You are the Meeting Point

Question 1:

Once you start thinking in terms of two contradictions and how to make them meet, you will always be in difficulty. Then everything will be a compromise, and with compromise no one ever feels fulfilled. Something is always lacking, missing. If you do this, then on the other pole something has to be lost. If you do that, then on this pole something has to be lost, and whatsoever you lose goes on hovering in the mind. It will never allow you to be blissful.

So the first thing is: never think in terms of compromise. If you think in terms of contradictions and how to make them meet, you are bound to think in terms of compromise. So what am I to suggest to you?

The first thing is: always be integrated within, and don't think of any integration without - because you are the meeting-point. Alone, you sit silently. In life, you have to be active, involved. Silence and involvement are contradictions, but they both meet in you. You are silent and you are involved.

If you are integrated, your silence and your involvement will be integrated. Your being alone, and your being with your wife or your husband or friends are two things, contradictory, but you are in both. If you are integrated, you will be happy alone. If you are integrated, you will be happy with others. Happiness will be your quality. Happiness doesn't depend on being alone or with others. If it does depend, there will be problems.

If you feel when you are alone you are happy and your happiness depends on being alone, then there will be difficulty. Then aloneness is a must. Then, when with others, you will feel unhappy and you will start thinking how to make these two opposites meet. The problem arises because you are dependent on your loneliness for your happiness. Don't be dependent.

Be happy when alone. Let happiness be your quality. And when you move from aloneness into involvement, into communication, relationship, carry that quality of happiness which was in loneliness - carry that.

In the beginning it will be difficult, because you will almost always forget. It will be difficult because of forgetfulness, because of not being constantly aware, but by and by you can carry the quality.

When living with somebody, you can still be as alone as you were in your loneliness. You remain an integrated soul. While not doing anything, you feel happy, at ease. This at-easeness should become a quality of you, not of inactivity.

Carry this quality in activity and there will be no problem. In the beginning there is going to be difficulty, but the point is to remember that your happiness, your bliss, your ecstasy, should not be dependent on any condition without. If it is, then there is contradiction because it will be dependent.

People feel that they are happy when they are with their friends; then when they are alone they are bored, miserable, somebody is needed.

These people are extroverts. The other type is the introvert. Whenever he is alone, he feels happy; whenever he moves with someone, unhappiness enters. Both are in the bondage of their type. Type is a bondage. You should be free of the type. You should neither be extrovert, nor introvert, but both.

Then you are free of the type.

So what is to be done? Never get fixed with a situation; always move to the opposite and carry the quality with you. Move as much as possible from one opposite to another and carry the quality.

Soon you will become aware that the quality can be carried anywhere. Then you cannot be sent to hell, because even if you are sent you will carry your happiness there. Then you will never be afraid.

Religious people are afraid of hell, and they seek and hanker for heaven. These people are not religious at all, because heaven and hell are both conditions without - they are not your own qualities.

These are the worldly people. That's what worldly people are doing. They say: If this condition is fulfilled, then I will be happy. So happiness depends on the condition. If a palace is there then I will be happy; so much money in the bank balance, then I will be happy; such a beautiful wife, then I will be happy, or such a good, loving husband, then I will be happy. You are happy only when something is fulfilled outside, and you say: If this is not fulfilled, I am unhappy.

This is what an unreligious man is. And the so-called religious men also go on seeking heaven, avoiding hell. They are doing the same!

For you, this is going to be the SADHANA - the discipline: move in opposites as much as possible and try to carry your inner integrity.

Sitting silent, feel what the inner quality is. Then go into activity with that quality being retained inside. It will be lost many times but don't be worried. If even once you can carry it into the opposite pole, you have become master of it. Then you know the knack of it.

Sometimes move to the hills, they are beautiful. Then come back to the world, that too is beautiful.

If hills are beautiful, why not persons? They are also hills in their own right. Sometimes be alone, sometimes be with others. And if you are alert, not only will there be no contradiction, help will be coming from the opposite.

If you can carry the quality of happiness from loneliness to society, suddenly you will become aware of a new phenomenon, a new happening within you; that society helps you to be alone, and aloneness helps you to be deeply related with people.

A man who has never lived in loneliness cannot know the beauty of relationship, cannot know, I say, because he has never been alone. He has never been a person - how can he know the beauty of relationship?

A person who has never lived in society cannot know the ecstasy of loneliness. A person who is born in a lonely place, is brought up in a lonely place, do you think he will be ecstatic? You think he will enjoy the loneliness? He will simply go dull and stupid.

Go to the hills, go to the Himalayas. People are living there - they have lived there for thousands of years, they are born there - but however much you feel the beauty of the Himalayas, they can't feel it. However much you enjoy the silence there, they cannot enjoy it. They are not even aware that the silence exists. When they come to the cities, they feel a thrill - the same thrill as you feel when you go to the hills. People living in Bombay, London and New York feel the thrill when they go to the Himalayas. People living in the Himalayas, when they can come to Bombay, New York or London, then feel how beautiful the world is.

The opposite is needed to feel - it becomes a contrast. The day is beautiful because there is night.

Life has such joy because there is death. Love becomes an inner dance because there is hate.

Love leads you to a high peak of consciousness, because love can be lost! It is nothing that you can rely on. This moment it is there and the next moment it is not. The possibility of its absence gives depth to its presence.

Silence becomes more silent when in the background there is noise. An airplane passed just a few moments ago. You can look at it in two ways: if you are a disturbed man inside, you will feel it as a disturbance of the silence; if you are integrated within, the noise of the airplane will deepen the silence here. The noise becomes a background; it gives shape, form to the silence. It gives a sharpness. The silence when the plane has passed is more than it was before. It depends on you.

Always remember: don't get dependent on things, situations, conditions. Then you can move. Don't avoid movement, otherwise you will get fixed. Everybody is afraid of movement because you ARE dependent. You cannot come out of your hills, your solitariness, to the world of the market, because you know you will be disturbed.

What type of silence is this which can be disturbed by the market? What value does it carry? Of what worth is it? If the market can destroy it, if the world, the humdrum world, can destroy it, then your silence is very impotent. If your silence is really potent, if you have attained it, nothing can destroy it.

It is not very difficult to understand what I am saying about silence, but that is my attitude in every sphere of life. If you are a real BRAHMACHARI, a real celibate, you can move into sex and it will NOT destroy your celibacy. This will be very difficult to follow. If sex disturbs your celibacy, it was nothing worthwhile. You carry the quality within.

If you are really alive, full of energy, you can die happily. Only weaklings die unhappily - because they have never lived. They have never tasted the cup of life. They have always been hoping and hoping and hoping, and life never happened to them. That's why they are scared of death.

One who has lived is always ready to die. One who has really lived is ready every moment to accept death. The word accept is not good. It would be better if we say to welcome death, to receive it happily, joyfully. Then death is an adventure. It SHOULD be if you have really lived. Then death is not the enemy, death is the friend. A deeper life allows death, a shallow life avoids it. This is so in every sphere of life.

If you have known what friendship is, you will not be scared of enemies. You will not be! Then enmity has its own beauty. It is a sort of friendship - on the opposite pole. It is a love-affair on the opposite pole. It is involvement, it is commitment. If you have known friendship, you will love the enemy.

That's what Jesus means when he says: Love your enemies. Not what Christians have been interpreting all these centuries. You cannot love your enemy! How can you love your enemy?

But I say to you: If you have loved friends, you will love your enemies - because once you know the beauty of friendship, you also come to know the beauty of enmity. It is a friendship in reverse order.

Both give, both enrich your life.

Opposites are not really opposites. Deep down, they have a great harmony. They are parts of one whole. This is what the Chinese say: yin and yang, they are part of one movement, part of one wheel - they are not two. They appear two because we have not looked deep down. It is because of our shallow eyes, non-penetrating minds, superficial consciousnesses - that's why they look like opposites, otherwise they are not.

Life and death are friends. They exist through each other, they contribute to the other. Without the other, they would not be there at all. Can life exist without death? Man has been dreaming for ever and ever how to destroy death. This is the attitude of the mind, the linear mind, the logical mind - how to destroy death. The logical mind says: If there is no death, there will be life in abundance - simple logic! Even a child can understand the arithmetic: if there is no death, there will be more life.

But I say to you: If there is no death, there will be no life.

That's why simple logic is always fallacious. Apparently it looks so right: if there is no enemy, the whole world will be your friend. You are wrong. If there is no enemy, there will be no possibility of friendship. Logic says: If there is no hatred, love and love and more love will be there. So logicians have been trying to destroy the opposite. They cannot destroy it, because life is greater than any logic. It is fortunate that they cannot destroy the opposite, because they don't know what they are doing. If the opposite is not there, then don't go on believing that life will be more, love will be more, friendship will be more, happiness will be more - no. There will be no possibility, because the very ground bas been destroyed.

Dialectics says something quite the contrary, and dialectics is truer to life. Dialectics says: If you want more life, then be more ready for death.

You may not be aware but this happens. When you are driving a car and you gain more and more speed, you get involved in the speed. A point comes when any moment death can happen. Then you are alive, then the flame of life burns fast, sharp. That's why speed is so attractive and magnetic - because speed brings you nearer death. When you are nearer death, life is more; it grows in proportion. That's why there is so much attraction for war, because in war death is at close quarters, always near you.

You may think that soldiers fighting in the field must be very miserable. You are wrong, otherwise no one would fight. They are NOT miserable. The real thing is quite the opposite: when they come back to the ordinary world they are miserable. When they are in the field, fighting on the front, they are not miserable. All misery disappears. They are SO near death that they feel for the first time alive, and their aliveness becomes more and more the nearer death comes. When all around there is bombardment, shells are passing from here to there and any moment they can drop dead, at that moment they feel an ecstasy. They are in touch, in deepest touch with life.

When death kisses you, it is also a kiss of life. That's why there is so much attraction to adventure, courage.

If you are afraid, you will not gain life. I tell you that meditation is the greatest courage and the greatest adventure, because even on a warfield you are not so near death. Even if you feel you are near death, it is only physical death. Physical death means a superficial death - of the shell, of the body. Your house is near death, not you; your shelter is going to be destroyed, not you. But in meditation you are going to be destroyed - not only the shelter, but the host, not only the house, but the host. The ego is to be destroyed. So the greatest warriors are always interested in meditation.

I would like to tell you about one phenomenon that has happened in India, that has happened in Japan, and that will happen to any country which gives birth to warriors.

All the great meditators in India were KSHATRIYAS - warriors, not brahmins. This looks strange. Brahmins should be the great meditators. They have been writing commentaries on the Upanishads, the Gita, the Vedas. They have been creating metaphysics, and they are the greatest metaphysicians the world has ever known. Nobody, nowhere in the world, can compare with brahmins as far as verbal expression is concerned, logic is concerned. They are very subtle, but they are not the great meditators.

Buddha is a great meditator; he is a kshatriya, a warrior. Mahavira is a great meditator; he is a kshatriya - a warrior - not a brahmin. All the twenty-four TIRTHANKARAS of the Jainas are warriors. This seems strange - why?

In Japan, samurais have existed, warriors, the greatest warriors the world has ever known. The samurai is the peak, the ultimate possibility of being a warrior. In every moment, the samurai is ready to die. For such trivial things he is ready to die - you cannot imagine.

I have heard about one historical fact that happened three hundred years ago: One samurai, one great warrior, was very, very drunk. Suddenly, he was called by the king for some purpose, so he went there. He tried to be alert but he was too drunk. He forgot some trivial mannerism in how you have to bow to the king, how much. He bowed, of course, but it was not as exact as it should have been.

The next morning when he became sober, he immediately killed himself. HARA-KIRI is a word you must have heard. Hara-kiri belongs to samurais, warriors. The moment they feel something has gone wrong...just an ordinary mannerism, and the king had not said anything. The warrior was so great that the king would not have mentioned it at all - but he killed himself. The next day, when the king became aware that the warrior had killed himself, he wept. The warrior had three hundred disciples. They immediately killed themselves, because if a master has committed a wrong, the disciples should follow.

And you will be surprised, it seems unbelievable, that for one hundred years continuously it continued, this small thing - more disciples, and disciples' disciples, because once a master.... And it is never heard of: a samurai going to the king drunk and doing something wrong. For trivial things!

Death seems so easy and at hand! These samurais created Zen, the greatest DHYAN tradition in the world. These samurais meditated deeply.

This is my feeling, that unless you are ready to die you cannot be ready to meditate. War and meditation are synonymous in a deep sense. Wherever there is the possibility of your being destroyed, in that moment your flame of life burns in its totality. The full intensity comes to you.

Opposites are already meeting. You need not try for any meeting, any synthesis of them. They are already meeting; they are in deep harmony. YOU are not in a harmony, that is the problem.

So when you are healthy and you feel a well-being, carry that well-being when you are unhealthy and ill. I tell you that the feeling of well-being is not dependent on health. The feeling of well-being is an inner feeling; it is not dependent on the body. You can carry it even while ill.

Ramana Maharshi was dying. He had cancer, throat cancer, and it was almost impossible for him to talk, almost impossible for him to eat anything. But all those who surrounded him on his last day were surprised - he was so happy. His eyes were filled with a subtle well-being. The condition of the body was just a ruin, the whole body was a ruin - but not Ramana: he was as healthy as ever.

Once a master was dying. He was very old, almost a hundred. Disciples were there - they couldn't weep because he was laughing. They couldn't cry because it looked so absurd. The man was so happy, bubbling with happiness just like a child - enjoying his last breath. They could weep only when he was dead.

And somebody asked: When he was alive, why were you not weeping? They said: It seemed so absurd. Looking at his face, looking at his eyes, it appeared as if he was going to a higher realm of being, as if death was just a door to the divine, as if he was not going to die, rather as if he was being reborn. And he was not an old man; if you looked in his eyes, he was a child - his body was old.

The well-being can be carried. Even when you are seriously ill you can remain in the inner well- being. You know the other thing: even when perfectly healthy you remain in the non-well-being. You know it, so the other is possible: perfectly healthy and you are miserable; perfectly young and alive, and as if on your deathbed, somehow carrying the whole business of life as a burden, a dead weight on the heart.

You are alive because you cannot do anything else. What can you do? You are alive. You have found yourself alive, so you carry it. But life is not an ecstatic phenomenon for you, you are not joyful about it, not celebrating it.

It is such a great blessing to be alive. Even for a single moment to be alive and aware is too much.

A long life is given and many lives and you are not thankful, because unless you celebrate how can you feel any gratitude, any thankfulness?

Perfectly young, alive, but inside you carry the misery. Dying, a man who knows will carry the well-being. Laughter will be coming from his inside, from the very core of his being.

Don't try to synthesize the opposite poles of life. Just be integrated. And when I say just be integrated, I mean whatsoever you feel in loneliness carry into the marketplace; whatsoever you feel in your meditation, carry it into love - because in love the other will be present, in meditation you are alone.

Sooner or later things will settle of their own accord. You need not settle them; you simply settle yourself. Get settled yourself, and things will fall into their own arrangement - they always fall, they always follow you. Once you are settled, the whole world is settled. Once you are in harmony, the whole world is in harmony. Once the inner accord is reached, there is no discord in the world.

My emphasis, total emphasis, absolute emphasis is: you get settled. Don't try to find any harmony in the opposites. You can never find it. And if you try too much, you will get more and more disturbed - because it is impossible!

Another thing also you have asked about: that while with me you feel well-being, you feel a silence, you feel everything is possible. That too can become a dependence. Then when you are not with me, things seem to be more impossible, things seem to be not so much in accord. You are confused.

While with me, you feel silence because you are less. While with me, sitting with me, for moments you become egoless, for periods you are not there, you are simply with me. The barrier is broken.

The wall has disappeared. In that moment I am flowing in you. Everything seems possible.

Away from me, you gather your walls again. YOU are there. Things are not so beautiful then. So just try to understand what is happening, and carry that understanding when you go away from me.

What is happening? When everything seems possible, even the final enlightenment seems possible.

What is happening? You are not there. Without you everything is possible. With you everything is impossible. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Listening to me, you forget. If you forget, you are not there - because your being there, the ego, is just a mental phenomenon. You have to create it every moment. It is just like pedaling a bicycle. You have to go on pedaling; if you stop for a single moment, the cycle stops. There is a momentum, a little momentum; the cycle will go a few yards, and then will stop. If you want the cycle to continue, you have to go on pedaling, it is a continuous process. The cycle moving is not something permanent, it has to be created every moment. The ego has to be pedaled every moment - and you are pedaling it.

When you are here, the pedaling stops. You are more concerned with me. Your total focus and attention moves. It is just like a small boy cycling. He is curious about everything. He looks at a tree with hundreds of parrots chattering there, and he falls from the cycle because the attention has moved. He stops pedaling, he forgets that he is on the cycle and that he has to continue pedaling it.

Small children find it difficult in the beginning to cycle, just for one reason - because they are so curious about everything. No country allows driving licenses for children, only because they are so curious. They will forget. Any moment their total attention can go anywhere and they will forget that they are driving, that they have a dangerous tool in their hands and others' lives are in danger. They are unfocused. Their consciousness is flowing everywhere.

While you are here, you are so much concerned with me, so much involved in it, you forget the pedaling. And for certain moments, when you forget yourself completely, silence descends on you, a bliss arises, everything seems possible. You become divine - that's why everything seems possible.

Only for a god is everything possible. For a god, nothing is impossible. In that moment you become godlike.

Away from me, you return back - your mind starts thinking, you start pedaling, and you pedal more because you have to compensate. You have not pedaled your cycle for a few moments, so you pedal more just to compensate. Intense ego comes back. You lose contact with your self.

With me, what is really happening is: you are more in contact with your self. The ego is not there.

You are in deep contact with your self; your inner source is available to you, flowing. There is no block in energy. Away from me, all the blocks come back, old habits return. Then things don't seem so good. Then the whole phenomenon of being with me seems like a dream. You cannot believe it. It looks like a miracle. And you think that I may have done something. I have not been doing anything. Nobody can do anything to you. It happened because you allowed it.

When you move away from me, carry this feeling. Whatsoever you are feeling here, carry it, then I will be needed less and less. Otherwise, I can become a drug; then every morning you awake and you start hankering for me. Then you are getting ready to come to me, a deep urge - then I can become a drug! Then you will become more and more dependent on me. That's not the way to reach satori, samadhi or enlightenment. That's not the way.

If you become dependent on me, I am a drug, and I am destructive then. But this is YOU who can convert me into a drug.

Whatsoever you feel near me, in my presence, with me, carry it with you. You must come to a point when whether with me or without me you remain the same. Then I am a help, then I am not a bondage. Then I am a freedom to you - and I MUST become a freedom to you. And when I say I must become a freedom to you, it means you must come to a point when you are freed from me also.

If it is a constant dependence and you are not freed, it is not helping, it is simply postponing things.

A real master will always make his disciples free of him. That is the goal!

Come to me, go away from me, but carry the feeling with you. You remain the same. Move in the polar opposites always remaining the same - then everything is possible, because you are the source of all the energies.

You have the source of all life within you. All that is happening in life is happening from the same source from which you happened. You are related to it, you are one with it. If birds can be so happy and singing, you can be, because the same source supplies them with the happiness, the singing.

The same source is available to you, but somehow you have created blocks. If the trees are so green, so at home, not worried, you can be the same, because the sap that comes to the trees is coming to you. You may have forgotten it, but it is there.

All that has happened in life, all that is happening all around you, all this mystery, is your heritage.

Claim it. It is wasting away unclaimed just by your side while you go on begging. The empire is there and the empire goes on wasting and waiting, and you go on begging. Claim it!

This is the way it can be claimed: remain the same while moving into opposites. This is what Krishna says in the Gita: In pain or pleasure, be the same; in success or failure, remain the same.

Whatsoever happens, let it happen - you remain the same. This sameness will give you integrity.

One thing more you have asked: that I say to you to live in the world, not renounce it, and yet be completely mad and ecstatic. It seems difficult, because how can you then live normally in a world, in relationship with people? Yes, I say this to you.

One thing: renouncing the world is ugly to me, because that means renouncing the gift that God has given to you. You have not created life. You are not there because of your choice. It is a gift!

Renouncing it is going against God. All renunciation is against God. It is saying no.

That's why those who renounce become more egotistical. The moment you renounce, you say: I am wiser than life, I am wiser than the divine source from where everything comes. When you renounce, you say: I choose. When you renounce, you use your will - and will creates ego.

When I say don't renounce, I am saying: Don't be a will, don't be a chooser. Whatsoever is happening is NOT happening because of you, so who are you to choose this or that? Let it happen.

What can you do? Let it happen; don't be disturbed by it.

Renunciation is just an escape. Because you get hurt, because you get disturbed, you renounce.

You renounce the situation - you don't renounce the attitude that gets hurt. You don't renounce the heart that is with so many wounds that anybody can hurt it. You don't renounce the mind which is ill, which is always ready to get disturbed. You renounce the world - which is easier. You escape to the Himalayas, but all that was within you will be with you. It will not make any difference. This is a deception.

Remain integrated. Remain silent. Remain happy and allow the world to happen! Who are you to renounce or not renounce? Wherever you find yourself, be there. Be integrated and silent and happy. Don't go to the Himalayas, create a Himalaya within - that's what I mean when I say don't renounce. Don't go to the hills, create that silence within, so wherever you move, the hills move with you.

Relationship is beautiful, because it is a mirror. But there are stupid people: they see their face in the mirror, and they see it is ugly so they destroy the mirror. The logic is apparent: this mirror is making them ugly, so destroy the mirror and then you are beautiful.

Relationship is a mirror. Wherever you are related with a person - a wife, a husband, a friend, a lover, an enemy - a mirror is there. The wife mirrors the husband. You can see yourself there, and if you see an ugly husband, don't try to leave your wife - the ugliness is in you. Drop that ugliness!

This mirror is beautiful, and be thankful to this mirror.

But stupid and cowardly people always escape and renounce; brave and wise people always live in relationship, and use it as a mirror. Living with someone is a constant mirroring around you. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror:

the more distant the relationship, the mirror is not so clear.

That's why all renouncing becomes, really, the renunciation of love. Wife and husband: that becomes the base for breaking the relationship, because twenty-four hours living with a person in the same house, twenty-four hours being related....

Even when a wife is not talking, not saying anything to her husband, she is mirroring. Even when the husband is just reading his newspaper, he is mirroring. The way he is putting his newspaper, the wife knows that the newspaper is just creating a wall. He is hiding behind it. He may be pretending to himself that he is reading. He may be reading the same news twice, thrice. He may not be reading at all, but just going through the words mechanically. But the way he is hiding himself behind the newspaper becomes a mirror. He is avoiding the wife, he is fed up with the wife, he doesn't want her to be here, he doesn't want to look at her, to see her. Her presence, the very presence is heavy. He wants to escape somehow.

When you are in love, language is not needed. Gestures...even silence becomes eloquent. A constant mirroring goes on, and everybody is ugly because beauty is something which happens only by and by, when your inner being becomes revealed. Ego is always ugly. So only when the ego is not does one become beautiful. It is the ego that is mirrored.

Whosoever continuously reminds you that you are ugly becomes the enemy - you want to renounce.

But is it wise to renounce the mirror? It is foolish. Even if nobody mirrors you, you will remain the same. You may even grow more in the same direction when nobody reminds you.

The mirror is beautiful and good. It helps you. And if you are alert, by and by you can drop the ego.

Then, in the mirror of the other your beautiful self will be revealed.

Once you are a nothingness, a white cloud, then all the lakes of the world will reveal your whiteness, then all the lakes of the world will reveal your floating let-go. So I say there is only one thing to be renounced and that is renunciation. Nothing else.

Live where God is, or the whole - if you don't like the word god, there is no problem, it is only a word.

So God or the whole - wherever you find the whole has placed you, be there. The whole never places anybody in renunciation - never. The whole always throws you into relationship, because nobody is born alone, nobody can be. At least the mother, the father will be needed; a society, a family will be needed. The whole always throws you into relationship. That's why I say renunciation is going against God.

Gurdjieff has many insights. One of his insights is that all religious people are against God. This is strange but true. And I fully approve him. He is right. ALL religious people are against God, because they set themselves up as judges: this is wrong, that is right; and this should be done, that should not be done; and one should move away from the world. God throws you in the world and so-called religious preachers, they teach you to renounce it.

I am not that kind of a religious man. I am with God, with the whole. Wherever it leads you, move like a cloud, move with him, and give yourself totally to the whole. The only thing to remember is the opposites - the silence, the equilibrium, the balance, the integrity.

You say it will be difficult. Yes, it will be difficult. If you are ecstatic, it will be difficult in a family which is pathological - and every family is pathological. It will be living just as if you are forced to live in a madhouse - it will be difficult, because everybody will be mad there. So what can you do?

If you are thrown into a madhouse - you are not mad and everybody else is mad - what will you do? If you are really not mad, you will act madly. That's the only wise way there, so nobody comes to know that you are sane, because if they come to know, they will create trouble. In a madhouse, a really wise man will act more madly than any madman can do. That is the only safe state there.

So in this life, where everybody is mad, what can you do? This whole planet is a madhouse, a big madhouse, everybody is pathological, ill, diseased, abnormal, what can you do? Act! With people, when you feel, don't try to create unnecessary trouble - just act, and enjoy the act.

With people, acting; for yourself, be madly ecstatic. What do I mean? I mean if somebody has died in the neighborhood, what will you do? Be madly ecstatic there? Then you will be beaten. Weep and cry, act beautifully - because that is what is needed in that whole pathological situation where death is not accepted, where death is evil. Don't create any trouble for anybody. If you are wise, act - and act so beautifully that nobody cries like you. Enjoy it! That is your inner thing. Make it an ecstasy! But for the outer, for people who are around you, act it beautifully.

Be an actor in the world. When you are an actor, you are not disturbed, because then you know this is just acting. The whole of life is a great psychodrama. Be an actor there, and inside, remain in your non-egoistic blissfulness.

Enough for today.