The Ultimate Nightmare

Question 1:

It is not contradictory at all; it is a simple fact. But the mind tends to create problems where they don't exist. Mind is a problem-creating mechanism.

When I say that ecstasy is beautiful, when I say that enlightenment is blissful, I'm not talking about the future, I'm not alluring you - I'm simply stating a fact.

When I say be herenow without any purpose and goal, I'm showing you the way how enlightenment can happen right now.

Enlightenment is not a distant goal. It is a present possibility. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that it is far away from you; that simply means that you are fast asleep. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that you have to work hard to attain it; it simply means that you are not aware of something which is already surrounding you.

I will go on talking about enlightenment, because without it you are not alive at all; without it you only seem to exist but you don't exist; without it you go on missing.

But remember, I am not creating a goal for your desires. Enlightenment can never be a goal. This has to be understood. Nirvana cannot be desired.

Let me explain it to you. Whenever you desire something, you become tense. The desire creates disturbance. Whenever you desire something, of course, you desire in the future. In the present, how can you desire? There is not enough space for a desire to exist in the present. It can only exist in the future. Desiring can only be concerned with something in the future, with something which is not here. That which is here cannot be desired.

You can delight in it, but you cannot desire it. You can live it, you can dance it, but you cannot desire it.

Hence all the buddhas say, 'Become desireless."

But the human problem is that we understand it as if they are saying, 'Make desirelessness your goal."

We turn everything into a goal. Put anything into the mind; it immediately reduces it into a goal and the problem arises immediately. Then the mind asks 'how?' - how to achieve this, how to get it, how to become it. Again you are on the track; again you have missed.

When buddhas say, 'Become desireless,' they are not trying to create a goal for you. They are simply saying, 'See, look into your desiring. Understand your desire and the futility of it. Look deep into it, penetrate deep into it, and that very penetration will help - desire disappears."

When you can see the total futility of desire, will you ask how to drop it? If you see the total futility of it, it drops by itself.

You go on asking how, because you still want to cling. You still want to postpone it. You still think there must be some thing in it. 'Maybe I am missing, maybe I am not making right efforts, maybe I am not moving in the right direction - but there is something.' You are still hoping. When you look into the nature of desire, you will understand that it is like a horizon. It appears far away, there. Go, move - it moves with you. When you reach the point where you were thinking that the earth meets the sky, it is not meeting there. Again, at the same far distance, the horizon exists. Again move - the horizon moves with you. The distance between you and the horizon remains constantly the same.

If you look into desire, it is so simple to see. If you meditate on desire, this is a fact; this is not a theory about desire.

You have ten thousand rupees. The mind asks for twenty thousand rupees. The mind says, 'Unless you have twenty thousand rupees, how can you live happily? It is impossible.' You can get twenty thousand rupees. You will waste a long time for it; one day you will get it. By the time you have got twenty thousand rupees, the desire has gone further away. Now it asks for forty thousand rupees.

By the time you attain to twenty thousand rupees, you have become more addicted to comforts; now more comforts are needed. Now the old house looks small, the old car looks an insult; it has to be dropped. A new car is needed. By the time you reach the forty thousand line, the horizon has gone further away - it demands eighty thousand. It goes on doubling. The distance remains the same.

Between the desire and the fulfillment, the distance remains the same. It never changes, not even for a single inch. The beggar and the emperor are always in the same plight. If you look at the distance between their desire and fulfillment, you will see they are sailing in the same boat.

Once understood, desire drops by itself, on its own accord. Not that you drop it, so the question of how never arises. And when desire drops, there is desirelessness. Not that you have to make efforts for it to be there; not that you have to work hard to gain desirelessness. It is not a goal.

When desires disappear.... The absence of desire is desirelessness.

Let me say it in another way. Ordinarily whenever the word 'desirelessness' is used, you think it is against desire. It is not. Desirelessness is not the opposite of desire. Desirelessness is simply the absence of desire, not the opposite. If it is the opposite then it can become the goal. It is not the opposite. You cannot make a goal out of it.

Love is not opposite to hate. If love is opposite to hate, in that love, hate will go on continuing, an undercurrent of hatred will go on flowing. The authentic love is not opposite to hate. The love of a buddha is not opposite to hate. It is simply absence of hate.

Compassion is not against anger. When anger disappears, compassion is. Compassion is not to be fought for; it is not against passion. When passion disappears, compassion is. Compassion is your nature.

Desirelessness is you. When all desires have gone and you are left alone, in that beautiful aloneness, pure aloneness, crystal-clear aloneness, there is desirelessness. Not even a trace of desire... no goal, nowhere to go.

Then for the first time you live what life is, for the first time your song bursts, spreads all over the existence. For the first time you become capable of celebrating.

This is called enlightenment, nirvana.

Nirvana can never be a goal. When you don't have any goal, nirvana comes to you. You never go towards nirvana. When you are not going anywhere, it comes to you. Or, if you want to use the language of bhaktas and devotees, you can use the word 'god'.

You are not to go towards god. One can never go towards god. Where will you go? Either he is nowhere or he is everywhere. Where will you go?

You cannot make an object of god. You cannot make an arrow of your desire moving towards the target of god. Either god is everywhere - so you cannot make a target; or he is nowhere - then too you cannot make a target.

Nobody has ever reached to god. When you stop all reaching, when you drop the whole nonsense of achievement, suddenly god comes to you. And when he comes, he comes from everywhere, from all directions. He simply enters in you from every pore of your being. You never reach to him; he always comes to you.

When people come to me and they say that they are in search of god, I say, 'Please, don't make that effort. You are on a futile journey. You simply rest, relax, wait, and allow god to come to you. Your very search will create a barrier."

A searching mind is a tense mind. A seeking mind is not at rest. A desiring mind is not at home...

always wandering, wandering, going somewhere. If I come to you, do you think I will find you there?

You may be somewhere else. You are always somewhere else. Wherever you seem to be, you are not there. If you are sitting in the temple, your appearance only is in the temple. You may be in the market. You may be in the shop or in the factory or in the office. When you are sitting in your office or in your shop, only your appearance is there - you appear to be there. Your mind may be anywhere; the world is vast.

You are never where you are. Just be there. Wherever you are, be there. This is the door to the divine and the divine enters in you.

Nirvana becomes a nightmare if you seek it. And then the nirvana is the greatest nightmare there is.

Wealth can be found if you seek it. Power, prestige, can be found if you seek it. Of course, it takes a long time, much effort, and is almost useless, because when you have found it you find nothing there. But you can find it. If you are mad enough you can find anything in the world. You just have to be mad enough... almost insane, crazy. Then you will win, because nobody will be able to compete with you - unless somebody crazier than you comes to compete with you.

You can find anything in the world that you crave for. There will be a nightmare, but there is an end to it.

But nirvana is the last and the ultimate nightmare.

Once you start seeking it, it is never going to happen - because the very nature of it is such that the very nature prevents you from reaching it.

So when I say be herenow, I am saying please help nirvana to come to you. Be at home. Just wait.

Sooner or later you will see - god has knocked.

Jesus says, 'knock, and the door shall be opened unto you."

I say to you, 'You just wait. God will knock. You just remain alert and open the door when he knocks."

He has been continuously, constantly knocking, but you are not there to hear, to listen. You are not there to open the door. The guest is always standing-at the door, but the host is missing.

Be a host. That's what I mean when I say be herenow. This simply means be a host to life, be a host to existence. Remain available. And everything is going to happen to you. Nothing is going to be debarred. There is nobody hindering the path except your own desire, except your own continuous running here and there. Rest a little while.

And when I say rest, I mean rest herenow. Don't postpone it - because who can rest tomorrow?

And I will go on singing the beauties of ecstasy, but don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to convince you that nirvana has to be achieved. It is not a goal. k cannot be made a goal. It cannot be made an object of desire. It is available. Just look. Have an alert look. Life is tremendously beautiful. It is showering on you from everywhere.

This I call meditation. This is what zen calls zazen - just sit, in an infinite waiting... watching, alert, aware, not going anywhere... and the miracle of miracles happens - that which you were seeking and could not find, suddenly happens.

There is no contradiction in it, but your mind will make a contradiction, because unless your mind makes a contradiction out of it then the mind has no function to fulfill. First it creates a problem, then it tries to find a solution. Don't allow the mind to create a problem where none exists.

I have heard about a physician. A man came to him; he was suffering from a common cold. The physician said, 'You do one thing. The night is very cold. At midnight, naked, you go to the lake and jump in."

The man said, 'Have you gone mad! I am suffering from a cold, and at midnight the lake is going to be just ice! I will get double pneumonia."

The physician said, 'Don't you be worried. I have a perfect medicine for pneumonia - but for common cold I have none. I will cure it certainly. You just follow the instructions."

The mind goes on creating problems and then it goes on supplying solutions. Have you not watched this nonsense?

Cut the mind from the very root. Don't allow it to create a problem - that is the solution.

Otherwise the mind will give you a solution. In the first place the problem was false. How can the solution be right? If you solve a false problem, the solution is going to be false. Then you are caught in an infinite regress. Then in the solution the mind will again find problems. Then again solutions have to be supplied. And then you go on and on.

If your own mind cannot give you a solution, you go to greater minds; they can supply solutions. You go to philosophers - people who have theories, doctrines, scriptures in their heads. If your cannot supply your solution then you look at the experts; then they supply you with a solution.

But experts have not helped anybody yet. Fifty centuries' history of philosophy has not even given a single solution to any problem. On the contrary, it has created more and more problems.

Cut the very root.

Whenever the mind is trying to create a problem, first try to find out whether the mind is playing the old trick again. Because as I see, life is absolutely simple. It has no problems. I don't mean that life is not a mystery. I mean that life is not a riddle. You cannot solve it.

Life is a tremendous mystery - but very simple. You cannot solve it. You can live it, you can enjoy it, you can merge into it... and doors upon doors open and it is an endless journey of revelations; greater and greater revelations are waiting for you... but it is not a riddle which can be solved. The more you enter in it, the more unknowable it becomes. The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.

One moment comes when all knowledge seems futile. That is the moment where a consciousness goes through a conversion - from philosophy to religion; from futile, stale theories to a fresh and eternally alive source of life.

Life is a mystery; it cannot be solved. It has no solution. it has no answer. Don't try to solve it.

That is what the mind is constantly doing - trying to solve. Cut the root.

Whenever the mind tries to bring a problem, first try to see - is there a problem really?

It is such a simple thing that I have said. Be herenow - and enlightenment happens to you. It has already happened; only you have to recognize it. It has happened even before you were born. It has happened simultaneously with your life. Your very existence is enlightened. Just a turning-in, a conversion... and the recognition.

And the recognition is possible only if you turn herenow. If you go on moving, chasing the shadows, then you will not have time and space to move within. All future is without, and the present is within.

The present is not part of time. The present is eternity. It is now - eternal. It is within you.

Once you turn in, you will start laughing.

It is said that when Bodhidharma attained, he started laughing, a deep belly-laughter. He started rolling on the ground and the disciples gathered and they said, 'What has happened? Have you gone mad?' He looked really crazy. He was sitting for nine years and nobody had ever seen even a smile on his face. He was a very severe and serious person.

For nine years continuously he was looking at the wall... continuously sitting near the wall and looking at the wall. He had not even turned to talk to any man for nine years - a very serious man.

And he had decided that he would not get up unless he came to know what truth is. Tradition has it that his legs withered away. Nine years is a long time; maybe it really happened. But that is not the point. One thing is certain. Legs are representative of activity, movement, desire, going, goal. Legs are representative of all that. Certainly in those nine years, goals disappeared. There was nowhere to go. All motivation, all desire to achieve disappeared. Certainly legs withered away.

And then one day suddenly this man is rolling and laughing - must have gone mad. People must have been thinking that sitting for nine years watching the wall is bound to create madness. But why was he laughing? He was laughing at the whole absurdity, the very ridiculousness of it - that all that he was seeking he had already within him and he was not aware.

Your treasure is with you. Your treasure is already within you. I can see it but you cannot see it.

Being with me is just an opportunity so that you can also see that which I can already see in you.

When you come to me, you are precisely valuable to me. When you come to me, I see a buddha coming.

You are not aware.

I would like to bow down and touch your feet... but that can be dangerous for you, so I resist the temptation. You are already mad - you will go even more mad. But that's what I would like to do....

You are already there where you would like and wish to be. You are fulfilled. I can see your flower has bloomed, it has always been blooming there, but your eyes are wandering somewhere else.

So when I talk about enlightenment, I am simply stating a fact about your being. I am not giving you a goal to be desired. And then immediately I have to tell you to be herenow, because that is the way you will be able to see the blossoming of your being.

There is no contradiction. If it appears to you, look again. Your mind has deceived you.

Cut the mind from the very root. The second question is from a new seeker, Jim Crossland.

Question 2:

Who has told you that none of my disciples have yet achieved? I cannot see a single person who has not achieved. They are all buddhas, enlightened people deceiving themselves, playing tricks with themselves, in a hide-and-seek with themselves.

But it is difficult for you to see. Unless you have seen your own enlightenment, you cannot see.

Once you have seen your own enlightenment, the whole world is enlightened. The whole world, I say, is enlightened the moment you are enlightened.

Then you know that that is their choice. If they want to deceive themselves it is perfectly okay - that is their freedom. If they want to play the game a little more, it's perfectly okay. Why shouldn't they?

A few lives more... it is for you to decide.

Not only that my disciples are enlightened - life is enlightened. These trees... maybe fast asleep, snoring, but they are also enlightened. Since the day I became enlightened, I have not seen anything which is not enlightened. I cannot see otherwise.

So forget about others. It is a question only about you. Are you ready to stop the deception, the game that you are playing with yourself? Only that much should be your concern. Don't be worried about others.

I UNDERSTAND THAT NONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES HAVE YET ACHIEVED.

The questioner must have a very deep-rooted desire for achievement, a very deep-rooted achieving mind. So he looks around through that achieving mind - and of course, an achieving mind cannot believe that anybody else has achieved. Even to concede that I have achieved, he must have struggled hard. In fact, he cannot believe that too. Just to be polite he has said that he will grant it to this man - but no one else.

It is natural when it has not happened to you. How can it happen to anyone else before it has happened to you? That will look unjust. If it has to happen, it must happen to you first. That's the way of the ego. The ego goes on denying.

But please be a little alert, because if you go on denying, saying that it has not happened to others, by and by you will become convinced that it cannot happen, it is impossible, and then you are closing doors for your own enlightenment also. Once you accept that it has happened to somebody, the possibility opens for you also - that it can happen to you.

Just look again, a second look. Watch people. Come out of your achieving mind and have a look.

Can you hear the birds singing? They are enlightened... buddhas chatting. It has to be so. God is not separate from life. God is a synonym for life. Divinity is not something separate which happens or does not happen. It is hidden in everything that is. In a rock, in a tree, in a bird....

But for the first time you have to realize it within yourself, because that is the closest reality to you.

Once you see it there, you see it everywhere.

And the second thing:

I am not saying to you to prepare. I am not teaching any preparation. I am simply saying look - this is the ego, and this is the block that is hindering the path. Drop it right now! Who is saying to you to prepare?

If you prepare, then you will prepare for ever and ever. Have you not lived long enough already?

Have you not been here so many millions of times? You have been repeating like a circle, a wheel...

moving again and again - the same wheel. Birth, youth, old age, death, birth again. It goes on moving.

When I am talking about dropping the ego, I am not saying prepare for it. If you are not yet prepared, then when will you be prepared? Enough is enough! Drop it right now!

Either you drop it right now or you don't drop it. Don't befool anybody that you are preparing.

Preparation is a trick of deceiving others, and, more basically, yourself 'I am preparing. One day I am going to drop the ego.' But why 'preparing', and why 'one day'? Why not today? If you have seen the fact, then what is the need?

When you come across a snake on the path, do you prepare to jump? You simply jump out of the way. You don't say, 'How can I jump right now? I see the snake, I see the danger, I see death standing in front of me, but how can I just immediately jump? It needs preparation, it needs rehearsal. just I will prepare and then I will jump."

No, your mind simply stops when you see a snake on the path. The mind has no space to think, no time to waste. You jump first and later on you think. Then you can think as much as you want, but first you jump.

What I am showing you is - the snake is not so dangerous as your ego. It is your ego which is the real snake.

In the christian parable of Adam and Eve and the snake, the snake is nobody else but the ego.

Snake is symbolic because snake is very cunning - ego is very cunning. And snake is very slippery - and ego is very slippery. And snake moves without legs - and the ego also moves without legs. It is a miracle. In fact the snake should not move. It is a miracle - without legs it goes on moving. The ego is not there and goes on moving.

In the christian parable, the snake convinced Eve that the tree of knowledge is worth tasting. 'The god has prohibited because he does not want you to become knowledgeable; he does not want you to become wise, as he is. He is jealous. If you also become wise like him then who will worship him? He wants you to remain ignorant so you remain dependent.' This is what the ego is doing. The ego convinced Eve. Eve convinced Adam. Why through Eve? That has to be understood.

The feminine mind is more prone to be egoistic. The reason is that the feminine mind lacks ego.

The male mind is egoistic already, but the feminine mind lacks ego - it is a passive mind, not active, not aggressive. The male mind is already aggressive, the male mind is already egoistic. It is already outgoing. The male mind was not lacking it.

Whenever something appeals to you, it appeals only when you lack it.

You see somebody beautiful: if you are ugly, it appeals. You see somebody strong, and if you are weak, it appeals. The appeal is always of the opposite, of that which you are not. A poor man is attracted towards riches. The really rich are those who renounce riches. A poor man cannot renounce riches.

The feminine mind is not egoistic. It is more surrendering, more receptive, hence the appeal.

The trick worked on it. And once the feminine part is convinced, it is very difficult for the male part not to follow. The man has always been a follower of woman. Whatsoever the outward appearance....

He tries to show that he is the master - that too is because he lacks that. He may be the master in the world, but the moment he comes home he is no more the master. In the home the woman remains the master. Even a napoleon or an alexander is nobody before the wife. Even a napoleon becomes a coward.

The male mind follows the feminine mind. Once the ego convinced the feminine mind, sooner or later Adam followed. The snake is the old symbol for ego.

I'm showing you the real snake on your path.

This snake has convinced you to eat the fruit of knowledge, and all religion is nothing but going back, unlearning. Religion is nothing but vomiting knowledge. What did Adam do? - he ate the fruit of knowledge. Christ vomited the same fruit. Adam went far away from the divine source, from the garden of eden, from god's garden. Jesus entered it again.

When I am saying that ego is poisonous, I am just stating a fact. I'm not saying prepare to drop it. I am saying if you understand me, it will be dropped right now. Not even a single moment has to be wasted. Once you see the point, in the very seeing, the ego has dropped. If it has not dropped in the seeing then you have not seen the point. Then you are playing a trick. Then you think you have understood but you have not understood.

"The funniest joke I have ever heard on radio consisted of nothing but silence. On one of his radio shows, Jack Benny, notoriously the cheapest man in the world - at least in the image he has built up for himself - was stopped by a thief who said, 'Your money or your life!"

There followed a lengthening silence, and in due course the audience, catching on, began to laugh louder and louder and louder. Finally, just in case there were a few people who didn't get the point, the thief said, once the laughter had died down, 'Come on! Your money or your life!"

To which Mr. Benny replied, 'I'm thinking. I'm thinking.' "

Money or life? If life is gone, what are you going to do with the money?

If you have understood me, in that very understanding is the dropping of the ego.

Not that you drop it. How can you drop it? You are to be dropped. How can you drop it? It is dropped. Suddenly you are not there. A totally different quality of energy arises in you, which was blocked by the ego.

Yes, you are there and yet you are not there. A very strange experience... the most strange, the strangest. You are you and yet you are not you.

How can you drop it? If you drop it, the dropper will remain inside. The ego has deceived you. It drops. Once understood, it drops. There is no question of preparation. I am not saying prepare to drop it. If you prepare to drop it, you may become humble, more humble, more humble, but then the ego will hide behind your humbleness. Then you will start thinking, 'I am the most humble man in the world. I am the MOST humble man in the world.' That 'I am' still remains the same.

The ego can become pious, it can become religious. The ego can become saintly - but that doesn't make any difference. If poison becomes pious it makes no difference. A purified poison may become more poisonous and a purified ego is certainly more poisonous than an ordinary ego.

Look at the religious people: they have a very subtle ego, very polished,.cultured, refined. It is difficult to catch it. It is more slippery than ordinary egos, more subtle in its ways, more cunning in its deceptions... better protected, better secured. Even your talk of god may be just a hiding place for it.

No, you cannot drop it. Understood, it drops on its own. Suddenly you see it is slipping out of your hands. There is no need to drop it; only once you don't cling to it, it drops. In nonclinging it drops.

And if you understand that you are holding a poisonous snake, is there any need to prepare?

No, I am not talking about preparation. If you have understood it, let it drop. If you have not understood it, please don't prepare. Then it is better as it is. Don't decorate it. It will make it more ornamental, more flowery, and it will be more difficult then to drop it. It will become more precious.

A man of character has more difficulties in dropping his ego than a man who is characterless. A man who is moral has more difficulties in dropping his ego than an immoral man. The immoral man's ego is already wounded, ill. The moral man's ego is decorated with medals. The moral man's ego is still giving good pay-off. The moral man's ego is more like a flower and less like a thorn. It is more difficult to drop it.

It has happened - it looks paradoxical, but it has happened so many times - that sinners have achieved to god more easily than so-called saints. Of course, it is not recorded much, because all the records have been made by saints. Sinners have not bothered to make records and history and this and that.

"A rabbi died - a very religious, very moral, moralistic man - and the same day a sinner also died.

The rabbi could not believe it - he was being taken to hell! He started making much fuss. He said, 'What is happening? I, a saint, and being taken to hell! And this sinner I have known my whole life - he lived just in front of the synagogue - and he is being taken to heaven! There must have been some mistake."

He made such a fuss that they both were presented before god. And the rabbi said, 'You know well - my whole life I have been praying and praying, and repeating your name. And this man has never done any prayer, he has never been to the temple, and he has done all that is wrong - he has been the most immoral man in the town - and he is being given heaven and I am being taken to hell! This is injustice! Explain it!"

God said, 'Yes, I know it - but he never bugged me. You were. constantly bugging me. Even in the night it was difficult to sleep because of your remembrance.' "

Innocence is needed - and innocence is where the ego has disappeared. Simplicity is needed - and simplicity is not a cultivated thing.

When all cultivations disappear, complexities disappear, one becomes simple. One may go to the temple, may not go - it doesn't matter. One may pray, one may not pray - it is irrelevant.

But innocence, simplicity, a deep surrender... that one is no more a doer, that one no more thinks of himself as I, one has surrendered that I, one is no more like an island, one has become part of the main, the continent, one has said, 'Let the whole live. I disappear in it...."

Then do whatsoever happens to you and it is right. Let the whole live through you and it is moral.

Morality is not something that you have to do and practise. It is something... when you disappear and the whole is allowed to exist through you, when you flow with the river, when you don't go upcurrent. Remember this. If you have understood, watch your ego slipping. Don't cling to it, that's all. Allow it to be dropped and shattered.

"Once I knew a man. He is a professor, a very learned man. He came to see me. He was very sad, so I asked him, 'You look pretty down in the mouth. What is the matter?"

He said, 'My psychiatrist says I am in love with my umbrella, and that that is the source of my troubles."

'In love with your umbrella!' I was a little surprised.

'Yes,' he said. 'Isn't that ridiculous! I like and respect my umbrella and enjoy its company, but love?...""

You may not think that you love your ego, but you love it. You can say, 'I like and respect my umbrella and-enjoy its company, but love?' - but just changing words does not make much difference. You love it. Whatsoever miseries it brings, still you love it. Whatsoever troubles it creates, still you love it. In spite of all the hells that the ego creates, you go on loving it.

And when you come to me and you ask how to drop it, I am simply surprised, I cannot believe. If the ego itself has not convinced you by creating so many hells, so many miseries for you, that it is not worth carrying, then nobody can convince you. The ego has done everything that can be done to harm you, to hurt you. It is like a cancer. You are dying of it - but you go on clinging to it. There must be some deep-rooted reason in it.

The deep-rooted reason is that you feel afraid of non-being. If ego is gone then you are gone. If ego is gone it looks like death - ultimate death, utter death. The fear of non-being forces you to cling to the ego. At least... maybe it creates miseries, but you are, at least you are.

You would like to suffer rather than not be. This is the problem. ou would like to be in hell rather than not be. At least one is. If these are the two alternatives for you: one that you disappear, and the other that you live eternally in hell, just think - and you will choose hell. 'At least I will be there.

But this utter disappearance? This complete non-being?..."

That's what Buddha means when he says nirvana. He says consciously choose non-being; only then will you be able to drop the ego. That's what I mean when I go on praising the beauties of ecstasy... the blissfulness, the benediction of enlightenment. I am trying to create a situation in which nonbeing can be chosen.

Not to be is the most beautiful moment. Buddha called it anatta,: non-being. He dropped the old word, atma, the self. He used the contrary word, no-self. He says when you come to your self, you will come to no-self. There you will not find any self.

Many escaped him because they said, 'We have come here to know our self, to be our self. We have come here to become crystallized beings, and you are teaching non-being.' Many escaped him.

And this country, a very religious country - at least apparently - completely forgot about Buddha.

Buddha was born here, but he could not get roots here. Just one word, anatta, no-self, created the whole trouble. Had he used self, atma, there would have been no trouble, many would have followed him, because behind the word atma, self, the ego goes on hiding itself.

Buddha tried to cut the very roots of the problem. He said become conscious. This thinking that you are is your whole problem and your whole misery. Drop this very effort to be. Accept non-being - and all benediction is yours.

This problem is going to face you. The ego is not the problem. The real problem is to be or not to be.

And my whole teaching is not to be, because that is the only way of being, that is the only way of authentic being. Paradoxical, but it is so. The more you think you are, the less you are.

Let me try to explain it to you. Have you watched? When you have a headache, only then you have a head. With headache comes head. When headache disappears, head also disappears. If you go on feeling your head, that means you must be carrying some sort of headache, more or less, but the headache must be there; only then the head is felt. When the head is perfectly healthy it is not felt at all. It becomes non-being. When you are ill, you feel the body. When you are healthy, you don't feel the body at all. That is te criterion of a healthy body: that the body is not felt at all. One completely becomes bodiless, then one is healthy.

When health is there, nothing is there - not even the consciousness of health, because that too belongs to an ill person. You must know many people, hypochondriacs, who go on talking about health, medicine, this and that. Not that they are healthy - their very talk shows that they are not healthy. A healthy person is not worried about it.

I was reading the life of Martin Luther, the founder of protestant christianity. For his whole life he was continuously worried about his constipation. I don't think that he was praying when he was praying; he was thinking of constipation... continuously thinking about it - the stomach, the constipation, the motion. And it is said that his first satori happened on the toilet seat. It must have been so, it is bound to be so.

He must not have been a healthy person at all. Not only was he not healthy; I cannot think that he was even spiritual. You can remain ill, but there is no need to think about it continuously. There is no need to make much fuss about it, and contemplate about it. He was too much body-oriented.

And he must have had an achiever's mind, because all people who are too much in the future have constipation in the present. Constipation is a very spiritual disease. People who are too ambitious are always constipated. You cannot find a politician and not constipated. Because the mind is so tense, it cannot relax the intestinal system; everything is held back. If you are really healthy, you forget the body.

If you are really there, you forget the ego.

When one perfectly is, there is no I; the I does not arise out of it. There is AMNESS but there is no I.

Amness is infinite; it has no boundaries. The I is very atomic, a shrunken thing, a constipated thing, an ill, diseased thing.

Prepare yourself, not to drop the ego, but prepare yourself right now - not in the future, don't make plans - to understand.

And what preparation is needed for understanding? Will you have to do many yogasanas, yoga postures, to understand? Will you have to stand on your head for many years to understand?

To understand, only one thing is needed: right listening, nothing else.

Please listen to what is being told to you. What I am saying to you, just listen to it. If you can listen to it, in the very listening, seeing will happen; you will have a different vision. In that vision is transformation.

Question 3:

They are not interrelated; they are one and the same thing - just two ways of saying the same thing.

Wu-wei means action without action. It means doing without doing. It means allowing that which wants to happen..Don't do it, allow it to happen. And that is the way of the heart.

The way of the heart means the way of love. Can you do love? It is impossible to do love. You can be in love but you cannot do it. But we go on using expressions, like 'making love', which are foolish.

How can you make love? When love is there, you are not there. When love is there, the manipulator, the maker, is not there. Love does not allow any manoeuvre on your part. It happens. It happens suddenly out of the blue. It is a gift. Just as life is a gift, love is a gift.

The way of the heart or the way of love or the way of wu-wei - they all are the same. They insist that the doer has to be dropped, forgotten, and you have to live your life not as a manipulator. You have to live your life as a flow of the unknown. Don't move upcurrent and don't try to push the river. Flow with the river.

The river is already going to the sea. You just be one with the river and it will take you to the sea.

There is no need even to swim. Relax... and let the river take you. Relax... and let god possess you. Relax... and let the whole take the part.

Doing means the part is trying to do something against the whole, the part is trying to have its own will against the whole.

Wu-wei means the part has understood that it is only the part and has dropped all struggle. Now the whole is doing and the part is happy. The whole is dancing and the part is dancing with it. To be in tune with the whole, to be in step with the whole, to be in a deep orgasmic relationship with the whole, is the meaning of wu-wei. And that is the meaning of love.

That's why Jesus says, 'God is love.' He is creating a parallel - because in man's experience there is nothing other than love which comes close to god.

Listen. You were born, but then you were not aware at all. It was a happening, but it has already happened; nothing can be done now. You will die; someday it will happen in the future. This moment you are alive. The birth has happened, the death has to happen. Between the two there is only one possibility - love.

These are the three basic things: birth, love and death. They all happen. But birth has already happened - -now you cannot become aware of it. And death has not happened - how can you become aware of it right now? Only love is the possibility between the two, which is happening right now. Become aware of it and see how it happens.

It is nothing on your part. You don't do anything. Suddenly you feel one day a glow, suddenly you feel one day an energy arising. In the hands of the unknown.... The god of love, has knocked at the door.

Suddenly you are no more the same: the dullness has disappeared, the drabness has disappeared, that staleness has disappeared. Suddenly you are singing and bubbling with joy. Suddenly you are no more the same - at the peak. The valleys are forgotten, the dark valleys... sunlight and the peak.

Have you done anything for it?

People go on teaching love. How can you love? Because of this teaching, love has become impossible. The mother goes on saying to the child, 'Love me! I am your mother.' How is the child supposed to love? What is he supposed to do, in fact? The child cannot believe what to do, how to do it. And the mother goes on insisting. The father goes on insisting, 'When I come home, love is expected!' By and by the child becomes a politician; he starts the politics of love - which is not love at all. He starts playing tricks. He becomes deceptive. He smiles when the mother comes close, and the mother feels 'he loves me'.

He has to do these things because he depends on them, his survival depends on them. He is helpless. He becomes a diplomat. He does not feel any love but he has to pretend. By and by the pretension becomes so deep-rooted he goes on pretending his whole life. Then he loves a woman because she is his wife; then she loves a man because he is her husband. One has to love. Love becomes a duty. Can you think of any more absurd possibility? Love becomes a duty; one has to do it. It is a commandment; one has to fulfill it. It is a responsibility.

Now, the real love will never happen to such a person, such a conditioned mind, because love is always a happening. You are always taken unawares. Suddenly, from nowhere, it comes to you.

The arrow comes, hits the heart, you feel the pain, the sweet pain of it, but you don't know from where and how it happens.

Love still remains in the hands of god. It is a happening.

Just the other day I was reading an anecdote:

"Fredrich Wilhelm, who ruled Prussia in the early eighteenth century, was a fat eccentric who stood on no ceremony at all. He walked the streets of Berlin unattended, and when anyone displeased him - and he was easily displeased - he did not hesitate to use his stout walking-stick as a cudgel."

The king - and behaving that way!

"Small wonder then that when the Berliners saw him at a distance, they quietly left the vicinity. The roads were empty. Whenever they would see that he was coming, they would escape here and there.

One time as Fredrich Wilhelm was pounding down one of the streets, a citizen espied him, but too late, and his attempt to slide quietly into a doorway proved a failure. 'You!' called out Fredrich Wilhelm. 'Where are you going?"

'Into the house, your majesty,' said the citizen, trembling violently.

'Is it your house?"

'No, your majesty."

'A friend's house?"

'No, your majesty."

'Why are you entering it then?"

And the poor citizen, fearing he might be accused of burglary, and at his wits' end, finally decided to tell the truth, and said, 'In order to avoid you, your majesty."

Fredrich Wilhelm frowned. 'To avoid me? Why?"

'Because I fear you, your majesty."

Fredrich Wilhelm promptly turned purple, and lifting his cudgel pounded the other's shoulders crying, 'You are not supposed to fear me! You are supposed to love me! Love me, scum! Love me!""

But how is one supposed to love? Love cannot be a duty. Nobody can be supposed to love. Nobody can be commanded to love. Nobody can be told to love. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. The very concept that you can do something about it has created such a situation that love is not happening to many people. Rarely it happens to somebody. It is as rare as god, because god is love... because love is god.

If you are available to love, you will be available to god also. They are the same. Love is the beginning and god is the end. Love is the doorsteps of the temple of god.

The path of love or the path of heart simply means nothing is in your hands. Don't waste your time.

The whole will take care of itself. You please relax. You allow the whole to take you over.

Question 4:

Don't be worried. There is no need for some cause to be there. There is no need for some motivation to be there. It can just happen for no cause at all. And when it just happens, it is tremendously beautiful. Then it has a grace of its own.

If you have come to me in search of something, then you will be using me. Then I will be a means to some other end. There you will miss me. If you have come for some motivation, that very motivation will be a barrier between me and you. Why be worried? You are here, I am here. That's enough.

Let us meet and merge. Let us be in such a togetherness that you can taste of something which is present in front of you... so that you can eat a little of me, drink a little of me.

There is no need to find any cause why you are here. This very search to find causes is mind- oriented. Drop it. You are here - that's enough. Don't waste this time. Otherwise, later on when you are not here, you will think, 'I was there - and I missed. Why couldn't I enjoy that moment? Why couldn't I celebrate that moment?"

A man once came to me and he said, 'I am very much attracted towards Buddha, and I always think that had I been there in Buddha's time, I would have gone to his feet and surrendered."

He was sitting near me, almost fast asleep. I shook his head and I told him, 'What are you talking about? I know you were there. I have seen you there. But then you were talking about some other buddhas and you were saying, "Had I been in the time of some past buddha....""

Then too he could not understand. I had to shake him again and I said, 'Look at me. I am here. Then don't say later on after two thousand years that had you been with me you would have surrendered."

He said, 'I will think about it.' Are you also going to think about it? It can be done. It can be allowed to happen right now. All thinking is a postponement. Don't be worried why you are here. You are here. Be grateful. Don't miss this opportunity in worrying. Celebrate this moment.

If you can celebrate this moment, you also will become the same as I am. If you can celebrate this moment, through that celebration you will attain to that which is already attained. You will achieve that which is already achieved. You will come to know your own hidden treasure.