Happy for no reason

Question 1:

THE QUESTION IS FROM GAYATRI. It is not only you, Gayatri, who is continuously daydreaming; everybody is doing that. Human mind as such is a daydreaming faculty. Unless you go beyond the mind, you will continue to daydream. Because the mind cannot exist in the present. It can either exist in the past or in the future. There is no way for the mind to exist in the present. To be in the present is to be without mind.

You try it. If there is a silent moment when no thought is crossing your being, your consciousness, when the screen of consciousness is absolutely unclouded, then suddenly you are in the present. That is the moment, the real moment - the moment of reality, the moment of truth. But then there is no past and no future.

Ordinarily, time is divided into these three tenses: past, present, future. The division is basically wrong, unscientific. Because present is not part of time. Past and future only are parts of time. Present is beyond time. Present is eternity.

Past and future are part of time. Past is that which is no more, and future is that which is not yet. Both are non-existential. Present is that which is. The existential cannot be a part of the non-existential. They never meet, they never cross each other's way. And time is mind; past accumulated is what your mind is.

What is your mind? Analyse it, look into it. What is it? - just the past experiences piled up, accumulated. Your mind is just a blanket term, an umbrella term; it simply keeps, holds, your whole past. It is nothing else. If by and by you take your past out of the bag, the bag will disappear.

If past is the only reality for the mind, then what can the mind do? One possibility is that it can go on chewing, rechewing the past again and again.

That's what you call memory, remembrance, nostalgia. You go again and again backwards; again and again to the past moments, beautiful moments, happy moments. They are few and far between, but you cling to them. You avoid the ugly moments, the miserable moments.

But this you cannot do continuously because this is futile; the activity seems to be meaningless. The mind creates a 'meaningful' activity - that's what daydreaming about the future is.

The mind says, 'Yes, past is good, but past is finished; nothing can be done about it. Something can be done about the future because it is yet to come.' So you choose out of your past experiences those which you would like to repeat again, and you drop experiences that were very miserable, painful; that you don't want to repeat in the future.

So your future dreaming is nothing but past modified, better arranged, more decorated, more agreeable, less painful, more pleasant. This your mind goes on doing. And this way you go on missing reality.

Meditation simply means a few moments when you are not in the mind, a few moments when you slip out of the mind. You slip in reality, in that which is.

These existential moments are so tremendously ecstatic that once you taste them, you will stop daydreaming.

Daydreaming will continue unless you start tasting meditation. Unless you are nourished on meditation, you will go on starving and hankering for some food in the future. And you know the future is not going to bring it, because today was future just one day before. Yesterday it was future, and you were daydreaming about it. Now it is there. What is happening? Are you happy? Yesterday was also one day in the future. The past was all part of future one day, and it has slipped - - and the future will also slip. You are befooling yourself in daydreaming.

Become a little more aware and try to bring your consciousness more and more to the facticity of existence. See THIS flower, don't think about THAT flower.

Listen to THIS word I am uttering, not to THAT word that I am going to utter.

Look at me right now. If you postpone even for a single split moment, you miss me.

And then it becomes a habit, a very ingrained habit. Tomorrow also you will miss me, and the day after tomorrow also, because you will remain the same.

Not only that - your habit of daydreaming will have become more strong.

I was reading the other night a beautiful japanese story. Such stories exist in all the folktales of the world, on similar patterns. It is a beautiful story. Listen to it.

There was once a man who hewed stones from the rock. His labour was very hard and he laboured much, but his wages were slight and he was not content.

Who is content? Not even emperors are content, so what to say about a stone- cutter? His work was certainly hard and the payoff was almost nothing.

He sighed because his labour was hard, and he cried, 'Oh, I wish I was rich so I could rest on a couch with a cover of silk.' And an angel came from heaven, saying, 'You are what you have said.'

And this really happens - not only in parables and stories; it happens in real life.

Whatsoever you think about yourself, starts happening. You create your world by your thought, you create your world by your desire. Whatsoever you insist on, starts happening. Reality goes on cooperating with you. It waits for the moment, for the day, when you will cooperate with it. Until then, it goes on cooperating with you.

And the angel said, 'You are what you have said.' And he was rich, and he did rest on a couch, and the cover was of silk, and the king of the land went by with horsemen in front of his carriage and behind the carriage there were also horsemen, and a golden parasol was held over the head of the king.

And when the rich man saw this, he was vexed that no golden parasol was held over his own head and he was not content. He sighed and cried, 'I wish to be a king.' And the angel came again and he said, 'You are what you have said.'

And he was king and many horsemen rode in front of his carriage, and there were also horsemen behind his carriage and a golden parasol was held over his head, and the sun shone hot rays and scorched the earth so that the grass shoots withered. And the king complained that the sun burned his face and that it excelled him in power and he was not content. He sighed and cried, 'I wish to be the sun.' And the angel came and he said, 'You are what you have said.'

And he was the sun and he directed his rays upward and down, to the right and to the left - everywhere - and he scorched the grass shoots on earth, and the countenances of kings who were on earth.

And a cloud placed itself between him and the earth, and the rays of the sun bounced back from it and he grew wrathful that his power was resisted. He complained that the cloud excelled him in power and he was not content. He wished to be the cloud, which was so powerful, and the angel came and he said, 'You are what you have said.'

And he became a cloud and placed himself between the sun and the earth and caught the rays so that the grass grew green. The cloud rained large drops on the earth causing the rivers to swell and floods to carry the houses away, and he destroyed the fields with much water. He fell upon a rock which did not yield, and he splashed in great streams, but the rock did not yield, and he grew wrathful because the rock was not yielding to his power, and the power of his streams was in vain and he was not content.

He cried, 'That rock has been given power which excells mine. I wish to be the rock.' And the angel came and he was the rock, he did become the rock, and did not move when the sun shone nor when it rained.

And then there was a man with a pick and with a chisel and with a heavy hammer, and he hewed stones out of the rock and the rock said, 'How can it be that this man has power that excells mine and hews stones out of my lap?' and he was not content.

He cried, 'I am weaker than he. I wish to be that man.' And the angel came from heaven, saying, 'You are what you have said.'

And he was a stone-cutter again. And he hewed stones from the rock with hard labour, and he laboured very hard for small wages - and he was content.

I don't agree with the conclusion. That is the only disagreement with the story; otherwise the story is beautiful. I don't agree with the conclusion. Because I know people - they cannot be so easily content. The wheel is complete. The story in a way has come to a natural end, but the real stories in life don't come to any natural end. The wheel again starts moving.

That's why in India we call life 'the wheel'. It goes on moving, goes on repeating itself. As far as I can see, unless the stone-cutter became a Buddha, the story must have been repeated again. Again he will become discontent. Again he will long for a beautiful couch and a cover of silk, and again the same thing will start. But if this stone-cutter was really content, then he has jumped out of the wheel of life and death. He has become a Buddha.

This is what goes on happening to each mind - you long for something, it will happen, but by the time it happens you will see that you are still discontent.

Something else is creating the misery now.

This is something to be understood - that if your desire is not fulfilled, you are frustrated; if it is fulfilled, then too you are not fulfilled. That is the misery of desire. Fulfilled, you are not fulfilled. Suddenly many new things arise.

You had never thought that when you will be a king, and horse-men will be in front of you and at the back of you, and a golden parasol will be over your head, the sun can be so hot that it can scorch your face. You had never thought about it.

Then you dreamed of becoming a sun, and you become a sun, and you had never thought about the cloud. Now the cloud is there - and proving you impotent.

And this goes on and on and on, like waves in the ocean... non-ending - unless you understand and simply jump out of the wheel.

Life is here, life is now. God is here and god is now. If you are searching him in your daydreams, your search is in vain, because god is nothing but deep contentment.

The mind that goes on telling you, 'Do this, be that. Possess this, possess that...

otherwise how can you be happy if you don't have this? You have to have a palace, then you can be happy....' If your happiness has a condition to it, you will remain unhappy. If you cannot be happy just as you are - a stone-cutter... I know hard is the labour, wages are poor, life is a struggle, I know - but if you cannot be happy as you are, in spite of it all; if you cannot be happy, you are not going to be happy ever.

Unless a man is happy, simply happy, for no reason at all, unless a man is mad enough to be happy without any reason, a man is not going to be happy ever.

You will always find something destroying your happiness. You will always find something missing, something absent. And that missing will become your daydream again.

And you cannot achieve a state where everything, everything is available. Even if it is possible, then too you will not be happy. Just look at the mechanism of the mind: if everything is available as you want it, suddenly you will feel bored.

Now what to do?

I have heard this - and I think it is reliable - that people who have reached heaven are bored - it is from very reliable sources, you can depend on it - they are sitting under their kalptarus, the wish-fulfilling trees, and they are bored.

Because the moment they say something, the angel appears, and immediately he fulfills their desire. There is no gap between their desire and their fulfillment.

They want a beautiful woman, a Cleopatra, and she is there. Now what to do with such a Cleopatra? It is pointless - and they get bored.

In Indian Puranas there are many stories of devas who became so bored in heaven that they started longing for the earth. They have everything there. When they were on the earth, they were hankering for heaven. They may have been great ascetics, they may have renounced the world, women, everything, to attain to heaven. Now they have reached heaven; now they are hankering for the world.

I have heard:

The pilot of a new jet plane was winging over the Catskills and pointed out a pleasant valley to his second-in-command.

'See that spot?' he demanded. 'When I was a barefoot kid, I used to sit in a flat- bottomed rowboat down there, fishing. Every time a plane flew by, I would look up and dream I was piloting it. Now I look down and dream I am fishing.'

Now he has become a pilot. First he was a poor boy, fishing, and jet planes would roar above and he would look up and he would dream that 'one day, god willing, I will become a pilot'. The thrill of the open sky, the winds, the vastness.... He must have been dreaming, and he must have been feeling very miserable - just a poor boy, fishing in an ordinary rowboat.

And now he says to his second-in-command, 'Now I am the pilot. Now I look down and dream I am fishing.' Now the small, beautiful lake, deep down in the valley, with beautiful trees, and birds singing, and the meditative relaxation of fishing.... Now he must be dreaming how to get retirement, how to get rid of this piloting.

That's how it goes on and on. When you are not famous you want to be famous.

You feel very hurt that people don't know you. You pass through the streets - nobody looks at you, nobody recognizes you. You feel like a non-entity.

You do hard work to become famous. One day you become famous. Now you cannot move in the street. Now the crowd stares at you. You don't have any freedom. Now you have to remain closed in your chamber. You cannot get out, you are imprisoned. Now you start thinking about those beautiful days when you used to walk on the streets and you were so free... as if you were alone. Now you hanker for those days. Ask the famous people....

Voltaire writes in his memoirs that once he was not famous - as everybody was one day not famous - and he desired and desired and he worked hard, and he became one of the most famous men in France. His fame increased so much that it became almost dangerous for him to go out of his room, because in those superstitious days people used to think that if you can get a piece of the clothes of a very great man, it becomes a protection; it has tremendous value, protective value. It protects you against ghosts, against bad accidents and things like that.

So if he had to go to the station to catch a train, he would go under police escort, otherwise people would tear his clothes. Not only that - his skin would be torn, and he would come home with blood flowing.

He became so fed up with this fame - that he could not even get out of his house; people were always there like wolves to jump upon him - and he started praying to god, 'Finished! I have known this. I don't want it. I have become almost a dead person.' And then it happened. The angel came, must have come, and he said, 'Okay.' By and by his fame disappeared.

People's opinions change very easily; they don't have any integrity. Just like fashion, things change. You can be famous one day, the next day you can become the most notorious man. One day you are at the top of your fame, the next day people completely forget about you. One day you are the president, the next day you are just citizen Richard Nixon. Nobody bothers.

It happened that people's minds changed, the opinion, the climate changed, and people completely forgot about him. He would come to the station and he would long that at least someone, at least one person must be waiting there to receive him. And nobody would come to receive him - only his dog.

When he died, there were only four persons giving him the last goodbye; three were men and the fourth was his dog. He must have died in misery, again hankering for fame. What to do? This is how things go on.

Mind will never allow you to be happy. Whatsoever the condition, the mind will always find something to be unhappy about. Let me say it in this way: mind is a mechanism to create unhappiness. Its whole function is to create unhappiness.

If you drop the mind, suddenly you become happy... for no reason at all. Then happiness is just natural, as you breathe. For breathing, you need not be even aware. You simply go on breathing. Conscious, unconscious, awake, asleep, you go on breathing. Happiness is exactly like that.

That's why in the East we say that happiness is your innermost nature. It needs no outside condition; it is simply there, it is you. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement. If you simply get out of the mechanism of the mind, you start feeling blissful.

That's why you will see that mad people are more happy than so-called sane people. What happens to mad people? They also get out of the mind - of course in a wrong way, but they get out of the mind. A madman is one who has fallen below the mind. He's out of the mind. That's why you can see that mad people are so happy. You can feel jealous. You can even daydream, 'When will this blessing happen to us?' He is condemned, but he is happy.

What has happened to a madman? He is no more thinking of the past and no more thinking of the future. He has dropped out of time. He has started living in eternity.

It happens the same way to the mystic also, because he goes above mind. I am not telling you to become mad, but I am telling you that there is a similarity between the madman and the mystic. That's why all great mystics look a little mad and all great mad people look a little like mystics.

Watch a madman's eyes and you will find his eyes very mystic... a glow, some otherworldly glow, as if he has some inner door from where he reaches to the very core of life. He is relaxed. He may have nothing, but he is simply happy. He has no desires, no ambitions. He is not going anywhere. He is simply there...

enjoying, delighting.

Yes, madmen and mystics have something similar. That similarity is because both are out of the mind. The madman has fallen below it, the mystic has gone beyond it. The mystic is also mad with a method; his madness has a method in it.

The madman has simply fallen below.

I am not saying become mad. I am saying become mystics. The mystic is as happy as the mad and as sane as the sane. The mystic is as reasonable, even more reasonable, than so-called rationalist people, and yet so happy, just like mad people. The mystic has the most beautiful synthesis. He is in a harmony. He has all that a reasonable man has. He has both. He is complete. He is whole.

You ask, Gayatri, WHY AM I ALWAYS DAYDREAMING ABOUT THE FUTURE? You are daydreaming about the future because you have not tasted the present. Start tasting the present. Find out a few moments where you are simply delighting.

Looking at the trees, just be the look. Listening to the birds, just be a listening ear.

Let them reach to your deepest core. Let their song spread all over your being.

Sitting by the side of the beach, just listen to the wild roar of the waves, become one with it... because that wild roar of the waves has no past, no future. If you can tune yourself with it, you will also become a wild roar. Hug a tree and relax into it. Feel its green shape rushing into your being. Lie down on the sand, forget the world, commune with the sand, the coolness of it; feel the coolness saturating you. Go to the river, swim, and let the river swim within you. Splash around, and become the splashing.

Do whatsoever you feel you enjoy, and enjoy it totally. In those few moments, the past and future will disappear and you will be herenow. And those moments will bring the first good news, the first gospel of god.

The gospel is not in the Bible. The gospel is in the rivers and in the wild roar of the ocean and in the silence of the stars. The good news is written all over. The whole universe is a message. Decode it. Learn its language. Its language is that of herenow.

Your language is that of past and future. So if you go on speaking the language of the mind, you will never be in tune, in harmony with existence. And if that harmony is not tasted, how can you stop daydreaming? - because that is what your life is.

It is as if a poor man is carrying a bag of ordinary stones, thinking that they are great diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and if you say to him, 'Drop these. You are a fool. These are just ordinary stones,' he cannot believe you. He will think you are tricking him. He will cling to it, because that's all he has.

I will not say to that man to renounce his bag. I will try to show him real rubies, emeralds, diamonds. Just a glimpse of them and he will throw the bag. Not even that he will renounce it - because there is nothing to renounce; it is just ordinary stones. You don't renounce ordinary stones.

He will simply become aware that he was living under an illusion. Now there are real diamonds. Suddenly his own stones fade, they disappear. And he will simply empty his bag immediately without your telling him, because now he has something else to put in the bag. He will need the bag, the space.

So I don't say to you, drop going into the future, drop going into the past. Rather, I would like to say to you, make more contacts with the present. When present arises with its grandeur, its beauty, everything pales down. Renunciation follows awareness like a shadow.

Question 2:

You call it a bit crazy! It is absolutely crazy! And I have to be a trickster with you.

Try to understand.

If somebody is in an illusion, you cannot bring him out by talking about the truth. An illusion can be destroyed only by another illusion. Poison is to be destroyed by other poison. If you have a thorn in your foot, another thorn will be needed to take it out.

All Buddhas are tricksters. You don't need reality; reality is already there. You just need a shock so that you can open your eyes, so that your eyes pop open and you can see. You just need a trick.

Somebody is fast asleep. What do you do? You shake him, you put an alarm, and when the bell starts ringing, what are you doing? You are simply creating a disturbance. That's what all devices are. You are fast asleep. Not that reality is not there - reality surrounds you - but you are fast asleep.

I am not here to give you the truth. Nobody can give you the truth. Truth you already have, but somehow you have tricked yourself into lies. Now you will need bigger, stronger lies to crush your lies. All philosophies are lies, devices, to help you to come out of your lies.

A man was brought to me. He was very much afraid of ghosts. They were just in his imagination - they are always in your imagination - but just to say to him, 'This is your imagination,' was not going to help. Everybody was saying that to him. 'You are just imagining. Where are the ghosts? We don't see them.'

And he was seeing them continuously; they were surrounding him. Somebody was standing on the right, somebody was standing on the left, somebody was standing at the back - they were following him everywhere. It was impossible for him to sleep, it was impossible to be alone, because they were torturing him.

Now what to do?

Everybody had been saying to him that this was imagination. The doctor had said to him that this was imagination, the psychiatrist had said that nothing could be done, he was simply imagining, he had no real problem. But whether he had a real problem or not, you cannot deny his problem. He had a problem - real, unreal, is immaterial. For him it was real. He was suffering; his suffering was real.

When he came to me, I looked to his right and I said, 'Perfectly right, the man is there!' He smiled at me; I was the first man who understood him. And I said, 'By your left side also I can see people, and they are following you. How do you survive with so many ghosts?'

He said, 'Nobody listens to me' - but he relaxed. He touched my feet. He said, 'You are the only person, otherwise I go on proving and nobody listens. They say, "It is all imagination. You are in a sort of delusion. Drop imagination. There are nothing like ghosts."'

But I said, 'I can see. Who are these people?' His father was with him, his wife was with him, and they became afraid when I said, 'Yes, they are there.' And he said to his father, 'Now, listen to what Osho is saying. And you were thinking I am a fool.' Now he gained his confidence.

What I was saying was a lie; there were no ghosts - but that is not the point. The man was suffering from lack of confidence, the man was suffering from fear.

Now, just by accepting his lie... I am also a liar, I am saying, 'Yes, they are there'...

I helped him to regain his confidence. He looked better, he looked stronger.

Maybe the ghosts are there, but he is not wrong. Maybe the ghosts are still there, but he is not a fool, not an idiot. And I told him, 'Nothing to be worried about.

There are methods; we will deal with them.'

He said, 'That's what I am asking people. Help me! Give me something to deal with them.'

'Don't be worried. And as I can see, they are not stronger than you.' Immediately his height was greater than before. He took a deep inhalation, his spine became erect. And I gave him just an ordinary locket, nothing in it, empty, and I told him, 'You just keep it with you. And whenever you feel they are there, you just hold it in your hand, and they will start becoming afraid; they will be frightened and they will start rushing. Don't be worried, just hold it in your hand.'

He tried and he laughed. He said, 'They are doing that. They are running away from me. Now I'm not afraid.'

Just two weeks time and he was a normal man. When he was normal and the ghosts had disappeared and he had regained his normality, I told him, 'Now, give me that locket, because it has nothing in it.'

He said, 'What do you mean?'

I said, 'There were no ghosts. The medicine was as false as the disease.' But then he could understand. He laughed, he said,' But you tricked me out of it. If you had said the same thing to me fifteen days ago, I would have never listened to you, but now I know, and if you say, I believe.'

I opened the locket; it was empty. I said, 'You can see; it is just empty. Just the idea that you have the power has helped. Now I would not like you to carry this locket forever, because now this will become a disease. If someday it is lost, you will start trembling, and those ghosts which have gone will come back because the locket is lost.'

All your illusions are just illusions. They are illusions. You are not really ill; you have imagined illness. You have not really fallen away from god; you have only dreamed about it. You have never been expelled from the garden of Eden; you have only thought it that way. You are still in the garden of Eden. You still exist in the very heart of god. There is no way to get out of it. It is just your dream.

How to destroy a dream? One has to be very very skillful about it. You cannot just say to people, 'This is your dream'. They won't listen. Their eyes are so full of dream they won't be able to see. You have to accept their reality, only then can you help.

I have heard:

Once upon a time a young woman dreamed that a handsome prince rode up to her, scooped her up in his arms, kissed her, and rode off into the night with her.

'Goodness!' she cried in a frightened voice. 'Where are you taking me?'

'You tell me,' answered the prince sharply. 'It is your dream.'

It is your illusion that you have gone astray, now I have to bring you home. It is your dream that you have forgotten god, and I have to remind you. It is your dream that you think that you are miserable, and I have to remind you that you are not.

But just by saying that this is all maya, illusion, you will not be helped. I have to be very skillful about it. I have to persuade you. I have to be really a salesman. I have to persuade you by and by. Hurry will not help. Impatience will not help. If I say too much to you, you will not be able to absorb it.

One man asked me once, 'Osho, you go on talking every day, morning and evening. How is it possible?'

I said, 'All lies! So what is the difficulty in it? If I am talking only truth, then there is not that much truth to talk every morning, every evening. That much truth does not exist!'

You have some lie in your life; I create another lie, an antidote. Once both the lies come in contact, they cross each other, they cancel each other. You are left with the truth.

I am not saying the truth. If you listen to me, my lie will kill your lie and the truth will be left behind.

Truth is there. I cannot give it to you. Nobody can give it to you. You are truth, so all that I can do is to create antidote lies for you - that's what all religions are.

The day you will understand, you will laugh.

When Bodhidharma attained to his enlightenment, it is said he started laughing.

The laughter was mad, he could not contain. He was rolling on the ground.

Other bodhisattvas gathered, other seekers gathered, and said, 'What is happening to you?'

He said, 'It is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot believe that truth was never lost, that we had only imagined that we had lost. And then comes this Buddha, this trickster, and he says, "Come here! Behold! This is the truth!" and he hands you another lie. But it helped tremendously. Both the lies cancelled each other.'

And of course, when you come against the lie created by a Buddha, you cannot win. Your lie is very amateurish. When a Buddha lies, it is perfect and professional. He lies very knowingly and deliberately.

A magician performed brilliantly in the salon of an ocean liner. On this ship was a parrot who hated the magician. Every time the magician did a trick, the parrot would scream, 'Phoney! Phoney! Take him away!'

In the course of the voyage, the ship sank. The parrot and the magician ended up on a long plank. One day passed, they said nothing - they were enemies. Two days passed, still they said nothing. Finally the parrot could down his suspicions no longer. He glared at the magician and squeaked, 'All right, wise guy. You and your damn tricks! What did you do with the ship?'

One day it is going to happen between you and me... the whole ship, the whole ship you call sansar, the world. What I am doing is just sabotaging.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A TRICKSTER.

Perfectly true.

IT ALSO SEEMS TO ME THAT I HAVE TO COOPERATE WITH YOUR TRICKS FOR MY OWN GOOD.

Perfectly true. There is no way to escape.

IS THIS POSSIBLE?

It is already happening.

IS NOT THIS ALL A BIT CRAZY?

It is absolutely crazy. But you are crazy and only a crazy master can help you.

One day you will realize the tremendous compassion of all those who have become awakened to the truth. It is their compassion that they go on devising methods for you, knowing well that in fact no method is needed. But, looking at you, it seems almost impossible that you will be able to come out of your dreams and illusions without methods. You have gone too far.

And if you are left alone, you will go on farther and farther away, because one thing leads to another; it is a chain thing. If you understand, then there is no need for any device. If you understand, in that very moment you have already arrived, because you had never departed.

Higgins lived in Staten Island, New York, and worked in Manhattan. He had to take the ferry-boat home every night. One evening he got down to the ferry and found there was a wait for the next boat, so he decided to stop at a nearby bar.

Before long, Higgins was feeling no pain.

When he got back to the ferry slip, the ferryboat was just eight feet from the dock. Higgins, afraid of missing this one and being late for dinner, took a running leap and landed right on the deck of the boat.

'How did you like that jump, buddy?' said Higgins to a deck-hand.

'It was great,' said the sailor. 'But why didn't you wait. We were just pulling in.'

That's what one day you are going to realize. That in fact there was no need to jump. But right now it is difficult and that's why I go on telling you, 'Jump! Take a quantum leap!' knowing well the boat is just coming in. But you are drunk, you are almost unconscious. You don't know what is going and what is coming. You don't know what is in and what is out. Everything is mixed, is in a chaos and a confusion in you. Hence religions are needed.

If some day man becomes healthy, silent, aware, religions will disappear from the world; they will not be needed. Religions don't show that the world is in a good shape; they simply show that the world is in a very bad shape. If in your house every day a doctor is needed, then things are not going good. When for years the doctor is not needed, then things are going good.

One hindu monk came to see me once, and he said that this country - as Hindus always go on declaring, claiming - that this country is the most religious country in the world. I asked him, 'Why? What is the evidence for it?'

He said, 'Evidence, you ask me? It is so clearcut. All the twenty-four teerthankaras of the Jainas were born here, twenty-four Buddhas were born here, all the avataras of Hindus were born here. God has come to this earth so many times. Is not it a proof that this country is religious?'

I said, 'This is simply a proof that this country must be very anti-god. Otherwise what is the need of god coming so many times here? Krishna himself in Gita says,' I told him 'that whenever there will be darkness, and whenever there will be evil in the world, he will come. What does it show? - that whenever he comes, things are wrong. And he has been coming to India so many times. That simply shows that India must be in a very irreligious state, very ill. The doctor has to come again and again.'

In a healthy world, religion will disappear. Just as in a healthy world, psychoanalysis will disappear. If people are really happy, then all methods to make them happy will be irrelevant. Then priests and temples and churches will not be needed. Then by and by people will start forgetting about Jesus, Buddha, Christ, Krishna. There will be no need.

That's what Lao Tzu says. 'When in the ancient days people were really religious, nobody had ever heard of religion.' True. Says Lao Tzu, 'In the ancient days, when people were simple, nobody had ever heard about saints, because everybody was a saint, a saintly soul. When people became ill, evilish, then saints became important in contrast.'

Maybe it was so in the beginning, or maybe it was not so. At least this much we can hope - that in the end this must be so. A day must come when all devices are useless. For humanity maybe it will take a long time to come, but for you, individually, it can come any moment. This moment is as much open for its coming as any other moment.

Just look at the fact - that you go on creating illusions around you. Don't create those illusions. And then no devices are needed, no yoga is needed, no discipline is needed, no character is needed. Just don't create your illusions. Then all medicinal arrangements become futile. You can go and throw all of them on the junkyard. Then you are simply a being, in tune with the whole.

Question 3:

Sannyas is a real suicide. You say, BEFORE TAKING SANNYAS I WAS ON THE VERGE OF COMMITTING SUICIDE. You have committed it - and you have committed it on a deeper plane. Destroying the body would not have helped much. You would have been born again in a similar pattern of body, because your mind would have remained the same.

By committing suicide, by jumping into a river, or in the ocean, or from a hilltop, you can destroy the physical part of you. But your physical part is not basic, your mental part is the base. Your mental part carries the blueprint for the physical.

Your mind will jump into another womb and will start gathering another physical part. It will be born again.

Suicide is useless. I am not against suicide because it is a crime. I am against suicide because it is futile, it is foolish. It is stupid.

If you really want to commit suicide, then become a sannyasin. Then you will be destroying the mind, the deep blueprint for your future lives. That's what Buddha said - become a srotapanna, enter the stream. Rather than jumping from the cliff, rather than jumping into the ocean and dying a physical death, jump into a Buddha and die a spiritual death. That's what sannyas is all about - dying in me. It is carrying your own cross.

If you are really fed up with your life, then destroy the very possibility of its being repeated again and again. Become a srotapanna. Then you will become a skridagamin; once more you will come. Then you will become an anagamin; no more you will come.

The anagamin is the one who has committed real suicide. He never comes back.

He is really finished with the world, he has closed his accounts with the world.

He has now far better ways of being. He does not come into this mess, he does not descend into this darkness, this ugly hell. He goes on soaring higher and higher towards the very source of light.

You say, BEFORE TAKING SANNYAS I WAS ON THE VERGE OF COMMITTING SUICIDE.

In fact only a person who is on the verge of suicide can be a real sannyasin.

When you are really fed up with life, bored with it, looking at its ridiculous absurdity, the vicious circle moving round and round and leading nowhere...

when you understand that nothing is happening in it and you are unnecessarily suffering - you are becoming more and more dark, heavy, weighty, you are losing wings; you are becoming more and more like a dead thing... when you see this - that life is killing you, not making you really alive - then two doors open:

suicide or sannyas.

Let me tell you, in the East, few people commit suicide. In the West, many more people commit suicide. The eastern people think that they are less suicidal, that's why it is so. Western psychologists think that the western mind is more suicidal, that's why it is so. Neither what the eastern people say, nor what western psychoanalysts say is the truth.

The truth is that in the West, sannyas has disappeared, so whenever one is fed up with life only one alternative is available - suicide. In the East, sannyas is as much an alternative as suicide. If you count sannyasins and the persons who commit suicide in the East, then the number will come exactly the same. There will be no difference.

Sannyas is a transformation of life. Suicide is an escape from life. In both the ways you go beyond. In both the ways you get rid of this so-called life. But by suicide it is only a temporary thing - again you will be back, again and again you will be back.

With sannyas, the door opens. You may not come back, or, even if you come, you will come in a better way, more aware. Even if you come, you will come to learn something, to mature.

In the East, the whole concept of growth is to grow out of life, to grow beyond life.

Sannyas is creative, suicide is destructive. In suicide, you are simply doing something desperate. In sannyas, you are doing something very deliberate to transform your ways, your very style of life. In fact it is not with life that you are fed up it is with your way of life. It is not really with life that you are fed up - because in fact you don't know what life is - but with your pattern of life, the narrowing that you have made your life, the tunnel-like phenomenon that you have created out of your life, the imprisonment that you created out of your life.

You don't know what life is, you know only a tunnel thing - dark, dirty, confining, crushing, crippling, paralysing - and in the end you see there is nothing but death. So what is the point of being tortured? Why not commit it today? If it is going to happen tomorrow, then why wait for tomorrow? That is the logic of the suicide.

In fact people who commit suicide are more intelligent than those who never think about it. Only idiots never commit suicide; only idiots are never bored; only idiots never become aware of the futility of their life....

Intelligent people are bound to think sometimes, 'What is the point of it all? Why am I going? For what? Nothing has happened, nothing seems to happen, nothing can be hoped out of it - the whole thing seems to be hopeless. Then why go on?'

The suicidal idea arises because of intelligence. So, I say, idiots never think about suicide; intelligent people think about suicide.

But those who are really intelligent - not moderately intelligent but at the very peak of their intelligence - they think of sannyas. Because they think, 'This whole exists. If I am not able to find the meaning of it, maybe it is my style that is not allowing me to find the meaning of it. If I am not capable of being happy, maybe somewhere I have put conditions which don't allow me to be happy. Maybe there is another way to live.' That 'another way to live', that alternative way to live, is what sannyas is.

'Can't I live non-ambitiously? Ambitiously I have lived and found misery comes, grows more, becomes intense... suffering and suffering and suffering. I have tried ambition. Now let me try non-ambition. Let me have a one hundred and eighty degree turn. Let me be converted.'

Conversion means a one hundred and eighty degree turn, about turn. 'Greed I have tried. Now I will try no-greed. Possessiveness I have tried. Now I will try sharing. Mind I have tried. Now I will try no-mind, meditation. Sex I have tried.

Now I will try love, compassion.

'I have lived in an unnatural way - the way the society has forced on me. Now let me try the natural way - the way of tao, the way of dhamma, the way of rit. I have lived in conflict, struggle, fighting. Now let me try surrender. Now let me try let-go. I have been trying to go upstream. Now let me try going downstream, with the stream, wherever it leads.' This is what sannyas is.

So, let me repeat. The most stupid person never thinks about suicide. Of course, he cannot even dream about sannyas. He has not that much intelligence to look into the futility of so-called life. In the middle are those intelligent people who become aware that life is futile, but who are not too intelligent to become aware that 'maybe it is just my style, not life itself'. They think of suicide and they sometimes commit suicide.

Then there are the pinnacles of intelligence - a Buddha, a Christ, a Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra - who immediately see the point: 'I am missing because my ways are wrong.' And they change their ways. They change their life pattern radically.

That radical transformation is sannyas.

I would like to say to you that you have really committed suicide - and in a better way, in a very intelligent way; the way it should be committed. You have become a sannyasin.

NOW I AM TOO HAPPY TO SAY, BUT STILL I AM SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW.

It happens. When you are a worldly man, you know what you are searching.

You are searching money, better sex objects, power, prestige - things are clear.

You have been trained for them, you have been educated for them, you have been conditioned for them. Your mind knows what you are seeking. Your mind computer has been fed goals.

When you become a sannyasin, you are really in a chaos for a few days - because the old goals become meaningless and the new goal is not clear. In fact, sannyas is not going to give you a new goal. Once all the old goals disappear, suddenly you will see there is no goal.

And one has to live life without any goal; then one lives tremendously beautifully. Because to live life with a goal means to live in the future. Then the stone-cutter wants to become the rich man, the rich man wants to become the emperor, the emperor wants to become the sun, and the sun wants to become the cloud, and the cloud wants to become the rock, and the rock again wants to become the stone-cutter. Then it is a wheel.

When you don't want to become anybody, when you simply accept whosoever you are, when you drop all goals, all future orientations, all ends - you drop time, you drop desire, you drop mind - then suddenly you are here and the whole universe is available... this great energy surrounding you, dancing around you, inviting you to participate with it.

Sannyas is not a goal. Sannyas is an understanding that goals don't exist.

The universe is always fulfilled. Not that the fulfillment has to happen somewhere else; it is already happening. That's why you will feel for a few days, 'After all, what do I want?' Old wants have disappeared and you have not yet become grounded into a no-wanting attitude.

There is a zen story:

There was once a red-haired man who had no eyes and no ears. He also had no hair, so he was called red-haired only in a manner of speaking. One has to call him something.

He was not able to talk because he did not have a mouth. He had no nose either.

He did not even have any arms or legs. He also did not have a stomach, and he did not have a back. And he did not have a spine, and he also did not have any other insides. He did not have anything in fact, so it is hard to understand who we are talking about. So we had better not talk about him any more.

By and by.... First you call him the red-haired man, because one has to call him something.

When you are moving in a worldly wheel, I invite you. I say, 'What are you doing there? Are you not going to try god?' You become greedy about god. You say, 'Okay. Here I am getting nothing, maybe there is something in god.' You jump out of the wheel. Then you ask me, 'What about god?'

I say, 'In fact nobody knows anything about him, whether he existed or not. It is just a manner of saying.' We call him the red-haired man because one has to call him something, mm?

Then by and by you go along with me, and by and by the story is revealed to you - 'There was once a red-haired man who had no eyes and no ears. He also had no hair, so he was called red-haired only in a manner of speaking. He was not able to talk because he did not have a mouth. He had no nose either. He did not even have any arms or legs....'

By and by, the more you try to understand me, I become more and more truthful.

The more I see that now you are getting in tune with me, there is no need to lie too much. 'He did not even have any arms or legs. He also did not have a stomach, and he did not have a back....'

And when I see that you are not disturbed, you are listening to the story well up to now, then I say, '... and he didn't have a spine.' I have to move very cautiously because you can become afraid and go back to your wheel.

'And he also did not have any insides...' When I see that up to now you have come... and of course you feel a little puzzled, but now the truth can be said...'He didn't have anything. So it is hard to understand who we are talking about. So we had better not talk about him any more.' About whom? - about the red- haired man.

Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, they start the story - they talk about the red- haired man - and Buddha ends it... nobody, not even you.

He says, first drop ambition, drop desires. Don't think you are the body, don't think you are the mind; then don't think you are the self. Then in fact we should not talk about you because you are not.

By and by we go on eliminating. First we say, drop worldly goals - because it will be too much to tell you to drop all goals; you will not understand. You can understand that worldly goals should be dropped because you have suffered much and nothing has come out of it; you are frustrated. You say, 'Okay. I was also thinking to drop it.' And you say, 'Good, so I will change. I will drop the worldly goals. Now I will look for god, heaven and paradise.' And I go on laughing inside me. I say, 'Okay, first drop these, then we will see.'

Once you have dropped those, then by and by I will persuade you to drop god, self, nirvana, moksha. Because when every goal is dropped, then only you are in tune.

The goal is a jarring note. The goal simply says you are missing. The goal says there is some condition which has to be fulfilled, only then can you become happy.

When all goals disappear and life is not looked on as a desire project, when life is not thought of as a work and becomes play, leela, then... then you are at home.

Then you have arrived.

Question 4:

Of course the question is from a woman.

The woman exists with gossip. Man has many more things to do; gossiping is not all. Woman has nothing else to do, she has only gossiping.

It is really difficult to think, conceive, of what is left if all gossiping is dropped.

The questioner is right. It is from Deva Richa. She said 'then only uncomfortable silences are left'.

Why do you feel uncomfortable about silence? Why is it so embarrassing?

It is true, her insight is right. You always have felt it, everybody knows it. If you sit with somebody and you don't have anything to say, then one starts feeling embarrassed. One finds something to talk about. So people talk about weather, climate... useless. They both know that it is raining outside, so what is the point?

Or it is a beautiful morning, so what is the point?

I have heard:

Mulla Nasrudin was travelling together with a friend for two days in a train without even a word passing between them. On the third day the friend at length ventured to remark that it was a fine morning. 'And who said it was not?' replied the Mulla. 'And who said it was not?'

Silence is embarrassing because we have completely forgotten the dimension of silence. Whenever we are silent, it seems empty. It is not full of radiance, presence. When we are talking, there is something. When we are not talking, it is only absence of talk. Our silence is just absence of talk, that's why it is embarrassing, empty... not even a word to fill it. One feels very poor, stuck. But if you know really how to be silent, then it will not be embarrassing or uncomfortable.

Sometimes it happens in your life also. Those moments are rare and one tends to forget them because they don't fit with your main pattern. Sometimes, sitting with a friend, there is no talk; you just enjoy each other's presence. It is not embarrassing, it is very fulfilling. It is not uncomfortable; in fact to talk in those moments will be uncomfortable. It will disturb that music that is flowing between the two. It will be an interference, a distraction, if you talk. You love a woman and you are sitting holding each other's hands on the beach or on the river or looking at the stars....

Everybody must have come to a few moments when silence is communicative, when it is expressive of your heart; more than any word. When something transpires between two hearts, when some energy is transferred from one polarity to the other - from yin to yang, from yang to yin - when suddenly you feel a link which is not verbal, a link which is existential; when suddenly you feel that you have become one energy throbbing with one rhythm... breathing together, being together, merging and melting into each other - then silence is not uncomfortable. It is tremendously warm. It is not cold. You don't miss talk.

In fact, if somebody starts talking you will feel offended. It will be sacrilege.

But we have lost that dimension. We don't know how to be silent, we only know how to talk. We have been trained for talking. Parents, schools, colleges, universities - they all train you for talking. And people who can talk skillfully become very important. In fact, talking seems to be the greatest art.

If you cannot talk, you will never become a part of the society. If you cannot talk well, you will never become famous in any way. Poets, priests, politicians, all people who become important, significant, are really good talkers. The society knows only one way to communicate and that is talk. And the other way is completely lost.

I am not against talking. How can I be? That would be against myself. I am not against talking, but if you don't know the dimension of silence, then your talk will be empty, then your talk will be just dead words. Then your words will be just like a goods train, carrying dead wood.

If you know the dimension of silence, then your words become alive, because something of your silence can be carried by the words. When your words carry something of your innermost silence, are soaked in it, when some fragrance of that silence goes with the words towards you, only then words are meaningful, significant. Otherwise they are meaningless, otherwise they are just gibberish.

I am in favour of both. I am not telling you to become dumb and not talk to anybody. I am telling you, sometimes be so silent that you have something to say. Be so silent that you experience something which can be conveyed.

Otherwise what will you convey? Be silent, enjoy silence, and feel silence as presence, not as absence.

Silence is presence of your awareness, your being. Fill your silence with your own presence, radiance, and feel it as a positive phenomenon; don't look at it just as absence of words. It is not absence. If you can be positively silent, if you can enjoy it, if you can rejoice it, you will be tremendously benefitted. And not only you - others who come in contact with you, they will also be tremendously benefitted. Then sometimes be silent with them, when it is the season to be silent.

There are moments when talking is dangerous, when silence is golden. There are moments when talking is beautiful; it is a poetry, it is expression. But remember always, first you must have something to express. And to have that you will need silence. Silence gives you the poetry; words can relate it to others.

Then in your ordinary life find a few extraordinary moments of silence. Sitting under the tree on the bank of the river, or just sitting in your room doing nothing, just sitting, feeling silence, cherishing it, tasting it, being nourished by it, being so overflowingly silent that if somebody passes by with his head full of words, even he will have a breeze of silence....

That's what happens when you sit near a master. His silence starts being infectious. It comes like a breeze, dances around you, soothes you, cools you, warms you, makes you more alive, makes you feel loved, cared for... as if a mother is just singing a lullaby.

In the close affinity of a master, in satsanga, that is the real thing - that something starts happening between two energies. The master starts falling into you like a waterfall... tremen-dously silent. And his silence makes you silent.

And for the first time you have a few glimpses of what silence is. Then you have something to say, something to sing about, something to dance about.

I am not against talking, but your talking should not be empty. I am not even against gossiping. I myself gossip so much. But let your gossiping also be creative, not destructive. Let your gossiping also have a quality of poetry and creativity in it. Gossip about god. What are gospels? Gossips about god. Gossip about truth, gossip about beauty, gossip about grace, grandeur. Gossip about this wonder that surrounds you. Gossip about the unknown.

What do you do with your gossiping? You are very destructive. People gossip only as a means to destroy others, to hurt others. Don't be aggressive; then nothing is wrong in gossiping.

All the parables of Jesus are gossips, and all the stories of Mahavir and Buddha are gossips. All the puranas of the Hindus are tremendously beautiful gossips. It is impossible to improve upon them; they have done the last, the ultimate thing in gossiping.

The West cannot understand it. They think these are just myths, stories, they are not true. That is not the point. Who said they are true? They are truer than truth.

They are not just true. They are truth told in beautiful language so that people who cannot understand truth, even they can understand it. They are cosmic gossips. They are indicators of something beyond the known, beyond the word, beyond the expressed. They are fingers raised towards the ineffable.

IF YOU TAKE GOSSIPING OUT OF SOCIAL INTERACTION, IT SEEMS LITTLE IS LEFT EXCEPT UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCES.

Right now it will be so, because your social interacting is nothing but gossiping, criticizing, slandering. Your social interaction is nothing but subtle violence. If it is left, you don't know how to be silent. It will be uncomfortable, it will be embarrassing.

First learn how to be silent. Learn it with trees and rocks. They are silent and they are not uncomfortable at all. Learn it from the stars. They are silent, not embarrassed at all. Learn what positive silence is. Be meditative; it will come to you.

And then by and by stop destructive gossiping. Gossip about something beautiful. Gossip something about the really significant. Let your gossiping also be a sort of communication for that which cannot be communicated. And of course you will never feel embarrassed, and your social interaction will not be just an impotent gesture; it will be real communication.

I have heard:

Mulla Nasrudin's wife told him that he must stop exaggerating about 'the one that got away' and said that next time he did it in company, she would cough to remind him.

Some friends called on them shortly afterwards and Nasrudin, after behaving himself for a while, suddenly said, 'I had this fish on my line last week. It must have been six feet long.' Just here his wife coughed loudly. 'And,' continued Nasrudin, 'half an inch wide.'

I'm not saying to change it so abruptly. Go slowly. I'm not saying to be so abruptly dramatic. First learn silence, then learn what beautiful gossiping is, mm? Then start practising it. Not only you will be benefitted by it, others will also be benefitted by it.

All beautiful poetry is gossiping. All beautiful story-telling is gossiping. Tell beautiful stories, invent beautiful stories, be a little creative. And that very thing will change your relationship with others. Your relationship will not be just a formality, it will become really intimate.

Question 5:

I don't know anything about you, but I must have done terrible karma to deserve you!