How sweet to be free

The Scots angler died, made his way to heaven, and was stopped at the gate by Saint Peter who said, "You have told too many lies to get in here!"

"Have a heart," replied the angler. "Remember you were a fisherman once yourself!"

Gautama the Buddha is reminding his bodhisattvas that the path that they have followed themselves, the very beginning of the path, they may have completely forgotten about by now. Who remembers the dreams in the morning when he is awake?

Within seconds those dreams are forgotten.

The same happens when you become enlightened: all the misery, all the nightmares, all the sorrows that you had suffered so much simply become so insignificant, so irrelevant that they disappear from your consciousness. They are no more part of your life story - as if they had happened to somebody else and not to you. Hence Buddha is reminding his bodhisattvas how the journey starts from the very beginning; only then can these people be of help to others.

The first thing he says: Remember only to talk to seekers. There are many who are inquirers but who are not seekers, many who are curious but not seekers. The curious person is a little childish. Every child is curious - curious about each and everything, curious about one thousand and one things, but not really interested in knowing. He asks one question; by the time you answer him he has started asking about something else. He is not listening to your answer at all, he is not interested in it anymore; it was a momentary phenomenon. He had just become attracted to something: he saw a flower and he asked about it, and then he heard the noise of an airplane and he started asking about airplanes, and then something else caught his eye....

A seeker means one for whom the inquiry is not only curiosity, not a childish phenomenon, but a mature inquiry, for whom it has become a question of life and death. Unless truth becomes a question of life and death you are not a seeker.

Buddha is saying to his bodhisattvas, his apostles: Talk only to seekers, address yourself only to seekers. Don't waste your time with childish people who are curious about each and everything. Their questions may look very great, but their hearts are not in their questions. They have asked just to ask; they are not interested in finding the answer and they are not ready to risk anything. If they can get the answer free, maybe they are ready to listen; but they are not ready to pay. And life's real questions are not to be solved in such a cheap way. You have to pay and you have to pay with your whole being. You have to get involved; it needs commitment.

Anybody can ask about God, but very few people are ready to risk anything, to go into the unknown, to go into the adventure - and the adventure for God is the greatest adventure there is. And it demands; it is very demanding - it demands your total commitment. It won't allow you any other involvement. It can't be just one involvement among many other involvements; it has to be the one and only involvement. Only then is there a hope that some day you may find the answer which liberates you. Hence he says:

SEEKER!

DO NOT BE RECKLESS.

And the first thing to be taught to these people who are seekers is not to be reckless.

People are living very recklessly, people are living very accidentally. Their lives have no sense of direction. They don't know where they are going, from where they are coming, why they are doing a certain thing. Maybe others are doing it so they are imitating, but imitators are not seekers. Maybe others are going to the church or to the temple so they are also going. They are not really men but sheep.

A seeker has to be a lion. He has to learn to be free from the crowd psychology, from the mob mind. He has to learn ways of individuality, of independence. He has to think of what he is doing and why. He should not be just a victim of natural life forces; he should have a certain sense of direction. Only then is there a possibility of achieving, of coming back home, of reaching somewhere, of attaining contentment, fulfillment, flowering, fruitfulness. Otherwise life remains meaningless; it is just a jumble of unrelated events.

DO NOT BE RECKLESS. First thing: Do not be just curious. Second thing: Do not be reckless.

New York City was jammed for the convention. Every hotel and rooming house was full. Phillips was tired - he simply had to find a place to sleep that night.

"Anything will do," he said to the hotel clerk.

"I can let you have a cot in the ballroom," replied the clerk, "But there's a woman in the opposite corner. If you don't make any noise she'll be none the wiser."

"Fine," said Phillips. He went to the ballroom but five minutes later came running out to the clerk.

"Say," he cried, "that woman there is dead!"

"I know," was the answer, "but how did YOU find out?"

Everybody is curious for no reason at all - it was none of his business. Even he cannot answer why - some unconscious instinct, maybe biology, maybe chemistry, but not his consciousness.

Who or what is deciding your life? - your biology, your chemistry, your psychology, your hormones? Who is deciding your life? Are you? - you as a conscious being?

A drunk walked into a bar in Glasgow and asked, "Was I in here last night?"

"Yes, you were," replied the barmaid.

"Did I spend much money?"

"About thirty pounds."

"Thank God - I thought I'd lost it!"

Angus was staggering home after a night with his fishing pals when he came upon a scarecrow, arms outstretched.

"Hey, Jimmy," he said, "I refuse to believe you. There never was a trout that size."

A number of Scottish soldiers were court-martialed for wrecking a public house, and one of them was asked to explain to the court how the trouble had started.

"Well, sir," he said, "Private McSporran called Private McDougall a liar, and Private Paterson hit him over the head with a chair. Private Fraser pulled out his dirk and cut a slice out of Private McDougall's leg. Two or three of Private McDougall's mates piled onto Private Fraser, and a couple of others started throwing glasses and tables around.

One thing led to another and then the fighting started."

Buddha says: SEEKER! DO NOT BE RECKLESS.

MEDITATE CONSTANTLY.

OR YOU WILL SWALLOW FIRE AND CRY OUT: "NO MORE!"

MEDITATE CONSTANTLY. The person who is a seeker will not really be interested in getting only philosophical answers from others; he will be interested in knowing on his own. He will not be interested in philosophy, he will be interested in religion. That is the difference between philosophy and religion. Philosophy is juggling with words, the art of hairsplitting, arguing endlessly about abstract ideas, arriving nowhere. Religion is more like science: it experiments, it emphasizes experience. Science is the religion of the objective world, and religion is the science of the subjective world.

Philosophy is going to die one day; it is already on its deathbed. You can go to the universities and see: every year less and less people are turning to the departments of philosophy. Many philosophy departments are empty, deserted. People are going to science or to religion. Those who are interested in knowing the truth about the world are going to scientific inquiries, to physics, to chemistry, to mathematics, to biology. Or, people who are interested in their own interiority, in their own subjectivity, in their own consciousness, are moving towards religion, more and more towards religion.

Religion is the science of the inner. Philosophy is neither: it is neither the science of the outer nor the science of the inner; it is just in between. It only thinks; it thinks about everything - about science, about religion - but it only thinks. And just by thinking, nothing ever happens. You can make very clever answers, but they are not going to solve your real problems; the problems are real and the answers are just abstract. Real problems can be solved only by real answers.

Hence Buddha says: The seeker can be persuaded to meditate - only the seeker can be persuaded to meditate. Meditation means you start changing your inner world. You start removing dust from the inner world, you start removing all that is unnecessary in the inner world. You remove all that clutter, all the rubbish you are full of. Meditation means emptying yourself of all that the society has put inside you so that you can have a clean, clear vision, so that you can have a mirrorlike quality. When a mirror is without any dust it reflects reality; so is the case with meditation.

Meditation means making your consciousness a mirror. Thoughts are like dust, they have to be removed. And thoughts contain everything belonging to the mind: desires, ambitions, memories, fantasies, dreams... all mindstuff is different forms of thoughts, different kinds, different layers of dust. And the dust is so thick that the mirror is not functioning at all - hence you have to ask others. Once the dust is removed you need not ask anyone, you yourself can see. Existence has given you the magic mirror - it is within you.

I have heard a beautiful parable; it must be a parable, it cannot be an historical phenomenon:

When Alexander the Great came to India he collected many valuable treasures. And when he was leaving he came across a fakir, a naked fakir. He asked him, "Do you see my treasures? Have you ever seen anybody with so many treasures?"

The fakir said, "All your treasures are nothing, but I can give you one thing that will really make you rich!"

Alexander could not imagine what this naked fakir could give him. In his begging bowl he had a small mirror. He gave the mirror to Alexander.

Alexander said, "This mirror will make me the richest man in the world? You must be mad!"

The fakir said, "First look in the mirror."

And Alexander looked into the mirror: it did not show his face - it showed his inner being, it showed his interiority, it showed his subjectivity. His being was reflected in the mirror.

He touched the feet of the fakir and said, "You are right - all my treasures are nothing before this mirror."

And it is said he kept that mirror continuously with him.

The parable is beautiful. That mirror represents meditation. The fakir must have given him some meditation because only meditation can make you aware of who you are.

But Buddha says meditation has to become something constant. Buddha brings a totally new vision of meditation to the world. Before Buddha, meditation was something that you had to do once or twice a day, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening, and that was all. Buddha gave a totally new interpretation to the whole process of meditation. He said: This kind of meditation that you do one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening, you may do five times or four times a day, is not of much value.

Meditation cannot be something that you can do apart from life just for one hour or fifteen minutes. Meditation has to become something synonymous with your life; it has to be like breathing. You cannot breathe one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening, otherwise the evening will never come. It has to be something like breathing:

even while you are asleep the breathing continues. You may fall into a coma, but the breathing continues.

Buddha says meditation should become such a constant phenomenon; only then can it transform you. And he evolved a new technique of meditation.

His greatest contribution to the world is vipassana; no other teacher has given such a great gift to the world. Jesus is beautiful, Mahavira is beautiful, Lao Tzu is beautiful, Zarathustra is beautiful, but their contribution, compared to Buddha, is nothing. Even if they are all put together, then too Buddha's contribution is greater because he gave such a scientific method - simple, yet so penetrating that once you are in tune with it, it becomes a constant factor in your life.

Then you need not do it; you have to do it only in the beginning. Once you have learned the knack of it, it remains with you; you need not do it. Then whatsoever you are doing, it is there. It becomes a backdrop to your life, a background to your life. You are walking, but you walk meditatively. You are eating, but you eat meditatively. You are sleeping, but you sleep meditatively. Remember, even the quality of sleep of a meditator is totally different from the quality of the sleep of a nonmeditator. Everything becomes different because a new factor has entered which changes the whole gestalt.

Vipassana simply means watching your breath, looking at your breath. It is not like YOGA PRANAYAMA: it is not changing your breath to a certain rhythm - deep breathing, fast breathing. No, it does not change your breathing at all; it has nothing to do with the breathing. Breathing has only to be used as a device to watch because it is a constant phenomenon in you. You can simply watch it, and it is the most subtle phenomenon. If you can watch your breath then it will be easy for you to watch your thoughts.

One thing immensely great that Buddha contributed was the discovery of the relationship between breath and thought. He was the first man in the whole history of humanity who made it absolutely clear that breathing and thinking are deeply related.

Breathing is the bodily part of thinking and thinking is the psychological part of breathing. They are not separate, they are two aspects of the same coin. He is the first man who talks of bodymind as one unity. He talks for the first time about man as a psychosomatic phenomenon. He does not talk about body and mind, he talks about bodymind. They are not two, hence no 'and' is needed to join them. They are already one - bodymind - not even a hyphen is needed; bodymind is one phenomenon. And each body process has its counterpart in your psychology and vice versa.

You can watch it, you can try an experiment. Just stop your breathing for a moment and you will be surprised: the moment you stop your breathing, your thinking stops. Or you can watch another thing: whenever your thinking is going too fast your breathing changes. For example, if you are full of sexual lust and your thinking is getting too hot, your breathing will be different: it will not be rhythmic, it will lose its rhythm. It will be more chaotic, it will be unrhythmic.

When you are angry your breathing changes because your thinking has changed. When you are loving your breathing changes because your thinking has changed. When you are peaceful, at ease, at home, relaxed, your breathing is different. When you are restless, worried, in turmoil, in anguish, your breathing is different. Just by watching your breath you can know what kind of state is happening in your mind.

Meditators come across a point: when the mind really completely ceases, breathing also ceases. And then great fear arises - don't be afraid. Many meditators have reported to me, "We became very much afraid, very much frightened, because suddenly we became aware that the breathing has stopped." Naturally, one thinks that when breathing stops death is close by. It is only a question of moments - you are dying. Breathing stops in death; breathing also stops in deep meditation. Hence deep meditation and death have one thing similar: in both the breathing stops. Therefore, if a man knows meditation he has also known death. That's why the meditator becomes free of the fear of death: he knows breathing can stop and still he is.

Breathing is not life; life is a far bigger phenomenon. Breathing is only a connection with the body. The connection can be cut; that does not mean that life has ended. Life is still there; life does not end just by the disappearance of breathing.

Buddha says: Watch your breathing; let it be normal, as it is. Sitting silently, watch your breath. The sitting posture will also be helpful; the Buddha posture, the lotus posture, is very helpful. When your spine is erect and you are sitting in a lotus posture, your legs crossed, your spine is aligned with the gravitational forces, and the body is at its best relaxed state. Let the spine be erect and the body be loose, hanging on the spine - not tense. The body should be loose, relaxed, the spine erect, so gravitation has the least pull on you.

Have you watched it? If you want to go to sleep you have to lie down, for the simple reason that when you are lying down flat on the ground you are in touch with the gravitational forces at the maximum, because all over the body the gravitational pull works, it pulls you. You immediately start falling asleep. It is difficult to fall asleep standing. The most difficult posture to fall asleep in is the lotus posture. The body is so relaxed there is no need to fall asleep, and the gravitational forces are at the minimum; hence they cannot pull you downwards; they can't make you heavy and dull and lethargic. You are bright, you are full of life. You are more intelligent in the lotus posture than you can ever be in any other posture. The body affects your mind.

Scientists now agree with this: that it is only because a few of the monkeys somehow...

they have not been able to find the reason why and how it happened, and monkeys are monkeys - it may have just happened out of curiosity, a few monkeys tried to stand on two legs and these are the monkeys who became the original men; they were the originators. That was the greatest innovation; nothing else has been greater than that. A few monkeys standing erect on their two legs created a great revolution; the revolution happened in the growth of the mind. The erect posture helped the mind to come out of sleep. It became more intelligent, it became more alert, it became more conscious.

Other animals who move on their four legs have not been able to develop intelligence, although many of them have a mind of almost the same capacity as man. For example, the elephant has a mind of almost the same capacity as man, but has not been able to develop it and I don't think it is ever going to happen. In circuses they try hard to teach the elephant to sit in a chair or to stand even for a few seconds on two feet, but the body is so heavy the elephant cannot manage to be on two feet. Hence the brain remains clouded; the gravitational pull keeps it unconscious.

Hence this lotus posture is something valuable. It is not just a body phenomenon; it affects the mind, it changes the mind. Sit in a lotus posture - the whole point is that your spine should be erect and should make a ninety-degree angle with the earth. That is the point where you are capable of being the most intelligent, the most alert, the least sleepy.

And then watch your breath, the natural breath. You need not breathe deeply, you don't change your breathing; you simply watch it as it is. But you will be surprised by one thing: the moment you start watching, it changes - because even the fact of watching is a change and the breathing is no more the same.

Slight changes in your consciousness immediately affect your breathing. You will be able to see it; whenever you watch you will see your breathing has become a little deeper. If it becomes so of its own accord it is okay, but you are not to do it by your will.

Watching your breath, slowly slowly you will be surprised that as your breath becomes calm and quiet your mind also becomes calm and quiet. And watching the breath will make you capable of watching the mind.

That is just the beginning, the first part of meditation, the physical part. And the second part is the psychological part. Then you can watch more subtle things in your mind - thoughts, desires, memories.

And as you go deeper into watchfulness, a miracle starts happening: as you become watchful less and less traffic happens in the mind, more and more quiet, silence; more and more silent spaces, more and more gaps and intervals. Moments pass and you don't come across a single thought. Slowly slowly, minutes pass, hours pass....

And there is a certain arithmetic in it: if you can remain absolutely empty for forty-eight minutes, that very day you will become enlightened, that very moment you will become enlightened. But it is not a question of your effort; don't go on looking at the watch because each time you look, a thought has come. You have to again count from the very beginning; you are back to zero. There is no need for you to watch the time.

But this has been the experience in the East of all great meditators: that forty-eight minutes seems to be the ultimate point. If this much of a gap is possible, if for this much of a gap thinking stops and you remain alert, with no thought crossing your mind, you are capable of receiving God inside. You have become the host and the guest immediately comes.

IF YOU ARE NOT WISE, HOW CAN YOU STEADY THE MIND?

You have to be very intelligent; only then can you steady the mind. And what does he mean by intelligence? Ordinarily we behave in a very unintelligent way: we behave according to beliefs; beliefs keep us unintelligent. We behave according to borrowed knowledge; that keeps us unintelligent.

Try to accept the challenges of life directly; don't act out of belief or knowledge. Don't follow the scriptures and the traditions. They are the root cause of making you stupid, because unless you face life directly, unless those challenges are encountered, your intelligence will not arise - because there will be no opportunity for it to arise. Give it the opportunity. Life gives many opportunities but you go on missing the opportunities because you live on borrowed answers.

Face life and its questions and its realities on your own, even if your own responses are not so great - they cannot be. Of course you cannot respond like a buddha, but by borrowing some answer from Buddha you will never be intelligent enough to become a buddha yourself. Yes, you will commit many errors, many mistakes. Yes, you will go astray many times - go, don't be worried! Life is meant for that, so that you can try. It is through trials, many errors, many mistakes, that one learns. When you learn by your own efforts you become intelligent. And only an intelligent person can see the beauty of meditation, can understand the significance of meditation.

IF YOU CANNOT QUIETEN YOURSELF, WHAT WILL YOU EVER LEARN?

And all learning happens through meditation; it does not happen through study. That is accumulation of information, it is not learning. Always be alert about borrowed knowledge: howsoever precious it appears it is all false, pseudo - for you. It is not pseudo for the man who has lived it. It is true for Buddha, true for Jesus, true for Krishna, but not for you. You will have to live....

Buddha also had the scriptures available. He could have read Krishna; the Gita was available. And he was well-educated - he was the son of a king. All the scriptures must have been available to him and great scholars and great teachers were available to him.

He could have recited the Gita every day; he could have learned the Gita so absolutely that he would have been able to repeat it just from memory, but then he would have missed buddhahood.

And in Krishna's time also the Vedas were available, but Krishna did not borrow knowledge from the Vedas. In Jesus' time the Old Testament was available, but Jesus tried to find out the truth for himself. This is something very essential to understand:

truth has to be found by oneself. Only then is it liberating; otherwise it becomes a bondage - a beautiful bondage, but a bondage all the same.

And if you cannot learn....

HOW WILL YOU BECOME FREE?

It is only by experiencing truth on your own that freedom happens. Freedom is the fragrance of the experience of truth.

WITH A QUIET MIND COME INTO THAT EMPTY HOUSE, YOUR HEART, AND FEEL THE JOY OF THE WAY BEYOND THE WORLD.

Buddha says: With the silent mind, the quiet mind... COME INTO THAT EMPTY HOUSE, YOUR HEART.

Your heart is your real home; it is utterly empty. Your head is full of rubbish, your heart is totally empty. Move from the head to the heart! The whole process of meditation is a movement from the head to the heart, from the mind to no-mind.

COME INTO THAT EMPTY HOUSE, YOUR HEART, AND FEEL THE JOY OF THE WAY - and you will be full of joy - BEYOND THE WORLD. A joy that is not of this world, a fragrance that comes from the beyond.

LOOK WITHIN - THE RISING AND THE FALLING.

The rising and falling of your breath: that is the way of looking within. Many have said:

Look within. Socrates has said: Look within, know thyself, but nobody has given the exact method. Buddha gives you the exact method: the rising and the falling of the breath. It is through the breath that you are bridged. Breath is the bridge between your soul and your body. If you can watch your breath rising and falling, slowly slowly you will be able to see the body as separate from yourself and also the breath as separate from yourself, because the watcher cannot be the watched, the observer cannot be the observed. Suddenly one day you will realize that you are the witness of it all. And the witness is certainly transcendental to all that it witnesses. In that very moment freedom has happened to you. Then:

WHAT HAPPINESS!

HOW SWEET TO BE FREE!

IT IS THE BEGINNING OF LIFE....

Birth is not the beginning of life. This is the beginning of life, when you experience your witnessing soul. IT IS THE BEGINNING....

OF MASTERY AND PATIENCE, OF GOOD FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY, OF A PURE AND ACTIVE LIFE.

Meditate over these words. Buddhists have not understood these words at all. How can this man, Gautama the Buddha, be an escapist? He says: IT IS THE BEGINNING OF a new LIFE, OF MASTERY AND PATIENCE, OF GOOD FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY....

He is giving you a new world, a new way to love, a new way to be friendly; he is giving you new friends. In fact, only meditators can be friendly towards each other because they are not competitors. Nobody else can be friendly, they only pretend. How can competitors be friendly? Deep down they are enemies because everybody is coveting the same things. You are greedy for money, your friend is also greedy for money. How can you be friendly? Impossible. All friendship is bogus, phony.

You want to be the prime minister and your friend also wants to be the prime minister.

Who does not want to be the prime minister? How can you be friendly? Hence they say in politics there is no friendship at all. A few are enemies openly, a few are enemies in a hidden way. That's why in politics every day changes happen: somebody who was a friend yesterday, today is an enemy; somebody who was an enemy yesterday, today is a friend. It is a strange world, the world of politics.

Machiavelli, in THE PRINCE, suggests to the politicians, "Never say anything to your friends that you would not like to be known by your enemies, because any friend can become your enemy any day." He also says, "Never say anything against your enemies that you would not like to say against your friends because any enemy can become a friend any day" - then there will be difficulty. Then you will have to swallow something and it will be humiliating.

Politicians go on doing that: they go on spitting and swallowing it back again and again. They say one thing today, another thing tomorrow; they have to. In politics no friends are possible.

Friends are possible only on the way, on the way towards God, because it is not a competition. You can have God, I can have God; there is no question that by your having God I will not be able to have God anymore. Millions of people can have God and there is no problem because God is infinite, truth is infinite. My having the truth does not mean that now you cannot have it. In fact, on the contrary, my having the truth means that you can also have it! If I can have it, why not you? Hence, on the way, there is a totally new kind of friendship.

... OF A PURE AND ACTIVE LIFE. How can Buddha be called an escapist? He says: ...

OF A PURE AND ACTIVE LIFE. He means creativity, a creativity that comes out of meditative innocence, of meditative purity. And a real creator is possible only through meditation. Your so-called painters, ninety-nine percent of them, are not real painters.

Your so-called poets are not poets, your so-called musicians are not musicians - maybe technicians. They know how to play, they know how to compose, they know how to paint, but just knowing how to paint does not make you a creator.

A creator is a totally different phenomenon. The creator brings something of God into the world, something of the creator into the world. But how can you bring something of God into the world if you have not known God yourself?

A Buddha is a creator, a Jesus is a creator. Their words, their acts are the only proof that God exists. Their very presence is proof that God exists. Their presence is creative: in their very presence thousands of people are transformed. Buddha is not an escapist; he cannot be. No awakened person can be an escapist. Cowards escape, courageous people are creative.

SO LIVE IN LOVE - these are Buddha's words, mind you:

SO LIVE IN LOVE.

DO YOUR WORK.

MAKE AN END OF YOUR SORROWS.

He is not against love, he is not against creativity, he is not against work either. DO YOUR WORK - because unless you do the work that is close to your heart you will remain unfulfilled. And the meditator finds immediately what his work is. The meditator finds intrinsically that this is his work; he does not have to think about it. It is so clear and so loud that he knows that he has to be a musician or he has to be a poet or he has to be this or that. It comes so clear that there is no question of doubt. And then he starts working; that work is his meditation.

There are many people here who are afraid of work. They don't know that the work that is happening here is totally different from the work that you have come across in your life. That was something totally different. When I give you some work it is to help your growth. Until you become capable of finding your own work I will go on giving it to you - only up to the moment when you are capable of finding it yourself. And any work that is being given here is nothing but a meditation for you. If it is not a meditation for you then you have not understood my message at all.

FOR SEE HOW THE JASMINE RELEASES AND LETS FALL ITS WITHERED FLOWERS.

LET FALL WILLFULNESS AND HATRED.

Buddha says: As the jasmine flowers fall when they have withered away or leaves fall from the trees when they die, dead leaves. Just like that, LET FALL WILLFULNESS AND HATRED. The first thing he says that has to be dropped - easily, without effort, just like a withered jasmine flower falling of its own accord - is willfulness, your will, your ego.

So sometimes I have to put you in a certain work where you have to drop your ego and you think it is a kind of punishment. It is not a kind of punishment; it is a challenge, it is a situation where you will have to drop the ego sooner or later because it will be creating misery again and again for you. It will make you clearly aware that your ego is causing your misery.

Just the other day, Anshumali wrote saying, "Beloved Master, working in Vrindavan under Deeksha seems to be a punishment." It is not, Anshumali. It is a reward, not a punishment! It is a punishment if you want to cling to your ego; if you let the ego fall, it is a reward. And then you will be able to see the beauty of the work, and you will be able to see the beauty of Deeksha too. She is a beautiful Italian mama! She loves her workers, she loves her people; she is utterly devoted. Of course, she loves so much that she shouts also, she screams also. Her love is such that she trusts that you will understand her screaming too. But she is a good device; she has been of immense help to many people.

There are one hundred therapy groups here, but Deeksha's is the best! Although it is not known as a therapy group - it is a secret therapy group.

If you drop your willfulness, your ego, then hatred also drops because hatred is nothing but the shadow of your ego. If there is no ego there is no hatred; if there is ego, there is always hatred following it. Whosoever comes in the way... and everybody will come in the way because egos cannot adjust to each other. Egos are always in conflict, egos are always quarreling, they are quarrelsome, hence the hatred.

Drop the ego and see the beauty of egolessness. Then there is no hatred, no anger. You become so silent, your energy becomes so calm and quiet, that suddenly you start seeing the world in a different light, in a different perspective. Then this ordinary world is no longer ordinary - it becomes sacred.

ARE YOU QUIET?

QUIETEN YOUR BODY.

QUIETEN YOUR MIND.

Buddha says: First start with the body and then move to the mind. Quieten your body by watching your breath, quieten your mind by watching your thoughts.

YOU WANT NOTHING.

YOUR WORDS ARE STILL.

YOU ARE STILL.

Then you will come to see that there is no desire. How can desire exist in a silent mind?

Desire is a state of turmoil, desire is a state of unconsciousness, desire is mad. When you are silent, madness disappears.

Three times Jessie brought Sandy to the vicarage, hoping to be made man and wife, but each time the minister refused because of the groom-to-be's intoxication.

"Why do you persist in bringing him to me in such a state?" asked the minister.

"Please, Reverend," explained Jessie, "he won't come when he's sober!"

The moment you are sober, silent, you will not do many things that you are doing and you will start doing things that you have never thought of before. Your life will no more be a wastage; it will become creativity, tremendous creativity. Your life will not grow thorns, it will grow flowers. It is the same energy!

But the mind keeps you occupied in such stupid things, in such stupid details about stupid things. Just see what your mind goes on doing... and you will not need anyone to tell you that you are mad.

A little man walks into "The Perfect Stationers" - an exclusive New York shop specializing in paper products. He is approached by an elegant salesman in a Brooks Brothers suit. "Can I help you, sir?" the salesman intones in a cultured voice.

"Yes, I would like some writing paper, please."

"Would you prefer lined or unlined paper, sir?"

"Oh, anything is fine. It doesn't matter."

"Then will you be writing with a fountain pen or a ballpoint?"

"I really don't know. Whatever comes to hand...."

"Would you like to have a thick paper or onion-skin paper, sir?"

"Look, anything is fine. Just give me any old packet!"

"Perhaps you would prefer one of the perfumed varieties?"

"If you like. But I have a bus to catch - just give me some paper, PLEASE!"

"It will just take a moment now, sir. Would you like a hand-made paper in a special presentation box or a simple commercial brand?"

The little man's voice rises an octave. "Look, for the tenth time... any paper will do!

Make it fast, would you?"

"Then perhaps you have a favorite color - red, blue, yellow...?"

Just at that moment another man bursts into the shop. His eyes have dark circles underneath and his cheeks are wet with tears.

"Look," he sobs, "this tile is the color of my bathroom and this is the size of my toilet. I showed you my asshole yesterday. Now, could I please have some toilet paper?"

Just look at your mind... stupid things and stupid details ad infinitum! You go on and on - when are you going to stop?... please! That's what Buddha is saying.

Feinberg, the funeral director, was lunching with his friend, Weinstein.

"I got a good bargain for you in a coffin," he said.

"I don't like to think about things like that. How much?"

"It's made of mahogany with silver handles and a lock. For you, only two thousand dollars."

"I'll think about it."

On his way home from work, Weinstein stopped at the Minkis Mortuary to compare prices.

"I can give you something nice," said the director. "I've got a mahogany coffin with silver handles and I'll even throw in a lock. The price is one thousand dollars."

Weinstein rushed over to Feinberg's and began screaming. "Some friend you are! I just saw the same coffin you wanted to sell me and it was a thousand dollars cheaper."

"Was it mahogany with silver handles and a lock?"

"Yes!" replied Weinstein.

"Did it have a silk lining?"

"I didn't look. I don't think so."

"You see!" said Feinberg. "In six months you'll need a new lining."

Not only about life but even about afterlife, the mind goes on preparing even for that.

People decide about their wills, they decide about their epitaphs, they decide how their tombs have to be made, in what kind of marble. Man seems to be so utterly unintelligent and he goes on wasting his life on such things which don't make any sense at all. But you have to look into your own mind.

YOU WANT NOTHING. YOUR WORDS ARE STILL. YOU ARE STILL. Buddha says this is how one should be - no desire, because all desires are futile. They are about the future; life is in the present. All desires distract you from the present, all desires distract you from life, all desires are destructive of life, all desires are postponements of life. Life is now and the desire takes you away, farther and farther away from now. And when we see that our life is misery we go on throwing the responsibility on others, and nobody is responsible except us.

"My good man," said the visitor to the prisoner, "how did you happen to come to this sad place?"

"Well, sir," replied the convicted man, "you see in me the unhappy victim of the unlucky number thirteen."

"Indeed!" said the visitor. "How was that?"

"Twelve jurymen and one judge, sir."

Nobody wants to take the blame on himself. Anything will do - unlucky number, palmistry, fate, astrology... stars, poor stars are creating misery for Anshumali! Even if they search for Anshumali it will be difficult for them to find him; they cannot even find the earth - the earth is so tiny. Our sun is twelve thousand times bigger than the earth and our sun is a very mediocre star. There are stars millions of times bigger than the sun; compared to those stars this earth is just a particle of dust, unnoticeable, negligible.

It can be neglected, ignored. And there are millions of stars that science has counted and millions more must be beyond because our reach is limited, our instruments are limited.

And these stars are deciding the fates of a clerk in the collector's office, of a peon in the railway station!

Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you stop this you will never become religious. A religious person is one who takes the responsibility upon himself.

The first thing that is making you miserable is your desiring, constant desiring for this and that. Stop that. And when there is no desire there are no thoughts either. The function of the thoughts is to help you desire; they are instrumental. If you don't have desires, thoughts are bound to disappear of their own accord. And when there are no desires, no thoughts... YOU ARE STILL. You are calm, collected, centered, rooted.

It was an early morning fire, and the young Italian reporter was lucky enough on arriving at the scene to get an account of it from one of the residents of the apartment house who had escaped.

"It was terrible," narrated the man. "Imagine walls crumbling about you, the flames of the fire practically licking your cheek in whatever direction you turned and the very iron of the bannisters smoking under your hands. But in the midst of it all, I want you to know, I kept quite cool and balanced."

"It's a shame, since you were so calm and cool," replied the reporter, "that you didn't think of putting your pants on."

The people who think they are quiet and calm are not quiet and calm, they are just believing that; they are just hoping that they are quiet and calm. Only very rarely is a person quiet and calm. It happens only at the ultimate peak of meditation, not before it.

So don't deceive yourself.

BY YOUR OWN EFFORTS WAKEN YOURSELF, WATCH YOURSELF.

AND LIVE JOYFULLY.

Accept the responsibility and that gives you great insight. If you are responsible for all your misery, if you are responsible for all your nightmares, then the other thing is also possible: you can wake up. If you are responsible for your sleep, you can wake up; if you are not responsible, some stars are responsible, then what can you do? You are just a victim and you have to suffer. Unless the stars change their mind, if they have any mind....

BY YOUR OWN EFFORTS WAKEN YOURSELF, WATCH YOURSELF. AND LIVE JOYFULLY. And people say Buddha is a pessimist? - and he says: LIVE JOYFULLY.

Buddha says: Don't believe in a savior because that is the old mind, the same mind that wants to throw the responsibility on somebody else. Now Christians think Jesus saves.

Hindus think that whenever the need arises, Krishna will come back; he will take another incarnation to save humanity. When are you going to feel your responsibility?

And people don't think that this is just ugly, insulting, humiliating; it is falling below human dignity.

A Christian and a Jew were out walking. They came across a church and in front of it there was a big board with the words, "Jesus saves!"

The Jew said, "That's nothing - Moses invests!"

Nobody can save you; don't wait for any savior. You can save yourself, that is true.

This is also one of Buddha's great insights into human misery, into human reality, that he says: Don't believe that somebody will save you. You are the cause of your misery, you can be the cause of your bliss.

YOU ARE THE MASTER, YOU ARE THE REFUGE.

AS A MERCHANT BREAKS IN A FINE HORSE, MASTER YOURSELF.

HOW GLADLY YOU FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE AWAKENED.

And if you meditate, if you become a little silent, a little alert, you will love these words because they have the taste of truth - but only for those who are meditating.

HOW GLADLY YOU FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE AWAKENED. Then all the awakened ones suddenly become your contemporaries. Then only can you understand Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Lao Tzu. Then only, when you meditate, suddenly mysteries open up, closed doors open and things which were never clear to you suddenly become clear. But it happens through meditation and there is no other way.

Not by studying, not by gathering more and more knowledge, not by arguing, not by philosophizing, but only by becoming more and more silent. In utter silence, God speaks to you through all the awakened ones.

HOW QUIETLY, HOW SURELY YOU APPROACH THE HAPPY COUNTRY, THE HEART OF STILLNESS.

And then your steps have a confidence because all the buddhas are witnesses to you. As you start tasting the joys of meditation, as you start becoming alert to the beauties of meditation, as flowers start blossoming inside you, all the buddhas become witnesses to you. You know you are on the right track; great confidence arises in you.

HOW QUIETLY, HOW SURELY YOU APPROACH THE HAPPY COUNTRY, THE HEART OF STILLNESS.

HOWEVER YOUNG, THE SEEKER WHO SETS OUT UPON THE WAY SHINES BRIGHT OVER THE WORLD.

And it is not a question of age. Buddha was the first to initiate young people into sannyas. Otherwise, in India the tradition was that only very very old people, older than seventy-five, were allowed to take sannyas. Sannyas was for the old people.

Buddha created a revolution: he initiated young people.

And my own experience is: the younger you are, the better, because as you become older you gather more and more rust, more and more dust. As you become older you become more and more burdened with experience, knowledge and all kinds of stupid things. As you become older you start losing the vigor, the energy, the courage to experiment with the unknown, to explore the unknown. As you become older you become so afraid of death that out of fear you go to God, and those who go out of fear to God never reach God. Fear is not a bridge, it is a wall. Those who go towards God inquiring for truth out of love for truth, only they are bridged. It needs a certain youth, a certain courage, a certain capacity to take risks. It needs energy, freshness; because religion basically is rebellion.

Buddha says: HOWEVER YOUNG.... Don't be worried about that. Maturity has nothing to do with age; growing old is not necessarily growing up. One can be young and grown-up and one can be very old and very childish. Age and maturity have no necessary link. Maturity comes through meditation. Aging is an ordinary process; everybody ages. Animals age, trees age, people age; that has nothing to do with transformation.

HOWEVER YOUNG, THE SEEKER WHO SETS OUT UPON THE WAY SHINES BRIGHT OVER THE WORLD.

LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS!

SHINE.

Buddha says to his bodhisattvas, go and tell the seekers: LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS! SHINE.

The same I say to you: LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS!

SHINE.

Enough for today.