Within your own self

Kahlil Gibran again rises high in the sky, very close to the stars. Whatever he is saying in these statements is so profound that it is unbelievable that he was only a poet; even mystics have not been able to say things which he is saying. His intelligence is unparalleled.

Perhaps, just as sometimes blessings come in disguise, sometimes curses also come in disguise.

Because his intelligence is so profound, he forgets that there are even more profound truths.

Because his flight towards the stars is so high, he forgets that there are skies beyond skies - and there is no limit.

If Kahlil Gibran were a lesser poet, less intelligent, less articulate, perhaps he would have tried to find the deeper meaning hidden in life, the significance of which is not visible. But his being such a great poet has prevented him from seeing that there can be anything higher than this. His intelligence has become a barrier, not a bridge. It is a strange case.

But, even without any experience of the ultimate, his words are so beautiful that I can give the meaning and content to his beautiful - but empty - words. I can see where he has missed, and why he has missed - he has missed because of his great intelligence. He has missed because of his great creativity, his sensibility, his art of playing with beautiful words and arranging them in such a way that they carry at least some semblance, some similarity, to the real, awakened consciousness.

THEN SAID A TEACHER, SPEAK TO US OF TEACHING.

AND HE SAID:

NO MAN CAN REVEAL TO YOU AUGHT BUT THAT WHICH ALREADY LIES HALF ASLEEP IN THE DAWNING OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

All that is great, magnificent, absolutely true, nobody can give to you - because it is not a commodity.

You cannot purchase it in the market, nor can you be taught it in the universities. It lies already half asleep within your own self.

So what you are seeking is not somewhere else.

The seeker himself is the sought.

The archer himself is the target.

All that you need is not more knowledge but more awareness, so that which is asleep in you is no longer asleep. God is nothing but another name of your awakening.

NO MAN CAN REVEAL TO YOU AUGHT BUT THAT WHICH ALREADY LIES HALF ASLEEP IN THE DAWNING OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

Why does he say half asleep? - because the question is coming from a teacher: speak to us of teaching. It is coming out of sincerity; otherwise the teacher would not ask, "Teach us about teaching," because that shows that he does not know what teaching is, and yet he has been pretending to be a teacher.

The question needs the courage to expose yourself in your nudity. The teacher is not a man who is afraid of exposing his ignorance about his own profession. Usually the teachers, the professors, hide their ignorance in all kinds of borrowed knowledge. They never ask a sincere question.

I have been a teacher in universities, and you will be surprised that I have never come across more ignorant people anywhere else. Although they are burdened with knowledge, their ignorance has not disappeared - it is only repressed. They have made every effort to cover it up. But remember, ignorance is a wound; if you cover it up you are not going to be healed. Your wound needs the fresh air, the fresh sunrays. Don't cover it! Expose it to the healing forces of existence.

What is true about your bodily wounds is even more true about your spiritual wounds. For bodily wounds you are not worried about having to go to a doctor, to a physician, to a healer. But for your spiritual wounds you never go to a master, to a mystic - he is also a healer. Because the spiritual wound is so deep, and you are afraid to open your wounds and allow others to see you in your nudity, you go on covering it. But the more you cover it, the more pus is gathered; the more you cover it, the more it is going to become a cancer. Almost the whole humanity is suffering from a spiritual cancer.

But because the teacher has asked about his own profession, Kahlil Gibran can share with him his deepest insights: No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.... Because the question has come out of innocence, the wisdom, the awakening, the enlightenment is already only half asleep. If the question had come from knowledge, not from innocence, then your real being is fully asleep.

Your question shows much, from where it comes. That's why Almustafa is saying that you are already half awake; just a little more courage, and you will not need to ask anyone what truth is. And the authentic teacher is one who knows what truth is. Out of his knowing the truth, his teaching becomes honest, sincere; then it has authority of its own, not dependent on any scripture or anybody else.

His truth becomes his teaching. His truth transforms him into an authentic teacher.

Kahlil Gibran is not aware of the difference between the two words, the teacher and the master; otherwise he would have said that if you are only professionally a teacher - that means you are a medium of transferring knowledge from one generation to another generation - you don't have anything of your own to share and to give. But if your truth is awakened in you, and your house is full of light and your being is full of fragrance, you have become a master; you are no longer just a teacher. When you are sharing your own truth, you are a master.

But that distinction, between the teacher and the master, is Eastern. The West is unaware. The West thinks the teacher and the master are synonymous: they are not. In fact, the more you are full of borrowed teachings, the less is the possibility of your ever becoming a master. That's why it is very rare to find a knowledgeable man who has depth, whose very gestures speak, whose very silence is a message, whose very presence reaches, just like an arrow, into your being.

The master is the most precious miracle in the world, because he can become the door to millions towards the divine. The teacher is simply carrying a load which is not his own, and throwing it into other people's minds - it is just his profession. But as far as the master is concerned, it is his very life.

Just this evening, Nirvano was telling me, "You have been harassed and tortured all your life. Why don't You stop speaking?" I can understand, when I am harassed and tortured, and it has been going on for years continually.... Just today I have received another summons. Somebody in Kanpur has filed a case against me; his religious feeling is hurt. It seems to be the strangest religious feeling - seems to be so weak....

In India we have a very beautiful plant with very small leaves, but which is a real coward - its name is Chhuimui - because if you touch it, all the leaves immediately close; you touch one leaf and all the leaves of the bush immediately start closing up. I have never come across another plant who is so cowardly. These so-called religious people are just Chhuimui.

If your religion is so weak that any argument against it hurts you, then it is not worth remaining in that religion. Change that religion: it is your sickness, it is your weakness, it is your impotence.

Whatever I am saying - if you are just a little bit intelligent - either agree with me or disagree with me, but why should you get hurt and run immediately to the court...?

I have been asked by my friends, disciples, thousands of times, "Why do You unnecessarily get into trouble?"

I am not a teacher - it is not my profession.

I am a master - it is my very soul.

And if I stop speaking the truth, it will be committing suicide: What will be the point for me of living any more, even for a single second? Because as far as I am concerned, I am fulfilled - I am not living for myself. And I was surprised that since I have started living for those who are thirsty for truth, who are thirsty for love, I have found a life that is not mine; now it belongs to existence.

In fact, I am receiving all these summons on behalf of God, because these idiots cannot find God and his address - only I am left. But it does not disturb me; it simply makes me feel sad and compassionate for these people, because they think they are religious. They don't know even the ABC of religion. If somebody is hurt in Kanpur, rather than going to the court he should come here, he should expose his wound that has been hurt. And the way I know how to hurt people, I know how to heal.

The court is not going to help. The court knows nothing of healing the spirit of people. Hundreds of cases... and finally the court has to dismiss them, because I am simply stating the facts which are in your own scriptures. If you are really hurt, burn those scriptures, because they are hurting you.

You go on printing all kinds of nonsense in your scriptures, and distributing them.

If I indicate that your scriptures are full of rubbish, and if you are really a religious man, either you will have an argument, sharper, higher, deeper than my argument... quash my argument, or I am going to quash all your arguments. And the courts are not going to help, for the simple reason that your scriptures are stating the fact.

I have never spoken against any religion without solid evidence. If you are hurt, that simply means you were making castles in sand - just a little breeze and your castle disappears. And rather than thinking that you were idiotic - castles are not made in the sand, out of sand - you feel hurt because your castle has been destroyed. Send a summons to the breeze, "This breeze has hurt my feelings very much." Perhaps it was not a castle, it was a temple....

Your religious feelings are hurt, but I cannot stop speaking - for the simple reason that it is not me who is speaking. I am not a teacher. I have allowed the hidden secrets of life to speak through me, to speak through my eyes, to speak through my hands. I have offered everything to existence.

Now, only existence can stop me from speaking.

It is not in my hands: I am no more.

And the moment you are no more, you become a master.

If you are just a parrot, repeating other parrots, dead parrots, you are a teacher.... It was a very strange experience. When I was in the university, on the first day, it was just an accident that one chair in the common room, where all professors were sitting while they had no periods, waiting for their time... I sat on a chair. People were interested - I was a new man in the university - but soon they became aware that it is dangerous even to say hello to me, so my chair became my absolute monopoly. Not only that, a few chairs on this side, a few chairs on that side always remained empty - almost seven chairs I was occupying alone. Sometimes there were many more people, but nobody dared to sit by the side of my chair - because I may hurt somebody's religious feeling.

But even professors who are well-educated and cultured are not able to defend their religion, because it is not their finding. It has been handed over to them by their parents, by the priests, but always by others; they don't know the source of what they are believing in. They don't know whether there is such a thing as they are feeling hurt about because I have spoken against it.

THE TEACHER WHO WALKS IN THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE, AMONG HIS FOLLOWERS....

You can see he does not understand the distinction between the teacher and the master, because why should the teacher walk in the shadow of the temple among his followers? No teacher has a follower; teachers only have students, and teachers are only servants of their students because they're paid for whatsoever knowledge they impart. And what business has the teacher to walk in the shadows of a temple? He is using a wrong word, unconsciously.

THE TEACHER WHO WALKS IN THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE, AMONG HIS FOLLOWERS, GIVES NOT OF HIS WISDOM BUT RATHER OF HIS FAITH AND HIS LOVINGNESS.

Again, I have to remind you of the poverty of the Western tradition, because it is not only that the master is missing; many things along with the master are also missing as a natural and logical corollary - because the teacher has no wisdom, the teacher has only knowledge. Only the master has wisdom. But his insight is right, although he is using wrong words because he is not aware of the fine distinctions which the East has made between teacher and master, between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge is that which comes from outside and settles in you, and prevents your wisdom; it becomes a wall, China Wall, around your own wisdom. Wisdom is that which comes from your innermost core. In knowledge you are not sharing anything of your own being.

Wisdom is the child that has grown in your very being. Knowledge is the adopted child. It has grown in somebody's womb, but nobody knows who the father is, who the mother is - and perhaps it is only a test tube baby. Wisdom grows in you, and radiates outwards to be shared with those who are thirsty, who are seekers. It does not ask anything in return. Its joy is that it has been shared.

THE TEACHER WHO WALKS IN THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE, AMONG HIS FOLLOWERS, GIVES NOT OF HIS WISDOM BUT RATHER OF HIS FAITH AND HIS LOVINGNESS...

Again he is using wrong words for right things. "Faith" should be substituted by "trust." Faith can be given by the teacher; the master is not needed for that. In fact, the teacher, the priest, gives you faith. The master only creates in you a trust - a trust in yourself. Faith is always in some knowledge, in some belief, in some doctrine, in some dogma.

It is faith that has destroyed the whole of humanity. Somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian... not that they know different truths, because the truth is one. They are different because they have been given different faiths; they have not been helped to grow their trust in themselves, that they are capable of finding the truth which is hidden in their own being.

That's why the master does not give you the wisdom - cannot give - but he creates the right milieu of trust in which your wisdom starts flowering, becomes awake. You will be grateful to him - perhaps in the beginning you will think he has given it to you. He has not given anything; he has simply given you confidence. He has taken away many things from you - your fear, particularly the fear of being alone, because if you are a seeker, one day you have to learn the art of being alone.

He has created a synchronicity because he loves, and his love becomes a challenge in you and provokes love in you, and because he trusts, it provokes trust in you. Because he is truth, a tremendous longing arises in you to be as awakened as he is, to be as beautiful as he is, to be as profound a truth as he is, to have such depth of being, and such wings that you can go as far as you desire. He makes your wings strong, he makes you strong. He cannot just give you wisdom, but he creates the atmosphere in which wisdom starts growing on its own accord.

Kahlil Gibran is saying something immensely beautiful. But, poor fellow, he does not know that he is using wrong words. But that is not his fault; he never came in contact with Lao Tzu, with Chuang Tzu, with Basho, with Kabir, with Nanak. His whole upbringing remained Christian - all that he knows is Christianity; and Christianity is a very poor religion. It is not accidental that only the poor around the world become converted to Christianity. The reason is simple: it speaks the language of the poor.

It is difficult for the poor to understand Gautam Buddha - he speaks the most cultured language; he is a prince, well-versed, well-educated by all the wise people of his times. Just to understand him is not easy; whatever he says is going to pass above your head. Jesus is a poor man, a carpenter's son, uneducated. He speaks the language of the poor man, and it is easy to understand Jesus because there is nothing of any complexity. It is very difficult to understand THE UPANISHADS, because each sentence has so many implications.

In the East it has been a tradition that unless a man is capable of producing commentaries on three sources - one is the four VEDAS, the second is the one hundred and eight UPANISHADS, and the third is Badarayana's BRAHMASUTRAS - unless a man is capable of producing commentaries on these, he will not be called even a teacher. This much sophistication is needed just to be a teacher.

Of course, the master needs no conditions. He may not have even heard about Badarayana, and the VEDAS, and the UPANISHADS. The master can find the source, the same source from where Badarayana spoke, the same source from where the UPANISHADS have arisen - why should he bother?

While I was touring all around the country, talking on BRAHMASUTRA, on the UPANISHADS, on the GITA, on the VEDAS, many times scholars would come to me and say, "The way you quoted it is not correct." And they were shocked when they heard my answer.

I said, "Then correct your VEDAS, because whatever I have spoken is correct. I depend on my inner sources; I am not quoting your VEDAS. So if you find some discrepancy between me and your VEDAS, correct it - because you may not find another chance of correcting them. They are five thousand years old; they need continuous correction, new editions, new impressions. Much has become rotten and which has to be thrown away, and much new light has come into the world which should be incorporated."

IF HE IS INDEED WISE HE DOES NOT BID YOU ENTER THE HOUSE OF HIS WISDOM, BUT RATHER LEADS YOU TO THE THRESHOLD OF YOUR OWN MIND.

It would be true, if he had not used the word "mind."If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter into the house of wisdom... because there is no possibility. I cannot allow you to enter into my being, neither can I enter into your being; that is simply against the fundamental laws of nature...but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. That's where he needs correction. I would like to say that he leads you beyond the mind to the very door of your own inner wisdom.

But Kahlil Gibran is continually using only two words - the mind and the heart, the thoughts and the feelings. It seems he never even heard that there is something more - more than the mind, more than the heart... your being, which is beyond your body, beyond your mind, beyond your heart.

The master simply creates trust in you, "Don't be afraid," because you will be going alone. The deeper you will go, the more alone you will find yourself, and more afraid - not one but thousands of fears: Am I going in the right direction? - there are no signposts, there are no milestones, no map can be provided - or am I going in the wrong direction? And who knows whether this road leads anywhere or is just a dead-end street? And the fear: Will I be able to go back if I find that the road is wrong. Will I be able to find my own footsteps to help me to go back?

The inner world is almost like the sky - birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. When you go inwards you don't make any footprints; it is impossible to find the way that you have traveled if you want to come back. You will need tremendous courage, great trust, and a constant nourishment by the master, through his love.

THE ASTRONOMER MAY SPEAK TO YOU OF HIS UNDERSTANDING OF SPACE, BUT HE CANNOT GIVE YOU HIS UNDERSTANDING.

Obviously there are things which cannot be given, and they are the most valuable things in the world - the most essential, the most fundamental. A man without them is just a pauper; he may be an emperor - it does not matter. But a man with those things which cannot be given is an emperor, even though from the outside he may look like a beggar.

THE MUSICIAN MAY SING TO YOU OF THE RHYTHM WHICH IS IN ALL SPACE, BUT HE CANNOT GIVE YOU THE EAR WHICH ARRESTS THE RHYTHM, NOR THE VOICE THAT ECHOES IT.

Certainly the musician can sing songs so beautiful, so enchanting, that you almost feel that you are no longer on the rotten earth but have entered into paradise, and the angels are playing on their harps. But even the greatest musician is unable to give you the ear, the musical ear.

In India, we have a proverb: "Don't waste your time playing on your flute before a buffalo." Whatever you do, the buffalo is not going to pay any attention to it. At the most you are making some noise and disturbing her chewing the grass - with which she is absolutely content.

Remember, just as there are born musicians, so there are people born who have the capacity to receive music. He cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm.... The rhythm he can produce.

He can fill the whole sky, the whole space with the rhythm, but unless you have the ear to arrest it, to allow entry into your inner world, for you it does not exist. ...nor the voice that echoes it. He may sing a beautiful song to you, but he cannot give you the voice. What to say about singing the song?

- you cannot even echo it. Even the valleys can echo it, the mountains can echo it.

Just nearby there is a hill station, Matheran, where there is a very beautiful scenic spot. I have seen many mountains and many places where mountains echo, but Matheran's echo point is very rare.

You sing a song or you start barking like a dog, and the valley and the mountains repeat it seven times successively. Each time the echo becomes less loud, farther away, very faint, but you can count that it has been echoed seven times.

When I was there for the first time, leading a meditation camp, a few friends said, "We know that you don't bother to go here and there, but this echo point is worth taking the trouble to visit." And particularly in Matheran it is more troublesome, because you have to walk or you have to sit in a rickshaw which is pulled by a man - which is even more ugly, which hurts - sometimes an old man, perspiring... and on the mountain, the roads are not worthy to be called roads. It was impossible for me because of my own asthmatic condition - I cannot go for miles, reaching towards the highest peak. Both ways it was difficult. But they were so persistent that I agreed to go. It was arduous for my heart - I had an attack that night, and could not sleep the whole night - but it was worth it.

The man who was the most persistent had the capacity to make noises of many animals. He was a very good imitator - he could imitate many actors, many leaders - so first he started barking just like a dog, and the whole mountain was filled as if there were thousands of dogs barking and barking, although it was getting less and less loud... perhaps the dogs are moving farther away, but you can count at least seven times.

I told the man, "This is one of the stupidities of humanity. Why have you chosen to bark? You could have imitated the sound of a cuckoo - and you are a cuckoo; otherwise, why should you bother about learning animals and their sounds?" The Indian cuckoo is so sweet, particularly in the season when mangoes are becoming ripe. It seems almost the sweetness of the mangoes, which are known in this country as the king of all the fruits... they are. And from mango groves - cuckoos love mangoes - the call from one grove to another grove....

I said to him, "Why have you chosen a dog? All the hills must be laughing at you, that some madman has come who is barking like a dog."

He immediately started making the sound, the musical sound of the cuckoo, and the whole space for miles around was filled with echoes. But even that cannot be given to man. Of course, the music cannot be given, the musical ear cannot be given, the song cannot be given - even the echo of it cannot be given.

It is good that the most valuable things in life have no price, because you cannot purchase them - you are born with them. They may remain dormant if you are born in an ugly society, like the society we have inherited. But if you are fortunate enough, in your future rebirth at least, to be helped to be yourself, to search and find what is your born talent... that's the only way to find it. There is no other way; everything else is pseudo, false, imitation.

AND HE WHO IS VERSED IN THE SCIENCE OF NUMBERS CAN TELL OF THE REGIONS OF WEIGHT AND MEASURE, BUT HE CANNOT CONDUCT YOU THITHER.

The man who is versed in the science of numbers, the regions of weight and measure, a great mathematician like Albert Einstein.... His whole life he traveled everywhere, perhaps in every university of the world, because he was continually visiting, being invited. At the end of his life he said, "As far I understand, there are not more than twelve people in the whole world who really understand me. Others have listened to me because of the weight of my name, but they don't understand what I am saying, what I am talking about."

Just twelve persons in the whole world! It must be a born quality.

Even a great philosopher like Bertrand Russell, who tried hard to grasp Albert Einstein's philosophy - particularly the theory of relativity - could only write a book ABC OF RELATIVITY. When asked, "Why are you not writing about the whole theory of relativity?" he said, "First I have to understand it.

This is all, with years of effort, that I have been able to figure out of what it means - just the ABC, just the beginning. I have shown it to Albert Einstein. He said, 'That's good, you stop there; beyond that you will not be able to go.'"

And this is sad for a man who wrote one of the greatest books on mathematics, PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA. Nobody reads it, because it is impossible to understand it. I have never come across any professor of mathematics.... They say, "Yes, we have seen the book, but trying to understand it a fear arises - one may go mad." Just to explain that two plus two are four, he has taken two hundred and thirty-five pages, there exists no other book on mathematics which has covered the whole ground.... Even such a man could not understand Albert Einstein. Einstein said, "You write ABC OF RELATIVITY, but don't go further." And I don't think there is anybody, even today, who can write the XYZ OF THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY.

All that is great, in any dimension, is something that comes asleep in you. All that can be done is that it can be provoked, challenged. You cannot be taught, but you can be awakened to your own potential. And the potential I am talking about - your enlightenment - is the only thing which is not a talent given to a few people and not to others. It is your intrinsic nature - not a talent. Everybody cannot be an Albert Einstein, but everybody can be a Gautam Buddha.

Remember the distinction: mathematics or music, poetry or painting, are talents - but awakening is not a talent. Just as everybody wakes up in the morning - not only the talented people, it is an intrinsic capacity - so, in the same way, everybody wakes up if a right atmosphere can be created.

The only person that you cannot wake up is one who is pretending to sleep; otherwise you can wake up everybody. But if somebody is pretending to sleep, then there is no way. You can go on creating the atmosphere, you can put alarm clocks all around and call to Nivedano, "Drum! Beat the drum!"

But if the man is pretending, then it is impossible; even nuclear weapons cannot wake him. For example, if I am asleep and Poona is bombed, I will go on sleeping - because I am only pretending to sleep, there's no problem in it. And why bother? So many people are bothering. Later on they will give me the information.

I never read any newspaper, any news magazine, nothing, because I know that if anything happens anywhere... I have so many people, it is going to come to me. People who are reading or listening to my discourses must think that I am aware of what is happening in the world, in all the newspapers of the world. I don't bother at all about your newspapers, but whenever something important happens, somebody immediately brings it to my notice. When I have got so many eyes and so many hands working for me, why should I waste my eyesight on third-class yellow journalism?

FOR THE VISION OF ONE MAN LENDS NOT ITS WINGS TO ANOTHER MAN.

Words to be written in gold - pure, twenty-four carat gold. You should not pollute such words: For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man... that is simply not possible. Wings cannot be borrowed; one eagle cannot ask another eagle, "Just give me your wings for a few hours only." It is not possible. Wings are part - not mechanical, but organic parts.

The vision of one man is just like wings. In his vision he rises high in the sky, to the point where he becomes, to us, almost invisible. But he can create a trust in you that you also have wings, just you have never used them; or perhaps you have been made afraid by other people telling you that it is dangerous - it is not dangerous.

The only danger that I know of is not to use all your potential in its totality. Except that, I don't see that there is any danger in life. Death is not a danger, death is entering into eternal rest - or perhaps into another body. Death can be left till the time comes. But in life there is one danger which it seems man is not aware of, and that danger is the fear of opening up all your potential.

The danger is not to live in totality and intensity, not to make your life a dance, a celebration.

AND EVEN AS EACH ONE OF YOU STANDS ALONE IN GOD'S KNOWLEDGE, SO MUST EACH ONE OF YOU BE ALONE IN HIS KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND IN HIS UNDERSTANDING OF THE EARTH.

Aloneness is one of the most mysterious experiences. But you are all afraid of being alone, you have become accustomed to being a sheep. I want my people to be all shepherds. That is the real transformation. You are, in fact, shepherds, but society has forced the idea on you that you are just sheep, so you behave like sheep.

And when parents say that, priests say that, teachers say that, all the scriptures say that... you become surrounded with such pressure. You have just arrived on the earth, you don't know who you are, and everybody is telling you that you are a sheep; naturally, you live as a sheep your whole life. This is wastage, wastage of millions of people - their joy, their integrity, their individuality. This is real murder. There cannot be any crime which is bigger than this.

I say unto you: you are born a shepherd. Remember it, and behave like a shepherd. Your old habit, your old conditioning, will again and again interfere. There are a few advantages in being a sheep...

the coziness of millions of sheep surrounding you - you are never alone - snuggling with each other.

Have you seen sheep when they walk? - with no fear; they know real brotherhood and sisterhood.

There is some safety, security, but there is no life.

This is not a good bargain - losing life for safety and security. For whom is the safety and security needed? You have already lost that treasure of your life for which you needed the security and safety. But you have lived always in a paranoia, a fear, that you should not be left alone. Your real being is that of a lion; it is that of a shepherd.

Seek aloneness.

Whenever you can find moments to be alone, be alone, and never try to convince yourself that you don't have time to be alone. You have time to go to a movie, you have time to gossip for hours, you have time to read all kinds of yellow newspapers, you have time to look at pornographic magazines, you have time to play cards, you have time to play chess, you have time to see stupid things - like a football match - for hours on end. And if asked by someone, you say, "I am killing time."

Whom are you befooling?

Time is killing you.

You cannot kill time. You cannot even catch hold of time. You can break your watch - that does not mean you have killed time.

You are destroying your life.

You have enough time to be alone. Use it, because aloneness is so precious that it cannot be bartered for anything in life; it is aloneness that will slowly, slowly bring you to your innermost being, and if you die without reaching to your innermost being, you have lived in vain... you have not lived, you have simply been seeing football matches.

So never try to console yourself, "What to do?" I have heard it so many times that I am tired of hearing it - "I don't have time." And you have time to read novels written by idiots, detective novels, for hours on end. They are so tempting that, unless you finish them, you cannot go to sleep.

And what do you find in them?

Don't waste a single moment that you can afford for aloneness, because that is the only moment that you are really living.

At the time of death you will remember what I am saying, because all else will look like a dream - except those few moments that you used to live in your aloneness, silence, serenity with yourself.

In death all else will be taken away, but not your aloneness. Your aloneness is your very soul.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.