Darshan 29 March 1976

Arihanto means one who has attained, and anand means bliss - one who has attained bliss. and I give you this name for a particular reason.

Start living from this moment as if you are blissful. don't try to achieve it - rather feel that it is achieved, and now you have just to live it. Once you know that you have to live it, suddenly it starts flowing, mm?

Bliss is something which we bring with our birth. We have forgotten the language, so the language has to be learned and this 'as if' is the language.

[To someone who is leaving for the West:]

Mm, you can go - and help my work there. You can help many people....

I will make you capable! You can be of much help. People never know their potentialities unless they try.

I have never come across any human being who is ordinary. They may live ordinary... they may die ordinary. They may never come to know what treasures they were carrying within - that's another thing. But I have never come across a human being who is simply ordinary. Everybody is unique and extraordinary... and nobody actualises his potentialities. At the most we potentialise five percent.

Ninety-five percent of our treasures remain untouched.

So when I say you can, believe it. You can! If you think you can, you can. If you think you cannot, you cannot.

[The sannyasin says: I am a psychoanalyst. I am in doubt whether I should go on with this work...

because sometimes it seems impossible.]

Yes, you go on. Now you will be a better psychoanalyst.

... I know. The human mind is in such a mess that there are times when one feels it is impossible to do anything. But to understand this impossibility is not to become hopeless. Rather, let it become a challenge. It is difficult, very difficult, and human problems are such that it seems there is no solution for them.

But go on fighting. Take the challenge and go on trying. I don't say that you may be able to find solutions for others, but through this struggle you will be able to find solutions for yourself... because each human being is you reflected. And whenever you are helping somebody else, you are helping yourself in a subtle way, because these problems are your problems also. In each human problem you will have the reflection of your own problem, more or less; the difference is only of degree.

And to be in such a therapeutic work one should feel happy. We may not be able to do much, but we try. You may not be able to destroy the darkness, but still we burn a small candle. That too is enough in a dark night. That too gives hope, warmth... makes life easy, lovable, livable.

So don't get out of it, rather get more into it. And whatsoever you have learned from me is going to help very much. Once you go back start working again, and you will see many new insights sprouting. Situations are needed. In situations you will see new insights, new glimpses, which were never there before. Suddenly you will become aware of many clues of which you were never aware, and you will be helped tremendously.

This is one of the most basic things: if a psychoanalyst or a psychiatrist starts feeling that he is impotent and the problem is impossible, and still he continues, he will be of more help than a person who thinks that he can help and that everything is simple. That person is simply behaving in a foolish way. Only fools are absolutely certain... a wise man is always hesitant. The wiser you become, the more hesitant. But that doesn't mean that you escape.

In spite of all hesitations, you continue. Only dullards are doubtless, because to doubt, you need intelligence. To be hesitant, one needs to be aware of the complexity of life and its problems. Fools are ever, always, absolutely certain. They have clues for everything because they are not aware of the depth of the problem. They have catch-words, catechism - borrowed - and they think that they can give advice to anybody.

It is good for a psychiatrist to feel hesitant, because the human mind is such a holy ground. To enter into somebody's mind and to help him, you walk on very sacred ground. One should hesitate. One should take off one's shoes... one should bow down. A human being is a great mystery - don't pretend to solve his problems. At the most, pray to be able to help... don't pretend to solve the problems.

And if help comes through you, always remember that you are just an instrument in the hands of the whole, or God, or whatsoever name you choose to call Him. Just an instrument. If you can be of help, feel thankful to God that He used you. If you don't see that you are being helpful, then simply

feel that you are helpless - pray more. Remember that somewhere or other you must be blocking the passage so God is not able to flow through you. Relax, and while helping a patient, be prayerful.

And whenever you find that there is some difficulty that you cannot cope with, there is some problem that you cannot tackle, don't be afraid. Tell the patient to wait and to let you pray first. Kneel down on the ground, close your eyes, and go into deep prayer and ask for help... and the help will always be coming.

Don't feel embarrassed - because that is the tendency of the human ego: to at least pretend to others that you know, that you are capable of everything. And the tendency is particularly more emphatic before a patient, because the doctor is always afraid that if the patient becomes aware that he is hesitant, then he will lose prestige. Throw prestige to the dogs!

Let the patient feel that you also are a human being. Let him feel that you are not far away, but close, just standing by his side, trembling as much as he... and that will give warmth to him.

That's where Freud missed. He was very cold. He would not show his real face to the patients - in fact he would hide behind a curtain, with the patient lying on the couch. And whenever you make somebody lie down, you make him feel helpless.

... always be face to face, and sometimes be shoulder to shoulder. Touch the patient, and let him touch you. Allow him to feel that you are human also - working hard to help, but with darkness there.

Let him feel your heart. Don't impose knowledge, rather let him feel your love. Love is therapeutic, knowledge never.

Freud used to sit at the back of the patient with a screen between him and the patient. He would not allow the patient to see anything passing on his face. He was just like a statue - dead and cold, far far away. That was a trick to pretend that he knew, to pretend that he was certain - to pretend that the patient was to be helped and he was the helper, and that there was a vast distance, unbridgeable ....

That has to be completely dropped from psychoanalysis. Come closer. The difference between the patient and the doctor, the healer and the healed, is only of degrees. Come close... hold his hand. Let him feel your warmth... let because he will feel that he is with a human being, not with a technician. He is with someone who has a heart.

If you cannot find the solution, pray. If you feel puzzled, let your puzzled state be known to him. If you feel afraid, let him feel your fear. If you start crying because of the situation and the misery that he is in, let him feel that. Your tears may be of more therapeutic value than all the advice that you can give, and all of the analysis that you can make.

So go back now, totally new... as my sannyasin. And I am coming with you, Nagarjuna, I am coming with you. Keep this (a small wooden box) with you. Whenever you feel helpless, hesitant, put it on your head. Don't be bothered about the patient! (much laughter) [A sannyasin, present with her two small children, says: I feel rather empty these days, and I don't know what to do - how to work on myself. Should I do groups or just live in the emptiness?]

Live the emptiness... because whatsoever you do can never be greater than you. Whatsoever the mind is going to do is going to be part of the mind. Mm? It is going to be a game.

Once you start feeling empty there is no need to do anything on your own. Let emptiness be lived, and things start happening. Not that you do them - they happen.

Emptiness is hard in the beginning, because one starts feeling a little depressed, sad, with nothing to do. For the whole life we have been occupied with this and that, improving ourselves, reaching for, achieving, some goal... excitement, misery, failure, success - but one is occupied. Then suddenly one feels emptiness settling - nothing to do, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide; no ambition that can give one excitement and can create fever. So one feels a little lost, a little sad - as if one has already died.

So in the beginning emptiness looks negative. It is not. Emptiness is the most positive thing there is. The whole has come out of the emptiness... the whole has come out of nothingness. We are born out of emptiness, and we move again into emptiness.

The whole effort of meditation is how to feel this emptiness, how to become alert and live it consciously. In the beginning it will seem negative because of the comparison. You have been continuously occupied and suddenly you are empty.

It is like a man who retires. For the whole of his life he has been thinking and planning how beautiful it will be when everything is finished and he will retire. And when retirement comes, suddenly he becomes aware that this is emptiness.

Psychoanalysts say that retired people die ten years earlier than they would have if they were occupied. Their whole life is lessened by ten years because suddenly they have nothing to do.

For their whole life they have been engaged - engaged too much, always on the brink of a nervous breakdown - and now, suddenly nothing to do. The change is too much.

The same happens when you start meditating and emptiness starts coming to you. Don't judge it by the past. Rather wait and judge it by its own nature. Don't compare it with the past - that is the point to remember. You have never known it, so say to the mind 'How can we judge? How can we say that it is negative? How can we say that it is nothing? First let us taste it, let us experience it'.

Let the experience be ontological: not on the past experience, not comparative to anything else, but on its own existence, its own experience. Experience it. Let it reveal its nature to you. Cherish it...

sing it, dance it, enjoy it, so from every dimension you know what it is. Look into it again and again in many moments. In different moods, close your eyes and again see it - how it is, what it is. This is ontological .

The experience grows, and one day you will see that this is the most positive thing that has ever happened to you, or can ever happen to any human being, because out of this nothingness you will see millions of things happening. The whole tension of doing is dissolved; things happen on their own. Flowers flower... and the grass grows by itself. You simply sit silently with nothing to do. You need not pull the grass up to help it grow; it grows by itself. Then life is no longer a burden... Life is just a play.

So this is my suggestion: try to be more and more in it. Don't avoid it, mm? Don't try to forget it; don't try to get involved with something else that takes you away from it. Dig it deep. Go into it wholeheartedly. It is going to be a treasure.

So just meditate... sit silently. If you feel like doing something, then do things which don't make you a doer. Any simple thing - working in the garden... nothing much that the ego can claim. Cooking, looking after the children, washing the clothes, rubbing the floor and cleaning it. Anything that gives you a good feel of doing, energy, exercise, but no food for the ego. So doing is there, but the doer is not supported.

And everything is going well.

[A sannyasin said that he had been with the Krishna Consciousness movement prior to taking sannyas. He was concerned because he had read in the Bhagavad Gita that one could only attain through Krishna.]

Have you read the Bible? Because in the Bible, Jesus says 'Only through me'. And have you read the Koran? In the Koran, Mohammed says 'Only through me'.

So you are like the husband who went to the marketplace and said to people, 'I have got the most beautiful woman in the world.'

So they asked, 'How did you come to know?'

He said, 'She says so!'

So that is not the question. Every teacher has said that, and when a teacher says that, he is right in a way. If you follow him, you will attain through him. But he is saying 'only through me' so that you can trust totally. If he says that you can go through others also, you are already in doubt. It will be impossible for you to be certain. Just to make you certain, Krishna says 'Only through me', Jesus says 'Only through me. I am the truth, I am the way, I am the gate!' These things are said to help you so that you can become certain - don't take them literally.

To make it perfectly clear to you, I say to you 'only through me' (laughter). Now who are you going to believe - a book or me, an alive person?...

Krishna is perfectly beautiful, but these Krishna Consciousness people are simply stupid. Krishna is perfectly beautiful! Read Bhagavad Gita - enjoy it as much as you can; it is one of the best expressions of the divine. But be alert. Don't mix with these Krishna Consciousness people - otherwise they will brainwash you completely. Avoid them - they are ill and need psychiatric treatment. So if you have friends there, bring them out (a chuckle).

Keep this with you (Osho passed him a mall wooden box as he was leaving) and whenever doubt arises, put it on your head with both hands so it will take care of you and will not allow you to go to the Krishna Consciousness, mm? (much laughter) [The husband of the woman with two children says: We came for darshan with the whole family because most of the time we are in a struggle with each other.

Tomorrow I am going to start my first group here, and I hope I can do the best I can because I need peace. We need peace, we need rest.]

Mm mm... peace will come, rest will come. They are not really needs. The need is of understanding - they are consequences.

You cannot manage to be peaceful and you cannot manage to be in rest - no. You can only do something to become more understanding, more aware. They are by-products. When you are in understanding, you are at rest. There is no direct way to rest, because if you do anything to get rest, you will get more restless. If you try to become peaceful, your very effort will be the disturbance. Nobody can become peaceful, because the very idea to become peaceful belongs to a non-understanding mind. The very desire to be peaceful shows that you are deeply disturbed.

Out of deep disturbance, how can you manage to be peaceful? So that is not the point. I understand your desires, but the whole thing will be moving in a wrong direction if you try to be peaceful. You have tried that your whole life. If you try to be at rest... that's what you have been trying and missing. Forget all about it - just try to understand; then you have the right key which opens the locks. Otherwise you will be knocking against walls, and you will become more and more frustrated.

Try to understand yourself. Try to understand what you are doing to your life. Try to understand why you are missing peace, why you are missing rest. You must be doing something which goes against it.

Once you understand - that this is what you are doing to disturb your peace - then it is up to you. If you want to disturb, disturb; be happy that you disturbed it. Otherwise if you don't want to do it there is nobody asking you to; don't do it. It is as simple as that. But the solution has to be looked for in the direction of understanding.

Everybody in the world wants to be peaceful and happy, this and that, but it never happens it seems.

So it seems that somewhere we are looking wrongly. If you are not at peace, why? And don't be a coward and avoid that 'why'. Never throw the responsibility on anybody else, because then there is no solution. If you say it is [your wife], or Divya [their daughter], somebody else who is the cause of your disturbed state of mind, then it is not going to be solved, because if somebody is the cause, then what can you do? And I tell you, nobody is the cause but you.

Even if [your wife] disturbs you, you must be asking for it; you must be managing it somehow. In the first place, if you have fallen in love with [your wife that shows a deep tendency that you like such a type of woman to disturb you, otherwise you would have chosen some other type of woman (laughter).

So always fall back on yourself. Always go on looking deeper and deeper to where the cause is.

As I see it, no man need be disturbed - no man... but we want it. It will be difficult for you, but I would like to say that whatsoever has happened to you, you have longed for it, You have wanted it; you have invested much in it. once you understand that it is you, the solution is not far away; it is very close. If I am responsible for my misery, I can drop it immediately. Responsibility brings freedom.

And understanding means to feel responsible.

So do the group... and look for understanding. And what you are saying - that you are going to try hard - is again wrong. That again may be a way to misunderstanding.

Don't try hard. Relax. Do everything with more alertness - not hard. There is nobody that you have to prove something to. Just relax and see what is happening to you. Open yourself... don't close. Otherwise in the effort, in that hardness - that in this group you have to attain peace - you will miss. One day has passed, and you have not attained to peace yet? (laughter) Then another day is passing and the group is going to be finished soon - and peace has not yet been attained; there seems to be no sign of it. You will get more and more frustrated. Forget all about peace!

Right now you don't need it, and when you need it, it will be coming. Right now what you need is understanding. So relax, and bring out everything that is hiding inside. Don't try to prove anything, otherwise you will be choosey - trying to bring out something which brings peace and not bringing out that which is going to disturb.

A group is a therapeutic situation in which you have to bring out all, choicelessly. But if a man is bent upon proving something, he is not choiceless. He is always looking out of the corner of his eye to see what to do and what not to do - because he knows that if he does this, he will get disturbed.

So don't be bothered about disturbance, mm? Get disturbed. This time there is no need to hanker for peace and rest... all nonsense.

There is a very famous story about Confucius. A disciple asked him, 'Master, what about peace?'

Confucius became very angry, and he said 'Peace? Are you going to die? Peace is for people who are dead, in the grave. When you die you will be at peace, so why be in a hurry? (laughter) Right now, live! Never ask me again about peace, 'he said, 'because that, everybody attains when he is dead. A few days are given to you - why waste them on peace? Live life! Live courageously!'

And I know what he means. If you live courageously, peace follows like a shadow; there is no problem about So be courageous in the group... don't be a coward. Cowards are always looking for peace; they are pacifists - and they never attain to peace. Rather be a warrior.

[The sannyasin says: I don't feel that I am a coward. There are so many emotions coming out, and I feel like an animal. The pressure is high inside... ]

The pressure is because of the condemnation. Why call it animal? What is wrong in being an animal? Everybody is. Animals are not worried at all - only when you put them in zoos, and then they become mentally ill, otherwise not. What is wrong in being an animal? Be animal!

This is what is creating trouble. When I say coward, I mean this - that you are afraid of your animality, of your anger, of your violence, of this and that, and you have been suppressing them!

Those suppressed emotions go on creating a turmoil within, and if you go on suppressing too much, then a deadened state comes up. You create such a distance between you and your emotions that you don't feel. You start to only think about them; you don't exactly feel them.

When I say don't be a coward in the group, I mean that whatsoever it is - animal, divine - don't judge; allow it. And as I see it, they are there just in your belly, struggling hard to come up, and you have been repressing them hard. The repression may have just become a habit now.

You are going to do the Tao group?

(to the Tao groupleader who was present) take care. Force him to become completely animal (laughter). And a very beautiful being is hiding within, mm? But he has been struggling in a wrong way.

Do something where he has to behave exactly like an animal. Tell him to move around the room like a dog, sniffing, smelling...

[A sannyasin to whom Osho said that if she wanted to break out of the vicious circle that she was in in her relationships it would be good for her to abstain from sexual relations, (see 'Nothing To Lose But Your Head') returned tonight to say that she had been unable to do as Osho had suggested.]

Mm mm, it was difficult to carry it on for six months? You have not even carried it for six weeks!

It has nothing to do with sex, mm? I was trying to give you a situation in which you can fight against mechanical has its. I am not against sex or anything... that was just an excuse. One has to do some work, somewhere, where one is not possessed continuously by mechanical habits. A circle has to be broken. Sex is one of the most beautiful situations in which one can break out of being mechanical.

If you can break out of sex, you can break out of anything because it is one of the deepest habits.

Everything else is superficial. Hence all the religions have been working on sex energy. No religion has been able to neglect it; it cannot be neglected.

But the basic point was that if you can remain celibate for six months, it will give you an integrity and awareness. And then I would have allowed you - but then your total sex energy would have changed. Then you would have moved in relationships with awareness. Mechanical sex can never lead you towards love... and that's what you are missing, that's what you are hankering for and desiring. But you will only get sex. If you are mechanical, more than that is not possible.

More becomes possible if you become more. If you attain a higher level of awareness, then higher qualities become available to you. It is just as if you go on a higher peak; a greater and wider vision becomes available. If you live in a valley, of course you cannot have a great vision around you; you ar5e not open to all the directions.

So it is up to you. don't feel guilty about it; just feel poorer for it. You have not committed a sin, but you could not get out, even a little, from the mechanical wheel. This was going to help you tremendously.

Just think about it: you have been having sex all your life, and what have you attained? And just by not having it for six months, what were you going to lose? One should be a little alert and aware, and one should meditate about things. The mind goes on insisting on its own habits, and then you go on losing opportunities. It is for you to use or lose.

So don't feel that you have done anything wrong. You could not do the right, that's all. Wrong you were doing always - so continue....

Sometimes very small things change you tremendously. Just not having sex for six months is nothing. Maybe a little uneasy because of the old habit, but what is going to be wrong in it? Sex is not an essential thing for the individual's survival. For the society's survival it is very significant, but not for the individual's survival.

Food is more essential. If I tell you not to eat for one month, it will be almost impossible for you. Or if I tell you not to sleep for two weeks, or not to breathe for five minutes.... But sex is not a problem, because you don't depend on it. Whatsoever sexual energy you needed, you go from birth. Now through your sex some children may get energy and life, but you are not going to get anything out of it. It is simply a mechanical routine of release.

Go, and then come back, and I will give you another situation. I was thinking this would have been easier; another situation may be more difficult. But I will have to find a difficult thing now, mm?

[A sannyasin had told Osho she was enjoying silence, so Osho told her to maintain silence if she continued to feel good. Tonight she said that it had been good but now she would like to move with people again.]

Mm... and whenever you feel, you can move into silence again - when you feel that people are tiring, that talking is tiring. In fact one should make it a rhythm: going and meeting people and being silent - moving out and moving in... sometimes with and sometimes alone. Both are good.

In proportion, in balance, both are good. Imbalance, and both can be dangerous. If somebody simply lives in society and moves with people continuously, one becomes superficial. One loses contact with the centre, hangs around the periphery. It is as if you are continuously standing on the door talking to people, and there is no chance to go in because somebody else is coming and you stand and talk, and you have forgotten your home.

If one clings to oneself too much, introverted, and forgets how to come to people, that too becomes a sort of death, because life is with people.

So life has a polarity... Life has to be lived on two polarities: the centre and the periphery. Sometimes one should go into oneself so deeply that the whole world disappears - as if you are alone and nobody else exists. You become Adam or Eve. Alone... absolutely virgin. So alone that nobody can disturb or corrupt... incorruptible, innocent. Out of that one is vitalised... comes back into the world with fresh eyes and fresh energy... flowing. Moves with people, loves people, lives with people, enjoys, dances, gets into many ecstasies of life. One spends... because if you want to spend, you have to go into the marketplace.

-All spending is with people. One earns alone, one spends with people. But if you go on spending, sooner or later you feel that your pockets are becoming empty, your bank balance disappearing - so again go in... touch your treasury again. Find your inner treasures again... become rich. Then come back - because if you remain in and just become rich, and go on becoming rich, never coming out to spend, you will become a miser. Your consciousness will become constipated.

So one has to remember. It is very difficult. It is easy to live with people and forget the inner core.

The opposite is also easy - to live in the inner centre and forget the world. Both are easy, but both

are lopsided. A perfect life has to be lived on both the polarities. A perfect life has a perfect swing, from this end to that. It has the whole spectrum of the rainbow... it lacks nothing, and that is the richness of it.

[The sannyasin also said that she tried the meditation that Osho had given her - of visualising that she was in a cave meditating...(see darshan, March 14th)... but she fell asleep before she reached the cave... it made her feel very peaceful.]

You continue it. Soon you will reach the cave - it is just a little further away (chuckling). Go travelling and find new paths. You may be travelling on an old route and it is too long! Just find a new way and reach the cave before sleep comes (laughter).

Run fast! You can even have a bicycle or something (more laughter), because the cave has to be reached. It is there... and I am waiting in the cave. If you reach there, only then can you find me (a chuckle) - otherwise it will be difficult. The one time you saw me, I was looking for you outside the cave, that's why! You go on looking!

[A sannyasin says: No, except I'm rather afraid of slipping back when I get home. I feel a different person from when I came two months ago.]

You will not be slipping back... you have done so well. Very few people do so well. And at this age (Karuna is seventy) it is really rare to be so flowing and so innocent and child-like. It has been very very good. You will not slip.

[A sannyasin says: I'm an actor... I'm always performing, proving myself to myself and to other people. And I wonder how much of what I experience in meditation, the love that I feel, is part of my own imagination.]

Don't call it acting - because that carries a condemnation, and any sort of condemnation creates a rift inside; it makes a split. Call it being creative... don't call it acting.

There is nothing wrong in it. There are creative people, imaginative people, who through imagination can live more deeply than other people. To live rightly one needs tremendous imagination. When a poet looks at a flower, he finds many things you will never find there in the flower.

Now this can be looked at in two ways. Either we can say that the poet is just imagining things which are not there, or we can say that the poet has a sensitivity, a depth of vision, a clarity of perception; his eyes are clear, without dust. So what others cannot see in the flower, he can see. I would like the second, because in fact that is what is the case.

Whatsoever a poet is seeing in the flower, every child sees. And whenever they are in love, lovers also see it, or if one is on an LSD trip, or coming out of deep meditation, then too. Whenever one is clear, flowing, whenever the structured consciousness is not functioning in the dead, routine way, and one has transcended a little the conditioning of the mind, suddenly one sees things which ordinarily people don't see in a flower.

I don't call it imagination. I call it deep sensitivity. Imagination is that. The poet is not imagining things which are not there, but he is so sensitive that he can see things which others cannot see.

Of course he lives deeply because everything becomes full of the mysterious. Everything flows with the unknown. Life is no more a prose... it becomes a poetry. He lives in an adventure... he moves in a romance. He walks on the earth and yet doesn't walk on the earth. He flies in the sky.

So I would like you not to call it acting or rehearsal or imagining or projecting - drop these words.

It is a very creative faculty. Enjoy it, use it as much as you can. And of course you will be loving deeply... you will be meditating deeply... you will be living deeply. Whatsoever you live will have a depth to it. So don't create unnecessary problems.

This is how I see many people go on creating problems where problems don't exist. One should be happy about such qualities, and one should be thankful to God. Use them - use them as much as you can. And don't be miserly; the more you use, the more you will become sensitive and creative.

So from this moment, drop that idea. Otherwise you are creating a conflict. You like it and you are trying to judge it as if it is not worth liking. This is how we create dualisms. Don't create them. Float with it - that's your way.

[The sannyasin says: I called it acting because I'm frequently talking to myself in my mind, performing... ]

Nothing wrong in it - talk, perform. Don't be worried about it. By and by this will drop. As you become more sensitive it will drop - because this is not going to help sensitivity. For example, if you are going to meet a woman you love and you talk inside your mind about what you are going to say and how you are going to propose and this and that... if you talk too much, when you go to the woman it is already secondhand. Now the whole thing is lost. Now you will simply be moving through empty gestures, repeating something which you have already done. You will hold the hand - you have already held her hand. You will say 'I love you' - and you have said a thousand and one times in the mind that you are going to say 'I love you'. It is already stale.

So this is not the way really to live the moment deeply. You are destroying the moment. Become more sensitive. Don't fight. If this idea comes into the mind, just watch it. Just say 'So here you go again' - and just watch. It is a psychodrama, mm?

The whole of psychodrama has developed out of this. The whole methodology is of rehearsal, of acting something out. So just say 'Good', but be watchful and keep aloof. Stand somewhere far away and just look. And make one point certain, that when you go and meet your woman, don't repeat whatsoever you have done. By and by the mind will come to understand that it is useless performing and making such a great rehearsal, because this man always does something else (laughter).

Just never follow that performance, that's all. By and by the mind will come to understand and will drop it; it drops automatically. Always do something that the mind has not prepared, and this will be a very beautiful, a great adventure. This is what they call in Zen a 'spontaneous act'.

A disciple comes to the master, and the master asks a question. The disciple has to act spontaneously. If he says something which he has rehearsed before, the master is going to beat him, because the very assertion immediately gives the indication that this is a carbon copy. It is flat; it doesn't have depth. And the person who is repeating the answer also knows well that it is a repetition. His face shows it... he is not alive in it.

So the disciple is expected to do something immediate - of which he has never thought. Of course when you come to a zen master, you may think many things - that if he says this, you are going to say this. And now zen masters have fixed questions, so everybody knows what they are going to ask One goes on rambling inside for an answer. But if you say something which you have already performed, you will get a beating!

So this is the rule - that by the time you enter the room of the master, you drop all performance. You be herenow and you do something that comes out of the herenow. You respond. And if the response is authentic, total, herenow, the master understands it, because it will have a quality of dance in it. It will fill the whole room with a new light, a new fragrance, a new vibe.

So let the mind do whatsoever, but when the actual moment comes, never repeat it. This is your work, mm? Good.