Black-Nosed Buddha

One of the greatest problems that is bound to face everybody who is traveling the path, is to make a clear-cut distinction between love andattachment. They appear the same - they are not. They look alike - they are not. Rather, on the contrary, even hate is more similar to love than attachment.

Attachment is just the contrary; it hides the reality of hatred and gives the appearance of love, it kills love. Nothing else can be so poisonous as attachment, as possessiveness. So try to understand this, then we can enter this beautiful story.

It has happened to many, it is happening to you - because mind is so confused between love and attachment. And those who look at things from the outside, they always become victims. Attachment is taken as if it is love, and once you have taken attachment, possessiveness, as love, you will always go on missing the real thing. You have chosen a false coin. Now you will not look for the real coin because you think this is the real. You have been deceived.

Possessiveness, attachment, is the false love. Hatred is better, because at least it is true, at least it is a fact. And hatred can become love any day, but possessiveness can never become love. You simply have to drop it to grow into love. Why does attachment appear like love? And what is the difference? The mechanism is subtle.

Love means that you are ready to merge yourself into the other. It is a death, the deepest death possible, the deepest abyss possible in which you can fall, and go on falling and falling. And there is no end to it, there is no bottom to it, it is an eternal falling into the other. It never ends. To love means the other has become so significant that you can lose yourself. Love is surrender - unconditional; because if there is even a single condition then you are important, not the other; then you are the center, not the other. And if you are the center, the other is just a means. You are using the other, exploiting the other, finding satisfaction, gratification through the other - but you are the goal. And love says, make the end the other, and dissolve, and merge. It is a dying phenomenon, a death- process. That's why people are afraid of love. You may talk about it, you may sing about it, but deep down you are afraid of love. You never enter into it.

All your poetries, all your songs about love, are just substitutes so that you can sing without entering into it, so that you can feel that you are loving without loving. And love is such a deep need that you cannot live without it; either the real or some substitute is needed. The substitute may be false, but at least for a time, for the time being, it gives you the feeling that you are in love. And even the false is enjoyed. Sooner or later you will realize that it is false; then you are not going to change the false love into real love - then you will change the lover or the beloved.

These are the two possibilities: when you come to know that this love is false you can change, you can drop this false love and become a real lover. The other possibility is to change the partner. And this is how your mind functions: whenever you feel, "This love has not given me the bliss it promised, rather on the contrary, I have become more miserable" - you think the other is deceiving, not that you are deceiving.

Nobody can deceive you except yourself... so you feel the other is deceiving, the other is responsible:

change the wife, change the husband, change the master, change the god, move from Buddha's temple to Mahavira's temple, change your religion, change your prayer, don't go to the mosque, go to the church - change the other. Then again for a time you will have the feeling that you are in love, in prayer. But sooner or later again the false will be known - because it cannot satisfy. You can befool yourself, but how long can one befool oneself...? Then again you have to change - the other.

If you come to realize the other is not the problem, that your love is false... you have been talking about it, you have not been doing anything to enter into it - you are afraid and scared. Love is death-like, and if you are afraid of death you will also be afraid of love. In death only your body dies.

The essential, the ego that looks essential to you, remains safe. The mind, that appears significant to you, is carried on further into another life. Your inner identity remains the same; only the outer garb, the clothes, change in death.

So death is never very deep, it is just superficial. And if you are afraid of death, how can you be ready to enter into love? Because in love not only the garb, not only the house, but you die - the mind, the ego dies. This fear of death becomes the fear of love, and the fear of love becomes the fear of prayer, meditation. These three things are similar: death, love, meditation. And the route is the same but you have to move on it. And if you have never loved you cannot pray, you cannot do meditation. And if you have never loved and meditated, you will miss the beautiful experience of death completely.

If you have loved, then death is such a beautiful and intense experience that you cannot compare it with anything in life. Life can never be so deep as death, because life is spread out over seventy, eighty years. Death is in a single moment - so intense; life can never be so intense. And death is the culmination, it is not the end. It is the culmination, the very peak; your whole life you have been making effort to reach it. And what stupidity - when you reach to the peak you are so afraid, you feel so dizzy, you close your eyes, you become so scared that you become unconscious. People die, they die in an unconscious state. They miss the experience.

So love can be helpful because love will prepare you for death, and love will prepare you for meditation also. In meditation you have to lose - the other is not there - you simply have to lose yourself. Love is deeper than death; meditation is even deeper than love, because the other is still there in love - you have something to cling to. And when you can cling, something of you survives.

But in meditation there is no other. That is why Buddha, Mahavira and Lao Tzu, they deny the existence of God. Why? They know very well God is, but they deny the existence so that you have no support left for meditation. If the other is there, your meditation can become at the most love, devotion, but the total death is still not experienced. Total death is possible only when there is no other and you simply dissolve, you simply evaporate; there is nobody to cling to - then the greatest ecstasy happens.

The word ecstasy is very meaningful. This English word ecstasy is so beautiful and so significant; no other language has such a word. Ecstasy means to stand outside. Ecstasy means you are completely dead, and you are standing outside yourself and looking at this death, as if your whole existence has become a corpse. You are out of it and looking at your own death; then the supreme bliss happens. If I say it to you, you will be scared. If I say to you that you are in search of the supreme death, you will be scared - but you are in search of it. The whole of religion is the art of learning how to die.

Love means death, but attachment is not death. Love means the other has become so significant that you can dissolve yourself; you trust the other so much that you need not have your own mind - you can put it aside.

This is why people say love is mad, and people say love is blind; it is. Not that your eyes go blind, but when you put your ego aside, your mind aside, to everybody else you will look blind and mad.

This is the state of madness. You are not thinking on your own. You trust the other so much that now there is no need to think, because thinking is needed if there is doubt. Doubt creates thinking, doubt is the base of thinking. If you cannot doubt, thinking stops. If you cannot think, where is the ego, how can the ego stand? That is why ego always doubts things, never trusts.

If you trust, no ego appears - the ego is gone. Hence the insistence of all religions that only through faith and trust and love will you enter the temple of the divine - there is no other door to it. Through doubt you cannot enter, because through doubt you remain. In trust you are lost.

Love is a trust, a dissolving of the ego. The center moves to the other. The other becomes so significant - your very life, your very being. Not even a flicker of doubt comes to you. It is so peaceful, so beautiful, that not a flicker of doubt comes to you, not a ripple in the mind. Trust is complete, perfect. In that perfect trust there is a beatitude, a blessing. Even if you think about it you will have a small glimpse of it, what it can be. But if you feel it, it is tremendous, there is nothing like it.

But the ego creates a false trick. Instead of love it gives you attachment, possessiveness. Love says, be possessed by the other; ego says, possess the other. Love says, dissolve into the other; ego says, let the other yield to you, force the other to be yours, don't allow the other to move in freedom. Cut the other's freedom, let him become your periphery, your shadow.

Love gives life to the other; possessiveness, attachment, kills the other, takes the life of the other.

That is why lovers, so-called lovers, always kill each other - they are poisonous. Look at a husband and a wife: once they were lovers - they thought they were lovers and then they started killing each other. Now they are two dead persons, they have become an imprisonment for each other. They are simply afraid and bored, scared of the other.

Once it happened: In a circus, there was a woman lion-tamer. And the fiercest lions were in her perfect control; she would order them and they would obey. And the greatest thing, when everybody's breathing would stop, was when the fiercest lion would be ordered to come near and he would come, and the lion-tamer, the woman, would have a piece of sugar on her tongue, and the lion would come and take the sugar from her mouth. Everybody would go mad - so much excitement, everybody would clap and show their appreciation.

One day Mulla Nasruddin was there. Everybody clapped but he was not moved at all. He said, "Nothing, anybody can do that."

The woman, the lion-tamer, looked scornfully at him and said, "Can you do it?"

He said, "Yes, anybody can do it - if the lion can do it."

Man is so afraid of woman - and this is through the experience of love. Love, the so-called love, kills the other. Otherwise, why is this world so ugly? So many lovers, everybody is a lover; the husband loving the wife, the wife loving the husband, the parents loving the children, the children loving the parents, and friends, and everybody, relatives, the whole world is in love.... So much love - and so much ugliness, so much misery?

Somewhere, something seems to have gone deeply wrong - in the very roots. This is not love; otherwise, fear disappears - the more you love, the less you fear. When love really comes to its totality there is no fear. But in possessiveness, fear goes on growing more and more, because when you possess a person you are always afraid he may leave you, he may go away - and the doubt is always there. The husband is always doubting that the wife may love somebody else. They become spies on each other, and they cut each other's freedom so there is no possibility.

But when you cut freedom, when you cut the possibility of the unknown, life becomes dead, stale.

Everything becomes flat, meaningless, a boredom, a monotone. And the more it happens, the more you become possessive. When life is ebbing, when the love is going, when something is going out of your hands, you become more possessive, more clinging; you become more protective, you create more walls and more prisons. This is the vicious circle.

The more prisons, the less life there will be. You will be more afraid that something is happening - and love is disappearing so create a bigger prison. Then love will disappear more, then a still bigger prison will be needed. And there are many subtle methods how to do it: jealousy, continuous jealousy, and possessiveness, to such an extent that the other remains no longer a person. The other becomes just a thing, a commodity, because a thing can be possessed easier than a person, because a thing cannot rebel, cannot disobey, cannot go away without your permission, cannot fall in love with somebody else.

When love becomes a frustration - and it will become a frustration, because it is not love - then you by and by start loving things. Look at people when they polish their cars, the way they look at their car - enchanted! Look at the romantic light that comes to their face when they look at their car; they are in love with their car.

In the West particularly, where love has been killed completely, people are in love with things or animals: dogs, cats, cars, houses. It is easier to love a thing or an animal; a dog is more faithful than a wife ever can be. You cannot find a more faithful animal than a dog - he remains faithful, there is no danger. A wife is dangerous. A husband is dangerous; any moment he can move away and you cannot do anything. And when he moves, your whole ego is shattered, you feel hurt. To protect from that hurt ever happening you start killing the husband or the wife, so they become just like cars and houses - dead things.

This is the misery though: that whenever you possess a person he becomes a thing - but you wanted to love a person, not a thing. Because a thing can be possessed, but a thing cannot be responsive. You may love a thing, but the thing cannot answer your love. You may hug your car, but the car cannot hug you. You may kiss your car, but the kiss cannot be returned.

I have heard about Picasso: A woman, a woman appreciator, a fan of Picasso's, once came to him and said, "I saw your self-portrait in an art gallery. It is so beautiful, and I became so possessed by it, that I forgot completely and kissed the portrait."

Picasso looked at the woman and said, "Did the portrait return the kiss?"

The woman said, "What are you asking? How can a portrait return the kiss?"

And Picasso said, "Then that is not my portrait!" How can a dead wife return the kiss? How can a dead husband return the kiss?

This is the misery: if you want to possess, you kill. And the moment you have succeeded the whole glory is lost, because now the other cannot respond. The other can respond only in freedom, but you cannot allow freedom because you are not in love. Love is never possessive. It cannot be, by its very nature.

And not only loving a man or a woman: if you start loving a Buddha you will repeat this whole thing. You will do the same, you will be possessive there also. That is why so many temples have been created - possessiveness. Christians think Christ belongs to them. Christ cannot belong to anybody, but Christians think he belongs to them; they are the possessors. Mohammedans think Mohammed belongs to them. You cannot draw a picture of Mohammed - you will be dragged to the court. You cannot make a statue of Mohammed, because Mohammedans won't allow it. But who are these Mohammedans? How did they become the possessors? They have turned Mohammed into a dead thing.

Nobody can possess Mohammed, nobody can possess Christ - they are so big and your hands are so small. They cannot be possessed. Love can never be possessed; it is such a vital force, and such an infinite force, and you are so tiny and so small, you cannot possess it. But Christians have their Christ, Mohammedans have their Mohammed, Hindus their Krishna, Buddhists their Buddha.

Amongst Jainas, there are two communities - they have divided their Mahavira. There are a few temples in India which belong to both communities, so there is always fight and always cases in the courts, because a time division is there: in the morning the swetambers will worship; in the evening the digambers, the other community, will worship. And they change because swetambers put false, open eyes on the Mahavira's statue, and digambers worship Mahavira with closed eyes, so they cannot worship the same statue. First they have to close the eyes, or remove the false eyes, only then are they at ease; then it is THEIR Mahavira. But how can it be yours or mine? Is Mahavira a thing, a house, a shop, a commodity? But lovers are false lovers - they are really possessors, not lovers.

This has happened in religions so deeply, that religion, rather than becoming a blessing to the world, has proved dangerous. Through this possessiveness religion becomes the sect - then you go on worshipping this dead thing and then nothing happens in your life; and then you think something is wrong with religion. Nothing is wrong with religion. Mahavira could have transformed you. Krishna could have given you the light that he had, but you didn't allow him. Christ certainly could have become the salvation, but you didn't allow. Jews crucified him, and you - you have mummified him in the churches. Now he is a dead thing - good to worship, good to possess, but how can a dead Christ transform you?

And the priest knows it very well. That is why I have never come across a priest who is a believer.

Priests are deep down always nonbelievers, because they know the whole business, and they know this Christ is dead. When they worship it is just a gesture, for show.

It happened once, it is an historic fact, that in the year 999, on December 31st, there was a rumor all over the world, particularly in Christian communities, that the last day is coming on January 1st; in the year 1000, on January 1st, the last day of judgment is coming and the world is going to be dissolved and everybody is going to face the divine.

So, on December 31st, 999, all the Christians all over the world closed their shops, closed their offices - people even distributed their things, because on the morning of January 1st there was going to be no world. People kissed and hugged each other, even went to their enemies to be forgiven, and there was a totally different world that evening. Everything closed, because tomorrow there is going to be no future. So why be an enemy? And why not love? Why not enjoy? People were celebrating - the last day is coming.

All over the world, Christians closed everything. Only the offices of the Vatican in Rome were open - because the pope knows well, the priests know well, that this is not going to happen, this is just a superstition. And they created the whole thing! But not a single thing was distributed from the pope.

Priests are in the know. They know that Christ is dead - and you are a fool, you are praying to a dead thing. But they cannot say that to you, because that is a trade secret; and only through it is exploitation possible. And it is in their favor, because if Christ is alive they cannot become the agents in between. An alive Christ will come directly to you; he will not allow a mediator, a broker. He will not allow it. Christ will not allow a priest to come and stand in between the lovers and himself - he will face them, he will come to you directly. So for priests, a live Christ is dangerous, only a dead Christ is good.

Priests never like a Mahavira when he is alive, they never like a Buddha when he is alive - they are always against when he is alive. When he is dead, they immediately come and organize around him, make a temple and start exploiting you. Priests are against a Mahavira, a Buddha, a Krishna, but they know that when they are dead their names can be exploited.

But you have to remember well that with your love, your prayer, your worship - if it becomes possessive - you are killing. And if you kill Krishna how can he transform you? How can he bring you to Krishna consciousness? Impossible!

Now we should enter this story. It is beautiful.

A NUN WHO WAS SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT MADE A WOODEN STATUE OF BUDDHA AND COVERED IT WITH GOLD LEAF. IT WAS VERY PRETTY, AND SHE CARRIED IT WITH HER WHEREVER SHE WENT.

Many things have to be understood - even word by word. A NUN... because this is the heart of the woman - to possess. That's why not a monk, but a nun. And don't think that only women possess; men also possess, but then they have the heart of the woman, not of the man. Why is woman more possessive than man? - because possession is out of fear. Man is less afraid than woman, that's why - man is less afraid than woman. Because he is less afraid, he is less possessive. The feminine mind is more afraid, fear is natural to it, there is always a trembling. Because of that fear woman is more possessive. Unless she is completely satisfied that she possesses, she is not happy. And when she possesses completely she cannot be happy, because the man is dead. Only in freedom life exists.

Hence, in the story, a nun has been chosen. But remember well, it doesn't make any difference if you are a man - your mind can still be feminine. There are rarely men.... You may be a woman and still have a man's fearless mind. So the distinction is not through sex, it is through attitudes. A man can be a woman, a woman can be a man - the symbol is just to show the attitude. What attitude?

If you are a man and still possessive, you have a feminine mind. If you are a woman and not possessive, you have a male mind. It is said that Mahavira insisted that no woman can enter into enlightenment unless she becomes a man. People took it literally, and they missed the point. They thought that no woman can enter into enlightenment, so every woman who is striving will have to be born in the next life as a man, and then only can she enter. This is foolishness - but no feminine mind can enter into enlightenment, that is true, because the feminine mind means fear and possessiveness. And with fear and possessiveness, no love, no meditation is possible.

One woman became enlightened. Jainas - the followers of Mahavira and followers of the tirthankaras - were much disturbed. What to do? So they changed the name of the woman into the name of a man, and they simply forgot the whole thing. A woman named Mallibai became enlightened - what to do about the theory now? So they changed the name, they call Mallibai, Mallinath. They changed the statue, you will never find a woman's statue. And this Mallibai - or Mallinath - she was such a rare being that they had to concede tirthankarhood to her. So in twenty- four tirthankaras one is a woman, but you will never find her because the name given is Mallinath.

So one feels no woman has attained enlightenment. But it is true in a different, deeper sense; no feminine mind can enter - because fear cannot enter it, possessiveness cannot enter.

A NUN WHO WAS SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT MADE A WOODEN STATUE OF BUDDHA...

And it is very difficult for a mind which is feminine - man or woman. But the mind, if it is feminine, will create a statue; you will create the other. You cannot be alone.

A statue means the other has been created. There is no one, but you cannot be satisfied with nothingness; something has to be there to cling to. Hence so many temples and so many statues - they are created out of the feminine mind. That's why you will not find many men in the temples whenever you go, but many women will be there. And if some men have come, those are the henpecked husbands. They have come with their wives, they have not come directly; they had to come just because of the wife.

When Mahavira preached, forty thousand people took sannyas from him - thirty thousand were women, only ten thousand men. What is the matter? And this is the ratio - this is the ratio with me also. If four persons come - three women, one man. And the man comes with difficulty and goes very easily, and the woman comes very easily and it is very difficult for her to go. She clings; it is very difficult for her to go.

But a feminine mind can create difficulties, barriers. If you start becoming possessive, then you miss. You have to remember: the fear has to be left - only then love arises. The fear has to be dropped, because the fear is of the ego. And if fear exists, the ego will persist; then you can create a statue and cling to the statue. This statue is not going to lead you to the ultimate, because this is your creation. You may cover it with gold leaf, it may look pretty, but it is a dead thing. You may make a golden statue, but it is not going to help - it is a dead thing.

IT WAS VERY PRETTY, AND SHE CARRIED IT WITH HER WHEREVER SHE WENT.

It became a burden, it had to be carried, protected. She couldn't sleep well because somebody may steal it. She could not go without it, because somebody else may want to possess it, it may have been taken from her. Her whole mind became possessive around it. The statue became the center, the center of her possessiveness, fear, worship. But this is not love.

YEARS PASSED, AND STILL CARRYING HER BUDDHA, THE NUN SETTLED DOWN IN A SMALL COUNTRY TEMPLE WHERE THERE WERE MANY STATUES OF BUDDHA EACH HAVING ITS OWN SHRINE.

Years passed, nothing happened. Carrying a Buddha nothing can happen, because how can you carry a Buddha? You can only carry a statue. Buddha has to be lived, not carried. Buddha has to be loved, not possessed. You have to dissolve yourself in the Buddha, not carry him as your possession.

Buddha is alive if you dissolve into him. But then Buddha is dangerous, because you will never come back. It is a point from where no one can come back. Once you have fallen, you have fallen into it; there is no returning. There is fear and trembling, you are afraid you may be lost. And your fear is true - you are going to be lost.

But with a statue there is no fear, you can carry it. The statue can be lost some day, but you will not be lost. You can create another, even a prettier one, there is no difficulty - it is your creation. Go to the temples: what has man done? - created statues, his own creations. Now he is bowing down before them, weeping and crying, and the whole thing is false, because the base is false. Your tears, your prayers - to whom are you addressing them? Before whom are you weeping and crying? - your own creations, your own toys. Howsoever beautiful and costly, it makes no difference. But you are the creator of your gods, and before them you cry and weep and you think something is going to happen. You are simply acting stupidly. Temples are filled with stupid people. They are not aware of what they are doing, bowing down before their own creations. Now, how can this help you?

She carried... many years passed, many lives may have passed - and still carrying her Buddha she was nowhere. Just wandering from one place to another, from one life to another, from one mood to another, from one mind to another - but just wandering, reaching nowhere! Then she got fed up with the journey; the goal seemed nowhere to be achieved, the goal seemed nowhere to be coming closer.

So she... SETTLED DOWN IN A SMALL COUNTRY TEMPLE WHERE THERE WERE MANY STATUES OF BUDDHA EACH HAVING ITS OWN SHRINE.

But there were many statues of the Buddha. In China, in Japan, they have created very big temples for Buddha. In China there is one temple with ten thousand Buddhas, ten thousand shrines in one temple! Ten thousand statues! But even ten thousand statues are of no help. One Buddha is enough, ten thousand statues are not enough.

Why does the mind go on, working nonsense? - one statue is not doing it, so create two. This is the arithmetic; two are not doing it, so create three - ten thousand statues! One man wandering amongst ten thousand statues and nothing is happening. Nothing is going to happen, because life never arises out of a dead thing, a man is never transformed out of a dead statue.

Seek a living buddha. And if you cannot find a living buddha, close your eyes and seek there. If you cannot find him without, you will find him within, because Buddhas are never dead. They are there, just to be sought - and they are always there. They may be just by the corner of your house, but you have never looked. Or you are so acquainted with the neighbor, with the corner, that you feel you know. Nobody knows - you may meet the buddha in a beggar.

Just remain with open eyes. If you are carrying a statue, your eyes are closed. This woman may have missed many buddhas because of this statue - because she thinks she already possesses.

She already has the Buddha, so what need is there to look elsewhere? Then she settled in a temple - people who live with statues will always settle in a temple. People who live with statues cannot reach to the ultimate goal; they have to settle somewhere on the way, by the side of the way - a shrine, a temple.

Many people have settled in temples. They wandered and they searched and then they found that nothing can be found, it is impossible. Not because the goal is very far away - the goal is very near, nearer than you can conceive - but because they are carrying statues. Those statues have become their blindness; their eyes are closed with their statues, their hearts are burdened with their statues, words, scriptures - dead things.

I have heard: Once it happened in ancient days, a king, a very scholarly man, wanted to marry a girl, but no ordinary girl would do. He wanted a perfect woman, astrologically perfect. So he consulted many astrologers. It was very difficult - many years passed, his youth was almost gone. He was no longer young - because these astrologers are difficult people, and mathematics takes time. And then one woman would be found and one attribute would still be lacking - not exactly perfect.

Really, you cannot find anyone perfect. It is impossible, because perfection always means death. If someone is alive, it means imperfect - that's why we say that whenever one is perfect, he is born no more. Because how can you be born if you are perfect? Then you have passed through this world, you have gained, grown, you cannot be allowed back.

Then the king said to his advisers, "It is enough; if not perfect, then approximately perfect will do.

But my youth is passing, I am almost thirty-eight. Now find a woman!"

So a woman was found - not exactly one hundred percent, but ninety-nine percent. Then the search started for the right time when this king should make love to this woman, because he wanted a rare, extraordinary child. It was very, very difficult, many scriptures were consulted, the I Ching and others; many wise men were called from faraway countries, and they consulted and they discussed - and the king was almost forty-four.

Then one day he got fed up, and he turned them out. He burned all the scriptures and told to his wife, "Enough is enough! Now we must make love" - they had not made love up to now. But the woman was old, he was also old, and with love there is a problem. If you start making love early, you can go on making love to the very end of your life. If you don't start early, you cannot make love later on, because lovemaking is a mechanical thing. The mechanism needs efficiency.

So if a man starts making love when he is fourteen, he may go on making love up to eighty. And don't think that if you make love too much in your young age, then in your old age you will not be able. You are absolutely wrong. If you make love too much, only then you will be able to later on.

And you cannot make love too much, remember that, because the body won't allow. Too much is impossible; there is a thermostat in the body - too much is not possible. Whatsoever you do, it is always within the limit. But by this time the king had become impotent - he couldn't make love, the wife was frigid. They had missed the right moment. The child was never born to them, then they had to adopt a child.

This is what is happening: you have to adopt a Buddha, you have to adopt a god. It is not born to you - and God must be born to you, otherwise it is a false god. But you have been missing because you are so occupied with scriptures, wise men, astrology, and all sorts of nonsense. You are so obsessed with words, statues, temples, rituals, formalities, that by the time formalities are fulfilled life has gone. By the time you conclude logically, life is no longer there to do it.

This woman finally settled in a temple, and I tell you: never settle in a temple, because a temple can only be a night's shelter, it cannot be a permanent settlement. Never settle in a temple, never settle in a sect, never settle with the Vatican or Puri Shankaracharya, never settle with a sectarian mind.

You can have a rest, that's okay. Stay there for a night, and by the morning, before they catch hold of you, move! Go on moving - unless you reach the ultimate; only that is the temple. But there you will not find any statues. There you will find the real - not the statue, not the portrait, but the real.

Don't settle with a portrait, don't settle with the false, don't settle with the carbon copy. Search for the original, the very source.

The woman settled - she had to settle. When you carry a wooden Buddha, how can you attain enlightenment? If wooden Buddhas can give you enlightenment, then there will be no problem. A wooden Buddha is a wooden Buddha. You can carry it, you can play with it.

THE NUN BURNED INCENSE BEFORE HER GOLDEN BUDDHA EACH DAY.

The Buddha was wooden, just covered with gold, but she used to call her Buddha, "Golden Buddha."

The gold was just skin-deep; deep down there was just a wooden Buddha, nothing else. But you can hide things, and through gold you can hide anything. When there is not love, then there is much gold around the wife. A wooden Buddha under the gold leaf - and you think everything is okay. And the wife also thinks everything is okay, because the husband every time comes and brings more and more ornaments. When love is dead, ornaments become very much alive. When there is love there is no need for ornaments.

You never cover a real Buddha with gold, do you? The Buddha won't allow you, he will simply escape. He will say, "Wait! What are you doing? You will kill me." Gold kills. Life can never be covered with gold - only death. Only death will allow you to do something. Life won't allow you such nonsense. But she called her wooden Buddha, "Golden Buddha."

THE NUN BURNED INCENSE BEFORE HER GOLDEN BUDDHA EACH DAY, BUT NOT LIKING THE IDEA OF HER PERFUME STRAYING TO THE OTHER STATUES, SHE DEVISED A FUNNEL THROUGH WHICH THE SMOKE WOULD ASCEND TO HER STATUE ONLY.

This is the mind of a possessive person: not even the perfume, the incense, the smoke, is allowed to reach to other Buddhas - and others are also Buddhas. "But my Buddha is something else. Your Buddha is nothing." In the temple all the other statues were Buddhas. It was not that somebody was a Krishna, or somebody was a Rama - then the difference would have been too much. She would not have stayed in that temple. But it was a Buddhist temple, so she could stay. But this was her statue, and those were not hers.

When there is really love, it doesn't bother to whom it reaches. When there is love, you love your beloved person, but you cannot devise a funnel so that your love reaches only to your beloved. Love is such a phenomenon that when it happens it goes on beyond your beloved, always goes on and on and on. It spreads to everyone. It is just like a ripple on the lake.

If you throw a stone in the lake a ripple arises and then it goes on spreading and spreading to the very end. If you love a person, it is not linear, it is circular, a wave is created. When you love a person, you are throwing a stone in the lake of love. Now everybody will be benefited, not only the person you love. If you try to benefit only the person you love, you will simply do the thing this nun did. It is not possible. When there is someone who loves, his love goes on falling all around. You cannot channelize it, it is not such a thing - rivers can be channelized - it is oceanic, it cannot be channelized. Attachment can be channelized, not love.

When you throw a stone in the lake, it falls at a particular spot, that's okay, but then the love goes on spreading. When you fall in love, you fall at a particular spot, with a particular person; but that is only the beginning, not the end. Then love goes on spreading, then the whole world is benefited.

Whenever there is a single person of love, the whole world is benefited. There will be a center where the stone fell, from where the waves will arise and go on to the very end. There will be a center - the beloved, the lover; but the love cannot be contained there. It is a growing thing, nobody can contain it. So the lover becomes just the door, just the opening - and then the whole universe is benefited by it.

But this poor nun was just like you. Just a human mind, working through human stupidities. She did not like the idea of her perfume straying to the other statues - and the other statues are also of Buddha.

When I love a person, I find the divine there. Love reveals the divine in a person. Once it is revealed, all the statues of all the Buddhas.... Then everybody is divine; the tree is divine, the cloud is divine, the beggar on the street is divine, then everybody is divine. If love has happened and you have looked into the original face of a person - which is revealed only in love - then Buddhas everywhere are Buddhas, all the statues are Buddhas; then the whole world has become a temple.

But then you are not worried. Then you are not worried that your perfume is reaching somebody.

You are not worried that your lover's perfume is reaching to somebody else. You will be happy that through you the whole world is being benefited, through you the whole world is receiving the blessing. If you are afraid and you try to contain it, then it is possessiveness and it will kill. Don't try to contain it, don't try to possess it. Allow it to grow, help it to grow, help it to reach to everyone.

Only then you will receive it, because you can receive only when the whole world receives it.

But this is the problem: whenever you love a person, you want him to be contained, confined. It is as if you are confining a tree in a pot; not only the roots but the whole tree - then you will kill it. The tree has to move into the sky, it has to spread into the sky. Its flowers will give perfume to many, its branches will give shadow to many; many will be benefited by its fruits. Of course the roots are contained in you, but the tree goes on growing. And love is the greatest tree possible; it can spread into the whole sky, it cannot be confined, cannot be contained. You cannot make it finite - the very nature of love is infinite.

BUT NOT LIKING THE IDEA OF HER PERFUME STRAYING TO THE OTHER STATUES, SHE DEVISED A FUNNEL THROUGH WHICH THE SMOKE WOULD ASCEND TO HER STATUE ONLY.

Then what happened? It was bound to happen:

THIS BLACKENED THE NOSE OF THE GOLDEN BUDDHA AND MADE IT ESPECIALLY UGLY.

This is happening to every lover and beloved, because then the perfume is not perfume, it becomes just smoke; perfume needs to spread. Then the nose is blackened, and all the Buddhas now have black noses.

Look at your Krishna, look at your Buddha, your Mahavira; all their noses are blackened - because of you, your possessiveness. Your prayer is possessiveness, it is not real. Jainas won't allow anybody to enter their temples if they are not a Jaina. Hindus won't allow the untouchables, because they are not a higher caste. All the temples are blackened because they are possessed: "My temple."

The moment I assert 'my', it is no longer a temple, because how can a temple be mine or yours? A temple is simply a temple!

I was once dragged into court because I inaugurated a church. The church had been closed for at least twenty years. The worshippers of the church had moved, they were not in India - it was the possession of some English Christian sect - and there was nobody in the town, nobody even to take care of it. It was a beautiful church, but completely dilapidated. Then a few Christians came to me and they said, "We don't belong to that sect, but we don't have a church. So can you help us? Will you inaugurate this church and we will start worshipping."

I said, "Okay." So they broke the lock, they cleaned the church - they cleaned the blackened nose of Christ. And I opened it for all. So I said, "It is not a question of to whom a church belongs. Those who worship, theirs is the church."

But within two or three months the news reached to the owners. They appointed a lawyer; he dragged me to the court, because, "Why did you open this church?"

The magistrate asked me, "Why did you open this church? It doesn't belong to these people. It is not their property."

I told him, "A church cannot be anybody's property. Those who worship - it is theirs. A church is not a property, it is not a legal question at all."

The magistrate said, "Don't lead us astray. We cannot go into philosophy. It is a legal question."

A church is a legal question? Yes, it has become a legal question. A temple is a legal question? If a temple is a legal question, then it belongs to this world, not to that. So I said, "Okay, you can close it, if it is a legal question. You can close it, but remember well, this is how religion is killed, murdered.

It is not a property at all."

But all the churches, all the temples have become properties. They are mine or thine - then Buddha's nose is blackened, and it ... MADE IT ESPECIALLY UGLY.

All the temples, all the churches, have become ugly. They have to be really destroyed, cleaned, so the earth is clean. And the real temple can exist only then - when these temples disappear. They have become part of your market, of your legal system. They are now no longer symbols of the beyond.

Mind is such a thing; it turns everything into a possession, because the ego can exist only if it possesses. And ego is the barrier. Ego is the water in which only reflections can be caught, the real can never be known. Now drop this pail! Why wait for an accident? Drop this old pail and let the water flow - no water, no moon.

Enough for today.