A Child on the Seashore of Time

The first question:

Question 1

TO be frank with you - which usually I am not - I don't know who I am. Knowledge is not possible here where I am. Only the knower is left, the known has disappeared; only the container is left, the content is no more.

For knowledge to exist, a great division is needed in reality - the knower and the known.

Between the two, knowledge happens. The known is a must for knowledge to happen.

The space I am in is absolutely undivided and indivisible. Knowledge is not possible. So, to be exact, I don't know.

And I would like you also to come to this innoCent ignorance, to this state of not- knowing. Because the state of not-knowing is the highest state of knowing; not of knowledge, mind you, of knowing. And this knowing is content-less - it is not that you know something, there is nothing to know. You simply are. I am, but I don't know who I am. All identities have disappeared - just a tremendous emptiness is left behind.

I call it emptiness because you are full of identities - otherwise it is an absolute presence, not an absence. It is the presence of something which by its very nature is a mystery and cannot be reduced to knowledge.

So I don't know who I am, but I am tremendously content in this not-knowing. And whosoever has come to this door of not-knowing has laughed at all knowledge and the stupidity that goes on in the name of knowledge. Knowledge is mediocre. To be in the state of not-knowing is intelligence, it is awareness - and it is non-ccumulative. Each moment that which happens disappears, it leaves no trace behind, no existential trace.

One comes out of it again pure, again innocent, again like a child.

So I am a child on the seashore of time, collecting seashells, coloured stones. But I am tremendously fulfilled. I know not who I am because I am not. When I say 'I am not' I mean that that 'I' no longer has any relevance. I use the word - obviously I have to use it and there is nothing in the word to be against - but it is no longer relevant to my inner world. It is still of use with you but when I am alone I am not. When I am with you, then this word 'I' has to be used as a communicative device. But when I am alone I am not.

Aloneness is there, amness is there, but the 'I' is not. So who should know, and whom?

First I told you that the content had disappeared, now I would like to tell you - because the more you get ready and receptive, the more I can tell you - that the container has also disappeared. The container is meaningful only with the content - without the content what is the meaning of the container? The content and the container are both not there.

Something is, tremendously is, absolutely is, but there is no name to it In love you call this space Bhagwan and in deep respect I also call it Bhagwan.

Just the other night I was reading a letter in 'Current'. The letter-writer asked me who appointed me as Bhagwan. Now, Bhagwan cannot be appointed. If somebody appoints somebody as Bhagwan then the appointer will be the Bhagwan, not the appointed. It is a recognition, it is a realisation. Bhagwan simply means that all that we call wordly is no longer there - that's all. The desire to possess, to be possessed, the desire to accumulate, the desire to cling, the desire to be, the libido, the lust for life, has disappeared. When the smoke of the desire disappears and only the flame remains in its purity, who is going to appoint? Who is there to appoint? It is not an appointment. Or, if you love the word very much, then I will say, 'It is a self-appointment.' But that too is not very meaningful. It is a declaration.

The letter-writer wants me to say who. Nobody can decide who I am. This is my declaration. Only I know what has happened within me; nobody else can know it. Unless you also come to that state of divine being - the state is hiding behind you; any moment you become courageous enough to enter it, you can - then only will you recognise me, not before it.

I also call this space, in tremendous respect, Bhagwan. The word 'Bhagwan' is very beautiful. The English word 'God' is not as beautiful. 'Bhagwan' simply means: the blessed one. That's all. The blessed one.And I declare myself to be the blessed one. And I declare it only so that you can also gain heart and you can also strive for it; so that my presence can become a dream in you; so that my presence can invoke a journey in you; so that my presence can create a fire in you - a fire that will burn you and through which you are going to be reborn true. A fire that is going to destroy you, annihilate you utterly, and yet out of it you will come absolutely new, with no identity, with no name, with no form.

I have declared myself Bhagwan because I would like you also to come to this recognition. You have forgotten the language. Somebody must exist in front of you as a reality, not as a concept, not as someone in the scriptures. Krishna exists in the Gita, Christ exists in the Bible - they may have been, they may not have been, nobody can be certain.

I am just here, confronting you. If you are courageous enough to open towards me, suddenly a sprout will start coming into being in your seed; you will start growing in an unknown dimension. To make that dimension available to you I declare myself Bhagwan.

This is nobody else's business.

But I can declare myself Bhagwan only because I am not. Only one who is not can call himself the blessed one.

If YOU are, you remain miserable, your very being is your misery. Hell is not somewhere else - hell is the confined state, hell is the miserable state when you live with the 'I'. To live with the ego is to live with hell.

You ask me, WHAT TYPE OF PLAY ARE YOU PLAYING WITH US? Certainly, it is a play. I am not serious. And if you are serious, there is not going to be any meeting with you.-Seriousness does not cross my path at all. I am absolutely non-serious. This is a play. And I would like to call this play 'the mad game'.

The word 'mad' I have coined so: 'm' stands for the master and 'd' stands for the disciple.

The master-and-disciple game! It is a mad game! I am an expert in being a Master. If you are also ready to become a disciple, here we go!

And it is none of anybody else's business. It is a game between me and you. If you decide to be a disciple, as I have decided to be a Master, then we can play the game. And those who have decided to be disciples are enjoying it tremendously!

Once you decide to be a disciple, you enter into another world - a totally different world of the heart, of love, of trust. Then it is a play. You are not serious but still you are very sincere. Never misunderstand seriousness for sincerity. Sincerity is very playful, never serious. It is true, authentic, but never serious. Sincerity does not have a long face, it is bubbling with joy, radiating with an inner joyousness.

Rojoice that I am here! If you decide to be a disciple, then only can you understand what I am doing here, then only can you understand this mad game, this madly mad game. It is a play; in fact, it is the ultimate game in life. You have played many other games, this is the last. You have played being a lover, being a friend; being a father, being a husband, being a wife, mother, brother, being rich, being poor, being a leader, being a follower - you have played all the games. And only those who have played all the games can play this game, because they will be mature enough to play it.

This is the last game. After this game, games stop, game-playing stops. Once you have played the game rightly - the Master-disciple game - by and by you come to a point where all playing disappears. Only you are left - neither the Master nor the disciple exists there. This is just a device.

Between the Master and the disciple - if the rule of the game is followed rightly - devotion arises. That is the fragrance, the river that flows between the two banks of the Master and the disciple. That's why it is so difficult for the outsider to understand. But I am not interested at all in the outsider understanding it, it is a very esoteric game. It is only for the insiders, it is only for mad people. That is why I not interested even in answering people who are not insiders, because they will not understand. They do not have that attitude of being in which understanding becomes possible.

Just see. If two chess-players are playing and you don't know what chess is, and you start asking questions, they will simply say, 'Shut up! First you go and learn the game. It is a complicated game.'

And chess is nothing when you start playing THIS mad game! Your whole life - your emotions, your feelings, your intellect, body, mind, soul, everything - is involved, is at stake. It is the last gamble.

So only those who are insiders can understand; outsiders will always feel uncomfortable about it. They don't know the language.

I am not here to play the game of a priest; I am not here to play the game of a prophet. In fact, the prophet is nothing but the politician in disguise. The language of the prophet is the language of the politician - of course, in the name of religion. The prophet is revolutionary; he wants to change the world, the whole world, to his heart's desire. I have no plans for changing the world. It is perfectly good as it is and it is going to remain as it is. All the prophets have failed. That game is doomed to be a failure.

I am not a priest because I don't belong to any religion; I simply belong to religion as such. I am not a Jew, I am not a Hindu, I am not a Mohammedan, I am not a Jaina - I don't belong to any religion. So I am not a priest, I am not a preacher. I simply love pure religion.

Let me tell you an anecdote.

Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg had scrimped and saved to put their eldest son through college. At last they had the money and decided to send him to a fine, highbrow Eastern boarding school. They saw him off on the train and tearfully bade him farewell.

A few months later he returned home for the Christmas holidays. The parents were overjoyed to have their son, Sammy, back with them. The mother greeted him with, 'Samelah! Oh, it's so good to see you.' 'Mother,' replied the son, 'stop calling me Samelah. After all, I'm a grown man now, and I do wish you would refer to me as Samuel.'

She apologised and asked, 'I hope you only ate Kosher foods while you were away.'

'Mother, we are living in a modern age, and it's preposterous to hang onto the old world traditions. I indulged in all types of food, and believe me, you would be better off if you did too.' 'Well, tell me, did you at least go to the synagogue to offer a prayer of thanks occasionally?'

The son replied, 'Really, do you honestly feel that going to a synagogue when you're associating with a large percentage of non-Jews is the proper thing to do? Honestly, Mother, it's unfair to ask it of me, really.'

At this point Mrs. Goldberg, fighting back anger, looked at her eldest son and said, 'Tell me, Samuel, are you still circumcised?'

I am not interested in whether you are circumcised or not. I am not interested in whether you are a Jew, a Hindu, a Christian or a Mohammedan. To me that sort of thing is sheer stupidity. I am not teaching you any religion. My whole effort, or my whole play here, is to make you aware of the reality as it is; to make you aware of the fact, not to give you any fantasy about it; to make you aware of the truth, not to give you any theory about it. I am not a theoretician, I am not a theologist. In fact, theology has killed God, and so many religions have created such confusion in the minds of people that, rather than helping, they have been harmful and poisonous. Rather than helping people to be religious, they have created great politics in the name of religion - great violence, conflict, hatred has been 'created in the name of religion.

To me, religion simply means a dimension of love. I am here to show you the beauty of life, the grandeur that surrounds you. From that very grandeur you will have your first glimpses of God.

I am here to seduce you into a love of life; to help you to become a little more poetic; to help you die to the mundane and to the ordinary so that the extraordinary explodes in your life. But this is possible only if you decide to become a disciple.

Sannyas is a great agreement, a covenant. When I initiate you into sannyas, I am initiating you into the world of my play. And if you are ready to go with me, great doors are waiting to be opened fo r you. But those doors are not of the mosque, of the church?

of the gurudwara, of the temple - those doors are of life itself. Life is the only shrine of God and to be playful about it is the only prayer.

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT TYPE OF PLAY ARE YOU PLAYING WITH US?

AND HOW LONG WILL YOU PLAY? It is not a question of time. If you decide to be a disciple, it can go on and on - in the body and out of the body, with the mind, without the mind, in life and in death, within life and beyond life. This game is an eternal game, that's why I call it the ultimate game. Those who decided to play with Christ, they are still playing; on new planes, in new plenitudes it continues. Those who decided to play with Buddha are still playing. The game is so beautiful. so eternal, who wants to stop it?

I may not be here in the body but that will be a loss only to those who are not close to me, that will be a loss only to those who were not courageous enough to be with me. When I have gone out of the body it is not going to be a loss to you if you have really been a disciple. The game will continue. I Will remain available, you will remain available. It is a question of the heart, it is a question of consciousness. And consciousness knows no time; consciousness is beyond time, consciousness is timelessness.

So the question is meaningful from some outsider - but then I will not answer it. The question is meaningless from an insider - and only then can I answer it. If you are an insider you know that there is a beginning to this play but no end to it. You have entered into something which is going to last forever.

OSHO PLEASE EXPLAIN. A game has to be played, not to be explained. If you explain it, it loses all charm. Come, be a partner. Get involved in it.

There are a few things which cannot be explained - in the very explanation they die. For example, a joke cannot be explained. That's the beauty of a joke: either you understand it or you don't understand it. If you ask, 'Please explain,' it cannot be explained. If somebody explains it and it becomes completely clear to you, no laughter will come out of it. Because it is when the joke suddenly dawns on your being that there is laughter; when there is a jump, a quantum leap, then there is laughter. You were going along on one plane, the story was moving along on one plane, then suddenly an unexpected turn which you could not have imagined, happened. That very turn - which you could not have imagined happening - gives it beauty. That very turn shocks you. That very turn releases the tension that was building up. You were going along in suspense - 'What is going to happen? What is going to happen?' - and everything was just ordinary and then, suddenly, there is an extraordinary turn to the story. The punch-line has to be a sudden turn. Then the built-up tension relaxes and you start laughing. The tension is released, explodes. But if somebody explains to you, dissects the Joke logically, explains everything to you and then you understand it - then the joke disappears. The joke has to be enjoyed, not understood.

This whole world is a cosmic joke. If you try to understand it you will miss...that is how philosophers have always been missing. They have been trying to solve it, they have been trying to look for clues. It has no clues. It is a sheer mystery. It has no keys and no locks.

It is available if you are available. But a mind which wants to understand it becomes tense and becomes unavailable.

Don't try to understand life. Live it! Don't try to understand love. Move into love. Then you will know - and that knowing will come out of your experiencing. That knowing will never destroy the mystery: the more you know, the more you know that much remains to be known. Life is not a problem. To look at it as a problem is to take a wrong step. It is a mystery to be lived, loved. experienced.

In fact, the mind which is always after explanations is an afraid mind. Because of great fear he wants everything to be explained. He cannot go into anything before it is explained to him. With explanation he feels that now the territory is familiar, now he knows the geography, now he can move with the map and the guidebook and the timetable. He is never ready to move in an unknown territory, uncharted, without a map, without a guide. But life is like that. And no map is possible, because life goes on changing. Every moment it is now. There is nothing old under the sun, I say to you.

Everything is new. It is a tremendous dynamism, an absolute movement. Only change is permanent, only change never changes - everything else goes on changing.

So you cannot have a map; by the time the map is ready it is already out of date. By the time the map is available it is useless. Life has changed its tracks. Life has started playing a new game. You cannot cope with life with maps because it is not measurable. And you cannot cope with life with guidebooks because guidebooks are possible only if things are stagnant. Life is not stagnant, it is a dynamism, it is a process. You cannot have a map of it. It is not measurable, it is an unmeasurable mystery. Don't ask for explanations.

That's why although I answer when you ask questions - because this is part of the agreement of this mad game: you will ask and I will answer - you should never take my answers as explanations. They are not. They are simply introductions to the mystery, prefaces to the mystery, seductions to the mystery. They are not really answers.

My answers are not answers; my answers are simply to help you to come out of your questions and to start living. An answer is an answer when it simply explains your question and you are satisfied that you have now got some information which you were needing and your question is no longer there. Now the place that the question was occupying is occupied by the answer. My answers are not answers in that way. They will help you to drop the question but they are not going to answer the question. And once the question is dropped you will find no answer occupying its place. There will be no answer.

My whole way of answering is such that I answer and yet I never answer. I answer so that you don't feel offended - your question has to be respected so I respect it - but I cannot answer it because life has no answers.

And this I call maturity of mind: when somebody comes to the point of looking at life without any questions, and simply dives into it with courage and fearlessness.

The second question:

Question 2

Dreams are unreal but so is your life. Dreams are unreal but that is what your life is. Your life is just a dream because you are fast asleep. Can't you hear yourself snoring?

You are fast asleep. Whatsoever you call your life is just a dream seen with open eyes.

You see two types of dreams: one with closed eyes, one with open eyes. But both are dreams.

You say, DREAMS ARE UNREAL BUT I HAVE HEARD AND READ THAT THE MOTHER OF MAHAVIRA SAW NINE WHITE ELEPHANTS IN HER DREAMS BEFORE MAHAVIRA'S BIRTH. Your reading is a dream, your hearing is a dream.

Whatsoever you have heard about Mahavira has nothing to do with Mahavira. It is your dream.

And just look - Mahavira's mother dreamed of nine white elephants. First it is a dream, then it is a dream about a white elephant. A dream is a dream! White elephant? The story is beautiful; it says that life is just like a Chinese box - a box within a box. It is just like an onion. You peel it, there is another layer; you peel it, another layer - box within box.

First, Mahavira's being born is a dream; then, being born out of a mother is another dream. Then the mother dreams. And the mother dreams about white elephants! Look at the whole absurdity of it.

Then there are stupid people who start analysing these dreams and make much fuss about it. Jainas say that whenever a TEERTHANKARA is born, a particular series of dreams has to happen to the mother. And if those dreams have not happened, then the man is not a TEERTHANKARA. So all the mothers HAD to dream - remember. Twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS have been born in India, and all the mothers of the TEERTHANKARAS had to repeat the same dream. It is a must, it is a legal thing - you cannot avoid it! If you don't dream, your son cannot be a TEERTHANKARA. When my mother started dreaming I said, 'Stop! There is no need. I am not going to fulfil any legal and formal things. There is no need to dream about white elephants. You can rest.'

Foolish people go on finding foolish things, but they decorate them very well. You ask what it means. It means nothing. It simply means that you are more interested in dreams than you are in reality.

People are not interested in Mahavira as such. If Mahavira's mother had forgotten to dream these dreams, Jainas would have not accepted him as the twenty-fourth TEERTHANKARA. That was one of the most important things to be decided. You may not know it but there were a few other people who were also claiming that they were TEERTHANKARAS. In the time of Mahavira there were eight persons who were claiming that they were TEERTHANKARAS and it was a great problem how to decide, because no criteria existed. So people had to invent such foolish criteria. It was only Mahavira's mother, the story says, who dreamed these dreams. Goshalak's mother erred.

Poor Goshalak suffered for it. Mahavira's mother must have been very clever; she must have planned everything very beautifully. At least Mahavira's astrologers must have - the mother died immediately after giving birth. In fact, I don't see that she ever told anybody because she died immediately. But that too is a point. Jainas say that when a TEERTHANKARA is born, the mother dies immediately. They have made things very difficult for the mother. Mahavira's mother's death must have been a pure accident.

Goshalak's mother lived. These things are not allowed. Goshalak suffered because his mother lived. Mahavira's mother died. These are foolish criteria. They don't see Mahavira directly, they are looking for other indications.

When Jesus was there, Jews were asking certain questions, because he had to fulfil the prophesies in the Old Testament. Were they fulfilled or not? Jesus was there in reality, standing before them, but they were not concerned about Jesus, they were concerned about the prophesies in the Old Testament. If they were fulfilled, then he was the right man; if they were not fulfilled, then he was not the right man. How foolish can humanity be? Jesus is there - but that is not proof of anything, no. And Jews denied him because they thought he had not fulfilled all the criteria. They had to crucify him because they thought he was just a charlatan, a deceiver; he had not fullfilled all the prophesies.

And Christians go on proving that he has fulfilled them. Now it has become just a verbal game of argumentation, of logic. The reality is completely forgotten.

Look at the real. If Mahavira is there, Mahavira is there whether the mother dreamed of white elephants or black elephants. Whether she dreamed or didn't dream doesn't matter; whether she lived or died doesn't matter. These are all irrelevant things. If Mahavira is there, look directly. His presence will be enough proof. And if it is not enough proof then there is no need to bother about other proofs. Then what can other proofs do?

AND WHAT IS THE USE OF ANSWERING THE DREAMS OF QUESTIONERS?

The questioners have only dreams, they don't yet have a real life, so by answering their questions I will be pulling them out of their mud of dreams. I am not interested in their dreams, I am interested in the consciousness that is dreaming. That consciousness is not a dream. It is dreaming, it is in a dream, but it is not a dream. It is a reality, and it has to be pulled out of the dreaming state.

So I go on using whatsoever devices are needed. If sometimes I feel that analysing the dream may help you to come out of it then I analyse it. But remember always and always, I am not interested in the dream, I am not a psychoanalyst. But if I feel that by dissecting the dream I will be able to make you aware that you are not the dream, that you are the witness to it, then I dissect it. The reality is not in the dream, the reality is in the dreamer - and the dreamer has to be awakened. I function like an alarm clock.

The third question:

Question 3

Yes, to a limited extent it can be of great help - but remember, only to a limited extent.

Otherwise people are such that first they waste their time in dreaming, then they waste their time in enacting the dream in the waking state; then they waste their time on some psychoanalyst's couch talking about their dreams - and the psychoanalyst analyses them.

Then the dream becomes too important. That much importance should not be given to them.

There is a great need of a shift of the consciousness from the content to the container. For a time being, dreams can be used. Enacting them will be useful. If in the night you have seen a dream, then enacting it in the morning can be of tremendous help because in the night you were asleep. The dream was there, the message was there, the message was delivered by the unconscious, but the conscious was fast asleep. So it was as if you were drunk and somebody called you and you took the phone somehow, and you listened, but you cannot remember exactly what the message was because you were drunk. The message was delivered, the unconscious delivered a certain message - that's what a dream is: a packaged message from the unconscious that you are doing something wrong, that you are moving against nature, that you are going against me, that you are going against yourself. It is a warning from the unconscious that enough is enough, stop! Come back home, be natural, be more spontaneous. Don't be lost in social formalities and moralities and don't become a fake. Be real.

The message is delivered but you are asleep and in the morning you cannot even remember anything exactly. Have you watched it? When you wake up in the morning, for a few seconds some fragments of the dream float in the consciousness - just for a few seconds, not more than thirty seconds, or at the most sixty seconds, one minute. Then they have gone. You have washed your face, taken a cup of tea; finished with the night, you don't remember now. And even when you awake in the morning, only very, very fragmentary things are there. And those too are the tail parts of the dream. When you dream, you dream in a certain way: you started the dream at five o'clock in the morning, then you went into it, and at six o'clock you woke up. That was the end part of the dream - it is as if you were seeing a film and you were only awake at the end part. So you remember the end part of the dream, not the beginning. not the middle. Then you have to go upstream. If you want to recollect the dream you have to move in the reverse order, as if you are reading a book backwards. It is very difficult.

And then, one thing more. When you are conscious you again start interpreting the dream content, you don't allow the whole message to be received. You will drop many things. If you have murdered your mother in the dream, you will drop it. You will not remember it, you will not allow it to become conscious. Or, at the most, you will allow it to be there in a very deep disguise: you have murdered somebody else. Or, if you have lived in a community which values non-violence very much, you may not even remember that you murdered - that part will simply disappear. We listen only to that which we want to listen to.

I have heard.

As he lay on his deathbed he spoke, 'Sara, I want you to know before I die that Ginsburg the tailor owes me two hundred dollars, and Morris the butcher owes me fifty dollars, and Klein next door owes me three hundred dollars.'

His wife turned to the children and said, 'What a wonderful man your father is. Even when he's dying he's got the brains to realise who owes him money.'

The old man continued, 'And Sara, I want you also to know that I owe the landlord a hundred dollars.'

To which the wife cried, 'Ho ho, now he's getting delirious.'

Whatsoever you want to hear is right, otherwise 'ho ho!' Then immediately you become disconnected.

You will remember the dream, now the mechanism has to be understood. The dream is a message from the unconscious to the conscious because the conscious is doing something which the unconscious feels is unnatural. And the unconscious is always right, remember; the unconscious is your nature. The conscious is cultivated by the society, it is a conditioning. The conscious means society inside you. It is a trick of society. The conscious is doing something which the unconscious feels is too much against nature, so the unconscious wants to give a warning. In the morning, when you remember, again you will remember from the conscious, again the conscious will interfere. Whatsoever is against it, will not be allowed; whatsoever is sweet will be allowed. But that is not the point. The bitter part was the real message.

But try it. What they do in psychodrama can be useful. Rather than remembering a dream, re-living a dream is more useful. And -they are different. When you remember, you remember from the conscious; when you re-live, you re-live from the total. In re- living there is more possibility that the unconscious will again be able to give some messages.

For example: you dreamed during the night that you were walking on a road. You go on walking and walking and walking and the road never ends. The non-ending road creates tremendous fear in you because with anything non-ending the mind cannot cope, the mind becomes afraid. Non-ending? It looks very boring. You go on, you go on, you go on - and the road is non-ending. You become tired, you become frustrated, you are fed-up, you fall down - but the road goes on and on. You have limitations and the road seems to be unlimited.

If you dream such a dream.... Many people dream about it because there is a message in it. The famous Russian author, Maxim Gorky, used to dream it many times. He said that in his life it was one of the most important dreams - it was repeated almost every month.

It must have had a great message otherwise it wouldn't have been repeated. And it was repeated - that simply shows that Gorky never understood it. Once you understand a dream, once the message is delivered, the dream stops. If a dream is continuously repeated, that simply shows that you have not understood it, so the unconscious goes on knocking at your door. It wants you to understand it.

Remembering is one thing - you can close your eyes and remember the dream and it will be as if you are seeing a film, a movie. Re-living is totally different. You create the whole situation, you visualise the whole situation. It is not a dream on the screen, you re-live it.

Again you are on the road. Look around. Close your eyes when you remember it, look around. What type of road is it? Are trees there or is it a desert? What kind of trees? Is the sun there in the sky or is it night? Visualise it, stand on the road and visualise it and let it be as colourful as possible - because the unconscious is very colourful. The conscious is just black and white, the unconscious is very psychedelic.

So let it be colourful. See the glory of the trees, the colour of the flowers, the brightness of the stars. Feel the road, the touch underneath the feet. Feel the road - rough, smooth, dead, alive? Every road has its own individuality. Smell. Standing there, smell. What type of smell is it? Has it rained just now and a delicate smell from the earth is arising? Or have the flowers bloomed and the fragrance is there? Feel the breeze; feel whether it is cool or warm. Then start moving - as if you are moving in reality. It is not on the screen of the memory, you are re-living it. And through this sensitivity of taste, touch, air, feel, coolness, warmth, greenery, colour; it again becomes real. Again the unconscious will start giving you messages. They can be of tremendous value.

But there is a limit to it. Try to understand in this way but always remember that whether the dream is seen in the night or re-lived in the day, it is a dream. And below the unconscious - or beyond the unconscious - is still another door of your being that has to be opened.

Freud and the Freudians think that man ends with the conscious and unconscious. Man does not end with the conscious and unconscious, there is a super-conscious-element also. And that is truer.

So, don't think that the conscious is the only mind. Before Freud it was thought that the conscious was the only mind. When Freud introduced the concept of the unconscious for the first time, he was laughed at, ridiculed, because people said, 'What nonsense! How can mind be unconscious? Mind means consciousness. If it is unconscious, it is not mind; if it is mind, it is conscious.' Of course, their grammar was right and their language was true - but existentially they were wrong. And Freud by and by became victorious. Truth always wins.

Now another layer has to be introduced into the world of psychology - that layer is of the super-conscious. Psychologists will again be against it. They will say, 'What nonsense you are talking! You are bringing religion into psychology. Somehow we have got rid of religion and now you bring it in again from the back door!' But you cannot get rid of religion - religion is not something accidental, it is very essential. You have to recognise it. And you have to recognise its claims.

Man is conscious, unconscious and super-conscious. Man is a trinity - that is the meaning of the old concept of the trinity in Christianity, Judaism. In the East we have the concept of trimurti - three faces of God, three faces of being. Man is a triangle. The third has to be remembered.

The questioner has asked: FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN SO CLOUDED BY LIES AND DECEPTIONS IN THE WAKING STATE, CAN REMEMBERING DREAMS, RE-ENACTING THEM AND EXPERIENCING THEM IN THE WAKING STATE BE A USEFUL METHOD? Yes, a useful method but with a limited possibility. And rather than remembering, emphasise re-living.

CAN IF BE THE FIRST STEP ON THE PATH OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS AND TRUTH. Certainly, but only the first step. There are many people who become lost in the first step and then they never take the second. Then the first is useless. Unless the second happens, the first is meaningless. Only with the second does the first become relevant.

And only when you have achieved the goal does your journey becomes relevant.

Otherwise it remains irrelevant; the relevance is transcendental.

So, first re-live your dreams. It will be helpful, it will make you more alert. And then, even in your dreaming, even while you are re-living, or when you are awake, walking on the street, in an ordinary waking state, start seeing yourself as a witness not as a participant. As a watcher. The watcher, the observer, the seer, the witness, is the real step which leads you into reality. It is beyond dream.

The dreams can be helpful so that the grip of the dreams on your mind is loosened, but the real step is only when you have started becoming watchful. Try it the whole day.

Whatsoever you are doing, remember that you are the watcher. Walking...remember that the body is walking, you are the watcher. Eating...remember that the body is eating, you are the witness. If it spreads all over your day, one day, suddenly, you will see that in the dream also the watcher has a little possibility. And when you can also remember that 'I am just the watcher' in the dream, then dreams disappear. Then, with the disappearance of the dreams, a new consciousness arises in you. That consciousness I call the super- consciousness. And that consciousness is the goal of the psychology of the Buddhas.

The fifth question:

Question 4

Let me tell you an anecdote. 'Help me,' the man demanded of the rabbi. 'I have a wife and twelve children and I cannot support them. Every year my wife gives me a new child.

What should I do?' 'Do?' screamed the rabbi. 'Haven't you done enough?'

You ask me WHAT SHOULD I DO TO COME CLOSER TO YOU? Your doing is not going to help - because by doing, you become more of a doer and the doer feeds the ego and the ego is the barrier between me and you. By non-doing you will come closer to me, not by doing. Not by will-power can you come closer to me, only by surrendering. Only when you recognise that nothing can be done, and you are helpless and you relax, suddenly you will find that you have come close to me. When you surrender you come close to me.

The mind goes on asking 'What should I do?' If you do something, that very doing will not allow you to move away from the ego.

Let me tell you another anecdote.

Old man Ginsberg was disgusted with his family. He told them that he was leaving them and going to Japan.

The boys asked, 'Papa, how will you get there?'

He said, 'Don't worry, I'll row there.'

They walked him to the dock and without their father seeing, tied a very long rope to his row boat. He bade them all farewell and started rowing towards the horizon. They let him stay in the boat all night, but when the sun began to rise they became nervous about his well-being. There was a tremendous fog and the old man and the boat were not visible.

The old man had been rowing away all night when suddenly he heard a voice in the distance shouting, 'Abe Ginsberg, are you all right?'

He turned towards the voice and shouted, 'Who knows me in Japan?'

Now he thinks that he has reached Japan just by rowing the whole night, and the boat is tied with a long rope. He has not gone anywhere. If you want to come close to me by doing something then you may have a little or a long rope, but you will remain tethered to the shore, you cannot go far away.

By doing, nobody can come close to a Master. By doing, you can attain things in the world but by doing you cannot attain anything in God - only by non-doing, by a tremendous receptivity, passivity. You just leave it to me, you just enjoy being here. You dance, you sing, you celebrate. You forget this nonsense of coming closer and you will be coming; by your dance, by your singing, by your rejoicing, you will be coming close to me.

The question is from Priya. She has asked today, but three weeks ago I gave her a message to go and dance every day. Her question has come today but it reached me three weeks ago. It may have reached to her self today, to her own conscious it may have come today - but three weeks ago I suddenly felt that a deep desire to come close to me was arising in her unconscious, so I sent her a message to go and dance. And she is dancing, and believe me, she is coming closer.

By your dance, by your laughter, by your joy, you come close to me - because in dance you relax, the doer disappears. In singing you are lost. Whenever you are lost I can penetrate your being; whenever you are there then it is difficult, because you are closed.

The sixth question:

Question 5

Then why are you asking? In your question there is a motivation. You want me to say, 'Good boy. You are absolutely right. It is you who are going to obtain enlightenment and not the others, because you have no motivation.' This is the motivation in asking the question!

But remember, you cannot deceive me. Your words cannot deceive me. Your words cannot hide the motivation. Why are you asking me to comment? If you are really enjoying being here, no comment is needed. If you are really in love with me, it is enough - nothing else is needed. In love there is no question, it is a non-questioning attitude.

But you want me to say, 'This is the true way. You are on the right track. Soon enlightenment is going to happen to you and others who are here with motivation are going to miss.'

Let me tell you an anecdote.

A Jewish couple found themselves in Florida unable to find a room in a hotel. The only place left to stay in was a hotel that was notorious in its policy of not allowing Jews.

The husband turned to his wife and said, 'Becky, you keep your big mouth shut; not one word is to come from your lips. Leave it to me. You'll see, I'll talk good English, the man at the desk will never know and we'll get a room.'

Sure enough, they walk up to the desk, Dave asks for a room, the hotel clerk gives them the key to the room, and they are set.

Becky says, 'Dave, it's so hot, maybe we can go down to the pool for a swim?'

Dave says, 'Okay, but, remember, not one word is to fall from your mouth.'

They walk down to the cabanas. Dave signals the cabana boy and he sets up chairs and towels for them.i Becky turns to Dave and asks, 'Now can I go into the pool?'

He answers, 'Okay, but remember not a syllable must you utter.' Becky goes over to the edge of the pool and sticks one toe into the water, which is icy cold, and before she realises what she is doing, she yells, 'Oy vay!' whereupon everyone at the pool turns on her. Without blinking an eye she adds, 'Whatever that means.'

But you cannot deceive. Howsoever you put it, it will show. Motivation is a thing you cannot hide. There is no way to hide it; there is no language to hide it. Motivation simply shows.

Now, let me tell you this. This motivation may not be very conscious to you, you may not be very aware of it, but it is there. And I am not saying that something is wrong in it, I am not trying to make you guilty about it. Always remember one thing: never feel guilty about anything.

It is natural to come with a motivation, nothing is wrong in it. It is absolutely natural to come with a motivation, otherwise how else will you come? Without motivation, only a madman can come here. Without motivation, how can you come? You must have some motivation to learn meditation, to have a more silent life, to learn about love, to have more loving relationships, to know what this life is all about, to know what death is, to know if there is something beyond death. Without motivation you cannot come to me.

So I accept it absolutely and you have to accept it - you have come to me with motivation.

It is my work here to help you to drop the motivation. You come with motivation - that's your work, without it you cannot come. Then starts my work: to help you to drop the motivation. Motivation brings you close to me but then motivation itself becomes the obstacle. You have to come with a motivation and then you have to learn to drop it. And when you drop it, suddenly you are not only close to me, you are one with me - because closeness is still a distance. In closeness also there is a distance. Howsoever close you are, you are distant. The real closeness is only when all distance and all closeness disappears - you are simply one with me, I am one with you; when we only appear as two, but we are not.

Become conscious of your motivation in asking this question and that will help you to drop it. Consciousness helps you to drop it. Anything you become conscious about starts slipping out of your hands. You cannot cling consciously, you cannot be angry consciously, you cannot be greedy consciously, you cannot be motivated consciously.

Consciousness is such a mutation, it brings so much light into your being that darkness simply disappears.

So the only thing to remember is: don't be worried about others' motivations, that is none of your business. If they are motivated, they will suffer for it, they will create their own hell. You simply don't be concerned with it, you simply go on looking at your own motivations, you simply go on penetrating deeper and deeper into why you are here.

And never feel guilty if you have found a motivation. If you come across a motivation, it is natural. But when I say it is natural, I don't mean that it has to be there forever and ever. It is natural but it has to go. When it goes, something super-natural starts happening.

If you are not aware about it and if you go on hiding it, then it will never go.

And this may be a trick of the mind - looking for motivation in others. You may be using others as scapegoats. It is one of the great psychological truths about the human mind that whatsoever you want to hide within yourself you start projecting onto others. Whenever you start seeing something in somebody else, remember it as a message. Go immediately withinwards - it must be there. The other is functioning only as a screen. When you see anger in others, go and dig within yourself and you will find it there; when you see too much ego in others, just go inside and you will find ego sitting there. The inside functions like a projector; others become screens and you start seeing films on others which are really your own tapes.

The last question:

Question 6

A great insight has happened to you, a great realisation. Let it sink deep, let it become a constant awareness.

No face is yours. All faces are false. Once you had the face of a lion, once you had the face of a donkey, once you had the face of a tree and once the face of a rock. Now you have the face of a man - or a woman, ugly, beautiful, white, black.

But you don't have any face. Your reality is faceless. And that facelessness is what Zen people call the original face. It is not a face at all.

When you were not born, what face had you then? When you die, what face will you carry with yourself? This face that you see in the mirror will be dropped here; it will disappear into the earth - dust unto dust. You will go faceless just as you came faceless.

Right now you don't have any face, the face is just a belief - you have believed in the mirror too much. And when you have come to realise this facelessness, you have seen the face of God.