Politics And Love

Question 1:

THERE IS A VAST DIFFERENCE, and tremendously significant, between trying to change the other and helping him. When you help somebody you help him to be himself; when you try to change somebody you try to change him according to your idea. When you try to change somebody you try to make a carbon copy of him. You are not interested in him. You have a certain ideology, a fixed idea, an ideal. You change him according to the ideal. The ideal is more important, the real man is not important at all.

In fact, trying to change the other according to some ideal is very violent. It is aggression, it is an effort to destroy the other. It is not love, it is not compassion.

Compassion always allows the other to be himself. Compassion has no ideology, compassion is just a climate. It does not give you direction, it only gives you energy. Then you move. Then your seed has to sprout according to its own nature. There is nobody forcing anything on you.

When I say, "Go and help others," I mean: help them to be themselves. When I say, "The world is too irreligious because of too many preachers," I mean that so many people are trying to change, convert, transform others according to their own ideology. The idea should not be more important than the person. Even the whole humanity is not more important than a single human being. Humanity is an idea; a single human being is a reality.

Forget about humanity, remember the human being - the real, the concrete, the throbbing, the alive. It is very easy to sacrifice human beings for humanity. It is very easy to sacrifice human beings for Islam, Christianity, Hinduism; it is very easy to sacrifice them for the idea of Christ, Buddha, Mahavir. Help, but don't sacrifice. Who are you to sacrifice anybody? Each individual is his own end.

Don't use him as a means.

That is the meaning when Jesus says: "The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Everything is made for man; man is the supreme value. Even God, the idea of God, is for man, and man is not for the idea of God. Sacrifice everything to man and don't sacrifice man to anything whatsoever. Then you help.

If you start sacrificing man, then you are not helping. You are destroying, you are crippling the other. You are violent, you are a criminal. So all your so-called mahatmas who try to change the other are criminals. One can just love, help, be ready to give unconditionally.

Share your being, but let the other move towards his own destiny. That destiny is unknown; nobody knows what is going to flower. Don't give a pattern, otherwise the flower will be crushed. And remember that each individual being is unique. There has never been such a being before and there is never going to be again. God never repeats, he is not repetitive. He goes on inventing.

If you are trying to make a man be like Jesus, you will be destructive. Jesus can never be repeated again. And there is no need. One is beautiful, many will just be boring. Don't try to make a man a Buddha. Let him become himself. That is HIS Buddhahood. And neither you know, nor he knows, what he is carrying within himself. Only the future will show. Not only will you be surprised; HE will be surprised when his flower opens. Everybody is carrying a flower of infinite potentiality and power, of infinite possibility.

Help, give energy, love. Accept the other and give him a feeling that he is welcome. Don't give him a feeling of guilt, don't give him the idea that he is condemned. All those who are trying to change him give him a feeling of guilt, and guilt is poison.

When somebody says, "Be like Jesus!" he has denied you AS YOU ARE.

Whenever somebody says to be like somebody else, YOU are not accepted. You are not welcome, you are like an intruder. Unless you become somebody else, you will not be loved. What type of love is this which destroys you, and only when you become false, inauthentic...?

You can, authentically, only be yourself. All else will be false, all else will be just masks, personalities, but not your essence. You can decorate yourself with the personality of Buddha, but it will never touch your heart. It will never be related to you, it will not be connected with you. It will just be on the outside. A face, but never yours.

So whosoever is trying to make you somebody else and says, "I will love you if you become Buddha, Christ..." does not love you. He may be in love with Christ, but he hates you. And his love for Christ can also not be very deep, because if he has really loved Jesus, he would have understood the concrete uniqueness of every individual.

Love is a deep understanding. If you have loved one person, you have started a different quality of vision within you. Now you can see with a clarity. If you have loved Jesus, then whosoever comes before you - you will see the reality of this man, of this concrete human being, of this potentiality herenow. And you will love this man, you will help this man to become whatsoever he can become.

You will not expect anything else. All expectation is condemning, all expectation is a denial, all expectation is a rejection. You will simply give your love - for no reward, for no result. You will simply help, with no future in mind.

When love flows without any future, it is a tremendous energy. When love flows without motivation it helps, and nothing helps like it. Once you feel that even one single human being accepts you as you are, you feel centered. You are not unwelcome in this existence. At least one human being accepts you unconditionally. That gives you a grounding, a centering; that gives you a feeling that you are at home. And the more you are at home, the more you will be closer to God, because deepest in your heart is He. When you are close to yourself you are close to Him. When you are centered, you are IN Him.

When you are far away from yourself, you are far away from God. The distance between you and yourself is the distance between you and God, and there is no other distance. So whosoever says, "Become somebody else," is throwing you away from God. You will become false, you will carry masks. You will have personalities, character, and a thousand other things, but you won't have a soul; you won't have the essential. You will not be an awareness, you will be a deception: a pseudo-phenomenon, not authentic.

So when I say help, teach, I'm not giving you the idea to teach them. I'm saying:

just create a climate around people. Wherever you move, carry the climate of love and compassion, and help the other to be himself.

That is the most difficult thing in the world - to help the other to be himself - because that is against your ego. Your ego would like to make imitators of people. You would like everybody to imitate you; you would like to become the archetype and have everybody follow you. Then your ego would be very, very fulfilled. You would think of yourself as the blueprint and everybody just has to follow you. You become the center and everybody becomes the false.

No, the ego will not like the idea. It wants to change others according to you. But who are you to change anybody? Don't take that responsibility. That is dangerous; that is how Adolf Hitlers are born. They take the responsibility of changing the whole world according to them.

There is much difference between a Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler. But deep down, no difference at all, because both have ideas of changing the world according to them. One may be using violent methods, the other may be using nonviolent methods, but both are using methods to change the other according to themselves. One may be using the bayonet, the other is threatening you that "I will go on a long fast if you don't follow me." One may be threatening to kill you and the other may be threatening that he will kill himself "if you don't follow me", but both are using force, both are creating situations in which you can be forced to be something that you don't want to be, that you never wanted to be.

They both are politicians. Neither Hitler loves you, nor Gandhi loves you.

Gandhi talks about love, but he does not love. He cannot love, because the very idea - the ideal of how you should be - creates trouble. There is only one way of loving people: to love them as they are.

And this is the beauty: that when you love them as they are, they change. Not according to you - they change according to THEIR reality. When you love them, they are transformed. Not converted; transformed. They become new, they attain newer heights of being. But that happens in their being, and it happens according to their nature.

Help people to be natural, help people to be free, help people to be themselves, and never try to force anybody, pull and push and manipulate. Those are the ways of the ego. And that is what all politics is.

Question 2:

Politician, and Christ? Politics and love are impossible to be together. Love is anti-political; politics is anti-love.

I know politicians talk about love, but don't be deceived by their talk. They talk about peace and prepare for war. Never listen to what the politician says; always watch what he is doing. Whatsoever he says may be just a distraction, to distract you so you cannot see what he is doing. He goes on saying things absolutely contrary to what he is doing. That saying is a camouflage. It is a cover to hide.

That's why politicians go on talking - so that you are not in any way helped to be aware of what they are doing. They distract by their talk. They don't communicate, they don't say much. In fact, they want to hide so that things are not known. They talk about peace and they all prepare for war. They talk about love and they all create hatred in the world.

But they are tricky, very diplomatic. When they say, "Love your country," they are saying, "Hate your neighbors." But they hide their hatred in the love of the country. When you say, "Love your motherland," nobody is going to raise any question about it. There is no question: everybody has to love his motherland.

But deep down in the teaching of the love of the motherland, they are preparing you for war. Then you start hating the neighbors: they don't belong to your nation, they don't belong to your race, they don't belong to your religion. Love your religion - then what will you do with people who don't belong to your religion?

Of course, it has to be understood that you will hate them. If you love your religion, you will hate other religions; if you love your country, you will hate other countries; if you love your color, you will hate people who are of a different color. If you really want to love human beings you have to stop loving the country, you have to stop loving the religion. you have to stop loving your color. If you really want to love human beings you have to stop all political nonsense.

But they are very tricky - diplomatic. They talk about love and they sow the seeds of hatred, they talk about nonviolence and they prepare you for violence.

They say they are preparing for war because without war. peace will be impossible. And they have talked such nonsense for so long that you don't even understand how contradictory they are. Then the whole humanity goes on moving in darkness.

Remember one thing: Christ is not a politician - not even of love - because politics is poisonous. It will poison love itself.

Christ is not a politician at all. I lad he been a politician, he would not have been crucified. Just a little diplomacy would have saved him. Just a little diplomacy:

there was nothing much in it. But he was not a politician. That was the trouble.

He was very authentic and true, not diplomatic. He said whatsoever he felt.

Look: your so-called mahatmas are politicians. They try to live according to their principles, they try to BE according to their ideology. Whatsoever they preach, they try to live it.

Jesus is totally different. Whatsoever he lives, he preaches. There is the difference. A Mahatma Gandhi looks almost like Jesus. He's not. He tries to live whatsoever he preaches, but the preaching is important. He wants others also to live according to his preaching. and he himself tries to live according to his preaching.

Jesus is totally different. He says and preaches whatsoever he lives. When you preach whatsoever you live, you are exposed. You are open and vulnerable. You are true to yourself, but then you start becoming unfit with the society. Society is politics, it is diplomacy. Many things are not to be said, many things have to be said which are not true.

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus remained silent. He could have said something, he was an articulate man. He was a great poet in his utterances, he could have said something. And his whole life was depending on that. That was the last thing Pilate asked: "What is truth?" Jesus looked into his eyes and remained silent. Very undiplomatic, very nonpolitical. He embarrassed Pilate.

In that silence, Pilate felt very restless and uncomfortable. Jesus penetrated him deeply. His silence was something that he was saying from his heart.

But Pilate wanted words. Pilate was not asking, "Show me the truth!" He was asking, "What is truth? " He was asking for a definition. Jesus wouldn't give the definition because HE was truth - and he was standing in front of him!

He looked into his eyes. He must have stirred his soul. Pilate became uneasy. He turned away from Jesus. He said to the priest, "Take this man away and do whatsoever you like. Crucify him."

I always think about it. In that moment, Pilate must have felt as if he was being crucified in silence. Just think about Jesus looking at you. All your falseness, all your masks, fall away because they cannot be there when Jesus looks at you.

Naked and nude you stand before him. Empty, with nothing.

Pilate was the governor-general of the Roman Empire. But inside, a poor man, a beggar. All that falseness cannot deceive Jesus; he penetrates deeply. All your worldly riches are useless. He looks deep down into you and the beggar is caught. The beggar starts becoming restless. This was not asked for.

If Jesus was a little diplomatic, he would have given a philosophical answer.

Pilate was a student of philosophy; he would have understood. Jesus could have convinced him, argued, persuaded. Pilate may have saved Jesus his life. But rather than saying anything he created a climate, a situation in which Pilate became very restless.

Just think: Jesus is looking in you. Silence becomes embarrassing. This man seems to be dangerous, as if he is pushing a dagger in your heart. Suddenly Pilate must have felt the emptiness, the poverty that he was. He turned aside. He said to the priest, "Take this man away and do whatsoever you like." But he must not have slept that night, or even for months. Jesus must have haunted him.

A very nondiplomatic answer. Jesus should have said the same thing that Pilate believed. That would have been diplomacy. Politicians say only the things you already believe. Then you are with them. They don't disturb, they console. Their answers are like ointments.

Jesus' answer to the question, "What is truth?" - his answer is like a wound in the heart. For his whole life Pilate must have been haunted by the silence. "What did this man mean? Why did he remain silent, why did he look so deeply within me?

Why?" In his dreams it must have become a nightmare.

Jesus was not a politician, not even of love. Love cannot be politics.

Love is simple, not complex. Politics is very complex and cunning. Love is intelligence; politics is stupidity. Only mediocre people get interested in politics.

Love is tremendous intelligence; it is understanding. When you love, you are transformed through it.

Politics is always concerned with the society, the nation, is always concerned with the collectivity. Love is always concerned with the individual. Love flows between two souls, there is no other way. Just like a river flows between two banks. Love flows between two souls. Love is individual, intimate, close.

It can flow between one individual and the whole existence, because the whole existence has a soul. That soul is God. But it cannot flow between one individual and society. Society is just a word. It cannot flow between one individual and humanity. Humanity is just a word. There is nobody to receive it, there is nobody to respond to it.

Jesus loved, but he was not a politician. And Jesus never tried to change the society, remember. That was a misunderstanding on the part of the priests: that he was trying to change the society. He was not trying to change the society at all. He was trying to change the individual. And that, too, not according to his ideology, hut according to the individual's potentiality. There are a thousand and one instances....

Jesus never condemns, Jesus never creates any guilt. Jesus never says, "That is sin. Don't do it." He reveals what is sin, but he never says it. He makes you understand what is sin, but he never gives you a dead dogma in the hand.

In life, dead dogmas are useless. Only an alive consciousness is useful because every moment the sin and the virtue changes. Something was a virtue in the morning. It may not be virtuous in the evening. It depends on you, on others, on circumstances. It is not a dead thing that you can carry with you. It is changing every moment. Unless you have a flexibility, a sensitivity to change with life, you will not be able to know what is sin. Every moment life goes on moving.

Something was virtuous in a certain moment. The same thing can become a sin in another moment. So no dogma is possible.

Jesus gives a sensitivity to people. an awareness, a mindfulness, a meditation, so that they can feel their way, so that they can understand every situation and respond accordingly. If you go deeply into Jesus you will understand only one thing: that to act with awareness is virtue and to act with unawareness is sin. Sin is not a quality of any act. Neither is virtue. Sin and virtue belong to the presence or absence of awareness. It is not WHAT you do which is sin or virtue. it is HOW you do it: aware or unaware. It doesn't depend on the action. It depends, deep down, on the consciousness - what quality you bring to it.

Jesus loved. That was one of his crimes: that hc loved. A rabbi should preach, he should not love. A religious man should become an example, and induce and seduce people to follow his example. He was not an example at all. In the ordinary sense, he was not creating any ideal of his own. He was simply helping people to be more prayerful, to be more mindful, to be more watchful. And he lived, and loved.

He lived like a very ordinary man. But with very extraordinary awareness. He lived like a Zen master. Jews could not understand him, or only later on. Hassids would have understood, but they came very late. They would have understood him, they would have understood him absolutely. He was a Hassidic master, or a Zen master.

But his followers also misunderstood him. They thought that he was a politician and he had come to change the society. His enemies also misunderstood him.

The same has happened again and again. I am here. I am not interested in society at all, not a bit. But the politicians go on thinking that I'm planning in some way or other. I'm a conspirator and I'm planning something in secret way.s to change the society or the government. It is difficult to convince them that I'm not interested at all in their government or in their society. They can go on playing with these stupid toys. I'm not interested.

But they cannot understand because it is beyond them. They cannot see the point: that somebody is not interested in government, in governing people. They think there must be some deception; something is hidden behind it. They think my talk about religion - changing the individual, loving the individual - is just a facade. Behind it there must be politics. They can understand only politics, and they will see politics everywhere.

It is understood. I can understand it. They cannot go beyond their own minds. It is just like a pickpocket who comes to see a saint. He cannot see the saint, he only looks at the pockets. He is a pickpocket.

You walk on the road. Different people look at you in different ways. A shoemaker looks at your shoe and understands you according to the situation and the condition of the shoe. If the shoe is in a bad condition he knows that your economic position is not okay. If the shoe is not polished well he knows you may be unemployed. He need not see your face; he just Looks at your shoe.

If a man has been working on shoes for thirty, forty years, he becomes almost a psychologist. From the shoe he can say everything: what your financial position is, what your status in society is. Even what your mind is right now. When you are happy, you walk differently. When you are unhappy, you drag. The shoe can show that you have been dragging for long, as if you are pulling the whole load, the weight.

The shoe can show whether you are in love or not. Have you watched? When you are in love, you polish your shoes. Everything becomes significant. Some human being has become interested in you. Now everything is significant. When nobody loves you, you become careless. Who bothers whether the shoe is gathering dust? Let it gather. Nobody is interested in you - why should you be interested in the shoe?

A policeman has a different type of shoe than a schoolmaster. You can see the shoe and you will know which is which. The policeman has to be violent, his shoes will show that he is violent. A schoolmaster is just a schoolmaster. The shoes will tell the whole story.

A shoemaker looks at the shoe, a pickpocket looks at the pocket, a hairdresser looks at the hair. He knows whether you are a square or a hippy. Your hair will show it. And this is not new. In India one of the names of Krishna is Keshava.

Keshava means'long-haired'. He was the first hippy in the world.

When a politician looks at a Jesus, or at me, immediately his understanding is political. He becomes afraid, he thinks a competitor has come. But Jesus is not a politician, a man who knows love cannot be a politician. Why? - because politics is ambition; love is nonambitious.

Politics is a way to rule over others. Love never wants to rule. The very effort to rule and possess and be powerful is violent. It is part of hatred. Love gives, and gives unconditionally. Love does not possess. Love is not a monopoly, is not a power-lust.

How can love be politics? Please don't use that word with Jesus. He's not interested in changing the society. He is interested in changing the heart, the heart of man. Maybe society is changed through it, but that is irrelevant. It can happen as a consequence, but that is not a concern.

If the heart of man changes, the society is bound to change, because with a different man a different society will arise. But that is a consequence. Jesus is not interested in that. His whole interest is in how the kingdom of God can be felt within. That's why he goes on insisting, "The kingdom of God is within." It has nothing to do with the without. Politics is without; religion is within.

Love gives, politics takes; love shares, politics has nothing to share. It tries to possess.

Question 3:

It is good that you don't know who you are, because all that you know will be wrong.

The depth of your being is indefinable. It has no name, no form. The innermost of your being is always unknown and unknowable. Socrates said, "Know thyself!" Not that you can know. He's saying: "Try to know yourself, and one day you will know that it is impossible to know." And when you come to a point where all knowledge disappears, and you stand in deep ignorance before yourself, that is the most beautiful experience, the greatest ecstasy.

Just think: if you can know yourself, by knowing you will become limited. You will become a commodity. By knowing about yourself you won't be happy; you will become very ordinary. Once known, you are finished with yourself. Then what will you do with it? Inquiry finished, you will be bored with yourself.

Your being is a mystery. The more you know, the less you know it. The deeper you go, the more you see the infiniteness. The depth is such that you cannot touch the bottom of it - never. People who think they know themselves are very superficial. People of depth always become aware of something unknown. And it is beautiful because the unknown is always alive, the unknown is always infinite.

The unknown is eternal.

Socrates said, "Know thyself!" He means: try to know thyself. Not that you will be able to know. And after Socrates, a Roman, Marcus Aurelius, said. "Be thyself!" He is better than Socrates. To know thyself is impossible, but to be thyself is possible. There is no need to know. Just be. Knowledge is irrelevant; being is enough. Just BE yourself.

So don't try to find a definition of your being. It is impossible. Live it, you can.

Know it, you cannot. But why be bothered about knowing? Is not being enough?

There is an urge. a deep urge, a curiosity to open and know every mystery. But that urge is going to fail as you move within. If you move without, that urge can be fulfilled - a little. Science can fulfill your urge because something can be known about matter. But that, too, I say'just a little'. If you go deeper, there also the unknown comes to be encountered. The deeper you go, the more knowledge becomes shaky. The deeper you go, the more everything is blurred.

One of the greatest scientist of the West, Eddington, has written in his autobiography that "When I started, the whole world looked like a mechanism.

When I started working, searching, inquiring, the world looked like a great mechanism, and I had the idea that someday or other the mechanism would be known."

He thought that existence could be divided in two categories: the known and the unknown. Known: that which we have known; and unknown: that which we will know someday or other, it is only a question of time.

At the end of his life he said, "Now life appears to be divided into three categories: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable." This unknowable....

The known and the unknown we can understand. It is only a question of time before the unknown can become known, because one day the known was unknown. But the unknowable? That which cannot be known, which is impossible to be known? With that category, religion enters in.

Then Eddington said, "Now as I look at the world, it doesn't look like a mechanism. Rather, it looks like a thought. Very mysterious." Had he lived a little longer. he would have certainly said that "Now it does not even look like a thought, because a thought has a structure, a logic. It looks like a poem or a song."

And a song just like birds sing in the morning. Beautiful - but you cannot make anything out of it. Beautiful AND meaningless. Tremendously beautiful, it can be enjoyed. But the meaning? There is none.

This is my understanding: unless you can enjoy the meaningless, you will never become religious. God, to me, is the meaningless beauty that surrounds you, the meaningless song that is heard all around: the meaningless murmur of a brook, the meaningless whisper of the winds, the meaningless silence of the stars.

Tremendously beautiful, but meaningless. Why do I say meaningless? Because it is unknowable.

A thing remains meaningless unless it is known. Once you know, then it is meaningful. And I tell you, stars are mysterious, but they are nothing compared to your inner being. Rivers are mysterious, but they are nothing compared to your inner stream of consciousness. The Himalayas are mysterious, but nothing as compared to your inner peaks of ecstasy.

Be, rather than know. Marcus Aurelius looks to me to be of more and deeper understanding when he says, "Be thyself!" than Socrates when he says, "Know thyself!" Though I know well that you cannot be yourself unless you try the Socratic dictum: know thyself! Try to know. You will never be able to know, and by and by, you will drop the inquiry of knowing and you will start being.

Knowing is philosophy, being is religion.

One of the greatest American Christian theologians of this century, Paul Tillich, was once asked - at the end of his life, somebody in Santa Barbara, a student, asked him - "Sir, do you pray? " He said, "No, I meditate."

But if you ask me, I will say, "No, I don't even meditate. I just am."

Prayer is duality: you and God. Without God you cannot pray: the other is needed. It is a dependence. Right is Tillich. He says, "No, I don't pray." The answer is not Christian, the answer is Buddhist. He says: "I meditate."

Meditation is a freedom - freedom from God also, because-even He is not needed. You cannot pray without God, because to whom will you pray? To whom will you raise your head? To whom will you raise your eyes? To whom will you talk, with whom will the dialogue be? A God is needed. Maybe He is there or maybe He is not there - that is irrelevant - but prayer requires a God.

It is a dependence. Without God, the man who is praying will immediately stop praying. If there is no God - or the news comes that He is dead, or has been assassinated or something like that, or just died of old age - the man who is praying will immediately stop, will throw his rosary and will say, "Finished!

Now there is no point. To whom to pray? " Prayer is a dependence. That is how Buddhism goes higher than Christianity.

Even if God dies, it will not disturb the man who is meditating. He will say, "It is okay. It matters not whether He is alive or not. It was never a requirement to me.

I am enough unto myself."

The man who meditates, meditates alone. But if you ask me, "Do you meditate, Sir? " I will say, "No, I don't even meditate. I just am" - because in meditation some activity is involved. The other is not there, you are not in a dialogue, but you are doing something. The doing is there. The doing becomes the other: the doer and the doing. You are meditating.

Meditation is an action, you are doing something. Sometimes you meditate and sometimes you don't meditate. That is not worth much because something that sometimes is, and sometimes is not, cannot be your nature. Your nature is always there, it does not depend on any doing.

I just am. And that is the greatest prayer, that is the greatest meditation. That is what Zen masters say. If you ask them what they do they say, "We chop wood, we carry water. When we feel hungry we eat, and when we feel tired we sleep."

This is what I mean when I say I am. Even the dependence on doing something is no longer there.

Prayer needs the other, meditation needs action - being needs nothing. And when you are in tune with that which needs nothing, then for the first time you are in tune; then for the first time you are grounded.

You ask me: "Osho, I don't know who I am." There is no need. There is no need to know who you are. The only need is: don't be anything else. just be that which you don't know you are. Lust be that. Don't move outside it. There is no need to know it because you ARE it already. Whether you know it or don't know it, makes no difference. Knowledge will not add anything to it. Not knowing will not take anything out of it, knowing will not add anything to it, so what is the point? You ARE!

Call the rose by another name, it remains a rose. Whether you know the name of the rose or not, it remains a rose. And whether you call it'rose' or don't call it'rose', the rose is not bothered. It is. Emerson says somewhere in his diary that "Outside my window the rosebush is blooming. The rosebush is not bothered with who it is. The roses are not comparing themselves with other roses of the past and they are not thinking of the future roses. Just in this moment they are with God. This day, they are with God."

In your being, you ARE God. I will not even say with God. In your being, just this very moment, you are God, you are divine. No knowledge is needed.

Don't be worried about it. Nobody has ever known who he is. He is! And all those who have said that they know are just repeating cliches. They must have read it in the scriptures. But those are only words. You can say: "I am BRAHMA," or "I am ATMAN," or "I am the supreme self," but these words are cliches. They are ugly. They don't say anything, they don't mean anything.

"I feel like I need grounding." Yes, that's good. You need it. But grounding has nothing to do with knowledge; grounding has something to do with being.

That's why I say Marcus Aurelius is better than Socrates when he says, "Be thyself!"

"Is there no place for grounding? " Place is part of space. Time and place are not there in being - space and time both disappear there. You will be grounded only when you come to a certain state within: where you cannot say who you are, where you cannot say where you are, where you cannot say when you are.

Everything has stopped; time does not move. The clock may be moving: tick- tock, tick-tock; it may be moving. You can listen, but time does not move - only the futile gesture of the clock. Something deep within you has stopped. That is the point I call'the point of no-when'.

And there is no space. You cannot say where you are, the where is irrelevant.

You cannot show on the map where you are. You are no more on the map, you don't belong to the map. You are no more part of the measured, you are no more part of the charted. You are transcendence.

You can look at space, but you are not in space; you can look at time, but you are not in time. Then you are grounded. This is what I call'being'; this is what Jesus calls'the kingdom of God': this is what Buddha calls'nirvana'.

Yes, you need grounding. But it would be better to say, "You are already grounded. You just need awareness." How can you be if you are not grounded?

You are already in God. I-low can you be otherwise? There is no other way to be, that is the only way there is. But you are not aware. Become more and more alert, watchful. No need to be worried about knowledge: who you are. Just become aware, Whosoever you are: X,Y,Z - that unknown acts. Whosoever you are, just become alert and aware. Let that unknown within you, or unknowable within you, not fall into a stupor and sleep. Awake it. Don't allow it to move into dreams anymore. Shake it out of sleep and suddenly you will see that you are already grounded. In fact, whatsoever is needed is already there. Just a turning about is needed.

That is what Jesus means when he says, "Return! The kingdom of God is at hand." He's talking about your hands. The kingdom of God is always at hand.

Just stretch your hand a little and you will be able to touch it. That stretching of the hand is what I mean by awareness.

Question 4:

Don't be worried. Because you must be comparing yourself with others, that creates the problem. This is YOUR odd kind of insanity.

Everybody has his own way of being in love. Never compare it. Somebody may be dancing, may be ecstatic and singing, and somebody else may be sitting silently with closed eyes. Both are mad in their own ways. Don't think that you are not mad and the one who is dancing is mad, because one who is dancing will think, "Are you mad? You have fallen in love and are still sitting with closed eyes? What are you doing there? Dance!"

Everybody has his own way of madness also. Just as nobody has the same face as you, nobody has the same eyes as you, nobody has the same fingerprints as you - - nobody has the madness that you have. Everything is unique.

Everybody falls in love in his own way. And it is good; it has to be so. Never compare. With comparison the trouble arises. Then you feel that you are missing something. Your love is calm and quiet and respectful. Then you start thinking there must be something wrong. Why are you not so passionately in love? Why are you not like a storm, why are you blowing like a small breeze? But that is your way. And God needs both. Storm and storm and storm.... He also needs a little rest. A little breeze is always handy.

Don't be worried. This is how God is happening to you. Never compare. Just look within you and enjoy whatsoever is happening so it can happen more.

Enjoy it, delight in it, and it will happen more. You may become even more gentle; even the breeze may disappear and stop. It has happened that way also.

There are as many ways towards God as there are seekers. Everybody has his own way and there are no superways, remember - no superhighways.

Everybody walks on his own path.

In fact, the path is not found ready-made. You create it by walking, and it disappears when you have gone on ahead. Nobody else can walk on it; it is never left behind. It is just like the birds flying in the sky. Once they have flown, they don't leave any footprints. Nobody can follow it. There is no need.

Don't compare. Be contented with yourself. Enjoy, delight - help yourself to be yourself. This is YOUR way.

Question 5:

Because you are so humble.

It is possible that you may be trying hard, but the effort comes out of the ego.

You may not be trying, you may be simply waiting, but that waiting can come out of humbleness. Effort, with ego, will fail. Even no effort, with humbleness, will succeed. If you feel that "I was not looking for you, and yet you found me," if you feel "I was not deserving" - that's how you have deserved it. That's how!

Feeling that you were not looking for me, I have found you. Your deep humbleness, deep humility, has created the situation. It is only in humbleness that a master is found, it is only in humbleness that the divine happens.

Your effort is of no use because it is YOURS. The'you' is too much. That will hinder the path.

Question 6:

This is what should happen.

Jesus says, "Hate your father, hate your mother, hate your brethren and sisters."

He cannot teach hate - he must be using hate as a means towards real love. And this is what has happened. You had already renounced your family, race and religion, but that renunciation must have been out of ego. It was not a rebellion; it must have been a reaction. You must have done it without knowing what you were doing.

It may have broken you away from the family, but it didn't join you with the greater family of existence. It separated you from the family, but it simply separated you. It was just a divorce it was not a marriage to the greater. It was impotent.

Then you came to me. You became different. You meditated, you became a little more alert and then, by and by, your change became a magnetic force to your family also, whom you had renounced. Then your father, your mother, and your sister also came.

It simply happens that if you are changed you become a magnetic force. And of course, those who have been related to you very deeply are affected immediately. If one person in the family changes, the whole family is affected immediately, They may start defending. That, too, is the sign. They may start fighting. That, too, is a symbol that they are being affected. Now they cannot remain the same; something has to be done.

They came, they also changed, and you again became a part of your family, in a totally new dimension. The marriage has happened now in a totally new dimension. Now your family is just part of the greater family I'm creating - of the greater sangha, the community that I'm creating. Now, through me, you have become joined again.

That's why Christians go on signing their signatures: "Yours in Jesus." That is very meaningful. Now there is no other bridge. If you love Jesus, Jesus has become the bridge. You may have been a friend to somebody. Then Jesus came to you. Now the friendship has taken on a totally different meaning, a different poetry. Now you are no longer directly related to the person. Jesus is always somewhere by the corner, Jesus is always somewhere in between, flowing. Now the friend is no more an ordinary friend. He has also become divine through Jesus, and you say, "Yours through Jesus."

This will happen to you all by and by. You will be rejoined to the same family you renounced, through me.

Question 7:

This is good - healthy and wholesome. This is one of the old meditation techniques. You may not be doing it knowingly, but you may have done it in some past life. It may have simply surfaced again. But it is one of the most beautiful techniques. As far as techniques go, this technique also goes.

Use it. And don't feel it is childish because all happiness is childish, all joy is childish, all delight is childish. Enjoy it; become a child. And when the work is done, the technique will disappear. When the work is done, the picture of the lake and the mountains and the birds will disappear by and by. The picture will disappear but the calmness will remain. The lake will go but the rippleless lake of your consciousness will be left behind.

Enjoy it as much as you can. This has something to do with your past. You may have done it before. Now it has again surfaced. It happens: if people have been doing certain methods in their past lives and they have been left incomplete, when they meditate again, suddenly some technique erupts, surfaces, and possesses them completely. Then you are not doing it. It is happening.

And that is one of the most significant things to be understood. If a method happens to you without doing, that is the method for you. When you do something, it is different; when it HAPPENS, it is totally different. When it happens, it is nearer to the heart. When you DO. it is nearer to the head.

Allow it, enjoy it, let the scenic beauty of the lake completely surround you.

Forget yourself; be in it totally. It will center you. And once the work is done, all pictures will disappear. When only you are left - the lake is no more, the birds are no more; nothing is there to be seen, only the seer is left - then the real meditation happens. That's what I call'being', just being. That is the ultimate.

But this technique can be helpful. When it is happening by itself, it can be very helpful. Allow it. It is healthy and wholesome. And don't think it is childish. All beauty, all happiness, all ecstasy is childish. God is childish!