrates your being. A
few days you carry it, and then seeing that it is useless, nothing is happening, you put it aside. There are
Christians who are not Christians; there are Hindus who are not Hindus. They are Hindus only because of
those beliefs that they have never used, those beliefs that have never been given any respect by them. They
think they are Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, but how can you be a Mohammedan if you have not lived
your belief?
But belief cannot be lived. If one starts becoming more alert, watching life, responding, then by and by a
faith arises. Faith is yours; belief is somebody else's. Drop beliefs so that faith can arise. And don't be
satisfied with beliefs, otherwise faith will never arise.
Sympathy and compassion....
The same; the questioner has asked the same thing again and again.
Sympathy is of the mind: you feel somebody is in trouble, somebody is in misery; you think somebody
is in misery and you have to help. You have been taught to help, to be of service, to be dutiful, to be a good
human being, to be a good citizen, to be this and that. You have been taught; you feel sympathy.
Compassion has nothing to do with your teachings. Compassion arises as an empathy, not as a sympathy.
Compassion arises when you can see the other person as he is, and when you can see him so totally that you
start feeling him. You start feeling in the same situation.
It happened: A few people were beating a fisherman. Ramakrishna was moving from one bank to
another of the Ganges, near Dakshineshwar. On the other shore a few people were beating a man.
Ramakrishna was in the middle of the stream. He started crying and weeping, and he started shouting,
"Stop, don't beat me!" People who were sitting around him, his disciples, could not believe what was
happening: "Who is beating you? Who can beat him?" They said, "What are you saying,
PARAMAHANSADEVA? Have you gone mad?" He said, "Look! They are beating me there on the other
side." Then they looked; a few persons were beating a man, and Ramakrishna said, "Look at my back." He
uncovered his back -- there were marks, blood was coming out. It was impossible to believe. They went,
they rushed to the other shore, caught hold of the man who was beaten. They uncovered his back: exactly
the same marks.
This is empathy -- putting oneself into somebody else's place so totally that what is happening to him
starts happening to you. Then compassion arises. But these states are all of no-mind.
Communication and communion....
Communication is of the mind: verbal, intellectual, conceptual. Communion is of no-mind, of deep
silence; a transfer of energy, non-verbal; a jump from one heart to another -- immediate, without any
medium.
The basic, most essential thing to remember is -- because it divides your life, it divides the whole world
into two worlds -- that if you are looking through a screen of thoughts, then you live in one world: the world
of belief, thinking, sympathy. If you are looking with clean eyes, unclouded eyes, your perception has a
clarity: pure, just seeing into things as they are, not projecting anything upon them. Then you have
understanding, then you have meditation. Then the whole world changes. And the problem is that mind can
deceive you. It creates sympathy. It creates pseudo coins: for compassion it creates sympathy. Sympathy is
a pseudo coin. For communion, it has only communication, which is a pseudo coin. For faith, it has belief,
Query:-
which is a pseudo coin.

Remember it -- mind tries to substitute. You are lacking something? -- mind tries to substitute it. Be
very alert, because whatsoever mind can do is going to be false. Mind is the great falsifier, the greatest
deceiver there is. It helps, it tries to console you, it gives you something.
For example: if in the day you have fasted, in the night you dream of foods, resting in great hotels, or
being invited to the palaces of the kings and eating beautiful food. Why? -- the whole day you have been
hungry, now it is difficult to sleep because of hunger; the mind creates a substitute, a dream. Have you not
watched?
In the night your bladder is full and you would like to go to the bathroom, but sleep will be disturbed --
the mind immediately creates a dream that you are in the bathroom. Then you can go on sleeping. It gives
you a substitute. The substitute is conciliatory; it is not real -- but for the time being it helps.
So beware of mind's consolations. Seek reality, because only reality can fulfill. Consolations will only
post-pone; they can never be fulfilling. You can eat as much food as you like in the night in your dream, you
can enjoy the fragrance of it, the taste of it, the color of it, everything, but it is not going to be nourishing.
The one thing that is not going to happen: it cannot nourish. Belief can give you the whole fragrance of
faith, the taste, the color. You can enjoy it but it will not nourish you. Only faith can nourish.
Always remember: that which nourishes you is real, and that which simply gives you a consolation is
very dangerous. Because of this consolation you will not seek the real food. If you start living in dreams and
you don't eat real food, then by and by, you will dissipate, disappear, become dry, and you will be dead.
So take immediate action: whenever mind is trying to give you a substitute, don't listen to it. It is a great
salesman, a great seducer. It convinces you, and it says, "Those things are very cheap. Faith is very difficult
to find because you will have to risk your life; belief is very easy, very cheap. You can get it for nothing." In
fact, so many people are ready -- if you accept their belief they are ready to give you something more with
it: become a Christian, become a Hindu, become a Mohammedan. People are ready to give you a great
welcome and respect, respectability. Everything is available; just accept their belief. Belief is not only
cheap, it can even bring many more things with it.
Faith is dangerous, never cheap. You will have to put your whole life at stake. It needs courage, but only
a courageous person can be religious.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #3
Chapter title: What is there, is there

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 90 mins
NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.
WHAT IS THERE, IS THERE.
I BECAME A KING
Query:-
IN MY DREAM
AND MY SUBJECTS
OCCUPIED THE ENTIRE EARTH.
I SAT ON THE THRONE RULING LIKE A LION,
LIVING A HAPPY LIFE.
THE WORLD OBEYED ME.
AS I TURNED IN MY BED
ALL WAS CLEAR:
I WAS NOT A LION
BUT A LION'S UNCLE,
A JACKASS,
THE VILLAGE IDIOT....

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ASSERTIONS EVER MADE. It is so: the reality
remains in its suchness. Nothing changes, nothing can change. But we see many changes happening all
around. For us, everything is changing. Life is a flux.
Then something is wrong with us. Then the change appears not because it is there, but because we
cannot see the eternal. Our inability to see the real, the eternal, creates a flux-like phenomenon all around
us. It is our flickering consciousness.
Have you watched sometimes in a dark room? -- a small candle burns, and it goes on flickering. Because
of its flickering the whole room seems to be moving, waving, changing. If the flame is constant, the room
stops changing -- it becomes constant. Our consciousness creates the mirage, the illusion, the dream-like
world that surrounds us. This has to be understood very deeply, because this is the very base of all essential
religions.
It is true as far as ordinary understanding goes: everything seems to be changing, nothing seems to be
permanent. Nothing seems to be the same even for two moments, two consecutive moments. Nothing seems
to be the same, everything goes on like a river. To think of anything permanent is almost impossible. To
think of anything that has remained the same forever and ever is incomprehensible to the mind. The mind
knows only the world of change. The mind knows only the dream, the illusion. A life lived through the
mind is a life of dreams. That is the meaning of the concept of MAYA. It does not say anything about the
reality, remember: it does not say that the reality is not real, it does not say that the existence is dream. It
simply says that the way you look at it is so unconscious, the way you look at it is so wavering, unstable,
that your inner wavering gives you a world of flux, dreams. Attain to inner integrity, attain to inner
crystallization, and suddenly all flux-like phenomena disappear -- and suddenly you are face to face with the
real, the substantial, the permanent; call it God. The world and God are not two things but the same reality
looked at in two ways. One is through the mind, the other is through no-mind -- because if mind is there,
there is going to remain, more or less, the flickering.
The mind cannot be constant. Have you watched? Even for a few seconds the mind cannot be constant.
Just look at your watch someday, and just remember that you are looking at the watch, and you will not be
able to retain this remembrance that you are looking at the watch even for a few seconds. Your mind will
slip somewhere else: some memory, some imagination, some work that is incomplete, some worry, some
plan; you must go somewhere. Again you will realize and you will see that for a few seconds you have not
been here. Try again; again the mind will go away.
Mind cannot be stable, so all efforts to make mind stable are impossible. That is not in the nature of the
mind. The only way to be stable is to drop the whole mind as such. To look into reality without any
thinking, to look so directly that the medium of the mind is not there; look immediately, then suddenly God
is revealed. Then in all the forms the formless is revealed. Then you see that which the Bauls say: Nothing
has happened, and nothing will happen. What is there, is there; and what is not there, is not there. But the
mind goes on seeing that which is not there, and because of that which is not there, we cannot see that
which is there. Because of the false, because of the projected, because of the dreamed, we cannot see the
Query:-
real, we cannot see the true. When the false is dropped, reality is revealed. There is no other way to seek
reality. One has to drop the very mechanism that creates falseness.
Mind is a projector. You sit in a movie house and you see a thousand and one things passing on the
screen, and the screen is empty; nothing is really passing except shadows. You go on looking at the screen
and there is every possibility that you may not even think of the projector behind you which is projecting all
those shadows, pictures. You can start fighting with those shadows but that is not the way to stop them. The
way is to look back, to turn a one hundred-eighty-degree turn and go and stop the projector. Once the
projector is stopped, the screen is empty. Suddenly there is nothing, or, only the whiteness of the screen is
left. Only the eternal is there and the changing has disappeared. But one has to stop the projector.
There are many people who become interested in meditation, but in a wrong way. They start fighting
with the mind, they start struggling and wrestling with the mind. Then they are not ever going to be
victorious. Then they are fighting a losing battle. It is not possible because they have forgotten the projector.
Where is the projector?. -- one has to find the projector hidden behind your back. Hidden deep in the
unconscious is the projector, hidden in the unconscious: becoming, desiring. It is what Buddhists call
TRISHNA. The constant desire to be somebody, to be someone, to be somewhere else, is the cause of the
mind; then the mind continues.
How to stop the projector? BE HERENOW. Don't try in any way to become somebody else; accept that
which you are. Drop all ideas of improvement. Drop all ideas of bettering yourself. Drop all ideas of
achieving something; there is nothing to be achieved. Empty-handed we come, empty-handed we go, and in
the meanwhile, empty-handed we remain. And if you think your hands are full then you are befooling
yourself. Then you are taking dreams as real. Your hands may be full of dreams.
You must have heard about the Japanese discipline of KARATE. The word 'karate' is very meaningful.
It comes from a root which means empty hand. It says: a man can become a great warrior if he understands
totally the meaning of being empty. If somebody understands that, "Empty-handed I have come,
empty-handed I will go, and empty-handed I am here," then there is nothing to lose. Who can conquer a
person who has nothing to lose? Who can defeat a person who has nothing to lose? Who can frighten a
person who has nothing to lose? By understanding this emptiness he becomes a great warrior. It is
impossible to defeat him, it is impossible to rob him; it is impossible to kill him -- because he is already
empty. He holds nothing in his hands. By not holding anything, he goes beyond life and death.
That is the meaning when Jesus says again and again, "Lose yourself." Those who are not going to lose
themselves, they will lose; and those who are ready to lose, they will gain. The losers will become winners,
and the winners will become losers. Those who are empty will be fulfilled, and those who are trying to
fulfill themselves will remain empty. This is the paradox.
Understand the very motivation of all ideas, thoughts, desires. It is a seed-like thing. Watch inside --
why can't you be herenow? Why is it always that you are thinking of somewhere else? Why can't you be
happy as you are? Why are you thinking that tomorrow you will be happy? How can you be happy
tomorrow if you are not happy today?. -- because tomorrow is going to be born out of the moment. Out of
this moment the next moment is going to be born. Today is going to become the parent of tomorrow. If you
are unhappy today, you will be more unhappy tomorrow. You will have learned, by that time, many more
tricks to be unhappy. You are practicing it, and you hope tomorrow to be happy? Then you are in a hopeless
rut. You desire for tomorrow? -- then you are continuously missing all that is here, and that is the only
reality there is. If you can even for a single moment put aside desiring, then the projector stops, and the
dreaming stops, and you are able to face reality.
Nothing has happened. The reality is as it has always been from the very beginning. Nothing has
happened and nothing will happen, so all your desiring is futile, because you are trying for something to
happen. Your whole effort is to make something happen: riches, wealth, power, prestige. Your whole effort
is for something to happen, but,

This is a tremendously significant sutra. All the scriptures can be condensed in such a sutra. If you can
understand only these three lines, there is no need to understand anything else. Look at your life from your
Query:-
childhood up to now. What has happened? Many things appear to happen, but what has really happened?
You remain the same, the consciousness remains the same, and all that happens is just superficial, like a
dream. If it has not happened up to now, how is it going to happen in the future? Only the present is; past
and future are dreams. Even for a single moment, if you can penetrate into reality and you can see what is,
face to face, you will laugh at the whole absurdity of your efforts. What are you trying? -- you are trying
something impossible: you are fighting against reality. The reality is; it knows no becoming, it is being. It
knows no future; it is already here. It has always been already here. You have just to see it -- and once you
can see it, all worry, all anxiety disappears. Then you stop trying, pulling yourself up by your shoestrings.
Then you simply relax. Then there is no tension. Then rather, you start delighting, you start being blissful as
you are.
Before we can understand it, a few things will be helpful.
One: ordinarily the Eastern psychology divides the human mind into three divisions. The first is deep
sleep, very deep sleep when there are no more dreams: SUSHUPTI, dreamless sleep. In this state,
ninety-nine percent unconsciousness and only one percent consciousness exists. A very small fragment of
consciousness exists -- the whole continent is dark, just one ray. Because of that ray, in the morning you can
say, "I had a very good sleep. It was absolutely silent and peaceful. There was not any dream." Because of
that one ray of consciousness, you can say this in the morning. If there were no consciousness at all, then
who would remember? Then who would say that the sleep was beautiful, nourishing? Just a small ray, a
very small ray exists in dreams.
That is the second stage -- dreaming -- a little more consciousness comes into existence. You remember
in a general way that you slept well. You can even remember dreams, details of the dreams. You can
remember even the colors, the story, the pattern, the motif of the dream. You can relate the whole dream.
You were a little more conscious.
Then you are awake in the morning; that is the third stage: wakefulness, a little more consciousness. But
the greater continent of your soul remains dark. Even while you are awake, you are not totally awake. Just
deep down in your wakefulness, dreams are floating. You can watch that.
Any moment close your eyes, rest for a single minute, and you will see that dreams are floating there. So
just underneath your consciousness, a great world of dreams continues, and that goes on affecting your
consciousness. Dreams are powerful things. They are projections; they go on shadowing your
consciousness. And deep down in your dreams you will find again a sort of sleep. That's what happens when
you fall asleep in the night. When you have fallen asleep, first dreams start. That is the second stage. Then
only rarely do you go deep. Then, dreams stop and you are in deep sleep. Again you start floating towards
the surface, and this goes on continuously, the whole night -- up and down, up and down you move. In the
whole night if you can touch the deep layer of sleep for only fifteen minutes, that will be enough rest. That's
why people who meditate don't need much sleep, because in deep meditation they can easily move into the
depth of their beings. The rest of the night is wasted in dreaming. These three states are the ordinary states.
The East says, "Unless you attain to a greater awareness, your life will never know what the reality is,
what God is." That greater awareness means becoming totally aware, not leaving a single corner of your
consciousness dark, dropping all unconsciousness. What the Freudians call the unconscious disappears by
and by. By methods of meditation, prayer, love, it disappears; more and more, you become conscious. One
moment comes when your whole being becomes conscious, full of light, luminous. Then there is no
dreaming and no sleep. Just awareness is the stuff you are made of. In that moment you will become able to
know what this Baul is singing:
NOTHING HAS HAPPENED AND

NOTHING WILL HAPPEN.
And if you understand this, even a glimpse of it, then how can you remain in an agonized existence, how
can you worry, and how can you remain tense and feeding illnesses?
Henry Thoreau used to say that what man thinks is wealth -- when man thinks that he is becoming by
and by wealthy -- is more like 'illth' than wealth. We become more and more ill. Well-being does not happen
through it, so why call it wealth? Man thinks he is becoming more and more powerful, and deep down,
more and more impotence happens. On the outside you think you are achieving many things, but deep down
Query:-
you remain empty, hollow. The sooner you realize this hollowness the better because then you will not
waste your time and energy. Then your whole life will be of a totally different quality: the search will begin.
Then you will not be chasing dreams.
And dreams look very real. They are not, but they look very real. To an unconscious mind, dreams look
as if they are the only reality. Have you not watched that deep in sleep, dreaming, every night again you
become a victim? You again start thinking that this is real. In the morning you realize it was false, just a
dream, but in the night, again and again you are a victim and you start thinking it is real.
Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, "Unless you realize in your dreams that they are dreams, you will
not be able to awake." So he used to give them techniques of how to realize while dreaming that it is a
dream, how to recognize that it is a dream. But the moment you recognize a dream as a dream, it stops. It
immediately stops. It cannot be there then. With your recognition of the dream as dream, the dream dies. It
exists only through your cooperation and recognition; you give it reality. Pull your hands away and it drops
flat, and it has nothing in it. The dream has power only because you impart power to it.
Watch people on the street, in the marketplace. Just stand by the side and just look at people -- you will
be surprised. It is so obvious that they are sleepwalkers. They are walking like somnambulists. Somehow,
they are managing, but they are walking fast asleep. You can watch their lips moving as if they are talking
with somebody, and there is nobody. They can even be found making gestures to somebody who is not
present. Watch their faces; their faces have not the aura of awareness -- a dullness, a dark shadow, as if
somehow they are forcing themselves to be aware, ready to fall any moment into dreaming, into sleep.
Drunk with their dreams, people go on moving.
First watch others, because it will be easy for you to watch others. Then start watching yourself. Then
start catching yourself red-handed. Then sometimes, just walking on the road, suddenly stop and see
whether you are here or you are moving somewhere in a dream.
The more you become alert about your dreams, the more you will see gaps arising in your consciousness
when dreams are not there and reality can be approached. But we have great investments in our dreams. We
may be afraid of nightmares, but we are not yet fed-up with dreaming. We still go on cherishing sweet
dreams.
I have heard....
A man was talking to one of his friends. "I had a dream the other night," said Casey to his pal McGinn,
"and it taught me a great lesson."
"What was it?" asked McGinn.
"I dreamed I was in Rome and I had an audience with the Pope. Would I have a drink, he asked me. Thinks
I, 'Would a duck swim?' And seein' the whisky and lemons and sugar on the sideboard, I told him that I
wouldn't mind a drop of punch.'Cold or hot?' he asked me. 'Hot, your Holiness,' said I, an' that's where I
made me mistake!"
"I don't see anything wrong," said the friend.
"His Holiness stepped toward the kitchen to boil the water, and before he got back I woke up."
"What lesson did you learn?" asked McGinn.
"Next time," swore Casey, "I will say, 'I will take it cold, your Holiness, while the water is getting hot.'"
We have investments in our dreams. They don't exist without our help; we make them exist. Sweet
dreams, golden dreams; we have a romance with them, a very long romance of many lives. We go on
courting dreams, and of course when we court them they are there, and they bring nothing but frustration.
Because they are against reality, they can never bring fulfillment. There is no way to make two plus two
equal five; there is no way. Whatsoever you do, two plus two will always be four, and you go on hoping that
someday it is going to be five. Then you are simply in a mathematical error. Dreams can never be real; your
thoughts can never be real; your hopes can never be realized; your desires can never be fulfilled. The only
outcome can be more and more frustration.
That's why children look so beautiful: because they are yet full of hope, full of dreams, and they have
not yet known frustration. Old people start looking very very dead. Hopes have leaked out, by and by, and
only frustration -- a very bad taste on the tongue. Experience makes people bitter. Experience makes people
lose their innocence, lose their hope, lose their trust. But it is not experience really -- because they wanted to
make their dreams real, that's why. Otherwise you could remain as innocent to the very end of your life as in
the beginning -- in fact, even more -- because the innocence that happens in childhood is just natural. It has
not been tested against fire; it is very fragile. It has no crystallization in it. It is just a gift; it has not been
earned. But when an old man is childlike, innocent, then nothing can destroy it. Then it has a solidity to it,
Query:-
then it is substantial; he has earned it.

But how does one earn innocence? -- by learning from frustration, by going deep into frustrations and
realizing the fact that each frustration is an outcome of a certain dream. If you don't want frustrations, drop
dreaming. Life is not frustrating, dreaming is frustrating.
I have heard Mulla Nasrudin say to his son, "It is none of your business to know or enquire how I first
met your mother, but I can tell you one thing: it sure cured me of whistling."
If your life can cure you of whistling and dreaming, it will be enough, more than enough, more than life
can give to you. It will be a great realization.
But what happens? The moment one dream is frustrated, we immediately replace it, substitute it with
another dream, maybe an even bigger dream. We never look into the reality. We go on saying that man
proposes and God disposes. God has never disposed anything. It is you, in your very dream, who both
proposes and disposes. It is your own proposal that carries the seeds of disposal, because it is not in tune
with reality. It is your expectation that carries the seeds of frustration.
God, or call it reality, has never frustrated anybody. It is always showering on you; it is always ready to
fulfill you to the deepest core of your being. But you won't listen to reality. You are too much with dreams.
This is what I call religious conversion: listening to reality and dropping the dreams is religious
conversion. It will be difficult, hard, arduous in the beginning, because the dreams persuade you so easily,
and they show you such wonderful visions, fantasies. Dreams are great poets: they paint, they poetize, they
fantasize; they create such beautiful hopes in you, paradises, heavens. They are all dreams. But you can live
hoping, and today's misery can be tolerated because of tomorrow's dream.
It is very difficult to drop tomorrow's dream because then suddenly you become aware of the misery that
is here today. But remember, that misery is created by yesterday's dream. It has nothing to do with today.
Yesterday's dream has created misery today; tomorrow's dream will create misery again. So when you drop
tomorrow's dream, you will not suddenly become happy, because yesterday's dream will still linger on. You
have sown the seeds -- who is going to reap the crop? But half is done when you drop tomorrow's dream.
Yesterday's dream, its frustration, has to be passed through. That's what in India we call TAPAS, austerity.
"Yesterday's dream was my dream. I have sown it, so I have to go through the suffering. I have to pass
through the frustration. I accept it; it is my own doing. Nobody else is responsible, but now I am not going
to sow any more seeds."
First, drop tomorrow's dream, then by and by yesterday's dream and its hang-ups and hangovers
disappear. Then a man becomes aware. When your eyes are not full of dreams, your eyes are full of
awareness.
It happened: MacGonigal was staggering up the street from telephone pole to lamp-post and back again.
Father Daly stopped him and said, "Drunk again?"
"Are you?" said MacGonigal. "So am I, Father."
"This is no time for levity," admonished the priest. "After taking the pledge and promising me two weeks
ago that you would never drink again! It is a sin against God and the church, and I am sorry to be saying
so."
"You are sorry to see me so?"
"Indeed I am!"
"Are you sure you are sorry?"
"Yes, very, very sorry."
"Then if you are so sorry," said the drunkard, "I will forgive you Father."
Drunk, in our dreams, we go on interpreting in our own ways. We go on seeing things which are not.
We go on listening to things which have not been said. We go on pretending what we are not, and we go on
holding a dream-world around ourselves.
The befuddled group was hanging around a bar, when the door opened and a voice shouted, "McGuire,
your house is on fire!"
One fellow rushed out, and after running a block at breakneck speed, suddenly skidded to a halt.
"Hell," he said to nobody in particular, "my name isn't McGuire."
This is what is happening to everybody: you don't know your name, you don't know your essence, you
don't know who you are, you don't know why you are here, you don't know why you are running so fast.
Where are you going? Why are you in such a hurry? Reality is here. Where are you going? But some
conditioning -- what Hindus call SAMSKAR, from many lives of dreaming, desiring: that has become your
only reality. You go on after it, not knowing why. It has become a habit. You cannot resist it; you are
Query:-
always on the move. The reality is here and you are always on the move, hence there happens no meeting.
Unless that meeting happens, you will never be happy.
Happiness is when you are in tune with reality. Happiness is a harmony between you and the real. So if
you are unhappy, remember, you must be going away from reality. Be aware that you must be somehow not
falling in line with reality. There must be a conflict between you and the real, and of course you cannot win
against the real; there is no way. You have tried all the ways. The whole humanity has tried all the ways
possible, but there is no way to win over reality and against reality.
You have to follow reality, you have to come into a deep accordance with reality, in tune with it. You
have to become a note in the great orchestra that reality is -- not fighting but surrendering, submitting to it,
ready to dissolve into it. That is what Bauls call love: the readiness to dissolve into reality, the readiness to
merge, melt, the readiness to be one with reality. You will be losing something -- your dreams, your
individuality, your ego; you will be losing that separation. You will disappear as a drop of water, but it is
nothing to be worried about, because you will become the ocean. You will not be what you have been up to
now: your ego, confined in a form, in a name. Your fences will disappear. You will not be an island, you
will become part of the continent but you will become the continent.
Nothing is lost by losing yourself; everything is lost by resisting. But we go on misunderstanding
reality. If reality tries to absorb us, it looks like death.
So many times, almost every day, somebody or other comes to me. Meditating deeply, when reality
starts absorbing you, you become frightened because it looks like death. It is like death, but it is not death. It
is the door to life more abundant, to life infinite and eternal. But yes, in a way it is death -- death to the past,
death to you as you are. But then, what are you? Why are you so afraid of dying? You have nothing to lose
-- only a miserable self, only an imprisonment will be burned down, only the structure of misery and agony
will be burned down. You have nothing to lose. Why do you go on clinging to it? But you have become
very familiar with it, and you become afraid. Whenever in deep meditation sometimes, by chance,
coincidence, you come close to reality and the reality starts spreading in you, you become afraid and you
escape.
Your interpretation has to be dropped. You have to learn how to listen to the real -- so when reality
approaches you, welcome it. If God comes towards you, if you cannot move towards Him, at least don't run
away. And He IS coming towards you in millions of ways. He wants to overpower you, to reclaim you. It is
not only that you are seeking Him; He is also seeking you. In fact, your seeking is just pseudo. You talk
about seeking God but you don't really mean it. You would like to find Him by the way. You don't want to
stake anything. You don't want to pay for it. You don't want to earn Him. You would like to get Him free;
that is not the way.
You will have to lose yourself; you will have to lose all. People don't mean it, and when God approaches
them -- and He approaches you; I have seen His hands many times coming close to you -- I have seen you
running away. And again, when you are far away you start seeking Him and you say, "How to find God?"
Now this game has continued for too long, and it has become almost a habit that when He is far away you
seek, when He comes close you escape. This pattern has to be broken.
I have heard....
It was a Sunday morning when the clarinet player who had recently moved next to the small church
started practicing some hot licks that brought the minister over on a run.
"See here," said the minister, "did you ever hear 'keep holy thy sabbath'?"
"No," said the cat, "but if you whistle a few notes, I will do my best."
Our understanding is our understanding; our interpretation is our interpretation. Beware -- when reality
approaches you, don't try to interpret. Just wait, be patient; the reality that is coming closer to you will
reveal itself to you. But before it reveals, if you take some interpretation to your heart, then you are again
closed. You close your doors and then there is no way to know what was really going to happen.
Just the other night a SANNYASIN was crying, weeping: she had become so afraid of Dynamic
Meditation, because she saw one SANNYASIN almost going mad in it. So she became very afraid. The fear
arose in her that if this could happen to one person, this could happen to her also. The very words 'dynamic
meditation', she could not utter, because the moment she would say 'dynamic meditation', she would start
shaking and crying. She could not relate it accurately, what had happened, because the very words 'dynamic
meditation'...She became so much afraid of the very word that she was not able to relate the whole thing,
what had happened. Only in fragments could she say that somebody was becoming almost mad, and not
only that, but the one who was becoming mad just by her side started pulling her hand also. That became
Query:-
very symbolic. This madman was going mad himself, and trying to pull her in also. But a deep fear of
madness is in everybody.
If you are too afraid of madness you cannot be in love, you cannot meditate, you cannot pray, because
all of these dimensions are, in a way, mad dimensions -- you wi]l be going beyond the normal boundary of
humanity. The normal, routine, workaday world, the normal logic, reason, the so-called normal humanity --
you will be going beyond it, you will be transcending it. It will look like madness.
Bauls say,
Mad, mad, we are all mad!

Why is this word
so derogatory then?
Diving deep
into the heart's stream,
you will find that no one is better
than, the one who is mad.
Madness is possible in two ways: either you fall below the normal, or you go above the normal. In both
ways you become mad. If you fall below the normal you are ill; you need psychiatric treatment to be pulled
back to normality. If you go beyond the normal you are not ill. For the first time you are becoming really
healthy, because for the first time you are filled with wholeness. Then don't be afraid. If your madness
brings you more sanity in life, then don't be afraid. And remember, the madness that is below the normal is
always involuntary; that is the symptom: it is involuntary. You cannot do it, it happens; you are pulled into
it. And the madness that is above the normal is voluntary -- you can do it -- and because you can do it, you
remain the master of it. You can stop it at any moment. If you don't want to go further, you can stop it; if
you want to go further, you can go on -- but you remain always in control.
In these meditations here, our whole effort is to give you a taste of the madness that is beyond the
normal, but you remain the master. Any moment you want to come back, you can come back. This is the
indication that you don't need any psychiatric help. This is totally different from ordinary madness: you are
going on your own. And remember, if you go on your own, you will never be neurotic because you will
release all possibilities of madness. You will not go on accumulating them. Ordinarily, we go on repressing.
The SANNYASIN who was so afraid had repressed much madness in herself. Now she was afraid to do
meditation. That can create trouble someday. One day, the cup can be too full and overflowing; then she
will not be able to control it. Right now is the moment to allow it, to move into catharsis, to throw it out, to
act it out, so you are cleaned of it and your system is cleaned of it. But then you interpret, and fear arises.
Whenever God approaches you, you will see that you are going mad. You will vibrate into a new
rhythm; your whole body will be full of shivering, shaking; you will feel a new energy pouring into you,
and the energy is so tremendous that your capacity is not that much. By and by, your capacity will grow. By
and by, you will be able to absorb it. By and by, the shaking and trembling will disappear. By and by, you
will become perfectly silent -- but it takes time.
The Bauls say,
That enchanting river

reflects the very form
of the formless one.
Sense the essence
of matter....
You see only a little bit of life and remain involved in it in drunken stupor. You are satisfied with very,
very little, with a very small fragment. While you could have been a king, you are content with being a
Query:-
beggar. You are born to be a king, but you have become habituated to being a beggar -- and you think this is
your vocation, to be a beggar. In sleep, we are dreaming something which we are not.
Today's poem says,

I BECAME A KING
IN MY DREAM
AND MY SUBJECTS
I SAT ON A THRONE
RULING LIKE A LION,
ALL WAS CLEAR:
I WAS NOT A LION,
BUT A LION'S UNCLE,
A JACKASS,
Turn in your sleep and you will see; immediately the dream changes. That is what I call SANNYAS --
turning in your sleep. Take a turn, and you will see the dream changes. Just a small turn from this side to
that, and you can never catch hold of the same dream again -- because dreams are not real. You cannot
re-continue a broken dream. Once broken, it is broken forever. It is...there is no way to catch hold of it. You
cannot re-connect yourself with the dream. And in dreams we are many things.
Chuang Tzu says, "In dream, I saw myself becoming a butterfly. In the morning I was very worried
because a great problem arose: if I can become a butterfly in the dream, if Chuang Tzu can become a
butterfly in the dream, then the reverse is also possible. Now the butterfly may be dreaming, and dreaming
that she has become a Chuang Tzu. If Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly, why can't a butterfly become a
Chuang Tzu?"
So Chuang Tzu gathered together his disciples and asked, "Please tell me, who am I -- the butterfly
dreaming?"
In fact, he was giving a koan to his disciples. I know that he had never dreamt. Men like Chuang Tzu
don't dream. When dreaming stops, then a man becomes like Chuang Tzu. He was giving a koan, and a very
beautiful koan, a great puzzle to be solved and meditated over. Those who meditate over it will find: you are
neither Chuang Tzu, nor a butterfly; both are dreams. You are neither the lion nor the lion's uncle; both are
dreams. You are the one who recognizes the dream; you are the witness.
Only the witness is the real.
In the day, you are awake, doing a thousand and one things. In the night, you fall asleep and you forget
all about the day: your wife, your husband, your children -- so close to you -- even they are no more there.
You forget all about the world. You enter into a totally different dimension. You forget your degrees, your
riches, your bank balance; you forget everything, even your name. Another world opens. You take another
name, another identity, another wife, other children, another profession. In the morning again you are back
in the old dream, and this goes on. If a person lives ninety years, he will dream for thirty years. It is not a
small time. One-third of the time you are dreaming, in sleep. Thirty years out of ninety years is as big as
your so-called world. The world is also a dream, maybe a common dream -- we dream together; and in the
night the dream is private -- you dream alone, but it makes no difference: private or common, a dream is a
dream.
But what is the definition of a dream then? How to define dream, how to make it distinct, and how to
distinguish it from reality? The Eastern definition is: if in your mind there is any thought, then it is dream. If
Query:-
the mind is thoughtless, then whatsoever is, is real -- because the thought process creates the flux-like life. It
gives an appearance to the permanent, as if it is momentary.
The Bauls say,
A man unknown to me, and I,

we both live together,
but with a gap
of millions of miles
between us.
That is what they call the essential man.

You are two: one is the essential man at the center, and one is the acquired man at the periphery. And these
two exist far apart, and you have become too identified with the periphery. How to fall back to the center, to
the essential man, the ADHAR MANUSH? Witnessing is the way. Do whatsoever you are doing but remain
a witness. Watch it, observe it, continue to remember yourself. Walking on the road, remember that there is
a point inside you which is not walking, which has never walked, which cannot walk with you. It has no
legs to walk. That point is your center. Through that center you will come to know the reality, the reality
that Bauls sing of:
NOTHING HAS HAPPENED,

Once you touch your source of permanence, your eternity, you have touched the eternity of life also.
Parallel to you, things happen. If you are at the center, you are capable of looking into the very center of
life. If you are on the periphery, you are capable of only looking at the periphery of life. The periphery goes
on changing.
Have you seen a bullock-cart moving? The wheel moves, goes on moving, but at the center of the wheel
something remains permanent. On that permanent hub the wheel moves. On that unmoving hub the wheel's
movement exists. Exactly like that, you have a hub -- that hub is unmoving; and you have a wheel-like
personality that goes on moving. You have travelled far, thousands of miles and thousands of lives, and the
wheel knows many roads and many paths, but the hub has remained where it is. Now you can look at reality
in two ways: either from the wheel -- then everything is changing every moment; or from the hub -- then
nothing is changing.
"Nothing has happened and nothing will happen. What is there, is there."
How to find this hub of life? -- by becoming a witness, one finds it. Eating, eat -- but remember that
there is a point inside you which has never eaten. Food goes into the body; your consciousness remains
watching. Somebody insults you, anger arises; you remain a witness. The insult comes from outside, the
anger arises on the periphery, and you remain at the center, watching. Yes, somebody has done something,
provoked your periphery, and there is anger on the periphery, and the anger is surrounding you like a smoke
cloud, but you are at the hub, watching. You are not identified with the periphery. Then the insult is outside,
and the anger is also outside of you. Both are separate and far away. Both are different from you.
When this awareness grows, dreaming stops, by and by. When this awareness grows, the wheel moves
slower and slower, because there is no point. You never move, so what is the point of travelling the whole
earth? You remain the same; then desires slow down. One day it happens: the wheel is as silent, as
unmoving as the hub. That is the point when enlightenment happens.
The Bauls say,
Scanning the cosmos

Query:-
you waste your hours.

He is present
in this little vessel.
In this little body
He has made His abode.
He is here
in this little vessel;
in you.
He is there,
the God of Gods,
the King of Kings,
the Beloved.
Scanning the cosmos you waste your hours. Moving from this point to that you are unnecessarily
troubling yourself, creating misery. Look, see into your being; penetrate into the hub. And the Bauls say this
is possible only if you become very humble.
That's why they say,
I BECAME A KING
IN MY DREAM,
AND MY SUBJECTS
The dream is always egoistic; the ego is the dream.
I BECAME A KING
IN MY DREAM
AND MY SUBJECTS
I SAT ON THE THRONE
RULING LIKE A LION,
This is what ego is....
ALL WAS CLEAR:
I WAS NOT A LION
BUT A LION'S UNCLE,
A JACKASS,
When one understands, one becomes humble. Then one says, "I am just an idiot, a jackass.'' One laughs
at one's own ridiculousness.
The Bauls sing,
The act of finding

is not for the highest.
By being humble
Query:-
you can reach life's goal.

Clouds pour down
on the hollow of the earth,
but the lowest of the wells
guards the water
as a blessing.
Become humble. If you start becoming humble, dreams will start disappearing because dreams are
possible only with the ego. The ego is the dreamer, the creator of the dreams, the projector. That's why all
the religions insist on humbleness. Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, "Be poor in spirit...blessed are the
poor, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Nobody has ever seen the poor inheriting the
earth. Nobody has ever seen the meek inheriting the earth. Then why does Jesus go on repeating it? He
himself was crucified; even he was not able to inherit the earth. But he is talking about some other earth,
about some other reality -- a separate reality. He is not talking about this earth. This earth is the battlefield
of the egos, great competition of the egos: struggle, fight, war. But when he says, "Blessed are the meek,
blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth," he means, they shall inherit the real. People who are in
their egos may inherit kingdoms in dreams, but their kingdoms are futile because they are just their own
dreams, nothing else.
The act of finding

is not for the highest.
By being humble
you can reach life's goal.
Clouds pour down
on the hollow of the earth,
but the lowest of the wells
guards the water
as a blessing.
I have heard a story: Willy Jones dreamed that he had died. After the funeral, he found himself in a
gigantic room, lavishly furnished. He rested on an overstuffed couch for a while, but after an hour or so he
began to get bored. "Is there anybody here?" he shouted. In a minute, a white robed attendant appeared.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"What can I have?" Willy asked.
The attendant shrugged, "Anything you want." Willy asked for something to eat.
"What do you want to eat?" the attendant asked. "You can have anything you want." And so they brought
him just what he wanted, and he went on eating and sleeping and having a fine time.
He began to feel bored after a while, and finally he shouted for the attendant and insisted, "I want
something to do!"
"I'm sorry," the attendant told him, "but that is the one thing that we can't provide."
Willy looked around him. "I am sick and tired of it," he said. "I would rather go to hell."
"Well," said the attendant, "where do you think you are?"
The hell is a place where you cannot do anything, because doing is possible only in reality. Dreaming is
possible in hell, doing is not possible. If you are living in your dreaming, you are living in a hell. You may
dream a thousand and one things, but you cannot DO anything.
Watch...you want to be happy, but why can't you be happy? Suddenly, you are impotent. You want to be
happy, you dream about it, but who is preventing you? Be happy? -- then suddenly you feel impotent. You
want peace, silence; you desire your dream. But who is preventing you? -- just be silent; then suddenly you
feel powerless. Doing is possible only when you are in contact with reality. Dreaming is possible on your
own; you can go on dreaming.
So let this be your criterion: if you really want to be happy, then find out a way to be in contact with
reality, and you will be happy. Just go on dreaming and don't try to find a way to reality -- then you will be
Query:-
dreaming, and you will become more and more unhappy, because again and again you will find that
happiness is not happening.
Doing is a function of the real; dreaming is the function of the unreal.
The Bauls say,
You must be single-minded

to visit the court
of my beloved.
If your mind is torn in two,

you will swim in a quandary
and never reach the shore.
The dreamer's mind is divided in two: in witnessing and dreaming. Then you are not one; you are split.
While you are simply witnessing you are one. There is no duality in you. You are -- that's all. So try to
become one, single-minded. Whatsoever you are doing, try to become one. To say that you are dual is not
true -- you are many, you are a crowd. It is not only that you are two, you are many. Bring these fragments
together. Any one thing, continuously followed, will help you to crystallize.
For example: meditators try to meditate continuously. They do a thousand and one things, other things,
but one thing continues as a current, as a thread running underground. They eat, but they make a meditation
out of eating. They walk, but they make a meditation out of walking. They talk, but they make a meditation
out of talking. They listen, but they listen meditatively. They do many things, but they connect everything
with meditation. That becomes their one-mindedness.
Lovers, the followers of the path of love, Bauls, make love their undercurrent. They eat, but they eat
with love. The walk, but they walk with love -- because the earth is holy ground. They sit under a tree; they
sit with love -- because the tree is divine. They look at somebody; they look with love -- because there also
is divinity. Everywhere they see their beloved, in each movement they remember their beloved. It becomes
their constant remembrance.
But whether on the path of meditation or on the path of love, one thing has to be done. Doing a thousand
and one things, you have to connect them with one thing. That connection, that running thread will make
you one-pointed, one-minded. It will give you integration. In that integration, dreams dissolve. It is the
crowd within you which dreams, it is the split that dreams. When the split is bridged, dreams disappear --
because then you start enjoying being here and now so tremendously that who bothers to desire? Who has
time to think about the tomorrow? Today is more than enough. A single moment of undivided being is so
big, bigger than eternity.
Then nobody thinks about the past -- the gone is gone; and nobody thinks about the future -- that which
has not come yet, has not come yet. One simply goes deeper and deeper into the present, and that is the door
of God.
The present is the door, and your single-mindedness is the key.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #4
Chapter title: The only criterion is your thirst

Query:-
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 98 mins
The first question:
HOW TO START THE JOURNEY? WHAT DOES IT EXACTLY MEAN TO TRANSCEND SEX?
THE JOURNEY HAS ALREADY STARTED; you are in the journey. This has to be recognized.
Unconsciously, you are inthe journey: that's why it feels as if you have to start it. Recognize it, become
conscious about it; the very recognition becomes the beginning. The moment you recognize that you are
always moving going somewhere-knowingly, unknowingly, willingly, unwillingly-but you are going...some
great force is constantly working within you: God is evolving. He is constantly creating something within
you, so it is not how to start it. The right question will be, how to recognize it. It is there, but recognition is
not there.
For example, trees die, but they don't know; birds and animals die, but they don't know. Only man
knows that he has to die. That knowledge is also very cloudy, not clear -- and the same is so with life. The
birds are alive, but they don't know that they are alive -- because how can you know life if you don't know
death? How can you know that you are alive if you don't know that you are going to die? Both recognitions
come together. They are alive, but they don't recognize that they are alive. Man recognizes, a little, that he is
going to die, but that recognition remains very cloudy, hidden in deep smoke. And the same is true about
life: you are alive, but you don't know exactly what being alive means. That too is cloudy, not clear. When I
say recognition, I mean becoming alert to what this life energy is, that is already on the way. To become
aware of one's own being is the beginning of the journey. To come to a point where you are so absolutely
alert that not even a fragment of darkness exists around you is the end of the journey. But in fact, the
journey never starts and never ends. You will continue even after that, but then the journey will have a
totally different meaning, a totally different quality to it -- it will be sheer delight. Right now it is near
misery.
"How to start the journey?" -- become more alert about your actions, about your relationships, about your
movements. Whatsoever you do -- even an ordinary thing like walking on the street -- try to become alert,
try to take steps with full awareness. Buddha used to say to his disciples, "When you take a step with the
right foot, remember, now this is the right foot; when you take a step with the left, remember, now this is the
left. When you breathe in, remember, "Now I am breathing in"; when you breathe out, remember, "Now I
am breathing out." Not that you have to verbalize it. Not that you have to say in words "I am breathing in",
but just becoming alert that now the breath is going in. I am saying it to you so I have to use words, but
when you are becoming alert you need not use words because words are like smoke. Don't use words -- just
feel the breath going in and filling your lungs then being emptied. Just watch, and soon you will come to a
recognition, a great recognition. that it is not simply breathing that goes in and out, it is life itself. Each
breath in is life infusing its energy into you. Each breath out is a short death. With each breath, you die and
you are reborn. Each breath is a crucifixion and a resurrection.
And when you watch it, you will come to know a beautiful feeling of trust. When you breathe out, there
is no certainty that you wiil ever be able to breathe in again. What is the certainty? Who has guaranteed it?
Who CAN guarantee that you will be able to breathe in again? But somehow, a deep trust; you know that "I
will breathe again". Otherwise breathing would become impossible. If you become so afraid that, "Who
knows if I let my breath out, and if I go through this small death, what is the certainty that I will be able to
breathe in again? If I can't breathe, then it is better not to breathe out", then you will die immediately. If you
stop breathing out, you will die. But a deep trust exists -- that trust is part of life. Nobody has taught you.
When a child starts walking for the first time, tremendous trust exists in him that he will be able to walk.
Nobody has taught him. He has just seen other people walk, that's all. But how can he come to a conclusion
Query:-
that "I will be able to walk"? He is so tiny. People are so big, giants compared to him, and he knows that
whenever he stands he falls down -- but still he tries. Trust is in-built. It is in your every cell of life. He tries,
many times he will fall; he will try again and again and again. And one day, trust wins over and he starts
walking.
If you watch your breath you will become aware of a deep layer of trust, a subtle trust in life -- no doubt,
no hesitation. If you walk, and walk alert, by and by you will become aware that you are not walking, you
are 'being walked by'. That's a very subtle feeling: that life is moving through you, not that you are moving.
When you feel hungry, if you are aware you will see life is feeling hungry within you, not you.
Becoming more alert will make you conscious of the fact that there is only one thing you have got that
you can call yours and that is witnessing. Everything else belongs to the universe; only witnessing belongs
to you. But when you become aware of witnessing, even the idea of being I is dissolved. That too does not
belong to you. That was part of darkness, part of the clouds that had gathered around you. In the clear light,
when the sky is open and the clouds have disappeared and the sun is bright, there is no possibility of any
idea of being I. Then simply witnessing is; nothing belongs to you. That witnessing is the goal of the
journey.
How to start the journey? -- start becoming more and more a witness. Whatsoever you do, do it with
deep alertness; then even small things become sacred. Then cooking or cleaning become sacred; they
become worship. It is not a question of what you are doing, the question is how you are doing it. You can
clean the floor like a robot, a mechanical thing; you have to clean it, so you clean it. Then you miss
something beautiful. Then you waste those moments in only cleaning the floor. Cleaning the floor could
have been a great experience; you missed it. The floor is cleaned but something that could have happened
within you has not happened. If you were aware, not only the floor but YOU would have felt a deep
cleansing. Clean the floor full of awareness, luminous with awareness. Work or sit or walk, but one thing
has to be a continuous thread: make more and more moments of your life luminous with awareness. Let the
candle of awareness burn in each moment, in each act. The cumulative effect is what enlightenment is. The
cumulative effect, all the moments together, all small candles together, become a great source of light.
And the second part of the question is: "WHAT DOES IT EXACTLY MEAN TO TRANSCEND
SEX?"
Sex is a subtle subject, delicate, because centuries of exploitation, corruption, centuries of perverted
ideas, conditioning, are associated with the word 'sex'. The word is very loaded. It is one of the most loaded
words in existence. You say 'God'; it seems empty. You say 'sex'; it seems too loaded. A thousand and one
things arise in the mind: fear, perversion, attraction, a tremendous desire, and a tremendous anti-desire also.
They all arise together. Sex -- the very word creates confusion, a chaos. It is as if somebody has thrown a
rock in a silent pool; millions of ripples arise -- just the word 'sex'! Humanity has lived under very wrong
ideas.
So the first thing: why do you ask how to transcend sex? Why do you want in the first place to transcend
sex? You are using a beautiful word, 'transcend', but out of a hundred, ninety-nine are the possibilities that
you mean, 'How to repress sex?'
A person who has understood that sex has to be transcended is not even worried about transcending it,
because transcendence comes through experience. You cannot manage it. It is not something that you have
to do. You simply pass through many experiences, and those experiences make you more and more mature.
Have you watched that at a certain age, sex becomes important? Not that you make it important. It is not
something that you make happen; it happens. At the age of fourteen, somewhere near there, suddenly the
energy is flooded with sex. It happens as if the flood-gates have been opened in you. Subtle sources of
energy which were not yet open have become open, and your whole energy becomes sexual, colored with
sex. You think sex, you sing sex, you walk sex -- everything becomes sexual. Every act is colored. This
happens; you have not done anything about it. It is natural; transcendence is also natural. If sex is lived
totally, with no condemnation, with no idea of getting rid of it, then at the age of forty-two -- just as at the
age of fourteen sex gets opened and the whole energy becomes sexual, at the age of forty-two or near about
-- those flood-gates close again. And that too is as natural as sex becoming alive; it starts disappearing.
Sex is transcended not by any effort on your part. If you make any effort that will be repressive, because
it has nothing to do with you. It is in-built in your body, in your biology. You are born as sexual beings;
nothing is wrong in it. That is the only way to be born. To be human is to be sexual. When you were
conceived, your mother and your father were not praying, they were not listening to a priest's sermon. They
were not in the church, they were making love. Even to think that your mother and father were making love
Query:-
when you were conceived seems to be difficult. They were making love; their sexual energies were meeting
and merging into each other. Then you were conceived; in a deep sexual act you were conceived. The first
cell was a sex cell, and then out of that cell other cells have arisen. But each cell remains sexual, basically.
Your whole body is sexual, made of sex cells. Now they are millions.
Remember it: you exist as a sexual being. Once you accept it, the conflict that has been created down
through the centuries dissolves. Once you accept it deeply, with no ideas in between, when sex is thought of
as simply natural, you live it. You don't ask me how to transcend eating, you don't ask me how to transcend
breathing -- because no religion has taught you to transcend breathing, that's why. Otherwise, you would be
asking, "How to transcend breathing?" You breathe! You are a breathing animal; you are a sexual animal
also. But there is a difference. Fourteen years of your life, in the beginning, are almost non-sexual, or at the
most, just rudimentary sexual play which is not really sexual -- just preparing, rehearsing, that's all. At the
age of fourteen, suddenly the energy is ripe.
Watch...a child is born -- immediately, within three seconds the child has to breathe, otherwise he will
die. Then breathing is to remain the whole of his life, because it has come at the first step of life. It cannot
be transcended. Maybe before you die then, just three seconds before, it will stop, but not before it. Always
remember: both ends of life, the beginning and end, are exactly similar, symmetrical. The child is born, he
starts breathing in three seconds. When the child is old and dying, the moment he stops breathing, within
three seconds he will be dead.
Sex enters at a very late stage: for fourteen years the child has lived without sex. And if the society is
not too repressed and hence obsessed with sex, a child can live completely oblivious to the fact that sex, or
that anything like sex, exists. The child can remain absolutely innocent. That innocence is also not possible,
because people are so repressed. When repression happens, then side by side, obsession also happens.
So priests go on repressing; and there are anti-priests, Hefners and others -- they go on creating more
and more pornography. So on one side there are priests who go on repressing, and then there are others,
anti-priests, who go on making sexuality more and more glamorous. They both exist together -- aspects of
the same coin. When churches disappear, only then Playboy magazines will disappear, not before it. They
are partners in the business. They look enemies, but don't be deceived by that. They talk against each other,
but that's how things work.
I have heard about two men who were out of business, had gone broke, so they decided for a business, a
very simple business. They started journeying, touring from one town to another town. First one would
enter, and in the night he would throw coal tar on people's windows and doors. After two or three days the
other would come to clean. He would advise that he could clean any coal tar, or anything that had gone
wrong, and he would clean the windows. In that time the other would be doing half of the business in
another town. This way, they started earning much money. This is what is happening between the church
and Hugh Hefners and people who are continuously creating pornography.
I have heard....
Pretty Miss Keneen sat in the confessional. "Father," she said, "I want to confess that I let my boyfriend
kiss me."
"Is that all you did?" asked the priest, very interested.
"Well, no. I let him put his hand on my leg too."
"And then what?"
"And then I let him pull down my panties."
"And then, and then...?"
"And then me mother walked into the room."
"Oh shit," sighed the priest.
It is together; they are partners in a conspiracy. Whenever you are too repressed, you start finding a
perverse interest. A perverted interest is the problem, not sex. Now this priest is neurotic. Sex is not the
problem, but this man is in trouble.
Sisters Margaret Alice and Francis Catherine were out walking along a side-street. Suddenly they were
grabbed by two men, dragged into a dark alley, and raped. "Father, forgive them," said Sister Margaret
Alice, "for they know not what they do."
"Shut up!" cried Sister Catherine," this one does."
This is bound to be so. So never carry a single idea against sex in your mind, otherwise you will never
be able to transcend it. People who transcend sex are people who accept it very naturally. It is difficult, I
know, because you are born in a society which is neurotic about sex. Either this way or that, but it is
Query:-
neurotic all the same. It is very difficult to get out of this neurosis, but if you are a little alert, you can get
out of it. So the real thing is not how to transcend sex, but how to transcend this perverted ideology of the
society: this fear of sex, this repression of sex, this obsession with sex.
Sex is beautiful. Sex in itself is a natural rhythmic phenomenon. It happens when the child is ready to be
conceived, and it is good that it happens -- otherwise life would not exist. Life exists through sex; sex is its
medium. If you understand life, if you love life, you will know sex is sacred, holy. Then you live it, then
you delight in it; and as naturally as it has come it goes, on its own accord. By the age of forty-two, or
somewhere near there, sex starts disappearing as naturally as it had come into being. But it doesn't happen
that way.
You will be surprised when I say near about forty two. You know people who are seventy, eighty, and
yet they have not gone beyond. You know 'dirty old people'. They are victims of the society. Because they
could not be natural, it is a hangover -- because they repressed when they should have enjoyed and
delighted. In those moments of delight they were not totally in it. They were not orgasmic, they were
half-hearted.
So whenever you are half-hearted in anything, it lingers longer. If you are sitting at your table and
eating, and if you eat only half-heartedly and your hunger remains, then you will continue to think about
food the whole day. You can try fasting and you will see: you will continuously think about food. But if you
have eaten well -- and when I say eaten well, I don't mean only that you have stuffed your stomach. Then it
is not necessarily so that you have eaten well. You could have stuffed yourself, but eating well is an art. It is
not just stuffing. It is great art: to taste the food, to smell the food, to touch the food, to chew the food, to
digest the food, and to digest it as divine. It is divine; it is God's gift.
Hindus say, ANAM BRAHMA: food is divine. So with deep respect you eat, and while eating you
forget everything, because it is prayer. It is existential prayer. You are eating God, and God is going to give
you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude. And you don't stuff the body,
because stuffing the body is being anti-body. It is the other pole. There are people who are obsessed with
fasting, and there are people who are obsessed with stuffing themselves. Both are wrong because in both the
ways the body loses balance.
A real lover of the body eats only to the point where body feels perfectly quiet, balanced, tranquil;
where body feels to be neither leaning to the left nor to the right, but just in the middle. It is an art to
understand the language of the body, to understand the language of your stomach, to understand what is
needed, to give only that which is needed, and to give that in an artistic way, in an aesthetic way.
Animals eat, man eats. Then what is the difference? Man makes a great aesthetic experience out of
eating. What is the point of having a beautiful dining table? What is the point of having candles burning
there? What is the point of incense? What is the point of asking friends to come and participate? It is to
make it an art, not just stuffing. But these are outward signs of the art; the inward signs are to understand the
language of your body: to listen to it, to be sensitive to its needs. And then you eat, and then the whole day
you will not remember food at all. Only when the body is hungry again will the remembrance come. Then it
is natural.
With sex the same happens. If you have no anti-attitude about it, you take it as a natural, divine gift,
with great gratitude. You enjoy it; with prayer you enjoy it.
Tantra says that before you make love to a woman or to a man, first pray -- because it is going to be a
divine meeting of energies. God will surround you. Wherever two lovers are, there is God. Wherever two
lovers' energies are meeting and mingling, there is life, alive, at its best; God surrounds you. Churches are
empty; love-chambers are full of God. If you have tasted love the way Tantra says to taste it, if you have
known love the way Tao says to know it, then by the time you reach forty-two, love starts disappearing on
its own accord. And you say goodbye to it with deep gratitude, because you are fulfilled. It has been
delightful, it has been a blessing; you say good-bye to it.
And forty-two is the age for meditation, the right age. Sex disappears; that overflowing energy is no
more there. One becomes more tranquil. Passion has gone, compassion arises. Now there is no more fever;
one is not interested in the other. With sex disappearing, the other is no more the focus. One starts returning
towards one's own source -- the return journey starts.
Sex is transcended not by your effort. It happens if you have lived it totally. So my suggestion is, drop
all anti-attitudes, anti-life attitudes and accept the facticity: sex is, so who are you to drop it? And who is
trying to drop it? -- it is just the ego. Remember, sex creates the greatest problem for the ego.
So there are two types of people: very egoistic people are always against sex; humble people are never
Query:-
against sex. But who listens to humble people? In fact, humble people don't go preaching, only egoists. Why
is there a conflict between sex and ego? -- because sex is something in your life where you cannot be
egoistic, where the other becomes more important than you. Your woman, your man, becomes more
important than you. In every other case, you remain the most important. In a love relationship the other
becomes very, very important, tremendously important. You become a satellite and the other becomes the
nucleus; and the same is happening for the other: you become the nucleus and he becomes a satellite. It is a
reciprocal surrender. Both are surrendering to the God of love, and both become humble.
Sex is the only energy that gives you hints that there is something which you cannot control. Money you
can control, politics you can control, the market you can control, knowledge you can control, science you
can control, morality you can control. Somewhere, sex brings in a totally different world: you cannot
control it. And the ego is the great controller. It is happy if it can control; it is unhappy if it cannot control.
So there starts a conflict between ego and sex. Remember, it is a losing battle. The ego cannot win it
because ego is just superficial. Sex is very deep-rooted. Sex is your life; ego is just your mind, your head.
Sex has roots all over you; ego has roots only in your ideas -- very superficial, just in the head.
So who is trying to transcend sex? -- the head is trying to transcend sex. If you are too much in the head
then you want to transcend sex, because sex brings you down to the guts. It does not allow you to remain
hanging in the head. Everything else you can manage from there; sex you cannot manage from there. You
cannot make love with your heads. You have to come down, you have to descend from your heights, you
have to come closer to earth. Sex is humiliating to the ego, so egoist people are against, always against sex.
They go on finding ways and means to transcend it. They can never transcend it. They can, at the most,
become perverted. Their whole effort from the very beginning is doomed to failure.
I have heard....
A boss was interviewing applicants to replace his private secretary who was resigning because of
expectant motherhood. The boss's right-hand man sat with him as he looked the applicants over. The first
girl was a beautiful buxom blond. She turned out to be intelligent, and had excellent secretarial skills. The
second was a dark-haired beauty who was even more intelligent and proficient than the first. The third one
was cross-eyed, had buck teeth, and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. After interviewing all three
candidates, the boss informed his associate that he was hiring the third applicant.
"But why?" asked the astonished employee.
"Well," boomed the boss, "in the first place, she looks very intelligent to me! In the second place, it is none
of your damned business, and in the third place, she is my wife's sister."
So you may pretend that you have won over sex, but an undercurrent.... You may rationalize, you may
find reasons, you may pretend, you may create a very hard shell around you, but deep down the real reason,
the reality, wi]l stand untouched: "She is my wife's sister" -- that is the real reason. "She looks intelligent";
that is just a rationalization. "And it is none of your damned business"; that too is getting annoyed and
irritated -- because the person is afraid that the other is poking his nose and may find the real cause. But the
real cause will explode; you cannot hide it, it is not possible.
So you can try to control sex, but an undercurrent of sexuality will run and it will show itself in many
ways. Out of all your rationalizations, it will again and again raise its head.
I will not suggest that you make any effort to transcend it. What I suggest is just the contrary: forget
about transcending it. Move into it as deeply as you can. While the energy is there, move as deeply as you
can, love as deeply as you can, and make an art of it. It is not just to be done. That is the whole meaning of
Tantra: making an art of lovemaking. There are subtle nuances which only people who enter with a great
aesthetic sense will be able to know. Otherwise, you can make love for your whole life and still remain
unsatisfied -- because you don't know that satisfaction is something very aesthetic. It is like a subtle music
arising in your soul. If through sex you fall into harmony, if through love you become non-tense and
relaxed, if love is not just throwing energy because you don't know what to do with it, if it is not just a relief
but a relaxation, if you relax into your woman and your woman relaxes into you, if for a few seconds, for a
few moments or a few hours you forget who you are and you are completely lost in oblivion, you will come
out of it purer, more innocent, more virgin. And you will have a different type of being -- at ease, centered,
rooted.
If this happens, one day suddenly you will see that the flood has gone and it has left you very, very rich.
You will not be sorry that it has gone. You will be thankful, because now richer worlds open. When sex
leaves you, the doors of meditation open. When sex leaves you, then you are not trying to lose yourself in
the other. You become capable of losing yourself in yourself.
Query:-
Now another world of orgasm, inner orgasm, of being with oneself, arises. But that arises only through
being with the other; one grows, matures through the other. Then a moment comes when you can be alone,
tremendously happy. There is no need for any other. The need has disappeared but you have learned much
through it -- you have learned much about yourself. The other became the mirror, and you have not broken
the mirror. You have learned so much about yourself. Now there is no need to look into the mirror. You can
close your eyes and you can see your face there. But that face you would not be able to see if there had been
no mirror from the very beginning.
Let your woman be your mirror; let your man be your mirror. Look into her eyes and see your face;
move into her to know yourself. Then one day the mirror will not be needed. But you will not be against the
mirror; you will be so grateful to it -- how can you be against it? You will be so thankful -- how can you be
against it? Then, transcendence.
Transcendence is not repression. Transcendence is a natural outgrowing -- you grow above, you go
beyond -- just as a seed breaks and a sprout starts rising above the ground. When sex disappears, the seed
disappears. In sex, you were able to give birth to somebody else, a child. When sex disappears, the whole
energy starts giving birth to yourself. This is what Hindus have called DWIJA, the twice-born. One birth has
been given to you by your parents, the other birth is waiting. It has to be given to you by yourself. You have
to father and mother yourself. Then your whole energy is turning in -- it becomes an inner circle.
Right now it will be difficult for you to make an inner circle. It will be easier to connect it with another
pole -- a woman or a man -- and then the circle becomes complete. Then you can enjoy the blessings of the
circle. But by and by you will be able to make the inner circle, because inside you also you are man and
woman, woman and man. Nobody is just man and nobody is just woman -- because you come from man and
woman's communion. Both have participated; your mother has given something to you, you father has given
something to you. Fifty-fifty, they have contributed to you. Both are there. There is a possibility that both
can meet inside you. Again your father and mother can love inside you. Then your reality will be born.
Once they met when your body was born; now if they can meet inside you, your soul will be born. That's
what transcendence of sex is: it is a higher sex.
Let me tell you this: when you transcend sex, you reach to a higher sex. Ordinary sex is gross, higher
sex is not gross at all. Ordinary sex is outward-moving, higher sex is inward-moving. In ordinary sex, two
bodies meet, and the meeting happens on the outside. In higher sex, your own inner energies meet. It is not
physical, it is spiritual -- it is Tantra. Tantra is transcendence. If you don't understand this and you go on
fighting with sex....
The question has been asked by Prageeta. I know she is passing through some critical moments in her
mind. She would like to be independent, but it is too early. She would like not to be bothered by anybody
else, but it is too early, and it is too egoistic. Right now transcendence is not possible, repression is possible.
And if you repress now, in your old age you will repent -- because then things become very messed up.
Each thing has its own right time. Each thing has to be done in its moment. While young, don't be afraid of
love. If you are afraid of love while young, in old age you will become obsessed; and then it will be difficult
to move deeply in love, and the mind will be obsessed.
This is my understanding: that people, if they have lived rightly, lovingly, naturally, then by the
forty-second year they start transcending sex. If they have not lived naturally and they have been fighting
with sex, then forty two becomes their most dangerous time -- because by the time they are forty-two their
energies are declining. When you are young you can repress something because you are very energetic.
Look at the irony of the fact: a young man can repress sexuality very easily because he has energy to repress
it. He can just put it down and sit upon it. When the energies are going, declining, then sex will assert itself
and you will not be able to control it.
I have heard an anecdote: Stein, aged sixty-five, visited the office of his son, Dr. Stein, and asked for
something that would increase his sexual potential. The M.D. gave his father a shot, and then refused to
accept a fee. Nevertheless, Stein insisted on giving him ten dollars. A week later Stein was back for another
injection, and this time handed his son twenty dollars.
"But Pop, shots are only ten dollars."
"Take it!" said Stein, "the extra ten is from Momma."
That will continue...so before you become a poppa or a momma, please be finished with it. Don't wait
for old age, because then things go ugly. Then everything goes out of season.

Query:-
IT IS SAID THAT UNLESS ONE IS IN CONTACT WITH ONE WHO IS AWAKENED, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO
COME OUT OF ONE'S IGNORANCE OR DEEP SLEEP. HOW TO FIND OUT THAT ONE IS AWAKENED?
It is a difficult question. Not that it is difficult to find out -- the question is difficult because if you don't
yet have the urge to find out, then there is no way to help you to find. If you have the urge, that very urge
helps. There is no other help needed. Your very urge becomes your path.
How do you find if you are thirsty, in a desert; how will you find water, how will you find an oasis? You
will run hither and thither; you will do all that you can do because thirst will be killing. And your thirst will
decide whether you have come across real water or not, because your thirst will be quenched whenever you
come across real water. If it is a mirage and from far away it looked like water and you ran to it, when you
come face to face with it you will know it is not water.
But the only criterion is your thirst.
How do you know that something is food? -- if you are hungry and it satisfies you, you know. It is very
difficult for a man who has no appetite to find out what food is.
Psychologists have come across a very significant fact: that if small children are left to themselves, they
always choose the right thing to eat. You put everything around, you leave it on the dining table, don't force
anything, and don't say what to eat and what not to eat. It has been a tremendous discovery that children eat
only the right thing in the right time. If a child is suffering from something and a certain thing is needed
which will be helpful for it, he will choose to eat it. By the time that suffering disappears he will stop eating
that. We confuse them. We tell them to eat this and don't eat that. Then by and by, their natural instinct
functions no more.
Have you seen animals eating? They are not dieticians, and they never go to any dietician, but a buffalo
or a cow just chooses the right grass for itself, instinctively. They will leave other grasses; they will eat only
the grass that is right for them. You cannot deceive. Somehow their inner nature, their appetite, decides.
The problem arises: how to find whether someone is enlightened, awakened, or not? If you have an
appetite there will be no problem. If you don't have an appetite then I say the problem is very difficult,
almost impossible to solve. If you have appetite and hunger, then something around an enlightened person
will start fulfilling your desire. Something will start falling in harmony and in line. Your chaos will start
subsiding. You will see a silence arising -- a new being is born. That is the only way. But if you don't have a
real thirst, or if you have been confused by the society, and if you cling to outer symptoms....
For example, a JAINA thinks an enlightened person should be naked. Now if you come across a person
who is not naked, even Buddha or Jesus, the JAINA will not be satisfied. He will say, "He is not an
enlightened person because an enlightened person is always naked." This is foolish. He has no appetite. He
has learned only through scriptures, he has learned only through tradition. Now if you have been a
Christian, brought up as a Christian, and you know only that a Christ is one who is crucified, then what will
you do if you come across Krishna playing on his flute? You will say, "This man looks like a clown. How
can he be an enlightened person? An enlightened person is always on the cross suffering for others, trying to
take everybody's sin on his own head, and this man is singing and dancing." No, with the mind that is too
conditioned by the cross, a flute will not suit. It will be simply impossible to believe that a flute can also be
a symbol of enlightenment. A cross, of course, is.
And the same happens with the follower of Krishna. He knows the flute, singing, dancing. He cannot
believe for what Jesus was on the cross. If you ask him he will say, "He must have done some very wrong
deeds in his past life. Otherwise, how is he crucified? Crucifixion happens only to great sinners. He must
have done something great, a very great sin. That is why he is suffering -- because no Hindu AVATAR has
ever suffered like this. This is not possible."
Hindus have the theory of KARMA; whatsoever happens is your karma: Krishna is playing on the flute
because he has beautiful KARMAS which sing in him, and Jesus must have been a sinner. It is not a
question that others have forced him on the cross. Nobody can force anybody except your KARMAS. It is
not that Judas has betrayed him; it is his own past. Nobody can betray anybody. If your KARMAS are good,
nobody can make you suffer.
Now this is problematic. These people listen only to the scriptures, the tradition, the society they were
born into -- accidental things. They don't have real thirst.
If you have real thirst, you will find that where Krishna is playing on his flute, you will be satisfied. And
Query:-
if you have real thirst, you will find the same satisfaction near Jesus also. Maybe he is on the cross and
Krishna is playing on his flute, but you will find that both are food. Jesus says so many times to his
disciples, "Eat me; make me your food. Drink my blood and eat my body." He is food; that's what he is
saying.
The questioner asked, "It is said that unless one is in contact with one who is awakened, it is impossible
to come out of one's ignorance and deep sleep. How to find out that one is awakened?"
I have heard....
A man walked into the police station to report that his wife was missing. The sergeant began writing up
the case.
"How tall is she?"
"About so high, give or take a little."
"How much does she weigh?"
"About average, I guess."
"Color of eyes?"
"I would say they were neutral. I'm not too sure."
"Color of hair?"
"I don't know, it changes."
"What was she wearing?"
"I suppose a hat and coat."
"Was she carrying anything?"
"Yes, she had a dog on a leash."
"What kind of dog?"
"A pedigreed brindle-and-white German shepherd, weighing forty pounds, six hands high, licence No.
401278976 C.D.7, wearing a brown collar, slightly deaf in the right ear, and answers to the name Rover."
When it was a question of the dog, then the man came alive. When it was a question of his wife: how
tall is she? -- about so high, give or take a little; and how much does she weigh? -- about average, I guess;
and color of eyes? -- I would say they were neutral. I'm not too sure.
Whenever it is your desire, you know. If it is not your desire, then it is difficult. So the person who has
asked the question may be greedy, but he has no desire yet.
And I know the man, and he has been to Sivananda ashram, to the Aurobindo ashram, to Shri Ramana
Maharshi's ashram, to Satya Sai Baba, and to this and that; he has been everywhere. Now I am his last
victim, and he cannot find anything anywhere that is satisfying. He has not asked the basic question: are you
hungry? Just by going to this restaurant and that is not going to help; appetite is needed. The man is greedy
but he has no appetite. The man is very learned but is not very aware. He knows the scriptures, he can repeat
them parrot-like, but he has no understanding. He goes on asking such questions again and again. This is for
the first time that I am answering, because when the appetite is not there it is futile to talk about. It is better
that he should go and live in the world and forget all about religion. Let the appetite come, this life or next.
There is no hurry; God can wait. But let it come. It should be authentic. His appetite is just false. He has
listened to talks about food, or he has listened to advertisements on the television about food, and he has
become greedy. But he never looks inside to see that he has no appetite, so nothing happens.
Once he came to me and he said, "I have been to Shri Aurobindo ashram, I have been to Ramana
ashram, to Sivananda, to Rishikesh, to Arunachal, to here and there, and nothing happens. Now I am here."
I said, "Before you say about me also that nothing happens, let me say to you that nothing will happen --
because I don't see any desire in you. I don't see any flicker, any passionate urge."
He has money so he can go anywhere. He is fed-up with his life, bored with his life, so he goes on
finding, trying to find at least some thrill, some kick somewhere. And he is a very egoistic man, so he
cannot try to find non-spiritual kicks. He tries to find spiritual kicks and nothing happens.
Watch... the basic thing to be remembered is whether you have an appetite. If you don't have, why
bother? It is not for you. Let these people talk about God; it is not for you. You don't go to a musical concert
if you don't have an ear for music, and you don't get bothered about it. You don't go to listen to some
musician, you don't go to see a dancer, you don't go to visit an art gallery to look at paintings if you don't
have any sense, artistic sense; you don't go there.
But this is one of the problems about religion: people who don't have any sense of religiousness, they
also become greedy about religion. And now he is getting old, and death is approaching. Now he wants to
achieve something which he can carry beyond death. He is simply afraid. He has not lived his life -- and
Query:-
unless you have lived your life, you cannot move into religion.
Only one who lives his life truly, one day comes to the point where a new desire for life beyond arises.
See the difference between the two. You can be afraid of death; then your desire will be false. If you have
lived life and loved life, and loved it so much that you would now like to know the unknown life also -- it is
not out of fear of death, it is out of love for life -- then, you will recognize immediately whenever you come
across an enlightened person. It is impossible to miss. You will recognize immediately. This recognition
needs no knowledge. It will simply happen.
How do you recognize when a beautiful woman passes by? Have you any criterion? But if you have
desire, suddenly you recognize that the woman is beautiful. If somebody asks you and tries to force you to
confess to what exactly beauty is, you will be in trouble. You will not be able to define. Nobody has yet
been able to define. Centuries and centuries of philosophers have been working on it, trying to define what
beauty is, and ultimately they decide that it is indefinable. But still you feel beauty. If you talk to a small
child whose desire has not yet ripened, and you say, "This woman is beautiful," he will look at you
surprised, shrug his shoulders, and go on his way -- "Gone mad. All women are alike." For a small child, it
makes no difference. He cannot see why one woman should be thought beautiful and another not.
In fact, he knows only one woman who is beautiful: she is his mother -- and that too, for some other
reasons, not for beauty. She is his nourishment, his life, so she is beautiful. But one day when his desire
arises and his love ripens, he will start looking with different eyes. Then all women are not alike. Then
certainly there are women who are beautiful; then certainly there are men who are tremendously appealing
and magnetic. But one day again, when one becomes very alert, understanding, again all men and women
are alike. Then again beauty or ugliness don't matter. Then again duality is transcended.
When you come across an enlightened man, if you don't have desire, nothing will happen. You will just
shrug your shoulders -- "Why are people so attracted to this man?" You can't see anything; there is nothing.
He is as ordinary as you, or maybe even more ordinary than you. You can't see why people are mad. But if
the desire is there, if the search has started, if you have lived this life rightly and deeply, then you have
earned that desire for another life. Then immediately, when you come across such a one, you will start
feeling.
It is said, a beautiful myth about Mahavir, that people who had desire would become aware of Mahavir
from a very faraway distance, twenty-four miles. The area of twenty four miles around Mahavir was so
filled with his being that people who would come into that area, if they had some desire, would be pulled by
Mahavir, against themselves. They might have been going somewhere else, but they would not be able to
go. They would be pulled. They would have to come; they would find this man in some unknown way. And
he would be sitting under some tree or hiding in a cave, and they would find him. And there were people
who would pass just in front of him and would be thinking that he was mad -- not only mad, but like a
criminal, standing there naked. Either he was a criminal or he was a fool, and they would beat him, they
would throw him out of their town, they would force him to leave their place. And both were people: one
sort of person throws him away, beats him; the other sort of person is pulled. It depends on you.
I have heard one anecdote:
"Well my man, what is on your mind?" the worldly matron asked the marriage broker.
"I have picked out a wife for your son," he announced triumphantly. "She is the Princess Sessusi Wilnanee,
the richest young woman in the world," said the marriage broker.
"The richest woman in the world?" snapped the mother. "Why have I never heard of her?"
"But she is a wonderful girl," insisted the marriage broker. "She is gorgeous, a terrific skin-diver and skier,
and golfs in the low seventies. She is royalty all the way."
"It does not make sense to me, but all right, I will give you my consent. I will let my son marry the
princess."
"Well," sighed the marriage broker, "that's half the battle. "
Half the battle about religion starts with you. If you have the desire, that is half the battle -- and the other
half is very easy. Then you have the eyes. But if you don't have an appetite, then it is almost impossible to
recognize: you are blind, you cannot see. If a blind man comes and asks, "When I come across light, how
am I to recognize it?" what to say to him? How can he recognize? -- he will need eyes. You always find that
which you REALLY desire; it never happens otherwise. In fact, let me tell you: whatsoever you have found
is that which you had desired passionately -- maybe it is hell, but you desired it -- and whatsoever you have
not found, you have not desired passionately.
Every time Mulla Nasrudin came home drunk, the wife would bawl the daylights out of him. One day a
Query:-
kindly neighbor gave her some advice: "You should not do that. You should not call attention to his
drinking. Be lovable, be kind, and you will find he is a new man. Tonight when he comes home, give him a
great big kiss."
That night Mulla staggered in, but the wife remembered the advice and puckered her lips: "Darling, give
me a kiss."
He puckered his lips, staggered to her, and kissed her on the forehead. He tried again, missed, and kissed
her on the ear. The third time he missed again, landing his lips on her cheek.
"You bum," she said, pointing to her mouth,''if this were a saloon you would find it."
You always find that which you really want to find. Whatsoever you desire happens. If it is not
happening, look inside; somewhere you must be missing in your desire.
There is a beautiful story in Hindu annals about a great saint, Valmiki. He was a robber, a murderer. He
has written the story of Rama, one of the most beautiful epics in the world. He became converted. His
conversion happened in such a way that it is almost unbelievable. He was a great sinner, but he went to a
great teacher and asked him how he could purify himself of his sins. "Chant Rama a thousand times a day,"
advised the great teacher.
The sinner went to a solitary mountain and chanted and chanted, but in spite of his good will, he made a
mistake and chanted Mara instead of Rama.
It happens that if you chant Rama Rama Rama fast, you can get messed up; it can become Mara Mara
Mara. That's how it happened: he was chanting so fast, and he had never heard this name. It was almost an
unknown language to him. He tried hard to remember, but somehow he forgot, and for years he chanted
Mara, Mara, Mara.
After years of chanting he went back to the great teacher who immediately realized that the man was
now pure -- not only pure, he was enlightened. "Did you sing the sacred name?" the teacher asked.
"Yes, great one," the ex-sinner answered, "for ten years every single day, thousands of times I have chanted
Mara, Mara, Mara."
The teacher burst into a laughter that shook the mountains. As his laughter, like a pebble in the lake,
vibrated farther and wider into the cosmos, the great teacher took the ex-sinner into his arms. "Your will to
good, to do good, has saved you," he said, "even though you chanted Mara, Mara, Mara, millions of times:
the name of the devil."
Rama is the name of God; Mara is the name of the devil -- but if the desire is there, the thirst is there,
then everything is okay. Even the name of the devil will do. Just his intention, just his tremendous passion
for God, to purify himself, for ten years, day in and day out, thousands of times he was continuously
chanting Mara, Mara, Mara. Even a wrong technique will help if the desire is intense, and even a right
technique will not be of much help if the desire is impotent.
Remember it: if you can't recognize enlightened people when you come across them, don't throw the
responsibility on them. Watch inside -- are you ready yet? It has happened that people who were not
enlightened have sometimes helped people to become enlightened. If the desire of the seeker is tremendous,
then even an unenlightened Master is enough.
It is reported about one great mystic, Milarepa:
When he went to his Master in Tibet, he was so humble, so pure, so authentic, that other disciples
became jealous of him. It was certain that he would be the successor. And of course there was politics, so
they tried to kill him.
One day they said to him, "If you really believe in the Master, can you jump from the hill? If you really
believe, if the trust is there, then nothing -- no harm is going to happen." And Milarepa jumped without
even hesitating for a single moment. They rushed down because it was almost a three-thousand-foot deep
valley. They went down to find his scattered bones, but he was sitting there in a lotus posture, very happy,
tremendously happy.
He opened his eyes and said, "You are right; trust saves."
They thought it must be some coincidence, so when the house was on fire one day, they told him, "If
you love your Master and you trust, you can go in." He rushed in to save the woman and the child who were
left inside. He came, and the fire was too great and they were hoping that he would die, but he was not
burned at all. And he became more and more radiant, because the trust....
One day they were going somewhere, they were to cross a river, and they told him, "You need not go in
the boat. You have such great trust; you can walk on the river" -- and he walked.
That was the first time the Master saw him. He was not aware that he had been told to jump into the
Query:-
valley and told to go into the burning house; he was not aware. But that time he was there on the bank and
he saw him walking, and he said, "What are you doing? It is impossible!"
And Milarepa said, "Not impossible at all! I am doing it by your power, sir."
Now the Master thought, "If my name and my power can do this to this ignorant, stupid man.... I have
never tried it myself"...so he tried. He drowned. Nothing has been heard about him after that.
Even an unenlightened Master, with deep trust, can revolutionize your life. And the reverse is also true:
even an enlightened Master may not be of any help. It depends on you, it depends totally on you.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #5
Chapter title: Kali and Krishna are one

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 76 mins
COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET

THE NOVEL MAN.
HE HAS ABANDONED
HIS WORLDLY POSSESSIONS
FOR THE BEGGAR'S SACK
THAT HANGS FROM HIS SHOULDER.
HE SPEAKS OF THE ETERNAL MOTHER
(KALI, THE GODDESS OF TIME)
EVEN AS HE ENTERS THE GANGES.
SIMPLE WORDS CAN OVERCOME

IGNORANCE AND DISBELIEF:
KALI AND KRISHNA ARE ONE.
THE WORDS MAY DIFFER --
THE MEANING IS PRECISELY THE SAME.
HE WHO HAS BROKEN
THE BARRIER OF WORDS,
HAS CONQUERED LIMITS:
ALLAH OR JESUS, MOSES OR KALI,
THE RICH OR THE POOR,
SAGE OR FOOL,
ALL ARE ONE AND THE SAME TO HIM.
LOST IN HIS OWN THOUGHTS,

HE SEEMS INSANE TO OTHERS.
HE OPENS HIS ARMS
TO WELCOME THE WORLD,
CALLING ALL TO THE FERRY BOAT
TIED TO THE COAST OF LIFE.
Query:-
COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET THE NOVEL MAN
THE WHOLE BAUL SEARCH IS FOR THE SEARCH FOR THE NOVEL MAN, THE NEW MAN.
Who is this new man?
You can live your life in two ways. Either you can become a man of being, or you can become a man of
having. Either you can have yourself or you can have many worldly things instead. Either you can possess
many things and be possessed by them, or you can possess yourself and be not possessed by anything. The
man of having has a totally different direction. That's what Bauls call 'the worldly man'. He thinks in terms
of money, in terms of commodities, in terms of bank balances; he thinks in terms of things. And he thinks
that the more he has, the more he is. That is one of the most fundamental fallacies. You can have the whole
world and you can remain a beggar. You can have all that the world can give and yet remain empty.
The great Alexander died. He is the very symbol of the worldly man. He wanted to conquer the whole
world, and he had done it, almost. But before he died he told his generals, "Then let both my hands hang out
of the coffin." They said, "We have never heard. It is not traditionally done. And why do you want to do
such an absurd thing?" Alexander said,''It is not absurd. It has a certain relevance with my life. I want
people to see that I am going with empty hands. So let both my hands hang out of the coffin, so everybody
can see that even Alexander is going with empty hands. I came with empty hands, I am going with empty
hands, and the whole life has been a wastage."
He must have been very perceptive, because many more die still clinging, still not aware that their hands
are empty, still not aware that their hearts are empty, still not aware that they have wasted their whole lives,
that it has been just a nightmare.
The man of having continues to accumulate more and more. What he accumulates is not the point; his
emphasis is on accumulation. His soul exists in his accumulations. What he accumulates is not important.
He may accumulate money, he may accumulate knowledge; he may accumulate ego, he may accumulate
humility; he may accumulate things of this world, or he may start accumulating virtues, things of the other
world, but he accumulates. He exists through things. He feels good when he has much, when he feels his
hands are full, at least apparently full. He feels good, he feels he is achieving, he is being successful. This is
'the old man' -- in the terminology of the Bauls, this is the old man. It has always existed. This is the rotten
man, this is the diseased man. It is a sort of illness, this very idea of having too many things, wasting your
time and energy and not knowing at all who you are. The Bauls call that direction noble in which you start
thinking in terms of being, in terms of a certain inner solidity, of a certain inner consciousness, of a certain
rootedness, centering, of a certain realization of who you are.
Have you watched it, that sometimes you come across a person who may not have anything visible, but
still you feel a tremendous energy surrounding him? His impact is almost magnetic, mesmeric. He looks
into your eyes and you cannot look into his eyes -- a great power. It is not the power of things; he may not
have any. He may be just a beggar on the road. It is not the power that comes through politics. He may not
be a prime minister or a president because that power is bogus. That power belongs to the chair, not to the
man. It belongs to the chair and not to the chairman. Once he is out of the chair, he is as powerless as you.
Look at Richard Nixon: a tremendous power was there when he was the president. Now, he is just
simply citizen Nixon. All power has disappeared. That power was not his; it was a reflected glory. And you
can see it, it is not very difficult. You know men who have much power -- power of things, power of big
palaces, power of politics, money, prestige, heritage but you can see that they are poor people. They don't
have any personal power. They don't have any magnetism in their souls. If you put their things aside, t]hey
are more ordinary than ordinary. All extraordinariness disappears. Kings and queens, once they are not
kings and queens, are simply ordinary human beings -- almost empty, nothing in them.
But you sometimes come across a person whose power is not derived from the outside, whose power
comes from some inner spring, some inner source. He is a reservoir of power. Wherever he sits, the place
becomes sacred; wherever he sits, the place becomes a throne; wherever he moves, he moves like a king
amongst men. But his kingdom is of the within. That's what Jesus goes on talking about: the kingdom of
God is within you. He knows his within. He has come to face his own within-ness. His eyes are turned
within. He is no longer dependent on the outside world. His glory is not a reflected glory, it is his own,
authentic. He can be thrown into imprisonment, but he will remain a king there.
Query:-
It is said about Diogenes, one of the contemporaries of Alexander the Great, that even Alexander the
Great became jealous of Diogenes. He was just a naked fakir: he had nothing. He had renounced everything;
he was searching his own inner world. It is said about him that when he renounced the world, he used to
carry a small begging bowl. But then one day he saw a dog drinking water from a river. He threw that
begging-bowl. He said, "If the dog can do without it, then am I worse than the dog?" Then everything was
thrown away. He remained naked.
Many stories, rumors, were reaching Alexander that this man had something in him. Finally, fascinated,
Alexander went to see him, and he could see that the man had something that he had not. He was just lying
down -- it was a winter morning, it was cool and the sun was rising. He was lying down by the side of a
river, bathing himself in the early sun, naked. Alexander said, "Can I do something for you, sir? I have
much, and whatsoever you desire, I will be happy to do it for you."
Diogenes laughed and said, "The only thing that you can do is to please stand by the side. Don't prevent
the sun from coming to me. Nothing else do I need. And remember it, because you seem to be dangerous:
never stand between the sun and anybody else. Don't disturb anybody else's life. That's enough; nothing else
do I want from you -- because all that I want is within me."
And Alexander could feel that the man was true, literally true -- the solidity, the crystallized being, the
'vibe' of one who has attained, the surround, the climate of the person who is filled with inner light, inner
realization, inner riches. He could see it. He bowed down and he said, "If next time I am to come into the
world, I would ask God not to make me Alexander, but Diogenes."
Diogenes laughed and said, "There is no need to wait that long. You can become a Diogenes just now!
For what are you struggling and conquering people, and moving continuously and warring? For what?"
Said Alexander, "First I want to conquer Middle Asia, then India, then the Far East..." And Diogenes
went on asking, "Then what? Then what?" Finally, when Alexander said he had conquered the whole world,
he said he would then like to rest.
And Diogenes said, "You look to me almost stupid, because I am resting without conquering the world.
You can rest by my side. See, the bank is so big; we can share it. And nobody comes here. You can rest to
your heart's desire. Who is preventing you? And I don't see the point, that one needs to conquer the world
first just to rest in the end. You can rest any moment."
In that moment Alexander must have felt his poverty. He said, "You are right. I am mad, but now it is
difficult for me to come back. I have to conquer, only then can I come."
And when he was leaving, Diogenes said, "Remember, nobody can come back unless one is aware. And
if you are aware right this moment, the journey stops. If you are not aware, you will never come back." And
Alexander never could go back. He died before he reached back home.
The man of being is called 'the novel man', the new man. Why call him new? -- because in a sense he is
as old as humanity; but he is so rare that whenever he comes he is always new -- rarely a Buddha, rarely a
Jesus, a Krishna -- very rarely. In this rotten mass of humanity, very rarely does somebody arise with an
authentic being and declare that his kingdom is of the within, It happens so rarely that Bauls are right to call
him 'the novel man', the new man.
So this is the distinction to be understood: the man who is after having more and more will go on losing
his being -- because the only way to have more is to pay with being. Then you have to cut your being and
throw it away. Everything has to be paid for, nothing is free. Even futile things have to be paid for.
One day the man of having is almost gone. He has much but he is no more. He has bargained with his
soul. He has exchanged: he has dollars, rupees, pounds, but no soul in him. Just a negative emptiness exists.
He is the beggar, but he may look to you like a king. Don't be deceived by appearances. Those who look
like kings are not kings. Look deeply, watch deeply. They may have achieved much which can be counted,
which can be shown and exhibited, but they have lost something of the invisible, something of their being.
Have you not observed it? -- whenever you purchase something you have to pay. If you want to compete
with people you will have to pay. You will become less and less loving. A man who is a competitor cannot
be loving simultaneously; it is impossible. A man who is trying to compete, a man who is ambitious, has to
be non-loving. Then he is paying with love.
Politicians cannot be loving, they know only war. That's natural; they exist through conflict. So they
may talk about peace, but their whole talk is. just nonsense, just gibberish. They talk about peace and they
prepare for war. They never prepare for peace. They prepare for war and they never talk about war, they talk
about peace. And when the time comes, they even war and fight for peace. They say it has to be done to
Query:-
save peace. But basically, the mind of the competitor is violent. One who is ambitious is violent and cannot
be loving.
The hippie slogan -- Make love not war -- is very, very meaningful. If the world were more loving, war
would disappear automatically, because who would be ready to fight? For what?
No country wants its people to be very loving. No country wants its people to be deep in love -- because
if they are deep in love they become incapable of war. Their sex, their love, has to be repressed. When love
and sex are repressed, people are ready to jump out of their skins. They are so boiling; they are always ready
to fight. That's why a poor country can fight better than a rich country. That is the story of Vietnam.
The American soldier knows a little of love -- he has the facility, he is not so repressed. That is the
problem with America now: America is not so repressed. It has tasted of love. But when you fight with a
small country like Vietnam you cannot win, because their soldiers are very repressed. It has always
happened in the past: a richer country is always in danger of being invaded by a poorer country.
It has happened in India many times. For two, three thousand years, India had been continuously
conquered by barbarians who were not rich, who were not affluent, who were not cultured at all. But India
was defeated continuously. People were loving -- they had forgotten how to fight, they were not interested
in fighting. There was no need inside for them to be continuously at war. Whenever a civilization reaches to
the point where it becomes affluent, it is in danger of being invaded by barbarians. This is unfortunate, but
this is so.
So every country and every politician tries not to allow love too much. It has to be given only in small
quantities. If love is free, and people are very loving and they exist in an ocean of love, war is not possible.
Without war, politics is not possible; without politics, presidents and premiers are not possible. They will
simply disappear.
The hippie is the greatest danger signal to politicians yet. In the whole of history, for the first time a new
sort of generation is arising. If this generation goes on flowering, spreading, politics is going to be just out
of date. The days of presidents and premiers are gone! And the whole thing depends on love, because love
is a quality of being. Competition is for things, ambition is for things, ambition is for the kingdom without.
The inner kingdom knows no competition. You can simply delight in it this very moment. It needs no
future, it needs no achievement on your part. Already, as you are, you are ready to enjoy and delight and
celebrate. Nothing is missing. Everything is absolutely available; as it should be, it is. You just have to drop
your ambitious mind, and the celebration starts.
Can you see this? If you can see this you will be able to understand 'the novel man'.
The Bauls say, "The man who has understood the futility of things becomes religious." If you are
running after having, you will become a manipulator: constantly in conflict with others, constantly trying to
crush others, by any way and any means trying to reach to the top. You will lose all spontaneity.
The man of being, 'the novel man', is spontaneous. He lives in the moment, he lives here-now. He knows
no other way to live, he is unpredictable. You can predict a man of competition. You can predict, because
the mind of the competitor runs like a mathematical formula. It has a logical syllogism in it. But the mind of
one who is moving inwards, the man of being, is almost dissolving. The mind of the inward traveller is
dissolving; you cannot predict him. He has no mathematical formula about him -- he simply lives in the
moment, he responds to the moment.
Now let me tell you one thing: the man of having is very clear. The man of having has a destination,
very clear, cut. If he wants to become the president of the United States or the premier of India, he has a
clear-cut destination.
What about the man of being? -- he has a direction, but he has no destination. He has a very subtle
direction, but no destination. He has a quality: he has a light inside, and wherever he moves that light falls
on his path. He has eyes to see, a direction, but no destination. He is enjoying and he is moving, but his
movement is not prefabricated. He has no plan. He is like a river, not like a railway train. Direction is there,
but not like a railway train, not running in a fixed pattern. Zig-zag his life will be. Sometimes he will be
moving towards the north and sometimes he will be moving towards the south. He cannot be very consistent
because consistency is part of the logical mind, it is not part of the being. He will be found many times to be
inconsistent, even contradictory; but those contradictions are just on the surface. If you look deep you will
find a subtle direction. Even in contradictions the direction is there.
But to know the man of being you need very deep eyes, penetrating eyes. To know the man of having,
nothing is needed -- just a little mind will do, a mediocre mind will do -- because the man of having is also
of the category of mediocre minds. But when you move into the inner world, all surfaces are lost and depth
Query:-
is infinite.
The Bauls call this spontaneous man, SAHAJA MANUSH. The novel man, he's the new man. He is the
man as everyone should be. And unless you become the novel man, you will miss -- you will miss treasures,
blessings, benedictions which were showering all around you, but you were blind and you could not see it.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin was in love with a woman.
"Look darling," he said to her, "here is a diamond engagement ring for you."
"Oh, it is beautiful!" she claimed "But honey, the diamond has a flaw in it."
"You should not notice that," said the Mulla. "Why, you are in love and you know what they say -- 'love is
blind'."
"Blind, yes," she said, "but not stone blind."
Even in love you continue to remain the man of the outside. Even in love you continue to think in terms
of money, prestige, power. Even in love you don't allow the unpredictable to assert, you don't allow your
innermost being to have its say. Even then you remain a manipulator.
Our minds are almost always interested in the very ordinary. It has to be so because mind is
outward-oriented. The very orientation is towards the without. That's how Jesus was not understood; he was
a Baul,'the novel man'. If he had been born in Bengal, the land of the Bauls, he would have been understood
better. They would not have crucified him. For centuries they have known mad people of God. They would
have understood his language.
Jews could not understand his language. His language was not of the mind, his language was not of
money, of the outside. He talked about the kingdom and they asked, "Where is your kingdom? About what
kingdom are you talking?" -- because they thought he was talking about the kingdom which is outside. He
said, "I am the king," and they were worried. And they suspected that he was trying to sabotage the society,
or that he was trying to conquer the society and become the king. They thought that he was a revolutionary.
He was a rebellious man, not a revolutionary at all. He was not planning for a revolution; he was not a
politician. But the Jews were afraid: they thought that he was trying to conquer this world. And the Romans
were afraid. They were afraid because it was thought that he was the king of men -- the king is born. When
the king of the Romans heard that a child was going to be born who would become the king of men, he
became so afraid that he ordered a massacre: to kill all the children below the age of two years. When the
three wise men of the East reached the capital in search of the child Jesus, the king heard of it. He invited
them to the palace, and he asked them for what they had come. They said they were looking for the king
who had been born in his country: "You should be happy that a king is born in your country, and the
greatest king will walk on your earth." But the king was very afraid because he thought, "How can there
exist two kings in one country? Then I will be dethroned." But he played diplomatic. He said to the wise
men, "I am very happy, so if you succeed in finding him please come and inform me." But he was planning
to kill the boy, and the three wise men understood it because they could see in his eyes. He was a cunning
man.
Politicians are cunning.
After they had met Jesus and worshipped Jesus, they had to find another route because they were afraid
that the king would be waiting, and they didn't want to become a part of this catastrophe. They didn't want
to become part in killing and murdering Jesus. So they had to travel very far. They had to do a long journey
because the shortcut was the one they had come by. And they were very old men, but still they took a very
long route through deserts and mountains to reach back to their country. They didn't want to go back by the
same route because it would pass through the capital, and the king would be waiting.
Jesus was crucified because of his terminology, but he was talking about the inner kingdom. He was not
talking about the kingdom of the outside, and he was not talking about the treasures that you know, but the
treasures of the unknown.
As far as the outside world is concerned, all treasures are just false.
I have heard a beautiful anecdote....
A man walking along a city street fell through an open sewer hole and broke his leg. He engaged a
famous attorney, brought suit against the city for ten thousand dollars, and won the case. The city appealed
the decision right on up to the Supreme Court, but again the lawyer won the decision. After the claim was
settled, the lawyer sent for his client and handed him a dollar bill.
"What is this?" inquired the man, looking at the dollar.
"That's your damages after deducting my fee, the cost of appeals and other expenses," replied the attorney.
Query:-
Out of ten thousand dollars, only one dollar!

The man looked at the dollar again, turned it over and scanned it carefully. "What is the matter with this
dollar?" he said. "Is it counterfeit?"
But all money outside is counterfeit: all dollars are counterfeit, all rupees are counterfeit. The real
money does not exist that way; the real money does not exist outside. This conversion from the counterfeit
to the real is what Bauls call the birth of the novel man.
COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET

THE NOVEL MAN.
HE HAS ABANDONED
HIS WORLDLY POSSESSIONS
FOR THE BEGGAR'S SACK
THAT HANGS FROM HIS SHOULDERS.
He has abandoned worldly possessions to become a beggar. Why abandon worldly possessions? The
worldly possessions can be abandoned in two ways. Again you have to understand: the man who has lived
his whole life in collecting possessions can abandon them out of greed. Then the novel man is not born. He
can abandon them in order to get some advance booking in heaven, paradise. He can abandon his worldly
possessions seeing that death will take them away. If that is the case, then the old man remains old, even if
he abandons all.
In India it happens many times, more often than not: people abandon their possessions, they renounce,
but if you watch them you will see they have not abandoned their greed. In fact, they have renounced
BECAUSE of the greed.
I know one man who renounced almost a million rupees many years ago, but he still goes on talking
about it. Thirty years have passed, and whenever I meet him, he will again and again bring the subject up
that he has renounced a million rupees. And you can see the light that starts shining in his eyes -- a million
rupees!
The last time I saw him I asked him, "If you have really renounced then why talk about it? What is the
point? As far as I can see, you have not renounced at all. The novel man is not born. You are as much
attached to those one million rupees, or maybe even more than you were before. Now the very idea that you
have renounced a million rupees has become your bank balance. Now you are living on it.'' I told him that if
he went to God, the first thing he would relate to Him would be his million rupees: "Do you know or not
that I have renounced one million rupees?" And he would be expecting something special for himself. This
man is the same; the novel man is not born. It has been a miscarriage.
You can renounce, but if you enjoy ego through it, if you feel that you are a great man of renunciation, a
MAHATMA, a great soul because you have renounced, you are not an ordinary man, you are not worldly,
then your renunciation is not true.
When is the renunciation true? -- when you understand the futility. Not out of greed, not because you
have to earn something in the other world, but just seeing the futility of it all, you renounce. This
renunciation has no effort in it, just a deep insight. Every morning you clean your house and throw the
rubbish on the rubbish heap, but you don't go declaring and advertising to the whole town that again you
have renounced much rubbish, again this morning you have done a great deed of renunciation. No, you
know that it is rubbish -- finished. What is there to tell about it?
The novel man is born when you have a deep insight that worldly things have no value; they are all
counterfeit, unreal diamonds, and unreal real diamonds are also so. Real dollars are also as unreal as unreal
dollars. When the whole outside world has no value for you, that is a real renunciation. Then you are not
attached at all.
And Bauls say,
My plaited hair
is still intact and dry.
Though I stand in the stream
and splash and swim about the river,
Query:-
I cannot be touched by the water.
Keep your soles dry

as you coast the sea.
Let attachments share the same home,
but live unattached.
Groping for the river,

Oh my senseless heart!
In vain do you wander from place to place.
The ocean of your heart
bears a priceless gem.
What good is life
if you fail to contact
the spontaneous man
who dwells in your own body?
Your destiny is shamed.
Do not give up gold
for a piece of glass,
nor leave heaven
for a visit to hell.
What good is there
in rushing round the world?
The eternal hero Iives
in your own little room.
Who is there
for you to call your own?
My heart,
for whom do you shed
your futile tears?
Brothers and friends, let them be;
the world is there.
Your own dear life
is hardly your own.
You have come alone,

you will go alone....
The whole idea of renunciation is of a vision, of a great understanding, of looking into things in their
reality. You need not escape from the world. You can remain in the world and become absolutely
unattached. But if you feel, "Why carry the burden unnecessarily?" you can leave the world also. But
remember, the world has no value this way or that. If it has no value, its renunciation also cannot have any
value. If it is valuable, only then can its renunciation be valuable. But then there is no point in renouncing it;
it is simply valueless. It is like a dream. When you awake, everything disappears.
You have come alone, you will go alone, and between these two exists the dream. To understand the
dream, to become alert to it, is the birth of the novel man. "Come if you wish to meet the novel man," says
the Baul. He invites the whole world: Come to see me; the novel man is born. "His worldly possessions he
has abandoned for the beggar's sack that hangs from his shoulder."
Query:-
HE SPEAKS OF THE ETERNAL MOTHER

(KALI, THE GODDESS OF TIME)
EVEN AS HE ENTERS THE GANGES.
The novel man lives in eternity, the ordinary man lives in time.
This word 'Kali' has to be understood. Kali is the mother of time. In Sanskrit time is called KALA, and
the mother of KALA is Kali, mother of time. But the mother of time is beyond time. Time is born out of it,
but the womb out of which time is born is eternity. Eternity is the mother of time. Time is just a reflection of
the eternal. The Bauls worship Kali, the mother of time; they worship eternity. They seek and search
eternity -- not that which changes but that which remains always and always, that which is beyond all flux,
absolutely permanent, unmoving. They seek that hub of the existence. Symbolically it is called Kali.
This word 'KALA' is very meaningful: one meaning is time, another meaning is death. The same word
means time and death. It is beautiful, because time is death. The moment you enter into time, you are ready
to die. With birth, death has entered into you. When the child is born, he has entered into the realm of death.
The birthday is also the deathday. Now only one thing is certain: that he will have to die. Everything else is
just uncertain; it may happen, it may not happen. But the moment a child is born, the moment the child has
taken his first breath, one thing is absolutely certain -- that he will die.
Entering into life is entering into death; entering into time is entering into death. Time is death, hence
the Sanskrit word KALA is very beautiful. It means both time and death. And Kali means beyond time and
beyond death. Eternity is deathlessness. How to find eternity? What is the way? One has to understand the
process of time.
The process of time is horizontal: one moment passes, then comes another moment; that passes, then
another moment -- a procession of moments, a queue of moments -- one passes, then another comes; another
passes, then another comes. It is horizontal.
Eternity is vertical: you go deep into the moment, not moving in a line, but into depth. You drown
yourself in the moment. If you stand on the bank, then the river goes on passing. Ordinarily we are standing
on the bank of time. The river goes on moving; one moment, another moment, and another, and the
sequence of moments continues. This is how we ordinarily live, this is how we live in time.
Then there is another way -- take a jump into the river, drown in the moment, the here-now. Then
suddenly, time stops. Then you are moving in an altogether different dimension; the vertical dimension is
eternity. That is the meaning of Jesus' cross.
The cross is a time symbol. It is made of two lines: one vertical, one horizontal. On the horizontal line
are the hands of Christ, and on the vertical line is his whole being. Hands are symbolic of action: doing,
having. Having is in time; being is in eternity. So whatsoever you DO is in time, whatsoever you ARE is in
eternity; whatsoever you achieve is in time, whatsoever is your nature is in eternity. Change from having,
doing, towards being. This moment the turning can happen. This very moment, if you forget past and future,
then time stops. Then nothing moves, then everything is absolutely silent and you start drowning in the
here-now. That 'now' is eternity.
Kali is a symbol of now, of the eternal, of the absolutely real. To live moment to moment and not to
bother about past and future is the way towards the novel man.

HE WHO HAS BROKEN
THE BARRIER OF WORDS
HAS CONQUERED LIMITS:
SAGE OR FOOL,
Query:-
Very significant sentences: "Simple words can overcome ignorance and disbelief." If you can listen,
then very simple words are enough. If you are capable of being receptive, just simple words uttered by one
who knows are enough. But if you don't understand, then things become very complex. Your
non-understanding or non-receptivity makes things complex. It creates confusion, it puzzles you, it creates a
chaos in your being. If you can listen silently without your mind interfering, then simple words can
overcome ignorance and disbelief.
The Bauls say,
Even if you forbid, dear friend,

I am helpless.
My songs contain my prayers.
Some flowers pray

through the glamour of colors,
and others, being dark,
with fragrance.
As the VEENA prays

with its vibrating strings,
do I with my songs.
Bauls don't know much philosophy; they are not philosophers. They are simple people of the earth. They
are very simple people who can sing and dance. Their words are simple. If you love, if you trust, their small
gestures can reveal much.
And it is always a question of love and trust. It is not a question of great metaphysical skill, because the
more metaphysics you know, the more you will be puzzled. And the more you are acquainted with
philosophy, the less is the possibility to come to understanding. The more you are full of knowledge, the
less will be your understanding. You will be too clouded, and too many thoughts will not allow you vision,
clarity. Your mirror will be full of dust.

IGNORANCE AND DISBELIEF;
Bauls say, "We don't make any distinction between a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian...Kali
and Krishna are one." They say, "We don't even make any distinction between male and female... Kali and
Krishna are one, male and female are one." That is one of their great insights: that if you really dance and
sing in deep trust and love, you will come to feel that man and woman are not two things, are not two
beings. Inside you, a new alchemy starts, and your inside man melts with the inside woman...and Kali and
Krishna become one.
They sing,
As the man and the woman in me

unite in love,
the brilliance of beauty,
balanced on the bi-petalled lotus
blooms in me,
Query:-
dazzles my eyes.
The rays outshine the moon,
and the jewels
glowing on the hoods of snakes.
My skin and bone are turned to gold

when the inner man and woman meet,
when Krishna and Kali become one.
My skin and bone are tumed to gold,
I am the reservoir of love,
alive as the waves.
A single drop of water
has grown into a sea,
unnavigable....
The whole problem of man is how to meet with the woman, and the whole problem of the woman is how
to meet man.
In one ancient myth prevalent in many countries of the Far East, they say God created man and woman
together, not as two beings; they were joined in one body. But then it became difficult. There were conflicts
and problems. The woman wanted to go to the East and the man was not willing. Or, the man was ready to
do something and the woman wanted to rest. But they were together, their bodies were joined. So they
complained and God cut their bodies separate. Since then, every man is searching the woman, his woman,
and every woman is searching her man. Now it is such a big crowd that it is very difficult to find who is
your woman, who is your man. So much misery, and one goes on stumbling and groping in the dark. It is
almost impossible to find your woman. How will you find her?
The myth says that if you can find, everything fits; you again become one. But it is very difficult to find.
But there is a way to find your woman, because the woman is not outside. Outside, at the most, are
parallel similarities.
When you fall in love with a woman, what really happens? This is what happens: somehow the outside
woman fulfills your inner woman's image, fits with that image -- maybe not a hundred percent, but enough
to fall in love. When you fall in love with a man, what happens? Something inside you clicks and says,
"Yes, this is the man, the right man." It is not a logical conclusion, it is not a syllogism. It is not that you
find out all the pros and cons about the man and then you decide, or you compare the man with all the other
men in the world, then you decide. No, something happens out of the blue. Suddenly you see that this is the
man for whom you were waiting, for whom you were waiting for lives.
What happens? You carry an image of man, you carry an image of woman inside. You are both, and you
go on looking outside. Nobody is going to fit one hundred percent, because the woman that you find outside
has her own images about you; you have your own images. It is very difficult to fit with each other. So all
marriages are always on the rocks, and people, by and by, learn how to carry on peacefully. They learn not
to 'rock the boat'. But nothing more can happen outside.
Bauls say, "Deep inside you both exist -- Krishna and Kali. Let them meet there." That is the whole
Tantra method: how to allow your inner man to meet with the inner woman. And when this becomes a
circle, when this meeting, when this inner copulation happens, a great orgasm, a great explosive orgasm
begins which knows a beginning but knows no end. Then you live an orgasmic life.
A single drop of water

has grown into a sea,
unnavigable....
Then you are no more finite, you become infinite.

Query:-

HE WHO HAS BROKEN
THE BARRIER OF WORDS,
HAS CONQUERED LIMITS...
Break the barrier of words. Now, I am talking to you; I am using words. You can listen to my words --
then you have not listened to me. You can listen in such a way that the words are no more a barrier, but
become vehicles. They no more create problems, but you listen exactly between the words, between two
words, in the gaps. You listen to my silence; then words and their barriers are broken. Then limits are
conquered.

SAGE OR FOOL,
This is the novel man. Now he knows no duality. He does not make any distinction between the sage
and the fool. He makes no distinction between the man and the woman. All dualities have come to be
united, all dualities have dissolved. Once you drop the words, dualities drop.
Language creates duality, language exists through duality. It cannot indicate the non-dual. If I say 'day',
immediately I create night. If I say 'life', immediately I create death. If I say 'good', immediately bad is
created. If I say 'no', just by the side of the no, yes is existing. Language can exist only through the opposite.
That's why we see life as always divided -- God and devil. Drop language, drop this linguistic pattern. Once
language is no more on your mind and you look directly into reality, day IS night. Suddenly you will start
laughing at why you missed it so long! Day, every day turns into night; night turns into day every morning
again, and you have been missing. Life is always turning into death, death always turns again into life, and
you have been missing. They are not two, they are one whole. This is the non-dual, ADWAITA. This is the
most essential religion.

HE SEEMS INSANE TO OTHERS...
... because his consciousness is no longer divided by language. He is no longer looking at the world
through words. He looks insane: he is absorbed in his own being, he is lost in his own vision. And the vision
is so vast, as if a thousand and one suns have risen together. It is so dazzling.

HE SEEMS INSANE TO OTHERS.
HE OPENS HIS ARMS
TO WELCOME THE WORLD,
CALLING ALL TO THE FERRY BOAT
TIED TO THE COAST OF LIFE.
And he goes on calling, "Come to me, come, if you wish to meet the novel man," and the boat is ready.
And his boat is not against life, it is tied to the coast of the life. He is not negative.
And he says, "Come, and I can take you to the other shore. Come, and I can make you new. Come, and I
can take you into eternity."
Query:-
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #6
Chapter title: Direction a non-ending process

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 98 mins
The first question:
YESTERDAY YOU SAID THAT AN INWARD TRAVELLER HAS ONLY DIRECTION AND NOT
DESTINATION. WILL YOU PLEASE FURTHER CLARIFY THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TWO?
THE DISTINCTIOIN IS VERY SUBTLE, but it is the same distinction as there is between the mind
and the heart, as there is between logic and love, or even more appropriate, as there is between prose and
and poetry.
A destination is a very clear-cut thing; direction is very intuitive. A destination is something outside
you, more like a thing. A direction is an inner feeling; not an object, but your very subjectivity. You can feel
direction, you cannot know it. You can know the destination, you cannot feel it. Destination is in the future.
Once decided, you start manipulating your life towards it, steering your life towards it.
How can you decide the future? Who are you to decide the unknown? How is it possible to fix the
future? Future is that which is not known yet. Future is open possibility. By fixing a destination your future
is no more a future, because it is no more open. Now you have chosen one alternative out of many, because
when all the alternatives were open it was future. Now all alternatives have been dropped; only one
alternative has been chosen. It is no longer future, it is your past.
The past decides when you decide a destination. Your experience of the past, your knowledge of the
past decides. You kill future. Then you go on repeating your own past -- maybe a little modified, a little
changed here and there according to your comfort, convenience; repainted, renovated -- but still it comes
out of the past. This is the way one loses track of future: by deciding a destination one loses track of future.
One becomes dead. One starts functioning like a mechanism.
Direction is something alive, in the moment. It knows nothing of the future, it knows nothing of the past,
but it throbs, pulsates here and now. And out of this pulsating moment, the next moment is created. Not by
any decision on your part -- but just because you live this moment and you live it so totally, and you love
this moment so wholly, out of this wholeness the next moment is born. It is going to have a direction. That
direction is not given by you, it is not imposed by you; it is spontaneous. That's what the Bauls call
SAHAJA MANUSH, the spontaneous man.
The spontaneous man is the way to the real man, to the essential man, to the God within. You cannot
decide direction, you can only live this moment that is available to you. By living it, direction arises. If you
dance, the next moment is going to be of a deeper dance. Not that you decide but you simply dance this
moment. You have created a direction: you are not manipulating it. The next moment will be more full of
dancing, and still more will be following.
Destination is fixed by the mind; direction is earned by living. Destination is logical: one wants to be a
Query:-
doctor, one wants to be an engineer, one wants to be a scientist or one wants to be a politician, one wants to
be a rich man, famous man -- these are destinations. Direction? -- one simply lives the moment in deep trust
that life will decide. One lives this moment so totally that out of this totality a freshness is born. Out of this
totality the past dissolves and the future starts taking shape. But this shape is not given by you, this shape is
earned by you.
One Zen master, Rinzai, was dying; he was on the death-bed. Somebody asked, "Master, people will ask
after you are gone, what was your essential teaching? You have said many things, you have talked about
many things -- it will be difficult for us to condense it. Before you leave, please, you yourself condense it
into a single sentence, so we will treasure it. And whenever people who have not known you desire, we can
give them your essential teaching."
Dying, Rinzai opened his eyes, gave a great Zen shout, a lion's roar! They were all shocked! They
couldn't believe that this dying man could have so much energy, and they were not expecting it. The man
was unpredictable; he had always been so. But even with this unpredictable man they were not in any way
expecting that dying, at the last moment, he would give such a lion's roar. And when they were shocked --
and of course their minds stopped, they were surprised, taken aback -- Rinzai said, "This is it!" closed his
eyes, and died.
This is it....
This moment, this silent moment, this moment uncorrupted by thought, this silence that was
surrounding, this surprise, this last lion's roar over death; this is it.
Yes, direction comes out of living this moment. It is not something that you manage and plan. It
happens, it is very subtle, and you will never be certain about it. You can only feel it. That's why I say it is
more like poetry, not like prose; more like love, not like logic; more like art than like science. Wake, and
that's its beauty; hesitant, as hesitant as a dewdrop on a grass leaf, slipping, not knowing where, not
knowing why; in the morning sun, just slipping on a leaf of grass.
Direction is very subtle, delicate, fragile. That's why everybody has chosen destination. Society tries to
fix a destination for you. Parents, teachers, culture, religion, government: they all try to give you a fixed
pattern of life. They don't want you to be free, left alone, moving into the unknown. But that's how they
have created boredom. If you know your future beforehand, it is already boring. If you know that you are
going to be this, it is already boring.
In the Koran, Mohammed talks about paradise, but he makes it so predictable, so much like a destination
that it already looks worthless. The word 'paradise', or the Muslim equivalent of it, FIRDAUS -- they both
come from a single root which means a walled garden -- and in that walled garden of God everything is
fixed, almost every detail. Nothing is left to imagination. Streams are there, streams of wine; and people are
sitting in the shade. Of course, Mohammed must have suffered too much from the heat and the desert.
People are sitting in the shade, enjoying their wives -- not wife, but wives -- because Mohammed had nine
wives. What else do they do? There is nothing else to do but drink wine from the springs, sit on couches
under the shade of big trees, enjoy their wives.
But then he was disturbed, because when you die your wife will be old. So what to do? -- he made an
arrangement for that also: that for good people, those who had lived according to religion, God would make
their wives young again. So remember, if you are not good you will have to remain with your old wife.
Then you will be stuck with her forever and ever. Be good! Everything...and servants are there to fulfill any
desire. But just think of it!
But it is so ready-made, manufactured, predictable: it loses all meaning. Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, are
more subtle. Buddhists are the most subtle. They don't talk about NIRVANA. They say: one has to know it
to know it; one has to be in it to know it -- there is no other way. They don't describe. They don't give any
description because all descriptions will be dangerous. All words become definitive and the mystery is lost.
Future should be a direction, not a destination. It should be more like NIRVANA. The word Buddha
uses means: all that you know will not be there. That's his definition clf nirvana: all that you know will not
be there, all that you have experienced will not be there, all that you are will not be there -- SOMETHING
TOTALLY NEW, something that you cannot understand because you don't have the language to understand
it, you don't have the experience to understand it. Something absolutely new; it cannot be talked about.
NIRVANA is a direction. FIRDAUS, paradise, Christian and Mohammedan, are destinations, very
clear-cut.
The mediocre mind demands clear-cut goals because he is so insecure -- he cannot trust his own
Query:-
awareness, and he cannot trust life. The mediocre mind is very afraid of discovery, and discovery is the
greatest secret in life. To be ready to be surprised, to be always ready to be surprised means that one is
innocent, trying to discover. And life is such that you can go on discovering. The more you discover it, the
more you come to know that much more is still left. It is a non-ending process. Direction is a non-ending
process. Remember, it is a process, movement; destination is a dead thing.
Destination belongs to the ego; direction belongs to life, to being. To move in the world of direction one
needs tremendous trust, because one is moving in insecurity, one is moving in darkness. But the darkness
has a thrill in it: without any map, without any guide you are moving into the unknown. Each step is a
discovery, and it is not only a discovery of the outside world. Simultaneously, something is discovered in
you also. A discoverer not only discovers things. As he goes on discovering more and more unknown
worlds, he goes on discovering himself also, simultaneously. Each discovery is an inner discovery also. The
more you know, the more you know about the knower. The more you love, the more you know about the
lover.
I am not going to give you a destination. I can only give you a direction -- awake, throbbing with life;
and unknown, always surprising, unpredictable. I'm not going to give you a map. I can give you only a great
passion to discover. Yes, a map is not needed; great passion, great desire to discover is needed. Then I leave
you alone. Then you go on your own. Move into the vast, into the infinite, and by and by, learn to trust it.
Leave yourself in the hands of life, because life is God. When Jesus says, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be
done," he's saying this...a great trust. Even if God brings death, there is nothing to be afraid of. It is He who
is bringing death, so there must be a reason in it, there must be a hidden secret in it, there must be a teaching
in it. He's opening a door.
The man who trusts, the man who is religious is thrilled even at the gate of death -- he can give a lion's
roar. Even dying -- because he knows nothing dies -- at the very moment of death he can say, "This is it!"
Because each moment, this is it. It may be life, it may be death; it may be success, it may be failure; it may
be happiness, it may be unhappiness. Each moment...
... this is it.
This is what I call the real prayer. And then you will have direction. You need not worry about it, you
need not fix it; you can move with trust.
HOW IS IT THAT THE INSCRIPTION ON THE GREEK TEMPLE TO DELPHI SAYS: KNOW THYSELF, AND
NOT: LOVE THYSELF?
The Greek mind has an obsession with knowledge. The Greek mind thinks in terms of knowledge, how
to know. That's why Greeks produced the greatest tradition of philosophers, great thinkers, logicians, great
rational minds. But the passion is to know.
In the world, as I see it, there are only two types of minds: the Greek and the Hindu. The Greek mind
has a passion to know, and the Hindu mind has a passion to be. The Hindu passion is not too concerned
about knowing, but about being. SAT, being, is the very search -- who am I? -- not to know it in a logical
way, but to drown in one's own existence so one can taste it, so one can be it -- because there is no other
way to know, really. If you ask Hindus, they will say there is no other way to know than to be. How can you
know love? The only way is to become a lover. Be a lover and you will know. And if you are trying to stand
outside the experience and just be an observer, then you may know ABOUT love, but you will never know
love.
The Greek mind has produced the whole scientific growth. Modern science is a by-product of the Greek
mind. Modern science insists on being dispassionate, standing outside, watching, unprejudiced. Be
objective, be impersonal. These are the basic requirements if you want to become a scientist: be impersonal,
don't allow your emotions to color anything; be dispassionate, almost not interested in any hypothesis in
whatsoever way. Just watch the fact. Don't get involved in it, remain outside. Don't be a participant. This is
the Greek passion: a dispassionate search for knowledge.
It has helped, but it has helped only in one direction: that is the direction of matter. That is the way to
know matter. You can never come to know mind that way, only matter. You can never come to know
consciousness that way. You can know the outside, you can never know the inside -- because in the inside
Query:-
you are already involved. There is no way to stand out of it. You are already there. The inside is you -- how
can you get out of it? I can watch a stone, a rock, a river, dispassionately because I am separate. How can I
watch myself dispassionately? I am involved in it. I cannot be outside it. I cannot reduce myself to being an
object. I will remain the subject, and I will remain the subject. Whatsoever I do, I am the knower, I'm not
the known.
So the Greek mind shifted, by and by, towards matter. The motto, the inscription at Delphi's temple:
Know Thyself, became the source of the whole scientific progress. But by and by, the very idea of
dispassionate knowledge led the Western mind away from its own being.
The Hindu mind, the other type of mind in the world, has another direction: the direction is of being. In
the Upanishads, the great master Udallack says to his son and his disciple Swetketu, "That art thou" --
TATWAMASI Swetketu. That art thou -- there is no distinction between that and thou. That is your reality;
thou is the reality -- there is no distinction. There is no possibility to know it as you know a rock. There is
no possibility to know it as you know other things; you can only BE it.
On the temple of Delphi, of course, it was written: Know Thyself. It is expressive of the Greek mind.
Because the temple is in Greece the inscription is Greek. If the temple had been in India then the inscription
would have been: Be Thyself -- because that art thou. The Hindu mind moved closer and closer to one's own
being -- that's why it became non-scientific. It became religious but non-scientific. It became introvert, but
then it lost all moorings in the outside world. The Hindu mind became very rich inside, but the outside
became very poor.
A great synthesis is needed, a great synthesis between the Hindu and the Greek mind. It can be the
greatest blessing for the earth. Up to now it has not been possible, but now the basic requirements are there
and a synthesis is possible. The East and West are meeting in a very subtle way. The Eastern people are
going to the West to learn science, to become scientists, and the Western seekers are going, moving towards
the East to learn what religion is. A great mingling and merging is happening.
In the future, the East is not going to be East and the West is not going to be West. The earth is going to
become a global village -- a small place where all distinctions will disappear. And then for the first time the
great synthesis will arise, the greatest ever -- which will not think in extremes, which will not think that if
you go outside, if you are a searcher after knowledge then you lose your roots in being; or if you search in
your being you lose your roots in the world, in the scientific realm. Both can be together, and whenever this
happens a man has both wings and he can fly to the highest sky possible. Otherwise you have only one
wing.
As I see it, Hindus are lopsided as much as the Greek mind is lopsided. Both are half of the reality.
Religion is half; science is half. Something has to happen which can bring religion and science together
in a greater whole, where science does not deny religion and where religion does not condemn science.
"How is it that the inscription on the Greek temple to Delphi says: Know Thyself, and not: Love Thyself?"
Love thyself is possible only if you become thyself, if you be thyself. Otherwise it is not possible.
Otherwise the only possibility is to go on trying to know who you are, and that too from the outside;
watching from the outside who you are, and that too in an objective way, not in an intuitive way.
The Greek mind developed a tremendous logical capacity. Aristotle became the father of all logic and
all philosophy. The Eastern mind looks illogical -- it is. The very insistence on meditation is illogical
because meditation says: you can know only when the mind is dropped, when thinking is dropped and you
merge yourself into your being so totally that not even a single thought is there to distract you. Only then
can you know. And the Greek mind says: you can know only when thinking is clear, logical, rational,
systematic. The Hindu mind says: when thinking disappears completely, only then is there any possibility to
know. They are totally different, moving in diametrically opposite directions; but there is a possibility to
synthesize both.
A person can use his mind when working on matter; then logic is a great instrument. And the same
person can put aside the mind when he moves into his meditation chamber and moves into the no-mind.
Because mind is not you -- it is just an instrument just like my hand, just like my legs. If I want to walk I
use my legs, if I don't want to walk I don't use my legs. Exactly in the same way you can use the mind
logically if you are trying to know about matter. It is perfectly right, it fits there. And when you are moving
inwards, put it aside. Now legs are not needed; thinking is not needed. Now you need a deep silent state of
no-thought.
And this can happen in one person. And when I say it, I say it from my own experience. I have been
Query:-
doing both. When it is needed, I can become as logical as any Greek. When it is not needed, I can become
as absurd, illogical as any Hindu. So when I say it I mean it, and it is not a hypothesis. I have experienced It
that way. The mind can be used and can be put aside. It is an instrument, a very beautiful instrument; no
need to be so obsessed with it. No need to be so fixed, fixated with it. Then it becomes a disease. Just think
of a man who wants to sit but cannot sit because he says, "I have legs -- how can I sit?" Or, think of a man
who wants to keep quiet and silent and cannot keep quiet and silent because he says, "I have a mind." It is
the same.
One should become so capable that even the closest instrument of mind can be put aside and can be put
off. It can be done, it has been done, but it has not been done on a great scale. But more and more it will be
done. This is what I am trying to do here with you.
I talk to you, I discuss problems with you; that's logical, that is using the mind. And then I say to you,
"Drop the mind and move into deep meditation. If you dance, dance so totally that there is not a single
thought inside, your whole energy becomes dance. Or sing, then just sing. Or sit, then just sit -- be in
ZAZEN, don't do anything else. Don't allow a single thought to pass through. Just be quiet, absolutely
quiet." These are contradictory things.
Every morning you meditate and every morning you come and listen to me. Every morning you listen to
me and then you go and meditate. This is contradictory. If I were just Greek, I would talk to you, I would
make a logical communication with you, but then I would not say to meditate. That is foolish. If I were just
Hindu, there would be no need to talk to you. I can say, "Just go and meditate, because what is the point of
talking? One has to become silent." I am both. And this is my hope: that you will also become both --
because then life is very enriched, tremendously enriched. Then you don't lose anything. Then everything is
absorbed; then you become a great orchestra. Then all polarities meet in you.
For the Greeks, the very idea of 'love thyself' would have been absurd, because they would say, and they
would say logically, that love is possible only between two persons. You can love somebody else, you can
even love your enemy, but how can you love yourself? Only you are there, alone. Love can exist between a
duality, a polarity; how can you love yourself? For the Greek mind, the very idea of loving oneself is
absurd: for love, the other is needed.
For the Hindu mind, in the Upanishads they say: you love your wife not for your wife's sake; you love
your wife just for your own sake. You love yourself through her. Because she gives you pleasure, that's why
you love her -- but deep down you love your own pleasure. You love your son, you love your friend, not
because of them but because of you. Deep down your son makes you happy, your friend gives you solace.
That's what you are hankering for. So the Upanishads say: you love yourself really. Even if you say that you
love others, that is just a via media to love yourself, a long roundabout way to love yourself.
Hindus say that there is no other possibility: you can love only yourself. And Greeks say there is no
possibility to love oneself because at least two are needed.
If you ask me, I'm both Hindu and Greek. If you ask me I will say love is a paradox. It is a very
paradoxical phenomenon. Don't try to reduce it to one pole; both polarities are needed. The other is needed,
but in deep love the other disappears. If you watch two lovers, they are two and one together. That's the
paradox of love, and that's the beauty of it: they are two, yes, they are two; and yet they are not two, they are
one. If this oneness has not happened then love is not possible. They may be doing something else in the
name of love. If they are still two and not one also, then love has not happened. And if you are just alone
and there is nobody else, then too love is not possible. Love is a paradoxical phenomenon. It needs two in
the first place, and in the last place it needs two to exist as one. It is the greatest enigma; it is the greatest
puzzle.
If you have loved somebody, you will understand what I mean. You know that the other is other, and yet
deep down you feel something has been bridged. It is as if travelling in a sea you come across an island. It is
separate from-the continent, yes. But deep down, underneath the sea, the land is one. It is joined with the
continent; it is not really separate. It is separate yet not separate; that's what love is.
So if you ask me, I will say it is possible to love yourself, but then you will have to divide yourself in
two. Then you will have to become the lover and the beloved both. And it is also possible to love somebody
else, but then you will have to become one. Love is something that happens between two persons, but when
it happens they are no more two, they become one.
The third question:

Query:-
THE SAME DAWN, THE SAME DUSK, THE SAME CHASING, THE SAME THOUGHT OF AWARENESS,
THE SAME TALK OF AWARENESS, THE SAME AND THE SAME....
It depends....
In a way it is the same. How can it be otherwise? The same sun, the same sun rising every morning, and the
same sunset, yes -- but if you watch closely, have you ever seen two sunrises exactly the same? Have you
watched the colors in the sky? Have you seen the cloud formations around the sun?
No two sunrises are the same; no two sunsets are the same. The world is a discontinuous continuity --
discontinuous because every moment something new is happening, and yet continuous because it is not
absolutely new. It is connected. So both proverbs are right. There is a proverb which says: there is nothing
new under the sun; and the other proverb which seems contradictory to it which says: there is nothing old
under the sun. Both are true.
Nothing is new and nothing is old. Everything goes on changing and yet somehow remains the same,
somehow remains the same and yet goes on changing. That's the beauty, the mystery, the secret. You cannot
reduce it to any category: you cannot say it is the same, you cannot say it is not the same. You cannot
reduce life into your categories; your pigeon-holes are just worthless. When it comes to life, you have to
drop all your pigeon-holes, your categories. It is bigger than your categories, transcendental to all
categories. It is so vast that you cannot find its beginning or its end.
The questioner says, "The same dawn, the same dusk, the same chasing, the same thought of awareness,
the same talk of awareness, the same and the same."
Yes, in a way it is the same; and in another way, nothing is the same. Yesterday also I was here, but I am
not the same. How can I be? -- so much water has flowed down the Ganges. I am twenty-four hours older,
twenty-four hours of experience are added to me, twenty-four hours of intense awareness. I am richer; I'm
not the same -- death has come a little closer. You are also not the same, and yet I look the same and you
look the same.
You have to see the point. This is what I mean when I say life is a mystery: you cannot classify it, you
cannot say definitely that this is so. The moment you say, immediately you will become aware that life has
falsified you.
Are these trees the same as they were yesterday? Many leaves have fallen, many new leaves have come
up, many flowers are gone. They have risen higher. How can they be the same? See, today the cuckoo is not
singing. It is so silent. Yesterday the cuckoo was singing. It was a different silence: it was full of song.
Today's silence is different; it is not full of song. Even the wind is not blowing -- everything has stopped.
Yesterday there was great wind. Trees are meditating today; yesterday they were dancing. It cannot be the
same, and yet, it is the same.
It depends on you -- how you look at life. If you look as if it is the same, you will be bored. Then don't
throw your responsibility on somebody else. It is your outlook. If you say it is the same, then you will be
bored. If you see the constant change, flux-like, the great whirlwind-like movement all around you, the
dynamism of life, each moment the old disappearing and the new coming in; if you can see the continuous
birth, if you can see God's hand continuously creating, then you will be enchanted, thrilled. Your life will
not be bored. You will be continuously wondering, "What next?..." You will not be dull. Your intelligence
will remain sharp, alive and young.
Now it depends on what you want. If you want to become like a dead man, stupid, dull, gloomy, sad and
bored, then you believe that life is the same. If you want to become very young and alive, fresh, radiant,
then believe that life is new each moment.
Says old Heraclitus, "You cannot step twice into the same river.''
You cannot meet the same person twice and you cannot see the same sunrise twice It is up to you. And
if you understand me, I will say, don't choose. If you choose the idea that everything is old, you become old.
If you choose that everything is young and new, you become young. If you understand me, I say don't
choose; see that both are true. Then you transcend all categories. You are neither old nor young. Then you
become eternal, then you become God-like, then you become life-like.
I have heard an anecdote:
A Judge Dunne was seated in court in New York, or rather in Brooklyn, while a very, very stupid
witness was being interrogated. The attorney said, "Were you at the corner of Fourth and Elm the day of the
accident?"
Query:-
The witness said, "Who? Me?"

"Yes, you," said the attorney. "Did you notice whether or not the ambulance came to care for the wounded
woman?"
"Who? Me?"
"Yes, you! Did you notice whether or not the woman was seriously injured?"
"Who? Me?"
By this time, the Prosecuting Attorney was exasperated. He said, "Certainly you! Why do you think you
are here?"
The witness said, "I came here to see justice done."
Judge Dunne said, "Who? Me?"
If you believe that everything is the same, then this will be a constant thing -- Who? Me? -- and you are
going to be bored. The repetition will kill you. To be sharp and alive one needs something which is not
repetitive. Something new, constantly happening, makes you alive, keeps you alive, keeps you alert.
Have you watched a dog sitting silently? A rock is Iying down just in front of him; he will not be
worried. But let the rock start moving. Just have a small thread connected to the rock and pull it, and the dog
will jump. He will start barking. Movement makes you sharp; then all dullness is gone. Then he is no longer
sleepy. Then he is no longer dreaming about flies and other things. Then he will simply jump out of his
slumber. Something has changed.
Change gives you movement, but constant change also can be very uprooting. As constant no-change
can be very deadening, constant change can also be very uprooting.
That is happening in the West; people are changing. The statisticians say that in America the average
limit of a person doing a job is three years. People are changing their jobs, changing their towns, changing
their spouses, trying to change everything -- changing their car every year, their house -- the whole value
has changed. In England they make Rolls Royce. Their idea is so that it lasts forever, life-long at least. In
America they make beautiful cars, but stability is not the quality to be bothered about -- because who is
going to keep a car for his whole life? If it lasts for one year, enough. When the American goes to purchase
a car, he does not bother about stability; he asks about exchangeability. The English still ask about
durability, stability, whether the car will be durable because he purchases once, and finished. He's very
old-fashioned. He does not know any divorce, even with a car. Once married, married. He's very
monogamous even with a car. He's very sincere. The American lives in a world of change -- everything is
changing -- but then the American has lost the roots.
In my old village where sometimes I used to go, I was surprised. Everything remains the same. The
same coolie would greet me at the station -- because there is only one coolie -- and the same TONGA, and
the same road, and I would see the same people moving around. Everything remains almost the same.
Rarely somebody dies; rarely somebody is born -- otherwise everything remains almost the same. And even
when people die, they are replaced by their sons, and they look almost the same. Nothing has changed. The
houses are the same, the gossip is the same. It seems time does not exist.
I was always surprised going back to my town. That was the first thing that I would see: that in this town
time does not exist. Everything seems to be eternally the same. But then people have roots. They are dull
but they are very rooted. They are very comfortable, happy. They are not alienated. They don't feel
strangers. How can they feel strangers? -- everything is so similar. When they were born it was the same;
when they die it will be the same. Everything is so stable. How can you feel a stranger? The whole town is
like a small family.
In America everything is uprooted. Nobody knows where one belongs. The very sense of belonging is
lost. If you ask somebody; "Where do you belong?" he will shrug his shoulders -- because he has been to so
many towns, to so many colleges, to so many universities. He cannot even be certain of who he is because
the identity is very loose, fluid. In a way it is good because the man remains sharp and alive, but roots are
gone.
For me, both things have been tried: stability, rootedness, nothing new under the sun -- we have tried it
in the past, for many centuries. It rusted the human mind. People were comfortable but not very alive.
Then in America, something new has happened and it is spreading all over the world, because America
is the future of the world. Whatsoever is happening there is going to happen everywhere, sooner or later.
America sets the trend. Now people are very alive but unrooted, don't know where they belong. A great
desire to belong has arisen. A great desire to be rooted somewhere, to possess someone and to be possessed
by someone: something durable, something stable, something like a center -- because people are moving
Query:-
like wheels and there seems to be no rest. And it is great stress: continuously changing, continuously
changing. And change is accelerating every day, becoming faster and faster. Now they say that big books
cannot be written because by the time you write a big book it is out of date. Knowledge is changing so fast,
so only small booklets are possible. So they reach -- before knowledge changes, they reach to people.
Otherwise, before they reach the market, already the books will be out of date and useless, rubbish.
Everything is in such a great change and turmoil and chaos, and man feels deeply stressed, great strain
and tension. Both have their benefits and both have their curses.
To me, a synthesis has to be made between these two orientations. One should be aware that life is both
the old and new together, simultaneously -- old because the whole past is present in the present moment;
new because the whole future is potentially present in the present moment. The present moment is a
culmination of the whole past and the beginning of the whole future. In this moment, all that has happened
is hidden, and all that is going to happen is also hidden. Each moment is past and future both, a convergence
of past and future. So something is old and something is new, and if you can become aware of both together,
you will have sharpness and roots both together. You will be at ease, without any stress. You will not
become dull, and you will be very conscious and alert.
I have heard....
Mistress MacMahon went beserk one afternoon. She broke every dish and cup and reduced her usually
spotless kitchen to shambles. The police arrived and took her to the city's mental institution. The head
psychiatrist sent for her husband.
"Do you know any reason," asked the shrink, "why your wife should suddenly lose her mind?"
"I'm just as surprised as you are," answered Mr. MacMahon. "I can't imagine what got into her. She has
always been such a quiet, hardworking woman. Why, she has not been out of the kitchen in twenty years!"
Now then, one is going to go mad. It is as simple as two plus two make four. If for twenty years one has
not been out of the kitchen, it is maddening. But the opposite is always maddening. If you have never been
to your home for twenty years, and have just become a vagabond, always arriving and never arriving
anywhere, always reaching and never reaching anywhere; if you have become a gypsy and you don't have
any home, then too you will start going mad.
Both are dangerous taken separately. Taken together they make life very rich. All polarities make life
rich: yin and yang, man and woman, dark and light, life and death, god and devil, saint and sinner. All
polarities taken together make life rich. Otherwise life becomes monotonous. Don't choose a monotonous
life. Become richer.
The fourth question:
AFTER EACH CAMP, I AM LEFT DEEPLY FRUSTRATED AND ANXIOUS, AS IF I HAVE BEEN WAITING
FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN THAT NEVER HAPPENS, AND I SAY TO MYSELF: HEERA, YOU ARE
BACK IN THE SAME BOAT AGAIN. PLEASE COMMENT.
Let me first tell you one anecdote.

The newly-arrived convict was complaining to the warden, "I don't like the food here, I don't like the
quarters, and I don't like your face."
"Well," said the warden, "is there anything else you don't like?"
"That's all for the time being," said the convict. "I don't want you to think that I am unreasonable."
Heera, you are very unreasonable.
First, for hundreds and hundreds of lives you have never meditated. Not to meditate has gone deep into
your bones, into your very heart -- it has become a hard pattern. Now, suddenly you meditate and you start
expecting too much. It is unreasonable.
In fact, all expectations are unreasonable, but when one expects something out of meditation it is
ABSOLUTELY unreasonable. Because the very base of meditation, the very foundation of meditation is to
understand that expectation has to be dropped; otherwise meditation never starts. It is expectation that keeps
your mind continuously spinning thoughts. It is expectation that keeps you tense. It is expectation, when not
fulfilled, that makes you feel frustrated, miserable. Drop expectation and meditation will flower, but it can
flower only when you are not expecting. You can go on expecting for many lives; you will not allow
meditation to flower. That is not the way.
Query:-
I have heard....
Lanahan's hair kept falling and he complained to his barber. "That stuff you gave me," he cried "is
terrible. You said two bottles of it would make me hair grow, but nothing has happened."
"I don't understand," said the barber, "that is the best hair restorer made."
"Well," said Lanahan, "I don't mind drinking another bottle, but it better work!"
Now, with expectation, doing meditation is like drinking a bottle of hair restorer. It is not going to work.
It can even be destructive, it can be dangerous.
It is better not to meditate than to meditate with expectation, because at least you will not suffer the
frustration. Don't meditate. But if you have decided to meditate, then be clear. Meditation does not
guarantee anything to you. Not that nothing happens out of it; it happens, but there is no guarantee.
Tremendous possibilities open but you cannot expect them. If you expect, doors remain dosed. It is your
expectation that blocks the way.
Two friends met on the street.
"I'm so unhappy I could cry," said the first.
"Why?"
"Two weeks ago, my uncle died and left me one million dollars."
"That's no reason to cry," said the second.
"That would make you happy, that's true," said the first, "but last week another uncle died and left me two
million dollars."
"But why are you so unhappy then?"
The man said, "I only had two uncles!"
Expectation is very, very dangerous. With expectation, even if something happens you will not feel
fulfilled, because expectation is almost insanity. You go on expecting more and more -- now the man is
miserable because he had only two uncles. Whatsoever happens is not going to make you happy if you start
with expectations. Drop expectation -- that is not the right thing to bring into meditation -- and immediately
things will start happening.
Next camp, or from tomorrow, just meditate. Enjoy it intrinsically. There is no need to look for any
result. Let it happen. Let the future come of its own accord. Don't make a destination out of meditation --
just simple direction will do. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. Be festive about it.
The very act of meditation is a great joy. Just to be able to dance, just to be able to sing, just to be able
to sit silently and breathe and be, is more than enough. Don't ask for anything else. Because of your asking
you are corrupting your being. You have tried that way, now listen to me and try my way. You simply
meditate.
"After each camp, I am left deeply frustrated and anxious..."
The problem does not arise after the camp, it arises before the camp. First you sow the seeds of
expectation, then who is going to suffer? You will suffer. You will have to reap the crop.
"... as if I have been waiting for something to happen that never happens..."
That is never going to happen. Whatsoever you are waiting for, you are waiting in vain. It is not going to
happen, and what is going to happen has nothing to do with your expectations and your desires. You just let
it come in; don't block the way. Remove yourself out of your own way. This time, with no expectations, no
desires, no hopes, just meditate.
"... and I say to myself: Heera, you are back in the same boat again."
If you listen to me you will never again be in the same boat. It is the boat of expectation. Frustration is a
by-product. You want to get rid of the frustration but you don't want to get rid of the expectation. Then it is
impossible.
Buddha is reported to have said, "If you want to get rid of death, get rid of birth." There is no other way.
If you want to get rid of misery, get rid of the lust for happiness. And when there is no misery, there IS
happiness. But it is not because you desire it; it is because you don't have any desire. In a deep desireless
state, you are full of bliss.
The last question:

It is from Parijat.
YOUR CONTRADICTIONS USED TO THROW ME INTO SUCH UNHAPPY EMOTIONAL STATES. NOW I
LISTEN TO YOU BUT WITHOUT THINKING, REMAINING TRANQUIL. HAVE I ESCAPED BEFORE THE
Query:-
POT CAME TO THE BOIL?
First, one anecdote.

A mother was examining a new mechanical toy at the corner shop and wondered if it were not too
complicated for a small boy.
"Oh, no," the salesman beamed, "it is an educational toy. It is especially designed to teach the child
something about our current civilization: no matter how he puts it together, he's wrong."
Don't try to put me together, otherwise you will be wrong. It is designed that way. To contradict myself
is my way. To never allow you to settle anywhere is my way. To go on goading you on and on, is my way.
But now, Parijat has learned the trick: listen in deep tranquility. Don't be bothered about whether I am
contradicting something that I have said before. Listen to me this moment; don't bring the past in. If you
don't bring the past in there is no contradiction. If you bring the past in then there is contradiction. Just don't
bring the past in: that is what tranquility is. You just listen to me this moment; then where is the
contradiction? And that's my whole effort -- to go on contradicting. One day or other you will decide that if
you have to listen to this man, you have to forget all about what he has said before. That's a way to make
you alert that the past has not to be brought in. If I go on saying very consistent things you will stop
listening to me -- because there is no need: "He is saying the same thing." Even if you sleep you will not
miss anything. But I will not allow you to sleep because you can miss, you can never rely.
There was one advertisement in a newspaper: a nightguard was needed by a rich man. He had three
conditions: one, he should be very tall, strong, violent-looking; second, he should not be addicted to any sort
of alcoholic beverages, he should be alert; and third, he should be reliable.
Mulla Nasrudin applied. He was called, but the rich man was surprised because he is a very small man,
not tall at all, and not violent-looking, a very meek fellow.
The rich man said,''I am surprised why you troubled yourself to come here, and why you answered my
advertisement. Can't you see? These are the three conditions: first, that the man should be tall, at least six
feet. You don't seem to be more than five. The man should be violent looking; I have not seen such a
simple, almost simpleton, type man. You look so meek. Why have you come? Do you drink or not?"
Nasrudin said, "I drink too much.''
"Then why are you wasting my time? Why have you come?"
Nasrudin said, "I have come only to say that I am not reliable either."
I also am not reliable. I completely go on forgetting what I have said to you yesterday. I am a drunkard.
That's why I can contradict so easily, otherwise it would be very difficult. It never comes to my mind that I
am contradictory. Whatsoever I am saying, this is it! I don't bother about what I have said before. I'm not
concerned with it. That was the truth of that moment, this is the truth of this moment, and I'm not reliable. I
am not saying anything that I am going to say again tomorrow. Who knows? I don't know myself. If you
really listen to me, by and by you will listen to the moment. That's the whole effort.
I am not trying to give you a philosophy, a doctrine, a dogma. A dogma has to be consistent, a creed has
to be consistent. I am not trying to convert you to a certain belief; a belief has to be consistent. I am trying
to give you a vision, not a belief. I am trying to help you to come to my window to see the sky, to see the
truth. That truth cannot be described. And that truth cannot be made a dogma, and that truth contains all
contradictions -- because it is so vast. So I go on giving you glimpses, aspects of it: one aspect is
contradictory to another aspect. But in the whole truth, all aspects meet and mingle and are one.
The right way to listen to me is this: where Paritosh has arrived. Everybody has to arrive if you want to
listen to me. If you want to be with me, you have to arrive to that tranquility where you don't pay any
attention to the past. You forget what. I have said as deeply as I go on forgetting. You are simply to listen to
this moment. Then there is no contradiction because there is no comparison. And then you don't cling to
what I say. It becomes just a direction and not a destination. It just helps you to become more alert and
aware. It does not give you a philosophy. Rather, it gives you a very subtle milieu, a totally different vision
of life. It imparts my eyes to you.
A salesman walked into a busy executive's office and asked, "How about buying some of the latest
styles in ties?"
"I don't need any," said the executive. "Scram!"
"They are pure silk," continued the salesman.
"Look, I said beat it, and I mean it." Then, his patience exhausted, the executive picked up the salesman and
tossed him out; sample cases were scattered all over the place. The salesman, undaunted, picked up his
Query:-
wares, brushed off his clothes, and walked back into the office.
"Now that you have got that off your chest," he said, "I am ready to take down your order."
The same I say to Parijat: now that you have got that off your chest, those contradictions, and getting
troubled by them and emotionally disturbed about them -- because you were seeking a philosophy, you were
seeking a mental belief, you were trying to find something to cling to and I will not allow -- now that it is
off your chest, I am ready to take down your order.
Now, the really last question:
I WANT TO TELL YOU, TO THANK YOU FOR ALL THE MIRACLES AND BLESSINGS, BUT I CAN'T FIND A
WAY BIG ENOUGH. IT IS ALL SO OVERWHELMING.
A little anecdote....
A hippie-type hobo wandered into a church and on the way out told the vicar, "Man, you were swinging
daddy, like way out, man."
"I beg your pardon?" said the vicar.
"I mean, man," said the hippie hobo, "I really dig your jive, man. I read you loud and clear. I put a little cash
in your old plate there, daddyo."
"Aha!" beamed the vicar, grasping the down-and-out's hand. "Cool man, cool!"
That's what I say to you -- cool man, cool. There is no need to express your gratitude; it will be difficult.
If you can express it, it is not of worth. If it is of worth, you cannot express it. If you are just giving me a
formal thank you, then you can express it. But I know, I know the person who has said this. Something is
really happening. It is overwhelming, but there is no need to express it. I know it.
In fact, I know it before you come to know it. Whenever it is happening to somebody, I am the first to
know here. You will be the second, even if it is happening to you -- because it will take a little time to reach
your mind. It has to travel a little longer. It travels to me more fast. I know it is overwhelming, but there is
no need; just cool down. Become more cool. And I will know it, and everybody else will know it, and the
whole world -- even the trees and the rocks and the rivers will know it.
When it really happens, there is no need to say it. The whole existence immediately feels it: something
has happened. Somebody has opened, some flower flowered, a lotus bloomed.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #7
Chapter title: Dying with death, You must live to seek

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 91 mins
COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH

WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
IF YOU WISH TO ATTAIN
Query:-
THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
PLACE AT HIS FEET

YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS
AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS
FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK

IS EARTHED
IN THE EARTH,
DECEASED WHILE BEING.
DYING WITH DEATH,

YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK....
THE RELIGION OF THE BAULS IS THE RELIGION OF THE EARTH. It's radical, because it
pertains to the very roots of being. When I say it is the religion of the earth, I mean many things: it is the
religion of the body, it is the religion of nature, it is the religion of reality. The Bauls don't believe in fantasy
and they don't believe in some heavenly paradise; they don't believe in far-away goals, they are not
utopians. They are very realistic people, down-to-earth. This is something very special in the world of
religions, because ordinarily religions are nothing but wish-fulfillments, dreams of a suffering humanity.
Because humanity is suffering it substitutes for reality by dreaming. A poor man can console himself that at
least in the kingdom of God he will be the first. He can console himself with sayings like: Blessed are the
meek because they shall inherit the earth; the poor in spirit are the people of God; those who are last will be
the first in the kingdom of God. The poor man needs all these consolations.
Man is afraid of death. He needs to be again and again reassured that he is a soul, deathless, immortal;
only the body dies, not you. Man is suffering a thousand and one complexities. The whole life is almost an
oceanic sadness, suffering, sorrow. It is difficult to bear it. Dreams are needed, hopes of a better future, of a
better world, are needed. Maybe it is beyond death, but just the idea that it is there waiting for you and the
suffering is only for today, you pass it somehow; you believe in tomorrow. Sooner or later you will be
relieved of it. Ordinary religions are the religions of tomorrow. They simply indicate that because man lives
in suffering, man needs dreaming.
The religion of the Bauls is very down-to-earth; it believes in the here-now. It does not say that paradise
is somewhere else; it is here, and you cannot postpone it, and all postponement is dangerous, suicidal. If you
cannot discover it here-now, you will never discover it anywhere else because you will remain the same.
And whenever you will be, life will always come in the form of here-now. So the only door to reality is
here, this very moment.
The Bauls say, "This is the reality and there is no that." They don't divide reality into two: they don't say
illusory and the real, they don't say MAYA and BRAHMA, they don't say this and that. They say, "This is
all." This moment is total, and all division is dangerous because reality is nowhere divided; it is indivisible.
Hence, they don't talk about a God somewhere sitting in the seventh heaven. They talk about a totally
different God -- rooted in you, rooted here in the earth, rooted in this body, rooted in these emotions, lust
and love, rooted here in tension and stress. The God of the Bauls is a very real God. You can touch Him,
you can love Him, you can embrace Him, you live with Him, you can live Him. It is not far away, it is very
close; closer than close, because it is you. They don't use the word 'God' at all. Their word for God is
ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man. Man himself is divine. If you enter yourself you will be entering
God. If you enter this world you will be entering God.
This does not mean that there is no God. This is a radical standpoint, but not negation. It is a very
revolutionary attitude, but not negative. It does not mean that God does not exist. In fact, it means that God
exists here, now, and the responsibility is yours to discover Him. And there is no alibi, there is no excuse to
postpone.
In Chinese, Taoists have reached to the same viewpoint: they dropped the very word 'God'. They started
using the word, 'CHI'LAN'. CHI'LAN means nature; that is God. CHI'LAN means that which happens of
Query:-
itself, that which is already happening, that which has always been happening and will go on happening.
That is the meaning of the word 'Tao' also. In the Vedas, Hindus have a beautiful word: they call it
RITAMBH. That is exactly what Tao or CHI'LAN is. RITAMBH means nature, not God -- because
whenever you say 'God', somehow it is always somewhere else, not here; at least not in you, not in your
neighbor. The earth seems to be not worthy enough for God to be here.
Jainas and Buddhists use the word DHAMMA -- that exactly means nature. The Sanskrit word
DHARMA also means nature. It is not equivalent to the English word 'religion'; no, not at all. In fact, both
are polar opposites. Religion means that which binds you, gives you a certain organization -- a church --
gives you a certain belonging. DHARMA means that which frees you from all churches, from all
organizations. DHARMA is individual, religion is social. Religion belongs to the collective crowd, religion
does not belong to the individual. Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, are all religions; they are not
DHARMAS. DHARMA has no adjective to it. Everybody has to discover his own DHARMA; everybody
has to discover his own nature.
The Bauls' attitude that God is here in you has to be understood as deeply as possible, because there is
no other God. In fact, because religions have been talking about a God somewhere else, that's why the world
has become more and more godless. Because the God that is not here and cannot be touched and cannot be
seen and cannot be lived with, cannot be very appealing. As man grows to be mature, that God will start
disappearing, withering away. Whenever man becomes very mature, those gods of the dreams will
disappear and man will be left without God. That's what has happened to this age. It is not because of
atheists that man has become godless, it is because of a wrong notion of God.
Marx could condemn the God of the Christians, Marx cannot condemn the God of the Bauls. Scientists
can deny the God of the so-called religious, but scientists cannot deny the God of the Baul -- because he
never proposes anything dreamlike. He is simply realistic.
I have heard a beautiful anecdote.
A commissar in Russia asked a peasant how the new potato-crop-production plan was coming under
their glorious leader.
Said the peasant, "Our potato crop has been miraculous. If we were to put all the potatoes in a pile, they
would make a mountain reaching to the feet of God."
'But you know there is not any God," said the commissar.
"I know," said the peasant, "but there are not any potatoes either."
A God in the sky is a false God. Not that the sky is without God, no; the sky is as full of God as the
earth. But the first understanding of God is going to be rooted in the earth. The first understanding has to be
of the roots, and out of those roots your understanding will grow and spread to the farther corners of
existence. But the journey starts at home. It starts deep within you. The first glimpse of God has to be in the
innermost shrine of your heart. If you have not seen Him there, you can go on talking about Him, but you
will not ever be able to see Him anywhere. The first encounter has to happen within you. Once it happens,
you will be surprised that you start seeing God everywhere. Once you have seen Him within your heart,
how can you miss Him. -- because everywhere the heart is throbbing with Him. The tree is full of Him and
the rock also, and the river and the ocean, and the animals and the birds, everywhere. Once you have felt
His pulse, once you have felt Him circulating in your own blood, once you have had an experience in your
own marrow, then everywhere, wherever you look you will find Him. But, it cannot happen otherwise. If
you are empty of His experience, you can go to the farthest corner of the world; your travelling will be in
vain. You will never reach His temple because you missed the very root of it. You missed Him at home. If
your own house does not become His temple, then no temple can be His abode. If your own house has
become His temple, then all houses are His abode.
When the Bauls say that one has to be very earth oriented, they don't mean that the sky is empty of God.
But they say, "If the earth is not full, then the sky is absolutely empty. If even the earth is not full, how can
the sky be full of Him? If He is not here, how can He be there? If He is not this, how can He be that? If He
is not today, how can He be tomorrow? If He is not in this life, how can He be in the next?" Their logic is
simple and irrefutable.
But man has created a God in the skies. Why? This God is not a real God, it is a substitute -- because
you are missing Him here, and you are missing Him so tremendously that you have to put Him somewhere
or other. Otherwise you will feel very alone. You will feel so lonely that you will miss the meaning of life.
And it is good to put Him very far away, because then there is no hurry. The journey is so far that you
cannot complete it today. Even this life is not enough, so enough space to postpone, enough space to say,
Query:-
"Yes, one day I will do," enough space to pretend that you are interested in Him and continuing to be of the
world, and going on talking at the same time about God. This is the double-talk, the double-bind of ordinary
humanity. People talk about God and live according to the devil. They go to the temple but they never
reach. They read the Bible, they read the Koran, but they never listen. These are pretensions, only on the
surface. This is how the hypocritical humanity is born -- a false, pseudo-humanity.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin went to his psychiatrist once and said, "Doctor, I wonder if you can split my personality
for me?"
"Why? Why would you want to do that?" asked the doctor, surprised.
"Because," said the Mulla, "I am so lonesome."
Man feels very alone without God, and to find the real God is arduous. It is very easy to create a
pseudo-God which looks like God, which appears like God. It at least gives consolation that you are not
alone. Have you watched your concept of God? Has it arisen out of the experience of your own being, or
has it arisen out of your experience of your loneliness? This is the criterion: if you believe in God because
you feel lonely, your God is going to be false; if you believe in God because you have experienced Him in
your aloneness, if it has come out of your own being, then the God is real. Then let Nietzsche declare that
God is dead; your God can never be dead. Your God is alive in you. How can Nietzsche declare that God is
dead? But he could declare, and not only declare; his declaration became a prophecy. Within a hundred
years, his declaration has become a reality. The God of the churches is dead, the God of the temples is dead,
the God of the books is dead. Nobody has ever been so prophetic as Nietzsche has been. God is
disappearing; the very word has become ugly.
Just the other day I was reading a Christian priest's book. I was surprised, because I have heard about
cases in which, particularly in India, people, if they want to read Playboy, hide it in their Gita or in their
Bible and read it. That I have heard. But that Christian says that he was so afraid to read the Bible that he
was hiding his Bible behind the cover of a Playboy magazine! It has come to happen in the West. So when
he would go every Sunday to his beauty parlor, he would take his Bible. But afraid that others might see that
he was reading the Bible, so out of date, he would hide it in a Playboy magazine and would read his Bible
there.
One day in the Bible he came across Jesus' saying: If you deny me, remember, at the last day of
judgment I will also deny you. So he became afraid because this was a sort of denial -- reading the Bible
behind the cover of Playboy. He became so afraid that he started perspiring, because Jesus says, "If you
deny me, then before God I will not recognize you." So he threw away the Playboy magazine and he felt so
good. He went to his priest and said, "Today I have done a great deed. I gathered courage to let people know
that I read the Bible."
God IS dead, MUST be dead. Have you watched yourself? -- if you are carrying a Bible you feel a little
awkward. Or, if you are going to the temple you start finding excuses: that you are going because your wife
has gone and there is some work to be done, or your father is there, or you are just going for formality's
sake; it is just social. Have you watched how things change?
I was reminded when I was reading this of a beautiful story.
One dacoit, a great robber, became interested in the American ways of dacoity. Everybody has to be
interested now, because everybody in his own profession is trying to go to America. Doctors are going,
engineers are going, so the dacoit thought, "Why not us? We can also learn the modern techniques." So he
went to America, he joined a gang, and he was watching and observing what they were doing, the modern
techniques. He was surprised, because first they kidnapped a beautiful woman, and then they wrote. But he
said, "This is okay, because we also do the same in India: we kidnap a woman and then we write a letter to
the husband that if within three days he doesn't give fifty thousand rupees, then we will kill his wife." So he
wondered, "But what is new in it?" Then he looked at what they were writing in the letter. He was surprised;
he said, "What are you doing?" -- because in the letter they were writing, "If within three days you don't
send us fifty thousand dollars, we will send your wife back."
The world has tremendously changed. People used to read Playboys hiding them in their Bible covers,
but now they are hiding their Bibles in Playboy covers. Nietzsche was right -- God is dead. But the real God
cannot die; that is impossible. To say that God is dead is to say that life is dead. If God means life, then the
statement 'God is dead' is simply stupid, meaningless, contradictory -- because life is that which lives, that
which goes on living.
The Bauls would laugh. They would say, "Then you have not understood the real God. Yes, your God is
Query:-
dead because he was false, but the God of the Bauls is not dead, cannot be dead, because we never talked
about God -- we talk about life, love. If all the temples were destroyed and all the mosques and
GURUDWARAS were burnt, nothing would happen to God. Because the God enshrined there is not the
real God. The God enshrined in you is the real God, and that cannot be destroyed. Life cannot be destroyed;
life goes on. It is an eternal river."
But man feels lonely. In his loneliness he creates fantasies, dreams. Man has become so lonely that he
finds solace in any way, anywhere. It is unfortunate. But this is no way to find the real.
I was reading one anecdote:
Ira quit college, got himself a backpack and began hitchhiking around the United States. After he had
been gone more than a year he telephoned home. "Hello, Ma, how are you?"
"Just fine, son. When are you coming home? I will fix you some chopped liver and chicken soup and a
beautiful potroast. "
"I'm still pretty far away."
"Oh, son!" cried the desperate woman.''Just come home, and I will fix your favorite -- oatmeal cookies."
"I don't like oatmeal cookies," said the boy.
"You don't?" asked the woman.
"Say," said Ira, "is this Century 5-7682?"
"No."
"Then I must have the wrong number."
"Does that mean you are not coming home, boy?" asked the woman.
People are really lonely. Even if it is not your son, at least somebody is coming. You can pretend, you
can believe, you can console.
The God that exists in the temples is not a real God. That God that exists in the sky is your projection;
the real God is within you. That which you are seeking is not somewhere else, it is in your very seeking. It
is in the very seeker -- the sought is in the seeker. You are the truth, alive, in flesh. God is reborn in you,
God is incarnated in you, God has taken a body in you. Where are you seeking, where are you going? The
Bauls say, "Wait, listen, go within."
They sing,
The God is living in man,

wholly intermingled.
Oh, my unseeing heart,
your eyes are unwise!
How then can you locate
the treasured man?
The unseen man
dwelling in the brilliance of light
hides his identity
from those blinded by stupor.
He is stationed in man,
appearing and vanishing
as the eyelids blink.
They go on singing again and again:
All of us in different ways

think of God
beyond senses and feelings.
And yet it is only
in the essence of loving
that God is found.
Query:-
On the other shore of the ocean

of one's own self
quivers a drop of fluid
as the origin of all.
The root of all is based in you.
Explore the base
to reach the essence,
release the sensation of taste
on your tongue,
open the doors of feeling
for the Beloved.
Nectar, showering on
the lotus of spontaneity,
lust and love are housed
in one single place,
where sorrows and joys do not exist.
They believe in man. They believe in the tremendous potentiality of man. They believe that man is the
shrine of God. They believe in the body. No religion except Tantra has ever endeavored to understand this
miraculous happening of consciousness located in the body, of consciousness residing in the body. All the
other religions have remained anti-body, anti-life, life-negative, body-negative -- as if the more you destroy
your body, the more you become divine, or the more you come close to God. Bauls say, "If you destroy the
body, you destroy the very base. If you destroy sensation, you destroy sensitivity. If you destroy your
senses, then how will you taste Him, how will you hear Him, how will you see Him? If you destroy your
love, how will you love Him? If you destroy your passion, then you will be impotent."
They have a really revolutionary religion to preach to the world. They are very illiterate people, but of
great insight. Maybe that's why they are so full of insight, because they are illiterate...because they don't
know much about scriptures, and they don't know much about philosophy and metaphysics. Because they
cannot read the books they read their own bodies; because they cannot understand conceptualizations they
try to find out who they are; because they cannot be very learned -- poor beggars moving from one village
to another, singing and dancing, enjoying -- they have come very close to reality.
They are very authentic, uncorrupted by nature, society, education. They are very innocent people. And
this is their understanding: that body is divine. Body is sacred, because everything is sacred. But this word
'sacred' is not very good. In the Old Testament, the word 'sacred' comes from a root which means the
separate. God is called sacred in the Old Testament because He is a separate reality from this reality.
Bauls would laugh. They will say, "You have gone insane! There is no separate reality. God is THIS
reality." Bauls make the whole reality sacred, holy, divine. Their vision is so vast that even matter is no
longer thought of as matter. Even matter, in their vision, becomes luminous. Even body is not just body -- it
is of the earth, but it carries the divine within it.
I have heard about a Hassid rabbi: Rabbi Bonum was his name. When he was dying he left this last
message for his disciples. He said, "Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into one or the
other according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: For my sake was the world created; and
in his left: I am nothing but earth."
Beautiful it is. He is saying: Man is nothing but earth -- keep this message in one pocket; and in the
other: The whole world is created for me. I am the God of the whole world -- keep this message in the other
pocket. Both messages are true because one shows the reality, the other shows the potentiality. One shows
the fact, the other shows the truth.
The fact is that we are made of earth; the truth is that we are made in His image. We are both -- God
enshrined in earth. We are of the earth, and yet, there is a great passion inside us to rise to the highest sky.
Look at the trees -- what are they doing? They come from the earth, they belong to the earth, they are rooted
in the earth, and they are trying to reach to the sun, trying to reach to the stars. Rooted in the earth, they
Query:-
move towards heaven. That is the Baul symbol: the tree rooted in the earth, reaching towards heaven; rooted
in the body, reaching towards the soul.
Then these two are not contraries; they are both of one process, of one dynamic force.
Just before the Zen Master, Baso, was dying at the age of sixty, he sat up in the lotus posture, and to
those gathered around him said, "Don't be misled. Look directly. What is this?" He repeated it loudly, and
calmly died.
Let me repeat what he said: "Don't be misled. Look directly. What is this?" He repeated it loudly, then
calmly died. THIS conveys the whole meaning; the very directness of it. There is no THAT. THIS is
THAT! This is so vast, there is no need for any that to exist. This implies all that.
"Don't be misled," he said -- because the greatest misguidance comes from people who separate God from
reality, who separate truth from fact, who separate spirit from body, who separate lust from love, who
separate mud from the lotus. They are the great misguiders of the world.
They are the poisoners, because once they have made it clear to your mind, conditioned your mind that
the lotus can never be of the mud, they have destroyed the very possibility of the lotus. Then you can have a
plastic lotus; but a real lotus, never -- because the real lotus is always rooted in the mud. It is part of the
mud, it is a flowering of the mud. It is earth come to its glory; it is earth's essence. Once you can see lust
and love as one, passion and compassion as one, body and soul as one -- maybe two rhythms of the same
energy, two formations of the same force, two concretizations of the same stuff, but the stuff is the same --
if you can see the world and God just like mud and lotus, lust and love, you have the vision of the Baul.
If you don't have that vision, there is every possibility that you will be misled. And the misguiders are
very cunning; they are great rationalizers. They can convince you, they can argue for their standpoint.
I have heard....
Mistress Goldfarb walked into a kosher butcher shop, asked the owner for a fresh chicken, and
immediately began inspecting it. She lifted the wing, stuck her nose underneath and dedared, "Phew! It
smells!" Then she pulled up a leg, sniffed and said, "Phaugh!" After smelling the hind end, Mistress
Goldfarb held her nose and exclaimed, "It stinks! You call this a fresh chicken?"
"Tell me, lady," said the butcher, "you could stand such an inspection?"
These people who go on condemning the world, condemning the body, condemning everything, just ask
them, "Will your God be able to stand all this inspection?" Then nothing is left, because all reality is
condemned. Then just a concept, an abstraction is left. Yes, abstraction cannot be condemned because then
God will not stink. Then He will not perspire because He will have nothing to do with the earth. Then His
hands will not be muddy; then He will be just an abstraction.
Have you noticed the fact that all religions have tried to convince the world that their founders were
almost unreal? Jainas say Mahavir never perspired, because how can a man of God perspire? Ordinary
humanity perspires, not Mahavir. They say that Mahavir was hit, but blood never came out of his body.
What came out of his body?. -- milk. How could blood have come out Mahavir's body, this ordinary
humanity? Now they are trying to put Mahavir on such a pedestal that he is bound to become unreal. Then if
people come and they say, "We don't believe in your Mahavir, he seems just a myth," they are right. How
can he be real? Reality you deny, you condemn.
The same has happened with all the great Masters of the world: followers try to make them unreal.
Followers are always afraid because if the hands of their Masters look dirty....'Dirty' is not a dirty word,
remember; it comes from 'dirt'. It simply says earthly, earthy. A gardener works in the garden; his hands are
dirty -- not dirty, just dirt is there -- but dirt is good. We are made of dirt, we are made of dust. The word
'human' comes from HUMUS; HUMUS means the earth. The word 'Adam' also comes from ADAMUS;
ADAMUS means the earth. "We are made of earth"; that's what Bauls say. We are made of earth but not
made only of earth. We are made of earth, but deep inside is enshrined the divine.
You must have seen earthen lamps in India. They are made of earth, but the flame is not of the earth.
The lamp is of the earth, the lamp belongs to the earth, and the flame is continuously running upwards,
upwards, and upwards, towards the divine. Man is an earthen lamp -- made of earth, yet enshrining the
divine flame.
The Bauls are very down-to-earth realists. They have a beauty in their great vision. They are not
denyers: they don't say no to the world. Remember, if you say no to the world too much, sooner or later
your God will be just an abstraction -- because the very no to the world will go on reducing God's reality.
Query:-
Whatsoever you say no to will be a reduction of your God. By and by, when you have said no to the whole
world, God is nothing but a concept, a word: empty, impotent, just a container without any content. The
reality is earthly.
The world has been denied and God has been put as if He is an opposite force, as if He is against the
world. Now look at the absurdity: these same people go on saying, "God created the world." He cannot be
against it, otherwise why should He create it? The creator cannot be against His own creation. The very
creation is a proof that God loves it -- the creation is His appreciation, the creation is His play, the creation
is His love, His vocation. God creates the world because He loves it.
Gurdjieff used to say that all the religions are against God because they are against His creation. How
can you be for the poet if you are against his poetry? How can you be for the man if you are against his
character? How can you be for the painter if you are against his painting? Gurdjieff seems to be very
logical, absolutely right: religions seem to be against God. They talk about God, but they are against Him
because they are against His world. They teach you to deny the world; but you cannot deny it because you
are rooted in it. Then what happens? -- you become pseudo, you become false, you become a pretender, you
become double faced. You have one face to show to the world, and another face to live with. This is an
emergency measure; man could not do anything else.
What to do? You cannot deny the reality, and you cannot allow it, and you cannot accept it -- because
your religions teach you to be against it. So, man has found the golden mean: don't deny it in reality, just go
on denying it in words. Show that you deny it, that's all. Pay your respects to God and go on living reality.
Religions have not helped man to become sane. They have helped man to become insane, neurotic, split.
It happened in a church:
A man was confessing. "And how much of that stack of hay did you steal, Kavanagh?" the priest asked
at confession.
"I might just as well confess to the whole stack, your Reverence," said Kavanagh. "I am going after the rest
of it tonight."
He's confessing, and yet he's planning to do the same thing again this night. Then why confess? No, he
is putting himself at ease because people say 'this is bad' and 'this is sin', and people have made a virtue of
confession -- as if confession in itself is a virtue. Unless it is authentic, it is meaningless.
It happened on a road:
A Protestant minister was given a brand new car by his congregation, and he was driving it through
downtown Dublin. Suddenly the car in front of him came to a screeching stop, and the minister crashed into
it. The furious clergyman climbed out and stormed up to the car in front of him with murder in his eyes.
Then he noticed that the driver of the other vehicle was a Catholic priest.
"Your Reverence,'' said the minister through clenched teeth, "were it not for the fact that I am a man of the
cloth, I would be tempted to thrash you within an inch of your life."
"Your Reverence," said the priest, sticking his head out the window, "were it not that I too am a man of the
cloth, and that it happens to be a Friday, I would be tempted to bite your balls."
This is how the whole effort of all religion has made man just pretentious, hypocritical. Their reality is
something different; their masks are absolutely different. Bauls are against it. They say, "Love the world
and find your God through that love, so that there is no division created in you. "
Man had to become a hypocrite; it became just a safety measure. Religions have not left any possibility,
any way for him to be real. Now look at the absurdity: they go on teaching 'be true', and their whole
teaching creates untruth. On the one hand they teach you to be true, to be authentic, and on the other hand
their whole teaching creates such a situation that if you want to be true you will have to commit suicide; you
cannot live. Either commit suicide if you want to be true but then what is the point of being true if you
commit suicide? You will not be here to be true. If you want to live, you will have to be untrue. But the fault
is not with you; the fault is in the whole program that has been fed into your brain. The whole program is
faulty.
Man has to be real, real to reality. Whatsoever the reality, man has to accept it and live it in deep
gratitude, and live it with such reverence, respect -- because it is God's reality. It is His temple.
When Moses reached on the mount where he encountered God, he saw a fire burning under a bush. And
the bush was not burnt; the bush was as green as ever and flames were coming out of it. He could not
believe his eyes. He started moving towards the bush; he was almost magnetized by what he saw. Then
suddenly God shouted, "Moses! Take your shoes off! You are walking on holy ground."
I have always loved that parable. But I say to you, not only on Mount Sinai, but wherever you are
Query:-
walking, you are walking on holy ground -- because all is His ground, because all is He.
The Beloved is present in so many forms. Lust is also His, love is also His. Bauls say, "Don't deny
anything because denial is an irreverence. It is a rejection of God."
One day I saw that Mulla Nasrudin was teaching his son to be able to defend himself, so he taught him
the finer points of boxing.
I asked him, "But suppose, Mulla, he comes up against a bigger kid who also knows how to box? Then
what?"
"I have already thought of that," said Nasrudin, "so I am teaching him how to run too."
On one hand we go on teaching people to be true, and on the other hand, in a subtle way, we go on
teaching them not to be true. Each child is made neurotic by the parents, by the society; and we know that
we are doing it, and we know that others have done the same to us. Stop doing it to yourself and stop doing
it to others. Become alert. Just be real. I emphasize reality more than truth. Because truth has been used by
the anti-life people so much, it has wrong associations. Be real. If you are real, one thing will start
disappearing from your heart, and that is guilt.
One psychoanalyst and therapist, Shepard, has coined a word:'unguilting'. I like the word. Real religion
is always a process of unguilting; false religions are always a process of guilting. They try to make you
more and more guilty: anger is there, lust is there, sex is there, greed is there, attachment is there, hate is
there, love is there -- and everything is condemned. You become guilty, you start feeling wrong; you are
wrong, you start feeling condemned, you start hating yourself. If you start hating yourself you will never be
able to find God, because He is hiding in you.
Unguilt; drop all guilt! Whatsoever you are, whosoever you are, wheresoever you are, God has accepted
you. When God has accepted you, why be worried?. -- accept yourself. Start living your life not through
concepts; start living your life through your feelings, emotions, your body. Start living life as if you were
never corrupted by any society, as if you have just come new into the world directly from God's hands and
nobody has taught you anything. Start living: that life is the real life. Then you listen to your own heart, you
listen to your body. You don't repress, you try to understand; and through understanding is transformation.
The Bauls sing the song for today:

WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
Commit yourself to the earth -- don't be committed to some heaven somewhere else, be committed to the
here and now, to the reality that is your surround. Be committed to your humanity, to the earth that is just
below you: commit yourself to the earth while on the earth.
Bauls say, "We will think -- when we have moved to heaven and gone to the other world, then we will
see. Once you have learned how to be committed to the here and now, there also you will be committed."
Because whenever future comes, it always comes as the present. Even the other world will come as this
world. Have you seen that you move from one shore of a river to the other, and when you reach closer to the
other shore, the other shore becomes this shore, and the first shore that used to be this shore becomes that
shore? So wherever you are, you are surrounded by this-ness.
I have heard....
Once Mulla Nasrudin drank too much, and was walking on a road, zig-zagging from this side to that. He
was asking people, "Where is the other side of the road?"
Somebody said, "The other side is there."
He went there and he asked people, "Where is the other side of the road?" And they said, "The other side
is there."
He said, "These people seem to be very foolish. When I go to that side, people say the other side is
there. When I come here, people say the other side is there. Are they mad?"
The other side is always there. And wherever you are, you are always here; this-ness surrounds you.
Just the other day I quoted one very great saying of Udallak to his son, Swetketu -- ''That art thou";
TATWAMASI SWETKETU. The Bauls would like to make a little change in it. They would say, "THIS art
Query:-
thou" -- not that, because THAT gives a far away idea of God. THIS is more earthly.

WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
That unattainable man, the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man; if you want to attain it, then be
committed to the here and now. Be committed to the present, be committed to the reality that is available to
you in this moment. There is no other commitment.
PLACE AT HIS FEET

FLOODING YOUR EYES.
They are very real people. They say 'the flowers of feelings'. Ordinary flowers won't do. You can pick
flowers from the trees and go to the God of your temple and put those flowers there, but the God is abstract,
the flowers borrowed. In fact, they were more in tune with God on the trees. They were more in tune with
God on the trees -- at least they were alive. You have not made them closer to God, you have killed them.
When I used to live in Jabalpur I had a very beautiful garden, and I was a victim, a continuous victim of
religious people. Because there used to be two temples just close by, so any worshippers would come, and
without asking they would start picking flowers. In that part of the country it is thought that if somebody is
picking flowers for his God, it is not good to prevent it. So I had to put up a notice, because if I prevented
them they would say, "These are for religious purposes." I had to put up a notice: You can pick for any other
purpose, but not for religious purposes -- because, as I see it, the flowers are more surrendered to God on
the plants, alive. You will kill them. Your God is bogus and you will kill the flowers. This whole worship is
pseudo.
The Bauls say 'your flowers of feelings place at his feet': your love, your compassion, your
understanding, your lived experiences, your visions, your taste, your richness. "Place at his feet your
flowers of feelings and the prayers of tears'-' -- because words won't do. How can words become prayers?
Words are dead things: they don't mean much. Yes, there is much noise in them, but they don't mean much.
Silent tears would be better. So you can find Bauls standing by the side of the road crying, and if you ask,
"What are you doing?" they will say, "Praying." And you don't see any shrine, no temple, not even a
tree-god. They are just standing on the road, crying. You will ask, "Where is your God?" and they will say,
"Everything! Everywhere He is. Whenever the right moment is available to pray, whenever I feel in a
receptive moment, that is the right moment to pray. I'm praying." With tears they pray, with dance they
pray, with singing they pray, but their prayer is very alive.
The Bauls say,
With a beggar's humility

I have come to your doors.
No one is ever turned away
from your home of unending stores.
You have all the riches,
and so much have you given
without my demand.
No more do I need any wealth,
O my Master,
give me your feet!
Query:-
"No more do I need any wealth, O my Master, give me your feet" -- just your feet are enough, so I can
cry, so my tears can wash your feet.
PLACE AT HIS FEET

FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK

IS EARTHED IN THE EARTH,
DYING WITH DEATH,

YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK...
The man you seek is earthed, is incarnated in the body. The body is your earth. And the man you seek is
here, enshrined in the earth, enshrined in death: the flame of life enshrined in death...so don't be afraid of the
earth, and don't be afraid of death; they make it possible for you to live. Life is possible only because of
death, soul is possible only because of the body. The tree is possible only because of the roots, so don't be
afraid of the roots, and don't be afraid of death. Don't be afraid of the body. Accept this reality.
DYING WITH DEATH,

YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK...
Live when life is there. Be committed to the earth while on the earth; die when death comes. Move with
life and move with death. Dying, don't cling to life. Dying, don't resist death; dying, die. Living, live; dying,
die. Let the moment be total. Float with it, be committed to it. When death comes, then don't be sad. Then
accept death. Then accept it with such totality that even death cannot kill you.
A total person cannot be killed, and a divided person never lives. A total person is already beyond death.
Totality is beyond death. Divided, separated, falling into parts, not together, you just look alive but you are
not alive. Dying, die; surrender to death. Now it is God who has come as death.
For the Baul everything is divine -- life, death. Nothing is undivine. The devil does not exist.
You must have heard the parable in Jesus' life that when Mary Magdalene came to see him, she was
possessed by seven demons. He touched her and all the seven demons rushed, ran towards the sea and
drowned themselves there. Now this parable is very significant. The word 'demon' comes from a root which
means division. If you transiate this parable into psychological terms, it simply means Mary Magdalene was
divided into seven parts. Jesus touched her, she became total, unpossessed; the demons disappeared.
Demons mean divisions.
The Baul lives an undivided life; he never divides. He is not against anything, he is not for anything; he
simply lives. Whatsoever comes in the moment, he lives it. He is surrendered to reality; that is his prayer.
Death comes, he yields beautifully, gracefully. He dies. He cooperates with death. There is not a little bit of
resistance, not even a little bit. He is not fighting; he embraces death.
DYING WITH DEATH,

And then he goes on and on. His search is unending. God can never be totally known because He is
infinite. We can go on knowing Him more and more and more. We go on coming closer and closer and
closer, but God is not a goal. Nobody can say, "I have arrived." If somebody says it, then something is
wrong. The Upanishads say the one who says "I have known God", has not known -- because how can you
Query:-
know the eternal? Yes, you can live Him, you can love Him, you can be in Him, but you cannot know Him
-- because knowledge will become a definition, knowledge will make Him finite. That which is known
totally becomes finite, but God remains unknowable. The more you know, the more doors open, the more
mysteries open. Then each death is a closing of the past and a new vision of the future.
DYING WITH DEATH, YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK.... and one goes on seeking. The pilgrimage is
eternal.
The Bauls sing,
SHUT THE DOORS ON THE FACE OF LUST,

ATTAIN THE GREATEST, THE UNATTAINABLE MAN,
AND ACT AS THE LOVERS ACT:
MEET THE DEATH BEFORE YOU DIE.
To die with death is possible only if you have met death before you die. Otherwise it will be difficult.
You need some acquaintance. If death comes and you are not acquainted with it, it will be difficult for you
to surrender. That is what meditation is all about: meeting death before you die; making a few
acquaintances, a few encounters with death, so you start loving the beauty of it, so you start falling in love
with it, so you can see the divine face even in death. Only a meditator can die without fighting, otherwise
fight is unconscious. It is not that you will fight; you will find yourself fighting, and it will be almost
impossible for you not to fight. Resistance is unconscious, it is built in.
Meditate or love, because these are the two ways to be acquainted with death. If you love, it is a small
death. If you love very deeply, it is a great death. If you are really in love, you are no more the same as you
were before. Something has disappeared; you are reborn. Love is a rebirth. So, many times in life, through
meditation and love, you should become acquainted with death so that when death really comes you know
the guest so well that you are not afraid. You can welcome the guest, you can receive the guest with great
love, with great rejoicing, celebration.
The Bauls say about the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man:
Poison and ambrosia

are one and the same to him.
He is dead while wholly living.
If you become acquainted with death through love and meditation, by and by you will see that life and
death are two aspects of the same coin; poison and ambrosia are two aspects of the same coin; matter and
mind -- two aspects of the same coin; good and bad, all dualities -- two aspects of the same coin. Then you
are not worried. Then you don't choose. Then you live a life of choiceless awareness. Then all is the same. If
you choose life you have chosen death. If you avoid death you will avoid life -- so there is no point in
choosing, and there is no point in avoiding. One simply waits and accepts whatsoever gift comes from God's
grace.
This is what Bauls call: He is dead while wholly living. He is absolutely alive and yet, in a sense, dead,
because all dualities have come into him and become a synthesis. He is wholly dead and wholly alive. You
are neither alive nor dead; you are in a limbo.
The perfect man is both together. In him, all dualities are transcended. He is tremendously enriched
because life goes on pouring into him, death also goes on pouring into him. Whatsoever life can give, he
accepts; whatsoever death can give, he accepts. Whatsoever happiness gives he accepts, and whatsoever
unhappiness gives he accepts.
And remember, there are treasures hidden in unhappiness also, as there are treasures hidden in
happiness. If you have known only treasures of happiness, then you have not known much. If you have
known only treasures of joy you have not known much; there are treasures of sadness also. There are a few
treasures which only sadness can give to you. There are treasures of laughter and treasures of tears.
The Bauls say that one should be so capable that one allows all dualities to merge and come into oneself.
Then only is the essential man revealed. And the essential man is the God of the Bauls.
Query:-

WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
PLACE AT HIS FEET

FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK

IS EARTHED
IN THE EARTH,
DYING WITH DEATH,

The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #8
Chapter title: The body is an abode

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 93 mins
The first question:
THE BAULS CELEBRATE THEIR LIVES IN THEIR BODIES. COULD YOU SAY MORE ABOUT THIS?
AMERICANS CHERISH THEIR BODIES WITH HEALTH FOOD, ROLFING, MASSAGE, ETC. BUT I DON'T
THINK THIS IS THE SAME AS THE BAULS. COULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?
THERE IS A LOT OF DIFFERENCE, and the difference is not only quantitative, it is qualitative. The
modern world, the modern mind, knows only the empty temple. It has completely forgotten about the one
who is enshrined in the temple. So we go on worshipping the temple, but the God is forgotten. Not knowing
anything about the center of life, we go on moving and indulging on the periphery. The American cherishes
his body as the body, Baul worships his body as the shrine of God. Body in itself is nothing. It is luminous
because of something that is beyond the body. The glory of the body is not in the body itself -- it is a host --
the glory is because of the guest. If you forget the guest, then it is sheer indulgence. If you remember the
Query:-
guest, then loving the body, celebrating the body is part of worship.
The Baul has a great vision. In that vision body is the lowest part, the most visible part, the most
tangible. But it is not the all, it is just the beginning. You have to enter through the body; it is just a gate. It
leads to deeper mysteries. The Baul cherishes the body because the body is a vehicle, and through the body
one can know that which is embodied, that which is not body itself. The body is the earthen lamp and God is
the flame. The lamp is worshipped because of the flame. Once the flame is gone, who worships the body,
who celebrates the body? Then it is nothing; then dust unto dust, it returns back to the earth.
The body is throbbing with God, pulsating with God. If you can see that pulsation, then even dust
becomes divine. If you cannot see that pulsation, then it is simply dust. Then there is no meaning in it.
The American worship of the body is meaningless. Hence, people go after health food, massage,
Rolfing, and in a thousand and one ways they somehow try to create meaning in their lives. But look into
their eyes; a great emptiness exists. You can see they have missed. The fragrance is not there, the flower has
not flowered. Deep inside, they are just desert-like, lost, not knowing what to do. They go on doing many
things for the body, but it is missing the target.
Rosenfeld walked into the house with a grin on his face. "You will never guess what a bargain I just
got," he told his wife. "I bought four polyester, steel-belted, radial wide-tread, white-walled, heavy-duty
tires, on sale yet!"
"Are you nuts?" said Mistress Rosenfeld. "What did you buy tires for? You don't even have a car."
"So," said Rosenfeld, "you buy brassieres, don't you?"
If the center is missing, then you can go on decorating the periphery. It may deceive others, but it cannot
fulfill you. It may even deceive you sometimes, because even one's own lie repeated too many times starts
appearing like a truth. But it cannot fulfill you, it cannot give contentment. The American is trying hard to
enjoy life, but there seems to be no rejoicing. The Baul is not trying at all to enjoy life. There is no effort in
it; he simply is enjoying it. And he has nothing to enjoy; he is just a beggar on the road, but he has
something of the inner, some glow of the unknown surrounds him. His songs are not only songs; something
from the beyond descends in them. When he dances, it is not only that his body is moving; something
deeper has moved. He's not trying to enjoy.
Remember it: whenever you are trying to enjoy you will miss. When you are trying to achieve happiness
you will miss. The very effort to achieve happiness is absurd -- because happiness is here: you cannot
achieve it. Nothing has to be done about it, you have simply to allow it. It is happening, it is all around you;
within, without, only happiness is. Nothing else is real. Watch, look deep into the world, into trees, birds,
rocks, rivers, into the stars, moon and sun, into people, animals -- look deep: existence is made out of the
stuff of happiness, joy, SATCHITANANDA. It is made of bliss. There is nothing to be done about it. Your
very doing may be the barrier. Relax and it fulfills you; relax and it rushes into you; relax, it overflows you.
The Baul is relaxed; the American is tense. Tension arises when you are chasing something, relaxation
arises when you are allowing something. That's why I say there is a great difference, and the difference is
qualitative. It is not a question of quantity -- that Bauls have more than Americans, or Americans have less
than the Bauls. No, the Americans have nothing of happiness that the Bauls have; and what the Americans
have -- the misery, the tension, the anguish, the neurosis -- the Bauls don't have. They exist in a totally
different dimension.
The dimension of the Baul is here-now; the dimension of the American is somewhere else -- then-there,
but never here-now. The American is chasing, chasing hard, trying to get something out of life, trying to
squeeze life. Nothing comes out of it because that is not the way. You cannot squeeze life; you have to
surrender to it. You cannot conquer life. You have to be so courageous to be defeated by life. Defeat is
victory there, and the effort to be victorious is going to prove to be nothing but your final, UTTER failure.
Life cannot be conquered because the part cannot conquer the whole. It is as if a small drop of water is
trying to conquer the ocean. Yes, the small drop can fall into the ocean and become the ocean, but it cannot
conquer the ocean. In fact, dropping into the ocean, slipping into the ocean is the way to conquer.
Dissolve yourself.
The Baul is one who is dissolved in life. He has said an absolute yes to life. He's not trying to squeeze
anything. He simply waits -- passive, alert, available. When God knocks on his door the doors are always
open, that's all.
He is not chasing God. How can he chase? Where, in what ways, on what paths can we find Him? Either
He is everywhere or He is nowhere. You cannot address your life towards God; you cannot make a target
Query:-
out of Him. He is the total; the total cannot be made a target. Wherever you look, He is. Whatsoever you do,
you do in Him. Even when you are miserable, you are miserable in Him. Even in your misery you don't lose
Him. He cannot be lost. That which can be lost is not God.
That's why Bauls call God ADHAR MANUSH -- the essential man, the essential consciousness. It is so
essential you cannot lose it. It is your very ground, it is your being. He celebrates his body because he
knows that someone who is of the beyond, the stranger, is residing in the body. The body is an abode. It is a
temple, but not empty. It is full of light, it is full of life -- God is there. Realizing this, he dances; realizing
this, he sings; realizing this, he smiles and cries and weeps, and tears roll down his face. Seeing the miracle:
"I have not earned Him, and He is here; I have not even sought Him, and He is here; I have not even
begged, and He is here," a great, tremendous gratitude arises. The Baul dances because of it.
Now let me say this: the American is trying to find happiness, hence his overconcern with the body. It is
almost an obsession. It has gone beyond the limits of concern, it has become obsessive: continuously
thinking about the body, doing this and that, and all sorts of things. He is making an effort to have some
contact with happiness through the body. That is not possible.
The Baul has ATTAINED it. He has already seen it inside himself. He has looked deep into his body,
not through massage, not through Rolfing, not through sauna bath. He has looked into it through love and
meditation and he has found that it is there, the treasure is there. Hence he worships his body; hence he is
careful about his body because the body is carrying the divine.
Have you watched how a woman walks when she is pregnant so careful, because a new life is enshrined
in her. Have you seen the transfiguration that comes to the, face of a woman when she becomes pregnant?
Her face is luminous, hopeful, throbbing with new life, new possibility. Look at Prafulla; she is pregnant
now. Look at her face -- how transfigured, how happy she looks. She is carrying a treasure, a great treasure.
A new life is going to be created through her. She walks carefully, moves carefully. A grace has arisen in
her because she is pregnant. She is no more alone: her body has become a temple. This is just to make you
understand.
What to say about a Baul? God is there. He is pregnant with the divine. He glows, he is luminous, he
dances and sings. Possessing nothing, he possesses all; having nothing, he is the richest man in the world. In
one way he is just a beggar on the road, and in another way, the emperor. Because of this that has happened
inside -- that he has become aware -- he is happy with his body, he takes care of his body, he loves his body.
This love is totally different.
And secondly: the American mind is competitive. It is not necessary that you may be really in love with
your body; you may be just competing with others. Because others are doing things, you have to do them.
The American mind is the most shallow, ambitious mind that has ever existed in the world. It is the very
basic worldly mind. That's why the businessman has become the top-most reality in America. Everything
else has faded into the background; the businessman, the man who controls money is the top-most reality. In
India, BRAHMINS were the top-most reality -- the seekers of God. In Europe the aristocrats were the
top-most reality -- well-cultured, educated, alert, in tune with subtle nuances of life: music, art, poetry,
sculpture, architecture, classical dances, languages, Greek and Latin. The aristocrat, who had been
conditioned for the higher values of life for centuries, was the top-most reality in Europe. In Soviet Russia
the proletariat, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the laborer is the top-most reality. In America it is the
businessman; VAISHYA, one who controls money.
Money is the most competitive realm. You need not have culture, you need only have money. You need
not know anything about music, anything about poetry. You need not know anything about ancient
literature, history, religion, philosophy -- no, you need not know. If you have a big bank balance, you are
important. That's why I say this is the most shallow mind that has ever existed. And this mind has turned
everything into commerce. This mind is continuously in competition. Even if you purchase a Van Gogh or a
Picasso, you don't purchase it for Picasso. You purchase because the neighbors have purchased. They have a
Picasso painting in their drawing room, so how can you afford not to have it? You HAVE to have it. You
may not know anything -- you may not know even how to hang it, which side is which. Because it is
difficult to know, as far as a Picasso is concerned, whether the picture is hanging upside-down or right-side
up. You may not know at all whether it is authentically a Picasso or not. You may not look at it at all, but
because others have it and they are talking about Picasso, you have to show your culture. You simply show
your money. So whatsoever is costly becomes significant; whatsoever is costly is thought to be significant.
Money and the neighbors seem to be the only criterion to decide everything: their cars, their houses,
their paintings, their decorations. People are having sauna baths in their bathrooms not because they love
Query:-
their bodies, not necessarily, but because it is the 'in' thing -- everybody has it. If you don't have it you look
poor. If everybody has a house in the hills, you have to have it. You may not know how to enjoy the hills;
you may be simply bored there. Or you may take your t.v. and your radio there and just listen to the same
radio you were listening to at home, and watch the same t.v. program as you were watching at home. What
difference does it make where you are sitting, the hills or in your own room? But others have it. A four-car
garage is needed; others have it. You may not need four cars.
The American mind is continuously competing with others. The Baul is a non-competitor. He is a
drop-out. He says, "I am no more concerned with what others are doing, I am only concerned with what I
am. I am not concerned with what others have, I am only concerned with what I have." Once you see the
fact, that life can be tremendously blissful without having many things, then who bothers? That's one of the
basic differences between other renunciates in India and the Bauls. Bauls are beggars, Jain monks are also
beggars, but there is a great difference: Jain monks have the American mind. They have left the world with
great effort, they have renounced the world with great effort -- because they think this is the only way to
achieve the other world, to earn virtue. But they remain businessmen. The Jains are the top-most
businessmen in India. That's why I say they have the American mind. Their sannyasins remain the same.
The Baul's renunciation is totally different. He has not renounced for any other world. He has renounced
seeing the foolishness of possessions, seeing the unnecessary burdening. He has renounced seeing the fact
that you can be so happy without many things. Then why carry them? Carrying them creates anxiety,
burdens you and destroys your blissfulness. The Jain monk is thinking of another world: his MOKSHA, his
heaven. The Baul is not worried about any other world. He says, "This is the only world." But he has come
to see the fact, a simple truth: that the more you have, the less you enjoy. Can't you see it? It is a simple
arithmetic of life -- the more you have, the less you enjoy, because you don't have any time to enjoy. The
whole time is occupied by having. If you have too many things, you are occupied by those many things;
your inner space is occupied. To enjoy, you need a little space; to enjoy, you need a little unburdening; to
enjoy, you need to forget your possessions and just be.
The Baul loves life, hence he renounces. The Jain monk hates life, hence he renounces. So sometimes
the gesture may appear the same, but it need not be the same. The inner significance may be totally
different.
I have heard....
Old Luke and his wife were known as the stingiest couple in the valley. Luke died and a few months
later his wife lay dying. She called in a neighbor and said weakly, "Ruthie, bury me in my black silk dress,
but before you do, cut the back out and make a new dress out of it. It is good material and I hate to waste it."
"Could not do that," said Ruthie. "When you and Luke walk up them golden stairs, what would them angels
say if your dress ain't got a back in it?"
"They won't be looking at me," she said. "I buried Luke without his pants."
The concern is always the other -- Luke will be without pants so everybody will be looking at him. The
American concern is with the other. The Baul's concern is simply with himself. The Baul is very selfish; he
is not worried about you, and he is not worried about anything that you have or anything that you have
done. He is not concerned at all with your biography. He lives on this earth as if he were alone. Of course,
he has a tremendous space all around him -- because he lives on this earth as if he were alone. He moves on
this earth without being concerned with others' opinions. He lives his life, he is doing his thing, and he is
doing his being. Of course, he is happy like a child. His happiness is very simple, innocent. It is not
manipulated, it is not manufactured. It is very simple, essential, basic, like a child's.
Have you watched a child just running, shouting, dancing for nothing at all -- because he has nothing? If
you ask him, "Why are you so happy?" he will not be able to answer you. He will really think that you are
mad. Is there any need for any cause to be happy? He will simply be shocked that the 'why' can be raised.
He will shrug his shoulders and will go on his way and start singing and dancing again. The child has
nothing. He is not a prime minister yet, he is not a president of the United States, he is not a Rockefeller. He
owns nothing -- maybe a few shells or a few stones that he has collected on the seashore, that's all.
That's all that Bauls own: a few seashells, a few stones -- they will make a MALA of those stones, they
will wear the MALA; a little instrument to sing, bells to ring for their innermost God, a small AEKTARA, a
one-stringed instrument -- that too one-stringed, because that is enough; a small DUGGI, a small drum --
that's all. A Baul sleeps unconcerned with the world. He lives, moves unconcerned with the world. And his
God is always within him so wherever he is is his shrine. He never goes to the temple -- not that he is
against it; he never goes to the mosque -- not that he is against it. He has come to the real temple, and now
Query:-
there is no need to go anywhere. He worships, he prays, he loves, but his love, his prayer, his worship, is of
the essential reality that he is.
The Baul's life does not end when life ends; the American's life ends when life ends. When the body
ends, the American ends. Hence, the American is very afraid of death. Because of the fear of death, the
American goes on trying any way to prolong his life, sometimes to absurd lengths. Now there are many
Americans who are just vegetating in hospitals, in mental asylums. They are not living; they are long since
dead. They are just managed by the physicians, medicines, modern equipment. Somehow they go on
hanging on.
The fear of death is so tremendous: once gone you are gone forever and nothing will survive -- because
the American knows only the body and nothing else. If you know only the body you are going to be very
poor. First, you will always be afraid of death, and one who is afraid to die will be afraid to live -- because
life and death are so together that if you are afraid to die you will become afraid to live. It is life that brings
death, so if you are afraid of death, how can you really love life? The fear will be there. It is life that brings
death; you cannot live it totally. If death ends everything, if that is your idea and understanding, then your
life will be a life of rushing and chasing. Because death is coming, you cannot be patient. Hence the
American mania for speed: everything has to be done fast because death is approaching, so try to manage as
many more things as possible before you die. Try to stuff your being with as many experiences as possible
before you die, because once you are dead, you are dead.
This creates a great meaninglessness and, of course, anguish, anxiety. If there is nothing which is going
to survive the body, then whatsoever you do cannot be very deep. Then whatsoever you do cannot satisfy
you. If death is the end and nothing survives, then life cannot have any meaning and significance. Then it is
a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing.
The Baul knows that he is IN the body, but he is not the body. He loves the body; it is his abode, his
house, his home. He is not against the body because it is foolish to be against your own home, but he is not
a materialist. He is earthly but not a materialist. He is very realistic, but not a materialist. He knows that
dying, nothing dies. Death comes but life continues.
I have heard: The funeral service was over and Desmond, the undertaker, found himself standing beside
an elderly gent.
"One of the relatives?" asked the mortician.
"Yes, I am," answered the senior citizen.
"How old are you?"
"Ninety-four."
"Hmm," said Desmond, "hardly pays you to make the trip home."
The whole idea is of bodily life: if you are ninety-four,; finished. Then it hardly pays to go back home;
then better to die. What is the point of going back? -- you will have to come again. It hardly pays...if death
is the only reality, then whether you are ninety-four or twenty-four, how much difference does it make?
Then the difference is of only a few years. Then the very young start feeling old, and the child starts feeling
already dead. Once you understand that this body is the only life, then what is the point of it all? Then why
carry it on?
Camus has written that the only basic metaphysical problem for man is suicide. I agree with him. If
body is the only reality and there is nothing within you that is beyond body, then of course that is the most
important thing to consider, brood, and meditate on. Why not commit suicide? Why wait until ninety-four?
And why suffer all sorts of problems and miseries on the way? If one is going to die, then why not die
today? Why get up again tomorrow morning? It seems futile.
So on the one hand the American is constantly running from one place to another to somehow grab the
experience, somehow not to miss the experience. He is running all around the world, from one town to
another, from one country to another, from one hotel to another. He is running from one guru to another,
from one church to another, in search, because death is coming. On the one hand a constant, mad chasing,
and on the other hand a deep-down apprehension that everything is useless -- because death will end all. So
whether you lived a rich life or you lived a poor life, whether you were intelligent or unintelligent, whether
you were a great lover or missed, what difference does it make? Finally death comes, and it equalizes
everybody: the wise and the foolish, the sages and the sinners, the enlightened people and the stupid people,
all go down into the earth and disappear. So what is the point of it all? Whether it be a Buddha or a Jesus or
a Judas; what difference does it make? Jesus dies on the cross, Judas commits suicide the next day -- both
Query:-
disappear into the earth.

On the other hand there is a fear that you may miss and others may attain, and on the other hand a deep
apprehension that even if you get, nothing is got. Even if you arrive, you arrive nowhere because death
comes and destroys everything.
The Baul lives in the body, loves his body, celebrates it, but he is not the body. He knows the essential
man, the ADHAR MANUSH. He knows that there is something in him which will survive all deaths. He
knows that there is something in him which is eternal and time cannot destroy it. This he has come to feel
through meditation, love, prayer. This he has come to feel inside his own being. He is unafraid. He is
unafraid of death because he knows what life is. And he is not chasing happiness, because he knows God is
sending him millions of opportunities; he has just to allow.
Can't you see the trees are rooted in the ground? They cannot go anywhere, and still they are happy.
They cannot chase happiness, certainly; they cannot go and seek happiness. They are rooted in the ground,
they cannot move, but can't you see the happiness? Can't you see their joy when it is raining, their great
contentment when winds are running hither and thither? Can't you feel their dance?
Now researchers say that when the gardener comes and the gardener loves the tree, the tree feels happy
and rejoices. If you love the tree and you come close to it, it rejoices, as if a great friend is coming close.
Now there are scientific instruments to check whether the tree is happy or not. It vibrates in a different
rhythm. When the enemy comes -- the woodcutter, the carpenter -- the tree is simply in a turmoil, anxious,
afraid. And when you cut one tree, now the scientists say the other trees all cry and weep. It is not only that
when you cut one tree that tree weeps and cries; other trees, all the surrounding trees, cry and weep. And not
only with trees, but if you kill a bird, all the trees start weeping -- subtle tears, great anguish, agony spreads.
But they are rooted; they go nowhere. Still, life comes to them.
This is the understanding of the Baul: that there is no need to go anywhere. Even if you go on sitting
under a tree as it happened to Buddha; God himself came to him. He was not going anywhere -- just sitting
under his tree.
All comes -- you just create the capacity; all comes -- you just allow it. Life is ready to happen to you.
You are creating so many barriers, and the greatest barrier that you can create is chasing. Because of your
chasing and running, whenever life comes and knocks at your door she never finds you there. You are
always somewhere else. When life reaches there you have moved. You were in Katmandu; when life
reaches Katmandu you are in Goa. When you are in Goa and life somehow reaches Goa, you are in Poona.
And by the time life reaches Poona, you will be in Philadelphia. So, you go on chasing life and life goes on
chasing you, and the meeting never happens.
Be...just be, and wait, and be patient.
BEFORE COMING TO YOU I USED TO DO A BUDDHIST MEDITATION CALLED MAITRI BHAVANA. IT

STARTS BY SAYING TO ONESELF: MAY I BE WELL, MAY I BE HAPPY, MAY I BE FREE FROM ENMITY,
MAY I BE FREE FROM ILL-WILL AGAINST MYSELF. AFTER BEING PENETRATED BY THE FEELING
THESE THOUGHTS GENERATE, THE NEXT PHASE OF THE MEDITATION CONSISTS IN EXTENDING IT
TO OTHERS: TO START WITH, VISUALIZING PEOPLE YOU LOVE AND GIVING OUT THIS GOOD
FEELING TO THEM; THEN DOING THE SAME WITH PEOPLE YOU LOVE LESS, UNTIL YOU MIGHT
EVEN FEEL COMPASSION FOR PEOPLE YOU HATE.
I USED TO FEEL THIS MEDITATION WAS PRETTY GOOD. IT SOMEHOW OPENED ME TO OTHERS.
AND I STILL FEEL THERE IS SOMETHING REALLY DEEP AND BASIC TO IT. BUT I DROPPED IT WHEN I
CAME TO YOU BECAUSE I SAW IN IT THE DANGER OF IT BEING SOME KIND OF SELF-HYPNOSIS. I
STILL FEEL FOR THIS MEDITATION BUT I AM CONFUSED AS TO WHETHER I SHOULD TAKE IT UP
AGAIN, MAYBE WITH A DIFFERENT ATTITUDE, OR JUST DROP IT. CAN YOU PLEASE SPEAK ABOUT
THIS MEDITATION? I WOULD BE GRATEFUL.
MAITRI BHAVANA is one of the most penetrating meditations. You need not be afraid of getting into
some sort of self-hypnosis; it is not. In fact, it is a sort of de-hypnosis. It looks like hypnosis because it is the
reverse process: you have come to me from your home, you walked the way; now going back you will walk
the same way. The only difference will be that now your back will be towards me. The way will be the
same, you will be the same, but your face was towards me while you were coming towards me; now your
back will be towards me.
Query:-
Man is already hypnotized. It is not a question now of being hypnotized or not hypnotized. You are
already hypnotized. The whole process of society is a sort of hypnosis. Somebody is told that he is a
Christian, and it is so continuously repeated that his mind is conditioned and he thinks himself a Christian.
Somebody is Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan -- these are all hypnoses. You are already hypnotized. If
you think you are miserable, this is a hypnosis. If you think you have too many problems, this is a hypnosis.
Whatsoever you are is a sort of hypnosis. The society has given you those ideas, and now you are too full of
those ideas and conditionings.
MAITRI BHAVANA is a de-hypnosis: it is an effort to bring back your natural mind; it is an effort to
give you back your original face; it is an effort to bring you to the point where you were when you were
born and the society had not yet corrupted you. When a child is born he is in MAITRI BHAVANA.
MAITRI BHAVANA means a great feeling of friendship, love, compassion. When a child is born, he
knows no hatred, he knows only love. Love is intrinsic; hatred he will learn later on. Love is intrinsic; anger
he will learn later on. Jealousy, possessiveness, envy, he will learn later on. These will be the things the
society will teach: how to be jealous, how to be full of hatred, how to be full of anger or violence. These
things will be taught by the society.
When the child is born he is simple love. He has to be so because he has not known anything else. In the
mother's womb he has not come across any enemy. He has lived in deep love for nine months, surrounded
by love, nourished by love. He knows nobody who is inimical to him. He knows only the mother, he knows
the mother's love. When he is born his whole experience is of love, so how can you expect him to know
anything about hatred? This love he brings with himself; this is the original face. Then there will be trouble,
then there will be many other experiences. He will start distrusting people. A newborn child is simply born
with trust.
I have heard....
A man and a little boy entered a barber shop together. After the man received the full treatment -- shave,
shampoo, manicure, haircut, etcetera, he placed the boy in the chair.
"I'm going to buy a green tie to wear for the parade. I will be back in a few minutes."
When the boy's haircut was completed and the man still had not returned, the barber said, "Looks like
your daddy has forgotten all about you."
"That was not my daddy," said the boy. "He just walked up, took me by the hand and said, 'Come on, son,
we are gonna get a free haircut!' "
Children are trusting, but by and by there will be experiences in which they will be deceived, in which
they will get into trouble, in which they will be opposed, in which they will become afraid. By and by they
will learn all the tricks of the world. That's what has happened to everybody, more or less.
Now, MAITRI BHAVANA is again creating the same situation: it is a de-hypnosis. It is an effort to
drop hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, and come back to the world as you had come in the first place. If you go
on doing this meditation, first you start loving yourself -- because you are closest to you than anybody else.
Then you spread your love: your friendship, your compassion, your feeling, your well-wishing, your
benediction, your blessings, you spread these to people you love -- friends, lovers. Then, by and by, you
spread these to more people that you don't love so much, then people to whom you are indifferent -- you
neither love nor hate -- then by and by to people you hate. Slowly you are de-hypnotizing yourself. Slowly
you are again creating a womb of love around yourself.
When a Buddha sits, he sits in existence as if the whole existence has again become his mother's womb.
There is no enmity. He has attained to his original nature, SWABHAWA. He has come to know the
essential man. Now you can even kill him but you cannot destroy his compassion. Even dying, he will
remain full of compassion towards you. You can kill him but you cannot destroy his trust. Now he knows
that trust is something so basic that once you lose trust you lose all. And if you don't lose trust and
everything is lost, nothing is lost. You can take everything from him but you cannot take his trust.
MAITRI BHAVANA is beautiful; you can do it. There is no need to drop it. It will be tremendously
helpful. It is a de-structuring.
The ego is made with hate, enmity, struggle. If you want to drop the ego, you will have to create more
love feelings. When you love, ego disappears. If you love tremendously and you love unconditionally and
you love all, then the ego cannot exist. The ego is the most stupid thing that can happen to a man or to a
woman. Once it has happened it is very difficult even to see it because it clouds your eyes.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin and his two friends were talking about their resemblances.
Query:-
The first friend said, "My face resembles that of Winston Churchill. I have often been mistaken for
him."
The second said, "In my case, people think I am President Nixon and ask me for my autograph."
Mulla said, "That's nothing. Well, in my case, I have been mistaken for God Himself."
The first and second asked together, "How?"
Mulla Nasrudin said, "Well, when I was convicted and sent to jail for the fourth time, on seeing me the
jailer exclaimed, 'Oh God, you have come again!' "
Once the ego has happened it goes on collecting from everywhere -sense, nonsense -- but it goes on
feeling itself important. In love you say, "You are also important, not only I." When you love somebody,
what are you saying? You may be speaking or not, but what is really deep in your heart? You are saying,
whether in words or in silence, "You are also important, as much as I am." If love grows deeper, you will
say, "You are even more important than me. If there arises a situation where only one can survive, I would
like to die for you, and I would like you to survive." The other has become more important. That is the
meaning of 'beloved': you are even ready to sacrifice yourself for the one you love. And if this goes on
spreading, as it goes on spreading in MAITRI BHAVANA, then by and by you start disappearing. Many
moments will come when you will not be there -- absolutely silent, not any ego at all, no center, just pure
space. Buddha says, "When this is attained permanently, and you have become integrated to this pure space,
then you are enlightened."
When the ego is lost completely you are enlightened; when you have become so egoless that you cannot
even say 'I am', you cannot even say that 'I am a self'. The word Buddha uses for that state is ANATTA:
no-being, non-being, no-self. You cannot even utter the word 'I'; the very word becomes profane. In deep
love 'I' disappears. You are destructured.
When the child is born he comes without any 'I'; he simply is -- a blank sheet, nothing is written on him.
Now the society will start writing, and the society will start narrowing down his consciousness. The society
will, by and by, fix a role for him: "This is your role; this is you"; and he will stick to that role. That role
will never allow him to be happy because happiness is possible only when you are infinite. When you are
narrow, you cannot be happy. Happiness is not a function of narrowness; happiness is a function of infinite
space. When you are so spacious that the whole can enter into you, then only can you be happy.
MAITRI BHAVANA can be a tremendous help.
The third question:
THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT BELIEF WAS LIKE A LANTERN IN THE HANDS OF THE BLIND. MAY I
KNOW WHAT FAITH IS?
Faith is like eyes: you see yourself. Belief is like a lantern in a blind man's hand: he cannot see, he
cannot even use the lighted lantern. Even that lighted lantern will be just a burden to him, to be carried. And
if the light goes off he will never become aware of it. Belief is just believing what others say. It is not faith;
faith is knowing. Faith is existential, belief is intellectual.
Buddha says something, or I say something; you listen to me, it appeals to your intellect. It seems to be
convincing to your reason and you start believing in it. Then it will be a lantern in a blind man's hand. But if
you listen to me, something appeals to you and you don't stay with the intellectual understanding but you try
to make that your own experience..
If I talk about love and Iistening to me you don't cling to my words but you move into love, you take the
risk of love, you move into the danger of love, then you will come to an understanding which will be like
eyes. If you just listen to me, it is very cheap. Just listening to me you can collect information and you can
say, "Yes, I know much about love." Your knowing will be a deception.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin and his wife went to Israel for their holidays and visited a nightclub in Tel Aviv. A
comedian was on the bill who did his whole act in Hebrew. Nasrudin's wife sat through the comic's act in
silence, but Nasrudin roared with laughter at the end of each joke.
"I did not know you understood Hebrew," she said to the Mulla when the comedian had concluded his act.
"I don't," replied Nasrudin.
"Well, how come you laughed so much at his jokes?"
Query:-
"Oh," said Nasrudin, "I trusted him."

You can laugh at a joke without understanding it, but what sort of laughter will that be? It will not arise
in you; it will be just a painted laughter. It will be just like an exercise of tne lips and the face. It will not
have any center in your being. It will not be coming from anywhere -- because you can't understand the
joke, you can't understand the language -- how can you laugh? But Mulla says, "I just trusted him. He
MUST be saying something beautiful; others are laughing."
Buddha must be saying something beautiful -- so many people believe in him, so you believe. But you
have not understood the joke; the laughter is not yours. It will tire you, it will not refresh you. When
laughter happens to you it spreads from your very being, from your innermost core of being to the surface.
Your whole body ripples with it, pulsates, throbs. It gives you a sort of bath; you are new after it. But if you
simply trust, believe, that is not going to help. Many people have just been deceived by their beliefs about
many beautiful things. You think you believe in God, you think you believe in soul, you think you believe
in this and that, and you have not known anything by your own experience. Then it is better not to believe --
because if you don't believe, if you know that you don't know, there is a possibility that you may seek and
search. Your belief will not allow you even to seek and search because you already think you know.
Belief is dangerous. Even to be a sceptic, to be an agnostic, is better. To be true when you don't know is
better because this honesty of accepting that you don't know will help. This honesty will grow. One day or
other you will start seeking, because nobody can remain in deep ignorance for long. Everybody wants to
KNOW. To know is such an intrinsic desire in man that you cannot avoid it if you are true.
Please drop your beliefs so your mind is not clouded with rotten furniture, and you can see what you
know and what you don't know.
To know exactly what one knows and what one does not know is the basic step towards knowledge. To
be absolutely clear-cut that this is all that you know and this is all that you don't know. You cannot remain
in this state. You will start moving towards the unknown, because it is human to seek to know. Every child
is born with infinite curiosity; that's why children bore you to death with their questions. They go on asking
and asking. They don't bother whether you are interested in answering them or not; they go on asking. You
want to keep them quiet but they go on bubbling again and again with new questions. What is happening?
From where do so many questions come? a deep desire to know. But this desire is crippled by your beliefs.
Beliefs give you an appearance as if you know. That 'as if' is very costly.
I have heard....
The nervous passenger was standing with the pilot of the river steamboat as he twisted and turned the
wheel.
"Don't you worry none," said the pilot. "I have been running boats on this river so long, I know where every
snag and sandbar is."
Just then the boat struck a submerged snag with such force that the whole boat shivered from stem to
stern. "There," said the pilot triumphantly, "that is one of them now."
What type of knowledge is this? How is it going to help? Your whole so-called knowledge is only like
this; it does not help. It simply gives you a certain egoistic idea that you know, but it doesn't help in life, it
does not help you on the path, it does not help you to avoid ditches and pitfalls, it does not help you to move
towards the right direction, it does not help you in any way to avoid calamities. Still you go on thinking that
you know. Drop this so-called knowledge. This burden is useless; don't carry it on your head anymore. Once
you drop it you will feel clean, fresh.
I have heard....
Aldous Huxley had a very great library, his whole life's efforts. He had collected many rare books. And
one day it caught fire. The whole library burnt; his many valuable manuscripts were burnt, many valuable
art pieces, statues, paintings. He had really been a great seeker of beautiful things; they were all burnt down
to zero. He was standing in front of the fire, and nothing could be done. And somebody asked him, "You
must be feeling very very sad."
He said, "I am surprised at what I am feeling. I myself am surprised. I am simply feeling very clean, as if
the whole burden is gone. I have never felt so clean and unburdened. I am surprised myself, because I was
thinking I would feel sorry, I would feel tremendously miserable, for years I would not be able to forget my
library and all these things I have collected, but suddenly, seeing everything going into flames, I am feeling
very unburdened, weightless, clean."
When you throw your beliefs to the fire, you will feel very clean. It is just a burden. It is not yours; it
cannot help.
Query:-
We know what is right but we do what is wrong. We know anger is bad and we go on being angry again
and again. We know what should be done, but we never do it; we do just the opposite. What type of
knowledge is this? We know where the door is and we always go on trying to get out through the wall. We
stumble and we are knocked down, and we hurt our own being, but again and again we try to get out
through the wall. We say we know the door; is it possible that you know the door and still you try to get out
through the wall, and you get hurt and hit in the head? It is not possible. You have simply heard about the
door. That door exists only in your fantasy, not in reality.
Whatsoever YOU know, you always behave accordingly. That's why Socrates' famous dictum:
Knowledge is Virtue -- but it is not your knowledge. He says, "Once one knows something is right, one does
it. There is no other way." When you know two plus two is four, you cannot make it five, can you? Try one
day -- just sit, write two plus two, and then try to write five. It will be impossible. Even if you write it you
will laugh; you are joking, befooling. Once you know two plus two is four, there is no way to forget it. The
basic thing is to have known it, and the knowledge should be your experience. Otherwise, you can always
find rationalizations.
I have heard a small anecdote.
A small town chorine had theatrical ambitions. Her parents finally agreed to allow her to try New York
City, but on two conditions: first, no men were allowed in her apartment, and second, she had to call home
at least once a week. "Remember," said her mother, "I will worry about you, so please don't forget to call."
Armed with a letter of introduction, she went to see an agent. He agreed to help her and started squiring
her about town. At the end of the week she called home. It was late and mama was perturbed.
"Honey," she said, "you know the bargain we made about no men allowed in your apartment, and I hear a
man's voice in the background."
"Oh," said the future actress, "that's my boyfriend. But don't worry," she hastened to assure her mother, "we
are in his apartment. Let HIS mother worry.''
We can always find ways, rationalizations to avoid that which we want to avoid, and to do that which
we want to do. And if your knowledge is just intellectual, just verbal, then it is not going to help in actual
life. Actual life needs actual knowledge. If you want to write a book, it will be okay. If you want to give a
lecture, it will be okay. If you want to discuss with your friends, it will be okay -- because a verbal
knowledge is enough for writing a book, for giving a lecture, for discussing with your friends. But if you
want to translate it into your life, it will be impossible. Life does not believe in that which you have
accumulated very cheaply. Life believes only in that which has been earned the hard way.
I have heard about a Sufi mystic, Bayazid. He meditated for years, and it is said God was very, very
compassionate towards him. He had made such great effort; arduous was his search, intense was his prayer.
So God sent an angel, and the angel came and said to Bayazid, "God is happy, and whatsoever you want He
is ready to give to you. You just ask. Your days of seeking and inquiry are finished."
But Bayazid said, "But no, that is not the way. I don't want to get so cheaply because I know well...in
life also I was deceived because of this cheap possibility. Now you cannot deceive me. Tell God that I will
earn the hard way."
But the angel said, "You are foolish! He is ready to burn the innermost light of your being. Just ask!"
But Bayazid said, "Thank you, and give Him also my thanks, but I am not going to do that because it
will be borrowed; even if borrowed from God, it will be borrowed. Let me seek and search."
The angel said, "God will feel offended. It has never happened; His offer has to be accepted."
Then Bayazid looked around -- he had a small lamp and the oil was almost finished. He said, "If He
really wants to light something, tell Him to light my lamp because the oil is almost finished and the night is
dark, and I have still to meditate. Just this will do. You just tell Him to give me one blessing: that my oil
should never finish so I can meditate the whole night."
That's all he asked for, and it is said that God was very happy and He said, "This is the right way." If he
had asked he would have missed; if he had accepted he would have missed -- because whatsoever comes to
you without your earning it is never yours. You possess only that which you have lived. You possess only
that which YOU have known. You possess only that which you have earned.
A young boy had been taking swimming lessons. He rushed home one afternoon and breathlessly
announced that he had gone off the diving board by himself.
"That's fine, Johnny," said his father. "But I thought you told me you went off the board last week."
"I know," said the boy, "but last week somebody shoved."
Going by yourself is really totally different. When somebody shoves you, it is qualitatively different.
Query:-
When I give something to you, it is not the same as when you earn it. Remember it: many will be the
temptations on the way. When things are available very cheaply, avoid them. Always remember that one has
to go the hard way, because that is the only way. All shortcuts are false, and belief is a shortcut. Faith is a
hard way.
The last question:
MOST BELOVED OSHO, THIS MORNING I SIT BEFORE YOU FLOODED WITH ORGASM, LIGHT AND
FEATHERY, DEEP AND OVERWHELMING. I HARDLY NOTICE YOU. THE INNER IS MORE, BECAUSE OF
YOU. PARAS.
Good, tremendously good. That's how it should be. A Baul is born in Paras, and I hope that a Baul will
be born in each of you. Each moment God is available. Just allow Him, don't prevent Him, don't bar the
way. Just get out of your own way, and this will start happening to each and everybody.
"This morning I sit before you flooded with orgasm, light and feathery, deep and overwhelming. I hardly
notice you. The inner is more, because of you."
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #9
Chapter title: It is always god who loves

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 94 mins
WHAT DEALINGS
CAN YOU EVER CONCLUDE
WITH SOMEONE WHO IS UNAWARE
OF THE FEELINGS IN LOVING?
THE OWL STARES AT THE SKY,

SITTING BLIND
TO THE RAYS OF THE SUN.
MAN IS A QUEST, AN ETERNAL INQUIRY, A PERENNIAL QUESTION. The quest is for the
energy that holds existence together -- call it God, call it truth, or whatsoever you like to call it. Who holds
this infinite existence together? What is the center of it all, the core of it all?
Science, philosophy, religion, all ask the same question. Their answers may differ but their question is
the same. Religions call it God. Scientists will not agree with the word 'God'; it looks too personal. It looks
too anthropomorphic, man-oriented. They call it electricity, magnetism. energy fields; but only the name is
different. God is an energy field.
Philosophers go on giving different names to it: the ultimate stratum, the absolute, the BRAHMA. From
Query:-
Thales to Bertrand Russell, they have supplied many answers. Sometimes some philosopher says it is water,
liquidity; sometimes somebody else says it is fire -- but the quest has been eternal. What holds this infinite
universe together?
Bauls call it love, and to me, their answer seems to be most pertinent. It is neither personal nor
impersonal. It has something of God in it, and something of magnetism in it also; something of the divine,
and something of the earth.
Love has two faces. It is Janus-like: one face looks towards the earth, the other face looks towards the
sky. It is the greatest synthesis conceivable: it comes out of lust and moves towards prayer; it comes out of
mud and becomes a lotus facing the sun.
This word 'love' has to be understood. What do we mean by the word 'love'? One thing we certainly all
mean is that it has a pull in it, great energy. When you fall in love, it is not that you do something -- you are
pulled in. It has a magnetic force. You gravitate towards the object of your love, you gravitate almost
helplessly, you gravitate even against your will. It has a pull, a magnetic field -- that's why we call it 'falling
in love'. Who wants to fall? -- but who can avoid it? When the energy calls you, suddenly you are no more
your old self. Something bigger than you is pulling you, something greater than you is invoking you. The
challenge is such that one simply runs into it headlong.
So the first thing to understand is: love is a great energy pull. The second thing: whenever you fall in
love, suddenly you are no longer ordinary; something miraculously changes in your consciousness. Love
transforms you. Falling in love, a violent man becomes kind and tender. A murderer can become so
compassionate, it is almost impossible to believe. Love is miraculous -- it transforms the baser metal into
gold. Have you watched people's faces and eyes when they fall in love? -- you cannot believe that they are
the same persons. When love takes possession of their souls they are transfigured, transported into another
dimension; and suddenly...and with no effort of their own, as if they are caught in the net of God. Love
transforms the base into the higher, transforms earth into sky, transforms the human into the divine.
These two things: first, love is an energy field -- scientists will agree -- second, love is a transforming
force; it helps you to become weightless, puts you on your wings. You can move towards the beyond.
Religious thinkers will agree that love is both God and electricity; love is divine energy. Bauls have chosen
love because this is the most significant experience in man's life. Whether you are religious or not makes no
difference; love remains the central experience of human life. It is the most common and the most
uncommon. It happens to everybody, more or less, and whenever it happens it transmutes you. It is common
and uncommon. It is the bridge between you and the ultimate.
Remember the three L's: life, love, light.
Life is given to you; you are alive. Light is present, but you have to make a bridge between life and
light. That bridge is love. With these three L's you can make a total way of life, a way of being, a new way
of being.
Bauls are not philosophers. They are more like poets -- they sing, they dance, they don't philosophize. In
fact, they are almost anti-philosophical, because they have come to see that whenever a man becomes too
head-oriented he becomes incapable of love -- and love is going to be the bridge. A man who becomes too
head-oriented goes farther away from the heart, and the heart is the center which responds to the call of
love.
A head-oriented man is cut off from the universe. He lives in the universe, but lives as if in a deep
stupor. He lives in the universe, but lives as a tree that has lost its roots. He lives only for name's sake: the
sap of life is no more flowing. He has lost contact; he's unconnected. That's what alienation is.
The modern man feels too alienated, feels too much an outsider, does not feel at home, at ease with life,
existence, the world. He feels almost as if he has been thrown into it, and it is a curse rather than a blessing.
Why has this happened? -- too much head orientation, too much training of the head has cut all the roots
from the heart. There are many people -- I have observed thousands of people -- who don't know what the
heart is; they bypass. The heart is throbbing but the energy no longer moves via it. They bypass it; they go
directly to the head. Even when they love, they THINK that they love. Even when they feel, they THINK
that they feel. Even feeling is via thinking. Of course, it has to be false.
Thinking is the great falsifier, because thinking is man's effort to understand the universe, and love is
God's effort to understand man. Let me repeat it: when you try to understand God, or existence, or truth, it is
your effort -- a part, a very tiny part trying to grasp the whole, the infinite whole. The effort is bound to be
doomed. It's impossible. It cannot happen in the nature of things. Love is when God has found you. Love is
when God's hand is searching for you, groping for you. Love is when you are allowing God to find you.
Query:-
Hence, you cannot manage love. You can manage logic; you can be very very efficient as far as logic is
concerned. The moment love arises, you become absolutely inefficient. Then you don't know where you are,
then you don't know what you are doing, then you don't know where you are moving, then you don't know
any control. Logic is controlled; love is uncontrolled. Logic is manipulated; love is a happening. Logic
gives you a feeling that you are somebody; love gives you a feeling that you are nobody.
Love arises in you when you allow God to enter you. When you are trying on your own, then the whole
effort is absurd.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin sidled up to a guest at one of his daughter's social evenings. He had heard him
addressed as doctor, and now he said, diffidently, "Doctor, may I ask a question?"
"Certainly," he said.
"Lately," said Mulla Nasrudin, "I have been having a funny pain right here under the heart..."
The guest interrupted uncomfortably and said, "I am terribly sorry, Mulla, but the truth is I am a Doctor
of Philosophy."
"Oh," said Nasrudin, "I'm sorry." He turned away, but then, overcome with curiosity, he turned back. "Just
one more question, doctor. Tell me, what kind of disease is philosophy?"
Yes, philosophy is a kind of disease -- and not just an ordinary kind of disease; it is more cancerous than
cancer, more dangerous than all the diseases put together. A disease can cut only one root. Even all the
diseases put together cannot cut you completely from existence. Philosophy cuts you, uproots you utterly.
What is disease? When one connection is loose with existence, you feel ill. When the head is
unconnected, then there is headache. When the stomach is unconnected, then there is stomachache.
Somewhere, you have become autonomous; you are no more in the ocean of the interdependence of
existence. There exists disease. Disease has a certain autonomy, independence. When you have a cancerous
growth inside you, that growth becomes a universe unto itself. It is unconnected with existence.
An ill person is one who is unconnected in many ways. When a certain disease becomes chronic, it
simply means that that root is completely destroyed; even the possibility to replant it in the earth no longer
exists. You will have to remain alive only partially; a part of you will remain dead. Somebody is paralyzed
-- what does it mean? The body has lost contact with the universal energy. Now it is almost a dead thing --
hanging, unconnected. The sap of life no longer flows in it.
If this is what disease is, then philosophy IS really the greatest disease there can be -- because it
disconnects you utterly; and not only that, it disconnects you with such logic that you never become aware
that you are ill. It disconnects you with such justifications and rationalizations that you never become aware
that you are missing. It is a very self-justificatory illness; it goes on supporting itself. Philosophy means that
a man has become completely head-oriented. He looks towards existence through the eyes of logic and not
through the eyes of love.
When you look through the eyes of logic, you will know a few things, but those few things will not give
you the vision of reality. They will be only abstractions.
When you look through love, then you know the reality as it is. Love is falling with the universe,
together; falling in a togetherness. It is orgasmic: you are streaming, and the existence has always been
streaming, and both streamings meet and mingle and are infused in each other. A higher synthesis arises: the
part is meeting in the whole and the whole is meeting in the part. Then something arises which is more than
the part and the whole together -- that's what love is. 'Love' is one of the most significant words in human
languages, because love is existential language.
But somehow, from the very childhood, we are being crippled. Our roots with the heart are cut. We are
forced towards the head and we are not allowed to move towards the heart. It is something humanity has
suffered for long, a calamity -- that man has not yet become capable of living with love.
There are reasons.
Love is risky. To love is to move into danger -- because you cannot control it, it is not safe. It is not
within your hands. It is unpredictable: where it will lead nobody knows. Whether it will lead anywhere, that
too nobody knows. One is moving into utter darkness but roots grow only in darkness. If the roots of a tree
become afraid of darkness and don't move underground, the tree will die. They have to move into darkness.
They have to find their way towards the deepest layers of the earth where they can find sources of water,
nourishment.
The heart is the darkest part of your being. It is like a dark night. It is your very womb, it is your earth.
So people are afraid to move into darkness; they would like to remain in light. At least you can see where
Query:-
you are and what is going to happen. You are safe, secure. When you move in love, you cannot calculate the
possibilities, you cannot calculate the results. You cannot be result-oriented. For love, future does not exist,
only the present exists. You can be in this moment but you cannot think anything about the next moment.
No planning is possible in love.
The society, civilization, culture, church, all force a small child to be more logical. They try to focus his
energies in the head. Once the energies are focused in the head, it becomes very difficult to fall towards the
heart. In fact, every child is born with great love energy. The child is born out of love energy. The child is
full of love, trust. Have you looked into the eyes of a small child? -- how trusting. The child can trust
anything: the child can play with a snake, the child can go with anybody. The child can move so close to a
fire that it can become dangerous -- because the child has not yet learned how to doubt. So we teach doubt,
we teach scepticism, we teach logic. These seem to be measures for survival. We teach fear, we teach
caution, we teach prudence, and all these together kill the possibility of love.
I have heard....
Doctor Abrams was called to Mulla Nasrudin's shop where the Mulla was Iying unconscious. Doctor
Abrams worked on him for a long time and finally revived him.
"How did you happen to drink that stuff, Nasrudin?" he asked the Mulla. "Didn't you see the label on the
bottle? It said 'poison'."
Nasrudin said, "Yes Doctor, but I didn't believe it."
Doctor Abrams asked, "Why not?"
Nasrudin said, "Because whenever I believe someone, I am deceived."
By and by people learn how not to believe, how not to trust, how to become chronic doubters. And this
happens so slowly, in such small doses that you are never alert to what is happening to you. By the time it
has happened, it is too late. This is what people call experience. They call a person experienced if he has
lost his contact with his heart: they say that he is a very experienced man, very clever, very cunning; nobody
can deceive him.
Maybe nobody can deceive him, but he has deceived himself. He has lost all that was worthy; he has
lost all. And what is he saying?
Then a very peculiar phenomenon happens: people cannot love persons because persons can be
deceptive; they start loving things. Because there is a great need to love, they go on finding substitutes:
somebody loves his house, somebody loves his car, somebody loves his clothes, somebody loves money. Of
course, the house cannot deceive you, the love is not risky. You can love the car -- a car is more reliable
than a real person. You can love money -- money is dead; it is always under your control. Why do so many
people love things rather than persons?. -- and even if they sometimes love a person, they try to reduce the
person to being a thing.
If you love a woman, you are immediately ready to reduce her to being your wife, that is, you are ready
to reduce her to a certain role: the role of a wife -- which is more predictable than the reality of a beloved. If
you love a man you are ready to possess him like a thing. You would like him to be your husband, because a
lover is more liquid; one never knows.... A husband seems to be more solid. At least the law is there, the
court is there, the police is there, the state government is there to give a certain solidity to the husband. A
lover seems to be like a dream: not so substantial. Immediately people fall in love, they are ready to get
married -- such fear of love! And whomsoever we love, we start trying to control. That's the conflict that
goes on between wives and husbands, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, friends -- who is going to
possess whom? That means: who is going to define whom, who is going to reduce-whom to a thing? Who
will be the master and who will be the slave?
Mulla Nasrudin sat moodily over his drink and his friend said, "You look pretty down in the mouth,
Mulla. What is the matter?"
Nasrudin said, "My psychiatrist says I am in love with my umbrella, and that is the source of my
troubles."
"In love with your umbrella?"
"Yes, is not that ridiculous? Ah, I like and respect my umbrella, and enjoy its company, but love?"
But what else is love? If you enjoy the company of your umbrella, and if you respect and like your
umbrella, what else is love? Love is respect, tremendous respect; love is a deep liking; and love is sheer joy
in the presence of the one you love. What else is love? But people love things -- a deep need is somehow
fulfilled by substitutes.
Query:-
Remember, the first calamity is that one becomes head-oriented. The second calamity is that one starts
substituting love needs with things. Then you are lost, lost in the desert land. Then you will never reach to
the ocean. Then you will simply dissipate and evaporate. Then your whole life will be a sheer wastage.
The moment you become aware that this is what is happening, turn the tide: make all efforts to again
contact the heart. That's what Bauls call love -- to make contact with the heart again to undo that which has
been done to you by the society. Undoing that which has been done by the society is true religion, undoing
all nonsense that has been done by your well-wishers. They may be thinking that they are helping you, and
they may not be knowingly destroying you; they may themselves be victims of their parents and their
society. I'm not saying anything against them. Great compassion is needed for them.
Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that a man only becomes religious when he is able to forgive his
parents.
Forgive? Yes, that's how it is. It is very difficult. The moment you become aware, it is very difficult,
almost impossible to forgive your parents because they have done so many things to you -- unknowingly of
course, behaving unconsciously of course, but still they have done. They have destroyed your love and they
have handed you dead logic. They have destroyed your intelligence and they have given you, as a substitute,
intellect. They have destroyed your life and aliveness, and they have given you a fixed pattern to live, a plan
to live by. They have destroyed your direction and have given you a destination. They have destroyed your
celebration and they have made you commodities in the marketplace. It is very difficult to forgive them,
hence all the old traditions say: respect your parents.
It is difficult to forgive them; it is very very difficult to respect them. But if you understand, you will
forgive them. You will say the same as Jesus said on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do." Yes, exactly those are the words. And everybody is on the cross -- and the cross is not
prepared by your enemies, but by your parents, by your society...and everybody is crucified.
The head has become so dominant that it does not allow any spontaneity. It has become dictatorial. It
does not allow the heart even to utter a single word; it has forced the heart to be completely quiet. You will
have to listen again to the heart. You will have to start dropping logic a little. You will have to take a few
risks. You will have to live dangerously. You will have to move towards the unknown, and you will have to
love persons and not things. You will have to be ready not to possess anybody, because the moment you
possess the person is not there. Only a thing can be possessed.
Try to understand it as deeply as possible: the moment you fall in love with somebody, immediately
your whole conditioning starts trying to possess him. Resist that temptation; the devil is tempting you -- the
devil of the society, the devil of civilization and the church. The devil stands in a very religious garb, and
the devil goes on quoting scriptures. Beware!
Whenever you start possessing you are killing love. So either you can possess the person or you can
love the person; both together are not possible. So this is the alternative: a man who wants to become a
Baul, a lover, has to drop all possessiveness. Resist all temptation to being possessive because that
temptation comes from the ego.
Once Mulla Nasrudin said to me, "It is remarkable,,sir, how congenial we are. After all, we have
practically nothing in common."
"Oh yes we have." I replied, "We have one very important thing in common: I think you are wonderful and
you agree with me."
The ego goes on agreeing for wrong things, because the ego can exist only with the wrong. It feeds on
the wrong. So whenever you feel that your ego is fulfilled, beware! -- you have eaten something wrong, you
have swallowed something wrong. Whenever you feel egoless, relax -- now you have eaten the right,
something which is in tune with your nature.
Ego arises out of disturbance, but ego has its own logic. It goes on saying that you are important, that
you are the most important man in the world, and you have to prove it. And we are all trying to do this one
way or the other -- somebody by possessing more money, somebody by possessing a beautiful woman,
somebody by possessing prestige, power, somebody by becoming a president or a premier, somebody by
becoming an artist, a poet, somebody by becoming a MAHATMA -- but we are all trying in some way or
other to prove our innermost fantasy, that we are the most important person in the world.
Then you cannot be a lover.
Ambition is poison for love. A lover is not in any need to prove. In fact, he knows that he is loved, and
that's enough.
Try to diagnose it very carefully. When you are not loved -- and how can you be loved if you don't love?
Query:-
-- when you are not loved and you don't love, suddenly a great need arises to perform, to do something, to
show the world that you are important, that you are needed. There is a great need to be needed. You feel
futile, impotent, useless, if you are not needed. The need in itself is not wrong; it is a love need to be
needed. If a woman loves you, you are fulfilled -- somebody needs you, you are significant. Then you don't
bother about the crowd. You don't go into the marketplace and shout, "I am important!" Then you are not
ambitious; you don't collect money like an obsession. If somebody loves you, in that love you are dignified,
in that love you become a sovereign. Love makes you an emperor, a sovereign. Love fulfills you so deeply
and so greatly; then there is no need to perform or do anything. Ego simply does not exist with love. But if
that need is unfulfilled, then you will try to fulfill it somehow: you would like to become a very famous man
so many people need you.
But remember, to be loved by one and to be needed by millions is not the same. Even a single person's
love, even a single glance of love is enough; and you can collect millions of people and they can all look
towards you, but that will not be satisfying. That's what politics is, and what the politician is trying to do.
I have never come across a politician whose heart is functioning. The heart is totally dead -- but the need
is there to be loved, to be needed, somebody to look to. Where to fulfill it? -- he gathers crowds. Through
the crowds he tries somehow to fulfill the love need. But that crowd does not love him, that crowd is not
bothered by him; that crowd is after its own needs. Because he's in power he seems to be important. They
pay their respects to the chair, and the chairman is deceived. Once the chairman is not in the chair, they
don't bother about him.
Have you ever observed that once a politician is out of power he is simply forgotten? Nobody
remembers him. He may live for thirty or forty years; nobody will know about him. By and by, he will
recede into darkness. Only once, when he dies, will there be a small notice in the newspapers -- that the
ex-president or ex-premier is dead.
The man who ruled over Russia before Lenin, Kerensky, lived for fifty years after it like a small New
York grocer, and nobody knew about him. He was the Prime Minister of Russia, the most important man --
the revolution happened and he was thrown out of power. He escaped. For fifty years he lived. Only when
he died did people become aware that Kerensky had been alive for all those fifty years.
Power cannot fulfill a love need. You can possess great kingdoms -- that will not fulfill your love need.
But if you possess one heart which throbs in tune with you, then you are fulfilled.
The Bauls sing,
O my heart,
let us go then on a promenade
to the grove of Krishna's love.
The breeze of joy

will calm your life.
In that woodland eternally bloom

five scented flowers --
their fragrance will enchant
your life and soul,
giving them sovereign dignity.
Enter the temple of love, and you always enter it as a sovereign. Enter into the world, the world of
things, and you always enter as a beggar. The world reduces everybody to a beggar; love raises everybody
to an emperor. Love is an alchemical phenomenon. Even if one heart has flowed towards you, God has
reached through that heart. Somebody looked towards you with love; in that moment God looked at you.
Watch the eye full of love, the hand full of love, and you will find God throbbing there -- because it is
always God who loves. To love is to become God, to allow-love to happen is to become God.
Query:-
Whenever you fall from the peak of love, then it is something else: you become possessive; you become
a husband and a wife. Then you are no more in the grip of God. But whenever you reach to the peak --
maybe for a single moment sometimes it happens: when two persons are in absolute harmony, no barrier, no
fence even exists between them; they are not throbbing as two centers, they become one center -- in that
moment, God happens. When love happens, God happens. When God descends on earth, His name is love.
Each fruit is open to two frontiers

and born on a pair of trees.
Listen carefully...

Have you ever seen one fruit born on a pair of trees? One fruit is born on one tree; two trees are not
needed for one fruit. Love is that fruit which is born on two trees, never on one tree.

Deep meditation reveals the knowledge
beyond any doubt.
When you love somebody and somebody loves you, then there comes a moment when these two trees
are not two trees; then it becomes one tree. That tree is the tree of love, and on that tree of love is
fulfillment, is fruition, is flowering.
The two who are wholly present

can bring forth a fruit
to offer the Master;
they are conscious and fruitful.
Let me repeat:
The two who are wholly present...
In love, two persons are simply present to each other, doing nothing. Love knows nothing of doing.
When two persons are deep in love, they are simply present to each other. They face each other, just
present, as if two lamps are burning, illuminating each other, or two mirrors are facing each other, reflecting
each other in millionfold ways. Two lovers are just in each other's presence, saturated by the other,
penetrated by the other. In that state a moment arises -- the climax, the peak moment -- when the fruit is
born: when they are no more two, when all distinction is lost, when the egos don't exist, when they have
become pure presences. Then, the fruit is born.
The two who are wholly present

can bring forth a fruit
to offer the Master;
... and that is the fruit to be offered to the Master, to God.

Query:-
... they are conscious and fruitful.
In that peak of love, they are totally conscious and fruitful. Remember, love is not something like
unconsciousness. Ordinarily, when you are in love, you become more unconscious. Then it is lust. Then it is
the very lowest denominator. Then it is the lowest rung of the ladder. Of course it belongs to the ladder, but
it is the lowest rung. At the highest rung there is tremendous consciousness -- and if you cannot be
conscious in the presence of your lover, where else are you going to be conscious? If the presence of your
lover is not worth being conscious, then where else will you find the treasure to be conscious? If you love
the person, if you really love, a peak of consciousness arises. You would just like to observe, to see your
beloved or your lover; you would like to be with a pure presence. And they help each other to be more and
more conscious -- because when the one becomes more conscious, it is immediately reflected in the other.
The other becomes more conscious, and it works like a chain reaction. Higher and higher they go, and then
there comes a moment when the fruit is born; that fruit is called love. That love you can offer to the Master
of the world. No other fruit will do.
They are conscious and fruitful....
And in that peak of consciousness they are fruitful. Otherwise, people live a fruitless life. People live an
unfruitful life, people live without fruition. Nothing is born out of them; they simply live and die. There is
no meaning and no significance in their lives. The significance arises only when two trees have become one
tree, and when on that one tree the fruit of love is born.
....conscious and fruitful.

The well never sinks
into the water.
The Bauls say, "You see? Go and see a well full of water -- but it never sinks into the water.'' This is
very mysterious. When you are absolutely drowned in oneness, for the first time you are. You never sink
into it. You are merged, all boundaries lost, but then happens a paradox: the paradox of being lost
completely and yet being, for the first time, yourself. When you are lost completely, you are, for the first
time, your reality. You are full, surrounded by tremendous force, but you are not sunk in it. You are one
with it, but for the first time your flame burns. Without any ego, your being is revealed.
Bauls sing,
Let ripeness appear in its own time

for the full flavor of the fruit.
A green jackfruit
can be softened by blows
but not made sweet.
And they say, this love you cannot force. There is no way to manipulate it. There is nothing that you can
do about it. All that you can do is to allow.
Query:-
Let ripeness appear in its own time...
It will come in its own time. What do you do when you watch a tree, an apple tree? What do you do?
You don't pull the fruits, you don't force, you just watch. You take care, every care that is needed -- you
protect the tree, you water the tree, you provide fertilizers and manure. Everything that you can do, you do;
but what can you do to force? That is just helping the tree to ripen in its own time. Then the fruit comes;
then you watch. One day it is ripe, sweet.
Let ripeness appear in its own time..
... so Bauls are not for any sort of Yoga. They are against Yoga. That's why I told you in the beginning
that they belong to the tradition of Tantra, not to the tradition of Veda, Yoga -- no. In fact, the Bauls'
tradition is more ancient than the tradition of Veda and Yoga.
Historians say that Tantra is pre-Aryan. When the Aryans came to India, Tantra was in existence here,
and Shiva was their God. When the Aryans came to India they overran India, they defeated the people who
were living here. Their religion was crushed, their scriptures destroyed, and by and by even their Gods were
absorbed into the pantheon of the Aryans. Shiva was their God. It took very long for him to be absorbed. He
was alien, but he had to be absorbed because he was very influential. And when all his followers were
absorbed into the world of the Aryans, they brought their Gods also.
Tantra belongs to Shiva, and the Baul is an offshoot of the same tree. Tantra says, "Everything happens
in its own right time, you need not force it. Your force will not help. It will be a disturbance. It may destroy,
but it can never be creative. One has to be very effortless, spontaneous. One has to be in a let-go."
Let ripeness appear

in its own time
for the full flavor of the fruit.
A green jackfruit
can be softened by blows
but not made sweet.
The Bauls say, "We are not searching for liberation." A lover, a seeker of love, never talks in terms of
liberation. He says, "It is tremendously beautiful. All that is, is already beautiful. There is no need to be
liberated from it. All that is needed is how to be in it, totally absorbed." The world is not a bondage for the
Baul, and there is no need to struggle against it. In fact, the Baul says, "We love the bondage of the world
because these fetters are also created by you, my Lord.
The heart, a lotus,

continue flowering;
age after age, you are bound to it
and so am I...
The Baul says to his God,
You are bound to it

Query:-
and so am I --
and with no escape.
The lotus blossoms,

blossoms,
blossoms;
there is no end to it,
but all these lotuses
have one type of honey
with one particular taste.
The bee is avid and unable to leave,

so you are bound and I am bound.
Where is freedom then?
It is a great play of hide and seek between the energy that God is and the energy that you are. It is the
same energy in a great hide and seek. It is a great play. There is no need to end it. Let lotuses flower and
blossom forever and ever. The world is beautiful: that is the basic Tantra attitude. Yoga says: one needs to
be liberated. Tantra says: for what, from whom? The bondage is beautiful because it is God's. Yoga will
say: drop, by and by, all your attachments; and finally, one has to go beyond love. The Bauls say: all
attachments are beautiful. Go deeper into them so you don't remain with the periphery but you reach to the
center. On the periphery is attachment, at the center is love.
The bee is avid and unable to leave,

so you are bound and I am bound.
Where is freedom then?
For the Baul, life is not a serious thing. It is fun, it is laughter, it is joy. So you cannot find anything like
the seriousness of a church-goer, or the long faces of so-called religious people in the world of the Bauls.
They love laughter, they love fun. They enjoy small things with tremendous respect. Ordinarily, religions
are very long-faced, very sombre, serious, because they have to be -- they are against life.
I have heard....
One friend of Mulla Nasrudin was amazed to see that the Mulla had hitched his prize-winning
possession, his prize-winning bull, to the plough, and was guiding it across his fields.
He said, "Mulla, have you gone crazy? That bull is worth twenty-five thousand rupees! Why are you
letting him pull a plough?"
"That bull," said the Mulla grimly,''has got to learn that life is not all play."
There are people who become disturbed the moment you laugh; they would like to teach you that life is
not all play. These people are themselves ill. They have missed life and they would not like anybody else to
enjoy it. The priests are ill people; they would not like you to enjoy. They have missed; they are jealous of
you. And they have staked too much: their egos are fulfilled only because they have been against life. They
have chosen ego against life. If you choose life they will be against you. They will go on curbing you, they
will go on condemning you, they will go on creating guilt in you. No greater calamity, not a bigger calamity
can happen to humanity as has happened through religions. The calamity is that they have created a guilty
conscience. So whenever you are enjoying, deep down somewhere you start feeling guilty, as if you are
doing something wrong. Whenever you are healthy, you start feeling something is wrong. Whenever you
are dancing, you start feeling something is wrong. Whenever you laugh, you can never laugh totally because
deep down something goes on pulling you back: "What are you doing?" From the very childhood, whenever
Query:-
you were happy there was somebody to teach you that life is not all play: "Stop laughing! Be serious! When
will you be mature? Be grown up! Enough is enough! Drop all this nonsense of childhood." Somebody was
always round the corner to teach you.
They have lost: they could not enjoy so they cannot allow others to enjoy. This is how, from generation
to generation, diseases are being transferred.
Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these
birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is
joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it. Then you become a Baul,
then you become a lover -- because love can exist only with a deep respect for fun, with a deep respect for
delight. Love cannot exist with a serious mind. With a serious mind, logic is in tune. be non-serious. I'm not
saying not to be sincere. Be sincere, but be non-serious. Sincerity is something else; seriousness is totally
different. Be sincere with existence, then you will be true; you will become part of this cosmic LEELA, this
cosmic play.
The Bauls sing,
How can you walk

the ways of love
carrying stolen loot with impunity?
In the forest of Brinda

loving is worshipping.
The forest of Brinda, where Krishna played with his lovers, friends, girlfriends; where he danced, where
the RAAS happened....
This word RAAS is very beautiful: it means the divine celebration, the divine dance.
How can you walk

the ways of love
carrying stolen loot with impunity?
In the forest of Brinda,

loving is worshipping.
As the essence of purity

in the brilliance of the sky
love transcends lust
evolving ecstasy.
The bellows breathe

into the fire of life
and stabilize mercury.
Beautiful; the saying is very beautiful.
The bellows breathe

into the fire of life
Query:-
and stabilize mercury.
Even mercury becomes stabilized. So what about lust? Don't be worried. Let there be a goal to your
love, a center to your love, a target for your arrow, and love transcends lust.
Yoga will say: transcend lust, fight with lust. It is a negative approach. The Bauls say: love, and love
transcends lust. It is a positive approach.
Tell me, my silent Master,

O my Lord,
what worship may open me
to my beloved's lotus bloom?
The stars and the moon

eternally move
with no sound at all.
Each cycle of the universe

in silence prays,
welling up with the essence of love.
It is what physicists call electricity, gravitation, energy field. What religious people call God, Bauls call
love.
Each cycle of the universe

in silence prays,
welling up with the essence of love.
Trees are in love with the earth; the earth is in love with the trees. The birds are in love with the trees;
the trees are in love with the birds. The earth is in love with the sky; the sky is in love with the earth. The
whole existence exists in a great ocean of love. Let love be your worship, let love be your prayer.
The song for today is very small, but a diamond -- very precious. And Bauls know how to be precise.
Just the other night I was reading Digale's life, and he had a motto on his table. I loved it; Bauls would also
appreciate it. The motto is: Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.
WHAT DEALINGS

SITTING BLIND
TO THE RAYS OF THE SUN.
The Bauls say it is impossible to communicate....
WHAT DEALINGS
Query:-
It is impossible to commune with someone who has not known love. How can we talk about God? How
can we talk meaningfully about prayer? How can we say anything about the truth? -- because he's
completely unaware of his own heart. He does not know the language; he has lived in the head. He's like the
owl: stares at the sky, sitting blind to the rays of the sun.
In Indian mythology the owl is a symbol of knowledge, learning, learnedness. People who are too
learned, too much in their heads, accumulating information and data, are like owls. They cannot see that the
sun has risen. They can go on looking and staring at the sun, and still they remain oblivious to the rays of
the light.
The Bauls say: a man who lives in the head -- a PUNDIT, a scholar -- a man who thinks only in terms of
concepts, abstract theories, doctrines, dogmas, who has memorized the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible, will not
be able to understand anything about love. Even if you say, he will immediately misunderstand. If you talk
about love he will make a theory out of it, and love cannot be managed in a theory. If you say something
about prayer he will try to make that prayer look like a hypothesis, and prayer is not a hypothesis. A man of
logic always reduces everything to his logic.
I have heard....
A devout clergyman making a tour of the Holy Land arrived at the Sea of Galilee. His heart thrilled:
"Perhaps one of these very wavelets had touched the feet of the Master Himself..." A boatman approached.
The clergyman addressed him in choicest Arabic, a pocket dictionary of Arabic terms in his hand.
"What is the matter?" complained the ferryman. "Can't you talk United States?" He was an American
making his living boating tourists.
"So," exclaimed the clergyman, "this is the Sea of Galilee where our Savior walked upon the waters."
"It is."
"How much will you charge me to take me to the exact spot?"
"Well, seeing as you look like a clergyman, I won't charge you anything."
After reaching the place, the clergyman glanced around with great satisfaction, consulted his texts and
commentaries, and at last signalled that he was ready to return to shore.
"Cost you twenty dollars to take you back."
"But you said you would charge nothing!"
"That was to bring you here."
"And you charge everybody twenty dollars to take them back?"
"That, or more."
"Well then," said the devout one, reaching for his pocketbook, " no wonder our Savior got out and walked."
Everybody goes on interpreting everything according to his own way. Our interpretations are our
interpretations.
It happened one day: Mulla Nasrudin hailed a taxi just outside the Ashram. "Take me to the Ashram,
driver," he demanded, hopping into the cab.
The disgusted hackie got out, opened the door and snapped, "You are in front of the Ashram, fellow!"
"Okay," grumbled the Mulla as he got out, "but next time, don't drive so fast."
If you are drunk, then you are going to interpret everything through your drunkenness. If you are drunk
with logic, love cannot penetrate your skull. Then you have a very thick head, dense -- it is impossible for
love to penetrate. Then you are like the owl.
The Bauls say communication is possible only when there exists a common language. So if you want to
understand the Bauls, you will have to love -- because there is no other way to understand love than to love.
If you want to understand the man of prayer, pray. Move into prayer, have a taste of it. Put aside all your
logic. Don't try first to be logically convinced, then you will pray; then nobody has ever prayed -- because
the first thing is that it is impossible, it cannot be done. Nobody can logically convince you that prayer is
meaningful. The very logical framework of your mind prohibits it. So you are asking the impossible. If you
say, "First it has to be proved that love is God, then I will love," then you will have to wait, and you will
have to wait for eternity -- it is not going to happen. The day it happens, it will happen in the only way it
can happen, and the way for it to happen is to put aside your logic. Logic is irrelevant. You just love; have a
taste of it. Move into the world of the lover. Let his singing surround you. Have a feel, and that will become
the proof, and that will become the conviction. Then you can bring your logic in and your logic will start
proving it, but not before. First, the taste, the experience; then the logic. Logic is a good servant but a bad
Query:-
master.
WHAT DEALINGS

SITTING BLIND
TO THE RAYS OF THE SUN
Love is a radical change in your innermost core of being. The head is just on the periphery. The head is
just like waves on the ocean; love is like the depth. In the depth there are no waves, and in the waves there
is no depth. Thoughts are like waves just on the surface. There is no way for a wave to know the depth
while remaining the wave. The wave can know the depth, but then it has to disappear in the depth. It will no
more be a wave, but then it can come back to the surface. But then that wave will itself become a Baul; no
other wave will listen to it. Other waves will call that wave mad because she will talk about depths, and
waves only know shallowness, they don't know depths.
Love is an experience -- existential, like taste. If you have not tasted salt, there is no way to explain it to
you. If you have tasted it, there is no way to forget it. If you have tasted it, then too there is no way to
explain it to somebody else who has not tasted it. How to explain to somebody else who has never known
anything salty? What to say? It is not that you don't know; you know, it is just on the tip of your tongue.
You know what saltiness is, but how to say it to somebody else? The only thing is to offer him a little salt.
But if he says, "First let me be convinced that there exists something like salt, then only will I take"; if he is
that cautious it is impossible. Then he will have to remain without any experience of salt.
And to remain without experiencing love is to remain dead -- because only a lover goes on dropping his
dead selves, because only a lover moves, because only a lover is dynamic. Logic is dead; love is alive.
I am reminded of a saying of Browning. He used to say, "The life process is to rise on the
stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things."
... the life process is to rise on the stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things....
Logic belongs to the past; love belongs to the future. Logic is just moving in the old circle again and
again and again. Love moves into new territory. Being yourself is never static, being in love is also never
static. It is always ecstatic -- not static but ecstatic: out of stasis, out of standing still.
Be moving. One never arrives, though one is always arriving.
The Beloved, Vol 1

Chapter #10
Chapter title: Truth is neither I nor you

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 87 mins
Query:-
The first question:
WHO HAS ORIGINATED BAULS? PLEASE EXPLAIN.
PEOPLE LIKE BAULS ARE NEVER ORIGINATED. Religions like the Baul religion are more like
happenings. Who originated the roses? Who originated the songs that the birds go on singing every
morning? No, we never ask that question. It has always been there.
Philosophies are originated; you can find the originator. 'Isms', dogmas, creeds are originated. The Baul
is not a creed, it is a spontaneous way of life. People have always lived that way. People who have ever
lived have always lived that way. People who have ever been alive have been alive in no other way.
Whether they were known as Bauls or not is immaterial. The name may have some origin somewhere; I'm
not concerned with it.
The word simply means 'the madman': madly in love with existence, madly in love with life -- but this
madness has always been there. And it is good that a few people have always been so mad that we have not
lost contact with the roots of existence. It is because of them that we haven't. They could sing and dance and
live and love -- real people, authentic to the very core.
So, I don't know when they started. They must have started from the very beginning, if there was any
beginning. They must have started with the first man, because their whole teaching is about the essential
man. In fact, by and by, they have disappeared. They must have been more in the beginning. By and by they
have lessened; their numbers have become less and less and less every day. Because the world has become
too worldly, and the world has become too cunning and clever, it does not allow the simplicity of the heart
to exist. The world has become too competitive and too ambitious. It has forgotten all that is beautiful, it has
forgotten all that cannot be manufactured, it has forgotten how to surrender, to allow the eternal to happen
in time. It has forgotten the language of ecstasy.
The more we move back, the more and more Bauls you will find. In the beginning the whole humanity
must have been like the Bauls. Even now you can watch it: every child is born a Baul, then later on he is
corrupted. Every child is again born as madly in love with life, but we cultivate him, we prune him, we don't
allow him spontaneity of being. We condition him, we give him a certain character.
The Bauls have no character. They are men of consciousness, but not of character. In fact, a man of
consciousness never has a character. Character is a fixity, character is an obsession, character is an armor.
You have to do only that which your character allows. Character can never be spontaneous. Character is
always imposed by the past on the present. You are not free to be, you are not free to respond; you can only
react.
The Baul believes in the SAHAJA MANUSH, the spontaneous man. The Baul says the spontaneous
man is the way to the essential man. To be spontaneous is to be on the way towards being essential. Every
child is a Baul.
So as I see it, in the beginning -- if there was, any beginning -- the whole humanity must have been like
Bauls: true, authentic, sincere, mad, deep in love, rejoicing -- rejoicing the opportunity that God has given,
rejoicing the gift.
We don't have any claim on life. Have you ever noticed it, that we don't have any claim? If we had not
been, there would be no way to be and there would be no way to appeal it. There would be no way to
complain against it. If you are not, you are not. The next moment you can disappear. Life is fragile, and
without any claim. We have not earned it! That is the meaning when we say it is a gift. A gift is something
that you have not earned; you don't have any claim over it. You cannot say that you have some right to get
it. A gift is something that is given to you.
Life is a gift. It has been given to you for no reason at all. You cannot have earned it, because how can
you earn it if you were not? Life is a gift, but we go on forgetting it, we are not even thankful. We don't
have any gratitude. We certainly complain for a thousand and one things which we may think we are
missing in life, but we never feel grateful for life itself.
You may complain that your house is not good: the rains have come and it is leaking. You may
complain that your salary is not enough; you may complain that you don't have a beautiful body. You may
complain that this is not happening and that is not happening -- a thousand and one complaints -- but have
Query:-
you ever seen that the whole life, the very possibility that you can be, breathe, look, see, hear, touch, love
and be loved, is a gift? It has been given to you because God has so much to give, not because you have
earned it.
The Baul lives in tremendous gratitude. He sings and dances -- that is his prayer. He cries. He simply
wonders why, for what has life been given to him, for what has he been allowed to see the rainbows in the
sky, for what has he been allowed to see flowers, butterflies, people, rivers and rocks? For what? Because
life is so obvious you tend to forget the tremendous gift hidden in it.
In the beginning, everybody must have been a Baul, because civilization was not there to corrupt,
society was not there to destroy. Priests and churches were not there to give you a character, to give you a
narrow passage. In the beginning, life must have been overflowing. Everybody must have lived out of their
own beings -- not because of any commandments, not because of scripture. There was no scripture and there
was no commandment. Moses had not appeared yet. Everybody must have been a Baul in the beginning;
and every child, when he is born, is a Baul. Watch a child to understand what this phenomenon of being a
Baul is. See children delighting for nothing -- just shouting out of joy, just running here and there out of
overflowing energy. When you become a Baul you again become a child.
To become a Baul is to become a primitive. To become a Baul is to reclaim one's primitiveness, one's
primalness. One is reborn; it is a rebirth -- the child happens again. Your body may be old, your mind may
be old, but your consciousness is released from the bondage of the body and the mind. You have a past, you
have many experiences, but they no longer burden you. You put them aside. You use them when needed;
otherwise, you don't carry them continuously on your head for twenty-four hours. This is what liberation is:
it does not liberate you from existence or from life or from flowers and love, it simply liberates you from
your past. In fact, the more you are liberated, the more you fall in love with God. The more you are
liberated, the more you become capable of rejoicing and loving.
So don't ask me who originated Bauls. Nobody has ever originated things like that. The whole emphasis
is on spontaneity. Of course, to have a theory like Einstein's
Theory of Relativity, an Einstein is needed. Without him it cannot be originated; without him it would
not be in existence. A very complicated mind is needed to discover the complicated Theory of Relativity.
Bauls don't give any theories. They simply say, "All that you need be, you are already." It is not a
question of being very clever, it is a question of just being simple. No talent is needed to become a Baul.
That's the beauty of it: no genius is needed. What genius is needed to be a child? Every child is born as a
child. The sages and the fools -- all are born as children. No talent is needed. Childhood is simply
everybody's nature.
To be a Baul nothing is needed. In fact, the moment you need nothing, you become a Baul. The moment
you are unburdened and you don't possess anything, any past, you are a Baul.
No, things like that are never originated. Nobody creates them; they happen. They are part of nature.
SO MANY TIMES I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOUR WORDS BECAUSE THE SOUND OF YOUR WORDS
SHOWERS ON ME, YOUR SOUND STRIKES ME WITH ENERGY, FILLING ME, AND AS A SHOCK, I FEEL
IN MY SPINAL CORD THRILLS, WAVES AND VIBRATIONS. SHOULD I BE CAREFULLY AWARE FOR
THE MEANING OF YOUR WORDS?
Then there is no need to be careful about the meaning of the words; that will be a disturbance. If you
feel in tune with my sound, THERE is the meaning. If you feel you are being showered with a new energy,
if you feel thrilled, pulsating in a new way you never knew before, if you feel a sort of new dimension
arising in your being because of the sound of my words, then forget all about me. Then there is no need; you
have got the meaning already. That showering is the meaning, that thrill in the spine is the meaning, that
vibration that cleanses you is the meaning. Then there is no need to worry about the ordinary meaning of the
words. Then you are getting a higher meaning, then you are reaching a higher altitude of meaning. Then you
are really getting the content and not the container. The meaning of my words is just the container.
If this is happening to you, then my words are no longer words to you; they have become existential.
Then they are alive, then they have become a transfer. Then something is transpiring between my energy
and your energy. Then there is happening something like what Bauls call love.
Allow it. Forget all about the words and their meaning. Leave it for foolish people who only collect
Query:-
words and are never in contact with the content. The words are just like shells: hidden behind them, I am
sending you great messages. Those messages cannot be understood by the intellect, those messages have to
be decoded by your total being. That is what is happening -- the vibration, the pulsation, the thrill, the
showering of a new energy -- your total being is decoding. This is real listening. This is really to be in
contact with me, to be in my presence.
Once I stayed with a friend. He had a big cage in his garden and he had one eagle in that cage. He took
me to the cage and he said, "See, what a beautiful eagle." The eagle was beautiful, but I felt sorry for her.
I told the friend that this was not an eagle.
He said, "What do you mean? This is an eagle. Don't you know eagles?"
I said, "I know them, but I have known them only against the wind in the sky, in the high heavens, free,
almost not of this world and not in this world, weighing themselves floating on the winds, in deep love with
the free sky. I have known them as freedom. This eagle is no eagle. Because an eagle in a cage without the
openness, the wideness of sky, without those high heavens, without weighing herself in freedom on the
winds, is no eagle. Where is the background? -- because this is only the figure. In a cage, the real eagle has
disappeared. You cannot find a real eagle in a cage because a real eagle is tremendous freedom. Where is
the freedom? The soul has disappeared. The essential has disappeared; only the non-essential is here. This is
just a dead eagle, more dead than any dead eagle. Release it from the cage; let it become real."
When I talk to you my words are like caged eagles; my words are in a prison. If you really listen to me,
you will drop the cage and you will release the eagle. That is what is happening...the thrill. Then the
freedom is released; then you become the eagle -- and higher and higher you rise. The earth is left very far
behind. You can forget all about it. The ordinary is left very far behind. The shell is left, the container is left,
and you have the whole sky open to you; you, your wings, and the sky, and there is no end to it. The eternal
pilgrimage has started.
Forget all about words and their meanings, otherwise you will be more concerned with the cage and you
will not be able to release the eagle within you.
The third question:
EVERY TIME I HAVE LOVED SOMEONE AND AFTERWARDS DUG INTO IT, I HAVE FOUND THAT IT
WAS NO LOVE AT ALL. IT WAS SOMETHING ELSE IN THE NAME OF LOVE. THUS I NOW HAVE NO
FAITH IN LOVE. I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE THAT WE CAN LOVE AS WE ARE.
The questioner says, and rightly so, that whenever he has been in love he has found something else
masquerading as love, so he has lost faith in love.
The first part is absolutely. right: if you observe deeply, you will find something else always hiding
behind love, something counterfeit. But the counterfeit can exist only because real coins exist. If there were
no real coin, how could a counterfeit exist? Sometimes it is possessiveness which hides itself behind love,
sometimes it is lust, sometimes something else, jealousy.
But why do they hide behind love? -- because they feel love is a real coin, and you can pretend and hide
behind it. You can be safe behind love. Whenever you hide yourself somewhere, it simply shows that
somewhere that place is protective; it can become an armor around you. Why does everything seek to hide
behind love? -- because love is the greatest protection in the world, the greatest reality in the world, the only
energy. Everything else is false; love is true. All that is not love is false, and whatsoever you are doing
which is not love is a sheer wastage. All that is love is true, and whatsoever you do on the path of love
increases your being, gives you more truth, makes you more true. Knowing this, everything hides behind
love because love can give protection. Love is so beautiful that even ugly things can hide behind it and
pretend to be beautiful.
I was reading Shepard's book, BEYOND SEX THERAPY. He relates one incident.
He was in love with a woman, a young woman. A few friends had come to see him, but the whole time
he remained with the woman, talking to her, as if he was not interested in the friends. They felt a little
offended, and they told the woman, "We know Shepard better than you. He has been in love with many
women, and this comes and goes. So remember it: sooner or later he will get interested in some other
woman. What are you going to do then?"
The woman said, "I will feel jealous, but that is my problem. But I would like my man to know every
Query:-
sort of love, to know all that is possible before he dies. I will feel jealous, but that is my problem. That I
have to tackle, and I have to get over it. That has nothing to do with him. As far as he's concerned, this is my
desire: that he should know all that he wants to know before he dies, because once gone, one is gone
forever. I would like him to live as richly as possible. If problems arise, like jealousy, then they are my
problems."
This is what love is. It knows the distinction between jealousy and love. It is not confused about it. The
jealousy cannot hide behind it; it cannot pretend to be love.
So the first thing is right, the questioner is absolutely right: "Every time I have loved someone and
afterwards dug into it, I have found that it was no love at all. It was something else..." perfectly true "... in
the name of love. Thus I now have no faith..." That is wrong -- because you have not known love yet. How
can you lose faith in love, which you have not known yet? You can lose faith in jealousy, you can lose faith
in possessiveness, you can lose faith in anger, you can lose faith in lust, but you have not come across love
at all so how can you lose faith in it? To lose faith or to have faith, at least some experience of love is
essential -- and you have not come across it.
Dig a little more and you will be able to sort it out now. What is jealousy? -- you know; what is
possessiveness? -- you know. This is good; you are evolving. This is how everybody has to evolve. In the
beginning, everything is mixed -- as if mud is mixed in gold. Then one has to put the gold into fire: all that
is not gold is burned, drops out of it. Only pure gold comes out of the fire. Awareness is the fire; love is the
gold; jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, lust, are the impurities. You are becoming more aware. Now
you see what jealousy is, and you can see it is not love. Half the battle is won; fifty percent of the battle is
over -- you can recognize jealousy. But you have not yet known what love is. You are on the right track. But
don't become hopeless, don't lose courage, don't lose faith, because sooner or later you will be able to know
what love is. You are coming closer to home.
Don't be in such a hurry. Truth tends to reveal itself. Truth is revelatory, truth is revelation. You just go
on seeking, searching, finding. There may be many errors, but there is no other way to grow. Trial and error
is the only way. By and by, you go on eliminating the errors. Less and less errors happen, and more and
more purity becomes available. Don't stop in the middle.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin got a job in a bank. The cashier tossed him a packet of one-rupee notes and said, "Check
them to make sure there are one hundred."
The Mulla started counting. Finally he got up to fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, then he threw the
packet in the drawer.
"If it is right this far," remarked Nasrudin to the man next to him, "it is probably right all the way."
Don't be in such a hurry. If it has been wrong so far, don't think it will be wrong all the way. At a
hundred degrees, suddenly it turns right. One has to penetrate all the impurities. But you are on the right
track, so be happy.
And it is because of a deep desire for love that you have been able to recognize what is not love.
Otherwise, how would you recognize? You can recognize that this is not gold because gold exists.
Otherwise, what is the criterion to know that this is not love? You have some tacit understanding; it is not
conscious yet, it is tacit, deep down. That is the meaning of understanding, understood. You have a tacit
understanding, some deep undercurrent which knows what love is. That's why you can find 'this is not love',
'that is not love'. Good, you are on the right track. Go on to the very end, all the way.
It is because of the possibility of love that you have become aware of jealousy, of possessiveness, of
anger, of lust, of greed, of indulgence, of gratification, and a thousand and one things. But the central core is
dependent on a tacit understanding of love.
Truth tends to reveal itself.
Let me tell you a few anecdotes.
The funeral cortege was being set up for the wife of Mulla Nasrudin. He was dressed sombrely in the
appropriate black. The funeral director said to the Mulla in a respectful whisper, "And you will be sitting in
the head car with your mother-in-law."
Nasrudin frowned, "With my mother-in-law?"
"Yes, of course."
"Is it necessary?"
"It is essential -- the bereaved husband and the bereaved mother, the two closest survivors, together."
Mulla Nasrudin turned to look at the large and sobbing figure of his mother-in-law and said, "Well, all
Query:-
right then. But I tell you right now that it is going to spoil the pleasure of the occasion."
Your black dress cannot hide the truth, your tears cannot hide the truth. Deep down he was feeling
happy that now he was free, now he was no more in bondage with this woman. Just on the surface he was
showing his bereavement.
Truth has a tendency to reveal itself. If you just become a little alert, you will always know what is true.
Truth need not be learnt; one needs just to be a little alert, and then the truth reveals itself. Revelation is
intrinsic to truth. And when truth is revealed, a thousand and one lies are also revealed simultaneously, all
the lies that were pretending to be truth when the truth was not known.
It happened: Abdul Rehman was very sick, a friend of Mulla Nasrudin. Everybody was worried about
the sick man. He was very sick indeed, and his friends took turns visiting him to keep up his spirits.
The night Mulla Nasrudin went he was warned in advance that Abdul Rehman was very low and he
must be extremely careful to say nothing discouraging. Nasrudin was doing beautifully, and actually had
Rehman chuckling over a number of funny stories. But suddenly however, the Mulla stopped and began to
shake his head.
"What is that? What is the matter, Mulla?" said Rehman anxiously.
"I was just thinking," said Nasrudin, "how in the name of the Holy Prophet are they going to get a coffin
down the crooked stairs in this house?"
Now on the surface he was trying to encourage the man, but deep down he knew that he was going to
die, and deep down an undercurrent: how are they going to get the coffin down? -- the staircase is so
crooked.
Truth has a tendency to reveal itself. Just be a little alert and your heart will show you the path. And
then nothing will be able to hide behind love. Things can hide behind love because you are unconscious. It
is not a fault of love, it is your unconsciousness. So don't distrust love, distrust unconsciousness. Don't lose
faith in love -- love has not done anything to you. Nothing wrong has love done to you. In fact, in spite of
you, it is love that is keeping you alive. I repeat: in spite of you it is love that is keeping you alive. Lose
faith in unconsciousness. If you are conscious, then nothing can hide behind love. Then no counterfeit can
deceive you.
"It was something else, always in the name of love. Thus I now have no faith in love."
That is absurd. The logic is incorrect. You have not come across love; how can you lose faith in love?
Dig a little more, go to the very end of it: you will always find purer gold, the deeper you go into yourself.
It is just like digging a well: first you dig a well -- you just get stones, rocks, rubbish; after that layer,
more pure soil; after that layer, wet soil; after that, muddy water; after that, purer water. The deeper you go,
purer springs become available. And this is so inside your heart also. On the surface there is just dirt, dust,
rocks, then dry earth, then wet earth, then muddy water. But don't lose faith; you are coming closer to home
-- then, pure water.
"I just cannot believe that we can love as we are." That's true -- you cannot love the way you are. But there
is no need to choose to remain the way you are. You can change. There is no need to cling to your structure.
You can destructure it.
That's what I'm doing here; that's all that we are trying to do together: to destructure you so that you can
be realigned, so that you can be rearranged, so that the old disappears and the new is born.
This is true -- that the way you are you cannot love. But there is no reason to lose faith in love. Lose
faith in yourself, lose faith in your ego. If it is you who is preventing you from loving, then drop this you --
because love is worth it. Millions of you's are not as valuable as a single moment of love. Drop this
structure. Choose the sky, don't choose the cage. The you you are feeling you are is nothing but the cage
given by the society. Choose the sky drop the cage.
TWO MORNINGS AGO I SLEPT THROUGH THE LECTURE AND WOKE UP AT THE END WITH THE
WORD 'SINGLE-MINDEDNESS' ON MY MIND. SO WHAT TO DO?
Be single-minded. The message is so clear; what is there to ask? Your being has given you a great
message.
Sometimes it happens after deep sleep that you have messages from your deepest core of being. Start
Query:-
listening to your first thoughts in the morning; out of sleep you are very close to your being. There is more
possibility, within two or three seconds of waking, to have some glimpses of your deepest being, some
messages. After two, three seconds, the contact will be lost. You will again be in the world, thrown into the
world. But sometimes it happens, as it happens to a few people: listening to me they fall asleep. There are
different types of people.
For example, just now Sheela is fast asleep, but her sleep is really beautiful: it is a sort of trance, not
sleep. She is not just asleep; her sleep is luminous. She has simply relaxed. Listening to me deeply, she
could not remain tense. All tension is gone, so she simply relaxed, relaxed into a deeper layer of her own
being. To all people from the outside she will look fast asleep. When she is back, even she may not be able
to understand what has happened because to her also it may look like sleep. It is not sleep; it is a certain
stage: in yoga we call it TANDRA. It is a midway point between waking and sleep, and without dreams.
So there are two midway stages between deep sleep and waking. The ordinary stage is dreaming: if you
are just in between, then you dream. Either you are awake, or you are fast asleep, or you are dreaming. And
dreaming is just in the middle of waking and sleeping; it is the middle passage. This is ordinarily so.
But if your meditation goes deeper, or, if your love goes deeper, the first change that happens in
consciousness is a change in the middle stage -- dreaming stops. Now it is very difficult to say what it is.
You can think about it as sleep, or you can think about it as waking; it is both together -- just a balance
between the two, a very balanced stage.
TANDRA is the first glimpse, the beginning of SATORI. Dreams disappear first. Then in the next step,
sleep disappears; and in the third step, what you call waking, that disappears. And when all three have
disappeared, then arises what we call REAL waking. Then one becomes enlightened. TANDRA is the first
step; dreams are disappearing.
So sometimes it happens that people fall asleep here -- they are in a state of trance. TANDRA can be
translated as trance. For all practical purposes, they are asleep. They will not be able to remember my
words, but after they are back they will remember that something very deep and silent has happened.
Something in their energy has changed.
It is a deep relaxation. In this relaxation if some message arises, listen to it very carefully.
"Two mornings ago I slept through the lecture and woke up at the end with the word 'single-mindedness' on
my mind." That morning I had been talking about singlemindedness.
The question is old. The question is concerned with the series of Zen stories.
I was talking that morning about single-mindedness. You may not have heard; you were in TANDRA,
in trance to what I was saying. But what I wanted to deliver to you has been delivered. Your being listened,
your body listened, your totality drank out of me, absorbed what I was saying, what I was being here. And
when you came back, as a condensed message, a gift from your deepest core to your periphery, from your
center to your circumference, the word 'single-mindedness' arose in your consciousness. Now you ask what
to do?. -- be single-minded!
And what do I mean when I say 'be single-minded'? In fact, to say 'be single-minded' is almost to say 'be
without mind' -- because the mind exists only in conflict. Mind exists only as many. When the manyness has
disappeared and the crowd is no more there, we call it single-minded -- or you can call it no-mind because
the mind has disappeared. Mind is many; single mind is no-mind. When you are one, together -- no conflict
inside, no division, all demons gone, you have become indivisible,,everything joined together in a deep
coherence and harmony, a single orchestra -- then there is no-mind.
Single-mindedness is a term from Yoga tradition. No-mind means the same, but the term belongs to
another tradition, Zen. But they both mean the same: don't be a crowd, don't be poly-psychic. Become
uni-psychic, become one.
The fifth question:
HOW CAN I DISTINGUISH BETWEEN ENLIGHTENED SELF-LOVE AND EGOMANIA?
The distinction is subtle but very clear, not difficult; subtle, but not difficult. If you have egomania, it
will create more and more misery for you. Misery will indicate that you are ill. Egomania is a disease, a
cancer of the soul. Egomania will make you more and more tense, will make you more and more up-tight,
will not allow you to relax at all. It will drive you towards insanity.
Query:-
Self-love is just the opposite of egomania. In self-love there is no self, only love. In egomania there is no
love, only self. In self-love you will start becoming more and more relaxed. A person who loves himself is
totally relaxed. To love somebody else may create a little tension, because the other need not be always in
tune with you. The other may have his or her own ideas. The other is a different world; there is every
possibility of collision, clash. There is every possibility of storm and thunder because the other is a different
world. There is always a subtle struggle going on. But when you love yourself, there is nobody else. There
is no conflict -- it is pure silence, it is tremendous delight. You are alone; nobody disturbs you. The other is
not needed at all. And to me, a person who has become capable of such deep love towards himself becomes
capable of loving others. If you cannot love yourself, how can you love others? It must first happen at close
quarters, it must first happen within you, to spread towards others.
People try to love others, not being at all aware that they have not even loved themselves. How can you
love others? That which you don't have you cannot share. You can give to others only that which you have
already with you.
So the first and the most basic step towards love is love of oneself; but it has no self in it.
Let me explain it to you.
The 'I' arises only as a contrast to the 'thou'. 'I' and 'thou' exist together. The 'I' can exist in two
dimensions. One dimension is 'I-it': you -- your house, you -- your car, you -- your money; 'I-it'. When there
is this 'I', this 'I' of 'I-it', your 'I' is almost like a thing. It is not consciousness; it is fast asleep, snoring. Your
consciousness is not there. You are just like things, a thing amidst things: part of your house, part of your
furniture, part of your money.
Have you watched it? A man who is too greedy about money, by and by starts having the qualities of
money. He becomes just money. He loses spirituality, he is no more a spirit. He is reduced to a thing. If you
love money, you will become like money. If you love your house, by and by you will become material.
Whatsoever you love, you become. Love is alchemical. Never love the wrong thing, because it will
transform you. Nothing is so transforming as love. Love something which can raise you higher, to higher
altitudes. Love something beyond you.
That is the whole effect of religion: to give you a love-object like God so that there is no way to fall
down. One has to rise.
One sort of 'I' exists as 'I-it'; another sort of 'I' exists as 'I-thou'. When you love a person, another type of
'I' arises in you: 'I thou'. You love a person, you become a person.
But what about self-love?. -- there is no 'it' and there is no 'thou'. 'I' disappears because 'I' can exist only
in two contexts: 'it' and 'thou'. 'I' is the figure, 'it' and 'thou' function as the field. When the field disappears
the 'I' disappears. When you are left alone, you are, but you don't have an 'I', you don't feel any 'I'. You are
simply a deep AMNESS. Ordinarily we say 'I am'. In that state, when you are deep in love with yourself, 'I'
disappears. Only amness, pure existence, pure being remains. It will fill you with tremendous bliss. It will
make you a celebration, a rejoicing. There will be no problem in distinguishing between them.
If you are getting more and more miserable, then you are on the trip of being an egomaniac. If you are
becoming more and more tranquil, silent, happy, together, then you are on another trip -- the trip of
self-love. If you are on the trip of ego you will become destructive to others -- because the ego tries to
destroy the 'thou'. If you are moving towards self-love, the ego will disappear. And when the ego
disappears, you allow the other to be himself or herself; you give total freedom. If you don't have any ego
you cannot create an imprisonment for the other you love; you cannot create a cage. You allow the other to
be an eagle in the high heavens. You allow the other to be himself or herself; you give total freedom. Love
gives total freedom. Love IS freedom -- freedom for you and freedom for the object of your love. Ego is
bondage -- bondage for you and bondage for your victim.
But ego can play very deep tricks with you. It is very cunning, and subtle are its ways: it can pretend to
be self-love.
Let me tell you one anecdote.
Mulla Nasrudin's face lit up as he recognized the man who was walking ahead of him down the subway
stairs. He slapped the man so heartily on the back that the man nearly collapsed, and cried, "Goldberg, I
hardly recognized you! Why, you have gained thirty pounds since I saw you last. And you have had your
nose fixed, and I swear you are about two feet taller."
The man looked at him angrily. "I beg your pardon," he said in icy tones, "but I do not happen to be
Goldberg."
"Aha!" said Mulla Nasrudin, "so you have even changed your name?"
Query:-
The ego is very cunning and very self-justifying, very self-rationalizing. If you are not very alert it can
start hiding itself behind self-love. The very word 'self' will become a protection for it. It can say, "I am your
self." It can change its weight, it can change its height, it can change its name. And because it is just an idea,
there is no problem about it: it can become small, it can become big. It is just your fantasy.
Be very careful. If you really want to grow in love, much carefulness will be needed. Each step has to be
taken in deep alertness so ego cannot find any loophole to hide behind.
Your real self is neither I nor thou; it is neither you nor the other. Your real self is altogether
transcendental. What you call 'I' is not your real self. 'I' is imposed on reality. When you call somebody
'you', you are not addressing the real self of the other. Again you have imposed a label on it. When all the
labels are taken away, the real self remains -- and the real self is as much yours as it is others. The real self
is one.
That's why we go on saying that we participate in each other's beings, we are members of each other.
Our real reality is God. We may be like icebergs floating in the ocean -- they appear to be separate -- but
once we melt, nothing will be left. Definition will disappear, limitation will disappear, and the iceberg will
not be there. It will become part of the ocean.
The ego is an iceberg. Melt it. Melt it in deep love, so it disappears and you become part of the ocean.
I have heard....
The Judge looked very severe. "Mulla," he said, "your wife says you hit her over the head with a
baseball bat and threw her down a flight of stairs. What have you got to say for yourself?"
Mulla Nasrudin rubbed the side of his nose with his hand, and meditated. Finally he said, "Your Honor,
I guess there are three sides to this case: my wife's story, my story, and the truth."
Yes, he is perfectly right.
"You have heard about two sides of a truth," he said, "but there are three sides" -- and he is exactly right.
There is your story, my story, and the truth; I and you and the truth.
The truth is neither I nor you. I and you is an imposition on the vastness of the truth. 'I' is false, 'you' is
false; utilitarian, useful in the world. It will be difficult to manage the world without 'I' and 'you'. Good --
use them, but they are just devices of the world. In reality, there is neither 'you' nor 'I'. Something, someone,
some energy exists with no limitations, with no boundaries. Out of it we come, and into it we disappear
again.
The sixth question:
EVEN IF SOMETIMES LOVE-LIKE FEELINGS ARISE IN MY HEART, IMMEDIATELY THE NEXT MOMENT I
START FEELING 'THIS IS NOT LOVE, THIS IS NOT LOVE AT ALL: IT IS ALL MY HIDDEN CRAVINGS FOR
SEX AND ALL THAT'.
So what is wrong in it? Love has to arise out of lust. If you avoid lust, you will be avoiding the whole
possibility of love itself. Love is not lust, true; but love is not without lust -- that too is true. Love is higher
than lust, yes, but if you destroy lust completely, you destroy the very possibility of the flower arising out of
the mud. Love is the lotus, lust is the mud the lotus arises out of. Remember it; otherwise you will never
attain to love. At the most, you can pretend that you have transcended lust. Because without love, nobody
can transcend lust; you can repress it. Repressed, it becomes more poisonous. It spreads into your whole
system, it becomes toxic, it destroys you. Lust transformed into love gives you a glow, a radiance. You start
feeling light, as if you can fly. You start gaining wings. With lust repressed you become heavy, as if you are
carrying a weight, as if a big rock is hanging around your neck. With lust repressed, you lose all
opportunities to fly in the sky. With lust transformed into love, you have passed the test of existence.
You have been given a raw material to work, to be creative. Lust is raw material.
I have heard....
Berkowitz and Michaelson, who were not only business partners but life-long friends, made a pact: that
whichever one died first would come back and tell the other what it was like in heaven.
Six months later, Berkowitz died. He was a very moral man, almost saint-like, a puritan who had never
done anything wrong, who had always remained afraid of lust and sex. And Michaelson waited for his dear
departed holy friend to show some sign that he had returned to earth. Michaelson passed the time
impatiently hoping for and eagerly awaiting a message from Berkowitz.
Query:-
Then one year after the day of his death, Berkowitz spoke to Michaelson. It was late at night;
Michaelson was in bed.
"Michaelson, Michaelson," echoed the voice.
"Is that you, Berkowitz?"
"Yes."
"What is it like where you are?"
"We have breakfast and then we make love, then we eat lunch and we make love, we have dinner and then
we make love."
"Is that what heaven is like?" asked Michaelson.
"Who said anything about heaven?" said Berkowitz. "I am in Wisconsin, and I am a bull."
Remember, this happens to people who repress sex. Nothing else can happen because that whole energy
repressed becomes a load and pulls you down. You move towards lower stages of being. If love arises out of
lust, you start rising towards higher being.
So remember, what you want to become -- a Buddha or a bull -- depends on you. If you want to become
a Buddha, then don't be afraid of sex. Move into it, know it well, become more and more alert about it. Be
careful; it is tremendously valuable energy. Make it a meditation and transform it, by and by, into love. It is
raw material, like a raw diamond: you have to cut it, polish it; then it becomes of tremendous value. If
somebody gives you an unpolished, raw, uncut diamond, you may not even recognize that it is a diamond.
Even the Kohinoor in its raw state is worthless.
Lust is a Kohinoor: it has to be polished, it has to be understood.
The questioner seems to be afraid and antagonistic: "It is all my hidden cravings for sex and all that."
There is a condemnation in it. Nothing is wrong; man is a sexual animal. That's how we are. That's the way
life means us to be. That's how we have found ourselves here. Go into it. Without going, you will never be
able to transform it. I'm not speaking for mere indulgence. I'm saying move into it with deep meditative
energy to understand what it is. It must be something tremendously valuable because you have come out of
it, because the whole existence enjoys it, because the whole existence is sexual. Sex is the way God has
chosen to be in the world, notwithstanding what Christians go on saying -- that Jesus was born out of a
virgin woman -- all foolishness. They pretend that sex was not involved in Jesus' birth. They are so afraid of
sex that they create foolish stories like this: that Jesus is born out of a virgin Mary. Mary must have been
very pure, that's true; she must have been spiritually virgin, that is true -- but there is no way to enter into
life without passing through the energy that sex is. The body knows no other law. And nature is
all-inclusive: it believes in no exceptions, it allows no exceptions. You are born out of sex, you are full of
sex energy. But this is not the end; this may be the beginning. Sex is the beginning but not the end.
There are three types of people. One thinks that sex is the end also. They are the people who live a life
of indulgence. They miss, because sex is the beginning but not the end. Then there are people who are
against indulgence. They take the other, the opposite extreme: they don't want sex even to be the beginning,
so they start cutting it. Cutting it, they cut themselves. Destroying it, they destroy themselves, they wither
away. Both are foolish attitudes.
There is the third possibility: the possibility of the wise man who looks at life, who has no theories to
enforce on life, who just tries to understand. He comes to see that sex is the beginning but not the end. Sex
is just an opportunity to grow beyond it, but one has to pass through it.
The last question:
OSHO, I USED TO THINK I KNEW WHAT SUBMISSION WAS. NOW I SEE IT -- IT WAS A POLITICAL
MIND-TRIP TO BUY RELATIONS. NOW THAT THERE IS NO PLACE TO STAND BUT WHERE I AM, BLISS
HAS ENTERED. THANK YOU FOR TURNING ME ON MYSELF.
It is from Anup.
It is significant to have come to an understanding of what surrender or submission is. It is one of the keys,
but people are very afraid to use it -- because if you surrender, submit, you are lost. It is death-like. It is as if
one is committing suicide. So people go on doing other things and they call it submission, surrender.
To have this understanding, this glimpse that all that you have up to now been thinking of as surrender,
as submission is not the real thing, is a great step towards transformation. Once you understand the false as
Query:-
the false, you are becoming capable of knowing the real as the real. To understand the false as the false is
the beginning of understanding the real as the real. The lies have to be exposed. Once lies are exposed, truth
stands nude, naked, revealed.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Talks on the Baul Mystics
Talks given from 01/07/76 am to 10/07/76 am
English Discourse series
10 Chapters
Year published: 1976
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #1
Chapter title:The Roots And The Flowers Are One
1 July 1976 am in Buddha Hall

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 87 mins
THE MILK OF THE LIONESS

IS SEEN AT ITS BEST
WHEN STORED
IN A GOLDEN CUP.
WORSHIPPING PROSPERS
IN A PROPER CONTAINER.
THE LOVER WHO WHOLLY LOVES,
CAN REACH REALITY,
COMPREHENDING THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
THE SECRETS OF DEATH
ARE REVEALED TO HIM
WHILE HE IS FULLY ALIVE.
WHAT DOES HE CARE
FOR OTHER SHORES OF LIFE...?
Humanity is split. The very human mind is split because of two extremist life philosophies. Both are
exaggerations; both are logical extremes.
Query:-
One is what people call the philosophy of `eat, drink and be merry', the materialist standpoint that life is
just an accident. It is not going anywhere. There is no meaning in it, no significance, no coherence. You are
not preparing for something. Nothing is going to happen, so you are left in the moment; make the most of it.
Death is going to destroy utterly, nothing will survive, so don't be bothered about the other shore. Don't
think in terms of goals. Don't think that God, truth, liberation, MOKSHA, NIRVANA have to be achieved.
These are all just illusions; they don't exist -- empty, dreams of the human mind. They are not substantial, so
squeeze out of the moment whatsoever you can. But there is no undercurrent of meaning in life. Life is
accidental: you are not created for any purpose.
Many live that way and miss much -- because there IS purpose, because life is not an accident, because
there is a running thread in each moment of eternity, because life is an unfoldment. Something is going to
happen. The future is not barren, it is going to be creative. Preparation is needed so that you can unfold, so
that your seed can become manifested, so that your essence is achieved, so you can know who you are and
what this existence is.
Life is not just a madman's thought. It is very systematic. It is not chaos, it is a cosmos. There is order.
Even behind disorder there is order; only eyes are needed to penetrate to that depth. On the surface maybe
you can see only a sequence of moments and you cannot see eternity. On the surface maybe you can see
only the body and nothing more. Just as when you go to the ocean, standing on the beach you cannot see the
depth of the ocean, only the waves. But the ocean is not just waves. In fact, waves cannot exist without the
ocean; the ocean can exist without the waves. Waves are not separate from the ocean. Waves are nothing
but ocean waving, and ocean has tremendous depth. But to know that depth one has to go into that depth,
one has to dive deep.
The materialist standpoint makes life absolutely empty of meaning. Then whether you live or you
commit suicide makes no difference, because life and death are just the same. Life is nothing but a way of
dying. You are going to die; how you die does not matter, when you die does not matter. How long you live
and then die does not matter. Nothing matters. This standpoint is a half-truth -- and half-truths are
dangerous, more dangerous than lies because they have something of truth in them. That something can be
very, very deceiving. A complete lie is not so dangerous because it cannot deceive for long. Sooner or later
you will come to know that it is a lie. Half-truths are very dangerous because something is true, and that
something true may keep you hooked and you may never be able to know the lie.
The other extreme is that of the spiritualist. He says, "This moment is useless. Time is useless, only
eternity has meaning. So don't waste this moment in rejoicing, delighting. Don't waste this moment, prepare
for the future. Sacrifice the present for the future. Sacrifice all that you have for that which the future holds
in itself as a promise. Make life a constant approach towards truth. Make life a constant effort to realize
oneself, or God, or NIRVANA. This is not significant, but THAT. HERE is not significant, but THERE.
The other shore is significant. This shore is to be used only as a jumping board. But you have to go to the
other shore. Real life is on the other shore. On this shore there is only illusion, MAYA, so don't waste your
time in anything that keeps you on this shore. Don't be happy on this shore, because if you are happy on this
shore, how will you be able to leave it? Become sad, become serious. This shore is the shore of sorrow. This
shore is not the shore of life, but death. This shore is nothing but accumulated sin, so be sad that you are
here, be indifferent to whatsoever this shore can give to you. Don't be attached to anything here. Don't fall
in love with someone. Don't fall in love with the beauty of this shore. Be alert and remember the other
shore, keep your eyes on the other shore."
This too, is another extreme. It also carries half of the truth, and is as dangerous as the first extreme.
This moment is also part of eternity, and this shore belongs to the river as much as the other shore. And
the beauty on this shore, and the song and the poetry of this shore is as divine as the song and the poetry of
the other shore. This very moment is eternity available to you. So just sacrificing this moment for the future
is foolish, because the future will always come as this moment. The other shore will always come as this
shore. And, if you have learned a trick that spiritualists have learned, and that they have taught to the whole
humanity and corrupted the mind -- how to destroy this moment, how to be negative on this shore -- then
you will be negative anywhere. Wherever you are you will be negative. Wherever you are you will be
destructive. Wherever you are you will remain sad and sorrowful. This is not religion.
THE BAUL attitude is a great synthesis between these two polarities. The Baul understanding uses both
Query:-
half-truths and makes a whole truth out of it. The Bauls say, "This moment is not all, right; but to say that
this moment is nothing is wrong." The Bauls say, "Life is a preparation, but the preparation is nothing but to
be blissful in this moment." They are not materialists and they are not spiritualists. They are religious
people. Religion is a great synthesis. And if you don't understand this, you will be a victim of either this
extreme or that. Or, you can be a victim of both, half-half. That's how schizophrenia arises.
Schizophrenia is not a disease that happens to a few people -- it is the normal state of humanity.
Everybody is divided, split. You can watch it in your own life. When you are not with a woman, with a
man, not in love, you think, you fantasize about love. Love seems to be the goal. That seems to be the very
meaning of life. When you are with a woman or with a man and in love, suddenly you start thinking in
terms of spiritualism: "This is attachment, this is possessiveness, this is lust." A condemnation arises.
You cannot be alone and you cannot be with somebody. If you are alone you hanker for the crowd, for
the other. If you are with somebody you start hankering to be alone. This is something to be understood,
because everybody has to face this problem. You are born in a schizophrenic world. You have been given
double standards. You have been taught materialism, and you have been taught spiritualism, together. The
whole society goes on teaching you contradictory things.
I was staying with a Vice Chancellor, and he told me that he was very worried about the new generation.
He has two young boys and he was worried about them. He wants them to be humble. He wants them to be
true, honest; he wants them to be religious, prayerful.
I said, "That's okay. What else do you want them to be?"
He said, "Of course, I would like them to succeed in life."
I insisted, "What do you mean by success?"
He said, "At least I have become a Vice Chancellor. I would like them to be well-educated, to reach to
high posts, to succeed materially as far as wealth is concerned: a good house, a good car, a good wife,
respect in the society." And then he became a little uneasy, and he said, "But why are you asking this?"
I said, "I am asking this because both are contradictory. On the one hand you want your son to be
humble, on the other hand you want him to be ambitious. Now both will make him just split. On the one
hand he will try to carry the ideal of humility, humbleness, simplicity; on the other hand, the ideal to
succeed, to be ambitious, to achieve. An ambitious man cannot be humble; a humble man cannot be
ambitious. And you want him to be prayerful? And you want him to be true and honest? A man who is
trying to succeed in the world HAS to be dishonest. Of course, he has to be dishonest in such a way that
nobody ever discovers it. He has to be very cunningly dishonest. He has to pretend to honesty and remain
dishonest. He has to pretend to humbleness and remain egoistic. But these are such different, diametrically
opposite goals, and you put them inside one person -- that person will always remain divided. If he succeeds
he will think,'What happened to my humbleness, what happened to my prayer, what happened to my
compassion?' If he becomes humble he will think,'What happened to my ambition? I am nowhere'."
You are born in a schizophrenic world. Your parents were schizophrenic, your teachers were
schizophrenic, your priests, your politicians are schizophrenic. They go on talking about two diametrically
opposite goals, and they go on creating the split m you.
The Bauls are very healthy people -- not schizophrenic, not split. Their synthesis has to be understood;
the very understanding will help you tremendously.
They say, "This world and the other world are not opposite." They say, "To eat, drink and be merry, and
to be prayerful, are not opposite." They say, "This shore and the other shore belong to the same river of
God." So they say that each moment has to be lived as a materialist, and each moment has to be given a
direction as a spiritualist. Each moment, one has to be delightful, rejoicing, celebrating, and at the same
time, remaining alert and conscious, remaining fully aware about the future unfoldment. But that
unfoldment is not against this moment's rejoicing. In fact, because you rejoice in this moment, the next
moment your flower opens more. The more you are happy m this moment, the more you will become
capable of being happy in the next moment. If today has been a heaven, tomorrow cannot be a hell because
it will be born out of today. If today has been tremendously beautiful, a day of song, a day of dance and
laughter. then how can tomorrow be a day of sorrow? From where can sadness enter in? It is going to be
YOUR tomorrow. And whenever it will come, it will come as today, and you have learned the secret of how
to live today.
The Bauls say, "Learn from the materialist the way to live. "Learn from an Epicurean, a CHARVAK;
Query:-
learn from him the way to live this moment. Learn the direction from real spiritual people -- a Buddha, a
Mahavir, a Krishna -- and make a synthesis out of both. Don't divide time and eternity; don't divide matter
and mind; don't divide earth and sky. Don't divide the roots and the flowers; they are together.
This togetherness is the goal of the Baul. And when inside you divisions disappear, and inside you there
is no conflict, and inside you you are one, you become luminous. A great grace arises in you. Then you will
be as happy as Epicurus and as silent as Buddha.
IN the soul of a Baul, Buddha and Epicurus embrace each other. And this is my goal also, and this is my
teaching also. If somehow you can become a Buddha without becoming an Epicurus simultaneously, you
will miss much. You will become a stone Buddha; you will not be alive. Or if you can become an Epicurus
without becoming a Buddha, you will miss much. You may enjoy a few fleeting moments of life, but that's
not enough. Life has more to give and you live only on the waves, you never reach the depths.
I would like you to become capable of living on the waves, with the sun shining and the storm raging
and great winds blowing, and to go into the depth also, where all storms cease, where deep darkness exists
without any penetration from the sun, where everything is silent and peaceful and tranquil, and there is no
disturbance. But, I would like you to become capable of both. If one makes you incapable of the other, then
you are not a very rich human being. Then you are half-human. Then half of your being is dead. Then you
are paralyzed; then you are not fully alive.
You must have heard what the existentialists say. They have a very basic dictum: that existence
precedes essence. They say that man is born first, and then, by and by, he creates his own essence, his own
soul. Man is born empty, with no content in him, just a blank paper. Then, by and by, he has to write his
own autobiography on it. He has to make his own signature; he brings none. He comes as an emptiness.
The Bauls say just the opposite thing. They say: Man is born with essence, the ADHAR MANUSH. The
essential man is always there, maybe manifest or not manifest. The tree is already in the seed. Essence
precedes existence, not otherwise. The Bauls say that life is not a creation of something new, it is just
unfoldment. You already have it; it just has to be unfolded, barriers just have to be removed. Obstacles just
have to be put aside and your life starts unfolding. You are like a bud: when obstacles are no more there,
you start flowering, your lotus opens.
BUT that which you are going to become you already are, in essence -- "Because if you are not already,"
the Bauls say, "then you cannot become." You can become only that which you are. You can become only
your being. There is no other way of becoming, there is nothing else you can become. A rosebush will grow
roses, a lotus plant will grow lotuses. You are already carrying your destiny; just obstacles have to be
removed.
This is what Bauls call preparation. To prepare oneself means to remove the obstacles on the path. If
you remove hate, love starts flowing. You are not to create love; nobody can create love. If you were to
create love then it would be impossible. Just remove the hate and you will see love streaming. Remove
unconsciousness, and you will see knowing arising in you. Remove the negative, and the positive starts
unfolding itself. Then the whole preparation is just negative. It is almost as if a rock is blocking a small
stream: you remove the rock and the stream starts moving. With the rock blocking her path, it may not ever
have been possible for her to come and be manifested.
We are carrying many rocks within our beings -- call them blocks in your energy -- but those blocks
have to be dissolved and removed.
The methods of the Bauls are very simple. They say that if you can dance, many blocks will disappear
from your being -- because when a person dances and really moves into dance, and becomes movement,
then he becomes liquid. Have you not seen it? If you have seen somebody lost in dancing, can't you see it?
that he is no longer solid? He is flowing. The solidity is gone; he has become liquid. This liquidity melts the
blocks. So dancing is the Yoga of the Baul; he dances for hours together. When the moon is in the sky in the
night, the Bauls will dance the whole night -- because for them the moon is a symbol of their Beloved,
Krishna. They call Krishna 'the moon'. When the moon is there they will dance, and they will dance madly.
And this dance is not a performance. It is not for somebody else to see. If somebody sees it and watches,
that's another thing. The Baul dances for himself, for his own pleasure.
Somebody asked Tulsidas, a great poet, "Why have you written RAMAYAN? Why?" -- because he
devoted his whole life to it. Said Tulsidas, "SWANTAHSUKHAI TULSI RAGHUNATH GATHA": for my
own pleasure I have been singing the story of Ram -- SWANTAHSUKHAI; for my own pleasure, for my
Query:-
sheer pleasure, but for my own pleasure. It is not a performance, it is not for somebody else.
The Bauls dance SWANTAHSUKHAI, for their own pleasure.
Singing is another of their methods, They have chosen very aesthetic methods, not hard, but very soft
methods, feminine methods, Taoist methods. They sing and they are lost completely in their singing.
Singing is chanting for them; singing is prayer for them. And they sing about their Beloved, and they sing
about their Lord, about their God. If you are lost in your singing you are lost in NADABRAHMA, you are
lost in 'the soundless sound'. And their singing and dancing is not a ritualized thing. There is no ritual. Each
Baul is individual. You will not find two Bauls singing the same song or singing in the same way. And you
will not find two Bauls dancing the same dance or dancing the same way. They don't follow any ritual.
This has to be understood, because this is very, very fundamental for them. And this I would like you to
remember: if anything becomes a ritual, then drop it; it is useless now -- because a ritual means a repetition.
Mohammedans do their NAMAJ in a certain way every day; it becomes a ritual. Christians do their prayer.
the same prayer again and again. They become so habitual with it that no consciousness is required. They
can do it and they can think many thoughts in the background. It has become robot-like. They can repeat the
words. They know the words, they have repeated them so many times. It is a dead ritual.
Bauls say, "Let your prayer arise in each moment. What is the need to carry the past? Can't you talk to
your God directly? What is the point of repeating the same thing again?" Today is different from yesterday
-- the prayer has to be new, as new as the morning sun or the morning dewdrop. Say something that arises in
your heart. If nothing arises, bow down in deep silence, because He knows. He will understand your silence.
Some day you feel like dancing -- dance. Now that is the prayer for that moment. Some day you want to
sing -- but don't repeat anybody else's song, because that is not your heart, and that is not the way you can
pour your heart into the divine feet. Let your own song arise. Forget about metre and grammar. God is not
too much of a grammarian, and He is not worried about what words you use. He is more concerned about
your heart; He is more concerned about your intention. He will understand.
So Bauls make their own songs on the spur of the moment. It is spontaneous. They just relax in the
moment: they let the dance happen, they let the singing happen. That's why they are known as mad people,
because on some day they may be quarrelling with God! It has to be so. When you love God you can quarrel
also. Some day they may be very angry and they will say, "No, I'm not going to pray to you today. What
have you done to me? I am very angry." But this is beautiful; this is prayer. This will be heard. This will
reach to the very core of existence. When you love, sometimes you are annoyed also. When you love,
sometimes you are angry also, sometimes you dance also, sometimes you complain also. Man is very
helpless, and a Baul lives in total helplessness. That's why he leaves all possessions and becomes a beggar
on the road. He leaves himself in the hands of God. He says, "I will trust you."
JUST the other day I was reading one prayer of a Baul, and the Baul says, "Okay, if you want to test me,
test. And if you want to give me pain, give. I will try to tolerate as much as I can. Okay." But his talk is not
mere talk; it is a communication. And he's not repeating scripture. He creates his scripture. And when you
CREATE your scripture, only then do you live it. If it is borrowed you cannot live it. A borrowed song is
not a song, and a borrowed dance is not a dance. Let it arise in you. Don't be worried about performance,
because we do performance because we are too concerned about the opinion of others. The Baul is not
performing anything; his approach is direct. He talks to God as a small child talks to his father or to his
mother, or a lover talks to his beloved: it is alive.
The song for today:

IS SEEN AT ITS BEST
WHEN STORED IN A GOLDEN CUP.
So Bauls say, "Prepare yourself." But when they say to prepare yourself, they don't mean to be against
the world. Their preparation is life-affirmative. When they say 'prepare', they don't mean it as other
Query:-
spiritualists mean it. The other spiritualists say, "Prepare"; they are saying: drop enjoying, drop delighting in
life, move against life. Start destroying all attachment, all love, all celebration. These spiritualists seem to
be, in some deeper way, very masochistic. Suffering becomes a very great value for them. They start
creating suffering for themselves.
No, a Baul is a lover of life. When he says prepare, he says to enjoy this moment so you are ready for
the next moment. Make this moment golden. Let all your moments be a series of golden moments, and you
will become a golden cup.

IS SEEN AT ITS BEST
WHEN STORED IN A GOLDEN CUP.
BECOME a golden cup before you invite God to pour Himself into you. Enjoy, delight, rejoice, so that
you can become capable of higher rejoicings. Celebrate this shore so that you can learn the ways of
celebration and you can be called to the other shore. Only those who are ready will be called. If you are sad,
gloomy, masochistic, torturing yourself, you are putting the other shore farther away. Because that shore
belongs to those who can penetrate. That shore comes closer the more you celebrate. In fact, if your
celebration comes to a peak, this shore turns to be that shore. When you are really at the peak of your
celebration, when your dance is at the ultimate climax, immediately this shore is no more this shore; you are
on the other shore. You are no more in the world, you are in God.
A right container is needed. If you are desiring to become a container for God, if you have invited Him
to be your guest and you want to be His host, then you will have to learn the ways of paradise. You will
have to live in such a way, herenow, that this very moment becomes a paradise, Only then can you invite
God. Many people go on inviting without ever thinking if they are ready to receive.
If He comes, will He find you ready? If He comes, will you be able to welcome Him? Have you the
golden cup ready if He pours down upon you? Where will you collect Him? Is your heart ready, open to
receive Him? Are you receptive, sensitive? Nobody asks this.
Many people come to me and they say, "Where is God?" -- as if it is God's duty to prove Himself, to
prove where He is. And if He cannot prove Himself, then they cannot trust. God is surrounding you
herenow. He is within and without. Nothing else is; only God is. But you are not ready. The golden cup is
missing. You don't have the eyes to see Him, and you don't have the ears to listen to Him, and you don't
have the hands to touch Him. You are not ready, and you can receive only that for which you are ready. Not
even a single moment is lost. Once you are ready, immediately -- not even a single moment's gap,
immediately the moment you are ready -- He happens. Because He has already happened; only your
readiness has to happen.
Even if sometimes we try to be ready, our efforts are very half-hearted.
THE songwriter, Bob Dylan, gives us a modern parable that expresses quite well what I wish to say to
you. On the backside of his album, JOHN WESLEY HARDING, we read of three kings who visit a man
named Frank. The first king explains their mission to Frank:
"Mr. Dylan has come out with a new record. This record, of course, feature's none but his own songs, and
we understand that you are the key."
"That's right," said Frank, "I am."
"Well then," said the king in a bit of excitement, "could you please open it up for us?"
Frank, who all this time had been reclining with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them both as wide as
a tiger. "And just how far would you like to go in?" he asked.
The chief of the kings replied, "Not too far, but just enough so we can say that we have been there."
Even when people are seeking God, they want only to go this far -- so that they can say to the world that
they have seen Him. But they don't want to go far enough -- because if you go far enough into God, you
Query:-
never come back. They don't want to take another step -- because if you go deep, then there comes a point
of no return. They only want to go a little bit, so that they can come back into the world and say to people
that, "We have seen God also." But their whole interest is in the world and the respectability that the world
can give to them. They have a big bank balance, they have a big palace today; now they even possess God
in their homes.
This parable is beautiful.
Replies the chief of the kings, "Not too far, but just enough so we can say that we have been there."
WHEN you go to the temple you are still not going; your face is towards the marketplace. Have you
seen it sometimes in you or in others? -- if you are alone in the temple, you don't enjoy your prayer very
much. If there are many people watching, then there is great enthusiasm. Then you are so full of spirit. Then
your prayer is great, you feel very high -- not because of the prayer, but because the whole town is watching
you. And they will think how religious, how virtuous, how close to God you are. You would like them to
feel jealous. It is a performance. But your performance is before the people; God is out of it. You are not
contacting Him.
Contact Him alone, because it is not a performance. You are not to prove anything to anybody, you are
just to open your heart.
The Bauls say,
As you wonder, sitting alone,

the time approaches for death.
Heedless of all, O my insane heart,
you have travelled eight million times
the painful ways of life to death,
to find the measured land,
the body of the man.
Why did you let such human

earth turn to wasteland?
Cultivated, it could have yielded
a harvest of gold.
Take up, my heart, the spade of devotion,
wrench out the weeds of sin;
the seed of faith will grow.
Just destroy obstacles.
Take up, my heart, the spade of devotion,

wrench out the weeds of sin;
the seed of faith will grow.
You are carrying the seed within you. It is already treasured in the deepest core of your being, waiting
and waiting and waiting for obstacles to be removed so that it can unfold. God is your intrinsic quality; God
is your destiny. You are the seed and God is going to be the flower out of this seed.
Human limbs are held together

by a pair of lotus blossoms
growing in the lower
Query:-
and the upper regions of the body.

But the lotuses burst open
in search
as the sun in the body
rises and sets.
As your awareness rises and sets, your innermost lotuses open and close. Just as in the morning the sun
rises in the sky on the horizon in the East, and the lotuses bloom, when night comes and the sun sets in the
West, the lotuses close again. The Bauls say,
Human limbs are held together

by a pair of lotus blossoms...
... What the yogis call CHAKRAS: the vortexes of energy, the wheels of energy, the seven CHAKRAS.
Bauls call them the seven lotuses.
...growing in the lower

and the upper regions of the body.
But the lotuses burst open
in search
as the sun in the body
rises and sets.
On which of these blooms

is the full moon born,
and on which
the darkest night of the month?
The lowest lotus is the sex lotus. If you remain there you will remain in a dark night. The last lotus, the
seventh, SAHASRAR, is the lotus where the moon becomes full. Move from sex to love. Love is the quality
or the function of the man who has come to SAHASRAR; sex is the quality and the function of the man
who lives at the lowest lotus.
And don't be worried, the Bauls sing,.
My worries continue
for my crumbling boat
that can no longer carry.
Water rushes through her hulk
and salt eats at her keel.
My boat can bear no more
the burden of water.
O Master of my life,
open your eyes.
Show me your kindness
and hold me as I die.
Query:-
Passions like bandits raided my boat

and went off with the spoils.
They cut the mooring rope
and left me adrift.
The Master says:
Wash away the stains of your heart
and your boat will thrive
in tranquility.
Just the stains on your heart have to be washed away. The heart just has to drop doubts, the heart has to
drop suspicions. Once trust arises, you are washed clean. Trust is a tremendous cleansing of the heart. Then
the lotuses open.
Sown on a slab of stone,

the seed of faith dries day by day,
never sprouting.
You may cultivate the arid earth,
but the hardened seed
will yield no harvest.
Great is the woodland where the sandal grows,

and the breeze, bearing the scent of sandal
perfumes the neighboring trees
turning them into sandalwood.
If on a very hard heart you want to sow the seed of God, it will not grow. Let your heart be soft, let it
become receptive. Then it will be like the soft soil of the woodland where sandals grow. And these lines are
beautiful:
Great is the woodland where the sandal grows,

and the breeze, bearing the scent of sandal
perfumes the neighboring trees
turning them into sandalwood.
AND when one man's seed flowers not only is he perfumed, all those who come in contact with him
become sandalwood. Hence, the glory of SATSANG, the glory of the presence of a Master. He has become
a sandalwood. Just coming in contact with him you will be perfumed, and your own seed will start
sprouting.
Gathering planks and pieces of metal

you build a boat to float on the sea,
but the elements are alien to water.
The boat sails and the boat sinks
but the tie of love is never torn.
If the vehicle is not right, if the preparedness is not right, then the whole effort will be lost. You can
Query:-
make a heavy boat, but then it will sink. It will not float in the sea. The Bauls say that only in the boat of
love, in soft, feminine passivity, in the boat of songs and dances, does one reach to the other shore. Become
more feminine, more soft, like soft soil, and throw out all hard stones from your heart. We ordinarily do just
the opposite: we go on gathering doubts and suspicions. We go on destroying our own soil.
THE LOVER
WHO WHOLLY LOVES,
CAN REACH REALITY,
"The lover who wholly loves, can reach reality, comprehending the unattainable man...."
Love is the path of the Baul; love, and nothing else -- wholly in love, totally in love, total trust.
To find nectar,
stir the cauldron on the fire,
and unite the act of loving
with the feeling for love.
ORDINARILY people love, but they don't have a FEELING for love. They exploit love. They even act
like lovers, but their love is in the service of gratification. They don't have a feeling for love. They don't
love love. They don't have respect, reverence for love. Love remains a lust; it never becomes worship,
prayer.
TO FIND NECTAR,
STIR THE CAULDRON ON THE FIRE,
AND UNITE THE ACT OF LOVING
WITH THE FEELING FOR LOVE.
DISTILL THE SWEETNESS
OF THE HEART
AND REACH THE TREASURES,
DEVOTING YOURSELF
TO THOSE WHOLLY DEVOTED.
If you can find a person who is wholly devoted to God, then devote yourself to that person -- because
love cannot be taught, it can only be caught. Nobody can teach you the ways of love; you will have to live
in close vicinity of a lover. Nobody can teach you how to pray: you will have to live in close vicinity of one
who is in prayer. Watching him, feeling him, moving around him, tasting the flavor of his being, will teach
you what prayer is. Then prayer will not become a ritual. Then prayer will be a flowering within you, a
spontaneous arising of a new vision.
Distill the sweetness

of the heart
and reach the treasures,
devoting yourself
to those wholly devoted.
That is the relationship between a Master and a disciple. Bauls move in search of a Master. Whenever
they find somebody whose song, whose dancing is prayerful...and there is no intellectual criterion for
Query:-
knowing it; you have just to be with someone. How do you know that a person is in love? What is the
criterion? Just be with him and see: see how he behaves, see how he responds. See his tears and his songs.
Watch his moods in different moments. By and by, you will be able to feel what worship, what love, what
prayer is. Yes, it cannot be taught, but it can be caught.
Will the day ever dawn

when the treasured man of my heart
will become my own?
Though not cast in any shape,
the man is evidenced
in the ways of love.
There is no proof for God, but there is enough proof in those people who have loved Him. There is no
proof that God exists, but there is enough proof that a Meera existed, that Chaitanya existed. There is
enough proof because we have seen a transfiguration happening in Meera, we have seen the transmutation
happening in Chaitanya. We have seen. They were ordinary metal suddenly becoming gold. We don't know
God exists; there is no proof -- but is it not enough proof? The Bauls say, "The man is evidenced in the
ways of love." That is the only evidence.
VIVEKANANDA went to Ramkrishna. He wanted a proof for God, and Ramkrishna started laughing in
his mad way. And suddenly, he touched Vivekananda's heart with his feet. Vivekananda fell into a swoon, a
trance. The friends that had come with Vivekananda were all worried: "What has happened?" And
Vivekananda was not the sort to fall easily into a trance. He was an intellectual, atheistic, skeptical, well
trained in logic and philosophy. What had happened? What had this man done? And when Vivekananda
came back, he was a totally different man. Then Vivekananda tried in thousands of ways to escape from this
man Ramkrishna, but it was impossible. It was as if a great magnet was pulling him. He would escape for a
few days and then come back, almost against his will. One day he would again find himself sitting before
Ramkrishna, and he would tell Ramkrishna, "Leave me alone. Why are you haunting me?" Ramkrishna
said, "What can I do? You asked,'Is there any God, is there any proof?' I don't know any proof. All that I
know is that He is in me, so I allowed Him to touch you. What else can I do? Now it is for you to decide
whether God is or not."
There is no proof, but there are enough proofs; no direct proof, but many indirect evidences.
Will the day ever dawn

when the treasured man of my heart
will become my own?
Though not cast in any shape,
the man is evidenced
in the ways of love.
Those who are absorbed
by the flavours of feelings
and are wholly living
with the knowledge of death
have won their foes --
pride and envy,
lust and anger,
ignorance and greed.
If your life,
flowing with life,
longs for the man,
the man will come with kindly steps.
Look at the worlds of gods, demons and man --
Query:-
all held in your body.

He is already there.
God has already penetrated you: the news may not have reached yet, the gospel may not have been
heard yet.
The English word 'gospel' is very beautiful. In the old English it was 'godspell', then it became 'gospel'.
Godspell is even better.
He has already penetrated you. He is already there but the news has not reached you. Your head is too
far away from your heart. Bring your head a little closer.
The man is evidenced in the ways of love, and the worlds of gods, demons and man -- all are held in
your body. He is already there, holding all together. The Bauls go on crying and weeping; their tears are the
proof. Their weeping is so authentic, their crying is so authentic that once coming in contact with a Baul,
you will never ask whether God exists or not.
I shall not open my eyes again

if I don't see Him at first sight.
Can you then tell me
through the sense of smelling
and through my listening ears
that He has come --
that He has come to the sky in the East --
that your friend has come to the sky of the East?
"I shall not open my eyes if I don't see Him at first sight": they go on singing, praying. Their song is
so true, their prayer is so penetrating. How it is possible without God? Yes, God is evidenced in the
ways of love.
THE LOVER
WHO WHOLLY LOVES,
CAN REACH REALITY,
The emphasis is on wholly, totally, utterly, completely. Immediately, when you are total you are ready,
the golden cup is ready.

ARE REVEALED TO HIM
WHAT DOES HE CARE
FOR THE OTHER SHORES OF LIFE...?
"The secrets of death are revealed to him while he is fully alive"...and the lover knows what death is.
The lover knows that death is not. Only the lover knows that death is the most false thing in
existence. Why? How does the lover come to know that death is not? -- because the lover has
already died in his love. And he finds himself, he is still there -- not only there but more so, so much
so that he has never been before. Dying, he is for the first time living totally. He dies in the love of
God, in the love of the Beloved. He surrenders himself utterly, unconditionally.
JUST a few days ago Girisha wrote me a letter. She thinks she has too much work in the ashram. Maybe
that's true, maybe it is not true. But in the letter she wrote something which is very meaningful. She wrote in
Query:-
the letter, "I have too much work and it is not surrender, it is sacrifice." Now surrender knows nothing about
sacrifice.
If you have known surrender, you are sacrificed already. You are no more there to be sacrificed.
Surrender means you have died already. If you have surrendered to me, then there is no problem. Then,
more work or less work -- it has nothing to do with you. It is irrelevant. Then I have to look after it, I have
to decide what work is more and what work is less. And I have to decide how much you have to be put into
work and how long, and how much you have to be forced and pushed in a certain direction. But for you, it is
not any longer a problem -- you are surrendered. But if you think that it is becoming a sacrifice and not a
surrender, then you are not surrendered at all. Then anything will look like sacrifice. A lover knows nothing
of sacrifice. When you are surrendered, you are dead as far as your ego is concerned. Then whatsoever
happens, you not only accept it, you accept in deep gratitude.
The lover knows the secrets of death, because he has moved into death already through his love. There
are two deaths: one that happens at the end of your life, and the other that can happen between death and
birth -- the death of love, lovedeath. One who dies in love never dies again. Then all deaths are finished for
him. He's already resurrected. He has come to know that only the ego dies. If you drop the ego then you are
deathless.

ARE REVEALED TO HIM
WHAT DOES HE CARE
FOR THE OTHER SHORES OF LIFE...?
In that tremendous moment of surrender -- this shore turns to be the other shore, this world becomes the
other world -- what cares he for the other shore?
I have been reading a very significant story:
Four hundred years ago a gardener planted a small pine in one inch of soil in a shallow dish. He trimmed
each root and branch as the tree grew. When he died, his son took up the task, and so on down through
nineteen generations. Today that tree stands, never having outgrown the original dish, in the Kovala
Gardens of Tokyo. After four hundred years it is only twenty inches high, and a twisted top some thirty-six
inches across.
That little tree shouts a warning to everybody. The mind and soul can be cut back just like the tree,
always with the same result -- a dwarf.
If you are not growing your roots into life, if you are not growing your roots and spreading your roots in
love, in trust, you will remain a dwarf. You will never become the essential man, ADHAR MANUSH.
Grow, grow towards depth -- because when your roots grow towards depth, your branches grow towards
height. Depth and height grow together. The deeper you go into the earth, the higher you go into the sky.
The deeper you go into this shore, the closer you reach to the other shore.
LOVE, love life, love all that surrounds you, and let your roots spread as far and as wide as possible.
You will start touching the feet of God. Your flowers will start being offered to the divine feet. Otherwise,
remember -- you will remain a dwarf.
Love is a must. It is the only nourishment for the soul. The body can exist with food; the soul can exist
only with love. Let it not remain just a word; allow it to become a penetrating experience.
Love is worship for the Bauls, love is prayer for the Bauls, love is God for the Bauls.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #2
Chapter title: When Doubt Is Not, Trust Is
Query:-

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 73 mins
THE FIRST QUESTION:

WHY DOESN'T TRUST ARISE OUT OF THE DECISION TO TRUST?
TRUST IS NOT A DECISION ON YOUR PART. You cannot decide for it. When you are finished with
doubting, when you have come to see doubt through and through and you are completely convinced of the
futility of the doubt, trust arises. You have to deal with the doubt, you are not to do anything about trust.
Your trust will not be of much importance because your trust, your decision, will always be against doubt.
And trust is not contrary to doubt; trust is simply the absence of doubt. When doubt is not, trust is.
Trust is not the opposite, remember. Notwithstanding what the dictionaries say, trust is not opposite to
doubt, just as darkness is not opposite to light. It appears opposite, but it is not -- because you cannot
destroy light by bringing darkness in. You cannot bring darkness in. There is no way to destroy light by
throwing darkness on it. Darkness has never been able to destroy the small flame of a very small candle.
The whole darkness of the existence is impotent before a small candle.
Why is it so? If darkness is opposite, inimical, antagonistic, then it should be capable sometimes of
defeating light. It is sheer absence. Darkness is because light is not. When light is, darkness is not. When
you put a light on in your room, have you watched what happens? Darkness does not go out of the room; it
is not that darkness escapes out of the room. It is found simply not to be there. It never was -- it is pure
negativity.
Doubt is like darkness, trust is like light. If you have doubt, then you will decide for trust. Otherwise
there is no need to decide for trust. Why decide for it? You must be having tremendous doubt. The greater
the doubt, the greater the need is felt to create trust. So whenever somebody says, "I trust very strongly,"
remember that he is fighting against a very strong doubt. That's how people become fanatics. The fanaticism
is born because they have created a false trust. Their doubt is alive, their doubt is not finished. The doubt
has not disappeared, the doubt is there. And to fight with the doubt they have created a trust against it. If the
doubt is very strong, they have to cling fanatically to their trust. Whenever somebody says that, "I am a
staunch believer," remember, deep down in his heart he is carrying disbelief. Otherwise, there is no need to
be a strong believer. Simple trust is enough -- why strong? When you say to somebody, "I love you VERY
strongly," something is wrong. Love is enough.
Love is not a quantity. When somebody says, "I love you very much," something is wrong, because love
is not a quantity. You cannot love less and more. Either you love or you don't love. The division is very
clear-cut.
Just a few days ago a new book had come, and the first copy I always give to Vivek. I wrote 'With love
to Vivek'. She told me, "Why not MUCH LOVE?" I said, "That is impossible. I cannot write that" --
because to me, more or less is not possible. I can simply write 'love';'much love' is absurd. Quantity is not a
question, but simple quality. When you say 'much', you must be hiding something behind that 'much';
something of hatred, something of anger, something of jealousy, but something which is not love. To hide
that, you have to show your over-enthusiasm, what you call 'gung-ho': MUCH love, STRONG trust,
STAUNCH belief. Whenever you are too much of a Christian, you are not a Christian at all. If you are too
much of a Hindu, you have not understood at all.
Just the other night a young girl was saying to me that she was afraid. She wants to take SANNYAS but
she is afraid, "Because it will be putting Christ as number two; you will become the first." She was very
puzzled. "It will be putting Christ behind you," she told me. I told her, "Just look into my eyes. If you really
Query:-
love? Christ then you will find Christ in me. You will not find two persons. But if you are a Christian, then
it is difficult. Then forget all about SANNYAS."
One who loves Christ can love me; there is no conflict. One who loves Krishna can love me; there is no
conflict. But if one is a Hindu, one is a Mohammedan, one is a Christian, then it is difficult. A Christian is
not a lover of Christ. To be a Christian is a decision on your part; doubt has not disappeared, doubt has been
repressed.
Don't repress doubt. Rather, just on the contrary, watch, look deeply into it, analyze it. Don't leave any
part of it unanalyzed, unknown. Become acquainted with all the layers of the doubting mind. That very
acquaintance, the penetration into doubt, will dissolve doubt. One day suddenly you will awake one
morning full of trust -- not as your decision. It cannot be a decision because trust is something you are born
with; doubt is a learned thing. Trust is tacit, inborn.
Every child trusts. As he grows, doubt arises. Doubt is learned. So trust is there always as an
undercurrent in your being. You just drop doubt, trust will arise. And then trust has a tremendous beauty
because it is pure. It is not against doubt, it is simply absence of doubt. The rock has been removed and the
stream has come bubbling up, flowing.
So please, don't try to make a decision about it. Your decision will be a delay; and the more you decide,
the more you will find, deep inside, the worm of doubt increasing. Then you will be divided in two and you
will never be at ease, and there will be continuous agony.
So many people believe in God, and deep down is doubt -- throbbing, alive, waiting for its opportunity
to destroy the trust. And the trust is bogus because the trust is on the periphery, and the doubt has reached
almost to the very core of your being. Never decide about love, about trust, about God. These things are not
your decisions. They are not arguments, they are not conclusions.
When doubt is no more there, trust is. It happens. It flows. It arises out of your innermost core, from the
innermost shrine. You start listening to a new music of being, a new style of being, a new way of being. It is
not of the mind, it is of the being.
WHAT REALLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BAUL, A TANTRIKA, A BHAKTA, AND A SUFI? DO
THEY ALL BELONG TO THE PATH OF LOVE? THEY SEEM TO BE INTERMINGLED. PLEASE
ENLIGHTEN.
THE boundaries are overlapping. They are all on the path of love, but still there are subtle distinctions.
Even with overlapping boundaries they have something special: a Tantrika, a Baul, and a Bhakta. Sufi is not
different from Bhakta. Sufi is the Bhakta on the Mohammedan path; Bhakta is the Sufi on the Hindu path.
There is no difference between a Bhakta and a Sufi, so we will not discuss that The difference is only of
terminology. The Sufis use the Mohammedan terminology, the Bhakta uses the Hindu terminology. The
difference is not of any importance; it is just language. But these three: a Baul, a Tantrika and a Bhakta have
to be understood.
Love has three possibilities: sex, the lowest; love, higher than sex; and prayer, the highest.
The Tantrika remains sex-oriented. The Tantrika in fact avoids love, because love will become an
entanglement. He remains a pure technician of sex. With the sex energy he works like a scientist: aloof,
detached. He does not bring love into it. He transforms the energy. Love arises in him, prayer also, but those
are consequences. They follow like shadows, but the orientation is sex energy. His whole work, his whole
lab, is there at the sex center. He works there, unattached, aloof, almost indifferent to the person. With
whomever the Tantrika is making love, he remains completely aloof, far away. That is part of the Tantra
methodology: that you should not be attached to the person. That's why Tantrikas say: "Don't do Tantra
techniques with your wife or with your beloved. No, find somebody with whom you are not attached at all,
so that you can become a pure technician." It is scientific.
It is just like this: you may be a great surgeon and you may have done thousands of surgeries, but when
it comes to operating on your own wife your hands will start trembling. If it comes to operating on your own
child you will have to call another surgeon. He may be not so expert as you, but still you will have to call
somebody else -- because the surgeon needs to be completely aloof, not concerned. Only then can surgery
Query:-
be perfectly scientific.
The Tantrik is absolutely of the scientific attitude. He will find a woman or a man with whom he is not
attached at all. And before he even moves into a Tantric relationship with somebody, months are needed to
prepare. And the whole preparation is: how to avoid love, how not to fall into deep contact with the other
person. Otherwise, the whole method will not be of any use.
The Baul is love-oriented. If sex comes into a Baul's life, it is just like a shadow. It is part of his love.
He's not afraid of sex, but he is not sex-oriented. He loves a woman: because he loves the woman he wants
to share all that he has, sexual energies included. But sex is not his lab; his lab is love, deep contact, care for
the other person -- so much so that you become less important and the other becomes more important. That
which is a hindrance on the path of the Tantrika is the path of the Baul. If sex comes, it is okay. If it doesn't
come, that too is okay. Sex is not the goal. And he is not working on the crude energy of sex, he is working
on the subtle energy of love. As the Tantrika is working on a seed, the Baul is working on the flower, the
Bhakta or Sufi is working on the fragrance. They become more and more subtle.
Prayer is the highest form of sex energy, higher than love. It is the fragrance; very subtle, all grossness
gone. The Bhakta or the Sufi works on prayer. If, following prayer, love enters, it is allowed. There is no
problem about it. Even if, following love, sex enters, it is allowed -- but the whole attention is focused on
prayer. So if a Bhakta falls in love with somebody, it is a form of prayer. The other is divine, the other is a
god or goddess. He makes love sacred. The Baul is just in the middle of the Tantrika and the Bhakta or Sufi.
He is a bridge.
There are difficulties with the Tantrika. The difficulty is: it is very gross, and the possibility is that you
may be lost in that grossness. It may overpower you. Sex is tremendous energy, wild energy, very stormy,
and you are moving in an ocean. The ocean is in deep storm, and you have a very small boat, and it is very
dangerous. It is very easy to enter on the path of Tantra, it is very difficult to come out of it. If a hundred
enter, only one may survive -- because you are playing with wild energy. The energy is so great that you
may be overpowered by it; the very possibility is there.
Prayer is very difficult -- fragrance -- you cannot see it, it is very elusive. It is very difficult to enter on
the path of prayer. If you enter, you. come out of it. It is very easy to enter on the path of Tantra, but going
is easy, coming is very difficult. On the path of prayer entering is very difficult, coming out is very easy.
The entry is almost impossible -- you don't even know anything about love; what to say about prayer? It is
just a word with no content. It is too abstract, it is too far away. You cannot make any contact with it, with
what prayer is. So, at the most, you can become a victim of a certain ritual. You can repeat a prayer: that
will be just verbal, mind-stuff, a mind game. It will not be possible ordinarily to enter on the path of prayer.
The path of the Baul is just in the middle. Entry is not as easy as on the path of Tantra, and not as
difficult as on the path of prayer. It is humanly possible. The Baul is very realistic, very down-to-earth, and
it seems to be the safest path possible. Just in the middle, balancing both -- on the one hand sex, on the other
hand prayer, and the Baul walks just in the middle.
The third question:
YOU TELL ME TO FOLLOW MY FEELINGS, AND WHEN I FINALLY DARE TO AND AM FEELING MUCH
FREER AND SIMPLER AND HAPPIER, YOU SAY I AM IMMATURE. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
IT is from Madhuri.
It means exactly what it says: you are immature. What is immaturity? Whatsoever you are doing, you are
doing almost unconsciously. Yes, I say be spontaneous, but I don't mean be unconscious. I mean be alert
and spontaneous. By 'being spontaneous' you immediately understand to become a driftwood; so whatsoever
happens, whatsoever and wheresoever the mind leads you, you are led by it. You become accidental.
Immaturity makes a man accidental; maturity gives man a direction.
Maturity comes from a Latin root, MATURAS, which means: to be ripe. A fruit is mature when the fruit
is ripe, when it has become sweet and is ready to be digested, can be eaten, can become part of anybody's
life. A mature person is one who has come to know what love is, and love has made him sweet.
Now what Madhuri is doing is not love, it is just sexual fantasy -- so one day moving with one man,
another day moving with another man. This can be very destructive. Remember, what I say has to be
Query:-
understood very accurately, otherwise my sayings will not be helpful. They will become harmful.
It happened:
Mulla Nasrudin came home. His wife asked him, "What happened, Nasrudin, when you asked your boss
for a raise today?"
"He was like a lamb," said Mulla Nasrudin.
"Really? What did he say?"
"Bah!"
Please listen to what I say carefully, and don't give it your own interpretation. Don't distort its meaning.
Be spontaneous, but you can be spontaneous only when you are very aware. Otherwise you will become an
accident -- one moment going to the north, another moment going to the south. You will lose all direction.
A spontaneous man is ready to respond to each moment. Sometimes some may see that he is moving to the
north, and sometimes others may see that he is moving to the south, but his inner direction remains
absolutely certain. His inner direction remains arrowed. He may have to adjust to circumstances, but once
adjusted, he again gains energy, momentum, and starts moving towards his direction. He has a feel for the
direction, but that feel comes only when you are very, very alert. Otherwise, just spontaneity will reduce
you to being animals.
Animals are spontaneous, but they are not Buddhas. So just spontaneity cannot make one a Buddha --
something more, something plus is needed: spontaneity plus awareness. Then you are not a mechanism, and
you are not a driftwood either.
The doctor on an ocean liner notified the steward that a man had died in the stateroom number
forty-five. The usual instructions to bury the body were given. Some time later the doctor peeped into the
cabin and found the body still there. He called the steward's attention to the matter, and the latter said, "I
thought you said cabin forty-nine. I went to that cabin and noticed that one of them was in the bunk.'Are you
dead,' says I?'Pretty nearly,' says he; so I buried him."
Even if a person says that he is pretty dead, he is alive. Don't be too linguistic, don't be too literal. I say
listen to your feelings, but I don't mean that you should become fragmented. I mean: listen to your feelings,
but your feelings have to become a garland. Your feelings should not be like a heap of flowers. Your
feelings should be like a garland, a thread running inside the flowers. Maybe nobody is able to see it, but a
thread is joining them in a continuity: that continuity is the direction. Unless your feelings are a garland,
you will disperse into fragments, you will fall into pieces, you will lose your togetherness.
Yes, I had told Madhuri to be spontaneous, to move according to her feelings. But I have been insisting
continuously to do everything, but always remember that awareness is a requirement, a basic requirement --
then do whatsoever you want to do. If there is something you are doing for which awareness becomes a
hindrance, then don't do it. If there is something you are doing and awareness does not become a hindrance
to it but on the contrary helps it, do it.
That is the whole definition of the right and the wrong. The wrong is that which cannot be done with
awareness, for which unawareness is a must. The right is that which can be done only with awareness, for
which unawareness has to be dropped; otherwise it cannot be done. Awareness is a must. The right is that
for which awareness is a must, the wrong is that for which unawareness is a must. That is my definition of
sin and virtue. And YOU are to decide; the responsibility is yours.
It happened:
A worried woman went to see her doctor and told him that her husband appeared to have no virility, and
had no interest in her whatsoever.
He gave her a prescription, saying "These will help him. Next time you and your husband are having a
quiet meal together, just slip a couple of these pills into his coffee and they will make him spontaneous. And
then come and see me again."
Two weeks later she went to see her doctor again, and he asked her if his remedy had been successful.
"Oh yes, doctor," she said. "Absolutely marvelous. I slipped the pills into my husband's coffee and after two
sips he began making love to me."
The doctor smiled. "Fine. No complaints then?"
She said, "Well, there is one. My husband and I can't ever show ourselves in that restaurant again."
Now remember, Madhuri, what I say has to be understood, because finally, you will decide where to slip
Query:-
those pills. I cannot follow you. You will decide where to be spontaneous, how to be spontaneous -- and
unconsciousness is not spontaneity, Spontaneity is very alert, very responsible, very caring. You are simply
fooling around.
"You tell me to follow my feelings and when I finally dare to and am feeling much freer and simpler and
happier, you say I am immature. What does it mean?"
I give you a certain rope to see what you do with my assertions, with my statements. I give you a certain
rope, but when I see you are going crazy, then I have to pull you back. I have been watching, waiting to see
what Madhuri is doing, but enough is enough.
Let me tell you one anecdote:
Abdul the Arab was marooned in the desert. His camel had sat down and flatly refused to get up. At
long last another Arab dropped by, and Abdul told him his problem.
"I can fix that," said the second Arab, "only it will cost you five shekels."
"That's cheap at the price," said Abdul, "so you go ahead."
So without further ado the Arab crouched down by the side of Abdul's camel and whispered a few words
in its ear. Suddenly the camel leapt to its feet and took off across the desert like a greyhound.
Abdul was amazed and delighted. "That trick is worth more than five shekels," he said.
"I know," said the second Arab, "and I want five hundred shekels from you before I tell you the magic
words -- you have got to catch him."
That is only half the story: now you will have to catch him...now five hundred shekels are needed.
Unless the second Arab utters the same mantra into Abdul's ear, he cannot catch the camel.
Madhuri, your desires are running like greyhounds. It was easy; it cost you only five rupees, but now
you will have to catch your camel and it will cost five hundred rupees. It will be more arduous.
To just move with desires one always feels simple, because one becomes almost like an animal. It is
almost felt like happiness because there is no tension, no responsibility. You don't care a bit about the other
person. Now the camel has to be caught.
Oh yes, I told you to be free with your feelings; now I tell you to be aware. It will be more arduous, but
if you can be aware, then you will REALLY become simple. This simplicity is nothing: this is just
regression into childhood, or regression into animality. The simplicity I want you to attain is the simplicity
of a Buddha; not a regression, but the very climax of life. This simplicity is not going to help much. It has
not helped anybody. This simplicity is very primitive, childish, immature.
But I wanted to see what you do, and I have seen what you are doing. Now become more alert. Bring a
discipline to your life, a direction. Become more caring, more loving, more responsible. Your body has to
be respected; it is the very shrine of God. You are not to treat it the way you are treating it; it is
disrespectful. But it will be hard, I know. But I create situations in which hard things have to be done,
because that is the only way to grow.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PATIENCE, POSTPONEMENT, AND SHEER STUPIDITY?
YES, the question is significant because people can get confused about these three.
Patience is very alert, patience is very active, patience is very expectant. If you are waiting for
somebody -- a friend is to call -- you may be sitting just by the door, but you are very attentive, alert. Any
noise on the road, any car passing by, and immediately you start looking: maybe the friend has come? The
wind on your doors, and suddenly you are alert: maybe he has knocked.... Dead leaves in the garden moving
hither and thither, and you come out of your home; maybe he has come.... Patience is as active as that. It is a
waiting. It is not dull, it is very radiant. It is not unconscious; it is not like a stupor. It is like a flame burning
bright. One waits. One can wait infinitely, but one waits, expectant, active, alert, watchful.
Just the opposite is sheer stupidity. You can just be dull, idiotic, stupid, in a stupor, and you can think
that you are waiting, you are patient. And you can enjoy that others who are working hard to reach
somewhere are impatient people; you are very patient. But remember, patience needs work. Patience is not
inactivity. A patient person works patiently. He does not demand, he does not demand too much, he does
not demand in a hurry, he does not demand for instant SATORI or SAMADHI. He knows it is arduous, the
Query:-
path is hard. He knows it is difficult; a thousand and one are the pitfalls. To be lost is easy, to achieve is
difficult. It is almost impossible to achieve, and he knows it -- but that is the attraction, that is the challenge,
God is impossible, but that's the beauty of it, that's the challenge. The challenge has to be accepted. He
works hard at it and yet remains patient, knowing well his limitations, knowing well the very impossibility
of the desire.
It is an impossible passion: to know God, to be God. It is unbelievable that it happens. That's why
people go on denying that Buddha ever existed -- that Jesus is a myth, that Krishna is just the imagination of
the poets. Why do so many people insist that Buddha is just a myth, that Jesus and Krishna never existed?
Why? They are simply saying that the whole thing seems to be impossible; it cannot happen.
In a way they are right: it cannot happen; but still it happens. It happens very rarely. It happens so rarely
that you can say that it does not happen at all. Once in a while, thousands of years pass, then somebody
becomes enlightened -- ALMOST as if it never happens.
Knowing this, one waits; but one does not wait in inactivity, because then the waiting will be futile. The
waiting has to be just like the farmer waiting. He sows the seeds; they will come in season. It cannot be
hurried. There is no point in going again and again to the field, digging and seeing whether the seeds have
sprouted yet or not, because that will be very destructive. That will not allow the seeds to sprout at all. That
impatience will destroy the seeds. He waits, he waters -- nothing is seen for months. Nothing comes above
the earth, but he waits with deep patience, goes on working, caring about the field, praying and expectant
that they are coming, that they are on the way. And one day, they are there.
Sheer stupidity is hiding your inactivity, your inertia, your lethargy, in beautiful terms. A lethargic
person can say, "I'm not in a hurry, I'm waiting," and he will not do anything. Then you are waiting in vain;
it is not going to happen. Yes, the seeds will sprout in season, but the seeds have to be sown; otherwise they
will not sprout.
So watch inside you. These distinctions are not distinctions of one man, these distinctions exist in each
man. These are not categories, that somebody is 'sheer stupid' and somebody is 'very patient'. No, these
moods exist together in everybody. There is a stupid moment in your life, there is a patient moment in your
life, and postponement is just in the middle of these two. Postponement is very cunning.
Patience is alert, stupidity is inactive, unconscious. Patience is conscious, postponement is
subconscious. Postponement has a double-bind in it: you want to do something and yet you are not ready to
do anything for it. It is a very cunning state of affairs. You want to meditate, but you say, "Tomorrow." If
you really want, then today is the right time, because tomorrow never comes. If you really want, then
meditate right now, because there is no point in postponing it. How can you be certain that tomorrow will
ever come? It may never come. And if it is really important to you and your desire is intense for it, then you
will not waste a single moment in postponing it. You will postpone everything else, but you will meditate.
You postpone only that which is not significant to you, or, you are playing with yourself, being cunning
with yourself. One part of your mind says, "Yes, it is important." Another part of mind says, "Yes, it is
important, I know; that's why tomorrow we will start." You are satisfied.
A man challenged by his good friend as to who was the more energetic person: the first said he got up at
six, went for a walk, breakfasted at eight, did an hour's work, then to the office, half an hour for lunch, and
so on. The detailed work and alternating exercise stretched out till eleven p.m.
"Well," said the friend, "how long have you been doing this?"
"I start on Monday."
God is always postponed, love is always postponed, meditation is always postponed. Anger, greed,
hatred, never; the devil, never. When the devil invites you, you are IMMEDIATELY ready. Immediately,
instantly you stand up. You say, "I'm coming!" When somebody insults you, you don't say that "Tomorrow I
will be angry"; but for love you always go on postponing. For prayer you say, "Yes, it has to be done." This
is a very cunning state.
You don't want to recognize the fact that you don't desire prayer, you don't desire love, you don't desire
meditation. You don't want to recognize the fact that you don't have any passion for God, so you postpone
in this way. You manage well -- you go on doing that which you really desire, and you go on postponing
that which you don't desire at all, but you are not courageous enough to recognize the fact. At least be
honest. Postponement is dishonest, very dishonest. Watch inside yourself, at what you have been
postponing, and you will find that all that is beautiful you have been postponing.
It is a double-bind; you are divided, or you are playing very devilry with yourself.
I have heard....
Query:-
A rabbi had the misfortune to run his car into the side of Father Murphy's car. He jumped out and went
to the other's door, loud with apologies.
"My dear Father Murphy, so sorry I am. Oi vay! that I should be so silly as to do this to you of all people, a
fellow man of God! Are you all right?"
"Oh yes, no injuries, Rabbi," said Father Murphy. "But I am a bit shaken up."
"Of course you are," said the Rabbi, solicitously. "Here, have a sip of this -- it is good whiskey." And he
handed a hip flask to the priest who drank heartily. "Go on, Father, have another. It is all my fault. Drink
deeply, don't worry about the cost."
The priest needed no second bidding, and took another deep swig. "Won't you have one, Rabbi?" he
asked.
"With the police already arriving!" exclaimed the Rabbi.
The mind is very cunning. Everybody's mind is the mind of the Jew.'Jew' is not a race; it is the
innermost core of all minds. And when you are playing cunning games with others, by and by you learn the
trick of playing with yourself. This is the greatest problem that every human being has to face. You have
been cunning with others; that pays in the world. By and by, you have learned the trick so deeply that you
forget that now you are playing the cunningness with yourself. The mind is very worldly, very Jewish. It
knows no other business than business.
I have heard....
Abe had reached retirement a very worried man. Most of his life he had enjoyed to the full and his
savings left a lot to be desired. On the morning of his retirement he turned to Rachel with a worried frown:
"I don't know how we are going to afford it. I don't know how we can retire."
Rachel reached for a bottom drawer and pulled out a bankbook which showed regular deposits over the
last forty years. Not only could they retire, but they were rich.
"But how did you do it?" said Abe.
Rachel said shyly, "Well, every time you made an advance to me in our married life, I put ten shillings
away, and look how it has mounted up."
Overjoyed, he put his arms around his wife, "Oi vay, this is wonderful! But Rachel, why on earth did
you not tell me before? If only I had known I would have given you all my business."
Get it?
The mind is always thinking in terms of business. Even when it is love, it is business. Even when it is
prayer, it is business. Even when it is God, it is business. And once you have become too accustomed to the
business world, you start playing games with yourself. Be alert. Postponement is one of the most dangerous
games that a man can play with himself. If you want, do it. If you don't want, be honest; who is forcing you?
Just be honest. Don't do it, but know well that you are not going to do it because you don't want to do it.
Why be deceptive? This sincerity will help.
As I see, no man can live without love if he is sincere. But many millions of people live without love
because they go on postponing. One day they die, their lives completely dry and desert-like.
As I see it, no man can live without God -- but millions live because they have created a false God, a
substitute God, a God which is always postponed. It is easy now; you can live without God because you
have a false feeling that God is there, you believe in Him, and one day you are going to devote your whole
life to Him. That 'one day' will never come. If you want that one day to come, it has already arrived -- it is
today. This moment is that moment of transformation.
The fifth question:
SOMEONE HAS DARED ME TO ASK YOU THIS IMPERTINENT QUESTION -- WHAT DO YOU DO WITH
VIVEK? ANYTHING I COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND THROUGH TELLING?
IT will be difficult.
Vivek is so close to me that she is constantly on the cross. She has to be; it is difficult. To be so close to me
is arduous. The more you are close to me, the more the responsibility. The more you are close to me, the
more you have to transform yourself. The more you feel the unworthiness, the more you start feeling how to
become more worthy -- and the goal seems almost impossible. And I go on creating many situations. I have
Query:-
to create them because only through friction does integration happen. Only through harder and harder
situations does one grow. Growth is not soft; growth is painful.
You ask me, "What do you do with Vivek?"
I am killing her slowly. That is the only way for her to get a totally new being, to be reborn. It is a cross
to be with me, and hard is the task.
An unruly, problem son of a Jewish family was causing his parents much heartache by his behavior. He
had been expelled from a state school, so finally, in desperation, they sent him to a Roman Catholic school.
On his return from his first day, he went straight to his room and began to do his homework.
His father came back from work and asked, "Momma, well, tell me the bad news."
"No bad news, Poppa," said momma. "He came in as quiet as a lamb, and is now in his room doing his
homework yet."
"Homework?" exclaimed Poppa. "He has never done homework in his life! He must be ill!" So Poppa went
to the boy's room and said, "What is this Momma telling me, that you are doing homework? Why this
change of heart, all of a sudden?"
And the boy replied, "Poppa, I am the only Jewish boy in that school. On the wall opposite my desk is a
picture of the last Jewish boy they had there. Oi, you should see what they did to him!"....
Jesus crucified.
To be very close to me is to be on the cross. So Vivek has to do her homework, that's all. That's what I
go on doing to her. Of course, she has to do more homework than ANY of you.
The sixth question:
IN A RECENT LECTURE YOU WERE SAYING,'ON THE PATH OF LOVE, FORGET ALL ABOUT
MEDITATION; ON THE PATH OF MEDITATION, FORGET ALL ABOUT LOVE.' I BELIEVE MYSELF TO BE
RATHER ON THE PATH OF MEDITATION, AND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING NOW ABOUT THE
INDISPENSABLE VALUE OF LOVE IS CONFUSING TO ME. I UNDERSTAND THAT SPEAKING OF THE
BAULS YOU HAVE BECOME A BAUL, AND ARE FULLY IN THE PATH OF LOVE. HOW SHOULD I THEN
HEAR THOSE LECTURES? AND WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE, EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS ON
THE PATH OF MEDITATION?
IF I am talking about the Bauls and love and devotion and prayer, and you are on the path of meditation,
listen to me meditatively, that's all. Just listen to me meditatively; then you will be growing in meditation
through listening. Don't listen through the intellect. There is no need because you are on the path of
meditation, so you need not worry about the details of what I am saying. You can listen very silently
without being at all worried about what I am saying, what the details are. You can simply listen in deep
meditation. Let listening be your meditation, and that will do. But if you listen from the intellect that will
create confusion. If I am talking on the path of meditation and you are on the path of love, listen to me
lovingly. You don't lose track of your path. And then, whether I am talking on love or on meditation, you
will be fulfilled. Your own path will be strengthened. Your will will be made stronger.
The last question:
BELOVED OSHO, PLEASE HELP ME. SHOW ME MY PATH: LOVE OR MEDITATION. GIVE ME ONE
SUTRA SUITABLE TO MY NATURE.
It is from Neelam. I know her. I have known her long enough, not only in this life, but in other lives
also. Her path is absolutely certain: it is love. Through love she is going to achieve. Through love she is
going to be. Through love all that can happen will happen to her, and I can say it absolutely. I may not be so
certain when others ask me. Somebody who has come very recently, I have to know better, to penetrate him
more, to watch him in different situations, to watch his moods, subtle layers upon layers of being, then... but
about Neelam it is absolutely certain. I have known her in this life, I have known her in other lives. Her
Query:-
direction is absolutely clear: love is her meditation.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #3
Chapter title: Close Your Eyes And Try To Catch Him

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 84 mins
NEVER PLUNGE INTO THE RIVER OF LUST,

YOU WILL NOT REACH THE SHORES.
IT IS A RIVER OF NO COASTS WHERE TYPHOONS RAGE.
GO TO THE HOME OF BEAUTY AND FORM,

SHOULD YOU WISH TO SEE THE MAN WITHIN.
HIS WAYS CROSS THE SPHERE
WHERE LIFE LIVES WITH DEATH,
AND SENSE WITH INSANITY.
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND TRY TO CATCH HIM.

HE IS SLIPPING BY.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE says that man is a useless passion. Meaningless. Futile. He is right if there is
nothing beyond man; if there is nothing transcendental to man, he is right because the meaning always
comes from a higher source. The meaning is never in the thing in itself; it always comes from the beyond.
For example, you can watch a seed; in itself it is meaningless unless it sprouts. Once it sprouts it
becomes meaningful. The tree is the meaning for the seed. Now the seed exists for a certain reason. Its
existence is not accidental, it is meaningful. It has to give birth, it has to create something; something that is
beyond it, something that is bigger than it, something that is more comprehensive.
But then, what is the meaning of the tree in itself? Again meaning disappears unless the tree can flower.
The meaning of the tree is in the flowering. When it flowers, yes, there is meaning: the tree has become a
mother, the tree has given birth, the tree has become significant. It was not there without any purpose; the
flower is the proof. It was there meaningfully, it was there waiting for the flower.
But what is the meaning of the flower in itself unless the fragrance is released to the winds? Once the
fragrance is released the flower is meaningful, and so on and so forth.
The meaning is always in a higher state. The meaning is always of the beyond. The meaning is
transcendental. If there is nothing beyond man, Sartre is absolutely right: then man is a useless passion
running here and there, but doomed to failure. He cannot reach, cannot arrive, because there is nowhere to
arrive. He cannot become, because there is no beyond to become. He cannot spread, cannot flower, cannot
release the fragrance. If man ends with himself, then man is certainly useless.
But man doesn't end with himself; he is a growth. Man is a becoming, a growing, a continuous
Query:-
transcendence. Friedrich Nietzsche has said, "That day will be the most unfortunate day when man will not
aspire to become higher, when man will not aspire to transcend himself. That day will be the most
unfortunate when the arrow of man's desire will not be moving higher than man, when there will be no
target to reach, when man will be confined, closed in himself. That day will be the most unfortunate day."
It seems the modern man is coming closer and closer to that unfortunate day. That doomsday is coming
closer and closer every moment, and Sartre is going to be true if you allow him to be true. If you allow him
and you remain a seed and don't sprout, if you allow him and you remain a tree and don't flower, if you
allow him and you remain a flower and don't release your fragrance, then, of course, life is hell -- just
absurd, not worth living. Then to be born is to be born in misery. Then death is a blessing and life is a curse.
But it is not so; it depends on you whether your life will be meaningful or meaningless. It depends on
you. That is the whole point of religion: that meaning is not already given, it has to be created. That
meaning is not already transferred to you; only the potentiality, only the possibility, only the opportunity is
there. You can flower into a meaningful existence, or you can wither away, useless. Great is the
responsibility. If you don't do it, nobody else can do it for you. You cannot rely on servants. Life is so
valuable; you cannot rely on anybody else. You will have to take control of the whole situation, and you
will have to take the responsibility on your shoulders.
YOU become a man really, the day you become responsible for your growth. You become a man really,
the day you decide that you have to create meaning in your life. You are given a blank page: you will have
to sign it, and you will have to write your song on it. The song is not already there. You are there; the
possibility is there -- but the song has to be sung, the dance has to be danced. The dancer is there, but what
is the meaning of a dancer if he has not danced yet? Even to call him a dancer is meaningless, because
unless he dances how can you call him a dancer? Unless a seed becomes a tree it is just a name, it is not a
seed. And unless a tree flowers it is just a name, it is not a tree. And unless a flower releases its fragrance, it
is just a name, it is not yet a flower.
You create your being continuously. And if you don't create, you will be just a driftwood, accidental,
moving here and there with no direction.
The Bauls start from the first step. They have a whole vision, a whole perception of all the possibilities
of man, of all the rungs of the ladder. The first rung is libido, lust, sex-energy. And sex-energy has
continuously puzzled man. If it remains just sex, it will become meaningless. Then you will be in a rut.
SEX is meaningful only when out of lust, love is born. Love is meaningful only when out of love, prayer
is born. If your sex remains just sexuality, a circular repetition, a mechanical thing that you go on doing,
then you will remain meaningless. Because sex is your energy; it has to be transformed. It is very crude, it is
raw material. Much has to be done on it. It is a raw diamond. you have to cut it, you have to polish it, you
have to give it a shape and a form. You have to give it beauty. It depends on you. If you go on carrying the
raw stone, it is valueless -- not only that, it will be a burden on you. It is better to throw it, better to throw it
than to carry it. Why carry it unless something higher can be evolved out of it?
Always remember this: Bauls are not against sex, against lust. But they say that if you remain confined
to lust, you will be lost.

IT IS A RIVER OF NO COASTS
WHERE TYPHOONS RAGE.
What do they mean? -- 'the river of lust, it has no shores, and if you plunge into it you will be lost'. One
has to rise above it. It is not that something is wrong in it, remember this point. Don't conclude that Bauls
are saying that something is wrong with sex. They are simply saying that the wrong arises when you are
confined to it. If you can use it, if you can make a stepping-stone out of it, if you can go higher than it, then
it is beautiful. It has been a great help. Without it, it would have been impossible to rise above it.
Lust in itself is like a seed: just pure possibility waiting for the right soil, waiting for the right season,
waiting for the gardener, the skillful man who can help it to sprout. A seed is not actual, just potential. There
is no necessity for it to become a tree. It may not ever become; it may be lost completely. If you put that
Query:-
seed on a stone, it will remain a seed. Ages can pass and the seed will not sprout. Many people are like that
seed: those who have not found their soil yet, who have not found their right season yet. These are the
worldly people. A religious person is one whose seed has reached to the right soil, and is disappearing.
When the seed disappears, the tree is born. When you disappear, then the soul is born. When the soul
disappears, the God is born.
You exist like the hard shell of a seed -- that is the ego of man. The worldly man is the egoistic man; the
non-worldly man is the humble man. By 'humble' a very simple thing is meant: he is disappearing as a seed,
he is ready to die into the earth. The word 'humble' comes from HUMUS. HUMUS means 'the earth'. The
humble man is one who is ready to disappear into the earth. The humble man is one who is ready to lose
himself.
Jesus says again and again that if you don't lose yourself you will not regain, if you don't lose yourself
you will never be: "Blessed are those who are ready to lose." What does he mean? He means, blessed is the
seed that loses its hard shell, becomes vulnerable, opens its soft heart to the soil so the soil can work on it,
and moves into the unknown; drops the confinement with the known, drops the commitment with the
known, and becomes committed with the unknown. Dangers are there -- storms will be there, clouds and
thunder and lightning.
For a small plant the whole world is a crisis, a thousand and one risks. For the seed there is no danger.
The seed is closed, windowless. It is in an imprisonment -- protected, well-protected. But a small plant is
very fragile. Watch it: a seed is very hard, secure; the plant is fragile and soft, and can be destroyed very
easily. And the flower is still more fragile -- as fragile as a dream, as fragile as a poem. And the fragrance is
still more fragile -- it almost disappears, becomes indefinable. All growth is towards the unknown, towards
the soft, towards the fragile, towards the indefinable.
GROWTH is towards disappearance. Only the gross appears; God is invisible. Only matter appears;
mind is invisible. Only the gross can be touched, is tangible, but the subtle is intangible. That's why God
cannot be seen -- because God is the fragrance of the flower -- very subtle, very, very subtle.
Remember, with the gross there is more security. Lust is more secure than love; love is more secure than
prayer. And if you are looking for security you will remain confined in lust.
Many people are born in sex. Nothing is wrong with that; everybody has to be born in sex. The problem
arises when many people live only in sex, and die also in sex. That means that there has been no growth, no
evolution. Being born in sex is perfectly natural, but to die in it? Then what is the point? Then what is the
meaning of being born? Then you have not grown; then nothing has happened to you.
I was reading about one old man, an old man of almost eighty-five years. He went to his doctor, and he
said, "Doctor, I am becoming impotent."
The doctor looked at him and said, "Oh? And when did you first notice this?"
The old man said, "Last night and again this morning."
People live... the longer you live in lust, the uglier becomes your being. And if you have to also die in it,
then the whole life was a wastage. You never even went a step further than your birth. Birth is of course
natural; it has to be in sex. But death need not be.
I have heard....
Little Sammy was busy doing his homework while waiting with his Mummy in the baby clinic. He
turned to his Mum and said, "Mummy, where did I come from?"
She said, "Ach...ah, the stork brought you, darling."
"Where did you come from?"
"Oh, the stork brought me too."
"And where did Grandmamma come from?"
"Why, Grandmamma was found under a gooseberry bush."
So he continued his essay and wrote, "It seems that there has not been a natural birth in our family for
three generations!"
To be born in sex is natural; one need not be defensive about it. But to die in sex is unnatural. From sex
one should step higher. From the seed to the fragrance is the evolution.
But many people live a repetitive cycle: they go on moving in a routine. They go on doing things, not
even aware of what they are doing, not even aware of how many times they have done the same thing, not
being aware that it brings nothing. But they go on doing it, not knowing what else to do. They remain
Query:-
occupied in the same circular way. That's why in the East we call it SAMSAR, the wheel. The world is
called 'the wheel'. Just as when a wheel goes on moving and the same spokes go on turning up and down, up
and down, up and down: if your life is like a wheel and the same spokes go on moving, your life will not
have any meaning -- because meaning arises only when you take a step beyond yourself. And remember this
too: if you take a step beyond and then you are stuck there, again meaning disappears.
SO meaning is in the new. And if you want to be constantly meaningful, eternally meaningful, then you
have to go on growing and growing and growing. If you are stuck anywhere, meaning immediately
disappears. Meaning is not in being stuck, meaning is in flow, meaning is in evolving -- so remember it.
You can get stuck at love; then again meaning disappears, then again you become stale. Then the river is
moving no more. Again you will become dirty; flow is lost. And when the river is flowing it is fresh; when
the river is not flowing it becomes stagnant.
The same is true about life.
If you get stuck at love, again flow is lost. Again you are in a rut. Prayer is needed...and there are higher
things than prayer. Prayer is the last that can be defined; prayer is the last that can be talked about -- that
too, not adequately, but very inadequately. But prayer is the last, the horizon. Not that on the horizon the
earth stops; not that on the horizon the sky finishes. The horizon simply shows our limitation: our eyes
cannot go beyond it, that's all. Prayer is the horizon of the libido energy, but it is not the end. There are
higher things than prayer, but words don't exist for those things. When you reach to prayer then you will
know that there are higher things than prayer, and growth is eternal.
People are almost dead because they are stuck. They go on seeking the same thing again and again.
Watch it.
One should be in search of the new. The very search renews you, rejuvenates you. If you have some
beautiful experience today, don't ask again for it tomorrow because now it is meaningless -- you have
known it, it is finished. Ask for something more, seek for something new, grope for the unfamiliar and the
unknown. Go beyond it. It was beautiful but don't try to repeat it, because repetition kills beauty. Repetition
makes everything boring. And once you become accustomed to boredom you will become dead. Then you
will go on revolving.
I have heard....
It was a gay party. Wine, whiskey and wit flowed freely. An obsequious waiter offered a tray with
drinks to a solemn, stern-looking man, obviously a clergyman. The Father looked sternly at him and said,
"No thanks, I do not drink."
The waiter left, but soon enough another appeared on the scene with a second tray. The God's good man
gave him a withering glare. "Don't you know I do not drink at all?" And he added as an afterthought, "I
would rather commit adultery than imbibe alcohol.
Mulla Nasrudin, his neighbor, leisurely sipping his scotch, got up with alacrity, put down the glass and
exclaimed, "Good heavens, I had no idea there was a choice!"
People are continuously obsessed with sex. And there are two ways to be obsessed with sex: one is the
ordinary man's way. But both remain obsessed with lust -- one for, the other against. Their constant fixation
is sex; neither goes beyond it.
Bauls don't belong to either category. They don't belong to the worldly man because they go beyond sex.
They don't belong to the austere man because they are not against sex. They don't belong to the so-called
religious man, the monk, because they say, "Sex is your energy; it has to be used. Of course, it has to be
refined, but it has not to be condemned." How can you refine a stone and make a diamond of it if you are
condemnatory about it, if you throw it? And if you start escaping from it, how can you refine it, how can
you polish it, how can you make a valuable thing out of it? So there are two types of fixations in the world:
the people who think sex is life, and the people who think to fight with sex is life -- and both are wrong. To
use sex creatively; that is the goal of the Baul.
MULLA NASRUDIN constantly irritated his friends with his eternal optimism. No matter how bad the
situation, he would always say, "It could have been worse." To cure him of this annoying habit his friends
decided to invent a situation so completely black, so dreadful that even Nasrudin could find no hope in it.
Approaching him at the club bar one day, one of them said, "Mulla, did you hear what happened to
George? He went home last night, found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, then turned the
Query:-
gun on himself."
"Terrible," said the Mulla, "but it could have been worse."
"How in the hell," asked his dumbfounded friend, "could it possibly have been worse?"
"Well," said Nasrudin, "if it had happened the day before, I would be dead now."
People are in a rut, repeating the same again and again and again and again. It seems their eyes are
completely closed. It seems they have no idea of what is possible. It seems nobody has given them even a
glimpse of the beyond. It seems that they have never looked towards the heights. They have not seen the
sky; they go on crawling in the mud. Nothing is wrong essentially in the mud; it is beautiful if you can stand
in it, rooted, grounded, and your eyes can move towards the heights. Then the very quality of the mud is
transformed.

IT IS A RIVER OF NO COASTS
WHERE TYPHOONS RAGE.
And you all must have felt that whatsoever you call love brings misery and nothing else: conflict, agony,
suffering. Whatsoever you have called love gives you hell and nothing else. But still, somehow you manage
to remain in it, you manage not to see beyond it.
It happened: A very wise old man was approached by his son. "Father," said the son, "I want to get
married."
"No, my boy. You are not wise enough," said the old man.
"When will I be wise enough?" asked the lad.
The old man said, "When you get rid of the idea that you want to get married, then you will be wise
enough, and then you can get married."
IT seems paradoxical; it is true: when you are no longer occupied with sex, when it is no longer an
obsession, a neurosis, you are wise enough to go into it -- because then you can use all the possibilities that
become available through it. Then it is not just fun; then it is not just passing time; then it is not just a search
for oblivion. Then it becomes a creative act on your part. Then you are creating something out of this
tremendous energy. It is God's gift. Bauls call it lust -- if you remain confined in it. If you can go beyond it,
it starts changing its form, it starts changing its quality.
The Bauls sing,
Plough-man, are you out of your wits

not to take care
of your own land?
A squadron of six birds
is picking at the rice,
grown golden and ripe,
in the field of your limbs.
Farming the splendid
measured land
of this human body,
you raise the crop,
the devotion to God.
But passions eat at it
like sparrows.
The fence of consciousness

Query:-
is down to dust,
leaving open gaps.
Cattle clamber up
and feast on your harvest....
Shame to you,
my shameless heart,
what now can I say?
You have gathered a piece of glass
at the price of gold.
In spite of a pair of eyes
you miss the valuable jewels,
caring only for artificial stones.
Wandering blindfolded,
you could not see
that the house overflowed
with the choicest rubies,
and diamonds,
and gems of fire.
Hugging a sickle
in your waistband,
what do you search
from field to field?
What is the use?
My heart,
will you not explode for once
the home of beauty...?
Whatsoever you go on seeking in the mechanical ways of sexuality is not the search for beauty. It is not
the search of love, it is not the search of God. At the most, it is a natural device, a biological device to
drown yourself in forgetfulness. It is a natural arrangement in your body: you can drown yourself in it. It
can become your alcohol, it can become your drug, it can become your acid.
Sex is chemical; it releases certain hormones in your body. It gives you a certain illusory euphoria. It
gives you a few moments when you feel at the top of the world. But then again you are back in the valley,
and the valley is darker than before, and the valley is uglier than before -- as if you have been tricked,
cheated. Sex gives you an illusion as if something is happening. If you remain confined to sex, then you will
simply waste your energy. By and by, the energy will ooze out of you, and you will remain just a dead shell.
The Bauls say,
What color is your cottage?

On the shore of this bogus world
the frame of your home is made of bones,
and the roof is thatched with skin.
But the pair of peacocks
on the landing pier
hardly know that they will end one day.
As the childhood passed in play,
passion, the age of passionate sport passes.
Query:-
The old age, too, is going away,

calling, calling
for the Master and the Lord.
Your teeth are dropping down,
and the hair is growing gray,
the age of manhood is at a low ebb,
the plaster of your painted house will be
crumbling now
softly, softly....
The energy oozes out, by and by. Very few are in the world who use this tremendous opportunity for
growth. Watch your steps. You are given a certain opportunity to grow. If you don't grow you will simply
waste; life will be just a vegetation. You cannot call yourself alive if you are not aware. If awareness is not
crystallized in you, you are fast asleep, in a stupor -- a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. And sex is one of the
great tranquilizers. Many people use it exactly like a tranquilizer: they make love and then they go to sleep.
Then they sleep better. Energy released, empty, they fall into deep stupor. That sleep is not real sleep -- it is
just exhaustion, it is just emptiness. It is not full of energy. That sleep is like death, not like life.
The ways of the tortuous river

slip from your grasp.
Beware, brothers,
do not step into the stream.
The water rushes down,
wrecking the blackened hills.
Brothers, beware
of the tortuous stream.
The river was dry
when the waters of the flood
surged down the tortuous stream.
How can we cross the river now?
Even when you are silent and not preoccupied with sex, it is very difficult to cross the river. Even when
the river is not flooded, even when the river is a summer stream -- very thin, very small, very shallow --
then too it is difficult to pass and go beyond it. And when the rains come and the river is flooded and when
you are so full of lust, it becomes impossible to cross it.
The river was dry

when the waters of the flood
surged down the tortuous stream.
How can we cross the river now?
Be on your guard,
O boatman,
and hold tight to the oars,
and if the boat tends to turn over,
remember the Master.
BAULS say that there is only one way to come out of the stupor man lives in, and that is remembrance
of God: NAM-SMARAN, remembrance of His name. That has always been part of the basic techniques on
the path of love -- to remember Him. And when a devotee, with deep reverence, remembers the name of
God, his whole being is thrilled, his energy starts rushing upwards. Ordinarily the energy is rushing
downwards; that is the way of sex. If you really cry the name of God, whatsoever it is -- Ram, Allah, or
Query:-
whatsoever, all names are His -- the very cry, the very remembrance hits somewhere near the SAHASRAR,
the seventh chakra, in the head. If remembrance is not just ritual, if with deep love and reverence and
devotion and surrender you have called the name of God, suddenly there comes a change in your body
energies. The energy that was going to the sex center starts rising high.
The Bauls say,
God has reversed

the acts of the play.
The land talks in paradox
and the flowers devour the heads of fruits,
and the gentle vine, roaring,
strangles the tree.
The moon rises in the day,
and the sun at night with shining rays.
The blood is white,

and on the lake of blood
float a pair of swans,
copulating continuously
in a jungle of lust and love.
All the great mystics have described it: when the energies start rushing upwards, when gravitation no
longer affects your energy, when your energy is functioning under another Law, the law of grace; when you
are pulled up, when you are falling up, when you are rushing upwards as if the sky is pulling you, then man
comes to know a totally different world. Everything is upside-down -- or maybe it is really rightside-up --
but everything changes.
Kabir has said that when it happened to him, he saw the ocean burning, and the fire very cold. He saw
fishes running on dry land, and he saw trees whose roots were in the sky and whose branches were coming
to the earth. These are just symbolic sayings.
EVERYTHING we had known while sex-energy was running downwards is affected by it. When the
sex-energy rushes up, a TOTALLY different world is revealed. Then you don't see this world because your
eyes are no more the same. You are in a new dimension, just diametrically opposite to the old.
But ordinarily our whole concept of life is centered on sex. Whatsoever we do: we earn money, we earn
money for sex; we try to earn fame, but we earn fame for sex. Even sometimes very innocent activities
which you cannot connect with sex are connected with sex if the person is still infatuated with lust. It is
difficult to see how a person who is running after fame is running after sex.
Ask the psychologists. They say women are more attracted by fame than by anything else. They are not
so attracted by the face, handsomeness, as they are attracted by achievement. An achiever, one who has
much money, power, prestige, is more attractive to women than anybody else,. because a woman is
constantly in search of somebody to lean upon. You may be beautiful, but if you have no power you cannot
give any guarantee and security to the woman. If you are powerful, maybe you are not beautiful, you are not
intelligent, but that doesn't matter. But it you are powerful, reliable, the woman can lean on your shoulders.
There is a certain guarantee in you.
Men are attracted by physical proportions, body-beauty; a woman is more attracted by fame, prestige,
power, achievement. So if men are too mad after power, the arithmetic is simple. Even in the face of death
or in the face of danger people go on lusting.
Jeevan has sent me a beautiful joke.
Isador Ginsberg was instructed by his physician to take a holiday after years of hard work building up
his clothing business. On his holiday he met a young blonde who spent much time with him. Returning to
his office, he felt and looked like a new person; love had entered his life.
Query:-
A few weeks later a distinguished gentleman asked to see Mr. Isador Ginsberg alone. Smilingly, excitedly,
Isador read the card handed to him. His caller was attorney-at-law of a very reputable law firm.
"I represent Miss Mamie Lottery. You remember her, from Hotel Carleton?"
"Yes, yes," Isador panted excitedly.
"Well, Mr. Ginsberg, what do you think of these?" And he lays out on the desk a number of photographs of
Isador and Mamie in decidedly compromising positions.
Isador was absolutely flabbergasted. He stared wide-eyed at each of the pictures in turn. Many minutes of
silence gripped the air. Finally he turned to the lawyer and said with a firm order in his voice, "Well, I will
take two of this, three of that one, and four copies of each of the other pictures."
THE grip of lust is such that you cannot see the danger ahead. The grip of lust is such that you cannot
even see death ahead. In fact, a very strange phenomenon happens: the more a person comes close to his
death, the more lustful he becomes. Because sex gives a feeling of life, one clings more to sexuality. Old
people may not be physically able to move into sexuality, but then they start moving in their fantasies. It
almost always happens.
I have watched many people die. It rarely happens that a person dies with God on his mind. Almost
always, nine out of ten people die with sex on their minds when they die, and that becomes the beginning of
another life. Sex on the mind becomes the beginning of another sex life.
But it has to be so if you have not been working hard to go beyond it, to go beyond its grip. If you have
not been struggling hard to release yourself from its clutches, then it is going to be so -- because at the
moment of death you start thinking more of sex, because sex seems to be just the opposite of death. Sex is
birth; mind fantasizes about sex. And when the last moment has come when the body is going to disappear,
a bout of energy, the last bout, streams into your head, overpowers you. If you die with sex on the mind, you
will be moving again into the wheel of life, what the Hindus call ANAGAMIN, coming and going, coming
and going; a repetitious circle.

The Bauls say, "Go to the home of beauty and form, should you wish to see the man within." Love is
more aesthetic; lust is almost non-aesthetic. Lust is ugly, and you can observe it. When somebody looks at
you with lust in his eyes, have you watched the face? -- it becomes ugly. Even a beautiful face becomes
ugly when lust is there in the eyes. And just the opposite also happens: even an ugly face becomes beautiful
when there is love in the eyes. Love in the eyes gives a totally different color to the face; a different aura
arises. Lust gives a black aura, a very evilish aura around you. To look at somebody with lust is ugly. It is
not the search for beauty.
One of the greatest Indian poets, Rabindranath, has said that, "Beauty is truth," and he is right. And he
was very impressed by the Bauls. In fact, he was the first man to introduce Bauls to the West; he was the
first man to translate a few Baul poems into English. He was a sort of Baul himself: he says, "Beauty is
truth." If you seek beauty you will become truthful. The more aesthetic you become, the more sensitive you
become towards beauty, the more balanced and harmonious you will become -- because finally, beauty
belongs to God.
LET me explain it to you.

You see a woman: if you see with lustful eyes, you see only the body, the matter, the matter part; if you
see with love, you see something that is not matter, that is spiritual; and if you see a woman with prayer,
then you see something absolutely divine. It depends on your eyes. With lustful eyes you see only the body
part of the woman; with loveful eyes you see the spiritual part of the woman; with prayerful eyes you see
the divine, God himself. Wherever your sensitivity towards beauty is perfect, the divine is revealed.

Query:-
"His ways cross the sphere where life lives with death, and sense with insanity..."
God's ways are paradoxical. The Bauls say that in God all the opposites meet, all the polarities become
one. In God, death and life are not two things. In God, darkness and light are not two things. In God, the
beginning and the end are not two things. God means the totality; God comprehends all. So when you reach
towards God you will not be losing anything, you will be simply gaining all. In the beginning it may appear
that you are losing something, but God is all-inclusive. Lust remains in God, of course, but absolutely
transformed. Matter remains in God, but becomes sacred, is holy. One remains in the world but no more of
it. God Himself is in the world, but not of the world. The world belongs to Him but He does not belong to
the world.
This polarity has to be understood. The Bauls' God is a greater God than the Christian God, the Jewish
God or the Mohammedan God, because those Gods are of the theologians. The Bauls' God is more poetic;
those Gods are more logical. The Bauls' God is more illogical, but more true. Christians say, "God is only
good." The very word 'God' is derived from the root 'good'. God is good; then what happens to bad? Then
where does the bad exist? To explain that they have to create a devil. But the Bauls laugh about such
theoretical cunningness. They say that God creates the devil, so He remains the creator of the devil. And if
you say the devil has gone against God, then there are only two possibilities: one, that God is not
omnipotent, and the devil can go against Him -- then God is not all-powerful; the other, that God Himself
provokes him to go against -- then He is all-powerful, but then He is the cause of the devil.
Bauls say that God is both, and when they say God is both, they mean that God is incomprehensible, He
is paradoxical. God is all. In Him, everything is transfigured, all opposites become a harmony. God is the
orchestra. He is one in the many. He's the unity of all.

Bauls say, "He is the supermost reason and the supermost irreason also." They say that God is reason
and God is madness also. For a logical mind it becomes difficult to figure out. But Bauls say life is not of
logic. The Bauls say, "We are simply describing what is the case. We are not saying what should be, we are
simply describing what is the case. This is the way we have known God: He is very rational and very
irrational, both. He is infinite compassion and infinite justice, both. In Him, all the polarities have become
one."
To understand this, one has to understand with one's totality. You cannot understand this assertion, this
statement, through your intellect. Then it looks absurd. But watch... Look at life: all that is alive must be
somehow His, and all that dies must be somehow dying in Him. Yes, He lives in very reasonable people, but
who lives in mad people then? In mad people also He lives, and He loves all ways.
SO Bauls say, "Don't be afraid; you just be yourself and you will find Him. You need not become
somebody else to find Him. You just be yourself. If you are mad, then just be mad; then that is your way to
find Him. If you are a singer, then go on singing. He's all-inclusive; your singing will become a prayer and a
way. If you cannot sing, don't be worried; there is no need. If you feel that just being silent and sitting
silently you enjoy your being perfectly, then that is your way. All ways are His. Bauls say, "Wherever you
are, from wherever you travel, you travel towards Him. Just don't get stuck; go on travelling. Go on moving,
don't allow movement to die. Wherever you are stuck, then the distance arises. Just go on moving and be
yourself." They don't give you a certain morality; they don't give you a certain ideal; they don't give you any
shoulds. They are not worried about the ought. They say, "This is the case -- He loves all as they are." Just
you go on moving, don't get frozen.
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND TRY TO CATCH HIM,

HE IS SLIPPING BY.
Query:-
Beautiful..."Close your eyes and try to catch Him, He's slipping by." If you are stuck somewhere you
will miss Him. You be on the move because He is on the move. He's always slipping, He's always moving
into the new and into the unknown. If you cling with the known you will miss Him. Close your eyes and
watch how swiftly He moves, how dancingly He moves. He is continuously slipping out of the old. He is
the constantly new. He is like the snake who comes out of his old skin, leaves the old skin and slips by. God
is continuously slipping out of history, because He is eternity. God is continuously slipping out of that
which has already happened, because He is not repetitive. And if you are clinging to history then you will
miss Him, because then you will be looking at the past and He is always moving into the future. God is
future and mind is past; then the distance arises.
A real religious man is one who has no past, who has no autobiography, who is continuously new, each
moment slipping with God. He does not bother; what has happened has happened -- finished! Put a full stop
on it, and never look back. Go on...He is always calling you ahead, and ahead. He is always persuading you
to move into new territories of being: from lust to love, from love to prayer -- and there are higher realms
than prayer. And He is constantly on the move. If you follow Him, the only way is to be constantly on the
move.
Be a river.
Yes, they are right...

HE IS SLIPPING BY.
Why close your eyes? -- because in the beginning it will be difficult to see Him from without. There are
so many forms, you may get lost. There is so much all around, so complicated is the world that you may get
lost. Start from the simple -- start from yourself. Close your eyes; then there is only one -- you! It is simple
to become acquainted that way. Close your eyes and see Him; He is continuously slipping by. It is your
consciousness, the essential man. The Bauls call him the ADHAR MANUSH. He is in you, in your essence,
but He is continuously slipping by, going ahead. That's how He evolves.
God is evolution and God is revolution also, because sometimes He moves slowly, and sometimes He
moves very fast. One has to be very alert to keep pace with Him. If you lose your alertness, He is gone.
Then one never knows when one will come across Him again. One moment lost in unawareness and He will
be at the farthest end of the world. One has to remain constantly alert, aware.
But first watch Him inside. Not that He's not outside; He's there also -- because all is His, within and
without. But first it is easier to understand Him within yourself. Once seen there, you will be able to see
Him everywhere. Once understood there, open your eyes, and He is standing all around you: in the trees, in
the birds, in the man, in the woman, in the rocks, in the rivers, in the mountains, in the clouds. But first, get
introduced to Him. And the best introduction, and the easiest possible, is to close your eyes and look, watch
there. You will find the snake always moving and leaving its old skin. This is the flow of life-energy.
The Bauls' God is not a dead, stagnant concept. It is not a God sitting somewhere on a golden throne in
the seventh heaven. The Bauls' God is a very alive God, kicking in you, streaming in you. The Bauls' God is
nothing but a synonym for life. LIFE written with capital letters is what the Bauls' God is all about.
The Bauls say,
My heart is saturated,
but I wish I knew with what --
joy or death.
Strange is the feeling when you become acquainted with God: you cannot say what it is, you cannot
describe it. It is so contradictory, so paradoxical.
Query:-
My heart is saturated,
but I wish I knew with what --
joy or death.
He is both: death and resurrection, cross and rebirth.
A sense of wonder
has overtaken all.
Where is that ocean
and where are the rivers?
And yet still
the waves are there for you to observe,
only if you unite
your eyes with your heart.
That is the meaning of 'close your eyes' -- so that you can bring your heart and your eyes parallel,
united. Only if you unite your eyes with your heart, then suddenly you will see the God of all paradoxes, the
mad and the source of all reason, life and the source of all death.
The Bauls say,
There is no patience
in the core of my heart.
Shivering with tears
it cries with the eyes,
and in the silence
of lovely sound forever calls,
Come Beloved, come,
come, please come!
The Bauls' path is not the path of the austere man, of the monk, no. It is the path of the dancer, the
singer, the aesthetic man. His prayer is full of beauty, and God is not a concept of philosophy, but Beloved.
Free impulses live together

with the forces of abstinence,
and the feminine energy
entwined with the spirit of man,
resembles the tuned strings
of the lute, wholly invisible.
The heart is the home
of no separation.
When you reach deep within yourself, when you touch your own core, your heart, you have come to the
land of no separation. There, not only are you with God, you are one with Him -- because you are also part
of Him. It is He who has expressed Himself like you. Feel fortunate, feel blessed; He has also chosen you to
be one of His forms.

Query:-
HE IS SLIPPING BY.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #4
Chapter title: Remember To Stop In The Middle

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 90 mins
The first question:
BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE HEARD....

A PSYCHOLOGIST WANTS TO EXPERIMENT WITH HIS TWIN SONS. HE TAKES THEM DOWN TO HIS
GROUP ROOMS AND PUTS EACH IN A ROOM BY HIMSELF. IN IKE'S ROOM HE LOADS IN A PILE OF
TV-ADVERTISED, HARD-SELL TOYS. IKE IS DIAGNOSED AS A COMPLAINING, NEGATIVE PESSIMIST.
IN MIKE'S ROOM HE LOADS IN AN ENORMOUS PILE OF MANURE. MIKE IS THE OPTIMIST.
AN HOUR AFTER THEY ARE LOCKED IN, HE ENTERS IKE'S ROOM. THERE IS IKE TOSSING OUT TOY
AFTER TOY, COMPLAINING, "THIS IS NOT ANY GOOD, THAT ONE WON'T WORK."
AS HE OPENS THE DOOR INTO THE SECOND ROOM HE IS UNABLE TO FIND HIS SON FOR A FEW
MOMENTS. BUT HE HEARS HIS VOICE; IT IS SAYING, "THERE'S GOTTA BE A PONY, THERE'S GOTTA
BE A PONY." AND AS HE APPEARS HE IS SHOWN FRANTICALLY DIGGING THROUGH THE MANURE,
LOOKING FOR THE PONY.
I HAVE CHANGED ROOMS; I HAVE GOT MY EYE OUT FOR THE PONY.
THE QUESTION IS FROM PREM JEEVAN.

The first thing to be understood about pessimism and optimism is that they are not different. They look
different, but don't be deceived by their appearances. They are just two polarities of the same phenomenon.
A pessimist can become an optimist; an optimist can become a pessimist. A pessimist is just an optimist
standing on his head, and vice versa. They are not two different people, they are not two different
dimensions. Remember, it is not worth changing rooms. Get out of both the rooms, under the sky where
neither pessimism nor optimism exist. You can be at ease only when both are gone, because both are wrong.
Analyze the situation. The pessimist goes on looking at the darker side of things and goes on denying
the whiter side; he accepts only half of the truth. The optimist goes on denying the darker side of things and
accepts only the whiter side; he is also half true. Neither of them accepts the whole truth, because the whole
truth is both summer and winter, God and devil, darkness and light, good and evil, life and death. The whole
truth is both. Both are doing the same exercise -- they are denying the half and accepting the other half. The
other half is as much half as the first; there is no difference. If th!e pessimist is wrong, the optimist is also
wrong. Both are not ready to accept the truth as it is. They choose.
Move out of both the rooms under the open sky of choicelessness. Don't choose. Let truth be as it is.
Don't try to paint it in your own mood. Try to see the facility of it; don't bring your mood in. Don't look
through hope, don't look through frustration. Don't be positive and don't be negative -- that is the highest
consciousness possible.
But optimism appeals because the world is more or less pessimistic. People have long faces; they are
Query:-
always complaining and grumbling. It is beautiful to come across the optimist. People are always talking
about the thorns; it is fortunate to meet somebody who talks about flowers and fragrances. But he is also
wrong.
Let me tell you another anecdote.
Once I went to visit the hospital where Mulla Nasrudin was confined as a result of an automobile
accident. The Mulla had been seriously injured: a broken leg, both arms broken, a broken collarbone,
terrible cuts over his face and head, and several broken ribs. He was so thoroughly bandaged and taped and
strapped up that only his two eyes and mouth were showing.
I was at a loss for words, but I realized that I must say something. So I asked the Mulla, "How do you
feel today, Nasrudin? I suppose all of those broken bones and cuts cause a great deal of pain. Do you suffer
very much?"
"No, not much," said Nasrudin. "Only when I laugh."
It is good to meet such a person. It is rare, but it is as wrong as the common variety The pessimist is the
common variety. Out of a hundred persons, ninety-nine are pessimists. They are looking for misery, they are
waiting for misery. They are convinced that something is going to happen which is going to be wrong. They
are ready for it. If it doesn't happen they will be very disappointed, but they are waiting for the negative, for
the dark side. These people are certainly wrong, but then because of these people -- and they are in the
majority -- the other rarity becomes very valuable: a person who is looking for the morning, who looks for
the white lightning in the darkest of clouds. When the night is very dark he waits, because he knows now
the morning is very close. He is always hopeful. But I again insist that both are wrong because life is both
black and white. In fact, life is grey. On one extreme end it looks white, on the other extreme end it looks
black, but just in between the two it is nothing but shades of grey.
One who understands both becomes choiceless. He is neither pessimist nor optimist. You will not find
him in either of the rooms. You will not find him unhappy, you will not find him over enthusiastic about
happiness. That is the goal of the Buddhas: they are not in agony and they are not in any ecstasy. They don't
know any excitement; they are simply peaceful, silent. That is what bliss is, satchitananda. Bliss is not
happiness, because happiness has a certain excitement in it -- it is feverish. Sooner or later you will be tired
of it; it is unnatural. Sooner or later you will have to change, you will have to become unhappy. Bliss is
neither; it is neither negative nor positive -- it is transcendental, it is beyond duality. One remains tranquil,
calm, quiet, centered. Whatsoever happens, good or bad, one accepts both because one knows life is both.
This is the real man. He is completely without any attitude. It is very easy if you have been a pessimist
for long: one day you realize that you are unnecessarily being unhappy, miserable, so you change the role.
You slip into the role of an optimist. But now, from one extreme to the other you have moved.
One day Mulla Nasrudin visited a large department store to buy his wife some nylon hose. Inadvertently
he got caught in the mad rush of a counter where a bargain sale was going on. He soon found himself being
pushed and stepped on by frantic women. He stood it as long as he could, then with head lowered and
elbows out, he plowed through the crowd.
"You there!" said a woman. "Can't you act like a gentleman?''
"Not anymore," said Nasrudin. "I have been acting like a gentleman for an hour. From now on I am acting
like a lady."
There is a point where one gets fed-up with one role. The pessimist one day realizes that, "Why? Why
go on seeing the darker side? Why go on counting the thorns on the rosebush?" He forgets about thorns; he
starts counting the roses -- but both are half. From one half to another half he has moved. The totality
remains as far away as before.
The rosebush is both the thorn and the rose. They are both joined together there. They are not against,
they are not enemies. In fact the thorns protect the flower. They are part of the whole organic being of the
rosebush. And so is life. Good and bad are joined together; sinners and saints are joined together; birth and
death are joined together. A real understanding is when you have understood this, this polarity. And by
understanding it, you have gone beyond it. Then you become tranquil -- because there is nothing to be
happy about and there is nothing to be unhappy about.
Remember, if you are happy, somewhere deep in the unconscious you are still carrying the possibility of
unhappiness, because you can be happy only if you can be unhappy. Both possibilities exist together. They
cannot be separated, they are two aspects of the same coin. So if you throw one aspect the other is also
Query:-
thrown. If you keep one aspect the other is also kept. If you become a pessimist in the conscious mind, you
will be an optimist in the unconscious. If you are an optimist in the conscious mind, you will be a pessimist
in the unconscious.
Happiness, unhappiness, exist together. You can change the role anytime you like. In fact, people go on
changing: in the morning you are an optimist, by the evening you have become a pessimist. That's why
beggars come to beg in the morning -- because morning makes many more people optimistic. By the
evening, knowing the whole life and the nastiness of it, people become pessimistic, tired, angry, frustrated.
In the evening beggars don't come to beg because who is going to give? In the morning people are more
open; the morning sun again brings hope. The night is gone: "Maybe today something is going to happen."
People are more positive. By the evening, people become negative.
In the day you change your roles many times. If you are a little alert, you will see. A moment before you
were an optimist, a moment afterwards you have become a pessimist. Small things: changes in the climate,
changes in the relationship, a small gesture on somebody's part can make, you change your role. Have you
watched it? You are sitting, sad, and somebody comes, and he is a man of laughter, and he laughs and he
jokes -- you forget that you were sad and you start laughing. You were laughing and a few friends come and
they are all sad; they bring a climate of sadness, and you relapse into it.
As I see it, every man is born with both possibilities. You have to go beyond it; you have to see the
futility of both. That's what silence is: it is complete absence of duality. So please avoid being extremists.
Excess should always be avoided, because excess is the root of all untruth. In fact, there are no lies in the
world, only half-truths and truth. All half-truths are lies; and the truth is not half, it is whole.
The mind tends to be always moving towards the extreme -- so you are moving towards the height, then
you are moving towards the valley, going up then coming down. Like a yo-yo you go on, and you never
become aware that both are useless. Like a pendulum of an old clock you move from one extreme to
another. Once the pendulum stops in the middle, the clock stops. Once you stop in the middle, time
disappears. Then you are no more part of this world. The clock stops...then you are part of eternity.
Watch the pendulum moving from left to right, from right to left. A very strange thing is happening.
When the pendulum is going to the right, you see it as going to the right. Ask the mechanic: he will say that
when the pendulum is going to the right it is gaining momentum to go to the left; when it is going to the left
it is gaining momentum to go to the right. So when you are unhappy, you are gaining momentum to be
happy. When you are happy, you are gaining momentum to be unhappy. When you are loving you are
gaining momentum to be hateful, and when you are hateful you are gaining momentum to be loving.
Once you understand this subtle mechanism, that mind tends to be always moving towards extremes,
you stop cooperating with the mind. Pessimist or optimist, both are within mind, and the real man of
understanding is beyond it.
It happened: Mulla Nasrudin was getting ready to apply to a local department store for a job. A friend
told him that it was the policy of the store to hire nobody but Catholic Christians, and that if he wanted a job
there he would have to lie about being a Catholic Christian.
Nasrudin applied for the job, and the personnel man asked him the usual questions. Then he said to the
Mulla, "To what church do you belong?"
"I am a Catholic," said Nasrudin, "and all my family are Catholics. In fact, my father is a priest and my
mother is a nun, sir."
To the whole way!
Remember to stop in the middle. That will bring balance, that will bring centering. For the first time you
will feel unperturbed, undistracted, and you will be able to accept both. Your acceptivity will become total.
You will not be angry because there are thorns, and you will not be ecstatic, exhilarated, excited, because
there are roses. You will see that both are, and both are good, both are needed. But you remain unaffected,
untouched, unscratched -- unscratched by the thorns and unscratched by the flower also. This is the goal.
I NEED TO TRUST SO BADLY, AND I SUFFER BECAUSE I DON'T. FROM WHERE AM I TO FIND THE
COURAGE TO TRUST MY KILLER?
PEOPLE who trust themselves can trust others. People who don't trust themselves cannot trust anybody.
Query:-
Out of self-trust, trust arises. If you are distrustful about yourself, then you cannot trust me -- you cannot
trust anybody. Because if you don't trust yourself, how can you trust your trust? It is going to be your trust.
Maybe you trust in me, but it is your trust -- you trust in me and you don't trust yourself. So it is not a
question about me, it is a deep question about yourself.
And who are these people who cannot trust themselves? Something has gone wrong somewhere.
First, these are the people who don't have a very good self-image; they are condemnatory towards
themselves. They always feel guilty and always feel wrong. They are always defensive and always trying to
prove that they are not wrong, but they feel deep down that they are wrong. These are the people who have
missed, somehow, a loving atmosphere.
Psychologists say that the person who cannot trust himself is bound to have some deep-rooted problem
with the mother. The mother-child relationship somewhere did not happen as it should. Because the mother
is the first person in the child's experience; if the mother trusts the child, if the mother loves the child, the
child starts loving the mother and trusting the mother. Through the mother the child becomes aware of the
world. The mother is the window from where he enters existence. And by and by, if there exists a beautiful
relationship between the child and the mother, a response, a deep sensitivity, a deep transfer of energies, a
flowering... then the child starts trusting others also. Because he knows the first experience was beautiful,
there is no reason to think that the second is not going to be beautiful. There is every reason to believe that
the world is good.
If in your childhood there was a deep milieu of love around you, you will become religious, trust will
arise. You will trust, trust will become your natural quality. Ordinarily, you will not distrust anybody unless
somebody tries hard to create distrust in you -- only then will you distrust. But distrust will be exceptional.
One man deceives you and tries hard to destroy your trust. Maybe trust in that man is destroyed, but you
will not start distrusting the whole humanity. You will say, "This is one man, and there are millions of men.
Just for one man, why distrust all?" But if the basic trust is lacking, and something has gone wrong between
you and your mother, then distrust becomes your basic quality. ]Then ordinarily, naturally, you distrust.
There is no need for anybody to prove. You distrust man, and then if somebody wants you to trust him he
will have to work hard, very hard. And even then, you will trust him conditionally. And even then, that trust
will not be very comprehensive. It will be very narrow; it will be arrowed at one person.
That is the problem. In the old times people were very trusting. SHRADDHA, trust, was a simple
quality. There was no need to cultivate it. In fact, if somebody wanted to become a great skeptic, doubting,
then great training was needed, great conditioning was needed. People were simply trustful because love
relationships were very, very deep. In the modern world love has disappeared, and trust is nothing but the
climax of love, the cream of love. Love has disappeared. Children are born into families where the father
and mother are not in love. Children are born -- the mother does not care, is not bothered about what
happens to them. In fact, she is annoyed because they are a disturbance, and they are disturbing her life.
Women are avoiding children, and if they happen it seems like an accident. And there is a deep negative
attitude. The child gets that negative attitude; he is poisoned from the very beginning. He cannot trust the
mother.
Just three or four days ago a sannyasin told me that during Primal Therapy here in the ashram, he came
across a childhood memory. He remembered, he could see it, that his mother had tried to kill him by
suffocating him. He could see the whole memory, again relived. Now his whole being is wavering,
trembling. And he's not an ordinary man; he himself is a psychotherapist. Now, he understands many things
that he had never understood before: why he seems to be so dead, stone-like, rock-like, unflowing, why he
cannot trust anybody, why he cannot move into love easily, why it is such a great effort, and even then,
something, somewhere goes wrong. He is not streaming -- the mother tried to suffocate him.
The basic trust lost, the tacit trust lost: "Even mother tried to kill me? Then who can be trusted?" --
impossible. Now this world is just inimical. One has to struggle; it is a survival of the fittest.
Many times I have wondered: somebody should try a psychoanalytical study of Charles Darwin.
Nobody has tried yet. There must have been something gone wrong between him and his mother, hence the
hypothesis of the survival of the fittest. In the same way one can have a psychoanalytical study of Prince
Kropotkin. There must have been a deep love relationship between him and his mother, so deep that he
contradicted Charles Darwin and tried to replace his theory of survival of the fittest with the theory of
cooperation. He said, "There is no conflict in life, but there is cooperation. In fact, when a tiger jumps on an
animal and eats the animal, this too is cooperation." How does he explain it? He says, "In fact, the moment
the tiger jumps on his prey, the prey relaxes, dies easily. There is no conflict. The prey becomes food for the
Query:-
tiger."
There must be a cooperation when you pick an apple from the tree and you eat it; there must be a deep
cooperation between the apple and you. Otherwise, the apple would create trouble in your body. It would go
on fighting you if there were a conflict. It would never allow itself to be absorbed by your body; it would
remain inimical. But it simply dissolves into you, becomes your blood, becomes your bones, becomes your
flesh. Kropotkin says, "There is tremendous cooperation in life." Even when a tiger jumps and kills the prey,
he says there is cooperation. Ask Charles Darwin: even when there are two friends deep in love, and they
are ready to die for each other, Darwin says that these are just pretensions. Deep inside there is conflict,
struggle, competition, jealousy.
A philosophy is not born out of the blue. A philosophy comes from your own existence, your own lived
experience. If the child has been deep in love with the mother and the mother has showered her love, that is
the beginning of all trust for the future. Then the child will make more loving relationships with women,
will make more loving relationships with friends, one day will be able to surrender to a Master -- and
finally, will be able to dissolve himself completely into God. But if the basic link is missing then the
foundation is missing. Then you try hard, but it becomes more and more difficult. That's what I feel about
the questioner.
"I need to trust so badly"...yes, because trust is nourishment. Without trust you remain hungry, you remain
starved. Trust is the most subtle nourishment for life. If you don't trust you cannot really live. You are
always in fear; you are surrounded by death, not by life. With a deep trust inside, the whole view changes.
Then you are at home and there is no conflict. Then you are not a stranger in the world. Then you are not an
alien, you are not a foreigner. You belong to the world, the world belongs to you. The world is happy that
you are -- the world is protecting you. This feeling of a deep protection gives courage, and gives courage to
move into unknown paths.
When the mother is in the home the child has courage. Have you watched it? He can go out on the road,
he can move into the garden, and he can do a thousand and one things. When the mother is not there he
simply sits inside, he is afraid. He cannot go out; the protection is not there, the protective aura is not there.
The atmosphere is totally alien.
It happened once....
I was staying with a friend. The couple had gone to attend some marriage ceremony and they had left
their small kid to play, and they said to me, "Just you watch." I was watching -- he was playing just outside
the porch. He fell, he looked all around, he looked at me. I looked at him very silently. He waited for a
single second to feel whether it was worth crying or not. But I was so neutral, as if I was not there, so he
shrugged his shoulders: "This fellow is useless." He started playing again. After half an hour when the
mother and the father arrived, he started crying. I said, "This is illogical. Half an hour has passed, now it
can't be hurting." He said, "That is not the question. But you looked towards me with such stoney eyes, so I
thought,'What is the point? Even if it hurts, it hurts. Crying is useless.' Now my mother has come." Now he
is in a different atmosphere -- now he can cry because he knows somebody is there to console, somebody is
there to feel for him, somebody is there who cares.
If you have lived a childhood of a deep showering of love and trust on you, you gather a beautiful
self-image about yourself. And if your parents have been really in deep love with each other, and they were
very happy in you because you were the culmination of their love, the crescendo of their love, the
actualization of their love; if they were deep in love, then you are the song that is born out of their love. You
are the proof, the evidence that they loved each other. You are their creation: they feel happy about you,
they accept you, and they accept the way you are. Even if they try to help you, they try to help you in a very
loving way. Even if they say sometimes, "Don't do this," you don't feel offended and you don't feel insulted.
In fact, you feel cared about.
But when the love is missing and the father and mother go on saying, "Don't do this," and, "Do this," by
and by the child starts learning that, "I am not accepted as I am. If I do certain things, I am loved. If I don't
do certain things, I am not loved. If I do some other things, I am hated."
So he starts shrinking. His pure being is not accepted and loved. The love is conditional; trust is lost.
Then he will never be able to have a beautiful self-image. Because it is mother's eyes which reflect you for
the first time, and if you can see happiness there, a bliss, a thrill, a great ecstasy just watching you, you
know you are valuable, you know you have intrinsic value. Then it is very easy to trust, very easy to
surrender, because you are not afraid. But if you know that you are wrong, then you are always trying to
prove that you are right. People become argumentative. All argumentative people basically are people who
Query:-
don't have good images of themselves. They are very defensive, very touchy. If there is some argumentative
person, and you say that, "This thing you have done wrong," he immediately jumps on you, becomes very
angry. He cannot even take a small friendly criticism. But if he has a good image about himself he is ready
to listen, he's ready to learn, he's ready to respect others' opinions. Maybe they are right, and even if they are
right and he is wrong, he is not worried because that doesn't matter. He remains good in his eyes.
People are touchy -- they don't want criticism, they don't want somebody to say to them to do this; they
don't want somebody to say to them not to do that. And these people think they cannot surrender because
they are very powerful. They are just ill, neurotic. Only a powerful man or woman can surrender --
weaklings, never. Because in surrender they think their weakness will be known to the whole world. They
know they are weak, they know their inferiority complex, so they cannot bow down. It is difficult for them,
because bowing down will be accepting that they are inferior. Only a superior person can bow down;
inferior persons can never bow down. They cannot respect anybody because they don't respect themselves.
They don't know what respect is, and they are always afraid of surrender because surrender means weakness
to them.
Remember it: surrender is possible if you are tremendously powerful; you are not worried about
surrender, you know that you can surrender and still you will not be weak. You can surrender and you will
not lose your willpower. In fact, by surrendering you are showing the greatest willpower there is.
So if you feel it difficult to trust, then you have to go back. You have to dig deep into your memories.
You have to go into your past. You have to clean your mind of the past impressions. You must be having a
great heap of rubbish from your past; unburden it.
This is the key to do it: if you can go back not just as memory, but as a reliving. Make it a meditation.
Every day, in the night, for one hour just go back. Try to find out all that has happened in your childhood.
The deeper you can go the better -- because we are hiding many things that have happened, but we don't
allow them to bubble up into consciousness. Allow them to surface. Going every day, you will feel deeper
and deeper. First you will remember somewhere when you were at the age of four or five, and you will not
be able to go beyond that. Suddenly, a China Wall will face you. But go -- by and by, you will see that you
are going deeper: three years, two years. People have reached to the point where they were born from the
womb. There have been people who have reached into the memories of the womb, and there are people who
have reached beyond that, into the other life when they died.
But if you can reach to the point where you were born, and you can relive that moment, it will be of
deep agony, pain. You will almost feel as if you are being born again. You may scream as the child
screamed for the first time. You will feel suffocated as the child felt suffocated when for the first time he
was out of the womb -- because for a few seconds he was not able to breathe. There was great suffocation:
then he screamed and the breath came, and his passages became open, his lungs started functioning. You
may have to move to that point. From there you come back. Go again, come back, every night. It will take at
least three to nine months, and every day you will feel more unburdened, more and more unburdened, and
trust will arise simultaneously, by the side. Once the past is clear and you have seen all that has happened,
you are free of it. This is the key: if you become aware of anything in your memory, you are freed from it.
Awareness liberates, unconsciousness creates a bondage. Then trust will become possible.
When you are here with me, you are again in another womb, you are again waiting for another birth.
That is the function of a Master -- to give you another birth, to make you DWIJA, twice born. One birth is
from mother and father, another birth is from the Guru, the Master. You are again in another womb, a
spiritual womb. You have to close accounts with your physical womb completely. You have to drop all
hang-overs with your physical birth so you can be totally herenow with me.
"I need to trust so badly..." Yes, that is the point: a person who cannot trust needs to trust very badly. And a
person who can trust is not even aware that he needs. The need arises when you are starving.
Psychologists have come across this -- that love is food. Just twenty years ago, if somebody had said
that love was subtle vitality, then scientists would have laughed. They would have thought, "You are a poet,
you live in illusion and dreams. Love and food? -- all nonsense." But now scientific researchers say, "Love
IS food." When a child is given food, that nourishes his body; and if love is not given, then his soul is not
nourished. His soul remains immature. Now there are ways to measure whether a child is being loved or not,
whether the warmth he needs is being given to him or not. You can give a child all the nourishment he
needs, all medical care he needs, in a hospital. Just remove the mother -- give him milk, medicine, care,
everything, but don't hug him, don't kiss him, don't touch him. Many experiments have been done. The
child, by and by, starts shrinking into himself. He becomes ill, and in most of the cases he dies, for no
Query:-
visible cause at all. Or, if he survives, he survives at the minimum: he becomes an imbecile, an idiot. He
will live, but he will live just on the fringe. He will never be deep in life; he has no energy. To hug the child,
to give your body's warmth to him is food, is very subtle food. Now this is being recognized, by and by.
Let me make you one prediction: after twenty or thirty years, psychologists will come to reveal that trust
is even a higher food, of a greater potency -- higher than love... Like prayer. Trust is prayerfulness, but it is
VERY subtle. You can feel it. If you have trust, you will suddenly see that with me you are going on a great
adventure, and your life starts immediately changing. If you don't have trust, you will stand there. I go on
talking, I go on pulling you; you are stuck -- somehow you go on missing me. Let your trust arise. That trust
will be a bridge between me and you. Then ordinary words become luminous, then just my presence can
become a womb, and you can be reborn.
"I need to trust so badly, and I suffer because I don't. From where am I to find the courage to trust my
killer?"
Yes, I am a killer, in a way. I have to kill you because that is the only way for you to be reborn. I have to
cut you completely from your past, I have to destroy your biography. Then only, the new can arise.
But if you have trust, you will be ready to die. If you have trust, you know resurrection is certain. I
cannot guarantee it; there is no way to guarantee it. Only trust is the guarantee. I can talk about it, I can
'poetize' about it, but that will create only dreams in you, not guarantees. I can tell what has happened to me,
I can allure you towards it, but it will not be a guarantee. "Who knows -- this man may be just Lying, or this
man may not be Lying, he may be just in illusion?" How to prove it? It is not a thing that I can show to you.
If you trust, then there is guarantee. In your trust is your guarantee.
You can trust me in two ways. That too has to be understood, because one way is a wrong way.
You can trust me because you feel insecure, alone. You can force trust because you can feel more secure
with me. That's how many people live in churches, organizations, religions. Somebody is a Christian,
somebody is a Hindu; it gives a certain security. You are not alone -- millions of Hindus, millions of
Christians -- you are not alone. "How can so many people be wrong? They must be right" -- so you hold,
hang with the crowd, just because you are afraid. Trust can arise because of fear -- then it is negative; it will
not give you a new birth. In fact, it will obstruct new birth. Trust can arise out of love; then it is right.
People who trust because they are afraid, because they want somebody to hang to, to cling to, they are
afraid and they want somebody's hand, they look at the sky and they pray to God just to feel unafraid. Have
you watched? Sometimes passing through a dark street in the night you start whistling, or you start singing
-- not that it is going to help. But it helps in a way. Singing, you become warmer. Singing, you become
occupied; fear is repressed. Whistling, you start feeling good. You forget that it is dark and it is dangerous,
but it makes no real change in reality. If there is fear and danger it is still there. In fact, it is more, because a
person who is engaged in singing can be robbed more easily because he will be less alert. He will be less
cautious while whistling. He is creating an illusion around him with whistling. If your trust arises out of
fear, it is better not to have that trust. It is false.
I have heard...
Mulla Nasrudin climbed into a barber's chair and asked, "Where is the barber who used to work on the
next chair?"
"Oh, that was a sad case," the barber said. "He became so nervous and despondent over poor business, that
one day when a customer said he did not want a massage, he went out of his mind and cut the customer's
throat with a razor. He is now in the state mental hospital. By the way, would you like a massage, sir?"
"Absolutely!" said Mulla Nasrudin.
Out of fear you can say 'absolutely', but that will not be trust. Trust is born out of love, and if you find
that you cannot trust, then you have to work hard. You have a very loaded past, wrongly loaded. You have
to clean it, clear it.
The third question:
I BELIEVE THERE IS A GOD. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING KEEPING THE UNIVERSE TOGETHER.
BUT DEEP IN MYSELF I DON'T FEEL THAT GOD IS THERE OR YOU ARE THERE, OR THAT GOD IS
WITH ME. I EXPERIENCE MYSELF AS LOST AND UNPROTECTED IN A THREATENING WORLD. IF
FEEL ONLY COMFORTABLE WHEN I AM ALONE. I MISS THAT BASIC TRUST. THE KNOWLEDGE I
Query:-
GATHERED, THE FEELINGS I HAVE FELT, THE EXPERIENCES I HAVE HAD, DID NOT LEAD ME TO AN
INNER TRUST.
CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME?
FIRST, belief is a pretension. Never believe in anything. Belief is pseudo-trust. It gives you a feeling as
if you trust. It is 'as if' trust; it is very dangerous. If you have not experienced anything of the divine, please
be honest. There is no need to trust, there is no need to believe in God. Don't make God a logical exercise.
The questioner says, "I believe there is a God. There MUST be something keeping the universe together."
This is a logical thing: the universe is there and things are really going together, everything is going
beautifully together, so the logical mind says, "There must be somebody who is keeping it together.
Existence is there, so somebody must have created it."
But God cannot be approached through logic. God can be approached only through love. God is not a
syllogism; it is not a conclusion. That's why scientists can never reach to God's truth. And people who were
real thinkers have always denied God -- because if you are REALLY thinking, you cannot believe in God.
God seems to be improbable, impossible, absurd. But logic can give you a false notion. It simply says that
when you see that the world is going together, you infer that somebody is keeping it together. Just say that
the world is going so tremendously together, that's all -- "I don't know why, I don't know who is keeping it
or whether anybody is keeping it. " The conclusion is not right; remember that you don't know. That
ignorance will be very, very helpful, because that ignorance will be sincere, authentic, true.
Now let me tell you -- you think that the world is going so together, that's why there must be a God.
There have been philosophers who say that just because the world is going so together, there cannot be a
God. Because if God is there, then sometimes He will get bored -- just the same repetitive world. Then there
will be some personality in the world. It is so mechanical: the stars go on moving, the sun goes on rising, the
earth goes on moving, the people are born, the fruits and the seeds and again the trees and the seasons. It
seems so mechanical, many philosophers say, because the world is going so absolutely correctly that there
cannot be a person behind it. Because sometimes a person changes also, and sometimes he gets fed-up also.
One day he thinks, "No more sunrise today. Enough is enough." One day he thinks, "Now, out of mango
seeds apples will arise. "
If there is a personality in the world, just think -- a Picasso painting the same painting every day. If out
of Picasso's house the same painting came every day, would it prove that there is a person inside, or there is
a mechanism? You never go inside the house. You don't know who is inside; just a painting is coming every
day on an assembly line. The same painting, everything perfect, accurate -- will it prove that there lives
inside a great painter, Picasso? or will it simply prove that there is a mechanism which goes on
reproducing? There are philosophers who say because the world is running so mechanically there cannot be
a personality behind it. Now what to do?
You say, the world is there: there must be a creator. There are philosophers who say that if the world
needs a creator, then the creator will also need a further creator. Who will create the creator? And if you say
that the creator needs no creator -- don't be foolish. Then they say, "Then what is the point? Then the world
can be without a creator, if the creator himself can be without the creator." So you have accepted the
principle basically that something can be without being created -- so the world can be without a creator. If
you go into logic you will be in trouble.
"This is a lesson in logic," said the old professor in the teahouse. "If the show starts at nine and dinner is at
six, and my son has the measles, and my brother drives a Cadillac, how old am I?"
"You are eighty-four," replied Mulla Nasrudin promptly.
"Right," said the professor. "Now tell the rest of the fellows here how you arrived at the correct answer."
"It is easy," said Nasrudin. "I have got an uncle who is forty-two, and he is only half nuts. You must be
eighty-four."
If you make God an exercise in logic, you will go nuts. Nobody has ever come out of the logical inquiry
sane. Nobody has ever come back sane, because the dimension is totally different -- it has nothing to do
with logic. It has something to do with the heart, something to do with love.
"I believe there is a God"; please don't believe, because that belief will become a rock and it will not allow
you to move deeper. Simply know that you don't know. Accept your ignorance. Don't hide behind a belief --
because there is possibility from ignorance, but there is no possibility from false, borrowed, logical
Query:-
knowledge. Logical knowledge is barren, love is fertile.

"I believe there is a God. There must be something keeping the universe together" -- this is not the way to
approach God -- "but deep in myself I don't feel that God is there." Of course...how can you feel, how can
you feel a logical proposition in the heart? Two plus two are four, certainly true -- but can you love this
proposition? Can you fall in love with two plus two is four? And if somebody denies it, will you be ready to
become a martyr for it because it is true? You will say, "Forget all about it. If you want to make two plus
two equal five, make it. Why should I lose my life for it?"
Nobody dies, stakes his life, for a logical proposition. It is not worth it. If somebody denies it, let it be
so. Two plus two is perfectly true, but not a truth of the category of God, not even a truth of the category of
Laila or Majnu. If your logic is proved wrong, nothing is proved wrong. You can change your logic. But if
your love is proved wrong, you can never be the same person again. If your love is proved wrong, you are
proved wrong. If your logic is proved wrong, nothing is proved wrong. You can change the logic; you
remain unaffected by it. "Deep in myself I don't feel God" -- because there is no way from belief to feeling.
They are not connected, so forget about belief. Otherwise there is a dangerous possibility: you may pretend
that you feel.
Many people pretend. They go to the church, to the temple, to the mosque and they pretend that they are
feeling for God. Their feeling is not feeling at all. In the temple you can see tears flowing down their eyes.
Outside the temple you never come across that man again, that man you had seen in the temple. You never
see him the same in the marketplace. That was just a mask: he was trying hard to feel. He was even ready to
cry and shed false tears, what you call the 'crocodile tears'. You can see him praying, but nothing is arising
out of his heart -- there is no fire inside, no passion -- the prayer is just verbal. He goes on repeating
something which he has been told to repeat; it is just parrot-like. Feeling arises only when you live in
tremendous, austere sincerity.
Forget about belief in God; there is no need. Just know that you don't know. This should be the
beginning: I don't know. Maybe God is there, maybe God is not there; I have to inquire. Now where to find,
how to find? If God is there, He must be the God of the trees and the birds and the animals also, not only of
man. Trees don't know any logic, birds don't know any logic, animals don't know any logic. If there is God
He must be the God of all. Logic is very local -- just a part, a very small part of the world. Humanity has a
small corner of the mind for mathematical and logical thinking.
The God must be the God of all, so forget about logic. Start approaching as the trees approach. Start
approaching as the rivers run towards the sea, start approaching as the birds approach, start approaching
through your being, your totality. Dance deeply. Forget about God, just dance deeply -- because in a great
dancing mood, in a moment, mind disappears; you become total. When you are really dancing and the
movement is fast, mind cannot function. Mind stops; you become a no-mind. You are, but you are not a
mind, and you don't think in terms of logic. You become a tree, a tree in a strong wind, a flower, a river, a
rock, a star, but you lose that small territory that is dominating you, the territory of logic. Suddenly you will
start a contact. You will feel you have been contacted by someone and you have contacted someone. A
dancer becomes religious, has to become. Sing -- and I'm not saying sing a religious song. If singing is true,
it is religious. What the words are does not matter. Run, swim, do something, and be lost in doing it.
Hence, I emphasize dynamic methods of meditation: dancing, singing, music, T'ai Chi, karate. Do
something, because when you do, you are part of the greater world of the trees, of birds, of animals. They
are doers, they are not thinkers. When you do something, suddenly you fall into the oceanic unity of
existence.
There is then a feeling that God is. But that God is not the God of Christians and Hindus and
Mohammedans. That God is your God. That has nothing to do with the Bible and Gita and Koran. That God
is YOUR God; that God has nothing to do with logic, syllogism, philosophy, dogma. That God is a felt,
lived experience. Then...then you will know, and there is no other way to know.
People are learning from scriptures, and the greatest scripture that has been given to you by existence
remains unopened. And through scriptures you get notions.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin went to see his lawyer about a divorce.
"What grounds do you think you have for a divorce?" the lawyer asked.
"It is my wife's manners," said the Mulla. "She has such bad table manners that she is disgracing the whole
family."
"That's bad," the lawyer said. "How long have you been married?"
Query:-
"Nine years," said the Mulla.

"If you have been able to put up with her table manners for nine years, I can't understand why you want a
divorce now," the lawyer said.
"Well," said Nasrudin, "I did not know it before. I just bought a book on etiquette this morning."
You first read the books, then you decide about life.
First move into life and then decide about books. And then you will be surprised that the Gita and the
Koran and the Bible are not three books, they are one book. Then Buddha and Christ and Krishna are not
three persons, but three voices of the same person. But if you are first caught up in the logical structure of
books, then you will never be able to know life. Try to become more natural. Forget all about God, the God
that is discussed in the universities and in the churches and the temples. Forget about that God. Be with the
God that is already surrounding you, that is your surround. This moment the cuckoo goes on doing her
prayer, the birds go on doing THEIR prayer. Look at the trees, at how prayerful they are. The whole
existence is in prayer, and what are you doing sitting inside your skull thinking about whether God exists or
not?
"He must exist because the world is going so beautifully together. "
The world IS going beautifully together. Become part of this togetherness, dissolve into this
togetherness! When the river is flowing by, why not jump into it? What are you doing sitting on the bank
with closed eyes thinking the river must be there because...? Drop all these 'becauses'.
The inner trust arises only when you have a live contact with God. Do whatsoever you can do, but
please don't become just heads. Nothing is wrong with the head if it goes together with your totality. The
wrongness enters when it becomes a part, apart, and it starts dominating the whole. Get back down into your
belly from the head! Come back to your senses, become more earthly.
That's the message of the Bauls: become more true and real. When you are real, God is real; when you
are true, God is true -- because when you are true you are capable of contact with the truth of existence.
When you are real you are suddenly in harmony with the whole. When you are false, then the problem
arises of whether God exists or not. When the problem arises of whether God exists or not, that simply
shows that you have lost your harmony with the whole. Get into harmony, get into line, fall into line again.
Come back, be more real and true.
That is the whole message of all religions, of religion as such. That's why Buddha and Mahavir don't
talk about God they say, "There is no need." Mahavir talks about truth: "Be true, be authentic, and you will
be Gods." Just by being true you come closer to truth. It's simple. Can't you see such a simple point: that by
being true, you come closer to truth?
Belief is false, borrowed knowledge is false. Drop all that is borrowed. You may feel poorer for the time
being, because your knowledge gives you very great ego, that'I know'. Knowing that you don't know, you
may feel poor for a few days, you may feel like a beggar. But If you are ready to be true, suddenly one day
the conversion happens. When you have lost all borrowed knowledge, something arises in you which was
waiting and waiting. Something arises in you and fills your whole space of consciousness. That is what God
is.
God is nothing but life. God is not a person; God is the energy you are, God is the energy the trees are,
God is the energy the stars are. Everything is made of the stuff -- God. God is not the creator, God is this
creation. This very moment you are in the ocean of God, but He is so close and you are so far away in your
head that bridges are missing.
The last question:
BELOVED OSHO, HOW COME I'M SO CRAZY ABOUT YOU?
I attract crazy people; I am crazy, that's why.

But crazy people are beautiful people. They are the only sane people is the world. That is the meaning of
the word 'Baul'. Baul means crazy, mad. I am a Baul, and I attract Bauls -- that's why.
Query:-
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #5
Chapter title: Die Living

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 97 mins
THE MAN THAT BREATHES

LIVES ON THE AIR,
AND THE OTHER, UNSEEN,
RESTS ABOVE REACH.
BETWEEN THE TWO
MOVES ANOTHER MAN
AS A SECRET LINK.
WORSHIP KNOWINGLY.
IT IS A SPORT
AMONGST THE THREE OF THEM.
MY SEARCHING HEART,
WHOM DO YOU SEEK?
BETWEEN THE DOORS

OF BIRTH AND DEATH,
STANDS YET ANOTHER DOOR,
WHOLLY INEXPLICABLE.
HE WHO IS ABLE
TO BE BORN
AT THE DOOR OF DEATH,
IS DEVOTED ETERNALLY....
DIE BEFORE DYING,

DIE LIVING.
RELIGION is a very complex phenomenon. Its complexity has to be understood.

There are seven types of religions in the world. The first type is ignorance-oriented. Because people
cannot tolerate their ignorance, they hide it. Because it is difficult to know that one does not know, it is
against the ego, people believe. Their belief systems function to protect their egos. They are helpful, but in
the long range they are very harmful. In the beginning they seem to be protecting, but finally they are very
destructive. The very orientation is in ignorance.
Religion is light, religion is understanding, religion is awareness, religion is authenticity. But a major
part of humanity remains in the first type of religion. It is simply to avoid the reality, to avoid the gap that
one feels in one's own being, to avoid the black hole of ignorance.
Query:-
The people of the first type are the fanatics. They cannot even tolerate that there can be other sorts of
religions in the world. Their religion is THE religion. Because they are so afraid of their ignorance, if there
is some other religion also then they will become suspicious, then doubt will arise. Then they will not be so
certain. To gain certainty they become very stubborn, madly stubborn. They cannot read others' scriptures,
they cannot listen to other nuances of truth, they cannot be tolerant to other revelations of God. THEIR
revelation is the only revelation, and their prophet is the only prophet. Everything else is absolutely false.
These people talk in terms of absolute, while a man of understanding is always relative.
These people have done great harm to religion. Because of these people, religion itself looks a little
stupid. Remember not to be a victim of this first sort. Almost ninety percent of humanity lives in this first
sort of religion, and that is in no way better than irreligion. Maybe it is worse -- because an irreligious
person is not fanatic. An irreligious person is more open, at least ready to listen, ready to talk things out,
ready to argue, ready to seek and inquire. But the first type of religious person is not even ready to listen.
When I was a student in the university I used to stay with one of my professors. His mother was a very
devout Hindu; completely uneducated, but very religious.
One day on a cold winter night, fire was burning in the room in the fireplace, and I was reading RIG
VEDA. She came by the way and she asked, "What are you reading so late in the night?" Just to tease her, I
said, "This is the Koran." She jumped over me, took away the RIG VEDA and threw it in the fireplace and
said, "Are you a Mohammedan? How do you dare to bring the Koran in my house!"
Next day I told her son, my professor, that, "Your mother is a Mohammedan" -- because this sort of
thing has only been known to be done by Mohammedans.
Mohammedans burnt one of the greatest treasures of the world, the library of Alexandria. The library
was the greatest in the ancient world. The fire continued for almost six months, the library was so big. It
took six months for it to be burnt down completely. And the man who burnt it was a Mohammedan,
Calipha. His logic is the logic of the first type of religion. He came with a Koran in one hand and with a
burning torch in the other, and he asked the librarian, "I have a simple question. In this big library, millions
of books are there...."
Those books contained all that humanity had learned up to that time, and it was really more than we
know now. That library contained every information about Lemuria, Atlantis, and all the scriptures of
Atlantis, the continent that disappeared into the Atlantic. It was the ancient-most library, a great preserve.
Had it still been, humanity would have been totally different -- because we are rediscovering many things
which had already been discovered.
This Calipha said, "If this library contains only that which is contained in the Koran, then it is not
needed; it is superfluous. If it contains more than is contained in the Koran, then it is wrong. Then it has to
be destroyed immediately. Either way it has to be destroyed. If it contains the same as the Koran, then it is
superfluous. Why manage such a big library unnecessarily? The Koran is enough. And if you say that it
contains many more things than the Koran, then those things are bound to be wrong, because the Koran is
THE truth."
Holding the Koran in one hand, he started the fire with the other hand -- in the name of the Koran.
Mohammed must have cried and wept that day in heaven, because in his name, the library was being burnt.
This is the first type of religion. Always remain alert, because this stubborn man exists in everybody.
I was reading just the other night....
The two old codgers had equal reputations for being stubborn. When they encountered each other in
situations where one had to give in, a third party usually had to settle the issue. One day the old fellows,
each driving a large load of hay, met on a narrow lane. Both determined not to give an inch.
Finally one said to the other, "I am prepared to stay here as long as you want to wait." He took out his
newspaper and began to read. The other filled his pipe and smoked contentedly. After half an hour of
silence he leaned forward and called out to his neighbor, "Would you mind letting me read the paper when
you are through?"
THIS stubborn man exists in everybody, and this is the lowest type of man. It exists in Hindus, it exists
in Mohammedans, it exists in Christians, Buddhists, Jains -- it exists in everybody
And everybody has to be aware not to get caught. Only then can you rise to higher sorts of religion.
The problem with this first type of religion is that we are almost always brought up in it. We are
conditioned in it, so it becomes almost normal. It looks normal. A Hindu is brought up with the idea that
others are wrong. Even if he is taught to be tolerant, that tolerance is of one who knows towards others who
Query:-
don't know. A Jain is ABSOLUTELY brought up with the belief that only he is right; others are all ignorant,
stumbling, groping in darkness. This conditioning can become so deep that you may forget that this is a
conditioning, and that you have to go above it.
Mulla Nasrudin was telling a friend his future through palmistry. He said, "You will be poor and
unhappy and miserable until you are sixty."
"Then what?" asked the man hopefully.
"By that time," said Nasrudin, "you will be used to it."
That's the problem: one can become used to a certain conditioning, and one can start thinking as if it is
one's nature, or as if it is the truth. So one has to be very alert and watchful to find this lowest possibility in
oneself and not get caught in it.
Sometimes we go on working hard in transforming our lives, and we go on believing in the first type of
religion. The revolution is not possible -- because you are trying something which is so low that it cannot be
really religious. The first type of religion is just religion in name; it should not be called religion.
One man was saying to another, "My son-in-law, the doctor, has been treating a patient for yellow
jaundice for twenty years. He just found out the man was Chinese."
"Ain't that something?" said the other man.
"What is terrible is, he cured him."
Twenty years treating a man for yellow jaundice -- he may be a Chinese, but how long can he protect
himself? If continuously you work on yourself with a wrong attitude, your nature starts yielding. You start
functioning the way you want to function. Yes, the habit can become second nature. Unfortunately,
sometimes it becomes first nature, and nature is completely forgotten.
The characteristic of the first sort of religion is imitation. It insists on imitation: imitate Buddha, imitate
Christ, imitate Mahavir, but imitate. Imitate somebody. Don't be yourself, be somebody else. And if you are
very stubborn you can force yourself to be somebody else.
You will never be somebody else. Deep down you cannot be. You will remain yourself, but you can
force so much that you almost start looking like somebody else.
Each man is born with a unique individuality, and each man has a destiny of his own. Imitation is crime,
it is criminal. If you try to become a Buddha, you may become an imitation Buddha. You may look like
Buddha, you may walk like Buddha, you may talk like Buddha, but you will miss. You will miss all that life
was ready to deliver to you. Because Buddha happens only once. It is not in the nature of things to repeat.
God is so creative that He never repeats anything. You cannot find another human being in the present, in
the past, or in the future, who is going to resemble you exactly. It has never happened. Man is not a
mechanism. He is not like Ford cars on an assembly line; you can produce millions alike, exactly alike. Man
is a soul, is individual. Imitation is poisonous. Never imitate anybody, otherwise you will be a victim of the
first sort of religion, which is not religion at all.
Then there is the second type. The second type is fear-oriented.
Man IS afraid, the world IS a strange world, and man wants to be secure, safe. In childhood the father
protects, the mother protects. But there are many people, millions of them, who never grow beyond their
childhoods. They remain stuck somewhere, and they still need a father and a mother. Hence God is called
the Father or the Mother. They need a divine Father to protect them; they are not mature enough to be on
their own. They need some security.
One psychologist, Winnicott, has been working with a particular problem with small children for many
years, and he has discovered many beautiful things. They are pertinent.
You may have watched small children with their teddy bear, or their toy, their special toy, or their
blanket, or something that has a special personality to the child. The teddy bear...you cannot replace the
teddy bear. You may say that you can find a better one, but that doesn't matter. There is a love relationship
between the child and HIS teddy bear. His teddy bear is unique; you cannot replace it. It becomes dirty, it
becomes smelly, rotten, but the child goes on carrying it. You cannot find a new one, a fresh one. Even
parents have to tolerate it. Even they have to respect, because a child feels offended. If the parents are going
to travel, they have to tolerate the teddy bear also; they have to treat it almost as a member of the family.
They know this is foolish, but for the child it has significance.
What significance does the teddy bear have for the child? It is objective in a way. It is there, outside the
child; it is part of reality. Certainly it is not just imagination, it is not just subjective; it is not a dream, it is
there. But it is not totally there; many of the child's dreams are involved in it. It is object, objective, but
Query:-
much subjectivity is involved in it. For the child it is almost alive. The child has projected many things onto
the teddy bear. He talks to the teddy bear, sometimes he becomes angry and throws it away, then says'I am
sorry' and takes it back. It has a personality, almost human. Without the teddy bear he cannot go to sleep.
Holding, hugging, he goes to sleep; he feels secure. With the teddy bear the world is okay, everything is
okay. Without the teddy bear he is suddenly alone.
So the teddy bear exists in a totally new dimension which is neither subjective nor objective. Winnicott
calls it 'the transitory realm': a little objective and a little subjective. Many children grow physically, but
they never grow spiritually, and they need teddy bears all their lives. Your images of God in the temple are
nothing but teddy bears.
So when a Hindu goes into the Hindu temple, he sees something which a Mohammedan cannot see. The
Mohammedan can only see a stone statue. The Hindu sees something which nobody else can see; it is his
teddy bear. It is objectively there, but not totally objective. Much subjectivity of the worshipper is projected
on it; t functions as a screen.
You go to a Jain temple. You may be a Hindu, but in a Jain temple you will not feel any reverence
arising in you. Sometimes you may even feel a little offended, because Mahavir, his statue, is nude, naked.
You may feel a little offended. You may like to go out as soon as possible; you may not feel any respect.
But then there comes a Jain with tremendous respect; it is his teddy bear, and he feels very protected.
So whenever you are in fear, you start remembering God. Your God is a by-product of your fear. When
you are feeling good, unafraid, you don't bother. There is no need.
THE second type of religion is fear-oriented. It is very ill.

It is almost neurotic -- because maturity only comes to you when you realize that you ARE alone, and
you have to be alone, and you have to face the reality as it is. These transitory teddy bears are just of your
imagination; they are not going to help. If something is going to happen, it is going to happen; the teddy
bear cannot protect you. If death is going to happen, it is going to happen. You go on calling to God, but
protection cannot come to you. You are calling nobody, you are simply calling out of fear. Maybe calling
loudly gives you a certain courage.
Maybe praying...prayer gives you a certain courage, but there is no God to respond to it. There is
nobody who is going to respond to your prayer. But if you have an idea that somebody is there to respond to
your prayer, you may feel a little relieved, relaxed.
Once I saw Mulla Nasrudin praying very devoutly. When he had finished his NAMAJ, I asked him,
"Mulla, there must be some problem; you were praying so deeply. Please answer my one question: is your
prayer ever answered?"
He said, "Yes, one way or the other."
But if the prayer is answered one way or the other, what is the point of it? Yes, sometimes it coincides
with facts, sometimes it does not coincide with the facts, but your prayer makes no difference to the facts. It
may make a little difference in your mind, but it makes no difference in reality.
The fear-oriented religion is the religion of 'don't': don't do this, don't do that -- because fear is negative.
The Ten Commandments are all fear-oriented -- don't do this, don't do that -- as if religion is nothing but
avoiding -- don't do this, don't do that -- closing oneself in safety and security, never taking any risk, never
moving on the dangerous path, in fact not allowing yourself to be alive. Just as the first type of religion is
stupid, fanatic, the second type of religion is negative. It gives a certain stiffness, up-tightness. It is childish.
It is a search for security which is nowhere possible, because life exists as insecurity. God exists as
insecurity, danger, and risk.
THE key word for the fear-oriented religion is "hell', and of course, repression, continuous repression:
don't do this. The second type of person is always afraid -- what to eat, what not to eat, whether to love a
woman or not to love a woman, whether to make a house or not to make a house. And whatsoever you
repress, you are never free of it; in fact, the more and more you are in its power. Because when you repress
a thing it goes deeper into your unconscious. It reaches to your very roots and poisons your whole being.
I have heard....
An old-timer was seeing a movie for the first time. He was known to be a very religious man, a man
who used to do his prayer regularly, fulfill all the duties, had never been known to get involved in any sort
of problematic situations. He was, in short, a very simple man -- but not so simple inside. At one point in
the feature, a bevy of shapely girls dashed across the screen. They crossed a railroad track, reached a
Query:-
swimming pool and began to disrobe for the plunge. They had taken off their shoes, stockings, shirts, skirts,
and were beginning on...and a passing freight train sped across the screen and obscured the view. When it
had passed, the next scene showed the girls frolicking in the water.
The old-timer saw the show again and again and again. At length an usher tapped him on the shoulder.
"Are you not ever going home?" he asked.
"Oh, I reckon not yet for awhile," said the old-timer. "One of these times that darned train is going to be
late."
Deep inside you will always carry whatsoever is repressed. You may follow the religion as ritual, but it
will never become your heart.
For centuries European Jews were the victims of organized persecution, called pogroms. These pogroms
took place so often that Jews developed a sense of humor about them.
In a small town in Poland, soldiers broke into the house of Ostrovoski and his family. Living with him
were his wife, three daughters, two sons, and his very aged and religious mother. She was known around
almost as a saint.
"Line up!" shouted the sergeant in charge. "We are gonna beat up all the men and rape all the women!"
"Wait," pleaded Ostrovoski. "You can wallop me and my sons, abuse my wife and daughters, but please sir,
I beg you, don't rape my mother. She is seventy-five years old and very religious."
"Shut up!" yelled the old woman. "A pogrom is a pogrom!"
Remember, repression is not a way towards freedom. Repression is worse than expression, because
through expression a person is BOUND to become free one day or other. But through repression, one
always remains obsessed. Only life gives you freedom. A lived life gives you freedom, an unlived life
remains very attractive, and the mind goes on roaming around whatsoever you have repressed.
Smulovitz, aged eighty-three and widowed, refused to be placed in just any Miami Beach old-age home.
"I won't eat anything," he declared to his son, "unless it is strictly kosher."
The son searched for weeks and finally found a place that served meals in accordance with the Jewish
dietary laws. He placed his old father in the home, secure in the knowledge that his father would be eating
only kosher food.
Three days later he came for a visit and learned that the old man had left and checked into the
Fontainbleau Hotel. The boy rushed over to the hotel, got a key, went upstairs, opened the door, and there
was his father in bed with a blonde. They were both stark naked.
"Poppa, how could you?" asked the bewildered boy.
"But look," said the old man, "I'm not eating."
People who live through rituals out of fear may avoid one thing, but they will fall into another -- because
the understanding is not their own. It is just fear-oriented. It is hell they are afraid of.
A real religion gives you fearlessness: let that be the criterion. If religion gives you fear, then it is not
really religion.
The third type of religion is out of greed.
It is a 'do' religion. Just as the fear-oriented is a 'don't' religion, the greed-oriented is a 'do' religion: do
this. And just as the fear-oriented religion has the key word 'hell', the religion of greed has the key word
'heaven'. Everything is to be done in such a way that the world -- the other world -- is completely secure and
your happiness beyond death is guaranteed.
'Do' religion or greed religion is formal, ritualistic, ambitious, desire-oriented. It is full of desires. See
the Mohammedan concept of paradise, or the Christian concept of paradise, or the Hindu concept of
paradise. Degrees may be different, but this is a very strange thing: all that these people say one has to deny
oneself in this life, they go on providing in heaven in great quantities. You are to be celibate here just to
achieve heaven where beautiful APSARAS, always young, stuck at the age of sixteen, are available.
Mohammedans say, "Don't take any alcoholic beverage. But in heaven, rivers of wine! No need to be
worried."
But this seems to be absurd. If something is wrong, it is wrong. How can it become good and right in
heaven? Then Omar Khayam is right. He says, "If in heaven rivers of wine are available then let us practice
here, because if we go unpracticed, it will be difficult to live in paradise. So let this life be a little rehearsal,
so that we have the taste, and we have the capacity." Then Omar Khayam seems to be more logical. In fact,
he is joking against the Mohammedan concept of paradise. It is foolish; the whole concept is foolish. But
people become religious out of greed.
Query:-
One thing is certain: that whatsoever you accumulate here will be taken away; death will take it away.
So the greedy person wants to accumulate something which cannot be taken by death. But the accumulating
idea, the desire to accumulate, remains there. Now he accumulates virtue. Virtue is the coin of the other
world. He goes on accumulating virtue so he can live in the other world forever and forever, in lust.
This type of man is basically worldly. His other world is nothing but a projection of this world. He will
do because he has desires, and he has ambition, and he has a power-lust, but his doing will not be of the
heart. It will be a sort of manipulation.
Mulla Nasrudin and his young son were driving in the country one winter. It was snowing; their
bullock-cart broke down. They finally reached a farm-house and were welcomed for the night. The house
was cold and the attic in which they were invited to spend the night was like an icebox. Stripping to his
underwear, the Mulla jumped into a featherbed and pulled the blankets over his head. The young man was
slightly embarrassed.
"Excuse me, Dad," he said. "Don't you think we ought to say our prayers before going to bed?"
The Mulla stuck one eye out from under the covers. "Son," he said, "I keep prayed up ahead for
situations just like this one."
Then things are just on the surface. Greed and fear and ignorance are just on the periphery.
These are three sorts of religions -- and they are all mixed together. You cannot find a person who is
absolutely, purely of the first type or the second type or the third type. Wherever greed is, there is fear;
wherever fear is, there is greed; and wherever greed and fear exist, there is ignorance -- because they cannot
exist without them. So I am not talking about pure types. I am classifying simply so that you can understand
well. Otherwise they are all mixed.
These three are the lowest types of religion. They should not be called religions.
Then there is the fourth type: the religion of logic, calculation, cleverness.
It is 'do' plus 'don't' religion: worldly, materialistic, opportunistic, intellectual, theoretical, scriptural,
traditional. This is the religion of the PUNDITS, the learned scholar who tries to prove God through logic,
who thinks that the mysteries of life can be understood through the head.
This type of religion creates theology. It is not really religion but just a very faint carbon copy of it. But
all the churches are based on it. When a Buddha exists in the world, or a Mohammed, or a Krishna, or a
Christ, then pundits and scholars and learned people, intellectually clever and cunning people, gather
together around them. They start working hard: "What does Jesus mean?" They start creating a theology, a
creed, a dogma, a church. They are very successful people because they are very logical people. They
cannot give you God, they cannot give you truth, but they give you great organizations. They give you the
Catholic Church, the Protestant Church. They give you great theologies, just clevernesses, nothing of the
real experience; just intellectual, head-oriented. Their whole edifice is as if one is making a house of cards:
a small breeze and the house is gone. Their whole edifice is such, as if one is trying to sail in a boat of
paper. It looks like a real boat, the form is of a boat, but it is a paper boat. It is doomed, it is already
doomed. Logic is a paper boat. And life cannot be understood through logic.
I have heard about one American:
A very wealthy American was convinced that an atomic war was just around the corner, and determined
that he would survive it. He bought an acre of land in the middle of the Arizona desert and employed a labor
force to build him a home five miles underground. It was to be encased in lead fifty yards thick, and
equipped with its own power plant which would supply sufficient electricity to give him light, heat, and
purified air for at least ten years. Frozen food, water, cigars, alcoholic refreshment, for the same period of
time had to be provided, together with every conceivable aid to luxurious living. The job was completed in
three years at a cost of five hundred thousand million dollars.
The proud owner went to the desert to inspect it, and a red Indian shot him in the back with an arrow.
That's how life is: you make all the arrangements and just one arrow is enough to finish you. Man is
very fragile. How can man's logic understand reality? Man is so limited, his understanding is so
short-sighted. No, there is no way through logic. Through logic a philosophy is born, but not real religion.
THESE four are ordinarily known as religion.

The fifth, sixth and seventh are the real religions. The fifth is the religion based on intelligence; not on
logic, not on intellect, but on intelligence. And there is a lot of difference between intellect and intelligence.
Intellect is logical; intelligence is paradoxical. Intellect is analytical; intelligence is synthetical. Intellect
divides, cuts into pieces to understand a thing. Science is based on intellect, dissection, division, analysis.
Query:-
Intelligence joins things together, makes a whole out of parts -- because this is one of the greatest
understandings: that the part exists through the whole, not vice versa. And the whole is not just the sum of
the parts, it is more than the sum.
For example, you can have a rose flower, and you can go to a scientist, to a logician. You can ask him,
"I want to understand this rose flower"; what will he do? He will dissect it, he will separate all the elements
that are making it a flower. When you go next you will find the flower gone. Instead of the flower there will
be a few labelled bottles. The elements have been separated, but one thing is certain -- there will not be any
bottle on which will be the label 'beauty'.
Beauty is not matter and beauty does not belong to parts. Once you dissect a flower, once the wholeness
of the flower is gone, beauty is also gone. Beauty belongs to the whole, it is the grace that comes to the
whole. It is more than the sum. Then only parts are there. You can dissect a man; the moment you dissect,
life disappears. Then you know only a dead body, a corpse. You can find out how much aluminium is there
and how much iron and how much water (eighty percent or something); you can find the whole mechanism
the lungs, the kidneys, everything -- but one thing is not there: life. One thing is not there that was the most
valuable. One thing is not there that we wanted to understand really, and everything else is there.
Now even scientists are becoming alert that when you take blood out of a man's bloodstream and you
examine it, it is no longer the same blood. Inside the bloodstream of the man it was alive, throbbing with
life. Now it is just a corpse. It cannot be the same because the gestalt has changed. You can take the color of
the rose flower from it, but is it the same color? It looks the same but it cannot be the same. Where is that
fragileness? Where is that aliveness, that throb of life? When it was in the rose flower it was in a totally
different arrangement and life was present. It was full of presence; God was there beating in its heart. Taken
out, the part is there but you cannot say the part is the same. It cannot be because the part exists in the
whole.
Intellect dissects, analyzes. It is the instrument of science. Intelligence is the instrument of religion; it
joins together. Hence, the greatest science of spirituality we have called Yoga. Yoga means the
methodology to join. Yoga means to put things together. God is the greatest totality, all things together. God
is not a person, God is a presence, the presence when the total is functioning in a great harmony -- the trees
and the birds and the earth and the stars and the moon and the sun and the rivers and the ocean -- all
together. That togetherness is God. If you dissect, you will never find God. Dissect a man; you cannot find
the presence that was making him alive. Dissect the world; you cannot find the presence that is God.
Intelligence is the method to join things together. An intelligent person is very synthetical. He always
looks for a higher whole, because the meaning is always in the higher whole. He always looks for
something higher in which the lower is dissolved and functions as a part, functions as a note in the harmony
of the whole, gives its own contribution to the orchestra of the whole but is not separate from it. Intelligence
moves upwards, intellect moves downwards. Intellect goes to the cause.
Please follow it; the point is delicate.
Intellect goes to the cause; intelligence goes to the goal. Intelligence moves into the future, intellect
moves in the past. Intellect reduces everything to the lowest denominator. If you ask what love is, intellect
will say it is nothing but sex -- the lowest denominator. If you ask what prayer is, the intellect will say it is
nothing but repressed sex.
Ask intelligence what sex is, and intelligence will say it is nothing but the seed of prayer. It is the
potential love. Intellect reduces to the lowest; it reduces everything to the lowest. Ask intellect what a lotus
is, and it will say it is nothing, just an illusion; the reality is the mud -- because the lotus comes out of the
mud and again falls back into the mud. The mud is the real, the lotus is just an illusion. Mud remains, the
lotus comes and goes.
Ask intelligence what mud is, and intelligence will say, "It is the potentiality of being a lotus." Then
mud disappears and millions of lotuses flower.
Intelligence goes to the higher and higher and the higher, and the whole effort is to reach to the ultimate,
to the pinnacle of existence. Because things can be explained only through the higher, not through the
lower. You don't explain through the lower, you explain away. And when the lower becomes too important,
all beauty is lost, all truth, all good. Everything that has any significance is lost. Then you start crying,
"Where is meaning in life?"
In the West, science destroyed every value and reduced everything to matter. Now everybody is worried
about what is the meaning of life, because meaning exists in the higher whole. See, you are alone; you feel,
Query:-
"What is the meaning of life?" Then you fall in love with a woman; a certain meaning arises. Now two have
become one -- a little higher. A single man is a little. Lower than a couple. A couple is a little higher. Two
things have joined together. Two opposite forces have mingled, the feminine and the male energies. Now it
is more of a circle.
That's why in India we have the concept of ARDHANARISHWAR. Shiva is painted as half woman and
half man. The concept of ARDHANARISHWAR says that man is half, and woman is half. When a man and
woman meet in deep love, a higher reality arises: certainly greater, more complex, because two energies are
meeting.
Then a child is born; now there is a family -- more meaning. Now the father feels a meaning in his life:
the child has to be brought up. He loves the child, he works hard, but work is now no longer work. He is
working for his child, for his beloved, for his home. He works, but the hardness of the work has
disappeared. He is not dragging it. Tired of the whole day, he comes home dancing. Seeing the smile on his
child's face, he is tremendously happy. A family is a higher unit than the couple, and so on and so forth.
And God is nothing but the communion of all, the greatest family of all.
That's why I go on calling these orange people my family. I would like you to disappear in the whole. I
would like you to be so absorbed in the whole that you remain individual, but you become part of a greater
unity, bigger than you. Meaning arises IMMEDIATELY whenever you become part of a greater unity.
When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises -- because the poet is not alone; he has created something.
When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut
from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The
bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning. That's why I say God is the biggest conceivable whole, and
without God you cannot attain to the highest meaning. God is not a person; God is not sitting somewhere.
Those ideas are just stupid. God is the total presence of existence, the being, the very ground of being.
GOD exists wherever there is union; wherever there is Yoga, God comes into existence. You are
walking alone; God is fast asleep. Then suddenly you see somebody and you smile; God is awakened, the
other has come in. Your smile is not isolated, it is a bridge. You have thrown a bridge towards the other.
The other has also smiled, there has been a response. Between you both arises that space I call God -- a little
throb. When you come to the tree and you sit by the side of the tree, completely oblivious to the existence of
the tree, God is fast asleep. Then suddenly you look at the tree, and an upsurge of feeling for the tree and
God has arisen.
Wherever there is love, God is; wherever there is response, God is. God is the space; it exists wherever
union exists. That's why I say love is the purest possibility of God, because it is the subtlest union of
energies.
Hence the insistence of the Bauls that love is God. Forget God, love will do. But never forget love,
because God alone won't do.
Intelligence is discrimination, understanding. Truth is the key word, sat. The man who moves through
intelligence moves towards SAT, truth.
Higher than intelligence is the sixth type of religion. I call it the religion of meditation.
Meditation is awareness, spontaneity, what the Bauls call SAHAJA MANUSH, the spontaneous man.
Freedom -- it is non-traditional, it is radical, revolutionary, individual. The key word is CHIT,
consciousness. Intelligence is still the highest form of intellect, intelligence is the purest form of intellect.
The ladder is the same. Intellect is going downwards on the same ladder, intelligence is going upwards, but
the ladder is the same. In meditation the ladder is thrown. Now, no more movement on the same ladder,
neither upwards nor downwards. Now, no more movement, but a state of no-movement inside, a drowning
into oneself, a sinking in.
Intellect is other-oriented; intelligence is also other-oriented. Intellect cuts the other, intelligence joins
the other, but both are other-oriented. So if you understand rightly, the first four types of religion I don't call
religion. They are pseudo-religions. Real religion starts with the fifth type, and that is the lowest, but REAL.
The sixth type of religion is that of meditation, consciousness, CHIT. One simply moves into oneself. All
directions are dropped, all dimensions dropped. One simply tries to be oneself, one simply tries just to be.
That is where Zen exists, in the sixth type of religion. The very word 'Zen' means DHYANA, meditation.
Then comes the highest type of religion, the seventh: the religion of ecstasy, SAMADHI.
Just as the fifth type has the key word SAT, truth, and the sixth type, the religion of meditation, has the
key word CHIT, consciousness, the seventh. the highest, has ANAND, bliss, ecstasy. That is the key word:
Query:-
SAT-CHIT-ANANDA, truth, consciousness, ecstasy.

The Bauls belong to the seventh type -- joy, celebration, song, dance, ecstasy -- ANAND. They make
meditation tremendously joyful -- because a person can be meditative and can become sad. A person can be
meditative and can become very silent and may miss bliss. Because meditation can make you silent,
absolutely still, but unless dance happens in it, something is missing. Peace is good, peace is very beautiful,
but something is lacking in it; bliss is lacking. When peace starts dancing it is bliss. When peace becomes
active, overflowing, it is bliss. When bliss is enclosed in a seed it is peace. And when the seed has sprouted,
not only that, but the tree has bloomed and the flowers have come and the seed has become a bloom, then it
is SAMADHI. That is the highest type of religion.
Peace has to dance and silence has to sing. And unless your innermost realization becomes a laughter,
something is still lacking. Something still has to be done.
That's where the Bauls enter. Their religion is that of ecstasy. Now the song for today:

LIVES ON THE AIR,
RESTS ABOVE REACH.
BETWEEN THE TWO
MOVES ANOTHER MAN
AS A SECRET LINK.
WORSHIP KNOWINGLY.
The man that breathes, and the man that lives beyond... between these two there is a third man, the link:
body, psyche, and soul. Or, you can use the Christian Trinity -- God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Body is THE MAN THAT BREATHES. By breathing, the body is alive. The breath goes into your
body; it gives PRANA, vitality, to your body. Without breath the body would disappear, because without
breath the body would be disconnected from the atmosphere. The atmosphere is continuously pouring its
own being into your being. Exhaling, inhaling -- atmosphere is continuously keeping you alive, flowing,
streaming. "The body," Bauls say, "is the first man."
Then there is a beyond which needs no breathing, which is eternally there, which needs nothing. That is
the God of the Bauls. They call the essential man ADHAR MANUSH. And between the two is the psyche,
the mind, or call it heart. Bauls call it heart; the Holy Ghost. It exists as a link.
The whole work has to be done in the psyche. On one pole of it exists the body, on the other pole, God.
The whole work of discipline, of SADHANA, has to be done in the psyche. That is what meditation is all
about.

LIVES ON THE AIR,
RESTS ABOVE REACH.
BETWEEN THE TWO
MOVES ANOTHER MAN
AS A SECRET LINK.
WORSHIP KNOWINGLY.
The Bauls say that just worship won't do, but WORSHIP KNOWINGLY. The body has to worship the
psyche, and the psyche has to worship the unseen. This is what they mean by 'worship knowingly'. Let your
body follow your psyche, your heart, let your body follow your feelings, and let your feelings follow the
unknown, the unseen. Then you are a worshipper. Then worship is not an ordinary ritual that you do in the
temple; then worship is something that you do in your own being. That is your real temple.
IT IS A SPORT
AMONGST THE THREE OF THEM.
MY SEARCHING HEART,
WHOM DO YOU SEEK?
Query:-
And the Bauls say it is a LEELA, a sport. These three are running, chasing each other: the body, the
psyche, and the soul.
MY SEARCHING HEART,
WHOM DO YOU SEEK?
This word LEELA, sport, has to be understood. It is uniquely Eastern. In the West never has a concept
like that ever arisen. In the West the concept of God is that of a worker, not of a player. The concept of God
is of a creator, and the creation seems to be very serious. But the concept of LEELA is of fun, play. In the
East we have known that God is not serious, and religion need not be serious. God is the greatest player; He
is in a great play.
As a painter plays with the brush and the paint and the color on the canvas, out of play something arises.
The painting can be done in two ways: you can be very serious about it -- but then you will be just a
technician. You may do it perfectly well, but it will lack something: it will lack spirit. That is the difference
between a technician and an artist. An artist has no plan. He simply sits before the canvas and starts playing.
He is more childlike. Out of his play something arises. That is the best way to understand modern painting.
Modern painting is more Eastern than Western. Picasso is more Eastern than Western, because he is
playing. That's why it is very difficult to understand modern painting. Classical painting is very simple to
understand. It reproduces life exactly, it is a replica. It is more like photography -- mechanical. Modern
painting is very difficult to understand. It is as difficult to understand as the flowers. Somebody asked
Picasso -- seeing his painting he asked, "What does it mean?" Picasso said, "Nobody goes to the plants and
asks, and nobody goes to the birds and asks,'What do you mean?' Why do you come to me, and me alone?
Go to the plants and ask the flowers 'why?'"
A great LEELA goes on.
BOTANISTS have become aware of something very rare and meaningful. They have become aware that
insects play with flowers and imitate flowers; they deceive flowers. Butterflies imitate flowers and deceive
flowers. And on the other hand, flowers imitate insects and butterflies, and the play goes on. Lizards imitate
rocks, and rocks imitate lizards. The great play continues, hide-and-seek.
LEELA is a beautiful concept. It relaxes you tremendously, absolutely. If God is in LEELA, then don't
be serious and don't keep long faces; there is no need. Become more playful. Life is a sport. Look at life
with the eyes of play, non-seriously. The difference is tremendous.
You go on a street to your office; then you have a totally different mind -- tense, ambitious, worried,
stressed. On the same route you go for a morning walk -- the road is the same, the trees are the same, the
birds are the same, the sky is the same, you are the same, the people passing are the same. But when you go
for a morning walk you have no stress, no tension, because you are not going anywhere in particular. It is
just a morning walk -- you are enjoying it, you are playful.
Prayer is a play. So if you go to the temple and you become very serious, you will miss the temple. Go
to the temple to laugh, go to the temple to enjoy, go to the temple to celebrate.
The Bauls sing,
I have no knowledge
of my own self.
If for once
I could know what I am,
the unknown would be known.
God is nearby
and yet far away --
like the mountain hiding
behind my streaming hair.
I travel distant towns
Query:-
of Dakar and Delhi

constantly searching,
but circling round my own knees.
God is alive
in my living form.
Only purity of heart
will lead me to Him.
The more I study
the wisdom of the Vedas,
the more I am bewildered.
I am blind
in spite of my eyes.
Only purity of heart
will lead me to Him.
God is alive
in my own living form.
Never in my life
did I once face the man
who lives in my own little room.
My eyes blinded
by the weight of storms
can see nothing, even when He stirs.
My hands fail
to reach His hands
as He is forever engaged
with the world.
I keep silent when they call Him
the word of life,
and the water
and the fire
and the earth
and the air,
while no one is sure.
Could I ever wish to know

anyone else?
I do not yet know
my own little room....
THE Bauls say if you can know your own little room, you will know all -- because He is there. He is in
the body as the breathing man. He is in the psyche as your intelligence, awareness, meditation. And He is
beyond you. Move slowly: let the body follow feeling, let the feeling follow the unknown. Don't move
through knowledge, move through feeling, and then you will be in tune with God.
He does not dwell

in the complex of stars,
Query:-
nor in limitless space.

He is not found
in the ethical scriptures
or in the texts of the Vedas.
He lives beyond
the existence of all.
The man is here,
in his form without form
to adorn the hamlet of my limbs
and the sky above
in the glow of his feelings,
the platform of spontaneous matter.
Even matter, the body, is spontaneous. That is his platform. The man is here!
If you fail to recognize

your own heart,
can you ever come to know
the great unknown?
The farthest away
will be nearest to you
and the unknown within your knowing.
Fill up your home
with the world abroad,
and you will attain
the unattainable man.
Open your heart to the skies, to the unknown, to the unfamiliar. Don't move with knowledge, because
knowledge means that which you have already known. That's why the Vedas won't help. Veda means
knowledge; the very word 'veda' means knowledge. It comes from a root VED, which means 'to know'.
Hence, the Bauls' continuous criticism of the Vedas. Knowledge is not going to help.
Move into the unknown, wait for the unknown to knock at your door. You simply wait -- alert,
expectant, ready to receive, with a feeling heart, and being playful.
BETWEEN THE DOORS

OF BIRTH AND DEATH,
HE WHO IS ABLE
TO BE BORN
DIE BEFORE DYING,

DIE LIVING.
A very significant secret: between the doors of birth and death, stands yet another door... that door is
what we call love. Have you watched? Between birth and death there is nothing else to happen but love. If
you miss love between birth and death, you have missed the whole opportunity of life. You may gather
knowledge and you may gather valuable stones, and you may gather money and prestige and power, but if
you have missed love, then you have missed the real door.
The first door, the door of birth, is simply an opportunity to move through the second door, the door of
Query:-
love. Between birth and death is love. In fact, life exists only to give an opportunity to love and be loved. If
that is missed, all is missed. If that is not missed, then even if you have missed all, nothing is missed. And
this door of love is REAL death. The other death that will come in the end is not real, because you will
survive it. You will be reborn again. As death follows birth, so birth follows death. They are two aspects of
the same coin. But if you move into the door of love, then you die, and you die so totally that then there is
no birth for you, and of course, no death. Love is the real death because the ego disappears completely.
In ordinary death the body disappears, ego remains, and that carries you into new lives. That is the
whole thread of rebirth. Once that thread is broken and the root is cut, you disappear from the world of
matter, from the world of the visible into the world of the invisible, the beyond, the other shore.
BETWEEN THE DOORS

OF BIRTH AND DEATH,
HE WHO IS ABLE
TO BE BORN
That is what Bauls call the real door of death.
DIE BEFORE DYING,

DIE LIVING.
If you can die before dying, that is, if you can pass through the door of love, if you can die living, then
there is no death for you. Then you have become deathless, then you are immortal, then you are a God.
Then you are no more part of the material world where bodies are formed and where bodies are de-formed.
Then you are no more into the world of forms, of creation, destruction; you are beyond. That beyond is
already in you.
The man is here. It is right now, in this moment, here. But you will have to pass through the alchemy of
love, otherwise you will never know it.
The Bauls sing,
Reaching for reality

is lame talk
to describe the goal
of the lover-worshipper.
He will attain
the great unattainable.
Stare at the face
of the invisible one
bearing the nectar of love.
How can I capture the man

who is not to be caught?
He lives on the other bank
of the river,
and the skin of my eyes
screens my sight.
The body screens your sight. If you become too identified with the body, it becomes a barrier, Reverse
Query:-
the process: let the body follow the heart, not the heart the body. If the heart has to follow the body, body
becomes a barrier. Then you cannot reach the other shore. If the body follows the heart, the body becomes
the boat.
Where is the home

of the moon?
And what makes
the cycle of the days
wander, encircling
the moving nights?
The lunar eclipse
in the night of the full moon
is known to all.
But no one enquires
about the blackened moon
on the darkest night
of the month.
He who is able
to make the full moon rise
in the sky
of the darkest night,
has a right to claim
the glory of the three worlds --
the heaven, the earth and the other spheres.
"He who is able to make the full moon rise in the sky of the darkest night"...that is their description
of love.
A LOVER is capable of creating life out of death; he can do the miracle. He can make the moon rise in
the darkest night. That's why there is a fear about love. I have observed thousands of people trembling
whenever they are on the threshold of love, afraid. Why does so much fear come out of love.
Erich Fromm has written a beautiful book in which he says that love seems to be one of the most risky
things, one of the most dangerous. And there is tremendous fear in humanity about love. People talk about
love; they may be talking just to deceive themselves. Their talk may be just a substitute to give them a
feeling that they are lovers. But people are afraid of love. It gives fear, because love is death. Your ego has
to be dropped completely, utterly effaced. It is suicide. Fear is natural, but if you are courageous enough and
you can pass through it, if you can carry the cross of love on your shoulders, resurrection is certain. The
moment ego is dropped, you are born.
He who knows
the essence of love,
fears none.
Devoted only
to love's own form,
alive before his eyes,
his home is in
happiness itself.
Lulling lust
by lust alone
Query:-
he raids the heart of the God

that churns all hearts,
finding himself
in perennial love.
Let your heart be a caring home

for the man of your heart.
Focus your vision
through the eye-black of loving.
He will be floating
on the mercurial mirror.
Hours wither like broken games

on the playground of the earth.
Abandon search
and join the carnival of love.
Abandon search
and join the carnival of love....
The Bauls say just intellectual search, seeking, is not going to help. "Join the carnival of love": that is
what prayer is, that-is what worship is.
Be ecstatic, joyful, celebrating, singing, dancing. Let God be allowed to be playful through you. Let
playfulness be your only prayer. Let joy be your only worship.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #6
Chapter title: Now Is Not Part Of Time

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 85 mins
The first question:
HOW SHOULD I PRAY? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PROPERLY EXPRESS THIS LOVE THAT I FEEL INTO
PRAYER.
Query:-
PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a
spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don't ask how, because there is no how and there cannot be any how
to it. Whatsoever happens in the moment is right. If tears come, good. If you sing, good. If you dance, good.
If nothing comes and you simply remain silent, good. Because prayer is not in the expression; it is not in the
container, it is in the content. Sometimes silence is prayerful, sometimes singing is prayerful. It depends on
you, it depends on the heart. So if I say sing, and you sing because I have told you to sing, then the prayer is
false from the very beginning. Listen to your heart, feel your moment, and let it be. And whatsoever
happens is good.
Sometimes nothing will happen, but that is what is happening. You allow it, you don't impose your will
on it. When you ask how, you are trying to impose your will, you are trying to plan. That's how prayer has
been missed. That's how all the churches and religions have become rituals. They have a set prayer, a set
form: the authorized version, the approved. But how can anybody approve prayer? How can anybody give
you an authorized version?
Prayer has to arise in you, it has to flower in you. And each moment has its own prayer, and each mood
has its own prayer. Nobody knows what is going to happen to your innermost world tomorrow morning.
How can it be fixed? A fixed prayer is a false prayer: this much can certainly be said. A ritualized prayer is
no longer prayer: this can be said in absolute terms. An unritualized, spontaneous gesture -- that's what
prayer is.
Sometimes you may feel very sad, because sadness also belongs to God. Sadness is also divine. There is
no necessity to always be happy. Then sadness is your prayer. Then let your heart cry and let your eyes pour
down tears. Then let sadness be offered to God. Whatsoever is there in your heart, let it be offered to the
Divine Feet -- joy or sadness, sometimes even anger.
Sometimes one is angry with God. If you cannot be angry with God, you have not yet known love.
Sometimes one is really in a deep rage. Then let anger be your prayer. Fight with God -- He is yours, you
are His, and love knows no formality. Love can survive all fights. If it cannot survive a fight, then it is not
love. So sometimes you don't feel like praying; then let that be your prayer. You say to God, "Wait! I'm not
in the mood, and the way you are doing things, it is not even worth praying." But let it be a spontaneous
pouring of your heart.
Never be inauthentic with God because that is the way of not being with Him. If you are insincere with
God -- deep down you are complaining, and on the surface praying? -- then God will see the complaint, not
the prayer. You have been false. He can look directly into your heart. Whom are you trying to deceive? The
smile on your face is not going to deceive God; your truth will be known to Him. He can only know your
truth; lies don't exist for Him. So let the truth be there. You simply present your truth to Him and say that
today you are angry, you are angry with His world, you are angry with Him, you are angry with your life: "I
hate it! And I cannot pray, so you will have to remain without my prayer today. I suffer much; now you
suffer."
Talk to Him as one talks to one's lover, one's friend, one's mother. Talk to Him as one talks to a small
child.
I was staying with a family, and the mother ordered the small child to pray. He was very interested, and
he was not ready to go to sleep, and he wanted to be with me a little longer. But the family was very
disciplinarian, so they said, "Now it is nine o'clock. You go and sleep, and don't forget your prayer." He was
angry; I could see it. He went into his room. I followed just to listen to what he was going to pray. In the
darkness I heard him say, "God, make bad people good and good people nice." He knows his mother is
good, his father is good, but not nice.
I have heard about another child. He was staying in a guest house with the family. The first night he
prayed. He always used to sleep with a small light on, but there was no light and the electricity had gone.
Suddenly, as he prayed the electricity disappeared. He was just getting into his bed, and he told his mother,
"Let me get up again and let me pray again more carefully, because the night is going to be dark." First he
had just prayed by the way, but now the night was going to be dark and there was no light and he was more
afraid. He said, "Let me pray again. Let me get out, and let me pray more carefully, because now there is
more danger."
Listen to children's prayer and become a child.
All the religions say that God is Father. In fact, the emphasis should be that man is the child. That is the
real meaning when we call God 'the Father'. But we have forgotten; God is the Father but we are not His
Query:-
children. Forget whether He is Father or not. You just be a child -- spontaneous, true, authentic. Don't ask
me and don't ask anybody how to pray. Let the moment decide, let the moment be decisive, and the truth of
the moment should be your prayer.
That's my answer: the truth of the moment, whatsoever it is, unconditionally, should be your prayer.
And once you allow the truth of the moment to possess you, you will start growing, and you will know
tremendous beauties of prayer. You have entered on the path. But if you simply go on repeating a certain
prayer, a technique, then you will miss. You will never enter on the path, you will just remain outside.
BELOVED OSHO, TO STEAL YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT I AM INCESSANTLY PRAYING. PLEASE OSHO,

AT LEAST BLESS ME, SO THAT MY PRAYER MAY BECOME MORE INTENSE AND ALIVE.
THAT'S BEAUTIFUL.
A disciple has to steal much from the Master, because there are a few things which cannot be given; only
you can take, I cannot give. The nature of the thing is such that it cannot be given, but you can take. A
disciple has much to steal from the Master. The question is very significant, and I bless you.
But prayer alone won't do, because prayer belongs to one path, and enlightenment belongs to another
path. Prayer is part of the path of the devotee, the BHAKTA, the Sufi. He says, "I don't want any
enlightenment. I just want to be playing with you continuously my Lord -- a thousand and one games in a
thousand and one worlds in a thousand and one lives. I don't want to get out of the game, I don't want to get
out of this LEELA; it is beautiful. I want to remain a part of it. Make me worthy so I can remain always here
and now, playing the game of hide-and-seek with you."
Prayer is part of the path of the devotee, the lover. The lover loves the bondage of love; he's not in any
way trying to get out of it. In fact, his only prayer is that he should be thought worthy so that God continues
the game He is playing. The play is beautiful; he's not asking for freedom from it.
The word 'enlightenment' belongs to the path of meditation. The meditator says, "Enough is enough.
Long have I suffered; now let me be free." In fact, he cannot ask. He tries, but he cannot pray -- because to
the man on the path of meditation, even prayer is a bondage. Mahavir never prayed, Buddha never prayed.
Prayer was meaningless for Buddha; he made all efforts to get out of it. So if you want enlightenment then
don't pray because prayer will create a bondage. It is a most refined love. The bondage is very golden, but it
is a bondage. If you choose it that way, then it's okay. But then enlightenment is not the right word.
I have heard....
The indignant mother asked her young son, "Why didn't you tell me you wanted to go fishing?"
"Because I wanted to go fishing," said the small boy.
If you really want to go fishing, don't ask, go. Asking won't help. Then you are alone if you want to be
enlightened. Then there is no God; then there is nobody who can help you. Because if you need anybody's
help, that very help becomes a bondage. If I help you to become free, you will start depending on me. Then
without me you will not be able to be free. No help is possible on the path of meditation, only indications.
Buddha has said, "Buddhas only show the path. They cannot help in any substantial way. You have to go on
your own, you have to be your own light."

"I am going away for a few days, Nasrudin," said the master of the house. "And I am going to leave with
you all my keys. They're to my closets as well as those to my chests and jewel boxes. I know they will be
safe with you but of course, I expect you not to touch them."
When the master returned, the Mulla said to him, "Master, I am going to leave you."
"Why, Nasrudin?"
"Because you don't trust me."
"How can you say that when I left you with all my keys?"
"That you did, master, but not one of them fits."
If you really want to steal enlightenment from me, no key is going to fit -- not because I am giving you
wrong keys, but because the door is open and there is no lock...and you are looking for the lock. Because
Query:-
you have a key you are looking for a lock, and the lock does not exist. So you can go on looking for the lock
because of your key, and you will miss. The door is open; you just enter me and it is there. Nobody is
barring the path.
But prayer will not be helpful, meditation will be helpful. Meditation will give you the clarity to see.
There is a very beautiful incident in the life of Houdini, the great magician. His whole life was a
tremendous success; he was a miracle-monger. He did so many miracles that if he was a man to cheat
humanity, he could have cheated very easily. But he was a very sincere man. He would say, "Whatsoever I
am doing is nothing but skill; there is no miracle in it." No magician has ever done as much as Houdini has
done. His power was almost impossible to believe. He was thrown in almost all the great prisons of the
world, and within seconds he would be out. He was chained, locked, and within seconds -- the chains
wouldn't work, locks wouldn't work -- something would happen, and he would be out. He would be out
almost within seconds, not even a minute.
But in Italy he failed -- only once in his life. He was thrown in the central prison of Rome, and
thousands of people had gathered to see him come out. Minutes passed and there was no sign of him. It was
almost half an hour, and people started getting restless because it had never happened: "What has happened?
Has he gone mad, or died, or what happened? Or has the great magician failed?" After one hour he came out
perspiring and laughing loudly. And the people asked, "What happened? One hour? We were thinking that
you had either gone mad or you were dead! Even the authorities were thinking to go in and see. What
happened?"
He said, "They tricked me; they made me a fool. The door was not locked! All my skill is to open the
lock, and I was trying to find out where the lock is, and there was no lock. The door was not locked at all, it
was already open. Tired, exhausted, worried, puzzled, I fell, and when I fell and struck the door, the door
opened. That's how I am out; not because of my skill."
Exactly the same is the case with me.
The question has been asked by Bodhidharma; he has many keys. Nothing will fit, and he is collecting
more and more keys. He is very calculating, clever. Now that those keys are not fitting he is asking for my
blessings. My blessings are there whether you ask or not, but keys are not going to fit. Throw the keys! The
door is open. Nobody is barring the path. But if you seek enlightenment, the path is of meditation. If you
seek eternal play, then there is no need to think in terms of enlightenment.
These two terms are different, totally different. The ultimate result is the same. The BHAKTA, the
devotee, finds his enlightenment in this beautiful play of God, and the meditator finds this game beautiful
when he reaches his enlightenment. But they approach in different directions with different methodology,
with different attitudes. One has to decide it very clearly, otherwise you can get confused. Love or
meditation has to be chosen very clearly, and then stick to the path. Finally, everything that has happened on
the other path will also happen to you, so don't be worried. But it will happen only on the peak. All the paths
meet when they reach to the peak of the mountain, but all the paths move differently.
The third question:
HOW TO RECOGNIZE PAST LIFE EXPERIENCES FROM ILLUSION, MADNESS?
THERE is no need: all that is past is already illusion. There is no difference between illusion and the
past. All that is gone is no longer real. Now this is something to be understood very deeply.
Yesterday is no more. Now what is the difference between a real yesterday and an imagined yesterday?
There is no difference because both will exist only in your mind -- the real and the imagined. Both will be
imaginations of a sort. What will be the difference between a real yesterday and an unreal yesterday? There
is no difference because both are unreal. They both exist only in your mind and nowhere else. All past is
illusory; all future is illusory because it is not yet; and between the two is the present. Hence in the East we
call the whole existence illusory, MAYA -- because between two illusions how can reality exist? And today
is also going to be yesterday; today is continuously passing into yesterday. The present is continuously
becoming past. How can the real become illusory? The future is passing into past, and the present is just a
gate, nothing else. Future is illusory, past is illusory; just on the gate things appear, for a single moment, to
be real. What type of reality can this be? That too is illusory. Hindus say it is only appearance, not real.
Query:-
Real is that which subsists. Real is that which is always eternally there. Real is that which is beyond
time. Unreal is that which is within time. The past is within time. It will be difficult to think of the present
as unreal, but start from the past. It is easy to think of the past as unreal, because whether it happened or not,
what difference does it make? It may not have happened at all. It may be just in your mind, it may be just
your idea that it happened. It is very easy to think about the past as unreal, and about the future also.
Between the two is the narrow bridge of the present. How can something real be between two unrealities?
How can the middle be real when the two ends are unreal, and when this real also is continuously turning
into unreality and illusion? No, all that is experienced is imagination; it is dream stuff. Only the experiencer
is real, only the observer is real. The observed is dream; the observer, the witness, is real.
That is one of the greatest discoveries of human consciousness in the whole of human history. There is
nothing to compare with it. All other discoveries are just childish. This one discovery is the base of all
religion: that you are -- you as a witness. Even for a dream to exist, a dreamer is needed. The dream may be
a dream, but the dreamer cannot be a dream. Even to be deceived I would have to exist; even to fall into
error, I will be needed. Without me the error cannot exist. This witness is the search of meditation.
So don't be bothered about how to recognize past life experiences from illusion, madness. There is
nothing to recognize. There is no need.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin was telling his wife about a dream he had experienced the night before. "It was
terrible," he said. "I was at a birthday party at Joe's house. His mother had baked a chocolate cake three feet
high, and when she cut it everybody was given a piece that was so large that it hung over the sides of the
plate. Then she dipped up some homemade ice cream. She had so much of it that she had to give each one of
us our share in a soup bowl.
"What was so terrible about that dream?" asked his wife.
"Oh," said Nasrudin, "I woke up before I could get the first taste."
We are continuously waking up from the past. Each moment is a wakening. But we are continuously
falling asleep into the future, so each moment is again a moment of stumbling into darkness and sleep. So
the real distinction that has to be made is between waking and sleeping. No other distinction is of any value.
Try to be so wakeful that you don't fall asleep again. Remain so alert that the future is not allowed to
deceive you again as you had allowed it before. What has become past is nothing, but once it is your future
then you get deceived by it. Now it is past; now another future is arriving. Every moment future is arriving,
and future can deceive you only if you are asleep. Then again it will become past. Now let me tell you one
thing: if you remain alert and you don't allow the future to deceive you in the present, the past disappears.
Then there is no memory left of it, no trace of it. Then one is just a clean slate, a sky without any clouds, a
flame without smoke.
That's what the state of enlightenment is -- so alert that only the witness is real and everything else is
nothing but ripples on the surface of the water. Everything is passing, everything is a flux. Only one thing
remains and remains and remains, and that is your consciousness, your awareness.
But we are caught in the net of the past. That which passes somehow remains in the mind. It passes, it is
no longer there, but somehow the mind clings to it.
I have heard....
A man in the upstairs apartment yelled to Mulla Nasrudin downstairs, "If you don't stop playing that
clarinet I will go crazy!"
"Too late now," said Nasrudin. "I stopped an hour ago."
People are continuously worried about things which have almost gone and disappeared. The past makes
you crazy. You go on brooding, you go on playing with the wounds, you go on hurting yourself again and
again. You go on feeding your ego again and again. The past seems to be your treasure. It is nothing -- just
bubbles, air bubbles. And the same is the future; and between the two is this moment of the present. BE
ALERT, be awake. No other distinction is of any significance. Only one distinction is of significance, and
that is of being alert or unalert.
Now I can tell you this: if you are unalert, then whatsoever happens is imaginary. If you are alert, then
whatsoever happens is real. Were you alert in the past? If you were alert, then it was real. Are you alert right
now? If you are alert then whatsoever is happening before you IS real. Will you be alert tomorrow? Then
whatsoever will happen will be real. So forget about reality and unreality; just try to become more and more
alert.
Reality and unreality are not qualities of the objective world, they are qualities of subjective
Query:-
consciousness. For Buddha everything is real. For you, fast asleep, snoring, everything is unreal. Just think
of it in this way: you are sleeping in a room and somebody is sitting by your side alert and awake. The room
is the same. Both are in the same room, in the same space. One is fast asleep, the other is sitting by the side.
Are they in the same room? Can they be in the same room? Because one who is asleep is dreaming,
dreaming of a thousand and one other rooms except this one. Have you ever dreamed about the same room
in which you were sleeping? -- no, never. A dream is always somewhere else. That's the function of the
dream: to take you somewhere else. The man who is asleep is dreaming. He is not aware of this room and
the reality of THIS room. He has his own imaginary reality. The man who is awake and sitting by his side is
in this room. His alertness gives him a totally different quality of reality.
Buddha, walking, moving from one village to another village, and by his side is his disciple, Anand;
both are in two different worlds. Anand is fast asleep, dreaming; Buddha is awake, non-dreaming. When
you are not dreaming, you are encountering reality. When you are dreaming, you are encountering only your
dream, unreality. What is the criterion for reality, alertness?
Become more alert; the world becomes more real. Become even more alert; the world becomes even
more real. When you are at the peak of your awareness, the world is so radiantly real that it is difficult to
call it matter. One has to call it God; nothing else will do. It is so radiantly real, it is so eternally real that
one has to say that time has ceased. Reality is neither past, nor present, nor future; it simply is. It is
herenow. Now is not part of time. In fact, you should not use the word 'now'. Only enlightened people
should be allowed to use it, because your now is just not there.
What do you call 'now'? The moment you call it 'now' it is already past. Or, if you call it 'now' before it
is past, then it is in the future. You are so asleep that by the time you come to recapture it, it is already gone.
It is very slippery. Now is possible only when you are so alert that there is not a single dream in your mind,
not a single thought, no ripples arising. Then you are totally present. When you are present then reality is
present. It is your presence that reveals the presence of reality. Then you are in the now, and the now is
eternal. Then it never comes and goes, it is simply there. Then nothing comes and nothing goes.
One of Buddha's great disciples, Bodhidharma, used to say that, Buddha never existed; he was never
born, he never walked on the earth, he never talked. One of his disciples told him that what he was saying
seemed simply absurd. "Buddha was born in Kapilvastu to a certain king, to a certain woman. He renounced
the world. These are historical facts, and you go on denying them? And you yourself are a follower of
Buddha. If he never existed, if he was never born and he never walked on the earth, then whom do you
follow?"
Bodhidharma said, "I follow that one who was never born, never walked on the earth, never uttered a
single word, never died. I follow that. He is the real Buddha. And all else which you call history is nothing
but dreams seen by sleepy people."
Now this has to be understood. I am talking to you; it is a fact. I am talking to you, you are listening to
me, but still Bodhidharma is perfectly true: it is still a dream because you are not awake. If you are awake
you will see that I have not uttered a single word. Then you will see a totally different reality where words
are not uttered, where silence reigns, where wordless reality is encountered. If you are awake you will see
me directly, and you will see total stillness, but that will depend on your silence, that will depend on your
non-dreaming state, that will depend on your awakening. Then you will see that this man who is sitting in
front of you is not the real man. Then something else, something totally different, diametrically different,
will be revealed to you.
That's the meaning when we call Buddha 'Bhagwan'. It is not a reality for everybody, but only for those
who became alert; they recognize. That's what we mean when we call Jesus 'Son of God'. It was not
revealed to all, because everybody knew that this man was nobody else but the son of Joseph the carpenter.
And he was just claiming nonsense, that he is the Son of God. But those who loved him and those who were
tremendously alert about his reality became aware that the son of Joseph the carpenter was just a reflection
in the world of unreality, in the world of dreams.'Son of God' is the reality. But you can see that reality only
to that extent to which you have become real. More than that you cannot do.
Facts are not truths. Something may be a fact and may not be true, and something may be true and may
not be a fact. This word 'fact' is derived from a Latin root which means 'to do', FACERE. This is beautiful.
A fact is that about which you can do something. But our doing is nothing but dreaming. You can do many
things in your dream also; they are facts. You become so obsessed with your dream that sometimes it has
happened that you had a nightmare, and then you awake, but you still go on trembling, you still go on
perspiring. The fear is still there, the heart beats faster. Now you know that it was a dream, now you know
Query:-
that it was just a nightmare, nothing to be worried about, but still you are trembling. The dream has affected
you so much that it even penetrates your reality -- your body, your mind.
But we go on living in two sorts of sleep: one is in the night which we call sleep, and the other is in the
day which we call waking. It is a waking sleep, just for name's sake. Our eyes are open, but unless thinking
stops completely, your real eye remains closed.
"How to recognize past life experiences from illusion?"
There is no way and there is no need, and one should not waste time in foolish things. The gone is gone;
the gone is already illusion. Only one thing remains and that is your witnessing. Catch hold of it, don't lose
track of it. It will be difficult to catch hold of it; again and again you will lose track, but again and again
remind yourself to catch hold of it. Many times you will miss the goal, many times you will have glimpses.
But by and by, more and more possibility will open. And if you can remain alert even for a few minutes
together, a new man will be born unto you. You will be totally different. The old will be gone, and then you
will not be worried with past, or future, or present. You will simply live in a different dimension, the
dimension of eternity -- where nothing passes, nothing is born, nothing dies, everything remains.
I AM FULL OF ENERGY, FEELING PLAYFUL AND MORE AND MORE FRIENDLY, BUT I TALK TOO
MUCH. WHAT TO DO?
BE playful about that too. Don't make it a serious thing. Talk playfully, and if nobody is listening, take it
playfully -- because there is no necessity that somebody should listen. Don't feel offended. If it comes easy
for you to talk, talk. If the other is not in the mood to listen, that is his problem. But don't feel offended. Just
remain alert to what is happening in you, that you want to talk. It will happen to many people.
When meditation releases energy in you, it will find all sorts of ways to be expressed. It depends on
what type of talent you have. If you are a painter and meditation releases energy, you will paint more, you
will paint madly. You will forget everything, the whole world. Your whole energy will be poured into
painting. If you are a dancer your meditation will make you a very deep dancer. It depends on the capacity,
talent, individuality, personality. So nobody knows what will happen. Sometimes sudden changes will
happen: a person who was very silent and was never talkative suddenly becomes talkative. He may have
been repressed. He may not have been allowed ever to talk. When the energy arises and flows, he may start
talking.
But there is nothing to be worried about. Don't repress it. If you feel it is getting too heavy for others,
then just sit in your room and talk alone. There is no need for somebody else to listen to you. In fact, who
listens? You can talk to the wall and it will be more human, because you will not be creating any suffering
for anybody. You will not torture, you will not bore anybody.
Somebody has sent me a beautiful anecdote.
Pat Reilly was confessing his sins. "Sure, Father, I had sex seven times last night."
The priest asked, "How many women?"
"Ah, Father, there was only one woman," answered Pat.
To which the priest said, "Well, it is not as bad as I thought. Who is the woman?"
"My wife, Father."
"Well," said the priest, "there is nothing wrong with that, son."
"I know, Father, but I just had to tell someone," replied Pat.
There are moments when you just have to tell someone. If you don't tell, it becomes heavy on you. If
you tell, you are released and relaxed. If you can find a sympathetic listener, good; otherwise just talk to
yourself. But don't repress it. Repressed, it will become a burden on you. Just sit in front of the wall and
have a good talk. In the beginning you will feel it a little crazy, but the more you do it, the more you will see
the beauty of it. It is less violent. It does not waste somebody else's time, and it works the same way, it does
the same: you are relieved. And after a good talk with the wall you will feel very, very relaxed. In fact,
everybody needs to do it. The world would be better and more silent if people started talking to the walls.
Try it. It will be deep meditation -- knowing well that the wall is not listening. But that is not the point.
I have heard about a great psychoanalyst who became very old but still continued to practice six, seven,
Query:-
eight hours per day, listening to the patients. He had a young disciple, an apprentice, who became tired after
three or four hours -- listening to nonsense, neurotic obsessions, fixations, the same thing again and again.
He asked his old master one day, "How do you manage? Because I see you as fresh in the evening as in the
morning when you come to the clinic. You are as fresh as when you go -- seven, eight hours of nonsense.
You never get tired. I get tired after two, three hours -- and I am a young man!"
The old man laughed and said, "Who listens?"
Freud arranged it very well. He did not even face the patient. He would tell the patient to lie on a couch,
and there would be a curtain, and behind the curtain he would sit. And the patient lying on the couch
looking at the ceiling, had to talk. It was really very meaningful. One: when a person is Lying down he is
more relaxed. He talks of deeper things than when he is sitting. He goes deeper into his unconscious. Talk to
a man standing, and he will be very superficial. Sit down, and he goes a little deeper. Let him lie down and
then listen to him; he goes very deep.
And then: he was not facing anybody. When you are facing somebody the very presence of the other
functions as a repressive force. Then you start saying things which he would like. Then you start saying
things in such a way that he is not offended. Then you manage somehow to say things which will be
approved by him. Then there is much repression; then the truth never comes out. When the man is not
facing you and you are just facing the ceiling, you have nothing to manage. The ceiling will never be
offended, you can say anything you like. By and by, one goes deep into associations.
There is no need for the Freudian couch, simply your bedroom will do. And there is no need for
anybody to sit there, you can just talk and listen to yourself. Talking and listening to yourself will give you
a depth, a great understanding about your own mind.
So talk to the wall, and listen. Be both the talker and the listener. Don't analyze, don't judge, don't say
'this is good and that is bad','that should not be said and this should be said', no. And don't make any
refinement, don't polish. Simply blurt out whatsoever comes to the mind -- ugly, absurd, irrelevant. Let the
mind have full play and you simply watch. It will be a very great meditation.
The new groom was pushing the praises of married life to his bachelor friend. "Yes, it is wonderful.
Breakfast before I go to work is large and delicious. When I go off after that the little woman gives me a big
hug and kiss at the door. I return home at night, supper is on the table. After that I sit in the living room
reading the paper while the missus cleans away the dishes. Then she changes into something more
comfortable and sits down beside me, and talks to me. And she talks, and talks, and talks, until I wish she
would drop dead."
Don't give such an opportunity to anybody that he starts thinking, "When are you going to drop dead?"
It is your problem. Or, you can make a good arrangement if somebody has the same problem. This is
Amida's problem. In this ashram there are so many mad people; you can find somebody else who has the
same problem. Then you can make a good arrangement: one hour you talk, one hour you listen to him. No
need to be connected with each other, no need to be relevant, and no need to follow any rules of
conversation. It is not a conversation. One hour you blurt whatsoever comes to your mind, and of course,
then you have to pay -- one hour you have to listen. And it will be valuable for both.
But one thing should be remembered: don't repress it. Anything repressed becomes poisonous. And
talking is just innocent; the wall will do. Go to the trees and they will feel very happy; nobody talks to them.
They are always waiting. They will feel grateful. Or go to the river or to the rocks, but don't repress. By and
by, things will clear up and talking will disappear. It is just the beginning. Then deeper layers of being will
be touched. Talk is the most superficial layer of your life, just a very superficial layer. When energy is
flowing deep, that layer starts trembling, ripples arise. Allow them. Soon, when the talk is exhausted and
you have thrown out all the rubbish that you have been carrying for your whole life, silence will come. And
that silence will be completely uncorrupted, virgin. You can force your talking, you can repress it and you
can look silent, but your silence will not be real silence. Deep down the tremor will continue; deep down the
volcano is getting ready to erupt any moment. You are sitting on top of it.
People look silent but they are not silent. I would like you to become really silent, and the way is a deep
catharsis.
I know Amida is feeling great energy. Her energy sources are tapped, and she is getting connected with
her very ground of being. So in all ways she will feel too powerful. Talk also is one of the most basic
ingredients of a human being. A human being is a human being because he can talk. No other animal has
that capacity. And then Amida is a woman, not even a man.
I have heard....
Query:-
A woman was saying to her husband that the new priest was a great talker. And she said, "I have never
known a man to talk so fast. It is almost impossible to understand what he is saying. His words overlap."
The husband said, "I know the reason for it. His father was a politician and his mother was a woman."
Now, the perfect combination. So Amida is a woman; talking is easy. There are many reasons for it.
Have you watched? -- small girls start talking before boys. Boys lag behind. In colleges, schools,
universities also, as far as language is concerned, girls are always better than boys. They always get higher
marks, they are more articulate.
Something seems to be different between the feminine mind and the male mind: the male mind is a
better doer, the female mind is a better talker. Maybe because much energy is taken by doing as far as man
is concerned; no energy is taken by doing as far as woman is concerned, so the whole energy pours into one
direction.
But there is nothing wrong about it. A good talker has something valuable: he can communicate better.
To be articulate is beautiful because communication is more possible. And a good talk is an aesthetic value
in itself. But first, let the flood be thrown out. Then things will sort themselves out, then things will settle.
After this flood is gone, Amida will find very small sentences coming into her consciousness, but
diamond-like, each sentence a value in itself. But first this flood has to go. If the flood is repressed, then
those diamonds will be lost forever. That's why all the great scriptures of the world are written in sutras,
aphorisms: because the people who wrote them went through this flood of catharsis. When the catharsis was
complete, then diamond-like, small sentences -- simple, aesthetic, beautiful, complete -- started bubbling in
the consciousness. It is from that consciousness that the Vedas were born, and the Koran. And it is from that
consciousness that the beauty of the language of the Bible arises. Never again has it been surpassed.
Jesus was illiterate, but nobody has ever surpassed that clarity, that penetrating reality of his assertions.
Behind it is great meditation. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Brahma Sutras of Badraina or the Bhakti
Sutras of Narad -- small sentences, the smallest you can conceive, almost telegraphic -- but so much is
pressed into them that each sentence has atomic energy. If it explodes, if you lovingly take it into yourself,
to your heart. It will explode and you will become luminous through it.
But first the flood has to go. It is a good symbol that the flood has come. Allow it. If you can find some
sympathetic ears, good. Otherwise, trees, rocks, but don't repress it.
The fifth question:
I AM CONFRONTED BY DEATH. I ACCEPT, OR SO I THINK, AND THEN MANY PEOPLE GET SICK AND
DEATH HAPPENS AND HOSPITALIZATION AND I GET THIS ENORMOUS KNOT OF FEAR IN MY
STOMACH. I AM SO SCARED OF DEATH AND DYING. I GET SO FREAKED OUT.
DEATH is a problem. You can avoid it, you can postpone it, but you cannot completely dissolve it. You
have to face it. It can be dissolved only by going through it to the very end, all the way. It is very risky and
it will give you great fear. Your whole being will start shaking and trembling; the very idea of dying is
unacceptable. It looks so unjust and it looks so meaningless. If a person is to die then what is the meaning of
life? Then why am I living, for what? If only death is finally to happen, then why not commit suicide now?
Why get up every day, work hard, go to bed, get up again, work hard, go to bed -- for what? Just to die in
the end?
Death is the only metaphysical problem. It is because of death that man starts thinking. It is because of
death that man became a contemplative, a meditator. In fact, it is because of death that religion was born.
The whole credit goes to death. Death stirred everybody's consciousness. The problem is such; it has to be
solved. So nothing is wrong with it.
The question is from Vidya.
"I am confronted by death"...everybody is confronted by death. Martin Heidigger has said, "Man is a being
towards death." And that is the priority of man. Animals die but they don't know that they die or that they
are going to die. Trees die, but there is no confrontation with death. It is the priority of man that only man
knows that he is going to die. Hence, man can grow beyond death. Hence, there is a possibility to penetrate
into death and overcome it.
"I accept or so I think"...no, acceptance is not possible. You can deceive: you can think that you accept
Query:-
because it is so troublesome even to look at it. Even to think about it is so troublesome that one thinks, "yes,
okay, I'm going to die -- so what? I'm going to die, but don't raise the question. Don't talk about it." One
keeps it away, goes on putting it by the side so it does not come in the way, keeps it in the unconscious.
Acceptance is not possible. You will have to face death, and when you have faced it you need not
accept, because then you know there is no death.
"And then many people get sick and death happens and hospitalization and I get this enormous knot of fear
in my stomach"...that is where the problem has to be solved. That enormous knot in the stomach is exactly
the place where death happens. The Japanese call it HARA. Just below the navel, two inches below the
navel is a point where body and soul are connected. It is there where disconnection happens when you die.
Nothing dies, because body cannot die, body is already dead. And you cannot die because you are life itself.
Just the connection between you and the body disappears.
That knot is exactly the place where the work has to be done, so don't try to avoid that knot. I would like
to say to Vidya that whenever you feel that knot, it is such a valuable moment. Close your eyes, go deep
into the knot. That is hara. Feel it, allow it; it has some message for you, it wants to say something to you. If
you allow it, it will give you the message. If you relax into it, if you go into it, by and by, you will see the
knot has disappeared and there is, instead of a knot, a lotus flower, something flowering there. It is a very
beautiful experience. And if you go still deeper you will see that it is a bridge, that flower is a bridge. On
this side is the body, on the other side is your reality, your soul. And that flower is connecting both; the
flower is the bridge.
The flower's roots are in the body, and the flower's fragrance and the petals are in the soul. It is a link.
But if you are afraid and you don't go there, it feels like a knot, a tension, a stress.
"I am so scared of death and dying. I get so freaked out"...There is no need to freak out; freak in. It's
perfectly natural that when somebody dies, somebody is hospitalized again and again, again and again, you
remember your death. Nothing is wrong in it.
I have heard....
A beatnik visited a psychiatrist and pleaded, "You have got to help me."
"What is your problem?" asked the head-shrinker.
"Lately," said the beat, "I have had the most compelling desire to shower and shave."
Now if you don't shower and you don't shave, one day or other there is going to be a very compelling
desire to shower and shave. It is not a problem; just go and take a shower.
You are avoiding death. It has to be faced, it is part of life's work. It is one of the greatest lessons one
has to learn. There is no need to be freaking out; that is not going to help. Go in, face it. Remember that yes,
one day or other you will be hospitalized, one day or other you will be ill, and one day or other, you are
going to die. So there is no point in postponing it. It is better to understand it before it is too late.
Mulla Nasrudin got sick and worriedly sent a hurried call for the priest, and insisted that he call on him
every day to groom his neglected soul for the hereafter. One day when the priest made his daily call, he
found Mulla Nasrudin in high spirits.
"I am getting along fine, sir," chortled Nasrudin. "My doctor says I will live for ten years yet, so you don't
need to come back for a while. But how about dropping in again in about nine years, eleven months and
twenty-nine days?"
One day it has to be faced. Don't be foolish; don't postpone it. Because if you postpone it to the very
end, it will be too late. It is not certain when the last day will happen. It can happen today, it can happen
tomorrow, it can happen any moment. Death is very unpredictable.
We live in death, so any moment it can happen. Face it, encounter it, and that knot in the stomach is the
right place to encounter it. That is the very door from where you enter into life and from where you go out
of life.
The last question:
BELOVED OSHO, BEING IN LOVE WITH YOU IS SCARY, AND I SURRENDER.
IT is from Prem Purnima. My answer is: being in love with you, Purnima, is even more scary, and I
Query:-
accept.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #7
Chapter title: They Kill Lust With Lust

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 94 mins
THOSE WHO ARE DEAD

AND YET FULLY ALIVE
AND KNOW THE FLAVORS
AND FEELINGS
IN LOVING;
THEY WILL CROSS THE RIVER.
GAZING AT
THE STREAM OF LIFE AND DEATH,
THEY SEEK INTEGRITY.
THEY HAVE NO WISH
FOR HAPPINESS AT ALL,
WALKING AGAINST THE WIND.
THEY KILL LUST

WITH LUST
AND ENTER THE CITY OF LOVE
UNATTACHED...
MAN IS ENERGY, A DYNAMISM, A PROCESS, A VERY CREATIVE PROCESS with a thousand

and one potentialities, with infinite alternatives open. Man is an opening, an evolution, and with all the
possibilities that the existence has. Man is a miniature existence; a drop, of course, but a drop has all that the
ocean has; a drop, of course, but a conscious drop. And the consciousness is oceanic; it knows no
boundaries. But the man I am talking about is the essential man of the Bauls, ADHAR MANUSH. You can
be that, but you are not that. You are the seed. You can open and blossom and release your fragrance to the
winds, but you are not yet that. It has to be remembered.
Gurdjieff used to say that man is not born with a soul; he has to create it through effort. A man is born
only with an opportunity. It can be used, it can be wasted, so all depends on you. One has to become a
creator of oneself. The parents have given you a body and a possibility, but the real birth has yet to happen.
And for that real birth you will have to become your own mother, your own father. That real birth is an
inner creativity. You have to move withinwards to find your own source of energy, and not only that, but to
change the mechanical channels of that energy,, to make conscious channels for it.
Ordinarily, energy flows downwards. That's what Bauls call lust. When they call it lust they are not
denouncing it, condemning it. It is just a fact, just as water flows downwards. It is natural for water to flow
downwards, down the hill. But water can rise upwards; just a little heat is needed. The water has to be
Query:-
heated; it can evaporate. At a certain degree of heat, a hundred degrees, it starts rising towards the heavens.
The same water that was always going downhill starts going uphill. A conversion has happened; just heat
was needed. In the East this heat is known as TAP. The word TAP means heat; the word TAP means
'heating yourself'.
The Bauls sing,
While desire burns in the limbs

still there is time.
Boil the juice
on the fire of longing
to condense the fruit.
The sweetness of syrup
will ferment and sour
unless it is stirred
on controlled heat.
Feelings evolve from desire,
and love shoots forth from lust.
Lust is the same energy as love; the difference is only of direction. Lust moves downwards, love has
started the uphill task. Lust is like roots of a tree, love is like wings of a bird -- but the energy is the same.
All energy is the same.
Energy as such is neutral. Unless you become conscious about it you cannot be creative. And the
downhill movement is very destructive: you are simply dissipating yourself. You are not getting any
integration through it -- what Gurdjieff used to call crystallization.
Every moment you are poured with energy. Existence goes on pouring energy into you, through air,
through water, through food, through the sunlight, through the moonlight, and a thousand and one other
subtle influences. The universe goes on pouring its energy into you. What are you doing with that energy?
Are you doing anything or simply wasting it? Are you creating something out of it? Are you getting a
certain integrity, crystallization out of it? Or does it just come through one end and is lost through the other
end?
There are many people who are just like a pipe: you pour one thing through one end, through the other
end it goes out. Don't be a pipe. When the energy is in you, do something with it so that something of it
becomes a permanent part of you. Otherwise the whole life will be just a pipe: eating, defecating, drinking,
urinating -- just a pipe. Subtle juices are created by your energy. That's what sex is; a very subtle juice.
Now what are you doing with it? Are you doing anything with it, or just wasting it?
Lust is the lowest form of sex energy; love, the highest form. Unless your lust becomes love you will be
missing your goal.
GURDJIEFF used to say that there is a certain mechanism in man; he called it 'KUNDABUFFER', just
parallel to KUNDALINI: Kundalini is a center, but it functions only when the energy rises upwards.
Kundabuffer is that center which functions in you when the energy goes downwards. Kundabuffer has to be
destroyed, melted, destructured. It is a mechanism out of the continuous practice of many lives. A certain
mechanism has arisen in everybody, a channel. The moment energy is ready it simply moves through that
channel. That channel is already there to take it out of your being. If this is the truth and nothing else is
possible, then Jean-Paul Sartre is right: that man is a useless passion. Then for a few days you are alive on
the earth, doing nothing -- eating things, throwing things, absorbing things, throwing things. Then what is
the point of it all?
But this is not all. The kundabuffer can be melted; that channel can be broken. And once that channel is
broken another channel starts functioning. It is already there waiting for you. Not that it does not exist; it
exists. It has come with you but you have not used it yet. You have not allowed energy to flow into it. Of
course, it is an uphill task, it is arduous. Going downward is very easy; going uphill, strength, awareness, a
certain will, courage, trust...many things will be needed.
The Bauls sing,
Query:-
The act of loving

is not an ideal dream.
Loving grows
from the grilling of lust --
like feeling death,
being wholly alive.
The clay-beetle buried
in the earth lives on clay,
nestling in it.
Lovers who know
how love can overcome lust
though an uphill walk,
even for a man of strength...
THE very courageous, the really strong people, the really adventurous, become attracted towards paths
of self-realization or paths of self-transformation. Religion is the greatest adventure there is. Going to
Everest is nothing, going to the moon also is nothing; going to the highest peak of your being is the real
task. Because in the first place, we are not even aware that the peak exists. In the first place, we are so
unconscious that we don't know what we are doing. We don't know what we are doing with our lives.
I have heard....
The manager of a small power plant was electrocuted while on the fob. The assistant manager informed
the police chief, the coroner, and the workmen in the plant. They gathered, horror-stricken, about the body
of the dead manager stretched out on the floor, and began to speculate how an experienced man could
commit so fatal an error.
"The only thing I can think of," said the assistant manager, "is that poor Joe must have picked up this
terminal in one hand.... "
The assistant manager picked up the terminal and then without thinking reached out with his other hand
and came into contact with... Bang!
The assistant manager was stretched out next to the manager, but the mystery was resolved to everyone's
satisfaction.
Man is unconscious. You go on doing things, not knowing why. You go on doing things you could not
do if you were even a little conscious.
What we are doing with our life is just sleeping through it. Consciousness has to be evolved. The more
consciousness you have, the more energy starts flowing upwards on its own accord. Consciousness is the
clue, the key, the master key. Lust becomes love through consciousness, so love cannot be an unconscious
thing.
When Bauls say that love is the door, they don't mean the love that you call love. Your love is as
unconscious as anything else. It is unconscious, that's why we use the expression 'falling in love'. Yes, it is a
'falling in'. The love Bauls are talking about is a rising in love, not falling in love. It is not a fall, it is a rise.
So don't misunderstand that your love is what Bauls are talking about. Your love is just a name for lust -- a
good name, a beautiful, nice name. And beware of nice words because they can be very deceptive. If you
label lust as love, you will be deceived by your own labelling.
LUST is when you are unconscious. You see a woman or a man and you fall in love, and you don't
know why; sometimes even against yourself, in spite of yourself.
People come and say to me, "What can we do? We are helpless; love has happened." This love is not the
love of the Baul; this is lust. What a Baul calls lust is this: unconscious love is lust. Then it flows
downwards. Then it moves through the sex center into the world again. Upwards lust is love, but then it is
conscious. Consciousness is the staircase: step by step you become more and more conscious. Whatsoever
you do, you do it with full consciousness -- even walking, eating, going to bed, talking, listening -- small
things of life, but you do them with consciousness. And when you are in love, you are in love with full
Query:-
consciousness. It is not against yourself. It is not that you are possessed, it is not that you are a victim, it is
not that you are being pulled by somebody like a magnet. No, you are moving on your own.
The Bauls' love is very cool. It has the coolness of awareness. Your love is very hot; it has the fever of
unconsciousness.
We are functioning through kundabuffer. This mechanism exists just at the center of sex. People who
are living through kundabuffer can live two sorts of lives: one, of indulgence, and the other, of repression --
but both are the same. Ordinarily the people who live a life of repression are thought to be saints. That's
simply foolish. They are the same people in a different garb. People who live a life of indulgence are as
unconscious as the people who live a life of repression. In fact, the more strong the kundabuffer is, the more
people become repressive, because they want to control it. They are afraid. They are afraid because they are
losing the ego control over their sex desire. They try to control it, but their control is like forcing the sex
desire deep into the unconscious. They sit on top of it; they have to continuously fight with it.
And remember: if you have to fight with something you can never leave it and you can never go beyond
it. To fight with it you have to remain on the same level. To fight with it you have to remain sitting on top of
it for twenty-four hours. There is no holiday. You leave it even for a single moment and it is again there,
forcing you towards indulgence.
Indulgence and-repression are the two faces of the same type of person. In your monasteries you will
find the repressive type, in the world you will find the indulgent type. The playboy and the so-called saint
may look opposite to each other, but they are complementary. Their obsession is the same, their fixation is
the same, their neurosis is the same. Kundabuffer has to be melted down. What to do?
ONE small technique will be of tremendous help. Whenever you feel sex desire arising, there are three
possibilities: one, indulge in it -- ordinary, everybody is doing that; second: repress it, force it down so it
goes beyond your consciousness into the darkness of the unconscious, throw it into the basement of your
life. That's what your so-called extraordinary people are doing -- MAHATMAS, saints, monks. But both are
against nature. Both are against the inner science of transformation.
The third -- a very rare minority ever tries it -- is when the sex desire arises, close your eyes. It is a very
valuable moment: desire arising is energy arising. It is like the sun rising in the morning. Close your eyes;
this is the moment to be meditative. Move downwards to the sex center where you are feeling the thrill the
vibration, the kick. Move there and just be a silent onlooker. Witness it, don't condemn it. The moment you
condemn you have gone far away from it. And don't enjoy it, because the moment you enjoy you are
unconscious. Just be alert, watchful, like a lamp burning in a dark night. You just take your consciousness
there, unflickering, unwavering. You see what is happening at the sex center. What is this energy?
Don't call it names because all words have become contaminated. Even if you say it is sex, immediately
you have started condemning it. The very word has become condemnatory. Or, if you belong to the new
generation, then the very word has become something sacred. But the word is always loaded with emotion.
Any word which is loaded with emotion becomes a barrier on the path of awareness. You just don't call it
anything. Just watch the fact that an energy is arising near the sex center. There is a thrill -- watch it. And
watching it, you will feel a totally new quality of energy. Watching it, you will see it is rising upwards. It is
finding a path inside you. And the moment it starts rising upwards you will feel a coolness falling on you, a
silence surrounding you, a grace, a beatitude, a benediction, a blessing all around you. It is no longer like a
thorn, painful. It no longer hurts; it is very soothing, like a balm. And the more you remain aware, the
higher it will go. If it can come up to the heart, which is not very difficult -- difficult, but not very
difficult.... If you remain alert you will see it has come to the heart. When it comes to the heart you will
know for the first time what love is.
UP to now you have been carrying a counterfeit in the name of love. When the energy comes to the
heart chakra, then it is transformed into love. Once it is transformed into love, once you have felt it, once it
has penetrated you, your whole being will feel purified. You will feel virgin, you will feel so pure, so holy,
that you cannot think that heaven is anywhere else. You will know it is within you, within your heart. And
heaven will become a truth; it will not be theology then, it will become almost a geography. You will know
exactly where it is, and God will no longer be a hypothesis. In that purity, in that silence, in that fulfillment
of love you will see, God is -- not as a theory, but as a self-evident truth; not as an argument, not as a proof,
not as a conclusion, not as a syllogism, but simply it is there. There is no way to deny it. It is there so much
that you can deny yourself, but you cannot deny God. You yourself look so faint before the reality of God
Query:-
that you can say, "I may not be, but He is."
That will be the first glimpse. Energy can rise still higher. When it comes to the center of the throat, it
becomes prayer. People have been doing prayer, but they don't know what prayer is -- because prayer is the
most subtle and refined form of love. If you have not moved through the heart center you cannot go to
prayer; there is no way. One has to go via the heart. Because of the throat center, because it exists at the
throat center and happens at the throat center, people have started doing rituals. People have made prayers:
they assert, they say something. But just by using the throat center and saying something to God you are not
praying. Prayer is concerned with the throat center, but not as verbalization. It is an experience at that
center, and the experience is exactly like when a child sucks at his mother's breast for the first time. It is not
that you say something, but you receive something.
Prayer is not saying something to God, but receiving something from God. God becomes the mother, the
mother's breast. Prayer is a nourishment. Yes, it exists and happens at the throat center because the throat
center is the center to receive. The throat center is the first center which starts functioning because the child
has to suck air; that happens through the throat center. And then he has to suck milk; that happens through
the throat center. Prayer is just like sucking air, vitality, or sucking milk at the breast of your mother.
Hence, Jesus says, "Unless you become like small babes, you will not enter into my kingdom of God."
He is talking about the throat center. But Christians have completely lost track of it. He is saying in a
symbolic way to again become a babe, again start sucking from the throat center the energy that life is.
Now, of course, the breast is invisible and the milk is invisible.
Have you watched a man in prayer? -- how diffused with grace he looks, how peaceful, how at home,
how relaxed. Watch a small babe sucking milk, fallen asleep with the nipple of the breast still in his mouth,
resting on his mother's breast, fallen asleep. Watch the face of the child; that is the face of the saint also
when he arrives at the throat center and prayer arises.
PRAYER is not something that you do with God; prayer is something that you allow God to do with
you. Prayer is receptive. It is not an action on your part, it is a passive welcome.. Prayer is not saying
something to God. On the contrary, it is listening to God. It is being ready to receive His gift. It is very
difficult to receive His gift because you have your own ideas, you have your own plans. You go on telling
Him, showing Him the right path: "Do this, then I will be happy."
We have the adage that man proposes and God disposes. This is simply stupid, sheer stupidity. Just the
other way round is the case: God proposes and man goes on disposing -- because you have your own plans.
You never listen to Him, you think you are wiser than Him. You go on advising Him: "Do this, don't do
that" -- that's what you do in your prayer.
A real prayer has nothing to suggest to God except a deep gratitude, thankfulness. It simply accepts
whatsoever God is pouring. Prayer is receiving the gift.
But it happens at the throat center. It is the highest form of love. And when you go still higher, then at
the seventh center, SAHASRAR, happens SAMADHI, the ultimate ecstasy, where the seeker is lost in the
sought, where you are no more yourself, where God and you lose boundaries and become one.
Overlapping starts at the throat center; boundaries become dim, not very clear-cut. But still, you exist
separately. You have a separate center and God has a separate center. In prayer you two are meeting,
overlapping. In some way peripheries are merging into each other, but still centers are different. The higher
you go, the more centers come closer and closer. At the SAHASRAR, the seventh chakra, your centers
become one. Then there is only one center. That's what is meant when Jesus says, "Not I, but my Father
lives in me." Now the seeker and the sought are not two. The ultimate meeting has happened, the ultimate
love has flowered, has come to fruition and fulfillment.
If you become aware and a witness when the sex center is throbbing with energy, vibrating, streaming --
without choosing indulgence or repression -- if you can remain just in the middle, a watcher, an observer,
this tremendous transformation happens on its own.
So next time you feel full of passion, don't move into these two easily available alternatives: indulgence
or repression. Just remain in the middle, and you are at a point where the door can open. It always opens in
the middle.
Buddha used to call his path 'the middle path', MAJJHIM NIKAYA, because he said, "Everywhere,
excess is prohibited. Always choose the middle." The exact middle is the point beyond. If you can find the
exact middle ground between two opposites, two rivals, you have gone beyond them, you have reached a
transcendence. The transcendence opens just in the middle; the middle is the beyond.
Query:-
When you are watching, standing like a witness at the sex center, energy moves upwards. Kundabuffer
starts melting, and kundalini starts functioning. Kundalini is the right path, kundabuffer the wrong path.
And kundabuffer is functioning because we have lived so unconsciously for many lives that kundalini
cannot function. Kundalini needs the fuel of consciousness. If that gas is missing, kundalini cannot function.
Kundabuffer functions with unconsciousness.
So it depends on you: if you go on supplying unconsciousness, kundabuffer will go on functioning; if
you supply consciousness, suddenly your life turns. You start moving towards the interior of your being; a
deep interiority.
A man who was extremely successful with muleteams was asked how he managed the stubborn
creatures.
"Well," explained the man, "when they won't move, I pick up a handful of soil and put it in their mouths. Of
course, they spit it out, but as a rule they start on."
"Why do you think it has that effect?" asked the person.
"I'm not sure, but I think it changes the current of their thoughts."
If you start witnessing, nobody knows exactly HOW your energy starts moving, but somehow it
happens. Maybe it changes your current of thought. It is a great shock.
You try -- you are angry, you are getting into anger; suddenly become alert. Shake and jerk your body
and become alert, and see what happens. Suddenly you will see that something has slipped out of your
hands; you are no longer angry. Somehow anger looks foolish now. Or, slap your face when you are getting
angry rather than slapping somebody else's face -- that is not going to help. Slap your own face when you
are getting angry and see what happens. Suddenly, the mechanism that was going to function in a routine
way cannot function; you have shocked it.
A consciousness arises if you slap your own face, a consciousness which breaks the unconscious
pattern. So wherever you want to change, remember consciousness is the key. Otherwise, we are almost
living in a sort of insanity. A few mad people are in the madhouses, the remainder are outside. But it is very
difficult to find a sane man. The differences are only of degrees. Have you watched the fact, have you ever
become afraid of it? -- that the person who has become mad was also just like you a few days before?
Nobody had ever thought that he would become mad; he is mad. Can't the same happen to you?
IT is told about William James, the greatest American psychologist, that when he went to visit a
madhouse for the first time, he went back home very sad. He had fever. The wife was worried. She said,
"What has happened? You went, and you were perfectly okay." He said, "Don't talk to me. I'm in no mood
to talk." He slipped under the blankets and remained ill for two or three days. Everybody was worried. The
doctor said, "Nothing is wrong." Then he said what had happened.
Seeing many mad people in the madhouse, suddenly a thought occurred to him: "The same can happen
to me." That gave him a trembling; he was never the same man again. But that made him very alert.
Inside your mind, continuous madness exists -- and you know it. How can you manage not to know it?
But it goes on like an undercurrent. On the surface you manage well.
I have heard....
A clergyman had occasion to preach to the inmates of an insane hospital. During his sermon he noticed
that one of the patients paid the closest attention, his eyes riveted upon the preacher's face, his body bent
eagerly forward. This interest was most flattering. After the service, the speaker noticed that the man spoke
to the superintendent. So as soon as possible, the preacher inquired, "Didn't that man speak to you about my
sermon?"
"Yes."
"Would you mind telling me what he said?"
The superintendent tried to sidestep, but the preacher insisted. "Well," he said at last, "what the man said
was,'Just think...he is out and I am in.'"
You may be out and somebody may be in, but the difference is only of degree. Unless you become
conscious, you are always on the verge of madness, always boiling, always ready. Any small thing can
prove the last straw on the camel. Any small thing, any small incident, and you may cross the boundary.
TO live unconsciously is not to really live. To become conscious, to move consciously, to be conscious
of all that happens in your mind, to be separate from your mind -- because consciousness becomes separate;
Query:-
whenever you watch something you become separate from that thing -- this is the secret. If you watch your
thoughts you become separate from your thoughts; you are no more identified. And when you are not
identified, you are not cooperating, and you don't go on giving energy to your thoughts -- by and by, they
disappear. When the host is not interested, the guests disappear. They don't come so often; or even if they
come they don't stay so long. Gaps arise -- one thought comes, then minutes pass and another thought does
not come. In that gap you face reality. Then there is no screen between you and reality. Unscreened reality
is what God is.
The song for today:
THOSE WHO ARE DEAD

AND YET FULLY ALIVE
AND FEELINGS
IN LOVING;
GAZING AT
THEY HAVE NO WISH
THEY KILL LUST

WITH LUST
UNATTACHED....
Tremendous sutras, tremendously significant sutras.... "Those who are dead and yet fully alive".... How
can you be dead and yet fully alive? If you become a witness to your body, then you know you are not the
body. The body is born and the body is going to die; the moment you know you are not the body, you know
that you were never born and you will never die. So in a sense you become wholly alive, eternally alive --
what Jesus calls 'abundance of life', overflowingly alive. You cannot be exhausted then. Then you are not
caused: you don't have any beginning and you cannot have any end; you are perpetual energy, eternal
energy. Then you are wholly alive on the one hand, and because you know you are not the body, then the
life that you used to think consisted in body is no longer there.
The body is already dead. You use it, you live in it, but you are no longer identified with it.
THOSE WHO ARE DEAD

AND YET FULLY ALIVE
AND FEELINGS IN LOVING;
And when you are fully alert and no longer attached to the body, no longer identified with the body, no
longer does the idea exist in you that you are the body, then love arises. The moment you are no longer the
body, the kundabuffer is broken -- because the kundabuffer can exist only when you are identified with the
body. The kundabuffer is a part of the body.
NOW be careful about what I am saying; be attentive.

The kundabuffer is part of the body and kundalini is not part of the body. Kundalini is part of YOU, it is
part of your consciousness. So people, there are many...even a few doctors have tried to find out where the
kundalini exists in the body. A few have even been foolish enough to prove that it exists here or there, at
this center or that.
Kundalini is not part of the physical body at all. And Gurdjieff was right: if people are trying to prove
that kundalini is part of the body, then whatsoever they prove is kundabuffer, not kundalini. Nobody was
Query:-
there to say to Gurdjieff that kundalini is part of the soul, not of the body. And all the so-called Hindu yogis,
particularly the modern ones, try in every way to imitate science when they write. They try to show and
prove that Yoga is scientific. Of course, then they start falling victim to the same attitude, the same
standpoint as the scientists have become victims of: the standpoint that starts with the body and thinks the
body is all. So they try to prove that kundalini exists somewhere in the physical body, that it is
physiological.
Gurdjieff used to say that these people were talking about kundabuffer: "Their kundalini is not
kundalini, but kundabuffer; a false entity." When you are too attached to the body, this false entity arises. It
arises in the body, not in you. When you are no longer identified with the body kundabuffer disappears. It
is, in fact, the kundabuffer from where you are identified with the body. That's why sex becomes almost
synonymous with love. When a woman has come to her menopause she starts thinking-that her life is
finished. When a man comes to know that he is no longer sexually potent, he starts feeling that now he is
useless. These wrong attitudes exist because we are too identified with the sex center.
If witnessing arises and you are separate, and you KNOW that you are separate -- not that you repeat it,
not that the Vedas say that you are separate from your body so you repeat it, you chant it, and constant
repetition gives you an illusory idea that, yes, you are separate from the body. That is not going to help.
Your own knowing, experiential, existential, can be of help, nothing else. If you know you are not the body,
suddenly love arises; energy starts moving towards the heart center.
The heart does not exist in the lungs. The heart is not part of the body, lungs are a part of the body. And
whatsoever you have been thinking of as your heartbeat is not a heartbeat, it is just lungs beating.
Hidden behind this beat is another beat. You can think of it in this way: the lungs and heart are parallel.
Lungs belong to the body, and heart belongs to the soul. Kundabuffer and kundalini are parallel:
kundabuffer belongs to the body, kundalini belongs to the soul. Sex and love are parallel: sex belongs to the
body, love belongs to the soul. The world and God are parallel: the world belongs to the body, God belongs
to the soul. Body and soul exist parallel, like two parallel lines always together and yet meeting nowhere;
always together, running together for thousands of lives and meeting nowhere. They affect each other, but
meeting never happens. They color each other. When you become too obsessed with the body, your body
almost possesses the soul. When you become too detached from the body, your soul starts possessing your
body.
Ordinarily the soul remains a slave and the body becomes the master. But when the conversion happens,
understanding arises. The soul regains its mastery and body comes to its right place -- becomes a slave, an
obedient slave.
THOSE WHO ARE DEAD

AND YET FULLY ALIVE
AND FEELINGS IN LOVING;
GAZING AT
THE STREAM OF LIFE AND DEATH
Integrity, Yoga -- integration, crystallization, centering, or whatsoever you like to call it -- is the goal.
GAZING AT...that is the key; what I was calling witnessing.
GAZING AT
INSIDE you there is one stream of life and one stream of death. Body is the stream of death, soul is the
stream of life. Soul never dies, body is never alive. With the soul-body together, the body reflects the life of
the soul. It is simply luminous with the life of the soul. The life is borrowed; it is like the moon. The moon
has no rays of its own, it reflects the sun. The rays come from the sun, are reflected from the moon, but you
see them as if they are coming from the moon.
Query:-
It is as if you burn a small lamp in a room and somebody passing outside looks inside through the glass
window. The glass window spreads the light of the lamp outside also, but the light is not coming from the
glass window, it is coming from an interior place.
Your body reflects life -- your body is luminous with the life of the soul. That's why when the soul
disappears the body is dead. The body was always dead. Go and put off the light inside the room and the
window will be dark. It was always dark because it has no light of its own.
Body is the stream of death, and if you continue to be attached to the body, you will again and again be
falling into the stream of death. You will be born and you will be dying, and you will be born and you will
be dying -- this is what the Hindus call 'the wheel of life and death'. Go in, withinwards, and find the source
of life. It is totally different from the body. It has made its abode in the body, but it is not the body. That is
the stream of life. Watching, gazing, witnessing these two...THE STREAM OF LIFE AND DEATH, THEY
SEEK INTEGRITY. And once your understanding has become perfect about what death is and what life is,
you become integrated, you become centered. Because then no more is your center in the body. Then there
is no longer any illusion that you are in the body. Then you are suddenly aware of the real center of your
being, of your innermost shrine.
THEY HAVE NO WISH

The Bauls say the real seekers have no wish for happiness at all, walking against the wind. They simply
float with life. They don't ask anything from life, they simply receive. Whatsoever life gives, they enjoy,
they delight in it, but their demand has ceased. They don't swim, and they never swim against the stream;
they simply float with the stream. That's what surrender is.
There is a beautiful song....
Oh cruelly eager,
are you going to fry on fire
your heart's flower-bud?
Are you going to force it to blossom
and let the scent escape
without biding your time?
Look at my Master, God,

eternally opening the buds
to bloom
but never in a hurry.
You are dependent

on the hours of the day
because of your terrifying greed.
What else can you do?
Listen to
the Beloved's appeal
and do not hurt
the Master at heart.
The stream spontaneously flows,
lost in itself,
listening to His words,
Query:-
O my eager one.
The Bauls say, "Don't try to force anything." Let life be a deep let-go. See God opening millions of
flowers every day without forcing the buds, waiting, never in a hurry, giving their time to them. The Bauls
say, "Everything happens at its right time, everything happens in its own season. Wait, don't be impatient,
don't be in a hurry. All hurry is greed, and all hurry is a subtle fight." That which is going to happen will
happen. Whenever it is going to happen it will happen; you need not fight existence. You can surrender, you
can trust.
THIS has to be understood.

If this becomes part of your inner climate, it will give you tremendous joy. Then you are no longer
proposing anything, and then nobody can frustrate you. You don't have any plan and you don't have any
goal. You are not going somewhere, you have simply left yourself in His hands, and He takes you wherever
he wants. "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done...." Let His will be done: that is the Bauls' method. It is of
surrender and love and trust. The Baul is not a yogi, certainly not a Hatha yogi; the Baul is a lover, a
devotee. He trusts that God is taking him into some unknown world, but it must be beautiful because He is
taking him. The river is going to the ocean; it must be going, because it is His river. This childlike trust is
his only method.
THEY HAVE NO WISH

THEY KILL LUST

WITH LUST
UNATTACHED....
That's why Bauls say, "Even if lust has to be transcended, it is through lust." If anger has to be
transcended, it is through anger. They know the alchemy of how to change poison into nectar. They don't
say to throw it, it is poison. They say to transform it, nectar is hiding behind it. The poison is only just the
shell. Find the inner content of it; love is hiding behind lust. Soul is hiding behind the body, God is hiding
behind the world. Don't throw it. It will be throwing something tremendously valuable. Maybe you are not
yet aware of what value is there. You think it is just a stone. Become a jeweller. It is what Bauls call to
become a RUSIK, a connoisseur. Know the taste of it, find out the ways, what it is. Become alert to the
hidden reality, open the doors and go into it. It may be a Kohinoor; don't throw it. If God has given you the
stone, it must be a Kohinoor -- otherwise why should He give it to you? Don't think yourself wiser than
Him. Let His wisdom be the supreme. You trust. If He has given you a stone it must be a Kohinoor, it must
be a great diamond. It is His gift; it cannot be otherwise.
So even in lust they are not like ordinary ascetics. They don't fight, they search deep in it, they try to
find the chemistry of it. Something is bound to be there, otherwise why should God give so much sex
energy to everyone? And to man he has given more than to any animal. In animals, sex is seasonal. Once a
year or twice a year they become sexual, otherwise sex disappears. Man is sexual for twenty-four hours,
twelve months a year, year in and year out. Something is bound to be there. Why has so much sex energy
been given to man? It cannot be only for generative reasons -- because animals are doing perfectly well. If
man were only seasonally sexual, things. in a way, would have been better: once a year for a month, and for
eleven months you are free. You can do a thousand and one things and not be worried about it. One month
in a year would be enough.
But why has man been given so much sex energy? It cannot be only to generate children. This great
treasure has been given for some other reason: it carries a hidden possibility for becoming tremendously
alert and aware. This energy has to become love, and this love has to become prayer, and this prayer has to
become ecstasy.
The generative part is very minor as far as man is concerned. Something of greater value is hiding in it.
Query:-
God cannot give you something without a particular reason in it.
THEY KILL LUST

WITH LUST
UNATTACHED....
When lust is transformed and you enter into the city of love, you enter unattached. Remember, that is
their definition of love. If love has attachment in it, it is lust, If love has no attachment in it, only then is it
not lust. When you are in lust you are not really thinking of the other, thinking of your beloved or lover.
You are simply using the other for your own ends. And of course, attachment is bound to be there, because
you would like to possess him, and you would like to possess him or her forever. Because tomorrow also
you may need, the day after tomorrow also you may need. You need a lover and you want to possess him.
LOVE is a gift. You give; you need not be worried about whether tomorrow he will be there to receive
or not. Because a lover can give to the trees, to the rocks. A lover can give to the emptiness of the sky. A
lover can simply flower and send his fragrance to the winds, even if nobody is there. Just think: Buddha
sitting under his Bodhi tree, alone, full of love, overflowing.... Not that somebody is there to receive, but
God is always there to receive, in so many forms, in so many ways.
Lust is greed, lust is attachment, lust is possessiveness. Love needs no possession, love knows no
attachment, because love is not greed. Love is a gift. It is a sharing. You have found something; your heart
is full, your fruits are ripe. You hanker that somebody should come and share. It is unconditional; who
shares does not matter. But you are so full of it that you would like to be unburdened -- as when clouds are
full of rainwater, they rain. Sometimes they rain in a forest, sometimes they rain on a hill, sometimes they
rain in a desert, but they rain. The fact of where they rain is irrelevant. They are so full they have to rain.
A lover is so full he becomes a cloud, full of lovewater; he has to rain. That raining is spontaneous.
The so called lovers

rarely know
the flavors of loving.
A lover lives
for love alone
as the fish in the water.
Great is the lover
who can love day and night
and is wholly devoted
to love's intercourse.
Worship with prayers.
The man or the woman

is still alone,
but a lover is formed
when the souls conjoin.
Ordinarily a man is alone, a woman is alone. Loneliness is there. Even if you are attached to a man or
woman or a friend, and it is only the attachment of lust, you will remain lonely. Have you not watched it?
Attached to a woman, attached to a man, but still you remain lonely. Somewhere deep down there is no
communication with the other; you are cut off, like islands. Even dialogue seems to be impossible. Lovers
ordinarily never talk to each other, because each talk creates argument, and each talk brings conflict. By and
by, they learn to be silent; by and by, they learn somehow to avoid the other, or at the most, tolerate. But
they remain lonely. Even if the other is there, there is space; the inner space remains unfulfilled.
Query:-
The Bauls say,

The man or the woman is still alone, but a lover is formed when the souls conjoin.
It is not a question of two bodies; it is not a question of two bodies meeting and embracing and
penetrating each other. The question is of two souls penetrating each other. When two souls penetrate each
other, then loneliness disappears forever. Then a totally new world arises where you are never, never lonely.
You have become a whole.
Man is half, woman is half. When love happens, wholeness happens.
Poison and nectar

are mingled in one
like music played and heard
in one single act.
The human heart
free from flaw,
forever enlightened,
sees good and evil --
same time, same space.
A child sucking his mother
draws milk;
a leech at the breast of a woman
draws blood.
"Poison and nectar are mingled in one...." Love and lust are mingled in one, life and death are mingled
in one. It depends on you what you are going to choose of it. A child sucking his mother draws milk; a leech
at the same breast draws blood. It depends on you. Lust is not bad, but love and lust are mingled together.
CHOOSE love; bring love out of lust. Let your life be a life of alertness, so whatsoever you do is done
in such awareness that only that which is valuable is chosen, and the valueless is left.
The whole life is nothing but a great effort to choose life against death, to choose love instead of lust, to
choose God instead of the world, to choose beauty, good, truth, instead of falsities.
My heart!
You are in a muddle.
As the days go,
your inherited riches,
plundered, fly.
You only doze around the clock
drinking dreams
and living in five homes
with no control.
The robber rests with you,
my heart,
in your own room.
But how can you know?
Your eyes are shut in sleep.
This is unawareness: "Your robber rests with you, my heart, in your own room. But how can you know?
Your eyes are shut in sleep." Open your eyes. Watch what is happening inside, outside. Be alert to the death
and life stream, and by and by, fall into the life stream and be integrated.
Love springs
as feelings merge.
Query:-
Divided forms
assume a single way.
A pair of hearts
running in parallel streams
long to reach
the God of loving.
Bauls say, "Love a man, love a woman, but let this love be nothing but an offering to the ultimate love,
the love of God."
Love springs
as feelings merge.
Divided forms
assume a single way.
A pair of hearts
running in parallel streams
long to reach
the God of loving.
If your love is love and not lust, then, by and by, you will find that you and your beloved are both
moving together, singing, dancing towards the Ultimate Lover, the Ultimate Beloved where, and only
where, one can find rest. Then you are moving towards the ultimate home. If lust is there, then you are
moving nowhere.
Lust is like dead, stagnant water -- a pond; love is like a river. And if you love somebody, your rivers
move parallel towards the ocean. It is good to go dancing with your beloved, good to go hand in hand, good
to go singing, with laughter in the heart. But remember, if your life becomes a pool, stagnant, then it is lust.
Love is always flowing. Love is dynamic, lust is stale and stagnant.
The essence of beauty

in the mirror of love
stares at his face;
the formless
within the visual form.
The fire cools
in his hands
and quicksilver roasts on flames.
Love is a miracle. Once love has happened, miracles happen continuously: fire cools in his hands and
quicksilver roasts on flames.
Love has a different world. Lust lives under a different law. The mystics have called the law of lust the
law of gravitation: one is pulled downwards. And the law of love is the law of grace: one is pulled upwards.
I have heard....
A Sufi mystic was staying in somebody's house and he was thought to be a madman, so the family was a
little afraid. The man was not reliable; he might do anything. But he was also known as a great mystic so
they could not throw him out; they were also afraid of that. In the night -- "Where to put him? Where is he
going to sleep?" So they put him in the basement.
In the middle of the night they suddenly heard laughter coming from the terrace. They could recognize
the laughter; it was that madman's. But how did he reach the terrace? He had been put in the basement. They
ran upstairs; he was laughing madly, he was rolling on the terrace.
They said, "What has happened? How have you come here?"
Query:-
He said, "That's why I am laughing. I was sleeping in the basement, and a miracle of miracles happened:
suddenly I fell upwards. Hence, I am laughing!"
The story is beautiful. Mystics fall upwards, love falls upwards. It is a part of another world, of another
law: the law of grace.
Light has burst

on the walls of the sky.
The kind one
has blossomed at last.
Waking in the morning,
I saw him present,
appearing close to my face.
Flowers wither
and birds flutter
and the dew forms on the leaves.
The glow of the night
is melting away
with the rising heat
of the sun.
Love is rising sun, lust is the dark night of the soul.
Explore the nature

of your own body,
my unfeeling heart.
Unless you know
your very substance,
worshipping God is of no avail.
The body is the home
of seven heavens
for you to voyage.
You will blunder
as you never learned to know
the friends and the foes
alive in your body.
So the basic work is to know the foe and the friend in the body. To know that which you are and that
which you are not is the basic work, to discriminate between death and life, lust and love, kundabuffer and
kundalini.
There is no need to go anywhere. All that is going to happen is going to happen within you. All is given
there, all is already given. Just a little discrimination, a little awareness is needed. Bring light unto your own
being. Close your eyes from the outside and open your eyes withinwards. The whole world is there in
miniature.
The mystics say: As above, so below.
The Hindus say: Whatsoever is in Brahman, whatsoever is in the universe, is also in man.
MAN is a small map of the whole cosmos. The limited and unlimited both exist in you; matter and
consciousness both exist in you; the lowest and the highest both exist in you.
Nietzsche used to say that man is a rope stretched between two abysses, two eternities.
Yes, man is a rope, a bridge. You are a ladder: one part is resting on the earth, the other part -- you
cannot even see it -- is resting at the feet of God. Watch it, recognize it, feel the direction. And move. Start
Query:-
moving.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #8
Chapter title: I'm Just Being To You

Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 91 mins
The first question:
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN SOMEBODY HATES YOU?
WHETHER SOMEBODY HATES YOU OR SOMEBODY LOVES YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE
ANY DIFFERENCE IN YOU. If you are, you remain the same. If you are not, then you are immediately
changed. If you are not, then anybody can pull you, push you; then anybody can push your buttons and
change you. Then you are a slave, then you are not a master. Your mastery begins when whatsoever
happens outside does not change you; your inner climate remains the same.
A psychoanalyst was attending a convention. At one of the lectures one ugly woman sitting next to him
began to pinch him. Annoyed, he was about to give her an angry retort, when he changed his mind: "Why
should I get angry," he decided. "After all, it is her problem."
Whether somebody loves you or hates you, it is his or her problem. If you are, if you have understood
your being, you remain in tune with yourself. Nobody can disturb your inner harmony. If somebody loves,
good; if somebody hates, good. Both remain somewhere outside you. This is what we call mastery. This is
what we call crystallization -- becoming free of impressions, influences.
You ask me, "What do you do when somebody hates you?"
What can I do? It is that person's problem; it has nothing to do with me. If I was not here he would have
hated somebody else. He would have hated. If there were nobody and he were alone, he would have hated
himself. Hatred is his problem. It has nothing to do with me, not in the least. Basically it does not even refer
to me; I am just an excuse. Somebody else would have done as well, would have functioned as an excuse
for him.
Have you not watched it? that when you are angry, you are simply angry. It is not that your anger is
addressed to somebody. That 'somebody' is nothing but an excuse. Angry, you come home from the office;
you jump on your wife. Angry, you go from your home; you are angry in the office with the peon, with the
clerk, with this and that. If you analyze your states of mind, you will come to see that they belong to you.
You live in your own world, but you go on projecting it on others.
When you are angry, YOU are angry -- not at me. When you are full of hate, you are full of hate -- not at
me. When you are full of love, you are full of love -- not at me. Once you understand it, you remain like a
lotus leaf in the world. You remain in the water but the water does not touch; it touches you not. You
remain in the world and yet aloof, not of it. Then nobody can disturb your silence, and nobody can distract
you. Your compassion goes on flowing. If you love me, you receive my compassion. If you hate me, you
Query:-
will not receive my compassion -- not because I will not give to you. I will be continuously giving to you, as
much as I give to those who love me, but you will be closed and you will not receive it.
Once being is attained, one is compassion, unconditional compassion. Not that in some moments he
becomes compassionate and some moments he is not compassionate. Compassion then is his natural
climate, compassion is his permanent mood, compassion is his integrated being. Then whatsoever you do,
his compassion goes on showering on you. But there are moments when you will receive it, when you will
be open, and there are moments when you will not receive it because you will be closed.
So in hate you will not receive that, in love you will receive that. And you may even feel the difference
-- because one who loves me will start growing, one who hates me will start shrinking. Both will become so
totally different that you may start thinking that I must be giving more to the one I Love, or one who loves
me, and I'm not giving to one who hates me or is angry at me or is closed towards me. But I am not doing
that. The clouds are there and they are showering: if your pot is not broken it will be filled. Or even if your
pot is not broken, but is upside-down, then you will miss. Hate is a state of upside-downness. Then rains can
go on showering but you will remain empty, because your opening is not there.
Once you are put rightside-up, that's what love is. Love is nothing but an opening, a receptivity, a
welcome, an invitation, that "I am ready; come, please."
The Bauls go on singing, "Come Beloved, come." They go on sending their invitations. Love is inviting,
hate is repelling. If you love me you will receive much -- not because I am giving you more especially; but
if you hate me you will not receive at all -- not because I am not giving you, but because you are closed. But
I remain myself.
I am not identified with my body, I am not identified with my mind. I have come home.
If you are identified with your body and somebody hurts your body, you will be angry; he is hurting
YOU. If you are identified with your mind and somebody insults you, you will be angry, because he is
hurting your mind. Once you are identified with your being nobody can hurt, because nobody has yet
invented any way to hurt being.
The body can be hurt, can be killed. The mind can be hurt...but the being cannot be touched. There is no
way to hurt it, there is no way to create pain. It's VERY nature is blissfulness. You can hurt my body;
simple. If I am identified with the body I will be angry because I will think you have hurt me. If you insult
me then the hurt goes into the mind. If I am identified with the mind, again you are my enemy. But I am
neither identified with the body nor with the mind. I am the witness. So whatsoever you do never reaches to
my witnessing center. It goes on witnessing it; it remains utterly unaffected. Once false identifications fall,
you are unperturbed. Then you become the center of the cyclone, and storms can go on raging all around
you, but deep inside you remain at the still, small center of your being, completely transcendental to
whatsoever is happening.
I have heard....
A philosopher, a barber and a bald-headed fool were travelling together. Losing their way they were
forced to sleep in the open air, and to avoid danger it was agreed to watch by turns. The first lot fell on the
barber, who for amusement shaved the philosopher's head while he was sleeping. He then awoke him, and
the philosopher, raising his hand to scratch his head, exclaimed, "Here is a pretty mistake! You have
awakened the old bald-headed fool instead of me."
Your identification is the BASIC problem. If you are identified with the body, then you are going to
remain in constant trouble. Because body is continuously changing, your identity will never be at a point
where you can settle and relax. One day the body is young, another day it is old. One day it is healthy,
another day it is ill. One day you are so radiant with youth, another day just a dilapidated structure, a ruin.
Continuously, body is in a flux.
That's why people who are identified with the body will remain constantly puzzled, confused, not
knowing who they are. You are identifying with something which is not reliable. One day it is born, another
day it dies. It is continuously dying and continuously changing. How can you rest with it?
If you are identified with the mind then there will be even more trouble. Because the body at least has a
certain structure: it changes, but changes very slowly. You never feel the change. It changes very silently,
and it takes years really, to feel a certain change happening. A child does not become a young man
overnight, and a young man does not become an old man overnight. It takes years, and very slow is the
change; and such minute, minor changes happen that one is never aware. But with the mind you are
constantly in turmoil; every single moment there is change. One moment you are happy, another moment
you are sad. One moment you were at the top of the world, feeling so fortunate, another moment you are in
Query:-
hell, thinking to commit suicide. How can you identify with the mind?
Being is that which remains always the same, eternally the same. It has no form so it cannot change, and
it has no content so it cannot change. The being is contentless, formless. It has no name, no form -- what in
the East we call NAMARUPA. These two things change: the name and the form. It is neither. It is simple,
sheer existence, empty of all content and all form Once you have entered this emptiness nothing can disturb
you, because there is nothing to be disturbed. Nothing can hit you, because there is nobody inside to be hit.
Then if you hate me, your arrow will pass through me. It cannot strike because there is nobody. You
cannot make a target of me. Whether you love me or hate me, you cannot make a target of me. So it makes
no difference. And I don't do anything, I just remain myself.
One day Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me, "Yes, I used to be in politics myself. I was a dog-catcher in
my town for two years, but finally lost the job."
"What was the matter?" I asked him. "Change of mayors, or something else?"
He said, "No, I finally caught the dog."
And that's what I would like to say to you: I finally caught the dog. Now there is no work left for me. I
am jobless. I'm not doing anything: all desires have gone, all doing has left. I'm just here. I'm just being to
you. If you love, you will receive me with great welcome, and you will be tremendously benefitted. If you
hate you will miss, and the responsibility will be yourS. Now it is for you to choose. But I don't do anything.
YOU ARE RECOMMENDING MEDITATION OR DEVOTION. I FIND THEM BOTH HELPFUL; BOTH LEAD
TO THE SAME GOAL: BLISS, ANANDA. SOMETIMES I FEEL I AM THAT, OR RATHER THIS, THE
ESSENTIAL MAN, AND SOMETIMES I FEEL ECSTATIC IN BEING A DEVOTEE -- SINGING, PRAYING,
DANCING, TALKING OF HIM, PLAYING LEELA WITH THE DIVINE. CAN I BE BOTH? WHAT IS MY REAL
NATURE? WHICH WOULD YOU SUGGEST FOR MY GROWTH? IN FIFTEEN MONTHS OF SANNYAS
WITH YOU, THE FEAR OF DEATH IS GONE, BODY HAS BECOME THE TEMPLE DIVINE, MIND HAS
BECOME AN INSTRUMENT FOR HIS USE. ALL YOUR WORDS ARE SWEET, BUT SWEETER IS YOUR
SILENCE FROM WHICH I HAVE RECEIVED MY LIFE'S DIRECTION: DO NOTHING, ACCEPT, ACT,
WHICH IS WORKING VERY WELL FOR MY GROWTH. KINDLY ENLIGHTEN.
THE question is from Krishnananda Bharti.

If things are going so beautifully, why make a problem? Can't you accept your own insight? Do you always
need a witness? Do you always need somebody else's approval? If I am gone, you will be in a mess. When
you are feeling so happy, is not that happiness enough proof that you are on the right track?
But in life you have been wrong so many times that you have lost trust in your own self.
This is one very basic thing to be understood and relearned: trust in yourself. When everything is going
beautifully and you are feeling happy and blissful, forget what I am saying. Don't be worried about it. You
know well that things are going well. Why create suspicion about your own experiences?
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin was going on a sight-seeing tour of Detroit. Going up Jefferson Avenue, the driver of
the bus called out all the places of interest.
"On the right," he announced, "we see the Dodge House."
"John Dodge?" the Mulla asked.
"No, sir, Horace Dodge." Continuing on further, he called out, "On the far left corner we have the Ford
House."
"Henry?" the Mulla suggested.
"No sir, Edsel." Still further out on Jefferson: "On the near left crossing you will see Christ's Church."
"Jesus? or am I wrong again?" Mulla Nasrudin asked sheepishly.
I understand that life is such that you have been found wrong so many times that you have lost your
inner feel. You have lost trust in yourself. You have lost confidence, so you have to ask somebody. Even if
you are feeling blissful you have to ask somebody, "Am I going right?" Bliss is the indication.
So now, two are the possibilities: either you are-really feeling blissful as you write in your question --
then there is no need to ask me; or you are just imagining and you know it -- hence you have asked. That too
has to be decided deep inside you. Because an imagined bliss is no bliss at all. You can imagine. Man has
Query:-
imagination in abundance. You can imagine things -- because I am talking about bliss continuously: about
love, about meditation, ecstasy. You can catch those words and your greed can start playing LEELA with
you, rather than you playing LEELA with the divine. Your greed can start playing LEELA with you, and it
can give you ideas. But if they are imaginary you will always be suspicious because deep down you will
know that this is just fantasy. If that is the case, then asking is perfectly meaningful.
You have to decide. If it is really happening, you are really happy, it is a fact and you are not imagining
it, then you are on the right track -- because there is no indication other than blissfulness.
When you feel blissful you are right, moving in exactly the way you should move. Because bliss
increases only when you are approaching closer to God, and in no other way. If you are going away from
God, anguish arises. You feel more and more frustrated, more and more bored, more and more miserable.
Misery is an indication that you are going astray, a natural indication that you have lost track of truth. Bliss
simply says that you are falling in line with the whole. Things are becoming harmonious, the garden of the
Beloved is coming closer: the air feels cooler, winds bring the fragrance of the flowers, freshness, a new
thrill, a new enthusiasm. Then you are moving towards the garden of the Beloved. Maybe you cannot see
yet, but the direction is right.
So trust yourself. But if you are imagining, then drop all your imagination.
The third question:
AT DARSHAN, FROM THE WAY YOU TALKED TO ME IT SEEMS CLEAR MY MEDITATION IS TO LIVE
TOTALLY IN THE HERE AND NOW. YOU MADE IT CLEAR I WAS NOT TO LIVE IN HOPE. T.S. ELIOT
SAID, "I SAID TO MY SOUL, BE STILL, AND WAIT WITHOUT HOPE, FOR HOPE WOULD BE HOPE FOR
THE WRONG THING. WAIT WITHOUT LOVE, FOR LOVE WOULD BE LOVE OF THE WRONG THING.
THERE IS YET FAITH, BUT FAITH AND THE LOVE AND THE HOPE ARE ALL IN THE WAITING."
ANYTHING MORE TO SAY OSHO?
THE question is from Pradeepa.

She understood perfectly what I was trying to show her. Maturity happens when you start living without
hope. Hope is childish. You become mature when you don't project hope into the future. In fact, you are
mature when you don't have any future; you just live in the moment -- because that is the only reality there
is. In the past, religion used to talk about the hereafter. Those were the childish, immature days of religion.
Now religion talks about herenow; religion has come of age.
In the Vedas, in the Koran, in the Bible, hereafter is the basic goal. But now man is no longer that
childish. That sort of God and that sort of religion is dead. It was a religion of hope, it was a religion of
future.
Now another sort of religion is asserting itself all over the world, and this religion is about herenow, the
present. There is nowhere else to go and there is no other space and no other time to live, only this space
and this time, here and now. Life has to become very intense in this moment. A man who lives in hope
dissipates life. He spreads life; it becomes too thin. And when it becomes too thin, it is never happy.
Happiness means intensity, tremendous depth. If you spread your hope into the future, life will become very
thin. It will lose depth.
When I say drop all hope, I mean be so intense in the moment that there is no need for the future. Then
there is a turning, a transformation. The very quality of time changes for you it becomes eternal. What can
you do with hope? In fact, what can you hope? You cannot hope for the new. You can only hope for the old,
that which has happened before -- maybe with a little modification here and there, a little more decorated.
But hope is nothing but past: you have lived something, you have experienced something, and you again
and again hope for it. It is a repetition; it is circular.
Hope means simply projecting the past into the future again: you loved a man yesterday, you want to
love the man tomorrow also. And you know that yesterday was not a fulfillment, hence the hope. Yesterday
was not enough, hence the hope. You missed something yesterday. Now that missed gap is torturing you; it
is creating agony. You hope that again tomorrow that man will be available to love you, and tomorrow you
will really love.
But between yesterday and tomorrow is today. If you really want to love, then why not be herenow,
today? Otherwise, when today will have become yesterday you will again start projecting it. Incomplete
Query:-
experiences are projected. Uncompleted desires are projected. If you really love totally this moment, you
will never think about this moment again. It is finished, it is complete, it is perfect. It disappears, it leaves
no trace on you.
This is what Krishnamurti calls 'total act'. Total act creates no KARMA: it creates no chain, it creates no
bondage. If it is total, you never remember it again; there is no point.
We remember only something which has remained incomplete. Mind tends to complete things. And you
have so many incomplete experiences; they go on being projected into the future. The past is gone -- now
there is no way to complete them in the past; and the present is going out of your hands fast, slipping, so
you don't see any point, any possibility to complete them in the present. The future is long: you can project
-- this life, another life, this world, another world -- you can project eternity. Then you are at ease. You say,
"I am not at a loss; tomorrow is there. There will be another life." But by and by, you are getting trapped in
a wrong pattern.
No, hope is not the right thing. Live in the present so deeply, so completely, that nothing is left. Then
there will be no projection. You will move very smoothly into the tomorrow without carrying any load from
today. And when there is no yesterday haunting you, then there is no tomorrow. When the past is not
hanging around you, there is no future.
Pradeepa has understood rightly. That's what I was trying to show her: hope is an illness, a disease of the
mind. It is hope that is not allowing you to live. Hope is not the friend, remember; it is the foe. It is because
of hope that you go on postponing. But you will remain the same tomorrow also, and tomorrow also you
will hope for some future. And this way it can go on for eternity, and you can go on missing. Stop
postponing. And who knows what the future is going to reveal to you? There is no way to know about it. It
is an opening; all alternatives are open. What is really going to happen, nobody can predict. People have
tried.
That's why people go to astrologers, to I CHING, and to other sorts of things. I CHING goes on
fascinating people, astrologers go on influencing people. Astrology still seems to be a great force. Why? --
because people are missing and they are hoping for the future. They want some clue to know what is going
to happen so they can arrange it that way.
These things will persist, even if scientifically it is proved that it is all nonsense. They will persist
because it is not a question of science, it is a question of human hope. Unless hope is dropped, I CHING
cannot be dropped. Unless hope is dropped, astrology cannot be dropped. It will have great power over
man's mind because hope is gripping you. You would like to know little clues about the future so you can
move more confidently, you can project more confidently, and you can postpone many more things.
If you know something about tomorrow, I think you will not live today. You will say, "What is the
need? Tomorrow we will live." Even without knowing anything about tomorrow you are doing that. And
tomorrow never comes... and when it comes, it is always today. And you don't know how to live today.
So you are in a great trap. Drop that whole structure. Hope is the bondage of man, hope is SAMSAR,
hope is the world. Once you drop hope you become a SANNYASIN; then there is nowhere to go.
I have heard....
One day Mulla Nasrudin was in a very deep meditative mood. Sitting by the side of his dog he delivered
a monologue:
"You are only a dog, but I wish I was you. When you go to your bed you just turn around three times and lie
down. When I go to bed I have to lock up the place, and wind up the clock, and put out the cat, and undress
myself, and my wife wakes up and scolds and then the baby wakes and cries and I have to walk him around
the house and then maybe I get myself to bed in time to get up again. When you get up, you just stretch
yourself, stretch your neck a little, and you are up. I have to light the fire, put on the kettle, scrap some with
my wife, and get myself breakfast. You be laying around all day and have plenty of fun; I have to work all
day and have plenty of trouble. When you die, you are dead; when I die I have to go somewhere again."
This 'somewhere again'...call it hell, call it heaven, but somewhere; and God is here and you are always
going somewhere.
God is your surround, and you are always missing Him because you are missing the present. God has
only one tense -- that is present. The past and future don't exist. Man exists in the past and future, not in the
present; God exists in the present, not in the past and future. So how is the meeting going to happen? We
live in different dimensions. Either God starts living in the past and future -- then there can be a meeting,
but then He will not be a God, He will be just as ordinary a man as you are; or you start living in the present
-- then the meeting happens. But then too you will not be human, you will become divine. Only the divine
Query:-
can meet with the divine; only the same can meet the same.
Drop hope.
Hope is the cause of why you are missing God. And the problem is, the vicious circle is: the more you
miss God, the more you hope; the more you hope, the more you miss. Once you look deep down into hope,
its structure, its grip on you -- the very vision, and the hope drops on its own accord. Suddenly you are here
and now, and you will see as if a curtain had dropped from your eyes, a curtain has dropped from your
senses. You will become TREMENDOUSLY fresh and young, and you will see a totally luminous world all
around you. The trees will be green but in a different way: tremendously green -- and the green will be
luminous. The world will immediately turn into a psychedelic world. It is -- your eyes are just so covered
with dust that you cannot see the psychedelic that is surrounding you from everywhere.
Drop hope.
But whenever I say to somebody to drop hope, he thinks that I am telling him to become hopeless. No,
I'm not doing that. When you drop hope there is no possibility of becoming hopeless, because hopelessness
exists only because of hope. You hope and it is not fulfilled; hopelessness arises. You hope, and you hope
again and again in vain; hopelessness arises. Hopelessness is frustrated hope. The moment you drop hope,
hopelessness is also dropped. You are simply without hope and without hopelessness. And that is the most
beautiful moment that can happen to a man, because in that very moment one enters into the shrine of God.
DESPITE ALL YOU HAVE SAID, L AM STILL UNWILLING TO MAKE A CHOICE BETWEEN THE PATH OF
MEDITATION AND THE PATH IS LOVE. MY HEART LOVES THE WORLD TOO MUCH TO SAY'ENOUGH',
AND MY MIND IS TOO CYNICAL TO SURRENDER. GURDJIEFF SPEAKS OF A FOURTH WAY WHICH
INVOLVES SIMULTANEOUS WORK ON BODY, HEART AND MIND. IS THERE NO POSSIBILITY OF
FOLLOWING THIS PATH?
BE alert of your own cunningness. You cannot surrender here, and you think you will be able to
surrender to Gurdjieff? The problem is not with me or Gurdjieff, the problem is that with me you cannot
surrender. And Gurdjieff was a hard taskmaster, one of the most dangerous Masters ever. after
Bodhidharma. The problem is with you. See the point of it. The point is, if I talk about love, people come to
me and they say, "It is difficult for us; can't we meditate?" And if I tell them to meditate they say, "It is so
difficult. Is there not some other way?" They want to postpone.
Now you are asking, "Can't we follow Gurdjieff?" Ask one thing: are you ready to follow? Following is
difficult. Following MEANS surrendering. Following means that now you put your mind aside. Gurdjieff is
now an excuse so you can think inside yourself, "If I am not surrendered to this man, at least I am ready to
surrender to Gurdjieff." But where are you going to find Gurdjieff? And if you ever come across him, you
will start thinking of other Masters, because there are many possibilities. You will ask the same question of
Gurdjieff...that it is difficult for me to surrender to you, and it is very difficult to work on body, mind and
soul together -- because even to work on one thing separately is difficult. To work on three things together
is, of course, going to be more complex, more arduous. So then you can say, "Can't I follow the path of the
Bauls?"
This is how you have been travelling in your many lives. Remember, you are not new on this earth. And
remember, you have been with many Masters -- otherwise you would not be here. You have forgotten
completely, but you have missed many times. It is not for the first time that you are missing. You may have
walked with Buddha, you may have walked with Jesus. There are people who I know for certain have
walked with Jesus, but they missed. There are people who walked with Buddha and they missed.
But the search goes on....
The first thing that I try to find out whenever a person wants to be initiated by me is whether he is new,
or an old sinner. Up to now, I have not come across a fresh man who is getting interested in religion for the
first time. No, one has been with many Masters, has travelled on many paths, but never has been totally
anywhere.
Now you can miss this opportunity also.
I have heard....
Query:-
A couple in their sixties had somehow managed to survive forty-five years of married life filled with as
much fighting as love. When hubby came home from his office on his sixty-fifth birthday, his wife lovingly
presented him with two beautiful ties. He was so touched that he would not let her cook dinner. He would
take her out as soon as he had time to clean up and change his shirt. It was a rare moment of tenderness. A
few minutes later hubby came downstairs dressed for an evening on the town and wearing one of his gift
ties. His wife stared at him for a moment before the force of argumentative habit took command.
"What is the matter?" she snarled. "The other one is no good?"
But now, a man can wear only one tie: "What is the matter? The other one is no good?"
If you just want to be argumentative, then you can follow Gurdjieff. But that will be just avoiding the
opportunity that is here, available to you. DO something. If you want to follow Gurdjieff, follow. Follow
Gurdjieff, but please follow. Don't go on playing games with yourself. One can be very clever, one can
deceive oneself. It is not very dangerous when you deceive others, because sooner or later they will find out
that you are deceiving. It cannot go on for long. But when you are deceiving yourself, it is very difficult.
Who is going to find out? You are alone there, and if YOU are deceiving....
I have heard about one man travelling on a train. He was playing solitaire. A man in the compartment
was watching it, but he became aware that the other man was deceiving himself. He was the only player.
The other man watching became aware that he was deceiving himself.
He said, "What is the matter? What are you doing? Can't you see that you go on deceiving yourself?"
The man said, "I have been doing it for my whole life."
The other man asked, "Can't you catch yourself deceiving?"
He said, "I am too clever."
Cleverness can become a great obstacle because cleverness is not intelligence. Cleverness is a good
name for cunningness. Be aware of it.
Follow if you want to follow on Gurdjieff's path. Perfectly good; that path is perfectly good. But then
what are you doing here wasting your time? Follow that path. For what are you waiting? If you are here,
then forget Gurdjieff and everything else. If you want to be here with me, then be here with me so
something actually happens.
But this is very common, it is not unusual: people go on changing their Masters, from one place to
another. Whenever they feel that now it is getting too much, and they may get committed and involved, they
change. Again they start playing the same game somewhere else. When they feel that now the moment is
coming -- they will have to do something -- they again change.
It is a marriage... to be with me is to be married with me. People stay with me up to the point where the
courtship continues. Once the problem arises of getting committed, involved, then they are scared. Then
they start thinking of some other path. Any path will do -- because really it is not a question of paths, it is a
question of surrendering. Surrender on any path, and truth will happen to you -- because it happens not
because of any path, it happens because of surrender.
Some years ago a politician was being driven by a farmer in a buggy. A winged insect kept circling
about the horse's head and then about the politician's head. "Uncle, what kind of insect is that?" asked the
politician.
"Just a horsefly," said the old man.
"Horsefly? What is that?"
"Just a fly that flies around the heads of horses and mules and jackasses."
As the insect was still buzzing about the politician's head he saw a chance for a little banter, and said,
"Uncle, you don't mean to say I am a horse?"
"No, you certainly ain't no horse."
"Well, you don't mean to call me a mule do you?"
The farmer, irritated, said, "You ain't no mule, either."
Then the politician spoke emphatically, "Now look here, Uncle, do I look like a jackass to you? Surely
you don't mean to call me a jackass?"
"No, sir, I ain't calling you no jackass and you don't look like a jackass to me. But you see, you can't fool the
horsefly."
Don't be very cunning, don't be clever, because you can't fool existence. You can fool only yourself. In
the final analysis you cannot fool anybody else except you. So watch each step that your mind takes. I'm not
Query:-
saying, "Follow me"; I'm saying, "Follow." Anywhere, wherever your heart leads you, wherever you feel a
certain harmony between you and the Master, go there and follow. But follow. Just thinking is not going to
help.
You cannot befool existence.
The fifth question:
BEING OUTSIDE THE ASHRAM IS SOMETIMES HARD FOR ME, FOR I SEE HOW HARD PEOPLE ARE
AND STEP ON EACH OTHER. THIS HURTS ME MUCH, SOMETIMES EVEN BODILY, AND IF EEL
VULNERABLE LIKE A SMALL CHILD. PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.
THERE are always problems in the world, and the world has always been there, and the world will
remain there. If you start working out: changing circumstances, changing people, thinking of a utopian
world, changing the government, the structure, the economy, the politics, the education, you will be lost.
That is the trap known as politics. That's how many people waste their own lives. Be very clear about it: the
only person you can help right now is you yourself. Right now you cannot help anybody. This may be just a
distraction, just a trick of the mind. See your own problems, see your own anxieties, see your own mind,
and first try to change it.
It happens to many people: the moment they become interested in some sort of religion, meditation,
prayer, immediately the mind tells them, "What are you doing sitting here silently? The world needs you;
there are so many poor people. There is much conflict, violence, aggression. What are you doing praying in
the temple? Go and help people." How can you help those people? You are just like them. You may create
even more problems for them, but you cannot help. That's how all the revolutions have always failed. No
revolution has yet succeeded because the revolutionaries are in the same boat.
The religious person is one who understands that "I am very tiny, I am very limited. If with this limited
energy, even if I can change myself, that will be a miracle". And if you can change yourself, if you are a
totally different being with new life shining in your eyes and a new song in your heart, then maybe you can
be helpful to others also, because then you will have something to share.
Just the other day Shiva sent me a very beautiful incident in the life of Basho. Basho is the greatest
haiku poet of Japan, the Master haiku poet. But he was not just a poet. Before becoming a poet he was a
mystic; before he starting pouring out with beautiful poetry, he poured deep into his own center. He was a
meditator.
It is said that Basho was entering upon a journey when he was a young man. The journey was an
endeavor to find himself. Not long after he had begun he heard a small child crying alone in the forest --
maybe he was sitting under a tree, meditating, or trying to meditate; he heard a small child crying alone in
the forest. He meditated for a long time on what to do. He then picked up his pack and continued on his
way, leaving the child to its own fate.
In his journal he recorded: "First one has to do what one needs for oneself before one can do anything
for another."
Looks hard...a child alone in the forest, crying, and this man meditates on whether to do anything or not,
whether he can help the child, whether it will be right to help him or not. A child, a helpless child crying in
the wilderness, alone, lost -- and Basho meditates over it and finally decides that how can he help somebody
else when he has not even helped himself yet. He himself is lost in a wilderness, he himself is lonely, he
himself is childish. How can he help anybody?
The incident looks very hard, but is very meaningful. I'm not saying don't help a child in the forest if you
find him crying and weeping. But try to understand: your own light is not burning and you start helping
others. Your own inner being is in total darkness and you start helping others. You yourself are suffering
and you become a servant of the people. You have not passed through the inner rebellion and you become a
revolutionary. This is simply absurd, but this idea arises in everybody's mind. It seems so simple to help
others. In fact, people who really need to change themselves always become interested in changing others.
That becomes an occupation, and they can forget themselves.
This is what I have watched. I have seen so many social workers, SARVODAYIS, and I have never seen
a single person who has any inner light to help anybody. But they are trying hard to help everybody. They
Query:-
are madly after transforming the society and the people and people's minds, and they have completely
forgotten that they have not done the same to themselves. But they become occupied.
Once an old revolutionary and social worker was staying with me. I asked him, "You are completely
absorbed in your work. Have you ever thought if what you really want happens, if by a miracle, overnight,
all that you want happens, what you will do the next morning? Have you ever thought about it?"
He laughed -- a very empty laughter -- but then he became a little sad. He said, "If it is possible, I will
be at a loss as to what to do then. If the world is exactly as I want it, then I will be at a loss for what to do. I
may even commit suicide."
These people are occupied; this is their obsession. And they have chosen such an obsession which can
never be fulfilled. So you can go on changing others, life after life. Who are you?
This is also a sort of ego: that others are hard upon each other, that they are stepping on each other. Just
the idea that others are hard gives you a feeling that you are very soft. No, you are not. This may be your
way of ambition: to help people, to help them to become soft, to help them to become more kind,
compassionate.
Kahlil Gibran has written a small story:
There was a dog, a great revolutionary one might say, who was always teaching other dogs of the town
that "Just because of your nonsense barking we are not growing. You waste your energy by barking
unnecessarily." A postman passes, and suddenly...a policeman passes, a sannyasin passes.... Dogs are
against uniforms, any sort of uniform, and they are revolutionaries. They immediately start barking.
The leader used to tell them, "Stop this! Don't waste energy, because:this same energy can be put into
something useful, creative. Dogs can rule the whole world, but you are wasting your energy for no purpose
at all. This habit has to be dropped. This is the only sin, the original sin."
The dogs were always feeling that he was perfectly right; logically, he was right: why do you go on
barking? And much energy is wasted; one feels tired. Again the next morning one starts barking, and again
by the night one is tired. What is the point of it all? They could see the leader's meaning, but they also knew
that they were just dogs, poor dogs. The ideal was very great and the leader was really a revealer -- because
whatsoever he was preaching he was doing. He never used to bark. You could see his character: that
whatsoever he preached he practiced also.
But by and by, they got tired of his constant preaching. One day they decided -- it was the birthday of
the leader -- and they decided, as a gift, that at least on that night they would resist the temptation to bark.
At least for one night they would respect the leader and give him a gift. He could not be more happy than
this. All the dogs stopped that night. It was very difficult, arduous. It was just like when you are meditating,
how difficult it is to stop thinking. It was the same problem. They stopped barking, and they had always
barked. And they were not great saints, but ordinary dogs. But they tried hard. It was very, very arduous.
They were hiding in their places with closed eyes, with clenched teeth, so they would not see anything, they
would not listen to anything. It was a great discipline. The leader walked around the town. He was very
puzzled: "To whom to preach? Whom to teach now? What has happened?" -- complete silence. Then
suddenly when midnight had passed, he became so annoyed, because he had never really thought that the
dogs would listen to him. He had known well that they would never listen, that it was just natural for dogs
to bark. His demand was unnatural, but the dogs had stopped. His whole leadership was at stake. What was
he going to do from tomorrow? because all he knew was just to teach. His whole ministry was at stake. And
then for the first time he realized that because he was constant}y teaching from the morning till the night
that's why he had never felt the need to bark. The energy was so involved, and that was a sort of barking.
But that night, nowhere, nobody was found guilty. And the preacher-dog started feeling a tremendous
urge to bark. A dog is, after all, a dog. Then he went into a dark lane and started barking. When the other
dogs heard that somebody had broken the agreement, then they said, "Why should we suffer?" The whole
town started barking. Back came the leader and said, "You fools! When are you going to stop barking?
Because of your barking we have remained just dogs. Otherwise, we would have dominated the whole
world."
Remember well that a social servant, a revolutionary, is asking for the impossible -- but it keeps him
occupied. And when you are occupied with others' problems, you tend to forget your own problems. First,
settle those problems, because that is your first, basic responsibility.
A famous psychologist had bought a farm just for fun. Every time he threw grain into his plowed
furrows an army of black crows would swoop down and gobble up his grain. Finally, swallowing his pride,
Query:-
the psychologist appealed to his old neighbor, Mulla Nasrudin.

The Mulla stepped into the field and went through all the motions of planting without using any seed.
The crows swooped down, protested briefly and flew away. The Mulla repeated the process the next day
and then the next, each time sending the birds off befuddled and hungry. Finally, on the fourth day, he
planted the field with grain; not a crow bothered to come.
When the psychologist tried to thank Mulla, the Mulla grunted. "Just plain ordinary psychology," said
he. "Ever heard of it?"
Remember, this is very plain, ordinary psychology: not to poke your nose into others' affairs. If they are
doing something wrong, that is for them to realize. Nobody else can make them realize. Unless they decide
to realize it there is no way, and you will be wasting your valuable time and energy. Your first responsibility
is to transform your own being. And when your being is transformed things start happening of their own
accord. You become a light and people start finding their paths through your light. Not that you go, not that
you force them to see. Your light, burning bright, is enough invitation; people start coming. Whosoever is in
need of light will come to you. There is no need to go after anybody because that very going is foolish.
Nobody has changed anybody against his will. That is not the way things happen. This is plain, ordinary
psychology; ever heard of it?... just keep to yourself.
The sixth question:
L AM DESPERATE. IF FEEL MORE AND MORE ENERGY AND A DEEP LET-GO WANTING TO HAPPEN.
IN THE LAST WHILE I OFTEN HAVE A FEELING OF LETTING MYSELF FALL INTO SOMETHING, LIKE
INTO THE SEA, OR INTO THE INCREDIBLE BEAUTIFUL VAST CLOUDS OF THE SKY. BUT THE
STRONGER THIS BECOMES, THE STRONGER ANOTHER PART, MY EGO, IS TRYING TO KEEP ME
DOWN, TO PUT ME TO SLEEP AGAIN, TO TELL ME THAT EVERYTHING IS JUST BULLSHIT AND
FANTASY. THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY STRONG, AND THERE DOES NOT SEEM TO BE ANYTHING LIKE
WILLPOWER. I FEEL TOTALLY POWERLESS; THAT MAKES ME FEEL DESPERATE, HELPLESS, AND
SOMETIMES FRUSTRATED. PLEASE HELP ME.
THE question is from Anand Maria. Maria, there seems to be some misunderstanding in your mind. It is
not the ego that is trying to give you a message that you are moving in fantasies; you are moving in
fantasies. But fantasies are beautiful. You are dreaming sweet dreams. It is not the ego that is pulling you
down, it is the ego that is dreaming and that is going into fantasies. The part that wants to pull you down is
your awareness. You are in a total confusion about it.
Awareness always brings you back to reality. Ego is, in fact, a dream; it is a false entity. Ego never stops
anybody from going into fantasies, because ego feeds on fantasy. Ego is the greatest fantasy. How can it
prevent you from going into fantasies? It wants you to dream, it wants you to dream great dreams of the
other world.
It is not the ego that is pulling you down to the earth. The part that is pulling you down to reality is
awareness, but you are condemning awareness, and you would like to go into the fantasies more and more.
No, you are in a complete mess, Maria.
"I feel more and more energy and a deep let-go wanting to happen. In the last while I often have a feeling of
letting myself fall into something, like the sea, or into the incredible beautiful vast clouds of the sky.... "
They are nowhere, they are just in your imagination.
"But the stronger this becomes, the stronger another part, my ego, is trying to keep me down, to put me to
sleep again, to tell me that everything is just bullshit and fantasy.... " It is; it is bullshit. It will be hard for
you.
A schoolteacher in London had a mixed class containing children of all religions, of all nationalities.
One day she asked her class who was the greatest man who ever lived, and said that the child who gave the
correct answer would receive a shilling.
The first child was American and answered, "George Washington." Patrick O'Kelly was next and he said
that St. Patrick was the greatest man who ever lived. Then there was an Indian child who said Gautam
Buddha, and a Chinese who said Lao Tzu. Then little Abe was next in line and without hesitation he
answered, "Jesus."
The teacher promptly gave him the shilling and said, "Now tell me how it is that you, being a little Jew,
Query:-
and not believing in Jesus as the Christ, mention his name as the greatest man who ever lived?"
"Well," replied Abe, "deep in my heart I know it was Moses, but business is business."
Deep in your heart you also know it is bullshit. That's why you are pulled back to the earth again and
again. Come back to the earth; imagination won't help.
There is a poetry, a different type of poetry-which arises out of reality. Yes, there are beautiful clouds
and there are vast oceans of beatitude, but that arises by being rooted in the earth. There is no conflict
between that beauty and reality. That beauty is nothing but reality itself manifested in its total grandeur. But
right now, whatsoever you are doing is just a fantasy. So change your emphasis. It is the ego which is
fantasizing, and it is awareness which is pulling you down.
Allow awareness to work more and more, and don't waste time in dreams.
I have heard....
Two fishermen were exchanging their experiences of the previous day. One man said he had caught a
three-hundred-pound salmon.
"But salmon never weighed as much as three hundred pounds," said the other man.
"Nevertheless, I caught one weighing three hundred pounds. What did you catch?"
"Not much," answered the second man. "Only a rusty old lamp. But on the bottom of it was inscribed:
Property of Christopher Columbus, 1492. When I opened the lamp I was surprised to find it still held a
candle in it, and you know that the candle was still lit?"
"Now let us get together on these stories," urged the first fisherman. "If you will put out that damned candle,
I will take a couple of hundred pounds off that salmon."
One wants to have sweet experiences, one desires to have beautiful experiences. But just by desiring you
cannot have them, you can only dream about them. You can have them not by desiring, but by working hard
on your being. Tremendous effort is needed. Then one day reality comes, is revealed. And then it has a
splendor which no dream can ever have. Because dream is just a dream, a thought in the mind -- a colorful
thought, but still a thought. When reality is revealed, it is totally different; it is millions of times more
beautiful than any dream. Don't waste time in dreaming. Walk on earth, be in the body, come back to your
senses.
The last question:

It is from Divya.
BELOVED MASTER, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT LOVE OR MEDITATION; THEY ARE
ONE TO ME. I SEEK TRUTH AND YOU ARE THE MEANS. MY DEVOTION AND MY PRAYERS ARE AN
EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE. LOVE IS NOT THE ASKING, AND LOVE IS NOT THE OTHER. LOVE IS, I
AM. SOMETIMES I WONDER WHETHER YOU EXIST OR WHETHER I AM PERPETUALLY CREATING
YOU, OR WHETHER I EXIST SEPARATE FROM YOU. I TRULY MUST BE A GOD IF YOU ARE SO
BEAUTIFUL. MY LOVE, MY GRATITUDE FOR YOU IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY THAT REMAINS, THE
ONLY REALITY. I AM THE KNOWING, AND YET EACH TIME I HEAR YOU SAY'LOVE OR MEDITATION'
YOU CATCH ME AGAIN OFF CENTER, FIDDLING WITH CATEGORIES: "AM I THIS OR THAT? LET US
SEE.'
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL TRIP YOU ARE.
Thank you, Divya.
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #9
Chapter title: Be The Formless In You

Query:-
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 98 mins
MY HEART
DRESS YOURSELF IN THE SPIRIT
OF ALL WOMEN
AND REVERSE YOUR NATURE AND HABITS.
MILLIONS OF SUNS
WILL BURST OPEN WITH BRILLIANCE
AND THE FORMLESS IN VISUAL FORMS.
YOU WILL SEE

WHAT CANNOT BE SEEN
ONLY IF YOU CAN BE
THE FORMLESS IN YOU.
The song for today:
MY HEART
OF ALL WOMEN
MILLIONS OF SUNS
YOU WILL SEE

WHAT CANNOT BE SEEN
ONLY IF YOU CAN BE
THE SONG IS TREMENDOUSLY IMPORTANT, IS VERY BASIC TO THE BAUL ATTITUDE.

There are two approaches towards God: one is of the male mind -- aggressive, active; the other is of the
feminine mind -- passive, receptive. Bauls belong to the second approach. Just as Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu
belong to the second approach, Mahavir and Patanjali belong to the first approach.
The male mind seeks and searches God as if God is somewhere else and has to be discovered. The
feminine mind simply prays and waits. The feminine mind trusts that "When I am ready, God will come to
me." It is God who comes, not the seeker who goes to God. And in fact, how can you seek God? You don't
know Him, you don't know His address, you don't know the direction, you don't know the definition. And
even if you come across Him, how are you going to recognize Him? because recognition is possible only if
you have known Him before.
All search in a way is futile. And because of the male mind, atheism has become very predominant in
the world. It is the failure of the male mind that atheism has become so prevalent. In the West atheism has
become really the greatest religion -- because the West is male-oriented. The very orientation is of
conquering -- as if there is a fight between man and God, as if there is a tussle, a wrestling. In the West the
result of this effort has been only that God has completely disappeared. Nietzsche declared, "God is dead."
Nietzsche is the very essence of the male mind: will to power, will to dominate, will to possess.
If you search for Him too much, your very search will become a barrier.
There have been a few people who have attained through that approach also -- a Mahavir, a Patanjali --
Query:-
but those cases are rare, and the struggle is very long and unnecessary. God comes to you. God is always
coming to you. The Bauls say, "It is not you who seek Him, it is He who is seeking you. It is not that you
pray to Him, He is praying to you. Listen! Be passive, accept. He is knocking on the door, and inside the
room you are so occupied in searching and seeking that you cannot listen to the knock." Man cannot seek
God; only God can seek man. This is a profound truth to be understood, because how can you seek God?
How can you relate? You are so dark, so dull, so asleep, so unconscious, so ignorant -- how are you going to
seek? And whatsoever you seek will never be bigger than you, cannot be. Your God will be your God.
If horses seek God, they will make an image of God, but the image will be of a horse, not of a man --
because man has never done anything good to horses. In fact, if they had some mythology about the devil,
man's image would be the image of the devil. If trees are seeking God, they will seek in the form of trees --
because we cannot go beyond our form. Our form will be the limitation. So if you seek, the God is going to
be yours, and your God is almost no God.
Let Him seek you. Allow Him. His hand has been reaching for you continuously; just be in a let-go.
Don't escape from Him, that's all. There is no need to seek Him positively, just don't escape from Him. Let
Him be, listen, be receptive, welcome. In that listening, in that receptivity, He will penetrate you. Become
feminine, become a woman.
A Buddha is a woman.
He was seeking for six years; he tried the male-oriented approach. He was a warrior, the son of a great
king, trained in the ways of war and fight and struggle. It was natural for him to seek God. He tried, he tried
hard. He went from one Master to another, and he was so sincere that no Master could say to him, "You are
not doing right, that's why you are not reaching." He was so sincere in his effort that all the teachers told
him, "This is all we can say to you. And if it is not happening, then find some other Master. We are
incapable. We cannot do more than this."
One day he had renounced the whole world, then came the ultimate renunciation -- one day he
renounced the searching and seeking also...seeing the futility of it, just groping in the dark. That night when
he dropped search also, he became a woman. That night he relaxed under the Bodhi tree; there was nothing
to do now.
Man is a doer. Woman is a lover, not a doer. Man is the mind, woman is the heart. Man can create
things, but cannot give birth to life. For that, receptivity is needed, receptivity of the earth. The seed falls
into it, disappears underground, and one day a new life arises. That's how a child is born.
A womb is needed to give birth to God, OR, to give birth to yourself. You have to become a womb.
BUDDHA became a womb that night, renounced all. Now there was nothing to do. Just meditate over it:
nothing to do. The world was finished, there was nothing to find. Now even the spiritual search was gone.
Everything became absolutely calm and quiet. When there is nothing to seek there is no desire; when there
is no desire there is no thought; and when there is no desire, no thought, no search, the ego cannot exist. It
exists as the doer. In that moment, future disappeared. When you are not going to do something, what is the
point of having a future? The future is needed as a space to project your desires. To project, future is
needed.
That night, future disappeared; in fact, time disappeared. When you are not a doer what is the use of
time? Buddha relaxed. This relaxation was absolute, total, whole. He relaxed into himself -- nowhere to go,
one has to relax into oneself; no desire, no thought, everything has proved futile. In fact, what proved futile
was the male-oriented mind, the mind of the doer. In the morning when the last star was disappearing, he
opened his eyes. The whole night had been a night of dreamless sleep, because dreams are by-products of
desires. Have you watched? When you want to do something, it is very difficult to sleep in the night; the
morning is too exciting. The tomorrow is too exciting, you have to do something. Even if you are going for
a holiday to the Himalayas, you cannot sleep in the night; planning continues. You have to do this and that,
and rehearsal continues. Sleep becomes difficult... dreams.
Buddha slept for the first time. That sleep was SAMADHI: no thought, no dream, no desire. He relaxed
into his center, and when he opened his eyes he was like a small babe -- fresh, young. He looked at the last
disappearing star, and as the star disappeared, he also disappeared. He became enlightened. But
enlightenment happened in a deeply feminine state of mind.
Hence, Jains and Buddhists are always in conflict -- because Mahavir is a male-oriented mind, a warrior,
a conqueror. That is the meaning of the word 'mahavir'. That is not his real name; his real name was
Vardhman. But he conquered truth. And he was so brave and the adventure was so great that he is
Query:-
remembered as Mahavir: the great courageous one. There is a very subtle conflict between Jains and
Buddhists. Down through the centuries they have been arguing against each other. That can be understood.
The reason is male-mind, female-mind, yin and yang, active and passive, day and night. The day is the
symbol of the man; the night is the symbol of the woman. The day is full of activity, the night is simply rest.
The day is bright, light -- the sun is there. You can see things clear-cut. You can define things: you can
know what is what and who is who. In the night darkness surrounds. The whole existence is enveloped in
darkness. You cannot distinguish what is what; you cannot see where you are, who you are. It is a
tremendous relaxation of all definitions, of all limitations, Woman is always known as the dark one, the
night, the earth.
Buddha became a woman that night; he became enlightened.
Bauls say,
MY HEART,
OF ALL WOMEN...
Become a woman. They mean of course, psychologically, spiritually. It has nothing to do with your
body, but your attitude. Woman is patient. Just think of a man having a child in his belly for nine months.
You cannot conceive that a man will be able to tolerate it -- impossible. A woman is very patient, accepting.
The woman's resistance is much stronger than man's. Man in fact is the weaker sex. He may be stronger as
far as muscles are concerned, but muscles are no criterion of strength. One hundred fifteen boys are born to
a hundred girls. By the time they reach the age of marriage, fifteen boys have died. Nature has to give birth
to more males because a few of them are going to die. Women live longer than men, almost five years more;
that's why you see so many widows in the world. And women are more resistant to illness, disease. Women
are more tolerant, more accepting. From where comes this strength? -- it comes from their receptivity.
When you are a doer you exhaust yourself.

A woman and a man making love...man exhausts himself; woman is enriched, nourished, because she is
a receptive end. Making love, a man loses energy, a woman gains it. That's why women have been
suppressed all over the world. If they were not suppressed the man would be killed: it would become
impossible for any man to satisfy any woman. Now, modern researchers say that woman have multiple
orgasms. A woman can make love to one dozen people in one night and still feel fresh, full of energy. A
man can make love only once, and then he is exhausted. Man throws energy out, woman takes energy in.
The same has to happen with God. The Bauls say, "Become feminine, become passive." But remember,
when they say become passive they don't mean to become lazy. To be lazy is also the same as-to be active.
Lazy is not passive. He may not be doing anything, but in his mind he goes on doing. He may not be
actually doing anything, but he goes on doing many things in the mind -- even more so, because the whole
energy is available and he has nothing do. He goes on thinking and doing things in the mind; that activity
remains. Passivity does not mean inactivity, it means a very expectant patience, a very active patience, alive
patience. The lazy man is dull; the lazy man is simply dead. Passivity is not deadness. It is fully alive: the
reservoir is full of energy, but not going anywhere, not going. in any search, just waiting for the Beloved to
come.
That's why women never take any initiative in love affairs -- they cannot. And if a woman takes
initiative in the love affair, then she must be a part of the 'lib movement'. Then she is losing her womanhood
somehow. They wait: the initiative has to come from the man. The woman waits -- not that she doesn't love,
she loves tremendously; no man can love that deeply -- but she waits. She trusts that things will happen in
their right time, and hurrying is not good. A woman is non-tense but full of energy, hence the feminine
beauty. The roundness of the feminine body is not only a physical thing -- the same is so in her psychology
also. She has a round shape, smooth, warm, ready to dissolve, but not aggressive. Passivity means
non-aggressiveness, non-violence. It is not laziness.
I have heard....
The Swiss people, especially those from their capital, Berne, are said to be as slow as snails. So one day
two Berner friends went out for a walk. After one hour one said, "Christmas is beautiful."
Another hour passed when his friend answered, "Yes, and love is beautiful too."
Query:-
After a long while the first answered, "You are right but Christmas is more often."
One can be so lazy that Christmas is more often than love-making.
Laziness is a sort of stagnancy. Laziness is lustlessness; laziness is suicide -- slow, very slow. So
remember, passivity is not negation of energy. Passivity is a reservoir of energy -- vibrant, throbbing
streaming, ready to receive, but non-aggressive.
It happened: A sufi mystic was sitting under a tree. A passer-by told him, "What are you doing here?
Your house is on fire." Just in front of him the house was on fire.
"I know it, stranger," said the so-called mystic.
"Then why are you not doing something about it?" cried the excited stranger.
"I am," said that mystic. "ever since the fire started, I have been praying for rain."
THE Baul is not lazy. He is full of action, but he is not active. This distinction has to be understood.
You can sit, for all practical purposes, not doing anything, and your mind can go on being active,
occupied, engaged. You can be engaged in much activity and your mind can remain inactive, passive, aloof,
detached. They are not against being active, they are against being continuously occupied inside, because
then you don't give space for God to enter into you. You don't allow Him enough door. Your inner world is
so full of rotten furniture that He cannot find a place to stay there. A deep inner emptiness is needed; that
inner emptiness becomes the womb.
So I'm not saying stop doing, stop action; I'm not saying that. I am saying that whatsoever you are doing,
let it be just an outside activity. Inside become feminine, silent, doors opened, empty, waiting.
In the mother's womb the feminine egg simply waits. It does not go anywhere. The male sperm travels,
and it travels with fast speed. It is really a tremendous distance for the male sperm to travel to the woman's
egg; great competition starts. Men are competitive from the very beginning, even before they are born.
While making love to a woman a man releases millions of sperm, and they all rush towards the egg. Great
speed is needed because only one will be able to reach the egg, not all. Only one is going to be the Nobel
Prize winner. The real Olympics start there! And it is a life and death question, it is not ordinary. And great
is the competition -- millions of sperms fighting, rushing -- one will reach. Sometimes it happens that two
reach at the same time, hence twins are born. Because once one sperm has entered, then the door is closed.
Sometimes two sperms reach exactly at the same time, or three sperms reach exactly at the same time; the
door was open, so all the three enter in. Then there are three children born, or two children, or four, or even
six. But that rarely happens. Ordinarily one reaches just a split second before the others. The door is open;
once one guest has entered, the door closes. But the feminine egg simply waits there...great trust.
That's why women cannot be competitive: they cannot fight, they cannot struggle. And if you find a
woman somewhere who struggles and fights, who is competitive, then something of womanhood is missing
in her. Physically she may be a woman, psychologically she is a man.
So remember, passivity is not laziness. Passivity has its own kind of activity. It is non-tense, relaxed.
Two turtles were dragging through the desert, very thirsty. After a while they discovered a big bottle of
Coca-Cola (must have been Americans). They jumped with joy, but soon realized they had no opener. They
tried hard but there was no chance to open the bottle, so they decided one would go back to the village and
the other would watch the bottle. A long time passed -- five hours, ten hours, one day, two days, five days,
seven days. Then the one turtle again tried to open the bottle. Immediately, the other one came running from
the nearby sand dune and shouted, "If you start like this, I will never go."
BAULS are very active people, whirlwinds -- dancing, singing, and yet very inactive people as far as
God is concerned. They say, "Whenever YOU think is the right time, come; you will find me waiting. I am
helpless, I don't know where you are. I am helpless, I don't know how to find you. My only prayer is that
you help me to allow you to find me." They simply dance and wait, they sing and wait. This waiting for God
is their prayer.
If you can wait you will pass through a great transformation. Nothing is needed to be done; simple
waiting -- but it needs great trust. Otherwise the mind will say, "What are you doing? If you are not going to
seek Him, you will never find Him."
Bauls say, just like Lao Tzu, "Seek and you will miss. Seek not and find." He is here; your seeking takes
you somewhere else. He has already come. The guest is at the door; He is knocking. But you are so
occupied inside the mind -- maybe occupied for Him, thinking about Him, but so occupied -- that you
cannot listen to the moment, and you cannot be open to the herenow.
Query:-
MY HEART,
OF ALL WOMEN
Patanjali calls his reversal PRATYAHAR -- go back to the source. Mahavir calls this reversion
PRATYA KRAMAN -- come in, don't go without; fall withinwards. Ordinarily your mind is
future-oriented, always moving somewhere else, looking for God somewhere in the future. Bauls say He has
been here from the very beginning. He is not in the future. He is the very cause, the source of all, so no need
to seek Him in the future. Just fall deep down into your own being and you will find Him waiting for you to
come home. He is already there, He is already the case.
... AND REVERSE YOUR NATURE AND HABITS.
What do they mean by reversing your habits and your nature? Ordinarily man is upside-down.
Non-essential things have become very important to you, and you go on losing the essential. You go on
gathering seashells and colored stones, not for a single moment becoming aware that you are losing your
life. That is the only precious thing.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin was stabbed by burglars, but before dying he wrote a note to his wife from the hospital.
The last paragraph of it read, "I have been very fortunate because only the day before I had put all my
money and negotiable bonds in my safety deposit box at the bank, so that I am losing practically nothing but
my life."
But life is all. What else is there? If you lose life and gain the whole world, what are you gaining? And
if you gain your life and lose the whole world, nothing is lost.
The Bauls say, "You will have to change your habits, you will almost have to reverse your nature."
Right now you are going outward; you will have to go inward. Right now you are seeking God; you will
have to allow Him to seek you. Right now you are attached to material things which have no intrinsic value;
you will have to attach yourself to spiritual values which are really eternally valuable. Right now you go on
fighting with life, struggling. Almost everyone believes in the survival of the fittest, so one goes on fighting
and fighting and fighting. The Bauls say; "Love, don't fight. God is never known through fighting. Nothing
is achieved through fighting; only love opens the door."
Right now we go on thinking that someday in the future we are going to be happy, joyful, celebrating,
Bauls say, "You are fools! If you want to be happy, joyful, celebrating, nothing is lacking. Right now, this
moment, dance; this moment, laugh. This moment is all there is; celebrate it. " People come to me and if I
say to them, "Celebrate your life," they say, "Yes, that's why we have come here: to learn how to create
situations in which we can celebrate." The situation is already there: trees go on celebrating, birds go on
singing. What do they have? -- no bank balance, no prestige, no power. They are not presidents or prime
ministers. But have you ever seen trees or birds brooding, worried, thinking of the future? No, they simply
live. What has happened to man?
BAULS say, "Celebrate this moment."

This is what Christ called conversion: a one hundred and eighty degree turn -- less will not do. That's
what I call SANNYAS: a hundred eighty-degree turn -- less will not do. It is not a question of renouncing
life, it is just a question of renouncing old habits. It is just a question of becoming more alert and seeing
what is essential and what is not. If you go on choosing the essential, sooner or later you will reach to the
essential man, what Bauls call ADHAR MANUSH. And the way to reach to the essential man is to be
SAHAJA MANUSH, spontaneous man. Spontaneity should be the prayer, but we are so cunning and so
clever.
I stayed once with an efficiency expert. When we were going to sleep, he sat in his bed and he said,
"Now I will pray." So I watched him to see what prayer he was doing. He looked at the sky and said,
"Ditto."
Query:-
I was surprised: "What type of prayer is this?" So I asked him, "If you are not offended, if you don't
mind, please tell me. I have heard many types of prayers, but 'ditto'? This is something absolutely new."
He said, "I say a prayer only once in a year, the first day of the year. And then what is the point of
repeating the same prayer every day? I say 'ditto', and God must understand."
Even prayer is calculation. Even in prayer people are so miserly. They cannot say something to God
today. In fact, their cleverness is the basis of their stupidity; their cunningness is the cause of their idiocy.
They are not intelligent. An intelligent person lives in the moment -- very responsive. He allows his heart to
move into prayer. He does not force anything upon the heart, he simply allows it to flow towards God. In
fact, you should always remember that prayer is not to change the heart of God, prayer changes YOU. But
people pray in such a way, as if they are giving advice to God: "Don't do this, do this!" All prayers, if
reduced to the bare minimum, will mean that people are saying to God, "Please God, don't let two plus two
be four. Have compassion on me. This time at least make two plus two be five." Prayers are complaints,
grumblings. Then the prayer does not exist.
Prayer is not to change God; He needs no change. Prayer is to change yourself. But how can saying
'ditto' change you? If you say 'ditto', you remain ditto; there is no possibility. Let it be remembered always
that prayer never changes God. There is no need to change Him. He is as He should be, and His existence is
as it should be -- perfect. The only change needed is within your own heart. Your prayer changes you. When
you cry, tears come, or you sing and you dance, it changes YOU.
Of course, when you are in a different mood, a feminine mood, God can come closer to you; you attract
Him, you allow Him, you become an opening towards Him. Prayer is an opening towards God. It is putting
your heart before Him so His presence can transform you. And this should be the way of the whole of your
life. It is not a question of praying once a day or once a year or once in a lifetime. Prayer should become
like breathing; it should be there each moment.
The Baul never goes to the temple or to the mosque or to the gurudwara. Wherever he is, he is in prayer.
People who live unspontaneous lives become too crowded by thoughts -- of course, borrowed. All
thoughts are borrowed. Knowledge as such is borrowed. KNOWING is pure and yours, but knowledge is
not. People who are not spontaneous become mechanical. They don't see what is the case, they go on seeing
what their expertise allows them to see; they see through blinkers.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin's wife was carried to the hospital in an unconscious condition after a terrible fall. The
surgeon made a brief examination, but shook his head significantly and turned sympathetically to the
anxious husband. "Mulla," he said, "I'm sorry to tell you that your wife is dead."
"No, I ain't," said the supposed corpse, opening one eye.
"Hush up you!" said Nasrudin. "Doesn't the doctor know better than you?"
EXPERTS are everywhere. It is good as far as worldly thing are concerned, but in the spiritual
dimension there are no experts -- because the spiritual dimension does not allow itself to be defined, to be
reduced to theorems. It is not geometry and it is not mathematics, it is sheer poetry. It knows no limitations,
hence the spontaneous songs of the Bauls. They are not philosophers, not metaphysicians; they are simple
singers, poets. And their poetry is not according to the rules, and their poetry is not what people know of as
poetry. They don't know any metro, they are not worried about language; they are simple people. Their
poetry is their overflowing heart.
... AND REVERSE YOUR NATURE AND HABITS.
The key to this sutra is: become conscious, because all your habits are unconsciously dominated. You do
things like a sleepwalker. Become conscious and your habits will change, and the conversion will happen.
Do whatsoever you are doing but become more conscious while doing it. Don't become a robot, be a man.
Bauls say that once consciousness enters into your being, a new climate arises. In that new climate, new
flowers open; in that new climate, new birds come and nestle around you; in that new climate, God is the
closest reality. He is within and He is without. But God is not a theory to be discussed; it is something to be
lived. It is an experience.
They sing,
Query:-
He talks to me
but He would not let me see Him.
Listen to each single word very attentively...
He talks to me
but He would not let me see Him.
He moves close to my hands,
but away from my reach.
I explore the sky and the earth
searching Him,
circling round my error
of not knowing me:
who am I, and who is He?
"He talks to me but he would not let me see him...." These are symbols. I am talking to you; then you are
passive because you have only to listen. When I am talking to you you become feminine, you become the
receiving end. But if you want to see me you become male, because then you have to do something.
THE Bauls say: God talks to me but He would not let me see Him. He allows me to be passive but he
won't allow me to be active. He moves close to my hands, I can almost touch Him, but the moment I try to
touch He is far away. He moves close to my hands but away from my reach, because reaching for Him is
again active. He comes close to you when you are simply waiting. Don't try to grab Him, He is very elusive.
The moment you become male, He is gone; the moment you become female, He is there.
Attested by your own heart,

oh my Master,
lead me the right way.
As you play the melody
on the lute,
the lute could never sing on its own
without you to play it.
"... Attested by your own heart, oh my Master, lead me the right way" The Baul says, "I don't know
which is the right way; you lead me. And I have nothing to say about the goal. Let your heart decide it.
Whatsoever you decide is my destiny. Lead me the right way as you play the melody on the lute. The lute
could never sing on its own without you to play it." The Baul becomes a hollow bamboo, a flute. This is
what passivity is. If God is ready to sing, the Baul is ready to take His song as far as he can -- but he himself
cannot sing. All song is His, all energy is His. At the most we can be hollow bamboos, not obstructing the
way. If this is achieved, everything is achieved. If you are not obstructing the way of His song, enough.
Humanity cannot do more than that.
How could he stand

in a normal upright way?
The man without a heart in him,
the roots of his tree
are planted in the sky
Query:-
and the branches lie on the earth.

Flowers are in blossom
on the tree,
but it never bears fruit.
For him
the river is dying of thirst
and the fire perishes, freezing,
and birds nestle in the water.
He is meeting his Master
in the cremation ground.
ORDINARY life is a chaos. Things are not where they should be. Everything is misplaced. Roots are in
the sky and branches are coming to the earth. The tree has flowered, but it never comes to fruit. The river is
there and one is dying of thirst. God is there but you are standing on your head, so you cannot see Him. Or,
even if you see Him, you see Him very distorted.
Mind is a mechanism to distort. Hence, whether you are on the, path of love or on the path of
meditation, one thing is needed on both the paths as a basic requirement: that the mind should be put aside.
Mind goes on distorting.
MILLIONS OF SUNS
God is a tremendous experience of light, of beauty, of splendor. God is not a word, it is a dimension. It
is a vast ocean in which you disappear like a small drop.
MILLIONS OF SUNS
And once you have tasted Him, then every form becomes His form. Then the formless is bursting all
around. But first, one has to have the taste. If I tell you that in these green trees it is He who is green, words
will reach you but meaning will not. You will understand what I am saying, and yet you will not understand.
Words you will understand: the container you will carry, but the content will be lost unless you have tasted
Him. Then, everything is His form. In a rock, He is a rock; in a tree, He is the tree; in a flower, He is a
flower; understand: the container you will not understand. Words you will in the star, He is a star. Then all
forms are His. In tremendous forms, in millions of forms, He is expressing Himself. God is expression,
manifestation, revelation. If you watch your own being you will be able to understand it.
If you have some talent -- if you can paint, or if you can sing, or if you can compose poetry -- then
unless you have done it you will not feel happy, you will not feel fulfilled. Unless your destiny is fulfilled,
unless your innermost core has become creative, you will feel something is missing somewhere. You may
know it, you may not know it, but you will feel a gap, a big gap in your life. You may have all that life can
give to you, but if you have not found the right thing that allows your being to express itself, then you will
be like a rosebush on which flowers have never happened. Then the rosebush will be sad, because the
rosebush will be just futile. What is the point of being there? Once flowers bloom, the rosebush has attained
to meaning, significance; the rosebush has become creative. Her soul is released, she is no more in bondage.
If you ask me what is MOKSHA, liberation, this is MOKSHA for me: to release your soul from
bondage. I'm not telling you to go to the monasteries, or to the Himalayas and sit in a cave and just waste
your life. I am saying that you move into the creative dimension because that is the dimension of God. Sing
if you have a song to sing, and that will be your MOKSHA. Paint if painting is somewhere hidden in you
and wants to assert -- that will be your MOKSHA. Dance! If dance is throbbing within your heart, then let it
be manifested. Once manifested, your soul will be free.
As I see it, the so-called religious people are less religious than the creative people. A poet is more
Query:-
religious to me, a painter more religious, a dancer more religious than your so-called MAHATMAS --
because they are not creative at all. They are almost stupid people; they are simply withering away. They
are rosebushes that have stopped growing rose flowers: now even to call them rosebushes is not right. They
are simply vegetating.
IN India a great calamity has happened: these people are respected. Uncreative people are respected, and
the reasons to give them respect are simply foolish. Somebody can fast -- now this is uncreative activity; or
somebody can stand for hours in the hot sun -- now this is good in a circus, but life is not enriched by it; or
somebody can lie on a bed of thorns. What is the point in it? What are you creating? One can become very
insensitive and lie down on thorns. And the body has dead spots on it, so if you try to find out you will be
able to find out. Just tell your wife or your husband to take a thorn or a needle and push many spots on your
back. You will see that a few spots you will feel, and a few you will not feel; those are the spots. There are
dead spots on the back. One has just to find where they are, then you can lie down on a bed of thorns. And
by and by, the body becomes immune, resistant, hard. But these people lose all sensitivity: they have never
produced a song, they have never danced. But in India they are thought to be great souls. It is ugly, it is
stupid, it is very dangerous -- because the whole country has been worshipping uncreativity.
Worship dancers, singers; worship poets, painters; worship creative people -- because God's only
definition is creativity. He's the creator, so be a creator in your own right. Then your stream runs parallel to
His stream. And if you become really creative, totally creative, you fall into His stream. He starts
functioning through you. All creativity is His, so whenever you are creative, you are prayerful. Whether you
go to the mosque or the temple is irrelevant.
Bauls are very creative people, simple, but very creative. This I call the great calamity that happened in
India. Because of this many things disappeared: the genius of this country disappeared. You don't need a
genius to fast, you need only a stubborn, muletype mind, that's all; just a cruel, masochistic mind, that's all.
So your MAHATMAS are nothing but super-masochists, destructive people. If you starve somebody else
you will be caught by the police; if you starve yourself you will be respected as a MAHATMA. But in both
cases you are creating pain, misery.
I have been in contact with thousands of monks -- Jain monks, Buddhist monks, Hindu monks. Rarely
has it happened -- I was simply surprised -- rarely did I come across somebody who was intelligent. But
they are doing certain things which have become respectable, and nobody re-evaluates that if you honor and
respect uncreative things, the country will become, by and by, more uncreative.
Bow your head down wherever you find creativity, because God is nothing but creativity. So wherever
there is a sign of creativity, God has a signature there. He has already been there. Maybe even the poet does
not know, but he has been touched by something from the beyond.
Rabindranath used to close his doors whenever he would be in a poetic mood -- sometimes for one day,
two days, three days he would not come out. He would forget about food, he would not go to the bathroom,
he would forget about everything. The whole family and his disciples would be worried too: "How long is
this going to be?..." And he had told them never to disturb him, because whenever he was in a poetic mood,
God is there. So disturbing him would be disturbing God. He would cry and tears would fall from his eyes,
and he would be almost transfigured.
Once it happened that a group of people had come to meet him, and they were drinking tea. Suddenly
the cup slipped from Rabindranath's hand, and he closed his eyes. People knew... they watched this
beautiful phenomenon for a single moment. His face changed -- a new radiance, a new grace, something of
the invisible entered. They, without disturbing him, slowly, slowly disappeared. Only one man remained,
hiding behind a tree to see what was happening. He had come for the first time. That man himself has told
me, "I have never seen such a transfiguration. By and by, Rabindranath was no more human -- something
superhuman, a great ecstasy. And I could see the luminousness, and he started swaying, and he started
singing. And those words were not coming from him; he was just instrumental. For three days he remained
in that state."
Poetry is always born when the poet is just instrumental. Painting is born when the painter is not
painting his ideas, but is possessed by God. Remember it: I would like my sannyasins to be creative,
because I don't know of any other way to come close to God.
THESE uncreative religions and uncreative religious people have done nothing but harm -- quarrelling,
argumentative, killing each other. And with the problem about the transcendental, one thing is very
Query:-
complex: you cannot prove anything. The experience is transcendental. Christians cannot prove they are
right. Hindus cannot prove they are right. No, no decision can be decisive, so they go on fighting and
quarrelling. The whole energy that should become creative becomes destructive.
This also has to be noted down: if you don't use your energy in a creative way, if it doesn't become a
dance and a laughter and a delight, then the same energy will become harmful and poisonous. It will be
destructive.
It is said that Adolf Hitler wanted to become a painter, but he was refused admission. Just think: the
whole world would have been totally different if he had been accepted in the academy. There would have
been no Second World War. The whole humanity would have been totally different. But this man could not
be creative. He wanted to be creative, he had the energy; certainly he had tremendous energy: he dragged
the whole world towards destruction as no other man has ever been able to do. But it was the same energy;
it could have become creative, but became uncreative.
I have heard....
The father lectured his son on the evils of fisticuffs as a way of settling disputes. "Don't you know that
when you grow up you can't use your fists to settle an argument?" the father began. "You must begin to use
peaceful and amicable means of arriving at a decision. Try to reason things out, try to discover by logic and
evidence which is right and abide by the right. Remember that might does not make right. Though the
strong may win over the weak, that still does not prove that the weak is wrong."
"I know, Dad, "said the boy, kicking at the grass. "But this was different."
"Different? What different? How different? What were you and Johnny arguing about that you had to fight
over it?"
"Well, he said he could whip me and I couldn't whip him, and there was only one way to find out which of
us was right."
It cannot be decided by amicable means. If this is the question: who can whip whom? then only
whipping can decide. Destructive people are always very egoistic because they don't know how to drop their
egos. The creative person knows glimpses of no-ego of egolessness. He knows states of no-ego. In moments
of creativity, he becomes so possessed that he has a taste of something of the beyond. But a destructive
person knows no non-ego states; he becomes a crystallized ego. And then the whole world goes on fighting:
Hindus fighting Mohammedans, Mohammedans fighting Hindus, Christians fighting Jews, Jews fighting
Christians -- and the whole world is just a conflict. It could have been a great orchestra, but it is simply a
war.
Religion has to become creative. To be uncreative should be thought as the original sin, and to be
creative should be thought as the only and the super-most virtue.
MILLIONS OF SUNS
If you are moving in the right direction -- receptive, creative, happy, celebrating, loving -- millions of
suns will burst open. One day you come to your innermost shrine...
... AND THE FORMLESS IN VISUAL FORMS.
YOU WILL SEE

WHAT CANNOT BE SEEN
ONLY IF YOU CAN BE
Remember it: you can see only if you can be the formless in you. If you want to see the formless you
will have to become formless within. Because only when the wavelengths are the same, is there
communion. When you are also formless within you, suddenly something clicks and you are one with God.
He is formless, you are formless; there cannot be two formlessnesses. There can be millions of forms, but
formlessness can only be one.
Query:-
HOW to attain to this inner formlessness? -- drop the ego. That is giving you a limitation. Drop the very
word'1'. Use it, it is utilitarian in the outside world, but never bring it home. Never say'I' inside because that
makes a limitation, and because of that barrier you will never be able to move into the Beloved, and you
will never be able to allow the Beloved to move into you. If you want to see God, become something like
God. Be creative -- one thing; be formless -- another thing.
Have you tallied,

my heart,
the number of ways of finding Him
in the city of love?
The treasure of life,
sans bogus reckonings,
the world is a carnival
where lovers meet
like children of games.
Figure out the nature of your feelings
for the jewel of your life.
He is reached in the way
each seek to reach Him.
He is reached in the way each seek to reach Him....
Through tender passion or servitude,

through loyalty or parental care,
or through the love
of tranquility, peace,
find the feelings
which are born with you
and then worship Him
with your own strength.
Bauls say that there are no fixed laws and rules to reach Him. There is no methodology. There are no
super highways to reach to Him, only small footpaths. And each has to seek Him in his own way. Of course,
a poet has to seek in his own way, a dancer has to seek in his own way, a lover has to seek in his own way, a
meditator has to seek in his own way. So you should never listen to what others are saying; listen to your
feelings. Remain true to yourself and you will remain true to God. He has already given you the key -- the
key is in your feelings. Never imitate, because there is no one way for all. If you understand me rightly, then
the really religious world will be a world of no religions -- no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no Christian, no
Jain. A real world which is religious will be of religious people: everybody seeking and searching in his
own way. And God is not limited.
JESUS says, "In my God's house there are many mansions." Yes, there are millions of doors. In fact, for
each individual there is a separate door, special; nobody else can enter through that door but you. So don't
imitate: imitation creates falsity, pseudo-ness, inauthenticity. Just feel your own way and don't bother about
what others say. It is nobody else's business. Don't bother about what churches say, organizations say --
listen to your own heart.
Bauls are very individualistic. Religion has to be individualistic because it is a process of individuation.
But what other religions have done up to now is to destroy individuality and try to make everybody a part of
the crowd. They have created mobs, and they have destroyed individuals. Bauls are rebellious about it.
Query:-
He who has seen the beauty

of the Beloved friend
can never forget it.
The form is for seeing
but not for discourse,
as beauty has no comparison.
He who has seen that form
flashing on the mirror,
the darkness of his heart
is gone.
He lives with his eyes
focused on the form,
careless of the river
between life and death.
His heart
forever devoted to the beauty
dares the gods.
Each one has to come to his own vision, each one has to look through his own eyes. You cannot see
through my eyes, and you cannot touch Him through my hands. Even if I hold your hand and put it on Him,
it will never reach to Him -- because you are not ready. If you are ready, He is always reaching you. And
what is readiness in the eyes of the Bauls? -- become individual.
Remember, God is very original; He never makes the same model again. A Buddha is a Buddha, a
Krishna is a Krishna -- never again does He repeat. So don't go on carrying Gitas and Dhammapadas. Read
them as beautiful pieces: read them as poetry, but not as religion. Read them as great art, literature, but not
as religion. Listen to the Koran recited -- it is tremendously beautiful whether you understand it or not,
whether you know the language or not. The very word 'koran' means recite. There is no comparison; no
other scripture can be recited so beautifully. It is aesthetic, it has a tremendous beauty of sound; listen to it.
Read the Bible -- never has literature ever been able to transcend the simple assertions of Jesus -- but never
as religion. Religion you will have to find yourself. Poetry you can find, beautiful assertions you can find.
And I'm not saying don't read them, because they are your heritage. They make you rich. A man who has
not read about Buddha and who has not read his assertions cannot be contemporary. Something will be
missing. If you have not read the Koran and the Bible and Mahavir's statements, then you will lack
something very essential. You will be poorer for that. Read, but read as great literature. Enjoy it, delight in
it, but don't believe. A poem is not to be believed, it is to be delighted in.
BELIEF is borrowed. You will have to find your own trust, you will have to find your own faith. Hard is
the path, arduous are the ways. In the beginning it looks almost impossible to reach, but I say to you, it is
only in appearance. If you start moving: if you start praying, if you start dancing, if you start singing in His
name, He arrives.
Do you wish to visit

my inner home
and drink nectar,
my heart?
Will you not fail to enter
where lovers march
in a joyous carnival
singing of love?
Then walk the way
with a lamp of beauty,
leaving behind this greed,
Query:-
that lust,
the ways of the world,
and all qualities.
Blames and violence,
old age and death,
dawn and dusk
do not live there.
Only rays of color
brilliantly shine.
What cannot be seen you will see. The impossible will happen. Religion is the impossible revolution. It
happens -- it is almost impossible to believe that it happens. It is so beyond the ordinary mind: it is so
beyond logic, it is so beyond intellect, that it is difficult to believe that it happens -- but it happens. Look
into my eyes, look into ME, watch and feel; it has happened. It can happen to you.
YOU WILL SEE

WHAT CANNOT BE SEEN
ONLY IF YOU CAN BE
BUT the only art that you have to learn is how to be formless within you. How to drop the ego is the
very core of all religions; how to efface yourself utterly, so utterly that your room is just an emptiness, that
you are just a room and nothing else, just space, pure space. In that pure space one starts seeing that which
cannot be seen, and one starts hearing that which cannot be heard, and one starts touching what cannot be
touched, and one arrives to the point where all seeking, searching, desiring disappears. One is fulfilled.
That benediction is your birthright. And if you are missing, nobody else is responsible. Only you, and
ONLY you are responsible if you miss. There is no need to miss even for a single moment anymore. Once
understood, what is the problem? Why cannot you put yourself aside? Why cannot you be in a state where
no'I' exists?
Sometimes it happens accidentally. Listening to great music, sometimes it happens that you forget that
you are. You ARE, more so than ever before -- more grounded, more centered -- but still you forget that you
are. It disappears in great music. Watching a Himalayan peak, it disappears sometimes. It is so wonderful,
so surprising, so pure... the untouched Himalayan snow... that for a moment you touch an altitude of your
own being, and the ego is left, deep down.
Sometimes, if in the night you are suddenly awakened, for a single moment you are puzzled about who
you are and where you are. Have you not watched it? Otherwise, ask your wife or husband one day to wake
you suddenly in the night, to shake you, and see: for a few seconds you are, but there is no feeling of who
you are. The name, the form, the identity is not there. You are coming from such deep sleep that it will take
a little time to take back the garb of the ego.
IT happens in love. Two lovers sitting are not two -- something between them has fallen, disappeared.
Barriers gone, they are overlapping. It happens accidentally also, but if you understand it you can, by and
by, allow it to grow in you. That's all that religion is about.
MY HEART,
OF ALL WOMEN
MILLIONS OF SUNS
YOU WILL SEE

Query:-
WHAT CANNOT BE SEEN

ONLY IF YOU CAN BE
The Beloved, Vol 2

Chapter #10
Chapter title: Love Is Death

Audio: Yes
Video: Yes
Length: 81 mins
The first question:
BELOVED OSHO, THERE IS NO MORE SEARCHING AND SEEKING. THAT HAS ALL STOPPED. I HAVE
FOUND NOTHING IN PARTICULAR, BUT I FEEL FREE, FREED. I GO ABOUT MY BUSINESS WITHOUT
ANXIETY. THIS FOR ME IS BLISS, AND I FEEL SUCH A FLOOD OF GRATITUDE FOR YOUR PRESENCE
HERE. GIRISHA.
THERE IS NOTHING TO BE FOUND IN PARTICULAR. The search for the particular is illusory,
utterly illusory. The mind seeks something in particular; that is the problem with the mind. God is not a
particular thing or a particular being; God is sheer existence. All that is is God. God is the greatest
generality. You cannot find Him somewhere because He is everywhere. You cannot find Him in any place
because He is the whole, the total. You cannot indicate Him; whatsoever the indication, it will be wrong: He
is in all directions, within and without.
Mind is narrow; it goes on seeking in a very concentrated way. Concentration is not the approach
towards God. Concentration is a mind approach. God is everywhere, so you have to relax, you have to be
meditative. That's the difference between concentration and meditation. Concentration is a focusing of the
mind exclusively on something. That's what desire is: a concentrated mind, a mind intent to reach
somewhere, to reach something, a great seeking -- but it has to be narrow. And God is the infinite.
You have to relax, and you have to drop all searching -- only then you'll find Him. Seek, and you will
never find Him. Just be, and He has always been there surrounding you. He has never left you for a single
moment, because you cannot exist without Him. It is impossible to be without Him for a single split
moment. He is your life. He is your being. You can exist without food for months, you can exist without
water for a few days, you can exist without air for a few seconds, but you cannot exist without God even for
a split second. It is impossible.
This is my whole effort here: to help you to relax. I am not here to make you tense, ambitious, desiring
to find God. One who is searching is still in the world. The searcher is part of the world. One day he was
seeking money, power, prestige; now he is seeking God, bliss, heaven, but the search continues. He has only
changed the objects of the search, but he remains the same. I am here to help you to see the point that God is
already the case. You are just like a fish already in the ocean. Maybe the ocean is so obvious that you can't
see: you are born in it, you are made of it, you will dissolve in it. It is a question of recognition, not of
Query:-
search.
A searching mind becomes concentrated. Relax and just recognize.
So I don't say to you to seek God, I say to you to live Him right now. There is no need to seek -- enjoy
Him right now, celebrate! Let it be a festival. He has already happened. He is just waiting for you to dance
with Him, to delight with Him.
Good. Girisha is perfectly right: "I have found nothing in particular"...right, precisely. That is the point;
nothing is to be found in particular..."but I feel free, freed"...exactly, that is the point to be understood. A
great freedom is needed -- freedom from desire, freedom from search, freedom from seeking, freedom from
the narrow mind. One simply relaxes in all directions. When you relax, you are all-dimensional; when you
seek, you are one-dimensional. When you relax you become part of the whole; when you seek you remain
an ego.
This 'nothing' is what God is; and this freedom, this tremendous freedom -- that there is no longer any
desire to bind you, no bondage exists -- this is what MOKSHA, liberation is. MOKSHA or liberation is not
a geographical thing. It is not somewhere: it is not after you die, it is a recognition, a recognition of here and
now. Be free of all seeking.
There are only two types of people in the world: one, who are continuously seeking. They seek and they
never find, because seeking is not the way to find. They seek one thing, then another thing, then another
thing; they continuously change their objects, but they continue seeking. They are one-dimensional people.
They miss God because God is all-dimensional. They are linear people; they move in a line -- and God is
all. You cannot find Him through linear logic.
Then there is another type of person -- very rare -- who doesn't seek, who enjoys, who delights in
whatsoever is available, who dances, who sings. These are the Bauls, these are the really authentically
religious people.
God is not somewhere in the future. If you delight, He is here. If you celebrate, you will find Him just
by your side, beating in your heart. But if you seek Him you will never find Him anywhere. The seeking
mind never reaches to reality. And one becomes too much of a seeker, by and by: too much practice,
conditions, so you go on seeking. Today you will seek, yesterday you were seeking, tomorrow also you will
seek; past lives you were seeking, this life you are seeking, in the future lives also you will seek. Seeking
has become habitual. It has become a structure. Drop that structure!
This is my message: He is here, right THIS very moment. Don't miss Him.
There is no point in seeking; you just also be here, as He is here, and the meeting, and the communion,
and the orgasm... you become one.
"I go about my business without anxiety" -- beautiful! Because then everything is His, business also.
Ordinary day to day activity becomes religious, because all is His. When you are taking a bath, you are
giving Him a bath. When you are standing under a shower, He is showering on you. When you are eating
He is eating, and when you feel satisfied He feels satisfied. When you are singing He is singing within you,
and He is the audience also; He is listening to you. Every moment and every act becomes luminous with His
presence. When the whole life becomes luminous -- waking, He wakes in you; sleeping, He goes to sleep
and takes a rest -- then there is no distraction. Then you are continuously in tune with Him. Then the
harmony has happened. This is what a religious life is all about.
Religious life is not something separate from life. It is not the life of the temple or of the monastery; it is
the life offered to God -- totally, unconditionally, utterly. And now one lives because He wants you to live.
And one lives happily, because He has chosen you, because He has chosen you to be an instrument to Him.
Then you become a flute on His lips...then everything is tremendously beautiful. This is what the Bauls
want to say....
'...and I feel such a flood of gratitude for your presence here."
Gratitude arises whenever you start feeling God's presence around you; then only gratitude is left. Then
your whole energy becomes gratitude, then your whole being becomes a thanksgiving, it becomes a prayer
-- because nothing is missing, and the world is so perfect, and everything is as it should be. Gratitude is
natural. Gratitude is not something that can be practiced. You have been taught to be grateful; you cannot
be. Gratefulness is a consequence: when you feel God close by, gratitude arises. It is a by-product. Respect
arises. This respect is not something that you manage, it is something beyond you. You have been taught to
be grateful to your parents, taught to be grateful to your teachers, taught to be grateful to your elders, but
those are all just conditionings. When real gratitude arises, then you see what a tremendous difference there
is. The gratitude that was taught was just a concept, a dead ritual. You were following it like a mechanism.
Query:-
When the real gratitude upsurges in your being, you feel for the first time what prayer is, what love is.
Good, Girisha. Continue to remember, continue to relax, continue not to lose this experience that is
happening to you, because this experience is the only experience that makes life meaningful, which gives
life a glow, a benediction. You are blessed, Girisha, but don't lose track of it. It is very difficult to get, and it
is very easy to lose -- because mind has a long history, and it is very strong, and this new experience is just
a small sprout, very soft, fragile. The mind's heavy rock can crush it at any moment, so be very alert.
People who have not known anything like a spiritual experience of ecstasy, elation, who have never felt
any presence of God, need not be very alert, because they have nothing to lose. But a person who has had an
experience, a glimpse, a mini-SATORI, has much to lose. He'll have to be more cautious. Be more cautious.
Allow what has happened to you to happen more and more. Go deeper into it so that that which is fragile
becomes strong, that which is new becomes deeply rooted in your being.
It fact, people who are searching and seeking and making much fuss about it are completely unaware
that finally, when they reach, they will find there is nothing.
I have heard....
A lawyer was cross-examining Mulla Nasrudin, a witness. He asked, "And you say you called on Mrs.
Sultana on May 2nd? Now will you tell the jury just what she said?"
"I object to the question," interrupted the lawyer on the other side. There was nearly an hour's argument
between counsel, and finally the judge allowed the question. "And as I was saying," the first lawyer began
again, "on May 2nd you called on Mrs. Sultana. Now what did she say?"
"Nothing," replied Nasrudin. "She was not at home."
One day, when you arrive, you simply are amazed that for so many lives you were seeking something
which had never been there, and that which has been there was so close to you, and there was no need to
seek it.
Delight, enjoy. God is not a thing, it is an attitude, an attitude of celebration and festivity. Drop sadness.
He is so close by; dance! Drop long faces, it is sacrilege -- because He is so close by. Forget your childish
miseries and worries; He is so close by. Don't go on brooding about immaterial things; He is so close by.
Allow Him to hold your hand. He has been waiting for you for long.
IF YOU HAPPENED TO MEET A BAUL, A TANTRICA, AND A YOGI, WITH WHOM WOULD YOU LIKE TO
TAKE A CUP OF TEA?
IT is a very complex question. The answer is not easy, but still I will try.
I will tell the Yogi to prepare the cup of tea, because those are the most hygienic people! And I will tell
the Tantrica to bring it, because they know how to present a thing; they know what ritual is. But I am going
to take tea with the Baul.
The third question:
WHEN ONE BECOMES EMPTY OF ALL THOUGHTS, EMPTY OF ALL PLANNINGS, EMPTY OF ALL
DESIRES, WHAT TRANSFORMATION WILL HAPPEN IN ONE'S OUTER LIFE AND ONE'S INNER LIFE?
HOW WILL HE BEHAVE? HOW WILL HE SEE THINGS? HOW WILL HE LIVE IN THE WORLD? PLEASE
SAY.
IT depends, it depends on the individual. There cannot be any dogmatic statement about it because each
individual is so unique. When Basho becomes enlightened he starts singing poetry, poems; Buddha has
never done that. When Krishna becomes enlightened he starts dancing, singing; Mahavir has never done
that. When Mahavir becomes enlightened he keeps silence for many years, remains absolutely silent, not a
ripple is allowed; Meera has not done that. When she becomes enlightened, she dances from village to
village, she sings the glory of God. It is very difficult to make a dogmatic statement.
Query:-
There have been people who renounced life when they became enlightened and went to the Himalayas,
moved as far away from the society as possible. There have been people who became enlightened and came
back to the world, even if they had been in the Himalayas, and started living with people again. There have
been people who remained emperors even when they became enlightened. Zen Masters go on living very
ordinary lives; it is very difficult even to recognize. If you don't have eyes to penetrate them, you will not
recognize them.
It is said about a great Zen Master, Rinzai.... The emperor came to see him. He was cutting wood just in
front of the ashram. The emperor asked, "Where is your Master?" Rinzai said, "He is inside." Now of
course, the emperor thought he must be inside the ashram, so he went inside the ashram. Rinzai ran in
another door and sat on the Master's chair with closed eyes. When the emperor reached, he recognized:
"This man seems to be exactly like... just like the woodcutter." He said, "What is the matter? Who are you?
Are you trying to befool me, or are you a madman?" Rinzai said, "But I have told you, he is inside, and you
didn't understand me. Because you did not understand me, I had to run and I had to sit on this chair. Maybe
you can understand only superficials. I was ready then and there to reveal myself, but you didn't wait. Yes, I
am the Master, now what do you want? And don't waste much time, because much wood is still left to be
cut and chopped."
Zen Masters live very ordinary lives: they chop wood, they carry water from the well, they prepare food
in the kitchen. It is very difficult to see them unless you have eyes. They don't live any sort of extraordinary
life, because they say, "The very search to be extraordinary is egoistic." Just to be ordinary is the real
attitude of a religious man. And remember, the urge to be extraordinary is very ordinary. There is nothing
extraordinary about it because everybody wants to be extraordinary. To be ordinary is very extraordinary --
because who wants to be ordinary?
So it is very difficult, and I will not give you a criterion to judge by because those criteria have been
very destructive and harmful. Once you have a dead criterion with you, you will miss many real people, and
you will be deceived by many pseudo people. Whosoever can fulfill that criterion will look like he is
enlightened.
For example: Mahavir became enlightened; he became naked. Now, anybody can stand naked; there is
nothing special about it. Any madman can do that. And you can go to visit a nudist club -- they are not all
Mahaviras. Buddha became enlightened; he was sitting in a particular posture, the lotus posture. You can sit
in a lotus posture. If you are Eastern, then it is very simple; if you are Western, then six months' practice,
but that's all. You can sit in a lotus posture, but that will not make you a Buddha. You can imitate very
easily; that's how imitators are there all over the world. Go and see a Jain monk: he imitates perfectly, but
nothing else is there.
Enlightenment is always new, fresh -- it is not an imitation, it is not a carbon-copy; it is ALWAYS
original. So I cannot tell you exactly how he will behave, but I can tell you how to imbibe. If there is
somebody who has something of the unknown around him -- a mystique -- then, how to imbibe? Drop all
considerations, all mental considerations. Don't ask that he should be 'like this'; just be with him. Just sit
with him in silence. be open to him. If he has become enlightened, suddenly you will see a throb within you
that you have never known before: your energy will start rising. You will see a great silence arising in you,
and a great bliss, drop by drop, reaching your innermost core of being.
An enlightened person, if allowed to enter into you, will give you self-evident proofs. But those are not
intellectual proofs; they are not arguments of mind. He argues with his whole being. His argument is that of
his presence -- so allow his presence and don't carry any criterion. If you are a Jain you will miss Buddha; if
you are a Jain you will miss Krishna; if you are a Jain you will miss Christ. If you are a Christian you will
miss Mahavir. You will carry an idea, a fixed pattern. Don't carry any fixed pattern. If you feel that
somebody is there who is livelier than you, more radiant than you, more understanding than you, more
compassion overflowing from his being, then just be in his presence. That's what we call SATSANG: just be
in his presence. If he has arrived, you will feel a sudden pull in your being -- you are being pulled towards
some unknown center. And you will feel tremendous beauty, bliss. blessings showering on you. That will be
the only criterion; but for that you have to be ready.
Ordinarily, people ask, "Give us some objective criterion." There is none. The criterion can only be if
you are open. What is the criterion to know whether this flower is a rose or not? The only criterion is to
open your eyes, open your nostrils, smell it, let it reach your being; only that will reveal. But if you don't
have eyes and you have lost your sense of smell, then it will be very, very difficult for you to know whether
it is a rose or something else. It may be just a plastic rose or a paper rose; it can deceive you.
Query:-
So I will not give you any description of the objective reality, of what happens -- it is individual, unique,
always different, never the same -- but I can give you a subjective way to feel.
I have heard....
A maddened Roman swordsman came into the village cutting down men, women, and children, and
terrifying everyone. Arriving at the doors of a Zen monastery, he smashed down the door with the hilt of his
sword. Striding up to the Master who was sitting in ZAZEN, he raised his sword and was just about to kill
him, when something of the Master's stillness reached him. And angrily he shouted, "Don't you realize that
standing in front of you is a man who can cut you in two without the blink of an eye!"
The Master quietly said, "Don't YOU realize that sitting in front of you is a man who can be cut in two
without the blink of an eye? So go ahead. Don't be restricted by my silence; do whatsoever you have
decided to do." But the silence had reached the madman. The silence of the Master had touched his heart;
now it was impossible.
So just be open.
Even if you are a madman, and open, you will recognize enlightenment wherever it is, in whatsoever
form it has taken. And even if you are a great philosopher, intellectual, very rational to the core, if you don't
allow yourself to imbibe the spirit of silence and bliss, you will miss. You have to be very, very open. You
have to be in a let-go -- and then the evidence comes so strongly. It is so certain that you can deny
everything, but you cannot deny a man of enlightenment -- it is impossible. You may not be able to prove it
to others -- because there is no way to prove -- but for you, the thing is settled. And once it is settled for
you, once you have been in contact with an enlightened man, a bridge has been created. Now you can never
be the same again. The VERY phenomenon that you could recognize a man of enlightenment is enough to
start the foundation of you own enlightenment. It is enough to give you a new direction, a new being, a new
birth.
ANYTHING I SEE HAPPENING IN MYSELF IS FALSE, ILLUSORY, AND A MIND TRIP, RIGHT? AND MY
RECOGNITION OF THE MIND TRIP IS A MIND TRIP TOO?
RIGHT.
As far as thoughts go, everything is a mind trip. When thoughts cease and you see without any thoughts
crowding in your mind, when you see clearly with no smoke of the thoughts surrounding you, when your
look is simple, innocent, uncorrupted by thoughts, then it is not a mind trip. Only meditation is not a mind
trip; everything else is a mind trip. Or, love is not a mind trip; everything else is a mind trip. If love or
meditation has happened to you, you will know what I am indicating towards. In a deep moment of love,
thinking stops. The moment is so intriguing, the moment is so tremendously powerful, the moment is so
intensely alive, that thinking stops. You are simply in awe, a great wonder surrounds you. Or in deep
meditation, when the moment of silence has come and you are absolutely silent, still -- no flickering, no
wavering, no trembling, the flame of your consciousness is straight -- then thinking stops. Then you are
outside the grip of the mind. Otherwise, everything is a mind trip.
Remember it: one has to go beyond the mind because the mind is SAMSAR, the mind is the world. It is
because of your thinking that you are missing the truth. Once thinking is stopped you are face to face with
the reality. It is the continuous screen of thinking that is distorting reality. It is as if you are looking in a lake
full of ripples. It is a full moon night, and the lake is reflecting the beautiful moon -- but it is full of ripples.
You cannot gather it together; the moon goes on splitting into a thousand fragments. The whole lake seems
to be spread over by the moon, silvery, many fragments of the moon all around. Then the wind stops, the
ripples disappear: those fragments start falling into one moon. The silver that was spread all over the lake
becomes more concentrated in one place. When the lake is completely without ripples, the moon is reflected
perfectly.
When the mind is with thoughts, the lake is with ripples; when the mind is without thoughts, the lake is
without ripples. God is reflected perfectly when there is no ripple in you. Forget all about God -- the only
thing to be done is how to become ripple-less, how to become thoughtless, how to drop this constant
obsession with thinking. It can be dropped -- it is because of your cooperation that it continues. It is your
Query:-
energy that you go on giving to it that keeps it alive. It is just like a man on a bicycle: he goes on pedaling --
it is his energy that keeps the cycle going on. Once he stops pedaling, the cycle may go a little further
because of the past momentum, but then it has to stop.
Don't give energy to your thoughts. Become a witness -- indifferent, aloof, distant. Just see the thoughts,
and don't be in any way involved in them. Note the fact: the thoughts are there; but don't choose this way or
that, don't be for or against, don't be pro or con. Just be a watcher. Let the mind-traffic move, just stand by
the side and look at it, unaffected by it, as if it has nothing to do with you.
Sometimes try it: go on the busiest street where the traffic rush is too much. Stand by the side of the
road and see the traffic -- so many people going hither and thither, and cars and bicycles and trucks and
buses. You just stand by the side and look, and do the same inside: close your eyes and see -- the mind is a
traffic of thoughts, thoughts rushing here and there. You watch, you just be a watcher. By and by, you will
see that the traffic is becoming less and less. By and by, you will see that the road is empty, nobody is
passing. In those rare moments, first glimpses of SAMADHI will enter in you.
There are three stages of SAMADHI. First, when you achieve glimpses through gaps -- one thought
comes, then it has gone and another has not come for the time being. There may even be a gap for a few
seconds; in that interval reality penetrates you -- the moon becomes one. The reflection is there only for a
single moment, but you will see the first glimpse.
This is what in Zen they call SATORI. By and by, the gaps will become bigger, and when the gaps
become bigger and you can see reality more clearly, that vision of reality changes you. Then you cannot be
the same because your vision becomes your reality also. Whatsoever you are seeing affects your being.
Your vision, by and by, is absorbed, digested. That is the second stage of samadhi.
And then comes the last stage: when suddenly the whole traffic disappears, as if you were fast asleep
and dreaming and somebody has shaken you and awakened you, and the whole traffic of dreaming has
stopped. In that third stage you become one with reality, because there is nothing to divide. The fence that
was dividing you has disappeared. The wall is no more there. The wall is made of the bricks of thoughts,
desires, feelings, emotions; once it disappears -- it is a China wall, very ancient, and every strong -- but once
it disappears, there is no fence between you and God. When for the first time the third stage happens, that is
where the Upanishads announced, "AHAM BRAHAMASMI" -- I am God, I am the Brahma. It is where the
Sufi mystic, Mansur, declares, "ANA'L HAQ" -- I am the truth. It is there when Jesus declares, "I and my
God are one, I and my Father are one."
The fifth question:
ON THE ONE HAND YOU ARE GIVING ULTIMATE FREEDOM TO DO WHATSOEVER WE WANT TO DO,
AND ON THE OTHER HAND YOU ARE GIVING RESPONSIBILITY. WITH RESPONSIBILITY, I CANNOT
USE THE WORD 'FREEDOM' AS I WANT, HENCE I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE RIGHT MEANING OF
FREEDOM. THE MOMENT I GET IT, I GET IT WITH RESPONSIBILITY. OSHO, WHEN I UNDERSTAND I
FEEL'THANK YOU'. OTHERWISE, I WOULD LIKE TO USE, AND I HAVE ALREADY USED IT AS A
LICENCE.
IT is one of the perennial questions of humanity: the question of freedom and responsibility. If you are
free, you interpret it as if now there is no responsibility. Just a hundred years ago Friedrich Nietzsche
declared, "God is dead, and man is free." And the next sentence he wrote is, "Now you can do whatsoever
you want to do. There is no responsibility. God is dead, man is free, and there is no responsibility." There he
was absolutely wrong; when there is no God, there is TREMENDOUS responsibility on your shoulders. If
there is a God, he can share your responsibility. You can throw your responsibility on Him: you can say, "It
is YOU who have made the world; it is YOU who have made me in this way; it is YOU who is finally,
ultimately, responsible, not me. How can I be ultimately responsible? I am just a creature, and you are the
creator. Why have you put seeds of corruption in me and seeds of sin in me from the beginning? You are
responsible. I am free." In fact, if there is no God, then man is ABSOLUTELY responsible for his acts,
because there is no way to throw responsibility on anybody else.
When I say to you that you are free, I mean that you are responsible. You cannot throw responsibility on
anybody else, you are alone. And whatsoever you do, it is your doing. You cannot say that somebody else
forced you to do it -- because you are free; nobody can force you! Because you are free, it is your decision
Query:-
to do something or not to do something. With freedom comes responsibility. Freedom IS responsibility. But
the mind is very cunning, the mind interprets in its own way: it always goes on listening to that which it
wants to listen to. It goes on interpreting things in its own way. The mind never tries to understand what
really is the truth. It has taken that decision already.
I have heard....
"I am a respectable man, doctor, but lately life has become intolerable because of my feelings of guilt and
self-recrimination." The patient gulped miserably before continuing. "You see, I have recently fallen victim
to an uncontrollable urge to pinch and fondle girls in the underground."
"Dearie me," tutted the psychiatrist consolingly, "we must certainly help you to rid yourself of this
unfortunate urge. I can quite see how distressing.... "
The patient broke in anxiously, "It is not so much the urge I wanted you get rid of for me, doctor, it is
the guilt."
People go on talking about freedom, but they don't want freedom exactly, they want irresponsibility.
They ask for freedom, but deep down, unconsciously, they ask for irresponsibility, licence.
Freedom is maturity; licence is very childish. Freedom is possible only when you are so integrated that
you can take the responsibility of being free. The world is not free because people are not mature.
Revolutionaries have been doing many things down through the centuries, but everything fails. Utopians
have been continuously thinking of how to make man free, but nobody bothers -- because man cannot be
free unless he is integrated. Only a Buddha can be free, a Mahavira can be free, a Christ, a Mohammed can
be free, a Zarathustra can be free, because freedom means the man now is aware. If you are not aware then
the state is needed, the government is needed, the police is needed, the court is needed. Then freedom has to
be cut from everywhere. Then freedom exists only in name; in fact it doesn't exist. How can freedom exist
when governments exist? -- it is impossible. But what to do?
If governments disappear, there will simply be anarchy. Freedom will not come in if governments
disappear, there will simply be anarchy. It will be a worse state than it is now. It will be sheer madness. The
police are needed because you are not alert. Otherwise, what is the point of having a policeman standing on
the crossroad? If people are alert, the policeman can be removed, will have to be removed, because it is
unnecessary. But people are not conscious.
So when I say 'freedom', I mean be responsible. The more responsible you become, the more free you
become; or, the more free you become, the more responsibility comes on you. Then you have to be very
alert to what you are doing, what you are saying. Even about your small unconscious gestures you have to
be very alert -- because there is nobody else to control you, it is only you. When I say to you that you are
free, I mean that you are a God. It is not licence, it is tremendous discipline.
The sixth question:
AFTER HEARING YOU FOR THE LAST NINE DAYS AND UNDERGOING MORNING AND EVENING
MEDITATIONS IN YOUR ASHRAM, I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT I ENVY VIVEK, BUT I AM NOT
JEALOUS OF HER. I FEEL SHE IS HOLDING THE'PARAMPADA' OF BELOVED DISCIPLE IN THE
ASHRAM. HOW TO REACH THAT STAGE?
MIND functions in such strange ways. You have been here to meditate; it has nothing to do with
anybody else. In fact, a real meditator will not look at what is happening to others. A real meditator will be
going inwards.
It is said about Bayazid that he lived with his Master for twelve years, and he passed the same hall every
day to come to the Master. One day the Master said to Bayazid, "You go back to the hall. There, in the
cupboard, one book is Lying -- you bring that book." Bayazid said, "I will go, because I have never seen
that there is a cupboard." The Master said, "You have been coming to see me continuously, every day, for
twelve years, and you have to pass that hall every day; you have not looked around?" He said, "I was
coming to you, Master. I am not here to look at what is in the hall, whether there is a cupboard or not, and
whether there is a book in it or not. I am not here for that. My whole intent, my whole being is just for you. I
am open towards you. I will go and see." The Master said, "There is no need; the book is not needed. In fact,
there is no book and there is no cupboard. It was just a test to see whether you are distracted. I am happy
that you are not distracted."
Query:-
Now, this question is a question of distraction. How are you related to anybody? You should be
meditating, or, at the most, you should be open towards me. But mind goes on creating new complexities
and troubles.
The question is from a woman, so that shows something about the feminine mind also. She is more
interested in Vivek than in me. If you are to feel envious, feel envious of me! But a woman is a woman;
even if she has come to meditate, it makes not much difference. And then she says, "I am not jealous of her,
but I envy." This is always happening in the mind: if somebody is envious we call him jealous; if we are
jealous we say this is just envy. There is a double-bind.
What is envy? It is nothing but passive jealousy. Maybe jealousy is too strong a phenomenon; envy is a
little passive. The difference may be of degrees, but it is not of quality, it is only of quantity. Envy can
become jealousy at any moment; envy is just jealousy in progress. Mind has to drop all envies and
jealousies.
She has asked, "How to reach that stage?" The first thing is to drop envy and jealousy, otherwise there is
no possibility -- because love cannot exist where envy and jealousies exist. Then your search is only for a
certain type of power: that in the name of love you are just trying to fulfill the ego. And it is arduous to
drop, because love exists only when all the negative elements of the mind are dropped. It is very arduous.
You can ask Vivek how arduous it is.
Just a few days ago she was saying to me, "You are worse than Gurdjieff!" Now that is a great
compliment. Gurdjieff was really very hard on his disciples, and she says, "You are worse than Gurdjieff!"
But I can understand: I am hard, I HAVE to be hard. The closer you come to me, the harder you will find
me. When you come just as a visitor, then it is okay; I am not hard. I have to be very, very polite when you
come as a visitor -- that is the trap. Once you are trapped, then I become hard.
The woman has not taken sannyas yet; she should take sannyas and see.
Come closer to me... you will be coming closer to your own death. Love is death. You will have to die;
only then can you comeclose to me. You will have to efface yourself utterly; only then can you come close
to me.
But people think that love is the promise of a rose garden. Yes, ultimately yes, but on the way it is a lot
of hell.
A great philosopher, feeling the absolute meaninglessness of life, decided to commit suicide by hanging
himself. A friend came into the room and discovered him standing with a rope around his waist, and he
enquired what he was trying to do. The philosopher told him he was taking his own life. "But," said the
friend, "why have you the rope round your waist?"
"Well," said the philosopher, "when I tied it round my neck, it was choking me."
Love is a rope round the neck -- it will choke you, it will kill you. Only those who are courageous
enough to commit suicide -- a spiritual suicide -- who are ready to die, only they can be reborn, and only
they can be close to me. It has nothing to do with me. I am there, available to everybody. My invitation is
there for you to come. It depends on you. But if you come just to become close to me, envious of others who
are close, you are coming close for wrong reasons. Then your rope will be just around your waist, and you
will say, "I cannot put it on my neck, it is choking."
People can come close also for wrong reasons, for political reasons. Now this woman has a political
mind: she thinks Vivek is in a PARAMPADA, in the highest power position. This is a search for power.
Those who are close to me are close because they have effaced themselves. At least they are sincerely
trying. It is hard, it is difficult, but they are trying.
I was reading a small anecdote:
There was a small camp of little boy scouts. The camp counsellor was explaining the rules of a new
game: "If your enemy calls your number from his side of the battlefield," he said, "you must be a dead man,
immediately. Drop just where you are. Lie still as if you are dead, become completely dead."
Ten minutes later came an agonized whisper from the youngest camper, "Please may I move now? I am
a dead man, but I am on an ant hill."
You can pretend that you are effacing yourself, you can pretend that you are humble, you can pretend
that you are ready to drop your ego, but pretensions won't help. Sooner or later truth comes out. And one
should not become interested for wrong reasons.
The girl was rich and the young man, Mulla Nasrudin, was very poor. She liked him but that was all,
and Nasrudin knew it. One night he had been a little more tender than usual:
Query:-
"You are very rich," he ventured.

"Yes," she replied frankly. "I am worth one million rupees."
"And I am poor."
"Yes."
"Will you marry me?"
"No."
"I thought you would not."
"Then why did you ask me, Nasrudin?"
"Aw," said Nasrudin, "just to see how a man feels when he loses one million rupees."
Don't ask such questions, because they come out of wrong desires. First watch from where they are
coming and be very, very alert. See as clearly as possible. Don't hide behind words. Don't call your jealousy
envy. Be very hard with yourself. Only then will your diagnosis be helpful, and right questions will arise. If
you ask a wrong question, you waste time.
The last question:
WHO IS A BAUL? PLEASE TELL US THE DEFINITION.
IT should have been asked in the beginning; now this is going to be last. But in a way, it is good. If in
the beginning you had asked about the definition of a Baul, it would have been almost impossible to say
anything. Not that now I can define, but at least now I can say it is indefinable.
The Baul is not a metaphysics, the Baul is a mystique. I can invite you to participate in that mystery, but
definition is not possible. So I am not going to define. Instead, I will tell you a story. Maybe that will give
you a definition; but you will have to find it yourself.
I have heard....
Once upon a time, an angel came to earth to see man and his world, because he had heard so many
stories of man's splendor that he could not resist his curiosity. The beauty of the world overwhelmed him:
the sunlit mountain peaks and dark forests, the whining winds and tossing, rainbow-colored valleys, the
dew-kissed soil, the soil's lusty smell, the animals, fierce and gentle. Everywhere there was such beauty. But
when the angel saw man he was awed, for he heard the music of the human heart and the song of the human
soul. He fell in deep love with human mystery. Dusk came, but he lingered on. Man and man's earth had so
moved the angel that he hesitated to leave. But finally, his time finished, he had to go with tears in his eyes.
And tremendously encircled, enriched by this adventure on the earth, by this experience, before going out,
before going back to his own world, just out of sheer joy he wanted to help some of us on our way. He
looked about, saw four persons walking together. He approached them and said, "I have come to grant you
each one wish." As luck would have it, they all were spiritual aspirants.
The first one spoke up, "I have striven incessantly after distant divine truth -- nothing but struggle,
struggle, struggle. Give me spiritual peace!"
"But struggling is one of the joys of life," said the angel, not understanding the first seeker's wish.
"I would like peace!" insisted the man.
This being his wish, the angel changed the youth into a cow that chewed the grass of a distant pasture
quite contentedly.
A bit disturbed, the angel turned to the other aspirant.
"God is pure but I am not," said the other. "Please rid me of all impurities, of passions, emotions, desires."
"Are not they the very fount of life?" asked the angel.
"But I don't want life, I want purity!" insisted the second man. He then closed his eyes and waited for his
transformation. In a split second he disappeared, and in a faraway temple, a marble statue appeared in his
likeness.
Then the third one said, "Make me perfect; anything less will simply not do." He vanished but did not
reappear anywhere, for nothing on earth is perfect or can be perfect.
The angel turned to the fourth, "And what is your wish?"
"I have no wish," replied this happy man.
"No wish at all?"

The Beloved, Vol 1 and 2 Talks On The Baul Mystics

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Beloved, Vol 1 and 2 Talks On The Baul Mystics

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1/08/07 Copyright Osho International Foundation 1994

Osho's books on CD-ROM, published and unpublished

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVOURS OF LOVE CAN

ONLY A CONNOISSEUR OF THE FLAVORS OF LOVE CAN

It is not something that has to be earned, it is a gift of God.

The Beloved, Vol 1

Archive code: 7606220

The first question.

The second question:

The Bauls say,

Words of wisdom describing God

Words of wisdom describing God

The third question:

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FOLLOWING: THINKING AND UNDERSTANDING,

which is a pseudo coin.

The Beloved, Vol 1

Archive code: 7606230

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED AND

then it is substantial; he has earned it.

Mad, mad, we are all mad!

The Bauls say,

That enchanting river

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED

The Bauls say,

A man unknown to me, and I,

That is what they call the essential man.

NOTHING HAS HAPPENED,

The Bauls say,

Scanning the cosmos

you waste your hours.

The dream is always egoistic; the ego is the dream.

This is what ego is....

The act of finding

you can reach life's goal.

The act of finding

You must be single-minded

If your mind is torn in two,

The Beloved, Vol 1

Archive code: 7606240

The first question:

The second question:

The Beloved, Vol 1

Archive code: 7606250

COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET

SIMPLE WORDS CAN OVERCOME

LOST IN HIS OWN THOUGHTS,

COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET THE NOVEL MAN

Out of ten thousand dollars, only one dollar!

COME IF YOU WISH TO MEET

And Bauls say,

I cannot be touched by the water.

Keep your soles dry

Groping for the river,

You have come alone,

HE SPEAKS OF THE ETERNAL MOTHER

SIMPLE WORDS CAN OVERCOME

Even if you forbid, dear friend,

Some flowers pray

As the VEENA prays

SIMPLE WORDS CAN OVERCOME