The Giver Should Be Thankful

There are only two ways to live your life, only two ways to be: one is the right way, the other is the wrong way. The right is to give, to share, to love. The wrong is to snatch, to exploit, to accumulate.

Love and money are the symbols of these two ways. Love is the right way and money is the wrong way. Everybody is living the wrong way.

Why does it happen? What are the dynamics of it? Why does everybody go wrong? Where are the rules? So we will have to penetrate deeply, only then will you be able to understand this beautiful story. And if you cannot understand this story, you cannot understand Buddha, Jesus, Mahavira.

No, it is impossible, because they moved on the path of love, you move on the path of money, and these two ways never meet. They cannot meet.

Sometimes, even if you try to understand Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus, you try to understand them in terms of money. Jainas go on relating how much Mahavira renounced - 'how much' is the point. If Mahavira had been the son of a beggar, no Jaina would worship him. He was the son of a great king. He had a big kingdom, much money, gold, diamonds - and he renounced them. Suddenly he becomes important to you. The importance is in the money that he renounced, not in him.

Even if you approach Mahavira, you approach him through money. What an absurdity. And then Jainas go on emphasizing the fact, exaggerating it, because the kingdom was really not so great. It was a small principality - because in India at that time there were two thousand kingdoms - it was just like a small district. And Mahavira's father was also not very rich, but rich, of course. When first they looked at Mahavira because he had renounced the money, he became very important. Then they started to exaggerate the amount of money that he had renounced. And now they have gone to fantastic, absurd lengths; whatsoever they say is simply wrong. And then Mahavira becomes important through the money he renounces. What is really important in your eyes?

Why does it happen that not a single tirthankara of the Jainas comes from an ordinary family? - all the twenty-four are the sons of kings. Why does it happen that not a single poor man could become a Hindu avatar? Why only Rama, Krishna - the kings? Why does it happen that not a single poor man could become a Buddha - only Gautam Siddhartha, the prince? How does it happen?

All three religions were born in India, and they are the greatest! Not that a tirthankara is not born in a poor family, but you will not recognize him. Not that a buddha is not born in a beggar's house, but if he is, you will not recognize him. Your recognition can only be through the money he renounces.

Buddha is worthless - the money he renounces is the real thing. That attracts you, that hypnotizes you.

A man on the path of money cannot understand the man on the path of love - it is impossible, they never meet. You can worship, but you will worship for the wrong reasons, because you cannot understand. Your worship is going to be based on something wrong. What is the mechanism?

First try to understand why love becomes so impossible, because that is the root - why you cannot love. If you can love, then money will never be the attachment, can never be. Why can't you love?

From the very beginning, something goes wrong in the mind of a child so he can't love. One thing:

love is a spontaneous phenomenon, you cannot manipulate it. If you start manipulating it you will miss it. This is the trouble with spontaneous things. Spontaneous things are beautiful, the most beautiful, but you cannot manipulate them. If you manipulate they become artificial, something goes wrong.

When a child is born you start manipulating his love, you say, "I am your father, love me," as if love is a logical syllogism. "I am your father, therefore love me." "I am your mother, therefore love me." "He is your brother, therefore love him." And love knows no 'therefore', it is not a syllogism. We never wait for the child, so that love happens to him or her. We start manipulating, controlling, as if we are afraid that if he is left to his own spontaneity he may not love his mother - there is no necessity; he may not love his father - there is no inevitability. You cannot depend on it. He may, he may not.

So before the spontaneous happens, we start forcing the child. And the child has to yield, because he is helpless. He starts selling his love. Politics is born, he becomes a politician, he smiles, and deep down he is angry; he shows his love, and deep down there is no love - he hates the father.

Every son hates, that's why every society starts forcing the child to respect the father, to love the father. Because every culture is aware that the son will hate the father, so "Create the opposite before the hatred explodes." Every daughter, every girl hates her mother, so "Love the mother, she is your mother. Respect her." We are so afraid that we create the opposite just as a protection.

Why does a son hate his father? Not because he is bound to hate - there is a vicious circle. First, conflict is necessary, it is a natural part of growth. A child has to fight with his parents, otherwise he will never grow. And the fight starts the very first moment a child is born, the fight starts with birth.

The child wants to be born and the mother wants to hold, that's why there is so much pain.

Now physiologists say that the pain exists because of the conflict. The child wants to come out and the mother wants to hold him in - this is the conflict. That's why there is so much pain in birth.

Otherwise, in animals there is not much pain; in primitive societies there is no pain. Why does the birth become more painful, the more a woman is civilized? Because the more you are civilized, the more ego is there; a stronger ego is there.

The mother wants to hold the child in... an unconscious fear that the child is leaving her. And this will possess the whole life: that the child is leaving her. And the child has to leave, otherwise he will be dead in the womb. He has to kick the womb behind, go away from the womb - that is natural.

And once a mother understands it, there is no pain in birth; then she helps the child to move away.

And if you help the child to move away, he will never hate you. This is the problem: if you don't allow the child to move away, if you create barriers, because of those barriers he will hate you. And you are afraid of the hate, so you create the opposite. You force the child to love you and he is helpless, so he has to yield in his helplessness; not willingly - unwillingly. He has to yield. Hate remains deep down, and love becomes just a mask, a facade. The child is born and then every day he will move away from the mother. He has to, otherwise he will never be independent, he will never be his own self. He has to move, every day in every way, and the mother will not allow it: "Don't go beyond this boundary. Don't go outside the house. Don't go on the street. Don't play with that boy. Don't move."

The mother will create more and more boundaries. And the more boundaries that are created, the more the freedom is killed; the child suffers - hatred is born. Now what to do with this hatred? - the mother creates the opposite. But whenever you create the opposite, you have moved in the wrong direction.

This hatred has to be understood, accepted; not that the opposite has to be created. And you have to know that this is part of growth. The child has to move away, and you have to allow it more and more freedom. Of course you have to be very alert, because the child can harm himself.

So freedom should not become a chaos - and that is very delicate. But if you cut his whole freedom because the child may harm himself, then you are creating a hateful mind. And if a child starts hating his mother, he will not be able to love any woman ever, because the first woman has become associated with hatred. That's why you hate your wife - because in the beginning you hated your mother, and you will never be at ease with a woman. A woman will always create an unease; she will attract you and she will repel you also. She will become the focus of your love but the love will be superficial, because if you couldn't love your mother deeply, how can you love any other woman?

Impossible!

And behind every love, there will be a running current of hatred. Love becomes divided, the opposite is hidden there - then everything becomes poisonous. The child will move more and more, and one day he will fall in love with another woman. That is the last break. On that day, really, the child is born. The 'birthbreak' finished that day. It continues twenty years, twenty-five years; every day there is pain and conflict. Then the child as the final step falls in love with another woman - that is the breaking point. Now he has left the mother completely. Now another woman has entered. That's why mothers can never be at ease with daughters-in-law - impossible! That's why so many stories go around and around against the mother-in-law: they cannot be at ease. Impossible, because this is the enemy; this woman is the enemy, this man is the enemy, who has taken their child away completely.

There is a saying of Jesus - one of the most mysterious, impossible to reconcile with Jesus' mind, and very dangerous, and the wording is also dangerous. Jesus says to his disciples, "Unless you hate your father and mother, you cannot come to me." A man like Jesus, who says love is the path, who says God is love, who raises love to the highest possible peak and makes it equivalent to meditation, says, "Unless you hate your father and mother, you cannot come to me." He is right, because unless Jesus becomes your father and mother.... You cannot come to a master unless you leave your father and mother completely - that is your complete past, past associations, past relationships - completely, totally. How can you come to a Jesus, how can you come to a master...?

If you are still committed to the past, your present is burdened, your future is dark. You have to be uncommitted to the past, completely broken with the past, discontinued. Only then your present is light, and your future not a mechanical progression of the past.

Jesus is right: unless you hate your father and mother you can-not come to a master. That's why, whenever you go to a master, your father and mother are very disturbed - it has to be so. They are never so disturbed. You can go to a prostitute - they will not be so disturbed; you can become an alcoholic - they will not be so disturbed.

But going to a Buddha or a Jesus... to a master, they are abso-lutely disturbed. Something in the unconscious says, "Now this is the last break. Now, if this boy or this girl goes to a master, then 'father' and 'mother' are completely closed" - the fear! Even if a son moves with a woman, the mother can have some relationship, some sort of relationship. But if the son moves with a Jesus, then all relationship is broken; then there is no possibility; Jesus demands total surrender. No woman can demand it, no husband can demand it; only a master can demand total surrender, no holding back.

The child has to move, and when a child becomes enlightened, then he is completely broken, completely, absolutely broken with all the past, with the mother, the father - everything.

There is another saying which is also very mysterious, looks very hard on the part of Jesus. He was talking to a crowd and then somebody said, "Jesus, your mother is waiting outside, and the crowd is so large she cannot come in, and she wants to see you."

Jesus said, "No one is my mother. Tell that woman, no one is my mother" - looks very hard, rude.

But Jesus cannot be rude and he cannot be hard. But sometimes truth is rude, truth is hard. And Jesus cannot lie, he is right: "No one is my mother."

Once it happened: Jesus was a small child and the father and mother had come to the great temple of the Jews for the annual festival. Jesus was lost somewhere in the crowd, so they tried and tried, and only by the evening - when they were very much disturbed, worried - only by the evening could they find him. He was sitting with some scholars, and he was just a child, and he was discussing things about the unknown with them. So his father said, "Jesus, what are you doing here? We have been worried about you the whole day."

Jesus said, "Don't be worried about me. I was looking after my father's business."

The father said, "I am your father - and what type of business are you looking after here? I am a carpenter."

And Jesus said, "My father is there, up in heaven. You are not my father."

Just as a child has to leave the body of the mother, otherwise he will be dead in the womb - he has to come out of the womb - the same happens mentally also. One day he has to come out of the father and mother's womb. Not only physically - mentally; not only mentally - spiritually. And when the spiritual child is born, is completely out of the past, has broken with it completely - only then for the first time does he become a self, an independent reality, standing on his own feet. He is! Before this he was just a part of the mother, or the father, or the family - but he was never himself.

From the very beginning the mother and father are trying not to give freedom to the child. And love is born only in freedom, because it is a spontaneous phenomenon, you cannot do anything about it. If you do, you will destroy the whole possibility. They try: "Love us" - and the child has to yield, he is helpless. Just to exist he has to bargain. This is a bargain when a child says, "Yes, I love you mother," and when he says, "I love no one else like you." When a child says, "I love you, father, and there is nobody else like you. You are unique, the best, the greatest father that ever was," he is just making a bargain, he is just playing politics, he has become part of a deceiving game.

In the beginning he is not aware that love is a spontaneous phenomenon. You have to be free, waiting, prayerful, for it to come. You cannot do anything about it, it is a happening. Now this happening will not happen his whole life. He will always manipulate, he will always try to control it, he will always be artificial.

Have you ever observed? - whenever you are in love you become two, one part manipulating.

And deep down you always know you are manipulating; the man is trying to exploit the woman, the woman is trying to exploit the man. And once they are married - that is, once their love becomes a bond - the whole falsity by and by disappears. Then the authentic, the real person comes into being, and there is a clash. Then the whole love disappears, because that love was never there in the first place. Otherwise, how can love disappear?

Love is the most eternal thing in the world. The earth can disappear, the stars can disappear, the whole world can disappear - not love. Love is the eternal phenomenon, the most divine. How can it disappear so soon? The honeymoon is not even over and the love has disappeared; it was never there in the first place. You were just trying to fool the other and yourself also. How long can you fool yourself? And if you go on fooling yourself too long, it becomes such a burden, it becomes so heavy, that it becomes impossible to live. You cannot be an actor twenty-four hours a day. For a few minutes it is okay - on the beach, in the hills, it is very good; you can be romantic artificially.

For a few minutes it is okay. It is good, it is a game - but for twenty-four hours? If you have to be artificial for twenty-four hours it will become such a tense state of mind, it will create so much anxiety, because you will feel confined, imprisoned. And when you feel that you are confined, in prison, you feel the other person is responsible. Then you take revenge, you react; then whatsoever your wife says you are angry, whatsoever the husband says the wife is angry. Then silence becomes golden, the more you can keep quiet the better. But it happens because from the very beginning the real thing is not there.

Mulla Nasruddin was in love with a woman. The woman was very tall, and the woman lived far away, almost one mile from the tram terminus. So Nasruddin used to walk her to her home every evening.

One day, after just a few minutes' walk, Nasruddin said, "Give me a kiss." But she was so tall that Nasruddin needed a stool or something. So they looked around and saw a blacksmith's shop, abandoned. They found an anvil there, so he stood on the anvil, kissed the woman, and they started again towards home. After half a mile, Nasruddin said, "One more, darling."

The woman said, "No! I have given you one kiss and it is enough for tonight."

So Nasruddin said, "Then what is the use of carrying this damned anvil!" - he was carrying that anvil.

If you carry a burden, sooner or later... what is the use? If your love is just a means to something else and not the end, then it can be a game, but it cannot become a really meaningful existence.

Then you play.

Nasruddin presented a wedding ring to this woman, a diamond ring. She looked at it and said, "Beautiful, but there is one flaw in the diamond."

Nasruddin said, "Honey, have you not heard that love is blind?"

The woman said, "Yes, I have heard, and I know love is blind, but not stone-blind."

The cunningness! The manipulating mind! You can even play that you are blind, but how can you be blind really? You can play, but play cannot become life. And deep down you are not related to it, and then you start hating.

Love can only be spontaneous. There is no other way to it. Whatsoever Dale Carnegie says, there is no other way to it. Love can only be spontaneous, you cannot be trained for it. Trained, you will miss forever. One has just to wait, wait prayerfully. The child should be allowed freedom, so that some day love arises. But a very daring mother and a very daring father are needed.

This is why I always say that to be a mother is one of the most difficult things in the world. Anybody can give birth to a child, but to be a mother or to be a father, very few are qualified, rarely, because to be a mother means to give the child so much freedom, with much love, that the spontaneous love in the child arises.

The child must fall in love with the mother, he should not be forced. It may happen, it may not happen. That is why it is a very courageous act; it may not happen. Nobody knows. Nobody can predict it, it is not mechanical. If it happens, it will be beautiful with the mother; otherwise, the mother can go on praying that this will happen with some other woman - but don't force it. If you force it, the child has learned a trick, he has learned a gimmick. Now he will go on playing the gimmick again and again - with this woman and that, with this man and that, and the whole life will become a gimmickry; it will not be real, it will become artificial.

When love becomes artificial, money becomes important. This is to be understood. Why does money become important when love is artificial? Because love gives you an inner security. When you are in love you are safe - no other safety is needed. When you are in love you are absolutely secure - no other security is needed. Love is enough, nothing else is needed. You can be a beggar on the street, but if you are in love no emperor can compete with you in your security; even Solomon is a poor man before you.

If you are in love you are the richest. Nothing is in any way comparable to the riches of love. You may not have anything but you have all. A single moment of love and the whole life is fulfilled. When you are in love you are never afraid of death, because you have known a death - the death of love.

And it was so beautiful, it was so melodious, it was such a benediction, that now you can accept even the real death, the death of the body. You can accept it. Now there is no fear, because you have known that merging into one woman or one man was so beautiful - how much more beautiful will it not be when you merge with the whole of existence?

Death is a merger. If you know love, there is no fear in death. If you don't know love, then fear becomes the center of your life. How to protect yourself? So you make castles, then you make bank balances; these are just protections against death. And when you are afraid of death you are afraid to live, because to live is always dangerous. To live you have to move on unknown paths. And there is danger; on every corner death may be waiting.

A man who is afraid of death by and by shrinks and becomes afraid of life also. He cannot fly in an airplane, he cannot go in a train, because there are accidents. He cannot make a stranger a friend, because who knows...? He cannot fall in love with a woman, because who knows whether she is going to deceive or not? He cannot believe. If love has not happened, you can never be trusting.

You are always doubtful, skeptical. And how can a relationship grow when you are in doubt?

And if love has not happened, you can never reach a master. Even if a Buddha comes to your town, you will miss him. You will not go there, because these people are dangerous. They can hypnotize you and they may lead you astray. They may disturb your routine world where you are earning, accumulating, and where you are getting more successful every day: the factory is growing bigger and bigger, and the bank balance is accumulating, and everything is going so good. Why become disturbed by a new, foreign element? So don't allow in any element from the outside. Live in your prison, sheltered, secure.

If you know love you are not afraid of death. And when you are not afraid of death, then only do you become capable of living - because if a man is afraid of death, how can he live? He is even afraid of taking a breath because germs are there.

I know one poet. He is a great poet, but I have always been wondering how he can be a great poet - he cannot even be a man. He must know the tricks of language, he must be a grammarian. He must be playing tricks with words, but cannot be a great poet, because great poetry comes out of life - and he is so afraid. Once he traveled with me. His wife had told me, "Don't take him with you because he will create trouble" - and trouble started, because he would not take the tea at the hotel.

He said, "Who knows? Somebody may have poisoned it."

So I said, "Who is against a poet? Who is going to poison you? Nobody bothers about you." But he would not take it.

He said, "I will bring a stove and prepare tea." He would not take the food in the hotel, because who knows...? He was so afraid of everything. How can this man live? As if the only point is, not to die.

But life brings death, death is the culmination. If you don't want to die, don't live - that is the only way. There is no other way, because if you live you are moving towards death. Life brings death.

So the logical way is not to live. The less you live, the less the possibility of death. If you don't live completely, if you commit suicide, you will never be dead again, you have finished. There is no life, now you cannot die. So such a man becomes already a dead man. You will find these corpses moving in the markets, universities, working, doing things - but they are corpses.

Life needs expansion. Fear does not allow you, then security becomes the whole thing - how to be secure. How not to die becomes the whole art of life. And I tell you, the whole art of life is how to die joyfully, how to die blissfully, how to allow death - because if you are ready to die, you are ready to live. If you are ready to die, you are ready to love. If you are ready to die, you are ready to meet the divine. There is no other way, death is the door.

What do I mean when I say death is the door? You have to not be there, you have to dissolve, you have to lose yourself. What does security mean? Whatsoever happens, you have to be, you have to persist in your ego. That's why money is so meaningful, because money helps you not to live. A poor man has to live, a rich man need not.

I have heard about one very rich man: he would travel in his car... even from the porch to the room he would be carried on a stretcher. He had come to a new town, to a new hotel where he had never been, and when he was being carried in on the stretcher, the manager thought that he was paralyzed or something. So he asked his wife, "What is the matter?" - he felt very sorry - "Your husband looked quite okay. Is he paralyzed, or is something wrong with his legs?"

The wife said, "No. His legs are absolutely okay. But he need not walk - he is a rich man."

A rich man need not live, he can afford it! A poor man has to live. A poor man has to go on the street, move in danger, in crowds. A poor man cannot afford not to live. That is why a rich man, by and by, becomes encaged in his richness, isolated. Then he lives alone, then he cannot even allow his wife in the room. He may find an explanation: "We are not poor, so why should my wife and I live in one room? We are rich. We can afford two separate rooms" - but the real thing is something else.

Hitler never allowed anybody to live in his room because he was afraid. Who knows? - the wife may be a spy. He never got married. He got married only just before he committed suicide - three hours before, because then there was no fear. When death was certain he got married, never before - because a wife is a dangerous thing. Who knows? - she may be in association with some foreign power, or she may be a communist; in the night she may kill him.

He loved many women, but never allowed any woman to live with him, never allowed any woman to be in his room in the night. Just three hours before, when he had decided that now there was no way to escape - death is certain, the enemy is bombing Berlin - he called in a priest in the night.

The priest was awakened from his sleep; immediately he was brought to the underground cell where Hitler was, and Hitler told him, "Now perform the marriage ceremony." And when the ceremony was finished, they went into the room and both took poison and were dead.

What manner of man is this? But this manner of man you will find everywhere. When there is fear, nobody can be a friend. Then everybody is the enemy and you have to protect yourself. A rich man can protect himself more; that's why there is so much emphasis on money, so much madness! You cannot even understand what is happening. Why this neurosis about money?

Mulla Nasruddin was dying. He opened his eyes, he looked at his wife. His wife said, "We are here, Mulla. You go to the divine silently, in peace and prayer. We are all here."

Mulla Nasruddin looked at the faces - his eyes were dim, he was almost gone, it was difficult to see.

He asked, "Where is Rehman?" - his eldest son.

His wife said, "He is standing by your right side."

Then he asked, "Where is Rahim?" - another son.

And his wife said, "He is there, standing by your feet."

"And where is Abdul, and where is Farid?" he asked.

All were there, so his wife said, "You rest, we are all here."

Nasruddin immediately became worried and said, "Then who is minding the store? If everybody is here then who is minding the store?" And he was on his deathbed; just a moment later he died.

No, neither life is meaningful nor death... the store, "Who is minding the store?" Even at the last moment, no temple is there in the mind - just the store, the market, the money.

Why is money so important? It is your protection against love, against life, against death, against God. Hence, Mahavira and Buddha renounced it. The renouncement is simply coming to understand that this whole arrangement is against life, against love, against God. They simply renounce! It is not because of money that they are renouncing it, but just because they have come to understand that through this protection they have been killing themselves, this was poison. So they simply escaped from the palaces.

Then a new life starts when you understand that money is neurosis. Security, the hankering after security and safety, shows that you are already dead, that life has left you. Continuous effort to be secure means you have not yet been able to love; otherwise, love is enough security, no other security is needed. One moment of love is eternity - no fear of death, a lover can die easily, lovingly.

He has known life, he is thankful. Even for a single moment love happened... he has known the glory of it, the benediction, all blessings have been on him. He can thank God for this single moment that has been given to him - and he was not worthy.

Who is worthy? Nobody is worthy. Have you ever thought about it - that you are alive? Are you worthy to be alive? How have you earned it? You have known the flowers and the trees and the birds on the wing and the sun rising, so many mornings, so many evenings, and the stars. How have you earned to be alive? It is simple grace. You are not worthy, you have not earned it in any way. It is simply God's grace that you are.

But when somebody comes to know a single moment of love, this whole life becomes nothing. Then all the birds that you have seen, and all the songs that you have heard, and all the musicians of the world - nothing! Then all this greenery of the trees is nothing. Then there is no radiance in the sun and there is no music in the stars. If you have known a single moment of love, then this whole world is just dim and a shadow; it is just a reflection, not the real.

If you have known a single moment of love, for eternity and eternity you will be thankful and singing songs of gratitude to the divine. Then there is no death - love knows no death, love knows only life. You know only death. Love... you have bypassed it, somehow you have not been through it; you have bypassed it, and now money has become significant. Money is symbolic of a dead man, money is the love of a dead man.

So look at a miser. It is not simply money when he takes notes in his hands. I have seen one miser - so much romance in his eyes when he would look at the notes; never so lovingly has a lover looked all over the beloved. He would feel and touch... and look at his eyes! The radiance that came to his eyes, the poetry that took over his being. He became a completely transformed man. No, Majnu was not so happy when he looked at Laila. No, Shiri was not so happy when she looked at Farhad.

This man was a relative, so I had many chances to see him and understand him. He was the perfect man of money, a buddha on that path. He never got married; he would always say, "It is so expensive and I cannot afford it. Some day I will get married." He is now dead. He never got married - he remained a bachelor. But he would rationalize it; he would say, "This is brahmacharya"; he would say, "This is celibacy. In the scriptures, in the Vedas, the life of a celibate is the highest life." But he was simply a miser, even a miser about semen. That was his celibacy - he was not a brahmachari.

So when you find celibates, ninety-nine out of a hundred will just be misers about semen. They are afraid to let go: if the semen goes out of their body, their bank balances.... Their brahmacharya is a sort of constipation. They stink! You can never have any fragrance coming out of them. They are misers - but they rationalize. And they always live through reason, never through the heart - because heart is a dangerous thing.

Reason always grabs things and the heart always wants to give. The heart is the giver and the heart is never a miser, so a miser can never believe the heart. By and by he will kill the heart, he becomes just the head. There is no feeling in him - feeling is dangerous. He doesn't feel, he becomes insensitive. He doesn't allow any sensitivity in his being, because a beggar comes and he asks...

if you have feeling, it will be difficult to say no. But if you have only the head, you will rationalize and you will say, "I don't believe in beggary; this is bad for the economy, this is not good for the culture - and you look perfectly healthy, so go and work." You will rationalize, and these reasons you also know are just superficial; deep down you don't want to give - that is the basis. But you cannot accept the fact that you are not a giver.

You live in words, reasons, rationalizations, and go on hiding the basic fact that you are killing your feeling. If you are on the path of money - and almost everybody is, more or less - then see the whole phenomenon of what is happening within you; you are killing yourself. And life cannot be prevented from moving, life will reach up to death. You cannot withhold it, it is not in your control. It has to go - as it has come, it has to go. Before it leaves you, you can only create anxiety, that is all.

If you accept the ebb and flow of life, the birth and death of life; if you accept, you need not create any anxiety. You can love. While dying is there, love. And allow love to happen. Don't try for security and don't be afraid of death. Death will come. Give a chance to life to flower. If life really flowers, death will be the culmination, not the end. It will be the climax, the crescendo. It will be the highest peak, the Everest, not the end.

And at the moment of death, a man who has lived rightly, through love - and that is the only right way to live - for him death comes as the most beautiful ecstasy. He dies with a song in the heart.

He dies with ecstasy all over the body, throbbing. He is going to meet the divine beloved. He has learned how to love and how to give. So in the moment of death also he can give. He gives his whole being back to nature; the body, the air goes to the air, the fire goes to the fire, the earth goes to the earth, the sky goes to the sky. He gives, he is a giver, and the being goes to the source, to the brahma; he does not cling.

But you cannot do it if you have been a clinger your whole life. At the moment of death, if you cling everything becomes ugly. If you have been clinging and clinging and clinging, and always afraid and in fear and have never allowed love, then at the moment of death you will miss the highest peak that is possible, that was possible. These are the two paths; one is right, the other is wrong.

Now we will try to go into this story. You will be able to understand - but understand through the heart:

THE MASTER SEISTSU REQUIRED LARGER PREMISES AS THE BUILDING HE WAS TEACHING IN WAS VERY OVERCROWDED - he must have been in the same situation as I am.

UMEZU, A MERCHANT... he has not yet come to me... UMEZU, A MERCHANT, DECIDED TO DONATE FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW BUILDING - five hundred pieces of gold is real money.

UMEZU TOOK THE MONEY TO THE TEACHER AND SEISTSU SAID, "ALL RIGHT, I WILL TAKE IT" - but this is no way, from a miser.

The man must have been a miser, otherwise how can you accumulate five hundred pieces of gold?

And this was not all; this must have been just a small part, a hundredth part of his accumulations.

But why, if he is a miser, has he come to give to this master? Looks contradictory: if he is a miser and a man of money, he should not go. But I know the reason - that too is part of fear, that too is making security in the other world.

He must have been nearing death, he must have become an old man. And people of money are always old, they are never young - because death is always near and they are trembling. He must have been feeling any day death can come; he has to make arrangements for the other world also.

He must have had millions of gold pieces. Just five hundred pieces... this is just to be safe: "Give it to this master; people say he is enlightened. Give these five hundred pieces to this man, he will take care of the other world, he may give a certificate. People say that he is on good terms with God, his name is in the good books; he will be helpful somehow."

It is groping in the dark. A man who has missed life is thinking of some other life. Remember, only people who have missed this life think of that. And if you can miss this you will miss that also, because you will remain the same. Even if you are forced to enter into heaven, you will make a hell out of it, because you will take your habits, your mechanism of the mind, your working - your whole past you will take with you. You will make a hell out of it.

Can you be in heaven? I don't see any way; you cannot be. Wherever you go you will carry your hell with you. It is a part of you. So those who know say that hell and heaven are not without - they are within you, they are qualities of your being. On this earth people have lived in heaven; on this earth you are in hell. Remember well, wherever you go you will provide your own hell there. Immediately you reach there you will create your hell all around. You cannot do anything new. The mind is old, it goes on in a pattern, moving in a circle.

This Umezu must have been a miser. But now death is coming near and he must think of the other world also. This world he has lost, now the other cannot be lost. Something has to be done, but that too has to be done through money. See the mind: he thought that through money life can be purchased, now he thinks through money God can be purchased. He thought through money love can be purchased. Now he thinks that through money heaven can be purchased. But his mind remains focused in the neurosis of money. He is still mad, money still remains the means. Anything that he is going to do is to be done through money.

That's why the master behaved in such a way. He said, "All right, I will take it," as if it was nothing.

That is the meaning of it; as if it was nothing, five hundred pieces of gold - just dirt.

The master said, "ALL RIGHT, I WILL TAKE IT," as if it is a burden and he was obliging this Umezu.

Always remember that if you go to a master with money, this is going to be the treatment. It is very easy to understand in the story. It is very difficult when the treatment is given to you.

Just a few days ago somebody phoned; he used to give some money for the ashram. Then he said, "Now I will stop, because there seems to be no gratefulness about it. I am not even allowed a special interview with Osho so I am not going to give it." He is here, he should try to understand this story well, because it is easier to understand a story when you are not part of it. It is very easy. But when you are part of it, then it becomes very difficult. Five hundred pieces of gold that man should bring to me, right? And then I will tell him, "ALL RIGHT, I WILL TAKE IT!"

UMEZU GAVE THE SACK OF GOLD TO SEISTSU, BUT HE WAS VERY DISSATISFIED WITH THE ATTITUDE OF THE TEACHER AS THE AMOUNT HE HAD GIVEN WAS VERY GREAT - ONE COULD LIVE FOR A WHOLE YEAR ON THREE PIECES OF GOLD, AND THE TEACHER HAD NOT EVEN THANKED HIM.

Look at the mind, the mind which is neurotic about money. What he is saying? He is saying, "This sack of gold I have given - a man can live on three pieces of gold for one year." He thinks life is through money. Money may be needed, but nobody can live through money. Money may be necessary; it is not enough. And if there is only money and nothing else, it is better you die, the sooner the better. Because you are living unnecessarily, you are just passing the days - it is not life.

Jesus is reported to have said: "Man cannot live by bread alone." He also knows that bread is needed - nobody can live without bread, that's right. But there is a higher dimension of life where nobody can live by bread alone. If there is only bread, commit suicide! - because eating the same bread again and again is useless.

But the man who lives through money thinks that a man can live for a whole year on three pieces of gold, and these are five hundred pieces - a man can live forever and forever! Eternal life is possible through five hundred pieces of gold. And what type of man is this? - he has not even thanked me.

He was very dissatisfied.

Whenever you give with a condition you will always be dissatisfied, because the condition cannot be fulfilled. Whenever you give without a condition you will feel a deep contentment, because there is no reason to be dissatisfied. Whenever you give and enjoy it, whenever giving is an end unto itself...

this man would have been dancing because the master had accepted - enough! He should have thanked the master that, "I was worried whether you are going to accept it or not. Because I know you well: this is just dirt for you and you have accepted. You are so kind, your compassion is so deep." He would have danced and thanked him. He would have gone deeply happy and blissful. But no, it was not possible because it was not the end, it was a means. He wanted the master to be obliged to him.

If this man reaches to God, he will give him a sack of gold and wait for the thank you. What can you give to God who has given all to you? And a master is nothing but a representative of the divine, of the same quality. That is why we call Mahavira 'Bhagwan', why we call Buddha 'Bhagwan' - because of that same quality. What can you give to him? All comes to you through him. At the most you are returning back... at the most. You should be thankful that you have been accepted.

But a money-mad man cannot understand this. He wanted the master to be obliged because he had done this, and this is so much. For him it was so much. As far as his attitude was concerned, it was such a great amount - five hundred pieces of gold; one man can live for one year on three pieces - because mind thinks in relativity. It does not know anything of the absolute. It knows only of relativity. It is his mind!

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin died and went immediately, or was sent immediately, to hell. There he reached Satan who had been waiting for him for a long time - he was a man long awaited there.

Satan received him, welcomed him, and Mulla Nasruddin said to the devil, "Boy, am I happy being here in heaven."

The devil said, "Nasruddin, you are mistaken. This is no heaven."

Nasruddin said, "That may be your attitude. I am coming from India - to me it looks like heaven."

Mind is relative. Five hundred pieces of gold! He was giving his very life; his very heart was there in that sack of gold. Those five hundred pieces were not of gold, they were of his heart. He has sold his life and bargained for this gold. He had died for this sack of gold - and not even a thank you. It was too much. The master is not behaving rightly; he was dissatisfied.

If you think about any master, you will always come to the conclusion that he is not behaving rightly.

Remember this: if you think - I repeat - then you will always come to the conclusion that he is not behaving rightly. If you look, not think, then you will know that he is always behaving rightly.

He thought, calculated. It was so plain to him; five hundred pieces of gold - his whole life in that sack. And this man simply says, "ALL RIGHT, I WILL TAKE IT."

"IN THAT SACK THERE ARE FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD," HINTED UMEZU.

He thought, "Maybe he has missed. Maybe he is in meditation or somewhere else, because how can it happen that five hundred pieces of gold and all he says is, 'All right, I will take it'? He is not in his senses." So he hinted.

"IN THAT SACK THERE ARE FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD," HINTED UMEZU.

"YOU TOLD ME THAT BEFORE," SAID THE MASTER.

He said, "It is unnecessary, why repeat it? I have heard it."

This was even worse, no thank you coming from the man. Rather, he would not even take the hint, and he felt a little angry it seems, because he said, "You have told me that before. No need...."

"EVEN IF I AM A WEALTHY MERCHANT, FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD IS A LOT OF MONEY," SAID UMEZU.

This is the problem of the mind. He says, "EVEN IF I AM A WEALTHY MERCHANT... I have enough money with me, but even then... FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD IS A LOT OF MONEY. So to you, just a beggar, it is the whole world. To me it is a lot of money, and you are treating it as if it is nothing. You are insulting me."

A man who is focused on money cannot understand a man of love. The man of love will always appear like a beggar, a madman, not of this world - he doesn't understand. He is behaving in a crazy way. Howsoever you may worship Buddha and Mahavira, if you meet them somehow, somewhere, you will think they are mad. Even if you don't say it, because it will be so impolite... but you understand well that this man has wasted his life sitting under a tree. He could have earned a lot of money - this was said to Buddha many times.

Buddha left his home and went to another kingdom, just to get rid of the relatives and the family, because they would bother him there and they would go on coming, trying to persuade him to come back. So he left the kingdom and went to another kingdom, then he became aware that those people are everywhere - you cannot escape.

There was a rumor that a prince had left a neighboring kingdom and had come there. So even the king of the neighboring kingdom came, and he said, "My son, you are young and you don't know the ways of the world. You are immature, I am experienced. I say to you through my experience, go back to your home. This is foolish. At this age such foolish ideas catch hold of the mind. One has to resist. At this age, when one is young, one is prone to, tends to be idealistic. But later on experience proves it is wrong. Don't be a hippy, go back!"

Buddha listened and he said, "You may be right as far as your own experience is concerned, but I have lived in that world for many lives, and nothing, nothing was ever attained. Now it is enough. It is through experience that I have left, not through some romantic idealism of a young man."

The old man would not listen. He said, "If you don't want to go back, I understand - there may be some trouble. You may not be feeling good with your father, or with your family, or something has gone wrong. Then don't go back, come to me. I have got a beautiful daughter; get married to her and this kingdom is yours."

Buddha said, "I am married and I have left a very beautiful woman. It is impossible to find another like her. But even that beautiful woman will not give me the ultimate - and I am in search of the ultimate."

The old king left, he said, "You are mad, incurably mad."

This happened wherever Buddha would go. And he was so young and so beautiful... he had never walked on the streets. Wherever he would go, anybody would know that he was a prince, he was not a beggar - and then everybody would give him advice to go back.

Mind lives through its own ideas, thinks through its own ideas. You cannot put the mind aside and then look. This old man who came to Buddha missed an opportunity. It may not happen again for millions of lives. But he was teaching the greatest teacher, he was trying to teach him something; he wanted that Buddha should learn something from him. And he has not gained anything himself, he has not reached anywhere.

This man says, "IN THAT SACK THERE ARE FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD. EVEN IF I AM A WEALTHY MERCHANT, FIVE HUNDRED PIECES OF GOLD IS A LOT OF MONEY" - and you are just a beggar; it is not said, it is implied. "You should know the meaning of it, what I am doing.

Such a great donation and you simply say, 'Okay, I will take it.'"

"DO YOU WANT ME TO THANK YOU FOR IT?" said the master - because masters never answer what you ask. They answer what you mean to ask. They never answer your question, because that is irrelevant. They always answer what is hidden behind the question - why you are hinting at these things.

You are not interested in proving that gold is significant, you are not interested in proving that five hundred pieces of gold is a large sum - those are just rationalizations. You are hinting at something else. The master caught him immediately, and said "DO YOU WANT ME TO THANK YOU FOR IT?"

- he hit the nail, he hit right at the heart.

"YOU OUGHT TO," SAID UMEZU. Not that, "I expect and want," but "YOU OUGHT TO."

This man is not a giver, he has never been a giver. Even when he is giving, he is not giving. Even when he is donating, it is a bargain. He says, "YOU OUGHT TO. I have done such a great thing, now this is your duty, not my desire or my request."

"WHY SHOULD I?" SAID SEISTSU. "THE GIVER SHOULD BE THANKFUL."

This is impossible to understand for the mind, for the moneyoriented mind; the giver should be the thankful one. But this is the peak on the path of love.

Those who love, they come to know that the giving is so beautiful and so blissful; they come to know that the more you give, the more you have of it - the more love you give, the more love you have there inside; the more you go on throwing, sharing, the more it bubbles up - it is an eternal spring.

And once you come to know that the more you give, the more you have, you have learned the basic arithmetic of spirituality. Then you never hold back, then you are always in search of someone who can take it. Then you are always in search of someone who can share it, because he will make you fresh. The old is gone, the new arises; it is always coming there.

You are like a well which has gone rotten, because you have not given anybody anything. You have never shared your water; the water has become rotten. Give it! Let people come and let them drink out of you, and then fresh sources are always available. The moment the old water is removed, fresh is coming in. Your well is joined to the infinite ocean deep down. Your well is just a door to the ocean. The giver comes to know, the sharer comes to know, then he feels thankful. Whenever somebody takes something from you, something new has come into being in you. Your being is renewed through it. You are being made young again and again, the more you give. The giver remains always young. The non-giver is always old, dead, rotten.

The master says, "THE GIVER SHOULD BE THANKFUL. You should be thankful to me that I accept - and that I accept a thing like money. You should be thankful, because money means nothing to me." It may be necessary in the world, because a master has also to live in the world; it may be the means of exchange in this mad world, because a master has to live in this mad world - but it is nothing. It is just an invented means, agreed upon by all, so that we can exchange things.

The society can live without money; for thousands of years society lived without money. And sooner or later a day will come when society will again live without money, because living through money is so burdensome and so useless and so unnecessary. But because the world was poor up to now, that's why money has had to be used; but the more affluence grows....

America will be the first to drop money. When there is enough money, there is no need to carry it - why carry it? Then it is foolish, then it is burdensome. Soon the earth will not need money. But masters have always known it, always, that this is just a market device; but a master has to live with you.

If you go to a madhouse, it is better to pretend that you are also mad, otherwise you will be in difficulty. If you try to prove that you are a sane man, the madmen will kill you. They did this with Jesus, they did this with Socrates, they did this with Mansoor. These were very innocent people.

They tried to live in a madhouse as they were - not mad. They were innocent, but they did not know that the rule of the madhouse is: even if you are not mad, pretend that you are mad, because madness is the coin prevalent there, it is the currency there. Don't be an outsider in a madhouse, otherwise madmen will collect together and kill you. If you say that you are not mad, that means you are trying to say to them that, "You are mad!" - that cannot be tolerated.

An enlightened person also has to live in this world with you. He has to use your techniques, your tricks.

It happened once: it was found in Japan that one enlightened man was always caught - sometimes stealing, sometimes something else, a criminal act, small things. He would steal just a small amount of money, and then he was to be sent to the jail - and he was an enlightened man! Twenty-six times in his whole life he was jailed, but those who were his disciples, they knew him. The last time he came out of jail he was seventy-eight, and the disciples said, "Now don't do such a thing... and why do you go on doing such things?"

He said, "Then who will go inside the jail and try to make those jailors meditative, those jailbirds?

Who will go there? I have to steal, that is the only way to reach those people. And it is nothing to me. I have been helping and there is real disease. I am needed there. But that is the only way I can get in, otherwise they won't allow me. That is the only currency that is required." An enlightened man has to live with you jailbirds!

But if you are ready to understand the neurosis of money and the ecstasy of love, then you will be able to understand this: the giver should be thankful. Give and be thankful - because the other could have refused. That possibility does not exist for this miser. He cannot conceive of anybody refusing five hundred pieces of gold. He does not know he could have been refused. The master may have thrown the sack out of the temple and said, "Don't bring this rubbish here."

It happened: One man came - he also came with five hundred pieces of gold. These misers also have their mathematics; five hundred seems to be the highest, the limit; they cannot go beyond it - he came to Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was even more dangerous. He not only said, "All right, I will take it," he behaved even more rudely. He said, "So okay, go to the Ganges and throw it all in."

The man could not do anything, because Ramakrishna has said so - he became afraid. It was impossible for him to go to the Ganges and throw in five hundred pieces of gold. But when Ramakrishna says.... Still he hesitated. Ramakrishna said, "Why are you hesitating? Haven't you given the money to me? Then it is my money. Just go and throw it into the Ganges, because right now I don't need it, and the Ganges needs it."

So the man went, very slowly of course, and he didn't come back. One hour passed, two hours passed, and Ramakrishna sent some disciples to see what had happened to that man. Had he drowned himself and saved the money? Misers are doing that. So the disciples went to see what he was doing. There was a big crowd, he had made it into a great show. He would bring one gold coin, throw it on a stone - khannnng! The sound! And many people were there. Then he would count:

"One hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and three..." and then throw it into the Ganges.

So the disciples reported: "That man is a perfect exhibitionist. He has gathered a big crowd and he is throwing each single coin, counting, and doing the whole thing very slowly."

So Ramakrishna went, slapped that man and told him, "When one accumulates, counting is needed, but when one renounces.... What are you doing? When one has to throw the coins, one can throw the whole bag!"

But people renounce and still count - they have not renounced.

Givers should be thankful; give and be thankful. If you can follow this rule the old pail will fall down, the water will flow out. The whole maya, illusion, disappears. No water, no moon. Then you can look at the sky, at the real moon. It is always there, but you are caught in the reflection.

Love is the real moon; money is the reflection.

Enough for today.